Question: What does a person feel when he is receiving the Torah?

Answer: He feels that his attitude toward others is changing. He begins to understand that precisely in relationships with others, there, in the middle between them, is a place for the new world, new states, new development above at a higher level.

By establishing a mutual connection, we form between ourselves the third factor: the upper one. This is the soul; this is the Creator whom we reveal. This is the upper world, which lies not just anywhere but precisely between us in the form of the middle line.

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Question: In the process of integral education, the sensitivity of our five senses upsurges. However, a person still has to come back to the real world where he needs certain protection since he continues dealing with various negative situations. How can we teach people to cope with the world they return to after they are done with the integral studies?

Answer: After the course of integral studies, people will relate to this world in a different way and perceive it differently. However, we should not teach people exactly how they should relate to the world around them. Rather, we have to change people. If people acknowledge internal changes, they will regard this world differently.

In general, we are giving wrong advice to our children when we teach them not to beat someone, not to fight, not to curse. It is not an upbringing. It is similar to taming animals. We must change them internally so that it would be impossible for them to beat, curse, or fight. This is why we need to go through internal transformation and ascend to the next level, rather than just follow a system of prohibitions.

This is the mistake of  modern-day education and upbringing that orients people to how they should relate to life and to the world. All we must do is to elevate a person. The rest will come naturally.

The same applies to science and the arts. Practically, there is no need to teach anybody anything. If we feel others as ourselves, our sensors begin opening. All of a sudden, a person understands from within how to produce nice musical sounds, for example. It is the most natural education. All we need is to raise others and have them connect with the rest of nature, contrary to their innate egoism.

Based on this, people “expand,” open up, and become one with the environment. People don’t need anything besides it. In such a case, no one can harm us, nor will we be causing any contradictions or problems to others. People will always feel great since they will stay in harmony with the program of creation. They will never trigger any kind of negative impacts. No matter where we are, there will always be a positive atmosphere and benevolence all around us.
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From a TV Program “Medicine of the Future,” part 3, 4/7/2013

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Question: Where can people find strength to transition to integral motivation? We usually speak about the crisis and other problems, which push us toward unity, but perhaps there is a gentle click or a phase-like transition to an integral system?

Answer: The truth of the matter is that this cannot be done mechanically. This is the first time that nature is expressed very vividly as a single law of a single system in relation to humankind.

We have reached a state when we have grown egotistically. We have been developing as egoists over the course of many years and, in this way, nature was pushing us forward.

This is why, instead of displaying integrality, the network of the common connection always has displayed its egoistic interdependence: One wanted to make more money, have a better life; another wanted to rule, conquer someone, and so forth. And we realized all these things. This network of connection would always appear between us and, as it manifested through human communication, new nations and continents joined it, but none of this was integral. There was no mutual dependence between them.

It was considered that when I conquer someone, he becomes dependent on me, and vice versa, and this applied to everything: art, science, technology, warfare, and politics. Egoism has always controlled us in a single, direct way. I pressure and receive what I need.

This network consisted of a combination of egoistic forces that were in a constant struggle with one another; in this way, they controlled nations, humanity, and civilization to a certain degree.

However, beginning with the twentieth century, a completely different dependence began to manifest: Specifically, a dependency between these forces, and not simply an inclination to be against each other that forces humanity to fight mercilessly. We suddenly began to tune into one another somehow.

It turns out that you no longer can simply destroy a person because, by doing so, you somewhat destroy a part of yourself, a potential of your own development and existence. In other words, we discovered a strong need for every nation in every element of the common network.

This can be seen very well using the example of ecology. What would we get if we were to destroy flies? What would be the consequence of destroying wolves? However, this is not the way things used to be. It turns out that we did not have this much power over nature. We did not have the ability to do with it as we pleased.

Mainly, there was no integration. There was no quality manifestation of it. We only began to discover this mutual dependence in the beginning of the twentieth century. Vladimir Vernadsky started to write about it back then.

Integrality is increasing and will continue to manifest. This is why we need to think about how we can help humanity realize it.
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From KabTV’s “The Wisdom of the Crowd” 5/6/13

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Question: The driving force of evolution is the discovery of the global network in humanity. In recent years, this discovery has become expressed in an interesting form called the “wisdom of the crowd” or “crowdsourcing,” when people connect not just in order to talk, but to produce a particular result. That is, this is a true connection that produces something. The result of this connection is always on a higher level than the sum of its parts.

