Question: In the method of integral upbringing, special attention is paid to the correlation between the mind and feelings. In the corporeal world of egoism and alienation, desires and thoughts are hidden deep inside a person and are often inaccessible by his consciousness. Usually, as a rule this generates negative feelings: anger, irritation, and hurt. What is the right way to connect feelings so they would not hinder communication between people?

Answer: The method of integral education, first and foremost, takes into account the fact that feelings and desires are primary.

We do not know where they come from and how they appear in us. All the qualities of our mind and thoughts are intended for realizing these feelings and fulfilling ourselves.

Our basic desire is the desire to enjoy. Who, what and how are the consequences. Enjoy! And this is why our entire mind only develops to the extent of our desires and only to serve them. Big desires develop a big mind in a person. Egoism, which grows from generation to generation and over the course of a person’s life, develops his mind.

If we take an animal, its development practically ends a couple of weeks after its birth. It already has all its given instincts, and it adapts to the environment. This is why animals never make mistakes. They know how to behave, how to save themselves, and how to interact with the environment. Their mind and feelings are instinctively in balance. In this case too, desire is primary and the mind secondary. An animal understands what it is able to realize in its desires and what it is not, and this correspondingly limits its mind.

But a person has a big problem here. The thing is that when his egoism develops, it gives him desires he is not able to realize. This is why he shuts away, isolates himself, becomes more brutal, competitive, etc.

If his desires were to be correlated with all the other desires (his and the environment) so that they would harmoniously complement each other, there would be no conflicts, and his mind would expand infinitely.

Since integral society is a society of absolute inclusion of everyone in everyone, this means that a person acquires the desires of the entire community. He understands what matters to the society, and accordingly, his mind stops being personal and becomes integral, and he reasons with it. It is like putting on glasses of integral vision of the world, and he understands that he and the world are one whole; what is good for me and what is good for the world are the same thing.

There is naturally no contradiction in this harmonious correlation between him and the world. He can simply open up without any fear; he understands, sees, and feels everything in accordance with this, and actively participates in every action, in everything. Absolutely all his reasons to be unhappy or compete with others disappear.

So we need to bring a person to this state without limiting his desires, thoughts, and mind, and we need to act in a completely different way from the beginning to give him the explanation that he is included in everyone else and that a certain common desire is being created.

This collectivity of all the desires is that new thing that we are creating. We are creating the system of “Adam” our common desire and our common mind in accordance with it. Something integral appears above us, and we exist in it.

This way we do not pay any attention to the person at all, but only at his aim, his inclusion in this collectivity, the next degree of our development. We do not limit him; he does not feel that he is under certain pressure. He does not have anything to hide. He practically remains as is, but his entire development is directed towards integration.

The harmony between feelings and the mind develops as he begins to feel greater and greater interconnection between himself and the others, with what the current world dictates to us but we are not yet ready for.

Integral education intends to direct man towards beginning to feel “we,” the collective humanity, and act based on it. Only then he will feel like his state is free. This is exactly where his freedom of will and freedom of behavior will manifest, but only once he includes himself in it.

But if he comes out of this state again, he once again falls into his small egoism, and the same problems start all over. In this way nature helps us by showing us that rest can only be found in integration, and in isolation a private prison and absence of freedom.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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Question: A woman once said that her freedom is limited by certain obligations for her children, family, husband, household, etc. She feels most free within these obligations. But if all of this were to be taken away, her feeling of freedom would disappear.

Answer: This is true. When a person lacks strict boundaries, it is hard for him to determine where freedom is, and he simply feels lost, because absolute freedom appears to him to be an absolute lack of freedom.

Freedom, like any other feeling, is defined between the negative and the positive in it. Therefore, within certain boundaries and the opportunity to remain, act, and comfortably exist within them, which means managing them, performing any obligations and enjoying achieving them, this is perceived as freedom.

But the thing is that when we become integral in our society against our will, according to the plan of nature, we are unable to feel capable of creating the right framework because it is being violated all the time; on one hand, we become more interconnected with others, and on the other hand, we do not feel like we can do something on our own within our own framework because we depend on a huge quantity of external factors.

This is why the only way to surpass our boundaries is by entering the integral system, which gives the feeling of freedom.

