Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

Upbringing Or Taming?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the process of integral education, the sensitivity of our five senses upsurges. However, a person still has to come back to the real world where he needs certain protection since he continues dealing with various negative situations. How can we teach people to cope with the world they return to after they are done with the integral studies?

Answer: After the course of integral studies, people will relate to this world in a different way and perceive it differently. However, we should not teach people exactly how they should relate to the world around them. Rather, we have to change people. If people acknowledge internal changes, they will regard this world differently.

In general, we are giving wrong advice to our children when we teach them not to beat someone, not to fight, not to curse. It is not an upbringing. It is similar to taming animals. We must change them internally so that it would be impossible for them to beat, curse, or fight. This is why we need to go through internal transformation and ascend to the next level, rather than just follow a system of prohibitions.

This is the mistake of  modern-day education and upbringing that orients people to how they should relate to life and to the world. All we must do is to elevate a person. The rest will come naturally.

The same applies to science and the arts. Practically, there is no need to teach anybody anything. If we feel others as ourselves, our sensors begin opening. All of a sudden, a person understands from within how to produce nice musical sounds, for example. It is the most natural education. All we need is to raise others and have them connect with the rest of nature, contrary to their innate egoism.

Based on this, people “expand,” open up, and become one with the environment. People don’t need anything besides it. In such a case, no one can harm us, nor will we be causing any contradictions or problems to others. People will always feel great since they will stay in harmony with the program of creation. They will never trigger any kind of negative impacts. No matter where we are, there will always be a positive atmosphere and benevolence all around us.
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From a TV Program “Medicine of the Future,” part 3, 4/7/2013

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Replacement For Egoistic Dependency

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Where can people find strength to transition to integral motivation? We usually speak about the crisis and other problems, which push us toward unity, but perhaps there is a gentle click or a phase-like transition to an integral system?

Answer: The truth of the matter is that this cannot be done mechanically. This is the first time that nature is expressed very vividly as a single law of a single system in relation to humankind.

We have reached a state when we have grown egotistically. We have been developing as egoists over the course of many years and, in this way, nature was pushing us forward.

This is why, instead of displaying integrality, the network of the common connection always has displayed its egoistic interdependence: One wanted to make more money, have a better life; another wanted to rule, conquer someone, and so forth. And we realized all these things. This network of connection would always appear between us and, as it manifested through human communication, new nations and continents joined it, but none of this was integral. There was no mutual dependence between them.

It was considered that when I conquer someone, he becomes dependent on me, and vice versa, and this applied to everything: art, science, technology, warfare, and politics. Egoism has always controlled us in a single, direct way. I pressure and receive what I need.

This network consisted of a combination of egoistic forces that were in a constant struggle with one another; in this way, they controlled nations, humanity, and civilization to a certain degree.

However, beginning with the twentieth century, a completely different dependence began to manifest: Specifically, a dependency between these forces, and not simply an inclination to be against each other that forces humanity to fight mercilessly. We suddenly began to tune into one another somehow.

It turns out that you no longer can simply destroy a person because, by doing so, you somewhat destroy a part of yourself, a potential of your own development and existence. In other words, we discovered a strong need for every nation in every element of the common network.

This can be seen very well using the example of ecology. What would we get if we were to destroy flies? What would be the consequence of destroying wolves? However, this is not the way things used to be. It turns out that we did not have this much power over nature. We did not have the ability to do with it as we pleased.

Mainly, there was no integration. There was no quality manifestation of it. We only began to discover this mutual dependence in the beginning of the twentieth century. Vladimir Vernadsky started to write about it back then.

Integrality is increasing and will continue to manifest. This is why we need to think about how we can help humanity realize it.
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From KabTV’s “The Wisdom of the Crowd” 5/6/13

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When Will The Masses Become Wise?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The driving force of evolution is the discovery of the global network in humanity. In recent years, this discovery has become expressed in an interesting form called the “wisdom of the crowd” or “crowdsourcing,” when people connect not just in order to talk, but to produce a particular result. That is, this is a true connection that produces something. The result of this connection is always on a higher level than the sum of its parts.

What is collective intelligence, the wisdom of the crowd? Why is the intelligence of the group greater than the intelligence of one person?

