Question: How can the still, vegetative, and animate levels of human development be characterized?

Answer: The still level is the period when a person has very small egoism that is not yet awakening him to connect with others. He passively exists in nature, changing virtually nothing around himself, only working the land a little bit with his hands and primitive tools (actually, even this does not exist yet) and getting food for himself. This is the still level of development, meaning that it does not perfect itself and remains at the same level all the time; it’s not growing yet like at the next level.

The vegetative level is characterized by the fact that a person is already “growing,” but as we say, “he’s still a plant.” Meaning, that he still lacks movement, he’s not capable of great achievement or of various transformations. He organizes the space around himself, but like a plant that spreads its roots and takes a little from everything. He conquers something, but in a very limited form since his egoism, his capabilities, are not letting him “swallow” what he has conquered. That’s why it makes no sense to risk, invest efforts, and suffer.

The animate level is first of all the development of technology, meaning that which is outside of man. We begin to develop instruments that help us conquer the world as far as space. This stage began in the Middle Ages with the invention of printing machines and other novelties.

Indeed, the Middle Ages are not a simple level of development. It was quite a busy period conceived in a somewhat internal form. However, when studying the process of evolution we understand that at that time, very interesting, powerful, albeit concealed, conception processes of the next stage were taking place.

It should be emphasized that this wasn’t observed at the previous stages because there is very little difference between the earth and a plant, and their connection is far too strong. They contain each other, they transform into each other, and so on. While there is a huge difference between the vegetative and the animate states: in free will, movement, personal space, space conquering, and so on.

The internal human development carried on according to this. People have literally rushed to conquer nature and areas, and to discover new lands. Everything changed: working the land, farming, occupations, cities, division of people into groups and clans, and so forth. Then, movement for parliament began, for freedom, and so on. Humanity has become more active on all of the levels relative to past states, and this activity has grown more and more.

During the last century, it has reached unity. We have arrived at integration, at egoistic interaction. This has become the presupposition for the conception of the new level, which began to manifest in the middle of the 20th century. The Club of Rome, the academic Vernadsky in Russia, and various international organizations started to notice that a holistic level of nature is being revealed and it influences society accordingly. If we don’t follow it, then we’ll suffer from the imbalance with nature.

Many people at that time started to write and talk about it. Each one on his level: on the level of biology, sociology, political science, mineralogy, social development, or even the economic and financial development (economics and finance are two different functions of man). All of this has been accumulating gradually and has led to the emergence of prerequisites for passing onto the next level. However, the emergence of these prerequisites, like any movement in development, begins with small revolts which are constantly growing until they reach states where it is impossible to stop, to remain in the previous state, and then a new state is born by a leap.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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In the News (from ScienceDaily): “When it comes to intelligence, the whole can indeed be greater than the sum of its parts. A new study co-authored by MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Union College researchers documents the existence of collective intelligence among groups of people who cooperate well, showing that such intelligence extends beyond the cognitive abilities of the groups’ individual members, and that the tendency to cooperate effectively is linked to the number of women in a group.

“That collective intelligence, the researchers believe, stems from how well the group works together. For instance, groups whose members had higher levels of ‘social sensitivity’ were more collectively intelligent. ‘Social sensitivity has to do with how well group members perceive each other’s emotions,’ says Christopher Chabris, a co-author and assistant professor of psychology at Union College in New York. ‘Also, in groups where one person dominated, the group was less collectively intelligent than in groups where the conversational turns were more evenly distributed.’ And teams containing more women demonstrated greater social sensitivity and in turn greater collective intelligence compared to teams containing fewer women.”

My Comment: But the level of unity depends only on men, although women push them towards it. It turns out that men form a group, but it is activated by women’s desires. In Kabbalah, desires belong to the feminine gender, but the force of their connection to the masculine.
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TV Program “Foundations of the Integral Society”
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Question: Should every group member know exactly what every specific friend lacks and how he can help each friend, or is it enough to abide by the general notion of “love for the friend”?

Answer: In a regular society a person can help another only if there are rich and poor, smart and stupid, strong and weak, and so on. But if everyone are equal, then how can they help one another?

