Question: In the integral upbringing system for children, groups should not be large, only about ten people, two of whom are instructors. Does this principle hold for adults too?

Answer: It’s a lot easier with adults since adults are more responsible people after all. They gladly focus on the instructor and engage in discussions with him. One instructor is quite sufficient for 30-40 people, or perhaps two for 50 people. You don’t need to hold adults together, motivate them, or be playful with them, but just to educate them in form of a game. That’s the first thing.

Second, we do need to understand that people must undergo a very serious inner transformation. It is a tremendous psychological work of a person on his own self; it is his introduction to himself: Who am I? That’s why it is necessary to film him in this game so he could see himself from the side.

After all, we are playing all the time. I represent a certain image that I saw many years ago, adopted it, and am recreating it today. This is how we conduct ourselves. That is clear from psychology. That’s why the most important task in these practical courses is to provide a person with maximally correct assortments of these images that he can copy afterwards.

Based on the fact that one will recreate and control them, he will understand who he actually is because his inner faculties and attributes will constantly reveal themselves relative to the image he is enacting in play. This distance, the delta between who I am and what I am enacting, will help a person to finally attain and know himself. And that is the most important thing. Then he will truly be able to express himself, his innate internal qualities, properties, and talents. And that’s when the world will truly become integral because each person will have an opportunity to express himself.

In addition, we must prepare instructors for the new integral society from each and every one of our students, even the most lagging ones. A person has no right to be merely a passive student and to study only for himself: He must study in order to educate others. He has to feel that to the extent that he acquires that new form of connection among people, he himself becomes an active part of this connection and must necessarily carry it further.

So the students who studied with us for half a year to a year must necessarily lead groups of beginners. At first, of course, they should cover only very limited topics and work along with senior instructors. For them this is absolutely necessary. This is precisely where they develop their skills! This is precisely how the others learn from them!

We don’t need to hide the fact that we are preparing our students to become teachers, and we must place them into an appropriate teaching framework immediately. First of all, this would force them to study the material more carefully and to understand it better. Second, this will develop a tighter connection between them and the others. The most important thing in this entire study is precisely practical activities.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question: What should be the class composition in integral upbringing courses? Should men and women study together, or is it better to study separately, as with children?

Answer: I think that we need to eliminate as many obstacles as we can. And when men and women sit together, as a rule, this leads to additional obstacles. After all, we are all people, and we have normal instincts, but it’s best to eliminate them while we study.

To this day there are many educational institutions in the world that practice single sex education. And practice shows that it is more effective than co-ed. Therefore, it is best to separate men and women.

However, after a certain period of preparation of male and female groups, they need to be combined with the aim of discussing and clarifying common issues together. Then we’ll be able to see how, on the basis of the covered material and having changed and received an objective integral view of the world, they use discussions or disputes to begin establishing a new system of relationships. By controlling one another, they begin to create something common: not a male or female part, but common to all—the prototype of the future integral society.

But here we need to discuss our attitude to children and parents, including several generations, and to clarify, debate, and actualize these things accordingly.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question: What topics are there in the course “Evolution as Development of Egoism?”

Answer: It encompasses absolutely everything. It will include: culture, communication, family, nationalities, civilizations, and the history of humanity from which one can draw a large amount of data and examples for our life today and for future states.

Knowing about yesterday, I can better understand what is happening today, and then can somewhat effect the future. Personally I am not a fan of history and geography, but we really should know history on the basis of the development of our egoism. It helps us understand how we are developing.

Aside from the courses, “Evolution as Development of Egoism” and “Freedom of Will,” the other courses will have more of a psychological quality. The first one, which lies between these two and a course in psychology, is on the perception of reality, meaning ontology or the theory of knowledge. It examines how we perceive the surrounding world, our five senses, the way this world is reflected within our five senses, and to what extent our perception is a consequence of internal states and properties of a person.

