Question: When young people, a man and a woman, are making their plans for the future, they dream about the way they’re going to live. Could spouses discuss the ideal picture of an integral family in an integral education group so that everyone could contribute their own vision to it?

Answer: This is useful even today. When creating an image of an ideal family, we need to understand our egoistic nature and have a completely objective attitude towards it. If I can objectively open up to my group, to “dissect” myself before it, and in addition, the group could also explain to me from its point of view who I am and otherwise, then by understanding the viewpoints, habits, and motivations of one another, all the things given by nature and instilled in us, then we would attempt to rise above that into a completely new system of mutual relationships.

We wouldn’t try to break each other because we are creating something mutual: that which is comfortable and good for us. And all our negative inner egoistic impulses would conversely automatically transform into unification above them.

We begin to see that if this egoism of ours didn’t exist, then we wouldn’t have been able to enter into contact with each other. But thanks to the fact that we build this common superstructure above it, the egoism is actually our partner, friend, and helper, acting seemingly against us while in reality demonstrating that precisely through resistance to it, by turning it inside-out in our mutual relationships, we create a new family, a new anti-egoistic society.

Egoism plays a crucial role in this society because without it, we wouldn’t be able to achieve anything. It is the very fabric of nature intentionally instilled in us. What differentiates a person from an animal? It is precisely the fact that year after year, generation after generation, egoism grows within man. By using egoism, except in the opposite direction, we create mutuality between us: Instead of repelling us, we come closer; instead of rejection and hatred, there is love. Everything is contained in this.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #6, 12/14/11

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Question: How is an integral family different from the traditional family we’re used to seeing?

Answer: The aspirations of men and women who constitute different charges, different natures, must be aimed at creating a dipole between them, that is, the kind of interconnection that could become a building block of the universe.

As the Bible says, together, husband and wife are a single whole or “of the same breed.” They are two people who are opposite to one another and connected together at the same time. Either they are connected in a natural way, or via a special method, for here nature actually shows us the complete opposite data. This is important to keep in mind.

But this isn’t simply the bonding or cementing of a family; rather, it is the cementing of a family for the sake of achieving general harmony. Therefore, it transpires in a completely different manner, in a different sense. This is very important! In this case the couple feel responsibility not only for themselves, but for others as well, for they are part of a greater whole, and by not “connecting” to this greater whole, they trigger from nature a negative reaction proportional to the disturbance they introduce.

Suppose my spouse and I introduce 10 grams’ worth of disturbance into the general system because we are merely a tiny part of it, these 10 grams are then multiplied by the complexity factor of the entire system, thus turning into kilograms or tons. And then it all comes back to us, presses us and forces us to change.

Even the mistakes we make presently and in the future trigger the correct consequence, which is felt by us as undesirable, forced, and unpleasant. But it is precisely the consequences of our mistakes that push us forward.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education,” 12/12/11

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Every course in the system of integral upbringing carries a tremendous load of meaning in changing each of us as a personality and as an integral individual within society. And from here spring the smaller, more practical courses on household management. That involves conduct in a family, between spouses, with children, and with parents, upbringing, and running the household. A great deal of questions of ethical and moral nature emerge here.

I think that all of these courses should be led by a psychologist, with many examples from our life: What was and what ought to be, how to build a bridge for transitioning from our past states (domestic, spousal, pertaining to housekeeping and children’s upbringing) towards new ones.

Children’s upbringing and the influence of parents on their children are considered separately. We do not tear the family apart, don’t exert any pressure on the parents, and don’t distance them from their children like it was done during the Soviet times when children were sent to boarding schools, or in the Israeli kibbutzim when they were simply taken from their parents and raised separately. Generally speaking, they pursued good goals, but everything came down to exerting force on an individual. It should not be this way.

Under no circumstances do we destroy a family. We simply teach people the correct inclusion into one another. They must merge together internally, connect in such a way that a family becomes a pillar of the integral society and embodies one unit, a single small system that would join together with other such systems.

Comment: How can this be done? How can they be joined?

Answer: If both parents and children complete essentially the same courses, except each according to his age and mentality, then there is no problem in them starting to change involuntarily and discussing these changes in their family circle. Shame and reproaches have no place here because the whole society is obliged to change.

Now we all have to play this game specifically in order to position ourselves under the kind influence of nature. Otherwise nature will force us to do this with its subsequent development showing our contradiction to it, and we will experience that as tremendous suffering.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question: Seven to eight hours a day we will spend in a group for integral upbringing. Can I come there alone or with my wife?

Answer: I don’t know whether you can do this and decide this for yourself.

The problem is that we first need to prepare spouses, regardless of their habitual connection with each other, to ensure that they are able to exit that connection. We need to treat them like children, and to make sure that these grownup children are not dependent on their habits.

Let’s say you come to a group. You don’t go there together with your wife. At first you both need to be prepared separately, to make a grown man out of you, and of her a grown woman. You must master the integral skills, understand the system of mutual connection: within a society, in a family, the connection with children, both theoretically and in practice, enacting this with other people.

Only after that should people do the real practical work, that is—with their own spouses, only after they have already accumulated some negative and positive potential. Rising above this isn’t that simple because spouses grow habituated towards some elements of each other’s behavior or they have long-established reactions to certain actions of the other.

We have to rise above all this gradually. That is why we first need to bring a person out of his previous state, present him with a new system of mutual relationships, and after that gradually bring him inside this new system.

