Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How does coronavirus compare to past pandemics?“

Today, humanity is much more interdependent than it ever has been before, and thus the global socio-economic impact of the coronavirus differs significantly from past pandemics.

If past pandemics in Europe and other parts of the world had no influence over other continents and nations, the case with the coronavirus is completely different.

Today, we are culturally, economically and commercially tied together around the world.

Therefore, the coronavirus affects us all.

It spread from one part of the planet to another relatively quickly, and we have no escape from it since we cannot detach the connections that we have established.

We thus see that the coronavirus pandemic receives completely different attention to past pandemics, since we were never as connected as we are today.

Moreover, while so many of us around the world have become quarantined and instructed to stay inside our homes, we see how we cannot detach from each other. It has become impossible to imagine what it would be like to separate from our global connection.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 3/23/20

Before discussing what will defeat the coronavirus, we need to understand that beyond all the causes mentioned about the coronavirus, there is a deeper cause: that the coronavirus pandemic is nature’s response to humanity’s negative connections based on self-interested calculations.

Such negative connections spanning our competitive, materialistic and individualistic lifestyles were creating increasing tensions on personal, social and international scales.

We thus needed a certain kind of blow from nature to stop us from heading toward a bigger blow that we would have induced, the likes of which could have been as destructive as a world war.

The coronavirus will not stop until we become ready to positively connect, replacing our egoistic, exploitative and manipulative attitudes to each other with altruistic, supportive, and encouraging ones.

Positive human connection will then create a balance of forces with nature. Then, the coronavirus, which emerged in order to highlight the extent of our negative connection to each other, will disappear.

Adjusting our attitudes to each other, correcting our connections from negative to positive, is ultimately what we need in order to defeat the coronavirus.

We thus need to see that the coronavirus has revealed our negative egoistic attitudes to each other, and if we can overcome the inner remoteness that has grown between us, we will then stop the virus, as well as myriad other negative phenomena and problems in our lives.

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Question: Will things be easier for me if I make great efforts in order to attain spirituality?

Answer: Of course. To the extent that you make the right efforts, you can calmly advance without any problems. You can even skip the necessary steps you must take. It is like at school or university: you can finish your studies without attending classes, in less time. Please, the path is open.

Question: What does it mean to win every moment?

Answer: Do not forget that there is a goal in life and yearn to attain it.

Question: The sensation of the world a person is in depends on how high he ascends and which part of the Partzuf of Adam HaRishon he occupies. How can we understand this?

Answer: It is like how in our world we cannot compare our present sensations with each other since each one has one’s own subjective sensations deriving from one’s primordial spiritual gene, so it is in the spiritual world. We have this so-called Reshimo (a spiritual record) in us, and we fulfill it. As a result, we feel our state at each and every moment.

Question: Why is it considered that we are not in the world of Assiya? If it is equal to Malchut, then do we consume too little, or on the contrary, do we attract and absorb a lot?

Answer: We are at the lowest level of the lowest world. At the same time, we consume an insignificant amount of spiritual energy, practically nothing. And our corporeal world is not considered as existing at all.

Question: What basic laws must I not break in order to advance spiritually in a good and quick manner?

Answer: Never harm others. That is the only law. If you keep it scrupulously, you will advance.

Question: Is there a level after which a person is never detached from the thought and the feeling that everything comes from the Creator?

Answer: There is such a level. It is called the world of Atzilut. If you ascend through the worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, and Beria to the world of Atzilut, you will think only about the one force, about the Creator, who is the attribute of bestowal, love, and connection, and you will exist in this force. I wish you success in this ascent.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/5/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is nature an intelligence, a form of mind?“

Nature is a thought.

It has a plan for the development of the inanimate, vegetative, animate and human natures, with a beginning and an end, and it implements this plan in a determinant manner.

As the plan becomes realized, all sorts of problems arise, since the inanimate, vegetative, animate and human natures all participate in this plan.

Human nature, which is the highest and most qualitative of all the levels in nature, is subject to all kinds of fluctuations and changes in both directions.

While nature runs a completely determined plan, we humans have free will within the plan.

We can change ourselves to either resemble or contrast nature. Accordingly, we can alter the path of our development: by resembling nature we feel it as amiable and agreeable, and by contrasting nature, we feel it as nasty and disagreeable.

One way or another, we will all reach the same ultimate final state, however the way in which we get there can either be through the implementation of our free will, or by letting nature’s plan unfold toward us without our participation in the process.

In other words, while our final destination as well as our way there is predetermined, we, as humans in this process, have the free choice to segment the process, where in each segment, we can feel nature’s development as either kinder and more enjoyable, or harsher and undesirable.

