Coronavirus: Humanity At A Loss

Question: Will there be spiritual consequences from the coronavirus? Now humankind is suffering, afraid, and has not yet reached far-reaching conclusions.

Answer: Man is still at a loss: Where will I work? Where will my children study? How will it all develop? How long will I stay at home, etc.? And there are a lot of questions here: What about my wife, the children? I rarely see them, and now I finally get to know my children and my wife too.

This is not easy. We will sit together for a few more months and if we do not conduct serious educational work with the population, then the families will begin to break up.

Remark: These are not very good forecasts.

My Comment: What can we do? Indeed, when people suddenly unite in a small space, they gradually begin to show each other different sides of egoism. This is not easy to get along with.

But I think that we will conduct all kinds of seminars and classes, display everything possible on our websites, and this will prevent a blow.

Question: But how will people, while in quarantine, not try to kill each other?

Answer: On the contrary, we will educate people so that physical distance between us will lead to an internal, heartwarming, spiritual connection, and people will feel the emergence of a new force called the Creator.

It is said in the Torah: “Husband and wife, and the Creator between them.” In this way, we can discover the Creator even between husband and wife. Everything is between us.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/22/20

Re-Evaluating Reality

Question: Over the course of history, there have been many outbreaks of various epidemics in the world, but we have never seen anything quite similar to what is happening now. What is so special about the current pandemic for you as a Kabbalist?

Answer: The current pandemic is special because of the completely different reaction of the people than before. In the past, we weren’t worried about it; what’s the big deal: avian flu, swine flu. Someone has the flu, so be it.

Every year a couple of million people die from various viruses in the world. So what? Nothing is wrong with that. An epidemic comes and we go on with our usual business. We bear children, raise them, get old, and die from the flu or not, it does not matter.

And suddenly, 400 people got sick in the country and the entire world stands up, not knowing what to do.

I think it’s not about the flu or the coronavirus, Rather, humanity underwent a certain inner re-evaluation of reality. Although we don’t feel it, this is exactly what makes us relate to these phenomena differently.

Think about it: If we take a look at the Earth from the side, and 1,000 people died there, would that justify stopping all production, locking everybody at home, forbidding them to go out on the streets, and leaving them not knowing if there will be food on the table in a month or two? What is happening?

Remark: The pandemic is taking over the entire world, and it has never felt so global before.

My Response: There is a sense of globality in the world. Kabbalists talked about it a long time ago. Kabbalah has always linked our time with the entrance into a new era. And the world feels this. Globalism, in particular, confers a special perception on the world.
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From KabTV’s: “The Coronavirus Is Changing the World” 3/19/20

Nature Separates Egoists

Question: Today everybody has all the information about what is happening in the world. It was not like this before. Some 30 to 40 years ago we had no way of knowing, to the smallest detail, what was going on in any other country.

Besides, there was never such a thing as a universal quarantine . Everybody is sitting at home now or will be sitting there soon. There are countries where people cannot go out at all, they are fined for it.

What is special about the fact that nature disconnects us?

Answer: This is very good. Nature disconnects egoists to keep them away from each other. That is how we usually disperse a group of teenagers who violate public order because together, they only heat each other up, instigate each other, make noise, and do all kids of stupid things. And separately, they calm down.

It is the same here: The world disengages, egoists forcibly distance themselves from each other, and everything calms down. We see this with ecology in what is happening with the world today. The air clears, everything becomes calmer, smoother. Nature gets rid of the human impact, since people are the rudest egoists, violators of harmony. Then, everything becomes beautiful and good.
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From KabTv’s: “The Corona Virus is Changing the World,” 3/19/20

What Makes A Person A Kabbalist?

Question: What makes a person a Kabbalist if studying and acquiring knowledge are not enough? What else is needed?

Answer: The acquisition of knowledge does not make a person a Kabbalist. A Kabbalist is one who begins to feel the spiritual world, that is, the connection between us and the Creator in it.

In other words, I myself must rise to the level where I feel, let’s say, the ten, and in the ten, I must rise to the level where I begin to feel its source—the Creator. This is the attainment of the upper world: me—the ten—the Creator.

Question: For example, in workshops in the ten we read short passages and clarify Kabbalistic concepts or the internal efforts that we must make. Where is the element of advancement here? What is the work we each do in order to feel the maximum impact of the upper light on ourselves after reading the passage?

