Question: Suppose I witness someone being bullied on the street or at the metro. What should I do? How should I relate to what’s going on before my eyes?

Answer: We are only talking about behavior in an integral society, in groups where we study and practice the introduction of integral relationships. On the street, however, we do not display it in any way. People will not understand us yet.

Everything depends on the society. Suppose that you want to help an old lady who slipped and fell on the ice. There are societies where people may accuse you of something inappropriate. Even the old lady may think that you have decided to use her somehow, to rob her or something like that.

There are also societies where a number of people will rush to help her at once. Meaning, that it depends on where the person is.

So your reaction on the street should in no way be different from the reaction of other people. It would look very strange and incomprehensible to others.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

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Question: It is common to take a loan from a bank and then to sit back and think, “How will I pay it back?” But in fact, there is nothing to pay it back with. How do we explain to people before they end up bankrupt or in jail that it’s not worth doing?

Answer: This requires changing not only the individual, but also the entire society, the industry, and our worldview. A lot depends upon the mass media and on the surrounding environment, that is, everything from the closest circle to the general surroundings.

The owners of television programs advertise products that people think they need to buy, people do buy a lot of them, and do so on credit. Today credit is given out left and right because the same bankers that make the loans have an interest in the company, and they end up reclaiming all of people’s possessions in order to repay their debt. This is all it is: a huge machine that is set up to drain a person of his last resources.

If we could break this cycle and through legislation against advertising, clear our mass media of all advertisements, banning all forms of advertising, where would we be? It should be understood that what is being advertised is detrimental. A person himself knows what he wants is not needed; what he doesn’t need, he doesn’t need to know about. After all, it’s better to have a few useful things than a lot of harmful ones.

This is a big problem. I hope that the current crisis will do the job. On the other hand it will simply rid people of the chance to think about that each year they must acquire more to increase the gross domestic product and chase after profits.

Profit should be internal, measured in inner comfort. I won’t feel more comfortable if instead of producing ten kinds of yogurt today, tomorrow I create twenty. This will only exacerbate the problem and no one feels a sense of responsibility.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

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Question: What makes you so sure that integral upbringing will help people unite correctly? It seems quite unreal.

Answer: I act on the premise of only one thing: Nature will force us towards it. And by our efforts, we want to realize this before great losses occur. We wish people good and want them to reach the goal that nature presents us in a gentle way. We have to come to this goal not under the great pressure of nature, not under the influence of huge ecological problems, world war, and so on, but with few losses or even without suffering. This depends on how much we understand that we have no other choice.

I believe in the victory of this idea (if I may use such big words) because it comes from nature, not from people. But in any case, nature will force us to do it. Thus, we should use our mind to soften the evolutionary forces that push us forward, and then we will reach the goal of nature more smoothly. After all, it is better to make a soft landing on a new integral platform of harmony. I hope it will be so.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #4, 12/13/11

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In the News (from The Huffington Post): “Three researchers put forth a study that was published on Wednesday on the Public Library of Science website saying they’ve found that men and women feel and behave in markedly different ways. They’re almost like ‘different species,’ Paul Irwing, one of the researchers, told The Huffington Post.

“The research, conducted by Marco Del Giudice of Italy’s University of Turin and Irwing and Tom Booth of the UK’s University of Manchester, involved getting 10,000 Americans to take a questionnaire that measured 15 different personality traits. According to their analysis, men are far more dominant, reserved, utilitarian, vigilant, rule-conscious, and emotionally stable, while women are far more deferential, warm, trusting, sensitive, and emotionally ‘reactive.’ The two sexes were roughly the same when it came to perfectionism, liveliness, and abstract versus practical thinking.”

My Comment: According to Kabbalah, men and women are completely different because their roots are in the opposite worlds: Men are in Zeir Ampin, and women are in Malchut. Hence their lack of understanding of each other.

Unity is possible only in at the degree above them both and only in mutual integral combination (mutual guarantee). This can be achieved only through the joint integral upbringing. That is why we see today such dramatic estrangement of the genders. It will make us feel the need to agree with the method that facilitates closer relations, proposed by integral upbringing.
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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: And it is hopeless to hope for peace…. And it is a must that there will always be a large minority in society who are unsatisfied by the conditions offered to them…. This minority will therefore always remain a ready and willing fuel for the new quarrelsome people and the new peacemakers that will always follow.“

We see that on the human level, even an approach based on the best intentions will not allow us to reach truth and peace. There will always be quarrelsome people who will disturb the process.

What can be done? Nothing. Human society and human nature were intentionally made this way so as not to allow us to get along in life. We can acknowledge the fact that it isn’t in our power, but not more than that.

