Question: What does the ability to “feel the world through everyone” mean?

Answer: If I am included in others, if I feel what they feel and think what they think, then obviously, I possess capabilities several times greater than an average person. I am much broader, I am able to include more within myself. After all, our perception of any phenomenon depends on the number of parameters that we’re capable of grasping, on the resolution of our view.

The number of parameters depends on the quantity of opposing things that are included in me. Due to the contrast between them, I distinguish the individual parts and can build out of them, like out of construction blocks, many options. At the same time, I understand what these constructions are composed of and how they differ from one another.

And if the feelings and reason received from others are absorbed by me, I become the owner of different and opposing properties. Then I perceive the world in a more multifaceted way, and relative to the previous planar perception, this seems like an entry into a new dimension.

Psychologically, this is a completely new perception, a new world. Through this I rise above the limitations of the body, associated with the categories of time, movement, and space since I am included into humanity. I acquire its shared feeling, its acting mind—the data that comes to us from nature.

I receive an opportunity to attain the feeling and the mind inherent in nature, which exist within it as my root. All development in this world proceeds from there. In this development I see that I return to that place, to that root of feeling and mind within nature from which the entire chain of creation evolved: the still, vegetative, animate, and me—a human being who reaches the root and thereby completes the circle of development.

I want to emphasize that it is no accident that nature is pushing us to a state of mutual guarantee so that we will literally lose our individual properties. We don’t really lose them but only rise above them because they are corporeal, pertaining to the animate level.

Everything individual within me relates to caring for the body so that it will live through its allotted time in the best way possible. But development consists of us rising above the concern for the body to a common concern. This common concern endows us with completely different properties, not the bodily ones. Thanks to them, I reveal the program and purpose of creation, the intention of nature in which not a single element develops by chance—everything advances according to a program. And I can attain and understand this program.

And as soon as I direct myself towards an integral vision, connecting with other people, I immediately begin to grasp this integral vision, exchange my “glasses” for round, integral ones. I see the entirety of nature and don’t just receive from it a narrow channel relative to my own body, of whatever carries benefit or harm for me: food, sleep, entertainment, and so on. No, I don’t live by this! I live on a level independent of my body and already look at nature that is above bodies. It’s as if I am no longer inside a body: I judge, check, and control from the universal human mind and feeling. This stage fundamentally differs from the current one.

Right now I am merely an advanced animal, within certain boundaries, and it’s unclear if this advancement is in a good or a bad direction. But due to inclusion into the global mind, I achieve a new dimension. I qualitatively change my perception of the world in which I find myself. It becomes genuine since I no longer view it through a narrow egoistic slit, pulling to me whatever is beneficial and brushing away the harmful; rather, I literally come out through it and live in the world. And there, perception is completely different, not through an egoistic sieve through which I see only whatever is useful or harmful to me, but independently of myself altogether. This is what the new dimension inherent in man is.

And then I really reveal the mind and the feeling that exist there, within the bright state outside of my body, behind the wall with a narrow slit through which I peek. I understand the entire process and purpose of creation.

Our research shows that this is truly so, that this is something elusive and imperceptible to us. But we are already starting to realize that evidently, this level does exist. It can be compared to dark matter: It exists, but we don’t perceive it, even though it comprises 90% of all matter in the Universe.

Similarly, we cannot yet reveal the common feeling and mind that exist in the Universe. However, scientists who study the cosmos talk about the presence of a powerful feeling and mind there, like sounds that we cannot pick up on, hearing only some kind of noise. We cannot reveal these phenomena because they belong to a dimension above us.
[66964]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

Related Material:
To See The World Through The Eyes Of Women
The Goal Of The Future Society
Our Amazing Generation

Filed under: Body and Soul, Collective Soul, Education, Integral Upbringing, Mutual Guarantee, Perception - No Comments →

Question: In the process of communication, people often become subconsciously aggressive. Should we somehow let a person know that he is aggressive at a given moment, even if subconsciously, without noticing it, or should this be left as material for integral work and clarification?

