The Integral World

I have worked in my practice with children and parents for many years. I have been working for 13 years — studying, teaching, and trying to combine all sorts of theories and methods of human development. What amazes me most about your method is its universality, based on principles and concepts that develop and yet do not contradict one another. I am struck by the unity of the method. And I would very much like to understand how, within a single method, one can explain phenomena for which many different approaches exist.

The point is that whenever we turn to the world, we reveal a world we are not familiar with. Any research depends on the particular features of the person, his perception, his social circle, and the time and place where he conducts his research. Therefore, any research is subject to the conditions of time and place. Our research, however, proceeds from a foundation common to all — the foundation of Nature: the desire to enjoy, the desire to be fulfilled.

I test this against the entire process of Nature's development: initially the desire of the still degree arose — and it led to the emergence of still matter. The desire of the still degree developed until it gave rise to all kinds of still matter, and then it grew into the desire of the vegetative degree. That desire gave rise to all sorts of plants. The vegetative degree grew into the animate degree and formed the entire animal world. And then the desire of the human degree appeared.

We see how in Nature everything is built upon the development of egoism, the desire to enjoy, which is present in every person and develops in the human race from generation to generation.

So the approach you have adopted explains not only the development of the human being, but also the development of all of Nature?

Studying the development of humanity, we see that up to our time development took place through the growth of egoism, the desire to enjoy. Human egoism forced all of us to develop, to master the new, to reveal the world, to create new societies.

But today we are at a new stage of development — we develop further no longer under the pressure of egoism; our egoism has, as it were, reached its maximum, that is, we no longer develop quantitatively but qualitatively. Our egoism is closing in on itself, as it were, becoming global and integral. More and more we find ourselves, whether we like it or not, part of a single, fully connected system. That is why our world is becoming ever more unpredictable. After all, we were created as egoists, and suddenly we find ourselves in a "place" where the laws of complete interconnection operate.

In former times, a person knew in advance how he would live; he walked a well-trodden path.

Everything was known ahead of time. He knew that he would marry the neighbor's daughter, that his home would be here, and so on. But today the generations are completely cut off from one another; parents do not know what their children are thinking or what they want, and cannot understand their children's attitude toward life. Because the children are not simply more developed, as was the case between generations in the past — they are qualitatively different, prepared by Nature for existence in the integral world. Not fully yet, since we are at a transitional stage.

This leads to a lack of patience. I see children who from an early age lack patience, including toward school.

Their egoism has not simply grown, it has become different — and our world cannot satisfy it. And the children themselves do not know where to find fulfillment: where to go, what profession to choose, what to do, what to fill themselves with? The child is in a state where he sees no meaning in anything.

Parents think it is a "bad generation" that cannot be taught anything, that does not want to learn, that has no diligence for work…

Even if the child really did want to explain something to his parents, what would he say?! What, in your view, should I become — a doctor, an architect, a lawyer, a financial controller? From the very start he sees emptiness in this, and not merely emptiness but a prison. He is entering a life where one has to work 10–12 hours a day, and even if you can earn a decent material reward, for him there is no meaning in it!

That is exactly what they say: "I don't want to work hard just so I can rest afterward. I want to rest now, I don't want to make an effort!" Is that what we call a more developed generation? In my opinion, the previous generation was more developed! We thought, we developed, we wanted to achieve something, we strove for something… there was a goal… And here it is all the opposite — no aspirations, no desires… This is degradation.

Our children's desires are higher than our desires, and in ours the children discover emptiness. Everything develops along a hyperbola; young people try to understand what is worth striving for, while teachers and parents are at a loss. They do not know how to solve this problem.

I do not see a single successful system. In every system no one is satisfied — neither the children, nor the teachers, nor the administrators, nor the specialists. And there is no method at all…

Instead of searching for a method, we try to reduce the damage, to calm things down. Our weapon is "Ritalin" (a drug from the group of psychostimulants). But if we ground our new attitude toward the world in the global egoism that has arisen in place of individual egoism, we will discover that we need to unite — and in that state we will reveal goodness and a new world. We need to grasp what new nature of ours we have found ourselves in.

