Entries in the 'Education' Category

At The Crossroad

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that we should not set any laws and should not change anything in the systems existing today in human society, but we should only focus on one thing so that everything that we do would be for the good of the integral humanity?

Answer: At first, it may be to benefit a small circle: first, for the good of the group, then the country, then the world; this happens gradually as humanity develops.

However, pay attention that we are not forcing anyone! Everything happens according to the rate of our development. We will not be creating the KGB here as was done in Russia where they tried to build a just society with coercion. We are achieving changes in the person who sees it as a necessity for advancement. We have no choice. Either we get closer to an atomic war and the complete destruction of the world (although today it is already crumpling without any wars), or we change ourselves in the direction of the good! There are only two ways, and we are at the crossroads.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 8, 1/5/12

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The Special Role Of Zealous Egoists

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: People differ in qualities, and there are people who have a special role. They are the carriers of the method of integral upbringing and education, and they must teach, convey, and tell all of humanity about it.

Answer: True, there are people with high sensitivity and susceptibility toward this specific integral method. About six to ten percent of people in the world strive toward integral interaction. They represent the vast variety of altruistic organizations, fighters for different freedoms. These are not revolutionaries, but fighters for the environment, protection of wildlife, and so forth. This number includes volunteers who help others such as the poor, the hungry, and so on.

However, these are people who simply strive toward this kind of communication, toward integration. As a rule, they do not have a high and deep level of understanding of the integral system. Nature made them this way.

Then, there are people who by nature are very real and very zealous egoists. As we see from our studies, they are not included in the six to ten percent of natural altruists. These are very regular egoists, and the understanding of the need for integration becomes revealed in them because of their desire to understand the meaning of the world, existence, and the law of nature, its plan. They want to know where evolution is taking us, why it is so binding, and so forth.

These are scientific people who wish to delve into the very essence of evolution. They make up the squadron that leads humanity toward the goal. Nature did not make them altruists, but their altruism develops according to their research and realization of the need for this process.

We are trying to find these people in different corners of the world; with the help of a dedicated dissemination system, they come to us. Currently, there are around two million people around the world who are connected with us, despite their origin, religion, nationality, and lifestyle.

They are united by a common aspiration to correctly realize man’s advancement toward the goal, reach it, and change the direction of humanity so that instead of advancing through suffering, it will advance through the realization, meaning intentional, conscious unification. We are trying to find a connection with these people and organize them.

Question: Can these people participate in the creation of the integral upbringing system?

Answer: Absolutely, they are the ones! We are preparing them. We have a course for leaders of integral upbringing and education where we do special training, including working with people, teaching group games, active events, and primarily making an analysis in groups where people gather to discuss themselves, society, and all the problems that can appear between them.

We purposefully cause special problems in these groups. Then, they divide into subgroups such as defendants, prosecutors, critics, judges, jury, and so on, and they discuss these problems. These are very serious discussions.

We really do not invite psychologists to participate since we want people to develop internally, independent from the enormous psychological apparatus and the entire mass of collected information. We want them to regard it from the point of view of an integral goal. With psychologists, everyone works on his own part.

We have plenty of materials regarding this and a lot to work with.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #10, 12/16/11

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The Group: An Inverted Amplifier

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It is pretty clear to people in a regular educational system where they should make an effort. For example, a student in school pays attention during the lesson, takes notes, does homework, makes a lot of voluntary intellectual effort, and sacrifices rest. When the person grows up, he does the same: He works instead of having fun. These efforts are understandable. What are the integral efforts over egoism? Is there a place for volitional efforts?

Answer: In general, there shouldn’t be any. When a person properly positions himself in relation to the group, the environment, he arranges it to have a positive influence over him and for him to have a positive influence over it. Then, this precise interaction works so that a person changes willingly, without noticing it himself. Basically, he makes very little volitional effort to evoke the group’s positive influence.

Indeed, if I make a small effort in the group, and the group, composed in a special way, reacts properly, this proper group set-up organizes and forms a force that influences me. The group’s reaction to my request changes me immediately and correctly. When I exert a little effort and make a small request of the group to change me, I receive a thousand times more than my impulse, and I change. In other words, the group is a special inverted amplifier that comes back at me with such a degree of reverse connection that it forces me to change.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #10, 12/16/11

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A Fight For Leadership?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When uncorrected egoists gather in a group, there are people among them who dominate, take leadership positions, and begin to appropriate and redistribute the group’s intellectual, emotional, and other resources. What is the right way to work with such phenomenon as leadership in an integral society?

Answer: It means that this is a “community,” not a group! From the start, we establish a set of conditions according to which a community can be called a group, regardless of whether it is big or small. This can be ten people, twenty, thirty, or a million.

A group is a community where no one person stands out. Every person must integrate so much into the group that he becomes absolutely whole with it. His interaction within the group consists of his entering it and taking the place he feels he needs to take to bring it to absolute harmony.

