Jump to content

1917_05_27 Abide


Ani
 Share

Recommended Posts

Note 2p

 

Abide

 

“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”

 

John 15:10

 

“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My Love.” The word “if” in the original has another meaning, not the same as in the Bulgarian language – a condition. This verb keep has a relation to the human will – in order to keep the commandments we have to abide in them, and the fulfillment arises through the participation of the will. The one, who does not fulfill the Divine commandments, cannot abide in His Love. Then, it is not enough that a person abides in the Father’s commandments but to abide in His Love, as Christ has kept the commandments of His Father and has been abiding in His Love. The execution of the Divine commandments both in broad and narrow sense produces the same result.

 

When we arrive to the exterior side of things, the outer world, we observe that something is keeping us for it. The same could be said for the relation between the limbs of man, his soul and Spirit; if the Spirit and the soul do not keep the hands, the legs, the brain, the lungs and the stomach, nothing would remain of a person. The spirit keeps all the organs of the body in complete order; and the soul abides in the functions, which the organs execute, and makes use of the energies, which they receive and transmit – the soul does not keep the air but abides in it. Breathing, thinking, feeling signify abiding, and the actions, which provoke them, we call behavior. One of the processes, which channel in the human organism, we call free or depending on our will; the others are restricted, not depending on our will. The movement of the hands and the legs depends on our will, but the beating of the heart, the breathing, and the digestion are not dependent on us.

 

“You will abide in my Love.” One who does not understand the main commandment of Life – the Love; considers that he can restrict it. Love cannot be restricted, it is relating to the free actions. A man can abide in Love, but cannot restrict it. In the abiding, he perceives and gives – at the same time, there is a regular exchange; in the keeping of the commandments there is a fulfillment – exhaustion of energy. For some people, the questions about the keeping and abiding seem (rather) abstract; it is depending on them, whether they are abstract or not. What one thinks – that happens. If one closes his eyes, it is natural, that he will not be able to see, nor understand the matter. It is depending on man, whether he will see or not; when he closes his spiritual sight, he will neither see, nor understand. Consequently, if you want to see and understand, open your eyes.

 

In the understanding, as an inner process, a certain movement is concealed. For example, in order to study a particular place, and get to know it, you have to journey through it; in order to study a particular unclear question, you will have to make a little effort. How do you act when you want to turn an electric light on? You hold the key, switch it on and say: “Let it be light!” – and it becomes light around you. What if you say that you want light in your mind? Go into one library; take out the book, where it is written about the question that interests you and start to read – since you work for a while in this direction, the dim question will clarify. Man was not born learned, but with endeavour, constancy and work, he achieves what he aspires.

 

For the one, who does not work with Love, Life is a struggle and labour, he is constantly complaining that he is suffering that you are resting on bulwarks but what they are exactly, you are not aware.

 

The sufferings and struggles, which man goes through, show that there is a certain disharmony in his life. The Reason of Nature is drawing your attention to rectify your mistake, which has caused you the disharmony. If you cannot rectify it on your own, go to a doctor, or a specialist who knows how to rectify. You will say that you will have to pay the doctor; it should be paid, besides, the better and more experienced the doctor is, the more you will pay him. The more serious your disease is, the more experienced doctor you will seek; the inexperienced doctor takes little money but instead of benefit, he can cause you harm. Nowadays, more people look for an easy way to acquire something great or to gain entry in the Divine Kingdom. There is no easy way for entering the Divine Kingdom. One, who came on Earth to learn and work, should not avoid the difficult and arduous path in Life; these are the circumstances for his growth. To search for an easy path, means to run the danger in you [A1] – the easy path is human and the difficult – Divine.

