Entries in the 'Integral Upbringing' Category

The Group Is The Ground For The Revelation Of Nature’s Secrets

At the Arava ConventionThe wisdom of Kabbalah is the method that is now being revealed for our realization, to understand the united system of the universe’s structure, governance, and program, which will help us overcome all problems and misfortunes. Nature’s program influences us purposely in such a way that we will adopt and realize all of the volume we are in. This is the very reason why we study the wisdom of Kabbalah. Basically, nature has been pushing us toward this state for many millions of years.

Although we do not feel yet this volume of the universe, today we have the materials that tell us about it and the groups inside of which we can begin this realization. Inside a group, we can build a certain similarity to the universe, a micro-cosmos.

If we unite with each other in such a way that inside of us, inside our unity, there would be forces of interaction above our egoism, then gradually, we will be able to come to a state where we will create a distinctive testing area, a place like in a research laboratory. Studying ourselves and our connection with others, derived from the correct actions between us, we will begin to feel the manifestation of the upper force and gradually reveal it in this laboratory, in this connection between us.

We will discover it in the same way as physicists discovered the secrets of nature with the help of huge devices, instruments, and accelerators. It is only that this accelerator, this instrument, must be us, our unity, our group, where we create the conditions for the upper force to manifest and from the concealed state become revealed.

Basically, this is what we are doing, and we are pioneers in it. The rest of the world feels that something must happen to them, that they should come to something, that they are facing something that does not have a rational solution in our usual qualities, instruments.

Today, we cannot solve any world problem or even a particular, personal problem. This is how much the problems are all interconnected on one hand. But on the other, they are not solvable on our earthly level.

That is why it is so important for us to adopt the wisdom of Kabbalah more quickly, to realize it in separate groups and in our common group in order to reveal the upper force, to begin clearly interacting with it and “pushing” this methodology into the world. Then, we will know how to introduce it better, to present it, and to reveal it to the world so that it will not simply be without any proof.

We feel and understand somewhat how to do this because we have a particular, internal predisposition for it. We have already developed it. We have been born with such a predisposition, with a point in the heart. The rest of humanity does not have it. That is why we need to demonstrate the method of Kabbalah to it on its level.

Only then will we be able to carry the entire world with us, otherwise there will be a dramatic path of searching. That is why our aspiration toward unity is the practical application of our study.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of the Integral Society” 2/5/12

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In Addition To The Right Words There Must Be The Right Intentions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today the issue of cancelling grades is becoming relevant and there is much talk about it because people understand that grades cause harm and make our kids technocrats.

Answer: Like in any crisis, the damage is evident, but no one knows how to correct the situation. Eventually, one damage will be covered by another: Grades will be cancelled, but new frameworks will be built and then we won’t even have what we had before. Currently, if we consider the lack of understanding of the real reasons for what is going on, more is not necessarily better. All these additions are not adapted to nature. If we just give more freedom to kids, it will not add anything. Without integral learning, that is adapted to nature, no good will come out of these changes.

Question: But the experts are right, they say that we’ve changed and the world is now mutually connected, and we should work in groups, cooperate, develop children’s creativity, their creative thinking, their ability to study and research things, and to develop the human being in them; how is that different?

Answer: In Kabbalistic terms this is called a “shell.” It means that it is impurity. Experts are suggesting that we use the potential of becoming equal to the Creator in order to gain personally. The moment they approach this, they will encounter many crises that will be worse than the pervious situation. Such tendencies can be compared to “the connection of the evil” that is bad for them and bad for the world.

If the goal is not the union with the Creator, then the result will be the same as in Russia, where the attempts to reach unity led to the opposite results. Eventually, this will also bring us to the desired solution, but it will be a long and difficult road. They can try new ways, cancel exams and have kids sit in a circle, but one way or the other if they don’t get a teaching kit from us but act according to their egoistic understanding with no connection to the Creator, the results will be negative. Eventually such criminals will come out of schools that compared to them, today’s graduates will seem like angels.

The whole idea is using the Godly principle, the spiritual principle for personal benefit. If we bring the world our method, it will be totally different. Then the Rambam’s principle, according to which we should develop the “women and children” gradually until they acquire knowledge, will be enacted because the right method will lead them forward. But if they decide to use their own forces, they are expected to fail after a while.

