Opinion (Matt Ridley, science writer and former Economist journalist): “Brilliant people, be they anthropologists, psychologists or economists, assume that brilliance is the key to human achievement. They vote for the cleverest people to run governments, they ask the cleverest experts to devise plans for the economy, they credit the cleverest scientists with discoveries, and they speculate on how human intelligence evolved in the first place.

“They are all barking up the wrong tree. The key to human achievement is not individual intelligence at all. The reason human beings dominate the planet is not because they have big brains….

“Human achievement is entirely a networking phenomenon. It is by putting brains together through the division of labor — through trade and specialization — that human society stumbled upon a way to raise the living standards, carrying capacity, technological virtuosity and knowledge base of the species….

“Human achievement is based on collective intelligence — the nodes in the human neural network are people themselves. By each doing one thing and getting good at it, then sharing and combining the results through exchange, people become capable of doing things they do not even understand. As the economist Leonard Read observed in his essay ‘I, Pencil’ (which I’d like everybody to read), no single person knows how to make even a pencil — the knowledge is distributed in society among many thousands of graphite miners, lumberjacks, designers and factory workers.

“That’s why, as Friedrich Hayek observed, central planning never worked: the cleverest person is no match for the collective brain at working out how to distribute consumer goods.”

My Comment: Namely the creation and management of society through the collective mind is the next stage of human development to which the crisis leads us. Not only the collective mind but acquiring a general collective feeling is the key to mutual understanding and harmony in the emerging integral society. It should be introduced to people gradually, through integral education.
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Question: When people spend several hours a day in an integral education group, is there a place for music and songs? I know that there is a lot of music, joy, and sublime states in your center.

Answer: We are constantly trying to be in an exalted state, not playing it, but actually examining it on ourselves. First of all, this helps us feel how realistically this is connected with nature and that this is the goal of our development, the goal of nature.

When done differently, when we create this artificially, then it carries no value at all! On the contrary, it only brings harm!

A proper and good union of people, when no one is suppressed and everyone tries to work for the community, produces a lot of positive energy, and a person does not want to leave this state.

He suddenly discovers that this state is not boring, not difficult, and it is possible to always be in it. He falls asleep and awakens with it. He begins to feel that this state contains absolutely all the opportunities for self-realization for him with society and with this new level he is attaining.

He begins to see that in comparison to the previous state, this one is much wider and more exalted; it simply unravels the entire possibility of harmony before him. It is like when a musician hears something off-tune in comparison to a well played Beethoven or Mozart composition.

This is the way a person perceives the difference between his past private life and the harmony he reveals. He cannot go there. At first this often makes him tired because he still needs to make emotional inner effort, but then some time goes by and he can no longer be without it.

And then it becomes his life, a necessity. He reveals that all of nature also exists in this harmony and nothing else exists!

He begins to understand that the past level of his existence only consisted of caring for his physical body in other words this was an animal level of existence. He agrees and understands it. And the “human” level is the collective image that we are building here.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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Question: There is a theory in psychology that examines a child’s psychological state at all stages of birth. The first stage is fairly comfortable. The second and third stages are when the unborn child experiences pressure, a chemical attack, which stimulates his birth, and the last stage is the most pleasant; it takes place after his birth. The two intermediate states are horrifying. In one case, it is the hopelessness of the situation. In the second case, it is quiet dramatic work between good and evil. Right now, is the entire humanity essentially entering these two stages?

Answer: But we do not have to go through these stages in such a dramatic way. This absolutely is not necessary.

Of course, if we go under the influence of nature, which is the path of evil, since nature only evolves us through obligating forces without softening them, then of course, we will not easily undergo being born into the new world. This way is with lack of understanding, alienation, absolute helplessness, and loss of any orientation! You are cornered, are not able to breathe or turn around, you do not know where to go and how to do it because any move you make causes even greater suffering: internal, external, and social.

Today the crisis in Europe is an example: No matter in which direction a move is made, it only gets worse. Maybe it is better to not do anything? It is even scarier to not do anything. So where are we heading?

It is very interesting to observe the process of the crisis. I think that many will be describing it in the future. It is not yet completed; we still have a long way to go to end it. It will end precisely with our spiritual birth.

The world crisis will only get worse, even if sometimes we observe periods of calm, like between birthing contractions; we know that they gradually become more frequent.

