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The Book - The Salt. Beinsa Douno Master and Lord "Ye call me Master and Lord: and you say well; for so I am."1 The words Master and Lord2 apparently contain nothing new, they are so ordinary. But in the world these two words - master and lord are two opposites. In Bulgarian the words gospodar, gospodin, gospodja or gospodjitza3 refer to people who are masters of their situation, to ruling people of high rank. However, in the original language these two words denoted two great principles which built human life. The situation of the master and the lord must be defined, the latter being used here in the sense of Lord. The word Gospod (Lord) was employed in a plural sense in the protolanguage in the meaning of lords. The first principle, Master, has relation to the human mind and will, while the second principle Gospod (Lord) has relation to the human heart and soul. Bear in mind that every word has a special sense in what I am going to speak about. When I use a word, I try to find what its vibrations are, for words are determined the same way the sunrays are. You cannot produce a certain color if you do not produce the corresponding vibrations. Therefore, if you speak about virtue, for instance, you should produce vibrations corresponding to virtue and then you will understand the corresponding sense of this word. Only this way can you have an objective, real truth expressed in life. There are unexpressed truths in the world as well. The earth is full of wealth hidden in its core, but that wealth does not interest you since it is concealed - you are interested in the riches the safes or the wealthy, the gold in the crowns of the kings and so on. There is knowledge hidden in the sun, but of what interest is it to you, since it is not revealed, but is only a supposition? The wealth in the written books satisfies you. I am speaking to you of knowledge revealed in the Master. When I speak about the Master, I mean a being who attunes the universe, i.e. He attunes His disciples, for the universe is a sum of thinking beings who are the atoms of this great rational word. When you ask what the spiritual beings are, you should know they are thinking beings. Some consider the spiritual man as an opposition to the worldly one. You will say that the worldly man is known by his fine clothes, cylinder, special ties, collars and gloves and his furniture is of a special kind. Is there anything bad in the worldly people? There are evils in the spiritual world as well. Where disharmony reigns, there are evils. Then I ask myself the question: if the spiritual world was free of sin, and if we come from God pure, how is it possible for us to commit sins? This question would remain unexplainable. So in the spiritual world there are also possibilities of making mistakes. A possibility for mistakes and such for sin are two different things. I shall explain this thought. Let us take two circles with different centers. The compass will draw one circle at a time, so that each circle will pass though the center of the other. If these two circles represent two rational worlds, or to put it in more scientific words, if one represents a positive and the other a negative electric current, when these two currents begin to function so that the power of the negative current passes from the periphery towards the center, and of the positive - from the center towards the periphery, at a certain stage the two circles will cross each other at two points and what will happen is exactly what is happening today on the earth. What is happening today is nothing other than the circle of the spiritual world passing through the center of the physical world and the opposite. You will say, "This is a great contradiction." Yes, this is a contradiction for those narrow minds who understand neither the past, the present, not the future. From the standpoint of a higher spirit, there are no contradictions in the world. People want a world without suffering. They are strange - this is no philosophy of life. There are always sufferings in contradictions, but in harmony there is a germ of suffering as well. Your happiness in the world rests on the sufferings of those small beings who serve you. You, who pass for very noble beings, ask what those little beings think of your nobility. All the sheep, oxen, lambs, hens, ducks, all small birds in relation with you have their own special opinion of people. All smaller beings say in one voice that person is a terribly cruel being. If you ask the trees, they also say, "How awful and merciless a person is!" Then you ask, "Why did God create such a world?" God created a very good world but we, as well as the people before us, spoiled it. This spoiled external world is reflected in us as well. The world is made in such a way that when the master suffers, the servants also suffer and the other way around. Christ says, "Ye call me Master and Lord: and so I am." In order to explain my idea - Master and Lord - I shall tell you the following example. Long time ago there lived a young king at the age of 33 - an age only of the wise and prudent people. He wrote a famous book about how life must be lived. Two royal daughters fell in love with him. You will say, "How happy he must have been!" When I see two young people in love, I say they are pleasantly amusing themselves. None other amusement is more pleasant than love. So when I see people loving each other, I say, "They are amusing themselves." You will object by saying love is something very serious. Do you think that when a great violin player performs a musical piece, he is doing something very serious? I consider serious situations such as when you own a debt to your creditor, or when a surgeon lays you on the table to operate on you. You often say, we must be serious. I call serious people those who have debts. You cannot understand the Word of God in its deep sense until you are freed of your debts. When you go to church and your creditor comes and reminds you of your debt to them, will your seriousness be of any help? The first royal daughter who fell in love with the king’s son expressed her love by carrying his picture everywhere, kissing it all day long, making a chapel for it so that people might light candles and censers to him and so on. The other royal daughter took "the book of life" written by the king’s son and started studying it and applying all its principles out of love for him. She started visiting the poor and the suffering thus testing all that was written in the book. By doing that she became more and more fond of the king’s son for she could see the good results of his teaching. These two royal daughters formed two different cults. You can see the cult of the first daughter displayed in all the temples of the world: all Buddhists, Brahmans, priests, the Turkish hodjas and all the Christian clergy. The other teaching is deep in the hearths of some people who only apply it, unconscious of serving any cult. The former are the-so-called orthodox people who think Christ will come in flesh and expect that image. What do you think: who of the two royal daughters has understood the royal son and has given him a better expression of her love of him? I call the first culture a culture of egotism when a person wishes only to possess and dominate someone. Today a young man and a young woman who are in love want only to possess and dominate one another. While they are young, they say such nice things to each other, but after marrying five years have hardly passed and all their love has evaporated, nothing remains of it. When I speak to you, I do not wish to be understood the first way: I would wish you to understand properly the second principle and to apply it to life. Therefore, the Master has a relation to the human mind and will. He bears in his soul those vibrations which can give an impulse to your mind and will. You send your daughter to school to study music with a teacher, but she falls in love with him and this prevents her from receiving the impulse the teacher can give to her mind and will. Music and poetry are dangerous engagements for some young men and women, especially if they have a weak character. When students fall in love with their teacher, they start taking flowers to the teacher and do not learn their lessons. This way your daughter will never graduate in music. If her teacher is not married and can marry her, that would be good. But if he is already married, what then? Polygamy will take place which can be seen everywhere in the world. By polygamy I mean a split in life. Splitting is always harmful to unity. A disciple who goes to his/her teacher must learn the essential principles, understand the qualities of the laws and powers, their mind, stomach, lungs. The stomach, the lungs and the brain have their own requirements. When you have stomach ache, you send for the doctor to inject you as soon as possible. But what does your rational stomach want to tell you by its disorder? It is a rational being. Sometimes you feel a tightening in your chest, or stomach, and you get worried. There is nothing dangerous in these tightenings, they are nothing but a change in energies. There are two opposite currents of energy in the world which produce two different results. One energy contracts the forms, the other expands them. Thereby life is manifested. This can be observed in nature too. Without dwelling on present day theories, I shall make an explanation: in order that rain may be produced, two opposite currents are necessary - warm and cold. For dew drops to be formed, the negative energy should raise them, heat expand them and render them gaseous. The positive energy keeps the water drops on the earth. Therefore, the negative energy of the earth and the positive energy of the sun are mutually attracted and where these two energies, these two circles, come in contact, a contrary process begins as a result of which rain is produced falling again on the earth. This is a philosophical consideration of the question. The evaporations which take place in nature are performed at the same time within us. In accord with nature your brain takes the place of the sun, your stomach that of the earth and your lungs are the connecting link between the earth and the sun. The two currents - arterial and venous - pass through the lungs. In nature there is also a venous current which ascends and an arterial one which descends. The venous current of an upward movement is directed toward the brain, i.e. toward the sun. First the venous blood must pass through the heart and lungs to be purified and then move upward. This is a necessity taking place in us, as well as in nature. The blood must be ozonized and its vibrations thus raised. All impurities in the venous blood must be purged away and thus the vibrations in the world will be raised. All illnesses in the world spring from a misunderstanding of this great Master who teaches us. At times you feel a pressure in your head. Your mind tells you, "You have impure blood, send it up to be purified." Sometimes your stomach aches. It says, "You have impure blood, send it up to be purified." But since you do not know this, you take some pills or medicine to stimulate your stomach and to stop the ache. The same thing happens in family life. When a man and a woman start life together, one must be a teacher and the other a disciple. But you start struggling for priority. If your husband has the necessary vibration for raising your mind, give him the place of teacher. The wife will say in such a case, "I do not like to submit." Do you know what the word submission means? To submit is to receive and cultivate the energy you need. That is culture. This is what it means to cultivate something. A violinist or an artist prepares his/her composition for hours that s/he may cultivate their theme in their mind. By the same law, I think that every teaching limits you or submits you. That is why you should not conceive the word religion in a limited, but in a broad sense so that you would have results in your personal life. Whoever carries a religion or a teaching as a portrait in themselves and only looks at it from time to time, will never benefit by it. I am not saying you should throw this portrait out of your mind and memory, but rather that you should look at it once a year or a month and apply more. Why does the Lord keep us at a distance? He has chosen such a high place, because He knows we are going to disturb Him. The Lord says, "I want you to do My will and live in the world the way I have ordered it so that you may be happy." Some ask, "When shall we go to heaven?" When you learn to live according to the book of this sage - the king’s son; when you come to the second culture and learn the laws. Thus, the word Lord implies the mother. The Master is the father. The Master, i.e. the father, is an interpretation of a great idea. God turns into a father and has a relation to us. The master is a number raised to the third degree, it is the cube of life. The master is a rational entity who regards things three-dimensionally: along a straight line, a plane and a height. You will say, "Of what importance is in what direction or line one moves in life?" This is of great importance. If you pass through the world only in straight line what would you understand of it? If you should take an excursion through the whole solar system by an express and move with the speed of light, you will need 31,000 years to pass along this straight line. After having moved at such a speed and return to earth, what knowledge will you have? None. You will say, "It is wonderful, magnificent," but you will give only general impressions. You have passed by the sun with lightning velocity and think you have crossed the whole universe and know many things, but in fact nothing has remained in you. I say to such a philosopher that he knows very little, because hey moves with great speed. In order to investigate this world, you need a number with ten zeros at the end - these are the necessary years for that work. You will say it is easy to put zeros to a number. Yes, but for me these zeros are of great importance. If we, for instance, would write one, two, three zeros after the number one, there will be a great difference between these numbers. I make a difference between the first, second and the third zero. The second zero shows that the number ten is in square; the third zero shows the cube of number ten. If there is a fourth zero, it shows the fourth degree on number ten; the fifth zero shows number 10 to the fifth degree and so on. I shall not go to the fifteenth degree for that is not for the human mind. The human mind can discover the secrets of nature only up to the fourth degree. Geometry may solve problems only as far as the tesseract is concerned. The tesseract is a small figure of which we study only the separate parts. The cube is a small segment of the tesseract. These lines, plains and cubes have a relation to our life. If we examine our face, we shall see that it is composed of many straight lines, plains and cubes. In geometry the definition of a straight line is that it is the shortest distance between two points. I define the straight line as the smallest segment of a circle. This is not a contradiction. You will say, "The diameter of a circle is also a straight line." Yes, but it is a small segment of another larger circle. The same way our present life is a small segment of a larger circle of our past. Therefore, your future life will also be a small segment of your present life. There is descending and ascending in your lives. By the law of descending you learn to decrease, but by the law of ascending, you learn to increase. Therefore, we should know simultaneously how to decrease and increase. People today suffer because they do not know how to increase and decrease. A merchant who cannot balance correctly suffers losses in his accounts. For instance, he has only 1,000 effective money in gold, but writes 100,000 and makes his business transactions on that effective money. Everyone must put down only the quantity of money they have in their safe. Nature does not tolerate false accounts. If you do not check what effective money you have at a given moment, you fall under the criticism of people. Knowing you have written more than you really have, you start thinking that others have done the same and you do not believe in them. We people today are like that, we recommend ourselves as having more effective money when in reality we have less. When you cross out a few zeros, you will come to the plain truth. Christ says, "Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am." He spoke very important things not registered in the New Testament. Christ came to teach you how to live. Some say, "What Christ spoke is sufficient for you." Yes, but it is sufficient for your salvation^ but not for the way you should live. And John says that Christ spoke so much that if everything were written down, all the books in the world could not contain it. I know that a very small fraction of what Christ said is written. I draw my principles from a very large book of which every pebble, leaf, branch, blossom form the alphabet. I constantly interpret this great book. When I take a leaf of a tree, I begin to examine it and read upon it under what conditions that leaf was formed; where that tree was growing; why it grew old; what kind of people had lived during its lifetime; what were their conditions of life; what the condition of the solar system was and so on. I read all this by the marks on every leaf and branch. But you stop by the trees, look at them and think they have no experience of their own, that they do not speak or see. How beautifully the flowers and the trees speak and see! Every leaf has its eyelet and reads all your thoughts when you sit under a tree to meditate, every one of your thoughts leaves its marks on the tree and the separate leaves. In the future you will be able to read your life and that of your predecessors on the trees. How many times, stopping under a tree, I have been told the story of different philosophers, priests and other people who had sat under that tree! We should know that everything is open before God, there is nothing hidden in this world. You say that trees are speechless beings in nature and only person speaks. I am against this idea for there are no speechless beings in nature, only their manner of speaking is different. Everything speaks to me. When I say "to me" I do not mean that son of the king whose picture is in the hands of the king’s daughter, but the other one who bears the divine truths for this world. Christ says, "Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am." But Christ is not a master like Moses who preached "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." Today you serve Christ, but you serve many other masters including Moses. You say, "I am a Christian, an Eastern Orthodox believer," but if anyone should offend you, or hurt your feelings a little, you immediately sue them. This is the old teaching we apply in life, while we are speaking of the New teaching. When we speak of materialism I understand we are serving this world, we fall in love with the picture of the king’s son and say that only what we see is the real in life, but what is really actual, the truth in life, we cast away. All relations which are much more real and contain the sense of life can be tested. Speaking of meaningfulness, I do not mean what you can perceive. I can always test how you perceive things and often amuse myself by calculating what percent of you will understand me, how many will listen to me and how much you will apply. I have in view where you come from. You listen to me and say, "Now we understood you!" And I take down in my book, "I, too, understood you quite well." When people understand, I understand, too; but when they do not understand, neither do I understand. When you visit my restaurant and I nourish and receive you well and you pay and thank me, then you understand and I understand you. If you go out and do not pay me, I remain without money and do not understand you. Misunderstanding is an empty purse and an empty stomach. Every purse, every bag and your stomach are relations in the world which do not exist. You are exposed to suffering, torment and persecution, but why? Because your purse is empty. If no one receives you in their house, if all people forsake you, I draw a bad conclusion about you. This means you have not behaved according to the law of love and have set the whole world against you. It shows you have not heeded your Master and the Lord has left you to study by your own experiences. You will object to this, saying, "I have studied so much mathematics, know so many things, so many formulae and theorems." I ask you, "If you have learned so many formulae and theorems, can you apply them by building your body according to them, or according to the theorem of Pythagoras? You will say that there is no connection whatever between you and these things. There is a great correlation in all this because your life is a circle which can be calculated since it flows from two quantities - a larger and a smaller one. The larger quantity is that of the spirit which functions outside your life and cannot be calculated. We may say that this power is a fraction proceeding to infinity. But a day will come when you will be able to calculate it. Such is the law by which this power functions. Under the present conditions it is beyond your life and you can not calculate it. However, this does not prove that a day will not come when this fraction will be calculated. Christ says, "You call me Master but I am not a Master like Moses, for I teach you the law of expansion while Moses taught you the law of shrinking." When you unite these two laws into one, you will find a way for freedom. Christ says, "When they hit you on one side, turn the other also; if they take your outer garment, give the undergarment too." What did Christ mean by undergarment and outer garment? This applies to the physical and spiritual world. This means that if your outer garment is heavy in summer, you should throw it off and leave it somewhere. If your fur coat was necessary to you in the winter, throw it away in the summer. You will say, "But what shall we do in the winter without a fur coat, if we throw it away in the summer?" Are you sure you will still be alive next winter? Throw the fur coat away under these conditions. By casting away your outer garment Christ wants to say that you should not be in touch with people who want to become rich. Besides, there is no winter in the spiritual world. Someone wants to have two or three houses; another wants to study; still another wants to become beautiful and so on. Do not make contact and do not obstruct such people; who want to get rich - give them what you have, help them to build their house, to study, let them become beautiful, leave them do what they want to, encourage people in goodness. Originally all our aspirations had been good, but later they became perverted and became bad. For instance, you are in a forest and start reciting, singing and dancing freely. If you do the same thing in the city, people will consider you crazy. Here is an example of how your original impulse in the forest, expressed in the city becomes warped. If you sing and dance in the forest among the trees, they will not criticize you, but when you go among the cultured, talking people, they will not allow you to raise your voice. When you are in society, to speak you must raise your hand so as to form a curved line. Then people ask, "Is there any sense in this life?" Many times when I come to speak to you, I think: if I start speaking in a loud voice and wave my hands, people will come to me immediately and say, "What are you doing! Don’t you know that it is not proper to speak like this and wave your hands in society?" Then I start calculating how to speak and how to hold my hands so as not to offend anyone. Do you know how difficult it is for a person to determine the direction of their movements? These calculations are difficult to make until we come to a sensible speech. Many who are listening say, "If I should make a speech, it would be better." Then we are in the same state as the old and the young horse. An old horse was pulling a cart full of earthenware. Since he was walking on a downward slope, he walked very carefully. A young horse watching him said to himself, "If they gave me this load to pull, I would go down at once, but that old horse is barely moving." In a short time the young horse was harnessed to drive the cart of the earthenware. He had to pass the same way. However, he did not walk carefully like the old horse whom he considered silly, but ran swiftly down the slope breaking to pieces all the earthenware. Some say to me, "Tell us something more serious." Do you want me to act like the young horse? If I am going down a slope, I shall be serious and move slowly; if I am going up, I shall groan and walk with difficulty; if I am on a plain, I shall philosophize. Knowing this, try to calculate these two states in life - when you must move upward and when a chance is offered you to go down. I shall resume my previous thought. I said that there is much energy stored in your brain. The wife gets angry and says, "How long shall I be a slave to my husband? I want freedom. Did I marry only to cook for him?" The husband is also discontented and says, "You do not understand me." The servants are dissatisfied with their master and want to get rid of them. These are cases of the two positive energies in the world which repel one another and cause all the misunderstandings and fights in life. People warn such a couple not to act contrary to the evangelical rules. There is no need of such a warning, but you should rather turn one energy into negative and the other should stay positive. You will ask, "What will come out of that?" Rain will be formed. When a woman weeps, she should be thankful for her tears, for the moment is most favorable for her to turn her energy into negative. Let her say to her husband, "I see, dear, that you are right." But in life usually both are wrong. If one is right, the other will be wrong. That is why you should look for people whose energy is opposite to yours. That is how things stand in the world: half the world is right, good or positive, but the other half is wrong, bad of negative. The bad people are a blessing, they have a store of conserved energy and bear the conditions for the future culture. The good people will come in the future; they will become negative and start cultivating the energy they have. A good poet coming into the world will create new poetry out of the bad life of people; a scientist will create new science; a musician - new melodies. Thus, the foundations of the new culture will be laid. When you see a suffering person, if you are a poet, you could create such lovely poetry, which will inspire people’s minds and hearts for noble and sublime deeds. Christ says, "I came into the world to teach you to recognize the good in evil and the evil in good." The good has its bad side just as the evil has its good side. Until recently the sun was considered completely pure, but it is known today that there are black spots on it. The sun, too, is spotted. Do you know what alarm is raised at times on the sun? The alarm on the sun is always reflected on the earth. When it is quiet on the sun, it is quiet on the earth too. Therefore, half of our earth is turned to God, it is nearer God and the sun lightens it, but the other half is dark. That half facing God is collecting its energy. Each one of you can come to such a state. When you say you cannot do anything, you are in the positive energy of the earth. When your earth turns to the sun, you are in the negative energy of the earth and then culture comes. You may ask, "How is it that one and the same solar energy is sometimes good and sometimes bad?" In the morning the solar energy represents mother love, but in the afternoon, after crossing the meridian, the energy is perverted and becomes bad. In the evening this energy affects us still worse that is why murder and quarrels, etc. take place then. Why do these things happen with people? Because only positive energies get together. In order that such things may be avoided, the wife must require as a law of her husband to return home two hours before sunset. If he returns after sunset, he will have trouble by all means. The same thing happens in us as well. When we make up our mind to do something nice and noble, we are in the negative energy, in the light side of the earth, however, if we intend to do something bad, we are in the positive side of earth, in the positive energy. The Lord is positive. But when you turn to God, your energy is negative, conscious. If you start fighting with a stronger being, you will be smashed. The Lord opposes proud people. When you say you will oppose Him, the Lord will give orders that you should be tied up and taken to a hospital; you will say you went to fight for your country. You have not fought for the liberty of any country. Your country is to be liberated by other means. Pull out your sword, i.e. your will, and see if it is tempered well so that it could set people free. When you are offered two bags of gold, you are tempted and start saying there is no sense in fighting, it is not human and so on. Why? Because the bag of gold is behind your back. This is no ideal, however. The rich say, "There is no sense in fighting, we must live in peace." Why do they talk like that? Because they are rich and lack nothing. Many poor people say, "We want to fight," because they are in need. Christ says, "I came to solve the problem which troubles humanity. I am the Master and will show you how to recognize your master and your lord within yourself." If you listen to your Lord deep within you, you will be able to do something, but if you do not listen to your Master, you will be in contradiction. People must know both their Master and their Lord. There is a Lord in every person. You often interpret my words wrongly. You want to manifest yourselves by which you make many big mistakes. I am giving you a positive teaching which you can apply and I can make an experiment with anyone of you under the condition that you are sincere. This is the advantage of my philosophy - it can be applied to life. My greatest wish is that everywhere in all homes there should be relations like those among the teachers and the masters, that the children should be both good students and good servants. The students should listen to their teacher and the servants to their master. If you teach this to your children, if you imbed this idea in them, the daughter will listen to her mother and the son will listen to his father. The daughter cannot listen to her father and the son cannot listen to his mother. In order that the son might listen to his mother, he should become a woman in the next generation. The same thing applies to the daughter. In nature the energy must be converted. I may be positive in relation to your energies and negative in relation to other energies. This is a law. Energy is a great power which penetrates us and builds life. For 2,000 years it has been preached that Christ is a great Master who came to save us from sin so that we may repent and become good members of the church. In fact, you have members now - sons and daughters who becoming 21 years old tell their parents the latter have become foolish. What kind of students are your sons and daughters? You think that you know much. Often the Lord gives you headache saying, "Give this problem to humanity to solve. Why do they have a headache?" You answer, "We have overeaten." No, that is not the real reason - your head aches from knowing too much. Sometimes you have stomachache. It shows that the Lord gives you this problem to solve. They who do hot know what headaches and stomachaches are due to, as well as all other illnesses, do not know anything. A stomachache shows that the energy in your stomach which is positive must be turned from positive to negative. A headache shows that the energy in your head which is positive must be turned into negative in relation to the other energies. Your mind must be engaged with sublime thoughts. When you have a headache, go to a poor woman to help her. Whenever your head or stomach aches, begin to work. Thus says the lord. You say, "When my head aches, I cannot work." Your head aches exactly for the reason that you do not work. Therefore, a headache is a stimulus forcing you to think and to work. If the doctors hear this, they will say, "This is a dangerous theory - to work when you have headache." The doctors explain only the effects of illnesses, but they do not know what precedes illnesses. Doctors of more modern times say that uric acid is the cause of headaches when it settles in the organism, in the brain. The blood thickens, the organism begins to act with greater effort and so on. But the doctors cannot explain what caused this uric acid. They cannot explain a number of causes which preceded the appearance of the uric acid. Therefore, the cause of each illness must be explored very far back. If we lived the divine way, a day would come when our body would be cleansed immediately of any sediments which cause illnesses. Some physicists say that if the human organism is placed under 10-20 or 100,000 volts of electricity, it would be rejuvenated in a very short period of time and acquire its childlike state of youthfulness. Then we would say, "Thank you, God, the kingdom of God has come to earth." The Lord sends death and says, "Call this aged child and put it on the disc of death in order to be rejuvenated and start a different new life." Then the wheel of life rotates at 100,000 volts and in less than 50 or 100 years the same person returns rejuvenated already with new energy and a new name. This is the law o£ reincarnation - a change of energies. The soul can assume thousands of forms. You have not studied the human soul. If I would say all I know about it, that would be the ninth wonder in the world - there are so many things to be said about it. Christ says, "Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am." As you read the chapter further, you will see why He calls Himself that. I want the two words Lord and Master to remain in you. The master is a positive energy. Every disorder or disharmony in thoughts and desires is a positive energy which must be transformed into negative, since only the negative energies in the world can create. This is true of electricity as well. If you are a clairvoyant you will see that light appears only on the negative pole. If people consider someone attractive, it shows s/he has negative energy in him/herself - that is magnetism. Such a person can both give to people and take from them. One should not only be nice to people, but every word they say must be full of meaning. Never utter empty words. Some ask, "Why don’t you tell us you love us?" Since I have invited you to my table to nourish you, it means I love you. If I tell you many words but I do not nourish you, do I love you then? If I invite you to beer and sweets that is not love. We should live only on bread, wheat and all kinds of fruit. And Christ says, "Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am." When this Master comes there will be harmony, music, poetry in your home, everyone will be in his/her proper place, there will be no discord between the man and woman, between the servants and the masters, between the daughters and sons, between the teachers and students. Christ is not in the world now. Some will say that Christ has come. No, He does not come, because He already has an experience with people. If He comes today among humanity, He will be crucified again. He who has hung on a cross knows what those nails, which nailed Him there, mean. Christ is asking His followers now, "Are there any more nails?" "Yes, there are." "Then the time has not come for me to visit you." The priests preach "brotherhood and love." Christ is not fooled by these words and asks again, "Are there any nails on the earth?" "Yes, there are." "It is not time for me yet." Some say, "Manifest yourself to us, Master, we shall recognize and prize you!" Yes, you have prepared your nails and want the Master to come in order to nail him. This is what I see every day. You take everything you can from people: I see two young people talking in the garden and a few lambs are near them who say to themselves, "These people are cultured, but nothing will stop them from stripping off our skin at any moment." They know very well the intentions of their masters. Now you will say I am speaking very well. Yes, I speak well and you listen well. But I wish there would be teachers in Bulgaria to teach kindness and patience. I have not met patient people in Bulgaria yet. I have met people who bear their hardships, but I have not met patient people. Patience implies will power and a good mind or knowing the causes and effects of things. But impatience gives rise to suspicion of everything and everybody. I have not met people whom I could convince that there is nothing suspicious in our cause. The Bulgarians have no patience that is why suspicion never leaves them. The second thing to do is to get rid of prejudice. Everyday we struggle with unclean thoughts which attack us like wasps. Consciously or unconsciously, everywhere I see an atmosphere of suspicion and, after all that, people want to be considered cultured. We must fence off these thoughts - they are a harmful remnant from the past and we must get rid of them. Suspicion has penetrated your mind, heart and soul and you must dispense with it and purify yourselves. What is there to suspect? Someone comes to me and tries to deceive me somewhat, but I say to him/her, "My friend, if you did not try to deceive me, I would have done more for you, but now I shall do less. Yet, I ought to do something for you at any rate." By this I do not want to say that I am good, but that I am obliged to do something for everybody. Why should you represent things as they are not? That is why sometimes I do not receive visitors. "Why don’t you receive visitors today?" "Because I have not arrived at anything and can give you nothing." The same law applies to you: If you are not in good disposition today, do not receive visitors. Say, "I have to solve a problem the Master has given me." Now keep two things in mind: patience and doing away with your suspicion. I see suspicion inscribed on the eyebrows of the Bulgarians and some have it at such a great extent that a whole lifetime is necessary for them to get rid of it. This sign is in its place - the Lord has put it there. Suspicion is the absence of selfless love and gives rise to all illnesses. When you meet people, you say, "This person is bad, that person is bad," there are no good people for you. Think that all people are good, but they have only positive energy, which you cannot use, that is why you should stay away from them and let others use it. Two men who have positive energy repel each other. Today there are magnetizers who can transform the energies. I visit a home where the husband and wife are fighting and raise my hands then drop them again and the man becomes positive, but the woman negative. After a while they begin to excuse themselves to me for having made a mistake. They have not been conscious of the law by which one becomes positive and the other negative. And actually after their energies have changed properly into positive and negative, they stop quarrelling. I say, "Friends, one must be up, but the other down." When a magnetizer starts healing someone, they pass their hands from the head down which means: the woman must be down and the man up, or in other words: the man should break the stones and the woman should build them. This is what Christ also taught people. Christ says, "Ye call me Master and Lord." The Master is up in the mountain, while the lord is down and he is building there. Therefore, if you want to build, you must come down. If you understand this rightly, there will be no contradictions for you. While listening to me, you think I want you to deny the world. I am not teaching you to deny the world, but rather to turn your energy into negative and to start building. When you are troubled, raise your hands up them put them down. Then tell your stomach, "Listen, my friend, let the brain be up, but you be down sending it material to work with." In general, where there is headache, the stomach suffers too and conversely. This shows that always - this law is right - there is a close connection between the stomach and the head. You can test this. Those of you who have a strong will can heal yourselves the following way: turn to the Lord and pray to Him as a Master and Lord to teach you how to control your head and your stomach. You will say, "I do not need a stomach and head, I want to have the body of an angel with a guitar in hand and to play and sing in heaven." This is a wrong conception of Christ’s teaching. You must understand it right. This is a form, but you must have a certain result. I do not want to create antagonism between those who understand rightly the teaching of Christ and those who have no right understanding of it. And I shall not say that the former are on the right and the latter on the wrong side, but I say that those who do not think right are of positive energy. So long as suspicion takes hold in you, nobody can set the world right. Before we depart we must fulfil the will of God. The Bulgarians have a future as a nation, that is why they must become patient and do away with suspicion. The Bulgarians are not so good, but they have in themselves the conditions for a good life and where there is a condition for life, God is there. Something will come out of the Bulgarians, but not of Bulgaria which is the retort in which experiments are made and as such it will fulfil its role. The content of the retort - the Bulgarian nation - is the creative power as well. When the Bulgarians go to live among Americans or other nations, they are polite and pleasant, but as soon as they return to Bulgaria, they become rude and discontented with everything. This discontentment is due to the small land they possess. The Bulgarians have a creative spirit that is why they feel confined here. Give the Bulgarians wide opportunities, much work and they will work. One day as I was walking by the seminary, I met a colonel riding a horse. All of a sudden his horse stopped and refused to go on. When the colonel got off the horse, it started to walk. By this the horse wanted to say, "I shall walk without a colonel, but if he is on my back, I shall stop." Every Bulgarian has this feature. Christ says, "I came to teach people how to give wide space to every soul and to encourage every good impulse in every single thing." If everyone should give freedom to their neighbor as they have need of the same, there will be wide scope to all actions and thoughts. If you would apply the laws hidden in my words, you would understand many things. I take everything in nature and interpret it. All the laws of nature I have tested are 75% true and only some 25% remain for me to test. Deposit this faith in yourselves and know that everybody bears something great. Someone wants to become an angel, but even as an angel s/he would see only the beginning, not the end of things. You will see only your head, but you will not see your tail; you become an atom whirling only around a circle, in order to acquire balance. But circling round a center shows that a person has lost his/her balance. Since we have become free from the periphery, we should study these two worlds - between the Master who is up and the mother who is down. What is true of the Sun and the Earth, is true of the brain and the stomach, of the spirit and the soul. Apply patience, i.e. develop the mind and the will, get rid of suspicion and substitute it by creative love. Be so strong that no matter what insult may be cast upon you, it should not touch you and you will become free of it in a short time. There is no greater art than the ability to rise above all insults and to substitute them by good thoughts. All of you can do a great deal of work and perform great deeds of goodness. What the teacher is playing at a given moment can be learned by the student too. Those who want to be something more than the others, must unite with the living Lord - with that great bond of harmony and study the law of silence. All the occultists say we should be listeners to the Great Master who is speaking. There is nothing better than silence. I would wish to be in your place - you should speak and I would listen, for I shall understand everything you say. Now when people hear something, they not only refuse to pay, but also criticize what they hear by saying it is not good. Christ says, "I am the restaurant keeper and came to feed people." Christ’s teaching shows us that we have conditions to become saints, angels and geniuses. But what are we now? We are the beloved children of God Who loves us not because we are so good, but because He is merciful to us. And this is the greatest thing in the world we can be christened by. We must justify this love, become worthy of it and never pull each other’s hair before His face. As soon as we hear that the Master, the Father, the Lord is coming we should immediately stand still. By today’s sermon I want all who have positive energy to turn it into negative and all who are up the mountain to come down and start building, while those who are masters should become servants. There is no need of masters. The Lord says, "I am tired of masters, I want servants who should put order in the world." Christ says, "Now the world will be set right by the students, the sons and daughters, not by the mothers and the masters. The students, the sons and daughters are the future of this world." The mother is engaged in fashionable clothes, the father drinks, but the sons and daughters see that their parents do not follow the right path that is why they set about serious work. Now take the position of sons and daughters, of students and servants, but do not say you are teachers, priests, mothers, fathers, kings, princes and the like. May the Lord keep you from such sins! May the Lord keep me from this sin, too! And may He make us students and servants of this Great Master and servants of this Great Lord in the world. For He is a Living Lord! Sermon held on June 15, 1919. _____________________________________________ 1 John 13:13 2 Lord - "Gospod" in Bulgarian (transl. note) 3 Gospodar - Bulg. Master; Gospodin - Bulg. Mister; Gospodja - Bulg. Missis, Gospodjitza - Miss (transl. note)

The Book - The Salt. Beinsa Douno The Humpbacked Woman "And he laid his hands upon her and immediately she was made straight and glorified God."1 The primary requirement in life is that the truth should be presented in its real form. There are real and abstract, or positive and negative truths. If you observe a Centigrade thermometer tube from the bottom upwards as the temperature rises, you will have a positive truth, but if you observe it from the top downwards, you will have a negative truth. In the first case, the heat will increase, but in the second - it will decrease. You will say, "What does it matter if the heat increases or decreases?" This is of great significance. In nature only warmth causes the growth of all plants and fruit trees. This law refers to the human mind and heart as well. I interpret the word warmth as noble feelings. The most noble thoughts, feelings and acts are produced by warmth. You will ask me, "What has this to do with Christ’s laying His hands upon this woman?" Woman is the foundation of the world. The world cannot exist without women. If this were possible, God would not have created them. Some may object to this saying that God created Adam first. Yes, but which Adam? God created the male and female sex together. The male and female sex constitute a contrast in the world, but this contrariety is a great science as well. Christ wished to raise that woman to her high position. She was humpbacked. What does that hump mean? The woman was humpbacked in thoughts, feelings and acts. Christ laid His hands on that woman. The hands signify the sublime and the great in the world. Present day people suffer from lack of will, but a person lacking will is not a person. You will probably all say you have will. I would give you a small task so that you can test your will. I may give you a kilogram to lift from the earth. You will say, "Now, can we not lift a kilogram!" Yes, you can lift it, but not under any conditions. How could you lift this kilogram, if it were heated up to 1,000 degrees? Not only you, but no other person could lift it, you would even stay ten meters away from it. Therefore, there is a great difference between a kilogram that even children can lift and a kilogram the whole world cannot lift. If anyone could lift you, it shows you have no will, no power. We read that Christ laid his hands on that humpbacked woman and she was made straight. I ask you: can you lay your hands on your humpbacked mind, your humpbacked heart and make them straight? You will answer me that your hearts and minds are straight. No, your hearts and minds are not straight. The hearts and minds of all clergy, ministers and teachers as well as those of many other people are humpbacked. You will say, "Why do you offend us?" I do not offend you, but I am speaking the positive truth so as the illusions that we are something which we are not, should be avoided. In this verse, however, there is another psychological moment. Christ laid His hands on that woman in order that she might be made straight and glorify God. Tell me how many times a mother must lay her hands on her small child when she bathes him/her so that s/he might be made straight and start walking? If the mothers did not do that, would their children ever start walking? Your children are humpbacked women which is why you should lay your hands on them daily and bathe them. Do you know what bathing means? What a simple truth bathing is, but no one of the present day people of learning can give it an interpretation. Contemporary people are like that Greek philosopher who wanted to study the world by looking only upward. While walking along the street he fell in a hole. Getting out of it, the philosopher got angry and started scolding people for putting such an obstacle on his path. After restoring his calm state he continued on his way, but to his great surprise he fell into another hole. He became furious and started chiding people even more fiercely for placing obstacles on his way so that he could not discover the truth. No, sir, when you are seeking the truth you must look forward, not upward. All dandies, all ladies today look upward. Go out to the fields and notice which way the empty wheat-ears look. All empty wheat-ears look up. If a farmer should see all the wheat-ears looking up, he would be driven to despair. But if he should see all wheat-ears with bent heads, he would say, "Thank God! I wish all of you were bent!" Christ saw the humpbacked woman and by the same law laid His hands upon her and she was made straight and glorified God. Some may ask, "Why should we glorify God?" I am mot asking you to glorify that Lord in whose name all dissentions take place today and whom the churches have served for 2,000 years; I am not speaking to you about the Lord whom the governments serve - the god of war. I do not deny they are gods, but they are gods for themselves not for humanity. I am speaking to you about a Lord you can find anywhere, Who is within you, in whom you live and move and have your being, or feel. This Lord does not belong to states and parties. Him I call the God of suffering, of the humpbacked people in the world. Those of you who have studied the theorem of Pythagoras know what it states: the square constructed on the hypotenuse of a triangle equals the sum of the squares constructed on the two legs of the same triangle, i.e. the space comprising the square constructed on the hypotenuse equals the space comprising the other two squares. Thus the woman upon whom Christ laid His hands, represents the hypotenuse upon which the square was constructed, i.e. the neutral zone which divides the square into two triangles. Considering geometry and mathematics this way, a correlation can be found between them and life itself. If a person’s mind, heart and will would be healed, there must be at least three conditions. A person whose lungs, brain and stomach are spoilt cannot be healed. You may ask, "But how did Christ heal so many people of different illnesses?" Christ healed only those people whose lungs, stomachs and brains were in their right place. I take the stomach as an emblem of the physical life, the lungs as an emblem of the mental life and the brain - of the spiritual life of person. Therefore, if you are not connected with the forces of these three worlds, your hump cannot be made straight. In order that the child on whom the mother lays her hands may stand up, s/he must wish that him/herself, or have a certain thought about it. This analogy applies to the separate nations. Every nation is similar to a child. Some nations are considered young, others - old. If a nation is young, its mother must bathe it in the tub for a long time and lay her hands on it until it Starts walking. Moreover, it is known that a child who is just starting to walk passes through many phases - many falls and risings, but that does not mean anything. You will ask me, "What relation does this verse have to life today?" The sun directs its rays daily to us - they are the divine hands. What do they contain? Christ lays His hands daily on us by means of these rays. If your brain, stomach and lungs are healthy, your hump will be made straight by all means. You will say that this idea is not in accord with the present day church. Which church? The one formed by people, or the one created by God? If it is the church of God, it is nature itself. I believe in its symbol. But those who wish to take exams for priests and bishops must pass them in such a way that when they lay their hands on the humpbacked woman, her hump should be made straight. How many priests and bishops of this kind are there is Bulgaria? Two thousand years have already passed after Christ in the course of which all kinds of learned bishops and preachers came into the world, but the hump of the whole humanity as well as of the Bulgarian people, still exists. Why? Because no one believes in what Christ taught. I have talked with many worldly people and have noticed that they are more open to the great truths than some spiritual people. By saying this I neither judge nor blame anyone. If a teacher gives you a problem to solve that you cannot solve correctly, the teacher says that the problem has not been solved. "But, teacher, I struggled much until I solved it. Besides that, my father and grandpa are rich and good people, is it possible for me not to solve it?" All that may be so, but the problem is not solved. When students do not succeed in that, they start taking flowers, money, etc. to the teacher, but the problem still remains unsolved. You should know that the schools, grammar schools and universities have been founded for knowledge and not for bribery. I see all people today take candles to the church, light them but the problem still remains unsolved. You may be a king, but your soul, heart and will remain humped. I say to such a person: you will not achieve anything in the world and will always be a slave to the conditions in which you live. People today justify themselves by the difficult, unfavorable conditions. If I put a person in a nice building and give them all the favorable conditions for work, but should they bring in all their garbage from outside, what will become of the favorable conditions they were given? Such a person will complain of the bad conditions of life, but who created them? They themselves. What must they do? They must change them, but not tear down the house, only clean it up. If you do not maintain the good conditions given to you, you will be like those baby crows which, after dirtying their nest, begged their mother to be removed to another nest, since the one they were in was dirty. The mother asked them, "Will you also go to the new nest?" "Of course, we will." "Then you will dirty the new nest as well." I shall give you a similar example about a wolf. A wolf once went to complain to a fox of people who were so bad that they always persecuted him. "I shall go to some other good and noble people," he said. The fox asked him, "But will you take your teeth along?" "Yes, indeed." "Then these other people will persecute you as well." One must understand the basic law according to which everything should be put in its own place. If you have teeth, you must know how to use them. By healing the woman, Christ wanted to point out the fact that all people who believe in Him should have the will to correct their life. Jena2 coming from the Sanskrit word zeo means life in Bulgarian. The life of this woman had become humpbacked, but in order that it should be made straight, the divine will should direct it so that it would manifest itself sensibly. How would the Divine life manifest itself? It is a great mistake to think that you now much. I have nothing against your knowledge but I ask you, since you have studied algebra and geometry, what use have you made of these formulae? When I look through algebra and geometry textbooks, I see what great truths are hidden in these formulae, but their deep meaning remains concealed for the teachers and students. These seeds have not been sown in science yet. There is apathy in us to the deep truth. There is only a mechanical belief, we expect God to come and set all things right, teach us everything without our sitting down to work and investigating all things ourselves. This way we shall be like a rich man’s son who inherited great wealth from his father. He started going to balls and concerts, visiting one city after another and all famous places in the world and after returning home said, "There is no meaning in life." Such a person who visits cities like a tourist or gathers knowledge at school without applying it, I consider as a beggar going with their bag from house to house to hoard in one place what people give them. At some places s/he is welcomed, while at others upbraided until s/he loses all sense of self-esteem. Such a person degenerates. In fact all people who lead parasitic lives degenerate. It says in the Scripture, "Believe, hope and love," which means - have will. To manifest your will means to stand against the whole world if it is against the convictions you have tested and wish to apply. People may tell you it is senseless to withstand this, but if you have will power you will never give up. You will say, "I believe and that is all." You will say it is silly for one to believe. Perhaps it is so, but I have not met a person who does not have faith, only some think they do not believe, i.e. have only a reflection of faith in themselves, moving downwards and losing their warmth. Some believe that they will lose their life, or that that their life is bad, or that nothing will come out of them and so on. This is no knowledge, but only beliefs. If you say you have knowledge, I will ask you, "Why do I speak to you about this verse?" You will answer, "We suppose, we believe." You will be like those peasants whom a priest once preaching asked, "Brothers, do you know what I am going to speak about?" "No, we don’t." "Well, then, if you do not know, there is no need of my speaking to you." "Yes, we know, we know!" "Well, if you know there is no need of my speaking about it." I do not put the question this way, but classify the Christians into such as have a common center and such as have not, or Christians who move in regular circles and such who move in curved, hyperbolic lines. A comet sometimes appears in space, approaches the sun and then disappears. Why has this comet appeared in the world? If a person wishes to greet you from a distance, cast a long-range missile at you, they have a purpose for doing that. I think that comets leave their places in order to greet the sun, pass by the world, sometimes burst and then they pass away into space again. Every comet has a definite mission and its appearance can be examined from a physical, astronomical or spiritual standpoint. First its movements must be examined, why it has come and so on. In the same way many of you are comets who in the course of thousands of years will be lost in space. You appear and do not move in a circle, but in a hyperbola; you move in a circle, but in a hyperbola; you move out of space changing your place until another planet comes to change your center and put you in a circle. Christ came to change this hyperbola into a circle and place you in the center - thus changing your course. In this way Christ changed the orbit of this woman. When she stood straight, she found herself in a wise world and started glorifying God, i.e. started to study and understand her life. Her state can be compared to that of a person taken out of prison and placed among beautiful nature to enjoy the pure springs and taste its fine fruit - drinking in all its inexpressible beauties. In order to correct our life we need a positive, divine science. Many of you while listening to me get inspired and say, "We can do everything in order to correct our life." However, by the end of the week this inspiration is over and you say to yourselves, "No we cannot do this. But you have hardly considered this question deeply enough." There is no question that I have not considered from a spiritual standpoint. I understand it in form, in substance and in meaning as well as in its functioning under the impulse of the Divine Will or the divine Spirit. I comprehend in will and spirit that Divine body which does not change in the world, i.e. those ideas which are changeless and exist eternally and those acts which build the world. By spirit I mean the Divine human soul. What we call life flows from this divine soul. The spirit bears love because love is the fruit of this spirit. In Bulgarian the word douh3 comes from the word blowing of the wind, so it has almost lost all sense. The spirit is that Supreme Intelligent Principle by coming-into contact with which you will by all means understand the sense of life and start living according to all its rules. Contemporary science explains the causes of all anomalies in ordinary life. The first cause is due to the unnatural food you eat. God has made person to feed on fruit, but you eat meat. Meat has filled your organisms with such poisons that it is now a sum of uncleanliness. Science proves this. If your sense of smell were normal, you would avoid being close to one another - such an awful odor is emitted by those who eat meat. When someone complains of illness, the first condition for them is to change their diet. You will ask, "But what should we eat?" Fruit. "They are expensive." In the first place you must change the conditions of your life. Do you accept the idea that there is one God who has created everything in the world and are you ready to sacrifice everything for Him? This Great Doctor within you of whom all doctors today are simply assistants says, "Live naturally!" I consider this question in a very broad sense. A fruit diet and a meat diet contain different elements owing to which two different states are produced in our organism. By the same law every thought and every feeling can produce two different states which in the distant future of our life will produce two different results. Notice that Christ placed both His hands upon this woman which means that He placed His ten fingers upon her. Do you know what it means to place both your hands on a person? There is no greater blessing than placing your hands over someone’s head. It says in the Scripture, "Christ raised His hands, blessed His disciples and breathed at them." Today you suffer from the fact that you do not raise your hands. That is praying. But you say, "I do not pray." To pray is to raise your hands and where there is proper movement it is a movement of the spirit. Prayer is movement in all directions. As the legs move the right way, the heart, the will and everything must move on its way. What would you feel in such a case? At such a moment you will feel that you are master of your world, that you have everything and have no need of anyone. They may put you in prison and still you will feel happy, but you may be in a king’s palace and still be unhappy as the humpbacked woman. A Bulgarian learned man told me he wanted money, which means that he wanted to be like the humpbacked woman. I do not deny money, because it is admitted by God, but we must not regard it of God, because we have everything. I regret the fact that all Bulgarians want to be humpbacked women since they all want houses and money. We must make sensible use of everything we have. I am not asking you to abandon this life, or leave your husbands, because you are not heroes. What do I mean by telling you to leave your husbands? I compare woman to the director of a prison who is always spying on her husband to know where he goes, what he does, how he applies her teaching and for every small mistake she beats him. When I say, "Woman, leave your husband" I mean that you should leave him free and give him freedom to cure his wounds. Today all people stick to one another like ticks and only some force can separate them. Present day religion has turned into parasitism. If I befriend a person to sponge on them for my sustenance, that is fraud. A bishop has not taken this post only to earn his living by it and look after fields and houses. When I speak about the priests, it is not that I wish you should despise them, but that you should cast out of the church everything that is impure. The idea is the essential thing. I call such priests and bishops humpbacked. When Christ comes He should place His hands on all the priests so that their humps should be straightened. The priests preach the word of God, but when they leave the church, they say, "We preach and speak this way, because this is our profession, however, we think differently. Things will go like this now, but we shall get straight in the next life." If I had spoken like this 500 years ago, I would have been burned on the stake. But I am not one of those who can be burned. You, too, who do not want to die, come to the place where I live, become its citizens; it is so spacious, there is much light there and I shall give you the best houses and the best food. Do not think that when you enter this world I am speaking to you about, you will be childless. How strange people are when they think that on entering the other life and becoming saintly, they will not bear children any more! They will bear children but they will be righteous sons and daughters, not sinful as they have been till now. To be saintly and pure means not to be humpbacked. According to this law anyone entering this kingdom and marrying, will have only two children - a boy and a girl. And when these children grow up and marry, they also will have only two children, not a Jacob, who had twelve. Christ laid his hands on the head of the humpbacked woman and said, "May the blessing of your son and daughter rest upon you, they saved you." If I tell you the past of this humpbacked woman you will see that it makes great history. All the prophets have spoken of this humpbacked woman. Read the Old Testament and you will find everywhere a description of all her forms. The Revelation also speaks about her. In her first phase she is described as a woman sitting on seven hills and in the second phase she is a pregnant woman who is bearing a child. Her child is taken and carried up to heaven, while she flees to the wilderness. That means that when the humpbacked woman is freed of her hump, she will bear a man-child, that is - your mind will awake and start thinking and your heart will start feeling. Then you will say, "From now on, I shall live for my son, i.e. for the mind and sacrifice everything for him." I take the mind as a divine essence, not as an organ. I do not take the human mind in its degenerate form, for today it has become a laughing stock. Since you say you know much, tell me what will become of you in a year’s time; will you be on the physical plane or somewhere else; will there be peace in a year and what will be the situation of Bulgaria - will it be paying taxes or not? All these things have certain correlation; they are interrelated in a certain way. If we are paying a tax today, it is what we have been owing for thousands of years. It is strange when people are afraid of the indemnity Bulgaria is to pay. But do you know what great contributions people have been paying up till now without even giving it a thought? How many lives have been ruined and why and to whom have they been paying these contributions? Because of them nothing has come out of your life yet. There is something in you, indeed, but your way is crooked. And when Christ comes to lay His hands on you, you will begin to glorify God and realize you are moving in a center. Then all that is happening to you will have another meaning. In order to raise the Bulgarian nation, God has sent His children to this small land as to a boarding-house. All nations are boarding-houses where the good divine children live. The reputation of every boarding-house rests on its food, good conditions, hygiene and order. Also in every nation there will be born people of talent, of genius, writers and poets, after them saints will be born and finally the Son of God will come who will return in order to bless this nation. The greatest reward of a boarding-house will be the fact that such and such royal son has lived in it. You will say, "Christ performed so many miracles among the Jews who did not get wiser for that, how could saints and great men bring them to sense then!" But the Bulgarians are no more sensible than the Jews. If Christ should come today among the French, the English, the German or the Bulgarian people, they would act the same way with Him as the Jews. The present wars show what the Christian nations are like. Christ must lay His hands on these humpbacked peoples so that they could become straight. I do not consider anyone cultured today, all are humpbacked. We need another, higher culture. The conditions of the present culture must change in order to prepare the appearance of the Divine culture for which we all have been called. Our future will be, determined by our thoughts, not by our external appearance. Could your thought, perceiving something from the invisible world at a given moment, avoid perverting it? Which rays of light come straight from the sun and which are refracted? Only the light and the heat coming directly from the sun can make us healthy. And when Christ laid His hands on the humpbacked woman, she was made straight and glorified God. In the ten fingers of the hand lies all the power. The number 10 means that you live with God and do His will. The number one is God - the condition under which person can develop. You must have these conditions in your descending and ascending to God and carry your blessings to suffering humanity - and to all who have gone astray from the right path. We should know the meaning of all the fingers of the hands, if we are to know what Christ meant by laying His hands on the humpbacked woman. By that he wanted to say, "Woman, you need will power." The thumb means that you must abide by the divine world and not despite the will and mind of God. The forefinger tells, be pure and keep the right which God has given you. The middle finger - decide everything according to the divine measure so that you may be always just and merciful to everybody in all your actions, do as you would be done by. The ring finger - love the divine science, the truth, the beautiful in nature, do not deceive people in trading. The little finger is related to commerce and wants to say, "Spin well your yearn and weave well." Such is the meaning of the fingers of the one hand, but I shall talk to you about the meaning of the fingers of the other some other time. And after Christ laid His hands on the humpbacked woman, she immediately stood up and said to Christ, "I understand the meaning of all You said to me which is deeply hidden in my soul." Can you also, by looking at your fingers, say that you will fulfill all that is deeply concealed in them in meaning and content? A priest blesses with two fingers and says, "In the name of the divine world, in the name of your religion and justice, on the basis of science and material life, I bless you - now give your money." You act the same way - after you do the smallest good deed, you say, "Give me your money now!" Christ did not ask the humpbacked woman to follow Him, but He said to her, "Woman, go and bring up your children according to all the rules of the divine science." And all who glorify God today descend from the humpbacked woman. They are the sons and daughters of that humpbacked woman on whom Christ laid His hands. Thousands of mothers have laid their hands on their sons who turned out to be vagabonds and scoundrels, because their mothers had not known which moment to lay their hands on them. If a farmer would stretch his hands and sow his seed on the field at an inappropriate time, there would not be any result of his sowing. This shows that there is a definite time for everything in the world at which the hands should be laid. Mothers usually bathe their babies in the morning or in the evening and that way they massage and rub them, thus laying their hands on them, but they have something in mind by doing that. It is the greatest divine art for a mother to know how to massage her baby. If she knew how to do it, the child would turn out to be a genius or a saint. It is necessary that there should be schools for the young women to learn how to bathe and massage their children. The mothers today do this in a haphazard way, in order to have more free time. I shall give you a method how to bathe your children in the future. I connect this verse with many other verses, this is how I interpret it and sign my name below it, for by signing it, its words have power. You may ask me what signing means. When you sow a field, reap the wheat and put it in the barn - this is signing. When someone writes something and puts his name below, it means they must stand by their words. But today we easily sign our name and fulfill little. Christ laid His hands only once on the humpbacked woman and she was made straight. Christ is coming now and He will lay His hands on the whole white race, then you shall have a straight woman, a new life in Europe - a re-generation will take place. The unrest and changes taking place in the world today can be compared to the process taking place in the human body. I can tell you exactly what inner process each part produces on the organism of different people. Therefore in the organism of every different nation in which the divine spirit lives, certain thoughts have been stored up for ages which we must fight against. When a people acquires good qualities, it is a blessing for that nation, but if it were to acquire bad qualities, it is a horror and terror for the good people. The good qualities are like a river carrying only good blessings, but the bad qualities are like a river which tears down and destroys everything on its way. I am speaking to you not as Bulgarians, but as thinking human beings who possess a germ of the Divine spirit, soul and will so that these elements should be joined in you and render you free citizens in the world. You will say, "If I had power, I would do this and that." No, do not desire power for you have enough of it to do anything you wish. The mother who has bathed well her child has already applied her power. If all mothers would lay their hands wisely on their children, as Christ did, this war would not have taken place today. You will ask, "But what will happen in the future?" Christ, this rational principle, stretches His hands from the sun and if you accept His thoughts, wishes and will, if all this produces a change in you so that you would realize that you are all brothers and that the happiness of one person is the happiness of another as well, your life would immediately change into a straight line moving around a center. All people today - rich, learned and so on, have different centers and they wish to form a society with such a variety of centers. This is no science, it is mere disharmony. I have come to this conclusion too. Ten or fifteen years ago I was travelling round Bulgaria investigating the heads of this people. I have measured them with different circular instruments and compasses making calculations and have arrived at certain conclusions. Many people have asked me on observing my calculations, "What are you doing?" "I am learning how to make calculations."4 I already know what problems are of interest to the Bulgarians. On my trips people ask me, "Where do you come from and where are you going to, what is the purpose of your trip and so on?" Once I said, "I come from the sun to make observations in Bulgaria." "Would you impart some of your investigations’ results to us?" "This I cannot do." "What else are you doing?" "I give lectures." "Do they pay you for that?" "No, I do it free of charge." "How is that? Are you not married and how many children do you have; are your father and brothers still living; are you Bulgarian?" "I am Bulgarian for the time being." Then I hear them say, "He is paid by someone that is why he is a learned man. I, too, would become learned if I were paid." You too should measure your heads daily with your compasses. I have measured and observed many eyes, ears, eyebrows, noses and have come to a conclusion as to what a long nose means, a broad nose, thick eyebrows, a high or a low forehead and so on. With these conclusions I have come to the theorem of Pythagoras and see people whose hypotenuse is turned upward, but such people are not promising, you cannot expect anything of them. You will say, "What shall we do with such people?" turn the hypotenuse downward, not upward, i.e. the apex of the triangle should point up which means that the brain of person should be constructed on a square, not on a hypotenuse. Otherwise the front part of the head - the part of the mental abilities - will be very poorly developed and egoism, the animalistic nature, will prevail. Such a person will be capable of any criminal act unconscious of what the future would hold for them. Sometimes a young couple comes to me asking me if they should marry, whether they are suitable for each other and will get along well. I say, "The hypotenuse of your beloved is turned upward, you should not marry or if you do, you will be beaten, since you will be taking a half that is not yours." And when Christ laid His hands on the woman, her hypotenuse was turned downwards. The stretched hands should be horizontal. All distances from the top of the forehead to the ear should be equal. Place a person whose distances are not equal in any kind of society and they would not profit by the benefits of life, but if the relations change, all the manifestations of a person will change also. You can test this by any animal. Place a cruel wild animal under the most favorable conditions and it will not change. Many people have human form, but their head must be built according to the rules of the rational numbers in mathematics and geometry, not on the irrational ones. Have you studied rational equations? There are rational roots in the world. They are the divine foundations deeply inserted in our genesis. As you begin to understand these mathematical relations, when you see a regular geometrical figure, you will grasp at once the divine conditions within it. When you see a flower with five, six, seven or more petals, do you know whether these numbers are rational or irrational? Do you know what problems are hidden in these numbers of the flowers? I am trying to find a suitable language to explain this mathematics to the Bulgarians which can express the relation of these numbers in the petals and blossoms of the flowers. These lines and forms must become alive in you. Mathematics must become alive and a teacher must know on what numbers each head is built. You must have a deep understanding of these things so that when you see a person, you can immediately tell what kind of a person they are by observing their eyebrows, eyes, nose, ears, hair - whether it is thick or fine and so on. Nothing is by chance in the world. If the hairs of a woman are thick, she spins a thick yarn, but you may expect much of a woman with fine hairs. You will ask me, "Can all this be possible concealed in the humpbacked woman?" Yes, everything is concealed in her. If you learn all this you will understand the whole individual and the whole contemporary social, political and spiritual life. We shall come to know one another by external features, just as a doctor can tell what a person’s illness is by its external symptoms. The doctor comes, looks at your tongue and knows there is some kind of poisoning in your organism; then he examines your eyes and if they look yellow, s/he knows that the liver is not functioning normally. Doctors usually prescribe to sick people highly nutritious rich food, but the condition of the patient becomes worse by such food. I recommend to the sick hunger for two or three days after which they can eat prune compote (stewed prunes) and two or three hours later - the same compote with a little bread. After the patient recuperates a little, I shall give them a nice apple which they should chew well without peeling it so that they should absorb all its juice and after all that I will offer them the ordinary food they eat. When a poor person falls ill and has no means to call for a doctor, they either get well by themselves or visit the other world. This shows that the person’s hour for leaving this world has come and therefore, they should prepare themselves for that. Once I wrote to a friend of mine who was getting ready to depart, the following thing, "Your house is already in a dilapidated state, it is composed of many irrational numbers so you must abandon it and go to prepare good materials for your new house." The humpbacked woman on whom Christ laid His hands immediately sloughed off her old body as a snake sloughs off it skin or a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. You must pass through the same law. If a fundamental transformation, which can change you, does not take place, you cannot profit by the food nature gives you. During the greatest misfortunes there is a most abundant food. Do you know how much food is stored in the Vitosha mountain? If it could be utilized today, all Bulgarians would be nourished. But you are sinful and you will misuse it. But in the future people will be trained not to misuse the benefits of nature. The program for the future culture is provided for and the work for men, women and children is determined. In the future people will know each other from a distance, they will walk without hats and work only for two hours daily. The socialists want in their program eight working hours a day physical work. You may object, "But if people get a sun stroke? Besides, Apostle Paul said that women should not walk with uncovered heads." What does being bare-headed mean? It is to receive a blessing, but Apostle Paul has said that they should cover their heads only when they are with their husbands, while outside they should take their cover off, in order to hear bare-headed what Christ will say. When you are out under the open sky, you should take everything off your head so that you would be able to receive the Divine grace and hear what Christ says. But today people are wearing such big hats under which there is such a loud buzzing that they can hear nothing of what Christ is speaking. People are wearing such big hats that they become ministers, millionaires and what not - how can they understand the will of God then? We are all so rich that there is nothing more we could wish for, but we should give freedom to all our brothers to develop their wealth and not to put any obstacles on their way. I make a special recommendation to the Bulgarians not to spoil things. I have been observing them since more than twenty years and I see that they spoil what another has built and then they say, "Why do things go wrong with us!" Do not destroy, but build on what another has already built. That is what is happening to me too. I have been working for so many years on one and the same thing, but the priests are trying to tear down what I am teaching you. If what I am speaking to you is my own, I would tear it down too, but since it is divine and no one will speak the same way after me, the Bulgarians should build their life upon this teaching. I do not wish to destroy the churches or to change the social order, but I am telling you to throw out of the church and different parties only that which is unfit. After that let all preachers, teachers, guerillas join hands and begin to build together, help one another and continue the work of living nature. As to destruction, I can be a master of this too. Do not think that a good person cannot destroy as well. Eve said a single word to the snake and humanity has been suffering for as much as 8,000 years because of that word. Eve said to the snake, "After I eat the fruit you are offering me, if I actually become like God, I promise that all my sons and daughters shall serve you." That is why the woman Christ saved was humpbacked. Christ laid His hands on her and said to her, "Woman, be careful not to make such promises a second time. Now go and give birth." Outside of God there is no life, outside the divine science there is no science. Now, thanks to the humpbacked woman who began to glorify God, today we have a new culture. Shall I also lay my hands on you, or still keep them folded together? I shall not lay my hands on a person whose mind, heart and stomach are disturbed. Now I am speaking if the name of God. When I turn on the divine tap, all the blessings will come upon you, but if I do not turn it on, you will dig wells. When I turn on this tap, you will have such an abundance of water that you will not need to pay for it. That is why Christ said, "If you knew who is speaking to you, you would want and He would give you living water." And that humpbacked woman understood Him. I wish the Bulgarians would not be humpbacked. I shall wait for a few more years and see if the clergy and the teachers will get awake. If they do not come to consciousness, we shall put in a bag all their irrational numbers and make them calculate these. This is God’s decision: knowledge will be given only to those who will not misuse it. Today we see how in Russia the most sacred and religious ideas of humanity are misused. In the future such things will not be tolerated. When Christ laid His hands on the woman, He said to her, "Woman, understand and keep God’s law. When you turn to God, your hands must be always clean." When you turn to God, He will see the construction of your fingers, whether they are rational or irrational numbers, and say if you should be accepted or sent back. This is one great science which, once learnt, will transform all parties and separate individuals who will begin to glorify God. Then all parties will be based on the rational numbers. The number 10 is rational, but 5 is irrational. Man is number 5, that is why all does not go well with him. He must be joined to woman so that together they should become the number 10, which is a rational number. Hence, the law has it that two irrational numbers added give a rational one. The combination of the living numbers will affect the future life. What I am speaking is not clear to you, but that does not matter. Thank God for what you do not understand as well as for what you understand. What you understand will throw light on what you have not understood. Now, when you go back home, examine both sides of your hands and a bright idea may come to you. When you rise in the morning hold your hand for five minutes against the sun as you warm it by a stove. If you are well disposed, you will learn many more things than you would understand in a whole senseless life. If you understood well these things, you would see that all the energy and will are hidden in the hands and it is through them that we become ill or healthy. When a person starts hiding their thumb among the other fingers, that is a bad sign - they will not have luck. When one holds their hand in a fist, it means - you will be beaten." Some people keep together the four fingers of the hand, but the little finger stays open. That means: "My interests differ from those of other people." People must learn how to hold their hands. Many orators do not know how to hold their hands, they are embarrassed. This shows that their heart, mind and will are not in accord. Drop your hands calmly down and say, "God will help me," then raise them up and an idea will be born in you. Someone says they are honest people, but they shut their eyes and look down. Open your eyes and say you are an honest person. Today we say things opposite to the good life. A child says they will obey, but they look down. A child who picks his/her nose or ears, is not a good child. When someone asks you for help, but scratches behind their ear, it shows they have no definite idea. When Christ laid His ten fingers, He expressed the science the results of which are mathematically calculated. Prayer is a science and you must study a long time how to hold your hands correctly and how to move your tongue. Someone has a frightening look. Why? Because the world in such a person is unorganized. Another person has a cruel look or glances askew. Why? Because the angle of the theorem of Pythagoras is crooked. You must always have a soft look in your eyes which should be open in a restful state, always ready to receive a Divine Truth. This is what Christ spoke to the humpbacked woman, this is what I also tell you, so that your humps may be made straight. Everything in you - your eyes, ears, nose, foreheads, fingers must be rational numbers that your humps may be made straight. Then you will understand whether there is Truth, Wisdom and Love in the world. I say: there are virtues, there is absolute righteousness, wisdom, love and truth. You are living in a Divine world which you must accept within you. And when will the new children of the new generation come? Many beings have prepared this world for you, set the table and are waiting for you. But you may find some reason to refuse and answer, "I have bought a field I am going to see; I have bought five pairs of oxen, I am going to examine them; I have married and wish to have a good time with my wife, so I cannot come." This is how the learned men answered in the time of Christ, but you should not give such an answer. You may work in your field, you may test your five pairs of oxen, or get married and yet serve God. Now I wish all of your humps to get straight. My words concern those who have humps. If anyone’s hump is straight, let them excuse me. If someone has no hump but becomes offended, it shows that they do have a hump. When you go back home, read and meditate on this verse and on what has been said that you may create your own philosophy which will be the basis for a better understanding of Christ’s teaching. Sermon held on June 8, 1919. _______________________________________________________ 1 Luke 13:13 2 Bulg. For "woman" (transl. note) 3 douh- Bulg. For spirit (trans, note); douham- Bulg. Blow (for wind) (ed. note) 4 The Master is referring to the phrenological research he made between 1901-1913 when he travelled around the country delivering lectures. (ed. note)