We study whether our perception is objective, and how we can influence it. Can we set such internal parameters for ourselves that would allow us to perceive this world from different angles, from different points of view, as if changing places and dwellings within one another? Say you see the world from one perspective and I from another, and then it’s as if we trade our points of view with each other.

In conversing with someone, we always want that the person to understand us. “Do you understand me? Can you imagine what I’m talking about? Did I express myself correctly?” That is, we are always concerned about proper communication. But it’s never there because we can’t “enter” another person and from within him take a look at the world. Until we can acquire the technique of emotional perception of each other, understand the properties and feelings of another, and see the world through his eyes, we will not understand one another.

The integral connection involves teaching all the people in the world to achieve that inner contact with each other, when one can substitute for another, when it’s as if I move into you and you into me. Then we’ll start to really understand one another.

We see this in a pairing of any two elements in nature. If there exists some element “I” within me, and there is some kind of “you,” then if we want to understand each other we must combine together all of your qualities and all of my qualities, as if mutually overlaying each other. That is, you perceive my qualities and can imagine your life and the world through them, and I through yours.

The same thing happens in technology. A similarity of two elements is required for their joining. And even though they are opposite from one another (say, one is convex and the other concave), still when we combine them, they must completely correspond to each other. That is, they must be adjusted and created in such a way that each has the shape of the other. This is where our correction lies: in this adjustment of fit towards one another.

This topic isn’t merely part of some theoretical course because it provides pure practical conclusions and work on knowing the world. Without it there is no communication. As well, it will be impossible to know the world without seeing it internally through each other. In practice, in our integration with all the people of the world, we must achieve such a state where I can “dwell” inside all the others, feel all of them, and through them perceive the world.

And when I do that in mutuality, as if plugging into them with my aspiration and disposition, I suddenly see a completely different world: multifaceted, amplified seven billion times, and simultaneously unified, that is, one whole while simultaneously composed from an enormous quantity of cells, like a honeycomb, because I look through each and every one. What takes place is an incredible picture of amplification of power for penetration into this world. This is true ontology, the practical theory of knowledge.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question: If a person correctly implements the method of integral education and takes part in it, he then gets a feeling of joy that has become rare in every day life. Can you say a few words regarding this feeling?

Answer: We are created in a way that our desire is fulfilled through the integral sensation of one general desire and one general thought. The revelation of this next level, the Creator or Nature, fulfills absolutely all of our emptiness. For this reason, a person that is moving in the direction of integral fulfillment feels total comfort and most importantly, he rises above all the limitations of our world such as time, place, distance, and motion. He gradually stops sensing his body because he perceives everything in the integral desire and not his individual desire. He no longer senses death because he begins to exist on the next level prior to the death of his physical body.

There are discoveries ahead that every one of us subconsciously dreams about. We hope that we’ll be able to show it to people clearly and that they’ll understand that nature is presenting them with a great finding. Millions of years of our development have only been leading us to this. Now we are about to enter a new world.

The convention and everything that we’re doing today is meant to reveal our birth. Just like a baby has to make a transition from its mother’s womb to the world, we have to put in all of our effort in order to finally be born, and then it will become simple for us to explain this to others. I hope for this to happen soon.

Question: So we do have a reason to be joyful?

Answer: The interconnection and interdependence that the world is now discovering, its inability to exit from a dead end that egoism leads us to, and the method that is gradually being revealed to the world will all soon become connected within human consciousness. Thereby, we will be able to sense the solution to the problem and will begin to realize it in full force.
From the Fundamentals of Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/11

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Question: What other sections are included in the course on integral upbringing?

Answer: The most important part in our studies is to realize, in theory and practice, the integration of all people among themselves, regardless of age or gender: men, women, and children. Studies, psychological trainings, taking this message to the masses and smaller groups, and the creation of brand new means of mass media that would educate a person rather than deform him, all this should be our main and primarily practical course.

The other courses we discussed also include practical studies with children and adults conducted by a psychologist. But the courses mentioned above are the main ones.

