In the News (from the Demography Report): “Demographic change in Germany is marked by low birth rates and a declining population size.

“The population of Germany has been shrinking since 2003 and is now 81.7 million residents.

“According to models of the Federal Statistical Office, Germany’s population will decline to 65-70 million by 2060. …This trend is also accompanied by a decline in the working-age population.

“While the population is declining, the age structure is also shifting. …In 2060, every third person (34%) will be at least 65 years old.

“There are two reasons for population ageing: Germany has had low birth rates for many years.

“In addition, average life expectancy in Germany, as in other industrial countries, has steadily risen over the past 150 years by about three months per year.

“This trend will affect almost every area of life, society and public policy, giving rise to new challenges to social cohesion and economic prosperity in Germany over the long term.”

My Comment: The global integral crisis will force us to change and become a society of total interdependence, in which humanity will no longer be divided into countries and civilizations. So the problem of the aging of the Old World will disappear by itself.
[61662]

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In the News: “Americans have a third fewer close friends and confidants than just two decades ago — a sign that people may be living lonelier, more isolated lives than in the past.

“In 1985, the average American had three people in whom to confide matters that were important to them, says a study in today’s American Sociological Review. In 2004, that number dropped to two, and one in four had no close confidants at all.

“Close relationships are a safety net, Lynn Smith-Lovin, professor of sociology at Duke University in Durham, N.C. says. ‘Whether it’s picking up a child or finding someone to help you out of the city in a hurricane, these are people we depend on.’

“The study finds fewer contacts are from clubs and neighbors; people are relying more on family…. The percentage of people who confide only in family increased from 57% to 80%, and the number who depend totally on a spouse is up from 5% to 9%, the study found. ‘If something happens to that spouse or partner, you may have lost your safety net,’ Smith-Lovin says.” (Source: USA Today)

“In this age of email, instant and text messaging, cell phones, and our super-sized-surpassing 300 million citizens–nation, the very idea that we are becoming increasingly isolated and disconnected from each other seems absurd. However, all of our cyberspace playthings are not satisfying our needs for closeness and friendship. Developing social networks beyond the family is a necessary survival skill. Feelings of isolation and loneliness in the extreme can lead to physical and mental illnesses. What accounts for so much social disconnectedness? Networks beyond the family is a necessary survival skill. Feelings of isolation and loneliness in the extreme can lead to physical and mental illnesses. What accounts for so much social disconnectedness?

“Most of us have little leisure time. Friendships require time and commitment. At the end of the day, most of us retreat home and want nothing more than to close the door on the outside world. We go indoors to be entertained by our electronic gadgets. For the most part, we are not hanging out or walking around the neighborhood to visit with neighbors. For that matter, we probably have not uttered a full sentence to the person next door since we moved into our house or apartment. Privacy and a do not disturb attitude are the mottos of the day.

“Traditionally, women have been responsible for developing the family’s social diary and maintaining friendships with other couples. Sustaining such a social network takes a great deal of time and energy. Most women today are working full time.” (Source: American Sociological Review).

My Comment: All these symptoms will grow until we understand their purpose: to show us that the only solution to all our problems is in mutual guarantee.
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Question: What’s the use of the group’s seclusion at the Convention in the Arava desert?

Answer: We have gathered here to lay the foundation for a new society, whose purpose is to attain adhesion with the Creator. In order to attain adhesion with Him, we have to attain adhesion among us. And in order to attain adhesion among us, we have to unite, disconnecting from the disturbances of the outside world. After all, we’re small and we have to strengthen one another, so let the world not interfere with our doing so. That is why we are going to the desert.

In the past, groups of Kabbalists took much more extraordinary measures to isolate themselves from the external environment. A person has to allow himself a bit more freedom from this confused and senseless world, to collect himself inside a bit more and understand what his predestination is.

In the whirlwind of life, under the roar of the radio and television, you can’t make out the fine voice of your soul or attain the fragile inner inspiration. You simply don’t have the energy for it. Even Kabbalists living hundreds and thousands of years ago in a completely different world, which did not know the “wonders” of mass media, still secluded themselves, barring themselves from their habitual environment, and even “going into exile,” leaving home without taking anything with them and going off to wander for years, getting by with occasional earnings and food.

You don’t even know what you are losing in the modern world, which is stuffing and miring you with its filth. Do you want to attain something exalted? If you do, then what efforts are you making to break away from the lowlands?

It’s worthwhile for us to find time for this kind of seclusion where we will feel only our own forces, without the disturbances of the outside world. Let’s separate a day in life to feel who we are instead of who they are.

Obviously, we don’t force anyone to participate and we don’t make lists of participants or deserters. We don’t put check-marks for the future. Whoever doesn’t want to or can’t come just doesn’t come. In this sense, everything is very liberal and open. But on the other hand, if a person comes there, he has to participate in the actions that the group has assigned to help us detach from everything and feel only ourselves.

