Question: Society is divided about how to live and what to do after the coronavirus. Some express concern that we will return to the pre-virus era. And some want everything to return so we can live like before. What should we do and how should we live after the coronavirus?

Answer: I don’t think that we have already passed this period, although many would like to think so. The coronavirus has not yet done what it is supposed to: move us forward toward an integral society. We have not yet felt this desire; we have not felt it on ourselves. Therefore, it is not good if we all forget this and return to the previous state.

Before we thought that there could be a third world war soon, that the Earth would be permanently polluted, its air, water, oceans, etc. And it turned out that either Earth will destroy us or we will destroy it. We had such a hopeless existence that I do not know how good it is to live the way we lived.

We lived without any plan, unclear why or for what, only grabbing as much as possible for ourselves , flying around the world as much as we could, racking up frequent flyer miles, even forgetting from time to time where we have already been.

At the same time, our children remained completely homeless, although each of us has an apartment. And it is not clear what kind of people we are. We do not understand at all, how we exist and for what.

For what? Only to fill our time and be like others. It is as if someone somewhere created some kind of manner of life for us and we are trying to realize it. Poor, unhappy, confused humanity lives without thinking about anything.

Observe the crowds of people at concerts or other mass events and you will not see any difference between a gathering of people in the 21st century and the 1st century of the Roman Empire. The same motivations, the same tastes: “Bread and circuses.”

We have to understand that the previous way of living was not so cloudless and so great that we need to strive for it. What if we have an opportunity now not just to return to the past way of living, but to correct it in some way? Let’s try to do this. Let’s try not to open all manufacturing processes that have polluted our natural environment, choked us, and caused many diseases.

Take a look at what happened now with the atmosphere, with the water, with the flora and fauna. How  everything improved, and with what relief the world sighed when man calmed down a little. Let’s make nature better. This is our home!

I don’t think that we should cry about going back to the past. Do we want to work, create, give birth to children, and develop? Correct. But nevertheless, it is necessary to lead all this to some kind of normal process within the framework in which the environmental and social conditions allow us to really be satisfied with ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/3/20

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Question: Isn’t the new world you describe closer to the past when it was based on barter, mutual aid, and was more family-oriented? That is how it once was.

Answer: I don’t remember when it was. Back in the days when primitive people sat around a fire? 🙂

No, the correct world is universal participation in human society where we believe that we are one common family and understand that we need to reduce [consumption].

Let’s say I have a family, a wife, and children. My wife has no opportunity to go back to work. We decided that she would stay at home, I would work, and the children, naturally, would go to school. Now let’s go from one family to many families, unite them as one family. What will we get?

Most women will stay at home. We must support them, provide them with a normal existence so that they get used to staying at home. Though the coronavirus has already taught us a little about it.

How can we make sure that the family is still able to exist normally? How can this be distributed among all the others? We must take into account that in most families only the husband works and receives one salary. We need to somehow average this for everyone.

In general, we need to see the world community as a single whole, in which we must come to a balance. Otherwise, we will not be able to live. The next virus will come and still knock us out and make us shrink in our production.

Comment: Many believe that it is still unknown who the breadwinner in the family will be: a man or a woman.

My Response: It doesn’t matter. You can decide as you like. I’m not saying it’s going to be exactly this way. But in principle, even less than 150 years ago, the percentage of working women was very small. Mostly men worked.

The woman was responsible for maintaining the house, the man for providing for the family. So it was in all countries, as is customary in humanity. Look at the history over tens of thousands of years. The man went hunting, the woman supported the family hearth, and took care of the children.

Why should I open your eyes to the obvious?

Comment: It’s just that in some families, it’s the woman who’s left with a job, and the man who’s lost it.

My Response: Naturally, there are different cases. But in the vast majority, a woman earns less than a man, her earnings are considered secondary, while the home and family need her much more than a man. It is destined for us from the point of view of nature.

Question: But would you like to live on a minimum?

Answer: We are not talking about a living wage. No need to make all sorts of conclusions from what I say.

I’m saying there should be fewer jobs, less employment, because it really is twice as much as necessary. Hence the pollution of the atmosphere, water, environment, etc.

