Integral Upbringing, Talk 5


Integral Upbringing

A Series of Talks between Michael Laitman and Psychologist Anatoly Ulianov

Talk No. 5
December 13, 2012

The Solution to the Problems Is Transforming the Schools

Question: Some people have already started practically implementing the method of integral upbringing. They have gained the first experience and made the first mistakes. I would like to discuss this aspect using an example of a specific situation.

An acquaintance of mine started raising her daughter using this methodology. She breastfed her daughter until the girl was almost two years old. Then she raised her according to the developmental phases: zero to three, three to six, and from six to nine years. Everything went well until the child started school. The girl stood out from everyone; she was more open, uninhibited, and more positive, and she quickly ran into powerful resistance from the regular environment. Later on schoolteachers joined this opposition as well.

A very serious situation arose, where the mother and child were forced to struggle against the system because the creation of a separate environment, the kind that we spoke about, is currently unfeasible. What would you recommend? How do we help these people?

Answer: If you’re talking about Russia, I have a few examples in this country of working precisely according to the principles of the integral system. This isn’t our system, but they are all very similar.

Their classes are more like extracurricular activities, where a child doesn’t sit in front of blackboard and teacher, but develops through free movement and discussions. He or she grasps the world through examples and not through dry lesson explanations that he has to memorize to pass the test the next day, and forget right after. There are many such examples in Russia, and they are well known there. But all of them are still just “black sheep.”

Undoubtedly, if you breastfeed a child until they’re two years old, as has been instilled in human nature since ancient times, then he or she receives all the necessary nutrients and micro-elements that help them resist all the problems that could exist at that age.

We are afflicted by many illnesses, not because they are particularly virulent, and not because we need to build immunity to them, but because we don’t receive enough mother’s milk in infancy. Today a baby is separated from the breast practically a week or a month after birth, if it’s even breastfed at all. That’s why all the problems begin precisely with not nursing.

Since the goal of integral upbringing is to establish maximum closeness to nature, in our family, in our domestic order, we need to adhere to the same natural state that we observe in the natural interaction among animals. We don’t have this instinct, but we have to awaken it in ourselves on the basis of scientific information about what existed in previous centuries, instead of considering them anachronistic. That’s first.

Second, an absolute majority of parents are unhappy with scholastic education because of the problems that currently exist in schools, classrooms, and society. A vast majority of children would gladly not go to school and instead would arrange a completely different method of upbringing and education for themselves.

Try to discuss with the children the fact that over the course of the year they will have to learn a little more about the way the world works and the way we and our society’s laws are structured. After all, in the course of 10-12 school years, we are preparing a human being for life. What should he or she know? How should they learn to interact with others? First and foremost, it is necessary for them to be able to help themselves, to help others, and know who to receive help from others. That is, everything is practically built on unification, on correct involvement and interaction with one another. Does school teach that? No!

We are preparing common craftsmen so that they could graduate from some vocational school, acquire some occupation or specialization, and earn a living for themselves. We don’t think about what’s next besides a salary.

Even about earning an income we don’t think much because we don’t morally prepare a person for that. He strives to evade any responsibilities that are related to society, parents, and family; he doesn’t wish to build one.

We need to think about how to transform the school. Our goal shouldn’t be to subordinate a child to the school, to such despotic or old German system, like when peasants became factory workers and nothing more, but to completely transform the school!

Aside from our integral approach, there are many similar methods. I won’t go into their comparative analysis, but they are all alike in that first and foremost, they think about the person, and not about what you need to cram into him, what mass of quickly forgettable knowledge.

That’s why today many are leaning towards their children not attending school at all. There is the Internet, distance learning, and home schooling. And anyway, a mother should stay at home with her children and not be away at work. A father has to provide for the family, and a mother should care for the home and raise children. Then it would be a normal family.

In other words, we should slowly climb down from the tree of the “realization of evil” and return to normal and balanced systems of mutual interactions. And we should stop crippling poor children! First, parents drag their children to kindergarten, then send them off to school, and they come back bruised from the battle for leadership instead of socializing with the collective. It’s not a collective but an endless battle!

We need to transform schools into something completely different, something humanistic. The state in which it exists today has so outlived itself that it’s painful to look at it.

But since a large amount of money has been poured into education, and enormous masses of people involved have a vested interest in it, they will not give it up easily. And they cannot change either. The educational system is the most ossified system. Educators are people who only know their own lesson and aside from it, no other lessons. That is why this is a very big problem.

