Question: We are always trying to change everything around us, for example, the leader of the governing party, our spouse, place of residence, everything except for one thing—ourselves. Why doesn’t a person realize that the only thing they can change is their attitude to the world?

Answer: Our egoism does not allow us to realize it.

To change myself means that I am not good, I must improve myself. Why should I do this? This is the hardest work that requires a lot of effort, energy, investment, and annulling myself before others. It is against our nature to yield to others. It is not easy.

Only if a person has a very big goal in front of them can they force themselves to do it. For example, if we want to achieve some goal while studying at the university, then it is more important for us than just lying on the couch.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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New Life 1262 – One Global Culture
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

History is moving us toward one common global culture in which we will be as one man in one heart. We will support one another mutually and value connection above all. It is only the human ego that separates us. We will learn to restrict the evil inclination in the human ego that wants to rule and build oneself on the ruin of others. Any institution that restricts people by force, like the police, army, courts and prisons, will become redundant. We will rise above the ego and connect with others above our animalistic wars for survival. The gains in doing so will outweigh the losses. We have no choice since nature is forcing us to move in this direction. We will realize that it is impossible to be nice to one another through our own power and will cry out together to nature to open our hearts.

Our collective desire and efforts to connect will raise a request for the positive force to nature. The whole world will be like one big house and a single family. We will live in harmony with nature without fear in a heavenly paradise.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1262 – One Global Culture,” 7/8/20

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Question: In what situations should a person follow the majority and in which the opinion of one person?

Answer: I don’t think that in our time when the mass media have great power, there are such concepts as the majority and the minority. After all, those who have the media in their hands, they practically have the future of society and humanity. Those in power have long understood this, and all this is at their mercy.

But the fact is that, on the one hand, this is what a person in our world wants to hold in his hands. On the other hand, the world still moves according to its own system.

Therefore, upon exiting the coronavirus, we will see that nature will not allow us to restore past production, past commodity-money relations. They have to change. Man is still changing, he will not strive for the past state, no matter how much the rich and those in power want it.

Question: Do you still hope for a change due to some external factors?

Answer: Maybe these are not external factors, but they already exist in society.

Comment: Indeed, when the coronavirus appeared, no one could have assumed that such changes would occur in society.

My Response: Yes. We can scold China or someone else who, in our opinion, was the cause of the virus, but this is not the point. The real reason is higher than our nature, higher than what we know. This virus had to appear as humanity brought itself into a crisis.

Question: Do you think it is correct to use public opinion polls for decision making?

Answer: In general, yes. At least they talk about how correct or not the processing of public consciousness is and how much public consciousness, after everything that happens to society and what it is stuffed with, comes to the right decision. So this data is very important. Whether they are correct or not is another question.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Medium published my new article “A Spark of Light When Life No Longer Makes Sense”

Stress, fear, loneliness and economic hardship are exacerbated by Covid-19. How will those feelings increase the risk for higher suicide rates is still a subject of study, but mental health organizations already see signs of a potential increase of the so-called “deaths of despair,” including drug overdose and suicide. Society cannot bury its head in the sand any longer. It needs to prepare for what lies ahead and organize the conditions to support those in need through care, warmth, and mutual responsibility.

Boundless satisfaction cannot be achieved by any one of us alone. It can be achieved only through a good connection with others, and this creates the necessary “field” where the eternal source of fulfillment can be revealed.

After six months of the pandemic, we thought the virus’ behavior and impact had already been sorted out. However, the global plague keeps surprising the scientific community with new mutations, and new symptoms and side effects. Until a cure is discovered, uncertainty will continue to reign and more difficult times can be expected.

As many as 75,000 more Americans could be added to the death toll of the pandemic, not due to natural causes but because they decided to end their own lives, according to an analysis by a national public health group. Suicide rates in the United States have risen by 35 percent overall since the year 2000, according to official data. Historically, economic distress — particularly deep recessions like the one experienced in 2008 — have almost doubled the number of people who cut their lives short out of hopelessness. We have entered a new stage in humanity, a new era in which we must be connected to each other through positive reciprocal bonds, where everyone in society acts toward others like a loving mother embracing her dear child.

