Entries in the 'Education' Category

Understanding The Nature Of Man

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In an integral circle sometimes there is the dynamic of a person who does not engage with the problems of others, but wants to constantly pull the attention of the group to himself, to use the circle to resolve his own inner discomfort. By this, he breaks the effect of the circle. How should one work with a person like this?

Answer: There are many different techniques to balance the circle. Therefore, on one hand, we constantly need to remind everyone about the conditions of the work in the circle, and on the other hand, we should understand this person, his nature.

Take this example and discuss it. How does the ego show itself in each one of us? What is my main, external egoistic characteristic? In what ways do I express myself as an egoist? Someone doesn’t let others speak, and that woman sits quietly and doesn’t show any action. The third person doesn’t say a word, but at the end, blurts out such an assessment of what is killing everyone else, and that one sits there red as a lobster, and now it seems that he will tear everyone to pieces or explode, and so forth.

In other words, we discuss how our external ego is revealed and how we should with care and love, bit by bit build it with the help of everyone, and specifically by using it, by our loving the negative attributes of our friend, rise above it. There is no need to say that the negative attributes of the friend are the reflections of my own attributes; that is a very high level. At least, in the meantime, explain it in this way to them.
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From Kab TV’s “Through Time” 9/21/13

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Rising Above A Problem

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I don’t understand: What is “rising” above a problem?

Answer: Rising above a problem means rising above our egoistic characteristics, above our previous thinking. I accept the opinion that we all came together, but inside me, within my heart, within my body, I don’t feel it as mine. I act consciously with an intelligence beyond my emotion.

This is required so that we will unite and rise to the next level. With this, I arouse the unique power of nature, the Surrounding Light, on myself, and this common characteristic that we create among us acts upon and influences each one of us, improves and changes us.
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From Kab Tv’s “Through Time” 9/21/13

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Produce The Integral Laws Together

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When we begin to work with people in the area of integral education, do we put emphasis on the method itself or on the group of ten in which the integral force is revealed?

Answer: On the group of ten in which the people who receive integral education and training begin to discover this method themselves. After all, we know how much it enters and remains in a person. Thus, the significance of verbal and conceptual conveyance disappears.

People must feel everything themselves and reach those conclusions that we want to teach them, themselves. Therefore, all the questions we ask during the course of the workshop must be directed towards this, for this will produce the most reliable result.

They will suddenly begin to understand: “Yes, this must be so,” and we immediately ask them, “And why not otherwise?” And they will convince themselves and us with the integral conclusion that they have reached: It is definitely necessary to agree with what another person says, and I only supplement him, and the one who comes after me supplements me, and so on.

In other words, all of us must reach some kind of common opinion that we accept, not that is imposed upon us and not crushed into us during the process of some of cunning dialogue or political persuasion; rather, it becomes the opinion of everyone without exception. How is it possible to find an opinion like this in which everyone will specifically feel it as my solution? It is not that I concede; they don’t convince me; rather, it exists in the same form as I express it. And then this will be integral unity.

After this everyone reaches a common opinion that we should solve everything on an equal basis, according to those characteristics that nature gave each one. This is to say, the equality of the people can only be conditional. And so on. Thus, the students should produce all the common integral laws on their own.
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From Kab TVs “Through Time” 9/17/2013

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Is The Future In The Internet?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: For several years  I have been involved with dissemination via the Internet. From that course that we are going through now, the sensation is that this is an absolutely unnecessary occupation compared to physical dissemination. Can  I leave the job of dissemination on the Internet and get involved with higher priority activities?

Answer: I don’t think that we should abandon the Internet. It’s preferable to try to find forms and places on it that will be more useful.

Unfortunately, the Internet is gradually becoming “dull” and is beginning to kill itself. People are becoming stupefied, the young are becoming stupefied, most of them are satisfied with short messages. The virtual image of communication is short and limited expressions. I don’t think that there is a great future behind it.

Perhaps there will be a technological breakthrough and we will begin to communicate via electronic means so that we can provide each other with the entire fullness of communication, not limited in size or by time. Just press a button and we will be able to communicate directly with many people, with all kinds of groups, to see everyone and feel each other as if we are sitting together around a single table. Everything has to be simple and easy.

If the technical media will give us the illusion of natural communication, then there is a future for the Internet. In the meantime, in spite of it all, it will wither. People will be interested in it less and less; it will begin to expire. After all, we pounced upon the Internet as on every innovation, thinking it would fill any emptiness in us. Yet it doesn’t fill them.

Therefore, in spite of the primitiveness of the generation that doesn’t want to study or work, people simply “graze” on the Internet with nothing to do, out of despair. Nobody is involved with them, in the meantime we cannot involve them in integral education and there aren’t any government programs addressing this concern.

But basically, this will not last long. This must reach either a technological breakthrough where it will be easier for us to go out to people and influence them emotionally or people will simply abandon this means of communication because they will not find any meaning in it. Today nobody pays attention to what is written on the Internet. Who is interested in whose opinion? Who reads five hundred responses to some nonsense? People are tired not only with reading, but also with expressing their opinion.

