Opinion (Sylvie Brunel, writer, geographer, Liberation, France): “For five centuries, the world has lived under the domination of Europe, which imposed its ‘universal’ values, democracy, human rights, human equality, right to development.

Today the world looks at the decline of the West and claims the right to rewrite history of subordination to the West. Through violence (colonization, slave trade), Europe has imposed its supposedly universal values to prove its supremacy, but begot only beggars and outcasts.

“The homeless are beggars, single-parent families, all those who struggle to find their place in an individualistic and materialistic world. Outcasts are foreigners, old people, condemned to loneliness.

“What is civilization in which one finds his place only as if he is in the prime of life, physically attractive, fit, well off, and male?

“Africans consider it unacceptable the way we treat the elderly. Muslims make fun of our criticism of polygamy, but our men make polygamy a norm de facto.

“Asians are stunned by how the individual can put greed above the interests of the group.

“There is more solidarity between slum dwellers than between developed states, drowning in bureaucracy.

“Inequality has exploded. The work has been devalued against the omnipotence of money and return on capital.

“Barbarism is bursting from us when we fight against those who practice neither our language nor our religion, conduct ‘just’ wars, which cause only chaos and violence, wars for oil and access to the sources of energy in Africa.

“The West, sure of its success, is everywhere, with impunity trampling on the value of those people whom supposedly it came to civilize.

“How dare we say that one civilization is superior to others if it is built on arrogance, xenophobia, conquest, domination and exclusion?”

My Comment: Of course, Western civilization, as the most egoistically advanced and developed, has conquered the whole world and imposed its own values. But the rest of the world is not a good example to follow. It is time for the development of a new civilization: universal and integral, when all nations, while remaining in their own cultures, for the sake of survival unite above all the differences in order to be similar to Nature.
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We must realize the importance of spirituality from darkness, from the absence of its perception. Only in response to such a way of relating to it, does the spiritual world appear from the fog and is born from non-existence. It penetrates into my feelings awareness, and understanding; I am holding it and working with it, but only to the extent of its importance to me. Raising this realization of importance, I “pull” it out from the concealment into the light.

All of this is to ensure that my approach would be altruistic. Otherwise, I can never reveal the spiritual world, since I will always keep aspiring towards it with the intention for the sake of receiving, like towards everything in our world.

So how can I realize the importance of something that I do not see? How do I approach the hidden with the intention for the sake of bestowal? For this, the Kabbalists say the environment is needed, a society of friends. When they exalt the importance of something, even though not even one thread may be connecting me to the object of their praises, in any case I begin to value it.

It is the same in our world, what people around me think and talk about, what is important to them, becomes important to me. This happens to such an extent that I suddenly begin to value what I have never seen and felt. And now I start talking about how important and wonderful it is. Looking at me, many wonder: “Where does such an enthusiasm come from?” And I sometimes catch myself in a sudden reverence toward something I have seen on television and something I heard from others… This happens to everyone. Why? It is due to the common opinion. Society considers something important and it passes on to me.

Why is this the way we have to go into the spiritual? Why has advertising become so widespread in the 20th century right before our common spiritual ascent? It is so that we know to what extent we must use the environment.

For decades we have been convinced that the environment is capable of influencing us and through advertising can raise in our eyes things that do not have even the slightest importance. There is nothing in them except for social prestige. What others praise will be important for me as well. We are constantly being manipulated this way; they jack up the price for something, and the public is ready to pay three times the original price. The mass media, sociologists, and political scientists are doing this job very well and they have created a whole industry of artificial importance.

What’s more, we do not suspect that we are also “calibrated” in all of our internal parameters, qualities, and opinions. We have been “adjusted” and “configured” so that we would look at each thing in a certain way. In reality, I see the world with foreign eyes. And there is nothing that can be done here, I have already been “blinded,” I can no longer come out of this formatting. The same brainwashing is being experience by our children as well.

So what have we gone through the whole of this process for; after all, nothing happens by chance?

It is in order to understand that we are completely dependent on the environment and with its help we can raise the importance of anything. Thus, we know how to raise the importance of the spiritual world in our eyes although we do not see or feel it.

Advertisers show me, say, a small bottle of water and they describe it as if it were holy water. So if we were to study this mechanism, we would be able to do the same thing for our spiritual development. After all, nobody knows what the spiritual world is, nobody sees it, whether it is important or not, how important it is, how beneficial it is for us. We only know one thing, if we l attach importance to it in the circle of our environment, then for everyone it will be elevated to the highest place in our scale of priorities. We will absorb this feeling of importance of the spiritual world from “social advertising” and then it will be easy for us to feel it.
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From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson 5

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 26, “One’s Future Depends and Is Tied to Gratitude for the Past”: It is written, “The Lord is high and the low will see,” that only the low can see the greatness. The letters Yakar (Precious) are the letters Yakir (will know). It means that one knows the greatness of a thing to the extent that it is precious to one.