The Book - The Salt. Beinsa Douno The Rejected Stone "The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner."1 Is there anything of interest in a rejected stone? You will ask me, "What content or philosophy is there in a rejected stone?" There are millions of such neglected stones in Bulgaria. In the building of a house many stones remain unused. The trouble of it is that they turn into obstacles in life. After reading the whole chapter of Mark you will see the relation of this verse to the other verses and understand why these words were spoken. If there were no builders, this stone would not be mentioned, therefore, the builders are to blame. When a house is being built, the builders pile up stones and break them, that is why many stones are left over. Therefore by the word "stone" the process of building is implied. People who pursue the positive sciences say that all things must be visible, tangible and real. However, not all tangible things are true or real. Thousands of things in the world are not proved, yet they are true. There are thousands of philosophers in the world we know nothing of, but what they have said is right. There are many eminent philosophers as well, but their philosophy is not right. When I read a book of philosophy, I renounce 50% of its truthfulness, then I subtract 25% more and consider only the last 25%. The number 25 is meaningful to me - it is a law by which I measure all things. You may object, saying that days and nights are measured by a 24 hour cycle, but the earth does not turn around its axis in 24 hours exactly, but rather in a period of about 25 hours. The number 25 has a relation to the human life as well as to the earth. Number 25 is composed of two numbers 2 and 5 which added give the number of 7. You will say that you have known the meaning of the number 22 since your schooldays. All students weep when they get a 2 at a subject, in fact the whole world is weeping because all suffering, all sins, the destruction and creation of worlds begin with the number 2. You may have a noble son, pure as virgin, for whose education and upbringing you have not spared any money. One day a young woman sets her eyes on him and wants to marry him because the number 2 without 1 is only a reflection of the number 1. Every number has its reflection. When you study astronomy, you will see that there are certain reflections also. In physics, too, there are reflections. For instance the light on the earth is a reflection. It is the shadow of light which consists of billions of vibrations. Now you are studying only things in which there are vibrations, e.g. you are studying only the shadows of the reflections. Where there is motion, there is the place of shadows. I do not say that shadows are not real things, but they are transitory. A shadow may serve us temporarily, but you cannot make it a foundation of your life. But why is it that the numbers 2 and 5 have an equal relation to us? The number 5 is the sum of 2 by 2 plus 1. Therefore, the human mind is nothing but 2 women married to the same man. The human mind converses with two women, agreeing with the one and disagreeing with the other. This state is similar to a country of two parties - a conservative and a democratic one. The occultists call one the higher mind, or higher manas, and the other - the inferior mind, or manas inferior. But I call such mind a mind of two women and according to the present laws of the church such a mind is subject, to excommunication. For this reason it must learn to live with a single woman. What will remain then? When we subtract 2 from 5 3 remains - the number with which we can start our life. A man and a woman may quarrel, but when two women start quarrelling the house gets all "smoke and dust". To verify this, read the story of Jacob who married the younger and older daughters of Laban. See what their relations were. Jacob had 12 sons the eleventh of whom was Joseph. Why did his brothers sell Joseph, who was the eleventh, and not some other? You will say this is a "chance coincidence". Coincidence is a karmic law, it is a measured law of action. I shall not stop to explain why Joseph had to be sold. The stone among Jacob’s sons was the one which should have made the corner stone but the builders rejected it. Joseph was sold by his brothers, but later he became the head of the corner. During the great famine, as an eminent man in Egypt, Joseph saved from hunger many people, including his brothers. This story does not refer only to the Jews, but to all people as well. The misfortunes of every home are due to the rejection of this stone. It is the number 11. Which of the two women remains in the home? The most intelligent and practical one, but in my opinion, not the best. A good woman is always ready to give her place to others. Contemporary society and contemporary homes suffer an inner division, because two women are competing for the same man - who should possess him. You know how Jacob’s two wives bribed him. One day one of Jacob’s sons was sent by his mother to bring her some mushrooms. Then his mother said to Jacob, "I bought you tonight with mushrooms, that is why you will come to me." You will say, "Can a person be bribed this way?" All people can be bribed. Tell me whether during this war there remained a single unbribed person!" All of you, men and women listening to me, can you honestly say you have not been bribed? I do not judge you by saying this, but I am stating a truth. In one of his poems Slaveikov3 says with irony, "Coin, coin, almighty queen, with one’s in paradise; without you, he’s nowhere." All the spiritual people today talk about the Lord all the time and recite, "Lord, Lord, You are our coin and when we worship You, we are in paradise, but if we forsake You, we are nowhere." Money is a woman corrupting contemporary society - it is a house of debauchery. And actually all crimes today are committed only for the sake of money. A woman marries a man for his money and because his hands are strong and can earn a living. When someone says they love ideally, they deceive themselves. The cat catches the mouse in the same ideal way and the wolf seizes the sheep similarly. In the past when God created the wolf, He sent him to guard the sheep as their shepherd. At first the wolf started making use of their wool, then he tasted their milk and finally - their flesh. God chased the wolf away into the forest for his last act and put in his place the dog, which faithfully fulfills its mission to this very day. Basically, what is this stone which the builders rejected and which became the head of the corner? How can this be geometrically understood - the head of the corner? Why should it not be the head of the line? You, who have studied geometry, what can you say about the direction this head must be turned to: must it point upward, downward or sideways? If we turn this angle downward, we have one direction of movement, if we turn it upward, there is another direction of movement. Your body without the arms represents this stone, while your two arms form the angle. I want you to study the living geometry. A person is built upon geometric principles. You may ask me, "Can there be an angle without lines?" No, that cannot be, it is a law. The angle shows two opposite forces acting in the same direction and having the same center. Since these forces are heterogeneous, there will always be certain space between them forming a plane called an angle in geometry. If the forces are homogeneous, they will move along a straight line. You will say you know these things. No, you do not understand them yet. "The stone that the builders rejected became the head of the corner." Where did they reject it from? There is a legend about the great Egyptian pyramid in Ghizah which tells the story of the top stone of the pyramid. When they started building it, the top stone was the first to be cut out, but since the pyramid was built for ages, the stone being laid aside remained unused since no one knew what it was for. When the pyramid was completed, the chief master came and placed the rejected stone on the top as the head of the pyramid. Thus that stone became the head of the corner. The pyramid shows human evolution. The stone which must be placed on the top so that the evolution of man should be completed, lies kicked around. Today all philosophers kick that stone around. Do you know the size of this pyramid? There were about 6 million tons of stone in it. Archeologists say that for the transportation of the material of this pyramid, 60,000 machines each containing 100 tons are needed. You can imagine what human efforts this pyramid had cost! You will say, "What is the meaning of this pyramid?" It has great meaning for it is the emblem of the present person and its dimensions and measurements contain encoded all the events which took place in the past and will take place in the future. It also contains all the astronomical lore in all detail. One might read the past and the present history of humanity on this pyramid, though few can really do it for the language is very difficult to understand. Some scientists today read a few books and think they know much. Do not deceive yourselves thinking that way. In my opinion only the person who can lay hold on death and control it has real knowledge. Therefore, you may be a philosopher, a theologist, a mystic, or anything else, but if death crushes you, your science is not positive and your stone is rejected. The Scriptures say that the rejected stone became the head of the corner. Of which corner? Of love and wisdom in the invisible world. A great secret is concealed in the creation of the world and of the whole cosmos. You think that only present-day people are fighting and experiencing such enmities. What is happening today is the reflection of the past. All this hatred and wrong-headedness among people is not a product of the present, but of the past. I can prove this by a number of facts. For instance, a person falls ill in some part of their body, but this illness has its cause 100, 200 or 1,000 years ago. The doctors say this illness has appeared about 20 years ago at the most. The illnesses are caused by a large quantity of sediments in the body causing an anarchy and a reaction in the organism as a result of which the temperature rises up to 39°, 40° or 41° C4 and we are horrified of the coming end of life. But there is nothing horrible about this temperature. A person may remain alive not only at 41°, but at 100°, 200°, 2,000° degrees Celsius. "Can a person survive at such high temperature in his present physical state?" People today are a laughing stock of humanity in their present physical state. If you had a chance of studying a person under a special microscope, you would see how beautiful s/he is. We may mix up two ideas in our mind - that of the spiritual and of the material. We live with spiritual ideas in our mind, but when we have had a good meal, we say, "Today we are well." But when we get hungry on the next day, we begin to worry again and think of the material. After a woman has eaten, she says, "Thank you, God, I am pleased today, there is no deficit." I ask you: what science is there in a life full only of deficits? Today men, women and children enter the kitchen and say, "How good it smells!" This is the way bishops and teachers act and then they say, "We are cultured people, ideal people." Yes, you are cultured people of the frying pan and the butter. Some ask why I do not teach you something more philosophical. Give me some of your philosophy so that I can see what it is like. I draw a circle and ask you what it means. It signifies a great idea which has given rise to genesis. This circle shows the way the world began. Originally the world began with a circle without a center which later was formed of itself, or this Original Cause moved circularly and then stopped. After that from the surface of this first movement, the original condition was lost and an inactive state, or as the Hindus say "darkness", was formed - the period of Kaliyoga. In time a small point appeared in the center of this circle as you place a compass on a piece of paper and clraw a circle. Thus, this power after defining the limits within which it would work, entered the center and worked out its circle, in order to form the universe. I call this a state of pregnancy of the cosmos with a great idea. This small point is the important thing. You say, "How can this small point be important!" Yes, these small points do everything in the world. For instance, a sickness attacks you, but at the same time a small pimple forms puss somewhere on your body and attracts your attention. So, all your worries concentrate on the small pimple. When a certain harmony is to be attained within you, a small point must appear - you see your ideals in the center and say that now life makes sense. But I say - now your life is pregnant with an idea. You ask, "Do people live only with ideas?" Yes, people vegetate with food, but live with ideas. You should not mistake vegetating with living - these are two different states. You ask, "Shall we exist?" Has there been a time when you have not existed? Can a part say it has not existed in the whole? Every part has existed in the whole. When a part is individualized within the whole, it starts its individual existence. Existing5 means manifesting, coming from the Sanskrit word sat meaning to manifest. When you begin to think, to move and to do good and evil, you exist. In this respect good and evil are the two acting forces in the world. Evil lies in the fact that the builders rejected this stone. When a person rejects a great idea in his/her mind or a good desire in his/her heart, and when a nation rejects its ideals and is bribed for money, they lose. If the statesmen paid heed to the ideals of the people, they would not make mistakes. When the statesperson and the spiritual person become individualized, they begin to think that their prosperity lies outside this stone. You can build a whole human body, it has no value whatever. You may be a millionaire, but without this stone you will be a person without a head, or a positive soul, or a positive spirit. The mind, the soul and the spirit are three different ideas. What is positive? What undergoes alterations, but does not change. The positive is master of its fate and does not try to dominate the world. In the positive there is always an aspiration to be in accord with the great harmony which has existed since times immemorial. There must be harmony everywhere among men, women and children, there must be harmony in all homes. Some say, "I can get along well with my husband even if there is no harmony between us." No, you cannot live that way. How many men have I seen running away from such a life! Do you know what these men can be compared to? One day Nastradin Hodja6 was leading home ten donkeys quite loaded with wood, but when they got tired, they did not want to walk anymore. Nastradin Hodja wondered what to do to make them walk. A traveller passed by and said there was a cure against the stubbornness of the donkeys. He gave a hot pepper and told Nastradin Hodja to rub their bottoms below the tail. This being done, the donkey quickly got home. Do not take this example in a bad sense, however. The same thing applies to you as well. When you have a sore throat, they give you some hot medicine. In order to be cured, you are given something bitter or hot. A husband, after his wife has rubbed him with her thoughts, either takes to the tavern or runs away to some foreign country. This refers to women as well. I do not want to blame you by telling you all this. I take the number two as a form. This number exists within you as a state of contradiction. We shall get rid of the contradictions in life when we place this stone as the head of the corner. It alone can unite love and wisdom so that they can work in the great harmony; it alone can make the body, lungs and all organs function properly so that the whole person can be manifested. I hear people talking today that the Lord will set the world right. I also believe that the Lord will set the world right, but the question is whether we shall be able to set our inner world right. When spring comes the flowers begin to bloom, the healthy people welcome it by joy and smile, but the sick people meet the sun and spring quite differently. Spring is pleasant to the healthy people, but it means cleansing up of the organism of the sick, so that the months of April and May are months of crisis for them. The Bulgarians say that the months of March, April and May put paid to the accounts of the sick and give energy and impulse to the healthy. We are linked with all forces of nature, since they function in our body as well. We are the builders rejecting this stone - this conscious understanding - and saying, "General bettering of the world is necessary." This bettering, however, is like spring. What is important is whether I shall be in a state to profit by it. You say, "Humanity must be bettered first." Humanity has been set right since the distant past, but its individual members, regardless of sex and title, have not been set right. I say that everyone lacks something. So long as we die, we have no head; so long as we suffer, we have no knowledge. Thus, when the center of the circle came into being, the universe became pregnant, then the point moved and divided the circle in two. By that the universe determined itself and first bore the woman who divided the world originally. That is why half of the world is light and half of it dark. Man became angry with the woman who divided the world that is why today he illuminates only half of the world - the half he likes. These two women chase one another, but he always gives light to the one he likes. The woman who rejoices is called day, but the angry one is called night. Or in other words, the rejoicing woman is manas superior, or the day, while the angry woman is manas inferior or night. These two angles are the two women. Why does a person have two hands, two legs, the brain and the lungs double, the heart double too and so on? Everything is divided because there are two women. You will say, "Then let us do away with the number two." We need not do away with it, but rather understand its essence. In my opinion, matter is a reflection of the spirit. Matter is also a woman. This woman does not bear children all the time. We have fallen into the arms of the dark mother who is constantly kneading us saying, "Will you still hold on to that father who was disloyal to me? Leave him and come to me for I shall give you happiness." Those people who believe in the reality of the world, we call materialists. Tomorrow when your eyes, arms, stomach, brain and so on decay, all reality is lost. The nerves decay too. Where is reality? Where is the positive in the world? You will say, "We are believers, we believe in one God." I am glad for that, but have you been with your light mother, have you seen the light side of the earth? In order to come to know the earth, you must go 10,000 kilometers in space and see from that height what it is like. From the point of view of the cultural people living higher than you, you are like fish living on the bottom of the ocean. The cultured people living above you say, "Shall we leave this person here, or shall we send him/her to reincarnate?" And death is nothing but bait on a fishing rod for catching the fish. The Lord says, "This divine net will be cast to the end of the world; some will be taken out of the sea on the shore, while others will be cast again into the sea." In all manifestations of nature we must see positive unchangeable things. What does the unchangeable consist in? In our desire to be in brotherly relations with all people and understand that all people suffer the same way in this world, regardless of the fact whether we are rich or poor, educated or simple, parents or children. When we realize the fact that we have the same suffering and the same fate, that the salvation of one is a salvation of another as well, we shall come to a right philosophy of life. But not to an understanding as the world and the church have today. Why? Because if the solution of a small problem is right for a student, it does not mean that the whole of mathematics is exhausted. In geometry, too, there are many geometrical formulae which are not proved. The theorem that the sum of the three angles in a triangle is equal to two right angles does not contain the whole of geometry. Therefore, we should take a more serious attitude to all problems and consider what kind of people we should be at the present moment. If we say we are bad now, but shall be good in the future, this is not a right solution to the problem. Your present bad experiences are your past, but your present good deeds are your future. Our goodness can be tested. It can be tested the same way as the change occurring in a hungry person can be tested after s/he has eaten. Such a person becomes more cheerful and gay. To think idealistically is to haye for the present time such essential food which can give strength and an impulse to our mind. We can take this strength and food from anywhere. In my opinion, all writers of all calibers are flowers so that as the bees you can take honey from whichever flower you wish. Do not ask why so many kinds of flowers were created: they all have a definite purpose. Everything good or bad, every thought, every angel or demon also have their role in the cosmos. What are the angels and demons? They represent motion in two opposite directions. The former are full pails going upward and the latter are empty pails coming down. We want only full pails - well, but when they are emptied from where and how will they be filled? Therefore, when righteous people go above, they become sinners, but the sinners will become righteous. This way the wheel along which runs the progress of humanity is in motion. People must be conscious of the fact that they can be sinners and righteous people, but they must do the will of God. A person who builds will soil him/herself. Do not think that you will not be disturbed by the laws of the state. We must have in ourselves other laws which determine our existence, for when Bulgaria and all countries vanish, the earth and the solar system are transformed, we shall still exist. The earth will change, it will not be what it is today, that is why Bulgaria does not determine your existence, but you determine the existence of Bulgaria. Thus I say, on the earth the whole depends on its parts whereas in the spiritual world the parts depend on their whole. I shall explain this thought to you. Twenty million people on the earth can become united by a common idea and common feelings and form a nation. However, one day their ideas and feelings may change just as a caterpillar changes when it is transformed into a butterfly. A nation is placed in a given form only for 40 days during which time it must fulfill all its duties toward itself and after that it must start living with other ideas and feelings. Then we can exchange the words Bulgarian, French, German for quite different notions. When we say hand, leg, brain, lungs, we have a certain idea. Thus everything makes sense in its organism. What does the word Bulgarian mean in the general organism? I place the Bulgarians in the liver, but you must know that the particles in the liver, like all beings, constantly undergo and evolution and change. The same way after a time the Bulgarians will pass into another form of development. You will look for the Bulgarian then higher in the organism. It is great wisdom to understand the meaning of the rejected stone. A stone represents what is changeless, constant and permanent. We belong to a certain church but we reject the principles of nature. We should know that our philosophers will vanish, but the principles of nature will remain invariable. What \ mother-nature has created survives. Think now why you were born men or women; why in a family a girl is born first or the opposite - a boy comes first; why a certain philosophic system appeals to you; why you have become Christians and so on. You will answer me, "Because Christianity saves people." I agree 50% with you. Then I say, "You were ill but have already left the hospital." In such case what has a hospital have to do with you since you have become healthy and have started to plow and sow? Or will you start returning to the hospital every day to thank the doctor for having healed you? One day the doctor will say to you, "Enough with your thanks for I have other ill patients." You will say, "We must pray to God." Of course we must pray, but not as ill people, rather as healthy persons. As ill people you should drink your medicines, lie on your back, turn over in your bed, kneel out of pain, while as healthy people you will take your plough and go straight to your field or vineyard and make bows there. Every sick person is a Christian. But you will say, "I belong to another party." No matter what party you are from, or what creed you uphold - a Buddhist, a Mohammedan, a theosophist, an occultist, if you are sick, you are "Christian"7. Some people ask me, "Why has not Christianity set the world right?" I answer thus, "Christianity is a doctrine for sick people who it has helped so far as it had been able to, but in the world there is no doctrine for the healthy people yet." Someone says, "I want to deal with great ideas." I ask you, "Are you through with all medicines, with all sick people, did you bid goodbye to all the nurses and did you leave the hospital?" If you have done with all this, you may enter the world to learn the law of Christianity and then you can find your light mother. You, present-day people, are Christians, but you are not sons of God yet. Woe now to them who call themselves sons of God for they will be hanged, called heretics or crazy fellows. The Son of God is a person sound physically, morally, mentally who does not die. This is how I define him. We must understand Christ’s teaching well. Christ says, "I have come not to do my own will, but the will of Him Who has sent me." Who is He? You do not know Him yet. Everyone is groping about looking for Him, lighting candles for Him, burning incense for Him; people look up, eat and drink and read, yet no one knows Him yet. This is the bitter truth. "This is life eternal to know the only true God." What does God mean? God means a movement in the right direction of your life. God is what stimulates your right movement. I translate or interpret the word movement by the word Love, because only Love causes movement. When two young people fall in love, they move towards each other. When people begin to love a teaching, they begin to love everybody. Thus, the sick people whom I call "Christians" have rejected this corner stone, because they do not need it. Like sick people, we lie on our backs and expect to be served. A doctor comes to the sick person, the latter groans, "Oh, Doctor!" but when they are served meat balls, they eat. They eat but they groan as well. Your cuisines are for sick people. A man comes home from work and starts shouting, "Why have you not cooked anything, don’t you know I am a sick man, a Christian?" You call the name Christian a noble name. Yes, as long as you are in the hospital, but once you leave it you are no more a Christian. Do not understand me wrong, I am reasoning ideally. There are no contradictions in the world for me, everything is clear. If you could understand the problems the way I do, the world would be set right in a single day. I consider people today tied to one another to be more sure in life. But I say: stop tying yourselves for tying shows a sickly consciousness, since only sick people become insured. Old people say, "We must be insured." That means: we must humble ourselves and become Christians living for God in our old age. These are all people who reject the living stone. Every person who does not fulfill the will of God grows old. I shall tell you a story by Shakespeare taken from the Danish life. A very wise king wanted to make an experiment with a famous man in his land called for his sanctity and purity "Anthony the righteous". The king called Anthony one day and said to him, "I want you to rule instead of me for sometime, but my people must now know about my absence." At first Anthony the Righteous did not agree to the proposal, but later accepted it. He sat in the king’s throne and since there was much debauchery in the land at that time, he issued a severe decree: "Anyone caught in debauchery should be executed." The son of an eminent Danish courtier was convicted of this crime. Anthony the Righteous called him and said to him, "You have committed a crime and according to the decree you should be executed." The youth was frightened and decided to send his sister, who was a great beauty preparing herself to enter a convent, to plead for his life. When Anthony saw the beautiful woman, he said to her, "I shall forgive your brother only under the condition that you become my lover without anyone knowing about it." Anthony the Righteous was married and divorced and had become righteous later in life. The sister was disgusted by that condition and told her brother he had to suffer his penalty. The brother asked her, "Is there anything wrong in this, if you agree, you will at least make a sacrifice for me." The wise king learned secretly this fact and sent for Anthony’s divorced wife, telling her to disguise herself as the beautiful young maiden and visit Anthony on the set day. After satisfying his desire, Anthony issued a verdict for the execution of the young man, thus showing his cunning. The wise king heard about this and ordered the director of the prison not to kill the young man. After that he called Anthony for an explanation. Anthony the Righteous made his confession saying, "I was able to overcome everything in the world, but could not resist the beauty of the young woman and fell. The fall of all people today is like this. People who join a society or a brotherhood without faith in it, commit the same debauchery. People who pass from one brotherhood to another, who marry twice or three times are like Anthony the Righteous in my eyes and they will not acquire any wisdom. Wisdom is within nature itself, within us that is why we must heed its inner impulse and go in the direction of that stone which will show us whom or what we must join. If a person acquires wisdom and intends to misuse it, they commit debauchery. Those who acquire love and misuse it also commit adultery. Every noble thought or feeling which becomes perverted is adultery. Therefore, the whole world is ill. All sick people today are "Christians". The greatest disgrace for Christ to bear in the world today is the "Christianity" with which people deck themselves. If you place this disgrace on your back only for 24 hours, you will feel the greatest repulsion in the world when you see how everything today is done in the name of Christ. All the worst things today are done in the name of religion, civilization and sacred feelings. And how degraded are the incentives for all this! That is why we must all endeavor to become sons of God. Now I shall interpret the word Christianity in a reverse sense. Christ is the man who is always in sound health and has put order in His thoughts and desires, has conquered His passions and deserves to be called the Son of God. Only when we learn the Divine wisdom shall we be able to understand the truth and become masters of the conditions of our life. Only then can we change the world and be called sons of God. But today the sick people rule the world that is why it is full of knives, medicines, hospital beds, needles for injections and so on. This present science will be only for the sick people, but they will be only tormented by it. Today we meet people of different classes who cannot come to terms with each other. A person today is a cross without a circle, i.e. a person in the hospital who says to others, "We must bear our cross." An Englishman once told me "to put Christ on" and I answered him "to put Christ in," i.e. he told me "to be clothed in Christ" and I answered him "to receive Christ within ourselves." Some songs have the words, "Let us be clothed in Christ." But I say: we should not be clothed in Christ because dressing is a temporary process, it is a transition, but we should accept Christ inwardly, become sons of God and restore our health. If contemporary society thinks this way, it will learn this law correctly. People will learn what is good by suffering. A new element has entered the earth which will set the world right - the pure air. Take a sick person up the mountain in the pure air and s/he will get well in spite of his/her will. A moment is coming when we shall be healed without being aware of it. Sufferings are stimuli which take us up a high place. When someone commits a sin, s/he gets ill and says, "I shall not do this anymore." That is, they put paid to their account. When we put paid to our sins, we must receive love, the wisdom of health and immortality; then we shall be near the door of the great temple in which we shall learn the great truth of life. We are aspiring for a kind of life which you can have only after you have left these hospitals. From today on stop saying that Christ saves you, but say, "We shall live for Christ and help the sick to leave the hospitals; then we shall lead them out of the city life, because it is unsanitary." We must go out in the fields and start digging and ploughing there. The Bulgarian who ploughs says that Bulgaria is in order, but they who do not plough worry which lands will be given to Bulgaria, which parts of Macedonia, which part of Dobrudja8, etc. This is not fit for a Bulgarian, such a person does not live even in the liver of the general organism but lower than that. Take your plough and goad, plough and sow without weeds and say, "We are healthy people of the new culture, thank God we got rid of the hospitals!" One more example: there were two paralyzed men in a hospital who were considered hopeless cases, so they were isolated. Fortunately for them one day the hospital took fire and in the hurry all the sick were carried out of the hospital but the two paralyzed men. Lying in their beds they felt the heat and the approaching fire. At this crucial moment of their life, they forgot their illness and ran out of the hospital. Finding themselves healthy again they thanked God the hospital burned so they should get free from this great slavery. You say now, "Let the hospital be set on fire so that we paralytics may go out and say, "Thank God we can think now as God wishes, not as people want us to think." Sermon held on June 1, 1919 Sofia. ________________________________________________ 1 Mark 12:10 2 On the 5/6 scale grading system 2 is the failing grade. (ed. note) 3 A Bulgarian poet of the 19th century. 4 0°C= 32°F 39°C= 102,2°F, 41°C= 105.8°F (ed. note) 5 In Bulgarian- sashtestvuvane (ed. note) 6 A Turkish trickster man in Bulgarian folklore. (ed. note) 7 The Master makes distinction between Christianity as a religious institution and Christianity as a spiritual teaching. Used metaphorically, it implies all religions. (ed. note) 8 Reference to the anxieties surrounding the end of WWI. (ed. note)

The Book - The Salt. Beinsa Douno The Table of the New Testament "And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meal in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples."1 Here is an ordinary verse without substance or sense similar to an ordinary little stone keeping its wealth inside, not outside itself. I shall use the word "publican" in the sense of simple people. The poor person and the sinner are two brothers. The poor person is dispirited of money and gold, therefore they lack means, but the rich person always uses the poor person for work. The sinner is a person deprived of wisdom and knowledge that is why s/he sins. I call the simple people "bankers". But I call the present day bankers "tax collectors". They collect the taxes or take 5% or 10% interest, as much as they can. The tax collectors today also collect their percentage. And those publicans and sinners came and sat at the table with Christ. You may ask, "How is it possible for such a Master to admit such people to sit at the table with Him?" By the word table I understand school not the old school, the Old Testament of Moses, but the new school of Christ. Christ’s disciples are the first disciples of the new school, of the New Testament. The publicans and sinners represent the old culture, the old school - the Law of Moses. Are all children who enter school learned? Most of them are simple and ignorant. How many children at school have patched clothes, but they are much more diligent in their studies than the sons of the rich? Therefore, those publicans and sinners are disciples who have come to study the new teaching. Contemporary Christians, not comprehending the deep sense of this teaching, have divided the church into sinners and righteous people, or to actual members of the church and listeners. There are listeners in all churches who are tested for a number of years before becoming actual members of the church. After spending 10 or 15 years in a church as a listener such a person is asked what they have learnt about Christianity, and they answer, "When Christ comes, He will explain it all." I wish Christians today would pass a test to find out if they are leaving a class or if it is time for them to graduate from school. Then we shall find ourselves in a contradiction which we can see in the following story: A great wise king in ancient times wanted to test the tendencies of his most enlightened subjects and that is why he put them to a test. He placed ten fine objects in a very beautiful building and called ten of his subjects each of who was a representative of the then existing social classes. Such classes exist here as well. These classes bore very different names given to them by their founders, just as every newborn child is christened with a name. The name is sanctified by a person and it is not the name that makes the person: it is not the firm that makes a merchant honest, but the honest merchant makes his firm honest; it is not the censer that makes the priest saintly, but the priest himself makes his censor give light; it is not the book that makes a person intelligent, but the person makes the book of good content. So that wise king called to this exhibit ten men to choose one of the ten objects he had exposed. The ten objects were: a precious crown which cost millions; an ancient large jar full of gold; a golden sword, a golden pen, a telescope, a bottle full of the nectar of life which, according to the alchemists of old, rejuvenated people; a pair of compasses; a grain of wheat; a book by a great wise man and an egg. Then he called the representatives of the nation, i.e. these classes, to choose whichever object they liked. The first one chose the golden crown and put it on his head; the second one took the jar of gold; the third one took the golden sword and at once girded himself with it; the fourth took the golden pen; the fifth - the telescope; the sixth the bottle with the elixir of life; the seventh the compasses; the eighth the grain of wheat; the ninth the book of the wise man and the last the egg. Which of them won? You are intelligent, how would you solve this riddle? The first one, who took the crown, became a king; the second - a banker; the third - the most eminent general of the country; the fourth - a judge, the greatest jurist and a writer, because he was engaged with the divine right of the world (the present law is human); the fifth, who took the telescope, became an astronomer to study the stars (astronomy was founded then); the sixth, who took the life elixir, became a doctor; the seventh, who took the pair of compasses, became an engineer; the eighth, who took the grain of wheat, became a farmer; the ninth, who took the book of the wise man, became a teacher and the last one, who took the egg, did not gain anything. All these people gained something, but the one who took the egg did not gain as the others, because the nine persons acquired a profession. So he wondered what to do with the egg and tried to sell it, but no one would buy it. Apparently the egg had no value. So he decided to put it under a brood-hen and see if it could be hatched. And really the most beautiful cock came out of it, but it was very greedy so that hens and cocks shunned its company. The man started feeding him, but he had to sacrifice much for him and started to beg. The master of the cock was forced to visit the other nine people, who had gained something by their objects, and ask them for help for his cock. And, actually, today all are talking about this cock. Charity societies are founded whose purpose is to better the condition of this cock, i.e. the condition of the nation they had got together to work for. A new party is organized which says, "The bettering of the condition of our nation is in our program." Today we all have good aspirations and good intentions, but which is the most essential? Have the nine objects taken by the nine people fulfilled their real purpose? Every object in the hand of a good or bad person can fulfill one or another purpose. For instance, a sword or knife can be used to make an operation and better the condition of someone, but someone’s head can be cut off with it at the battlefield. One can write a nice book with the pen, but also such a poisonous book that its poison may be felt for ages, but a death sentence may be signed as well. By the telescope you can discover something new which would help people, but you can also discover a slave who has run away from his master and tell the authorities on him - become a traitor. You can save and prolong the life of people with the lite elixir, but you can also become rich by it. Very often when a rich person falls ill, all famous European doctors are called to help, because they will be well rewarded. But no such care is taken of poor people, as they leave them in the hands of God. When the Russian king Alexander III was dying all European doctors went to Russia. I shall explain the aspiration of humanity today. When Christ was on the earth many publicans and sinners sat with Him. Those are two categories of people from the Old Testament. These Old Testament people still hold a foremost place in contemporary society although they bear different names now. A nation in which people are killed and hanged, in which there are prisons is an Old Testament state. In the kingdom of God there are no scaffolds, prisons and executions. This is Christ’s teaching. But you will say, "What shall we do with the sinners and criminals so many on earth?" Allow each one to take what they need. If you give them a sword, a pen, a telescope, or a pair of compasses and so on, any of the ten objects, you will give work to their mind that will satisfy them. These are incentives, do not judge the person, let him/her try. I do not judge the man who took the crown and put it on their head so as to rule. Let them experience these aspirations also. If God has permitted the existence of wolves, bears and all kinds of harmful bugs, why should we not allow every person to express him/herself in life as their incentives urge them to? If God sends to the harmful animals His Light and food, what could we have against that? That is why we must be patient and tolerant with all and not be repulsed by anyone. The wolves and the foxes are not out in nature, but among people. You have all these kinds of creatures: wolves, foxes, bears, bugs and so on. You aim a bullet at a wolf for having devoured a sheep, but in society there are people - wolves - who eat up ten persons and more. You do not say anything to them. Where is your justice then? A poor person steals a loaf of bread to feed his poor, sick family and is sentenced to a few months imprisonment. But some rich man steals thousands and thousands of leva and people say he has earned that money as a commission. A magpie eats the egg of one of your hens and you kill it - I estimate the life of a magpie to 1,000 eggs, so that you have the right to kill it only when it has eaten 1,000 eggs. The same law applies to a wolf. You can kill him after it has devoured 1,000 sheep. Such is the Divine rule in the world. The publicans and sinners who sat at the table with Christ were there to hear the new teaching He preached. Many say, "How nice it would have been, if we also had sat at the table of Christ!" But table was very simple not like a royal table: there was no roasted lamb, hens, stuffed tomatoes or meatballs, roast sausages and so on. Since these delicious foods were lacking what was that table worth? I would not go to a table lacking all these dishes. It is said, "These publicans and sinners sat down with Christ and His disciples." The new teaching is a great process, it is a great table with most exquisite dishes. But first you must learn to be present at the ordinary table of the stomach. Contemporary humanity is passing the state of sitting at this table. I shall not describe the table of the stomach, since you are specialists in that. The second table at which a person should be present is the table of the respiratory system and after passing the state of purification, s/he will be present at a wonderful banquet - such as the world does not know yet. There are 10,000,000 present at the table of the stomach. Each of the guests raises their glass and fork and says, "What a pleasant work this is!" we also participate in the joy of these 10,000,000 persons, or cells; this is not allegory but fact. In your stomach there are 10,000,000 cells which eat, drink and work. In the lungs there are still more guests, a greater number of cells doing their specific work. When we climb a mountain peak and breathe the pure air, the cells of the lungs raise their glasses and say, "Long live our master! How pleasant it is that our master has taken us to this high place!" When you go up to the brain, where the publicans and sinners were invited, the table is still more imposing. There are three billion and 600 million cells there - such a number of guests are invited to be present with Christ and His disciples. That is why if you send a great thought by you mind, such an enormous banquet takes place in you - in your mind - as cannot be experienced either by the stomach, or by the lungs. Therefore, the mental experiences are the highest. This is not an illusion. Is what you experience with the stomach and the lungs an illusion? But you say, "We have houses, fields and so on." This is an illusion. What can be lost is illusion, but illusion is no other than a law of movement. These things are real, but they are transitory. It means that one time they pass through us and another time we pass through them. In the one case our thoughts and desires will pass like a film before us, but in another case we shall pass before them as travellers and look at these photographs. Therefore, in society today both processes alternate, only those travellers that go around the world are very few. There is a story characterizing the English, the Germans, the French and the Russians. Four of these nationalities were somewhere in Europe at a resort where they ate and drank together. One time they all noticed that high above them two big birds were circling. The Englishman who first noticed them turned his attention to the direction from which they came and seeing they came from the east, took his bag and went away on the first ship to investigate them. The Frenchman took his hat and went to find out what the evening papers would write about them. The German went to the library to check up the scientific data if there was anything written about these birds. But the Russian man lay on his back and, looking up, said, "So, those are eagles." And that was all. Here is how easily the Slavs solve all questions. When a Bulgarian drinks half a kilo of wine, he, too, says, "Those are eagles, what is there to think about, I need not much philosophy, they are eagles and that’s all!" It is a question of acquiring knowledge. When you acquire knowledge you say, "I know this question, so I need no papers or libraries, I see those are eagles." I do not give the preference to anyone of those four, because everyone acts according to their own temperament. All people express their character according to their temperament. When I study the life of the nations, I study it objectively, gauge it by a positive science and know what it contains. In the light of this science nothing remains secret. Then we say about a person that s/he is honest and respectable. Who then is not honest and respectable? Is not the wolf who devours the lambs of people’s flocks honest? Or a tigress playing with her cubs - is she not honest? That the wolf acts dishonestly is another’s opinion. The wolf says, "I do not care about the opinion of people." You say that the lamb and sheep are noble animals, but ask what the grass thinks of them - when they tread on it, it is crushed and all eaten up, so it cannot grow. We say the sheep are the emblem of nobility. Which sheep? You are wrong thinking these sheep are noble. There are other sheep in the world: the ones that our shepherds graze are the shadows of the real sheep. Christ says, "I have other which are not of this house. And must gather them." What does Christ signify by the word "lamb"? You will say, "We know what a lamb is - it is born of a sheep, it is a pretty, playful thing; when its head is cut, it makes a tasteful meal." The lamb signifies the fire that purifies life. And when they call Christ a lamb, it means He is the divine fire that purifies humanity. Every person who can find this divine fire will have found the elixir of life right here on earth. Now the question of the sheep remains for you so that you can think about this word. I shall speak to you about the sheep some other time. I speak with them daily, you only meet them, and I find them the most underprivileged in the world, but the most noble and the happiest. A wolf cannot eat them, worms do not enter their stomach, they do not die of illness or hunger, neither are they afraid of the shepherd’s knife; they do not cast their wool on the earth, do not give their milk, neither can you churn it for cheese and butter. But you must know that the beauty of their wool brings life and blessing to the whole world. They speak little, for they are not very eloquent as orators and speak only during the pause when the orator raises the toast. During that time they manage to say just one word. And everything is due to these sheep. All great statements in the most distant past that have not lost their sense yet were spoken by them. The authors of these great statements are not yet known, but thanks to them the world exists and the present authors become eminent. When someone writes a book today, s/he says, "I have written this book and no one has the right of reprinting it without my permission." When you listen to me talk like this, you think I have a special purpose in mind, but I simply wish to converse a while with you and give you a treat. I do not busy myself with philosophic matters, neither do I deprive those authors who can busy themselves with philosophy of their right to do so. I do not want to touch king’s crowns, neither do I take the jar of gold, the telescope, the compasses, the pen nor the grain of wheat. I do not touch the egg, either. I have chosen the number 11: it is the unfortunate number in the world. There was no more unfortunate number for the Jews than the number 11. The number 13 is unfortunate today for the cultured Europeans, you can hardly make anyone engage a hotel room N13. Why is the number 11 unfortunate? This number has no father and mother, it is a number of contradictions in life. Why do contradictions exist in life? There is a definite cause for their existence. The number 4 is a law of contradictions for the cause of righteousness. There are causes in the world for every activity, you should not look for beautiful flowers in winter because winter is the number 4, but you should look for them during a definite time and season of the year, you should look at them in the numbers 1 and 2. If you want to find different kinds of fruit, you will find them during a definite time of the year, in the number 3. There is a definite time for all manifestations in life. The Bulgarians are right when they say there are unlucky days. It is not a superstition. For instance, you start on a trip to the North Pole, but you start on a hot summer day. If you do not take into consideration that you will need warm clothes for that place, you will be sure to get a cold. Therefore, the cold winter days are unlucky days in life. I have heard some Bulgarians say, "I do not start any work on Tuesday and Friday, or go out." They are right for there are really unlucky days in life. I would like to see someone who is not superstitious start on a journey on an unlucky day and see how far s/he will get. If the person is educated, s/he will say, "I could not reach my destination at the definite time and place because it was foggy, there was a big storm and so on." If the person is simple, they will attribute their failure to the fact that they have started on Tuesday or Friday, as these are unlucky days. The educated person says that thunder is due to the joining of two opposite forces, while the simple say that saint Elijah is driving a two-horse carriage in heaven. The simple person knows electricity is the cause of cloud formation, but they admit there is another higher power too. The legend has it that saint Elijah rides a two-horse carriage in heaven so that besides the positive and negative electricity, there are also two horses and a man, i.e. an intelligent force directing these two forces. As educated people then try to explain how the following is done. I am at a distance of 50 kilometers. When the shell from my cannon reaches you, you will hear the shot but you will experience the result of the shot as well. I ask you: which is the reason that made the shell reach you? You will say that the cause of this is the effect the explosive causes. This is true, but it explains only one third of the truth, because there is also another cause which makes these explosives cohere and as a result of these several causes, the explosion takes place. This way you will come to the very mind of the inventor. For every phenomenon in life there are simultaneously three causes. That is why we cannot say we are very educated, because we do not know all the three causes of certain acts. We say that we know how a certain political event has taken place and that the persons who took part were bribed and so on. However, the reason why these people were bribed is much farther than we see it. It is not an explanation of that psychological moment. How is it possible for a person who loves his/her country to sell him/herself for money, be it millions? The cause may be quite different. They say that Judas betrayed Christ for 33 silver pounds, but this is not all. The important thing is to know what reason made him betray Him. The reason of this betrayal is much deeper. When we know the real reason, we must not judge anyone - thank this Judas who fulfilled the undesirable role of betrayal. If Christ had not been crucified, salvation would not have come for humanity. You will say, "Here is a man who does not talk logically." I shall explain to you why I think so. If I sow a grain of wheat in the earth, would I not be a Judas for it? I am a betrayer for that grain of wheat temporarily, but at the same time I am its savior. How would a grain develop and multiply if it is not sown? Therefore, things must be considered wisely and seriously and there should be no judging. In the papers today there are only attacks and criticisms. This is no science. The real motives of things and events should be studied before we pronounce the verdict. And when we want to correct humanity, we should understand the laws governing the human soul. Some ask me, "Do you think that by speaking so much, you can set the world right?" I tell them I have no such purpose, but only give a banquet to my guests. If anyone of you is hungry or thirsty, they will come to me, I shall give them a banquet and when they are satiated, they will go wherever they wish to. When they leave nay house, I shall not write down their names for I do not wish them to remember they are indebted to me. Moreover, if they have dust on their clothes and shoes, I shall give them a brush to brush it and leave their dust in my home so that they may go out clean. How will you reconcile these two contradictions in life? Christ says, "If you enter a city and they do not receive you, when you depart that city shake off the dust of your feet." Where? In the street. But I say, "When you depart from my home after I have nourished you shake off the dust of your feet not in the street, but in my yard." If you understand this great law, when a visitor comes to you they will better shake off the dust in your house so that you can become rich. This is a law you can test. But what do you usually do? When some guest comes, you make them shake off their dust in the street and enter your house clean. You cast out your blessing and psychologically the law of destruction takes form in you. In the Divine world destruction is not admitted. Everything in the world must create. For evil and sin are only puzzles for people. Someone is called a great sinner. This shows that the person is a master of the great sins that is why I would wish to have some of their puzzles. Such people are very inventive. Some people take a stand against the devil, but people today do not know how much they owe him. You must thank the devil. If he would disappear for a single day in the world, a great confusion would set in: money would lose its value; the priest would have no one to preach to; the mothers would not bear children; there would be no food; the stomach, lungs and brain would refuse to work; all would be free and so on. But today all people are talking about the devil - how bad he is. When you have a truck to carry your garbage out, you all say, "Pooh, how awfully this garbage smells!" But you should thank the truck carrying away your garbage, or you would get ill, if it remained in your house. That is- why today you must thank the great spirit bearing the sins of all people. Whoever sins today - the priest, the bishop, the king, or the mother and father - the devil is to blame. But I say to you that this devil is an excellent teacher. Sometimes I meet him and, greeting him, ask, "Where have you been?" "I live among these cultured people who only fight and kill each other. I teach them one thing, but they do the opposite and then complain to their Father that I am to blame for their mistakes." Christ said, "I saw Satan falling headlong down as lightning." I shall say that I saw how the rays of the sun fell from above downwards. What does falling mean? If the sunbeams did not fall, what would become of the earth? Contemporary Christian world is full of contradictions and delusions, but there are no teachers to explain things rightly as they are in nature. For instance, some say that you should be very wise and intelligent in order to become a king, but others say that to be able to rule, you must be very rich, or that you must be a general, if you would govern your nation. But the meaning of life is not in all these things. I know two kinds of kings, bankers and generals. I know generals who wage war without killing people and our society today has a greater need of them. Some say that we do not need generals - on the contrary, we do, but we need such as fulfill their duty rightly. But those who are jealous of the rich and want to take their place, are not solving the problem. Two or three persons cannot, in my opinion, carry one sword, so that he who was born for a general will fulfill his service. In the occult science it is said that several beings can sit in a chair without disturbing each other. You will ask, "How is this possible?" I shall explain it to you. Let us suppose we have a tin container with a volume of ten kilograms. First we put in large bullets until it is full. We say the container is full, but in the inter-spaces we can put several kilograms of small pellets. Again we say that the container is full, but we can put in well-ground sand until the small inter-spaces are filled. Finally we can pour in a kilogram of water and 100 grams of the best spirits. So that these contradictory elements find room in this container which at first seemed filled only with the large bullets. Therefore, the idea that many persons cannot sit on my chair is incorrect. The ten persons who took an object from the king can sit on my chair and I, the eleventh, can sit in the very same chair. Therefore, there will be no contradiction. I have chosen the number 11 because it makes people think. But this is done after one has passes through the greatest sufferings. All great nations of character have passed through the greatest trials, through fire and water. People should imitate the heroes of the world and not feel sorry for them. Such people choose their destiny themselves and they carry their burdens lightly. The heroes do not need to be saved for they save themselves. Now there are heroes among you, Bulgarians, as well. There is a story of a very clever thief in England. At one time the English police caught him and imprisoned him after tying his hands and feet with a rope so that he could not run away. The policeman who took food to him forgot a lit candle in his cell one evening. The thief at once thought he could save himself by this candle and burned the rope of his hands and feet. Once freed from the rope, he jumped out of the window and escaped from prison. He found his way to freedom. When you find yourselves locked up like this thief, you begin to wail and complain that your fate is heavy, unfortunate. Know that when the devil catches you and ties you up, he always leaves a lighted candle by which you can be saved and he says, "Let us see now if you are a hero!" But you sit reasoning, "How can this be! I prefer to sit tied up than burn myself." Be a hero! Burn the rope and go out! You all have such a candle - it is the human mind. Even if the devil did some evil to you, God would order him to leave you a candle by which you can be saved. Then the devil says, "We shall see now if you are a hero, i.e. a person for heaven, or will remain my slave. Are you worthy of untying yourself and starting on your upward way, on the narrow path, or you will remain here to plow for me?" Why do Bulgarians plow today? They have not been able to free themselves on time and the devil has yoked them to plow for him, saying, "Come on, come on!" This is an allegory for you to think about. Many say today, "This is what Pythagoras said one time, this is what Trismegistos2 has written on his golden slab; this is what Kant has said" and so on. My respect to these thinkers, but do you know where these learned men have taken their teaching from? Everybody admires their teachings and interprets them. Their interpretations are like those some theologians today make on the messages of the Apostle Paul, etc about the definite and indefinite article, saying, "The Apostle Paul has not put this article or that on its place." Their criticism and interpretation consists in this. When you write anything, do not think where to put this or that article, but see that your thought should be right and have good substance. Apostle Paul could have expressed the same thought without articles and commas. When you cut out a dress one part of it will be the front and another - the back. Thinking of the definite article shows that a certain person is a definite member3 of a church, but speaking of the indefinite article shows that they are only candidate members. There is no philosophy in this. The deep philosophy lies in what nature has created. There is a much deeper content in a flower than in the scientific thesis of Pythagoras, or Critique of Pure Reason of Kant, or the ten rules of Trismegistos written on the golden slab. You walk across a meadow and tread on a flower, which is of more value than the books of these people, and go on philosophizing, "This is what Kant has said." Yes, my friend, you trampled the flower before reading what was written in it, in its book. You say, "I believe in God." No, my friend, you are most ignorant, you are a person of the Old Testament, a publican and a sinner; you have raised a whole scandal about the Sabbath and so on. The world was not created for any Sabbaths and there is no definite Sabbath for rest. In the world there is only one Sabbath - it is the Sabbath of love and the baptism by fire. They who are heroes of their virtues have the law of love. Those who are baptized by the divine love and wisdom, will be Sons of God. Therefore, love without wisdom does not mean anything, neither does wisdom without love. These two great powers - love and wisdom - must penetrate deeply in you and you must understand them in all their breadth and depth, i.e. as they are manifesting in this wide divine world. Only this way the present teaching will acquire meaning. If I begin to talk to you about the present day algebra and geometry, they will become alive; if drawing and poetry are studied rightly, the result will be quite different. Poetry today emphasizes rhymes. The world is full of trite poetry - verses only rhyming without making sense. But one can find some sense even in such rhymes. Wise and unwise are relative things. From the story I told you about choosing one of the ten objects, the one who chose the egg made the best choice, as a cock came out of the egg. What is the Cock? It is the law of self-sacrifice, i.e. of constant giving on your part and taking on the part of the others. Thanks to this great law of self-sacrifice the world is moving on and all these ten objects - the crown, the pen, the telescope and so on - owe their progress to the cock. There is something much higher than the cock and it is to find the meaning of life even in all your failures. You put the crown on your head, but this condition does not satisfy you, the cock crows, "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" This means not crowing on time - you took the crown but you did not find the meaning of life. You are a merchant who comes home discouraged and displeased, the cock crows, "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" You have read some book of wisdom, but have not comprehended anything in it, the cock crows, "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" You have sown wheat and other grain, but the year was not fruitful and you are disappointed in your hopes, the cock crows, "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" The cock today tells people many things about their affairs, "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" This crowing means much. I shall leave you thinking about the word "Cock-a-doodle-doo" until the next sermon. Sermon held on May 25, 1919. ___________________________________________________________ 1 Matthew 9:10 2 Hermes Trismegistos (Emerald Tablet-about the Is1 century AD), the author of various alchemical occultic, and theological works much respected by Arabs, (see encyclopaedia Britannica, Arabic alchemy) (ed. note) 3 This is a pun— in Bulgarian "article" is the same word for "member". (transl. note)

The Book - The Salt. Beinsa Douno The Beam "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye."1 In my last sermon I spoke to you about the words, "If your Eye be single, your whole body shall be full of Light." In this eye there is a beam which obstructs its purity. Christ says, "Cast out the beam out of your own eye that you may see clearly and cast out the mote out of your brother’s eye." How can this beam be cast out? By the words "beam" and "mote" Christ signifies two opposing principles - principles of negation in human life. A person whose eye is concentrated on the physical world, completely involved in matter, has a beam in their eye. The beam is a Law of Contradictions. By the word "mote" is meant a Law of Constant Changes. Christ uses two images - a beam and a mote. The beam is cut out of wood. Do you know which trees make good beams? The best beams are cut of oak trees that are used for the construction of houses as well. If you study the oak, you will find it grows in the lowest places of the earth. It is the oldest material, that is why its thick bark is chapped. There is a certain relation between the buffalo and the oak. When the buffalo gets hot in the sun, it wallows in the muddy puddles to cool off and keep the flies off. What is heat? It is the symbol of love. Therefore, people who are disposed to love, enter the puddles to get muddy so that the flies will not sting them. They are alert people. When a hornet approaches an ox, the ox raises its tail and runs away. The buffalo does not do that. When a hornet whistles by its ear, the buffalo leaves the field and runs to a pond where it hides. You may say to me, "We know what you will tell us about this beam." But you do not know what I may tell you. I have turned over the pages of many books treating questions of the New Testament, but very little has been written on this very important question; when whole volumes have been written on the least important questions. Everything in the world today is like that. Nothing is written about essential things and whole volumes are devoted to inessential problems. These unimportant questions on which so much has been written comprise shadows as regards the important questions. The shadows are necessary only when the important thing is definite, then they make sense. When a great artist paints a portrait, they use shade on it so as to make it stand out well. It is not the same thing, however, on which side the shadow is placed - on the right or on the left (unclear). If the dark side on the face is the left, it shows that painting the portrait, the artist was facing the west, i.e. the sun was setting. By this I shall judge that the life of that artist had been setting; or in other words, they was coming down to the material world. If the shadow was on the right side, it shows that the artist painted their picture when the sun had just risen. Therefore, it is of no meaning for the dull people on which side the shadow is cast; but for the wise, it is not so. It is important on which side the shadow is cast on your face. Why does Christ say that the beam must be taken out of your eye? Because this beam casts its shadow inwardly, whereas the person who wants to study life should have their shadow outwardly. You may ask me, "Why should this be so?" If the shadow is inside your life, you will not understand its meaning. And this is very natural. For instance, if your house is dark, but the streets are well-lighted, you will know what is going on in the streets - who is passing, how are they clad and so on - but you will not know what is going on in your room. Therefore, if this beam is in your eye, it follows that the meaning of your inner life will remain unknown. You may become a reformer or a moralist and moralize people to reform their houses and cities; but you will not be able to change their inner life. Christ says, "Take this beam out!" How was it formed? It was formed by the habit of the human mind acquired for many ages. And each one of you can verify for yourself whether your shadow is cast inwardly or outwardly. Christ says, "Cast out." He does not say "Add." Adding and subtracting are two initial processes. The first process is addition and the second subtraction. Till now you have been adding, forming this beam which is the result of the past. Therefore a+b = c where c is the beam. In order to free ourselves from this general result, Christ tells us to subtract a and b from c and our eye will be pure. How shall we subtract them? You cannot get rid of c, if you do not subtract first a and b. You cannot get rid of the nits if you do not take the male and female louse out of your head first. a and b = c which is the beam. In this case a is your mind, b is your heart; not on ascending scale in their actions, but on the descending scale of their manifestations. That is why Christ says, "You must stop these two processes." You will ask me how to stop them. In order that peoples’ minds start working, they should be placed under conditions to labor at a total deadlock. You must think of being in the shoes of one of Napoleon’s engineers who was forced by his commander to build a bridge in 25 minutes, or be shot. The engineer used all his abilities and succeeded in building the bridge. Notice how a cat tries to pass a dangerous place without trouble, if it is clever. If it finds itself on a wall five or six meters high and has no way out, it will be forced to jump down the wall; although earlier that had looked like an impossibility. This same way you say you cannot do this or that. Christ says, "Cast out the beam from your eye and place it in another place: not in your eye, but in your house." The eye has no need of beams. The teacher, who first advised people to place the beam in the eye and not in the house, had not known the Divine Laws. There may be a beam in the body, but by no means in the eye. By the word "mote",2 I understand those people who live in the sensual world. The straw is taken from the wheat. These people have acquired mistakes by their constant pleasures in the world. The beam is the acquirement of an avaricious, self-seeking life. You cannot rely on such people. Since this beam is very heavy, the eye of the person who has it is always tired and constantly looking downwards. I can make everyone of you look downwards. How? By placing a load of 100 kg on your back, I shall make you start reasoning and looking downwards. Some people would say that such a person is a great philosopher. Yes, there are philosophers who look down, but there are also such who look up. When the beam is in your eye, your mind and heart will always be heavy and you will be ill disposed. Some people with a beam in the eye manage to conceal this fact, but when you offend such a person they will begin to look down. A woman angry with her husband looks down. Why? Because, the beam has started to exert its influence. This is the feature of a general law. By the same law the young men and women have beams. So do the married people. Marriage, however, is a temporary thing. In the world there are no married but harnessed people. That is why I am not talking about the married, but about the harnessed people. I believe you are not harnessed. But you who think you are of the married people are of the blessed people. Christ says, "Cast the beam out of your eye that it may be pure so that you can cast the mote out of your brother’s eye." I make a general examination of the spiritual principles upon which our life rests. For instance, if my house is built upon the Divine Law, this is not only my own achievement, but also an achievement of the engineer I have called to make its plan and build it. Also, all the discomforts of the house cannot be attributed only to me. That is why if a person who has technical knowledge comes and tells me the sink or something else is not in its place, I must listen to them. If an intelligent person tells me to reconstruct my house because its walls are too thin, I must obey them and agree with their opinion, because a catastrophe might surprise me. When Christ talks about the beam, He conceals His great idea in this single word. The Bulgarians often hide their money under a heavy beam. In the past people had to hide things; that is why they needed beams. We often shade our windows with heavy curtains so that light may not enter in. In the same way we are unhappy today because of this beam which prevents the light from entering and reviving the matter of our body. We today have one and the same idea of light and of certain periods when light is not the same. If you warm yourselves on heat produced by wood, or on heat produced by coal, the effect on you in the two cases will be different. If you are sensitive when you burn coal you will pass through all the stages it has passed; when you burn wood, you will experience the stages the oaks have passed through and feel them like Living Beings. The black color of the coal will produce quite a different effect on you from that which burning wood will. Contemporary culture must rid itself of the use of coal. That is why the future scientists must harness solar energy. We must provide for ourselves heat from the sun. When we reach the stage of utilizing solar heat and energy, we shall be the cultured people humanity is expecting. At the present stage we cannot be called cultured people. Christ says, "Cast these beams out, there is no need of them any more." In the past this beam was necessary, it served some purpose; but today it is of no use. The buffalo entering the mud puddle to hide from the hornet has its economic considerations. He reasons thus: "Instead of running away 4 or so miles from a hornet, I shall cover myself with mud so that no hornets should trouble me." People today say the same thing, "We must ensure ourselves materially so no one should disturb us, so that the hornets should not trouble us." When you want to ensure your wife and children, those are the hornets troubling you every day and hour. The Christians are like the oxen - they run away. The worldly people, on the other hand, are like the buffaloes who wallow in a puddle so they would not be caught. Years ago in Russia they tried to put through a law against Jews which was discussed for some time. One of the members of the ministerial council was very much against the Jews and insisted on the passing of this law. The Jews tried to oppose this act in different ways, but did not succeed. One of the Jews decided to visit himself the minister who opposed them and went to his house. At the gate he asked the policeman to allow him in for he wished to tell the minister a word or two. The policemen let him in. He went straight to the minister and offered him a bag of gold saying, "Take this and keep silent." The council gathered under the chairmanship of the king to discuss the Jewish problem. All ministers opposed the law and expected the opinion of the great opponent of the Jews who kept silent. The king was surprised and asked him why he did not speak. The minister raised the bag of gold and said, "As long as I have this bag of gold, I cannot speak." This bag of gold is the beam. A day will come when the Lord will ask you, "Why do you keep silent?" You were passing some law for which you were obliged to keep silent. Today all rich and famous people keep silent. Those who keep silent are diplomats. In diplomacy silence is recommended. Christ says, "Cast the beam out of your eye so you can speak." "Cast the beam out of your eye so you can see." There is a relation between seeing and speaking. You cannot speak before you have seen. The straw in some people’s eyes is of quite a different material from that of the beam - it is out of wheat. We know that wheat wishes only to multiply and cover wide areas. It says, "Give me only 7 or 8 months to multiply, I shall finish my work and leave my place after that." It is not the same with the beam for the oak wants ten, one hundred, five hundred, a thousand years to grow and develop. It affirms ownership. The teaching of the beam is a teaching of possession. If your son is unworthy, cast the beam out of your eye and deprive him of all possessions so that your property should not be handed down the generations and be the cause of crime. But you will say, "Nerde, Sham, Nerde Bagdat."3 If anything hinders your life, it is the teaching of private ownership. We come to earth and become engaged in houses, fields; quarrel with our father, mother, sisters or brothers and go to court until one day they lift us from this place. The son says, "My father passed away and could not solve this question, but I shall solve it and see how the inheritance should be distributed." For eight thousand years humanity has been solving the question of property and this question has not been solved yet. Christ says, "Cast this property out of your eye so the world can be set right." Then the small obstacles, the small motes will disappear. Now in society there are moral, charity organizations. The priests preach in church; the teachers instruct at school; the judges administer justice in court, but all have beams in their eye. The Lord I know and whom I am speaking to you about, is not a Lord of beams and property and is not for people who argue about property. Property has no Lord whatever. And people who are split into Catholics, Protestants, Mohammedans and so on, have no Lord whatever. Your Lord is a Lord of beams, but my Lord has no beams. Christ says, "Thou hypocrite, cast the beam out your eye!" If you ask me when things will be set right, I shall answer, "When this beam is cast out of your eye." "But when will this beam be cast out?" When Love comes to reign in the world. Then the beam can be cast out very easily. All women, who are the bearers of culture can cast their own beam out, as well as that of their daughters and sons while they are still in the womb. If I preached the Law of Moses, first I would have punished women who deserve the greatest punishment. But since I am not preaching the Law of Moses, but that of Christ, I say to the women, "Since you are the doctors, you have served long enough your old lovers in paradise. Give them up and serve the Lord." For 8,000 years women have been serving this handsome scamp from the Garden of Eden and have not done anything laudable; that is why they have to give him up. You will object, "Do not blame us, we are pure." Yes, there was a time when you were pure, but today you are not such as I knew you. This beam - property - entered your eye, you started to live with the law of property; your friend came to you in the Garden of Eden, and said to you, "Come out of this garden of Eden, you need not stay here any longer as gardeners; possess the earth, it is for you. Why are you so foolish to stay in this garden, you will become equal to God?" And the woman left the paradise. Moses has described in a long and interesting legend the exit of women from paradise. When you read the whole Old Testament you will see how the Lord constantly addresses the virgin of Israel calling her different names, constantly admonishing her to return to the right path, to her Father. You have been to so many places after leaving paradise. You have been to Egypt - the material world; in Babylon - the old world, the old culture: culture of property. Now you are in Europe, which is in the same chaos as the Egyptians and Babylonians. Christ is saying to contemporary people who represent the chosen nation, "Cast this beam out of your eye," i.e. do away with this property in your land, because it is the cause for all disputes and wars. The only property a person has is their body. If a person could daily alter the parts of their body, control their desires, and the functions of their organs, as well as those of the brain with all its centers, they would be an excellent person. Say to yourself, "Now I do not need any houses or fields; this is for the future culture." The future culture, as a projection of the past, is for the sinners, the present is for the righteous. When someone says that they will correct their life in the future, I understand that this person is a sinner. When someone says that they will correct their life now, I understand that this person is a righteous one who has cast the beam out of their eye. Thus, the future in this sense is for the sinners who do not change their desires; it is their property. The present, however, is for the righteous, because it takes no space whatever. It is their property, it is a mathematical line. Every righteous person will pass through this straight line. I say, everyone who controls the present will enter the Kingdom of God. The future belongs to sinners. The past - i.e. everything which has happened - is in the hands of God, while the present is ours. Therefore, we have exchanged our roles. God is engaged in correcting our sins. We are dealing with the justice of God which will come in the future, while the people of the present say: "We shall work for God to realize His desires." From today on I want all of you to cast all your beams out and I am ready to help you. However, if you leave this for tomorrow, you will not find me. I have the say for the present; the Lord for the past. My word is founded on a very thin thread called the Thread of Love. Christ addresses those who have studied this teaching and who are awakened. This is why I do not have to teach you either - you must apply the Divine Principles which you have already studied. For the application of a Divine Principle there are certain methods. A person who wants to make use of a teaching must first of all pay all their debts. In my opinion the Law of Self-sacrifice is nothing but a payment of ones debts. But the debts have been incurred because of property. You will say, "Well, then it is possible." What is possible? It is possible for instance to become rich, learned and so on. No, by that you cannot do anything. Many people have applied this teaching. Many have wanted to be learned, rich, healthy, but they have not preserved this state a long time. The teaching can have a result only when one applies the Law of Self-sacrifice for the whole humanity. Only then will you sacrifice yourself for the good of humanity; only then will you be sacrificed for your self. If you sacrifice yourself for the good of humanity and raise it only one centimeter in its state, the next time you come to earth you will have favorable life conditions for which, you yourself, have been the cause. All suicides in the world are the result of the Law of Property. A wife wants to dominate her husband and if she does not succeed in that, she despairs and commits suicide. The wife instructs her husband how to look or not to look at all the other women and so on. Now people make these mistakes because they are born by women. Women are responsible for the mistakes of men for they taught men this law. You will say I judge you. No, I am not judging you; I am not judging anybody, but I am telling you the truth. Christ says, "Cast the beam out of your eye." Jealousy, suspicion, hatred, evil, avarice, envy and so on are the beam in your eye. The beam, the beam must be cast out! It is everywhere: in all societies, churches, religions. I see it everywhere. People today are like those two Germans in America who were good friends and promised one another to give each other a kiss. However, their stomachs were so big that they could not get close together and kiss. These two friends could not get close together and parted with deep grief. Today all people have such big stomachs that they cannot get close together. Why? The beam is the whole cause. While such big beams exist, there can be no kiss for the Soul. A young girl meets a young man and wants to kiss him, but she cannot do it so she groans. A young man wants to kiss a girl, but he also cannot do it, so he groans. All people are groaning - they cannot kiss each other. We shall be far from one another until the beam is cast out of our eye. Today, morals are perverted - a consequence of which, people do not understand one another. A stranger looks at someone else’s wife and the husband gets angry at once, thinking, "I shall wait and see what you are going to do. I shall watch you." Men and women are jealous of each other everywhere and yet they want to learn some new philosophy, some new teaching. The most difficult thing for a person is to merit the name human/e, to know nature so that nature will serve them. So do you know this Mother called Nature? Have you talked with Her? She is Virgin. Do you know Her habits, looks, receptions, laws and society? When I speak to people that they must enter into harmony with nature, the present servants of religion call this idolatry. The present existing order is idolatry, but this order will be swept away and only the ex-person will remain. Only the empty head will remain of the contemporary person and will be presented in the museums as a remnant of a past culture. When the future people visit the museums, they will look at the heads of the present eminent bishops, patriarchs, and high clergy, see their beams with which they had lived so many years and say, "Illustrious and pious people, such piety that only the head remains of it!" In the future all teachers, priests, ministers and judges must be without beams. I would render good service to Bulgaria if I should point out the person who should be employed as a teacher, who is to be a priest, who is to be a judge and so on. If this were observed, Bulgaria’s affairs would get on well. But what is happening now? Someone prepares to be priest, but their character is that of an actor. When such a person becomes a priest, it would be better to call them a servant of the church, not of God. I wish all priests and teachers to learn the Language of Nature and to see what She is writing. I study all stones, streams, and flowers and by them I can conclude what nature had been 2,000 years ago. So nature changes its garment every day and you should study what it is like today. The present is for the righteous. Christ said to the Jews, "Cast the beam out of your eyes, or you will not become a nation." But the clergy of that time who were Occultists and Cabalists said, "Is that so! Instead of casting our beams out, we prefer to put you on these beams." These beams of yours crucified Christ. He was crucified on two beams - one was a male, the other was a female beam. You say, "How pleasant it is to pass under these beams!" Christ says, "If you do away with private property among brothers and sisters, your mind and spirit will be free so that you can become good people." If all women of the contemporary race would become imbued with this idea, in 100 years they would push humanity four or five thousand years forward. But mind is necessary for this, for when there is no mind, this consciousness is lacking in people so they hang each other and cut off each others’ heads. Now they are cutting the heads of the priests as well. I want you to understand of what I am speaking. I am speaking in principal, not for the sake of this or that person, treating the question in broad terms. The world can no longer be set right by killing. I am not of those who can kill and hang. All must know this. From now on I shall not be crucified. You will crucify one another until you are enlightened. Christ says, "You hypocrite, cast the beam out of your eye." From all I have said, do not consider anything offensive: this is a Law for Heaven. When we pass the bounds of the spiritual life, we shall leave the beam here on earth. They say of someone, "They departed for the other world." No, they have not yet departed; they are still here on earth and that is why we should give them a little wheat now and then.4 The prison is the astral world. They went there with their beam. But the motes in our eyes are all our small defects. Some are criticized for talking too much, for not dressing properly, for not getting up early, or for not working sufficiently and so on. These are all very small defects, insignificant flaws - motes - in the eyes of people. Are present day people really working? This is not work but torment and labor. Work is always performed out of love. Labor serves duty; but torment exists where there is violence. The cause of all this is property ownership. Woman who has introduced this habit in the world is to blame for this evil. All women teach their children, saying, "See that you become richer by a greater income; ask everything of your husbands, all you need; do not tell them everything, be reserved and so on." That is why a wife wants things of her husband regardless of his position and income and he wonders how to satisfy her needs. What happens then? A Greek in Bourgas5 married a very rich Greek woman who brought him 4,000 pounds. When they were married, she started asking him to buy her this and that, spending money indiscriminately. In less than two years all the money she brought was spent. Her husband kept an account of everything and when the account reached 4,000 pounds, he said to her, "The money you brought is gone so you go and ask your father for more and if he gives you any money, buy what you need." When a man leaves his wife, he has spent everything she brought from her father and since he has no more, he wants a divorce. Why can they not live together? Because the wife has a big beam in her eye, wants to dominate him quoting verses from the Bible which are in her favor so that he should not think of any other woman. She says, "The first condition, says the Scripture, is that a man should leave his father and mother and stick to his wife." Yes, but which father and mother? Christ says, "A man who marries should leave the father, mother, brothers and sisters who have sinned in paradise and thus hold on to his wife." Woe to him who, when marrying, does not give up his mother and father who have sinned in paradise! Therefore, as Christians, you must give up private property. Private property is an evil for every person who wants to develop, as well as for every occultist; mystic especially, if they would study the secrets of nature. Private property is a great evil. I do not imply the state regime, but they who understand human life must give up private property. This does not mean we must be indolent, but we must learn how to work. A wife should not rely on her father, or husband, but should stand on her own feet. Man has not married to support a household. This is not marriage. Real marriage is the getting together of two young people to work together for an idea. If a woman had such a concept of marriage, she would try to ease her husband. But what is happening today? The wife does not fulfill her duties and when her husband returns from work, disputes and disagreements begin. The Law of Private Property is for those who marry today. You say, "These young people love each other very much." Why? Because the young man is rich and has a nice position so he will supply all that is necessary to his wife; or she is rich and so her husband will be able to advance. If the man is poor, the woman does not love him. Because of these wrong conceptions of life all misfortunes in life spring up. The Divine Law will assimilate all old materials and reorganize them. The piece of coal can become a diamond by reorganizing its particles in such a way as to condense them through crystallization and assume a new form. Therefore our life must pass through fire and be reorganized - crystallize again and pass into a new form. Then we shall have better houses as well. A day will come when, after living for ten years in a house, we shall tear it down and build a new one. The old house where we have lived for ten years is full of bad thoughts. When men and women quarrel they must burn their house down and make a new one; when teachers and students quarrel in a school, it must be burnt down and built anew. The same thing applies to the churches. The teaching of Christ is a new school, a new church. To cast the beam out - that is the new teaching. This is why the Lord writes, "If you want to better your life, you should tear down everything and build upon new rules without keeping the beam in your eye." Then your ideas of nature will be better, your homes and social life will be better. When you go back home say, "From today on I shall be casting the beam out of my eye." But the beam cannot be cast out by a single attempt; it requires a multiple process, a chain process of casting out. When you learn this Law of Subtraction, you will come to the process of multiplication. Then you will understand the law: "Live and multiply." The first process of addition came into the world by Adam, but the second - of subtraction - came in to the world by Eve, that is why God created woman by taking out one of Adam’s ribs. Which woman? - the woman in paradise who enjoyed her relation with "that one"6. Therefore, men will learn to take out their wives, while women will learn to take out their sons and daughters. That is why they bear children. Birth is the law of taking out and subtraction. By this Law of Taking Out, the Lord teaches women, asking them, "Do you still wish to have property?" When you listen to me, you will think, "Here is a man who violates the Law of Property Ownership, a teaching which has existed for 8,000 years." No, this law came later, but it has no basis in nature whatever. The earth is ours and we can dispose of it. If we love our brothers and sisters, we can dispose also of what they have. If we do not love them, the Law of Private Property comes into play. Private property has come into existence when love stopped functioning. In times of quarrel the woman says, "I shall divorce him, but make him pay me." People who do not require anything special of life can live with this idea of private property, but for those who want to discover the secrets of nature, study their existence and sense of life. Private property is a great obstacle, a great evil. You must stop ensuring yourself, but should rather work. One can think up some work, which can satisfy them. But you will object, "God helps them who help themselves."7 This proverb was thought out after the fall of Eve. Private property is the sheep-fold. Eve has hidden this proverb. It implies that if you want to have private property, you must lead your sheep into the sheepfold yourself. The Lord always gives wealth, but He does not believe in private property. Today people admire this proverb. I find it a human contrivance. Christ says, "Cast this beam out of your eye, you do not need any sheepfolds." Christ is taking you out of the sheepfold and will lead you to the pasture. This shows that He does not believe in private property. All Christians who believe in private property have churches, sects, etc. As far as religion is concerned they think they must be separated into Buddhists, Brahmans and so on which shows they believe in private property. I believe only in one great Divine Principle and in no forms whatever. The Lord has created the Principles, but we must create the forms. I make my own pot, but do not believe in any pots. Today people pray to their pots. When they built a house, they begin to become bold and to believe, saying, "I believe in God already and can cross myself." Or they cross themselves with the idea that God should protect their house so that another person should not take it. Such a person does not believe in God, but in their house. I do not cross myself in this way but say to the Lord, "Lord, you need not protect my private property for I refuse to acknowledge it and do not believe in it. Forgive me for having crossed myself so many times and have compelled you. I want to go along with You at liberty to those clear, rushing streams, to the green, dewy pastures, to the leafy thick forests, to think things over and be a free citizen of the whole earth." Only this way can you understand Christ and be near Him. When I look at you, I do not like your eyes. All of you must cast the beam out of them! And as soon as you cast the beam out of your eyes, Christ, Who is your shepherd, will come to lead you out of your private property. More favorable conditions for life will be given you. New bodies, new brothers and sisters, new societies and nations will be created for you so that you could live and work among them. You have served your old master long enough. Some lose their house, or their child dies and they despair and commit suicide. Why do they act like that? Because, they believe in private property. The Lord has taken your son or daughter, because He sees they cannot live in this house. When your son or daughter falls ill, do not be afraid for them; know that illness is a great blessing for a person under the present conditions of life. You cannot be heroes with these beams. From now on you must become heroes, but for this reason you must give up your beams. When you go back, make a long list of all the things you must give up in the future. Write down everything you give up this way: "I give up compelling my husband to bring me anything, leaving him free to do what his love prompts him to do; I give up compelling my husband to borrow money, to build me a house, to buy costly clothes for me for Easter and to satisfy my whims as before; I give up asking him to take me abroad to summer resorts, baths, balls, theaters and so on; I give up compelling my husband to love me, leaving him free to follow the dictates of his soul." You will say, "This teaching is very dangerous!" On the contrary, it has been dangerous up till now. How many tears have been shed that some woman’s husband, her private property, has not loved her! Do you know to what extent your husband is your property? There are many tenants in a house so that your husband is one of those tenants over whom you have no right. The Turks say, "Ahmet burada, akil dişarda," i.e. Ahmed is here but his mind is outside. Your husband - that is his shadow - but his soul, his thought is outside. Then how can you require him to love you when you too are not in your house - your house is full of tenants. Today we have set out in private property to conquer the world thereby losing the highest in life. That is why Christ says, "They who find private property will lose themselves, their life; but they who lose private property will find their life." Those who abandon the teaching of private property, draw away from God. Now you must bravely start on this way and solve this question as heroes. When the Lord sees that you are opening the book in which you will note down all the items you will give up, He will say, " With my servants, I shall help this Bulgarian woman who sets about casting the beam out of her eye." Let us see who will be the first Bulgarian woman who will set about this work. I know many who believe in the new teaching and are ready to give up their private property, but at the same time they are insured in many banks. We must be loyal to a principle not only in form, but also in substance and meaning as well. But what do people do today? Argue if there is a God or not, if there is a future life or not and so on. Yes, there is both future and past life, moreover, there is a present one. The Present Life is the Divine Life whereas the future and the past are the human life. To live like a person with all your heart, mind and soul, this is the Divine inside you - this is the Present. This is what Christ meant by saying you should cast out the beam from your eye, because only this way you can understand life. Only in this way shall we take the right path of human evolution - the path of Love. And then we shall be able to come to a mutual understanding. Sermon held on May 18, 1919. ____________________________________________________ 1 Matthew 7:5 2 the Bulgarian version is "straw" (transl. note) 3 Turkish proverb, meaning "Where is Damascus, where is Baghdad." (ed. note) 4 The custom in Bulgaria is to commemorate the dead with offerings of boiled wheat. (ed. note) 5 A Bulgarian city on the Black Sea coast. (ed. note) 6 The devil in the guise of serpent. (ed. note) 7 The Bulgarian version of this proverb is, "God gives, but does not put in the sheepfold." (trans. note)