Answer: Collective intelligence began to be manifested only recently.

In principle, a collective network that connects us has always existed among us. The entire universe has been considered by philosophers, physicists, and many other investigators of nature as one whole. How can the universe not be a unified whole if it was born from one point and gradually began to extend?

In nature, there is no chaos; it can exist only in our mind. When we examine nature, we see clear laws that operate in it, and if we don’t see these laws to the end, either generally or specifically, this only reflects our lack of knowledge. The more we discover about nature, the more we discover the absolute connection that exists in it.

This connection exists on all levels of nature. The individual and the society are no exception. They are a product of nature. We didn’t somehow create this and make ourselves like this, even though we would like to think that we are absolutely independent. Rather, the more we advance, the more the laws of evolution of human society are revealed to us. We see how objective these laws are. We cannot do anything about them; we can only specify the facts.

Therefore, the network that ties the still, vegetative, animate, and human part of nature is one. In our time, the last, most developed part of nature is being revealed. Human society is beginning to discover that it also is included in a global, integral network; this network is so interconnected that, if we see things through it, we see that it is even impossible to imagine the freedom of choice of a person. We can see that there is nothing accidental here, and so on.

Everything is included with absolute precision in this one program of evolution that shows us the absolute interdependence between us and, as we discover it, we understand that we are included within it and that requires us to act accordingly.

According to physics research, a person looking at something that is happening in outer space or within the microcosm brings himself into this event and, therefore, this event is subject to change. This phenomenon also testifies to the total dependence between the various levels—in this case, between the human and the still levels of nature.

This network of complete, mutual dependence has been discovered by us gradually and, thus it develops humanity, leading it to its integration. The moment this network is discovered, we must correspond to it. Otherwise, to the degree of our lack of similarity to it, to the degree that we differ from it, we experience all kinds of problems, which, in general, we call crises.

So, for the first time, we have reached a long-term crisis, which already has lasted for decades. The first ones who saw this perceived it around fifty years ago. They were members of the Club of Rome which began to publish various articles on this subject. Since then, the crisis has continued to evolve, becoming a crisis in the family, in education, in culture, and so on.

We are standing before a completely new integrated system. However, since we are individualists, egoists, we cannot accommodate to it. Here, changes are needed within the individual. Because these changes have not yet taken place in us, the crisis will continue, of course. We see how it continues to grow. The network of connection between us is discovered more and more, yet we still don’t understand how much we differ from it. Therefore, it is still too early to talk about crowdsourcing (the wisdom of the crowd).

When we gather together, we see that the sum of all our efforts and actions is much greater than the usual summation. A different type of addition is created here. Moreover, this addition is very meaningful. It is as if it is wisdom coming from the next level, as if it is a prophecy, which is to say, it is as if we are seeing a little higher, beyond time, beyond what we can see because, through our joint effort, we enter into a kind of similarity to the integral network.

This is happening among small groups of people who are still egoistic. If we could gather a group that was truly integral, meaning that the people within it were to rise to a level of integration with each other as is required by the network, then they would find themselves in another dimension toward which nature wants to push us.

After all, according to nature, we are still on the animate level of evolution and concerned only for our body. When we can be concerned about collective intelligence, collective attainment, our integral existence, then we can speak about a true wisdom of the crowd.

This integral existence is the image of a unified Human, Adam. This is not a physical image. Rather, it is a spiritual image, a supra-egoistic gathering of all of our characteristics.
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From KabTV’s “The Wisdom of the Crowd” 5/6/13

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Love: A Brief Flash Or A Fire That Never Goes Out?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the life of couples, there are moments when the partners experience a feeling of unprecedented, ultimate happiness, a feeling that brightens the routine with a flare of light. When we first experience this, we are excited that something like this is possible at all. After all, previously, we didn’t think that something like this could exist.

Answer: I think that for every couple, if they build their relationship on emotion and not on cold calculation, there will be moments of complicity when it’s as if the partners live within each other, penetrate each other, are intertwined with each other, when they discover an integration, mutual inclusion into each other that cannot be escaped. Kinship, closeness to the point of unity, intoxicates them, and when this love flares up, they lose their heads.