What is collective intelligence, the wisdom of the crowd? Why is the intelligence of the group greater than the intelligence of one person?

Answer: Collective intelligence began to be manifested only recently.

In principle, a collective network that connects us has always existed among us. The entire universe has been considered by philosophers, physicists, and many other investigators of nature as one whole. How can the universe not be a unified whole if it was born from one point and gradually began to extend?

In nature, there is no chaos; it can exist only in our mind. When we examine nature, we see clear laws that operate in it, and if we don’t see these laws to the end, either generally or specifically, this only reflects our lack of knowledge. The more we discover about nature, the more we discover the absolute connection that exists in it.

This connection exists on all levels of nature. The individual and the society are no exception. They are a product of nature. We didn’t somehow create this and make ourselves like this, even though we would like to think that we are absolutely independent. Rather, the more we advance, the more the laws of evolution of human society are revealed to us. We see how objective these laws are. We cannot do anything about them; we can only specify the facts.

Therefore, the network that ties the still, vegetative, animate, and human part of nature is one. In our time, the last, most developed part of nature is being revealed. Human society is beginning to discover that it also is included in a global, integral network; this network is so interconnected that, if we see things through it, we see that it is even impossible to imagine the freedom of choice of a person. We can see that there is nothing accidental here, and so on.

Everything is included with absolute precision in this one program of evolution that shows us the absolute interdependence between us and, as we discover it, we understand that we are included within it and that requires us to act accordingly.

According to physics research, a person looking at something that is happening in outer space or within the microcosm brings himself into this event and, therefore, this event is subject to change. This phenomenon also testifies to the total dependence between the various levels—in this case, between the human and the still levels of nature.

This network of complete, mutual dependence has been discovered by us gradually and, thus it develops humanity, leading it to its integration. The moment this network is discovered, we must correspond to it. Otherwise, to the degree of our lack of similarity to it, to the degree that we differ from it, we experience all kinds of problems, which, in general, we call crises.

So, for the first time, we have reached a long-term crisis, which already has lasted for decades. The first ones who saw this perceived it around fifty years ago. They were members of the Club of Rome which began to publish various articles on this subject. Since then, the crisis has continued to evolve, becoming a crisis in the family, in education, in culture, and so on.

We are standing before a completely new integrated system. However, since we are individualists, egoists, we cannot accommodate to it. Here, changes are needed within the individual. Because these changes have not yet taken place in us, the crisis will continue, of course. We see how it continues to grow. The network of connection between us is discovered more and more, yet we still don’t understand how much we differ from it. Therefore, it is still too early to talk about crowdsourcing (the wisdom of the crowd).

When we gather together, we see that the sum of all our efforts and actions is much greater than the usual summation. A different type of addition is created here. Moreover, this addition is very meaningful. It is as if it is wisdom coming from the next level, as if it is a prophecy, which is to say, it is as if we are seeing a little higher, beyond time, beyond what we can see because, through our joint effort, we enter into a kind of similarity to the integral network.

This is happening among small groups of people who are still egoistic. If we could gather a group that was truly integral, meaning that the people within it were to rise to a level of integration with each other as is required by the network, then they would find themselves in another dimension toward which nature wants to push us.

After all, according to nature, we are still on the animate level of evolution and concerned only for our body. When we can be concerned about collective intelligence, collective attainment, our integral existence, then we can speak about a true wisdom of the crowd.

This integral existence is the image of a unified Human, Adam. This is not a physical image. Rather, it is a spiritual image, a supra-egoistic gathering of all of our characteristics.
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From KabTV’s “The Wisdom of the Crowd” 5/6/13

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot” Item 19: The angel of death comes with a drawn sword with a drop of poison at its tip; the person opens his mouth, he throws the drop inside, and he dies.

The angel of death is our ego that cuts us off and distances us from spirituality all the time. And obviously, it does so according to that method, according to that general plan by which we must advance. It has to grow in order to justify its name, the angel of death.

We see that, in our day, a global crisis has been revealed. Humanity is gradually coming to understand that the problem is not in bad economy or finances, not in the broken family, but rather in human nature itself. This means that we will not escape the crisis through a simple change of the external system. Ultimately, we reach an understanding that the angel of death lives within us and is killing us. We must kill him ourselves before he kills us. Time after time, he intentionally cuts us off from the good life more and more so that we will feel that we have to kill him.

