Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the businesses of the future?“

We first need to understand that the financial, industrial and educational systems we have lived according to until today will change completely.

It is because the basis upon which we built all of our systems was our egoistic human nature, i.e., personal benefit at the expense of others. The more we develop with egoistic motives underlying our systems, the more corruption, exploitation, manipulation and abuse fills these systems, which gradually leads to a multi-system collapse.

Our past egoistic notion of success, where an individual or company is considered successful if they manage to run other individuals and companies to the ground, while simultaneously shining the spotlight on their increasing profit margins, is revealing itself to be unsustainable and harmful.

Today, nature presents us with increasingly interdependent and interconnected conditions, where we can no longer think of ourselves as separate from others, considering our own benefit alone. Therefore, increasing profit in one person’s hands as a result of subtracting from other people can no longer work as a success indicator.

Moreover, it is important for us to understand that the end of our egoistic-materialistic paradigm has been greatly accelerated by the coronavirus, which has forced us to distance ourselves from our past systems in a very poignant manner.

Today, we already live in a new system, but we have yet to fully acknowledge what that means. Thus, we are far from sensing our current transitional era positively.

The key for adapting to our new era is to start emphasizing the importance of human connections above all other engagements.

If we succeed in upgrading human connections, so that we will feel mutual consideration and responsibility toward each other, then we will discover exactly what kinds of businesses we will and will not need. In short, businesses will need to be conducive to improving human connections. On one hand, we will need our life’s essentials met, and on the other hand, we will need to continually invest in building positive connections among society.

All other surplus will be thus seen as nonessential and even destructive to our world, and the coronavirus has already helped us see this a lot quicker.

The principle of future businesses should be fundamentally opposite from today’s principle: that they benefit people’s connection, and that they cause no harm to people and nature. There should be no more situations where one person or company increases their profits at the expense of others. Our priorities will need to shift completely in order that we all focus on benefiting everybody. Success will then be seen not in terms of profiting from society, but in terms of contributing to society, and businesses that sustain the goal of benefiting society will be the ones that prosper.

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Question: The history of human development is the history of the development of our desires. About 3,500 years ago, the level of basic animalistic desires began to develop for food, sex, and family.

For 4,000 years until the 5th century C.E. (Common Era), the desire for wealth became dominant in humanity. From the 5th to the 15th century it was the desire for power. From the 15th to the 20th century it was the desire for knowledge. And since the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century it is the desire to reveal the meaning of life and realize yourself precisely at this degree of the pyramid.

What is the peculiarity of our time? What does it mean to realize oneself at the last degree, in the spiritual?

Answer: The fact is that our desires develop gradually, according to special laws. The highest degree is the one we are on today. It is really the highest: egoism pushes a person to realize himself in equivalence of form with the Creator, to become like the Creator.

On the other hand, the absolute impossibility of achieving this is revealed in us. And here we come to the conclusion that the task of becoming like the Creator is not solved directly, “head-on,” but develops and is realized in a different way.

Everyone should receive the forces from nature that help him change himself and build a structure above himself called “Man – Adam,” “like the Creator – Adameh.” After all, we are animals in all our ordinary pursuits.

And where does the man we need to develop hide in us? Very deeply; it is just a small desire that has been developing in us for centuries, until in our time we begin to feel it. And its realization comes in a very interesting way: We should not develop our original egoistic nature, but change it to the opposite, altruistic one. This is the equivalence of form with the Creator.

If you want to be human, you must turn yourself inside out, renounce animal existence and human predilections. Renounce all current values, such as wealth, power, fame, and knowledge, and prefer only one thing to this—the study of the Creator and the equivalence of form to Him.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/25/20

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We do not understand where our freedom of choice is or how to achieve it and implement it so as not to harm other people because we are all connected. Look at the turmoil in America today, it is a real civil war. There are demonstrations in Israel too, and the same things will happen more and more all over the world because the situation will get worse.

The world is losing its egoistic ties that it was connected by: you give to me and I to give you, commodity-money-commodity-money. This was a system we lived in for thousands of years until we totally squeezed all the juice out of it. By the 50s of the last century, this system reached its heyday and then began to rot. This was inevitable because otherwise we would never come to spiritual correction.

And therefore, today we find ourselves in a world that reveals such problems that will not allow it to return back to its previous state. Financial and governmental minds are trying to figure out how to maintain the existing systems where there was balance between how much a person invests and how much he can get or buy.

This egoistic system was relatively balanced, and everyone understood that this was life. Suddenly it crumbled in an instant. No one knows how to fix it or what will happen to us in the future. We find ourselves in a situation where the former mechanism has stopped working. Egoism, the driving force, kept me in confrontation with others all the time, determined how much each one would give, how much he would receive, and bound us with egoistic relations.

But this connection no longer works. What will regulate our relationships? We have created an army, police, an education system, culture, and financial systems. Our egoism pushed us to build an egoistic society, which has suddenly stopped working. This is a crisis that is not equal to any other previous crisis in history.