Yet there is one thing everyone lacks: the sensation of a good mood. If a person is in a bad mood, neither wealth nor wisdom can help him. Only another person can lift his spirits so the friend would feel an influx of vital energy again and sense that the goal of unity is near.

It turns out that every group member must pay attention to his friend’s mood and if necessary, lift it. That’s because one’s mood is precisely the area where every person can contribute to another.
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(On the basis of Rabash’s article “They Helped Everyone His Friend”)

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Question: What is the criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of a teacher’s work in the integral upbringing courses, or are his qualifications not subject to doubt?

Answer: In our system, the teachers are classified in the process of work. Suppose twenty people are admitted to teaching. In the process of their work with the group, we see that one of them is suited for this work, another is suited for a different kind of work, and so on. This is how they switch over. In the course of a few months, each one finds their place, their forte, and their hobby, and the groups under their supervision begin to work correctly.

Simultaneously, the teacher works on the development of the methodology, writes various abstracts, and participates in the creation of additional educational and accessory material. Then we see that he has found his place.

However, among such people, there can be those who have no internal expression, lack enthusiasm and energy. In these cases, it is still necessary to try to attain the auxiliary state so that work in a group won’t be just a job for a person. After all, you are creating a new society here, you are creating! It’s as if you were on the level of the Creator, and out of an animal, you are creating a human. You summon special forces, which harbor within our unity and create the collective image of Adam out of us.

That is why it is necessary for us to see the teachers as inspired and inspiring. Otherwise, this will be a lifeless structure, a group that will gradually wilt. We are watching out for this. By switching the teachers, it is possible to come to this.

Besides this, the teachers keep changing within the group since this resembles the teaching in colleges and universities. Everything goes according to the specializations there, and that is why each teacher has his place, meaning that different teachers teach different disciplines in the group.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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Question: A person tends to compensate his shortcomings. For example, every other radio host has some speech defect; people with an ordinary appearance land a career in TV, and so on. Will this also apply to people working within the system of integral education? Will they try to make compensations, or perhaps, will integrality bring everything into balance?

Answer: No, first of all, we see that appearance does not make any difference. Among our instructors, quite often we see people who are unattractive, not pleasant and not good-looking. I would even say that their manners are far too simple.

However, when a man is engaged in inner work, this does not repel him. He begins if not to love them, then at least to accept them in a gentle way as if this is someone close to him. He even sees in it a kind of charm. This is what happens.

The same thing applies to women. If sincerity emerges, everything else goes by the wayside.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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Question: There is a concept called the contact cycle in Gestalt Therapy. This includes the phases that any person goes through. The basis of human activity in a group consists of four phases. Where does this number come from? How many phases should there be according to the laws of nature?

Answer: According to the laws of nature, there are four phases that result from the fifth, higher one, zero. Zero is the very first level which is nature itself. The four phases of the development of a desire result from it. The fourth phase is the final form of the development of a desire.

So, there are actually five phases, but we don’t take the first phase into account because it is beyond us and relates to higher nature. Thus, we consider only the four phases of the development of a desire. Only the last phase of the four do we feel as ours, as our “I.” We no longer consider it as something that came from outside, but as something that emerged within us.

Question: What are these phases in the context of the course of the evolution of egoism?

Answer: These are the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. We find ourselves in the fourth phase today, the phase of human development.

We still are treated as at the animate level today because we care about our animal body and everything surrounding it. We are refined animals, but still animals because all our problems and concerns are inside of our animate life, meaning our physical bodies are important to us.

However, a human is a collective image, Adam, where we gather all our hopes, thoughts, and desires, and, by uniting, we rise above our physical nature. That is something nature awakens and leads us toward. If we properly respond to nature’s call and follow in this correct direction, we come to an integral state of “human” where all our desires and thoughts unite.

Together, we feel this desire and new consciousness that is above the animate level by adapting among ourselves almost to the extent of not feeling our animate existence. We care about our body as if taking care of an animal, only to the extent required for its existence. We give food, sex, and family to the body to the extent of its physical needs. The rest of our needs we raise to the level of unification, integrality, and mutual responsibility.

