Audio Version Of The Blog – 7/29/20

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“The #Jewishprivilege Trend’s Major Takeaway” (Jews Down Under)

My new article on San Diego Jewish World “The #Jewishprivilege Trend’s Major Takeaway

The maelstrom of a global pandemic has recently kept worldwide antisemitism relatively quiet, but it does not mean that Jew haters are resting. On Twitter, the antisemitic hashtag #JewishPrivilege, which was originally used to accuse Jews of racism and control over other minorities, rapidly became a top trending hashtag.

In an attempt to push back against the hashtag’s antisemitic sentiment, Jewish celebrities posted personal stories of discrimination, bigotry and persecution suffered directly by them or their families throughout generations. But, as expected, it failed to ease the animosity.

In another instance of “special treatment” of Jews, Twitter accounts of users displaying a Star of David became locked by the social media platform, which deemed the Jewish symbol as “hateful imagery.”

Surprisingly, this is all happening at a time when social media giants face boycotts from international corporations, which are pulling multimillion dollar advertising budgets from what they call a permissive hate-speech culture by those platforms. Apparently, antisemitism is a more powerful exception to the rules against online hate speech than both advertising dollars and boycott threats, since it is still widely tolerated and the responsible regulators look the other way.

Hatred of Jews, however, does not depend on our actions.

It is a sensation embedded in nature that can emerge in people instantaneously. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that antisemitism first surfaced together with the emergence of the Jewish people around 4,000 years ago in ancient Babylon.

While Babylon was experiencing a crisis of social division with conflicts and hatred tearing up society, Abraham, a Babylonian priest who discovered the path to unity above the growing divisions, began openly teaching his method to anyone who wanted to learn.

Those who felt that social discord was the burning issue of the time flocked to study with him. He guided them to the discovery of the single uniting force necessary to rise above divisiveness. The group he led became known as “the people of Israel,” meaning “straight to God,” (Yashar-El in Hebrew), i.e., straight to the single force of love and bestowal that exists in reality. Later, the group also became known as “Jews,” which derived from the Hebrew word “yehud,” meaning unity.

Since the Jewish people were the first to attain unity above division, they received the mandate to act as “a light unto the nations.” This meant that their role was first to connect, and then, to spread the light that emanated from their connection like rippling waves to the rest of humanity.

Why is this role so important today?

It is because in today’s world the overblown human ego, social division, conflicts and hatred are all rising exponentially, causing myriad problems and crises, and thus there is a renewed urgency and necessity for the Jewish people to carry out their role. The more people suffer, the more they subconsciously blame the Jews for holding the keys to fix the problems, but failing to do so.

This scenario is the origin of Jew hatred—the sensation that the Jews have a special calling to unite in order to pass unity to the world, but don’t. If we Jews make no effort to connect, we block the positive unifying force from reaching humanity, and hatred pressures us to perform what is expected of us.

Humanity’s positive future depends solely on us.

If we have a privilege, it is in our role to deliver human society the abundance and fulfillment that comes from uniting “as one man with one heart.” As is written by the most renowned Kabbalist of our generation, Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “It is the wisdom of faith, justice and peace which most nations learn from us, and this wisdom is ascribed to us alone.”

When we as Jews unite, even slightly, we will act as a conduit for the force of unity to spread throughout human consciousness. As soon as we realize our unique role in the world, we will spare ourselves and all humanity much suffering, since only the power of unification can enable human society to rise above its narrow egoistic nature, and to discover the vast space of happiness that stems from unity.
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“Don’t Overlook the Message of the 9th of Av” (Times of Israel)

The Times of Israel published my new article “Don’t Overlook the Message of the 9th of Av

This Wednesday, July 29, will be the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av. On that day, both Temples were ruined and the Jews were exiled from their land. On the first exile, they were deported to Babylon, from which they returned after 70 years with the blessing of the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, and a letter granting them imperial support in resettling the land and rebuilding the Temple.

