Navda Bhakti

Next week in Bal/Balika one there is a presentation on The Importance of Bhakti. There are some great ideas in the presentation to get group 1 kids to work through how to define and categorize the nine different types of bhakti. There is an activity where the kids match the different satsang related activities they do throughout the week with a different type of bhakti. In order to preface that and to create a bit of excitement we are planning on doing the following.

Start with a concentrated focus on the number 9. We really want to drive home the point of navda bhakti - meaning that there are nine types of bhakti. Our Bal 1 currently has many shishu graduates who have not been introduced to this idea, so we really want to drive home this simple fact: There are nine types fo bhakti. To that end we are going to start by showing one of these videos related to the number 9 and then immediately tie that back to the our simple take away: There are nine types of bhakti. We are going to request the sanchalaks to choose an appropriate  video from the list. Here is one example.

List of videos

Now that everyone is focused on the number 9. We will write 1-9 on the whiteboard and to appeal to some of the older Bal 1 kids we will do a demo on the number nine finger multiplication trick. This we will do as an interactive demo but here is a video describing it.

As the balalks/baliaks would say the entire sabha should now be vibing on the number 9. We will then proceed to spell out each of the nine types of bhakti, using the repetition on the total being nine types, using the multiplication trick to enumerate each type, then defining each type.  If time permits we may also try and make a mnemonic to try and remember each type.

We will then go over the prasangs in the presentation and ask which type of bhakti was being illustrated. Finally we will end with the bhakti matching game described in the beginning.

Go To Move: Follow the Crowd

Dev, a Bal Sabha Sanchalak and Sabhaologist shares a go to move that did not go as planned either in Kishore Mandal or Bal Mandal, but still worked to drive home his overall message. He writes the following:

This week in Bal 1, our theme for the Sabha was simplicity. We played a game of Follow the Crowd in the beginning to show simplicity among our lives. This activity was played in Kishore sabha (K1) and did not go as expected (it was still unexpected but the presenter had to maneuver on his feet to make it fit the simple). We thought it would be a great activity for Bal Sabha (B1) and decided to try it out there as well. Here is what we sent in our sabha preview and review (combined into one post).

Simple: Simplicity is key in happiness.

Unexpected/Go To Move: Follow the Crowd.

Follow the Crowd is a game which will show who follows the crowd or who can stay away from the influence of fellow balaks/balikas.

Objective:  Sway a few balaks away from the right answer to show that we can all get influenced by others.

Supplies/Equipment:

­   Whiteboard

­   Markers

How to Play:

• Before sabha, when MC is talking or as soon as sabha starts, take one balak/balika in the hallway or away from the other balaks where he/she can’t hear what the presenter has to say.
• Talk to the balak and distract him from what’s going on inside of the sabha, making sure that he/she can’t hear the presenter.
• While the balak/balika is outside, tell the rest of the sabha to say the wrong answer, and not tell the balak/balika that was outside what is going on. 
• For example, draw a big box and a small box on the board. Tell the balaks/balikas to say the wrong answer. If the presenter asks which box is bigger, everyone must point to the box that is smaller.
• The balak/balika will not know what is going on and will say that everyone else is wrong. This will show that he is not influenced by the crowd and strongly believes in his answer.
• What is expected is for the balak/balika to go along with everyone and say the wrong answer.

Outcome:

• When we played the game in Kishore Sabha, the game did not work as the Kishore that was picked went against everyone’s saying. He was a fellow Bal Karyakar and, so we decided to try the same game in Bal Sabha.
• When the MC was talking, a balak was taken out and “talked to”.  The other Bal Karyakar explained to the rest of the sabha to say the wrong answer.
• As soon as they were ready, the balak was brought inside. Even though everyone was told not to tell the balak, one of the balaks told him to say the wrong answer. 
• This game did work in a way but did not go as planned since the balak already knew what was going on and said the wrong answer like everyone else.

Relation to Simple:

• The simple of the sabha was that simplicity is key in happiness.
• In life, we tend to go with everyone else and fall into the trap of wanting to get everything that everyone else has.
• In this game the balak/balika had a choice of going with everyone or keeping firm in his belief of the right answer.
• In our game, the balak went along with everyone because he knew about what was told to the rest of the balaks.
• In Kishore Sabha, the other Bal Karyakar went against what the rest were saying.
• While everyone else is getting new toys, games, etc. we must be the one who stays simple in our lives. We must stay away from the influence of other balaks/ balikas.
• We must live a simple life by staying away from what everyone else wants. Only keeping what we truly need will lead us to happiness.

