Question: Can we say that a linear, individual problem solving method (for example, finding a solution for drug addiction) amounts to the further growth of this phenomenon?

Answer: Yes, we can. These problems will continue expanding since our egoism continues unfolding. If we don’t involve people into altruistic interaction, they won’t even know what to do with themselves and will feel as if they are being totally torn apart.

That’s why various problems such as drug addiction, terrorism, suicides, and so on will become regular phenomena. People have to do something with themselves, but they don’t know what exactly they should be doing. So, these problems will only grow. The only thing we can do is to teach everybody how to enter a new integral sphere of nature.

First, people have to learn how to organize themselves in a small integral environment. Then, they will feel that it makes them so much more comfortable when they are going through various unfortunate situations, such as family issues, social problems, and so on.

People will feel safer and more confident. They will even feel that the world they are connected with becomes much friendlier to them, not to others but to them particularly.

Individual self-regulation starts taking place, a homeostasis that fills us with completely different feelings, sensations, and potentials.
[105210]
From a Talk on Integral Education, 4/2/13

Related Material:
Once Upon A Time There Lived A Husband And A Wife…
It’s Good At Home, But It’s Better With The Team
Who Will Pull Us Out Of The Gutter?

Filed under: Crisis, Education, Integral Upbringing, Society - No Comments →

Question: Contemporary social sciences don’t provide suitable terms for defining our next state, when we all become connected. What’s the way of conveying this phenomenon through the scientific language?

Answer: You shouldn’t use old terms since they will be understood conventionally. Here, we have a chance to “shine” and develop a new language.

Question: What can be “new” except integrity? Scientists have a hard time understanding the terms “integrity” and “commonality” since they sound rather abstract to them.

Answer: Back in Soviet times, I used to constantly hear the word “commonality.” It’s a very adequate word! We gradually rise to benevolent good connection between us, reciprocal inclusion into each other, merging and establishing contacts that allow us to make one big picture (a mosaic) comprised of each of us. Every one in this mosaic is a separate part preoccupied with how to match with the “protrusions and concavities” of others, how to complete others correctly.

Perhaps “integrality” is too abstract of a notion. On other hand, “inter” and “enter” are prefixes that are used on a constant basis; we just have to get used to them. “Integrality” can be replaced by some other words. I am using it because it seems to me that it defines very well the upcoming state that the world will be in soon.

Question: The main disparagement brought up by the scientists is as follows: “How can a psychological state of mind lead to financial well-being or to the disappearance of diseases?”

Answer: Let’s refer to statistics. Where does financial instability come from? Isn’t it originated by our egoism? Aren’t all banks usurped by a small elite group that “gobbles up” everything and yet doesn’t take good advantage of what they have? All “greenery” that they collect just deteriorates.

Why is our healthcare the way it is? It’s because it’s much more profitable to sell medications and create diagnostic devices than to cure illnesses. It allows selling more medications, thus generating more profits. In other words, even the healthcare system is just about increasing somebody’s profits.

Should we even mention the education system? It’s a complete failure. The same applies to family values, upbringing children, arts, culture, etc.

When scientists study all spheres of our life and explore many social phenomena, they see that the cause of negativity is human egoism. It spoils everything. Have a look at our culture or science! It has nothing to do with science anymore; rather, it’s a source of finances. Nowadays, everything is for sale and purchase.

In other words, egoism consumes everything there is in all countries, all over the world.… Everything is subject to “cutting” and “sawing.” Isn’t it clear that we have to correct ourselves rather than the external world?

And what can be corrected in the surrounding world?Something that we’ve managed to distort? But then again, we don’t know how to approach these issues since we lack these sensations and don’t know how to fix things. Let’s try to “repair” ecology. It will take us forever since so much has been already destroyed. Where shall we start? Where shall we get money? Who will give it to us? Who will allow us to act? Who cares? “I’ll die tomorrow, but I am still alive today…”—this is how our egoism works.

