Today we are facing a serious economic crisis that will help us discover that by our unrestricted yearning for wealth, control, and technological advancement, we have confused ourselves and placed ourselves in a trap. We run around like a hamster on a wheel feeling that we constantly have to manufacture more and more products for which there is actually no real need.

But nature, compressing us into one ring, shows us that we have to start living like one harmonious family that needs only the normal basic necessities and no excesses. This means that we will have to reach the level of rational, sensible consumption. Of course, a person needs clothing, food, medical care, security and a job. But he doesn’t have to follow every advertisement, which for the sake of someone else’s gain convinces him that he really needs meaningless products, by constantly offering him new things and igniting his appetite.

There must be an end to this chase, and we are already starting to feel that global production is slowing down. As a result, many people are losing their jobs and are being thrown into the streets. The number of unemployed is in the millions and is growing day by day throughout the world. This trend will continue.

I believe that the crisis will be reflected in the family causing an opposite process. After all, women will begin to gradually return to the home. Men too, will spend more time at home. Life at home will be more balanced and the mad chase in which we wish to swallow the whole world will stop.

Then we will feel the desire to live in a family again, not like in the past, but in a more balanced, tranquil way. A person will start dealing with his internal development! He will live a balanced life with nature.

First we must reach a balance among us in our relationships by forming better connections in society. We must do that or we will simply not survive. The external harmony will change us internally and make us more tranquil and patient and teach us how to build our families based on such connections so that “love will cover all sins.”

Then we’ll be able to be more tolerant and learn to live in a family where everyone is free, but at the same time internally connected to a spouse. We’ll want to have children in such a family and will learn how to treat them and give them the right education according to the spirit of this new humanity.

It may well be that not everyone has understood this yet, but the old world no longer exists. In the new world we’ll be filled, not by running around from one place to another chasing money, status, and fashion. We’ll feel what lies behind all this emptiness and the filling that is on a higher, perfect, sublime level giving us a sense of upper harmony.

We’ll begin to feel a more internal reality, the harmony that exists in nature, and all thanks to the fact that we connect with others in mutual concern and mutual guarantee.

None of us has ever felt what true fulfillment is! Have we ever succeeded to fill ourselves in the chase after wealth, honor, control, and knowledge? Did you ever stop and say, “Now I am happy and I don’t need anything else”? There was never such a moment. We only keep on running, but we can’t fill ourselves.

Now we are about to rise to the next level of existence and to find out: what can a person enjoy, what can he be filled by? We’ll be filled by reaching the right connections among us because in the right connections and the ties among us we will reveal the wholeness of nature. This is the feeling of love that no one has known until now. I will enjoy my good attitude toward others and my love of others, and my desire to bestow upon them. If everyone treats others this way, everyone will be filled with this feeling of love.

Very little is needed in order to achieve this—only to learn how to do it! We have everything that we need: the method and the system of the integral education that can teach everyone. It’s an ancient method that has existed for ages, but it’s revealed only in our times because the world has reached such a state that it has become crucial for its existence.
[77043]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode19, 2/2/12

Related Material:
Schools Should Teach Children How To Become Human Beings
Cutting Off The Past In Order To Enter The Future
Today’s Families Need A Common Spiritual Foundation

Filed under: Crisis, Education, Integral Upbringing, Society, World - 1 Comment →

Question: Let us say that a big factory has closed down in a small town of fifty thousand people, and people have been left without work. What should we do? Should we inform people information that qualitative changes are coming on a global scale, or just put them before the fact?

Answer: What do you want the population to do, panic? Confusion, alcoholism, crime, collapse of the family unit, and so on, all social relations, even the concealed ones, immediately become aggravated.

You must first warn people, give them the remedy, and then tell them about the illness. We must have mercy on the poor population. This comes first.

Second, how do we do this? Imagine the horrible state of fifty thousand people who gradually will descend to the poverty level and degradation. How can this be prevented?

Question: We do not stop the factory. Instead, we begin to gradually cut down work hours by one hour a week. We offer people the option to spend this hour studying, without leaving the plant. We make an announcement that the corporation is introducing a special service, and now everyone must attend lessons as if it were work.

Answer: Our explanation can be in accordance with the common condition of the nation and the world, the common crisis, the common problems. This is why we want to enlighten the population and even make our city special, exemplary. This is the reason that we are introducing common, anti-crisis education and upbringing.

We can speak about the fact that the crisis is not only taking over the city, but the entire world. We really must justify it in the press and everywhere else. People must understand that there is a “tsunami” heading toward the entire planet. The only thing is that the population must be enlightened gradually, not with a harsh blow.

