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SALVATION

 

“If you would enter into life, keep the commandments”

Mt.XVII 21

 

Cultured people of the twentieth century, lay and religious, have a confused understanding both of the Law of Moses and of that of Christ. For the last two thousand years Christians have been dissecting the teaching of Christ and have worn it so bare that, if you look at it with the eye of a Seer, it will appear to you like a tree with its bark peeled. All the critics and writers, all the preachers speak of salvation through good works, through the fulfilment of God’s laws, but salvation proceeds from one fundamental law of nature, which exists not only from the time of Christ, but from much earlier — from the beginning of Being. Consequently, what remains to-day in the human soul, in societies, in nations, in the whole of mankind, flows from Being itself, from the prime source of life.

 

The word ‘salvation’ has many meanings. If somebody falls into the water and is drowning, somebody takes him out. All rejoice and say: “This man is saved.” Somebody falls ill of a serious sickness and gets well. They say: “He is saved.” Somebody strays from the straight path, but after a time he mends his life and begins to live as he should. Of him, too, they say: “He is saved.” In the usual sense the word ‘salvation’ has an undertone of the return of man from the bad to the good life, or the emergence of man from the torments and misfortunes of life and his entering into better conditions of life. In a broad sense of the word, salvation implies the entry of man into everlasting life. Very natural! It is not enough for a man to be saved from drowning but after a while to die of hunger; it is not enough to throw off a serious malady, but after a while to fall ill with another. That means to save himself from one evil and to rush upon another. A man needs true salvation, to re-establish his link with the First Cause of things. Until he re-establishes this link, he cannot be saved. Beyond this, no kind of salvation exists. Thus is salvation understood to-day, thus Christ understood it, thus all the saints understood it, righteous and good people on the earth.

 

Christ came on the earth to create a strong and everlasting link, on the one hand between people and the angels, and on the other, between people and God. To the question of the young man what he should do to inherit eternal life, Christ said: “Do not kill.” That means that murder is of a nature to break the link of man with God, with the angels, with his elder brethren. Christ went on: “Do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness; honour your father and mother and love your neighbour as yourself.” These are the laws of the spirit, which have reference to the present time. The young man said to Christ: “All this have I done from my youth; what else do I lack?” Jesus said to him: ‘ If you would be prefect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor; come, and follow me! “ With the first few commandments Christ explains the reasons which can break the link of man with the sublimely reasonable world. With the second group He explains the means which re-establish the broken link.

 

“Do not kill!” The word ‘killing’ has a wider meaning and significance. When you hear this commandment, you say to yourself: “Thank God, so far I haven’t killed anybody.” But I say to you: “There is not a man in the world who has not killed.” Killing does not mean only that you take away a life. Consciously or unconsciously, a man every day kills his own good intentions, his good feelings or desires. So too a man kills the good thoughts, wishes and behaviour of his neighbours. For example, you meet a man who believes in God, but you manage to destroy his faith. Is not this killing? You kill a sacred feeling in him. How do you know that God does not exist? Whoever denies God wishes to occupy His place. Consequently, if you say about somebody that he is not rich, good, handsome, learned, it means that you reserve these qualities for yourself. Denial of the good, the beautiful, the elevated, distances a man from God. In these ways, you break your link with Him and expose yourself to death. You say that people like you. That means nothing. People can like you, and still you suffer and torment yourself. It all depends on what is the nature of their love. The love of most people is the love of eagles and of crows. That should not offend you, but know that that love which is not constructive is animal. The commandment ‘Do not kill” refers specifically to this love. You say that love should be praised. Which love should be praised? That which destroys or that which builds up? How many girls and boys with noble thoughts and desires are disillusioned with love? How many girls and boys have killed themselves after their marriage? Why is the girl disillusioned? Because she does not find in her beloved those elements which are necessary for her development. And the boy is disillusioned about his beloved for the same reason. Does not the same happen also with the religious convictions of man? You meet somebody who is religious, joyful, inspired, but you destroy his faith, prove to him that life is only on this earth, and he becomes disillusioned, loses his inclination. A day will come when the consciousness of people will awaken, and they will enter from one life into another. They will understand that there is no death, that life is eternal and uninterrupted.

 

“Do not kill!” That means do not destroy even one good thought, even one good desire, which God has placed in your or in you neighbour. Instead of destroying his life and miking it meaningless, a man must build. The meaning of human life amounts to putting aside the evil qualities in oneself and cultivating the good, which raise him up and create for him the conditions for salvation and for unification with God. How can a man free himself from evil qualities? He must sweep from his path all conditions which break the link with the world of God.

 

What are the signs by which we know that a man kills? Being sour, that is, dissatisfaction. If a man turns sour, gets angry, is dissatisfied, then he is ready to kill. Christ says also: ‘Do not steal!’ What should we not steal? Good thoughts and desires of men. I am ready to give all that I have, but in no way to have anything stolen from me or to steal something from the mind or heart of man. Just as you must not kill the good thoughts and desires of your neighbour, so too you must not steal them.

