1939_07_30 VALUABLE GAINS

[Ani]

Note 4p

 

VALUABLE GAINS

 

There are two essential things in human life that should never be forgotten: to preserve what one has and gain what one does not. The present order is built on the first principle – to preserve what we have. The future order will be built on the second principle - to acquire, that is, to gain what we do not have. In order to understand these two principles you should have large views on life. For instance, man does not have what the angels do. So, he has to gain it. But until he reaches the position of an angel, he should preserve what he has as a human.

 

Everything we see around us and in Nature is nothing but a world of descriptive teaching. You were children; you worked, graduated from some school and finally grew old. One thing is important for you – to preserve the knowledge you have acquired. If you lose this knowledge you will be unhappy. To lose what you have gained with effort and difficulty is terrible. Do you know what the situation is of the fisherman who casts the fishing-net into the water and when he is just about to catch several fish, they escape through the holes and return to the water. What has this fishing-net brought to him? The gain is in this – to keep at least one or two fish within the fishing-net. The human mind can be likened to the fisherman’s net. So, if the mind - likewise the fishing-net - is being constantly used for fishing, but does not retain any fish – it brings nothing. A mind that does not retain at least one fish, that is – one essential thought within itself, is not in its proper place.

 

Contemporary people seek the fundamental in life. What is fundamental? They say: There is nothing lasting in the world. You are born and you live and die. As soon as you die, everything ends. To think that after death everything ends, though, is to consciously deceive yourself. Indeed, something dies with death, but what dies is not essential. The fundamental never dies. It lives forever.

 

Two friends, two Cambridge university students, promised each other, that whoever dies first shall notify the other somehow if an after life exists, or not. For this purpose, they wrote a motto on a sheet of paper, sealed it in an envelope and left it at a place, where they could both find it when they needed it. Several years later, one of them left for the other world. The other one, who remained on Earth, began to look for a way to get in touch with his friend, so that he could understand from him, what he was interested in. He started to visit séances and fortune-tellers, but nothing could convince him of the existence of an after life. Then he began to meet adherents, clairvoyants, but they too could not convince him. Finally, he took a plate, wrapped it with a cloth, put a pencil over it and hid it in such a place, where no one could find it. After that, he addressed his friend mentally with the words: I am begging you, if you are alive, write something on the plate, so that I can make sure of the existence of the other world. One day, he went to see if his friend had responded. As he uncovered the plate he was astonished at what he saw. On the plate, with the handwriting he knew, the motto was written, which only he and his friend knew. After the motto, he saw the following lines: Two years have passed since I was here. Just now the daybreak of my life starts. Until now, I had no work at all. After he read what was written, he was already convinced in the existence of an after life.

 

Many philosophers and scientists have talked and continue to talk about the other world, about God, but these are abstract things. Man reads, listens, and finally says: This too is not essential. Man knows a lot of things, studies Nature, but this is transitory knowledge. Namely for this knowledge Apostle Paul had said: “We partly know and partly predict.” This knowledge is so transient as the scene in the theatre. You see actors on the stage, who play the roles of a king, a queen, a judge, a teacher, but this is not real. Consequently, human life is a theatre, where each one plays some role. Whatever the role of the person is – it is not real. Real life is the inner life, while unreal life is the outer one. The one, who presents a tsar on the scene – is he a king indeed? On the stage you see kings, judges, teachers, scientists, but are they in fact such people? As soon as they leave the stage, they undress the costumes with which they were dressed and you see them as the ordinary people they are in real life. The actor plays someone else’s part, written by the writer in his drama. For instance, if an actor should play the role of a famous scientist in astronomy; to play his role successfully, he practises for three or four weeks how to point the telescope towards the sky. On the day of the performance, he comes to the stage with an earnest air, with eyes fixed on the sky and starts to point the telescope towards one or another of the stars. As you look at him you imagine that in front of you is a real astronomer, but as he leaves the stage and you engage in conversation with him you see that he has no idea about astronomy. Another actor plays the role of a judge, passes judgements upon the people, and administers Justice by well-known laws. In real life though, he is not a judge at all. While he was on the stage, he convicted several men, but as he leaves the stage no one respects his sentence and no one executes it.

 

One simple man, a Frenchman, went one day to Paris for sightseeing. As he went here and there he saw many people enter a beautiful building. He concluded that this building is a church and decided to go inside. There he saw that all the people stop to buy tickets. He also bought a ticket and went after them. As he entered inside, he stopped to see what would happen. They showed him a place to sit. He sat and waited for the service to begin. It turned out, though, that he had not entered a church but a theatre. He saw that a criminal was being convicted for murder committed on the stage. After that, the case was up before the court. Several lawyers defended the criminal and wanted to plead innocent on his behalf. The man listened to the long discharges of the criminal and was filled with indignation, because in spite of his guilt they wanted to prove him innocent, so he shouted to the others: Why do you keep silent? Didn’t you see that he committed the crime? I saw everything. He is the murderer! Hearing this just indignation, the audience started to applaud. He turned to the audience in great astonishment, because all of them were witnesses of the crime and nevertheless they were silent.