However, this will go on for only a few minutes, in the best of circumstances, for a number of days, and in rare instances, a number of weeks. Here, much depends upon us, upon the period in our lives through which we are passing. After that, the “delusion” vanishes.

So, where does this come from? It comes from nature so that we will approach each other and can develop a particular connection between us called a family. Without these moments, like animals, we would continue to get closer to each other according to the “calendar” and then move away again according to the orders of our inner essence. Yet, since we are humans, we have to preserve our relationships for years, and hence Nature provides us with an example of how we can do this.

It shows us how to prolong this fire of unification and integration so that it will become fascinating, will intoxicate me, and will not let me leave, so that it will compel me to think about my partner all the time. On one hand, it streams life into me, and on the other, it doesn’t let me turn toward anything else. It fills my emotion and takes away my mind. The example for this we see inside and out, but one way or another, it comes from Above, glows outside, and then goes out.

We need to teach people how to capture moments like these, how to prolong the magic, to strengthen it, and to develop it through the mind. I will attain a feeling that I experienced before specifically with the help of mind, but now this feeling will be balanced: I won’t lose my head and will be able to live with it for years as I develop it and manage it. By becoming included into one another, my partner and I won’t lose our ability to speak about the multitude of emotions, but rather, we will be able to share our impressions and experiences, measure and discuss them.

We truly will share with each other the feeling that fills us more clearly as we amplify and raise it more and more above all the events of life and above habit that leaves a bland taste everywhere.

This is the reason we need to attach the mind, meaning the method and the studies, to emotions. We need to teach people how to love.

Question: Is it possible to learn how to experience love?

Answer: Let’s remember what happened when the partners saw each other for the first time. This could have happened in a first, chance meeting, or the opposite; they might have been meeting each other from time to time over an entire year, and yet one day, they suddenly felt a particular impulse, really noticed each other as if a light went on in each of them.

Why does this happen? We don’t know. Nature itself sends us moments like these. However, without the necessary attention from our side, they disappear to wherever they came, without our noticing.

Only in very rare circumstances does this feeling remain over time, such as if people have a tendency for this or if they already were used to sustaining it when they lived at home with their parents. In general, the rudiment that our previous life has left in us is very important: Did we see similar examples at home? Did we get inspiration from them? After all, as a rule, we mimic everything that we absorbed from the family in which we were raised.

In the modern world, divorce has become the norm and even the general rule. It is difficult to find a partner who doesn’t cheat, isn’t suspicious of his “other half,” or doesn’t think of separating, often enduring this shared life from a lack of choice.

Therefore, it is necessary to teach people “love courses.” It is not worthwhile to rely on spontaneous, accidental, and uncontrollable surges. On the contrary, we agree that we will engender love between us ourselves, that we will cherish and develop it. We don’t wait for any chance flashes from unknown sources. Rather, we “run the business” ourselves. Then, regardless of whatever happens throughout our long lives, we can maintain this fire of love so that it constantly provides us with support, granting us a wonderful and secure feeling at all stages of the way.

I would put this course in school already, without waiting until confused couples seek help and advice when they don’t know how to return to the feeling that once was, how not to drift apart from each other eventually, until there is a complete dissolution of the family.

As with the rest of our problems, it’s all about a lack of adequate education, a lack of understanding, knowledge, and skill, without which it is simply impossible to manage.
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From a Talk about New Life 7/30/12

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Conveying An Integral Message

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If we join someone else’s community, how can we introduce our integral message so as a result, this community will be involved and oriented correctly?

Answer: A person who is engaged in the integral method has to first change himself a little, to become integral, to experience integral interconnection, as if exit from himself into the group, into the society.

First, studying occurs in groups. People constantly are integrated into each other, “exit themselves,” submit themselves to the group, and conversely, submit the group to themselves. They study all the integral qualities and begin to feel what it means to create within a group its general, unified image.

That is, they obtain integral skills. With these skills, they approach the crowd, for instance of fifty, a hundred, or three-hundred people—the number doesn’t matter. They know what they must get. They feel within themselves everything that happens with the crowd, where it should be led and how to control it. After all, inside themselves, they already have a clear image as to where they should lead the crowd.