It is true that experts have begun to penetrate the essence of the problem lately and to express wonderful ideas. But there is no choice: If people don’t have the right intention, then they are all doomed.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Life Without Frills

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the meaning of “to enjoy being connected with others”? How can we explain it?

Answer: It is impossible to explain since we do not sense it in our world. To enjoy being connected with others means to reveal the force that exists between us.

Currently it exists in the egoistic form, in its opposite; now I can enjoy being above others, being better than others, that I look positive in their eyes, have their respect, etc. For this I work all my life. Besides the things required for fulfillment of the animate existence, everything else I do is only for the purpose to look great in the eyes of other people and to have their respect and honor.

If not for this pressing necessity of my egoism, I would buy one pair of pajamas and wear it my whole life since it’s the most comfortable. I would wear slippers all my life and would live my life the way that is most comfortable for me without concern about my neighbors. I wouldn’t care about any extras since I wouldn’t be receiving from any attitudes and values from the outside world about jewelry, hairstyles, cars, etc. I would not have any needs except for the corporeal ones.

If we were able to develop just the spiritual needs, leaving only the requirements for our animalistic, physical needs we would pretty quickly achieve the revelation of the next rung of our development, meaning our next level.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of the Integral Society” 2/5/12

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Love Your Neighbor As Yourself

Dr. Michael LaitmanThis rule, familiar to all, includes the corrections of all of man’s desires (heart) and thoughts (mind). And on the contrary, only by correcting all of his desires and thoughts does man attain the quality of love for people, for all of mankind, and nature.

Every person’s love for the neighbor is very weak and is therefore not expressed explicitly. Thus, if several people unite together into a group and every one of them suppresses his egoism in relation to others, then every one of them will receive the forces of all the others. In that case, all of the separate forces of the group members will be amplified into one great force and they will gain the ability to carry out nature’s law of “love your neighbor.” A discrepancy arises here: Must one correct all of one’s egoistic qualities to attain love for the neighbor, or does one only need love for his friends in the group to attain it?

Usually people unite in a group to improve their situation in some respect, and every person makes a calculation as to how much he bestows to others and how much he receives since this kind of group is founded on egoism. If a member of such a group feels that he can receive more outside of the group than inside of it, he regrets being in the group. This kind of society distances a person from rising to the “human” level.

Indeed, reaching love is possible only by correcting all of one’s egoistic desires and thoughts. But by uniting each person’s small desires through love, in that union, together they create a new, common, great force, which every group member can use to attain love of friends and then to attain love for humanity and Nature.

But all of this can only happen on the condition that every person suppresses his egoism in relation to another. If a person is separated from the friend by his egoism, he cannot receive the force of love for the neighbor from him. Thus, one can receive the force of love from the friends only to the degree of one’s self-annulment before them.

This is similar to the inscription of numbers: If you first write a 1 and then a 0, you will get 10, meaning 10 times more. And if you write two zeros after a one, you will get 100, meaning 100 times more. This means that if one’s friend is a one and he is a zero, a person receives 10 times more from the friend. And if he says that he is two zeros in relation to his friend, he will receive 100 times more from him.

And vice versa, if he is a one and his friend is a zero, this equals 0.1, so he is 10 times less than his friend. And if he can say that he is a one and he has two friends who are two zeros in relation to him, then he is equal to 0.01 compared to them. Thus, the more zeros he places on the value of his friends, the smaller he is himself.

Yet even if you already have the forces to love the neighbor and you can really express that love, and you already feel that self-benefit only harms you, nevertheless, don’t believe yourself and be afraid that you might stop in the middle of the path and fall into egoism. You have to be afraid of receiving such egoistic pleasures that you won’t be able to resist them and will enjoy them instead of love for the neighbor. Precisely the fear of falling into egoism gives a person the forces to observe the law of nature, the law of bestowal and love.
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(Based on Rabash’s article “According to What Is Explained about Love Thy Friend as Thyself”)

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A Good Life For Everyone

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is the development of the so-called good life for the unemployed the purpose of the course on integral upbringing?

Answer: In general, we want to create a good life for everyone.

