Human evolution occurs as a result of the development of the ego. By existing within inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, a person constantly and dynamically develops under the influence of the egoistic desires that overcome the simple primitive desires and become more and more complex.

The desires are divided into physical ones for food, sex, and family, and into human ones for wealth, respect, control, and knowledge, and spiritual needs.

If we divide the time axis on which humanity develops into sections, then since about the 5th century BC until the 5th century AD people aspired for wealth. Of course, the exact time is debatable since it all depends on which civilizations we are looking at.

From the 5th century until the 15th century, the desire for power and respect grew. The Middle Ages isn’t just a period of time in which humanity froze, but a period of deep internal development that is typified by very serious events, such as the Crusades, etc.

The next stage in the development of the desire is from the 15th century until the 20th century and it is typified by the yearning for knowledge.

After that, everything began to wane and from the beginning of the 20th century we started a new era, the era of the conscious necessity of attaining the meaning of life.

Although we come across the first psychological quests in the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, Plato, and the ancient Greeks, it was all on a level that doesn’t yet touch the inner essence of man, since it wasn’t revealed in ordinary people yet and not in great personalities that could be studied.

Only after fulfilling the physical desires and the human ones did we enter the area of the spiritual needs that belong to a person’s soul, which means not the way he lives, what he invents, and how he manages in life, but the essence of his existence, his personality, and the meaning of his development. Then the serious question regarding knowledge appeared. Here psychology was born. It happened at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, but on the whole it all leads to our times.

After the first phase of the development of psychology, its gradual waning and the disappointment in its abilities began. The shift from research and new discoveries to mere psychological work made people feel tranquil instead of showing them the process of their development and raising and developing them.

By understanding how much we don’t understand this process, by perceiving to what extent we don’t perceive the goal of our development, psychology seems to have turned to a narrow practical area, shrinking and limiting itself to practical applications, limited by the training of different experts, by publishing different articles, and by calming people using different methods. The result was that psychologists began to serve people instead of taking people and raising them to the next level of development, which was actually expected of psychology.
[81325]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/24/12

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Opinion (from AlertNet, Thomson Reuters Foundation): “Speculation on food prices played out on the trading floors of the Chicago Board of Trade and other commodity futures exchanges are to blame, critics say.

“’People are starving because the markets are out of equilibrium,’ said Yaneer Bar-Yam, director of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), a research institute, which has analysed the impact of speculation on food prices.

“’Food prices have nothing to do any more with the real price of food, or the availability of food,’ Bar-Yam told AlertNet. …

“’Deregulation of commodity markets has led to increased volatility and contributed to food price spikes that have caused massive harm to millions across the world facing hunger and poverty,’ said Christine Haigh, campaigns officer at the World Development Movement (WDM), an advocacy group.

“Before deregulation, agricultural futures markets were mainly used by farmers and food buyers to protect themselves from risks such as bad harvests. A futures contract provides protection by locking in a price for a promise to deliver a crop at a future date.

“But in recent years, investors have poured unprecedented amounts of money into agricultural commodities – spurred to hunt elsewhere for profits after the dotcom crash of 2000, the U.S. property market meltdown in 2006 and the 2008 financial crisis.

“They have become major players – in the past five years investment in food commodities by banks and hedge funds has risen to $126 billion from $65 billion five years ago, according to a report by WDM.

“A 2011 study by UNCTAD concluded that the commodities market had stopped to function ‘properly’ in a way where prices are shaped by supply and demand.

“’The activities of financial participants drive commodity prices away from levels justified by market fundamentals,’ the study said. …

“Wheat prices, for example, rose 46 percent between January and February 2008, fell back almost completely by May and increased again by 21 percent in July before falling again in August 2008. …

“There are signs some banks are listening to arguments that food price speculation harms millions of people. Germany’s DekaBank, last month said it was pulling out of investing in basic food stuffs, such as wheat, soya, maize and meat.”

My Comment: In the world, there is an excess of everything, including food. It is only the speculation of the “fat cats” that leads to the unequal distribution and hunger. The crisis, destruction, famine, and environmental catastrophe will compel us to decide to curb our egoistic nature. And the question of how to do this will lead us all to the method of integral upbringing.
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Opinion (John Perkins, Chief Economist at a major international consulting firm, advised the World Bank, United Nations, IMF, U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man): “My job as an economic hit man during the 1970s was to enslave nations that had resources our corporations coveted by burdening them with debts they could never repay. We then demanded that they sell those resources cheap, without social or environmental regulations, to our corporations.

“It was an incredibly successful strategy. In essence it created the world’s first truly global empire and the first one that was not built primarily through military occupations. It also transformed geo-politics. The power of elected officials was usurped by those who sit at the top of the multinational corporations (the ‘corporatocracy’).

