How Would a Society Built Upon a Foundation of Love Be Structured?
The main difference between humans and animals is that humans constantly undergo changes. New desires awaken in us, the ego develops and leads us in various directions. What will we want in the next moment, in a year, in ten years? It is even funny to guess. Nevertheless, there is an overall trend of development worth studying and understanding. This will help us prepare for the changes ahead and achieve maximum success in life.
First of all, we should look at the structure of our desires. Broadly speaking, we can distinguish between two types of desires. The first are physical desires that animals also have, which are desires for food, sex, family, and so on. The second are human desires, such as the desire for wealth, honor, control, and knowledge.
In physical desires, like the desire for food, for example, we see that excess harms us greatly and harms our health. We do several unnecessary things with our bodies that have no justification. This is where balanced, rational consumption comes in, which we should aim for.
At the same time, we should shift our attention to the development of the human level within us. The human level within us evolves through positive connections with others, which are mutual and complementary relationships, and here, we have much work to do.
Although from childhood we are usually taught to treat others well, the world is becoming more egoistic every day. The younger generation sees opposite examples all around them, in the media, politics, social networks, business, on the roads, everywhere. This creates a narrow perception that leads people to build their success on the ruin of others. Wealth and happiness are measured comparatively, and life becomes one major destructive competition.
From a broad perspective, the development we have gone through throughout history has brought the world to a dead end. Everyone holds a deadly weapon in one hand and a huge ego in the other. The global economy threatens to burst like a bubble. We have drained the Earth of almost all its resources, polluted the environment, and lately, we are also filling space with waste.
Most importantly, modern man is dissatisfied with life. Despair and depression flood the world. Relationships break down. Schools have become hotbeds of awful interactions. There is poor behavior, struggle, and war everywhere.
Eventually, a decision must emerge, where we feel as if we need to stop our egoistic way of life, that there is no choice but to change our perception. We need to upgrade human nature so we feel ourselves not as separate, but as integral parts of everyone, sharing a heart-to-heart connection with all human beings. This is what will be considered self-correction, re-education, rising above narrow egoism, and growing from a wild creature into a human.
The integral education method will lead us through this process. It will teach us what needs to be done, why, and how. The more we apply it, the more we will see that it saves humanity from self-destruction, which we are heading toward.
Beyond saving us from looming danger, the integral method will also elevate us to a new level of goodness, harmony, and peace. The connection that will form between us through its guidance will raise us to the next evolutionary level, where we will connect with the inner workings of nature. We will discover a force in nature that drives our entire evolutionary process, a supreme thought, which is the greatest force at the foundation of reality. We will begin to feel its eternity and perfection, and become included in it, filled by it, and live through it. Therefore, the importance of this method surpasses all other wisdom or science.
Applying the integral method will result in people giving positive examples to one another. Each person will positively influence others, showing how to treat others well, be considerate, love, and give to one another, and in such a way, we will form a network of mutual positive influence.
This network will envelop everyone in warmth and love. Children will grow up in a positive environment, within an expanding circle of support. Love at home, in the family, then among kindergarten friends, then at school, at university, the workplace. In every place, mutual consideration, encouragement, and support will fill our lives.
Thus, the feeling of love will accompany each person from infancy in their mother’s arms to feeling the love of society as a supreme force, i.e., as the general law of nature. This will lead to a sense of harmony found throughout nature’s system, to the discovery of the love through which nature’s general force constructs the evolutionary process we are in.
We need to reach the realization that our primary work is to develop love for other human beings. By doing so, we achieve the perception and sensation of the general force of love that exists in nature. Incidentally, by learning to love others, we will naturally become good to everyone and will also protect nature. Then, we will take from the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature only what is necessary for our existence and no more, letting nature return to balance and restore itself.
Correcting our attitude to others, from egoistic to one of love, takes place through thought, speech, and action. All three should be directed at building a new, balanced, and integral society.
On the level of thought, we must clarify internally, under the influence of the education we receive and positive examples around them, that life’s goal is to attain general love. On the level of speech, we should first convince ourselves of this and then explain it to others. On the level of action, we should invest all of our energy in building the new society until there is no neglect or marginalization left in the world.
Balance among us human beings will lead to balance with the general force of nature, i.e., with the general law that drives all parts of reality to a complete integration. In such a way, we will create a round and complete system, and complete the entire evolutionary process that began with the emergence of life. In a state of full harmony, we will feel no pressure from nature and will live perfectly.
Unlike evolution in the still, vegetative, and animate levels that took billions of years, from now on, the pace of evolution is in our hands. Everything depends on constructing a good environment that will advance us and create in us the integral perception instead of the egoistic one.
If the emphasis in personal, physical desires was on avoiding excess, in social, human desires the direction is the opposite. We should connect as much as possible with others, starting with those closest to us and then with people who are more distant, in ever-expanding circles, advancing together from consideration to responsibility to mutual guarantee until we achieve love that is eternal, collective, and inclusive.
As this happens, we will incorporate in one another, absorbing emotion and intellect from all humanity. Our capacity to perceive will expand, and a completely new reality will open before us. We will exit the boundaries of the self into a collective sense of life, and discover the peak of development that nature has prepared for humans.