Audio Version Of The Blog – 4/19/20
Posted on April 19th, 2020
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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/19/20
We have not defeated the coronavirus. We know too little about how it works, how it’s transmitted, and what steps we can take to ease the lockdown without reigniting the outburst. At the same time, we clearly need to restock on necessities such as food and other staples, so we cannot maintain a complete lockdown for much longer. It is a tough dilemma: Governments are trying to choose the least of all evils, but no option is good. As the lockdown eases, we the citizens should take extra caution since we are the ones who will pay the price.
The problem with the novel coronavirus is that its impact reaches far beyond the medical crisis it has created. It even reaches far beyond the economic meltdown it has imposed on an unsuspecting world.
The impact of the coronavirus is first and foremost social: It is untying the very fabric of society. The compulsory social distancing creates an emotional distance; loneliness and depression increase, and so do domestic tensions, leading to violence. COVID-19 has sickened our bodies, but also exposed our emotional remoteness from each other.
Social distancing is nothing new to our post-modern society. We have long lamented the alienation wrought on us by our immersion in social media through our phones, neglecting the social communication with our friends and family in the real, physical world. Yet, as long as we could be physically nearby, we could tell ourselves that we are not really far away. Now that we are physically separated, we look for the closeness in our hearts, only to discover that there is nothing there. This is the most painful part about the virus: the revelation that we are all alone, that our hearts are empty, and that the hearts of those we thought had loved us are just as blank.
Appreciating the Truth
The truth hurts, it always does. But so does every cure. It is impossible to repair what we don’t know is broken. Now we know that our connections are shattered, the frail cords that still resisted the isolation caused by social media have snapped and the gut wrenching sound of their rupture forces us to recognize that we are all alone. From here, when we are at the very bottom, we can begin to rise. From here we can begin to build a new and solid society. The truth hurts, but it is essential if we want to live in a healthy body, healthy mind, and healthy society.
If we want to make the most of the ordeal we have been dealt, we must not lose a minute. We must learn about the new world that has emerged. In the new world, wealth is meaningless when you cannot show it off. Career is useless if so many people are at home—unemployed or out of the job market altogether. Power positions are also meaningless when so many people work from home or do not work at all.
What we do have left is one another. We have our family and we have our friends. They live with us in our homes, or are only a call away. The virus ripped us clean of everything, except the things that really matter. But only now that we have been stripped of the distractions can we really see them.
The virus isn’t here to eliminate the human race. It is here to show us what we have been missing for decades, what we have been oblivious to for so long that we forgot that they are here: our loved ones.
The virus is giving us just enough closeness to rebuild our connections, and do it properly, based on mutual care and mutual responsibility. At the same time, it is keeping us at just the right distance to prevent us from falling once more into the pit of exploitation and power struggles.
The novel coronavirus is an unyielding teacher, but we have been insubordinate students. The more we cooperate with it, the gentler it will be with us. My teacher’s father, Baal HaSulam, wrote that nature is like a skillful teacher, “punishing us according to our development.” Let’s be wise enough to understand nature’s clues, establish our societies on supportive, positive connections, and not force nature to administer us with harsher retributions.
From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/18/20
The coronavirus is the beginning of a change for the better. The clearing of the air and water, the new notions popping up in leaders’ minds about worldwide truce and universal basic income indicate that the winds of change are blowing in the world and many are responding.
We may not feel it yet but the time of wars and weapons has passed. It will not be gone at once, but gradually, yet we are already on the threshold of a new era where weapons will rust and disintegrate.
To our children, it will be a given that the world is integral, round, and what goes around comes around. They will know that you cannot act, or even think badly of another person without paying a price for it.
The world that COVID-19 is preparing us for is one where people have what they need, they are at peace with themselves and with each other, and nature treats them kindly. It is a world of mutual responsibility and care. All we need to do is accelerate its emergence, for the sooner it comes, the sooner the virus will go.
Question: Why is there so little of the Creator in BYA (Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya)? Why are there are more descents than ascents the further we are?
