Question: The social protest organizers in Israel are planning to start a new wave of protest in the summer, which will be much stronger than the previous one. The profit the elites are making at our expense is really annoying.

Answer: This is true, but where is the solution? The protesters have no solution. All of this has been done before, and we know what the results were. As long as they continue to operate in the egoistic system, such attempts only make the situation worse.

Given the current circumstances, it’s impossible to fulfill the demands of the protesters. There is the army, there are the health and the education systems, there are sectors that receive state funding, and in the framework of the democratic consensus there isn’t much room for games. There are laws in this country.

“What laws!” Let’s take several billion shekels and throw them from one place to another,” you scream. The problem is that everyone has an opinion of his own. We shout slogans in the streets, put up signs, but you can’t change the political system, the national budget.

“We should take money from those people!” you are saying. But how? After all, there are laws and the legislators sit in the parliament. So go into politics or at least into lobbying and start changing things. But when you start a revolution, you are destroying what’s there already and things become even worse. No revolution will ever lead to any good as long as we are in the same egoistic system. There are endless examples of that: Cuba, Russia, Korea, and more.

You are destroying the system that more or less reflects the structure of society. Despite the ego, despite the lies and deception, the voters and the elected match one another. Social pressure may bring down the price of gas by ten agorot, but you won’t actually be able to really change anything here.

Even if you bring millions out to the streets, it won’t help. The only real possible outcome may be the destruction of the state. This is actually what they want, and this can be achieved, but not the correction. Correction is possible only by the Light that Reforms. Magnates and revolutionaries have nothing to do with it.

I am against this approach because it lacks any kind of order. Do you want to change the situation? Go into politics. Do you want to change things? Go to the parliament and change the laws. But instead, you are suggesting to accumulate power and to destroy what already exists. This isn’t building, and it has never led to anything good anywhere.

Mass protests won’t help in any way. They will only cost the state billions, and the masses that demand those billions will be the ones who will have to pay for them, while the leaders will “ride the wave” and find their place in the parliament. Ultimately, it is nothing more than a political game.

Question: But in the meantime people are suffering. How can we help them?

Answer: Imagine Baal HaSulam who saw what was going on during World War II. What was he able to do?

You are asking: Why aren’t we doing anything when people are suffering? The body is suffering. We don’t understand this calculation, and there is no way we can ease this suffering. On the contrary, such attempts only prolong the suffering.

We are trying to “draw” people to prolonged pain instead of a disaster, but nothing more than that. A person must come to the recognition of evil.

On one hand, these protests do hasten the development in some way, but on the other, this hastening is not by the Light that Reforms, and so it costs us dearly. It will bring about many troubles and will weaken our state and society.

We have to do our work. Only unity and connection can help us because they correspond to the Light and draw it. Only as a result of that will we bring about changes for the better.

No other means will help any state. The attempts to solve the problems at the expense of others are worthless. A few cosmetic changes can be made, but on the whole, all the governments are the same. They all speak about the good and don’t mention the bad, and no one will change anything, except for the impression they make on the public. After all, they are all puppets, and as it says: “The hearts of ministers and kings are in the Creator’s hands.”

We have to draw the Light that Reforms. Only the Light can bring about any changes. By the unity among us we will continue to develop. Therefore we say to people that mutual guarantee is the solution to all our problems.
[71523] 
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/2012, The Zohar 

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Question: What is the fifth or zero stage of the evolutionary development?

Answer: We see that all the laws of nature originate from a single law of the closed system, and so we assume that the zero stage of the evolutionary development is what existed before the Big Bang or during the Big Bang as the Thought of Creation.

Question: That is, everything that happens with us is a certain program that is being realized now?

Answer: If studying the environment and ourselves, we discover relationships, logic, and certain laws, it suggests that we exist within a system of laws, interactions. And if we do not or cannot see some of them, or see but cannot connect them together, this is our problem.

But every day, we discover more encompassing, richer, and interconnected dependencies.
[72795] 
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11   

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Question: Were the previous transitions of human development, for example, from the vegetative to the animate level, also accompanied by crises and suffering?

Answer: The previous transitions were smoother, more stretched out. The first, the still period, was the longest because the amount of still nature is much greater than the vegetative.

There is a kind of projection of one level of nature to the next, but it retains its proportions. That is why the still level of human development lasted tens of thousands of years, the vegetative one lasted thousands of years, and the animate one lasted hundreds of years, perhaps five centuries or even less. Our period should be over in just a few decades.

Nature directs all its parts from the Big Bang that started everything to complete rest, to full correspondence with each other. This tranquility will take place when man will reach his highest level and close the entire integral picture.

We are not talking about stars, galaxies, and so on. That does not matter. What matters is that at the highest level, man will be completely enclosed within it, including everything within himself. This is the requirement of nature. Its most important law is the law of balance of all of its parts. Any action tends toward equilibrium, to spending the least amount of energy, the minimal entropy, minimal disorder.

Here we encounter man who causes the greatest disorder. He is the only element of nature that has free will. Namely due to the freedom of will he must understand that he needs it only in order to achieve balance, harmony with nature.
[72676]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11  

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Question: What are the main characteristics of the fourth integral level of human development, the level of Adam?

