Global MahaParayan Presents - Bal Gurukul - MahaParayan for Kids

July 2017, we came up with concept of Global MahaParayan which was directed by our Sai Baba to Sai sister Pooja. Initially there was only one format of the Parayan, which transited to various other formats and about 3 lakhs of devotees joined in this venture making it A Global Parayan Hall! All formats of Parayan were inspired by our Sai Baba and today on Childrens Day we are introducing yet another format of MahaParayan "Bal Gurukul - MahaParayan for Kids". Following write up is by Sai sister Pooja describing her journey from a thought to execution of the Parayan.

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We know by now that after continuous prayers for nearly 7 months, On 25th June 2017, Baba gave orders for Global Mahaparayan. Now, after a long time, Baba indicated to start Bal Parayan through an early morning dream on the day of Janmashtami - 24th August 2019. But this time, there were no prayers made to start Bal Parayan. I did not have, even the remotest thought of starting Bal parayan exclusively for the kids. Some kids are already part of Mahaparayan and are reading 2 chapters every Thursday. There are examples where 2 kids sharing one roll no and read one chapter each. So the thought never occurred to start Mahaparayan exclusively for kids. But really, His ways are His ways - unique and equally beautiful!

The Dream for Bal Parayan:

I was sitting in an old room, which feels more like a temple but has no idol or image of Baba as such. A group of people accompanied by several musical instruments was singing Sai Baba aarti. I was sitting there, and I think I was playing the dholki. The arti that was being sung was the Marathi arti ( Arti Sai Baba..Saukhya Dataar Jivha..). After some time, all were quiet, and I was singing the arti alone. Everyone present was saying that she knows the arti well, so please give her the mike. As they said that, I started thinking - “What was the use of giving the mike now as the arti was about to get completed?”

By the time I received the mike, arti got completed. Then with all my heart and soul, I started chanting loudly on the mike “Shri Anantkoti Brahmand Nayak Rajadhiraj Yogiraj Parbrahma Shri Sacchidanand Satguru Sainath Maharaj Ki Jai.” Everyone was enjoying it and was also staring at me at the same time. I was also overjoyed with the positive vibrations that I had goose-bumps.

My gaze later shifted to Shivling with milk and flower petals dropping over it. My parents were also there and though I am not very sure, were asking me to do something related to Navagraha pooja. I denied thinking Baba is everything. Later, I saw 3 of my relatives (my sister-in-law, her husband, and her mother-in-law) walking into the same room with a blackboard right in front. Jiju(sister-in-law’s husband) had got a string of paper-made yellow triangles. He was tying the two ends of the string across the blackboard. I quickly went there to see what it was? To my surprise, I found that it was written GURUKUL with one letter on each yellow triangle. So there were 7 yellow triangles with the 7 alphabets (one on each) in black font. Then all of us (my parents and my 3 relatives) walked out of that room. We began to talk about health and other general things. Then Jiju’s mom said, “Pooja, I had sent Kiwi for you. Did you eat.” Before I could reply, my mom said, “Why did you send? We get Kiwi here also.” Then we all sat in the car, insisting my relatives to visit us and they continued to deny while we kept insisting.

While all this was happening, all of a sudden, I was back into the temple while everything repeated. This was something extraordinary as never had I seen such a dream, which kept repeating without any pause or breaks. But this time, when Jiju was tying the string of yellow triangles across the blackboard, I saw 3 more additional triangles and on it was written BAL. So now, the line had 10 yellow triangles reading as BAL GURUKUL. Then I said to jiju, “Oh, the word ‘BAL’ is also there? I saw it now. I could not see it earlier”. Again we all moved out with the rest of the conversation, including the one about Kiwi repeating itself. Then we went and sat in the car and yet the same discussions about us insisting them to accompany us home and them denying repeated. After this, I said to jiju’s mom, “Mosiji, you know I have seen all these sequences of events happening. Believe me or not, but really I have seen. It is real, Sai Baba Ki Kasam (Meaning I swear by Sai Baba). But mosiji, the only difference was that before I had seen only GURUKUL and now it was BAL GURUKUL.”

