ACTIVITY of the day🔗

MATERIALS NEEDED:

• 1. String
• 2. Scissors

PROCEDURE:

• Have the children reenact how Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna drive onto the battlefield, hold the Bhagavad Gita then drive off again.
• Many of the children can be the horses. Have them stand in front of the child playing Arjuna, then cut pieces of string long enough that a child who is a horse can hold one end and the child representing Kṛṣṇa holds the other end. Each horse can decide what they symbolize, maybe one of the senses, or the mind, or something from the material world like a car.

PROCEDURE:

• The "horses" always hold on to their end of the string but are allowed to move freely in any direction until Kṛṣṇa says "I am Kṛṣṇa". Then all the "horses'' must obey Kṛṣṇa completely but for only about 5 seconds. The teacher may need to count out the seconds. After the 5 seconds of obedience is up then they can start moving around freely again. Throughout this activity, the "horses" and Kṛṣṇa keep holding onto their end of the string. Only if all horses are moving forward can the children being Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa move forward.

PROCEDURE:

• Arjuna walks behind Kṛṣṇa. In the interest of time Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna say only 1 or 2 sloka each when they are in the middle of the battlefield, then Kṛṣṇa gets the horses" to turn the chariot and pull it back to where they came from.
• Repeat the enactment and this time the child who was the most difficult horse to manage has to be Kṛṣṇa.
• To make the reenactment more interesting, Kṛṣṇa can only say "I am Kṛṣṇa" for example 2-3 seconds after the "horses" are allowed to move freely. Just like how it can take us a few moments to realise we are kṣetrajña.

INFERENCE:

Kṛṣṇa delivers this discourse of the Bhagavad Gītā to Arjuna standing in a chariot on the battlefield of kurukṣetra. If you look a little deeper, this is a beautiful picture of each of us. Kṛṣṇa represents the Self, the charioteer, knower of the field, kṣetrajña, the one who runs the show. If the charioteer does not know how to take charge, the horses start to pull the chariot in different directions.