1923_10_21 The Wise Life

[Ani]

Note 2p

 

 

The Wise Life

 

 

 

First lecture of the Teacher held before the Young Occult class on 21 October 1923, Sofia

 

- Only the bright path of Wisdom leads to Truth.

 

- It rejoices us all the time.

 

Secret prayer

 

This evening I shall talk about the Wise Life. Contemporary science describes Life in different ways. It defines it in its simple form as intention from the inside outwards, that is, from the center to the periphery. The Occult science defines Life as a condition for Wisdom to emerge in the world. This is why the Wise life begins with the manifestation of two passing conditions. These are the conditions of joy and sorrow, but they are not as you understand them. Sorrow is one of the greatest conditions in Life. There is no greater welfare than sorrow hence it precedes Joy.

 

 

Fig. 1

 

These conditions of sorrow and joy could be expressed visually in the following way: A movement starts from the point A up to point C. This movement is upwards which expresses the ascending state of mind. From point C to point B there is another movement downward that shows the descending state of the heart. The third movement is from point B to point A – an establishing state of peace and creative gathering of the will energy. So could all the conditions of joy or sorrow in life be classified. For example in the ascending line from A to C, you spend energy; your legs are tired. However, your goal is high above to C and you are approaching it, so you rejoice, because when you will reach it, all your sacrifices will be rewarded. When you reach C, the ascending to point B starts, i.e. the sufferings begin. Then you say, “This is the end, there is no hope, we shall go downwards.” However, the sides AC and CB are constantly moving, and at the same time are constantly getting longer or shorter. Due to this you have bigger or smaller joys and sorrows. For now I take only these two conditions – AC and CB. Some other time I shall explain how the points A and B are connected and what the role is that they play in Life. Sometimes you cause premature sufferings, and this always happens when you cause premature joys. Consequently, if you leave events to flow in the Divine, natural way by the laws defined by Nature, sufferings and joys will come to you on time, and your life shall then be delightful and meaningful.

 

I shall ask you now: how would you explain to me philosophically the following: where the humans desire to seek joy comes from? [A1] What has been noticed with the joys and sorrows in life? The very joy for one being is a sorrow for another being. And the opposite – the sorrow for one being is a joy for another. The horse that some man is riding, suffers, but the ride is a pleasure for the man, even a great joy. So the joy for the rider is not a joy for the horse. But if the man’s horse succeeds somehow to flee away in the woods, then it cheers and jumps, because it is free. In this case however, the man mourns. I would say, when you were riding the horse, you felt delight. Now the horse is cheerful. This signifies a change in the conditions. The man says: “My horse is gone! How can I continue my way on foot?” When the master is merry, the servant is sad. When the servant is merry, the master grieves. This is not an absolute law, only a correlation between certain forces. In your current condition and during this transient life you pass through, you have to look in this way at the situations. This is how your ship shall be able to float freely without sinking somewhere into the sea. When the life shall be arranged differently in the future, the master shall feel joy and the servant shall feel joy simultaneously.

 

Since ancient times, from time immemorial, children are born with their hands folded into fists. What does this mean? With this the child says: ”I come to conquer this world.” The children grow and wrestle with life. They fall down, and get up, until the day of death, when they finally open their hands and let them down. What is the meaning of the opened hands now? It is, ”I was not able to get anything in my life!” In the future the children shall be born with open hands, which shall signify: “We are young and strong, we shall apply ourselves; we shall work to gain something.” The old people that have worked throughout their lives shall die with folded hands, signifying: “I carry a great idea with me and I do not regret leaving this world. I lived with the understanding of life and now I know where I go.” For the current conditions of men, however, the Turks have a saying “A calf came, a bull left.”

 

The sufferings and the doubts in you as students will increase a lot, but you must be strong to endure them. The Occult school’s students must be strong! Weak students cannot enter the Occult school. The weak ones are outside. This school shall test your character first to verify if you live by Love, or you do everything because of your fear. Only the noble men live according to the law of Love. They abide to the laws of the Wise life. Love is not dear to cowards, who are cruel people. When you enter this School, the first test is on fearlessness. Today’s conditions in Bulgaria are favorable for testing the occult students.

 

I shall give you this rule: even if you are angry, don’t be mad! Even if you lose your confidence, keep your faith alive!

 

All of you carry water vessels, but if somebody tells you about a beautiful pure spring, you immediately pour your water on the ground and start searching for the spring. Then you walk for one, two, three, five, ten hours. Eventually with a big effort you find the spring. Do not throw out your water prematurely! Only after you reach the good spring, only then is it fine to empty the vessel! What is the water vessel? – This is your knowledge.

