Audio Version Of The Blog – 5/18/20
Posted on May 18th, 2020
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How will the threat of the coronavirus have a major impact on the worldwide economy as it spreads across the globe?“
The economy needs a major impact because it has been failing to provide for our needs. Instead, we have been providing for the economy’s “needs.”
The coronavirus pandemic has illuminated the question about what is essential and nonessential in life.
In the face of crisis, life’s essentials—food, housing, healthcare and education—were extracted from the dark alleyway we had them in before the virus struck us, while we focused the spotlight on growth, production, consumption and trade surplus or deficit.
The coronavirus then came along and reminded us about what is essential in life.
During this period, we have a chance to revise the way our lives are headed, and in the process, upgrade our economy to make it suit our needs.
The irony of our era is that the modern work force works more hours than slaves did in the past.
Today, we think that we have more freedom and security than the slaves of the past, but the coronavirus highlighted that, in a moment, our entire infrastructure can overturn.
A period of social distancing and stay-at-home conditions put the housing and even food that many take for granted into question.
Today’s office jobs, which provided many with a sense of security, showed themselves to fall short when it came to providing many people with the safety net that they envisioned.
While we still try to recover from this blow that the coronavirus struck on the economy, we have some time to revise the idea of work in general.
As we head into a future where technology is expected to replace much of the work force, and we will discover that we need not work all the hours we currently work in order to provide for what we need in life, then we can expect that:
Governmental allowances, such as Universal Basic Income, will become the way most people will receive their income.
Job titles will lose their value as markers of social status.
In order for society to not stagnate and grow in an age where our job titles cease to mark our value in society, we will need to mark social status according to the contribution we make to society.
Such a change would be possible if we provide basic income in exchange for participating in programs that let people develop and express their contribution to society.
In other words, the economy we are headed toward, and which the coronavirus period has hinted at, is one where we will need our life’s essentials covered, and one where we will shift our focus to strengthen and grow human society—social happiness, health and well-being—instead of each of us trying to build our personal empires.
In such an economy, we will place much higher importance on cultivating positive human relations than we do today.
As more and more of today’s professions will show themselves to be unnecessary for the world we’re headed toward, we will need to replace all the effort we place into educating and training ourselves into such professions, with education and training of a different kind: one where we will train ourselves to relate positively to each other and contribute to others above our growing divisive drives.
Above photo by Daniel Lee on Unsplash.
Question: How should regular people who have lost their livelihoods behave? Should they work on connection or search for a new job?
Answer: They should never break ties with the group if they have one. If not, then it is best to explain to them that such connections are beneficial for them and will bring solutions to their problems.
People who feel that they can soon return to their regular jobs have to still check themselves. To do so, we have to explain to them which actions of men are beneficial and will provoke a positive result from nature. But if they bring harm to nature or its integral quality, this will not work. Such occupations and businesses will not be restored.
I think that many months later, after the virus, we will be completely different people. We will stop rushing about, flying from one end of the world to another as if we’re missing something. Of course, it is interesting to see new places, but what’s the point? Each of us has flown all over the world. And what qualitative contribution have we made to ourselves, others, or the future? Absolutely nothing! Just the opposite.
So let’s sum up our attitude toward the world and relate to life differently. In accordance with this, we will see that after the coronavirus has passed through us, many professions will disappear. People will work only for the sake of the tangible benefit, earn as much as is needed to support themselves and their families, and will draw satisfaction from forming a deeper connection with nature.
The coronavirus is not really a virus but a program that penetrates us. For some people, it enters them on the animate level and kills them. For others, it enters and reprograms them to have a whole new sensory perception. But most of us will not feel this sensory reprogramming. It will be just a natural breathing through the nose and a feeling of its effects.
Once it enters us, it begins to reconfigure us, making us think, consider, and evaluate ourselves and others in a whole new way. The world will become different. Give the coronavirus another few months and you will see. Perhaps we will be unable to compare ourselves to the way we were in February, March, or April, but we will have a totally different approach to the way we deal with things in this world.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/5/20
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Question: Can the coronavirus be beneficial for anyone?
Answer: Of course, for nature.
Question: Why?
Answer: Because it must necessarily correct us and bring us to a perfect state. We are its only offspring that are butchering, damaging, breaking, and causing harm to ourselves and nature. Therefore, the protective reaction of nature is expressed in this form.
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From KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah: Victoria Bonya,” 3/29/20
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What did the world learn from the coronavirus pandemic?“
The world is still learning from the coronavirus pandemic a hard lesson in how much we all depend on each other.
It has shown us how much our health depends on other people maintaining personal hygiene and social distancing conditions.
It has also shown us how much we need and miss each other when we are faced with prolonged stay-at-home conditions, and how our economy is ill-equipped to deal with such a situation.
Many people find themselves out of work, out of business, and see no future in sight, on one hand, and on the other hand, a financial elite that continues profiting in the billions at the expense of such people.
I hope that the world will continue learning from this pandemic, as I think there are many more takeaways that society has yet to realize.
For instance, we would be wise to learn that our definition of success is in dire need of revision.
Instead of equating wealth to success, as we have done until today, we will need to start equating positive contribution to society with success.
We can see some signs of such a motion during the pandemic in the praise that health-care workers receive for their efforts to help the often-unmanageable amount of coronavirus cases.
