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Whom God Hath Joined


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XII

 

WHOM GOD HATH JOINED

 

“And so, whom God hath joined

let not man put asunder” — Mt. XIX

 

“Whom God hath joined.” In this verse Christ is clearly speaking of marriage. In reality is that which people today practice really marriage? Two families become closer, live well together and after a time marry their children together. Is that genuine unification? There are three kinds of unification. The first unification is that which God makes. That is the true and strong unification. The second unification is made by man himself, and the third that which the people make. All difficulties, contradictions and sufferings of those united arise from the last two kinds of unification. For a man, a teacher or a state to make a unification correctly, they must be deeply penetrated by God’s Wisdom, they must understand the fundamental law upon which life is founded. To understand the fundamental law of life means to understand life as it is expressed in nature. That is why, when you read the verse in which Christ speaks ofjoining, you must understand it basically in its deepest sense, and not in the letter and superficially.

 

“Whom God has joined, let not man put asunder”. Many people read and re-read this verse, but they do not understand it. Many preachers have spoken on this verse, interpreting it, but nevertheless they have not touched upon the basic truth which is hidden in it. Why is the truth not brought out, which the verse contains in itself? For two reasons: on the other hand, the ignorance of those who speak on it; on the other hand, a conscious veiling of the truth, in case it might expose them. Lack of knowledge, ignorance, is justified. When he does not know something, a man says that which he does know, and hence how he thinks. But for a man to know the truth and consciously to hide it, that cannot be forgiven or justified. Truth is a great principle. Only the clean can speak the truth. If an unclean man tries to speak the truth, it will kill him. So too, only the clean man can understand the truth. Somebody wants the truth to be said to him. To hear the truth, he must be ready to die. In other words: You cannot hear and understand the truth unless you are ready to sacrifice yourself for it. The words of Christ: “Whoever is not ready to deny himself ‘, imply the readiness of a man to renounce his life so as to comprehend the great God-given Truth. Christ said much about unification, as also upon the more important principles of life, but to us have come only fragments, which today are made the basis of free interpretations and various theories which do not correspond to the absolute truth. True thought is only that which is applied and tested in life itself.

 

“That which God has joined, let not man put asunder.” Unification exists not only between souls but also between musical tones. The latter unification we call harmony. If we look at the fiddle, we shall see that it is made up of several parts, but so arranged that all the curves and angles go towards a straight line which passes through the centre of the fiddle. The master fiddle-maker has so unified its lines and angles that at the touch of its strings all the sounds emerge from the great opening of the harmonic unity. And man represents an instrument, like the fiddle, with four well-stretched strings. The strings of the fieddle differ from each other not only in thickness but also in the intensity of the sound. To play a fiddle, a man also needs a bow with well-stretched hairs, so that when it touches the strings he can obtain the required notes. For a man to know how to play the fiddle means that he has acquired one of the great arts of life. When a child begins to learn the fiddle, at first he squeaks, playing false notes. The more he grows and practises, the cleaner the notes become.

 

Life is like music. For a man to live correctly means that he masters the art of playing. The human body is like an instrument, a special fiddle on which he plays; the strings are the four basic humours, through which a man expresses himself. The four basic humours are: the sanguine or gaseous, mental or nervous, choleric and phlegmatic. It is not enough for the fiddle to have four strings, but they must be of good quality, to be made of good material and to be of a certain thickness. The same applies to the humours. It is not sufficient for us to say that a certain man is sanguine or of mental-nervous humour, but his humour must be of good quality. To play well, the fiddler must be gifted, to play from his soul, to have a good fiddle, a good bow and top-quality strings. And then, when he starts playing, his fiddle must give out clean, pleasant notes. Somebody will ask: what remains for the fiddler but to put his soul into the fiddle? The soul manifests in three ways: in the sphere of feelings, of thoughts and ofactins. When the soul manifests in the feelings, the latter participate in the playing: out of the fiddle pour soft, warm, harmonious notes, as though it were itself speaking.

 

A famous fiddler took his fiddle for repair to a good craftsman, an Italian. The craftsman invited the fiddler to sit and wait while the fiddle was being repaired, so that he could take it when it was ready. As he watched the craftsman dismantling the fiddle with his knife, the fiddler lost consciousness and collapsed. Why did he lose consciousness? Because the movement of the knife on the fiddle caused him pain: part of his soul resided in the fiddle.