We want to do it in such a way that people left without jobs (let’s say, one billion people) would have something to do. We want to distribute the work among all the people according to their skills so that everyone works two to three hours a day and feels obliged and able to give to society. But the rest of the time people would stay in the system of integral education and upbringing.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #12, 12/16/11

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No Feeling – No Discussion

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Assuming I became integral and later another stage of development becomes revealed in nature. Do I have to readjust again or this is the last stage of development?

Answer: Nobody knows. I can’t tell you that.

What kind of serious person can talk about something that doesn’t fall into his framework of sensations and study? Imagining something? That is not serious. Only philosophers and mystics are capable of that.

We deal with science and rest only on scientific data. We don’t discuss and take into consideration anything that we don’t discover in nature. Thus there is only room for experiment.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #12, 12/16/11

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The Only Correct Solution Is Unification

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen developed countries became sufficiently advanced, they started developing the so-called “third world” countries (in Asia and Africa) and entered these countries in order to establish factories and prepare all their infrastructures. But in order to set up manufacturing, it’s also necessary to educate people; therefore, they started opening schools there. In addition, developed nations began to accept international students from these regions into their universities. And from that point on, all of humanity became very interconnected at the level of material prosperity, education, science, and culture.

Today, all of the world’s countries are bound together by very close ties. The Americans jokingly say that whenever they want to call from New York to Boston, the call first goes through India, where people sit answering the phones and then connect them. It appears that these phone lines connect us to each other to such a degree that we don’t worry about distances, don’t neglect any country, and aren’t even concerned that we’ll have to install a transcontinental communication cable.

And if we delve into this issue even deeper, we’ll see that the entire planet is wrapped in an enormous multifaceted and multilayered communications network. And today, it’s impossible to build or manufacture something if you don’t have sufficient knowledge or an opportunity to receive the most suitable equipment from any producer in the world, or if you don’t have access to necessary information and specialists. This is how our world is built now.

All these ties developed throughout the last century, but suddenly we’ve discovered that for many reasons this system isn’t working. Analysts in the fields of sociology, political science, economics, and finance are offering their solutions to this problem, each in their own way. But ultimately, there’s just one simple solution: This system now demands a more internal connection of us.

And in order to continue our development, we must achieve a closer connection and understand and accept the necessity of mutual guarantee, that is, the fact that we depend on one another, live on one planet Earth, and that no other alternative exists other than to feel that we all are like one family.

In other words, our development began by trading what we produced: equipment, foodstuffs, and so on. Gradually, joint ventures and international banks started to form; stock exchanges began to join together. I can make transactions on the Tokyo stock exchange and right after, on the stock exchanges in Germany, Moscow, or New York. It doesn’t matter where and what I trade because in any place, everything is essentially the same. I only analyze where it’s worthwhile to invest and where it’s not.

But money is kept in one place, and banks only send each other transaction notifications through electronic means, and this is sufficient. It doesn’t even matter to us where the money is stored physically because we consider gold to be the main equivalent of their value. Perhaps the money itself is kept in one of the “third world” countries as a repository of all the gold reserves, but what’s important is that strict accounting is maintained there.

As I already mentioned, lately we feel that our connection cannot continue in this manner. This is especially true in Europe. On one hand, it’s the most developed place, but on the other, it is the most disunited one. And we are now seeing that due to this disconnection, they are deprived of inner concordance, of understanding and feeling that they belong to a single system. This hinders all the countries of the global market since the single market isn’t enough. It’s also necessary to unite all these countries with much tighter bonds, but this isn’t easy.

The difficulty is that we need to be closer to each other in spirit, based on our understanding of the situation and recognition of the fact that we cannot exist without each other. This is why it’s necessary to cultivate in the nations of Europe an understanding that mutual dependence between them is required.

It’s clear that that’s the case, but the problem is that even though the decision-makers in politics, scientists, the middle class, and the average folk understand with their reason the necessity for changes, they aren’t yet emotionally ready to give up their individual lives and national characteristics.