Transformation needs to begin with the educators. We need to organize humanities courses and, first and foremost, mandatory integral courses for the body of educators with the aim of transforming them. In parallel to that, we should introduce psychologists and integral upbringing specialists into the school, who will then pursue discussions with students.

Furthermore, we need to introduce classes for instructors who would only be a few years older than their future students, and consequently, could easily develop contact with them and exert a positive influence on them. All this needs to be prepared. Without that our future generation will become the lost generation.

School: The Mirror of The Vices of Society

Question: When we talk about education for adults, there is a fear that people will accuse us of offering something impractical, too detached from reality.

Answer: I totally disagree with you!

Today’s world and the one we propose are absolutely opposed. We must face the truth! It is actually true. There should not be partial solutions! I cannot create a school half-humanistic and half-egoistic, the way it is today.

When a young child comes to school, he could be beaten and robbed; he could be made into anything, compelled to do anything by force, pressure, influence, and some values. He is forced to be the same as everybody else with the worst examples. He can become attached to smoking and drinking alcohol, not to mention the threat of drugs! School is a school of depravity, a school of vanity! One is driving a car, the other gets there on foot.

All the evils of modern society are manifested in children at school in the cruelest way. We need to fight against this! We should start doing something about this. They are our children!

Since we have become insensitive egoists, we treat children likewise, pushing them away as if saying: “Go to your school. They should deal with you there.”

Instead of raising a child as a normal person and creating a future for him, the next society, we neither create society nor make a person a human being.

It does not matter what will be. That is why we do not want to bear children. We simply exist and go with the flow, which carries us to a huge waterfall, to fall into the abyss.

It Starts with the Individual

Question: When a person comes to courses of integral education, we will start by telling him about the wonderful integral world that we already are starting to build. Yet now, he lives in a horrible world that puts pressure on him. Where can he find the motivation in order to stay on this path?

Answer: We must educate people, and they will build their world. When large masses of people gradually begin changing, this naturally will bring a change in the state of society, its structure, and in the interaction among the adults. When these “grownup children” grow up, everything will change.

However, we still must begin with the individual since he is the center of everything. Then, public interactions gradually will change. Daycare, school, family, and children’s activities should be interconnected in order to create a generation that will change our world because it will change in the process of maturing.

Re-Educating the Adults

Question: What should be the structure of the integral upbringing? How should we start the education of an adult person?

Answer: Certainly we should be engaged in the education of adults, but we still have to put the maximum attention on the education of children because changing the adults is very hard. On one hand, they feel the entire corruption of the society where they live, and they would like to change it. However, changing the society means changing a person. It’s very difficult to change a person. By taking care of our children (something which is important to us), we will be changing ourselves as well.

Most of us are someone’s parents. When we are involved in building a completely different society for our children, as it is said, “If not for us, then for our children,” when we take care of the next generation and educate it, we will simultaneously start re-educating ourselves.

Question: Does it mean that the course for adults should include a course for the preparation of educators for the kids as well?

Answer: This is a must! The course should include the topics on interaction between the spouses, interaction of a person with the society, with the boss, with employees, and with the children, as well as child education. A person should be connected with everyone in the integral way.

Reflections on Ethics

Question: When a grownup enters a system of upbringing, the first thing that he or she is concerned with are ethical questions: What’s right and what’s wrong? At the same time we know that ethics blocks the development of a person.

Answer: We are categorically against ethics. The problem is that ethics assumes an enormous quantity of various conditions that a person has to memorize and absorb, and thus create his inner “I,” imposed upon him through all possible ethical limitations, becoming “narrow-minded,” fixated, and “packaged” and seemingly interacting with those around him in a precise and correct way. Naturally, in this process he constructs his own image—a black, packed steel “suitcase.”

We are absolutely against this. This is not freedom. A person cannot live like this for long, and if he can, then he loses all sensitivity to perception, sensation, kindness, and mutual understanding. An ethically correct person could decide that somebody should be killed and could easily murder him because this corresponds to the norms accepted in his environment, which he has mastered well. In essence this is fascism, Nazism, all possible forms of utmost extremism, and so on. These forms are the opposite of anarchy.

Here we offer a middle line, a middle state between the two. That is, a person should understand the necessity of each of his ethical positions: Does it correspond to nature, is it acceptable in today’s society and in interactions with those around him? We need to arrange it so that the benefit of society is always placed above that of the individual and in addition, the entire society moves towards an ever-greater integration since this is what nature demands.