Answer: This level has one characteristic—the movement towards generalization, towards a common humanity, towards mutual merging, the integration of everything it does on all levels: culture, science, all kinds of industrial interactions, financial and economic ties, and so on.

With the help of the integral education and upbringing, we need to reach such a state where we’ll be able to eliminate all borders and make a person absolutely free, when he understands and realizes that he needs to work only to support his normal existence and give everything else to the integral ascent because he feels absolute comfort and harmony in it. It becomes the most important thing for him and defines the future society.

However, now we shouldn’t think and talk about such society but about the transformation towards it because if we do not wish to voluntarily rise above egoism, this passing may happen by the means of great suffering. Meaning that conflicting opposing forces could arise, which may lead to a world war. Yet, it may be possible to do this by means of an explanatory work, which is what we are trying to do.
[72679]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11  

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Question: How can the still, vegetative, and animate levels of human development be characterized?

Answer: The still level is the period when a person has very small egoism that is not yet awakening him to connect with others. He passively exists in nature, changing virtually nothing around himself, only working the land a little bit with his hands and primitive tools (actually, even this does not exist yet) and getting food for himself. This is the still level of development, meaning that it does not perfect itself and remains at the same level all the time; it’s not growing yet like at the next level.

The vegetative level is characterized by the fact that a person is already “growing,” but as we say, “he’s still a plant.” Meaning, that he still lacks movement, he’s not capable of great achievement or of various transformations. He organizes the space around himself, but like a plant that spreads its roots and takes a little from everything. He conquers something, but in a very limited form since his egoism, his capabilities, are not letting him “swallow” what he has conquered. That’s why it makes no sense to risk, invest efforts, and suffer.

The animate level is first of all the development of technology, meaning that which is outside of man. We begin to develop instruments that help us conquer the world as far as space. This stage began in the Middle Ages with the invention of printing machines and other novelties.

Indeed, the Middle Ages are not a simple level of development. It was quite a busy period conceived in a somewhat internal form. However, when studying the process of evolution we understand that at that time, very interesting, powerful, albeit concealed, conception processes of the next stage were taking place.

It should be emphasized that this wasn’t observed at the previous stages because there is very little difference between the earth and a plant, and their connection is far too strong. They contain each other, they transform into each other, and so on. While there is a huge difference between the vegetative and the animate states: in free will, movement, personal space, space conquering, and so on.

The internal human development carried on according to this. People have literally rushed to conquer nature and areas, and to discover new lands. Everything changed: working the land, farming, occupations, cities, division of people into groups and clans, and so forth. Then, movement for parliament began, for freedom, and so on. Humanity has become more active on all of the levels relative to past states, and this activity has grown more and more.

During the last century, it has reached unity. We have arrived at integration, at egoistic interaction. This has become the presupposition for the conception of the new level, which began to manifest in the middle of the 20th century. The Club of Rome, the academic Vernadsky in Russia, and various international organizations started to notice that a holistic level of nature is being revealed and it influences society accordingly. If we don’t follow it, then we’ll suffer from the imbalance with nature.

Many people at that time started to write and talk about it. Each one on his level: on the level of biology, sociology, political science, mineralogy, social development, or even the economic and financial development (economics and finance are two different functions of man). All of this has been accumulating gradually and has led to the emergence of prerequisites for passing onto the next level. However, the emergence of these prerequisites, like any movement in development, begins with small revolts which are constantly growing until they reach states where it is impossible to stop, to remain in the previous state, and then a new state is born by a leap.
[72684]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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Question: How can a person give up corporeal pleasures if he doesn’t feel any pleasure in the desire to bestow yet?

Answer: We see that humanity is compelled to go through different states. Egoistic development leads people to despair and depression, drugs, alcohol, and suicide.

We live only by virtue of an instinctive, beastly fear of death, given to us to attain the goal. The fear of death is what keeps us and controls us, and if it weren’t for its control, we would have different calculations.

It is intentional that we are enslaved to death so that we’re compelled to go on living in every situation, even the worst. We are ready to give everything for life, although there’s no doubt that life itself isn’t worth it. But we act unconsciously, guided by an instinct instilled in us purposefully so that we advance towards the goal specifically by way of suffering and difficult calculations.

In doing so, we go though states in which there is no justification to go on living. However, the goal of creation forces us to do so. Therefore, the Creator inserted this beastly fear into the desire to receive, which obliges us to struggle for our lives. After all, the notion of  “life” is much higher in our eyes than any suffering.

All this is so that we can survive and through the constant egoistic calculations reach the decision that we shouldn’t wait for death to redeem us from the suffering that we feel in our egoistic desire, but rather switch it for another desire, the desire to bestow. Then bestowal, connection with others, will not seem worse than death and unrealistic.

It’s because we’ve suffered so much in our ego that we can now make the calculation and agree that it’s possible to reach the desire to bestow. It’s the suffering that can help us do that. This is how we advance.

This means that there is a struggle between the different forces within a person. A person himself only has to sum up this struggle, and it is called the life wisdom he acquires at such price.
[71605]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/2012, Shamati #35

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Question: What is the criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of a teacher’s work in the integral upbringing courses, or are his qualifications not subject to doubt?

