The Meaning Of Life Of A Useless Class

 

Question: It would be logical to imagine that virtual communities could help people communicate and in real life, but it turns out to be the opposite. Why?

Answer: Because people are ruled by their egoism. You can do nothing about it. Until we correct it, any methods and forms of communication will harm us.

Question: Some futurists believe that computer games will turn out to provide meaning in life for a useless social class. This is what they call people who have lost their jobs. There may be billions of such people. They will be provided with a basic income and games so that they will not riot. Do you see such a scenario being possible?

Answer: Unfortunately, I do. However, this is not the final form of human development but only an intermediary one. Indeed, this could happen.

Question: Today, a person is in daily contact with so many people that he has never met in his entire life. What opportunity does this give to us? How can one properly use this phenomenon for personal growth?

Answer: I think that today, this phenomenon is hampering our personal growth, and an ordinary person does not have any opportunity to break away from it and grow.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 10/7/20

The Society With No Future

 

Question: In ancient times, immoral people were kept out of science. Today, there is no connection between the moral principles of a person and his profession at all. Can this situation be improved?

Answer: We need to increase the moral level of a human, otherwise we will be forced to abandon our future because we will destroy ourselves in the end.

There is a convention that bans the production of toxic substances, yet who observes it? We cannot be guided by all kinds of restrictions that we introduce ourselves.

We must raise a person so that he can see that such things in the world work against him. A society that produces poisonous substances ruins itself. A society like this has no future.

Comment: Humility is inherent in people who have advanced in terms of moral self-improvement more than others. They don’t want to lecture other people.

My Response: That’s wrong. This is a reflection of their egoism. They must overcome themselves and publicize their ideas, their foundations, and their philosophy because these are all for the good of society. It does not matter whether a person feels good or bad because of this, whether he feels shy or not. He must do it!
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 10/9/20

Live For The Sake Of Bestowal

 

Where is the guarantee that in the society of the future leaders will not take more for themselves than everyone is entitled to and will not destroy all good initiatives like it happened in the Soviet Union?

The future society is an open society in which there is no coercion, no dictatorship from above. Everything is managed only by friends. Therefore it is not possible that the same thing would happen as it did in Russia.

Kabbalists, who understand the processes taking place in society and are credible in the eyes of society, will be at the head of it.

The society of the future will strive to establish the same standard of living for everyone. There is no fear that one will work hard and the other will be lazy. Everyone will work as much as they can give to society and will find the right role for themselves.

In such a society, there will be no need to force people to work because a person will see that by investing in society, he is investing in the upper, future world, in the correction of his soul. Therefore, he will not need encouragement or punishment—he will welcome any opportunity to benefit society, feeling that this benefits himself personally. For him, there will be no difference between him and society.

The goal of the corrected society is to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

There will be no money in the future world, so then how can we measure how much effort a person has invested in society? How can we check this? We will reach a state where we will all feel ourselves inside a common system that connects us, and within it, we will see how much each of us has invested. And accordingly, we will help everyone become even more involved in society in order to rise with it.

Gradually, the system of connections between us, called the Shechina, will be revealed to all of us, and we will need to raise it to the heavens.

Such a society will be built entirely on bestowal, and reception in it will exist only in order to be able to live and bestow. A person will perceive an opportunity to bestow as a reward.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/20, “Connecting the World in the Last Generation”

Where To Get The Energy To Bestow?

 

Question: In the article “The Peace,” Baal HaSulam writes that “His Providence has commanded us to observe with all our might the Mitzva of bestowal upon others in utter precision, in such a way that no member from among us would work any less than the measure required to secure the happiness of society and its success. As long as we are idle performing it to the fullest, nature will not stop punishing us and take its revenge.” 

Where can a person find the energy to fulfill the law of bestowal?

Answer: Only in society.

Question: It turns out that there is an upper plan that controls how much I give and how much I receive, not just physically but in communication with other people. In what way can I add?

Answer: In your attitude to others. A person has what is necessary and sufficient. Nature has provided us with everything much more than animals that spend hours each day searching for food. We only need the right interaction between us and others to achieve the highest goal.

Question: So, does giving to society mean running around and doing something for it?

Answer: No. Man is the most unfortunate element of nature. He must always take care of how to provide for himself. None of the animals work so much for their den, food, or for the sake of offspring. Everything is much simpler for them. Man is a creature enslaved by nature.