Thus, undoubtedly, an ethical framework is necessary, but one that is continuously developing and flexible, existing under self-control and the control of society, without any so-called “sacred cows.” Hence, this is not the ethics offered by the proponents of “Prussian training”: “What we will drill into you will stay with you for life.”

A Petty Thief inside Me

Question: Let’s say that an adult steals something. The usual approach is moralizing and intimidation: “Thou shall not steal! It’s bad, you’ll get arrested.” How can we work with that in an integral system of upbringing?

Answer: We organize a trial. The only question is: Who is under trial?

We shouldn’t hide the fact that each of us has a hidden impulse to steal. Each of us has taken something, has stolen something somewhere, at some point. And even if someone denies that, it simply means that the person is lying to himself and to others, or possibly isn’t even noticing it, which happens often.

“From where do we get this quality? Is it useful or harmful? What does it actually mean, “stealing”? Is it mine or someone else’s? Maybe this isn’t someone else’s?” Initially it is necessary to discern all these primary states and positions based on an absolutely objective picture without emphasizing anyone or anything, abstractly: What are these categories of “stealing,” “honesty,” and so on?

After that we analyze a specific incident, also without relating to any particular person because this could happen to anyone. We require each of the participants to place himself in the shoes of the culprit, to feel it through, to defend himself, to accuse himself, and so on.

We all live through this incident together. These are the conditions that were set up for us, and that is why we need to learn from this example. We should even be grateful to our friend for this act, which we experience as if we committed it ourselves.

Since we are all integrally connected within one system, in one group, we should then ask ourselves: “How could we have brought our friend to such a state?” This means that society is to blame. A person is a reflection of the environment in which he lives. It turns out that quite possibly he isn’t at fault at all! The problem is in us! In other words, any such occasion could help us clarify a lot of problems, to review our values and relationships.

In the end we should come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as individual wrongdoing or individual good, kind acts: All of that is merely a consequence of the influence of the environment. Thus, everyone should be under trial.

If we come to that point, everyone would feel that this petty thief lives inside each of us, and so he manifests in some of us, perhaps in the most impressionable individual. Can you imagine what kind of a field opens up for clarifications and analyses?

However, we must exit this state with only one conclusion: Everyone is to blame! If it’s a group, a society, or a class in which everyone is interconnected and undergoing the process of integral unification, everyone is at fault. There is no such thing that some one person is better or worse: It is all of us who are either better or worse.

Grades have no place here. You cannot give individual grades in such a society because you’re grading the society itself and not an individual.

Question: Does that mean that after the discussion I have to return whatever I stole, or is it sufficient to just come to realization?

Answer: You personally do not need to do anything. This is decided by everyone. You need to clarify everything collectively, and if it’s necessary to pay for the stolen items, then everyone pays together. If we come to a conclusion that everyone is to blame for this action, that means that everyone is responsible for it.

An Incident on the Street

Question: Suppose I witness someone being bullied on the street or at the metro. What should I do? How should I relate to what’s going on before my eyes?

Answer: We are only talking about behavior in an integral society, in groups where we study and practice the introduction of integral relationships. On the street, however, we do not display it in any way. People will not understand us yet.

Everything depends on the society. Suppose that you want to help an old lady who slipped and fell on the ice. There are societies where people may accuse you of something inappropriate. Even the old lady may think that you have decided to use her somehow, to rob her or something like that.

There are also societies where a number of people will rush to help her at once. Meaning, that it depends on where the person is.

So your reaction on the street should in no way be different from the reaction of other people. It would look very strange and incomprehensible to others.

Promoting the Idea of Integral Education

Question: In the process of integral education a person begins to change, and as a consequence, his social environment changes too. Do we have to prepare him or her for that from the very beginning? After all, their previous environment might bombard us with accusations that we are some kind of a sect and that we corrupt people.

Answer: For this we need to precede our practical studies with a large campaign to disseminate the idea of integral education, a campaign that will be and already is based on scientific data, on the direct demands of nature, the surrounding environment, and of our own inner developing nature. After all, we are involuntarily moving towards an integral society anyway.

If we do not correspond to it, things will be bad for us. We have to learn how to be in sync with this new “round” framework that nature is creating around us; nature is driving us into a network of tight interactions. Resistance is useless here.

That’s why we must explain this idea, this opinion, this historical, social, and personal necessity to all of humanity. And afterwards, all our other actions will naturally stream from that and seem correct. People will begin to understand what we are doing and will strive towards it.

