In the News (from Delovaya Gazeta): “During the financial crisis, consumers are not only buying fewer goods, but also returning to barter – the exchange of goods, which allows customers to save money. In addition, social networks influence the behavior of European consumers. Considering the expenses of Europeans, they increasingly resort to alternative ways to get the desired goods, exchanging things. …

“Sharing accommodations, wholesale purchase and mainly purchasing second-hand goods are increasingly helping customers make profit. …

“At the same time, there is a growing awareness of social responsibility. 55% are trying to reduce the consumption of water and energy for the sake of environmental conditions; the demand on organic products is rising.

“These changes in people’s behavior are influenced by the Internet. Today, it plays a significant role in the development of social consciousness and behavior. A quarter of respondents also believe that people’s views are shaped by the social networks (Facebook, Twitter), where they look for reviews before buying.”

My Comment: Under the pressure, egoism will be forced to yield and look for new opportunities for fulfillment. This gradually trains people by pressuring them. It is much easier and faster to become adjusted to new conditions by the method of integral education.
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Question: Humanity has already experienced serious economic crises, but it has always found a solution. It even managed to overcome the Great Depression of the 1930’s. But today we claim that we have to correct man. This doesn’t sound rational…

Answer: I see it differently: the cause for all the problems we encounter today is man. In earlier days there were different external causes of the crises, but in the modern age it has become clear that the source of all the trouble is man who doesn’t find the right way and doesn’t understand where he is. The human is the worst being; he cannot get along with others, and he is the one who blows up this bubble, and it is beyond his powers to fix the system.

It would seem that the flaws of human society are evident, and we just need to correct them, but we don’t know how. New problems keep appearing and when we cannot solve them we feel that we are weak as we confront them. This means that the main problem is in us.

We cannot, for example, unite Europe so that it would become a true united alliance of countries that will not deceive one another or humiliate each other but would work as one unit. But nothing happens; each country pulls the blanket in its own direction instead of giving it to another, and as a result no one gets it and everyone is in trouble.

What is Europe actually missing? It has agriculture, industry, different services, relations between countries, transportation systems, trains, planes; everything is there. For a good life, the only thing missing is the right connection between people and nothing more. Everyone lacks this: the tycoons, the poor, those on the right and those on the left of the political spectrum.

So is there another means for correction besides educating people? With the proper education, Europe could arrange a paradise. But instead, despite the material wealth in Scandinavia, the rate of suicide is higher than in the southern countries fraught with high unemployment and unrest. In Greece the situation has become a humanitarian disaster—people literally cannot feed their kids. Babies are abandoned on the streets so that the state will take care of them, and the poor are so desperate that they break the law so that they’ll be put in jail.

So what can we do? Correct man!

After all, the natural resources are enough for everyone; someone has salt, for example, and another has meat, and another has fire, and someone else has vegetables, but we cannot come to an agreement so that we can cook soup for everyone. Everyone holds on to what he has, and eventually everyone is left with nothing; after all, you cannot be satiated by salt or by raw meat.

This situation will only get worse since this is nature’s plan, until we understand that without the right connection we will simply die.

As for earlier crises, they are not comparable to the current crisis. Today’s crisis depends on the correction of man and is the most difficult with regard to its solution.

In the 1930’s, capitalistic evolution was still burgeoning with ambitious plans and hopes and the sudden collapse did make people feel terrible. Today human beings are disappointed in their own desires and are prepared for the worst in advance. We don’t feel “new heights of consumerism” are ahead of us, only deepening gloom.

This happens so that we will realize the essence of the modern crisis is different than the earlier crises; it is developing on a totally different level, in another field. It develops in man, and so it isn’t about the banks and about other external symptoms of the illness. If we fight the symptoms, we will not be able to cope with the crisis. The only way is to correct the relationships between people.

We will die of hunger unless we unite and “cook the soup” together. This state is profoundly different than what it was in the past. Once people wanted more and were left with nothing, which brought about despair, unbearable sufferings, and often suicide.

Today a person has no such ambitions and he already knows that soon there will be nothing to eat. It’s as if he is shown in advance how he gradually will enter his grave. This is being shown so that everyone will gradually understand where we are headed. Nature teaches us step by step and reveals the current state to us, explaining what we should do.

This process won’t end at once; it will last for another year or two, until people feel that there is no end in sight to their troubles, until they find themselves at a snail’s pace of not sinking into grave conditions.

We aren’t completely aware of the results of the crisis. We don’t pay attention to the plants that are being shut down, to the decrease in business activities, and the collapse in various areas. Gradually, however, the world will fall into a deep dark sleep before our very eyes. Until people acknowledge that the problem is in them, it’s not in their power to “stir” the world despite its great abundance.

“So why don’t we get anything out of it? Here is the meat, the water, the fire, and the vegetables—so let’s cook a delicious soup…” it will take time until they finally agree to that. We haven’t had such a crisis yet.
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From the 4^th Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: How can a society help a person acquire its values and how can a person check whether the values of society are right for spiritual growth?

