“The COVID-19 New World Of Work” (BIZCATALYST)

My new article on BIZCATALYST “The COVID-19 New World of Work”

We’re reopening the economy while COVID-19 is still here, well into 2020. From the looks of it, there will be COVID-21, too. And if this prediction comes true, will the economy survive it? What business can endure alternating for so long between opening and closing?

Some industries are essential. There is no question that food, housing, gas, electric power, and education are required. As for the rest, only a fraction of the pre-coronavirus transactions were truly necessary. In the new reality, what is not essential dies.

But governments will need money. Essential sectors such as food production and various services will provide work to some of the people, but the majority will be out of work for good. We have entered a world where joblessness is the norm, and occupation the exception. How will people live? If countries spend their currency reserves on futureless sectors, they will not have the resources to support people through the process of adapting their lives to the coronavirus era.

To adapt the society to the new era, all those who are out of work today, and will probably remain so, should be admitted into a program that will inform them about the new reality and teach them how to live in it. During the course, they will receive a full scholarship that will sustain them and their families.

The courses will not only provide information about the new world; they will also help the participants develop the right attitude to living in a world where people have abundant free time.

Just as people learn about the mindset required to succeed in the business world, or the attitude required to succeed in the high-tech industry, people will need to get acquainted with the frame of mind of the COVID era.

Accordingly, the program will include exercises in social communication that builds connections suitable for a world where everyone is dependent on everyone else, regular jobs are scarce, and people must rely on each other for their survival. Gradually, people will come to find value in bonding and socializing more than in their previous values such as obtaining wealth and power.

As the courses focus on fostering bonds among people, mutual responsibility, awareness of others’ needs, and concern for society, people will begin to think of these positive social values as the product of their learning. Just as it is possible to accumulate wealth, it is possible to accumulate happiness.

The more people become socially integrated, the happier and safer they will feel. People’s values and aspirations from life will change to ones that give them true and lasting satisfaction.

In this way, the coronavirus will usher us into a new reality, where some of the people tend to everyone’s sustenance, and the rest of the people tend to everyone’s happiness.

“Are We Making A Mistake By Reopening The Economy So Soon?” (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are we making a mistake by reopening the economy so soon?“

I understand the push to reopen the economy and return to business-as-usual as quickly as possible.

Lockdown brought on a lot of mental and emotional tension, loneliness and uncertainty in the future, all of which contribute to a yearning to exit the state of isolation and re-enter into our familiar settings.

However, reopening the economy too quickly, without adequate readiness, sets the scene for more hardships.

In such conditions, we can expect a fiercer wave of the coronavirus to sweep over societies, infecting and killing many more people than the first wave, and forcing us into much stricter and harsher social distancing conditions in order to deal with it.

The coronavirus has illuminated both our tight interdependence, as well as our inner detachment from each other.

On one hand, our interdependence became marked by the need to maintain personal hygiene, wear masks and keep social distancing conditions in order to remain disease-free.

On the other hand, our inner detachment became visible in the mental and emotional wear and tear on many during the lockdown.

Therefore, any lasting solution to the coronavirus requires fixing the alienation that many people feel.

Instead of reopening the economy, we would be wiser if we realized that our negative connections to each other are the bigger problem in our lives, and opened new programs that aimed to improve our connections.

If we felt an enveloping togetherness over society, we would then have the means by which we could rise above our negative and dark sensations.

Therefore, we would do well to shift the focus of our attention onto the benefit of society, seeking how to make sure everyone has their needs covered and that they feel cared for, and also to keep in mind that our efforts to keep the virus away from others are ultimately efforts to keep the virus away from ourselves.

The revelation of our tightened interdependence demands an additional push of each person accepting responsibility for the health and well-being of others. If we do so, and society rises to a new level of mutual responsibility, we would then be on track to stopping the spread of the coronavirus.

Above photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.

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“Is Disbanding The Police Department A Solution To Police Brutality?” (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is disbanding the police department a solution to police brutality?“

Disbanding the police department is a step toward crumbling the communities that it ideally protects and serves.

Police are elemental to societies. They hold a certain level of order, providing a layer in society that helps constrain people’s innate drives to benefit at others’ expense from getting out of hand.

By doing so, police serve to make societies safer places so that people can focus on how they can find their optimal, contributory roles in their respective communities.

For thousands of years, police have held an integral role in societies, providing a sense of security so that we could go about our business and progress scientifically, technologically and culturally.

However, since the police is made up of fellow humans, who share the same egoistic nature as everyone else, it is thus not immune to criminal tendencies within its own ranks, which gives rise to some police officers abusing their role, resorting to unjustified use of violence, brutality and other negative phenomena.

Yet, the entire police force should not be branded according to a few of its members that get out of line.

Since the question about disbanding the police department is on the table, we can ask what would a police-free society require?

Police-free societies would be possible if societies thought and acted with much more mutual responsibility and consideration than we have today.

Such a state is reachable through regular connection-enriching education, which is currently elusive from society.

In other words, the attitudes and relationships dwelling among society would need a major upgrade to replace the regulative police layer with a new regulator that acts within each and every person.

Such a regulating force acting within people would only be possible if the social atmosphere was filled with new values of mutual responsibility and consideration, where benefiting others would be valued more dearly than self-benefit.

Society would then feel close like a family.

It is, however, impossible to reach a positive social atmosphere if we fail to engage in learning that aims to bring about such an improvement.

Today’s society is far from upholding values of mutual responsibility and consideration, and thus requires police departments to sustain a certain level of order.

