Question: In the group dynamic we encounter people who seem ridiculous, as if they were from another world. They are usually very active and try to get ahead.…

Answer: There are people who like to lecture. They suddenly get up and spend half an hour talking nonsense. They think that they are talking business, that they have brilliant ideas. And everyone else is regrettably obligated to sit and listen to them. Moreover, it is usually not a onetime occurrence, but they literally must mark their territory at every lesson, otherwise they do not feel like they participate with everyone else.

These people need to be separated, removed from the group. The group should not suffer because of an individual. Never! We must make sure the group is homogenous in everything.

Question: Should we put these people in one group?

Answer: Yes, let them speak, discuss things, and do whatever they want, but only on the given topic. They will advance through mutual discussions, when one lectures and another speaks over him, that is, basically they will advance in their own key, just like every other group advances in its own key.
[71540]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

Related Material:
An Egoistic Knockout
A Fight For Leadership?
Reeducating Leaders

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Opinion (Matt Ridley, science writer and former Economist journalist): “Brilliant people, be they anthropologists, psychologists or economists, assume that brilliance is the key to human achievement. They vote for the cleverest people to run governments, they ask the cleverest experts to devise plans for the economy, they credit the cleverest scientists with discoveries, and they speculate on how human intelligence evolved in the first place.

“They are all barking up the wrong tree. The key to human achievement is not individual intelligence at all. The reason human beings dominate the planet is not because they have big brains….

“Human achievement is entirely a networking phenomenon. It is by putting brains together through the division of labor — through trade and specialization — that human society stumbled upon a way to raise the living standards, carrying capacity, technological virtuosity and knowledge base of the species….

“Human achievement is based on collective intelligence — the nodes in the human neural network are people themselves. By each doing one thing and getting good at it, then sharing and combining the results through exchange, people become capable of doing things they do not even understand. As the economist Leonard Read observed in his essay ‘I, Pencil’ (which I’d like everybody to read), no single person knows how to make even a pencil — the knowledge is distributed in society among many thousands of graphite miners, lumberjacks, designers and factory workers.

“That’s why, as Friedrich Hayek observed, central planning never worked: the cleverest person is no match for the collective brain at working out how to distribute consumer goods.”

My Comment: Namely the creation and management of society through the collective mind is the next stage of human development to which the crisis leads us. Not only the collective mind but acquiring a general collective feeling is the key to mutual understanding and harmony in the emerging integral society. It should be introduced to people gradually, through integral education.
[71667]

Related Material:
The Secret Of The Collective Mind
In A Single Field Of Desires
In Unison With The Universal Mind

Filed under: Crisis, Integral Upbringing, News, Society - 1 Comment →

Question: Usually, leaders are extremely aggressive toward other people. They hit where it hurts the most, but when they receive feedback, they get offended and walk away. And that happens all the time.

Answer: If these people don’t hear about the necessity of integration with others yet and thus continue behaving this way, they have to be put on some kind of probation. That is, they can listen, record, summarize, or draw graphs and tables for many months. They discourse and discuss everything purely theoretically.

They can write a PhD thesis from all their research, but they can’t “push” all of that into themselves; they can’t use it in practice. They have to be somewhere on the side from the practicing group as the latter can already start putting this method, the system of integration, into practice. And they have to be given an opportunity to work with materials, which is what we usually do.

Each group has people like that, and it is necessary to agree with that. Nature created them this way. Usually, I assign them to work with materials.

And they work on it for many months. They dig, invent, compare, systematize, and search for interesting excerpts based on examples or scenes; generally speaking, they do any work related to processing materials. They prepare reports because by examining various companies and social movements outside of us, we get in touch with the world.

While working on these materials, they have to write about connection between all external cases they observe or events they see in the group. We give them group video recordings in which the group discusses its yet unrealized integral ties, exposing all obstacles, imbalance, and disputes between its members. They process all of that, discuss, make conclusions, and so on. This kind of work with materials changes them gradually.

Usually, people like that are highly egoistic and have a stronger sense of shame (we understand that egoism and shame are the same thing); they are more demanding toward others and can’t see themselves from the side. In general, these people are extremely strong, but they totally lack the ability to see themselves objectively, from the side. They simply lack this by nature, but it has to gradually develop in them under the influence of the material.

They work with the material, study, systematize, and then bring it back to us, and the instructors check it. Usually, we get enough people like that and form a separate group out of them. We start working with them by showing materials of the same kind which they work on, and then we proceed with discussions.

And then various nuances appear, and these people start realizing what they lack in order to be inside of the group, get closer to it, and not just be independent judges and stay above everyone else (they immediately put themselves on the level of instructors). Gradually, they realize that they are worse and lower than everyone else in the group because the rest of the people already starts feeling the need for integration, starts seeing and guessing the difference between them, while they don’t. They can only see other people from the side, but not themselves. That is the work.