Nature inevitably pushes us towards feeling “cornered” into a state of need, in a constant struggle for survival within our own framework, everywhere: in our families, at work, at home, on the street, anywhere at all.

It is here that we need to show people that freedom is only acquired by correctly interacting with others: globally and harmoniously.

A person, especially a woman, cares only for her boundaries, her comfort within these small boundaries on the animal, egoistic level of existence. When she has a home, a family, children, responsibilities, and she is able, capable, and equipped to provide for the wellbeing of her entire small household; then of course, she can have a complete feeling of confidence, freedom, and realization.

It is not as simple with a modern person, even a modern woman. She aspires to get into business and realize herself. But still, the determinant, basic orientation of the female character is directed towards the family, and for things to be right in it.

However we see that families are broken. The latest statistics are just menacing! The number of divorced and single parent families is greater than 50%!

Here we observe a tendency to push a person out of his little family circle where he feels comfortable leaning on his relatives, where it is enough for him that he could only care for his household and getting whatever the household needs. Despite his mind, man is being pushed towards something greater against his will.

We are tied up with everyone else. Our inner wellbeing depends on the entire world. Thus integral upbringing is simply necessary here to compensate for insecurity, fears, and absence of freedom.

As we rise to the next level, we specifically acquire freedom, despite our current egoistic beginning.

When I connect with others, I acquire something in common with them, common desires and common understanding that when we decide everything together, by interacting with each other, and in no other way—that is when I feel free.

My freedom depends on me. It does not depend on others, because everyone else in the integral group begins to appear absolutely corrected to me. They are already integral in the state of mutual guarantee, connection, and I alone am only beginning to feel where I still need to add and adjust myself. And in general every person feels this way in relation to others.

A person acquires a completely new need to constantly strive towards a proper relationship with all the people.

This is a whole new level. It is still egoistic, but at the same time it is a different and desirable level where I feel that I lack fuller integration. It is in it, after breaking into it, performing a psychological turn around inside of me like by pulling a trigger, and by changing to the opposite, I suddenly actually acquire freedom.

It is like when an embryo is born from a mother’s womb, it turns head down and seems to lose everything it had, after which it appears in a new world; we need to turn upside down, begin to understand the world in another way, and then we will be born in the new integral world.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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Question: When I encounter the law of mutual guarantee and see it in action, I immediately begin to monitor others so that they won’t drill a hole in the boat, and I purely egoistically point out that they shouldn’t be doing this.

Answer: With a corrected, altruistic approach, I act differently. I say to myself: “They are all ideal, I can be absolutely sure of them. I only have to monitor myself so I complete them correctly.”

If I behave correctly within the integral scheme, the entire scheme will be correct. It’s a reverse implication of the same law, where each is responsible for all. If, while existing within an integral system, I behave correctly, I oblige the entire integral system to do so as well. If someone breaks the law, the entire system fails.

Engineering has examples of various systems, among them an integral one. There is a discrete system with a strictly defined beginning and end, where all the working parts communicate with each other through impulses. And then there is a system which gets aroused by a signal it receives, then calms down, comes to a state of balance, and only after that can one measure its output as a solution to a problem. This is the so-called integral, analog system.

A disturbance and, naturally, an averaging, a calming down take place in such systems. You wouldn’t be able to observe any results until everything calms down and arrives to a common denominator, to a solution.

At first, when you give a signal, you, say, bring an egoistic environment into a perturbed state. Then correction takes place: Gradually, a balance between absolutely all parts of the system is achieved; the system calms down. And then you measure the potential that results from its connection. If we talk about the human society, then the achieved result is accepted by everyone uniformly, equally, and kindly; everyone tries to uphold this very state because it is the most comfortable for everyone.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/11

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Question: In the mid-1960’s, there was an incident in Paris when a person drowned in a pool in front of 150 eyewitnesses because nobody came to the rescue. Had there been only one person there, he or she would have saved him, but now it’s as if the responsibility was diluted among 150 people. Hence the law that the more people there are, the less responsibility each of them has personally. How can we make this law integral?

Answer: What does “mutual guarantee” mean? I am responsible for everyone. The general and the particular are equal in their power and influence—this is what the law of global guarantee implies.