 

Now suppose that a desire to know everything emerges in you. Do you have a clear view what omniscience means? I shall answer only to a degree: if you are in a certain point at a given time, knowing everything means determining all the possibilities and conditions surrounding this point. Every point contains some possibilities for self expression. Those possibilities could be one, two, three, ten or one hundred. The ability to determine all possibilities means that you know everything. Nowadays people want to know not only their own possibilities in life but also the possibilities for others. However, this knowledge shall not be of any use to them. Take for example an expert chemist nowadays. Ask him if he positively knows something about the chemical elements he is manipulating. In fact, he knows their properties and the laws ruling their mutual relations. But what does he know about the reality of the matter itself, about the hidden forces in the elements? Those he knows as much as those who had never studied chemistry. The chemist says that oxygen and hydrogen unite into water, but has he seen it? He has not - science says so. Speaking philosophically one could object that neither hydrogen exists, nor oxygen. That oxygen and the hydrogen unite into water - could be or could not be so. The creation of water could be explained in a different way. We do not want to destroy your current beliefs about life and your current scientific knowledge, but only say that disagreements can emerge into people’s minds. That water exists in the world is a fact. We know its value, its usage, but how is it created – this is a question for science in the future.

 

You have not started to study the real science yet. The science studied now in Universities is only an introduction, a preparation for that great science of the future. The contemporary science prepares small bricks for that great future building. The knowledge that you get in sixty or seventy life years shall be put in the cauldrons of the future science. It will boil in those cauldrons the knowledge gathered by all people and shall collect the extract into a small bottle in the way that rose oil is distilled. Small, yet valuable is this little bottle! Everybody would carry it in one’s pocket and would say: “I labored a lot in my life and barely earned this small bottle.” In a similar manner Nature distills in its cauldrons our experiences, knowledge, and belongings and extracts from them something small but valuable. When a soul begins ascending to Heaven, even a smallest needle attached to it is too heavy. So heavy is the needle that the soul would barely reach the Second sky and stop there. Even the smallest needle from this world is capable to stop you in your way. Similarly all your mundane desires shall stop you and then you will have to go down. When an ascending desire comes after, you shall again start ascending upwards. This way your conditions shall always alter: you shall rejoice and you shall be sorrowful, you shall ascend and you shall descend. Throughout this process the triangle shall move and shall straighten up and up in the points С¹С²... You would finally ask: “Where is the end of this triangle?” It has no beginning and no end.

 

 

Fig. 2

 

And so, let us return to Life. Life is a condition to express Wisdom. This is why we should seek Life to obtain Wisdom, and only the Wisdom can teach us how to use the conditions in which we are now. All of you are young – somebody has finished High school, some are students, some have already finished University. All is fine for now. However in fifty, sixty, or seventy years you shall become old. Consequently you may lose the inspiration that you possess now. All this that drives you today shall melt like snow and ice. I ask you what will be the basis of your life then? Until you finish your sciences, you say: “Let us finish University, and we shall become teachers.” OK, you finish University and become teachers; you are teaching twenty to thirty years and then you retire. I ask you, what have you obtained from all this? Ask yourself the following philosophical question: what has the watermill gained that has grinded fifteen thousand tons of grain? Nothing. How many millstones are turned into dust until all these grains became flour! In the same way, if your life passes through you, as the water passes through the millstones, what is its usefulness? This is not life, but a mechanical action. Consequently the sufferings show that our life is meaningless – nothing else. Why do we suffer? - Because we are not wise. Why we rejoice? -Because we become wise. This is a simple fact. When the music students finished their education they can play the piano well. Those who finish painting and can paint well, aren’t they merry? They rejoice, because they can express themselves in a reasonable way. An idiot could not be happy.

 

And so, do not ask why sufferings come. When sufferings come, say: “We must be conscious!” Instead, you say: “Why did God give me such sufferings?” - With those sufferings Nature intends to make you wise. She says: “You don’t understand Life, listen to me and I will teach you!” Suffering – this is the language of Nature. This is how you, the students in the Occult school should understand the question. Every day you have at least ten cases to prove that this is correct. If some misfortune happens, say: “I must be wise!” When some failure occurs, say: “I must be wise!” An internal Light and satisfaction shall emerge in you when you say this.

