Coronavirus: Pluses and Minuses

Remark: Everyone today is looking for where the coronavirus came from. Whether it is biological, artificial, or allegedly launched by the Chinese.

Answer: What is the difference? It does not matter; it already exists.

Question: Is there a need to look for what is behind this virus?

Answer: Yes. To investigate what nature wants to tell us by it.

Question: Do we have any research tools for this?

Answer: Let’s see where this leads us. Let’s write down the positive and negative consequences of the coronavirus’ impact on human society and decide.

I think that it has many more beneficial consequences than harmful ones. Then maybe we should not fight against it but agree with it in some ways.

Remark: Most people do not believe that nature has a plan. I have never heard anyone talk about it.

Answer: We have no other way of knowing anything about it at all if we do not investigate nature in this way. Otherwise, we will begin to study some random effects on ourselves.

I see that this virus has brought many beneficial things to humanity. It saved us from unnecessary work, from misusing natural resources. The sky and water are clean. People stopped twitching, flying around the globe, and pointing their fingers at various tourist sights like monkeys. They stay at home more and pay attention to their families.

A lot of beneficial things happened. Let’s write this down and see that there have been so many positive changes for which we should thank the virus.

On the other hand, what harm is it doing to us? Ah, we get infected from each other by some unknown, incomprehensible phenomenon. We should be more distanced from each other. So, let’s distance ourselves, let’s make our lives more peaceful, let’s not jostle in the subway, on buses, and in crowded offices.

We can make our life completely different. We do not need the old life. We ourselves were cursing it. Six months ago, I read a lot of articles about how our world is coming to an end, that we will eventually just bring it to the edge by air pollution, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, the threat of war, or anything else.

We made the world such that this virus just stops us and says: “Take a step back and see how to arrange yourself better, more kindly, calmly. Otherwise, your place will be taken by those wild animals that started to come out of the woods.”

Question: Will the very process of studying and analyzing the cause of what is happening relieve a person from stress?

Answer: Of course. We will draw the correct conclusions and this will help us.
[269023]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/25/20

Related Material:
Managing Stress, Part 5
Managing Stress, Part 4
Managing Stress, Part 3

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Health - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the key lessons from this pandemic?“

One key lesson is that the pandemic is only an initial blow from nature, and we can expect many more blows in more severe forms because the time has come for us to undergo a major transformation: a shift in our entire approach to life, from a competitive self-centered approach to one where we share mutual responsibility and consideration for each other and nature.

The pandemic-charged changes we already see in society, from social distancing conditions through to increased unemployment and falling businesses, hint at how this change of our approach to life will have to transpire.

Especially in the realm of work, we have built a society filled with businesses and professions that we have no real need for.

Through the pandemic, nature started filtering out the nonessential from the essential. Businesses that served our basic needs continued serving us, while those we had no real need for became sidelined.

If we look at the animal sphere, we see how a certain amount of animals die off, and others develop in their place, according to various changes that appear in nature.

It is similar with us.

We are parts of nature, and nature operates on us by placing us in new conditions. Accordingly, nature adjusts the human population and the emphasis of its activity.

Under the coronavirus’ influence, many people have become unemployed, and it is because there is a prominent declining need for much of the professions we once held.

We can expect businesses and professions that we have a real need for to continue, which is only about five percent of the service sector that has developed over the last 70 years or so.

Likewise, we will see that around 95 percent of what we engaged in will gradually disappear. People will feel that the materialistic values we held, which drove us to strive for expensive clothing, prestigious cars, and traveling incessantly around the world, will decline, and we will feel needs for more basic and simple fulfillments, together with more meaningful social connections.

Therefore, society and authorities alike will need to think hard about what to do with the growing unemployed mass around the world.

It is on this point that I have proposed a setup where people will have their basic needs provided by authorities in exchange for participating in learning and activities that aim to increase the sensation of meaningful connection in society.

On one hand, we won’t be able to revive our pre-coronavirus economy and lifestyle, and on the other hand, if we simply fulfill people’s basic needs without offering social accolades and goals worth striving for, then society will stagnate.

