Dr. Anatoly Ulianov: How can a soccer match be built so there is a feeling of unity afterwards?

Dr. Michael Laitman: Friendship is seriously missing in today’s sports. Many people talk about friendship, but competition is an expression of egoism. I am egoistically trying to achieve the maximum result, but by the rules.

If only we would see the inner, moral, and spiritual tension of a person who wishes to compete in order to attain a connection with others! I can reach this state by competing with you at throwing a javelin, for example. It is precisely competition in this world that gives a person the kind of connection with other people, that allows him to rise above to create a place of mutual unification.

Dr. Ulianov: The result is mutual?

Dr. Laitman: It’s mutual in every way! It affects the entire system of human relations. On the inside we will remain individualists and egoists who hate each other, and this feeling will be expressed in us more and more strongly, but above it we will have to discern our common superstructure of love. When these two levels become expressed in their full might, they will give us the sensation of the entire depth of the eternal, perfect nature, making us equal to it.

Can you imagine how these great achievements will change man? On the one hand, there is hatred, repulsion, and separation from others; and in sports the aspiration is to win no matter what. On the other hand, there is love, at the same time, total dependence and friendship, as if you are competing with your beloved child.

You would happily lose to him on purpose. But here you don’t do that. Here you have to act on both of these levels without pretending; you have to do it for real. As a psychologist, can you imagine such discernments?

Dr. Ulianov: No, it’s pretty hard for me to imagine it.

Dr. Laitman: What a psychologically complex concept! One has to come out of oneself, this is what has to happen in a person. That is how he will enter the next level, ascend into a different system, a different dimension.

There are three levels in Nature: still, vegetative, and animate. We are evolved animals. But when we unite on this level and begin to rise above ourselves, we enter the “human” level, which we didn’t know before. This is the level of common harmony.

Dr. Ulianov: The enormous potential of this action is clear. I just don’t understand how this unification is supposed to happen. How can we do it?

Dr. Laitman: Through gradual upbringing. There is no other way. This is the challenge that Nature has placed before us. This is exactly why we are entering the inclusive crisis today. It has to teach us how to rise above ourselves while maintaining today’s level in everything.

Everything that is currently done on earth will remain. We don’t have to break anything. Of course, we will eliminate the harmful production. But our task is to raise ourselves above this world, above the physical actions through self-education, self-attainment, and the right upbringing.

Dr. Ulianov: One of the definitions of love is to receive pleasure from whatever gives the other person pleasure…

Dr. Laitman: In spite of my hatred for him! This hatred is not eliminated. Otherwise the tension would be removed from the love and you would have to quarrel to feel the love more intensely.

Dr. Ulianov: In this team of 22 players, during the break after 10 minutes of playing I have to think about how much pleasure my friend from the other team experienced?

Dr. Laitman: Not only that. You have to aspire to unite on the level of opposite physical actions and goals, as well as on the level of the inner actions and the goal.

Dr. Ulianov: In thought?

Dr. Laitman: Yes, in thought. This is exactly inner, creative activity by which man creates himself and raises himself above the physical world.

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: There is one more type of game that has captivated hundreds of millions of people: gambling games, such as casinos and cards. Their popularity is constantly growing. Why? And what is dangerous about these games? In your school of integral, global upbringing, is there a place for venturesome games? And if not, why?

Dr. Michael Laitman: Competition is a good thing. It doesn’t matter with what or with whom you are competing—a roulette wheel, a slot machine, or other people. In any case, you enter a contest. That is, you wish to rise above a certain circumstance, phenomenon, or incident. You want to ascend and affirm yourself.

It’s very interesting to observe people who play. I spent an entire week in Las Vegas observing my wife, who went crazy over the games. At home she is a regular, normal grandmother. But when she found herself among the “one armed bandits,” she lost her head.

When a grown up woman with two university degrees, living at the other end of the world, very far away from Las Vegas, finds herself in this place, something unclear ignites in her, some strange force draws her to the risky game.

Together we decided that we could spend $50 an evening to play a game that costs 10 or 20 cents a shot. She played and I observed from the side, watching the human being in her disappear and turn into the same “one armed bandit.” A machine ends up playing with a machine, they compete, and there’s nothing more than that.

I use my wife as an example because she is a normal, level-headed woman, without any particular vices, very grounded and balanced. It’s simply astounding what takes place inside of us. A person has a need to rise above chance, above himself, above this machine, meaning to affirm himself.

And if we give a person the opportunity to compete for something that is good and useful for society, then he will be able to satisfy this necessity. It exists and it cannot be suppressed. Therefore, it’s necessary to give a person the opportunity to reflect, create, participate, win, and affirm himself. This is possible in the integral society because there, every one of us is a distinct individual.

At the same time, every one of us is just a cogwheel that is very small and has nothing special about it. But sometimes it starts to slow down or changes direction, causing itself to stand out from the others. By spinning harmoniously with everyone, it expresses itself to the utmost, and at the same time experiences fulfillment and satisfaction.