In this way, everyone searches to answer the question: “What can I do to make the group harmonious, homogeneous, to make sure that the relationships between everyone are equal? If I see possible imbalances, I can fix them, make them smoother with my attitude and participation so that there are no differences and no one is bigger or smaller. Only this connection has to exist, reaching such a level of unity where we feel that something absolutely new appears.”

This unity is something new that is born from individualities. And it has the right to exist.

We support this existence. We cherish it. It is like our mutual child. We think about it in such a way that it seems to begin to separate from every one of us and exist outside of us. In the end, this unity pulls us in so much that every one of us loses his own egoistic individuality and acquires an integral individuality within this unity. This integration does not exist without me, and my participation consists of making it whole.

At the same time, everyone receives the influence of the common mass that supports and obligates him or her as if we were in one boat. Here, a little effort really leads to a great result.

Question: What do you do with those who aspire for power and possess leadership qualities?

Answer: This manifestation of the aspiration for power, these leadership qualities, is an aspiration for power over yourself.

Question: How do you make a person who strives to rule the group change his direction? After all, people like this literally can fight to the death?

Answer: It is through discussions. Make a video of your group, then watch it with the objective of bringing everyone to integral, absolute, and harmonious interaction. Discuss who needs to be moved, who needs to be raised, who needs to be eliminated, who needs to be brought closer to whom, and how we create an absolutely integral mechanism so that we will connect like cogwheels and spin in unison, no more and no less? Everyone needs to make an effort in this direction.

Question: Is this the goal?

Answer: You have said that every person goes to work and makes an effort to achieve something. We are attaining this!

Here, we are revealing our own egoistic nature, and here no one can say that we are not egoists. Everyone reveals enormous internal, egoistic resistance. Everyone has this area of work.

We need to help each other in this and understand people who jump ahead. Something is happening with them. They are failing to understand something. They have different moods. We are constantly smoothing things out and integrating between us, without lowering or oppressing anyone else (only one’s self).

We do not point anything out to anyone. We only discuss things externally, and everyone treats everyone else absolutely objectively: There is one object and another object. People are not ashamed of either their negative or positive qualities, understanding that they come from nature. What does not come from nature is that we must bring ourselves to integration through mutual help.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #10, 12/16/11

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Encouragement That Gives Energy

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We have discussed how important it is to introduce integral signs of distinction and awards.

Answer: We must take encouragement into consideration, but not corporeal encouragement. The encouragement should be various signs of distinction, incentives, certificates, diplomas, or anything that gives people the desire to continue to ascend and attain the goal.

This also marks a certain degree that he has completed. It is actually very difficult to define yourself in relation to others in an integral movement because a person is constantly doing inner work in correcting himself and including himself into a single organism.

It is a very good when society encourages you. When the encouragement comes from your spouse or your children, the person feels enormous strength from being respected and valued by his relatives.

Question: What do you mean when you say “non-corporeal” encouragement?

Answer: I refer to non-corporeal rewards, not money, but signs of distinction. There can be no other kind of encouragement here. For example, an instructor who completes a course well will receive a badge and a certain rank, perhaps even epaulets or something similar.

Question: You said epaulets, and I thought of the army. People invest so much effort for stripes that are meaningless. Can we introduce the same?

Answer: Yes, absolutely, any incentives. The goal is what matters. When a person strives toward a goal, even if it is for stripes, he does not care about the stripes once he achieves the goal because the goal is what matters to him. However, right now, we need to encourage people like little children because we need them to attain the goal.

Question: Can it also be a roll of honor as under the Soviet rule?

Answer: Of course. By the way, the Soviet system had a very correct disposition, just an incorrect realization. This is why everything failed. If everything had been based on education, real and true education, instead of repression when people were forced to unite, driven into Kolkhozes and places like it, then they might have had succeeded even back then. Now, it is a necessity; back then, it was just an opportunity.

Question: So, all that had a purpose?

Answer: Absolutely. People had a goal. First of all, there was a certain equality. There was a common culture. There were certain false ideals, but still ideals. People were brought up in a completely different way. Despite all the deformity and ugliness of the way things were imposed on people, the actual theory was integral and correct.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #9, 12/15/11

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Introductory Lecture “To Be A Man, The Future Of Education” – 02.28.12

Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Lecture Series, “To Be A Man, the Future of Education”
Download:
WMV Video|MP3 Audio

To Think, And Not To Know!

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Radio Netherlands Worldwide): “Western schoolchildren are up to three years behind those in China’s Shanghai and success in Asian education is not just the product of pushy ‘tiger’ parents, an Australian report released Friday [February 17] said.

“The study by independent think-tank The Grattan Institute said East Asia was the centre of high performance in schools with four of the world’s top systems in the region – Hong Kong, South Korea, Shanghai and Singapore. …

“The study said that while many OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries had substantially increased funding for schools in recent years, this had often produced disappointing results and success was not always the result of spending more money. …

“The report said the best systems focused on a relentless, practical focus on learning and teacher education, mentoring and professional development, rather than greater spending.”