 

Christ says: “Do not bear false witness!” In his relations of giving and receiving in trade, a man must be absolutely honourable, not to allow the least lie. If he receives a kind thought or a kind wish, he must reply in kind. If he receives a kind thought and gives a bad one in exchange, then he is employing a lie. If you return evil for good and think that you have applied a good one, you destroy first yourself and after that your family and society. It is not permitted for a man to kill, to rob or to lie. A woman or a man who allows himself to steal the mind and heart of another are on the wrong path. Not much time will pass before they see the lie in which they have been living. Where the lie is, there is murder and robbery. Free yourself of the habits and vices of your past, so that you can get to love your father and mother and neighbour. How must you love your neighbour? As yourself.

 

Who are you, who is your mother and who is your father? Your body, that is you; your soul is your mother, and your spirit your father. Man is the child of his soul. That means that the body is the child of the soul. It exercises maternal care for the body, to look after it and bring it up. Some ask whether they will live in their present body in the next world. That means: is there a link between the body, the soul and the spirit, that is, with the mother and the father? The son must be upright, so as to rejoice his mother and his father. He must honour and respect them. The mother and the father are in the same man, and not external from him. In the day that you break God’s law and cease to honour your mother and father, to love your neighbour, you are outside the conditions of life. Apply Christ’s teaching every moment of your life, so that you may see that it is the teaching of life and of power. If you are unwell, turn your attention to your life so as to see which of the three commandments you have broken. It is enough to be sincere with yourself to understand which commandment it is that you have transgressed: do not kill, do not steal, and do not bear false witness.

 

Christ says: ‘ If you would be perfect, go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor; come, follow me.” To whom should you distribute your property? To your thoughts and desires? Whom should you follow after? The Great Teacher of life. God does not want your property. He does not need your houses and money. By the word ‘property’ something different is understood. Only that man can give away his wealth who is ready to show the good which has been placed in him. The good in man is his property. The good is connected with the law of love. When mercy and love operate in a man, then he is ready to exhibit the good and to do good deeds. Outside mercy and love, the good does not exist, that is, cannot exhibit itself. There is not a man in the world who can do good without good thinking and good desires in himself. It was said: “Honour thy mother and thy father.” The mother and the father represent the object of your love, and your neighbour is the stimulus which forces you to exhibit the love. The mother and the father are a symbol of the strong, and the neighbour a symbol of the weak. Man can love only the gentle, the weak and the delicate, which need his help. The strong you can respect and honour, but the weak you can love.

 

If you would help the man, find the key of his door and say to him: “Take the key which you lost some time or other, open the door of your house, clean it, open all the windows, so that the sun can get in to enlighten it.” It is the natural duty of every man to clean his own house, not to leave the servant-girls to clean it. Your house is God’s temple, built specially for you alone. What will happen if all the temples are gathered together in one place? That means to make confusion in the whole world. Of this temple particularly Christ speaks: “Enter into your secret room and pray to God, who sees you in secret.” The secret chamber is the temple of the human soul.

 

For a man to enter into the temple of his own soul means that he must cast from himself all anger, dissatisfaction, all hate and envy. Anger and dissatisfaction lead to killing, killing to stealing, and the two together to a lie, the greatest vice of human life. The first four commandments: “Do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not bear false witness,” shew man what he ought not to do. The second three commandments: “Honour your father and mother and love your neighbour as yourself,” shew what he ought to do. That is, a man should honour his father and mother and love his neighbour. The neighbours of a man are his good thoughts and desires. Through them he can root our evil thoughts and desires, he can put them in to good conditions, that is, he can improve and ennoble them. To love your neighbours means to sow in your garden the best fruits, through which you can turn wicked thoughts and desires into good ones. With these commandments Christ wanted to turn the attention of the Jews to the meaning of life, to get them to love one another, so as to reject killing. According to their laws they used to kill for little reason. That is the reason they did not have a long-lasting kingdom. All peoples, all tribes which even now still apply the old Hebrew law, are constantly killing, stealing and lying. Follow the history of the Hebrew peoples, and see how many wars they waged, how many campaigns they undertook with the object of liberating Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be free when the peoples cease killing, stealing, committing adultery, bearing false witness.

 

Let each of you follow his life from the beginning to the end and say to himself: “From this day I am putting a cross on every lie, theft, killing and act of adultery.” After that, turn towards Christ and ask him what more are you lacking in order to inherit eternal life. He will reply to you: “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor; come, follow me.” Who are the poor? Your neighbours. Consequently, if you want to keep your disposition, you must love your neighbours. That which is noble and bright, which you carry in your mind and in your heart, represents for you a great world, your happiness.