Therefore, by supplying life’s essentials in exchange for participation in learning and activities that aim to improve social connections, we will see a major shift in values—from egoistic to altruistic, individualistic to mutually dependent, and materialistic to people-focused—which will make this transition appear advantageous to everyone.

Moreover, by prioritizing positive social connections above all other engagements, we will also come closer into balance with nature’s interdependent and interconnected form, and will thus experience positive feedback from nature: elated harmonious sensations the likes of which we have yet to experience.

Filed under: Coronavirus, Globalization, Health, Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Change Your Attitude Toward Life

Question: Modern medicine does not cure, but prolongs the ability to lead a wrong lifestyle. Classically, people believe the state should take care of them. A person pays taxes, so he wants to receive reciprocal care from medicine. Is this approach correct from your point of view?

Answer: No, this is wrong. Our life, medicine, and the state are built on a very false basis of ignorance of who we are and in what volume of nature we are. Therefore, our attitude to nature, society, and man is wrong. Not to mention medicine, science, and everything else that we do. This must be radically changed.

We need to change the basis of our attitude to life. After all, it is selfish, distorted, and we do nothing about it. And a person needs to be corrected. Then his attitude toward himself, toward the world, toward life will become different. He will make society and himself different.

A person will work where needed and how much is needed, nothing more. He will relate to nature only to the extent that he can take what he needs for existence, without robbing and destroying the environment. Thus, he will live in a huge, good, kind volume of nature, and will not pour oil into the ocean and burn forests. All of this must change quickly. Otherwise, we will not have this earth.

Question: Is your approach complex and not point-by-point?

Answer: An integrated approach boils down to human education.
[269077]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/14/20

Related Material:
Health And Medicine, Part 2
Health And Medicine, Part 1
A Healthy Body Reflects A Balanced Soul

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Health - No Comments →

Medium published my new article “Desperate for an Economy of Sharing”

Despite the insistence to keep the economy running, it’s grinding to a halt. “The U.S. economy shrank at a dizzying 33% annual rate in the April-June quarter — by far the worst quarterly plunge ever,” wrote Time magazine.

In the near future, people will realize that only the well-being of society guarantees the well-being of the individual within it.

There are consequences to a slowdown. According to Bloomberg, “A special project by the Census Bureau has set out to map and measure all the anxieties that Covid-19 has brought in its wake.” And the findings are alarming: Almost a third of people in some states have little or no confidence they can pay August’s rent or mortgage. Almost 127 million Americans experienced a loss of income since mid-March, and millions were forced out of work dealing with the pandemic. Worse yet, people’s health was adversely affected by the virus, even if they didn’t catch it. In fact, in addition to high levels of anxiety and depression that the virus stirred, 71 million adults did not get medical care that they needed for a condition unrelated to Covid-19, between mid-June and mid-July.

We’re clearly at a crossroads. Eventually, the government, any government that is elected, will have to make the necessary changes to secure people’s well-being. Otherwise, the chaos we are already seeing in some cities will spread throughout the country.

Although a pandemic is troublesome enough, Covid-19 is much more than that. The transformations it is imposing on us are not merely measures to curb its spreading; they are revolutionizing our entire civilization. The job losses we have experienced until now will dwarf compared to the job market that we will see in the near future. In fact, we are racing toward a reality where not working is the norm and working is the exception. In such circumstances, relief packages will not do; we will need a deep change in our perception of the concepts of work and society.

Only essential jobs will remain. Production of food, clothing, housing, healthcare, education, and other basics are necessary. But even here, automation and robotics will shrink the number of workers. In such a state, it will be impossible to maintain the existing model of salaries to those who work, and a few months of benefits for the unemployed. You can’t have the majority of the nation living on food stamps and in affordable (low-income) housing.

