Question: While designing the model of our social policy we began to think about what we can do with regards to the external informative influence of TV, newspapers etc. We have worked out several models.

One of the models is total openness, but it is not suitable since a person is easily tempted and remains, as you have said correctly, on the animal level.

The model of total secrecy doesn’t work either since “the forbidden fruit is sweet.” There is a barrier, as with the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain, where information doesn’t seep in, etc.

The only model that could be fulfilled is having no censorship at all. But every source of information is accepted as reliable to some extent by the internal censors. A person can choose which source of information he wants to use: those which he fully trusts or those which he doesn’t. But this model didn’t work either because there is no education or teaching in it.

Answer: I believe that this model will not work because we have to build our own influence on the environment according to our teaching and education, by withdrawing from external influences.

Question: Withdrawing? But the “forbidden fruit is sweet.”

Answer: There is no “forbidden fruit,” since the perspective of my society is that there is no “forbidden fruit.” I have to withdraw since in a state of weakness I can deteriorate and ruin the whole process of my changing from an egoist to an altruist.

So there should be a system that selects good and right programs from the ones that exist today, and it should be clear and accurate. There should be a special filter, censorship.

There is no education without censorship since any form of education is under the influence of the environment. Here you are providing a person with such an environment that without censorship your efforts may be futile.

On the other hand, fewer people may enter different Internet sites and TV channels full of rubbish as a result of our intensive education and other external conditions. But we must help him; otherwise it will be ineffective, because as long as the ego is active in a person, it will obligate him to roam through all the garbage on the Internet.

We voluntarily agree to the filter. No one is forcing us, but it is one of our conditions.
[89187]
From KabTV’s “The Integral World: The Formula of Integral Society,” 7/1/12

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Question: Suppose I have certain resources and I have to invest them in integral education and teaching. A government official comes to me and persuades me to invest the money in a certain school promising that in five years it will be different than other schools. On the basis of what criterion can this difference be seen?

Answer: A government official or a manager will not see anything. A manager is a mechanical egoist who cannot see anything from within his ego. He is only interested in acting before his supervisors and climbing to the next level in the hierarchy of the egoistic pyramid. He will look at people dealing with integral education and teaching as people who are studying totally unrealistic systems; who are solving some internal social problems or individual emotional problems. He wouldn’t care about it. He is interested in figures: How much did I invest, what did I get, how much will I put in my pocket, how much will I give to the management? These people cannot manage anything, not to mention deciding anything!

So we are asking him to do one thing only: to help us with the administration, that’s all. We have trained teachers, educators, lecturers. We have prepared all that is necessary. Let us work in this environment and help us in that, which means provide us with some resources on the media, on local TV, at the entrance to schools, universities, etc.; we will do all the rest. When will you see the results? In five weeks, not in five years!

You will see an immediate result in the first month of our work. After one lesson, you will see totally different people. You will see how they change immediately.

Of course, it is great work to change human nature, but the first changes are immediate. Suppose a person is seriously ill and you suddenly notice a great improvement in his condition, an inner adaptation, understanding, recognition, and feelings.

People will not go out to the town squares to shatter windows anymore. They will begin to maintain a clean environment and the incidence of violence and street crime will decrease sharply.

You will profit economically, qualitatively and quantitatively and then we try to invest the resources that were saved in integral education and teaching.

At first we don’t need anything at all. In a couple of weeks without investing anything, you will find out that it works: on a certain group, in a certain kindergarten, at school, on students, in some plant or in a small neighborhood. We will start with four to five places in which we will work with the people and after several lessons you will see what happens to them and how they change.

At the same time, you will be able to accurately calculate your economic profit, not to mention the good atmosphere that is created and all the other things.

The point isn’t even the economic benefit, but in the fact that the accelerating crisis will bring millions into the streets and you will have to do something with them. These aren’t just people whom you have to feed so that they won’t eat you, but people will be murdered, robbed, raped and will burn everything around them. Having nothing to do, they will simply degenerate. We, on the other hand, offer you to raise people to a higher level.

So the benefit of implementing integral education and teaching is unquestionable.
[89148]
From KabTV’s “The Integral World: The Formula of Integral Society,” 7/1/12

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Opinion (Stephen Pratt, an associate professor, Arizona State University): “Scientists at Arizona State University have discovered that ants utilize a strategy to handle ‘information overload.’ Temnothorax rugatulusants, commonly found living in rock crevices in the Southwest, place the burden of making complicated decisions on the backs of the entire colony, rather than on an individual ant. …

“Previous research has shown that ant colonies have the ability to compare the quality of two potential nest sites – even if no single ant visits both sites. Pratt and Sasaki hypothesized that a colony could choose a high-quality nest from many more options more effectively than individual ants, because each member of the colony assesses only a small part, or portion, of available sites, and then shares the information with the entire colony. …

“The pair designed experiments with artificial nest sites to evaluate the ants’ decision-making abilities. Both colonies and individual ants were given two levels of tasks. Ants had to choose between two nests, or they had to choose among eight nests. In both experiments, half the nests were unsuitable. Nests are frequently chosen based on entrance and cavity size, as well as darkness and other features.

