Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

Organizers Or Educators?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If we implement integral education and need to seat ten to twenty thousand people on the school bench at the same time, does this mean that we need a huge number of organizers?

Answer: I don’t think that it will be possible to make the population sit on the school bench with the help of organizers. We must prepare very broad introductory materials relative to what we are about to do in a town in order to awaken social interest in the public, both financial and ethically. This means showing them the benefit of their taking courses in integral learning and even in passing the exams.

We must introduce encouragements such as certificates or diplomas so that people will have an incentive to advance. Parents should be encouraged through their children by children being proud of their parents’ involvement with integral education, and, of course the opposite, that parents would feel moral damage if they don’t participate in the process of integration.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #23, 03/03/12

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Retirees Forward!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should the studies in integral education be organized for retirees?

Answer: With retirees, it’s not possible to study through television communications, through screens. You need to stand in front of them live so that they can feel you. It’s possible to introduce a combined study system, varying study with a teacher and virtual lessons.

Teaching retirees, the teacher simultaneously chooses from the group who is suitable for teaching. These people are easily and quickly discernible: They usually sit in front and listen to the teacher attentively. Likewise, they immediately sign up to be his helpers, quickly grasp the study material, and within a short time they’re able to give lessons on their own. In addition, we must prepare flyers and newspapers, organize convenient and accessible kits of video materials that will always be with them.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #23, 03/03/12

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Teaching Personnel

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In integral learning, is it possible to use the educational infrastructure that already exists: schools, universities, teachers, and professors?

Answer: I believe that all teachers during the process of integration should try to adapt it quickly and everyone must work with his or her niche. Since there are many materials from other sources in integral upbringing and education: physics, chemistry, biology, geography, natural science, etc., it would be very desirable for teachers to continue to teach their subjects, and at the same time to also acquire a certain level of integral knowledge, which they would implement in their classrooms. This comes first.

Second, there are teachers, who can quickly adapt the integral method to teaching while taking courses of integral education, and in their turn, they would become educators and teachers of integral learning. And then there would be a constant supply of personnel.

Question: How can teachers be applied in the beginning of the educational process?

Answer: First of all, they continue to do their regular work, they do not stop doing it. Teaching children in schools must continue.

And integral method studies must be simply added everywhere they can be added, they must be implemented in all possible productive and educational processes, but never in a way that can harm them—it must be done as gently as possible.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” #23, 3/3/12

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Keeping The Finger On The General Pulse

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During the convention we always feel infinite pleasure and fulfillment, but the moment the convention is over, there is immediately a heavy feeling of emptiness and reluctance to carry on. What does this hardening of the heart after the convention symbolize and how should we work with it?

Answer: I think that we felt these things after conventions we had in the past. We shouldn’t feel this way now because we don’t work from one convention to another any more, which is the reason that we used to fall after each convention, like after receiving a temporary gift, which we couldn’t hold on to.

Now we have to work continuously at building our collective vessel, and so we shouldn’t feel such deep descents although there will be descents and ascents on this way too, as there should be. This is because the upper Providence is revealed by the “round” and “straight” impact. During the straight influence, the upper Providence is revealed a bit and during the round influence, it summons periods of exile.

Every individual, whole groups, and even the whole world go through such “exiles” and “redemptions” alternately. These states are sequential, and nature is constantly changing: The seasons change, the geological eras, and the ecological eras all change in the endless process we are in.

We have to go through all these processes, but our advancement should be in a straight line, in the “middle line.” We will have to clarify it since we are the first to start this process, like the “last generation” of the egoistic world. So I don’t think there will be any special descents after the conventions. Our conventions will be of a different nature, which will be determined in the next few months.

I doubt whether the question about the descent after the convention will be relevant. But if someone still feels a descent, he should ask the friends for help. If the whole group is in a state of descent, it should turn to other groups for help since it depends on them as one man in one heart.

Thus everyone should help one another, keeping the finger on everyone’s pulse, taking care that not one friend will disappear and not one group will fall if it isn’t a purposeful fall.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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Staying Above Rejection

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should I work with the evil that is being revealed?

Answer: The method of Kabbalah is intended for the correction of our evil inclination, meaning the corrupt desire that is entirely directed to its own benefit, instead of bestowal to another person. This correction helps us to become similar to the Light, to the Creator. According to the similarity of form, the Light becomes clothed in a vessel, and then we sense the upper reality.

Question: What happens in the relationship among the friends when I feel envy or hatred?

Answer: Despite the vices being revealed, you keep going and try to unite with your friends above this corruption. There is nature, but we must be above it. This is how we correct ourselves. We are not destroying the egoism, but we are working above it.

I cannot stand my friend, and I do not wish to interact with him. However, I am trying to connect with him above this rejection.

After all, this rejection is the result of my corrupt, egoistic desire. With my purpose being correction, I try to rise above it and treat my friend in the opposite way, with love.

