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April 18, 2024

Archive for Crisis

How to Navigate through the Financial Crisis

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An important quote in the wisdom of Kabbalah states:

Two people were in a boat, and one of them took a drill and began to drill a hole beneath himself. His companion said to him: Why are you doing this? He replied: What concern is it of yours? Am I not drilling under myself? The other replied: But you will flood the boat for us both, and we will both sink. (Kabbalist Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, Midrash Raba, Leviticus 4:6)

In the global boat we all share, whoever thinks he can drill a hole under his or her own seat and ignore the well being of others is gravely mistaken. If one person drowns, everyone drowns right along with him.

Why is it so important for us to understand this? It is because we live in a new reality, a reality where we all depend on one another, for better or for worse. From now on, we have no choice but to work together, as one big family. Only then will we be able to navigate our global ship through this winter of our hardship toward the haven of bounty and prosperity.

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What Is the Cause Of the Ecological Collapse?

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Dr. Michael Laitman: As of now, the ecosystem of the Earth is collapsing, being crushed, shattered, and annihilated. Our incorrect relationship to nature causes terrible problems. We have already reached the North and South poles, where they are getting ready to drill for oil.

But on its own, planet Earth possesses an amazing characteristic of renewal under the influence of positive signs that descend from above. So a person’s task is to invite these signs, not to clean the Earth of garbage. This won’t work. As much as we clean it, it becomes filthier and filthier, for chemical and biological cleansing damage the ecology even more.

Rather, the idea is that everything found on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature can regenerate and recover at an amazing speed. And this is possible only if a higher spiritual level brings positive signs.

The moment that humanity becomes harmonious through integral consolidation, the entire ecology will, in fact. immediately become balanced and the world will begin to blossom and spread a pleasant fragrance. It is not necessary to be concerned about it in particular, just as it isn’t necessary to be concerned about anything that is found below the spiritual level. If we make a correction on the spiritual level, the corrections will pass down and immediately cause changes on the physical level.

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What Does the Future of Art Look Like?

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Dr. Michael Laitman: Today we are undergoing a great crisis even in art because there is nothing we could express ourselves with. How can it be expressed? Through some breakdowns? Our state is dead-end. On our current level, we have nothing left to express.

We have to rise to the next degree. We simply “crawled” from our level to a certain degree, but we are not able to ascend to it. We came to a dead end in all areas of our lives: culture, education, family, economy, finance—everything, even science. We hit this next degree and can’t climb it because we do not see it.

It is especially apparent in art and culture. We have always bore witness to the creation of masterpieces. But today we have mass culture that cannot even be called “culture.”

Unfortunately, in the field of art, we no longer concern ourselves with lofty, valuable interpersonal relationships, with searching for the meaning of life; instead, we present through our mass “art” (be it print or media) only what serves bodily needs: food, sex, and family. Within this entire framework dwell our so-called works of art.

On one hand, it is certainly a pity that such events take place, but on the other, they show us the crisis from which the new state must emerge.

The new art will be completely different. It will be founded on the unity of people. Its role will be to tell us about attainment of the upper world, about a whole new range of sensations that will be revealed in the connection between us. Those will be sensations and relationships of a completely different scale, and from then on, these very sensations and relationships will be expressed through art, and therefore, through our culture.

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Warning: Do You Recognize the Root Cause of Today’s Biggest Crises?

Warning: Do You Recognize the Root Cause of Today’s Biggest Crises?

Look How Much Our World Is in Crisis Today

An overview of the state of humanity in our time yields a sullen picture, one that could aptly be named “a crisis.”1 It seems that in all areas of life—personal, familial, national, and international—we are faced with escalating situations to which there are no solutions in sight.

Depression is soaring, followed by an increasing escape to drugs and alcohol. The family unit is disintegrating; domestic violence, alienation, and divorce are perpetually increasing; social polarization widens; and corruption in the government has become daily news. War and terrorism have become globally commonplace; social decline, natural disasters—all those and more have become a daily reality to many.

Thus, uncertainty and insecurity increase. While past leaders could make long-term plans for humankind and determine their short-term actions accordingly, today they cannot outline clear policies for the continuation of our existence.

 

Are Today’s Enormous Crises Unsolvable?

In and of themselves, crises are not negative. Humanity has been in crises before; and every time they have produced more highly evolved states. A crisis in one field leads to the rising of new fields. But today the situation seems essentially different: collapse is happening in almost every field of life and almost simultaneously.

This escalating crisis is even more perplexing in view of the achievements of science and technology, which have provided us the means to make our lives much more comfortable and easier than ever before. It seems that time and space have shrunk and that the world is truly becoming a small village.