“Researchers discovered that individual ants made much worse decisions when faced with eight options rather than two, meaning that they experienced cognitive overload. Colonies, on the other hand, did equally well with either two or eight options, showing that they could handle the harder problem as a collective.

The study shows what Pratt believes to be the answer to two questions: What do you get out of being a collective intelligence? And secondly, why and how is a group smarter than an individual?

“‘Living in a group is costly in many ways, so ants must get some benefit from doing it,” said Pratt. ‘By sharing the burden of decision-making, colonies avoid the mistakes that a solitary animal makes when taking on too much information. What’s great about these ants is that we can see exactly how they do this, by making sure that no ant has to process more information than it is able to.’

“Pratt added that this is one problem ants can solve, but that there are other problems ants face that we might be able to learn from.”

My Comment: In nature, preference is given only to a group, not to the individual, because there is no free will there. But it is the opposite on the spiritual path: the choice is up to the individual. So it is in human society, all the decisions must be made together, through the average result, but the direction of the spiritual movement should be given by the one who sees this path, the one who has already passed; that is, the spiritual path is dictated by the leader (Moses).
[89218]

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Opinion (Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, 1887): “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.

“A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.

“From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.

“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.

“During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.”
[89173]

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Question: In the integral society there is a kind of “abstract” goal which is beautiful and perfect and that everyone loves. Won’t we be stepping on the same rakes the utopians once stepped on?

Answer: What does the whole problem come down to? Only a change in human nature.

If that is possible, the integral society will change from utopia to reality. If it is impossible, then it will remain a utopia and it is better to stay away from such a society.

First we have to find out whether we can evoke a certain force upon us, a certain attribute that will create certain conditions so that every person’s nature will change from an egoistic one to an altruistic one. This can be fulfilled by consistent, gradual change of small groups of people and then of increasingly larger groups. But on the whole this process should include all of humanity.

Can a person who was created as a total egoist who only thinks about himself and nothing else (this is the way we are programmed) change his program? And what is more, can he change it so that the object who receives the pleasure is not me thanks to everything that surrounds me, but rather that my pleasure will be the wellbeing of all those around me, brought about by me.

The pleasure remains. It has to be since it is part of our nature, only the character of the filling changes. On the account of what? A mother, for example, is filled thanks to the fact that she gives her child everything—this is natural love. Can we attain this state when we feel natural love for people who are total strangers, who are opposite to us and distant, when I feel that they are an inseparable part of me just like a child is for his mother? Can we find such a force?

If we find it, we will be able to conduct such an experiment and see that it is so.
[89018]
From KabTV’s “The Integral World: The Formula of Integral Society,” 7/1/12

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Question: Which connectable parts should be highlighted in man and in nature? Is it possible to deal with the division of the whole into parts in order to focus our efforts on them?

Answer: First we have to see nature as a totally integral system in which everything is mutually connected. There is no particle, atom, force, or field that is not connected into one system, no matter whether it is on the still nature level or on the vegetative, animate, or speaking levels, or whether it is conscious or not. It mustn’t be divided into parts.

We divide it into parts because we cannot understand and grasp all of it, just as we divide all of nature into different sciences. There is no physics, chemistry, biology, zoology or all the other sciences. It is more convenient for us to study nature this way—in some concrete discoveries. It only displays the weakness of our recognition and of our awareness.

Nature itself is totally integral and no part in it can highlighted. It is mutually connected.

But we can attain it as egoistic parts that are detached from one another intermittently. Then we can reconnect them gradually by building the original mosaic. But this is only relative to us, since nature itself is integral. By creating this mosaic, we gradually discover not just the particles that compose it but the elements that connect, thus forming the general picture. So at the same time this picture receives its next upper existence. It is just as if we could put our body together from different organs and systems and it would begin to function and life would be appear in it.

We must understand that by getting closer to the integration in our recognition of nature we eventually attain the life in it, which can be called the only upper force in nature. It has a plan for our development, its beginning and its end. But we can only approach it if we constantly aspire for integrality.

We will start to feel it gradually, gradually guess, and then more and more clearly reveal it. And I think that we will begin to discover it not after we assemble all of nature’s parts into one picture, but even as we get closer, we begin to get a foretaste of the completed picture.

We see that as we get closer we begin to perceive the integrality and we will gradually attain its upper thought, not in the absolute revealed state, but in stages.
[89015]
From KabTV’s “The Integral World: The Formula of Integral Society” 7/1/12

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Question: Let’s say that a woman, whose missing husband is still on a “spree,” managed to rise to the integral level with the help of the group. Will her problem be resolved by itself or will she just regard it from a different perspective?

Answer: You should understand that the world is the way we draw it in our minds. We cannot ascertain objectively what, in fact, is real and what is actually going on. Everything is subjective. It’s all about how we sense and imagine it.

As soon as the woman begins to understand that her husband needs more social interaction and she is willing and able to give him a replacement that is of a higher and better level, his family, social, and economic problems will cease to exist. He will stop burning money with his friends in a pub or at a football stadium since he will have a new, contented attitude toward the world he lives in and to his family.