As the crisis continues to grow, we must educate the population and change social relations and our life into a form, a system, that could serve as a buffer to live through the crisis peacefully and well, without conflicts, perhaps even with a certain benefit. In other words, the crisis does not have to be presented as a crisis, since the word actually means “the birth of something new.”

We can explain all this to the population gradually. We must study all this so that we understand where the world and the country are, with us inside them. This will help everyone survive and succeed to the extent of his or her understanding.

All this could be realized through different public services, local television, newspapers, and presentations by local celebrities. We must do everything we can. We can invite professors and organize something very presentable, respected, and convincing. All these presentations will make it clear that the world really is at a bifurcation point.

Question: Instead of grief, “All is lost, we are closing the factory,” we can make it a celebration, giving people a chance to create a good, positive emotional background. In reducing the workday by one hour, we could say, “This is a very good thing.”

Answer: We introduce a system of integral learning not only at the factory, but also for all in general as a mandatory system, up to retirees.

Question: There is a category of people, entrpreneurs, who are very difficult to engage in studying. They are economically independent. How can we influence them to learn?

Answer: We can do it, for example, through the taxation system. A certain decree obligates a person to attend a course. Only then, will he be allowed to file his tax return.
[77656]
From KabTV’s “Experimental City – Soultion to the Crisis” 3/2/12

Related Material:
Reasonable Consumption
Joyful Torments Of Birth
Without Coercion And Limitations

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Education, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

Question: A person needs to open slightly to feel the taste of exiting himself, the taste of integrality. How is it possible to do that? Where do we begin?

Answer: In the beginning, we use games in the process of teaching. They show how much we lose in our interaction from being individualists and how much we gain if we participate together.

When we mutually participate, we don’t connect our efforts or our knowledge, but rather give birth to something new: a new force, a new knowledge, new opportunities, and most importantly, a new sensation that exists between us. And we all exist in it together.

From within this new participation, we do not begin even to feel the “we” since it is the total of the individualists who assemble together. When we exit ourselves, the individualists, we go to the next state of integrality that is called Adam (Man or Human). We must try to begin to feel it. But this is fine tuning.

Question: What is the first step to begin to feel this?

Answer: I think it is built on conversation, on communication, on understanding and mutual participation. A kind of commonality is gradually created, a kind of deep, internal, non-verbal mutual understanding, when they begin to feel what ties them together, what is common between them.

It is a shared goal. But it is not an individual goal of each of us; this goal is above us: harmony with nature that we must understand, grasp its meaning, its characteristics, its relationship to us, and the way we enter it and exist in it.  However, we only exist in it thanks to the connection between us. It is specifically the connection between us that creates the “lining,” the background, our integral sensor. With its help we feel integral nature revealed in our mutual sensation, as if within us.

Then, we begin to feel its thought, intelligence, the goal, the plan, and gradually, we begin to attain it. Besides feeling that it exists, I begin to attain it, to discover it, but I discover it inside, through our shared feeling. Together with everyone, I begin to discover this more and more.

We begin to share our emotional impressions and discuss it from a logical point of view: What is this plan? What is this force that operates on us and others? How does our perception of our world change when we begin to feel the inner force of nature, which, apparently, exists here inside, and all of our world as if lies on its platform, while it constitutes a network of forces that holds up the entire world and manages it. So, what is this force? What is this energy?

When we begin to clarify this between us, among the friends, each one of us arrives, first of all, at this shared knowledge and receives from everyone additional feelings and intellect. And through these shared sensations and intelligence we begin to attain the harmony and the integral force of nature, which can never be discovered and attained alone.

This discussion should take place for a few hours in a group of ten people and two instructors, in a calm environment, with specific reading materials.
[76926]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #17, 02/28/12

Related Material:
The Man Of The Universe
A Turning Point
The Psychology Of Altruism

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Man finally is realizing that he is not the master of nature and that nature is the supreme power of the world. Thus, it is necessary to lower our heads and abide its laws.

The rules of nature to which we should become equivalent in everything we do are the following:

• Nature runs on sunlight
• Nature uses only necessary energy
• Nature brings form in accordance with function
• Nature recycles everything
• Nature rewards cooperation
• Nature is based on variety
• Nature requires experience in local conditions
• Nature limits excesses from within
• Nature reveals the power of restriction

However, Kabbalah explains that, by keeping these laws, we turn from bad creatures to neutral ones. If we correct our anti-natural egoistic qualities into altruistic ones, we will climb to the top, eternal, and perfect level of nature.
[78015]
Source:  Integral Education

Related Material:
The Need To Follow The Laws Of Nature
Learn To Live In Balance With Nature
Balance That Causes Development

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing - 1 Comment →

Question: What is the role of the guide, of the moderator, in a group of integral education and upbringing?