Suicide is the worst decision a person can take. A desperate person reaches this most extreme resolution in order to escape the pain. In the minds of those who commit such extreme acts, life becomes a burden worth getting rid of, an ordeal without satisfaction. By doing so, they disregard the pain they inflict on their family and friends and manifest complete unwillingness to accept the conditions granted by life.

They seemingly run out of strength to demand what they consider they are entitled to have in life, whatever it is. Instead of involving others to help work on finding solutions together, the suicidal person retreats into his own self-absorbed thoughts and whirlwind of emotions.

While suicide appears to be the most personal of decisions, we carry a collective responsibility as a society for failing to create the necessary conditions for people to live healthy and happy lives. Such conditions would prevent people from reaching the ultimate state of despair, anguish and pain that takes them to the point where they feel life no longer makes sense.

We must create mechanisms of mutual responsibility to guarantee that each person’s most basic needs are met in order to be sure that each person has the essentials necessary for dignified existence.

The Light after the Darkness

One should always be aware that whatever torments arise, they are given for our personal advancement, for the purpose of correcting our egoistic nature of self-gratification above any other consideration. Such low states of depression awaken the deepest point hidden within each of us, a spark aimed at a higher level of existence where the dark void is filled.

As foremost Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) writes, “In every person, even in the secular, there is an unknown spark that demands unification with God. When it sometimes awakens, it awakens one to know God, or deny God, which is one and the same. If someone generates the satisfaction of this desire in that person, he will agree to everything.” (The Solution)

Boundless satisfaction cannot be achieved by any one of us alone. It can be achieved only through a good connection with others, and this creates the necessary “field” where the eternal source of fulfillment can be revealed.

What is the right approach to helping someone in despair? We should not overwhelm them with exaggerated sympathy or patronize them. We simply need to express care, listen, be next to them, show them that they are not alone and they can count on their friends and family.

We need to share with someone in despair the thought that there is light after the darkness. In the same way, every gloomy state is the preparation for a better reality, the perception of a new, positive state, since there is no filling without a lack. That new state of feeling that we are understood, protected, and embraced is waiting and will give us renewed passion for life and expand our horizons toward a meaningful life filled with meaning and purpose, joy and abundance.
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Question: The theory of the space program is gaining more and more influence. Scientists claim that the Earth needs to be unloaded from industry, which affects the climate of the planet.

Ideally, by the end of the century, we should take the entire polluting industry out into space. The earth must be turned into an ecological paradise, an extremely comfortable safe zone. Sooner or later, people will work in space, and the planet should become a place for life and recreation. The earth is a pearl whose glitter must be preserved, and not destroyed.

Do you agree with this theory?

Answer: When we stay here and transfer everything into space, then there will be hell here, not heaven. I do not believe and have never believed in the initial good in man. So if we do not correct the person, then it will not help us to transfer anything anywhere.

And if we correct man, there will be no need to take anything anywhere. We can quietly do what is necessary here: industry, education, upbringing, and so that everyone would be happy.

The main thing is not to rush anywhere! We want to run away so that we do not really need to decide anything. The biggest problem is people.

Every problem must be solved in such a way that everyone is happy! Not some specific person or at someone’s behest, but everyone. Until we reach such a consensus, there is nothing we can do either in space or on earth. We need to be busy only with this.

Question: Do you think that a person can believe in this reality, that the last man on earth would feel good? That humanity can live like this? Looking currently at humanity, how can people reach this?

Answer: It is precisely through the awareness of evil. Because through the awareness of evil, we will get to the need to correct the world, to correct ourselves. Therefore, simultaneously with the revelation of evil, it is necessary to show that it is evil, and how we can still get rid of it, what good should be. I think we are heading for this. I am an optimist.

