These quotations can be used in many different ways, including posting them around the home or school, and using them as a basis for classroom discussions, class/family meetings etc.
Children can be asked to make posters to illustrate the messages in the quotations.
“The secret of perfect health lies in keeping the mind always cheerful – never worried, never hurried, never borne down by any fear, thought or anxiety.”
– Sathya Sai Baba
“The loveless are enveloped in fear. Love instills courage and promotes adventure.”
– Sathya Sai Baba
“The world situation today is dreadful and frightening. Wherever you turn, fear confronts you. Whether you remain at home or go out into the street, whether you travel by train or walk on the road, fear haunts you. The world is enveloped in fear….. Shedding all fear, carry on your work with courage and determination, without any worry about the future, and plunge into service activities. If you act with this faith, you will serve to protect the country. If you adhere to Truth and Righteousness, they will protect both you and the country.”
– Sathya Sai Baba
“If all the great virtues, fearlessness occupies the place of primary importance. It is the ideal virtue. Unless you have fearlessness, you will never be able to live comfortably…. Once we are full of fear, we cannot shine in the world.”
– Sathya Sai Baba
“If a wave of service sweeps over the land, catching everyone in its enthusiasm, it will be able to wipe off the mounds of hatred, malice and greed that infest the World. Attune your hearts so that it will vibrate in sympathy with the woes and joys of your fellow-men. Fill the World with Love. Love will warn you against advising another to do something which you yourself are unwilling to do; your conscience will tell you that you are living in a lie!”
– Sathya Sai Baba
“If a wave of service sweeps over the land, catching everyone in its enthusiasm, it will be able to wipe off the mounds of hatred, malice and greed that infest the World. Attune your hearts so that it will vibrate in sympathy with the woes and joys of your fellow-men. Fill the World with Love. Love will warn you against advising another to do something which you yourself are unwilling to do; your conscience will tell you that you are living in a lie!”
– Sathya Sai Baba
“Panic causes tunnel vision. Calm acceptance of danger allows us to more easily assess the situation and see the options”
– Simon Sinek
“Panic implies that there is no rational thought taking place. That we are frozen and incapable of adjusting. Powerless to logic, and subject to seemingly unthinkable behavior.”
– Anthony Scaramucci
“Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination”
– Christian Nestell Bovee
“Build each other up! I was raised to believe there’s enough sun for everyone.”
– Trace Ellis Ross
“There’s enough on this planet for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never have enough.”
– Oprah Winfrey
“We should act on the principle that we should conduct ourselves towards others in the manner we would like them to behave towards us. If we desire that others should respect us or honour us, we should behave likewise towards others. You cannot expect courtesy or regard from others if you don’t show courtesy or regard to others. There can be no one way traffic in life.”
– Sathya Sai Baba
This is an opportunity to focus on negative emotions that are arising, e.g. fear (panic), greed, envy & jealousy, selfishness. The example below is for fear, but can be used for any of the other emotions that students identify as having arisen for them. These scripts can be read aloud, or audio-recorded and listened to repeatedly.
Close your eyes and take some slow, deep breaths. As you breathe in, imagine you are breathing in positive feelings and as you breathe out, imagine you are letting negative feelings go. Sometimes we do feel negative things, and it is important for us to acknowledge them and be aware of them, so in this visualisation we are going to think about the fear that is around us now.
Think about any fear that you are feeling. Think about how it feels in your body. Where in your body is it settled? What does it feel like? Does it have a colour? A shape? Imagine that you welcome it….. talk to it and ask it what message it has for you. Listen to the message that this feeling is giving you.
Next, think about what is the opposite of fear, and how does that feel? Allow this feeling to settle in your body. Think about where it is settled…. What it feels like…. What colour and shape it is.
Next, think about what is the opposite of fear, and how does that feel? Allow this feeling to settle in your body. Think about where it is settled…. What it feels like…. What colour and shape it is.
Imagine yourself going backwards and forwards between the feelings of fear and the opposite feelings. You feel utterly safe going back and forth. Ask yourself, “Which do I want to have in my life right now?”
Sit in a comfortable position in a favourite place. Close your eyes and relax. Invite the feeling of loneliness. Recognise where in your body it begins, and focus there. Feel as if you are right in the middle of the loneliness, that it is completely engulfing you. If you feel pain or fear, allow it to be there. Do not try to distract or suppress it. If the loneliness wants to grow stronger, invite it to do so. If it wants to increase, allow it to do so in just the same way as you would allow the feeling of happiness to increase. Comfort yourself in the knowledge that pain is just as natural a feeling as happiness, and that we can learn and grow from experiencing it. As it grows, continue to feel yourself right in the middle of it, getting smaller and smaller. Here might be a time when you feel as if the pain will never go away, that it will always be with you, but even then try to have courage and allow it to vent its full strength. As long as you don’t try to fight with it or make it stop, the loneliness feeling will eventually find that you are not struggling to defeat it and, because there is no conflict, it will subside and withdraw.
Imagine that you are looking deeply inside your own solar plexus area, a beautiful bright yellow circle, as light as the sun, until your eye settles on any place where incompleteness lies. As you look at this spot with your mind’s eye, your higher intelligence might start to give your conscious mind messages about why you are feeling incomplete. As an example, this might be because, as a young child, you were not able to feel whole unless you were receiving approval from another person. It might be because you have only ever experienced the temporary euphoria which comes from an external source, and do not know about the feeling of true inner bliss.
When you have found your place of incompleteness, you are able to heal that fragmented circle inside yourself, and make it whole. Concentrate your mind’s eye on these broken structures, and allow fresh, golden light to penetrate you from the sun. Direct this light to the spot where the broken structures are, and allow it to fill up the holes and spaces. As you do this, try to maintain a picture of a complete, whole, golden circle at the spot in your solar plexus on which you have been concentrating.
Some activities related to Covid-19 can be found at https://economistfoundation.org/resources/ – some of these have a values focus
