1926_02_14 Microscopic acts of good will

[Viktoriya]

Беседата на български

 

Translated by Victoria Koleva

 

 

MICROSCOPIC ACTS OF GOOD WILL

 

Year 5, Lecture 14 of the Youth Occult Class (Special Class)

Given by the Master Beinsa Douno

On February 14, 1926, Sunday

 19.00h, Sofia - Izgrev

 

 

Always be faithful, true, pure and kind!

 

Contemplation

 

The disciples’ essays on the topic: “What am I thinking of now?” were read.

 

For next time please write on a topic of your choice, as well as on the following topic: “A method of right thinking”.

 

Contemporary people are afraid of suffering and try to avoid it. They don’t realize that a life without suffering and joy is the life of the small stones which make up the rock. What would have people learned if they had been gathered in one place just like the small stones in the rocks? – They wouldn’t have learned anything. They would have had only one thing – peace of mind. However a restful state is temporary – it cannot last long. So when people avoid suffering and only look for joy, they free willingly expose themselves to fire. Living in joy only is akin to being burnt alive. It is the same as exposing yourself to constant sunlight without a drop of water in your mouth. What would your situation be if you had to bask in the sun for years on end? You don’t need to bask in the sun for years in order to feel the need for water and shade. If you expose yourself to sunlight for one or two hours only, you will immediately start looking for water to quench your thirst. Therefore, when you are joyful, do not give up the tiny cloud from which a little rain will fall. In that sense, grief and suffering are nothing but a small cloud which brings moisture amidst the joys of life. This moisture brings refreshment in one’s joy. It is namely suffering that gives meaning to joy. With the absence of clouds in the sky the sun would dry out and melt all living things. If there were only clouds and mist, they could destroy life too. Suffering and joy are two extremes in life which alternate appropriately. In the same way that a hot day gets replaced by a cloudy, rainy one, joy also gets replaced by sorrow. A person who is familiar with the law of transformation of states can easily replace a negative state of mind with a positive one.

 

I will now suggest to you one way you could act when you have fallen into a negative state of mind, i.e. when you have become indisposed. Imagine that you haven’t eaten for three days and you are poor, you have no money to buy bread. You look at your clothes, your shoes, and you wonder where you could find money to buy clothes and shoes which are in a good condition, so you could get rid of yours which are all worn-out. Here is what you should do. Sit down somewhere and start imagining that you are a king, with a mantle and a crown on, and you rule over thousands of people. Your wish is their command. Tens of male and female servants run around you, serve you, bring you luscious, tasty meals. Wherever you look you see houses and gardens and everything is at your disposal. Once you distract yourself from the situation in your daily life and you start thinking about something else, you will come out of your negative state of mind. If you don’t succeed in changing your mental state in one go, you will at least start laughing when you see yourself transition from a totally poor person to a king. The gloomy negative states that you go through are not your own and you need to free yourself from them. When a desperate, disheartened person walks in the streets, he leaves his gloomy thoughts and mental states on the road. If a person happens to pass through the same road he will take these gloomy thoughts in as uninvited guests and will think that they are his own. Just like a strong person can attack a weak person and beat him up, in the same way a strong thought can attack a person, impose itself on him and cause perturbation in him. Therefore, when you come upon gloomy thoughts or mental states, start imagining that you are a king and have all royal rights and privileges. Indeed, each person is a king of his own. At least once in the past he must have been a king, but he has forgotten that. If he hasn’t been a king in real life, at least on the stage as an actor he must have played the role of a king. If one can’t transform his state in this way, he should start praying, reading or working on something. When the Invisible world creates special work for someone, it aims to harness his energy, to divert his attention from the negative states he has come upon and thus help him.

 

As disciples, along with your ordinary tasks and obligations, you are being prepared for some special work. For example, one of you is an office worker, he writes and re-writes the same things for days on end; someone else is a teacher and is busy all day applying educational rules. If a person’s life always follows the same pattern, what will he gain at the end of it? - Nothing special. That is why, in order to justify his coming to earth, each person, and especially the disciple, needs to take in the new ideas and apply them in his ordinary business. That is the only way to find meaning in one’s life and to bring real, pure joy to it. The disciple’s task is to bring the extraordinary, the Divine alongside his daily pursuits. Ordinary thoughts and feelings do not leave deep traces in one’s life. However extraordinary thoughts and feelings leave traces in one’s soul. They elevate a person and lead him to a great higher world. They add to the stability of his character. Now that you know this, do not miss any opportunity to do microscopic acts of good will and to bring small, microscopic Divine impulses to realization. Do not justify yourself with lack of time. Doing a small act of good will becomes an art when you are very busy with work, not when you are free. Once it is done in this way, this act of good will becomes a building stone for the base of one’s future building.