 

Christ says: “What God has joined, let not man put asunder.” What unification did God do? What things did He join? God joined the brain and the heart, the soul and the spirit, the body and the lower organs. Must an ignorant man dismember that which God has joined. What man is ignorant? He who does not speak the truth, who does not understand wisdom, who does not act in accordance with truth and love. Since you know this, do not act like the ignorant, separating that which God has joined. He who keeps God’s laws will rejoice in his life.

 

Some villagers complained to the bishop about their priest, that he wearied them with his services, which often went on for four or five hours. At one time he used to finish the service in half an hour, but usually he kept the people in church for hours. The bishop sent for the priest and told him that he had had a complaint against him from his parishioners and asked him what he had to say injustification. “Lord Bishop,” said the priest, “what they say against me is true. The cause is as follows: when the angels and the saints assist me at the service, I finish my work quickly, in half an hour. But when I am left alone, on my own resources, without the help of the bright ones, I finish my work in four to five hours.”

 

Consequently, when the people’s affairs are well arranged, the bright ones help them; when their affairs are not well arranged, the bright ones leave them to their own devices. So too we can explain why some trees ripen early but others later. For example, the cornelian cherry flowers first but ripens last.

 

At the foundation of the world, God made plants as well as fruit trees, and He gave the right of every spirit to choose for himself one fruit tree of his own. When it came to the turn of the devil, he chose for himself the cornelian cherry, as being the tree which blossoms first. He said to himself: “As the cornelian cherry blossoms first, it will also ripen first.” But he was deceived: the cornelian ripens last. And man can, like the cherry, ripen early, or, like the cornelian, rien last. Why some fruits ripen early and others later, also has its reasons. The ripening of the cherry and of the cornelian represent processes which also proceed in the human life.

 

“That which God has joined, let not man put asunder.” With this verse Christ directs the attention of people not to destroy that which God has done. When it comes to spoiling, people today are experts. Whatever nation you come across, you will see that all people are experts in spoiling things. You see what some peasants do when they pass a beautiful stone drinking trough. When they look at the fountain, they get a desire to take out their knives or their axes so as to sharpen them on the trough. In such a situation will not the trough be ruined? Will not a man be spoiled, be he priest, teacher, preacher, judge, if you sharpen your axes on them? Then they say: “That would not happen to our priest, preacher or judge. Why should it not happen; how should they not be spoiled when you sharpen your axes and knives on them?

 

So as not to spoil what God has created, first we must not spoil it. Who are those guilty of spoiling? Before learning the art of sharpening their axes on the troughs of the fountains, people must learn the law of harmony. Some boy marries a good, gentle, delicate young woman, but after a few years he takes out his axe and begins to sharpen it on her trough. He sharpens the axe and lays down: “You should not be considerate, delicate, or gentle with people.” Today he sharpens his axe, tomorrow he sharpens it, until in the end his beloved is spoiled and becomes coarse. How should she not be spoiled when people are constantly sharpening axes? The same thing happens with the boy. You don’t need to sharpen your axes upon the backs of good girls and boys so as to wear them away. Sharpen them upon the backs of the coarse, hard and ruthless peopole. They need to be blunted.

 

A priest had the habit of waving incense before the seats of those of his parishioners who were constantly absent from church. One of the congregation asked the priest: “Father, why do you cense before the empty seats and not opposite us, who are present at the service?” “You do not need to be censed. As you are present here, you are out of any danger. But those who are absent, they need to be censed, since they are exposed to great dangers and evils.” You should be like that priest, and go where there is need and not where there is no need. The rich men always invite the rich to supper. Their seats are always censed because there is something to be taken from them. That is not a reproach, I state a fact. Everybody says: “Today they invite me, and tomorrow I shall invite them.” It is good for a man to do what is harmonious, natural and reasonable, so as to re-establish God’s harmony. Let us feed the poor, the hungry, the orphans, because such is the will of God — not to destroy what He has created.

 

“That which God has joined let not man put asunder.” This is one of the principles to which Christ has drawn the attention of mankind. You will say that Christ preached well. Why did he preach well? Because His preachings give life, bring a stimulus to the minds and hearts of the people. A true sermon is that which feeds the human soul and gives it the strength to develop. Christ’s sermons are true and truthful, because they come out of the living, reasonable nature. He interprets phenomena in nature as they really are. Whoever cannot interpret them correctly deceives himself and at the same time deceives others. Study nature, learn it, so that you can use its power. If a man aspires to nature and wishes to combine with it, let him every morning, especially during the month of May, get up early and go out for a walk, in the clean air, before the sun is up. What greater picture is there of the rising of the sun! At the same time, you can take advantage of the early rays of the sun, which react beneficiently upon the organism. Get up early in the morning, before the rising of the sun, to receive its blessing, and after that begin your work. Re-establish the links between your own organism and the sun, as between your soul and God, which have been made from the beginning. Avoid temporary connections with people, so as not to come up against disharmonious situations and contradictions.

