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How To Make Sense Of The Global Coronavirus Shock

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 3/17/20

How to Make Sense of the Global Coronavirus Shock

The Global respiratory disease, the coronavirus, has taken our breath away in a split second. But it can be used as an opportunity to inject oxygen into a new world.

It is well known that people do not appreciate what they have until they lose it. In fact, we would do the world a service to part ways for good with what is gone: our frenzied and selfish old lifestyle.

We might already be asking ourselves what our lives will look like after the coronavirus pandemic is over, which will likely take months. Our way of life will certainly never be the same again. Many businesses are expected shut down: restaurants, theaters, cinemas—entertainment venues in general—will have a hard time recovering people’s interest enough to stay afloat.

The Healing of an Ailing World

So far, following the recommendations of health officials is a means for survival, but gradually, we will start seeing something appealing in our new stripped-down lifestyle. A special taste will be acquired for a simpler and deeper form of existence, in contrast to the endlessly exhausting pursuit of materialistic satisfaction that has characterized humanity until now, leading us to a desperate state of ever-increasing emptiness and lack of fulfillment. New senses will be born for self-scrutiny letting us realize that the virus actually resides in our hearts and minds, in the harmful ways by which we relate to each other.

Just like the serpent on the Rod of Asclepius, the symbol associated with medicine and health care, the coronavirus raises its head and forces us to ask questions about the purpose of life. The virus is, in fact, a medicine infused into humanity to heal it from its destructive egoistic nature, which causes conflict, separation and suffering. Thus, we can choose to look at the crisis as a blow and senseless pain, or instead, we can see it as an opportunity from above to correct our failed path and change direction to a more balanced existence. The recovery process will depend on how we respond to the challenge nature is presenting to us.

In the sense that the crisis is aimed at elevating humanity to a different level, to a new approach to life, it becomes something useful. Nature is indicating to us that it disagrees with the lifestyle we have created: pollution, waste, reckless industrial development—conditions affecting and ruining the planet’s integral system on all of its levels: still, vegetative, animate and human. Also, we need to start fixing the damage we have caused precisely at the level of human connections in order to recover balance by organizing our world more healthily through mutual care and responsibility.

The Inidividual and the Collective Are One and the Same

Every individual and all of us together are responsible for transforming what is now taking place in human society to a better state. This is so because in nature’s integral system, the individual and the collective are equal.

Humanity has undergone a long path of self-destruction and division, and the virus shows us that a breach in our connection is the root cause of the problem. Such awareness helps us start feeling ourselves as one body of humanity. It is bringing the world to a single uniform state, revealing that we truly belong to a system where everyone is interdependent.

My Thoughts On Twitter 3/17/20

Dr Michael Laitman Twitter

Before, everyone only thought about themselves.
Today each person should think about everyone, because we are one whole, a single organism. Each of us is a wheel on which the life of others depend.
#corona #unity

#France began to send troops into cities to ensure complete control of the quarantine. There were many protesters wearing the same yellow vests, so they amended to movement to the doctor or for groceries, and introduced an #army to protect order, since the police could not cope.

Due to the viral threat, the #EU is closing borders, canceling group events, closing schools and universities, and restricting people’s movement. Each for himself, everyone decided to isolate themselves from each other, reduce contact to a minimum. The main protective measure remains isolation. A Screen (Masach)!

Let’s ask ourselves: Why are all the governments in the world introducing such disproportionate limitations on socialization between people, closing factories, undermining the economies of their countries, and they are doing it with such ease… ?

The virus, like all problems of mankind, comes together with Antisemitism—because they are all a remedy for eradicating the general egoism, which is corrected only by the upper light that only the nation of Israel can draw into this world from the Creator, the only force in the world.
From Twitter, 3/17/20

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“Why Is Coronavirus Different From Any Other Pandemic In History?” (Newsmax)

My article in Newsmax: “Why Is Coronavirus Different From Any Other Pandemic in History?

This is not the first time humanity faces a frightening pandemic, but COVID-19 or coronavirus is undoubtedly one of a kind. No other health crisis in the past washed over the entire world like a tsunami leaving basically no corner of the planet unaffected.

