Question: There are certain states or circumstances where a person doesn’t get a chance to sleep. Does this matter? Is it worthwhile to take a thirty minute nap?

Answer: This depends on the person. However, if a person is working hard on himself, then I would recommend taking a break in the middle of the day to rest. I would also recommend practicing a specific technique that teaches a person to sleep for about fifteen or twenty minutes and feel really well rested.

This is necessary in our work because we are in a constant state of inner concentration toward ascending, uniting, and we apply efforts beyond the typical mental and emotional efforts. Therefore, we must rest. It’s more important to rest during the day than to get a full night’s sleep.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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Question: In case it transpires that some people in the group of integral upbringing have psychological disorders, how do we interact with them?

Answer: We mark them out immediately and try to understand the extent to which they can conduct themselves in a general framework and the extent to which work on themselves can negatively affect their psyche. In that case, we will remove them from the group, gently and carefully, for some period of time or permanently.

We have psychiatrists who can give their conclusion after observing the person from aside for some time and using references from their friends and close ones. Undoubtedly, if a person with a damaged mentality stays in a group for a long period of time, it may give a negative result, a surge of very bad energy.

However, we rarely come across such problems; there are very few of such people. As a rule, they become balanced somehow.

We remove them for some time and then we give them the opportunity to return. Then, we remove them again, and they come back again. This happens a number of times. They cannot advance at the same rate as the group. That is why it is beneficial for them to be distanced a little bit. However, in general, most of them find some strength to compensate.

Question: People today often encounter deep depressive states, not simply a bad mood, but the deepest depression requiring anti-depressants, hospitals, and so on. If we come across such occurrences, do we recommend that the person go to the doctor, or do we try to correct it through the integral system?

Answer: In clinical cases, only a complete change in environment can help, where you take the person together with a particular group to nature, to the beach, or the river, and there you begin to carry out very serious sessions with him plus a lot of sports in the fresh air.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11 

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A person in our world is similar to a person who has lost his way in a field. In our time, all of humanity can also be likened to a great mass of people who, having lost all reference points, are wandering around the enormous field of life in the dark.

The way out of this situation, which arose as a result of our egoistic development, lies in creating an integral society. That is, it lies in searching for people who have realized that the current situation is at an impasse and that the only solution is to establish an integral connection between people.

In this case, the field of life transforms from a wild, empty field to a blessed field of life because the people in it desire to work on their egoism to attain the quality of mutual bestowal and thus, to become equivalent to Nature. In this case, their path is called “the path of bestowal.”

Because our egoistic nature is completely contradictory to this path, there is just one way to set out on this path: to be in an integral upbringing group that works on developing “love of friends” and where every person can help his friend progress precisely down this path.
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(On the basis of Rabash’s article “Love of Friends”) 

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As man undergoes evolution, all of his development occurs by way of the development of the will to receive pleasure, called self-love or egoism. Therefore, if a person does not feel that he will receive something, he is incapable of making even the smallest action. He feels it within as a lack of motivation or energy, necessary for him to make an inner or physical movement.

But Nature is the quality of altruism, bestowal and love, opposite to egoism. And it drives man to acquire this quality by developing him in ever-greater suffering, which he gradually comes to see as a derivative of his own egoism and the overall egoism of all mankind. In other words, the objective that Nature sets for our development is for man to attain equivalence with it. And this objective is intended expressly for man because egoism is absent on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, which are governed and exist instinctively, simply obeying their nature.

Since suppressing egoism is contradictory to our nature and our entire being, we therefore need a group of single-minded people to give us a greater force to suppress it. That is why we need a group that unites people who have one desire: to achieve an ascent above egoism and mutual repulsion, and to rise to mutual love.

The result of uniting towards a common goal is that instead of being totally weak and unable to resist our egoism, each of us acquires a great force that helps him rise above his egoism to unity.

This great force emerges as a result of us putting together our small, individual forces, or rather, not even forces, but just wishes. These small forces of ours will combine together and multiply one another, allowing each of us to rise above his small egoism to unity. That is how every person acquires a tremendous desire to rise above his own egoism and attain a single goal.

But in order for this to happen, every group member has to suppress or lower his “I” in relation to others. This can only be done by not noticing the friend’s flaws and paying attention only to his good qualities. If one member of the group considers himself at least slightly better than others, he is no longer able to truly unite with them.

During the group’s engagement in integral upbringing (unification), we must be serious and not deviate from the goal for which we have gathered here, the achievement of a single desire of mutual bestowal and love, as similarity to Nature demands of us.

But with outsiders, we should behave simply, courteously, and politely, taking care not to impose the idea of unity, mutual bestowal, and love upon them. This is because efforts to rise above one’s egoism cannot be made in chance meetings, but only in a constant group of friends under the guidance of an instructor. During their work in the group and generally, in life, members of the group must try to bar light-mindedness from their desires because thoughtless behavior or even thoughts destroy all personal and group efforts to unite.

