We are a non-profit organization Humanity Integrated that is comprised of people who find themselves in the most interesting yet trying times of human evolution – the time of global crisis, which is the first stage of a profound change.
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More and more youngsters are succumbing to depression and a lack of care and concern for themselves and others which have in turn manifested in reckless behaviors such as drug use, sexual promiscuity, and horrendous acts of violence toward themselves or others. What has brought about the despair our young generation is experiencing today? They are not satisfied with the pleasures that previous generations enjoyed.
As I sit down to read the newspaper, the headlines hit me once again. A teenager stepped into a crowded holiday shopping mall and opened fire, killing eight people. What could lead a young person with a bright future ahead of him to commit such a desperate act? Meanwhile, a dear friend’s niece clings to life in a hospital after swallowing a bottle of pills in a suicide attempt. Depression among teenagers has reached epidemic proportions.
What is happening to our youth? Aren’t teenagers too young to be overwhelmed by feelings of despair and hopelessness? There are many countries in the world where despair would be understandable—countries where unbelievable hardship, poverty, starvation and violence are a daily reality. But this is the United States—many of these kids come from affluent, loving homes where they have every advantage that money can buy. One would think they should be much more fulfilled than people from countries struggling to feed, educate, and house their citizens, but it is quite the opposite. Depression is a phenomenon that exists in more developed societies and not in ones that are struggling for survive.
At the other end of the spectrum, we see a growing number of people who are stuck in childhood—even into their twenties, thirties and beyond. They might trade in their Hot Wheels toy cars for the real thing and get involved in more expensive “games,” but they are still children, who rebel against any type of responsibility in the adult world. We see the impact in areas as diverse as the breakdown of American families, the record number of bankruptcy filings, and the trouble businesses are having hiring responsible, mature workers.
Although it’s hard to admit, both young people and adults are facing a social crisis, and no one seems to quite know why. Talk show hosts have become millionaires by expounding on these problems and interviewing “experts.” Politicians push their proposed social reform programs, and communities pass more and more laws in an effort to control behavior, but these are all knee-jerk reactions to the problem. In order to affect real change, we must find the source of the problem.
In order to identify the reason behind our youth’s behavior, we first have to examine our very nature and see how it evolves. The worldly ancient wisdom, as well as modern psychology, maintain that the motivating force behind all of our actions is our need for pleasure. In other words, every action that a person takes, no matter how small, is prompted by some desire for get satisfied.
But there’s more: this desire for pleasure continuously evolves within humanity, propelling us to constantly seek new kinds of it. This evolution started with our most basic desires: those we must fulfill to survive, such as the need for food, sex and shelter. In other words, ages ago, having a good meal, a mate, and a roof over one’s head was the ultimate bliss.
At a later point in mankind’s evolution, new types of desires emerged—the social ones. These desires emerged when people started to interact within society, which include desire for wealth, fame and power. We have evolved through these wants for thousands of years, actualizing every possible combination and aspect of them. From this perspective, film stars, sports idols or politicians are all “manifestations” of the social desires that evolve within humanity.
But today, a new desire is surfacing in humanity – that we can fulfill neither through physical satisfaction, nor through interaction with each other. This need is still hard for us to define, and we are not certain how to meet it—it is the need to realize the purpose of our existence.Although there have always been individuals in every generation who wondered “Why am I here?”, now is the first time in history when this question arises in masses of people and demands to be answered.
So how does this relate to the crisis our younger generation is facing? Because they are at the peak of the evolution of desires, they inherently sense that money, fame and power will not bring them true happiness. This doesn’t mean that children today have no desire for anything; on the contrary, they have lots: they just don’t know how to satisfy them.
It’s quite simple: If I really want a puppy for my birthday, I’m not going to be happy if you give me a new set of wardrobe. Even if the clothes look really nice on me, they simply won’t match what I internally want . For our youth, it’s like that with any kind of pleasure. They go from one wish to the next at lightening speed, and continue to find themselves unsatisfied.
