Date: February 13, 2025
Time: 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Venue: Matriniketan, Sri Aurobindo Society
BhāratShakti team organized a special celebration of the Mother’s birthday titled “Navakriti” with a group of 35 children ages 6 to 8 from Creative School, Bengaluru. These children were on a field trip to Pondicherry and visited Sri Aurobindo Society on February 13, 2025.
BhāratShakti institute of Sri Aurobindo Society has a long-standing relation with Creative School and has over the years done several workshops and programmes for teachers and students. Navakriti programme was held at the wonderful Tamil heritage building Matriniketan which was beautifully restored recently.
The children were accompanied by 9 teachers. The programme began with a moment’s silence invoking the Divine Presence and brief welcome remarks by Dr. Beloo Mehra. The celebrations opened with some chanting led by Mr. Narendra Murty. Dr. Mehra then briefly discussed about the significance of birthdays; children actively engaged in this discussion and shared their insights. In an interactive fashion, she also presented the children a few details about the Mother’s childhood and how her birthday is celebrated in the Ashram.
Next part of the celebration involved some fun games. These games were planned by Ms. Biswajita Mohapatra, who led these sessions, with help from teachers from the Creative school. The games involved activities meant to facilitate development of alertness and word formation using different combination of letters.
After a juice and snacks break, it was story time. Dr. Beloo Mehra told them an enchanting tale on sincerity, which was told by the Mother. The students came up with their learnings from the story. Finally, the students were asked to express their creativity by writing or drawing or painting something that came spontaneously to them regarding their aspiration for some specific area in which they would like to progress during their next year. This was presented as a birthday resolution related activity.
Auroprasadam had organised lunch for all the participants. After lunch, teachers from Creative asked all students to participate in a gratitude circle. Each child shared one thing that they enjoyed most during their visit and for which they were most grateful.
Several of them talked about how much they enjoyed their time spent at the beautiful space of Matriniketan, and what they learned about the significance of one’s birthday and about sincerity and alertness. The event came to a close with a prayer and a flower offering to the Mother by all the participants.