 

The other point you have to keep in mind is that the life you have is not random. There are thousand of Wise beings that care about your life. All thoughts, feelings, desires, all hints, impulses, inspirations you have for the Good, are all results of those Wise forces in Life. They work on your life to bring its fruition to a right direction. They never force you and leave you to act freely, because they work mindfully. But when they want to tell you that you are wrong, they give you a little suffering. When they want to tell you that you gained something in what they have thought you[A2] , they create for you a small joy. If you understand Life this way, the science of today shall always serve you.

 

For example if you are a doctor and you understand the wisdom of Life, your medicines, your methods shall bring good results. Otherwise, soon you shall become insensitive to the diseased and you will run away from the job. With the primitive understanding of Life nowadays, the doctor’s situation is not a blessing! He goes to one diseased person, and then to another; he touches the first one and the other while always giving something from himself. Everybody expects to receive something from him. The condition of the architects, agriculturists, and all scientists is also painful. Why? All those scientists are immersed in some scientific domain; they deal with lower elements than themselves. The elements then in return influence these scientists. Doctors for example study the painful conditions in the human body; agriculturists study the conditions at which the vegetation grows; biologists study the organism cells’ state and development, etc. But all of this is still not science. This is an introduction to the great science to come in the future. If the people would have this science nowadays, they shall change their lives.

 

Have you observed in what way contradictions emerge inside you? Notice how even in an occult class like this or in a high school, between the very nice things some negative ones appear. For example some of the students cannot bear each other’s presence. You talk about moral, about Love, but when the time comes to apply your moral and your love, you do not know how to express them. Unless you understand what Life itself is, you cannot understand Love either, because you go by evolutional path - from down upwards. Life comes from Love. This is why you have first to understand the result, and after you shall be able to understand also the great principle of Love that is the source of Life.

 

When there is such reasoning, the people nowadays often fall into dogmatism. All people understand that life has to be lived, but how? They say: “We have to provide for ourselves!” In the current conditions life is understood as a process of eating and drinking. We shall plant the fields, plug them, collect the harvest, and fill our barns. In everything we do we study the law of eating. Ask anybody you want: “After you die, where would you go? What is there after this life?” All of them say “We do not know, let us live now in a good or a bad way - as God wants. There is no use to think about the future now.” This is not Life; this is only studying the law of eating. When we make Life’s second step, then life shall become a transitory state to the Life of Wisdom. We shall then have the right understanding of life’s substance and everything in it shall become Wise. I do not say that you should not eat. However, eating is only a condition for life, and Life is a condition for embodying the Wisdom in the world.

 

Now when you reflect in this way, you run into an error. What is this error about? You think that you are the only factors in the world and so you say that you have to think about yourselves and to provide for yourselves. This is a great error. Do know that the Divine world and also the Angelic worlds take part in the lives of all of you. In this way the Wise life takes an active part in your lives. Often the melancholy and the distrust put you down. You think that you are not going to succeed, nor reach your goals, that you shall not be able to express yourselves. These are delusions. Everything shall be fulfilled in your life. You need persistence and patience, but you hurry.

 

Another capital error you do is: you try to understand life externally without having understood your internal life. What is a philosophy that wants to understand Life first superficially and after internally? I shall illustrate your condition with an example. Suppose I have prepared a delicious meal in a saucepan and you visit me. If I open the lid and tell you: “Look at the meal and debate, talk about it, but without tasting it”, would you be able to tell something definitive about it? No. The food has to be tasted first and then you shall have truthful, positive conclusions about it. When somebody suffers, go into yourself, then you shall be able to understand why he or she suffers. Do not try to understand what this suffering is by looking from the outside. When one is happy, you could understand why it is so by going into yourself. Now you would say: “But how is this possible when somebody is sorrowful or happy that I go into myself to understand the origin of those feelings?” I shall explain to you how this could happen and why it is necessary. Suppose you go into your friend’s house and in his courtyard you see your friend’s little daughter or son to jump around cheerful about something. You ask yourself why this child is happy. I say: enter into this child’s room and you shall see what this joy is about. When you enter his room, you would see that the father bought a beautiful doll for the girl, or a beautiful horse for the boy child. This is the cause of their happiness and nothing else!