I recommend not paying any particular attention to the Internet and not thinking that this will be a long lasting involvement. Humanity will very rapidly replace it.
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From a Talk About Dissemination 10/17/13

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Within The Family There Is No Need For Heroics

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: As a specialist in personal coaching, I can attest that over fifty percent of the people come to courses specifically because they have difficulties in building connections as couples.

This is a very painful and difficult topic. People don’t understand how to build and maintain the most important connection in their lives. Sometimes they are in despair and throw up their hands, but deep within their hearts in spite of it all they yearn for this closeness, even though they don’t know how to build it….

Answer: First of all we must understand that we constantly pass through a series of changes. It is impossible to compare modern couples and old-fashioned couples who lived a half-century of a century earlier, and even more so those who lived even before this. People communicated much more easily then; they married fellow villagers, they knew all the families, were familiar with their characteristics, culture, and education.

Therefore there were no surprises in marriage, even the future family menu was known from the start. People were more dependent upon each other; they required more mutual help. Due to a lack of time, people could not take care of themselves alone; they could not build their lives, run the household, cook, clean, do laundry, and so forth.

In short, a couple needed each other to survive. A person simply didn’t see a future without marriage and a healthy family. He could not even provide himself with necessities.

It was the same regarding children. In general, the entire society was built on clear patterns of family with three generations often living together. The young and the old depended upon each other, and in fact, they were an inseparable unit.

On the other hand, today, because of technological developments and global communication, everything has become mixed up and different. A person no longer needs a “second half”; he can easily be concerned only for himself and live alone. As a result of this, we don’t depend upon a partner anymore and already from the age of 11 to 12 children are waiting for the opportunity to escape from under the care of their parents. In addition, we don’t have time to devote enough attention to them, not to mention the fact that they are not involved in running the household as they were before.

Therefore, if in the past the couple supported a shared home together, today we don’t really have anything in common. The modern family is easily “broken” into two parts and each part can get by on its own. Modern laws contribute to this and public opinion doesn’t see anything wrong with the absence of a family. He has a job, a hobby, a life ambition that is primary in his eyes, and a host of temptations, against which the family seems like an unnecessary hindrance.

We see that people change spouses and build a number of families throughout their lives. Studies indicate that a modern person cannot remain within the framework of a family for more than ten or fifteen years. It is no wonder that today changing one’s family is just a matter of time.

And therefore the conditions for family life have changed drastically. But on the other hand, the concept of “family” still remains an inner demand (more pronounced in women and with men subconsciously). People want this, yet they don’t know how to manifest it. They have not been taught what a family is, how to build it, and what is possible to require from it. This is because it is talking about a complex partnership between a man and a woman in which children and parents from both sides also participate.

They don’t teach this in schools, and television shows and jokes are strewn everywhere, often creating a dismissive attitude. Everyone wants to look like a hero, and in our day a “hero” is someone who radiates indifference.

In the end, we don’t know what a family is. We have some kind of dream about this, but there are no true examples from life. When the young look at their parents, they don’t find anything particularly attractive in their shared life; they live in separate “niches,” barely intersect, and apparently they have difficulty finding the time to “create” it, and that is as far as their shared efforts go. Where is the family household? Where is there something in common, mutual support that obliges them to work in order to survive and to continue living together? There is no mutual commitment between them.

Industry and technology, life on the Internet, all these have expanded the borders for us. In the past people lived in the framework of family and work; they were strongly linked by the shared management of the household economy, but suddenly the wide world now comes directly into our homes and we have moved to “vague,” unclear relationships.

It turns out that if people think about family today, they have no education and no example in front of them. They need to clarify anew what a true family is for themselves. So a person will change so that he can gain enough from building family life, we must convey this through special practical courses based upon psychology and encompassing every variety of familial relationship. Nothing can be done here without real educational resources.
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From Kab TV’s “A New Life” 6/09/2013

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To Sense The Upper Source

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When we get into the upbringing of young people we see that there are a multitude of fine details which require systematization. What is the most important thing in the integral education of teenagers?

Answer: The main thing is to give them a clear, inner assurance that all problems in life, in the world, in society, and in individuals can be solved collectively. The correct collective is that source that will always give a person the correct answer. He will always win if he acts in accordance with it.

This firm conviction and the habit to act this way do not cancel a person and do not make him a small screw among the masses. On the contrary, he is above all since he rises because of the collective and because he can work collectively. A person does not disappear in it, but becomes its integral part. As a result, the whole collective in turn becomes his part.

In the end a person rises to such a level when he begins to sense even the hidden forces of human nature, human interaction. It is something that Freud and other psychologists dreamt about. He begins to sense all inclinations and everything that influences our mind, as the upper force, the upper source.

Therefore, our task is to give to a person contact with the upper source so he will know what he should do in life in accordance with this source.
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From the “Talk About Integral Upbringing” 4/4/13

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An Oasis In Which Everyone Flourishes

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the current educational system, the higher the level of education, the more attention is dedicated to its quality. For example, it is possible to train millions of primary school teachers, but  the number of professors is far fewer. Does the integral education method have the same structure?