Answer: I can feel the impact of the upper world on myself to the extent that I aspire to it, that is, to the property of the common connection in a single whole.

My friends and I form a communication network, and in this network, we try to find the property of bestowal and love connecting us. Thus, we gradually prepare this network for the state where it will be able to perceive the Creator—the source of this connection. This is how it works.
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From Kab TV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/1/20

Period Of Wandering, Part 6

Why are there 10 tribes of the people of Israel dispersed around the world?

Question: What can you say, as a Kabbalist, about the ten lost tribes that still cannot be found? What was the point of this? This is still a large part of the nation that has to reach unity.

Answer: Yes, of course. Only two and a half tribes remained, and the rest disappeared.

The fact is that this is a huge number of people who do not live somewhere in one or another place, but have settled around the globe. We see in the stories of the two remaining tribes how they went through all the paths of exile, mixing with other nations and all that. This is a very interesting historical process.

Question: There are three main areas where Jews settled during exile: North Africa, Spain, and Germany.

Why has nature done this in such a harsh method? If nature has a goal for all peoples to unite, and all of humanity to become one organism, then this could be done in a softer way.

Answer: Nature has its own logic: to choose some group from all of humanity.

Firstly, this group consists of representatives of all nations. This is not a biological people, like all the others, but simply people connected by one common goal: the desire to connect in order to reveal the upper force, a higher existence, to live in harmony with all of the integral nature. So, it was quite reasonable and quite justified.

Comment: Nature led the Jews to some kind of unity. Then the unity was lost, and nature (the Creator) dispersed them all over the world.

My Response: Everything was the way it should be. This was known even in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Torah hints at the fact that Jacob was supposed to tell his children about this, but hid it from them, meaning from the 12 tribes, their future.

And today, when we are almost at the end of the path, unity must be revealed. Why are ten tribes still hiding in other nations? We do not know. We cannot imagine what could happen to the world if this group, called the Jews, despite their small numbers, did not disperse around the world. We do not realize how much it is precisely the trigger and source of all problems, all actions, all of world history.

We see how much impact it has had on all of humanity. After the destruction of the First Temple in the 6th and 7th century BC, Confucianism and all Eastern methods appeared. And after the destruction of the Second Temple, Christianity and Islam arose.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel, Part 6,” 7/15/19

New Life #1214 – Coronavirus, How To Calm The Economic Fear

New Life #1214 – Coronavirus, How To Calm The Economic Fear
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

The coronavirus is advancing humanity toward the true purpose of life by making us reflect on who we are and what we can depend on tomorrow. People are afraid that there will be no livelihood or food in the future, but aren’t there higher things for us to hope for in life? The Corona is disconnecting us from the life to which we have been accustomed so that we will ask about its purpose. The purpose of creation is to bring humanity to a higher level. Adhere to this and it will calm you down.
Attempt to feel nature, the higher power, God; get out of yourself, connect with the entire universe. We evolve as humans when we continually ask ourselves what we are living for. .
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1214 – Coronavirus, How To Calm The Economic Fear,” 3/19/20

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Coronavirus: Believe It Or Not

Question: Reading medical books and talking about pills does not cure anything. How does talking about the integrality of nature help?

Answer: The difference is that when you talk about medicine, it does not affect you. But when you talk about the coronavirus, whether you want to or not, you are awakening the upper forces that send it to us.

When we speak about connection, we generate it between us; we awaken people’s desires for this connection and for ascending above our egoistic nature, So, it turns out that you are being cured through this and you do not need any medicine.

Right now, billions of dollars are being spent in the world to find a cure for the coronavirus. And it practically is on that wave that we are talking about. You can doubt it, you can laugh, but it is a fact.

If we get closer to each other, which is possible through our discussions, acting, and training, then no virus will develop and live between us. However, if we continue to argue and move further away from each other, we will give it space and it will rule between us in order to prevent people from getting closer to each other.

Look how it works. Let’s say there is a decree that no one should get closer than two meters from someone else. Look at how good this is—at least, there cannot be any physical violence, but we will still be able to argue. And if we continue to argue, then another, more complex virus will appear and we will find ourselves at such a distance from each other that we will not be able even to argue.

I see that the virus works in such a way in order to allow us to come closer to each other correctly, both mentally and spiritually. Therefore, we need to be thankful and appreciate it. I hope that in time we will appreciate it.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 3/22/20

Nature Speaks To Us Through The Coronavirus

Nature advances us, it arranges the right relationship to each other and to nature in general, that is, the Creator. It steered us through the first stage and has moved on to the next.

