In the News (from Business New Europe): “It can be miserable living in an economy in transition. Hyperinflation might destroy your life savings in a matter of months. Your job may be pointless and pay badly – until you lose it that is. And then you could be condemned to poverty because there’s no social safety net to speak of.

“In October, the US Census Bureau announced that one in seven Americans, or 49m people, are now living in poverty, the highest number since records began 53 years ago. Two weeks later, the UK’s Office for National Statistics announced that the number of people out of work has hit its highest level in 17 years and youth unemployment is at an historic high… And Spain capped off the round of bad news saying unemployment is currently 23% – its highest level ever and the highest in the EU. A catastrophe is unfolding among the nations of the developed world.

“The West went through most of this sort of pain centuries ago, supposedly bringing to an end the scourges of hyperinflation, chronic unemployment and poverty. But now all three of these problems have reappeared – and most of them were visible even before the 2008 financial crisis broke.

“To conclude, evidence suggests that new and old Europe are moving in opposite directions, but isn’t this all just down to the hangover after the borrowing binge that western banks went on since the start of this century?

“…the monopoly that the West has enjoyed for the last 500 years over the most important factors that lead to prosperity has been broken, and the feisty young economies of the emerging world are undermining the comfortable western way of life.”

My Comment: The evolution of civilization is an objective process, and it is impossible to ignore it. Neglecting changes in society lead to mistakes that persist, and ignoring objective laws bring the entire developed world to the collapse.

It turns out that a one-sidedly developed world cannot realize nature’s new attitude towards civilization; the fact is that it forces us to establish integral connections, the society of mutual guarantee.
[62459]

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In the News (From BBC): “There are on average 3.74 degrees of separation between any one Facebook user and another, a study suggests.

“The number of degrees represents the number of people in a friendship chain, excluding the people at either end. Or, as the authors put it: ‘When considering another person in the world, a friend of your friend knows a friend of their friend.'”

My Comment: This tells us not just about our interconnectedness, but also about a mutual influence on each other, a mutual dependency, a subconscious exchange of thoughts and desires. And if I don’t take that into consideration, my negative attitude toward others comes back to me multiplied many times….
[62517]

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Opinion: (Henri Jorda, professor, University of Reims, Champagne-Ardenne): “Paul Lafargue formulated his ideas in the following way: ‘Everyone has the right to manage time freely, not to be its slave.’

“Having forced workers to believe that life is work, capitalists steal time from them. And workers should demand not the right to work—it is a masochistic error—but the right to laziness. It is the love of work that has brought the greatest misery to those who have nothing. They became totally dependent on work, which spoils the mind and health, which kills their best abilities.

“The ultimate goal of a just society would be to distribute work and idleness, without distinction of social status. Everyone should manage his time according to his needs.

“When work becomes binding only to the extent necessary to provide the society with the necessities and not more, three working hours will be enough to meet our material needs.

“Once people get rid of the dependence on work, they will be able to spend time on self-renewal (physical, intellectual, and spiritual), and this ‘lazy’ mode will give them an opportunity to develop themselves.”
[62383]

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We need a very big change, a true inner revolution, as well as an external transformation, an absolutely new organization of human society. We will need to go through it in either a forced manner, under pressure and out of hopelessness, or we will understand where we are going and that we do not have any other choice before we are forced to do it.

After all, we are not dealing with unemployed people. We are dealing with people who have no need to do useless work, all of them together and each one individually. Besides life’s necessities that we have to provide for ourselves, everything else should be dedicated to the goal of our existence.

This is the essential question: What are we living for? Now it is taking center stage. Our entire life will be organized in accordance with this main question, and we will dedicate the biggest part of our time to it, besides doing the essential things to provide for our existence.

In other words, the question is not how to keep laid off people busy. We need to see the world in an opposite state. So, our approach to it should change completely. Everything in the past will fall apart. We should begin to build an environment, all the organizations, structures, and human relations in another way.

When I meet a friend, I would no longer ask him where he works, referring to the master to whom he belongs, such as a high-tech company, a bank, a garage, or any other place where he spends his entire day working. One’s job will no longer be as important. Work will become a simple necessity for providing for the needs of society. Man will dedicate several hours a day to this and receive everything he needs, just like everyone else. This is on condition that he advances and fills the main hours of his day with the attainment of a goal that is worthy of man.

Instead, I would ask him where he studies, in which group, and on what level. I would treat him as a person, not like the slave of the master whom he serves. First of all, we need to develop this notion, adopt this future image, and transition from the current state to the state I have painted briefly.

This will require a very strong turn in perception, sensation, and attitude. We must change from within, and this will not be easy. We must destroy our previous way of thinking and our heart. There cannot not be a bigger and more significant reformation than this one for a regular person living in this world because this pertains to the essence of life.

It determines what a person awakens with, what he goes to sleep with, how he spends his entire day, what he does, how society treats him, what it must do in relation to every person, and how to develop education and upbringing systems. All this must change.

We must envision this future image and understand the very first changes we must make in accordance with this. Even if the world does not yet understand this, it is the future. Any steps we now take, even the very initial ones, will lead in this direction.

