Jump to content

1915_03_22 Easter


Jackline Spasova-Bobeva
 Share

Recommended Posts

The Book - The Spirit and The Flesh. Beinsa Douno

Translation from Bulgarian - Vessela Nestorova

 

EASTER

 

Go ye therefore, and teach aff nations, Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Hofy Spirit 9

 

In the whole Christian world today the preachers are speaking on the text of Christ's resurrection. Only in the USA there are 80,000--100,000 preachers and in Bulgaria about 3,300 priests preaching today about the Resurrection— they are speaking about it everywhere. Since so many people are speaking about the resurrection, I shall make a slight digression.
 
Many people consider this question from a historical or philosophical point of view—is the resurrection possible? There is a disputation on this question from a purely physiological standpoint—is it possible for a person to resurrect? Theoreticians and theologians write and try to prove the possibility of resurrection, but they also cannot prove it.
 
I shall stop on the words "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Deep is the Teaching of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. What is this Teaching? You often repeat the words Father, Son and Holy Spirit but what sense do they have for you? They have sense only when they can produce a certain effect on you. If you hold a match in you hand, you cannot test its force until you light it; as soon as you light it, you will realize its force. And the resurrection will be an unknown object for you up to the time when you will light this word like a match that it may produce light in your mind and heat in your heart, or until you sow it as a seed in the Earth to grow and see its fruit. It is enough for people during their life to have only one such word, which they would understand as they should, so that they will become geniuses; if they understood two such words, they would become saints; but if they should understand three—they will become one with Christ.
 
Therefore, in every human language there are words which if we understand will acquire magic powers for us. When Moses raised his scepter by the Red Sea, he pronounced a word and the sea parted in two. When Christ was at the tomb of Lazarus, He raised His eyes to heaven and said only one word, "Lazarus, come forth!" and Lazarus rose. God pronounced only one word at the beginning of creation and the world was formed. You speak and write grammatically correctly using points and commas, question marks and exclamation marks; you discuss important philosophical matters, but you do not know how to arrange your life. You are like that philosopher who went rowing a boat with a boatman in the sea and started a conversation with the boatman. "Have you studied? Do you know anything about astronomy?" he asked. "Nothing at all," was the answer. "You have lost a quarter of your life. Do you know anything about geology?" "I do not know anything." "You have lost two quarters of your life. Do you know anything about mathematics?" "I do not." "You have lost three quarters of your life." At once a terrible storm started to rage and threatened to capsize the boat. On his part the boatman asked the philosopher, "Do you know how to swim?" "I do not know and have never learned to." "You can lose four fourths of your life," i.e. all your life. Now you sit like this philosopher discussing the question how Christ was born and came to earth, but as soon as a storm comes to your life, or you meet some obstacle or suffering, you do not know how to swim and begin to sink in the water. Where is your philosophy of life? Where did your mathematics, geology and astronomy remain? What is the purpose of these sciences if they cannot help you in such critical moments? Mathematics should be a science to teach people how to construct their life correctly. Biology is a science which must teach people how to put Law and order in their cells. Geology must teach people right relations to the Earth.
 
In the life of Christ there are three main phases: birth, death and resurrection. These phases must be intrinsic to every ordinary person. When Christ was born, angels in heaven proclaimed peace to people. Therefore, the birth of Christ was triumphant, but this same Christ became subject to a disgraceful death. People ask to this day why Christ had to die this way. There are a number of reasons for this. Christ was exposed to a disgraceful death, but in the end he rose from the dead. People today die too, but so far no one has risen. There are reasons for this too.
 
Now I shall make a comparison between life and death. When Adam was in paradise, God presented life to him in the form of two fruit-trees one of which He called The Tree of Life and the other The Tree of Knowing Good and Evil. In the occult sense The Tree of Life implies the aspiration of all living beings in Nature toward the Divine. This aspiration has an upward movement. It is a high tide in Nature, which gradually increases, grows. By The Tree of Knowing Good and Evil is implied the endeavor of the beings to go out of the center of life and move towards the periphery. This endeavor has a downward movement and represents a low tide in Nature. Since these two currents exist in Nature, it is easy enough to explain the origin of death. If two trains start moving from two opposite points toward one and the same point what will happen to them? A catastrophe is inevitable. Adam found himself between two such trains and, not being able to avoid the catastrophe, he died. Those who eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree will end their life like Adam. This means that the day a person eats of the fruit of the forbidden tree, they enter the low tide of life, i.e. the tide which has a downward movement toward the center of the Earth. God alone is able to save people from this low tide. Christ came to earth namely to take people out of this tide and place them in the opposite tide, in the high tide of life, which we call resurrection.
 
