A Global Trends Report by the US National Intelligence Council predicted the pandemic back in 2017. They warned that the next 20 years will be chaotic and turbulent: the slowdown of population growth, major aging of the populace, and climate change; storms, hurricanes, floods and heat waves will lead to an increase in migration. International relations will become unpredictable; ties will not be established and potentially break apart. There will also be an increase in famine. The pandemic will have a long-term impact. There will be growing distrust of medicine, science, authorities and politics, and eruptions of protests and riots. In short, according to the report, we face a bleak future.
We see that many reasons are emerging for us to change.
Give humanity a good future and it will go completely wild. In the Soviet Union, we were told that things would get better, that in ten years we would arrive at communism and capitalism with the promised slogan: “Don’t worry, business will grow, and everything will get better.” Seemingly the promise of a better future is not a very good idea today after all. Those who propagated this ideology tell us “Let us lead and everything will be great for you in the future. In the meantime, go on as you were, and be content.” However, having clear hope and faith that everything will be better is no solution.
If nature’s course and our course are unaligned, then nature must force us to correct ourselves, to change. It is a process, and we initially need to see a bleak picture of the future in the event that we fail to change. We need to see a clear dependence and connection between the person’s internal state and nature’s external state. In other words, if we change, everything around us also changes. Nature influences us this way, through an opposite, negative connection. It will force us to change through all sorts of problems, and by doing so, we discover this dependence.
We will come to the realization that we have no other way out and that the only way to break out of this rotting corporeal existence is to become a self-changing being. A human being is one who strives to be like the Creator. This is expressed in Hebrew, where the word “Adam” (“human being”) stems from the words “Domeh le Elyon” (“similar to the most high”). The Creator is the immense unified force of nature, the giving force, which births everything emanating from itself. We need to become like that force. We need to reach a state where we treat everything outside of us with total love, and then everything will fall into place.
Indeed, we must change and reach a state of likeness to the Creator, where we emanate love, kindness and warmth. One day, we will desire this state more than life itself. Moreover, we need nothing but such an alignment. Also, we should think beyond mere self-transformation and consider global transformation—that the whole world will acquire the quality of love and bestowal. Through the human level, the animate, vegetative and inanimate levels will also change. In the end, absolutely everything—the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels—will be at the degree of mutual, eternal and boundless love. Then, in this huge desire, which will be common on all four levels, the upper force will manifest and envelop everything within itself, and the world will take on a singular form.
The foundations for this transformation are being laid and we must give the optimal shape to this act of nature and our personal aspiration, to aim it correctly through our appeal to humanity. Since we are sentient beings, then it will happen. We can be intimidated, brought to our knees, coerced, and we can thus be taught. At the moment, nature is relating to us more and more like a misbehaving youth, giving us blows in order for us to wake up to the change we need to make. While we can train an animal to the point of becoming a well-behaved animal, we can change a human being in a way where he rises above his nature.
The report from current-day experts is very acceptable and realistic, to put it mildly. There will be various waves from different sides, and they will batter us. We will be unable to keep up and to react with effective remedies unless we get smarter. We will gradually reach an agreement with the upper force that coerces us. The current pandemic will subside and give way to the next wave. And we will try to cope with the next wave too through our own efforts, trying to do something about it. We will come to see how selectively these waves of all kinds of suffering will affect us, forcing us to change.
Our first and most important realization is that pain will be the source of wisdom. Nature will continue battering us, and through the relatively continuous blows we will receive from nature, we will grow in our understanding of where nature guides us. These waves will depend on the extent of our intelligence. Here, we can already engage another higher and more connected level of consciousness, and the people in touch with that consciousness should pass it on to the best of their abilities.
Based on a talk with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Featured in Quora