Question: Today we already have a request from state and public organizations for a course of integral upbringing for adults. How do you envision the structure of this course? What should we educate people about so that they would learn how to live harmoniously, in concord with each other?

Answer: I think that it shouldn’t be just one course, but a collection of various disciplines. People should acquire primary knowledge, discuss it in a group, whether in a classroom or virtually, but with an instructor, that is, a specialist who can explain the material in an understandable way.

First and foremost, one should study human psychology on a basic, fundamental level, where each of us could understand: Who am I; what am I; how do I think, act, and interact with others. It is necessary to explain the psychology of interactions between spouses, between parents and children, the correct way to relate to children, children’s upbringing, and home economics on the basis of the requirements put forth by nature: How much we consume, how much we give back. In other words, we must put ourselves in a framework that will allow us to exist in a state of balance.

Naturally, each of us needs a place to live, a family, security, healthcare, food, and so on. All these are basic needs of every human being, and one should feel sure that they will be met, provided that he satisfies all the requirements of society.

All the other requirements depend on the person’s position: He either works in production or is engaged in social work, studies or, perhaps teaches others. People will practically work about two or three hours a day. Some may work more, some less, but that won’t determine how much they earn.

The remaining mass of people will be engaged only in creating a homeostasis, an equilibrium for the entire system of human activity on our planet. This is when we will see a different society.

All of this needs to be explained, broken down by discipline. We need to explain the full history of humanity as a consequence of development of our egoism, which brought us today to a state of such complete satiation that we don’t wish to develop any further.

We no longer desire anything in life. We come to depression, drugs, and terrorism, in other words, to the final stage: the rebirth of our egoism. Today we no longer wish to strive towards anything, but on the contrary, we plunge downwards, into alcoholism, and degradation because we don’t see any prospects in future growth. Our egoism, having arrived today at its maximum level of development, is starting to finalize itself and acquire an integral form, but we are not ready for that.

This is why we don’t understand what to do from now on, why we cannot organize the earth’s resources, communication networks, and, in general, the entire development. A new common paradigm, a new attitude towards life, should give a person an opportunity to correct the crisis in all realms of life: family, society, ecology, economics, and so on.

After a general education course, we need to introduce a course on integral upbringing. A course on upbringing entails group lessons, where people literally work through all possible elements of communication through discussions and all kinds of role-playing games.

They work through them like any actor who has a few hundred techniques in stock from which he then compiles a role, an image of a certain person. This is how we must educate a person about the laws of behavior in an integral world. And it won’t seem artificial to him because we will teach him about the correct interaction with others from which he would suddenly feel some higher sensation of tranquility, peace, and fulfillment.

His inner void, which he previously fulfilled at the expense of economic achievements in capitalist competitions, will start to become filled from a completely different direction, according to a different scheme. It will be filled in such a way that he will feel himself safe and secure. Nobody will enter in any confrontations with him.

We must include a large number of groups in this part of the course. I think that it will be a very serious, exciting action in which parents with children, spouses, and entire neighborhoods can participate.

Here we will start to form a new type of social interactions, a new view of life and the world, within which a person will begin to sense the globality of nature, its integrality and inner harmony. This inner harmony is essentially where our inner demand lies. This is what we want to experience in our life and what we are attempting to achieve in our useless competition with each other.
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Talk on Integral Education 12/11/11

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