In order to understand and settle in the quickly changing modern world, we need to know the following: What are the changes we need to undergo and why do we need to make these changes? What is the reason for our current lack of success in everything we do? What is the means that will help us transition to the new state?

Can we regard our current state as prenatal, where the mother giving birth to us is nature, both our internal and external nature that is pressuring and forcing us to attain a new state?

Is this process natural for the development of humanity? After all, if we knew about it in advance, we would anticipate this process.

People, living in the times of slavery, did not know what would come from a new society that would give them some freedom. They thought that slavery was the most convenient state, since they didn’t need to worry about themselves. I am prepared to work when I know that someone will take care of my food and shelter. And there is nothing else that I need.

This is what a person thought when he became a slave. He expected the owner to take care of him and was ready to work for him. The owner was interested in providing the slave with food, shelter, normal living conditions, and good health since he gained more than he invested into the slave. So they coexisted on these mutually beneficial terms.

But suddenly it became clear that it was no longer beneficial for the owner to keep a slave who required an investment greater than the profit he brought in. But what if I were to give him freedom where we agree that he will remain close to me and continue to work, and from his work, I will receive a percentage: This is better than thinking about providing for him.

In this way society evolved to a new degree. Even today, we are on some stage of rational development towards a new state. Then why aren’t we able to see and plan for this new state?

We have enough great minds and vast experience from the entire history of mankind; we have science, scientists, and a highly developed world. Why do we suddenly become small, pathetic, blind, incapable of anything, in spite of our international committees and agencies, research institutes and universities, armies of psychologists, sociologists, economists, and financial experts?

With all this, there is nothing we can do. So what do our scientists lack to find the solution? It is so hopeless that you and I are now taking a class to find the solution. We can no longer rely on experience, now we have to artificially study this new life we are approaching.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/27/11

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Question: In the method of integral upbringing, special attention is paid to the correlation between the mind and feelings. In the corporeal world of egoism and alienation, desires and thoughts are hidden deep inside a person and are often inaccessible by his consciousness. Usually, as a rule this generates negative feelings: anger, irritation, and hurt. What is the right way to connect feelings so they would not hinder communication between people?

Answer: The method of integral education, first and foremost, takes into account the fact that feelings and desires are primary.

We do not know where they come from and how they appear in us. All the qualities of our mind and thoughts are intended for realizing these feelings and fulfilling ourselves.

Our basic desire is the desire to enjoy. Who, what and how are the consequences. Enjoy! And this is why our entire mind only develops to the extent of our desires and only to serve them. Big desires develop a big mind in a person. Egoism, which grows from generation to generation and over the course of a person’s life, develops his mind.

If we take an animal, its development practically ends a couple of weeks after its birth. It already has all its given instincts, and it adapts to the environment. This is why animals never make mistakes. They know how to behave, how to save themselves, and how to interact with the environment. Their mind and feelings are instinctively in balance. In this case too, desire is primary and the mind secondary. An animal understands what it is able to realize in its desires and what it is not, and this correspondingly limits its mind.

But a person has a big problem here. The thing is that when his egoism develops, it gives him desires he is not able to realize. This is why he shuts away, isolates himself, becomes more brutal, competitive, etc.

If his desires were to be correlated with all the other desires (his and the environment) so that they would harmoniously complement each other, there would be no conflicts, and his mind would expand infinitely.

Since integral society is a society of absolute inclusion of everyone in everyone, this means that a person acquires the desires of the entire community. He understands what matters to the society, and accordingly, his mind stops being personal and becomes integral, and he reasons with it. It is like putting on glasses of integral vision of the world, and he understands that he and the world are one whole; what is good for me and what is good for the world are the same thing.

There is naturally no contradiction in this harmonious correlation between him and the world. He can simply open up without any fear; he understands, sees, and feels everything in accordance with this, and actively participates in every action, in everything. Absolutely all his reasons to be unhappy or compete with others disappear.

So we need to bring a person to this state without limiting his desires, thoughts, and mind, and we need to act in a completely different way from the beginning to give him the explanation that he is included in everyone else and that a certain common desire is being created.

This collectivity of all the desires is that new thing that we are creating. We are creating the system of “Adam” our common desire and our common mind in accordance with it. Something integral appears above us, and we exist in it.