In general, any increased amount of freedom that we acquire needs to be preceded by thorough learning of how to relate to the increased amount of freedom responsibly. Otherwise, our egoistic drives to benefit at others’ expense will put that increased amount of freedom to use on account of others, and we’d find ourselves steeped in deeper problems.

Above photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash.

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“Can Wearing Masks Stop The Spread Of The Coronavirus?” (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can wearing masks stop the spread of the coronavirus?“

“At least 14 states have seen an increase in coronavirus hospitalizations since Memorial Day weekend. Arizona is now seeing more than 1,000 new daily cases and the state’s former health director is sounding the alarm,” reported CBS This Morning (June 12, 2020).

The coronavirus pays no attention to the fact that we are reopening our economies and trying to return to our pre-coronavirus lives.

It will continue infecting more and more people until we undergo a serious attitude adjustment.

What is that adjustment?

It is a shift of our center of concern: from self-concern to concern about others.

In other words, we naturally think about what we need to do in order to protect ourselves and our families.

The coronavirus, however, has emerged to show us that we need to redirect our concern toward others: that we think about what we need to do in order to protect other people, providing them with the conditions to stay healthy and virus-free.

We all depend on each other maintaining certain conditions in order to stop the virus’ spread, including the maintenance of thorough personal hygiene, wearing masks and holding our physical distance from each other.

Therefore, if we uphold such conditions not with our own protection, but with the protection of others, primarily in mind, then we will be able to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

By exercising an intention for others’ benefit to the actions we conduct in order to stop the virus’ spread, then in addition to overcoming the coronavirus, we will also reach the understanding that we can truly be protected from disease and other harmful phenomena when we consider others.

If we concentrate on the protection and benefit of others, our community and society, then instead of a virus spreading illness and death, we would generate a positive virus that spreads health, well-being, peace and happiness.

Therefore, we would be wise to relate to the coronavirus not just as a disease or pandemic, but as a lesson in our interdependence: that others’ health and well-being depends on us caring about them, and likewise, our own health and well-being depends on others caring about us.

Above photo by Pavel Anoshin on Unsplash.

Filed under: Coronavirus, Q&A, Quora | Add Comment / Ask Question →

How To Become Independent Of Others

Remark: As I understand it, my independence is in the voluntary acknowledgment of my complete dependence on society. However, this is not possible because I do not want to depend on anyone.

Answer: The fact that you are completely dependent on the vast, universal, eternal desire created by the Creator makes you eternal, perfect, and independent. You cannot get rid of the fact that you are a created being. Therefore, acknowledging you are a created being gives you the opportunity to reach the level of the Creator, to achieve adhesion and equivalence with Him.

Question: Still, how can an ordinary person become independent of others?

Answer: Start loving them. Then you will see that your love for them makes you higher than and independent of them, although you think about them and wish them well. This is the only way.

You cannot get out of the integral system. The only thing you can do is to ascend inside it. And to ascend means to take care of it.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/19/20cris

Make The Plan Of Creation Come True

Question: Perhaps all souls are a single organism. But how can we say the whole of humanity is a single organism? What kind of organism is this? How is it connected?

Answer: We are not talking about physical bodies. We are talking about the inner meaning of creation, where it is headed, the purpose it is imbued with, and what motivations act in it on every level.

The inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature have their own inner strength, their own vector. Everything hinges on the direction of this vector, even if we fail to realize that it exists in the smallest grain of sand as it does in a huge, remote part of the universe.

The inanimate, vegetative, and animate parts of nature are subordinate to the human level. If we directed ourselves correctly toward each other, we would suddenly find that all of nature, all the cosmos, change, their objects would become more benevolent toward each other.

We would see that there are no explosions happening randomly, no separation or removal. We would see the meaning of everything that happens in us, within or outside us, in space, in black holes, in everything.

All of nature is not just matter but thought. This thought, on different levels, strives for its perfection, for its realization. This is what Kabbalah calls the thought of creation.

We must try to make this plan of creation come to life so that it reaches its single, final essence, it’s form and realization.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/19/20

New Life 1237 – From New Thinking To New Relations

New Life 1237 – From New Thinking To New Relations
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

We need to understand what nature demands from us and that all of the blows we encounter result from imbalance in relations between people. Our egos are between us and through concessions we can ascend above the human ego and build a balanced connection between us on a higher level. We can get rid of the hatred and conflicts between us by giving up control. We need to hold on to one thought: to act for everyone’s sake. This can only be done when there is mutual support. We need to act kindly toward everyone and make sure everyone feels good, including our partners. If we know how to connect to the internal mechanism of nature, we will balance humanity and build heaven on earth.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1237 – From New Thinking To New Relations,” 5/12/20

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Are Kabbalists Fearless?

Question: What are you personally afraid of? Or are Kabbalists fearless?

Answer: No, Kabbalists are not fearless. I am afraid of the Creator.

I am truly afraid of the doubts and barriers that He places before me. And the further I advance, the bigger and more powerful they are, and I fear them. I have to be afraid of them. If there were no fear, then I would not think about them, prepare for them, or try to overcome them.

Homo sapiens consist of fears, what is called awe. And they don’t disappear anywhere. He just knows where they come from and how to work with them.

Otherwise, if, for example, you give him some kind of injection and his fears, feelings of pain and all kinds of other sensations disappear, then how would he work, how would he move, how would he position himself in any situation?

Question: What was the greatest fear you experienced before spiritual attainment and after?

Answer: Basically, these are fears in which you feel the impossibility of overcoming your egoism, laziness, and powerlessness, and you concentrate all your strength and intentions in order to pull yourself together and turn right to the Creator for help.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/26/20