Comment: The pandemic has shown that no one needs jewelry. Their market is falling rapidly. Suddenly a person realized that he needed to dress a little, eat, and the diamonds that he wore to show others were not needed. They say that the jewelry market has fallen 10 times and is falling further.

What is in them? Why were they bought for such crazy money? And humanity appreciated them and killed each other because of them. So much blood has been spilled.

My Response: Because it is rare. Diamonds are mined in the ground with great difficulty. Then they are polished and cut. In the end, it costs money.

Question: What is it about them in your understanding?

Answer: Kabbalistically? Absolutely nothing. People just give it a price. For example, he took some piece of paper and gave it a price. And now it’s all worthless.

Comment: In such difficult times, between bread and diamonds, a person chooses bread.

My Response: Of course. He will give everything for bread.

Comment: That is, there is value in bread, but not in diamonds.

My Response: Because the most important thing is life.

Question: Why is this done from above, by a higher power?

Answer: So that people will stop defining values in this world that seem to them to be values.

Question: So we pray to this god? And this is not God at all?

Answer: Of course! Well, what’s in this pebble?

Question: Why are we being directed toward it? So much blood has been shed! Wars started because of it.

Answer: Humanity needs something valuable, precious, so that it can fight for it, speculate, sell, buy, exchange, store, and inherit it. How else? There must be some value in life. I don’t exist, I am dying. What’s next? Where do I contain my value? I have to put it in something.

Question: This is scary, what you say. That is, I put it in this rock?

Answer: And I pass it on to my grandson.

Comment: I give him this value and say: “Live like this. Live like this.”

My Response: And it helps him in everything, because I give him something that is appreciated by all people.

Question: By this I give him strength?

Answer: Of course. And today all this is beginning to undergo a reassessment of values.

Question: And what are we approaching?

Answer: To the fact that there is nothing of value.

Question: Is there nothing valuable in this life?

Answer: Generally! Except for thought! We come back to what we were talking about: except for the thought that you can pass on to your grandson, there is nothing valuable in the world.

Using your thought, he really acquires wealth. What is thought in general? Is it empty? But he really gets something that exists eternally, perfectly, and no one can steal and do anything about it.

This is the most important wealth, the attitude toward life, the attitude toward people. Thought is your inner wealth. This is more precious than any diamond.

In our time, we are coming to a state of radical reassessment of values. That is, what was valuable to me, for which I fought, lived, died, tried to accumulate, pass on to the next generations—all this is losing its value today, is worth nothing.

Question: After all, where are we going now? What will life really cost, money?

Answer: Just a thought.

Question: But doesn’t that seem abstract to you for a person?

Answer: And what does a person have that is not abstract at all, if he lives and dies? This means that the most valuable thing is that he can take from one state, when he lives, to that state when he dies, beyond the brink of death.

Question: Can he take a thought there?

Answer: Of course. This is what remains with him.

Question: What thought needs to be worked out now so that it is valuable and necessary?

Answer: A positive attitude toward the world and toward others. It doesn’t go anywhere. This stays with you constantly because it is not in your egoism, which dies with the body and decays, but is in altruism, in the good qualities that you acquire during your earthly life. And then you fly away with them, enter another space, the space of positive properties and forces.

We exist in order to accumulate such positive emotions, thoughts, desires, motives, and impulses and leave with them. I leave this world, passing, as far as I could, a positive attitude toward the world, toward people, and toward life to my children and grandchildren, and in general to everyone.

Question: Do you think that this is your mission and all of ours?

Answer: Of course. But that’s my opinion.

Question: But is this the opinion of Kabbalists of all generations?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Comment: And what I now see, as everyone writes in the comments: evil, horror, hatred, breakage.

My Response: This pushes us to assess what we really need to identify from our life, collect and transmit, and teach the next generation.

Question: That is, how to push off from this darkness and move toward a good thought?

Answer: Yes. Everything will be fine.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/15/20

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 8/13/20

When everyone is hit by the same blow, where’s the wisdom in looking for a solution separately? Why not join forces, work shoulder to shoulder, and find a vaccine or a cure to Covid-19 together? The answer is that there’s no money and no fame in solving things together.

This is typical of the attitude we’ve held until today, and for the most part, we still do. But if there’s a lesson to be learned from the coronavirus, it is that the solution has to match the problem. When it’s a collective blow, it requires a collective solution.

Covid is just the harbinger. We’re moving into a time where all the crises will be global in the full sense of the word, since the whole purpose of the blows we’re taking today is to make us work together. Until we learn to do so, the blows will grow more powerful and more painful.

