“Under Pressure – A Society On The Brink Of Collapse” (Linkedin)


My new article on Linkedin “Under Pressure – A Society on the Brink of Collapse

When you watch the news, you might think that the world has gone off the deep end. On the one hand, you have the coronavirus epidemic that’s ravaging the country and the entire world. On the other hand, you have a teetering economy that’s struggling to stay afloat. And in between, you have countrywide racial tensions and an approaching presidential election. Is it any wonder that people are so tense these days, that there is so much violence and anger? Society is on the brink of collapse

Our social relations are the problem, they contaminate our relationships and the disregard toward the doctors’ orders is simply a symptom of our disregard for one another.

There is no point drawing post COVID scenarios since people aren’t blind; they see that COVID isn’t going anywhere. If anything, it’s only ensconcing itself deeper in the country. As things stand today, I don’t envy the next president. Nothing that any government can do will ease people’s anxiety, get rid of the virus, or get the economy back on track.

But in fact, right now we don’t need to do anything; we need to understand! We need the right perspective, and then we’ll know what to do.

We need to realize that the world around us has changed. We will not return to excessive consumerism, frantic tourism, and the noxious attitude we proudly called “capitalism.” Thank God, the virus killed them all; they were old, had countless background illnesses, and the virus did away with them. In that sense, the virus cured us.

Actually, the fact that the coronavirus is so contagious is a blessing in disguise. People were so hostile to each other and felt so alone that tens of millions of young Americans were forced to find refuge in substance abuse, depression, all sorts of escapism, and extreme violence, both homicides and suicides. If we follow the doctors’ orders and keep our social distance and wear our face masks, we will at least stop hurting each other. Afterwards, we can start thinking about reconnecting in a non-toxic way.

It is no coincidence that staying six feet apart is called “social distance” and not “physical distance,” which is what it is. Our social relations are the problem, they contaminate our relationships and the disregard toward the doctors’ orders is simply a symptom of our disregard for one another. If we wanted to heal the country, we could end it by simply following their orders for a couple of weeks and the virus would be gone. But we don’t care about each other, we do whatever we want, and the virus is having a field day.

If we don’t begin to change our attitude to one another, the coronavirus will destroy our healthcare system, ravage our entire population, disrupt supply chains, products will not reach the stores, and all the money that the government will pour into people’s bank accounts won’t help them feed their children since the shelves will be empty.

This is the future we are building for ourselves just because we don’t care about each other. In today’s reality, one cannot live in disregard for others. It is called “mutual responsibility” and today it is essential for our survival. If we exercise it, we will live, and live well. If we spurn it, we will starve.

Kabbalah—A Method Of Changing One’s Fate

laitman_760.3Question: What is fate and what is karma? Is there a difference between these concepts?

Answer: I don’t know what fate or karma is in other people’s minds. I can only say that a person has his own path, and while walking through it, he can alter it. I don’t know whether to call it “karma” or “fate” but everyone has it.

This path begins with the fact that everything is already embedded in a person. Just as a drop of seed contains all the information about the future person, there is a spiritual drop of seed that determines the development of an earthly, spiritual person in us and in this way we advance.

Can this be changed? It can be. The science of Kabbalah is a method of changing one’s fate (karma, if you like).

Comment: The fact is that many people have a fatalistic belief that you were born with a certain fate that you have to accept and go with its flow.

My Response: No, that is not true. We can change our fate and ourselves. The science of Kabbalah gives a person the opportunity to attract the upper forces that can change him.

A question arises: Is the scenario by which this can be done also written in our destiny initially? In general, yes. The only difference is whether I follow it in a good or a bad way.

I can turn myself into a person that is initially embedded in me (in the form of an information record) rather quickly, easily, and pleasantly, or I can do it in some other way. Meaning, I can accelerate my development. But, in any case, I will have to achieve the final goal that has been encoded in me.
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From KabTV’s “Together about Important Things” 7/14/20

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When Will The Pandemic End?

laitman_624.03Question: Now many former joys are fading into the background. Some people are changing their habits. Others are in a hurry to restore their old lives, and this is impossible to stop because people have to eat, drink, stay warm, etc.