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The goal is to gather and connect in a corrected ten that strives to achieve balance and contact with the Creator, equivalence of form with Him. To this extent, they will be able to connect with each other like cells of one body and organize more correctly in order to bestow upon the Creator. Then, at least this part of the broken body of Adam HaRishon will come to life and pull the other parts after it, causing the correction of all the systems of this common soul.¹

In order to reach the Creator’s palace, we need to unite and build it. The hidden palace of the Creator does not exist; it will appear only if we build it. And so, we build one vessel from our selfish desires. We all feel mutual rejection and do not want to unite. This is our nature. But if atop this nature we demand the power of unity from the Creator, then He draws us together, glues and dresses in the vessel created by Him.

All this is called the work of the Creator, but it is generated by our demand. Therefore, we must join the group and feel what kind of mutual rejection that we experience. But this hatred cannot be felt unless we have made efforts to unite and have revealed that we are incapable of doing so. By fighting rejection, we build our common appeal to the Creator, demanding He unite us. And if our request has reached the right force, depth, and number of people asking, that is, a ten, if we are able to demand it, then the Creator does the work.

Therefore, the whole work of a person is to bring about the work of the Creator. We oblige the Creator to complete this work, and He performs; as it is said: “My sons defeated Me.” Children ask and the Creator does, just as we fulfill the requests of our children. Children know how to beg from their parents, and we need to learn from them how to beg the Creator so that He can do His work. He is waiting for us to ask.

Therefore, we are going to the congress to build an appeal to the Creator, called prayer, asking Him to correct what He has broken. But when we ask for corrections, we begin to learn what our defect is, what we need to ask for, how the Creator should correct us, how we will feel the perfect state inside the corrected vessel made up of selfish desires, and how then He will fill this vessel with the force of love and unity.

It turns out that we use each fragment of the vessel, deliberately shattered to let us learn, assembling it as if from Lego pieces like children who, thanks to this, develop and grow until they receive a real spiritual Kli.

Therefore, the Creator says: “You have made Me.” We create the Creator by assembling the vessel from broken fragments, that is, from ourselves, asking the Creator to connect us and fulfill us.²

Obviously, we are unable to exit our egoism. It is impossible to do anything with it. But if we try to include the strength of our friends in us, then everyone receives the strength of everyone, and only on this condition can we overcome our evil inclination.

After all, evil was created in us as a result of breaking the connection between us when we were in the system of Adam HaRishon. Therefore, when the connection was broken, our evil became ten times greater than the individual strength of connection of each one. That is why evil in the world exceeds all the forces of good.

But if we join together with a small force of bestowal of each one of us, then our power of bestowal becomes greater than the egoistic forces that arose during the shattering, and we can provide this force of bestowal to the Creator so that He can reveal Himself.³

Mutual integration has a unique property. Although I alone had a single force in the system of Adam HaRishon, after the Creator broke us, I integrate with everyone above the force of separation. And then each of us becomes ten times stronger than the force of connection that existed in this system of Adam HaRishon. If we were in the first degree in the system of Adam HaRishon, today, after the correction, each of us can rise to the tenth degree.⁴

Working against the desire, we cry, we do not rejoice. It is difficult to work against the desire and nobody wants it. If I hoped to gain something, I would work with joy. But if I do not see any gain and work without desire, then I am sad.

“Divinity is present only in a whole place, and not in a deficient place or a flawed place or a place of sadness, but in a proper place—a place of joy .” It is written: “Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with singing. There is no service of the Creator unless out of joy.” It is so written in The Book of Zohar.

After all, this means that we want to work. If I do and shed tears, then it is not considered that I did something because it is not the action itself that counts in spirituality but the intention. And intention is measured only by joy, according to my desire: whether I want to work or not. If I work forcedly, under a stick, then it is generally not considered that I worked. I can do many actions during my life in this world and it will not be considered that I did anything. After all, I did not do everything of my own accord.

This is a very big problem; we need to pay attention to it. Otherwise, you will ask: “I have done so much, sacrificed so much! Where is my reward?” But did you really earn a reward? Did you really want to give, and love, connect to others, integrate with them? Or did you do your duty working without desire, without intention, so this work does not count? Therefore, many leave this world with the same thing with which they came, that is, empty-handed.

The Creator can only be served in joy, only if I want to be a bestower. But I do not want and cannot bestow? Right. The Creator deliberately made it so that I could not. Ask Him for the power of bestowal. Why didn’t you ask? Don’t let go of Him until you get it.

And when you receive the force of bestowal and see how the whole world needs your help and can receive it only through you, you will be happy about your every action. Everything is going well, we just lack the understanding that we need to demand from the Creator the force of bestowal, to whine and beg from Him like a little child.⁵
From the World Kabbalah Convention 2020, “Connecting To The Root of Life,” “Day One” 2/25/20, “We Have Gathered Here,” Lesson 1
¹ Minute 33:27
² Minute 44:47
³ Minute 58:23
⁴ Minute 1:00:41
⁵ Minute 1:06:30

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Question: Why did the widespread revelation of Kabbalah only begin in 1995?

