Entries in the 'Integral Upbringing' Category

Education: The Main Law Of Modern Times

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In what form should the structure of integral upbringing be introduced in a smaller town? Should a prepared team of specialists be invited there?

Answer: It is impossible to provide a town with a population of 50,000 with an army of visiting specialists. It is impossible to fathom the unfathomable.

At the maximum, a team of twenty should be invited, and all the rest would be through the virtual delivery of knowledge. Then, people should be gathered in big groups to lectures and to events such as festivals and public parties under the auspices of integrality.

It is necessary to simultaneously train local specialists. In the same manner as there are municipal workers everywhere, the city also should have specialists on integral upbringing who will be continuing to educate children, elders, and the entire population. It is necessary to provide them with media materials, and overall to lay a foundation for this process to continue infinitely.

Question: When such action takes place, at first, people feel enthusiastic as they join the common action. Then the guests from the capital leave and this wave of enthusiasm recedes. What is to be done next so that it does not dwindle to nothing?

Answer: I think that integral upbringing should be accepted as a law without which society can no longer exist. That is, it must be the most important, principal law of the city or society, founded upon compatibility, integrality, and on mutual complements and voluntary participation.

Everything that is done today by various agencies and decided in courts, police and other authorities will be decided on a completely different level. However, a serious education department is needed for this. Thus, it is crucial to create a budget, material incentives, and the content for the entire system that will be engaged in education.

Question: Is the education department a separate agency?

Answer: I think that it should not report to anyone, only to the country’s common upbringing center.

Question: What about economists?

Answer: They cannot do anything because local ideological departments do not report to anyone but the main ideological center. I cannot imagine that it could be any other way.

Economists cannot direct education. They cannot meddle with the process of upbringing and education in schools. If any problems arise, they either should be solved together or at a higher level, but one does not loom over another.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #23, 3/2/12

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Europe: The New Economic Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Bloomberg Businessweek): “It’s just after lunchtime on a drizzly day in the Amsterdam suburb of Bos en Lommer, and the line of people waiting to fill their bags with free rice, juice, potatoes and bread is lengthening.

“The market is one of 135 food banks in the Netherlands bailing out people trying to survive on less than 180 euros ($234) a month, the threshold to qualify for the aid. Organizers say demand for the service rose 20 percent in the first quarter…

“Europeans everywhere are changing jobs, homes and habits to accommodate lower pay, shifting markets and slowing economies. …

“The crisis is now at the door of nations previously considered invulnerable such as the Netherlands. …

“‘The lines will get bigger and bigger as more people lose their jobs and have trouble paying their rent or mortgage,’ said Piet van Diepen, a food bank board member.

“In the Netherlands, more than 23,000 people get aid from the food bank, he said. The numbers also are increasing in places such as Britain, where figures showed this month that the economy has slipped back into recession amid the biggest budget cuts of any of the 10 largest EU countries.”

My Comment: This could be an opportunity to send these people to courses on integral upbringing. In a few months, the face of Europe could change. Social relations, mutual guarantee, communication, and sense of community would lead to the similarity to the fundamental law of nature of unity and cooperation.

To that extent, we would feel that social and political tension decrease, and we would discover new mechanisms of the regulation of social life. As Baal HaSulam writes, the country that decides to implement the system of uniting society through the education of its citizens will become the most prosperous and exemplary country in the world in a few months.
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A New Person For The New Epoch

Dr. Michael LaitmanA major problem at the moment is the sharp rise in unemployment caused by the economic crisis. After all, we have built a society in such a way that it is producing more and more products and stuffing each person with everything possible. In doing so, we have abused our capabilities and produce an endless stream of things that people throw away as soon as possible to buy new ones, all for the enrichment of the manufacturers.

However, the crisis has come and the demand is no longer what it should be in a large, developing consumer society. On the contrary, society is reducing its consumption and as a result everything is slowing down and crumbling. Industry is weakening, companies are going bankrupt and dragging down the financial system: banks, insurance, and investment firms. As a result, experts estimate that only 10% of the world population will be working to provide us with all the necessities for life, and the work of other people will simply not be needed.

So suddenly, we find millions of people remain free from work. However, there is a method according to which millions of industrial and office workers who are leaving the job market and becoming free from work will be able to start a new work. From now on their task will be to form our balance with the nature, to initiate social and human changes. It is necessary to create a new human being for the new era that we are entering.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” #20, 3/28/12

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A Never Ending Game

A Never Ending GameQuestion: During the process of upbringing, a person has to learn certain models of behavior. What are these models of behavior?

Answer: These elements of behavior are commutation laws, something similar to the multiplication table. Primarily, it’s individual readiness to enter others, to feel another as your partner in the same tuning process.

When we meet people in our egoistic world, we enter into a certain contact with them. For example, we smile in order to first establish a purely visual connection and later, an emotional one. Only after that we begin to perceive each other more closely. The same happens here.

When I speak about groups and societies, I am referring to a multitude of groups, which will become acquainted with each other, connect, and work together, either by merging or mixing with each other, to the point of creating enormous conventions and festivals, when different groups with identical preparation come together and perform certain actions with each other.