Answer: I think that all of this will begin to straighten out in the group, even when it starts studying the introductory materials.

But there are people who don’t respond to this, who don’t hear. They need to be placed in separate groups. That’s a different matter.

Usually, the general aggression subsides quickly in the face of the great goal that you set before people, when they approximate themselves to some new whole, in order to discover a perfect world and harmony. When you explain the structure of the universe to them, perception of reality, here they begin “to stumble,” meaning that there is no room for some petty, personal aggression.
[72248]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #11, 12/16/11

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

Question: What do you have in mind when you talk about life outside the body?

Answer: Even now we are living a life outside our bodies. I live in my feelings, desires, and thoughts received from the environment. They are not mine but obtained by me from the surrounding environment. Of course, they exist within me, but I call them “out of body” because I live by interests received from others who impress upon me and advise what’s worth living for, what to think about, and what to feel.

I don’t even realize that if I lived in a forest, my understanding of the world would be completely different from the one I have right now. It’s as though the environment gives me a different view of the world and forces me to perceive it one way and not another. And indeed, this is a big problem.

Suppose my environment makes me think that being a cannibal, or killing people, or taking advantage of them is normal, while you see life completely differently. You have a completely different attitude to animals, yourself, the world, and family. We live within the model of perception that society instilled in us throughout our development, and accordingly, this is the way we see the world.

When I travel to a different country, sometimes it really strikes me that people think completely differently there and gravitate towards different values. Thus they have another way of looking at things, and they don’t see what I see. They judge people differently than we do. And if we get acquainted with history books or law codes of different countries, we will see just how different we are.

I’m not even talking about cultural differences or specific cuisines. I am interested in a person’s worldview and not in what he likes to fill his stomach with. What’s important is a person’s understanding of historical events, of human life, of good and evil, his or her attitude to reward and punishment, to what one should achieve, and what kind of life one wishes to build for oneself.

Some people are prepared to spend day and night playing cards and enjoy having others serve them, while for others it’s important to make their contributions wherever possible, to take interest in achievements of science, and to reveal something new for themselves. The outlook on such things can fluctuate from one extreme to another.

We see that the problem of society is that we don’t understand each other. What do wives usually complain about to their husbands? “You don’t understand me!” And this is actually the case because we really didn’t receive an upbringing about how to live in a family.

When I was an adolescent, I wasn’t educated about what a woman is. Is it some living creature that exists by my side? Does she have certain demands, a unique personality? What vision of life does a woman have as opposed to a man? A woman is a completely opposite world, not dependent on anyone. Do I understand her? Do I wish to understand her? Do I take her into consideration? Am I capable of doing this?

Since we haven’t received any internal models of what a woman is, what type of mentality she has, and how she sees the world, we don’t have an ability to take her into consideration. A man truly doesn’t understand her, and this is why each of their meetings abound with mutual attacks. They try to get along somehow, yet they aren’t capable to actually understand each other, that is, to become included in one another. And this is a big flaw in our upbringing.

Statistics on divorce rates and on those unwilling to even start a family attest to this. We see a similar situation in child education: We don’t know how to approach a child correctly. We all know that there is an increase in child abuse cases, and it is all because parents don’t understand them.

In regards to my own children, I have sensed just to what extent I don’t understand them, how unprepared I am for being a father. After all, a father is an educator, a creator, someone who shapes the child for their life to come. But I wasn’t able to do that due to the fact that neither the feeling nor understanding of everything that pertains to children was developed in me at all, while it’s absolutely necessary to teach that.
[66726]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

Related Material:
Teaching To Care About The World
Making A Stranger Your Own
A Greenhouse For Humanity

Filed under: Children, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Women - No Comments →

In the near future, humanity will eliminate all types of unnecessary jobs except for the ones needed for providing all that is required for normal and rational life. A person will have to work two or three hours a day and the rest of the time will be free.