This is similar to the way that a small child does not understand why he has landed in a day care where he will be educated and reared with the purpose of being sent off to a school. In the same way, people do not need to know about all the global changes that are awaiting them today. Gradually, as they take their first steps and change, they will be able to see a little farther and better understand and accept them as desirable.

Our objective is to develop an educational system where a person will change in the direction of a new state that he must attain in any case. The more active he is in this proposed process, the smoother and lighter the changes will be.

It is clear that he will not be able to change in one moment and become a new person, jumping from one state to another. This requires a real and very difficult inner revolution. However, we need to propose a process of development where the person would gradually change in the direction of the new world, without having a full understanding of what is happening to him along the way.

Gradually, the time we spend working and the values we are accustomed to will not be the only things to change. During the hours dedicated to study and unity, a person will begin to build himself, preparing for the new world so that his mind and heart will become “human” instead of the current mind and heart of a slave.
[62549]
From the Talk “Lessons on the New World” 12/1/2011

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We have become so involved in the game supported by the opinion of the entire society that it has completely enslaved us. We have come to a point where our entire mind and approach to life is connected to work. A person is afraid to retire. He wonders what he will do from morning until night with so much free time. He is not used to freely managing himself, and he does not want to be free.

Even when he gets home from work, he continues to work on the same computer. When he goes on vacation, he will not part with his phone or the Internet, constantly remaining connected to the same system like an enslaved, tiny cogwheel, one of many others.

This style, formed over the last decades, has determined such a direction in a person’s life that he is unable to feel free. Imagine if he were busy three hours a day, doing work essential for the society, thus providing for his existence. He could spend the rest of his time resting and doing the things that he enjoys. However, we cannot even imagine that this would be possible. We are so enslaved that we cannot even imagine what else we could do in life besides working.

We must experience a very big revolution because nature is now setting new conditions for us, changing both us from within and the environment around us. It is destroying our master: this entire, enormous human society that has enslaved us. In his way, it is forcing us to change and acquire a new view on life.

Life will become completely different. We will be forced to develop like humans. Instead of ten hours of work (and the rest of the time when you continued to think about it), you will work three hours and spend the rest of the time doing completely different things.

However, you need to understand what to do. After all, we will not just lay in the sun like lazy, fed animals, resting after having eaten and not doing anything until we become hungry once again. We will need to find “human” activities that man must do in this world.

Besides the three hours dedicated to work and a couple of hours dedicated to housework, the rest of the time will be spent doing what is the most important for a human being and brings fulfillment to the soul. A person will treat work and housework merely as unavoidable things that must be done in this world; he would be happy not doing these things. During the seven to eight hours that have been freed up from work, he will have to find a real activity, worthy of man, to which he can devote his entire soul.
[62552]
From the Talk “Lessons on the New World” 12/1/2011

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We see in the twenty-first century that the world has changed a lot. People used to be much freer. They have been pulled into a whirlpool of work and have become slaves. This even applies to the middle class and high-tech employees, politicians, economists, social and political scientists, and people of all professions. Every worker is completely sold to his job. We have become slaves.

Our entire life revolves around work. A modern person does not spend much time eating, drinking, or resting while seated in front of a TV. He wastes most of his time at work and spends an hour or two going back and forth. Thus, he spends his entire day at work.

Companies arrange their own day care centers and group retreats. They do everything possible to attach their employees even more strongly to their workplace. In this way, a person becomes a slave to his firm. He does not even understand that there is something else besides work. Work becomes the most important thing in life and fills his life completely.

When we meet an acquaintance, the first thing we ask is where do you work, what do you do, and how much do you make. Essentially, we do not treat them as a person, but as a professional. It is as if we do not see a person in front of us. We do not ask what interests him, what he has seen and experienced, or where he has been. It is as if his workplace is more important to us than the person. The most important thing is where he works and what he does.

A person’s main concerns are making sure that he does not get fired and whether he will be able to find a different job. Companies send their employees to professional training. Everything only revolves around work. A person spends at least ten hours a day on this. This is not a healthy life style at all.

We are destroying our foundation, the globe on which we live, all our natural resources and the ecology. We are like children who have lost track of time playing. Now, our mother needs to stop us. She has come to stop the game, telling us that the time has come to do other things, and we are unable to stop.
[62556]
From the Talk “Lessons on the New World” 12/1/2011

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Over the course of its entire history, humanity has never paid attention to the development of the personality, but only talked about it. There was a lot of talk about education in the Soviet Union, but instead of educating, they suppressed personalities.

Today practically half of humanity needs to work on the development of the personality, on shaping a human being. Not only children need to be educated. Over the course of his life, a person needs to be surrounded by an environment that will shape him, support him, and constantly guide him forward. This requires a huge army of people who understand their purpose correctly.

Everyone needs to learn about connections that benefit society and about complete mutual unity. People need to know how to create such a spirit in society, when you feel like you and others are absolutely one whole, when you dissolve in the society, stop perceiving your “I,” and only feel that there are “we.” This is highest human psychology.