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In general this is a great unexpected activity that makes the point of that we all can be influenced by our peers (follow the crowd).  It may not go exactly as planned, but it will still bring home the point, just be prepared to think on your feet.  When we tried it in Kishore Sabha the kishore simply refused to be influenced. Kudos to him. We then used this as a counter example - he was like fire and not water as Yogi Bapa used to say. He stayed true to being simple. In Bal 1 our execution was off. We took one balak out of the room but when he came back in the rest of the balaks told him what we were about to do so the activity turned out to be a bit pointless. We salvaged it by asking the balaks to image if it had gone as planned - what would have happened? This game might work better in groups 2 and 3 since the older balaks (hopefully) won’t tell the one balak. Let us know how it works out for you.

Make the Kids Write - a new kind of unexpected.

Sahilbhai a first time presenter in Bal 1 and a very ardent Sabha-ologist came up with a unique unexpected (spoiler alert: it was not a video) to engage the Balaks. He wrote the following thoughtful analysis of his talk and how in the future he would improve. A great many good idea here for all of us to implement.

In preparing for my Bal 1 talk centered on the prasang of Shukanand Swami I came up with the following Simple / Unexpected / Story paradigm.

Simple

When we do seva our main goal should be to make Maharaj and Swami happy.I would have the kids repeat this several times to make sure they remembered it. This really worked as some of the kids were said this in their own words while they were eating dinner.

Unexpected

I had the balaks undergo a writing exercise in order to help them understand the difficulty of Shukanand Swami’s seva as Maharaj’s Secretary. Each balak had a blank piece of paper and a pencil. I would say five sentences and have them write it down word for word to the best of their ability. Then I would ask the balaks for feedback on they performed. There was only one balak who was able to get around 90% of what I said which was 40% higher than the second highest. I asked him why he did so well and he told me that he has a teacher who teaches at a fast pace. I related this to Shukanand Swami’s proficiency in his seva because before Shukanand Swami became a sadhu he was a merchant who handled the accounts of land and he was highly educated. Similar to the balak who performed well due to his experience with his teacher in school, Shukanand Swami was highly adept at writing long accounts due to his knowledge of linguistics he was able to handle the rigors of being Maharaj’s Secretary.

After receiving the feedback from the balaks, I immediately told them to flip over their paper and be ready for the second part of the exercise. Similar to the first part, I would say five sentences (different sentences) and have write them down word for word. After completing the exercise, I initiated another feedback interval to ask how they felt now compared to the first part. Many of the balaks improved from their performance on the first part because they kept a positive attitude even though they might have gotten less than 10% accuracy (accuracy is evaluated by how many words a balak was able write down which correlated with what I had spoken in the five sentences) on the first part. The balaks that had done worse than before or did not improve had a negative attitude which affected their performance. Because of the fact they were unable to get a 100% accuracy on the first try, they felt miserable. 

I used this data to inform the balaks on how this exercise resembles seva. When we do seva our main goal should be to make Maharaj and Swami happy. However, sometimes events happen that are out of our control. Those events must be seen as Maharaj’s ichchha (His doing) to test us. If we become depressed and quit we will never achieve the goal we set out which was to earn Maharaj and Swami’s happiness (rajipo). Therefore, if we remain sthitpragya (stable minded) we are able to analyze what happened (antardrishti) to help us persevere through the unsuccessful attempt in order to continue our goal to achieve Maharaj and Swami’s happiness.

