Question: Is a person really able to kill anyone just for an ounce of pleasure?

Answer: This might look like an exaggeration, but this is really the truth. If we were to put a person in special circumstances where he would not be punished for it and would be sure that he would receive an ounce of pleasure without any undesirable consequences, he would absolutely do it.

Man reaches such level of egoism that he is not able to consider anyone else—this is the way man is made. It says nothing about whether he is a good or a bad person; this is just a natural consequence of our egoistic development.

This is true in regard to every person, but we should not wait to get to this point. If we already see the tendency of evolution and the process as a “wise person” or “a sage who sees the new state that is just now originating does,” it means that we can conjecture how this process will end.

Why should we bring humanity to a point where we begin to consume and heartlessly destroy one another? Even now, after a small blow, we can already understand that we should not act this way and change our behavior like a smart child.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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The power to bestow is the power of connection. Without it, I have no connection in my family or contact with other people or children; I have no connection with human society as a whole. We are simply killing ourselves and our community by failing to use the power of bestowal.

This is why it is now becoming absolutely necessary for us to acquire this power. It simply is a matter of life or death. This is why the crisis has come to show us where we are. We have gotten ourselves into this state on our own. Now we only need to examine and evaluate it to understand what we are lacking. We are lacking the power of bestowal. So how do we get it? It is only by building a good environment.

This environment does not exist in nature. We need to build it artificially so that it will serve as an example, pressure us, and push us, helping us to start giving a little. This society will treat everyone as if it were giving them a warning: “You will not get anything if you do not give. Not only will you not receive anything, you will also lose any respect you now have so that you feel like you are nothing, an absolute zero whom everyone disdains.”

The society will influence you through your children and other people whose opinion you value. It will undermine the feeling of self-worth and self-respect in every person who will not strive toward bestowal by showing how low and corrupt he appears in the eyes of society. Everyone will simply turn away from and not wish to be near him or her.

In this way, we will obligate a person to think about acquiring the power to bestow. Let him learn what it is and let him want to be like it. Then, society will treat him the opposite way: It will respect and value him highly.

We do not have any other choice because we need to learn what it means to bestow. When I come to learn, I am interested in having my environment work with me in these two planes: with a stick against my egoism, punishing me with their disdain, and on the other hand, praising me for bestowing. In this way, my egoism will choose to value the power of bestowal directed against it.

I will receive fulfillment and social approval when I bestow. Society will come closer to me and will not offend my big egoism, and it will not shame me.

In other words, we see that in this way, we act above our egoism that has grown and blown out of proportion in every one of us. We can educate a person specifically with the help of egoism through the influence of the environment. This is called integral upbringing because we teach the person to be integral, connected with everyone.

A person begins to appreciate the force of bestowal by virtue of which he acquires the respect and honor of the environment. People envy him for growing so much and being valued so much by his environment. In this way, an egoist begins to value the force of bestowal, to see what can be done with the right environment.

Here, the environment plays the role of an educator, like a father and mother in relation to an infant, like educators and teachers in relation to a child, or like a professor in relation to a student. The big human society acts the same way in relation to every adult.

The way the environment treats a person depends on his or her advancement. Then, thanks to these two forces: reception and bestowal to society, a person acquires an instrument to dig deeper inside themselves, society, and nature. He or she begins to understand what happens in the field of forces, in their own inner psychology, and the inner psychology of nature and society.

This helps a person to begin feeling the way these two forces act in all of reality, the way they operate in a still rock, in plants and animals, inside man, and in the surrounding environment and family—everywhere. He works with these two forces like their owner. In this way, he examines them and learns about everything.

He enters a network that connects all of reality, a network created by the intertwining of these two forces. This is why he understands the entire program of creation, our entire process of development and where it leads.

After all, everything conforms to a certain process. It is only that we do not see it now because we only operate with one force. When a person begins to use both of these forces on his own, it gives him a scientific instrument for research, which he uses to examine everything that happens in nature. In this way, he becomes the true master of his destiny and of everything that happens. All this is done by raising consciousness to a new level.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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In the course of clarifications, a question arises: “What exactly do we need to change in ourselves in order to acquire a greater similarity to nature?” After all, if we come to harmony and balance with it, we’ll feel comfort, fulfillment, and peace. We’ll stop feeling its pressure that is expressed as problems that grow like a snowball, wars, strife and divorces in families, illnesses, epidemics, tsunamis, and other manifestations of natural cataclysms. Thus, what exactly do we need to change in ourselves?