Also included as a major component in children’s upbringing are excursions to plants, factories, planetariums, and other places. We introduce children to agriculture and the animal kingdom to show them how nature exists in its pure form and why the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature develop the way they do with respect to one another. The tools we use to this end include educational films, excursions to the woods, the lake, the sea, and so on with explanations and very precise and correct conclusions about integration and interconnection in nature.

Then we continue with studying the human society: how it evolved from the animate part of nature, came out of the caves, came down from the trees, and what it achieved in its development, that is, what we built for ourselves to replace the lairs that were our homes, the enterprises we founded to no longer have to hunt mammoths, and how we established our interconnected, mutual assistance and support. We study the structure of all sorts of medical, financial, industrial, and research institutions, how supply and demand works, and how humanity is connected via all these systems. And, of course, we study the universe.

In our efforts to examine life and the world, we conduct very serious excursions, and not only for children. We see how excursions expand the children’s perspective and turn them into thoughtful adults. After each excursion we require the children to make a report including: where they were, what they saw, and why things work this way or that. That is followed with a discussion. All these things together ensure a very thorough grasp of the material. An excursion itself may happen no more than once per week because it takes time to discuss it, write compositions on the subjects, and so on.

The same applies to adults who are also of the opinion that pastries grow on trees, meaning that they are not familiar with production processes and have no clue as to what humanity does for them. Excursions for adults also lead to integrality and interdependence, which is why the understanding that you exist thanks to the entire world that works for your benefit is crucial from the standpoint of education, moral support, and the feeling of cooperation. If we present this information to the person in this manner, his outlook on everything in the world changes drastically.

The most important part that stems from these excursions is that we then scrutinize whether we need this particular enterprise or not, whether it’s a necessity or an indulgence that we can do without, not at our expense, but simply because we wouldn’t miss it if it were gone. Thus we gradually teach the person to pay more attention to the inner world, and not the external one.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question: Behavioral psychology speaks of a so-called “triangle of mutual understanding.” Two of its angles represent communication and empathy, and the third is a shared reality. In the integral upbringing, communication is conducted in a circle. From the point of view of behavioral psychology, it is assumed that in the process of growing mutual understanding, empathy increases too. Now a question arises: Is a shared reality that very integrality?

Answer: We must exist within it. Not inside ourselves, but outside of the self, within this shared reality that we create because this is precisely what objective reality is. Everything that exists inside of me is subjective, that is to say, pure lies. I lie to myself about building my own self. That world is absolutely unreal, invented by me.

Sometimes I am talking to someone and wonder about how differently we perceive the world. I am speaking about one thing, and he sees a completely different picture and talks about something else. And he is absolutely sincere, just like me, because each of us is coming from our own sensations.

Thus, it is necessary to rise higher, into the common desire, the common mind, the common heart and brain, and to observe the world from within the collective image of man that represents the totality of all of us. Then we will see the world as entirely different: not individualized, not distorted by our intrinsic, inner qualities.

If as many people as possible would gather into the common system of “man” (the joint image of man), then naturally, we will see a completely different picture of the world, universe, and ourselves. And it will be enormously different from what we see today. After all, the picture of the world depends on subjective perception, and psychologists know this very well.

We only need to show that if you take your inner desires and properties and compare them to others, that is, to the emerging collective image of man as a single whole, then from within it you will start to observe a truly different world.

You rise above yourself and distance yourself from your body, from your personal qualities so much that the body is no longer important to you. As we see from experience, it is very likely that it will start to be perceived as something foreign, like an animal that exists near you. When you enter that collective image of man, you see your body existing on an animate level. And the generalized image of man belongs to the human level.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question: There is a person’s inner psychological world, but there is also a more external, social level that includes a family and interactions with loved ones. If a person exists within this integral system, does he perceive everyone as if they are his loved ones?

Answer: The sensation of “animal closeness,” the so-called closeness of blood kinship, completely disappears. All people become equally close. And with that we erase absolutely all boundaries.