Answer: It is much easier to study theory than to manage people and teach them practical lessons by bringing them to conclusions that they cannot arrive at by themselves. On the contrary, those who study according to this method reach these conclusions and experience this method themselves and invent a method of self-reform when they suddenly begin to feel that the group is the “artist” that sculpts something totally new from them.

With an unexpected feeling and impression, they perceive how far they can change. In addition, what previously seemed illogical suddenly becomes ordinary and what was imperceptible before is suddenly perceived and accepted much more easily, and even things they disagreed with suddenly seem different.

So first they begin to study the influence society has on a person. At the same time, each one discovers, quite surprisingly, how dependent he is on the environment and to what extent he can be manipulated by the environment.

We can compare it to a weight loss support group, or to alcoholics anonymous, or to a group of people trying to quit smoking, etc. It isn’t about quitting a certain habit and formatting a totally new personality: it isn’t your “formatting” according to the same egoistic pattern, but acquiring a totally new perspective, a new nature, a new code of behavior, and changing people.

Sometimes it may be quite unpleasant, or at least very surprising, because a person doesn’t even think that he can change himself so easily, by using the environment.

The environment is willing to help him in that. If it operates according to a certain method, and explains to people what they have to turn into, then there is an accurate mutual cooperation in the group, when they play together and this collective game, just like in a theater, turns them into totally new people. What is more, the role they are playing remains part of them.

There are many “buts” here; the question is whether the role they begin to play remains part of them forever. Does it become part of them like the permanent memory of a computer? Or is it temporary and it may change by different attributes, functions and other roles? This depends on the guidance a person receives and the guidance of the group, and on whether these groups will become a constant incentive that influences people.
[77109]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 2/27/12

Related Material:
Being My Own Instructor
How To Become A True Instructor
An Inspiring Teacher

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

The mere fact that a person studies according to the method of the integral education changes him in such a way that his paradigm and his feelings change the world he lives in, and he feels the world as a totally different place. We can say that by creating an imaginary world for a person, we change his natural, psychological, internal parameters. On the whole, today we develop in an absolutely beastly manner and we see that we can’t go on existing this way. This means that we can change the world only by our perception, and this is what we are doing.

Here we already begin to feel that a real, deep internal change is taking place in a person, and we can see how he changes internally and the whole world becomes different. Life is basically a feeling of something that doesn’t really exist; it’s simply how you feel it.

So we have to constantly perform very serious psychological work, in workshops, making acquaintances, in our feelings, in the definitions: What does reality mean, relatively and objectively, what is society, who am I, and what is the status that we should hold on to since everything is constantly changing and is very vague? Suddenly the world and I become something that is indefinite, dependent, and where you can lead a person in every direction that you want: Where will we be?

We must have this feeling because on the one hand it relates to the options a person has. On the other hand, these feelings should be free, and a person must feel that he can change the world and himself and tie himself to others. Others will also perceive this world that is actually a tiny image that froze in our imagination, in our impression, and can be changed.

The main thing is to depict the right picture for a person and what it should be: a full exit from himself outwards and the feeling of the only force of nature, which is the force of bestowal and love, of goodness and mutual cooperation. When we stabilize this image, this feeling, in a person’s mind and the society supports it, we begin to change fearlessly, and there will actually be an internal transition from the egoistic perception of reality (into me), to the external perception (from me).
[77155]
From “A Talk on Integral Upbringing” 2/27/12</span

Related Material:
A Corrected State
The Integral Framework Of Our Perception
An Instrument To Penetrate The Human Essence

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Perception - No Comments →

I spend my whole life taking care of myself, both internally and instinctively and consciously, intentionally, and deliberately. In this case, how do I change my nature to the complete opposite? How can I learn to love my neighbor? After all, to love my neighbor means to think only about him, to place my entire body at his service, all of my means, abilities, and generally everything that I have. And to do that to such extent that I won’t have anything left except for this point of desire to bestow to him and to relentlessly care for him so that he would feel as good as possible.

This is how a mother cares for her child. Nature itself directs her to tirelessly care for the little one, and the only thing that interests her in life is that these few pounds of flesh feel good. She thinks only about how to settle him comfortably, what to feed him, when to change the diaper, and on the whole, what to do with him so that he would feel even better. No other care exists for her.

How can we follow her example so that we would treat all of humanity in the same manner, with the same devotion? It’s unrealistic!