In other words, here we are already dealing with thousands of people in a certain limited space, who have to interact with one another. At the same time, we can involve them in special states and games in order to overcome a variety of problems and processes. Besides, these problems and processes must be natural and not artificial. For example, electricity suddenly disappears, or a certain danger appears, or the other way around, a certain opportunity arises, meaning someone finds treasure somewhere. How do we interact in this situation?

We create different conditions of play and excitement for them, we try to get them out of the altruistic habits they are accustomed to and once again make them dependent on each other as egoistically as possible. At the same time, we observe how they overcome these states, then forget about them, and once again attempt to excite themselves, to remember, and to climb out of their egoism in an attempt to find new strengths within for absolutely unexpected situations.

There are many opportunities for people here. I think that the most important thing is to work through these situations because like a child, when a person plays, he ultimately corrects himself, his nature. We think that it’s just a game, but in reality this is an enormous universal goal to correct human egoism, besides for which nothing else exists. Everything else is the still, instinctive nature.
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From “A Talk on Integral Upbringing” #16, 2/27/2012 

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The Internet As The Means Of Attaining The Goal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the role of the Internet in integral interaction? After all, there must be a reason for its very rapid development.

Answer: I think that integral learning courses will be constantly broadcast. However, the learning process, whereby we can watch the broadcast at any time convenient to us in every part of the world, is not the only thing that matters to us. There is also the possibility to transition from the perception of the virtual world and the real world to the perception of a single world. This is a third world where we perceive the new reality as boundless, when we come out of ourselves and begin to perceive the world outside of time, space, and movement in a new sense, the quality of bestowal, which can’t be measured in meters, seconds, or speed.

In the end we come to a state when through using all virtual possibilities in the learning process, we gradually come to a world where all the electronic methods of communication become replaced with our inner qualities. And the need for technical means of communication will simply disappear since I will begin to perceive absolutely all the worlds together with my new inner altruistic integral vision, not just our world, our space, our universe, or our globe.

Of course, for now we naturally need all the virtual possibilities the Internet provides so we can learn. But later, as soon as a new perception of self and space begins to appear in a person, he will exist in it without occupying himself with these electronic toys. We will reach this very quickly.
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From “A Talk on Integral Upbringing” #16, 2/27/2012

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The Clear Future Of City U

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Water in Russia is almost free. In other words, it is an unlimited public resource. However, recently, a water pipe burst somewhere in Russia, and mineral water prices rose tenfold immediately. Water has become a limited resource.

Why should men change and not increase the price of water by a factor of ten times its previous price if it has become a limited resource? Is it really possible to change the nature of people?

Answer: No, that is absolutely impossible. It can be achieved only through a gradual reconstruction of our consciousness, when we enter a completely different force, an environment where we completely depend on one another.

Let’s move away from the sellers and shortages and take a different look at the problem. Imagine that we exist on Earth in a limited number, and we all are interconnected. How can we build a society where all of us would have a reasonable and sufficient level of existence regarding healthcare, heat, food, clothing, shelter, safety, and so on? How can we achieve this without taking our interconnection into consideration?

Question: Theoretically, everyone understands this, but prices of water are rising in the city of Uryupinsk where the pipe has burst.

Answer: This is natural. We cannot jump over this stage. In this case, we must provide mankind or that very same Uryupinsk with integral upbringing. We must change the system of human relations within it to the point of making a person realize that his advancement toward happiness depends on his being going hand-in-hand with others. There is no other way for us to enter the integration of the world that now is being offered to us.

Question: Let us say that I arrive in Uryupinsk ten years after the introduction of integral upbringing there. Suddenly, a water pipe bursts, but the cost of water remains the same. What needs to happen to the city for this to happen? What will make life in this city turn upside down?

Answer: Life is overturned because people always think about themselves and providing for themselves in a way that problems will not separate people. First of all, everyone must be ruled and controlled by constant balance and integration. The bursting of a pipe is a common problem, a common disaster, and we pay for it together.

Question: How does a storeowner need to change in order not to rewrite price tags?

Answer: I do not think that this is up to the storeowners. When we speak of a society where everything is interconnected, we refer to a society of reasonable consumption.

The thing is that I am speaking of a distant future, not something that will happen in ten years. We must go from one type of society to another.

We must build it so that all the people within it are mutually balanced, which means that they would have absolutely equal rights and equal benefits, that they would reasonably consume what they need without producing absolutely unnecessary types of goods, embellishments, and things just because someone wants to profit from them.

There will be practically no advertising. We produce a necessary amount of goods, products, and everything else in the exact quantities that a person needs to exist normally on the corporeal level. Right now, we are speaking about satisfying our fundamental, basic needs.

Question: I remember that this is the way it was in the Soviet Union, but sailors would bring in suitcases of jeans and sell them at insane prices.

Answer: The thing is that, in the past, we were forced and limited in every way by the government. We were completely unprepared for the change of this paradigm.

Today, practically in all the countries in the world, we live in a society that is in a state of depression, a society that understands that this path of development leads to a dead end. A society of unlimited consumption that constantly sucks everything it can from the ground and contaminates it cannot exist.

