On August 22, humanity will have exhausted a year’s supply of natural #resources for the year 2020 that the Earth is capable of regenerating within one year. This year the date comes 23 days later due to the pandemic. We consume as though we’re living on 1.6 planets. By the year 2050, humanity will require the resources of 2 planets!

The head of the #WHO says that the pandemic will end in 2 years. But I wouldn’t rush to declare when it’s going to end. Until we come to a state of good connections, nature will keep compelling us toward it, and with increasingly greater pressure. That is what the @WHO should be thinking about!

The point is growth is the point of rising above the ego that fills man. And though he cannot rid himself of the ego, if he wants to do it, he can draw a force from the outside that, despite man’s efforts to remain in his ego, will pull him out.

@WHO: #COVID19 cases among people aged 20-40 is the new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature’s program is to pull us out of the egoistic state, and it won’t let up until then. As it is said in Kabbalah, we have entered a period of global correction of the entire humanity and its ascent to the Creator’s level.

Across the globe, people are leaving big cities, hotbeds of terror, offices are closing down wherever jobs can be done remotely or are being lost altogether. Soon this will impact all children’s establishments aside from extra-curriculars and sports. Great social changes loom ahead. But people aren’t yet ready for them! If we feel darkness gathering around us, it means the light has come and this is exactly why we see the darkness.

The global crisis brought on by the #coronavirus is inducing #depression, panic, suicidal thoughts, #mentalhealth issues due to growing unemployment, financial instability, quarantine restrictions, fear for health. 50% are suffering from panic attacks and depressions and this is especially prevalent among the young…

We have lived to see the fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy of the people returning to their land “Shuvu Banim,” except not by realization, but driven by the “Path of Suffering” instead of being drawn by the “Path of Light.” This exodus from the modern Egypt, America, is leading us and everyone toward universal unification and the light.

The economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus has resulted in the decline in the economic situation of women. After all, the service industry has been hit the hardest with the closures of schools and kindergartens. If we drew closer together, we could have prevented the crisis and all its ramifications instead of waiting for nature to start activating the path of suffering!

Nationalism is a variation of egoism, humanity’s only evil, which has brought us to the #coronavirus and is also preventing us from quickly producing a safe #vaccine. The lack of trust among countries and the desire to defeat others instead of the disease is going to lead to “complications!”
From Twitter, 8/22/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the key lessons from this pandemic?“

One key lesson is that the pandemic is only an initial blow from nature, and we can expect many more blows in more severe forms because the time has come for us to undergo a major transformation: a shift in our entire approach to life, from a competitive self-centered approach to one where we share mutual responsibility and consideration for each other and nature.

The pandemic-charged changes we already see in society, from social distancing conditions through to increased unemployment and falling businesses, hint at how this change of our approach to life will have to transpire.

Especially in the realm of work, we have built a society filled with businesses and professions that we have no real need for.

Through the pandemic, nature started filtering out the nonessential from the essential. Businesses that served our basic needs continued serving us, while those we had no real need for became sidelined.

If we look at the animal sphere, we see how a certain amount of animals die off, and others develop in their place, according to various changes that appear in nature.

It is similar with us.

We are parts of nature, and nature operates on us by placing us in new conditions. Accordingly, nature adjusts the human population and the emphasis of its activity.

Under the coronavirus’ influence, many people have become unemployed, and it is because there is a prominent declining need for much of the professions we once held.

We can expect businesses and professions that we have a real need for to continue, which is only about five percent of the service sector that has developed over the last 70 years or so.

Likewise, we will see that around 95 percent of what we engaged in will gradually disappear. People will feel that the materialistic values we held, which drove us to strive for expensive clothing, prestigious cars, and traveling incessantly around the world, will decline, and we will feel needs for more basic and simple fulfillments, together with more meaningful social connections.

Therefore, society and authorities alike will need to think hard about what to do with the growing unemployed mass around the world.

It is on this point that I have proposed a setup where people will have their basic needs provided by authorities in exchange for participating in learning and activities that aim to increase the sensation of meaningful connection in society.

