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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Filed under: Books, Children, Education - 1 Comment →

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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Baal HaSulam, “Arvut ”: It is written, “You shall be My treasure from among all peoples.” This means that you will be My treasure [a special quality, Segula], and sparks of purification shall pass through you onto all the peoples and the nations of the world.

Segula is a special action by which we correct our egoistic intention to an altruistic one. I do not know exactly how this action is actualized, but it enables me to change, to acquire a second nature, to enter the next dimension, a reality that lies above my current self. And I don’t know exactly how this occurs.

That is why the exodus from Egypt is called a “miracle” and why the force of correction, the Light that reforms, which is contained in the Torah is called “a special quality”—Segula. I don’t have any idea about how it works. I only see the results, as if a certain “illumination” effuses upon me or a certain force works on me, and I become different.

Thus, even though I don’t understand how Segula works, I activate it by carrying out the conditions I am told about. “Do this,” write the Kabbalists, “And you will receive that.” I cannot trace this connection. It is not within my power. I simply know that specific actions on my part will bring about a specific reaction, although the cause and effect chain remains unclear to me. That’s because it originates from the Light, from the Giver, while I am still in the egoistic desire and do not see or feel Him. The contact with Him is still unclear to me, just as I don’t understand the mechanism of the return connection by which the Giver influences me and changes something inside of me.

That is why this kind of action is called “special.” A child has this same “special means” while playing and growing in our world. What actually causes his growth? We are so used to seeing how children develop by playing that we don’t notice how it happens. What force is activated by a child’s contact with a toy, with pictures in a book, with animals he sees, or with the cars that pass by him on the street? How do the images of the big world that he wants to come closer to, form something new inside of him? To us this is the regular routine, but in essence, this is the same “special means” at work.

A child wants to grow and is drawn to all sorts of forms of the adult world, and that’s how he really grows. Likewise, if we want to advance, we have to carry out several actions in order to activate the upper force that raises us. In a child the yearning to grow is instilled naturally, while we have freedom of choice: We have to organize an environment, the study, and ourselves, and attach the intention. That is how we develop.

Thus, “Segula” is the result of certain actions a person makes, even though he does not know exactly what he activates and how he is activated in response. With us this is expressed in our relationship with the upper Light, while in children—in their relationships with the surrounding world. The same principle operates in the interactions between the “nations of the world,” meaning all those who do not aspire to the Creator, and “Israel,” meaning those who do aspire to Him. Our relationship with the Creator is similar to their relationship to us. After all, they do not have a spark, a connection with Him, an aspiration for Him, or a desire to reveal Him. Only troubles push them to search for something better. That is why we bring them the science of Kabbalah in an adapted, accessible form.

The invitation to reveal the Creator does not say anything to them. They need a good life here and now, and nothing more. Accordingly, we reveal our message gradually to them, in the appropriate form, and they use us as a “special means,” as a “treasure from among all peoples.”

By being connected to us, they “suddenly” start acquiring forces, understanding, and desires that they did not have before. These “sparks” come from Infinity, from the Creator—through us to them. As a result, the “special quality” operates on all the levels.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/11, “Arvut”

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In the news (from Associated Press): “STOCKHOLM (AP) — At the “Egalia” preschool, staff avoid using words like “him” or “her” and address the 33 kids as “friends” rather than girls and boys….

Staff try to shed masculine and feminine references from their speech, including the pronouns him or her – “han” or “hon” in Swedish. Instead, they’ve have adopted the genderless “hen,” a word that doesn’t exist in Swedish but is used in some feminist and gay circles….”

The school is especially careful in selecting books and toys for children. It strives to give children the possibility to be who they are and to prevent them from developing barriers that separate masculine and feminine activities.

“There’s a long waiting list for admission to Egalia… It places a special emphasis on fostering an environment tolerant of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. …Nearly all the children’s books deal with homosexual couples, single parents or adopted children. There are no “Snow White,” “Cinderella” or other classic fairy tales seen as cementing stereotypes.”

My comment: We are surrounded by what is called “Nature.” We know virtually nothing about its laws, reasons, and the goals of its and our own existence. Yet, our observations and knowledge show that everything is in the process of causal development, and nothing is accidental or redundant. Whoever does not agree with this demonstrates their unfamiliarity with the laws of nature.

Hence, all we have to do is to study the laws of nature and carry them out. This will guarantee our good future. A breach of a natural relationship between the sexes brings about tremendous suffering in children and, as they grow up, problems with sexual and social identity.
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Last week, our supplementary education center for children and youth celebrated its birthday. Here are some pictures from the event.

[Show slideshow]

Filed under: Children, Education - 1 Comment →