Question: In Australia, a fifty-year-old man, Ian Asher, completely sold his life. He sold his house, all his equipment, a car, a motorcycle, including his life and his acquaintances. He put it all up for auction on eBay for one dollar. He said: “I do not need such a life. Whoever wants may take it.”

Within a week of bidding, the price rose to $305,000. All he had left was himself, his passport, and money. He said: “I have dreamed about adventures all the time, but in reality I had a dull job, I sold carpets.” He made a list of 100 goals and made a promise that in 100 weeks he would realize them all.

He traveled non-stop: he flew to Dubai to ski, he ran with the bulls in Spain, he swam with white sharks in Africa, he traveled in Japan, and walked on the Great Wall of China.

Two years later, after he had spent $270,000 and fulfilled 93 of the 100 goals, he decided to give up on the remaining 7—to learn to understand in a dream that you are sleeping, to sink to the bottom of the ocean—and forget about them. Instead, he bought a small island off the coast of Panama, built a house, and began living there.

Moreover, now he has a beloved woman. They opened their own publishing house, they publish books, and write fairy tales.

What kind of life is worth fighting for?

Answer: And what is worth fighting for if it all ends? I would not fight.

What to fight for? For the fact that you have been allotted a few more years, and you want to somehow live them, better or worse? You look at the end and see that there is no point in fighting.

Question: But what is really worth spending a lifetime? After all, it is so long.

Answer: Life is given to us only in order to attain its meaning in which a person already attains life itself. It is life itself that is attained in attaining its meaning.

The meaning of life is to reach its root, where we descend from, and where we return to; we descend into this world, and rise back.

Question: Why does a person need to descend into this world, to feel these problems, discontent, disappointment, and despair?

Answer: So that he departs from all these problems. He does not need any problems. He needs to understand the meaning of life. But it is not at all in this world and not in how to do something in this world.

Question: Why not immediately reveal the meaning of life to a man? Why should he go through this series of years of meaningless existence?

Answer: He would not appreciate it. He must reveal and earn it. Because when you work on it, you begin to develop an appetite for it, a desire according to which you begin to feel the meaning of life.

And I can pay everything for it. All I have. I will be paying solely for attaining the meaning of life through my whole lifetime.

Question: When a person became disappointed with his life, sold it and all his belongings, started all over again, and eventually found his little tiny happiness, he showed others an example that you need to set goals and achieve them.

Can a person who attains the meaning of life, and for him it acquires meaning, importance, value, also somehow set an example and pass it on?

Answer: But how can he tell others about the meaning of life? He has found it by himself, he has acquired it. It has a metaphysical value, not a corporeal one. It is not like I have bought or found some kind of a diamond.

For me, the value of my life is in life itself, in that I attain it by myself. And for another person it is when he attains it by himself. I cannot sell it. I can sell life. But I cannot sell the value of life.

Question: But a person is born with a certain aspiration for life, something initially attracts him. After that the whole society with its system overwhelms him. How can a person break through this global mass of disturbances and discern that it is possible to attain the meaning of life?

Answer: This is fate. This happens if a person has a special guiding thread, a fate, luck, a special property, a special angel.

Question: And what is fate?

Answer: Fate is a special force that invisibly, incomprehensibly leads a person by the hand to the upper goal.

Question: How can a person grasp it? You know how it happens when you lay hold of the tip of the thread, start spinning an invisible clue, and it leads you, while you are working, to unexpectedly great results.

Answer: This is only through a subtle property of the inner soul.

Question: If a person has not yet come to the brink of absolute despair when the reverse mechanism begins to work within him, how can he voluntarily rethink it?

Answer: If he has an angel, a fate, then he will succeed, but if not, it will not work. Each of us has a good angel. One has only to draw this good angel to him. To do this, one really needs to want it. It happens to the one who wants it.

This is an internal feeling of longing, a glow of the goal that you want to strive for, but you do not understand what it is, how to achieve it, where to find strength, desire. People who want this come to us.

