From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 5/3/20

The global decline in new COVID-19 confirmed cases shouldn’t mislead us. The coronavirus isn’t gone; it’s just preparing its next move. There is nothing medical that we can do to stop it from sending another wave, more vicious than the first. If we want to get rid of the germ, we have to tackle it at the level that created it: the level of human society.

Humanity has been operating on a paradigm that idolized unabashed selfishness. We admired people who were obnoxious to others and to nature, and turned those bullies into role models. It’s no wonder we couldn’t stop depleting and polluting our planet, since deep down we all wanted to be among those who were doing the most harm. They had all the money, power, prestige, and what they gave in return was lip service that we must curb emissions and guard free speech and democracy.

Nature exposed our hypocrisy and with a single whiff, shut down the world. Now it’s our choice to change how we treat one another and nature, build a new paradigm—of giving and mutual concern—and save ourselves, our planet, and our future. Nature is letting us choose, and the choice is very clear: heaven of friendship or hell of egoism.

[May 2, 2020, Concord, New Hampshire, USA: Children play at Reopen NH rally in Concord. Hundreds of protesters gather outside of the State House to protest New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu to end his stay-at-home emergency order at Reopen NH rally in Concord]

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Kabbalists who have attained the upper world say that it exists right here. We need not fly anywhere. The upper world is “here with us.” Only we don’t sense it, as we perceive reality according to one narrow parameter: does it make me feel good or bad?
Come out of yourself and you will sense the upper world.

I don’t want to feel what is or is not pleasant to me. I try to tear away from this dependency, to rise above it, to appraise reality relative to what’s good or bad for others. Thus I will begin to see what’s outside of me. In faith above reason.

The work should be in joy, as if I’ve merited the end of correction. So the light of correction is drawn. I rejoice, as if in revelation… I accept a black state as spiritual that shines with its blackness. The Creator offers connection in the darkness, above the ego. So I accept it with joy.

I can fall into a state of numbness, but falling into the ten, I can accept it as coming from the Creator, turn Malchut’s dark state into a radiant Keter. The world is beautiful!

The maw of the coronavirus opened. Sensing our lowliness, we’ve holed up in our homes. But we’ve also discovered how interconnected we are, and that we can help one another. That is why we must separate to a symbolic distance within which the evil ego operates so as to not infect each other with the ego.
#Covid_19
From Twitter, 5/3/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is the U.S. making a mistake by reopening the economy so soon?“
If anyone thinks that reopening the economy will start bringing back the same world we lived in before the coronavirus, then think again.

Letting many more businesses run will not mean that people will immediately go back to spending on all kinds of nonessential items again.

We will soon realize that society’s awareness of what is essential and nonessential in life has slightly risen, and thus many businesses dealing in nonessential goods and services will find themselves continuing to suffer even after being allowed to reopen.

We can expect a struggle, as the government will continue encouraging consumerism in order to oil the economy more and more against a generally growing distaste for it among society.

What I propose is that instead of fighting this losing battle of reigniting the consumerism we used to live in, governments will instead provide everyone involved in unsustainable businesses a new kind of work, one where they learn about human society’s growing interdependence, and how to realize this interdependence that drops down on us in a positive manner.

By doing so, they will receive an income that would cover their needs, and gradually grow into educators of how to enrich positive connection throughout society.

In other words, governments would do well to shift their focus away from reviving a consumerist economy, where wealth equates to success, to creating sustainable societies where people’s essential needs are covered in exchange for participating in the creation of a new society led by values of mutual consideration, responsibility and solidarity.

Success in the latter vision of society would be personal and social happiness, kindled through developing increasingly positive connections.

Above photo by Benjamin Child on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is one good outcome of the Coronavirus scare that we will become a society less driven by consumerism and more driven by saving precious resources and learning to get by with what we have?“

Some people point out how consumerism harms nature, and how it led to the emergence of COVID-19 and other negative phenomena.

They encourage putting a stop to our culture of shopping and returning to a past form of sustainable living.

