Question: What should the world become after the coronavirus?

Answer: Very simple—a world where people love one another. And that’s it!

In truth, we do not know what love is. We love what gives us pleasure. This is what we call love. In other words, love is self-love for us. But we need to begin making sure that people are mutually involved in the correct integral relationships.

We are one system and we have to think about how to keep it in balance so that it does not lose its equilibrium, so that we all feel good and do not pay attention to appearances, “I don’t like people like you and you don’t like people like me.”

We need to rise above all the problems in the feeling of mutual integral dependence. Just like a mother does not see flaws in her child, be it his small eyes or a big nose, she just loves him the way he is. We need to achieve this state of love.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/15/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How is the new COVID-19 disease going to affect the world?“

Before we discuss how the COVID-19 disease is going to affect the world, it helps to be aware of the deeper causes behind its appearance, and then to understand how we can best use this period of social distancing we have been placed in to impact a positive shift in society.

While there are many theories as to what caused the coronavirus, the deeper cause was our imbalance with nature. We were in an egoistic-competitive rat race, where we each sought self-benefit at the expense of others, and it was getting out of hand.

If the coronavirus would not have arisen, then we would have led ourselves to a man-made crisis. I think another world war would not have been out of the question.

Therefore, the coronavirus crisis emerged to save us from a much more severe crisis. As strange as it might sound, it came mercifully from nature in order to isolate us from the exploitative and manipulative world we created, as it washes away the waste from that world. Similar to how we had been dumping plastic and radioactive waste into our oceans, we had also been polluting human society.

Photo by Tj Holowaychuk on Unsplash

Now, while we are in this unique era brought about by the pandemic, we have an opportunity to create a new and upgraded world, one where positive human connections become the leading value.

While under stay-at-home orders, we have time and space to review the way we live our lives. Reviewing the way we used to live our lives, if the coronavirus would not have struck us, we would have been driving ourselves faster and faster toward an oncoming wall.

Therefore, what should we be looking forward to when we exit this era?

Should we be waiting to head back to our 10-to-12 hour work days, traffic jams, pollution, debt, and myriad other personal, social and ecological problems?

Or would we be wiser to use this transitional era in order to help each other make a big step into a new world: to think about how we can improve human connections, replacing our past egoistic and exploitative relationships with altruistic and mutually considerate ones?

Without philosophizing too much about how the coronavirus will affect the world, we would use our current physical detachment from each other more beneficially if we would first internalize how to stop relating negatively to each other. We have been given time and space to achieve this.

Afterward, gradually, new situations will emerge where we will be able to connect more intensively in positive, supportive, encouraging and considerate ways.

If we succeed in upgrading our connections during this period, then when the stay-at-home orders will be lifted and the coronavirus is under control, we would also continue what we now begin: to appreciate positive human connections benefiting everyone over self-benefit.

We would then enter into balance with nature—the discovery of a harmonious world filled with delight, peace and happiness, and we would be guarded from any kinds of future pandemics and other crises.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How did the COVID-19 virus appear?“

There is a deeper reason for the appearance of the COVID-19 virus than the theories currently on offer. Whether it emerged from bats, pangolins, or whether it was lab-produced, essentially any of these or other stated reasons for the revelations of the virus would still merely be consequences of a deeper causal factor: human imbalance with nature.

Nature functions as an interconnected and interdependent system that constantly guides its parts to reach the same level of interconnectedness and interdependence. It operates as a whole integrated system, considering each and every one of its details with utmost precision and care.

The still, vegetative and animate levels of nature are sustained in an instinctive and involuntary balance with nature.

The human level of nature is fundamentally opposed to nature in that it is egoistic, operating out of self-interest at the expense of other people and parts of nature.

Moreover, the more we humans have developed, the more this egoistic quality has grown, and in recent times it has reached unprecedented excesses. We developed a consumeristic, individualistic and materialistic rat-race society where we each tried to build our successes on the ruin of others.

Before the coronavirus, our overblown egoism was leading human society to states that could have been far worse than the pandemic if it had continued to be left to its own devices. The increasing tension in international relations, for instance, could have well led to a world war.

Therefore, in terms of how COVID-19 appeared, it would be wise to view it from its deeper cause: our imbalance with nature.