If in each person a special property arises—to attain oneself, one’s own upper world, one’s predestination—then this means that an angel is already appearing in him. The force that is leading him to the goal, to attainment.

Question: And are we already in this generation?

Answer: Yes, we are on the threshold of the fact that each of us has an angel who is already telling him, whispering that there is a meaning in life: “Do not despair, go forward and search.”
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 3/3/20

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We mustn’t forget that all of our work transpires in faith above reason—i.e., by the force of bestowal above the force of reception. When a greater force of reception, greater egoism is revealed—it’s a sign that we have been given an opportunity to rise above it to carry out work that is more difficult and come closer to the Creator’s reality.

Over the last several decades we have understood that we are destroying ourselves, the world, and the lives of our children, but we were unable to stop the egoistic race. Now we are receiving help from above in that the Creator is revealing evil to us in the form of the coronavirus and the opportunity to correct it by restrictions, rising above #egoism.
#COVID__19

The #coronavirus has halted our ego-development as we were unable to stop on our own. We must discern the Creator’s guiding hand in everything—and see that everything that happens is corrections, and there is nothing bad in the world.
My ego does not allow me to see the future as long as I only seek benefit for it.

Do I see that the Creator fills the whole world, and there are no places left where it seems to me that He is absent? Because that would be impossible! The whole of reality is a desire filled by the Creator. But the degree of this fulfillment is personal, individual, peculiar to each person, inasmuch as we are ready to see the Creator in everything.

The end of correction is already in progress—it is already effective, we are in the midst of this process. Let’s expand our perception and see what the Creator is doing to humanity. He does not consider our lives, but looks at how to infinitely fulfill all degrees of the desire, HaVaYaH, the whole of reality.

Let’s try to open the mind and heart to see that everything is being revealed for our own good. The Creator is revealing Himself to us in an integral form, inside of us and around the entire planet. Nothing like this has ever happened before, since the creation of the world! We are the last generation—treading toward the initial state!

Humanity dispersed out of Ancient Babylon. Now the Creator is gathering us together, by means of a psychological blow. Let’s try to justify the Creator’s actions, understand their necessity in order to attain Him. Then we won’t see the current events as problems. We will rather accelerate our progress toward the goal.

The upper light influences us, comes closer in order to be revealed in us. We have to go through these states with its help. When life is good, people move farther away from each other, but a common misfortune brings them closer. The Creator, with great care and love, connects us together by a common misfortune.

Quarantine is a time to stop and think, to change. One who is wise sees the state that is being born. This leads us to an eternal and perfect state—to the proper connection between us, revelation of the upper force, the field of upper light that fills the mind and sensations with infinite attainment.
From Twitter, 7/10/20

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Medium published my new article “Not a Virus But Sophisticated Software”

Like sophisticated software, COVID-19 operates us and changes us from within. The virus is driving forward our development as human beings and we will continue experiencing on-going waves of the pandemic until we fix our selfish human relationships. Until we harmonize with nature’s program, the situation around us will not change.

The virus is driving forward our development as human beings and we will continue experiencing on-going waves of the pandemic until we fix our selfish human relationships.

Through the coronavirus, nature is pushing us from behind to redefine human connection. However, we have not yet responded correctly to the outbreaks by improving human relations toward mutual consideration, support, and responsibility. We have not reduced frictions between the sectors within society. Thus the virus strikes us over and over. Therefore, we must force ourselves to arrange our interactions in an integral, complementary way.

Just as nature is one system within which all its parts are linked, the human race must develop an integral network of connections between all its members. But unlike animals, which behave instinctively, we need to move toward connection consciously until we feel as equally vital parts of a single humanity.

How does the virus perceive and respond to our behavior? We and the virus are in the same system of nature, one vast system that encompasses all of reality and responds to our reactions and everything that happens within it. If our behavior continues to rub against the grain of the system, persisting in being egotistical and narrow, the forces of nature will require the system to respond more strongly to force us back in line. If we do not change our behavior, no place in the world will find a lasting cure for the pandemic because the virus will mutate and create new versions of itself time and time again.

