Choosing a Partner and a Profession

We stopped at the period marking the completion of puberty, when future partners get to know one another. To conclude this topic, we have prepared some questions we would like to discuss in order to help parents cope with the typical problems of children at this age.

At what age does integral upbringing recommend that young people marry or build a lasting relationship? It is commonly held that a man and a woman should first try themselves out. There is a notion of a "moratorium," when people deliberately postpone marriage until the age of thirty to thirty-five, and only then feel ready to start a family.

And why does it suddenly become "permitted"? What changes?

They feel that they have matured. This comes from a desire to miss nothing in this life, from a striving to gain as many impressions and as much life experience as possible. At the same time, it is very hard to understand what it is that I want. It takes a great deal of time. In my opinion, instead of an inner search for answers to the questions "Who am I?", "What am I?", and "What suits me?", people try to proceed by trial and error. This is a very long and exhausting path, and it has its social price. After all, people form a large number of relationships and break up many times. If a man and a woman live together for several years, then their parting is a genuine divorce. Even economically they are already bound to each other, so divorce costs them dearly. And yet the number of divorces is not decreasing but only growing. What can we advise today's youth instead of a manifold and lengthy search?

The thing is that in this way we will not find peace, purpose, or meaning of existence within our egoism. Nature did not intend it as a place for us to enjoy, to succeed, and to be content with what happens here alone. It exists, and we exist within it, only in order to prompt us toward unity and toward revealing, within that unity, a new form of existence. For existence within egoism is the most constricted and defective of all possible ones. As the poets say, we live "in the worst of worlds."

This world is the very bottom?

Yes, it is the bottom; it will not get worse. We simply cannot imagine what "better" means. If we are able to be content with what is here, then imagine how much better it can be! That is why we must explain to young people, using examples from science and psychology — drawing on all disciplines and a scientific explanation of what is happening — that the purpose of our existence is development, but development not on the plane of this world: to be smarter, stronger, richer, all the way to flights to the stars. We feel that we have exhausted ourselves and that nothing attracts us. We would like to close our eyes and not see this world — such is the transitional period we are in. That is why we are disappointed and, for lack of choice, occupy ourselves by inventing all sorts of foolishness, just to be doing something and not to think about life seriously.

This is becoming ever more apparent, but where does it lead?

In reality, we stand on the threshold of a wonderful ascent. It will captivate us like nothing before, for we will rise to a different level of existence, into a different dimension, into a new era. It will be a world that we reveal in our unity. The thing is that in a person's sensation, the world is "matter given to us in sensation." And whether we perceive the world within ourselves, in egoism, or in a common feeling of unity as a single whole — we perceive different worlds. We must prepare children for a new perception of the world, an integral one. Nature will bring us to this in any case, through crises. So it is better that we bring ourselves to this state in advance, on our own!

At what age must the choice be made?

A person's entire future is laid down in him between the ages of six and nine. After that he only develops his impressions of the world and, at most, adds to them.

But it is only at the age of fifteen that a person begins to have a sense of the wholeness of his personality. This concerns his preferences and abilities; it becomes clear where he is more predisposed.

We determine the general tendency — which sciences or type of creative work a child is predisposed toward: drawing, music, medicine, engineering, or sports. We determine the child's general orientation. We choose for him not a specific profession, but only determine the field in which his abilities apply. In accordance with the chosen field of knowledge, we distribute the children into different learning groups. But they go through their upbringing together. In today's schools that is how it is done, isn't it?

Can both the choice of a partner and the choice of a profession be started as early as the age of seventeen?

It seems to me that this is already late. A child should distinguish his inclinations within himself by the age of ten. And we must orient people toward making a choice, thereby avoiding a great many problems. The child makes the choice accompanied by adults, against the background of the upbringing he has received. Generally speaking, he is no longer a child; it is we who call him that. But if the home, the family, the profession, and the surrounding society that gives the child everything are all moving toward integration, then we will not find our child at the age of thirty unmarried, having changed several professions and dozens of women, without the slightest notion of what is happening to him or what he lives for.

I can say that among the teenagers I know, I observe that the formation of their emotional (feeling) world and their final development take place at sixteen to eighteen years of age.

This happens because they do not receive a proper upbringing earlier. From the age of six onward, a child comes to know the surrounding world and himself. If he receives the correct upbringing (conversations, discussions, visits to enterprises, being shown how the world is arranged), he begins to sense the environment and himself, comes to know the basic laws of Nature and the foundations of society, which reveal to him the governance of Nature — by the age of fifteen he is sufficiently developed and ready for adult life.

And do you remember yourself at fifteen? Had you already chosen your wife then?

I do not think that choosing a spouse is anything very complicated. I oriented myself toward what was close to me, understandable, and very familiar, without surprises.

In other words, correspondence. At what age should a person start a family?

I married at twenty-five. But why could this not have been done six or seven years earlier? It is not a matter of age but of development.

True. However, development also includes physiological aspects. Thinking, say, develops and changes until the age of fifteen.

I repeat: everything depends on how quickly and correctly we allow children to develop.

