Opinion: (Mr. Popov, president of the International Education Association, from ng.ru): “The problem with our society is that it doesn’t know in which direction the world is moving. The direction of the future is not being taken into account when building the education system. …The adults are disoriented.

“The main organizers of the pre-school, kindergarten, and school education system were industrial and military leaders. Thus the pre-school-kindergarten-school system was organized to support this idea. It wouldn’t have occurred to anyone to take tiny children away from their parents and put them into daycare; however, the industrial model of those times demanded daycare. And it wouldn’t even occur to today’s parents that this can be done differently. This is why today we’re missing an affordable and developed network of qualified nannies. Children are being put into institutions where they get sick, and then they are all vaccinated. Schools and universities are based on an industrial way of life and are designed to raise a class of disciplined workers.

“Today the world is competing for people who are capable of independent decision-making and action. However, the parents don’t want there to be any changes within the school system. We don’t understand where the world is going. Fifth graders are spending time on the Internet, they’re in a different world, and the schools can’t do anything about it.

“English schools are among those that have the most freedom. Up to 80% of children are studying via the Internet. The whole world is trying to teach children to work independently and find information on their own. After all, children are bored at school, and though they are small it’s still impossible to force them to do something they don’t want or have no interest in doing.

“Teachers are mistaking that there is no alternative to school education. There is an alternative. It’s because of the teachers that the parents today don’t see it. First this alternative is discovered by the children. Some, for example, realize that a better way to study geography is through the Discovery channel. It’s also a lot quicker and more comprehensible.

“The development of the global Internet can lead to a point where everyone could receive knowledge through the Internet. In the U.S., a company called Apple was the first to introduce a school education system through the Internet. There is a growing number of children who are being home schooled and receive a certificate of completion at the end.

“If we wonder what will happen to all the teachers, then we’re not thinking about the children. Our society isn’t discussing what we’re doing with the children. It’s convenient for us to think that schools should be conservative and that kindergartens are a very necessary invention.

“Today, parents don’t want to put their children in schools because they want to protect them from violence and abuse. This attitude toward schools is reaching a large scale. Parents are trying to save their children, never mind giving them knowledge but simply save them from beatings and humiliation.”

My Comment: On the “correct’ school see sections “Children,” and “Education.”
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Question: What is the right approach to teaching children?

Answer: This is a special task because we are teaching those who are not familiar with the world at all yet. And the most important thing here is to organize an environment for them. Without an environment, it is very difficult to teach a child our method. A child needs a connection with other children and together they have to be organized into a group.

In the process of studying they have to sit in a common circle and feel that they are strong only when they are united together. A teacher is not really a teacher, but an educator, a mentor. He is like an older friend of the children. Sitting in a circle with them, he conceals his grown-up understanding of the world and skillfully guides them toward unity of equals. The most important thing is to keep this unity.

Every person attains success only on the condition that he is united with others and attains group results with them. The success of each person is determined by how much he helps others. We evaluate each person not by himself, but only by the achievements attained in the group and through the group.

We don’t need “outstanding” or smart students, and we don’t ask, “Who knows?” looking for a “hero” who will prove himself more clever or knowledgeable than others. We do not want this. What we want is for the children to feel that the question and the answer are aimed at the group, that the most important thing is to be together, and even if the answer is incorrect, it is still correct because it brings about a common solution in which everyone takes part.

If there is a chance to do so, a younger group should work with educators who are two or three years older. Children learn from these kinds of instructors better than anyone, looking up at them like at “angels.” And this obligates the older kids, in turn, to study so they won’t slip up in front of the younger ones. As a result, we win twofold: 10-year-olds happily learn from 13-year-olds, rejoicing that the older kids give them time and attention. And the 13-year-olds study the material, spurred by the feeling of their importance, in order to educate the younger ones.

Children have to be taught how to judge one another, separately and together. If someone acted wrongly, a “court discussion” has to be arranged where we study the incident and its causes, examining questions such as, “Was this action correct or not? Would I have acted the same way in that person’s place?” Every person has to hold himself accountable for conducting intensive, inner psychological work.

It’s good to take children on trips where they get to know the world they live in. Let them visit all sorts of factories, an airport, bank, post office, planetarium, and so on. At every place they visit, they should hear explanations about how each establishment is constructed and how it works. This can even be a storeroom of a supermarket where goods are received, sorted, and stockpiled so they can later be arranged on the display shelves for the consumers.

In short, the children have to know how our life is built and what it is comprised of. At every place they visit, the person responsible or the supervisor should give them the appropriate clarifications, and when they return to school, together they should discuss what they saw and heard. Every one of them has to write a report about the place he visited, describing what it is, what it is intended for, how it serves people and humanity as a whole, what kind of people work there, what kind of preparation they must go through, and so on.