Don’t you sometimes wish to be alone with yourself? That is how the group wants to be alone with itself, to feel itself. You enter a room, close the door, and remain with your own thoughts. That is how we want to remain with our thoughts. In reality, this is clear and commonly accepted. But for us it’s not just a minute of rest, but a detachment from “the degree of women and children” and an ascent to the “men’s level.”

In the article, “The importance of the group,” Rabash writes, “When a person works on the true path, he needs to seclude himself from other people. After all, the path of truth requires fortification because it contradicts common notions. The world’s opinions are built upon knowledge and reception, whereas the Torah’s opinions are built upon faith and bestowal. And if a person is distracted, then he immediately forgets about all work on the path of the truth and falls into the world of self-love. Only in the group do the friends help one another, and therefore every person receives forces from it to fight the commonly accepted notions.”

The upper world is our inner world. We have to shift our gaze from externality to internality. Therefore, with the help of the friends, I try to go inside, to look inward, to acquire a deep wisdom, to attain the inner meaning of the Torah. There is no other choice—I need this.

A person must constantly immerse himself inward, penetrate into his depths—and precisely there he reveals the true world. The external world deliberately confuses us so through the conflict with it, upon the resistance, we would build our direction inward. Our struggle is to penetrate deeper and deeper on the background of this world’s reality, which pulls us outward.
[60927]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/11, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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In the News (from Global Research): “A series of reports over the past ten days—on poverty, wages, income inequality and social mobility—have painted a portrait of America starkly at odds with the official mythology of the United States as the land of unlimited economic opportunity, the country with the world’s highest standard of living.

“Even agencies controlled by political representatives of the financial aristocracy are compelled to admit that the conditions of life for the vast majority of the American people are disastrous.

“These figures demonstrate that America is a country of mounting social disparities, in which those who labor and produce all the wealth have less and less to show for it, while those who collect the profits of this labor, while playing a parasitic, destructive, and thoroughly reactionary role, see their wealth accumulate to astonishing levels.

“Two reports frame the dramatic social polarization in America, not so much between the rich and the poor, as between the rich and the entire rest of society.

“While the income of this layer [the richest 1 percent of US households] nearly tripled, the income of the middle 60 percent of the population rose only 40 percent over 28 years, and the income of the poorest 20 percent rose by only 18 percent.

“Geographical mobility in America has fallen to the lowest level reported since 1948, one reflection of the loss of opportunity particularly for the young. People cannot sell their homes or buy new ones, and the majority of young college graduates are being compelled to move back in with their parents because they cannot find work that pays enough to set up on their own.

“What these figures demonstrate is both a profound social crisis, and an immense historical transformation. The United States has gone from leading the world in most social indices, including working-class living standards, to a new status as the leader, at least among the industrialized countries, in condemning the majority of its population to conditions of deprivation and misery.

“The decline of American capitalism is shown in the decay of its once powerful industrial base, the crumbling of roads, bridges and other social infrastructure, and the closing of schools, libraries, hospitals and other public services. It is no wonder that more than 80 percent of the American people, according to most recent polls, feel that the country is on the wrong track.

“The overriding political necessity is for the working class to grasp the source of the social and economic decline. It is capitalism that has failed in the United States, and on a world scale.”

My Comment: The solution to the problem is to create a new state, financial, and industrial leadership that understands the essence of the changes taking place in humanity.
[60344]

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Opinion: (Mikhail Muntyan, Professor, Deputy Director of the Center for Strategic Studies, Member of the Academy of Information at the UN, from perspektivy.info): “The breathtaking pace of change has created a sense of “compression” of the globe and a belief in the real interdependence of nations and peoples, a growing collective responsibility for the destiny of humankind, caught up in the most acute environmental crisis of the planet.

“The world is moving towards a state of increasing integrity. But will it first go through ‘leveling’ and then unification, or vice versa? Developing their own concepts of sustainable development, Russian scientists link them with Vernadsky’s idea about the sphere of mind (noosphere, a biosphere influenced by the activity of the human mind). Will humanity be able to overcome its egoism, its aggressiveness to create a new society?”
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A person does not feel what is above reason or below it. If he does not perceive something inside of reason and does not approve of it in his ego as existing and worthwhile, then he does not attach any significance to it whatsoever.

Walking below reason means being under the influence of the society and acting with the reason of others. This is considered unworthy even though we always act precisely in this way since society pressures us and forces us to respect its values.

Walking above reason is something we are not capable of at all because this is called walking by faith. For that, a person has to form upper notions for himself which are above his reason in order to convince him with the force of faith and to accept faith as knowledge. That is, he has to unite with the environment and from it receive the proof of authenticity and value.

