Question: Were the previous transitions of human development, for example, from the vegetative to the animate level, also accompanied by crises and suffering?

Answer: The previous transitions were smoother, more stretched out. The first, the still period, was the longest because the amount of still nature is much greater than the vegetative.

There is a kind of projection of one level of nature to the next, but it retains its proportions. That is why the still level of human development lasted tens of thousands of years, the vegetative one lasted thousands of years, and the animate one lasted hundreds of years, perhaps five centuries or even less. Our period should be over in just a few decades.

Nature directs all its parts from the Big Bang that started everything to complete rest, to full correspondence with each other. This tranquility will take place when man will reach his highest level and close the entire integral picture.

We are not talking about stars, galaxies, and so on. That does not matter. What matters is that at the highest level, man will be completely enclosed within it, including everything within himself. This is the requirement of nature. Its most important law is the law of balance of all of its parts. Any action tends toward equilibrium, to spending the least amount of energy, the minimal entropy, minimal disorder.

Here we encounter man who causes the greatest disorder. He is the only element of nature that has free will. Namely due to the freedom of will he must understand that he needs it only in order to achieve balance, harmony with nature.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11  

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Question: What are the main characteristics of the fourth integral level of human development, the level of Adam?

Answer: This level has one characteristic—the movement towards generalization, towards a common humanity, towards mutual merging, the integration of everything it does on all levels: culture, science, all kinds of industrial interactions, financial and economic ties, and so on.

With the help of the integral education and upbringing, we need to reach such a state where we’ll be able to eliminate all borders and make a person absolutely free, when he understands and realizes that he needs to work only to support his normal existence and give everything else to the integral ascent because he feels absolute comfort and harmony in it. It becomes the most important thing for him and defines the future society.

However, now we shouldn’t think and talk about such society but about the transformation towards it because if we do not wish to voluntarily rise above egoism, this passing may happen by the means of great suffering. Meaning that conflicting opposing forces could arise, which may lead to a world war. Yet, it may be possible to do this by means of an explanatory work, which is what we are trying to do.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11  

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Question: How can the still, vegetative, and animate levels of human development be characterized?

Answer: The still level is the period when a person has very small egoism that is not yet awakening him to connect with others. He passively exists in nature, changing virtually nothing around himself, only working the land a little bit with his hands and primitive tools (actually, even this does not exist yet) and getting food for himself. This is the still level of development, meaning that it does not perfect itself and remains at the same level all the time; it’s not growing yet like at the next level.

The vegetative level is characterized by the fact that a person is already “growing,” but as we say, “he’s still a plant.” Meaning, that he still lacks movement, he’s not capable of great achievement or of various transformations. He organizes the space around himself, but like a plant that spreads its roots and takes a little from everything. He conquers something, but in a very limited form since his egoism, his capabilities, are not letting him “swallow” what he has conquered. That’s why it makes no sense to risk, invest efforts, and suffer.

The animate level is first of all the development of technology, meaning that which is outside of man. We begin to develop instruments that help us conquer the world as far as space. This stage began in the Middle Ages with the invention of printing machines and other novelties.

Indeed, the Middle Ages are not a simple level of development. It was quite a busy period conceived in a somewhat internal form. However, when studying the process of evolution we understand that at that time, very interesting, powerful, albeit concealed, conception processes of the next stage were taking place.

It should be emphasized that this wasn’t observed at the previous stages because there is very little difference between the earth and a plant, and their connection is far too strong. They contain each other, they transform into each other, and so on. While there is a huge difference between the vegetative and the animate states: in free will, movement, personal space, space conquering, and so on.

The internal human development carried on according to this. People have literally rushed to conquer nature and areas, and to discover new lands. Everything changed: working the land, farming, occupations, cities, division of people into groups and clans, and so forth. Then, movement for parliament began, for freedom, and so on. Humanity has become more active on all of the levels relative to past states, and this activity has grown more and more.

During the last century, it has reached unity. We have arrived at integration, at egoistic interaction. This has become the presupposition for the conception of the new level, which began to manifest in the middle of the 20th century. The Club of Rome, the academic Vernadsky in Russia, and various international organizations started to notice that a holistic level of nature is being revealed and it influences society accordingly. If we don’t follow it, then we’ll suffer from the imbalance with nature.

Many people at that time started to write and talk about it. Each one on his level: on the level of biology, sociology, political science, mineralogy, social development, or even the economic and financial development (economics and finance are two different functions of man). All of this has been accumulating gradually and has led to the emergence of prerequisites for passing onto the next level. However, the emergence of these prerequisites, like any movement in development, begins with small revolts which are constantly growing until they reach states where it is impossible to stop, to remain in the previous state, and then a new state is born by a leap.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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In the News (from ScienceDaily): “When it comes to intelligence, the whole can indeed be greater than the sum of its parts. A new study co-authored by MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Union College researchers documents the existence of collective intelligence among groups of people who cooperate well, showing that such intelligence extends beyond the cognitive abilities of the groups’ individual members, and that the tendency to cooperate effectively is linked to the number of women in a group.

“That collective intelligence, the researchers believe, stems from how well the group works together. For instance, groups whose members had higher levels of ‘social sensitivity’ were more collectively intelligent. ‘Social sensitivity has to do with how well group members perceive each other’s emotions,’ says Christopher Chabris, a co-author and assistant professor of psychology at Union College in New York. ‘Also, in groups where one person dominated, the group was less collectively intelligent than in groups where the conversational turns were more evenly distributed.’ And teams containing more women demonstrated greater social sensitivity and in turn greater collective intelligence compared to teams containing fewer women.”