So, if a period of relative calm comes along, people will no longer scream: “That is it. It is over,” like they did last time.

I published many articles then, saying that the crisis will soon resume, but no one paid attention. Now people have learned through blows that everything returns.

We will not understand it until we feel that we are in a constant trap, and that a break is given to us only to figure out how to act and start striving on our own towards the exit through the birth canal (which keeps getting narrower around us, pushing us towards a greater integration). When we first feel this need emotionally through suffering or through social opinion instead of suffering, then we will understand that only our greater integration, concentrating everyone into a single whole, will help us complete this birth with understanding.

The main thing is realization. After all, a person can go through any problems and he even creates them for himself on purpose to attain a desired result.

If we continue to resist, without the understanding of where it is all taking us, then nature will push us through suffering. But we not only resist, but we also make negative movements, like today in Europe, again they want to separate, but there is no way back.

Comment: People who took the drug LSD seem to have experienced all the stages of birth, which have been genetically retained in their subconscious. When a person ends up in the second or third stage under the influence of hallucinogens, it usually ends with a suicide. Now, once you have explained the monstrous states we are headed toward, it became clear to me that such pressure and helplessness will become so unbearable that people jump out the windows and commit suicide.

Answer: These are horrible states, horrible wars, suffering, and extermination, when death seems to liberate, but it can’t be found! So a person must experience enormous suffering.

This is not about death; this suffering must accumulate to make us realize the need to ascend.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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Opinion (Peter R. Orszag, vice chairman of global banking at Citigroup): “A weak labor market, like the one we’ve experienced since the financial crisis in 2008, imposes enormous stress on people. Given the added anxiety created by a weak economy, you might think life expectancy would decline. Oddly, though, during recessions, exactly the opposite tends to happen: Life expectancy rises.

“The age-adjusted death rate in the U.S. declined by 2 percent from 2007 to 2010, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As a result, projected life expectancy at birth rose to 78.7 years in 2010 from 77.9 years in 2007, an increase of 0.8 year. In contrast, from 2004 to 2007, when the economy was much stronger, life expectancy rose by only 0.4 year.

“Life expectancy appears to have risen more in the states with relatively large increases in unemployment. In Michigan and Illinois, for example, where joblessness rose much more than in North Dakota or Iowa, age-adjusted death rates have had a steeper decline since 2007. (In the states with the smallest increase in unemployment, the death rates have perversely risen.)

“These cross-state data are consistent with historical patterns that economists Douglas Miller, Marianne Page, Ann Stevens and Mateusz Filipski have found. Their research shows that a one-percentage-point increase in a state’s unemployment rate is associated with a 0.5 percent reduction in the state’s mortality rate.

“During the Great Depression, too, life expectancy rose, according to research by Jose Tapia Granados and Ana Diez Roux of the University of Michigan. As they conclude, ‘The evolution of population health during the years 1920-1940 confirms the counter-intuitive hypothesis that, as in other historical periods and market economies, population health tends to evolve better during recessions than in expansions.’

“How could this be? In a series of important papers, Christopher Ruhm, an economist at the University of Virginia, has explored the reasons. It appears that while suicide rates rise during downturns, other types of fatalities, such as from motor-vehicle accidents, fall more. The surprising findings apply even to heart attacks. In a study titled ‘A Healthy Economy Can Break Your Heart,’ Ruhm finds that higher unemployment reduces deaths from heart attacks, perhaps because when there is less economic activity, hazards such as air pollution and traffic congestion are less severe. Smoking and obesity also tend to decline.”

My Comment: To eliminate suicide, it is necessary to give a person a feeling of happiness. The universal network of integral education will create the best conditions for human health.
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Opinion (from Reuters): “Risk consultancy Maplecroft said its Global Risk Atlas, which highlights potentially destabilising factors in the world’s key growth economies, found that Brazil, Russia, India and China were no less susceptible to potential security or economic shocks than in previous years….

“For some of them, governance and reform have not kept pace with economic growth, leaving them vulnerable to potential risks such as terrorism or climate change, the survey found.

“According to the report, India and Russia are among 41 countries classified as ‘high risk’, with poor governance, systemic corruption and terrorism identified as particular risks.

“China, meanwhile, is also exposed to security issues, but is classified as ‘medium risk’ due to the unlikelihood of social or political upheaval on a national scale, the report said.

