Dr. Anatoly Ulianov: Psychology has a notion called an emotional scale where enthusiasm is the expression of the highest and healthiest state.

Dr. Michael Laitman: Yes, this is the highest state.

Dr. Ulianov: However, the tendency indicates that modern society is becoming immersed in depression and apathy, which is the lowest state on this scale.

Dr. Laitman: This is Nature’s call to us: to create a society or a nucleus that could serve as a model of unification and ascent for us. Otherwise we will all simply lie down and become immobile.

A few days ago I heard a report by Russia’s chief of the health ministry where he stated that over the next 10-15 years half of Russia’s population will be depressed. These are not some journalist’s surmises, but an open statement by the chief of the health ministry!

We can only imagine what kind of problems there are in reality. If the chief of the health ministry says that half of the population will be depressed in 10-15 years, it means that there are already a lot of depressed people.

Today, concealed depression is everywhere. It doesn’t depend on how developed a society is or on the standard of living. It doesn’t depend on anything. We are observing a process of the transition of depression from a concealed form into an apparent form because the integral interconnection of all of Nature’s elements is becoming openly revealed in our world, while we are unable to become similar to it.

We have to be integrally interconnected, to be a single humanity all together. But in the meantime, we are horrible individualists. This opposition to one another evokes cruel sensations within us. We will have to become aware of them and solve this problem.

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).

Dr. Anatoly Ulianov: So it turns out that besides me, no one else exists?

Dr. Michael Laitman: Everything that exists is like a mirror, a reflection of your inner, personal imperfection. Your perfection will be achieved when everything you now feel as external to you will be felt as internal.

Dr. Ulianov: Is it that way specifically to me or is there someone else, for example, you, who imagines this the same way?

Dr. Laitman: No, I exist only in relation to you and only in order for you to absorb this part that you call me into yourself, so you will completely unite or merge with it, as two drops of water merging into one.

Dr. Ulianov: If I am lying down and doing nothing, then does the world around me simply stop? Or does it “lead its life” regardless?

Dr. Laitman: The notions of “lead its life” or “stops” do not exist. It depends on what you sense. It is an absolutely individual picture! Physics explains that the observed picture is depicted by the qualities of the observer.

Dr. Ulianov: Why is it so important for me not to be alone in this field, but to be with other subjects who are like me? Why am I so scared of being by myself?

Dr. Laitman: Because there is a program instilled in you by which you have to reach the absolute integration of the world inside of you.

Until you realize this program, the informational genes that emerge in you, which prompt the progress toward integration, will remain unfulfilled. You will not be able to simply lie on the couch and do something unconsciously in order to move the world toward this universal, tighter connection.

Conquests and victories over others are expressions of our demand for a connection. This demand is also revealed through sciences, arts, politics, economics, and anything at all. Of course, these are incorrect forms of integration, but it is integration nonetheless.

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: Why did people suddenly start uniting? They could have done that 100 or 200 years ago, to unite and reveal spirituality. But for some reason that didn’t happen. Moreover, people only started talking about group interaction in the 20th century. Forming groups and discussing common questions is an innovation of the 20th century. In the past this kind of thing simply didn’t exist.

Dr. Michael Laitman: Science has existed since ancient times. For example, Aristotle, Plato, and their predecessors wrote about the soul, about perception, and looked for the place where the soul exists. Yet, psychology as a science emerged and developed only in the 20th century.

Why did people wait so many centuries!? Where were these scientists a few thousand years ago, throughout which man did not understand who he is and what he is? There were some attempts to study ourselves before as well, but they were done on such a primitive level that one could only feel ashamed for those people!

They built cities, countries, conquered lands, and ruled them, but they couldn’t know anything about themselves. They discovered new lands, developed technologies and economy, and made revolutions. But what drove them to do that? Why didn’t they have an inner demand or need to find out, “Man, who are you?”

Apparently, this depends on our inner development. This necessity did not arise in us before, and therefore we did not engage in it; we didn’t have this question. If there is no question, then there is nothing to reveal and nothing to work on. I don’t have a 6th finger on my hand, and I don’t feel a need for it. So how can I wish for it to grow on my hand?

We are now entering a specific phase of development where an inner demand to know ourselves is being revealed in us. It is emerging because we have to enter the next level of perception and attainment.

Modern psychology formed 100 years ago and continues to develop to this day. But look at how it’s become part of our lives. Previously, it wasn’t a fashionable hobby even for the aristocrats, not to mention housewives. They couldn’t care less about psychology.

But now the world is becoming integral, interconnected, and interdependent. And the need is emerging to become familiar with psychology—that of the masses, the crowd, the individual, different nations, people of different ages, and the psychology of the family.

We are increasingly connecting a person’s inner state to his perception and attainment of the world, to his worldview. We are starting to feel that the world is a result or function of our inner states.

Parallel to psychology, the same ideas are being developed in physics. Einstein thought that everything in the world is relative, and Hugh Everett thought the same. Yet physics seems like a dry science. We think, “Oh well, engineering, what’s the big deal, really?” But physics is also starting to connect attainment, revelation, experimentation, and the changes happening in the world with the consideration of the researcher’s inner qualities.

If the researcher is moving or changing inside, that changes the world. It turns out that the sensation of time, space, and spatial movements are our inner coordinates, which do not exist outside of us. They can be different for different people. Therefore, our common understanding depends on how we juxtapose them.

Sometimes we envision light as particles and sometimes as waves. Whether something is moving or not depends on the observer. Is the observer standing or moving? What is happening with all of this?

Scientists have come right up to the boundary of the material world, where everything becomes totally smeared and unclear as to where everything is going. This is unclear to physicists and to psychologists, but they are close to understanding that only a new means of integral attainment of the world will lead us to the next level.

We will attain ourselves and the world precisely when we discover it inside of us. Then we will reach the conclusion that it only appears before us like a mirror, as if it exists outside of us, whereas in reality it is all within us and there is nothing on the outside. Everything that is solid, spatial, and global—all the way until outer space—only seems to exist. But in truth, these are just our own sensations.

When psychologists comprehend that, psychology will become the most important science! We will be able to measure our integral force and accordingly measure the attainment of the world’s boundaries and qualities. We will gain control over the functional dependencies between this new, integral organ of perception and what is felt inside of it. This will be the new psychology. It will include all other sciences because man will be placed at the center of this perception.

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).