Entries in the 'Integral Upbringing' Category

Using Your Egoism For The Good Of The Other

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You are saying that the force of reception will continue to grow as the force of bestowal keeps developing in us? Will it not diminish?

Answer: A new force of reception will grow in you as much as the force of bestowal will develop in you. It is not the force of a little egoist, which you were using on the animate level or on the level of a person of the “old world.” Now two forces are developing in you together, forces of a person of the new world.

Until now you were developing instinctively, like any animal. But unlike an animal, you have developed to such a level of egoism that it has simply become unbearable. And now you are trying to develop the force of bestowal with the help of the environment.

Bestowal assumes more than a gift; it is giving, mutual participation, closeness, support, mercy, to the point of love. Love includes all the other manifestations of connection and the ability to feel the desires of another. This is called the force of bestowal.

The moment I begin to develop this force within me, a second force begins to grow parallel to it, the force of reception, and it helps me to bestow. Because I do not have anything myself, I am unable to give to others, there is no way for me to establish a connection with them. But by using my entire force of reception, I can bestow to others.

I have only the force of reception by nature, and I have existed with it from the beginning of the universe until now. And now a question arises: How can I learn to bestow to others, to society, which will not accept me otherwise and will think that I am a savage, a nobody. I will feel shame in front of my children, my wife, relatives, all the people I care about, my closest environment, which even an egoist has.

I feel like everyone regrets my existence. And then I begin to understand that I need to begin to bestow. But how can I bestow? I can bestow through the force of reception that I have and connect to bestowal.

I have a big egoism that enabled me to win, to build, and do things. And now I use the same force to benefit others. This is called the force of bestowal. But these are very internal things, which a beginner probably cannot understand. They will not summon an inner response, a reaction, because we are not built this way. From this point on, we already need the force of correction contained in the Light that Reforms.

So, our conclusion is: By acquiring the force of bestowal, I develop an inner ability to see the entire world as if it were transparent, to see through it, to know what happens, to fix myself, my family, my immediate and distant social environments, and to arrange my life in a perfect way.

It enables me to attain the state of absolute happiness. I feel included in the eternal reality, and I rise to the human degree that gives me the feeling that life is worth living, existing, and continuing our species, having children. I feel satisfaction and fulfillment in life.

And all this happens by acquiring the force of bestowal though the proper environment.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11  

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People: Who Are We?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You say that all of our development is meant to raise our consciousness about who we are. So, who are we?

Answer: First of all, we are not animals existing inside of our bodies and only caring about how to fulfill it. Second, we are not simply egoistic creatures obliged to please our ego, which plays us and pushes us toward various false goals, only giving us suffering throughout our whole lives. It is written: “A person dies without having achieved even half of the desired,” meaning that no one is left satisfied about his life and while dying, does not take anything with him. Now, we have arrived at such a state where we are left with nothing, even prior to death.

However, we are creatures who have an absolutely unique potential, and we are located at the very top of nature that created the entire universe and, as a result of this wondrous process, developed life on earth along with us. This is what the goal of human development consists of.

This development, by the good or forceful path, must end with everyone attaining the whole of all-encompassing nature, identifying themselves, and reaching balance and perfect connection with it, which in Kabbalah is called “adhesion.” All of the person’s qualities have to be used for the sake of bestowal, serving the force of bestowal, like all of nature.

Then, we will see where our development has been leading us, in the form that existed before the planet earth was formed and afterward, in the periods of the formation of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and then the development of man. All of these forms up until today, when we have begun to enter the new world, the world of bestowal, all of the past development in our egoism, in the world of consumption where we search only for how to receive more, all of it was only preparation for the human level that we now have to develop within ourselves.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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Balance On The Level Of Thoughts

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You have defined the modern world order in the following way: “The lack of mutual participation has led us to the loss of a point of reference.” Is this the final outcome?

Answer: This simply is the consequence of our inability to use the two forces: bestowal and reception (which is referred to as lack of mutual participation). This leads to the loss of a point of reference, and we do not understand where we are. The lack of mutual participation means that the force of reception and the force of bestowal within me are not balanced, and this is why I am not able to compromise with anyone.

I do not understand where I am because of my inner lack of balance. This is because I see through my channels of perception, and when they are crooked and not balanced, I see a crooked world and do not understand what is happening with it.

This is obvious in government officials, economists, and bankers who are not able to find the way for our world. And they will not find it! They will do whatever they can to stretch things out and postpone the end as much as possible. In this way, they will keep dropping us into even worse states until millions of people come into the streets and start trouble to the point of a world war, epidemics, and natural cataclysms.