Answer:

• If people gather together and do their best to follow the advice of Baal HaSulam and Rabash,
• if they try not to invent a new method but constantly work according to the sources, which determine everything,
• if there is no one among them who tries to be above the others, meaning trying to lead everyone by suppressing the others with his strength, intelligence, or special abilities,
• if everyone tries to annul himself before the group, as everyone brings into the general “cash box” everything that he was endowed with by nature, all his abilities, to help others, as we are definitely unequal and there are those among us who are seemingly more capable and successful, but each one gives to the group his best.

So in that, all are equal, no one stands out, and everyone tries to be equal and to annul himself before the others. Then this is a society before which you can annul yourself with your eyes closed and be certain that they can undoubtedly change their corporeal vessel into a spiritual vessel. This is what I recommend that you all do!
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: A new form of work has developed, “remote work or telecommuting” when an employee does not go to the office, but stays at home at his computer and goes to the office a couple times a month. Is this good or bad?

Answer: I think that in this case a person will still suffer from depression and emptiness. He needs to feel an integral connection. Working alone will not be effective enough. Today it is relevant because it is convenient for an employee, for an employer, and for a mother with children, but this is a temporary process.

In any case, a person will need to be integrated into a system, either at the place of residence or on the basis of something else. He must constantly fulfill his new desire, feel that he is inside an integral system. After all, the integral egoism that appears in us will still lead us to this. We are not free; nature develops us in this way.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13

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Question: Would it be worthwhile for business people to change their direction now, to diversify and turn to some kinds of essential production?

Answer: In the new integral system, unnecessary businesses, unnecessary profession, and unnecessary jobs will automatically be discarded. After all, we are approaching this and in the end of things, humanity will only produce essential food goods, products, and services.

Question: Will the result be that trade as we know it and brokerage services will disappear?

Answer: No, they will remain. There are numerous connections in trade and in brokerage services. But in the same trade and intermediary services there is a set of completely unnecessary contacts, companies, and industries that fill artificial niches. As a result of integral development, all of that will gradually disappear as is already evidenced by the level of increasing unemployment.

People begin to demand higher fulfillment, instead of continuously purchasing more and more. It will become increasingly revealed to man that the level of consumption doesn’t exceed rational consumption. I need to feed my “animal,” to maintain my body, my children, family, and relatives. This is essential, but this is the animal level of our state.

And today a new level is already discovered where I need to receive fulfillment not from purchasing a better car than my neighbors, etc. I suddenly begin to feel within me such an emptiness that I can fill only with close contact with the community, through mutual integration in a common connection.

The feelings of confidence, security, warmth, generosity, and kindness are what is missing now in the society. But in the meantime they are not aware of it. We see this according to the programs that are shown on TV, according to how the media distorts people, etc. But still, it’s true because it’s necessary for people to understand as quickly as possible in what kind of world they are living.
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From KabTV’s “Personnel Secrets” 2/3/13

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We are entering a new state where the “upper bar” that was set for humanity is changing. In the era that is coming to an end, it was information: Whoever has information rules the world. It isn’t by chance that the banks have become a kind of industrial enterprises: They are also making a profit, but directly, on the “information” level. And this is according to the laws of nature. Indeed, if I have information, I don’t need anything else. Information by itself has become an object that we manufacture, design, and sell, just like real merchandise.

Now this era is coming to an end, and whoever has more information cannot “move mountains” anymore. Before information was simply “linear,” it was made of a chain of “bits” that connect to an egoistic pipe. Now, however, we enter a “round” world, an era of an integral humanity, and the states don’t change smoothly but through a crisis. It stems from the fact that we don’t control this transition and don’t know what we are about to encounter.

Once, everything was clear and even revolutions fitted the framework of logical reasoning. People knew how to hasten the development of technology and science and worked full steam ahead. But today nothing is clear anymore.

Meanwhile, the next phase of the general human designation, the next key principle, the next main criterion of society, its intensity and development, is attainment. It’s the attainment of a new system. Whoever attains it will be a “great” person.

Practically, it means that in our times we have to change man and not the world. For the first time we have to adapt ourselves to the system that is being revealed to us. But this time it isn’t we who are building the system according to our ego from within. The Creator no longer urges us from within, but only reveals the deficiency to us and shows us an example ahead so that we will build ourselves according to the example. Humanity must become integral and “round” like all of Nature. The faster we understand this the less we will suffer.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: Let us say that over the course of integral education, people have felt one another very well and become friends. How is this beneficial to the employer? Friendship is good, but what will happen to productivity?

Answer: Currently, the available data shows how people’s stubbornness, their inner hostility, their lack of desire to work and advance, stalls any productivity and scientific research. Statistics show that the productivity of an unhappy employee is 40% less than the productivity of a happy one, and these are good results because usually, the “hidden rocks,” the different obstacles, and the lack of desire to work stall productivity even more.

However, the advantage of the integral interconnection comes through in a direct improvement of productivity, a decrease in absences due to sickness, better attitudes toward one another, a stable family, and improvement in every aspect. Not only does the person feel a general improvement in his mood and thus works better, and not only does he become friendlier toward others, but together, they all feel that their common work gives them something. The person becomes so fulfilled that the salary becomes less important to him than the pleasure he receives from work, even if it is a low paying job.