 

And so, study nature, study the manifestations of God, without criticising. Somebody opened a book, took only one extract from it and began to criticise it, to say that some thought or other is not in accord with the new theories of life. Are the new theories in accordance with God’s teaching and with God’s laws? We must all be bearers of God’s teaching, because all people, as souls, constitute parts of God’s organism, while God demands that His body be healthy, and all the limbs be in harmony. Only thus can man bejoyful and happy. If he is not healthy, he cannot bejoyful and happy; the cause of this is not in God; if a brother and sister do not agree, the cause is not in God; if trust and agreement do not exist between rulers and ruled, the cause is not in God. The cause of disharmony, mistrust and contradictions between people is due to the break-up of the unification which God made. In future all elevated people — teachers, writers, professors, preachers — must come down from the height of their position to enter into the world, among the simple, the poor, the suffering, to teach them how to live. Christ asks this of all people. With his own descent to the earth, Christ shewed to the people how to apply great, unselfish love among them. All contemporary writers know that God is at work on the earth. He causes great transformations in human minds and hearts. That is why it is said in the Scripture that a new world is being created, new minds and hearts are founded. The new people will create the new humanity which will shew that new powers and energies are at work, both in the world and in the whole of nature, “That which God has joined, let not man put asunder.” Between what has this unification been made? Between the stomach and the food, between the lungs and the air, between the heart and the feelings, between the mind and the thoughts. If one of these unifications is destroyed, man is disorganised. It is enough for the correct unification between stomach and food to be destroyed for the man to fall ill and to seek help from the doctor. But if the doctor helps him and then a second time the man destroys the unification, the stomach will begin to resist him, and will soon surrender its service. Just as a man’s stomach is destroyed, so relationships with people are ruined. Every man must make the unification between his stomach and the food which he takes. If the unification is a correct one, a man feels healthy, courageous, happy and ready for any work. After that, if he does not feel healthy, joyful and brave, the unification is not harmonious. If he does not know his organism and cannot make harmonious unifications, a man asks the opinion of good scholars and doctors, and applies their advice. The opinion of scholars is good, but is not the same for every person, and is not the same for various ages, physical and spiritual. A man must constantly change his food. On the change of food depends his health condition.

 

Just as the incorrect unification between stomach and food upsets the human organism, so too the incorrect unification between the heart and the feelings upsets not only the physical but also the phychic condition of the man. You will say that people should love one another. How many young men must love a girl, and how many girls must love a young man? If ten young men love one girl, they will upset her. It is preferable for one boy to love one girl, and not ten. The ten boys will confuse her head, will muddle her heart, and soon she will begin to fall ill. In reality, only one boy loves, and not two.

 

Somewhere in America there was a wonderful preacher who charmed his hearers with his oratory. Then came a day when he had to leave. All his hearers and flock came out to see him off, because he was a general favourite. With them came out the dogs and ducks and geese to say goodbye to him and wish him a happy journey. Finally he got onto a horse and set off for the station. At the end of the town, the horse reared up on its hind legs, threw him to the ground and said: “Good-bye my friend, we do not need such celebrities. They are not necessary for our development.”

 

Which man is a celebrity? He who carries out God’s will and, like the sun, bears a blessing for every living creature. Some think that, to be saved, they need to have correct beliefs. This is not so. If you sleep when the sun rises, whoever you are, nothing can save you. The salvation of mankind is concealed in that great religion, which unites all religions, like the limbs of a whole. The new religion is love. It unites all people, pacifies and solves contradictions and brings them joy and happiness.

 

For people to be united means that they have common ideals, common aims. Unification, one-ness, gives people strength and makes them powerful. Whatever it is that they desire, they can attain it. When the people of Israel left Egypt and set off with Moses for the Promised Land, they were divided into twelve tribes, and each tribe carried part of the Tabernacle. Wherever they halted, they at once gathered all its parts together, erected it and offered up a fervent prayer to God. Gathered together, sending up their prayer to God, they received His blessing.