But if an outsider has accidentally found his way into a session held by the group, it is first necessary to politely eliminate his presence and to continue the studies only after that.
(Based on Rabash’s article “Purpose of Society (2)”  
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Since the wisdom of Kabbalah raises a person from the “beastly” to the “human” level (“Adam” or “man” comes from the word “Domeh” or similar to nature, to the attribute of bestowal and love), a person who rises faces the problem of “going into the unknown.” To help us rise into an unknown state again and again, we are offered a game, an exercise, to prepare within ourselves, together with the group, our next, more altruistic state. Moreover, even if we fail, it leads to the right solution: a request for the force of bestowal, an ascent above our egoism.

Today all of humanity should master this method of advancement in everything that it does. We should also be ready for descents, for feeling the mistakes, and from them to understand that only the upper force of nature can provide us with the new attributes in order to investigate, to attain, and to build ourselves, family, society, education, and economy correctly.

Until now the mistakes and failures were not acknowledged by people, but only by Kabbalists because only they rose above the general nature of humanity, egoism, to the attribute of nature, love. But today we must acquire this new attitude regarding ourselves, those around us, and the world and to teach our children to develop by learning from their mistakes.

We must not only learn from our mistakes, but also understand where they stem from: from the appearance of the new level to which we are not adapted. So a mistake (a descent) is the attainment of our lack of correspondence to the new state, and it should make us yearn to implement it internally. This is attained in the group, by yearning for nature’s general force and for similarity to it.
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Question: In the process of any activity there are criteria of work effectiveness. It’s very important for people to understand whether they are doing their job well or not, in order to increase its quality accordingly, to add efforts, and so on. What can the criteria of effectiveness be in integral groups so that a person aspires to carry out his activities better?

Answer: We have a very serious self-evaluation system for this. Because you are constantly in a small society, you can always control yourself within it: How congruently connected to it you are, how closely you interact with it, how much it influences you, whether you place yourself under its influence, how much you can influence it, how much you can lower yourself relative to it, and how much you can feel yourself to be the voice of decision making in order to influence the society.

It means that all of these criteria are the environment and I: I am above it in order to positively influence it; I am below it in order to receive positive influence. And it’s the same for the environment relative to me: It influences me from above, and it wants to receive from me my share of participation in it from below.

There are very simple, direct methods of evaluating one’s states. A person can say where he is practically every second.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

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Question: At school, the teacher usually asks a question and a student answers. You have a completely different approach: You ask questions very rarely and, as a rule, wait to be asked questions. Why?

Answer: This is because I basically crave, aspire for my explanation to evoke in a student emptiness, empty places, meaning questions in order to know, to learn. A correct explanation does not “shut him up,” does not give him fulfillment. It reveals a little bit of what I am explaining and then a student suddenly runs into: “But why is it so? What if it’s not so, but different?”

It’s as if I instill into my explanations my questions, the opportunity to ask, and perplexity brought about by them, and I do it in advance. I want them to find defects in my explanations. This will help them grasp my explanation, understand it better, and to absorb it. This is very important.

That’s why if I am explaining and everything is clear to everybody, and there are no questions, I consider that I haven’t explained anything at all. I feel very bad then. When there are many questions—“this is not so, not from here, not like this”—then this is the material that will be absorbed for sure.

Comment: A question though, is not always a question….

Answer: Turn it around, do what you think is necessary so that the audience will learn from it. A lot of people ask, but they don’t know how to formulate the question exactly. We understand that the teacher must help the student here and to feel him or her.

I believe that if I transmit the information in 15-20 minutes, and then questions take up twice as much time, then this is a lesson truly absorbed. This is very important. It’s as if you are throwing them bait, and they swallow and clutch at it. With the help of this bait, they necessarily must approach you, hold on to you. It’s because the question and answer or an explanation begins with the fact that you have something and they don’t. You are trying to pass on to them what you have at the given moment decided to pass on.

The transfer has to consist of you giving them the information, and them, in response, asking any kind of questions from the entirety of the material that they have heard (only heard!) in order for them to experience, master, and completely absorb it inside. And this is only being reached with the help of questions, questions of various kinds, and from various kinds of people.

Question: What is the characteristic of an answer with which I shut off the interest of a person?

Answer: I never do this. I try to give an answer in which I purposely touch upon another, some kind of a crafty aspect. The student immediately has a reaction here: “Really? And how does this work?” This means that the answer leads him to other questions.

I want for the entire material, which I gave them during the first 15 minutes, to later be penetrated with questions from all sides. Then it will stay in them. I help them with my answers to ask a new question. The correct answer carries the next question in itself, and a correct question is already half the answer.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

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Question: You are saying that the force of reception will continue to grow as the force of bestowal keeps developing in us? Will it not diminish?

Answer: A new force of reception will grow in you as much as the force of bestowal will develop in you. It is not the force of a little egoist, which you were using on the animate level or on the level of a person of the “old world.” Now two forces are developing in you together, forces of a person of the new world.

Until now you were developing instinctively, like any animal. But unlike an animal, you have developed to such a level of egoism that it has simply become unbearable. And now you are trying to develop the force of bestowal with the help of the environment.

