Entries in the 'Integral Upbringing' Category

A Reason To Be Joyful

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If a person correctly implements the method of integral education and takes part in it, he then gets a feeling of joy that has become rare in every day life. Can you say a few words regarding this feeling?

Answer: We are created in a way that our desire is fulfilled through the integral sensation of one general desire and one general thought. The revelation of this next level, the Creator or Nature, fulfills absolutely all of our emptiness. For this reason, a person that is moving in the direction of integral fulfillment feels total comfort and most importantly, he rises above all the limitations of our world such as time, place, distance, and motion. He gradually stops sensing his body because he perceives everything in the integral desire and not his individual desire. He no longer senses death because he begins to exist on the next level prior to the death of his physical body.

There are discoveries ahead that every one of us subconsciously dreams about. We hope that we’ll be able to show it to people clearly and that they’ll understand that nature is presenting them with a great finding. Millions of years of our development have only been leading us to this. Now we are about to enter a new world.

The convention and everything that we’re doing today is meant to reveal our birth. Just like a baby has to make a transition from its mother’s womb to the world, we have to put in all of our effort in order to finally be born, and then it will become simple for us to explain this to others. I hope for this to happen soon.

Question: So we do have a reason to be joyful?

Answer: The interconnection and interdependence that the world is now discovering, its inability to exit from a dead end that egoism leads us to, and the method that is gradually being revealed to the world will all soon become connected within human consciousness. Thereby, we will be able to sense the solution to the problem and will begin to realize it in full force.
From the Fundamentals of Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/11

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The Invaluable Benefit Of Excursions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What other sections are included in the course on integral upbringing?

Answer: The most important part in our studies is to realize, in theory and practice, the integration of all people among themselves, regardless of age or gender: men, women, and children. Studies, psychological trainings, taking this message to the masses and smaller groups, and the creation of brand new means of mass media that would educate a person rather than deform him, all this should be our main and primarily practical course.

The other courses we discussed also include practical studies with children and adults conducted by a psychologist. But the courses mentioned above are the main ones.

Also included as a major component in children’s upbringing are excursions to plants, factories, planetariums, and other places. We introduce children to agriculture and the animal kingdom to show them how nature exists in its pure form and why the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature develop the way they do with respect to one another. The tools we use to this end include educational films, excursions to the woods, the lake, the sea, and so on with explanations and very precise and correct conclusions about integration and interconnection in nature.

Then we continue with studying the human society: how it evolved from the animate part of nature, came out of the caves, came down from the trees, and what it achieved in its development, that is, what we built for ourselves to replace the lairs that were our homes, the enterprises we founded to no longer have to hunt mammoths, and how we established our interconnected, mutual assistance and support. We study the structure of all sorts of medical, financial, industrial, and research institutions, how supply and demand works, and how humanity is connected via all these systems. And, of course, we study the universe.

In our efforts to examine life and the world, we conduct very serious excursions, and not only for children. We see how excursions expand the children’s perspective and turn them into thoughtful adults. After each excursion we require the children to make a report including: where they were, what they saw, and why things work this way or that. That is followed with a discussion. All these things together ensure a very thorough grasp of the material. An excursion itself may happen no more than once per week because it takes time to discuss it, write compositions on the subjects, and so on.

The same applies to adults who are also of the opinion that pastries grow on trees, meaning that they are not familiar with production processes and have no clue as to what humanity does for them. Excursions for adults also lead to integrality and interdependence, which is why the understanding that you exist thanks to the entire world that works for your benefit is crucial from the standpoint of education, moral support, and the feeling of cooperation. If we present this information to the person in this manner, his outlook on everything in the world changes drastically.

The most important part that stems from these excursions is that we then scrutinize whether we need this particular enterprise or not, whether it’s a necessity or an indulgence that we can do without, not at our expense, but simply because we wouldn’t miss it if it were gone. Thus we gradually teach the person to pay more attention to the inner world, and not the external one.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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The Particulars Of An Integral Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Behavioral psychology speaks of a so-called “triangle of mutual understanding.” Two of its angles represent communication and empathy, and the third is a shared reality. In the integral upbringing, communication is conducted in a circle. From the point of view of behavioral psychology, it is assumed that in the process of growing mutual understanding, empathy increases too. Now a question arises: Is a shared reality that very integrality?

Answer: We must exist within it. Not inside ourselves, but outside of the self, within this shared reality that we create because this is precisely what objective reality is. Everything that exists inside of me is subjective, that is to say, pure lies. I lie to myself about building my own self. That world is absolutely unreal, invented by me.

