Question: Humanity has already experienced serious economic crises, but it has always found a solution. It even managed to overcome the Great Depression of the 1930’s. But today we claim that we have to correct man. This doesn’t sound rational…

Answer: I see it differently: the cause for all the problems we encounter today is man. In earlier days there were different external causes of the crises, but in the modern age it has become clear that the source of all the trouble is man who doesn’t find the right way and doesn’t understand where he is. The human is the worst being; he cannot get along with others, and he is the one who blows up this bubble, and it is beyond his powers to fix the system.

It would seem that the flaws of human society are evident, and we just need to correct them, but we don’t know how. New problems keep appearing and when we cannot solve them we feel that we are weak as we confront them. This means that the main problem is in us.

We cannot, for example, unite Europe so that it would become a true united alliance of countries that will not deceive one another or humiliate each other but would work as one unit. But nothing happens; each country pulls the blanket in its own direction instead of giving it to another, and as a result no one gets it and everyone is in trouble.

What is Europe actually missing? It has agriculture, industry, different services, relations between countries, transportation systems, trains, planes; everything is there. For a good life, the only thing missing is the right connection between people and nothing more. Everyone lacks this: the tycoons, the poor, those on the right and those on the left of the political spectrum.

So is there another means for correction besides educating people? With the proper education, Europe could arrange a paradise. But instead, despite the material wealth in Scandinavia, the rate of suicide is higher than in the southern countries fraught with high unemployment and unrest. In Greece the situation has become a humanitarian disaster—people literally cannot feed their kids. Babies are abandoned on the streets so that the state will take care of them, and the poor are so desperate that they break the law so that they’ll be put in jail.

So what can we do? Correct man!

After all, the natural resources are enough for everyone; someone has salt, for example, and another has meat, and another has fire, and someone else has vegetables, but we cannot come to an agreement so that we can cook soup for everyone. Everyone holds on to what he has, and eventually everyone is left with nothing; after all, you cannot be satiated by salt or by raw meat.

This situation will only get worse since this is nature’s plan, until we understand that without the right connection we will simply die.

As for earlier crises, they are not comparable to the current crisis. Today’s crisis depends on the correction of man and is the most difficult with regard to its solution.

In the 1930’s, capitalistic evolution was still burgeoning with ambitious plans and hopes and the sudden collapse did make people feel terrible. Today human beings are disappointed in their own desires and are prepared for the worst in advance. We don’t feel “new heights of consumerism” are ahead of us, only deepening gloom.

This happens so that we will realize the essence of the modern crisis is different than the earlier crises; it is developing on a totally different level, in another field. It develops in man, and so it isn’t about the banks and about other external symptoms of the illness. If we fight the symptoms, we will not be able to cope with the crisis. The only way is to correct the relationships between people.

We will die of hunger unless we unite and “cook the soup” together. This state is profoundly different than what it was in the past. Once people wanted more and were left with nothing, which brought about despair, unbearable sufferings, and often suicide.

Today a person has no such ambitions and he already knows that soon there will be nothing to eat. It’s as if he is shown in advance how he gradually will enter his grave. This is being shown so that everyone will gradually understand where we are headed. Nature teaches us step by step and reveals the current state to us, explaining what we should do.

This process won’t end at once; it will last for another year or two, until people feel that there is no end in sight to their troubles, until they find themselves at a snail’s pace of not sinking into grave conditions.

We aren’t completely aware of the results of the crisis. We don’t pay attention to the plants that are being shut down, to the decrease in business activities, and the collapse in various areas. Gradually, however, the world will fall into a deep dark sleep before our very eyes. Until people acknowledge that the problem is in them, it’s not in their power to “stir” the world despite its great abundance.

“So why don’t we get anything out of it? Here is the meat, the water, the fire, and the vegetables—so let’s cook a delicious soup…” it will take time until they finally agree to that. We haven’t had such a crisis yet.
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From the 4^th Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Opinion (Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in economics and professor at Columbia University): “The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos has lost some of its pre-crisis panache. After all, before the meltdown in 2008, the captains of finance and industry could trumpet the virtues of globalization, technology, and financial liberalization, which supposedly heralded a new era of relentless growth. …

“Those days are gone. But Davos remains a good place to get a sense of the global zeitgeist.
“It goes without saying that developing and emerging-market countries no longer look at the advanced countries as they once did. But a remark by one mining company executive from a developing country caught the spirit of change. In response to one development expert’s heartfelt despair that unfair trade treaties and unfulfilled promises of aid have cost the developed countries their moral authority, he retorted: ‘The West never had any moral authority.’ Colonialism, slavery, the splintering of Africa into small countries, and a long history of resource exploitation may be matters of the distant past to the perpetrators, but not so to those who suffered as a result.

