Question: We say that due to our unity, the situation in the world has changed: It has become more peaceful; there is less terrorism. If a secret service employee heard us, he would say: “We are working from morning till night, neutralizing terrorists, so the situation has improved because of us, not because you are uniting together.” What can you tell this skeptic or is it better not to contradict him?

Answer: I usually do not enter into any debate with anyone. Let them talk; it does not matter.  If they think they are doing it better, so be it.

Besides that, I do not think that we can replace services for safety and security, etc. because humanity is far from being able to advance consciously. And those people who want to do harm must come up against an organized public order.

I have nothing to tell him; he does not see and will never understand what we are doing if he does not come to our courses.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #14, 12/18/11

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Question: Our efforts in uniting and dissemination create changes in the rest of the world. Does this in turn affect us? For example, if we create courses for the masses and start connecting these people, their numbers will grow. Will this have an affect on our ability to advance and unite quicker? Are these processes interconnected?

Answer: These processes are definitely connected. We received the opportunity to advance so that we will be able to lead all of humanity. From nature’s perspective there’s no need for our existence. We serve as a buffer that has to work in coordination with nature and with the rest of humanity because it can’t advance on its own.

For this reason we must be together with the seven billion people. We must try to create a method that is comprehensible to them and organize everything in a way that will be easy, pleasant, convenient, and joyful.  We have to spark their interest in following us. It should never be forced because their advancement has to be voluntary and conscious.

We have to constantly elevate their development so that they would realize the importance of moving forward. Thereby, they will advance. Essentially, our education is directed at bringing people to the realization of the necessity of personal development.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #14, 12/18/11

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Most religions consider altruistic behavior the main value of humanity. It is believed that altruism is the basis of virtue. According to Boris Krieger, altruism is selfishness at the level of family, community, kin, and humanity. Our altruistic behavior is dictated by conscience, religious beliefs, habits, and fear of punishment by fate or God. A truly unselfish act that has no moral, religious, or instinctive reason is impossible.

Altruism plays a special role in a group of people. They get the feeling of a “superorganism” (The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, The Superorganism by Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson) when everyone is ready to sacrifice himself for the rest of the group. People are willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the entire group to prevent a threat from another group. Team altruism is the basis for military training where people are taught to view the life of the country as more important than their own lives.

We can find evidence for this theory in Darwin’s principle of natural selection, under the assumption that “natural selection could act on groups as well as individuals, an idea known as group selection” (James Schwartz, “Death of an Altruist“), where altruism is considered a group’s egoism. Forming a functional unit in which everyone is ready to sacrifice himself for the benefit of the entire group in order to overcome difficulties or threats, usually coming from another superorganism, is the most noble and terrible human ability.

This is the secret of successful organizations working on the principle of a beehive or hierarchy. It is the purpose of basic military training. This is the reward for which people are willing to join militias, rock bands, and fan clubs. This is the dream of fascism. This may explain our love for adherence (temporarily, conditionally, or permanently) to something larger than ourselves.

However, the altruism offered by Kabbalah is born in a person under the influence of the upper Light (Ohr Makif), producing the desire to bestow to and love the friends in the group, the like-minded people, because only with them he can achieve the goal: adhesion to the Creator. It is a completely different method of “faith above reason,” not for the sake of fulfillment, but for the sake of bestowal. Try it and find the difference.
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Question: Suppose an unemployed person came to you and asked: “What exactly should I do?” How would you answer him?

Answer: I would say the following: I want to explain that you are not unemployed. Today families, countries, nations, the world, the entire human society, all of us are entering a completely different existence. We do not have to work for 10 hours a day, but rather we need to organize our life in a completely different way. Everyone inevitably will come to this; you’ll see that you are not alone.

In China, one million people are laid off daily, and this is escalating. The same happens in Europe and America. In Africa, people did not work and still do not work. In practice, we are approaching such a state when the notion of “jobless” or “unemployed” is erased. A person should create an environment where he will feel comfortable. If this requires work, then he will work; if it does not require work, then he will not. Work is not an end in itself.

Let’s think and discuss what should be the form of humanity if today billions of people are released from their work as something unnecessary, superfluous, and even harmful. I received a letter from my student who works in China. He has a large business selling Volkswagen cars, which are very popular in China. He writes: “We have not sold a single car since the beginning of the month. It is a disaster!” And they used to sell a hundred a day. Do you understand what is going on?