The period of the 2nd Temple is more complicated than the first. In the midst of it, Jews began to fight among themselves as Hellenized Jews tried to root out traditional Judaism and install the Greek culture and mythology, and the Maccabees fought against them, striving to oust Hellenism and restore authenticity to Judaism. In that period, Jews lost control over the Temple but regained it after the Maccabees won the war. But finally, the internal battles and hatred among belligerent Jewish factions destroyed the country, ravaged Jerusalem, and demolished the Temple. Subsequently, the Jews were exiled for two thousand years.

Although historians attribute both exiles to external conquerors, ancient Jewish texts attribute very little influence to external factors, if any. Instead, they pin the troubles of the Jewish people on their own disunity.

As Though We’ve Never Learned

The Jewish people gained their nationhood when they united “as one man with one heart” at the foot of Mt. Sinai. According to Jewish ancient writings, the Hebrews who came out of Egypt were told that if they united, they would be declared a nation. If they did not, the mountain would cover them like a vault and would become their tombstone. The Jews, according to the sources, united and became the Jewish nation, or Israelites. But at that time, they were also tasked with being “a light unto nations,” namely to set an example of unity to the rest of the nations.

That demand that Jews would be role models of unity has since become the kernel of all Jewish hatred, both emanating from other nations, as well as from Jews who resented the idea of unity and wanted to pursue their individualistic (later to become Hellenistic) agendas. Two thousand years ago, the hatred within the Jewish people became so fierce that they locked themselves inside their capital, Jerusalem (with the Roman legion camped outside the walls), slaughtered one another, burned each other’s food reservoirs, and made General Titus’ work much easier when he finally decided to conquer the city and destroy the Temple.

The hatred of the Jews for one another was so evident and abominable that it denied the triumphant Titus the thrill of victory. When Queen Helena offered him a victory wreath after he took Jerusalem, Titus declined saying that there was no merit in vanquishing a people deserted by their own God.

The day when the Romans marched into the Temple and sealed the Jewish defeat was to become a day of mourning since then. But we should not mourn the destruction of the walls or the breaking of the altar. We should instead mourn the ruin of our unity, our brotherly love, the abandonment of our task to unite as one man with one heart and be a role model for the nations.

When Hitler explained in Mein Kampf why he hates Jews, he expounded on his disgust with their dislike for one another. “The Jew is only united when a common danger forces him to be or a common booty entices him; if these two grounds are lacking, the qualities of the crassest egoism come into their own,” he writes. Numerous other antisemites wrote and spoke similarly about the Jewish people. They would not dedicate such attention to Jewish hatred of each other if they did not expect Jews to feel otherwise toward their brethren.

Today, nearly a century after the rise of the most diabolic, genocidal leader of the most advanced, modern, and civilized nation at the time, Jews have still learned nothing. Once again, division and internal hatred are rampant, both in Israel and outside of it. Jewish anti-Jewish groups are once again becoming increasingly raucous and yell out with righteous indignation that only their way is right, that Jews with other views are ignorant and inferior. They do not realize that their affirmation in the eyes of the nations, for which they so desperately yearn, depends not on their ideology, but on their unity precisely with those brethren they hate.

From the perspective of the world, nothing has changed. We are still tasked with being a light unto nations by setting an example of unity, and we are still hated for showing the opposite. Vasily Shulgin, a senior member of the Russian Parliament before the 1917 revolution and an avid self-proclaimed antisemite wrote in his book What We Don’t Like about Them…: “Jews in the 20th century have become very smart, effective, and vigorous at exploiting other people’s ideas. However,” he protests, “this is not an occupation for teachers and prophets, not the role of guides of the blind, not the role of carriers of the lame.”

Deep inside, every Jew feels indebted to the world. Deep inside, we feel the call of our vocation. But we will never live up to our task through hating one another. We will do so only if we show the world that above our fierce disagreements, we love each other like family. Although we cannot agree on anything, we form a union that is stronger than any dispute. The divisions between us are the vehicle through which we can show the world what unity means, but only if we rise to the challenge and unite above them. If we do so, the world will see that unity is possible however deep the chasm between people and nations. If we keep avoiding unity, the world will keep blaming us for spreading division in the world and will make us pay for its suffering.
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“How Will Coronavirus Change Consumer Behaviour Forever?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: How will coronavirus change consumer behaviour forever?

