SAI SPIRITUAL EDUCATION LESSON PLAN



SAI SPIRITUAL EDUCATION LESSON PLAN

|GROUP: 3/4 |VALUE: Peace |SUBVALUE: Moderation |

MATERIALS NEEDED: copies of Activity worksheet for each student; copies of “Story of Stuff” facts for each student

SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE (purpose of lesson): Students will reflect on how practicing moderation brings about a feeling of peace, and minimizes the effect we have on the global community.

QUOTE: What is the meaning of "Ceiling on Desires"? Man is deluded by his unlimited desires. He is living in a dream world. He is forgetting the Supreme Consciousness. That is why it is important to keep our desires under control, to place a ceiling on them. We are spending too much money. Instead of inordinately spending for our own pleasure, we should be spending for the relief of the poor and needy. This is the real meaning of Ceiling on Desires. Do not make the mistake of thinking that giving money is all that is needed, however. Do not give to others while allowing your own desires to continue to multiply. Curtail your desires, as materialistic desires lead to a restless and disastrous life. Desires are a prison. Man can be freed only by limiting his wants. You should have desire only for life's bare necessities.

— Sathya Sai Baba

OPENING: THREE OMS / GAYATRI MANTRA

PRAYER: Observe moderation and balance in all things. (Native American prayer)

• INTRODUCE TODAY’S SUBVALUE AND DISCUSS QUOTE

• AFFIRMATION: I practice moderation by curtailing my desires.

DEVOTIONAL GROUP SINGING: (Choose song to reinforce subvalue/spiritual principle.)

Song: “Colors of the Wind” – Vanessa Williams

STORY-TELLING / LESSON (Relate the story to the subvalue/spiritual principle.)

PRE-STORY QUESTION(S)

Give an example of when you placed a ceiling on your desires. What prompted you to do this?

STORY: “Story of Stuff” (video)

Note: view video at

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (These should relate to story, subvalue, and affirmation.)

1. What surprised you most in this video?

2. As pointed out in the video, our consumer habits impact the globe. What are some of the impacts associated with unregulated consumption? (environment, developing world, habitat, never being satisfied with what we have)

3. How could this information change our purchasing habits?

4. How can people’s habits be changed?

5. What are some of the advantages of moderating our consumerism? (bring out moderation leads to peace)

6. As Annie pointed out, we are living on a planet with limited resources. Manufacturing processes demand great expenditures of energy, mostly from non-renewable sources and their use often pollutes in some way. How can you help to conserve resources and reduce pollution?

7. What changes do you need to make to practice moderation?

ACTIVITY (Design or choose, to provide an experience of the subvalue/spiritual principle.)

Review Life Application from Previous Lesson

The True Cost of Stuff

Annie wonders how $4.99 can possibly capture the true costs of producing a small radio and she runs through some of the “hidden costs.” How can the radio possibly sell for $4.99 after all that mining, drilling, transportation, packaging, labor costs, and profit for the company owners?

Think about the different parts of a radio. List three impacts of manufacturing the radio for which the company doesn’t have to pay. If the company was required to internalize, or pay for, all those costs it currently externalizes, list three ways by which the company might be motivated to change its practices. For example, if it had to pay for workers’ health care after toxic exposure, it would have an incentive to stop using toxics in the production stage. Forcing companies to stop externalizing so many of the costs of making things is a powerful lever to encourage them to clean up because – when all costs are accounted for – cleaner really is cheaper.

Note: This activity might have to be interactive – with teachers providing some things to think about along the way (for example, what would happen if the company was forced to replace drinking water supplies after industrial spills). Focusing on 3 different externalized costs and 3 ways in which they would affect practices should suffice to get the point across.

LIFE APPLICATION (Assign for practice in the subvalue / spiritual principle during the week.)

POW’s (Pearls of Wisdom) – Public Speaking

Students write down three “pearls of wisdom” they learned during this lesson. They will share with the class the following week.

Moderating Our Impact: Think about three items you use during the week and what goes into their production. Specifically, think about and then write down the negative impacts that might result from their production and distribution. How could this information affect your future purchasing habits?

SILENT SITTING / MEDITATION (Can relate to subvalue/spiritual principle.)

ACTIVITY

THE TRUE COST OF STUFF

Name___________________________________

Date____________________________________

Annie wonders how $4.99 can possibly capture the true costs of producing a small radio and she runs through some of the “hidden costs.” How can the radio possibly sell for $4.99 after all that mining, drilling, transportation, packaging, labor costs, and profit for the company owners?

Think about the different parts of a radio. List three impacts of manufacturing the radio for which the company doesn’t have to pay. If the company was required to internalize, or pay for, all those costs it currently externalizes, list three ways by which the company might be motivated to change its practices. For example, if it had to pay for workers’ health care after toxic exposure, it would have an incentive to stop using toxics in the production stage. Forcing companies to stop externalizing so many of the costs of making things is a powerful lever to encourage them to clean up because – when all costs are accounted for – cleaner really is cheaper.

Consider the following questions when formulating your responses:

➢ What resources are used to make it?

➢ Where do they come from?

➢ Who is involved in each part of the process?

Three impacts of manufacturing the radio for which the company doesn’t have to pay:

1.

2.

3.

Three ways by which the company might be motivated to change its practices:

1.

2.

3.