By the time they are teens, many children are disillusioned and cynical about their parents’ ability to show them how to be happy. They don’t see why they should work hard to achieve the goals that adults set for them. On the other hand, they don’t know what else to strive for.
To us, it may look like today’s kids are lazy, but their lack of motivation is really an expression of hopelessness. In extreme cases, their despair is so painful that life itself seems pointless and suicide seems to be the only answer.
To cope, many teenagers adopt a “life is short; eat dessert first” attitude, spending their time chasing after any pleasure, as long as it is easy to obtain. The result is this “perpetual child,” unable to maintain a family or job, since it requires a real effort. These kids are also vulnerable to the appeal of drugs, alcohol, and get-rich-quick schemes, since all of these promise intense pleasure for virtually no effort. Other teens react to their sense of emptiness with anger, lashing out at parents and society, who have been unable to provide them with a meaningful purpose for their lives. And sometimes, this anger erupts in horrible violence, such as the mall shootings.
The younger generation’s inability to understand and satisfy their desires is the very source of their problems. Without guidance from previous generations, teens are groping in the dark as they try to find ways to satisfy this nameless desire that lives in the youth of today. The popularity of films such as The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter reflects the desire for something beyond what we can find in this world. Their interest in New Age practices, mysticism and Eastern philosophies also points to the growing need young people feel to find meaning in life.
In order to help our children, we must let them know that there is a reason for the emptiness and confusion that they feel. We need to show them where they fit into humanity’s general course of development—and let them see that they represent the final stage in the evolution of desires. And we have to provide them with a way to develop and fulfill their desires.
It is our duty to give them a tangible understanding of the purpose of their existence, which lies in conscious choice of a new, higher, reality that we, together, can build – the reality of a harmonious, altruistic society – and, thereby, rise to the next level of human evolution. And once our children know what their purpose is, they will be motivated to go after it. Apathy, anger, depression and despair will give way to the same passionate energy with which their parents and grandparents pursued the “American dream” —the quest for money, honor and fame.
Our children will be able to go places and achieve states of unbounded happiness, but we must provide them with the tools and guidance for their journey. By so doing, we will save them a lot of misery, allow them to find true happiness, and hasten everyone’s way towards the true purpose of existence.
By Riggan Shilstone
According to a year-old report, there are more than two hundred million unemployed in the world. Over the coming year, this number will grow astronomically, as global production wanes and natural resources continue to dwindle. This development constitutes an enormous problem for the unemployed themselves, as well as for society and governments, which are utterly powerless to stop it.
As the ranks of the unemployed grow worldwide, the need for a comprehensive educational course, explaining the new integrated world and its governing laws, will be indispensable in preventing the kind of bloodshed and unrest that we’re already beginning to see materialize.
So what is this “new world” that the global crisis is ushering us into? Well, if we take a step back and analyze the word “crisis,” it actually doesn’t have a negative connotation. Rather, it signifies a new stage that is similar to birth.
We know from experience that transitioning from one state to another is hard, as it entails coming out of your comfort zone. Whether it’s changing jobs or modifying any other aspect of life, we tend to resist change and prefer to stay within a familiar operating system.
With that in mind, there are two sides to this global crisis. On the one hand, we are experiencing genuinely awful and dramatic afflictions: horrendous floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, riots and wars, revolutionary coups, bloodshed in the streets, and increasingly dimming prospects of a bright future. On the other hand, we may view our current predicament as the normal pains of a process we don’t yet acknowledge, one in which we transition from one state to another.
These pains can be likened to a baby going through the process of birth. Picture a child peacefully growing inside the mother’s womb—a safe and protected place. Delivery, however, is triggered by a rather “unpleasant” process: the mother feels immense tension and experiences contractions, while the child also feels tremendous pressure but doesn’t have any idea what’s going on. Thus, our present state is similar to birth pains.
We have been through similar states at other times in history, although they weren’t as tragic or radical to justify calling them a “birth.” We regard them as developmental or transitional phases in human history.