Question: That is, evil is that I do not want to help others, I do not love anyone, and I am only concerned with myself?

Answer: Yes. This is our personal egoism.

Question: It overwhelms me, and I want to get rid of it; is this what I need to get to?

Answer: No, not just get rid of it, I must see that it harms me! Otherwise, how will I get rid of it? I see that it is to my detriment, and only then I decide that I have no other choice, and I must get rid of egoism.

There should be the awareness of evil, and then correspondingly the awareness of good. That is, a man will see that there is a positive force in nature. When I feel very bad, I will see it. I will start asking, “What am I supposed to do?”

Question: What should I do to build heaven on earth?

Answer: To build heaven on earth, you need to build a man. Not in space, but on Earth. Build it clearly.

It is necessary to give man a clear guideline—what it means to be a human being. We have no other choice, we are obliged to achieve the correct, kind attitude toward each other. In this, I would like to emphasize, our only assistant is our egoism. It points out where we need to correct it. Not to destroy, but to build a good relationship above it.

Here we must solve all this among ourselves and create a system of correct education. Nothing can be done without raising a new man. Whether we want it or not, it does not depend on us, but on the amount of suffering that we will feel.

We are currently entering a period of suffering that will force us to want to correct ourselves. And in Kabbalah, instructions are given on how to do this. So I hope that we are present at the birth of a new humanity, and we can still even see it.

Comment: That is, we will not leave the Earth, nor will we transfer anything from here.

My Response: No. These are some kind of ridiculous ideas. This is not what can be done with our technology and our internal parameters.

Question: Are we tied to the Earth as if with an umbilical cord?

Answer: Of course. A man will not fly anywhere without answering his own question about what he is and what he should be. The entire cosmos is only given so that we understand that here, on Earth, we must make all our corrections.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/25/20

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Comment: It is known that mass media influences personal development. However, bad news, meaning any acts of violence, military clashes, or natural disasters, consistently get much more screen time than reports about people who treat each other well, help each other, or try to prevent brutality. And the viewer is more attracted to it.

My Response: Sure. If I watch a program on TV that talks about the horrors of war, clashes, conflicts in the government or between people, I am more concerned about it because I may become involved in such events and be harmed.

While good programs that talk about people gathering, talking, singing, or working together, helping in hospitals, etc., do not pose any danger to me. Thus, I treat it matter of factly and may have somewhat of a dismissive attitude about this.

Comment: I must note that there have been attempts to broadcast only positive news, but they were not popular at all.

My Response: Naturally. It doesn’t trouble a person. A person feeds on negative news, suffering, and tragedies. Even in music and art any great meaningful works are always tragic and comedies are taken lightly. People have a casual appreciation of them.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 4/30/20

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Question: If public service advertising of anti-egoistic values were carried out from morning to evening, would it affect a person somehow?

Answer: It depends on the advertising. It should be made in such a way that the person sees that it is profitable for him, that it is worth it to be so.

For example, we show that this is the way of life of people in prison, and this is the way of life of sick people, and this is such and such, and at the same time we show the consequences of all bad habits and actions of people at all levels: women, men, adults, even children. In general, this is a preventive parenting program.

Question: In principle, there were societies where excesses were not valued, considered a sin. Is this theoretically possible?

Answer: In my opinion, this is necessary. The only question is who will do it.

Question: There is nothing more important for a person than the opinion of others. Public opinion is formed through the media. But that is in the hands of the rich. How can they advertise anti-consumer values?

Answer: In the post-coronavirus era, this issue is particularly acute.

Comment: In other words, they are trying to bring us back to the consumer society.

My Response: The rich have no other choice. They understand that otherwise they will have nothing left. If people begin to be satisfied with normal needs, then 80% of what humanity produces will be unnecessary, and it will stop producing it.

Naturally, we will save nature, the air will become cleaner, and it will be comfortable for us to live in such an environment: easier, cooler or warmer, etc. And from what exactly will the owners get rich?

