Living Lightly on the Earth
Ceiling on Desires
About ten years ago, Lord Sathya Sai launched the Ceiling on Desires in order to teach us that spiritual growth was impossible unless we undertook the personal discipline of reducing waste in our lives, specifically in reference to money, food, time and energy. He also says there is no difference between Him and us. He also tells us that we are all One. So, any waste that we create causes harm to the entire universe. A poet-farmer writes: “There is an uncanny resemblance between our behavior towards each other and our behavior towards the earth.” In her booklet, Ceiling on Desires, Phyllis Krystal says, “Baba has pointed out that particularly in the West, there is a shocking amount of waste and that we must learn how to discipline ourselves and to impose limits on waste.” Each action that we take must be done in loving awareness of all its consequences upon ourselves as individuals and upon our family, community and the world.
A few facts:
In the last 20 years, there has been a 45% rise in per capita consumption in the U.S. In the last 30 years, there has been a 40% reduction in time Americans spend with their children. The average American spends 6 hours a week shopping, and about 40 minutes each week playing with his/her children.
Stepping Stones—Shopping
Buy grains, beans, herbs and other dried goods loose, in large quantities, preferably from health or natural food stores. This offers many advantages:
- Reduced time spent shopping
- Larger stock of basic foods in the home, reducing anxiety about food planning, purchasing and cooking.
- Reduced packaging that would otherwise end in the waste stream, as these foods are purchased in plastic bags that can often be reused (bring own canvas or string bags and so reduce take-home plastic or paper bags; unnecessary boxes and other packaging is eliminated.)
- Drivers reduce use of gasoline, thus helping the environment (plan ahead; use the quickest and the most economical route, combining several errands at the same time.)
- Frequently, organic foods can be purchased at these stores (freedom from chemicals benefits our health and supports farmers who are caring for the Earth rather than seriously harming her with toxic substances.)
- These stores generally sell less of those non-essential items that might be tempting to us but lead to waste of our money and possibly our health.
~Sheila Brown, Manhattan