These trips enable children to learn about the big world, how it is built, and the interconnections permeating it. They see how complicated it is to organize various areas of life and this motivates them to prepare for becoming full-fledged citizens of the world.

The process of studying in class is filmed on camera. Obviously, children quickly forget the events of the day that has passed, but later they can come back to them and look at themselves from aside, in particular, noting: Were they able to unite this time? This is part of self-study.

Our primary concern is not so much to give them specific, professional knowledge, but to give them the right approach to life. A person has to know what kind of world he lives in and how human society has to function in order to maintain a harmonious interconnection among all its parts.

We teach our children the inner psychology of the connection between them. This develops them internally a great deal, enabling them to learn new material. Recently, as was requested by the Ministry of Education, they participated in a symposium that was attended by hundreds of pedagogues and educators from all over the country. Teenagers dispersed among different discussion tables and communicated with the experts on such a high level that the experts were astounded.

Also this year, several of our children have been accepted to university. In short, we see that it’s worthwhile to invest efforts and resources into upbringing. An example of the proper upbringing works better than any other example because it shows all of the advantages of the global, integral mode of study in a group that is permeated by unity, love, and correct relationships. This enables one to see with one’s own eyes how this approach opens up a person’s ability to perceive and forms him differently.

We have already published several books on upbringing. I hope that by the end of the year we will complete working on our curriculum and the set of study materials, which will include CDs and DVDs.

It’s advisable to study the topic of upbringing on our website. Maybe professionals in this field should even come to visit us to exchange experience. We will be happy to show you the method and bring you up to date.
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From the Miami lecture 9/14/11

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Opinion: (Noel Gallagher, formerly the lead guitarist and principal songwriter of the English rock band Oasis): “Noel Gallagher has said he believes ‘brutal TV and videogames’ are partly to blame for the riots that have taken place this week.

“‘We live in this age of violence – and I don’t care what other people say: Brutal TV and brutal videogames are a reason for this pointless violence as well. The people are immune to violence, they are used to it. …It’s just violence for the sake of violence.’”

My Comment: As a child grows, a global and integral education is meant to create in him or her models of integral behavior in society, specifically by employing the right games and TV shows. Essentially, the same applies to the education of grown-ups. Mass media in particular has to assume a central role in transforming the old, egoistic society into a new, integral one.
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Question: Both teachers and students are in trouble today. Teachers are helpless: They don’t have the tools to answer the challenges of the modern world. Meanwhile, students are feeling a new, qualitatively higher level of hostility towards the process of education. They have absolutely no desire to go to school….

Answer: I think that both sides are close to discussing these issues together. After all, the dead end, which everyone clearly sees, is beneficial neither to students, teachers, nor to the education system.

I think that in such circumstances we should become a connecting link: We should present our view on the problem to society and make our suggestions on massive changes in the educational system. There should be a book describing our method in detail so that it can be applied in practice.

Indeed, under these new conditions, the Department of Education is losing control over schools. Resentment and ineffectiveness will reach such a level that students will stop coming to classes. Teachers, on the other hand, will be unwilling to follow unrealistic and unfeasible orders coming from above.

That’s why we should offer a book that would present our recommendations on how to change this situation under the present conditions and onward. It shouldn’t be just a list of measures, but an upbringing manual. Teachers need to be taught how to bring up children, how to build reciprocity in a classroom, and so on. That has to be a full-blown methodology, not just isolated pieces of information.

Moreover, this book will be meant for both a teacher and a student. There is no need to hide anything. We are talking about a manual which would prepare them for interaction and mutual understanding.

We have to realize that before, connections in our egoistic world were built from top to bottom. Rulers of the world were forcing their power onto people, and this was the way all the other systems, including the education system, worked. However, the situation is changing: Rulers and parliaments can no longer govern the country, people can no longer receive support from them, and a connection is disappearing.

This is what is happening in the classrooms as well. Before, everyone sat in front of a teacher and received a weekly portion of knowledge and instructions. Everyone had to study to pass exams. The situation is changing now: Both sides are no longer capable of sustaining such a relationship because an integral connection is being revealed, according to which everyone should be equal, just like Bina and Malchut become equal to each other. Only this way a new system will be revealed: Methodology will be passed from generation to generation through equal relationships.

With time, by developing finer technologies, the world will realize that these new achievements are connecting us, and by that we are receiving a new “energy”: the Light that Reforms. By virtue of this Light we will suddenly be able to truly act in a human society, among us, in our interconnection—to such an extent that it will become a new step in a creative process.

On the next level of the world’s development, we will have to use the force of our connection to literally create new things. I don’t want to look like a dreamer, but I will nevertheless give an example: Let’s say we will create a printer that will use positive energy flowing among us to produce prints. These are the heights high-tech industry can reach: By feeding its creations with the force of unity among us, we’ll be shaping matter into different new forms. It doesn’t matter what it will be: houses, cars, and the like…. We still don’t understand to what extent our world is changing now.

