Question: Humanity has already experienced serious economic crises, but it has always found a solution. It even managed to overcome the Great Depression of the 1930’s. But today we claim that we have to correct man. This doesn’t sound rational…

Answer: I see it differently: the cause for all the problems we encounter today is man. In earlier days there were different external causes of the crises, but in the modern age it has become clear that the source of all the trouble is man who doesn’t find the right way and doesn’t understand where he is. The human is the worst being; he cannot get along with others, and he is the one who blows up this bubble, and it is beyond his powers to fix the system.

It would seem that the flaws of human society are evident, and we just need to correct them, but we don’t know how. New problems keep appearing and when we cannot solve them we feel that we are weak as we confront them. This means that the main problem is in us.

We cannot, for example, unite Europe so that it would become a true united alliance of countries that will not deceive one another or humiliate each other but would work as one unit. But nothing happens; each country pulls the blanket in its own direction instead of giving it to another, and as a result no one gets it and everyone is in trouble.

What is Europe actually missing? It has agriculture, industry, different services, relations between countries, transportation systems, trains, planes; everything is there. For a good life, the only thing missing is the right connection between people and nothing more. Everyone lacks this: the tycoons, the poor, those on the right and those on the left of the political spectrum.

So is there another means for correction besides educating people? With the proper education, Europe could arrange a paradise. But instead, despite the material wealth in Scandinavia, the rate of suicide is higher than in the southern countries fraught with high unemployment and unrest. In Greece the situation has become a humanitarian disaster—people literally cannot feed their kids. Babies are abandoned on the streets so that the state will take care of them, and the poor are so desperate that they break the law so that they’ll be put in jail.

So what can we do? Correct man!

After all, the natural resources are enough for everyone; someone has salt, for example, and another has meat, and another has fire, and someone else has vegetables, but we cannot come to an agreement so that we can cook soup for everyone. Everyone holds on to what he has, and eventually everyone is left with nothing; after all, you cannot be satiated by salt or by raw meat.

This situation will only get worse since this is nature’s plan, until we understand that without the right connection we will simply die.

As for earlier crises, they are not comparable to the current crisis. Today’s crisis depends on the correction of man and is the most difficult with regard to its solution.

In the 1930’s, capitalistic evolution was still burgeoning with ambitious plans and hopes and the sudden collapse did make people feel terrible. Today human beings are disappointed in their own desires and are prepared for the worst in advance. We don’t feel “new heights of consumerism” are ahead of us, only deepening gloom.

This happens so that we will realize the essence of the modern crisis is different than the earlier crises; it is developing on a totally different level, in another field. It develops in man, and so it isn’t about the banks and about other external symptoms of the illness. If we fight the symptoms, we will not be able to cope with the crisis. The only way is to correct the relationships between people.

We will die of hunger unless we unite and “cook the soup” together. This state is profoundly different than what it was in the past. Once people wanted more and were left with nothing, which brought about despair, unbearable sufferings, and often suicide.

Today a person has no such ambitions and he already knows that soon there will be nothing to eat. It’s as if he is shown in advance how he gradually will enter his grave. This is being shown so that everyone will gradually understand where we are headed. Nature teaches us step by step and reveals the current state to us, explaining what we should do.

This process won’t end at once; it will last for another year or two, until people feel that there is no end in sight to their troubles, until they find themselves at a snail’s pace of not sinking into grave conditions.

We aren’t completely aware of the results of the crisis. We don’t pay attention to the plants that are being shut down, to the decrease in business activities, and the collapse in various areas. Gradually, however, the world will fall into a deep dark sleep before our very eyes. Until people acknowledge that the problem is in them, it’s not in their power to “stir” the world despite its great abundance.

“So why don’t we get anything out of it? Here is the meat, the water, the fire, and the vegetables—so let’s cook a delicious soup…” it will take time until they finally agree to that. We haven’t had such a crisis yet.
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From the 4^th Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: Our main instrument is our inner changes that we go through and our desire to reveal the Creator to others. How can we convey this from our Kabbalistic group into the integral education we conduct for the masses?