In order for you to receive the life which leads to the resurrection, you should understand the Teaching of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. What is meant by the Father? The Teaching of Divine Wisdom. By the Son? The Teaching of Divine Love. By the Holy Spirit? The Teaching of raising and evolution of people. It says in the Scripture, "He who believes in this Teaching will be saved." Everyone should understand the Laws of this Teaching. What is required of you? Many of you are fathers, but do you understand your calling as a father? Many of you have been sons, but do you understand what should be the relations of the son to the father? You have not yet been in the state of the Spirit, but you will be. Now you are preparing yourselves to pass through the Spirit, Who raises people, raises Christ in them.
 
In order to understand Christ's Teaching correctly, you must be freed from some ties with the world. This does not mean that you must deny the world. No, this is a wrong view. The world has two faces—one is an inner face, pure and bright, a Divine face; the other is an external face, subject to constant changes. So that when we speak of denying the world, you must understand a denial of its external face, of those elements which have a transitory and deceitful character. These elements do not give any essential thing to the life of a person. However, everything else which serves your uplifting should be preserved, for it is said, "God so Loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believeth in Him should not perish." The Apostle Paul said, "The face of this world passes," which confirms the idea that the world has two faces. Therefore, the one face of the world which changes, passes away. The face which does not change, remains.
 
People are born, grow and think that they can set the world right and conquer it, but when they become 45-50 years of age, they notice a certain weakening of strength and give up this idea. They become kind, careful and make the young work for them. They begin to think only of their old age and that they might become ill and die. I am asking you: why do old people always direct their look to the center of the Earth? Why do not they keep in their mind thoughts full of Light, which refresh their spirit, renew them and lead to resurrection? People today are infected by the thought that we cannot resurrect, come to life and be born again. This is the greatest delusion in the world. People can rise just as they can die. Death and life are two relative things. If you come into contradiction with the Laws and forces functioning in rational Nature, you will be smashed and ruined. But if you are in accord with the Laws and forces of rational Nature, you will be raised and rise from the grave. In order to come to the resurrection you must free yourself from certain obstacles and drawbacks, which your souls have inherited from your ancestors.
 
I shall cite an example to explain a great Law which regulates life. Several English sailors left one day the ship where they worked to visit a European city. They walked around the city visiting different drinking houses until they got drunk. In the evening they returned to the port, got into their boats and started rowing, forgetting to untie the boats from the posts. They rowed all night thinking they have neared the ship, but what was their surprise in the morning when they saw they were still on shore! Why did they not reach the ship? They saw their mistake that their boats were still tied. The rope by which their boats were tied to the posts prevented them from leaving the place in spite of their night efforts. That rope was their obstacle. And if people today cannot rise, the reason is the same—they are tied by a small rope to some post. Small children do the same thing. A child catches a bird and ties one of its legs to a string and then lets it fly. The bird flies up to a place and then falls on the ground. Why? Because it is tied by a string. In the same way people today are tied. They must have a high ideal! What kind? Such as would pull them up to heaven. Someone says, "I tried to fly, but soon I fell down to earth. Why? "I myself don't know." But I say, "You were tied. You have had some doubts in your mind, or have wanted to solve some important questions, but have not succeeded." "What shall I do then?" "Untie your boat from the post, row with your oars and start forward and upward to your purpose."
 
No matter what a person does, they cannot escape the consequences of their life. Do not think that your thoughts and feelings do not exert an influence on you. Every thought and every feeling, however small they may be, exert an influence not only on you but also on those around you as well. Moses, I think, says in the Deuteronomy that God recompenses people for every crime down to the fourth generation. It follows from this that in one hundred years at the most every crime must be liquidated with. Those who know this Law have noticed the following: if a woman of the black race has intercourse with a man of the white race, in the first generation the child may be white. However, in the second, third and fourth generation a black child will be born by all means. If in the first generation a black child is born, that ends the karma. However, this Law has a contrary effect as well. If a woman of the white race has intercourse with a man on the black race, in one of the four generations a black child will be born by all means. If a black child is born to a husband and wife of the white race, they will wonder where this child came from. They even do not suspect that one of their grandmothers has had intercourse with a black man some hundred years ago. Do not take this illustration in a literal sense; it is highly metaphorical!
 
