Today, many people understand that we live in a globally interconnected world where only positive interrelationships can guarantee sustainable success in a humane society.
Are You Tired of Working So Much?
If we improve our relations, we will certainly reach more success than that of a successful Common Market or other form of economic union. We will find success in every realm of life, a happy life.
So much of governmental budgets today go toward public health. Yet, with all the vast sums that are spent, only a fraction actually benefits citizens. Other large, budget chunks go toward defense and security—measures to secure governmental interests. By acting, though, with mutual consideration, we will begin to see the folly of spending so much time on things that bring us no essential benefit whatsoever. We will realize the true cost in terms of health and security, and we will suddenly feel that it is pointless to work so hard.
Just as the current crisis is forcing us to rethink our attitude toward life, we will have to understand that man must be free to learn how to build good relations and be more considerate of each other. Ten percent of the population will go to work out of concern for others. They will build, produce food, manufacture clothes and other staples, and they will develop the required machinery. However, first, they will see to it that all of us are equally happy. There won’t be any need for dangerous nuclear energy or excessive consumption of fossil fuels because we won’t want to produce redundant and non-essential things. In short, things will fall into place according to our consideration of others, the opposite of the current trend.
Therefore, the sooner we perceive that the global and integral world demands us to be considerate, understanding, and loving of one another—that this is the general “Law of Reality,” the sooner we will reach the end of the crisis and the beginning of a good life.
How Equality Can Be Achieved Today
To achieve equality—a provision of the general Law of Reality, we must first come to a state where each of us has the basic needs of life: shelter, food, water, and clothing. Within five years, we should reach a state where everyone has a roof over his head as well as sufficient provision of food and clothing; that is, everything needed for the household and where this is determined according to one’s own definition of “household” needs.
Provision of necessities for everyone will rely on surpluses. If we calculate according to essential needs, we will discover that we have a 90% surplus. When people love each other, they are able to give without feeling that they themselves are losing. Similarly, if people give up ten percent of their salaries in favor of someone else, then in the end, they will not suffer because mutual love will cover all sensation of loss.
This change has to happen at the level of countries on a global scale, and it has to happen through education. Education comes first. Equally important, the change can’t happen by force; but rather, by our own volition. The Bolsheviks in Russia tried to impose change, and we saw how it ended. So first, we need education.
Each time we do something for others, we need to show what’s been achieved. We need to show wealthy benefactors what the poor receive and, in turn, how the poor contribute to everyone’s sense of balance and happiness, and especially the wealthy.
We need to show that through mutual reciprocation, we can rid ourselves of surpluses, that we’re not producing thousands of redundant medicines just to make someone rich while sickening and poisoning the rest of humanity. We can re-examine our expenses on security and defense and avoid spending fortunes on the needless purchase of arms.
There Is One Solution to the Huge Crises Affecting the World Today
We should begin to move forward in agreement with the Law of Reality, perhaps initially in small steps even if just for our children, for the next generation. If we can educate our children to be a little more considerate toward each other, they will be far happier than we are.
We can already begin to picture the systems that we need to build in order to affect those changes in human society. We need to build new systems, set up groups, and train them. Of course, first we must prepare teachers and educators who understand these things. The teachers themselves must first feel this new direction of “human” development since without becoming what you teach, you cannot teach others. Through various activities designed to encourage mutuality, people will become more considerate of each other and will find benefits in this mutuality, both in terms of inner calm and even in their bank accounts.
The trainings in the new educational courses will make us will feel how much there is to gain by uniting. We will see how much we gain by being closer to each other, how much safer and healthier the world will be. Bullies won’t threaten our children at school, and they won’t be exposed to drugs or be afraid when they go out on the streets. We will be considerate on the road when driving, so that scores of people won’t be killed in road accidents each day. We will stop the arms race and heal the healthcare system. In general, we will build ourselves as a single, warm family, above all the gaps and above all the problems.
And we will do it despite our egos. We won’t suppress our egos, but will work together with our egos, just like a family whose members understand that each person is different, unique, and that nonetheless, we must be considerate and loving toward each other.
Love means that I love the other even though he may not be the way I wish him to be. This is how we’ll come to have a “round” world, where each complements the other, invokes in the other—through love—the changes he would like to see in the other so he would be loved, thus achieving peace and wholeness. This is the first step toward obtaining that wholeness.
To achieve all of this, we must establish systems that teach people. Once a person has gone through a gradual change—following participation in courses in which students comprehend what is required through exercises, that person comes to want society to be more balanced and have a relatively uniform standard of living.
Nature has brought us into a new era in which we need to mend the egoistic systems we have built. The crises have reached such a state that if we do not act to resolve them, the population will shrink and we will not be able to sustain the redundant egoistic systems we have built. This is why the world is declining and falling into further crises. We need to see how our corrupt attitudes are causing all the evil, and how good attitudes reveal treasures, truly a gold mine.
Written by Michael Laitman
Michael Laitman is a global thinker dedicated to generating a transformational shift in society through a new global education, which he views as the key to solving the most pressing issues of our time. He is the Founder of the ARI Institute, Professor of Ontology & Theory of Knowledge, PhD in Philosophy, MS in Medical Cybernetics. You can find him on Google+, YouTube and Twitter