Therefore, we need to establish a two-arm program where one arm adapts the economy to the evolving circumstances, and the other adapts the society to those same evolving circumstances. The economy-arm will reshape production so that monopolies cannot exploit their power and people can afford to buy everything they need to support a modest but reasonable standard of living. If the society-arm works correctly, there will be no need for austerity measures of any kind, everyone will have a decent life, and the country’s budget will be balanced.

People’s income will come either from jobs or from the federal or state governments, a bit like today’s public sector employees. However, these people will not work in public service jobs, but in building a completely new society, since the current structure of society is the cause of the crisis.

The economy is a reflection of the society we live in. The current society fosters excessive consumption, unbridled competition, cruelness, and apathy to the plights of others. These, in turn, create depression, violence, substance abuse, suicide, homicide, bullying, racism, eating disorders, numerous mental health issues, sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, and any form of conceivable misery. The task of the society-arm of the program will be to create solidarity, mutual responsibility, and care among all people. As a result, the economy will become an economy of sharing.

In such an economy, the role of production is not to further pad the already bloated bank accounts of companies’ shareholders. The redesigned economy produces only what is needed, and with an added goal to bring people closer together. Whether one works in manufacturing or provides services, the salaries will be similar and the goal the same: to increase social cohesion and solidarity.

To foster such a society, people will need to understand the shift that the world is taking and participate in it of their own volition. To facilitate this understanding, governments will provide mandatory courses that will show how we are becoming an interdependent society where our lives depend on the lives of everyone else, similar to the way we must keep social distancing in order not to infect other people.

Until today, society consisted of individuals who tried to exploit others for their own needs without any accountability. However, that model has failed and exhausted itself. In the near future, people will realize that only the well-being of society guarantees the well-being of the individual within it. Therefore, people will learn to care for society so that it will care for them. The sooner we realize that this is where we’re going, the better and easier it will be for all of us.
[269680]

Filed under: Economy, Health, New Publications, Society - No Comments →

We do not understand where our freedom of choice is or how to achieve it and implement it so as not to harm other people because we are all connected. Look at the turmoil in America today, it is a real civil war. There are demonstrations in Israel too, and the same things will happen more and more all over the world because the situation will get worse.

The world is losing its egoistic ties that it was connected by: you give to me and I to give you, commodity-money-commodity-money. This was a system we lived in for thousands of years until we totally squeezed all the juice out of it. By the 50s of the last century, this system reached its heyday and then began to rot. This was inevitable because otherwise we would never come to spiritual correction.

And therefore, today we find ourselves in a world that reveals such problems that will not allow it to return back to its previous state. Financial and governmental minds are trying to figure out how to maintain the existing systems where there was balance between how much a person invests and how much he can get or buy.

This egoistic system was relatively balanced, and everyone understood that this was life. Suddenly it crumbled in an instant. No one knows how to fix it or what will happen to us in the future. We find ourselves in a situation where the former mechanism has stopped working. Egoism, the driving force, kept me in confrontation with others all the time, determined how much each one would give, how much he would receive, and bound us with egoistic relations.

But this connection no longer works. What will regulate our relationships? We have created an army, police, an education system, culture, and financial systems. Our egoism pushed us to build an egoistic society, which has suddenly stopped working. This is a crisis that is not equal to any other previous crisis in history.

It seemed to us that we achieved an excellent organization of human society, which corresponds to our egoistic nature. We got the opportunity to travel, see the world, and understand each other because everyone was driven by one desire —to gain more. It would seem, what are we missing? There is only one thing we lack: that by this we do not implement the purpose of creation.

And look what has happened, how the Creator has ruined all our plans for a good life with the help of the coronavirus. Now we have found that all our preparations for a good life do not help us, not a single egoistic system works. So what can you do? The only way is to move from an egoistic system to an altruistic one.

After all, why can’t we move on to another even more egoistic system if the previous one has stopped working? But the point is that there is an upper program that rules us. From our level, we are not able to appreciate it, but Kabbalists explain how to use it. If we accept it, then we will be able to move forward, and if not, then we will remain at the previous stage until this program forces us to move forward.