The Book - The Salt. Beinsa Douno The Light of the Body "The Light of the body is the Eye: if therefore thine Eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of Light."1 What did Christ mean by the words, "the Light of the body is the Eye"? According to present day conceptions the eye cannot be the light of the body. Christ expresses a deep idea by this thought. People who have not studied the structure of the eye have a vague idea of its nature. I also say that even l/1000th part of the structure of the eye has not been investigated. If I would try to describe the eye, I would come into conflict with all scientists. The first function of the eye is to absorb arid spread the rays of light. It absorbs them from the outside and spreads them inwards. When this process in life is reversed, disharmony takes place in the human mind. You have two eyes that is why you will ask me, "Which eye is Christ talking about: the right or the left one?" And in fact Christ does not say, if your eyes are pure, but he says, "If your Eye is pure." By this we can see that Christ speaks about one Eye which is inside the center of the brain. This Eye is called the pineal gland, but I call it "the Eye of the Soul." Christ takes the word "Eye" in a single sense as a collective principle which includes everything in it. When we speak of God, we think of a unit including everything in it. When we speak of this unit divided and multiplied by itself, we understand all its manifestations in the world. People give different interpretations to this division: the scientists call it laws, cause and effect, evolution, thoughts, feelings and so on. Christ says that the Inner Eye is, at the same time, the Sun of a person. When a person loses their Sun, they die. In other words: when a person becomes spiritually blind, they die, but when they begin to see spiritually, that they come to life. The truth of this thought can be seen in the words of Christ, "Those who hear the voice of the Son of Man shall rise." It may seem strange that it is not said that those who hear the voice of God shall rise. The Son of Man is the Voice of Wisdom. This resurrection is not what the church means by it; it is a resurrection by which knowledge is attained for the comprehension of the laws governing the world and developing life. The thought of contemporary humanity is single and collective. Life has begun with the formation of the Eye. When God made man, He first created the Eye and then the rest of him. Some may object to this, but I shall prove it to you. Before a mother gives birth to a baby, people set the house in order, warm the room if it is winter, and so on. Therefore, those who say that a person may live without an Eye maintain that there is no intelligence in nature. Christ says that the human heart corresponds to this Eye. There is a close bond between the Spiritual Eye and the human heart. This is not merely theory, but statements which can be verified every day experimentally. Those who are not on the right path lead a life of sufferings and misfortunes. If anyone wants to know why we suffer, I would answer that the sufferings are the result of our being in contradiction with the spiritual eye. Christ says, "If your Eye is pure, your whole body will be full of Light." And actually, if your Eye is pure, you shall see all objects. Often our eyes are spoiled by the food we eat: if the food is not sanitary, it pollutes the blood and the polluted blood spoils the eyes so that it is necessary to have operations. Why? Because our life is not in conformity with the divine laws. If in the physical eye there appear dispositions, according to the same law similar dispositions appear in the Spiritual Eye, causing misfortunes not only to the individual, but also to the family, society, the nation and all of humanity. Someone will say, "God will save us." All people speak of salvation. God need not save us for He has created us saved. It is the silliest thing to say - that God will save us. When we say we want to be saved, it shows we are running away from the divine salvation in which we find ourselves. What is salvation? It is the luminous life of order and decency, but as soon as we abandon it, we shall not be saved anymore by God, but by the people. Then we shall not be born of God; and when we continue to sin, we shall be forced to reincarnate in flesh and blood. You will then follow then some woman or man and beg them to save you - create a new body for you, but that will be only a preface to salvation. After living a few years on the earth, you will go again into space where you will stay for a certain period of time and come to earth again. The Son of Man will speak to you and say, "I created an Eye for you again, see that you do not corrupt it." I want you to make an analogy out of this for the present life and see what will remain of you when you cast off all your shells. Some say, "We shall die." You will die but then come to life again. When a walnut is on the tree it has many garments, but after it is sown, it casts off all its outer garments in order to be able to sprout again and live. The casting off of these garments does not mean death, but rather shows that you are closer to life. Then I define life in two ways: the physical life constantly undergoes modifications and changes, while the spiritual life undergoes modifications without changing. Everyone who undergoes modifications and changes is within the bounds of the flesh, of the transitory, however they who are only modified without changing, are in the bounds of the spirit. You will say, "How is it possible for a person to undergo modifications and not change?" Imagine that I am a nobleman who is supposed to meet different people several times a day. That will require from me to change my clothes several times a day in accordance with the kind of people I am supposed to meet. In the morning I put on a black suit, black hat and black gloves - official clothes. After coming home from that interview, I have to meet some ordinary person in the afternoon so I put on a white suit and hat and go out that way. Whoever meets me that day will ask, "Who is that gentleman with the many suits of clothes who is constantly altering his appearance, but not changing?" It is the ability of the human spirit to alter, but not to change. However, when we come to that inner state to change inwardly, we lose our individuality, we lose what we have gained. I call this a law of fall. Projected as certain energy and falling on the earth, the rays remain on it for many years until a day comes for them to return to their Father from Whom they came forth. Why do these rays come out of God? Because they, too, have sinned. If they were not sinful, you would not feel this heat and burning, but they would produce only a delicate light and pleasant warmth. Thus, fallen once on the earth, however bright they may be, the rays have their eye somewhat blurred. These rays are alive and you will wonder how it is possible for the light to be alive. I shall leave that question for you to resolve. People themselves are Divine Rays. Contemporary biology describes the phases people have passed through before attaining their present state. They have undergone many changes and their cells have been multiplied, divided and changed before this present form was reached. All this has been done under the incentive of this Living Light. If you would study human development closely, you would see how costly our structure is and the materials out of which our body is made and you would never sin or admit an evil thought or feeling to enter your mind and heart. There is no greater delusion than to think that when a person sins, they do not harm their salvation. What does sin consist of? Sin consists of our thinking that the things we have attained can give us greater happiness. However, thinking this way we limit ourselves and envy becomes our companion. All Christians of the different schools want freedom and money, but then live at the expense of others. At the beginning of the 19th century the French Revolution gave freedom to the nations, but what freedom do they have today? Can this be called freedom? We speak of freedom, of the upliftment of women intellectually and in society; however, what is this uplifting of humanity during these 2,000 years equal to? It is equal to 1/50 millionth part of the millimeter. Such is the result of the strenuous effort of all humanity. Knowing this, calculate what your active input in this general development is. Raise this number to the 10th power and thereby find the factor of your consciousness, of your culture and of development. This is the only way in which we can examine divine entities. This sun, i.e. the divine stomach of the solar logos (this is the theosophical term), shines and provides all our heat. By the same law, every person has their own Sun within them which rises and sets. It happens sometimes that it is winter outside, very cold, while inside your own Sun is in its spring time; sometimes it is warm in the physical world, but your Sun does not correspond to it and you feel a certain iciness. This can be explained in different ways. Sometimes you are in low spirits; then I say that your Sun is not in its place. At times there are spots in your Sun just like in the physical sun. How do you explain these spots? Scientists of today maintain that at one time in the past a dark belt was formed on the sun. It lost all its heat and the result was the beginning of the ice period on the earth. I do not support this; this is only a scientific theory. According to this theory a certain change took place in the sun: its crust cracked and the sun started its present activity, great floods were caused and the present world was formed. The flood was caused by the melting of the ice layers. In the future you will verify this. Christ says that the Light of the body is the Eye and if your Eye is pure, your whole body will be full of Light. When Christ says that your body will be full of Light according to the purity of your Eye, He is saying that Divine Life will surge forth in you, creating all the conditions for your development so that you will not be petty-minded. People today are like small bugs, thinking they are very learned and strong. When one’s purse is full, they solve important questions; but when they lose their money, they also lose their power. Some criticize, with their own small brain, everything God has created saying things are not well made; while at the same time considering as good, what their own small patch of earth (their head) has made. Do you know how long and wide is the patch of earth (the head) of a Bulgarian person? Its length is at the most 21 cm and its width is 16 centimeters. Now then, with this size of mind the Bulgarian person wants to reconstruct the whole social order and to speak of all great mysteries! This is true of all other people as well. Why do people die? They die of little mind, of scanty food, of scanty air and scanty blood. By the word blood I mean the divine life. To have blood is to have this pure and unspotted divine life which must be neither bitter, nor sweet. If a person is bitter in one incarnation, they will be sweet in the next one and if in this life they are sweet, in the next they will be bitter. In a spiritual sense I compare heat to affection, light to the truth and air to human thought. As air enters the lungs to purify and oxidize the blood; by the same law, thoughts enter the mind and purify human desires which correspond to the human blood. When we begin to understand this science, we shall be able to apply it correctly to the structure of society and by so doing, eliminate all evils in life. People say that everything has its causes and consequences. I ask you: "Which are the incentives for certain causes?" Some say, "So and so killed someone out of great hatred." Perhaps, but why did they hate him so much? Others say that it is caused by loving someone so much. Why do they love so much? If the cause of hating or loving someone is one and the same, then it comes from God. If it is not one and the same, it does not spring from God; but is the consequence of some other life. People speak about laws in nature and society and say that this is a world of laws. Among the laws there is a certain correlation, but they show that the beings ruled by laws do not live in peace. Not only we, but higher beings than us in the solar system, do not live in peace either. That is why God has put certain limitations, certain distances among them so that there should not be disputes. Between the system of Alpha Centoris and our system there is a distance of 25 billion miles. This space is so enormous that 3,000 more systems like ours can go into it. In this way they cannot quarrel. When God wants to make people good, He places them at such great distances. If anyone should ask me, "What should be the distance between a man and a woman?", I shall answer, 25 billion miles. The number 25 is composed of 2 and 5 whose sum is 7. The number 7 is perfect, implying the Law of Harmony; but people today, with their doctrines, have to a certain extent torn down all barriers which God has placed between the beings. Why? The woman wants to appropriate and dominate man; however, how would she be able to dominate him, if he were 25 billion miles away from her? Today people are trying to find ways of influencing one another. Yes, you can influence, but you can never dominate. Everyone who tries to do this can dominate only themselves. The desire for domination can be seen in some religious societies as well. A new movement strives to dominate and assimilate another movement. A nation wants to dominate another nation. People die because of this very greed - the desire to have much. Those who want much do not understand the Divine Laws. We must not want much, because we have more than we need. Although people have such a small brain - 16 cm wide and 21 cm long - they have not cultivated it sufficiently. A person’s patch of earth has not been cultivated. In the Bulgarians for instance, only a space of 6 to 7 cm in the front part of the brain is cultivated and they think they are bearers of a great culture. I ask you, what can you build on such a small space of 6 cm height and 12 cm width? Therefore, we all live in the Law of Illusions, thinking we know everything. You say, "We do not need any philosophy." That is not right, for there is one philosophy - the Philosophy of your Eye, of your Soul, and you must all remember this. What does the understanding of this Law imply? When a person projects a thought in a divine way, it already creates in them. Accept a divine thought without any self-seeking purpose; give ear to its instructions, and you will acquire all you wish. By saying you will acquire all you wish, I mean that which undergoes alterations, but does not change its nature. You will then live with in constant contact with Love. When I speak of Love, I do not mean your human love. Your love is like that between the cocks and hens. When some wheat or corn is given to them, they all get together to peck it, but when one or two grains remain, the cock chases the hens away at once and pecks the last grains himself. Their love lasted until the last grain - no more. All societies, be they religious or worldly, live like cocks and hens, in peace and love, but when it comes to the last grain, they say, "Now off with you!" The cock crows and says, "Hens, away from me! You must know how to sing like me!" What is singing? To sing is to be able to think. So long as we believe in the false promises of people, our condition will be to be driven away from the place where we had been formerly invited. This way young men and women deceive each other. A young man starts deceiving a girl that he will buy her this and that and that they will live well and so on. The girl believes him. In another place the girl deceives the young man. In contemporary society we do not speak a real language. When we return home we say, "That one must not be very sincere, and we should not believe them." You must be a person who lives as God taught you to live, not expecting any benefit from anybody; relying on God, on your Soul, then, finally on your neighbor. When Christ says that if you Eye is pure, your whole body will be full of Light, He means that if your Eye is pure, you will first see God, then your Soul and lastly - your neighbor. If your Eye is not pure, you will start the opposite way - first you will see your neighbor, then yourself and lastly God; and because of that you will turn the whole world upside down. I ask those of you who have gathered here, "Who gave you life? Your father or your mother? Have you inscribed their name with gold letters? Shall I find anything of them if I visit you, or will you have only some clothes and a portrait?" In this respect we are like the Jews of old. They tortured and killed their prophets, cut their heads with a saw, but after their death they raised monuments to them and glorified them. They did the same with Christ also, but today they build monuments to Him and sing songs to Him. In the churches also they are always singing songs about Christ, but outside the church nothing is heard of Him. We also sing about God, but when it comes to considering our neighbor, we at once prefer ourselves. when the master treats his servant badly he creates relations between bourgeois and proletarian who do not understand each other. God has not created any bourgeois or proletarians, but people. By speaking I do not wish to moralize you, for moralizing is not a good thing; it is simply a training of a person. I am talking to you about a Divine Law so that you should know how to bear your children. When you call them here on earth, you must tell them everything truthfully. Do you know how people were born before the fall? The man and the woman led a pure virgin life at that time. The man knew only one woman and the woman only one man; they did not marry several times as people today. Some will ask me, "If that is so, how many children must we give birth to?" Only one. Why? Because God has only one, unique Son. God says to people, "If you want to live well, your son must be ready to leave the world and to help his brothers and sisters just as Christ sacrificed Himself for humanity." As sons and daughters of your mothers, you are not ready to serve humanity. You will say, "You, who are preaching, are not ready either." You are right, I am preparing myself now. A work is not ready until it is thoroughly completed. For the work I am doing now, I need at least 10 million years to bring it to some end. I need that many years, but you need as many too so then the work will be completed. You will say, "What a long period of time is necessary!" It is a short period. This time is only a pleasant walk for the human spirit, because time and space are related only to this limited life. A saint who lived once in a monastery thought a long time about the other world and said to himself, "What will people do in heaven? They will spend a year or two pleasantly, but after that what?" One day a very beautiful bird flew to the monastery and the saint wished to catch it. He started chasing it, running after it, but then remembered his duties. When he returned to the monastery, he found great changes - the people had changed and no one recognized him. This saint lost four or five hundred years in chasing a bird, but how many years will be necessary for the accomplishment of some great thought? Therefore, when life has meaning, one never gets tired of it. When you are waiting for your loved one, time moves slowly, but when you are awaiting the set time for your hanging, it flows very quickly. We experience things according to our inner state. Christ says that if your Eye is pure, you will not notice how time passes. You will be happy. In what is your joy today? When you roast a pig, a hen or a turkey, set a jar of wine on the table, the merry clinking of table silver begins and toasts are drunk to your health and to the world’s well-being. Yes, but those hens and lambs are displeased with your happiness, they do not share it. Your joy is their sorrow. Some day the relationship will change. Out of your feasts, grass will grow which the sheep will graze upon peacefully. This will be their reward for their meat you have eaten for numbers of years. Such is the great Karmic Law. Christ says, "When we begin to understand life this way, misfortunes will vanish and life will be light." You do not know why sheep eat grass. This is a temporary method; for in the future, food will be absorbed by the pores of the whole body and not chewed. "What must we do?" Always keep open, bright and pure the Eye that God has put in your Soul so that you can always be warmed by His Heat and Light. Do you know why worldly love exists? When someone marries, the Bulgarians say that they were caught by the "Blind Sunday." Why do people speak that way about love and marriage? This shows that this love does not proceed from the Spiritual Eye, so it is blind. That is why I call worldly love "a love of blind people." Often a young girl and a young man walk arm-in-arm. What does that mean? This shows that one of them is without an Eye and that is why they need someone to lead them by the arm; but if both of them have this Eye, they are not permitted to walk arm-in-arm. If your wife is blind, you will lead her by the arm, but if she has an Eye, you will say to her, "Woman, there must be a distance of one meter between you and me," this is the safe moment in life. Therefore, if our Eye would shine well, we would never allow anyone to come close to us. If we should ever come close together, we would be turning our Eye coming close to darkness. Thus we shall have to form a nation. The nation, in my opinion, is a great condition for the Soul. we shall take advantage of the conditions in which we live and never criticize a whole nation, or a whole society. Society, the nation, humanity are conditions created by God, and we must take advantage of them. We can criticize separate individuals, but not a whole society. We must utilize all conditions which this Eye offers us, but it is in close contact with the human mind, heart and will. Christ says, "If your whole body is full of Light", which means if you use sensibly all your endowments, you will become Son of Man and be in complete harmony with the Son of God. There can be no culture, there can be no noble world until people today develop in themselves this Inner Eye. I can prove this to you using examples from nature. All plants owe their life to the sun. In the same way, for our thoughts and desires to grow and develop, this eye must send them its heat and light. This Eye is inside our brain. If we find this Eye, we shall find our Sun as well. Do not think the heart is an organ performing a definite function. The heart is a society of most intelligent cells that fulfill the highest function - they do the work of the Soul. I recommend to you to develop this Eye of Light so that you do not make mistakes in life. I compare sin to the nucleus of the egg hidden inside within its shell. The egg contains all the conditions out of which the future life can develop. In order that this life should develop, it is necessary to put the egg under the hen where after staying for 21 days the mother hen will begin to cluck, saying to the chick, "When the time comes for you to come out, crack the shell." The chick makes a hole from inside and the moment of its salvation arrives. This process is effected from inside out. We are waiting for others to save us. Do not allow others to crack a hole in your egg. By this Eye, Christ means the Eye in motion, i.e. the Soul of every person containing within itself all the prerequisites for regular development. If your Eye is pure, you will be able to solve correctly all problems thanks to the Light you have. Our life is connected with the past and the future. What I am telling you will not work to save you if you yourselves do not work. My sermon is only the clucking of a brood-hen. Therefore, I say: those who are close to being hatched should use their small beaks to pierce the egg-shell and should make the last efforts to put their heads out. When all the chicks are out, the brood-hen says, "Cluck, cluck," and starts leading them around and teaching them how to peck grains. This is the Divine Natural Law. We want the Lord to come with us, but He is only preaching. Every preacher is a brood-hen. There are brood-hens that preach, but nothing comes of that, because they have no eggs. If you are a brood-hen without eggs, pray God to set you somewhere. Every mother and father are brood-hens. Christ says, "If your Eye is not corrupted, it will fill your body with light, you will understand the sense of life and be in contact with the past, present and future as well as have an incessant bond with Love." But the love dominating the world today is something to beware of! The worldly love is like a muddy stream watering the peppers, the cabbage and other vegetables; however, in time this muddy stream becomes filtered and purified. Nothing unclean, however, should have a place in your egg. Make no compromises if you are to have a shining future. For at least one year, retain the following thought, "I want my Eye to be bright and pure, so that my whole body should be the same". In such a state you will profit much more than if you would listen to all preachers in the world. That sunbeam coming from above produces much better results than all the stoves in the world. Such is the Divine Law. Now direct your mind, your thought, your will and heart to this Eye and ask yourself, “in which day of the hatching am I at the moment?” If only ten days have passed, you will say, "Mother, the time has not come yet." When the 21 day comes, you will say, "Mother, it is time." Thus I say to you: “Cluck, Cluck,” but in this respect I am ignorant; not knowing in which day of the hatching each one of you are. You will know this by your impulses, desires and thoughts. If from today on, all preachers, priests, teachers and judges in Bulgaria and in all Europe should start thinking about this Eye, you would see what a good result there would be. If the Bulgarians first make this experiment, they will see that in a year’s time there would be betterment both intellectually and spiritually. Think of the Eye Christ spoke about, for it is in all of you and by thinking of It, you will obtain Divine Thought, Love and Goodness. When you find this Eye, you will all be immortal – as it brings you to life. This is what Christ was saying. Everyone who wants to be immortal should find this Eye. This is the thought Christ was revealing by this verse. Sermon held on May 11, 1919. ___________________________________ 1 Mathew 6:22

The Book - The Salt. Beinsa Douno The Rising Sun "I am come a Light into the world that whosoever believeth in Me should not abide in darkness."1 The word "I" in this verse stands for the present word "Spirit". When the ideas of the old and the young people differ in form, these ideas do not differ in substance; but when they differ in substance, they do not differ in meaning and finally when they differ in meaning, they do not differ in essence. This difference between the young and the old is natural. The young and the old watching the two phases - the rising and the setting of the sun - have two different perspectives in life. Light increases for the former and decreases for the latter, therefore they cannot have the same view of the world. When people tell me they differ, I make the following comparison: from sunrise till noon people have one kind of ideas, but in the afternoon till sunset, they have another kind of ideas. So when people tell me they differ, I ask them, "What ideas do you have, ideas of the rising or the setting sun, morning or evening conceptions?" There is yet another category of people whose ideas differ: as the night differs from sunset till midnight, and from midnight till the rising of the sun. There are four kinds of people differing in ideas. Two categories belong to the light and two to the darkness. Speaking of light and darkness I mean the movement of the earth in its relation to conscious life. Since there is movement, there will be light and darkness. It is clear that the earth is moving toward the center - the Sun. It is striving for it. Movement means Love. Love moves all beings. When certain matter has kinetic energy, i.e. such that produces movement, this means manifestation of Love in all its forms. Light is one of the forms of Love. Christ says, "I," i.e. the "Spirit," but not what you see, for you see the shadow of things, simply the reflection of light on the surface of all bodies. You say, "I saw a person in the street." What did you see? Nothing, but their shadow. The reflection of their body enters the optic nerve, causes vibration, makes an impression, projects a shadow outwardly and then you say you have met such and such a person. Actually their shadow has met you. I ask you, "When the sun rises, is it you who meet it, or it meets you? Who meets - the one who attracts or the one who is attracted?" this is a philosophy. When someone says they are moving, I want to know whether they are attracted, or whether they attract. When you move you may be attracted or you may attract at the same time. It is one thing to attract and another thing to be attracted - they are two different things. When you are attracted in your movement, you are limited; but when you attract, you are free. When you say you have come to Earth, it is because the Earth attracts you. You are attracted by it for it has pinned you down and is holding you. Is it you who walk or is it walking? I think the Earth is walking within you. These are only a few philosophic thoughts. The Earth is walking and moving. It is a Fine Lady. I have never seen such an elegant way of walking, so gracefully and nimbly. When it moves in space, it does not make any noise, or raise any dust, as ladies do today. The Earth is so polite that it does not want to awake anyone when it passes, that is why no one is conscious of it. It has turned its gaze to the Sun - its Lover. But ladies today do just the opposite. All who grumble in this world have not turned their eyes intently anywhere, or in other words - they are people lacking an idea. When I say they have no idea, I do not mean they do not have some ideas; but their gaze, their movement, their aspiration is not fixed in a definite direction as that of the Earth. When Christ says, "I came," He does not mean the coming of a man but of a great idea; and we are deceived by thinking that a person comes or has come. A preacher comes and we say that he will set the world right. Christ came 2,000 years ago and people said at that time that He would set the world right. Many others came after Him but again the world is not set right, in our opinion. Why? Because the world is not set right here but in another place (unclear). I shall ask you when an artist paints a great picture, where is their mind directed? To the canvas, of course, where they make their corrections. The idea in their mind is perfect, but when they project it on the canvas, it is not as perfect as it is in their mind. Therefore, the life which is within us is perfect. They say that the life of some people is worldly and of others, spiritual. Life in itself can be neither worldly nor spiritual; but when the animal principle lives in a person, they become worldly and when the human one is manifested in a person, they become spiritual. If you put some bitter or sweet element in perfectly clear water, it will acquire its taste, but does that mean the water itself is bitter or sweet? It is neither bitter nor sweet, this is a wrong conception; but you make it such. It is the same with people: some put in pure Divine Life some element that corrupts it and makes it worldly; while others apply the good to life and render it spiritual. For this reason some people are very spiritual. But today people have so defiled their life that I do not see any difference between the spiritual and the worldly people. When it comes to defending their ideas, both kinds hold on to their houses and collect the rents. The one kind pass for sweet, the other for bitter; but the bitter are such for other people, not for themselves. These are conceptions of the people. Therefore, light and darkness are two processes for the explanation and conception of all existing relations. Light is a clear conception, while darkness is a vague, confused conception of things. Now, many of you pass for worldly people. I would like to be a worldly man in certain respects and a spiritual man in other respects. If I want to rest and sit in the shade of a tree by a spring, I shall be spiritual. But if I am with a hoe in hand, I shall be a worldly man, because I shall cut the heads of many worms. That is why the spiritual people do not take a hoe and bear the name of sluggards, while the worldly are considered industrious. The worldly people solve their problems by the blade of their sword, while the people of an idea - by their pen. The worldly people are the manual workers - the proletariat, while the spiritual people are the bourgeoisie. It is not bad to be a bourgeois. After one has worked for a long time in the field as a proletarian, they will start resting and become bourgeoisie setting the world right from their point of view. To have order in the world, one should not rest longer than necessary; but they should not work more than their strength allows them either. Light and darkness are two phases in nature which alternate - we work in light and rest in darkness; when we work, light is outside, darkness inside; but when we rest, light is inside and darkness is outside. Only if the worldly and spiritual people think and understand life this way will they find the touching points of mutual agreement in clarifying the Law of Labor. Christ says, "I came," i.e. the Spirit has come. When the Spirit comes to you, He will give you a clear idea of life. Christ has come to you so that everyone who believes in Him should not walk in darkness. I do not consider faith in the ordinary sense that many people maintain. Only the pure, sinless person can have faith as they can believe in everything and doubt no one. This is faith, not "beliefs". Faith is a quality of the Angels. Some say, "I have faith." No, you have beliefs. Your faith is like a cobweb changing 100 times a day - you believe one minute and do not believe the next minute. One day I met a young student who had studied some occult sciences and who told me that he believed in God. But later, after studying socialism, he confessed that he trod on his idea of God and now he became a man. By the words "trod on his God" I understand that he has trod on his egoism. When someone says that they believe in God, they mean that they believe in themselves and consider themselves a divinity. All people today are "divinities" so that those who say that they believe show they are valorous to confess that they believe in themselves as divinities; while those who say they do not believe in God hide this fact. The world is full today of Christs, St Virgins, St Johns, St Nicolases and so on. The world is suffering from them. The real Lord in not here yet! Where is He? See where He is: when you come to love all people in your soul, this Lord has sent you a ray; when all contradictions vanish in your mind, when you realize your duty and are ready to sacrifice yourself, the real Lord has spoken in you and you and He are one and the same thing at the moment. Christ says: "I came with this Lord who lives in me, I came with Him and through Him I should give light to all that may believe". Who? Those small, pure souls. What a great thing that is for a person to be pure in the world! Upon purity rest all ideas, all happiness, all health and blessedness of humanity. If a person is pure, they will not walk in darkness, but will have a clear idea of life and order it as it should be ordered. I know two brothers in Varna, one of whom graduated from the military academy and became an officer gradually rising to higher positions until he attained the state of colonel. His brother did not attend any higher school and served his time as an ordinary soldier. One day the soldier met his brother in the street and did not salute him. The colonel stopped and asked him why he did not salute him. The soldier answered, "You are my brother and I need not salute you." "I am an officer in the first place and then your brother - that is why you should have saluted me," answered his colonel brother. "I arrest you for two days." And today the world is full of colonels outside and ordinary soldiers inside, of bourgeoisie and proletarians - an emblem of light and darkness. When did you become a bourgeoisie or a proletarian? You were not born a bourgeois or a proletarian, but a person who must think and understand the Law of Light and Darkness. Light implies wealth, while darkness - poverty, but there are different degrees of light. For instance, there is light at sunrise, there is a broad day noon light and light at sunset. That bourgeois whose sun has risen will look at things one way; but the person whose sun has set will look at things another way. Today Christ is solving a great social problem - the problem of the so called class struggle. This is not an ideological struggle. It is the same which has existed for 8,000 years, expressed in the same way: "You come down so that I can go up." So far the minorities have ruled, but in the future the majority will rule. The minorities have worked till now, but the bolsheviks will work in the future. This can happen. You will say, "How is it possible for a gentleman to work for the simple men, for the proletariat?" But I shall ask you: how is it possible for a mother and father who are bourgeois to work for their children - the proletarians of the world - to get up early in the morning to feed them and supply all their needs, to sacrifice so many sleepless nights for them and so on? The parents know that in this way they must fulfill their duties to their children, because some day this proletariat will take revenge themselves on their parents. The mother, who is love, works; so does the father - these bourgeois must put on their aprons and work for the proletarians, because these proletarians will cast them out of the house some day, take their money by force and make them work. This has been so and will be so. How long? Until this class struggle comes to an end for it is solely materialistic. This is a transitory state in the life of humanity. After thousands of years another epoch will come when people will live in a different way and this struggle will be substituted by a life of order and decency. Today we consider people in their relations to their kind according to the sentence: dog eat dog2. However, I say that a person is a brother to the others. If we consider Darwin’s theory of the origin of species and make a study of the origin and conditions under which the wolf lived, we shall see that originally it did not possess these same qualities in the character which were developed later because of the conditions under which it lived. The wolf is a representative of an ancient culture and today it manifests itself in human society and in life. Why? Because people do not understand the Great Laws, which govern life. I shall demonstrate to you figuratively the relations of people in contemporary life. Let us admit that the roots of a tree have a deep consciousness in themselves and all of a sudden a small root starts on its own away from the tree and meets great obstacles. This small root cannot find a way out and it returns to its father and crosses him. The father does not know that this is his son and begins to struggle with it. The same way all people are struggling with themselves, with their children, trying to cut them off and get rid of them. It is the same roots which have met obstacle in life, or otherwise there would not be any disharmony. Christ says, "I came to show the true way to all who believe and have the purity of the Angels." People are still reasoning whether they will live after their death or not and whether life has meaning or not. This is no life, but only sediments of the darkness in which they live. Life is unique and it can neither die or be born. If I pour out the water in my pitcher, does it die? The pitcher has neither been alive, nor can it die. Therefore, in their physical state people are pitchers into which life is poured. The pitcher is only a condition, but life is everything. When the pitcher is filled up, it comes to life, but when it is emptied, it dies. Life in the body is heterogeneous, but in death - homogeneous. Scientists today say that matter is homogeneous. This is 50% true. Diversity cannot be born from homogeneity. If there was no heterogeneity in colors, nothing could be born of their uniformity. What is heterogeneity? It is all the necessary forms through which creation, life, must be manifested. Life cannot be manifested only through a single form, but through a limitless number of forms. When these forms combine and give expression to a greater form, we say that life is uniform, i.e. all the forms have the same aspiration to give expression to a higher form. But this higher form is not alone; there are more similar forms which combine and form other worlds. When we study nature, we observe the existence of this Law of Uniformity and Diversity. This, however, should not hinder us. A person who is in the dark is resting and instructing the young. They may be writers, poets, princes who will sit in the shade; but if they are proletarians, they will work only when there is light. Therefore, God created the world for the proletarians, i.e. for the workers who progress and not for the bourgeoisie. We shall liken the rich people to wealth collected in the past; the poor - to wealth which is being collected now. Thus, the rich people are of the past and the poor people - of the future. If you are a rich person, you are of the past; if you are poor, you are of the future. In the Jewish language there are only two tenses: past and future. There is no present tense. They say that everything happening now is past and what is going to happen is future. The present is only a transitory moment; it is a point which takes no place whatever (unclear). Be people of the future then! Christ says, "I came to give Light to the people - to the poor, to the people of the future - that they may not walk in darkness, the way of the rich, i.e. of the past." All sins are sins of the past. We bear our sin as a shade and every person who wants to get rid of it must become a person of the future; otherwise they will bear their sin as the snake bears is skin. When someone says they want to live in the future, I understand they want to live without sin. Therefore, the poor are people of the Good and the Light, while the rich are people of sin and darkness. These words may seem bitter to you, but let someone come and prove this is not the truth. I do not consider a rich person only a person of money, but also the person of knowledge and power who does not employ their wealth for the good of their kind, but rather for their stumbling in evil. I call them bourgeois. People who do the will of God, I call proletarians, or people of the future. I also call the proletarians "bees", workers for the new culture. The word "proletarian" is a class word; it is not an exact expression and so we must say ‘Workers of the New Culture, of the New Science’. What is the New Science? That we all should live in the Light; that we all should be happy and spoil neither our happiness, nor that of others. Only by two words I can spoil your happiness so that for 100 years you will not find it. Imagine that I call you and place before you a bomb with a fuse. If the bomb explodes what will become of you? In the same way, in every thought of yours there is explosive matter which, when exploding, creates all those conditions we call evil. I explain evil as matter we cannot control, because it is not submitted to our will. The matter under our will, which we can control, I call good. The external world is controlled by another will, but the inner world is under our control. If God, Who controls matter outside, loses His contact, all existence would vanish. That is why we must hold the reigns of our horse, for once they get out of control, the horse runs away and overturns everything, so misfortunes come thereby. These are general ideas. Every day your horse - your mind - walks with his tail up, ears pricked, brave, undaunted; but someone passes by and tells him something and he is immediately startled. A rich Jew walks bravely on his way, but someone meets him and tells him he will live only two more days. The horse is startled - the mind of this Jew - and he immediately closes his shop and says, "From now on you will have a holiday." All people get startled this way. Ever since the war I have been hearing people wonder what will become of Bulgaria. Many are more fearful than necessary. Bulgaria is not the only entity, there are others as well. Tell me, were there Bulgarians, Serbs, French, Germans, Englishmen when God was creating the world? There were not. They came later of themselves. You may object, but I ask you: does a mother bear her children as professors, teachers, priests, judges and so on? She bears children who become learned people, generals, doctors, engineers and so on, later in life. Our positions in life are the different roles we play on the stage. While we are on the stage, we are clothed in different costumes like actors, but as soon as we come off the stage, we are already brothers. When we go to heaven, we shall laugh a little at this struggle when we remember the different events of our life on earth. I shall explain your position by an example. An Indian God, being satiated with the nice life in heaven, wished to be allowed to come down to earth to live for a while. He was given permission and so he chose the form of a swine and got incarnated in a small pig. He started to live like all pigs - poking his snout in dirt and mud, lying in the shades and growing fat. At one time he married and had about fifteen piglets. He lived peacefully and happily. They waited for him to return to heaven for a year, two, three, ten years, but he did not return. They called him from there, but he did not want to go back. He said, "I feel very well here." They decided to take away his piglets and force him to return, but in spite of this misfortune, he did not want to return. They took his wife away, but he started looking for another wife and they did not succeed in persuading him. Finally, they decided to send him a fatal illness, which caused him to return back to heaven. When he awoke in heaven, he started to laugh at the life he had spent on earth. Many people today have the experience of this bourgeois, digging and solving different problems on earth. Different misfortunes come to bring people to their senses, but when they leave the form of the swine, they will understand what their state had been. What does the form of a swine mean? It is the extreme materialism existing today. What does it consist of? Namely, that the people get together and start talking about this and that, about the other world, the good in life; but at the same time they keep their geese, hens and wine, living luxuriously. When the poor listen to their talk, they say to themselves: these people talk all the time about the other world and live for God, but they know how to live in this world. And so the life of the rich with their materialism appeals to the poor who make it an ideal they aspire to attain. This ideal becomes the aim in the life of the poor and thereby the teaching of materialism is given rise to. The poor say, "We want to live like you." Since the rich people became the cause of the deviation of the poor from the right course, God will place them in the position of the poor so that they may correct their mistakes. Such is the Law. That is why Christ says, "I came, a Light in the world to explain and make things clear." There are no contradictions in nature; only those we ourselves create them. How? We cannot control and direct part of the matter God has given us and that is why we create evil. All sins have their origin in matter. Every sin has a form. Show me a sin that has no form. Some person is considered an egoist. What does their egoism consist in? They want to have houses, money, to dominate their wife/husband and so on. People say about some that these are greedy, misanthropic, etc. All sins have their material motives. When we smooth out all bad forms, all sin will vanish away. Therefore, bad forms create evil and that is why people are advised to create beautiful forms. When two scientists get together, they offer different theories about the sun, its conditions and so on. Other scientists begin to argue whose opinion is more truthful and divide as followers of the one or the other. Today all scientists argue about which of the science authorities have more following. Two priests argue which of them has more parishioners and so on. Christ and Moses cannot agree or come to terms in the world. Christ and Mohammed can come to no agreement on the earth either. There is no such a Moses, such a Mohammed or such a Christ. That Christ, Moses or Mohammed who cause division among the people, are not Servants of God. When a person is sent to bring some great Divine Idea, they have no right to enslave people, or look for their own benefits. Christ says, "I, the Spirit, bring this Light to the people who believe, i.e. who have purity." For instance, do you believe in what I am telling you? You will say that you have not verified it yet. But do you believe in Christ? For two thousand years on end people have been verifying Christ. As much as you believe in me, you believe in Christ. Did the Jews believe in Moses? Up till now I have not yet met a person in the world who believes in their Master completely. Those who say they believe in Christ, or in whoever it maybe, do not speak the real Truth. To believe in Christ does not mean to stand reverently in a church. It means to have the disposition Christ had in His Soul. I am not talking to you about religion, we have had enough of religions. We must live in a Divine Love, in the Divine Affection, in the Divine Spirit. Let the present religions remain for the bourgeoisie, for the people of the past; the Divine Life is necessary for the people of the future. Some think we are trying to lead people into new kind of delusions. Such a thought is far from me, there is Love in me which is a movement from up high downwards. I understand what affection is - a movement of the human soul from below upwards. I understand what the Divine Spirit - a Power which keeps everything in harmony. So long as you keep your present religious conceptions, we shall never be able to come to an agreement. Can you say like Christ, "I came, a Light into the world"? Can you be Light to yourself and your brothers? This is required of all of you, because you can all become in this sense saviours of the world. If you expect a single person to save the world, it will never be set right and order restored in it. We must all set about righting and ordering it; which can be achieved only when we maintain the Divine Order of things and strive not to break it. When someone asks me if I believe in Christ, I find this the most banal question for it is the same as if someone should ask me if I believe in the Light, in Love. I walk in the Light; what is the use of believing in it? Everyday I speak with God, how should I not believe in Him? Asking me such questions means that they want to take me down from my position and make me a demon, an antichrist, a bourgeois. I do not want to be a bourgeois or a proletarian as people understand them today. I am not speaking to you about the historic Christ, but about this Living Christ Who is in you and among you. Drive this wedge out of your mind - this thought that Christ is outside you. This Christ is the Spirit; and when you understand Him, you will see Him in every person. So long as you seek Christ only in a single person, you will never find Him. I have already asked you: if someone wants to make a study of you, will they be able to understand you only by a single hair of yours? If someone loves a person and takes only a hair from his head, can we say that all their love lies in that fact? This would be a whole idyll! I see how the religious people take a hair from Christ and look and look at it; then put it back in its place, not understanding anything. People do not take only hair, but also pieces of His cross and still the world is not set right. Why? Because people are occupied only with the physical aspect of Christ. Christ has said, "Whoever does the Will of my Father will live in Light." By this I do not have in view the personal life of people, but I want to clean the streams. I have decided to clean up the muddy water not because I hate it, but to give way to the pure water and to water the gardens where pepper, cabbages, carrots and other vegetables are planted. Muddy water is necessary for the gardens, while pure water is needed by the Pilgrims of Life returning to God. What an idea this is! When God created the world - without any nationalities - the world was happy; but today, ever since the old Egyptians, Assyrians, Romans, Greeks, Philistians came, happiness vanished from the earth. I am interested in modern science and life and in spite of all the contradictions I come across, I can still find many useful things. I stand in greater admiration before a barefoot child than before a rich, well-dressed one. This poor child is excellent, because you can talk with them. They are modest, while the well-dressed children have external forms, and are insincere, by which they want to show that they are not simple. I meet a drunkard who has drunk much and who excuses himself saying, "Excuse me, sir, I am an ass, I have taken a drop too much." I say to him, "You are not an ass, because the ass doesn’t drink; but you are a frank person for which I respect you." At times when a person drinks, they can become a bourgeois, because an industrious person never gets drunk. All drunkards are bourgeois. Now let us return to God and live without the religion of hatred, envy and avarice. By this, I do not want to say that religion must be cast out. Let the class struggle exist, because it is just as useful as those worms which cultivate the soil. The farmer says, "I plowed the field." No, it is not you who have ploughed it, but those worms that live deep in the earth. Thus, in the class struggle the proletarians and the bourgeoisie are the worms that have been working for a number of years and have oxidized the soil. After that, the Angels will come with their ploughs to sow this soil and say, "You have worked enough; we thank you, because you will have to eat and drink for thousands of years and you will all be brothers." The Christians say that in those blessed times they will be in Paradise; the Turks say they will have whole mountains of pilaf3 without coupons! However, Christ says, "I came, a Light of the world," and Light is the meaning of life: it is food for the mind, the soul and the heart. That is to be content in yourselves, nourished in life and have energy and desire for work in life. Now when you go back home, you will begin to philosophize, "Can a person live without religion?" When God created the world there was no religion. Religion appeared in the world when the devil came. Before that people lived in Love and every teaching which was not directed by Love was not recognized as Divine. In my opinion, religion is a sanatorium - a hospital for sick people. When a maiden is disappointed in life and when a lad looses his loved one, they become religious. Therefore all religious people are bankrupt bourgeois, while those who serve God out of Love are people without religion. Those who are in the hospital should better not leave it prematurely. Yet, if they nevertheless want to leave it, they must consult a doctor whether it is time for that, if their organism is functioning rightly. If the doctor allows them that; let them enter the broad path of Light where one can live without religion. "You are free," he must say, and sign a certificate for their freedom. The church at present is a hospital and the priests and ministers are the nurses and doctors there. Now the time has come for some of you to leave the hospital and I am at its door. Although I am a minister acknowledged by no one, a prophet without portfolio, I shall ask you, "Was your life in the hospital pleasant and did you learn your lesson there?" You will say, "Oh, those injections ruined us!" The doctor says, "A person who does not live in God will test our needles and live in the hospital." I say, "I do not carry any packing such as needles or knives and do not have any pharmacy or bag on me. You should breathe pure air, look up, not walk in darkness and let the sun shine on you that you may not go back to the hospital again. If you enter it a second time, your condition is dangerous and more complex. The doctor will appear again, use all scientific means, watch how your temperature is rising constantly and soon the sick person will go bankrupt and be carried out of the hospital. There is no life at such a high temperature so they will take the person to the autopsy room, open up their brain, stomach, bowels and find out the reason for their dismissal. Christ says that people can live without thermometers. Do not be troubled by the idea what is useful and what is not useful in life. Everything is useful, but we should stop thinking that life exists only at the hospital. The hospital, the church, the concert hall, the school are transitory things, but life implies something much more serious in itself. In real life there should not be any confusion, but constant work. In only three words I shall make a definition of what Christ talks about: torment, labor and work. Some student says, "I was tormented much until I entered high-school and labored much until I graduated." After passing through torment and labor one comes to work. This is the Teaching I am preaching to you now. I say to those who have been tormented to stop that and begin to labor; and to those who have been tormented and have labored, I say, "You need not be tormented and labor anymore. Come to me and I shall teach you how to work." These are the words of Christ in the quoted verse, "I, My Spirit, will come and teach you what to do." Now is the moment for those who have graduated from school to stop and show their certificate or diploma, because they were ignorant before that. Today all over the world people want a diploma, if you do not have one, you cannot become a teacher, a minister, a judge and so on. The future life will not be the life of the past. Christ says, "In the future there will be no need of certificates," and the present life will serve as a basis of the future one. New forms will be worked out and we know what these forms will be: Brotherhood with Love. Now, those who have not entered school and do not know the Light will be tormented and labor. Few are those who work - they are only some poets, artists and musicians. The main thing in work is not to have any confusion in your mind. Christ says, "I bring you the Divine Love. Enter it; manifest your affection and then the Spirit will come and enter you and you will understand the Inner Meaning of life". Talk of the Master held on May 4, 1919. _________________________________________________________________ 1 John 12:46 2 In Bulgarian the saying is: A person is wolf for the person. (ed. note) 3 23 pi.laf or pi.laff - n (Turk & Pers) a dish made of seasoned rice and often meat (ed. note)

This Teaching Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed. 2 John – 9,10 The above lines constitute the core of the appeal, the word transgresses1 has a double meaning. For example, the child starts walking and what a joy it is for the mother. She will go out to let the neighbours know that the child has made the first step. Do you understand why the mother is thrilled? Her child, so far moving on all fours like the animals, is already upright, i.e. walks, and this is joy for the mother. The Apostle says, "Whosoever transgresses, and abides not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abides in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son." I believe that many dare transgress, but there is a double transgression. When a person loses one’s temper, hatred comes into one’s soul and the person transgresses. Having transgressed like this, a person can no longer abide in the Teaching of Christ. The Teaching of Christ is Divine; it is a Teaching of the eternal Life, not of the human temporary life. Life can be divided into three categories: animal life, human life, and Divine life. Animal life is a life of continual suffering; human life – of continual labour, and Divine life is a life of continual Love or of Blessing. The human and the Divine principles keep changing in everybody’s soul. For example, you love somebody – a friend of yours, you give her gifts, you invite her home, you receive her well, but one day you say, "I already hate her." How can Love be transformed into hatred? This love is human, a love of consideration. And nowadays, all homes and all societies suffer from such love all the time. If you are rich or educated everybody receives you well when you join a society. Once they have taken what you have, they show you the door through which you came in. Although you have entered through this door so many times, you still haven’t learnt your lesson. When this Teaching is being talked about, you say, "It’s not relevant to me." Both the good and the bad sides of this teaching are relevant to you, because if you suffer, you suffer for your sake, and if you rejoice, you again do it for your own sake. Nobody can suffer or rejoice for you. In this respect everybody bears his or her cross. Many of you wish that somebody else would bear your suffering for you, therefore, you keep telling one person, another person, and then many people about it and you say that people do not understand you. Let’s assume that your ankle is sprained and you go to a neighbour of yours to put it into joint, but she, not knowing anything about this art twists it and she keeps twisting it and causes you much more suffering. So, you go to another neighbour of yours, but she can’t put it into place either and your pain gets even worse. Who is to blame for this – you or the woman who does not know how to set it? You are to blame, because you allow a person, who does not know anything, to play with your ankle. You have to place yourself into experienced hands. The Scripture reads, "Confess your sins to each other." I now give you another order, "Hide your sins from each other." If you confess your sins to each other, the way you allow your neighbours, who understand nothing, to deal with your ankle, they will twist them and nothing will come out of it. Therefore, confess your sins to the one who understands. Christ’s Teaching restores the Divine harmony or the lost virtues of the human soul. First of all, it has to make you pure in the heart. You will say, "Can a person live in this world and have a pure heart?" Yes, it is possible. When one stays in water, one can always be clean. The second thing, which Christ’s teaching can do for you, is that your soul will be a virgin soul. What does this virginity mean? Farmers call virgin soil such soil that is rich in juices, while soil poor in juices is not virgin soil. Hence, if your soul can deliver something good, something supreme, it is virgin soul. If it cannot deliver such things, it is not virgin soul. John says, "Let’s try this teaching." Abiding is similar to a human being staying in fresh air, living in it, and breathing it in. When we enter Christ’s teaching, when it settles in our souls, it will inevitably produce a certain relief in our souls; we will feel a special Purity within. So, purification will come with the very Teaching itself. Contemporary advanced physicists have big disks to clean themselves. When some of them make experiments and cannot clean themselves easily, they get into those disks, switch on the electricity and in five minutes they are clean. Christ’s Teaching is this Divine electricity and by letting it into your souls, it will generate this Purity. It reads, "He that abides…" If many of you fail to succeed or progress, they transgress something, but the way little children do. When we transgress a certain Divine order, we immediately lose our temper and equilibrium. This Teaching has to exist in this world so that we can live peacefully, because it is food for the soul. Just like we have to receive food everyday and to transform it into strength, in the same way Christ’s Teaching has to be transformed into a constant strength. I notice that many of you rather than becoming peaceful and humble become nervous and touchy. This is a painful situation. There is another mistake with you as well: you think that you have learnt a lot and because of this each one of you judges the others at large. Many of you wait for some strength, some revelation, to come to them out of the blue so that they can show the world that God is with them. God has been with you for thousands of years, so you do not have to show the world that God is with you. The world needs the Sun, just like our Sun, to deliver food to the world. You think that by lighting a candle you will enlighten the world. No, other people will light a bigger candle and yours will be left in the background. You have to apply Christ’s Teaching for your souls’ sake. When I tell you a certain truth, I see you – you turn your heads to the others and think that these words refer to them. I exclude nobody; I speak to everybody. Evil is evil, even if clad in golden garments. Nobody can love a person who has leprosy. The soul is the one that tunes the body. When your soul is pure, when Christ’s Teaching is in it, your body will be healthy and you will forbear everything with ease, you will gladly endure even the greatest sufferings. Do not forget that our earthly life is not a bed of roses. Pay attention to how little children fish in the river; they take a small fishing rod, place a small worm onto it and swing it into the waters, and the fish eats the worm and gets hooked. It often happens that you too get hooked and the devil takes you out; swallowing the bait, you believe you walk along the Path. The first thing that you face is to cut the line and then call the doctor to take the hook out of your throat. I can see many such hooks in you, left from the past. How many bullets are left in soldiers? Doctors say that these will come out little by little, but when the weather deteriorates, pain is sure to show up. Christ’s Teaching is a Teaching of the Divine and eternal Love. So, if a person can love you ten times a day and can hate you ten times a day, do not trust that person’s teaching and do not let such a person into your home. Love is the one that has the Eternal Life. If you have this Life within you, you will understand the Divine secrets. I want you to lay these two principles in your life, because they are identical: the one who transgresses does not deliver. A woman, who cannot weave, should not be allowed to sit at your loom – she will spoil the cloth. A servant, who cannot cook, should not be let into the kitchen. A person who has not studied should not be allowed to teach your children. Do not let leprous people in, because leprosy will penetrate your souls. Nothing impure should enter Heaven, as Heaven is your soul. Now you are ruled by this principle: you are like idle students and you want your teacher to be lenient. This cannot happen. Consider architects, who have completed their studies; the teachers, who taught them, were always lenient to them. What is the use of this? You meet such an architect and you ask the architect to make a plan for you. It will be a plan like the plan of that person, who ten years ago constructed a building in Varna, and one of the walls collapsed shortly thereafter. What would have happened to the clerks if they were in? Hence, everybody, who graduates thanks to leniency, will create a false teaching and one’s thoughts and desires will be buried underneath. I am not saying that you are not on the Path, or that you haven't started seeking the Truth. However, when students do mathematical problems they know whether the problem is properly set or not. Many times the correct answer is marked to check against. Students, who do not understand their job, want their answers to be by the book, but gifted students say, "The answer, given in the book, to this problem, is not correct." Therefore, you have to correct the answers in the books and to do your mathematical problems in consistency with all the rules. The process you will pass through will be useful to you. Christ’s Teaching is alive and Apostle Paul says, ‘Christ is come in the flesh is of God.’2 How do you imagine Christ? Apostle Paul says, ‘yet now henceforth know we Christ no more’3. How then do we know Him? So, there are ways to know, to feel Christ. When we say that we can recognise Christ, I understand that Light can be recognised only by seeing, but not by touching, nor by smelling, nor by hearing. How do we recognize Wisdom? By hearing. So, listening is thinking. How can we recognise Love? By the tongue. Taste it and you will recognise it. The tongue contains two elements in itself: it imparts the greatest blessing in the world and wise speech comes out of it. Sweet nice words are the fruit of Love. Therefore, if you have understood Love, your souls will be the fruit. Each spoken word in Love is powerful. Sometimes your words are weak. Why? Because you have no Love within. Sometimes you say, "Let’s love each other!" This is as if we say that it’s time to eat and we talk about chicken and lamb but there is nothing on the table. These are words in vain. Let’s assume that I have served at your table chicken and turkey, either painted or made of gypsum, but poured with delicious sauce. Will they [dishes - chicken and turkey] be of any good to you? Is this what you call teaching? No, it isn’t. And you, who listen to me, have been and are still walking along this path. You say, "Let’s love each other!" So far, I have not noticed Love among you. I have been working with you for so many years, but I could not make a single rope out of your love, so that I can pull someone out. And God says, ‘I attracted you with the threads of my Love.’ What we call attraction or gravitation is a very thin thread. The whole Earth is sustained by such a thin thread; each soul is sustained by such a thin thread. If this thread breaks you will fall away from God. If you adhere to God, you will be joined by this thread and shall be in a centre, around which you can move. This is what the Teaching of Divine Love implies. I can check how many of you have this Love. Some say, "I am utterly offended." Why? "Because I was not welcomed properly." I ask you whether you welcomed God, Christ, as you should. This is not meant as a reproach, just a question about human development. Because, if we want the food we receive, to create our new body, it should run uninterrupted and continual. Divine Love is also continual and as soon as it runs dry the whole river within us will run dry. Divine Love never runs dry, while the human one runs dry every six months. As soon as love runs dry, the river-bed also runs dry, but at times there are great floods and waters get turbulent. When your soul is churned, your guiding spirit shows you that you reside in human love, not in Divine Love. If you do not love anybody, this indicates that the devil lives in you. The devil also has its love. When Love in you alternates with hatred, this is a sheer imitation of love and such love is called love of death, due to which everybody dies nowadays. I shall give you an example of such love: in Varna, a young gentleman, a rich shopkeeper, decided to get married. He found one young woman he liked and married her. Soon after the marriage, he fell seriously ill. Ill of what? Ill of his wife. He left for Europe to get treatment and after four-five years, he was saved. Therefore, if a certain teaching, with which you may come in touch, generates such a condition within you, you have to reject it. Place Christ or the visible God in you and say, "God’s Love does not change!" If you keep thinking like this, you will not say that you are sinful, because there is no creature that has been denied access to Divine Love. You cannot enter Divine Love and enjoy it, without knowing it. When you enter Divine Love, you will swim and everyone who cannot swim will drown. Some say, "When I enter Divine Love, I will drink only half a litre of water, so that I won't drown." All right, but there are millions, upon millions of litres of water there. This is why everybody will clutch at Divine Love, so that everybody can swim. What does swimming mean? When you walk on the earth you argue that you want to be in touch with God, but are you? You are lagging behind. When you are in the water, you will be immersed in it. Such is the law of swimming. The same law rules Divine Love too, but in it you will be on the surface. A person struck by lightning, places his face to the ground, so that the earth can draw out the electricity, which has entered the person. Similarly, when you are struck by spite you have to quickly fall down on your face! This is what it means to be immersed in this Divine Love, so that it can enter into you, so that it can touch the matter and penetrate inside you. John says, "Father and Son." Father is the one we came from, while the Son is the visible Love. The Love I talk about, is not something ephemeral, is not just a pleasant mood, but constant warmth. This you can check and verify. If, in half an hour, you experience a change to the opposite, this is human love. Sometimes your face becomes light and you say, "I’m close to Christ!" On the following day, however, you are in a different mood. These are phases of human love, which warm on one side and cool on the other. As soon as you enter animal love, you will feel a thirst for revenge. Subsequently the love of the devil is in this - the devil takes delight in revenge. Divine Love harmonises the two conditions of animal and human love, takes out their juices and places these into agreement. This Teaching is necessary for your personal life. You believe in Christ, you go to church, you light candles, you meet various people, and all the time you seek Christ. You tell yourselves, "When we die, we shall see Christ." Well, you can die now and still carry on living. Death is when we are dead for spite, not freeing ourselves from our physical body. Some say that death is prison. No, our shortcomings are prison. If you have big debts, your house will be sold, but you will still be liable and deductions will be made from your salary. So even if you leave your body, your creditors will get hold of you at your second or third salary, until complete repayment. What do you have to do? The only salvation is Christ’s Teaching – to enter Divine Love and everybody who loves God will help you. Problems are assigned to be solved at each school; God also assigns problems to solve – to every home. The problem may be your husband or wife, your children, your friends etc. I also often solve problems; you are my problem to solve. Many times, I have thought about why you quarrel among each other. By quarrelling you destroy what I build, you pick the flowers I plant. How will the advanced souls receive you when you go to them in Heaven? Imagine you are among students who can play an instrument, but you cannot. How will these students receive you? They will treat you as a listener. If you can play, they will receive you as one of them. The same principle is valid in Christian life. Some want me to make them perfect, to give them digested knowledge, to make them wise. No, there is no such teaching. The Teaching I preach is a Teaching of Love, of perseverance, of self-denial, and so on. You will study all the subjects on your own; you will study Bulgarian literature and other subjects. You say that Bulgarian writers are stupid. If I explain to you what, for example, Pencho Slaveikov4 wrote, you will see that he stands much higher than us, but if he comes here, you will leave him outside. You do not read and you believe that if you take and read one of my lectures, you will remember every thought and you will be able to repeat it later on. No, this is not yours; this is a reproduction – just like a gramophone playing. You have to sing and play, i.e. what I give you has to enter your minds, to be transformed into thoughts and feelings, to enter the Divine world and to bear fruit. This is the Teaching that Christ preached. He now helps us at this school. Sometimes you struggle, you suffer, but all of a sudden a bright thought comes to mind and you resolve the issue. This shows that you are being helped. Some days ago a man came to visit me who told me, "Somebody offended me, but since I started on the Path I did not want to treat him in the same way and I tried to find two such words which are smooth externally, but so loaded with meaning, that he would never forget them. So I decided to tell him nothing, not to give him the bitter pill…" You all administer such pills in Sofia society, but I would like you to take this gentleman as an example. This is the way to apply Christ’s Teaching. Love is actually what endures the offences. Two offences do not make one virtue. When God forgives us, he wants us to admit that we have offended Him. But when we reach a situation where we are aware of all this and when we start crying and grieving, God does send angels to help us. As Easter is approaching, give up these two words which are smooth externally, but bring no peace internally, but instead place the following words in you, "Father and Son". If you want to do something bad, ask yourself, "What will Father, who is up there in Heaven, say, when he sees me like this?" Or "What will my older brother say – the Son?" The bad desire will immediately be paralysed and the opposite action will come. This is the way to renew ourselves. Now big suffering is coming to the world, to purify it. You will say, "What does God think of us? What does Christ think?" Knowing what God thinks of us, we shall learn what Christ thinks of us. Because if we do not understand what God thinks of us, we shall not understand what other people think. Love will enter us only after having gone hungry for three or four days. You come back tired, exhausted from work, and I start preaching to you that God is Love. What will you make out of this Love, when you are hungry? After I wash and feed you, you will feel Love. This is Christ’s Teaching. Someone offends you – there is a chance for you to appear before God and to say, "Pray, God, transform this offence, this insult, into Love!" Sometimes you feel Peace in your soul after someone offended you and you say, "I was offended, but I have forgiven." Unexpectedly, however, in a year or two you remember the same offence. If three years after the offence, you are not concerned, then the fever is gone. You may be sure that when the Divine Teaching comes, there will be no offences in the world. This is why old Christians were cheerful when they were chased and prosecuted. A human being that walks in Divine Love accepts insults as a wreath. Make sure you do not restrict your Father and pay no attention to what I think of you, but to what God thinks of you. He says that your windows are closed, there is not enough light and although he sends so much food to you, you are still hungry and sick. Now, try to learn to transgress as little children, not to transgress Christ’s Teaching. If there is a hard issue to tackle, call to your Father and say, "Father, as you sent Christ to the Earth, let it be the way you said!" You have to set for yourselves the following motto, "We shall fulfil your will the way you want us to!" You will say, "We make a promise, because it is difficult to fulfil God’s Will." Once you allow such a doubt to enter your mind remember that it is from the devil. God’s Will has to be fulfilled for God’s sake, not for the world’s sake. What does God want? He wants you to fulfil what you have promised. This is what Christ wants. Christ, who is the world, is in the flesh, which does not die. What dies is human. You can know your friends in two ways. A friend, who only praises you or only shows your mistakes to you, is not a true friend. A friend, who at the same time shows your mistakes to you and praises you, is a true friend. The latter on seeing that you have a stain, takes the brush and cleans you, and you, in turn, thank him or her. Such a friend shows you the mistakes with this brush. You only clean the dust with the brush. The brush will be out of place if you apply it to your face. You have such toilet brushes to powder your face. Not that I am against powdering, neither am I against repairing your houses, but I say that you should never run the brush across your face, even if the powder is of superior quality. There is no better powder than Christ’s Teaching; I have never come across a better brush than this Teaching. This is why I recommend it to you! I tell you that when you apply Christ’s powder and Christ’s brush, you will look absolutely different. Living like this, Christ’s Teaching will bring you in harmony with Nature and you will be able to draw on its energy. Every morning, when you pronounce "Father and Son" you will be charged with a lot of energy. If you go out with doubts, you will hardly be able to cover your expenses. So, if we understand these two words, we shall be at one with the entirety of Nature and shall be in harmony with it. There is the question: which one comes first – teaching or birth? Birth. Consider if someone was not born of Divine Spirit, then what could this person learn. Some say, "I can’t understand this stuff. I have no impulse." How can you understand it; keeping in mind that first you have to be born, then the Divine must come into you and only then you will start understanding the simple things. The most basic principle of all is to be able to change your condition. If you are able to change your condition within five to ten minutes after somebody has offended you, then you have mastered this science. For example, a dog has bitten you: it’s an art to anoint the wound with such a cure that no scar remains. Christ’s Teaching cures any infirmities. I shall now tell you something concerning the hours. Someone asked if the time to get up is at five sharp. When you feel a great impulse to pray, you should know that it is five sharp, i.e. the hour of your mind. When you feel great grief, it is four o’clock. When you have messed up all your things, it is six o’clock. When you are hard hit by great misfortunes, it is seven o’clock. Some ask when to pray Do it when you have the impulse. Some say, "This impulse will visit me some other time." No, once you miss it, it won’t come again. Sometimes the Spirit tells you, "Get up and pray!" You say, "It’s not five o’clock yet." No, you should get up because the Spirit tells you it’s five o’clock! So, if you take two hours out of your time, you will be left with five hours. You may say that it is too early. Why? Because you went to bed late. Go to bed early – like the birds. You say, "I can’t go out early in the morning because I have not organised my work." Go out without having organised your work! If there is an earthquake while you are doing your morning toilet, are you going to finish your toilet before running away? When God calls you, you are not supposed to finish your toilet; it will be finished elsewhere. Nowadays, all of our external toilets will be pulled down and a real internal toilet will come instead, suited to your soul. God says, "I shall give you new garments." These new garments will be hygienic, warm, and pleasant and you will be delighted and fit for any work. Esotericism calls these garments magnetic. All diseases today are nothing but holes in these Divine garments. Your ear aches – there is a hole in the garment. You have pains in your leg – there is a hole in the garment etc. These garments cannot be mended with patches, you will turn to God and He will send to you masters to renew the garments, because they are skilled at this art. I now notice a sort of embarrassment among you. You should not be embarrassed; you should take an impartial viewpoint. You have solved a certain problem in the wrong way – you will have to start solving it again from the beginning. But you will say that you make no mistakes. You do, everybody can make a mistake, and even educated people also make mistakes. When you go back to do the problem again you will understand what you have missed. Your overall life is not bad, but you have made mistakes. Small mistakes are worse than big ones, as they are difficult to see. You need to harmonise your temperaments and I have decided to split you in groups according to your temperaments. Two nervous people when placed together cannot get along well, therefore, the one has to be hotter and the other one colder, so that they can pour into each other. Two busy-bodies cannot live together as they would kick each other, just like horses. All those who bite, who gossip, all of them are busy-bodies. Therefore, when you meet, ask each other "Are you a busy-body?" –If the answer is "Yes, I am," then you need to look for somebody else. A person of no mercy has a head like a shelter. In the future, education at school should be consistent with the principles of phrenology. Now when I talk to you, you kick each other, because you are not properly placed. Your currents are not identical. You have to be at a metre’s distance from one another, but now out of necessity, you stay as if in prison and you think, "I need trouble, because a trouble-less life is more trouble." If somebody grips your hand tight, when shaking hands with you, you will be displeased, but if you love this person, you do not mind. This shows that your thoughts are different. I do not mind shaking hands, but too much shaking hands is no good. But if you decide not to shake hands, this is even worse. Poor people must have somebody to work for so that they can become rich. Someone may say one is stupid, but such a person does not tell the truth, because if somebody else says so about the first person, the first person will be angry. You have no right to say that God made you stupid. God made us all smart, but later on, when we studied at the devil’s school, we became stupid. I would like you to follow good examples. Some of you have very good features, and I do not mean the artificial ones, but the ones given to you by God. Some style their hair as a big bun, some make their faces paler, but all of this is artificial, and this is taken away. The artificial additions are useful, but not substantial. So, virtues cannot be artificial, therefore, try to see only the good aspects in each sister. Christ’s law is as follows: never think that your sister is hypocritical or bad. Go to the mineral kingdom, take a crystal and examine it; then go to the plant kingdom and examine one wheat grain; then move on to the animal kingdom and finally you come to the human beings, you will see that human beings have virtues that are not to be found in the minerals, plants, or animals. This indicates that God lives in human beings. This is the reason why some of you stumble. If you think that one or another of you is still callow, you won’t be able to develop. If you allow a mistake within you, you will impede yourselves just like a small particle of dust in the eye impedes your sight. Now if I ask one of you to come in front and talk to you for about five to six minutes, you will not be able to put up with her. You will say, "Is she the only one experienced? We are also experienced!" Remember that there are no two people who have the same experience. Some exaggerate their experience a little. For example, a woman saw an old man in white clothes and a white hat, and she says, "I saw God!" Did this old man tell you that he was God? "No, he did not, but I presume that this was Him." You see a young man, you like him and you say, "This is the one for me." The young man, however, passes by and does not come back. This is what understanding the Truth means, the Truth, which is preached to us, to learn to speak the Truth without going too far. Some people, in order to show that they are very modest, take on sins they have never committed; while others deny sins they have committed. Both methods are wrong. Everything must be accurately rendered in Christ’s Teaching. The closer you are to the essence of the issue, the closer you are to this Teaching. I talk about the way in which you can correct your hearts, minds, and souls. I tell you that you, being servants, do not perform your services on time, you are a little late, and afterwards you offer false excuses. Speak the Truth as it is! This is the only way God can teach you and other people can support you in your thoughts and endeavours. Every book you read will be of significance to you. Some say, "Let’s only read the Bible." All right, let’s assume that you have investigated the Bible and you feel like reading another book; read it, do not think it is from the devil. Read every book from which you can learn a lesson. This is what abiding in Divine Love means, which is eternal and which brings all goods. It brings juices for the nose, and for the mouth, and for the eyes, and for the heart. If you have these juices, you will be immortal. Immortality is required to find eternal happiness. We can be happy on Earth too. You think you are unhappy. Why? Because God did not love you. If you say so, then these are your karmic sins. Therefore, come out of your cellars and take the words of Father and Son to heart. People with ideas need to struggle, but we Christians are pusillanimous people. Now if you are chased for a while you will start doubting whether this Teaching is righteous or not. Well, which teaching is righteous? You will ask yourselves whether this food is real or not. Eating or not eating from this food you will die all the same; the only difference is that those who have eaten more shall have more experience and knowledge. What is important is not to think evil of others. This is what I want from you. Your bad thoughts affect me very much. Do not make me throw up, because it will splash all of you. Speaking about Christ’s Teaching and saying that it will save you, I mean all of your hardships, I do not want you to become saints. To one of you I give the simplest of tasks – to add one plus two; to another one – to add three plus four. By adding one plus two you will receive three. The number three shows that you, being one, will die, and your children will remain to live off you. Mothers die, children grow younger, i.e. the juices of the number three will penetrate into your children. You say, "We will die then." Yes, but when you come back for a second time, the children will die and you will live. Death implies self-sacrifice. You should all look upon each other the way mothers look upon their children. Christ’s Teaching is a method of how not to get soiled. I shall recommend something else to you: when a sister of yours is in grief, in trouble, let five or six sisters go and visit her at her home and let them pray that things get better. If someone is sick, you will get together at his or her home and you will pray, even if that person may be at odds with some of you. You will say, "God, we decided to work the way you want us to, this is why we gathered together, to learn how to live!" This is how I want you to see Easter. Your hearts should be wide, don’t be narrow-minded. Divine Love is infinite. When you say that somebody is bad, you should understand that this person is the door through which evil and all impurities will pass. When you see that your husband is in low spirits, you should be aware that he throws rubbish out. On the following day, when you throw your rubbish out, your husband should thank God. Today you are happy, when it is not you throwing rubbish out and your hands are clean, but your houses are not. I speak to you today so that every evil, every malice, every doubt can die. Apply these practical rules and do not disclose the results, only keep getting stronger until you see the fruit. However, the Christians of nowadays only show off… You will now dwell on line nine and ten of this chapter and upon the words Father and Son. Master’s lecture, delivered on 17 April 1919 (Good Thursday). ___________________________________________________________________ 1 In English the double meaning can be found in the origin of the word - From Latin - from gradi to step i.e. trans+gredi = to step beyond or across 2 1 John 4:2 3 2 Corinthians 5:16 4 Pencho Slaveikov is a poet – two years older than the Master Petеr Deunov, who died 7 years before this lecture was delivered