The reason for this is that never before has the world been so interconnected and interdependent as now. Such a closed and entangled system in nature is teaching us that we will either succumb separately or thrive together. This is the strong lesson the coronavirus crisis is showing us.

The Black Death, SARS, and the most deadly pandemic so far, the Spanish flu, which killed around 50 million people worldwide in 1918, were widespread disease outbreaks that deeply impacted humanity. But there has never before been a blow such as the coronavirus, so broad and global in scope, grabbing everyone together, turning our lives upside down in a blink of an eye.

The travel bans that immediately swept the world froze our obsession with globetrotting, no matter where, just as long as we were able to escape. Our perspective on money has also changed since the crisis, making us reevaluate our priorities in life. Our endless consumerism and compulsive quest for leisure suddenly paused and, most likely and fortunately, will never return to what it was. We will need to adapt to a new lifestyle, more basic, settled and wise.

The War on Our Nature

In addition to pandemics, wars have also left devastation behind them in various parts of the planet generation after generation. Previously, the world divided into camps to fight its conflicts: Germans and those against Germany, Russians and Americans, Chinese and Westerners, Iranians and Israelis.

Now, the entire world has become one village, and the coronavirus has proven just that. In comparison to previous ones, this crisis is affecting all of humanity without making any distinctions of background, origin, beliefs or status in society. Simple people, government officials, spouses of world leaders, and celebrities — no one is immune to the contagion.

The situation is showing the whole world how weak and vulnerable humans are in the face of nature. It is a lesson in humility, when we previously felt that reality was at our fingertips for our own use, and that we had the right to exploit anything and everything around us without consideration of others.

Nothing in nature happens by chance. The current situation offers humanity a new direction and fresh outlook since now the problem is not aimed at any specific country, region, or leader, as was the case in the past. This time, we are all navigating the troubled waters in the same boat, and we need to recognize that the only enemy to fight is our selfish, egoistic nature, the source of the world’s imbalance.

Viruses and other problems of the ecosystem are the direct result of the damage that humans inflict on the system of nature through reckless and abusive behavior, both to the system and to others. In truth, all are integral parts of the same world, which functions as an enormous mesh of interconnected cogwheels.

A Cure for Mankind

There is no prohibition on enjoyment and pleasure in life. Our desire for pleasure is the fabric of our nature and its fulfillment is precisely the purpose of creation: to do good and bring contentment to its creations. The question is: To what purpose do we enjoy, and more importantly, at expense of what or whom?

Therefore, as painful and unnerving as the pandemic may seem, the coronavirus can really become a cure for humanity’s ills if we learn its primary lesson: The only angel of death is the human ego, and until we rise above it, we will never enjoy a good life. We have been given an awakening to change paths and connect with each other so that together we can unleash the positive force of nature that becomes revealed through our harmonious relationships.

This world-changing revelation is a reason for gratitude.
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How Do We Allow The Creator To Show His Love?

Laitman_200.01How is the Creator revealed in my prayer for a friend? If I care only that the Creator reveals Himself to a friend for His benefit and ask for it, then I will feel the actions of the Creator within my request. After all, it was through my actions that I triggered an answer, and if they were truly aimed at attracting the Creator to help the group, then I will reveal this help.

I should not ask the friend about this; I will see and find out everything by myself. I appeal to the Creator and ask that I do something good for my friends or for the world. And if this is a true and correct request, then I will see in it how I activate the Creator and how He acts. This means that I raise the reflected light and ask the Creator to dress in that light. It turns out that the direct light of the Creator is dressed in my reflected light and turns into inner light entering the soul, flowing and correcting desires, and then filling them. And I participate in all this because this is an action initiated by me.

The Creator is the force of bestowal, and He wants one thing: that we take this force and use it. If I can use this force and use it for a friend, then I give the Creator pleasure. Otherwise, I cannot bring Him contentment because He Himself does not need anything. But connecting Him with those who need Him, I bring Him pleasure.