“This success led to the realization that similar strategies could be applied in the United States in order to emasculate a population that was exerting its democratic rights in ways that threatened the corporatocracy… .

“By 1980, the Reagan administration understood that its most effective weapon to protect corporations against labor movements was debt. Borrowers were deceived into believing that they were paying low interest rates when in fact balloon payments, adjustable rate mortgages, and other technically complex packages resulted in higher overall rates that made it increasingly difficult to break the shackles of debt. …

“We have finally realized that we are serfs of a system that reflects the feudal Middle Ages. Modern-day lords of the castle, the corporatocracy had convinced us – we who live outside the walls and supply all the food and conveniences for them – that if we didn’t pay our “debts” and service their every desire we would be raped and pillaged by soldiers from neighboring castles. But we are no longer buying their lies.

“Across this planet, we have marched into the courtyards of those castles with the message that we are no longer blind. We will not be hoodwinked by their false promises or by their fear tactics. The Occupy movement spans seven continents. Participation expands at seemingly exponential rates, online as well as at the front lines. …

“The corporatoctacy are striking back. They are writing new laws forbidding us to assemble in places like Wall Street. They are attempting to censor the Internet (as they did in Egypt). They will come up with schemes we can’t even imagine.

“Each time they do this we must utilize their energy to inspire and empower us further. Coming from a place where we know we are right, we will employ the aikido of love, compassion, and cooperation to keep expanding our energy, our resolve, and our creative responses.”

My Comment: The method of enslavement will vary, but it will not disappear until human egoistic nature is corrected. That is why all the occupy movements will yield nothing and fade. Salvation is in the education of people, in their correction through the hidden force of nature: It created egoism and it can also correct it.

Enslavement comes from its historic and spiritual source: the Pharaoh who had Jews as slaves. The Pharaoh represents the entire universal egoism, that is why it wanted to beat even death through mummification. Thus a person is a slave of his egoism and remains its slave until he begins to correct himself through the method of integral upbringing.

So today, the current crisis is the time of freeing oneself from the Pharaoh-egoism with the whole world.
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The road is difficult if we are in our ego and want to make some egoistic arrangements among us. By trying to solve problems on the egoistic plane, we will constantly fight, argue, and disagree and it will never end.

But if we rise above our ego in order to connect and see all the arguments and the conflicts among us as an invitation to connect, as “help against,” we will constantly feel happy and powerful, elated and capable of anything. If we are not able to do something, we will have whom to ask for help. That is, we reach the request to the upper one, a prayer, which we would not be able to reach otherwise.

This isn’t just a prayer but the “prayer of many” that I pray for the whole group and not for myself. Asking for myself doesn’t help; on the contrary, it keeps us apart and thrusts us onto the path of suffering.

So during the roundtable discussions, we say that we want to leave all the strife. We don’t want to argue and find out who is right and who is not and to what extent. This is not a debate within the government. Here there are people who want to establish a new connection, without which humanity is doomed.

This is only possible if we stop all the arguments between us and rise to a new level of connection so that “love,” that is above everything, “will cover all the sins,” that are left below. We don’t mention the sins as if they do not exist. And we build a dome above us.

This is what we want to achieve in the discussions at the roundtable. Before we do it in public, we have to learn to implement it in our group. So we need to take every opportunity to connect in spite of all our arguments, conflicts, and rejection.

In this form, the upper force field operates on us by evoking such reactions in us and summoning conflicts so that we will need the help of the upper one. As it says: “He who brings peace in Heaven will bring peace upon us.”

We need to reach a state in which this force field will influence us not by its negative pole, but by its positive pole, in the opposite direction. Every force field, every magnet has a positive or negative effect, by the north pole or the south pole. It all depends on our direction, on our charge—on our intention.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/12, Shamati #30

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Why does egoism change from linear into circular? What is the property of circular egoism?

We can imagine linear egoism as a straight line consisting of a multitude of dots. Linear egoism can see only the next dot in front of itself and is running toward it like a little dog, and after that to the next goal, and so on. It does not see even a few dots ahead of it because it doesn’t care about them. It is interested only in the short term, the next goal.

Circular egoism shows a circle, rather than the next goal. The circle is eternity, infinity, and detachment from linearity, even at the surface. This refers to the general sense of being. This is the difference between circular and linear egoism within us.

Today, when a person and the entire world in general become circular and integral, people experience a need to become familiar with the purpose of existence. Without this, they will be unable to live and advance. Without this, there will be terror and killing because there is no sense to this life if a person does not feel life’s upper purpose.