We see that the new generation is lost; it sees no future at all. Soon even drugs and alcohol will cease to fill it. A time will come when a person will be unable to fill himself with anything — there will arise in him a sensation of a black abyss and pain…

We have understood that it will get even worse.

That is precisely why we already need, now, to disseminate the method of existing in the new world. To explain how we can draw out of Nature its hidden forces — forces that created us and that today can change our egoistic qualities into altruistic ones, which we are obliged to attain in the global and integral system.

We see how easily children unite, and very often parents interfere with them by cultivating rivalry and ambition. I want to ask: if there is a general method, how does it explain human development? What has the greater influence on his development — the environment, heredity? Under the influence of what does a person develop?

A person develops under the influence of two causes: his own inner qualities and the environment. Everything depends on how much the person's inner world and the environment around him are in harmony with each other. A person's inner qualities include his natural innate inclinations, as well as what he received in his parental home up to the age of 3–4, before he began to perceive the influence of society. — Until then he is still like an animal?

Up to the age of 3–4 the child does not feel his connection with the environment, with his friends, and develops the inclinations that are innate and acquired from his parents. These make up his inner world. But from the age of 3–4 he comes under the influence of the environment. And if we correctly organize the society around him, it can correct all the earlier flaws in his upbringing and teach him to use his qualities properly. This means that, first of all, we must bring up future mothers.

Today I encounter absolute despondency in parents. They do not know what to do.

The system of upbringing must begin with the parents, at least from the moment a young couple comes together and up until they become parents. They must know about the human desire, about egoism, about what is the foundation of one's development, what we want from ourselves, why we experience disappointment and emptiness in our life, why in our generation this is especially pronounced, and what the young generation strives for in contrast to past generations. Moreover, a person who becomes a parent, especially a man, undergoes a psychological upheaval.

Yes, dramatic changes take place in him!

The moment I become a father and my wife a mother, we both descend from the human degree to the animate degree! We relate to our child just as animals do — and this protects him. Nature awakens in us an animal protective force. And here we must teach them to understand correctly that in their hands there is now growing a completely new human being, who will demand of them that they develop properly. If parents want to give their child the possibility of establishing himself in the new global world, of developing and realizing his inner qualities and inclinations, they must surpass themselves.

From your explanations it follows that this is not the parents' fault. I have taken part in many television programs devoted to the theme of raising children and teaching parents how to do it. Parents feel that they are doing something wrong and want to learn to do it better, since problems arise constantly.

First of all, one must prepare the material, the correct explanation, a clear method, and then organize a system that will bring this knowledge to the attention of every parent and teach it to him. The role of the mass media is very important here, otherwise we will lose the next generation.

What would you advise young parents today? How can I join this process? What should I read, what should I study? Let us say I am in the process of preparing for the birth of a child?

We live in such a generation that all of us will have to study the nature of the global, integral world. This does not mean that we must study the entire science deeply. You studied psychology, but that does not mean you have to teach parents, your patients, all of psychology. Using its knowledge, you must give clear, practical advice to parents.

Therefore, we must give people short, simple advice, generally accessible knowledge about human nature, about its global development, about what stage we are approaching, about what is special in our generation, about what inner upheaval it is undergoing compared with previous generations. After all, this is the first of all generations that must rise to the level of connection between people, rather than the egoistic use of one another. Nature obliges us to this, demonstrating to us that we are connected to one another by a global, integral connection.

We stand on the threshold of a global crisis — and this is a crisis of the relationships between people. We cannot build a united society, we cannot relate properly either to ecology, or to ourselves, or to human society. All of this must be joined into a single problem — and here we can make use precisely of parents. It is impossible to get through to an ordinary person, let alone to governments and organizations, to the ministry of education — they are not interested in listening. But parents, for whom this is a painful question, are ready to listen.

They have the highest motivation.

Parents want to see their child successful, cheerful, and confident, and if we explain to them what needs to be done, I think we will achieve success.