If a group has people like that (usually, there are not that many of them), these could be future leaders because they can go far with that enormous egoistic charge they posses. But they have a long way to go. They don’t immediately get into an integral interaction. Sometimes it takes years for them to start feeling the need for the group, the need to put themselves under its influence. Otherwise, they won’t be able to reach their new integral life on the level of “Man” and will remain a mechanism that observes from the side but doesn’t change itself. After all, the essence of the method is to change a person himself. And this gradually appears in them as well.

Any kind of coercion against them is forbidden. Realization of one’s own nature should go through a person and occur in him or her without urging, but just under the influence of the “hints,” when you give them materials and the materials work on them.

We distinguish and encourage people like that: “See how special you are.” Yet a group should be more or less homogeneous, and we have to put such people into a separate system so that they do not interfere with everyone else.

You can turn them into your assistants, but make sure that the pride they will feel does not hinder their development. We just have to be quiet in many cases and wait for them to change.
[71085]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #10, 12/16/11

Related Material:
The Special Role Of Zealous Egoists
A Fight For Leadership?
The Group: An Inverted Amplifier

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: During the process of integral interaction, a person should feel tension between his egoism and the work on rising into the collective “we.” From my experience in psychotherapy, I know that sometimes people are not able to handle this tension, they slam the door and run away, while those who manage to handle it advance. How important is patience in this process?

Answer: What is needed here is the support of the environment that has to give a person the understanding that there is no other solution—this journey can be completed. And encountering resistance means that he is not connected with the environment that would support him and turn his efforts into an easy existence, giving him the feeling that there is nothing to fear and everything is very simple and easy when you do it collectively in a group. But when you try to do it on your own, it gives rise to the forces that expel you. In nature everything is directed towards unity.

Evidently, in your psychotherapy practice you lack the element of group support, the influence of the group on a person. We know that even weight loss groups, Alcoholics Anonymous, Drug Addicts Anonymous, and other groups are powerful.
[70098]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

Related Material:
A United Team
This Cruel, Cruel World
The Purpose That Gives Strength

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: When we speak about feelings, we immediately imagine an emotional person, open to everyone. On one hand, this can be stimulated. On the other, it is possible to switch a person’s focus so that he or she won’t become too emotional. What should be the optimal degree of emotionality in groups of integral education? Is there a place for tears?

Answer: Of course! We see how grown men cry under the influence of the group—a person suddenly has such feelings that he is not able to control himself. And he doesn’t really feel any particular need to do so.

Of course, there are certain restricting factors. But in general, they really lead to tears, tears of joy and liberation, to various expressions of positive energy. This is natural. Of course, this is a very emotional process.

After all, emotions are our essence. And the mind is only intended either for suppressing them, as we do it in life, or on the contrary, for using them for our benefit, which is what we are trying to achieve in integral upbringing.
[70104]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

Related Material:
Life In An Exalted State
Joy Is A Sign Of Bestowal
A New Paradigm Of The Universe

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: When people spend several hours a day in an integral education group, is there a place for music and songs? I know that there is a lot of music, joy, and sublime states in your center.

Answer: We are constantly trying to be in an exalted state, not playing it, but actually examining it on ourselves. First of all, this helps us feel how realistically this is connected with nature and that this is the goal of our development, the goal of nature.

When done differently, when we create this artificially, then it carries no value at all! On the contrary, it only brings harm!

A proper and good union of people, when no one is suppressed and everyone tries to work for the community, produces a lot of positive energy, and a person does not want to leave this state.

He suddenly discovers that this state is not boring, not difficult, and it is possible to always be in it. He falls asleep and awakens with it. He begins to feel that this state contains absolutely all the opportunities for self-realization for him with society and with this new level he is attaining.

He begins to see that in comparison to the previous state, this one is much wider and more exalted; it simply unravels the entire possibility of harmony before him. It is like when a musician hears something off-tune in comparison to a well played Beethoven or Mozart composition.

This is the way a person perceives the difference between his past private life and the harmony he reveals. He cannot go there. At first this often makes him tired because he still needs to make emotional inner effort, but then some time goes by and he can no longer be without it.

And then it becomes his life, a necessity. He reveals that all of nature also exists in this harmony and nothing else exists!

He begins to understand that the past level of his existence only consisted of caring for his physical body in other words this was an animal level of existence. He agrees and understands it. And the “human” level is the collective image that we are building here.
[70101]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

Related Material:
A New Paradigm Of The Universe
Commonality And Self-Expression
Joy Is A Sign Of Bestowal

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Society - No Comments →

Question: There is a theory in psychology that examines a child’s psychological state at all stages of birth. The first stage is fairly comfortable. The second and third stages are when the unborn child experiences pressure, a chemical attack, which stimulates his birth, and the last stage is the most pleasant; it takes place after his birth. The two intermediate states are horrifying. In one case, it is the hopelessness of the situation. In the second case, it is quiet dramatic work between good and evil. Right now, is the entire humanity essentially entering these two stages?