This is about the world of forces, and we possess the highest force in all of nature. As we bring the forces inside us into balance on the human level, the highest level of the entire system, we bring into balance the entire universe, on all the other levels of nature: the animate, vegetative, and still.

This is because we are on the highest degree in power and comprehension. We have the ability to establish balance among the most delicate forces that exist in nature: the power of thought. All the other forces are lower than the power of thought. These are very corporeal forces activated by the power of thought.

This power is not the power of our thoughts, but the thought contained in nature, the common program, the engine that works and spins everything.

So, we are at a special point of our development. Until now, nature was fully ruled over us, and it has brought us to the lowest point of our development. Now, we must rise on our own and acquire the force contained in nature: the force of balance between good and evil, between egoism and the desire to bestow, between the force of reception and the force of bestowal.

If we manage to acquire this instrument that will help us combine these two forces, we will gain power over all of nature before us. After all, we and nature are in the same system, and we are becoming an active element in it, a live, moving, and developing element that gives life force to this entire system.

We can call this force the Light that enlivens this entire system. So it follows that you bring this entire system to life.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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An Ounce Of Pleasure

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is a person really able to kill anyone just for an ounce of pleasure?

Answer: This might look like an exaggeration, but this is really the truth. If we were to put a person in special circumstances where he would not be punished for it and would be sure that he would receive an ounce of pleasure without any undesirable consequences, he would absolutely do it.

Man reaches such level of egoism that he is not able to consider anyone else—this is the way man is made. It says nothing about whether he is a good or a bad person; this is just a natural consequence of our egoistic development.

This is true in regard to every person, but we should not wait to get to this point. If we already see the tendency of evolution and the process as a “wise person” or “a sage who sees the new state that is just now originating does,” it means that we can conjecture how this process will end.

Why should we bring humanity to a point where we begin to consume and heartlessly destroy one another? Even now, after a small blow, we can already understand that we should not act this way and change our behavior like a smart child.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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An Egoist Who Values The Power To Bestow

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe power to bestow is the power of connection. Without it, I have no connection in my family or contact with other people or children; I have no connection with human society as a whole. We are simply killing ourselves and our community by failing to use the power of bestowal.

This is why it is now becoming absolutely necessary for us to acquire this power. It simply is a matter of life or death. This is why the crisis has come to show us where we are. We have gotten ourselves into this state on our own. Now we only need to examine and evaluate it to understand what we are lacking. We are lacking the power of bestowal. So how do we get it? It is only by building a good environment.

This environment does not exist in nature. We need to build it artificially so that it will serve as an example, pressure us, and push us, helping us to start giving a little. This society will treat everyone as if it were giving them a warning: “You will not get anything if you do not give. Not only will you not receive anything, you will also lose any respect you now have so that you feel like you are nothing, an absolute zero whom everyone disdains.”

The society will influence you through your children and other people whose opinion you value. It will undermine the feeling of self-worth and self-respect in every person who will not strive toward bestowal by showing how low and corrupt he appears in the eyes of society. Everyone will simply turn away from and not wish to be near him or her.

In this way, we will obligate a person to think about acquiring the power to bestow. Let him learn what it is and let him want to be like it. Then, society will treat him the opposite way: It will respect and value him highly.

We do not have any other choice because we need to learn what it means to bestow. When I come to learn, I am interested in having my environment work with me in these two planes: with a stick against my egoism, punishing me with their disdain, and on the other hand, praising me for bestowing. In this way, my egoism will choose to value the power of bestowal directed against it.

I will receive fulfillment and social approval when I bestow. Society will come closer to me and will not offend my big egoism, and it will not shame me.

In other words, we see that in this way, we act above our egoism that has grown and blown out of proportion in every one of us. We can educate a person specifically with the help of egoism through the influence of the environment. This is called integral upbringing because we teach the person to be integral, connected with everyone.

A person begins to appreciate the force of bestowal by virtue of which he acquires the respect and honor of the environment. People envy him for growing so much and being valued so much by his environment. In this way, an egoist begins to value the force of bestowal, to see what can be done with the right environment.

Here, the environment plays the role of an educator, like a father and mother in relation to an infant, like educators and teachers in relation to a child, or like a professor in relation to a student. The big human society acts the same way in relation to every adult.

The way the environment treats a person depends on his or her advancement. Then, thanks to these two forces: reception and bestowal to society, a person acquires an instrument to dig deeper inside themselves, society, and nature. He or she begins to understand what happens in the field of forces, in their own inner psychology, and the inner psychology of nature and society.