I say, the same Law functions in the feelings and thoughts of a person. Someone sits calmly and all of a sudden a bad thought enters his or her mind. Where did this bad thought come from? One hundred years ago your soul has had relations with a negative thought, a "dark one." The "dark one" represents the temptation in the world. Every bad thought or every bad feeling is a child of the person that nurtures them. This is done according to the Law of karma. The karmic Law is strict. You must keep yourselves from it, because you cannot avoid its consequences. Do not give place of bad thoughts in your mind. If you admit them in your mind, they will create their own forms, which will handicap you in the future. It is not a question of whether you are born of a father or mother of the white race, the important thing is that the vibrations of the people of the black race are considerably different from those of the white race, as a result of which much work and effort is necessary in order to reconcile those vibrations. The aspirations of the black race are towards the Earth, not toward heaven. They are the people of that tree from which Eve, the first mother of humanity ate. The aspiration of the people of the white race is toward heaven. This aspiration is very strongly expressed at the present time. They want to be people of the Tree of Life and eat its fruit. Therefore, we become one or another kind of people according to the tree we eat of. The Tree of Life is Christ. When this great thought penetrates your mind, salvation will come. You should not dwell on the abstract thought that Christ is sitting on the right sight of God, but rather consider Christ as a power penetrating the whole earth. When this power passes through all beings from the smallest to the greatest, then the liberation of the whole humanity will be realized. When they crucified Christ, i.e. when they interrupted the course of this power, of this current, darkness overwhelmed the Earth. All people felt this darkness. The Scripture says that after that Christ descended to hell to preach his Teaching there. All who obeyed him left hell and went to live on the Earth. Were you not also there when Christ preached? You were, but you have forgotten this. What did Christ say when He went down to hell to bring you out of the darkness there? "Go and sin no more!"
 
Now I also say to you that if you sin, you will bear "dark children" and sufferings will come one after the other. Since Christ is already on the Earth, He has decided to save humanity and will save it. There is no power on earth, however strong it might be, that can counteract the power of Christ. Christ says, "No one can take from my hands the sheep God has given Me, for there is no greater than Him." And if ever any doubt should possess your soul, know that this is your "dark father." Break your ties with him! The pure should not tie themselves to the impure. When a mother sees her children soiled, does she embrace them immediately? No, first she will punish them a little, then she will bathe them and put clean clothes on them and after that she will embrace and kiss them. This is the simplest philosophy of life. Someone says, "Nobody loves me." "Your clothes are muddy, my friend." If you want people to love you, go and bathe yourself and clean your body as you should. After that, clean your heart and your mind and see then if people will love you or not. Thus cleansed and bathed, a person is ready for resurrection.
 
Christ rose, but before he came to the resurrection, He passed through the crucifixion. What is the meaning of the cross? It is the net of squares after a cube has been spread out—the cube on one plane. At the same time the cube represents a person's house. Christ was crucified on the cross— on this open (spread out) cube by which God wanted to tell people to open the doors and windows of their houses, wash them and thoroughly clean them, thus preparing them for the day of the resurrection. Someone hands a cross to a person and says, "Kiss this cross!" But I say that before you kiss the cross it must be cleaned. The cross is in a person's mind and heart. Therefore, you cannot kiss this human cross until it is absolutely purified, i.e. until the person's mind and heart are not perfectly pure. All people are living crosses that must be raised. As soon as this is done a circle, which signifies eternity, will be formed around the cross. Thus, the cross will be turned into a wheel which will be in constant motion.
 
By His Teaching Christ wants to reveal to people the basic Laws by which they can change the human order of things. To change this order, people should first have an idea, which they should put as a foundation of their lives, and after that they should try to attain this idea. People today cannot attain this idea for the simple reason that they are victims of their implacable egoism. Everyone thinks only of him or herself alone wishing to have the first place. In one of his pictures an artist presented human egoism very well. He painted a high mountain peak on which an idol stood tall. Millions of people had their eyes fixed on this peak, everyone trying to reach it and bow to the idol. Yet, whoever would start first for the peak was immediately held back by the others for fear he would reach the peak before them. In this way they handicapped one another, in result of which no one has reached the peak yet. What do we see in life? Until this day people continue to struggle and pull each other back lest anyone should reach the peak and receive the wreath of merit. In ancient Greece during the races of the Olympic Games whoever reached the goal first received the wreath. However, in our efforts for Christ's exploit, everyone who fulfils His Teaching can receive a wreath.
 
