RSSCanada’s Walk for Values Influences Global Currents
10 AM, Sun, May 31, Dundas Square
Recent pleasant weather systems developing over New Zealand are being traced to Canada! An avalanche in Australia is also suspected of a strong Canadian link. Closer home, reports from the USA suggest a Canadian connection to a new climatic syndrome nicknamed ICx3 (I care 3 ways: for You, I & Mother Earth). Careful investigations track the global developments to a joyful little butterfly that emerged from a cocoon on September 2, 2000 in Toronto and flapped its wings wider in the community in May 2003, and every summer thereafter.
Right from the start, everyone around applauded the butterfly, better known as the Sathya Sai School of Canada, for setting off ripples of smiles, hope and positive energy. Since its first flight of fancy, this learned butterfly soars higher every summer by flapping its wings harder, and thereby setting off enough tiny changes in the atmosphere to alter the path of impending tornadoes. If that wasn’t enough, it is also being credited with generating an avalanche of love that is making its way into lands far away. Birth of a Butterfly By 2003, barely into its third year of operation, North America’s only Human Values Immersion learning model had won the hearts of families whose children were imbibing it. The exuberant parents of the Sathya Sai School of Canada wanted to share the good news of the positive changes in their home life because their child - and by extension, the entire family - had been exposed to universal human values that form the core of the school’s Character Education program. Sathya Sai School parents were keen to share these non-tangible and highly pleasing changes in their domestic climate with the larger community. Hence, the idea of the Walk for Values was born in May 2003. The organizers invited community members from the Malvern area, where the school was then located, to step out and walk with them, pledging a personal commitment to practice a human value of their choice.
Individual: the Key Cell in the Social Organism; They recognized this effort at self-transformation as the catalyst for global renewal, just as the school’s founder and universal world teacher Sri Sathya Sai Baba says, “When individuals change, society will change; and when society changes, the whole world will change. The welfare of the individual is bound with the welfare of society as a whole.” Open to all, it was the world’s first walkathon that involved no money. No monetary pledges were sought for any cause. Neither was it a walk to mark a protest or express anger. Instead, right at its outset, its unique focus spontaneously inspired three thousand kindred spirits to walk shoulder-to-shoulder, raising the level of human consciousness. It united men, women, children and the elderly, as they recognized their responsibility to become the change they wanted to see around them. Positive Global Current Engulfs Caring Citizens
Today, within a short span of 7 years, this one-of-a-kind community outreach project has acquired national and international popularity, inspiring 10 cities in Canada and another dozen cities in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and the city of Chandigarh in India to replicate the event with unprecedented success.
The Walk for Values whirlwind has raised awareness about the relevance of higher values in all fields of life. The event highlights Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s call for including higher values in all human endeavours and intentions. He says, “Politics without principles, Education without character, Science without humanity, and Commerce without morality are not only useless, but positively dangerous.”
This call for practicing values in all areas of human effort becomes particularly pertinent in light of the recent global economic downturn, which many see as an outcome of a deeper moral malaise at all levels of our society, where wealth accumulation is pursued and promoted at any cost.
Toronto’s Pride: Walk for ValuesEven as the event travels a global current, the city of Toronto has much to celebrate at this year’s Walk for Values on Sunday, May 31, 2009. When the 7th annual Walk for Values takes place at 10 AM at downtown’s Yonge-Dundas Square, Toronto will proudly bear the distinction of being the city where this altruistic idea was born and first executed.
Had this butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the cascading effect that followed might have been vastly different. While one such initiative does not cause the avalanche, the flap of Toronto’s wings was an essential part of the initial conditions that bore a far-reaching ripple effect on subsequent events in places such as Auckland & Perth, Sydney & New York, Chandigarh & Vancouver.
Starting the Walk for Values is yet another bright feather in Toronto’s cap. As the epicenter of the valucanic eruption, whose waves of love are washing up on distant shores, Toronto’s Sathya Sai School continues to proceed with passion, spreading the ICx3 climatic syndrome worldwide, tempering the weather systems everywhere with currents of tolerance, acceptance, consideration, ecological responsibility, love, peace, harmony and understanding.
The theme of this year’s Walk for Values is Go Green. If you wish to express your concern for yourself, others and Mother Earth, do join the ICx3 avalanche of love at this year’s Walk for Values. You can register online at: www.walkforvalues.com
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