It turns out that a person usually acts within knowledge, filling it by virtue of his environment. And it is very difficult for him to rise above that.

Therefore, if we want to accelerate time, this is possible only by walking above reason. After all, if we walk within knowledge then it is simple evolution, the natural course of development. And this takes place until I feel and develop on my own, until I obtain the new knowledge.

However, if I am guided by the opinion of the environment, its knowledge becomes mine. And in relation to my previous knowledge, it is already “above knowledge.” That is, my personal perception turns into the social one.

It turns out that I replace my reason, which accepted only what was approved by my egoistic desire, with the net of connections between myself and others. And the well-being of others becomes the foundation of my reason.

If a person makes this change in his perception, then he exits the bounds of his limitations.
[60221]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/9/11, Writings of Rabash

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Every person reaches a critical point once in a lifetime where he has to leave his parents’ home and start his own life. This is a very sharp and unpleasant transition. There are people who never get used to life’s new demands.

Today, this same transition is global. Until now, nature led humanity forward, enabling it to succumb to childish, egoistic games. We developed in our egoism and didn’t fight ourselves, but now our childhood is over and our adulthood begins.

In the same way that a person reaches adulthood, humanity has ended decades of youth. Our egoism has grown, and now we have to manage in the world on our own.

However, the world isn’t what it used to be. We are in a new global and integral world that is mutually connected, and in which we have to find our place and become a part of. We are not children any more. We have grown.

Of course, humanity doesn’t want that and doesn’t understand it. Just like a person who reaches adulthood and is suddenly faced with endless problems, he must rent an apartment, go to work, take on different responsibilities, and provide for himself everything that others have provided up until then.

Of course, he doesn’t want that. It is much easier and more convenient with mom. It takes time to get used to the grown-up’s world and to find the nice things in it. Humanity isn’t ready yet. It still prefers to dance to the tune of its egoism as before.

We are already in the new world, and we have to adapt to it. It demands our full cooperation and concern for everyone, yet people still want to go on playing like kids. They haven’t experienced enough pain to enter the new reality.

They should be told that the new world demands our full cooperation, that our work is to connect, and that we will solve all our problems only if we create the right mutual connection among us. The entire world is like one person now. Look at it as if looking in a mirror.

If you don’t feel that you are unemployed in certain areas, that natural disasters shock you in other areas, and that still other areas suffer from diseases, look at the general shape of this world. You will see that we have a systematic problem and we all have to be connected to one another, to work together in harmony for one cause, which is general balance.

Imagine that you had some medical tests yesterday and the doctor gives you the results today. It turns out that your body’s organs are not operating in harmony, but rather like children. One does too much, one does too little, and one doesn’t do anything at all.

After all, balance is the right connection among all the body parts and is the basis for feeling good health. So, now you can come to the right conclusion.
[59790]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/4/11, “The Peace”

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In the News (from BBC News): “BBC World Service survey in 25 countries has found strikingly different attitudes to the economic outlook between rich and developing countries.

“In the rich world, consumers were pessimistic, while in emerging economies people were more upbeat.

“Japan, France, and Britain emerged as particularly gloomy. The percentage expecting good times in all three countries was in single figures. More than half expected bad times.

“In the developing world, optimists outnumbered pessimists in nearly every country surveyed. In Nigeria more than seventy per cent expected good times.”

My Comment: As we transition to equitable reasonable consumption, people in poor countries, of course, look at the future with optimism and happiness because their standard of living, in general, will rise. However, people in rich countries involuntarily look at the future with pessimism because they will lower their standard of living to a reasonable level.

That is why it needs to be explained to namely the citizens of rich countries that the new integral society will give them optimal fulfillment not through material excesses that drain and plunge people into depression, but rather fulfillment on a new level of existence, outside of oneself, in the connection between us—in the feeling of eternity and perfection.
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The world is standing at the threshold of a dramatic rise in unemployment. Millions will be thrown to the curb without the slightest opportunity to find a job so they could put bread on the table. A new source of income has to be made available to them—integral study.

We must understand that by attracting the Light that reforms, by acting for the sake of common unity, by studying the laws of the new world and the principles of life in it, a person deserves to have the minimum conditions for a respectable existence provided for him. This enables him to become a positive and necessary part of society.

We have already contacted people who make decisions, offering them this path. A person who was laid off cannot be left to his own devices at home or thrown to the whim of fate. This will make him cruel, besides turning him into a bum who will never be able to go back to work. Having no other choice, he will resort to drugs, criminal activity, and so on. If we don’t keep people busy, things will escalate to a social collapse.

