Opinion (Steen Jakobsen, Saxo Bank Chief Economist): “I have travelled to 16 different countries over the past year. They are all very different, with different systems, starting points and cultures, but they all share the same burden of inequality. I realised that the real loser since the financial crisis began in 2008 has been the middle class.

“Pundits will have you know that we are witnessing capitalism and the free market running amok. Where? There is not a single market working according to capitalistic rules.

“The main policy response in this time of crisis remains one of buying time. This solution will not last however; it will only make social inequality more severe. The source of income and wealth equality is an equal right to capital and to work. Currently the only parties with free access to capital are overburdened banks and governments.

“Ironically, pundits have dubbed the current crisis the running amok of capitalism. I would argue that we are witnessing governments and politicians running amok.

“We must invest in education, secure free markets, competition and long-term tri-party agreements on education, salary and working hours. This is the path towards more equality.”

My Comment: The solution is wrong—it is based on the model of egoistic capitalism that no longer works. We need to invest in the following:

1. Reaching a reasonable, single level of well-being for all people,
2. Introducing mandatory integral education and upbringing.

Both of these measures will eliminate the crisis because they will remove the contradictions between man, who devours nature, and the world around him; they will change us, and we will understand how to create a new economy of well-being and balance.
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In the News (from mignews.com): “According to the report issued by United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the ratio between employment and the size of the world population is uneven and does not depend directly on the local Gross National Product (GNP).

“In Turkey, the GNP per capita is very high, while only 29% of the population is in the work force. The next highest GNP per capita is Kazakhstan, with 77%.

“In Kyrgyzstan and Moldova, the rates of the GNP per capita are lowest, but the rates of employment are 59% and 39% accordingly.

“In the developed countries, the ratio between employment and the size of the population is about 50 to 60%, which points to prosperity and stabilization of the people’s economic situation.”

My Comment: As we all know, the figures in economics do not reflect the situation of the population at all and only help the rich get richer at the expense of the poor by presenting statistics that are convenient for them. Economics is not a science, but a result of calculations that are beneficial to those who manipulate it.

However, it appears that its period of dictatorship is over, and the economy of balance between society and nature will replace it, whether we like it or not. Only the formula of balance will dictate and determine our social and economic relationships.
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Question: If we achieve the goal and unite in one common world Kli, what changes will occur in Europe?

Answer: We must understand that all the problems, including the crisis with all the suffering, appear for one reason: to guide people to find the root of the cause, to find why this is happening. We see that scientists, economists, and politicians cannot do anything.

The world has entered the stage that Kabbalah mentioned a long time ago. We talked about this before the 21st century. I heard about this twenty years ago and did not believe that this could happen. “So,” I thought, “they talk. What can I do?”

The world entered a different stage. Today, we are on a completely different level. We must reveal the unity of nature. That is why the world is global, it is integral, not only in us, but around us.

Today, we reveal the upper force at all levels of the development; the still level of nature including space, not to mention the higher layers, and vegetative and animate nature are one whole. All of this is a global, integral force from zero to infinity, one whole.

There is an exception that is a problem. Inside, there is a human being, the center of the world. He is given freedom, and he does whatever he likes in spite of everything else. He is a terrible negative against everything else.

We compare this human, that is, all of humanity, this collective image, to a cancerous growth because he eats everything around him. He destroys everything living and is in contradiction with the rest of nature. The rest of nature is global, integral, and united. We are not united at all, not integral and not global.

We say that the global crisis has come. What does that mean? It means that you do not match the rest of nature! Where is the crisis? Is it in you or in what surrounds you?

You must rebuild yourself. You are a human society that also must become global and integral. How can this be done? It can be done by uniting, achieving equality, interconnection, and mutual understanding. All of our development shows us the extent to which we are interconnected. We cannot get away from it.

Look what happens: A country is boycotted, disconnected from financial transactions or something else, and it cannot do anything. That is it; life has ceased. Cut it off from the rest of the world, and it cannot exist. That is the extent to which the world is global. This never happened before.

Our society is opposite to this globality; the present human nature is opposite to it. That is why, naturally, if we remove this contradiction, we will see the force of nature revealed in its entirety.

We will find ourselves fully connected with the entire world, moreover, as limitless, infinite. We will feel ourselves existing eternally in harmony with all other layers of nature.