If I Had Not Come "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin." (John 15:22) „They would have no sin “. We look upon sin from a particular opinion and not in the way the modern people understand it. They consider for sin this which is not and what the true sin represents, they don't know. –Why?- Because they divide things into good and bad according to how they affect them, how they feel about them. A man considers every pleasant thing for good and every unpleasant thing for bad. He who lends him money passes for a good person; the one who doesn’t- passes for a bad one. This is a wrong conclusion. Someone may lend you money but he is a bad person; someone else does not lend you money but he is in fact a good man. Therefore, we consider the sin in principle regardless of the human personality and perceptions. Today, all people talk about the sin without being able to solve it. Whichever newspaper you open, every page contains description of the sins and crimes of people. If an apache steals from someone, they immediately starts chasing him because they consider the lie and theft as big crimes. If someone takes your money you sue him, a whole Eastern question is raised until they return it (the money). Everyone considers money as a great good. Money is only a condition, which people have exaggerated so much that they consider it as a goal in life. They say: It is impossible without money as well as without a sin. It is not like this. It could be lived without money and without a sin. Christ says: If I had not come and spoken to them, they wouldn’t have a sin. He connects the responsibility for the sin with His coming. - When does a man sin?- When he doesn’t listen to the words and advice of love. When a man sins, he first shows disobedience, then failure to do what he is told. It is said in the Scripture: "The payment of sin is death." This means: sin deprives man of the greatest good - life. If anyone asks why he should not sin, he will know that sin will deprive him of the greatest good he is given. "Why does God deprive me of life? The answer is in the verse: "If I had not come and had not spoken to them, they would not have a sin." In the first chapter of the Genesis. God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from the fruits of the tree for knowing good and bad. As they did not obey HIM and did not fulfill His command, they did wrong. In this way, they brought the sin in the human life, which people cannot get free of even today.– What were these fruits?– This is not important. One thing needs to be known: As the rust corrodes the iron so does sin undermines the foundations of human life. The sin is fire that corrodes, stains and corrupts the human soul by depriving it from its body.–Can the soul not manifest without a body? – It cannot. As the salt cannot manifest without an acid and foundation, so cannot the human soul manifest without a body. Such is the law of the physical world. Therefore, in order for a chemical reaction to be carried out, two bodies that interact with one another are needed and a third body is formed. Fire is needed for this aim. It melts and oxidizes the bodies. Precious substances are melted by the fire, for example, gold, platinum, silver while the non precious ones are oxidized and decomposed. From the perspective of the Divine law, i.e. from the perspective of the alchemical law, which are the two bodies that interact? These are the Heaven and the Earth, comprised of the four main elements: air, water, fire and earth, i.e. from solid, liquid, airy and light or radiant matter. As a result of this interaction, man appeared, the fifth element called the "Little World". If the Earth and Heaven in man do not come together, how will the real, inner man be born? From the point of view of alchemy, the Earth is a foundation, the Heaven is an acid, and the man is salt. That is why, Christ says, "You are the salt of the Earth." Under "Acid", a Divine power that penetrates everywhere and makes, creates new worlds is understood. Under "foundation’, a set of forces that help the Divine power to gather the necessary elements for the creation of the man - the small world is understood. When it is talked about the Heaven, I do not envisage the paradise because this is a state and not a place of bliss. By talking to His disciples of bliss, Christ again understands states that a man goes through. He says: ‚Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.“ Under ‚poor in spirit’, a man who is easily melted and decomposed is understood. These are qualities of the salt. The good man must melt like the salt. As soon as you put a salt in the water it immediately decomposes without a protest, therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is its. The water is a foundation, a bearer of life, while life - one of the conditions for acquiring the Kingdom of God. So once he melts like the salt, a man is already entering the Kingdom of God. As it falls on the ground, the snow melts and in this way, it brings its blessing to life. As long as people smoulder and suffer and do not melt, the evil will spread and rule the world. Why do people suffer?– Because they are hard, they do not melt. It is said in the Scripture: „The heart of this people hardened’. ‚Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted’. When the cooking salt stays in the air, it absorbs the water and becomes moisturized, i.e. it starts dewing. In this way, it salts the bodies. Therefore, the one who mourns attracts the moisture, i.e. the life and in this way, he salts the environment, which he lives in. If you do not do the same you cannot get comforted. „Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the Earth. And the salt in the broad sense of the word is quiet and meek. When it dissolves in the water, it does not ferment, it does not make noise around itself. And in a dissolved state, the salt calmly awaits its time for the warmth to come from outside, to evaporate the water and re-appear again in its initial form - like a pure , crystalline salt. It knows that now it ill be purer than it was before. Therefore, the meek people are salt that moisturizes the air and starts dewing, it dissolves in the water and this state spreads all over the Earth, until it crystallizes again in beautiful, pure crystals. „Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled’. – When does a man feel thirst?- When he has eaten salty food. Then he needs more water. Only a man experiences thirst in different directions: thirst for water, knowledge, light, freedom, and others. It is however said: „they who have thirst and hunger for righteousness will be filled’. ‚ The meek one who resembles the salt needs to feel hunger for righteousness. Christ says to his disciples, "You are the salt of the Earth." He says about Himself, "I AM the light of the world." Salt plays an important role on Earth. Even the light cannot appear without salt. Indeed, the disciples of Christ were an environment through, which He was manifested. Salts consist of two things: metal and metalloid, or metal and a residue of acids. But the salts are not found either in the acids or in the bases. To explain how salt is formed, sow a wheat grain and watch how it grows and develops. Planting is a process of spirit and not due to either the Earth or the sun only. The Earth and the Heaven, united in one, provide conditions for the Spirit to manifest Itself. In the evangelical language, under "spirit" we mean salt. Where the spirit is, i.e. the salt, there is a consonant; where the spirit is absent, there exist contradictions. That is how the old people understood the spirit and so did they work with it. Old scientists have recognized the existence of four elements in nature: earth, water, air and fire. Modern scientists have considered this Teaching for wrong but the newest scientists agree with it and from this perspective, they maintain the existence of four states of the matter that correspond to the four great worlds. The Earth contains a lot of forces some of which people will study about in the future. The Earth is studied more from the outside and less from the inside. However, the outside view of the Earth and its inner contents are two different things. The occultists call the acid (which chemistry talks about) Heaven, while the base - Earth. The Earth in man constantly creates, acts, desires. This is the reason for a man to be constantly unsatisfied, always wanting something new. The Earth called a base, flesh - feeds the desires, shapes them and forms the human body from them. Therefore, there is a Heaven and Earth outside and inside man. He needs to know their service and to assist them. The desires and ideas come from the Heaven, and are realized on the Earth. She is the mother of the manifested man , while the Heaven – his father; the Earth is the soul, while the Heaven - the spirit of a man. They have worked in order to create him, they are still working in order to perfect him. Christ says: If I had not come and had not spoken to them, they wouldn’t have a sin." If there is no sin, there will be no death too. . If the acid and base did not interact, they would have manifested as destructive forces. Because they interact and form the salt - the bearer of life, the destructive forces do not manifest themselves. Life also exists in the acid and the base, but it differs radically from the life of the salt. Today's people understand the life of salt more than the life of the acid and the base. „If I had not come.“ Christ came to the Earth to deliver the people from sin, and thereby to free the human soul from the matter, with which it was entangled. "How will He release it?" - Through the acid He carries in the world. Only the acid is able to tear the bonds of matter. Only a man is able to release the closed bird from the cage. However, if it returns back to the cage, the bird dies. So, freedom is its life. Many of today's people are sentenced to live in a cage, that is, sentenced to premature death. When they do not realize this, they say: Here is the real life. As much as they are offered to leave the cage, they refuse under the premise that freedom is an empty work. When they come out of the cage, they already understand the meaning of life and freedom. A beautiful, black-haired, pink-faced and cheerful girl, marries a Don Juan who immediately closes her in a cage and deceives her with a little millet. She jumps in the cage up and down, rotates but stops singing. When he is satisfied, he throws her away and replaces her with another bird. Many women today are thrown out of the cages and are suffering. and mourning their days. "Why are they thrown out?" "For God has told them not to enter the cage, but they have not listened to Him. Today they bear the consequences of their disobedience. Whether you believe or not in my words is not important - you will try them. A day will come when your beloved will throw you out of the cage and you will believe my words. People divide themselves into men and women but are not true men and women. They play the role of such ones. The woman symbolizes love, while the man - Wisdom. Which of the modern women manifests love? Which of the modern men expresses the Wisdom? The woman will say that her heart has been burning from love. The burning of the heart is not love. The wood also burns but does not love. There is a huge difference between the burning of the heart and love. The love of modern people is transient, like that of the brood, who breeds songbirds in a cage. As the bird grows, he sells it and starts to breed another. One of David’s sons tried this love. He fell in love with his sister and pretended to be sick in order for his father to send her to look after him. When he experienced the human love, he despised his sister and drove her away. Today this love dominates the world. Today you love, the next day you hate. This is not love. A young man is burning from love towards a girl but when he cooks his meal on her fire, eats and then he says: I don’t need this pot. Sometimes, the girl cooks on her fire, sometimes the young man. This is how all people act. When they cook a meal on their fire, they throw the pot and say: Our life is nomadic.Why should we carry pots with us to weigh us. There are many pots in the world, both male and female. Where we stop, there we will look for a pot. However, this love leads to death. Knowing this, do not ask why people die. Quite simple. A man dies because his master has cooked a meal in his pot, has eaten well and has thrown the pot. When the pot is broken, his relatives gather around him, weep, read prayers for the comfort of his soul. Why are these memorial services? You say God so ordained. In response to their understanding, Christ says, "If I had not come and talked to them, they would not have had a sin; now, however, they have no excuse for their sins. " When the truth is being spoken, people say they are tempted. What temptation can a pot that is full of dirt talk about? It is another question, if it is righteous, i.e.pure. However, righteous people do not exist on the Earth. Every pot is covered with dirt either externally or internally, it carries dirt. One pot will say it is righteous and holly. I am not mistaken, I can smell the odor of dirt from a far. You cannot mislead neither Christ nor God in this way. In order to acquire purity and holiness, the pot has to be washed from outside and within. People wash the pot only from the outside and pass for devout. When the boy falls in love with a girl, he represents as gentle, kind, ready for all sacrifices. He says to the girl that he is ready to die for her. How would he die when he is not yet alive? Many of the nowadays people are more dead than alive. How is it then possible for the dead to die? It makes sense for the alive one to self-sacrifice for his beloved but in no way could the dead one self-sacrifice and die for other people. Therefore, do not trust a person who has long since died. It makes sense for a man to self-sacrifice, but not to die. Death is the work of sin. God says, "My soul is not delighted in the death of the sinner." Should someone say he dies of love, he does not speak the truth. He will not die, but he will eat his victim. He does not love the soul of man, but his wealth. You go to a beehive with bees, you burn incense on them in order to take their honey, and say you love the hive. You do not love the hive, but its honey. So does the devil do. When he comes to you he says, "How much do I love you! As you turn around, he cuts the fruit out of your tree and says, "Good bye! Next Year when you have fruit, I will visit you again. When someone dies, his relatives gather around him, weep and say, "He was a good man. - Why are they crying? - That the pot has left for somewhere. They say the pot broke, and we say it has got alive and has got free of the bonds of death. All people talk about love but no-one has seen it. If someone says they have seen love, this is the love of the ashes. Human love can only be seen in the fireplace, where it burns, incinerates and turns into ashes. Which woman and man are satisfied with their life as married? Everyone dreams of marrying but in the end they say it is not worth for a man to get married. Few people have married right and are happy with their life. Whoever is unhappy with love, he has come to the magnetic, unstable and transient love. It is the result of excitation of the small brain in man. Thanks to this, the young ones fall in love, attract each-other and when they separate one from another they fall out of love. Attraction, which is a result of the magnetism is not love. In order to magnetize, the young ones hold hands and kiss each-other. The true love does not manifest neither by holding hands nor through kissing. The magnetic love is the beginning of love, a condition for the manifestation of the acids and bases. That is the reason that the ones that have fallen in love become sour, nervous and unrestful. When she falls in love, the girl, gets annoyed, crossed, she cannot put up with anyone. Her mother thinks that she is ill and calls for a doctor to check on her. The girl is not ill but has a fire burning in her fireplace, the pot of food is cooking on the fire. As the girl is not accustomed to this fire, she is excruciated and suffering. When she cannot withstand the fire, she gets in despair and wants to commit a suicide. The same happens with the boy. They say that someone has committed a suicide from love. This is not true. Love resurrects, enlivens, rejuvenates man. What makes him commit a suicide is the result of unsustainable human feelings. In order not to fall under their influence, one has to listen to the voice of his Divine Soul, which protects him from the unclean pot. "I want to cook in it. "The pot is unclean, you do not need such a meal. Many modern people are nervous and ill and all is from love. You do not need love that shakes the basics of health, exhausts the nerves and leads to despair and suicide. And so, the first manifestation of love is this of the attraction, i.e. the magnetic love. The second manifestation of love is the friendship. It is a higher degree of love than the magnetic one. Every man wants to have a friend whom to share his thoughts and feelings with. However, the friendship is unsustainable too, it can easily be destroyed.- When does the friendship between two people not resist. – when it does not rest on a good foundation - in order to resist, it has to have three tangible points: to the physical, spiritual and Divine worlds. Two people become friends and start common work. Their relationship is mainly on the physical world. They become allies but it does not pass long, their friendship is spoiled, it cannot resist to only one connection. The third manifestation of love rests on the similarity between souls. When two people have similar thoughts, feelings and deeds they do not attract each-other, neither do they become friends but they connect in the name of the Divine in them. Their connection is inseparable. Nothing is capable of separating them. Only soulmates can connect in this way. „If i had not come and had not talked to them.“ – What has Christ talked to them about?– About the third manifestation of love. If people had accepted the Christ teaching, they wouldn’t have had a sin and would have become immortal. Now, because they live more in the magnetic love, they have sins and death watches them. People do not yet know the similarity as a manifestation of love, hence they are ill, suffer and die. Similarity between souls implies oneness in their manifestations, oneness in their views and understanding of the great virtues : love, wisdom, truth, righteousness and good. This does not mean that they are the same in the letter. They understand each-other in spirit, and not just in external manifestations. It is a great thing to be connected with a soul of inner kinship. What we mean by "truth" is fundamentally different from the common man's understanding. His truth means "cooling". Truth is the leaven of Divine life. This truth has been sought by the alchemists; this truth is looked for by the modern scientists too. Everybody is looking for the truth, but they do not find it, because they are looking for it in a wrong way, there where it is not. Instead of the truth, they come across a bird-man who puts them in his cage, with other birds. When he is satisfied with them, he throws them out. When people are talked about the magnetic love, they are scared not to loose the preciousness in themselves. What happens with the iron sawdust when it gets magnetized? It temporarily gets magnetized and soon it looses the quality of attracting light small bodies. However, the properties of the iron do not get lost. For the same reason, a man who lends himself to the magnetic love is temporarily attracted by it and changes only externally. However, he retains his inner qualities. As soon as he gets free from the influence of this love he remains externally and internally in the same way nature has created him. No force in the world is able to change the inner qualities of a man. In other words: no force in the world is able to change the Divine in man. What should your beloved ones be? – They have to be nude in spirit, to be able to melt; they have to be mournful in order to be comforted; they have to be meek in order to inherit the Earth; they have to be hungry and thirsty for righteousness in order to be satisfied. Hunger and thirst imply self-sacrifice.- Who does a man self-sacrifice for?– for his neighbour with an aim to elevate him. Christ says: „I came to the world to lay my soul down for my neighbour. I have a power to lay it down, I have a power to also take it away.“ You will say that everything you are talked about is good but you cannot agree with the thought that your love leads to death. It is not necessary to agree with my words. It is important to study your love and see what results it produces. We are not interested in the pots that are cooking in your fireplaces and God is not interested in them either. Look at how many of your pots have remained healthy, after they have cooked on your fire. Look at how many people have remained healthy after having eaten the food that has been cooked in your pots. Who from nowadays people have not died of love? Follow the love of your close ones and you will see that whoever has died, the reason for his death is either the magnetic love or the friendly love, which he has succumbed to. Modern people need cleaning but not in the way they clean themsleves in the bathroom. Someone goes in the bathroom and asks for a man to rub him until the dirt comes out of his body. This is not cleaning. In this way, you do not acquire purity and holiness, which you can enter God’s Kingdom with. Whoever seeks purity and holiness, has to alone get melted and enter the bathroom of the Divine life. In this way exactly will he become more white and cleaner than he has been earlier. „Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted’. The word ‚mournful’ implies growth in the virtues. You cannot grow in virtues if you do not mourn. If you are mournful for your mother, either you have to go to her or she needs to come to you. If you mourn for the light, you need to go to it. Only in this way, will you grow in the virtues. Therefore, if you want to grow and develop in virtues, first you need to go to God. This means, to give up all temporary connections on the Earth that impede your development. „Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the Earth’. The meek one is the salt on the Earth.- How does salt occur in nature? – In dissolved condition, in the sea water and as a mineral - rock salt. It needs to separate from the sea water and rock salt in order to get purified. If it is in a pure state, it represents the Divine life, which everyone aspires to. This life is a combination of the love and wisdom: love acts on the Earth while wisdom - in the Heaven. In order to understand what love and wisdom are, a man has to above all know whether he can get dissolved or not. – How would we guess? – Very simply, you will find a secret door to God’s Kingdom and there you will find out whether you can melt. In this way, you will understand the verse: „Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the Earth.“ Work and effort are needed for this, to sweat 99 times a day and everything in you to get dissolved for the Divine life. Only in this way will you understand the meaning of labour and work, of joys and sufferings. When you melt, you will rise up into the Divine world and everything earthy will remain on the Earth. When it is talked about the high world, some say they have seen it in their dream. The dream is not a real vision. To only see the outer form of things this is not yet knowing and understanding. This is like saying that a person is pure only because he is clean from the outside. Do you know what purity is? When a pure person enters your home, if you are ready for the Divine life, he will bring you the biggest blessing. If you are not ready, you will go through big suffering. He does not want you to suffer but your misunderstanding brings you darkness and obscurity. And Christ came among the Hebrews, he brought light to them through which he was showing the right path, but they did not accept Him and crucified Him. They gave up His light and accepted the darkness. While darkness and death are synonymous. This is what happens to everyone who gives up life. As soon as you give up life, death comes. Christ is the Path, Truth and Life. Therefore, whoever renounces Christ, enters hell, the place of darkness, the decomposition, the interruption of ties with all living beings. This means helping to destroy your own life as well as that of your neighbour. If you realise this, will you not suffer? Many are afraid of suffering. Fear is in place if it precedes sin. However, if you are afraid after sinning, your situation is bad. Therefore it is said: ‚The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’. If you mourn before you sin, it is good; if you mourn after sinning, it is bad. He who mourns before he has sinned can improve his life; he who grieves after the sin, comes across unbearable suffering. It is said that the anger of God is poured out on the children of disobedience. It is so for the present epoch but the future one brings a blessing to the righteous ones. It will be extremely demanding to the sinners.- Who am I from? – If you want to know who you are from, ask and answer yourself whether you melt, i.e.are you meek, do you starve and strive for the righteousness? – Do you get dissolved like the salt? I don’t dissolve.– You lose the first dice. Do you mourn? No. – You lose the second dice.– Do you have hunger and thirst for the righteousness?– No. – You lose the third dice. After that whatever the priests talk about, regardless of how the people calm you down. you will know that you are not saved. One of the qualities of Christ’s blood is the dissolution and melting. Therefore, he who drinks from Christ’s blood he will be saved. Therefore, Christ saves the man. Despite that the young girl thinks she is saving the young man, while the young man thinks that he is saving the girl. Both are on a wrong path. What salvation is this which makes them nervous, in despair and unsatisfied? The boy places his tentacles on the girl, like an octopus, and sucks her. And the girl does the same. This is the devil of the sea who manifests through them. In the new upbringing, the mother needs to tell the truth to her daughter, while the father - to his son. If the daughter has fallen in love and suffers, her mother needs to tell her: daughter, this is not love. Your pot and the pot of your beloved are not yet clean, you cannot cook in them. Assign your hope to God and He will show you, where your beloved is and how you will find him. I believe in only one God, Who has the power to teach us the great law of love. Everyone who has come with the thought of matchmaking, he necessarily hides a bad thought of some sort in himself The matchmakers want to gather two young people so that they can help each-other. In fact, it turns out differently. Instead of helping each-other, they start to fight who should take the first place. Here you are, the Bulgarians also fought for Bulgaria to become a great country. Did it become great? Not only that it didn’t but today they are also scared of the decision of the Alliance. What do the people from the Alliance think. What God thinks for Bulgaria. God has decided to take Bulgaria through fire in order to clean its pot. He says: I do not need Bulgarians who do not melt , who are not meek and mournful, who do not have hunger and thirst for the righteousness and truth. The same is valid for all peoples. „If I had not come and talked to them, they wouldn’t have a sin.’ Today, in all churches they pray for Bulgaria, let there be no sufferings on it, that is, its pot not to go through fire. The Bulgarians are afraid of the neighbouring countries taking more land and becoming more powerful. To take more land means to cook more bones in their pots. What would these bones bring to them? You will know: a man or nation that does not melt will be thrown out. This is valid for all people and nations without an exception. All people and nations can get melted but they don’t want because they are in the arms of their beloved who gives them different promises. He tells them that he will decorate them with diamonds, to shine from afar. Diamonds are not given for the octopuses. Everyone can work such diamonds out and carry them in himself. Only in this way can a man be brave, strong and ready for all sacrifices. If anyone asks what future they are expected to have, I will answer them: Your future is enviable if you melt, if you are meek and mournful, if you have hunger and thirst for the righteousness.– This is hardly achieved. Yet, it can be achieved. „If I had not come.“Because the truth has come, a man would either love or die - one or the other. When it dissolves, the salt does not disappear, but it becomes cleaner. Regardless of how many times you dissolve it in water, it does not get tired. However, if you put the tree only once in the fire, it disappears and turns into ash. If you resemble the salt, after your dissolution, you will crystalise again, i. e you will resurrect; if you resemble the tree, you will burn and will turn into an ash and will be thrown away on the heap. It is said in the Scripture that if the salt desalts it will be thrown out. And so, the blessings Christ talks about to his disciples are related to the salt. If a friend comes to you, ask him whether he wants to dissolve and melt like the salt: whether he wants to be meek and mournful, to have hunger and thirst for the righteousness. If he answers in the affirmative to all questions, he is a good man: if he answers in the affirmative to only one question without providing an answer to the other questions , keep away from him. This is what Christ has spoken to the people at that time. This is how it should be spoken to the current scholars, preachers, public figures and others. This is how the Christ teaching should be understood so that you don’t say one day: We splashed in water and were thirsty. It is a pleasant and easy job for a man to get melted. When bathing, he can check whether he dissolves or not. Children love bathing but so do the adults. Attention is required from them to test each-other whether they can dissolve and melt. This will lead them to self-knowledge. – How can I know whether I melt?– If someone steals a big sum from you and you do not get upset, you are able to melt. If you get upset, you cannot melt. If you go in the shoes of someone who suffers you are capable of melting. It is pleasant to meet such a person. He is good and has beneficial influence on the surrounding people. It is worth going down to the bottom of hell for one good person. The Heaven opens to him and your soul becomes joyful and light. It is pleasant to listen to musicians who do not only play but also feel and live in that which they perform. Many talk about love without feeling, penetrating and applying it. This means one thing is spoken while another is fulfilled. When you see a lambkin you say you love it. It responds bee-e. This means: isn’t there a person who actually loves me? You love the lambkin but think when it is killed you will have some meat from it. This is not love. Most people love each-other in this way: this is how many young men and women love each-other – In the end, one of them will always become a victim as the lambkin of his master’s butcher’s knife. The modern life is full of butchers. How many lambkins go as a sacrifice! I am astonished by the greatness of God, His mercy and love, His patience. He sees all people’s crimes and is patient. You feel doubt and suspicion everywhere. While someone is feeding you, you are with him. As soon as the abundance stops everyone leaves him. This is not Christianity, not a moral. I do not blame you but am pointing your weak sides, to look into yourselves and learn how to melt right. The world is overwhelmed by explanations in love. If you sacrifice, sacrifice for God, not for man. I do not want you to sacrifice or die for me. This is the greatest misfortune for a man. It is wanted from everyone to give up sin, transgression and disobedience. Get rid of the jealousy that ruins your souls. Clean your houses and then anticipate Christ to visit you. Put more love into your life. When making bread, when cooking, apply your love. And then whoever eats from your bread will be blessed. Bread, made without love, brings poison to man. Do not poison yourself, neither your relatives. No one has the right to cause the suffering and death of his neighbour. A pure and holy life is required of all. Everyone has to melt, become meek and mournful, to have hunger and thirst for righteousness. Christ says, "I am the light of the world." Therefore, whoever seeks this light will enlighten; whoever does not seek it, will walk in gloominess and darkness. You will say that the light is manifested through each lamp. Every light, whatever it may be, reflects the Divine Light, but the reflection disappears if it is not connected with the main source. The true light is in the human brain, not out of it. The light comes only from above. Whoever perceives the Divine life within himself, he begins to shine like the sun. And then the verse "You are the light of the world" is meaningful. So, while you are in the world, among people, work consciously, do not go into despair in order not to obstruct each-other. As you pass for cultural people, show your culture. Do not cause a reason for expelling the good people among you. They have come to help you. If you do not open your hearts for them, they will leave you. If they are to try the sting of a man, they can go among the beetles and bugs. They will be stung there too but at least they will protect themselves. The bug carries its sting in front, on its proboscis so that it can be seen. While the man carries his sting at the back. The human tongue is a sting hat breaks bones too. Whoever can take the poison out of his tongue he passes for a scientific and great person. „If I had not come and had not spoken to them “. Christ came among the people in order to show them how to live, how to fulfill the Divine Will, to work for the arrival of the Divine Kingdom on the Earth and for installing God’s glory. This is the positive side of the verse: If I had not come and had not spoken to them, they would not have a sin’. Sunday Lectures 02.03.1919 10:00 Sunday, Sofia Translated by Proletina Dragoeva-Jones

Conflict in Consonance "If the right eye seduces you, take it out." "If your right hand seduces you, cut it off." (Matthew 5:29, 30) The chapter that was read is related to the consonance and contradiction. “If the right eye seduces you, take it out; if your right hand seduces you, cut it off, if you are hit on one side, turn the other. “ For the contemporary people this language is misunderstood. If Christ talks to them in this way today, few will understand Him. Today, there are many churches that serve in the name of Christ and sing songs to Him but if He comes and starts talking among his followers as he did 2000 years ago, they will take Him for an unbalanced man. Whoever wants to listen to Him will come across great contradictions. What are the internal contradictions in a man owned to? All people maintain that they have come out of God but when they are spoken in the language of love they do not understand what they have to do. They ask themselves: How is it possible for a sheep to give birth to a wolf or for the wolf to turn into a sheep? All talk about brotherhood, equality, self denial but when it comes to applying these ideas, they get confused and do not understand anything. — Why do they not understand? — Because some self gain is hidden in the foundation of their life; they serve God but there is a self-interest in their serving: They want to gain food through their serving. Others become traders with the only aim to become rich — again self-interest is guiding them. Indeed, when a man is living, he needs to have food but it is important that he works with love. Otherwise, he will always apologise that his surrounding or external circumstances make him behave in a way that he doesn’t want. The wolf justifies himself too for eating the sheep because this is his skill. When he is in a difficulty, he says: If a man takes the skin of thousands of wolves and foxes, don’t I have the right to take the skin of at least one sheep? When the wolf attacks the sheep they immediately shoot him; when a man kills his neighbour in a time of war, he is not only uncondemned, but he receives a reward, cross for bravery. You will say that this is meant to be — in time of war, people to kill each other. Who has allowed the war? Which Divine law is this written in? It is talked about the war in the Moses’ teaching but in the Christ one, the war is not accepted. There is such a difference between Moses and Christ as there is a difference between the Earth and the Heavens. Therefore, when the Christians fight, they need to confess before themselves too and before the whole world that they act under the Moses’ law and not under the law of Christ, which presupposes an absolute application of love. Give the respective name to each of your deeds. Moses says: ‚eye for eye, tooth for tooth.“ Christ says: If they hit you on one side, turn the other“. Modern people live according to Moses’ teaching — the old culture. Moses says himself: “ God will advance another prophet — higher than me. Whoever does not serve this prophet signs himself his own death sentence“. Moses has talked about Christ and has himself confessed his teaching is imperfect. After all this, people ask themselves why if they have come out of God they don’t live well. Very naturally, people who do not live well have not come out of God. A mother calls on her enemies with the words: Let me give birth, then you will see! ’ She expects to give birth to a son who will revenge for her. Can this son be born of God? By inheritance, he will follow his mother or father’s line. The law of heredity is not understood by all. The Egyptians have believed in the resettlement of souls, Hindus in reincarnation while the contemporary scientists — in the heredity. These are three teachings with opposite meanings. The heredity is a law of the physical world, reincarnation is a law of the soul, while the resettlement of a soul is a law of the spirit. In other words, the Egyptians studied about the descending of the Spirit, the Hindus — the evolution of the soul, while the contemporary scientists — of heredity. They talk about land, houses, vineyards, property, inheritance of gifts and abilities. “ If the right eye seduces you, take it out and throw it“. In Genesis, it is talked about the serpent that seduced Eve to eat from the forbidden fruit in order for her eyes to get opened. Indeed, Eve ate from this fruit, she gave Adam to eat and from this moment their eyes opened. They looked upon the world, i.e. the temptations in life with their right eye. It is said that Adam and Eve were naked in the paradise; in fact, it is not so. Another thing is hidden in the nudity it is talked about, it is not an external nudity that is being understood. And for the development of the humankind, scientists give different explanations but the truth is far from them. In its development, the humankind has passed through the path of evolution but what it is expressed in, only few know. It is not enough to say that the evolution is evolution. Children know this too. And the most stupid Bulgarian girl knows to unwind the canvas but this is not yet an evolution. Some will say that the evolution has created everything. If the evolution was capable of creating, it will be a powerful force that changes, re-creates and transforms everything. In fact, the evolution is a process of the human spirit. Therefore, when it is talked about evolution, we need to understand it in its essence without attributing qualities to it, which it doesn’t possess. If we say that the evolution is a law of development, this is enough and there is no need of further explanations. What does a law mean? When are laws created and where exactly? Laws exist in both life and nature. The law exists there were the beings are not very cultural. Laws are created against thefts, crimes, the iniquities of people. Laws exist in nature too; there all beings from small to big ones live in fight and extermination amongst themselves. Such fight exists between people too. Despite that, everywhere it is talked about culture. A culture exists between people but this is a culture of the money and capital. This culture is related to Moses’ teaching. Therefore, there is something in common between capital and the Old Testament. They are synonymous. That’s why Christ says: “It is easier for a camel to pass through needle ears than a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. ’ Under the ‚Divine Kingdom“ people understand something completely different from what Christ understands. On the whole, the Christ teaching is even today interpreted somehow. If Christ comes today among people, he will be astonished by this interpretation and by this which they call love. What love really is can hardly be defined but it is easy to understand. The child also understands love but it cannot define it. Love is the only force that can do everything a man wishes for. It gives impetus, impulse, aspiration. Without love, the will cannot do anything. Everything that a man loves can be realised. The ancient Hermetic school provides an exact definition of love. Hermes, in his philosophy explained all contradictions in life through seven principles. The contemporary science accepts only two of these principles: the principle of mentalism, according to the theosophists — the principle of manas, according to the occultists — the field of the mental world; that is a principle that defines the forms of things. The second principle is the field of the cardiac world, i.e.. the world of feelings, the vibrations through which the notion of light is explained. The other five principles stand out of the modern science. It does not deal with them but it still gives them the necessary names. For example, it calls the third principle ’a principle of the similarities of things’. The fourth principle is seen as a principle of polarity of the forces in nature. It is the reason for the existence of positive and negative forces. The fifth principle is the one of the tides. It maintains that everything that takes place in nature is exactly defined as the tides are and that a rhythm exists everywhere. There is an precisely defined rhythm, a tact in the music too. Music and tact do not exist without it. The sixth principle is the one of the causality and consequence of things. The seventh principle is the one of gender, i.e. male and female sex. The evil in the world came about with the revelation of this principle. Therefore, evil exists as a consequence of the men and women. When it is spoken about men and women, we do not understand their forms but the principles of a man and a woman as opposite forces in nature. Under a woman’, the creative principle is being understood. In order to build something one needs to collect building material: bricks, lime, sand, beams, tiles etc. When a house is built, some enjoy, others suffer. A man enjoys his new house while the trees, the stones and the plants are grieving. The workers do not enjoy much either. It happens some of the workers to fall out of a house and get maimed. The same happens with the creation of a human life. The parents are happy that a child was born to the world but many creatures around them are mourning. Therefore, the good of some is not good for all. This is the reason for the hatred between people. The disagreements between brothers and sisters, between religious and secular people are due to the same reason. Two shepherds are quarrelling because one of them has taken one of the sheep of the other. Two men are quarrelling because one of them has taken the beloved woman of the other. Therefore, Christ says: ‚If the right eye seduces you, take it out’. Which is the right eye in the man? — It represents the physical world. In order not to get misled by the appearance of things and to understand them, a man needs to know the laws of the physical world. Whoever does not understand these laws always fails. An acquaintance meets him and tells him that he will provide for him and will put his things in order. He believes but in the end he remains cheated. An unknown person enters the home of a good man and falls in love with his wife. In order to conceal his feelings, he plays the role of a noble person who wants to help the whole family. Eventually, the good man sees that the unknown person has had a solitary purpose to use his wife. This man has had bad intentions, which he has concealed with the word virtue’. To conceal bad intentions with something good speaks for bad traits of the character of a man, which are manifested even today by atavism. In America, in the distant past, a famous doctor lived who suffered from the mania to cut people. He helped a lot of ill people but many of them suffered from his knife. When he fell under the influence of his weakness, he took out his knife and cut the patient into pieces. The first victim of his abnormality was his secretary. At one point, he decided to cut in pieces the members of a family in whose home he was a home doctor, but here he was caught and handed over to the authorities. It turned out that he killed 25 people through cutting them into pieces. The judges asked themselves what the anomaly of the doctor was due to. They turned to special scientists who have told them that his weakness is hidden in his ancestors and predecessors. By inheritance, he has received this anomaly from them and today by atavism, he manifests it. This is why Christ says: If the right eye seduces you and you have the desire to kill your brother, you better take it out. If your right hand seduces you to commit a crime, you better cut it off. “ To take your eye out and cut your hand off are words that should not be interpreted literally. A man can take his eye out and still be seduced and commit crimes. What do the right eye and hand represent? — The eye represents the human mind, while the hand — the human will. Therefore, if the mind seduces you and you desire to commit a crime and direct your will in this direction, stop them and exert influence upon yourself in order to protect yourself from the evil. You will say that the wolf always remains a wolf, while the sheep — a sheep. This is not a positive philosophy. The wolf is a wolf, he strangles the sheep, but he can live like a sheep. The qualities of all animals are concentrated on a man. It depends on the man whether he will give priority to some or other qualities. When he works on himself, a man can cultivate his weaknesses and passions and ennobles them. Hardly can one cultivate and ennoble the animal outside the man but it can be easily cultivated in the man. This requires consciousness and sincerity in the work. Animals present stages of development, which a person has passed and still passes through. That is why, modern culture is divided into a "wolf culture" and "sheep culture". Modern people have to study the animals as symbols and benefit from them. When you study the horse, you notice that his hind legs resemble the human hands. In order for this feature to be re-cultivated, the Creator turned the hind legs of the horse into the hands of a man with which he can work and go forward. Indeed, a man is deprived of the art of kicking. Instead of kicking he has put his hands into work: he is lifting and putting the hoe down all day long, pulling the plow and handling the land. While he realise the service of his hands and works with them, one helps his neighbour to elevate. Once he forgets what the service of his hands is, he immediately applies his old craft — kicking, and pulls his neighbour down. This is atavistic, a remnant of the "horse culture". That is why, Christ says, "Cut off your right hand, which applies the old art — kicking. Stop kicking and start working. Raise your neighbour upward, while you alone go forward! "" If the right eye seduces you, pull it out and stay only with the left — the eye of love. "The left eye relates to the Divine Love, which drives people up and forward. Many ask me what religion I preach. I do not preach any religion but talk to people about a good life. My science is about the life, which people have lost. All people- scientists and stupid ones, young and old want to live well. The mother wants to have good children- children to have good parents etc. This wish is natural. However, noone can be good if they do not have life in themselves. Therefore, Christ says: I am the Path, Truth and Life. And Christ has not preached any religion but has talked about the path, truth and life, which a man needs to strive for. When they asked Christ which God to worship, He responded: "A day is coming and now is, when neither in Jerusalem will they worship nor in this forest, but will worship God in spirit and truth." This is not a religion but service to the true God in spirit and truth. You will say that this view destroys old ideas. The old is ruined by itself. Every new culture demolishes the old one. Every man needs to give up the old in order to build something new — more beautiful and strong. And the old religion will be destroyed; a new religion will come — the religion of work. The future is its. The new is distinguished from the old in that it gradually gets rid of the lie and wrong perceptions. Today all preachers pray to God to bless the weapons of their people. They have the right to pray for their weapons but as nationalists and patriots not as Christians. Christ has not supported the war, therefore, noone has the right in His name to pray for a blessing of the weapons and success in the war. Many hides behind Christ, justify their deeds in His name and say that in some verses it is said about the war as an inevitable process. This is not true. Christ has nowhere spoken about the benefit of the war. To the contrary, Christ says: ’Love your enemy. Do not object the evil’. “If the right eye seduces you, take it out.“ This means give up your perverted mind that has put your thoughts, feelings and deeds in a wrong direction. This mind has worn out your heart and the strength of your body. To give up your perverted mind is in the order of things. "If your right hand seduces you, cut it off." You say about someone: He is my right hand, I can not give him up. If this person has your interests and your own good into consideration like his ones, you should not give up on him. However, once he / she commits crimes, when he / she is harming you, you have to give up on him / her. If your right hand does crimes, you necessarily must give it up. And society does not tolerate such people. If it meets a man with a perverted mind and distorted will, it (the society) expels him. To throw the person out of yourselves, that is to say, not to succumb to his influences. If you have to succumb to something, it is love. Only love has the right to influence people. Whoever lives according to love’s laws, he is a good man. "Whoever lends himself to unloving is a bad man. Who is a good man? "Whoever remembers the good and forgets the evil. If you tell 100 good words to such a person and one bad word, he will remember the bad word and will forget the good ones. After all that, he thinks that when he departs to the other world, he will be accepted with honours. No, the higher world does not accept people with perverted minds, and hearts, with a right eye and hand that get seduced. Time reveals a man best and defines him either in the category of the good or the bad. In the future, the scientists will have labs in which they will define whether a man is good or bad according to his sweat. They will make such analyses that the nowadays scientists do not suspect. A science called: ‚bovarysme’, through which they also recognise who is a good and bad person exists. This science studies the beam that comes out of the human eye. This beam never lies. The beam that comes out of the eyes of the people whose thoughts and wishes are elevated is above the plane and in the upward direction. In bad people, this beam is below the plane and in the downward direction, to the ground. Watch this beam and do not be fooled by man's beliefs. Whatever his beliefs may be, when the beam of his eye is above the plane, he is good. If the beam is below the plane and down, he is a bad person. Even if he passes for a saint before the people, he is bad and cannot be relied on. When you study the ‚bovarysme’, you come to the conclusion that three categories of people exist: The first category live for God and for everything He has created; They are a 100% good people. The second category live for their neighbour and for everything around them. They are 50 % good people. The third category live only for themselves; they are 25% good people. If the parents do not treat their children well, they are not in their place. If the children do not respect their parents, they are also not in their place. If the man and the woman do not have a good relationship, they cannot be called ideal people. It is said for such people that their right eye and right hand seduce them. Their mind is distorted and resembles a snake which can surprise them any time. A snakesmith in Europe had been making different attempts, which he became famous with. It sufficed he said a few words to the snakes in order to make them wrap around him and upon his order to unwrap and go to their places. Among the snakes there had been one big and dangerous snake, which had also obeyed his orders. However, one day when she wrapped around him and had to unwrap, she didn’t listen. Instead of unwrapping herself, she pressed him more. When the snake smith’s bones cracked, the snake unwrapped herself and went to her place. Therefore, Christ says: 'Take out the head and tail of the snake from yourself, i.e. from your life and cast them’ The head of the snake is the right eye, while the tail is the right hand. Study your life and you will yourselves come to terms with this comparison. Many cite the verse, which i am talking about today, but they understand it as much as they understand the light. Everyone talks about the light but as a reflection of something. You see a glass and say that it is a glass but you don’t think how many refractions the light has gone through until you receive the image of the glass in your eyes. The photographer as the light too goes from one object to another, makes photos and then sells them to the people as real images so that they can study them. These are not real images but shadows of the objects. Every object needs to be in a natural position as are the leaves, branches, blossoms and fruits of the trees. Only in this way will you have a clear idea about it. One thing is required from the modern people: conscious attitude to things. Someone enjoys the flowers, their colours and scents and says: All this is created because of me.- It is not so. The colours and scents of the flowers are created for the attraction of the insects through which their pollination and fertilising takes place. If in this case, you can also use the colours and scents of the flowers, you are free to use them but you have no right to think that they are created for you only. Some theologians support the idea that the world is created for the man. It is not so. It has to be known which world it is talked about. If you are talking about the world created by man, with his own understanding, indeed, this world is for him. If you are talking about the vast, infinite and great world in which millions of beings are moving, it is not created for the man. Do you think, that the many planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Neptune, Uranus are interested in the man? Do you think the creatures living on these planets are interested in the work of Bulgaria and what is happening now in Europe? The higher world is interested in the works of Europe insofar as it sees in them the fulfilment of God's will. Thus, each person is interested in a prominent singer or musician as long as the song or music satisfies his soul's longings. If the deaf and ignorant come to the concert, they will not stay there. He will look here and there and will leave the concert. What interest does the madhouse represent for the healthy man? When he goes in it, he will experience fear and horror and will immediately come out. There are people in the madhouse each of whom live with their own idea. Some of them collect straws, put them in stacks, transfer them from one place to another until they get tired and go to sleep. They start the same job on the next day. Many of the modern people do similar kind of work, they transfer the straws from one place to another and when the end of their life comes they say: Thank God, we fulfilled our mission on the Earth in a due way. Now, we calmly leave this world and are going to God. Whoever was meant to go straight to God was not going to be sent to the Earth in order to study. A man comes to the Earth many times until he is ready to become an inhabitant of the Heaven. The Heaven is a place for love, wisdom and truth and not for gathering of straws and money. The inhabitants of the Heaven represent a big family, which members aim at applying the love and self sacrifice. To deny yourself, that is, to give up your excess load. That is why Christ says, "If you have two shirts, give one to your neighbour who has not one." It is terrible when the whole world is starving, while you think of your prosperity. Whoever thinks of himself looks like Nastradin Hodja, who says, "When my wife dies, half the world is lost to me; when I die, the whole world is lost. ’ It is time for people to deal with their contradictions and cease to deceive each other. Both the simple and the intellectual people need to get close to each other, to become brothers to each other. The people represent the men, while the bishops, priests and teachers — the women. Who spoils the people? Its servants. The woman has spoiled the man, while the man — the woman. You will say that the woman is a scary thing. Whatever is the woman such is the man too. May all men and women, priests and teachers, rulers and ruled unite and work together to set their people right. The new time excludes the lie. No lie is allowed. Whoever lies, whoever transgresses God's law, defines his own place, separates himself from the society of good and honourable people. The world needs healthy people, with bright minds and noble hearts. If you see people with their eyes taken out and their hands cut off, whether they are teachers, clergy, fathers and mothers, public figures, you cannot rely on them. Stay away from someone whose right eye is taken out and right-hand cut off. Future culture will include people with a healthy left eye and a healthy left hand. Their right eye and right hand will be replaced by new, healthy ones, but they will work under the impulse of the left eye and left hand. Once they asked the heart why it has gone to the left side of the chest. It responded: I chose the left side in order to show that i have nothing to do with the right hand and right eye of the man. When people are told about their deficiencies they say that they don’t want to listen to the words of this or the other one. If you don’t listen to the words of your friend, you will listen to the words of nature. Its language is strict and merciless. When it judges someone it stretches him on the ground and starts to gradually take off his fast, muscles and when she sends him off to the other world, it asks him: where did your philosophy go? When he cannot answer, his relatives say’God forgive him. — This is not a solution to the question. God forgives a man when the man alone undertakes to rectify his mistakes. This man has taken the house and field of his neighbour and after that he wants to be forgiven. Give back the house and field to your neighbour and you will be forgiven. While you do not rectify your mistakes, noone will forgive or excuse you. For thousands of years, people are all the time sorry for their mistakes without rectifying them. You will say that God is omnipotent and merciful. It is true, everyone has tried the Divine mercy and goodness but he requires from people to rectify their mistakes, i.e. to pay their debts. And today everyone asks themselves why death exists. Very simple, death is a tax collector that makes the debtors pay their debts. It is just and does not make any exception for anyone. When death arrives, everyone gets scared. Death comes to liquidate with people’s sins and crimes, i.e. with their debts. This is why, it is better for a man to be scared from the sin and not to sin and not to be afraid after he has sinned. I consider for good and honest those people who are afraid before they have committed a crime. A true hero is this one who does not run away from his debts but recognises and starts paying them. He turns to his neighbour and says: Brother, I committed a crime against you. I realise my mistake and am ready to accept the punishment, which i deserve. — What will the society say for this man? — To say and think whatever it wants. It is important what God thinks and says. Therefore, it is said in the Scripture: ’ The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.’ Many ask themselves why Christ has talked more with parables and symbols.- Christ’s aim has been to tell people the truth, to show them the right path without insulting them. However, despite that, they could not bear Him and crucified Him. He was saying to the priests: “You are holding the keys from the Heaven and neither you enter it yourselves nor do you let the others in. So are the modern Christians preparing for the Heaven, without responding to the name true Christians’. In order to bear this name, you need to penetrate the great teaching of Christ with a deep understanding about everything that happens in the world and preparedness to rectify every mistake of yours. The nobility of the human soul is hidden in this. Many are people’s delusions due to another delusion that the man is the crown of the beings, that he is created in the image and likeness of God. True men, created in the image and likeness of God are in Heaven, and Adam and Eve made of mud are still on the Earth. Some maintain the idea that the soul is made of blood, which after death is being spilled over the ground. Indeed, the flesh rots, the blood is spilled, but the living breath neither rots, nor does it spill and get lost, but remains for ever and ever. It is the Divine beginning in man that is immortal. It is subjected to the law of evolution. Therefore, the animal beginning in the man dies while the Divine lives forever. The Divine is important and not the animal. If your friend visits you with a horse, what is more important for you — his presence or the horse he has arrived with? The essence is your friend and not his horse. What meaning does the red or white horse, which your friend has arrived with have? The horse is important to the extent to be able to hear the arrival of your friend from afar. If the horse is white, you will also see your friend who is fast approaching you. When it is talked about the mortal and immortal beginning in man, the question of how a man will resurrect appears. According to some, a man will resurrect with the same body he has lived with on the Earth. This means that if a wrestler has weighed 100-120 kg, after his resurrection he will appear again as a strong, big and heavy man. This is the childish understanding and not the true resurrection of the soul. Resurrection implies a new, Divine life. In this sense, one can rise several times a day. Suffice it to give up one of his own delusions to raise something in him. Resurrection implies release. It has nothing to do with the grave of a man. Who has come out of the grave alive and resurrected? This has not been and will not be. However, a man is subject to constant changes. Therefore, Paul says, "We will not die, but we will change." It was and will always be. The present human is not what was in the past, nor will he remain such one in the future. Man changes in mind, heart and will; he also changes his understanding, his way of life. Modern people speak of dignity, will, strong thought, and so on. In my view, only he has a strong will who could give up the evil he has planned to do and replace it with good. You will say that this was known by your ancestors and great ancestors. They have known it, but they have not understood how the evil could be transformed in good. One angel was guilty before God in relation to something and as a punishment, he was sent to the Earth amongst the horses in order to study their language. When the horses were happy, they pronounced the sounds i-hu-hu. The angel learnt the language of the horses, he talked to them but when he had to be joyful and say i-hu-hu, he could not pronounce these sounds, which everyone laughed at him for. It wasn’t easy to pronounce these sounds.- Why? — Because he did not understand their meaning. Indeed, a man hardly says words, which meaning he doesn’t understand. What do the sounds i-hu-hu mean? When weddings are made in the villages, the Bulgarians have fun, dance and shout –i-hu-hu. In this way, they show their satisfaction that they have acquired something precious. First of all, the boy’s parents like a girl and send someone to request for her. An old, clever woman who starts the work diplomatically, usually performs this. First of all, she learns about the material situation of the girl, she wants to learn whether her parents have land, orchards and cattle. When she is convinced that the girl is wealthy, she starts to praise the young man, to talk that he is very hardworking, good-natured and that he is not deprived either. The girl’s parents listen but do not give an answer yet. The grandmother goes twice-three times and talks about the young man all the time until the parents of the young girl agree. They bring the young girl so that she can also say whether she agrees or not. As soon as the two sides agree, preparations for the wedding start taking place. The day of the wedding is defined and the enjoyment commences: the bride and the groom go forward, and afterwards the godmother and the godfather. She carries a sieve full of walnuts, dried fruit and money. All relatives, friends and acquaintances follow them. Everyone is joyful, smiling, music is being played. The godmother throws several walnuts or dried fruit and money from time to the kids who are eagerly waiting for that moment. When all rituals are performed, the music starts being played, the traditional dance Bulgarian Horo’ starts swinging lively, and one of the players shouts: "i-hu-hu." — What does the sieve, the fruits and the money mean? — The sieve is the human mind that brings wealth — walnuts, hazelnuts, fruit, money. Give the riches of your mind generously to all who need it. The children who collect the wealth represent the human thoughts and desires. The mind must give them an impulse to grow and develop. If the godmother is asked why she carries a sieve full of fruit that she hands over, she will say that this is a custom, but what lies in it she does not know. Modern people have a lot of customs, they perform a lot of rituals without knowing their inner meaning. Originally, the customs and rituals were in the person himself, but then he lost them and only the outer forms did remain. Originally, the temple was inside the man, but after he lost it, he began to build external temples, and to worship and pray there. With the loss of his purity, man lost all that was written in his heart and soul. What greater temple shall he seek out of Him Who is in him, and He that seeth in all nature? It is enough to go out, in nature, to see the sky, to get exposed to the sun, to breathe in the fresh air, and thank Him Who created the whole universe. Go out in the evening when the sky is dotted with countless stars to feel the influence of the Creator. Everything that goes around us is able to elevate our thoughts and feelings, to connect us with God. Here is where the church is, that is, the temple of the human soul. This is the Divine Church that feeds the souls. It is in and outside the man, among flowers and trees, rivers and seas, birds, and animals. Where life is manifested properly, there is the temple of God, there are the candles and light nights. When people unite and live in love and brotherhood among themselves, they enter the Divine Temple. All people are not at the same level, but all of them can be brothers and enjoy equally the benefits of life. For those who are tempted by other people’s good deeds and wealth, Christ says their right eye should be removed and their right-hand cut off. Time has come when the christian nations should become brothers and prepare for the future religion that is coming. After the 45th year, it will come, it will be imposed on the humankind and it will transform it. This is the religion of labour. After it, the new teaching will come — a teaching about life. While people live in the religion of labour, they will still quarrel, fight but should they enter the teaching of life, all this will disappear. — Why? -Because love gives birth to life. Therefore, everyone should give account to themselves in which religion they live — in the religion of labour or in the religion of love. There are two categories of people in the religion of labour: some of them live in a Divine way, while manifest in a human way; the others live in a human way while act in a Divine way. These are inevitable contradictions. However, live, work and anticipate the new religion, i.e. the new teaching of life, work and love. It is said that the animal in the human being is struggling, a man labours while God works. Give way to God in yourself. He will manifest and start working through you. What is the Earth? — Great School. Because many of the modern people are greedy, they seek exclusively to acquire material goods. Providence teaches them in the most rational way. As it cultivates the serpent’s greed so does it teach the greedy people. It gives the opportunity to the most unsatisfied snake to gulp so much that it feels satisfied for at least five-six days. So does it give a lot of material goods to today’s greedy people so that they don’t think about them for years. Providence gives some people wealth abundantly in order that they get satisfied and glutted. According to the law of surfeit, a man stops thinking about things he has dreamt about once upon a time. In this way, however, the unreasonable man is being taught. It is right to give up the transient things in life before you have reached surfeiting them. Should the drunken give up the drinking after he has got fed up with the wine? It is better to give up before that because after the surfeit, his body may get ill. Should the soldier from the battlefield give up a murder after he has got fed up with murdering. It is good that he gives up the killing on time before he has got fed up with it. Someone wants to live, to experience all pleasures of life but is immediately exposed to people’s criticism. The modern morality is wonderful! When people kill each other in the battlefield, they consider this is in the right order of things. When someone has pleasures, they criticise him. If one thing is allowed the other thing should also be allowed. If one thing is criticised and condemned, the other thing should also be criticised and condemned. Give people something better than this, which they aspire to and do not condemn them. When you hear you are talked in this way, you say: It is easy to talk, it is difficult to rectify the mistakes: it is easy to preach, it is hard to achieve the great things. This is true but a man should deal with his weaknesses and bad habits. It is not a question of restricting the man, but he should know what he needs for drinking and eating. Whoever is thirsty, let him drink but what? — Pure, fresh water. Whoever is hungry, let him eat but pure, healthy food. Whoever wants to think let him think but his mind should be busy with high and light thoughts. Therefore, eat, drink, think but do not destroy your future, do not oppose the aspirations of your soul. You will say that someone has fallen in love with a dancer. If she can save him, there is nothing bad in this. There are dancers who have saved dozens of men from degradation. The ideal side of things is important. In this sense, it is preferable to have dancers in the world who will save the people rather than not having them and people to live in idleness and crimes. You will say that this is not moral. Is the war moral? As soon as you allow the war, you will also allow the dancers. This is in the life of controversy. However, when the war ceases, the dancers will disappear too. Where there is evil, there are its consequences. Remove the evil as a reason in order to deal with its consequences. The lives of today’s people are full of contradictions. Hundreds and thousands of people die in the factories and mines. These sacrifices are justified only if the whole humanity is elevated with them. If this does not happen then they are not in place. — What is the ultimate goal of the modern culture? — To raise all peoples as well as all mankind. If a state has hundreds of steamers available, they only matter if they help the well-being of all subjects. Otherwise, it is preferable to get rid of them. All nations are fighting for more land; after all, apart from not earning anything their life becomes so much more expensive that they barely breathe under its weight. And Bulgaria fought for Macedonia without winning it. The profit from the war is the appreciation of life. Today, everyone is wondering how to pay their debts. This is in the order of the historical events, in the order of the human culture but is not in the order of the Divine teaching, neither in the order of the culture before Adam’s sinning. The culture of Moses differs radically from that of Christ. Prior to Adam, noble, pure and smart people lived. This is known by few. If this fact has to be proved to the present people, special tools and time are needed that we do not have today. You will say that this is only for justification. And even if I have time and tools, I can not prove the truth of my words. Truth does not need proof. Whatever I say is not subject to criticism and doubt. Why do you doubt the pure gold? Today’s people doubt because they believed in human promises and not in the Divine ones. Many men and women give big promises to one another with ought honouring them. In this way, they lose their faith and become disappointed. When you promise something, you will talk in consonance with the Divine grammar and logic where all symbols and each word are in their place. What does the comma mean in the promises which one person makes to another? The comma shows that his speech is not yet completed and that he needs to prepare his pen and finish it. Until the speech is finished, you can put a comma, semicolon, colon, etc. After the colon, a series of qualities of the subject or person that is talked about are being exhibited. Finally, when the speech is over, a full stop is being placed. Now, all that you are listening to me came out of paradise and started with a comma, then with a semicolon, with a colon, until you finally finished with a point. What does the point mean? — It means death — the end of old life and the beginning of the new. A new thought, a new situation come after the point. Someone says to himself: I, — put the comma, the rich once merchant, I went bankrupt today; I lived improperly and unreasonably. I want to live my life, but that's why I have to be credited. I want to live wisely, to rectify my mistakes. The one who credits uses a questioning and exclamation mark. He asks: Are you ready to pay your debts? If you answer positively, he puts an exclamation mark by which he wants to say that by paying your debts you have to stay around him and serve him. You will serve your creditor, but he will treat you with love. It's nice to serve love. A girl and a young man who love each other, send air kisses to each other. When talking about the kiss, people are ashamed of it, they consider it as something unclean, corrupt. Some people ask how the kiss has appeared. It has existed before the creation of man. The plants and the birds have kissed each other. The first light has taught them. Strive for the kiss of the light. So all people have to kiss. A girl whose kiss is pure as the light says to his beloved: I want your kiss to be as pure and bright, to have a light mind, a noble heart and a healthy body. Only air kisses are allowed so far. Every other kiss carries disease. Many modern people are sick. Therefore, their kiss also brings something painful. One thing is required from modern humans: studying and applying of the Christ’s teaching. You will say that there are people who do this and therefore it is not needed that everyone applies it. It is not like that. All people, all nations, form part of the great, Divine tree. Therefore, everyone should perform their service as a sheet, branch, colour or fruit of the tree. Only in this way does a man retain his individuality and go from the private to the general, from the personal to the universal. The life of the individual and of the whole changes in the way in which the embryo in the womb of the mother does. It passes through 500,000 forms until it accepts the image of a person. In the spiritual sense, the different people take different forms: one looks like a point, another is a comma, a third person is a semicolon, a fourth — a question mark, a leaf, a branch, a colour, etc. From the perspective of comparative physiognomy, a man bears a human form from the outside only; internally, however, he has the form of a plant or an animal. So some people compare the nose of the man with the nails of the eagle. As the eagle grasps his victim with his nails, one can also hurt his neighbour with his nose. The nose symbolises the mind. This shows that the present person has not changed internally yet. When talking to people of good life, of self-sacrifice, of love for one another, this will not be attained suddenly, but it must be known that the good and right life comes as a consequence of the application of the Christ's teaching. When mothers and fathers change their thoughts and feelings, a new, healthy generation with a right thought will be born. Everyone carries within themselves material for future development. That is why it is said that it depends on a man to live well or poorly. Whoever lives according to the Divine principle, will be in peace and love with himself and his fellowmen, even with his enemies. Christ's teaching is a teaching of principles and not forms. Principles expand and formulas restrict. Man's life is meaningless outside Christ’s principles. The Bulgarian proverb "Empty Mara beats a Drum" clearly expresses the life of the average man. The drum must be beaten in time and place. So should the drum of the mother and the children, the priests and the teachers, the rulers and the ruled be beaten. That means a sincere person. His words and his speech are pure, sincere. Whoever listens to such a person does not come across any contradictions. He sees the pure consonance, with no falsity and no rudeness. So, to bring out the right eye and cut off the right hand, which bring temptation into life. And then love our enemies. Whoever loves his enemy is a man of the future culture. And if those who are sitting at the conference in Paris now love their enemies, there will be genuine peace among the peoples. If they do not love their enemies, even if peace is achieved, it will be temporary. True peace is the one that brings the future culture of work, life and love. If the peace that the present peoples expect is based on Moses' law, ‚an eye for an eye and a tooth for the tooth’, time will show what that peace will be and what culture it will bring. I wish you the future culture to come, and that you become the bearers of love. Sunday Talks 06.02.1919 Thursday, Sofia Translated by Proletina Dragoeva-Jones

Like yourself “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with thy neighbour as thyself." (Matthew 22:37, 38, 39) Everyone knows the truth that people do not like the old stuff. When the mother and father get old, their son and daughter are dissatisfied with them; they want to be left free as soon as possible. They look upon the old people as an obstacle in their lives. In fact, the old people are in their place. One Bulgarian proverb says: ‚From an old Goat goatling’. At all, the old people carry within themselves all conditions under which a child can be born and brought up. In the original language the word ‚old’ has had quite a different meaning than this, which nowadays is given to it. In order to develop properly, the young person has to serve two great laws: love for God and love for the neighbour. Nothing is born without love. Love drives the human soul to movement and creation. To talk about love does not mean that we envisage the human love that leads to disappointments. We talk about the love of which Apostle Paul says „we know partly, we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, what is partly will cease.’ The perfect is love. The Absolute, Divine truth manifests through perfect knowledge, through love. Christ says that love is manifested by two great laws: To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with your entire mind, with all your soul, with all your strength, while your neighbour like yourself.’ When it is talked about love to God, some think that He is out of them, invisible. Therefore, it is said that no one has seen Him. Whoever wants to find God needs to search for Him in his brother, i.e. his neighbour? How would you love God if you do not love your neighbour who you see? Whoever loves, he sees God. That is why, it is said: ‚God is Love ‘This verse expresses the external and internal meaning of the concept God. Love cannot be seen but can be felt, this is why God is accessible for all minds, hearts and souls. It is enough for a man to open himself for love in order to know it. Life without love does not exist. There is no heart, mind and soul that have not experienced love. Where love penetrates there is warmth. Therefore, all beings carry it within themselves to a little or great extent, as a low and high manifestation. It is said, "To love the Lord with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all you might." Where the heart manifests, there are feelings and desires.i.e. a material through which love works. Whoever gives expression of his feelings and desires, without working with them, he soon gets replete with love and says that it doesn’t make sense to love. It makes sense to always love but rightly. The body temperature of a man is between 36-37 degrees. If it increases above 37 he starts to get sick. The higher the temperature is the bigger the complications that take place in the body are. If it reaches 40, 41 degrees, the ill one departs for the other world. Therefore, in the physical world, love can reach the highest temperature up to 41 degrees. The same law is also relevant to the public life. While the public man has a temperature between 36-37 degrees, everyone considers him as a normal person. If his temperature is raised, he starts to ramble, talk unconnected things and is immediately taken to the madhouse.-Why?-Because he has had such manifestations that are out of the physical world. In fact, it is difficult to draw a line as to where the normal and abnormal life reach. When you feed the pig you consider this as normal. You say that the pig needs to be fed in order to have more fat. Let the same pig free in the forest in natural conditions, and see what will happen with its fat. It will melt and the pig will come to its normal self. Therefore, the terms normal and abnormal are relative. What was the man of the past, what is he today and what should he be in the future are three different things, three realities. True Real life is this one that includes the past, present and future. Whoever carries within himself the three lives together, we call a man of love. He is guided by three great laws: the law of necessity, the law of freedom, and the law of nature. The law of necessity solves 25 percent of human misery, the law of freedom resolves also 25 percent of the difficulties, while the law of nature - 50 percent. The three laws together solve 100 percent the life difficulties. If the sick one applies the three laws 100 percent he will get better soon. According to the first law he is his own doctor, therefore he will help himself 25 percent; according to the second law he will recourse to a doctor who will help him another 25 percent. At last, when he leaves himself to nature, it will cure him 50/100.In this way, he will completely heal. If the ill one leaves it to himself or only to the doctor, he will heal in part. However, both the ill one and the doctor need to also call nature for help; then the healing is 100 % rational. The same law is relevant to the family, social and general human life. When the two young people get married, the young man needs to participate for a good life with 25% from his strength and abilities, the girl also 25 percent. After that, they both need to turn to God, to ask for His participation in their life. He will help them with 50 percent from His power and their life will be a 100 percent normal. The contemporary families do not rest on a solid foundation because one of the young ones gives 25 percent from himself, while he expects 75 percent from the other. Every human being can give 25 percent from themselves. The rest to one hundred they need to expect from their neighbour and God. If neither the family nor the social life is based on this principle, there will always be a lack of something because of which people will get disappointed with one another. Apply the three laws in order to try their power. If you only use either the one or only both, you will always be dissatisfied. The cause of mortality in homes, sickness, and childlessness is due to the application of the law of necessity and freedom, but to the denial of the participation of the Divine principle in life or of the reasonable nature. „Love God with all your soul“. Under „soul “Christ understands a path, condition for the movement of love. There is a movement in the whole nature. All lakes, rivers, sees move. Where there is a growth everything is moving. It is a condition for the development of the soul. Therefore, we say that the movement is necessary in the human, angelic and in the Divine love. If the movement stops, then life stops to exist and from there love too. Because there is a movement in love, a man should love all life beings that cross his path. Only in this way does he provide the opportunity to God in himself to manifest. This means to feel the pulse of life. This means to feel the greatness and beauty of nature as well as the greatness of the Creator. Only in this way, can a man understand and apply the verse in which Christ says how we should love God. Without an aim for the beauty, love cannot manifest. „Love the Lord with all your might.“ The might presupposes intensity. This means to love the Lord in this way so that to be ready to overcome all difficulties and obstacles. Love, which gives way to the obstacles is not a true love; the self-interest driven love is not true. Love requires great sacrifices. All great people have given a sacrifice first for love. Many doubt whether, indeed, there existed or there still exist people ready for full self-sacrifice for love. They can be in doubt but doubt does not answer the questions. One thing you will deny, another your will maintain and prove. How would you deny light? How would you deny life? Life is proved through death; while death - with life. If there is a life, there is a death; if there is a death, there is a life. It is said in the Scripture that we live and move in God. Therefore, while you are connected with God, you will always live regardless you are in this or the other world. The departure of the human soul for the other world is called death; however in the absolute sense of the word, death does not exist. That a man dies and disappears, this is a wrong view that has remained from predecessors and pre-predecessors - In fact, death is a shadow of life. In the hot summer days, a man hides in the shade of the trees. Has he died? No, he has only hidden in a shade. It is said in the holy books that death is a rest. Therefore, whoever has worked and is still working has the right to sit down under the shade of a tree and rest. If it is said that someone has died this implies that he has hidden in the shade in order to rest. According to many, death is a convulsion, writhe, agony, torture, etc. These are fictitious things. The physical garment of a man is separated from the spiritual one but this is not death. You can suggest to a man that he is dying and he will experience all manifestations of agonisation without dying in reality. When he frees himself from the others’ thought, he will alone convince himself that he is alive and healthy. After that, can it be thought that he has ascended? This shows that death is a process of the human thought. When he came to Earth and realised that everything that surrounded him is a Divine creature, the man desired to do something and in conclusion, he worked for the creation of death that is of the rest. The contemporary man fears death without thinking about it as his invention. How can a man fear his own invention? He says that suffering, fire and eternal torture come after death. Who has gone to the other world and come back from there in order to describe what is there and what one is expected. Let the scientists and philosophers who talk about the other world come in order to understand between each other and see what language they write in and explain the truth. In the distant past, in India somewhere, a prominent philosopher who lived in the house of the then shah studied the secrets of nature. Through the great philosophical knowledge, he learned the art of talking with hand movements. The Shah was interested in this art and in order to see how people could only understand each other with the movements of the hands, had told the philosopher to find a connoisseur of this art to talk to. The philosopher did not know such a person, so the shah commissioned this task to one of his Brahmin scientists, by telling him: "I want you to find a man who can talk with a handshake as the philosopher. If you do not, you will leave my palace.’ The Brahmin was startled by the command of the shah. He sought such a man, but he did not find him. Thoughtful and sad, he left the palace and fell into himself. One day he met his barber who asked him: Why are you so conceited? I cannot tell you. You cannot help me. "Tell me, what's the trouble, I'll find some solution to your sorrow. – The shah gave me the task to find a man who can talk through hand movements but I could not find anywhere such a person. As I could not satisfy his desire, I left his castle. Don’t worry, I know this art. I will talk to the philosopher in the presence of the shah in order to also demonstrate my art. The shah fixed the date of the session and the conversation began. The philosopher raised one of his hands and fingers, while the barber both hands and two fingers; the philosopher lowered one hand from above, with his fingers open, while the barber held out his hand, with his fingers open pointing upwards. The shah asked the philosopher what conversation he had with the barber, and he replied: With the raising of my hand and one finger, I said that only one being rules the world - God. The barber raised two hands and two fingers, telling me that two beings were ruling the world - God and King. By taking my hand down, with my fingers open, I wanted to say that it would rain soon. The barber opposed my hand with his hand in the same way, which meant that after this rain would come a great fertility. Afterwards, the shah asked the barber what he had learned from his conversation with the philosopher. The barber replied: When the philosopher lifted one finger up, he wanted to say he would take one of my eyes out. I lifted my two fingers to prove to him that I was stronger; I would pull out both his eyes. When he stretched his hand in the air, he wanted to say that he would come up against me with five people to punish me. And I stretched out my hand in the air to prove that he would be opposed by five people stronger than his. The Shah smiled and said, "That is called understanding!" This is how many modern religious and secular people understand eachother. That is how people in families and societies understand each other due to which the misfortunes and sufferings come. Christ talked about the eternal life. By this, He excludes death. The eternal life implies knowledge of God and Christ. The knowledge is founded upon a true, inner understanding. Whoever loves God with all his heart, mind, soul and might, while his neighbour as himself, he has acquired the eternal life and is not afraid of death. For many, the term‚ eternal life’ is abducted. Many things, many terms are abducted. The word ‚abducted’ has a double meaning: external and internal. It is said that something is abducted, i.e. lifted. Young people often complain that their love has been abducted, taken away. The lad weeps, suffers that someone has kidnapped, i.e. taken away his beloved. While she was with him, he was happy. As soon as they take her away, he becomes unhappy. This is a misunderstanding. No one can take the love of a man apart from him alone. As soon as he doubts his love, it leaves him. Therefore, the doubt, suspicion in man becomes the reason for his beautiful and higher ideas, his love to be taken away. He loses his inner peace and searches for the reason of his unhappiness outside him. The reason for everything is him alone. A man determines his life as well as the life of the family and society. Whatever the state of the individual is so is the state of the whole society. Individuals form societies; societies form nations, and nations - all mankind. The humankind on the other hand, has a connection with the angelic world. Therefore, everything depends on the individual. He builds the humankind and not vice versa. By ‚an individual’ I understand the Divine beginning in a man - his soul. For many, it is a contradiction to talk about an individual and a soul as identical terms. It is a contradiction to say that 10 equal 1. However, you buy one kilogramme of apples, you count them and you establish that they are 10 in total. In this case, 1 equals 10, or 10 equals 1. In this sense, the individual, whom the soul lives in is one- all conditions and opportunities for the creation of the whole humankind are hidden in it. The wheat grain hides in itself the conditions for the creation of one hundred wheat grains. This is a philosophical understanding of things. This is how people should understand each other and not like the philosopher and the barber. The thought of the one who considers himself as nothing, as a sinner and who searches for the reason in his mother and father is not right. The master who has built your house may not have known the laws of construction and instead of a big and healthy house, he has built you a small one but you need to know that the little house and you are two different things. Your contemporary house may be small, unhygienic but despite that you can manifest yourself; you can let the light shine in your small house and manifest your love. My love is small. Though little, manifest it, do not close your heart for God and your neighbour. Pave way to your love in order to expand. Do not be afraid of the changes in life. Life and death are two states, which a man goes through inevitably. They are changes that lead to the reality. You will live and build, and will expand your house in order to express the love of This One who has created you. You will die and carry with you that which doesn’t rot and die. In this way, you will grow and develop until you reach to the perfection, which Christ says for: ‚I and my Father are one’. „Love your neighbour as yourself." That is, to love every soul outside of yourself. Your neighbour was in you, and has come out of you. If in this case, you can love him as yourself, then you have fulfilled the second great law of love. You will argue that you do not remember your neighbour being in you and coming out. That does not mean anything. And the wheat grain does not know that all grains of the class have come out of it. Therefore, you must love your neighbour like a child of yours that has lived and is still living in you. As God lives in a man so does his (the man’s) neighbour live in him (the man). The neighbour who lives like a soul in every man has not manifested yet because he hasn’t been given any conditions. Give him conditions and he will manifest. No matter how small, something beautiful will come out of him. Everyone strives for the beautiful and perfect. This is a natural law. The people of today cannot yet show off with that beauty and freedom that they strive for. The free man endures all trials. It is talked about freedom, about love but if you are subject to hunger for a few days you will immediately give up the idea you are following. With such love and freedom, immortality cannot be achieved. Only he can talk about freedom that has broken the chains of death. Until he is her slave, neither his freedom is freedom nor is his love-love. The contemporary, religious and secular people talk about love but apply hatred and envy more. How can the hatred between a mother and a daughter, father and a son, between friends can be explained? It is not enough to provide a scientific explanation to the question. Every doctor knows how to treat the different illnesses but cannot cure all people. Therefore, the true explanation of the hatred is that which can turn it into love. Hatred is the leprosy of the human heart. If today you can cure this leprosy at least 25 percent, you have achieved a lot. That is, to bring peace and joy to the homes. However, work is expected by a man - an inner, conscious work. So we say: Do not wait for the help to come from the outside! Harness all work! All people, families, societies and nations expect outside help from above to help them. Power and prosperity is in the individual. If the parts of a whole are in good working order, and the whole will work fine. The parts have to rely on those goods that nature provides, and not on transient, temporary things. What culture will come if it is not raining and the sun is not shining? – What is common between the rain, sun and the human culture? – There is something in common, which the inhabitants of the sun know about. It is enough for you to reach the sun for a moment and go to the sun inhabitants to see how much they are interested in the Earth. It will be opposed that the Earth is dead. Earth is live. It loves people - its children and is constantly looking after them. The Earth sends its love to the people every moment but the love of the sun is even bigger. If the sun takes its love away from the people only for a moment, they will immediately understand where life, development and culture come from. Christ talks about the two great laws of love as something real. The love manifests in the smallest particles too as energy or an impulse. The scientists call this energy ‘attraction, magnetism, draws’. Regardless of how they call it, it is one and the same - love of the particles and love of the whole. There is no atom, ion, molecule that do not comprise the energy of love. The atom is small but it conceals the whole universe in a miniature. Whoever knows the qualities and composition of the atom, he knows the whole universe. It is therefore said in the spiritual mathematics that the part is equal to the whole. This is the law of evolution according to which the little one aspires to the great. However, according to the Divine law, the great one strives for the little one. Therefore, two laws act in nature: The law of expansion and the law of diminishment. In the diminishment, the human soul penetrates into the deepest secrets of nature. The humbled and meek and not the proud one diminish. Therefore, Christ says: ‘It is easy for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ This verse is related to the sacrifice. Only that one can enter the Divine Kingdom who is ready to deny himself and self-sacrifice himself. To love God that is to humble yourself; to love your neighbour that is to expand. It follows that a man needs to simultaneously diminish and expand himself, that is to become small like the atom and big like the universe. Whoever loves, he becomes great; whoever does not love he suffers. When you know this does not ask why you are ill. The illnesses are signs of lack of love or of small love in the human heart. If you want to be healthy, put love into your mind, heart, soul and in the whole body. Where there is love there are no misunderstandings, hatred, jealousy, diseases and suffering. Without love in your heart, you will resemble a man who walks in water, is thirsty; carries bread but is hungry. Love wants deeds and not words. Too much talking leads to suffering. In general, strive for the small quantities, but well understood and applied. Today, a lot is being talked about love but despite that, the results are still weak. –Why? - Because it is not spoken in a corresponding language. You will talk to people in three ways: either in the language of air, or in the language of water or in the language of the sun. The language of the air is related to the breathing, i.e. the purification of blood. You will talk in this language and will be thinking of the pure air, the oxygen, of the whole respiratory system. When one talks in the language of the air, he should think right, to reconcile his thought with the Divine one. If he doesn’t synchronise his thought with the Divine one he will imminently suffer. When he thinks right a man transforms his mental energy into an electric and magnetic one and in this way he creates conditions within himself for a healthy, normal life. To talk in the language of water means to manifest its qualities, i.e. to be agile, energetic, and pure like it - whichever place you go through, to water and irrigate everything, while at the same time, to dissolve and forward the hard substances as food juices for all life beings. The language of water is correlated to the digestive system. To talk in the language of the sunrise. The language of the light means to transform the lower energy into a higher one and to send it straight to the brain like a dynamic, creative energy. The more light penetrates the human mind, the cleaner and lighter the life of a man is and the purer and higher his deeds are. The language of the light is related to the arterial blood, which is spread through man’s whole body and feeds him. The love towards God is related to the venous blood, while the love to the neighbour - to the arterial one. Therefore, if you get bored of your life and your blood becomes impure, search for your neighbour. As soon as you love him, you expand and your blood becomes purified. The stronger your faith is the stronger your love and hope are. What are love, faith and hope? Love is God, faith - the angels, while hope - the whole humankind. Dress in the garments of love, faith and hope. Only in this way will you put your lives to right. How would society be better? – By not infringing the Divine plan. If you would like to heal the wound of your hand, clean it, bandage it and do not touch it anymore. The more you are picking it up the slower it will heal. Do not interfere with the Divine affairs. As all conditions of healing are hidden in the body, so are all conditions for putting the whole humankind to right envisaged in the Divine plan. Everything that takes place in life is envisaged, there is nothing accidental. Steps have been taken to remedy the messy things. After 1945, the affairs of whole Europe will get better but until then, the passengers will be vomiting like those ones that cross the Atlantic Ocean by a steamer. Have you seen how the passengers who will cruise on sea embark on travelling and how they descend from the ports? Their close ones send them off and give them bouquets, all are happy. Once they board the ship and enter the sea, their location is lost. They become pale and start vomiting and one after another lie down on the beds. On the secod day, their condition deteriorates; they don’t feel like eating or talking. On the thrid day, their situation is even worse, but their hope for improvement is amplified as they approach a port. As soon as they are on land, all smile, become cheerful and in good mood and start talking as though they have not gone through anything. Everyone asks them how they have passed through sea and they respond about their sea sickness with cheerful faces. . And so, whatever the passengers go through in the sea so do people on Earth. While a man is young, he is cheerful and happy, he loves everyone. He boards the ship and his close ones send him off. The more he enters life, I. e. in the sea, the more serious and thoughtful he becomes. When he gets married, he becomes even more thoughtful - the ship goes deeper in the sea waters. Children are born that do not respect him and he gets completely confused, he cannot play his role anymore. His son and daughter are unsatisfied by him, they find him fallen behind, he cannot comprehend the new. When he sees himself in this situation, he comes down the stage and gives the way to the new actors. The audience gives him a bouquet and asks him whether he is happy with his situation. „To love God and your neighbour’. This means a man to pass safely through the ocean and sea. Whoever has love in himself, he will choose such time for travelling when the sea or ocean are quiet and calm. There is no success without love. You must love at least one person. Modern people suffer from love accompanied by jealousy. You meet a good, scientist girl but her face is disfigured. – Why? - Someone has loved her and has poured vitriol on her face from jealousy. This is not love. You will say that both the girl and the boy should not cheat on their love. This is another question. I blame neither the young nor the old people, but the people need to go back, to rectify their mistakes and to rejuvenate. The contemporary people have become prematurely old. They talk about old age without understanding what the old age represents. Only God is old. Old age without wisdom is not an old age. Millions of years will still go by until the old man appears on the Earth. In the Revelation, it is talked about 24 old men that are sitting around God’s throne. The Theosophists provide different explanations about these old men. In fact, they symbolise the time, i.e. the epochs, which the humankind has gone through. Time is within God who carries the beginning and end of things. When Christ says that you need to become like the children, He means that the old one cannot enter the Divine Kingdom. It is time for a man to give up the wrong idea about old age and to rejuvenate. Otherwise, he will always excuse himself that he is old, he cannot work, study, love, etc. In Sanskrit language, under the word ‚old’ it is understood a being that has manifested itself, has studied the laws of nature and immortality. Only now do the modern people study these laws. You will say that the old one can be recognised by his white hair. – This is not a sign for an old age. See how the actors disguise on the stage. There the young one becomes old, while the old one - young without being so in reality. It is enough for you to turn to the pages of your past life in order to see how many times you have got on and off the stage and what roles you have played. You have been in a situation of a king and slave, a stupid man and scientist, a poor and rich. When you complete your role you get off the stage, you remain with the unchangeable in yourselves. Everything in life changes, but for the Divine in the human being that remains unchangeable and eternal. Whoever doesn’t know the law of reincarnation he wonders why someone hates him. Very simple - you have caused some harm to him in the past. Turn one of the pages of your past life and you will see that you have taken unfairly the house of this person. Now you will rectify your mistake. In order for him to love and forgive you, you must not only return his house to him but you should even furnish it. This means to live according to the law of love. The modern people live in two ways: some of them talk about God but act in a human way, while others do not talk about God but act in a divine way. It is preferable that a man lives in the second way. To live like that means to constantly be joyful and cheerful. Love rejuvenates, refreshes the man and gives him strength to put up with the misfortunes and contradictions in life. Love rectifies all misunderstandings. Love sees in all human beings its neighbour whom it has something in common with, in eating, breathing and living. Exactly here all people resemble. All live, breathe and eat. The difference is in that how they live, what air they breathe and what food they satisfy themselves with. One thing is important: All people need to live reasonably, to breathe clear air and to eat clean and healthy food. Only in this way will a person complete the job he has come to the Earth for. Every living creature moves and works. There are ten million cells in the human stomach that work for the purification of the blood. There is a certain harmony between all cells and therefore they do their job so well. What would happen to the man if the cells refuse to do their job? A man ceases to exist. The disharmony leads to destruction and death. Many do not succeed in their lives because they live with their past greatness. Instead of looking realistically upon the present they say: Do you know what I was in the past? - The past is not important; it is important what you are now. The past and future are only conditions, while the reality is in the present. When he passes through the past and present, a man comes to the law of necessity and freedom that lead to love. It (love) is a path to good and reasonableness. Where there is love there is right thought and reasoning. Not loving leads to pervert views and reasoning. One day the fox was talking to herself. People chase me unfairly. They blame me that I attack the chickens and hence they kill me. There is something right in this but they forget that I deal with the chickens better than a cat with mice. At least, I undress the garment of the chicken while the cat eats the mouse with its garment together. Here is one pervert reasoning. It is pervert because it is devoid of love. The situation of the chicken and mouse is the same. As soon as they go in the mouth of the enemy, they do not care whether their garment is kept or not. It is important that in either case the life of the chicken and the mouse is taken. A day will come when the fox will realise its mistake and will rectify its life. There are many plucked chickens today whose life will be restored in the future. The plucked chickens are the poor people whose situation will improve. Remember: nature uses symbols that have to be studied. The rivers, flowers, trees, fish, mammals, people are symbols, which nature expresses its secrets with. Whoever understands the language of nature will read the past, present and future history of humankind in its book. And when the doctor puts his hand on the pulse of the ill one he immediately defines his condition. Therefore, the pulse of a man is the language by which the doctor identifies the health condition of the ill person. Then he opens the eyes and mouth of the ill person in order to see what condition his/ her stomach and liver are in. You see that someone is silent and you say he is thinking. Things from the outside determine the inner disposition of a man. What is the thinking expressed in? A man thinks while the ox ruminates. Therefore, the way the ox needs food in order to ruminate, so does a man need thoughts in order to think. What does a man think about? - How to preserve his wife’s love. And the woman thinks how to preserve her husband’s love. This is a difficult tusk but there is a solution. You will say that it can be solved in the Heavens. Where is the Heavens? The Heavens is on the Earth. It depends on you to live simultaneously on both the Heavens and the Earth. - Is this possible? It is possible. How do the caterpillar and butterfly live together on the Earth? The butterfly feeds with the nectar of the flowers, i. e. with good thoughts and desires, and the caterpillar - with leaves, i.e. with lower thoughts and desires. When is a man like a butterfly? - When he gives place to the Spirit, i.e. the Master in himself. He is called the "servant of love”. What is required from a man in order to serve love? – Complete self-denial. In the distant past, a big crime has been committed in a Russian village but the offender could not be found. They blamed a poor widow with four children instead of him. The Court decided to send her to Siberia in exile. The verdict had to be executed within 24 hours. A young man from the same village heard of the widow’s verdict and got horrified by the thought of whom the four little children would be left with. He told himself: I have no mother and father, I pass for a waster and noone needs me. I will go to the court and say that I have committed the crime.’ The same day, he appeared before the court and told the prosecutor and judge that the crime was his deed and not the widow’s. In this way, he released the unfortunate mother from prison and took her destiny on himself. Ten years later, a priest gave confession to a dying man. The latter revealed the secret that he had carried on his consciousness for ten years: he confessed that he was the real offender of the crime he had committed before ten years. Immediately, the authorities ordered that the young man was released from prison but it appeared that he had already died. So, this young man has lived in a human way but acted in Divine way. From the outside, this young man carried the garment of a waster, of apache but internally he worked on himself, ennobled his soul. It is worthwhile to admire such heroes who are willing to sacrifice. They are bold, determined, with the pursuit of great and sublime. with the pursuit of great and sublime. To love God and your neighbour, these are two great laws through applying which a man can free himself from the difficulties and contradictions in life. You will say that when Christ comes to the Earth for a second time, life on Earth would improve all of a sudden- There is no need for you to wait for this time. Christ may come after 2000 years. Don’t you have to work during that time? Even if Christ comes on the Earth, he cannot go around all towns and villages to hold a lecture everywhere. Therefore, only those ones, who hear it, will benefit from His lectures. What would the rest do? You expect impossible things and waste your time. Know that Christ is in the light that you receive; in the air that you breathe; in the food you eat. Christ is also in your thoughts, feelings and deeds - you will meet Him everywhere. Use these gifts in a considerate way and do not delay things. Be good payees. As soon as the time for paying your debt approaches, pay immediately. If you postpone, the interests increase. The meaning of life is in love - to do everything with love. While he is young, a man lives with faith and love, ready for all sacrifices. As soon as he loses his faith and love, he says: ‚The good time has passed’. Today most people suffer for their lost love. They are right. Love is a force that elevates a man. As a crime can vitiates the life of a man, so can love purify and elevate him in a given moment. As death at one point can mow thousands of heads, so life at one point can restore the fallen heads. Life is stronger than death, and love is stronger than hate. Knowing this, keep the side of life and love. Only he has the right to sometimes lie under the shadow of death and hatred who is strong. Outwardly, hate is ugly, terrible like a wolf, and inside there is something noble, soft. Whoever hates, he can also love. Whoever does not hate he cannot love. Hatred is still love dressed in a foreign garment with an aim to test what is hidden in the human heart. The beggar knocks on people’s doors in order to test their mercy. Outwardly, he is torn, dusty but inside he is dressed with a clean and beautiful garment. If you see a very well dressed and well-groomed person you will know that he is not the One your soul is searching for. The true man you will find in the torn, poor and suffering man. The truth and love dress in old, torn clothes. Whoever genuinely searches for them will learn to distinguish the good from evil and will not be deceived by the external things, i.e. by their packaging. Apply the Christ teaching in order to understand why you have to love and why to hate. If you want to love, you have to know to hate. You cannot love if you have never hated. Love and hatred are two forces that work simultaneously in nature. Love is magnetism, while hatred-electricity. Nowadays’ hatred is future love, while the nowadays love is future hatred. This is a law of polarisation. In order to avoid this law, one has to deny himself. As soon as you feel that the hatred penetrates your heart, deny yourself. That’s why Christ says: „"He who does not deny himself cannot be my disciple." Apply self-denial, to see what your life will be. One father died and left a huge inheritance to be distributed between his four sons. They started to quarrel about who should take more. The youngest son realised the situation and in order to avoid the dispute he disclaimed his share and said to his brother: Take my share and divide it among yourselves. I prefer to have your love than fight.’ Not much time had gone by when the other brothers reconciled and the division took place in a loved and peaceful manner. It is established that when the love between two people is active, they both become positive and retreat. If they are a man and a woman they remain without children. This is a law in the physical world. When the man and woman become negative, they have children but cannot live for long. Therefore, in the love between two people one needs to be positive, while the other-negative; one to create whiles the other to build. If they both create, they cannot give birth. This law is also related to the society and country. When two candidates come about for the same ministerial post, the state's affairs are not going well. If the state wants to succeed, half of its subjects must be positive and the other half - negative, i.e. some to create while others to build, some to serve, while the others to master. It is not good for a man to spoil. It's not a science. Whoever only destructs has not learned the law of creation and building. One of the greatest laws of Genesis requires man to build or create. This is the way one can pave the way to the Divine Beginning within himself and fulfil the purpose that nature has assigned to him. A person may have a lot of beliefs, but let him experience the Christianity teaching that transforms things. For many, Christ's teaching is old, out of date. It is not. Christ's teaching is as old as is new. If you think it is old, rejoice because the old mother gives birth to good, sensible children. If it is new, rejoice again. The young mother gives birth to children with loving hearts. Accept the doctrine of Christ with love, apply it and be joyful and happy. Christ says, "Love the Lord and your neighbour." This means: modern people need more light, more air, more moisture, and more food. This shows today's sun too. Take care of your brain, your lungs and your stomach. Listen to the voice of the wise nature, connect with God, and the bright future will be on your side. Sunday Talks 02.02.1919 Sunday, Sofia translated: Proletina Dragoeva-Jones

