Question: I do not understand what it means to yield without canceling my own desire. What is the difference between a concession in which I cancel myself and one in which I do not cancel myself?

Answer: A concession in which I cancel myself is when someone stands over me with a stick and after a few blows I have no choice but to give up my desire and do what the stick-wielder demands.

But the concession we speak of in integral education is something I do of my own freewill. I want to yield because I understand what I gain by doing so.

I understand that I have no other way to grow, expand, and stretch my boundaries if I do not cancel myself. Concession means that I cancel my own boundaries and allow foreign qualities, desires, and goals to enter inside me. And I accept them as if they were my own. Otherwise I will not grow, and I will not be able to connect with anyone. I will forever remain inside my inflated self, which in essence is a puffed-up zero locked from all sides.

Absorption, assimilation, and mutual inclusion are necessary conditions for development; they are a form of life. We have all seen movies in which two cells meet, merge into one, and then begin to multiply and expand into a new body. This is only possible because each cell yields and opens up to the other one in order to unite. Without this, there will be no life—this is the entire secret of it.

This needs to be explained and emphasized from the perspective of society. On the other hand, we are being pushed in this direction by the global crisis that demands that we begin to connect our dead, isolated cells and build a living body from them.

I open my boundaries and try to use my desire, my habits, and all my abilities to fulfill the desire of another person. My concession lies in the fact that I disregard myself in order to fulfill the desire of my neighbor. Through this, I acquire their feelings, their reason, and their thoughts.

It all begins with a conversation. Each person must imagine an internal map of their partner. What does each of us want from the other? What does he demand, and what would he like to see in the partner? We begin to practice such discussions.

But we do this not like an ordinary family trying to simply improve their relationship, but in order to acquire and build new senses within ourselves that are capable of perceiving the other. In this way I exit my egoism and begin to see what is happening around me.

If a person can correct himself like this within the family unit, then he will also succeed at work, in relationships with others, and ultimately reach balance with all of nature. In this way we tune ourselves to perceive external reality. I no longer live only within myself, but I begin to absorb information from the environment outside me. And outside me there are vast forces that I currently neither know nor feel.
[100952]
From KabTV’s “New Life 40—The Key to a Good Relationship Is Mutual Concession,” 7/25/12

Related Material:
A New Era Of Family Relations
A Strong Connection On The Basis Of A Double Ego
The Shared Space In Which A Family Is Born

Filed under: Children, Education, Man and Woman | Add Comment →