This applies not only to countries that are suffering from the crisis. We should consider the level to which we rise and see all these crisis phenomena as obstacles for us to overcome to reach the highest goal. Just as a person has crises in the individual sense, a state does in the national plan and human society is in global terms. This is the only way to look at life.

We cannot approach governments today and talk about this with them because they are the greatest egoists and will not be able to understand it. Nevertheless, their minds are changing. There is a big difference between what they said five years ago and what they say today because blows and punishments make a person wiser and more receptive. That is why I hope that we will be able to accomplish this.

In addition to the materials that we are preparing to submit to UNESCO, the United Nations, and other international organizations, we are connecting many scientists to our work who have the same opinion that we have, those who understand that human nature, the nature of human society, must be fundamentally changed.

The problem is that they do not have a method. There is no doubt that we need to be in global equilibrium with nature, to be in homeostasis with it. Thousands of scientists in the world are talking about this, but we also should do it. How can it be done? We must…? There is no answer.

Millions of people around the world are becoming unemployed. The crisis will bring us to a point where we will produce only things that are necessary for our existence.

That is why people must understand. They should study themselves and change themselves instead of polluting and depleting nature. I do not need much to feed my “animal” for my normal existence.

I have to dedicate the remaining time, the rest of my strength, to changing human society. Then, we will feel eternal and total harmony. This will be much more than what we try to achieve today. Therefore, we should view the crisis as an obstacle above which we must rise together. That is why we are here.
[73894]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3

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Opinion (Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao): “Premier Wen Jiabao said his country needed ‘urgent’ economic and political reforms. Without them, it might face more tragedies like the Cultural Revolution.

“‘We must press ahead with both economic structural reform and political structural reform, in particular reform in the leadership system of our party and country,’ he said.

“He reiterates the need for price controls to avoid a real estate bubble and promises that the yuan will float more freely.”

My Comment: China has difficulties understanding how to unite with the world after millenia of isolation, and that is why integration with it will occur slowly and unwillingly, not due to awareness, but to forced conditions.
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Even though we are different, we still get along somehow like in one family. True, it’s not easy. Let’s say that I have a mom and dad, my wife does too, and each of us has brothers and sisters on both sides, their kids, our kids. We have to take each other into consideration since we’re mutually dependent both in the positive and the negative way. This is why we have no intention of changing and reforming each other.

It’s understandable that if in the past I met a woman who possibly differs from me in her personality, but according to other considerations, we decided to be together, then in this decision to be together, we essentially accepted and agreed without even talking about it that we would be leading a shared life that wouldn’t always go smoothly. We will need to make concessions to each other, to agree with the other’s opinion, either partially or fully, and so on. But we connect with one another, having no other choice, because we want to create a family, to raise our offspring, and to support each other.

Young couples lack this kind of upbringing, which teaches how to get along with each other despite the differences. Even though we think that we choose the most suitable life partner for ourselves freely, in reality, we are still very different. For animals, mating happens instinctively, but people, since their calculations are corrupted, seek something special, perhaps even rare, not realizing that precisely because of that they will have communication difficulties.

The lack of education, understanding, and upbringing related to shared life, as well as the inability to yield to each other lead us to a crisis of the family institution. In our day, more than half the population of the earth, especially young people, are single. They aren’t ready to get married and don’t want to have children because they feel unable to take care of someone.

This crisis has been going on for decades now, and today we are forced to solve analogous problems between countries as well. After all, each of us, at least relative to the neighboring countries, is both giving and receiving, just like in a married couple. This is why it’s also necessary to learn on an international level how to make concessions and to connect above all the differences and disagreements. Yet, we were never taught how to do this either.

So how can this actually be done? What is the technique of making concessions since only through conceding do we demonstrate our good intention?

For lack of any other options, we currently find ourselves in the crisis that teaches us the most pressing things. And people feel this urgency in such a way (and therein lies our hope) that they refuse to accept “divorce” since divorce between countries means war.

I hope that we’ll realize that we don’t have a choice and we need to exercise restraint. This is why we created the UN, a place where supposedly everyone can gather and discuss peaceful cooperation, as well as many other organizations that handle education and healthcare.

