Question: What do you have in mind when you talk about life outside the body?

Answer: Even now we are living a life outside our bodies. I live in my feelings, desires, and thoughts received from the environment. They are not mine but obtained by me from the surrounding environment. Of course, they exist within me, but I call them “out of body” because I live by interests received from others who impress upon me and advise what’s worth living for, what to think about, and what to feel.

I don’t even realize that if I lived in a forest, my understanding of the world would be completely different from the one I have right now. It’s as though the environment gives me a different view of the world and forces me to perceive it one way and not another. And indeed, this is a big problem.

Suppose my environment makes me think that being a cannibal, or killing people, or taking advantage of them is normal, while you see life completely differently. You have a completely different attitude to animals, yourself, the world, and family. We live within the model of perception that society instilled in us throughout our development, and accordingly, this is the way we see the world.

When I travel to a different country, sometimes it really strikes me that people think completely differently there and gravitate towards different values. Thus they have another way of looking at things, and they don’t see what I see. They judge people differently than we do. And if we get acquainted with history books or law codes of different countries, we will see just how different we are.

I’m not even talking about cultural differences or specific cuisines. I am interested in a person’s worldview and not in what he likes to fill his stomach with. What’s important is a person’s understanding of historical events, of human life, of good and evil, his or her attitude to reward and punishment, to what one should achieve, and what kind of life one wishes to build for oneself.

Some people are prepared to spend day and night playing cards and enjoy having others serve them, while for others it’s important to make their contributions wherever possible, to take interest in achievements of science, and to reveal something new for themselves. The outlook on such things can fluctuate from one extreme to another.

We see that the problem of society is that we don’t understand each other. What do wives usually complain about to their husbands? “You don’t understand me!” And this is actually the case because we really didn’t receive an upbringing about how to live in a family.

When I was an adolescent, I wasn’t educated about what a woman is. Is it some living creature that exists by my side? Does she have certain demands, a unique personality? What vision of life does a woman have as opposed to a man? A woman is a completely opposite world, not dependent on anyone. Do I understand her? Do I wish to understand her? Do I take her into consideration? Am I capable of doing this?

Since we haven’t received any internal models of what a woman is, what type of mentality she has, and how she sees the world, we don’t have an ability to take her into consideration. A man truly doesn’t understand her, and this is why each of their meetings abound with mutual attacks. They try to get along somehow, yet they aren’t capable to actually understand each other, that is, to become included in one another. And this is a big flaw in our upbringing.

Statistics on divorce rates and on those unwilling to even start a family attest to this. We see a similar situation in child education: We don’t know how to approach a child correctly. We all know that there is an increase in child abuse cases, and it is all because parents don’t understand them.

In regards to my own children, I have sensed just to what extent I don’t understand them, how unprepared I am for being a father. After all, a father is an educator, a creator, someone who shapes the child for their life to come. But I wasn’t able to do that due to the fact that neither the feeling nor understanding of everything that pertains to children was developed in me at all, while it’s absolutely necessary to teach that.
[66726]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

Related Material:
Teaching To Care About The World
Making A Stranger Your Own
A Greenhouse For Humanity

Filed under: Children, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Women - No Comments →

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.
[72026]
From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 2/12/12

Related Material:
The New Life of The Internet
A New Book: Psychology Of An Integral Community
Suicide: A Result Of A Disfunctional Family

Filed under: Children, Crisis, Economy, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Society, World - No Comments →

In the News (from Radio Netherlands Worldwide): “Western schoolchildren are up to three years behind those in China’s Shanghai and success in Asian education is not just the product of pushy ‘tiger’ parents, an Australian report released Friday [February 17] said.

“The study by independent think-tank The Grattan Institute said East Asia was the centre of high performance in schools with four of the world’s top systems in the region – Hong Kong, South Korea, Shanghai and Singapore. …

“The study said that while many OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries had substantially increased funding for schools in recent years, this had often produced disappointing results and success was not always the result of spending more money. …

“The report said the best systems focused on a relentless, practical focus on learning and teacher education, mentoring and professional development, rather than greater spending.”

My Comment: Education is inseparable from upbringing, and if there is no upbringing, then education cannot be good. Education means learning the skills to think, and not to know.
[71135]

Related Material:
Education In The Global Community
What The Department Of Education Does Not Talk About
School: The Mirror Of The Vices Of Society

Filed under: Children, Education, Integral Upbringing, News - No Comments →

In the News (from The Independent): “A quarter of young children around the world are not getting enough nutrients to grow properly, and 300 die of malnutrition every hour, according to a new report that lays bare the effects of the global food crisis.