I see such a motion of “getting by with what we have” as unnatural and unsustainable, because our very nature demands enjoyment.

Our desires have developed since the days we lived in caves, where we only lived according to our base animal needs for food, sex and family. Since then, we have developed desires for money, respect, control and knowledge, all kinds of real social needs that make us go shopping, travel the world and entertain ourselves in myriad ways.

Is there a problem with these desires?

The problem is not with the desires to enjoy ourselves, but in the intention we apply upon the desires.

As COVID-19 has increased awareness of our interdependence and interconnectedness, then we can say that anything we do in alignment with our interdependence acts positively, and anything we do against our interdependence acts negatively.

In other words, if we buy, sell or create goods and/or services that aim at bettering our increasingly tightening connections, then such acts are beneficial.

On the contrary, if we buy, sell or create goods and/or services with the intent to place ourselves on a higher pedestal than others, building our success on their ruin, then such acts are detrimental to society, and ultimately, also to ourselves.

Therefore, the problem is not with our consumerist habits of buying and selling, but of the intention that fuels these habits.

Above Photo by Anna Dziubinska on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it possible that the recent China coronavirus outbreak is a bio attack?“

Whether the coronavirus is a bio-attack or some other artificial lab construction aimed at serving self-interests of certain people in power, either way, I do not relate to such theories.

More principally, the coronavirus is nature’s reaction to our overblown selfish attitudes to each other.

Before the coronavirus struck us, our mutually exploitative relations—where we each sought to gain at the expense of others—would have brought about much greater suffering than the pandemic. If we continued the way we were going unabated, then I would have expected us to run head-first into another world war.

So although the coronavirus has inflicted pains, inconvenience and fears around the world, I see it as saving us from much more intolerable agonies.

Therefore, rather than philosophize over whether the coronavirus was a bio-attack, we would do better to concentrate on how to improve the quality of our relationships.

The coronavirus has provided us with an example of how our negative relationships we previously held erupted in our faces, as positive or negative feedback from nature depends on whether our relationships are positive or negative.

If we develop more positive connections to each other, then we will see a world of balance and harmony open up to us, and on the contrary, if we fail to make any strides toward better human connection, nature will smack us more and more in order to awaken us to question the cause of such blows.

Negative phenomena in our lives, including the coronavirus, are due to our neglect in making moves to positively connect, to become like members of a big family.

So whether or not the coronavirus was created as a bioweapon is less important than seeing how the virus displays our smallness compared to nature. One tiny particle has shaken many of the foundations that we lived according to.

If we upgrade the quality of our relationships, then we will bear witness to the coronavirus’ disappearance.

Therefore, I advocate using our current period as an opportunity to depart from our pre-coronavirus world, where we each sought to build our successes on the ruin of others, and which brought about much depression, stress and anxiety, and enter a new world of positive relationships, where we will enter into balance and harmony with each other and with nature.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What lessons will the world learn from COVID-19?“

COVID-19 is nature’s way of teaching humanity serious lessons in mutual responsibility, equality and nature’s superiority to humans.

By forcing us into social distancing and stay-at-home conditions over a relatively long period of time, we have become freer to contemplate what is most important in life, how we relate to each other, what kind of world we have created for ourselves, and whether there is a better way to conduct our lives.

In such a situation, we can learn from COVID-19, that in the way it makes no discrimination between people of different status, equally infecting everybody from the average Joe to world leaders, we would also be wise to relate equally to each other.

 Ben Garratt on Unsplash.

We can also learn about our common smallness in the face of nature, where all it takes is a microscopic particle to bring about so much sickness, death and overturning of our socio-economic infrastructures around the world.

We are in a process toward increasing awakening to our interdependence and interconnectedness among each other and with nature.

In such a process, nature sends us various blows to spark more global awareness, so that we would develop more consideration and responsibility toward others.

Why? It is because by doing so, we resemble nature, which takes each and every detail into account.

Harmonizing our relations will balance us with nature, and we would then experience nature’s positive feedback.