Sometimes I am talking to someone and wonder about how differently we perceive the world. I am speaking about one thing, and he sees a completely different picture and talks about something else. And he is absolutely sincere, just like me, because each of us is coming from our own sensations.

Thus, it is necessary to rise higher, into the common desire, the common mind, the common heart and brain, and to observe the world from within the collective image of man that represents the totality of all of us. Then we will see the world as entirely different: not individualized, not distorted by our intrinsic, inner qualities.

If as many people as possible would gather into the common system of “man” (the joint image of man), then naturally, we will see a completely different picture of the world, universe, and ourselves. And it will be enormously different from what we see today. After all, the picture of the world depends on subjective perception, and psychologists know this very well.

We only need to show that if you take your inner desires and properties and compare them to others, that is, to the emerging collective image of man as a single whole, then from within it you will start to observe a truly different world.

You rise above yourself and distance yourself from your body, from your personal qualities so much that the body is no longer important to you. As we see from experience, it is very likely that it will start to be perceived as something foreign, like an animal that exists near you. When you enter that collective image of man, you see your body existing on an animate level. And the generalized image of man belongs to the human level.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Replacing Physical Connection

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: There is a person’s inner psychological world, but there is also a more external, social level that includes a family and interactions with loved ones. If a person exists within this integral system, does he perceive everyone as if they are his loved ones?

Answer: The sensation of “animal closeness,” the so-called closeness of blood kinship, completely disappears. All people become equally close. And with that we erase absolutely all boundaries.

I am not talking about parents and their children—those ties are very tight, but even they already manifest differently. We literally observe that in our experience.

We see that in today’s world the basic natural connections are breaking down; they are no longer as tight as they were before. Parents give their children away for other families to raise, abandon them. Children leave their parents too soon, they don’t feel a special connection with them. The connection between generations is disappearing.

It is as if nature itself pushes us toward this state from within so we would perceive everyone the same way. Naturally, our upbringing elevates a person above the animal connection.

By “animal connection” I mean a physical one. After all, by birth we belong to the animate degree. And the human level is a collective, generalized level in which we unite in a single desire and mutual ascent above our innate qualities.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Courses On Household Management

Dr. Michael LaitmanEvery course in the system of integral upbringing carries a tremendous load of meaning in changing each of us as a personality and as an integral individual within society. And from here spring the smaller, more practical courses on household management. That involves conduct in a family, between spouses, with children, and with parents, upbringing, and running the household. A great deal of questions of ethical and moral nature emerge here.

I think that all of these courses should be led by a psychologist, with many examples from our life: What was and what ought to be, how to build a bridge for transitioning from our past states (domestic, spousal, pertaining to housekeeping and children’s upbringing) towards new ones.

Children’s upbringing and the influence of parents on their children are considered separately. We do not tear the family apart, don’t exert any pressure on the parents, and don’t distance them from their children like it was done during the Soviet times when children were sent to boarding schools, or in the Israeli kibbutzim when they were simply taken from their parents and raised separately. Generally speaking, they pursued good goals, but everything came down to exerting force on an individual. It should not be this way.

Under no circumstances do we destroy a family. We simply teach people the correct inclusion into one another. They must merge together internally, connect in such a way that a family becomes a pillar of the integral society and embodies one unit, a single small system that would join together with other such systems.

Comment: How can this be done? How can they be joined?

Answer: If both parents and children complete essentially the same courses, except each according to his age and mentality, then there is no problem in them starting to change involuntarily and discussing these changes in their family circle. Shame and reproaches have no place here because the whole society is obliged to change.

Now we all have to play this game specifically in order to position ourselves under the kind influence of nature. Otherwise nature will force us to do this with its subsequent development showing our contradiction to it, and we will experience that as tremendous suffering.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Involuntary “Freedom Of Will”

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Where does the freedom of will lie?

Answer: A person in our world has no free will. He is born in an already completed state and develops the innate qualities with which he was born and which he did not choose himself under the influence of the environment. Neither his inner parameters nor the external ones that influence him are not chosen by him, and that is why there is no freedom in that.

The freedom exists only in selecting a specific environment so that it would shape me to be the way that I want to be. I choose my environment in accordance with the kind of individual that I wish to become.

There is a problem here too: On what basis do I think that precisely this environment suits me and not another? Basically, there are still many more internal clarifications here until a person develops fully and understand what he needs. In principle, one understands it in his heart, he senses it: Where exactly is my freedom of will. And this isn’t easy. But we must bring practically every single person to this state.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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The Desires That I Do Not Choose

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How detailed and broad should the basic course on “Evolution as Development of Egoism” be?