The coronavirus put spokes in the wheels of the egoistic-competitive paradigm that we had accepted as the norm until recently.

It is because we have reached a point in human development where we need to start growing beyond our egoistic human nature, the inclination to personally benefit at the expense of others.

In other words, our present era is characterized by nature pressing upon us to enter into balance with its interconnected and interdependent form, and thus, it is no longer tolerant of our abuse.

As such, businesses involving the exploitation of people and nature will gradually disappear. The days of opening any business we want—with profit motives at the forefront, and social and ecological considerations in the background, if at all—are over.

We thus have a major undertaking ahead of us. It requires none less than to balance with nature, i.e., to adjust our attitudes to each other in adaptation with the integral relationships among everything existing in nature.

As nature functions according to laws of altruism and interdependence, so too we need to upgrade the quality of our relationships—from egoistic to altruistic, divisive to well-connected—in order to experience healthy, safe and happy lives, balanced with nature.

We have interesting times ahead of us. I think that when we eventually become freed from the pandemic’s conditions, we will more clearly feel how there is no return to the steroid-pumped capitalistic framework we were in before the coronavirus entered our lives.

At that stage, I also see us starting to acknowledge the extent to which we have changed.

Where until recently, people respected the idea of increasing profit margins, paying more attention to the digits in each one’s respective bank accounts than to other people’s well-being, I think more and more people will despise such a tendency.

We will enter into a difficult and confusing period. There will be a a lot of effort put into trying to revive the pre-coronavirus world together with an increased distaste with that world.

Businesses and consumer habits will become more essentials-focused, and people will hold to more normal universal values.

As we head into the future, people wanting to run businesses will need to think very hard about whether and how their business will provide people with something they really cannot do without.

Nature itself will no longer let us splurge in surplus leisure. High unemployment will sweep through societies and the unemployed will be unable to find work that deals with nonessential goods and services.

Governments will be faced with a major problem in terms of what to do with their vast unemployed populations.

I have proposed a model, which recommends paying these people a stipend that covers their needs in exchange for engaging in a new form of education that teaches how to live harmoniously in today’s interdependent reality—the kind of education absent from the schooling system that raised us.

The rest of the the population will be engaged in needed and vital work for humanity, and not in work for the sake of profits, riches and individualistic success at the expense of others.

I sincerely hope that we arrive at such a setup sooner rather than later, because we will reach it one way or another.

While we perceive ourselves as separate from nature, able to seemingly think and act freely, we simply fail to see that we are nature’s parts, and nature is guiding us to match its laws with or without our awareness.

We have reached a stage of development where we experience nature’s disagreement with our excessive exploitation of its resources and of each other, in the form of the coronavirus. And I see this pandemic as our first major stage of purification.

Above photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash.

“The Meaning Of Tisha B’AV” (Kabbalah)

Kabbalah published my new article: ““The Meaning Of Tisha B’AV” (Kabbalah)

Tisha B’Av (the 9th of Av) is a very significant state in human development.

Tisha B’Av serves as a memorial of the destruction of the Holy Temple. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, this ruin represents our loss of awareness of our unification as a single soul, which the Holy Temple represents. It is a state that Kabbalah also calls the “breaking” or “shattering” of the vessels.

The immense importance of the breaking of the vessels is that there can be no complete correction and unification without having undergone corruption and shattering.

Tisha B’Av thus represents two polar opposite states:

Sorrow and crying from the forecast of the impending breakage, with the understanding that we need to do everything in our power to withstand it, i.e., to hold onto our unification against the increasing pressure to shatter our unification to pieces.

Tremendous joy in the conditions that the breakage brings us, that our loss of unification is a chance at attaining a greater and more complete form of unification.

Therefore, the sorrow about the past ruins needs to be balanced with the joy in the chance that these ruins bring: to rise to a higher and more complete form of connection.