In this regard we have to understand that the new activity, studying, will be the correction. It is simply necessary for us to have people sit down at the desk to study. This is not a pittance by any means nor a chance to “kill time,” but a social function that is necessary to all. In essence, the people who are studying will already begin working on society’s rehabilitation, and that is exactly how we will treat them as well.

And those who keep their jobs should also be involved in the study. Maybe they will split their working hours with the people who were laid off, and then everyone will be able to study for half a day. This routine has to be instituted lawfully. After all, we are all a single society and we all want social justice. That means we have to distribute our time justly: Work is divided among everyone, and so is the study, and on average, everyone receives similar salaries.

Life itself is dictating this approach to us. It is impossible to continue chasing the “American dream.” It has already come crashing down and it’s time for us to wake up.

Question: Is this kind of study enough to solve all the problems?

Answer: Yes. After all, it’s not simply a study, but various types of training, as well as a connection to the current events and phenomena, an explanation of the single world and the need for a good interconnection. A person learns to unite with others and starts to understand that by virtue of that, we awaken the forces concealed within us. They are already contained in the integral society and they will bring the necessary order to it. With their help, we will obtain the same qualities as nature and will stop being a faulty, antagonistic appendage in it. We will go from being a cancerous tumor to an integral part, thereby attaining unity and rehabilitation of the whole world.

Unity is our salvation. Only by uniting will we attain results. Today we are discovering the fact that human society is a single whole, and we must consciously go along with this tendency from our own desire. It’s time to understand that there is no other way to go.

Baal HaSulam says that this does not involve anything more than a psychological difficulty. A person is unable to change himself from within: It’s easy to turn this lever, but hard to reach it. However, as soon as he grabs hold of it, the world will change to the opposite with one movement.
[59209]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: How can you explain to people that it’s worthwhile to connect with others if they don’t see any practical results yet? It’s madness to work without seeing any results.

Answer: Of course, the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t say that we should act without any fuel and disregard the results. We have to create such an environment, such a society, which would provide a person with fuel for his bestowal. The environment should impress me so that I would want to join it and enjoy bestowing to it. It’s the society that should provide me with the necessary strength for that.

So how do you create such a society? It’s our job. We, the one per cent of humanity, should create an environment for us and for the whole world and set such values within it that would make a person want to serve others and to be satisfied by doing so. It isn’t difficult to do; on the contrary, a person will want to bestow, will like it, and everyone will respect him for that. This is a much greater reward than grants or other bonuses. After all, this reward is conveyed spiritually, out of the respect and appreciation of the environment.

Thus, a person receives fuel, which makes him enjoy every moment of bestowal much more that he enjoys receiving today. Furthermore, it encourages him to invest in society even more. It is worthwhile; one immediately feels how good it is. The spiritual Light is the Light of pleasure that spreads inside a giver when he bestows. Thus the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t leave you empty, but rather fills you with pleasure while you act.

You may ask about the intention, but with regard to the masses this question is irrelevant at the moment. In the meantime it’s about an egoistic intention of Lo Lishma (for oneself). Society can actually oblige a person to bestow, not by force but rather by the general spirit.

We do many things in life to gain the respect of others. I make great efforts and waste a lot of money for this. Take my wardrobe for example: Who needs all that? I don’t, but it’s my tribute to generally accepted norms. Couldn’t I just buy a simple cheap car that doesn’t require years of work in order to pay for it? But I choose a prestigious brand to make my neighbors jealous.

It is the same in everything we do, it may be buying an apartment, getting married, having children, or any other detail in our lives. If only we knew the real calculations… I always concede to the environment’s values. I am enslaved to others. See how TV influences us: It forces me to concede to whoever wishes to make a profit at my expense.

But do I bestow by buying their products and services? They simply ruin me. I always think about how to invest my money, but what do I invest it in? If I knew how to bestow upon society and upon the general system, I would enjoy that just as I enjoy when I fulfill the egoistic desire of the trickster who makes a profit at my expense. I would invest in the environment, and it would repay me by supporting me when I feel weak and providing my family with all that it needs….

What do we get from the tycoons who suck our blood today? Nothing! Open your eyes and see what’s happening in the world. Ninety-nine percent of your efforts are wasted on the egoistic desires for the environment. In the society of mutual guarantee, however, you would serve the environment that is built on the idea of equality. You would feel security and peace, and you would get a warm and friendly response from it.

It is hard to imagine in our heart and mind how destructive the present situation is. We are in the worst kind of slavery. It’s as if we are hypnotized, programmed to be in endless competition: I haven’t bought everything yet, not everyone is behind me yet. Society is constantly pressuring you. You think that you are working for your family, your children, and yourself, but it isn’t so! It is only one big illusion.

If we look at what is among us from the side, we will discover horrible things. All these systems are based only on the egoistic exploitation of others.
[58634]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/2011, “Peace in the World”

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