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7 Week Study Program for
"The Bond"

By Lynne McTaggart


WEEK ONE
Talk for Speakers
Study Group Material



Week One Message for Speakers

The Bond: The Pull of Wholeness

Preparation: Prologue, introduction and chapters 1-4 of The Bond

SUMMARY:
Every human story tells us that we were born to be selfish and that we must be competitive in order to survive. But the latest scientific evidence suggests that nature’s most basic drive is not competition, but wholeness. All living beings, including human beings, have been hardwired to seek connection virtually above any other impulse — even at personal cost. Rather than a will to dominate, the essential impulse of all of life is a will to connect. When we change our story about who we are, we change our perception of our role in our community.

FULL TEXT:

This weekly topic introduces the basic principles of The Bond: Nature’s most basic drive is for global cooperation and unity, not competition.

For centuries, Western culture has taught us to think of ourselves as individuals. Competition, assumed to be the most fundamental of human urges, is the basis of the societies of most modern developed countries. It is the engine of our economy, and it is assumed to be the basis of most of our relationships — in business, in our neighborhoods, even with our closest friends.

An entirely new scientific story is emerging that challenges these assumptions. Frontier scientists have found evidence that things in the universe are not “individual” in any sense of the term. In every area of our lives, from the smallest particles of our being to our relationships and communities, there is a Bond – a connection so integral and profound that there is no longer a clear demarcation between the end of one thing and the beginning of another.

And rather than a will to dominate, the essential impulse of all of life is a will to connect.
Nature has not only designed a vast interconnected superorganism but also hardwired us to share, care and be fair.


These discoveries hold not only vast implications about how we choose to define ourselves, but also vast implications about how we ought to live our lives. All of our societal creations, invested as they are in competition and individuality, run counter to our most fundamental being. A drive for cooperation and partnership, not dominance, is fundamental to us and all other living things. In fact the crises we face today have occurred precisely because most of us in the developed world are not living in harmony with our true nature.

The point of this sermon is to both to recognize the new story – and the discovery that life has been designed for connection, not competition – and to suggest the enormity of the implications this new story has on our relationships, communities and societal structures.

Possible points to cover:

• Subatomically, there is no such thing as an individual thing. Even a subatomic particle is not a thing, but a relationship.

• Our bodies are created from ‘outside in’ - through so many complex interactions with their environment that they cannot be considered to exist independently.

• Human beings, like all living things, are part of a vast, intergalactic superorganism. Our health, our mental stability, and possibly even much of what we consider our uniquely individual motivation are partly at the whim of solar activity.

• We understand the actions of others by simulating the entire experience in our brains via mirror neurons from a personal vantage point — as though it were happening to us.




 

Week One Lesson for Study Groups

The Superorganism: Changing Our Story

Reading guide: prologue, introduction and chapters 1-4 of The Bond.

This weekly topic introduces the basic principles of The Bond: that Nature’s most basic drive is for global cooperation and unity, not competition. The Bond discloses that things in the universe are not “individual” in any sense of the term. In every area of our lives, from the smallest particles of our being to our relationships and communities, there is a Bond – a connection so integral and profound that there is no longer a clear demarcation between the end of one thing and the beginning of another.

Nature has designed us as a vast interconnected superorganism and hardwired us to share, care and be fair, and not to compete. Everything, from subatomic particles to simple-celled organisms to the most distant stars in the galaxy, all are part of this indivisible Bond. This week, we will explore the basic principles of The Bond:

• how all of life has been designed for connection, not competition
• why it’s not the “thing,” but the space between, that matters

Weekly Goal: to change our story – to understand how all of life has been designed for connection, not competition, and to explore how a new story of who we are changes how we should relate to others, in our relationships and communities.

Discussion Topics:

• Discuss the implications of new discoveries in physics showing that there is no such thing as an individual thing, but only relationships.
Challenge: Discuss how it would change your view of the world to think of everything in the world as one interconnected whole.

• Explore the idea that we are created ‘from outside in’ – that our bodies are created through so many complex interactions with their environment that they cannot be considered to exist independently.
Challenge: How has your Bond with your environment changed aspects of your body and your health, compared with those of your parents?

• Discuss the idea that we are part of an ‘intergalactic superorganism’ and that our health, our mental stability, and possibly even much of what we consider our uniquely individual behavior or motivation are partly at the whim of solar activity.
Challenge: How does this change our views of human motivation and current notions of individualism?

• We now understand that we understand the actions of others by simulating the entire experience in our brains via mirror neurons — as though it were happening to us.
Challenge: How does this knowledge affect our understanding of our own thought processes as a wholly individual process?

• How have ideas about individualism and competition in nature affected our societal structures? How have Darwinian theories permeated our everyday lives? In what areas of your life do you feel competition most acutely?
Challenge: How would you change societal structures to be more cooperative?