First and foremost, the problem is the hostile attitude of people toward one another. Consequently, the virus is applying pressure precisely on this point of mutual consideration. It does not allow us even to approach one another or return to normal unless we reconstruct our attitude from the ground up. We need to understand that nature views us as part of its single integral system, without regard to our feeling that we are separate, independent units.

Conversely, if we maintain proper connections between us, we can shape the world in a completely different way. We will feel a significant new perception, mindset, and attitude toward one another that will lead to new behaviors and expressions between us. Whether we notice the process or not, our entire inner world will change for the better through the influence of the environment.

Even if the time comes that the virus finally passes, we will discover that we are different people than before, that we have changed. We will no longer have the urge to run from one corner of the globe to the other or storm the malls every time a new phone model comes out on the market. Life will be simpler, more natural, and our satisfaction will mainly come from higher quality relationships between people.

The closer we get to each other and finely tune our relationships to integrate with nature, the sooner and more painlessly we can be rid of all the troubles that now plague us.

We will understand the need to relate to everything around us in a more responsible way, the need to halt the pursuit of vain materialistic goals that are destroying our earth. Until now, the idea of acquiring and accumulating has controlled us: man has wanted to take the best of everything for himself, to advance in wealth and control at any cost. As we become more developed, we will discover that our best life as a human species will be when we harmonize our relationships with the integrality that exists in the rest of nature.

Integrality is the next step in human evolution. The absorption and internalization of this idea, and its realization among human beings will lead us to the discovery of the most potent inner power of nature, the one power that connects all levels of nature and its forces into one integral system.

Our inability to cope with the crises of our time — all the mess, the schisms and corruption that fill our world in every field and every level — help us discover how opposite we are to the balanced system that rules the rest of reality. Learning can occur in one of two ways: the unpleasant way, in which more global catastrophes like the coronavirus will hit us to illustrate how much we are part of one system, that are interdependent and affect each other’s fate; or, we can learn an easier way, in which we immerse ourselves in the concept of a single holistic system and start taking proactive actions to develop new qualitative relationships between us that are based on care, reciprocity, and completion.

Our future fate is in the hands of the integral power of nature. So the closer we get to each other and finely tune our relationships to integrate with nature, the sooner and more painlessly we can be rid of all the troubles that now plague us. We can succeed to rise to a whole new level of human development by upgrading our human connection to harmonize with the deepest and most meaningful software of all.
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Filed under: Coronavirus, Crisis, Globalization, Health, New Life | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Medium published my new article “A Bailout Plan for a Country in Pain”

Look around, we need a bailout plan, and we need it fast. COVID-19 is winning on all fronts, the economy is crashing, anxiety is rising, and aggression is winning. But there are things we can do, if we have the guts, gumption, and grit.

If people stay home idly for more than a few months, they will begin to lose their ability to commit. Once they are in that state, it will be virtually impossible to train them and make them productive for society, and they will remain a weight on the back of society.

First, we need to free the world from the illusion that the coronavirus is a passing phase. It is here to stay. It may not remain the coronavirus that we know today, but its quelling impact on the capitalistic world we’ve known for generations will remain. So whether we like it or not, capitalism as we know it is over, and the sooner we get over the withdrawal phase, the better.

Next, the majority of the job market that we know today will not survive the transition. Anything that is not essential for regular human sustenance will fade, though perhaps not immediately, and the remaining occupations will shrink in size and volume to a fraction of what they are today. Alongside the demise of the old job market, a new scope of jobs will emerge. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman referred to them as jobs that “create more value with hearts and between hearts.”

