Opinion (Alexander Markov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Senior Research Professor at the Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences): “From where did the human being acquire ability for a long-term romantic love with the formation of permanent couples? The same systems of regulation work both in humans and animals – neural networks that control sexual and social behavior.

“Neurobiological studies show that love is something more than a basic emotion. It is associated with higher cognitive functions. Romantic love includes activity of the parts of the cortex, responsible for social cognition (the work with information about other people) and perception (image) of oneself. Conclusion: love is based on a desire to extend the internal image of oneself by including the other person in this image.”

My Comment: Everything is created only for expansion of feeling and inclusion of feelings between all those who fill the world. In the human being, love is necessary as a means of communication and mutual inclusion, which leads to both greater positive and negative interactions and further to an understanding of the need to unite completely to fulfill the purpose of creation.
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In the News (from Slate): “It’s not that rare these days for people to marry outside their ethnic or religious group or to live in a different region of the country from where they grew up. Among college-educated people, in particular, the tendency is not so much to marry within your community as to marry within your educational cohort. Every once in a while you do see a college graduate married to a high school dropout (my parents, for example), but it’s quite rare. Since incomes are normally measured on the household level for statistical purposes, it matters quite a bit to big-picture national trends. In particular, “assortative mating” of this kind is a major driver of household-level income inequality.

“How big? Jeremy Greenwood, Nezih Guner, Georgi Kocharkov, and Cezar Santosreport in a new paper that if in 2005 the matching of husbands and wives had been random, the Gini coefficient—the most common summary measure of income inequality—would have been 0.34 rather than its real-world 0.43, a difference of almost 25 percent.

Of course, saying that inequality would be lower if marriages were randomized isn’t telling us much. It’s long been the case that a college-educated woman’s husband is much more likely to have a college degree than would be suggested by pure chance. But a number of closely related demographic factors have shifted dramatically over the past generation or two in a way that’s made assortative mating a much more potent economic force. And the nexus between marriage patterns and those other trends is an important motor of inequality.”

My Comment: Egoism rules the world, not romance. Only requiring the equal distribution of income for everyone and the education of all, as if we all belong to the same family, will bring the world to calm. In the meantime, we still need to become convinced that our nature drives us to the manifestation of rejection and hatred in all its forms to come to the realization of egoism as absolute evil in order to seek the way to correct it.
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In the News (from The Guardian): “Japan’s under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren’t even dating, and increasing numbers can’t be bothered with sex. For their government, ‘celibacy syndrome’ is part of a looming national catastrophe. Japan already has one of the world’s lowest birth rates. Its population of 126 million, which has been shrinking for the past decade, is projected to plunge a further one-third by 2060. …

“The number of single people has reached a record high. A survey in 2011 found that 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship, a rise of almost 10% from five years earlier. Another study found that a third of people under 30 had never dated at all. (There are no figures for same-sex relationships.) Although there has long been a pragmatic separation of love and sex in Japan – a country mostly free of religious morals – sex fares no better. A survey earlier this year by the Japan Family Planning Association (JFPA) found that 45% of women aged 16-24 ‘were not interested in or despised sexual contact.’ More than a quarter of men felt the same way. …

“Marriage has become a minefield of unattractive choices. Japanese men have become less career-driven, and less solvent, as lifetime job security has waned. Japanese women have become more independent and ambitious. Yet conservative attitudes in the home and workplace persist. Japan’s punishing corporate world makes it almost impossible for women to combine a career and family, while children are unaffordable unless both parents work. Cohabiting or unmarried parenthood is still unusual, dogged by bureaucratic disapproval.

“The sexes, especially in Japan’s giant cities, are ‘spiraling away from each other.’ Lacking long-term shared goals, many are turning to what she terms ‘Pot Noodle love’ – easy or instant gratification, in the form of casual sex, short-term trysts and the usual technological suspects: online porn, virtual-reality ‘girlfriends,’ anime cartoons. Or else they’re opting out altogether and replacing love and sex with other urban pastimes.”

My Comment: A lack of purpose leads to all negative consequences. The question about the meaning of life subconsciously undermines us, and the absence of the answer to it forces us towards a more passive behavior.
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Question: According to the integral method, in order to create a family it’s enough if a man and a woman are not repulsed by each other. On the other hand, you mentioned that souls are selectively brought together as a result of their similarity of Reshimot (spiritual genes). What particularly do we have to know in order to implement the methodology correctly?