In truth, we believe that this isn’t even necessary. A person doesn’t need to change their behavior and habits that pertain to culture and national traditions. One should only rise above them towards connection with other people, towards mutual guarantee.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 5, 1/2/12

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Taking The Whole World Into Consideration

Dr. Michael LaitmanAs we investigate the universe, we discover that all of its systems are interdependent. Planets revolve around the sun, while their satellites orbit around these planets. The more we investigate this enormous system, the clearer we see that all of its components exist in interdependent motion and influence one another. The moon above the Earth influences everything that takes place on the Earth’s surface: our health, feelings, deep ocean currents, and so on.

The sun influences us as well: We perceive even the smallest solar flares that happen there. They even say that some phenomena on the sun may threaten the Earth’s very existence as they are capable of literally incinerating it. Naturally, it affects all of our electronic systems. The globe itself is a “boiling cauldron,” and we are living on the surface of a sphere, which inside is ablaze with fire. And all of this exists in a very shaky equilibrium.

Biologists, zoologists, and botanists tell us that the emergence of life on Earth was only possible due to absolutely special conditions that don’t exist anywhere else in the universe. To this day, they haven’t been discovered anywhere, and it is highly doubtful that they exist at all. And since the origin of life requires that many conditions related to such parameters as the gravitational force, amount of water, pressure, temperature, and so on are met simultaneously, it follows that all of these parameters comprise one gigantic formula. And only if we make a very precise calculation according to this formula, will we be able to learn what preconditions are conducive to the emergence of life.

In the news they usually tell us what the weather is going to be in the next few days. Meteorologists can prepare a weather forecast for the week ahead, but no more. Why is that?

The temperature, humidity, or wind speed forecasts are based on calculations performed using extremely complex formulas and powerful computers, taking into consideration climate conditions across the entire planet. In short, the connections between these parameters are so multifaceted, deep, and rich that even a single prediction for tomorrow’s air temperature, height of waves, and other factors we need for planning airplane flights, ship routes, and all kinds of other purposes speaks of the interconnection of all parts of nature, of how the still nature influences the vegetative, the vegetative influences the animate, and the animate influences man, while man, in response, influences all of them.

Our life depends on the still nature since we live on the earth and extract all the necessary resources from its depths. We depend on the vegetative nature too since this is what our agriculture is based on, and also on the animate nature since these are food products necessary for our existence. On top of that, we won’t be able to sustain a normal life except in a society where each occupies their corresponding nook within it by performing some particular function.

The further we progressed over the course of history, the more complex our society became, and the more dependent we became on one another. Today we make transactions and transfer money from bank to bank; we send ships with various cargoes from one continent to another. And if we consider the clothes that we wear, we can confidently say that it wasn’t just one single country that was involved in their manufacturing. Someone produced the raw materials, someone else processed them, others sewed it all together, and yet others engaged in marketing and sales. This only emphasizes how dependent we are on one another.

We are already accustomed to this interdependence and take it for granted. Except that this is entirely commercial and financial dependence, and it never required any emotional involvement from us. But lately we see that the connection between us has reached such proportions that it demands of us a deeper, tighter, and closer cooperation.

Moreover, it manifests itself to such degree that whatever happens in one country directly affects the events in another. It’s no accident that today we see how one country can intervene in the business of another, even changing the regime and encroaching on its independence. A vivid example is the protests in Syria, where the representatives of different countries are voicing their grievances about the fact that many peaceful civilians are being killed. And the Syrian ambassador has nothing to respond to that. He is acting as if it’s not his country and he has nothing to do with it. Thus, this dependence obliges all of us.

We see that we are so interconnected with one another that we now require various international governance mechanisms, without which we cannot exist normally. After all, if we want to have trade, develop science and culture, if we want a prosperous life, we need to develop very similar systems of upbringing, culture, and approach to life.

During the past few decades tourism flourished in the world. While visiting different countries, we can see how during this time countries drew closer to each other in terms of people’s life quality level and their ability to perceive their surroundings. After all, we watch television, listen to the news, and connect with each other virtually through the Internet. And this connection between us will soon help us eliminate all language barriers: New machines will automatically make translations for us, and someone who doesn’t know say, English, which today is the international language, will have an ability to be connected with everyone.

According to modern research, it appears that an average person is connected to the entire world through four of his acquaintances. We are becoming closer to each other to such an extent that we, so to speak, are holding each other’s hands. Today, no country can drill deep boreholes, even in its own territory because through this it can disrupt the balance inside the earth’s crust, and whatever happens in one country will have consequences not only for its neighbors, but the rest of the world too.