Answer: Kabbalah was revealed gradually because this is exactly how the ego develops in humanity. It started out as very small and then Kabbalah began to emerge and develop with the arrival of the great Kabbalist the Ari. This is one point.

Secondly, Kabbalah is not a new science. The first Kabbalah book was written 5,780 years ago. There are more books from about 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. There is a huge body of Kabbalistic work, including contemporary books.

Question: Why has Kabbalah been on hold and not revealed until precisely our time?

Answer: Kabbalah has not been on hold. It is being revealed to humanity only to the extent of humanity’s ability to implement it correctly. Look what happens with the knowledge that is revealed to humanity before it is ready to realize it correctly: we invent atomic bombs and other harmful things.

Whereas Kabbalah is being revealed only to the degree to which humanity can use it without harming others. But the most important difference between Kabbalah and all religious beliefs, views, or anything else, is that it aspires for universal love that we don’t see anywhere else.

We see that religions hate one another, and nations are in a state of mutual hatred, because all other methods and theories are based on egoism. Kabbalah stands apart from them. It encourages love and sees universal love as the result of the corrections made by it. That needs to be studied. We can, of course, dismiss it. However, it is the method of Kabbalah that explains how to rise above egoism, letting us reach love.

Question: What does it mean as Baal HaSulam writes: “Until the world becomes one family”?

Answer: Yes, to a point where all humanity would once again feel as a single nation. Eventually, Kabbalah will bring us to it. The events that have happened in our world in the past 100 to 200 years, and those in our nearest future will show that with absolute certainty. This is the time of the revelation of Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/2/20

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Question: What is the connection between the Creator, thoughts, and desires?

Answer: The Creator is the highest force from which everything descends.

There are two directions coming from this source: thoughts and desires. We feel desires in the heart and thoughts in the mind. The Creator manages them both.

In accordance with the correct work in the mind and heart, we must respond correctly to the Creator. Everything is very simple; we need to collect and clearly direct both desires and thoughts to the Creator. Then we will reach His revelation both, in the mind and in the heart.
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From Kab TV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/26/20

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”

Lesson on the Topic “Building The Future Society”

Selected Highlights

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Medium published my new article “The Coronavirus Era — Time to Calm Down and Rethink Our Lives”

Before the coronavirus became a worldwide phenomenon, we were in a very dangerous global state.

I had felt alarm bells going off as global tension and anxiety were reaching an all-time high. Whether it was fiercely growing world debt, tense international relations, as well as enormous amounts of pollution, among many other problems on personal, social, global and ecological scales, I felt like we were headed rampantly toward another world war.

In one way or another, all of our incorrect competitive-egoistic relations that we had established around the planet needed to calm down.

Then, all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, came the coronavirus. It surfaced precisely at a very threatening time when all the global tensions were about to snap.

Therefore, I am happy that things turned out the way they have for the time being, and that they didn’t turn out much worse.

In addition, above all the theories scattering around on the causes of the coronavirus, the supreme force of nature guides everyone and everything in a very precise and caring manner. In other words, nature organized our exit in a very exact way from the terrible state we were facing.

We, humanity, pushed ourselves to a dead end. Then, with relative smoothness, without any choice on our behalf, nature organized a new state and a way out of our entanglement.

And so it is today that many of us sit at home with nothing to do. The artificial and unessential things we were keeping ourselves busy with will quickly fade away due to us increasingly feeling no need to use them anymore.

As for our lives, and those of our children and grandchildren, it would be wise to create new departments and teams, both at government and societal levels, which will be concerned with bringing an atmosphere of mutual support to society. By doing so, we will all survive through this unique new stage of our development until we will get used to a new way of life.

I hope that after this crisis, all the superpower countries that were flexing their muscles and spreading their tentacles around the world — one financially, another militarily, and another industrially, and so on and so forth — countries like China, the European Union, the United States, Russia, Iran and others, will regain their composure and normalize themselves. Also, I hope to see people calm down from all the travel frenzy around the world.

I am certain that we will see such phenomena as we transition out of this coronavirus era.
I’m envisioning a new world, one where we will free up more and more room in our minds and hearts to consider why we’re alive, what is the meaning of life, and to put an end to all the hustle and bustle.
Until the coronavirus hit us, we were like little children running around from one corner of the room to the other.

From now on, it is all going to change.

We became more mature, and nature, like a disciplining parent, is pointing its finger at us and telling us “That’s enough! Sit down and think about what you’re doing!”

We have entered a new historical era where we need to stop and contemplate on how and why we’re living our lives, that we need to cool off, and after becoming more patient, head forward with more introspection, experience and knowledge about how to live our lives in a more balanced way among each other and with nature.
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