Thus, there are three important things, three important words in Christ's Teaching: the Father,; the Son and the Holy Spirit. If you can pronounce these words in their profound sense and in their fullness, you have already entered the Teaching of Christ. When you pronounce the word Father, you should feel the pulse of your Father, Who moves the world. You should feel it the way a mother feels the pulse of her child. To feel God's thought implies to understand it and to know it. If you have acquired all this, you will understand the verse which says, "Before you have asked for something of the Father, He will fulfill your desires." You must all have filial relations to God and fulfill your duties to Him as to your own father. He did not come down to earth, but sent His Son as a sacrifice that no one who believes in Him should perish. On the same basis once we have come to earth, we too should sacrifice ourselves. Many are afraid of sacrifice, saying that there is no life in it. They cannot make out the words, "If you do not eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have no life in you." We eat daily in order to live. Do not the grains of the wheat and the fruit we eat die and sacrifice themselves for us? We must justify their sacrifice! They say, "We are ready to die and be sacrificed for you, if only you become more humane." Billions of creatures serve people, but what do we do in exchange for this? We are engaged in scholastic problems as the theologians of the Middle Ages who philosophized how many devils can dance at the point of the knife.
 
I say, Christ's Teaching contains the sense of life. There is always a lowland between two great epochs. If we observe the human brain, we shall see that it, too, has grooves and elevations. The human thought can function due to these grooves and elevations in the brain. The Earth, too, has grooves and elevations thanks to which we live. Someone says, "I do not want to live in a valley." Where do you want to live? "On a high mountain peak." I ask you, how many people can live on a high mountain peak? All people cannot live on the peaks. Some will live in the valleys, others—on the summits. Everyone lives on their own land—once they will be in the valley, another time—on the summit; a third time they will go down the valley again; a fourth time they will climb the peak. This way they will constantly ascend and descend until they finally learn that the evolutionary Law is movement along a broken line in which there are lowlands and heights. When people learn the Teaching of Christ, which is related to the circular motion of eternity, they will enter another kind of evolution in which there are no ups and downs but only circular movement.
 
"Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit." The Teaching of the Spirit is a real Teaching which people today deny. The Father is the Creator of things. The Spirit implies the unity; it implies the multiplicity of things as well. Christ, the Son, represents the sap constantly flowing in The Tree of Life. The Spirit represents also the conditions in which we live. Astrologers today state that a person is in communications with the whole universe, i.e. all beings are in a certain relation among themselves. The heart, the brain, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth, as organs through which forces pass, correspond to certain beings in space. When a conflict arises among some of them, a person feels some change in the corresponding part of their body. And in fact they begin to complain of pains in their arm, leg or some other part of the body. This is due to some external influence which, according to the erudite, comes either from Jupiter, from Saturn, Mars or some other planet.
 
Some may object, "How is it possible for Mars to influence people?" But I ask you, if a nation can exert an influence by its thoughts on another nation, why should not a planet be able to do the same? We see that England, France, Germany, Russia and the other nations mutually influence each other, on the same grounds the beings living on Mars by their thoughts exert a certain influence on people. Their thoughts pass across space forming a current. Those who fall under the influence of this current become belligerent. People today are under the influence of Mars as a result of which they are fighting and are at war until this current or influence attains its purpose. You will say that Christ's Teaching is about peace, however, when this peace, or this balance of Nature, is disturbed, war will inevitably come. The present views of people impose a restoration of the disturbed balance only by means of war. We see this Law in practical life as well. When a housekeeper wants to take the butter out of the milk, she puts the milk in the churn- tub and churns it. Therefore, the war in the world will end only when people derive butter. Christ says, "I want people to have butter which, when applied, will make them softer and more delicate." Present-day people are hard and callous to a greater extent than is necessary. That they are in need of oil is obvious in the parable of the five foolish virgins who forgot to take oil for their vessels and remained outside. Those who want to enter the Kingdom of God must by all means have oil for their vessels.
 
This is the Teaching of the Spirit. Now I am speaking allegorically, but if you think deeply about this question, you will see that there are forces which exert a softening influence on people and you will understand their relations to you. You ask, "Why did God create the world?" That you may study. The spirits which were created first became crystals. After them the Earth had to be created with new cells in a circular not a geometrical form. In order to develop and turn in to a plant, the crystal must become a living cell. By the force of this Law, the noblest of plants must turn its "wooden" immovable cells into muscles and nerves, in order to be able, like the animals, to feel and to be able to move from one place to another. In the same way we also must pay up everything, in order to form in ourselves that cell which creates the saints. People are dead at present and in heaven they are planted with their heads down. We must sacrifice ourselves and become a sensible cell one with Christ and after passing through His body, through His mind and through His heart, become tuned up to understand the deep sense of things. Now I shall not explain these abstract truths, lest I deviate from the main subject.
 