“Brazil, also ranked ‘medium risk’, is considered the least susceptible to global risks of the four BRICs, due in part to the stability of its political structure and record of strong governance.”

My Comment: The crisis will spare no one because it is global and will eventually lead to the need for all countries to change goals and development programs, to replace the material development of society of unlimited consumption  with a society of reasonable consumption, and instead of chasing fulfillment in shopping, fulfilling oneself above our life with what a human seeks subconsciously.
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Opinion (Shigehiro Oishi, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia): “Using General Social Survey data from 1972 to 2008, we found that Americans were on average happier in the years with less national income inequality than in the years with more national income inequality. We further demonstrated that this inverse relation between income inequality and happiness was explained by perceived fairness and general trust.”

My Comment: According to many studies, happiness is measured relative to others, and that is why, no doubt, it will be optimally felt in a society of equal members.
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Question: You have mentioned that we need to paint a fine, comfortable life in our imagination which we would wish for our children, like a fairy tale, the farthest possible state from our reality, a state of utopia?

Answer: I have omitted many details in my explanation, and I only said that we need to try to imagine this state. But we have not yet discussed the things that are characteristic of that “utopian” kind of life. This is a kind of society where everyone is on the same level of prosperity, every person receives everything he needs for a normal life, cares for others and has the opportunity to fully participate in the life of society.

At the same time we will be able to fully fulfill all human passions. There is a reason we have qualities like competition, envy, fervor, fame, and power. This remains the same but we find a new way to use them for the good of mankind. We’ll have to work with our qualities in a new and very interesting way. How will I be able to use envy, passion, glory, authoritativeness, vast knowledge, and cunningness for benefit and not harm? These are very interesting objectives, which can become fun activities for every person.

No one is saying that we need to remain on a level where every person is only guaranteed food, reproduction, family, shelter, safety, health, and education. We’ll be able to continue raising the level of life around the world, while still keeping balance with nature. And then the blows of nature will stop, and we’ll be able to provide for us all the abundance we want. No one thinks that we need to limit ourselves and only live the life of the physical body, settling for the minimal requirements. This is just our nearest objective: lifting everyone above the poverty line.

It would be interesting to build a model of a new court, which would evaluate human behavior—is a person’s behavior correct or not: what he thinks, wants, does, and how he should live. In other words, this is a part of the same environment where the person is brought up intended only for special cases where we evaluate all these deviations from the rule, and now in our society, we’ll now create a model of this kind of trial.

The reaction of society will help a person judge whether his behavior is correct and whether the society agrees with him. This is because everything must head in one direction meaning that when his intentions are for the benefit of the environment, he and his children merit respect and good treatment, which manifests in different forms, signs of distinction, etc. And when he does not behave well, social pressure will influence him so he will change his attitude and feel comfortable as a result of it. But this is not done by oppressing or imprisoning the person, only through disapproval expressed by friends, relatives, and social stigma.

It is also necessary to figure out what people need in order to feel fulfillment in life. There needs to be a service via a computer network, which collects every person’s requests in relation to his personality and habits and whereby all the needs of the people will be satisfied. Every person will be able to receive his “consumer basket.” He will not need to worry about providing for himself; society will take care of that.

This entire system has many factors that need to be taken into consideration when governing a society. Will the current and experienced systems continue to exist or we will need to create new systems which will be under the constant influence of the same environment and social control? All these things are very interesting. But in any case, we will need to learn how to perfect ourselves and our environment. This is the foundation of everything.

This way we are always building the environment and using it to build ourselves. And the environment must always be somewhat more creative and advanced than me, and then it will influence me, and I will achieve more advanced states. I will always think about what my teacher should be like so that he will be able to educate me in a good and proper manner. What should his image be like so I would be able to learn proper behavior from him? How will this image affect me? How do I shape this image so I can see it before me without losing connection with it thereby allowing it to shape me as an individual? Essentially, this image is “I,” but on a higher level because this is the way I imagine something more exalted. And then I strive to become like it, similar in qualities to the image I have created.

“Similarity” stands for correspondence in qualities according to, “Be as merciful as He is,” which means that I want to feel the same mercy, participation, and love for Him that He feels for me, like a teacher feels for his student. This is called similarity in qualities.

