Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the positive impacts of the COVID-19 crisis?”

Aside from the ecological benefits that the stay-at-home orders spanning the world’s continents have brought about, such as significant drops in pollution and carbon dioxide emissions, another major positive impact is that the COVID-19 crisis put spokes in the wheels of our over-inflating egoistic, exploitative and manipulative interactions, heated social division and tense international relations, which were leading to a world war.

Also, while ordered to stay at home, we are now given time to calm down from our usual rat race, reconsider what is most important in life, and learn a deeper perspective of how nature works in order to exit this crisis into a better state.

Essentially, if we use this period we are now in to upgrade our awareness of ourselves as parts of a single interconnected and interdependent system of nature, it would result in an immense positive impact, both for ourselves and for nature in general.

The COVID-19 crisis is a prime example of how nature’s interconnectedness and interdependence is becoming increasingly revealed among us humans, as it forces us all into a common global problem.

We would thus be wise to learn from nature, to adapt our human thoughts, attitudes and relationships to the integral way in which nature operates.

If we fail to use this period in order to upgrade the quality of our connections, then we can expect nature to respond with further blows, whether an intensification of the current pandemic, or other natural disasters.

The principle is that according to nature’s interconnected and interdependent form, we, as the human level within nature, have to assume the same form in our attitudes and relationships to each other, in order to experience a harmonious and peaceful existence.

We have the free choice to make this leap, since our egoistic human nature that involuntarily prioritizes personal benefit over benefiting others sets us up in opposition to nature’s consideration of the whole.

Our selfish makeup is what led us to create a society functioning by each one trying to profit off of everyone else. However, as we see with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and other crises in our world, such egoistic development has reached a limit.

Nature is now trying to wake us up to our need to make a further step in our development: to exercise positive, supportive, encouraging and considerate relationships in a place where we by default relate negatively to each other.

Yet, as much as nature leads the horse to water by giving us this global shock, it still cannot make the horse drink. We will still have to make that leap from negative-egoistic relations to positive and mutually considerate ones by applying our own free choice.

This becomes possible if we study how nature functions as a complete integral system, and how each of us together need to act similarly in order to reach and maintain balance in the system.

Essentially, we need to reach a state where we care about others to the same extent as we care about ourselves.

If we thus use the time when we are bound to our homes in order to upgrade our awareness of nature’s unifying principle, and implement it in our relationships, we will then see far-reaching positive impacts of the COVID-19 crisis—a shift into a completely new and harmonious state among humanity the likes of which we have never experienced before.

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Now the whole world is trying to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus. But there is a spiritual vaccine against this epidemic, and there is no doubt that it will be the only genuine protection against the disease.

I fear that after this coronavirus, many more of its mutations will appear and we will be unable to get out of this vicious circle. Blows will follow with great frequency, one after another: if not this virus, then something else. We are already in such a period and cannot escape from it.

Yet, the solution is simple: to implement the method of connection that the science of Kabbalah offers to us, which explains how to properly and kindly connect with each other. As we replace our destructive, egoistic relationships with friendly ones, the coronavirus will disappear.

We see that this virus works very selectively: it separates us, destroys all industrial and business relations, banking systems, and companies.

It seems to explain to us in its own language that the whole world we have built is wrong, egoistic, and based on exploiting each other. It contradicts the integral form of nature and mutuality, which nature requires also from the human stage.

At all other levels of nature, the inanimate, vegetative, and animate, there is complete symbiosis. And there is a constant war only at the human level. Nature requires that by using our human mind and feelings, our understanding, we build the right connection. And the virus helps us with this.
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From KabTV’s:” Conversation with David Blumenfeld,” 3/25/20

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The coronavirus operates without recognizing boundaries and social differences. It does not distinguish nationality or skin color: black, white, yellow, red. The human system in relation to nature is like different children in relation to one mother. The mother loves everyone.