And therefore, at this new stage, we will soon realize that this is not just another virus, an accident that will soon pass and we will be able to return to our previous lives with the help of some medicine. Do not be mistaken that you can return to the pre-coronavirus state and that the epidemic will end like any other flu.

You must understand that nature will continue to put pressure on us because it has a program, a goal, that it will certainly fulfill without any pity. Therefore, all of humanity will face difficulties, pressure, and blows from nature. Its purpose is not just to quarantine and distance us from each other; it is to awaken us to action that will lead to a conscious unification.

Nature wants us to think about what is happening and see that it is important not just to get rid of the virus, but to understand what the epidemic is for, what its purpose is, what it is doing to us, what changes it makes in our mind and feelings, and how it develops us.

The virus will not disappear, but it will put even stronger and, more importantly, qualitative pressure on us. Then we will have to understand that this is the Creator speaking to us. A virus is not a random phenomenon of a simple nature that does not understand and does not feel anything, as biologists and doctors believe.

We must try to discern the hand that acts in the coronavirus, through it, with a specific aim to increase our mind, understanding, and feelings and allows us to see in the virus that power and thought it brings.

But if you look correctly and see help from above designed to lead us to a sublime, higher goal, then we will perceive the virus as a manifestation of love, an altruistic action that seeks to correct us and connect us.

And then we will see in the coronavirus, in this epidemic, with all its suffering, its goal. Therefore, instead of wanting to escape from the blows and extinguish them, we will want to continue moving in the direction the virus is pushing us, not resisting the pressure, but walking along with this wave.

In this case, we will reveal the path of correction that the virus opens before us, and we will go with it to where it leads us, that is, we will move from the path of suffering to the path of light, and make an ally out of the enemy.

So, we will distinguish a hint in the actions of the virus, a sign, showing us how to change our heart and mind in order to understand the Creator, to achieve likeness to Him, adhesion, connection, and closeness.

By intensifying our suffering, nature, that is, the Creator, wants to force us to relate to what is happening. It wants us to see not just blows, but to notice the higher mind and feelings behind them, the attitude of nature toward us, which seeks to educate and teach us, and most importantly, bring us closer to itself. This is the trend of our time, which will manifest itself more and more day after day.

I hope that humanity will be able to open its heart and mind and see in the growing changes in human society an invitation to approach the Creator, which is the cause of everything that happens.

We, as smart children, will perceive the pressure of Mother Nature not as a cruel punishment, but we will realize why it is putting pressure on us and what it wants from us. After all, this pressure is only an external manifestation of a good attitude, designed to awaken us, the egoists.

If we rise above our egoism in order to see and feel what our parents really want from us, we will perceive everything differently: as a manifestation of love and a desire to draw us to them.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/20,   “Pesach (Passover)”

How Should A Doctor Choose?

Question: When infected by the coronavirus, death occurs due to respiratory arrest. There are not enough ventilators. Doctors are now faced with a professional and social choice: Who should get a ventilator?

Imagine that you are a doctor. You have a young patient and an old patient, a rich patient and a poor patient, a celebrity and a homeless person, a patient with a lot of relatives and a lone person, and now you need to disconnect someone and connect someone.

What can you advise from the point of view of a Kabbalist who knows the laws of nature? How can a doctor make a choice? After all, there are no clear instructions.

Answer: What do you mean there are not? If doctors took the Hippocratic oath, then everything is clearly defined.

Remark: They say that psychological traumas on doctors are comparable to the situation on a battlefield.

My Comment: Of course. If a person lies in front of you and you are now making a decision about his life or death, then this is a big problem for you, a big load. I believe that, first of all, it is necessary to save the young and potentially healthy.

Question: It should not guided by the principle of first come first served?

Answer: No. If I have 200 people waiting in line for an operation and 150 of them are old people and the rest are 20-year-olds, then I should naturally deal with the young, and only alleviate the suffering of the rest. This is not only my personal opinion. This is indicated in Kabbalah.

Question: Even if my relative came to me,  as a doctor I should give preference to a young patient over my elderly relative?