The upper purpose is the next rung to which we must rise in our evolution. It’s not life after death; it has nothing to do with religion. The opportunity for self-realization at the next level in this circular, single generality gives a person strength and productivity in everything.

However, we must explain to the person what we receive when we become integral. We rise above ourselves and obtain the instrument for gaining upper knowledge, sensation, and understanding. Based on this instrument, we can create, write articles, research the world and ourselves, our purpose, and so forth.

A person who begins his self-realization finds between us the new, common “me.” He receives the answers to all his questions because he becomes a possessor of the new instrument for acquiring knowledge.
[81107]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/23/12

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Everything is determined by the inner intention and no words are needed for that. If we know that we must constantly be connected, by overcoming all the interruptions, both the collective ones within the group and the private ones each of us encounters, we will have the right intention.

We constantly return to the intention during the lesson, while listening to the recordings during the day, and while reading the blog. So, I always remind myself and bring myself and return to the intention to connect. Besides, I also worry that all the friends will be connected since if we have a strong collective desire, we will discover the Creator.

If this general collective vessel doesn’t exist, we will not attain the revelation.

This condition isn’t the Creator’s or the upper field’s whim according to which it seems that you are asked to pay in one place in order to later receive something in another place, like in a store. This doesn’t exist in spirituality.

You need to feel a necessity, the need for that attribute of bestowal, and only then will you be able to discover it. Now too, it surrounds you on all sides. You are in this upper field, but you cannot reveal it because you don’t feel a need for it. So what are you crying about?

You don’t even know what the attribute of bestowal or what the upper field that you are yearning for are. You are crying about something that is totally different, about the fact that you didn’t receive a filling in your desire to receive, in your ego. If you really needed the attribute of bestowal, then you would immediately reveal it within this field.

After all, you are within this field, but your charge, your desire to perceive it, is weak at the moment. It could be that this charge is directed in the opposite direction, not in order to receive the attribute of bestowal, but simply in order to enjoy it.

You can check whether you are aiming at the same direction as that field by using the attribute of bestowal if you try to connect with others. Then you will see whether you really want connection or not, whether you need bestowal and love or not.

We will not receive the inner attributes necessary for the contact with the upper field, with the Creator in order to ask Him for the force of correction, until we begin to connect in the group above our ego, by trying to connect. Therefore working in the group is an essential preliminary condition. Therefore, it says “from the love of the created being to the love of the Creator.”

It is for this reason that the shattering of the desires occurred, so that by working with others we will be able to attain the necessity and the need for the attribute of bestowal. The main thing is the desire to learn to bestow.
[81167]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/12, Shamati #30

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In the News (from The Wall Street Journal): “We like to believe that a few bad apples spoil the virtuous bunch. But research shows that everyone cheats a little—right up to the point where they lose their sense of integrity. …

“Over the past decade or so, my colleagues and I have taken a close look at why people cheat, using a variety of experiments and looking at a panoply of unique data sets—from insurance claims to employment histories to the treatment records of doctors and dentists. What we have found, in a nutshell: Everybody has the capacity to be dishonest, and almost everybody cheats—just by a little. Except for a few outliers at the top and bottom, the behavior of almost everyone is driven by two opposing motivations. On the one hand, we want to benefit from cheating and get as much money and glory as possible; on the other hand, we want to view ourselves as honest, honorable people. Sadly, it is this kind of small-scale mass cheating, not the high-profile cases, that is most corrosive to society. …

“Knowing that most people cheat—but just by a little—the next logical question is what makes us cheat more or less. …

“One thing that increased cheating in our experiments was making the prospect of a monetary payoff more ‘distant’ … Another thing that boosted cheating: Having another student in the room [in the experiment] who was clearly cheating. …

“Other factors that increased the dishonesty of our test subjects included knowingly wearing knockoff fashions, being drained from the demands of a mentally difficult task and thinking that ‘teammates’ would benefit from one’s cheating in a group version of the matrix task. …

“The results of these experiments should leave you wondering about the ways that we currently try to keep people honest. Does the prospect of heavy fines or increased enforcement really make someone less likely to cheat on their taxes, to fill out a fraudulent insurance claim, to recommend a bum investment or to steal from his or her company? It may have a small effect on our behavior, but it is probably going to be of little consequence when it comes up against the brute psychological force of ‘I’m only fudging a little’ or ‘Everyone does it’ or ‘It’s for a greater good.’…

“This experiment has obvious implications for the real world. While ethics lectures and training seem to have little to no effect on people, reminders of morality—right at the point where people are making a decision—appear to have an outsize effect on behavior.”