Tisha B’Av is thus not merely an annual fast day in the Jewish calendar, where a number of disasters throughout history are remembered and mourned. It is rather a state that can surface at any moment when we acknowledge our failure to actively participate in our current process of correction—the correction of those relationships that once shattered, which is considered as the construction of a new Holy Temple.

How does this work?

The 16th century, which was the period of the great Kabbalist Isaac Luria (the Ari), designated the time when the gates to the knowledge of the process of correction opened up to humanity. Until then, those gates were locked shut, as Kabbalists, who held the method of correction, knew very well that the time was still unripe.

Since the 16th century onward, and much more so in our times, the knowledge and ability to participate actively in the process of correction has become increasingly available, the more that the authentic wisdom of Kabbalah has spread.

Therefore, we need not dwell in sadness about Holy Temples that became ruined thousands of years ago. Instead, our sorrow should be directed at our negligence to willingly participate in the process of correction that is present at every moment.

In other words, each moment we fail to add our participation to the process of correction, i.e., aiming to connect positively to each other in order to bring unity to the world, and reunite on a higher level than we had in the past—or in other words, each moment we fail to add another “brick” to the construction of the new Holy Temple—then it is our unawareness, disregard and lack of concern about ours and humanity’s positive future, which we should be sorry about.

We cannot truly understand what happened 2,000 years ago. Our desires are much bigger today, and our era is characterized by the impending construction of the new Holy Temple, i.e., a state of unity above all divisions that all humanity needs to reach. Therefore, crying about what happened in the past makes us seem like righteous individuals who look back at those meager and unfortunate people back then, an approach that fails to account for the necessity of that ruin in order for a specific order to develop.

Since the 16th century, the Ari’s time, the ability to participate in the process of correction has opened up to humanity, and the meaning of Tisha B’Av can be understood according to this process: the ruin of the Temples is the shattering of human relations, the division spreading worldwide among humanity, a broken state that we have been given the ability to fix.

We thus should not relate to Tisha B’Av as history, but as a situation that we can encounter on a moment-by-moment basis as we head forth to correct our broken relations and reach a much higher and more complete unification than we have ever experienced before.

“The True Recovery Treatment For An Aching Europe” (Thrive Global)

Thrive Global published my new article: “The True Recovery Treatment for an Aching Europe

The need to implement these laws of mutuality and integration is now more evident in the coronavirus era than ever before.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron leave after their joint video press conference at the end of the European summit at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium July 21, 2020. John Thys/Pool via REUTERS

Europe’s nerves have not been calmed by the pompous announcement of an unprecedented stimulus fund to rebuild the continent’s economies severely damaged by the coronavirus pandemic. The sharp recurrence of cases in countries such as Spain, France, and Germany, which were thought to have COVID-19 somehow under control, has proven that the virus and its devastating effects are not vanishing any time soon. The problem will not be remedied through the unity of Europe’s pocketbooks but through the unity of people’s hearts.

The $2 trillion infusion into the European economic system was agreed upon by the 27 leaders of the Union as grants and loans to the continent’s hardest hit member nations. The massive deal, still waiting to be ratified by the EU Parliament, has been promoted as the birth of a new Europe, but the fund’s conditions and disbursement plan have raised eyebrows among its opponents within a bloc who consider the medicine worse than the sickness.

Human society has emerged as an integral global system binding together nations, economies, and cultures, and thus, the problems that Europe and the world experience have the same common root: narrow and cruel egoism.

Although the recovery package may appear to be an important response to Europe’s most pressing needs, the deal in the best of cases can only provide a cosmetic solution. Why is it so? It is because, as expressed decades ago when the bloc of nations was created, a match among such partners could not give birth to any good result. As it is written, “The dispersion of the wicked is good for them and good for the world.” (Mishna, Sanhedrin 71b.) By “wicked,” our sages meant those controlled by their divisive egoistic nature of self-benefit at the expense of others. In other words, the European Union is only a camouflaging cover for a false unity, and it will continue to be so until people’s selfish nature is changed.