 

Consequently, as long as man pays more attention to the outer life, he is within the unreality of things. He is on the stage. The stage life is a life of amusements. In order to influence the feelings of people, the author of some play writes a drama, as a result the audience feels moved, admiring, and cries. The audience cries for the unreal sufferings of the actors, but does not cry for the real actors in life that experience great trials and difficulties.

 

A priest told an actor: you preach lies to people and they believe in these lies. As they listen to you, they cry and suffer. We preach the truth to people and they do not believe in it. Whatever we tell them, we cannot make them give way to their feelings and cry. What is the reason for this? The actor replied: The reason is that we present the lie as truth, while you preach the truth as a lie.

 

What does a man gain if he does something for days, but does not believe in what he has done? As he does something, man should believe in what he did. It is a law: man uses only what he can put into practice. What man himself puts into practice remains forever. Consequently, he cannot rely on what other people adopt. Whatever one puts into practice, remains for him alone. In the future, whatever one puts into practice will be considered a common gain for all living beings. Keep in your mind the following thought: all good things that people have gained in the past and in the present, will be possessed by the whole of humanity. Today, each good refers primarily to the one, who has acquired it. For instance, the one who studies becomes a scientist; the one who lives well becomes pure and holy; the one who implements the laws of hygiene becomes healthy; the one who studies the laws of enrichment becomes rich. The enrichment is not casual, though. To become rich means that you have worked in the past and studied the laws through which you can become wealthy. A series of generations prior to him have worked in the same direction - in it he works today as well. A man alone cannot become rich unless he has support to back him up.

 

Christianity today has about 500 million followers. This is not due to a single man, but to the collective efforts of millions of people, who have worked tirelessly for the spreading of the Divine Word for two thousand years. Even now, Christianity has not reached the stage that was expected. Much more should be done to reach what Christ preached. In the future, spiritual workers will be expected who can spread the Divine Word unselfishly and with Love. The human will see in the future the results of what he does at present. So, then each man will get a part of the fruits of his labour. What man has worked on, that he will get. The one, who has worked in the past, will get a share of his fruits; the one who did not work will gain nothing.

 

Many of the strivings of humans have remained ineffective, because their hearts and minds have been under pressure. What will a man get from the lecture of a famous professor if his mind is under pressure from thoughts about the impending payment of some bill of exchange amounting to 20-30 thousand levs? If he cannot pay it, he will be under trial. So, he begins to think if he will win the case or not. As I see how he worries, I tell him, that he will win the case, so he should not be worried. Are you telling me the truth? How do you know this? – It does not matter how I know. As you win the case, you will verify the truth of my words. To someone else I tell him that he will lose his case. Even he might not believe me now, as he loses the case he will see that I have predicted correctly. It is pleasant to know that you will win your case; it is not pleasant to hear that you will lose the case. But not always the loss of something causes trouble and not always the winning brings delight. To lose your illness is pleasant; to lose your health is not. Winning illness is unpleasant; winning health is pleasant. As soon as some illness comes to a man he should know how to meet it, what to tell it and how to see it off.

 

One summer night, a young shepherd, who has dealt with the occult sciences, crossed a bridge and heard some conversation under the bridge. He listened to the conversation and understood that two sisters – fevers – were sharing their intentions. One of them asked the other: Where do you intend to go now? I’ll go to the mountain – to a shepherd, who is very healthy – I’ll take some energy from him and spend the winter peacefully. – How do you intend to do this? – I will be around him as he milks the sheep. As soon as he sips the first spoon of milk I’ll get into it and make him feverish. – And where do you intend to go? I intend to go to a judge – a fat and obese man – I’ll take some energy for the winter from him. After that, the two sisters parted and each of them went about its business.

 

As he heard this conversation, the shepherd decided to take some precautions, so that he could protect himself from the fever. It so happened, that one of his sheep died. He stripped off its skin, dried it and used it as a milk-skin. As he began to milk the sheep, he poured the first spoon of milk into this milk-skin and tied it well. The fever had got into this spoon of milk and there it remained in the milk-skin for the whole summer. Every day, the skin was shaking due to the fever. In autumn, when the shepherd finished his job on the mountain, he descended with his sheep to the village. Because he needed the skin-bag, he untied it, threw the fever out and filled it with cheese instead.