 

If someone takes you up to the top of the mountain and then you coast down the inclined area, you will easily reach the foot of the mountain, but this does not mean that you alone have solved the difficult question – in the same way, children coast down (a hill) with their sleds in winter. The teaching of Christ is not a teaching about descending but about ascending, besides that, with labour and effort. Observe how the villagers hoe with the mattock; see how they plough up the land with a wooden plough. How does the Bulgarian plough the land? Along with oxen. Sometimes with two oxen, and sometimes with four or six, the number of oxen he ploughs with is not significant, because the principle is the same. In plowing both principles work equally - keeping and abiding. The two oxen suggest the human mind and the human body, so does the goad – the command which goads the mind and the heart occasionally, in order to remind that they have to work and follow their direction – the furrow. Some people think that they are free but in reality they are all harnessed – someplace in twos, someplace in threes or four altogether. Once in a while, you are unharnessed to rest. When do the oxen rest? When the master requests. Once they have rested, again their master harnesses them to work. Such is the reality. You will say that this is the situation of the oxen – do you think that the souls of the oxen lack intelligence? In a certain sense, the ox stands higher than man. It is said about a person that he has the patience of an ox, which means the ox has been taken as a symbol of patience. What would you say about the grains of wheat that are placed in various conditions? Those, who are placed in favourable circumstances for growth, have grown and have fruits of a good quality; the others who were not placed in favourable circumstances could not grow, but this still does not show that the latter grains of wheat do not hide in themselves the same gifts, as the first grains, placed in good circumstances. Consequently, the relation between the former and the latter grains of wheat is the same as it is between the soul of man and the ox. At present, the ox is deprived of circumstances to grow, and manifest the virtues of his soul; there will come a day, when God will place it in circumstances to manifest its gifts – then you will see that the talented and genius people, whom we meet today, will derive from it. Nowadays, the ox ploughs, works the land, fulfilling the main command and helps the man; for the work that he does, the master feeds it and the ox is thankful that he got fed. The same is the case with the man: he also works hard, makes efforts and takes his meals – he sits before the table, eating and says: “The world is well created.” Really, the world is well created, but you have to thank your Lord, who feeds you for the work that you have done – if you stop working, your Lord stops to feed you. As soon as you become hungry, you start to cry and to pray, until your Lord grants you the needed food. In relation to his work, man resembles the horse, which, because it is accustomed to carry weight, even if it is set free, cannot make use of it. One horse worked for his master for thirty whole years and when it grew old, the master released it from work, and let him free in the forest, but every day at the same time the horse arrived close to the well from which it used to draw water for the garden and stand there – it was awaiting for the master to come and harness it to work.

 

Christ says: “If you keep my commandments.” – Which commandments? The commandments that could make human life happy and reasonable. When speaking about these commandments, many listen and say they have read them. Since you have read them, I am asking, has your life become happy and decent. – “We didn’t become happier.” – If you are not happier, this shows that you have read them, but didn’t grasp their meaning. Christ says further on: “You will abide in my Love.” What greater welfare do you expect than the fulfillment and applying of the commandments of God? There is no greater fortune for a home, where the man abides in the commandments of God and His Love, and the woman – in the commandments of her man. Why are families destroyed? For neither the man, nor the woman keep their promises. The man promises that he will keep and abide in the commandments of God but when he gets married, he forgets all – he begins to drink and feast with friends, and squanders everything: the woman says: “I can never live with such a man.” Therefore, a family where the woman does not abide in the commandments of her husband is destined to death. If the man does not abide in the commandments of God and does not fulfill His will, the woman is also free not to fulfill the commandments of her man, however if the man fulfills God’s will and abides in His commandments and the woman does not abide in the Love of her man, the responsibility falls on her. This is what Christ preached to His disciples.

 

“You will abide in my Love.” The one, who abides in the Divine Love, fulfills His commandment; the one who does not abide in Love, cannot fulfill His commandments – he makes mistakes like children. In (the region of Varna) in the village of Nikolaevka, the priest’s wife had plastered up the house well, she had washed and cleaned – this was towards the day of St. Sebastian. She was in a hurry to quickly finish her work, so she could go to the church early the next morning. Her child, a ten year old boy had seen how people thresh in summer and the moment he was left alone at home, decided to thresh, to play; he took a corn in a container and let in all the turkeys. The child threw corn to the turkeys, chased and ran after them – he was well entertained. When the neighbours passed near the preacher’s house, they heard a loud noise coming from within. They met the wife of the priest in the church and said to her: “Something is going on in your house, but we don’t know what – you could hear clamour and noise from far away.” After the service had finished, the preacher’s wife went home straight away and such was her astonishment, when she entered the room and saw all the turkeys – clucking, fluttering, pouncing upon the walls, and the fine boy chasing them, getting them to thresh. When he saw his mother, the delinquent ran straight away – he left her alone to deal with the self-invited guests.