Look at how we live. A person is growing up to the age of 20. He is always obligated, obligated, and obligated. He does not do anything for himself. It just seems to him that he does.

Even when he gets some skills and thinks that he develops by visiting museums, theaters, discos, and whatever else there is, it is imposed on him by society. These are not his personal inner desires, but what he has received from others and is obliged to fulfill.

Question: What will people do in the integrated society that you write so much about?

Answer: In this future society, a person, through his correct integral connection with others, will experience the next level of nature and will rise up to it all the time.

For him, every day every minute will be the realization of the upper harmony, the highest perfection. In principle, this is what is meant to fill us. This is how we were created, but we just don’t feel it yet.

A person will explore what he lacks for complete happiness and he will receive it.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/21/20

Basic Income—To Each According To His Needs

 

Question: Today, basic income has for the first time managed to penetrate the mainstream and it has even been tested in some places. It was a utopian idea until recently, but suddenly, times have changed. You are a supporter of this model. But don’t you consider it as equalization? After all, when we talk about basic income, we mean the same amount for everyone.

Answer: No, basic income should be given to everyone according to their needs. And the fact that today it is the same for everyone is only to help get rid of the problem.

Question: Who can determine a person’s needs? Our nature is that we will always cheat.

Answer: No, we are not talking about our nature when everyone receives like it is today, and everyone suffers from it. The true basic income is that everyone gets as much as they need and no more, according to their own choice.

Question: Can you imagine what kind of self-awareness a person must have for him to say: “I need just this much and no more”?

Answer: Self-awareness is very simple: man must believe in the highest reward, meaning, what he will be getting for trying to take only what he needs. He receives the highest reward for fulfilling this condition.

Comment: Here you introduce a new element; this is impossible without understanding the higher force.

My Response: Without the Creator, without God, without the higher force, without higher reward and punishment, without the higher state—call it a paradise or whatever—it is impossible.

Question: And how is this different from religion? Most people today are religious, but we see that they are not influenced in any way. What kind of faith are you talking about?

Answer: I am talking about the kind of faith when we sense the upper force, come into contact with it, exchange mutual reception and bestowal with it, and this is what we exist for.

Question: This is a very important point. It turns out that until a person feels the higher force, he will not be able to say: “I need exactly this much and I give the rest to you”?

Answer: No, he cannot. Otherwise, we will have socialism.

Faith means feeling the Creator, a sensation of the common force that holds the entire universe in itself.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 9/11/20

The Path To Truth

 

Truth, justice, and mercy‚—everyone selects which principle to act according to in this world. It is clear that we cannot be guided by truth because we do not know it; therefore, we choose something else. That is why we create different systems to help those who are weaker: pay benefits, help single mothers and young families, etc.

It is as if we want to compensate for what the Creator did incorrectly and unjustly. The Creator allegedly arranged injustice in the world and we see that the world is initially corrupted, but we do not understand what is involved with the correction. We try to perform a correction outside of a person instead of correcting him inside. This is the whole problem.

If we want to be guided by the truth, we must correct everyone. Instead, we correct the external connections between us, and therefore we do not see success.

It is very difficult to establish the truth because we do not know the internal reserves of a person, but only see his external efforts. However, one is stronger and more energetic by nature and the other is lazy and weak, and it is impossible to assess what efforts this work really takes for everyone.

We must take into account the internal forces of a person in order to demand from everyone equal effort in the work. The strong one can do twice as much work as the weak, but we will be considered as equal.

It is written that “Truth shall spring forth from the earth,” meaning from the desire. If we use our desire correctly, we will find the criterion of truth there and will be able to use it correctly.

It should become clear to everyone how much each person has received from nature, from the Creator, and how much each one has supplemented, and then everyone will be evaluated equally.

We can achieve the criterion of truth only if we all feel each other internally. We need to come to such a connection between us and the Creator and to reveal such a force of connection that everyone is ready to bestow upon the other with all their heart and soul. Then we will reach the degree of truth. We will no longer count who has done more and who has done less—everyone will give one hundred percent and the truth will reign.

This does not mean equalizing everyone, it means that we unite in such a form where everything starts to work out. There are two conditions: everyone gives everything they have and uses all their abilities for a common connection. Then we complement each other like ants in an anthill.