We signed international agreements regarding different spheres of human activities that can cause harm to others, for example, agreements that set quotas on fishing. Each country has its own limit on emissions of harmful elements into the atmosphere or on extraction of natural resources from the earth’s depths. We are starting to feel more and more that we live on one planet and that it is our shared home. And indeed, here we are all dependent on one another and we cannot just do as we please.

Unfortunately, we are still developing egoistically and this doesn’t allow us to take each other into consideration. We’ve even littered outer space by sending rockets out there so that at this point, a great quantity of satellites as well as millions of their fragments, small and large, circle the earth. And if some kind of an accident occurs on the space station, all of its fragments can fall anywhere and on anyone.

We’ve also been witnesses to such unpleasant phenomena as the eruption of a volcano in Iceland, which affected all of Europe, all the way to Siberia, paralyzing the operations of many airports. And the tsunami in Japan that was provoked by an earthquake and caused damage to a nuclear power plant forced many countries to think that perhaps it’s worthwhile to suspend the development of nuclear power.

We see that not a single nation can build their domestic and foreign policy without considering tens and even hundreds of external factors. In every movement it makes, it needs to take the whole world into consideration. And this pertains even to the strong and leading countries that seemingly don’t have to justify themselves to anyone. And yet, they must consider others because we are all dependent on each other, and who knows how even the tiniest change occurring in one of the countries will impact the others.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 5, 1/2/12

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Love Of Friends (3)

Dr. Michael Laitman“Love your neighbor as yourself” is the main law of the integral nature in human society. By observing it, we observe all laws of nature, or stated differently, all laws of nature are included in this law. Does that mean there is nothing else for us to do but this?

Nature’s goal is to bring all of its parts to total harmony and balance. This allows a person to achieve the most comfortable state. All of the occurrences that we must go through are carried out only in order for us to consciously attain this state.

We have to research and follow nature’s goal and the path to attaining it. This is a guarantee of a successful life for us. By constantly supporting this principle scientifically, we will gain confidence in the path and in the fact that we have support from the laws of nature. This awareness of success in cases when we carry out nature’s law, or of misfortunes in cases when we do not must be sensed by us as awe and fear. This guarantees us a good path.

For that we must be aware of nature’s laws as being objective and compelling us to execute them consciously. Precisely the conscious execution of these laws is the distinctive characteristic of the “human” level of development as opposed to the “animate” level. After all, we went through all of our previous levels of development unconsciously, driven by the development of egoism within us. But today, nature is compelling us to develop independently, consciously, above egoism, by acquiring the quality of bestowal and love that is opposite to egoism.

So how can a person acquire this new quality, the desire to bestow, while at the same time understanding that the desire to receive for himself is very harmful to him? After all, this is contradictory to man’s nature as he cannot do anything that does not bring him personal profit.

There is just one solution: for several people who have an aspiration to come out of egoism’s power to get together into one group, where every member levels himself in relation to the others. Since every member of this group has an aspiration to attain the quality of bestowal and love, and all they lack is the force to realize it, by uniting into a group and suppressing their egoism in relation to the friends, they create a new substance. For example, if there are ten group members, this substance will have a force ten times greater than each person had individually.

However, this will only happen if those who gather in the group think about how to suppress their egoism rather than how to fulfill it. And due to sensing love of friends, every person will be able to sense an aspiration to carry out nature’s law because he thereby brings all of nature to balance and harmony.
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(Based on Rabash’s article “Love of Friends” (1984, #6))

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The Beginning Of All Beginnings

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the fifth or zero stage of the evolutionary development?

Answer: We see that all the laws of nature originate from a single law of the closed system, and so we assume that the zero stage of the evolutionary development is what existed before the Big Bang or during the Big Bang as the Thought of Creation.

Question: That is, everything that happens with us is a certain program that is being realized now?

Answer: If studying the environment and ourselves, we discover relationships, logic, and certain laws, it suggests that we exist within a system of laws, interactions. And if we do not or cannot see some of them, or see but cannot connect them together, this is our problem.

But every day, we discover more encompassing, richer, and interconnected dependencies.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11   

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