Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How connected are we with other people on this planet?“

Today, we live in times that kabbalists call “the last generation,” and the laws that apply to the last generation are no longer laws that pertain to certain regions or countries, but to humanity as a whole.

Moreover, we very much need to see these laws with our own eyes: how they encompass our planet, how everyone receives the intellect, emotion, perception and inclination toward these laws, and that we live in such tight and inescapable global interdependence.

Take, for example, the coronavirus pandemic. Look at how it connects everyone in a common concern. If we fail to reach the feeling of our interconnectedness out of our own accord, then a pandemic comes around to show us our connection. And if that is still not enough, then we can expect to experience more extreme natural occurrences, such as hurricanes and other disasters, in order to show us how small we really are, and how we need to be better connected in order to spare ourselves such blows.

Today’s times are global and human society has become global. All we need today is to understand the extent to which we are global, and to reach a common understanding of the general collective force that encompasses us. If we reach such an understanding, then everything will work out just fine.

Based on the video “A New Global Era” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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The famous Kabbalist of the XVI century Ramak wrote in the book Ohr Yakar that people studying The Book of Zohar awaken forces of the souls of the righteous together with the force of Moses. After all, a person who studies The Book of Zohar is in connection with the source of the upper light, with the force of bestowal and love. Therefore, he passes the upper light through him to all the souls that are below him.

There is a point in each of us that distinguishes him from others. It is within this point that he is the only one above all the others. This is how each of us passes the upper light through him to all other souls.

Therefore, we do not need to change the world. By changing himself, a person changes everyone else because he is in connection with them.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 2/15/22

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The wisdom that one should know: to know and to observe the secret of his Master … (Zohar for All, Song of Songs, 482-483).

Question: What secrets does the Creator have?

Answer: The Creator has no secrets, all secrets are in us. If we connect with each other better and better so that any inner distance disappears between us altogether, then we reveal the universe more and more. This is what The Book of Zohar talks about.

He needs … to know himself, to know who he is, how he was created, where he comes from and where he is going, how the body is corrected, and how he will be judged by the King of All.

By the body we mean the egoism of a person. And our physical body does not belong to the level of a human, but to the level of an animal.

The trial means that a person must reach a state where he can soberly assess his actions, correctly understand them, and judge himself.

To know and to observe the secret of the soul. What is the soul within him? Where does it come from, and why does it come into this body, which is a foul drop that is here today, and in the grave tomorrow?

A person must attain the source of his existence, where he comes from, and what he is here for.

To know the world one is in, and for what will the world be corrected; to gaze upon the sublime secrets of the Upper World, and to know one’s Master. And one observes all that from within the secrets of the Torah.

These are the tasks of The Book of Zohar.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 2/15/22

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Question: Arkady asks, “It looks like the end of the world is near. And the worst thing is that everyone around is calmly talking about it. Only recently we wanted to live happily, we were making plans for the future, and we suddenly realize that none of this will happen. What do we do now?”

Answer: Who told you that what you wanted was good? Let’s sort it out.

Comment: People just wanted simple human happiness.

My Response: Get a shot and forget everything. Or even better, take a pill, fall asleep, be at peace.

This is not the purpose of our development. So we shouldn’t try to stay in the “sandbox” where we used to live and play that we were building toy houses from sand.

Question: So you think it was all child’s games?

Answer: Yes. A little egoism was developing. Now we must rise above that egoism. We must start looking forward and in a different way.

To play seriously means to play the Creator, to make  sure that the Creator is between us in all our thoughts and actions. This is called to play for real.

Question: Is it possible to say that before I do something I kind of try to turn to the Creator?

Answer: Yes. And do it in a way that you imagine that you are doing it for His sake, instead of Him, for Him.

For Him means for the sake of others. Nothing affects the Creator and He does not need anything. There is only one possibility: to get strength from Him to act for the sake of people.

Question: Does it turn out that the formula “I want to be happy” changes to “I want people to be happy, I want everyone around me to be happy”?

Answer: But really happy, not the way I want them to be happy, but the way the Creator wants. Because this is the law of the universe. It is absolute and objective.

Question: How does He want people to be happy? What is it for the Creator?

Answer: Move into other people, enter them, and start feeling what is most important to them. Then build it together with them.

Question: What do you think will be the most important thing for people?

Answer: To feel close to each other. In this, a person begins to feel perfection.

Question: Is there peace, happiness, and security there, at this point?

Answer: The end of everything. Not the end in the sense of ending, but simply perfection.

Question: Are all people close to each other, like all people are brothers and sisters?

Answer: Yes, they completely disappear in the form they are in now. They enter the realm of perfection.

Question: So now if I want to use the other for myself, there I want to give myself completely to the other, right?

Answer: Yes. This is the mutual bestowal of ourselves to each other. It is called Hashpaa (bestowal) in Kabbalah. This is the state of perfection, the spiritual state.

Comment: This is a great wisdom we are studying.

My Response: It will be revealed even more! It will be developed even more, and it will expand into feelings.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/28/22

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The more we develop, the more we approach the moment when nature reveals a global connection to us and, in principle, invites us to rise to another level of existence. In a global system we cannot exist other than by caring for each other.

But why do we constantly receive huge blows, such as tsunamis, earthquakes, wars, epidemics? Because nature is trying to bring itself back into balance.

The fact is that if it is necessary to somehow produce some kind of moral, spiritual correction of mankind, then the simplest and most direct action on the part of nature is the impact of suffering.