Getting back to the education system, it has to join the process of changes before all others. This is, indeed, a worldwide problem today.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/2011, “The Nation”

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In the News (from Dailymail.co.uk): “Tony Blair yesterday took a swipe at David Cameron’s ‘muddle-headed’ handling of the fallout from the riots. The former Prime Minister suggested Mr. Cameron was wrong to blame the riots on a general ‘moral decline’ in Britain.…

“Mr Cameron said last week that he was determined to tackle a ‘slow-motion moral collapse’ and mend Britain’s ‘broken society.’…

“Mr Blair suggested the Prime Minister was wrong to order a review of all social policy in the wake of the riots. ‘Focus on the specific problem and we can begin on a proper solution,’ Mr Blair said in an article in the Observer. ‘Elevate this into a high-falutin’ wail about a Britain that has lost its way morally and we will depress ourselves unnecessarily, trash our own reputation abroad, and worst of all, miss the chance to deal with the problem in the only way that will work.’…

“The ‘big cause,’ Mr Blair said, lay with alienated youths from dysfunctional families living outside ‘any canons of proper behaviour’ – a phenomenon affecting most modern societies in the developed world.”

My Comment: The pride for their country, which they habitually call Great Britain, is praiseworthy. But let us ask, who but the government turned newborns into such youths, who educated them in that way? A person is a complete reflection of his environment.

If you do not care about what affects a person, then according to his nature, he will choose the worst. Our future depends only on our own upbringing and that of our children! (See the article “The Freedom“)
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Interview with Igor Beloborodov, Director of the Demographic Research Institute (Moscow): “The birthrate is going down at an alarming rate, and in the coming decades most countries will face a non-renewal of generations. This is a moral, ethical problem, associated with the loss of traditions and family foundations in society. The demographic crisis has already started. Forty-two percent of humanity do not reproduce. This has never happened before. This situation is unprecedented in world history.

“No government has proposed a set of solutions as to how to increase the birthrate in the conditions of reigning consumer values and moral degradation and how to ensure the priority and stability of the family. Out of half a billion of the European population, there is no country that reproduces itself demographically.

“According to the UN, by the 2030s, the birthrate may decline below replacement level. This means that this will be the starting point of the extinction of the entire human race. Will we be able to stop this process?

“I think so, if we set an appropriate goal. But international organizations have a different agenda: They want to reduce the population in developing countries. The entire world population has bleak prospects today.”

Comment: If there is no higher purpose, nothing higher than our life, then why should we bring up children and continue the human race? Sex is a pleasant activity, but raising children is a burden, especially when you do not see any prospects either for yourself or your children….

Only the revelation of the upper World and an eternal, perfect existence, which can be reached through correction by the Kabbalistic method, will awaken everyone’s desire to continue their correction through their children.
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There are three stages before us. First of all, we need to realize the evil of our egoism (1). Realize it to such degree so that we want to rise above egoism, to attain the quality of Bina (2). And then we attain Keter (3), meaning we use our egoism for the sake of bestowal.

The first stage is the preparation period. Then, once we rise to the degree of Bina, we already perceive the spiritual world and become included in the world of Atzilut. Afterwards, we begin to raise all of our evil to the world of Atzilut, turning it into good, bestowal.

We are only able to realize all of these stages with the power of Light. It is written: “I created the evil inclination (our egoism), and I created the Torah because the Light in it reforms.” The problem is that humanity is unaware of the force intended to correct our egoism, and this is why people are very confused and do not know how to go on.

A critical time which will be followed by a wave of problems as serious as mass rioting, revolutions, and wars between nations and countries has arrived. Kabbalah warns that the situation can get to the point of a third and even a fourth world war. The suffering will continue to increase until humanity finds the method of correction, the remedy which can only come from the Light.

This is why the method of Kabbalah was revealed to people at the dawn of time, 5771 years ago, when egoism just started to appear in man. It has continued to develop gradually until our time, the stage when we are beginning to perceive our egoism as evil. And now, the few people who were developing this method of correction for us can finally present it as a cure.

It needs to be explained to humanity similar to the way a doctor explains an illness to his patient, telling him what illness he has, what the treatment will be, and how to become healthy again since there is a treatment. And if we hurry and present the world with the cure, people will not need to look for it under the pressure of problems and misery which will force them to find this only solution anyway.

After one person killed over seventy people in Norway, Norwegian television has prohibited cruelty and violence. Why are we only able to learn when things like this happen? Why can’t we do the right thing ahead of time? Are we really this clueless? Why do we create such an awful environment for our children and force them to learn through hostility and competition? Why do children’s games teach them to kill or profit as much as possible? Why don’t we give them the message of unity? After all, in reality we are only shooting ourselves; we are cutting the branch we are sitting on.

