Opinion: (Michael Khazin, economist, from km.ru): “For nearly two years, a serious debt crisis has been taking place in the EU, and its authorities are silent about its main cause: the change of lending model and inability to maintain a standard of living due to the growth of debt. But how can one deal with the crisis without knowing its real causes?!

“The European monetary authorities cannot compete with the crisis: They are just trying to push the economy to grow by monetary incentives, but it resists.

“Probably, there is a strict taboo on the reduction of the euro area, the collapse of the European Union, and a sharp drop in living standards. But behind closed doors, it needs to be discussed! However, the real causes of the crisis are not discussed at all.

“This suggests that either the current political elite is so degraded that it is not even able to act more or less adequately, or that the raised issues touch some topics that are serious taboo in Western outlook, such as the possibility of building socialism in the wake of rejecting private property. Then, we can only conclude that the Western society with all its ideology has reached a serious impasse, getting out of which is possible only through the total destruction.”

My Comment: I completely agree with Michael on this issue. To turn towards the question of change in society, a new attitude to life, is like economic death for them because they think they thereby lose power and money, that is, their life…. What transpires here is not alienation, but confrontation between the elite and the masses, as well as necessary manipulations of people, up to a war, and all that is done in order not to part with possessions….
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Opinion: (Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former IMF Chief): “The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has warned that the eurozone is a ‘raft that will sink’ unless the region’s leaders come up with a solution ‘within weeks.’

“He said one problem is the French and German leaders — Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel — do not understand each other.

“The blunt and highly critical speech was made at an economic conference in Beijing.”

My Comment: Of course, he is right but only partly. The fact is that his decision to recapitalize the banks in the EU is only to buy time, during which it’s necessary to begin to educate the Europeans in the understanding of a new state of the world so that they see the world through the “integral glasses,” interconnected, and act only on the basis of this condition.

In this case, during the process of learning new integral relationships, interconnectedness, and mutual guarantee, people will be able to change social relationships from egoistic to mutual guarantee gradually and “gently,” to transform the relationships in the family, workplace, and then in business, economics, and finance.
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In the News (from The Christian Science Monitor): “In a nation soon to be dominated by single adults, more Americans find marriage obsolete or worth putting off. But can a society afford to have so many people unwilling to make a self-sacrifice to another in a bond that drives civilization?

“The latest data show that unwed adults now almost outnumber those who are wed. Within a few years, the majority of adults over 18 will be single.

“The median age for marriage is now at its highest level as more young people put off tying the knot or cohabiting instead. And last year, only 9 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds were married, a big drop from 45 percent a half century ago.

“Surprisingly, the research doesn’t show that the Great Recession is the cause. Rather, a values revolution is driving many people away from making that special self-sacrifice to a spouse and from cherishing marriage as a social good with economic security that can leave behind a better generation. [emphasis mine]

“Children of divorce are often afraid to tie the knot. Others put careers and education first. And with less social obligation to marry these days, finding Mr. or Ms. Right seems less urgent.

“These trends are worse among the less educated, blacks, and Hispanics. For them, this ‘marriage gap’ causes many to lose out on the economic benefits of marriage. College-educated whites, meanwhile, still largely embrace marriage, allowing most to hang onto the American dream.

“Marriage, of course, isn’t for everybody. But its decline signals a troublesome shift away from the enduring spiritual values of self-denial for the sake of others, best expressed in marriage and, with it, parenthood.

“It is not only individuals who lose the opportunity to learn the happiness of finding one’s good in another, but society loses out as well.” [emphasis mine]
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Question: Will the world leaders begin worrying about the basic needs of the world’s population?

Answer: They will have to worry about it. After all, they have brought the world to this situation, and they will not be forgiven. Almost all the great riches that we have accumulated by our common efforts belong only to one percent of the population. Who allowed that to happen other than governments?

In every country, it is the government that has created this situation that one percent of the population now controls what it has taken and continues to take from others. In the meantime, the government has given the masses pennies and promises: “Do not worry; we are taking care of everything. We will raise your pension. We will add something to your social security. We are very good. We will take care of you.”

They don’t mention the “cakes” that go to the table of the one percent, but make a big deal out of every crumb, out of every bone, that they throw the people. That’s the entire game, but it will soon come to an end.