Man is a simple being; he is not a mechanism, nor is he an animal that blindly obeys its instincts. This is why when we refer to a “salary,” we imply the entire combination of pleasure a person receives from work, creativity, and his union with others, from the fact that he enjoys work, that he is not as tired since there are no more conflicts, that there is general kindness in his family since he comes home from work in a good mood.

This way, people start feeling so fulfilled by the general complex of sensations that according to the dynamic of the development of humanity, people will not be working for a salary. In reality, there will be communism, not the kind of communism the Soviet society practiced, but the kind that really will provide people with the necessary normal, rational existence. However, all his pleasure actually will come from the integral system because he will receive fulfillment, the feeling of kindness, and plenty of nice sensations from all the other people.

A person changes and thus, he needs a greater fulfillment. There is no way to avoid this. We see that namely in the countries that have high salaries and social assistance, for example, the countries of Northern Europe, a large percentage of people are depressed. And what about the number of suicides in developed countries? This is because people do not yet receive the fulfillment that they need at the end of their evolutionary development.
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From a TV Program “Professional Secrets” 2/3/2013

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We are unable to speak about a concrete image of the future society because it will be continuously changing and transforming.

With the implementation of new integral education and a natural reorganization of the entire megalopolis, redundant enterprises, industrial waste, and environmental pollution will automatically cease to exist. Gradually, any nonessential activities will vanish as an excessive and harmful fat that hurts the consumers, manufacturers, and the ecology in general. Our consumption will become optimal and rational. It will depend solely on the degree of our correct interaction. This is why the basis of all these processes is only integral education.

This transformation will be constant. We will learn how to behave depending on the degree of our reciprocal connection, integrality, and mutual guarantee, when each one of us tries to internally support others.

Many unnecessary enterprises will close their doors, thus freeing an enormous amount of human resources, time, and energy. People will have plenty of free time and will be involved in integral education and mutual assistance. Hence, the very basis of modern-day economics that currently survives solely because of its “buying and throwing away” strategy, which is the real cause of its not being sustainable, will vanish.

However, we have no idea of what will replace the dying economics since there are no professionals who think integrally yet. Future integral economics has to emerge from appropriate upbringing!

I have students who are professional economists, but they don’t understand which way to go since they first have to attain the state of integral connection in the integral society. We have to go through a very serious revolution, a severe collapse of current banking, financial, economic, and international trade systems. There should be a period of education and upbringing between the old and the new structures, a qualitative internal leap that precedes the attainment of the next level.
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From KabTV’s “The Integral World” 11/28/12

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In the News (from News at Princeton): “Collective intelligence is an established advantage of groups, including humans. As it’s understood, a group of individuals gain an advantage by pooling imperfect estimates with those around them, which more or less ‘averages’ single experiences into surprisingly accurate common knowledge. …

“Princeton University researchers report in the journal Science that collective intelligence is vital to certain animals’ ability to evaluate and respond to their environment. Conducted on fish, the research demonstrated that small groups and individuals become disoriented in complex, changing environments. However, as group size is increased, the fish suddenly became highly responsive to their surroundings.

“These results should prompt a close examination of how endangered group or herd animals are preserved and managed, said senior researcher Iain Couzin, a Princeton professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. If wild animals depend on collective intelligence for migration, breeding and locating essential resources, they could be imperiled by any activity that diminishes or divides the group, such as overhunting and habitat loss, he explained. …

“With their work, Couzin and his coauthors uncovered an additional layer to understanding collective intelligence. The conventional view assumes that individual group members have some level of knowledge albeit incomplete. Yet the Princeton researchers found that in some cases individuals have no ability to estimate how a problem needs to be solved, while the group as a whole can find a solution through their social interactions. Moreover, they found that the more numerous the neighbors, the richer the individual — and thus group — knowledge is.

“These findings correlate with recent research showing that collective intelligence — even in humans — can rely less on the intelligence of each group member than on the effectiveness of their communal interaction, Couzin said. In humans, research suggests that such cooperation would take the form of open and equal communication among individuals regardless of their respective smarts, he said.”

My Comment: People have something to learn from animals…
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In the News (from Nextgov): “The Defense Department wants new computer tools to analyze mounds of unstructured text, blogs and tweets as part of a coordinated push to help military analysts predict the future and make decisions faster.

“The goal is to build an open source system that can unite various tools that collect, manage and draw relationships between data sets.

Defense is seeking ways to predict the future by monitoring Twitter, blogs and news, and determining the ‘frequency of contacts between nodes or clusters.’ As networks grow larger and more complex, researchers have found it harder to monitor group behavior. ONR (the Office of Naval Research) also wants researchers to discover networks that could be hidden within networks, and how information and money flows through a community.”

My Comment: As a result of the study of universal intelligence, the world will recognize the need for full cooperation of all people in a single system and will reveal this system of our connection; then, to understand this system of connection, they will need Kabbalah, the science of the general network of the management of nature. This management network is the system of upper worlds, that is, the forces of connection that we study in the science of Kabbalah.
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