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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