If within the final integral system (and we take it as a starting point of any explanation) even one tiny particle is missing—me, you, or him—it won’t be able to function. It won’t be able to operate at the full 100%. It will break down not by 99% or 50%, but by the entire 100% because an integral system implies the participation of absolutely everybody.

Ultimately, the law is such that one is equal to all, one is important for everyone. There isn’t anyone who could wiggle out of this, opt not to participate.

In the integral education we present a simple example: We (all of humanity) are in one big boat. If I drill a hole under myself in the bottom of the boat, everybody drowns. I may say: “I’m sorry, friends, this is my personal business. I want to drown. Or I want to take a bath. That’s it. This has nothing to do with you. What right do you have to enter my territory and admonish me or order me around?!”

If we exist within the framework of one law of nature—in the same boat, like in Noah’s Ark. If someone drills a hole there, we will all drown.

So it follows that responsibility cannot be distributed among everyone. For each person it is the same responsibility as for everyone else! That’s why each person who stands around the pool and sees that someone is drowning must imagine that if I don’t take any action, then no one will. And then everyone would plunge into the water.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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Question: Materialistic psychology discusses the psychological concept of conformity, when a person submits to the opinion of the majority. From the point of view of psychologists, conformity is a bad thing, while nonconformity is good. Perhaps from the perspective of integrality, conformity is a very positive thing?

Answer: First of all, a person’s subordination to society and their surrounding environment is a law of nature. In other words, there is no truth or falsehood, no good or evil, nothing—there is only the directives of the environment, and I obey them, I am brought up within them. What the environment proclaims to be good or evil, right or wrong, I accept as such.

We can convince ourselves that salty tastes sweet, no problem! If the environment starts referring to salt as being sweet, ultimately I will start consuming salty candy. It alters our inner physiological parameters to such an extent that we change completely.

We cannot say whether it’s good or bad. We are simply stating a fact. After all, can I really say anything bad about acceleration of free fall or other physical parameters? This is what exists. The way we apply this is another story. But saying that it’s bad and we should therefore change and distort a person—this actually is bad. Our task is to correctly apply the laws of nature with the aim of achieving our similarity, compatibility, and harmony with it.

Question: It turns out that a social-psychological law like conformity is a big plus that helps us to unite?…

Answer: We are able to change a person precisely by virtue of the surrounding environment. Mass media, society, and upbringing, it all constitutes the surrounding environment. We selectively influence a person from the outside in order to transform him or her. This is our only tool of influence on a person.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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Integral upbringing strips a person of practically everything that characterizes our modern society. What remains is only their normal, peaceful, and regular existence (we call it the beastly level, but not with disdain as this is the level on which our physical body exists). At this point a person devotes all of his or her resources only to master the next degree, that of “Adam,” the degree of universal mutual guarantee, ascent, and unity. It is precisely in our unity that we reveal the next level of our existence: the attainment of eternity and perfection.

And this is possible since by breaking away from our animal body and attaining the complete picture of nature, its mechanism, dynamics, and the forces that permeate it from beginning to end, this entire process, a person connects to and associates himself with this process and already simply lives on that level. It’s as if he or she breaks away from their own body (we cannot imagine this state yet) and associates himself with the attained common unification and exists within it to such extent that even if his body dies, he doesn’t feel death. It’s as if this is the death of his beloved pet animal who lives next to him. He doesn’t feel that his “self” loses something thereby.

Since our body represents merely the sum of our desires and our notion of self, if we no longer associate ourselves with it, it’s as if we live detached from it. This is also a psychological problem, but it can be overcome in the course of integral upbringing.

We need to lead our students towards this gradually since the problem of death, despite the constant attempts to “bottle it up,” nevertheless drives a human being. In any task that we set before ourselves, we subconsciously include this element and are compelled to address it. Any decision that we make: to have children, to support a family, to appear a certain way in the eyes of society, and so on, anything presupposes an element of inclusion of the self into something outside of ourselves since in this manner it’s as if we continue on.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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Question: Could you shed more light on the concept of “mutual guarantee”? What do you mean by it?

Answer: The purpose of creation of the universe is to bring it to homeostasis. The endpoint of the development of any given subsystem is to balance all systems. It follows from the research of the still, vegetative, and animal nature: all these levels strive towards equilibrium.

Why does the wind blow? The pressure in one place is higher than in another. Any unbalanced physical parameters ultimately strive for balancing, for averaging out, for mutual interconnection and permeation. All levels of nature are supported by each other: plants, minerals, animals, and so on; they all exist in constant mutual circulation.

The last degree of nature called “Adam” or Man (the overall joint image) needs to incorporate all the previous levels into itself. Human beings have to reach such a collective state, reciprocity in connection, where precisely they will be the ones who’ll be determining the entire correct global structure of nature, its harmony. A person needs to attain this through understanding, realization, and study of this picture.

We need to study the integral systems in which everything is interconnected: beginning, end, middle, and center. There’s no single thing that would determine something, but everyone and everything determines all the rest. It’s like a holographic picture, and our universe, as well as practically any of its fragments, including ourselves, are arranged according to this principle.

This is why our final state is characterized by the fact that everyone is responsible for everyone else. All for one and one for all! And this applies to the entire humanity.

This picture, of course, seems like a fantasy, completely opposite to our reality of today. Our desire or reason simply don’t function in that direction. But nature will compel us to that. Starting with our time and going forward, we are entering a crisis that’s determined precisely by our lack of balance, our incorrect interconnection with each other.

Therefore, starting with a small group, with this vision of the future, we are obliged to constantly set this condition before ourselves. Regardless of how we name this future system, even if it’s “communism,” nevertheless it’s the most stable system intended by nature. And it will be attained since this is the state of equilibrium.

Now a question arises: “How do we present it to people? What does mutual guarantee mean?”

Even now, we see from the example of the EU, which is not able to unite, that the absence of integral upbringing and education doesn’t allow them to correctly view the situation they’re in. They constantly choose egoistic, linear solutions instead of “round” ones. They constantly relate to themselves as a discrete and not an analog system. Therein lies their problem. This is why all of their resolutions won’t lead anywhere.

This will be a very lengthy disintegration, maybe even a world war. Or, perhaps, as a result of suffering they will gradually come to a right decision because there are people already who talk about the necessity of absolutely complete unity.

But can complete unity of 27 countries be reached?! Even if you limit them to ten countries, it still is an enormous division along all parameters. Therefore, upbringing is necessary.

Upbringing, its foundation and expected goal, is what we call an integral mutual interaction or universal guarantee, when we vouch for and are responsible for one another and create our society precisely in this manner. Fears disappear. Concerns disappear. I know exactly what I need to do in society. I am absolutely confident that I will receive the same thing as everyone else. I am confident that I will have everything that is necessary for life.

In this manner we neutralize any problems that might arise in some social perturbations. Surely, this is an ideal picture, so we need to come to it gradually.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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Question: Suppose we gathered people into a group for integral upbringing, and they have to go through several stages: to get to know each other and to start feeling secure. In Russia, the latter phase takes half the time allotted for education because people don’t trust each other. They have a tremendous experience with environment’s negative impact on a person. It takes time for a person to relax, to believe that nobody wishes them any harm. What should this time be filled with?

Answer: It’s very difficult to work with people who keep returning into the coarse, cruel world. They relax a little within the group, but for them it’s like a game that allows them to take a “pill” and calm down for some time. And afterwards, when they come back to the cruel world, everything vanishes.

They realize that they come to the group only in order to relax but not to become different. They cannot allow themselves to be different because then they will be defenseless in this world; they’ll end up like small furry bunnies amidst wolves and foxes. Therefore, this is a big problem.

The group needs to create its own micro-climate and be relatively big in order to hold a person inside its framework. A person should feel its support, whether at home or at work: through phone-calls, text messages, and so on. That is, people should constantly remain in a state of mutual guarantee, must support each other, and care after the micro-climate that appears whenever we shape ourselves into a small society.

In reality this society could be artificial. What’s the difference? We feel good within it. In a certain sense, it’s a psychological refuge.

As far as Russia is concerned, I believe that everything can be changed very quickly over there because people are internally ready for it. They aren’t split into social classes; they were simply artificially divided. Their so-called Socialist past, when freedom and equality were at least on the agenda, still finds its strength and manifests itself within them.