At the end of correction, the system will work from both sides: both from the side of great egoism and from the side of great bestowal. These two forces will work against each other, and the created being, in the middle between them, will use both of them in an integral, harmonious, and perfect form.
[269084]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”

Related Material:
Polar Star
Only The Umbrella Of Love Wins The War
Mutual Guarantee—Now And Forever

Filed under: Coronavirus, Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Economy, Health - No Comments →

What does human health depend on?

Question: There are two types of impact of society on a person.

The first is an indirect, unconscious impact. For example: pollution of the atmosphere, water, genetic experiments that are carried out on animals for food, etc. All of this naturally affects us.

The second is the direct, conscious impact of society: the media, all kinds of economic levers, and social norms.

Do you think human health in most cases depends more on society or does it depend on genetics?

Answer: Health depends on both.

Mostly, no doubt, from genetics. But still, as they say, existence determines consciousness. Therefore, it is imperative to think about what kind of environment we give a person, although in the same environment there are people who tolerate it relatively well and there are those who perish.

Remark: Doctors say that human health depends 10% on health care, 20% on heredity, another 20% on the environment, i.e., from the activities of people. And 50% is determined by a person’s lifestyle. And the way of life is dictated by the media and by the historical period in which a person lives.

That is, in principle, we can say that 80% of health still depends on society.

My Comment: Of course, life expectancy and its quality depend on the relationship between people, on their communication.
[269031]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/14/20

Related Material:
Health And Medicine, Part 1
Relationships With People Affect Health
A Healthy Body Reflects A Balanced Soul

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Health - No Comments →

Society of Unnecessary Professions

Question: What should a person realize in the era of coronavirus?

Answer: A person must realize that he has survived only the first blow of nature. Many more blows are needed to correct society, and they will follow. As a result, society will not remain the same. This will mainly concern the employment of people.

The fact is that we have created a society of completely unnecessary professions. In our post-industrial world, a huge number of superfluous people have appeared, and therefore, a lot of completely unnecessary occupations, professions, and enterprises arose. We need to understand that we are in the integral sphere of nature, which strives for optimization, and it will put pressure on us so that all unnecessary professions disappear.

Looking, for example, at animal nature, we know that some number of animals must die off, the others must develop, depending on what conditions appear or disappear in nature. The same goes for us. We are part of nature, so it plays with us, sets certain new parameters for us, thereby reducing or increasing the population, occupation, and so on.

Now, under the influence of the coronavirus, there is a great acceleration in the development of human society. A lot of people don’t work and, in principle, they don’t need to return to work.

Those enterprises that are really needed have acted, are operating, and will continue to operate. And only 5% OF the service sector that we have created over the past seventy years is needed.

Therefore, there will be no need for it, and it will no longer return to its previous activity. The bulk of the population employed in the service sector will simply be left without work. And here we need to think about what to do with people with unnecessary professions.
[268842]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/14/20

Related Material:
Professions Of The Future
The Most Needed Profession
Upheaval In The Economic System

Filed under: Coronavirus, Crisis, Economy, Globalization, Health - No Comments →

How to Manage Stress?

Question: There are many ways to manage stress, depending on the factor that causes it, such as breathing exercises, meditation, physical activity, cooking, breeding pets, or singing in a choir. All of this somehow distracts people and saves them from stress.

Many advise crying, keeping a diary, or spending time in the company of loved ones.

Yet, we see that even though all these tips help, it is only to a certain extent and only when stressful situations are local in nature. However, when there is a massive pandemic or some other cataclysm, other methods are needed. What can you recommend?

Answer: I do not see eliminating the source of the problem in these methods. All of them only help to somehow calm down a little. It turns out that the cause remains, but the person as if takes a sedative and now does not feel the cause, or feels it in a half or a quarter of its strength.

This is not a solution. Especially if this is a global issue concerning all the inhabitants of the Earth, who after a while will no longer know where to find food or how to exist.

Question: What will help them?

Answer: Only the revelation of the source of this phenomenon: what is the reason for such pressure on all of humanity. After all, nothing happens in nature for nothing, everything has its own reason.