On one hand, we won’t be able to revive our pre-coronavirus economy and lifestyle, and on the other hand, if we simply fulfill people’s basic needs without offering social accolades and goals worth striving for, then society will stagnate.

Therefore, by supplying life’s essentials in exchange for participation in learning and activities that aim to improve social connections, we will see a major shift in values—from egoistic to altruistic, individualistic to mutually dependent, and materialistic to people-focused—which will make this transition appear advantageous to everyone.

Moreover, by prioritizing positive social connections above all other engagements, we will also come closer into balance with nature’s interdependent and interconnected form, and will thus experience positive feedback from nature: elated harmonious sensations the likes of which we have yet to experience.

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Medium published my new article “Covid-19 Has Quenched the Flickering Candle of Higher Education”

Covid-19 has crippled every conceivable aspect of civilization. Yet, some aspects suffered such a blow that in all likelihood, we are witnessing their premortem spasms. One such aspect is higher education. After decades of accelerated ethical and political decadence, and voluntary discarding of academic integrity in pursuit of wealthy donors, all that remains of the Ivory Tower is an empty shell. Now, thankfully, social distancing has puffed away that, too, exposing what was once the zenith of human engagements as the nadir of human indulgence.

Today’s employers attribute much greater weight to candidates’ professional experience and independent learning skills than to their academic background. In that regard, a study that surveyed over 3,000 U.S. teens and adults found that half of young Americans think that their degree is irrelevant to their work.

When Plato founded the Academy, he encouraged diversity of perspectives and discussion of alternative views. Being a participant in the Academy did not require adherence to Platonic orthodoxy. What a stark contradiction this is from today’s blatant political agenda that every academic institution advocates. If you can tell what political views students of a certain academic institution will have at graduation, this takes away even the pretense of academic or intellectual integrity.

Worse, when every student is indoctrinated according to the institution where he or she studies, the more institutions you can buy into promoting your ideas, the more you will control the leadership of the country in a few years when the graduates take their places in the country’s corporate world and political leadership.

When universities began to develop in Europe in the early Middle Ages, they started as monastic (or cathedral) schools that focused on religious studies, as well as liberal arts (grammar, logic, and rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy). As in ancient Greece, their focus was on development of thought, but also on provision of knowledge. In the middle, and especially the late Middle Ages, universities began to emerge as independent institutions in Italy, England, France, and elsewhere in Europe. By the time of the Renaissance, they were fully developed academic institutions, and many of them were funded by the Monarch rather than by the Church.

Yet, in doing so, they also lost their academic independence. To maintain the favor of the benefactor, academic institutions had to “bend” science to meet the views of their sponsors, and objectivity flew out the window.

While it is possible to accept partiality when it comes to humanities, it is far less acceptable when concerning hard sciences, and it is downright detrimental when it comes to medical studies and other fields of research that concern human lives and people’s health and well-being. Over the past few decades, there have been numerous cases where medical research was distorted, and medical evidence concealed in order to meet the interest of the funder, often causing horrific consequences to numerous people. The thalidomide distribution scandal of the late 1950s and early 1960s, for example, left a lasting effect on the world. Released as a sedative drug in the late 1950s, thalidomide was also found to ease the effects of morning sickness in pregnant women. The drug was sold over the counter for five years before it was discovered that it could interfere with developing fetuses and cause death and horrible birth defects. During those five years more than 10,000 children were affected, some 40% of whom died and the rest were born with abnormalities to the arms and legs, as well as other parts of the body. And worst of all, at least in Britain, the company that distributed and sold thalidomide knew almost six months before it was pulled from the market that there were credible claims it caused terrible deformities and the deaths of infants.

Since the 1960s, the situation has only gotten worse. When even medicine is for sale, anything is for sale. Today’s universities are mostly funded privately, or rely heavily on private donors to secure their budgets. These sums are not pro bono. They carry a very clear and high price tag, which the university agrees to pay when it decides to accept money from individuals, corporations, or foreign governments. These donors often get to determine much of the curriculum, the lecturers, and even some of the public statements that the university makes on issues of interest to the donors. In fact, these are not donations; it is quid pro quo.