I meet a desperate tormented person who is thinking of committing suicide. I approach him and quietly whisper in his ear that he should take a walk to the Vitosha mountain. He looks at me, doesn’t say anything but stands up and starts heading towards the mountain. I meet him in the evening again, but now he is joyful, full of encouragement and renewed life force. What has happened to him? On his way he has seen stones, plants, animals, springs which have led him to some unusual thoughts. These thoughts have brought something new in him: they have taught him a lesson which has freed him from desperation. That is why, if the thought of going to Vitosha comes to your mind, do not contemplate much. Turn inwards to find out where this thought comes from and go. This walk will bring you something new by all means.

 

Hardship and suffering in life come with the only purpose of forcing humans to leave the ordinary conditions of life and enter the extraordinary, to get to know the beauty and greatness of Nature, to understand the meaning of Life. One needs to arm himself against the hardships of life in order to manage them in the best possible way. Who is to blame for the hardships that humans come upon? – No one other than themselves. If someone starts walking on the mountain barefoot and hurts his feet on the sharp stones, is Nature to blame for this or he himself? If that is the case, one needs to arm himself against the sharp stones so as not to get hurt by them. It is in the stones’ nature to inevitably hurt people’s bare feet. Since they knew that they were going to face hardships in life, all animals – fish, birds, marsupials took precautions to guard themselves against those hardships. For example, in order not to hurt his feet, the horse has created hoops for himself. According to the same law, humans also need to develop their abilities in order to help themselves. Expressing oneself doesn’t yet mean revealing one’s negative traits. People’s negative traits represent a downward slope, a descending path. When it comes to the negative side of humans, this isn’t anything new. Animals have negative traits too. If you put an animal under limitation, it will get disheartened too. No great talent is needed in order to get disheartened. No great talent is needed in order to become doubtful or angry either. However, manifesting the Good in oneself requires an effort. If a person faces discouragement, doubt or some other negative feeling, he needs to counteract it with the Good and thus stop his descent down the slope. This requires an effort of the human Spirit. Making an effort doesn’t mean tearing the rope of limitation in one go. No, one needs to tear the rope gradually, thread by thread. The important thing is to be persistent and to exercise one’s will.

 

Under the current conditions one cannot achieve everything at once. With the eyes humans have today they cannot see everything. In order to be able to see everything, one needs a special organ. Then he will be able to see not only what happens in front of him, but what happens behind him also. He will see through fences too. However, only truly cultured and noble people can see in this way because they wouldn’t misuse the information they receive. If ordinary people developed clairvoyance, they would make a number of mistakes and commit a number of crimes. Thus Nature knows what kind of abilities should be given to each person. For as long as a person hasn’t yet developed his higher feelings, Nature cannot endow him with extraordinary gifts and abilities. It has given him a lot of work, a lot of preoccupations, in order for him not to get bored. Once a person has come to Earth, he needs to think and study. He needs to dedicate 10-15 minutes each evening or morning to contemplation and finding answers to questions such as why he has come to Earth, what is the purpose of life, etc. One draws energy from Nature through his thought. Thus he paves his way even through the most impenetrable places and connects with the great and powerful in Nature.

 