European imbalances and the bloc’s internal egoistic disputes will not allow members to connect wholeheartedly. They are dry-hearted toward each other. Since the EU’s foundation, its members have not truly shown care for each other’s prosperity and stability, nor have they exerted efforts to raise future generations to become more responsible and caring for each other than our current one. Thus, as long as the person’s egoistic nature remains unchanged, there can be no authentic change in society either.

Nonetheless, the coronavirus pandemic constantly reminds us that we have no option but to move in a different direction, toward a more genuine unity among people than ever before. Human society has emerged as an integral global system binding together nations, economies, and cultures, and thus, the problems that Europe and the world experience have the same common root: narrow and cruel egoism.

The remedy for these problems can be found in an educational method specifically devised to transcend the problem of this underlying egoism. Therefore, the crisis can only be solved with a comprehensive approach that includes human connection as the pivotal factor for enabling a long-lasting solution to the problem. Without human relations deeply rooted in integration and true concern for the other, all bombastic revamps are destined to fail.

Had the EU plan included a main clause calling for education, or a paragraph demanding the spread of new human relations across the continent, or even an appendix declaring an intention to bring citizens closer together, one could still nod and agree that there is a chance that something could work out. But there is no such basis in the agreement, no inclination toward connection, and no motion to abolish the ego. Thus, we can expect nothing good to come out of mere technical actions, from a signature on a document.

Even if the EU had a billion more euros to invest, the decision still would not have yielded positive results. On the contrary, it would have led them to even stronger resistance and clashes, to wars and harsh struggles, and to outbreaks of new plagues.

Why is it so?

It is because the stimulus plan fails to take society’s balance with the laws of nature into account, laws that operate as an integral system where all parts, regardless of their dimension and status, fulfill a necessary role and complement each other in the system’s proper functioning.

The need to implement these laws of mutuality and integration is now more evident in the coronavirus era than ever before. Now, nature necessitates that we realize the bankruptcy of our past egoistic systems in society, and rise to a new unified consciousness. Even a simple thought in the direction of true unification would be a big step, not only toward the birth of a new Europe, but toward the birth of a new world.
— Published on July 27, 2020
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New Life 1255 – The Evolution Of Employment, Part 2

New Life 1255 – The Evolution of Employment, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Soon many businesses will disappear. The ones that will prosper in the future are those which will promote learning, the practical application of spiritual connection, and the discovery of the upper world. Up until now, we have built science and industry according to the principles of an egoistic nature.

From now on, we will act according to the integral attitude and principles of the circle. This is a revolution in the perception of reality and the unlimited expansion of human evolution. The heart and mind will be focused in the field of connection technology and instruments. The ability to work for the benefit of all of society leads to a feeling of wholeness and eternity, which exists throughout all of nature. There will be such a deep connection that all of us will be “as one man with one heart” in a new world!
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1255 – The Evolution of Employment, Part 2,” 6/22/20

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“Israel Had A Coronavirus Record Over The July 4th Weekend, With Cases Spiking By 13 Percent. Why Do You Think That Is?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Israel had a Coronavirus record over the July 4th weekend, with cases spiking by 13 percent. Why do you think that is?

Now we are heading toward the end of July 2020, and the coronavirus cases have spiked nearly 92% more over the course of the month, from 28.4K cases on July 5 to 54.4K cases on July 23.

Why?

As I have written and spoken about extensively since the coronavirus became a global pandemic, COVID-19 is not merely a health and economic issue, but a nature-sent phenomenon that has come to reprogram humanity: to make us all more aware of our interdependence and interconnectedness, and to give us conditions by which we become forced to exercise our mutual dependence on each other.

Also, before the coronavirus struck the world, I extensively wrote and spoke about the people of Israel having a special role in our world: to pioneer humanity’s transformation to a positive connection above its increasing divisiveness.

The more divided society becomes, the more there is a need for the unity that the people of Israel have a method to realize.

Therefore, if we, the people of Israel, make strides to positively connect in order to be a unifying example for humanity, we will then experience a positive reaction from nature and other nations.