The revelation of truth turns the entire universe into a sphere: everyone is integrated into each other so that the quality of the Creator, the upper force of bestowal, is revealed within them. And in this way, we achieve perfection.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/9/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World”

The Essence Of Human Relationships

 

The essence of human relations is in the emergence of a common general state. But even before it appears, all kinds of positive and negative impressions, understandings, and relationships begin to emerge in each of the two people who are communicating. And something new that was not there before is born from their encounter.

This all depends on how prepared we are for interconnection between each other by our previous upbringing. This is why we need to worry not about the interactions themselves but about how we prepare people for them. Like a mother who is sending her little son to kindergarten, or to school, or even to visit a friend, she instructs him how to behave, how to perceive others, etc.

A completely new feeling is formed in each of us this way, the feeling of perceiving another. From our mutual perception, these sensations turn into something common. Therefore, the goal of education is what kind of common platform we want to see between us.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 7/30/20

“Envy- A Friend We Didn’t Know We Had” (Linkedin)

 My new article on Linkedin “Envy- a Friend We Didn’t Know We Had”

One of the most curious articles written by my teacher’s father, the great 20th century kabbalist Baal HaSulam, is a short piece titled “The Thought Is an Upshot of the Desire.” When I read it for the first time, and the second, it struck a chord deep within me. In just 200 words, Baal HaSulam explained how reality is built, how it operates, what needs to be fixed, and how we can fix it. I was awestruck, and very envious of his wisdom.

In today’s volatile atmosphere, when the country is on the brink of civil war, I’m sure you will agree that nothing is more required than a change of heart—toward kindness.
The logic in the article is very simple, like all truths. It states that when we want something, we think about it, and after we think about it, we act accordingly. In other words, the world we live in is a result of our desires. Or even more concisely, our desires create our world. If we don’t like the world we live in, there’s a sure way to fix it: We can change our desires, which will change our world.

But can we control our desires? Can we decide to want one thing and not another? Indeed we can, and more easily than we might think. All we need is to make good use of our worst trait: envy.

To put it simply, envy means we want what others have. If we can’t take what others have, then we want to at least have more of it than they do. When I envied Baal HaSulam for his wisdom, it didn’t make me want him not to be wise; it made me want to be as wise as him, if not wiser.

Now here’s the trick to using envy positively: Because we’re envious beings, we want what people value. If we have what they value, they will envy us and not the other way around. In other words, public opinion determines what is enviable. For example, we value wealth. For this reason, we’re envious of wealthy people.

And now think about kindness. Who wants to be kind these days? Practically no one. Why? Because public opinion doesn’t value kindness. When the public doesn’t reward kind people with approval and popularity, people don’t want to be kind. If, on the other hand, the public venerated kindness the way it venerates wealth, people would spend their last cent on acts of kindness in order to “buy” themselves a public image of benevolence.

That insight, that we can control what we want through other people’s opinions, was to me the most striking revelation in Baal HaSulam’s article:. I realized that we don’t need to change ourselves but to change the social values. If we surround ourselves with family, friends, media personnel, education systems, and politicians (I know it’s a long shot) who hail kindness, caring, solidarity, and mutual concern, then we, and everyone around us would become that way as well. It would be effortless, and it would work.

Clearly, we can’t change all of society at once, but we can start. Wherever we can, wherever we are, we can do our little part. And hopefully, little by little, a new and positive mindset will take root. In today’s volatile atmosphere, when the country is on the brink of civil war, I’m sure you will agree that nothing is more required than a change of heart—toward kindness.

Toward The Human Level

 

Question: A person must have some goal in life, otherwise it is not life. Is there a spiritual root to such a phenomenon as the search for the meaning of life?

Answer: Throughout our life, desires of the inanimate level gradually arise in us, then of the vegetative, animate, and finally, the human level. This is how we develop until we reach our personal highest level, and then we tend to old age and death. In the life of each person, this is purely individual.

The same thing happens in parallel with the life of society. Throughout all the stages of human development, we see that it has also passed the stages of inanimate, vegetative, animate levels, and is now at the level of human awareness of the meaning of life.

As a rule, we exist as animals, want to have our own burrow or den, to reproduce, to be healthy and happy until the last days of life, and to die peacefully. Such an existence, when the organism takes care only of itself, is called the animate level because a person thinks only about his belly, about himself materially.

But recently, humanity has begun to rise to another level. From the animate level, the next level begins to arise, the human level. This level has no earthly expression.

If the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels exist in nature in their external, material expression, a person differs from an animal only in that he has his own higher, deeper meaning of life, and he develops towards understanding it. In other words, what is outside our animate level is called the human level.

