Question: We talked about the fact that humanity ran out of steam. I played sports and remember a wonderful state, the so-called second breath, when you run and suddenly some kind of lightness appears. Can we talk about the second breath in relation to the method of integral upbringing, or just about the fact that a person who stops running literally starts to fly?

Answer: Of course the feeling of detachment, fatigue, lack of motivation in the egoism, and feeling, or at least understanding, that continuing to work is impossible, hopeless is necessary on one hand. But on the other hand, when a person starts working, based on this new integral methodology he encounters various inverse transitions; he rises and falls because he must constantly feel himself in and out of the circle and in and out of the circle again. These are start-stop, back-and-forth motions, like that of a piston when it is pushed out, it gets out, or pushed in is included. It is this way these two lines work. One line works by pushing the man egoistically, by adding even more egoism to him, and then he inevitably falls out of unity. However, he gradually comes back into it, so he goes forward and rises again.

As a result, he climbs the ladder of spiritual values that are in even stronger and stronger connection. He climbs 125 degrees and reaches his perfection when all of nature: the still, vegetative, animate, and human degrees, which doesn’t exist in our world as we mistakenly call ourselves human (separating ourselves from the animal world), exist for him in one perpetual volume. An eternal one! Because by ascending these degrees, he perceives nature in a form in which it actually exists. That is, we go beyond what is called the universe, beyond the space created by the Big Bang, and this space is no longer physical.

This is already a subject of disclosure and study for those people who will start rising. But this of course is practical attainment.
[82394]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/25/12

Related Material:
Tactile Sensations In Integral Upbringing
Ahead Of The Train
An Appointment With A Unity Specialist

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

Question: During the second half of the twentieth century, the so-called “body-oriented psychotherapy” became popular. This refers to people who mainly perceive the world through tactile sensations. According to the integral method, once we rise to the new level, we separate from our bodies. Then, what about the people who have become accustomed to touching one another throughout their lives? What about them?

Answer: Tactile sensations naturally serve as an auxiliary element of initial contact because every person perceives certain influences through them. It is necessary to sit people in a circle where they touch each other’s knees or elbows and sometimes even hold hands and hug.

We try to sit men and women separately in different circles to annul various disturbances and give them the ability to touch freely, and so on. In other words, physical contact is very significant in the initial stage of the integral method.

For beginners, it is still very important to directly feel the people they are with. I do not think that, in the beginning, people can go online and via virtual channels begin to contact each for a virtual roundtable. It is difficult, although possible.

Question: The so-called “caressing” of a child is considered to be the model state of upbringing. As a psychotherapist, I know that there are many people who have not received enough caressing and touching in their childhood. Will the integral connection allow people to receive this sensation?

Answer: I do not know. I have not felt my students express any other need than the need to feel the next inner influence, the inner unity though tactile sensations such as holding hands and hugging each other in a circle. Nothing is leading toward caressing because all aspirations are initially directed toward inner unity.

Question: Should children be caressed?

Answer: Yes. Regrettably, we do not educate people. We do not prepare them for being parents. They do not understand this.

Question: Once a person rises above the level of the body, unites and acquires integral perception, will he be able to compensate for a lack of upbringing?

Answer: He absolutely will be able to compensate for the lack of anything! In general, once we create an integral atmosphere in the society, all the people instinctively and internally will understand the correct kind of attitude toward children, adults, and the elderly. All this already will have come into balance.
[82390]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 05/25/12

Related Material:
An appointment With A Unity Specialist
A Mercedes for Ten Dollars
Let Us Please Each Other

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

Question: Group psychotherapy has a notion of a group as a model of the world, an integral circle. When a person provides the circle with a certain model of behavior or an opinion and receives a reaction to it, he sort of completes the integrality of the picture, which he does not see without these people. Overall, this is the main work in group psychotherapy. Do we use this in the method of integral upbringing?

Answer: We also use this.

Today it is a custom to work collectively, because one person cannot do this. Only special people, geniuses, can work alone, but in general, we already see that the group initiates brainstorming.