The first thing in life is obedience. In antiquity a Greek disciple wanted to study the secret sciences and for that reason he went to Egypt, to the so called school of the Brotherhood of Light. The high priest in the temple of Isis took him to many places and finally to a statue and said to him, "This is the Truth." "Why did you not first take me to the Truth, but to all these other places? You should have lead me to this statue at the very first," objected the disciple. "This cannot be for such is the path of the Truth. Be careful not to raise the veil of this statue and not to touch it. Study it only on the outside." The disciple burned with a desire to see what is beneath this veil. He thought he would find the Truth if he lifted the veil and after returning to Greece he would possess great power. One night he quietly walked out, entered the temple and raised the veil. However, they found him dead in front of the statue the next morning. What did he learn? Nothing. Someone says, "Raise the curtain; I want to see the Truth!" It is dangerous to raise the veil of the Truth prematurely. A person must be ready for this moment. Christ has come to earth to prepare us to meet this moment without fear.
 
First of all we must understand which life leads to salvation. After that you must pass through another process of which it is said, "If you are not born again, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God." And Nicodemus was told that if he were not born of water and of the spirit, he would not enter the Kingdom of God. Therefore, there are two births, but not reincarnations, for reincarnation implies a process of cutting life short, of interruption. Reincarnation is a process of disharmony. To be reincarnated is to begin anew the work which you have left. You are caught and imprisoned and after staying in prison for 10 years, 15 more years remain; one day you escape from the prison, but they catch you again and imprison you for 10 more years, which makes again 25 years. After five years you escape again. They catch you and imprison you for the third time, imposing a greater punishment on you. Thus, the person who does not want to serve their sentence is reincarnated. Or in another sense—the person who is sent to earth, but does not want to live according to the order of God, passes through reincarnation. Such people want to live an easy life, to escape from prison, then they will be caught, put in prison again and if they always escape, this prison will never end. The Law of the new birth implies the fulfillment of the Will of God. It is not difficult for a person to fulfill the Will of God. The difficulty lies in our misunderstanding of life.
 
People today have the tendency to criticize. Everyone sees the mistakes of others, "So and so does not live as they should." But do you live as you should? "They are not a good person." But are you good? A person should first know themselves. They should study their constitution. Do you know why God has given you one nose, two eyes and two ears? Do you know why some eyes are black, others blue or green and what are the eyebrows for? The eyes form the symbol of the number eight. What does the number eight mean? It is the number of work. The nose is the plough of a person. When you lay a person horizontally, it shows that they should plough. Thus, God's grace will descend on us and cause everything we have sown to grow.
 
I ask you, what does thinking lie in? What process is thinking? Someone may say that thinking is a process of concentration. What is concentration? Years ago in Varna I met a Bulgarian man who told me he earned eight thousand leva which he lent a merchant to help him, but the merchant went bankrupt and the man lost his money too. He said, "I lost too, but God is good, I shall earn money again." I say, here is a man who has understood the Law. He is not an occultist, but knows a Law that will teach him what to do in order to earn money again. He says, "God gives, God takes away." Riches, knowledge and power are transitory things in the life of a person. God tests us by them, as a mother tests her children. Often the mothers call their children angels. A mother calls her child "my little angel!" I say, test them and see if they become an angel. Give the child an apple and then ask it back again. If the child gives you back the apple without getting angry, they will become an angel. If they do not give it back, they will not become an angel.
 
In the same way, God gives you a blessing and says, "Give your blessing to others!" "I shall not do it." Here is an unknown quantity you have not solved. "But I do not believe in life!" This is a second unknown quantity you have not solved. "I shall escape from life"—a third unknown quantity. You often solve problems with solving unknown quantities, you find what they are equal to, but when you come to life, you cannot solve them. Every unknown quantity has its value which can be solved only when a person works. Therefore, in order to define what every unknown quantity is equal to, you must put to work your thoughts and feelings. When people cannot solve the unknown quantities in their lives, they weep and feel unhappy. The world is a school in which only those who want to study can be enrolled. If you do not want to study and to concentrate, who has forced you to enter this school? If you do not want to study, you better enter a plant or a mineral. Only by hard concentration you can understand the Teaching of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and begin to love God. Many people say that only a foolish person can love. No. Love is an unknown quantity which must be calculated in order to determine its real value. The problem of love can be solved only from the standpoint of the Teaching of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
 
The Teacher of this Teaching visits you every morning and sows a thought in your souls, but in spite of that you grow poor. Why do you become poor? Because you cannot evaluate the thought which Christ gives you. Someone says, "I want glory, wealth, knowledge." The blessings Christ gives you are more essential than the ones you want. The glory of God is far more valuable than the glory of people. Christ wants to make you all powerful, masters of life and death. Do you know who creates death? Those billions of spirits who are constantly doing destructive work. Every day you are filled with doubt, envy, and you want to be people of progress at that! There are even such people who speak of occultism, but their thought is not free— they do not understand life. Christ rose from the dead and showed the spiritual path we must pass—by the process of birth.
 
