The Talents

[Ani]

THE TALENTS

 

Today I shall speak to you on the 15th verse of the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Si Matthew. No doubt you have read this chapter many time.! and have meditated about the talents, probably drawing certain conclusions, some of which have been closer to the truth than others. I shall take this verse in its ordinary sense.

 

When Jesus made a statement or told a parable, He had in view the basic divine thought, or divine law, which He should reveal to people by His speech; He always revealed certain truths. Now we may ask the question: why did he give five talents to one man, two to another and one talent to the last? Was this done by chance, or was it a deliberate act? In nature nothing is done by chance. When we cannot explain something, we say it happened by chance. We meet a person and call it a chance encounter. But one of the laws of life states that our meeting is determined by previous causes, but since we do not know the law, we think that we meet by chance without any cause. However, that is not so.

 

What must we understand by the five talents, the two talents and the one talent? Who are the people of one talent? They are those who live only for themselves. They say: “Let us eat three times a day, drink and go to bed, so we can get fatter, dress well and live comfortably; that is why we have come into this world.” They are egoistic people, fruitless, without seed — people of one talent. And who are those of the two talents? The man who is getting married is the one talent and his wife is the second. The two come together and bear children, so they become four and say: “God, we used the two talents by bringing up children and have gained two more.” That is in one sense of the word, but in another they are people who live for their home, for their society or nation. But those of the five talents possess something more. The five talents correspond to our five senses, that is, people who have developed their sight, taste and sense of touch. They are people of right thought and who have a correct evaluation of all that God has created. They understand nature and life’s phenomena as well as the causes and results of things. They are teachers of the world and live for the whole of mankind.

 

Now let us make a small calculation with the talents given: we have I and 2 and 5 = 8 talents. Is the number 8 arbitrary? No, it is not, it is the number of work. The scriptures say that God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. After every rest comes a new day for work. We are in the eighth day. And God said to people: “I made the world, now your day for work begins, and some day I shall come to inspect your work.” We live in the eighth day, and since we do not know how to work, we make mistakes. But God says: “Work and go forward, of course you will make mistakes.” What teacher does not expect his students to tear paper and cause disturbances at school? What woman, when starting to tidy the house, has not first allowed it to get into disorder? What dyer does not become spotted with dye when dying? In the course of our development we must not expect the impossible, but we must always expect change and the wearing out of the body.

 

Now if we add these talents together, we get the following result. The one who had five talents gained five more, which adds up to ten. The one with the two talents gained two, which makes four, and ten equals fourteen, and the one buried in the earth — fifteen in all. If we subtract from this number the original eight talents, how many have been gained? Seven. What is the meaning of this number? We said that it meant rest. Now we must understand the basic divine law that rest is the result of work. Only those will bejoyful and glad who have worked. Christ also says: “Those who have worked will enter into the joy of the Lord; all that is given me will be given to them also.” But what did He say to the one who had not worked, but had hidden the talent in the earth? “Take the talent from him and give it to the man who has five, and cast this man into outer darkness where he should learn to work.” What is this outer darkness? It is the worms working down in the earth. If you do not learn how to work, God will make a worm of you and put you in the earth to work in the darkness until you learn how to work. All those who want to philosophize on the divine law will test these words as to whether they are right or not. This morning I am speaking to you about the basis law: we must work. And only when we work for God, is it work: when we work for ourselves, it is hard labour.

 

Work implies the idea of knowledge. The man who took five talents had five senses: to him God had given all abilities and the necessary knowledge to use them. The one who had two talents also had abilities corresponding to his knowledge. I shall give you one more analogy. The man with the one talent is like a mineral which cannot be multiplied: it always remains one. It can refract the sunlight very well, but it cannot be a rational being. When your heart is hard like a mineral, you are a man of only one talent. Therein lies the danger, for God says: “I shall take away your stony heart.” But this one talent must be transformed and begin to develop and multiply. The two talents signify the grain of wheat, or vegetable life, which is a little higher than the minerals and can multiply and develop. What can beautiful minerals give us? We would all die if we had to live on them. Thanks to the grain of wheat, which corresponds to the two talents, thanks to our industriousness, and thanks to those five talents — the abilities which our mind possesses for a higher spiritual life, which show us how to cultivate the benefits God gives us — we can be saved from many calamities in this world.

