In the News (from The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)): “There is growing concern that the restrictive approaches of budget consolidation currently pursued in many European countries may not reach their objectives, but risk further exacerbating the crisis. Austerity measures applied across Europe are viewed increasingly critically by international experts and organisations as they can undermine democratic and social rights, in particular for the most vulnerable categories of the population.

“The Parliamentary Assembly should send out a strong signal by calling for a profound reorientation of austerity programmes, ending their quasi-exclusive focus on expenditure cuts in social areas such as pensions, health services or family benefits. Future national action should also include measures aimed at increasing public revenues by taxing higher income categories and property wealth more strongly, by shoring up the tax base and by enhancing tax collection, the efficiency of the tax administration and the fight against tax fraud, tax evasion and tax havens, corruption and the underground economy.

“Current budget consolidation programmes should be further supplemented with measures fostering sustainable economic growth, including the creation of new quality employment and special support to be given to the young generation in the transitional period between education and employment.”

My Comment: The nature of egoistic society is such that if we check the implementation of these good intentions, we will find out that in the end, the wealthy become wealthier and pay less, while the poor become poorer and pay more. This occurs everywhere in all countries and at all times. Not the calls of the authorities, not the direct instructions from the government, not the wishes of the rich themselves will change this trend.

Only the change of the basis of the egoistic society through education can transform it to a more equal one. After all, the development of society on the egoistic foundation is obliged to bring about, involuntarily through sufferings, or consciously and willingly, the change of human nature.
[81623]

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Question: On one hand, the phenomenon of world wars includes horrible suffering and millions of dead or bereaved people, but on the other hand, they lead to a new degree, a leap in the development of sciences and psychology in particular.

Answer: This is natural. Suffering reveals previously hidden resources in society and in individuals. Thus, completely new systems of interaction and revelations of individuality have begun to come about that are then immediately examined by scientists.

In addition, we need to view wars not only as a system of destruction and conquest, but also as a revelation of an enormous explosive charge of suffering that condenses time. After all, if in one’s everyday life a person exists on a tiny flame of development so to speak, let’s say that over the course of five years of war, a huge leap occurs not only technologically, but also in the relationships between people.

Everything changes: a person’s view of the world, social relationships, and the government. We can say that the war itself is a result of a need for a rapid advancement of society, although certainly it is a dramatic event. However, this is precisely why a need arises for it.

If society develops normally at the speed where people will be connected harmoniously to each other and the outside world, nature, then, of course there no longer will be a need for such periods when the development of society occurs through a leap experienced as tremendous suffering. However, if this will not be achieved, the state that we are in right now may lead to war.
[81434]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/24/12

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Opinion (Christine Lagarde, director of the IMF): “At a meeting with eurozone finance ministers, the director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, spells out plans for more centralised economic control in the 17 countries using the single currency. She says the IMF’s preference is for recapitalisation of banks to be done directly from European bailout funds, rather than via states.”

My Comment: Our egoism closes our eyes and blunts us so much that it did not even let us realize that it is impossible to create a single EU state without centralized control. But it will not work without unifying the entire EU control in one hand, treating all members of the EU as one nation and people.
[81532]

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Question: We often encounter the following situation: If a person is in the mood to work, he works, and if he isn’t, he stops working and that’s it. Should a person prepare a schedule for himself for the next day or the next week, and firmly stick to it, or should he work as his mood changes?

Answer: No, we must look first at psychology and see that it began to develop a few decades before the social crisis we are facing today in order for it to serve as a guide, as an informative system, that teaches habits in order to bring man to integral cooperation, to a state in which he will be able to accept the new paradigm. Now, when we enable a person to continue his advancement, he understands that he can use every minute of his time in order to attain the desired feelings and to constantly expand his boundaries of attainment.

Attainment in a “circle” is different from attainment in a “line” since, in a line, I feel everything inside my “bag,” in a “sack,” in a “wallet,” whereas attainment in a line is assessed according to its development, according to the extent of the expanding sphere.

I don’t bring all this inside. On the contrary, this sphere is bountiful and enables me to feel infinite dimensions since infinity constantly expands with regard to a person’s feelings. These expansions are qualitative in their attributes. They are not perceived theoretically, but are felt as qualities within our desires, and this is our new dimension.

