My new article on BIZCATALYST “Time To Overhaul How We Rank People”

One of the first questions in every first meeting with a person is, “What do you do?” meaning what do you do for a living. There are two things we usually want to know when we ask that question: 1) How much you make, and 2) What is your rank on the social stratum. In fact, if you said to your new acquaintance how much you make straight away, he or she wouldn’t enquire about the type of work you do or your social stratum. Your earnings alone would enable that person to rank you.

But what do you do when money is meaningless? We’re heading toward a reality of widespread joblessness when many good people will be out of work permanently not of their own volition, but because there will be no jobs to occupy. This is not a futuristic scenario. COVID-19 has instigated this reality. If initially, people were furloughed, now they are being fired as more and more companies are adjusting to a reality of permanent low demand.

I already wrote countless times in essays and in books about the obligation of governments to provide jobless people with a basic income, and that this income must be contingent on participating in sessions that teach them about the reality that got them fired. While it is essential to know that the world that has become completely interdependent, and that in order to survive we must be responsible for one another, we must also tend to people’s sense of self-esteem.

To put it differently, there are three elements that people must maintain in order to be able to lead a satisfying life: 1) physical provisions (staples), 2) understanding the world they live in, and 3) a sense of dignity or self-esteem. Without any one of these three, people will be driven to despair, and many will resort to violence, which will tear society apart.

Because, at the end of the day, public figures cater to the desires of the public, the public must show that it respects people who give to society, and even more importantly, bring it together. There is no question that a cohesive society is a resilient society. Also, people are happier when they live in a supportive environment. We need to show that this is the society we want and that we pay people who help bring us together with respect, dignity, and accolades. If we do so with conviction, and resolutely show that we condemn people who exploit others, even the wealthiest, most powerful people will give up their power and fortune in return for appreciation.

We mustn’t forget that it doesn’t matter how many billions I have if people don’t know about it and respect me for it.

Therefore, if social values change, so will people’s desires, since nothing is more powerful than people’s opinion of a person. If we show what values we want, what kind of individuals we respect, we will create a society made of such people.

My teacher’s father, the prolific thinker, and kabbalist, Baal HaSulam, phrased the whole concept in one short paragraph: “Indeed, any experienced person knows that the greatest of all the world’s imaginable pleasures is to win people’s favor. Obtaining this coveted thing is worth making every effort and worldly concession. This is the magnet to which the finest in every generation are drawn, and for which they trivialize the whole of the worldly life.”

When we respect people who contribute to our solidarity, that contribution will be the new currency. The more people contribute to it, the “wealthier” they will be in the eyes of society, and therefore in their own eyes, as respect becomes the new currency. If we employ this tactic, we will navigate our communities and countries to safety in the stormy water of COVID-19 and beyond.
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New Life 1245 – The Connected Person
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

The life of a person who has social intelligence is much better since he brings about the correction of the world and this fills him internally. A person who has social intelligence does not attack others and is not rude. He is harmless, humble, and tries to do help everyone. He sets a good example and explains to others how they should live. He understands that it is good for humanity, for nature, and for all of reality to be in mutual, integral complementation. Success means bringing people together and making peace. Social intelligence is the connection between wisdom and emotion as well as giving and receiving. If we learn to connect to each other correctly, we will get to know the general force that is in all of reality and connects the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate levels in nature. This is wholeness. We will reveal the upper force or Godliness in the connections that we will weave between us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1245 –  The Connected Person,” 5/25/20

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Medium published my new article “Modern Time Plagues”

We have not yet recovered from one plague and the next one arrives. A giant dust cloud from the Sahara Desert reached the states along the US Gulf Coast affecting air quality. The phenomenon is not uncommon, but its size and strength is unusual, according to NASA. The record-setting dust storm came at the same time as information of a locust swarm’s invasion in South America, destroying up to 80% of the crops in their path. And all this is happening while the coronavirus pandemic is spreading ever faster. Nature’s signals are unequivocal; we just need to learn how to read them in order to shift from helplessness state to hopefulness.

After long generations of development, nature now requires us to mature and ask ourselves, what we are living for, what is the point of our existence, do we want to continue to carry on with daily life without understanding what we should do, and for what purpose.

We are definitely experiencing times similar to the ten plagues of ancient Egypt. More maladies are forecast to arrive. Without considering the impact of other environmental factors that already put food sufficiency at risk, the UN estimates that the coronavirus crisis alone could double the number of people suffering acute hunger to 265 million globally by the end of this year.

When people face incomprehensible blows and take a surface look at them, end of-time theories emerge. The magnitude and frequency of disasters are certainly perceived as a worrisome “perfect storm” to people. However, such epidemics and other natural calamities occur in order to lead humanity to examine its course of action toward nature and rethink its goals above a mere existential life.