“If there is a single topic that concerned the assembled leaders the most, it is economic inequality. The shift in the debate from just a year ago seems dramatic: no one even mentions the notion of trickle-down economics anymore, and few are willing to argue that there is a close congruence between social contributions and private rewards.

“While the realization that America is not the land of opportunity that it has long claimed to be is as disconcerting to others as it is to Americans, inequality of opportunity at the global scale is even greater….

“The Associated Press organized a sobering session on technology and unemployment: Can countries (particularly in the developed world) create new jobs – especially good jobs – in the face of modern technology that has replaced workers with robots and other machines in any task that can be routinized? …

“Those suffering the most are the young, whose life prospects will be badly hurt by the extended periods of unemployment that they face today. …

“… If the euro was to survive in the long run, there would have to be a fiscal and banking union, which would require more political unification than most Europeans are willing to accept. …

“In the last 25 years, we have moved from a world dominated by two superpowers to one dominated by one, and now to a leaderless, multi-polar world.”

My Comment: It may seem that the world is better and more equal without strong leaders, but in the right system, there is always a hierarchy, as in the body, the one who is more caring and responsible is higher, as in the body, the brain and other vital organs that live not for themselves, but for the entire body.
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Question: How do we show the world that a transition to an integral society is not a utopia, but a real project?

Answer: An integral society cannot be a utopia for two reasons.

First of all, the worldwide crisis is directing us toward it, and there is nowhere we can hide from it. It will continue to pressure us. Millions will be left without work. See what is happening in southern Europe: Spain, Italy, Greece, and is already approaching Germany and France.

And what will happen to the people? How will they react to everything? We are looking at civil wars and revolutions; without integral upbringing, anything could happen! Horrible nationalistic problems will arise. We see fascists coming to power in Greece. This is protectionism, which will manifest in a horrible way if integral upbringing is not introduced in time.

For this reason, a multifaceted horrible crisis will continue to push us from every angle.

How can the population be calmed down? Who will feed the unemployed? No one will! No social work will be able to keep them from explosions of protests and mass disturbances. When people are hungry, death does not scare them, they can climb barricades, nothing matters to them.

And those on top do not know what to do; they are lost. The only thing they can do is escape to an island in the Pacific until they are found there.

In other words, anarchy, terrible absurdity, and chaos are coming over us. This is on one hand.

On the other hand, we face nature, which is showing us the negative side of our inaction and lack of understanding.

For this reason, it is necessary to introduce integral upbringing at least as an experiment in a single region. Let us try! What do we have to lose? Everything is dying anyway.

Two months ago in Italy, I spoke with a representative of the European Community about education. He sat in front of me like a student sits in front of a teacher, writing down every word, he literally had pages and pages of notes. And this is a serious official, who spent the last eighteen years working for the governing body of the European Community in Brussels. He said: “It is a perfect system, but I have no one to tell about it to because we have twenty-seven countries and each wants things done their own way, nobody will want to listen to anyone else.”

He reached out: “Who can I turn to, what can I do?” In his opinion, for this experiment we need a small town with a dying economy from the closing of a huge enterprise that was responsible for the economy of the entire town.

But huge cities will soon be in this same situation. These are not small towns where people can still feed themselves by growing their own food on the land. Countries are in debt, and tomorrow they will not be able to feed their population. What is next? We are facing a huge mess.

The only thing that can save the world from civil wars and fascist regimes is integral upbringing. If we continue following the egoistic path contrary to the integral, “round” development of the world, then the next stage of egoistic development will be Nazism, fascism, and protectionism when countries realize that they are not able to do anything with the common market and they will close their borders and eventually come to the state of war.

Even if they do not want it, they still must break the economic, financial, and other connections they have created between them that are suffocating them. This is what is leading them towards a world war.