The national debt has grown. Once, it was the banks’ debt, but the banks aren’t stupid. They passed their deficits on to the state. Now, the national debt is greater than the gross national product. From whom can they take money in order to cover the debts? It will be either from the rich or from the poor.

The rich tell the politicians: “If you dare move, we will ‘eat you up’ using the media and other means. After all, we have the money, and money is power. We do what we want.” In fact, the state leaders are like puppets in their hands.

On the other hand, what more can you take from the poor? The middle class, too, is falling apart, and unemployment is growing. Students graduating today cannot find a job, and in the meantime, the debt of American students who have to pay their tuition is enormous. This money simply cannot be repaid if a person doesn’t have a steady job.

So, the conflict between the rich and the poor is growing, and there is no solution. Eventually, millions of hungry people will come out to the streets and riot. What will the government do then? What will the tycoons do?

Eventually, the crisis will not be about “just distribution,” but about providing everyone with the basic necessities. Everyone will have to worry about that.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: There is no punishment in the system of integral upbringing of children. We unite with the child and speak to his “human” part: “Let’s see what egoism has done with you, with us.” In other words, we accentuate the division between man and egoism. Can this also be done with adults?

Answer: I would say that it needs to be done in a more intense form. Intense is the keyword here that stresses the importance of it.

We play with a child because we need to be gentle with him since he is not yet developed and is unable to see himself from the side. For now, he only perceive his “I” and nothing else. He does not notice the rest.

At a certain age, he becomes able to distinguish the categories of the “internal I” and the “external I,” other people and our relationships. There are leaps, transitional periods, such as at two years, three years, five to six years, nine years, twelve years, and so forth. Processes accumulate in the person, and his view of the world changes at the next stage. He begins to see and understand the world in a somewhat different way.

With adults, this happens as they adapt to the perception of the new system. This includes integral knowledge, understanding that everything around them is interconnected, and the inclusion into this system, the group, when you must gradually begin to perceive yourself and others as one common whole, a team from which you cannot run away. It is as if you were in a small boat in a rough sea, and your safety depends on your interaction. If you worry, the sea will surge; if you stay calm, the sea will be calm.

It turns out that nature plays with us this way. When it wishes to move us toward the next state, it causes a storm. Then, we gradually change against our will. We will not save ourselves any other way.

We need to learn to understand this language of nature, to begin to perceive it, and to speak with it, in other words, to see it. Then, we really will be able to control it.

Once we become able to control the degree of the integral connection between us, we will see how it influences nature: the number of hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, different natural conditions, revolutions and uprisings, and anything that could ever happen between us and in our private lives. There will be a direct and immediate interaction between all of it, a direct connection with the quality of our relationships. It is very important for man to find and feel this interaction. Then, he will begin to see how he speaks with and influences nature.

Today, we already have ideas about this. There are many theories (and just theories) about interconnection, nature’s influence on man, and, to a lesser extent, man’s influence on nature.

The result of our integral system of upbringing has to be groups of people who really feel nature’s corresponding reaction as a consequence of their more or less correct behavior. This two-sided flirtation with nature, “you for me, I for you,” when you are “we” in relation to it, raises man to the next level of perception of the world, where one actually exists. He begins to perceive the inner forces of nature, the engine of evolution, where it is leading us, and what nature wants.

We suddenly reveal things inside it that we never suspected. It is not an expression of special abilities like those of Wolf Messing, Baba Vanga, or other prophets. This really is a level of inner contemplation when man begins to attain the plan of nature and understand that nothing was created and evolves without a reason. Everything has a specific and very precise program. We develop according to this program and are able to actively participate in it.

This lifts us to the next level of existence where we are no longer blind and helpless parts of nature that realize their inner instincts. We become rational and all-powerful beings.

If we manage to influence nature in a variety of ways with our mutual interaction to a greater or lesser connection between us, we will be able to do anything! With a greater interaction between us, we can rise higher than the speed of light. There are no limits. We can go practically beyond the boundaries of the laws of nature that we now observe and rise to the level of nature itself.
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Talk on Integral Education 12/12/11

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Question: There are different stages in educating children according to age: until the age of three, from the age of three to six, from six to nine. Are there such stages in educating adults?