How, then, should people begin to change?

Answer: The change should begin with the fact that people need to understand what they need to eat, drink, be warmed by, that they should provide themselves the most necessary, but nothing beyond the necessary. And then the pandemic will end. Everyone will be properly assigned for the work necessary for society. But no more than that.

The virus will not allow us to return to the past just to earn pieces of paper. This will not happen.

Question: From various sources, including the World Health Organization, information is coming that people need to prepare for new waves of diseases in the fall and winter. It is not clear whether they want to scare us or if this is a real assumption?

Answer: I think the same pandemic will continue. It will come and go in waves, and no vaccine will help us.

After all, it is not about medicine, but about people correctly perceiving their attitude to nature, the environment, and society. It must change. If their attitude changes, this will be the vaccine.
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From KabTV’s “Today’s International Situation” 6/18/20

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The Change Of Worlds Is An Era

laitman_213Remark: Many people fear losing the world these days.

My Comment: Indeed, I see it. But I personally have no fear. On the contrary, I am like that bird singing a new world so that I can already stand up and open to all. I think the sooner this happens—of course, with a soft landing—the better for humanity.

So far, everything is going according to plan. Humankind will gradually be freed from piling up all kinds of egoistic enterprises and ties. Involuntarily, people will become simpler in their ordinary lives; they will value relations between themselves more, either through suffering, or through awareness, but still it will come to them.

The change of worlds is an era.
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From KabTV’s “Today’s International Situation” 6/18/20

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Attaining The Upper Force

Laitman_421.01Question: Is the question of the meaning of life individual or common to all?

Answer: Understanding the root of life is common to all. But you know it individually.

You begin to see that the real universe is eternal, infinite, and you also exist in this eternal, infinite movement. There is no death besides the one that seems to us because it falls only on our animal state. The higher state is not affected by the death of the animal body.

You see that the knowledge of life is the attainment of the force that governs all of nature. We call it “Creator” because it created us. But this is not what is implied in religions. This force is attained in the properties that we acquire, absolutely clearly, experimentally. You begin to feel how everything exists around you, and at the same time, you rise to this level.

It becomes clear to you what a human means, how he is different from the inanimate, vegetative, and animate world. After all, they all exist within the framework of a small Earthly egoism, including us.

And if you rise above your animal egoism, then you begin to attain the eternal, perfect state in this world, in this life. And our material existence in no way limits us.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 5/24/20

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Knowing The Creator

laitman_222Question: Listening to your lectures on the Internet, I noticed the phrase “to know the Creator by the creature.” In essence, the very process of learning requires a large amount of time daily, attention, and incorporation from us.

On one hand, as I understand it, we come to know the Creator through the creature, i.e., through active actions within our lives, and on the other hand, we have to disconnect from this life. How to untie this knot?

Answer: In fact, we can do whatever we want in our lives unless we harm other people because this will definitely stop us from revealing the Creator. But if we live and work normally, have everything that a person usually has, but at the same time systematically devote time to study the attainment of the Creator, that is, devote, let’s say, two to three hours a day to this, this is enough to begin to feel the sphere that manages us, which is outside of our world, and to begin contact with, open, and enter into an internal two-way dialog with it. So, progress until you begin to feel these states as absolutely real.

This by no means is an escape into some kind of space, nor meditation, but simply a systematic training to expand your sensations, and increase the sensitivity of your internal sensor.

Question: Should I immediately apply my new sensations, new knowledge, and the new perception of the world in my life?

Answer: This does not obligate you to do anything. What will happen to you will be carried out only by your choice, at your will, gradually. You will be able to use this for attaining the true reality you exist in.

You will feel the forces that manage you, how they change your desires and move you from inside. You will become absolutely clearly aware of the “hand” that is inside of you, like in a puppet being led by a puppeteer. It moves and controls you, and in response to this sensation, you make a decision whether to obey it or not, to go with it in unison or not.