Answer: This is another question. If a patient was brought to you from your native village, city, or from another country, it is written that you should take care of those who are closer to you first. This is written in the Torah.
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From KabTV’s “Coronavirus Changes Reality,” 3/19/20

Matzah Is Our First Bread Of Poverty

We must constantly work on our egoism, push ourselves toward unity, and within it, toward connection with the Creator. If we cannot connect in the ten, we will not be able to connect with the Creator. Therefore, it is written, From the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.

Every time we try to connect, it is as if we knead our dough by mixing flour with water. While we are working on this dough, which is not yet ready for baking, it does not turn into chametz [leaven]. The main thing is to keep making efforts, then it will not turn into chametz. We can even work all day! The will to receive is not considered spoiled as long as we are working with it.

When I reach the correct state, that is, the correct connection, and I feel that I am ready to disregard everything for the sake of connecting with my friends, then within it I can connect with the Creator.

Thus, I exit the authority of Pharaoh to the authority of the Creator and see the entire ten as a means of pulling me out of slavery in Egypt and leading me to the authority of the Creator. The ten is in the middle between them, like an intermediate station.

From this, it is clear how important matzah [Passover bread] is; it is the central symbol of Passover, the festival of freedom, of exiting Egypt, from egoistic intention to bestowal, from the authority of Pharaoh to the authority of the Creator.

We cannot stop working on ourselves, on the connection in the group, pressing ourselves like dough until we are so mixed that the dough becomes absolutely homogeneous. There will be no flour or water left in it, but everything will merge into one.

After performing such compression on ourselves, such exercises, turning the ten into a single monolithic material, we will feel that we are ready to connect with the Creator. The Creator, with His external pressure, awakens us to such a connection. But the question is whether we as a group can awaken ourselves to knead our dough even faster and become a matzah.

Matzah means that a person is ready to enter into an argument with his egoism in order to connect with the group. He is ready to put pressure on himself to make a dough in which there is no flour or water separately but only a combination of both. Flour, that is, the will to receive, absorbed the water and became one single material with it.

The ten friends are so strongly integrated with each other in their yearning for the Creator that it does not matter what direction each had. We reach one direction, one understanding, one feeling that combines everything together. This is how we take the form of a matzah, the bread of poverty, that is, we are ready to be together without any distinction between us.

This is the preparation for leaving Egypt. We make a matzah from ourselves and bake it in Egypt. Matzah is the new character of the connected group.

Our will to receive is flour and the will to bestow, the light that shines upon us a little from above, is water. We pour this water into the flour and start working with it, kneading the dough to prepare it for baking.

This means that we need to get a little more understanding from the Creator about the qualities of bestowal and connection as much as we are able to understand it and can begin to implement it more and more in our as yet egoistic desire.

The most important is not how much personal desire for bestowal each one of us has, it is our common efforts. To the extent that we try to get into this desire for bestowal so that our flour takes on the qualities of water, to the extent that we want to combine the will to receive with the intention to bestow, we will advance.

If the connection in the group is the result of the common efforts of the entire ten, then we will attract the reforming light that will connect us. Every drop of water we get to bind another gram of flour into one dough, into one body, depends on our overall effort in the group.

If the dough becomes soft and homogeneous, that is, all our egoism, the entire individual form of everyone, has disappeared, then we are ready for baking, and we can make a matzah.

Matzah is called the bread of the poor because we bake it because of poverty, in the absence of strength, sensation, and understanding in the mind and in the heart. But then, with the help of this new form we have received, we can cross the border between the possessions of Pharaoh and the possessions of the Creator, free from the angel of death, our egoistic desire.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/20, “Pesach (Passover)”

Into Truth Trailer—Cracking The Jewish Riddle

Posted on April 21st, 2020 at 10:43 am

Set against the backdrop of a multifaceted global crisis that is worsening every day, and the waves of anti-Semitism that are growing stronger by the hour, one person is offering an improbable solution, which may just be the most logical one yet. Into Truth is a film that anyone who cares about the Jewish people should watch today. Trailing Kabbalah teacher, Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, it is the fruit of five years of exclusive documentation, painting a picture that shatters conventions and crosses borders. More than a personal portrait, it is a riddle, a rare preview into a world view that calls for a reevaluation of the Israeli-Jewish identity and the familiar beliefs we were raised on.

Watch the full documentary, Into Truth: http://bit.ly/AntisemitismFilm
Into Truth is a film by Amit Shalev (48 min.)