Global dependence is natural; there is nowhere to hide from it. This is why if things continue this way, we might even have to go through two wars. According to Kabbalah, there is a possibility of a third and even a fourth nuclear war. And after that, whatever is left of mankind still will be implementing integral upbringing and the integral lifestyle according to nature.

That is the harsh way of realizing the need for integration instead of doing it the reasonable way.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/28/12

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In the News (from NewScientist): “In your wildest dreams, could you imagine a government that builds its policies on carefully gathered scientific evidence? One that publishes the rationale behind its decisions, complete with data, analysis and supporting arguments? Well, dream no longer: that’s where the UK is heading. …

“What has changed now is that informed policy-making is at last becoming a practical possibility. That is largely thanks to the abundance of accessible data and the ease with which new, relevant data can be created. This has supported a desire to move away from hunch-based politics. …

“The biggest need is perhaps foresight. Ministers often need instant answers, and sometimes the data are simply not available. Bang goes any hope of evidence-based policy.

“’The timescales of policy-making and evidence-gathering don’t match,’ says Paul Wiles, a criminologist at the University of Oxford and a former chief scientific adviser to the Home Office. Wiles believes that to get round this we need to predict the issues that the government is likely to face over the next decade. “We can probably come up with 90 per cent of them now,’ he says.”

My Comment: Of course, all these are excuses because politics is not rational decision-making, but promoting one’s narrow egoistic goals. Scientific methods of data processing and decision making lead to no good because human egoism is at the end of this process, and it will do anything to tilt decisions in its favor. Thus, before making objective decisions, you must make an objective person.
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In the News (from Reuters): “British Prime Minister David Cameron told European leaders on Thursday that any attempt to force countries into ever-deeper political union was a mistake that Britain would not be part of. …

“’Countries in Europe have their histories, their traditions, their institutions, want their own sovereignty, their ability to make their own choices, and to try and shoehorn countries into a centralised political union would be a great mistake for Europe, and Britain wouldn’t be part of it,’ he said in a speech.”

My Comment: He is right. It is not worth getting closer. I must be prepared in advance to live with another person in one room. It is necessary to implement integral education first, and only then to the extent of its impact on the European nations, bring them closer together, up to a single country—only this approach will be beneficial.
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In the News (from CNET): “A year after Iceland asked its citizens to help write its new constitution by making suggestions via Facebook, voters decide this new draft should be the basis for the upcoming constitution. …

“In the wake of a crushing recession and raging protests, the government decided to rewrite its constitution and asked its citizens for help. Rather than requesting petitions, letters, or phone calls, the government asked people to help draft the new constitution through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr.

“Over the course of the year, Iceland’s citizens offered roughly 3,600 comments and 370 suggestions on the draft constitution, which was then drawn up by 25 members of a constitutional council, according to Reuters.

“Two-thirds of Iceland’s population is on Facebook, so during the drafting period the council’s weekly meetings were broadcast live on the council’s website, as well as on the social network. Citizens were able to make their own suggestions, engage in online debates, and follow the proceedings in real-time.”

“The bill’s prologue starts with the following words: ‘We, who inhabit Iceland, want to create a fair society, where everyone is equal. Our different origins enrich all of us as a whole and together we have the responsibility for the legacy of the generations, land and history, nature, language and culture.’

“The main themes which the Constitutional Council has observed during its work have been these three: Distribution of power, transparency and responsibility. …

“The Chapter on Human Rights has been revised and is now called Human Rights and Nature. The Principle of Equality is more detailed than in the present constitution and especially provides that all shall be granted the right to live with dignity. …

“Other new items in the Chapter on Human Rights and Nature are articles on Icelandic nature and environment and an article on resources, which states that resources not under private ownership are owned collectively and eternally by the people of Iceland.” Source

My Comment: If this is not accompanied by integral education, then we end up lagging in all the areas of life with an artificially closed society and dictatorship. I repeat, it is impossible to build anything artificially, meaning with an unprepared society. There will be success only if the scope of laws will be adapted to people, their capabilities, their level of requirements for themselves, and consciousness, instead of to unrealistic ideals.