But something different is happening here.

When we operate on the level of a soccer team, a research team, or a team of doctors, etc., we collect their common opinion at meetings where they gather and reach a certain common denominator. In a team of doctors, this averaged option is considered to be the most reliable for diagnosing a patient, and in a team of physicists it is used for research for scientific advancement. And these meetings, conferences, and consultations are repeated on the next stage.

In the method of integral upbringing, when we absorb information from one another in opposition to each other in conjunction with matching their opinions, we each develop one another and reach a certain common and already higher denominator. In other words, we do not simply add everything everyone has in the middle of a round table, but every one of us becomes enriched from everyone else by connecting randomly with one another.

At the end, let us say that I become like my nine partners, I become composed of all ten of us. The same happens with everyone else, but everyone keeps his foundation; in other words, I remain myself, but I acquire the knowledge, the sensations, and the attainment of another nine people. I already begin to look through them.

And here we really develop a very serious interaction between us. Every one of us increases his individual power, opinion, knowledge, sensations, etc. ten times.

All of this is regular group work in which there are several reciprocal methods of interaction when we share with a group, and then, when we divide into groups, strict interactions happen between us when we seem to strike sparks between us and force ourselves to reach certain acute states. We use all this.

But the integral method uses other methods, because we are not interested in attaining the maximum realization of desires and the mind on our animate, corporate, egoistic level. We are interested in ascending to the next state.

We gather, sit together, interact, and discuss problems with unity, connection, and different attitudes.

But the main thing is that there is an inner movement towards connection and unity in our discussions instead of mutual enrichment according to the principle of “I will take from everyone else.” Even though this also exists: I want to take from everyone else the strength to advance forward, the goal of unity, because each one of them has an individual movement towards this goal and I need all the strength.

And thus, everyone benefits from everyone else; in other words, instead of ten, we get 100 people since every person consists of ten. We increase our common aspiration towards unity by ten.

And besides, with all sorts of cross-conversations, phrases, and talks, inside them there is the most important thing: I open my mouth and listen, I open my ears and I hear, only with a single purpose of uniting with them on the inside into a single whole. Most important is when there is an enormous pressure to create something common outside of each one of us, inside our common information, for this unity to be above us, to create a community, which would keep us inside it like drops of water, which merge into a single common drop that can no longer be divided. This is the kind of state we want to reach.

When we try to do this and we conduct our desires through our conversations, we rouse the inner force of nature, which integrally holds together the entire universe. If we do this, it turns out that we form ourselves under the influence of this force of nature.

We begin to rouse the power that always developed us evolutionarily and pushed us forward. Now it no longer pushes us from behind with suffering, as it did before, but we direct ourselves towards it, and obligate it to pull us forward.

There are people, who do not wish to study, and they always get pushed “with a stick from behind.” There are people who follow the program. And there are people who go ahead of the program, they want more and more.

We want to advance fast, strive ahead on our own, and obligate nature to do this. This is practically the essence of the entire method.

In other words, we consciously use the same force of nature, and in this way we run ahead of the train. But this helps us rid ourselves of suffering that pushes us from behind and this accelerates our development. When we rouse this force of nature, and it influences us, we see how we pass these stages, we begin to learn this program, see the influence of this force, and become acquainted with it.

We suddenly enter the part of nature, where this entire enormous mechanism exists: forces, fields, systems of governance of our world, etc. We see what makes the atoms and the molecules spin, what makes everything connect, and how we operate throughout our entire journey, how I am now able to move my arms, since all this comes from there! Natural forces rouse us, and this is the way we operate.

In other words, we rise to the level of decision-making, the level, where the system of governance operates, and we begin to rouse it, begin acquainting ourselves with it, and become its active participants. Practically, we no longer pay attention to what happens with us on our level in this world. This world seems to fade in our sensations because we already exist on the level of forces, and not their consequences. And this is why this becomes most important to us; we already exist in it. It is like adapting to the next level, the next dimension.

This is where mankind needs to rise. This state is called “Adam,” “Man,” which practically does not exist in our world. In our world, we are merely rational animals because we service our corporeal, animal part.