Both of these forms coexist within me. I recognize my rejection, and, at the same time, I decide to express a different attitude, seeing my friend as a great person.

This is our work.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The Decimal System Of Circles

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why will the next stage of the work be unity among the groups? How is it connected to the unity within each group and to the individual work of a person?

Answer: In fact, unity begins from a group of ten people. A human is built in such a way that he can apprehend specifically this amount of people. Ten is a convenient “round” number, neither too large, nor too small. It is called the “Minyan,” meaning it’s what can be “counted” (Limnot). Our perception is structured in such a way that it comprehends only this kind of a system, since it completely enrobes our internal structure (the ten Sefirot).

However, at the lesson when we’re not talking about our own impressions, but in general are reading articles and discussing the material, a very large group can participate in this, including the whole world. Therefore, during workshops we sit in groups of ten, while at the lesson there is any amount of people who are capable of such a clarification and discussion using the Kabbalistic language.

We just need to worry that it doesn’t turn into a routine, and for this we need to constantly increase the desire inside of us and the importance of the goal. Each time we will be talking about another, new character of the revelation of the Creator.

By uniting with the group, we are creating a “One,” the commonality for all of us, not belonging to any one of us, but only to all of us together. It’s the higher essence, the “amalgamation.” It’s not simply our sum, but a kind of an addition to it. It’s because in order to have arrived at this sum, each one must have traded-off his egoism. The concept of One, being above us, is composed of all of these personal cancellations of egoism. This is how we build our higher level.

If we were to unite simply as egoists for a common profit in order to build something together or to win, like a football team, then the result would be an empty sum of our efforts. However, if we are cancelling our ego, then we are building a new common vessel above all of us.

It belongs to all of us; those ten who are sitting in a circle having a discussion are cancelling themselves out and are exalting the group and friends. The highest Sefira, Keter, is defined by how I listen to everyone else, how I place the group, the Creator, and the goal above myself. And I value myself as  low and I lower myself relative to my friends. This is the way my Malchut is defined.

After each one has clarified these two points, Keter and Malchut, we unite all of these Keters and Malchuts together. And if each one is doing it with enough capacity for the first level of revelation of the Light, then it reveals in this gap between the Keters, united into one, and the united Malchuts. An internal luminescence occurs between them, since we have cancelled ourselves out.

Although it’s not yet the constriction or a screen, the Light is already being revealed and is beginning to work to the extent of our opposition to our egoism and desire to unite. It’s because both of these principles are already spiritual. We are exalting the spiritual, bestowal, and we are disregarding the material, receiving; we’re taking the actions which we are capable of, like small children.

And then the ten people, supplementing each other and ready to unite, are creating a large tension, a distance between the united Keter and a united Malchut, building our common spiritual vessel in this way. And when we have built it among the ten of us, we understand that the rest of the friends around the whole world, are exerting the same efforts right now. All of our joint efforts are combined regardless of the size of each group.

If after our efforts to unite in our circle we want to include the rest of the groups inside of us, then we are uniting everyone together. And then a truly huge and powerful vessel is being formed, capable of revealing the first level of the Light, according to the similarity of qualities. The more distance there is between the common Keter and the common Malchut, the bigger the vessel, and possibly it will already be enough for the first revelation of the Light.

The Light is revealed in a discreet form, in portions: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, and so forth. And if we reveal it, then it will be revealed in each group and in each person according to his personal efforts, more in some and less in others to the extent of the efforts invested.

That’s why we need to long to connect all of the groups and separated friends to us, and even the whole world since it has a huge vessel. It’s there that the true desire to enjoy lies, and if it will join us even in a passive form, then it will add a lot of material to us. And if we with our longing towards the spiritual are working on this material, then we are receiving a huge additional capacity.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/12, “Talk About Past Conventions” 

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Fundamentals of Kabbalah – 05.20.12

A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah

[media 1]   [media 2]

The Convention Is Never Over

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do you preserve the permanent state of the convention from now on?

Answer: A convention is a leap through unity. If we have such exercises of unity once a week by having intensive workshops called “friends’ meetings,” we may not need to have big conventions in order to advance anymore. We will rise from one week to the next by preparing ourselves from one meeting to the next.

Everything depends on the preparation, which determines what level of unity we will be able to attain in the workshop. We need a big desire, the recognition of the importance of the goal and the uniqueness of such a meeting as a special action, as the only method by which we can create a place for the revelation of the Creator.

From one week to the next we will live with the feeling of the coming friends’ meeting and yearn for the lesson day by day. Before the lesson we can also feel as we do before the workshop. The lesson can be as intensive, because in the lesson we speak about the same internal work but in different words. On the whole, we are talking about the same topic—the revelation of the Creator to the created beings, where it takes place and under what conditions.

All our collective actions should be seen from this perspective no matter what we do. It all depends on how much a person appreciates every opportunity he is given. Therefore, we shouldn’t wait for conventions if we don’t prepare ourselves from one lesson to the next, from one friends’ meeting to the other, and from one convention to the next one.

