Studies (from the California Institute of Technology): “Humans have a tendency to spontaneously synchronize their movements. For example, the footsteps of two friends walking together may synchronize, although neither individual is consciously aware that it is happening. Similarly, the clapping hands of an audience will naturally fall into synch. …

“In a new study, led by cognitive neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), researchers found that body-movement synchronization between two participants increases following a short session of cooperative training, suggesting that our ability to synchronize body movements is a measurable indicator of social interaction. …

“For their study, the team evaluated the hypothesis that synchronous body movement is the basis for more explicit social interaction by measuring the amount of fingertip movement between two participants who were instructed to extend their arms and point their index fingers toward one another. ….

“The participants repeated the task eight times; the first two rounds were called pretraining sessions and the last two were post-training sessions. The four sessions in between were the cooperative training sessions, in which one person—a randomly chosen leader—made a sequence of large finger movements, and the other participant was instructed to follow the movements. In the post-training sessions, finger-movement correlation between the two participants was significantly higher compared to that in the pre-training sessions. In addition, socially and sensorimotor-related brain areas were more synchronized between the brains, but not within the brain, in the post-training sessions. According to the researchers, this experiment, while simple, is novel in that it allows two participants to interact subconsciously while the amount of movement that could potentially disrupt measurement of the neural signal is minimized. …

“‘The most striking outcome of our study is that not only the body-body synchrony but also the brain-brain synchrony between the two participants increased after a short period of social interaction, … This may open new vistas to study the brain-brain interface. It appears that when a cooperative relationship exists, two brains form a loose dynamic system.’ …

“As part of the study, the team also surveyed the subjects to rank certain social personality traits, which they then compared to individual rates of increased body synchrony. For example, they found that the participants who expressed the most social anxiety showed the smallest increase in synchrony after cooperative training, while those who reported low levels of anxiety had the highest increases in synchrony. The researchers plan to further evaluate the nature of the direct causal relationship between synchronous body movement and social bonding. Further studies may explore whether a more complex social interaction, such as singing together or being teamed up in a group game, increases synchronous body movements among the participants.”

My Comment: We are initially set up to full mutual synchronization and we get the greatest pleasure from this if we reach it. In it, we begin to feel the upper controlling power, our cause and the final goal.
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In life we are accompanied by two opposite desires: the desire to form new relationships and a desire to free ourselves from connections. Only through other people and close relationships with them does a person reveal himself and the outside world. This is why the environment is so important.

Contact with others early in life is digested by a child and later forms his inner world. These contacts become our foundation, the standard of human interactions. Every new relationship that later emerges on our path of life is built and evaluated based on this standard.

Conclusion: If we did not perceive our surroundings, we also would not perceive ourselves. To perceive oneself and to perceive one´s environment are the same thing. Nature or evolution constantly pushes us toward this. Connections grow and reach a qualitative change—the transition from a linear, egoistic, individual development to its integral and global level.

Meanwhile, we find ourselves connected in a net of connections of everyone with everyone. In addition, we reveal that all of nature, every little element of it, is connected through all types of connections with all elements—to the extent of the infinite and complete formation called Creation.
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Question: In India there are these teachings that purposely create a state of chaos in a person’s soul in order to later exit this state to a new level of spirituality.

Answer: We do not create chaos. It comes to us on its own to the same extent that we wish to create a correct example of connection between us. The chaos is within a person because the transition from one level to another is like an overload on a computer.

Thus, this transition is felt as chaos, as it were, like an erasing of everything that came before and the appearance of something new. However, this is not deletion but simply a renewed organization to a new level, introducing a new frequency; suppose, from one cycle of frequency, I go to another the next one, which is more powerful, more broad.

If a person is inclined to connection, to resemble unified nature, then all kinds of new feelings, opinions, and knowledge arise in one, including the necessity to attain greater integration. There is no destruction here. On the contrary, there is the revelation of greater forces, but they are revealed in such a way to give a person a new mission, like a small child, who by resolving it, grows. Therefore, they seem to us as the opposite, scattered, chaotic.