As soon as you influence a person with suffering, his needs immediately decrease. He is ready to be satisfied with less just not to suffer. Therefore, look at what happens during a war. People are content with little and do not want more, they are ready to unite and help each other.

Suffering immediately makes a person purer, lowers his egoism, makes him content with less, and he connects with others in order to gain confidence and some kind of support.
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From KabTV’s “Close-up. Partnership Agreement” 4/7/10

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Question: A person begins one’s spiritual path with some harmony like it was before the construction of the Tower of Babel when everyone lived as one nation. Then his desires begin to grow, which lead him to the state called Babylon where everything is confused and there is no harmony. Then he comes to the state called Canaan (from the word “Ahnaa –Diminishing”) when he diminishes his ego.

It turns out that first he reveals it within himself, and then we see historically that he really goes to some place.

What kind of law is this that the spiritual root manifests itself at least once in the material world?

Answer: It is said that any root should gradually grow in a person and reach a spiritual state, since our earthly structure, the structure of the entire universe, should express itself in parallel in a material and spiritual form.

That is why it is like this: once there was physical conquest and physical correction, and now we only have to add our internal, psychological, spiritual correction to this.

When describing the spiritual phases of development of a human soul, the sages encoded them in various symbols and words of this world. For example, entering the land of Canaan means diminishing egoism. When a person rises above the ego and begins to work for the sake of bestowal, then this land (desire) is already called Israel.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 2/22/22

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Question: You have said that people do not understand that it is the relationship between them that affects the economy, outbreaks of epidemics, tsunamis, earthquakes, and other disasters, and if this connection becomes clear, they will inevitably give up their egoistic relationships.

Can you explain the connection between global disasters that are taking place and people’s attitude toward each other?

Answer: Until recently, we have not imagined that nature is global. However, many people have thought and talked about it.

For example, in Russia, the academician Vernadsky made a discovery, outstanding for that time, that everything is interconnected, everything is global, and he called this phenomenon the noosphere.

Before and after him there were many such philosophers, but people have never felt in the flesh, in our world, that we are really globally interconnected.

It seems to us that this was facilitated by the development of technology: the Internet, flights, business, all sorts of programs, and so on. It is nothing of the kind! It is nature that reveals to us its real system in which everything is interconnected—inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels, and also the upper layers that we do not feel. And all this is one single whole.

In this single whole there is a single law. Moreover, the system itself is global. It means that every part of it is connected with all the other parts and all of them affect each other and are interconnected with each other, like in a holographic picture. That is, each part includes all the others and what happens in it affects all the others.

In other words, I am a copy of the whole world, and you, and this, and that, that is, everything that can be imagined. Therefore what happens in each of us instantly affects the rest of the world.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Partnership Agreement” 4/7/10

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love of God and the Love of Man” 

Selected Highlights

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Medium published my new article “The Hunger Games of War”

After a month of war in Ukraine, an unprecedented world food crisis is anticipated. The wheat exports of Russia and Ukraine combined account for nearly 30 percent of global production, while Russia is the main fertilizer exporter in the world. Therefore, the conflict threatens to rapidly unleash a “perfect storm” in global agriculture, affecting food availability and prices. At its root, we need to realize that the impending hunger is not the result of a lack of food but a consequence of an excess of human egoism.

If we consider that around 45 million people in the world are already on the brink of famine, and nearly 283 million people in 81 countries are at high risk for food insecurity (according to estimates of the World Food Program), the forecast for the future is not promising. An energy crunch and skyrocketing increases in natural gas prices, have dealt a severe blow to food production and transportation costs.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization predicts a spike of at least 20 percent in food prices in the coming months, on top of the disruptions and cost increases due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is expected that the situation will acutely exacerbate global food security and create social unrest and instability.

If the world had approached the problem of food security correctly, it might not have reached such a crisis as to endanger provisions that could put millions in danger of starvation. We could have approached the situation in a healthy way and assessed what we have, how much is needed, who is lacking, and how to best distribute our resources, as in a family.

The problem is that while the world is increasingly interdependent, at the same time it has become increasingly disconnected. No one really thinks about the welfare of others. In some places, the basic grains for consumption will be even burned in order to keep the prices high, causing people in other places to literally starve to death. So the food crisis we face is not a matter of limited provisions but the lack of mutual concern and responsibility between us.

This is not the first food crisis the world has faced and will not be the last one. The billions of dollars received by international organizations to tackle hunger could have fed the entire world several times over, but the problem is not solved because there is no real interest in finding a solution. Hunger is a profitable business and a way of dominance. Those who make a cash cow out of it will be happy to perpetuate starvation. Others, in a cold-headed analysis, even look at the global population of 8 billion and think that it would be easier and more advantageous overall to deal with half that number of people, as was the case one hundred years ago when fewer natural resources were demanded.

In my view, until we deal with the heart of the problem, which is the egoism in human nature and the war between self-benefit and the common interest, we will find no remedy for our woes. We have run out of options. Only rising above selfish interests for common benefit can spare humanity many more years of needless torment.

The food crisis we face should force us to reassess our priorities about how to deal with global problems. Only when people grasp that everyone in society is dependent on everyone else and that the world is like one body in which a severe illness in any of its organs affects the whole system to the point of collapse, will we begin to change. At that time we will begin to see acts of mutual concern, and support systems that are established by the community, authorities, and everyone responsible for the emergence of a new society of mutual responsibility. Humanity simply has no other choice, no other way to survive.
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