I am not talking about parents and their children—those ties are very tight, but even they already manifest differently. We literally observe that in our experience.

We see that in today’s world the basic natural connections are breaking down; they are no longer as tight as they were before. Parents give their children away for other families to raise, abandon them. Children leave their parents too soon, they don’t feel a special connection with them. The connection between generations is disappearing.

It is as if nature itself pushes us toward this state from within so we would perceive everyone the same way. Naturally, our upbringing elevates a person above the animal connection.

By “animal connection” I mean a physical one. After all, by birth we belong to the animate degree. And the human level is a collective, generalized level in which we unite in a single desire and mutual ascent above our innate qualities.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Every course in the system of integral upbringing carries a tremendous load of meaning in changing each of us as a personality and as an integral individual within society. And from here spring the smaller, more practical courses on household management. That involves conduct in a family, between spouses, with children, and with parents, upbringing, and running the household. A great deal of questions of ethical and moral nature emerge here.

I think that all of these courses should be led by a psychologist, with many examples from our life: What was and what ought to be, how to build a bridge for transitioning from our past states (domestic, spousal, pertaining to housekeeping and children’s upbringing) towards new ones.

Children’s upbringing and the influence of parents on their children are considered separately. We do not tear the family apart, don’t exert any pressure on the parents, and don’t distance them from their children like it was done during the Soviet times when children were sent to boarding schools, or in the Israeli kibbutzim when they were simply taken from their parents and raised separately. Generally speaking, they pursued good goals, but everything came down to exerting force on an individual. It should not be this way.

Under no circumstances do we destroy a family. We simply teach people the correct inclusion into one another. They must merge together internally, connect in such a way that a family becomes a pillar of the integral society and embodies one unit, a single small system that would join together with other such systems.

Comment: How can this be done? How can they be joined?

Answer: If both parents and children complete essentially the same courses, except each according to his age and mentality, then there is no problem in them starting to change involuntarily and discussing these changes in their family circle. Shame and reproaches have no place here because the whole society is obliged to change.

Now we all have to play this game specifically in order to position ourselves under the kind influence of nature. Otherwise nature will force us to do this with its subsequent development showing our contradiction to it, and we will experience that as tremendous suffering.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question: Where does the freedom of will lie?

Answer: A person in our world has no free will. He is born in an already completed state and develops the innate qualities with which he was born and which he did not choose himself under the influence of the environment. Neither his inner parameters nor the external ones that influence him are not chosen by him, and that is why there is no freedom in that.

The freedom exists only in selecting a specific environment so that it would shape me to be the way that I want to be. I choose my environment in accordance with the kind of individual that I wish to become.

There is a problem here too: On what basis do I think that precisely this environment suits me and not another? Basically, there are still many more internal clarifications here until a person develops fully and understand what he needs. In principle, one understands it in his heart, he senses it: Where exactly is my freedom of will. And this isn’t easy. But we must bring practically every single person to this state.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question: I know from experience that a person is prepared to study if you explain to him why that’s needed. So why does he need a course on the evolution of egoism?

Answer: From this course he will learn not only the beginning, but also the end of this whole chain. He will feel himself existing within it. He will see where all of this is headed. On the basis of that he could make correct decisions regarding all his personal states.

Comment: Let’s say I learn how the planets got formed. How is this related to my life?

Answer: It’s a part of an overall worldview that slightly raises a person above his animal part. When he turns to look back a few billion years, and when he looks forward to tens or maybe even hundreds of years ahead, he begins to see this practically endless axis of time within which he exists at this moment—a small, weak, and dependent element. And from here a question arises in him: “Who am I?”

When he sees his pitiful condition upon this axis, it will be possible to start raising him above it into a new state where he will feel: “All of this is below me, I can be in control of it all, I am actually on a higher level and can exit the boundaries of time, space, and history.” This is the beginning of that enlightenment that will appear within him.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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