But it is not chaos. All of this appears only so that we will rise to a new level and will see that everything is exactly in an orderly movement. Thus our perception constantly becomes refined.
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From KabTV’s “An Integral World,” 11/26/12

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Question: If we don’t truly adjust ourselves to the integral society correctly in our present stage, then will nature change and correct us?

Answer: It will happen gradually through self-education. This is a learning process similar in children; it is absolutely the same system. Moreover, humanity already has these developments, especially if we are talking about the wisdom of Kabbalah, which fully shows us how we should proceed.

How should a person arrange himself within the environment? He needs to place himself under the influence of the correct environment. Why is one’s free choice specifically in that? Which values should be elevated first? Moreover, they need to be elevated artificially, and then afterward, a person will grasp them and see them as truly basic and necessary.

Then it will be necessary to be included in this society, gradually dissolving within it, but together with this a person doesn’t lose his identity. By the way, we don’t go against our ego. We don’t oppress our ego by any means whatsoever!

We don’t oppress anything in a man. He doesn’t need to get rid of anything within him. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you were educated up until now, what your views are, what attributes you were born with, or the values and opinions that you received during your education process.

You will begin to be integrated into the group, which comprises a mini-society with which you will begin to work on this mutual interaction. The main thing is that it aims for a person to create a new vessel of connection with others, a communication system where he begins to see that he is completely dependent on others.

Question: A person already begins to see this dependency, although in principle it only irritates him.

Answer: Correct. But there is no place to escape it. We need to do something with it, since otherwise we simply will disappear! Even now there is talk about future famine, cold, drought, terrible problems in the economy and finances. People will be thrown out in the street; unemployment will grow. This means that everything is going in the direction of a complete breakdown. It specifically points to that, and we must find between us the correct point of balance.
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From KabTV’s “An Integral World” 11/26/12

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In the News (from CeBIT): “‘Shareconomy’ describes the societal shift from owning to sharing. According to Pörschmann, this is evident in several dimensions: ‘First, Shareconomy is profoundly influencing enterprise processes, because social media tools will become more and more popular. Second, the Internet is the place for teamwork, both in and outside the company. Partners, consultants, suppliers and customers will be more closely integrated as part of a networked process. The borders separating companies and organizations will become ever more transparent. Therefore, employees and managers must rethink and be prepared to share know-how, contacts and assets.’

“Modern tools that enable fast and comprehensive sharing are already reality in successful companies. …

“This is already apparent in the use of everyday products, where the strong trend is towards using instead of owning or renting instead of buying. ‘Car-sharing is becoming an increasingly popular form of mobility. Music portals based not on ownership but rather on time-defined usage are very popular,’ said Pörschmann.”

My Comment: In general, this is a socialistic principle. The decline in living standards forces us to be prepared to share what we have. Thus we will compensate for what is needed at an affordable price. So soon, we will come to the public (socialist) property. Nature pushes us to unite.
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In the News (from EUROPA, Eurospats): “In 2011, 119.6 million people, or 24.2% of the population, in the EU27 were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, compared with 23.4% in 2010 and 23.5% in 2008. This means that they were at least in one of the following three conditions: at-risk-of-poverty, severely materially deprived or living in households with very low work intensity. …

“In 2011, the highest shares of persons being at risk of poverty or social exclusion were recorded in Bulgaria (49%), Romania and Latvia (both 40%), Lithuania (33%), Greece and Hungary (both 31%), and the lowest in the Czech Republic (15%), the Netherlands and Sweden (both 16%), Luxembourg and Austria (both 17%).”

My Comment: This is only the beginning of the breaking of past economic relations. Only a policy of rational (required) standard of living, with full reduction of all other production and the implementation of integral re-education will lead humanity to similarity with the new natural relationships, to reveal the nature and evolution of society.
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While reading The Book of Zohar we must remember that it is only about the connection between us. It all depends on the relationship between the friends, and in this relationship spirituality is revealed. The forms of the connection between us depict the picture of reality, since now too you see these forms of connection.

In any case, you perceive the world according to your Reshimot (reminiscences), and this is where the picture of the world that you imagine stems from. There is no world outside you; there is only what you imagine inside you.