Answer: We know in spirituality convergence happens according to the principle of similarity.

Similarity in this world manifests in common features of character, common interests and views, similar education and social level. All these things are very important when it comes to creating a family.

Naturally, when a couple is involved in spiritual advancement, it becomes most important. However, material similarity in our world should be compared. So how much the people are alike, close in spirit and education, the easier and more preferable it is for them to have a family; it comes from the spiritual law of similarity.

I cannot marry a woman from Australia or Africa for example. I’m not talking about the color of her skin, but rather our internal properties; they are totally different from each other! We won’t understand each other for the rest of our lives!

We will cohabitate in the same home and even have children (that’s not a problem), but it will be extremely hard for us to understand each other internally, because her inner language is completely different from mine. It only seems that she says the same words as I do; in fact, the images and pictures that are hidden behind the words that live in her heart and mind are completely different from mine.

We speak one earthly language, but each of us a completely different internal language that is based on the images that are concealed by the words. When I say something, I have a certain image behind the word I said and this word evokes a totally different image in her. We will hardly ever understand each other. Practically, it just doesn’t happen.

In the spiritual realm, we are united, included in one another, I accept her internal world and she takes mine, not earthly, but spiritual! We are unable to accept somebody else’s internal material world because we can’t correct anything in this world at all. We cannot correct our earthly qualities, which we were born with and that were developed in us in the process of our upbringing and education. We just cannot do it!

We see these things happen even to people in our inner circle who take a husband or wife from a distant place and with a completely different mentality. They just don’t understand each other! They live together because they are a part of the group and that’s why they have acquired something in common, but they still lack the inner meaning of a glance or understanding each other without words. Mentality is extremely important!

Question: Can spouses who have different mentalities improve their relationships by aspiring to spirituality?

Answer: I don’t believe so! It’s impossible to “enter” another person with a different kind of mentality. It is very difficult! Even psychologists or politicians cannot do it. Nobody can! It takes a general and complete re-organization of one’s brain. It’s impossible to have two mentalities simultaneously. Mechanically, artificially it can supposedly happen, but not really.

Mentality is about those conceptual images of this world that a person acquires during the first 15-20 years of his life. It’s impossible to replace or alter them!

What’s the internal language that each of us has? It’s our inner pictures of this world that we represent in connection with specific, forms, thoughts, and words. For example, sometimes we see all sorts of code on a computer screen that represents the internal language of a computer. Although we type words and give commands in English, Russian, and other languages, the computer translates them into its hidden language that runs it.

We too have a similar internal language: It is immutable; it cannot be changed. So I can relate externally with another person, but there always will be a barrier between us. And there is nothing we can do about it; it’s a result of being exposed to the environment during our childhood and youth.
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From a Talk about the Group and Dissemination 10/20/13

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Question: Is it possible for a single woman in the group to search for a partner among married friends in the group?

Answer: No, can we allow ourselves to destroy married couples? Women do not come to our groups to break up couples and take someone else’s husband! What selfishness; no one can disagree with that. We must stop attempts like this immediately and even remove a person like this from the group, whether man or  woman!

This is not only about destruction of the family, but also about that egoism that is revealed in this deed; it has no place in a group. Keep in mind that our collective ego acts reciprocally so these actions insert very strong separation into a group.

There are cases where a man becomes divorced because his wife doesn’t agree with his spiritual path. Then, an unmarried woman can show him signs of interest. However, it is forbidden for her to be the cause of his divorce. She shouldn’t give him hope for a future. We cannot afford this!
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From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/22/13

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Question: Should we continue encouraging people to create families?

Answer: We are going through a stage of human development where the family institution is falling apart; it is no longer necessary. We have worked through the old stage, threw it aside, and now must ascend to a new level. It has yet to emerge. So the younger generation is re-assessesing their values: They don’t want to create families, give birth to children, or to be obligated to anyone or anything.

But this is a temporary phase. People are looking for an answer to the question, “Why do we need a family?” In general, we always deal with the question, “Why?” People need to find meaning in the family when it’s not an end for reproduction, in order to maintain life and everything. Today, we have developed such services and amenities that we do not need a family. Instead of a wife, a supermarket and other services can take care of household tasks, and one can find a woman, and every day a new one.

If one feels that one needs a family, then of course one will come to it, but at a new level, the primary “cell” of the society, which raises man to the next level of existence. If a person realizes that he has this need, one will gladly create a family. People would feel that by having a family they advance, gaining new vessels of sensation of existing in this world.