Theoretically, science should have provided us a sheltered world, one where we could live peacefully and safely without a care in the world. Many thinkers, supporting modernization, were certain that industrialization and progress would place humanity on the brink of a secure and bountiful era.

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How Did We Reach the Present Situation and How Does Unity Bring a Solution to Any Problem?

How Did We Reach the Present Situation and How Is Unity the Solution to Any Problem?

Last week, students and groups of the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute partook in an exercise of writing a one-page article describing “How Did We Reach the Present Situation and How Does Unity Bring a Solution to Any Problem?” according to guidelines given by Dr. Michael Laitman in the Daily Kabbalah Lesson of Sunday, June 8:

Below is the article submitted by the Yashar Kel Virtual Group…

Our World in Crisis

As one human family we face many serious threats to our stable and bright future. Crises can be found in almost every area of life. We worry about the instability of the financial markets and rising unemployment. Changes in global weather patterns are resulting in severe drought and storms. We struggle increasingly with rising rates of the disintegration of the family, and depression and despair has become a global health crisis. Violence plagues communities and countries. Both world leaders and experts are helpless in the face of the skyrocketing crises coming at us from every area of life. As individuals, we worry about the quality of the future we will leave to our children.

 

The Root of the Problem

The history of mankind is defined by the development of the ego. The desire to provide for ourselves and our children has pitted each of us against the others as we compete for limited resources. We have become accustomed to viewing the world through a lens of egoism to ensure the survival of ourselves and our loved ones. We educate our children to adopt this same self-focused and competitive attitude. However, this egoistic approach to life is becoming unsustainable in the new era of globalization and interdependence. Now, as more than seven billion people share the planet, we must face the reality that the attitude of narrow self-interest underlies all the problems we face. In our reality of tight interconnection, the use of force and domination cannot succeed in the end. The stresses between the parts of the system are now increasing exponentially. It is a law of the behavior of interconnected systems that confrontation between parts only provokes an equally strong reaction somewhere else within the system. The only viable solution to our problems is to change the way we relate to each other and to the world.

 

The Force That Sustains Nature

Although the enormity of the problems seem overwhelming, there is one solution that will heal them all. It is the force that sustains all of nature, the force of bestowal. Another way to describe bestowal is to call it connection with the intention to benefit others. This force of benevolent connection is similar to other forces that are more easily observed by us, like gravity, electricity, and magnetism. It is an actual force that operates according to predictable laws. When we properly align ourselves with this force of benevolent connection, tremendous powers are available to transform all types of problems for good. It’s the law. It simply happens that way. There have been those who discovered and studied this law of bestowal for thousands of years and have described and detailed its working. These scientists of the law of bestowal are called kabbalists, and a long string of kabbalists have preserved and described the workings of the force of bestowal throughout the ages to this day. Indeed, an authentic kabbalist understands how to tap into the force of bestowal, the most powerful force in nature, and direct it for good. Kabbalah has made a scientific study of this force of bestowal, or law of love. If this sounds unbelievable, consider some evidence of the power contained within connection.

 

Wisdom of the Crowd

The force of bestowal is revealed to our awareness when people unite. A hint of its power can be seen in such phenomena as what is called, “the wisdom of the crowd.” It works something like this: ten people can connect around a particular problem, each of the ten contributing an incorrect solution. As all ten people, none of whom have the correct answer, strive to discover the point of consensus and connection between them something surprising happens. A higher wisdom is revealed and a correct solution emerges. This principle has been studied scientifically and the phenomenon of the wisdom of the crowd is a well-established fact. In actuality, when people unite in benevolent connection, they align themselves with the force of bestowal that sustains nature and miraculous results occur.

 

Practical Application

While it takes an authentic kabbalist to understand the intricacies of the operation of this force of nature, each of us can easily begin to use it in our lives. Try it and see how pleasantly startling the results are. Simply put, the force of nature is the implementation of what is known popularly as The Golden Rule: love your fellow as yourself, and don’t do to another what is hated by you. When we are able to apply this attitude to every detail of our lives, we are in alignment with the most powerful force in nature and miracles happen. In order to be able to maintain this altruistic view of reality we need reeducation and practice. As we connect with others with the purpose of learning how to tap into the force of bestowal under the guidance of a proper teacher, our entire view of reality transforms. Instead of seeing reality as “me against the world,” we begin to see instead, “me for the world, and the world for me!” Our lives begin to improve exponentially. A new environment begins to be created. We are able to take our places in the intricate system of nature in its ideal state.

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