In these hours people won’t simply be freed from work but will have to create an environment that will influence everyone else. And each of them will have an effect on others so that any person will be under a correct influence of several types of environments that facilitate his or her further growth.

This process is similar to the way that fruits and vegetables are grown in a greenhouse. Different conditions are provided in succession and in specific combinations, and because of that, they grow bountifully and we receive excellent sweet fruit to suit any taste. We need to do the same with ourselves and with our children. This work will become the main occupation of a person living in a new era.

There is a reason why we consider the current crisis not as a tragedy but as a positive phenomenon, the birth of a new society, a new humanity in which we begin to prepare ourselves for the next stage of unification and realization of all possibilities that each of us has.

In this manner, we are progressing towards mutual connection and understanding and as though creating from the entire humanity an image of one man, all parts of whom harmoniously complement each other and create a single entity.

In this single humanity that we create we reveal one force that gives us the feeling that each of us no longer lives in an individual inner sensation but in a common perception of this unified whole. A person lives his own life but at the same time, he or she senses the lives of everyone else who now have become so close to him that he understands them, feels them, and is included in them.

It turns out that I no longer live the life of a simple little person, but my life is intertwined with the breathing and living of the entire humanity. From the state of a small, weak individual I begin to ascend towards the most exalted status in nature. This is how we perceive life from this new “speaking” level that belongs to the degree of Man.

Our psychology, attitude towards life, and worldview will change from a petty, egoistic, and narrow personal outlook to a broad and global perception. And through the prism of the entire humanity, as if through new glasses, I will begin to see a new world.

I begin to view it differently and reveal within it a life that depends not only on the desires of my body, but on all people in the world. And then I rise to a sensation of life beyond my body. In this manner, through psychological ascent we reach a special state.

The entire process that we have to undergo can be divided into two parts. The first part is the path we traveled thus far. Throughout its entire duration, we developed without utilizing our environment that much. And even if we had to resort to its aid, it was only in rare cases.

Right now we are in a crisis that is justifiably called global and integral. Now we feel that we don’t have a choice, and that through the use of the environment we need to develop in a direction whereby all of humanity becomes integral and global, bound together as one man with one heart. This can be achieved with the help of a corresponding environment.

This is the life on a “human” degree that begins after exiting the animate level at which we were living by will of chance. And now we begin to guide our development in a specified direction in order to receive from the greenhouse a wonderful fruit in all of its perfection.

Because of this study we will know how to organize our environment and through it to shape ourselves and all of humanity. This is why the topic of “Environment as a determining factor of a good future of humanity” is the most important in the study and practical activities of this course. I hope that this educational program will be accepted in the entire world. It will guide us to a good life and yield wonderful fruit.
[66730]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

Related Material:
Teaching To Care About The World
Making A Stranger Your Own
The World Through The Prism Of The Environment

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

If we talk about the new generation, a new era in which we exist, we come to even more important conclusions. All of us living on this planet are tightly interconnected and dependent on each other, that the surrounding environment is becoming one for all of us, and that we exert an influence on climate and ecology. What happens in one place causes an earthquake or a tsunami in another; a war in one country immediately affects others.

We see that we don’t simply need to affiliate ourselves with a certain society or a group, but have to organize a common, global, and integral upbringing.

Since we are tied together, our upbringing and environment that we create (the determining factor of our development) need to transmit the same values to us so we will understand each other while still maintaining our individuality and freedom. After all, if we are so dependent on one another, we need to understand and feel each other, to become closer.

The whole problem is that we don’t understand one another, the way it happens in a family where each person complains that they are misunderstood. People are incompatible with each other because they have different values, tastes, and attitudes to life….

On one hand, in order to understand a loved one or even a stranger, an upbringing is required. But on the other, this stranger should become less of a stranger if today’s culture, upbringing, economy, and all existing structures are so close and interdependent.

It’s necessary to develop a system of global, international, and multicultural upbringing, and this great worldwide organization should ensure that each person in the world has something in common with others in their upbringing, culture, and attitude to life. Then a person will know how to accept another, and in the end, people will grow closer in their views and tastes; they will be able to make their life more secure and reach agreement among themselves.