Let us engage in education, mutual connection, and give women an opportunity to unite and nurture. This is what she will be able to do once freed from all unnecessary work.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/3/20

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Medium published my new article “Reinventing the Businesses Wheel”

The global economy needs an intensive care unit. And just as no medicine is yet available to prevent or tackle the spread of the coronavirus, no cure for the precarious health of businesses and industries is at hand either. Soaring unemployment and a foreboding economic forecast pose great challenges for America and the rest of the world.

Every day it becomes more and more clear that something new is taking place before our eyes that will markedly change our attitude toward life, business, family, ourselves and the world.

Every day it becomes more and more clear that something new is taking place before our eyes that will markedly change our attitude toward life, business, family, ourselves and the world. If we stop clinging to the past and welcome the global process we are going through with open-minds, we will be able to go through the labor pains of the birth of a new world with relative ease.

Throughout history, socio-economic structures have been altered many times: from tribal society in ancient times, to slavery and feudalism, to capitalism and communism, for example. We are now entering a new configuration that will be completely different from all its predecessors because it will be built on new principles in human relations.

As early as last century, the butterfly effect and other models of dynamic complex systems began to illustrate how interrelated, interdependent we are. Until now, we have been unable to internalize the significance of this interdependence, but our experience with the pandemic and its consequences has left us with no choice but to build social, political, industrial, economic structures with renewed vision.

As the pandemic came to bluntly remind us, we will all need to be closer to one another, to recognize that the world we live in is integrally rounded. We can move on to our next stage in the evolution of humanity gently, comfortably and quickly, through a clearer understanding of what needs to be done and where we should be headed. There is no need to wait for direction from additional painful blows.

Looking back, we appeared to be happy and content with life on the surface because we were used to what we had built and there was no incentive to change. However, it turned out that life has its own dynamic rhythm that didn’t stop to check our preferences. Today, we are in a transition period where we must change as human beings, which will have implications for the business world too.

First of all, we have to realize that we are living in a new era that requires a fundamental transformation. The coronavirus indicates to us that, whether we want it or not, we must accept this change because without it we have no future.

It is also important to understand that the necessity for change clearly comes from nature and not from any government or financial group. Nature is smarter and stronger than all of us. If we want to survive, we will need to understand where evolution is leading us — toward integration and mutual consideration.

No More Spinning the Wheels

Nature is drawing us into harmony with the integral world because integration is the highest law of nature, the supreme principle. One single force operates throughout the entire natural system and all reality is managed by it, directing us toward unity between ourselves and nature.

The crucial change that nature demands is that we organize a society whose internal impetus and driving force is altruism and concern for others, rather than maverick egoism. In other words, the required transformation does not focus directly on businesses and industries. Its target is the inner transformation of the person, a new perspective and kind of interaction at the interpersonal level.

Although organizations are now working to consolidate their labor force, a fundamentally different type of consolidation needs to take place in the new integral view. Until now, the success of an organization, business or team has been defined by values ​​of egoistic competition: “We” gather to outdo the competition — a vision based in a “we” and “them” mentality.

In the integral view of the new reality we have entered, we are all one organism called humanity and we aim at being the best at what we do for the good of the others, not to inflate our pocketbooks. We work with the goal of benefiting everyone, and this is what guides us in every step. If, for example, we find out that someone else is doing the same thing better than we are, we will not try to destroy that person; on the contrary, we will provide full support.

An integral vision raises the bar from limited individual benefit to the benefit of the entire system. The new rules of competition stipulate that only those parts of the system that are truly essential and beneficial to the whole should remain active.

Implementing the integration law in businesses involves learning and training. Owners, managers and employees, all need to learn how to work together smoothly as essential components of one system. To do this, all must learn about the law of integration, where they come from, what they include, what they require from us, why we must keep them, and what we will gain from it — the successes it can individually and collectively bring us.

Those who are dedicated to implementing the law of integration in their business or organization will thrive. The warmer, and more considerate and supportive our relationships become, the greater our business success will be. This is the new business wheel that will make the world go round.
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Question: Is the world ready to rethink the role and the essence of humanity?

Answer: No, the world is not ready. This can only happen after everyone has a clear, concise picture of the future in which we are in balance with nature, and therefore viruses, the ozone layer, infection from polluted water, or other misfortunes do not threaten us.

We must explain to people their mission: to create the right global system above all governments. If humanity wants, then it will happen. For this, no revolutions or wars are needed. We are not calling for anything like that.