“There are 170 million children aged under five whose development has been stunted by malnutrition because of lack of food for them and their breastfeeding mothers, and the situation is getting significantly worse, according to research by the charity Save the Children.

“In Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Peru and Nigeria – countries which are the home of half of the world’s stunted children – recent rises in global food prices are forcing the parents of malnourished children to cut back on food and pull children out of school to work.

“A third of parents surveyed said their children routinely complain they do not have enough to eat. One in six parents can never afford to buy meat, milk or vegetables. It suggests that … half a billion children will be physically and mentally stunted over the next 15 years.”

My Comment: If the developed countries did not lead Africa to famine, and if we just stopped throwing away extra food, we could feed the world. So, the problem is not a food crisis, but a human crisis!
[70017]

Related Material:
World Hunger Help Is Failing
Food Riots: Approaching The Edge
The Planet On The Edge

Filed under: Children, Crisis, News - No Comments →

Question: Modern people are completely opposite to integrality, which we are speaking about. A person who steps on other people to get ahead is better off than a person who yields to everyone and cares for others. As a rule the second one is a loser.

Answer: Let’s do an experiment; let’s photograph people and start showing them how they behave in different places. Let them see themselves from aside. Do you think this would not cause them to change, even without any social work?

Let us show children their parents’ behavior. This is the strongest factor of influence on the parents! Let us see how they will react to this.

This will change them. If the children at home were to express their disrespect or resentment of their parents’ actions, the parents would not be able to remain in the same state. They would be compelled to fight for the respect of their children. It is an awful catastrophe for parents when their children resent them, when children not only disagree with their parents but also with their actions, with who they are. We need to use this. Carefully and delicately, but necessarily, we must do it.
[67859]
From “Lessons About a New World” #7, 12/14/11

Related Material:
We Cannot Keep Putting It Off!
It’s Nice Doing Good!
Poison Is Not Always Bad

Filed under: Children, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Society - No Comments →

Opinion (from Vesti.ru): “Parents want their children to grow self-confident. Children are aimed at achieving success. Ambition and a sense of superiority are instilled in them. A child is a reflection of our value system.

“In 2011, parents wanted to develop in their children the ability to achieve their goals, a sense of responsibility, and the ability to stand up for themselves. In 1998, it was good manners, the ability to behave in society, and to communicate with people. Today, these qualities are not included even in the top five.

“These data suggest that the world has become much tougher, and people more self-centered. We used to say ‘we’ and now ‘I,’ but it is hard to live when you have only ‘I’—you are alone!”

My Comment: Our system of values ​​is a consequence of our growing egoism. It will grow until we realize its deadly properties and begin to seek the means of dealing with it. Then, we will feel the need for a method of correction and begin to exit from the general crisis. We can advance this moment by disseminating the method of mutual guarantee.
[68678]

Related Material:
Reflections On Ethics
The Philosophy Of My “I”
A Petty Thief Inside Me

Filed under: Children, Crisis, Egoism - No Comments →

Question: Public opinion is a very powerful educational tool. How can we use this tool in groups in integral upbringing? What do we encourage? How do we bring out the desired behavior which corresponds to integrality?

Answer: We take time during discussions and conversations to show examples of correct and incorrect behavior and interactions; we analyze the motives, the different subconscious and conscious incentives, ones that are instinctive and conscious: instinctive being those that come from nature, and instinctively acquired from the environment during the upbringing process when habit becomes second nature.

We try to separate all of this, explain where it comes from, why it comes from the past society in which we grew up, and why we now need to change, and especially why we need to change and reeducate our children.

But if the children continue to be educated in the same environment with the same adults, it will be another several generations until they change. What can we do to change our children now? To do it we are the ones who need to change first.

I think that the interactions between parents and children, love for children, the desire to give them a good new world is a very strong factor of influence on the adults. And it must impel us to make a change so that we do not just play at, but we will actually build a good society for our children.
[67856]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #7 12/14/2011

Related Material:
Poison Is Not Always Bad
The Era Of Global Education
Is It Possible To Befriend A Mother-In-Law?