What is birth? Tolstoy speaks of one of his dreams. One night he dreamt he was pregnant trying to bear a child and feeling awful pains. On wakening in the morning he asked, "Are the pains women feel at birth very strong?" When he received an affirmative answer, he said, "It is no easy matter to be a woman!" Your mind conceives a thought, but what sufferings it will cause you until you give it birth! Do not think that sufferings are a bad sign. As a mother gives something of herself, in the same way you must give something to your child. You must give life and power to a noble thought in your mind. Finally, you must have the courage to roll the stone off your tomb and not sit like present-day philosophers reasoning if Christ has risen or not. There are people who have been present when Christ rose. You will say, "Prove it!" I can prove that to you, but you must assume the same relations, an important Law must be observed. What is proving? You will lead a person a certain path and show them the way by which they must test the truth themselves.
 
The last hour has come and we must all rise. We must and we will rise from the dead! When we have come to the question of the resurrection, you must not ask whether Christ has risen, but whether the time for your resurrection is near. Many ask to this day the question, "Did Christ lie for three days in the tomb?" Leave this question aside. For eight thousand years you have been lying in this tomb. Is not this time enough? It is. The angel, coming down to roll the stone off the tomb, is Christ's call, announcing the coming of the Last Judgement. How will Christ find you? If the stone is not rolled off your tomb, can Christ say, "Lazarus, come forth!"? Your relatives and friends must at least do you the favor of rolling the stone off your tombs. Then Christ will say, "Rise!" And you will rise from the dead.
 
To all of you who are listening to me this morning, I roll off your tomb-stones and say, "Christ is coming!" He will stand before your open tombs and say, "Come out!"
 
Sermon of the Master held on March 22, 1915, in Sofia.
___________________
9 Matt 29:19.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

Easter

 

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."  Math. 28:19

 

In the sermons of the whole Christian world has been read the text of Christ's resurrection. In America today there are eighty to one hundred thousand preachers, and in Bulgaria at least - three thousand and three hundred, preaching about the resurrection, but I will make a slight detour.

 

Many people study the question on resurrection from a historical or philosophical point of view. About this question, if it is possible also for a man to resurrect there is an argument from a purely physiological point of view. The ideologists and theologian write about it and try to prove that resurrection is possible but they still cannot prove it.

 

I will stop on the words: "Go therefore and teach all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." The teaching of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is very deep. What is this teaching? Often you pronounce these words: "The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," but what meaning do these words have for you? They have a meaning only in the case that they can produce a certain effect upon you. When you hold a match in your hand you cannot try out its power if you do not strike and light it. As soon as you light it up, you can understand its power. The resurrection will be an unknown subject for you as long as you do not lit up this word like a match, so that it may produce light in your mind and warmth in your heart, or until you plant this word in the soil, like a seed, to have it grow and see its fruit. It is sufficient for man to have only one such word in his life understood fully in order to become a man of genius. If he understands two such words, then he can become a saint. If he understand three such words he becomes one with Christ.

 

In every language we speak there are words which, if we truly understand them, produce magic power for us. When Moses raised his sceptre at the Red Sea he spoke one word and the sea split in two. When Christ was in front of the grave of Lazarus he spoke the words "Lazarus, come out!" and Lazarus was resurrected. In the beginning of Genesis God said only one word and the world was created. You write and speak grammatically correctly, you use commas, periods, question and exclamation marks, you discuss important philosophical questions but you still do not know how to arrange your lives. You resemble the philosopher who went out for a boat ride in the sea and entered into conversation with the boatman: "Have you ever studied? Do you know anything about astronomy?" - "I know nothing." - "You have lost one quarter of your life." - "Do you know anything of geology?" - "I do not." - "You have lost two quarters of your life." -" How about mathematics?" -" Nothing." - "You have lost three quarters of your life." As they spoke the weather changed quickly and a great storm began to rage in the sea. The boat was endangered to the point of sinking. The boatman become worried about the professor, asked: "Can you swim?" -"No, I have never learned." - "Now you can lose all four quarters of your life, you can lose your whole life, Sir!" Now too, you like this philosopher, sit and discuss important questions; like how Jesus was born and how he came to this earth but when a storm starts raging in your lives, or you cannot cope with difficulties and suffering, you are unable to swim and start to sink into the water. Where is your philosophy of life? Where is your astronomy, geology, mathematics? Why do you need these sciences if they cannot help you in a difficult moment? Mathematics is a science which should teach you how to build your life correctly. Biology is a science which must teach people to keep the cells of their organism in perfect order. Geology must teach people to have a correct relationship to the earth.