The Vine and the Branches „I am the vine; you are the branches.” (John 15:5) The 15th Chapter that was read from John represents an intimate conversation between Christ and His Disciples. The deep meaning of that conversation is only understood by the disciple who knows the Divine laws. If you come to the Christians, few of them understand this chapter. It is available only to the mystic. Outwardly, this Chapter looks simple, accessible to every human mind but in fact it is not so. During some nights, the sky is clear, dotted with multiple stars but the clarity is not yet a sign that all people understand the secrets that the sky hides. The clarity is only a condition that is necessary for the disciple to direct his thought to the Divine. Therefore, clarity does not imply yet that the human understands everything. You listen to an orator, you are happy with him and say that he speaks clearly. He speaks clearly but not understandingly. Not all minds are set to understand this which they are talked to. You see clearly one man but you do not understand him. This does not mean you are stupid. Even the stupid one should not be judged. One thing is asked from the man: to develop the package of the idea that he is carrying within himself. This will only make you aware that you have the knowledge you can use. Someone is told: Don’t be a fool! This means: be smart, do not get misled from the external side of life, from the package of things. Direct your attention to the internal side of life, where the true content and meaning of things are hidden. „I am the vine, you - the branches.“ Through this verse, Christ defines what the relationships between the disciple and his Teacher should be. The Teacher is the vine, the disciples - the branches. It is further said: "He that abideth in me, and I in him, carries much fruit.“ The stick remains on the hump of the vine but it still lacks something in order to live independently - it has no root. The vine however, has its own roots, it leads an independent life and transmits its life to the branches. Therefore, until the branch learns the great law of polarisation, i.e. until it develops its roots and goes deep in the matter in order to live independently, as the teacher, it has to remain on the hump of the vine - ‚It carries much fruit.’ Indeed, there is no life without fruit. The fruit brings life. The branch may grow high, get formed, give beautiful leaves but without blossoming without tangling fruit. In this state the branch presents an external manifestation of life that will develop in the future not only as an external, i.e material, but also as an inner, spiritual life. „If the branch does not carry fruit, it is cut off and thrown into the fire.’ – Why? – Because this life is needed by the other branches. The same can be said for every disciple who accepts the teaching of his teacher and holds it only for himself, without applying it. Such a disciple is driven out. Now everyone can ask themselves: Am I worthy of accepting the teaching of my teacher? It is not a question about the dignity or unworthiness of the man and disciple. It is important that the disciple is disciplined. He may be a son of a royalty or prince but if he does not study, the teacher cannot force his teaching into his head. He does not want to waste his time with him. The Great Teacher does not deal with unresponsive disciples. The Teacher must abide in his disciple and his disciple - in his teacher. If the branch remains in the vine its juices will rise upwards and will feed the branch. Therefore, the material life of the roots ascends upwards to the branches and turns into a spiritual life. When the branches give blossom and fruit, the spiritual life turns into a Divine one. This life implies the seed of the fruit, which gives again the branches and multiplies. The roots represent the foundation of life. Every plant, which roots are healthy, stays in one place where it works and rests. A plant that does not have healthy roots, is constantly moving where every wind takes it in space. The disciples are also like the plants: stable and unstable. The stable disciple has a belief, which he does not change. The unstable one changes his belief; he is ready at any moment to accept the other’s opinion, to give up his belief. He thinks that he can learn from everything but in fact, he never comes to knowing the truth. There are many such disciples in life. They resemble those people who expect to profit only from the lottery. Today they buy a lottery ticket, tomorrow - another one, in the hope to win something but they win nothing. However, the hope does not leave them. Some religious people act similarly. They say to themselves: Let’s learn a few occult laws so that people can see what we can do. A day after day, month after a month, a year after a year goes by but they neither learn nor achieve something. The Creator of the world who is wise and great knows the man’s good and bad traits because of which he does not allow either the people or the angels to abuse His blessing and power. Whoever has dared to infringe the Divine law has paid dearly. Whoever has defined himself as a Christ’s disciple has gone through great pain. It is not easy to go through the fire. You need to go through the fire seven times in order to some extent to understand the meaning of life in which there are different types of fire; It is important what type of fire you will go through in order to understand your life. There is a fire of minerals, plants, animals, people, and so on. Everyone has to ask, what kind of fire he is basking at and what light he is learning at. Many people nowadays bask at fire from woods and say: This warmth is pleasant! What does the ordinary man see in the fire and what the clairvoyant? There are few clairvoyants in the world. In my view, they are only three: two women and a man. Many think that they are clairvoyants but they themselves are mistaken. They are clairvoyants who with their clairvoyance come across big contradictions. To see and understand clearly - this is a great achievement. What sense does it make for a man to see clearly but not to understand this, which he sees? This means to make mistakes without knowing how to rectify them. What is the meaning of listening to the Divine Word without understanding and applying it? In order to rectify his relationships with God, a man has to listen, understand and apply the Word of This God Who is not painted ether on book or on board. He lives in the spirit and soul of man. He speaks to people from within, not from outside. Some imagine God as an old man, with a white beard, a stick in his hand, and so on. This is not God. Since the creation of the world so far no ordinary man has seen God or heard His voice. Even the most senior angels barely look at Him. As for the energy and life of God, this is another matter. It penetrates everywhere and in everything, as energy as life and light. „Whoever abides in me and I in him, he contributes much fruit”. Therefore, in order to contribute much fruit, man needs to know God. This can be achieved when he abides in Christ and Christ in him. If it does not remain on the vine, the stick will not benefit from the sun light and warmth, therefore, it will not bring any fruit. Only this stick brings forth fruit that remains on the vine. Surviving is an internal process and not an external one. The external processes are mechanical while we are talking about processes that have content and meaning. Many fix themselves only on the external side of life and think that everything is there. The external life is more mechanical; It has a meaning when it connects with the internal one as its layer. People’s external relations are filled with delusions and illusions. This is the reason why some think they are close to someone but after some time they get dispapointed. Externally, they may be close but internally they are far from each other. In this case, every physical closeness disappears. Internally people are at such a distance from one another as are the comets and planets; Despite that they still talk about closeness. What closeness is this? There are comets which tail is at kilometres distance from the Earth, what about its head? Can it be said that the comet is close to the Earth? Such closeness often exists between people. And the dog touches its tail to his Master, but it does not know him. The distance and closeness between the dog and its master are enormous. People do not know eachother but a man does not know himslef either. After all this he talks about the superhuman. What does the superhuman represent? He is distinguished with extraordinary power and abilities. He can do whatever he wishes. He understands the laws of life, knows the causes and consequences of things, understands the internal meaning of good and bad. The superhuman is meek, humbled and pure-hearted. It is said about him that he will inherit the Earth. He does not speak anything about himself, does not show off or reccomend himself and works quietly, noone sees him, everywhere he goes by is unnoticed. Whoever wants to enter the God’s Kingdom, he must humble. This means to become a superhuman. According to the modern people, the superhuman is expanding, occupying a big volume. From the spiritual point of view, the superhuman is diminishing. However, the meaning of the human life lies externally in material diminution, while internally – in spiritual expanding. There is a close connection between the diminution and expansion. You cannot expand something if it hasn’t been compressed beforehand. So, the superhuman is that one who knows the laws of the compression and expansion, i.e. the laws of the humility and ascension. When he wants to come close to God, the superhuman leaves all his luggage on Earth, gives up his material wealth and starts to gradually expand until he reaches the end goal of his life - the Merging with God. He can in this way say like Christ: ‚Lord and I are one.’ Christ has also talked to his disciples about the law of diminishing. A superhuman and Christ’s disciple are synonyms. When the disciple acquires the ability to diminish and expand at his will, he merges with his Teacher and becomes one with Him. He develops under particular laws and gets rid of the limiting conditions of life. The seed goes through these processes too: first it is planted in the earth – in the limiting cnditions of life, then it germinates, grows, develops, gives fruit and frees itself from the limitations. Whatever processes the seed passes through the human soul goes through the same too. Therefore, Paul says: ‚We live and move in God’. While the man lives and moves in God, he grows and develops right. As soon as he goes outside of God, he distorts his life. Therefore, Christ says: ‚Every branch that does not remain on the vine is cut off and thrown into the fire.’ The same verse is related also to the child who is in his mother’s womb. If he is not connected with his mother and does not eat from her, the mother will miscarry. She miscarried the child because he is not capable of using the life. If the mother wants to undergo abortion of her child,this indicates that she understands him, is aware of hi inability to live. Consequently, every conceived child whom the mother is disatisfied with cannot become a great man. The great man is conceived in a moment when the mother is filled with love, light thoughts and noble feelings. During the time of her pregnancy, she has kept her child as the pupil of her eye. During that time, the father has also been filled with love and light. Born in this way,the child can be compared to the vine branch that produces a lot of fruit. This is the question Christ has discussed with his disciples. Besides, here only the external side of the question is being considered. A man needs to study a lot until he reaches to the internal understanding of things. Whoever does not understand the external side, he asks himself what the relation between the teacher and disciple and the mother and child is. These are relations of magnitudes, of known forces that are intertwined in a human life. When people learn to transform their energies only then can it be talked about a harmonious and correct life. Only then will they understand each other, will they be able to transform their lower energies into higher ones. Many people get bored of their lives, the poverty; they want to become rich but they don’t know how and suffer. They want to acquire the art of compressing and expanding at their will but they cannot and become discouraged. Both the religious and secular people suffer without being able to help themselves. The religious ones want to descend from the height, which they are standing on, the secular ones want to climb high but both the ones and the others avoid each other. They don’t know that they can help each other. One thing is needed: to change their places and services. One of the great laws of nature is the law of exchange. This law is manifested in nature as well. Therefore, when one person falls, anther stands up, when one descends another ascends. Christ says that every stick that does not bear fruit is cut off and another one comes in its place. This shows that in nature there are no empty spaces. This explains the law of grafting: one branch is cut off and another is placed in its place. The fearful one will say like Paul: Whether I, the one who aspires to God would be rejected?“ God can reject man from himself only when the latter one has hurt the Spirit. Imagine that a girl gets married to a rich scientist, good, noble man who is attentive to her, creates every comfort for her, and satisfies her needs, while she is constantly dissatisfied with him. What should this man do? – He is left with nothing else but to give freedom to his wife, to let her go in the world, there she could find her happiness and learn her lesson. While she lives with her husband, while he satisfies all her needs and desires, she will not understand him. There are no tangent points between them, their aspirations are different because of which they do not interact properly. When she looses her husband and comes across the harsh conditions of life, she will start thinking and will understand him. Such is the position of the student who listens to his Teacher’s lessons but he doesn’t study and he doesn’t benefit from them. The Teacher is dissatisfied with his disciple and says: I will cut this disciple out of the vine, which he has fed from until now. After that the teacher will find another disciple who will substitute the first one. Similarly, the dissatisfied one should be dealt with. The first desire in all people is the same. Everyone is aiming at the sublime and noble but few resist their desire. This is due to the fact that the desires and understanding of people are not the same. Few people keep their relationship towards the Great One as well as their soul. Whoever is connected to God, he is satisfied with everything, and he resists his inner desires and understanding. „Whoever abides in me and I in him, he contributes much fruit“. The fruit is necessary for very stick. Therefore, under ‘fruit’ Christ understands the conditions in which a man lives and develops. Why does Christ compare the human life to a vine branch? A man is attached to the great tree of life like the vine branch to the vine. As the vine branch sucks the juices of the vine, grows up, develops and brings fruit, so does the man sucks the juices of the great tree of life, processes them and sends them to the heart for purification as blood. In this way, he passes to the spiritual life from the physical one and from there to the mental life. The purified blood enters the brain where it transforms into a mental energy, which we call the fruit of life. As the stomach, lungs, the heart and brain of a man work together and each of them brings their fruit, so do the three types of life-physical, heart and mental ones - manifest simultaneously, bring their fruit and feed the vine branch, attached to the vine that draws its juices from the Divine Life. If the least breach occurs in one of the three types of life, the vine stick begins to wither, for which the master of the vine cuts it and throws it into the fire. The modern people are in the first stage of life – in the physical life of the vine. This is why it is said that today, most of the people live in their stomachs. The new time is already coming, when a man enters his lungs, purifies his thoughts and feelings in order to send to his brain pure red blood through which to connect with the higher creatures and from there – with God. Only then will one understand the relationship between his thoughts, feelings and actions. This is how he will udnerstand the connection between the physical, spiritual and Divine life. You see a beautiful red apple and you enjoy its red colour and shape, but in a few days time, it rottens and goes off. What did the beautiful apple give to you? It connected you with its content. Therefore, the outer shape and beauty of things is an impetus to their inner content. You eat the apple, use its juice and send it to your brain as a processed and purified blood, which brings in energy for the work of thought. You begin to think about the relationship of things. Therefore, when it is talked about the life of the vine and the vine branch, we understand all the situations, which a human soul passes through. In this way, it (the soul) understands the Divine paths and laws. When it is talked about different matters, many say that instead of understanding things, they get more confused. It is talked about an evolution, for the transformation of the energies, for the compression and expansion of matter, but it is like throwing a stone into the water. As the thrown in the water stone forms bigger circles around itself so does the misunderstanding about them grow more. One is required from a man: Christ to abide in him - This means: Christ to live in the man and manifest as a light, warmth and strength. Just as animals are guided by the Divine mind by instinct, so every Christian must be led by Christ's light. Until he accepts God's thought within himself, one will always suffer. Everyone says that they have their own understanding and views about life, they don’t want to listen to anyone, but ultimately, people’s life loses its meaning and their affairs go behind every day. You will say that the animals guide themselves by their instincts. However, despite that the animal feels the forthcoming storm or earthquake and takes steps to protect it, while a man with his high mind and a particular opinion becomes a victim. The Divine Spirit that is hidden in the animals’ instinct guides them. Migratory birds grasp instinctively the time for migrating to and leaving the warm countries and never get mislead. The man, however, often gets mislead with his thinking. When he sees that the day is clear and warm, he rejoices, goes out for a walk without suspecting that a storm, wind and volley will come in two-three hours and he goes back home soaked all over. Sometimes, the stormy day is preferred to the clear one. Good weather comes after a storm, while often after a clear day; the weather gets spoiled and takes the man by surprise. The silent and quiet person is more dangerous than the one that shouts and talks a lot. The quiet waterfall is more dangerous than the noisy one. Therefore, it is said that the silent water causes big damages. The wetlands take the man by surprise. As he walks thoughtful he may come across a wetland and sink in it. When they don’t foresee the surprises in their lives, people are dissatisfied and search for the reason of their misfortunes outside of themselves. While he thinks that he is a vine while the ones that surround him´sticks', a man will always be surprised and will always suffer. Some religious ones think of themselves as vines while the secular people- as sticks. And vice versa: the secular people consider themselves as vines, while the religious ones as sticks. Both the ones and the others are on a wrong path. One is the vine, many are the sticks. Therefore, Christ is the vine, while people- the sticks. Whoever thinks that they are a vine; he either does not understand the truth or is misled. He is also a stick as all people. One is the Divine vine and Christ says about it that it has spread all over the world and is feeding him. To think that you are a vine means to think that you are a Master of the world. – I think on my feet, freely and independently. – You do not know yet what the thought and freedom represent. To think freely and rightly this is a great art. Few people understand and master this art. In some, the intuition is strong and they understand things correctly, in others, the thought is strong but sometimes, both the ones and the others are left mislead. You say about a man that he is good but you only see the external, festive clothing, you don’t know what his every day clothes are. Many cite the thought „to be or not to be“, said by Shakespeare without understanding its inner meaning. This thought implies: To stay on the vine or to leave, to study or leave the school, to work only for myself or for the others too. You will say that this is a free interpretation of the thought. This is an interpretation, which Shakespeare can give too. One Spanish writer has written a book which many read. One of the readers could not understand the meaning of some of the sentences and took off to the writer in order to explain them to him. He took a look at the reader, laughed and responded: I myself don’t know what I wanted to say with these thoughts. The right thought is understood by everyone. Besides, there should be a certain ratio, a given connection between the written and oral speech. You cannot write one thing and talk and understand another. It is not one and the same thing whether you love or be in love with someone. Love is a law for creation, while to be in love with - for destruction. The love builds the destructed, while to be in love with both destructs and builds. Love destroys first the old, the rotten and unfit, while after wards it builds something new, healthy, and useful for everyone. Rejoice when you are loved; rejoice when someone is in love with you. The misfortunes, suffering and unhappiness are the first degree of love. When a man suffers, he starts to think and build. He accepts Christ in himself and guides himself from His though. And so keep a connection with Christ in order not to destroy your relationships with people. Whoever has separated from the vine, he lives constantly in argument and problems with people. Whoever and whatever he is told he is ready to argue with them. If someone destroys the fence of his house he takes him immediately to court. This is also a solution to the problem but there is another, a righteous solution – to build your fence by yourself. Instead of having a court case for years, to create problems to yourself, it is best alone to help yourself. If you sue your close one, they will cut you off the vine and will throw you in the fire where you will evaporate. This means a man to lose the meaning of his life. You will realise your mistake after some years and will understand that no one has the right to sue their close one. Whoever applies the Divine law in their life, they win more than losing. Work with love without any self-interest. Why would you suffer in attracting the scientist man in your home if he does not want to visit you voluntarily? Whatever you do, nothing in this life is achieved by force. Through force neither the rich one opens his purse nor does the scientist open his mind and heart. It makes sense that a scientist comes to your home but to be ready to sketch a few from his stones with which you could build. This is love. This is how Christ acts. When He sees that the vine branch does not benefit from the juices of the vine and it does not give fruit, He cuts it off and throws in the fire. „Whoever abides in me and I in him, he contributes much fruit“. Every vine branch that does not bear fruit is cut off and thrown in the fire. “The language, which Christ uses, is symbolic. In this way, he presented the truth to people without insulting them. It is not easy to talk to people. The symbolic language is simultaneously scientific. The aim of the speaker is to elevate his listeners and not to insult or blame. The language of truth is powerful, but for those who understand it. Whoever does not understand this language says that the truth is bitter. The contemporary people need new understanding and perceptions, new moral. Only in this way will every nation get elevated, revived and strengthened. All peoples need to unite, to live between themselves as brothers. You will say that God has created both the good and the evil. One thing you must know: God has His own plan that has to be fulfilled. Every soul has her path defined on which she needs to move. Whoever deviates from his path, suffers. A man can move in a straight or curved line. Every movement has its results. From the results, it transpires whether the path a man moves on is straight or curved. People must unite and become one whole. The power is in the wholeness and not in the part. One great scientist has said that if people do not understand each other they will be confounded. The same law is valid for the animals. While they are in a flock, they are brave, decisive and are able to defend themselves. As soon as they separate, their strength diminishes and easily falls in the mouth of the enemy. Christ says to his disciples that their power is hidden in their unification. While they are sticks of a vine they are strong, develop well and bear a lot of fruit. Therefore, while the mind, the heart and the soul are united a man can always be well to develop rightly. You will say that a man has to first live for his motherland and then for his soul. It is correct that there is one motherland that it must be lived for. There is one Kingdom that is on the first place. A man has come to the Earth in order to become a citizen of the Divine Kingdom from which all kingdoms and countries are just little sticks. The separate countries are letters from the alphabet, while the World uses all letters. It unites them and creates the speech. Whatever the relations between the different countries are so are the relationships between people. This is the reason why sometimes, two people cannot understand each other. They connect with each other in the name of love but soon after that they get fed up with each other and wish to separate. They can separate if they know the actions of subtracting and dividing. A woman wants to leave her husband. This is possible only if she knows all rules of mathematics. The same is required from every Christian. If you want to take out a bad thought from your mind you need to know the total sum of your thoughts which you have beforehand distributed to good and bad and then your will take out the bad thought from the bad thoughts while you will leave the good thoughts aside. If you have deprived someone of 1000 leva, you will open your purse and will take 1000 leva, and will return it to him. Thus, the dispute will be settled. The Divine law does not allow any disharmony and skipping. There, the processes take place correctly and systematically. It is said in the Scripture: „Listen to the quiet voice of This One, Who is constantly talking to you in both joys and sorrows.’ And today when I am talking to you, I don’t do anything else except for watering the roots of life in you. In this tree is That One who is constantly talking to you. At the same time, I am opening the windows of your mind so that it can be penetrated by more light in order to understand things. Only in this way does the soul of a man fill with good feelings and wishes, while the mind with light and higher thoughts. Only in this way can people understand each other and become brothers. „Whoever abides in me and I in him he bears lots of fruit.’ Whoever abides on the vine, he can understand the deep meaning of love. When the vine is being talked about, some identify it with their people, motherland, or their home and are ready to self - sacrifice themselves. One is the true sacrifice –for love. It is said that God is Love. Therefore, if you self - sacrifice your will self - sacrifice for God. If you listen to God’s quiet voice from within, you are healthy, fresh, free, and ready for every reasonable sacrifice. Whoever loses their connection with the Divine, acquires dark red colour on their face, becomes unhappy, gloomy and rough. Turn to God with a prayer in order to recover your inner piece, to acquire your lost love. Keep your good relationships with your close ones in order to enjoy health and inner piece. The relationships between people should be like those of the mother and father towards their children, like those of the brothers towards their sisters and of the sisters towards their brothers. These relationships are a measure, which the right connections are defined with. Someone will say that he knows these things and that everything is clear to him. How has he learned them? Some think that their dreams are revelations but they mislead themselves. The revelation comes from a Higher world, while many of the dreams are a result of impressions and things that have happened. Only a few dreams come from a higher world, they similarly to the revelations cause a change in a man. One woman has seriously got ill almost reaching death, but luckily healed. When she started to improve she had had a revelation, which had caused a big change in her. From this day, she changed radically her life. From the invisible world, they had warned her that she would die in a month. She didn’t get scared but with acceptance had started to prepare for the other world. And indeed, she died in a month. The son had been very sad for his mother. Once, she appeared in his dream and told him: Stop crying. I am well. Your attachment to me is a particular sort of partisanship. It is not allowed any partisanship here. Today, Christ also says to the modern people to get rid of any partisanship and to understand that the knife is acting on the vine. Every stick that does not bear fruit is being cut and thrown in the fire. It is already time that the Christians define themselves and be either with Christ or outside Him. Whoever solves this question in a positive way, will elevate himself and will give sweet and abundant fruit. – What will happen with Bulgaria? Leave this question aside. There is one who will deal with Bulgaria. The great artist who knows how to draw does not need their child’s help. God is great, almighty and forbearing. He has thought for everyone. He takes into account all living creatures, all peoples without any distinction between nations. Therefore, Christ says to his disciples not to support any parties. Paul expresses the same idea through the verse: „ In Christ there are neither Greeks, nor Jews nor Scythians. Therefore, whoever believes in Christ, he will be blessed. In the Gospel, there is no mention about the individual countries. Every country is one firm. Whoever abuses this firm will be punished and deprived of the rights the firm gives to its members. If all members abuse, the firm ceases to exist. It is said, however, in the Scripture: „If a nation does not serve God, it will be erased from His book. “. This law is relevant not only to the peoples but also in relation to the separate individuals. Now, the whole humankind is entering a New Age. Today, Christ puts every man on the scales and weighs him to see how much he weighs. He judges according to his weight who has obedience and who has not got such one. Whoever listens and fulfils the Divine law, will benefit from His blessing. Whoever does not listen to Him will be put to great tests. The biggest service God can give to a man is to send him to the home of a poor and miserable widow, to console her and look after her orphans. To console a widow is a greater thing than leading the destiny of a whole people. – Why? – Because whoever cannot pay attention to a soul, i.e. God within himself he cannot do anything. The love of a man is defined by how much he respects his soul. If you do not respect Christ and God, how will you respect your close ones? You will say that the Jews crucified Christ. What will you say about the contemporary people who every day crucify That One who talks to them with His quiet, humble voice? Today, most people cry, suffer and say that God does not love them and has forgotten them. In fact, they do not love Him, they have forgotten about him. All go home and say: God, we want to connect with You. After that gather all stones, tiles and start building. The cry does not save. Many disciples receive poor marks and cry but the cry does not bring good marks. Even if they have good marks, if they don’t have knowledge they will still not get saved. Life is a great school, in which no cry is allowed. The teaching is necessary for everyone. It is said that the roots of knowledge are bitter while the fruits sweet. It is forbidden to the disciple to cry. Any partisanship is excluded for him. Put the crying and partisanship aside, go to Christ and say: We are already ready to learn and penetrate the greatest secrets of the Being where joy and happiness, piece and freedom reign. The work of the disciple is expressed in studying. In both as married or unmarried, he needs to equally study. Listen to the quiet voice in yourselves that will bring agreement and piece in yourselves, in all people, in the whole world. He will organise all societies and will bring the true religion in the world - The religion of the Spirit. Every other voice outside the quiet one, need to be checked. Only in that way can you correctly resolve the questions of life. Who will help us find a solution to our questions? – There is One who will help you. Behold, I am ready to help you. I will shine light on you while you will follow me. Today, I am with you and in the future I will meet you again. If you learn, if you are ready to rectify your lives, I will support you in front of God to appoint you again as disciples. Therefore, when you go back to your homes open a new page of your book. This means to become again a stick of the vine and the Divine juices to flow in you. Be brave, fresh, and joyful and listen to the quiet voice in yourselves. Do not cry for the dead. Do not be sad for the lost time. Put the past aside and work for the now and future. There is plenty of time before you. Work and rectify your mistakes. As you can make mistakes so can you rectify your mistakes and build. God builds while the Devil destructs. Make connection with this One who builds. The rich farmer takes workers and completes his job in a day. The poor farmer plows alone and uses lots of time until he finishes his work. The first one follows the law of love while the second one - the law of the evolution. Connect with Christ in order to become rich and soon to complete your work. There is no time for procrastination. The harvest is ready; workers are needed on the land in order for the job to be completed sooner. God has harnessed the plow and is plowing his field, the field is the world. Therefore, God mixes the world with His plow, turns the layers to expose them to the new light and warmth, to prepare for the planting of the new seeds. Also, become co-workers of God and say: God, bless our work too! Bring peace and harmony with each other and do not condemn one other. Listen to the quiet voice within yourselves, in order to blossom, tie and give fruit. As I meet you in the future, become happy and say: "No disciple is greater than his Teacher; it is enough that he is like his Teacher.” Be cheerful, fresh and joyful. Dress in the hope, fill with the faith and connect with the love. Sunday Lectures 26.01.1919 Sunday, Sofia Traducteur Proletina

The Great Faith “Your faith is great.” (Matthew 15:28) One of the important verses in the read chapter is about the faith. Christ turns to a woman who was a Canaanite and says: „Woman, great is your faith!“. The faith Christ is talking about represents a great, immeasurable world. For many, faith is as comprehended as are the words God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit. These words are so familiar to a man as he alone realises the situation, which he is in. Whoever knows what the beginning of things means, he understands the words God the Father. Whoever understands the two opposite beginnings in the world – the spirit and matter, he knows the meaning of the words God - Spirit. Whoever understands the son’s relationship to his father, he knows what the words God the Son mean. When talking about the son’s manifestations to people, we understand the meaning of the words Son of the Humankind. Finally, when we talk about the connection between the manifestations of the Son to the human mind, we understand the notion reasonabe light. „Woman, great is your faith!“ Therefore, there is also a little faith. The big and little faith represent the two poles of the human mind. Both the gtreat and little faith are needed in life-as the case may be. These are contrasts, which it is impossible without. They also exist in nature. You will see big and small mountains, big and small rivers, seas, lakes, big and small towns, countries, etc. everwhere. For Christ to say to the woman that her faith is great, it shows that He has put her to a test.– Why did he have to put her to a test?– In order to understand whether her daughter could be healed. If someone buys a lot of land and starts to cultivate it, the first question, which I will ask him is whether he has water at his disposal and what quantity. A lot of water is needed for a lot of land. If there is a small amount of water, it is better not to start cultivating the land. Faith presents a special kind of energies in the human life. The greater the man’s faith, the more energetic he is and the greater the work he can do. Christ asked the woman a few questions and after she answered wisely to all of them, He said: „It is not good for someone to take the bread out of the children and throw it to the dogs“. While she said: „ Hey, God, however, the dogs also eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters“. Then Christ told her: „Woman, great is your faith. Let it be according to your faith!“ Count on that woman or man who pays attention to the small things. Whoever does not pay attention to the small measures is a spender- nothing good can be expected from him. The small magnitudes lead to the big ones that can be used for the benefit of all people. It is right to go from the small to the big and not to the opposite. This shows that certain order exists in both life and nature. Therefore, it is said that this order exists in the application of the Divine laws. If you are curing someone in a divine way, you will apply such methods that correspond to his body, i.e. there should be certain consistency between the methods you apply and his energy. Besides, you will start from the weak methods and will gradually move towards the strong ones. The principle is one and the same but the methods are different when healing in a divine way. What method will be applied to a given person will depend on the degree of his development. Some treat themselves with medicines, water, powwowing, while others with faith. What is the reason for the illnesses?– the weakening of the life energy in a man, in the process of which it turns into a potential or passive energy. Therefore, the curing of the ill one envisages the transformation of the potential energy into a kinetic one. This is achieved through different medicines or actions that incite the passive energy. Sometimes, the Bulgarians heal the people with fever by pouring cold water over him. In this way they produce a strong reaction in the organism and if the passive energy turns into an active one, the ill person is cured. If this doesn’t happen, he cannot heal. Regardless of how the ill one is being cured, it is important that a certain connection between him and God exists. The Canaanite woman, who was asking Christ to help her ill daughter needed this connection. In Christ’s face she saw the man who made the connection between her saul and God and her daughter was cured at the same time. Sometimes, a man makes this connection himself and sometimes he needs someone’s help. As the surgeon bandages and adjusts the ill man’s broken leg so is Christ the connection between the human soul and God. Whoever cannot make this connection will long walk around the ill one without helping him. Why do people suffer? – Because their bones are dislocated. I am using the words ‚dislocated bones’ in the sense of misplaced thoughts and actions. You can be good, sincere but still to suffer from a misplacement of the thoughts and feelings. – Why?– Because you don’t start your work on time and with the requisite understanding. At the end of the day, when you find yourself in difficulty, you say: God is almighty, He can do everything. – He can do everything but according to His mind and understanding and not according to your one. People are wrong to think that God will teach them how to act, without themselves thinking on their actions. They turn to God only when they are in need without asking themselves whether God is available to answer them. Every thing must be done in its own time. The Canaanite woman understood this moment and used it. When Christ told her that she could not take the bread out of the children and gave to the dogs, it immediately occurred to her how to answer. – Who are the dogs? – The people who only think about eating and drinking. The Canaanite was a humble woman. She came to Christ in order to only take the surplus from the masters’ table without reaching out to their share. She was aware that she had the right to live and benefit from the wealth of life even though it fell from the masters’ table. Christ was astonished by this faith and answered: „Woman, great is your faith!“ From this moment , the life of the Canaanite changed and Christ said: „Let it be accoring to your faith!’ And her daughter was cured from this hour. This transformation in a human’s life is called‚ „acqusition of inner, Divine peace“. When the ill one is cured, his soul is filled with peace and calmity. You will say that you know this state .i.e you understand everything that you are told. This is possible too but there is a difference between the understanding of all living creatures. Evan the smallest animals have their understanding but their perceptions are radically differenet from the ones of the humans, while the human ones from the angels’,etc. To a certain extent one animal has more correct understanding than the human being but in most cases, the perceptions of the human beings are higher and more correct than the ones of the animals. Study the qualities and the manifestations of the animals and copy the good in them. Look how the sheep are obedient to their shepard. Shouldn’t people too have to be obedient to their Father? Look how the silkworm becomes gradually smaller until it wraps up in cacoons and spends some time in sleep until it turns into a butterfly and flies away in the broad world. Shouldn’t the human being also learn the art of diminishing and increasing when the conditions dictate to him the one or the other situation. By listening to this, many will object that they are a free and thinking creature independent from the conditions. Indeed, the human being is a thinking creature but he is a master of the conditions only when he thinks, feels and acts right. Otherwise, he is a slave and servant of the conditions. The right thought, the right feeling and the right action are related to the Divine beginning. So did the Canaanite woman do. She started with the small and acquired the big. Many of the people of today start with the big desires, they want to shine in the world, everyone to talk about them. You hear someone saying: I will make a feast for my close ones so that they can all remain astonished. Afterwards, I can fast for a whole week but show off at least once. This means to start well and finish badly. So have many people and peoples begun but after all, they all ended up badly and left alone, disappointed. Regardless of how you start well or badly, you will always learn something. Nature uses everything and ultimately turns the evil into good. As all people are not at the same level of development and their actions are different. The mistakes in man’ life come as a natural consequence of his freedom as he is free in his actions. However, one thing is asked from him: rectification of the mistakes. Who rectifies his mistakes? – the humbled one. One of the woman Canaanite’s qualities was the humility. Every human being must acquire humility. Nothing can be achieved without it. Both young and old, all have to humble. Some humble voluntarily, others – by force. The wise man foresees the evil and avoids it, while the stupid one cannot foresee it and encounters it. The wise man humbles voluntarily while the stupid one- not by his will. When he is forced to humble himself, he says: There is nothing that can be done, i have to obey. Isn’t it possible to live wthout humility? – No, it is impossible. You need to humble at least once in your life. The humble one looks for the reason of his failures and misfortunes in himself and not from outside. In this way, he increases his humbleness and becomes internally strong and rich. A real human being is the one who increases his gifts and abilities. He works consciously on himself and is not misled. He does not think that his faith is great. He does not think that his holliness is great. Some parents think that their children are genius and understand everything. A man can understand things without being genius. The genius is an advanced spirit who has completed his development on the Earth. While you live on the Earth, you cannot be genius. You will come close to the genius without being a true genius. This is why it is said in the Scripture that no disciple is superior to his Teacher. It is enough for the disciple to be like his tecaher. Until the disciple reaches his teacher, the latter has already surpassed him. A Christian thinks that he has a great faith, a lot of of knowledge, but as soon as his child gets ill, he goes in despair , cries, suffers - he cannot help her. Didn’t you have faith, knowledge, why do you fall in despair? The strength of the man is recognised in the trials.- My child will die while she has to live.- If she has to live she will live; if she dies prematurely , be glad that she has done some work on the Earth and after a while she will come back amongst you in order to continue her work. – Is this true? – If you are a believer your will check this for yourself; if you don't believe you will suffer without reaching out to the truth. Death does not presuppose the end of life. You are born, which means you are mobilised; you die - you are demobilised; You take off your military clothes and dress those ones which you came to the earth with. The mobilised man is a restricted one, while the demobilised one is free like a butterfly. What does the general represent when he gives orders to his regular soldiers and the mobilised ones?- Teacher. He gives them different lectures in the military art and discipline, while they listen and agree with everything they are told. The general talks while they confirm: That’s right Mr General! Whether their perceptions are always in accordance with the General’s ones is another matter. It is important that the military discipline requires order, orderliness, and a full consensus among the soldiers. This transmission is similar to punching nails in the board. The master beats the nail, and the last one says: That’s right Mr General! When he completes his job, the master says: I completed one good job. – It is good for you but it is not so for the nail and the board. Even the Jewish thought that they were doing a good job by punching nails in Christ’s hands and feet, but the consequences of this whole work did not go well for the Jewish people. In the mind of man, there are negative thoughts that crush the hands and feet of their God. There are thoughts and feelings of temptation and lack of faith that connect with God in the man until they crucify Him. All negative thoughts and feelings in the human life must be eliminated, because no one needs wooden or stone crosses. The world needs thinking creatures, alive crosses without any nails. The contemporary religions are full of crosses, punched with nails. The future religion will be differentiated with alive crosses without any nails. „Woman, great is your faith!“ What is the relation of this woman’s faith to you? It could be seen from this that the strong faith cures. Every man has three ill daughters in himself - the body, mind and heart. The three daughters have three mothers, but only one of them searched for God and found Him, that is why her daughter was cured. She trusted in God and her faith was great. Faith is a great thing. According to some, the faith is a result of good disposition. It is not so. Even animals have good disposition, they play joyfully, and jump but there is no way to speak of faith in them. The better and more reasonable life a human being leads the more his faith increases. The poor and unreasonable life leads to the cause of the weakening of faith. As faith is related to the mind so is the power of faith dependant on the light and purity of the human mind. If it dosen’t have these qualities, the mind becomes the reason for the misleadings of the heart. What is the reason of the Canaanite’s great faith? – Her knowledge of God and Christ. So she felt the inner power of Christ and trusted in it. Inwardly, she recognised Christ as a Son of God and bravely asked from Him this, which she will ask for from God. She has understood the verse where Christ says about himself: ‘My Father and I are one’. It is said in the Scripture: „ For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to his Son the possession of life in himself. As the Father has the power to resurrect so does the Son have the same power.“ What is the reason for this? – Christ’s connection with God. He who loves his neighbour or himself more than God will always cheat his love. A man who loves a woman more than God can always cheat on her. Everyone is searching for something outside of themselves and when they find it, they are not content. Search for God in yourself, connect with Him in order to be always content and truthful to yourself and your neighbour. Therefore, everyone should say to themselves: „I know the alive God, Who is in me and I fulfil His will.“ God who lives in man, lives in all live creatures, in the whole nature. The manifestations of the God we call Son of God. The people of today cannot stand in their relationships; they separate and get disappointed with one another because they do not understand the laws of the inner life. As the external life has its laws and needs so does the internal one have. Ones dressed in flesh, a man cannot deny it. He can become its Master and not satisfy all its desires but does not have a right to destroy it. The flesh is a form in which the soul and spirit are placed to study life. The roots of life are in the flesh, while the branches - in the spirit. As the roots are directed downward, towards the centre of the earth, while the branches - upward, towards the sun, therefore the spirit and flesh move in two opposite directions and oppose one another. Thanks to the counteraction between the flesh and spirit, life is born. Thus, namely, the flesh and the spirit perform great work. Therefore, in order to have a balance in human life, the flesh must go down, and the spirit upwards. Many want to destroy the flesh in order to deny it. It is impossible. While on the Earth, the man needs flesh. He is neither an angel nor a saint, he does not have their knowledge. Only the angels and saints can live without flesh, but when they are in heaven. When they come down to the Earth they too dress in flesh. All animals, all people are dressed in forms that correspond to their development. In this sense, each form performs a certain service. And the smallest creature, who performs its service properly, goes upwards to the branches. Conversely, if a person does not fulfill the will of God, he is in the position of roots that plunge deep into the earth. Therefore, it is not important what service a man performs, but how he performs it. The contemporary people talk about Christ’s love but apply the old methods in their lives. They start well and finish bad. In this respect, they resemble the boys and girls that have fallen in love. While they are not married and their parents work for them, their relationships are fine. They are careful and gentle to one another, write love letters to one another but as soon as they get married everything gets destroyed. – Why? - Because the burdens of life fall upon them. The boy thinks he has misled himself – the girl - too, while after all, the fault is in both of them. They have only been thinking of pleasure and not about a conscious, reasonable work. Whoever wants to have pleasure, pays dearly. Christ has expressed this thought through the verse: „I cannot take the bread from the children and give it to the dogs.“ I translate Christ’s words in the following way: I have not come for people who want to only have pleasures. The Canaanite woman responded to Christ: „And I also want to enter the good path which you show to people.“ Christ said: „Woman, great is your faith! Let it be according to your faith.“ From this hour, the Canaanite’s daughter was healed and received God’s blessing. All people - scientists, philosophers, musicians, artists, writers, have certain aspirations and ideals, which everyone achieves according to the degree of their faith. Someone becomes rich, a scientist, philosopher or a musician because he believed he could become such. It is noted that the great people are believers. They believed in the achievement of their ideals and have become strong and great people. Whoever has a reasonable faith, overcomes all hardships and obstacles in his life. Christ shows people the way in which they can cope with the hardships. The first condition for this is a pure life, filled with love. The true Christian is distinguished with moral resilience. He is humble, loving and pure. Whoever hasn’t acquired these qualities, even if he becomes a Christian, he will manifest himself in the way he has been initially, if he was nervous, he will remain nervous; if he was generous, he will remain such one. A man needs to make big efforts on himself in order to transform the negative qualities into positive ones and to strengthen the positive qualities. The tussore cannot turn into a butterfly in a day. This requires about 40 days. If the tussore which lives for such a short time needs 40 days for its transformation into a butterfly how much more time and work are needed by a man in order to go from the status of a moth into a butterfly. Both animals and humans develop slowly, gradually, by following the laws of evolution. Any form presents a note from the Divine range of life. The note may be a whole, half, quarter, eighth, etc. It has its own tone and a certain amount. People think they know the alphabet of their language as well as the seven musical tones, but as they start to use them, neither their speech is a speech nor their song - a song. Few people speak and sing properly. Someone talks about love but his heart is empty. He talks about the truth without knowing it. He talks about love towards God but is not ready for any sacrifice. Whoever cannot self - sacrifice, he does not love God. After all that, he wonders why people do not understand him and his affairs do not work well. A man needs to understand that the Divine life works in him but to also know that every good is not only given to him but also to his neighbours. Everyone has the right to enjoy the goods of life for his development. The man, woman and children are conditions given to the human being in order to think, work for his development and not only to use one another. How to get rid of suffering? – Do not escape suffering but learn from it. Every suffering is a musical tone that has to be clean, clear and soft. It has to be in hramnoy with the tone of joy. Only in this way will life develop well. As the tones in music have to be in harmony in order to form a correct chord so does the tone of suffering have to gradually rise until it brings harmony in life and transforms into joy. Therefore, suffering is the lowering of the tones of human life while joy - the increasing of the same tones. Christ says: „Woman, great is your faith!“ This means: Woman, you sing correctly, in harmony with your daughter, because of which she will heal. The mother can cure her daughter, while the father - his son if they are in harmony with each other. If the mother sins, the daughter suffers; if the father sins, the son suffers. Parents need to live well in order for their children not to suffer. When the daughter gets ill, the mother needs to fight death like a female tiger in order to save her. Otherwise, both the mother and daughter stop their development. However, there are cases when the death of children brings some blessing to the parents but this is no longer death but migration instead. Terrible is the death that comes prematurely and deprives the man of the opportunity to realise his ideals.– How can a man be saved from death ?- When he lives in full harmony with God. This means to keep his connection with God that has been made from the beginning of his life. Therefore, it is said: Do not sever your connection with God. Do not sever the connection of your neighbour with God. If you cannot increase it then at the very least, do not sever it. When they do not understand the laws of life, people tear each other’s threads of life and then they suffer. They tear their threads because their faith and light are weak. They will many times be born and will reincarnate until they complete their work on the Earth, i.e. until they connect the threads they have severed. 

The contemporary people stumble eachother in life because they compete. Everyone wants to be first. The layman wants to take the first place in society while the religious one – wants to be near God. Neither the first nor the latter are possible. Whatever place you occupy in society there will always be a man who sits above you. As far as being close to God is concerened, this is a relevant concept. God is the sun of life, but it depends on the man as to whether he will be close or far from Him. If you break your connection, you alone go away from Him. There is no place, space and time in the spiritual world. These are values that relate to the material world. You can be close to God in spirit but not in matter. The physical world is limited while the spiritual is unlimited. Therefore, we say: Two people cannot sit in one chair simultaneously, they cannot stir in a pouch or wear one pair of shoes, etc. While he is on the Earth, a man needs to understand the physical laws and comply with them. Initially, people walked without shoes but after the fall, climatic conditions changed, it became colder and the need for shoes appeared. Today, the birds do not fight for shoes like the people do.- Why do people fight and quarrel between themselves? – Because their faith has weakened. Until the man is rich, the woman believes in him; as soon as he looses his fortune, the woman’s faith disappears too. While the man is healthy and occupies a high position, the woman believes in him; as soon as he looses his health and occupation, she becomes faithless. This is not a faith that Christ is talking about. This is why some prefer to devote their lives to exploring and studying of the butterflies and insects rather than dealing with their own kind to whom they often become exposed to disappointments and afflictions. Christ said to the Canaanite: „Woman, great is your faith!“ This woman humbled and wanted to rectify her mistakes which she received the Divine blessing for. Many do not see their mistakes, do not want to recognise them and if someone shows the mistakes to them they search for a way to apologise. This is not divine. One is the Divine law and everyone has to obey it. Not all people obey the law in a similar way because they are not at the same level of development. In some people, the heart takes precedence, in others - the mind, and in others - the will.– Why don’t all people organise themselves in order to develop similarly? – This is impossible. Isn’t it true that there are a number of social organisations ? Are all people at the same level of development? Therefore, the real organisation takes place from within - outwards and from outside- inwards, but from the Spirit. This means the strengthening of the faith. In such an organisation, no one can rape the other. There is mutual help in the human organisations but there is also blackmailing. There is mutual help in the Divine organisations and no blackmailing. Here, the surplus is given without anyone keeping it. Everyone has the right to benefit from the surplus of goods, i,e. from their interests but in no case do they have the right to infringe the main capital or the mother of the given good. The mother remains as a foundation for the future construction. Give from your surplus without the rest knowing about it. You who use your neighbour’s good, thank for the received and do not ask for more than you are given. If you go somewhere as a guest do not stay more than three days without any work. On the fourth day, take part in the common work in order to show that you are a close one in this home. Do not blackmail your close ones neither do you test their patience. Only God and Christ have the right to test people. Christ tests his disciples’ patience through the Canaanite. They wanted from Christ to either help her or make her go - they did not have the patience to wait for the end. „Great is your faith.“ Let everyone ask the question: Is my faith great in order to water my garden? – Which is this garden? – The human heart! Many think that they understand the human heart. They understand it as much as to cause suffering to themselves. The hens also understand each - other but give them food to see how they peck eachother. So do the oxen. When you feed them they poke and envy each other and are scared that lest one has more food than the others. When people expect from you, give food to everyone individually in order that there is no pecking or poking between them. Put food in everyone’s dish individually. If everyone individually fills their plates, define how many spoons they can take. If they take more than it is defined, the last ones will remain without food. In order to get to know a person observe how they eat and how they treat their close ones during eating. Whatever a man is when eating at the table, so he is in society. The Divine life we are called for is not a life of pecking, poking neither a life of tearing strands. Instead of pecking, poking, tearing of the strands, and thereby interrupting the noble impulses of your soul as well as the ones of your neighbour, send your good thoughts and help. Everyone has an excess of energy, which he has to harness to work. If you are ready to give from your surplus, you can help the people around. The excess of energy represents a bandage for the broken leg or hand of your neighbour. When someone wants to help him, this means giving from the surplus of energy. The doctor will put a bandage on the ill one, he will adjust the broken leg but his neighbour must be ready to give from his surplus of energy,i.e. from his materials for bandage. Whoever is ready to give from his surplus of energy he can do miracles. What is meant by the word ‘miracles’? The miracles are not random things. They are based on reasonable laws, which God manifests through. Therefore, when you turn to God for help, do not ask yourselves whether He will help you or not, but give Him only bandages and oil. He will adjust the leg, oil and bandage it. You will see the result in a few days and in this way you will experience God. If all man’s attempts in curing his close ones prove successful, should you be in doubt of Him? This is a science, art that everyone can apply in their lives. If you suffer or are ill apply your faith. The bigger your faith is the better your results will be. If your faith is great you will easily cope with the negative feelings in yourselves, for example – the hatred, jealousy, etc. Huge strength is required from a man in order to cope with the evil in him. I know one way to achieve this: The fulfilment of God’s will. I know one Teacher in the world: God. Whoever follows the Divine path he always fulfils His will. – Whom should we listen to?– You will listen to yourselves because God is there. Many do not succeed in their lives because they listen to many teachers. You will listen to only that teacher who fulfils the Divine will. He works well and his work has results. This is how every man who is connected with God works. And the shoemaker who works with love makes good shoes and satisfies his clients. He may not have taken a high degree but he has love inside. Cherish and respect everyone for the Divine that is hidden in them. It may be a small sparkle but it will increase and become a big fire with time: Everyone can help with the blowing of this sparkle. This means people to help and understand each - other. This is how the musicians understand each - other in an orchestra. The audience sits, listens and applauds. And you as my audience represent musicians of the great life orchestra. You play, the angels listen to you and give their opinion. In order that they don’t strictly judge you, I tell them that you have just now started to play. One day, you will become good musicians and will satisfy them. From the outside you are all good, pious but it is required from all inner piety and goodness. If someone has not yet become good, beautiful and pious let him enjoy these qualities in other people. Enjoy the good that lives in your neighbour in order that it can become the foundation of your life. Today, this is the teaching I am preaching to you about.: The good of one to be a common good and the good of all to be good for one. Where has this teaching been taken from? – From the sensible nature. Use the methods which she gives to you in order to improve your life. Everything is in its place. But you have to understand the ratio between things. When they do not understand these ratios , people are unsatisfied from one another and constantly grumble. In order not to be in this situation let them remember the Bulgarian proverb: ‚I am not a sun that shines upon everyone“. Indeed, only God is a sun that illuminates the entire universe. A day will come when the Divine light will penetrate people’s minds and they will become stronger than they are today. So that if you are strong know that God is working through you. Give way to God in yourselves in order to create a true culture, which everyone will be happy about. If you close the path for the Divine in yourselves, you alone expose yourselves to suffering. Therefore, go from light to light. This is how you will know God, yourselves and your neighbour. What is this teaching that frees you up from one type of chains and throws you to another one? The Divine teaching represents uninterrupted line of light which illuminates things gradually. This is exactly how the connection between the different phenomena can be seen. „ Great is your faith, woman.“ With the example of the Canaanite, Christ drew the attention of his disciples to the humility. This woman said that she is satisfied with the crumbs of the Lord’s table. Humility is a great thing. Few people today get satisfied with the crumbs. Most of them want to sit in the first place. It is said about Christ that he came to the Earth, dressed himself in a slavery image and humbled. If Christ had to humble how much more needed is this for the ordinary people. All have to humble, to come to a point when they are equally happy when executing a high or small service. Until the maiden is free she dresses well, washes herself several times a day; she doesn’t work a lot in order not to make her hands dirty so that she can keep her skin soft and white. When she gets married and becomes a mother, she washes the nappies of her child, washes him, works the whole day – studies the law of humility.– How does she study this law? – Through love. Remember: a man learns about humility through the law of love. Through the same law, he becomes satisfied with the crumbs of the master’s table. The people of today eat the crumbs that fall from the angels’ table. Their surplus is our abundance. The creatures that are below us eat from our surpus. Therefore, all live creatures on the Earth eat only crumbs. I wish you that in the future your faith increases and whoever from you meets Christ to tell Him: „Great is Your faith “. I wish you to learn the law of humility and apply it. I wish you to be satisfied with the crumbs and use them wisely. I wish your daughter to be healed too. These are not only wishes but things that you can achieve. Then you and your daughter will be healthy. 
Sunday Lectures 19.01.1919 Sunday, Sofia Translated by Proletina Dragoeva-Jones

Introduction to Love Ephesians: 4. I will give you the following example as an introduction to this lecture: imagine that there is a caravan of carts in the street and each one of you is driving a cart. Some carts travel smoothly, noiselessly, while others creak and make a lot of noise. What do you have to do for the carts not to make so much noise? You will take the tar-can, dip the feather in and lubricate the axle of the wheels, so it won't creak any longer. Creaking is the suffering in your life. In the same way, you should lubricate your heart, when it creaks, with tar. You should study Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians in relation with the proverbs. Each one of you should dwell on the most significant paragraphs of this epistle – the ones that constitute the core of it. This is a necessary introduction; therefore, keep this in mind all the time. Remember that every suffering is an introduction, a gateway to Love. Some ask, "Why do I suffer, why do I have difficulties?" This is my answer: because your book is being written, an introduction to Love is being composed. By this introduction, I want to make a point to you not to deceive yourselves by thinking you are very knowledgeable. Those who believe they know a lot, they grow old fast. The best thing to do, so that you do not grow old, is to think that you have a lot to learn. The same can be noticed with children: they are eager to learn a lot. You should never say that this becomes the young but not you – the old, because the thought that you are old will stay with you and you will actually become old. You won’t even notice how soon it will be before you are stooped over, you will look like a question mark and everybody will say that you are old. Bear in mind that youth is the gateway to God’s Kingdom. You need a new introduction in order to enter God’s Kingdom – to become young. I shall move on to explain Chapter four: “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all wise lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (4: 1-3) Prisoner means a person who is called to God’s School. Paul says, "I, who was called to God’s School, pray you to study as I did, namely – with all the wise lowliness, meekness and longstanding forbearance, forbearing the others with Love." When you are in class somebody might nip you, might give you a nudge, but you tell yourselves, "It’s all right. This is a small room, Love will forbear!" Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace means to endeavour to establish links between the lessons, so that you will have that internal connection, which the Spirit, i.e. the Master has planted. With these words Paul says, "I listened to this Master with great attention." The epistle reads further on: “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.” (4: 4) With this Paul says, "I subjected my body to the Spirit, by serving Him in hope." “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in us all.” (4: 5, 6) In these lines Paul says, "I did this, because I listened to the Lord and performed the thoughts of This one Lord, Who spoke to me about one faith – faith in respect of the mind." One baptism means to perform, to forbear all grief and hardships in gratefulness. Dipping into the cauldron is no baptism; baptism is a test one has to pass. Paul says, "Every time when the Master tested me, I delivered Good, i.e. I gave good answers, because I studied my lessons well." One God is understood to be the place, the conditions given to Paul by God, because Paul says, "In one God we live and move." i.e. we study in the same school. “But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” (4: 7) In this line Paul says, "I used the grace of God." Grace is when in time of need, more superior spirits, called angels, descend to elate you, to help you, to enlighten you on a particular issue. This enlightenment can take various forms. It can reach you through a dream – by suggesting a particular thought when you sleep, and when you get up in the morning, you will feel it absolutely distinctively. Help does not always come in the form of speech. There are three ways to speak: speaking from the outside, speaking from the inside, and speaking from above, i.e. speaking to the body, speaking to the heart, and speaking to the mind. Somebody says, "Let’s start eating, lunch is ready!" – This is speaking to the body. I say, "Let’s love one another."’ – This is speaking to the heart. This second mode of speaking is not understood so directly as the invitation to eat, because you have certain experience in the latter. Consider how you will understand love. When I tell you, "Let’s get to know Christ!" – This is already speaking to the mind. How can we get to know Christ? Think about love and knowing Christ. Please, explain to me, being Bulgarians, how you love and how you know Christ. I know how we do it at home, but I want to know how you do it in Bulgaria. “Wherefore He saith, When He ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things.” (4: 8-10) Christ, when He was on the Earth, filled everything and said, "I conquered the world." The other victory – over the flesh – He left for you. There are three things, which impede Life, namely: flesh, the world, and the devil. The most dangerous enemy of all is the flesh. It is the bond between human beings and the world, and the world is the bond between the flesh and the devil. Christ, when he conquered the world, broke the connecting link between the flesh and the devil. You have a daughter, who is in correspondence with her lover, but, as her mother, you break this telegraph and the correspondence is over. Thus Christ severed the bond between the flesh and the devil and it has no place within you any longer, except if you invite the devil. Paul says, "I walked this path and there our struggle was big." All Heavens is understood as the manifestation of God in the complete human life. “And He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” (4: 11, 12) Please note that all these are given in order for the saints to reach perfection. Who are the Apostles? These are the ones to whom Christ speaks. Prophets are those to whom the Spirit speaks. Evangelists come after the prophets, and after them – the pastors and the teachers. Find what corresponds, within you, to apostleship. Consider this line, what apostleship, prophecy, evangelism, pastorship, and teaching can be compared to? The word prophet was in use even before Christ. Find the relation between prophets, evangelist etc. One has to develop one’s gift for apostleship. Apostle is such a person who is spoken to from outside. Prophet is such a person who is spoken to from within. Evangelist is such a person who has tried things. When you eat an apple, you will do as the evangelists and you will say, "It is sweet." Who is a pastor? The mother, who breast-feeds the child, is the pastor, the shepherd who grazes the sheep, the teacher who imparts knowledge. “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (4: 13) The Apostles went with Christ, listened to Him, and interpreted His Teaching. The Spirit worked with them. They were twelve in number. The prophets continued the work of the Apostles and out-numbered them. Evangelists were even more in number, while pastors and teachers – were the biggest in number. Find out how many prophets there were. There must be at least one prophet in every church. There must be at least one prophet in the smallest community. There must be at least ten evangelists to each prophet. This is the order of increasing, so gifts increase in the same manner. The gifts in human beings correspond to the prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors, and teachers and all of them should be developed. Each one can be a prophet for oneself. Any perspicacious person, who can foresee things from far off, is a prophet. Such a person has been to school, has graduated, and starts applying the acquired knowledge, to make calculations and finally to predict that a certain comet in that many years will come back. When this prediction comes true, he is said to be a prophet. All these gifts are given to us in order to get to know the Son of God, until we reach the state of the perfect human being into the measure of age, of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Another line reads that we have the mind of Christ. By this Paul means the bond between the Divine soul and body. Saying that the Spirit will teach you, Christ places the Spirit higher than the soul. In certain aspects, the soul is placed between the Spirit and the body. Paul says, "In order to have the Spirit of Christ, you have to have this bond between the Spirit and the body." “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” (4; 14) One can see from this paragraph that we should not be children in the world. Can your child go to Vitosha on a stormy night? It takes an adult to cross the mountains on a night like this. This is why Paul says, "I was not a child." I know that Bulgarians have a strong sense of inquisitiveness. Fifty years ago, a gypsy appeared in the region of Varna1 with a big snail, and she read the future by this snail. She became very famous for fortune telling and people from the whole region started visiting her. She made lots of money, became rich, and was subsequently assaulted and robbed by vagabonds one night. She could tell everybody else’s future but could not foresee that she would be robbed. Everybody likes to hear his or her fortune being told, but this is just for leisure. The future is usually read in a coffee cup, by cards, by the way a rooster crows and which direction it faces, by the donkey’s bray etc. One, starting on the road, also has one’s own divinations; for example, if one encounters an empty cart or a priest, one finds this disconcerting. These things have been implanted within you for thousands of years, only you have lost the key how to read them and therefore you are disconcerted. Why should you be concerned that you have encountered an empty cart or that a cat crossed your path?2 What do you have to do? You have to know the time when the cat will not cross your path, when the cat is not out. “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, Who is the head, Christ.” (4; 15) Paul means the purely spiritual Love, which does not change, which has no love-hatred poles. In the Spiritual world Love is manifested only by attraction. While you know the love, which contains attraction and repulsion: you meet somebody, you attract him, but soon you have had enough and you repel him. This happens to young and old alike. A lad first loves a girl, and then he repels her. This is the law of the Earth. When two creatures unite on the Earth, they will invariably kick each other. Kicking is inevitable. Let’s assume that you are lying in a single bed. Let’s assume that due to lack of space, your beloved will be on top of you. You will endure him for half an hour, but not longer, he will feel heavy and you will start kicking. There are no conditions for love on the Earth. When you love someone you have to keep that person at half a metre distance. In love usually the one carries or the other is on one’s back. The saying is, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’3 and it means to keep your neighbours at half a metre distance. If you love them more than you love yourselves, you will carry them on your back. A story from “Halima”: a gentleman was crossing the river and saw an old man at the river bank who could not cross the river. The gentleman picked the old man up and put him on his back and thus they crossed the river. When the old man had to get off the gentleman’s back, he did not want to and the other man had to carry him for one, two, three, and more days on his back. At one point, it dawned on him to take out his bottle of wine and have a drink, intending to get the old man drunk. He was sipping from the wine while the old man clutched at his throat – he also wanted some wine. The gentleman kept giving wine to the old man until at last the old man got drunk. He then climbed down from the young man’s back and the two of them started dancing. So, when the beloved one does not let go of you, give him a little drink and then both of you will dance together. Today you suffer all the time because of love. I call people on the Earth unhappy people because of love. All people suffer from love, and then they complain that nobody loves them. My recommendation on how to reduce the suffering in the world is to have less love. “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind.” (4: 17) You think you are very learned. The learned person is healthy, has no abscesses, experiences no pains, and is rich. Pagans spoke many languages and did not understand one another. People, who do not understand one another, speak many languages. Some speak the language of the stomach, others – of the heart, still others – of the mind. If I tell you to get to know Christ in His fullness, you will tell me, "Do you have vouchers? Do you have sugar?" This is different from knowing Christ. Some say, "When we get to know Christ, there will be more food." If we get to know Christ in order that He gives us more food, this is a complete misunderstanding of the issue. Food is necessary only as long as you have a cart. Hence, if you have a cart, you will need a tar-can. If you dispose of the cart, you will no longer need any tar-cans. You will be left only with the horse; therefore, you will take food for you and the horse in the bag. When you reach a very steep place you will leave the horse, leave the bag with the horse’s food, and will take only your bag. Human beings need three tar-cans: for the cart, for the horse, and for oneself. You have a husband - so you will keep a tar-can for him. You may not want it, but those who are bonded should remain bonded. You have children – you will keep a tar-can for them. Think about the attitude of children to their parents, of the husband to the wife and vice versa. Why do men seek women and women seek men? You will write an essay on this topic to exercise yourselves. “Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart.” (4: 18) I interpret this thought back to front: when the heart is hardened, there is less work to do, and when there is less work to do, the mind is darkened. Hardened hearts bear no fruit. You will eat less, by eating less you will make your mind hardened. The word heart refers to the soil. The body has to invariably be healthy. The heart stands for the conditions, for life, i.e. what is produced by the heart, while understanding stands for the fruit of the internal process. “Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” (4: 19) Paul says that Purity is necessary inside Life. When the heart and the stomach are hardened, there is a sort of decay, a sort of stinking, going on inside. This is why they should not be hardened. “But ye have not so learned Christ.” (4: 20) Christ’s Teaching is a Teaching of Life, it is about understanding the main principles, but not the way they are in Heaven, but the way they act on earth. If you know Christ, when you lose your temper, when you are dissatisfied with something, you should immediately polarize yourselves and get into the state of composure. If the surface of the sea is agitated, this does not mean the deep waters are also agitated. When we get to know Christ, we will have this Strength not to get agitated and will be able to command ourselves. You want to command Forces, which are in Nature. No, command the Forces within you. You cannot command things until you learn the language of each thing. You can’t understand an animal before you learn this animal’s language. When you say gee to the horse, the horse starts going. We have to learn the language of these live Forces within us, so that when we tell our heart to be quiet, it should keep quiet, and when we tell our mind to stay put, it should listen to you. “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” (4: 22-24) The old man means all the deceitful habits, thoughts, and desires, which were planted in us in the past and which now manifest themselves. These old habits represent the old clothes, which have holes and the wind penetrates through them. The old man is torn, while the new one is intact - having no holes. The Spirit is the connecting Force for the mind. To be renewed means that you should lubricate yourselves a little every day. The Spirit is a Force, which transforms work into fuel, and the mind uses it. And the new man should be created after God in Righteousness, Holiness, and Truth; in Righteousness – in respect of the body, in Holiness – in respect of the soul, in Truth – in respect of the mind. Therefore, repudiate the lies, which are a feature of the mind, a shortcoming of the mind; you should always tell only the truth to the people close to you. All disputes between people close to one another result from lies, because we deceive each other. “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.” (4: 25) Do not fool yourselves! Do not mislead your stomach either. Often in America when people are hungry, in order to suppress their hunger, they eat ice cream or drink coffee. Do not deceive your stomach with coffee, tea or anything else. This will not make your cart go. You have to send something substantial to your stomach. “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.” (4: 26, 27) Anger is another shortcoming; it is a feature of the heart. You heart should not burn, because this is dangerous. Do not make room for the devil that lives in your body. Do not allow the devil to take root. “Let him that stole, steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.” (4: 28) “And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.” (4: 30-32) Your work this month will be to find the main, fundamental ideas, which Paul imparted in this epistle. You will find the ideas that refer to the body, the soul, and the spirit. Try to find a method through which you can apply this Teaching in your lives. The subject is vast, therefore, it will be enough if you apply it partly at least. Do not think that I want you to become learned overnight. What is important is to understand the exercise at a certain moment. Find the link between the epistle to the Ephesians, and the proverbs. The second thing that you will observe is to curb your tongue, not to talk a lot. Consider in advance what you are going to say. You are excited – do not talk! Say only the most substantial things, let your tongue and speech be under control. So that there is no creaking of the cart, no horse tripping over its feet, and the master, driving the cart, should not feel dizzy. The third exercise, which you will do at least once a day, is as follows: you will sit comfortably in a chair, or you will be standing on your feet, you will open the window, you will leave, for the time being, your backpack, so that you can be in good humour, you will close your right nostril and you will inhale with your left nostril until you will count up to ten. Afterwards, you will close your left nostril too and with both nostrils closed you will keep the air in your lungs until you again count up to ten. Then you will open your right nostril and will let the air out again counting to ten. After this, you will close your left nostril, and you will inhale with your right nostril in the same way, as in the beginning. You have to do this exercise ten times in sequence or two series of five times, whereby you will inhale alternately with the left and with the right nostril. Before you start doing this exercise, you will open the Holy Scripture at the epistle to the Ephesians, you will read ten lines every day, starting with Chapter one. Be willing to understand the main ideas of the lines and the most important one to flow into you. Master’s lecture, delivered on 16 January 1919 _________________________________________________ 1 Varna – a big town on the Black Sea coast. 2 А cat crossed your path has a meaning of bad luck in Bulgarian. In most countries there is a saying connecting good or bad luck with cats. In England a black cat is lucky and a white cat unlucky. In America it is the opposite. Both sayings empty cart and a cat crossing your path are fairly well known. 3 Matthew 19:19 Source

