From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 5/9/20

The coronavirus will impel us to reevaluate everything. First, it demonstrated how much we really need each other—by denying us physical contact and sending us to stay home. Next, it highlighted the imperfections of the economy—how unfit it is to sustain the people it is meant to sustain, how the top financial tier profiteer on the backs of everyone else, and how vital food products are thrown to the trash to keep their prices high, while more than 20 percent of American households are going hungry.

The social crisis that will unquestionably ensue will make us rethink everything. We will reevaluate relationships, work, and social values. If, until recently, we regarded ostentatious rich people as successful, we will begin to appreciate people who contribute to society. The daily applaud to health care workers on the frontline of the battle against COVID-19 is an example of this trend. The more we understand that our happiness does not depend on emulating people who boast in their self-centeredness, but on people who work hard to contribute to society, the more we will want to be like them.

It may be a hard and painful lesson to learn, but the coronavirus is gradually teaching us how to be more caring, compassionate, and, eventually, happy. COVID-19 is making us redefine our selves.

Filed under: Coronavirus, Economy, Facebook, Globalization, Health - No Comments →

Over time, fears associated with the coronavirus pandemic are shifting from the health-related issues to the problems of unemployment and lack of food supplies. Many businesses will not survive the crisis caused by the coronavirus because there will no longer be any demand for them.

Humanity is changing; it is beginning to consider many old habits to be excessive luxuries. The UN World Food Program Council fears that the coronavirus will lead to global hunger on an unprecedented scale, as in biblical prophecies. And at the same time, the rich get even richer at the expense of everyone else.

The style of work is changing with the shift to even greater automation, energy prices are drastically falling, and the future is bringing fear and uncertainty. What is happening with the labor market and where is it headed?

The coronavirus is a force, albeit biological, which has caused great changes in us. Where does it lead us, toward what is it pushing human society? The virus makes us understand that we live in an integral society and are connected to each other.

It does not allow us to get close to each other due to the danger of transmitting harmful particles, viruses, that can infect us with a deadly disease. This is how the virus is showing us that our connections are not good, but if we fix them, we can once again live without restrictions.

Otherwise, we are unlikely to be able to return to normal life. Of course, we will try to come up with the cure for the virus in order to be able to have contact with each other as before, but it will not work.

I think that humanity will have to advance to its common, global, integral form, to the right kind of connections. Thus, nature will keep influencing us in such a way that will oblige us to realize and organize good connections between us.

Today, such a connection is already expected of us. We can try to trick nature by staying home, wearing masks, etc. But newer disturbances will be revealed until we finally understand that we must change our interrelations.

And to the extent that we change them, turn them from egoistic to altruistic and friendly, to this extent will we be able to be in contact with each other, conduct business, and earn money from each other. Our livelihood must be based on good connections rather than on selfish gain.

At the beginning of the 20th century, humanity had to live through a similar epidemic with the Spanish flu, which claimed many human lives. It also resulted in many societal changes, but it didn’t lead to such quarantine or isolation as the coronavirus has.

The big difference here is the fact that today humanity is receiving a global blow, virtually instantaneously, the epidemic has spread all over the world, sparing no country or nation. The virus is showing us that we are connected as one body. This was never the case with earlier epidemics.

We live in the new era called “the last generation,” the last egoistic generation, which must correct itself and live in kind connections as one family. And the very first thing that the coronavirus is showing us is that the whole world is one family. It may not be so clear to us, but in the next few years we will realize it. We will be able to avoid and defend against such forces of nature.

The same coronavirus has so many various consequences, which are yet to be revealed, that we should not take lightly. It is best to comply with its demands. The virus is telling us: “Start treating each other well, like one family, and I will not have to come and show you how selfish and distant you are from each other.”

The quarantine leads to unrest and tensions in society that can result in economic collapse. The epidemic deprives the world of stability and basic safety. If we do not establish good relations, that is, if we fail to solve the problem at its root, then we face an economic crisis across the board because we are connected by total dependence.

In the end, we could reach world war, which is laid in the program of nature. Nature does not know pity; it is a system of laws, and if we do not respond today and do not comply with the requirements of nature, even more powerful forces will come and compel us to work on our correction until we unite within human society as integrally as all other levels of nature: inanimate, vegetative, and animate.

A person living on earth treats his fellow humans worse than vicious wolves. And nature does not agree with this. As we are advancing, we must realize that only kind connections between us can attract good forces that will help us move forward.

By the way, wolves treat each other very well. It is we who think that a wolf is worse than man. It is a common misconception.
[264097]
From KabTV’s “Global Perspectives” 5/1/20

Related Material:
On The Threshold Of A New Society
If We Want To Be Healthy
Where Does The Coronavirus Lead Us?

Filed under: Coronavirus, Crisis, Globalization, Health - No Comments →

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download:MP3 Audio

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog - No Comments →

At each level, a person goes through an unpleasant state, feels as if in the dust, in darkness, spirituality loses its taste and ceases to shine. It seems to him that the Creator has moved away from him. But in fact, this is an invitation for advancement.

Precisely in such a gray, foggy, senseless state, I must develop the right attitude. Forces of nature now do not tempt me with light, but present me with a twilight state: neither darkness nor light, but some kind of grayness. But exactly in this state, I have the opportunity to attract the Creator, engage in the power of bestowal, and advance.