This image is factually a combination of qualities I imagine to be ideal, but they are not a fantasy, they are just a bit better than my qualities. I check to see the manifestation of my bad qualities, which is the degree of my realization of evil and my desire to correct the layer, the section, which has now been revealed in me. And then I see this section in its opposite form in relation to my environment or the image of my teacher. And the image of my teacher and my environment are the same thing.

Question: It seems that my first step is to check my attitude on a scale in relation to my neighbor: whether it benefits him. What do we do next, what is our next step?

Answer: Evaluate how you would like to see yourself if you were to correct your attitude towards others. In other words, you imagine yourself on the plus one level, a more advanced degree of your attitude, for the good of your neighbor and the environment. This is referred to as the “image of the teacher” or the “image of the environment” (the society). This is the way to choose the best environment every time. But now start admiring these qualities and strive to acquire the same principles and values.

Question: How?

Answer: Imagine better qualities every time.

Comment: But then I imagine something that does not exist in me because if these qualities were in me, I would not need to invent them.

Answer: Try to strive towards them every time.

Question: How?

Answer: When you are able to imagine better qualities than you have, you are ready to advance; you just don’t know how to do it. Ask the environment to either shame or praise you. And when you are in the best environment possible, it will give you confidence that you are able to attain the qualities you are now imagining.

After all, how do you manage to feel bad? It is because you are you in a particular environment. I am in a circle of certain people. This circle is called “integral upbringing.” I feel and reveal people and all my faults in this circle, and I also feel what I need to correct in me. This means that I am in the state of realization of my evil in relation to the environment. And then the environment shows my next degree with its attitude; it’s as if I would connect with these people in the tightest and most internal way possible and in absolute similarity in qualities if not for the evil I have just revealed in me.

Question: So I need to imagine my own corrected qualities, or will the society show them to me?

Answer: It is the same thing, how else can you imagine them? Where will the realization of evil come from? It comes to you by being in a society; you need a certain scale. You are able to understand that you treat them incorrectly, in an evil way. What is the right attitude? It’s when you feel your society so close to you that you are ready to connect with them on the inside. I am not talking about a physical embrace but similarity in qualities.

Comment: Then I would treat them well, not like I treat them now.

Answer: They also treat you differently. You compare their attitude with yours and understand how bad you are.

Comment: Not everyone treats me well there; we are not yet in the Garden of Eden.

Answer: Everything depends on where you see the evil, and this is called realization of evil. The realization of your evil happens in relation to them. There needs to be a certain scale, which should be targeted.

Question: This means that I measure according to the way a part of people treat me in different circumstances. Is this my criteria of goodness?

Answer: Yes, it is also your personal criteria. In other words, you determine the society’s good attitude towards you, and also your bad attitude towards it. And then the difference between the society’s attitude toward you and your attitude toward the society is the realization of evil.

This makes you feel bad. By virtue of their influence on you, you feel as if you are inferior to them. If they express a positive reaction toward you, they give you a positive grade. The society treats you well and it tells you that its good attitude toward you is the highest grade; it is the actual goodness. And this has a greater value in comparison to your attitude toward your environment. That is, you are on a lower level, and it makes you feel the corruption of your ego. This pushes you to achieve similarity to the environment.

It turns out that on one hand, you feel that your ego is corrupt, but on the other hand, you don’t have a choice, you are being pushed towards coming closer to the qualities of these people, to become like them. And the environment influences you through examples like these, and you start to become more and more like it out of hopelessness. It’s similar to the way children learn by following the example of their teacher.

For example, my grandson just went to kindergarten where my student works. Now when I talk to my grandson, I see his teacher’s personality manifest through him. You don’t need anything else to understand a person. And when I later saw my student, I told him that I had no idea he was such a character. Of course he was surprised that I know such things about him. And I told him that I see these character traits in my grandson. This is how the environment brings up a person.

However, a person must also use his strengths in order to be more closely connected to the environment. But this is not just his personal strength. Together we must influence every person to strengthen his connection with everyone else, to make him come more often. It turns out that there will be changes in every one of us to the degree of the natural connection.