In reality, the integral method is very simple and very practical. Today we really need to realize it.
[82243]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #33, 5/25/12

Related Material:
The Beginning Of The Development Of Man
The Transition To Integral Thinking
Not For Pride, Control And Respect

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

Question: Why is quality much more important that quantity in spirituality?

Answer: Because the attainment of Godliness is qualitative and not quantitative. In fact there is no quantity; it is all one. There is one desire and one Light and the connection between makes it one. All our work is qualitative.

Thanks to his correction, the created being learns the Creator’s essence and the attitude towards Him within the upper Light. Everything that was initially created within the desire to receive, according the Creator’s desire, was meant to reveal Him to a certain extent. He himself, Atzmuto, is still unattainable, but the Creator has dedicated a part of Himself to the creation. Thus the desire to receive that must be fulfilled to the fullest was created in order to discover the one who created it. We can’t do more than that. Kabbalists imply that there are additional ascents, but we don’t know about that.

So all our attainment is qualitative, and there are no calculations in it. Although we use numbers, we actually count qualitative revelations. Even in our world, if we checked things carefully, we would see that there are only qualitative parameters and not quantitative ones. If we understand that things are not exactly the same, then the quantitative calculations become impossible.

But our discernment and our attainment are weak: In the meantime, we don’t discern qualitative parameters and don’t know how to approach them. Only later, from the whole vessel, will I be able to discover the quality of things and define them accurately since they will all be part of me. In the meantime, we work according to quantity.

Question: So how can we measure quality?

Answer: It’s revealed only in the depth of the desire. But since we have no other choice, we describe it in quantitative terms: “125 degrees,” “6,000 years,” “600,000 souls,” etc. Our egoistic language is all based on quantitative concepts, and the quality doesn’t matter. In the past it was important, but since the Middle Ages and even some time before that, we began to develop only quantitatively while quality has become less important.
[82508]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
The Kind Of Persistence Needed On The Path
Rejecting Our Present Selves
Numbers Indicate Quality, Not Quantity

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: So far I receive pleasure from receiving, since I cannot be in contact with a higher level of receiving pleasure from bestowal, what can I do to change things?

Answer: You think that you should change the receiving with bestowal and to go on enjoying as if nothing has happened? It is impossible to simply switch from one to the other, after all, then you would bestow egoistically, in order to receive, in order to enjoy like before.

Comment: But I won’t be able to enjoy the receiving if I understand that the pleasure from bestowal itself is much more sublime and not because I gain something from it.

Answer: No, it is impossible to make a corporeal calculation and a spiritual calculation in the same vessels of receiving; when you compare between receiving and bestowal, you clarify what is more worthwhile.

In spirituality the account is totally different, I make it not based on what is in the desire, but in what is in the Creator—in order to bestow upon Him.

Comment: There have been many idealists throughout history, and we don’t see that they received any reward for their actions. Some even gave their lives for a sublime goal.

Answer: That’s the way it seems. However, our nature is totally egoistic, and it is all a desire to enjoy. We can see it in little children and even more in adults. If there is “matter” it cannot be anything but a desire to receive.

So the “idealists” as you see it do not exist. They are simply people whose desire is aimed differently; they enjoy giving to others and they feel good about it. Their intention is the same intention to enjoy, but externally it is expressed differently, it is expressed in giving.

How is an idealist different from a mother who takes care of her child? She also gives him everything. So why don’t we call her an “idealist”? It is because it is her child and we understand that nature obliges her to take care of him, just like animals do.

On the other hand, an idealist operates for the benefit of strangers, and we don’t see what motivates him. But the same concern is part of his nature too; he enjoys giving to others and so he acts accordingly. Eventually, there is no ideal here; it is nature that motivates such people. He doesn’t work against his ego, but rather in a way that is natural for him. If you forbid him to take care of others, he will be ready to kill you, since by that you will be depriving him of the possibility of enjoyment. So it is the same desire to receive that manages the idealist.
[82384]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
The Powerful And Exalted Ideal Of Bestowal
Bestowal Brings Joy
Bestowal For The Sake Of Bestowal: A Clean-Up State

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: At the convention, you said that our problem is that we cannot tie all our intentions together yet: me, who has to be corrected, the friends, the Creator, and the world. What are the stops on the way to the one unified intention that combines all the elements?

