1922_05_17 Methods Of Cleansing

[Ани]

Methods Of Purification

 

Year 1, Lecture 12 of the Youth Occult Class (Special Class)

Given by the Master Beinsa Douno

May 17, 1922, Wednesday

Sofia

 

 

 

Secret Prayer

 

There was a presentation of the remainder of the essays on the topic "Applications of Karma in Life”

 

Now I will use another example to explain to you what karma is. A young person went out with his friends. They stopped at an inn and went in to have a drink. This young man drank for the first time in his life and very soon got so drunk that he could hardly control his body or stand on his legs. After his friends also got drunk, they all left the inn together. The streets were muddy because it was rainy. The young man began to stagger in the streets, falling here and there and getting all covered in mud. By the time he got home he sobered up but the mud remained - the mud is his life's karma which he will have to clean up.

 

I will not discuss the reasons for this situation, why the young man got drunk and how he became covered in mud. You mаy say that he did not want to drink, that his friends led him astray and so on but what really matters is how this young person can cleanse himself of the mud; how he can purify his heart from the wish to drink to the extent that he loses his senses. I will now give you three methods for purification: precipitation, filtration/percolation and distillation/evaporation.

 

How will you know when to use the first, the second or the third method of purification? If water is turbid, i.e. mixed with solid insoluble substances, it could be purified by one of the first two methods – by precipitation or by filtration/percolation. When Nature wants to clean some water, She takes it to be filtered through the geological layers. In this case the geological layers play the role of filters that clean the water. If water was conscious it would feel grief and suffering during its sinking through the layers, losing its light and falling into darkness. When it sinks down, it goes deeply into the ground, passing through several layers until it meets a layer of stone or clay that will stop it, not allowing it to go further. Thus, unable to sink further, it will find an exit and resurface on the ground. When it comes out onto the surface, it will be glad to see the Light again. Therefore, grief appears at the beginning of the filtration process, while joy comes at its end. Liquidation of one’s karma represents a similar filtration process, consisting of a descent into matter, a process of cleansing and an exit to the Light again. Precipitation is a similar process, but one accomplishes it with less suffering and grief. The greater the suffering and grief, the greater the result of purification.

 

Evaporation or distillation is another important method of purification. Joy emerges at the beginning of evaporation, while grief comes at the end. Why is this process the reverse of filtration? When water is heated, evaporation takes place; the water vaporizes and goes up into the air, i.e. it goes up to God. Water drops are joyful, because they are freed from their sins and suffering. So they spread wings and fly upwards but when they encounter a cold front, they immediately cool down and become dense, and eventually fall down again. As they fall down to the ground as rain, they become muddy and suffer greatly but they are unaware of the benefit they have brought with their fall.

 

Just like water, you are also subjected to a purification process which is carried out in two ways. When you are under filtration, first you are sad and later you are joyful. When you are under evaporation, first you are happy and later you fall into grief. Therefore, if you are sad due to filtration, do not oppose your fate, but go further so as to reach the deepest layers within yourself, in order to be purified more thoroughly. And then you will emerge into the Light again; you will emerge on the surface of the ground and experience the joy and happiness you deserve. As a result of connecting the two ends of suffering and joy, you form a circle through which Life can run smoothly. Those who do not understand this law will notice the constant alternation between grief and joy in their lives, but will not know what its reason is.

 

I am asking you, which of the two methods will you personally choose? Filtration is a method applicable to the human heart, while evaporation is a method for the mind. From time to time, however, these two methods will swap places - filtration will be used for the purification of the mind, and evaporation for the purification of the heart. Generally speaking, however, the mind is purified through evaporation, which is why people say that certain thoughts should evaporate and get out of their heads so that a continuous circle of motion between feelings and thoughts can be formed. When someone starts applying one of those methods, he begins to be able to see. However, it is dangerous if you come to a deadlock, if no filtration or evaporation occurs within you. Society calls this state indifference or alienation. When someone says that he is indifferent, he doesn't want to know what will happen to him. No, one should be interested in everything that is happening within and around him; one should even foresee or know what may happen to him in the future.