For example, in Geneva there are international organizations which I never even realized existed. There is a commission on broadcasting frequencies that ensures that each television and radio station in the world has its own frequency and does not interfere with others. There is a council on manufacturing drugs, medical products, and services, which determines standards in this field. This allows us to understand each other, and thus a doctor, when sending his or her patient for treatment to a different country, is able to explain to their colleague all the nuances of the required procedures.

There are even organizations that monitor flags of every country so that suddenly two identical flags wouldn’t appear. There are standards in every field because we’re becoming so interconnected and close to one another that we need to establish laws to regulate all areas of our interaction.

And just like a parliament of every country that sets laws for the interaction of its citizens, it is done on a global scale today for the entire world too. These kinds of organizations have been in existence for a few decades now, and without them things would be very difficult for us.

But today the problem is not in establishing a place for everyone. The current situation requires us to build some common “roof” that consists of mutual understanding and feeling that we are in the same room, so to speak. In these circumstances it is very difficult for us to be together if we don’t have a good connection between us.

We should feel not only closeness but an interdependence that will necessitate everyone to change their attitude towards others. Whether we want to or not, we are interdependent, connected, and united on different levels: food, clothing, upbringing, culture, technology, energy supplies, water, and even air.

If someone’s industry pollutes the atmosphere, we have nothing to breathe. We are all familiar with the Kyoto Protocols that set limits on emissions of waste byproducts and atmospheric pollution.

I think that it’s worthwhile to provide a list of such international organizations and the issues they work with. Then we’ll feel the scope of our connection. A portion of these organizations is located in Paris, London, and New York, but most of them are in Geneva.

This is very important because it gives people an idea of such mutual dependence that is hard to believe. It is much greater than in a family. In a family, I can stop talking, quarrel, and even distance myself for some time.

But here, this is impossible. It turns out that all the existing countries are already within one single mosaic, and nobody is able to exit it or behave they way they please. We see that any time someone attempts to make some independent motion, it never works out. After some time they come back, or perhaps it doesn’t even go beyond verbal attempts, never coming to any practical actions, because in our time it’s not feasible.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 5, 1/2/12

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The ecological catastrophe that we face is the result of an endless pursuit of revenue accumulated through selling products and the competition of billion-dollar bank accounts. We had the illusion that this would never end, but now it is over; there are no more consumers left and we have nowhere to move forward.

The crisis manifests itself in education, culture (interrelations), and ongoing difficulties when it comes to satisfying of our immediate needs. Manufacturers still have the potential to develop, but there is almost nobody who is able to buy their goods. Large pools of the population of Western countries who lost their income cannot purchase goods at the same rate they used to. Previously, goods were produced and consumed within a complete monetary-commodities cycle. Now, the cycle is broken.

At some point capitalists arrived at the wrong decision: They started to play with finances alone, separate from products. A large, inflated “bubble” was created adding its contribution to the overall crisis. Because the bubble is devoid of real content, it is blown up with the help of advertising and a game that takes place between various banks and financial systems.

Thus, in all spheres of human activity, in education, culture, interpersonal relationships, people are not able to live as they used. Humanity is helpless.

Let’s take Spain as an example: Young people who received a university education in Europe cannot find jobs; they cannot marry because they have no ability to provide for their families, nor can they make progress in their professions. Everybody wants to put their knowledge into practice, have a family, buy a house, etc., but nobody needs them. People cannot realize themselves; they cannot find a place for themselves anywhere; they cannot lead a normal life. All they have is unemployment and uncertainty.

This is spreading around the world. A person has no solution in a situation where I care only about myself and do not care about the world; if we don’t care about others, we cannot provide others with a means of subsistence. We do not care about each other; therefore, on one hand, we toss out a huge amount of surplus goods, and on the other hand, the surplus does not get to the correct destinations where they are desperately needed. Our ego doesn’t allow us to take care of others. Only if we feel a threat do we begin satisfying their needs.

As another example, let’s look at Africa, which once produced many products and developed remarkably. But then the Europeans began dumping their imports there with slashed prices. This destroyed the local market; Africans stopped producing staple goods; people abandoned their previous jobs and professions. Later on the same companies that artificially lowered prices while introducing their products started to raise them once the local competition was eliminated. As a result, Africans were left without mean, and their impoverished situation persists to this day.