If we just demonstrate our actions without explanations, nobody would understand this, and people would greet us with hostility. We would be accused of sectarianism, perhaps of naivety, utopian thinking, and the like.

But if we begin to work with children and gradually instill in them elements of humanism (at least let’s call it that), I doubt that we’ll have any special problems here with society or with parents. And upon showing, after some time, certain positive results, we could then rely on public opinion. That’s why the most fertile soil for our activity is children’s organizations.

But on the other hand, it is the most difficult because access to them is regulated by the state. The government has a right to introduce different programs into schools and to forcefully impose on children whatever is desirable for itself, and not whatever is best for the children. It’s very difficult to fight against this conservative system.

Still, society is fighting, creating private schools and alternative educational methods. In our day, in many countries of the world a child can be educated at home, through the Internet, and take exams remotely. This is already a big plus. This was impossible in the past because laws forbade home schooling.

In One “Cage” with Students

Question: At the beginning of the 20th century, in Russia in particular, there was a widespread campaign to eliminate illiteracy. What seems perfectly natural today back then was received with hostility. Many people refused to send their children to schools and didn’t wish to learn themselves because they considered it a pointless waste of time. Today a similar situation may arise, when the integral education that we are offering could be perceived as something useless, unnecessary. How can we overcome this resistance?

Answer: I think that today a large number of educators, psychologists, and sociologists understand the brewing problem, except they don’t know how to deal with it. It means that it’s necessary to approach them as broadly as possible with explanations.

Teachers empathize with students, and moreover, at times they suffer even more than their pupils. After all, they are forced to exist under constant negative pressure from children, whose beastly egoism, unrestricted by any boundaries, is directed against the teachers. Every student tries to assert before them his or her own independence and striving for self-affirmation.

I think that teachers and educators need some training on this  to be able to discern in a new methodology at least something for their own benefit, something that would allow them to work with children normally.

The work of an educator today is rather difficult, serious, and I would even say risky. A person is subjected to such conditions, such moral pressure that this work could even be called “harmful.” Forty five minutes of being in the classroom with the children generates a lot of stress and enormous strain on the teacher.

Together with the educators, we need to prepare for them a methodological resource that would help them understand that first and foremost, we are concerned with the atmosphere in the classroom, without even changing the class itself yet.

Students cannot get used to integral discourse yet because right now it’s impossible to discuss anything with anyone—it will lead to shouting, shutting each other up, abuse, swearing, and who knows what else. Now the educator at least sits them down, holds them still in some way, and somehow, out of necessity, pacifies them. Meanwhile the pupils are sitting, all miserably, each in his own place, and they wait for this whole ordeal to come to an end.

A slow, smooth transition is needed here. I think that educators will gradually agree with this. They can already see that the current system is not one that has a right to exist in the new generation.

How to Renounce Destructive Desires

Question: If a person goes down the wrong path, say, plunges into alcoholism, then as a rule he either hits rock bottom, or destroys himself, or some inner transformation takes place. Essentially, the entire humanity is going down this path right now. Our task in the integral education courses is to provide a person with a tool that would keep him from destroying himself, from breaking his life into pieces. Can a turning point occur in the middle of the process and not in its end?

Answer: One of man’s qualities is empathy. If we show someone who is setting out on a vicious path (say, of drug abuse) another individual whose life hangs by a thread due to these very drugs, I think it will have a strong impact on him, regardless of whether or not he wants to quit.

If we take people through a hospital’s cancer ward, they will see what smoking does. Personally, I smoke, quite moderately, in my opinion, but nevertheless I do. So I know for myself that had I walked through such places in my time, it would have affected me strongly. And if I found myself in an environment that disdains smoking and expresses its contempt towards smokers, I would naturally have a sensation that would force me to realize the vice of this action.

That is why everything depends on the extent to which I can absorb from my environment the missing quantity of the realization of evil that I’m lacking in order to break from the transitional state, where I am still receiving pleasure and still haven’t fully destroyed myself.

For that I need a serious environment, community, group, or a class in which I study. We know that if the public opinion of a group of people follows a certain trend or adheres to some special principles, everyone is involuntarily obliged to follow that. The herd instinct is inherent in people because a person evaluates himself or herself only relative to others. One cannot allow oneself to be better or worse than the rest. What matters to people is their importance in the eyes of society, but whether this importance is positive or negative makes no difference to them. Therefore, if we create a certain social standard, all people will be obliged to obey it—this is how we are created.