After long generations of development, nature now requires us to mature and ask ourselves, what we are living for, what is the point of our existence, do we want to continue to carry on with daily life without understanding what we should do, and for what purpose. Nature wants us to answer these questions and grow. Until now, we have advanced unconsciously like small children, led by a selfish desire to receive for ourselves, running after futile pleasures to the detriment of others.

The human egoistic approach contradicts the perfect balance of the entire natural system. Therefore, nature pushes us from behind until we become aware and understand the program that controls creation. It is a sort of inner “software of nature” that operates every aspect of our planet. We need to crack that system’s code, penetrate it, and take an active part in managing the entire reality.

Once we understand how this program works, adjusting our attitude toward one another, fixing our relationships, we will positively affect the whole system. Above all natural egoistic tendencies, we must learn to build bonds of connection, consideration, mutual responsibility, and love. By merely thinking in the direction of mutual consideration, all of nature will begin to calm. We will bring balance to all mankind, to the whole earth, and to the entire universe, since thought is the most powerful force in reality.

Thoughts work similar to a magnetic field. We do not see the forces operating behind that field but they exist and influence each other. Likewise, we humans positively affect others through our thoughts about how to increase connection.

Nothing happens by chance or without purpose. The world is enduring tremendous challenges. Even though they are usually perceived as unbearable, we can see their positive side if we realize that these blows help us accelerate the process of connecting. They are aimed at uniting us, at revealing how we depend on each other to survive and prosper. But we should not wait for disasters to awaken the sense of unity among us. By fixing our human relations and our interaction with nature, we will be able to avoid these blows and feel wholeness and benevolence from nature.
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Baal HaSulam, Introduction to The Book of Zohar: We must not ponder the state of rest of the beings in the world besides man, since man is the center of creation, as will be written below in Item 39. All other creatures do not have any value in themselves, but to the extent that they help man achieve his wholeness. Hence, they rise and fall with him without any consideration of themselves.

Question: If the fall and crisis occur at the level of inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, then this nature falls together with man? Where is the role of man in this? Or is he just in this environment and reaping the benefits?

Answer: Man is in this environment as the organizer of this fall. Nature itself is integral. Its inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels are interconnected and are in perfect harmony.

And man violates this harmony with his egoism. It is him who we must correct and then connect with all of nature in the same general integral picture, to complement each other in peace, in harmony with each other, and with all levels of nature. Nature’s forces push us to this.

If we quickly understand this and do everything we need, then there will be no viruses and no problems. And if we push, inflate, and only indulge our egoism, then nature will inevitably cause all kinds of problems with its sharp reactions.

These problems will show us that we must annul ourselves, unite between us, not abuse nature, which will still lead us to equilibrium but by pressure, crises, and blows.

But I hope that people will nevertheless learn and hear what the wisdom of Kabbalah says about this. And then we really straighten up.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/10/20

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Medium published my new article “Learning Nature’s Teaching Method”

In the early 1930s, my teacher’s father, the great Kabbalist and illustrious thinker, Baal HaSulam, wrote a groundbreaking essay titled “The Peace,” where he outlined how humanity can achieve peace and what will happen if it doesn’t. Among other things, he articulated nature’s way of tending to its creations, how it rears them until they become independent. In his words: “Let us take the making of a human being as an example: The love and pleasure of the progenitors are its first reason, guaranteed to perform their duty. When the essential drop is extracted from the father … nature has very wisely secured a safe place for it, which qualifies it to receive life. Nature also gives it its daily bread in the exact amount. Nature has also prepared a wonderful foundation for it in the mother’s womb so that no stranger might harm it.

The coronavirus has given us the chance to practice mutual responsibility. All we have to do is obey two laws: wear masks and keep our distance. If we did that for just a few weeks, we would be rid of the plague.

“It tends to its every need like a trained nanny who will not forget it for a moment until it has acquired the strength to emerge into our world. …Then, too, nature does not abandon it. Like a loving mother, it brings it to such loving, loyal people it can trust, called ‘Mother’ and ‘Father,’ to assist it through its days of weakness until it grows and can sustain itself. As man, so are all the animals, plants, and inanimate; all are wisely and mercifully cared for to ensure their own existence and the continuation of their species.”

However, cautions Baal HaSulam, when we grow, we must assume responsibility and start behaving more and more considerately toward each other, care for one another and for all of nature. The more we resist nature’s lessons, the more insistently and painfully it teaches us. And the lesson that nature teaches us, wrote Baal HaSulam almost a century ago, is to build a society based on giving rather than receiving. Because we are reluctant, he added, “humanity is being fried in a heinous turmoil, and strife and famine and their consequences have not ceased thus far.”

