In our daily life, we constantly use examples of what we see around us. In any situation, instantly, subconsciously or even consciously, I see an image from a movie or something else, and I recreate it. If I had not seen it, I couldn’t play. I would be at the level of an animal, only at the level of instincts. Anything that is higher than instinct is borrowed from outside, from the surrounding society from which we draw examples.

We should give a person such good examples, so that he knows in every moment how to behave in order to be brought to the connection with others, and only that. He should be provided with plenty of examples, and then he would play them: one example, the second, and the third one.

Indeed, we don’t behave otherwise. Every time, we play a role that we have seen somewhere and that has become a kind of model for us: the way I sleep, eat, talk, and stand. On my own, alone, no matter how, I always rely on these external examples.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 7/8/12

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Question: When we looked at the system of child development, the stages are defined from the age of zero to three years, from three to six, etc. Are there any steps in family relationships?

Answer: Before marrying, I would strongly advise that all girls and boys take special courses where they study anatomy, physiology, psychology, and integral education. I would give them time, no marriage until they receive a diploma. Let them deal with each other as they want.

It’s a pity how much people spend time, resources, energy, and their health on the unsuccessful attempts to create a family. Still, it does not go unnoticed.

No matter who I talk to, everyone felt wounded, especially if they had children. You can divorce, but the children remain. Children consider the father’s leaving as betrayal. Even if he spent more time with them than living with them under the same roof, even if he showered them with presents, they would still think of him as a traitor. But if he lives in the family, though not giving them a lot of time and even punishing them, he is their father.

It is necessary to explain all this to young people, to show them scenes from life so that they feel that. Then, they will develop a completely different attitude to the union they are entering.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 7/8/12

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In the News (from The Atlantic, Psychological Science):

“PROBLEM: Happiness makes us smile, but can smiling make us happy? Even if it’s a fake smile because your mouth is propped open by chopsticks? There’s the standard smile which remains located in the muscles surrounding the mouth, and the genuine (or Duchenne) smile which spreads to the eyes, and at least anecdotally, they both look and feel warmer and more natural. Does one work better than the other?

“METHODOLOGY: In an experiment that was smile-worthy in its own right, researchers used chopsticks to manipulate the facial muscles of their 169 participants into a neutral expression, a standard smile, or a Duchenne smile. In addition to the chopstick placement, some were explicitly instructed to smile. Then, they were subjected to a series of stress-inducing, multitasking activities, which they struggled to perform while continuing to hold the chopsticks in their mouths. The subjects’ heart rates and self-reported stress levels were monitored throughout.

“RESULTS: The participants who were instructed to smile recovered from the stressful activities with lower heart rates than participants who held neutral expressions, and those with Duchenne smiles were the most relaxed of all, the most positive affect. Those with forced smiles held only by the chopsticks also reported more positive feelings than those who didn’t smile at all.

“CONCLUSION: When a situation has you feeling stressed or flustered, even the most forced of smiles can genuinely decrease your stress and make you happier.”

My Comment: Also the method of bringing people to the perfect state is based on the conscious correction of our nature, work on ourselves, when a new habit becomes a new nature, and repetitive actions show our qualities hidden from us.
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Question: Not many are attracted to the wisdom of Kabbalah today. Should we expect the awakening of new points in the heart according to our dissemination?

Answer: I don’t have an accurate answer for this question. I don’t want to say anything that Kabbalists didn’t write about. But you should understand that there is a hero in quantity and there is a hero in quality. It says: “You are the fewest of all the people.” So in the future there will also be few people, like the members of our groups all over the world and also “fans,” outer circles, that are not aimed at the wisdom of Kabbalah directly, but who listen to and support us and feel close to us.

We are very few, but strong and powerful in height, in understanding, in recognition, in our connection with Godliness. Through us, like through lightning, the forces will flow down to earth, the recommendations, the plans and events for the general public. Then when they will have no choice or perhaps because they may believe us, people will get used to our message.

If there is one sighted person who is leading a group of blind people, Baal HaSulam says they can follow him and be sure they will reach the goal. I don’t think anything will seriously change in this scenario.