These jobs will be occupations that deal exclusively with bringing people together, increasing mutual responsibility within communities, mutual care and concern, and a sense of accountability and affinity even among strangers. To engage residents in the process, another aspect of this new social work will deal with providing knowledge about the shift that the world is going through. The information will be given via courses that will explain the nature of the change we’re going through, why all of a sudden the economy came crashing down, why we must be responsible for one another like never before, the benefits of such a change of mind and change of heart, and what would happen had we kept going the way we did until the outbreak of COVID-19. The two kinds of training — for enhancing solidarity and providing knowledge — will run side by side and will keep people busy at least as many hours as they would be occupied had they kept working as before, perhaps minus transit time.

Third, the transition period between the capitalist era and the new era must be as short as possible. Human nature loves rest and becomes accustomed to it almost instantaneously. As a result, if people stay home idly for more than a few months, they will begin to lose their ability to commit. Once they are in that state, it will be virtually impossible to train them and make them productive for society, and they will remain a weight on the back of society.

Fourth, alongside the shift in the job market, society will transform its values from admiration of the powerful and narcissistic to esteem for the empowering and altruistic. This will not be a society that worships superheroes, but one that honors those who bring it together in solidarity.

Fifth, preparing the next generation for life in the new world will require changes in the approach to learning, teaching, communication between teachers and students, and between students and students. As in society, so at school, the most commended students will be those who excel in helping their peers work together. The idea isn’t a novel one; it’s been around for more than a decade. Perhaps the best expression of the practicality of collaborative learning is a quote that patent lawyer Lawrence Ebert J.D. found in an essay about high-school cheating: “In no industry is collaboration considered cheating. Only in school is this a problem. What are we teaching our kids?”

We have very little time to make the change. COVID-19 is pressing and old certainties are crumbling. Fringe groups have become mainstream and extremities the norm. If the bailout plan begins without delay, it can take us across the water to the other bank in relative calm and safety. If we let the current carry us where it is going, we will drown.
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My new article on Linkedin “Where Have All the Chain Stores Gone?”

From high-end venues such as Neiman Marcus through discount retailers such as Tuesday Morning, to car rental giant Hertz, veteran businesses all over are filing for bankruptcy faster than anyone can update the list. Here are just some of the big names that COVID-19 either crushed or handed them the final blow: J. Crew, Neiman Marcus, Stage Stores, Brooks Brothers, J.C. Penney, Tuesday Morning, GNC Holdings, Lucky Brand Dungarees, Gold’s Gym, Pier 1 Imports, Hertz, CEC Entertainment, and this is hardly the beginning of the list.

The heroes of tomorrow will not be movie stars or Instagram icons; they will be people who bring people together, who promote solidarity and mutual responsibility.

It’s not as if the coronavirus started the trend. Just last year, Gymboree, Payless Shoesource, Forever 21, Diesel, and many other big, medium, and small retailers filed for Chapter 11. While it is true that these stores fell prey to the online commerce revolution, it is still a sign that we are seeing the end of an era.

Accelerated by the virus, a process of abandoning the brands and embracing the basic is happening the world over, with America as the trailblazer. It is not only that people’s need to show off their high end tech-gadgets and trappings is diminishing; they also need less of them. The coronavirus-induced lockdown landed a big blow on sales everywhere, and some recovery is to be expected, but the general trend is downward.

People are changing; they are losing interest in buying gadgets that are here today, gone tomorrow, and leave nothing but emptiness in their wake. Instead of stuff, people are beginning to look for meaning in more lasting engagements, and mainly in human connections. It is simply that life has become so cold behind the text messages, and so limited behind the cellphone screen, that people need some real connection—connection of the hearts.

The heroes of tomorrow will not be movie stars or Instagram icons; they will be people who bring people together, who promote solidarity and mutual responsibility. The most admired individuals of the emerging era will be those who quietly make others feel that heart to heart connection is what makes them happy, what gives them confidence, and what they would like to feel from now on.

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Question: Today, nature separates us through the coronavirus. In theory, considering our inner nature, it seems that we are supposed to enjoy it because everyone wants to be one of a kind, to show their individuality.

On the other hand, we are striving for communication, we want to get out of quarantine and begin life as before. What is the essence of this conflict?