And yet our current state is different. In the past we’ve always striven to reveal or attain new heights. We foresaw potential revolutionary conditions of a social or technical nature, and change was effected as a result of new breakthroughs, whether via discovery of new lands, inventions of innovative weapons, or implementation of new technologies such as the Internet, which have unveiled a completely new level of connection between us.
The difference is that those innovations never have been global in nature. They have never influenced all aspects of human life, nor have they impacted humankind on a larger scale, including every country and continent, every family and individual. Nowadays, the new revolutionary (evolutionary!) spin involves all of the above.
Disoriented and bewildered, we’re growing increasingly aware of the fact that something is happening, but we’re not quite yet certain what that “something” is. The crisis we’re experiencing is similar to the state that precedes delivery. It presses us more and more with each passing day, both individually and collectively.
Just as we cannot seem to solve the tumbling economy, we are utterly powerless to reverse the decades-old trend of families falling apart or the astronomical rise in depression, suicide and substance abuse. If anything, the one common denominator here is that in all areas of our lives we suffer from a complete absence of understanding as to the root cause of these problems.
Moreover, for the first time in human history, this is happening on a global, integrated scale. There’s literally “nowhere to run” to escape these issues, even if one had the means. And the worst thing is that we don’t know what the future holds.
In revolutions past, the social and economic structures we aspired to were more progressive than the ones they replaced. The abolition of slavery, for instance, paved the way toward a more civilized society. Even though drastic changes triggered new uprisings, religious and civil wars, people nonetheless anticipated a brighter future at the end of it all.
Presently, however, we all are undergoing a global process the likes of which we’ve never seen. This process encompasses not only the society and the individual, but actually extends to climate and ecology. (Looking back at the evolution of our species, global warming and cooling periods have always necessitated vast adaptations in humankind, such as huge communities being forced to migrate from Siberia and Asia to Europe.)
Whereas in the past revolutions happened for concrete reasons (climate change, new technology, despotic regime, etc.), today all the changes are happening simultaneously and on every level. Simply speaking, people no longer can reconcile with the world we live in.
Even the systems we have come to depend on for our very survival are on the fritz, including the food industry, the job market, the family unit, the educational and security systems, and so on.
We have arrived at a general state in all areas of our lives where nothing seems to work as it should. And with the tools currently at our disposal, we cannot predict with any degree of certainty what our future phase on this evolutionary path might look like.
Is it possible to study the laws of this new integrated world and thereby learn to meet its demands? Can we look ahead and be sure that the path we’ve chosen is correct? Can we calculate our future beforehand?
If the answer is yes, we can facilitate our progress and avoid needless wandering in darkness. If not, we will continue making the same old blunders, only now the stakes are much, much greater.
In light of the above, we must aim to develop an educational course for the whole world. The goal is as vital as it is straightforward: to open people’s eyes to the new reality we find ourselves in, to glimpse a future that’s not only possible but unavoidable (indeed, for the baby there’s only one way out), and to teach the world how to transition from the existing state to the future in the quickest and most painless way possible.
In the News:“Two-thirds of the young people in court [charged over the August riots in England] were classed as having some form of special educational need, compared to 21% for the national average. More than a third of young people who were involved in the riots had been excluded from school during 2009-10 – this compares with Department for Education records showing 6% exclusions for all Year…” (Source: BBC)
The situation in the U.S. is not much better. The consequences of saving on education are already being felt. The latest crisis is proving that those who stop investing in education may lose everything. The new, global education is necessary for everybody, regardless of age, gender, and occupation – to learn about the new world, new social conditions, and the need for mutual responsibility among all members of society. Otherwise, we can lose everything!
Global (integrative) education implies studying the laws of nature, the laws of homeostasis, balance, and harmony. We need to explain and demonstrate to children and adults that we are all inter-connected, governed by the Law of Nature, and have to act accordingly.