However, we need to further internalize this redefinition of success, as our social connections, life engagements, work and social values all stem from it: There is nothing successful in being individually successful and wealthy at the expense of others. Success lies in creating a positively-connected society, where its members take responsibility and care for each other, contribute to each other’s well-being, and promote to each other the need for centering everyone’s focus on benefiting others instead of benefiting our individual selves.
The world is learning about the need to be more considerate of everyone, as we all depend on each other. However, I think that an extra “push” on our behalf to further implant this understanding will serve to better balance us with the tighter interdependence and interconnectedness that the coronavirus era has revealed to us.
Above photo by Alec Favale on Unsplash.
War is an Expression of Egoism
Remark: During the 6,000 years of the existence of civilized humanity on Earth, wars have been constantly waged. In total, they’ve only been gone for 200 years. Historians distinguish five main wars: the First and Second World Wars, and three more wars in China, during which hundreds of millions of people died.
My Comment: This is an amazing state of the world when people simply annihilate each other. They give free rein to their egoism, which cannot tolerate others, and come up with all sorts of reasons to kill.
Remark: War is like an expression of egoism. Every story is a story of war.
My Comment: On the other hand, we do not even imagine what would happen to the world if war had not been waged. Over the past 70 years, there have been no wars on such vast continents as Europe and Asia, and look what happened to humanity. The world’s population has grown from two million to eight.
We see that with uncorrected egoism, wars become necessary, because only in this way humanity restrains and purifies itself.
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From KabTV’S “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 7/8/19
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Comment: Your teacher Rabash would give the following example about faith above reason: A friend borrowed a $1,000 from you and then returned an envelope with a single dollar. Upon seeing this, you must supplement with faith that the full amount is there
My Response: If you open the envelope and see that he gave you one dollar, then this is faith within reason.
If you check and find one dollar there, but consider it as $1,000, this is faith above reason.
If you do not check at all, trusting his word that the full amount is there, then it is faith below reason.
A person is told something, he lives his life believing it, prays, does what he has been taught. This is called “performing commandments out of habit.”
Question: Can those with faith within reason be called atheists?
Answer: Yes. For them, the whole world is based on knowledge. They take nothing in faith.
Question: So, Kabbalah is distinct because you can research and verify everything. But first, must you accept it as an axiom?
Answer: You check it for yourself so that you rise higher despite your knowledge. Thus, you are connected to the next, higher degree.
Question: Is knowledge necessary in Kabbalah? In the old days before studying Kabbalah, people had to study the seven sciences.
Answer: This was necessary before because layers of the soul from past centuries, past generations, would get corrected this way. In our times, this is no longer necessary.
Comment: We see how much Baal HaSulam wrote about his studying philosophy and psychology.
My Response: Naturally, because the whole of creation, which is the desire to enjoy, had to be fully realized. To do so, it was necessary to relate in various ways to your desire—the matter of creation. There was even a period when, in order to rise above matter, you had to torture yourself: sleep on the ground, eat the simplest food, dress in rags, etc.
In general, Kabbalists have gone through different periods in the ways of understanding the upper world, the correction of desires.
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From KabTV’s “Foundations of Kabbalah,” 4/1/19
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Question: Explaining the topic of the shattering of the vessels, you said that we need to unite with the upper world and connect all the pieces.
When you say “we,” do you mean all of humanity or just the part that was free from unclean desires (shells)? Does the process of correction mean the coming of the Messiah?
Answer: Reconstruction of the shattered vessel takes place gradually in each of us and in all of us together. We help each other assemble the shattered general desire. Before the shattering, it was a totally altruistic desire and it operated only in love and bestowal.
Then the general desire was shattered into small egoistic pieces, and there is a shattered piece of the general desire in each and every one of us. We exist in this form today.
The only purpose of the wisdom of Kabbalah is to explain to us how to unite into one general whole. We live in a generation that is starting this work. All the Kabbalists before us only prepared the wisdom of Kabbalah for its implementation and made preliminary corrections.
We are the first generation to start the process of connecting the shattered shards into a vessel, a soul, a desire, whatever we call it. This action is fulfilled by our mutual efforts in groups, with the help of the upper light that we draw by our desires and our intentions.
The light that comes seemingly pulls us out of our ego and connects us to each other into one desire. This is the reason that this light is called the Messiah, which stems from the Hebrew word Moshech – to pull, meaning to pull us out of our egoism. Kabbalistic terms may seem mysterious to us, but they actually explain the meaning of actual actions in a very practical manner.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/2/20
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New Life 1222 – The Corona Conspirator
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi
The coronavirus is not a phenomenon that a person intentionally created; rather it is the result of an imbalance that humans have inserted into nature. In all of nature, there is no harmful creature except humans who think and act only for their own good. The purpose of our development is for us to differentiate between good and evil, gain freedom of choice, and become like and identify with the Creator. In this state, every person in the world will understand that he is connected with everyone in an integral system within which is the Creator. The preparation from our side is a desire to be connected as one person with one heart so that each one will become sensitive to everyone else. Each one will want to use all of their strength for the good of others and will want the power of love to dominate in the world.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1222 – The Corona Conspirator,” 4/7/20
 Video: Play Now | Download |
 Audio: Play Now | Download |
Lesson Preparation
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Writings of Rabash, “The Agenda of the Assembly – 2,” (1986)
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Lesson on the Topic “Concerning Above Reason”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 30
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”
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Selected Highlights
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