OUR SMALLER BROTHERS, THE PLANTS

[Ani]

OUR SMALLER BROTHERS, THE PLANTS

 

A beautiful, characteristic feature of the Master was that, on one hand, He would lead us into an elevated, mystical world, and on the other hand, He would not detach from the physical world around him. The laws and principles He taught us - He always treated them practically, concerning the concrete tasks of Life. He reckoned that Life is one; that this world and the next one are one world, and therefore every physical work for Him was at the same time spiritual. He would plant fruit-trees, He would work in the vegetable garden, He would work with the bees, etc. After we worked in the garden for about two hours, we sat down on the grass to have a rest, and the matter about the life of plants came into question. The Master said:

 

In the natural kingdoms - mineral, vegetable, animal, and human - manifest Creatures from various stages of the Angelic hierarchy. Through the minerals and the precious stones manifest Cherubim, Seraphim, etc. In the entire Nature all classes of the hierarchies have taken part in order to create things. They participate in the life and evolution of the entire Nature. On the evolution of the flowers work supreme Creatures. When you rejoice in a flower and love it, you are already making a connection with those Creatures, and they come and aid you; they show you attention. The plants in the higher worlds are rational, but in their manifestation in the physical world they are silent. Their time has not come, they are only gathering material. The precious stones pertain to another world; higher Creatures work on them.

 

In the plants and animals there is a Divine principle that works. If you study the plants when there is wind, rain, then by their leaves you can tell if the weather is going to get bad. Keen observations are required. The trees are an emblem of self- sacrifice - on the fruit of the plants people feed. The healing properties of the plants, their magnetic influence, have to be studied. They should not be planted too close to the house. The Rational nature has created the plants, and man should not misuse the goods of God. When you contemplate the plants, you shall try to inwardly perceive what their healing properties are. Without the plants man cannot be genius. There are secret forces in them. You have to know when to pick the fruit and when to eat it, in order to be able to take advantage. That is where the entire secret is now. The hazel is one of the magical plants.

 

We need to have an inner communion with the plants. When we go to them and tell them something, we will sense an answer. What appears within you then is the answer of the plant. The trees are considered stupid, and they are so wise! What variety there is in the leaves, in the blossoms. What sweet fruit they give. To extract the good sap from the soil - it is a science. They have knowledge, they have rationality. That energy, which man cannot extract, the plants extract.

 

The grasses and generally - all plants, as well as the animals, go down, and we go up. They walk the path of involution, and we - the path of evolution. They have learned the knowledge on the path of involution. Their I, their Divine monad, is still in the Invisible world and it gradually goes down. This will last for millions of years. And the Human I has already come down to Earth. That is why man has self-consciousness and the other natural kingdoms do not. They have a lower stage of consciousness.

 

When we come to the area, where that knowledge is, the area that the animals and plants have in their subconsciousness, we will learn it on the path of evolution - with our self-consciousness.

 

A weary traveller passes by a tree weighing down with fruit. He does not hurry to pick, he only stays under the branches and wishes for some of its fruit. And it will not be long before a ripe fruit falls down; there is consciousness in the plants, it is no accident. This happens when there is harmony between the traveller and the tree. When the traveller looks at the tree, he comes into connection with the rationality within it. These are souls which live in the Invisible world collectively and manifest on Earth. And when he thinks, in the Invisible world they arrange that he is given a couple of apples.

 

When the grass is torn, it does not feel pain, but when it is uprooted - it does. The more highly organized creatures have pain. The grasses pertain to a lower stage of development. The vibrations of the plants, the animals, and man are different. It is good not to pluck flowers. If you pick them, your head will ache after that. Children should not pluck leaves and flowers; it has a bad influence over them, and when they grow up, they will do more harm. When we pass by the flowers, we will not necessarily smell them, because they have a very strong influence over the astral body and this is not beneficial, a charm happens.

 

In the plants there is a certain attachment and affection. If you love them, they give better fruit. If you are disposed towards them, they are ready to reward you. In Stara Zagora a person told me that an apple-tree was attacked by plant lice and that he was thinking about cutting it down. For several years now it had not borne any fruit, but an acquaintance of his told him: "Leave that apple-tree to me!" The next year there was not a plant louse on the apple-tree and it bore a lot of fruit. That person had gone to the apple-tree with Love and had awakened Love inside it. That is because all those plant lice cannot withstand Love, they flee for their life. Parasites cannot withstand the vibrations of Love.

 

Once a brother came to me and told me that he lived with a landlady who was a little headstrong. She had a flower, a tuberose, which withered and she threw it out in the yard along with the pot. He asked her to give it to him and she agreed. He took it and began to take care of it, water it, and each day he went to it with Love. And that flower recovered, it began to grow wildly, it became larger and let out big beautiful blossoms. Once, when he was standing one morning by the flower, he saw that above it a bright cloud was forming; that translucent steam condensed and a beautiful Creature formed, smiled angelically, and disappeared. It brought Joy into his soul. On the other day the same thing happened. The beauty of that Creature was unearthly. After a few days the landlady came and said:

 

"I see that this flower thrives well, but it is mine and I want it back." He told her, "But wasn't it that I saw it thrown away on the ground and you allowed me to raise it!" She would not hear of it. The brother offered her to buy her another such flower, just as beautiful, but she said curtly that she wanted that one. Sore at heart he gave it to her and felt a great sorrow. On the next day the landlady again threw the pot out in the yard - the leaves of the flower had drooped. Our brother took it, tried to revive it, but it had completely perished. Yes, a plant can come to love you like a person. You put the pot in your room and it comes to love you; otherwise, when you take it outside, it will wither. If it has not come to love you, it does not wither, but once it comes to love you, it withers when you remove it. There are some who love plants very much and whatever they plant takes root, and if they do not love the plants, they do not take root. A lemon was about to wither; a brother said, "Let us remove it and put another plant in its place", but I said, "Leave it". And it recovered; but until it cheered up, I went to it every day to comfort it. So when there is no Love, nothing in the world wants to live, it wants to leave, wants to go where it is loved. The plants, too, grieve like people, but because they cannot talk, their grief is hidden.

 

Now the grain has become contorted; once the people improve their life, it will improve as well. There is dependence between all fruit-trees and man. Before the General war happened, the phylloxera came in Europe and began uprooting the vines; this shows that the phylloxera will come into the human life. War is phylloxera. Then the apples were affected, which showed that the good, the beautiful, will be affected in man. There is a connection between the plants and man. Or, in other words, that, which is to happen to us or which is happening to us, reflects upon the fruit-trees.

 

During the political events they took and killed a lot of people in a forest in the Rhodopes. That forest became ailing and withered. Why? Because the negative, destructive energies of the people who did this got absorbed by the ethereal twins of the plants and it had a destructive effect on them.

 

The fact has to be accounted that the roots of the trees keep the water in the soil on a specific level, and if it were not for those trees, the water would sink way below. Similarly, if you have an indisposition and get in amongst carnations, the good disposition will come and then you will understand their psychic influence, their characteristic psychic feature. Those creatures that have created the carnations, how much have they thought!