One is impressed according to the importance of the thing. The impression brings one to a sensation in the heart, and according to the measure of one’s recognition of the importance, to that extent joy is born in him.

In order to perceive the reality in which I am located and which I do not yet notice, I need to develop the sensitivity to and perception of it. We do the same thing in other cases as the laws here are unchanging.

Whatever and whoever I may be working with, may it be metal, wood, plastic, people, animals, or plants, I gradually begin to feel the material that I am working with. The more important it is for me, the more I am interested in it and the more I penetrate into its qualities with my perception. Now, even a simple piece of wood can tell me a lot, even though for an outsider it is not noteworthy in any way at all. It’s all in my connection with it, the importance I give it. It’s the same in everything.

A true master is he who values the material with which he works and values his profession, and thanks to it, he sees the full richness of its palette. Before, he used to be like everyone else, but now, having invested the efforts into the acquaintance with the material, he is becoming a specialist and distinguishes the thousands of facets and hues in it.

It is exactly the same in the spiritual. There is only one problem. If in our world we see in advance what we’re dealing with and then we penetrate into all of the finer points, then in the spiritual world, the situation is different. There, I will not get to the “working material” until I develop a special sensing organ. In our world I study what I already see, while in the spiritual world, I first have to develop the sensitivity, and only to that extent do I begin to feel the object in order to study it and to get to know it.

Thus, the realization of the importance precedes everything else. At first we must attach the importance to the spiritual object and only then do we discover it. So why then in our world is this not required? This is because my “approach to the ammunition” is egoistic here; I value what I already see. On the other hand, in the spiritual world, I must first exalt the object in my eyes, attach importance and value to it. To that I extent I get into it with a special relationship, with a sharpened sensitivity. I begin to feel it not from the doorstep, but from behind the door, from a concealed state. And then, when it begins to emerge, I study it and connect to it.
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From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson 5

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Question: You constantly speak about integral education. But not everyone will spend all their time on spiritual work because people have other corporeal desires: dancing, music, creative work, etc.

Answer: I don’t think that people will have many different secondary desires. The development of the integral community will be so wholesome that it will consume all the other habits, interests, hobbies, and people will find everything that can possibly fulfill them, including new culture, music, and literature, everything, in their integral connection, activities, and communication.

The fulfillment a person will receive through integral connection with others is the highest fulfillment, the fulfillment of Light. He or she will have no other demands. Of course this will include music, literature, and art, but they will be completely different. They will reflect the person’s new world, new vision, and new movements.

Comment: People object to the prediction of the disappearance of contemporary cultural values: music, art….

Answer: I don’t neglect cultural values, diminish their value, or encourage their destruction! Music, literature and art all are very important in my view and perception of the world; they are a source of positive emotions for me. But the thing is that as we advance, the culture, built on the egoistic perception of the world, will gradually disappear. The meaning, feelings, fulfillment, qualities, and values instilled in our current works of art will gradually be lost. They will have no meaning for us.

In other words, I will view the greatest music, the greatest literature, and the most beautiful works of art as something very small which doesn’t correspond to my new demands because they are created by a small person who only has the skill to draw pretty images, use words nicely, or express emotions through music. But all of this is on such a small egoistic level that only fulfills my small physiological soul so that when I develop new instruments of reception and attainment, I simply stop feeling any greatness in this.

I say things as they are: I have been to the Louvre, I looked at the paintings, and I was not able to “find myself” in it. But some time ago, they delighted me so much that I wanted to keep returning to these halls. You gradually begin to feel that all these things are on a level which absolutely does not fulfill you, does not delight you, and you see no value in them.

A person begins to demand a greater, higher fulfillment. And this perspective exists and will definitely happen. Basically, this is a vector of growth.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 2/12/12

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Question: What is the importance of a person’s appearance in an integral world? Should a person look good?

Answer: Of course: “A person needs to be beautiful in every way.” Are you familiar with this saying? But in reality things are far from this. Look at the modern culture. Where do you see beauty? We “swallow” whatever mass media “feeds” to us, and they only care about selling us things; they change a few things, to make us start buying and spending faster. In reality this has nothing to do with beauty, aesthetics, or design.

Look at “contrived” fashion which has nothing new to create, so the same fashion returns every twenty years. But by then we don’t have any twenty-year-old things left. In other words, everything revolves around business, and it’s not the feeling of aesthetics or beauty that drives us, but the “feeling of the beauty of money” of certain magnates who instruct the courtier: “Give us something new; people no longer are buying the old stuff.” You know how this works. And then it’s all promoted to you and they convince you that you do not look pretty without it.

Of course all of this will gradually go away, the crises will even everything out, and “high fashion” will disappear. We will experience such hardships that nothing will be left of the fashionable consumer goods. A person will have a normal attitude towards the world, life. His brain will “change.” He will understand that he lives in a very serious world and he can attain eternity, perfection, so he will not waste his life on dressing his “animal” better, constantly buying it things, and fulfilling unnecessary desires: for wealth, fame, power, knowledge.