 

Everything is hidden inside you. It is enough for you to keep good thoughts and feelings in your mind and in your heart in order to have the wealth of the whole world. And then you will not be poor, but will give of yourselves, as a spring constantly gives water. Open the treasury of your life — your soul, and give generously. Your soul is full of blessings and of good seed, which you must sow in God’s field. Do not think that you are paupers. God has given you all, but you do not know how to make use of the blessings of life. Do not think that happiness is concealed in material wealth. Common sense is demanded of man. The sensible man uses correctly the blessings which are given him, and so he passes for a rich man. Misfortune for man is not due to lack of blessings but to the fact that he halts the good thoughts and feelings in himself, does not exhibit them externally. In other words, he does not enable God to manifest himself in him. God whispers to you quietly: “Do a good deed. I do not want to.” “Then leave it for Me to do.” “I do not allow it.” Under those conditions, can you be happy and find God? Where is the Lord? In you. Open your heart, and He will shew himself. As he is not conscious of the wealth and blessings which he bears within himself, man weeps, suffers, loses heart. The Bulgarian proverb is recalled: “He flounders in water, he goes thirsty.” If you love the Lord, you will obtain everything you want. Without God man cannot keep either wealth or power,

 

Man’s task is to work upon himself, to be healthy, strong and sensible. Good thoughts and desires give man the possibility of obtaining health and power and to manifest his reason. This is demanded of everyone — men, women and children. Under these conditions, societies will be reconstructed magically. When the parts are in order, then the whole is orderly. For ordinary people things happen slowly, but for the wise men they happen at once. They know the laws and do not misuse them. If the ordinary man works with the mighty laws of Genesis, in one day he will destroy the world. God does not give the great knowledge to ordinary folk because they are still applying the law of Moses: they kill, steal, bear false witness and so on. What is man to do to get away from the ordinary life? He must unite with God, who is now working in the world. Work with Him, you too, so that you may have a share in the Kingdom of God. For a man to work with God means that he applies love the Mother of God, of whom Christ says that she must be honoured. He who loves — only he can honour his mother and father. He is a good, righteous and honourable man.

 

Somebody complains that people do not love him. How should they love a man who does not honour his father and his mother? Woe unto that girl who marries a young man who does not honour his mother and his father! Woe unto that man who marries a girl who does not honour her mother and her father! The boy and the girl who honour their mother and their father, God both loves and blesses them. Whosoever desires the love of his neighbour must honour his mother and his father. This is a law which works from the beginning. Outside that law, loves does not manifest itself. Honour your soul and your spirit, honour the soul and the spirit of your neighbour so that you may be the beloved children of God. Whom God loves, the people will love him also. Whosoever does not honour his father and mother, he is a miserable man. Whoever does not love his neighbour is also miserable. He is a sinful man, condemned to suffering. This is what Christ meant in the verse: ‘ If you wish to be perfect, honour your father and mother, that is, your spirit and your soul; love your neighbour as yourself; give away your wealth; come, follow me.” Whom must a man follow? Him, from whom came every thing — the First Source of life. To follow God, that means to give meaning to your life, to convert suffering into music, hunger and poverty into a pleasant task. In such a position a man does not fear hunger and want. The Source from which a man draws his food is not one alone. Give away your possessions and do not think from whence shall come other possessions. Until you pour away the foul water from a bottle, you cannot fill it with clean. Empty your purses that you may fill them anew. Empty your bottles and bags that God may fill them with clean water and pure food. Empty your hearts of the old feelings that God may pour in to them new feelings, a new warmth which will rebuild them. This is what the verse means: “I shall take away their stony hearts, and I shall give them new.”

 

The world has need of good people, of beautiful flowers, which spread their scent far and wide. The world needs noble souls and hearts, sensible mothers, fathers and children. This is what God wants. This is what Christ preached two thousand years ago. At one time people fled from the world; they went into the forests and lonely places, and there they performed feats of abnegation in the service of God. To-day all are told to enter into the world, to work there. At one time people fled from Hades were afraid of it. To-day they live in Hades and work to raise up those souls which have fallen and have wandered away from the true path. It is time to reject the old beliefs, to pull down your old houses. The old falls and the new is already being built. The stage must constantly be renewed; the same play cannot always be put on, God does not love monotony. While man lived under the Mosaic law, he still served evil in which murder, lies, theft and adultery were practised. While he served evil, man lived under the law of birth and re-birth. When he rejected that law, he served the good and entered the universal law. That law implies the application of the following commandments: “Honour your father and mother, love your neighbour and give away all that you have to the poor.”