But we have to fulfill him somehow. We have to show him what we offer, that it is a replacement.

For dozens of years, world governments have been investing in massive team sports since an enormous number of fans unite around them. It distracts them and gives them a chance to unite, according to their affiliation with various sport teams. Such unity bears an egoistic nature since they need an opponent in order to unite. Governments realize that they should distract people by providing them with outlets and letting them experience warmth from belonging to various groups, clubs, etc.

However, we must gradually show people that connecting around something that is against something or someone is flawed; it destroys society. We see that there is no room for friendliness in sports. Competition only leads to drugs, sales, and buying players. There is nothing to it except financial cunning, “Give me another couple of billion, and I’ll make a team for you that will defeat everyone out there.” This scenario really cannot serve as a foundation for those who aspire to unity. Who exactly am I supporting? Are a couple of Africans or South Americans bought for money and brought to my favorite team supposed to defend my city or my country?

The same egoists do not want to look at all this because it really is not what they want to see in their passions.

We can raise the level of awareness of people to where they won’t abide such an attitude to sports. When we become a member of a club in order to unite with others, we generate a sordid type of connection. We beat our neighbors in order to somehow satisfy our dormant herd mentality that comes from ancient times, instead of one that leads us forward.

Therefore, there must be a serious explanation. We are quite capable of providing this explanation using humor and satire and showing how it is constructed, from football to beer to any teams or sports clubs, no matter if it is a local or national team, from the primal, underdeveloped nature of man, from his need to unite. And then, little by little, we can bring him to another level
[88214]
From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 3/1/12

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In the News (from Euronews): “With many Spaniards struggling to make ends meet, many have found a novel way to find one off items on a budget.

“A growing number of people are breaking the habit of a lifetime and starting to buy goods second hand.

“Shoppers are now looking for all kinds of things which they had previously only considered buying new, from clothes to cars…

“Retail sales in Spain have slumped as the country enters its second recession in as many years, but second hand stores are one of the few places reporting huge increases. A result of struggling Spaniards learning to bag bargains and make do and mend.”

My Comment: So inevitably, we will all “descend” to the level of the production and consumption of essential goods and not more. In this case, the economy will “deflate” to its necessary normal size. Humanity will be satisfied with what is necessary for material existence and will change all its desires and possibilities to spiritual fulfillment through suffering, the expansion of the crisis, or through the realization of such development as the best one.
[88872]

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Question: Every aspect of a person’s life should be examined via the dynamics of development from the levels of still, vegetative, and animate nature and the exit to a new level called “human.” How do you see this dynamics in the developed integral relations between a man and a woman?

Answer: First of all we have to understand that a couple, a man and a woman, have to participate together in studying integral education, to go over the same materials, to experience the same processes, to understand and to internalize the method of mutual incorporation. Just like couples in the animate world, a male and a female, offspring, a flock, etc. mutually understand each other instinctively, so do we have to make people understand what it means to be in harmony with nature and between them. This means between the two partners, between them and their children, between the couple and their parents and other relatives.

We put great emphasis on the fact that people have to complete one another, like in the group. On the whole, it’s a mutual group, and if each member understands his weakness and how he completes someone else, then we can see an interesting harmony in nature, which we can’t find between a man and a woman in any other way. This means that they don’t “enter” each other’s frameworks, but complete these frameworks so that eventually there is a very interesting border by which they connect with pleasure.

An amusing field is created of the “Yin and Yang” type, in which the completion is harmonious and wise. All this happens so that they can organize a small personal group of their own. Since their goal is to create a general collective harmony, they make up a stable group since all the other groups can change. We emphasize the fact that they should study together and read the same material, at least a little, 15 minutes a day, if they have the time. They shouldn’t misuse this opportunity to study together. People should have time to rest from one another and from their group. They have to process the material and to be by themselves a little.

But in order to do that, they have to go over the material together. It really brings people closer to one another. What’s more, it’s very helpful for the study and in how to relate to a child so that he will be included in the integral system. Later the division of different tasks is fulfilled when each one understands his part and there are no conflicts over it with others.

On the whole, people are trying to think about the integral society, although the entire society around them isn’t integral yet. Still, if they try to behave integrally, and to divide the tasks and the opportunities as much as they can, they actually begin to feel that something is created between them, like a child that grows from them, something that is average and collective that made up that human being who later split into Adam and Eve.
[88577]
From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 3/5/12

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In the News (from Euronews): “Anti-American clashes sparked by a US-made film which mocks the Prophet Muhammad continue across the Muslim world.

“In Indonesia hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police outside the US embassy in Jakarta. Police deployed water cannons and tear gas to try to control them. Several officers were hospitalised after being attacked with rocks and sticks of bamboo.

“In Pakistan protesters in Karachi tried to make their way to the US consulate for a second day running. …

“Meanwhile in the Afghan capital, hundreds of demonstrators were blocked by security personnel while en-route to the US embassy in Kabul.”

My Comment: Thus, around the world, there is a consequence of politics promoting any movement that advertises not unity, but themselves. For the sake of saving humanity from a world war, it is necessary to ban all advertising and propaganda, except for unity, connection, and mutual support.
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