Answer: In our system, the teachers are classified in the process of work. Suppose twenty people are admitted to teaching. In the process of their work with the group, we see that one of them is suited for this work, another is suited for a different kind of work, and so on. This is how they switch over. In the course of a few months, each one finds their place, their forte, and their hobby, and the groups under their supervision begin to work correctly.

Simultaneously, the teacher works on the development of the methodology, writes various abstracts, and participates in the creation of additional educational and accessory material. Then we see that he has found his place.

However, among such people, there can be those who have no internal expression, lack enthusiasm and energy. In these cases, it is still necessary to try to attain the auxiliary state so that work in a group won’t be just a job for a person. After all, you are creating a new society here, you are creating! It’s as if you were on the level of the Creator, and out of an animal, you are creating a human. You summon special forces, which harbor within our unity and create the collective image of Adam out of us.

That is why it is necessary for us to see the teachers as inspired and inspiring. Otherwise, this will be a lifeless structure, a group that will gradually wilt. We are watching out for this. By switching the teachers, it is possible to come to this.

Besides this, the teachers keep changing within the group since this resembles the teaching in colleges and universities. Everything goes according to the specializations there, and that is why each teacher has his place, meaning that different teachers teach different disciplines in the group.
[72553]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11

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Question: There is a concept called the contact cycle in Gestalt Therapy. This includes the phases that any person goes through. The basis of human activity in a group consists of four phases. Where does this number come from? How many phases should there be according to the laws of nature?

Answer: According to the laws of nature, there are four phases that result from the fifth, higher one, zero. Zero is the very first level which is nature itself. The four phases of the development of a desire result from it. The fourth phase is the final form of the development of a desire.

So, there are actually five phases, but we don’t take the first phase into account because it is beyond us and relates to higher nature. Thus, we consider only the four phases of the development of a desire. Only the last phase of the four do we feel as ours, as our “I.” We no longer consider it as something that came from outside, but as something that emerged within us.

Question: What are these phases in the context of the course of the evolution of egoism?

Answer: These are the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. We find ourselves in the fourth phase today, the phase of human development.

We still are treated as at the animate level today because we care about our animal body and everything surrounding it. We are refined animals, but still animals because all our problems and concerns are inside of our animate life, meaning our physical bodies are important to us.

However, a human is a collective image, Adam, where we gather all our hopes, thoughts, and desires, and, by uniting, we rise above our physical nature. That is something nature awakens and leads us toward. If we properly respond to nature’s call and follow in this correct direction, we come to an integral state of “human” where all our desires and thoughts unite.

Together, we feel this desire and new consciousness that is above the animate level by adapting among ourselves almost to the extent of not feeling our animate existence. We care about our body as if taking care of an animal, only to the extent required for its existence. We give food, sex, and family to the body to the extent of its physical needs. The rest of our needs we raise to the level of unification, integrality, and mutual responsibility.

That is the fourth phase we have to reach. The current cornerstone of the extremely critical crisis is just the point of bifurcation through which we must pass. I hope we pass through it more or less smoothly by realizing that we must rise to the next level.
[72548]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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Question: When we are talking about the four stages of development, how can we explain at which stage we are?

Answer: Today, all of humanity is in transition from the third to the fourth stage. Within each stage, there are sub-stages. For example, if we take the stages of human development without regard to the still, vegetative, and animate natures and the level of “human” because we have existed for dozens and even hundreds of thousands of years, then we can view development along the historical axis as the first, second, third and fourth stages.

Suppose that the 16th century, the late Middle Ages, marks the beginning of the technological revolution with development of cultures, sciences, and so forth. This was the third stage; that is, humanity became intensely concerned about its life, about itself as an animal. This is the bourgeois revolution and, ultimately, capitalism. Before that, humanity was in the vegetative stage. In the Middle Ages, antiquity, we find the signs of the vegetative type, the vegetative character of development. Before that, we were at the so-called still level when people used small forces with low labor efficiency, and only could take care of their food.
[72546]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11 

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Question: You constantly speak about the family, but today the notion of family has changed completely and is gradually disappearing. What makes you think that we can return to the old family model?

Answer: I am absolutely convinced that after experiencing an enormous crisis, we will return to the old family model. The modern egoistic family will really cease to exist.

The birth of a new family will happen due to our movement toward the goal, the root. We will see that the only way for us to reach it is by being absolutely connected with others on all levels of existence, with the partner in the family, with children, and through one’s own family, to other families, society, and the world. In other words, we will return to the model of a regular family that will allow a person to reveal the Creator above our animal, corporeal existence.

We will not be ashamed of being little animals in a family because a special relationship called “real love” appears between a husband and a wife in addition to the animal attraction. It is a relationship where they reveal the Creator between them and really attain the higher goal.

People will create families for the sake of this higher goal and establish a physical and spiritual connection with their partner. In this way, the family will be reborn, both on the spiritual and physical levels. However, it will be mainly on the spiritual level and from there, on the physical level.
[72425]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #12, 12/16/11  

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