Stories

I told the balaks about Shukanand Swami’s seva and the magnitude of difficulty he had to go through. I began with an overview of what it meant being Maharaj’s secretary. As the secretary, Shukanand Swami would create and maintain accounts of Maharaj’s discourses which were later compiled into major religious texts (Vachanamrut). Maharaj always tested his devotees in order for them to become ekantik (perfect devotee). The same was applied to Shukanand Swami by how he was pressured to write 14 page long accounts and end up having to revise them late into the night (this displayed the amount of meticulous perfection Shukanand Swami emphasized in doing seva). When he would submit his seva to Maharaj as a form of bhakti, Maharaj would test him being tearing up the papers and throwing them on the ground. Nityanand Swami asked Shukanand Swami if he experience a feeling of frustration and Shukanand Swami replied by saying “I had written it just to please Maharaj and Maharaj pleased himself by tearing up the pages”. This quote best illustrated how we should perform our seva which is to earn Maharaj and Swami’s happiness and remain stable minded like Shukanand Swami. As a result, Maharaj appreciated Shukanand Swami so much that he would refer to him during discourses on seva.

In order to continue my emphasis on when we do seva our main goal should be to make Maharaj and Swami happy as well as the mahima of Maharaj's ichchha in our seva, I used the London Mandir prasang. It was Yogi Bapa's agna to have a Mandir in every continent. So to fulfill this agna, there was an area of land originally permitted by the urban planners in the city to be used in the construction of the Mandir in London.  Unfortunately, some problems occurred and the land was no longer permitted for construction. The devotees did their best to win a case for permission to construct the Mandir but there was no success in obtaining the land. Due the lost efforts, the devotees lost hope in the cause and quit. However, Pramukh Swami Maharaj had the sthitaprajna to remain focused on fulfilling Yogi Bapa’s agna and inspired the devotees to remain focused on the cause as well. As a result, a new area of land was found to construct the Mandir. Today there is a beautiful Mandir in London which can be seen as a symbol of seva that was done to earn the happiness of Maharaj and Swami. 

What went well:

• The exercise was something challenging and forced the balaks to think better than they would've if I showed them a video.

• I made them say my simple in order for it to stick in their head. I would say “what should we think when we do seva” and then they would reply “to make Maharaj and Swami happy”. I did the same thing with how being stable minded is important.

• When I talked I didn't use any advanced Satsang vocabulary rather I utilized the words happiness, stable minded, and desire. This helped them remain interested because they knew what I was saying.

• I used a lot of gestures (shout out to Aksharbhai) when I spoke to make them interested.
• Because it was my first time, I made them feel comfortable talking to me by joking around before sabha (I did the “lawn mower” backwards and deliberately fell to make them laugh and a bunch of other goofy stuff). I believe this is a great thing to do if someone is presenting for the first time in front of balaks (especially if your height is intimidating to them).



What I could improve:

• Don’t forget to do Jai Naad (shaking my head in disappointment as I type this).

• I should have paced myself because there were other things that I planned to do during my presentation but failed to do so because mentally I was going too fast. As a result, there were some flaws in conveying the exercise's relationship to Shukanand Swami’s seva (I should’ve talked to a balak privately telling them I’ll tear up his paper as part of the exercise).

• I wasn’t able to successfully transition into my story which made some of the balaks bored listening to it. As a result, some of them might forget the name Shukanand Swami. This is a major problem for me which is storytelling. I should’ve told them to imagine the scenario by describing what it was like during Maharaj's time (no microphone, cramped fingers from writing, no pencils so no eraser, revisions that could keep Shukanand Swami awake late into the night without anything but a candle, end up having the papers torn up, going straight into another long discourse while being sleep deprived, and much more to help the balaks see the story more clearly). Shout out to Tusharbhai for the storytelling advice.

• Next time no pencils so they cannot erase (Shukanand Swami did not have an eraser).

• Tell the balaks before the exercise to try their best and not stop to ask questions (which ended up consuming time).

•  Have more than enough materials to prevent wasting time in search of spare pencils, paper, etc. 


How NOT to ruin your SUS

A fellow sabha-ologist and Bal Presenter - Jarvikbhai sent us the following observation.

How many of us have started our presentations with a question? I certainly have and this blog post is an instant example. Questions are a tempting tool to make things interactive. A quick and easy unexpected - maybe a way to gather consensus on a specific topic we want to talk about.  I recently utilized asking a question to start my Bal Mandal presentation trying to make things interactive. While it may work for a blog post (since the question is rhetorical) I found it isn’t as effective when doing a presentation, especially for Bal Mandal. I lost all command presence after asking the question since the sabha devolved quickly into a free for all. I did not want to crush enthusiasm or shout at the kids to pay attention (because they were paying attention they just were not behaving). So I weathered the storm, but it took a great deal of momentum out of my talk. As a presenter, we want our audience to pay attention from the beginning.