However, nature’s lessons do not have to be harsh. Baal HaSulam writes that “The wonder about it is that nature, like a skillful judge, punishes us according to our development. For we can see that to the extent that humankind develops, the pains and torments obtaining our sustenance and existence also multiply.”

In conclusion, writes Baal HaSulam, “You have a scientific, empirical basis that nature has commanded us to obey with all our might the rule of bestowal upon others in utter precision, in such a way that no person among us would work any less than the measure required to secure the happiness of society and its success. As long as we are idle performing it to the fullest, nature will not stop punishing us and taking its revenge.”

Finally, Baal HaSulam warns, just a few years before World War II broke out, that “besides the blows we suffer today, we must also consider the drawn sword for the future.” Therefore, he adds, “The right conclusion must be drawn — that nature will ultimately defeat us and we will all be compelled to join hands in following its dictates with all the measure required of us,” namely “to obey … the rule of bestowal upon others.”

Nature’s gradual teaching method ended in Europe’s destruction and the death of tens of millions of people, since they would not listen. Now we are seeing the escalating cycle of hate becoming an ominous whirlpool that’s threatening to drown the entire world once more, and the cost will be much heavier than even the previous world war.

In The Writings of the Last Generation, Baal HaSulam writes that a third, nuclear world war will happen if we do not take upon ourselves the commandment of building a society of giving and mutual responsibility. Judging by the escalation in hate crimes and international tensions, it is easy to see his prediction materializing. But nature is a skillful judge; it will treat us according to our actions. If we choose mutual responsibility now, we will avert nature’s harsh lessons.

The coronavirus has given us the chance to practice mutual responsibility. All we have to do is obey two laws: wear masks and keep our distance. If we did that for just a few weeks, we would be rid of the plague. But can we? Do we care enough about others to help the world get rid of the bug? The coronavirus is a test of our commitment to each other. If we fail, nature will provide a far more stringent, and far less sympathetic, teacher. And if we keep failing, Baal HaSulam’s prediction will come true.
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Medium published my new article “COVID-19 and the Anxiety Epidemic”

Of all the scares that COVID-19 has wrought, probably the most fearful one of all is uncertainty about the future. During the lockdown, the country experienced a staggering rise in anxiety. On May 4, William Wan of The Washington Post reported that “The country is on the verge of another health crisis, with daily doses of death, isolation, and fear generating widespread psychological trauma.” The anxiety eased by about 40% a month later, as the country began to roll back lockdowns, reported the Medical Express, but now that the number of cases is rising once again and states are reissuing stay at home orders, anxiety is bound to rise again.

American authorities at all levels must draw a clear plan that will secure basic livelihood for every person, and enhance the social ties of individuals into communities.

With all that has been going on in America over the past few months, uncertainty about the future is the last thing the country needs. Since this anxiety stems from a real fear that people will have no job and no way to make a living, there is only one way to deal with it: American authorities at all levels must draw a clear plan that will secure basic livelihood for every person, and enhance the social ties of individuals into communities.

People must know what is going to happen to them, to their children, and to society as a whole. Therefore, as soon as possible, authorities must initiate open virtual sessions that explain how all the systems work. People have to know that contagion is not limited to viruses; we are an integrated society and affect one another on every level. The closing of one small business has a negative impact on many people who are seemingly unrelated to it: suppliers, delivery personnel, accountants, manufacturers, property owners, etc.

The same chain of infection that applies to COVID-19 applies to everything we do, say, or even think. If it is positive, we are transmitting positivity. If it is negative, we are transmitting negativity.

Likewise, one person’s depression affects not only that person’s kin and friends, but the friends of the friends, friends of the kin, healthcare workers, coworkers and the people they know, and so forth. The same chain of infection that applies to COVID-19 applies to everything we do, say, or even think.

If it is positive, we are transmitting positivity. If it is negative, we are transmitting negativity. Only once people internalize this, they will begin to feel responsible for one another, and that responsibility will pull them out of their down and mobilize them into constructive action.

In the near future, travel and tourism will drop sharply, as will sports and entertainment, trade in accessories, and countless other industries that thrived until a few months ago, leaving tens of millions out of work. These people will need help fast, and the only things that will help them are 1) basic sustenance, 2) grasping our mutual connectedness, and 3) enhancing their social ties and connection to the community.

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Medium published my new article “Why All the Hate?”

Wherever we look these days, it seems like hate is engulfing the world. It’s not as though there was no hate before, but in recent months, it seems like there is no escape from it.

On the one hand, hate has been recognized as man’s most basic feature, if you will. Even the Bible writes, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen 8:21), so we can’t really expect much else from people. On the other hand, judging by the recent escalation in racism-driven violence (and the protests against it), it looks as though hatred is pushing America over the edge.