According to the latest statistics, 10% of the world’s working age population are able to provide all the people in the world with everything they need. This includes construction, communication, food, delivery, distribution, clothing, services, and so on. So what will the other 90% do? 20-30% of them are children and elderly. But what about the remaining 60-70% of the population? They will all work in the area of upbringing and education, in other words, they will educate others and be educated by others.

An environment that takes care of a person’s inner spiritual development has to accompany him or her from the first till the last day of their life.
[61766]
From a TV Program “The Integral World” 10/30/2011

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Opinion: (Veniamin Popov, Director, Moscow State Institute of Foreign Affairs, from ng.ru): “The 21st century is marked with the acceleration of social-economic and political processes in the world, their increased diversity and complexity. Cataclysms have become so frequent that we are unable to evaluate the essence of phenomena and to draw conclusions.

“The crisis of the western civilization is obvious. Two historic processes are coming to an end:

• the Eurocentric world is falling apart, Eastern civilizations are coming forward;
• the 200-year old industrial civilization is coming to an end, and an integrated civilization is being born.

“A need for a systematic renewal of the global strategy is irreversible. Its purpose is the formation of a new way of production and consumption, which provides balance between nature and society, overcomes the abyss between the rich and the poor, and forms a true multi-polar world structure based on a dialogue and partnership of countries and civilizations.

“Europe has given the world science, technology, culture, progress, power, freedom, and comfort. But today’s Europe is degenerating. To maintain their livelihood, Europeans are obligated to accept a foreign work force, which causes interethnic conflicts. The EU was not able to work out an efficient policy to incorporate immigrants into the modern society.

“The financial-economic problems have become the other side of the system crisis of the western civilization. They were caused by the unstoppable greed of banks and corporations, which kept pushing countries to live beyond their means. Fast growing flows of virtual capital have come out from under the control of society and separated from the movement of the real economy.

“The gap between the very rich and the very poor has become immeasurably large. An aspiration to achieve maximum profits increases aggression, greed, and the desire to take over. Facing an increasing lack of resources, the governing circles of European nations are becoming more aggressive.

“Global informational revolution threatens culture and morality. Moral degradation, the collapse of family unit, same sex marriages, drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, and pedophilia are on the rise.

“The distance between the government and the general public and the decline in political trust are growing in European countries.

“As the domination of the western civilization is coming to an end, a new giant is appearing on the world arena: Asian civilizations, where more than half of the population are young people with great human potential and natural resources, who prefer “benevolent” authoritarianism to moral pragmatism.”
[61075]

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A person is an empty “cup,” which constantly wants to be filled. If desire in a person disappears, it’s like he is dying, dimming down. And it’s on the contrary, when his desires are burning, and the greater and higher the desires are, the higher and greater the person is.

That is, we evaluate a person according to his desires: their quantity, strength, and quality. It’s good when a person has a lot of good and strong desires.

Then what is the problem? As a matter of fact, we are nothing but one desire: the desire to receive fulfilment and sense pleasure. From what? It depends on our upbringing. Some people enjoy when they eat snails and worms; others when they eat cakes and ice cream; still others enjoy playing badminton or pool, while some like flying or jumping off a cliff, and so on. Everyone enjoys in a different way.

We have to direct a person to fulfillments that are beneficial for the society. If at the same time it makes him healthier, this fulfillment also brings social benefit, both for him and the society. We need to encourage and trigger these kind of desires in a person.

In the integral society a person will receive pleasure from participating in social work, in public life, in the education of the young generation, and in good leisure. Everything depends on how we educate a person.
[61768]
From a TV Program “The Integral World” 10/30/2011

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It is impossible to achieve social justice without mutual guarantee. What should social justice be like? There are dozens of various methods and plans, which are totally incomparable to each other. None of them have the answer to this question because it is impossible to achieve justice without seeing everyone as one family.

You have to reach an inner state when everyone is equal in your eyes, when you sit at a round table with everyone, like in a family, discuss common problems, and feel that everyone is equally close to you. Only then can you distribute the common “pie” and solve problems in regards to each and everyone and to all the people, only together with them, consulting with the others and taking all their opinions into consideration because they are dear to you. Only then can you achieve social justice. It is impossible any other way! This is why all nice slogans, just like in the Soviet Union, are doomed to fail.

Today we need to address everyone, gradually prepare the population, and explain that a strike is not the right method today as the old ways no longer work.

You want social justice? No problem, you will have justice if you become equal. How can equality be achieved? You, the poor, do you want that there would be no rich people? Let us do this through mutual guarantee. You, the rich, do you see that you can no longer control anything? But you can manage and enjoy managing, but this will not come from money in the form of zeroes in your bank account, which you do not need. Rather, the pleasure will come from the feeling of gratitude for your management.

Big industrialists and financiers, they are great people. They have achieved everything through hard work, and they know how to control huge systems. Let them do what they know to do, only give them a different pleasure. Today they are only experiencing suffering because their millions are “escaping” them and they are losing power. Give them something else: honor, respect, approval, and admiration for doing things for the sake of society, and they will cooperate.

In other words, we must have an approach for all layers of society.
[61764]
From a TV Program “The Integral World” 10/30/2011

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