 

When I speak of karma, there are several things that you should know. For example, there is karmic suffering which comes as a consequence of the past, but there is also suffering which is due to lack of foresight in some situations in the present. Imagine that you put an empty bottle of water into your pocket and go for a walk. You go to the outskirts of town, stop near a fountain and sit down to rest in the shade. You rest and ponder on different philosophic questions – about the origin of the world, the age of the stars and the Sun, the solution to some social problems and so on. Thus, engulfed in your thoughts, you forget to fill the bottle with water from the fountain and go back home with an empty bottle. The summer day is very hot and you get thirsty. You take out the bottle and see that you haven't filled it. So, in this case your suffering is due to the fact that you were absent-minded because you were carried away by your thoughts and forgot to fill your bottle.

 

Another example concerning karma: you take a big basket and put seventy or eighty kilograms of bread in it. But you have to carry it on your back for forty or fifty kilometres. You have decided to carry this load alone in order to make more money and not have to pay anyone to help you. You meet some children on the road. If you want to make your load lighter, by all means you will need to give them some bread. Otherwise you will injure your back. So in this case you will empty your basket in order to avoid suffering. And when you reach the fountain, you should fill your bottles with water in order to avoid getting thirsty. For as long as you are rich and carry a full basket of bread on your back, you should share it freely with everyone and keep only one loaf for yourself. That is the only way to stay happy and satisfied.

 

Consequently there are two causes of human suffering and misfortune: the first one is that when they get to the fountain they forget to fill their bottles with water. The second one is that when they were carrying a full basket of bread on their backs, they didn't share it with anyone. So when you suffer, it is not enough to argue and philosophize about the possible causes of your suffering. As disciples, question yourselves directly whether you didn't fill your bottles or didn't share some of your bread with the poor. One’s karma would not surface if there were no current reasons for its activation.

 

You would ask: “What is the reason for the activation of karma in one’s life?” When one loses Love, karma comes to replace it. When one loses joy, grief comes to replace it. When one loses justice, lawlessness comes to replace it. When one loses mercy, fear and violence come to replace it. Therefore, your shortcomings show what you are lacking, i.e., what you have lost in Life. If an individual then resorts to injustice, violence or brutality, his karma appears immediately. It has been observed that some individuals who lose love try to seize it back violently. However a law exists to the effect that if they attempt to seize Love back or violate another person's soul, the same violence will be inflicted upon them. Why? Because violence and limitations imposed upon others are like prisons where those who have inflicted this violence will also go some day.

 

I will tell you an occult story to clarify this idea to you. In ancient times there was an adept who hated mice. One day, he set up a trap in front of their hole to get rid of them. In accordance with karmic law, this adept, in one of his next incarnations, returned to Earth in the form of a mouse so that he could experience the consequences of his invention. He lived in the same hole at whose entrance he had placed the mousetrap. Once as he was coming out of the hole, he encountered the trap and there was a piece of salami in it. He stopped and began to investigate. He decided to go into the trap so that he can taste the salami, but what a surprise: the door of the trap banged shut and he was imprisoned there. What is the conclusion? The same person who had invented the trap in the past was put into the same jail in order to experience in his turn the loss of freedom and the limitations resulting from his invention.

 

I am saying, do not lay any traps for the minds and hearts of others, because you will go into them yourself. You will not escape any trap you have set up in the past, not even over the course of thousands of years. It may wait for you for centuries and millennia, but it will find you somewhere in time. Irrespective of how high you may have reached, the moment will come for you to return in the form of a fly, a mouse, even a microbe in order to experience your own trap. You will be imprisoned there until you learn your lesson. You think that there is no going back in evolution. Do not harbour illusions, do not deceive yourself into thinking you will escape from the karmic law. Whatever position you may have reached, whatever height you may have attained, you will be brought back to pay your debts; then you may go further. Whatever thoughts and feelings you have created and emitted in space you will experience someday for yourself. They will come back to you and you will experience their positive or negative consequences. This is the meaning of the Bulgarian proverb: “You reap what you sow.” Everyone will reap what they have once sown. Therefore, do not think that there is no going back in evolution, no degradation. If Angels, who are much more elevated than humans, fell and lost their light when they made a mistake in the past, what to say about humans? The law of karma encompasses all living beings – from the smallest to the largest. There are no exceptions to it.