Question: How many people are engaged in searching for the meaning of life today?

Answer: I think that these are very few individuals relative to all mankind, i.e., hundreds of thousands, nothing more.
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From the KabTV’s “Management Skills” 7/2/20

In The World Of The Future

 

Question: Futurologists make predictions about what the world will be like by 2030. Some say a person will work less than 20 hours per week and up to 800 million jobs will go to robots. Fifty-seven professions will completely disappear, but 180 new professions will take their place, and so on.

What do you think the world of the future will look like in just 10 years?

Answer: In the world of the future, people will perform only the most necessary work for their existence, and the rest of the time they will begin to devote to spiritual advancement.
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From the KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 9/1/20

Payment Criteria

 

Question: How should salaries be distributed in an ideal society? Sages said that payment is measured by effort. But the effort is hidden from us. What are the criteria for payment for labor?

Answer: A person’s payment must consist of at least two parts: corporeal and social, spiritual.

We can calculate the corporeal part, taking into account how many children a person has, the conditions of living in each country, in each climate zone, and so on. In addition, here we must adhere to a general criterion so that it is in equilibrium with integral nature.

And the next level is the spiritual, psychological reward. In this case everything already depends on the contribution of a person, on his efforts, on his example for the good of society.

Question: And yet, if a person is a manager responsible for the lives of thousands of people, should he receive the same salary as his employee who is responsible for one specific action?

Answer: Why not? If a manager has everything he needs, why would he need more? What will he do with it? He will see by himself that he does not need it.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

According To One’s Needs

 

Question: In 2020, it has been estimated that a third to one half of the world’s population, almost two billion people, are at risk of losing their jobs or switching to part-time employment. More and more people work from home today. On one hand, this has many advantages for both the employers and the employees. On the other hand, we have stopped wasting time on extraneous conversations, smoking, breaks, etc. But the most crucial thing is that when we stopped working in our workplaces, we lost our social contacts.

What do you think will replace the connections that people had at work?

Answer: I am very glad that these ties are dissipating because they were all egoistic built on the lack of the correct upbringing.

Comment: Accounting for working hours when working from home is quite problematic.

Answer: We don’t need any business hours! We need a person to work from the heart 24 hours a day. This would include one’s physical activity, walking, sleeping, and one’s relationship with their family so that everything altogether would make up their life. Why look at working hours? How many people today work needlessly or with minimal benefit, ostensibly demonstrating their positions are necessary?

Question: Do you think the pay should be based on the number of working hours or on the results?

Answer: Pay should be such as to allow a person to properly exist according to one’s necessities regardless of what one does, where one works, or what position one holds. Payment should be more or less the same for everyone, according to the individual needs of each person.

Question: How can an individual’s needs be determined?

Answer: In order to answer this, we must study people and create well-defined charts of their needs. This is the realm of social work that will involve a lot of people. Each person would make a list of what they need. Let’s say that you need to fill out a form of what you need for a day, a week, a month, and a year.

From such reports, we will understand what everyone needs, and we will learn what we need and what may be completely unnecessary to produce because it only depletes the Earth.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

Find Yourself

 

Question: Recent research conducted by recruiting companies suggests that waiters, chefs, security guards, and cleaning personnel have been the most unused jobs during the pandemic.

Many people, literally hundreds of millions, felt that they could lose their profession overnight. Yesterday they had a professional job, but not today. What would you suggest? What profession should a person choose today?

Answer: I think that a person just needs to find him or herself. Finding yourself means constantly creating a more correct image of yourself, of what a person is. And professions will be needed, if at all, only for a small part of humanity.

We will come to a state when people will work a minimum number of hours a day, and they will engage in self-education for the rest of the time. They will take part in all kinds of educational programs and change themselves and society. This is the real work of a person.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 9/1/20

Rich And Poor

 

Question: After reading your books, I realized that you are not a socialist and you are not going to take property from the rich. But why would the rich start to pay scholarships for 80% of the population for their studies?

Answer: Naturally, such a gesture on the part of the rich cannot be voluntary at first. But, like during the revolution, these things are dictated by necessity. One person cannot have a billion while another does not have enough money until the end of the week to feed his family. This is a clear imbalance. Therefore, it will be necessary to balance these relations.

At first, it is necessary to force our relationship to a completely different structure—what is “money – commodity – money”?