We do not see this with our egoistic eyes, and we must correct our view. The correction lies in completely changing the nature of connection between people into integral mutual help. If this does not happen, a series of continuous blows of nature awaits us, which nevertheless will force us to draw the right conclusions.
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From the conversation with David Blumenfeld, 3/25/20

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We should always remember—everything that happens to us is sent by the Creator and works for our own good. But in recent events with coronavirus, the action of the Creator’s hand is especially pronounced. Connection with the Creator is possible only on the condition that the creations ask Him for something or thank Him for what He did to them, one of two things: either request or gratitude. Otherwise, there will be no connection of creation with a higher power. We receive only the minimum illumination, which gives us the opportunity to exist in a state of waiting. But such a state is not desirable either to the creatures or to the Creator.

Therefore, we must understand that by awakening us with the help of the coronavirus, the Creator helps us organize and turn to Him. Now all of humanity is turning to the Creator consciously or unconsciously.

This is how connection between the creation’s desire to receive and the Creator’s desire to bestow strengthens. We are required to maximize this connection, expand it, deepen it, and most importantly, do it together, turning it into a common prayer. Such a prayer breaks all barriers and opens the correct and true connection with the Creator.

We reveal the connection that already existed before, but was not felt, like a baby, who rests in its mother’s arms and is not aware of it. This is an unconscious natural connection. But when the child grows up, he begins to strengthen this connection, realizing that it can be interrupted. This is how a child grows.

All our development and ascent along the spiritual steps, rapprochement with each other, lies in the fact that we are increasingly organizing ourselves for prayer, appeal, and gratitude to the Creator. This is how we strengthen our connection, which becomes the most important thing to us.

My whole life is determined only by the degree of my connection with the Creator, more or less, how strongly I hold on to Him. I keep spinning around this one parameter as the most precious in my life.

It has been said by Kabbalists of all generations that everything is achieved only by the power of prayer and it would be good if a person prayed all day. After all, they revealed how important it is that we turn to the Creator consciously, with understanding from our connection. All our actions must be weighed with respect to the extent, to which this helps us turn to the Creator. This is the only consequence of our work.

There are only two forces: the Creator and creations. Creations should reach out to the Creator all the time and with all their strength, turn to Him, ask, and give thanks. Now the Creator is awakening the coronavirus, sending the rulers of the world thoughts and a desire to lock us up, stop us, make us sit quietly at home, so that we could concentrate more and more on our appeal to the Creator.

This appeal is the most central point of creation, which we need to expand more and more, until all reality, all worlds, fit into this point of pleading as one person to one Creator. Only then we can say that we have reached connection and adhesion between us. The main thing the Creator expects is our united appeal. If a billion people cry out to the Creator individually, or if this billion unites with each other and appeals to the Creator, then the difference between these two appeals is like this world and the future world of final correction. The main thing is the common prayer.

Therefore, we are given an occasion from above to unite around one problem in order to turn to the Creator with it. This already allows us to connect with each other and with the Creator thanks to awakening from above. Although this connection did not arise at the expense of the creations themselves, it is also taken into account and included in the general correction.
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From the 1^st and 2^nd parts of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/29/20, Writings of Rabash

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Why is the coronavirus spreading without any limits, crossing all the borders but sparing children? Most seriously ill people are the elderly, while children carry the virus, but don’t get sick themselves. This is rightfully so because the children are not to blame, they are not the ones who built this life. Why would the virus strike them? It is the generation of the older people who built this terrible life, and the virus makes them feel what they did. This is why it first of all strikes the elderly.
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From a Conversation with David Blumenfeld, 3/25/20

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Question: Today, we see various blows of nature all over the Earth. In Africa, a locust infestation is destroying hundreds of thousands acres of crops and threatening a food disaster.

In Europe, a hurricane rising from the South to Scandinavia is causing very heavy damage. The coronavirus, which started in China, is spreading.

All this resembles the ten Egyptian plagues that the Lord once sent to Egypt. Have we become one big Egypt?

Answer: Yes. Today humanity has become one single whole. You can see what happens with any disaster, even a small one. It affects all countries: communication is interrupted, all kinds of supply chains are cut off. Today, we cannot live without each other. That is why it happens in such a way. Nature beautifully teaches us that we are mutually connected and that we can neither break this connection nor arrange it in the right way.

Question: Do we need to know the place of each character in order to correctly resolve the unfolding performance?

Answer: We need to enter integral nature as its necessary, important, and connecting part.