The search for an answer to this question leads us to the investigation of human nature. Man’s inner nature is desire: the desire to live, to feel good, and to enjoy, in other words, a constant search for fulfillment. And a part of these desires is, to a certain extent, empty. Say, I want to rest, and this means that I wish to fulfill the desire for rest, and if I want to eat, then I desire to fill my desire for food.

Usually I have desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, power, and knowledge. These are the basic desires that include in them all the others. Every desire satisfying the needs of my body for food, family, and procreation, as well as the “human” desires in me for wealth, honor, power, and knowledge are divided into many different other desires and their derivatives. And if I have no choice and I understand that through the help of these desires I should unite with other people in order to become similar to the force of nature (the one law), then I will need to correct each of my desires.

Ultimately, all these desires together are called “the will to enjoy” or “the desire to receive pleasure.” Towards what should I direct them in order to correct them? They need to be directed for the benefit of all. And if I only fill myself, such a desire is called “egoistic.” Therefore, I direct each of my desires towards the common good and I accept only that which will go for the benefit of everyone.

It turns out that we don’t have another choice. If we’re all like one family, then I have to take everyone into consideration and think of everyone as one whole. And the law that obliges me to this is also one. That’s why every one of my desires I need to direct towards everyone. And here is where the problem arises: How can this be achieved?

Even if I myself understand it and scientists confirm it (psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists unanimously declare that this is true and that we don’t have another way out), and from my own life experience I see that there is no other method, even then, my nature always believes otherwise. It believes that I first of all need to receive for myself, to provide for my own needs, and not to worry about others. Perhaps I should care for them, but only so that it will make me feel good.

However, this isn’t enough. After all, I don’t feel this way in relation to my family. In a corrected family, I immediately think of all its members as one person and don’t calculate how to make them feel good so that I would feel good from that.

And this law wishes to oblige us to consider everyone as one, the whole world as one single family, so that we will start getting used to it. So what exactly do we need to do for that? Each of us must care about others and all together we have to build a system of a new integral upbringing that will connect us and through various influences and activities will prove that another way does not exist.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 4, 1/1/12

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Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “Course to Be A Man, A New Labor Market”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

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Question: I know that you pay close attention to the daily routine in the group and to the way your students care for their physical health.

Answer: This is true. If people in the group were free from unnecessary work that only pollutes the environment and spent two to three hours a day working for the benefit of integral society, they would have a lot of time during the day and would absolutely participate in sports and physical exercises.

Part of physical activities would take place outdoors: in nature, on beaches, during picnics, camping, and different outings that under certain conditions can last for a few days. We already practice these things. We never neglect the importance of physical development.

In our group we have wonderful massage therapists, chiropractors, dancers, and so on. We see that within the group there’s a life of its own, with friends helping each other resolve health problems. We pay a lot of attention to this, and I consider this to be an inseparable part of the integral process.

Besides our meal breaks and other events, at least thirty minutes a day, three times a day (if not more) we devote to physical exercise. At any given moment one can have coffee or, if they want, smoke a cigarette. No one is limited in any way. However, physical exercise, running, speed walking, massage, and so on are absolutely necessary.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

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The fundamental difference of a new life that we have to build now is in the fact that in the past we advanced instinctively because we were governed by the force of reception alone. I was searching how to receive more in any place.

And now I have to develop an approach that shows as much empathy for others as possible, to connect, to complete, to unite with them. Then, the two forces will begin to work within me together: the one that I am developing now, which is the force of bestowal, connection, mutual participation, and love, and the old force of reception within me.

The force of reception does not die. It does not remain the same, but continues to grow and develop along with the force of bestowal. Now these two forces complete each other at the human degree, and this gives me more room for creativity.