Answer: It is difficult to say, because during the time we have been involved in teaching, training, lecturing, disseminating, and developing the integral method, there have been hundreds of people in our system. We began with people who were active in developing all kinds of projects, and we discovered that quiet, laconic, unsociable people, once confined to extraneous groups and uninterested in our international academy for integral education, suddenly also began to work intensively.

They felt the relaxed atmosphere in that piece of the “pie,” the society that we cut off from the society. They felt themselves at home. This was close to them, good for them, and suddenly, they began to bloom like a flower, and, previously, they were uptight, reserved, and occupied only in helping with technical work. This is a very interesting phenomenon. I think that anyone, man, woman, or even a child, can succeed in this.

For many years of my life, I studied various sciences and all kinds of other subjects, but I never saw in the forefront of teaching, a  method that has so many people with different characteristics, qualities, and mentalities as there are in integral education. It is simply amazing! Here, there is really a place for everyone: for workers, housewives, young people, children, and so on.

You see a person, who could not open his mouth in the past, suddenly beginning to express his opinion, and closed and rude people communicating with little children (which was impossible to even imagine), or a woman who could not stand other women starting to work with them.

Therefore, I suppose that there are no limitations here. It is impossible to predict anything in advance. It turns out that people who have been with us for many years and know our method extremely well suddenly are finding some new area, a unique part of the society.
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From Kab TV’s “Through Time” 9/17/13

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Union Of Opposites

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can we say about the role of women in integral workshops, is it destructive or constructive?

Answer: In nature nothing can be destructive and if such a phenomenon is seen, then it is only in the fact that an object has not been complemented by the opposite property to form a unified, complete whole. In nature there is nothing negative! So it is impossible to say that one thing is worse than another.

If we were to look at everything by way of integral glasses with which nature would appear correctly as a unified system, we would not find anything that would be somewhat worse or better, smaller or greater. For in an integral system everything is equally important and necessary to the same degree.

It is impossible to understand the essence of some object or phenomenon without its opposite. Only when you connect them together do you begin to understand that partnership that grows from them. And specifically from that common source (from the third component, the third line) that you begin to attain, you understand why opposing characteristics such as these, like masculine and feminine, and in what manner they attain their level and the internal program, and that their destiny is specifically attaining wholeness through mutual completion.

We must attain a state like this, where we will be a single complete whole, and through attainment of this unity, from within it, the need for separation, wholeness, and so forth is seen. So, let’s reach the goal and from there everything will be clear to us.

In nature there is nothing evil, there is nothing bad, there is no darkness. Everything in the world that seems bad to us is a result of our incorrect view of the general picture of creation.
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From Kab TV’s “Through Time” 9/21/13

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So The Body And Soul Will Be Young

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the meaning of the “sensation of balance” between a person and society that comes as a result of integral education?

Answer: A person feels kindness, openness, support from everyone, inclusion into others, and feels everyone together rather than himself. He “comes out of himself,” from his problems, from his illnesses, and from his thoughts. This is most important especially in the elderly. He begins to feel like a child who becomes included in the surrounding environment as though he is floating in it. It is very important for him to be with others, to play with them, and to sense them.

If we bring people to such a state, then they will really not feel their age. They will be ready to literally give everything for this. After all, a person feels amazing lightness; he doesn’t feel the weight of his age. This makes him healthier and rejuvenates him.

Rejuvenation takes place when a person rises above his state so much that he becomes included in the collective. He no longer feels himself, but rather the commonality: all as one.
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From Kab TV’s “Medicine of the Future,” Part 4, 4/7/13

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Resolution Of A Family Dispute From The Height Of A Spiritual Level

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How much can a person speak honestly and openly about his state in an integral learning lesson?

Answer: Only if he wants to find an answer to the question of how to solve a current situation. Suppose I have a serious conflict with my wife; I am not creating this situation, not inflating it intentionally. Truly a situation that is tearing the family apart has occurred and I don’t know what to do. I even get in touch with my instructor and find out if I can present this problem for discussion and clarification.

You don’t have to be embarrassed, because something like this happens in all families. The main thing is that we must leave the workshop with a solution to the given conflict.

Question: At what expense is an integrated solution to the conflict clarified in integral learning sessions?

Answer: Thanks to the gathering of five married couples, together they clarified the problem of each of them. For example, in the first couple there was an age-old problem: “He doesn’t understand me, I don’t understand him.” So let’s get together to decide what should be done, let’s solve how to behave together, without blaming anyone, without supporting anyone, not taking one side or another. We immediately deduce the problem to the next level, an impersonal level, and begin to solve it.

Each couple needs to adapt to the question and penetrate into it, and after working within it, share with everyone their decision because something similar surely happened with them, too. For in principle, couples come to us already with some life experience, having come across familial conflicts.

But they don’t begin the clarification from a materialistic point of view; rather, they raise themselves to the next level, the spiritual level, considering their relationship to the conflict specifically from that level. Why was this problem created? Why doesn’t the couple succeed in staying on the integral level, elevating and encouraging each other? What was missing for them: an environment, reminders, support? And so forth.
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From Kab TV’s “Through Time” 9/21/13

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