The Land Of Israel: Dispersion And Assimilation, Part 7

Clearly Defined Program

Question: It is very difficult to see the unity of the nation in the Torah stories since it is more about discord and wars. Therefore, when it says that the Torah’s basic law is love your neighbor as yourself the question arises: Where is the love for one’s neighbor?”

Answer: The Torah talks about the actions that we must take and that we are unable to do them. Therefore, we have to ask for the strength to do it.

Question: How should we understand that this is a law of nature, that behind all this is a program that governs everything?

Answer: This program is called HaVaYaH, the four-letter name of the Creator, i.e., the four-stage development of all humankind, of their egoism, and its subsequent correction.

Question: Wasn’t it possible to prevent the split of the nation and disappearance of the 12 tribes?

Answer: No way. Everything that happened needed to be realized.

Question: Was all that so that the people Abraham once gathered on the ideological basis of correct unification would be scattered all over the world to transmit this method to the world?

Answer: Yes. But to do so they must go through all of it themselves and absorb it. Having absorbed this knowledge through ascents and descents, they really can own this method and offer it to the whole world.
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From Kab TV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel,” 7/8/19

The Beginning Of The Development Of The Soul

Question: How does a person’s soul grow?

Answer: A person’s soul grows from scratch just like an embryo from a drop of semen develops in our world. Instead, the embryo repeats the same stages of development as the soul.

Once in the right place, the semen, or the so-called Reshimo, that is, a given spiritual state begins to develop. Conception occurs in the world of Atzilut, and then the further growth of the soul continues.

A person, of course, does not know how his soul develops. He begins to feel this when he goes through the stage of spiritual birth and then the stage of external development, which is carried out not in our world, but in the attainment of the upper world.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/16/20

How Can A Corporeal Group Influence Spirituality?

Question: How can an absolutely corporeal, physical group affect spirituality, my intention, and light?

Answer: A group is not a physical or corporeal substance. A group is a connection between people, which in itself is already spiritual if it is built on the property of bestowal.

If people strive for the property of bestowal, for mutual connection, so that the Creator is revealed between them, then this is not corporeal. We are going to complete spiritual actions together, to be in the likeness of the Creator, in the property of bestowal, and then we will feel the property of the Creator between us, we will reveal Him. Therefore, our aspirations and connections are not corporeal.

In principle, the idea is very simple. Moreover, we already understand how it should be and how to implement it. I hope that we will achieve this.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 2/16/20

New Life #1213 – Coronavirus, Between Worry And Hope

New Life #1213 – Coronavirus, Between Worry And Hope
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

The Coronavirus has come to show us that it is impossible to continue to exist in the egoistic society we have built and that we will have to change our behavior. These are days of uncertainty about livelihood and fear of change. Nature wants to teach us that we are contrary to the integrality that exists in all of nature. We need to build a new system of relationships without stressors and fear. Nature is leading us into an enlightened, opposite world that is entirely good, tolerant, whole., and loving for all of humanity.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1213 – Coronavirus, Between Worry And Hope,” 3/17/20

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Correlation Between The Correction Of The Individual And The Group

Question: On one hand, we say that everything is inside of me, but at the same time, for correction, I need the friends, the group. What is the correlation between these two things?

Answer: The correlation is very simple. You can correct yourself only to the extent that you correct your attitude to the group. It is your personal correction. According to Kabbalah, there is no “I.” According to Kabbalah, “I” is equal to “we.” That is the only way.

When ten people connect above their own individual ego, while each remains himself, they become one whole, one group, one “I.” At the same time, however, they are ten different people, each with his different ego. Their ego is very big and it grows at each level, but they can ascend above it and constantly unite more and more between them. This is how we ascend in spirituality.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/5/20

Penny Upon Penny

Rabash, “The Whole of the Torah is One Holy Name”: That is, any overcoming in the work is called “walking in the work of the Creator,” since each penny joins into a great amount.” That is, all the times we overcome accumulate to a certain measure required to become a Kli for the reception of the abundance.

Overcoming means taking a part of a vessel of reception and adding it to the vessels of bestowal.

Question: Can this be connected to the states that we all have experienced together after the congress?

Answer: Certainly. After all, we are connected with one another and we form a vessel, such a pot, in which I, you, all our friends, men and women, are part of. It does not matter at what level everyone is because we all want to enter this common vessel.

In it, we begin to connect with one another and with all the souls of previous Kabbalists who fill the entire volume of the vessel. And we, rising there, become included in it.