 

Therefore if you want to eliminate your karmic debts, observe the Divine law, the law of Divine Love. Don't fight your karma, nor think about it so as not to challenge it. Think about Love and apply it as a sole device, a sole possibility for eliminating your negative karma. Someone may say that he alone is able to eliminate his karmic burden. Everyone can do this by applying Love in his life. For this reason you should ask yourself if you love all creatures in the same way. This can be achieved only if you view people as beings who can manifest the Divine. For example, let’s say that you meet a criminal who has committed many crimes and society is entirely against him. At this moment a woman appears who believes that he is a good person and speaks well of him. Why does the woman have a good opinion of the criminal? Because once he saved her from certain death. One day when she was passing through a forest she encountered a bear that was about to attack her and tear her to pieces. At that moment the robber rushed to the woman and saved her. So, at that very moment the Divine was activated in the robber. This is why the woman believes that he is a good person. Therefore, love all human beings for the Divine in them. When the Divine is present, even the worst person, even the criminal is able do some good, some great deed. When the Divine is absent, even the best person can commit a crime. Should this person be considered bad in this case? A single action which a person did at a given moment does not make him good or bad.

 

I am asking you, what have you understood from these two examples – the empty bottle of water and the full basket of bread? What is better: to give or to take, to teach others or to be taught, to love or to be loved? Someone who loves experiences a pleasant feeling, but is the beloved one pleased? What will happen if the beloved one also wants to love? Both of them will give love but in the end they will come to an argument. If both people want to be loved, this means that both want to receive. What will happen then? Once again they will become cross with each other. Think of the question: what does it mean to love and to be loved? Or what does it mean to give and to receive? Next time you will answer this question in class orally, but do not write the answer down.

 

Thus you should clarify to yourselves what giving and receiving mean from an occult point of view. Each thought and feeling that you have should be strictly defined. When you love, you should do so without any compulsion. The one who is loved does a favour to the person who loves him. The one who loves needs to release his burden in order to feel better. In other words, whoever loves wants to give part of his burden to the beloved. He says: “I see that you are strong, so I want to put part of my burden on your back.” To love and to be loved – in occult terms this means the right distribution of the burden between two people. Their mutual interaction is like the examples of the empty bottle and the full basket. If your bottle is empty, let another one fill it with water; if your basket is full of bread, give to others who have nothing. You should observe these two principles in order to create relationships among you based upon mutual respect and esteem.

 

Many people have no respect or esteem, either for themselves or for others. First, one should maintain self-respect, respect for one’s higher consciousness, for the soul, and then – for others, for those around us. If you have a cat at home, how do you treat it? You touch its ears and tail, you caress its hair, so that at times the cat is angry with you and ready to scratch you but generally it endures everything. However, if you treat a person like a cat you'll insult them. That is why when you visit someone you should not express your love for that person as you would for a cat. One's love for a cat differs from one's love for a human being. Love for a human being is based on strictly defined mathematical ratios. If two individuals who are in love observe these ratios, there will be harmony between them. Nowadays when two people meet, one of them will think to himself: “I am more educated," “I am taller," “I am richer” and so on. In response the other will think to herself: “However I am cleverer," “I am better," “I am heavier," etc. As a result of these comparisons an inner fight, an internal competition between them will commence and it will spoil their relationship.

