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The ego is choking us. It breaks down relationships and causes difficulties at work, on the roads, and literally everywhere in our lives. Is there anything we can do about it?
In every conflict, each person views things from their own side. What is really correct? It is all in the eyes of the beholder. In general, we do not see the world, but ourselves. Our inner qualities project themselves in front of us and paint us a picture.
If we do not like what we see, then that is great! It is an invitation to correct our perspective, i.e., to paint a more beautiful reality. Where? First inside, within us, and then an external result will also appear. That is what the integral approach to education teaches, and it also provides a method for us to work on making such a change.
What do we gain from such a process? We gain a lot because although our initial impulses are to bend the world to our favor, in reality, it does not work for anyone. With such an aggressive approach, nothing really moves forward.
A good relationship with another, a beautiful connection that will last over time, requires that each of us rise above ourselves. Even though we will be unable to maintain such a high connection all the time, each person will try to somehow forgive the other. Out of an understanding that sometimes we rise, sometimes we fall, of utmost importance is the agreement to make an effort to ride above the egoistic impulses.
Doing so is not as easy as it might sound, because it requires being in a a constant war against our inner nature. That is why we require ongoing maintenance, daily nourishment with connection-enriching values, ideas, examples, and support from people in the same process.
On the other hand, we can say that since childhood, we have often heard moral preaching like “behave nicely” and “don’t take from others,” and the like, but we have been immersed in a culture that continually feeds us examples that are the opposite. And what we actually see is what shapes us, not the pretty words.
For this reason, the integral approach to education is based on building a group that serves as an environment with lab-like conditions. Participants learn together about human nature and about the general trend of the world’s development toward integral connection among everyone. What they learn turns into practical exercises, and gradually the ability to positively connect with others develops, above the individual ego, in a complementary connection, up to the level of love, which is the perfect connection between people.
Regarding improving romantic relationships in this process, it is possible to create an integral group composed of three or four couples. Here are a few operating principles.
Each couple has its own problems, of course. The experts guiding the group can ask the participants to raise a problem that they encountered and discuss it together. What impulses are acting here, what is happening on each side, and so on. Then, the couple who raised the issue will try to act out, like in theater, a different response to the same situation, in a new, more corrected way, closer to a state where they rise above their narrow egoism. The others will observe, and afterward everyone will talk about what those who acted felt, what they had to give up, how it felt to lower the ego a bit in front of the other, what impression the watching couples had, and what can be done so that the play where they act out more corrected relationships becomes implemented into their lives. Therefore, through examples of cases and responses, and a common effort to find improved forms of connection, all participants will progress.
Love, the sages say, is like a pet raised at home as a result of concessions. Therefore, it does not really matter what the argument between the sides is about, of utmost importance is seeing effort in mutual concessions.
In a corrected romantic relationship, each partner positions themselves as small before their partner, so that they can absorb the partner’s desire. Simultaneously, they also stand as great before them, by giving them positive examples and thus actually guiding them. The partners also do such actions from their own side, and both become equal in their common aspiration to connect in love.
Couples are thus formed on the condition that each partner makes room inside themselves for the other’s desire and places themselves at their service. This way the partners increasingly include themselves in each other until they become as one.
What makes the integral approach to education different from any other group dynamic is that we learn that the purpose of our existence is to rise above the ego and adapt our connections to nature’s integrality, interconnectedness, interdependence, and unity. In addition, forming a common desire to connect with others in love awakens the unifying force in nature to act on the group participants. This is life’s true game, where we each learn from the others to play not against the other but together with them against the individual ego. This is how participants rise to the next level of connection, that which all of humanity is gradually evolving toward.
Based on episode 30 of “New Life” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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