Following our Simple-Unexpected-Stories paradigm, we usually start our presentations with an unexpected to grab attention. It does not have to be a video and in fact if we start every talk that way it would not be very unexpected. I spoke to the sanchalaks and they confirmed that the kids had not seen a video in a few weeks. My simple take home message was “We should follow Yogi Bapa's example and fill our free time with devotion.” So I found the following video to grab attention.

The video is fast paced and just under about a minute long - perfect to entice the audience (balaks for my case) and prove the point that we spend a considerable amount of time doing unnecessary things which wouldn’t help us in the long run. Thus, we should use that free time to do different bhakti/seva for Bhagwan. I felt really good about starting in this manner and then integrating this idea to all the prasangs of Yogi Bapa.

However I started with a question asking the Balaks what they do during their summer time. I was expecting answers that weren’t  bhakti/seva related so that I can have balaks realize the amount of time we spend doing unnecessary things by showing the video next. In theory the plan would work but reality disagreed. As soon as I asked the question, all the balaks started yelling different things which is opposite of what I expected. I lost all command presence. I did not want to yell to get them to quiet down. I wanted to feed their enthusiasm.  If I had started with the video, it would have grabbed their attention much sooner and would actually care to listen to the following things I had to say.

So are there no real ways of using questions in your presentations, absolutely not! Virenbhai’s blog post is great example of how to incorporate a question at the beginning of a talk. Afterwards I thought of the following ideas that I may try in the future. Bring a ball or a throwable object. We could set conditions that whoever has a throwable object can speak. We could ask the same balak who has that object to pass it to another balak for them to speak. That way the commotion is reduced drastically.  

Data Science in Bal 1!

Viren - a bal karyakar and experienced Sabhaologist shares a great way to modify the un-unexpected of asking every kid a question.

During my preview for my Bal 1 talk, I said that I would get everyone’s attention by asking them who they loved the most and then comparing that to Bapa and using that to start my talk. The idea I wanted to convey was that Swamishri’s love for us is unconditional. I know from past experience that just asking Bal 1 an open ended question can lead to lots of talking. So what better way to captivate kids’ attention than doing data science? The best way is to see who everyone loves the most was to create a bar graph. Each balak was given the question “Who do you love the most?”. When every balak answered, we tallied for either mom, dad, brother, sister or grandparents. After tallying up each balak’s response, we saw that most balaks love their dads the most because they spend more time with them. However, then it was easy to connect this to how Swamishri loves us unconditionally though the balaks said they love their dads. If we graph Swamishri’s love for us, it would be impossible to graph. This idea of graphing easily caught all the balak’s attention and it was an awesome way to see Swamishri’s love is unconditional.

Bal/Balika Go To Move #9: Trashketball

Continuing our guest posts, here is a great idea from Dev - a bal 1 sanchalak. Give it a try and let us know how it worked.

This week in bal 1 we organized a retention game that the kids really enjoyed. The construct of the game enabled us to retain all of the information from the presentations spanning the past month. In this post we explore the many facets of Trashketball and use this to have fun with balaks/balikas and also help them remember and retain information.

Trashketball is a game which enables retention while having fun - because everyone loves throwing things in a trash can! The Sabha audience is asked a question and they get to shoot based on their response. The objective is to have fun but also remember information from past presentations.

Supplies/Equipment

• Trashcan (Preferably metal but any one will work)
• Small Ball (A small ball that is soft and nobody will get hurt with)
• Questions to ask audience that relate to presentations

How to Play

• Divide the audience into groups of preferably four or five.
• Set up marks on the floor for 2 point, and 3 points, and set up trashcan. Putting it near a wall will help them to use it as a backboard, or can keep it away from the wall to make it more challenging.
• Ask a group a question related to what has been presented. If they get it correct, they get one initial point for the correct answer but they can shoot the ball into the trash can from any point value to get bonus points. If they do not make the basket, they get only one point.
• If the group doesn’t get the question right, the next group gets a chance to answer until a group gets the question right. If they get a question right on a steal, they can get the one initial point, but they will not be able to shoot the ball.
• Keeping score on whiteboard or online can help increase the competition and the audience will have more fun.

