My new article on Linkedin “Corona Parties – A Sign of Disregard for This World”

They have been around since the outbreak of COVID-19, but now it seems they have morphed into something quite bizarre. People held Corona Parties, aka, “lock-down parties,” all over the world: In the United States, Australia, Belgium, Estonia, and many other countries, young people seem to be rebelling the way young people always do, by disobeying the rules.

We are at a precarious time in our history. Millennials will not stand idly by and be led; they are active, intelligent, and inquisitive, and we must provide answers about where the world is heading.

But lately, it seems as though people are going to these parties deliberately in order to become infected with the virus. They hang around people who have tested positive or are already showing symptoms and compete for money at catching the virus.

But money isn’t the issue here, it’s the defiance. And it’s not even defiance against the authorities, as such; it’s defiance against any boundaries! People, especially young people, are wanting more and more to break the boundaries and free themselves. They are becoming unruly because the rules make them feel fettered, and they want out.

I see this as a very important and positive sign. It is a sign that people want to emerge from the perception of the world they were born into and acquire a new perception, a world without borders, orders, or limitations. What they don’t know, however, is that the world they are looking for exists only above the ego. As long as they are led by their egos, they will keep falling into the same trap of trying to escape one way, discovering it’s done them only harm, then trying to escape another way, only to discover that the new way has failed them, too.

I feel for them, I sympathize with them, and I only wish that they would discover that all they need to do in order to break the shackles of reality is think of one another and not about themselves. It is in the other that they will find a boundless world; it is in thinking about other people that they will discover a fertile soil to cultivate and express themselves freely. Only in giving can one derive strength from the work itself, and only in giving can one express oneself to the fullest.

We are at a precarious time in our history. Millennials will not stand idly by and be led; they are active, intelligent, and inquisitive, and we must provide answers about where the world is heading. If we don’t teach them how to experience the shift—that the world has become one unit, that everything we do affects everyone, that we are dependent on each other for our lives, our health, our wealth, and our happiness, and that we can’t achieve anything unless we work together, if we don’t show them all that, their curiosity will become frustration, then anger, and then violence. It is already beginning to happen; we haven’t any time to waste. From here we can either rise to the very top, or fall to the very bottom.

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Medium published my new article “Heart Jobs — the Jobs of the Future”

Back in 2012, ARI Institute, of which I am the founder, published the book The Benefits of the New Economy: Resolving the global economic crisis through mutual guarantee. The book outlined a futuristic job market where few people work and provide for the needs of the rest of humanity, while all other people are occupied in “heart-jobs,” connecting their hearts and creating a social environment of mutual responsibility and care. A few years later, the idea began to take hold as governments began to toy with the notion of Universal Basic Income (UBI) which stipulates that governments guarantee people’s basic livelihoods. Journalist Thomas Friedman grasped the idea more clearly in 2017 when he wrote that in the future, people will have to “create more value with hearts and between hearts.” In an interview with the British Council, Friedman said, “We used to work with our hands. Machines replaced that but we started to work with our heads instead in a knowledge economy. …Next I think we’re going to work more with our hearts.” He was right; machines will do the rest.

The social benefits from such jobs are obvious: solidarity, absence of crime and violence, enhanced mental and emotional resilience, and a general sensation of contentment with life. But there is another major benefit that this occupation will present: personal realization of aspirations.

A Future of Zero Unemployment and Absolute Satisfaction

When it comes to working with the heart, there is no such thing as unemployment. Everyone can and must contribute. We need to understand that the world is going through a major shift. People are developing a new and fresh approach to reality, even if they’re not yet aware of it. The “jobs” we’ll have in the emerging reality will require working with our thoughts about each other, our social connections, and our desires, while machines do the physical and “intellectual” work.

The “jobs” we’ll have in the future will require our internal powers. Until today, we have employed only one natural force — the egoistic force that strives to benefit the self at the expense of others. But the world has come to a point where we cannot keep using only that force since it is pushing human society and the whole planet into a chasm of unbridled selfishness.