Question: How can we find this place?

Answer: It all depends on us. We must educate ourselves in this way and understand that by not being integral, we violate the integrity of nature and introduce negative perturbations into it.

Question: If we take the story from the Torah, Moses first came to Pharaoh and his sorcerers and began to speak on behalf of the Creator; he was a messenger.

On one hand, we see the gradual concessions of Pharaoh, but each time he took a step back, each time he strengthened himself and said: “Go, pray to your God, but I will still not let you go; you will not leave. Stay here.”

Will this game of humanity with nature follow the same path: “Yes-yes-yes, we agree, but no, nevertheless, we will do everything the way we did before”?

Answer: In general, of course, we, as stubborn humanity, as that stubborn Pharaoh, will hold on to our own. We, as a stubborn, as they say, stiff-necked, Jewish people will also hold on to our own.

The only one who works here against Pharaoh and against the Jews is the Creator, the upper force of nature, which unites and wants to bring everyone to a positive and correct connection. This is where the conflict arises.

In principle, the Jewish people are not far from Pharaoh; they want to obey Pharaoh. It is the Creator who is plotting here, not Pharaoh or the Jews. The Jews are ready to live there normally, they still shout at Moses: “What do you want from us? Look how good it is here! We have never lived like this before. The Pharaoh protects us, guards us, gives us an opportunity to live in the most fertile place in Egypt, in the land of Goshen. Where should we go?!”

I remember coming to Lithuania in the 70s to go to Israel from there. Many people were able to leave from there but not from other parts of Russia. I was told: “Where are you going? Why do you need this? Look how good you can live here!”

Question: How can a person differentiate in himself the part that wants to follow the laws of nature, to follow the Creator who demonstrates these miracles or plots?

Answer: There are some rather strange people, like me, who got up and started leaving. I was also in denial. This is the so-called “point in the heart,” which pulls a person to be separated from all those who resist and oppose. It longs to be free.

Question: How long will humanity have to face these global catastrophes?

Answer: We still have the third and fourth world wars ahead of us. So, there is still time.

Question: Where does this internal resource to not give up come from?

Answer: It comes from our egoism. After all, it is a force of nature, a great force of nature. It is all nature that we now observe and see. Everything we see around us, all the galaxies, all the stars, all the vast infinite distances, all of it is, in fact, in us, inside of us. It is all our great force.

Do you understand what it means that we actually include all the energy of the stars, all this alleged cosmic vacuum together with all the supernovas? Do you have any idea what this force is? And this is all within us, inside of us, inside people. We only see it as supposedly outside, yet it is our reflection. And this is only a small part that is in us.

Moreover, there are also entire worlds. The spiritual worlds are also in us, within us. You have no idea what a person is. When we gather it all together, we will find that we are the Creator.

Question: What do we need to gather together?

Answer: All of our energy, all of our qualities, we need to gather all of it together in order to make us integrally connected. Then we will have one system called “Adam.”

Question: What should people in Africa who are suffering from locust infestations, in Europe where hurricanes and fires occur, and in China currently fighting the coronavirus do?

Answer: Think about how to balance nature. Even with such small, toy-like examples. All these floods are not cosmic in scale. Therefore, we need to understand that we can do this, as they say: “with few losses.”

Human beings are not small creatures. They are enormous. They are dinosaurs that grab, devour, and swallow the stars, the entire universe, everything—nature’s most evil force.

Question: What will motivate a person? Is it fear or a desire for something bigger, better than now?

Answer: Suffering will motivate a person. We see this at all previous stages of our development, only suffering drives a person forward.

There are two types of suffering: either suffering felt in the animalistic body or suffering we feel in our mind. That is, when we imagine where we are going and how we should still get on our feet, turn in the right direction, and go.

A person must understand that the only thing affecting him is the upper force of nature, which requires him to interact correctly with all others so that he balances all the forces of nature through the actions between himself and his own kind.

Question: If we go back to the picture described in the Torah: there were Jews, there were the people of Israel, there was Pharaoh, there was the Creator, and there were also residents of Egypt. What should people associate themselves with in this game?