Integral upbringing will give a person the opportunity to find himself in the game called life. We will feel that we are constantly moving forward, and that like children, we are acting out and realizing a higher state, and behind it a new, higher state emerges. This enthralling adventure, a never-ending ascent, will be felt by every person.

People are looking for drugs and gambling games, ready to jump off a bridge into an abyss in search of intense sensations. A person will find all of this in the integral interaction with others because it holds astounding opportunities for self-realization. Then, today’s extremes won’t be something that really fulfills people.

Dr. Ulianov: If I understand you correctly, we will be able to realize the quality of risk-taking precisely through the constant change of states?

Dr. Laitman: Nature has built us in a way that the only way for us to fully and harmoniously realize ourselves is in integration. Then we won’t have to “let out steam” by getting drunk, getting into fights, or throwing stadium frenzies because there won’t be any unrealized necessities left. We have to see the real field of our activity in the integral connection. This is the field we were created for, the venue where we reveal and correct our innermost, darkest instincts.

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 a person perceived the world as an integral whole, he would see that all of his urges are realized in the form of correct contacts with others, positive and negative alike. Then he would no longer have to harbor any pent-up feelings, having to restrain himself.

Dr. Michael Laitman: Take soccer for example. If this game is realized correctly, if the teams are permeated by friendship, then the game can be filled with love. It will be a competition of friends who receive satisfaction from the actual process of the game.

In this game, one person’s superiority over another will lie in the answer to the questions: What was your inner experience? What was the goal for which we played? How did we collate ourselves with others? How were our positive or negative qualities expressed?

You can experience the most astonishing states here: you play a game with your egoism and against it, establish contact with your friends and with the opponent, suppressing the aspiration to stand out or, vice versa, expressing yourself and standing out, but for the sake of the team. Today none of this exists in soccer; it’s become a business.

This moral, inner, spiritual research of oneself and others during this externally harsh game holds enormous opportunities for “intellectual” soccer players.

I think that any competition—besides those where we inflict harm on others, such as hunting—is a venue where we can discern a person’s attitude toward others and express it in bold relief. The elements of the game will enable one to develop and attain a state of enormous self-attainment.

Dr. Ulianov: Should we change the rules of the game, or discuss and analyze what happened and how it happened after the game? Should we watch video recordings of the game and go over the situations that occurred during the game?

Dr. Laitman: I think the game should be stopped every ten minutes in order to do a “restart” and return all the players to the correct state. They should check: What did we attain over these 10 minutes? What kind of inner work did each person succeed in performing? How did he look at others? How did he receive a pass? How did he steal the ball? How did he participate in connecting with others? And how did he treat his opponent?

Ten minutes of inner work is a lot. The ball, the field, and the game are just external excuses to conduct an inner self-analysis.
Today we can’t even imagine how to conduct a true evaluation of our inner realization, which is the work of the winners. But I think we will get there and we will learn to take energy expenditures and intentions into account. This will allow us to weigh teams of players as a whole and each player in particular.

Dr. Ulianov: What is the right mindset in a game?

Dr. Laitman: The right mindset is one that’s aimed at unity and integrality. In Nature, there are two seemingly opposite forces—a positive one and a negative one. The opposition in a game depends on how we combine our individual, egoistic vectors within a team.

When we unite in a team, what do we play with the opponents? In other words: What is the victory? It’s very important to discern this. A goal someone has scored is not a victory. On the level of our world it is a physical achievement. But above it, internally, we played a game of unification, the game of suppressing ourselves and connecting on a higher level, above ourselves.

What was the result that we reached through this inner game, the passes of our own egoistic and altruistic forces and qualities? Which points did each of us count for himself? How much did he advance in his self-analysis during this game?

These games have tremendous potential to help us go through levels of internal development quickly. This is a question of the future, but I don’t think it is too far off.

Any forms of human activity, especially forms that include competitive elements on the level of our world, can give us an enormous opportunity to build opposite actions above them and to analyze.

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: I would like to touch on the topic of drugs. This is also a kind of game in a sense because through drugs a person enters a new state and changes. So what’s so bad about drugs?

Dr. Michael Laitman: The fact that a person becomes detached from reality, nothing else is bad about it. A person becomes detached from society and from life. He doesn’t do anything bad to anyone, and he is peacefully walking down the street with a glassy gaze, not seeing anyone. He cannot be considered a socially harmful element, but he causes harm by going against Nature, and we do not agree with this.

In general, drugs are very cheap. It’s possible to constantly feed them to 3 or 4 billion of the “extra” people on earth so that the rest can live in peace. We can shut them off from all the problems that way. We could hand out drugs to the masses and the crime rate would immediately drop. We could house them on reservations and let them sit there peacefully, getting high and having a ball.

However, the fact is that we inherently oppose this kind of attitude to life. Humanity cannot agree to this despite the fact that these actions are harmless to society and even useful in a sense. Nature has prescribed the goal of our existence so powerfully within us that we cannot passively observe a person who voluntarily detaches himself from a sober, adult life.

Therefore, we don’t agree to it. We don’t want to take this opportunity to be in nirvana for the rest of our lives and then to peacefully die. On the surface it might seem that nothing could be better. After all, life is full of disappointments, searches, troubles, and depression. But still, we don’t agree to this.