Blame Advertising

Question: It is common to take a loan from a bank and then to sit back and think, “How will I pay it back?” But in fact, there is nothing to pay it back with. How do we explain to people before they end up bankrupt or in jail that it’s not worth doing?

Answer: This requires changing not only the individual, but also the entire society, the industry, and our worldview. A lot depends upon the mass media and on the surrounding environment, that is, everything from the closest circle to the general surroundings.

The owners of television programs advertise products that people think they need to buy, people do buy a lot of them, and do so on credit. Today credit is given out left and right because the same bankers that make the loans have an interest in the company, and they end up reclaiming all of people’s possessions in order to repay their debt. This is all it is: a huge machine that is set up to drain a person of his last resources.

If we could break this cycle and through legislation against advertising, clear our mass media of all advertisements, banning all forms of advertising, where would we be? It should be understood that what is being advertised is detrimental. A person himself knows what he wants is not needed; what he doesn’t need, he doesn’t need to know about. After all, it’s better to have a few useful things than a lot of harmful ones.

This is a big problem. I hope that the current crisis will do the job. On the other hand it will simply rid people of the chance to think about that each year they must acquire more to increase the gross domestic product and chase after profits.

Profit should be internal, measured in inner comfort. I won’t feel more comfortable if instead of producing ten kinds of yogurt today, tomorrow I create twenty. This will only exacerbate the problem and no one feels a sense of responsibility.

Unlimited Perception of Information

Question: What quantity of information is actually useful to a person, and what information could cause him or her harm?

Answer: If we teach a person a correct perspective of the world and nature, he will easily absorb any information because he will always attribute it to the general, global picture of the world. Consequently, he will have no problems with the stream of information.

Let’s say that today from morning to night I am reading and consuming a truly enormous amount of information on different topics related to the problems of modern society, science, finances, and the like. As I do it, my main task is to integrate that information into one integrated picture of the world.

How can I discern in all of that a manifestation of one single law—the aspiration of all possible egoistic forces towards unification into a single altruistic force in similarity to nature? How are today’s society and individuals being transformed as they involuntarily move towards integration under the influence of negative forces, referred to in our world as the crisis? In reality, the crisis is kindness unto us.

This worldview gives a person an opportunity to pass enormous flows of information through himself or herself, which supplement within him this overall picture and enter into the general harmony.

This is similar to listening to some symphony and sensing that some musical instruments are missing from the orchestra. Being an expert, you perceive that something is lacking; you don’t feel quite right, and then suddenly the missing element, harmony, appears.

Therefore there are no problems here. A person can truly be a walking encyclopedia, he is capable of absorbing all information that exists in nature. The most important thing is that all of it gets woven in him into a single picture. And then the more information he will receive, the more desirable it will be for him, and the more easily he will be able to absorb it. He will complete those blank spaces that he sensed inside him as a lack, as an absence of perfection.

Playing Democracy

Question: Let’s say there are elections in Russia, I am watching the news and receiving information about who won, who lost, and so on. How can I make this information integral so that it completes the overall picture?

Answer: The integral picture can help you draw a conclusion that society is separated, that it doesn’t see a corrupt system in democracy or its absence (which, essentially, is the same thing), and not only in Russia but in America and all the other countries as well.

If we can’t arrive at a common understanding of where we are and what we should be moving towards, then this speaks of a lack of connection between people in society. Imagine that a large number of societies is forced to exist on one territory and live under one “roof,” which they currently divide into an enormous number of parties or mafia structures. Each of them, naturally, desires to increase its influence at the expense of others, to snatch a piece of the common pie (it doesn’t matter for whom and for what, whether it brings benefit or harm), that is, each of them only takes his own interests into consideration.

And this is called a “democracy,” when I’m only thinking about how to be victorious and crush everyone else? Yet this is what everyone else is thinking about. They are not united by one common idea, everyone simply has their own opinion about how to lead towards it. Yet they can all be working in harmony. What kind of a government will it be if it is once again built on fighting? Is this what we call democracy? Where is this democracy?

Democracy can only exist when the public is educated, when it has an understanding of the next degree. And this next degree isn’t the kind that can be seen one way by one party and differently by another; it is the kind that is leading us towards unification with nature, towards an integral society.

The agenda of all parties should be the study of integral society. We need to lead people towards this. Then we will feel comfortable and achieve the most optimal state in our health, studies, family life—in everything because it will correspond to nature.