 

We must ask ourselves what is the meaning of ‘according to his several abilities’. It means that each one of us must know his abilities. People often say: “I want to have greater talents and greater abilities.” If you have not developed or used the talents you have and do not know how to apply them, who will give you more? Everyone of us has so many abilities that, if we develop them, they are sufficient to form the foundation for five talents. But few men have five talents.

 

I believe that most of you who are listening to me have two talents. But if you turn these two talents into four, that would be a different thing. What does the number 4 mean? That you must find the process of purifying your life. You need water, but it is muddy, and you must find a means of filtering it. If you drink it with the mud in it, it will harm you. Therefore the number 4 is a divine process by which our desires and thoughts in this world are filtered. He who has two talents must work until he makes a filter. When they call a man a critic, you must understand that he has a strainer by which he strains things until only what is valuable remains in it: what is useless passes through it. It depends on what you are straining. If you strain cheese, it remains in the strainer, but if you strain water, the pure water will pass through, and the sediment will remain in it. Sometimes you succeed in your straining enterprises and at other times you do not, but this must not discourage you in the least for he who has few talents and wishes to acquire more should work harder. Such is the law. The danger lies in not working with the one talent, if we have one talent. The first thing required of us is that we should know how to work.

 

I told you that you have two talents; so you will ask what they are. Your mind and your heart are the two talents. But you will ask: “What can I use my mind for?” A traveller’s carriage breaks down on the road. If you are passing that way and know how to repair it, do so: he will be grateful to you, and some day in his turn he will help you. In this case you gain as well as he. The second talent is your heart. Someone is ill. Your heart must make you visit him and help him. The two talents are the roots of your life. By the word ‘heart’ we must understand the roots of our life, and by the word ‘mind’ the outside branches and leaves. You know that there is a relation in nature between the roots and the branches. Every branch has a corresponding root in the earth, and when a root dries up, its corresponding branch dries up too. The law which you should observe is the following: you should know that, if a desire dies in you, a thought will certainly die too; if two desires dry up, two thoughts will do the same; if three desires dry up, three thoughts will dry up, and one day, when your feelings become completely atrophied, all the branches will dry up and you will turn into men who have only one talent.

 

Let us take a man who has five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. What role do these play in our life? They are the five doors by which a man enters this world and by which we test nature — five realms out of which we can draw riches. A man completely deprived of the sense of hearing is a foolish man; to be deprived of sight means to be deprived of the possibility of seeing the truth; to be deprived of the sense of taste is to be deprived of love, etc. We can enumerate a number of things of this kind. Each of our senses corresponds to a great divine virtue and every one of us must watch to see if his feelings are in harmony with his heart and if they are in contact with the truth, If we look at this world, it is the garment of truth; the visible world is an expression of the truth. In every leaf, stone, spring or rock there are great lessons, great knowledge lies hidden in them. What wonderful truths nature can reveal to us! We pick up a pebble, roll it a little and throw it away, saying that it is worth nothing. We have not understood the meaning of this pebble. Do we take a flower and pick off its leaves, and then throw it away, saying that it is worth nothing: if so, we have not understood the meaning of that flower,

 

Now let us come down to our sense of hearing. We hear the word love’. It is a flower. Have we understood the sense of this word, what it means? We have not. We ask: “What is it?” and answer: “Nothing”, and throw it away. We hear the word ‘truth’ and say: “It is a senseless word.” What then is the most important thing for us? “Man should eat well and after that drink a glass of wine”, some would answer. We must satisfy our taste, that is true, but eating is not everything. Man should nourish himself, but according to this law of the five talents he should absorb five kinds of food: every sense must receive its corresponding nourishment, otherwise it will be atrophied.

 

You see that Christianity is a science and not an object of amusement. And do you know what science Christianity is: it is a great school with its departments of classes, universities and academies, and everyone who comes to listen to it should understand what he hears. I do not want people of one talent, who have buried it. The school in which I teach requires men of two talents. Why? Because I do not want to waste my time in fruitless work. Would you like to raise lice and fleas? These are the creatures of one talent. All parasites are people of one talent, spongers, lazy creatures living on the backs of others. A great punishment is in store for them. When someone visits you, study him first, and if he is of two talents, set a table for him, but if he is of one talent, which is buried, send him away, for he is a louse or a flea, he is a wolf whom you cannot elevate. Some may say: “But this man can be ennobled.” I say that he can only raise lice.