 

What do the present-day orthodox do? They too bear parts of the Tabernacle, but even now they still cannot gather in one place to build it and all together offer up a prayer of thanksgiving to God. If somebody asks them what they are carrying, they reply: “We are the true believers, we bear the parts of the Tabernacle.” Christ says to them: “Gather together in one place and let each bring the part which he bears, so that we can build the Great Tabernacle, and all together pray to God in the Spirit and Truth.” Let all peoples gather the parts of the Tabernacle into one whole; this implies the verse: “That which God has joined, let not man put asunder.” In other words it is said: “Do not turn upside down the great love which God has put in your souls.”

 

The time has come for the people to turn to the education of their minds and hearts, which is the first unification which God has accomplished. What greater blessing for man is there than to have a mind which thinks straight and a heart which feels correctly and to join them in one! When the mind thinks straight and the heart feels correctly, man understands things. He has achieved that understanding by the path of suffering. Nevertheless people complain about their sufferings. Blessed sufferers, blind and lame! Why are people blind, lame or crippled? Because they have passed through some philosophy which has crippled them. They ought to search for God’s Truth, which bears life and shews the path to the Lord. Many men seek God where He is not. Go out in the month of May, early in the morning at four o’clock, and you will find the Lord. Join in the song of the little birds, in the breath of the soft breeze, in the babble of the srings, and you will find God. The sun invites every living being to come outside, to great him, so that he can pass on God’s blessing. Why should you not give thanks to the sun, as to God’s servant, who bears the epistle from Our Father, and say to him: “Bear our greeting to our Father and say to Him that we have already decided to re-establish the harmony which we have destroyed.” What do most people do? When they wake up, they look out and, if they see that it is windy or the sky is cloudy, they say: “The weather is nasty, it’s not fit to get up.” No, be thankful for the weather, whatever it is, and say: “The day is good. I shall get to enjoy the day, to give thanks for the blessings which it promises.” Give thanks for the wind, because it ventilates your thoughts and feelings. Give thanks for the clouds, because they carry dampness, through which the flowers are freshened, the trees and the fruits. This is the right teaching, towards which people strive. Every living thing wants to be loved, to live freely and to enjoy the blessings which nature gives. When I meet a dog, he looks at me, wags his tail, and asks me: “Do you think of beating me, or will you leave me free to go my way?” “Go freely on your way, I bring peace and not force.” The dog believes me, wags his tail again and goes on.

 

“That which God has joined, let not man put asunder.” To preserve this link, man must be ready to apply the teaching of Christ, This means to keep the law of harmony, known under the name of the law of sympathy. Two laws are at work in the world: the law of sympathy and the law of antipathy, that is, a law of harmony and a law of disharmony. When they love, people apply the law of sympathy or of harmony, they live among people in a brotherly way. Whgen they do not love, they live by the law of antipathy or disharmony. In that law there exists repulsion, but in the former — attraction. Where there is harmony, there is God. That is why every man must ask himself whether he is linked with God or not, Do not seek for God outside, like some form, but look for Him inside, in yourself, like a content. The rose and the carnation have an external form, but the important thing is their scent, which a man accepts internally. They can be distinguished by their aroma. Consequently God is both outside and inside. It is a mistake to think that He is only outside. Man should not consciously close his eyes before the truth. All things between which there is unification are internal. For example, you have a piano, music, a pianist, but the musical sounds will not appear: to get the sounds, the pianist must join together all the elements into a whole, and the sound will appear. You listen and accept the music internally. But only that man is able to accept the internal meanings of things who listens closely inside himself, to his own inner voice. That is what it means for a man to understand the meaning of things.

 

Many men ask themselves what the church represents. The church is the piano, the holy books are the sheet music, and the priest is the pianist. He has to sit at the piano and to play according to all the rules of the music. You sharpen your ears and you listen, so as to take in the music internally and you bless God for having the possibility to make use of it. Rejoice that you are able to go outside, when the sun shines and you are able to accept it. Blessed is the man who is able to understand the conjunction which God has laid in the whole of nature, among the minerals, plants and animals. You may say that the minerals and plants are voiceless. Nature is living and reasonable. Nothing in it is voiceless. He who has ears to hear, he can listen to the converse of nature and understand it. All mystics take nature as music, converse and song. Thus it preaches and instructs people. There is not a preacher in the world who can compare himself with nature.