With that, I suddenly woke up to realise it was a dream, and it was around 6 AM. I was moved to see such an unexpected dream. Although there was no Baba image, or His idol nor Himself as during the Mahaparayan dream, I understood that Baba was hinting to start parayan for kids. So, to get it confirmed, I opened up Prashnavali. Before asking, I said, “Baba, if by this dream, You are hinting to start Bal parayan then when I ask the question; let the answer have the word preceptor (Guru).” Then to my surprise, when I asked, the answer I got was, “Remember your preceptor (Guru), all things will happen as desired by you. Work will be done sooner by allocation.” I was stunned and had goose-bumps running from the head to toe. I also realised that it was the 24th August and the auspicious day of Janmashtami, where we celebrate the birth of Shri Krishna in Bal roop (child form). Isn’t it beautiful that on the same day Baba had directed for Bal Parayan?

I was then thinking of executing the idea at the earliest. I was at my mom’s place and was also not keeping well due to my first trimester of pregnancy. I comforted myself with these excuses to delay the start by the next two to three days. Then after 3 days, one of the active Mahaparayan organizers Dity Mehta called me up for some work. After that was done, she suddenly said, “Poojaji, wo Bal Parayan Ka Kya Hua?” ( What happened of that Bal Parayan?) I was stunned to hear this from her. I had not shared my dream with anyone, except my family members. As I said in the opening of this article, we did have kids reading in Mahaparayan. Once Dityji had called me to ask if kids could be enrolled for Mahaparayan. I had said yes, given parents take responsibility for them. She had then said that one volunteer wanted to form a group for kids etc. But whenever we talked, we had never used the word ‘BAL,’ it was either kids/children/bacche, etc. This time the word BAL was used, and when I shared my dream with her, even she was surprised to realize how she had said the word BAL?

After that, due to my laziness and other excuses, the work kept postponing. Strangely during these times, I kept getting reminders in some form or the other from the organizers. Like once another devotee named Pooja Chawla called up and asked if kids could be added and so on. I kept wondering - how come so many of them have the same questions regarding adding the kids to Mahaparayan now itself? It was no wonder, but it was Baba’s Leela that kept giving me reminders. I almost felt like I belonged to the third category of devotees who keep postponing the orders of their Guru making mistakes at every step (Chapter 23 in Sai Satcharitra). I was able to do all my other work, whether it was editing or publishing for the daily blogs, streamlining MP for season 3. But try how much ever I could, I was not able to start this Bal Parayan work.

Days passed. Ganesh Chathurthi festival came. We got busy with it, and one day our whole family went to Dagdu Sheth Ganpati darshan (Famous Ganpati in Pune). There my son got so cranky that he was not ready to go for the darshan. He was crying for almost an hour. We tried as much as we could and used all possible means, but he wanted to go home at any cost. I did not understand what to do. Then suddenly I saw a big photo of Sai Baba while we were waiting for my husband to come from the parking. I prayed Baba to handle Saiesh. I said, “Baba, I think I am not keeping up my promise to work for Bal parayan, and hence Saiesh is cranky. I promise to start the work tonight itself, but please make him quiet in 5 minutes and let us have darshan nicely as we have come so far.” The wonder of wonders happened. He got attracted to a toy that he had first denied, and within 5 minutes, he was a happy boy. I understood Baba’s Leela. I was even more surprised as we took another one hour for darshan to have special darshan through some reference, and yet Saiesh was very calm and composed. Then that night, I did start the work, but only the beginning was made in writing the article. The beginning did not end as it should have ended.

Then, again days passed with Diwali work and Season 3 Mahaparayan preparations. Finally, after Diwali Baba showed that 14th November is the children’s day and a Thursday too! Things started taking shape, and the work began in full fledge. Baba, I am extremely sorry for all the delay. Then as a part of this article, I thought we should also include those volunteers’ and kids’ experiences who started doing parayan during the past few months. I spoke to two of them. And I came to know that Swetha Raj ji had already formed a separate classroom for kids named Krishna Sai. Another volunteer had started a class with the name “Bala Sai.” I did not have any words to witness this leela. Why the names Krishna and Bala were only used? Why the dream was on Krishna Janamashtami with that Bal Gurukul string in it? All these facts left us speechless.

Sai leela did not end here. As per Baba’s wish, we chose Sri Roopa Hari as the coordinator for Bal Parayan and Manjuji as the sub coordinator. Here is another set of leelas witnessed by Bal Parayan’s Sub Coordinator Manjuji and some of the kids who are already doing Bal Parayan. Here they are:

Sri Roop Hari the co-ordinator for Bal parayan says that yesterday 13/11/19 they had planned for Shirdi trip. But Baba cancelled it at the last moment. She felt dejected and sad. Then to her surprise Baba's padukas came to her house (Bangalore) all the way from Shirdi. It gave her a feeling as if Baba was giving her strength and blessings required to shoulder the responsibility of Bal Parayan.