Developing love is not some relic notion from the 1960s; it is the only way we can truly understand the world we live in, since it is the only thing that is out of balance in nature’s equilibrium, and the only thing that nature will not balance by itself, but has left for us to do.

Hatred is a uniquely human trait. No animal hates another animal, even when it feeds on it or when it is food for another animal. There is certainly fear, but there is no hatred. People are different: Their hate manifests in their delight at someone else’s pain or humiliation.

But there is a good reason why humans possess such a vile element in their nature: They are the only species intended to grasp the making and purpose of creation. In creation, everything exists through a dynamic equilibrium, a.k.a. homeostasis, between opposites. Opposites are required for our perception. We cannot detect light without darkness, heat without cold, satiation without hunger, happiness without sadness, and good without bad.

On all levels of nature, the equilibrium happens naturally. In humans, the equilibrium is maintained naturally only on the biological level. On the human, social level, nothing is maintained naturally. If you look at the social life of animals, you will find that they are perfect for their species: stable, and almost completely unchanging. There is no fundamental difference, for example, between the way dogs behaved two centuries ago and how they behave today. But compare people two centuries ago to people today, and you will hardly find anything that has remained the same.

The difference between animals and people is that nature governs the social life of animals, dictates how they should behave. They obey their natural instincts and everything runs smoothly. People, on the other hand, have no internal compass. We must be taught everything, especially when it comes to society. At birth, nature endows us with only an animalistic desire to survive, which, as we grow, evolves into a desire to take pleasure in other people’s pain and humiliation.

But there is a reason for it: If we develop the positive feature within us, the positive opposite from the inherent negative, we will discover how all of nature works, since all of nature also works by balancing opposites. This is the great gift that nature has given only to humans: the ability to develop the balance that sustains all of reality by themselves. This is why nature has given us one half — the negative — and left for us to build the positive. Had it given us both, we would be living by instincts like all other animals.

Therefore, developing love is not some relic notion from the 1960s; it is the only way we can truly understand the world we live in, since it is the only thing that is out of balance in nature’s equilibrium, and the only thing that nature will not balance by itself, but has left for us to do. When we do, we will understand nature and we will know how to navigate our lives smoothly and peacefully.

Let’s look at where we don’t know how to conduct ourselves instinctively: parenthood, relationships, social relations with peers at school, work, or in the company of strangers. In all areas of human engagement, we need these codes in order to compensate for the absence of love between us. And because our hatred for each other keeps on growing, we must constantly “update” our rules and regulations, which still cannot truly make up for the absence of love. If they did, we would not see such a staggering escalation in the rates of depression, substance abuse, suicide, and violence.

If we had love for one another in society, we wouldn’t need moral codes or even rules and police. Better yet, we would create the opposite of hate, the equilibrium that governs all of nature but humanity. We would not only be able to navigate our lives successfully, but we would truly grasp the making and purpose of creation.
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New Life 1241 – Global Community
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

An individual is supposed to receive a sense of security from the community that cannot be bought with money. Money will not help a person protect himself against harmful agents such as the coronavirus, but community life will. The coronavirus is showing us that our egoistic relationships are opposite to the integrality of nature. Unless all of humanity becomes one community, we will not survive the 21st century. From the perspective of our egoistic human nature, each one of us wants to be the king of the world. This is the reason that we need to educate people to live in a community. We are part of a global nature. We will learn to connect to each other and to nature integrally, and then everything will be fine.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1241 – Global Community,” 5/18/20

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Question: Can I change something in myself, am I my own master? What should I do to achieve lasting changes?

Answer: If you want to, you can do it. For this, there is a method of correcting yourself as an egoist, and this method is described in our courses. Go to the archives on our site and see everything that is said about it. Choose what you want, read, get interested, find friends and a group—go ahead.

Question: I want to be in the integral connections, but I understand that I am an egoist. What can I do alone?

Answer: You are all egoists! When you get together and learn how to help each other in a way that complements one another, then you will instantly see how both you and nature will become balanced, tranquil, and benevolent. This is all very quickly corrected; you just need to start listening and wanting it.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/10/20

Related Material:
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The Best Medicine

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New Life 1239 – The Coronavirus And Human Evolution
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

Nature creates humans as good, but our egoistic desire to dominate others makes us bad. People who dominate others are strong and rich and do not have support from the integral power that is found in nature. They will not survive. In the world of tomorrow, people who know how to overcome their egos, think of others, and draw society toward unity will be considered strong. The characteristic of love is the most important for survival because we live in a global and integral world. Connection with the general power of nature depends on the bestowal of goodness to others. A person who has improved in this way, will feel like the king of the world.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1239 – The Coronavirus And Human Evolution,” 5/14/20

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