Answer: By no means can we do this since the masses don’t have an internal desire for the Creator, they don’t need it. For example, at the Arava Convention, we saw antelopes. If you had a desire to talk about them, I would gladly discuss their beauty and grace with you. However, you don’t have this desire, so I don’t work on it.

If you have no desire that stems from within, from your genes, hormones, and Reshimot, if you don’t have even the slightest aspiration for the upper, spiritual world, I shouldn’t be talking with you about it because I will never get any response from you.

Question: But don’t we go to the 99% wishing to reveal the Creator to them instead of just improving their material life?

Answer: This is wrong! A person is a set of desires. If one lacks the spiritual level of desire, meaning this kind of desire still sits very deep inside and is not yet revealed, then I shouldn’t try to wake it up. I won’t talk with this person about the Creator at all. All I want is to make him connect with others.

Being inside of this material egoistic union, he will eventually sense that it works well: “It’s good that we are together!” Then, he will start sensing that being “together” is great in general, irrespective of the material profit he gets out of it. It will become clear to him that this “togetherness” has a certain flavor, which all of a sudden starts fulfilling him.

You should constantly send a message to the masses about connection and unity; they will get it through you. Without you, they won’t be able to do a thing. You should work as transmitters of the Light from the Creator through the group to the masses. You are valuable to them since you have the group, and inside it, you can receive power and channel it to AHP, meaning to this mass.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing,” 1/20/13

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Question: A new form of work has developed, “remote work or telecommuting” when an employee does not go to the office, but stays at home at his computer and goes to the office a couple times a month. Is this good or bad?

Answer: I think that in this case a person will still suffer from depression and emptiness. He needs to feel an integral connection. Working alone will not be effective enough. Today it is relevant because it is convenient for an employee, for an employer, and for a mother with children, but this is a temporary process.

In any case, a person will need to be integrated into a system, either at the place of residence or on the basis of something else. He must constantly fulfill his new desire, feel that he is inside an integral system. After all, the integral egoism that appears in us will still lead us to this. We are not free; nature develops us in this way.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13

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Opinion (Joseph Stiglitz, professor of economics at Columbia University and Nobel laureate): “The long malaise into which the economy seems to be settling, and the growing divide between the 1 percent and the rest — an inequality not only of outcomes but also of opportunity. To me, these problems are two sides of the same coin: with inequality at its highest level since before the Depression, a robust recovery will be difficult in the short term, and the American dream — a good life in exchange for hard work — is slowly dying.

“There are four major reasons inequality is squelching our recovery. The most immediate is that our middle class is too weak to support the consumer spending that has historically driven our economic growth. …

“Second, the hollowing out of the middle class since the 1970s, a phenomenon interrupted only briefly in the 1990s, means that they are unable to invest in their future, by educating themselves and their children and by starting or improving businesses.

“Third, the weakness of the middle class is holding back tax receipts. ….

“Fourth, inequality is associated with more frequent and more severe boom-and-bust cycles that make our economy more volatile and vulnerable. … The International Monetary Fund has noted the systematic relationship between economic instability and economic inequality, but American leaders haven’t absorbed the lesson.

Inequality leads to political inequality and a broken decision-making process. High unemployment, of course, depresses wages. Adjusted for inflation, real wages have stagnated or fallen. … Since the Great Recession, most of the increase in the nation’s wealth has gone to the very top.

“Meanwhile, as incomes have stagnated or fallen, tuition has soared. … We could have recognized that when young people are jobless, their skills atrophy. We could have made sure that every young person was either in school, in a training program or on a job. Instead, we let youth unemployment rise to twice the national average.  The children of the rich can stay in college or attend graduate school, without accumulating enormous debt, or take unpaid internships to beef up their résumés. Not so for those in the middle and bottom. We are sowing the seeds of ever more inequality in the coming years. …

“Globalization, and the unbalanced way it has been pursued, has shifted bargaining power away from workers: firms can threaten to move elsewhere, especially when tax laws treat such overseas investments so favorably. This in turn has weakened unions.”