Nature is connecting us more and more, and the sooner we become aware of how we’re being forced by nature to connect, and take our own active part in this connection to make it positive, then the sooner we’ll experience much better lives.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does no one tell you about coronavirus?“

The cause of the coronavirus is human imbalance with nature.

As a system of interdependent and interconnected parts, nature is made up of four levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate and human.

The first three levels of nature—inanimate, vegetative and animate—function in perfect balance with nature, instinctively following nature’s commands.

In contrast, the human level, us, disturbs nature’s balance.

How?

We have an additional egoistic quality that the other parts of nature do not have.

Where other parts of nature operate in order to preserve themselves, grow and survive, in addition to our preservation, growth and survival, we also want to enjoy at the expense of others.

Specifically the exploitation of others for the sake of self-benefit is what causes imbalance in nature.

Before the coronavirus hit humanity, such exploitation was running rampant in our modern consumerist society, and the coronavirus’ blow served to calm us down. It forced us into quarantine, isolation, social distancing and stay-at-home conditions, and while in such conditions, we would be wise to think about how we can restore balance with nature.

If we use the example that the coronavirus gave us, of how it makes no discrimination between people of different status, whether an ordinary Joe or a world leader, then we too would be wise to relate equally to each other.

If we consider nature’s interdependence and interconnectedness, then what would it mean for us humans to act in balance with such a system? Increasing our care and responsibility for each other would be our way of matching nature’s interconnectedness.

Implementing the additional ability we humans have beengranted means setting up systems that prioritize benefiting others over benefiting ourselves. Influencing each other to think and act in such a way will bring us closer to nature’s integral form, and by doing so, we would experience newfound harmony and pleasantness, the likes of which we have never before felt.

I thus hope that we make the most of this coronavirus period in order to bring ourselves closer to each other and with nature.

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Medium published my new article “How Changes in the Workplace Will Change Our Relations”

Life will not be the same after the coronavirus pandemic. That is an understatement, but how could the healing process improve our interpersonal relationships and our perspectives of life? Working from home, being physically apart from other coworkers, but spending more time with family has forced us to reevaluate our personal goals in general. We can emerge from the crisis stronger if we reassess our priorities and realize the potential benefits of the new reality.

In the pre-coronavirus era, on average, an American worker commuted at least 54 minutes a day, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The coronavirus lockdown changed the rules of the game and sent millions of people to work from home and spend less time behind the wheel and more time on rediscovering the family. We have come to know our families in a different way from what we used to and it has transformed us from within.

As we reopen the economy, each of us will bring the family baggage absorbed from working at home to the workplace, and will continue to feel connected to those closest to them. Back at their jobs, beyond their need to make a living, people will feel they are missing the internal connection between them.

Others will have to sort things out differently. 30 million Americans have lost their jobs since mid-March due to the COVID-19 crisis. A solution to this complicated situation will demand a national plan to appraise what industries and occupations are essential for the common wellbeing. Now we need to restore production and distribution in a way that provides humanity with the necessary products and services, but without excessive consumption, which had almost completely destroyed the world.

Such a plan will require setting special value to development programs that place human connection at the top. Why is this change of priorities mandatory? The answer is simple: We have never been so defeated by putting perfection, knowledge, strength, power, and influence on a pedestal. In our arrogance, we considered ourselves the supreme force of nature. Today, we have witnessed how quickly and easily the apparently safe world we had built can crumble.

Therefore, the goal of our time is to introduce a question mark in people concerning their lives, the world, and in general, where humanity is heading.

What Now?

Humanity’s problem now lies in realizing that the only correct exit from the crisis is to transform human relationships from egoistic to altruistic. Returning to business relations without correcting human relations will lead to a bigger crisis because we have not yet fixed the root of our troubles.

We need a global plan for human society to recover from egoism. For the first time in history, humanity is realizing what we thought we knew but never fully grasped: The world is global and interdependent; it is our common home.