My Comment: But the level of unity depends only on men, although women push them towards it. It turns out that men form a group, but it is activated by women’s desires. In Kabbalah, desires belong to the feminine gender, but the force of their connection to the masculine.
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Question: Should every group member know exactly what every specific friend lacks and how he can help each friend, or is it enough to abide by the general notion of “love for the friend”?

Answer: In a regular society a person can help another only if there are rich and poor, smart and stupid, strong and weak, and so on. But if everyone are equal, then how can they help one another?

Yet there is one thing everyone lacks: the sensation of a good mood. If a person is in a bad mood, neither wealth nor wisdom can help him. Only another person can lift his spirits so the friend would feel an influx of vital energy again and sense that the goal of unity is near.

It turns out that every group member must pay attention to his friend’s mood and if necessary, lift it. That’s because one’s mood is precisely the area where every person can contribute to another.
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(On the basis of Rabash’s article “They Helped Everyone His Friend”)

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Question: What is the criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of a teacher’s work in the integral upbringing courses, or are his qualifications not subject to doubt?

Answer: In our system, the teachers are classified in the process of work. Suppose twenty people are admitted to teaching. In the process of their work with the group, we see that one of them is suited for this work, another is suited for a different kind of work, and so on. This is how they switch over. In the course of a few months, each one finds their place, their forte, and their hobby, and the groups under their supervision begin to work correctly.

Simultaneously, the teacher works on the development of the methodology, writes various abstracts, and participates in the creation of additional educational and accessory material. Then we see that he has found his place.

However, among such people, there can be those who have no internal expression, lack enthusiasm and energy. In these cases, it is still necessary to try to attain the auxiliary state so that work in a group won’t be just a job for a person. After all, you are creating a new society here, you are creating! It’s as if you were on the level of the Creator, and out of an animal, you are creating a human. You summon special forces, which harbor within our unity and create the collective image of Adam out of us.

That is why it is necessary for us to see the teachers as inspired and inspiring. Otherwise, this will be a lifeless structure, a group that will gradually wilt. We are watching out for this. By switching the teachers, it is possible to come to this.

Besides this, the teachers keep changing within the group since this resembles the teaching in colleges and universities. Everything goes according to the specializations there, and that is why each teacher has his place, meaning that different teachers teach different disciplines in the group.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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Question: A person tends to compensate his shortcomings. For example, every other radio host has some speech defect; people with an ordinary appearance land a career in TV, and so on. Will this also apply to people working within the system of integral education? Will they try to make compensations, or perhaps, will integrality bring everything into balance?

Answer: No, first of all, we see that appearance does not make any difference. Among our instructors, quite often we see people who are unattractive, not pleasant and not good-looking. I would even say that their manners are far too simple.

However, when a man is engaged in inner work, this does not repel him. He begins if not to love them, then at least to accept them in a gentle way as if this is someone close to him. He even sees in it a kind of charm. This is what happens.

The same thing applies to women. If sincerity emerges, everything else goes by the wayside.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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Question: There is a concept called the contact cycle in Gestalt Therapy. This includes the phases that any person goes through. The basis of human activity in a group consists of four phases. Where does this number come from? How many phases should there be according to the laws of nature?

Answer: According to the laws of nature, there are four phases that result from the fifth, higher one, zero. Zero is the very first level which is nature itself. The four phases of the development of a desire result from it. The fourth phase is the final form of the development of a desire.

So, there are actually five phases, but we don’t take the first phase into account because it is beyond us and relates to higher nature. Thus, we consider only the four phases of the development of a desire. Only the last phase of the four do we feel as ours, as our “I.” We no longer consider it as something that came from outside, but as something that emerged within us.

Question: What are these phases in the context of the course of the evolution of egoism?

Answer: These are the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. We find ourselves in the fourth phase today, the phase of human development.

We still are treated as at the animate level today because we care about our animal body and everything surrounding it. We are refined animals, but still animals because all our problems and concerns are inside of our animate life, meaning our physical bodies are important to us.

However, a human is a collective image, Adam, where we gather all our hopes, thoughts, and desires, and, by uniting, we rise above our physical nature. That is something nature awakens and leads us toward. If we properly respond to nature’s call and follow in this correct direction, we come to an integral state of “human” where all our desires and thoughts unite.

Together, we feel this desire and new consciousness that is above the animate level by adapting among ourselves almost to the extent of not feeling our animate existence. We care about our body as if taking care of an animal, only to the extent required for its existence. We give food, sex, and family to the body to the extent of its physical needs. The rest of our needs we raise to the level of unification, integrality, and mutual responsibility.

That is the fourth phase we have to reach. The current cornerstone of the extremely critical crisis is just the point of bifurcation through which we must pass. I hope we pass through it more or less smoothly by realizing that we must rise to the next level.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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Question: When we are talking about the four stages of development, how can we explain at which stage we are?

Answer: Today, all of humanity is in transition from the third to the fourth stage. Within each stage, there are sub-stages. For example, if we take the stages of human development without regard to the still, vegetative, and animate natures and the level of “human” because we have existed for dozens and even hundreds of thousands of years, then we can view development along the historical axis as the first, second, third and fourth stages.

Suppose that the 16th century, the late Middle Ages, marks the beginning of the technological revolution with development of cultures, sciences, and so forth. This was the third stage; that is, humanity became intensely concerned about its life, about itself as an animal. This is the bourgeois revolution and, ultimately, capitalism. Before that, humanity was in the vegetative stage. In the Middle Ages, antiquity, we find the signs of the vegetative type, the vegetative character of development. Before that, we were at the so-called still level when people used small forces with low labor efficiency, and only could take care of their food.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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