 

Many people proceed like children: their mothers plaster up the rooms, clean up, and they get the turkeys in to amuse themselves. Thus, they want to show, that they are free, but this is a childish freedom, a childish apprehension. Somebody has a favourable disposition of the spirit, he is inspired with something Divine, but suddenly his child comes into the room and brings after it the turkeys and the ducks - to arrange an amusement. The father sees that the room is dirty and in one moment, the good disposition leaves him. In order not to lose their favourable disposition, the mother and the father should lock their room with nine keys, so the children won’t come in and make it dirty. The fault stands in the mother and the father, and not in the child; finding the rooms open, it goes inside, takes the corn and drives the ducks and turkeys in to play with them.

 

“If you keep my commandments.” Since the verb “keep” is related to the will, never say that you are not able to do something or a particular problem is obscure to you and you cannot understand it, that the circumstances are poor or that the time has not arrived yet for you to manifest, and so on. Leave this aside; know that nobody can be an obstacle to you - everyone stumbles alone. Who was the obstacle for the first humans to stumble? God placed them in favourable circumstances for development, but they transgressed and left Heaven - the cause stands in themselves, in their hidden aspirations. A person stumbles, when he does not understanding his desires, he does not know whether they are efficient or not.

 

The wife of an American millionaire had many desires and she could not realize when and how to fulfill all of them. When she went to Paris, she used to go in all the big shops and bought everything her eyes saw. One day, she bought articles for an extraordinary amount and having no possibility to pay in full, she wrote down the bill to the name of her husband, who was famous amongst the greatest merchants in Paris. When he received the draft for the payment of enormous amounts, he paid it off immediately, but decided to divorce his wife. In order to be free from his duties to her, he built a house-palace for the value of fifteen million dollars, gave her thirty million at hand, to be at her disposal, as she thinks best - he had preferred to give her great sums, to secure her well, but to save himself from ruin. God acts upon those who squander the Divine goods, the way the millionaire acted upon his wife: He gives those forty-five million at their disposal and He gets a divorce. You will reply that the one who has forty-five million at disposal is a happy person. Woe betide the one who got divorced from God - he is ready to commit all manner of crimes. When one does not keep the commandments of God, one can commit all the crimes; if you want to be free from the evil and the crimes outside and inside of you, keep the commandments of God, and abide in Love. When you get up from sleep in the morning, if you are a woman, ask yourself the following questions: “Do I keep the commandments of my man, and does my man keep the commandments of God? Do I abide in the Love of my man, and does my man abide in the Love of God?” If you answer these questions positively you will spend the whole day in Peace and Joy, because God has blessed you; if you answer negatively, you will be ungrateful, indisposed, unhappy. Why are people unhappy? Because they do not fulfill the commandments of God nor do they abide in His Love, and yet they want to realize their aspirations. Gluttony makes people unhappy.

 

 One hunter, who often used to go hunting in the Old Mountain, spoke about the following experience: as he passed by a river in the mountain, he saw on the coast one bear with five little bears. They played around the coast, and the mother repeatedly thrust in the water and pulled out little crabs which she gave to her cubs, one of them was getting ahead of the others and was eating up the crabs - the turn for the others to have a even a bite never happened. When the bear noticed this, she hit the glutton bear, which tumbled down on the ground. Finally, she headed to her lair and she turned to the bear that was imposed, but realized that it was dead. She took it in her lap; she swayed it a little, but couldn’t bring it to life. Saddened by the loss, she went into the forest. Likewise a man carries in himself one greedy bear, which he must educate and penalize. One has the right to penalize it, but in a way that he doesn’t mortify it - in case he mortifies it prematurely, he will suffer. That’s why Christ says: “One, who wants to be fortunate, should posses a steeled will, a bright mind and pure heart, he should keep My commandments thus, as I keep the commandments of my Father and abide in Me as well as I abide in the Love of God.” Only thus, a person can become great, because God, who is living in him, is great. Hence, open your hearts and souls for God, so that He can enter in you with His commandments and His Love to make you great and powerful. Thereafter a person says that everything he aspires to achieve is possible. If you keep the commandments of God and abide in His Love, you will comprehend the verse line that Christ had said: “With man this is impossible but with God all things are possible.” Where is the God? He is in everyone who fulfills His Will.