But fortunately, times are changing thanks to the coronavirus. Covid-19 has uncovered the worst of the medical community, exposing nearly every official medical personality as a promoter of the financial or political interest that he or she supports. The views among so called “experts” concerning the nature of the virus and the ways to deal with it are so conflicting that it has become clear that none of them can be trusted to speak with the public interest in mind. In that state, the public cannot know the truth about the virus because either no one knows it but will not admit it, or no one tells the truth because it does not promote his or her vested interest.

Even more importantly, the transformation that the job market has been going through since the turn of the century has made universities almost superfluous. Today, when you study computer science, for example, by the time you graduate, at least half of what you learned in the first year has been changed and your knowledge has become irrelevant. Today’s employers attribute much greater weight to candidates’ professional experience and independent learning skills than to their academic background. In that regard, a study that surveyed over 3,000 U.S. teens and adults found that half of young Americans think that their degree is irrelevant to their work.

It is not that young adults do not need to learn. They need to learn and they learn a lot, but not in universities. They find that dedicated, professional trainings in their field are far more relevant, affordable, and effective. They get what they need from these short, usually online courses, which make them more professional in their fields and do not leave them in debt for decades to come, and with heaps of irrelevant knowledge.

When Covid-19 forced social distancing on the whole country, it shut down the universities. Thankfully, this coming fall, hundreds of them will not reopen but will continue teaching online. In doing so, it takes away the little appeal that universities had — the campus atmosphere.

I think it is time to move to the next phase in learning. There is no point funding behemoth institutions that do not benefit the public. Medical research institutions should be funded solely by the government so as to maintain objectivity and their ability to focus on the public benefit and not on catering to various vested interests.

Social sciences and humanities should not be regarded as sciences, since they are not. Those who want to study them should be able to do so, but institutions should openly profess what ideology they are endorsing so that when people study there, they will know what will be their views when they come out. Additionally, people who listen to a graduate from this or that institution will know what to expect and will not be misled into thinking that that person presents objectively researched information.

It is a long overdue cleanup of the Academia, and the coronavirus expedited it. In the near future, I believe that higher education will take on a completely new and much healthier form.

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The state of the last generation is a shift to a new form of social organization, where we gradually learn how to work correctly with our ego and come to sensing an integral connection between us.

Today, we are in a transition phase that lets us realize the corruptness of our attitudes toward our social and natural environments and start rebuilding ourselves to fit the whole, complete, and caring structure of nature.

Therefore, the main value of tomorrow is our ability to mutually support and take care of each other.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there a learning from the global Corona pandemic, that we all are missing?“

We should learn that the coronavirus is not merely a blow to our health and the economy, but it emerged in order to completely transform our lives.

On one hand, many understand that there is a major transition unfolding. On the other hand, we mostly wish to revive our pre-coronavirus lifestyles as soon as we discover a remedy for the disease.

We thus need to elevate our awareness to see that nature is acting on us via this pandemic in order to increase our understanding and feeling of why it is happening.

That is, the coronavirus did not appear to merely shut us off from each other in our respective homes, and to keep a distance of a few feet from each other when we have to go outside, and also not to stop us from attending public events, and so on. It surfaced in order to nudge us toward understanding our interdependence and interconnectedness, and to adjust our relations accordingly in order to live with more mutual responsibility and consideration toward one another.

The longer the pandemic dwells among us, the more it serves to gradually establish a new, more integral and global sensation.

Other than the blow itself, which does the work of teaching us about our interdependence against our will, I also very much hope that we will succeed in raising our awareness willingly, through education.

In other words, instead of merely reacting to a problem that suddenly reveals itself before our very eyes, we can learn about the greater evolutionary process we are in, and see how we live in a global and integral nature, acting to ultimately raise us to a harmonious state of perfect connection among each other and with nature.

By understanding this bigger picture, we can then view the coronavirus pandemic as a tough lesson that nature is teaching us in a very calculated way. Similar to how we educate children, if they willingly listen to our advice, then we relate favorably to them, and they spare themselves from various deviations. However, if they do not listen to our advice, then in order to save them from greater impending blows that we can foresee, we have to act more strictly and sternly toward them.