 

In the life of Christ, there are three notable, important periods: birth, death and resurrection. These phases must be natural to the common man also. When Christ was born angels appeared in heaven and proclaimed peace among all people; therefore, Christ's birth was a festivity, but this same Christ was exposed to shameful death, too. People still ask themselves today: "Why was it necessary for Christ to suffer such a death?" There are certain reasons for this. Christ was exposed to a shameful death, but in the end He rose from the death. Modern man die also, but none of them have risen from the death. There are reason for this also.

 

Now I will make a comparison between life and death. When Adam was in Paradise, God introduce to him life in the form of two fruit trees, one of which was called the Tree of life, and the other, the Tree of knowledge. From the occult point of view, "Tree of life" implies the striving of everything in nature toward the divine. This impulse moves from down-upward. It is the high tide in nature, which gradually rises and grows. The "Tree of knowledge" implies the urge of the beings to move out from the center of life and proceed toward the periphery. This impulse moves from above downwards, and represents low tide in nature. Since these two flows exist in nature, it is easy then to explain the origin of death. Two trains start out from two opposite positions and move towards one and the same point. What will happen with them? - They will crash. Adam was placed between such two trains and since he could not avoid the catastrophe, he died. He who tries to eat from the fruit of the Tree of knowledge will end his life like Adam. This means that on the day in which a man eats the fruit of the Tree of knowledge he enters the life of the low tide, of reflux, or of the flow that moves from above, down to the center of the earth. Only God can save a man from this flow. Christ came to earth for this purpose, to pull people out off this current and lead them into the opposite flow, into the high tide of life, which we call resurrection.

 

In order to receive the life which leads toward resurrection, one must understand the teaching about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What does one understand by the Father? - it is the teaching of divine wisdom. By the Son? - the teaching of divine love. By the Spirit? - the teaching of the raising, of the evolution of man. In Scripture it is said: "He who comes to believe in this teaching will be saved." Everyone must understand the laws of this teaching. What is expected of you? Many of you are in the position of fathers, but do you understand the calling of the father? Everyone of you has been in the position of a son, but do you know what the relationship of the son to the father must be? You have not yet been in the position of the Holy Spirit, but this will also come. Now you are getting ready to pass through the Spirit, who uplifts the people, who raises Christ in them.

 

In order to properly understand the teaching of Christ, you must free yourselves of some ties with the world. This doesn't mean that you must reject the world. No, this is a wrong attitude. The world has two faces, one is the inner face, which is pure, fair, the Divine face; the other one is the external face which is exposed to constant changes, therefore, when one speaks of turning away from the world one must understand to turn away from its external face, from those elements which have a transitional, illusive character. These elements do not give any essential support to man's life. But everything else which serves for your growth, you must guard because it has been said: "God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, so that he who believes in Him will not perish." The fact that the world has two faces is supported also by the verse in which was St. Paul said: "The face of this world is transitional." So then the face of the world that changes is transient. Now there remains the other face of the world which is not transient. A man is born, grows up and thinks that he can rectify and govern the world, but when he reaches the age of 45 - 50 years he notices a certain weakening of his power, and gives up this idea. He becomes friendly, thoughtful, and makes the young people work for him. He begins to think about his old age, that he may become sick, and that he will die. I ask, why does the old man turn his eyes toward the centre of the earth? Why is he not keeping in his mind illuminated thoughts which will refresh his spirit, which renew and lead towards resurrection? Modern men are infected by the thought that they cannot be resurrected, to remain alive, to be born anew. This is the greatest delusion in the world. A man can be risen from death as well as he can die. Death and life are two relative things. If you come into conflict with the powers and laws which work in rational nature then you will be smashed, destroyed. If you are in harmony with the powers and laws of rational nature, you will rise, you will be risen from the grave. In order for resurrection to come, you must free yourselves of some obstacles, of some handicap, which is inherited in your souls.