But we do not disconnect a person from his family. That is, while the spouses continue to function normally as husband and wife within the family, at the same time, we need to be elevating each of them above their selves, but without touching upon their personal relationship.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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In the News (from The Christian Science Monitor): “In a nation soon to be dominated by single adults, more Americans find marriage obsolete or worth putting off. But can a society afford to have so many people unwilling to make a self-sacrifice to another in a bond that drives civilization?

“The latest data show that unwed adults now almost outnumber those who are wed. Within a few years, the majority of adults over 18 will be single.

“The median age for marriage is now at its highest level as more young people put off tying the knot or cohabiting instead. And last year, only 9 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds were married, a big drop from 45 percent a half century ago.

“Surprisingly, the research doesn’t show that the Great Recession is the cause. Rather, a values revolution is driving many people away from making that special self-sacrifice to a spouse and from cherishing marriage as a social good with economic security that can leave behind a better generation. [emphasis mine]

“Children of divorce are often afraid to tie the knot. Others put careers and education first. And with less social obligation to marry these days, finding Mr. or Ms. Right seems less urgent.

“These trends are worse among the less educated, blacks, and Hispanics. For them, this ‘marriage gap’ causes many to lose out on the economic benefits of marriage. College-educated whites, meanwhile, still largely embrace marriage, allowing most to hang onto the American dream.

“Marriage, of course, isn’t for everybody. But its decline signals a troublesome shift away from the enduring spiritual values of self-denial for the sake of others, best expressed in marriage and, with it, parenthood.

“It is not only individuals who lose the opportunity to learn the happiness of finding one’s good in another, but society loses out as well.” [emphasis mine]
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Question: I decided to write to ask you to help me like a “haver” (friend). I’ve studied now with BB for seven years and have attended several congresses. Approximately just before the last congress, another (Kabbalah) “teacher” suddenly came into my life.

I listen both to you and the other teacher. How do I and others who might be in the same situation (inner struggle) deal with this? Whom do I truly believe? Which one should I choose? Both, so to speak, “speak to me,” although perhaps on different “levels.” Would you be ever so kind to possibly help me and others that might be living in this reality?

Answer: One should learn where his heart desires. Therefore, I advise you to listen to yourself, but namely to yourself. A teacher is he who uses the primary sources to teach you how to master the property (intention) of love and bestowal.

Question: I’m a student of Kabbalah for maybe four years, and you are my teacher from the beginning. I want to marry a girl whom I knew before I found the wisdom, and she is a Sufi with a Sufi spiritual teacher.

The problem is that from the beginning we had these differences: I was a Salafi Muslim and she is a Sufi Muslim. Our faiths, cultures, and our way of thinking are different. But what kept me with her is her altruistic attitude to people.

At first I wanted to leave her, but then I started working on the differences between us and realized how much pain is caused by my ego. And now I don’t know what to do: Marrying her is like slaughtering my ego, but what will it give me? Can you please help me sort out my thoughts?

Answer: I would nevertheless ask my teacher!
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In the News (from the Daily Mail): “The [University of California at] Berkeley study found that the more popular the individual the more a similarly popular individual would be attracted to them….

“In their report, the researchers claimed the results proved that opposites do not attract at all – and that like is drawn towards like.

They said: ‘Individuals on the dating market will assess their own self-worth and select partners whose social desirability approximately equals their own.’”

My comment: The main law of creation is the “law of equivalence of form,” according to which those who are similar in properties attract each other to the extent of their equivalence, until they merge in their complete similarity. This is a law, hence it is in effect both in our and in the upper worlds.
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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Mishpatim (Ordinances),” Item 343: He [King Solomon] signed his chair with a seal engraved with the holy Name, took a ring on which the holy Name was engraved, went on an ascent, riding that eagle, and went away.

Question: What is this ring?

Answer: This is a special force protecting Malchut, which restricts itself in order to use the Light of Hochma only from above downwards, above the will to enjoy, meaning in the intention to bestow rather than to receive into itself, into its egoistic desire. This is called a “ring.”

This is the origin of the wedding ritual where people put rings on each other, symbolizing their bestowal to one another and their connection.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/11, The Zohar

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Question: Why does a woman always have disagreements with her mother-in-law?

Answer: Both of these women have a big desire to have power over the same man. It is known from the Torah that in the past everything was the opposite way. Before his marriage, a man would bring his bride-to-be to his parent’s house, to his mother, where she would “simmer” in his familiar environment. This way, the woman understood the personality of her future husband and received all the information about him from his mother in order to connect to him correctly.

A man does exist between two women, his mother and his wife (the upper, Bina, and the lower, Malchut). This is why a man naturally tends to treat his wife as a mother to some extent, and often times he sees his mother in his wife.

All of these really descend to our world from the spiritual world. Therefore, women should forgive their husbands for this.
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From the Introductory Lecture Series 3/8/2011, "Reaching a Balance"

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Question: You have repeatedly said that men who study Kabbalah must be married. Does a homosexual male have to marry a female or rather, have a partner of the same gender? Do you recommend for homosexuals, males and females, to conceive or adopt children?

Answer: I think that everyone, within the parameters of the corporeal world, can do as their inclination dictates. And all their inner forces should be directed toward reaching an exalted, eternal, perfect goal.
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