Answer: It should be as detailed and extensive as possible because all the other courses will stem from it and will be parts of the main course.

After this follows a course on the freedom of will: Does it exist, what it actually is. This course is very broad and contains many topics. We don’t just study whether or not free will exists and how and where it can be realized, but also precisely in which elements of nature it exists, does a human being have it, on what level of development, how to tell the difference between freedom of will and its absence, and so on.

After all, we don’t know where our desires arise from. It seems to me that they are my own, but in reality they come from outside. Where from? Why? Desires arise within me under the influence of the surrounding society: I watch TV and suddenly begin to desire what is being shown to me, and this is unconsciously perceived by me as my own desire. The next day I already want to acquire that which I saw on TV yesterday, and I believe that I’m realizing my own desire. We all understand that this is how we get bought and how things are sold to us.

All this must be explained because it’s tied to decision-making, to awareness of where my freedom of will lies, and whether I can be free from all the possible ideas and values imposed upon me, which in truth are neither values nor ideas, but simply business.

Every topic that we develop and teach provides a person with a vast realm of activity, and that is why the information has to be conveyed using a lot of examples and discussions. Sometimes when you just offer the material to a person from the lectern and head-on, he doesn’t absorb it. However, through some explanations, games, and situations he begins to understand what he was being told then.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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The Beginning Of Enlightenment

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I know from experience that a person is prepared to study if you explain to him why that’s needed. So why does he need a course on the evolution of egoism?

Answer: From this course he will learn not only the beginning, but also the end of this whole chain. He will feel himself existing within it. He will see where all of this is headed. On the basis of that he could make correct decisions regarding all his personal states.

Comment: Let’s say I learn how the planets got formed. How is this related to my life?

Answer: It’s a part of an overall worldview that slightly raises a person above his animal part. When he turns to look back a few billion years, and when he looks forward to tens or maybe even hundreds of years ahead, he begins to see this practically endless axis of time within which he exists at this moment—a small, weak, and dependent element. And from here a question arises in him: “Who am I?”

When he sees his pitiful condition upon this axis, it will be possible to start raising him above it into a new state where he will feel: “All of this is below me, I can be in control of it all, I am actually on a higher level and can exit the boundaries of time, space, and history.” This is the beginning of that enlightenment that will appear within him.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Harmony That We Create Ourselves

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What message should we convey to people in a course of rational economics?

Answer: We must relay very interesting statistics to them: the amount of resources humanity must spend, the efficient way to use natural and human resources, energy and so on. In other words, we teach people a course of harmony with nature, when we don’t take anything unnecessary from it, like animals.

After all, in our regular lives we are no different from animals. So why should we take from nature more than we need? An animal digs a hole for itself, stores food, procreates instinctively, raises its offspring, kills other creatures and eats them—but never in excess of its needs. And we must act the same way.

Everything must function only in harmony with nature. The only difference is that in our case this harmony must be something we achieve consciously, as opposed to harmony on the still, vegetative and animate levels, which is maintained instinctively. We must create harmony ourselves.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Recipe For Peace

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The extremist right wing movements in Europe are getting stronger. In general when a person doesn’t see a solution to a problem, he tends to accept the apparent simplicity of radical claims. How can we present our message in contrast to that?

Answer: First, there are many scientific facts. But scientists cannot provide a serious platform at the moment, and so we have to organize it in a way that will show the rational “grain” in our recommendations.

Besides, we shouldn’t forget that radical trends unite people on the one hand, but on the other hand lead to conflicts and wars. Here we have to explain that these tendencies are in contrast to nature. In the present conditions of total mutual connection, any conflict will lead to serious implications.

This is why Europe cannot break apart now. First, it isn’t in Germany’s favor. The Germans are ready to pay billion of Euros only to prevent that from happening. After all, they see where this will lead to: to losing their market. If you seclude yourself, the next day your economy will begin to suffocate. So everyone will lose as a result of the disintegration of the EU.

Day by day it becomes clearer that protectionism isn’t the solution to the current problems. It is used in a very limited manner, but on the whole, everyone already understands the fact that we are all mutually connected and that this connection cannot be broken. It can only be destroyed by war, meaning by extreme actions, but there are no intermediate ways.

I hope that we will be able to prepare our method and wrap it up in a way that will enable people to understand the basic idea. We offer, “Let’s check its effectiveness together,” “Let’s continue to develop it together,” as a result we need to create a platform that will lead the mutual connection among people to a new qualitative level, which is the basis for all the changes that will take place in the world, in humanity. [Read more →]