Filed under: Children, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Society - 1 Comment →

The world treats us more harshly, persistently, seriously, and tenaciously with each passing day. Willingly or unwillingly, people feel that something has to happen or is already happening. The religious attribute this to a higher force; the secular blame it on nature. One way or another, we are under strong pressure that forces us to focus our attention and start acting.

Kabbalah teaches us that there is a way to optimize and accelerate our development. For that, we have to recognize what’s going on and observe the process as a whole. At each given moment we have to choose how to continue growing.  It is not about being right or wrong, but rather whether our progress complies with the program of nature. The closer we are to the program, the faster we progress. Everything depends on our understanding, grasp, and attainment of, and agreement with the algorithm that nature demands of us.

How do we know about this? Today, we can arrive at this conclusion from our own experience.

Scientists, psychologist, and philosophers repeat in unison that we are developing by two forces: good and evil. Good brings us goodness and evil, evil. We have no doubt about this, since each of us can interpret good and evil.

The impact of a good force is especially felt in childhood when we are cared for, loved, and protected while we are growing. Nature (or the Creator) elicits a good attitude and love in parents, immediate family, and even in the distant environment towards children. It doesn’t matter if the child misbehaves or breaks things. He is excused for doing things that an adult would never be forgiven for. Everyone pampers a child and he uses their good attitude.

As soon as a child grows up, that kind and indulgent attitude stops abruptly. From now on he becomes the one who has to take care of himself and others; he begins to “owe” others and is held responsible for his actions. To make it short, demands replaces love.

Why does this happen? We are not questioning childhood, but why is nature so demanding of adulthood, why does it stop being as kind as it previously was? Why does it start to apply a negative attitude towards us?

It is essential to understand that it has nothing to do with negativity, but rather about giving us incentive to grow. If we develop correctly, then instead of feeling bad influences, we sense benevolence. Thus, we have to realize that the whole of nature, life, and the world treats us according to our compliance with the world. If the world treats us problematically, it means that the problem is rooted in our own incorrect and imbalanced attitudes towards the world. When we adapt to the world, we begin to re-evaluate the forces that we previously considered bad to good.

What is the reason we don’t feel that negative force instigating our self-correction? If we re-connect with that force, life will again seem just like it was in childhood when everyday promised to bring something good.

Everything depends on our preparedness and upbringing. If from our early years we were brought up correctly and trained to ensure that as adults we matured with the understanding of how to correctly interact with the environment to elicit positive responses and how to correctly interact with nature, society, family, and ourselves, then our lives would have continued perfectly, without any problems.

But we do not get correct directives in childhood regarding our adulthood. It is easy to talk about these issues by using the Kabbalists’ words, but what can we do if we are not familiar with the wisdom of Kabbalah? Can we find precise directions by listening to nature’s hints? Can we form the proper attitude to everything that surrounds us? Humanity faces the problem of finding a way to avoid suffering and is trying to discover how to relate to life in order to experience the least amount of distress. Even now we continue to suffer and we will suffer more because we haven’t yet found the answer to this question.

The contradiction between what we want and what we actually possess in reality pushes adults to search further. As a result, throughout history we have developed several approaches to this problem. Baal HaSulam writes about them in his article “The Peace”; pointing out that if we honestly and realistically view nature, humanity, and life,  we will arrive at the same results that the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us.

The main thing is to not be bribed by our egoism, but rather to rise above it to an objective level at which we do not depend on our existing sensations, inclinations, and notions. If we could rise above ourselves as independent researchers, we would detect some data that is contained in Kabbalah.

This is what the wisdom does: It raises a person up to a level where he can take a look at reality without the prism of his ego. If we could remove these “lenses” of egoism, we would easily attain the wisdom of Kabbalah. According to Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Peace,” this is scientific research with an experimental, experiential, and practical basis that works for everybody without exception and that allows each and everyone to discover the need to bestow to our neighbor.
[60423]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/11, “The Peace”

Related Material:
How Do We Protect Ourselves From Nature?
Saying Goodbye To Childhood
Evolution Of Consciousness

Filed under: Children, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

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.
[66421]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

Related Material:
Promoting The Idea of Integral Education
The Solution To The Problems Is Transforming The Schools
School: The Mirror Of The Vices Of Society

Filed under: Children, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

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.
[66261]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

Related Material:
It Starts With The Individual
There Is No Human Without Knowledge
Integral Education Is A Quick Process

Filed under: Children, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →