Question: Whenever you say that people will willingly renounce unnecessary production, I have doubts.

Answer: They won’t renounce it. The environment should influence a person in such a way that he or she would simply stop pursuing that. Just like we are no longer interested in children’s games because we are now grownups and have other interests, the same will happen here. We will involuntarily start pursuing something that is more important to us, more fulfilling.

To the extent that I will change, I will demand more and more refined fulfillments, and that’s why I will no longer be interested in acquiring a cutting-edge car or fashionable clothes from a famous couturier. I will suddenly realize that I am forgetting about all of that, like a scientist who becomes absorbed by his or her work, passion, and feels fulfillment from being occupied by formulas or researching mice, and that’s it! It makes no difference to him or her what to eat or what to wear—that’s how a person deeply submerged in something feels.

In our time it’s trendy to demonstrate a deliberatively dismissive attitude towards fashion (“it makes no difference what to eat or how to dress”), when people of the arts and other circles want to show that all of them are a little bit above our world, so to speak.

There is a certain movement in this, a desire to show that one has other concerns, other interests, and doesn’t care about some tuxedo with a bow-tie. This entire fashion: hole-riddled jeans and so on are hints at allegedly inner aspirations towards something and a contempt for externality. The tattoos, rings, and piercings in various places, these aren’t adornments on a person but attempts to express one’s inner state through this external imagery.

It’s a transitional process when it’s important to really acknowledge the full insignificance and foolishness of these attempts.

Nevertheless, this is a good example of the environment’s influence on a person. All these are offerings to fashion. There is nothing to be done. Until it passes, either as a result of the crisis or as a consequence of an ascent, nothing is going to change.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #6, 12/14/11

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TV Program “Foundations of the Integral Society”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

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We are witnessing a brand new and fascinating phenomenon: Our society is becoming integral. It’s no longer just about banks and industries establishing partnerships all over the world, exchanging raw materials, merchandise, food and so on. Today even the world’s cultures and education systems are merging into a single, universal blend. All these elements are interconnected and interdependent in every way.

It’s no accident that modern media has made it possible for us to stay abreast of everything that’s happening in the world. In and of itself the knowledge doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it already makes us dependent on one another. If this dependence exists in a good, tight family, then it’s for the benefit of all, as it gives confidence and pleasure. But if it’s not a good dependence, then the family falls apart.

The problem is we quite simply cannot divorce one another, precisely because we’re united on the global scale. We may hate and reject one another, but we’re entirely dependent on one another at the same time. Nature has imprisoned us on this earth, this tiny surface, and we have nowhere to run from one another.

With each passing day our interdependence grows stronger. When people or nations conflicted in the past, the worst they could do is kill one another. Today, however, if we begin to fight, we will take down the whole world with us, as the modern weapons at our disposal will destroy all living things. It follows that we are entirely dependent on everybody else in all aspects, both good and bad.

This is a big problem because our ego feels no fear and refuses to compromise in any way. The ego grows and develops, but our reason does not evolve with it. As our weapons grow in destructive force, we remain filled with envy, thirst for power, cruelty and the like. This mutual hatred clouds our minds, and if it continues we could easily end up destroying everything.

We see that nature is bringing us to greater mutuality and interdependence, which we cannot escape, like a family that cannot get divorced. So what do we do about it? We must find a solution. And the solution is both clear and unequivocal: to restore peace “in the family,” in our home, between all nations and all people. This mustn’t be done via aggression, but in a way where everyone does their part with complete integrity.

By actualizing this one solution, on which our survival hinges, we will undoubtedly see exactly how to organize everything in the world and the relationships between us with the globe living as one society. We will realize what everybody needs to complement everybody else. We will know how to educate ourselves, the “grown-up children,” and the actual children, the next generation, to make it easier for them to enter into a good, warm, gentle world. We will know how to make sure that no one will be able to stir humanity against itself going forward.

Many scientists are talking about the fact that the world has become round due to its interdependence, that we cannot run away from one another, and that, on the contrary, our interdependence is constantly growing moment by moment, day by day. They warn us of the dangers of adopting policies of protectionism and isolation in an effort to disconnect one nation from another.

The reason is that such attempts oppose the process we’re undergoing from the time we became human to this day. Looking at human history, it’s clear that any attempts to go against the laws of nature have never been successful, and that’s putting it mildly.

This behavior is tantamount to knowing but not observing the laws of physics; the upshot is that I cause immediate harm to myself. All the technology, science, and wisdom we have compiled amounts to us learning to follow the laws of nature. We upgrade our tools of research to discover more of nature’s laws with the aim of using them for our benefit.

The better we know nature’s laws, particularly those that pertain to the environment, society, humanity, and human and social psychology, the better we’ll be able to actualize them in our relationships, and the more we will gain thereby. The only other option is to initiate a “divorce” and all that it entails which means a world war, which could be the end of all mankind on earth.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 1, 12/27/11

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Question: When young people, a man and a woman, are making their plans for the future, they dream about the way they’re going to live. Could spouses discuss the ideal picture of an integral family in an integral education group so that everyone could contribute their own vision to it?

Answer: This is useful even today. When creating an image of an ideal family, we need to understand our egoistic nature and have a completely objective attitude towards it. If I can objectively open up to my group, to “dissect” myself before it, and in addition, the group could also explain to me from its point of view who I am and otherwise, then by understanding the viewpoints, habits, and motivations of one another, all the things given by nature and instilled in us, then we would attempt to rise above that into a completely new system of mutual relationships.

We wouldn’t try to break each other because we are creating something mutual: that which is comfortable and good for us. And all our negative inner egoistic impulses would conversely automatically transform into unification above them.

We begin to see that if this egoism of ours didn’t exist, then we wouldn’t have been able to enter into contact with each other. But thanks to the fact that we build this common superstructure above it, the egoism is actually our partner, friend, and helper, acting seemingly against us while in reality demonstrating that precisely through resistance to it, by turning it inside-out in our mutual relationships, we create a new family, a new anti-egoistic society.

Egoism plays a crucial role in this society because without it, we wouldn’t be able to achieve anything. It is the very fabric of nature intentionally instilled in us. What differentiates a person from an animal? It is precisely the fact that year after year, generation after generation, egoism grows within man. By using egoism, except in the opposite direction, we create mutuality between us: Instead of repelling us, we come closer; instead of rejection and hatred, there is love. Everything is contained in this.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #6, 12/14/11

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Question: What does it mean, “to rise above egoism?” How do you do it: through thoughts?

Answer: To rise means to work with your egoism in a sensible manner. When you are under the influence of society and the society seems to be to your right, while egoism is to the left, you become close to the society and merge with it as you invest yourself in it as much as you can and treat egoism as matter that you must use in order to make a person, to give it a human form.

This is the difference between our method and all the other methods, which are based on the destruction and suppression of egoism, its maximum concealment, leveling. But not here! Here it is easily revealed. And since it is one of the two forces of nature, as I reveal the second force, I begin to see in an absolutely objective manner how both forces can be used, and neither applies to me!

Today I identify myself with my egoism; I exist in it inseparably. But here I sort of come out of it and regard my body, myself, and those around me objectively; I separate every person from their inner egoistic essence. In this way, I start seeing people, not necessarily in their egoistic matter, but outside of their egoistic matter, outside of their egoism, outside of matter, the way they should be if they were to properly use these two forces, the right and the left. The left force is egoism, and the right is the surrounding environment, which demonstrates altruistic qualities to me that are opposite to egoism.

Question: I do not fully understand, what is the right line?

Answer: The right line is power. It is the idea that I need to transform my left line: all my egoistic desires, intentions, everything there is. Let us say I have 600 or 800 of them, it does not matter whatever number becomes revealed, even 10 or 20 different desires and thoughts. Under the influence of the society and the environment, I must transform all my egoistic qualities, desires, and thoughts, which are my egoistic heart and mind, into their opposite: altruistic. It is like putting an altruistic shirt over egoism.

Question: Let us use an example to make it clear. Let us say that I have a new desire to sing. I like singing, but I am bad at it.

Answer: This is not egoism. Egoism is when you wish to use something, which will hurt others and will supposedly benefit you. But even if we use the singing example, if you were to sing in front of your mother who loves you, your singing would please her, despite the quality of your voice and your ability to carry a tune. If you were to sing outside, people might not be very pleased to hear you. Thus everything depends on the degree of participation, love, and connection between you and your listeners.

Question: How do you turn an egoistic action into its opposite?

Answer: Introduce love in the connection between us.

Imagine a scientist, for example, a doctor that operated on a person who had a problem with his voice, and the surgeon gave the patient the ability to speak. Now, this person, completely out of tune and wheezing, sings. Imagine what pleasure the doctor is experiencing hearing the results of his work!

Here everything depends on the connection between the people, and not the correct reproduction. If your actions are making others happy, go ahead do it. All the doors are open before you.

The main thing is to have a proper connection with others when you perceive each other with love. Then your new relationship is in charge. You begin to perfectly and instinctively understand which qualities you can use. Just as before you wanted to instinctively and openly use egoism for your benefit, now you openly and sincerely use it in the opposite direction.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #7, 12/14/11

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Question: What is the meaning of “revealing the design of nature”: Does a person see, hear, or feel something?

Answer: As man becomes similar to the surrounding nature, he begins to treat it in a positive manner and to understand its design, feelings, and thought. He begins to see that nature, which created everyone including him, man who possesses a higher mind and feeling.

By the way, many speak about this, people who are close to nature, who grew up and developed in it, for example the Bedouins in Israel who live in the desert. They perceive nature, its breath.

I have spoken with many people, who have spent many years in the desert, the tundra, and the jungle with apes. They told me of amazing sensations, when the perception of nature, its design, and its mind suddenly begin to communicate with the person, and he begins to perceive that he exists inside mother nature, inside an enormous wise system. He suddenly begins to speak, communicate with it, reveal its matrix, its plan, and identify with it, and a certain union between man and nature appears which raises him to the next level of development.

The understanding of the common design of nature and the ascent to its next level, the level of controlling our own lives, is the purpose of the modern stage of development.

Question: In other words, we see certain new relationships and they become more obvious, more natural. But nature itself remains the same? Or does it also change?

Answer: I am not speaking about the still, vegetative, and animate nature. I am speaking about nature, which bares itself before man, reveals itself, and he discovers a certain enormous common universal feeling, mind, and design. Man reveals this.

When he connects to this, he begins to feel that he is on the next level of development. In other words he gains the understanding of all processes, the view of the world from beginning to end, its design: Why our Universe developed, where it came from, what there was before the Big Bang, what happened after (since our Universe has obviously existed for a certain amount of time), and the perception of the Universe, how we perceive it outside of our five physical senses, through a universal mind, a higher heart and mind. As man attains this, he begins to understand that his entire lengthy historic process of development was in order to reach this level.

Many sciences speak of this. Terminal problems, which appear in every science come from the fact that further development of sciences is directed specifically in this area. Consequently, scientists will not be able to reveal anything without upbringing, without being transformed through an integrated relationship with nature. This is why all our sciences are in a crisis.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #7, 12/14/11

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Not by chance is human society becoming more compressed, closed, and homogeneous. Apparently, this is a natural process programmed in our development. We can observe this from aside, study, and analyze it, but this is a fact. It does not matter whether we like it or not, but there is a certain process of development of our nature that we must undergo, and these forms must be revealed.

Therefore, we have no choice, and obviously, we have to build a more connected, friendly, warm society, based on mutual support and participation. All the ancient sources, religions, and beliefs say that in the end, we have to come to love.

People who live in nature, far away from people, say the same thing. They feel love coming from nature and its concern about everything that is contained in it. And we, relating to each other egoistically, looking through our own egoistic perspective, do not notice this love.

I once talked with Jane Goodall who lived in the jungle for about 17 years among chimpanzees; she received the Nobel Prize for her research. I asked her what the most important thing she learned from the feeling of living among the chimpanzees in the jungle where there were no other humans, and if they were ready to accept her as one of their own. And she replied: “Love, this is what I felt among them. Although they are always trying to sort out problems and seem to shout, but this is only to awaken love. And I began to discover the same thing in the trees, forest, sky, earth ….”

Dr. Jane Goodall and Dr. Michael Laitman, Arosa Forum, Switzwerland

She made such a discovery even though she does not have a sentimental character. A person, who arrived from a U.S. concrete jungle and lived for so many years in the jungle, slowly revealed that the whole nature is filled with love.

And here we really are facing a huge problem. All religions, beliefs, and various spiritual practices speak with one voice that a human being must achieve universal unity, if not love, at least good relations, without which humanity simply cannot continue to exist.

To do that, we go through this process in order to feel the need, to want to come to love, to develop new relationships. It is impossible to force one to love! I can pay money to buy anything except love. It is possible to purchase a polite attitude for money, but love is a very special feeling, separate from all other human emotions!

For example, I feel that you have become important for me because through you I learn, understand, and attain something new in life. You become dear to me as much as the subject that I want to get with your help. Thus, a good relationship is built between us.

We may enter into such relations with each other when we need to establish trust. Because I need you and you need me, there is trust between us, to the extent that I can rely on you. But if suddenly someone comes who will pay more and bring you more content and pleasure, all your trust and loyalty disappear.

That is why, we now find ourselves in an unusual situation. Our development has led us to feel that we depend on each other and are required to establish good relationships with each other, to the extent that we should love one another! Otherwise, we will not have the correct trust that is needed to achieve a good life today.
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From Kab TV’s “A New Life” Episode #6, 1/3/12

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Question: Suppose the program to educate the unemployed is accepted. How long will it take until we begin to see changes in our country?

Answer: A couple of weeks. Of course, it depends upon the number of people who will study, but the changes will be rapid. Imagine how many hours a day a person will take part in the integral education course. This in itself will evoke great changes in him. At the same time he will be under the strong influence of the environment: millions of people who study daily from their homes, in community centers, in schools in the afternoon…this will be their main occupation, apart from the necessary part time job.

It would be enough if this lasts for several days in order for a great force to be revealed. If you hold such a day all over the country, you will immediately see the changes, and you will see how the people cut themselves off from the old life style and connect to the new one.

The changes will take place at once and in every area of our life: in crime, drugs, litter in the streets, etc. Think of how much can be saved just on municipal services alone. Even the number of sick people will diminish. We will undoubtedly feel this in everything.

Moreover, the entire economy will change too. Will we, the people, keep on buying goods in such monstrous quantities? Will we continue to subsidize the producers and the middlemen that inflate the prices? Will we pay five dollars for cottage cheese that hardly costs one dollar? We will sift out all the redundant things and leave only the necessary ones.

So you may ask: “And what about the taxes? Where will we get the money for social security and for defense?” You will see that there are the means for that. It’s wrong to build an economy on an endless cycle of enormous sums of money, from which the government takes a percentage of for itself. Just look at this ridiculous structure that produces not only goods but papers too.

The economy will be different. You need to provide security? Please, take the people and act. Everyone gets exactly as much as they need to lead a normal life. And all the rest goes to supply the needs of different systems, not financially but rather in the framework of sensible necessities.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The Biblical rule of “love thy friend as thyself” is not talking either about the present or the past. Even religions have abandoned this goal long ago as something unattainable and turned their attention to everyday problems: helping people in some things, protecting them from others, offering psychological support, and no more than that.

However today, we can see that nature is forcing us into that. That means that we need to explain to ourselves and to everyone that under the influence of mass media and society we can begin to change a human being, provided it will not be lies like during the Soviet regime.

The right words were said there, the correct goals were set, but they weren’t accompanied by people’s upbringing. There was only much talk about upbringing and creating a new Soviet identity. “A new individual,” “there was never anything like this in the world before,” and so on,  these wonderful words corresponded perfectly to the integral methodology. But in reality all that didn’t exist. The only thing that existed was coercion, which cannot be under any circumstances! There cannot be either fear, or blows, or destruction, or horrible pressure, or anything else that was carried out by the Soviet regime.

The transformation should occur not through coercion, but through realization. The realization will come from the crisis, and there is no other way out of it.

It turns out that while during the Soviet regime this was necessary for a certain few but not everyone else, today it’s the opposite: It is essential for everyone because there is no other way to get out of our state. Otherwise, we will face world wars and mutual destruction. Where else could our egoism lead us? We all understand that it can only lead towards that.

Therefore our next social formation is either Nazism, fascism, and mutual destruction or it is a conscious movement forward, where we on our own create ourselves on a new level, that is, work on our own upbringing.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

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Question: The beautiful model of integral unification is more or less clear. Yet what should a person do in order for that to happen in practice?

Answer: Let’s remove ourselves a little from our reality and imagine an ideal, maybe even utopian society—it doesn’t matter how we call it. What would it be like taking into account our most magnanimous motives? And after we imagine it, let’s think: “Is it even possible to achieve it given our nature? Why did nature create us precisely opposite to this perfect and sublime state?”

We will see that mutual pressure and competition in the good sense of the word do not bring us to a state of absolute comfort; rather, we reach it through our voluntary, desired, and intentional mutual help. There is no doubt that if humanity was arranged this way, we would be a truly great society.

Why did nature create us to be different? Isn’t it that very same nature that represents a perfect system in which everything is interconnected and exists in mutual guarantee and homeostasis? Why do we actually need this destructive egoism?

Everyone recognizes egoism as evil, as an inevitable reality. Sociologists, political scientists, and psychologists, all the people who deal with a human being and with society are forced to take our nature into consideration and based on it, to somehow compensate the destructive influence of egoism.

Except here we shouldn’t keep trying to compensate for it as it is customary on the earthly level. Rather, we need to turn egoism into our helper, that is, to recognize its nature.

We desire to be fulfilled at the expense of others, the way a mother receives pleasure by means of her child. A child to her is an object of pleasure. She is an egoist, she cannot part with him for a second, and this isn’t a manifestation of her concern for the child as much as it is of her concern for herself—she simply cannot tear herself away from him. If you disconnect her pleasure center, then undoubtedly that very minute she will switch to a new object of pleasure because her treasured child, who after birth meant everything to her, will suddenly fall out of her field of vision and she will become indifferent towards him, like towards any other child.

From this simple example it can be seen that a person’s egoism, in this case a mother’s, receives tremendous fulfillment precisely from the fact that it’s looking after another, giving to another, and caring for another.

Why can’t we relate this way to everyone else and thereby experience endless fulfillment? After all, if I tune into other people’s desires, thoughts, and feelings, attach them to myself and relate to them with love and involvement, then I begin to sense an enormous and endless possibility of pleasure, unrestricted by anything or anyone. I give, care, and participate and thus become fulfilled.

The most important thing for us is fulfillment. This is why we exist. The sensation of life is a sensation of fulfillment, each time by means of different objects, but generally it’s fulfillment. Inside of us it amounts to a certain purely physical, moral, or spiritual substance.

It can be thought of as stimulation of some inner streams of information, currents, or chemical reactions—it doesn’t matter what exactly. But the important thing is that we perceive it as fulfillment. In this case the only thing that’s missing is a correct attitude towards each other, the same kind of love as a mother’s love for her child.

Where can we find this quality? If I could come to, say, some gas station and say: “I want to exchange my egoism. Instead of it give me ten percent of love.” They fill me up there with this quality of love instead of the qualities of envy, hatred, and jealousy, and therefore I can now relate to everyone differently. At least up to these 10% I will be fulfilled and happy.

Moreover, others aren’t even important to me. What matters to me is that I attain comfort and stop seeing competitors in everyone, stop experiencing hatred, fears, and worries. Conversely, everything gradually begins to change into something kind, pleasant, and tranquil.

We cannot even imagine this state except maybe in relation to our own children. Though even with that in our egoistic world we have to constantly remain near the child, fighting with the entire world in order to protect our offspring from all kinds of problems and dangers.

Therefore the problem of changing our attitude towards people around us is a purely psychological problem that can be resolved with the help of psychological training.

After all, a human being is a product of his environment. If we actually raised people in this artificial environment (since our natural environment is egoistic) and would constantly set before them proper goals (while in the meantime their egoism would be continuously growing since it is programmed by nature and there is no escaping that), then we would be forced to constantly develop our field of love, of mutuality. Then we would begin to understand that “love thy friend as thyself” actually is the goal of humanity.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

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