 

Some want to know how to discern the one who is keeping the commandments of God? Very simple: if your thoughts are clear and positive, and you have noble and pure feelings, you keep the commandments of God and abide in His Love. I said that you should verify everything - for each matter apply the words: explore and see (experience).

 

If you have a difficult problem to solve, do not hasten to decide immediately, but think over it for a few hours, until Light penetrates your mind; if you cannot decide until the evening, this shows that you have a negative thought, which is an obstacle. Free your mind from the negative thoughts and the heart from negative feelings and begin to think over the matter of interest to you. You will say that there is no spare time to devote to this problem hours and days. You will do your work as usual, but at the same time you will think; if you cannot decide in a day, you will solve it in a week - it is important that it will be solved rightly. If you want to know whether your heart abides in Love, see if you have inner Peace and tranquility. If you have peace of mind, on every occasion, even if you hesitate on the outside, you are going to be calm inside. Whether you believe in this, or not, is not significant - make an attempt and you will be assured of my words.

 

Many sufferings of the present people are owing to exterior influences and suggestions. This should not affect you. Man has will-power to bear all difficulties and sufferings. If your will is strong, you can work wonders - one who has a strong and reasonable will can get over the hardest sufferings. In this respect, the martyrs of Christ set an example: they were burned, torn into pieces, tortured, but with the power of their will, withstood everything without feeling pain - they kept the commandments of God and abided in Love. If the starfish can regrow its cut or lacerated leg, why shouldn’t a man be able to do the same? Man should increase his will, so that he can control his thoughts and desires with it. Love arrives to help the man, in order to feed his thoughts, feelings and desires - only thus is it possible to work. How do you act when you take a worker in your house? In order to work well, first, you give him food; once fed well, he is ready to work. This means that Love is necessary like food for man - without Love, his life is not going well.

 

You will object, to me, that life is heavy, that woman and children should be supported. It’s a wonder, the woman was in man - God brought her out, from the rib of Adam; so whether a person is married, or not, this does not make life harder, or easier. There is no such person in the world, who does not carry the man or the woman in him - the man and the woman always go together. Whether the woman or the man is inside or outside the man, it is not significant - every man carries the woman in him and every woman carries the man in her. They cannot exist without each other: the man is an incentive for the woman and the woman - for the man. If you take away the woman from the world, every culture will disappear; if you take away the man, again there will be no culture. Under the words man and woman in a broad sense I imply the mind and the heart. A mind without a heart cannot exist and heart without a mind cannot be - they always go together and complement one another. And so, when people struggle and suffer, the cause stands not in the man, nor in the woman, but in the fact that man does not keep the commandments of God and does not abide in the Love of God. In the word man I imply also the Divine mind, and in woman - the Divine heart. The mind represents the human will, which is manifesting in his body, and the heart - the movement; the mind reflects the processes of the will, and the heart - the reflexes. If the man wants to live well together with his wife, let her be free, to manifest as a self-dependent person, and not to fulfill somebody else’s will and another’s instructions. Let two men make the following trial: the first should write down commands and rules, by which his wife will be directed, and the other should let her free to live by her deep, inner understanding. When a person is guided not by the written laws, but from his heart of Reason, the results are always good. If the man is discontented with his wife, because she is not following his personal demands, he is on the wrong way - this is not the teaching of Christ. Christ has preached Love and Freedom. The place, where Love is absent, there is only violence and detestation.

 