Moreover, this won’t be just a mutual understanding between two strangers, but will have an impact on international agreements, crucial political decisions, economics, defense—on everything. We need to come closer to each other, and this depends on whether or not we can create a single system of upbringing for everyone.

Putting it differently, we need to understand that environment as a factor needs to become the solution to all of our problems. This is instilled in nature! Thus, instead of putting people in jail and isolating those who commit malicious acts, we need to forcibly, by court order, place them in a special environment that will educate them and turn them into productive members of society. Accordingly, we will verify the influence of the environment on such a person and, on the condition that he or she has been reformed, will release and transfer them to normal society.

This same principle works in relation to children and schools too. We need to check and identify different types of people and decide what is most suitable for every layer, for each age group. Based on this, as well as by considering the personality and peculiarities of a person and by utilizing the surrounding society’s comprehensive influence upon a person, we can give him or her the possibility to express themselves in the best possible manner.

That is, we have a comprehensive and diverse tool that includes a multitude of circles and different groups, and we need to try to guide a person towards the influence of a given society until he or she acquires a correct and harmonious form.

This is similar to a ripening fruit that requires both warmth and cold, night and day, moisture and dryness, light, and a certain combination of minerals. Here, too, in order for a person to mature and turn into a ripe “fruit” that tastes sweet to everyone, society shouldn’t pressure him or her from one direction only but exert all possible diverse forms of influence.

This is why an environment is a single factor through the use of which we can correct all the evil that exists in a person and in humanity, caused by our egoism. We only need to take this tool into our own hands, to organize various types of environments that will correspond to the culture, education, and habits of a given nation, to peculiarities of different civilizations, and in this manner to find an approach to every part of human society, in any country, down to each individual person.
[66733]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

Related Material:
Teaching To Care About The World
A Greenhouse For Humanity
The World Through The Prism Of The Environment

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

TV Program “Foundations of the Integral Society”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Education, Integral Upbringing, Lectures - 1 Comment →

Egoism refers not to an average person’s drive to fulfill his physical (food, sex, and family) and social desires (money, power, and knowledge), but to his resistance to unity, bestowal and love for people. This rejection manifests only during one’s participation in the group of integral upbringing, to the extent of one’s efforts to unite with the group members.
[72264]

Related Material:
Imprisoned By Egoism
In A Single Field Of Desires
The Illness Is Clear: It’s Time to Treat It

Filed under: Egoism, Group Work, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

Each of us has a predisposition for performing actions that are unpleasant to those around us. We can divide right or wrong acts into one’s actions in relation to oneself and actions in relation to society. Naturally, we have to teach a person not to cause self-harm, not to hurt himself physically, because while self-preservation mechanisms exist within us, destructive impulses are present as well.

In the same manner, we need to treat the environment with care and concern. The environment is primarily the still, vegetative, and animate nature in which we live and which we need to preserve. It’s necessary to teach a person the correct attitude towards ecology since our food, climate, and our entire existence depend on it. We live inside nature, and its vegetative, animate, and even the still parts are of great importance to us as we receive everything from them. This is why we need to teach a person how to treat their ecological environment with great care.

And second, we need to teach a person to relate correctly to human society, to exert a positive influence on it because in the end, it comes back to him and creates a good atmosphere around him.

Thus, man’s relationship to society and society’s relation to man are the most important aspects of upbringing. Everything else is just professional skills that we need to give a person so he or she will be useful to others and make an honest living for himself or herself.

What we lack in our development is mainly the ability to give a young person and even ourselves, adults, such an upbringing, such an outlook on life, whereby wanting to change our situation, we would take care of society that can change us for the better.

As we said before, a person isn’t capable of improving his life by himself. This can only be done by the environment, which obligates me, supports, and changes my system of values and priorities. Because of that, new desires appear in me and I set new goals for myself.