We have entered a new era: the era of oneness. The sooner humanity learns to function as one, the easier and smoother will be our transition into the new era. And as we learn to deal with crises together, we will grow closer in our hearts and develop mutual responsibility and a truly sustainable society, in harmony with all of nature.

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Medium published my new article “Aliens on Our Own Planet”

With every passing day, it’s becoming clearer that we’re moving into a new era. The protests against wearing masks are the rebellion of our egos against a compulsory change. Big tech companies such as Google, Apple, and Facebook have already told their employees to keep working from home for at least another year. Everything will change: jobs, banks, industry, education, commerce, human relations, international relations, our whole civilization will turn on its head, and so will we. Only then, the virus will leave.

The exploitative, excessively competitive system where one had to destroy the other in order to survive has exhausted itself.

Both WHO Secretary General António Guterres and White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci have stated that an effective vaccine is unlikely in the foreseeable future, if ever. In simple words, our lives have changed forever.

Moreover, the more we try to return to the previous “normal,” the more we will inflame recurring waves of Covid. If every time the contagion rate declines we will insist on reopening businesses, we will experience a third, fourth, and who knows how many waves of the pandemic until we realize we cannot beat it. Nature has landed us a knockout, and every time we try to get up and fight, it lands another blow.

But nature isn’t out to kill us; it is out to teach us how to be a part of it, rather than hostile aliens on our own planet. And being part of nature means first and foremost to unite among us, to feel close to our fellow human beings, and in this way learn how to be close to nature. The world we live in is one complete and integral system. To feel its integrality, we need to make ourselves similar to it: integral and complete. And the journey toward it begins at home: with us people.

The exploitative, excessively competitive system where one had to destroy the other in order to survive has exhausted itself. The mindset of survival of the fittest runs contrary to the whole of nature, which operates on the completely opposite principle: survival of the friendliest (Google it). Now it is upon us to build this type of society, and in the process, begin to understand the true nature of the world around us.

No one will help us. As a society, we are egoists and don’t know how to truly care for one another. But we can fake it till we make it, and if we keep in mind that our goal is to build a united, integral system where everyone shares the benefits, we will succeed.

Although deep down we all wish we could go back to our old way of life, even if there were no coronavirus, it would be very unwise to do so. There is already so much hatred in the country that a social collapse, if not an all-out civil war, is imminent. In many ways, it has already begun but it is not yet bloody, and it seems like someone has forgotten to make an official declaration.

But it is not too late to reroute. We can look around us and see that everything consists of opposites that complement each other. Only people think that opposites should annihilate one another, oblivious to the fact that just as in nature, opposites allow each other to exist, so it is with us.

We see the world as flat, a two-dimensional image, not realizing that the same human nature operates all parties, all factions of human society. When we insist on seeing the world only through one perspective, we miss the chance to use the other perspective as a “second eye” and get a three-dimensional view. This is the only way that we can see the full depth and scope of reality, and find what operates the whole picture that we see before us. Only when you can look at the world through both prisms can you see it, so instead of trying to abolish the other viewpoint, we should cherish it, thank it for existing, while keeping our separate perspective.

Unity is not created when two opposites become the same. It is created when two opposites complete each other’s different viewpoints to create the full picture, which neither can see alone.
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New Life 1259 – A World Without Money
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

If money loses its value, nature itself will pay for any labor that contributes to society with emotional coins. The coins of nature are eternal coins of the soul. The soul is the internal effort that a person invests for the sake of society. Beyond fulfillment of the needs of physical existence, a person has a desire to develop the soul through a relationship with society and with nature. Nature keeps a record of how much each citizen gave and what he received. Later, a higher pay will be revealed and a person will want to give more.

Social property will be valuable to a person and he will maintain it to merit belonging to the eternal nature. It is impossible to cover up and lie to nature. According to the honesty of your heart, ahead for us is life in paradise!
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1259 – A World Without Money,” 7/1/20

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See what the Creator is doing! We thought that a person could get a new mind and new feelings only through such unconventional blows as world war, natural disasters, volcanic explosions, hurricanes, and tsunamis. But it turns out that this was not necessary. Quietly, unnoticed, some virus appears and does all the work.

It is simply mercy on the part of the Creator to restore order by such methods. The virus has already forced us to close all artificially invented businesses that do not bring any benefit and only pollute the globe. You can already see how we quit doing all sorts of stupid and unnecessary things. All systems that were built in order to boast in front of each other are collapsing, and nothing remains.

From the revelation of the slightest influence of the Creator, in 4 to 5 months we have found ourselves in a new world. We are still being stubborn and do not agree with this world and are unwilling to recognize it. But we must understand that we are entering a new reality. The old life will not return; you will have to live a new life, and the restrictions will only increase.