The search for this reason itself is already the beginning of the cure. Just as we investigate a disease and try to find a cure for it, here as well we must find out why this is happening. Only now we are investigating not bacteria, animals, or our incorrect interactions with some parts of nature, but rather the meaning of nature, what it wants to push us to.
[268990]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/25/20

Related Material:
Managing Stress, Part 4
Managing Stress, Part 3
Managing Stress, Part 2

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Health - No Comments →

Question: Four months of the virus flew by in an instant and there was practically no particularly positive news. There were snowfalls, storms, fires, earthquakes. Iran is developing a nuclear bomb again. Look what is happening in America: riots and fiery arguments. There was no good news. Man lives in this space.

How can he live among all the terrible news that befell him during these 4 to 5 months?

Answer: Let’s at least make people around the world embrace a week of positive thoughts. Only positive thoughts! Nothing else can be done. Just think positively about others.

Question: Do you think it would work if we could hold on to this for a week?

Answer: Let’s try. What can we lose? It is from this, I think, that we do not lose anything.

It doesn’t cost anything. No one should postpone anything. We must not stop anything; we must continue living just like we do now. It is just that throughout this week, we will talk only about good relations. And how much, perhaps, we will gain from this. Let’s take a look. We have all these statistics. And suddenly, we will see what we are doing only if we say kind things. Try.

Question: How is all this arranged? From above?

Answer: Of course, from above: the United States, UN, World Health Organization, UNESCO.

Question: That is, to stop political games and say: “Let’s try to live like this for a week”?

Answer: Yes, of course. But the fact is that they will not want it because it will immediately be discovered that we do not need anything other than this.

Remark: You always have a turning point at the end when you say: “But this is impossible.” You suggest: “Let’s do it!” And you immediately say: “But this is impossible.”

Answer: It is possible, but impossible.

Question: That is, no one will agree to this?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So what is our practical advice then?

Answer: But there is no practical advice here. Our egoism will not allow us to do this.

Question: So, you think that only this will help, but our egoism will not allow us to do it?

Answer: Yes.

Remark: There is a dead end here. We are in it again. Please take us out of this impasse.

My Reply: We must nullify all egoistic relationships. We will see how much we stand face to face in front of huge egoism, and we have nowhere to go. What are we going to do without it, my dear?

Remark: That is, we want this week of good thoughts to come, we cannot; we stand against the egoism and it tells us: “You will never do this! Because then you will nullify me”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is this a good state? Is it important for such a standing to appear?

Answer: Of course, good. Then we would at least move a little forward.

Question: Would we understand what hinders us in this life?

Answer: Yes. But we cannot, we cannot. As the famous Russian stand-up comic Raikin said about the deficit: “Well, you should at least leave something.” 🙂

We must still try to explain it. So that when even worse times come—the virus for the second time, for the third time—it will finish us off, weaken us, and we will agree. At least for such half measures.

Question: That is, to talk about what is now impossible. Is it necessary to talk about good relationships between person to person, a week of good thoughts, and so on?

Answer: Anyway, everything will finally get to this.

Question: Will egoism eventually give up?

Answer: No! There will be a huge war, an internal war, a spiritual war of forces! A war of dark and light forces. This is a biblical war, which is described in the sources. The children of light and the children of darkness.

Question: Is this a war between good deeds and egoism?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So, what is next? What does it say at the end?

Answer: In the end, the good forces will win. But only after a huge internal struggle, which they must accomplish internally.

Question: Each person out of eight billion must go through all this?

Answer: Absolutely everyone!

Remark: In fact, you say that the script has already been written.

Answer: We will finish off this scenario.

Question: But has it been written already?

Answer: No. Not the final one. There are such scenes there!

Question: There is a role for my freewill too?

Answer: Absolutely!

Question: So, I have to choose something?

Answer: Yes. What I command. Moreover, it will happen during the most critical scenes. Not in general but on the whole, everything is directed toward the victory of the good forces over the dark forces, but we command all turns and special states, we determine them.