Answer: We have to constantly clarify things internally as to what we have to think about and thus summon the Light that Reforms. It is written: “It is better to sit and do nothing,” since if you don’t know what to do, you can even cause more harm. It is like giving a small child power, or a person who doesn’t know what he is doing; he can only cause harm.

So, on one hand, it is concealed from us so that we don’t harm ourselves and others. On the other hand, how can we come close to the right action? It turns out that we constantly need to think about the right intention and only to that extent will we be able to come closer to the Light. There are Masachim (screens) that conceal the Light from us only because our desires are incorrect. The moment our desire comes close to the right state, these Masachim disappear.

So every person must constantly check himself, and decide how he should really invest his powers. Life helps us, the general despair, the aimlessness, the confusion, and the state the world is in now all help us. It isn’t that we are not being ridiculed anymore, as they used to do about a decade or two ago, and in every generation in the past ages, we have reached a point now where there is no choice. So we have to show not only to ourselves, but to the world, what we should all yearn for, what we should reach, what intent while reading The Zohar.
[82382]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
Economics Has Ceased To Be A Science
To Not Regret The Lost Time…
The Moments Of Light

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Zohar - 1 Comment →

Question: As it happened that during the last congress in the North, our group divided into two parts: The first one, 10 people, isolated themselves from the world on the first floor of the center and completely simulated the conditions of the friends at the convention in Israel; the second one, 20-30 people who due to various reasons could attend but only participate part of the time, were in another room.

I was among the isolated 10, and I could not concentrate on anything but one thought: “How could it happen that we divided into two parts?” But I could not pluck up the courage to raise this issue with the other 9 people. This question haunts me; what should I do? Could I raise it for discussion or would it be against the unity of the group, even in this decision to be divided into two parts during the convention? I just think that the spiritual committee should insist that the group stays together no matter under what conditions.

Answer: Contradictions exist until the final correction everywhere and especially in Kabbalah, but in spirituality, opposite things are united in a common intention; they co-exist although they are separated by the law of equivalence of form. So, we need to get used to the fact that we can be different, but together; moreover, we should not strive to put everyone and everything at the same level. Equal does not mean the same, but equal in the intention and at different levels.

We are all different and no one forces us to be the same, but just to aspire for the same goal. Also, everyone strives for the goal in various ways. We are different, like the cells of one body; in our intention to the common Creator, the Creator unites us.

Stay as an example to follow, and those who cannot, due to objective reasons, are not worse than you, but will be in the other sub-group at the congress; similarly, the body has organs that are different in their importance organs, but they belong to one body.

The equality of friends does not mean sameness!

Ask, we will find out.
[82417]

Related Material:
Equality For The Final Goal
Changes That Lead To Equality
A Common Reserve Of Spiritual Energy

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: Is it necessary to have intensive studies for a long period of time so that the majority of people could approach the integral level?

Answer: We should not wait until they reach it. We don’t have time.

We see that the so-called “progressive” societies of the world are in a very critical state. Since the world is interconnected, they will naturally influence the entire world with their undesirable extreme fallout; nothing good will come from that.

Here we cannot take a statistically average segment. We should define it according to the most extreme states where the wealth, power, force, and weapons exist because it is the highest level and defines the level of human development.

Today we cannot say, “Humanity has Wall Street and at the same time it has an African village, and their average is modern humanity.” No!

Since Wall Street is working for the entire world, we should take it into account. The African village will feel its influence in any case. If Wall Street disappears, the African village will die from starvation or it will be reduced to ashes if Wall Street wishes so.
[82246]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #33, 5/25/12

Related Material:
When There Is No Vitality
Recognizing Evil In A Good Way
The Task Only We Can Handle

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Education, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, World - 1 Comment →

Question: I’ve been working with psychotherapy and psychology for twenty years and I have a lot of different experiences and so on. In transitioning to the method of integral education, I see all the pluses that you’re talking about. Moreover, we have applied them in practice and they are quite obvious.