Therefore, if it were possible to remove the terrible external negativity that erupts forth from the mass media and especially from this so-called culture, then I think that it could be achieved quickly.  People have accumulated such negative potential that they would gladly embrace something completely different.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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Question: In the general course on integral upbringing it is said that any action should begin with an overall integral picture set as a goal before a person. Most likely, a psychology course is no exception. It follows, then, that we should start any activity precisely with that? What is the best way to do it?

Answer: It’s important to note that this isn’t just advice but a fundamental necessity. A person should always be pursuing a goal and stay focused on it so that his every movement, expression, or engagement in certain games or discussions, everything would be directed towards the same goal.

Then he or she will truly strive towards it and develop a strong desire for it. He will see that everything has to be aimed at its achievement. That’s on one hand.

On the other hand, since there exists one unified field in nature within which we’re all interconnected, when we set a certain objective for ourselves and conceptually imagine our future state, it’s as if we summon upon ourselves the “attractive” forces from this future state, forces that propel us forward. It’s as if they stem from the object that we aspire towards and act upon us.

This is a purely psychological phenomenon: We understand that generally speaking, this doesn’t exist. Possibly even our notion of the future doesn’t correspond to its actual image: In the process of our advancement we gradually change, and consequently, our vision of the future changes too.

Similarly, we say to a child: “You will grow up and become this or that—just keep studying. You’ll see what will happen.” He gradually grows and begins to understand that while earlier he imagined that he is a driver of a giant dump truck, right now different goals appear as desirable. We paint certain images of the future for him so that he would develop them further into different, higher goals.

Similarly, we need to constantly imagine this picture towards which we, like a child, need to grow so it would beckon us forward. Then we won’t be pushed from behind by negative forces of nature, by crises, but on the contrary, we’ll move forward propelled by positive forces. In doing so, we will shorten the path and it will be pleasant for us.

This is why we need a vision of a bright, good future, which is supported by our environment, elevated in the eyes of society through mass media, and so on. Then a person will acquire enormous strength and inspiration. Meanwhile, society will encourage everyone who strives towards the goal.

We need to develop a broad psychological foundation that will draw a person in like a stream and carry him, and then he would gladly be swimming along with the current.

Question: When I am teaching a course on integral psychology, should I introduce an element of integrality into every regularity being explained?

Answer: Yes, because movement towards the goal assumes that on every segment of the path you are gradually achieving, approaching it closer. That is, if the goal represents a particular collection of some new qualities, then any step towards it assumes a mastery of these qualities, and you need to control that. You need to perform an analysis and observe: Did I move towards it, or did I suddenly deviate somewhere.

A sideward deviation is very dangerous. If you don’t notice your digression at the very beginning, this tiny deviation will grow into an enormous transgression, and you will never reach the goal because you will continue to diverge from it.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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Question: Any group dynamic goes through several stages. The first mandatory stage is a security phase. Before a person opens up, he or she needs to feel that they are in a safe space where nobody will hurt or humiliate them.

Answer: More importantly, this space needs to possess the quality known as mutual guarantee.

In order to reach the goal, we need the support of everybody else, like, for example, in a good attack team or in the army, when they go on a reconnaissance mission and everyone feels confident in the fact that others will always back them up. You charge forward because for you the sensation of “I” already disappears and instead there’s a sensation of “we.” This sensation is so strong that it doesn’t even matter to you whether to live or die—the most important thing is to implement the common idea.

When people are united through a shared idea, they lose individual interests, while the common, the collective, begins to influence them in such a way that for the sake of executing their common goal, their shared idea, they no longer care in what form it’ll be attained for them personally.

If we reach such a state in unification of society, a person rises precisely onto the degree called “Adam.” That is, we need to have a goal that will always stand in front of us. It needs to be for us—not for a person that we work with and not for the group, but for us. Otherwise, if we don’t start striving towards this goal, nature will very painfully, through tremendous suffering, push us towards it with its coercive forces. One way or another, in the final state, we will have to reach this form of communication between us, this kind of unity.
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From “Lessons About the New World” #8, 12/15/12

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