Unlike humans, nature is balanced, with two forces that operate in it — a positive, giving force alongside a negative, receiving force. Now, we too must tap into the positive force and activate it if we want to restore balance in our world. Just as our will power, our passions and desires pushed us to great achievements for ourselves, now they will push us to achieve great things for all of reality, and especially for human society. We will still work with our desires, with our will power, but that desire will work in the opposite direction than the one we have utilized thus far; it will work toward uniting people together in a bond of care and affection, warmth, and love, above all the contrasts in human society.

It’s not as if we haven’t been using the positive force altogether. We have, but only on a very basic, biological level, to keep our bodies healthy. But when it comes to our social lives, we lean far too much toward self-centeredness, to the point that throws human society off balance and evokes the clashes and conflicts we are seeing today.

So now that more and more people have ample free time, we must begin to overhaul society. People’s basic sustenance must be secured, either via monetary benefits or stamps or delivery of goods to everyone, while their time is filled with social activities that enhance the giving force within them.

The new “job” will require everyone’s participation. Since it concerns reshaping all of society, everyone will partake in the transformation: men, women, those with “regular” jobs, and those without.

The social benefits from such jobs are obvious: solidarity, absence of crime and violence, enhanced mental and emotional resilience, and a general sensation of contentment with life. But there is another major benefit that this occupation will present: personal realization of aspirations. Since people will contribute their skills and energy to benefit the society, the society will have a vested interest in the personal fulfillment of people’s dreams. If, for instance, a person dreams of being a great scientist, is it not in the interest of society to help realize that person’s dream? What about a great leader, athlete, or anything that one may want to do? As long as one uses one’s talents to benefit the society, the society will have a vested interest in realizing those ambitions. And the best part about it is that once a person achieves one’s goal, he or she will discover that the greatest joy is not in completing the feat, but that completing it makes other people happy. This will be the utmost confirmation that one’s goal has been worthy, and nothing is more rewarding than to know that one’s goal in life has been a worthy one, and has made a lasting, memorable impression on humanity.

There will be labor pangs along the way to this ideal society, but it is already within reach. The sooner we begin to work on building it, the sooner it will become our reality. The necessity to leave the ego-based existence is already evident; now it is up to us to determine how long it will take to build a balanced world of mutual care and solidarity.

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The coronavirus turned our whole life upside down, instantly stopping production. As if someone had turned off a switch and stopped a mechanism that worked according to certain laws, according to a certain routine and familiar patterns.

Suddenly, all this stopped and humanity entered a new era, leaving businessmen in complete confusion and uncertainty about what will happen next.

It seems that every day the laws of the new world, which the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us, began to manifest themselves more and more. They should replace the old world we still exist in with our egoistic psychology. It is clear that something completely new is being born that obliges us to change our attitude to life, to work, to family, to ourselves, and to the world.

Further, all depends on whether we will be stubborn like naughty children who do not want to listen to their parents, and therefore will be forced to learn the laws of the new world that nature teaches us by the stick. Let us hope that we will be able to explain to all of humanity that we are witnessing a change in social structure right before our eyes.

Throughout our history, we have gone through many formations: the primitive communal system, slavery, feudalism, and capitalism. And now we are entering a new formation, which is completely different from all previous ones because it is based on a fundamentally new relationships between people.

All of us will have to get closer to each other, understand that we live in an integral world, and that we are obliged to bring human society in line with this integral world; that is, we must build an integral society. Only in this form can we survive in modern conditions and move to a new stage quickly, easily, and pleasantly, with understanding and awareness.

Otherwise, nature will have to urge us on with blows, third and fourth world wars, and terrible sufferings, about which the prophets wrote that “merciful mothers will eat their babies.” In other words, a person will completely lose his human appearance when passing from one formation to another.

We are at a transition stage, from the principles that have been nurtured in humanity for many generations to completely new laws that will now have to be implemented in production. But to do this, first people need to change, not just businesses. In order to organize a new production sphere that operates under different laws, it is necessary to change the businessmen themselves so that they know how to do it.

First of all, businesspeople and company owners must agree with the need for change in themselves, recognize that they live in a new time that requires them to make qualitative changes. No matter what kind of change it is, I know that I must accept it, no matter what, because without it there will be no life for me, my family, or the whole world.