Answer: Firstly, I don’t believe that our period is already post-coronavirus. We haven’t passed it yet and it isn’t known when we will pass it.

The coronavirus mutates, as all viruses breed and multiply, appear and disappear. People will seem to be getting ill again, but in fact, slightly different variations of this virus will manifest themselves in this way. Not soon yet we will part with the virus.

On the other hand, the virus separates us a lot. It gradually weaned us from being physically close to each other. I see how the queue is in public places now: at the post office, at groceries, at the box office, etc. Nobody crowds each other. On the contrary, everyone is trying to stay at a distance, not leaning against one another.

In general, this is commendable, since our past willingness to go literally over each other’s heads is bad, ill-mannered, and did not give anything except a false idea that we are close to each other.

The current state is more polite, helpful. Against this background, you can develop a real rapprochement between each other and feel that we can really be closer, but internally, more helpful, sociable, but on a different wave—more sensitive, coming from the heart, and not from the external movements of the body.

Therefore, I see a lot of positive, healthy manifestations from the coronavirus communications. Ultimately, the virus must show that we need to get closer internally, and then we will find the cure from it that we are looking for.

This is a new evolutionary stage in the development of our desires.
[266936]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/23/20

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Question: On one hand, the coronavirus showed how high the value of human life is, and on the other hand, how easy it is to inflict a blow on it. How do these two opposites fit together?

Answer: This is what always happens in life. On one hand, it is priceless; on the other hand, it is worthless. We cannot solve this paradox because we do not understand the true value of life.

It exists not on the animate level, but rather on the spiritual level, which is higher than the corporeal one because it is eternal, perfect. Only there can we compare, correlate, and weigh our lives and yearnings.

We do not really know anything about our earthly life. We do not know the meaning of our actions or the meaning of our behavior. We do not know what is really happening to us. It seems like we live, get up, go to work, go home, have hobbies, and raise children. What do we do in this life? Nothing.

Only if we seriously want to know the meaning of life and start to build our lives based on it and in accordance with it, then we can really say that we exist.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/17/20

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Question: We see that even being on his deathbed, a person continues to think about nonsense and does not change his values. It is scary even to imagine what scale the crisis should be in order to change us with its pressure. Who or what will make a person radically change the values of this life?

Answer: Changing the values of life is possible only under the influence of a higher power, a higher light, which lifts us above our world, pulls us out of purely animal desires. In this case, animal desires are replaced by human desires, proceeding from the next level of nature. Then we can talk about our growth.

And so in man the desires of our world prevail, nothing else. He simply does not understand what the Kabbalists are concerned about. He thinks: “If you live – live, if you die – die. What can you do? This is life.” And only if the higher light shines upon a person and under its influence does the person begin to think and make other decisions.

Who comes to study Kabbalah? Those people who have questions about the meaning of life. They are already from the next level, the so-called “faith above reason.”

We live in our flat knowledge: It is what it is. But there is still a level called “faith above reason.” It is not blind faith to believe, to be religious. This is the next level of perception of reality.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/17/20

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Question: Eventually, after forcing us to unite through a virus, would we need a method of connection, or is it enough for us to unite under the blows?

Answer: No, that’s not enough. Under the blows, you can only advance at the beginning when you are brought to the methodology. Afterward you would want to move yourself.

Therefore, movement without blows will become your permanent state. Moreover, it will not occur under the influence of blows, but under the influence of attraction to future good states—from your aspiration forward.

We still have a lot to learn in the method of our connection, and then we will just see how we can literally continuously rise in our understanding, in our feelings, in our confidence in ourselves and in the world. This is such an exciting prospect that you should not give it up.

Question: What should a person do in order not to wait for the next blows, but to move in a good way, without suffering?

Answer: To learn what he needs to do. To be integrally interconnected as possible with at least a small group of people because it isn’t yet possible with the whole world.

This way the person will avoid the blows. And further, try to attract anyone to this integral relationship, and in this move higher and higher together with those whom he attracts to unity.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/10/20

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