We will never be able to correct what has been already damaged unless people start regarding themselves differently and see the entire world from a different angle: through integrity, reciprocity, harmony, consideration, and at least some elements of complicity. This explains why the world continues to roll downhill. That’s why integral education is our foremost and most urgent task.
[105215]
From a Talk on Integral Education 4/2/13

Related Material:
The Relationship Between The Language Of Kabbalah And The Language Of Integral Education
Shared Contact
Everyone Has Their Own Predisposition

Filed under: Education, Egoism, Integral Upbringing, Society - No Comments →

Question: Today people feel the gap between real life and their psychological well-being. I remember our grandparents didn’t experience this discrepancy. Meanwhile, for a contemporary person (even if he has a family) a good psychological atmosphere is separated from the material well-being. Is there a way to demonstrate that these things are nevertheless connected?

Answer: It doesn’t matter if they are strangers to each other or a family. They still have to attend the same seminars, listen to the same explanations, thus rising above their egoism.

Before, our egoism was not as big as it is now! Once upon a time there lived “a husband and wife”; they had a “hen” (meaning a household, a home, a vegetable garden, etc). A husband worked, his wife took care of the home. It was an old-fashioned household arrangement. The family life revolved around the home, community, children, and so on.

Today, it’s nothing like that. At this time, we all work for somebody else, for some society, for something unintelligible. In the morning, we take our kids to kindergartens, then we rush to our jobs, and after we are done for the day, we head to supermarkets…. From there, we run back home, quickly warm food, feed everybody as soon as possible, wash the kids, and go to bed. The next day, we repeat the same pattern.

Is it similar in any way to the previous way that family life was set up? Before, people used to have a home, a household. Today, we only call it a household. Everybody has individual possessions; even spouses have separate bank accounts.

So, we have to teach people at our seminars to rise above their egoism and unite beyond it. Otherwise, family will cease to exist since our egoism cuts us off from others, pushes us aside, while we take no action in response. And the state officials cannot do anything here. Two egoists cannot be forced to stay in one territory.

Why do I need a family? I go to work and earn my own money; I don’t need anyone! If I need to, in the evening I can bring home whoever I want. I can go to a supermarket, buy ready-made foods, warm them in microwave, and eat them for dinner. The whole arrangement serves the purpose of allowing everybody to live separately. Manufacturers of consumer goods get maximum benefits if there is only one person in the household since two single people will buy more of everything: refrigerators, TV sets, and washing machines.…
[105212]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” 4/2/13

Related Material:
Concerns And Prospective
Overview Of The Integral Education Course: Family Relationships
No Need to Envy Your Cat

Filed under: Crisis, Education, Egoism, Family, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Society - No Comments →

Question: We encounter a phenomenon whereby people systematically participate in the program of integral education and happily come to workshops, but in their spare time, they disconnect until the next workshop. They pass their time in front of a television or on the Internet, and so on. What is this phenomenon? How can we work with it?

Answer: One can understand these people. The issue is that a person doesn’t feel the need at each moment to look at his life via the feeling of integrality with the entire nature. After all, he isn’t connected to nature. He lies on the sofa and watches television. It’s simply the beastly state.

By no means do I want to humiliate people; I’m simply talking about what is natural to our bodies. A person wants to relax: to sit on the sofa, to drink beer. The body pulls a person to this.

If during this time he was in some society, then various associations with what he feels now or felt during the workshop would appear to him there. But since this is his individual state, and he now disconnects from the world (watches pictures on the screen), then he simply rests from everything, disconnects, enters the beastly state. It will slowly pass.

I hope that at some stage the workshops will appear on television. They will be more interesting, attractive, and sharp, akin to all kinds of television series. Perhaps they will be arranged and structured so that the viewers will be able to take an active part in them: to sing together with the workshop participants, to act with them in all kinds of theatrical scenes, and so on.

All of that can become a special kind of art where there is a clear direction: to create a harmonious society from all of these situation. And all of this will happen in front of the viewers and will draw them inside, within the mutual activity. We are just beginning this work, and I hope that if not us, then those who will come after us will enrich it with manifestations of inter-relationships that are more and more integral.
[104922]
From a Talk on Integral Education 4/2/13

Related Material:
Back To A Childhood Free Of Worries
Inspiration That Never Comes
The Secret Of Success

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

Question: Teenagers who are involved in integral education act like adults and at the same time like children. This borderline is subtle. What is the way to form interaction with them if this switching is constantly taking place?

Answer: This depends on a person. Of course, there is a difference in the way boys and girls mature. We know that girls develop and mature faster than boys, therefore age isn’t really measured by the number of years. However, there are boys who become responsible and mature at an early age. And there are those who are spoiled, who wish to remain children, don’t want to take on responsibility, and always take the sidelines when it comes to dealing with problems. However, in an integral circle this difference gradually disappears.