He cannot help them directly because they have no such deficiency. But if I connect them with the Creator through my request, then I give pleasure to them and to Him. It is enough that I have short-circuited the Creator to the created beings. The Creator has no reflected light and He cannot wrap His force into a special clothing. But if I give Him my clothing, then the Creator can work and enjoy.

Otherwise, the Creator is like a woman who needs to give birth but cannot. It is like birth pains: wanting to help, but it is impossible because there is no one to help the Creator give birth. We restrain the Creator and do not allow Him to show all His love and correct the world.1
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, Questions and Answers
1 Minute 5:00

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The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “Hatred And Love”

laitman_608.01Proverbs, 10:12: “Hatred arouses quarrels, but love covers all transgressions.”

“Hatred arouses quarrels”—this part seems clear to us.

Love covers all transgressions“—this is also correct because there can be no love without transgression. It is necessary to reveal the evil in order to understand the need for good, to reveal hatred in order to understand the need for love.

Question: Can it be that one simply loves?

Answer: No. It is only possible for a mother toward her baby. Those people who have no animalistic reasons for this, like animals, can have no inclination for it.

Question: Does it mean they cannot love?

Answer: Love is when I am ready to do everything for the other. From myself to the other.

Question: Is it possible that I am ready to do everything for a person?

Answer: No. Our nature is not arranged this way. We cannot do that.

Question: Are we sinful by nature?

Answer: It is not called “a sin.” It is our nature; it is neither bad nor good.

Question: In any case, is our nature to treat others as a stranger?

Answer: “Bolivar cannot carry double.” It is shown well there. I am sorry, of course, but it will not work. It is either you or me. So, of course, it is me.

Question: And where is “love covers all transgressions”? How can we then explain this? What kind of secret is here?

Answer: If we correctly treat all the sins, hatred, and everything else that we reveal between us, we attract the force of connection until we reach love that covers our hatred. The hatred remains inside. And through it, we reach the level of love.

Question: How do we attract it? Do we begin to hate our hatred for the other?

Answer: Yes. But this comes from above. Otherwise, this is only about a mother with her children. And also, up to a certain limit. Nature has shown us such things. During famine and so on. When all of a sudden, the maternal instinct disappears.

Comment: This is really terrible.

My Reply: This is not terrible. It is nature. There is nothing terrible in nature; it is simply what it is.

Question: In this simple truth, does King Solomon say that man hates and all his work is to invoke love in order to rise above hatred?

Answer: Yes
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 12/5/19

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The Land Of Israel: Dispersion And Assimilation, Part 1

laitman_746.03He who buys a Hebrew slave, it is as though he buys a master for himself.

Comment: After entering the land of Israel, the nation managed for several thousands of years without a king or an acting army. There was a special way to treat women, children, and even slaves. According to law, one could keep a slave for up to six years, after which he had to be freed.

Most importantly, if a master had only one pillow, he had to let the slave use it. Such an attitude defies all logic.

Answer: This means that the life of a slave did not belong to the master. A slave could only be with him for a certain period of time. In a way, a master paid for his work within a strict framework of rules and could demand only a certain amount of effort in return. In everything else this person was not a slave but a partner for him, even a friend who lived with him, someone who the master had to care for.

As it is written: “He who buys a Hebrew slave, it is as though he buys a master for himself.” It means that a slave was not some kind of a “homeless animal” with which the master could do anything he wanted to, unlike the way the slaves or prisoners were treated in other countries.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel,” 7/8/19

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The Essence And The Root Of Unity, Part 1

laitman_570The Uniqueness of the Kabbalistic Approach

Question: There are many methods for studying historical processes. There is philology (comparing texts), and genetics, and archeology. What is the Kabbalistic method? What makes it so unique? How do Kabbalists explore historical processes?

Answer: We base everything upon Kabbalistic sources and nothing else. All these sources are known from Adam through Abraham, then Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, David and further, up to the Kabbalists of our day.

By the way, Kabbalists have never been interested in the history of the people of Israel. They only thought about how to elevate the Jewish people to their heights, the foundation of which was laid down in the spiritual world, so that this ascent can serve as an example for all humanity.