But since this is the next qualitatively new degree, then essentially, my entire twenty-year experience is not needed. It turns out that I have to give it up, but I cannot do it, it’s very hard for me to do.

Answer: Why do you think that we don’t need your experience?

After all, it wasn’t in vain that humanity developed for hundreds of millions of years to reach the present state. Obviously, it couldn’t have come to it in one thrust.

I also lived my entire life going through all kinds of states, pursuing disciplines completely remote from this method, searched, suffered, developed, and worked in various fields. I don’t know the full program: Why did I come to it through exactly such a path and didn’t do it 30-40 years ago like my current young students? I don’t envy them, because in everything there is a cause-and-effect basis for each of us. But to talk about the fact that the past could have been different, I think that for a psychologist this is not suitable.

Response: Experience, that’s all great. But it has a reverse side, a trap, in that a person clings on to this experience. It would seem that you’ve already passed these states and the next step is in front of you, and it is beautiful. But you’re standing at the threshold and shuffling your feet, because it’s scary to take this step.

Answer: I agree with you, and I see it in many people.

What can we say then about those who are only now starting out and are pursuing something very distant?! They spent their life on absolutely egoistic, murky, lowly fulfillments… We have to understand that this is how we were created, that only consistent cause-and-effect development is what leads us to realize the need for the next phase of development, and for each it is his or her own.
[82197]
From a “Talk On Integral Upbringing” 5/25/12

Related Material:
The Transition To Integral Thinking
A Leap Into A New Dimension
The Next Phase Of Human Development

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

Question: Before going skydiving, say, a person needs to prepare his mind for the jump, and there is an instructor who helps him with that. It is precisely the teachers who often push their students toward a decisive step. As far as I understand, coercion is forbidden in the integral method, and a teacher, a person who already exists within the integral sensation, doesn’t have a right to do such things.

Answer: How can I push a student? He must exert an effort by himself, close his eyes, and jump from the plane.

He needs to make an internal effort, to gather himself in such a way as to recognize the need for uniting with others. And only in this unity, when he jumps out of himself, not out of an airplane, into a commonality and integrality, beyond himself and into others, from reception to bestowal, when he makes this inversion, this leap, but at the same time turns himself inside out, only then can he experience it.

Moreover, there is a force in nature that doesn’t push, but helps us make this change, this phase transition. It works only on the condition that we demand its influence and help. This is the so-called MAN (prayer) that needs to be formed in a person, that is, an urgent need to change oneself from receiving, being egoistic like a cancer cell, to giving, being compassionate, emanating, and filling everyone else.

This force is able to change us and it exists in nature. But it doesn’t exist in each of us separately; it appears only when we gather together and in our circle create commonality between us, our common effort directed at change. And then each of us and all of us together undergo this change: We become one common whole. And then, after pulling away from it, we become egoists once gain.

So, this force builds us into one single whole, changing not each of us separately but precisely that entire group of people who support each other and elevate this goal, creating such a common demand that it truly draws to them the force of nature which changes them. But in order for it to influence us, we need to have accumulated a certain potential for it. And then the force holds us. This is the second, the giving force of nature.

Two forces exist in nature: receiving and bestowing. We’ve never used the force of bestowal. Desiring to fulfill ourselves, we’ve always used only the egoistic force and have dealt only with it. And now, we’re gradually losing the desire to work with it and in this manner we’re coming to the revelation of the next force.

In our method, this is known as the two lines, where the left line is the receiving one and the right, giving. Through the help of these two lines, we begin to work in mutual connection and to rise in the new dimension along the rungs of the ladder of attainment, feeling, and fulfillment.
[82191]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” 5/25/12

Related Material:
In A Trap Of Accumulated Experience
The Transition To Integral Thinking
Don’t Postpone Correction Until Tomorrow

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