Greetings and Opening prayer Hammed
Third: the spiritist teachers should also go through the trail after all adolescents passed on it; therefore, they should not do all the tasks listed.
First: Perform the following technique (as explained below). Tell the young people: "Here you have a route, you will need to go through it; one at a time. you will find some tasks on the way, indicating things for you to do." Important: Don’t say in the instructions that the tasks they will find throughout the route indicate things they WILL HAVE to do (these are merely suggested tasks; they are not mandatory for this technique).
Note: we suggest that someone (may be an adolescent or a spiritist teacher) goes through the route before everyone else doing everything that is being suggested throughout it. This will help prevent the first young person who is asked to pass through the route to choose not to do the tasks. This will induce others not to do them; the purpose/intention of the technique would then be lost.
If everyone does all tasks displayed in the route, please get another person (perhaps one the spiritist teachers who is also coordinating this class) to pass throughout the route but only doing a few tasks.
Organize the track where there should be some tasks displayed, such as:
1 - Crouch walk until the next task.
2 - Eat a biscuit and make a gesture to the person behind you.
3 - Walk on one foot to the next task.
4 – Drink a glass of water.
5 - Walking around the chair three times.
6 - Jump over the obstacles with both feet simultaneously. (at least 3 obstacles; place 3 piles of boxes on the way).
Second: every young person should get a message from a box after they pass throughout the course. All messages must contain the following:
"Your primary commitment is with yourself. Your most important task on Earth is to develop your individuality in the course of your evolutionary journey; you are the only one prepared for this. Your duty is to rediscover what is true for you and not to hide your feelings from anyone or yourself, but to have the freedom and confidence in your personal relationships to decide to follow the direction you choose. We ‘should not be’ what the society wants to us to be or defines as being ‘right’. We must understand that our goals and purposes of life have value only to us; those of others are specific for them."
The adolescents will probably complain because the spiritist teachers haven’t performed all tasks throughout the route. The spiritist teachers will then ask:
Why did you do all that was written in the circuit?
Did anyone tell you to do so?
Did you know why you were doing those tasks?
Did you wonder if those tasks were useful or if you really wanted to do them?
Fourth: Mention that sometimes people are very concerned with following ideas that are socially accepted; doing certain things because we learned that it was the best for us. Ask if they ever stopped to wonder if everything we do and think is in accordance with what we consider to be important to us. Perhaps many of us simply just "go with the flow"? Talk about the importance of listening to our ill, especially at the time we need to make choices that’ll impact out future (the profession the adolescents will choose to follow, for example).
Fifth: ask every young person to talk about religious rituals they are aware of and that are practiced without knowing the reason why (many young people belonged to other religions before knowing Spiritism). Remember that no one needs to mention how the religion is called; only the rituals involved.
Sixth: talk about the rituals and prohibitions that we don’t have in Spiritism. Read and comment on questions 653 and 654 from The Spirits’ Book.
External Acts of Adoration – taken from The Spirits’ Book by Allan Kardec.
653. Are external manifestations essential to adoration?
"True adoration is in the heart. In all your actions remember that the Master's eyes is always upon you."
- Are external acts of worship useful?
“Yes, if they are not a vain pretence. It is always useful to set a good example; but those who perform acts of worship merely from affectation and for the sake of appearances, and whose conduct belies their seeming piety, set a bad example rather than a good one, and do more harm than they imagine."
654. Does God accord a preference to those who worship Him according to any particular mode?
"God prefers those who worship Him from the heart, with sincerity, and by doing what is good and avoiding what is evil, to those who fancy they honour Him by ceremonies which do not render them any better than their neighbours.
"All men are brothers, and children of God; He calls to Him all who follow His laws, whatever may be the form under which they show their obedience.
"He who has only the externals of piety is a hypocrite; he whose worship is only a pretence, and in contradiction with his conduct, sets a bad example.
"He who professes to worship Christ, and who is proud, envious, and jealous, who is hard and unforgiving to others, or ambitious of the goods of earth, is religious with the lips only, and not with the heart. God, who sees all things, will say to him, 'He who knows the truth, and does not follow it, is a hundredfold more guilty in the evil he does than the ignorant savage, and will he treated accordingly in the day of retribution.' If a blind man runs against you as he goes by, you excuse him; but if the same thing is done by a man who sees, you complain, and with reason.
"Do not ask, then, if any form of worship be more acceptable than another; for it is as though you asked whether it is more pleasing to God to be worshipped in one tongue rather than in another. Remember that the hymns addressed to Him can reach Him only through the door of the heart.".
Closing prayer
Spiritist Teachers: Carina and Roberson.
Translation: Carolina von Scharten, London, linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.