Society should be equally developed; it should strive consciously for unity and equality. These properties must be instilled in people in advance. And only after that you can begin to implement the project. The ARI Institute offers the state of Iceland the method of integral education and upbringing and volunteers to provide any assistance in its implementation!
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Every action in our world can be realized in no more than two ways, and as a rule, not less. Rabash explains this in the article “A Short Path and a Long Path” (Shlavey HaSulam “Rungs of the Ladder” 1985/86, Article 26).

Before the elections in the US, I said that according to all the signs from the two candidates, Mitt Romney could push the world to correction via a shorter and more favorable path. My opinion has not changed today.

I explained that the matter is not in the political support of Israel. Just speaking about the preservation of a strong state of Israel, Romney would have allowed us to carry out the correction of the world from here that is not possible from America or any other place. Romney, by his actions, undoubtedly supports this process.

On the other hand, Obama has some other plans. I am not going to go into politics and discuss them, but we are yet to feel their results in Israel. The Americans will feel them as well because they go against the program of creation. They will face strong blows that are just beginning. This is the second path.

In my view, it is very natural. Until we have reached the end of correction, every time when we want something good, we get even more severe conditions of egoism. It is said in the Torah: “Come to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart.” After each plague, each action of the Creator, Moses and the Jews complained that they wanted to escape, to get out of these conditions.

What did the Creator do? He went to the next action, for example, left them without straw to make bricks, etc. This is a natural course of events, and it may be repeated a few times because for the time being we have not yet realized the evil fully to escape from Egypt and moreover to win over all those who have to come out with us. After all, today we stand on the threshold of the complete redemption of the world, not just the people of Israel.

So it is natural that Obama has succeeded. For our part, we had to stand up for Romney, as the necessary one and continue to request that the current approach uncover as many flaws as possible.

I have already explained Obama’s approach is not to support Israel. Maybe, he is right from all points of view. Perhaps, he is able to bring such arguments that we can only recognize their validity. But I am talking from the point of view of correcting the world. Obama does not know much about this, and yet to correct the world, the people of Israel must live on its land, grow, and become the real people as it was before the destruction of the Temple. It must reach this stage and correct the world as Baal HaSulam writes at the end of “Preface to The Book of Zohar.”

So, the next events in the world and the program of creation do not coincide with Obama’s plans. And that is why I am against him making decisions. In reality, the Creator determines everything, and the hearts of rulers are in His hands; however, the decisions will come through Obama as through the “evil angel,” but not the “good” one.

In the case with Romney, it is opposite. A simple thing is important here: He wants the people of Israel to live on their land. It does not matter what motivates him. The main thing is that it helps correction.

I repeat: It is natural that Romney was not elected. After all, we have not started the actual correction; we are still revealing evil. We certainly need a hard “catalyst” to reveal evil, and now we will get it.

Question: Wasn’t the winner in this election preordained by the Creator?

Answer: I don’t care. Even if I were informed in advance, nonetheless, I have to choose the path to correction that seems shorter to me. I do not play in secret knowledge, but carry out a game with myself: What do I choose? And my choice is completely independent of my political bias to Israel, of color, of Evangelicals, Mormons, etc. The only criterion is that with Mitt Romney we would have found ourselves in the conditions closer to correction, to unity, and to disseminating the science of Kabbalah from the land of Israel. That is all. Romney supports that more than Obama, and thus allows us to carry out correction. There are no other calculations. I do not care about their politics and their image; I am talking about the internal approach of each of them.

Question: Now that Obama is elected, that is, a long path, what can the world expect?

Answer: First of all, we have been speaking for a long time that the world is entering bad times. However, we do not want to scare people; on the contrary, our goal is to awaken and motivate them to action. We talked about the crisis years before it began officially, but the world was not ready to hear that. Two years ago, when everyone stated that the troubles were behind us, we explained that the crisis was not over. Today, they believe it will last another two, five, or ten years. It takes time for all this nonsense to dissipate from those “wise men.”

There will be a big confusion all over the world, in the US, Europe, China, and Israel. It is not simply a struggle between capitalism and socialism; the world is accelerating towards harsh, rapid, and difficult developments.

As for the Jews, there is nothing you can do; they always learn from hard blows. Weak blows do not work on them.

I hope that the American Jews will eventually feel that it is required to be attached to correction. Today, they feel themselves firstly Americans, then Jews, and in the end, perhaps feel some affiliation to Israel. And it is bad, and not by any national considerations, but in terms of correcting the world, and just because of that. Thus they will get blows. What else? To get out of exile, one must see all its forms opposite deliverance.