We begin to understand that all the data, the coordinates according to which we measured ourselves—time, distance, and movement—only exist in our feelings, and it is all relative. Here, we begin to accurately feel this relativity upon ourselves, which means that we enter a space that is beyond the limits of our linear measurements, and, according to Einstein and other scientists, this entire space gradually becomes round and closes in a circle.

This circle brings me to the sphere, and I begin to feel that it is expanding, thus making me feel and attain. I begin to see myself as part of a world in which there are no limits. The direct feeling of the existence of my body disappears and so does my dependence on this mass of flesh that, for some reason, is an addition that belongs to me, like some pet that lives next to me. I begin to feel the human in me as something that exists in a new sphere. Then, the feeling of life and death regarding this body disappear.

Feeling the global, integral society raises a person above whatever belongs to his protein body, and thus raises him to the next level of existence. He begins to understand that the death of his body actually is not his own death. There is a great reassessment here of all our values and parameters since, according to Freud and other scientists, the fear of death is the basis of all the sections, dimensions, and our linear psychological elements.

So, the moment a person can feel that he is being filled and that he develops thanks to his greater connection with the round society that surrounds him from which he constantly receives new desires and immediately fulfills them, totally new opportunities and needs appear.

By the way, here begins the new technological revolution that many speak about; it will take place not in fine physical or biological elements and so forth, but actually in the connection between a person and his society.

A person will create the earthly tools he needs, but they will be very simple because all his attention, desires, and fulfillment will be related to those like him in the circle. Therefore, he will pay attention to his body like as to a pet, just as much as it needs in order to survive. Then, we will reach the correct balance with nature in an economy of reasonable consumerism.
[81246]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/23/12

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Opinion (Alexei Kudrin, Russia’s former finance minister): “A full-blown economic and financial crisis in the euro zone is inevitable and will develop within a year, Alexei Kudrin, Russia’s former finance minister, said Thursday, adding that a possible way out may be a partial write-off of Spain’s and Italy’s debt, but the political will for that is lacking.

“‘Greece will not be able to fulfill its obligations (towards lenders),’ Mr. Kudrin, who described himself as a pessimist, said at a conference.

“‘A serious financial and economic crisis will hit Europe within a year … with Spain being its next victim, and then possibly Italy,’ he added. ‘The time (for avoiding it) has already past.’”

My Comment: A wise man sees the problems in advance; ordinary people don’t hear that problems are approaching before they are affected physically. In this, they, like children or animals, are underdeveloped.

But the wise ones, even if they see a problem, don’t see its true cause because it is happening in a sublayer, and they see only the external symptoms, like a narrow-minded doctor who diagnoses only by them, and although they constantly make mistakes and blame some special reasons, changing circumstances, etc., it is still at the level of their understanding of the world; there are no other solutions. So, we are drowning.
[81401]

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In the News (from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada): “Using scientific theories, toy ecosystem modeling and paleontological evidence as a crystal ball, 21 scientists, including one from Simon Fraser University, predict we’re on a much worse collision course with Mother Nature than currently thought.

“In Approaching a state-shift in Earth’s biosphere, a paper just published in Nature, the authors, whose expertise spans a multitude of disciplines, suggest our planet’s ecosystems are career[n]ing towards an imminent, irreversible collapse.

“Earth’s accelerating loss of biodiversity, its climate’s increasingly extreme fluctuations, its ecosystems’ growing connectedness and its radically changing total energy budget are precursors to reaching a planetary state threshold or tipping point.

“Once that happens, which the authors predict could be reached this century, the planet’s ecosystems, as we know them, could irreversibly collapse in the proverbial blink of an eye.”

My Comment: The process of destruction has begun and was recognized a long time ago, but it is accelerating, and, indeed, it may be a sharp abrupt deterioration due to the complete interaction of all ecological systems, until they collapse.
[81236]

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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.
[81234]

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Question: In the last few years, we have seen a very interesting phenomenon in some European countries: 60% of the women set a physiological orgasm as a goal in sexual intercourse, which means that by and large they don’t actually don’t care who they are with, as long as they learn to experience this pleasure. This leads to the fact that men are afraid of behaving naturally and of cooperating with women, and the rate of divorce has increased sharply. Can integral education solve this problem?