This is why a person’s future depends only on the choice and creation of his or her environment, especially in our global and integral generation that is entirely interconnected. Any person in the world determines what will happen with everybody else. If some country starts treating another badly, this changes the entire life of the latter, and it needs to defend itself and care for its safety.

This mutual interdependence will force us to build and shape a system of global upbringing. Above all, in the process of this upbringing we need to teach ourselves and others to understand that our future depends entirely on our environment.

A question arises whether a person has any free will and possibility of choice at all? Can he actually do, accomplish, and realize anything the way he wants? And we see that he doesn’t exactly succeed in that.

If so far I developed thanks to my intrinsic properties, the genes with which I was born and the surrounding environment that formed me (parents, kindergarten, and school), then going forward I, a grown up, can choose how I can change as well. But the realization of my transformation always occurs through the help of society due to the fact that I choose and structure my order of preferences and decide whether it’s worth to be under the influence of a given society. This is why I have freedom of choice, but this choice is only exercised in choosing the environment.
[66736]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

Related Material:
Making A Stranger Your Own
A Greenhouse For Humanity
The World Through The Prism Of The Environment

Filed under: Education, Free Will, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

Question: Development takes us from the world of consumption to the world of bestowal. Thousands of generations have lived in a world driven by the power of egoism. If the next step of humanity must bring it to the world of bestowal, then what is this world?

Answer: It is only called the world of bestowal, but both forces exist in it. The force of bestowal exists in the world of consumption, but it is only used for reception. The world cannot exist with only one force in it: There must always be two forces.

The main question is which one is the determining force: Who is in charge? If the force of reception decides everything, then the force of bestowal serves it.

I am willing to give a little to receive more. I am willing to invest in a business to earn more. I develop everything only for more profit and benefit.

The entire still, vegetative, and animate world, and man as part of the animate nature, developed through the dominance of the force to receive over the force to bestow. This is obvious when it comes to man who, as a big egoist, uses this force in a way that hurts his neighbor. In man, the dominance of the force of reception over the force of bestowal is clear, but this dominance is more primitive in the entire still, vegetative, and animate levels.

When we look at man, we simply are able to see more clearly that everything we do is intended for personal pleasure, for benefit. I cannot do anything when I do not see a way to benefit. Nature has made me so that I have no chance to make a single move if I don’t get pleasure from it, a benefit: The fulfillment must be greater than my investment. My investment is bestowal, and reception must be greater than bestowal. This means that the power of reception rules over the power of bestowal.

In the end, we completely blow out of proportion the way we use the force of reception that rules over the force of bestowal; we want to make a profit on everyone without feeling any shame. A person is ready to kill, sell, and destroy everyone only to receive one gram of fulfillment and pleasure; at the same time, he does not take anyone into consideration in any way.

This is how much the force of receiving has grown in relation to the force of bestowal. The difference between them has simply become enormous. When we suddenly come to these enormous disproportions between the force of bestowal and the force of receiving and the connection between them has become completely disrupted, then we experience a crisis and the inability to continue to exist.

This is because the force of bestowal no longer comes near the force to receive and does not help it continue to evolve. Egoism has grown so much that it does not allow me to give even a little to others in order to benefit. I want to receive everything for myself.

Egoism no longer allows me to even tolerate another person near me so that I could make a family. It does not allow me to have children because of the price I would have to pay for it: to yield, consider others, and help one another. I am not ready for this. This is how much the power of reception has outweighed the power of bestowal!

We see this in the world today, in any place and on all levels of a person’s life. I always think about ways to gain the most to the point of not even paying at all. It is better to steal.

This is why we create different systems that legally allow us to steal. We distort laws, form corrupt relationships in the government and society, and do all this just to receive as much as possible. In the end, we come to a state where a person is not able to take anyone into consideration, whether it is his family, society, the government, children, or all of humanity.

This is why the common crisis is appearing in education and culture. We have stopped taking nature into consideration completely and we are prepared to do anything we wish with it, discarding poisonous gas and waste into the oceans and contaminating everyone and everything. Nothing concerns me outside of my four walls. The ozone layer is not my business; let others worry about it.