As a result, a law must be adopted according to which everyone will receive a certain quantity of funds necessary for him, sufficient for a dignified existence. This will be accompanied by a commitment to work for the community in accordance with the capabilities of the individual and at the same time receive training in proper parenting.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

Money Is The Equivalent Of Our Connection

 

Question: Money is the language of communication between people. Will the world exist without money in the future?

Answer: No. The concept of money will remain, but not in the sense of dollars or other pieces of paper, but in the form of an exchange of services between us: me to you and you to me.

This is not material money, but support, reciprocity, and a good attitude to each other. Money, from the words “kesef, kesuf, lehasot,” means covering, when I cover my egoistic inner core and relate to the other through an altruistic covering.

In other words, money is what I can pay for my egoism so that it turns into the quality of bestowal and connection.

Question: So money is the equivalent of our connection, which consists in the fact that I want to egoistically use other people, but I make efforts on myself, and cover my desire to use another person with them?

Answer: Yes. This is your good attitude over the evil attitude and it is called “money.”

Question: So it turns out that there will be no paper money?

Answer: I think that material money will be credited to each person and deducted from his account for a long time to come. But gradually it will begin to be replaced by shared connections.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

New Life 1276 – Using Power As A Means For Bringing About Change

New Life 1276 – Using Power As A Means For Bringing About Change
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

The power of the fist will fail to produce the desired outcome because it goes against nature. The use of force is a dead end of destruction and harm for everyone including the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature. Nature does not act according to the ego or the rule of money. Rather, the balance between two forces rules in nature. Nature is demanding that humanity participate intellectually and emotionally with the same approach.

We need to educate humanity regarding how to think and behave in the new era. Together, we must learn where our free choice is and how to work with our desires in order to build a balanced society. As employment rises, people will need to be paid by the government to learn and study at home so that everyone does what society demands of them and will receive whatever society can give them.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1276 – Using Power As A Means For Bringing About Change” 8/17/20

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

Desperate For An Economy Of Sharing” (Medium)

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.

“No Black Without White” (Medium)

Medium published my new article “No Black without White”

When society is falling apart, it’s not because one side is wrong and the other side is right; it’s because neither wants to unite. By nature, we want anything that doesn’t please us to disappear. If you think differently from me, I want you out of my life, and preferably out of existence. This is the natural thinking of every person, to various extents. But nature didn’t endow us only with this nature; it also gave us the ability to think and choose.

When we learn that our lives, their meaning, and their continuity depend on the persistence of the ones we hate, we will value the reality that created everything, and we will be able to build love for the wholeness above the hatred for the part. Only then will there be peace and happiness.

Nature endowed us with the ability to observe and to learn that nothing exists unless its opposite supports its existence. Planet Earth, for example, is kept in orbit thanks to the balance between the Sun’s gravitational pull toward it, and the centrifugal force that pushes it away from it. Likewise, our lives revolve around the hours of darkness and light, and our vision relies on the range between seeing all the colors together, creating the color white, and no colors at all, creating the color black. Heat and cold, hunger and fullness, attraction and rejection, love and hate, all those are opposites that make our lives what they are.

The opposite of our lives don’t deny or refute one another; they enable and complement one another! If we could only realize that as it is in all of reality and as it is with us, so it is with our fellow people, imagine what an inclusive, welcoming world we would have. Imagine what richness we could experience if we could embrace the diversity of people’s colors, races, beliefs, penchants, perspectives, and everything else that makes us different, yet complementary.

Imagine also what a dull and stagnant world we would have if everyone were the same. We wouldn’t develop thinking since we would have no need to articulate a point of view. We wouldn’t develop imagination since nothing would stimulate or intrigue us. We would lose our creativity, vitality, and the zest for life. In fact, we owe even our fierce hatred and the delight of indulging in self-righteousness to the fact that there are people who are different from us. What would we do if they did not exist?

The bottom line is that we need to look beyond the differences and see the wholeness that engenders them, and that the differences maintain the wholeness. When we learn that our lives, their meaning, and their continuity depend on the persistence of the ones we hate, we will value the reality that created everything, and we will be able to build love for the wholeness above the hatred for the part. Only then will there be peace and happiness.

“What Are Some Ways Of Changing The Society?” (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some ways of changing the society?“

Before discussing ways of changing society, we should question what changes society should acquire.

In our era, the needed change in society is a change of values, that instead of valuing egoistic pursuits, to be more individually successful, wealthy, famous and/or powerful, if we want a society that is full of healthy, happy and confident individuals, then we need values of mutual responsibility, consideration, cooperation and positive connection permeating society.