In addition, if one passes some information to someone else in just a few lessons or he learns them from a book, nothing will come out of this.

If people, who have gone through all the internal metamorphoses with us, work with the crowd, then they will be able to convey their message. They must experience some transformation within themselves, feel integrality, and then they will be able to pass this feeling to others.
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From KabTV’s “The Wisdom of the Crowd” 5/6/13

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Teach Humanity About Integrality

Teach Humanity About IntegralityQuestion: We see today that experts from various sectors cannot manage and overcome problems in the economy and in other fields. Is it possible to replace these experts with integral unification in circles?

Answer: Yes, it’s possible, if these unions are built by people who understand what is happening. There are very few people like this in the world. They must be experts in integral upbringing. Essentially, we need to go out to humanity and explain how the world is integral and mutually linked; how we have evolved so far and into what state we are entering; that the general crisis is not accidental and that its solution can only be in this form and not another.

The solution is simple and the same for everyone. You don’t have to be great experts for this. It is simply necessary to teach people how to connect in similarity to nature which now reveals itself as integral.

If there is a butterfly effect, and we truly see this in all of our movements, then it is desirable that we learn about this effect and control it because it can seriously threaten all of humanity.
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From KabTV’s “The Wisdom of the Crowd” 5/6/13

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What Is Happiness?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We are born to be happy; we strive for that. However, the system in which we live is egoistic. The “American dream” was overblown in our society. Essentially, it is unattainable since, in order to reach it, we must earn money. In order to earn money, we have to work and, at its root, work is slavery. In other words, we were turned into slaves to become “happy.” However, we are not happy.

Can humanity remove this build-up and be happy without it? How would you describe the state of happiness?

Answer: I think that happiness is feasible only when we reach balance. When people build correct mutual fusion with each other, when they feel they are in the right social environment, all problems will vanish. After our society establishes and promotes homeostasis, people will feel that they as if flow, are in a state of internal and external peace. This condition will instigate a state of bliss in them.

In other words, a sensation of happiness emerges not because we fulfill ourselves egoistically, without thinking about what’s next since besides each of us there are many other egoists who want to be happy at the expense of others.

The sensation of happiness emerges as a result of unity. It stems out of a sense of equilibrium, similar to a healthy organism that is alive when its organs function in balance. By the same token, human society must follow examples of nature and aspire to reach the same state. Then, we’ll realize what the goal of our life is. The sensation that we have while being in this state is happiness.
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From the TV Program “Medicine of the Future,” 4/7/2013

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A Rise In The Balloon Of Mutual Connection

A Rise In The Balloon Of Mutual ConnectionQuestion: How is it possible to explain to a person, who all his life has been centered on only himself, why he should be concerned for others? What kind of pleasure will he have when he worries about someone else, and will he be healthier as a result of that?

Answer: You answered your own question: It will make him healthier. He won’t buy health in any other way. He should try!

Why shouldn’t he try to practice? Does he have anything to lose? He will only gain by his acting in as if  he has concern for others. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t believe in it. Let him play! Let’s agree to become children for a month.

Question: How is it possible to rise above the ego with the help of playing?

Answer: Under the influence of the environment. The environment needs to play, needs to show people how much it influences them. A person needs to subdue himself for the environment, to feel it as something higher than himself. He needs to constantly hear that the connection between him and his friends in his small society is the most important thing he has in his life. Together with that, they all cling to this connection as if to a balloon, which lifts them above and gives them the feeling of the upper life.
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From KabTV’s “The Medicine of the Future” 4/7/13

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Roles That Come Along Our Way

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Kabbalists write about the category of Israel in which everyone is connected so strongly that it’s impossible to separate them, and they totally depend on one another. What is this category and who belongs to it?

Answer: I will tell you a secret: At midday yesterday I was not “Israel,” but towards the evening my state changed a little and I managed to reach “Jerusalem”; then I descended into the “valley,” afterwards I met with the “lions,” and then I went up to Heaven and flew….

This morning not only did I not belong to “Israel” when I woke up, but I didn’t even belong to the “nations of the world.” I was simply an “animal”….  In general, “Israel” (ישראל) is the desire to receive that is aimed at Yashar El (ישר-אל, straight to the Creator).