The Great Conditions of Life “As the Father knows me and I also know the Father and I lay my soul for the sheep.” (John 10:15) „As the Father knows me and I know the Father“ – one of the important verses in form, content and meaning. This verse should be placed away from the ordinary human consciousness in order to be understood. Only he can understand the inner meaning of the verse, who knows the language of the sun, the light and the warmth, the air and the water, the dew drop and the wind. The language of the sun is rich, beautiful and meaningful. Whoever knows this language can penetrate the inner meaning of life. Father and son are common words, known not only to humans but also to animals. And the mammal knows his father; And the father knows his son and daughter. Observe the animals and you will become convinced of that. If the horse sees his daughter in a herd of horses, he pushes her out. Indeed, animals do not have the understanding and culture of modern humans, but they also have an inner sense of the Divine Order and obey it. Passing birds know exactly the time of their passage.The spider for example carries the art of spinning. He puts out such a thin and durable thread that the most modern spinners cannot achieve. It will be argued that man is created in the image and likeness of God. This vesre is related to the first man and not the one who has sinned. The man after the fall is said to be in a slavish image. And Christ humbled when he saw himself in this image. It follows that until a man humbles and knows his Father, he cannot think he is bearing the image of God. Why do people suffer? – In order to humble. Why do animals suffer?- For the same reason. When the bull directs his horns towards his master, the latter onе goads him several times and humbles him. Similarly, God directs his goad to the man who wants to punch, kick and bite. Whoever punches and kicks a lot passes as a big philosopher and critic, with particular views about life, who however often comes across the goad. What is the cause for the suffering of the people of today?– The illusions which they live with. Everyone thinks what is not, everyone imagines things as they are not. The mother imagines she is an ideal mother and if she is not recognised as such, she suffers. The Father, sister, brother also think they are better than they actually are and when they are not recognised as such , they suffer. Which are the qualities of the mother and father? Which woman do we call a mother? Which man is a father? The woman is a mather while the man a father not only in shape. The concepts of ‚mother’ and ‚father’ are comprised of great content and meaning in themselves. The mother says the child has come out of her, i.e she has given birth to him and hence she is a mother. What would you then say for the pipe from which the water runs out? Therefore, not everything that comes from or follows from man is born by him. Modern people have lost the inner meaning of language which is why they have confused the concepts about life. However, Christ says: „As the Father knows me and I know the Father“; and I lay my soul for the sheep.“ It is said in the Scripture: Father loves his Son.“ This means- God has put his life in Christ and self-sacrificed through Him. Christ is a reflection of God, and therefore, God knows Him. God is love which manifests through the Son. The Father knows the love that he has embedded in his son. This is why Christ says: “As the Father knows me, I also know Him.“ It is impossible for the son to not know the love that his father has invested in him. It is said in the Scripture: „God has loved the truth in man“. Whoever realises this, he is a beaerer of the truth, he never fails, never lies. The one who loves the truth lives in light. The one who denies the truth lives in shadow, darkness. This is the reason for the mistakes, which we constantly come across. It is impossible for a man to search for things in the darkness and find them. It is impossible to move in the darkness and not to make mistakes. Everything is in its place in the Divine world. In the human world things are mixed up. This is the reason for which people have lost the meaning of their lives. Whoever wants to make sense of their life, needs to put his thoughts and feelings in their designated places. Put your thoughts and feelings in a strictly defined mathematical ratio and your life will be meaningful. Search for the meaning of all phenomena in nature and life in order to make sense of your life. Each phenomena has two sides: a positive or good side and a negative or bad one. The wind for example brings dust but simultaneously it purifies the air and revives the human thought. The wind moves the clouds at places and brings rain, while at other- draught. Water and wind cultivate the soil, but they can not age the sowed seeds themselves. The light and warmth should come in their aid in order that the life sowed in the earth gets ressurected or revived. Light brings striving while the warmth – movement, the light defines the direction and aim ,while the warmth gives power for the realisation of the aim; light directs life upward where it descends from while the heat impulses and expands it. The Word, i.e. the seed in life is Christ, because he says ’I know the One who gives me life and shows me the path. I see the light that shows me the goal, I feel the warmth that expands and moves me to the aim of my life. As I know the light, warmth and life, i also know my Father’. Christ also says: ‚I also lay my soul for the sheep“. So, whatever the attitude of the Christ soul to the human beings is, such is the the attitude of the air, water, light and warmth to the plants. Christ has to water the soil of our life, to fill it with light and warmth in order for the Divine to be revived. Just as Love ressurrected Christ, it will also resurrect the human soul.This is why, knowledge of the Father and Son is necessary. Knowing means understanding and applying the great law of love, which saves and resurrects. Salvation will neither come from the water nor from the air or earth. Salvation comes from the Sun of Life, who is bearer of the light and warmth. Water symbolises hope, while air- the faith. If you have water in yourself, you will also have faith. Hope and faith exist in the world but people have not accepted and applied them. Faith develops the mind, while hope - the heart. Rejoyce in that water flows while air moves and forms winds for they urge people to think and feel. Why do tests and suffering come? – In order to increase the faith, hope and love of people. Whatever the relationship between water, air and light is, such is the relationship between faith, hope and love. Whoever wants to strengthen their faith, hope and love has to consciously work on themselves. Which fighter has acquired strength withought doing excercises and developing his mussels? The hero is a strong person but he has worked on his mussels for years. The philospher is characterised with strong mind and deep thought because he constantly works with his brain. The virtuous man has a good heart because he is constantly excercising it. Water also gets purfied after it passes through a series of processes: precipitation, percolation and evaporation. Nothing is achieved suddenly and completely. To many, efforts are seen as meaningless and stupid but it must be known that the wise and clever things lie in the seemingly stupid, while the stupid - in the seemingly wise and smart ones. When a man thinks he is very smart, he stops working and looses everything he has acquired. When the rich man thinks only about his fortune and relies on it, he gradually becomes impoverished. Such people go in and come out of their home without working and in the end do not acquire anything. They resemble the drones that buzz , come in and out of the hive without bringing a drop of honey. Today, in the Divine Hive, there are a lot of drones, which the bees themselves kill and throw out. Those drones that survive, go around the hive and buzz, they expect better conditions in order to go inside and eat from the ready made honey. Christ says: „As the Father knows me , so do I also know the Father and I lay my soul for the sheep.“ Let everyone says: ‚As the Father knows me so do I also know Him“. The one that knows his Father, takes the plough and hoe and goes to plough and dig. As the child moves in order to find her mother and suckle, so does the man have to lift up and put the hoe in the earth- his suckling mother who feeds him. When the child grows teeth, she begins to chew. The mother is glad that the child chews bread, fruit and crushes them with her teeth withought thinking of the sacrifice which they make for her. After all this, people ask themselves why suffering and unhappiness come. The answer is simple. – People suffer in order to learn the law of the sacrifice. Plants, fruit and animals sacrifice themselves for people, while poeple should sacrifice themselves for the beings that are higher than them. „As the Father knows me “. Knowledge has something to do with the sacrifice. You can only sacrifice yourself for this one who you know. That is why, Christ says: As the Father sacrifices for me from love, so do I manifest His love“. The sacrifice is a Divine law, which has to penetrate into the minds and hearts of people, to make them strong. The sacrifice is related to love. Only the one who loves can sacrifice himself. Where love is absent, life looses its meaning and man relies on the people and not on God. He searches for light, warmth and strength from outside and not from the Divine self within himself. The Divine is recognised according to the sacrifice and love. The power of man lies in love not in words. Whoever talks only about love rather than manifests it is like an empty barrel that makes noise and does not give anything. Words devoid of content and meaning are like commercial adverts that aim at advertising the goods and increase their price. You will say that you love the wheat, fruit and vegetables. Who doesn’t love things they benefit from? You love the apple and pear but you will chew them with your teeth. You like the wheat but you will put it under the millstone. It will be argued that fruit and wheat sacrifice themselves for man. They sacrifice, but forcibly, not voluntarily. The true sacrifice is a voluntary, free act. The ripe fruit falls alone from the tree and sacrifices itself but if you pick it green you apply force on it. Therefore, the sacrifice takes place on time and voluntarily. „As Father knows me“. By speaking of knowing the Father, people want to hear His voice, to speak to them. God can speak to men, but they must know His languge and understand Him. If they do not understand Him, they will always argue whether the Lord has spoken to man or not. The Lord has spoken and is speaking, but not to all people. If the king enters one of his stalls and caresses his best horse, it shows that he has spoken to him. This horse may say he has spoken to the king, but the others either have to believe his words or deny the truth that the king can talk to the horses. So God has spoken in the past, speaks in the present, and will speak in the future, but only to those who have love. Where there is no love, the word of God is not heard. If anyone says that God has spoken to him, I will ask him: Are you ready to sacrifice yourself for God, for mankind, for your people? – ‚I'm not ready yet. " If you're not ready for a sacrifice, and God can not talk to you. It is impossible for God to speak to a man, and the man not to be ready for a sacrifice. It is impossible for the stone to sit all day in the sun and not to warm up. If they are exposed in the sun, both the stone and the tree become warm. God speaks to a man only under certain conditions, in certain relationships when He wishes, not when the man requires it. God alone sets the moment when He has to speak to one soul. Millions of wheat grains are in the barn, but they will not all be sown. Part of them will be thrown into the field, while the rest will become bread. Only the advanced souls will hear the voice of God and will recognise Him. - Who is advanced? – The one who is strong in mind, in heart and in soul; that is who carries within himself the faith, hope, and love. He who perceives and absorbs things, as the absorbent paper swallows water does not have a strong mind. Then it will come out that the photographic plate is strong too. It is enough to bring it to light in order to print the images that fall into its path. In fact, it is due to the light, not to it. Good comes out of light, and man combines the conditions in such way that allows the light to manifest itself. Man looks like his portrait, but the portrait is not a live photograph. The artist has painted your image well, has put the respective colours on the face, and has made you beautiful, but that is not real beauty. Do not be deluded by external things. Many live in delusions which is why they have wrong perceptions about life. One looks at herself complacently in the mirror and says to herself: I am rounded, healthy, beautiful and also rich. – Don’t be misled, these are photgrpahes in your mind that can be replaced with new ones at any moment. Any philosopher or scientist can break your happiness. It is enough to read a pessimistic book to say that life does not make sense and lose your happiness. If love has deeply penetrated the human soul, no force in the world can take away the peace that God has put into it; No power in the world is able to take away the light of the human mind and the warmth of his heart. That is, living in reality. When he comes out of this reality, man loses his peace and seeks help from outside. Faith is necessary to man: faith in God, in neighbor, and in himself. „As Father knows me, so I know Father“. This verse implies son’s attitude. The son does this which the Father does; the father also does this which the son does. In other words said: as Father has put life into me, so can I put life into others. You will say that only Christ talks like this but not a man. If you are a photographic plate it is so, but if the light is within and outside you, you will do that which Christ does. Why should not everyone say like Christ that as Christ knows his Father so does he know Him and lays is soul for His sheep. Don’t think it is brave to compare with Christ. Christ came to the earth to show the man the path on which he has to go through. Due to Christ’s self-sacrifice, there are 500 million christians today whom Christ knows. Why should the Christians then not know their Savier? Which father does not know his son today and which son – his father? Which maid when she falls in love with a man does not love his father. The girl says to her beloved: ‚I am prepared to lay my life for you and follow your path.’ As soon as the ones in love understand and recognise eachother, they also know God. This happens every day in the ordinary life but as soon as a word about the spiritual is mentioned, everyone gets scared of it. There is something scary in life - these are the teeth of death. However, love is a powerful force that brings joy, happiness and activty to man. Love is necessary to the people of today so that when they are filled with it to say: We know Christ as he knows us and we lay our lives for His sheep. This is the new tecahing that makes life meaningful and releases it from hardship and unnecessary suffering. Why do people of today suffer? – Because they live in illsuions and delusions which are destroyed every day. There is no man in the world who is free from illsuions and delusions but this doesn’t mean that he needs to deal with them all day. The little girl plays with her doll, while the little boy- with his horse but this doesn’t mean that they have to give up eating because the doll and horse cannot eat with them. A man should eat, work and develop and the delusions will one by one abondon him. It will be objected that God should take the delusions, hardships and suffering away. If suffering is taken away, every activity and initiative of the human being will be stopped. This is impossible. You will live, make mistakes, suffer and will rectify your mistakes on your own. Concsiously or subconsciously, you can break the leg of your brother, but God will teach you the art of curing broken legs. You will get your brother’s eye out but God will teach you to cure eyes, to put new eyes in the place of the ones that have been pulled out. You will kill someone but you will become a mother in another life, you will collect the requisite material in order to build a new house for the murdered one. He will become your child in order to understand how much a man’s life is worth. This is how you will learn the law of addition and subtraction. – Giving birth is a scary thing. – It is scary but you need to learn to build. The more difficult a woman gives birth the more bills she has to pay. When a woman is giving birth, she needs to turn to God with a request to be taught to fulfill His will. – Why does man suffer?– In order to learn something new, to understand the Divine will and realise it. What do people of today do? – When they are joyous, they are satisfied; when they suffer, they grumble and search for the reason outside of them. There is someone at fault for people’s suffering but who is to blame? This is a task with three unknowns: The fault may be in God, your neighbour or yourselves. The most important is to understand who is the main culprit. In reality, the fault is in teh man who wants his doll or horse to eat with him. The son has made a series of crimes and the mother wants the Divine blessing to come upon him. I tell the mother: Do not expect this which your son cannot benefit from. Call the doctor to lay him in bed and massage him - his leg is dislocated and has to be adjusted before the Divine blessing comes upon him. The hearts of some people are dislocated while others – have dislocated minds. They have to be adjusted. What a bigger blessing one can expect than the adjustment of the dislocated body part in the human organism? This is a necessary phisiological process, which the whole humankind is going through. If your stomach is upset and cannot digest the food, it will be better if you spend a few days in deprivation than burdening it with unncessary material or the food to rot in it and new complications to appear. When will people get better?– When everyone says: „As Christ knows me, so do I know Him and lay my soul for His sheep.’ Many ask themselves how this verse is related to their life. Why is it necssary to know God and Christ? This verse is related to the human life, for every human being is a sheep in God’s flock. God has sacrificed His life because of him. It is enough for you to understand this thought in order to experience the Divine blessing on yourselves. As the sun energy does not reach you directly but passes through the etheral space first, so does the Divine Love reach to people through Christ Who is a mediator. A man is not what he externally manifests. From the outside, he is nothing else but a small poor little house. A day will come when he will leave his small house and will start working consciously on himslef in order to prepare a new, hygenetic one. A day will come when the human being will make a new, healthy body which he will become the master of. However, only this one can become a master, who has been a slave. Christ has been a master in the Heavens, a Divine Son but with his descending to the Earth, He put on the image and accepted the status of a slave. So he showed to people how to serve. Even today, people still serve one another, torture eachother, grumble and do not know how to get rid of this situation. One thing is needed from the people of today: humility and knowledge of God and Christ. When you leave for the other world, the first question you will be asked is: Did you sacrifice your life for Christ’s sheep? Therefore, humility, knowledge and self-sacrifice are the first qualities that the man of today needs. Only in this way, he will make his life better and will head towards the greatest purpose of his existence - the immortality. Why do people fail in their lives? Because they do not aim at pleasing God; they want to please eachother This is impossible. You can be polite, kind and helpful to people but you can never satisfy them. If you meet a hungry person feed him. If you meet a thursty one, give him water. In both cases, however, do not expect from them to be satisfied and grateful to you - there will always be something about which they will be unhappy with you. Even now God is trying to please and satisfy people but He has not achieved any result. It is a great science to satisfy the man. First, God will apply this science and then people. Even to this day, no person has be found who can satisfy people in order that they can be grateful to him. A mother thinks that she has satisfied her child. Let her leave her child hungry for a few hours to see how much she has satisfied him. And the man is happy with his wife when he is fed. As soon as he gets hungry, he becomes unhappy. Only the light remains loyal to people. It cannot change, or manifest as both light and darkness. The Light always remains light. It reveals things as they are. Nothing remains hidden before it. Light is related to the Truth. As the light reveals all hidden things so does the truth touch everyone regardless of where it passes by. The truth reveals man in all his nakedness. You will say that the truth is scary. – Why is it scary?- because it undresses the man. What’s wrong with nudity? Thinking that nudity is a bad thing, shows the tarnished and perverted human thought. The animal essence of the human can be neither cultivated nor ennobled. Regardless of how much he is being cultivated, he will ultimately manifest his nature. An Englishman found a small tiger somewhere in India and took it with him in order to tame it. One day, caught up in his thoughts, he dozed off. His already tamed and grown up tiger who had constantly been leeking his hand out of gratitude was sitting near his feet. However, the skin of his hand got rubbed sore from the sharp tongue of the animal and started to bleed. The smell of the blood awoke the wild instinct of the animal, which was preparing to throw itself over its master. If he does not consciously work on himself, a man always comes across unwanted manifestations of his nature, which destroy the good and beautiful in him. Often when in good spirit, a negative thought that starts to strungle and torture him, appears in man’s mind. If a negative state of mind takes hold of you, turn to Christ in your thought, without talking to Him, and he will transform your state. The Light visits you without you talking to it. It suffice that you open for it in order that it enlightens and shines upon you. It is said in the Scripture that many words lead to a sin. Some religious people think that they can put their affairs to right only through prayers. It is not the case. If you want to put your affairs to right and be healthy, lie down on the heated earth and direct your look upwards where the light comes from. When the earth is cold, turn your back to the sun while you look to the earth. Many men of the world are rich, scientists and healthy because they expose their backs to the sun in order to benefit from its light and warmth. The religious people who think that they are connected with Christ do not expose themselves to the sun and therefore they gradullay become poor. It is a law: if you want to be rich, a scientist and healthy expose your back to the sun. In this way, you will know God and Christ. If you are angry or hate someone expose your back to the sun, direct your sight to the earth and it will take the poison that has penetrated your blood. The sun and earth are people’s best healers and teachers. Someone wants God to talk to him. Before talking to people, He has talked to the earth - their mother. Your mother is beautiful and good but when you don’t know her you find her black and rough. The earth is black and rough because it works for its children. It looks after the small grass, all plants and trees and all living creatures that crawl on it. Doesn’t the mother do the same? She works the whole day for her children in order to feed and bring them up. Her hands are black and rough but she lifts and puts the hoe down while her daughter is sitting in the shade at home with a white face and soft hands, but in the end, the soul of the mother becomes beautiful and noble while the one of the daughter remains rough and crude. Often you meet cultural people, christians with smooth faces and hands, and a noble look but outwardly only, in form. Their deeds are not pious. In cotrast to them, you meet a rough peasant, with a burnt face but a noble soul. He has drunk a little bit more than he has to do, he could hardly walk, but when he sees an honest person, he becomes immediately sobre and says: ‚Apologies brother but I got drunk as a donkey.’ With this he wants to say that he has done something that is not in accordance with the Divine laws. In fact, he hasn’t got drunk as a donkey because the donkey does not drink anything else but pure water . The words ’ got drunk as a donkey’ mean one of the qualities of the donkey - its genuineness. A man becomes genuine and willing to speak the truth only when he gets drunk. When he is sobre, he thinks, beats about the bush, filtrates his words so that he first could swim above the water like butter. „As my Lord knows me, so do I know the Lord, and I lay my soul for the sheep’. A day will come when all people will know their Father, will be ready to speak the truth and sacrifice their lives for His sheep. This means an attitude of a son towards his father and one of the father towards his son. God is great because he has first sacrificed His life for His children; He has looked after them and is constantly doing so without asking for anything in return. One is people’s duty towards their Father - to fulfill His will. If they don’t fulfill it, He does not judge them but searches for the reason about that and helps them. He sees the people’s helplessness and does not judge it but He teaches and helps them. What differentiates the human manifestations from the Divine ones? The former are devoid of truth and love, while the latter are penetrated with truth and love. The Divine manifests light and joy. As soon as this light goes into the man, it manifests as intelligence. Everything in the world moves around the light. It is the end goal of the Genesis. The meaning of life is when a man merges with the light that comes from God. A few acquire such light. Christ carried the Divine light within Himself and manifested it as wisdom and knowledge. He came among people in ordert o show them how to live in order to achieve the idea of their souls. He went through such suffering that to this day noone has ever known of. People have gone through and are still passing through different suffering, big and small but have not yet come to the Christ suffering. That is why, Christ sits above all people. Many times, man will come back to the Earth until he acquires the light which will take him to God. When a man is being born and reincarnated, as well as works consciously on himself, he sculptures his face until he presents himself to God as a completed and perfect picture. A human face is full of many shortcomings and uncultivated features, but the human must work and move forward. Everyone must say to himself: I know God as He knows me; I love Him as He loves me; I will sacrifice myself for him as he sacrifices Himself for me. Tell this to yourselves, begin to work quietly and calmly without discouraging yourselves. Whoever rushes and wants to achieve something soon, he only discourages himself. The rushed things do not lead to good results. A young man has visited a famous German professor in philosphy in order for the latter to recommend a short course to him - to study philosphy in short amount of time. The professor thought for a shortwhile and responded to him: When God wants to create a pumpkin, He uses only six months; when He wants to create an Oak tree, He needs tens of years. Therefore, if you want to lead a Christian life with the requirements of the pumpkin, you will spend little time on working on yourselves. If you live with the requirements of the oak tree, you will work consciously on yourselves for decades; if you want to perfect and purify yourselves like the diamond you will work even more. Lots of work is required from a man in order to harmonise his mind, heart and will. A man’s look and movements need to be harmonious. In this way, he influences his close ones and elevates them. As the harmonious movements affect people and elevate them so do the dishramonious movements affect them and lower their mood. Be careful with yourselves and your close ones. As the sun light comes through the windows of the houses so does the Divine light have to come through a man’s eyes to light up his way. It is enough that one candle illuminates one’s path in order for one to understand where he is going. The Light is a live serman that everyone needs. – Why people should be preached to?– This is a necessity for the one who preaches and for that one who is preached to. – Why the mother has to give birth? – this is a necessity for herself and her close ones. This is so necessary as is necessary for the man to eat, drink, breathe, think, feel and act. To preach to people it means to give an opportunity to God to manifest as light and warmth and in order to light up people’s paths and warm them.– Is it possible without preaching? - No it is not. People are preached in many ways: through talking and silence, through the light, warmth and air. Often nature is silent, quite, but one perceives its vibrations without any contradiction or confusion. A man needs a bright mind in order to perceive love without hate, the truth without lie, the wisdom without stupidity. This is what it means the man to know his Father and say as Christ: ‚As my Father knows me and so do I know Him and I am ready to sacrifice myself for His sheep.“ What are the sheep which Christ is talking about? They are Divine souls who go through a process of development. They are compared with the sheep and not the goats because the first ones are meak and unevil, ready to sacrifice voluntarily. All animals, plants, insects and butterflies are a symbol of something Divine. For example, the butterfly with its beautiful colours and patterns manifests something Divine. God talks throught it too. Nature is alive. God talks through it and preaches to people. Look how and what the butterfly eats. It sucks the sweet nectar of the flowers and shows a way of eating to people that is more pure than the one they follow nowadays. Whoever wants to protect themselves from mistakes and crimes should study the life of butterflies. Study the colours, patterns which they are filled with in order to understand the great philosophy that is hiden in them. The book of life is great and so is its language. Every little grass and insect are a letter of this language. Combine the letters of nature in syllables, and the syllables in words, the words- in whole sentences in order to compose the great thoughts of life. Put love and truth as foundation of the eternal life while the wisdom as decoration! Only in this way will you know your Father and sacrifice your life for His sheep. Only in this way will you understand and apply the Christ teaching which echo is carried away in the whole nature and enlivens it and makes it spiritual. I wish you to know God and Christ and to rejoyce in the light future which is expecting you. Sunday Lectures 12.01.1919 Sunday, Sofia Превод от Пролетина Жонес

The Book - The Salt. Beinsa Douno A Divided Kingdom "And knowing their thoughts He said unto them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand."1 "Divide and dominate" is the slogan of the world today as well as of every home, every mother, every father, every daughter, every son, every chief, every king, every nation and every culture. If someone asks me about the reasons for the suffering of humanity, I shall answer that the slogan, "Divide and dominate" is the reason. Therefore, as long as you have this slogan, misfortune will follow you as the shadow follows its master. Christ says, "Every kingdom, every organized life, every organized nation divided cannot stand." I shall tell you why it cannot stand. Every house implies the conditions from which all benefits flow, since the kingdom is built upon the home. Christ says, "If a kingdom is divided, the house cannot stand either." Therefore, both the kingdom and the house will collapse together, or in the commercial language - they will go bankrupt. To go bankrupt is to become a slave, an ox yoked in the field with a person with a prick behind you saying, "Since you have studied how to divide and dominate, come on now - plough!" Today all Bulgarians in the fields preach this teaching all the time, "Go on, son, divide and dominate, divide one furrow from another." You say, "How nice these fields look!" But I ask you, "Cannot wheat grow in the earth without it being divided?" In the distant past, before the existence of human beings, how did all fruit and flowers grow? The way all plants are cultivated today is new. A man says, in order that my wife should cook better, she needs spanking." The mistress says, "If my maid-servant is to tend to her work better, she should not go out often and needs spanking now and then." Whenever the maid comes back from some place, her mistress immediately gets angry and demands to know where she had been loafing all that time. However, what is the result of the present order of life? Every person, rich or poor, hungry or fed, feels a nervousness, a discontentment, like something is lacking. What will happen if your heart, your stomach, your eyes, your hands and feet and some other part of your body separates from it? Today people act according to the Law of Division as sons and daughters are divided from their parents. If you enter a religious society, there you will also find division. The heart, the stomach, the brain and the lungs in all people are not at their places, they are divided. They say that worldly people quarrel about money, but what are religious people quarreling about? Therefore, money is not the cause of this hassle, it is only a condition for that. Why do men and women quarrel, why do brothers and sisters quarrel, what is the reason for that? It is a false idea that people think they will be happier this way. Only unorganized things can be divided, organized things are not divided. You cannot divide virtues, for if you divide them, evil is born. If the bottles in which you carry water crack and fall to pieces, where will your water be stored? If the inkpot of a student breaks and the ink is spilled, what will become of the white dress of the student? It will be stained. The inkpot will say, "Since the teaching is divide and dominate, I became divided and where the black spots are - that is my dominion." Christ says, "Every house divided against itself shall not stand," i.e. when division appears, no rational life can progress any longer. The home is the Emblem (Symbol) of Love; it cannot stand if instability arises or evil, hatred, oppositions are born for these are nothing but gaps. The first impression of gaps is awkwardness. If we step on marshy ground where there is no hard footing, we sink. Therefore, division causes gaps in life that are the places of evil. In present day life, in order to organize a society, it is necessary that all gaps should be filled up. You have strong teeth, but in time a small cavity appears in which the deposited food particles start decaying and the tooth begins to disintegrate and emit a bad smell. Why does it smell badly? Because there are cavities in the tooth. It is in a process of division and its particles are in conflict. Someone asks me, "Why do I have a headache?" Because there are cavities inside. "My stomach aches." Because you have cavities inside. If a particle wants to separate itself from an organ, quitting its job, and if there is no other cell to substitute it; an unhealthy condition in the given place arises, which is nothing other than an interruption of the existing divine bond. If you have failures in life, they are due to this great law. In such cases the doctors say that the cells in such a place have fallen ill. When there is division in us, we feel awkwardness. When does division take place? When avarice appears, i.e. the feeling of possessing and dominating which is called individualization. By the process of division nations have arisen, as well as the home and so on. This process is admissible in nature, but there is no life in it. In cosmogony it is called chaos. Billions of years ago there were great wars among the gods in the space in which they used enormous cannons. The worlds were created by the volleys of these cannons. Out of fatigue, these gods diminished and became the small people who are reasoning today about great questions - "We divided the world after creation" - not realizing they created it. I say, "You gave God the materials, you brought the stones out of which God created the world." The human body is formed the same way. At first there was struggle among the small cells and after they were exhausted, God brought them together and today they all form the human organism. We say, "How wonderfully people are made!" Christ says to His disciples, "No work can succeed, if there is division." You accept a thought and then you doubt, "Am I right?" I say, "You are divided and that is why you cannot have any success." You decide to build a house, or to take up some science, but you start wavering. You will not succeed if you are divided. If a girl and a young man doubt each other, they should not marry. Doing this, both men and women today begin to play with each other during their whole life, creating a fire in which they eventually burn up. In this way the whole family will disappear because division entered therein. Learned people say in such a case, "This family degenerated," but I say, "There is division in this family." Someone may ask me, "Shall I enter the Kingdom of God?" If there is division in you, you cannot enter It. "Shall we become learned, shall we be saved, shall we be good?" If you are divided, you will not become learned, you will not succeed or become good." You will ask me, "But can a person not be divided?" Yes, they can. The process of division is mechanical, not spiritual. In the world there must not be any spiritual division. What you call division, for instance the sprouting of a tree, is not division, but multiplication. Multiplication is an organic process. Division is the breaking of ties with the very source of life. People today frequently create bad thoughts themselves. We see a person aspiring to God but we doubt the purity of their intentions and say: "The reasons they are aspiring to God are not religious or noble, but some devil has obsessed them." We act as some Jew. Today all people accuse the Jews, but the word "Jew" is not bad, it has a deep meaning. Everyone bearing a cross and suffering is a Jew. Why do they suffer? Because they have not learned the deep meaning of this word. Some will ask me, "But what does the word "Bulgarian" mean?" Some philologists say that the word comes from the word boulg`our2, but that is not its origin. Then I would ask you, "But where has boulg`our come from?" In the original language every word had a definite meaning. All languages today are translations of an Ancient Divine Language, which is also the original one. Three languages originally sprang from it: Chinese, Hebrew and Sanskrit. The Chinese write vertically starting from the top down, that is the first translation. Hebrew is written from right to left, while in Sanskrit the writing is from left to right, i.e. from east to west. That is how we also write. The Chinese language is positive, but the other two are passive - from them sprang the rest of the languages. The Turkish word iş3 signifies the original being working. Hebrew has the yod4, while other languages, such as French, have the double u - w. The Turks say, işbu5, meaning that we must listen to that Being which is working within us. We know this root and say, "Shia,"6 i.e. I am doing something. He Who sent me originally to the earth taught me to work. Christ says, "Every Kingdom divided against itself shall not stand." Let us take the following example: if the child in the womb of its mother wished to be separate in the very first month or if the mother wants to part with it, she will abort it. This can happen from the first to the ninth month. When the ninth month is over, the child does not separate but it is born. This process has reached its final stage and the child is born. Everything that has started working finishes its cycle. Therefore, each kingdom which does not reach the end of its way shall not stand. I want you to observe this law, which has relevance in your life. Some ask me, "Why did these misfortunes come to us?" You have divided something within yourselves. What will happen if your heart and mind become divided? Some say, "Let me have a mind, I don’t need a heart." Others say, "Let me have a heart, I don’t need a mind." These are delusions. A young woman says, "I am looking for a young man with less brains and more money." Happiness does not rest on money. Often people say, "In order not to suffer, one must not love." Unhappiness springs from the fact that when a Divine Thought or Divine Feeling comes to us, we want to abort it. This gives rise to great suffering. Therefore such a house, such a society, such people of learning all degenerate and new people come in their place. In the verse I read to you, Christ makes two comparisons: every kingdom and every house. Christ says, "If I cast out evil spirits by God’s Spirit, the Kingdom of God has come to you." Christ does not say that He separates, but that He casts out the evil spirits. Casting out and dividing are two different concepts. For a man to cast out his wife and to separate from her are two different things. If you cast a person out, that means you are looking for another place where they can work; while if you separate that is to break the bond the person had which provided they with conditions to work. When someone tells you there is no God, they separate you. When a man assures his wife that she can live with another man just as well, he has separated her. She starts living with one man after another to her undoing. This is a general law. The Turks say that a rolling stone cannot make a foundation. Some say, "Let us change our ideas," but changing ideas and rolling from one place to another are two different things. To change ideas is one thing; but to roll ideas another thing. To change oxen is one thing, but to turn them into flat sausages or dried meat is quite a different thing. Now we wish to reform present-day society, but the first thing we must learn is to stop dividing. For that, you should learn the art of uniting. It is a very easy thing to divide, but it is a very difficult thing to unite. When the word "divide" comes to your mind, let its opposite, "unite", appear as well and you will learn in time to transform dividing into uniting. You can separate only the unseen things in your organism. Therefore, the hidden law in this verse is: The first and most important thing is not to divide what is good. The religious, the good people must not be divided. In America there are many outstanding ministers, but often people start gossiping and want to substitute one minister with another. If that is done, will the world be set right? In some countries, people are dissatisfied with their king, calling him a bad person and wishing to substitute him by another king. Such endless divisions appear also within us. The evil lies in the fact that we want to change one thing for another. Do you think that the second king, knowing there is a dethroning, a changing, will not take precautions to keep his throne by creating an army with a cavalry and setting up prisons and scaffolds for the criminals? And what is all this that he will perform? Nothing but division. By this he wants to say, "Instead of me losing my throne, you will lose your place." I ask you: what is wrong with the king keeping his place if he is not disturbing you? Would a cock disturb you if he perched on a hedge or a tree and crowed? I have seen children throwing stones at a cock when he crows, but he says: "Why should I not sing in this place?" You are a cock and can take one place; but in this world there is room for thousands of cocks. Then I say - in life the cocks must crow and the hens must cackle. The crowing of the cocks forecasts nice weather, while the cackling of the hens means that the divine work given them to perform is completed. If a hen tries to crow like a cock that is not a good sign. When a cock crows he says to the hen, "There are favorable conditions for you to lay your egg." Then he walks around the hen, asking her, "Did you finish your work?" "Yes." "Well, then, I am glad we accomplished a fine work for the Lord in this world," the cock answers. But more people ask, "Why does the cock crow, why does the hen cackle?" The hen says, "Give me more work." People say about someone that he sings like a cock or that she cackles like a hen. I respect all men who sing like a cock and all women who cackle like hens, but only after they have finished their work. Religious people often cackle before finishing their work, before the egg is laid. What is the meaning of the laying of an egg? These religious people have a project, for instance, to form a society and start talking about it - how they will form it, what they will do and so on, but they only talk and do not act. A young maiden draws up a plan for her life and starts dreaming how she will marry, how she will live with her husband, how she will bring up her children, but all this is cackling before the work is done. When you have a plan, begin to sing, this is the song of the cock; but when you finish your work, cackle. When one thinks, they must sing; but when one feels, one must cackle. When I say that a person must cackle when thinking (these are synonyms), I mean that there is a similarity between thinking and singing. Cackling and feeling are also synonyms. I am explaining a philosophy and it makes no difference whether you sing or cackle. It means that people are free to sing or cackle, i.e. whom the Lord has asked to sing, let them sing, and whom He has asked to cackle, let them cackle. But if the cock refuses to crow and the hen- to cackle, there is division. Many women ask, "Why has the Lord made me a woman?" That you may cackle, which is an excellent work. It means that you must announce to the world that the work is finished. When a cock starts crowing, it shows that the work is in the beginning stage; but when a hen cackles, it shows that the work is at its end. I say that the tail of the snake is much more important than its head. The snake catches its victim by its tail; the wolf catches its victim by its mouth; the horse kills its victim by its hooves; but most animals use their tails. The tail is woman, i.e. that member of the general organism who finishes the work. The head begins the work but the tail finishes it. I shall not go into detail about the tail. Some say, "We do not want to be tails." I ask you, "What is the head worth without the tail?" The whole body is the tail of the head. Therefore, we should get rid of our wrong notions about the tail and the head and know that at times we are the tail and at other times the head. When we perform some movement, we are tails; but when we find that Great Law of Organizing, then we are heads. Many women are tails now, but in the future they will be heads and many men who are heads now will become tails. But there are all kinds of heads: garlic, onion, ox ones, heads of flies and so on. It is very generally said - heads. What kind of a head do you want to be? If you had the head of a cock that crows or the tail of a hen that cackles - would you be doing lofty work then? Taking an egg a hen has laid, you can learn how the world was created for it contains the clue of the whole universe. All truths are hidden in that egg. The whole world is nothing but an enlarged egg. When a hen lays her egg she cackles, meaning to say: "I have laid this egg, the same way God has made the world." You take the egg, boil it and do not understand how the world was made. We act the same way with many fine thoughts which come into our mind. We must take the egg and taste it with our mind and not with our stomach. We sell the fine things in us. A beautiful thought comes to the mind of a girl which makes her features attractive - her nose, her mouth and eyes - but she begins to sell herself. They tell her that a young man owns 1,000 leva but she does not like him. Or another young man has 5,000 leva but she does not like him either. She is looking for a wealthy duke and sells her face. Some author gifted by God starts writing something, but they begin thinking how much money they will get for that. If they think of gain, they cannot express any Divine Idea their writing. Take for example the novelists of today writing a novel in which the heroine faints and dies. I do not understand why the hero or heroine must die. This means that this author understands that the heroine has gone astray from the source of the Divine. A man or a woman who faints have parted with God. When a person overeats, they faint which shows that they have eaten unnatural, impure food. People who eat natural food do not faint. When students read some novels today they like the idea of a hero who faints and try to imitate him. A young man speaks to a girl, she faint out of love and he tries to bring her to. "Every kingdom divided against itself shall not stand." If such man and woman get married, they will not live well together. Keep in mind that what I am talking to you about are relations within nature as well. I am talking to you about that Great Law in Nature, that Living Great Truth which you also may come in contact with, i.e. the new teaching in the world. The Law in this Great DivineTruth is the following: contemporary people of learning will bind and unbind you, yoke and unyoke you; that is why there will be a prick. This is no religion. In the Divine Teachings you will bind and unbind your self. When you come to me and say you want to follow my teaching, I shall ask you: "Are you ready to bind and unbind yourselves?" Now we want all people today to turn from an animal state into rational beings. I want you to put on your yoke by yourselves and to take it off. I ask your ox, "You who have will, do you know why you have a yoke around your neck and can you get rid of it?" You go to church, bow and cross yourselves, but I ask you, "Do you know why you make the sign of the cross, what have you learnt in this life by this act?" You should know that placing your hand on your forehead is a sign that this head must think, i.e. my cock must crow; when your hand is placed down, it means: does my hen cackle? Is there love in my heart? When you place your fingers on your right side you are asking, "Is my egg laid?" On the left side it means, "Is my egg being hatched?" All this means, doing a great work for God. You will say that I interpret these things my own way. You interpret them in a different way then. So when you cross yourself, put this idea into action. I want to say that every act, thought or feeling of ours must have a definite value within our soul. In this world you will have many hardships for the following reason: there are hens which do not lay eggs so they do not cackle and if they do lay eggs, they hatch them in other hens’ nests, or hatch the eggs of other hens. When you hatch the eggs of someone else, discontentment rises in you. Let me explain what this means. Every egg is an Emblem (Symbol) of a life. If you seek the Divine Life, you will find it in a Divine Egg; if you seek intellectual life, you will find it in an intellectual egg; if you are looking for love, you will find it in an egg of this kind. In this respect people are very practical and have common sense: when they want to have a nightingale hatched, they place the egg of a nightingale in a nest; when they want to have apples, they sow the seeds of apples. You cannot sow one kind of seed and get a different result. People in this world act the same way, namely those who divide. This dividing exists inside you and all misfortune comes from it for it is a destruction of human power. In our present culture this law of division exists. You have sons and daughters and wish them to succeed in life. If you can bring unity in your own souls you will be able to do the same for them and they will succeed. Make several experiments, not only one; for the first experiment may turn out successful, but it does not imply that all others will always turn out successful. An experiment is successful when in every case it turns out well. I have watched jugglers who skillfully stuck twelve daggers near the chest of a woman without hurting her. All their throws turned out successful. When you watch such a sight, you think the woman will be stabbed to death. You must be such master too. But what are you doing today? You stab the heart or the head of some person quite skillfully. Someone leads a spiritual life for five or six years and then gives it up. Why? Someone has stuck a knife in their head or in their heart. Division has taken place in them. In my view God is not a need but a necessity of the world. Life itself, thought or will are manifestations of God. All that is sublime or noble in us is divine manifestation. No Lord exists outside of this. Someone says, "I want to see God." You cannot see God if you first do not feel Him, as you cannot see the fruit of an apple, if you have not sown the seed of one. Many of you have not laid eggs, but you say, "I got this and that done." No. The work has not been finished if the cock has not crowed and the hen has not cackled. One must think while another must feel; one must begin the work and another must finish it. I want you to finish this work. You will answer me, "We are people incapable, uncultured." I do not want you to turn the earth, it is turning anyway; but I do want you to finish the work that you are appointed. You say, "I cannot set the world right." It is set right. "I cannot help the poor." Not only you, but the whole world is taking care of them. I ask you: “How do those small midges live which you do not take care of?” Therefore, in the philosophy of today and in our minds there are vacuities; a result of which disharmony appears and we pass through painful states. Christ told the Jews they were divided and every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation which means that "since you do not believe in me, your kingdom will not progress." The same applies to your religion. And actually their kingdom ended there. This law is true of all nations. Every nation that says that people cannot live rightly in this world cannot expect anything good. The Bulgarians, for instance, have no success in war. This shows that one cannot make progress on the principle "divide and dominate." A mind and a heart are necessary. You as a nation must learn to think well and to feel rightly. There is no nation which does not feel the oppression today. All nations which have oppressed other nations will be crossed out as an organization. All such nations have disappeared and only ones in which there is no division have survived. Paul says, "There is neither Jew, nor Greek; neither Scythian, nor barbarian." You say, "He is a Christian, but he is an Englishman; that one is a German and so on." There is no division in Christ. The Jews are people of the heart, but since they are very near the stomach, they are materialistic people who like money. They are close both to the spiritual and to the material that is why they pierced Christ in the region of the heart. They said, "We want to become a great nation," that is why they lost what was given to them and for 2,000 years they have been without a kingdom. Now they are being placed again in the old land. The Jewish kingdom will be small.7 God says to them, "Your land will be neither large nor small." So the heart is already defined. You will ask me, "But where are the Bulgarians?" The Bulgarians are in the liver, because they are very rancorous, they like the land very much and say, "We need wheat, wheat." The liver is necessary but when it is enlarged, misfortunes arrive. If it becomes small this is also bad. The liver must function in order to produce bile. Therefore, if the Bulgarian people vanish in the world there will be constipation and thence - great suffering. Today everybody is asking, "What will become of us at the Conference?"8 God is telling those at the Conference to be careful with the liver, because if its bile bursts, all cultures will go to the devil. You will find the places of the other nations. So do not groan and worry for God is taking care of the liver since it is a very necessary organ and the body cannot do without it. Therefore, there must be no division among you. There is a close connection between the heart and the liver. They are very sympathetic to each other.9 The heart is very sensitive, while the liver is more passive, so they like one another. And so I solve the problem of the Bulgarians - as the liver they are in their place and the bile will not burst. Be grateful you are Bulgarians and do not be troubled what will become of you. All of you must try to have unity in your thoughts without any division or fear. There may be fear, but in its place; there may be poverty, but meet it and send it off politely. When a poor person visits you, wash their feet, feed them and then see them off. Act the same way with wealth. Remember that in all our beliefs, every teaching is in its place: that is why Christ says that there must not be any division among us. Today there are many divisions, many parties competing for supremacy in ruling; but it would be better if all of them united and played all together as in an orchestra. At this moment unity is necessary, not division. Bulgarians cause themselves much harm by this division. I do not blame them for this, but rather turn their attention to this fact, because the cells of the liver are the most stupid and uncultured cells, but they contain the conditions of the future culture. Tthere is a great difference among the different kinds of livers. For instance, there is a difference between the liver of an ox and that of a person; between the liver of an angel and a seraph also - for the cells of the latter think like human beings. Do not think that if you are the liver, you are very cultured. This condition in which you find yourselves on the earth is very uncertain for there is much division among you. You Bulgarians do not know which Lord you are serving for you are Anglophiles, Russophiles, Germanophiles and all other kinds of names, but I say, "Turn to God and cross yourselves before Him. He will make you wise and good so that you can lay this egg and hatch it well, or it will become an addled egg." There is a close connection between politics and religion. Know that the present culture has inscription, "Join yourselves and unite." It says in the Scriptures, "If hands are joined there will be no success for thieves also join themselves." When Bulgarians make a horo10 they join hands, but that is a gain. Why do they dance in a circle? To be inspired by the motion of life and then the lad and the maiden get married. Marriage is a strange motion. Do not move in a circle, but walk in a straight line. I make the following analogy: the four wheels of a wagon roll while it is moving, but what do they learn? Nothing, they only raise the dust around. If I ask the axis what it has learned, it will say, "I did not turn like the wheels and I did not learn anything." If I ask the oxen who move forward what they have learned, they will say, "Nothing, we only raised the dust on the road." The driver will tell me the same thing. But culture does not consist of nothing. You will roll and you will not roll; you will move and you will not move; you will hold the reins and not hold them - culture consists of all this. When we return home we shall interpret this and say that the wheels rolled, the axis did not move, the oxen moved; there were reins. We are a Divine Wagon which is moving to transport the Divine Life from one place to another: to the mill, then to our homes to make bread when we return home. Where is our home? In the field, nearer the Lord. I would prefer to eat out in the open, in nature, by a clear spring than to be in the best restaurant in Sofia. The home is amid nature and then it is closer to God. By saying that every Kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, Christ meant that every kingdom and every home based on violence will be divided and vanish away. Therefore this criminal teaching must be discarded and in the future there should not be division among you. If there is division among you, you will only see the back side of life, because you and life will move in two opposite directions. If there is division among you, you will see only the back side of God, the back of the Kingdom, the shadow of things. Do not be divided, but let several sisters unite and attract people. I see you divided into parties now. When I look at you, I can tell who is a radoslavist, who is a democrat or a radical. How do I know you? By your heads, for every head has a special shape. Since you are a radical, do you know how to pull out roots? Do you know their laws? If you are a democrat, do you know the laws of democracy? Some call themselves priests, Christians or teachers, but you must know your subject both in theory and in practice. If you do not know this, you are nothing yet. Sometimes I see you in the position of professors, but where is your practical experience? You will answer, "That is how we have studied." Yes, but I told you to roll and not to roll. To roll means you are in the periphery; but not to roll means you are in the center. They who are self-possessed are in the center. If you give up this teaching of division, all winter days will be nice and you will not catch cold. I cannot catch cold even in the draft, because I do not divide, living under another law by a different stove. They who do not divide cannot catch cold. The Lord says, "If you obey Me and do not divide, your world will be clear and all blessings will be poured down on you." If you listen to the Lord and do not divide, but work for Him, He will manifest Himself to you. How? As a musician in a house. He enters the house and if he is in a good disposition, he takes the violin and starts playing, but if he is in a bad mood, he will not play. You want the Lord to play for you. But if the Lord finds your strings broken how will He play? You say, "We want wonders." Silly wonders do not exist. In the world exists only one great wisdom wherein everything must be in its place. Do not divide, but unite and send out good thoughts everywhere. You ask, "Can this be?" Yes, it can. In my vocabulary there is a single word "CAN". Some say, "Then we can divide." No, this cannot be because they who divide lose their power. You can become weak. To such a person I say, "You can become rich, in order to become poor." But to another I say, "You can become rich." So that the result of these two "can’s" is that one is wealth, the other is poverty. This is what Christ meant by His words to the Jews, "Cast out the evil spirits with the Spirit of God, I put order in life and do not divide; but you will be placed in a school to learn the Law of Uniting." Let the Bulgarians learn this lesson from the Jews and avoid being put in their position. The Jews will say, "It is unforgivable for the Bulgarians not to have learned this law in the course of these 2,000 years. What a sin will they commit, if they do not listen to you now." But today all people say, "What evil people the Jews are!" No, they are very good people, because in my opinion, "the worst people" in this world are the best people in the other world and "the best people" in this world are "the worst" in the other world. Do not divide your mind from your heart; let all men and women unite and let all nations unite in this future culture. Finally, let the human spirit be united with God. Only then can we have a higher culture bringing to the world the long expected peace and joy. Sermon held on December 8, 1918 _____________________________________________________________ 1 Matthew 12:25 2 Bg., pounded wheat, (tr. note) 3 Turkish for 1/ work, 2/occupation, 3/ question (ed. note) 4 יּ- the Hebrew letter yod (ed. note) 5 Turkish, (dated) this very one, the present one. (ed. note) 6 Bg., verb: sew (tr. note) 7 Israel was established in 1948 some 40 years after this talk was delivered, (ed. note) 8 Bulgaria was punished for its part in World War I (through the Treaty of Neuilly) by loosing territories and being subjected to heavy reparations, (ed. note) 9 In 1943 Tsar Boris cancelled orders for the deportation of Bulgaria’s Jews in the face of protests led by prominent political figures and Metropolitan Stefan, head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. (ed. note) 10 Horo is a traditional Bulgarian dance in which the dancers join hands to form a chain. (ed. note)

A Brief Analysis ‘The words of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.’ Proverbs: 31:1 The word king should be understood to mean the human spirit. The word mother should be understood to mean the Lord; the Divine mother who taught him. ‘What, my son? And what, the son of my womb?’ (31: 2) The word son should be understood to mean a person who is on Earth. ‘And what, the son of my vows?’ (31: 2) Mother-nature always has vows for her children. ‘Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.’ (31: 3) The first thing is not to give your strength to women. In this context, the word woman is understood to mean the human heart, which has deviated from the right Path. Therefore, give not your strength to it. The destroyer shall be understood to mean one of the vices of the human mind, namely pride. ‘It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink: Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.’ (31: 4, 5) The first rule for the human spirit is not to drink wine. Strong drink should be understood to mean processed wine, which has in it a little honey, sugar, and black pepper. Wine should be understood to mean money. Even the best of people, when given money, lose their self-control. Wine also implies all the weaknesses, which blur the human mind, either thoughts, desires, or actions, which distort wishes. In a human being one’s good thoughts and desires are afflicted. Anybody, who afflicts one’s desires, distorts the internal judgement. Just like you distort your internal judgement, in the same way you will look externally, and the same way you will look internally too. This is the Divine law: one represents the physical world externally, while internally – one represents the Divine world. The people around you can never make your world better than you have made it yourself. And those of you, who wait for their happiness to come from elsewhere, beguile themselves; therefore, they end up disillusioned. Do not expect your happiness to come from somewhere else - it is within you. Who should be given wine and strong drink? ‘Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.’ (31:6, 7) Give strong drink to those who have hardships, while wine – to those who are sad, angry, or gloomy. Give drink and food to bad, angry people! You can’t understand why you should give food and drink to bad people, and not to good people. You can’t imagine this contradiction. If you have a hard strap, which is of no use, you have to place it in oil to get softer, don’t you? Soft straps are not to be put in oil. This implies that the energy, which is hard, has to be fed and put in oil to get softer. Aggrieved people, because they are hard, let them have wine and bread then they will become fit to work. Good people have this softness per se. ‘Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.’ (31: 8) To "open your mouth for the dumb" means that the smart people should defend those who can’t speak; while those who can speak should not defend themselves. ‘Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.’ (31: 9) You women, who are mothers, should judge righteously. When you are in the judge’s seat, you should forget all of your personal relations; you should not think about yourself, you should be one with God, with humankind, i.e. God’s interests should be your interests, and the interest of humankind should also be your interest. The big includes the small interests, while the small does not include another small within itself. ‘Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.’ (31: 10) A virtuous woman should be understood to mean a good heart. The Scripture reads, "I shall give them a heart made of flesh, and I shall deprive them of the heart made of stone." A virtuous woman implies a good heart. It is better to acquire such a heart than precious stones. ‘The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.’ (31: 11) A man should be understood to mean the human mind that also has a heart. It reads, "The heart of her husband does safely trust in her," because the heart that is meant is wise. Think for the sake of your heart! As long as one wish of yours allows you to think, it is a wise wish, but if it does not allow you to think, it is dangerous. Note how a mood of anger influences you – you fly into a fury right away and you do not consider the implications. This is the silly woman inside you, i.e. the silly heart. Spoils imply all the joys for which we strive. All the joys originate in the heart; it is the soil where Divine good grows. ‘She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.’ (31: 12) By not disappointing anybody, by not offending anybody, you will have more friends and more people who love you. ‘She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.’ (31: 13) Christ says, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." (Matthew 7: 7) So, according to this line the heart obviously seeks. Seeking – this stands for the wise desires of human beings. She has been seeking during all the days of her life. What has she been seeking? Wool and flax. Wool and flax have two different features: wool retains the warmth, while flax releases it. It is hygienic to wear flax clothes in summer and woollen clothes in winter. Jewish priests always wore flax under-clothes. A wise woman always seeks and works wool and flax; wool and flax denote two noble desires. Woollen and flaxen threads make the best of fruit. The hands here denote that this woman has a wise will, so that she can weave something out of the wool and flax. Flax – this is the thought, and wool – this is the desire. When she can feel and think, she knows what to weave out of all this. Wool implies ardent desires, and flax shows a little bit of equanimity. While the expression "and works willingly with her hands" means that she develops everything using her will. ‘She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.’ (31: 14) This means that she has a steering wheel and she can steer the ships. Which one is the human steering wheel? This is our tongue. Ships stand for the mouth, where she places the food from afar, from within. So, she is aware that she is like the merchants’ ships. ‘She riseth also while it is yet night,’ (31: 15) This means that the Sun does not see her in bed. She is up before the master comes. ‘and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.’ (31: 15) Her household – this is her body. The heart, the mind, and all the desires – these are her servants, to whom she gives instructions. ‘She considereth a field, and buyeth it: With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.’ (31:16) She considers a field with her eyes, because the eyes are a source of the Truth. She sees what is useful and what is not, and she buys the field. The field should be understood to mean the external conditions of the physical field, which God has given to us. The fruit of her hands should be understood to mean the world of her heart. The vineyard means that all noble thoughts and desires are planted in her. Such a person is said to be magnetized. ‘She girdeth her loins with strength, And strengtheneth her arms.’ (31: 17) The expression "she girds her loins with strength" should be understood to mean her will. She is a woman who develops her body; does exercises, she is not idle. Her body is very well developed; there is no infirmity. She can tell the difference between her movements, desires, and thoughts very well and thus she strengthens her arms. ‘She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: Her candle goeth not out by night.’ (31: 18) The word night should be understood to mean the time when she is beset with grief and misfortunes. But even then her candle does not go out. A woman who, when in trouble, can say, "So far I have been regularly to church, I have believed in God, but from now on I will not go to church," is a woman without a candle. ‘She layeth her hands to the spindle, And her hands hold the distaff.’ (31: 19) Contemporary people discovered that the Earth spins around its axis like a spindle. And women have long believed that since the Earth spins around its axis, they should also spin around themselves. Which is to say that every woman should turn both her sides to the Sun. Joy and grief are the two sides of women and every woman has to turn simultaneously according to both of them. The side, which is the joy, is light; and the other side – the grief, is dark. This is why women should spin their spindles! When grief comes, spin your spindle! Stand up and ask, "Is my spindle spinning?" And what are you doing? You leave the distaff and say, "The Earth does not spin." No, the Earth spins all the time. This is why women should also spin all the time. If the Earth stops spinning, all people would die, while thanks to this mother, you all have clothes. The distaff stands for the Divine world. This spun thread shows where energy comes from. The distaff-ful of wool stands for the Solar system. The distaff is to be fixed at the waste belt. The Milky Way stands for the belt of the human spirit. The Solar system aspires to this belt. Everybody has to have a distaff-ful of wool. If the spindle stops spinning or if there is no distaff or distaff-ful, everything turns upside down. ‘She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.’ (31: 20) You cannot stretch out your hands to the poor, until you wash and spin your wool. The word poor in this line means all seeds that are still not sown. You open your hand, take these seeds, sow them in the garden – and this is one good deed you can do. Once you open your hand to the poor, you are in agreement with the Divine will. When you help somebody else, you help the weak, not the strong, and the poor are the future of the world. ‘She is not afraid of the snow for her household: For all her household are clothed with scarlet.’ Scarlet clothes in esoteric language mean magnetic clothes. There are people who are prone to any disease - they are naked. Any person, who loses one’s temper and who experiences doubts, is naked. And, indeed, Adam and Eve after the sin lost their clothes, and as a result they could not withstand the external struggle. This is exactly where the strength of Christianity resides – anybody can get clothes. When we start acquiring these magnetic clothes, we notice one Force within us. This fact can be found in everyday life too: when we put on certain clothes, we experience a pleasant sensation, special warmth, but the moment we take off these clothes, we experience an unpleasant sensation. Grief is nothing else but an indication that our clothes were stolen. When we have our clothes on, we are cheerful and merry. This is a very true law. When your children are cheerful, they are in clothes, but try to take their clothes off – grief is fast to come. So, the cause of all the sufferings that you experience is that you do not have such clothes. If you were clairvoyants, you would see what you look like with these clothes on and with these clothes off. ‘She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; Her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates, When he sitteth among the elders of the land.’ (31: 22, 23) The husband stands for her mind. When her mind speaks, everybody will listen to her, because the husband of such a woman is decent. If she is idle, nobody will listen to her, because her husband is not decent. ‘She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; And delivereth girdles unto the merchant. Strength and honour are her clothing; And she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; And in her tongue is the law of kindness.’ (31: 24-26) Everybody needs this law of kindness. Think about these lines on your own; I will elaborate on them some other time. ‘She looketh well to the ways of her household, And eateth not the bread of idleness.’ (31: 27) This woman will never take just any food; she chooses healthy food in all respects. It is known that idleness is the mother of all vices. Altogether, contemporary educated people have become very idle. They go to church to lie to God, they light a candle and they say, "Let's pray, let’s light a candle or two, so something might come our way." They take a lottery ticket, and after that, they go and sit in cafes and wait for something to come their way from this ticket. When the draw day comes and when they see that there is nothing for them, they buy a new ticket and start on their way to the church to light a candle and to pray again. They buy shares, but the sale rate falls at times and then they lose everything. Such people are idle. No, you will work; you will develop everything in you! The misfortunes that you have suffered so far are your past and by suffering, you actually pay your old debts. Why does she not eat bread of idleness? In contemporary society, there are many such examples of people eating bread of idleness: a lad courts the girl of a family; he is in nice clothes, has a good house, but has certain debts. He wants to marry this rich girl so that she could pay his debts. The father and mother are in a hurry to catch him, without being aware of his material status and they get the young ones married. The creditors, one after another, start claiming their policies and they say, "Now he is rich, he will pay his debts." The parents are dismayed and say, "How strange, he was a very good person." Yes, but because you united with this idle man, you will bear the consequences. When a spirit comes and tells you that you can have an easy life, you should not put money on that horse and should not believe these promises. ‘Her children arise up, and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, But thou excellest them all.’ (31: 28, 29) It is true that mothers, like these, are respected by their children and the world respects them too. In these lines, Solomon describes the ideal woman or the aspiration of the human soul. ‘Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: But a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.’ (31: 30) The words fears the Lord mean that each woman, who is devout, will be praised. ‘Give her of the fruit of her hands; And let her own works praise her in the gates.’ (31: 31) Study the whole chapter this month. You will make the effort to experience the strength of these old formulas, to see what magic power the distaff possesses. When you are in low spirits, you will do the following experiment: picture in your mind ten kilograms of wool; you will take a big cauldron and should picture yourself washing this wool little by little. You will wash it once, twice, three, four, five times until it is absolutely clean. Then you take one of the carders that the gypsies have and should start carding it. Keep carding it for about half an hour, and then make it into distaff-fuls. Then you place it in big carding machines and make it into big distaff-fuls. Take one of the already prepared distaff-fuls, put it on the distaff to start spinning. I would like you to describe to me what feelings you experience before you start spinning. You will prepare a detailed description similar to the one produced by a natural scientist while observing certain processes under a microscope. Pay attention what thought comes to mind after each distaff-ful. We have this formula about the carding and spinning of wool from Esotericism and for half an hour it will contribute much more than a pedagogue for a whole year. You will do this experiment with the wool at least four times a month. If one of you falls ill with the Spanish disease1, let her wash the wool while in bed. If these experiments yield results, they will be true and authentic. What we have invented and concocted cannot be experimented with. Do not let knowledge into you that cannot impart strength to you. When some thought comes to mind, dwell upon it, keep it for a day or two in your heads and if nothing comes out of it, then it is a futile thought. Do not retain desires and thoughts that contribute nothing. You should be spinning the spindle all the time, the thread should constantly run from above and thus you should spin two or three spindles. You should start running such a process in your mind. It does not take praying only - it takes work also. What does the word praying imply? Breathing is of significance provided your blood circulates. The moment the blood enters the lungs and gets purified – this is what praying stands for. If there is no blood in your lungs, what is the point of you taking in air and praying? And in order to pray, there must be air to purify the blood. Sometimes you pray but you do not know for what. You say, "God, bless us!" but you do not know in what you want to be blessed. You say, "Lord, please, let my situation improve!" Is your situation bad indeed? But you may say, "I want to be like other people”. Are you not like other people? Now in order to pray, food has to be chewed by your teeth, to get into your stomach, and the stomach will do its job – it will convert it into juices, which will penetrate your lungs and only then you can start praying. Only conscious people can pray. Some ask, "Why should we pray?" To get your blood, thoughts, and desires purified! If you do not pray voluntarily, then the Providence will set up conditions for you to pray. Even the toughest people pray: when sick they call the doctor and say, "Please, doctor, help me!" When the Lord places you in deprivation, you are fast to find your way to a creditor and pray the creditor. The Lord made it a law that one should pray. Some people say, "I do not want to pray to God." All right – choose somebody else, whoever takes your fancy. There are people who pray to their horses; they tell the horses, "Come on, gee, gee-up, horse!" You pray to your horse to help you drive your load. From a purely psychic point of view, praying is a necessary law. To pray to God – this is the right thing to do, this is like fresh air. If you do not pray, you will fall further down and down. All the environments that you will fall into are less pure. If you are not in the mood to pray, go down to your stomach and do some work there. When you do these experiments, you should not have selfish aspirations, but all of you have to start studying the Divine laws, the way you study subjects at school – natural sciences, Bulgarian language, and geometry and so on. Everybody who has come to the School has to verify what is true and what is not. This is not like newspapers; newspapers can announce that a city has fallen and within a day or two, they may announce that the city was recaptured etc. For example, newspapers announced that the Romanians2 had invaded the country and everybody was in low spirits. Last night there was an article saying the Romanians did not invade. Somebody comes to you and tells you that you are heading into trouble, and you start worrying – this is how the Romanian invades your head. You resemble that maid who dreamt that she got married and she had a child and then the child died. She got up in the morning and told her mother about her dream. Both of them were upset and started crying. You create many troubles in your mind by such fictional things. A woman says, "I heard that the sisters do not think well of me," – this is how the Romanians invade her head. Shortly she says, "No, I was wrong, they think well of me," – the Romanian leaves her head. Both are equally true. A priest may tell you that you are a heretic, but I tell you that you are not – the Romanians have invaded and left your head. When you enter a School, you have to have a critical mind, in order to examine things, to have an attitude to the Invisible world and to these laws. This is the only viable way to build a solid character. While now you expect everything to be granted to you. I want you to wash, card, and spin the wool yourselves. If you do not know how to spin and card, I will teach you. This is the only way for people to become noble and elevated. One has to work and to work and to work again! I do not say you have to labour, I say you have to work. Difficulties and labour I leave for the people, because these belong to the world. When you are gloomy and grieved, tell yourself, "I should get some work done!" Master’s lecture, delivered on 5 December 1918. ________________________________________________________ 1 The Spanish disease was how the virus flu was originally known. 2 The Romanians – referring to the military actions in the region of South Dobroudja during WW1. Source

He that winks He that winketh with the eye causeth sorrow: but a prating fool shall fall. Proverbs 10:10 This month I want you to read all of Solomon’s proverbs and to learn by heart the ones that impress you the most. I will tell you later on why you have to learn these by heart. Please note that out of all the human senses the eyesight is one of the most highly regarded. The eye responds to light and we get in touch with various objects through light. Certain vibrations in the air make the ear sensitive. With the sense of smell, it is again certain vibrations of air particles through which the smell is transmitted. But when it comes to taste and touch, we have to use purely physical means – touching with the tongue or feeling with the fingers. Hence, the eye is of significance purely to the mind. There are two instances in winking: the one when the eye is closing, and the other one when it is opening. The opening is the day – this is just one moment. When one closes one’s eyes, a period of twenty-four hours passes. It is exactly when you close your eyes when all the crime in the world takes place. All of you do this winking. When a bad thought enters you, you should wink. Somebody is in the wrong – so such a person often winks. A girl winks at a boy and a boy winks at a girl. This expresses an improper movement of the human mind. Winking indicates lowering down by one degree. The eyes of winking people get smaller, and people with small eyes are known to be cunning and wily. This is the impact of winking. Your mind will also degrade under the same principle. As soon as your eyes become smaller, your mind degrades too; all noble thoughts and feelings fade away. This shows that your world and mind get narrower and the knowledge you have also shrinks in scope. Solomon, who compiled these proverbs, says, "He that winks with the eye causes sorrow." To whom does he cause sorrow? To one’s soul. Because its windows are getting smaller and less Light penetrates, but it is Life that enters through the windows as well. If a Divine thought comes to you and you tell yourself, "Now is not the time," this indicates that you have winked. You are asked to do some work, but you say, "Now is not the time,'' – you have winked. You wink today, you wink tomorrow, you wink the day after tomorrow; you wink at a lad, at two lads, at three lads, and shortly after they might set out after you; this is already a scandal. If a maid is serious, nobody will be chasing her. There are many such lads in life; do not think they exist only on the physical level – some of them are in the heart and in the mind too. By a winking person, we understand a person who does not want to learn the Divine principles. We, Bulgarians, are in the habit of motioning agreement or disagreement with our head. When Bulgarians confirm something they move their heads downwards, and when they deny something, they move their heads upwards. You will notice that horses also move their heads like this. This movement is meaningful: when horses move their heads, they mean to say, "Master, the path you, your wife, and children have started along, will not take you to a good end." On the physical level, horses symbolise intelligence. If a horse moves his head when you pass by, this has the following meaning, "My friend, things will not take a better turn until you throw this thought out of your head." Correct your behaviour and go to see this horse again and you will see that the horse will no longer make movements with the head. When your mind makes movements like a pendulum of a clock, this indicates that you will hardly make any progress in your work. Make sure your mind does not make pendulum-like movements; it should keep in its place and should keep working. This is relevant to certain psychic situations: people, who are very nervous, keep winking. When one starts losing one’s spiritual equilibrium, one starts shaking one’s head, winking with one’s eyes, and shuffling one’s feet, but these movements are not right, they are like a whirl, which can only make dust. The principle of sorrow can be explained along the same lines. Somebody says, "I am sad." Fine, keep your eyes open! "But my soul finds it so difficult." Keep your eyes open! "My back aches." Bask in the Sun! Keep your mind vigilant and alert and open your eyes to God! You say, "Why should I be thinking of God of all things right now when I’m in such a plight?" With these words, you have closed your eyes. A maid falls in love with a lad and she closes her eyes to her mother, to her father, to everybody at home, and she can see only the lad. In the same way, we also close our eyes, our souls, and our hearts and start thinking of transient things only. Human beings have three types of eyes: one pair on the physical level, another pair for the soul, and a third pair for the mind. If you find this hard to believe, do an experiment: when you get up very tired in the morning, stop for a while and tell yourselves, "I shall not wink!" Channel your mind to God; start thinking of God, of everything nice, and of the angels. Allow yourselves not more than five to ten minutes to think about this and you will immediately recover the equilibrium of your soul. Well, now, how do you cure yourselves? – You get up in the morning, you feel tired, you place your rucksack on your back and start visiting and complaining to neighbours, "Do you know how heavy it is for me?" The other one replies, "Well, do you know what happened to me?" Afterwards, the two go together to a third neighbour and tell her of their difficulties. She, in turn, complains about her difficulties, and what can come out of it? Everybody carries his or her rucksacks. Not like this! You three sisters get together, take a seat each, make sure you face East, think for a short while, for about ten to fifteen minutes and your mind will immediately brighten up and a certain Light will penetrate it. At that moment even if the smallest thought comes to you, you should apply it. "But a prating fool shall fall." This Proverb has the symbols of the eyes and of the mouth. He, who winks, causes sorrow, and the prating fool is the one who has been winking for a long time. His mind, due to continual winking, has grown feeble, which is to say that he speaks about what should and should not be spoken. All contemporary people suffer from this. Your husband has done something, has said something offensive to you and you immediately start going from one house to another telling others what your husband is like. By repeating the same stuff, you dip in the same basket, "My husband is cruel, a vagabond, and I thought he was a decent man!" While the other one responds, "Yours is a blessing, you should know what mine is like!" Whose fault is it? Your husband has winked and you are trying to wink right now. Your husband has winked and you open your big mouth. The thing that corrupts the world most, that causes the worst sufferings, is exactly these non-harmonic non-beautiful images. For example, you speak to somebody, but that person makes wry faces to you. What is the meaning of this wry image? If you slip, you will fall. So, those who wink will burden their souls; while slipping is nothing else but falling. Say you fall from a bridge during a car accident – this is slipping. Falling always entails loss of equilibrium of the soul. During such falling the greatest misfortunes happen. Most important of all is to keep your mind vigilant and alert. Another important rule is to think carefully about what it is that you want to say. Consider whether what you want to say will be of benefit to you or to somebody else. If what you will say will not be of benefit to anyone, then keep your mouth busy doing something else. The mouth is not a drainpipe. The mouth should give vent to all things supreme and pure, to everything that can ennoble people. However, the bad words coming at times out of your mouth should be channelled in another direction, designated especially for refuse. I will show this principle to you, to make it clear what effect a physical thought has: if you do not keep your thoughts open, i.e. if you do not control your thoughts, these impurities will spill out of your mouth and it will not be long before you also suffer and you will have to have an enema administered. You say about somebody that he or she is constipated. I say, that person must have winked, that person has not watched his or her tongue. Each thought has a physiological impact upon us; therefore, your mouth should only let pure things out. Otherwise, you will have to call the doctor. You need no doctors, what you need is to find the reason for each disease. You will say, "I have made my mouth into a drain-pipe and I have to clean it!" Everyone has made his or her mouth like a drainpipe and want to live happily. Your mouth should be like a fresh water tap. If you are constipated, you are not into science. The intestines and the stomach should be free. Later on, I shall talk to you about the relation between the head and the stomach. There is a very close relation between the soul and the spirit in the body. Bear in mind that the stomach is the head of the soul. The stomach is male. There is a close relation between this man and the head; they get along very well, as they are men. The lungs are the wives of the mind, and the heart is their child. The stomach also has a wife and a child. I only want to bring to your attention the fact that each thought, passing through you, will have a certain impact upon your organism and this impact will manifest itself either now or in a later life of yours. If you do not correct your thoughts now, they will remain like this for a thousand years to come. Some may say, "By blessing I am saved." How? When you fall into the water and when I take you out, you may be saved by blessing, but after getting out of the water, you will have to get down to work. I dwell on the quoted line, because I know that you deal one another many blows with your mouths. Do you know that the human mouth is one of fastest shooting weapons; an awful gun it is. So far, it has been under somebody else’s control, and we have to free it. A person, who cannot think well, beats one’s head against the wall. I put people into two groups according to the shape of their heads: some have sensible heads; others have heads like gourds. If your head is gourd-like, you have no chance of succeeding. You have to make your mind work - to do the work it has to. I do not want you to lose heart and not to work. When you find out a certain mistake, be sure it was planted from outside; it is not a feature of the soul. You have a rucksack on your back – this is not an intrinsic feature of yours, do not think that you were born with the rucksack. A bad thought has entered you; it is not yours, get rid of it. When I tell you that there is a bad thought in you, I mean no offence to you, but I want to make you complete internally. The very thought, while residing in you, will offend you. In order for these thoughts to settle, you have to find thoughts opposite to them. Do not wink, but keep your thoughts open. It does not matter who will come to you, let anybody come, what matters, however, is not to wink at that person. Because Christ says, "Whoever enters through the fence are thieves and rogues." Each thought should enter through your eyes and mind. Each thought coming through your heart is a rogue. Such a thought should not disturb you, but such a thought should be kept outside the fence. There are three compartments within the human being. There are three compartments in the Orthodox Church as well, which have been determined for thousands of years. These show the human development. The first compartment is for the guests, the other one – for the believers, and the third one for the priest, who officiates and who understands how to serve God. The Priest is the Teacher. The altar is the Teacher’s place, from which the Teacher goes out, places fire and incense in the censer and burns it. If contemporary priests wink, why should they do this, why should they burn incense? They do not know why. I know why they do. You also often do this: you place incense in the censers and you start chasing the devil. Devils are not chased away with incense; incense is merely a disinfectant. Burning incense shows that your heart should be equally warm. Nice thoughts should stream out of your hearts to refresh the atmosphere, where you live. If you burn incense in this way, you understand the symbol of incense very well. But if you carry your book under your arm without reading it, it will be of no use to you. This is why God has given you eyes, which are the windows of the soul. Hence, all the time when there is light, we should keep our eyes open and should receive as much light as we need. Sometimes you say, "It’s very light," other times you say, "It’s dark." Well then, open your eyes wider! There are people who travel at night and it is dark for them, but in the evenings, there is also light. Only that it takes more sensitive organs to receive it. This is the light used by clairvoyants. True clairvoyants see better at night than in daytime, but they do not wink. They keep their eyes open. You should always keep in mind that your eyes should be open! Some people are said to have "died with their eyes open" and people hurry to close the eyes of the departed person. Now all teachers and priest do their best to close the eyes of the people. Open the eyes of the people! For example, somebody is parading in life, and you tell such a person, "And you believe that you will become a Christian! You are too late; we have learnt so many things already!" This is what I call closing of one’s eyes. What do you know?! This should not be done, never, never! Tell this brother of yours, "My brother, you’ve done very well, you have started all right!" It is not important when he arrives. When I go out for a walk, I walk slowly, I examine carefully all the bugs, everything I meet on my way, and finally I get there. There is no need to hurry, in order to get sooner to Cherni Vrah1. When you set off to Cherni Vrah, pay attention to the springs on your way, watch what bugs, what butterflies there are; and if your mind is continually vigilant, you will see how God works. I would like all of you to open your eyes in this way. You ask, "What shall we do to save ourselves? How can we save our souls?" Everybody who does not wink is saved, and those who do wink, they are drowning. Therefore, do not discourage anybody. Now, looking at your faces, I can see that they appear to be strict, but they are not strict because of real seriousness, but because of sorrow for the wasted youth. You keep saying, "There was a time when I was young and beautiful!" You are not old; do not fool yourselves! The thoughts you have within, the thoughts are old, your clothes are old, but your soul is always young. When your body gets old, it is no longer capable of transmitting your thoughts and God tells the angels "Go, undress this child of mine, whose clothes are quite impure and cannot be washed!" I say, "My brother, they will undress you." Or put in your language, you have to depart and to come back again. When I speak about open eyes, I want you to keep your physical body always clean. I will tell you what influence good thoughts have upon your physical body. A saint, who has lived a pure life for a long time, has a specific pleasant smell, a sort of very nice internal fragrance, called nux. When you are in a very fine spiritual condition, when you have been thinking about something, you can feel such a fine fragrance that belongs to a supreme spirit, which has visited you. Take fasting for example, during fasting one can have such thoughts and can see such things, which other people cannot. There are religious people who pray a lot, but see nothing, they only think of how to save themselves. Dispose of such thoughts! There are sufferings in the other world, but there are worse sufferings in this world. When you commit a crime, you feel a great hell burning within. Everybody has experienced this hell within one’s soul, why should you be looking for another hell? The other hell is a toy. This one, the internal one, is formidable and then you say, "This worm will not stop gnawing; there is no end to it!" It is like a tapeworm, against which you take medicines, you throw it out, but its head remains. You say, "How did this tapeworm get in?" Because your eyes were closed. An impure spirit got into this tapeworm, which constantly sucks from you. This tapeworm will get out on its own accord if you learn how to keep your eyes open, and your mouth under control. You can train your will in such a way that you will get rid of the tapeworm within one minute. So now, we, contemporary people, who can cure ourselves on our own, need no doctor. You have to strengthen yourselves! In order to find out whether you have strong thoughts or not, you have to do the following: you suffer from rheumatism, which no medicines can cure; find out first what food rheumatism needs and after this, start moving the rheumatism with the strength of your will from one place to another place in your body. The moment it starts moving from one place to another, you should tell the rheumatism, "Mister, you have entered my organism, when my eyes were closed, but now, please, make your way to the back door!" And we have many back doors. When someone gets a cold, doctors prescribe aspirin, which causes people to sweat. The pores, through which sweat goes out, are the back doors. I do not say that you have to sweat, but I say that one thought allowed to enter your physical body, has to leave the body through these pores. The pores sacrifice themselves for our eyes and say, "We are ready to serve our master." Through them, all impurities go out. When one makes a mistake in the moral world, one feels the dregs settling. Do not dispose of this sorrow, but have the courage to study the cause of it. Some say, "I want to be a saint!" If you want to be a saint, start along the Path where saints have walked. But your backbone starts aching, so you promptly find your way to me. Pain, sorrow, and sufferings are necessary; don't be sorry about it, but find a way to utilise them. The devil has entered you, but we shall not throw the devil out, we shall make the devil work for us and we shall tell the devil, "We have worked for you for eight thousand years, it is now your turn to work for us for so many years!" Devils are intelligent creatures and because of this, we have to make devils get down to work. The main exercise for you this month is the following: strengthening of the will. Not the will we have, but the wise will, the Divine will. While developing your will, your thoughts should be strictly defined. You should not be dwelling on two thoughts simultaneously. You will first understand one thought; you will first do one job, and only then should you move to another. Everything within you is linked in a chain. I shall clarify what I mean – we follow a Divine plan and each one has different work to do. Let’s assume that one of you is a weaver, another one is a clerk, a third one – a vineyard farmer etc. Tradesmen will apply their thoughts in trade, weavers – in the weaving business, farmers – in farming; altogether everybody in his or her individual callings. Weavers will weave hard and steady; their yarn should be strong, the thread should also be strong, not irregular. Because each thought is actually spun from the thoughts and desires dwelling in your minds. This is how the entire thought is formed. This thread should be strong and made according to all rules. This thread, thus spun, will penetrate your Will in the form of a Force, because human will, must always be applied in the material world. We shall encounter obstacles and challenges where we want to apply our thoughts. Such a world is a puzzle for us. For example, you marry a man and you want to be happy, but the two of you can’t agree. Whose mistake is it? Something is missing in the man, but something is missing in you too. Both of you have entered with eyes closed. If his head is slanted or flat at the back, if his eyes are rather small, and his lips are very thin, what do you expect from such a man? This shows you are not meant for each other. Well, what else can you do then? To make your lips fuller, to develop your heart! In order to develop your heart, you have to put your will into action. Phrenologists argue that contemporary people have forty-one doors through which they receive visitors. You try one of the doors – no entry, try another door and you will finally find the door, which will let you in. So, there are many ways to influence people. Even children are aware of this principle and please note that when children want something, they start with these words, "Mummy, give me this!" – No way! The child starts caressing and kissing you and finally you agree. The child has opened one of your doors and has entered. These are smart children and thus children apply their will. But you may say, "I do not want to be a hypocrite." You have no choice, you will caress, you will fondle and you will indulge this man! His hand is soiled – you will wash it, you will bandage it too. You have to study the human soul; this is not an easy art to study. I mean the relations between healthy people, but if the two of you are sick, then you will ask a person close to you to help you. Sometimes a child is born – the child will cure the father and the mother. Each individual member can save the whole family. Open your eyes to God! You will remember that there is no Creature brighter, kinder, more sensitive, and more responsive than God is. No angel, cherubim, seraphim can be compared to God. Some say, "Do you think God will have time for me?" By not having faith in God, you cause Him suffering. Philosophers say, "Do you think God will have time to spare for you? You are nothing more than a low pigmy!" Remember that God spares time for the smallest creatures in the ocean; he can hear even them! Don’t you believe He will hear you? And what you, the people of the 20th century, do is keep your eyes closed and deprive yourselves of the Divine Light. If we live in a cellar for decades on end, we will have many diseases. I assert this is true not only for the physical level, but also for the Spiritual world, where the same causes are at work. We pray to God, but we wouldn’t get out of our cellars. The first thing for you to do is to open your eyes to God! Well, you may say, "I do not know what God is." This is not important. I may not know the elements of the Sun, but I bask my back in the Sun and I enjoy the sunrays. While educated people say, "Do not enjoy the sunrays, as you do not know what they are!" A person having started on the way to God, no matter how little one thinks of Him, is a saved person, no matter how bad such a human being may be. Remember that no human being can perish in the Teaching I preach to you. Even if you lose your hands, your legs, your eyes, your ears whatever, you won’t perish. You say that someone was "ordered to leave". It is all right a person is ordered to leave the school for a year or two, but later on, they will admit the same person again to study with them. Those who disturb the others are ordered to leave. If you do not follow what you are taught, you will be ordered to leave, so that others, who want to listen and follow, can come. Now, from a spiritual point of view, I often hear you beat the desks. Science is not learnt like this. Beating the desks at school is of no help. Those of you, who have will, should not practice it on the desks, but on their rheumatism or when one has a stomach-ache. Embrace pure thoughts and you will find out what strength pure influence has. If you make progress of one hundred millionth of the millimetre, this is a success. Do not think that by starting with this Teaching you will accomplish a lot. I will consider it a great success if you make progress of only one hundred millionth of the millimetre. This is a kind of progress too. Knowledge progresses uninterruptedly in the entire Eternity. This is the speed I progress at; do not lose heart! Any scientist, who wants to observe life, progresses slowly. But you want to finish quickly and to say afterwards, "I am fit for professorship." This one hundred millionth part of the millimetre is an eternal and accurate measure. I will present to you a figure: imagine the projection of the centre of infinity and assume that it has to make a complete circle for 24 hours. Do you know what speed it will need to be able to travel one hundred millionth part of the kilometre? It moves so slowly here, but the speed it develops travelling above is very high. Movement is very slow at the centre, but it is very fast above. If the matter of your heart starts moving at such a speed, your heart and mind would melt. Therefore, we have to move warily down here, so that the movement above can be harmonic. Do not lose heart! In order to be able to practice your will, you should always replace one unpleasant state with another pleasant one. I will give you a method to strengthen your will; for example, you experience a very unpleasant feeling and you can’t get rid of it. Stand up, spare an hour and go visit a family, which is in a much worse situation than yours. Do not say, "I am at my wit’s end and do not know which way to turn, why should I go visit other people?" Go to a family that has neither fire-wood, nor bread, has nothing at all, stay for about ten to fifteen minutes and see if there are any protests in there. Come back home and compare their situation with yours. I want you to build up your edifice. Implement whatever noble thought comes to your mind. You will not implement it by the book, but by the way your heart tells you to. You will implement it, not because you have to, but by following the principle of the Divine Will. You may say, "Well, first, I will repair my home." Look, aren’t all people homes of God? If we manage to help one person, it will all go to the home of God! Do not trespass the law of your father and mother, let your will be in agreement with theirs and you will be saved. Do not go to excess in strengthening your will. It is enough if you do an infinitesimal job every day. For example, it would be enough, indeed, if you give somebody a glass of water. You may say, "Well, so small a job!", This is also something accomplished after all. Another rule: do not go visit various houses and families, when you are very sad or aggrieved, in order to relieve yourselves. Do not take your rubbish to the people close to you. This is not scientific. This is not the way to relieve oneself! Thus, you will go there in order to take advantage of them, but unwittingly, you will allow others to take advantage of you. If you visit other houses to relieve yourselves, to leave your rubbish there, everybody will get to know about this and nobody will let you in. I want all of you to be clean, not to have anything under your nails. Clean your clothes, wash your hands, and then you can go to God! Because the very thought to be clean, is a will, the very thought to go to God clean, influences your mind. If you are not clean, take off your clothes, wash your hands and go to God, go and pray! Students who are not clean are not admitted. This is not to say that you should be pedantic and scrutinise other people whether they are clean or not. Everybody should see for oneself. Those, who pay attention to other people’s impurities, become corrupted. So, we shall start moving from the physical to the Spiritual. I like secular people because they go down very well; they pay attention to physical cleanliness. It takes just a step for them to enter God’s Kingdom. If they possess this art – physical purity, they will move on to spiritual purity. These things are useful to create a favourable atmosphere for the human thought. The impurities set up a sort of unpleasant atmosphere, where students get demagnetised. It takes Purity to get the mind working; it takes a clear night to be able to see the sky. When Christ says that those pure at heart will see God, He points out that Purity is a necessary condition for seeing. So, you will look upon Purity as a condition for the strengthening of your will. This can only be acquired through studentship. This is a religion! The goal of religion is to cultivate the heart, but we should not stop there. God should be revered in Spirit, in Truth, and in understanding. We have to know how to manage the strengths that God has given us. There is a sort of constipation in the soul and in the heart, which has to be used wisely. You say about something, "Let's have it like an ox on a lead." You can’t do this! What does lead mean? The lead is a principle, which can rule the thoughts of your soul, mind, and heart. Do not pay attention whether you are in the mood or not. Read a little bit today, and when the day is gone try to understand what you have learnt. Put this down in a notebook. So far, you have lived a promiscuous life at random: you get up in the morning and until noon you are in the kitchen, in the afternoon, you again have various chores to do here and there and in the evening, you go to bed tired. You think the following day has the same promise for you and you ask, ''When shall we get free?" You will not get free, because you acquire knowledge while working; you strengthen your will in these difficulties. Do not judge others; leave them to their mistakes, but the stronger should help the weaker. There is no better prayer than the one to help your brother. God, to whom you pray, is wise and says, ''Listen, don’t go against your conscience before Me, go out and get this job done!" But you will say, "God, I am not in good humour." You are not in good humour, because you have placed a bigger burden upon your shoulders than you can carry. This is as if a child has taken an algebra book and peruses it, though the child can only do the sums. The situation is similar to your thoughts: sometimes you have very nice thoughts and feelings and you say, "I’m in a very good mood." This mood you have from a friend of yours who visited you and treated you. Do not fool yourselves about these treats, because tomorrow you will be left without any treats. The important thing for you is to work and to remember that every day you should perform a job necessary for you. The heart should beat neat, the soul – fresh, the mind – alert, and the spirit – strong! Help one another during this month. Do not scare each other that the Master said this or that. I have said everything on the spot, but you interpret things in the wrong way. Those who study are always ahead, while those who do not, always lag behind. Many human souls have risen so high that they have reached the angels; however, there are also many angels, who have fallen. Keep in mind that you have all the possibilities to study and if you do not study, this is a sin to your soul. You should not say that you have grown old. Only the devil is old. Keep in mind that you are young for this Divine knowledge and apply your will in the knowledge! Some are rich; others are poor. Poverty is work; wealth is a rest. Look here; there is a good poverty and there is a bad poverty, i.e. bad work and good work. Work is good when you know how to do the job, while it is bad when you do not know how to do the job. Similarly, there is a bad wealth, and there is a good wealth. But at some other time these conditions will change roles. Today you are poor, you should say, "Thank God, I have a job," and start working. Tomorrow you are rich, you should say, "Today I will take a rest." Now I say we will move the world by one hundred millionth part of the millimetre, but all of us have to work together. When I tell you to transform hatred into love, you find it incredible, but hatred can always be taken out, because it is within us. How can it be taken out? If you want to purify water, leave it to settle or put some alum in it, so it can clarify. Bear in mind that you are in a School and you will follow the lessons taught. Those who listen to me, but do not follow, do you know what they look like? It is as if these people are taken around an inn and allowed only to smell the dishes and then asked to leave the place, while these people, are very hungry at that. Smelling will not sustain you through life. In the same way by a lot of smelling they only serve Christianity and say, "It is excellent, it is delicious!" Those of you who want to enter Christianity through knowledge, should understand that you can be saved, can be cured, can be dressed, but knowledge cannot be imparted by blessing. This is human. Paul says, "Partly we know, party we study." It’s not only thinking that counts. To think is a duty of yours. Praying indicates that you have to pay back your debt. You say, "I breathe." You must breathe; this is not a job for your spirit. Knowledge originated from the Freedom of the human spirit, from the understanding of the Divine Will. I want you to be free, to reason; your mood is not of importance. Teachers cannot give marks to students by blessing; if the students do not study, they cannot be given excellent marks. The excellent mark must be within you. I have no excellent marks, I give nothing by blessing; excellent marks I give only to those who know how to work. What is the meaning of the excellent mark? This is a matter of progress, of development. When I give you one grade above excellent, this is a matter of perfection. You want to start with great deeds, but you have to go back. When Christ came from the other world, God sent him into the lowest position, to school. He studied for thirty-three years, although he came from most noble roots, he humiliated himself, he was diligent, he got into carpentry and made chairs. He made chairs for you, who now argue about chairs all the time. Chairs symbolise a certain position, which a human being has to have in the world. Both at home and outside – people argue all the time about chairs. Christ studied the art of making chairs, so that you feel comfortable when you sit in one of them. Christ also wanted to save people. What does this mean? He taught them to eat healthy food. You have to feed your soul with healthy food, your mind – with healthy thoughts, and your heart – with healthy feelings. Master’s lecture, delivered on 7 November 1918 ___________________________________________ 1 The summit of the Vitosha mountain near Sofia, 2 290 m. Source