Answer: But we do not have to go through these stages in such a dramatic way. This absolutely is not necessary.

Of course, if we go under the influence of nature, which is the path of evil, since nature only evolves us through obligating forces without softening them, then of course, we will not easily undergo being born into the new world. This way is with lack of understanding, alienation, absolute helplessness, and loss of any orientation! You are cornered, are not able to breathe or turn around, you do not know where to go and how to do it because any move you make causes even greater suffering: internal, external, and social.

Today the crisis in Europe is an example: No matter in which direction a move is made, it only gets worse. Maybe it is better to not do anything? It is even scarier to not do anything. So where are we heading?

It is very interesting to observe the process of the crisis. I think that many will be describing it in the future. It is not yet completed; we still have a long way to go to end it. It will end precisely with our spiritual birth.

The world crisis will only get worse, even if sometimes we observe periods of calm, like between birthing contractions; we know that they gradually become more frequent.

So, if a period of relative calm comes along, people will no longer scream: “That is it. It is over,” like they did last time.

I published many articles then, saying that the crisis will soon resume, but no one paid attention. Now people have learned through blows that everything returns.

We will not understand it until we feel that we are in a constant trap, and that a break is given to us only to figure out how to act and start striving on our own towards the exit through the birth canal (which keeps getting narrower around us, pushing us towards a greater integration). When we first feel this need emotionally through suffering or through social opinion instead of suffering, then we will understand that only our greater integration, concentrating everyone into a single whole, will help us complete this birth with understanding.

The main thing is realization. After all, a person can go through any problems and he even creates them for himself on purpose to attain a desired result.

If we continue to resist, without the understanding of where it is all taking us, then nature will push us through suffering. But we not only resist, but we also make negative movements, like today in Europe, again they want to separate, but there is no way back.

Comment: People who took the drug LSD seem to have experienced all the stages of birth, which have been genetically retained in their subconscious. When a person ends up in the second or third stage under the influence of hallucinogens, it usually ends with a suicide. Now, once you have explained the monstrous states we are headed toward, it became clear to me that such pressure and helplessness will become so unbearable that people jump out the windows and commit suicide.

Answer: These are horrible states, horrible wars, suffering, and extermination, when death seems to liberate, but it can’t be found! So a person must experience enormous suffering.

This is not about death; this suffering must accumulate to make us realize the need to ascend.
[69879]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

Related Material:
A Spiritual Turn
Man’s Responsibility To Rebuild Society
Joyful Torments Of Birth

Filed under: Crisis, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Society - No Comments →

In the News (From ABC News): “Roughly half of all Spaniards between 16 and 24 are jobless, the highest level among the 17 nations that use the euro. It’s a devastating picture of blighted youth that threatens to distort Spain’s social fabric for years to come, dooming dreams, straining family structures and eroding the well-being of a rapidly aging population.

“‘This puts the whole welfare state at risk,’ said Gayle Allard, a labor market specialist at Madrid’s IE Business School. ‘The young people who are coming on the market now are the lost generation. They are losing the advantage of their youth and energy and that does not come back.’

“The staggering jobless figures — 48.6 percent for Spaniards between 16 and 24; 39 percent for those ages 20-29 — hold dire consequences for a country that grew accustomed to prosperity on the back of a property boom that collapsed in 2008.

“The 1.6 million unemployed teens and young adults in the nation of 47 million risk never having a decent start to a career. They probably won’t accumulate assets like their own homes or savings until they are in their 40s. And they then will likely face much higher taxes to maintain Spain’s costly social welfare system.

“What’s more, they’re expected to put off having children or have fewer than their parents, slashing a birth rate that’s already declining just as Spain’s large baby boom generation begins to retire. That means fewer people to absorb the costs of caring for the swelling ranks of pensioners.

“Anger and frustration among young adults have already taken root. Thousands erected protest camps last spring and summer in Madrid and Barcelona in illegal tent cities set up in central plazas.”

My Comment: There is only one solution: to change the attitude towards production, work, and society, that is, towards life in general. It is given to us to live in balance with nature and society, receiving what is necessary, being content with reasonable things that everybody else receives, working as needed for that, and using natural resources to meet these needs. Advertising is banned; everything is cut back to the necessary level, including the production of harmful pharmaceutical drugs.

To begin with, we need to describe the structure of such a society and then create a preliminary plan of the most painless transition to it. And all the freed time (80-90%  of the former work time), all the free time of housewives, the elderly, and children should be dedicated to upbringing, organized in community centers, vacant huge supermarkets and malls, hotels and former dens of vice.