 

From here we bring out the following spiritual law: to understand other people’s life, it is necessary to go into yourself. You have to know how to turn the Light switch on and to enlighten everything around you. Only in this way shall you understand the origins of people’s sufferings and joys. All of you need Light! One understands the others in the extent in which one is able to bring Light into the field they live. When you bring the Light to people, you understand them; if you are not able to do it, their life remains incomprehensible to you. And then, we say: Life is correctly understood only when one has that necessary Absolute faith in God. God is the goal and the essence of the Mindful life. All living beings seek Him, because He brings meaning to their lives. When you are exhausted in your spirit sometimes, do not be discouraged at all! If your life has lost its meaning, if you are disheartened, at the very same moment direct your sight and your reason to the Mindful in the world. The help you need shall come. If you think like that, whatever your conditions, your life shall become meaningful.

 

A young mother was telling me her experience. Her ten year old boy got once a very serious heavy cold. The child became unconscious; his body temperature shot up to forty degrees Celsius. The mother called for a doctor. When the doctor saw the child in such a condition, he prescribed a cold pack. The mother had prepared it but then the child became conscious and barely said: “I do not want a cold one, I want it hot, with hot water.” He said these words and again went into an unconscious sleep. What does this tell us? That the Divine Consciousness in this child says about the illness: hot is cured with hot. This is a great law. Love has to be met with Love. Hatred is treated with hatred. From here we get the following conclusion: sorrow could not be cured with Love. The Bulgarians have a proverb for this case: “One cotter drives out another”. How is the cotter driven out? By splitting the whole trunk. Do you know what splitting is? A splitting that brings Life is good, but I do not understand a splitting that causes death. When you sow a grain in the soil, there is a splitting too. The humidity and the sunlight drive in the grain like a cotter. Splitting and budding occur in the grain and it feels a strong desire to grow up. This mighty impulse directs it to the Sun. When it gets through the soil surface and sees the light of the day, its suffering ceases. Every suffering is thus preceded by a strong impulse towards Life, to achieve a certain goal. The goal may be well known or unknown to you, but you have to always align to these energies and to not suppress them.

 

And so, let the following important thought remain in you: Life is the great condition for the Consciousness to manifest itself. The Consciousness itself brings meaning to the goal we want to reach. If you have this Mindful Divine origin in yourself, you could achieve anything. If you do not possess Mindfulness, you shall suffer until you obtain it. When you get it, your way opens immediately. Christ expressed this idea in the following way: “This is the eternal Life, to understand You, the One and the true God.” This means that when we obtain Mindfulness, we get eternal Life, because God is great Wisdom, great Consciousness.

 

You have to know that everything, which happens in Life, is wise. When I say everything in Life is Wise, I do not mean that all you do or understand is wise. I say that all that takes place in the Living Nature, dictated from an internal necessity, is wise. Whenever it is wise, it is good. Due to this every one of you has to be brave. Do know for sure that no power in the world could impede or divert you from your way except for yourself.

 

In relation to this question now I would ask you another question: are you able to know a person who does not know himself? Only the Conscious could be known. If somebody is unconscious, how can you know him? Let those of you who study philosophy say if they can know a non-conscious man. If they say they are able to know him, their philosophy is a crooked one. Why? Suppose I have a purse and you say you know it. I ask you, what is the information related to the purse? It is in the knowledge of the money it contains. If it is empty, what could you know about it? But if you open the purse and after counting the coins inside it, say: It contains one hundred coins, then I say: yes, you are right, you know it. The purse exists to hold money. But if I open an empty purse, what do I know about it? Therefore, insensible people are empty purses and knowledgeable people are full purses. You could know the full purse, the empty purse you could only kick away. With your philosophy, you say: “I need one empty purse in order to put money when I shall have money.” Then it raises that medieval question, what came first – the hen or the egg? What came first – the purse or the money? We shall leave this deep question for now. For the next time I give you this assignment, “The origin of the egg and the hen”. You shall develop the topic philosophically, well defended and scientifically proved.

 

This evening in connection with the other thoughts, I leave to you the important thought that Life is a great condition for the emerging of the Mindfulness in the world. Happiness is the way up. Sorrows are the road down. Therefore, when the Wise life comes in the world, it carries within itself sorrow too, like a necessary ingredient on the way. This is why, when the Wise beings rejoice in bliss, they take half of their happiness and give it to the suffering ones. In this way they correctly resolve the tasks of their Life. I talk to you about this question because I notice that often you are disheartened. Sometimes you feel elation, enthusiasm. You think you can do a lot. But in short time I see your feathers deplumed. Then you say: “We are finished!” I tell you, Wait, do not hurry. It is true that some feathers had fallen, but they shall grow again soon. In five to six months you shall again be able to fly high. Your balance shall return. Both conditions when you feel a great sorrow, or when you feel a great joy, are pleasant. Do not get discouraged! This is the Consciousness way in Life. This is how you should act as Occult school’s students, as students of Love. Some think they possess greater Love than others. Love couldn’t be greater or smaller.