Remark: It is very difficult for me and for many other specialists to interact with them because they give two reactions simultaneously: that of an adult and that of a child.

Answer: This is what they are. Try to enter their state, try to speak like them (this is a natural approach), be together with them, and justify them fully. Then you’ll suddenly begin to see the world through their eyes, feel it through their perception, and agree with them. You’ll have to climb out of this young age.

Question: I’ve always considered myself to be a progressive person. Now I feel like a retrograde in this matter. How can one remain internally young and free?

Answer: Sit together with them at a seminar, talk and think like they do. Try to play this character. Then you’ll suddenly feel young and understand that this is how it should be. You’ll absorb their worldview because otherwise, you won’t be able to do anything.

Also, you can give them more freedom and let them do what they feel is necessary, with the exception of certain framework that they shouldn’t step outside of in order to prevent the undesirable: promiscuous sexual relations, drugs, and so on.
[105112]
From a Talk on Integral Upbringing, 4/2/2013

Related Material:
Back To A Childhood Free From Worries
A College Degree At The Age Of Twelve
Light Assisted Education

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

Question: Our task today is to think how we can help a person understand what he needs to change to feel better. How can we do this?

Answer: People should be treated by means of education. Their brain is affected, their system of perception, the system of analysis, conclusions, the system of realization—all this is affected by the terrible malignancy called “egoism” that eats on them from the inside.

First of all, we need to identify what kind of  terrible new growth this is, which we didn’t observe within ourselves before, or if we did, it wasn’t to such an extent it could be defined as fatal.

We need to understand the depth and breadth of the problem. After all, this is not a private issue of a certain country: Doctors are bad, patients are bad, or medical services are poor. This is a problem with a general health care system that follows the same principle as the rest of the world.

The same thing is within the economy, trade, and industry. For example, in a supermarket we are sold what spoils quickly because it’s advantageous for producers that we shop as often as possible and they want us to stay attached to the system. We are trained to use certain products. The same thing occurs at work, on vacation; everything is managed.
[105635]
From KabTV’s “The Medicine of the Future” 4/7/13

Related Material:
A Blister on the Beautiful Face of Creation
In The Body And Above It
Everything Flows Everything Changes

Filed under: Crisis, Education, Egoism, Health, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: The workshops dealing with the mutual integral cooperation are hard internal work. People make great efforts especially when they become integrally communicative, so what should we focus on?

Answer: A person should prepare before the workshop and say to himself: “Calm down. Look at everyone with a smile, even if it is an artificial smile at first, and try to smile more naturally with time. Look “into” the person you are talking to; try to love him; try to get close to him.”

Thus, we gradually focus before the workshop because we want to find additional positive attributes inside us, that are hidden somewhere deep within us. Nature, however, reveals only our negative attributes, and we want to balance them.

So we have to start by such preparations: Let’s hold hands like children and sing kids’ songs. It is very relaxing. Can you imagine respectable men and women in their fifties, sitting together and singing kids’ songs?

A person has to free himself from his worries and detach himself from everything he has in society, at work, and at home. Everyone feels good when they return to their childhood that was free from worries; we all remember it warmly, except in rare cases.

So do relaxation exercises, play a little game so people will feel sympathetic toward one another. Besides, you can simply give each one a task: “Say something nice about everyone,” and thus begin the workshop.
[105032]
From a Talk on Integral Education 4/2/13

Related Material:
Preparation For The Workshop
Tuning Ourselves To The “Melody” Of The Seminar
Equality In The Group?

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

Question: In what ways does the integral method differ from Eastern meditations used in the attempts to reach harmony with nature?

Answer: Eastern meditations are based on the annulment of the ego: breathing less, listening less, and eating less. In this way, having renounced everything, having isolated himself, a person lowers his ego and allegedly becomes a part of the world, returning to the state of animal. In other words, he specifically enters into his body.

On the contrary, with our method we go above our body. We want to broaden our sensations and consciousness, mainly thanks to integrality.

No matter how paradoxical it may sound, Eastern psychologists speak about the elevation of a person, however actually, he is lowered to such a level that he can’t even breathe, eat, or do anything. Most importantly, such people detach themselves from the world in order to deal with it individually, somewhere in their corner. Thus, this practice is not suitable for our world since all in all, it’s just relaxing, psychological training.