Spain is an example of everyone’s future; moreover, this is only the beginning of, possibly, a bloody future if we do not organize the upbringing of the masses!
[71387]

Related Material:
Spain’s Unemployment Tops 5 Million
Business Leaders Warn Of “Not A Crisis, But A Disaster”
Tackling Youth Unemployment?

Filed under: Crisis, Integral Upbringing, World - 1 Comment →

Question: If a woman possesses a strong and sharp, critical mind and she sees that there is a certain imbalance in the men’s group, can she tell them about it?

Answer: Never. But she can describe and evaluate it. By the way, her evaluations can be very serious, much more serious than men’s.

Women see these things from aside—they see them correctly. There is nothing they can do with themselves, but they have a great ability to see everything that happens to men. And this ability can be used, not by the men’s group, but by educators.

Men should never know about or feel it. They should only feel a positive influence, a state of anticipation of their heroic act, the ascent above themselves.

Question: Then who should women share their criticism with, their girlfriends?

Answer: Women should have an inner desire for things to change between men. They can also do it by discussing it among themselves, but these should be positive discussions, like between “many nannies who have one baby.”
[71465]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #10, 12/16/11

Related Material:
The Return To Nature
A Loving Upbringing
Close Your Eyes To Your Spouse’s Shortcomings

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Women - No Comments →

Question: The creation of the theoretical foundation of our course includes many different aspects: creating programs and writing. Can women participate in this work?

Answer: Women cannot participate in integration either practically or theoretically, but can only assist with it. Some women have a special inner feeling, but I have met only a few of them. Among the huge amount of women that I feel and observe, these women might be one per thousand, no more than that.

Comment: All right, but at home…

Answer: At home a woman has no right to point her husband anywhere. She does not! This represses him. She has to act softly, like a mother with her child. When she plays this role, like a mother with her child, she achieves everything. But pressuring will only lead to fighting and divorce. This is not nurturing.

A husband needs to be nurtured. She wants it. And nurturing can only be done with love.

Comment: Today, around 80% of women constantly reproach their husbands, pointing out that they do things incorrectly, spend their energy on the wrong things, and so on.

Answer: This is why today 60-70% of young people do not wish to marry. That is right! Why would I need a family like this? And this either leads to divorce or people completely stop thinking about getting married and even co-habitating without obligations.

We bring them up incorrectly.

Question: What is upbringing in relation to communication between a man and a woman?

Answer: They should not speak to each other about how bad either one of them is. Anything but this. I never speak with my wife about this. We stopped doing this even before we got married, during the first months of dating.

Sometimes it happens that you point something out to your partner because you see that he hurts himself by doing it. Then you gently allude that he is hurting his health. But never do it head-on. What will this give you? Things happen, but this should be an exception, not the rule.

So what should people talk about? Only about pleasant things. The man needs to come home like to his mother who will take care of him and keep him warm. He must feel that his house is his fortress, not his prison. How would he ever go back home? Today we live as we think.

Question: So what is upbringing about?

Answer: If you show your partner that you love him or her, they will indirectly see that their certain actions are undesirable and hurtful, and they will not do these things. If you indirectly show them that you expect something from them, they will feel what they can do for you. But this can only be done with kindness.

Upbringing is only done with kindness. A small child only grows when you give him, fulfill him,and take care of him. The same rule applies if you wish to change or form a person.

Question: Then where is the place for the “lash,” the second line, which must be present?

Answer: This must not exist between a man and a woman. Never.

We have to interact with one another only causing positive feelings in our partner and showing very little upset, only to the extent of a person’s ability to constantly change. If your partner sees that from their perspective the action is correct, but from yours it is not, and you show or display it by suddenly taking a big offense, even if it is not relative to them, it will not help them correct their actions. One should be smart in this regard.

But we see that we absolutely do not educate people in our world. When a person graduates from school, he knows a bit of physics, a bit of math, and that is it. He enters life with no knowledge about human interaction or child upbringing—no knowledge at all. The only subject that was introduced in schools is sex education, which is only necessary to properly complement everything else. This is why our upbringing, if we can even call it that, is very ugly.

Integral upbringing assumes that in a family people give to one another since a family can only be built on mutual concessions. My teacher used to say that love is something that grows out of mutual concessions, when you “move yourself aside” and let the other person enter you, and he does the same to let you enter him. And then it turns out that each partner enters the other, and this mutual segment is called a family, and the sensation of your partner inside you is called love.
[71462]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #10, 12/16/11

Related Material:
The Return To Nature
Women’s Criticism
Close Your Eyes To Your Spouse’s Shortcomings

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Love, Q&A, Women - No Comments →