It seemed to us that we achieved an excellent organization of human society, which corresponds to our egoistic nature. We got the opportunity to travel, see the world, and understand each other because everyone was driven by one desire —to gain more. It would seem, what are we missing? There is only one thing we lack: that by this we do not implement the purpose of creation.

And look what has happened, how the Creator has ruined all our plans for a good life with the help of the coronavirus. Now we have found that all our preparations for a good life do not help us, not a single egoistic system works. So what can you do? The only way is to move from an egoistic system to an altruistic one.

After all, why can’t we move on to another even more egoistic system if the previous one has stopped working? But the point is that there is an upper program that rules us. From our level, we are not able to appreciate it, but Kabbalists explain how to use it. If we accept it, then we will be able to move forward, and if not, then we will remain at the previous stage until this program forces us to move forward.

At the end of correction, the system will work from both sides: both from the side of great egoism and from the side of great bestowal. These two forces will work against each other, and the created being, in the middle between them, will use both of them in an integral, harmonious, and perfect form.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”

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New Life 1266 – How To Get Rid Of Stress?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

We feel pressured and stressed in this coronavirus era since we don’t know what we’re facing or how to balance things out. We are like people standing on the seashore enjoying the waves, not realizing there’s a tsunami approaching until the 20-meter wall of water is directly in front of us. We need to help this transition into the new era happen, yet we are unable to digest what is happening. We need a global, integral education system to teach us how we can overcome all the troubles and problems through unity and connection. We need to change our attitudes toward society and the whole world so that we care for everything, as one man with one heart. Nature wants us to become one with the single system in which all of nature lives.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1266 – How To Get Rid Of Stress?” 7/21/20

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There is a ladder of spiritual ascent at the top of which is the light. The first level descends from this light and is divided into two parts: upper and lower – 1a, 1b. The second stage is 2a, 2b. The third is 3a, 3b, etc.

The light enters the first level only when the level wants that, but it cannot receive the light because if it wants to receive it only for its own sake, the light will not enter it. So it can receive it only to the extent that it bestows unto the light. This means that there is the desire of the light and the desire of the created being.

How can I reach the state in which I will want to bestow, know what I am living for, and what I can bestow to the Creator?

In order to do so I need to feel the lower level. If I turn to it, I will receive from it a desire to connect to the light and I will transmit it upward.

This transmission of a foreign desire, which means that it is not my desire, indicates that I don’t want to receive the light for my own sake, egoistically, but in order to transmit it to others. In such a state I will not receive it.

We are actually connected in a special spiral where each one exists in order to pass something on to others, and so the light passes through us, fills everyone, and no one is an obstacle that stands in the way of the light. So the connection between us is the precondition for the flow of the upper light inside us until we reach the state of total eternity and we are completely filled.

We actually need to be connected this way, and in order to do so there is the commandment of “love thy friend as thyself” because in such a case we reach the state of infinite filling by the upper light, which means, by the Creator, and thus enable Him to exist inside us.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 9/16/18

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What does human health depend on?

Question: There are two types of impact of society on a person.

The first is an indirect, unconscious impact. For example: pollution of the atmosphere, water, genetic experiments that are carried out on animals for food, etc. All of this naturally affects us.

The second is the direct, conscious impact of society: the media, all kinds of economic levers, and social norms.

Do you think human health in most cases depends more on society or does it depend on genetics?

Answer: Health depends on both.

Mostly, no doubt, from genetics. But still, as they say, existence determines consciousness. Therefore, it is imperative to think about what kind of environment we give a person, although in the same environment there are people who tolerate it relatively well and there are those who perish.

Remark: Doctors say that human health depends 10% on health care, 20% on heredity, another 20% on the environment, i.e., from the activities of people. And 50% is determined by a person’s lifestyle. And the way of life is dictated by the media and by the historical period in which a person lives.

That is, in principle, we can say that 80% of health still depends on society.

My Comment: Of course, life expectancy and its quality depend on the relationship between people, on their communication.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/14/20

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Lesson Preparation

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)” 

Lesson on the Topic of  “Love Covers All Transgressions” 

Lesson on the Topic of “The Obligation of Bnei Baruch to Humanity in the Last Generation”

Selected Highlights

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Humanity has come close to correcting and getting rid of egoism. We will no longer pursue material egoistic values. We will only value the connection between us. No one will harm anyone, just take care of each other.

All problems arise only to lead us to mutual guarantee. By doing so, we restore the unity in which we existed before the breakage of the single soul of ADAM, and to which we must all consciously return today. Therefore, getting closer is the only cure for the Coronavirus.

All nature acts according to the law of mutual guarantee, otherwise it cannot exist. This is insured by natural instinct. But people who are above the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels are obliged to fulfill the guarantee of their own conscious efforts and mutual help.

The crisis has resulted in a slower economy, increased unemployment, lower income—life is shrinking to a sensible size. The new lifestyle will establish a more rational consciousness. We won’t recognize ourselves in a year! But it is better to strive for the basics of rational nature on our own…

It’s a pity that countries do not understand where we’re headed—fewer jobs! We should start preparing for half of the working population having to stay home. How and what to do with them? Organize courses to raise the new society, with a diploma and provision of a scholarship.