And all the everyday aspects of life for which we have created devices and services to serve these needs, were specifically created according to the program of nature so that we no longer need a family as a material entity, and eventually will realize that we need our families solely as a special, miraculous instrument that stimulates our ascent to a new level.

Comment: Doesn’t everybody strive to enjoy the warmth and joy that come from family communications?

Answer: People will experience them in the integral family. The main thing is that one will feel oneself, acknowledge one’s own nature and the entire world at a totally new level. If one sees that a family promotes one’s attainment of this elevated state, one will agree to have it. If not, then people will reject having families.
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From Kab TV’s “Through Time” 10/21/13

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Question: Often, frustration and depression is caused by a deep distinct fear of being alone in this world deprived of connection with loved ones. In other words, there is strong basis, foundation, on which to build family relationships.

Irrespective of the fact that we may not need each other as before, the obvious decline of family traditions, the availability of sexual partners, doors that used to be locked in the past are now widely open, and in spite of the fact that family partners have significantly less in common these days, there still remains something intrinsic in us: a primordial, existential fear of loneliness that many experience today.

Answer: And yet, people are less likely to find an answer to this fear in marriage. Mutual reliance and mutual support are not associated with a contemporary family anymore. The fear is there, but the solutions are not yet visible.

By all means, it’s better to be together with someone rather than stay alone. People with a lot of “baggage” feel that their partners depend on them; they understand that they are responsible for them at least due to habits that were built in the past. We are just people.

However, at the same time, I don’t think that the fear of being alone keeps people within a good, faithful family. This “theory” doesn’t need to be proved by contradiction, nor can it be solved by hiding from the negative downsides. All we really need is to be positive.

Question: Psychology states that we don’t become attached to anyone merely because of fear; rather, we are seeking deeper internal bonding, unity. Yet there is no doubt that many people are driven by fear. This is where the process begins, although it’s quite obvious that the correct connection does not come from it. On the contrary, fear gives rise to other phenomena, often stopping us from breaking connections that were inherently flawed.

Let’s speak about a situation when people strive to establish relationships, but don’t know what to do. The question is: Where to start?

Typically various methods offer people means of self-exploration that let them get acquainted with their nature: “What portion of myself can I devote to connect with my partner?” After asking this question, one makes a “list”: “What do I expect from my partner and from our common life?” Then, when one understands what one wants and expects, it can be configured for a particular kind of relationship. This exercise is very common these days. Is it correct?

Answer: I assume, that it is popular not only today. It was always this way: People calculated their input and the contribution made by their partners into their common life. Matchmakers of all kinds always communicated this way and helped young people and their parents “make good deals.” In fact, it was all about business. Both spouses-to-be were egoists and had to soberly justify whether it’s worth living together. Their feelings towards each other were just one of many components in this formula. Their emotions had a “purchasing power” and were included into a general equation.

Is this approach correct? I don’t think so. Of course, it worked for some time, but we have changed dramatically. We are not exactly sure what we want today, and especially do not know what we will want tomorrow. Besides, our psychology is largely perverted by a huge external effect that pushes us from side to side with artificial restrictions and permissions, imaginary benefits and losses.

Each “fad,” each “change of season” completely alters us from the outside in addition to all internal changes that we undergo. That’s why our calculation of benefits and disadvantages of our potential future family life might be wrong. Only if we set a higher value as a goal and agree to a certain challenge, to an objective that elevates us above the disruptions that happen both in the society and within us, only then will the society and its cells, the young couples not only survive, but will flourish.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 9/6/13

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Question: There is less in common among us today; old community traditions gradually disappear. It would seem that the world is permeated with many relationships and “stitched together” with advanced networks of communication… However, a real platform of interconnection and unity has vanished.

On what basis can we build a common “infrastructure?” What unites people, primarily at the family level, while the former types of connections collapse?

Answer: This is the problem. Previously, the natural bond among us was based on three factors, three basic needs: food, sex, family. But today, everything has changed.

First of all, prepared food is readily available everywhere, my future wife may not even know how to cook. So, by staying single we add a big fat “plus” to our existence.

Furthermore, sex is totally accessible and available to everybody these days. Moreover, we are brought up in this spirit. Even if we want to maintain a solid, permanent relationship, the world confuses us with its standards, all the while reminding us about how much we “lose” if we stick to the “old-fashioned” approaches. So, our environment draws a big “minus” in the “family box.”