The main thing is that nature is showing us that today we are becoming integrally connected. If we were to take any integral system, be it a mechanical, electrical, or absolutely any system, all the elements in it are completely interconnected. They mutually define one another and take care of the operation of the entire system. This is an analog system where the entrance and the exit are the same. Everything is built on the balance inside the system.

How can we see our future in this analog, integral system? Every part must feel that it is a part of a common organism. When a pipe bursts somewhere, it must be the first to plug the hole. In other words, all the parts together strive toward this. This is a common problem, and the entire system experiences it. It is not just a problem of someplace, somewhere.

Question: We are painting a desirable picture.

Answer: It is a necessary one because nature demands this of us, and it will continue pushing us toward this with a stick! What will we do with this challenge that nature is throwing us?

If we begin to penetrate the system, we will begin to see certain ins and outs, and a gradual coming together. This, of course, will take many, lengthy years, but this is evolution. Moreover, the interesting thing is that, if we only were to begin to move in this direction, we already would be in search of balance with nature. We would begin being in balance and homeostasis with it, and thus, would evoke positive forces over us.
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From KabTV’s “Global Crisis: The Deficit of Resources” 3/1/12

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Organizers Or Educators?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If we implement integral education and need to seat ten to twenty thousand people on the school bench at the same time, does this mean that we need a huge number of organizers?

Answer: I don’t think that it will be possible to make the population sit on the school bench with the help of organizers. We must prepare very broad introductory materials relative to what we are about to do in a town in order to awaken social interest in the public, both financial and ethically. This means showing them the benefit of their taking courses in integral learning and even in passing the exams.

We must introduce encouragements such as certificates or diplomas so that people will have an incentive to advance. Parents should be encouraged through their children by children being proud of their parents’ involvement with integral education, and, of course the opposite, that parents would feel moral damage if they don’t participate in the process of integration.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #23, 03/03/12

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Retirees Forward!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should the studies in integral education be organized for retirees?

Answer: With retirees, it’s not possible to study through television communications, through screens. You need to stand in front of them live so that they can feel you. It’s possible to introduce a combined study system, varying study with a teacher and virtual lessons.

Teaching retirees, the teacher simultaneously chooses from the group who is suitable for teaching. These people are easily and quickly discernible: They usually sit in front and listen to the teacher attentively. Likewise, they immediately sign up to be his helpers, quickly grasp the study material, and within a short time they’re able to give lessons on their own. In addition, we must prepare flyers and newspapers, organize convenient and accessible kits of video materials that will always be with them.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #23, 03/03/12

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Teaching Personnel

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In integral learning, is it possible to use the educational infrastructure that already exists: schools, universities, teachers, and professors?

Answer: I believe that all teachers during the process of integration should try to adapt it quickly and everyone must work with his or her niche. Since there are many materials from other sources in integral upbringing and education: physics, chemistry, biology, geography, natural science, etc., it would be very desirable for teachers to continue to teach their subjects, and at the same time to also acquire a certain level of integral knowledge, which they would implement in their classrooms. This comes first.

Second, there are teachers, who can quickly adapt the integral method to teaching while taking courses of integral education, and in their turn, they would become educators and teachers of integral learning. And then there would be a constant supply of personnel.

Question: How can teachers be applied in the beginning of the educational process?

Answer: First of all, they continue to do their regular work, they do not stop doing it. Teaching children in schools must continue.

And integral method studies must be simply added everywhere they can be added, they must be implemented in all possible productive and educational processes, but never in a way that can harm them—it must be done as gently as possible.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #23, 3/3/12

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A Look At The Family From The Height Of Global Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanToday, the happiness of man depends on his relationship with the environment, on whether he finds his proper place in society. And so we see that gradually a person leaves the little family unit.

At first all of life was connected with family, not only women, but men as well. The husband would leave to some factory in the morning to return in the evening to his wife, children, and the household, and all of life was revolved around it.

But this pastoral idyll ended. We left our homes for the wide world, began travelling and experiencing the world. On the other hand, thanks to modern means of communication, this world has begun entering our homes. As a result, we all ended up being interconnected through industrial, economic, and financial relationships. The circle closed, and all of us, both men and women who want to connect, must unite and through this connection, return to the familial connection, but on a new level.

For this to happen, everyone should examine: where we live, in what state, in what kind of world do we find ourselves, why do certain processes take place in the world, and what do we need to do? In what way does nature move us forward, giving us no opportunity to resist? Then, we will see that we need to establish tighter connections through media and specialized education.

In the end, we who once headed for the world, freed from home and family ties, will return back home free and independent. Once again, we return to a more quiet and slower-paced life, in connection with each other, but in a different form. Each of us will remain free, and based on this freedom, understanding, and vision of the future, we will establish for ourselves a connection between all people around the Earth and within each family.

Man suddenly sees that family offers meaning; there are great benefits and a better life in a family. Then, he will find a partner close to him in this new spirit that he has acquired based on integral education, and he will re-build the family. [Read more →]