Answer: In the worlds of BYA there is no Creator because the Creator is Ohr Hochma, which manifests itself in Ohr Hassadim, and Ohr Hochma does not penetrate under the Parsa.
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Question: Could imposing a fine on the ego help in correcting people if such a fine were introduced in one or several countries?
Answer: The restriction on using the ego is possible only by voluntary awareness of the person; otherwise, it will not be a correction but a modification of the ego.
Question: How can I strive to bring contentment to the Creator if I do not imagine Him as existing outside my sensations?
Answer: You try, and gradually the picture will become clear in your sensations.
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My article in Newsmax: “Coronavirus and Emergency Economy”
At the moment, governments are trying to inject businesses and businesspeople with financial oxygen until the pandemic passes. But it won’t pass so quickly. In my estimate, we’re looking at 12-18 months before it fades away. But more importantly, when it’s over, people will have changed dramatically; they will not want to revert to the old way of life.
Graffiti in Hong Kong reads: “We can’t return to normal because our normal was the problem in the first place.” How very true. Some business will return, but a great many will not because they were redundant to begin with so resuscitating them is nothing but a waste of taxpayers’ money. Instead of wasting, governments should declare an “emergency economy” and freeze everything until the dust settles. After several months it will be easier to see what to keep and to what we should bid farewell.
So the first thing that governments need to do is make sure that everyone has food and shelter. Every family should get the same per capita, and this will alleviate the need for cash. Guaranteeing food and shelter for each person is much less costly than transferring money to people’s accounts, and guarantees that they will not waste it on unessential needs.
In the meantime, the business and finance sectors should be put on hold: All transactions, lending and paying of loans, everything and everyone should simply take a break.
The more obstinate we are recognizing the onset of the new phase in humanity, the more painfully that phase will impose itself on us. If you think of social changes like a train ride, then the train has left the dock on its way to a new station, and it will not stop until we’re there.
Alleviating the Transition
My intention in writing this article is not to intimidate anyone. On the contrary, I want the necessary transition we all have to undergo to be as smooth, quick and pleasant as possible. Humanity has suffered enough; there’s no need to add unnecessary agony.
To help us alleviate the shift, we should supplement the provision of food and shelter with information about the process unfolding the world over. Many people already feel that nature is rejuvenating quickly since we’ve been told to stay at home. They realize that we have done too much harm and that we cannot go on this way.
Now we should extend this realization to the relationships between us. Our ill-will toward each other has cost us far more pain and ill-health than the coronavirus. Worse yet, it has made us uncaring for each other no less than we are uncaring for nature. When we rear people in a dog-eat-dog mentality, is it a wonder that this is how they also treat nature?
Therefore, the healing must begin with us. Once we learn how dependent we are on each other, we will stop treating one another like enemies. We will realize that by seeing to each other’s well being we will be seeing to our own well being, and nothing teaches us this lesson better than COVID-19.
Our compulsory slowdown is not aimless; it is for us to reflect on our lives and their meaning. Now that consumerism has been stopped by force majeure, we have time to ask why we needed it in the first place, what we gained by it, and who gained from it. Certainly not us.
We are living in the twilight of one era and the dawn of another. It has not risen yet, but if we teach ourselves about it work shoulder-to-shoulder to embrace it, it will rise and shine on a new humanity: ready to welcome the new epoch with open arms that are joined together.
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Medium published my new article “Social Distancing: a Call For a Deeper Level of Connection”
We are in the midst of a very unique time. Humans are social animals, but in the COVID-19 era, the difference between being healthy or sick could be determined by our physical proximity to others. Thus, social distancing is encouraged by the experts to avoid a ripple effect of the virus. But staying away from each other at the corporeal level could also help us to reshape and improve our relations.
How? We can achieve such a goal by nearing our hearts, the ultimate purpose for which the pandemic unfolds.
From non-mandatory stay at home recommendations to imposed quarantines, an unprecedented lockdown is observed across the globe. With a naked eye it would seem as if life is throwing us in all directions mercilessly, imposing new rules on us, leaving us with very little time to grasp the rapid changes and get used to the new reality. So, humanity awaits its defeat impatiently, expecting to overcome the small invisible yet stronger than any flesh and blood enemy that disrupts normal life.