This development is no longer blind; I no longer move in the direction egoism pushes me to, when I obediently run to each bait, rushing in all directions. Now, I am developing with understanding and feeling, consciously and critically evaluating what is happening. I make corrections by combining these two forces, supplementing them with each other, and joining them so as to reach a more balanced state all the time.

There is balance in every atom, molecule, or living organism. Then, on top of this balance, we discover an additional desire and achieve balance at a higher level. Thus, we evolve from a perfect state to a more perfect state. This is the process we have to go through.

The main objective of this process is to develop our consciousness: What are we for, and in what system do we truly exist? Then, penetrating into the depths of our nature by balancing our two internal forces, we begin to feel the concealed layers, forces, and spaces not accessible to us now.

Then, we will enter the system of forces that are above time, space, and motion. We will reach realizations and inner fulfillments in our feelings and mind, which have no connection whatsoever with the existence of our body. After all, this takes place only in spiritual attainment, in new consciousness that we obtain. Our body is only a carrier for the initial instinctive forces necessary to reach the human degree.

That is why we should appreciate this period and these transitional states, understanding how unique our time and conditions are. We have approached the moment of our birth as a human being, Adam, “similar” to nature. We have before us a nice and kind development that includes personal understanding and attainment, which takes us to a wonderful life without any restrictions.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 12, 1/10/12

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For the first time, instead of myriad different, seemingly chaotic, and unconnected laws of nature, we are beginning to sense that a new, single law is acting upon us. We are all under its umbrella, and together, as a single union, are headed in the same direction.

Never before have such different parts of humanity been in such a similar state. North and South America, Europe and Africa, Asia and Siberia, even Australia and New Zealand, all of them are in the process of decline, in the state of depression, and it doesn’t matter in what society we live, to which civilization or religion we belong, and how our society is structured. Some enormous cloud is descending on our world and starting to envelop all of us together.

We really depend on one another: Scientists are discovering this, and we, too, feel it thanks to the crisis and as a consequence of our interconnection. It turns out that each person is acquainted with everyone else in the world through a chain of four people; there exists a “butterfly effect”; some research shows that a person’s thoughts affect the climate, and that earthquakes and tsunamis are tied to relationships between people and their lifestyles.

This means that all of us are facing a single law that binds us by force, and if we want to have a better life, we need to think about how to come closer to it and not on the contrary, grow farther from it, and how to desire to connect together with everyone in a correct, good, and beautiful aspiration.

Then we will advance together with the laws of nature and not against them since in any case, nature will win! We cannot change the laws of nature; they aren’t like governments that can reshape the laws of society based on mercantile interests.

This law exists above us, just like the laws of physics, chemistry, or biology. We can only study and use them in a correct form. This is why we need to understand this law and to connect to it as much as possible. And this law is the general law of all of nature.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 4, 1/1/12

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Question: What is meant by the term “previous reincarnations”?

Answer: I spoke about the field through which we are connected to each other. Reincarnation means that genetic information gets passed down from one generation to another, but so far we are only uncovering the material part of it. However, it also contains sensory and rational information of the previous generation’s world-view that passes on to the descendants.

This is why even infants of the new generation are a result of the previous one, and they have everything in them that all the previous generations have gone through. Thus, the development of mankind takes place through the chain of generations. And just like we pass down from generation to generation the material achievements of technology, science, and art, we pass down our inner emotional and intellectual development as well.

This can be verified on newborns. We see that today, children have perception corresponding to that of our generation. But if we were able to give birth to a baby that belongs to, say, ten generations before us, we would see just how different he is from a modern newborn in his potential and developmental ability.

This phenomenon can be called reincarnation because a person carries over information from the previous life into this one. And what is a previous life? It’s the life passed down to him from a previous generation.

Suppose a hundred years ago people possessed a certain level of intellect and feeling. They developed within their generation and passed away. Their children now belong to a different level of development. Why? Because one generation passes down to another not only the physical matter formed from the cells of their father and mother, but also a certain inner human message. This progression of the generations is what we call reincarnation.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

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Question: What does the ability to “feel the world through everyone” mean?