And although I do not like or want these changes that break my old habits, I know that this is the call of the time. First of all, there must be an agreement to change, that is where it all starts. This is called the point of recognition of evil. Everything that was before is no longer good, and therefore is called evil.

And it is possible that it was very good for the time being but no longer corresponds to today’s principles, and therefore is considered evil. Whether I want it or not, I must give it up and enter a new life, a new format.

Entrepreneurs will have to realize that the demand for change comes from nature. It is important to understand that this is not the machinations of banks, law enforcement agencies, or scientists-virologists, but comes from nature itself, and therefore, we can only bow our heads and accept it as sent from above. Nature is above us, and we have no choice but to study this phenomenon and accept the changes.

We need to see where nature leads us in our development. Kabbalah explains that nature leads us to integration, to the integral world, because this is the main, fundamental law of nature, which is all one. One force governs the whole of reality. The entire universe is governed by this force, and man must also be included in this force.

If we do not want it but still oblige ourselves to bow before this one force, then we make the best possible change in ourselves.

After all, from this contradiction: “against” and “for,” from our disagreement and readiness to step over it, we begin to understand what nature wants from us, by what principles it exists and realizes the entire reality, and how everyone can join into this reality with all its forces, at will, in order to swim in one common stream, along the flow of the entire universe toward the future.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life,” 6/22/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the real meaning of spirituality?“

Spirituality is above our corporeal reality. It is a completely opposite perception and sensation to our inborn bodily one.

We are born into an egoistic human nature, prioritizing self-benefit over benefiting others.

However, spirituality operates in an opposite, altruistic way to our egoistic nature—as an attitude of absolute love for the other.

What does it mean that we are born into an egoistic human nature? It means that everything we do is ultimately aimed at personal benefit.

The egoistic motor constantly running behind our every thought, desire and action is wrenched into our worldview more than we are aware of, blocking our ability to see us all connected, like members of a single family, since it filters out the absolute love that exists in our connections at the roots of our soul.

Therefore, every corporeal act we perform is based on this egoistic “perceptual blockage” that we all share, which constantly gravitates our attention onto ourselves.

However, a spiritual action is outside of and detached from its performer.

Instead of identifying with our “I’s,” we identify with the causal force behind its corporeal manifestations. That is made possible by attaining an identical intention toward others as the Creator: an intention of absolute love and bestowal.

Therefore, spirituality is the reality of connection with the Creator, the sensation of fulfillment by the quality of love and bestowal.

Spirituality is outside time, space, motion, and the animate body. It is felt solely in a new sense—a sincere intention to benefit the other—which is regularly exercised and developed on the spiritual path.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What makes a person truly happy?“

When we connect with others as a means to reach balance with the laws of nature—laws of connection, interdependence and altruism—then this yearning guides our discovery of our perfect place in the collective system, of which we are its parts.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this is referred to as reaching the root of our soul, the ultimate harmonious state that we can all achieve.

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Remark: The time of the epidemic brought forward people of low-ranking professions, like drivers, nurses, deliverymen, and cashiers. Now the important person is the one who delivers to the door, connecting us.

97% are household assistants, medical caretaking personnel, nurses, midwives, salesmen, and so on. That is, in the last 30 years everything was the other way around. A person with a diploma, with three degrees, with a PhD, a doctoral dissertation, and a professorship were considered quite necessary and important people.

And suddenly now the necessary, simple professions came to the forefront.

My Comment: Nature itself, our society, will allocate the necessary professions both in quantity and quality. Unnecessary universities, professions, and everything else will be closed.

However, there are a large number of professions that we need and value their qualifications.

We need to build houses; we need engineers, technicians, and technologists. We must produce cars and everything but not overburden ourselves with excesses. In anything!

This is the most important thing that the virus must do in us. It should give a person a sense of sufficiency, saturation, and fulfillment. We must evaluate everything as to how necessary it is.

Everything will be aimed at optimization. The main law of nature is that the interaction between its parts is integral, mutually complementary, correct, and accurate when you do everything that is necessary for the other, and the other does what is necessary for you, and thus you are merged.

Question: Who do you call a scientist in such a world?

Answer: A scientist is someone who understands this principle of the integrality of nature and can apply it, at least in some of the fields, and perhaps in everything.