How much bloodshed and suffering is needed until we realize that we cannot have the minimal correct social relations among us? Nature is being revealed to us as more and more global and integral, connected and mutually dependent, and it gradually shrinks that “small place” in which we can continue to exist in the old egotistic form. The new laws are getting closer by leaps and bounds.

In order to compensate for what we cannot achieve without unity, society is using different charitable organizations, but we will soon see how this “charity” is actually leading us to destruction. Baal HaSulam says that the destruction will actually come from those who try to make peace.

There is only one solution to the problem: educating people to live in mutual guarantee. Thanks to this, humanity will be able to feel that there is something solid we can rely on. We can achieve this by creating the right environment. In addition to teaching and acquiring knowledge, education should include special activities by which the environment influences people. If we begin to organize such an environment, the internal forces to create it will be revealed through us. Without this there is no hope for peace.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/11, “The Peace”

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Question: When we talk about education for adults, there is a fear that people will accuse us of offering something impractical, too detached from reality.

Answer: I totally disagree with you!

Today’s world and the one we propose are absolutely opposed. We must face the truth! It is actually true. There should not be partial solutions! I cannot create a school half-humanistic and half-egoistic, the way it is today.

When a young child comes to school, he could be beaten and robbed; he could be made into anything, compelled to do anything by force, pressure, influence, and some values. He is forced to be the same as everybody else with the worst examples. He can become attached to smoking and drinking alcohol, not to mention the threat of drugs! School is a school of depravity, a school of vanity! One is driving a car, the other gets there on foot.

All the evils of modern society are manifested in children at school in the cruelest way. We need to fight against this! We should start doing something about this. They are our children!

Since we have become insensitive egoists, we treat children likewise, pushing them away as if saying: “Go to your school. They should deal with you there.”

Instead of raising a child as a normal person and creating a future for him, the next society, we neither create society nor make a person a human being.

It does not matter what will be. That is why we do not want to bear children. We simply exist and go with the flow, which carries us to a huge waterfall, to fall into the abyss.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

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Question: In the integral upbringing courses, should we gather the elderly into separate groups or can they be in groups with people of different ages?

Answer: I think that we should match people by age. We know just how much age, differences in people’s mentalities, and their manner of behavior influence their perception.

However, ultimately, everyone should ascend, in mutual support and inclusion, above all emotional, intellectual, or age-related attributes that distinguish them from others. But initially we should arrange groups to be as homogeneous as possible.

Question: Should the instructors also be of similar age and qualities?

Answer: Nature is based on the law of similarity, equivalence, and compatibility of qualities. That’s why in this case we must follow precisely the same principles. That is, we should provide elderly instructors for elderly groups and younger ones for youth groups. As a matter of fact, youth groups can be taught by middle-aged people, but not by old folks, that’s clear.

Everything should be structured so as to exclude from the group anything that hinders a correct, kind, and open perception of the course, and to achieve contact and correct understanding between a group and its instructor as quickly as possible.

Question: For the elderly people, should we also form separate groups for men and women?

Answer: No. I don’t think that people of advanced age have a need for that because they are already used to every kind of communication and it is natural for them. I don’t think we should break their views and build some sort of a team out of them, like in the army or sports.

Interaction among them is built not on competition or some other internal impulses, but on mutual assistance and such. They already have a completely different attitude to one another, life, and the world. Therefore, we understand that this is an entirely different psychology.

The so-called “golden age” doesn’t require the same approach as children and especially adolescents. Among the latter thrives a battle for leadership, understanding, and self-expression, while here we are dealing with a relatively peaceful person. Although naturally, we need to come up with another manner of teaching and presenting our materials for them.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education,” 12/13/11

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Question: Today, several modes of human interaction exist. Generally speaking, you can divide them into two types. One type is when in the process of interaction people develop a need to create some kind of a new project. After they get acquainted with each other, complete a first phase of theoretical education, and unify among themselves, a natural desire arises in them to create some good, kind project that will be useful to other people.

The other type is when people are in the process of solving certain issues in their regular life and then come to the group, receive particular experience, realizations, and support, after which they enter the world again and try to transmit to it the newly received integration experience.

Is it possible to join these two types of people in the courses of integral upbringing for the sake of collaborative actions in the world?

Answer: For the time being we only put such people into groups, which organize joint trips, conventions, and various games. In combining their efforts and material resources, they create a certain prototype of a future society.

It is like a game where in the duration of a few days people unite in challenging conditions set up for them in advance. These conditions encourage them to unite, to mutually participate, to ascend above and exit from oneself, as well as help a person to feel just how much he or she is dependent on others. But all of that is still within the framework of so-called “laboratory” exercises, nothing more than that.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education,” 12/13/11

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Question: Suppose that for some time during the integral upbringing courses people “brew” within the group, studying theory and doing practical exercises. But naturally, a time then comes when a person has to study integrality, to exit into the big world, so to speak.