This is a great game to play for retention games and your audience will have fun and remember what they learned.

Go To Move #8: Meet my Imaginary Friend

Recently a spate of Balika/Bal karaykars have come up with some really amazing ways to keep our kids attention during sabha. So for the next few weeks we are trying to send out and share these ideas. This week Kirtan, who presents regularly in Bal Mandal, shares with us his go-to move.

Do you ever get tired of presenting in Bal mandal because Balaks don’t listen to you? Do balaks always start talking while you are trying to make a point? Here is an idea that has worked for me. It grabs all the Balaks attention when they start to fade and is my favorite Go-To Move.
Many balaks understand the concept  of “an imaginary friend.” This idea is riff on that concept. The key difference being the imaginary friend is Swamibapa. For this to work, you really have to sell the idea that Swamishri is present in sabha. There are several strategies to establish this. I like to start by having a conversation with Swamishri  as soon as I enter the room (even before I start my talk). When balaks see you talking to your imaginary friend they will get confused and start laughing and think it’s funny. That is okay, it is unexpected and you now have their attention. But for this idea to really work you have to quickly make it clear to the balaks that your imaginary friend is Swamishri and that he is truly present and that we need to act as if he is present. If you can sell this the kids will be amazed that you have an imaginary friend that is Swamibapa. Leverage this amazement to make it clear that: “Bapa is going to be here in our sabha today so let's make sure we to pay attention and not mess around.” Once this is established, start the presentation. During your talk to can ask Swamishri questions. If you are about to recite a prasang, say it as if Bapa was really there. Try saying: “Bapa do you remember during your 51st Birthday in Dharmaj when you picked up all those used datan?”
One reason I really like this idea is that this is something all of us should really be doing in any sabha we sit in. We sing prarthna to invite Swamishri into our sabha, but then act as if he is not there. If we can instill this concept in our balaks, they may actually do this throughout their lives in any sabha they sit in (and we may start doing it as well).

Balika 1 - It Worked! Burn you fears away

An intrepid Balika Mandal sabhaologist came up with a clever idea to add meaning to a presentation and make it stick. A few weeks ago the presentation - Ghosts in a Well - was about becoming fearless in the same way Ghanshyam Maharaj was fearless in dealing with the aforementioned ghosts. For Balika/Bal 1 this can become an abstract exercise. To make it concrete the Sanchalika came up with a great idea. She asked all the balikas to write down their fears. They then went to an open area outside and in a small pit the karyakars took the piece of paper and burned it while emphasizing that Maharaj and Swami will always help us if we are fearless. Unexpected and concrete rolled into one and simple emphasized through stories. 

Made to Stick in Bal Mandal - an Example

A young bal sanchalak wrote up how he used the SUS principles to give a talk on yoga (from several months ago) in Bal 2. Notice the creative use of unexpected and using activities along with stories to drive the point home. This sounds like a great Bal 2 sabha. 

I started with displaying a quick video of Austin Rivers’s buzzer beater and then  another small video of the Top Ten Dunks in the NBA. After these clips we had a discussion on which video was more enjoyable and thrilling. The answer of most of the balaks was what I expected: The Austin Rivers’s video. That was my unexpected. I had them discussing things with me and they were not really sure what the main topic was going to be. 

The tough part came next when through the discussion I introduced the SIMPLE of my presentation. First was to understand why the buzzer beater video clip was more enjoyable. One of the older balaks had a very straightforward response, it is harder to do and thrilling to watch. He also mentioned that it was harder to do because in the NBA many people can dunk the ball, but not many people can perfectly time their shot to make it a buzzer beater and beat their rival team. After this answer I asked them as to why Austin Rivers is able to do such incredible feats. Most of the answers were very common such as practice and hard work.