Manjuji the sub coordinator says - Sairam mam. The Bala Sai group was started on 18/05/19.

Dream 1: I had this dream sometime back. I saw a big hall with lots of students and young people from the age of 16 to 18 approximately. All of them were holding the Satcharitra book, and I also had one book in my hand. Suddenly Sai entered from behind, gave me a pat on my arms, and said, “Teach them all.” Sai was so bright wearing a white Kafni with a black shawl. He had asked me to teach them Sai Satcharitra. The next day after my dream, Roopaji called me and spoke about starting the Bala Sai group. I was, and I am still overwhelmed by Sai’s guidance. Sai gave me this dream to start the Bala Sai group.

Dream 2: Last night (i.e., on 9th November 2019), I had a dream where my cousin came with a gift bag. He gave me a Krishna statue first - A statue where Krishna is providing upadesha to Arjuna. Next, he put his hand into the bag and gave me a Sai statue saying, “I gave you Krishna first, now take your all-time favorite Sai Baba.” Saying, so he gave it to me. I was overjoyed to receive it in my dream. I don’t know what Sai has in store for me, but I always believe he will guide me through dreams. To my surprise, today, Roopaji called me about a new exclusive venture of the SaiYug network for Bal parayan and asked me to help her as a sub-coordinator. Really Sai’s leelas have no boundaries.

Ruthu Srihari’s mother says: Sairam, my dear Sai bandhus. I’m delighted to share this miracle, which has recently occurred with my elder daughter, Ruthu Srihari. Currently, Ruthu is doing her parayan in MP-503 SriPada Sai, with roll number 36. The experience has made her to completely change her mind about Sai Baba and made her start reading Sai Satcharitra. She had lost her new mobile phone in her college, which was very dear to her and she was very upset because of that incident for a few days. I convinced her to pray to Baba and visit the temple every Thursday so that she might get her phone back. To our surprise, after a few days, we received a parcel from an unknown person. When we opened it, we received the same exact phone model which she had lost. This incident changed her mind. And after a few days again we received a call from the police station, saying that they had found the lost phone and we had to collect it. I am very grateful to Baba for listening to our prayers and fulfilling them.

Sai Siri’s Mother says: Sairam, my dear Sai bandhus. I am once again happy to share this miracle, which occurred with my younger daughter Sai Siri who is doing her Mahaparayan in MP-2168 Bala Sai, roll number 1. My younger daughter was suffering from a gastric problem for a very long time. So I prayed to Baba and asked her to start reading Sai Satcharitra to help her with her health issues. After starting her parayan, there is a drastic improvement in health. A week back, she had severe acidity, and her situation worsened so much that we thought of admitting her to the hospital. At that time, we prayed Baba to help her and give her strength. After 5 minutes, she became normal and returned to her normal condition. This was really a huge surprise for all of us. This was a great miracle that we got to experience. Thank You, Baba, for giving her the strength and healing her.

What is Bal Parayan & what is its enrolment process?

• Bal Parayan is similar to Mahaparayan. The only difference is that here, we will have a group exclusively for kids between 3 to 18 years of age.

• Here the kids have to read one chapter every Thursday. Although they will not complete 108 parayans in one year, they will still complete reading one round of Satcharitra.

• Parents’ contact numbers will be added, and they have to make their kids read and report completion as per the time zone of the group. Else, remember, the efforts of the rest of the 47 kids will go in vain.

• In unavoidable conditions, parents can read and report on their child’s behalf and later make sure that they convey the contents and teachings of the allocated chapter to their kids.
  

• If the child is small, say 3 to 4 years old, then Satcharitra can be told as a story. This will help attract them to the spiritual path at an early age.

• If interested, then please join the temporary link group below. You would soon be added to the main group on confirmation through our volunteers. https://chat.whatsapp.com/L8wfFgcWBg59dlvFgqc9wY

• Make your children join only if you, as a parent, can take all the responsibility to complete the reading of the single allocated chapter. It’s not going to be that easy, but it is worth it. Parents will have to take efforts to pave the spiritual path in their children’s lives. Who else can do that other than the parents?

• Children can even listen to the audios of their allocated chapter.

• It will not only increase their concentration and listening skills but also certainly bring blessings in your child’s life and also instill faith and patience in them at a very tender age.

Jai Sairam!

Video by Sai Little Daughter