We give lectures and hold roundtables, open courses, but not in order to bring people closer, not in order to draw them to our lines. On the contrary, we should work in their “territory,” and convey the general, “popular” method of correction to them and not our special method. Masachim (screens), Lights, vessels, Partzufim, restrictions, all this isn’t for them. People only need to know about the general connection that would ease the corporeal life.

This is our message to the public. We shouldn’t “inject” Kabbalah and the high material into them. We should speak to people at eye level, at the “pulse of his heart,” about what worries him: the education of his children, his daily troubles, etc.

We should emphasize and evoke his deficiency a little and show him that we can calm him and fill him by our method.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: When you say that man behaves as a barbarian, can you give an example so that it’ll be clear where barbarism is apparent between us?

Answer: Barbarism is apparent in the fact that we are using our egoism almost without any constraint. We love to brag about unimportant things such as wealth, power, and fame. A person’s cultural level, his internal wealth, his spiritual goal is not important to us, all of that has completely died out.

Culture has been dead for half a century ago and even more; it was buried by the two world wars. And we simply boast of our business, money, power, and fame. We think that this is a good example for the new generation growing up, that the man who is worthy of respect is one who can subjugate others to his control. After all, fame is also a kind of subjugation, just like power and money.

We have raised these three “values” into the ranks of absolute values and man lives for the sake of them. It turns out that the goal of life is in the obtainment of these three goals, if they can even be called a word such as “goal” at all.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 7/8/12

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Question: How should I see my other half to realize the integral principle in our relationship?

Answer: Both mutually rise above our egoism in each other, until you find such a point of tangency where you are one common whole. This is called “Adam” from whom through the means of splitting, man and woman occurred. In general, the “biblical” Adam is an integral structure, a “unisex” system. There is no woman and no man in it. Subsequently, this system has broken apart into two parts in order to reveal the complete set of their opposite qualities in the most maximum form.

This maximum opposition is what is being revealed today, since we can no longer be together in any kind of relationships. This can be seen in the flourishing of various kinds of unusual, unnatural types of sex, from the impossibility of being able to exist together, and from the ease and corruptness of connections, and so on. This means that we have arrived at a state where we have to begin to restore the structure of Adam from its complete opposition.

This is a very good state, similar to how a child is given a completely disassembled building block set or a puzzle so that he can assemble it together. It’s from this assembly that we’ll attain ourselves, nature, the Creator, and it’ll be clearer to us who we are and where we exist. In the end, we’ll attain the internal part of the world, its concealed force, current, plan, and we’ll be able to reveal for ourselves a completely different level of the universe, eternity, and perfection. All of this is possible. This is evidenced by science today.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 7/8/12

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Question: All seven billion people and all the levels of nature (still, vegetative, and animate) need to enter the common integral system. But the family provides for a form of relationship where there is a man and a woman, and then they have children. What is the special nature of this relationship?  Why is it that precisely two people participate in creation of a family?

Answer: This stems from our inner roots because there are two opposing forces in the world: the force of bestowal and the force of reception. Moreover, both reception and bestowal have within them the opposite properties: The property of reception contains the property of bestowal, and the property of bestowal has the property of reception, and this is why they are able to mutually influence each other and combine together into various shades of interactions.

For this reason, in our world there is division into male and female, the average is not an option. Of course, in nature we can observe all kinds of transitions in various primitive animals: frogs, say, can change their gender depending on the developmental needs of their community.

But in principle, the more advanced the nature, the greater the divide between those who must connect as a couple for procreation, since the collection of properties in male and female individuals needs to be sufficiently opposite. After all, in combination with each other they should provide the opportunity for combinatorics to develop adequate diversity, species richness, properties, qualities, and individuals who would be able, through their continuing mutual interactions in all kinds of cross-transactions, to develop in such a way as to reveal all the properties of nature. This is a cardinal tenet of nature. The connections between the sexes, and even between the species, are directed precisely towards that.

The fact that we need to feed ourselves inanimate, vegetative, and animal food pertains to this as well. Moreover, we consume “human food” too, only not in form of a meal as such, but in form of energy, thoughts, and mutual inclusions, that is, in the form of us serving each other.

In this manner, the interaction doesn’t happen simply between the sexes, but is realized constantly and continuously between all parts of nature, on all of its levels.

