Why Is It Important for Every Person to Participate in Efforts to Improve the Quality of Life in Society?
Several studies show a connection between health, joy, and happiness and a rich community life. On the other hand, many people prefer their privacy and barely exchange a word even with their neighbors. Where is the future taking us? What kind of relationship between the individual and society can bring us a higher quality of life?
The ultimate form of happiness resembles the feeling we experienced as babies in our mother’s embracing arms. There we felt warmth and security. It was the most comfortable, safest place we knew. Later, during our early childhood years, our parents took care of everything for us, and we had nothing to think about except how to play and enjoy ourselves.
Ever since then, throughout our entire lives, we have essentially been drawn toward those same feelings, which can only be received from people who care about us.
Even if someone achieves tremendous personal success, earns a good income, buys a beautiful home and a luxurious car, advances in their career or business, and feels that everyone around them envies them, it does not take long for the satisfaction from those possessions to fade. Why? This is simply the nature of things. Whatever you have already acquired loses its appeal and can even leave you with a feeling of twice the lack. “One who has a hundred wants two hundred,” as the sages put it.
And so we keep running, each time after new goals and objectives, dreaming of the great happiness that is surely just about to arrive, only to finish the cycle as we always do, with a feeling of grayness and disappointment.
Community life, in the fullest sense of the term, means breaking out of this loop of the self and receiving nourishment from an external source, from the environment. What does this mean? Suppose we were surrounded by people who genuinely cared about us, related to us with love, and conveyed mutual guarantee, security, and joy. We would then feel free and happy, just as we did when we were children.
A person who receives this kind of nourishment from the environment becomes free from loneliness, depression, and anxiety, and a desire awakens within them to do good in return. They feel closer to others, and from the feeling of “I,” they gradually move toward a feeling of “we.” As the connection deepens, they become increasingly included in one another until they become as one person with one heart.
The unity between them raises them to an entirely new level of existence, one that corresponds to the unity of nature, to nature’s vast system. Accordingly, they become filled with satisfaction, pleasure, and enjoyment, something beyond this world. The happiness they experience is sublime and spiritual. It opens the soul.
How can we build community connection on such a level? This is where the integral approach to education comes into the picture. Experts in integral connection can guide this process step by step.
Naturally, the starting point should be the things that are troubling people, followed by thinking together about how we can improve the quality of life for everyone. A typical gathering might consist of a brief introduction among the participants, some kind of warm-up game, and a practical discussion about the challenges we face and possible solutions. The discussion is conducted according to special integral rules that enable connection to form between people.
Those leading the process should always keep the goal before them: to create closeness between the participants and let them experience a taste of the warmth contained in mutual connections. A successful gathering is one in which people connect, enjoy the feeling of connection, and develop a desire to continue the process.
Countless initiatives can emerge from community connection. For example, we can organize activities for children that we parents conduct ourselves, including fun activities, games, and outings. We can offer lectures and workshops, since there are likely experts in various fields among us. We can organize swap markets for secondhand clothes and items people wish to give away, neighborhood cleaning and security patrols, or family events with good food, performances by teenagers and children, songs, and games that bring people together. We can also organize purchasing groups to reduce the cost of products.
There are countless community initiatives we can promote, but of utmost importance is active participation. The more we encourage people to invest a little of themselves, the more room opens within them to absorb the warmth and positive force that exists between everyone’s hearts. Ultimately, there is no greater happiness in the world than this.
Based on "New Life 238 – Quality of Life Within Community" with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.