So, what can I do with an unemployed person who is standing in front of me crying? This is a natural trend in our evolution. Let us see where it leads and take the necessary steps to ensure that we do not feel inadequate because we do not work. Perhaps, it is not necessary to work. Maybe, all our work only harms nature, us, and the environment. It obviously destroys the environment and possibly us. What can we do that is more enjoyable instead of what we were doing before? This is what we can talk about.

We just need to show a person that this is an objective reality, and if he understands, then he will see that his life is getting better, not worse.
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From a “Talk  on Integral Education” #13, 12/18/11

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Question: Is the introduction of the integral education and upbringing a long process? How should we start it?

Answer: This is not a long process because in any case, we have to complete this path within the next 228 years if it occurs without our participation.

We already shortened it significantly. We can also make it shorter so we will go through it in the nearest future. It is quite possible! It depends only on us!

The shortening of the path is a repeated, accumulative process. It is impossible to even convey this: The difference is the same as between walking and flying on an airplane.
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From “A Talk on Integral Education” #14, 12/18/11

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Question: Is my aversion towards a person a wonderful opportunity to create integrality?

Answer: Yes, of course. Let’s look at each other simply as we do with our good friends or our children and feel each other as a result of that. If I make an effort regardless of the fact that it’s unpleasant for me to listen to someone, then in spite of my antagonism and thanks to this effort, I will begin to feel him better. This means that I will have acquired a new instrument of perception. A person is pushing me away, but in spite of that I overcome the aversion by creating from the positive and the negative feelings inside of me a distinct instrument of entry into it, and I begin to feel it.

If I didn’t have the aversion towards it, it would be very difficult for me to make contact with it. I would have simply accepted what comes out of it in a pleasant form and would adapt it inside of myself according to my perception. But when I do it in an opposing way, it’s as if I am penetrating into this thickness, this force of overcoming, and then the contact with the person is created inside of me.

That’s why as we grow, the people who were previously pleasant to me are now suddenly being revealed to me as unpleasant, pushing me away from them, and vice versa, I am being averted from them. However, I understand that thanks to the opposition, I get the opportunity to penetrate deeper into them.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #13, 12/18/11

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Question: When a person asks you a question, you listen to him carefully, even if he speaks for a long time and is boring or talks nonsense. Why listen to the person’s opinion, and for what? One can tell that it’s important for you.

Answer: At times, I suddenly interrupt someone. I feel what a person needs to experience: either a somewhat scornful attitude from my side or on the contrary, collaboration, support, and respect, which would help him either from the good or the bad side so that he would consequently begin to respect himself, and so on. There are many reasons for my differentiated relationship towards everyone.

You observe me among the three hundred students with whom I have been building spiritual relationships throughout many years. These are not everyday, ordinary relationships, but on the teacher-student level.

I have a very strong motivation to push a person, to direct him, to lead him out of a state of descent, or on the contrary, to support, to strengthen him, to not let him descend—today, and tomorrow it may be different. All of this is very much “alive” and it is dictated by one’s inner situation at a given moment, meaning in what state a person is in and what is happening to him. It’s impossible to give a formula for this.

The motivation comes from inner feelings. Like an artist in a theater, getting into character, reckons that he has to perform one move here and another one there, and they let him do this because this comes from within him. It’s the same here.

Question: At the courses of integral education, is it important to listen to a person’s opinion, let him have his say? How is this regulated?

Answer: It depends upon what stage the group is in. If the group is at the beginning stage, the chatter may take hours. The group is being built gradually, people are getting used to each other. At first, we do not forbid breaking the group into parts or pulling it together. If the people become tired, we take breaks so that they can have a cup of coffee, smoke a cigarette, and so on.

Besides, at the very first lessons, entrance and exit is free for everyone. Suppose a person wants to relax a little, or something is pressuring, obliging, or stressing him, or maybe he remembered something that the situation may have brought up. A very smooth, liberal relationship is necessary here.

The only condition is that a person must not bother others. This is obligatory. That’s why all telephones are switched off so there won’t be any external distractions. We are trying to smooth out everything as much as possible. In everything else, each person enters the study in his own way and at his own rate.
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From “A Talk on Integral Education” #13, 12/18/11 

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I think that in the course of the year to come, humanity will realize that it’s impossible to continue this race of overconsumption, overproduction, and bank inflation. This bubble must burst and we must begin to consume reasonably and implement fair distribution of work and resources amongst everyone.

The many hours that will free up a person’s day as a result of these changes will be taken up by integral education and upbringing, where each person will begin to feel a new level of existence, a spiritual state and will gradually begin to feel a sense of commonality. In this common desire, this common intention and direction of thoughts, we will begin to attain the next level of nature and its harmony. Our bodily sensation will begin to disappear because our bodies exist on the animate level.