We are calling people to understand that they need to be a single system. When they realize that they are in conflict with nature, then everything will change. It comes from the Creator, not from the rulers. We just need to really want to change.

In his article, “Peace in the World,” Baal HaSulam writes: “…the whole difficulty lies in changing our nature from a desire to receive for ourselves to a desire to bestow upon others, as those two things deny one another. At first glance, the plan seems imaginary, as something that is above human nature. But when we delve into the matter, we will find that the whole contradiction from reception for oneself to bestowal upon others is nothing but psychological, for in fact, we do bestow upon others without benefiting ourselves.”

We need to spread this knowledge more and more so that it penetrates, permeates all levels of human society. And then it will slowly begin to act. It will rise from the subconscious into the conscious and become the subject of communication and human plans.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/3/20

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Comment: The virus pandemic that has spread throughout the Middle East has suddenly connected countries that hated each other.

Israel is helping the Palestinian Authority, and they are happy to accept our help. Iran announced that it is possible to use Israeli medicines, which previously was not the case. It stopped its operations in Syria and Lebanon. Suddenly everything stopped.

The problem of the Middle East, which many tried to solve, but no one could, suddenly now is solved by the coronavirus pandemic. People say: “Look, this is how you can solve the Middle East problem.”

My Response: Of course it can be solved. Give them a little more suffering and they will all want to get rid of it, even if they stop blaming each other and fighting.

A human is a very weak being. He’s just swaggers: “Here I am! I don’t care!” This is because he was told that he would have a future world, that if he kills himself now, he would be met at the doorstep of death by and all the rest. But in fact, if we show him a little more clearly what it is,  he will understand that it is all made up so he would die peacefully.

I think the virus plays a huge positive role here.

Question: How can we make sure to bring peace here and now? And there will be no terrorists, not even any statements?

Answer: Slowly they will get used to it. The virus needs to stay around and continue its educational work.

Question: A person will have it built inside that it is possible to live like this?

Answer: First, habit becomes a second nature, and it will certainly help in this.

Secondly, people will still understand that they need to provide their daily bread for themselves and not just fight. In addition, all the great countries will stop supporting and inciting local terrorists. What’s the point? They themselves will have a lot of problems.

A very serious challenge is coming for America, Europe, and China. A serious wave, I would say a tsunami, is approaching these countries.

Politics will change, regimes will change. People will become different, more mature. They won’t be thinking about having a couple of billion dollars in a bank somewhere in Switzerland and bragging about yachts and other things.

You will see what happens after this virus passes. There will be a huge number of unnecessary, completely harmful professions, all kinds of factories, plants, and international transportation will disappear.

All this will fall aside; there will be a re-evaluation of values. We don’t need 80% of what China does.

Question: Will the crazy billions that were spent on the arms race, on stocks of nuclear and hydrogen weapons, stop? Will there be the understanding that no one needs all this?

Answer: This understanding will come.

What can I have for these warheads? Thus, by threatening, I guard my regime, I guard my borders. What they are for is unclear.

The consumer of everything superfluous disappears. There remains a normal environment that says: “Eat, dress, and work as much as you need to so that you can have that, and that’s it. That’s it! And the rest of the time, begin to understand the nature in which you exist so that there won’t be a difference between life and death.”

Question: In other words, you don’t need to capture anyone. This hatred of others is not necessary. Is that what you mean?

Answer: “See your future world while you are still alive in this world.” You can’t buy this for nothing, no green pieces of paper can buy this. You’ll just have to burn them carefully, so as not to clog the oceans when you dump them there.

Comment: And if we talk about hatred that was burning here, for example, in our country [Israel].

My Response: And it will no longer be, because it is through correcting the hatred between us that everyone finds the most important thing, the upper world.

What is really worth gaining is something that is permanent, special, eternal, and perfect, not something you have to run every day to renew, earn, show off, and suffer from the fact that another person’s grass is greener.

Question: Do you really believe that such a period is approaching?

Answer: Man is an egoist. I speak only on the basis of egoism. If he knows that someone else feels the upper world, acquires things that do not vanish with the person when he dies, but remain with him in this life, in death, and after death—this will change everything.

In this way, we can restore a healthy attitude to the common world—this, the upper, the next—to the common world, to our common state.

Question: Then peace can come to the Earth? And you foresee that this period is approaching?