In order to reach such a change of values, we cannot implement this change by ourselves. Rather, we need an outer influence to enable this change. However, we can persevere to reach such a change, and we need to understand nature’s general tendency to increasingly connect us for that to happen.

Outside of our perception and sensation, there is a single force of nature that acts out of absolute love, and which takes every single detail of reality into careful consideration.

It created and evolved many layers of the reality we experience, from inanimate matter, through plant and animal life, and finally, us humans.

Therefore, in order to enable a change in society, we need to invite the force of nature that creates and sustains all life, so that it operates on us and guides our change to a new set of values that bring us closer to balance with nature.

We simply need to gain more awareness about how nature works, how human nature is an egoistic and self-centered form that opposes nature’s general attribute of love, bestowal and connection, and how from the negative pole of creation, we can invite the positive force into our lives, to let it connect us, change our values, and likewise, our perception and sensation of the integral reality we ultimately share.

Above photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora, Society, Society of the Future | Add Comment / Ask Question →

“A Merry Requiem To An Old World” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “A Merry Requiem to an Old World”

The old world has died, and I couldn’t be happier. Everything we’ve known will not be the same: relationships between couples, children, workplaces, international relations, everything will change. The ego that reigned in all those contacts is dying, smothered by recurring lockdowns and other fetters imposed on it by a virus.

Humanity is chanting a requiem to the old world, and I am cheering for the new one to come. I have been waiting for it for decades, and now it is finally arriving. Naturally, it is not an easy transition. There will be many pangs and pains along the way, but any person who understands like me that the world to come will be governed by love and mutual responsibility is very happy these days.

Once we are free from the chains of egoism, we will understand what freedom really means. Every person will not only be able, but encouraged to develop one’s potential to the fullest. Society will actively support each person in fulfilling one’s dreams, as the realization of these dreams will contribute to society, make it richer, more united, and more vibrant.

The first stages are already happening: No jobs are coming instead of the ones that have faded, and more and more people are realizing that the coronavirus is not a crisis; it’s a transformation. They are recognizing that they won’t only have to change their jobs, or even careers. They are realizing that they will have to change their entire lives.

But even this is still only part of the truth. The whole truth is that they will have to transform how they think about life. People will learn to perceive everything differently: themselves, other people, and their relationships with other people and the world.

Instead of an individualistic, self-centered perspective, where each person cares only about oneself and (in the best case scenario) about one’s loved ones, people will transcend their egos and form a realm where every person is equally important, equally contributing, and equally caring about everyone else.

People will develop group consciousness that will override the individualistic one. That group consciousness will determine what happens in their lives, rather than the ego, which knows only how to fight for survival until it loses and we give up on life. There will be no losers in the approaching world, since winning will mean making everyone feel valuable, worthy, deserving, or in short, happy.

Material worries will be people’s least concern. Machines can do these jobs better than humans, so why should humans trouble themselves with them? People will be concerned with building the new society, something that only humans can do.

Everything we know today, and which is based on restraining the ego, will change dramatically. Law, education, the job market, healthcare, housing, every realm where we currently express our egos will be revolutionized as we will use our skills to express concern for others.

If we feel resentment when we think about such a world, it is our ego that resents it. Once we are free from the chains of egoism, we will understand what freedom really means. Every person will not only be able, but encouraged to develop one’s potential to the fullest. Society will actively support each person in fulfilling one’s dreams, as the realization of these dreams will contribute to society, make it richer, more united, and more vibrant.

Vast amounts of energy and funds will become available, since they are currently tied up by authorities that have to keep our reckless egos at bay. But when we work for the benefit of society, these entities will not be needed, and the abundant human and monetary resources dedicated to keeping them running will be at the service of society.

We have no idea how much wealth humanity produces. Every person produces each day several times over what he or she consumes. Currently, that surplus goes to the state and the wealthy. But COVID is forcing everyone to act more socially; it will teach everyone that unless everyone is happy, no one will be happy.

In fact, we can accelerate the oncoming of the transformation through simple and helpful exercises. For example, if we start wearing masks not in order to avoid catching the virus, but to avoid transmitting it, it will already create a shift in our perception of the world. This is just an example, a first step, but as the saying goes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Humanity has seen plenty a revolution in its time, but it has never seen a transformation. We are the first generation that gets to morph into a new being—kinder, wiser, better.