Remark: This approach is unique in a way that all primary sources, such as The Book of Zohar, the Pentateuch, the Scriptures, the Prophets, the Talmud, the Mishnah and others, and the spiritual conditions of one person or all humanity, including the people of Israel, are described.

According to Kabbalah, there is a pattern that all spiritual states must materialize at least once. However, they may not correspond to the scale of events, nor the time of their implementation.

Therefore, historians and archaeologists, while conducting their research, often see that the scale and dates of the events described in the same Torah don’t correspond to the indicated time.

My Response: Indeed. In this regard, the concept of “Armageddon,” which we associate with terrible events at the end of the world, is very indicative. In fact, this word comes from the name of the little hill “Har Megido.”

Kabbalah does not mean physical objectification of any phenomena or objects, but their spiritual state. And in a spiritual form, all this has great importance, for example, the Temple. Look at how many cubits (length from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger), as indicated in the Torah, the Tabernacle should be made of along with other things.

At the material level, this is all very small and insignificant. However, when they are given spiritual greatness, then multiplying one by the other, they truly give a great higher power.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis Development of the People of Israel,” 3/24/19

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I Will Be Happy To Learn

Laitman_112Question: If a person disagrees with you, can he or she be your student?

Answer: Why not? I really like people who disagree with me.

I mean ideological disagreements, not simply waving me off as a fool. Give me serious reasons why you disagree with me and I will be very happy about that.

Maybe I will find out that I do not know, do not understand, something, that I need to study more. I still need to learn a lot, this is true. Inside, I’m still a child. Do nоt look at me as a fully accomplished person. So I will be very happy to learn.
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From Kab TV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/5/20

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“Is There A Cure For Cancer?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Is there a cure for cancer?

The human body is a complete interconnected system operating according to integral laws of nature: every cell consumes only what is needed for its useful functioning within the system of tissues and organs, and exists to sustain the entire body. If a single cell starts functioning to benefit itself alone, it becomes cancerous.

Cancer is a body within the body. Due to the enormous growth of their “ego,” cancerous cells separate from the body’s other cells, start seeing them as enemies, as foreign bodies that need to be attacked and devoured.

Cancerous cells can form a separate kind of society within the human body. They can communicate and cooperate in their own way to enslave normal cells and create metastases.

They have no sensation of the human organism as a necessary environment for their existence, and thus reject and destroy it, and in the worse scenario, die together with the body due to lacking a habitat.

So then we reach one of the pressing questions of our time: is there a cure for cancer?

Definitely. However, it lies beyond the realm of a separate individual human body.

Nature as a whole operates similarly to a single organism.

On nature’s inanimate, vegetative and animate levels, each and every one of its element has its dedicated role and input into the whole system.

Our society also consists of individual “cells,” i.e., people who are brought together into different social structures.

Unfortunately, unlike nature’s other levels, we humans have a very “cancerous” attitude toward one another, and the environment we live in.

What is the risk?

As soon as we start thinking only about ourselves, our system starts slowly becoming “impressed” by our egoistic thoughts and desires.

This impression spreads over structures influencing other levels of nature and our physical bodies.

Unconscious of nature as our home, in a constant run for personal pleasure, like the selfish cancerous cells, we humans basically destroy our common environment for existence, forming a cancerous tumor on the body of the planet.

When the cancerous growth of a selfish attitude spreads beyond a certain limit, humanity starts consuming itself.

What is the optimal way to fight cancer on both levels: the human body and society in general?

The problem can be solved on the level of connection among each other.

Being unconscious about our “cancerous” attitudes to each other deprives us of the opportunity to deal with them.

However, if we rise to a level higher than our usual relations and reactions, we will be able to see a more complete picture of reality, and thus solve myriad problems, including cancer, comprehensively.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, when we understand our egoistic nature and apply efforts to rise above it by building positive connections, we will step into a new level of perception of reality.

As soon as human relations become mutual, kind, benevolent, and we all unite into one complete system, the world will become balanced, and there will be no room for cancer on any level.

It is as written, “And a wolf shall live with a lamb, and a leopard shall lie with a kid; and a calf and a lion cub and a fatling [shall lie] together, and a small child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).