 

I am asking, what is the reason for disharmony in the relationships between contemporary people? Such disharmony is due to the fact that human beings base their love upon knowledge, upon wealth, etc. You should consider one thing: Love is a strictly determined law that does not depend on any social situation or relationship. This law can be tested and tried. Neither knowledge nor power nor wealth can keep Love. You see this all the time in Life. Show me someone who is happy because he is powerful, learned or rich. When they enter life, many people think that love will make an exception for them. No, Love doesn't make exceptions for anyone. Every human being in life is an ordinary comma which has been put in its proper place. The comma signifies a short rest, but a comma can often be placed where there is no need for a rest. The smallest Love in the physical world represents the smallest rest, so that one can catch his breath after he has become tired. To put it differently, the smallest impression that one can receive in the physical world represents the smallest Love.

 

When I speak to you of these new ways of looking at Life, I do not intend in the least to do away with or destroy what is old immediately. The old remains as compost in which you can plant the new. You will graft new branches onto the old tree because you need to learn how to plant the new seeds and how to grow seedlings. If you decide to destroy what is old in one go, you will hinder your evolution. How could you act so negligently towards the old, which is the result of the activities of so many great people, even geniuses? Great people are a manifestation of the activity of humankind in its entirety. In order for one great person to be born on Earth, a multitude of entities from the Spiritual World need to gather in one place and direct their whole activity and power towards him. Just like a tree sends an ambassador to another tree through its fruit, in the same way a countless number of higher entities or souls acting collectively send, i.e. concentrate their intelligence in one person or one Master on Earth and he becomes great. In that sense each person - irrespective of how ordinary he or she may be - represents a collective body of souls.

 

Now that you know this, you should work consciously on yourselves, because everyone’s turn will come to enter into this wheel. Everyone's time will come to be set alight and for that purpose everyone needs to prepare the necessary quantity of fire within himself. The fuel for this fire are the experiences that one gathers throughout his lifetime and nothing can be achieved without them. What do you do when you see a lit candle? You want to be set alight too. Do not be in a hurry. The wheel keeps turning and one day your turn will come too, but until then one must undergo great trials and tribulations. Has there ever been a minister in Bulgaria or any other country who has not received a cross instead of a garland? In that sense everyone is heading towards a prison, either within or outside of himself. Didn't the Romans and the Jews erect a cross for Christ? Contemporary Christian nations have erected many churches in the name of Christ, but He is not inside them. A long time needs to pass before humans give place to the Divine, to the Great within themselves. During this time humans should work upon themselves, in order to create proper and pure relationships with each other, based not on violence but on the Law of Freedom.

 

Tie yourself without getting tied; place limitations on yourself without becoming limited. In other words, when you build a trap for others or for yourselves, leave two doors open in it, so that when you enter through the first door, you can go out through the second one. In this case, a mouse, after it has come into the trap from the first door to eat the meat, can also find the second door open and go out. And when you see that the meat has been eaten, be content that the mouse has acted reasonably.

 

Now, as I am speaking about Love, I need to tell you that Love brings limitations. Both the one who loves and the beloved impose limitations upon each other. For example, a merchant loves money  and so he keeps going around in search of better and cheaper goods thus wasting a great deal of his time. The beloved also expects to receive something and thus wastes his time. So both of them incur a loss and if they don't find a way to compensate for it, karma will take its place. Therefore, karma comes as a result of a disharmonious manifestation of Love between human beings. For as long as the love between people lacks harmony, their mutual karma will keep growing and getting heavier. If the beloved does not arrive on time, he gets asked immediately: “Why weren't you punctual?” Therefore, given the current level of development of human beings and their understanding of love, both those who love and the ones who are loved limit each other.

 

Contemporary people want to be free of these limitations, but this requires a new philosophy of Life, new solutions to the existing social problems. If you do not acquire this new philosophy, many more halters and goads will appear. What new ideas can you acquire, if your master puts a hundred halters and goads on you daily? You will certainly learn something. Halters and goads represent the trials and tribulations one must pass through in order to reach a higher level of  consciousness. The present situation of humanity is temporary, transitory, but in order to go through this period successfully, one needs to make efforts to transform the forces of his consciousness and overcome the present boundaries and limitations. If you think you can solve your problems without such effort you deceive yourself. You can solve them temporarily, but later you will make double the amount of mistakes you did before. If you work consciously on yourself, you will solve Life's issues directly, without any detours and thus gain Light and a new understanding of Life.