The world is ruled by one upper force, “there is none else besides it.” But this does not mean that we should bow down and accept such an existence out of hopelessness. We need to acquire the mind and feelings of the Creator and live on the level of His decisions and actions in order for us to agree with everything that is happening today: with the fact that unnecessary places of work are being closed and our lives are changing and with the fact that we have to take more care of each other.

After all, if I infect someone with a virus today, then tomorrow he can infect my children. We are becoming more and more connected and dependent on each other. The coronavirus shows our interdependence. Therefore, it will not work to protest and do what you want, as those who go to demonstrations and refuse to wear masks. There is no way out, I have to educate myself to become responsible for others, and they will be responsible for me, for my family, my children, and all of humanity in general.

The coronavirus teaches us from a distance, little by little, about mutual guarantee. We are already beginning to see a linked, connected world where everyone, whether he wants to or not, affects everyone, and everyone affects him. And all this happened thanks to some tiny virus.

What a mercy from the side of the Creator! We see in the virus the work of the upper force, besides which there is nothing. And what can be done against it, where to find a cure for such a virus? But we do not need a cure for the virus! We need to find a cure for our egoism, and then we will not feel any virus.

There is no other evil in the world but our egoism. If we protected each other from transmitting evil to others, the virus would disappear. The Creator wants us to acquire an intention to bestow, or at least not to harm our neighbor. Meanwhile, we are learning this law in a material form, but soon we will understand where it is in us in a spiritual form, and so we will advance toward the Creator, toward understanding Him, toward the fact that “there is none else besides Him.” We will see this in everything.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/20, “There is None Else Besides Him”

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Question: Public opinion has taught people to live according to the principles of endless consumption, saying that this is the pinnacle of civilization. How can we not make a mistake now while building new relationships in society?

Answer: The pandemic is just the beginning, the first small blow. Not even a blow, but a slight push to move us a little. But all the same, the coronavirus will reshape us in the most terrible way.

We will see a collapsed, destroyed world, which we can no longer control with our past levers. Neither factories nor airlines, nothing will work the way it should. Everything must go through a completely new stage of reconstruction, correct change, to new unfolding conditions.

The coronavirus has somewhat made the world integral. However, already proceeding from this, we understand that we are not adapted to this world. We do not even understand how we can return to the past. And you can’t go back to the past.

But in this case, two billion people will be left without work. How will they feed themselves? Or how are we going to supply them with what they need?

Today, countries are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to somehow calm things down. These dollars disappear, we will not be able to demand them back into the state treasury. Therefore, we see that the powerful of this world have only strength, but no heads. We are facing a very big problem.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 4/30/20

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Medium published my new article “Contagious Contraction — The Global Economy Has Changed For Good”

Many pundits expressed alarm when the economic data regarding the contraction of the global economy in the second quarter began to pour out. One by one, the biggest economies in the world reported unprecedented contractions that dwarfed the already frightening contractions of Q1. As if they’ve all been struck by a virus, contagious contraction seems to have gripped them all. The U.S. contracted by 9.5% compared to Q1 (33% compared to the same quarter last year). Canada did even worse and contracted by 12% compared to Q1, and the Eurozone trailed even that with 12.1%. A country by country examination of the Eurozone exposes the grim reality with Germany falling by 10.1%, Italy by 12.4%, France by 13.8%, and Spain contracting by a whopping 18.5% in a single quarter compared to just three months earlier.

We’re headed for a good future of an orderly life of mutual responsibility. So the sooner humankind sobers up from the hangover left after the demise of the American Dream, the better it is for everyone.
The only country to boast significant economic growth was China, as one might expect, but with the global economy shrinking faster than the mercury in a thermometer placed in the freezer, the manufacturing colossus is unlikely to find export markets that will keep its growth positive going forward.

And since, as World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said about the prospect of finding a vaccine for Covid-19, “there’s no silver bullet at the moment and there might never be,” the bottom line is clear: The economy we had is gone for good.

But the fact that the past will not return is not a sign of troubles to come. In fact, our only problem right now is that we want it to come back. We mustn’t even dream about it; it only delays our recovery and makes it needlessly painful.

We have to change our whole approach. The future economy will allow for only one provider per family. The government will make up for the drop in income. Healthcare, social security, pension, education, public transportation, all those will be free of charge. Staples will not be sold; they will be given according to a quota per capita. Each grownup and child will be entitled for certain staples, and these will guarantee that no one goes hungry. The same will apply to housing, power, gas, and water. No one will be homeless, cold, or hungry.