Answer: If I am included in others, if I feel what they feel and think what they think, then obviously, I possess capabilities several times greater than an average person. I am much broader, I am able to include more within myself. After all, our perception of any phenomenon depends on the number of parameters that we’re capable of grasping, on the resolution of our view.

The number of parameters depends on the quantity of opposing things that are included in me. Due to the contrast between them, I distinguish the individual parts and can build out of them, like out of construction blocks, many options. At the same time, I understand what these constructions are composed of and how they differ from one another.

And if the feelings and reason received from others are absorbed by me, I become the owner of different and opposing properties. Then I perceive the world in a more multifaceted way, and relative to the previous planar perception, this seems like an entry into a new dimension.

Psychologically, this is a completely new perception, a new world. Through this I rise above the limitations of the body, associated with the categories of time, movement, and space since I am included into humanity. I acquire its shared feeling, its acting mind—the data that comes to us from nature.

I receive an opportunity to attain the feeling and the mind inherent in nature, which exist within it as my root. All development in this world proceeds from there. In this development I see that I return to that place, to that root of feeling and mind within nature from which the entire chain of creation evolved: the still, vegetative, animate, and me—a human being who reaches the root and thereby completes the circle of development.

I want to emphasize that it is no accident that nature is pushing us to a state of mutual guarantee so that we will literally lose our individual properties. We don’t really lose them but only rise above them because they are corporeal, pertaining to the animate level.

Everything individual within me relates to caring for the body so that it will live through its allotted time in the best way possible. But development consists of us rising above the concern for the body to a common concern. This common concern endows us with completely different properties, not the bodily ones. Thanks to them, I reveal the program and purpose of creation, the intention of nature in which not a single element develops by chance—everything advances according to a program. And I can attain and understand this program.

And as soon as I direct myself towards an integral vision, connecting with other people, I immediately begin to grasp this integral vision, exchange my “glasses” for round, integral ones. I see the entirety of nature and don’t just receive from it a narrow channel relative to my own body, of whatever carries benefit or harm for me: food, sleep, entertainment, and so on. No, I don’t live by this! I live on a level independent of my body and already look at nature that is above bodies. It’s as if I am no longer inside a body: I judge, check, and control from the universal human mind and feeling. This stage fundamentally differs from the current one.

Right now I am merely an advanced animal, within certain boundaries, and it’s unclear if this advancement is in a good or a bad direction. But due to inclusion into the global mind, I achieve a new dimension. I qualitatively change my perception of the world in which I find myself. It becomes genuine since I no longer view it through a narrow egoistic slit, pulling to me whatever is beneficial and brushing away the harmful; rather, I literally come out through it and live in the world. And there, perception is completely different, not through an egoistic sieve through which I see only whatever is useful or harmful to me, but independently of myself altogether. This is what the new dimension inherent in man is.

And then I really reveal the mind and the feeling that exist there, within the bright state outside of my body, behind the wall with a narrow slit through which I peek. I understand the entire process and purpose of creation.

Our research shows that this is truly so, that this is something elusive and imperceptible to us. But we are already starting to realize that evidently, this level does exist. It can be compared to dark matter: It exists, but we don’t perceive it, even though it comprises 90% of all matter in the Universe.

Similarly, we cannot yet reveal the common feeling and mind that exist in the Universe. However, scientists who study the cosmos talk about the presence of a powerful feeling and mind there, like sounds that we cannot pick up on, hearing only some kind of noise. We cannot reveal these phenomena because they belong to a dimension above us.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

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Question: In the process of communication, people often become subconsciously aggressive. Should we somehow let a person know that he is aggressive at a given moment, even if subconsciously, without noticing it, or should this be left as material for integral work and clarification?

Answer: I think that all of this will begin to straighten out in the group, even when it starts studying the introductory materials.

But there are people who don’t respond to this, who don’t hear. They need to be placed in separate groups. That’s a different matter.

Usually, the general aggression subsides quickly in the face of the great goal that you set before people, when they approximate themselves to some new whole, in order to discover a perfect world and harmony. When you explain the structure of the universe to them, perception of reality, here they begin “to stumble,” meaning that there is no room for some petty, personal aggression.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

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