There are very harsh conditions in the world and they are exacerbated by a deepening global crisis. It impacts both developed countries and Third World nations, some of which are only beginning to develop. All of it is caused by human egoism. But we are also already feeling that we are connected: We are all floating in one boat; if someone damages the boat, it affects everyone. We cannot advance. Our egoism works like a boomerang and hits every single one of us.

In Europe, it appears in a very peculiar way. In order to achieve power and success, European nations initiated mutually beneficial connections, and it is impossible to break them apart. Severing them would cause complete obliteration. Consequently, instead of a common market, joint production, and a united society, we witness a dangerous state, which doesn’t allow anybody to move a finger without the consent of others.

We’ve already approached the necessity of taking each other into consideration. Even though European history is filled with wars and conflicts and numerous counts of tragic events, slaughters, and the subjugation of one nation by another…still, today there is no other way for Europeans but to transition to cooperation even though it will yet be originated by hatred and indifference. It’s not enough just to reckon with others; we see that it doesn’t work. It gradually becomes clear that a common market doesn’t tolerate old economic laws that are built on an egoistic foundation. The old system is not functional any more.

Today, both human nature and the environment bring up a new condition: Egoistic compassion doesn’t work; we have to implement love to our neighbors.

It’s hard to pronounce these words. They seem so unrealistic, so far from us. Our hearts reject them.

However, we will continue to approach this state if we manage to attract the compelling force upon us. Today, Nature forces us to gain love for our neighbors since the only alternative to it is death from hunger, disease, and cataclysms. It’s our duty to form an alternate force that would oblige us to move towards mutual love.

What kind of force is that? It is our surroundings that are organized in a way that pushes us to unite even more so than ecology, economics, education, possible lack of food supply, etc. do. Society must be strong enough to sustain our egoistic nature, impose a new type of relations among us, and thus lead us from one edge to another—from hatred to love.
From KabTV’s: “A New Life” Episode 13, 1/11/12

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Question: We say that due to our unity, the situation in the world has changed: It has become more peaceful; there is less terrorism. If a secret service employee heard us, he would say: “We are working from morning till night, neutralizing terrorists, so the situation has improved because of us, not because you are uniting together.” What can you tell this skeptic or is it better not to contradict him?

Answer: I usually do not enter into any debate with anyone. Let them talk; it does not matter.  If they think they are doing it better, so be it.

Besides that, I do not think that we can replace services for safety and security, etc. because humanity is far from being able to advance consciously. And those people who want to do harm must come up against an organized public order.

I have nothing to tell him; he does not see and will never understand what we are doing if he does not come to our courses.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #14, 12/18/11

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As a result of the shattering, the one, general soul was divided into a huge number of souls. Each piece of the general soul is called Adam (man, human) and feels that it is separated from the other pieces. These parts feel that they want to receive since at present, their nature is the desire to receive.

Their desires to receive constitutes the same HaVaYaH (Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey) only now it is broken, shattered to fragments. Thus in this HaVaYaH there are 4 parts: the levels of inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking. These parts feel that they exist harmoniously. This is the form of the desire that has influence on them after the shattering. This is how they feel themselves.

If the desire would rise above, then the feeling of existence for each of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels would disappear. The inanimate world would disappear and it would feel itself as part of the desire, of the force, which has the intention of how to use this desire. This is the real form of existence, not the previous existence of the inanimate level.

When these parts of the general soul of Adam reach the lowest, shattered point, then each part of it feels that it just exists, without any intention. Everything disappears, is lost. There is no Masach (screen), no Tzimtzum (restriction). There is nothing that will be above the desire. Everything exists within it. And when perception is within the desire, then the desire feels itself as we feel this reality before us.

So, what should we do? All in all, we need to again attach these pieces to each other and to change their intention. We don’t know where each piece belongs, with whom it needs to connect, in what way, or how all the parts need to be connected since for each one of them there is an infinite number of possibilities to connect with others, and all of these possible connections must be realized and carried out. In addition, each piece is connected to the rest of the pieces like a holographic picture since there is no part, even the smallest, that isn’t composed from HaVaYaH and won’t be connected via his HaVaYaH with the rest of the HaVaYaH’s. It is really so.