 

All of you should strive for wise reason, not for ordinary thinking. When suffering begins you have to understand what the causes of it are. This is necessary in order to be able to get profit from these sufferings. When a big joy comes, keep in mind that there is a deep sorrow behind it. And when you meet a great disaster, know that there is a big joy behind it. For example your uncle dies and leaves you a big inheritance, ten million. You rejoice, but behind this joy are hidden great sorrows. What are the troubles that shall come to you? Until this moment you had faith in God; you trusted your fellow men. After you become rich, you withdraw from people. You start thinking only about yourself; you lose your faith in people, you become extremely selfish. All this carries in itself your unhappiness. But if after getting the wealth you are able to believe in God and to love your friends, the wealth shall become a great blessing for you. If the riches are going to bring great unhappiness to you, they are not necessary for you. You would object: “How could we finish University without money?” Do not be silly. Is there anybody who has finished a University through money alone? You finish University with the help of your reason that God had given you. The money is a delusion for you in this case. If you go to America, you shall see many poor students who successfully finish University there. During their studies they perform a service to the rich helping them to fire their stoves, with the household work etc. You shall find some rich American heirs as well whose fathers spend forty to fifty thousands dollars per year. Still, they could not finish anything. There are exceptions among the rich people’s children as among the poor; what I want to say is that the power is not in the money. There are some destitute among the rich, there are also destitute among the poor. Even if rich with money, the fool is poor. Poor people are destitute when they have favorable conditions for obtaining wisdom that are not used. This makes the poverty a real one.

 

Now you have to be inspired by these bright ideas. You have to know that you can make your way to the life of Wisdom and this way is good. Only then you shall understand that this way had been appointed to you. This is why all Wisdom shall help you to achieve it, to start following this good destiny’s way. Do not leave the blessed way given to you by the Lord! This is the Wisdom’s way in you.

 

Exercise: the left hand is put freely on the knee, the right hand moves horizontally aside, then straight, up, back in a circle, down. This rotation of the hand is repeated several times. The same thing is done with the left hand, after – with both hands together. Then the hands are stretched horizontally and finally lowered down. This exercise is to be done when your thoughts and feelings are disturbed throughout the week. When your thoughts are messy, you should make the exercise with only the right hand; when your feelings get disturbed, you shall do the exercise only with the left hand.

 

The exercises I give to you are as completely natural as Nature works. Nature always acts in man, without regard if he or she understands this or not. During a walk for example you swing your hand aside. What does this movement mean? A disturbing thought entered your head and by this movement you chase it out. The movement expresses an act of the will. Because you are in this physical world, your hands should move in a conscious way. If you stretch your right hand to the left you join all the conscious forces directing the motion. As if the motion tells the story that they are giving you something and you are taking it. If you stretch your hand forward you shall take what they give you. Sometimes you ask a friend: “Could you lend me some money?” He immediately reaches for his pocket, gets some money and lends it to you. You take the money and you are happy. This motion is conscious. When your gestures are conscious, they bring joy to you. If you make non-conscious gestures, you spend your energy in vain. All movements have to be conscious and blessed! This is why all of you should have the goal to perform beautiful gestures. Every movement in one or another direction has to produce corresponding mindful forces with which you are able to communicate. Only then the movements are meaningful and profitable. In a prayer for example one should not put his or her hands down, but up, as in the position of the Fig. A. The people with the aim to fight for the sublime and the noble in the world also bring their hands up (in the position A).

 

 

Fig. 3

 

The plant growing out from the soil to the Sun takes the same position. On the contrary, those who carry staffs with both hands and prepare to fight for lower, ordinary goals in the world, they hold their hands down in the position B. This position presents an uptight arrow waiting for the moment to attack.

 

The first position A and the second position B are coordinated movements that are interdependent. The two creatures that perform the movements A and B according to the degree of their development are situated in two different worlds. Because of this they understand Life in a totally different way. Nevertheless the first and the second ones express the two poles in Life, up and down. They have to be carefully studied because only Life shall lead you to the connection with Wisdom.

 

Secret player

 

- Only the bright path of Wisdom leads to Truth.

 

- It rejoices us all the time.

 

 

 [A1][where does the desire of humans to seek joy come from?]

 [A2]thought for you