 

If I shared with you some occult laws and rules, given your current level of awareness you wouldn't be able to cope with them. You would say that you promise to apply them and will be very precise in doing so. No, new knowledge requires new containers, otherwise many of your containers will start cracking here and there and you will start complaining of headaches or stomachaches and so on. When the higher energy of these spiritual truths penetrates your nervous systems, it will cause total perturbation and if you have no connection to the great Divine law so that it can help you, you could simply melt. That is why disciples of the occult need a long period of preparation before they can become independent. This preparatory period has the aim of increasing their vibrations so that they can become stronger. That is the reason why occult knowledge, occult Light are not given to disciples before they have been well-tempered - this knowledge is power capable of destroying the organism of someone who is not prepared for it.

 

The disciple needs to start with minor experiences in order to temper his nervous system. For this purpose he is first placed on a grate at an average temperature of about three hundred degrees which is gradually increased until it reaches four or five thousand degrees. Each disciple will test the level of his tenacity. Someone who can endure up to four hundred degrees can be compared to lead, because lead melts at approximately that temperature. Someone who melts at about a thousand degrees is like iron and if someone melts at one thousand seven hundred and fifty or one thousand eight hundred degrees, he is like platinum. The more you can endure the more you will learn. Do you know how many degrees you can personally endure? Have you tested at which temperature you would melt without burning? In this case alchemy aims to melt what is hard and stubborn in the human being, without burning it. If we could melt carbon in some way, we would change its state and transform it into something new, but if we burnt it, we would have an entirely different process.

 

When I speak about the power of Occult Science, I do not want to frighten you, I want you to be brave. All higher beings have trod this path and you have to do it too. It is the easiest path. Its methods are complicated, but the path itself is straight and easy, therefore, you need to work and you need to think. Think mainly about the two sides of Love – to love and to be loved. Ask yourself the question: when and how has the wish to love and be loved emerged in human beings? What do you think: when have these two states appeared in human consciousness, in your understanding? Do the following experiment to answer this question: when after a good meal you are satisfied, take a beautiful cherry and look at it for a while. You will admire the beautiful cherry for as long as you do not feel any hunger, but when you become hungry, the wish to eat your favourite cherry will enter your mind. While you do this experiment, observe the changes which will occur in your consciousness. There are a lot of cherries this season, so all of you can do this experiment. When you are full, take four or five cherries and put them in front of you. At this time you'll love them. But when you get hungry, you look at the cherries in a different way, you want to eat them. At this moment, the wish enters your consciousness for the cherries to love you. It is interesting to observe these fine changes occurring in your consciousness. This means that the one who loves will become engulfed. In this example, the cherry loves the person, and that is why the latter swallows it up. That is the law. It shows that the power lies in small things, not in big things. When you do this experiment, you will come to interesting conclusions, you will observe how different processes in your mind develop. However in order to reach the right conclusions, you need to be completely calm.

 

Therefore, work in a state of calmness and do not be disturbed if some issues inside you or in your interaction with others have not been solved yet. A number of methods for solving issues exist. When an artist makes a mistake he takes the brush and covers it up. When a clerk makes a mistake he takes the rubber and erases it. Covering up and erasing mistakes are external methods, but when we come to the correction of errors in human consciousness, then we have to use very different methods. Each external error is first of all an error of someone’s consciousness. Those who understand the laws will correct their mistakes through transformation of their consciousness. It is one of the most difficult methods to apply. Everything is hidden in one’s consciousness; that is why your work on yourself should definitely start from there.

 

Purification of consciousness – that is the disciples' task. Two main methods can be applied towards this aim: filtration and distillation. Purification of consciousness means transforming your consciousness so that it can make a transition from a lower to a higher level.

 

Secret Prayer

 

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