Thus, we don’t need anything except to bring all the parts of creation closer and connect between them. The Kabbalists say that you don’t have to worry about the joining of the wolf with the sheep, or the stone with the flower. You only need to worry about the unity at a higher level, at the level of speaking, since it consists of all the other levels that are below it, like a pyramid.

You can cause a correction if you change your intention with the help of the Light that Reforms. You are on the upper level, since it is only there that you can execute a correction. A correction is carried out when there is a change of intention. The rest of the levels lost the intention that they had before the shattering. And before the shattering, they were connected with the level of Adam, but afterwards they were severed from it.

Adam in its true and corrected form included in it all the levels of inanimate, vegetative, and animate, that “fell” as a result of the shattering. If man would correct himself, of course, the other levels would also join him since this is the structure. Also in the present, shattered state, a connection exists between everyone, but this connection is not good.

You bring the Light that Reforms to the upper level, and it already joins to it all the lower levels that connect to it. Thus, it is only man who needs to be corrected, and the rest of the levels will be corrected by themselves.

How is it possible to correct man? Only in his yearning for unity. And the connection is realized at the level of man. But what about all the other levels? Man lives among all the rest of nature’s levels and he needs to relate to them in a correct and balanced way as the Torah commands. He should use the world to the extent necessary for life, for the sake of upholding and correcting all of creation. This would be the correct attitude.
[73167]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/12, The Zohar

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Opinion (Andrew Roberts, PhD, British historian and journalist): “Nothing is inevitable. It was the first truth I was taught as a Cambridge undergraduate in the 1980s, and it has been italicized and underlined for me by everything I have learnt since. …The whole of human history is testament to the fact that vast sections of mankind can seem to be progressing towards what looks like an established goal, only to get sidetracked into cul-de-sacs, sometimes for decades, occasionally for centuries. So why do we still assume that an eventual return to any significant economic growth in the European Union is inevitable?

“…the leading thinkers of the Whig and Marxist historical determinist school who infected mankind with the concept that we were ‘progressing’ somewhere, moving towards a fixed, positive future point. In economics, that idea is encapsulated in the assumption of economic growth as a kind of manifest destiny, almost the birthright of the species.

“By contrast the EU is giving off the strong historical whiff of an empire plateauing out into long years of relative stagnation… Birth rates, defense expenditures, bond prices, welfare spending versus wealth creation; everything that historians look to in order to gauge the health of empires suggests that Europe’s fire has gone out.”

My Comment: Following the EU, the crisis will spread around the world. All countries will go through their stages of stagnation. What lies ahead is the realization of the need for a different development, not material, which is limited by our planetary possibilities and tiredness from material achievements. The only solution is to develop on a new, non-material dimension: the revelation of the hidden forces of nature, the discovery of the purpose of our existence and its attainment. Humanity simply has no other incentive to exist.
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Question: When we talk about our impact on the world, doesn’t it show our pride?

Answer: It is not pride. If we look at scientists’ studies about the influence of thought, about the relationship between the still, vegetative, and animate worlds, they reveal such amazing patterns and connections, which previously eluded the human eye and the researchers.

And today the world has become integral in general, and that is why its integrality is manifested in particular. It turns out that plants and animals are connected to each other, feel each other and pass information to each other. Moreover, this is possible to see and explore.

The plants in one part of the forest are connected with the plants in the other part of the forest. If you cause pain to a bug sitting on a leaf, the tree on which this leaf grows feels compassion for this bug and sends it to other trees, and the bugs in the other part of the forest also feel it.

We see a huge closed picture, which today is supported by research. The world is completely interconnected.

The strongest force is the force of desire. So, when people influence nature through their goal-oriented actions, then undoubtedly, these are enormous forces. Moreover, this is also confirmed by numerous scientific studies such as occurrences of hurricanes being due to specific human impacts on nature.

But the matter is that when we—such a diverse group from different parts of the world—gather around one idea and this idea is aimed at balance with nature, not against it but towards balance, that is, supported by its general force that has a tremendous impact on the whole of nature!

Obviously, we do not feel or see this. But, in general, it is not just a contribution but a change in the entire course of history! That’s why our conventions are so beneficial!

We do not see this for now. But when we “break through” this point and begin to feel the general field we are within, (we are in the middle of this field and the most central part of the whole system), then we will see how important every movement of our soul is.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations of the Integral Society” 3/18/12

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