The most important thing is to understand the principle of the integrality of nature, when everything that is done is necessary in order to complete it to integrality, to the circle, to the sphere.

This is how we must participate in it. We should only complete it. For example, is such and such profession needed anywhere, and if yes, in what quantity, in what quality, in what perspective, and so on. And if not, then we remove it.

Any profession, anything can be necessary. I approach it from the point of view that I do not understand anything about it, but let’s try to figure it out. This requires a really thoughtful, correct relationship between people when they look from the point of view of the correctness of their connection into a single society.

Question: What will be the most important professions?

Answer: The most important professions are those that teach the correct interaction of people with each other in their optimal, not excessive, complementation of each other.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 4/13/20

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Nature Is a Strict Teacher

Question: Baal HaSulam writes that the blows of nature occur precisely and in accordance with the level of development of society. That is, as society develops, nature corrects us.

How does the current correction differ from those viruses and cataclysms of 100 years ago?

Answer: In accordance with our development, we get more and more blows from nature. It seems to us that nature is punishing us. But this is not true. It teaches us, shows us at what level and to what extent we are mistaken. We deviate from the striving to integrate between each other and uniting with the global picture of nature.

It turns out that we are, in general, unteachable, clueless participants of nature. We don’t understand what we should do. Or we understand, but we don’t want to hear it.

As a result, nature always points a finger at us, pokes our nose at our mistakes, and we don’t seem to see them. It turns out that the most successful among us seem to be those who notice these mistakes less, who do not care about the inconsistencies of a person with the world around them. They do everything in their own way, and at the same time, in the understanding of others, they are considered the most successful.

Comment: But nature still pushes us toward partnership, cooperation, solidarity. We see that when some cataclysms occur, people begin to treat one another more sensitively and gently.

My Response: Not because they realize something, but out of necessity. And as soon as the threatening state passes, they immediately return to the stand against each other.

Question: How can nature lead us to solidarity, to sensitive relationships, if blows don’t help? What’s the point of them?

Answer: Nature leads us nevertheless to see how integral it is and to feel, by analogy with itself, how integral we should be.

Question: So, nature still requires us as human beings, as the crown of creation, to recognize this on our own and to want to connect with each other sensitively?

Answer: Yes. In order to unite at the highest level, we create a system in which we feel all the internal, driving force of nature and become the same as it: eternal, perfect, and attain everything.

Question: So there should be some kind of reset of values in society?

Answer: Of course. In each and every one.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/16/20

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Question: In the UK, under the law, a person is criminally liable starting from the age of ten. “Criminal liability from the age of ten—isn’t it too early?”—ask researchers, parents, sociologists, and psychologists.

When you are ten years old and British, the law severely restricts your rights. You cannot drink, smoke, vote, or get married. You cannot even get a dog or a cat on your own. You are under-age.

However, when it comes to murder, ten-year-olds are tried as adults. In England and Wales, the age of criminal liability starts at ten.

Can a person at such a young age understand what murder is if he commits it in a state of fervor or passion?

Answer: For this, he must be brought up in a certain style. The upbringing in Britain used to be very serious. Even now, in universities, you can see what bug-eaten benches they sit on and what plates they eat from—these are cracked earthenware plates from 200 years ago. In the morning, they take a bath, and if suddenly the hot water is turned off, they must take a cold bath.

If they raised their children in this way, and especially in the last few years before their 13th birthday (ten years old is too early), then it would be possible to treat a person as an adult from the age of 13 onward.

Question: What does it mean to properly educate children under 13?

Answer: It means explaining to them quite seriously what the responsibility of a person in all aspects of their life means.

I remember that we, as students studying medical biological cybernetics, were taken to the morgue, to the maternity ward, to surgeries, to not very pleasant places. They would open a corpse, show us something, and it all leaves not a very nice impression. A woman gives birth and you see how it all happens. I remember myself at the age of 18 and 19, I was very impressed by this.

Also take them to jails, all this is necessary. And it is after such practical training that you can demand something from a person. All this is not simple.

Remark: There are cases of child abuse by parents, their children are beaten.