That is the fourth phase we have to reach. The current cornerstone of the extremely critical crisis is just the point of bifurcation through which we must pass. I hope we pass through it more or less smoothly by realizing that we must rise to the next level.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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Question: When we are talking about the four stages of development, how can we explain at which stage we are?

Answer: Today, all of humanity is in transition from the third to the fourth stage. Within each stage, there are sub-stages. For example, if we take the stages of human development without regard to the still, vegetative, and animate natures and the level of “human” because we have existed for dozens and even hundreds of thousands of years, then we can view development along the historical axis as the first, second, third and fourth stages.

Suppose that the 16th century, the late Middle Ages, marks the beginning of the technological revolution with development of cultures, sciences, and so forth. This was the third stage; that is, humanity became intensely concerned about its life, about itself as an animal. This is the bourgeois revolution and, ultimately, capitalism. Before that, humanity was in the vegetative stage. In the Middle Ages, antiquity, we find the signs of the vegetative type, the vegetative character of development. Before that, we were at the so-called still level when people used small forces with low labor efficiency, and only could take care of their food.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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Let us shed light on several questions related to the notion of “love of friends”:

1. What ground is there for the need to attain love of friends?
2. Should I choose the friends, and should they choose me?
3. Should each friend openly express his feelings toward the other group members, or is it enough for him to feel love for them in his heart, without expressing this feeling externally? Should he remain modest and not boast about his achievement?

Certainly, every person should openly express the love of friends that is in his heart because open expression of this feeling can awaken the friends’ hearts to the same. As a result, the friends’ feelings will unite into a common feeling, which will be much greater than their arithmetic sum.

Thus, every member of the group will receive a strong feeling of love of friends and will also sense a need to expand this feeling. On the other hand, if the group members do not express their feelings openly, they cannot be imbued with the common, collective force and overcome their personal egoism.

In this case, it is very difficult to view the friend in a positive light. Every person thinks that he is the only righteous one and that only he loves his friends, while they do not reciprocate his feelings.

It turns out that a person’s forces are too weak to be able to attain love for his friend and to express his feelings explicitly instead of hiding them.

One must constantly remind oneself of the purpose of the group’s existence since otherwise, one’s egoism will try to blur this goal because its sole concern at all times is its own benefit.

A person needs the group in order to attain the quality of being engrossed in the thought of delighting his friends without requiring anything in return, and not in order for the group to help fulfill his egoistic desires. After all, if every group member expects only to receive help from others, the group is founded on egoism and works only to increase it. In this case, a person sees the group only as a means to satisfy his egoistic needs.

Therefore, we must keep in mind that the group must be built upon love for the neighbor. What every group member must receive from the group is love for the neighbor and hatred for his own egoism. When a person sees that his friend tries to suppress his egoism, this gives him additional forces to fight his own egoism. Then all of the friends’ intentions merge into one whole. Thus, if the group consists of ten members, each of them will receive the forces of all ten friends who suppress their egoism and aspire toward love for the neighbor.

But if the group members do not express their feelings toward one another due to their feigned modesty, then their feelings do not grow stronger and each of them gradually loses the desire to progress towards love for the neighbor and regresses back to self-love.
(Based on Rabash’s article “Love of Friends (2))
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Question: You constantly speak about the family, but today the notion of family has changed completely and is gradually disappearing. What makes you think that we can return to the old family model?

Answer: I am absolutely convinced that after experiencing an enormous crisis, we will return to the old family model. The modern egoistic family will really cease to exist.

The birth of a new family will happen due to our movement toward the goal, the root. We will see that the only way for us to reach it is by being absolutely connected with others on all levels of existence, with the partner in the family, with children, and through one’s own family, to other families, society, and the world. In other words, we will return to the model of a regular family that will allow a person to reveal the Creator above our animal, corporeal existence.

We will not be ashamed of being little animals in a family because a special relationship called “real love” appears between a husband and a wife in addition to the animal attraction. It is a relationship where they reveal the Creator between them and really attain the higher goal.

People will create families for the sake of this higher goal and establish a physical and spiritual connection with their partner. In this way, the family will be reborn, both on the spiritual and physical levels. However, it will be mainly on the spiritual level and from there, on the physical level.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11  

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