Also, in the social distancing conditions we find ourselves in, we would do wisely if we started learning more about how nature’s wholeness, and how we could use this unique period we are in for an upgrade of human consciousness: to become more considerate in our relationships and connections, and thus, to bring ourselves closer to nature.

Doing so would have far-reaching implications in terms of our general happiness and well-being, as we would then no longer awaken all kinds of blows that affect us on personal, social, ecological and global scales, but the contrary, we would draw nature’s positive unifying force in the new positive relationships we build with each other.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does the average person not understand about the coronavirus pandemic?“

Whether or not the average person understands write I will write below, here’s what I think every person needs to take away from this coronavirus pandemic:

The pandemic won’t be over with anytime soon, despite the easing of stay-at-home orders starting to take effect.
Curing the coronavirus requires a step toward more mutual consideration and responsibility among us all, from the average person to world leaders.
The coronavirus struck a blow to the egoistic-competitive rat race we were running, and over time we have calmed down our consumerist lifestyles, where it was a norm to exploit others for personal profit purposes.
I think that we can look forward to a positive future, which will be calmer than how we used to live, with more balance among each other and with nature.

Weeks and months of isolation will play their role in transforming us.

Do we really think that the moment all the restrictions are lifted, we’ll be running back to malls, filling our bags with piles of extra clothes and plastic goods, and flying to tourist destinations left, right and center again?

I think not.

One of the major takeaways from this pandemic is that we have cooled off our approaches to each other where we each aimed to self-benefit at the expense of others, and that we see a clear example of nature treating all people equally—which we would be wise to apply to each other.

Nature is working with us, trying to wake us up to the fact that we are all in the same boat, and I expect that we will come out of this pandemic with more awareness of our common status in the wider perspective of nature as a whole.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How will the world be different when covid 19 is cured?“

The coronavirus’ stubborn spread is changing the face of the planet, trampling our routines, and weaving a new picture from depths that we have yet to fully realize.

We still have our pre-coronavirus lifestyle in the back of our minds—that we will wake up in the morning, get dressed, taste our usual morning beverage, and take those same steps through our familiar urban terrain, our recognizable world of malls, stores, cafés, and restaurants.

However, we have begun to realize that perhaps we exaggerated the importance of materialistic consumption in our pre-coronavirus lives.

Now that we’ve been “sentenced” to life’s essentials, we start questioning the necessity of the excesses we were engaged in:

• Will our lives return to the “normal” that we knew before the coronavirus, or will they assume a new form?
• Will the close of the coronavirus era open a Pandora’s Box of long-awaited shopping and travel that we thirsted for during this period, or will we find ourselves freed from old burdens and welcome a new beginning?

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

We now have time to take a deep breath in, and ponder these questions.

One way or another, we will have to get used to sitting in our homes, perhaps even working from home, and settling for little.

Also, maybe we will come out of this period with an upgrade in our attitudes to each other. For instance, maybe we would take away from the coronavirus, that as it doesn’t discriminate between people of different status, so we should also make no such discriminations.

However, coming to terms with the implications for our lives and the many mental and emotional changes will require time.

On one hand, we have a chance to decide whether the way we were living our lives should be revised in order to be better balanced with nature, while on the other hand, even if we reach such a decision, the way to do so is unclear.

At this juncture, we can make optimal use of this unique period by learning the principles of the interconnected and interdependent world we live in.

We would be wise to use this time to sharpen our awareness that we live in a single system, an integral universe, where we humans are intertwined with the inanimate, vegetative and animate life that surrounds us.

While we are interdependent parts of nature, our own nature—human nature—is self-centered, wanting to enjoy individually at the expense of anyone and anything it can get its hands on.

While we each try to serve our self-interests in an interdependent system, we look like we each pull on the same rope that connects between us all in a game of tug-of-war, and by doing so, we all end up eventually tumbling down.

Interdependence closes us in from the outside, and our self-centeredness presses up against the interdependence from the inside, and thus crisis erupts in between them.

The crisis we now experience is not due to the coronavirus but to our imbalance with nature, our lack of positive connection with each other.