This is why I, my students and my organization invest so much in explaining the root cause of the pandemic, and how we need to use this situation in order to readjust our approach to life. That is, by learning about how nature operates on us, we can enter into balance with nature quicker, experiencing much healthier and happier lives, on one hand, and also saving ourselves from more intense future suffering.

We would thus be wise to accept the coronavirus as a warning from nature, using it to become more like nature. That is, as nature is interdependent and interconnected, so we should realize our interdependence as parts of nature positively by increasing our mutual responsibility and consideration toward each other.

Ultimately, there is no pandemic or virus here, but a single force pressuring us out of necessity. It has no desire to burden us, but like a loving parent witnessing his or her child straying to a negative course, it needs to act more aggressively in order for us to notice what it wants from us.

One way or another, we will need to develop and become more positively connected. The question is whether we do so harmoniously by activating our minds and hearts to positively connect with others, and by reorganizing our lives so that we supply each other with the essentials we all need; or on the contrary, that we let nature’s steamroller of evolution continue catching up to us, goading us from behind to wake us up through painful circumstances.

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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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Audio: Play Now | Download

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Society of Unnecessary Professions

Question: What should a person realize in the era of coronavirus?

Answer: A person must realize that he has survived only the first blow of nature. Many more blows are needed to correct society, and they will follow. As a result, society will not remain the same. This will mainly concern the employment of people.

The fact is that we have created a society of completely unnecessary professions. In our post-industrial world, a huge number of superfluous people have appeared, and therefore, a lot of completely unnecessary occupations, professions, and enterprises arose. We need to understand that we are in the integral sphere of nature, which strives for optimization, and it will put pressure on us so that all unnecessary professions disappear.

Looking, for example, at animal nature, we know that some number of animals must die off, the others must develop, depending on what conditions appear or disappear in nature. The same goes for us. We are part of nature, so it plays with us, sets certain new parameters for us, thereby reducing or increasing the population, occupation, and so on.

Now, under the influence of the coronavirus, there is a great acceleration in the development of human society. A lot of people don’t work and, in principle, they don’t need to return to work.

Those enterprises that are really needed have acted, are operating, and will continue to operate. And only 5% OF the service sector that we have created over the past seventy years is needed.

Therefore, there will be no need for it, and it will no longer return to its previous activity. The bulk of the population employed in the service sector will simply be left without work. And here we need to think about what to do with people with unnecessary professions.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/14/20

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Medium published my new article “Loneliness Kills”

A few days ago, a young man in Israel, a school teacher, killed himself. He had students, he had tenure, he was healthy, handsome, eloquent, and he was lonely. In a Facebook post, he wrote his final note: “It is not good for the man to be alone; loneliness kills. Another day, another week, another month, another year goes by and I’m alone. At lunch, at work, in the evening, on weekends, on holidays, and on birthdays that no one remembers. The few friends have gone, faded in time; it is time to leave.”

Suddenly, when Covid-19 came along and forced us to take a break from mutual annihilation, we began to feel the emptiness we have inside.

That man was not unique in his emotions. His words on social media capture the curse of our time: We are all connected, yet so alone. Loneliness has become so heavy these days precisely because we should have been so much more connected than we are.

We’re so late in our development. By now, we should have been a connected humanity that feels that we are one system whose parts complement each other and reciprocate with one another for the sake of humankind and all of nature. Instead, until just recently, we have been immersed up to our necks in the quagmire of mutual destruction that we proudly (and mistakenly) called “capitalistic economy” and “progress.”

Suddenly, when Covid-19 came along and forced us to take a break from mutual annihilation, we began to feel the emptiness we have inside. But what else could we have within us? When everyone hates and fears everyone else to the point that you stop talking and communicate by texting, and you build around you walls of false confidence and fake smiles to hide your insecurity, when suddenly you are alone, you realize that you have no idea who you are, how to be with yourself, or what you really want because you have been busy all your life erecting walls against the hostile outside world. And no one calls because they’re all in the same situation: Everyone is lonely and afraid of being hurt.