“If you keep my commandments” - what does man keep things with? With hands. The violinist keeps the violin and the bow with his hands and from the accurate keeping of the violin and his manifestation stands on the movement of the bow – being ordinary, talented or a genius violinist. Somebody says that he feels like singing; very naturally, when Love visits man, he feels like singing, playing, in order to manifest. Where Love is absent, there is no song, no music. When it has been said to people that they should sing, this means to open their hearts for the Love - singing is a door, through which Love enters in man. When it has been said to people to pray, we understand the same - to open their minds and hearts for Love. Eating, singing and praying represent identical process - opening of the mind and heart for Love, which is the one to elevate man and make him happy from all that is given to him. They are tightly related with each other. When singing, a person should gratify himself first and then the surroundings; what people think of him, whether they are content or not, this is a secondary matter - first he has to be glad of himself. This is the meaning of the words; “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” Further on, Christ says: “Whatever you ask for in My name, it will be given to you.” Know God by means of His commandments in order to resolve the matter which is difficult for you. Somebody cannot manage the neighbors, he cannot stand them; while he is without the Love of God, he will not be able to stand anyone. What is worthwhile for a person is to fulfill the law of God and to say: “I can achieve anything with God”, which means: “With Love, I can bare everything.” Christ says to each person: Love the God in you, in order to love your relative”, but the devil speaks to him: Love is a great thing, but you are not yet ready for it, you cannot love and forgive - in order to love you need to be learned, to have knowledge of the laws of the entire Being.” Christ opposes the devil and says: “Whether you are learned or uneducated, poor or rich, great or small, you can love and you have to manifest the Love which is implanted in your heart.”

 

Remember: along with Love, a person can achieve everything - the ugly can become beautiful, the poor - rich, the uneducated - learned. Without Love, man loses everything - wealth, beauty, and Knowledge. Do not trust the fictitious teachings, which tell you, that you cannot put Love in practice. If you keep the commandments of God and abide in Love, do not trust the one, who tells you, that you do not follow the right path; do not trust, when someone tells you that the fruit which you cultivated is bitter or sour. In the past, before it has ripened, the fruit had been sour and bitter but today, it is sweet. Do not live with your past - the present, which you spend nowadays, is important.

 

On one occasion Nasredin Hodja, riding on the back of his old ox, headed to the field. He met an acquaintance who asked: “Hodja, why are you riding this old ox?” The Hodja didn’t reply that he acted so because he had no horse but said: “Do not look at the form of my ox today, you should have seen it a few years ago, when it was jumping and playing lively like a young and strong foal.” According to me, it is not important what the ox had been in the past, it is important what it is today - the past had lived its time. The present life is a reflection of the past; therefore we are discontented with it. The new that we acquire and put in practice at present, will determine our life in the future. He who wants to know what his previous life had been, let him look at the present; there he will discover his past. When living in a new way, he is building up his bright future.

 

Thus, the one who hesitates on the path has admitted to himself one leg of the devil. Man has knowledge of Truth, but he alone, admits the doubt to himself. Nobody can lie to anyone, especially himself. If you keep the commandments of God and abide in His Love, you are on the right path and whatever you aspire to, you can attain. Christ is working with the word can, and the devil with the word cannot. If you say that you can live well, Christ is with you; if you say that you cannot live well, Christ is far from you. - “I am a sinful man” - if somebody says this, this suggests that his will is weak. The transgression, the mistakes are concealed in the weak-will of humans; give the right direction to your will and you will ascend. If you have transgressed, you will get cleansed - there is plenty of water in Nature, therefore man can always wash and cleanse himself. Men and women - all have to cleanse themselves, and become conscious of their purpose, and fulfill it. What is the mission of the woman? First, she should raise herself, and then - the man. The good-natured and beautiful woman is an ideal for man - she implants in him an impulse to what is sublime, she persuades him to think and at the same time she implants Peace and tranquility in his soul. The mission of the man is to raise himself first and then - the woman. He has to manifest the power of his mind, in order to persuade her to work. Whatever she aspires, the man has to fulfill it; if today he is giving one promise and tomorrow he does not fulfill it, he is likened to a granny, who stands on every step and cannot go forward. If the man tells a young lady that he loves her, he has to verify the sincerity of his words. It is time already to put in practice the teaching of Christ in all its breadth and depth. If you say that you cannot employ it, you are a granny; if you say that you can employ it, you are a young person, a brave man, who can achieve everything.

 

For the women, I wish them to be abundant in the Love of God, to carry the idea for employing Love and everywhere they go, to carry a scent - to disperse the fragrance of Love. I wish the men to implant trust in all women - to rely on their word and to their promises.

 

“If you keep my commandments” - this is required from the man; “You will abide in my love” - this is required of the woman. And I say: the woman should abide in Love, and the man should keep the commands of the woman.

 

 

 

27 May 1917, Sofia

 

 

 [A1]Unclear. [means to run from the danger in you]

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...