Answer: There are stages, but they are independent of age. When a person reaches adulthood at the age of 18-20, the rest of his development is independent of age; it only depends on internalizing the material both theoretically and practically.

We see this in our courses in which 20-25 year old men, women, and people who are old enough to be not only their parents but their grandparents take part. They have such lively discussions that the generation gap among them becomes absolutely irrelevant because they discuss totally new and even unexpected to them personal, family, and social relationships.

It’s very interesting to see how irrelevant age is from the questions people ask during the lessons or in lectures, and by the way they take part in the discussion. But seniority does matter because experience is acquired gradually over years.

During that time a person should be led. More and more new people come to the groups. Then these groups connect. The separate groups of men and women will also connect, and as a unified group, they’ll connect with the children’s groups and then split up again.

We have to “mix” the students’ society so that they’ll be ready to understand the different states in life correctly and how to deal with them: the mutual relations at work, with managers, with subordinates, with neighbors, with people whom you may find unpleasant or whom you like, as well as with relatives to whom you are somewhat obliged. Thus, a certain transformation will begin in the relationships between people.

We have to talk about all of this and to discuss these matters. A person should experience it, live it, as if “dress” in other people, comparing himself to them, and as a result, connect with them into a single whole.

Thus many scenes will be played inside a person. And video films and discussions are very helpful in this process.
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Talk on Integral Education 12/12/11

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Question: Habits of egoistic behavior have formed in society. People are exploiting each other. How do you imagine overcoming them? At what expense will old habits be broken and new ones formed? Where is that force?

Answer: I have no doubt that only upbringing—direct, gradual, through examples and various role play exercises—will bring about change in the consciousness of man. Obviously, it should be conducted without any pressure, but on the contrary, precisely by realizing the need for it and the benefit it brings.

As a final consequence, this large portion of humanity that will begin to act in this manner will influence the whole system, the entire planet. When lots of people begin to think about the same thing, their thoughts affect everyone else. It is a tremendous force.

Let’s imagine that in your education system you manage to unite 100,000 people (there is no organization on Earth, where 100,000 people would actively engage in something new or special). In this manner, you will begin to pour in a huge integral force into this inner system, into the subconscious connection that exists between all the inhabitants of the planet Earth. And this force will work according to a particular goal, with predetermined assigned forms.

People suddenly will begin to express some interest and relation in regard to it. They will search for it, turn to it. They won’t know where it comes from because it emerges in us in the same manner as various thoughts and desires. All of a sudden everyone, young and old, begins to feel that it’s close to them, that they need it because the inner interconnection exists between absolutely everyone.

I am completely open to the development and implementation of this integral knowledge and upbringing. The most important thing is to start.
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Talk on Integral Education 12/11/11

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Opinion: (Herman Van Rompuy, EU President): “European Union President Herman Van Rompuy is just trying to spread a little happiness. For the New Year, the politician who fancies soothing Haiku poetry in his free time is sending The World Book of Happiness to world leaders and urging them ‘to make people’s happiness and well-being our political priority for 2012.’

“‘Positive thinking is no longer something for drifters, dreamers, and the perpetually naive,’ Van Rompuy said.

“His ‘happiness’ message comes at a time when the European Union is going through the worst crisis in its half-century history, as high levels of government debt threaten the future of the shared euro currency.

“The book may even hold a key for some of the richer member states, who have been reluctant to help out troubled nations like Italy and Spain, which are suffering from high levels of debt that need to be refinanced.

“‘Money can buy happiness, if we spend it on others,’ it says.”

My Comment: Because the essence of the created being is the desire to receive pleasure, we feel happiness when this desire is filled, and vice versa, when it’s not, we are unhappy. Under the influence of personal and social egoism, we accept artificial fulfillment as happiness and never feel contentment.

Today, when we have entered the global crisis and feel emptiness, we begin to realize that we can be filled only by such natural fulfillments as calmness, kindness, and reciprocity, and nothing else. Hence, we will arrive to the need to become closer, to observe the condition of the general integral connection. As a manifestation of disease, the crisis directs us to receive treatment.
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In the News (from Spiegel Online): “China’s leaders are currently contending with declining demand, rising debt, and a real estate bubble. Some factories are laying off workers, suffering financial losses, or even closing as orders from crisis-plagued Europe dry up. The economic strains are frustrating workers and consumers in the country, threatening the political establishment and Beijing’s economic miracle.

