Audio Version Of The Blog – 10.01.12

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Expanding Your Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean “to develop the state of unity that we have passed?”

Answer: To develop a state means not to be afraid that it will disappear and at the same time to be afraid it will, to try to pull it and to try to push it away, to flirt with it, to study it. Similarly, when tasting something new, you do not swallow this piece, but want to know what it is: how much salt, pepper, and sugar it contains, what the sweetness, moisture, texture of this product is.

You want to feel who it reminds you of: your mother, your grandmother who prepared these dishes or something else for you. That is, you have to play with it, you have to produce various information records in yourself: what it looks like, what it can be compared to, how I can hold it, let it go, and return again. These states allow a person to expand his soul.

The soul is the element that contains two opposite forces: egoism and altruism. When a person has only one ego, he has no soul. One force can exist only as a point. When he starts to develop the second force and contrast it with the first one, then these two opposing forces form some volume between them.
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From a Virtual Lesson 9/23/12

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There Is No Education Without Censorship

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: While designing the model of our social policy we began to think about what we can do with regards to the external informative influence of TV, newspapers etc. We have worked out several models.

One of the models is total openness, but it is not suitable since a person is easily tempted and remains, as you have said correctly, on the animal level.

The model of total secrecy doesn’t work either since “the forbidden fruit is sweet.” There is a barrier, as with the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain, where information doesn’t seep in, etc.

The only model that could be fulfilled is having no censorship at all. But every source of information is accepted as reliable to some extent by the internal censors. A person can choose which source of information he wants to use: those which he fully trusts or those which he doesn’t. But this model didn’t work either because there is no education or teaching in it.

Answer: I believe that this model will not work because we have to build our own influence on the environment according to our teaching and education, by withdrawing from external influences.

Question: Withdrawing? But the “forbidden fruit is sweet.”

Answer: There is no “forbidden fruit,” since the perspective of my society is that there is no “forbidden fruit.” I have to withdraw since in a state of weakness I can deteriorate and ruin the whole process of my changing from an egoist to an altruist.

So there should be a system that selects good and right programs from the ones that exist today, and it should be clear and accurate. There should be a special filter, censorship.

There is no education without censorship since any form of education is under the influence of the environment. Here you are providing a person with such an environment that without censorship your efforts may be futile.

On the other hand, fewer people may enter different Internet sites and TV channels full of rubbish as a result of our intensive education and other external conditions. But we must help him; otherwise it will be ineffective, because as long as the ego is active in a person, it will obligate him to roam through all the garbage on the Internet.

We voluntarily agree to the filter. No one is forcing us, but it is one of our conditions.
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From KabTV’s “The Integral World: The Formula of Integral Society,” 7/1/12

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Unquestionable Benefit

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Suppose I have certain resources and I have to invest them in integral education and teaching. A government official comes to me and persuades me to invest the money in a certain school promising that in five years it will be different than other schools. On the basis of what criterion can this difference be seen?

Answer: A government official or a manager will not see anything. A manager is a mechanical egoist who cannot see anything from within his ego. He is only interested in acting before his supervisors and climbing to the next level in the hierarchy of the egoistic pyramid. He will look at people dealing with integral education and teaching as people who are studying totally unrealistic systems; who are solving some internal social problems or individual emotional problems. He wouldn’t care about it. He is interested in figures: How much did I invest, what did I get, how much will I put in my pocket, how much will I give to the management? These people cannot manage anything, not to mention deciding anything!

So we are asking him to do one thing only: to help us with the administration, that’s all. We have trained teachers, educators, lecturers. We have prepared all that is necessary. Let us work in this environment and help us in that, which means provide us with some resources on the media, on local TV, at the entrance to schools, universities, etc.; we will do all the rest. When will you see the results? In five weeks, not in five years!

You will see an immediate result in the first month of our work. After one lesson, you will see totally different people. You will see how they change immediately.

Of course, it is great work to change human nature, but the first changes are immediate. Suppose a person is seriously ill and you suddenly notice a great improvement in his condition, an inner adaptation, understanding, recognition, and feelings.

People will not go out to the town squares to shatter windows anymore. They will begin to maintain a clean environment and the incidence of violence and street crime will decrease sharply.

You will profit economically, qualitatively and quantitatively and then we try to invest the resources that were saved in integral education and teaching.

At first we don’t need anything at all. In a couple of weeks without investing anything, you will find out that it works: on a certain group, in a certain kindergarten, at school, on students, in some plant or in a small neighborhood. We will start with four to five places in which we will work with the people and after several lessons you will see what happens to them and how they change.

At the same time, you will be able to accurately calculate your economic profit, not to mention the good atmosphere that is created and all the other things.

The point isn’t even the economic benefit, but in the fact that the accelerating crisis will bring millions into the streets and you will have to do something with them. These aren’t just people whom you have to feed so that they won’t eat you, but people will be murdered, robbed, raped and will burn everything around them. Having nothing to do, they will simply degenerate. We, on the other hand, offer you to raise people to a higher level.

So the benefit of implementing integral education and teaching is unquestionable.
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From KabTV’s “The Integral World: The Formula of Integral Society,” 7/1/12

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Collective And Spiritual Intelligence

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Stephen Pratt, an associate professor, Arizona State University): “Scientists at Arizona State University have discovered that ants utilize a strategy to handle ‘information overload.’ Temnothorax rugatulusants, commonly found living in rock crevices in the Southwest, place the burden of making complicated decisions on the backs of the entire colony, rather than on an individual ant. …

“Previous research has shown that ant colonies have the ability to compare the quality of two potential nest sites – even if no single ant visits both sites. Pratt and Sasaki hypothesized that a colony could choose a high-quality nest from many more options more effectively than individual ants, because each member of the colony assesses only a small part, or portion, of available sites, and then shares the information with the entire colony. …

“The pair designed experiments with artificial nest sites to evaluate the ants’ decision-making abilities. Both colonies and individual ants were given two levels of tasks. Ants had to choose between two nests, or they had to choose among eight nests. In both experiments, half the nests were unsuitable. Nests are frequently chosen based on entrance and cavity size, as well as darkness and other features.

“Researchers discovered that individual ants made much worse decisions when faced with eight options rather than two, meaning that they experienced cognitive overload. Colonies, on the other hand, did equally well with either two or eight options, showing that they could handle the harder problem as a collective.

The study shows what Pratt believes to be the answer to two questions: What do you get out of being a collective intelligence? And secondly, why and how is a group smarter than an individual?

“‘Living in a group is costly in many ways, so ants must get some benefit from doing it,” said Pratt. ‘By sharing the burden of decision-making, colonies avoid the mistakes that a solitary animal makes when taking on too much information. What’s great about these ants is that we can see exactly how they do this, by making sure that no ant has to process more information than it is able to.’

“Pratt added that this is one problem ants can solve, but that there are other problems ants face that we might be able to learn from.”

My Comment: In nature, preference is given only to a group, not to the individual, because there is no free will there. But it is the opposite on the spiritual path: the choice is up to the individual. So it is in human society, all the decisions must be made together, through the average result, but the direction of the spiritual movement should be given by the one who sees this path, the one who has already passed; that is, the spiritual path is dictated by the leader (Moses).
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