My Comment: Inequality is the principle criterion of our world—egoism; it can be eradicated only through integral education which everyone should go through so that humanity can get rid of its evil and survive.
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Question: Would it be worthwhile for business people to change their direction now, to diversify and turn to some kinds of essential production?

Answer: In the new integral system, unnecessary businesses, unnecessary profession, and unnecessary jobs will automatically be discarded. After all, we are approaching this and in the end of things, humanity will only produce essential food goods, products, and services.

Question: Will the result be that trade as we know it and brokerage services will disappear?

Answer: No, they will remain. There are numerous connections in trade and in brokerage services. But in the same trade and intermediary services there is a set of completely unnecessary contacts, companies, and industries that fill artificial niches. As a result of integral development, all of that will gradually disappear as is already evidenced by the level of increasing unemployment.

People begin to demand higher fulfillment, instead of continuously purchasing more and more. It will become increasingly revealed to man that the level of consumption doesn’t exceed rational consumption. I need to feed my “animal,” to maintain my body, my children, family, and relatives. This is essential, but this is the animal level of our state.

And today a new level is already discovered where I need to receive fulfillment not from purchasing a better car than my neighbors, etc. I suddenly begin to feel within me such an emptiness that I can fill only with close contact with the community, through mutual integration in a common connection.

The feelings of confidence, security, warmth, generosity, and kindness are what is missing now in the society. But in the meantime they are not aware of it. We see this according to the programs that are shown on TV, according to how the media distorts people, etc. But still, it’s true because it’s necessary for people to understand as quickly as possible in what kind of world they are living.
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From KabTV’s “Personnel Secrets” 2/3/13

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Question: (From a letter) Why should I go to work? What is the point? Of course the salary is important. But I could eliminate the cost of travel, stop buying clothes that I am constantly updating so as not to wear the same thing all the time, and stop buying expensive prepared meals—it turns out that I spend two-thirds of my salary just to be able to go to work—so wouldn’t it be better to become a janitor sweeping floors in the morning and having the rest of the day free, easily living on one-third of my current salary?

Answer: These sentiments belong not only to simple workers, but also to people in high positions who force themselves to go to work from fear of losing their jobs, or out of a sense of responsibility, or because talking to people gives them energy to live.

But still, we are moving in the direction of human transformation, people develop absolutely new demands for new kinds of fulfillment. This is not for financial fulfillment; there is a changing inner need to change the quality of life. It is no longer determined by what you eat or drink, taking a walk in the evening, or buying something new. Its feeling arises in us as a new emptiness.

Question: But work fills the emptiness in us in many ways. Maybe the problem is that there is no time to just sit and think about something else, something more important?

Answer: But this is not a treatment, but just a distraction, like an analgesic drug, which will not solve the problem.

We see that many people are willing to work for free, just so their work would give them some kind of fulfillment.

We have new desires, new voids, that we must fill through society due to the integral connection we find ourselves in. Our past egoistic desires are transformed into new ones, which require being fulfilled through society and interconnection. We are still only in the beginning stages of this new integral egoism, but we can already feel it.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13

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Question: Why will inner integral changes benefit business people?

Answer: It will be very easy for them to find a common language with coworkers. They will enjoy the actual process of working together. They will find the motivation that is evading them today.

Today, the absence of motivation appears on every level of business: lack of desire, depression, fogginess, and apathy toward one another.

As the integral system begins to become more and more apparent, people lose their connection with one another, they become absolutely indifferent toward work, and they are unable to do anything about it even though this can get them fired. A person feels like he is not fulfilled and even his salary no longer matters to him.

We need to raise the awareness of everyone about the kind of system that they and the entire world are living in: all the little parts of the world spin in complete dependence on one another, like cogwheels. In an integral mechanism, any movement by any of us ideally determines the movement of everyone, and all inputs and outputs are absolutely and specifically connected between them.

This is why I recommend holding special events, workshops, where we can explain to people where mankind now stands.

