The Blossoming of Happiness

The Blossoming of Happiness

On the 2^nd of May the Multipurpose Space Art and Values, in partnership with the Institute of Sathya Sai Education of South Europe (ISSE SE), hosted the workshop “The Blossoming of Happiness: Self-awareness and harmony in human relationships, with nature and the universe”, organized within a broader process entitled: Human Values a path for life.

The meeting, took place from 9.00 am to 4.pm and welcomed 25 people involved in educational and socio-community activity. Among them 14 young educators.

Key-speaker was Ms. Fabiana Laruccia, ISSE SE referent for Italy, whose presentation covered a systemic perspective of how our relations (i.e. which make up life as a whole), extend from ourself – to others – to nature and the universe; how everything is interconnected and “One”. A focus on the 5 Human Values was also brought in.

The workshop, divided in two sessions made of both theory and practice, was introduced by the story “The World in Pieces”, which stressed the meeting’s leading focus; to recover the “pieces” of our humanness, i.e. the implications and sense of what being human stands for, and to do so by not focusing on diversity (what separates us), but on Unity, i.e. on the universal Human Values that we have in common. By bringing the separate pieces together into 1 piece – the end result is coherence, harmony, happiness and Peace.

The practical activities had both moments of individual reflection and small team sharing/break-out activities; the groups shared their findings in the plenary actively and joyfully.

The workshop closed with the story by Shel Silverstein “The missing piece meets the big O”, which emphasized how we have the resources and potential to live coherent, happy and wholesome lives, and a key word from the participants, that summarized the sense and impact of the meeting for each one of them.

Handouts included: a list of Human Values, a copy of the first issue of Education Today – Sathya Sai Education in Human Values – in Italian, a small leaflet on the “benefits of Human Values” from an adult-teacher perspective and the children’s perspective, and a book mark as a reminder of the story “The World in Pieces”, which reads: Peace is a “two-sided coin” – “on one side there is the world, on the other there is me. When I am happy the world is happy. When the world is happy, I am happy. Peace is made together and it begins with me”.  

Finally, the workshop was an opportunity for Ms. Laruccia to offer an overview of the 3 Units of the training course designed by the ISSE SE of Italy for teachers and educators in public schools and launched in 2021 in Italy. This original course which is connected to Civic Education and Sustainable Development and has been accredited by the Italian Ministry of Education and Merit. The three units cover 1)P.A.C.E. – an acronym for the word PEACE – which stands for Pensieri in Armonia, Comportamento in Equilibrio (Thoughts in Harmony, Behaviour in Balance, 2) Ethics and Good Communication 3) Harmony between Man and Nature, and Human Values for the Planet.

The day ended by picking a human value to cherish… and work with.

The Blossoming of Happiness