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Program Details:
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Competition Director: Somu Patil (571) 524-8945
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For digital submission of your entries, please strictly follow the Rules explained in the Flyer and Instructions Video . All submissions must be in the form of a video(MP4 only), photo/scan (png, jpeg/jpg), or document (pdf, doc, docx).
Your grade is the one you will be entering in the new school year.
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Recitation Text:
Our duty to others means helping others; doing good to the world. Why should we do good to the world? Apparently to help the world, but really to help ourselves. We should always try to help the world, that should be the highest motive in us; but if we consider it well, we find that the world does not require our help at all. This world was not made that you or I should come and help it. I once read a sermon in which it was said, "All this beautiful world is very good, because it gives us time and opportunity to help others." Apparently, this is a very beautiful sentiment, but is it not blasphemy to say that the world needs our help? We cannot deny that there is much misery in it; to go out and help others is, therefore, the best thing we can do, although in the long run, we shall find that helping others is only helping ourselves…This world is neither good nor evil; each man manufactures a world for himself. If a blind man begins to think of the world, it is either as soft or hard, or as cold or hot. We are a mass of happiness or misery; we have seen that hundreds of times in our lives. As a rule, the young are optimistic and the old pessimistic. The young have life before them; the old complain their day is gone; hundreds of desires, which they cannot fulfill struggle in their hearts. Both are foolish nevertheless. Life is good or evil according to the state of mind in which we look at it, it is neither by itself. Fire, by itself, is neither good nor evil. When it keeps us warm we say, "How beautiful is fire!" When it burns our fingers, we blame it. Still, in itself it is neither good nor bad. Accordingly as we use it, it produces in us the feeling of good or bad; so also is this world. It is perfect. By perfection it means that it is perfectly fitted to meet its ends. We may all be perfectly sure that it will go on beautifully well without us, and we need not bother our heads wishing to help it.
Yet we must do good; the desire to do good is the highest motive power we have, if we know all the time that it is a privilege to help others…Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect. All good acts tend to make us pure and perfect…Let us give up all this foolish talk of doing good to the world. It is not waiting for your or my help; yet we must work and constantly do good, because it is a blessing to ourselves. That is the only way we can become perfect. No beggar whom we have helped has ever owed a single cent to us; we owe everything to him, because he has allowed us to exercise our charity on him. It is entirely wrong to think that we have done, or can do, good to the world, or to think that we have helped such and such people. It is a foolish thought, and all foolish thoughts bring misery. We think that we have helped some man and expect him to thank us, and because he does not, unhappiness comes to us. Why should we expect anything in return for what we do? Be grateful to the man you help, think of him as God. Is it not a great privilege to be allowed to worship God by helping our fellow men? If we were really unattached, we should escape all this pain of vain expectation, and could cheerfully do good work in the world. Never will unhappiness or misery come through work done without attachment. The world will go on with its happiness and misery through eternity.
- Swami Vivekananda
We Help Ourselves, not the World
The mind in us determines the quality and beauty, the dynamism and glory, the nature and arrangements of the world around us. An extension of our mind in its constant perceptions and interpretations, unveils for us our private world of sorrows and joys, likes and dislikes, successes and failures. By conquering the mind we conquer our world. The outer circumstances and the available objects and beings around us can no longer make us dance to their will and whim. We shall come to call the tune, and the world around us shall learn to obey, as we will it act. In fact, without this subjective conquest of one's own mind, no conquest anywhere is a real conquest. Even if you have won the whole world, of what avail is it to you, if you have not won over the soul (mind) in yourself? No success is a success, no joy a real joy, no beauty a true beauty unless the individual has conquered his own mind.
Even though you have not conquered, in battles, the world, you become the world conqueror when you have conquered your mind; and although you have for long conquered the world by force, you have conquered nothing so long as you have not conquered yourself." In order to thus conquer the mind one need not run away physically from all sense-objects or living beings in one's life. All that we have to do is to attend consistently to the taming of the mind. Objects are helpless against a mind under control of the clear intellect. The sense-organs will not dare run out into the cess-pools of sensuous gratifications, when the mind behind them is a fully disciplined and strictly cultivated one.
Therefore, instead of unnecessarily wasting our energies in regulating the world of objects and environments, instead of exhausting ourselves in vain attempts at controlling the sense-organs, let us attend to the mastering of our mind. Say the Acharyas: "Extrovert thought is the commander of the sense-organs, and so to win him is to win all; not to win him is to win none…just as to one who is wearing shoes the whole world is covered with leather" We need not conquer the sense-organs one by one, nor need we run away from all objects of sense fascinations. Control the mind: and then go wherever you will. With shoes one can walk even over thorny bushes and stony slopes. You are protected from them all. Conquer your mind, then you are insured against everything, everywhere, at all times.