To be a single organism, one whole, means to consider and accommodate each others’ interests. Otherwise, we will be receiving Nature’s blows until we finally realize that we have no choice but to unite. These lessons will force us to renounce our egoism; we will be willing to do anything to avoid suffering. But it could be achieved by a conscious choice, in joyful cooperation, if we accept and apply the principles of mutual responsibility to our lives.
We need to come to an understanding that unity is the next stage in mankind’s development. Since we have already become one family, one nation, one system, where everyone is interdependent, there is no other choice but to accept this fact and treat it seriously. We need to observe and study the systems existing in Nature and introduce similar laws to regulate interrelationships between people, nations, and all of humanity.
If we ask scientists what an integrated system is, they will explain that we are all interdependent and that no one can make a move without moving the rest. Thus, it’s necessary to consider everyone’s interests without any exception. The first step is to not do to others what we wouldn’t want done to ourselves; and the second step is to correctly and effectively implement a system that’s based on the mutual responsibility.
Until we establish such an interconnection in our system, we will not be able to live well, securely, and worry-free. With each day, the broken mechanism of our interconnection becomes more and more apparent, which manifests in eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, global warming, and so on. This is why, on one hand, we must accept this integrative law as the Law, and on the other, we must reform the education system as soon as possible, explain the laws of our integrated world, why and how to follow them.
Millions of people are unemployed today, and more are facing losing a job if it is destructive to nature. The military-industrial jobs and many other professions will dissolve, for they are break the balance and harmony the world is grounded on. Freed workers will have to become facilitators of new upbringing and education. As a result, everybody will have to take responsibility for all and vice versa.
Many people don’t understand how the failure of our education system can be due to lack of unity between us. In fact, what today is called “education” offers knowledge but does not foster development of a human being. Schools do not raise children to be happy, functional people but merely provide a certain amount of knowledge in math, history, physics, and various other subjects.
Society expects the education system to assist in raising a child; but, as a matter of fact, it hardly does the job. It is becoming increasingly clear from the results and from the subjects studied. How many lessons and class discussions are aimed at nurturing of a human being? Is there such a concern? Even when the educators care about this, their hands are tied by government regulations and conflicting parental demands. School curricula are filled with sciences and “humanities”, but we don’t seem to be able to figure out why we are having so many difficulties with our children. When they finish school, the problems intensify.
Today, schools produce workers trained to perform in various enterprises (be it an engineer or an auto mechanic). The task of education is to prepare a “unit” to take its place in the industry “pipeline.” Our boards of education are not measured on what kind of person one becomes or how he will live, nor do they have workable models on how to do this. This is because the education system doesn’t set a goal of raising a wholesome person, a human being.
The education system has never been aimed at that. The school as we see it today was invented for the purpose of teaching people who worked the land and raised cattle to read and write so that they could work with machines, understand basic laws of science, and follow instructions. Such was the foundation of the modern school and it remains today.
Now, we must move toward true “education” system, and this is something entirely new. It is not defined by how many and which classes a person has sat through. A human is one who is feels his connection with all others. Only this connection allows a person to be called a human being, not the amount of knowledge obtained.
If we succeed in gaining knowledge alone (let’s say in chemistry and physics), it will only assist in invention of harmful substances and deadly weapons, the knowledge received in school will be combined with the inflated egoism in the world. Our children learn how to use others with their newly acquired knowledge; this defines their success in life. An education determines only what profession one chooses and how much it pays. Is that education?
Education today determines what profession one ought to choose so it pays the most. Can this be called education? We need to design a new education system that will teach our children to be wholesome beings in the new, developing, global world; a system that will nurture rather than lecture them, and that will be teaching by examples of altruistic, equitable behavior.
If people see that there is a new system that offers true education for their children, they will immediately respond because the problem of education is obvious to everyone. Today people don’t even want to have children because they have nothing to give them. They would rather not bring them into this world of suffering and pain.
Therefore, we must realize that all problems in society and our personal lives are caused solely by a lack of connection between us.