This helps a person to begin feeling the way these two forces act in all of reality, the way they operate in a still rock, in plants and animals, inside man, and in the surrounding environment and family—everywhere. He works with these two forces like their owner. In this way, he examines them and learns about everything.

He enters a network that connects all of reality, a network created by the intertwining of these two forces. This is why he understands the entire program of creation, our entire process of development and where it leads.

After all, everything conforms to a certain process. It is only that we do not see it now because we only operate with one force. When a person begins to use both of these forces on his own, it gives him a scientific instrument for research, which he uses to examine everything that happens in nature. In this way, he becomes the true master of his destiny and of everything that happens. All this is done by raising consciousness to a new level.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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Analysis Of The Human Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the course of clarifications, a question arises: “What exactly do we need to change in ourselves in order to acquire a greater similarity to nature?” After all, if we come to harmony and balance with it, we’ll feel comfort, fulfillment, and peace. We’ll stop feeling its pressure that is expressed as problems that grow like a snowball, wars, strife and divorces in families, illnesses, epidemics, tsunamis, and other manifestations of natural cataclysms. Thus, what exactly do we need to change in ourselves?

The search for an answer to this question leads us to the investigation of human nature. Man’s inner nature is desire: the desire to live, to feel good, and to enjoy, in other words, a constant search for fulfillment. And a part of these desires is, to a certain extent, empty. Say, I want to rest, and this means that I wish to fulfill the desire for rest, and if I want to eat, then I desire to fill my desire for food.

Usually I have desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, power, and knowledge. These are the basic desires that include in them all the others. Every desire satisfying the needs of my body for food, family, and procreation, as well as the “human” desires in me for wealth, honor, power, and knowledge are divided into many different other desires and their derivatives. And if I have no choice and I understand that through the help of these desires I should unite with other people in order to become similar to the force of nature (the one law), then I will need to correct each of my desires.

Ultimately, all these desires together are called “the will to enjoy” or “the desire to receive pleasure.” Towards what should I direct them in order to correct them? They need to be directed for the benefit of all. And if I only fill myself, such a desire is called “egoistic.” Therefore, I direct each of my desires towards the common good and I accept only that which will go for the benefit of everyone.

It turns out that we don’t have another choice. If we’re all like one family, then I have to take everyone into consideration and think of everyone as one whole. And the law that obliges me to this is also one. That’s why every one of my desires I need to direct towards everyone. And here is where the problem arises: How can this be achieved?

Even if I myself understand it and scientists confirm it (psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists unanimously declare that this is true and that we don’t have another way out), and from my own life experience I see that there is no other method, even then, my nature always believes otherwise. It believes that I first of all need to receive for myself, to provide for my own needs, and not to worry about others. Perhaps I should care for them, but only so that it will make me feel good.

However, this isn’t enough. After all, I don’t feel this way in relation to my family. In a corrected family, I immediately think of all its members as one person and don’t calculate how to make them feel good so that I would feel good from that.

And this law wishes to oblige us to consider everyone as one, the whole world as one single family, so that we will start getting used to it. So what exactly do we need to do for that? Each of us must care about others and all together we have to build a system of a new integral upbringing that will connect us and through various influences and activities will prove that another way does not exist.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 4, 1/1/12

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Taking Care Of Your Physical Health

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I know that you pay close attention to the daily routine in the group and to the way your students care for their physical health.

Answer: This is true. If people in the group were free from unnecessary work that only pollutes the environment and spent two to three hours a day working for the benefit of integral society, they would have a lot of time during the day and would absolutely participate in sports and physical exercises.

Part of physical activities would take place outdoors: in nature, on beaches, during picnics, camping, and different outings that under certain conditions can last for a few days. We already practice these things. We never neglect the importance of physical development.

In our group we have wonderful massage therapists, chiropractors, dancers, and so on. We see that within the group there’s a life of its own, with friends helping each other resolve health problems. We pay a lot of attention to this, and I consider this to be an inseparable part of the integral process.

Besides our meal breaks and other events, at least thirty minutes a day, three times a day (if not more) we devote to physical exercise. At any given moment one can have coffee or, if they want, smoke a cigarette. No one is limited in any way. However, physical exercise, running, speed walking, massage, and so on are absolutely necessary.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

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The Fundamental Difference Of A New Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe fundamental difference of a new life that we have to build now is in the fact that in the past we advanced instinctively because we were governed by the force of reception alone. I was searching how to receive more in any place.