Facts from The Story of Stuff

➢ In the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed.1

➢ In the United States, we have less than 4% of our original forests left.2

➢ Forty percent of waterways in the US have become undrinkable.3

➢ The U.S.has 5% of the world’s population but consumes 30% of the world’s resources4 and creates 30% of the world’s waste.5

➢ If everybody consumed at U.S. rates, we would need 3 to 5 planets.

➢ There are over 100,000 synthetic chemicals in commerce today.6

➢ Only a handful of synthetic chemicals have even been tested for human health impacts and NONE have been tested for synergistic health impacts.7

➢ In the U.S., industry admits to releasing over 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals a year.8

➢ The average U.S. person now consumes twice as much as they did 50 years ago.9

➢ We each see more advertisements in one year than a people 50 years ago saw in a lifetime.10

➢ In the U.S. our national happiness peaked sometime in the 1950s.11

➢ In the U.S., we spend 3–4 times as many hours shopping as our counterparts in Europe do.12

➢ Average U.S. house size has doubled since the 1970s.13

➢ Each person in the United States makes 4 1/2 pounds of garbage a day.14 That is twice what we each made thirty years ago.15

➢ For every one garbage can of waste you put out on the curb, 70 garbage cans of waste were made upstream to make the junk in that one garbage can you put out on the curb.16

1 Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism, Little Brown and Company, (1999). Excerpted from page 4: “In the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s resources, its ‘natural wealth,’ has been consumed.”

2 Lester Brown, Michael Renner, Christopher Flavin, Vital Signs 1998, Worldwatch Institute, Washington, D.C. “Ninety five to ninety eight percent of forests in the continental United States have been logged at least once since settlement by Europeans.” Also, see: “Can’t See the Forest,” by Josh Sevin, in GRIST, 1 March 2000. “1 to 2 percent of original forests in the U.S. remain undisturbed.”

3 American Rivers, Americas Most Endangered Rivers of 1998 Report, Excerpt: “Today, 40 percent of our nation’s rivers are unfishable, unswimmable, or undrinkable” Available at:

4 This figure is citied in many places. For example: John L Seitz: Global Issues: An Introduction, (2001).

5 “The U.S. produced approximately 33% of the world’s waste with 4.6% of the world’s population” (Miller 1998) quoted in Global Environmental Issues by Frances Harris (2004).

6 Many references, including: ; Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2006; Nancy Evans (ed.), Breast Cancer Fund , State of the Evidence 2006 Executive Summary, available at ; Gay Daly, “Bad Chemistry” (NRDC) at ;

7 “Of the more than 80,000 chemicals in commerce, only a small percentage of them have ever been screened for even one potential health effect, such as cancer, reproductive toxicity, developmental toxicity, or impacts on the immune system. Among the approximately 15,000 tested, few have been studied enough to correctly estimate potential risks from exposure. Even when testing is done, each chemical is tested individually rather than in the combinations that one is exposed to in the real world. In reality, no one is ever exposed to a single chemical, but to a chemical soup, the ingredients of which may interact to cause unpredictable health effects.” From Coming Clean Campaign’s Body Burden information, retrieved 11/8/07 from

8 “For Reporting Year 2005, 23,461 facilities reported to EPA’s TRI Program. These facilities reported 4.34 billion pounds of on-site and off-site disposal or other releases of the almost 650 toxic chemicals.” From: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Toxics Release Inventory,

9 “Why Consumption Matters” by Betsy Taylor and Dave Tilford, in The Consumer Society Reader Edited by Juliet B Schor and Douglas Holt (2000), p. 467.

10 “Each of us sees more ads alone in one year than people of 50 years ago saw in an entire lifetime.” Cited in DMNews magazine, 12/22/97. Another measurement of the increasing volume of ads comes from David Shenk, who estimates that the average American saw 560 daily advertising messages in 1971 and by 1997 that number had increased to over 3,000 per day, in Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut by David Shenk (1997).

11 Bill McKibben, Deep Economy (2007), p.35-36 and Vicky Robin, “Towards a Solution to Overconsumption” undated.

12 Gary Cross, Time and Money (1993), p. 192.

13 “Small is Beautiful: U.S. House Size, Resource Use, and the Environment” Journal of Industrial Ecology on Greener Buildings’ Greenbiz. Extracted on 11/11/07 from:

14 “In 2005, U.S. residents, businesses, and institutions produced more than 245 million tons of MSW, which is approximately 4.5 pounds of waste per person per day.” Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2007.

15 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Municipal Waste in the United States: 2001 Facts and Figures (2003), pp.3 -4.

16 The Next Efficiency Revolution: Creating a Sustainable Materials Economy by John Young and Aaron Sachs, Worldwatch Institute (1994), p. 13.



COLORS OF THE WIND – VANESSA WILLIAMS

You think you own whatever land you land on

The earth is just a dead thing you can claim

But I know every rock and tree and creature

Has a life, has a spirit, has a name

You think the only people who are people

Are the people who look and think like you

But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger

You'll learn things you never knew you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

Or ask the grinning bob cat why he grins

Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind

[Shi Shi]

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest

Come taste the sun-sweet berries of the earth

Come roll in all the riches all around you

And for once never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers

The heron and the otter are my friends

And we are all connected to each other

In a circle of a hope that never ends

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

Or let the eagle tell you where he's been

Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind

How high does the sycamore grow

If you cut it down then you'll never know

And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

For whether we are white or copper skinned

We need to sing with all the voices of the mountain

We need to paint with all the colors of the wind

You can own the earth and still

All you own is earth until

You can paint with all the colors of the wind

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