 

“That which God has joined, let not man put asunder.” God has made several basic unifications, on the one hand between the body, the soul and the spirit, and, on the other hand, between the mind, the heart and the will. These are conditions through which the human spirit passes, so as to perfect itself In the physical world man learns the law of movement, in the spiritual world the qualities of the feelings and their intensity, and in the intellectual world the meaning of life. When we talk about resurrection, about eternal life, we understand the conjunction which exists between the human spirit and the human soul. They contain the qualities of the Holy Spirit and of God’s soul, and therefore man has possibilities such as God has. He must be conscious of that work upon himself, to manifest the Godly which is placed in him. If somebody says that he cannot do a certain thing, he shews that he denied the Godly in himself. If he says that he is a sinner, he denies what God has unified. God has given you much land which you must cultivate; many men leave their hearts and minds uncultivated: that is the reason why there falls from without various unwanted seeds, from which sring up weeds and tares. He who does not cultivate what God has given him cannot be saved; nowhere does he see a way out. He who does not work in conjunction with the Godly can expect no blessings. Every man must say: “God has placed in me certain gifts and capabilities, and I must work so as to develop them.”

 

You may say that man is sinful, that alone he can achieve nothing. Sinful is only he who has destroyed the unification which God made.

 

Turn to the Godly in yourself, with a wish to restore the harmony which exists between your mind and your heart, between your soul and your spirit, and you will be good, you will rejoice in the blessings which have been given you. Do not say that people are bad, that they prevent you from manifesting yourself, but look into yourself for the cause of this. Apply faith, patience and love, and you will see that you will quickly achieve good results. To recognise your neighbours, take off from them the outer coverings, and you will find that inside they are good. The green outer covering of the walnut is bitter, but the kernel is sweet, good to eat. Only in this way can you recognise the qualities of the human soul.l Do not say that man as such is a wolf. If you think that, you see only the wolfs skin in which he is temporarily dressed; inside he is not really a wolf. Another dresses in a lion’s skin, but inside he is not a lion. You must penetrate into the inner nature of man, if you are to understand that man is a brother to man and not a wolf.

 

He who has worked and continues to work upon himself has preserved his cleanliness, like a natural piece of clothing given him by God. If you meet such a man, you will see God in his face and you will rejoice that you have seen Him. Your task is to learn and to preserve everything which was given to you in the distant past. Where will you learn? From the Great Teacher, God, whose teaching has no beginning and has no end. He leads towards resurrection, towards everlasting life. To be born again means to begin from the beginning to learn and to work. The resurrected man is ready to renounce his personal life and to work and to live only for Him who has created him.

 

Today Christ turns to all people who find out that in them is the image of God and who undertake to purify it and to restore the original unification in themselves that they were born with. God gave to man health, which he must carefully preserve. To preserve your health, rise early in the morning, especially in the month of May. At four o’clock you must be out of your bed. That is good not only for you, but for all people. Teachers, priests, mothers, fathers — all must begin their work early. When the sun begins to shine, say: “Blessed is the Lord our God, who has sent the sun for us to enjoy its light and warmth.” He who enjoys the blessings which nature generously gives him, only he understands the meaning of the verse, spoken by Christ two thousand years ago: “That which God has joined, let not man put asunder.”

 

As I look at this verse, I only scatter the seeds on your fields. The remaining task is yours, you must cultivate them, just as a writer takes a subject and develops it. That means that a man hears the voice of his great Father — Love, and understands the meaning of his life and his purpose on the earth. That means for a man to be born again, that is, to be born anew. Christ says: “Unless a man be born again, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” That’s who, whoever is born of father and mother will be born and reborn many times upon the earth. The fool will be born and reborn, until he becomes wise; the ordinary man must become talented, a genius, a saint, an angel, and so on. If for every living being there is not a condition to develop, then life loses its meaning. Work, develop yourselves, without struggling for supremacy. Whoever wishes to be first, the same shall be last.

 

An ancient tradition relates that when God founded the world, He entrusted the sun with a great task — to shine, to give light and to warm. However, it had the desire to rise first and to be the first to go before God. When He learnt about this desire, the Lord laid down that all the planets should move around the Sun and it around God. That is precisely why the Sun, the elder brother of the heavens, was further from God than all the younger brethren. The Sun confessed his sin, and to redeem it, constantly rose and set. The remaining planets moved round him so as to learn the law of motion.

 

Many Christians have the same desire as the Sun, to be near to Christ, but the new teaching, the teaching of Love, excludes avarice. “Blessed are the meek and poor in spirit,” says Christ. In other words: “Blessed are those who take up the place which God has marked out for them.” For preference, a man should occupy the last place, in order to carry out God’s will, rather than to be first and not to fulfil God’s will. Christ says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God.”

 

I want you to restore the connection between the mind and the heart, as also betwqeen the spirit and the soul, so that all your energies begin to flow, whose taps you have turned off for centuries.

 

Talk preached by The Master, 13 May 1917, Sofia.

 

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