Answer: What does Pharaoh do? What does it all lead to? Pharaoh is a great seemingly negative force of nature. He pushes the Jews to agree to come together and exit Egypt.

Egypt is egoism. All of humanity is inside its egoism. To exit it, to rise above it, means to exit Egypt. With the help of all the Egyptian plagues, we are forced to break out of egoism.

The most important thing is for us to want it. Humanity should realize that it must rise above egoism. It means to exit Egypt.

Question: What prevents a person or, on the contrary, engages him so that he would say: “Yes, I want a new relationship, a new world”?

Answer: There are two forces: the stick and the brain. Where the stick hits, the brain must turn to it and ask: “Why am I being hit?” We can then avoid the next blow every time. If we use our brain and start seeing our cause-and-effect development and where it leads, we can avoid further suffering.

Yet, our head does not work in order to analyze and avoid further suffering but in order to get out of it. It works to try to get out from under the stick and, as it were, to continue existing as we wish for a little longer.

The Jews thus ruin themselves. They use their exclusivity given to them by nature in order to exit egoism and pull others after them in order to remain in egoism. They want to remain in Egypt a little longer. After all, it is not so bad there.

Question: The force of nature purposefully triggers both egoism and the second force that connects everyone. It does it all. What should a person do?

Answer: A person should choose the correct path and ask nature (the Creator) for support on this path. The correct path is only in connecting with each other through good relations. Israel and humanity will then connect and create such a system of relations between them that the Creator will be revealed in it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 2/11/20

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Question: The inability to move toward connection—is this recognition of evil?

Answer: The inability to connect, to understand what love is, is the recognition of evil. What love is, we only learn from its opposite. Therefore, the Creator created egoism as absolutely opposite to His property so that we, realizing our natural egoism, gradually move to the opposite of it.

Question: Recognition of evil is understandable. But why do you always use such a negative word as “hatred”?

Answer: What else can you oppose to love? Love and hatred are two properties that are opposite to each other.

Question: Hatred of one’s own evil or one’s neighbor?

Answer: Hatred of my own evil, of the fact that I cannot imagine any connection with others, a dissolution in which my “I” disappears. This is impossible for me.

But this is what was created by the Creator. And therefore, it turns out that the search for connection leads to rejection, and rejection leads to a feeling of true love.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/29/19

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Question: If a person during the descent starts to imagine that he is in an ascent, does this help him?

Answer: Yes. If he himself begins to imagine the ascent, then it pulls him out of the descent.

We always have a sawtooth curve of ups and downs, when we go up, then we go down a little lower, go up even higher, go down even lower, etc. The amplitude becomes higher, and so we move toward the goal.

Such an amplitude, i.e., the difference between plus and minus, is an indicator of our spiritual level. Therefore, moving forward you should know that you will have big descents and then big ascents.

Only the right environment, the group, can compensate you for this. The group serves as a damper, an absorber of your descents. After all, in an ascent you work as a capacitor, transfer your power to the group, and in the descent you take the group’s power together with your descent and make the ascent.

This is how the oscillatory circuit between the coil and capacitor works. Thus, this is how the transfer of energy occurs.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/27/19

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Growing Farther – A Call For Nearing”

Writings of Rabash, “Concerning Above Reason”  (1986)

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation” 

Selected Highlights

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/5/20

First, Coronavirus taught us how beautiful nature can be when we are forced out of it, as images from around the world showed animals strolling in places that were once filled with only one species – humans. Next, Nature Magazine writes that “Researchers who study Earth’s movement are reporting a drop in seismic noise — the hum of vibrations in the planet’s crust.” Against our will, but almost instantly, we have become kind to nature, and nature is rejuvenating.

Now it’s time to take our (compulsory) kindness to the next level, to our fellow men and women, and put on masks. We must wear them not because we don’t want to catch the bug; that’s a given. We must wear them because we don’t want to pass the bug to others! If we all think of ourselves as infected, we will all put on masks and the plague will stop in no time. It’s as simple as that.

Indeed, we are infected, with ill-will. This is what’s causing our ill-health. Let’s let COVID-19 teach us how to fix our ill-health together as a first step toward correcting our ill-will toward each other.

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