From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/23/20

Various pundits are pointing to consumerism as the reason for the destruction of nature, which eventually led to the appearance of the coronavirus and other menaces. They are advocating the idea that we should stop shopping and return to what they call “sustainable” living.

I don’t think it’s natural, and certainly not sustainable to live the way our forefathers lived eons ago. Human nature requires(!) pleasures. We aren’t only animals; we are also humans, and humans have many desires that animals don’t. Needs for entertainment, shopping, or traveling are not luxuries. We really do need them. The problem is not with the desires but with how we use them, and mainly, for what!

We’re all part of one, interconnected system. Everything we do that coincides with our interconnectedness helps us, and everything we do that contradicts our interconnectedness hurts us. If I buy something in order to strengthen my connection with another person, it’s good for me. If I buy that same thing in order to show it off and make others feel bad, it’s bad for me. So the problem is not with our actions, but with our intentions!

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/21/20

While we are debating to what extent, if at all, we should ease the shelter-in-place policy, we should really be thinking from what or from whom we are taking shelter. Scientists have already been determined that the coronavirus pandemic erupted due to our own behavior toward nature. But we are just as abusive toward each other as we are toward nature. And just as nature has expelled us from itself, it also expelled us from society, and for the very same reason.

So if we want a kinder treatment from nature, we must develop a kinder approach toward it and toward people. We cannot love trees or animals and at the same time hate people. This is the worst kind of hatred, which disguises as love of animals and uses it as a pretext to hate people. This approach will not work. We must change our attitude toward all of creation on all its levels: mineral, plant, animal, and human. Until we learn how to plant love in our hearts instead of hate, nature will punish us every time we bring our bodies closer.

[Runners, families and bikers seen spending a few moments in Central Park during Covid-19 – Corona pandemic stay at home orders, Sunday April 19 2020 in New York NY. (Photo by Jonas Gustavsson/Sipa USA)]

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/20/20

When we think of work, we usually think of making (lots of) money, career, and social status. All of these motivations are selfish, and the coronavirus has revoked them and sent those who chase them to be locked down. At the same time, those who do unselfish work, people whose job is beneficial to society, are working more than ever. They are regarded as essential!

That should tell us something about work in the COVID-19 era: If you’re helping others, you are needed and welcome; if you’re not helping others, #StayHome and stay out of the way.

It is a completely opposite mindset to the one we grew up on, but it’s become the reality of our lives. The state has enough storage and enough production power to see to everyone’s staples. But if you want to do more in life than eat, sleep, and watch Netflix, if you want to be somebody, learn to be someone who cares. In the new world, only people who help others will have jobs. The rest will just pass the time aimlessly until they’re gone.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/19/20

We have not defeated the coronavirus. We know too little about how it works, how it’s transmitted, and what steps we can take to ease the lockdown without reigniting the outburst. At the same time, we clearly need to restock on necessities such as food and other staples, so we cannot maintain a complete lockdown for much longer. It is a tough dilemma: Governments are trying to choose the least of all evils, but no option is good. As the lockdown eases, we the citizens should take extra caution since we are the ones who will pay the price.

The problem with the novel coronavirus is that its impact reaches far beyond the medical crisis it has created. It even reaches far beyond the economic meltdown it has imposed on an unsuspecting world.

The impact of the coronavirus is first and foremost social: It is untying the very fabric of society. The compulsory social distancing creates an emotional distance; loneliness and depression increase, and so do domestic tensions, leading to violence. COVID-19 has sickened our bodies, but also exposed our emotional remoteness from each other.

Social distancing is nothing new to our post-modern society. We have long lamented the alienation wrought on us by our immersion in social media through our phones, neglecting the social communication with our friends and family in the real, physical world. Yet, as long as we could be physically nearby, we could tell ourselves that we are not really far away. Now that we are physically separated, we look for the closeness in our hearts, only to discover that there is nothing there. This is the most painful part about the virus: the revelation that we are all alone, that our hearts are empty, and that the hearts of those we thought had loved us are just as blank.