The “American Dream,” which everyone around the world has shared for decades, has by now become a nightmare. Now it will be replaced by a reality of orderly life.

In fact, “orderly” is the word to keep in mind. Everyone will have enough, no material deficiencies, but also no excess.

I know it sounds socialistic, if not communistic, but it isn’t; it is realistic. If we do not construct an orderly life for all of humanity, we will have no life at all; it’s that simple.

Alongside the benefits that the state will provide, and in order to adjust more quickly, people will learn about the new reality that’s been imposed on us against our will. Since we cannot beat it, we might as well join it. But to do that, we need to learn what’s happened, why the world has tumbled down on us, and what we can do to establish the new “normal” of orderly life as quickly as possible.

People will learn what it means to be part of an integral system whose parts are interrelated and interdependent. They will develop new thought patterns where competition is good only if it is intended to benefit everyone. Role models will change; the new ones will be people who help cultivate solidarity and mutual concern. Habits will change; everyone will feel more accountable to their communities and to each other. We will be able to trust not only our friends — already a rare commodity — but even complete strangers.

These good things will happen not because Covid and the crash of the economy have turned us into angels, but because they have left us no choice. Once we realize that either we all swim or we all sink, the vast majority will make the right choice. As society changes and the mindset becomes pro-social, even the most obstinate will find themselves nurturing good thoughts about others quite naturally.

We’re headed for a good future of an orderly life of mutual responsibility. So the sooner humankind sobers up from the hangover left after the demise of the American Dream, the better it is for everyone.
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Medium published my new article “The Future of Tech: Learning the technology of connection”

In one way or another, our daily lives are deeply influenced by the biggest U.S. tech companies. The information we are exposed to, what we consume, and our virtual interactions all depend largely on the online platforms that recently faced a Capitol Hill grilling on the way they do business. The CEOs of Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple tried to refute accusations of biased content moderation, privacy intrusion, and market domination stymieing competition. But the question still unanswered is how much are they contributing to bringing people closer together. Any hearing that fails to initiate such change will be superficial and meaningless.

The prodigious minds behind the tech companies can and should apply their skills to developing software dedicated for connection, including simulators of desirable human relationships and how to achieve them. The idea is to visualize a perfect coexistence and interdependence in which individuals function like cogwheels learning the steps for realizing this vision of ideal integration among people. In order to attain this goal, the player will follow a gradual process over multiple levels of advancement until each one feels comfortably connected.

The depth of American distrust toward such tech giants was revealed in a study conducted by a Pew Research in June. 72% of U.S. adults consulted in the survey said big tech companies have too much “power and influence” in politics. Earlier this year, another poll found that 65% of the people did not regard the industry’s expansion over smaller competitors as beneficial to users.

The way social media manages what is considered unreliable and harmful information is also controversial. In protest, more than a thousand companies have pulled their ads from Facebook to boycott allegations of inaction from the media platform against hate speech.

Ignite the Fire of Love

American public life is dominated by hatred and lack of social cohesion from all sides. The escalating unrest in Portland and other major cities, in addition to the severe political schism that has ignited America in recent years is a fire that will not be appeased until all stakeholders find a common ground where they can rise above their differences and build mutual trust and understanding.

It is precisely the turbulent atmosphere in America that offers a compelling opportunity for people to open their eyes to the urgent need for unity above all that divides them, because the alternative is hazardous for everyone. It is written, “Hate stirs strife, and love covers all crimes” (Proverbs, 10:12). In other words, time is of the essence for creating the conditions to get closer to each other without erasing our differences by building a canopy of brotherhood and respect above them to enable calm and peace.

The information technology giants could play a paramount role in facilitating closeness, empathy, and mutual support among people, although the current conditions created by these platforms serve the opposite purpose. They have fallen prey to political interests, slander mongering, and repulsive bullying and shaming. But nature itself is drawing a red line over anything that does not promote qualitative connection above separation and gaps.

The Technology of Connection

The current pandemic has shaped a new reality in which balanced human relations emerge as the only way for humanity to achieve stability and thrive. Therefore, the world has entered the era for a new vision of mutual giving in all its endeavors.

We need technological platforms that will illustrate for us in a user-friendly way how to become properly connected. A company’s business failure or success will hinge on its ability to fulfill and facilitate humanity’s need to reach the crucial goal of achieving unity.

The prodigious minds behind the tech companies can and should apply their skills to developing software dedicated for connection, including simulators of desirable human relationships and how to achieve them. The idea is to visualize a perfect coexistence and interdependence in which individuals function like cogwheels learning the steps for realizing this vision of ideal integration among people. In order to attain this goal, the player will follow a gradual process over multiple levels of advancement until each one feels comfortably connected.