 

How did the steward act with the man of one talent? He chased him out, so that he could learn how to work. We must never encourage a man of one talent, but rather say to him: “Very great danger is ahead of you, my friend.” We should not deceive him, but tell him the truth. If you have a child of one talent, chase him away. Let him go and wonder aimlessly in the world. You will say: “Is not this cruel?” No, take away this talent, because he has not known how to make use of it,

 

Of course, I do not wish to frighten you with this talk; that is not my purpose. When a student is taken to a laboratory to carry out experiments, the teacher must explain to him the properties of the different elements and warn him that, if he is not careful, it may cost him dear. Many have lost their sight or some other sense by being careless.

 

Let us apply Christ’s rule to social life. People often ask me: “Why does Bulgaria suffer?” When you place at the head of the government a president of one talent and wish him to set things in order, how can he do it? That man, as Christ says, must be thrown out. The post of president requires a man of five talents, not a man even of two. The men of two talents should be soldiers and policemen; the officers should have four talents; the generals and ministers should be of five talents; but the kings, who have the highest place in a nation, should have ten talents. As you see, Bulgaria suffers because at the head of the government do not stand men of five talents but often men of only one talent, and they are convicted in the end. They are being convicted at the present moment. Those who have robbed are foolish men, but those who have put such men at the head of the government are even more foolish.

 

A man hires an inefficient servant, expecting good work from him, and then wonders why the work is not done. We should rather wonder at the master. Now in Bulgaria we need men of two, four, five and ten talents. If we have such men, we shall be the first nation in the world: there will be no obstacles and troubles for us. Even if all nations should proclaim themselves against us, they would not succeed. Then, I assure you, no misfortune would befall us. That is why you should pray that such people should be created.

 

Finally, I ask: “What is this mind which God has given us for?” First of all, it is a filter, or strainer. Did you strain the milk with it? Do you know how to make yoghourt or cheese out of it? Let us apply this law of straining in life. Often people complain that they have no friends in the world. Why is that so? When you tell me that you have no friends, I can presume that you are a man of only one talent. If you say: “Nobody loves me”, I shall conclude that you are a man of one talent and have buried everything divine in the earth. An egotist who lives only for himself deserves to be without friends, to be out in the dark. This is what Christ means by the parable of the talents.

 

You. will ask: “Well, but what is this leaven with which we must work? “ You have it, but you must know how to make yoghourt or cheese. If the milk is very cold, can you make yoghourt? You cannot. If it is very hot, you cannot make yoghourt either. You should observe a basic law in leavening: you must have good feelings and good desires, if you are to leaven a man with good leaven, and leaven him so that he does not turn sour.

 

You may have heard other sermons about the talents. They signify money, abilities and power, for they are something objective, not subjective. The talent is always a power from an external source which can be given to us and which can be removed from us. The talents can never be a possession of man: they have belonged and belong only to God, and He gives them, or takes them away according to our actions. When you are born on earth, He gives you two talents and says: “Work now! If you gain two more, I shall multiply them and give you five, then you will enter into My joy.”

 

To cultivate the heart and the mind means to have two talents, but to develop all your senses to perfection is to have five talents. Do you know what it means to develop all your senses? Many people look without seeing, listen without hearing and taste, but do not understand the benefits they have. For instance, when a man tastes bread, does he say at times: “God, I thank You for the bread You have given me. I thank You for the life which enters me through it”? If you do not give thanks, it shows that you have not only not grasped the meaning of taste, but also that you have not understood what the mouth was made for. It is necessary first of all for the life of love to enter into it, which is the basis of everything.

 

Keep this thought in yourself: if God has given you one talent, pray that He may be with you and give you two talents; therein is salvation. Christ came to save the world, but still more to save those who have one talent. But do you know how much sorrow those sluggards caused Him? They were very costly to Him. If a man has one talent, leave him to God; I tell you to turn him out. Why? Because only God is able to heal him and save him: you are not able to do this. When I say: “Turn him out! “ I want you in that way to do good to him so that he can find God; for if he holds on to you, he will never work; while finding himself alone, he will turn to God and be saved. You say: “But is that right?” How often does a child cry in a day? If he does not cry, his mother will not give him food. People of one talent have no life, and they can work no more than a dead body can. A man of one talent can help you as much as a miser can sacrifice his wealth.

 

I speak to all of you here who have two talents: if you become like this man and turn into a man of one talent, you will commit a great crime. You are people who can have four talents, and when God finds you working and you say to Him: “God, I gained two more talents with the two You gave me,” He will say: “Good servant, enter into My joy.”

 

Talk given on April 27, 1914, Sofia