Being alone means you are ignored, that people don’t care about you, so some people prefer to end their lives as long as at some point, even if it’s their final moment, somebody will care.

Why We Can’t Connect

Humanity is different from all other parts of nature in that we must evolve of our own accord. Our evolution is far less physical compared to other species, and far more emotional, intellectual, and social. At the height of our evolution, we are intended to experience the wholeness of the system we call the “universe.”

Nature develops all other elements besides humanity through instincts. Humans are largely devoid of them. When an animal is born, it immediately knows where to find food, can often walk within a few hours, and generally behaves like any other animal of its kind. Humans, on the other hand, can barely move their hands and legs when they are born, and remain utterly helpless for years. Humans, unlike animals, have to gain their knowledge by themselves through hard work.

In human society, just as a human infant, we have to learn one step at a time how to become social beings and how to build a good society for ourselves. We are evolving through our own desire to improve our situation. And we are not evolving randomly, but in a clear direction: toward greater cohesion, greater care for one another, greater mutual responsibility, and eventually to love for one another.
When a child is hungry, it cries because an empty stomach feels bad. When a person is lonely, he cries because an empty heart feels very, very bad. Heartache hurts much more than an empty stomach.

But the loneliness so many feel today is not the end. It’s the beginning. It’s the darkness before the dawn. Now we are beginning to realize that we must transform everything, and first and foremost our relationships. To make a change, we have to feel that the present is unbearable. And nothing is more
unbearable than loneliness.

We can prevent such tragedies as suicide because of loneliness if we stop insisting on returning to our previous, backward state of “free” economy that is reined by egoism, and start advancing to the state of mutual concern and empathy we should have been in long ago. Along the way, we will discover that it’s not only better to care for each other than fear one another, it is also how all of reality works but us, until we, too, reach that state.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How long will it be until we have a coronavirus vaccine?“

First, if we could look at the intentions behind the global race for a coronavirus vaccine, then what would we see?

Would we see a sincere concern of experts and world leaders to improve humanity’s health?

Or would we see a cutthroat pursuit to be the first to birth a major source of new income for their country’s economy, as well as an ability to flaunt their country’s gleaming status and pride as being smarter and more adept than other countries for winning this race?

Since human nature is egoistic, prioritizing self-benefit over benefiting others, then it should come as no surprise that the latter inclinations are the primal driving factors behind the pursuit for a coronavirus vaccine.

This race thus becomes a reflection of the same overblown egoistic human relations that stand behind the disease in the first place. So even if we develop a vaccine, we can expect it to fall short of providing us with a lasting remedy. On the contrary, without correction of our egoistic inclinations, we can only expect our problems to worsen.

What does it mean that our egoistic relations are behind this disease?

When we can view the coronavirus pandemic as part of a process unfolding in nature that guides our eventual exit from our egoistic nature—and entrance into a new positively connected reality, balanced with nature—then we can see how the coronavirus emerged primarily as a blow to the very ego that nature pressures us to exit.

Therefore, no matter what sophisticated vaccines we come up with, if we fail to use this pandemic in order to increase our awareness of the greater process we are in, and of what nature ultimately wants from us, then we will inevitably have to experience harsher blows in order to wake us up to the goodness that exists outside of our divisive egos.

The main discovery we thus need to make with this pandemic is not outside us, in the form of a vaccine, but inside us, in the form of upgraded attitudes to each other: from egoistic, indifferent and even hateful, to altruistic, caring and loving.

Moreover, the coronavirus has laid out before our very eyes just how connected we are, showing how a minuscule particle that surfaced in a small Chinese province became humanity’s common problem, placing people around the world into similar restrictive conditions.

In other words, through the coronavirus, nature shows us how connected and interdependent we are, while at the same time, this should illuminate how much we are disconnected and divided in our egoistic attitudes to each other.

The parallel opposite tendency of becoming increasingly interdependent while also becoming more and more egoistic is a recipe for disaster.

Therefore, the sooner we implement a change in our attitudes to each other in order to align ourselves with the connectedness surrounding us, then the sooner we will develop immunity to the coronavirus and to other even stronger diseases, without needing to stick any needles into our veins.

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