1. The instructor is necessary because otherwise there won’t be any upbringing taking place
2. Upbringing is when an older person who knows the youths’ future states is present and helps them form that state
3. The instructor must do it gradually, unnoticeably, by giving them hints
4. The instructor is on their level, but descended from a higher level to be on their level; the students don’t feel that the instructor is special, but as someone there to help them
5. The instructor’s mastery lies in his ability to influence them gradually, from the inside, in a way that’s imperceptible to the children
6. In this way, the instructor gathers them together and leads them to the decision to rise higher
7. The instructor evokes this interest in them so their inner desires, questions, and various pressures gradually transform into a desire to unite, and thus rise to the next level
8. The instructor has to give them hints of how to get together
9. This is according to the principle: “Raise a child according to his own way”

The above points were taken from the book The Psychology of the Integral Society by Dr. Michael Laitman and Dr. Anatoly Ulianov.

Image: The virtual classroom at the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center, where the second lesson took place

Tonight, the second lesson of the Free Kabbalah Course took place, which provided an introduction and context to learning The Zohar, the seminal book of Kabbalah.

One of the main points in the first two lessons has been understanding individual and collective human evolution through 4 stages of desire – inanimate, vegetative, animate and speaking – where we developed through food, sex, family (inanimate level of desire), money (vegetative level of desire), honor, control, knowledge (animate level of desire), and how today we have reached a desire for an unknown, unfelt connection that we cannot pinpoint, called “the desire for spirituality” (speaking level of desire). It is precisely this new desire for connection appearing today that on the one hand is causing us to make all kinds of global connections between us, while on the other, feel more and more distant and alone. It’s the era of more crisis on every level of life:

• Personal – increasing depression, suicide, drug abuse and loneliness
• Social – increasing social unrest, gaps between the rich and the poor, poverty and unemployment
• Global – increasing security threats and future outlooks of much more limited energy and resources
• Ecological – increasing ecological disasters: hurricanes, tornados, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, and increasing extinctions of species

In the lesson, the instructors elaborate on this development and what characterizes our era, setting the scene for the revelation of The Zohar and the wisdom of Kabbalah in our era, which come specifically to fulfill this new desire for spirituality awakening in humanity.

This desire is characterized by all the above crises, but more internally, the desire is expressed as fundamental questions about life, about the person, society and existence: “What is the meaning of life?” “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” “What is the reason for all the suffering in the world?” “Where did we come from?” “Where are we headed?” and so on.

All of the above crises are in order to awaken these questions in us, and the wisdom of Kabbalah was made for one purpose only: to provide the path that answers these questions in the form of a clear perception and sensation, one that doesn’t exist in our present outlook on reality.

Registration to the Free Kabbalah Course is still open until January 18, so it’s not too late to sign up, download the first lessons, and continue with the course. Sign Up Here »

1. Parents have to understand that they have to be friends with their children and discuss everything with them, but not where the child does not want to see them.
2. A common mistake that parents make today: Even when the child turns 20, parents are still willing to run after and give the child orders, trying to protect the child from everything. Parents must understand a very simple rule: They cannot intervene in the process of upbringing.
3. Parents need to apply the method of integral upbringing in the home. They need to be simple, sincere and friendly with the child, and show the child that they agree with the child’s upbringing. This is how the parents will earn the child’s approval, so the child won’t consider them dinosaurs or worse, enemies.
4. Parents have to show the child that they trust the child, and in various ways they need to let the child understand that they respect the child for taking the path to a new world.
5. The self-respect that you awaken in a child with your attitude toward the child is of utmost importance!
6. It would be profoundly beneficial for parents to watch positively influenced television or Internet programs together with their children, meaning programs that show the correct kind of communication models and relationships, including programs that depict all kinds of problems along with their solutions, like a movie for the whole family highlighting the topic of “fathers and sons,” meaning gap between the generations.
7. Ideally, both parents and children should end up having a common interest, which is to transform themselves to suit the new matrix that nature is presenting before them – to exist in and sense the integral, global humanity.
8. Parents should understand that finding common ground in the transition to the integral, global humanity is easier for children and more difficult for the parents. Transitional periods are never easy: There are all sorts of impulses, fluctuations, and deviations from the balanced state.
9. Who are you [the parent]? You are the guide to the world in which the child found him- or herself. This means that you have to show the child this world and demonstrate how it works. Show the child how you treat others, how others treat you, how you share with others and do something for them. The child has to see all of this. And gradually, based on these extremely subtle interconnections, show the child that if s/he doesn’t participate in everything together with everyone and does not take others into consideration, if s/he does not desire to be integrally connected with them, then others won’t treat him the way s/he wants either. And that this is the reason for the child’s pains.

The above points were taken from the book The Psychology of the Integral Society by Dr. Michael Laitman and Dr. Anatoly Ulianov.

While mass media should be engaged in creating integral education and upbringing for children, everything currently falls on the shoulders of the teachers and the department of education, which is not yet even focusing on “upbringing” (i.e. raising a human being who is in touch with the global, integral reality) but instead on “educating” (i.e. giving a person tools in order to acquire a profession according to the world’s current socio-economic state). This is why the entire education system itself is falling apart.

The transformation from an egoistic, proprietary, individual level – where human relationships are self-serving – to an altruistic, integral, and global level, where everyone must be interconnected can be achieved with the help of mass media. This transformation will be possible if public representatives and the world’s influential people understand the need for change, and take it on themselves to care for the future generation.

The above points were taken from the book The Psychology of the Integral Society by Dr. Michael Laitman and Dr. Anatoly Ulianov.

Children today seem strange and eccentric because they are born with preexisting rudiments of the next social state of the world, one that is global and integral.

While this new global integral reality might seem strange to adults today, to children it is completely natural and even desirable.

It is not children who have a problem, it is the parents and teachers who are trying to implement a new method of connection among people, a method offered to them by nature. The adults are still in a transition phase, while the children are already ripe for it.

We are in the midst of a transition from an egoistic, proprietary, individual level – where the relationships between us are self-serving – to an altruistic, integral, and global level, where everyone must be interconnected.

The above points were taken from the book The Psychology of the Integral Society by Dr. Michael Laitman and Dr. Anatoly Ulianov.