The main thing is to always test the common inner attitude in a society, to make sure it’s always directed towards unity, interconnectedness, mutual feelings, and love. And then the person will change, regardless of whether he wants to or not. Naturally none of us wish to change, we know human nature. And every one of us knows it, but hopelessness still makes a person enter the system, which changes him against his initial desire (the egoistic nature). But it doesn’t break him; it only changes the use of his ego in him to make it constructive for the benefit of his neighbor, environment, and mankind as a whole. And then every person who goes through this educational system, changes and builds a new world in this way.
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From KabTV’s “ A New Life” Episode 8, 1/5/12

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Question: How do you envision a world government that rules humankind in all spheres of its activities including manufacturing and distribution processes to make them rational and accurate when even on a scale of one country it is impossible to achieve stability and order?

Answer: It’s impossible if we use the customary approach. I heard Lenin was shocked when he realized what kind of bureaucracy he had to launch in order to control vital societal systems. There is no computer that can cope with this kind of task. How can we achieve integrity, reach mutual guarantee, and ensure that no extra goods are being manufactured and that everything that is being produced stays in complete balance with Nature?

It can only be attained by transitioning to a new stage, by obtaining the sensation of unity (a collective mind, “matrix”). Our efforts to connect with each other initiate Ohr Makif (surrounding Light), and thus lead us to revelation of an absolute connection among us (a vessel – the Kli of the soul.) It doesn’t stand for “We” since “We” is a plain sum of each of us; “Akolel” is a Higher Force (the Creator) that reveals Itself through the sum of us.

Since everybody is included in unity, into mutual guarantee and inclusion (Arvut), each one immediately senses the same things as others; therefore, the division into “I” and “others” disappears. What’s left is “one whole” (in Gematria it’s called “Akolel,” +1, i.e., commonality.)

Thanks to our sensation of this force, we will be enabled to perfectly and optimally inter-communicate with ease, love, and without making mistakes. It is said: “The One who makes peace in the Heavens will bring it upon us.”  (The word “Shalom”  is derived from the word “Shlemut” – perfection and “Ashlamah” – addition.)
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In the News (from Forbes): “Moody’s was last to the downgrade party, announcing on Monday it was axing the sovereign credit rating of six European nations including Italy, Spain, and Portugal. At the same time, the credit rating agency put three triple-A rated nations (the U.K., France, and Austria) under negative outlook, signaling they too could lose the precious, yet arbitrary, seal of approval.”

My Comment: Now, it is only a matter of time: either the crisis will change the EU or the EU will become smarter, reject the old system, and take the course toward full integration.

They will need to do the following:

1. Introduce a system of integral education and upbringing across the EU,
2. Develop a new economic system of reasonable consumption and equitable distribution,
3. Plan gradual implementation of points 1 and 2 in all EU countries.

Surely until the EU leaders and a new single EU government begins to attend to these questions, the systemic crisis will begin to weaken.
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Opinion (John Kozy, PhD, professor): “Offshoring production to underdeveloped nations gives needy people jobs, increases their incomes, reduces poverty, and expands their nations’ GNPs. It also enables people in developed nations to purchase products produced offshore at lower prices enabling them to consume a wider range of things…

“Yes, the wages were better than those that could have been earned before, but they weren’t much benefit. Why? Because when the paychecks began to arrive, the local landlords and vendors increased prices on everything, so just as before, all of their incomes went to pay for basic necessities. The landlords and vendors got the money; the workers were not better off… But, of course, the country’s GNP was better, which is all that matters to economists who still claim that economy is improving…

“Two conclusions follow from this scenario: employment alone is not a sufficient condition for prosperity; full employment can exist in an enslaved society alongside abject poverty, and an increasing GNP does not mean that an economy is getting better… Those numbers mean nothing.

“Economists build models by what they call ‘abstraction.’ But it’s really subtraction. They look at a real world situation and subtract from it the characteristics they deem unessential. The result is a bare bones description consisting of what economists deem economically essential. Everything that is discarded (not taken into consideration in the model) is called an ‘externality’… Since externalities are excluded from all economic models and can be expected to change after any model is implemented, all economic models necessarily fail.”

My Comment: We are in the process of exposing this system and due to our realization of the laws of nature and the law of business opposite to it, we will understand the system in which we want to live. Such a system can be only one: a society with equitable distribution of reasonably limited goods and services.

Fulfillment is achieved by integrating and understanding the meaning of life and raising the whole society to the next level: an integral society in which everyone feels the next level of existence in total unity.
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