Author: bbadmin

Dr. Anatoly Ulianov: Let’s talk about the role of acting in the method of integral upbringing. You often say that a child, like any person, should learn to change himself, to develop the ability to work above his states.

Dr. Michael Laitman: A person has to learn to play various roles, and in this way, present himself to others in a different guise than he really is.

Dr. Ulianov: I noticed that everyone has the ability to act, not just actors. What is the essence of this human quality?

We Are Always on Stage

Dr. Laitman Of course, we are all acting. After all, we don’t know how to behave. Animals behave naturally. They don’t have feelings of shame or envy. True, they do experience biological envy, if you can call an animal’s emotions that. This feeling they have is determined by biological factors. Animals behave however Nature has programmed them to behave.

But man’s desire is on a higher level. He works hard trying to earn social approval, respect, and honor. It’s as if he is working for others in order to receive knowledge and various privileges from them. Man wishes to feel his power over others who are like him, and he is compelled to act in front of them. He cannot allow himself the freedom to express his natural qualities. Our inborn qualities would turn us into a mere herd of animals. But when a person acts (which is what we all do), then it’s no longer a herd. It’s a human society.

By performing different roles, we turn the herd into a human society. It is how we differ from animals. We are always acting out some persona and never behave the way we really are, even when we are alone.

The more humanity develops, the more it engages in tighter communication and people constantly follow examples they see in others. That way, we are all like actors, scanning inside through the roles we‘ve observed in others and “putting them on” when the right circumstance arises. This is how we behave. It is natural for each of us. Sometimes we notice this in others, such as when teenagers take famous Hollywood actors as role models and try to emulate the popular characters they have played.

But the skill of acting is something different. An actor plays a role consciously rather than unconsciously, unlike a regular person who has collected various examples since childhood and simply imitates the behavior of others.

At a specific stage we begin to understand that man’s task is to come to total integration, to become as one man, to feel each of us as part of a certain entirely coordinated natural mechanism.

For that, man has to feel the nature of others and “play along” with them. Obviously, it’s not an accident that man was endowed with the ability to act. Every person has to feel and understand everyone else. And for that, I have to fully agree with the existence of something that’s opposite to my natural qualities.

I am a small, primitive egoist who constantly wants to “hog” everything to himself. But to conform to society so that I may properly connect with it, I have to become an actor.

So it’s wonderful that I act out other people. My own nature pushes me to force everyone to do what I want, even when I don’t know what it is that I want.

But for an artist, it is important to do the opposite and learn from other people. It’s important for him to be able to adapt his qualities to others and play along with them, and this does not diminish the person in the slightest. On the contrary, it is how he connects with the environment and rises to a higher level. Thus, one studies people and comes closer to them, developing the ability to be in the right communication with them.

The above points were taken from the book The Psychology of the Integral Society by Dr. Michael Laitman and Dr. Anatoly Ulianov. Also available as eBook (PDF, Kindle & ePub formats).

Dr. Anatoly Ulianov: In life we often encounter situations where a child has to complete an assignment that he does not want to do, but understands that not doing it will inflict punishment. He finds himself clamped between a rock and a hard place, so to speak.

Dr. Michael Laitman: It is necessary to discriminate with absolute clarity that this approach is incorrect. A child has to be transferred to a different type of clutch: on one hand, society pressures him, and on the other hand, he sees himself and associates himself with society.

There won’t be a threat of punishment towering over him. He will understand by himself that otherwise he won’t gain social approval, which he so desires. To him precisely this is the method of measuring and evaluating himself, his “I.”

On the other hand, we have to give him the ability to control his “clutch,” meaning the compulsory corrective force. This is possible if the child understands of his own accord that he has to do the homework or tidy up his room.

Suppose my parents went on vacation and left me at home alone, in charge of the house. But instead of enjoying it, I have to clean up the house because when the parents come home they will punish me if I don’t. Therefore, unable to evade punishment, I curse my tiny life and begin to do what I’m expected.

Dr. Ulianov: Or I don’t do it at all.

Dr. Laitman: In this case, everything depends on the punishment. If it is correct, then next time I won’t be looking for a way to evade it.

Suppose the punishment forces me to overcome my laziness. That is, the suffering from it has to be greater than the pleasantness of being idle. That is how we try to correct criminals—we punish them so they won’t repeat their crime.

But what can we do so the child will understand what kind of assignment Nature, society, or his parents have given him, an understanding by which he will be able to overcome his unwillingness to do what is required of him? Practically speaking, any task comes down to overcoming one’s laziness, egoism, the desire to enjoy, and carrying out a task that does not give you any pleasure. Where will I get the energy for that?

The fear of punishment gives me negative energy. The punishment can seem so horrible that I will unwillingly carry out the task while cursing everything in the world.