Therefore, all of us participating in the congress achieve such a state in which we join the common soul of Adam.

Question: Can we say that overcoming is accumulating like penny upon penny into a large amount and reach a certain degree called Adam?

Answer: Yes. Adam is what all the Kabbalists have done before us. And we, as we enter this state, become connected to them.

Question: We entered this state at the congress and now all of us are back to our little world. What should everyone do?

Answer: Yes, we entered the general state, but after the congress, everyone did not fall back into their own little world. Ultimately, this general state still exists. It is just that it constantly disappears for us so that we would have to awaken it again and again and like penny upon a penny would put everything into one big Kli (vessel).

Question: So, what Rabash called overcoming is actually an addition: my duty to feel the general state of connection?

Answer: Certainly.

Question: What exactly are we connecting and how are we connecting?

Answer: We are connecting by aspirations to be above our egoistic desires in a common unity, in the so-called ten. The ten is a boundless state. You can gather a million people and say that it is a ten, or you can take two or three people and this will also be a ten. The connection of people above their ego is called the ten.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/1/20

New Life #1185 – The People In My Life

New Life #1185 – The People in My Life
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

The people in my life help me correct myself internally. There are no chance meetings in life or accidents in nature. Every person I meet has a role to play in my development even if I am not ready to discern this. I need to think about the origin of the people in my life, to understand that a higher power is activating them, to communicate with them, to forgive them, and to approach every encounter with love.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1185 – The People in My Life,” 12/5/19

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New Life #1212 – Coronavirus, A Global Responsibility

New Life #1212 – Coronavirus, A Global Responsibility
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

The coronavirus outbreak is disrupting the entire biological system; our bad attitudes toward one another are what is causing this pandemic. Today, nature is coming to teach us who we are, how much we are its opposite, and is pushing us toward balance. All of us are parts of a single, integrated system and we need to learn to relate to each other accordingly, with a good attitude. The law of mutual responsibility obligates us to know how to relate to the entire system with balance. If not, “sit and don’t do anything is preferable.” We need to study the mind of the global system and learn to be concerned for everyone equally in thought and action. When we feel our interdependence, we will ascend to a beautiful, whole, and eternal world.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1212 – Coronavirus, A Global Responsibility,” 3/10/20

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Rusting Weapons

Posted on April 19th, 2020 at 9:21 pm

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 4/18/20

The coronavirus is the beginning of a change for the better. The clearing of the air and water, the new notions popping up in leaders’ minds about worldwide truce and universal basic income indicate that the winds of change are blowing in the world and many are responding.

We may not feel it yet but the time of wars and weapons has passed. It will not be gone at once, but gradually, yet we are already on the threshold of a new era where weapons will rust and disintegrate.

To our children, it will be a given that the world is integral, round, and what goes around comes around. They will know that you cannot act, or even think badly of another person without paying a price for it.

The world that COVID-19 is preparing us for is one where people have what they need, they are at peace with themselves and with each other, and nature treats them kindly. It is a world of mutual responsibility and care. All we need to do is accelerate its emergence, for the sooner it comes, the sooner the virus will go.

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“Coronavirus And Emergency Economy” (Newsmax)

My article in Newsmax: “Coronavirus and Emergency Economy”

At the moment, governments are trying to inject businesses and businesspeople with financial oxygen until the pandemic passes. But it won’t pass so quickly. In my estimate, we’re looking at 12-18 months before it fades away. But more importantly, when it’s over, people will have changed dramatically; they will not want to revert to the old way of life.

Graffiti in Hong Kong reads: “We can’t return to normal because our normal was the problem in the first place.” How very true. Some business will return, but a great many will not because they were redundant to begin with so resuscitating them is nothing but a waste of taxpayers’ money. Instead of wasting, governments should declare an “emergency economy” and freeze everything until the dust settles. After several months it will be easier to see what to keep and to what we should bid farewell.

So the first thing that governments need to do is make sure that everyone has food and shelter. Every family should get the same per capita, and this will alleviate the need for cash. Guaranteeing food and shelter for each person is much less costly than transferring money to people’s accounts, and guarantees that they will not waste it on unessential needs.

In the meantime, the business and finance sectors should be put on hold: All transactions, lending and paying of loans, everything and everyone should simply take a break.