But could Nature actually set impossible conditions before us? Why, then, did we come to a completely opposite state? Why are we wholly immersed in self-concern? Moreover, although animals constantly care about themselves as well, people, in addition to that, want to profit at the expense of others, to use them, to impose their power and opinions on them, to bend them to their will. A person delights in towering over others. What is more, he enjoys when they feel a little worse than him, when he is in a more advantageous state compared to them. A person constantly evaluates him or herself relative to those around him, and only through that does he establish the extent of his satisfaction.

If egoism led me to the point where I want to feel like I’m above everyone and where I need them only in order to sense my own superiority, then how can I change this nature and transition to an opposite state? Perhaps it’s worthwhile for me to imagine a utopian situation in which I care about my neighbor and receive pleasure from that, like a mother who cares for her baby? Suppose I would love others the same way that she does and I would constantly be caring for them, then, maybe, I would feel absolute self-realization in this?

However, I don’t see any means for achieving that. What would oblige me to that?

In fact, humanity pondered this for thousands of years. Throughout history many books have been written, many attempts were made to implement something similar: to build a good environment, to form corresponding organizations. Even hundreds of years ago, utopians attempted to create the conditions for good and kind relations between people in different corners of the world. However they didn’t succeed in implementing these initiatives.

In the course of our development, we were becoming more intelligent and getting to know human nature better and better, and now we understand that we’re incapable of rising above our own nature. Maybe that’s even a good thing. Maybe it will give us something special. But building such a society is impossible: a utopian idea indeed.

And this is why in our societies we restrict ourselves to laws of conduct so as not to harm our neighbor too much. We have lawyers, accountants, sociologists, psychologists, politicians, and so on, and they normalize social laws. We unite with each other, but only in order to receive services. For example, a municipality cares about order in the city, about garbage cleanup and other services like kindergartens, schools, cultural centers, and so on. We’re willing to reckon with the needs of everyone, and in this case, of course, it’s worthwhile to unite. After all, thanks to that each person pays a relatively small sum for a broad range of services. These things are clear to us since through them we receive a real, calculable benefit.

But when it comes to changing people’s attitudes in the realm of feelings and emotions so that a person would take his neighbor into consideration out of the calling of his own heart, this is something that we can’t do.

And here we come to an understanding of that special state of crisis that we’re in today. It’s a very strange crisis, and in its essence, it pertains to the relationships between us. Using all the same previously attempted egoistic formations, we sought to build a more comfortable society for everyone, taking common interests into account one way or another. We understand that an excess of disgruntled people will lead to clashes and irreconcilable conflicts, and this threatens to provoke civil wars. Throughout all the ages, we’ve been aware that our egoism needs to be reined in well so that we wouldn’t devour each other.

However, all of these calculations were constructed under an “egoistic umbrella”: We understood that such is our nature and that we need to restrain ourselves within certain boundaries. Even if our world shimmers with egoistic facets, it still requires a single mechanism in order to prevent the outbreaks that threaten to destroy all our achievements. This is how humanity came to create the World Bank, the UN, and other international organizations, how we came to closer communications and more complete accounting of interests.

In particular, during the last century we realized that it’s necessary to take each other into consideration more. The two World Wars have showed us that nobody wins in unbridled warfare—on the contrary, everyone suffers a loss as a result and everyone pays a dear price for it.

That’s why humanity created all kinds of communities and communication channels. There are even “red buttons” in Moscow and Washington for establishing emergency contact in case of a global threat. A certain form of trust exists here simply because it’s clear to all involved parties that nobody would come out of a conflict squeaky-clean and profitably. Thus, realizing that there is no alternative, armed with an accumulated basis, we can now establish certain interactions and communication.

On one hand, it’s still an egoistic approach, but on the other hand, such turn of events still leads to closeness between us. Even though we increasingly hate and want to kill others, it’s becoming clear that they’re just as strong, and thus it’s worthwhile for us to take each other into consideration.
[75590]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” #13, 1/11/12

Related Material:
Minimum Suffering, Maximum Pleasure
Lend Me The Quality Of Love
From Self-Sufficiency To Specialization

Filed under: Education, Egoism, Integral Upbringing, Society - No Comments →

Question: Suppose we film a class of integral upbringing. Could the instructors then watch themselves at work?

Answer: I think that this is what matters most, the main instrument, this is why we introduce video recording everywhere. When a person looks at himself from aside, it’s much easier for him to see his “blind spots,” the faults in his behavior, which he usually fails to notice.

Comment: But we must treat this very delicately.

