The family unit is falling apart, as we know, and we are paying the price in every area of life. Why is this happening specifically today? What will become of the children? What change in perception is needed so that we can see more successful relationships?
By nature, a person is built in such a way that they must receive from their environment what they need for healthy development. Our larger environment is nature, planet Earth, where special conditions make our existence possible, such as pressure, air, temperature, and so on.
The same principle operates on a smaller scale. Life begins with the fetus receiving ideal conditions for development in the womb. When the baby enters the world, the mother takes the child in her arms and provides everything they need. Just as nature protected the child in the womb, the love of the parents ensures that the child can continue developing properly.
Later, the child grows and becomes an adult, independent, free, and apparently no longer in need of anyone. This is where the great mistake begins, because the need to exist in a suitable environment as an essential condition for healthy development does not change.
Every person needs support, security, warmth, and love. These are qualities that a relationship between partners, and later the family, is meant to provide.
Unlike animals, in human society we see that it takes at least twenty years to raise our children and bring them to a point where they can safely begin their own lives. This requires us as parents to build a stable relationship, a strong, multifaceted bond involving deep connection and mutual complementarity. Support from the surrounding environment is also extremely important, from our parents, other couples who are our friends, the extended family, the community, and the state.
This is how we lived generation after generation, until several decades ago, when reality began to take on a different form. The ego reached such overblown levels that people found it increasingly difficult to get along with one another.
Accordingly, divorce became commonplace, and new situations emerged: children living between two homes, parents or children deciding to cut off contact, stepparents, step- and half-siblings, combinations that were not always easy to navigate, and many other complexities. Today, many people prefer not to marry at all, hoping to avoid the whole mess from the outset.
Step by step, the basic protective framework that once provided a person with a secure environment has broken down, and the modern individual finds themselves quite alone, almost abandoned, as though forgotten somewhere in a corner.
There might be friends here and there, permanent partners or occasional ones, but none of these can provide the warmth and loving care that we once received from our mother, right from the beginning. That warmth gives us the strength to grow and develop, to move forward knowing that we always have solid ground beneath our feet.
When we understand that this is a serious problem, one that lies at the foundation of phenomena such as depression and anxiety, communication difficulties at work, health problems, and seemingly unprovoked outbursts, we will also be able to begin examining how to deal with it.
As a human species, we are living through a period of transition toward the next stage of evolution. Our survival depends on developing the ability to create an integral connection between the individual and the environment, the ability to build connection and complementarity above the great ego burning within each and every one of us, out of the recognition that we simply have no alternative.
It is no coincidence that our world has become so highly interconnected, nor that our mutual dependence has become so stressful. Through this, nature is signaling to us: “Hello, you are all in the same boat. Either you learn to work together, or you will sink.”
The challenge of the future will be to build an integral society, a new humanity. The new relationship between partners will stand at its foundation and serve as a kind of home laboratory in which we develop the ability to connect harmoniously with others, through mutual consideration, help and support, giving and receiving, and the creation of an atmosphere of warmth and love.
To advance in this direction, we will need a comprehensive educational, cultural, and social transformation, a transformation that changes our perception of ourselves, of others, and of our environment. We are parts of a single body, even though it does not appear that way to us. If we learn the integral method for complementary connection, life can become a wonderful journey.
The home of tomorrow will provide every child with optimal conditions for growth. In kindergarten, too, the child will be surrounded by a good environment, and at school there will be friends who are always ready to offer help. This is how, through ever-expanding circles of connection, we will build a country that can serve as an example and model for all of humanity.
And one final word about relationships, to bring us back to the point from which we began. A relationship between partners, in the fullest sense of the word, is a spiritual connection in which two become one. Such a connection brings the one force that exists throughout nature to fill their soul, raising them to a higher, eternal, and complete level of existence.
Based on “New Life 213 – Turning Relationship Education into a National Mission” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.