A meditator must thus direct his attention constantly in capturing the wild mind and taming it to obey his own pure decisions and sattvika commands. Once the mind is conquered all else is conquered.
- Swami Chinmayananda
The Altar of Contemplation
Superstition is a great enemy of man, but bigotry is worse. Why does a Christian go to church? Why is the cross holy? Why is the face turned toward the sky in prayer? Why are there so many images in the Catholic Church? Why are there so many images in the minds of Protestants when they pray? My brethren, we can no more think about anything without a mental image than we can live without breathing. By the law of association, the material image calls up the mental idea and vice versa. This is why the Hindu uses an external symbol when he worships. He will tell you, it helps to keep his mind fixed on the Being to whom he prays. He knows as well as you do that the image is not God, is not omnipresent. After all, how much does omnipresence mean to almost the whole world? It stands merely as a word, a symbol. Has God a superficial area? If not, when we repeat that word "omnipresent", we think of the extended sky or of space, that is all. As we find that somehow or other, by the laws of our mental constitution, we have to associate our ideas of infinity with the image of the blue sky, or of the sea, so we naturally connect our idea of holiness with the image of a church, a mosque, or a cross. The Hindus have associated the idea of holiness, purity, truth, omnipresence, and such other ideas with different images and forms. But with this difference that while some people devote their whole lives to their idol of a church and never rise higher, because with them religion means an intellectual assent to certain doctrines and doing good to their fellows, the whole religion of the Hindu is centred in realisation. Man is to become divine by realising the divine. Idols or temples or churches or books are only the supports, the helps, of his spiritual childhood: but on and on he must progress.
- Swami Vivekananda
World Parliament of Religions, Chicago Address
Naturally the work becomes excellent. Excellent work shall produce excellent results. We cheat ourselves from our successes by our unintelligent dissipation of the mind, in our over-anxiety for the fruits thereof. Krishna is giving a tip to Arjuna. Here is a wonderful field for you to achieve and in achieving do your duty, fight out the battle! Let every arrow go and hit the point that you want to hit. Don’t worry about the future. Don’t evaluate that their army is larger than our army. Will we win? Don’t dissipate, I mean distract your mind. Keep your mind calm and serene. Your anxiety must be to excellence…it is the goal. Learn to work thus, with your mind where your hands are working. We don’t do it. We work with our hands and our mind is wandering all over. So, the hand that is working is a mindless hand. Mindless hand cannot afford to expect any great results. Think! Keep your mind where your hands are functioning. Be here now and act. We are never here. We are everywhere but not here. Think! Either we are wandering in the past, “I should not have done it…I don’t know why I did it!” or you are in the future, “Will I get the result…”. You are never here and now. Think! Learn to be here and now. Bring all your mind and your attention and awareness there where the hand is doing a job. The performance will become excellent. Excellent performance will always give you excellent results.
- Swami Chinmayananda
Mindfulness
Essay and Speech:
Essay: Explain whether the field of science conflicts with the guiding principles of Hinduism.
Speech: How does one work towards achieving Dharma and Moksha in today’s society?
Essay: How do Hindu rituals and practices reflect inclusivity?
Speech: According to Upanishads there is a unique God referred to as Brahman. Then, why do Hindus worship so many forms and idols?
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q.
What is registration?
Competitions are digital this year, No registration required for participants. For digital submission of your entries, please strictly follow the Rules explained in the Flyer . All submissions must be in the form of a video(MP4 only), photo/scan (png, jpeg/jpg), or document (pdf, doc, docx).
Q: What
is religious chanting?
Children have to sing/recite
a bhajan or sloka that has religious theme, and explain the meaning. . The explanation does not have to be word for word translation. It can be as brief as 2 or 4 sentences demonstrating the reciter?s understanding of the meaning of the chant. These chants, including explanation, must be between 2 - 3 minutes with a 30-second grace period.
There is no restrictions on selection, and we have listed several
bhajans in this site to get you started. You may select one from these or select one of your own.
Q:
What is story telling?
You can select any short story
that has a moral; You have to conclude the story with the moral. Do
you need help to select a story? Here we got them!! A
click will take you to the wonderful world of short stories ready
for printing/reading.
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