Therefore it’s not enough to reduce everything to the fact that the male and female unite and produce offspring. In reality, nature includes in itself the integral interconnection of all levels: the still, vegetative, animate, and the human levels of desires and properties.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 7/8/2012

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Question: How often will the integral methodology be changing as we begin to work with it?

Answer: This methodology generally is not going to change. Possibly, its first part will be reducing because man will internally start to agree and understand what it is.

That is why, supposing, instead of ten lessons of an introductory course, only half an hour would be enough and maybe even less than that, since all of these facts will already “live” inside of people. They will already be feeling that egoism is evil and we have no way out, we cannot alter this world, it is simply not in our hands.

Meaning that they will come to such a state where they will actually want to hear something serious. And then from their internal disappointment, the feeling of complete hopelessness, they will be able to value what we are teaching them, where all of this comes from, what all of this is coming to, and what is the general picture of the world, integral and discrete simultaneously, consisting of small pieces.

Subsequently, it is these people, who will become the teachers of humanity.
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From the Virtual Lesson 7/15/12

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Question: Should the integral family courses be taught differently to men and women? After all, these are two different forces.

Answer: Here, there is no distinction. For the first time we are coming to equality in the world, when all are equal. In the system of integral upbringing, everyone studies on equal terms: a child, an adult, an elderly person, a husband and a wife, a man or a woman, married or single. The most important thing is to have someone opposite you with whom you can work.

In a family we have such a partner naturally, and thus we have to start this education from the family. It would be good if every family started feeling a great need for this. The problem is to convince people who aren’t capable of it, who don’t want it, aren’t interested, and who think that through this, someone invades their territory or interferes with their private relationships.

Therefore it is necessary to explain from the very beginning that this method doesn’t imply airing their “dirty laundry.” We don’t touch this at all and don’t try to find out what’s happening between them in their family. We don’t persuade them to make concessions to each other, don’t ask about the past, and in general, don’t consider anything that happened until this moment. We teach them how to rise above everything from this point onward and how to never go poking around in that dirty laundry again.

Question: This is interesting because in other, conventional psychological courses, I was told many times that it’s necessary to talk about our problems and to let off steam. And indeed, this brings relief and takes a load off one’s heart.

Answer: But this is only a temporary relief, for some time, like reconciliation after tears. We really don’t need to rummage through our crimes against each other. After all, it is written that “love covers all sins,” and the greater these sins, the higher and greater will the love be when we rise above them. It turns out that these sins are actually helping me build love. And if they aren’t there, love won’t be strong either.

Thus, the sins need to remain. But it doesn’t mean that I must constantly remember about them—they will reveal themselves on their own, don’t you worry about that. However, I don’t stifle them, don’t release tension, but accept everything as is. I have a full wagon laden with my partner’s transgressions, but I cover this entire mountain with my love and come closer to him or her. And then my love becomes enormous, growing above all this heavy load.
[84372]
From a TV Program “A New Life” 7/11/12

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Opinion (Lester R. Brown, president, Earth Policy Institute, Washington, World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse): “In the summer of 2010, record high temperatures scorched Moscow from late June through mid-August. … The record heat shrank Russia’s grain harvest from roughly 100 million tons to 60 million tons. This 40-percent drop and the associated grain export ban helped drive world wheat prices up 60 percent in two months, raising bread prices worldwide. …

“If the July temperature in Chicago were to average 14 degrees above the norm, as it did in Moscow, there would be chaos in world grain markets. Grain prices would quickly climb off the chart. Food prices would soar worldwide. Many grain-exporting countries, trying to hold down domestic food prices, would restrict or even ban exports, as they did in 2007–08.

“Oil-exporting countries would try to barter oil for grain. Low-income grain importers would lose out. Instead of being dominated by scenes of smoke and fire in Moscow, the TV evening news would run live footage of food riots in low-income grain-importing countries and carry reports of spreading hunger, falling governments, and failing states. With governments collapsing and with confidence in the world grain market shattered, the global economy could start to unravel.”

My Comment: Nature forces us into the corner, and it will be doing this until we realize that we have to change ourselves instead of the world.
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