 

After that, he went again to the bridge to hear what the fevers would say. One of them was already there and waited for its sister. At one time it came, but it was weak and hardly walked. As it came, the first fever embraced it, being delighted to see it, and asked: My sister, what has happened to you? Why are you so lean? – Oh, dear, I have not eaten all summer long. The shepherd in whom I was going to enter prepared a skin-bag and put into it the first spoon of milk in which I was. All summer long, I was shaking this skin-bag, but what could I get from it? It has nothing. – Calm down, sister, I will take you with me. We will both go to the old judge and we will get better. As they went to the old judge, one of them started to shake him in the mornings and the other one – in the evenings – they reduced him and turned him into a bag of bones. After they got better and had nothing more to take from him, they left and set him free.

 

What lesson can be drawn from this example? As soon as some trouble appears in your life, put it into the skin-bag. If you have some debt with which you cannot cope, put it into the skin-bag; if you have some failure, put it into the skin-bag. Whatever difficulty you encounter in your way, put it into the skin-bag and let the skin-bag cope with it. As long as it is solid, no matter how much it shakes as a result of the difficulties and the troubles in its life, the skin-bag will withstand. This skin-bag symbolizes the human mind. In order that the mind can withstand the difficulties, the human should be healthy and he should not yield to any suggestions. As long as all the organs in his body are well, he should not think that he is ill. The human should be careful not to cause himself any diseases. As he climbs mountains, he should look in front of himself and not to be enraptured. As soon as he gets enraptured he might twist and break his leg. The ground on which you walk is not all flat, so you cannot move forward with equal speed. There are places where man should walk slowly. If you think that you know everything, and that you do not have to listen to people’s advice, you will encounter great hardships.

 

Contemporary people delude themselves because of two things: sometimes they think they know a lot, sometimes – that they know nothing. These are two extremes. It is true, that there are things they know; it is true, that there are things that they do not know. The knowledge and the ignorance of the human are something relative. For instance, compared to animals, the human has more knowledge than all of them put together. Compared to a man, an angel has more knowledge than the whole of humanity. So, the aim of a human’s life is to reach the state of the angel, to attain its knowledge and capabilities. How can he attain this - he does not know, but the future of each man is designed beforehand. You can tell a man’s future by his head, face, hand, and body. There are scientists, who can determine the mind power of the human by the height and width of the forehead. They can also determine his character - by the height of his scull. They, too, can tell if a given man will be successful in his life, or not. Scientists have found that people, with a head that is wide from behind are very timid. At even the faintest noise around them, they take to their heels. They are timid like rabbits. If the rabbit is hit in the belly by even a small branch, it starts running and thinks that bears are chasing it. The bear is not interested in the rabbit, though. How much blood would the bear suck out from the rabbit? The rabbit has a little amount of blood.

 

Now I’ll give you a method against anger. As soon as you get angry, take a deep breath, exhale and then count mentally from 1 to 10; if you are still angry, inhale deeply again, exhale and count from 1 to 200. As you reach 300, whatever the anger might have been, nothing will remain from it. This is one of the ways to control the energies within man. If you do not want to apply this, then do the following: as soon as you get angry, drink a cup of hot water in sips. Anger develops heat within man. Thus the like heals the like. If you do not apply one of the two methods, the anger will manifest itself externally. You will certainly quarrel with some of your relatives and after that, you will regret the energy you spent, for your broken peace, and spoiled relations with your fellow men. Each thought, feeling, and deed, should manifest in the proper time. If they manifest earlier, or later - the effect is not the same. The philosophy of life lies in this timing.

 

Contemporary people are not satisfied by the present world - they want a better world. For the time in which we live there cannot be a better world than the present one, though. If they want a better world, let them try to create it for themselves. God said: “Let there be light: and there was light.” “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the firmament.” – and they divided. As God commanded – so it happened. Let the man command and try his force, too, and see what he can do. Can the man control the weather, air, and light? He cannot. The only thing to which a man can give orders is to his own thoughts, feelings, and deeds. Man can control only them. Man can control only himself. After he becomes his own master, he can only influence and help others. As man becomes his own master, he enters within the jurisdiction of the Divine Law. If he wants to be a master of others and use them as his servants, he enters within the jurisdiction of the wrong in life, that is – of the delusions. If he has been a good master and a good servant of his own self, man can be a good master and a good servant to others as well. Consequently, two things are required from a man: to be a good master and a good servant of others. This is the practical philosophy of life towards which each man should strive. This I wish to all of you. If you attain these two things, you will have the blessing of God, of the intelligent world and of good people all over the world.

 

July 30, 10 a.m.