The sword of the angel of death is the influence of the Sitra Achra, called “Herev” because of the separation that grows according to the measure of reception, and the separation destroys him.

A person is not prepared to refrain from using his ego. We see people continue to behave egoistically even though they know that they are harming themselves. However, they are compelled to use their desire to receive, and finally: One is compelled to open one’s mouth, since one must receive the abundance for sustenance and persistence from her hands.

So, we are killing ourselves from generation to generation, returning to this world again and again with an even greater desire for pleasure and again, swallowing that deadly drop”: In the end, the bitter drop at the tip of the sword reaches him, and this completes the separation to the last spark of his breath of life.

People must finally understand that using the desire to receive kills them. No matter how much we burn with new hope of exploiting it, looking for different forms, and trying to overcome it, in spite of all this, we understand that our nature is compelling us to kill ourselves.

The angel of death kills itself by showing us what is causing us to die. It arouses us to fight against it. This is reminiscent of the story of the Egyptian exile. At first, it seemed that Pharaoh was good! With seven years of plenty, absolute abundance, it seemed that we had succeeded in controlling the angel of death and that was on our side.

However, in the end, we began to feel the seven years of famine. This was no longer the same Pharaoh. The angel that led us through life suddenly became cruel. We used to think that all of life is in front of us: With all the opportunities of the “American dream,” we would continue to progress and get more and more from life. It seemed to us that the entire world opened before us for our benefit.

Suddenly, we discovered that we are locked within this world. Every day becomes darker and darker, cramped and horrible, threatening to kill us and, at the end of the matter, we realize that the problem is not in the world. Rather, it is in us, in the egoistic nature that is found within us and inspires us to life, in our angel, meaning our internal power.

So, it essentially is fulfilling its role, like Pharaoh who brought the children of Israel closer to the Creator. This is that angel that, through opposition, carries out its faithful work. An angel is a force of nature that has no choice, a part of the overall program that operates until we finally feel that we have no choice and must flee from it.
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From the Men’s Convention “The Next Step” 4/26/13, Lesson 1

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash “Igrot,”  Letter 8

The Book of Zohar – Introduction “Who Created These of Elijah,” Item 14, Lesson 10

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 10, Item 64, Lesson 43

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee“, Lesson 11

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In the News (from DailyMail): “It is something many women will already know – and many a man will have discovered the hard way.

“Men find it difficult to read women’s emotions.

“Scientists asked male volunteers to look at pictures of people’s eyes and guess how they were feeling.

“Perhaps unsurprisingly, they found it twice as hard to guess a woman’s mood as a man’s.

“But it’s not simply for lack of trying, the study shows.

“The men were given brain scans while they looked at the pictures. The data suggested an unusual reason for the difficulty in reading women’s feelings.

“When looking at male eyes, men related what they saw to themselves. The parts of their brains linked to past thoughts and feelings lit up.

“They understood what other men felt by remembering similar moments in their own lives – and using them to evaluate the image, the researchers said.

“But when they looked at female eyes, they found themselves mystified.

“Their brains searched for memories of when they had seen another woman who looked similar to the image.

“This less personal process meant men found it harder to empathise with women’s feelings.

“The amygdala is a part of the brain believed to be important for empathy with others.

“The scientists found it showed more activity when men looked at a man, rather than a woman.

“And there may be very good reasons why men are better at understanding their own kind.”

My Comment: If it were the only difference between us! There are still many discoveries ahead that will show how different we are because we come from different upper roots: Zeir Anpin and Malchut. But instead of exploring differences, it’s better to focus on the opportunities to complete each other. Namely this combination will bring the world to happiness.
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Question: In the life of couples, there are moments when the partners experience a feeling of unprecedented, ultimate happiness, a feeling that brightens the routine with a flare of light. When we first experience this, we are excited that something like this is possible at all. After all, previously, we didn’t think that something like this could exist.

Answer: I think that for every couple, if they build their relationship on emotion and not on cold calculation, there will be moments of complicity when it’s as if the partners live within each other, penetrate each other, are intertwined with each other, when they discover an integration, mutual inclusion into each other that cannot be escaped. Kinship, closeness to the point of unity, intoxicates them, and when this love flares up, they lose their heads.

However, this will go on for only a few minutes, in the best of circumstances, for a number of days, and in rare instances, a number of weeks. Here, much depends upon us, upon the period in our lives through which we are passing. After that, the “delusion” vanishes.