Here appears your freewill. In such a way you begin to work either with the upper force that governs you or against it. In general, here the combination between you and the Creator begins.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/24/20

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Should We Kill A Mosquito?

Laitman_177.13Question: You say that animals eating each other is part of a harmonious system. What if a person intervenes in this?  What if a mosquito bites me and I kill it?

What will be the outcome of such interference in nature? How responsible are we for this? Should we do it or should we try not to kill a mosquito but simply shoo it away?

Answer: Don’t worry. Nothing terrible will happen as a result. It all depends only on whether you wish others good or bad. As for the mosquito, you don’t need to care about this especially.

I am serious. It is because we bring about harm or correction to the world by our desires for good or for evil. This is the whole problem.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 11/17/19

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laitman_933Being Chosen Is Determined by Life

Question: Different movements within the Jewish people have a different perception of the term “God’s chosen people.” Some of them believe that the fulfillment of religious precepts is enough, and thereby, they bring joy to the Creator.

Others claim that Jews gave the world economics, morality, science, and art, and in this we are chosen. That is, the Creator gave us brains, and by this we benefit the whole world.

Still others are trying to abolish this concept of the chosen people in every possible way claiming: “We are like everyone else. There is no such thing as a chosen people.”

And Kabbalists argue that God’s chosen people are to teach everyone the correct unity.

How can a person understand what it means to be a chosen people?

Answer: I think that there is no need to think too much about it. Being chosen is determined by our life from generation to generation.

Although humanity is advancing, developing, becoming more reasonable, and understanding that there is nothing of the chosen people in us, we implicitly feel that we are separate from all of humanity, that we are chosen. For better or for worse, it does not matter, but we are. Nothing can be done about it.

Our peculiarity is that we have to bring to the world a great ethical, cosmic, spiritual meaning: why we exist and what we must achieve.

But in order to accomplish this task we ourselves need to attain, to reveal, the meaning of the existence of all humanity and of the Jewish people within humanity: what purpose we must achieve, what role to play, how to spread this knowledge, and how to bring humanity with us.

In principle, this is exactly what humanity expects of us. Let us hope that we ourselves will become aware of this and will be able to explain this to others.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel” 7/29/19

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Is It Possible To Change Character Traits?

laitman_600.04Question: The basis of man is DNA, that is, our genes that determine everything: our physiology, all kinds of inclinations, and even, as they say now, political views. Do you agree with that?

Answer: What is the difference if genes or some other particles, waves, or elements determine our inclinations? Of course, there are properties set for us that guide us, and thanks to which we distinguish the characters of people, their different approaches to life, etc. Call it genes.

Remark: Our genes can manifest themselves as qualities that can or cannot be changed. For example, if a child is born in a family of egoists where the cult of money reigns, then, in principle, he has no chance of growing up as an altruist.

My Comment: No, I do not agree with that. We see in nature opposing properties. Our teacher Baal HaSulam writes that inversion is very often observed. We know that in Russia revolutionaries were born in noble families. This is the eternal problem of fathers and children when the children go against their parents. Thus, it is the properties of the parents that can be inverted in children.

Question: Do you think that character traits can be changed? Suppose a person has a penchant for stinginess.

Answer: There is no need to change anything. I believe that this cannot be done because the data that are in us are the so-called first nine Sefirot in every person, in every Partzuf, in every soul. We just need to learn how to use them correctly.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 4/30/20

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New Life 1251 – Demanding Work Culture

New Life 1251 – Demanding Work Culture
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

Why have we exchanged life with work when it leads to such frustration? Does it really make us feel important and special? The excessive industry that we have established is destroying the planet and our inattention is destroying the nuclear family. It would be worthwhile for us to advance to a state where technology provides us with what is needed for existence and people are free to develop their spiritual lives.

It is preferable to invest energy in our inner development in life, to learn why we exist, etc. We would develop good relationships between people so we will not live in destructive competition, pressure, and hatred. In the future, people will understand how nature manages us and how we can interact with it; our lives will be full of culture, spirit, and satisfaction on another level.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1251 – Demanding Work Culture,” 6/8/20

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