Answer: The need for sex is one of the basic human necessities. And so in daily life, people are constantly drawn to it. This need is evoked in them, it motivates them, and people assess things and they form the basis of this need.

In principle, the need for sex is basic, not because it is “beastly” and allows us to give birth and ensures the existence of our species, but because it enables us to come in contact with one another, which brings us to a very unique state because this state is both our starting point and our ending point; we look at its final form, we see it as the moment of highest pleasure. I will call it sexual pleasure, but actually it is the fusion of all the people together into one unique desire and its fulfillment.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is called the upper coupling, intercourse. Different religions also speak about that, and many things are based in this. This refers to the maximum connection of all the parts of creation that complement one another, of all the parts that bestow and receive that are called masculine and feminine.

Now, the phase in which our previous, relatively small, mechanical and beastly connections and sexual desires that have provided us with certain attitudes to communication, connection, family, and in which people have played with one another or used one another reasonably well, is now coming to an end. It doesn’t exist today since we are moving on to a totally different level of need.

On one hand, people are losing the natural need for sex the way it used to be. On the other hand, the desires of the next level are revealed, and it doesn’t matter if they are sexual needs or other needs such as food, everyday needs, and so on. New needs from the new level appear, and people don’t understand them and cannot fulfill them. They think that they will manage to fill themselves by using the old methods.

This will continue to grow. These desires will always manifest in a more and more exaggerated form.

We must explain to people that it is the connection with others that will help them understand that they can be filled by everything, including the desires we call “sexual.” It very well may be that they will not take the form of sexual acts anymore and will have nothing to do with that. The greatest pleasure for a person will be his integral connection with others, and it won’t matter that it isn’t a sexual act. The emphasis will be on adhesion, while our sexual relations will gradually descend to the ordinary, beastly level since we actually are not worthy of anything else. However, the pleasure, the filling, will be felt clearly in the connection among us, and it will be called the coupling of opposites.

Question: So, this means that different deviations, not necessarily sexual deviations, but also overeating and overuse of other luxuries, are the result of a person’s inability to move on to the next level of fulfillment?

Answer: Yes, he tries to fill the new desire by using the old means. It is actually impossible to fill these desires with the same old methods, but only by using new, round means. This is the crisis.
[81238]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/23/12

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Question: A man must structure the work time in his life very clearly. Today, this is a problem since most adults spend more of their time being idle than they do working. How do we bring up young people so that their day will be correctly planned?

Answer: The problem is that a person is bored today. He cannot captivate himself with work. Everything in life seems to have no meaning for him. This is a problem for all workers, especially office workers, up to the managers. The manager locks himself in the office, “I’m busy!” But actually he is languishing.

There is the same pretending to be busy with the employees and officials of all levels at work. This is natural. People are losing the desire to create, produce, and do something. They cannot force themselves to work. A person is lying around, sitting, fiddling with something.

It’s good that the Internet is there today. It is simply a panacea against boredom because people are busy with something at least; otherwise, there would be a more rapid degradation. Although in this case, it would have been much easier, we would quickly feel like a wilted plant. All of this is a consequence of the evolution of our desire, which has grown to its maximum and can no longer be fulfilled with anything.

This started back in the sixties of the last century with the generation of “flower children,” “Beatles,” the hippies who “went” into meditation, used drugs and so on. This was the first signal.

Now, working on integral communication with people, we are using quite a simple tactic. First, you must see how much the society works on a person; how much it excites, captivates, and rules over him; how much his personality begins to become inspired by the opportunities, desires, and goals of the environment; how much the environment influences his personality, and that is why, depending on the games we carry out, we begin to awaken in everyone, good or a bad relationships, all kinds of changes, transitions in perception, in thoughts, in decisions, in evaluations and so on.

The point is that if we correctly include a person within the surrounding society, then his desire, being the base of all of his existence, the desire, which earlier was very small (because he did not want anything, he could not move a finger) now becomes ten times greater because it is in a group, which is beginning to stimulate him, constantly shaking him up.