If we fail to move in a unifying direction, then our negligence and disunity will ripple throughout humanity in the many forms of social division pitting people in the world against each other, and we will experience its negative backlash.

Instead of becoming a unifying example capable of leading the world to a more harmonious state, we have become the opposite: an example of social discord, like a tail trailing behind humanity, dragging along and slowing down humanity’s progress to a more positively connected state.

This is the situation we’re currently in. Thus, it comes as no surprise to me that we have encountered a major rise in coronavirus cases this month. And it has nothing to do with whether or not we observed the health department’s guidelines.

Until we reach an understanding of our role, that we exist not for ourselves but for humanity, and feel on our flesh that we need to contribute an example of unification above division to humanity, then we can expect more and more malfunctions that work against us.

The calculation with regard to the people of Israel is always in relation to humanity’s unity or disunity: if we act to increase unity among ourselves and humanity, then we will experience positive feedback together with a force of connection that increases humanity’s happiness, safety and health to humanity.

And the more human society needs unity, i.e., the more it experiences the negative effects of its divisiveness, then the more we will become pressed to respond according to our fateful role.

“Does Kabbalah Suggest A New Approach To Antisemitism?” (Algemeinier)

My new article on Algemeinier “Does Kabbalah Suggest a New Approach to Antisemitism?

The maelstrom of a global pandemic has not kept antisemites and Jew-haters quiet. On Twitter, the antisemitic hashtag #JewishPrivilege, which was originally used to accuse Jews of racism and control over other minorities, rapidly became a top trending hashtag.

In an attempt to push back against the hashtag’s antisemitic sentiment, Jewish celebrities posted personal stories of discrimination, bigotry, and persecution suffered directly by them or their families throughout generations. But, as expected, it failed to ease the animosity.

In another instance of “special treatment” of Jews, Twitter accounts of users displaying a Star of David were locked by the social media platform, which deemed the Jewish symbol as “hateful imagery.” Twitter later said this was done by accident.

Surprisingly, this is all happening at a time when some social media giants face boycotts from international corporations, which are pulling multi-million dollar advertising budgets from what they call a permissive hate-speech culture on those platforms. Apparently, antisemitism is a more powerful exception to the rules against online hate speech than both advertising dollars and boycott threats, since it is still widely tolerated, and the responsible regulators look the other way.

Hatred of Jews, however, does not depend on our actions. It is a sensation embedded in nature. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that antisemitism first surfaced together with the emergence of the Jewish people around 4,000 years ago in ancient Babylon.

While Babylon was experiencing a crisis of social division, with conflicts and hatred tearing up society, Abraham, a Babylonian priest who discovered the path to unity above the growing divisions, began openly teaching his method to anyone who wanted to learn.

Those who felt that social discord was the burning issue of the time flocked to study with him. He guided them to the discovery of the single uniting force necessary to rise above divisiveness. The group he led became known as “the people of Israel,” meaning “straight to God,” (Yashar-El in Hebrew), i.e., straight to the single force of love and bestowal that exists in reality. Later, the group also became known as “Jews,” which derived from the Hebrew word “yehud,” meaning unity.

Since the Jewish people were the first to attain unity above division, they received the mandate to act as “a light unto the nations.” This meant that their role was first to connect, and then to spread the light that emanated from their connection like rippling waves to the rest of humanity.

Why is this role so important today?

It is because in today’s world, the overblown human ego, social division, conflicts, and hatred are all rising exponentially, causing a myriad of problems and crises, and thus there is a renewed urgency and necessity for the Jewish people to carry out their role. The more people suffer, the more they subconsciously blame the Jews for holding the keys to fix the problems, but failing to do so.

If we Jews make no effort to connect, we block the positive unifying force from reaching humanity, and hatred pressures us to perform what is expected of us. Humanity’s positive future depends on us.

If we have a privilege, it is in our role to deliver human society the abundance and fulfillment that comes from uniting “as one man with one heart.” As is written by the most renowned Kabbalist of our generation, Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “It is the wisdom of faith, justice and peace which most nations learn from us, and this wisdom is ascribed to us alone.”