Businesses that develop software and means for advancing humanity are the future since the old paradigm of reckless competition has become irrelevant in an increasingly interdependent reality. Thus, what the world needs most right now is a more cohesive existence. Our common vision and work in that direction are what will guarantee prosperity and peace for all.
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My new article on BIZCATALYST “What Does it Take to Build a Successful Startup in these Uncertain Times?”

At the outset, we need to grasp the extent to which the world has shifted to a new program over the past few months. Today, we live in a completely different world. It is as if aliens visited us and implanted a new chip into our reality, changing our surrounding conditions, our behaviors, and our ways of thinking.

Still, we are in a transition phase, and likewise, many people continue trying to operate according to the outdated program of our pre-coronavirus world, a program that prioritizes values of self-benefit over benefiting others.

If we understood nature’s evolutionary tendency to guide all of its parts to perfect connection and interdependence, then we would see how today’s changes are for our ultimate benefit: they come to bring us closer to each other, not necessarily physically, but to a more heartfelt closeness.

And when we feel closer to each other, we feel happier, more confident, safer, and healthier.

Therefore, what we need more than anything else today is an environment that can support, encourage and guide our connection, so that we can balance our relationships with our new program of development—conditions that demand increased cooperation and care for each other.

If we fail to upgrade our attitudes to each other in order to match the mutual dependence and responsibility required by today’s new program, then we will feel an increasingly heavier weight on our shoulders the more we plod on from one day to the next.

Nature, by means of the coronavirus, has placed us into new conditions precisely in order to transform us.

Today’s startups thus need to take that into consideration.

If our past startups ended up in a marketplace that pitted them up against each other, now everything needs to change. We will still need to compete, but our competition needs to shift from egoistic, where we try to reap as much of the market for our business as we can, to a competition where we each aim to contribute as much as value as possible to humanity.

And what does “value” mean today? It means caring that everyone’s needs are met, as well as helping everyone genuinely become happy, safe, and healthy via upgrading the quality of human relations.

Therefore, anyone bold enough to initiate a startup in this period should first be equipped with sufficient knowledge and an environment to understand the transition the world is in, and then create tools that help people feel closer to each other.

For instance, there is plenty of room for technology to develop means by which we can feel ourselves together in one room, and even more so, as parts of a single whole where our every breath and contact is sensed by everyone.

In other words, as we head toward the discovery of our tight interdependence, we can develop technologies that help us sense what it means to feel as one with others, and which will thus help guide our fateful transition much more positively and harmoniously.

We thus need startups that authentically fill the human need for connection, which will serve to smoothen our transition from our current degree to greater mutual support and consideration.

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Principles of Forming a Team: Stop Gossip

Remark: Seventh rule: Any kind of gossip is prohibited in the team. Even criticism is possible only at a predetermined time, with special preparation.

My Comment: This is obvious. According to the previous condition that we see only ourselves and not others, what criticism can there be? It means that I criticize myself. Or I criticize the way I see others in myself. It is because I never see anyone else.

Question: How often do you recommend having meetings where we start criticizing each other and making claims?

Answer: Sometimes, as an exercise. Maybe once a month. No more than that.

Question: And until then should I keep everything to myself?

Answer: And until then do exercises: Everything I think about the other, I think about myself.

Remark: You said that in the early stages of team development, it is best to express criticism not directly but through responsible individuals. After all, if I tell a person directly, as an egoist, he will not accept it, and there will be a conflict.

My Comment: Yes. It is better to do this indirectly.

Question: Isn’t it better to have direct honest relationships between colleagues?

Answer: Maybe. But it depends on the stage of training.

Question: So, would you not advise criticizing directly at the initial stage?

Answer: No. Only when you have accumulated a sufficient number of mutual clarifications, collisions, and connections, when you begin to understand each other deeper, better, and the goal becomes more obvious and necessary, then you can move to this level of relationship.

Question: Do we need to determine in advance some topics that we will not talk about since we know they will cause conflicts? For example, politics, religion, and family. Or, on the contrary, should we reveal all this between us?

Answer: No. We do not talk about anything that might be received poorly by others. We should not bring up such topics until we have done so well that we simply stop seeing others as something other than ourselves. Then all this will go away. There will be no reason for restrictions.

Remark: Indeed, the difference between genders, between man and woman, national and religious differences are seated so deeply in a person that until he rises above them, it is better not to touch these topics. This can destroy any team: in business, in sports, everywhere.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/18/20

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