During the workshop discussions, people gradually begin to feel this new unity, a new dependence on one another, where no one is above or below, where everyone is equal and interconnected, and everything depends on everyone. And this does not manifest through slogans or decrees, but in the actual collective body. People begin to feel motivation, a life force, a special attitude towards one another. They properly complement nature, the surrounding reality, and what exists between them.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13

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Question: What results from integral education workshops?

Answer: People begin to feel each other better and begin to reveal an integrated system that truly binds them together because we are in a system of the forces of nature that connect us. Until now, the principle of this system was, “who is faster, who is better, who is stronger, who is smarter,” and now it is interconnection. Interconnection makes people equal.

Today, you can be smart or rich or special in something, but, still, you do not succeed in life because success—content, happiness, a sense of a result—comes from the right interconnection. We must lead people to this.

They will begin to feel how interconnection, goodwill, a sense of common destiny, and a common movement give a person the fulfillment that makes him want to be in the team.
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From the KabTV’s “Personnel Secrets” 2/3/13

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Question: How would you characterize modern business?

Answer: The issue is that businesses are no longer able to remain as they were before when both the worker and the owner sought to gain and mutually to help each other. They knew that their mutual enterprise would bring them profits. Even if the profits weren’t equal between them, they both still had an interest in it.

Today even though the owner thinks about profit, he no longer receives the same pleasure and fulfillment he once did. This has more to do with the pressure of the environment and the loss of the former interest in work so that today, all in all, the internal fulfillments disappear.

The same thing happens to the employee. He goes around and does what he is asked to do, but he doesn’t feel that the work itself gives him satisfaction. In the past the majority of people were satisfied with their jobs and engaged in them with enthusiasm and passion since people were not as egoistic.

All of us develop in the general stream of humanity according to the growth of the ego that for centuries steadily increased.

A human being is a special “animal” who from generation to generation discovers a new ego. Thus children don’t understand their parents and the parents don’t understand their children. This is something that doesn’t exist with animals. In the world of animals, the development of the ego actually doesn’t exist at all. Compare any animal to what it was a thousand years ago and the difference is not great, whereas human beings understand each other less and less, even in proximate generations.

Moreover, the growth of the ego occurs in the form of sharp increases, exponential growth. From the slow development that lasted thousands of years, the ego suddenly rose sharply during the Middle Ages.

As long as the ego simply rose higher, it was good for everyone, there was a mutual interest to fulfill it and somehow to work with it. But beginning in the 50’s in the previous century, the interest began to fade: we closed space programs, we began to see the crisis in all areas of life, in science, in technology, in the family, in education, and in all areas of human activities. This means that our ego, in general, suddenly became unknown to us. Suddenly we lost the exact direction in life.

The reason for this is that the ego turned into being integral. Instead of growing in a linear fashion, it suddenly became “rounded,” and we don’t understand how to work with it.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13

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Question: What is “round” egoism?

Answer: At present, all humanity has become a common globally interconnected system. Our dependence on each other is manifested in everything: in business, culture, communication, politics, and the economy. But we do not know how to work with it because we are small individual egoists. And now, as we are entering this new system, we do not understand its laws because we are transitioning from a linear, discrete system to an analog system.

In a discrete system, everything depends on me, on my actions, and in a mutually closed, interdependent system, little depends on me. It turns out that if I relate linearly, directly, discretely to my enterprise, business, I see myself dependent on many factors, which I cannot calculate.

That is why politicians, economists, and investors get together at all sorts of G8 and G20 summits and cannot find any viable solutions to continue a normal operation of the system. After all, the law, which we suddenly face in our development, became integral.

An analog system is different from a discrete system because all the factors in it are dependent on each other. But we cannot take into account such a volume of data because within ourselves we are not like that; we have not ascended yet to that level. That is why we have lost the reins, the steering wheel, the ability to manage, and the world around us becomes unmanageable; we do not know exactly where we are being carried. There is no clear entrance-exit; there are just some consequences that we have not foreseen. It is very difficult to live in such a world.

That is why it is necessary to think about how we can still adapt to this new state, a new system, in which we suddenly find ourselves. It is the next level of our development, which has never existed in human history. But now it is already a given.
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From KabTV’s “Personnel Secrets” 2/3/13

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