We will start evaluating our lives as “before” and “after” the pandemic. This critical period we face seals the history of the egoistic development of humankind and shows that any system that is based on our egoism will produce negative results. Thus, what we need to correct is not the system itself, but our egoistic nature.

As a direct impact of the crisis, the world is moving toward feeling more connected and unified. A common problem that affects everyone brings people closer. They stop thinking about wars, conflicts between countries, exploitations by corporations, or hating other people; the main goal is to survive the common enemy. We should not wait for another wave of COVID-19 to make us react this way and to learn only through suffering. The feeling of brotherhood and unity must prevail if we truly want to thrive and achieve a more fulfilling life.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some of the most mind-blowing facts about Israel?“

1. The word “Israel” stems from two words, “Yashar Kel,” which means “straight to God.”

2. The people of Israel first received their name as a group of people who gathered around Abraham around 3,800 years ago. Abraham taught them the method of how to love one another above the fierce social division running rampant in ancient Babylon, and by using the method of attaining the ability to love, they acquired the name “Israel” (“Yashar Kel” or “straight to the force of love, bestowal and connection,” which is synonymous to God).

3. The people of Israel had no biological connection to each other. They were originally a gathering of people from around ancient Babylon who felt that society was becoming increasingly divided. They wanted to understand why people were suffering so much, what is the meaning of life, and how people could unite above the social conflicts. After applying Abraham’s method, they received the name “the people of Israel.”

4. During the periods of the First and Second Temples, the people of Israel rose, fell, and then rose again in the attainment of love and unity above division. They prospered most when they experienced this spiritual form of unity. However, since the ruin of the Second Temple, they lost their attainment of the love and unity that glued them together above their divisiveness, and entered a period of exile and dispersion.

5. While in exile, the people of Israel have experienced many different forms of anti-Semitism. They have been blamed for murdering Jesus Christ, killing children and drinking their blood in the Middle Ages, causing the Black Death pandemic of the 14th century, killing Tsar Alexander II that ignited the pogroms of the Russian Empire against them, acting as internal traitors that led to Germany’s First World War defeat, and have been considered as money-and-power hungry conspirators who aim to rule the world.

6. As a Jewish state, despite the many contributions Israel brings to the world, including the Microsoft Windows operating system, the Pentium microprocessor, voice mail, biological pacemakers, cancer treatments using DNA nana-computation, stem-cell technology to regenerate heart tissue, pill-sized cameras for examining the small intestine, the first computerized diagnostic instrument for breast cancer detection, a heart pump synchronization device, as well as treatments for Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s Disease, aircraft security systems, and ecologically, it was the only country in the world at the turn of the century that had more trees than in the previous century…

Israel endures heavy constant criticism.

Israel is treated as the world’s Jew.

In a modern context of globalized anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, Israel finds itself in a losing battle for a positive identity against multiple efforts aimed at its delegitimization and isolation: the application of international pressure in order to restrict its range of diplomatic and military response in the short term, and ultimately, to cripple it by delegitimizing its right to exist in the long term, stunting its ability to conduct diplomatic negotiations and act militarily.

The next three facts, however, are even more mindblowing…

7. The people of Israel experience increasing anti-Semitism, and many people feel the people of Israel as the root of their problems, due to their having once attained love and unity above division, and then having lost that sensation. Since the people of Israel were established not on biological connections, like other nations, but on an idea of love and unity above all differences, then their own division rippled throughout the world, and the many problems people feel stemming from their division, they instinctively blame on the people of Israel.

8. Since the people of Israel’s disunity and division are felt as a cause for myriad problems in the world, they also hold a method to attain unity. If they implement the method of connection, like how they once did in the days of ancient Babylon, where Abraham guided them to unite above division, then anti-Semitism will not only become eliminated—it would invert to a positive form of support and encouragement for a people who spread a positive sensation of love and unity throughout the world.

9. The people of Israel’s role in the world is thus to unite (“love your neighbor as yourself”) above division (“love will cover all transgressions”) in order to spread love and unity to the world (to be “a light unto the nations”).

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