“The new global crisis has reached China. Debt problems in Europe, the country’s most important trading partner, are starting to dim prospects here in the nation that has effectively become the world’s factory, as well. The unstable United States economy and threat of a trade war between the two superpowers make the situation even more uncertain.

“This October was the third straight month Chinese exports decreased. Along with it, the hopes of German manufacturers that Asia’s growth market might help lift them out of the global crisis as it did in 2008 are also evaporating.

“Many of those development projects, often megalomaniac undertakings from the start, are now ghost towns.

“While many in the West hold out hope that China can solve the euro and dollar debt crisis with its foreign currency holdings, the rift between rich and poor within the country is growing.

“This time China faces enormous challenges of its own — a real estate market bubble and local government debt — that could even pose a risk to the global economy.

“Now China’s state-run banks are paying their customers negative interest and Shanghai’s stock market is considered a high-risk casino, where a few major governmental investors are believed to manipulate exchange rates at will.

“As long as the one-party dictatorship kept growth in the double digits, most people accepted their lack of freedom. Now, though, Beijing is facing a dilemma. Tough police crackdowns will hardly get the consequences of the stagnating economy under control in the long term. But nor are government subsidies enough to stimulate the economy. It seems neither money nor force will help.”

My Comment: Nature directs us to an entirely new state in which we will have to change ourselves rather than anything outside. Humanity must become like the compelling forces of nature: integrally connected in general design, care, compliance, and mutual guarantee in reducing growth to the level of reasonable consumption and striving for universal fair distribution.

This can be achieved only through universal education, by transforming an egoistic human being into an altruistic one. Even if it may sound like a fantasy, suffering will force us to accept these conditions as binding. Not forced but conscious communism is a bright future for the entire humanity.
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Opinion: (Stephen Lendman): “The late Georgetown University historian Carroll Quigley, in his book titled, Tragedy and Hope: ‘(T)he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.’

“By controlling democratic and despotic governments as well as others in between, they’ve moved closer to absolute global control of money, credit and debt to dominate economies, politics, commerce, and imperial adventurism. As a result, they’ve benefitted handsomely at the expense of nations and popular interests.

“Josiah Stamp, former Director of the Bank of England said: ‘Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again.

“’However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money.’

“Ellen Brown’s must-read book titled, Web of Debt discussed private banking, how it usurped money creation power, and how we can get it back.

“She explained what growing numbers know about the malignant effects of its destructive power. Everyone should understand that the Fed isn’t federal. It’s a private banking cartel owned by its major bank members in 12 Fed districts. New York has controlling power through its majority interest.

“As a result, the Fed rules globally with the European Central Bank, Bank of England, and Bank of Japan. They’re the world’s dominant central banks along with the Bank for International Settlements – the central bank for central bankers, or unaccountable banking boss of bosses.

“In America, except for coins, banks create money called Federal Reserve notes, in violation of the Constitution under Article I, Section 8 that gives Congress sole power ‘To coin (create) money (and) regulate the value thereof…’

“Coins and paper money comprise less than 3 percent of America’s money supply. The rest is in computer entries for loans.

“Banks create money that didn’t previously exist. Around 30% of it is for their private accounts – for speculation and other non-productive purposes.

“If America controlled its own money, it would be interest-free, and taxing people to pay it wouldn’t be necessary… Money for productive growth could be created inflation-free. Prosperity could be sustained. Full employment and social justice would be possible.

“A Final Comment

“Clearly, money power in private hands failed. It’s wrecking the country, devastating the American dream, impoverishing millions, destroying jobs, contaminating the environment, and funding America’s military machine that’s ravaging the world one country at a time, and threatening humanity with extinction.

“OWS and global protesters must grasp this as top goal to achieve others for long-denied social justice currently being lost entirely because corrupt politicians plan it with bankers.”

My Comment: Since the program of our development is to bring humanity to full integration, mutual guarantee, and unity above all the differences, only the revelation of the system of our mutual connection will explain to us how to correct the situation and lead us to reasonable consumption and balance. Only obeying the natural rules of our development will let us avoid bloody mistakes.
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