You can go the other way through awareness, through education, understanding what is happening. But they do not want to hear this, so they will have some problems…and anyway the whole world.

However, we hope that we will be able to sweeten and to accelerate the process. After all, we are not happy about that. We must understand that, ultimately, it is up to us. We have to play our part correctly because we have the method and the work entrusted to us. No matter how much we think about Romney and Obama, the Jews and Americans, the whole world, we first have to check whether we do everything possible.

We need to bring a very simple and optimistic message to the people of Israel: If it unites, then it will become a connecting link between this world and the spiritual world. Nothing else is required.

A magnifying glass can focus the sunrays so to start a fire. So the people of Israel should become such a focusing point, so that the upper Light passes through it and “ignites” the world. No one will do this, neither Obama nor Romney.

The world is like a shapeless mass, and Israel must be in the middle between it and the Creator. In other words, Israel should include both factors—the Creator and the world—bring them together, connect them, and take care of everyone. Israel corrects itself and attracts and motivates the whole world to bring pleasure to the Creator so that He is revealed in reality. Baal HaSulam writes about this in the article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” the Creator wants to bring pleasure to the whole world and that is our goal.

That is what we must realize. So, first of all, we need to focus on our inner work, devoting 99% of attention and leaving one percent for dissemination. Now is the time when we need to concentrate more internally.

I am very optimistic. We will succeed. Things become more distinct, prominent, so goes the analysis, and this is for the better.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/9/12, Shamati #115

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Opinion (George Soros, Chairman of Soros Fund Management and Chairman of the Open Society): “Originally, the European Union was what psychologists call a ‘fantastic object,’ a desirable goal that inspires people’s imaginations. I saw it as the embodiment of an open society – an association of nation-states that gave up part of their sovereignty for the common good and formed a union dominated by no one nation or nationality.

“The euro crisis, however, has turned the EU into something radically different. Member countries are now divided into two classes – creditors and debtors – with the creditors in charge.

“The only way to reverse the trend is to recapture the spirit of solidarity that animated the European project from the start. My goal is to revive the idea of the EU as an instrument of solidarity, not only of discipline.”

My Comment: How many times have we heard the good wishes and thoughts of financiers! But the idea that solidarity was the soul of the European project from the beginning is beautiful. However, how it was expressed? Was it to deny the Portuguese fishing, the only source of their income, and to make the Lithuanians cancel their dairy industry that fed them, etc. in all countries for the benefit of a few powerful countries? Is that solidarity? That is why we have the crisis!
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In the News (from the Pew Research Center): “…A national survey by the Pew Research Center finds increasing public pessimism about developments in the Middle East. …

“Doubts have spread about the political direction of countries swept up in the Arab Spring protests that began almost two years ago. Nearly six-in-ten Americans (57%) do not believe the changes in the Middle East will lead to lasting improvements for people living in the affected countries, up sharply from 43% in April 2011.

“And a majority of Americans (54%) continue to say it is more important to have stable governments in the Middle East, even if there is less democracy in the region.”

My Comment: Perhaps, it is not too late to stop, and even in the summer of 2011 they tried to provoke unrest and revolution in Israel. Americans are not doing well in planning the future. The USSR collapsed and ruined all the socialist countries. Today, we are witnessing the sunset of the US. Russia is gradually undergoing restructuring, but will the US be able to change to a new format? Nature has presented a challenging task of transition to an integral world. Difficult times are ahead. For the time being, flexibility of thinking is not seen in any country.
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In the News (from Euronews): “As the race for the White House enters its final stretch, another drama is also concerning US policy makers: a flood of tax rises and spending cuts all due to come into effect at the same time, known as the ‘Fiscal Cliff’.

“It leaves US politicians with a conundrum, as Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Centre explained to euronews: ‘The argument is over the top two percent. Do we let the tax cuts expire for them or not? President Obama says, yes let them expire for the richest two percent because they can afford the taxes and we need the revenue. The Republicans are saying no, we can’t let taxes go up for anyone, particularly these rich folks are the job creators. We need them to keep the economy going.’”

My Comment: It’s nearing the end because no one has a solution, which is in the middle line, in the implementation of integral education and the transition to the economy of reasonable consumption.
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