My ego does not allow me to make calculations even one day ahead because it always checks on what I have in my hands right now. If I fail to see an immediate benefit, I don’t care what happens later. Don’t tell me about the future. I do not see or hear anything.

Some 50 years ago, economists and bankers prepared programs for the development of the government for 5, 10, 20, or even 25 or 50 years ahead of time. There is nothing like it today. No one even knows what will happen tomorrow.

The lack of desire to consider one another leads us to the loss of a point of reference. This destroys all the systems that now exist. It destroys the very last remaining minimal balance between the force to receive and the force to bestow, not just balance but also any kind of connection, and even this is lost.

This is why we do not know how to continue living. The solution is to create a system within our community that will help push us and teach us to increase the force of bestowal without which life cannot exist.
[72062]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 12, 1/10/12

Related Material:
Balance Means Health
We Are Children That Don’t Resemble Our Mother Nature
Two Worlds

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

We hope that the knowledge you’ll obtain from the integral education course will help you understand all aspects of life, more so than you think. Let’s talk about the force of bestowal that we want to obtain and what it gives us. Bestowal constitutes help, attention, inclusion to the point of love, which is the greatest force of all. A person can develop all of these qualities by building a correct environment, which will constantly show him an example and thereby change him.

Throughout the course of evolution we’ve developed through the force of egoism that pushes us forward. This force develops the desire to receive pleasure in us, due to which we strive toward knowledge, power, and domination. We feel jealous of others and want to obtain everything they have. And this is how we develop. On account of this force, we acquire knowledge about this world; we get comfortable in it and even begin to control it. The problem is that without balancing our egoistic force with the force of bestowal that exists in nature, we constantly exist under the influence of a destructive force of egoism. After all, if we only strive toward receiving, then we bring our environment, our society, and all people to an imbalance.

If we look at our development, we see that during the first part of our lives starting from birth, we receive all knowledge about the world from our parents or from people that are closely connected to our upbringing. In our teens, we continue to receive examples of how to behave and settle into life from our educators. When we enter into an adult life, we continue learning the art of living in this world from our environment and from our own experiences. And then we can stand firmly on our feet, armed with the strength and knowledge that we’ve received in our childhood and teenage years, and we begin teaching others. When we have our own children, we teach them and prepare them for life.

This is the way that people have always developed. It’s clear to us that without knowledge of this world we won’t be able to survive in it. The more we know about this world and the more we apply this knowledge, the greater will be our success. Ultimately, our success depends on our knowledge of this world. So, we try to pass this knowledge on to our children so that it provides them with the strength to live. After all, the quality of life depends on the amount of knowledge.

But after developing for several thousand of years, in the last 50-60 years we suddenly began to notice that our egoistic growth under the desire to receive and take everything with no regard for others or nature is coming to an end. We can’t continue advancing this way, especially since we’re trying to understand, feel and delve deeper into this world. We see that our strength isn’t sufficient enough. We only are destroying ourselves, our surroundings, and ultimately all of nature. This is why we ask ourselves more and more about the force of love and bestowal, which we are seemingly missing.

In reality, this tremendous force of Mother Nature rules the entire world and it actualizes our development. Our development occurs due to the force of bestowal. Just as we act in relation to our children, so does Mother Nature act in relation to all of us. We are lacking this force of bestowal. We only use it and receive everything from it, but we don’t resemble it at all. And when we think about ourselves, about the essence of our existence, about our development and the process we undergo, then we realize that we have to reach some goal because all of nature’s development has some sort of a purpose.

If we wish to know this goal then we must understand nature better, examine it, and understand the forces that operate within it. Then we might actually understand what’s happening to us and how to develop further in order to obtain a truly good life.
[71960]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 12, 1/10/12

Related Material:
Our Goal Is To Reach Harmony With Nature
Check For Balance
The Universal Law Of Harmony

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