But there is another hidden adversary we have to defeat, which is dangerously moving freely among us. COVID-19 is just a byproduct, a reflection of what happens inside our society. It is not the disease per se. It came to ring a bell and warn us about an even more dangerous pest: the ego that has taken over the world and alienates us. By the ego, we mean the intention for self-benefit at the expense of others’ misfortune.
Getting Separate, Growing Closer
Humanity is in a battle against the coronavirus, but the most important struggle takes place within humanity itself. We are running after the virus and extract revenge over what it says, shooting the messenger. Let the doctors heal, let the scientists research, let the experts fulfil their role and find a vaccination. Even then, neither a vaccine nor social distancing and total lockdowns will defeat the plague, but our new attitude.
We need only accept what the virus is communicating to us. If it is understood, we can all turn and be victorious over ourselves, namely over the hooliganism that we have developed among us: clashes, hatred, friction and intrigue. Any attempt on our behalf to improve our attitudes to each other, to develop relations of mutual consideration and responsibility, will be considered a wonderful triumph.
Building an Internal Bridge Between Us
In this period, we would be wise to take a look at the big picture and not at the small virus. We are integral parts of nature. Therefore, the nearer we become to each other, as we balance negative forces with positive ones, as we bridge the gaps among us, overcoming distances that separate us, we will defeat the separation with the power of connection.
We will then feel that the world is less of a combat arena, and that it has become softer and friendlier. It will not happen in one shot. We will heal slowly. It is like a patient who recovers one day after the next, until becoming strong enough to finally be healthy again.
Connection is our remedy, social cohesion is our healer. If instead of selfish struggles and control over others, we get along among each other and develop relations of mutual responsibility and cooperation, we will certainly be able not only to get over the coronavirus outbreak, but we will also break the walls that separate us.
We will then realize that the only distance is the one between our hearts.
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Question: The Passover holiday symbolizes the exodus from Egypt. Egypt is the personification of our egoism, the consumer perception of the world. Can we say that we are standing on the threshold of the ten plagues of Egypt? Suppose the first of these is coronavirus. Are there any other blows awaiting us?
Answer: I would really like for this to be true. 🙂
Question: Why are you always so happy about the blows?
Answer: Because I look at them as a remedy, not as plagues.
Question: Can you teach us to look at them like that too?
Answer: Start studying Kabbalah and you will see that all blows of fate are aimed only at curing us of egoism. And then we will be able to unite, ascend, begin to see other worlds, the higher ones, while living in this world, and to feel ourselves existing eternally in the vast expanses of the upper world.
Man is destined, as they say, for the Garden of Eden. You need to understand what it is to see this world while living in our world.
I hope that all of these viruses are the last ones. And although there will be more and more of them, they are more and more clearly aimed at changing a person.
Question: Do You think that further blows await us?
Answer: It all depends on us. If we do not learn from the first virus, there will be a second, a third, like the ten plagues of Egypt when leaving Egypt.
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From KabTV’s “Coronavirus Changes Reality” 3/19/20
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Where does the force that affects the entire world, all of us together, lead us? Previously, the upper force has always acted selectively by affecting each nation, each group, each person differently.
But now we see that it works with everybody in a uniform manner without letting any one escape, and it leads us with a firm hand toward a new form of relationship, to a special connection between us.
I really hope that the coronavirus will compel us to annul our egoism and that the entire world will be able to rise above it. The world does not realize and understand the need for such changes, the transformation from the egoistic to the altruistic system yet.
The upper force, the Creator, with the help of the coronavirus, corrects the world. The virus does not have a mind, feelings, or freedom to act. But the upper force, in a single move, starts overturning the entire reality, all of humanity, relating to everyone as to one system, one body. This is a great action. We live in great times.