Finally, he becomes permeated with the desires of everyone else and, most importantly, he is awakened, he gets some kind of a small internal stress. And this takes him out of the state of indifference.

I think that this should be adopted by all work groups if they do not want to sleep throughout their lives. After all, they do actually have to do something for the good of the society. Therefore it is necessary for them to come and unite, so that even though one may be sleeping, they would be mutually stimulated by each other. And then they will have additional desire, the urge, and growth, and they will begin to live and work effectively.

It is the same with children. Meaning that the environment performs such a tuning on the personality with which it begins to receive the desire of all of the surrounding people and becomes much more energetic than before.

In addition, such a strong desire creates the environment for the person for further development. This is not simply heightened attention, but the possibility to rise above others and to lower oneself before them, to absorb information from the surrounding people and most importantly, to achieve coming out into the center of the circle and feeling the commonality through which we would be looking at the world and solving all of the problems correctly.

It is a higher desire, higher thought and mind, which does not relate to me or others. It is something, which we have created now by our own effort and incentive. And this common thing, which was born between us, is our next level, which is more developed. Looking through this level, approaching the world through it, each one of us brings himself to the correct solution.
[81045]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/23/12 

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The group is very important to us because it can become a “spiritual obstetrician” for everyone, the force that pulls us out of feeling only this world into an additional sensation of an external reality. If it weren’t for the group, we would feel pain, pressure, and troubles within the “womb” of this world until we finally found the force that could deliver us to the Light.

Therefore, even if our world is filled with suffering, by itself it is not enough to deliver us into the spiritual world, that is, to give us the “beyond corporeal” perception. The power of suffering isn’t enough; we need another force.

Today we are experiencing the spiritual birth of all of humanity, and our group, the world Bnei Baruch group has to get ready for the role of the “obstetrician” to the whole world. We are being prepared for that now, by being developed faster than the rest of humanity. We are being pushed a little from behind and mainly are being pulled forward.

Unlike the others, we don’t only experience troubles in this life, which we could do without, but we also feel the force that pulls us forward. This is the “obstetrician” that wants to help us be born faster, so that we will come out and become the “group obstetrician” for all of humanity, helping them emerge from the womb. This is the way things are today.

Accordingly, we should understand that we were awakened only for one reason, so that in the future we will help the world. It is only for this that each of us was rewarded with the force that pulls a person from this world to the upper world. All our actions should be coordinated with our group, with all the other groups, and with all of humanity.

Humanity is going through  a period of great suffering and pressure, but there is no force to pull it out, there is only a force that pushes from the inside. On the whole, it suffers aimlessly. People are asking themselves the urgent question: “What should I do next?” and they have no answer. This concerns the G8 and G20 conferences and the conferences of world leaders, scientists, philosophers, and political scientists; they are all searching, but since there is no pulling force, they don’t know what to do. Everyone has his own philosophy, his own point of view, but they have no solution.

For us it is a sign that we have to hasten our development and to be born as soon as possible in order to help them. Baal HaSulam talks about this in the articles “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” “The Peace,” and in other places. Eventually this is our role. Therefore, each of us must feel responsible and understand that he exists for the higher goal and not think about personal benefit but about how to become a partner of the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity). It is only through us that it can influence all of humanity and pull people out of the womb of this dark world, so that the birth will be smooth and without complications. In our world too, giving birth is a very dangerous thing.

Let’s hope that we will be able to help humanity in time. Since without this, as Baal HaSulam says, there may be nuclear world wars, natural disasters, hardships, and other disasters. The reason is that the external force, the midwife, that is our group, isn’t ready to become the conductor of the birth process, while at the same time the internal pressure, the “labor pains” are growing.

So we have to be very serious and feel responsible, understanding what we are up against. On one hand, the upper Light demands our cooperation regarding humanity and regarding every member in the group. We will not be born by sitting and waiting for one another. It is only by collective efforts that it will happen with everyone. On the other hand, humanity is in rage, furiously waiting for our help.
[81344]
From the Miami Convention 6/23/12, Lesson 1

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