Do you mean to say that development can be outpaced (gotten ahead of)?

From the children of my students, who receive even less than the full scope of the upbringing I am speaking about, I see that boys and girls are already, by the age of seventeen, absolutely ready for a normal, healthy family life. Tell me, how does today's person, who develops and grows far more intensively, differ from a person who lived a hundred or two hundred years ago, when marriage was contracted at an early age? I think that in this way we will allow our children to avoid all sorts of unnecessary relationships and problems. In any case, they do enter into relationships with one another… So why let everything unfold uncontrollably? The best thing is to give children a good upbringing and to organize their life so that they know what is truly important to them. I see that the children we raise through the method of integral upbringing do not "run away" from us anywhere. They are ready for marriage, ready to be among us.

One can truly see maturity in them; I observe this myself. Without a doubt, they understand what you and I are talking about. Their bodily desires are not their main problem and the meaning of their life, as they are for ordinary children. In adolescence, ordinary children are poorly developed in the sphere of relations between the sexes. But our children possess an inner maturity. He is prepared for a sound perception of sexual relations. He knows what drives him, what exactly he wants, and why. He is, of course, seeking sexual relationships, but he understands that this is not what will fill his life with meaning. He will go, try it, and return. This is not what he should chase after all his life.

So the influence is exerted not so much by the family as by the people I feel close to?

The people with whom you share a single goal.

This is precisely what people are now seeking in the world, and moreover in virtual space.

It is embedded in nature; we lack it; we have destroyed this layer.

As the family is destroyed, so too are the broader family ties. A person is left completely alone. And how can one sense such an inclination in a child, in order to help him?

For this there are instructors and educators. I hope that, together with the educators and parents, we will identify their inclinations and provide what they need.

You believe that this must be done at an early age, without waiting for the end of school?

Undoubtedly.

But this process must be guided by adults: one should not expect the child to search on his own.

If we discover a certain inclination in him, then we must develop it, checking whether it is truly important. And then support it. We always act in this way.

At the beginning of the conversation you said that society needs all professions. That is, one does not necessarily have to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a psychologist to gain society's recognition. In fact, there are far more professions than the range promoted today.

If we free the child from calculations regarding the prestige of a profession and show him that in life there is something beyond money, then we thereby shield him from many problems. He follows the call of his heart. It is quite possible that he will be a simple person, and that will satisfy him.

On this note we will conclude for today. Speaking of two important choices — of a partner and of a profession — we noted the need for a correct upbringing. If, already at the age of seven or eight, a child understands his own nature and the nature of the world, then by the age of fifteen or sixteen he will be able to choose a profession. Educators will help to reveal his abilities and inclinations, to develop and test them. This will give him the opportunity to choose correctly both a specialty and a life companion. In addition, we spoke about the importance of the environment in which the child finds himself. An important piece of advice is to introduce the child into a society in which he will develop. Today this is absent, and so a person feels himself in a void. In order not to lose the child, one must create a supportive environment for him. If he feels that he is in a good environment, he will not want to leave it.

In essence, the eternal search for something outside oneself can be replaced by a spiritual search. And the body has a need for a family and a woman (and for a woman, a man), and this must be provided for it.

And at what age can one start a family?

I see no problem if we help our children start a family at seventeen or eighteen. Everything will work itself out. I see no need to drag it out further. On the contrary, delays lead to such consequences that it would be better for them to marry even earlier — as long as they do not lose their bearings. Do not forget that children remain within their environment. Humanity has always cared for children within the framework of the community. The rising generation has always felt that, besides their parents, there is also a certain environment, a large number of people similar to them and kindred to them. The environment helps young people to start a family.

In our days this has been completely lost.

That is clear, for the world has become integral.

It is simply falling apart into pieces…

No, everything is happening so that we may begin to build it anew, above egoism, in unity, like all of Nature. Otherwise we will not survive. We do not understand this, do not feel it, because we do not sense Nature at all as a single force, and we do not know how it acts. We also do not feel what a person's needs are, what environment he requires, of how many spheres it must be composed: the person, his family, those close to him, those farther away. In our life we have lost this. We do not know what the support and care of those around us, of a large community, is.

You are pointing to various levels of social support.

The concepts of the village, the small town, the clan are not so simple. They lie at the foundation of our nature. If we move away from them, then what will protect us? It is impossible simply to disconnect from Nature and declare that I am breaking everything. With what will all of this be replenished? And so it turns out that today a person stands alone in empty space, not knowing what is happening to him.

You once said that if you teach a child to relate correctly to his environment, to the group, to the large family, then this gives him a correct approach to the world.

He cannot relate correctly to the world if he does not know where he is from, who he is, and does not see his environment, which is always acting upon him. Modern man lacks this very much. And I do not mean only relatives. I am speaking of the society to which you belong — this is precisely what we try to give our children. That is why they do not want to leave us. Taking part in joint activities and gatherings, they feel the common force and the community contained within it — this attracts them. Besides, they see the example of their friends, of fathers and mothers. We do not hold them, for in these matters it is impossible to compel a person. It is precisely the environment that holds them.