Question: This is a vicious cycle. During the first wave of the pandemic, people did not learn anything. Public opinion has not changed. It is in the hands of the media, and the media is in the hands of the rich. And it is not profitable for them to change their current values because they need to continue earning. So what’s the solution? How can a person change society?

Answer: Society needs to work on its mistakes. People need to understand that going back to the past means repeating the same mistakes and inevitably leads to an even bigger crisis. Now that society has suffered such a blow, it must learn something from it.

Question: Do you think that suffering will still make some changes in a person?

Answer: Undoubtedly. They will do it gradually. Even if society does not change itself, at least it will become more receptive to the words of those who propagate the method of changing the world.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Question: There was no violence on the screens in the Soviet Union, but I would not say that people there were less violent. Why is this?

Answer: I don’t think that in a society like the Soviet Union, the press, cinema, and theater had much influence on a person. People clearly understood that there was a huge difference between life and what the communist party and government fed them. And therefore, they did not perceive this information.

Comment: Nevertheless, according to psychological research, all media influence the human psyche. There we saw that everything seemed to be fine.

My Response: There was an iron curtain between the individual and the media. Everything that was heard on the radio and television went through a strict filter in advance, and people understood what they were being fed and what they should take from it. Maybe a small grain of information, but nothing more.

And now we are bathed in a huge stream of diverse information. It is all oversold, overbought, distorted. We have no idea how or how much. It is clear that what we read, see on TV, listen to on the radio, and so on, is all distorted information that is transmitted to us by all sorts of interested parties.

But since there are many of them, they are different, and information does not come from the same source of the party and the government, as in the Soviet Union, it is difficult for us to deal with this. So we are being influenced willy-nilly by them. We choose one of several thoughts, although that is also incorrect.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 4/30/20

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Question: Over the past several hundred years, we have discovered more than 200 physical laws. In addition, there are also social laws that we have invented ourselves: ethics, civil laws, and even religious laws and traditions.

Can we assume that the reason for all our crises and sufferings lies in the fact that we have artificially invented these laws?

Answer: Yes, I absolutely agree.

Question: What does it mean to follow the laws of nature?

Answer: Unfortunately, we do not follow the laws of nature but our egoism, which puts us against nature and does everything to ensure that we destroy it.

Question: So, we have yet to reveal the social laws?

Answer: Of course. These are laws of an integral society in which we are one single whole like all of nature.

We do not separate ourselves from nature, we do not divide it into inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human. We consider it a single global system that exists and develops within itself in absolute interconnection of all its parts. And most importantly, the basic law of this nature is love.

To love means to take into account everyone and everything, to have a kind attitude toward everyone, and realize how much everything that determines my next state will be good for others. I look at nature as an integral system and only care that it is in the best possible condition.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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Question: The external manifestations of our incorrect relations cause a crisis. In the economy, this can be shown by such examples as throwing out huge amounts of food to keep market prices higher.

In the field of healthcare, only medicine that is profitable to the pharmaceutical industry is produced. In the field of ecology, the chemical industry annually produces hundreds of tons of inorganic products that pollute the atmosphere. That is, everything is dictated by someone’s profit without taking other people into account.

Don’t people understand that the laws of society are the same laws of nature as the physical laws?

Answer: People cannot touch them, cannot take them into account and implement them. If I don’t feel the limitations from a force, it doesn’t exist for me.

Question: How does the ideology of a consumer society contradict the tendency and laws of nature?

Answer: The point is that nature is integral. It doesn’t do anything in vain. For it, the beginning, middle, and end are states that are equally necessary and exist only to bring it to its best state.

In order for a person to do something, he needs to know the beginning and the end, to feel his full relationship with nature, to understand where he exists. This we do not have, and therefore, we focus only on our egoism.

But in fact, we must necessarily connect to nature, feel the greatness of the goal, and try to go along with it with all our force.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/7/20

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