This way we do not pay any attention to the person at all, but only at his aim, his inclusion in this collectivity, the next degree of our development. We do not limit him; he does not feel that he is under certain pressure. He does not have anything to hide. He practically remains as is, but his entire development is directed towards integration.

The harmony between feelings and the mind develops as he begins to feel greater and greater interconnection between himself and the others, with what the current world dictates to us but we are not yet ready for.

Integral education intends to direct man towards beginning to feel “we,” the collective humanity, and act based on it. Only then he will feel like his state is free. This is exactly where his freedom of will and freedom of behavior will manifest, but only once he includes himself in it.

But if he comes out of this state again, he once again falls into his small egoism, and the same problems start all over. In this way nature helps us by showing us that rest can only be found in integration, and in isolation a private prison and absence of freedom.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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Question: A woman once said that her freedom is limited by certain obligations for her children, family, husband, household, etc. She feels most free within these obligations. But if all of this were to be taken away, her feeling of freedom would disappear.

Answer: This is true. When a person lacks strict boundaries, it is hard for him to determine where freedom is, and he simply feels lost, because absolute freedom appears to him to be an absolute lack of freedom.

Freedom, like any other feeling, is defined between the negative and the positive in it. Therefore, within certain boundaries and the opportunity to remain, act, and comfortably exist within them, which means managing them, performing any obligations and enjoying achieving them, this is perceived as freedom.

But the thing is that when we become integral in our society against our will, according to the plan of nature, we are unable to feel capable of creating the right framework because it is being violated all the time; on one hand, we become more interconnected with others, and on the other hand, we do not feel like we can do something on our own within our own framework because we depend on a huge quantity of external factors.

This is why the only way to surpass our boundaries is by entering the integral system, which gives the feeling of freedom.

Nature inevitably pushes us towards feeling “cornered” into a state of need, in a constant struggle for survival within our own framework, everywhere: in our families, at work, at home, on the street, anywhere at all.

It is here that we need to show people that freedom is only acquired by correctly interacting with others: globally and harmoniously.

A person, especially a woman, cares only for her boundaries, her comfort within these small boundaries on the animal, egoistic level of existence. When she has a home, a family, children, responsibilities, and she is able, capable, and equipped to provide for the wellbeing of her entire small household; then of course, she can have a complete feeling of confidence, freedom, and realization.

It is not as simple with a modern person, even a modern woman. She aspires to get into business and realize herself. But still, the determinant, basic orientation of the female character is directed towards the family, and for things to be right in it.

However we see that families are broken. The latest statistics are just menacing! The number of divorced and single parent families is greater than 50%!

Here we observe a tendency to push a person out of his little family circle where he feels comfortable leaning on his relatives, where it is enough for him that he could only care for his household and getting whatever the household needs. Despite his mind, man is being pushed towards something greater against his will.

We are tied up with everyone else. Our inner wellbeing depends on the entire world. Thus integral upbringing is simply necessary here to compensate for insecurity, fears, and absence of freedom.

As we rise to the next level, we specifically acquire freedom, despite our current egoistic beginning.

When I connect with others, I acquire something in common with them, common desires and common understanding that when we decide everything together, by interacting with each other, and in no other way—that is when I feel free.

My freedom depends on me. It does not depend on others, because everyone else in the integral group begins to appear absolutely corrected to me. They are already integral in the state of mutual guarantee, connection, and I alone am only beginning to feel where I still need to add and adjust myself. And in general every person feels this way in relation to others.

A person acquires a completely new need to constantly strive towards a proper relationship with all the people.

This is a whole new level. It is still egoistic, but at the same time it is a different and desirable level where I feel that I lack fuller integration. It is in it, after breaking into it, performing a psychological turn around inside of me like by pulling a trigger, and by changing to the opposite, I suddenly actually acquire freedom.

It is like when an embryo is born from a mother’s womb, it turns head down and seems to lose everything it had, after which it appears in a new world; we need to turn upside down, begin to understand the world in another way, and then we will be born in the new integral world.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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Question: When I encounter the law of mutual guarantee and see it in action, I immediately begin to monitor others so that they won’t drill a hole in the boat, and I purely egoistically point out that they shouldn’t be doing this.