Hence, let us agree that this is our goal. But our current state is bad, and everyone understands that more or less equally. How can we bring ourselves towards this goal, to draw to it as close as possible? What opportunities, theories, and foundations do we have for that? And here we will work constructively with one another, complete each other. We will argue, but our goal will be becoming an integral society, and we will be working only for the sake of achieving this goal.

If we are not going to act accordingly, we will see how all that destroys the state. The government shows us an example of protectionism within each part of society and between governments in relation to each other.

Monarchy or Democracy?

Question: Can questions related to the integral nature of society or news on current events serve as a topic for discussion in the courses on integral education for adults?

Answer: It all depends on the group of people and the degree of their preparation: to what extent their understanding has ripened, how well they have mastered the tools for analysis and synthesis of their knowledge and attitudes, and how objectively they can rise above themselves and distance themselves from their personal interests.

But generally, we should certainly explore such questions. We should “dissect” democracy openly before everyone and demonstrate what an absolutely egoistic structure it is, that it is nothing to be proud of. At one time, one king reigned, and everyone submitted to the will of a single person, regardless how foolish or smart and sensible, still just one. And now it is clawed apart by different parties that want to “gnaw” everyone else to death. This is not the kind of parliament that should exist. In other words, there are obviously many problems here.

At one time scientists and philosophers ruled people, or at the very least they were valued and served as advisors to the kings. A king had an army and money, all in one set of hands. But in order to control the treasury and the army, he had a few smart people. And it was much simpler and easier, there was no embezzlement, and mistakes were kept at a minimum. Everything was in a single set of hands, a king had nobody to rob—everything belonged to him. And for making certain decisions, he had a couple of smart advisors. That’s all. Small struggles behind the scenes still existed, of course, but only in minimal doses. That’s why everything was much more stable and survived for centuries, in contrast to today’s parliament.

All of our freedom today is just maximum freedom from responsibility. Overall, understanding freedom is a big problem.

The Enigmatic Russian Soul

Question: In Russia the gap between an idealized picture of a beautiful life and the actual life is very big. Entire masses of people have learned to believe that there is something beautiful yet unreal and unreachable, and then there is the everyday life where “there is no fence against ill fortune.” How can we overcome the fact that a Russian person does not believe that he can live better than now?

Answer: In the course of many centuries Russian people were so pressured, restricted, and enslaved that this faith was simply “etched out” of them. Any leaders and regimes were preoccupied only with that: How they can convert a normal citizen into an abnormal slave. That is why today we see a mutilated society, unfortunate people with tremendous potential, the kind that doesn’t exist, perhaps, in any other nation in the world. It is a nation of overwhelming possibility: intelligent, sensitive, and at the same time so tortured, cornered, embittered, and full of mistrust towards everyone.

Whenever I visit Moscow and look at people, I notice that all of them walk around either hunched over or conversely, show themselves off. There is no normal and free person who would walk along and be carefree about what goes on around him. That is, a person is truly placed under very difficult conditions that weigh heavily upon him.

But on the other hand, Russian people have an exceptionally high perceptiveness towards science, closeness, and understanding of the new. Unlike the Germans or the English, they are not so intransigent. The ability to adapt and change is present in Russians more than in any other people.

Therefore I think that on the contrary, in Russia, as a result of widespread dissemination of the idea of integral education and upbringing, the integral future of the world could be quickly accepted and people could begin to adapt to it quickly. It is because they are constantly searching for the Russian idea, identity, and individuality. This “fermentation” continuously goes on in a person, it’s just that now people have thrown up their hands. Now there is a stretch of nihilism, but it’s only external; internally this demand exists.

It Will Be So

Question: What makes you so sure that integral upbringing will help people unite correctly? It seems quite unreal.

Answer: I act on the premise of only one thing: Nature will force us towards it. And by our efforts, we want to realize this before great losses occur. We wish people good and want them to reach the goal that nature presents us in a gentle way. We have to come to this goal not under the great pressure of nature, not under the influence of huge ecological problems, world war, and so on, but with few losses or even without suffering. This depends on how much we understand that we have no other choice.

I believe in the victory of this idea (if I may use such big words) because it comes from nature, not from people. But in any case, nature will force us to do it. Thus, we should use our mind to soften the evolutionary forces that push us forward, and then we will reach the goal of nature more smoothly. After all, it is better to make a soft landing on a new integral platform of harmony. I hope it will be so.