Those Who are Called Upon “But they all with one accord began to make excuses” (Luke 14:18-20, New King James Version – NKJV)”. As you read the 14th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, there you would only find parts from a very long lecture, in which Christ had elaborated on common principles that are applicable to the whole of humanity. The parable underlines the fact that a person arranged for a grand dinner and invited many people and the ones who were invited to the dinner are also being described in those verses. The words “invitation” and “culture” have something in common. On one hand, the word “culture” represents the material and spiritual achievements of a nation. On the other hand, every newly-introduced idea or manifestation is also a representation of a new type of a culture. Moreover, every transformation from one state of mind to another state of mind represents a brand new type of a culture as well. The word “invitation” implies a personal journey from one state of common understanding and interpretation of life to a new, advanced state of consciousness. And indeed, in order to be invited to the grand dinner, we have to leave our everyday life behind and enter a new festive disposition. One may ask what is the relationship between the three people who refused to join the dinner. The first one refused under the pretext that they needed to take care of their land; the second one refused under the pretext that the five pairs of oxen they bought need their attention while the third one mentioned their spouse as an excuse. Those three archetypes of people, who rejected the dinner invitation, are three categories of human beings who are unwilling to accept the New Culture. The first category of people gives up because they need to take care of their land; the second category refuses because they wish to work with their oxen, while the third category rejects the invitation because they have already married. Those three categories of people who have denied the Christ culture can be likened to the seed that has fallen onto barren ground. The first category of people are the seed that fell on the road; the second category depicts the seed, which fell between the thorns and the third - the seed that fell on a stone. Christ offered a new path and a new culture to many people, thereby inviting them to a new way of life, but they all refused to join forces with Him. They preferred to work on their land, to conquer more land and to expand their borders. The Jews were that first category of people who refused the invitation under the pretense of the need to cultivate their fields. They said to Christ: "We disagree with your heretical doctrine." Next, they crucified Him. Christ demonstrated the new approach to life to the Latin race as well, but it nevertheless chose to deal with “the five pairs of oxen” instead and also declined to join the new culture. After all, the Latin race created the so-called Holy Inquisition, supposedly in the name of Christ! History bears witness to the fact that around fifty million people have been tortured by the very same inquisition. The third category of people are the modern day ones, who marry and completely give up on the acceptance of the new culture and the new way of life. They reason as follows: "Why do we need a new culture, a new life? As long as there is something for us to eat and drink, we shall eat, drink and rejoice with our spouses and our children", but this is by no means a sound philosophy. That is what king Solomon, who had three hundred women and six hundred concubines, was affirming as well. Having tried all the earthly pleasures, Solomon concluded: "… and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 1:14, NKJV). Today both the believers and the non-believers quote the thought once expressed by king Solomon, thus having in mind both the physical and spiritual life, but this assumption is a misconception. Solomon drew his conclusions after he had tried all the transient earthly pleasures. If you draw the same conclusions, could you possibly confirm that you have also, just like Solomon, personally experienced the vanity of all earthly pleasures? If you have not experienced them, you then have no right to speak like Solomon did and if you draw your own life’s conclusions from your personal life’s misdemeanors, then your understanding of the ubiquitous Life is without any solid grounds. What is symbolized by the “fields” and “land” that are being cultivated by the first category of people? The answer is - the human body. The young woman marvels at her own beauty in the mirror several times a day and being happy with her own self, she doesn’t want to marry. Why? She does not desire to become a mother, to give birth to children – she prefers to marvel at her own beauty instead. The young man, on the other hand, roams freely in the streets with his fashionable walking stick and also doesn’t want to marry and become a father, because that would limit his freedom. That is the type of choice, which is made by those who choose to “cultivate their own fields” only, regardless of whether they are young or old, but then again, the old grandma nevertheless says that the young people are just acting foolishly. It's not foolish what young people do - not all young people are reckless and not all elderly people are wise. Are the small streams murky when they have just left the spring? Initially, all the small streams are clean, but as they move ahead and pass through the earthly layers, they collect sludge that makes them impure. Therefore, all young people, just like the rivers, are clear and clean at the beginning of their lives. As people move on with their lives, they gather different impurities and get old. Old age is not a bad thing – it implies a progressive forward movement. However, what could be possibly expected from those young people who dress and undress themselves several times a day and put their shoes on to only take them off immediately in order to try on any newer and more modern shoes? – The answer is that nothing can be expected from such people. They are standing in front of a mirror, just looking at themselves and if they are to be invited to Christ’s dinner, they would certainly refuse. Why would they refuse? – because they are working on their own “land”; they are “cultivating their own fields”. Then, these people would pass themselves for nationalists, patriots and servants to their respective countries. Do not trust such people, as they only think about their own new clothes and shoes, houses and properties. Such fake patriots are to be seen today in all countries all over the world. They speak about the splendor of their homeland, but, in fact, they work to their own personal benefit only. The second category of people are those who refused the dinner in order to enjoy “the five pairs of oxen”. The five pairs of oxen symbolize the five human senses. This second category of people represents those who enjoy the earthly pleasures. Life is a give and take for them and they would inevitably choose money as their highest priority. Their main life goal is money. And they say, as the Bulgarian writer Slaveykov put it in one of his poems: "Oh money, money, my all-powerful queen; Without you I’m in hell and with you in my pocket I reside in paradise." This second category of people acts as they please and wherever you may go - in a tavern, in a theater or to a concert, such people are invariably in the very first row. Where there are bountiful pleasures and fun, they are always prominently seated. The desire to fully utilize those “five pairs of oxen” – that is all they can perceive through their five senses. If you tell them something about Christ's doctrine, about the new, upcoming culture, they will answer: "This is unimportant now – in today’s world the “five pairs of oxen” are important." In their opinion, the one who goes beyond the five senses and appreciates life in a different way, is a stupid, loony and uncultured man. You see this type of people in all the cafes and beer gardens, with full glasses in front of them, their legs crossed and telling each other stories about the meaning of life. Where is the meaning of life to be found - in “the cultivation of the fields” or in the work with “the five pairs of oxen”? You can try these belief-systems - I do not mind those who work on “the land” or trade with their “five pairs of oxen”, but I say that whoever sacrifices their higher consciousness for the sake of their lower instincts, does not understand the meaning of real life. Everyone needs to ask themselves what their life purpose is. As the child grows, it becomes interested in its own physical growth. It constantly measures its height, compares it to that of other children in order to see how much it has developed. The little girl, for example, wants to be as mature as her mother, to have her mother’s black, long hair and her mother’s eyebrows, which are black and curved like a rainbow and also to have her mother’s red and slightly plump lips. All those desires are achievable and the young girl would eventually become a beautiful slender lady, who would enjoy her own beauty and the others around her would enjoy her good looks as well. Typically, the young boy would want to become like his father, to have the same mustache and beard and to become strong and powerful. As the boy grows up, he eventually becomes a handsome young man who starts paying attention to the young ladies around him. However, the day comes when both the young man and the young woman lose their youth, their hairs turn grey until finally the old age settles in and then their backs become hunched and so they say to the young people: "Dear children, our life is over. Vanity… everything is vanity." These are the people who have tried their “five pairs of oxen”. They are the ones who revolve around their five senses only. And then I ask these people: “Did you try to plow the soil with the five pairs of oxen?” – and they answer: "Yes, we tried, we plowed along with them", to which I respond: "As long as you've done it already, you should know that there is a life’s purpose higher than just plowing along and you should strive to attain it. Next, I am now moving on to the third category of people, to those who think only of themselves and want to be in possession of a high social standing. If you tell them about the doctrine of Christ, they would immediately ask you what this doctrine has to do with their social status. They are already “married” to their social and professional ranks and would just say: “What do the teachings of the Christ have in common with our family? Just leave us alone!" For two thousand years, Christ has been inviting all people and all nations to the grand dinner in order to explain to them the principles of the Great Divine Life, but they still keep on rejecting His invitation. What could they expect from their own refusal? What happened with the Jews? Where did the great Roman Empire go? Likewise, the modern society of nowadays is going through a major crisis as well. As of recently, has it become evident that the salvation of humanity lies in the unification of all people who need to live as brothers among themselves. Only now, does it begin to dawn upon people that the humankind does not live on the Earth only and humans start to perceive their lives in the same way they perceive plant life for example – there is the life of the roots, which is the low, material life and there is also the life of the branches, which has a higher spiritual purpose. Earthly life gravitates towards the center of the Earth, while the spiritual life aims towards the center of the Sun. The Earth inhabitants, who live in the “roots of life”, have one type of life interpretation, while the inhabitants of the spiritual world, who live in “the branches” of the Tree of Life, have totally different notions. However, life in itself is not limited to the roots or branches only. There is more types of life – the life of the blossoms and the life of the fruits, for example. When you come to understand and live the life of the fruits, then the process of maturing would have already started for you. Christ spoke to his disciples in parables to explain to them the reasons why people could not yet enter the Kingdom of God. The reasons lie in the fact that people's attention is attracted to “their fields”, “their oxen” and to the high-flying positions they occupy in society. Let the “fields”, the “oxen” and the societal positions all exist and thrive, but the human beings still fail to envisage how they may enter the Kingdom of God, while they are willing to do so only in the presence of their “land”, their “oxen” and their occupations. How would one visit a friend who lives a few miles away? One would harness the horse-wagon and would make their way. Then, when they get to their friend's house, they'll stop the horse-wagon and will be greeted by their friends. Next, the visitors would bring the car into the yard, send the horses into the barn, then they would enter the house, shall remove their coats and only afterwards would they enter the guest room. The traveler’s horse, wagon and luggage in this example represent both the “land” and the “oxen” that prevent one from entering into the Kingdom of God. The coat worn by the visitor represents the temporary professional and social responsibilities one has momentarily assumed during their life on Earth. One should leave their social and professional occupations behind and would only then enter the “guest room”, i.e. enter the Kingdom of God. Don’t the court judges also do the same? When the judges preside over the court, they put on an official robe. After reading the verdict, the judges take off their official robes and remain with their ordinary garments to live and interact as any other ordinary people. For example, while on the battlefield, soldiers instill fear into their enemies, but once they lay down their rifles and bayonets, they become ordinary people. Do you think that this way of living could be described as a culture of a higher rank and purpose? When people pass away, they leave their “fields”, “oxen”, wives and children behind and go on to live in the invisible world on their own only. What happens to their earthly culture? - Everything that has made them cultured, civilized and extraordinary on Earth remains buried in the ground and one leaves the Earth the very same way they entered it. What remained of the Jewish culture when they lost their land and became Egyptian slaves? One may say that the Egyptians were cruel and were killing the Jewish babies. Don’t people do the same today? Doesn’t everyone do the same thing? One kills the noble and Divine within oneself and then pretends to be a cultured, civilized person. To kill the Divine within oneself means to be killing the children of God. How about those who refuse Christ’s invitation? Are they ready for the new culture? - No, they are not. “Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind” (Luke 14:21, NKJV). These newly-summoned people did actually accept the invitation and therefore they have become the bearers of the future, new culture. What are the character traits of those represented by the so-called “maimed” guests - those are the ones who do not steal and do not abuse that which belongs to others. Which are the ones who are “halt”? – those who do not commit crimes. Who are “blind”? – those who have no greed. Every greedy person eagerly strives for money and considers them a necessary unit of exchange, but fails to appreciate the Kingdom of God, which brings the only true wealth. Money and coal, for example, have exactly the same value and meaning in the Kingdom of God. Indeed, money are only of value in the Kingdom of God when they serve a noble cause. On the other hand, the one whose hands are tied against committing any evil crime, has a heart, which is free and open to Love. Such a person is denoted by the term “mailmed” in the above verses. Furthermore, whoever has no envy and does no evil, is depicted as the “halt”. “Then the master told his servant: ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. 24 I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet” (Luke 14:23-24, NKJV). Who are the ones who were called upon – those are the poor and the maimed, the halt and the blind. They are the ones who accepted the invitation. Outwardly, they may look ugly and unrefined, but a day will come when they too will show their beauty and strength in terms of good deeds and great feats. People would love them for their deeds the way they nowadays love the rich for their money. It is better to be loved for one’s deeds rather than only for one’s money and outer beauty. Which is better? - to be outwardly beautiful as the sunlight, which illuminates everything during the day and disappears at night or to be inwardly beautiful and illuminated by the Divine Light? The first type of beauty is what we call physical beauty and the second type of beauty we call beauty of the human soul. The first type of beauty is manifested during the day, when even without it, it is anyway bright everywhere around us; the second type of beauty shows its face in the evening and illuminates the path of those who suffer and are tormented; it shows the path to the oppressed and those who have lost their way. So that is why it is said that the beautiful things grow in darkness. The biblical king David said: "Hide me under your wings (Psalm 91 Prayer)." The Bulgarians who believe in witchcraft do not allow the young and beautiful girls to go out during the day in order to protect them against any possible evil spells being cast upon them. What are those evil spells? – those are the unsavory human thoughts and desires. Such thoughts and desires contain an evil force of great magnitude. In some cases, such thoughts and desires are more terrifying than the weapons of war, as, for example, a book of a writer, full of distorted thoughts and feelings brings poison into the minds and hearts of many generations, since the war cannons are temporarily dangerous only, while the war is still ongoing. Christianity comes to save mankind from the bad and distorted thoughts and desires that have been in the minds of men for thousands of years. One may say that Christianity is a new teaching, which is only two thousand years old. This is definitely not a new teaching. It has been around through three different eras: the first era dates back to the creation of the First Man in the image and likeness of God. This Man is still living in paradise today. The second epoch stretches from the time of the second man, who was made of earth and was cast away from Paradise for his disobedience. The third era is the time of the present humankind, when man left paradise at one’s own accord and was dressed in leather. This is the modern day man who affirms to believe in Christianity. The contemporary people have a very limited understanding of Christianity. The attitude of some believers to Christianity is the same as the attitude of the illiterate towards an expensive, well-bound book. The illiterate examines the book and its binding, checks what kind of cover it has, where it is made, what the name of the publisher is and so on. After doing the research, the illiterate tells their acquaintances that this is a good and well-bound book. Such observations are important, but above all, one should be able to read and understand the book’s content and make use of it. Christianity is a valuable and useful book that a person may benefit from, only when it is opened and read. In this “book of Christianity” everyone would find the methods and laws to live by for the sake of harmony and peace. If this book remains closed though, then it does not make any sense. It is the same as if the doctor has a valuable medicine that gives life to people without dispensing it to those who need it. Another example would be to examine the bottle containing the medicine from outside only, to turn it up and down, but not to open it. Alternatively, if the bottle is broken, then the medicine would be lost. What is the benefit of the book and the bottle when they cannot be utilized? No matter how good they might be looking on the outside, they would not contribute anything whatsoever to one’s improvement. There is another book more valuable than the ones that a person could visually inspect and this “book” is the human soul, as it contains all the secrets concerning the Divine Life, from the moment this world was created to the moment humans shall reunite with God. When something is mentioned about the human soul, many people are asking themselves, if the soul really exists or not, while very few people tend to open and read the "book“ of the soul. A famous Greek philosopher once said: "Know thyself." This thought reflects the doctrine of the soul and for human beings to be able to recognize their own Divinity, they need to open the books of their souls and read from them in order to discover Life’s secrets. The Holy Bible contains less mysteries than what God has imprinted within the human soul. One needs to examine the contents of the soul to find out how all living beings and all angels have lived before us. That is the only way all the existential questions would be given a satisfactory and truthful answer. Is it possible for the humans to get in touch with the angelic hierarchies? It is possible indeed, since I do it everyday. You may say it's impossible, but if you try it yourself, you will discover that it is all quite achievable and possible. Quite many angels are knocking on the door of our hearts at present, but people prefer not to let them in and say: “Leave me alone!”. Some people refuse to accept the angels’ bliss under the pretense of “cultivating their fields”, others are trying their “five pairs of oxen” and the third group are the ones who are going to “marry” to society’s norms. King Solomon, for example, had offered shelter and convenient life to around 900 hundred women in his palace, but this fact, despite the sheer numbers, cannot represent a true marriage in the name of the Holy Spirit. The modern day man leaves his wife and then marries a divorced woman and the same is what women tend to do as well. And after all this, such people are categorized as civilized and cultured?!? What is the culture in the lives of the divorced men and women? - to divorce yourself from the spouse with whom God has united you and to connect oneself with a complete stranger speaks of no true culture. When people encounter difficulties, they say life is a struggle, so they need to fight on in order to survive. It makes sense for the lamb to resist the wolf, but what is the point of two sisters or two brothers fighting each other in the home of their Father? The fighting among people who are serving different deities may make sense, but should they fight when they serve the one and only God? The master of the house, about whom the Christ speaks, invited many people to a dinner, but they all rejected the invitation. This means that these people are not yet ready for the arrival of the new culture. They deal with transient things that divert their attention from the real purpose of Life. To illustrate, the larva is allowed to deal with its body for forty days only. It then gives up such activities and assumes the shape and form of a cocoon. Next, it gives up the cocoon’s way of life and ultimately turns into a butterfly. The body to which people pay such great deal of superficial attention is not the most essential or the most sublime thing in life and the body should be transformed and perfected instead. Saint Paul said: “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44, NKJV)". The natural body is what does not withstand the diseases and it is called a physical body and the Spanish flu clearly showed how strong the physical body can be. When the Spanish flue enters the body, the body either makes it through or not when it is medically treated, but in such cases it is best to be consciously aware and to succumb to the microbes, only as far as they are permitted to eat only what’s unnecessary inside the body and to afterwards stop their actions with the power of one’s thought and will. There is, however, something far more dangerous than the disease-causing microbes and it is the human malice. Christ is inviting all people today to a stately dinner. This is the New Life you are called upon to embrace. Try it and see what good it brings to the human soul. Whoever accepts the invitation and acts righteously, would have their eyes open and shall see the Truth. Then, one would see the angels descending and ascending, would be able to communicate with them and shall begin to obtain the Word of the Living Water. In that case, whatever a person may learn, shall be passed onto their younger brothers and sisters. This is what true knowledge stands for. Whoever acquires such knowledge, would be helpful and useful to both oneself and one’s brethren. Such a person shall retain their knowledge always and forever under all conditions of life and such knowledge would become their true flesh and blood. What knowledge may a donkey or a horse possibly have, if they have their backs loaded with the sacred books of the entire mankind? Would such a donkey or a horse have any real knowledge? The donkey may bray back and forth, but still it wouldn’t know anything about the valuable books it carries on its back. Therefore, people should seek the knowledge that can be taken along into the spiritual world by their soul when one leaves the earth and not the artificial knowledge, which may break one’s back. The third category of people who refused to attend Christ’s dinner are those who prefer to get “married”. They are similar to the patriots who love their homeland, but seek to take an advantage at any given moment in order to progress their own agenda. On the contrary, real patriots are those who sacrifice everything for the sake of their country. Such people should be role models and worthy examples to their countrymen. Whoever sacrifices for their brethren, country and for a noble idea, shall not pass away into oblivion. In the souls of such patriots, all people and nations are resurrected and reborn and such heroes act as the souls of nations. One day all nations would be resurrected and along with them and the white race will rise up as well. Then Christ shall come. Therefore, the Christ’s descent upon Earth would be signified by all nations gaining their freedom. Every nation which is trying to dominate other nations by taking away their freedom, shall be deprived of God's blessing. Do not assume that you are something, which is separate from the Whole. If you deny Christ’s invitation and say that you are going to work on your “land”, try your “oxen” or get “married”, then that would not excuse you. Such beliefs would not relieve you of the obligation to serve the Whole. Each person's life should contribute to the Life of the Whole and so together build a better new world. I wish that all Bulgarians were from the “blind”, who were invited to Christ’s dinner. What virtue is represented by the so-called „blind“ person? – it is the virtue of having one’s eyes closed for all evil, but open for all good and noble instead. Bulgarians typically love their corn fields, but every person has as much land as necessary, neither more nor less and taking more than what has been already bestowed upon us by the Lord, shall be easily lost. Everyone has the right to cultivate the land, but not to occupy it; that is what God requires from us and that is what Love requires from us as well. What is Love? Some use the word “affection” instead of the word Love and vice versa, but those two words differ in their meanings. Love is a creative force that gives life, while affection builds on what Love gives away freely and happily. In general, true Love gives, while affection always takes. Once, a disciple went to a Hindu teacher and asked him what Love is. The master kept silent and answered nothing. The student visited the master for five days in a row, continuously asking him the very same question, but the guru was still remaining completely silent. On the sixth day, the disciple insisted on the teacher revealing some wisdom on what Love really is, but instead of giving an answer, the teacher grabbed the disciple by the hand and the student was led away into the Ganges River. The master then sank the disciple into the water and held the poor soul under water for five minutes. The student kicked about and resisted in order to escape the teacher's strong hold, but could not manage to escape. Finally, the teacher drew the disciple out of the water and asked: "What did you feel when you were in the water?" - “Great inner tension and desperate need for air.” The master then replied: "When you feel such an inner need for Love, then you will understand what it is. The same way you breath when you open your mouth is equivalent to the way you will truly experience Love, once you open your soul to it.” The real, living Christian culture, just like the above-mentioned Hindu teacher, has now constrained the European nations and keeps them under water. “Five minutes on”, since these nations have been trying to set themselves free, while Christ is asking them at the same time: "What do you feel and how do you feel?" - "We need freedom" is what they answer. All nations shall be free when they return to God and when they begin to love each other. Love makes you free. Refrain from selfishness, from the thought of fretting for your own personal survival. Do the will of God who lives inside of you. Christ says: “I do not receive honor from men” (John 5:41, NKJV). Instead, Christ seeks the glory of God. Man is part of the Divine Oneness. If the whole Divine Oneness is in a healthy state, then all its parts shall be safe and sound as well. One may ask: “And what will happen with Bulgaria?” - it all depends on your behavior, whether is virtuous or not. When all Bulgarians live in harmony with the Whole, then their lives will be peaceful. Ever since the creation of the world, God has set the Bulgarian territorial boundaries and established the correct form of government that needs to be applied. One day that plan shall be fulfilled one way or the other. Everything has been envisaged and foreseen not only for Bulgaria, but for all other nations and for all individual people as well. Now when you return to your homes after this lecture, each of you should enter their own personal private spiritual abode, open the pages of the book of their soul and make note of what is written in there about you and what your life’s purpose is. What’s bad is already left behind. Now the blessed days of resurrection and rejuvenation are already knocking the door. You would all be young and at the age of “thirty-three”. You shall live on Earth as long as you wish and would leave it when you finish the job you have come here for. You would be able to gather your relatives and friends before you start off your return journey into the spiritual world and tell them you are going back to the Source. You would be able to say goodbye to them and let them know you are departing for your true homeland. As you are leaving, they shall not cry because they would know and understand where exactly you will be going. In order for you to be able to come to the Earth freely and leave it freely, you have to give up hatred, jealousy, envy and all other useless dispositions. The fact that somebody may have hurt you, should not disturb you. What’s truly yours, remains always yours and nobody could possibly take it away from you, but if still something truly yours is somehow taken away from you, then it will be soon or late inevitably returned to you. I wish to all of you to become personally acquainted with the Christ. How Christ will descend upon Earth and where you may meet Him is not important. – think of it as you may please. Expect His arrival the way your understanding permits you to do so. If you are a Christian orthodox, you may expect Him to descend from Heaven, accompanied by angels, who shall make known to the whole world that the Christ is returning. If you are a Theosophy follower, you would probably wait for Christ to be born somewhere and then grow and mature, as He walks among the different nations to preach to them. If you are an occultist, you might believe that Christ would appear at different times and in places among all people. Christ’s arrival shall be known by the great perturbations that will occur all over the world. Christ is now knocking on every door and is inviting people to unite forces with Him. Whose door is Christ knocking on? He is knocking on the door of the ones who have the will and yearning to accept His invitation. Rejoice yourself, all of you who are called upon! Do not doubt the Truth. Wherever it may be coming from, it is always the same and does not vary. In order to perceive it, you need to get rid of your materialistic approach and perceptions. The material world relates to the form of things, while the Spiritual and Divine worlds respectively relate to the content and the meaning of those forms. Therefore, do not just ponder over the physical forms, but move on to their content and meaning. What did the devil say to Christ whilst taking Him onto the mountain? - "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me” (Mathew 4:9, NKJV). Jesus answered: "Away with you, Satan! For it is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only you shall serve” (Matthew 4:10, NKJV). Christ does not make deals with the devil, as He knows that all the devil’s contracts and promises would not last. Humans have come to the Earth not to become kings and queens, but to serve God with love. Every person should be pleased with their state of affairs and not seek wealth and glory that will inevitably fail them. If someone meets you and asks you, if are you are a Christian orthodox, evangelist or a catholic, then such questions should not concern you. In such cases, everyone should whisper to themselves: "I know one God, who loves all, heals all and gives life, food and water to all." God is everywhere - everywhere we do hear His voice. Some hear His voice and trust Him, while others hear Him and doubt Him. This is the difference between believers and agnostics. You may say that some people are claiming to be the real Christ. If such people abide by the laws of Love, Wisdom, Righteousness, Virtue and Truth, then they are the living Christ. Therefore, all humans could be just like the Christ Himself. Do you think this is impossible? Christ said to himself: "I and my Father are one (John, 10:30)." Whoever follows the God’s law, is one with God. In the very same way, it is possible for the Spirit of Christ to live in all people, since the Christ shall reside inside all humans and all people shall in their turn live within Christ. You may say there are hidden things that are kept as a secret with regards to the human existence. There are certain secrets in life, but that does not mean they are impure. Both life in Heaven and life below Heaven are full of secrets and Nature is also full of secrets. The human beings themselves and their bodies represent a great secret. Those who love God and their brethren, who learn and work, are gradually uncovering the secrets of Nature and the secrets of their bodies. In this context, one should know that the human body is a divine, holy creation. Treat it with reverence and devotion. The forces necessary for the development of any human being are hidden within the inner self and the conditions for their manifestation are to be found in the outer world. In water and moisture lives the Divine life, in heat – the divine Love and in light – the divine Truth. Use these conditions to grow and progress. You may say: "We want to be happy and full of joy" and that is indeed possible. How? - By opening your hearts to the light and warmth of God's Love. Once upon a time, an Indian fakir spent thirty years of his life in a state of motionlessness, being willing to discover the meaning of Life. For days he sat motionless like a tree and birds even made their nests on his head. One day an impoverished widow came close by and affixed a cradle on the nearby tree, where she left her child. The mother went to work thinking that she could rest assured for the safety of her child, since the child was under the watchful eye of the nearby-sitting fakir. After a while, a cobra approached the cradle and was about to attack the child. The fakir asked himself the question, whether to help the child or to leave it in God’s hands. He thought: "God created both the child and the cobra, He can foresee everything and I do not know what to do in order to fulfill God’s will." While he was reasoning, he did not move and instead let God alone solve the matter. The cobra bit the child and it died. The fakir then said: "Such was the Will of God". Ultimately, it turned out that he had spent in vain thirty years of his life in meditation, since he had not grasped the real meaning of Life. As he departed from Earth, God summoned him to inquire, as to why the fakir had not saved the widow's child. "I did not know what Your will is - to save the child by killing the cobra or to leave the cobra alive and to leave the child in Your hands”, said the fakir. God replied: "My will was to keep the child alive, so you should have made a move to kill the cobra. Why were you meditating so many years, if you could not resolve this dilemma successfully? For punishment, I will send you back to Earth to spend another one thousand years in tribulations in order to learn what My will is and how to fulfill it”. Many people nowadays are sitting still like this Indian fakir, motionless and meditating on the purpose and meaning of Life, but have not drawn the relevant conclusions. Their friends who are coming nearby being pursued by cobras and are asking for help, but the modern day fakirs tend not to make a move and do not want to raise their hands to kill the snakes. They say: "God has created the humans and the cobras and if He wishes, he would save my friends on His Own". The cobra represents the deceitful human life as the result of a distorted mind and a distorted heart. The cobra suffocates both the human mind and the human heart. One may say that the world has been created in such a way. This is not how the world was created. On the contrary, the world has been created according to rational principles and is based on order and intrinsic harmony. To see what in fact the world is, one should obtain a free ticket to tour it. Only then, would one have a clear idea on the way the world was pre-designed and created. But only those, who are willing to learn and work with Love, could deserve such a free ticket. The world needs great people, it needs heroes who are wounded not in the back whilst being in retreat, but heroes wounded in the chest whilst attacking and moving forward. The Spirit of God is descending upon this world to work and to encourage all people to work as well. The times of peaceful resignation have already ended. Today everyone needs to do their job and we see that all people are under pressure from the Divine world to do so. Thinking of sleep and rest only is sheer laziness, a result of an inner inertia. One person was very lazy and did not know how to cure himself. He visited an experienced American doctor and asked for help. The doctor took him to his lab, placed electrodes on his body and started the electric current. The sick man started shouting, stomping with his feet and waiving his hands. "There's nothing dangerous" - the doctor said calmly - "These are gymnastic exercises that will help you heal". Human life needs to re-embrace the sound foundation that God has originally set up. Apply the science of Truth and Love in your lives. If you see that your brothers and sisters are impure and unwell, do not criticize them, but help them recover; if they are hungry, offer them a meal; if they are sick, treat their disease. Why do you at all criticize the people who do not go to church? - Do not blame them for that. I find that some of you spend more time in church than they should. The term “church” symbolizes the self-centered human existence. Everyone has one such church within themselves. Exit your church of selfishness and enter the Divine Church of Love, Righteousness, Truth, Virtue and Wisdom. In other words, stop thinking about yourselves only and think of your brothers and sisters as well. Only in this way will the situation of families, societies and nations be improved. Only in this way will Bulgaria's political situation improve. All people - priests, teachers, judges, government officials, mothers and fathers - should pray for victory over the evil. "Which side should we support?" - Only the side of God and the side of Christ. I'm already at the battlefield. I have drawn my sword and I am fighting. If all men fight against evil, first within themselves and then in the outside world, the planet would easily be saved. Rest assured, great is the future of mankind. - "And what about Bulgaria?" – Don’t worry about Bulgaria. Bulgaria’s destiny is sealed, but your personal destinies remain undecided. I wish for all your work to be successfully accomplished by means of abiding by the Divine principles. I wish everyone to be healthy, cheerful, active and wherever you may meet each other, to treat each other like brothers and sisters. There is no greater feat than recognizing and treating each other like brothers and sisters - this is what is preached by the living Christ. I wish to all of you to be the “poor”, the “maimed”, the “halt” and the “blind”, so that you are called upon by the Christ Himself. Christ will send His servants to invite you to join forces with Him. God bless you and may the Lord be with you now and forever and throughout all ages! Sunday Talks; Sunday, 3 November, 1918; Sofia, Bulgaria Translated by: Pavel Iordanov

Keeping Spiritual Energy Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD. Isaiah 62:3 The word crown has a double meaning. This word implies a proper circular movement, proper giving. All the bodies in space, which keep their energy, move along a circular orbit. What is true of space bodies is also true of human beings. Therefore a person, who wants to keep one’s energy, should move along a circular orbit, or put in simple words, this is a job done in the easiest of ways. The science that teaches methods of how to keep spiritual energy is very necessary for the proper development of human beings. All modern sufferings – individual or common – result from the loss of Divine energy. While you were young, the energy you had in your organism was so much, that you were inclined to believe that it was inexhaustible forever. This, however, is just an illusion in earthly life. This energy can be lost the same way you can lose your money. It flows out of you just like water flows out of a cracked bottle. Similarly some wine-makers pour sweet wine in bottles and bury it in the ground for several years, where it ferments slowly. During this time, a certain quantity of carbon dioxide is formed in the wine, therefore it should be opened with utmost care, because all the liquid can burst out at once. Likewise, human energy, stored in the human soul, can at times flow out at once, which is what happens at times of great joy or great sorrow. This is why one should know how to rejoice and how to grieve. This is also an art. No mistakes should be made in this respect, because one may be harmed. I shall give you an example, which clearly shows the impact of great joy: an English ship, worth about four to five million leva was raffled in Tsarigrad1. It went to a porter, who was invited to go and see what he had won. However, along the way, the porter went crazy out of joy. Now people go crazy due to a great joy or great sorrow. What does crazy mean? This is a loss of spiritual energy or the inability to comprehend spiritual language. There is no point in being too glad, but we should not be too grievous either, because great joy implies great grief and vice versa. This is a true law. You say, ‘When we go to Heavens, we will be very glad, but when we descend to Hell, we will be grieved’. These are two opposite poles. You, who do not understand the Divine principles, who are not familiar with them, say, ‘Why do those, who are down there in Hell, suffer?’ I would ask you, however, ‘Why are those, who are up there, rejoicing?’ What is the difference between suffering and joy? Grief results from the fact that we have lost what was given to us. For example, if we lose our health, money, hearing or something else, we will be aggrieved. Hence, we have to learn to keep what God has given us. In order to be able to keep what was given to us, we shall have to inevitably double our energy, to which purpose there is a principle in the Gospel: doubling is actually the principle of sowing; if farmers do not sow, they will lose. In this respect your mind is a field, which has to be sown. God has placed the seed in your depository, and when the right time comes, God says, ‘Sow the field!’ You answer, ‘I shall not sow this year, because I have plenty of food, I shall take a rest’. You leave your minds uncultivated and they, to put it scientifically, fall in atrophy. The core art in keeping spiritual energy is the cultivation of the human mind. There are three ways to spend human energy: firstly, in the physical organism – through your hands, legs, muscles, stomach, lungs; secondly, through human thought and reasoning; and thirdly, through human passions. Most dangerous of all, in terms of spending energy, are human passions. Those persons, who complain that their memory grows fainter, they will know that passions have taken the upper hand in them. This can be noticed in young girls and boys at about fifteen-sixteen years of age. At this age, they start falling in love and therefore they start forgetting and cannot learn their lessons. This is also true of adults – they fall in love with other things, but this is no love, this only seems to be love, this is love for the drink. Any drunkard is in such a situation – he is in love with the glass, a glance at the glass can make any drunkard happy. There is a similar situation in respect of thoughts too: from an esoteric point of view, there are purely physical thoughts, there are thoughts of desires and there are spiritual thoughts. The thoughts of desires are the thoughts that bring suffering to contemporary society, i.e. such is the epoch we, the people, live in today. This movement is within us; this striving should be a crown in the hand of the Lord. By the hand of the Lord we understand God’s Will. One should have a strong will in contemporary society and I will give you methods to strengthen your will. You believe you have a will. Yes, you do, but this is an ordinary will. In order to have a will, you should know how to move in a circle. In America, there are chairs called rocking chairs, which are the most foolish invention. Whoever sits on such a chair gets rocked. Do not sit on such chairs; do not rock. When we want to get apples down from the tree, we shake the tree. When you have an unvaried thought – say for example that you do not love someone, you send thoughts from you to him and from him to you, which is just like sitting on the rocking chair, and within less than a day or two you will feel spiritually upset. You will ask me why someone called you by an offensive name. That person must have called you so in order to try your will. The Scripture reads, ‘you need a helmet, to repel the foe’. The foes from the invisible world may only fling one bad thought at you through anybody – through your wife, through your husband, through your children or through somebody else; even those whom you love most, can toss a thought to you which you do not expect. You have to beat off every thought! You have heard the old saying, ‘God will do everything’. How can he do everything? Let’s assume that you grow and feed silk worms in a room and then you let in a boy of two or three years of age. What will the boy do with the silk worms? He will go round and smash all of them. The same will happen when you let a two-year old thought of yours in the most sacred of all of your rooms and within an hour it will have smashed all your silk worms. By silk worms, I mean certain types of thoughts, actions or desires of your will. We have to follow strictly the methods which nature applies in our lives. In nature we can never imagine the Sun to be a dark circle, because it would not be any Sun then, we always picture it as a light circle. Light is a circular movement. Firstly, you impart into your mind that each thought, desire or action, which penetrates us, is sent from the Invisible world and keep in mind that whatever happens to you, has had to happen inevitably! If you understand these principles of movement, you will know that a thought, which was thrown away by somebody and which has travelled from the one end of your orbit to the opposite end, will fall away on its own. If you are at this end, you will be able to understand it; therefore never grasp a newly arrived thought at the moment it crosses your orbit at the one end. Therefore Christ says, ‘Do not oppose the evil’. This means; do not oppose, but stay at the other end and try to catch it. You will certainly need experience now. What does this experience consist of? Many have asked me the question of how to develop, to make progress, how to see this or that? I would like you not only to see, but also to acquire things. You may see a wheat grain – this is one thing, if you take it and sow it – this is another thing. So it is not sufficient to feel one Divine thought that is granted to you, but you have to acquire and apply it. Say for example you want to see an angel. You may see as many angels as you wish, you may go to them, but when you come back, you are still the same, you only recount what you have seen as performance and this is the end of the issue. You have to learn these principles. It is important when you see an angel, to interact with the angel’s intelligence, with the angel’s spirit. The same is true of Nature – it all starts with feeling and then comes seeing. There are many animals that neither feel, nor see. One day when they grow up, when they come to where we are now, they will say, ‘We can now see what our obstacle in life was’. I will give you an exercise to do for about a month. Many of you can do it. Do not think that when you experiment, everything is pleasant and everything leads to results. Sometimes there may be a bad result, but this should not discourage you. Sometimes the worst results have the best of effects. I shall give you an example to elaborate on this thought: a wife of a Turk laughed a lot, her jaw got dislocated and her mouth was distorted. Many doctors were called to fix her jaw, but none of them could do anything. Therefore one day her husband took her in his cart to drive her to a very good doctor. Along the road, however, the horses got scared, over-turned the cart, the wife fell on the ground and thus her jaw was fixed and back to normal. The Turk wanted to visit a famous doctor and see whether the doctor could help his wife, but God found it good for the woman to fall off the cart and thus to get her jaw fixed… This is why you should not consider that falling off a cart is something bad; on the contrary, it will restore your jaw back to normal. The experiment consists of the following: firstly, when a thought of hatred comes up within you, it should be transformed into love! I shall give you a methodology how to transform hatred into love: try to put yourselves in the shoes of the person you hate; assume that you also make the same mistake in respect of God and say, ‘God loves me despite of all of my mistakes, therefore I will do the same to that person too – I will love that person!’ Whatever mistake this person could have made or whatever his or her behaviour might have been to you, you are in the same situation in respect of God. God has not changed his attitude to you. He loves you. Start moving your thought from you to God, and then start moving it from you to others – to the person you hate. The love, that God has for you, will pass on from you to the other person and the other person will be placed in the same situation in respect of you, as you are to God, i.e. the attitude will be generated in the mind of that person. Secondly, during the entire month, do not spread any gossip about anybody, or if gossip is spread about you, keep silent, pretend this does not concern you. You may be a little sulky, but consider this is another person, not you. If a woman places her hands into stale dough, are her hands stale too? Even if your whole body goes stale, believe that your soul is not stale. Do not assume that external staleness is necessarily internal. Do not think it is easy to give up gossiping, this is a serious business. I do not want you to refrain from gossiping for a lifetime. I want you to refrain only for one month, to test your will. When I ask you to transform hatred into love, the former shall not disappear all of a sudden; it will keep on showing up. If you succeed in all of your experiments, you will feel an internal peace and acquisition of a drop of energy. However, if one day you fail to succeed in your experiment, you will lose a small part of your energy. You will be losing and gaining during these thirty days, but what counts is that the final result should be good. You may fall off the cart, but in the end, you jaw will be restored back to normal. I give you these two experiments, because they take effect along the natural Path, according to which the angels work now in the world. They will assist you. Thirdly, produce a good thought within you and keep it for the whole month. When you make this experiment, you should always think that you are free, do not think that the external world or your attitudes to people can counteract you. Before starting the experiment you will say the following, ‘At this moment when I start this experiment, through the Might of God which is in me, I can do anything!’ Do not be confused by the word anything; it implies anything good, not anything evil as well. There is no force that can beat you at this moment. In your mind you should keep alive the thought of ‘whenever one wants to do something good, the Divine conscience is vigilant. As soon as you decide to do a good deed, there comes a bond between you and God, a conversation is started. The moment you decide to do good for God’s sake, God takes care of you. These three experiments, which I give you, will be the foundation for the renovation of your thoughts and hearts, before you start fighting. I can see that quite a few of you live the life of people buying lottery tickets and waiting for something good to come down their way. The second year they buy a ticket again, and again in the third year, but there are no sure chances that any gain will come their way. This is not the way leading to the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God can be taken by Force, knowledge is acquired by Force, and everything in the world is acquired by Force. By Force means through those wise creatures placed higher up than the angels. These are the Divine Forces and through them everything can be acquired. These creatures are the archangels. Later on, when you will have done these experiments you will be able to get rid of rheumatism, headache, heartache, tuberculosis and other diseases, which exist not only in the organism, but up there in the mind, and in the heart. The Scripture reads, ‘Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord’. Crown should be understood to mean most supreme angelic Creatures. To have a crown of the Lord is to bond with the supreme spirits of Love, who are the spring of Divine Love. Anybody, drinking from this spring, shall no longer be thirsty. There are two categories: a crown and glory. Glory – these are the archangels, who are the bearers of God’s Will in the physical field. When you want to strengthen your will, you will call an archangel who is mighty and strong. This is one principle, which works without any suggestion. The ideal the mother had, before she conceived, her child will be exactly like this. Our thoughts and desires become exactly like the creatures we think of at a particular moment. If a maid is in love with a stupid lad, such will her child be. She looks upon the lad through different eyes, she imagines him to be much more ideal, while in fact he is not; her imagination is one state of affairs which does not correspond to the state it manifests itself. We should not be looking at the lad’s soul, but at his manifestations. We should not be looking at his outer appearance, that he is handsome, that he is neat and tidy etc. He may be neat and tidy at one point of time, but such a tidy horse has no intelligence. I understand movements in terms of wisdom. Tidiness, I understand as a case when someone fixes your broken leg or relieves you when you feel indisposed. Let’s take, for example, somebody whom we believe is tidy. He goes to a prayer meeting and has bad thoughts about one person and about another person. These are the tidy people, who spoil the mood of a prayer meeting; these are the good-looking maids and lads, these are the dark-eyed and dark-haired people. If you are tidy you have to go out predisposed, and to predispose others also. Different is the crown and the glory of the Lord and, indeed, in such a meeting one soon gets older. How can you not get older? If I start punishing one of you all the time for being ugly, you will see that within a month this person will darken. If you keep telling somebody that he or she is good looking, this person will improve. When I sometimes see darkened people, I say, ‘Somebody must have been working upon you!’ I do not want worms inside God’s home. If there are worms, let them stay outside! If I catch anybody, I will throw out such a person over the fence. And those who do their experiments well, if they have fallen over the fence, I will take such people back. This is an excellent experience. When I decided to speak to women, it was raining. And I told myself, ‘This rain shows that women are not lucky’. But I see the weather improved today. This indicates that women are also given credit. The shining Sun indicates an agreement as well. This is not merely comfort; these are facts. When you decide to start with the first experiment, do not let yourself stumble over anything. Do not waste your feelings, your thoughts and religious beliefs that you have. Each man or woman should apply his or her experience. We have come down to Earth to gain, so that we return richer to God. Not losing is easy, but to gain is an art, because the minds of many of you are idle. This loss is called by esoteric scientists demagnetising. If you cannot do these assigned experiments on your own, ask somebody else to help you, and work together. You have to have patience in all this work. You should usually start with the experiments in the morning or when you feel like doing them. You may ask whether your prayers will be accepted. We are bound to pray, but should not be interested whether God will accept our prayers or not. In order to be successful in this life, you need a strong will, a strong mind and a strong heart. These can be acquired only through a pure and holy life. Without these no success can come to you. If you go over the entire history, from one end to the other, the most successful have been those men and women who lived a most pure and holy life. Do not think it is easy to be a pure and holy human being. If you are soiled you must have been drinking and you must have fallen. Altogether, purity and holiness have the upper hand in the world. We are wrong to think that we were conceived by our mothers in sin. Anybody who does not follow God’s Will was conceived in sin, while those who follow God’s Will were not conceived in sin. Some say, ‘We are sinful’. Yes, we are, I do not deny that we make mistakes, but I do deny that we were conceived in sin. Anybody following God’s Will was conceived in Love. Christ wants human beings to be righteous in their souls – what one is above; the same one must be below. You are worried – do not hide it. When you are worried, this means that your children, who are within you, are very unwise. But this will be taken care of too. By doing these exercises all difficulties will fade away and bliss will come to the world. In this way, we will finally make people not steal and not lie. You will now train your will in order to become pure and holy. When you attain this you will have the will power to pick fruit from the Tree of Life, to see that everything is possible. This is the only way to make life interesting. From now on, you will always be at School. So far, you have not attended such a School. Up to now, you have been washing the dishes, chopping onions and so on, from now you will make a start with the letter a, which is the voice of the will. This is the only way to apply your will. Master’s lecture, delivered on 26 June 1918 * * This lecture and the previous one are immediately after one another in a common paper in the decoded shorthand notes, having only one date (26.06.1918) in the beginning. It is possible that Saving Spiritual Energy lecture was delivered later. (Editor’s notes). ________________________________________ 1 Previous name of Constantinople. Source

Getting Full and Getting Empty 1 The Scripture reads, ‘Without faith one cannot please God’. I shall paraphrase this line a little and I shall say, ‘With faith one can please God’. Bear in mind that it is faith that appeals to the Lord. The Scripture reads that we shall be granted whatever we ask for in line with God’s Will. This is not the commonly accepted faith, not that faith that people have, but it is the faith of children – among children you will look for it. You have to have the faith of children, not the faith of adults. I want those who listen to me, not to think that they are adults. If they so believe, there is no point in them coming here, there is no need for adult people on Earth; they are people for Heaven. You may say, ‘I am fifty or sixty years of age’. Do not fool yourselves with your years. I say that one’s age is appreciated by one’s experience. The more experience you have, the older you are and vice versa. What matters is what valuables you have in the backpack of your life. You may carry a load of fifty kilograms, which is fifty leva worth; you may carry a diamond of only one gram, which may be tens of thousand of leva worth. It is not the quantity, which is important for the load, but the quality. Some say, ‘I know that the Sun spins.’ I ask whether your Sun spins. You say, ‘I know that the Moon gets full and gets empty’. I ask whether your Moon gets full or gets empty. This is where knowledge resides – to discern what is good and what is evil. Keep an eye on your heart as to whether it is getting full of good and empty of evil. Only then you will know the meaning of getting full and getting empty. You know that the Moon takes fourteen days to get full and fourteen days to get empty. Similarly, your heart should spend fourteen days on getting full of good and for fourteen days your heart should work on emptying all the swill out of you and out of society. Afterwards, you will feel light. This is what doctors do too. When people see that somebody’s stomach is upset or that somebody has diarrhoea, they immediately call the doctor to put an end to the disorder. Hang on, let the sick person throw up, so that the sick person can be relieved, let everything, that has gathered inside, flow out. A man may be in a fury, flying at others; do not stop him, let him shout, so that everything can get out. If this annoys you, close your ears or go farther away; it is none of your business to interrupt the flow. This is the philosophy of the New Teaching; this is the Teaching of Christianity! Sometimes, your husband is cross with you, he shouts at you, and you feel an urge to stop him. Easy, let him throw up. Well, but he will make me dirty all over! You keep away from him, not just right in front of him, pass him the bucket and stay behind, meanwhile let him throw up. Do not interrupt him, help him and be grateful that he has relieved himself from such a burden. But what do wives usually do? She will start going from one house to another and telling people, ‘You know what misfortune beset me – my husband threw up!’ On the contrary, this is quite fortunate, as he is now relieved. I regard all people who throw up as reliable. So, from now on, you will speak less and do more. This is what teachers do with pupils at school – in order to teach them to work, they give them tests, homework, to write compositions etc. Do not think that after entering the Spiritual world you are already holy and pure. This will come on its own accord; do not worry about it. If, on seeing a candle, you start thinking how it spreads light, when it gives better light etc., this will bring no benefit to you. Leave thinking aside, strike a match, light the candle and make use of it. Only an aspiration to be obedient to God, Who is complete in all respects, is required from you now. The Lord, I speak about, can see you, because He has millions of eyes and ears. He sees you through cats, flies; He can see you when you chase them. The Lord sees everything, because there are many secret places from where He watches you. The Lord is neither in cats, nor in flies, but He sees through them. When He sees you passing by a pear tree or looking at a flower, He is already aware of your intentions. Everything is known to God. When you drink a little water, He, through the water knows you internally. The most important and necessary things for you are as follows: obedience and attention. What does obedience mean? Obedience means to do something, and attention means to be attentive when the Lord does something. The same with you now – you will have to listen and pay attention. You may ask yourselves what else I have to tell you. You are only required to be obedient and attentive! If you are sent with a hose in hand to any garden, you are required to point the hose and to water the garden, not to think why you were assigned to water the garden, why not somebody else? You were found; the hose is in your hands, keep watering and do not think any longer about it, because the one who waters the Divine garden, benefits from its fruit. Read chapter nine by Prophet Daniel. This chapter is closely related with what I asked you to do. You do not know your future, it is hidden from your sight, and you do not know what the Lord has in mind. It is said, ‘Pray, in order not to be tempted.’ Many of you are busy with a lot of work, but there is also more important work for which you have come. I shall be brief, what you have to do is to think within yourselves for about four to five minutes and to see whether you are ready to do this voluntarily, without repenting your decision later on. You will do the following: for ten days on end starting on 27 June, you will get up at about four o’clock in the morning, and during the time from four to five o’clock you will read chapter nine by Daniel, you will carefully think upon it, you will pray and you will confess to God, as you do to a priest, your sins, the sins of your relatives, the sins of your people. And if the Lord so wishes, He will forgive you. In this way you will send your petition to God, however, what resolution it will get, is up to God. At the same time, the departed people close to you will also pray for themselves and also for you, so there will be prayers below and above – just like trees feed from below and from above. You will leave yourselves in God’s hands. You will eat twice a day: no butter or eggs, only vegetable food. You will eat in the morning after praying, and in the evening before praying. In the evening, you will eat before the Sun sets, and you will pray and read chapter nine after the sunset at about eight o’clock. The Lord has imposed fasting all over the world. After breakfast in the morning, and after dinner, you will thank God very much. During these ten days you will observe absolute fasting of your heart and your mind: not a single bad thought, bad desire or word of gossip. During these days ask God only for important and necessary things, not for stupid ones. You will pray to God to strengthen all of your brothers and sisters, wherever they may be; to help all the suffering people, and everybody who fights evil. You may read the Good Prayer, the Lord’s Prayer and others. Be careful not to overdo it, make sure your heart is always warm. Approach the Lord with faith! Have faith in His grace and kindness. And you will see the result. Master’s lecture, delivered on 26 June 1918 in Sofia ______________________________________________ 1 The lecture was titled ‘Lecture to Women’ in the decoded shorthand notes Source

God Is Spirit “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth.”[1] “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and Truth.” Christ has pronounced this thought as far back as two thousand years ago. The fact that this thought was said at a gathering reveals that those who assisted at this gathering were not so particularly people of culture. They were discussing the question of how should they worship God – so Christ gave them an answer. There are many ways in which people can serve God, but Christ indicates one of the proper ways: to serve God in Spirit and Truth. Here the word worship is taken in the meaning of serve. “God is Spirit.” The word God is vague, uncomprehended – mainly to those who examine questions from the philosophical point of view. However, the Existence, or the Essence of things, cannot be grasped through the mind, e.g. in a philosophical manner. Why? Because, according to the laws of the thought, there are things determined and finite; and there are also things undetermined and infinite. One of the undetermined notions is that of God. God is a Being Who has neither beginning nor end, and Whose limits within He moves are unknown. He is a basis, a Principle upon which we ought to build our relations. “Those who serve God must serve Him in Spirit and Truth.” What does the word Spirit mean? People say about someone that this one has “yielded up his (or her) Spirit to Father” – that is, this person has died. So the Spirit is that intelligent force within humans which brings life. If we would like to define what the Truth is, we refer to the Gospel in which it is said, “The Head of Your Word is the Truth.”[2] So the word through which we express ourselves represents the body of the Truth. Everyone knows what the head is for the body. The most valuable, the most precious part of human beings is invested in their brain, in their head. Therefore, namely, humans are being determined by the quality of their own brain. “To serve God in Spirit and Truth.” What is God, in His Essence? Many consider God as a great, abstract Principle about Which they cannot have any notion at all. Very little is demanded from people in order that they get to know God. It is enough for them just to make an attempt, make an effort to serve Him in Spirit and Truth so that they may have contact with Him, so that they may find the common points of contact between God and their own Soul. How would you know that you have already established this contact? By the consequences, namely: if you have been dead, you shall be resurrected to life; if you have been sick, you shall be healed; if you have been ignorant, you shall be enlightened; if you have lost the meaning of life, then Love shall visit you, impart Light into your mind, and give meaning and purpose to your life. The moment you lose your bond with God, you will lose everything. Everyone has experienced that, thanks to which the question of serving is not abstract but vital. Those who have managed to find a solution to this question have made their way to the inner sense of their individual life and have built their own philosophy of life. Many philosophers have written on the topic of serving; whoever is interested in that may read what the different philosophers have said. There are works written in various languages on that topic. Outside literature, the question of serving has its inner side of experience. Which one of the two sides of the question is the true, the real one? According to Me, the reality of matters is dual: external, or objective, that has form; and internal, or subjective, that is without form. As a matter of fact, real things are those that have no form. You might object that it is impossible for the real things to have no form. What would you say, then, about the feelings and sensations you experience? They are real – and in spite of that, they have no form. What form do the sensations of pleasantness and unpleasantness, the feelings of joy and sorrow have? What form would you give to the notion of Truth? Therefore, real things are not always dressed in form. In the present stage of development of humans, there are real things that do not need any forms. Scientists call these things subjective, or internal. “Those who serve Him must serve in Spirit and Truth.” It means: To serve God with that profound, inner understanding of life which people carry within themselves; to serve God with that understanding of the inner sense of life. Everyone seeks the Truth, discerns the Truth, and, when someone else is talking to them, they want to know whether this one is speaking the Truth to them or not. The Truth determines the relations between souls. Taken alone, the Truth is something specific, concrete. To be a bearer of the Truth within yourself means to have Light in your mind and Warmth in your heart, to be free in your own beliefs and convictions. The Truth imparts inner freedom and strength into humans. Once having lost the Truth, one begins to hesitate and have doubts. Whatever such people undertake, they feel fear and confusion. The Truth is a living quantity, and therefore, wherever it enters, it gives inner sense and Spirit to things. To speak about the Truth as a mere notion, this is equivalent to saying the names of people without the very people, without the living notion of them. The name Ivan is lifeless; once we link it to the very person, this name comes alive. People often talk about the Truth as about something void of life; however, when it is said that “The Truth is the Head of the Word” or that “God is Truth”, this Truth is immediately filled with Spirit and life. Therefore, those who carry the Truth within themselves are healthy, intelligent, happy, beautiful, and strong. If you wish to be beautiful, to be loved by other people, then apply the Truth in your life. Some keep complaining that their skin has turned yellow and do not know what to do in order to obtain a vital complexion. The answer is very simple: They have to apply the Truth. The Truth shall give them whatever colour they like. The Truth is the Philosopher’s stone of the alchemists – the stone that transmutes matters. Those who are bearers of the Truth within themselves are immortal; they are masters of the situation, the whole Nature knows them, and, wherever they pass through, every living creature greets them: flowers, animals, and humans. Even the rivers, the wellsprings, the rocks and the mountains salute them. Those who are not bearers of the Truth within themselves constantly encounter contradictions and hardships. Each time you meet people who are constantly attacked by everyone else, you ought to know that those people either do not carry the Truth within themselves or the society they move in keeps away from the Truth. Christ says, “We ought to worship Him, to bow down before Him.” The verb bow down refers to human will-power. When working, people have to bow down. What does the one digging the vineyard do – or another one, who is reaping the harvest in the field? They bow and bow down all day long. They raise up and put down the hoe or the reaping-hook, and keep bowing down. Those who eat or drink water also bow down. You meet someone you know in the street, man or woman – you bow down again. This shows that people bow down before God wherever they see Him: in a human, in an animal, in a plant, in the food and water they constantly need. Then the verse pronounced by Christ about the worshipping takes on a broader sense and already means, “Those who bow down before God, wherever they see Him, bow down in Spirit and Truth.” Whatever home you walk in, see whether the man and the woman in there bow down before God in Spirit and Truth. If the woman is not pleased with her husband and her children, and if she wants to get rid of them, then she does not worship God in Spirit and Truth. And if the man, too, is discontent with his relatives and constantly hurls abuses at them, then he also does not bow down in Spirit and Truth. Many people would like to know why Christianity, being such a great Teaching, does not bring the expected results. This is quite natural: very few do understand it. And even among those who understand it, most people do not apply it. They consider that, if they apply the Teaching of Christ, their interests will be affected. This is an incorrect comprehension of things. “Spirit and Truth.” These are two elements that can be compared to man and woman. The Spirit is the woman; the Truth is the man. Therefore, all men and women who serve God have to unite in Spirit and Truth. Worshipping, bowing down, as a process, represents the coming of the child into the world. Therefore, when the man, the woman and the child unite in Spirit and Truth, they shall worship God in the proper way. This is what we call veritable worship. Where the Spirit, the Truth and the serving are, there God is. The fruits of the Spirit are Love, joy, kind-heartedness, gentleness, self-control. A woman ought to give birth to such fruits, namely. Each woman is capable of giving birth – however, the important thing is what she gives birth to. As women, may you wish that from now on you give birth to the fruits of the Spirit: Love, joy, long-patience, peace, gentleness, self-control, kind-heartedness. In giving birth to these fruits, true serving of God lies. Which fruit trees do people love? The ones which give birth to sweet, delicious fruit. Is there any fruit sweeter than Love? Therefore, women, who represent the Spirit, can be loved only when Love is born. A woman is a symbol of Love. A child born by Love is loved by all. A mother rejoices that her child is in the good graces of the love of people. However, people say about the mother, “Blessed is the one who has given birth to the child of Love.” Unfailing and eternal Love is – yet its fruits are eternal, too. Give place to the Spirit within yourself so that you may give birth to Love. “Those who serve Him in Spirit and Truth.” Why is this necessary? In order for them to link themselves to the Reality of life so that they do not feel naked when they take off their flesh and go to the Other World. God is the Centre of the Universe, the Spirit is the Wellspring of Life, and the Truth is the Head of the Word, of Wisely Intelligent Life. The Spirit and the Truth have to unite in one and thus return to God, become one with Him. Christ says, “I and My Father are one.”[3] With this, He would like to say that He carries within Himself both elements – Spirit and Truth. Christ has gone through great sufferings but gave birth to the fruits of the Spirit and showed to people how they ought to live and serve God. For a human, to give birth means to take the position of a woman who gives birth to children and raises them up. To be a woman means to be a bearer of the fruits of the Spirit within yourself: Love, peace, joy, long-patience, kind-heartedness, gentleness, and self-control. Whether you are women or men, all of you are required to serve in Spirit and Truth, not only by the letter or the form. A Christian lady in America happened to listen to the speeches of a prominent public speaker who spoke against Christianity. Embittered inside her soul by his preaching, she decided to visit his home and have a talk with him there, to prove to him the power of Christ’s Teaching and turn him towards Christ. The speaker welcomed her politely, let her express herself freely, and invited her to lunch. After the lunch, he told her, “You see, I do not serve God according to your understanding, neither do I bow before Him, and nevertheless, I live in plenty in my home, I have everything I need at my disposal. You’d better visit the home of my neighbour who prays to God three times a day but he still lives in privation and poverty. Go to him, console him, and feed him: he needs your support, not me.” Religious people often wish to turn people into Christianity by external ways, by the form. Christianity does not need external worshippers, by the mere form. External serving does not bring salvation to humans. True salvation implies right though, right feelings, and right actions. Whoever do not think, feel and act in the right way come upon contradictions all the time. They are said to be believers but actually are not such. In general, it is hard to define who is a believer and who is a non-believer. Some people visit churches regularly but are not religious; others do not go to church at all but are religious. There exists a certain science by means of which you can precisely determine who is religious or spiritual and who is not: this is written on the head, the face, and the hand of people. It is enough to take a look at those parts so that you may convince yourself in the presence or absence of religious feeling in a human. Two young people walked into a café and started to discuss the question of relations between humans. One of the two claimed one thing, and the other – another thing; so, after they could not come to one joint solution to this question, they began to argue. Meanwhile, outside, along the sidewalk, a poor old man was passing by, bent under the heavy load he was carrying on his back. They saw this but continued their fight. In the meantime, a gentleman from the table next to them who did not take part in the argument walked outside immediately and lifted up the burden of the poor man. Having settled the load firmly on his own back, this gentleman returned into the café and saw that the two young people were still going on with their dispute. Even to this day, some religious persons go to church, debate on the question who are believers and who are non-believers, whereas, outside, in the streets, poor old people pass by, burdened with their chests, panting and moaning, tortured by their heavy weight, no one coming along to help them. Stop the argument, leave your seats, and walk outside to help those who are panting under the weight of their load. They are heavily burdened, suffering, and full of contradictions and hardships. Help them, whether with your good examples or with your good advice and philosophy. Christ says to His disciples, “Do not criticize people, do not attack them, and do not speak of what they hardly understand.” You might say, “The words you speak – are they right or wrong?” They are right to Me; as for you, I do not know. I have one thing in mind: What is tasty to a wolf is not tasty to a sheep; and what is tasty to a sheep is not tasty to a wolf. So the religion of a wolf is of one kind, and that of a sheep – of another kind. Which one of the two religions is more right? Both are right: each professes their own religion. Therefore, let each one profess their own religion freely: let flowers grow, let trees blossom, let fruits ripen, and let humans do God’s Will. In other words: A wellspring has to gush forth, to give away from its pure, crystalline water. A river has to be long: wherever it passes, to water all grasses and plants, even those whom people do not love. By flowing, the river waters and floods everything it meets along its way: it does not make any difference between flowers and trees, it does not divide them into pretty and ugly, useful and harmful – it waters all of them. Therefore, if you are a wellspring, then give from your abundance to all who visit you; if you are a river, then water all flowers and trees you meet along your way; if you are a flower, then grow and develop properly; if you are a tree, then blossom; if you are a fruit, then ripen; if you are human, then do God’s Will! When studying the processes in life, a human has to know the Law of transmutation. If you hear someone saying that he or she wants to grow, then you ought to give this one the necessary conditions: humidity, warmth, and light; if people want to blossom, they need warmth and light, they do not need humidity. When they grow ripe, they also need light and warmth. It is an art for humans to know what they need in each given moment, and to provide themselves with what they need. It means knowing and applying the Law of transmutation of energies. It is said the Spirit transforms matters. Since the woman represents the Spirit, she has to transform, to transmute matters. Therefore, it is not enough for a woman to say that she has a man but she also has to transform him. He is a fruit on the tree, and this fruit has to grow ripe. With that end in view, the woman has to shine upon the man so that he may ripen and attain the necessary sweetness. In general, a woman has to know the man’s nature, and, if he is a flower, she has to water him so that he may grow; if he is a tree that blossoms, she has to dig around him and cultivate him; if he is a fruit on a tree, she has to shine upon him; if he is a human doing God’s Will, she has to assist him so that he may serve in Spirit and Truth. The same is true for the man. He, too, has to know the woman’s nature and help her. And, if she is a growing flower, he has to water her; if she is a blooming tree, he has to dig around her, but the wind and the rain have to cease: all arguments and misunderstandings have to stop; if she is a fruit growing ripe, he has to shine upon her – that is, he ought to embrace her with Love. And, finally, if she is a human doing God’s Will, he has to assist her in serving God in Spirit and Truth. Then both will get along well together, living in Love and agreement. Those who do not understand the processes of life expose themselves to hardships and sufferings. Someone is still blooming, and you want fruit from him or her. Let those people shed its blossoms in peace, let them set fruit, and after that expect fruit from them. Others have just set their fruit, and you want them to have sweet fruits. Let them grow ripe freely. At first, the fruit will be bitter, sour; but later on, it will grow sweet, delicious. People nowadays suffer, torture themselves because they do not understand the languages in which they talk to each other. In whatever language people may talk, it is important that everywhere and in everything they may see the manifestations of God. It is an art for humans to know, to discern what is wise from what is unwise. Given that, whoever might be speaking to them, whatever language they might be listening to, people should grasp where God is and where He is not. Where wise intelligence is, there is no hesitation and no doubt. How should you resolve your questions? If you wish to find a solution to a question which is very important to you, pick a moment when you are peaceful and quiet within. If you are angry, indisposed, discontent, or if you have doubts about something, then do not make any decision on that question. Let it all calm down, and then direct your thought upward, towards your mind or your Soul, and wait for an answer. Fifteen of twenty minutes later, you shall receive an answer. If you are in a hurry, you will make some mistake. Many people ask something from God and hurry up to quickly fulfill their desire. Things do not work well by hurrying up. Once a gospeller was in need of 3,000 levs and, without thinking much in which way he should provide them to himself, he went to an American missionary and told him, “God sent me to you so that you give me 3,000 levs.” “I do not have money at my disposal” – the missionary replied calmly. “Since I have no money in my safe, I come to the conclusion that it is not God who sent you. If He had sent you, I would by all means have money to do you this favour with.” So when someone connects with God, there will be, by all means, an outer and inner coordination between things. Given that, people whom you address to do you a favour of some kind will accept God’s commandments and will come to help you. Someone might say that he or she serves God in Spirit and Truth. If this one actually serves in Spirit and Truth, his or her friends – men and women – will come to help. Why? Because God understands your needs, knows your wishes, and, in order to do these favours to you, will give orders to your friends in whom He lives to do His Will. Does not a father do the same? Even before his child has cried and wept for bread, the father has already brought the bread. Through him, God satisfies the needs of the whole family. Contemporary people live in strenuous, hard times, and say, “What will happen to us?” Nothing bad will happen. There have been no better times than the present ones. Why? Because today God cures people. When a certain illness is being treated, the condition of the ill person is much better than his or her condition before the treatment. Earlier, the illness has existed inside the person as a germ, waiting only for the time to manifest itself, and the person considered himself (or herself) to be healthy. It is better for humans that their eyes be opened for a specific delusion than stay with eyes shut before this delusion. Present sufferings reveal that relations between people begin to gradually improve. Christ says, “In Spirit and Truth.” This means: If people serve God in Spirit and Truth, the relations between them shall improve. If they do not serve in Spirit and Truth, even the improved matters will get mixed up. Therefore, even when the world gets into good order, we still have to serve God in Spirit and Truth. Give up your old views and acts, and apply the new ones, the ones which Love brings along. If some people insult you, do not be cross with them, do not take revenge on them. Revenge is an old method that does not contribute any good. Christ says, “Make friends out of injustice.” In other words: Forgive those who owe you or who have caused you some damage. Once a Bulgarian man stayed in jail three years long. After he went out of jail, he decided to apply what he had learned in there, reading the Gospel. He summoned his debtors and settled his accounts with them in the Christian way. What did he do? He summoned his debtors, one by one, and questioned each separately: “How much do you owe me?” “That and that much.” “Can you pay me the whole of your debt?” “I can’t.” “Half of it?” “No, I cannot.” “A quarter of it?” “Yes, I can.” “So pay as much as you can, and be free.” In the person of his debtors, he won friends instead of adversaries. Three brothers in a family entered into partnership of working together. One of them was a gospeller, and the other two were orthodox. One day a misunderstanding appeared between them, and so they decided to part. Each wanted an equal share but the eldest insisted to have a bigger share because he had worked more. The situation reached the court. The eldest brother won the case, and, in order not to be disturbed by his brothers anymore, transferred the whole property to his wife. However, one day she chased him out of the house and he was left alone on the street. The other two decided to find their eldest brother and reach an agreement with him somehow so that he gives them whatever he finds appropriate. They found him but he was in a deplorable condition. He told them, “It is too late: I have lost everything, too.” So this is how all people act nowadays – all societies and all nations. Why? Because they do not serve God in Spirit and Truth. If they go on living in the old ways, not serving God in Spirit and Truth, they shall lose everything. Today women complain of their husbands; men complain of their wives. A woman does not want to live with her husband anymore because he told her an offensive word. What did he say to her? He called her “budala”[4]. She has to be reasonable, to transmute matters. The man, too, has to act in the same way. What is there, hidden inside the word “budala” (“будала”[5])? The letter “б” means growing, “у” means blooming, „д” means knowing the laws of Love, “а” means reasonableness, “л” means Love towards people and towards God. Is it wrong for one to be a “budala”? What else could people want? It is not bad that a man calls his wife “budala”; the bad thing is if she cannot extract the juice from this word and boil it, cook from it something delicious to eat. When she tastes the sweet juice of this word, she has to tell her husband, “Thank you for the nice gift!” This is what serving God in Spirit and Truth means. It means to have mastered the art of transmuting the bitter juice into sweet. It is to be achieved through strong, reasonable will. Those who have managed to apply their own reasonable will-power in their life shall never hear the word “budala”. Whoever meets them will tell them, “You are a beautiful flower; you are a blooming tree; you are a fruit growing ripe; you are a reasonable human applying one’s will-power in order to transmute the bitter juices into sweet ones. The task of each human is to learn the Law of transmutation of energies. Women have to transmute the offensive words of their husbands into pleasant ones, whereas men have to seek harmony in the offensive words of their wives. Whatever offensive or bad word they tell you, decompose it the way a chemist decomposes the compounds; take the bitter and toxic elements out of it and leave only those elements which are necessary for your development. This is what “serving God in Spirit and Truth” means. Serving is a great science. Be alchemists in life, turning the bad and offensive words into good ones. In the words people use, something valuable is hidden, even if they are offensive externally. Do not be fixed on the external forms of human language but seek in these forms those elements which heal and elevate people. In the old times, Bulgarians used to hide their gold in ragged bags, in smelly pots, so that they do not arouse any suspicion that here or there might be some hidden treasure. Good spirits act the same way. When they give someone a certain treasure, they conceal it into some offensive, bad words, so that evil entities do not find it and do not obsess it. Knowing this, do not get embittered by the offensive word said by your fellow but begin to analyze it so that you can extract the good elements concealed in it. Do not think that those who offend others do not suffer. They feel sorry about the word they have said, they blame themselves and have a hard time. Some people offend others, thinking that, by doing this, they speak the Truth. Such people should know that the Truth is distinguished for one quality: the Truth brings freedom to the human soul. When the Truth becomes the Head of the Word, people are set free and become happy. Today I wish that the Spirit may come and become the Head of the woman, and that the Truth may become the Head of the man. Then Christ will also come onto the Earth and will make His abode with them. When will this time come? When the woman accepts the Spirit as a Head, and when the man accepts the Truth as a Head. Only thus the world will be settled into good order, and a lovely, beautiful life will begin. Each one has to accept the Spirit and the Truth within themselves and not expect to be preached about them from outside, imposing the Spirit and the Truth to them. The salvation of the world is concealed in the verse pronounced by Christ, “True worshippers must serve God in Spirit and Truth.” All who serve God in this way shall bring peace into the world. Therefore, may each and every human put into their minds the thought that they are able to bring around peace. Peace comes from inside, not from outside. Therefore I say also to Bulgarians and to all nations: Do not lose faith in yourselves, reckon on God Who lives within you and Who has arranged everything in the world. Reckon on your Spirit and on the Truth within yourself. Everything happening now in the world is not something random: it is a matter of course. Out of the spilled blood, colourful and beautiful flowers will grow, and lovely trees giving sweet, delicious fruit. In order for these times to come, all must serve God in Spirit and Truth. The salvation of the world depends on each and every human individually. Does not a grain of wheat do the same? It is tiny, but, once put into favourable conditions, in the course of 12 years it may feed the whole world. Therefore, when saying that Christ has saved the world, we have in mind that mighty Soul which has penetrated all people and manifests itself everywhere. In this way, namely, it gives an impulse to the whole humankind to keep walking forward. Many of people nowadays do not succeed in their deeds because they consider everyone from the negative point of view. Whomever they see, each time they would tell something about this one. If all people are bad, where will salvation possibly come from? Every human ought to think that God has invested into their fellows potentials to be wisely reasonable, good and strong, and also favourable conditions to manifest themselves. Each human has the potential to be wise. Wisdom is a book, written inside each and every one. It is enough for people to read this book so that they may work their way to those Truths that will set them free from limitations and make them happy. Let everyone open the book of their own life and read what is written in there. You might say that this is hard to do. Hard deeds are Divine deeds. A young man once went to a German professor, with the desire that this professor gives him some advice to choose such a branch of science that will take him very little time. The professor looked at him and told him, “When God wishes to create a pumpkin, He determines a term of six months to this pumpkin; when He wants to create an oak tree, He determines a term of a hundred years to this tree.” So, if you want to grow ripe in six months, then pumpkin you shall be; if you wish to ripen in the course of a hundred years, then an oak tree you shall be. “In Spirit and Truth.” Keep working upon this thought, extracting the juices it contains. Thus you will come to inner knowing of yourself and of your fellow. If you cannot extract the sweet juices of this thought, you will constantly doubt in yourself and resemble that Bulgarian man named Stoyan who once stopped under a tree to rest and tied up his donkey to the tree. Meanwhile, he felt sleepy, lay down in the shadow of the tree, and fell asleep. Some children came up to the tree, untied the donkey, and walked away silently. Once Stoyan woke up, he looked to see the donkey, and, not seeing him, said, “If I am Stoyan, then I have lost my donkey; if I am not Stoyan, then I have gained a halter.” He had doubts about himself and asked himself, “Am I Stoyan, or am I not?” In order not to lose his donkey, he should not have fallen asleep. Therefore, whenever God comes to you, He must find you awake, just like the young man waiting for his beloved. It is not God Who must seek people – people have to seek and wait for God. Therefore, it is said in the Scripture, “Those that seek Me shall find Me.”[6] To find God means to have made your way to the great Divine philosophy of life. And everyone will apply this philosophy the way he or she is capable of applying, the way he or she understands. Once we come to the views of people, we see the big difference existing between their thoughts and feelings in terms of quality, scope, and value. The differences in the views, the feelings and the thoughts of people create the proper and improper relations between them. For example, most people love each other because of the good, the wealth, the knowledge, the strength, etc. A master loves his servant as long as the latter is able to work for him, as long as the servant has not infringed his interests somehow. Once the servant happens to be disloyal to him in some respect, his master does not love him anymore and dismisses him. A man loves his woman as long as she is healthy and beautiful. Once she gets sick and loses her beauty, he stops loving her. The same is true about women. It is an act of heroism to love a sinful and ugly person. Strong ones are capable of loving all people and give them an impulse towards everything good and beautiful in the world. Rely on the Divine in you as well as in your fellow. However feeble or thin it is, it will take you to the safety shore. Even if all devils perch on the Divine thread, they will not break it nevertheless. The Divine shall lead all people into the Right Way. The Divine shall settle right even the devils. I believe in the power of Good, in the power of the Divine. I believe that all people will become good. “In Spirit and Truth.” Apply in your home the Divine Teaching in Spirit and Truth, so that all weeping and suffering stop. Apply the Divine Teaching among men and women, so that relations of peace and agreement be settled between them. May women say to themselves, “I am the Spirit.” May men say to themselves, “I am the Truth.” Apply these spiritual formulas in your life, and then experience what results they will bring. A talk by the Master, held on 3rd June, 1917, Sofia Translated by Kalina Stoycheva [1] John 4:24 – ed. [2] Psalm 119:160 – ed. [3] John 10:30 – ed. [4] “Budala”: a Turkish word meaning “chump”, “easy game” – ed. [5] Written in Cyrillic letters – ed. [6] Proverbs 8:17 – ed.