Now you are among people in this world; you were born and developed in our time, but your worldview is also built by your being connected with the whole world. A boy left in the woods who has never seen human beings perceives the world according to the Reshimot in the form of a forest, animals, and other forms of nature since he doesn’t perceive his environment on the human level, but on lower levels, still, vegetative, animate nature.

You, however, perceive reality also on the level of speaking. But in the relations between all these parts of nature: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature, you discover your reality.

All of reality, the whole world, is what is revealed between the shattered parts of the creation. This is why we say that the perception of reality is subjective. If I don’t exist, then there is no world and there is nothing to speak about; Baal HaSulam writes about this in the “Preface to The Book of Zohar.”

So if we want to reach more advanced forms of perception, we have to evoke more advanced forms of connection between us. No wonder that this is what the wisdom of Kabbalah requires: You should develop more advanced and complex connection with others and in them you will discover a higher reality, which is more advanced and more internal. Everything depends only on the levels of the connection.

Now comes the time when all the connections between us are destroyed and we actually see that, and the world obligates us to form new connections. The world doesn’t know yet what types of connection they should be. As we have already heard about it, we have to start fulfilling them. This is what awaits us. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah talks about: Leave all your imaginary dealings and start dealing with building the correct future society.

Then according to the connection between you, which you want to establish, you will receive help from above, from nature’s forces. The integral nature that is being revealed now will help you, it will influence you, and you will feel to what extent you are adapted to its general advancement, and you will succeed. We can say that nature is the Creator, but it doesn’t matter since it is about laws.

So where can you change anything in order to hasten your development? Now for the first time in history you can hasten the development of humanity. Before you were always dependent on forces that moved you forward. Internally new connections between people were revealed and new social structures appeared: instead of the tribe, there came along the era of slavery, and then the Middle Ages, then capitalism, and now we are advancing towards communism. These are the five social structures.

But what has advanced humanity? It was all about the changes in social structure, the new connection that appeared between people. But now, during the fifth and last era of our development, you cannot discover new connection naturally. You will discover them in a negative way, since you have to complete them. Here everything depends on your conscious advancement. You have to attain it, you have to adapt yourself to nature—this is the process we are in.

So we are actually creating a new social structure, hastening the process that all of humanity will have to go through. This is called being a “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation,” setting an example and being the conductor. But we are building this in the group, between us, and it is all in the new connection.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/17/12, The Zohar

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Question: Why do we speak about the end of the consumerist society? Why does the era of consumerism have to come to an end?

Answer: There are two reasons:

1. The first reason is external: We are running out of natural resources.
2. The second reason is internal and it is the main reason: Our desire is changing—the foundation of human nature.

We can analyze economic theories, propaganda, and advertising, we can invent different tricks and technologies, like three-dimensional movies, but all that will not help. A person will simply lose interest in it, like a cat that doesn’t care about the TV set it is lying on. Instead, we will simply pay more attention to society, to those around us. All this is because the desire is changing. There is nothing we can do about it, since it is desires that motivate a person.

This, of course, will not happen all at once. Today it is still possible to promote consumerism by different “special offers.” Still, compared to the past, things are changing. The rate of suicide and divorce is rising, and disappointment and despair are spreading. It is in fact the beginning of a new trend. A person, of course, will still need food and other basic necessities, but the problem is not in such things, but in the desires that we are using incorrectly.

One way or another, the desire is changing very slowly. The question is why does it lag behind the parallel external changes? Why do we encounter problems like the crisis if instead we can leap to a new level by a quick change of our desire? Isn’t it better for people to switch from consumerism, to more social activities of their own freewill? Why do they still want to buy like before, although the previous system is collapsing?

The reason is that this is how they will recognize evil, so that the current situation will leave a bad taste. Otherwise, they will find a vessel, the desire, for something else. They have to feel that they are in despair—that the world is full and at the same time that it is empty. If the previous desires simply disappear, a person will not learn a lesson from the past and will not understand the problem.

Therefore, the desire is changing much more slowly than the external conditions. These conditions have to pressure us and gradually evoke the right response.