So, where does this come from? It comes from nature so that we will approach each other and can develop a particular connection between us called a family. Without these moments, like animals, we would continue to get closer to each other according to the “calendar” and then move away again according to the orders of our inner essence. Yet, since we are humans, we have to preserve our relationships for years, and hence Nature provides us with an example of how we can do this.

It shows us how to prolong this fire of unification and integration so that it will become fascinating, will intoxicate me, and will not let me leave, so that it will compel me to think about my partner all the time. On one hand, it streams life into me, and on the other, it doesn’t let me turn toward anything else. It fills my emotion and takes away my mind. The example for this we see inside and out, but one way or another, it comes from Above, glows outside, and then goes out.

We need to teach people how to capture moments like these, how to prolong the magic, to strengthen it, and to develop it through the mind. I will attain a feeling that I experienced before specifically with the help of mind, but now this feeling will be balanced: I won’t lose my head and will be able to live with it for years as I develop it and manage it. By becoming included into one another, my partner and I won’t lose our ability to speak about the multitude of emotions, but rather, we will be able to share our impressions and experiences, measure and discuss them.

We truly will share with each other the feeling that fills us more clearly as we amplify and raise it more and more above all the events of life and above habit that leaves a bland taste everywhere.

This is the reason we need to attach the mind, meaning the method and the studies, to emotions. We need to teach people how to love.

Question: Is it possible to learn how to experience love?

Answer: Let’s remember what happened when the partners saw each other for the first time. This could have happened in a first, chance meeting, or the opposite; they might have been meeting each other from time to time over an entire year, and yet one day, they suddenly felt a particular impulse, really noticed each other as if a light went on in each of them.

Why does this happen? We don’t know. Nature itself sends us moments like these. However, without the necessary attention from our side, they disappear to wherever they came, without our noticing.

Only in very rare circumstances does this feeling remain over time, such as if people have a tendency for this or if they already were used to sustaining it when they lived at home with their parents. In general, the rudiment that our previous life has left in us is very important: Did we see similar examples at home? Did we get inspiration from them? After all, as a rule, we mimic everything that we absorbed from the family in which we were raised.

In the modern world, divorce has become the norm and even the general rule. It is difficult to find a partner who doesn’t cheat, isn’t suspicious of his “other half,” or doesn’t think of separating, often enduring this shared life from a lack of choice.

Therefore, it is necessary to teach people “love courses.” It is not worthwhile to rely on spontaneous, accidental, and uncontrollable surges. On the contrary, we agree that we will engender love between us ourselves, that we will cherish and develop it. We don’t wait for any chance flashes from unknown sources. Rather, we “run the business” ourselves. Then, regardless of whatever happens throughout our long lives, we can maintain this fire of love so that it constantly provides us with support, granting us a wonderful and secure feeling at all stages of the way.

I would put this course in school already, without waiting until confused couples seek help and advice when they don’t know how to return to the feeling that once was, how not to drift apart from each other eventually, until there is a complete dissolution of the family.

As with the rest of our problems, it’s all about a lack of adequate education, a lack of understanding, knowledge, and skill, without which it is simply impossible to manage.
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From a Talk about New Life 7/30/12

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Question: If we join someone else’s community, how can we introduce our integral message so as a result, this community will be involved and oriented correctly?

Answer: A person who is engaged in the integral method has to first change himself a little, to become integral, to experience integral interconnection, as if exit from himself into the group, into the society.

First, studying occurs in groups. People constantly are integrated into each other, “exit themselves,” submit themselves to the group, and conversely, submit the group to themselves. They study all the integral qualities and begin to feel what it means to create within a group its general, unified image.

That is, they obtain integral skills. With these skills, they approach the crowd, for instance of fifty, a hundred, or three-hundred people—the number doesn’t matter. They know what they must get. They feel within themselves everything that happens with the crowd, where it should be led and how to control it. After all, inside themselves, they already have a clear image as to where they should lead the crowd.

In addition, if one passes some information to someone else in just a few lessons or he learns them from a book, nothing will come out of this.

If people, who have gone through all the internal metamorphoses with us, work with the crowd, then they will be able to convey their message. They must experience some transformation within themselves, feel integrality, and then they will be able to pass this feeling to others.
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From KabTV’s “The Wisdom of the Crowd” 5/6/13

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