I think humanity will realize this very fast. They will only have the aspiration to attain the meaning of life; they will have this question. And other than finding the answer to this question, they will also be able to attain the meaning of existence and see it for themselves.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 2/12/12

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Question: There was a series of teenage suicides in Russia. People are lost; they don’t understand what is happening. How can we explain this phenomenon?

Answer: These “epidemics” will be recurrent. Right now it is teenage suicide, then something else, then another thing, and so on. What is this connected to? Teenagers, both boys and girls have a period when they do not fully perceive this life. They see it as something virtual that exists between this world and that one. At this time they are very sensitive to any bumps, which can even end in such a tragic way.

Teenagers do not feel death; they don’t feel the end. They are a bit above our world, somewhere in the air, and this is the way they treat the possibility of ending their life so tragically. Psychologists, sociologists, teachers, and educators know this. This needs to be eradicated as much as possible, teenagers access to the Internet should be limited, and we need to have a very precise government campaign regarding the “safety” of the soul.

I don’t think that these cases will decrease or disappear. On the contrary, their number will continue to grow because our egoism keeps growing and there is no answer to it, and it turns out that the person finds himself lost between the earth and the sky. Moreover, teenagers regard adults as the example of their future lives, and they completely disagree with this kind of life. They don’t even care that this life is financially provided for, they don’t like this life.

This is why many problems await us in the future. They will continue to exist in even darker states until we manage to unravel before them the full palette of the shining upper world that they can reach. This will be the part of the population which suffers most, which is susceptible to drugs, prostitution, and different problems. Now unemployment is adding to these problems, which also lead to very different problems; for example: Universities are closing, which means that the future is also disappearing. Young people do not see anything but hopelessness before them.

Why are there revolutions in North African countries? Many young people, including educated people who have graduated from universities in Europe, are returning home to Tunisia, Libya, Spain, and Italy and don’t know what to do since these countries are on the verge of an enormous crisis. Youth will be the part of the population, which suffers most everywhere; it doesn’t have a future.

The main thing for the other layers of the population is to exist in a relatively comfortable manner, but the youth don’t have this, it’s not enough for them, and they naturally will not settle. We need to think about the way to make them realize that there is a way to enter a different dimension, which will give them absolute fulfillment. If we present our method in the correct manner, people will want to bring it to life because it gives the person an opportunity for balance, an ability to become fulfilled regardless of work and corporeal commodities. Minimal necessities will be enough for them, and they will attain everything else by integrally participating in the environment.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 2/12/12

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In the News (from ScienceDaily): “A neuro-imaging study shows that personal values that people refuse to disavow, even when offered cash to do so, are processed differently in the brain than those values that are willingly sold.

“‘[The] experiment found that the realm of the sacred — whether it’s a strong religious belief, a national identity or a code of ethics — is a distinct cognitive process’…The results were published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

“Sacred values prompt greater activation of an area of the brain associated with rules-based, right-or-wrong thought processes, the study showed, as opposed to the regions linked to processing of costs-versus-benefits. …

“Research participants who reported more active affiliations with organizations, such as churches, sports teams, musical groups and environmental clubs, had stronger brain activity in the same brain regions that correlated to sacred values.”

Comment: Decisions regarding what is correct and incorrect are established by the environment and have a greater weight than individual decisions regarding pleasure and reward. That is why the only way to change oneself is to choose an appropriate environment.
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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “HaShavua, KiTisa” Selected Excerpts
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In the News (from The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer): “The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer sees an unprecedented nine-point global decline in trust in government. In twelve countries, it trails business, media, and non-governmental organizations as the least trusted institution. …

“Throughout the world, people blamed their governments – more than any other institution – for the financial and political crises they endured in 2011. In seventeen of the 25 countries surveyed, government is now trusted by less than half to do what is right. In Europe, trust in government dropped by more than ten points in France, Spain, and Italy.

“Driven by steep drops in countries in the heart of the eurozone economic crisis, trust in business fell three points globally to 53 percent. …

“The 2012 Trust Barometer’s deep dive into the 16 attributes of trust finds that the factors responsible for shaping current business trust levels (47 percent) are largely tied to business competence – and that those that will build future trust are more societally focused. Listening to customer needs, treating employees well, placing customers ahead of profits, and having ethical business practices are all considered more important than delivering consistent financial returns – and indicate that the path forward entails continuing to do the basics well while also adopting shared values.”

My Comment: People are becoming increasingly aware that the ongoing crisis is a “crisis from above,” a crisis of the entire world of the past. This is indicated by the absence of clear plans about how to resolve it. This is primarily a crisis of development, the death of a consumer society, the race after the percentage of annual growth, deliberate accelerated depreciation of goods, production of unnecessary things and pressure to consume more.

While people are concerned about the economic crisis, there are crises of education and upbringing, and government and family. That is why this is a crisis of the entire system of our civilization.
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