And now I have to develop an approach that shows as much empathy for others as possible, to connect, to complete, to unite with them. Then, the two forces will begin to work within me together: the one that I am developing now, which is the force of bestowal, connection, mutual participation, and love, and the old force of reception within me.

The force of reception does not die. It does not remain the same, but continues to grow and develop along with the force of bestowal. Now these two forces complete each other at the human degree, and this gives me more room for creativity.

This development is no longer blind; I no longer move in the direction egoism pushes me to, when I obediently run to each bait, rushing in all directions. Now, I am developing with understanding and feeling, consciously and critically evaluating what is happening. I make corrections by combining these two forces, supplementing them with each other, and joining them so as to reach a more balanced state all the time.

There is balance in every atom, molecule, or living organism. Then, on top of this balance, we discover an additional desire and achieve balance at a higher level. Thus, we evolve from a perfect state to a more perfect state. This is the process we have to go through.

The main objective of this process is to develop our consciousness: What are we for, and in what system do we truly exist? Then, penetrating into the depths of our nature by balancing our two internal forces, we begin to feel the concealed layers, forces, and spaces not accessible to us now.

Then, we will enter the system of forces that are above time, space, and motion. We will reach realizations and inner fulfillments in our feelings and mind, which have no connection whatsoever with the existence of our body. After all, this takes place only in spiritual attainment, in new consciousness that we obtain. Our body is only a carrier for the initial instinctive forces necessary to reach the human degree.

That is why we should appreciate this period and these transitional states, understanding how unique our time and conditions are. We have approached the moment of our birth as a human being, Adam, “similar” to nature. We have before us a nice and kind development that includes personal understanding and attainment, which takes us to a wonderful life without any restrictions.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 12, 1/10/12

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Under An Umbrella Of A Single Law

Dr. Michael LaitmanFor the first time, instead of myriad different, seemingly chaotic, and unconnected laws of nature, we are beginning to sense that a new, single law is acting upon us. We are all under its umbrella, and together, as a single union, are headed in the same direction.

Never before have such different parts of humanity been in such a similar state. North and South America, Europe and Africa, Asia and Siberia, even Australia and New Zealand, all of them are in the process of decline, in the state of depression, and it doesn’t matter in what society we live, to which civilization or religion we belong, and how our society is structured. Some enormous cloud is descending on our world and starting to envelop all of us together.

We really depend on one another: Scientists are discovering this, and we, too, feel it thanks to the crisis and as a consequence of our interconnection. It turns out that each person is acquainted with everyone else in the world through a chain of four people; there exists a “butterfly effect”; some research shows that a person’s thoughts affect the climate, and that earthquakes and tsunamis are tied to relationships between people and their lifestyles.

This means that all of us are facing a single law that binds us by force, and if we want to have a better life, we need to think about how to come closer to it and not on the contrary, grow farther from it, and how to desire to connect together with everyone in a correct, good, and beautiful aspiration.

Then we will advance together with the laws of nature and not against them since in any case, nature will win! We cannot change the laws of nature; they aren’t like governments that can reshape the laws of society based on mercantile interests.

This law exists above us, just like the laws of physics, chemistry, or biology. We can only study and use them in a correct form. This is why we need to understand this law and to connect to it as much as possible. And this law is the general law of all of nature.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 4, 1/1/12

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The Chain Of Generations

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is meant by the term “previous reincarnations”?

Answer: I spoke about the field through which we are connected to each other. Reincarnation means that genetic information gets passed down from one generation to another, but so far we are only uncovering the material part of it. However, it also contains sensory and rational information of the previous generation’s world-view that passes on to the descendants.

This is why even infants of the new generation are a result of the previous one, and they have everything in them that all the previous generations have gone through. Thus, the development of mankind takes place through the chain of generations. And just like we pass down from generation to generation the material achievements of technology, science, and art, we pass down our inner emotional and intellectual development as well.

This can be verified on newborns. We see that today, children have perception corresponding to that of our generation. But if we were able to give birth to a baby that belongs to, say, ten generations before us, we would see just how different he is from a modern newborn in his potential and developmental ability.

This phenomenon can be called reincarnation because a person carries over information from the previous life into this one. And what is a previous life? It’s the life passed down to him from a previous generation.

Suppose a hundred years ago people possessed a certain level of intellect and feeling. They developed within their generation and passed away. Their children now belong to a different level of development. Why? Because one generation passes down to another not only the physical matter formed from the cells of their father and mother, but also a certain inner human message. This progression of the generations is what we call reincarnation.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

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