Appreciating the Truth

The truth hurts, it always does. But so does every cure. It is impossible to repair what we don’t know is broken. Now we know that our connections are shattered, the frail cords that still resisted the isolation caused by social media have snapped and the gut wrenching sound of their rupture forces us to recognize that we are all alone. From here, when we are at the very bottom, we can begin to rise. From here we can begin to build a new and solid society. The truth hurts, but it is essential if we want to live in a healthy body, healthy mind, and healthy society.

If we want to make the most of the ordeal we have been dealt, we must not lose a minute. We must learn about the new world that has emerged. In the new world, wealth is meaningless when you cannot show it off. Career is useless if so many people are at home—unemployed or out of the job market altogether. Power positions are also meaningless when so many people work from home or do not work at all.

What we do have left is one another. We have our family and we have our friends. They live with us in our homes, or are only a call away. The virus ripped us clean of everything, except the things that really matter. But only now that we have been stripped of the distractions can we really see them.
The virus isn’t here to eliminate the human race. It is here to show us what we have been missing for decades, what we have been oblivious to for so long that we forgot that they are here: our loved ones.

The virus is giving us just enough closeness to rebuild our connections, and do it properly, based on mutual care and mutual responsibility. At the same time, it is keeping us at just the right distance to prevent us from falling once more into the pit of exploitation and power struggles.

The novel coronavirus is an unyielding teacher, but we have been insubordinate students. The more we cooperate with it, the gentler it will be with us. My teacher’s father, Baal HaSulam, wrote that nature is like a skillful teacher, “punishing us according to our development.” Let’s be wise enough to understand nature’s clues, establish our societies on supportive, positive connections, and not force nature to administer us with harsher retributions.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/18/20

The coronavirus is the beginning of a change for the better. The clearing of the air and water, the new notions popping up in leaders’ minds about worldwide truce and universal basic income indicate that the winds of change are blowing in the world and many are responding.

We may not feel it yet but the time of wars and weapons has passed. It will not be gone at once, but gradually, yet we are already on the threshold of a new era where weapons will rust and disintegrate.

To our children, it will be a given that the world is integral, round, and what goes around comes around. They will know that you cannot act, or even think badly of another person without paying a price for it.

The world that COVID-19 is preparing us for is one where people have what they need, they are at peace with themselves and with each other, and nature treats them kindly. It is a world of mutual responsibility and care. All we need to do is accelerate its emergence, for the sooner it comes, the sooner the virus will go.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/18/20

There are two levels of looking at reality: through my own eyes or through the eyes of the general public. When I look at the world through my own eyes, all I see is my own needs, and this is what I want to satisfy. When I look at the world through the eyes of the people, I see what they need and strive to help them achieve it.

Inherently, we are born with only the personal perspective, seeing the world through our own eyes. Yet, with practice and persistence we can acquire the strength to rise above ourselves and see the world through the eyes of the general public. The power to do this is called “the force of bestowal,” and the collective perception it brings us to is called “faith above reason.” Bit by bit, we will all achieve it.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/16/20

The coronavirus, or COVID-19, is a stern teacher. It does not speak, but its actions speak volumes. Its lessons are painful, intimidating, and overbearing, but they are forcing us to learn what we should have learned long ago were we not so obstinate: to be considerate of nature and of one another.

Lesson No. 1

At first, the virus forced us to stay six feet apart from one another, as though preventing bullying and physical violence. Then the virus forced us to wear masks, as if shutting our mouths so we would stop humiliating one another verbally. Finally, it told us to #StayHome altogether because we have exploited and ravaged one another and the earth.

Once we confined ourselves to our homes, nature let the animals free and they began to roam where they had never roamed before, in our cities and parks. Nature has reclaimed Earth. Our confinement cleaned the water, cleared the air, and that was all that nature needed in order to rejuvenate.

Without a word, the virus showed us how damaging we have been to our own planet. It could not stand us any longer so it locked us up in our own homes. No environmentalist could ever demonstrate so decisively how harmful we had been, and how beautiful the world is when we stay out of the way.

Lesson No. 2

Now that the superbug has taught us about Earth, it is beginning lesson no. 2. Incredibly, French president Emmanuel Macron has initiated an agreement to back a call by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for a global ceasefire. Even more incredible, his initiative quickly secured the backing of four out of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, the US, the UK, and of course France. Russia, Macron hopes, is likely to express its support in the coming days.