Answer: Yes. I’m counting on the virus.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 3/23/20

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My new article on Linkedin “Why COVID-19 Hardly Affects Animals”

The coronavirus has spread throughout the world. Yet, of all the species living on the planet, its noxious impact seems to be affecting almost only humans. Why is that?

If we look at the instructions we are required to obey in order to contain the coronavirus (which we are disobeying), it might tell us something about the reason it is impacting almost only people. To curb the virus, we are required to maintain social distancing, wear face masks, and wash our hands. Of the three requirements, the first two are critical to preventing us from spreading the virus, and the third is important if we want to avoid catching it ourselves. Let’s focus on the first two, since if we obey them, we won’t spread the virus to others and won’t have to worry about catching it from them.

Until we heal our hatred for each other, we will not get rid COVID-19

Social distancing means more than keeping six feet apart. Why is it not called “physical distancing,” which would make more sense considering that this is what we are required to do? “Social distancing” is the right term because we are required to keep ourselves apart socially and emotionally, and not just physically.

Animals do not maintain noxious connections among them; there is no ill-will even between the hunted and the hunter in the animal kingdom. Therefore, although they transmit to one another viruses and other potentially pernicious germs, it hardly ever affects them.

Humans, on the other hand, have cultivated a culture of competition, bigotry, and discrimination. In a word, it is a culture of hate. As a result, the viruses that we transmit to others are as nasty as our thoughts about them, and just as noxious. In fact, our negativity toward each other is so intense that even keeping six feet apart won’t dilute it enough to make it harmless, so we are required to cover our faces, too.

Until we heal our hatred for each other, we will not get rid COVID-19. Even if we find medical solutions to mitigate its impact, it will only become more sophisticated and injurious, just as we ourselves act surreptitiously when we want to hurt someone but cannot do it openly. So while working to find a cure or a vaccine for the coronavirus, we must work even harder to cure the pandemic of hatred that has spread throughout the human race.

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Question: How did it happen that the king of nature is able, due to illusory ideas, to destroy not only outsiders but even himself? How does this fit with high ideals, culture, art, moral principles, and mighty intellect?

Answer: We need to understand that we are made like that. It is simply amazing how nature has created us, on the one hand, seemingly reasonable, and on the other hand, endowed with such egoism, which cannot be reckoned with.

If you take any beast and put a bowl of food in front of it, it will feel whether it is good or bad for him. If you put a bowl of delicious food in front of a person, he will eat it even if it is bad for him.

This problem is in all our feelings. On the one hand, we desire, and on the other hand, we do not understand what we desire. That is, we cannot control our desires. They command us.

In animals, instinct commands. Good or bad is just an instinct. There are no attachments, no love, no hatred, no pleasant or unpleasant, but only good or bad that are recorded in their genes. In us, it is not so.

Question: Does this mean that man is the crown of nature, but only in potential?

Answer: A person will become the crown of nature only after we go through the realization of evil and the completion of his correction.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/16/20

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Question: In the times before the virus, the main values of a person were family, earning money, maybe having a small business, not to mention a large one, etc. And now, when people are slowly beginning to come out of self-isolation, it is unclear what to do. Many businesses will not recover, there will be no tourism, planes aren’t flying.

How can a person live? By what values will the world exist after the crisis?

Answer: I think that a person, on the contrary, will have real values. All the flights around the planet, running around on sales and other unnecessary activities for which you only work, earn pennies, and spend, while someone else is profiting from you, making billions, and in general doing nothing with it—all this will come to some kind of averaging. If not completely, then at least it will fall to some normal level, “deflate,” as they say.

Therefore, a person, first of all, will look for values in their life. Will ask what you live for and try to find the answer, which is already valuable. I believe we are on the right track.

Then it all depends on people so as not to succumb to deception and some promotions, which they are spurred on by fools and the nouveau riche who do not see any value in life except adding another billion to their bank account, and then another billion. I hope that people will start looking for something higher.

And high values are not inside our life, but above it. What is there to look for in it, if it ends? Moreover, we see there is no happiness in life. We need something different, more powerful, eternal, and perfect. To the extent that a person can grasp the whole of this life and what is beyond it, he must give an answer to the question: “What is this life for?”

If we would care only for our physical existence, like animals who see nothing more, then we would provide for ourselves instinctively and would be satisfied with it. That would be enough.