Answer: As a rule, we don’t usually point directly at it. It doesn’t work as this can only break a person. We must bring him to the realization that he must rise above himself (doing so on his own, independently), yet also doing it with the help of others, drawing the example from them, always feeling that he is beneath them.

In this case, there is no teacher and student. Here, a student can appear to be higher than the teacher in the teacher’s eyes. In reality the teacher will always feel like he is lower than the students. Everyone who really is a degree higher than others will feel like he is lower than others. And this will help him rise and be higher. Thus, here egoism works for us, it begins to help us.
[77351]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 2/27/12

Related Material:
The Method For Revealing The “Blind Spot”
Peculiarities Of Perception
Everyone Will Be Able To Apply Himself

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

Question: When specialists work with people, they often encounter qualities in a person which are obvious to everyone, but the actual person does not realize he has them. In psychology this phenomenon is referred to as a “blind spot.” Can these qualities be discussed and revealed to people in groups of integral upbringing?

Answer: This will not work. You can only speak about this in a completely indirect manner, saying that all of us experience these states, not just you or me.

It’s written in every article on integral upbringing that during the process of transition from an egoistic state into an altruistic state, we begin to understand, perceive, and comprehend that there are things that we actually don’t perceive, certain peculiar “blind spots.” But they exist in reality. People around us can see them in us; they understand that so far we don’t realize that we exist in this “blind spot.” It’s as if an enormous light is blinding me and I’m not able to see anything, but the others can see me and everything around me very well.

Generally, a person always exists in a state like this, but we can only talk about it according to the person’s level. We can’t point directly at this “blind spot,” but we can guide him indirectly towards this state, taking him down an alternate route. But never directly, this will not work; on the contrary, it will only worsen the state.

He must realize it through the others, indirectly, and experience it. First, he must find the necessary feelings for this state. He must learn that he doesn’t understand something here that there’s something he doesn’t feel, and it needs to hurt.

And once it begins to hurt within him, he’ll feel disappointed, like he doesn’t understand something, is disoriented, and sees that something is happening in other people and it’s not yet happening in him; in other words, he must start feeling envious, jealous, and proud. It’s these feelings that usually blind him, not letting him see. Everyone has these states. They accompany people until complete correction. Always!

But we must understand that these “blind spots” are the states that we must correct. And this “blind spot” must always guide us forward as a light from a flashlight. This is why the group and everyone else must somehow use their qualities, attitude, and relationships to paint for me the sensation of the “blind spot” which I fail to notice in me, and the fact that I am blinded by my pride, my foolish egoism, and my narrowness, and it’s here that I must rise above myself.

This is a very complicated method. We will speak about it in the future and discuss the different approaches and solutions to it. We must help every person and all of humanity to see this “blind spot” before them. In other words, we must help all realize that this not-yet-activated area of comprehension is your next degree; it’s through the realization of evil, the realization of goodness, that you begin to perceive goodness behind evil.

But in general the “blind spot” is simply our obvious egoism, which doesn’t allow us to feel that we are in it. We believe that everything is normal and right, and we don’t feel that we appear foolish and limited in the eyes of the others. If we were to feel it, we would burn from envy, jealousy, and pride, which would force us to come out of egoism.

This is why we must very carefully spell out a forgiving method of revealing a person’s “blind spot” to him.
[77355]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 2/27/12

Related Material:
See Yourself From Aside
Peculiarities Of Perception
Everyone Will Be Able To Apply Himself

Filed under: Education, Egoism, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

Question: What part of the population needs to participate in integral upbringing in order to change the consciousness of the entire society?

Answer: I think that once 20-30% of the population becomes inspired by the anti-crisis idea—I would even call it the idea of our salvation from a critical state—this would automatically spread to the others and they will also become interested, understand, and comprehend the need to study the integral method. Moreover, as businesses and demand for certain services continue to fall as a consequence of the exhaustion of the population’s material abilities, people will understand that they really need to think about a certain transition.

If there serious explanatory work is being done among the population regarding the crisis, its causes, course, and consequences and the ways to solve it on the regional, city, state, and world scales—people will really listen. This is why, when people will be offered a method of further integral education as a means of exiting the crisis, people will take it rather seriously.

It is necessary to organize interesting discussions, to invite different people with directly opposing views, where they will try to figure things out during the debate.
[77713]
From KabTV’s “Experimental City – Solution to the Crisis” 3/2/12

Related Material:
Is The Solution In Education Of Women?
Growing In A Circle Of Friends
The Birth Of Something New

Filed under: Crisis, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Society, World - No Comments →