 

In whatever service you work, you must be honourable and truthful. If you want to be free, always speak the truth. Do not force a man to do what his soul does not wish. Do not force your own soul either. Some boy or other does not wish to marry, but his family deceives him in some way and force him to marry. After that he regrets that he has given way to the advice of others. Do not compel others, lest they compel you too. Do not deceive others, lest they deceive you in turn. Be true to your soul and to your spirit. Be true to your Master. Be true to Him who has given you everything. Cleanse your temple, so that you can receive the Saviour into it. If you want to clean your temple, you must watch your neighbour closely. Think only good of him. The evil which you see is connected with his past life. To-day he is striving towards the good, and he will become good. Wicked people will become better than those who to-day pass for good. I have made it my task to help all the lame, the blind, the crippled to get well and to rejoice in life. All deserts must be turned into oases of life, where the weary traveller may rest and quench his thirst. All the empty places must be sown with fruit trees, that whosoever passes by them can be given something, that the wanderer may stop before them and taste of their sweet and good fruit.

 

Free your thinking of all negative things — doubt, hesitation, suspicion. I believe in your soul, I believe in the possibilities which are hidden in

 

you, and I know that one day you will begin to see. And if you do something bad, if you sin, if you do some violence, your soul will not change. I love sinners who repent, and so I hold out a helping hand to all the weak, the ignorant, and to sinners. This may be weakness, but Christ too showed this weakness towards sinners. He came into the world for them, to help them, to raise them up and liberate them.

 

I want you too to have the same weakness, to love sinners who repent and to help them.

 

‘Come, follow me!’ says Christ. In what? In what I am telling you.

 

A Talk delivered by the Master, on 25th February, 1917, Sofia.

 

 

* * *

 

In his Sunday Talks, at ten o’clock, the Master reads a verse from Holy Scripture, and pausing upon the reality, completely free of the letter, He gradually, with marvellous knowledge of human nature and in easy and elegant Bulgarian, full of ancient words and images, reveals the deeper meaning of the verse; evokes the eternal life, which gave him birth. Dressing it in this form, he projects it into the consciousness of contemporary man. The Teacher employs forms freely, because the Spirit which creates, contains the Truth and can always create a suitable form in order to minifest itself.

 

So everyone who listens to him, feels a liberation, raputre, inner joy. It returns to its distant Motherland, from which the soul began its journey. So in his Sunday Talks the Master surveys life in the light of Divine Teaching.

 

* * *

 

The people of today easily become bored; they are in constant search of new things, of variety.

 

There are, however, things with which one cannot become bored. They are like a sacred book: the more we read, the more new things we learn. Examples of such things are the mountains, the sea, the earth and the sun. Could the sun possibly bore a person? We should give thanks to the great horse that gallops across the sky on its true path, day and night, pulling behind him the earth on which we live.

 

What I am talking about now is the good of the whole of mankind. There is a path that we must all tread to be cleansed.

 

Cleansing pertains to the body, the thoughts, feelings and wishes of man. They are the soft soil which should be cultivated. Man’s difficulty stems from the fact that it is he who cultivates this soil to make it fertile.

 

Some people say: “I cannot make out why I have become so ugly.” Ugliness stems from man’s evil thoughts, feelings and wishes, which he must get rid of. They are raw materials which need to be refined.

 

It is man’s worries and troubles that he does not need.

 

There is something in man which never ages: that is his aspiration, Aspiration is a quality of the human spirit.

 

Man’s aspiration does not age: it is lasting and serves as a locomotive force for the human soul, stimulating it to move ever upwards and forward. This aspiration is called love. So love is the eternal principle in man which creates and generates.

 

What is love? Love is not a burden, love does not bring disillusionment, love also cannot be called a force. Love is the principle in man which liberates him from all tormentors, whether they be in the guise of contradictions, errors or limitations.

 

Love is the principle in man which brings him wealth, strength and power.

 

I will give you a few sentences to think upon:

 

After you have eaten cultivated pears, do not eat wild ones which are sour. Do not drink wormwood wine after you have drunk sweet juices.

 

When you have said a few kind words to someone, do not dress them in your own dirty rags.

 

When you have done a good deed, do not shout about it.

 

When you have expressed a great thought, do not make a prison for it.

 

When you have written a love-letter, do not prattle about it. When you have fed somebody, do not take his money, do not fine him for eating. For if he pays you, it is a fine.

 

Say thank you only when you know that love goes with you and you can see what it is doing.

 

Knowledge does not come only from one source, and light does not enter only through one window. The paths of knowledge are too numerous to be counted, as are the windows of light.

 

Loves does not speak only from one mouth. Love speaks from a thousand mouths. Believe them all.

 

The road to the Truth has no paths leading off it. Such a road is not the road of this world. The road which has no paths leading off it is the road of the spirit.

 

A dusty road is the road of error. A road without dust is the road of enlightenment. Walk where the light is, work where the spirit works. Descend where the water descends, work where the spirit works.

 

Love is living, wisdom shines and the Truth bears our future.

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