Otherwise a big convention by itself will not be very useful—it will summon a temporary awakening but not an ascent. If a person doesn’t come with the previous impression, he will not be granted ascent, advancement, and a greater connection. This is because he hasn’t prepared himself for it; he hasn’t yearned for it and has no deficiency for it. He will simply be impressed from everything else, but will not attain a specific fulfillment.

So it turns out that we feel elated from one convention to another, but then we fall again. The elation should be before the convention and the convention itself should be a level upwards. In this convention we managed to do that to some extent. After having risen to the next level and having felt that we are in a state of descent, disappointment, and fogginess, we should immediately start preparing for a new meeting. This meeting can be in the next lesson, the weekly friends’ meeting, or a big convention.

Everything is determined by the preparation. There shouldn’t be any “dead time” in which I just sit and wait. I have to increase the deficiency inside me or to fulfill it by connection.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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Reasonable Consumption

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Let us say that the workday at a business is being cut in half. In other words, a person will work four hours and spend four hours studying. We will have to decrease people’s salary, but we will need to do it gradually and guarantee the minimum standard of living.

Answer:
I think that, after several months, it would be possible to begin doing a completely different kind of work with them. We would be able to begin to transition the city, all its services, and all social relationships to reasonable consumption.Reasonable consumption is when we care for the entire city so that people have a normal standard of living, not a minimal standard of living, but normal. We create a certain basket of consumption and make sure that the entire population receives it under certain conditions, such as when a person participates in upbringing, education, certain types of production, or public works. For example, let us say that he provides social services and must remain at his job. Then, gradually, all people will come to a normal level of consumption.

Question:
Will a normal picture of consumption vary for different age groups and genders?

Answer:
I think that this only depends on a person’s physical and physiological needs, never on his position in society.

Question:
Is there a certain algorithm for determining it? It is simply that I, as a practical person, immediately imagine a line of people.

Answer:
There will not be a line. We need to create a communal service that simply will supply every single person with everything he or she needs. The minimal provision needs to be in the form of products so that a family would receive at least whatever it needs to exist in its natural form and, perhaps, a part in monetary form.

Question:
However, the city has funds such as pensions and federal child benefits.

Answer:
No, we are saying that we are trying to gradually transition the entire population to a completely different type of existence. What does a person really need money for when he is fully provided with all services? We are speaking about a city that lives within its closed system, and about a reasonable standard of living that we must provide people with, being certain that, together with education, they will not have the ability to profiteer from it. This can only be avoided by natural provision.
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The Taste Of New Sensations

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A person needs to open slightly to feel the taste of exiting himself, the taste of integrality. How is it possible to do that? Where do we begin?

Answer: In the beginning, we use games in the process of teaching. They show how much we lose in our interaction from being individualists and how much we gain if we participate together.

When we mutually participate, we don’t connect our efforts or our knowledge, but rather give birth to something new: a new force, a new knowledge, new opportunities, and most importantly, a new sensation that exists between us. And we all exist in it together.

From within this new participation, we do not begin even to feel the “we” since it is the total of the individualists who assemble together. When we exit ourselves, the individualists, we go to the next state of integrality that is called Adam (Man or Human). We must try to begin to feel it. But this is fine tuning.

Question: What is the first step to begin to feel this?

Answer: I think it is built on conversation, on communication, on understanding and mutual participation. A kind of commonality is gradually created, a kind of deep, internal, non-verbal mutual understanding, when they begin to feel what ties them together, what is common between them.

It is a shared goal. But it is not an individual goal of each of us; this goal is above us: harmony with nature that we must understand, grasp its meaning, its characteristics, its relationship to us, and the way we enter it and exist in it.  However, we only exist in it thanks to the connection between us. It is specifically the connection between us that creates the “lining,” the background, our integral sensor. With its help we feel integral nature revealed in our mutual sensation, as if within us.

Then, we begin to feel its thought, intelligence, the goal, the plan, and gradually, we begin to attain it. Besides feeling that it exists, I begin to attain it, to discover it, but I discover it inside, through our shared feeling. Together with everyone, I begin to discover this more and more.

We begin to share our emotional impressions and discuss it from a logical point of view: What is this plan? What is this force that operates on us and others? How does our perception of our world change when we begin to feel the inner force of nature, which, apparently, exists here inside, and all of our world as if lies on its platform, while it constitutes a network of forces that holds up the entire world and manages it. So, what is this force? What is this energy?

When we begin to clarify this between us, among the friends, each one of us arrives, first of all, at this shared knowledge and receives from everyone additional feelings and intellect. And through these shared sensations and intelligence we begin to attain the harmony and the integral force of nature, which can never be discovered and attained alone.

This discussion should take place for a few hours in a group of ten people and two instructors, in a calm environment, with specific reading materials.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #17, 02/28/12

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