Class exercise: Teacher-led. The Ingredients Wheel (Pictured here - The ten main ingredients are now written onto the wheel). Spin the Wheel. Notice that the faster it spins, the more we are blinded; we cannot see or comprehend the ingredients because of how they all work together. This confusion causes us to underestimate, underanalyze, and grow accustomed to these ingredients. We have never been able to slow things down, and to analyze the ingredients deeply enough or to tie them directly back to any singular source of truth, or grounding authority, which may cause us to have a more unified vision of how to behave toward one another.  

Hard To Believe! (exercise)

(Participant Cards) 

• It's hard to believe that what we say matters that much to the lives of people whom we do not even know, or that we have to work so hard as individual citizens to advance humankind or be a cause of its destruction. 

• It’s hard to believe so many fine people born into the world can have so much capacity for greatness, yet turn from good to bad, from light to dark, from positive to negative.

• It’s hard to believe so many of us lose the battle with our divided minds and become unbalanced, either too far left or too far right, too conservative or too liberal.

•  It’s hard to believe that the uncaring attitude of so few becomes the uncaring attitude of so many.

•  It’s hard to believe that it’s our failure to pay attention to how we take the “slide” and become detached from virtue, that we end up with millions of narcissists running around with too much self-confidence who are walking all over millions of super empaths who have too little. 

• It's hard to believe that it’s not in our nature to be imbalanced.

•  It's hard to believe that being balanced in all things is our calling and our destiny, and if we cut off extremism, we will cut off hate.

•  It's hard to believe the unknown creator of all things would pack our lives full of so many obstacles, and would make the traits we need to be successful the hardest ones to build and maintain!

•  It’s hard to believe that our purpose is to carry out our creator's intentions.

• “It is hard to believe that the guy who created this course simply pulled together all of the world's most practical wisdom and delivered it to us on a silver platter.” 

Yet it's all true. 

(Participant Cards)

• What would be so bad if we were to teach and learn how gifted we really are, that we have incredible capacity to be good, not only for ourselves, but also for others, that our purpose in this life is to act on these gifts?

• What would be so bad if we finally wed ourselves formally to these natural laws? 

• What would be so bad for us to teach and learn that it matters greatly how we treat other people in this life, and how to treat each other as equals? 

• What would be so bad about being modest and moderate, and being humble and not arrogant? 

• What would be so bad to live life with awe and wonder for all those things that we will never know, and with a duty and responsibility to a collective higher calling? 

• What would be so bad A life full of eternal optimism, instead of a life defined by our lowest moments and worst traits! 

(All Together) What would be so bad? 

Finally, we need to explore the idea of there being a natural order to things, and the idea that within this natural order, all living things have a true essence, and when we act according to this true essence, we create a positive reality for ourselves and the world around us. 

(Participants continued)

• Proof that there is a predestined path for human conduct, which we are not following, is all around us. 

• It's in the eyes of the hater. 

•  It's in the wars we fight. 

• It's in the tears we shed after school shootings and other tragedies. 

• It's in the help we give to each other after such tragedies. 

• It's in the frustration so many of us feel about this underperforming society we live in. 

(All Together): “It's in the strange feeling we all have that there must be a better way!” 

Class goes back outside. When immersed in nature. Discuss The Three Main Course Contentions:

1. When we are born, we have more good traits than bad ones. 

2. Loss of our good traits is learned, and is therefore preventable.

3. Humility, balance, and responsibility are a framework that has proven over thousands of years to create a positive result for us personally and a positive reality as a society. 

4. What about this idea that we have a true nature, and this includes having a true calling and destiny, within a natural order to things?  What about the idea that disorder in our society is directly tied to our defying our true calling as human beings, and or violating a certain set of rules or laws for how we are supposed to behave within the natural order.

Discuss:

• Is it true or false that for the most part, we will do better in our lives, and have more success and happiness both individually and collectively,  when we are humble or rather arrogant?  

• What about modesty and moderation, rather than being extreme? Do we do better in life, both as individuals and collectively as a society, when we seek the middle between two opposite extremes? 

• What proof in our society or examples from our lives can we offer to counter or prove the contentions being made?

• “Could it be that only our fighting against a force as powerful as nature could produce the totally nonsensical, illogical, and divided times that we’ve been living through?”  

• Could it be true, what the documentary film Fantastic Truths said, that “the ultimate species has been given the ultimate challenge”, and that if we approach our whole lives according to that dictum, that will create a most rewarding and positive reality for ourselves and the world around us. 

• We will never live the life intended for us until we commit as a society to the idea that there is a path intended for us. “

• Can there ever be normal, as it relates to being a citizen? How will I live my life differently?

• “For neither wilt thou do anything well as it pertains to man without at the same time having a reference for things divine.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3-13.

• “There is nothing so wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America”, Bill Clinton, January 20, 1993