Based on such real cases in Britain, a TV series was filmed in which they show the father’s abuse of his sons and his cruel treatment of the mother. In the story, at one point in the evening when their father was drunk and sleeping, the children inflicted multiple stab wounds on him, and then they must be judged.

Researchers are wondering: even outside of the framework of the movie, are children able to take responsibility for their actions in such cases?

Answer: It is hard to say. Neither children nor adults are. Neither children nor adults! It is not a question of age but of what training and education they had received.

Question: Then how can we judge them correctly?

Answer: There is no way to judge them if they are not ready to be judged and judged correctly.

Society is to blame for not giving them proper training, for not educating them in the correct way, for their behaving in this way, and for their father behaving in this way. It is society! We should not blame the parents, and that is what happens.

Society allows such movies, such Internet, such influences on children, and then complains: “How can this be? Let’s ask society. Let’s put society in jail.

Question: At what age can a person be criminally responsible?

Answer: It depends on education! On education! Not on age.

Question: But what does that entail?

Answer: This includes everything. It entails creating a new person! The way we want. The way we think he should be. Society must decide. “Here it is, here is an image of the correct person. We want to make such an image from each and every one.”

And do not think that people will be similar to each other. They will not. We do not standardize people. But regarding their behavior toward each other, their responsibility to society, their parents, and  everyone, they will behave the way we decide. And here everything depends on what we decide. But after that, this will be our responsibility.

And today too, it is our responsibility! How can you hold a ten-year-old child responsible? We show him all sorts of deformities on TV, he sees the hell knows what in the family. How can they act differently? There is no way.

Who should be punished? Those who are responsible for the upbringing are not even the parents. What about these poor parents? What kind of parents can they be? We need to put the ministry of education and upbringing in jail.

Question: You said that we will depict an image of a new person and educate the generation according to this image. Can you show us an image of a new person?

Answer: The image of a new person is very simple. It is someone who understands their personal responsibility for the entire society and lives the life of society. In other words, the main thing is to support society so that it is always in a good state.

That is it. When there is such an atmosphere, everything will be alright.

But this must be monitored! The police, the ministry of education, and the ministry of upbringing should still exist. Upbringing! After all, upbringing is not the same as education.

And everything, starting from kindergartens, should be subordinated to this. Then people will be healthy both mentally and physically.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 12/17/19

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Remark: Israeli scientists have proven that people lie in order to consider themselves honest, and for others to consider them honest. They even lie to their own detriment.

My Comment: A lie is what a person adds to the information he has in order to somehow embellish, exaggerate, his or someone else’s actions.

Remark: We know that the Torah says: “Get away from lies.” What is the lie it is necessary to get away from and what is the lie that is not necessary to get away from?

My Comment: Truth is a gradual, constantly progressing disclosure of the Creator in our world. And a lie is something that prevents this disclosure.

Remark: Kabbalah says that all qualities, all properties, are needed.

My Comment: In order to use them or not to use them.

Question: And how can a lie be used correctly for human development?

Answer: It allows us to get away from what is called a lie. Or it can be used to help people, on the other hand, with the negative.

There are things that I know and don’t say, and I even lie to others because by doing this I arouse positive qualities in them.

Question: Then could you name the main criterion for the negative quality of the lie and the positive one?

Answer: Only if you act for the benefit of a person outside of you, only in this way will you find the right criterion.

Question: But is there any principle, a person can always relying and never lose?

Answer: Here is this principle: when you act for the benefit of another person, then in the end, in the long run, you will always win. That is, take the truth as a reference and use it, and never take a lie against it. And then you will be moving toward the goal of creation.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 2/4/20

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New Life 1244 – Social Intelligence
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

The coronavirus has been a general blow to all of humanity and has developed, within us, the feeling that we all depend on each other. People with social intelligence pay attention to how they can do good to others in every situation. Social intelligence is the recognition of how much we need an integral environment. The main thing is to help each other to learn how to achieve the right connection between us so that we will be compatible with nature. People with social intelligence know how to tie themselves to society correctly so that both they and others will enjoy it. We need to balance the heart and the mind and to aim both to feel and benefit others. Our success in life depends on our good relations.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1244 – Social Intelligence,” 5/25/20

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