We have found ourselves in a new, fairy-tale world of absolute deception, the world of lies. This is how the Internet presents the surrounding world to us. Nothing we check can help us find the truth. Our entire egoistic nature has overflown out of us and filled up virtual space and there is no room left there for the human being…

Any governmental assistance program, financial or otherwise, will only exacerbate the transition toward a new economy and social order. We must retain only the essential jobs and provide all households with income for their essential needs and introduce compulsory education on connection and unity.

The lack of jobs, and the mass protests that will follow as a result will lay the foundation for understanding that the process we’re undergoing is a natural transition to a new society. This is happening partially in the West, but the stubborn Israelis are, as usual, late to the party (Am Kshe Oref – a stiff-necked people). We’ll see the light come winter!

In the spiritual, hatred does not cancel love, but elevates it to the next degree. Both hatred and love come from the Creator. And love grows on account of hatred, in two parallel lines. And joy manifests from them both—in the middle line!

If we begin to sing in the heart, the world will instantly heal itself of all ailments and problems: internal, external, psychological. The heart sings, yearning to unite with everyone, so that together we could turn to the Creator to help us be together, between ourselves and with Him.

We had a wonderful congress. It’s clear that our approach allows for unification in these new conditions. Let’s keep using it! I am infinitely grateful to each one of the participants. We’re going to start planning the next congress—at a higher level still  ourselves determining its degree!

As we draw closer to winter, we’re going to start seeing closures and bankruptcies in retail and service industries, as well as other related unnecessary sectors. Gradually, everything should constrict down to just the essentials. As for people and governments, they must accept it as inevitable and assist with these changes.

Adhesion is achieved precisely through the unification of plus and minus.
You cannot come to adhesion without hatred. What else could serve as the foundation upon which to build unity, if not rejection? What we need is for my thoughts and desires to enter the space between your molecules and weld us together…

The virus will not relent. Increasingly greater problems will manifest until mankind realizes that nature is forcing us toward integral behavior: universal unification with rational consumption, work only to meet necessities while focusing primarily on education and growing the bond between everyone.

Only one Kli (ten) was created. The broader circles (the world Kabbalistic group and all humankind) is the same ten, only in higher resolution, allowing for greater detail and intricacies of being in adhesion with the Creator.

In the material world, a person can be smart and influential. But in the spiritual world, his connection with the ten is of much higher importance, and it gives tremendous spiritual fulfillment. The number of different qualities acquired through connection with others determines the capacity of my spiritual vessel (Kli).

In the material world, the size of a vessel is measured in quantity: one liter, two, a thousand… The greater the vessel’s capacity, the larger it is. In the spiritual world, however, the size of a vessel is determined not by its capacity, but by the quantity of different qualities that determine its resolution: the number of pixels.

In our world, ability is determined by one’s wealth of knowledge, but in the spiritual world, by the number of parts united together, to the degree that differing opinions unite to achieve a common goal. It is precisely this difference and effort to achieve a common goal that determines the size of a spiritual vessel.

The #coronavirus is the solution. Unless we begin caring for others instead of ourselves, the virus will keep raging more and more, “suffocating” us. I must think of how I care for the health of every person, regardless of how distant or near they are.

We don’t know how to arrange life in these new conditions. The blows haven’t even really begun, but we’re already in complete disarray, trying to maintain our existence via the old methods, holding out naive hopes that we’ll be able to go back to the past. Humanity must understand that there’s no going back.

I mustn’t renounce my opinion because I received it from the Creator. I need only admit that the other, opposite opinion has the right to exist alongside my own. Thanks to us creating a space not instead of myself but next to myself, in so doing we make the Creator.

Nature and the Creator are one and the same. Nature’s laws are equal to the Creator’s commandments. We exist inside an absolute law, which is called nature. If we abide by it, we feel good. If we don’t, we harm ourselves and our environment.

We will undoubtedly have to develop toward greater mutual connection. We have received only the first global blow, but it has already demolished the entire foundation upon which our lives over the past several centuries has been built: economy, education, culture. There is no going back to the past. Blows loom ahead…
From Twitter, 8/19/20

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New Life 1265 – The End Of The Capitalistic Era?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

The younger generation is no longer interested in attaining financial wealth and engaging in the competitive, capitalistic system. Nature is fighting against it more and more as well. Capitalism was fueled by the growth of the human ego and has become like cancer, destroying the planet and its resources. We are evolving to a new, circular form of mutual connection based on spiritual capital. Spiritual capital is the sense of unlimited freedom and purpose in doing good for others. It is a level of human development above the egoistic, animal level. Each one will have what they need to sustain themselves and will want to give and share the rest. When we are there for one another in equality, the entire world will exist for the benefit of every one.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1265 – The End Of The Capitalistic Era?” 7/13/20

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