If we fully reveal this process and see where it leads us from our state to the final goal, we will see that it is intended to unite us and turn us into a single system, one humanity, one man with one heart, allowing us to reveal the Creator, the upper world between us.
If our relationships with each other are egoistic, it is called life in this world. And when they move to the system built on love, unity, mutual bestowal, then it will be called the spiritual, upper system, the next world.
No one will any longer feel separated from the others and the life between birth and death. It is because we will all be connected endlessly and without any limit, we will instantly feel the eternal spiritual life in this connection.
This state begins to manifest gradually. We are approaching such a reality. We just need to increase our sensitivity to the state that already exists. It depends only on us how much we want to reveal it by the power of our unity.
Even in the egoistic world, there are people who understand it better than others. And now we need to do our best to understand the new state that will come, which is why it is called the next world. Nature treats us as a single human being, including everyone inside itself, and this is how we need to relate to it as well.
Finally, we have come to such changes in human society that show us that we belong to the last generation, the generation of Mashiach (Messiah). Messiah is the force that pulls us from our egoism toward unity, from separation from the Creator to the Creator, from separation from the eternal life to the eternal life.
This is not a fantasy but a reality that will soon become fully revealed. The program is set in advance and it is in effect, but the speed of its realization depends on us.
If our group aspires forward, going ahead of everybody, then we will be able to accelerate the development and will lead the entire humanity to the revelation of the new world. Every single day, humanity is becoming increasingly ready to receive this message.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah lesson 4/3/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati 1, “There Is None Else Besides Him”
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Nature is showing us through the coronavirus that if we move away from others with our egoism, then we have no right to be close to them physically. If we want to be connected, we must first establish an internal connection, and relate to each other correctly and kindly.
To the extent that one wishes everyone well, he can come close to them. And if he has no desire to love and help another, then he can not come close to him. Let the person see how his selfishness alienates him.
Everything is so simple: the properties of the upper world are already emerging in our world, and we must use this to educate ourselves, to know when to approach or to move away. Imagine how good it would be if we kept the right distance, approaching or moving away from people according to our inner attitude.
You and I can be in two different galaxies separated by many light-years, and at the same time, we will have a feeling that we are connected and will certainly come closer in the future because the Creator between us is awakening us to this. Then we would search, each from our own galaxy, how to get closer to each other despite the distances, how to express our love and to nullify ourselves.
Thus, we would gradually come closer and unite in one Partzuf in which the Creator is revealed in all His might, that is, in eternal and perfect love between us. We would merge with our hearts and desires and discover that the Creator is fulfilling us. This is the end of the correction.
But first, we need to discover how different we are. And this is exactly what the coronavirus is doing. There will be other ways that will make us feel the distance between each other, and we will finally realize that the virus is connected to our desire, to our internal property, and that I cannot get closer to another individual because this is how it works.
I do not want closeness with another person, that is why I cannot physically approach him! It turns out that our world begins to take the form of the spiritual world.
Imagine that we are all suspended in a vacuum, and to the extent that we want to become kinder and closer to each other, we get closer. And if we treat each other badly, then we move away. That is, everything is determined not by the physical distances in this world, but by our internal, spiritual properties. This is exactly what is happening in the world, and now we can reflect upon how to change ourselves.
This has always been hidden and confusing for us, and now everything is revealed. I want to be closer to others because in this way I can reveal the Creator and the higher world, which manifests itself only in the connection between us. But to get closer, it is not enough to take a few steps without changing yourself from within.
First, I need to change myself, change my attitude toward others from hatred to love, and only then can I get closer to them. We draw closer or move away according to our intentions, our attitude. Everything becomes clear and understandable, and all spiritual work is done openly.
Therefore, I ask my friends: pull me toward you, let’s turn to the Creator together so that He would help us! And so we work, but as if suspended in the air so far. We communicate with each other and with the Creator, ask for help, begin to move toward each other as if floating in zero gravity, until we unite and reveal the property called the Creator between us.
This is all already in our hands. We now have the opportunity to work in the corporeal world but with spiritual properties. Imagine what the coronavirus has done!
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/20,
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