My Comment: Education is inseparable from upbringing, and if there is no upbringing, then education cannot be good. Education means learning the skills to think, and not to know.
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Welcome To A Group For Beginners

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: There are closed and open groups. A closed group is where new members are not allowed, and naturally the group is against people leaving it. And people are absolutely free to join and leave open groups. What are the elements of a program of integral learning: is it a closed, open, or a mixed program?

Answer: Our practice in regards to this is very interesting. Our groups are constant. But when they go hand-in-hand, they can mix and there is absolutely no difference felt between them. When we have common events, our group, connected together, speaks the same, thinks identically, and there is absolutely no difference between them, everyone understands each other.

Every group advances independently without mixing with other groups but unites with others from time to time during our conventions and our other large events. New people are basically not allowed in the group. This introduces a very strong imbalance. A group needs to advance on its own, everything needs to be in harmony in it, and when new people come, they need to be formed into a new group.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #9, 12/15/11

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You and I Are Of The Same Blood

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We have discussed that when we form groups of integral learning, we need to pay attention to preliminary testing and conversations, to assign people with similar qualities (such as age and gender) to certain groups. What other qualities are we talking about?

Answer: I do not think that education, mentality, age, or literacy matter very much. The interesting thing is that everything becomes eliminated in groups of integral education. For this reason, when we speak about uniting all our qualities into one common quality of bestowal, love, mutual guarantee, and so forth, everyone feels antagonistic about it. So it does not matter if someone is more or less educated or has certain mentality. They are just external expressions that are not observed here.

I can only say one thing: When we study together with groups from around the world, connecting and exploring the common method for many years, we observe the kind of unity where there is no difference between people who physically are in the same classroom, in a group with me, or people whom I only see once a year.

By the way, every year I visit our main groups in Russia, North America, South America, and Europe. I do not see a difference between them because we study a single method, and all the groups develop parallel to one another. When we have conventions attended by our friends from all the continents, five to eight thousand people gather in one place, and we do not perceive any differences between us.

Of course, the language barrier still gets in the way since we are still in Babylon that is not yet corrected, but we’re almost there. Once it becomes corrected, a state of absolute and real homogeneity will appear.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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What Determines The Group’s Charter?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Certain models of behavior need to be discussed in every organization, the things that are permitted and the things that are not allowed. Some organizations call it a charter. What should the charter in the groups of integral learning consist of? What should its essence be?

Answer: First of all, what binds us is the image of our future state; it is what we strive toward. This image needs to be well promoted to the entire group and each one of us on such a level and such strength that everyone would really develop the desire and strength to achieve it. We constantly must think about elevating this goal so that it would be many times more important than anything else that could appear in us, any other egoistic goals and directions.

A person must receive constant support from the group and his family. This is essential. When someone in a person’s family is against his studying, it causes enormous problems; we see that he often fails because the influence of the family is enormous.

In our times, we understand that a person is essentially lonely. Nature did this on purpose to make his journey toward integration easier. A person does not submit to some family, clan, or village regulations; we are all seemingly “suspended” and this makes it easier to realize all this.

So, we need to make sure the group accompanies the person every hour of his life, not only when he is physically present in it. Today, this is very easy to achieve through media and communication tools.

Moreover, every person has an MP3 player. He can record lessons, discussions, songs, and plays. When he comes home, his computer has the same and additional information from lessons and group meetings. He must work with it and be in constant contact with it. We need to make films, video clips, and so on.

All of this is an enormous amount of information that must go through him and gradually brainwash his so-called brain (you cannot call it anything else), and he willingly agrees with it. We do not hide what we are doing: We are reprogramming him.

Regarding a charter, the main things are those that benefit the society. However, those things that are necessary for the existence of every one of us come first. In other words, feed the “beast,” and then do whatever you want with yourself.

The basics that determine our life are food, shelter, family, and sex. These are followed by the social desires wealth, fame, power, and knowledge that are egoistic additions to life’s necessities.

We need to transfer them to a new dimension: Wealth is the fulfillment you will receive in the group. Fame and power are the universal approval you will receive from the group for being in it; you feel that you are a necessary element of the entire integral system they depend on. Knowledge is the natural knowledge of all of nature, the entire process we experience.

So, the charter needs to clearly contain the explanation of this layout of a person’s inner values that are necessary for his existence, both as an animal and a social element. First, we make sure a person does not worry about his corporeal existence. It must be guaranteed to him at a reasonable level.

Question: Does a person need to live according to the laws of the charter, starting with the very first days, or can this appear after several months, once he is ready?

Answer: This appears after some time, once people are ready and able to realize the need for this format of existence. Relationships in the group must always be friendly and cheerful. You must show the others that the goal is important to you.

We understand that every one of us happens to experience descents and ascents, different states. However, at the same time, we must introduce only positive influences within the group. The negative influence will disappear on its own under the influence of the positive potential that we accumulate in the group to the point of attaining the state of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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