Bestowal assumes more than a gift; it is giving, mutual participation, closeness, support, mercy, to the point of love. Love includes all the other manifestations of connection and the ability to feel the desires of another. This is called the force of bestowal.

The moment I begin to develop this force within me, a second force begins to grow parallel to it, the force of reception, and it helps me to bestow. Because I do not have anything myself, I am unable to give to others, there is no way for me to establish a connection with them. But by using my entire force of reception, I can bestow to others.

I have only the force of reception by nature, and I have existed with it from the beginning of the universe until now. And now a question arises: How can I learn to bestow to others, to society, which will not accept me otherwise and will think that I am a savage, a nobody. I will feel shame in front of my children, my wife, relatives, all the people I care about, my closest environment, which even an egoist has.

I feel like everyone regrets my existence. And then I begin to understand that I need to begin to bestow. But how can I bestow? I can bestow through the force of reception that I have and connect to bestowal.

I have a big egoism that enabled me to win, to build, and do things. And now I use the same force to benefit others. This is called the force of bestowal. But these are very internal things, which a beginner probably cannot understand. They will not summon an inner response, a reaction, because we are not built this way. From this point on, we already need the force of correction contained in the Light that Reforms.

So, our conclusion is: By acquiring the force of bestowal, I develop an inner ability to see the entire world as if it were transparent, to see through it, to know what happens, to fix myself, my family, my immediate and distant social environments, and to arrange my life in a perfect way.

It enables me to attain the state of absolute happiness. I feel included in the eternal reality, and I rise to the human degree that gives me the feeling that life is worth living, existing, and continuing our species, having children. I feel satisfaction and fulfillment in life.

And all this happens by acquiring the force of bestowal though the proper environment.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11  

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Question: You say that all of our development is meant to raise our consciousness about who we are. So, who are we?

Answer: First of all, we are not animals existing inside of our bodies and only caring about how to fulfill it. Second, we are not simply egoistic creatures obliged to please our ego, which plays us and pushes us toward various false goals, only giving us suffering throughout our whole lives. It is written: “A person dies without having achieved even half of the desired,” meaning that no one is left satisfied about his life and while dying, does not take anything with him. Now, we have arrived at such a state where we are left with nothing, even prior to death.

However, we are creatures who have an absolutely unique potential, and we are located at the very top of nature that created the entire universe and, as a result of this wondrous process, developed life on earth along with us. This is what the goal of human development consists of.

This development, by the good or forceful path, must end with everyone attaining the whole of all-encompassing nature, identifying themselves, and reaching balance and perfect connection with it, which in Kabbalah is called “adhesion.” All of the person’s qualities have to be used for the sake of bestowal, serving the force of bestowal, like all of nature.

Then, we will see where our development has been leading us, in the form that existed before the planet earth was formed and afterward, in the periods of the formation of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and then the development of man. All of these forms up until today, when we have begun to enter the new world, the world of bestowal, all of the past development in our egoism, in the world of consumption where we search only for how to receive more, all of it was only preparation for the human level that we now have to develop within ourselves.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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Question: You have defined the modern world order in the following way: “The lack of mutual participation has led us to the loss of a point of reference.” Is this the final outcome?

Answer: This simply is the consequence of our inability to use the two forces: bestowal and reception (which is referred to as lack of mutual participation). This leads to the loss of a point of reference, and we do not understand where we are. The lack of mutual participation means that the force of reception and the force of bestowal within me are not balanced, and this is why I am not able to compromise with anyone.

I do not understand where I am because of my inner lack of balance. This is because I see through my channels of perception, and when they are crooked and not balanced, I see a crooked world and do not understand what is happening with it.

This is obvious in government officials, economists, and bankers who are not able to find the way for our world. And they will not find it! They will do whatever they can to stretch things out and postpone the end as much as possible. In this way, they will keep dropping us into even worse states until millions of people come into the streets and start trouble to the point of a world war, epidemics, and natural cataclysms.

This is about the world of forces, and we possess the highest force in all of nature. As we bring the forces inside us into balance on the human level, the highest level of the entire system, we bring into balance the entire universe, on all the other levels of nature: the animate, vegetative, and still.

This is because we are on the highest degree in power and comprehension. We have the ability to establish balance among the most delicate forces that exist in nature: the power of thought. All the other forces are lower than the power of thought. These are very corporeal forces activated by the power of thought.

This power is not the power of our thoughts, but the thought contained in nature, the common program, the engine that works and spins everything.

So, we are at a special point of our development. Until now, nature was fully ruled over us, and it has brought us to the lowest point of our development. Now, we must rise on our own and acquire the force contained in nature: the force of balance between good and evil, between egoism and the desire to bestow, between the force of reception and the force of bestowal.

If we manage to acquire this instrument that will help us combine these two forces, we will gain power over all of nature before us. After all, we and nature are in the same system, and we are becoming an active element in it, a live, moving, and developing element that gives life force to this entire system.

We can call this force the Light that enlivens this entire system. So it follows that you bring this entire system to life.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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