Answer: With a corrected, altruistic approach, I act differently. I say to myself: “They are all ideal, I can be absolutely sure of them. I only have to monitor myself so I complete them correctly.”

If I behave correctly within the integral scheme, the entire scheme will be correct. It’s a reverse implication of the same law, where each is responsible for all. If, while existing within an integral system, I behave correctly, I oblige the entire integral system to do so as well. If someone breaks the law, the entire system fails.

Engineering has examples of various systems, among them an integral one. There is a discrete system with a strictly defined beginning and end, where all the working parts communicate with each other through impulses. And then there is a system which gets aroused by a signal it receives, then calms down, comes to a state of balance, and only after that can one measure its output as a solution to a problem. This is the so-called integral, analog system.

A disturbance and, naturally, an averaging, a calming down take place in such systems. You wouldn’t be able to observe any results until everything calms down and arrives to a common denominator, to a solution.

At first, when you give a signal, you, say, bring an egoistic environment into a perturbed state. Then correction takes place: Gradually, a balance between absolutely all parts of the system is achieved; the system calms down. And then you measure the potential that results from its connection. If we talk about the human society, then the achieved result is accepted by everyone uniformly, equally, and kindly; everyone tries to uphold this very state because it is the most comfortable for everyone.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/11

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Question: In the mid-1960’s, there was an incident in Paris when a person drowned in a pool in front of 150 eyewitnesses because nobody came to the rescue. Had there been only one person there, he or she would have saved him, but now it’s as if the responsibility was diluted among 150 people. Hence the law that the more people there are, the less responsibility each of them has personally. How can we make this law integral?

Answer: What does “mutual guarantee” mean? I am responsible for everyone. The general and the particular are equal in their power and influence—this is what the law of global guarantee implies.

If within the final integral system (and we take it as a starting point of any explanation) even one tiny particle is missing—me, you, or him—it won’t be able to function. It won’t be able to operate at the full 100%. It will break down not by 99% or 50%, but by the entire 100% because an integral system implies the participation of absolutely everybody.

Ultimately, the law is such that one is equal to all, one is important for everyone. There isn’t anyone who could wiggle out of this, opt not to participate.

In the integral education we present a simple example: We (all of humanity) are in one big boat. If I drill a hole under myself in the bottom of the boat, everybody drowns. I may say: “I’m sorry, friends, this is my personal business. I want to drown. Or I want to take a bath. That’s it. This has nothing to do with you. What right do you have to enter my territory and admonish me or order me around?!”

If we exist within the framework of one law of nature—in the same boat, like in Noah’s Ark. If someone drills a hole there, we will all drown.

So it follows that responsibility cannot be distributed among everyone. For each person it is the same responsibility as for everyone else! That’s why each person who stands around the pool and sees that someone is drowning must imagine that if I don’t take any action, then no one will. And then everyone would plunge into the water.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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Question: Materialistic psychology discusses the psychological concept of conformity, when a person submits to the opinion of the majority. From the point of view of psychologists, conformity is a bad thing, while nonconformity is good. Perhaps from the perspective of integrality, conformity is a very positive thing?

Answer: First of all, a person’s subordination to society and their surrounding environment is a law of nature. In other words, there is no truth or falsehood, no good or evil, nothing—there is only the directives of the environment, and I obey them, I am brought up within them. What the environment proclaims to be good or evil, right or wrong, I accept as such.

We can convince ourselves that salty tastes sweet, no problem! If the environment starts referring to salt as being sweet, ultimately I will start consuming salty candy. It alters our inner physiological parameters to such an extent that we change completely.

We cannot say whether it’s good or bad. We are simply stating a fact. After all, can I really say anything bad about acceleration of free fall or other physical parameters? This is what exists. The way we apply this is another story. But saying that it’s bad and we should therefore change and distort a person—this actually is bad. Our task is to correctly apply the laws of nature with the aim of achieving our similarity, compatibility, and harmony with it.