But if you are asking about some protein substance, I don’t know to which category it belongs. First we have to check the desire and its intention, and then I can find out if it’s “Israel” and, if so, on what level. Suppose a Greek by birth and a Jew by birth are sitting before you: If you look inside them you may find that the Greek is “Israel” while the Jew is “wicked” on the “animate” level.

Everything is determined by the desire and the intensity of its intention. Of course “Israel” corrects itself first. If there is a part in me called “Israel” and a part called “the nations of the world” then, of course, I correct the purer vessels first.

This order is also reflected in our world: Here, whether we like it or not, we belong to “Israel” and we have to correct ourselves now. But in the spiritual sense, the Jews are also divided into these two parts: “Israel” and the “nations of the world.” How many representatives of “Israel” are there among the Jewish people? They can be a thousand out of 12-14 million….

Question: So who should take it upon himself to become a “member of the nation” as “one man with one heart?”

Answer: Whoever feels that he is a member of the nation. These are a person’s inner discernments which cannot be assessed in words or determined by one’s passport.

Question: Weren’t you with this nation yesterday?

Answer: No. Last night I was part of the “nations of the world,” and this morning I woke up an “animal.” I hope that I will be a “good boy” during the day and will grow to the level of the “great priest.”

However, the way things are going I will probably have to fall, to deteriorate to practically the state of “Haman” and the other wicked. They will “clothe” in me and I will feel like them; I will actually enter the figures that are described in the Torah.

This is because the Torah depicts inner figures and describes inner roles that we have to play on the way to resembling the Creator. I can’t resemble Him completely unless I experience the soul of “Haman,” “Hitler,” “Pharaoh,” etc. I have to be incorporated in them and also in the pure figures of bestowal that are opposite them. Then I will be truly corrected.

So it isn’t only about waking up as an “animal.” If everything comes down to only this, then I am “out of the game.” In general, we must never tie the spiritual path with the body that you now see in your corporeal eyes. It’s a grave mistake. Never judge by the external “pictures” and the bodily sensations—judge only by desires and intentions.

In all of reality there are desires to receive, desires to bestow, and an intention that corrects the desires to receive so that a person becomes the one who bestows. That’s all. Besides this, here is nothing, only three parameters: the Light, the vessel and the Masach (screen) between them.

Question: What about the 600,000 guarantors that Baal HaSulam speaks about in the article “Mutual Guarantee”? Do they have to wake up and to unite on the way to correction?

Answer: I will tell you another secret: The moment you reach the states in which you need 600,000 guarantors, you will find them. They will suddenly appear before you, as if nothing has happened.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Directors For The Collective

Directors For The CollectiveQuestion: There are people with a very strong desire to control, to manage others. How should one cooperate with them during the process of integral upbringing?

Answer: I think that if they get a correct understanding of the laws of nature, the proper education in the right environment, they will not be able to use this to the detriment of society. Along with this, if they are wonderful organizers, if they gather people into integral groups where they complement each other as parts of one society, then we certainly need people like this.

Look, how many people can actually be managers? There are very few, at most 5%.

I would like it very much if 5% were managers in our collective, but there is a total of only 0.5%. Wherever you look, it’s always the same people because everyone else can only carry things out; very few can create.

So, it’s necessary to educate these people correctly. If we can form a common collective team and constantly work with them, giving them the right guidance and ideology, then after a while, they will finally become directors for the entire greater collective.

Comment: During the process of integral interaction, it’s necessary to be as open as possible, to rise above our ego, to detach from it, and to connect with others. A model of behavior like this is contrary to the spirit of leadership. Leaders can’t enter a group like this; they are on the sidelines all the time.

Answer: And they don’t need it! They look at a group from a different level. They organize it, have concern for it, and relate to the group as to their children.

In this there is a difference between traditional education with which they are familiar and integral education. If they treat their group, the society that they organize, as their children, they must be separated from them and look at them “from on high,” with a caring and organizing eye. Then, this is good.

This is completely a distinct and separate group of people who are being educated as organizers.
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From a Talk on Integral Education 4/4/13

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