Simplicity ‘This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightiest war a good warfare’. 1 Timothy: 1: 18 The word warfare and feat are similar because it takes the right warfare to perform a feat in the world. The word feat implies elevating. Warfare elevates the human spirit, while lowering down is the fall of the human spirit. Above all, it is simplicity that is required from all of us, which is not to say that you should be simple, but that all the knowledge you have, should be simplified. Things should be simple in their foundation, just like the warp is simple before one starts weaving, and then it becomes complex through intertwining. So, concepts should be clear and simple in their foundation. Simplicity should reign in your minds and hearts. I want you to grasp the word simplicity in order to understand it. When you are worried, please, pronounce this word and you will feel peace in your soul. Each good word should generate peace within you. I shall speak to you about the word warfare and I shall draw your attention to one fact, so that you can understand the contradictions existing in life. Since I notice such contradictions among you and you cannot clarify them. Do not think that I want to give you a dressing-down. No dressing-down; I want certain thoughts and desires to become clearer to you. Imagine you are in a rich garden, you are sitting on a chair and there is an apple tree with beautifully shaped leaves and blossoms in front of you. You take delight in watching it. Let’s assume that the leaves of the tree are quiet and tranquil, talking to one another, saying, ‘How nice the Divine world is; we live in peace and agreement!’ But some time afterwards, there comes a wind, the leaves start rustling and some of them fall. In this society, up there in the tree, rows begin, ‘You do not understand Christianity, you are a savage’ etc. You are in a similar situation, when you start going from one house to another and you say, ‘Do you know that woman, she is such and such a woman.’ This shows that there is a wind amongst you. People ask why somebody goes from one house to another to spread gossip about this woman and about that woman. I ask, ‘Why is there a wind?’ The cause is external. You have to understand these external movements that are beyond you. If you are a leaf and if there comes a wind, you will inevitably bump into somebody. This is why you should tell that person, ‘Sorry, I did not mean to!’ This is why you should forgive one another. When the wind abates peace and agreement will reign again, but if the wind comes again, rows will start anew. This is one actual fact of life and you should say, ‘A wind is blowing.’ Each one of you should have a cap, so that when the wind starts blowing, you can put it on your heads and everything will return again to peace and agreement. Such a cap implies that one can restrain one’s thoughts and desires. If one has such a cap, one’s thoughts and one’s desires will be in order; if one has no such cap, one is in trouble. If you enter the Divine Life, there will be no such winds, there will be slight puffs of wind instead, which will only stir the leaves like the leaves of aspen trees and these puffs of wind will show that you live in the world of winds. Whatever you do, you will tell this leaf, ‘Be assured that I will never do this again and that I repent.’ Everyday there will be mistakes and repentances. Such are the people – moralists who say that we have to live a good, fair and honest life. No matter how clean the tree leaves are, when dust falls upon them they get dirty. Similarly there will be dust and cleaning, and rows and so on in everyday life, but this life has to go on. When you, two sisters, get together and start quarrelling, you will say, ‘Sorry, my sister, there is a wind, therefore we are shaking.’ This is the right resolution to the problem. When you are cross with each other, get together and say the following formula, ‘Christ is equal to y [whai],), 0-0, 1-1.’ This is the meaning of the last line of the Proverb1. ‘This one, who listens to me, will live in peace and safety, not fearing any evil.’ This is the same law. Sometimes, there is a struggle between the mind and the heart, there is a split between them – the heart desires one thing, the mind – another; there is a dispute. You decide to do one thing, but actually you do another thing. Life is not cheap words. Let’s assume that two of you have a hundred dca2 of land each left by their father. One of you is a good worker, tills her land, made a garden, planted fruit trees, and the rest of the land is planted with wheat, barley, corn etc. However, the second one says, ‘I do not need these things’ and leaves her land uncultivated. Both go to see their wealth, one of them has wheat, corn; she takes delight in everything, life has a meaning for her; while the land of the other one is grown with weeds and she says, ‘Life is meaningless.’ Who makes life meaningful or meaningless? You say, ‘The Lord should grant us this and that!’ The Lord has granted you land, which is your heart; cultivate it! The heart can be cultivated the way fruit trees are cultivated. Grant your heart all the good wishes, plant the desires in it! You should plant on time, not out of season. For those who plant trees there are two planting periods – summer and winter. Farmers also have two planting periods – summer and winter. There are certain planting periods for those who plant corn, too. So, when good wishes rise within you, do not postpone them for after having done the other work, you should plant them immediately. If you start asking how to plant them, this means you pay attention to what various people have done to you. Put everything aside, plant the good wish! Let’s say that you may be indisposed; leave your indisposition aside, your indisposition and you are two different things! Do you know what you look like when you are angry with one another? Imagine a fly comes and spits over your nose; you immediately start shouting, ‘What right does it have?’ You start chasing it, you are angry with all the other flies. Just clean your nose and this is all there is to it! Somebody has said something about you; clean it and that is all there is to it. But you ask, ‘Do you know what this fly did to my nose?’ Leave it aside. Somebody insulted you; do not tell others what that person has said to you, because you plant it in their minds. But you, however, start telling each other what insults you have suffered and thus you spread the words among the entire society. One woman tells something to a second woman, the second woman tells it to a third one, a tag is added to the original words and in the end there is a big story. Such are the students of the 20th century. This, of course, for the world, for the people who have no work, is useful, but for those who have work, there are more serious things for them to do. So Apostle Paul addressed the Timothians with the following words, ‘To the King of centuries honour and glory be forever. Amen!’3 If God has given you such a heart to glorify Him, you have to plant the good wishes in your hearts for the Lord to cultivate them. All the good wishes are to be planted only in the morning; nothing should be planted in the evening. Seeds grow in the evening; seeds should be planted in the morning. This is the rule in the spiritual world. Do you know what morning means? – Morning is youth. In the morning, the Sun is a young lad, at noon – the Sun is a married man, while in the evening – an old grandfather. When you watch the Sun in the evening, it says to you, ‘Well, everything is gone, it has been a hundred years since; you should have come when I was young, when I worked, so that I could give you something.’ Go to the fields and ask an old man to help you, he will tell you, ‘I am old, I can’t, my bones ache.’ Ask someone young, and the young one will promptly come to your aid. Who reaps the field? – Young lads and girls. In order to work in the world, you will have to be young; in order to be young, you should not sin. Those who sin get older, those who do good get younger. So, use the words, ‘Let my Sun rise in my soul and renovate my heart.’ This will bring rejuvenation. This shows that you want to be good, and a good person is a person with many fruit trees in one’s garden. How to plant – with or without water? Certainly, with water. This law acts in the following way. You try to make an experiment. Sometimes you may have a big misfortune or unhappiness in life, which may be of a different nature. You are in despair from what has happened to you. After such unhappiness, a good thought is always bound to come; water it. Now is the time. One who has not suffered cannot have good thoughts. When you are beset with sufferings, this shows that the Lord pays attention to you, that it is time to plant. This is the right interpretation. Somebody has said something about you, a deadly insult, you will suffer, you will weep, but there will come a sort of calming down, a good thought will come. Get to work immediately, and plant it! This planting will pay off the debt for the insult. I will explain to you the law which states why you should not take revenge. Let’s assume that somebody breaks into your house and steals 1000 leva4 from you. However, on the same day you have a very important job from which you will make 100 000 leva. If you start running after the thief, you will lose 100 000 leva. The Lord says, ‘Forget about the 1000 leva, you will gain 100 000 leva, see to your work.’ Somebody insulted you but at the same time you have an important job to do for God; finish your work, because you will lose double the amount if you decide to avenge yourselves. Is there any philosophy in this? – Yes, there is. Try it for yourselves to find out whether it is true or not. Apply this on the first chance you get. I often meet people along the road trying to get 1000 leva. - Where are you going? - Money was stolen from me, 1000 leva. - You will lose 100 000 leva. I am telling you also, I have seen you running after 1000 leva; be aware, you will lose 100 000 leva. This is what the Gospel preaches: do not seek revenge, because the Lord says, ‘Revenge is for me’. ‘Do not judge, in order not to be judged.’ Everybody has an important work to do in the world, rather than judge others. You will then have a peaceful and calm life; but only if you listen to your Lord – the One you know. Every day you may try who this Lord is. As long as you perform His Will, you will be calm and peaceful, if you do not perform His will – you will not be at ease. Why then is the Lord not there? The Lord comes only in times of suffering. The Lord descends when the world is in greatest sufferings. When one is in dire straits, the Lord visits such a person, and when one feels fine, the Lord says, ‘Ask this person here.’ We say, ‘God rest his soul, he has departed.’ But I say, ‘this person has gone to visit his Father in his fatherland, has gone to his home, and then he will come back again.’ So this is what happens – sometimes the Lord comes to us, sometimes we go to Him. What does this remind us of? When a father gets his son married, the son is separated to live in a new house and sometimes the son visits the father, sometimes the father visits the son. Tell me, when do you visit the Lord? - When you are in great desperation, when you are in suffering. And if someone tramples down on your toes at this time, then the Lord has visited you. This is why you have to pay visits to suffering people. From now on, you will know that you can visit God ten times a day, while the Lord can visit you – once a day. Praying is appealing to God. You are aggrieved, you are sad – pray. The Lord gives comfort in three ways: He will send a person to help you, he will send an angel, and He will descend Himself to comfort you. You ask why we were born. To visit the Lord – this is why you were born. This is the great law, according to which people in grief and people in earthly need get closer. If they have no need, we would not understand what the niceties in Life lie in. You will remember this thought: Life, the way it is, is the best life, and you, the way you live now, have the best of lives. Some may say, ‘I am a bad person.’ In what respect? You are not bad, but you have land that you do not want to cultivate. You are lazy. You have to work. Get down to work – you will not be sinful. How does sin come about? If you do not work, you will sin; you will be thinking where to take something from, what to do and before you know it you will be in debt to the whole world. So, you are not sinful at heart, but some of you do not want to work. For example some say, ‘How can I get up at four o’clock in the morning? Is this time for getting up?’ Yes, it is, because the night is meant for sleep, but the morning – for work. When the Sun rises, everybody should be out of bed, and when the Sun sets everybody should be in bed. This is what birds do as well. If you want to understand Christ, this is what you have to do and this how you have to live. When suffering comes, you should say, ‘It’s time for work’. Get ready to sow! When the first good wish comes to you, sow it and within a year you will see how rich you will be. This is what the Bulgarians mean when they say, ‘One’s eyes have opened.’ When one becomes rich, then one’s eyes open. For example, a poor man makes a windowless hut; when he becomes better off he immediately opens one, two or even more than two windows. Those who know, they have windows. The sufferings sent to you are necessary for your development. Saying ‘Let my Sun rise’ is an indication of the incarnated human being on Earth. You have to use this Sun which rises. Every morning, when you wake up, you are born, and every evening when you fall asleep, you die. Therefore, if you do not get up on time in the morning to give birth to your child, it will die. Please watch people who get up late, they are indisposed for the whole day. We say about them that they have not given birth to their children. You have to comprehend the deep meaning of things, not to stick to the letter of the things. Under ‘morning’ I mean all the good conditions given to you by God, therefore do not postpone them. They are one morning in Life. Is there any reaction in you to getting up early, say for example any disease? I will recommend several rules: I have noticed that some people walk very fast, but you have to walk lightly, because otherwise you sweat, which accounts for the light diseases. The second rule: watch the colours of the Sun, particularly on Midsummer Day. While watching, sow good thoughts in yourself. Let’s assume that there is a profusion of good thoughts in you; you have to share these thoughts with others, so that they can also sow some of them, i.e. you should transmit them to others too. If there is any disharmony among you, let it decrease by fifty percent at least. I will give you a third rule: when you hear that two sisters have had a row, you should say, ‘there has been a wind, so let’s get together and pray to God for them to make up.’ You will send your good thoughts to them. Apart from this, get in groups and all of you take turns to visit them at their homes. You will get the following result: for example, one of your sisters has 100 leva, somebody comes and takes it from her. Therefore, when you go and visit her, each of you should give one leva and she will recover the loss. She has suffered and this is why something good must be given to her. These issues should not be considered from your point of view, but they should be resolved on principle, the way issues are resolved at school. Human beings cannot live on principle until they unite with the Lord, until the Lord starts living within them. Can a divorced woman live a good life? Never. Leave a child without a mother and it will become rough. If the child lives with the mother for fifteen or twenty years, she will impart a little delicacy to the child. While those who have lived without mothers are a little bit more callous; therefore they are given sufferings, to ennoble them. When somebody is suffering, I say, ‘Your mother has departed early; therefore you need sufferings to become ennobled.’ This is the path for those who want to develop, to grow, and to become elevated. The fourth rule: go and see fruit trees growing in somebody else’s garden, so that you can, similarly, plant fruit trees in your garden. The fifth rule: you should put down in your notebooks what good, either in words or at heart, you did for the day, if any. If you send a good thought to somebody, note it down. It is often said that the Lord will rectify the world. How will He do this? Through us. If branches do not blossom and do not set fruit, how can they develop? This is the practical side of it. You are very touchy; you are shy of being exposed, of making a fool of yourself before some people or before other people. How many times a day have you been shy before God? As long as you do not see Him, you are not concerned. In time I will give you a method to transform bad words into good ones. I want you to be inspired with these good ideas. Try to apply everything in your entire spiritual life – in eating, drinking, walking, and singing. This is what a spiritual person should be understood to be – to do everything for the Glory of God. The sixth rule: watch out that no desire to avoid people will arise in you. I want you to have friends from the outside, from the world, not friends from among yourselves only. Why do people marry? To become closer, to befriend each other, don’t they? As early as now you will have to open your purse and start giving to others too. There is nothing to fear, because the one, who gives, always wins more than the one who takes. The seventh rule: you feel aggrieved on a certain day, burdened, you think that there is no meaning in life; go further down, see those people who are more aggrieved, more burdened than you and you will understand that life is meaningful. And when you want to become elevated, watch how people above you live, imitate them in life, because life has such a spill over effect. If I do not impart something from myself to you, you will learn nothing. Life is imparted through contacts, through influence, thus transferring both the good and the evil. I know many good men, who get worse in a company of bad women, and I also know bad men who improve in the company of good women. The law is very true: we influence one another. And you say, ‘What are we like?’ Put away your old notebooks; turn a new leaf and start writing, ‘From now on I will take and give Christ’s rules!’ You will be cheerful and jovial. The eighth rule: be careful not to tell your daughters, ‘you do not know life, you have to be smarter; you are young, when you become old you will understand it.’ Do not bring them up along these lines; do not talk to them about old age. Your daughter is cheerful, let her be cheerful, let her play, let her sing, leave her alone. When she gets angry, you say to the Lord, ‘Thank you, God, for letting me see what nice faces my daughter makes!’ The same is true about Nature: you see how a tree bends, makes faces, but this is also enjoyable. You want your children to do what you yourselves do not do. Strange it is how sinners want their daughters to be saints. Let them fly in rage, let them cry a little, but when you look upon all of it from a philosophical point of view and when you are composed, this will have an impact over your daughter too. In the new up-bringing you will apply Christ’s Teaching. It will have to be an entirely new up bringing; do not add new patches to the old style. You cannot sew new patches of cloth to old clothes. You may say, ‘My daughter will be good, if not now, later on!’ Because whatever one thinks, happens. You and your daughter are one and the same thing. Why don’t I think evil of people? Because this is a reflection. When I think evil of people, it will come back to me. The thought creates things and is reflected upon you. You will apply these rules this month. You will go out to watch the sunrise up to the 24 June and afterwards you will take a rest at home for twenty days. There are other ways to apply the law of walking: if you are not in a position to go out, you will get up early and after praying, you will take an imaginary walk. And when you say, ‘I can’t go out today’, you thus spoil your work. If sometimes you want to visit a sister of yours, but if you are not in a position to do so, sit down in your chair and visit her spiritually. You should not impart negative thoughts that you cannot do one thing or another. Even if you are taken to bed, you should say, ‘I am now repairing my body, but my soul can go!’ So, the law should always be applied by using the word can. This is how human will is manifested. If you are not clear about certain things, several of you should get together and think it over. Because only what you try and learn will be of use to you and will strengthen your faith that you have a positive Science on which you can rely. Master’s lecture, delivered on the 31st of May 1917. ________________________________ 1 Quotation from the Bible, Proverbs 1:33 2 Dca – a measure equal to 1 000 m2 3 1 Timothy 1: 17 4 Leva is the national Bulgarian currency Source

Abide “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” John 15:10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My Love.” The word “if” in the original has another meaning, not the same as in the Bulgarian language – a condition. This verb keep has a relation to the human will – in order to keep the commandments we have to abide in them, and the fulfillment arises through the participation of the will. The one, who does not fulfill the Divine commandments, cannot abide in His Love. Then, it is not enough that a person abides in the Father’s commandments but to abide in His Love, as Christ has kept the commandments of His Father and has been abiding in His Love. The execution of the Divine commandments both in broad and narrow sense produces the same result. When we arrive to the exterior side of things, the outer world, we observe that something is keeping us for it. The same could be said for the relation between the limbs of man, his soul and Spirit; if the Spirit and the soul do not keep the hands, the legs, the brain, the lungs and the stomach, nothing would remain of a person. The spirit keeps all the organs of the body in complete order; and the soul abides in the functions, which the organs execute, and makes use of the energies, which they receive and transmit – the soul does not keep the air but abides in it. Breathing, thinking, feeling signify abiding, and the actions, which provoke them, we call behavior. One of the processes, which channel in the human organism, we call free or depending on our will; the others are restricted, not depending on our will. The movement of the hands and the legs depends on our will, but the beating of the heart, the breathing, and the digestion are not dependent on us. “You will abide in my Love.” One who does not understand the main commandment of Life – the Love; considers that he can restrict it. Love cannot be restricted, it is relating to the free actions. A man can abide in Love, but cannot restrict it. In the abiding, he perceives and gives – at the same time, there is a regular exchange; in the keeping of the commandments there is a fulfillment – exhaustion of energy. For some people, the questions about the keeping and abiding seem (rather) abstract; it is depending on them, whether they are abstract or not. What one thinks – that happens. If one closes his eyes, it is natural, that he will not be able to see, nor understand the matter. It is depending on man, whether he will see or not; when he closes his spiritual sight, he will neither see, nor understand. Consequently, if you want to see and understand, open your eyes. In the understanding, as an inner process, a certain movement is concealed. For example, in order to study a particular place, and get to know it, you have to journey through it; in order to study a particular unclear question, you will have to make a little effort. How do you act when you want to turn an electric light on? You hold the key, switch it on and say: “Let it be light!” – and it becomes light around you. What if you say that you want light in your mind? Go into one library; take out the book, where it is written about the question that interests you and start to read – since you work for a while in this direction, the dim question will clarify. Man was not born learned, but with endeavour, constancy and work, he achieves what he aspires. For the one, who does not work with Love, Life is a struggle and labour, he is constantly complaining that he is suffering that you are resting on bulwarks but what they are exactly, you are not aware. The sufferings and struggles, which man goes through, show that there is a certain disharmony in his life. The Reason of Nature is drawing your attention to rectify your mistake, which has caused you the disharmony. If you cannot rectify it on your own, go to a doctor, or a specialist who knows how to rectify. You will say that you will have to pay the doctor; it should be paid, besides, the better and more experienced the doctor is, the more you will pay him. The more serious your disease is, the more experienced doctor you will seek; the inexperienced doctor takes little money but instead of benefit, he can cause you harm. Nowadays, more people look for an easy way to acquire something great or to gain entry in the Divine Kingdom. There is no easy way for entering the Divine Kingdom. One, who came on Earth to learn and work, should not avoid the difficult and arduous path in Life; these are the circumstances for his growth. To search for an easy path, means to run the danger in you [A1] – the easy path is human and the difficult – Divine. If someone takes you up to the top of the mountain and then you coast down the inclined area, you will easily reach the foot of the mountain, but this does not mean that you alone have solved the difficult question – in the same way, children coast down (a hill) with their sleds in winter. The teaching of Christ is not a teaching about descending but about ascending, besides that, with labour and effort. Observe how the villagers hoe with the mattock; see how they plough up the land with a wooden plough. How does the Bulgarian plough the land? Along with oxen. Sometimes with two oxen, and sometimes with four or six, the number of oxen he ploughs with is not significant, because the principle is the same. In plowing both principles work equally - keeping and abiding. The two oxen suggest the human mind and the human body, so does the goad – the command which goads the mind and the heart occasionally, in order to remind that they have to work and follow their direction – the furrow. Some people think that they are free but in reality they are all harnessed – someplace in twos, someplace in threes or four altogether. Once in a while, you are unharnessed to rest. When do the oxen rest? When the master requests. Once they have rested, again their master harnesses them to work. Such is the reality. You will say that this is the situation of the oxen – do you think that the souls of the oxen lack intelligence? In a certain sense, the ox stands higher than man. It is said about a person that he has the patience of an ox, which means the ox has been taken as a symbol of patience. What would you say about the grains of wheat that are placed in various conditions? Those, who are placed in favourable circumstances for growth, have grown and have fruits of a good quality; the others who were not placed in favourable circumstances could not grow, but this still does not show that the latter grains of wheat do not hide in themselves the same gifts, as the first grains, placed in good circumstances. Consequently, the relation between the former and the latter grains of wheat is the same as it is between the soul of man and the ox. At present, the ox is deprived of circumstances to grow, and manifest the virtues of his soul; there will come a day, when God will place it in circumstances to manifest its gifts – then you will see that the talented and genius people, whom we meet today, will derive from it. Nowadays, the ox ploughs, works the land, fulfilling the main command and helps the man; for the work that he does, the master feeds it and the ox is thankful that he got fed. The same is the case with the man: he also works hard, makes efforts and takes his meals – he sits before the table, eating and says: “The world is well created.” Really, the world is well created, but you have to thank your Lord, who feeds you for the work that you have done – if you stop working, your Lord stops to feed you. As soon as you become hungry, you start to cry and to pray, until your Lord grants you the needed food. In relation to his work, man resembles the horse, which, because it is accustomed to carry weight, even if it is set free, cannot make use of it. One horse worked for his master for thirty whole years and when it grew old, the master released it from work, and let him free in the forest, but every day at the same time the horse arrived close to the well from which it used to draw water for the garden and stand there – it was awaiting for the master to come and harness it to work. Christ says: “If you keep my commandments.” – Which commandments? The commandments that could make human life happy and reasonable. When speaking about these commandments, many listen and say they have read them. Since you have read them, I am asking, has your life become happy and decent. – “We didn’t become happier.” – If you are not happier, this shows that you have read them, but didn’t grasp their meaning. Christ says further on: “You will abide in my Love.” What greater welfare do you expect than the fulfillment and applying of the commandments of God? There is no greater fortune for a home, where the man abides in the commandments of God and His Love, and the woman – in the commandments of her man. Why are families destroyed? For neither the man, nor the woman keep their promises. The man promises that he will keep and abide in the commandments of God but when he gets married, he forgets all – he begins to drink and feast with friends, and squanders everything: the woman says: “I can never live with such a man.” Therefore, a family where the woman does not abide in the commandments of her husband is destined to death. If the man does not abide in the commandments of God and does not fulfill His will, the woman is also free not to fulfill the commandments of her man, however if the man fulfills God’s will and abides in His commandments and the woman does not abide in the Love of her man, the responsibility falls on her. This is what Christ preached to His disciples. “You will abide in my Love.” The one, who abides in the Divine Love, fulfills His commandment; the one who does not abide in Love, cannot fulfill His commandments – he makes mistakes like children. In (the region of Varna) in the village of Nikolaevka, the priest’s wife had plastered up the house well, she had washed and cleaned – this was towards the day of St. Sebastian. She was in a hurry to quickly finish her work, so she could go to the church early the next morning. Her child, a ten year old boy had seen how people thresh in summer and the moment he was left alone at home, decided to thresh, to play; he took a corn in a container and let in all the turkeys. The child threw corn to the turkeys, chased and ran after them – he was well entertained. When the neighbours passed near the preacher’s house, they heard a loud noise coming from within. They met the wife of the priest in the church and said to her: “Something is going on in your house, but we don’t know what – you could hear clamour and noise from far away.” After the service had finished, the preacher’s wife went home straight away and such was her astonishment, when she entered the room and saw all the turkeys – clucking, fluttering, pouncing upon the walls, and the fine boy chasing them, getting them to thresh. When he saw his mother, the delinquent ran straight away – he left her alone to deal with the self-invited guests. Many people proceed like children: their mothers plaster up the rooms, clean up, and they get the turkeys in to amuse themselves. Thus, they want to show, that they are free, but this is a childish freedom, a childish apprehension. Somebody has a favourable disposition of the spirit, he is inspired with something Divine, but suddenly his child comes into the room and brings after it the turkeys and the ducks - to arrange an amusement. The father sees that the room is dirty and in one moment, the good disposition leaves him. In order not to lose their favourable disposition, the mother and the father should lock their room with nine keys, so the children won’t come in and make it dirty. The fault stands in the mother and the father, and not in the child; finding the rooms open, it goes inside, takes the corn and drives the ducks and turkeys in to play with them. “If you keep my commandments.” Since the verb “keep” is related to the will, never say that you are not able to do something or a particular problem is obscure to you and you cannot understand it, that the circumstances are poor or that the time has not arrived yet for you to manifest, and so on. Leave this aside; know that nobody can be an obstacle to you - everyone stumbles alone. Who was the obstacle for the first humans to stumble? God placed them in favourable circumstances for development, but they transgressed and left Heaven - the cause stands in themselves, in their hidden aspirations. A person stumbles, when he does not understanding his desires, he does not know whether they are efficient or not. The wife of an American millionaire had many desires and she could not realize when and how to fulfill all of them. When she went to Paris, she used to go in all the big shops and bought everything her eyes saw. One day, she bought articles for an extraordinary amount and having no possibility to pay in full, she wrote down the bill to the name of her husband, who was famous amongst the greatest merchants in Paris. When he received the draft for the payment of enormous amounts, he paid it off immediately, but decided to divorce his wife. In order to be free from his duties to her, he built a house-palace for the value of fifteen million dollars, gave her thirty million at hand, to be at her disposal, as she thinks best - he had preferred to give her great sums, to secure her well, but to save himself from ruin. God acts upon those who squander the Divine goods, the way the millionaire acted upon his wife: He gives those forty-five million at their disposal and He gets a divorce. You will reply that the one who has forty-five million at disposal is a happy person. Woe betide the one who got divorced from God - he is ready to commit all manner of crimes. When one does not keep the commandments of God, one can commit all the crimes; if you want to be free from the evil and the crimes outside and inside of you, keep the commandments of God, and abide in Love. When you get up from sleep in the morning, if you are a woman, ask yourself the following questions: “Do I keep the commandments of my man, and does my man keep the commandments of God? Do I abide in the Love of my man, and does my man abide in the Love of God?” If you answer these questions positively you will spend the whole day in Peace and Joy, because God has blessed you; if you answer negatively, you will be ungrateful, indisposed, unhappy. Why are people unhappy? Because they do not fulfill the commandments of God nor do they abide in His Love, and yet they want to realize their aspirations. Gluttony makes people unhappy. One hunter, who often used to go hunting in the Old Mountain, spoke about the following experience: as he passed by a river in the mountain, he saw on the coast one bear with five little bears. They played around the coast, and the mother repeatedly thrust in the water and pulled out little crabs which she gave to her cubs, one of them was getting ahead of the others and was eating up the crabs - the turn for the others to have a even a bite never happened. When the bear noticed this, she hit the glutton bear, which tumbled down on the ground. Finally, she headed to her lair and she turned to the bear that was imposed, but realized that it was dead. She took it in her lap; she swayed it a little, but couldn’t bring it to life. Saddened by the loss, she went into the forest. Likewise a man carries in himself one greedy bear, which he must educate and penalize. One has the right to penalize it, but in a way that he doesn’t mortify it - in case he mortifies it prematurely, he will suffer. That’s why Christ says: “One, who wants to be fortunate, should posses a steeled will, a bright mind and pure heart, he should keep My commandments thus, as I keep the commandments of my Father and abide in Me as well as I abide in the Love of God.” Only thus, a person can become great, because God, who is living in him, is great. Hence, open your hearts and souls for God, so that He can enter in you with His commandments and His Love to make you great and powerful. Thereafter a person says that everything he aspires to achieve is possible. If you keep the commandments of God and abide in His Love, you will comprehend the verse line that Christ had said: “With man this is impossible but with God all things are possible.” Where is the God? He is in everyone who fulfills His Will. Some want to know how to discern the one who is keeping the commandments of God? Very simple: if your thoughts are clear and positive, and you have noble and pure feelings, you keep the commandments of God and abide in His Love. I said that you should verify everything - for each matter apply the words: explore and see (experience). If you have a difficult problem to solve, do not hasten to decide immediately, but think over it for a few hours, until Light penetrates your mind; if you cannot decide until the evening, this shows that you have a negative thought, which is an obstacle. Free your mind from the negative thoughts and the heart from negative feelings and begin to think over the matter of interest to you. You will say that there is no spare time to devote to this problem hours and days. You will do your work as usual, but at the same time you will think; if you cannot decide in a day, you will solve it in a week - it is important that it will be solved rightly. If you want to know whether your heart abides in Love, see if you have inner Peace and tranquility. If you have peace of mind, on every occasion, even if you hesitate on the outside, you are going to be calm inside. Whether you believe in this, or not, is not significant - make an attempt and you will be assured of my words. Many sufferings of the present people are owing to exterior influences and suggestions. This should not affect you. Man has will-power to bear all difficulties and sufferings. If your will is strong, you can work wonders - one who has a strong and reasonable will can get over the hardest sufferings. In this respect, the martyrs of Christ set an example: they were burned, torn into pieces, tortured, but with the power of their will, withstood everything without feeling pain - they kept the commandments of God and abided in Love. If the starfish can regrow its cut or lacerated leg, why shouldn’t a man be able to do the same? Man should increase his will, so that he can control his thoughts and desires with it. Love arrives to help the man, in order to feed his thoughts, feelings and desires - only thus is it possible to work. How do you act when you take a worker in your house? In order to work well, first, you give him food; once fed well, he is ready to work. This means that Love is necessary like food for man - without Love, his life is not going well. You will object, to me, that life is heavy, that woman and children should be supported. It’s a wonder, the woman was in man - God brought her out, from the rib of Adam; so whether a person is married, or not, this does not make life harder, or easier. There is no such person in the world, who does not carry the man or the woman in him - the man and the woman always go together. Whether the woman or the man is inside or outside the man, it is not significant - every man carries the woman in him and every woman carries the man in her. They cannot exist without each other: the man is an incentive for the woman and the woman - for the man. If you take away the woman from the world, every culture will disappear; if you take away the man, again there will be no culture. Under the words man and woman in a broad sense I imply the mind and the heart. A mind without a heart cannot exist and heart without a mind cannot be - they always go together and complement one another. And so, when people struggle and suffer, the cause stands not in the man, nor in the woman, but in the fact that man does not keep the commandments of God and does not abide in the Love of God. In the word man I imply also the Divine mind, and in woman - the Divine heart. The mind represents the human will, which is manifesting in his body, and the heart - the movement; the mind reflects the processes of the will, and the heart - the reflexes. If the man wants to live well together with his wife, let her be free, to manifest as a self-dependent person, and not to fulfill somebody else’s will and another’s instructions. Let two men make the following trial: the first should write down commands and rules, by which his wife will be directed, and the other should let her free to live by her deep, inner understanding. When a person is guided not by the written laws, but from his heart of Reason, the results are always good. If the man is discontented with his wife, because she is not following his personal demands, he is on the wrong way - this is not the teaching of Christ. Christ has preached Love and Freedom. The place, where Love is absent, there is only violence and detestation. “If you keep my commandments” - what does man keep things with? With hands. The violinist keeps the violin and the bow with his hands and from the accurate keeping of the violin and his manifestation stands on the movement of the bow – being ordinary, talented or a genius violinist. Somebody says that he feels like singing; very naturally, when Love visits man, he feels like singing, playing, in order to manifest. Where Love is absent, there is no song, no music. When it has been said to people that they should sing, this means to open their hearts for the Love - singing is a door, through which Love enters in man. When it has been said to people to pray, we understand the same - to open their minds and hearts for Love. Eating, singing and praying represent identical process - opening of the mind and heart for Love, which is the one to elevate man and make him happy from all that is given to him. They are tightly related with each other. When singing, a person should gratify himself first and then the surroundings; what people think of him, whether they are content or not, this is a secondary matter - first he has to be glad of himself. This is the meaning of the words; “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” Further on, Christ says: “Whatever you ask for in My name, it will be given to you.” Know God by means of His commandments in order to resolve the matter which is difficult for you. Somebody cannot manage the neighbors, he cannot stand them; while he is without the Love of God, he will not be able to stand anyone. What is worthwhile for a person is to fulfill the law of God and to say: “I can achieve anything with God”, which means: “With Love, I can bare everything.” Christ says to each person: Love the God in you, in order to love your relative”, but the devil speaks to him: Love is a great thing, but you are not yet ready for it, you cannot love and forgive - in order to love you need to be learned, to have knowledge of the laws of the entire Being.” Christ opposes the devil and says: “Whether you are learned or uneducated, poor or rich, great or small, you can love and you have to manifest the Love which is implanted in your heart.” Remember: along with Love, a person can achieve everything - the ugly can become beautiful, the poor - rich, the uneducated - learned. Without Love, man loses everything - wealth, beauty, and Knowledge. Do not trust the fictitious teachings, which tell you, that you cannot put Love in practice. If you keep the commandments of God and abide in Love, do not trust the one, who tells you, that you do not follow the right path; do not trust, when someone tells you that the fruit which you cultivated is bitter or sour. In the past, before it has ripened, the fruit had been sour and bitter but today, it is sweet. Do not live with your past - the present, which you spend nowadays, is important. On one occasion Nasredin Hodja, riding on the back of his old ox, headed to the field. He met an acquaintance who asked: “Hodja, why are you riding this old ox?” The Hodja didn’t reply that he acted so because he had no horse but said: “Do not look at the form of my ox today, you should have seen it a few years ago, when it was jumping and playing lively like a young and strong foal.” According to me, it is not important what the ox had been in the past, it is important what it is today - the past had lived its time. The present life is a reflection of the past; therefore we are discontented with it. The new that we acquire and put in practice at present, will determine our life in the future. He who wants to know what his previous life had been, let him look at the present; there he will discover his past. When living in a new way, he is building up his bright future. Thus, the one who hesitates on the path has admitted to himself one leg of the devil. Man has knowledge of Truth, but he alone, admits the doubt to himself. Nobody can lie to anyone, especially himself. If you keep the commandments of God and abide in His Love, you are on the right path and whatever you aspire to, you can attain. Christ is working with the word can, and the devil with the word cannot. If you say that you can live well, Christ is with you; if you say that you cannot live well, Christ is far from you. - “I am a sinful man” - if somebody says this, this suggests that his will is weak. The transgression, the mistakes are concealed in the weak-will of humans; give the right direction to your will and you will ascend. If you have transgressed, you will get cleansed - there is plenty of water in Nature, therefore man can always wash and cleanse himself. Men and women - all have to cleanse themselves, and become conscious of their purpose, and fulfill it. What is the mission of the woman? First, she should raise herself, and then - the man. The good-natured and beautiful woman is an ideal for man - she implants in him an impulse to what is sublime, she persuades him to think and at the same time she implants Peace and tranquility in his soul. The mission of the man is to raise himself first and then - the woman. He has to manifest the power of his mind, in order to persuade her to work. Whatever she aspires, the man has to fulfill it; if today he is giving one promise and tomorrow he does not fulfill it, he is likened to a granny, who stands on every step and cannot go forward. If the man tells a young lady that he loves her, he has to verify the sincerity of his words. It is time already to put in practice the teaching of Christ in all its breadth and depth. If you say that you cannot employ it, you are a granny; if you say that you can employ it, you are a young person, a brave man, who can achieve everything. For the women, I wish them to be abundant in the Love of God, to carry the idea for employing Love and everywhere they go, to carry a scent - to disperse the fragrance of Love. I wish the men to implant trust in all women - to rely on their word and to their promises. “If you keep my commandments” - this is required from the man; “You will abide in my love” - this is required of the woman. And I say: the woman should abide in Love, and the man should keep the commands of the woman. 27 May 1917, Sofia _______________________________________________ [A1]Unclear. [means to run from the danger in you]

The Good Stored up in Man “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him” Christ is speaking about the two different ways for bringing out qualities: “The good man brings of his store good things out, and the evil man brings evil things out”. The first one and the other bring something out of their storehouse, but they get different results. That means, that one and the same action or one and the same reason can produce two different results – two persons sow a field with the same thing, though the result of each one’s seed, differs from the seed of the other. How are the words good and evil store understood? In order to acquire a good storehouse, man should work a thousand years on himself – this is the only way he can obtain wealth and bear the Goodness out of the good stored up in him. A person achieves wealth in two ways and in two different directions: he can grow rich in a short time or gain assets in his life throughout many years; at the same time he could grow rich soon or throughout many years but gain discredit about it, too. Wealth is necessary to people but what kind of wealth? People have turned out and pay attention rather to the material wealth, but it is a temporary acquisition and not everlasting. For a period of time, richness rejoices man and satisfies him, but next, he is searching for something else, beyond the material wealth. When studying the deep meaning of Christianity, man arrives at the understanding that the true development is concealed in the inner, spiritual wealth of the soul. The spiritual science, called by some “religion”, requires spiritual growth of man. In this case, the word religion is not quite apt, but there is no other word in the Bulgarian language to substitute for it. Under religious person, they understand a foolish, narrow-minded, fanatic who does not think rightly. Some consider that a person becomes religious, when he starts to grow old. I do not speak about the religion of the old people, but about the Divine religion, that embraces the Divine science. Some replace the word religion with theosophy, which is founded on reincarnation; others replace religion with spiritualism, which is based on the relationship between spirits, although, both words: theosophy and spiritualism are restricted; they cannot embrace the idea of Divine science. Nowadays, even the word God has lost meaning, therefore people replace it with the word Nature; in the near future, the word Nature will be replaced by another, which will encompass the understanding of man. It is of no significance that you are going to replace one word with another, it is significant that each word expresses accurately and definitely its meaning. “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him” – how to attain the good store? With knowledge, endurance, and constancy. How does a good gardener act, when he has a garden with many fruit trees along with walnut-trees too? When the walnuts begin to ripen, he does not hurry to shake them down straight away and take its green cover off but he leaves it on the tree to crack on its own. Once he sees this happen, he already knows the walnut has ripened; if he takes off the green shell prematurely, then he will spoil the core of the walnut. When the walnut becomes ripe, he cracks it and removes the green cover, and after this - the hard cover and finally he arrives to the core within, which is also wrapped in a thin membrane, with a bitter taste. The way a walnut encloses the good stored up in it in a few covers, in such a way, man hides his genuine wealth wrapped in a few covers. The exterior cover reflects the material wealth, which you need to leave freely to ripen and not to remove it prematurely – this is the safe protection of the real treasure in man. From the exterior cover, the nourishing juices flow to the interior cover and then to the core. The membrane that envelops the core, contains enough iodine; eat walnuts and do not be afraid, they replace the usage of iodine. “The good stored up in man.” Those who do not understand the meaning of the spiritual life say that they do not need richness but to be closer to God. For a man to be close to God means that he needs to be healthy in body, mind and heart, i.e. the energies in him have to be organized; if he is not healthy, or his energies are not organized, he is far from God. The connection with God is not an exterior process but an inner process. The same applies to ordinary people: from the outside, you are close to someone but inwardly you stand up far away for him. What should a man do, in order to organize himself? He should keep his exterior cover until it becomes ripe – with it missing, he will break the wholeness of his content. A man should be patient, not to hurry to attain great results in a short time – every result will arrive in its time. Many hasten forward, they want to realize their desires and spoil themselves. What is the understanding of the words inner content, what is the inner content of man? That is his soul, i.e. the Divine principle in him, which draws from Life the necessary powers, and energies in order to manifest his virtues and abilities. For a man to have Life in himself means to live consciously, one who does not know how to live is not a conscious person. When speaking about the Conscious Life, many say, “It is not important if I live consciously or not, it is important that I keep my body safe.” It is correct that man strives for saving his body, for the exterior, solid, protective cover, but one day the latter will come off alone. Likewise the green cover of the walnut cracks and falls off, so will the body of man fall off, and he will remain with his second coat – when is this going to happen? When man becomes ripe/mature. However, until he ripens, nobody has the right to take away his exterior cover. It is the same with the walnut: in order not to spoil the core, leave its green wrap to crack alone and fall off. Children often shake the walnut-tree before it has ripened and stain their hands with the green covering; they do this because they like the fresh kernels of the walnut. When bored with life, people say: “Why do we need this body, if only we could be free from it” – they do not understand the significance of their physical body. While in his body, man ripens and organizes his strength; by losing his body, he falls off the Tree of Life prematurely and goes to the other world unorganized, unripe. Christ says, “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him”. The heart is located in the physical body of man; once he denies his body, he also denies the life of the heart. That is the reason that the physical body is a cover, i.e. mediator through which, sap passes from the outside to the inside, meaning from the outer, physical world, to the Spiritual world (World of Spirit). By the means of nourishment, for example, man perceives the outward necessary materials to build up not only his body, but also his soul. In Divine terms, man is not yet shaped, has not transformed into a genuine human, i.e. he has not yet fully ripened. From the perspective of the Angels, he is compared to a tree, therefore it is written in the Holy Scriptures: “The Righteous will be like trees planted nearby clear effluents”. The tree is taken as a symbol of knowledge, in that case, there is some knowledge hidden in the tree, the knowledge of Life. In the Garden of Eden, there were many trees, amongst all of them, two were distinguished: The first one was the Tree of Life and the other – the tree for knowing the Good and the evil. When God created the first humans, He said to them, “You can eat the fruit from all trees but not from the tree for knowing the Good and the evil. On the day you eat from it, you will die.” With this, God wanted to give a warning to the first humans, that unless they organize their physical body, senses and systems correctly, they are not able to correctly perceive the saps and the energies, which flow from the outside world, they cannot study the second, harder cover – the bones of their own body. The first cover implies the muscles of man, and the second – the bones; the first cover infers the science for Life, for the outside world, and the second – the science for knowing the Good and the evil. When man acquires this Knowledge, he arrives to the third cover – the thin membrane that wraps the kernel of the walnut. When he tastes the core, he has already arrived to the inner sense of Life. When you examine the human head, you can observe that it is made up of three covers: exterior – the skin, the middle – the bone, and the interior – a thin membrane, that envelopes the brain. If the thin membrane gets damaged or inflamed, man gets upset. In order not to get upset, he should work over himself – to create a healthy body for himself, to cope with the conditions, and make use of them. If not healthy in body and in mind, only in one moment, man can lose his health, and get upset. For example, one has put faith in money, losing the money he can get a stroke in the brain, a heart attack and die – some people have lost the meaning of their Life and got discouraged from the smallest failures. The substance, which compounds the material world, manifests in four different qualities. The first conditions are exterior: hard, liquid, vaporous, luminous or radiant, heating and the others are interior in content: inorganic and organic matter. One of the qualities of matter is that it can pass through one condition to another. It achieves this through changes in its vibrations, its rising and falling. When matter is refining, its vibrations rise up; as soon as it loses its cleanliness, its vibrations decline. When matter is cleansing, man is also being cleansed – this cleansing is happening mainly through the heart. By the word heart we understand the Carnal soul of man or his Astral body, which comes after the physical body. When dying man passes out to the next world with his Astral body, like the walnut is planted in earth with its hard cover, not with the green one. The hard shell of the walnut bursts in the earth, after that the membrane breaks and only the nut remains, and from its core, there emerges a new walnut. The new walnut, concealed in the core of the walnut, represents the real soul of man that should be studied. The philosophy of human life is comprised in the walnut. Study and observe the development and the vegetation of the walnut, in order to grasp the threads, which create the philosophy of human Life. If the threads do not warp with one another, the way a woman warps, no cloth will be weaved. For the same reason, our thoughts and feelings are not weaved at random, but according to the laws of the righteous thought and the righteous feelings. The righteous thought excludes every suspicion, fear and doubt. Liberate yourself from the thought that somebody could deceive you. Be like the moneychanger – who can deceive a moneychanger? When you take to him a yellow coin and present it as gold, he takes the touchstone out of his pocket and examines it. In order not to be deceived, he should apply his touchstone and test the coin which they offer him, is it gold or false. What is necessary for contemporary people, in order not to lie themselves? They need Faith, trial and vision. Then Faith should pass to trial, trial – to vision and vision to the Life of Reason. Apply this to your family relations, to your friends and you will see its good results. When people do not understand the rules of Life, they violate them and in the end, whatever evil or misfortune happens, they give all up to God. If somebody falls ill, it is said that God has determined this; somebody is put on trial – again they consider God in charge. Man alone is in charge of his fortune or misfortune, he alone is a cause for the illnesses, hardships and contradictions, in which he finds himself. There exist two aspects of fate or impositions – for evil and for Good. On earth, they punish only those, who make mischief and harm. When a man commits a crime or mischief, the policeman catches him, gives him up to the police and initiates proceedings against him – the bigger his crime is, the higher is the noise made around him. In order to discharge him, great lawyers take up his cause, the newspapers write about him, the community reads and discuss the issue, gives its judgment, and so on. Both the criminal becomes notorious, and the lawyers and the justice, who take part in the cause, also get well known. However, when a man does Good, nobody takes interest in him. Very naturally, there are no laws on Earth to investigate the good deeds of people and give them the honour. On Earth they bring to trial only the criminals and the evildoers; in Heaven, on the contrary, they take interest in the good deeds of people, and not of the bad and criminal; there nobody takes interest in the mistakes and the crimes of people, nobody is searching for them. If someone does a good deed, the great lawyers stand up on their feet right away and say: “Bring us this man, let us see what Good he has done to give him the honour.” The greater the Good one has done, the more people are interested in him, and the more noise is raised around him.” “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him.” The good treasure of the heart is the Divine soul, where the man stores all that is given to him from God. Since there is some gift, man should draw from his treasure and give it out, to be efficient – either to himself and his relatives. Every good in Life are given by God. The good man has the right to draw from them until he satisfies his natural necessities, then he gives out to his relatives. In order to make use of the Divine goodness rationally, man should be guided not only by his mind or heart but also by his soul: to forward the energies from the air through the lungs, from there through the spinal cord and finally – into the main brain. This means that man should be active with his mind and heart, to resolve rightly his tasks, to be efficient for himself and his relatives. Don’t the gardeners act in this way? They are making use of the energy from the main source, by letting the water flow through little channels to water the most distant corners of the garden. You will say that this is not happening quickly; with haste, you cannot do a good job – man needs patience, constancy, and not haste. One American doctor was called to cure an Anatolian Turk from the Asia Minor. After he had a medical examination, the doctor prescribed a medicine for him to take, three spoonfuls daily in the course of ten days; after having taken all the medicine, his condition would have improved. The Turk had a look at the medicine, he thought twice and then said, “Why do I have to take it ten days one after the other, I’d better drink it in one gulp, so I can get better sooner?”- He raised the bottle and drank it all. After one or two hours his condition got worse and he died. Keep the measure and the prescriptions of God, the Nature and the doctor who treats you; respect the prescription that is given to you – three spoonfuls daily. Likewise, God is writing in His book “three spoonfuls daily”. You will say that the Turk was stupid. What are you going to say for contemporary people, who eat a few dishes at lunch, next, they drink two or three litres of wine; then, they have overeaten and call the doctor to help them – they upset their stomach, lose their appetite, and so on. There are Turks everywhere, not only in Malay Asia. When man does not think rightly, he resembles the Turk who drank all the medicine at once, same as the people who surfeit and upset their stomach each day. In my opinion, seventy five percent of people, surfeit every single day. Someone says that he does not surfeit, he does not surfeit but wishes to love all people and to be loved by all – is this not surfeit? Can you give all people, everything they wish? Do you have the power of the Sun? You have not yet learned to love your mother and father, your brothers, sisters and friends who have done good to you, and (already) you want to love the whole world. The human heart is known in difficult moments. Man should collect Divine energy in himself, to enrich his heart, so he can manifest his feelings in times of difficulty. In times like these, exactly, man should have food, to nourish the life of his fellow. A degraded Russian duke married for love, a young, beautiful girl of noble origin. In the first days after the wedding, he often kissed his beloved, but she got hungry and wished to eat – she wanted bread. - Let’s kiss! – He used to say to her. - I am hungry! – The beloved objected. - Let’s kiss! Let us kiss today, let us kiss tomorrow – she lost her favour towards her beloved, her love had grown cold. Very naturally, she felt deceived by him – he was extremely poor, he had just one title. One does not need just kisses; one needs many things. The uniform kisses destroy man. The kisses of some people exhaust their energy – these kisses are similar to suckers, which do not drag out the bad and impure blood of man, but the pure one. It is enough to get ten kisses like this, ten suckers, in order to see what they are like. I take the word kiss in a broad sense, not only by its frame: Everyone who muddles the mind and the heart of man gives kisses like the sucker of the leech, sucking not only the impure, but also the pure blood. The Christian teaching does not bear these kisses – it requires harmony everywhere and in everything. According to this Teaching, lame people should find their legs; the blind should see the light, and the foolish – come to their senses. Under the words foolish person I understand one, who has no circumstances for growth. Confine a smart person to a dark room and keep him there for ten years – you will see that he will grow stupid and become foolish. Why is this? He has no circumstances to progress. And vice versa – if you place a stupid person in favourable circumstances to progress, after ten years he will become smarter. Christ says, “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him and the evil man – brings evil things out.” Everyone should obtain the good things out of the good stored up, once for himself and then for his relatives; this means: first, learn to love God and then learn to love your relative. If you have not learnt this art yet, and you teach others, you will be exposed - they will ask you straight away, “What did your God do for you?” This is not to blame you, but before you teach others, open your mind and heart for the Divine light, so you can progress rightly. Many close themselves to this light like a nut in its shell, and they expect good results – this is impossible. Open for the Divine light, which will free you of all hardships and contradictions. How do you know, that the Divine light penetrates through your mind and heart? The Divine light brings no doubt in human mind and in human heart – same as clear spring water, which freshens and cheers up man. If you drink water which contains all sorts of dregs, it will destroy your organism, and bring in dusk and darkness, then your thoughts and feelings, will split in two. Every teaching is Divine when it ascends and has an elevating influence on man. Nowadays, there are many preachers who preach the Christian teaching, but only a few can lecture it, properly. Both the Americans and the English sent many missioners all over the world but together with Christianity, they brought in the alcoholic drinks. Some nations appealed to them, not to forward this poison. What is the point of Christianity if you lift up a nation from one hand and poison it on the other? To give poison and destroy man is the easiest thing to do. You will say that you are not like one of these people – there is no man on earth who did not initially poison himself. How many times a day, does man let poison in his blood: today you are well tempered, you have a Divine disposition of the spirit, but you let in a thought that immediately darkens your spirit and you grow weak, losing what you have earned. How many times a day, one falls down and rises up – that is the Turk in everyone, who, not listening to God’s words, raises the bottle with the medicine and drinks it all up at once. What is Death like? It is Purification, i.e.; leaving the old and unclean house, so it can burn. A house, where people have lived thirty years in discord, arguments and misapprehension, must burn; a hospital, where thousands of sick persons with infectious diseases, have passed through; and the walls have absorbed sighs, groans and uncleanliness, should burn to the ground. Today, God is sending fire all over the world – to burn out and cleanse it from all bad thoughts, unclear, infectious thoughts and desires. Thence, He will rescue people from a greater evil. Therefore, God says, “I already begin to throw away everything old and rotten, and build up something new, solid and clean.” Now, I remove the exterior shell of the walnut, so that the inner content can emerge – the core. The core is the place where the human soul is concealed, where good thoughts and desires are cultivated, one’s will is steeled and the forces of the mind and the heart are being organized. In order to create good thoughts and desires, does not imply to mortify every desire in you. In the book, “Light upon the path” it is said: “Mortify every desire in you!” This thought undergoes correction: it should be, “Mortify every bad desire in you and revive every good desire.” When reading this book, you will see that many things must be corrected. Either the one, who wrote the book, had consciously hidden the Truth, or he had no understanding of the deep sense of the matter. When studying the Divine science, man should be guided by his inner understanding of things, not falling into doubts. If you stumble across contradictive thoughts, do not hurry to draw conclusions – reflect upon them and then make your conclusions. Christ says, “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man - brings evil things out”. Even this thought has two points: from the same place – the heart – the good man brings good things out and the evil – brings evil things out. Consequently, when I want to reform a person, I tell the evil man to mortify every evil desire, not to cause mischief to himself and the other people; I tell the good man to revive all his good wishes and realize them, to be good to himself and his relatives. Man should be cautious with his desires, not to lose self-control. If he goes to the extreme with his good desires, he could encounter contradictions, which generate bad desires as well. One American professor loved the subject he taught so much, that he used to forget himself while teaching and used to keep his students half, and even sometimes one hour, after the lecture. They decided to teach him a good lesson in order to break his habit to hold them back after the bell. One day, they smeared glue on the chair the professor was sitting and screwed it well to the floor. The Professor spoke two whole hours this day and when he finished the lecture a half hour had to pass until he was set free from the chair – his clothes got stuck with the glue. The professor realized who had arranged this joke and he never again kept his students after the bell rang. It is time now for all people, glued to their chairs to unglue. Everyone should become aware that if he does not succeed in his deeds the reason is that he is stuck to the chair – first get unstuck, then work. The sticking to the chair shows that people still live with their old views and convictions. If you fail to get unstuck on your own, ask somebody to come and help you, but do not remain stuck. “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him”. Christ puts the question sharply: - “the good stored up in man and the evil stored up in man”. By the words “the good stored up in man”, He implies the human soul, which develops rightly. According to the occultists, it represents the good karma of man: the good man has fulfilled God’s laws, has gathered a good treasure in his heart, and now he has something to draw and give out to his relative. The evil man had broken God’s laws, he had done wrong and by doing so, he had created his bad karma. At present, they put him in jail, where he lies for a few years, until he acquires a certain experience – through suffering the sap of the evil turns out into goodness. In every village you will visit, you will see how the villagers take out the dung from the dung-heap and fertilize their fields and gardens – in this way they cultivate the trees and the flowers and transform them into good quality. Every man should take out the dung from his dung-heap, i.e. to take out the evil from the evil stored up in him and plant it in his field, fertilize it and transform the evil into Good, which is an indispensable element to the health of man. How do we know if a man has stored up the good in him? Imagine that you get up in the morning, joyful and cheerful, and throughout the day you keep this favourable disposition – in this case, you have stored up the good things in your heart. If you remain favourably disposed, despite the tribulations that happen to you during the whole day, you are a rich person, you bring good things out of the good stored up in you. That, what is true for one day, is valid for many days. If you wake up in the morning and you are in a bad frame of mind, and throughout the day, you are not able to improve your condition, you are bringing evil things out of the evil stored up in you. You are going to apologize that you are not well-disposed, that you are sick, and so on. Nothing can excuse you – the stored up in you is not good. You have nothing left to do, but take the evil things out of the evil stored up in you and throw it as dung over your field. Afterwards, sufferings will come to you but say, “I am ready to suffer, in order to ascend, to acquire patience and Love.” Man should be patient. Somebody passes for a patient person, because the conditions impose him to bear – this is woe, not patience. Woe imposes on man, whereas patience is a result of the reasonable human will. Never impose on someone your beliefs, views and convictions, let him be free to plant a garden on his own the way he understands it – you can give him the seeds, but he has to plant and cultivate them alone. He can make some mistake - this is of no significance; the evil is not located in the mistakes that a person makes but in the failure to correct the mistakes. It is important that a person has freedom to develop rightly; at the same time, he should give a free hand to others to develop rightly too. How do mothers act with their children? When the child is little, the mother puts on it swaddling clothes, ties it with a wrapper, and thus the baby lies for hours. First, she gives it a bath, unwraps the swaddling clothes and leaves the child free to kick with its legs for a while. After, she baths it, she wraps it quickly into swaddling clothes, ties it with the wrapper and lays it in the cradle to sleep–the child should lie down and keep quiet, such is the statute. Some religious people act the same way: they catch someone, put on him swaddling clothes, tie him with a swaddling band and say, “We turned this man to God.” You did not turn him, but you restricted him. If you meet a man, wrapped in swaddling clothes follow the example of the mother: after the period of four or five months, she uncovers the swaddle and sets the child free–by doing so she gives it conditions to develop freely and naturally. If the child remains for a long time in the swaddle, tied with a wrapper, its growth will cease and it will shrink. No mother wants to see her child shrunk–she wants it to become healthy, strong, to develop well. On entering a religious society, initially a person is found in the position of a child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and tied with a band; after some time he gets rid of the swaddling and starts to develop rightly and naturally, to grow and become reasonable, manifesting the good stored up in him. Therefore, when a man gets up from sleep, he should ask himself if he is free from the swaddling and the wrapper. Once he is certain that he is free, he starts to move his hands and legs freely, to stretch, which means that he is ready to work. The hands and legs of man represent the human will. Because when the eyes, the tongue, the hands and the legs of man are free, this shows that he has a mind, heart and willpower to work with, in order to fulfill God’s Will. The sleep represents the swaddling and the diapers, in which man is wrapped; once you wake up, untie the swaddling, take the diapers off and say: “Thank You, Lord for giving me the Freedom to move and work, to manifest my will, mind and heart, and serve you.” Prepare for Heaven, while you are still on Earth, because in Heaven there is no sleeping, no wrappers, no swaddling. Work on yourself, in order to ascend your spirit, to develop your Spiritual body, in which you will resurrect. There are people, who will resurrect while they are still on Earth–it is about them that apostle Paul says, that their exterior cover will resurrect and undergo change. Aspire to the Resurrection as an inner process – that means man should liberate all doubts and restrictions. Believe in your mind and heart, in your Spirit and soul, which God has put in you, and you will resurrect. Hence, if you bring the good things out of the good stored up in you, acknowledge this; if you bear evil things stored up in you, fertilize your field with the evil, in order to transform it into Good–this is the thought that Christ put in the verse for the good and the evil stored up in man. The time has already arrived for man to move through the transient and the restricted, to the eternal, from the swaddling clothes and the wrapper - to the Freedom, from the milk- to the raw food. The little child is fed with milk, it is in the nature of things, but if the young girl, or the young man want to suck, this is not a natural process. Once the child begins to walk, it can eat raw food - this freedom is indispensable for its growth and development. “The good and the evil stored up in man.” Everyone should ask himself whether he belongs to the good or to the evil people, to the believers or the unbelievers. Who is an unbeliever? It is one who has no Light in one’s mind. Open the windows of his house, so the Light can enter from outside. If a person does not posses money to open the window, let him open it on his own account. Everyone, who is placed in a dark room with no windows, will become an unbeliever. Belief is revealed with Light and unbelief with Darkness. The good is done at Light, and the evil - in darkness. Man has to transform his life, i.e. to leave the darkness and enter into the Light. Every morning, after getting up from sleep, say to yourself: “I am a good and a reasonable man, because God created me.” You will reply, that this is untrue. As I take it, all that is created from God is Good and reasonable. In order to be convinced of this, throw away the old and ragged clothes to see the Divine clothing in which God has dressed you. Who do you blame that you have dressed in the old rags and you cannot recognize yourself. Do not trust those, who support the thought that man is sinful in nature. Only the one, who lives in a dark and gloomy cellar and does not know how to come out of it, is sinful. Take this man out of the cellar and place him in the Divine world, in Freedom and open space. Christ appeals to the good and reasonable people to bring out the good stored up in their hearts and help their fallen brothers. Give out as a gift, so it will be given back to you. Give out of your golden and not from your paper money, because in Heaven, paper money will not pass - every good thought, every good feeling and every good act are specie money, which never lose value. The good store implies the specie money, and the evil store - the paper money. David says: My mother conceived me in sin - he acknowledges that sin is not Divine, but an invention of man. John says: “I am conceived by God.” The one who lives in a dark room and brings evil things out of his store, he is conceived by the devil; the one that lives in a room full of light and brings good things out of his store, he is conceived by God. Live and work like Christ does, and become one with God. This is what Christ requires from all people, to revive, to reorganize the societies and the nations, to penetrate the new Life everywhere, to bring the Divine Realm on Earth. It is not enough to know who Christ is and what he has done, but everyone should ask himself what he has done, alone. We all know what Christ did two thousand years ago, we all see what he is doing today, but what have you done, and still do, as a human being? – “You, who speak now, what, are you?” – Come to work with me and you will see what I am. If we work together and I take twenty per cent of the profit, and I give to you ten percent, you will understand how righteous I am, but if I give to you more, and take less for myself, or if we share equally, again you will understand what I am. This is the meaning of the verse, “You will get to know them by their deeds.” Now, I want all people to loosen their purse-strings, brains and hearts, to throw aside the swaddling clothes and the wrappers and to begin freely to move their hands and legs. This is required by both religious and worldly people, this is required by the life of Reason. You will say that it is easy to talk but hard to work. The one who speaks with Love, he works easily with Love. He had gone through tribulation and sufferings, he has understood Life and knows how to work - his words are rich in content and meaning. Christ is coming to Earth to revive mankind, the nations, societies, as well as each person individually. Thence everyone should say to himself: “I can achieve anything along with God, with the Angels and the good people.” If everyone would say this to himself, the world will reform and everything will work out for the better. There are three ways, by which man can enter in the Narrow path, i.e.; in the Divine path: the first way is to push the train which leads in this direction, the second way - is to compete with it, and the third - is to get on this train and let it take you along to the determined place. If you come across this train, do not push it to go forward - it will move by itself; do not compete with it - you will fail to follow it, but get inside and believe that it will take you to the Divine Kingdom. I wish all of you to be like the good man, for whom Christ says, that he takes out good things out of the good stored up in him. 20 May 1917, Sofia