Question: It turns out that a social-psychological law like conformity is a big plus that helps us to unite?…

Answer: We are able to change a person precisely by virtue of the surrounding environment. Mass media, society, and upbringing, it all constitutes the surrounding environment. We selectively influence a person from the outside in order to transform him or her. This is our only tool of influence on a person.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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Integral upbringing strips a person of practically everything that characterizes our modern society. What remains is only their normal, peaceful, and regular existence (we call it the beastly level, but not with disdain as this is the level on which our physical body exists). At this point a person devotes all of his or her resources only to master the next degree, that of “Adam,” the degree of universal mutual guarantee, ascent, and unity. It is precisely in our unity that we reveal the next level of our existence: the attainment of eternity and perfection.

And this is possible since by breaking away from our animal body and attaining the complete picture of nature, its mechanism, dynamics, and the forces that permeate it from beginning to end, this entire process, a person connects to and associates himself with this process and already simply lives on that level. It’s as if he or she breaks away from their own body (we cannot imagine this state yet) and associates himself with the attained common unification and exists within it to such extent that even if his body dies, he doesn’t feel death. It’s as if this is the death of his beloved pet animal who lives next to him. He doesn’t feel that his “self” loses something thereby.

Since our body represents merely the sum of our desires and our notion of self, if we no longer associate ourselves with it, it’s as if we live detached from it. This is also a psychological problem, but it can be overcome in the course of integral upbringing.

We need to lead our students towards this gradually since the problem of death, despite the constant attempts to “bottle it up,” nevertheless drives a human being. In any task that we set before ourselves, we subconsciously include this element and are compelled to address it. Any decision that we make: to have children, to support a family, to appear a certain way in the eyes of society, and so on, anything presupposes an element of inclusion of the self into something outside of ourselves since in this manner it’s as if we continue on.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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In the News (from Bloomberg): “Rioters set fire to as many as 45 buildings during violent street protests against government austerity measures in central Athens late yesterday and overnight, Greek police said.

“Prime Minister Lucas Papademos won parliamentary approval early today for the spending cuts needed to secure an international bailout of 130 billion euros ($172 billion). The measures equal about 7 percent of gross domestic product over three years and include a debt swap that would shave 100 billion euros off more than 200 billion euros of privately held debt. Greece was granted its first aid package of 110 billion euros in May 2010.

“A total of 170 businesses in Athens suffered attacks during the protests, the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry said today in a statement on its website. Initial estimates put the cost of damage to buildings and equipment as well as from theft at tens of millions of euros, the chamber said.

“Seventeen banks, four bookstores, five department stores and shopping malls and 70 clothing and footware shops were among businesses that suffered damage, the Athens-based association said.

“Several national heritage sites were burned including a neoclassical building from 1870-1881, designed by German architect Ernst Ziller, which was gutted by fire, according to an e-mailed statement from the Athens City Hall.”

My Comment: This will only increase social tension. Studies suggest that only the solidarity of society, the proper distribution of income, and a feeling of unity will create a person’s sense of happiness, peace, and contentment, even with a modest lifestyle.

But this form can be achieved only through the preliminary education of people. We need to introduce mandatory education for all unemployed people, including housewives, retirees, etc., and in a few months society can be brought to conscious integral changes.
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When a person comes to Kabbalah he does not understand why he needs humanity. Kabbalah tells us that there are forces that operate above our world that depict this world in our perception. This is why we want to fly away somewhere into the unknown, to the Creator, His spiritual system.

Accordingly, man also perceives the study materials personally, on his account, without feeling the urge to unite with others. This is the initial, very limited perception with which we, being egoists, all begin our journey.

Only after several years, as the result of the influence of the surrounding Light, I understand that I really must unite with my friends and reveal the Light in their inner interconnection. But when you think about yourself, the Light has an opposite affect: It shows me how mistaken I am, and then I see that I need to unite with the group. I will find the upper World there, in the depth of it.

This is a very big revolution in consciousness. Man begins to understand that the spiritual world actually exists; it exists in the connection between people, a place with completely anti-egoistic coordinates.

Then a problem arises: How do you prove this to yourself, how do you bring yourself closer to having a proper attitude. This must become so important that everything else will appear extraneous. From now on I focus only on the group, on uniting with it. It is my only aim and nothing else because I depend on it. This is the second stage.

And then the third stage appears, an even more complicated one, when you figure out that you also need to do mass dissemination. “Since when? We are going towards the Creator, after all. At first I wanted to get there alone, then I understood that I need a group. But since when do I need to take care of everyone else? A billion Chinese, a billion Hindus, half a billion South Americans, half a billion Europeans, Africans, what do they have to do with this? Who cares for whom and why do I have to do it?”