If you can’t find an answer to a given question immediately, do not get discouraged. You should persist for a day, two, three or more until you connect with the thought of higher beings who will help you right away. There is a law of cooperation and mutual aid in Nature. According to this law, when a thought reaches a person, the more minds it passes through without its impulse, power and purity getting compromised, the greater and the more rightful it is. This thought is Divine. Only pure and noble souls are able to perceive Divine thoughts without diminishing their purity and power. Only such souls are able to bring such thoughts to realization. The greater the number of such souls on the Earth, the higher the level of people’s culture will be. If ordinary, mediocre people do perceive a Divine thought, they distort it and as a result it loses its natural rhythm. Thoughts need to be rhythmical. Without rhythm things remain ordinary, flat. This doesn’t mean that an ordinary person can’t become extraordinary. Everyone can develop his gifts and abilities. One needs to make an effort – that is all. Everyone needs to work on himself in order to develop what Nature has endowed him with. A person can become aware of his own power only when he works consciously on himself. Then he comes upon a number of temptations, a number of internal hardships. That is the only way to test the power of one’s character. It is easy when people carry you with their hands, but it is hard to walk on your own. For as long as one is on Earth, he needs to rely on his legs alone, not on any vehicles such as cars, carriages, trains or steam boats. Sometimes vehicles can come to a person’s aid – that is a different matter. However, internally one needs to rely on his legs only. When he decides to go somewhere, he will get up immediately and make his wish come true. If he decides to rely on a train or a steam boat, he needs to wait for the stipulated hour according to their timetable. If he decides to rely on a car or a carriage, he still needs to wait for some time until they put the horses to the cart. Not only this, but a number of times one has had to deal with surprises or accidents. In some places accidents have happened with trains, in others – with steam boats or somewhere else – with cars. So many people have suffered from cars turning upside down or falling into precipices!

 

Therefore, do not look for the easy way. It is especially necessary for a disciple to lead a Spartan way of life and not to fear the hardships in life. When a person ends up in a forest, he shouldn’t look for any conveniences other than those that the forest offers to him. In this case he needs to follow the example of birds. In the same way that birds make their nests out of moss, leaves and twigs, a person can also gather moss, leaves and bushes and make himself a bed for the night. Contemporary people are dissatisfied with the conditions they live in and if they don’t have a soft comfortable bed they complain that they have slept on bare planks. There is nothing wrong with planks. If a person sleeps on a wooden bed it is preferable to have a bed made of pine wood. Pine trees endow people with spirituality. If a disciple makes some mistake, he should sleep for a few nights on a bed made of pine wood. Once he corrects his mistake, he can change his bed. Even if one hasn’t made a mistake, it is good to sleep on pine wood from time to time. Those who look for conveniences in life make eiderdowns and feather mattresses for themselves in order to feel soft and warm. Others make their bed covers and mattresses out of wool. Eider and wool are for those who like to please themselves. The disciple needs to take life seriously. He needs to always keep his consciousness awake and make no mistakes. When he does make a mistake, he needs to apply some method to correct his mistake. In such a case it is good to sleep for a few nights on pine wood without a pillow, to connect with the pine and acquire some of its qualities. When he connects with the pine he will understand its life and the conditions under which it has lived and developed. Pine trees give an impulse to people for growing upwards. At the same time the pine tree softens a person’s character. The pine tree is a great idealist, whereas the oak tree is a materialist. When you sleep on pine wood you get tempered. It is good to be Spartan in some ways and gentle in others. Too much frailness gets punished by Nature. It distorts the human character. Many people confuse frailness with softness. – No, there is a big difference between frailness and softness. Softness is a quality of the human Spirit.

 

Let us now dwell on some of the ten questions you wrote. Why has man separated himself from God? – Because his head has become thick. Uniformity leads to dissatisfaction. People are dissatisfied when they aren’t honoured. Everybody wants to be respected and honoured. This is a natural desire, but it needs to be justified. Each person can and should be honoured for the Divine in him. Therefore in order to be honoured one needs to give expression to the Divine in him. Generally, in order to develop any feeling or ability you need to be in the right environment, among people who have already developed these feelings and abilities. If you want to become compassionate, you should make friends with compassionate people. If you want to develop your brain centre for mathematics, go to some renowned mathematician who can enlighten your mind, so you can get an impulse for work. By working hard and with love on mathematics, you will gradually develop your respective brain centre. What should be done so that people start loving each other? – The world is full of love, but it has sunk deep into people’s hearts and it needs to be taken out with a drill. There is love not only in people’s hearts but everywhere in Nature too. The air is full of love but you need to know how to take it out from there. What is the organ of love in the human body?

 

Answer: The heart.