But if we look a little higher, without wanting to lock ourselves in the narrow confines of our world from birth to death and no more, then we need to answer the question: “What is life itself given for?” Where is the answer to quench the thirst of searching for the meaning of existence?

Nature doesn’t do anything for nothing. And if the question of non-biological existence arises in us, in our biological life, then we can and must find the answer to it.

There are people in whom this appears as an urgent demand, and there are those who still have to develop until they ask this question; they cannot push it away from themselves and will have to find an answer to it. It’s not easy. But still, the very fact of generating this question, which occurs in us at the call of nature—is a great thing.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/17/20

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Question: What is wrong with traveling around the world and enjoying life?

Answer: I do not think this is bad, but I do not consider it an end in itself. Let each of us see what it gave him. I was in dozens of countries in Europe, Asia, North and South America and got a general idea about them. But if a person turns his trips into an end in itself, then these are just excursions that give him nothing.

We are talking about how to make our world a correct, safe, and better place for us and our children so that we enjoy every second, breathe clean unpolluted air, eat normal non-pesticide contaminated foods, drink normal, not processed and poisoned water. Let’s make the world normal.

Then why do we need to work from morning till night while our children hang out in the yard or fool around at home? Why can’t we arrange things so that a woman can be at home, or at least partially reduce her working day? I believe that this all has the right to a balanced approach.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/3/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What will happen if the coronavirus comes back in a second wave?“

If we thought that the pandemic was under control, the time has come to think again.

The second wave of the coronavirus is already being widely discussed, even though the first wave never really stopped.

The economy’s reopening has helped bolster an influx of COVID-19 outbreaks worldwide, and we once again face an uncertain future with regard to the pandemic.

I am certain, however, that our world has undergone an irreversible change, and that we would be wise to realize how nature tightens our dependence on each other.

As much as we want it to become a thing of the past, the coronavirus is here to stay for a while. We need to come to terms with it being with us for a long time, and we should revise our socio-economic approach accordingly.

The World Bank has stated that the pandemic will be responsible for the biggest recession since the Second World War. We can still expect the closure of many businesses, a dramatic rise in unemployment, and as more and more people dig into the depths of their savings accounts, more and more people will face unpayable loans, rents and mortgages.

The immense changes we are brought to demand that we make some changes on our own behalf.

What should those changes be?

To start with, people’s essential needs have to be met.

Authorities should make sure that their populations receive essential goods and services, adjusting their budgets accordingly.

We will also need to get used to luxury goods losing their allure. There will be no need to invest in saving or reviving luxury goods businesses due to their diminished demand. Also, the increased awareness about the ecological harm that many such businesses contribute to further illustrates their non-necessity.

Our lives are on track to become calmer and more essentials-focused than we have been used to, and which our prior economy failed to prepare us for.

Any desires for surplus, any drives to progress and make breakthroughs in society, should likewise also be refocused. There is endless room for developing positive connections in society, and we would be wise to focus our growth on improving human connections.

By doing so, we would be on track to a whole new reality than the one we currently know, one where we experience our tightening interdependence not as a growing burden, but as an opportunity to exercise positive relations and share in a newfound harmony, happiness and confidence throughout society.

Likewise, after taking care of people’s essential needs, authorities would do well to implement a system of payment-based connection-enriching education, which will secure people’s needs via their participation in learning about today’s new interdependent conditions, as well as support active endeavors to develop a more positive social atmosphere.

Ultimately, the coronavirus is leading us to a much more natural form of existence. By highlighting our interdependence, it forces us to consider how we relate to each other, and we can already conclude that if we try to increase our care for each other, then we will live healthier, safer and happier lives.

Social distancing conditions have given us space for introspection, to see that genuine connection lies in our refined attitudes to each other.

As our pre-coronavirus socio-economic foundations become increasingly rickety the more we head deeper into coronavirus times, the uncertainty and anxiety about the future can quickly become filled with a renewed confidence in a society of people who have their needs secured, and who grow increasingly positive connections to each other on a daily basis.

We can think of the coronavirus like a treadmill that humanity has started walking on, and when we get off of this treadmill, we will have lost a lot of the materialistic-competitive fat that was weighing us down before the pandemic.

Now more than ever, we need to stay focused on our new stage of growth, that what nourished us in our previous stage no longer works, and to meet our new conditions, we need to develop positive connections to each other.

Above photo by Max Anderson on Unsplash.

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