And the system of integral education speaks about the integrality of nature, the integrality of humanity within it: This is the only way you together with all of humanity can be integrated into the general picture, but not alone. You must create at least a small group, and afterwards you will understand that you need to develop further since it is the only way to overcome all the problems.

You begin to see that in nature there is a plan for our development. And purposely this plan brings us to a huge ego that developed in us during thousands of years so that we will understand that we need to get rid of it, to rise above it—not to destroy it, but to rise above it! That is the secret of our system.
[104884]
From a Talk on Integral Education 4/2/13

Related Material:
In What Way Is The Ego Good?
Corporeal Altruists And Spiritual Egoists
An Altruistic “Shirt” For Egoism

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

Question: Not too long ago the Israeli President Shimon Peres expressed ideas that are similar to the ones we have been speaking about for years: about limiting the workday, replacing the hours of work with studying, about education via the Internet, about education that is based on the connection between a teacher and the students…

Answer: We determine what the world will think about. The problem is that we are behind in correcting ourselves so that our good thoughts will penetrate the minds of the elite. They permeate slowly and people begin to speak to the point, but not enough, we have to hurry.

In any case, this is how things happen: Our thoughts, desires, and actions are revealed in others internally, and people begin to think in the same manner, not even knowing why.

When the nations of the world blame the Jewish people for bringing evil to the world and even for secretly managing the world, the claims that begin subconsciously are partly justified and partly not. The nations are wrong about thinking that Jews are evil, but they are right about thinking that reality is indeed arranged as a pyramid: It is from the level of GE that the Lights come to AHP and determine all its actions.

Freewill is only on the final level of the last phase, and only those who have attained it and whom the future of the world depends on have it. Accordingly, they are responsible for it and receive more blows than others. This is the form of creation.

The “exchanging of ideas” will gradually become more common and prominent, and so we have to try and establish our thoughts so that even the “greatest villains” will receive the good and correct “inner content” from us.

It is because we are responsible for them and what happens to them is also up to us. If someone expresses wrong ideas or harms the world, it is an indication of my flaws that I have not corrected yet although I had the chance.

We could have prevented all the evil in the world. The Creator is good and benevolent and He enables us to establish things correctly and to manage things. If we don’t, then unfortunately very undesirable things happen. So we have to be more responsible.
[104940]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/13, “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
Becoming The Light For The Nations
Long Live Freedom!
A Bridge Over The Eternal Conflict

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

In the News (from Deutsche Welle): “With unemployment at unprecedented levels in the EU, the risk of social unrest is rising, says the UN’s International Labour Organization. The ILO is warning politicians to abandon austerity and embrace job creation.

“’When unemployment is as high as it is right now – as poverty and welfare protection become worse – then the danger of social unrest grows along with it,’ says Miguel Angel Malo.

“Malo is a professor of economics in Salamanca, Spain – a country where youth unemployment is at 56 percent. …

“If one looks at who the losers are, it becomes clearer exactly why the ILO is warning of unrest. The losers are made of three groups which have scarcely any access to the labor market.

The first group is young people: one in four youths – a group that includes those who have finished higher education but have not found work – is currently unemployed. In Spain and Greece it’s more than half. …

“The second group is the long-term unemployed, whose numbers have nearly doubled, from 5.8 million in 2008 to 11 million today.

“And the third group is those with few qualifications: ‘unskilled labor’ has been hit particularly hard by negative economic developments, much more so than skilled workers or university graduates.”

My Comment: There will be no work. One solution is to implement a shorter workday. I have written about this and it is encouraging to see that the 90-year-old Israeli President Shimon Peres says about it as well:

Translation: “It is necessary to reduce working hours and to increase the time of study. Who says that you need to work 8 hours a day? It is possible to work 4 hours a day and study 4 hours a day, and the studies will be considered work. It is necessary to employ young people. We must provide Grade 11 and 12 students with 2 hours of work a day. They will be trained in the community not less than at the university. Their workplaces will benefit from their youthful energy, and the young will have some income. I also propose that we start teaching English from 3 years of age; it is the right time for this.”
[104967]

Related Material:
The Crisis Is Not Financial But Evolutionary
Europe’s Lost Generation
“Europe In 2013: A Year Of Decision”

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