My Comment: Egoism lies consciously and unconsciously because it needs to see benefits for itself in everything, and only this counts. The correction is to change values. The value of honesty and the possibility of spiritual elevation, must become valued more highly than normal cheating. However, only striving for the highest reward, to become closer to the Creator, can protect from natural egoism.
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Opinion (Takeshi Fujimaki, former adviser to billionaire investor George Soros): “‘Japan is likely to default before Europe does, which could be in the next five years,’ the president of Fujimaki Japan, an investment advising company in Tokyo, said in an interview yesterday [June 14]. Japanese should hold foreign-currency products, such as those denominated in the greenback, Swiss franc, sterling, Australian and Canadian dollars, Fujimaki said.

“Should the Japanese government default, the yen may weaken to 400-500 per dollar, and the yields on benchmark 10-year bonds could surge above 80 percent, according to Fujimaki. …

“Japan’s public borrowings, the world’s biggest, will balloon to 245.6 percent of its annual economic output in 2014, up from 67.3 percent in 1984, an estimate by the International Monetary Fund shows. …

“‘There’s no way out of Japan’s crisis,’ Fujimaki said. ‘The only option left for Japan is either default or print money into hyper-inflation.’”

My Comment: There is a way out of the crisis for every country and the entire world if we understand its cause—the hyper-egoism of managers—if we begin to transform the world community from antagonistic to fraternal, and if we start to transfer the economy from over-consumption to reasonable consumption through a realistic reduction of infrastructure. Otherwise, the crisis will bring us to this through the destruction of the entire infrastructure.
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Opinion (Peter Thiel, billionaire Facebook investor, former PayPal CEO, and Palantir co-founder): “For most of recent human history—from the invention of the steam engine in the late 17th century through about the late 1960’s or so—technological process has been tremendous, perhaps even relentless. In most prior human societies, people made money by taking it from others. The industrial revolution wrought a paradigm shift in which people make money through trade, not plunder.

“The zenith of optimism about the future of technology might have been the 1960’s. People believed in the future. They thought about the future. Many were supremely confident that the next 50 years would be a half-century of unprecedented technological progress.

“But with the exception of the computer industry, it wasn’t. Per capita incomes are still rising, but that rate is starkly decelerating. Median wages have been stagnant since 1973. People find themselves in an alarming Alice-in-Wonderland-style scenario in which they must run harder and harder—that is, work longer hours—just to stay in the same place. This deceleration is complex, and wage data alone don’t explain it. But they do support the general sense that the rapid progress of the last 200 years is slowing all too quickly.”

My Comment: All the years of development after 1960 have not been beneficial for mankind. We need to rise to the next level and strive to achieve goals other than the material ones that no longer can satisfy and benefit us.
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Question: How can we make a covenant among friends?

Answer: A covenant among friends is possible only if there is an upper party ensuring its preservation. A covenant can be kept only when we all connect with the upper force, which provides the union.

There is no chance that we will be able to keep this covenant by ourselves, but if we connect, we can demand this from the Creator—if we do it for Him.

The result is that “Israel,” the people who yearn for the Creator, the Light that Reforms, the Torah, and the Creator are joined together, and then the Creator keeps the covenant according to our request.

When darkness, separation, and conflicts come, this covenant is revealed and exists among us. But as long as everything is fine, it is impossible to test it. The test is only when we feel bad.

When we feel good, we don’t need any covenant; as long as there is the Light, it connects all the parts. The difficult part is to do so when the Light disappears, to keep these parts together then. This is called a covenant.

But how can you draw the Light in a time of darkness? It is impossible. But we want to reach a state in which even when we don’t feel the Light in our receiving vessels, we will feel the Light in our Masach (screen) and the Returning Light—a fulfillment in the vessels of bestowal instead of an egoistic fulfillment.

Today, I am a loyal slave of my desire to receive, and I want to serve in order to fill someone else in the same way. This will be a pleasure for me. This means that I want to make a covenant.

The covenant is tested only in the dark, when I get no fulfillment but I still want to keep the same good relations that I had before. Instead of my egoistic pleasure, I want to restrict my ego: a Masach and the Returning Light.

This is called a covenant; it is a state in which I don’t work for myself anymore but rather in order to bestow. This means that I keep the same attitude not only when I feel good, but when I feel bad too. When the good state returns, I don’t want to be confused and be enslaved by the desire to receive over and over again, and so I make a covenant for that purpose.

I want to feel pleasure in the vessels of bestowal; I want to restrict my desire to receive and work with the pleasure by building a Masach (screen) and the Returning Light above this restriction. I turn to the friend with this Returning Light and connect with him. This is called a covenant.
[80766]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/12, Shamati #76

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