Thirdly, the mere notion of “family” scares us off since it imposes obligations and “incarcerates” us in the prison of endless responsibilities.

As a consequence, we obviously have to create a model of a different family structure that is no longer based on unrealistic images of modest girls with braids wearing long dresses. The patriarchal family has vanished, along with the domestic arrangement of three generations maintaining a traditional household with a big backyard, chickens, and a vegetable garden. A new family is around the corner, which apparently has to acquire a very different form.

In the family we see a piece, a small cell of the global system. We teach people how to maintain the relationship as the correct universal connection that corresponds to nature; this is necessary for survival in this contemporary society. We must come to mutual reciprocity and unity, as in the example of a unified system, a single mechanism, one living body capable of balancing itself, controlling its life, and taking care of its overall health. This is how a healthy biological organism functions, and this is a model of how human society has to behave. We should learn from these examples and bring them closer to our level of existence.

We have to treat a family “cell” according to this principle; we should treat it as a part of a common “body.” It has two opposite poles, a man and a woman that are connected to each other and represent a basic social unit. Integral education will show people that we are obligated by nature to unite and shows us that unity is the only correct attitude we can possibly exercise in life.

When people see and feel this, public opinion will change: t will become clear that marriage is necessary for the relationship and for the family units that comprise society, which will also be like one big family. The whole world will be like one big family. This is the only way to achieve genuine success, rid ourselves of frustration and despair, resolve oppressive problems, and enter a new period and new, unprecedented lives.

This is the only possible method. We cannot succeed on our own if we stick to a narrow personal approach. Everything we do has to be a part of a common concern about making our society as one family. And I repeat: the collective opinion plays the key role here. It will obligate young people to connect as correct family couples.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 9/6/13

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Question: Please expand on the subject of the “family in the last generation.” How is it possible, according to the example of mutual cooperation in a group, to convey this state to humanity?

Answer: If we want to understand and perceive something in the right way, we must pay attention to the soul and not the body. The soul is the yearning to unite, to disclose the ultimate driving force, the Creator. Therefore when we are talking about souls, we mean their attraction.

It seems to us that we are attracted to the external characteristics or the inner parts of a person. But in fact, they bring us together with our Reshimot (spiritual genes). This is not talking about a genetic attraction to each other, rather about a spiritual attraction. The genetic attraction is the envelope for the spiritual attraction. In other words, there is a certain tendency among the Reshimot to be attracted to each other and form an alliance between them. In our world, this is called the “alliance of the sexes,” the union between a man and a woman, essentially this is not a man and a woman, but rather it is Reshimot.

The idea is that among the Reshimot we need to connect the Reshimo de Aviut (a Reshimo from the strength of the Masach) and the Reshimo de Hitlabashut  (a Reshimo from the power of the Light).

The Reshimo de Aviut is the female part, and the Reshimo de Hitlabashut  is the male part. If these two Reshimot are connected together correctly, then they create a spiritual action with the Light, summon the Masach, and so forth.

It is the same here as well. It is said: “A man and a woman and the Shechinah between them”; where there is a man and a woman, there is a positive and a negative Reshimo. When they are connected together and create a Masach, an intention for the sake of the Creator, then the Upper Light is clothed within this Reshimo and begins to build a new Partzuf, which in this world is identical to childbirth.

Within this union are spiritual actions that we don’t know about yet. However, all of the physical actions and events that take place in our world are matched to spiritual activities.

A family in our world becomes the nucleus in which spiritual work is possible. Therefore if we are talking about a family in the last generation, then certainly mutual cooperation between the husband and wife will take place on the spiritual level. They will become a spiritual element by themselves that will work on uniting above their ego so that in the internal adhesion between them they will resemble the Creator.

This is very serious mutual work. I think that we have reached this. We already have examples of a husband and wife who are truly connected between them in this way. It all starts with working on oneself, and through this spiritual unification, a completely different effect within the family itself is achieved. This is possible.
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From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/20/13

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Question: I don’t understand: What is “rising” above a problem?

Answer: Rising above a problem means rising above our egoistic characteristics, above our previous thinking. I accept the opinion that we all came together, but inside me, within my heart, within my body, I don’t feel it as mine. I act consciously with an intelligence beyond my emotion.

This is required so that we will unite and rise to the next level. With this, I arouse the unique power of nature, the Surrounding Light, on myself, and this common characteristic that we create among us acts upon and influences each one of us, improves and changes us.
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From Kab Tv’s “Through Time” 9/21/13

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