In our connections with others, our egoistic nature constantly tries to serve its personal benefit over benefiting others. In order to reach balance with nature, overcome the coronavirus, and protect ourselves from future pandemics and other crises, we need to learn how to develop positive connections above our innate egos that constantly try to receive everything desirable for self-benefit alone.

Today, while we are isolated from each other under the social distancing and stay-at-home constraints, we have an opportunity to learn the principles of what it means to live in an interconnected and interdependent world.

We should thus be concerned about how to use this period in order to realize positive, considerate and healthy relationships, and how to develop an atmosphere that inspires us to give to others, benefit them, and think about them more than we consider ourselves.

Although it might seem frightening to take hold of the other end of the stick and think about others more than about ourselves, if mutual consideration and responsibility was a leading value in our society, then we would all receive a whole new sense of security, confidence and happiness likes of which we have never experienced before.

Nature is encouraging us to rise in our awareness and become integral like it is. We need only change our egoistic relations to altruistic ones, shifting our modus operandi from one of self-concern to one of concern for others.

We would then not only exit the coronavirus, but would enter a new world free from the problems of this life. We would be enveloped by a new supportive and protective force—nature’s own quality of connection, bestowal and love—and would be guided by this quality to build a perfect world.

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Question: Can the point in the heart awaken during childhood, when someone passes away?

Answer: Yes, such questions often come up at a young age. Then, we usually forget about them and the point in the heart can awaken at a more mature age. Therefore, we do not need to teach children the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is better to wait until they grow up and start when they are at least teenagers.

Question: Usually, children often ask: “Why do people die?”

Answer: Everyone has such questions. But it does not mean that this is a question about the meaning of life. These are simply ordinary childish questions. We need to answer them somehow, soothe the children, but nothing more than that.
[261014]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/9/20

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Question: Are the manifestation of man’s negative properties such as laziness, greed, jealousy, resentment, and self-interest all types of egoism? If that is the case, are they also corrected under the influence of the upper light?

Answer: Corrections in Kabbalah do not happen as they do in our world. Whatever negative properties we seemingly perceive are actually not negative. This is our nature. And thanks to it, we must reveal the corresponding positive properties in each of them and thus balance them.

Let’s say we have hundreds of negative attributes and at the same time we reveal hundreds of positive attributes opposite to them. It is as if we turn them inside out.

It is between these positive and negative attributes that we begin to feel the meaning of nature, its true essence, where there is no positive or negative but only an eternal, perfect action with no beginning and no end. And we participate in it all the time.

So, don’t worry if negative properties are revealed in you. On the contrary, be happy about it because it is an opportunity to reveal the positive ones, to balance them, and to actually attain the goal of nature, why it has created positive properties and concealed them, why it has revealed negative properties in you. And you, in your search for positive properties in contrast to the negative ones, can find the true essence, the source of all these properties, all the laws of nature. We are yet to reveal all that.

The main thing is never to regret the negative properties revealed in you. You are yet to see that they are the only thing you are made of. Good luck in revealing them!
[261028]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/2/20

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Question: What are MAN and MAD?

Answer: MAN (Mayin Nukvin) is raising certain desires; their appeal to the Creator. MAD is receiving a reply to what we ask for from the Creator.

MAN and MAD must match. The more they are aligned together, the more correctly I am turning to the Creator.

MAN is formed when I ask for others. And only for others! Then, I have the desire to fulfill others and I ask the Creator: “Give me the opportunity to fulfill them,” i.e., to receive for the sake of others.

Such a request to the Creator is called MAN, and the Creator’s response so that I can fulfill them in practice is called MAD.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/1/19

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New Life 1217 – Coronavirus, The Dual Connection
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

There is no love without hatred. These two poles must be balanced so that there will not be a short-circuit between them. The coronavirus is showing us that we are sometimes incapable of being considerate to our relatives due to human egoism. Family members should sit and talk about what the virus wants from us and how we can build cordial relationships between us. When we see faults in our partners, it is necessary to work on ourselves and understand that these are faults in us. We must try to build a wholehearted love between us. Love is like an animal that must be fed through mutual concessions. After the coronavirus, our world will have changed in all aspects of life. In the new partnerships there will be more love.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1217 – Coronavirus, The Dual Connection,” 3/31/20

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Concerning Above Reason” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 1

Selected Highlights

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