Will it take a Norwegian scenario or a similar situation of massive proportion that menaces a world war to wake us up? Is that the only way for us to understand that it is enough, that we cannot do this anymore? We still do not see real advancement. People are not becoming smarter. What other misfortunes are we waiting for? We cannot wait for them!

We need to go to the people now, be patient and good with them, as if we are speaking to a patient who doesn’t understand why he feels sick yet. The pain is only covering his eyes and ears a little more. We need to be gentle and understanding with him. Even if he is against it, even if he curses us and doesn’t want to hear anything, we still need to keep trying, searching for ways to approach him in a loving yet decisive way and explain to him that there is no other solution.

We do not negate any methods, we do not reject anything. At the end of the day, we do not oppose egoism directly, and this is why we do not plan on crushing any movement, approach, or party. It is impossible, and we don’t need to destroy these egoistic structures, the same way we don’t need to destroy the ego within us.

We only need to strive for unity above all disagreements. And then all the different egoistic forms in us and in the external world, cultural and all other differences will turn into bestowal, love, and unity. Everyone will bring his penny into this unity, not through coercion, but gently, in a positive way.
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From Lesson 3, the Germany Convention 8/6/2011

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We must organize integral education around every person and require each to enter it. The general crisis will end with such a big blow that no one will have a job. We will not need all these extra goods, and there will be no need to produce more. There is plenty of everything. The world produces garbage, throws it away, and only pollutes the planet.

Suddenly, we discover that out of seven billion people existing in the world, 80 percent are extra. What can we do with them, kill them? There are theories that it is necessary to get rid of “extra people,” and then the rest will have jobs. However, the rest will not have jobs either as this war will leave a person wondering whether it’s good that he has remained alive.

That is why we have a simple solution. Every person’s job will be to enter an educational, learning environment. Just as we teach our children and 100 percent of the children study until they are 18, an adult should study or get continuous education throughout his life, working a couple of hours a day to perform the tasks assigned to him by society.

Then, every person will go through inner changes in a mandatory manner. We would not exclude one single person from this. Each would study in a virtual system, watching clips, listening to songs, or reading humorous stories, where everything will be on the topic of globality, integrality, unity, and mutual guarantee. Everyone will have to do homework, submit it to be checked, and pass exams. If one has completed everything, he will get a salary at the end of the month. This will be his job.

Question: Who finances his salary if no one works?

Answer: This does not mean that no one works. We all work to the extent that we have to, to produce the necessities of life. However, we do not make things only to pass them to each other and then throw them in a landfill because people hardly use them. We produce only the necessary items that everyone requires to exist normally.

The same education system includes studying how to live within the framework of life’s necessities, at the human level, in balance with nature, and observing its requirements. It should explain to everyone that by consuming more than we need, we become out of balance with nature.

Each organ of the body receives not for itself, but only to exist to help others, to serve them. We should understand that we have no choice. We must come to this system. Kabbalists spoke much about it, and we have to bring this knowledge to everyone.
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From the Talk about a New Book 7/11/2011

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My new book Psychology of an Integral Community has been published in Russian.

Excerpt from the annotation of the book: “The world in which we live today is global and integral. It means that all of its parts are completely interconnected, and each part determines the fate of all. This is the result of progress.

Starting from this moment on, there is no place for discord between parts of the world because everything that contradicts integration goes against progress, evolution, and the law of nature. We have to recognize an absolute connection between all parts of the world as a fact.”

The book is currently being translated into English.
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In the News (From sciencedaily.com): “The baby’s smile that gladdens a mother’s heart also lights up the reward centers of her brain, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers….

“To study the relationship [between mothers and infants], Strathearn and his colleagues asked 28 first-time mothers with infants aged 5 to 10 months to watch photos of their own babies and other infants while they were in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. The machine measures blood flow in the brain. In the scans, areas of increased blood flow “light up,” giving researchers a clue as to where brain activity takes place….

“The areas stimulated by the sight of their own babies were those associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine….

“‘These are areas that have been activated in other experiments associated with drug addiction,’ said Strathearn. ‘It may be that seeing your own baby’s smiling face is like a ‘natural ‎high.’…

“’Understanding how a mother responds uniquely to her own infant, when smiling or crying, may be the first step in understanding the neural basis of mother–infant attachment,’ said Strathearn.”

My comment: This is a chemical manifestation of our egoistic nature. Say, a person obtains the property of love of the other. Will the drug of love “dopamine” get secreted in the person if he sees someone else’s child or a stranger? Is this “drug” the anticipated sensation of the Creator, “the Good Who does Good”? Can we really use MRI and blood analysis to determine whether a person has attained love of the other?
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