Question: In psychology, a person’s character is conventionally divided into spheres, one of which is motivational. Let us say I set a goal that seems right and good to me, like learning to drive a car. But I don’t have any motivation, no inner pleasure from it. However, in the process of exerting efforts, this goal flips and becomes an inner motivation. I start feeling pleasure, and it becomes a part of me.
Is the system of integral education based on this, too? At some point, everything turns around, and the goal becomes one’s inner world?
Answer: The fact is that you are giving an example of goals that initially do not seem important or necessary to a person.
We begin by explaining that the goal is obligatory. It may be undesirable, but it is necessary. Nothing can be done about it; it must be implemented in the same way that I get up every day for work, raise children, etc. My whole life consists of things I have to do because I owe someone something all the time.
And here we have the same thing; I have an obligatory goal imposed on me by nature. For the first time in our development, we reach a point where we can see a goal in advance. This has never happened before.
We had revolutions, wars, all kinds of upheavals—technological, scientific, social, undergoing various formations—whatever we have done throughout history, but we have never known what goal nature sets for us. We shouted at the barricades: “Move forward!” “Freedom, equality, brotherhood!” But in general, we did not imagine what would follow. No one could have predicted that it would be one way and not another.
Humanity cannot know anything in advance; it is simply driven forward by the compelling forces of nature, “motivation” (translated from Greek, “motive, stimuli” is a sharp stick used to drive animals).
That is how we developed, without having a specific image of the future before us. The bright future we imagined was once a slave-owning system, a feudal system, a capitalist system, and a socialist system. And all these images of the future turned out to be illusory.
Now, for the first time, we clearly see the picture that nature shows us—in all our crises. We can study, understand, classify, and differentiate these crises. We see how crises manifest themselves in education and upbringing, in the family, in illnesses and depressions, in finance and economics, in science and culture—everywhere. We can clearly outline them.
But we do not want to do this, it is unpleasant for humanity. We turn a blind eye because we do not see a way out. But every day the future nature imposes on us looms clearer and clearer—a global, integral combination of all mankind as one single whole. In this, we achieve similarity to nature’ the general law of nature leads us to it, the law of similarity to nature. You can call it entropy, energy, no matter what.
Therefore, in integral education, from the very first day we begin to gradually clarify this, show it to a person, based on all sorts of scientific findings. We do not need to invite scientists to meetings since we have recordings of their presentations, videos, etc., all of which have already been prepared and are in effect.
People are built in such a way that no one needs or wants to move forward; it is undesirable. We are lazy (this is our nature) and do not want anything except to do only what pleases us. One likes to create and build, the other likes to bask in the sun. But uniting together into a single whole?
This is unpleasant even for the 10% of altruists who are born that way by nature, because here we are talking about a completely different combination of people with each other, together with our egoism, in interaction with it.
Therefore, we are doing something completely undesirable, but we start doing it based on necessity. We discuss what will happen if we don’t do this, what consequences our clashing with nature will lead to, what cataclysms it will cause in the environment. In the inanimate nature it will cause earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes, general climate change, solar flares, etc. In the vegetative world, we see what is happening to the surface of the earth. In the animal kingdom, entire species become extinct. And in man…
We are now in a state where nature threatens us with absolute starvation. Plants, animals, fish, birds—all of this is catastrophically disappearing. Through our imbalance with nature, we ourselves make our Earth, its surface, unsuitable for the existence of all other species, because we are like that, and because only we can bring it all into harmony. It all depends on us.
Gradually, such a revelation of the integral picture leads man to realize the need to change himself and society; afterward, you can already work with such a person.
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From KabTV’s “Integral Education. Conversation No. 13,” 12/18/11
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