Is There a Connection Between Children’s Fights and Conflicts in Society?
Fights between children, endless teasing, and other family issues, is there a connection between these and what is happening in society today between people in general?
Every process of development has its laws. Just as parents aspire to see their children connected, the force of nature advances a complementary connection among all its parts: the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels.
Until now, we have existed with an egocentric perception. Each person looked after their own interests, thinking about themselves and little else. Suddenly, as the world becomes increasingly interconnected, we are discovering that we are all in the same boat. Our mutual dependence is growing and revealing a new law to us: cooperate, or we all sink.
But our minds are not yet adapted to this. We have not yet developed integral thinking, the ability to take everyone into consideration as a single whole. This widening gap between the interconnected nature of the world and the growing human ego is causing all our systems to enter into crisis: international relations, social relations, and family relations. At every level and in every area, we are experiencing difficulties in our connections with others.
Borrowing the perspective of parents, it is as though nature is saying to us: “Hello, you are all siblings. Wake up and start treating one another well, or you will not receive anything positive from me either. And do not come to me one by one complaining that the other person is the one who is bothering you, hurting you, or hitting you. Try to get along, give in to one another, and connect. Only when you show me that you are trying to be good siblings will you receive a warm, loving, and pleasant attitude from me as well.”
The relationship between siblings can teach us a great deal about human nature. We see that egoistic impulses constantly arise between them. Later in life, those same impulses emerge in relationships between adults in all kinds of forms: we have weapons of war, lawyers, and various struggles for control. We have established many social systems in an attempt to bring some order to things and maintain a certain distance between people, yet reality shows us that from year to year, relationships are becoming increasingly difficult.
To succeed in educating the next generation, we need to bring about a fundamental social change together. We need to lead a transformation in perception and culture that creates the understanding that destructive competition belongs to the past and that the future lies in complementary connections. This is the direction in which evolutionary forces are leading us, and the sooner we adapt ourselves to the integral laws being revealed, the more global blows and terrible suffering we can spare ourselves. Life here could be truly wonderful, provided that we internalize the fact that, from nature’s perspective, we are all one body.
This integral perception will also find practical expression within the home. Suppose we are a family with two children who are constantly fighting. In order to help them develop, we initiate an educational process suited, of course, to their age, level of understanding, and the circumstances. Our goal is to help them recognize that development means rising above their natural egoistic impulses and building a positive connection. If we do not develop this ability, our lives will become a constant violent struggle from which no one emerges either successful or happy.
One thing we can do with relatively older children is show them that if they maintain a bad relationship with each other, we parents will also begin relating to them as though they were strangers. This will be expressed through a cold, strictly matter-of-fact attitude toward them. In addition, we will stop treating them as a single unit, “our children,” and instead relate to them as though they were two people who did not know each other at all. For example, if we are sitting down to eat and need to say something to them, we will deliberately address each child separately. This will reflect back to them the disconnection they previously created between themselves during their major argument.
As a result of this cooling in our attitude toward them, the children will begin to understand that if they want to receive a warm and loving attitude from us, they need to maintain a good connection with each other. For our part, we will observe the changes taking place in their relationship and adjust our attitude toward them accordingly. We allow them to lead the change, while we simply respond to what they create between themselves.
What happens in our homes between our children is very similar to what happens in the world between people. Ultimately, we will have to learn how to connect with one another like good siblings, because we will discover that only such a connection brings us a positive influence from the general force of nature.
Based on "New Life 216 – Sibling Rivalry, Part 1" with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.