Every second we will have to give our solution through our freewill and pressure to make it come true. Everything will depend on us! Although, everything is predetermined.

Question: But this is so incomprehensible to a person! That is, he will walk with the feeling that it is good for the light to win, constantly face the darkness, understand that he will not overcome the darkness; this is impossible, and we will still somehow continue?

Answer: Of course, yes. And we will grow, like sprouts from the earth, in a new form, in an altruistic society. This is no longer an earthly society. This is a completely different view.

This is a completely different birth. And we will exist in it in a different way—in the form of forces, in the form of a plan, in the form of thoughts.

Question: You always give an example that a child is born upside down. I understand that I will never get through this, and suddenly an overturning, and I find myself there?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is someone pushing us out or are we born ourselves?

Answer: No, of course, all this is done by nature, by a higher nature. It pushes us and gives birth.

Question: Only efforts are needed from us?

Answer: We must conform to this, accompany it. This will all happen very quickly, unnoticed. And all these viruses will accompany us until our new birth.

Question: So, it turns out that viruses are actually a thrusting force?

Answer: Yes. They shape us. They do everything.

The most important thing is not what they do in our world biologically, but that they give rise to an attitude in us toward a new perception. It is most important.

In general, everything will be fine.
[268848]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/15/20

Related Material:
Where Did The Virus Come From?
Day Of Kindness
Apocalypse Or Birth Of The New

Filed under: Coronavirus, Crisis, Globalization, Health - No Comments →

Comment: People are a virus. This is the opinion of one of a few movements for saving nature, for saving the environment, which is called “Eco-fascism.”

“Global warming threatens humanity. The industrial economy is destroying species diversity. Corporations have too much power. White people should prepare for a racial war,” the movement adheres to this slogan.

They believe that it is necessary to isolate people from nature, and it is desirable that viruses such as the coronavirus and other epidemics, destroy some of the people. And there will remain the part of humanity that can actively develop, support nature, ecology, and reasonable consumption.

My Response: I do not think these movements are worthy of attention.

Are humans a virus? Yes, people in today’s state are a negative, selfish force of nature. They always had it, but today it has developed to such a state where they themselves cannot bear it. Therefore, this state is already becoming relatively positive, the so-called awareness of the evil of its nature. Therefore, within human society, all kinds of movements opposite to their nature arise.

I respect humanity for the fact that it is looking for the answer to: what should we do with ourselves? We are so harmful, bad, we are so terrible, but where can we turn, what can we do with ourselves?

We must come to a serious and real conclusion that out of all those existing on planet earth, we are the only harmful one. Not because we eat inanimate, vegetative, animate nature, but because of what we do to ourselves.

First, by destroying inanimate, vegetative, and animal nature, we bring enormous harm to the environment. But at the same time, we do great harm to ourselves because we eat ourselves, figuratively speaking, from the inside.

Man is the only creature that possesses negative energy, a negative property called “egoism,” which is ready to kill everything and everyone. Not for your own benefit, but only so that nothing else exists nearby. He wants to see himself as the only one in the center of the world and not to have others in this world at all.

Question: You spoke about the search that a person leads, the search for a way out, the search for a solution to the current situation and, in general, the change in the paradigm of the entire life of all mankind. How can he find this root point of evil in order to eradicate it and start a new movement?

Answer: He cannot find it. Even if he sees how something can be changed, he does not have the strength to do it. He needs a clear implementation of the program of nature—how a person can change himself. This is inherent in the wisdom of Kabbalah.

It indicates how people should unite with each other in order to extract from nature the positive force that unites them, and with the help of such unification, to channel this force through themselves to the whole environment.

We must inversely change our nature and become altruists instead of egoists.

The correct change of human nature to absolute goodness, to love for one’s neighbor, should be at the heart of human ethics and triumph.
[269139]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/1/20

Related Material:
Are We Fulfilling Our Function?
Using Egoism To Benefit Others
How To Cure Egoism?

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Health, News - No Comments →