Growing In A Circle Of Friends

Dr. Michael LaitmanToday we resemble a malignant tumor that is destroying its environment. Eventually, when it will have nothing more to devour, the body will die and so will the tumor. We are in the same mutual relations with nature—our ego swallows its environment.

How can we build an environment that will turn us into people who mutually complete one another? This is the problem of modern education: how to change man? Basically the current crisis is a social, anthropological crisis.

We suddenly realize that we haven’t been taught how to be human either in the true sense of the word. We all graduated from schools where we studied different subjects. For years teachers stood in front of us and lectured us and then expected good grades on tests. They didn’t teach us to establish the right relations among us, they didn’t teach us true values, and they didn’t explain how to understand those around us or even ourselves.

I don’t even know the basics of my psychology. Why am I the way I am? What is going on inside me? What determines the decisions I make? What is my way of thinking based on? Where do all the new desires I feel come from? What is the source of my internal urges and impulses? We were not taught all of this. On the contrary, no one bothered to teach us how to mutually connect correctly, and today we see the results of this “education” in our daily life.

This is the reason for the emergence of a new science—integral education.

We are seeing an increase in crime, domestic violence, and other social problems that cost us money, energy, and health, and summon fears and uncertainty. If we were free from them, we could release great social powers and would save billions on improving our lives.

According to integral education, the person himself should never be the actual direct target. We should only give him good examples, even without words. This is how a child looks at grown ups, imitates their actions, and thus grows. If we place him among animals he will be like them. So the good future of our society lies in setting the right environment for a person.

We actively develop this method and teach it to our children after school, who a person is, what his psychology is, how he makes decisions, why he thinks about himself and about others the way he does, why he considers certain people as his friends and others as his enemies, etc.

We teach the kids to sit in a circle, not behind desks, and we have discussions. If someone makes a mistakes or does something wrong, we set up a kind of a courtroom in which the kids, each one in his turn, play the roles of the judge, the lawyers, the witnesses, the spectators, and the jury.

Changing roles enables each one to look at him or herself and at others from the side, by playing different roles and by checking who is right. Thanks to this role play, a young person begins to understand others and realizes that there can also be different perspectives. Besides, we teach the kids that every problem needs to be solved together.

Eventually they develop integrally, understanding how to establish the right relationships among them. Then it is much easier for a child to keep the good relations with everyone. By “being in the shoes of another,” he sees that he cannot do anything and shouldn’t do anything with his evil inclination that he should only rise above it in good relations with others.

Thus the kids are coordinated with nature; having both the positive and the negative sides and the balance between them creates life. Just as our heart constantly pulses and the lungs contract and expand: Everything works in a harmony of opposites: The minus and the plus constantly change. So instead of destroying our ego, we have to use it correctly with the help of the other force. When we balance them our life becomes harmonious.

Thus our kids receive a wonderful “bonus” in their development. Thanks to that, their grades improve at school and some of them are accepted to university at the age of 13. This is because the integral education opens up such abilities in a person about which he didn’t even think of before.

We know that a person’s brain uses only about 3-5% of its potential, while here the capacity suddenly grows thanks to the fact that it works with two forces, balancing them.

At the same time, there is less violence in the classroom, the violent arguments cease and the individual outbursts end quickly, enabling a person to learn from that since the kids immediately discuss it in a circle.

As to the teacher, he isn’t above the students, but rather sits together with them on the same level. His or her role is to start the discussion and to guide it in the right direction. In the ancient world, people used to study this way, by talks and discussions. Thanks to that a person acquires positive creative power.
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From the Lecture in Chile 5/1/12, “Reaching the Internal Connection

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