But it is also possible to create an environment—books and a society—that presents that same work to me in a positive light. For a child, this might be something like a field trip, and for adults—an interesting discovery. This works only if the surrounding society really approves of this task and praises it.

Then the work itself becomes pleasurable. I will not only not get punished, but perhaps the parents will even reward me with a pound of ice-cream. What’s important is not this, but the fact that I will receive pleasure because this work is important in the eyes of the people around me. I wouldn’t give it up to anyone. I will do it myself because it becomes important to me.

Everything depends on the way in which we create an environment around us that will praise any, even the most difficult, anti-egoistic action to an extent that will give it such importance that we will carry it out with pleasure. And that’s how we will advance happily.

To accomplish that, a child must be taught to be a psychologist for himself, and to know how to create the right environment. He will make his life pleasant, even though it will constantly place new problems and barriers before him. But he will view them as levels leading to a higher state that is valued by society.

The problem lies in creating a society around and next to a child that will always help him value anti-egoistic efforts. This is what we have to do, and we have to help every person do this.

Dr. Ulianov: How can we do that? One of my friends has to write a dissertation now because this is necessary for his work and his progress. So should every person in his environment tell him how important this is for the common good?

Dr. Laitman: Of course! He will sit and write, and will complete the work in two months! You know that it’s possible to work on a dissertation for years, or it can be done literally over several months. Everything depends on the inner tension, and you want that tension to be positive.

This is the only way I work. I accumulate the necessary urges that compel me, the gusts that inspire, encourage, and exalt me. And then I start to feel enthusiastic and invigorated, revealing completely new channels of perception, sensation, and ways of expressing things. This is necessary.

You ask me, “How can this be done?” We have to create a small society around every person that will become his tuning fork for correctly attuning himself to these anti-egoistic actions. With its help a person will be able to constantly lift himself. And this will become his inspiration and joy.

The above points were taken from the book The Psychology of the Integral Society by Dr. Michael Laitman and Dr. Anatoly Ulianov. Also available as eBook (PDF, Kindle & ePub formats).

Dr. Anatoly Ulianov: If the perception of the world is infinitely polymorphous, then why is this the correct method out of all others and why does everyone have to use it?

Dr. Michael Laitman: Because that’s how Nature works. It is integral. We are the only ones in Nature who are not integral, meaning the only egoistic creatures. Nature is our cradle, but we exclude ourselves from it and position ourselves outside of it or even above it.

This tiny, insignificant person has the idea that he is destined to conquer, change, and break all of Nature, as if he knew what he was doing. Despite the fact that he is continuously discovering that he does not know anything, and that he is ruining and mutilating everything, he has this feeling.

This method was given to us so that we may reject it and, according to the law of “double negative,” conclude that we are the only non-integral part of Nature. Humanity is like a cancerous tumor within Nature, is consuming itself and the entire organism.

This is how we treat each other and everything around us, the single organism of Nature.

When we understand what we are really like, we will discover the source and the reason for all the suffering in our human nature. Then we will begin to change it, consciously or unwillingly, under the influence of the problems that will arise.

These problems will become revealed in the near future in all of their horrifying, menacing, and all-enveloping dependence on us, and they will require of us to change. This demand on Nature’s part will force us to change. However, we will do it without annihilating the egoistic Nature, but by ascending above it!

There are psychological methods that suppress egoism, turn it off or level it, or put us in a mood as if it doesn’t exist, “Let’s be like little animals or like plants. Let’s live life as if we do not have egoism. Let’s play games in a green field and dance around in circles holding hands.” All of this is incorrect!

Sometimes I watch performances by national ensembles that are playing an accordion and singing. This is all nice and pretty as a performance at a cultural event, but it cannot be an example for day to day behavior to the masses. These are customs, the inner essence of the nation. But today it cannot be expressed in this way. This is only good onstage at indigenous culture events.

We should not eradicate our egoism and descend to this naïve level. On the contrary, the call of the times is for a constant, enormous growth of egoism and our integration above it.

Dr. Ulianov: A regular person would most likely ask, “But what do I need this for in the practical sense, in the sense of receiving pleasure? What will this give me and my children?”

Dr. Laitman: The short answer is that you will attain eternity and perfection. And afterwards it is possible to explain the details of it.

By interfacing with everyone else as parts of yourself, you find the missing elements that turn you into an eternal, perfect organism. You lose your small, egoistic “I,” but you acquire a tremendous sensation of the only “I” that exists. And what about the others? There are no others. Myself and others turn into “WE,” into one, common whole. Then the imperfection, deficiencies, and problems of our world—our current perception—disappear.

The above points were taken from the book The Psychology of the Integral Society by Dr. Michael Laitman and Dr. Anatoly Ulianov. Also available as eBook (PDF, Kindle & ePub formats).