Answer: For that we gradually begin to merge and consolidate the groups, bring them onto television, to discussions in virtual networks. Integral education, the study of integral connection, continues practically throughout their entire life until one reaches the very last level of harmony in human society and in nature.

That’s why gradual consolidation of the groups requires such a state where a person feels equally included into and connected to absolutely all levels of humanity and senses all of humanity inside of himself. Each one of us feels like we exist within a “round” society, not classified by any levels such as emotional level, IQ coefficient, or some other criteria, in other words, in a society that is independent from any innate parameters that we are not yet able to transcend.

Within an integral society, this mutual inclusion assumes such development of a person that he or she is able to use the mind and feelings of another, and through his attitude towards others this person incorporates himself into them and begins to use these “foreign” resources as his own. In this event, the personal “I” disappears in the sense that a common feeling, reason, and heart arise. And it’s as if a person connects to this total unified virtual image of man called “Adam.” Then all the differences between people gradually level out.

These are going to be exactly the conditions that humanity can only dream about: Everyone has to be equal, everyone has to live in the same conditions, states, and so on. That is, each of us will draw from one single mind and feeling, as much as one is able and as much as one desires.

At the same time, nobody will feel lacking because everything will be provided for everyone—the great mind and the great heart will relate to all.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education,” 12/13/11

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The worsening economic crisis will leave a great number of people unemployed and virtually no one untouched by it; the need has arrived for both learning and education that will assist people in becoming adjusted to the new integral world. Learning is to obtain knowledge about the integral system and education is implementing this knowledge in practice.

The learning component should, first of all, comprise general knowledge which will renew all the foundations in a person: the history of humanity, geography, and such, to bring everyone, more or less, to the same level from which it will be possible to continue. It is possible that there will be a need for preliminary division into groups according to a person’s initial preparation and previous education level.

Those who completed high school, college, or university will have to go through courses at different levels. But first of all, everyone will have to receive some general education in order to refresh their knowledge. Even when one goes to a university, the first year is usually repeating what was already learned in high school.

Let’s say that it is a course in sociology about the new structure of society that helps a person to understand the structure of the new world. The world is divided into three areas: nature, humanity within nature, and man within humanity. We must research man to know a little about his physiology and psychology, to learn about the human society within nature: how the monkey once came down from trees to transform into man and went through several levels of development until its current state today. All of these are the results of the development of the ego. And here we need to provide information that is connected to history, sociology, and the development of society.

And then afterwards, we will approach the study of nature itself, the outcomes of its development from the beginning of the creation of the universe, the condensing of gases, the creation of the stars, the planets, planet Earth, and the development of life on Earth. Even if a person knows all of that, we must arrange this knowledge within one system so that he will understand the world he is living in.

We need to advance everyone so that even the most ignorant or the most educated professors who have become unemployed will have a common denominator, some common scope of information through which they will understand each other. This will include knowledge about man, society, nature, and the world.

We need to give a person broad knowledge of his psychology. This is very important. One must know the psychology of the individual, of the family, of the group as a small society, of the nation, and of the world. In addition to this, more advanced psychology is needed which is above the usual psychology we currently learn. This advanced psychology is called, “faith above reason,” meaning the psychology that is above the physical body. It is studied later on, but will need to follow the same flow.

Along on the way, there is a need for a great number of practical exercises: discussions about the psychology of family relationships, all sorts of situations and family conflicts, and children’s upbringing. We must learn how to understand the child; today we don’t understand the relationship between parents and children. By this we will already calm many problems.

In addition to this, we don’t just teach a person about social psychology, but also about the structure of society. Currently, a person doesn’t know how a government is run and how laws are made. You can’t refuse to study this like a man of the arts who doesn’t need to study mathematics. Here, each one will need to be acquainted, and not just a little bit, with the world in which he lives. We need to teach each child how a bank works and about other such systems in life.

I study human society: how it functions, how it is managed, how it makes decisions, who leads it, and what my place is in this society. All of this belongs to the structure of the system: how it is built today and what are the desired changes for the future.

These are not just courses. We are building the personality of a person. All of these subjects continue from grade to grade like in school. In each class they learn the same thing, only at a higher level. Most importantly is that every time we increasingly connect them together so that all are intertwined so that eventually he views the world as one integral whole.

The main achievement at the end of these courses is to receive a complete view of the world where there is no separate physics, geography, biology, man, government, and society—all are together as one.

Then it is possible to explain how the ego operates here, the desire to receive, and the Light that bestows on me, how I influence it. Man, society, and the world, without special words, turn into being: me, the group, and the Creator. In this manner, we are advancing towards a world view without Kabbalistic concepts and reminders of the wisdom of Kabbalah, but by learning about the real system of life.
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From “Lessons About a New World” 12/1/11

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