Then integral education appears, which explains that the desires in excess of the animal level, meaning basic, rational needs, can be met only in the context of human relationships. The current crisis is meant to show a person that he can meet his needs only in a new integral way. By that, his desires are not restricted, but they actually improve, become updated, and rise to a higher qualitative level. Then he will not settle for something transitory and ephemeral, but only for something that is more emotionally meaningful. A person develops, becomes sensitive to, and wants to enjoy other experiences, which are closer to spirituality.

So it is actually in personal relations, in the family and in educating children that the current crisis is revealed most intensively.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: What does seeking balance at the level of “human” mean? How do we build the temple, to which you always come back? What does the term “temple” mean in Kabbalah?

Answer: Seeking harmony is the most important law of nature. On the still, vegetative, and animate levels, nature does it automatically, instinctively, by its own forces. Based on all our research of space, the functioning of living organisms, of all of nature, the ecosphere of the Earth, we see how nature itself tends to equilibrium. Here it is warm, there it is cold; here is pressure, there is a vacuum, etc. A mutual combination of parameters takes place; that is, nature always tends to the average.

Any forces tend to equilibrium. And so do we. What is the law of similarity? This means that if I am similar to you in something, we understand each other through our similarities. If my senses (for example, vision or hearing) are similar to what is happening in a certain range, then I sense it happening. That is, the law of similarity on our part is the basis of communication in our world. And on the side of nature, it is just the basic law of what it tends to: the law of similarity, the law of combination, averaging.

This law applies to all levels except the level of “human.” At this level, nature, on the contrary, leaves us this opportunity. It seems to say: A human being must be engaged in his similarity to nature himself, averaging at the social and other levels. Why? Then he will rise to the level of “human,” instead of remaining an animal. And so we are in our world suffering all the time, although we are the smartest and the strongest.

But considering what we do with each other and with the world, we are the most despicable. Based on the fact of what we do with the land on which we live, how we exhaust everything and each other, we are completely irrational. That is, here nature leaves us the freedom to choose—only to human beings! Thus, we have to learn this law.

That is why Kabbalah teaches us how to realize the law of similarity in an individual and in human society. If we implement it correctly, it raises us and leads to the level of similarity to the upper force. To accomplish this, we, all seven billion people who live on the planet, must unite together, interconnected in such a way as to form one single desire.

After all, all this exists in the program of nature; we will reach it anyway, either by the path of suffering or the path of awareness. In order to come to this by awareness and not just suffering (because this means terrible problems for centuries), the science of Kabbalah is revealed. But it must be implemented by always exiting ourselves to connect with others who are similar to us, who are also interested in this method of the revelation of the upper force.

So, the law of similarity is the fundamental law of existence.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 1

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In the News (from the Ohio State University): “Bothered by Negative, Unwanted Thoughts? Just Throw Them Away.

“If you want to get rid of unwanted, negative thoughts, try just ripping them up and tossing them in the trash.

“In a new study, researchers found that when people wrote down their thoughts on a piece of paper and then threw the paper away, they mentally discarded the thoughts as well. On the other hand, people were more likely to use their thoughts when making judgments if they first wrote them down on a piece of paper and tucked the paper in a pocket to protect it.

“’However you tag your thoughts – as trash or as worthy of protection – seems to make a difference in how you use those thoughts,’ said Richard Petty, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Ohio State University. …

“’At some level, it can sound silly. But we found that it really works – by physically throwing away or protecting your thoughts, you influence how you end up using those thoughts. Merely imagining engaging in these actions has no effect.’

“The findings suggest that people can treat their thoughts as material, concrete objects, Petty said. That is evident in the language we use.

“But how important is the physical action of throwing these thoughts away or keeping them in your pocket? To find out, the researchers conducted a third experiment using computers. In this case, 78 Spanish college students wrote their thoughts in a computer word-processing document. Some later used a mouse to drag the file into the computer recycle bin, while others moved the file to a storage disk.

“Just as in the previous studies, participants made less use of negative thoughts that they had trashed — by dragging them to the recycle bin — than did those who saved the thoughts by transferring them to a disk.”

My Comment: The thought is not only material, it is also much stronger than any corporeal action, and in addition, it remains forever in the network of spiritual connections between us.
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