However the simple was introduced through another video clip of Austin Rivers giving an interview in which he mentions  that he listens to concentration music to enhance his abilities to focus and to keep his mind calm and collected during pressure situations.
The next section was stories and exercises to enhance this main point of concentration and focus. I asked all the Balaks to list some things people do to keep calm. The foremost answers were concentration music and exercises, leading into my next assignment. I put on some concentration music, and gave them a yogic exercise to complete, the Bee Posture. After the completion of this, I invited a few kids up to the front of the room to attempt to complete some yogic postures. These yogic postures are now also completed monthly during our BST sessions. Lastly, I concluded my presentation by informing the balaks that when you want to do anything, be it play sports or concentrate for studying, it is always best to calm your mind before you start. I also mentioned that the procedures learned were not the only procedures for calming the mind, and that there are many other things one can attempt to do so. 

5 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People

One common presenting tip is to “know your audience,” but what exactly should we know about them? While we may present to many different people (bal/kishore/yuvak/vadhil), here is an universal list of 5 things that every presenter should know about his or her audience.

People learn best in 20 minute chunks.

TED talks. That’s right, we’re referencing it again. If you take a look at TED talks, they are around 20 minutes long, and that’s part of the reason why they are so captivating. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that shorter is better since a shorter presentation forces the talk to be more concise and focused. However, don’t get stuck on the notion that every presentation must be 20 minutes to be good. For example, many times in sabha, presentations are planned to be more than 20 minutes long. The ideal presentation length is exactly the number of minutes it takes for you to get your simple statement across, not a second more. In order to incorporate this study, however, it would be idea to try to build in some kind of change every 20 minutes. Especially in bal/balika sabha, it’s important to give the kids a break from all the information they just received. This could be a great way to incorporate an activity/exercise that relates to the session. 

Multiple sensory channels compete.

When you are giving a speech, there are two sensory channels that are the most active: visual and auditory. According to Dr. Susan Weinschenk, our visual channel is stronger than our auditory channel. Therefore, if your presentation has complicated information for people to digest, then it will be hard to balance the auditory channel while trying to decipher what your visual aid says. A common tip is to put together a presentation without using any slides first and then decide if it can be enhanced with a visual medium. 

What you say is only part of your message.

Research in psychology over the last few decades has revealed that people process information unconsciously. People not only react to your message, but they also take into account your facial expression, voice, stand, and even hand movements. Think about how you are saying what you are saying. 

If you want people to act, you have to call them to action.

Be very specific about what you want audience to do. This is where the simple statement comes into play. It’s always a good habit to go over the main points of your presentation at the end as a call for action.

People imitate your emotions and feel your feelings.

When you are passionate about your topic, your audience will be passionate. People like to listen to someone who is animated, and passionate about a topic. Even if you are not so interested in a particular sabha topic, pretend like you are, and the message will go a long way. For example, in bal/balika sabha, it may require you to be more animated than usual in order to keep the balaks & balikas attention in a certain topic.

Bal 1 - It Sorta Worked! Tic - Tac - Toe

A few of the kishores have been helping out with Bal 1 lately. It has been working out quite well. We made a conscious effort to give them latitude to try out different ideas even if they seemed misguided. One idea they had was to have the kids play checkers on the iPad as a reward for paying attention during a prasang. We held our breathes and decided to see what would happen.

Playing checkers on the iPad caused some commotion. Every kids wanted to see so they crowded around the iPad. It got loud and unruly. But the real downfall was that neither kid who was chosen really understood how to play checkers and the ones that did not really pay great attention during prasang varan really did know how to play checkers. We stepped in and said we would rethink this idea and did another quick activity (we had the kids try and jump up and reach the ceiling, to segue into never giving up).

During review we discussed some of the things that did not go so well with the kishores. To their credit they came this week with a similar but revamped idea - each kid would play tic tac toe on a custom made board. This worked out much better. The kids understood the game at least to the first degree. It was much faster so all the kids got a chance to play. They timed each game so it was speed tic tac toe.  The kids overall enjoyed the activity as you can make out in these pictures.

During review (which occurred while we put away the trash after dinner due to lack of time) we talked about how to take this activity to the next level. This time it was just a reward for listening. What if we use it as a tool for comprehension. We could have each child say one line of the story before making a move - if they don't know what happened they cannot place their piece. We are also focusing on the kids be very familiar (to the point of memorization) two dhoon, two prarthan, and two kirtan before leaving Bal 1. So another idea would be to have them sing one line before playing their piece. In the first round we can help the ones who don't know their lines, and in the second see how they do.  Any other ideas?