This is the state that we’ll eventually have to reach. Nature will assist us in two ways: by giving us blows and by revealing new horizons.

I feel that this year is very powerful and fundamental. We must do everything in our power to keep humanity from going in the direction of protectionism and division. We must help people realize that we need to direct our course toward further connection.

Europe is already starting to realize this. Today’s European market serves as an example. They play the game of “What will happen if we divide?” and then encounter enormous problems. Therefore, their course is directed toward further globalization and integration.

This is a change, a critical realization of which direction to take and where the salvation lies. I hope that Europe will ultimately overcome this special peak by going in the direction of further integration and connection; otherwise, it won’t survive.

If they do move toward integration, then they will discover enormous strength and opportunities, and they will serve as an example to all of humanity. They will not have to re-develop their manufacturing industry that they’ve moved to the East and Asia, primarily to China.

If this process takes the right course then we’ll see humanity developing in a good gentle manner and it would be a good example for everyone. This would be a rosy picture. I hope that it happens this way.

If we don’t move in this direction, then unfortunately, there may be great international and global problems, which will ultimately lead us to the same results.
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From “A Talk on Integral Education” #14, 12/18/11

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Question: What is going to happen with art and desire to create in the future integral world?

Answer: The desire to create will of course remain. The desire for aesthetics, for self-expression is one of the basic desires of humanity.

It has all been developing since the times of petroglyphs. However, today we are undergoing a great crisis even in this field because there is nothing we could express ourselves with. How can it be expressed? Through some breakdowns? Our state is dead-end. On our current level, we have nothing left to express.

We have to rise to the next degree. We simply “crawled” from our level to a certain degree, but we are not able to ascend to it. We came to a dead end in all areas of our lives: culture, education, family, economy, finance—everything, even science. We hit this next degree and can’t climb it because we do not see it.

It is especially apparent in art and culture. We have always bore witness to the creation of masterpieces. But today we have mass culture that cannot even be called “culture.” Art is definitely not art any more. Mass culture fills in the TV screens, and we consume it along with fast food. And it is in fact all the same, meaning, everything is on such a level so as to suppress ourselves and make us think less. TV shows? What are they about? Robbery, betrayal, love stories, and cooking.

Unfortunately, in the field of art, we no longer concern ourselves with lofty, valuable interpersonal relationships, with searching for the meaning of life; instead, we present through our mass “art” (be it print or media) only what serves bodily needs: food, sex, and family. Within this entire framework dwell our so-called works of art.

On one hand, it is certainly a pity that such events take place, but on the other, they show us the crisis from which the new state must emerge.

The new art will be completely different. It will be founded on the unity of people. Its role will be to tell us about attainment of the upper world, about a whole new range of sensations that will be revealed in the connection between us. Those will be sensations and relationships of a completely different scale, and from then on, these very sensations and relationships will be expressed through art, and therefore, through our culture.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of the Integral Society” 2/5/12

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Question: Outsiders perceive our methods as slow and therapeutic, and they want the ones that are prompt and surgical. How could we help them feel the effectiveness of our message without waiting for greater calamities?

Answer: Our method is the fastest and most effective. Generally speaking, humanity has never had any method of influencing itself. Up until now, we were governed automatically by the upper force.

And now the upper force provokes us with crises and simultaneously frees up some room for action so we will make a small step forward, our own step, so we will appreciate, grasp what lies ahead of us and wish to do it independently by changing ourselves.

The nature’s upper force has always been changing us, giving rise to our evolution, and now we, ourselves, have to consciously evoke the process of development within us. Hence, today’s evolution that we’re carrying out is the quality evolution because it depends on us. We have never made any individual actions, and now we must perform such action on ourselves, within ourselves, by changing ourselves.

The force that changes us is external; however, we need to put ourselves under its influence. To accomplish that, we must try to unite with each other so that our common desire for unity could become apparent. Then the upper correcting force will influence that desire, and we will unite. That will be our next degree: both social and spiritual.

There is no other way, no other means or method that we could use to do anything. Our method is the only way!

But this method is fast, not slow because here everything depends on us and nothing else. If we gather together, push, and desire, it will immediately happen. There are no restrictions, neither mechanical nor natural; there are no processes that still have to develop or take shape with time. Everything depends on us only, and that is why it’s the most express method.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of the Integral Society” 2/5/12

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