Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Montessori at our home - 4 - Great Lessons Hindu Vedic Style

After a successful homemade checkerboard, my son now is looking for challenges and I am honestly not able to cope up. 

My other struggle right now is to "wean" my son from "cricket mania". Like every other Indian, my son has taken now to cricket. It has tremendously improved his mental addition and subtraction, but at a cost of being close to not wanting to do anything else at all - either play matches or watch matches. Just hoping that all this would stop or at least slow down next week as his school reopens.

Meanwhile, I downloaded some of the Great Lessons from Monteaco.  

Here is the first one Great Lesson 1 - God with no hands (Universe and creation)

In my case, I was aware of "Purusha Suktam" that says that all that emanates is from "Purusha" -

पुरुषं एवेशकं सर्वं
यत भूतं यत च भव्यं

and in fact, found a beautiful similarity with the above explanation and "Mantrapushpam" in the Vedas.

योपां पुष्पं वेद पुष्पवान प्रजावान पशुमान भवति
चन्द्रमावा अपां पुष्पं पुष्पवान प्रजावान पशुमान भवति

अग्निर्वा अपां आयतनम्  ...

वायुर्वा अपां आयतनं ...

चन्द्रमा , पर्जन्यो , नक्षत्राणि, संवत्सरो
 
Where everything seems to be derived from the "Cosmic Waters". These have got denser and denser to give rise to air, fire, as a result the stars and the elements. There is an interesting presentation on the meaning of Mantrapushpam here Mantrapushpam explained in English.

But to my surprise some things were already on his mind - for instance - how do you think the clouds and the sun came. "God made them", prompt was his reply. Well, over the last 6 years he has had tremendous opportunities to hear the word God. But, such a casual answer made me wonder whether he was even ready for the "Big Bang". 

Still, we went ahead and we have now kind of come to a common point called "Purusha". The enormous space that condenses. We also got terms such as Prakriti introduced, rest of the story was very much similar to what Maria Montessori has explained.

My son would not recite Vedas right now - not until we go through the Upanayanam process that will happen in due course.

Back to the lessons, I guess, I am more confused about the timelines since, like many practising Sanatana Dharmis, I find it difficult to cope up with the eons and eons explained in the Puranas and transposing them and making it appeal to the child in a way in which he is able to get

1) A hold on the original Vedic pronouncements

2) Being able to manage it with the practical reality of theories abounding our world such as big bang and steady state

3) Being able to verify it with literature available on carbon dating etc

I would not yet like to reveal anomalies that are abounding in our times of interpreted, mis-interpreted history, archeology etc. Not for a 6 year old yet. I just would like to show some connections, rest is upto him to tie some of these anomalous loose ends later in his life!  

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