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Message for Sai Devotees all Across Canada
Earth Hour
As you may know, many major cities around the
world are coming together in a colossal act of unity
intended to make a positive impact on the care of
the environment through energy conservation. You
also know that environmental care or respect
to Mother Earth is one of the routine seva expected
to be engaged in by all centres of our Sri Sathya
Sai Baba Organization in Canada. As well, our Organization
encourages activities where our devotees and
centres can serve together with other community groups.
With these in mind, we, the National
Coordinators for Spiritual and Seva activities of
our Organization have agreed that the Earth Day
event is significant in bringing awareness of environmental issues.
This will bring awareness to our membership, who in turn can join
the rest of the world in this wonderful moment of
environmental care.
Please read this excerpt from the Earth Day
website:
“Created to take a stand against the
greatest threat our planet has ever faced, Earth
Hour uses the simple action of turning off the
lights for one hour to deliver a powerful message
about the need for action on global warming.
This simple act has captured the hearts and minds
of people all over the world. As a result, at 8 pm
March 29, 2008 millions of people in some of the
world’s major capital cities, including Copenhagen,
Toronto , Chicago , Melbourne , Brisbane and Tel
Aviv (and growing) will unite and switch off for
Earth Hour.”
As a result we are recommending that all our
centres take the opportunity to observe this event
as prescribed by the organizers, the World Wildlife
Fund Organization (WWF). In addition, we are also
excited about bringing into the event a spiritual
aspect that is sure to pervade the environment with
the message of Loka Samastha Sukhino Bavantu ( May
All Beings in All Worlds be Happy). We are
requesting that all centres and Sai Devotional
Groups do one of the following:
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Plan to conduct bhajans at their centres
during this period of 1 hour, or
-
Request all families in your centre to
conduct bhajans or meditation during this hour at
their homes.
Alternately, centres may decide upon any other
activity of their choice during this hour.
Should you agree to conduct bhajans and/or
meditation, here is a suggested format that would
create, if followed, a unified wave of vibration not
just across our beautiful country but across the
universe.
-
8:00 pm - Om
-
8:05 - 10 – 15 meditation session (preferably
light meditation permeating the entire cosmos)
-
8:20 - Traditional Gayatri and Sai Gayatri
mantras
-
8:25 to 9:00 - Bhajans relating to the
goddess/elements/earth etc. concluding with Aarthi.
If in the event the above time is not an ideal
time for the spiritual activity for your Centre,
please feel free to conduct it earlier for an hour
dedicating your service to Mother Earth. She
sustains a lot. Let us tread lightly and let us be
a true gentle, kind and caring friend to Her.
Our Beloved Swami says:
“Earth is the symbol of God or Shakti, Goddess and is an image of the
Lord. One who is born on earth gets the name
Partha. If fact the name Partha should apply to
everyone born on earth. In this word, differences
either from place to place or from country to
country are not recognized. There is life throughout
the universe. To God the universe is one”.
SSIB 1974, p. 204
“We should firmly believe that Mother Earth
itself is God. It is wrong to assume that God dwells
somewhere we cannot see. Man should treat Mother
Earth with reverence. He has no right to talk of
conquering her or exploiting her forces. Have the
conviction that Mother Earth is verily another form
of God”
DD 1987, p. 101
We wish to express our sincere heartfelt
gratitude to everyone who will join our universal
brothers and sisters in this hour of sacrifice and
reverence.
OM SAI RAM
The National Spiritual and Seva Coordinators
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