Who would have thought even a few weeks ago that such a notion was even conceivable? If anyone had as much as mentioned an idea of global ceasefire in early March, he would have been ridiculed, disparaged, and openly declared as delusional. But lo and behold, by mid-April, that idea has come to make perfect sense to the leaders of the world’s mightiest nations. COVID-19 did not have to utter a single word in order to achieve this feat. Instead, it made us realize that fighting simply makes no sense now.

But when did it make sense, before there was the virus? So, when the virus is gone, will war make sense again? Will people be willing to return to that backward mindset? If they are, would it not be better if we never get rid of the bug?

Lesson No. 3

After we are taught not to plunder the planet and one another, the virus will teach us its final lesson: to care for one another. We stayed away from each other in order to make it disappear, and we want to stop fighting in order to make it disappear, but it will not leave until it teaches us its final lesson: how we should connect to one another properly.

Bit by bit, we will come to see that when we, as a society and as individuals, relate to one another positively, our health becomes increasingly robust. The novel coronavirus crisis is not only a biological crisis; it is first and foremost a spiritual one. It is a transformation from the self-centered spirit with which we treated one another into a spirit of mutual care and concern. This stage in our existence will not happen overnight, but the sooner we begin to work on it, the sooner it will manifest. Then, as in the previous stages, what seems unreal today will seem like the only possible reality.

In recent years there has been much talk about a new world order. Indeed, a new world order is coming, but it is not the domination of a certain group of people or a new world government. The new world order is corrected relationships among all people; it is the progression of the world from a global village to a global family. And this progression is the vaccine we have all been looking for.

[Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, makes a television statement about the coronavirus pandemic. Paris, April 13, 2020. Emmanuel Macron, president de la republique, fait une declaration televisee a propos de la pandemie de coronavirus. Paris, 13 Avril 2020. Reuters]

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/16/20

Like unaware children, we are growing into a new state. A great ascent is ahead, but we can’t see it from our current position. The deep decline humanity is experiencing is a sign that the next ascent will be equally high. To the extent that we are now confused, anxious, and disoriented, so we will be conscious, confident, and focused when we achieve our next level.

The key to rising to the next level of humanity is human connections. We will achieve what is awaiting us only when we form unions and bonds on levels and depths that humanity has never seen before.

Being set apart and forced to #StayHome helps us reflect. When we emerge from isolation, we should focus not on resuming excessive consumerism and abusive competition, but on weaving a net of mutual responsibility and care among all people. This net will form the basis of humanity’s ascent to the next level of existence, where we are safe, caring, satisfied, and happy.

(Firefighters and neighbors applaud healthcare workers in NYC – Reuters)

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/14/20

There seems to be general agreement that COVID-19 has taught us a lesson in humility. It taught us that our self-centered approach toward the world is unacceptable. The coronavirus separated us, forced social distancing on us and told us to #StayHome. It did that because we built a world that is based on egocentric relationships. We can’t complain about the “gifts” that the world sends us when we have created the world in our own image: selfish to the core.

If we want a different world, we must be different, first. Since we build the world in our own image, it is we who must change, and the world we will build will be equally different. The better we become, the more caring and considerate we teach ourselves to be, the more care and concern will spread through the world. It is in our hands, and it is our choice.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/12/20

At first, the virus pushed us away from one another so we wouldn’t harm each other anymore. Now comes stage two where we should begin to feel that COVID-19 did not happen by chance and will go away as soon as we find a cure. We should have no illusions about returning to the previous life.

Nature has a clear direction: It will continue to pressure us toward correct connections among us. If we relate not to the blows but to their source, to the integral and connected nature, and if we walk along with it and try to be more integral and connected, too, we will discover that nature does not punish or deal blows. On the contrary, we will find in its rebukes the guiding hand of a loving mother who admonishes only when she has no other choice, and even then she tries to rebuke as little as possible, just until her child understands her message. And in the case of nature, it is telling us that if we begin to want to love each other, even if we still cannot, we will find that it loves us.

[Image: The largest supermoon of the year rises over Mount Hood as seen from Sandy, Ore., on April 7, 2020. (Photo by Alex Milan Tracy/Sipa USA)]

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