Most of the states a person goes through are gray: neither light nor dark. And one must be very sensitive to these states in order to awaken  the need for spiritual work in oneself, the importance of the Creator, the sensation and revelation of an upper force.

When there is no taste but only the taste of dust, this is a sign that I have the opportunity to begin to rise from this indifference and perform a lot of spiritual work.

Dust is like sand, and if we connect these grains of sand, compress them together under great pressure, we get a diamond. That is the whole difference between dust and diamonds: the cheapest thing and the most expensive one. This is the way cheap stuff turns into a jewel—only thanks to our pressure and the effort to connect.

Each step begins with the state of dust, and if I do not abandon it, but take it correctly in all seriousness, then I can rise from the dust to great heights and make a diamond out of the sand.

In the material world, that is, in our egoism, this state is felt as dust; but in spirituality, that is, in bestowal, according to the Creator, this is the most important state. In the eyes of the Creator, these are diamonds, but in my eyes, in my desire to enjoy, it is seen as simple dust.

Therefore, I must ask my friends to help me exit my egoism toward bestowal and from this state to build my spiritual state.

Try to be more within your friends than within yourself, and you will feel how you are rising from the dust. Pray, ask, cry, and just don’t expect that the state will change by itself. Sand will not turn into diamonds on its own.

The strong pressure with which I make a diamond out of sand is my unwillingness to accept my gray state as worthless. Egoism feels that there is no importance in this state, like in dust. I feel that I have fallen and lie on the ground, but I do not agree with this feeling because my desire to enjoy is depicting this reality for me.

It is good that our egoism now feels itself in the dust, but I want to raise my desire for bestowal, the point aspiring toward the Creator, upward from the dust. And this is called faith above reason.

And then I feel that it is from this dust, from the desire to get out of it, and by the applying pressure to it, I turn it into the most precious state as if I were making diamonds out of sand. The material remains the same, it is only the measure of its compression that turns it into the greatest jewel.

The feeling of spirituality in our egoistic desires is called dust, and the feeling of spirituality in the desire to bestow is called a diamond.
[263605]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/20, “Concerning Above Reason”

Related Material:
A Breakup For The Sake Of Unity
The Expanding World
Self-Sacrifice Above Love And Hate

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Teacher - No Comments →

Question: Is a typical mistake of beginners studying Kabbalah, at least for the first few years, that a person asks for knowledge?

Answer: Yes. He goes toward knowledge because he is used to it in our world. This is a natural, selfish, understandable gain for him.

Question: So he asks for the sensations of the Creator? Is this wrong?

Answer: It depends on what this is for. In principle one should not give orders to the Creator. Besides, when a person advances forward, his desire to reveal the Creator disappears. The desire to reveal the property of bestowal, to be more in a property similar to the Creator than to feel Him within his egoism begins to awaken in him.

Question: We always can explain the state we are in now as well as the future state: how we will feel if the Creator appears in us. But the transition from state X to the state X+1 is not clear. How does it happen? What actions should be taken? I can’t understand it.

Answer: It is said, “What the mind does not do, time does.” You must study systematically, work in a group, work on yourself, disseminate, exert yourself in it, as it is said, “Everything that is in your power to do, do.”

As a result, by all these actions you attract the upper light and it moves you forward. Being a quality of bestowal, love, and rapprochement, its strength radiates on you all the time and these qualities manifest in you. You begin to desire them; you begin to feel they are not in you. In this light, you feel the opposite of it. This is called the realization of evil.

Since you see the opposite, you sense the evil in yourself, you wish to get rid of it even with your selfish qualities. Although you are still an egoist, you already want to get rid of your egoism. You are convinced that it harms you. Here the person’s work on himself and his consistent movement forward begins, directed toward the quality of bestowal.
[263329]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/1/19

Related Material:
Stages On The Way To Bestowal
Life Is Good If You Know Its Meaning
Following Wisdom Or Following The Light?

Filed under: Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: Why is the spiritual point located in the heart and not in the head?

Answer: The heart is called the general desire. Тhe desire specifically directed toward the Creator is called the point in the heart.

Question: If I stop wanting to receive from the Creator, will He stop giving?

Answer: If you stop asking, the Creator will stop giving. He will begin to tickle you with other alternative ways so that you will want to turn to Him.

Question: We meet once a week in the group. Is it possible to get together more often to advance faster?

Answer: I am very glad to hear that you are ready to meet more than once a week. Get ready! Our archive has a lot of materials: lectures, classes, etc. Use it. You have no idea what is there.

Question: What is the upper light? Is it an ambient light or something else?

Answer: The upper light is the property of bestowal and love that emanates from the Creator and builds the desire (creation), fills it, modifies it, and performs various actions with it in order to bring this desire to resemble Himself. In the end, the desire (creation) becomes absolutely identical to the light of the Creator.

Question: Can we call the connection between us the ability to feel the desire of another person?

Answer: No. This is not the ability to feel another person. I do not want to feel anyone at all, I only want to reveal the Creator, my connection with Him, and how He fulfills me.
[262567]
From Kab TV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/16/20

Related Material:
Blitz of Kabbalah Tips – 1/26/20
Blitz Of Kabbalah Tips – 1/12/20
Blitz Of Kabbalah Tips – 1/5/20

Filed under: Q&A, Spiritual Work - No Comments →