 

That is what people think but do people really love with the heart? It has been noticed that when a person starts feeling love, his heart gets agitated, his stomach gets upset and his brain refuses to think. The hotter a person’s love is the more his bodily organs get upset and refuse to function properly. It is known at the same time that love brings no harm to people. Which is the organ of love then? You have no right to burden your heart with unnecessary work, unnecessary desires. The heart’s task is not to love and to wish for this or that. Its work lies in blood circulation. If you overburden it with excessive work you will get it upset, and once it gets upset the same will happen to the stomach and the brain as well. This overall disorder in the organism will force all cells to go on a general strike and give up working. Whatever task a person undertakes, it needs to be in agreement with all the cells of his organism. If all cells give their permission for their master to love somebody, only then is he allowed to express his love. Violence of any kind against the cells is not allowed. They are conscious and are able to make a judgment as to which love should be allowed to express itself and which one shouldn’t. What contemporary people call love is nothing but temporary pleasure not unlike drinking alcohol. Today someone gets drunk, tomorrow you see him sober. Real love entails a manifestation of the whole human being who understands the language and laws of Living Nature and communicates with it. The man of Love is a man of conscious sacrifice. He is brave and determined and never gets discouraged. He expands all the time. If you a see a person getting narrower, more limited in his mind or heart, he has no Love. If you see a stooped person who can barely move and doesn’t like walking, this person has no Love either. A loving person is quick, agile, smart, and considerate in all his actions.

 

Love is the right environment for the soul to live in. If it comes to its natural environment – Love, the soul develops properly which leads to the proper development of the mind, heart and will as well. All of humanity’s efforts and aspiration boil down to this namely – finding its natural living environment and working there. Many people have already found their initial natural conditions for development and have started working; others are about to find them and to start working properly. You should know one thing: sooner or later all people will arrive at their natural conditions for development and will start working consciously. As disciples you need to put your attention on your tiny, microscopic acts of self-expression, you should observe yourself, control yourself, see how you act. Great gentleness is required of all of you in all your actions – from the smallest to the biggest ones. You need to look into each other, help each other, participate in each other’s trials. Some people are completely indifferent to the suffering of their fellow men. They pass them by as if they can’t see them. If you aren’t compassionate towards people, compassion towards animals or plants is completely out of the question. Someone passes by some children and sees that they are playing with a bird and tormenting it. He stops in front of them, looks at them, smiles and moves on. He says to himself: “It’s just a bird!” So, if it’s a bird, it can be tormented. – No, an empathetic, compassionate person will stop in front of the children, give them some money for the bird, put it in his pocket and set it free in a short while. Therefore the hardships and suffering that a person goes through are nothing but a prison, a cell in which naughty children have placed him in order to torment him.

 

There is no person in the world who has never fallen into a trap placed in his path by unconscious beings. After he cries and suffers for a long time, conscious higher beings from the Invisible world come down to set him free. Once the person is free, he forgets to give thanks for the freedom that these beings have given back to him. He thinks that he has freed himself. For as long as he is the trap, the person feels disheartened and desperate, he wants to commit suicide but once he is out of the trap he forgets everything and says that it isn’t worth despairing. He shouldn’t forget that some conscious being has paid a price to set him free. People end up in such traps many times until they finally learn their lesson, and when they see such traps in the future, they run from afar. The world is full of conscious beings who help people and free them from the slavery and the limitations they have come upon. They help those who help their fellow men too. Do Good and do not be afraid. Start with the microscopic acts of good will and move towards bigger ones. Do not be afraid of wasting your time. A microscopic act of good will requires less than a minute. By working in this way you will gradually prepare yourself for taking in the New and for acquiring the New Life. The New penetrates science, religion, art, music, poetry and literature – Life in its entirety. Strive towards the New Life which gives meaning to everything.

 

 

Exercises

 

1.  Hands up, palms facing forward, thumbs wrapped around each other. The hands separate and the arms make a wide semicircle backwards, arms fully straight. We bring the arms forward, kneel and make a scooping movement with the arms. Next we stand up, bring the hands in front of the chest, palms facing down and fingers of both hands against each other.

 

2. Everyone stands up, arms down. The right leg and right arm open up to the side (first the leg, then the arm). Our thought and attention concentrate first on the leg and move from there to the arm. The same exercise is done with the left leg and left arm.

 

3. Strong rhythmic movement of the arms in a circle: we raise the arms first, then bring them back (the body straightens fully), arms come down accompanied by kneeling, then scooping and standing up. The same exercise is repeated many times simultaneously by everyone, at a slower or faster tempo but always rhythmically.

 

Always be faithful, true, pure and kind!