And we can defeat this evil by giving a person satisfaction with what he does, the sensation of a fulfilled life. Then he won’t need to cut himself off from life. But if his entire life consists of endless suffering and emptiness, then we cannot blame him for opting for drugs.

I read a speech by the chief of Russia’s health ministry where he says that in the next decade, up to half of the country’s population will be depressed, and today the rate is already 25%. And this is a declaration by the chief of the health ministry; these are the numbers he makes public! And how many more people are there who are not counted? What can be done with such a mass?

It is the same situation throughout the world. There are countries with even higher rates. Divorce, violence on a massive scale, terrorism—it is all part of the common problem of enormous inner emptiness. And it has to be filled by something. Otherwise…
We shouldn’t be fighting the drugs, but rather the reason that makes people want them. And that reason is the emptiness within us, which can only be filled by what Nature has prepared for us.

Why does the sensation of emptiness arise? And what can it be filled with? In our time we have to rise to the level of integral unification with everyone, and fill ourselves with that. That is how we will come to feel the common nature, its eternity and perfection, and will become included in it, identify ourselves with it. We will flow in that eternity.

We will still live the life on earth—where we will realize our integration with others—while sensing ourselves on an order above this world, on the level of a human being rather than an animal or a partially successful social element.

By making a person part of the global, integral society, we will tear him away from drugs and he won’t need them anymore. He will experience states of attainment, the search for perfection, and he will acquire harmony that is thousands of times more powerful than when he is under the influence of any chemical substance.

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: One of the most important characteristics of a game is its competitive aspect.

There is a book titled How to Become the Parent You Never Had: A Treatment for Extremes of Fear, Anger and Guilt. This book starts out by saying that we are all winners because 500 million sperm cells competed, and the winner was…

Dr. Michael Laitman: Me.

Dr. Ulianov: Yes, I won. Since this competitive element was enrooted in us by Nature itself, how can we use it correctly?

Dr. Laitman: Let’s not talk about chance or about how this is programmed in Nature. In this particular competition the winner is the strongest one, the one who has special qualities.

A person who participates in the life of society or the environment on a multifaceted plane might be better than others in one way and worse than others in another way. But if every person finds the best way to apply his fortes and abilities, then the flaws of one person are “covered” by the merits of another. A happy person is one who has found the optimal way to fulfill himself, and this is something he has to discern within. If he can be fast, alert, and steadfast, if he can overcome adversity and win over others, then his victory will benefit him and the people around him.

I would particularly like to underline that the victory will be virtuous if its aim is to use one’s abilities to provide maximal help to the environment, to society. Then it will be expressed in the common human system and will remain impressed there, and will be recorded in his account.

But if a person realizes himself incorrectly, then despite having wonderful talents, he will have the opposite result. We have to bring every child’s abilities to light and encourage their development.

When I was starting out in college, it was very fashionable to major in science and technical fields, and these departments tried to lure everyone in. I remember how agitated the students were and how great the disappointment was afterwards.

I understand and respectfully recall several of my classmates who left the studies not because they weren’t successful. They saw that technical studies did not have the romance they had dreamed of. Working with impulses and calculating parameters? They became convinced that this was absolutely not the profession they wanted. They left without much hesitation, and they were right to do so because they found their calling elsewhere.

In our system of upbringing we are trying to recognize a child’s inclinations early on so he won’t make mistakes. He has to see and become familiar with all the areas of human activity, and find himself during the period of his upbringing in our system. The search for the appropriate profession is very important and takes up a lot of time in our life. It’s a joy when a person finds himself in a certain profession.

Dr. Ulianov: So there is nothing dangerous about expressing special talents, and we shouldn’t try to even children out?

Dr. Laitman: No. On the contrary, we have to bring out their talents during the teenage period. We are preparing children so that by age 13 or 14 they will start studying a university level curriculum.

Before that they have to clearly discern what is right for them. Our task is to push them to make the choice that fits their inclinations instead of being dependent on opportunities to rise on the corporate ladder or the size of their future salary.

Dr. Ulianov: But is their contribution to the common good always evaluated?

Dr. Laitman: Of course. Otherwise one’s inner parameters will not correspond to the chosen profession, he won’t benefit anyone, and he won’t be happy with himself either. The right solution to this problem is good both for the individual and the society.

I remember how back in my time everyone across the board entered technical departments because this was in high demand by the government and the times required it. Everyone else were looked down on. Pedagogical and humanitarian departments became empty since everyone went into science and engineering.

As a result, I think the true value of this generation was never revealed. It quickly became exhausted, leaving behind a hollow-hearted environment.

Dr. Laitman: Yes, there is even a term, “the technical intelligentsia,” which was in many ways not occupied by technical matters, but the liberal arts.

Dr. Ulianov: When I wrote my dissertation at Russia’s Institute of Philosophy, I found many former “techies” there. But once people received a technical education, they left and learned some other profession because in their youth they were lured to the wrong place, so later they still changed their profession.

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).