When we as Jews unite, even slightly, we will act as a conduit for the force of unity to spread throughout human consciousness.
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“Repairing The World From The Pandemic” (Medium)

Medium published my new article “Repairing the World from the Pandemic

The planet is not going back to the “old normal,” warned the World Health Organization (WHO) as more than 14 million people have been infected with the coronavirus globally, with around one third of those cases reported in the US. Also taking into account its severe economic impact, the WHO considers the pandemic to be the “most severe” global health emergency ever. COVID-19 has arrived to erase the old world and draw a new one, and we can look ahead to the new world with optimism and hope.

The new reality demands that we undergo such a perceptual inversion, in which we will each stop calculating everything out of narrow self-interest, and instead develop a broad vision that takes everyone’s best interests into account.

More than a passing crisis, the health and economic devastation from the coronavirus represent the collapse of the world as we knew it. That old reality is crumbling before our eyes. World leaders find themselves powerless to manage the pandemic properly. They have their backs pressed against the wall and their pockets empty of ideas on how to solve the enormous coronavirus challenges, since their approaches are unaligned with the new reality.

We thus need to realize that tomorrow will be unlike yesterday. Although nostalgia for the past is natural, we have no option but to start looking forward, and fast.

New Is Good

The old world collapsed because its foundation needed an upgrade. Even if we found success in the old world, it says nothing about whether we will do so in the new reality. In order to survive and prosper in the new world, we need to transform the basis of our interactions: from egoistic to mutually considerate. The new reality demands that we undergo such a perceptual inversion, in which we will each stop calculating everything out of narrow self-interest, and instead develop a broad vision that takes everyone’s best interests into account.

The pace of human development has accelerated tremendously over the past few centuries. It has manifested in all sorts of revolutions and social changes. Currently, the call for solidarity and equality resounds in the streets of many countries. However, in the new world, even revolutions will be different. They will first and foremost take place inside the person, in people’s minds and emotions, rather than on the streets. We will have to feel that all human beings are equal, close, connected in mutual consideration, and accordingly learn how to treat others as we would like to be treated.

Previous revolutions changed the pecking order: those who were unimportant became important, and those on top lost their status. The next revolution will be different. Its innovation will be the connection of everyone together as one.

When we feel as one, social systems will emerge that mirror our new connection. Some of the new systems will be voluntarily built out of informed participation on our part. However, as much as we lag behind in our grasp of the developmental trend toward unity, nature will painstakingly force the construction of more unifying systems against our will. Thus, we will gradually bear witness to the dismantlement of the egoistic society, and its replacement with an altruistic society where all parts are equal and connected in mutual complementation.

An Inverted View to Advance

How long will the change in question take? That is up to us.

As of today, we are very far from the goal, both socially and personally. There is nothing more contrary to human nature than to think of the good of others as if it were our own good. And yet, our evolution requires such a change. Humanity now faces the challenge of matching nature’s integrality and unity if it is to survive the 21st Century.

How will it be possible to reverse our selfish view? The method to reverse our nature can be explained with the following example:

Under the current circumstances, we worry about contracting the coronavirus from others and decide to take measures to protect ourselves, such as wearing face masks and keeping our distance from others. An inverse perception, from inward care to outward concern, could be explained as following precisely those same measures as before, but with the intention to avoid our own involuntary transmission of the virus to others.

It is no coincidence that it is currently impossible for us to get rid of the coronavirus, since doing so would require a level of mutual responsibility and guarantee that we do not have. This global pandemic might just turn out to be the first in a series of blows that will show us, with ever-increasing force, that in nature’s view, we are all one, and our good future depends on taking care of each other as if we are members of the same family.

Therefore, we should try to think about what it means to act positively to others — not only to those who are naturally close and dear, but just as much to those who seem foreign and distant. What we do for the sake of others comes back to us, because the system’s every detail exists interdependently with everyone and everything in a single complete whole.

When we function as a single body we will experience the good life: Nature’s cohesive force will flow in our connections, and the world will become filled with abundance, health and tranquility, giving us all a new lease on life.