Here we explain to the person that he, the group, and all of humanity must unite in order to become like the Creator. Another obstacle he disagrees with: “My friends and the world groups have one goal, but the others do not.”

And this also is true. After all it is written: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” I am “Israel.” The group is the “Torah,” the reforming Light. And together we go to the Creator.

On the other hand, the remaining 99% are below and they aspire towards their corporeal pleasures. So why do we need them?

In response to this, again and again, we need to explain that we are a transitional link and that we must become “a kingdom of priests”; in other words, we must educate all of mankind about mutual guarantee and integral unity. Then we will connect the masses to us, like AHP to Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), and we will unite all the people with the Creator into the ten Sefirot.

It is very difficult to explain this to friends in the group. In the group is our field of our action, the source of everything, and where we reveal everything. The circle manifest there: AHP, us, the Creator—all inside, everything ends in the group in a single vessel, woven from the unity of the points in our hearts. A part of it comes from below and a part comes from above.

Our groups do not understand and do not wish to switch to being the messengers of mutual guarantee to the masses. It is very difficult for a person to allow himself something so opposite, to see how different things connect into one. But gradually everything will work out.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/12, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Could you shed more light on the concept of “mutual guarantee”? What do you mean by it?

Answer: The purpose of creation of the universe is to bring it to homeostasis. The endpoint of the development of any given subsystem is to balance all systems. It follows from the research of the still, vegetative, and animal nature: all these levels strive towards equilibrium.

Why does the wind blow? The pressure in one place is higher than in another. Any unbalanced physical parameters ultimately strive for balancing, for averaging out, for mutual interconnection and permeation. All levels of nature are supported by each other: plants, minerals, animals, and so on; they all exist in constant mutual circulation.

The last degree of nature called “Adam” or Man (the overall joint image) needs to incorporate all the previous levels into itself. Human beings have to reach such a collective state, reciprocity in connection, where precisely they will be the ones who’ll be determining the entire correct global structure of nature, its harmony. A person needs to attain this through understanding, realization, and study of this picture.

We need to study the integral systems in which everything is interconnected: beginning, end, middle, and center. There’s no single thing that would determine something, but everyone and everything determines all the rest. It’s like a holographic picture, and our universe, as well as practically any of its fragments, including ourselves, are arranged according to this principle.

This is why our final state is characterized by the fact that everyone is responsible for everyone else. All for one and one for all! And this applies to the entire humanity.

This picture, of course, seems like a fantasy, completely opposite to our reality of today. Our desire or reason simply don’t function in that direction. But nature will compel us to that. Starting with our time and going forward, we are entering a crisis that’s determined precisely by our lack of balance, our incorrect interconnection with each other.

Therefore, starting with a small group, with this vision of the future, we are obliged to constantly set this condition before ourselves. Regardless of how we name this future system, even if it’s “communism,” nevertheless it’s the most stable system intended by nature. And it will be attained since this is the state of equilibrium.

Now a question arises: “How do we present it to people? What does mutual guarantee mean?”

Even now, we see from the example of the EU, which is not able to unite, that the absence of integral upbringing and education doesn’t allow them to correctly view the situation they’re in. They constantly choose egoistic, linear solutions instead of “round” ones. They constantly relate to themselves as a discrete and not an analog system. Therein lies their problem. This is why all of their resolutions won’t lead anywhere.

This will be a very lengthy disintegration, maybe even a world war. Or, perhaps, as a result of suffering they will gradually come to a right decision because there are people already who talk about the necessity of absolutely complete unity.

But can complete unity of 27 countries be reached?! Even if you limit them to ten countries, it still is an enormous division along all parameters. Therefore, upbringing is necessary.

Upbringing, its foundation and expected goal, is what we call an integral mutual interaction or universal guarantee, when we vouch for and are responsible for one another and create our society precisely in this manner. Fears disappear. Concerns disappear. I know exactly what I need to do in society. I am absolutely confident that I will receive the same thing as everyone else. I am confident that I will have everything that is necessary for life.

In this manner we neutralize any problems that might arise in some social perturbations. Surely, this is an ideal picture, so we need to come to it gradually.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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