The more obstinate we are recognizing the onset of the new phase in humanity, the more painfully that phase will impose itself on us. If you think of social changes like a train ride, then the train has left the dock on its way to a new station, and it will not stop until we’re there.

Alleviating the Transition

My intention in writing this article is not to intimidate anyone. On the contrary, I want the necessary transition we all have to undergo to be as smooth, quick and pleasant as possible. Humanity has suffered enough; there’s no need to add unnecessary agony.

To help us alleviate the shift, we should supplement the provision of food and shelter with information about the process unfolding the world over. Many people already feel that nature is rejuvenating quickly since we’ve been told to stay at home. They realize that we have done too much harm and that we cannot go on this way.

Now we should extend this realization to the relationships between us. Our ill-will toward each other has cost us far more pain and ill-health than the coronavirus. Worse yet, it has made us uncaring for each other no less than we are uncaring for nature. When we rear people in a dog-eat-dog mentality, is it a wonder that this is how they also treat nature?

Therefore, the healing must begin with us. Once we learn how dependent we are on each other, we will stop treating one another like enemies. We will realize that by seeing to each other’s well being we will be seeing to our own well being, and nothing teaches us this lesson better than COVID-19.

Our compulsory slowdown is not aimless; it is for us to reflect on our lives and their meaning. Now that consumerism has been stopped by force majeure, we have time to ask why we needed it in the first place, what we gained by it, and who gained from it. Certainly not us.

We are living in the twilight of one era and the dawn of another. It has not risen yet, but if we teach ourselves about it work shoulder-to-shoulder to embrace it, it will rise and shine on a new humanity: ready to welcome the new epoch with open arms that are joined together.
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“Social Distancing: A Call For A Deeper Level Of Connection” (Medium)

Medium published my new article “Social Distancing: a Call For a Deeper Level of Connection”

We are in the midst of a very unique time. Humans are social animals, but in the COVID-19 era, the difference between being healthy or sick could be determined by our physical proximity to others. Thus, social distancing is encouraged by the experts to avoid a ripple effect of the virus. But staying away from each other at the corporeal level could also help us to reshape and improve our relations.

How? We can achieve such a goal by nearing our hearts, the ultimate purpose for which the pandemic unfolds.
From non-mandatory stay at home recommendations to imposed quarantines, an unprecedented lockdown is observed across the globe. With a naked eye it would seem as if life is throwing us in all directions mercilessly, imposing new rules on us, leaving us with very little time to grasp the rapid changes and get used to the new reality. So, humanity awaits its defeat impatiently, expecting to overcome the small invisible yet stronger than any flesh and blood enemy that disrupts normal life.

But there is another hidden adversary we have to defeat, which is dangerously moving freely among us. COVID-19 is just a byproduct, a reflection of what happens inside our society. It is not the disease per se. It came to ring a bell and warn us about an even more dangerous pest: the ego that has taken over the world and alienates us. By the ego, we mean the intention for self-benefit at the expense of others’ misfortune.

Getting Separate, Growing Closer

Humanity is in a battle against the coronavirus, but the most important struggle takes place within humanity itself. We are running after the virus and extract revenge over what it says, shooting the messenger. Let the doctors heal, let the scientists research, let the experts fulfil their role and find a vaccination. Even then, neither a vaccine nor social distancing and total lockdowns will defeat the plague, but our new attitude.

We need only accept what the virus is communicating to us. If it is understood, we can all turn and be victorious over ourselves, namely over the hooliganism that we have developed among us: clashes, hatred, friction and intrigue. Any attempt on our behalf to improve our attitudes to each other, to develop relations of mutual consideration and responsibility, will be considered a wonderful triumph.

Building an Internal Bridge Between Us

In this period, we would be wise to take a look at the big picture and not at the small virus. We are integral parts of nature. Therefore, the nearer we become to each other, as we balance negative forces with positive ones, as we bridge the gaps among us, overcoming distances that separate us, we will defeat the separation with the power of connection.

We will then feel that the world is less of a combat arena, and that it has become softer and friendlier. It will not happen in one shot. We will heal slowly. It is like a patient who recovers one day after the next, until becoming strong enough to finally be healthy again.

Connection is our remedy, social cohesion is our healer. If instead of selfish struggles and control over others, we get along among each other and develop relations of mutual responsibility and cooperation, we will certainly be able not only to get over the coronavirus outbreak, but we will also break the walls that separate us.

We will then realize that the only distance is the one between our hearts.
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