 

I will give you an example in order to explain the great law that regulates life. A few English sailors decided to leave the ship where they worked, and visit a European city. They roamed through the city, went here and there, and entered a few taverns until they were considerably drunk. In the evening they returned to their boats and began to sail, but they had forgotten to untie their boats from the poles where they had them docked. They were sailing all night thinking that they were approaching the ship. What surprise in the morning, when they found themselves still on the shores! Why was it that they could not reach the ship? Only in the morning did they realize their mistake - they had forgotten to untie the boats. The short rope with which their boats were tied to the poles had kept them in one place all the night. It had kept them fastened. This rope was their hindrance If modern men cannot resurrect, this is the reason; they are fastened by a short rope to a pole. Children do the same. A child catches a bird, ties it to a thread with one foot and then lets the little bird fly. The bird flies up but soon falls back to the earth. Why? - Because it is fastened to a thread. Modern man too, are fastened. They must have a high ideal. What kind of ideal? One that will pull them up to heaven. Someone says: "I flew high, but soon I fell back to the earth. Why? I have no idea." - I say, you have been fastened. You had some doubt in your mind, or you wanted to solve some important questions, but you could not." -What shall I do now? - Untie the boat from the pole, start to row the oars forward and upward towards your goal. Whatever a man may try to do, he cannot escape the consequences of his life. Do not think that your thoughts and emotions haven't any influence upon you. Every thought and every feeling, as weak or faint they may be, influence not only you but also those around you. In Deuteronomy it is said that for every crime, God will recompense unto the forth generation. From here it follows that within one hundred years at the most, every crime must be settled. Those who have studied this law have noticed the following phenomena: if a woman from the black race has contact with a man from the white race, the child may be white in the first generation, yet in the second, third, or at the latest, the fourth generation, there will be born a black child. If a black child comes immediately in the first generation, this eliminates the karma. This law has the opposite function also: if a woman from a white race has a contact with a man from the black race, in one of the four generations inevitably will be born a black child. If a black child is born of a white mother and father, they will wonder from where this child has come. They do not suspect that one of their great grandmothers had contact with a black man one hundred years ago.

 

I say, the same law also works also in the field of the thoughts and feelings of man. For example, someone sits calmly and suddenly through his mind passes an evil thought. From where has this thought come? - A hundred years ago this man had contact with a black man or a black woman. The black man or woman represents the temptation in the world. Every evil thought or every evil feeling, is the child of he who is raising them. This is effected by the law of karma. The karmic law is very strict. You must be very careful with it, because you cannot escape the consequences. Do not give place to evil thoughts in your mind. If you let them come in, they will create their forms, which will in the future obstruct you. It is of no importance that someone has been born by a father or a mother from the white or the black races, but it is important that the vibrations of the people of the black race differ considerably from those of the white race and for this reason the last one must make a considerable effort to cope with them. The direction of the movement of the black race is towards the centre of the earth. They are the people of the tree from which Eve, the first mother of humanity, has eaten. The impulse of the people of the white race is towards heaven. This impulse is felt the strongest at present. They want to be the people of the "Tree of Life" and eat its fruit, therefore from whatever tree we eat so we become. The "Tree of life" is Christ. When this great thought penetrates your mind, then you will come to the salvation. You do not need to occupy your mind with abstract question whether Christ sits at the right side of the Father, but you must think of Christ as a power that penetrates the whole earth. When this power has pass through all beings, from the smallest to the greatest, will come the salvation of the whole of humanity. When Christ was crucified, in other words, when the flow of this power was interrupted, great darkness came everywhere. In Scripture it is said that after this Christ descended to Hell to preach his teaching there. All people who listened to him, emerged from hell and went to live on earth. Were you not also there when Christ was preaching? - You were there, but you have forgotten. What did Christ say when he descended into hell to free you from darkness? - Go, and sin no more!

 

Now, I say also: If you sin you will give birth to black child and suffering will follow one after the other. Since Christ is already on earth He has decided to free humanity and He will definitely do it. There is no power in the world, as strong as it may be, which would be able to withstand Christ's power. Christ says: "No one can take away from my hands the lamb which God has given me, because there is no one greater than He. If, at some time there should appear in your soul a doubt, you must realize that this is your black father. Discontinue your connections with him. The pure one should not be connected with the impure one. If the mother sees that her child is soiled, does she embrace it immediately? No, first she will punish it mildly, after that she will give it a bath, dress it in a clean clothes, and then she will embrace and kiss it. This is the simplest philosophy of life. Someone says: "No one loves me." Your clothes are soiled, friend! If you wish for people to love you, go first and take a bath, cleanse your body properly. After that cleanse your heart and your mind, and then see if people will love you or not. Cleansed and bathed, the way man is ready to resurrect.

 

Christ has risen but before He came to resurrection, He first passed through crucifixion. What does the cross mean. The cross is the sides of a cube, laid out on a flat surface. At the same time the cube represents man's home. Christ was crucified on the cross, on this unfolded cube, with which God wanted to tell the people to open the windows and doors of their homes, to wash and air them and prepare them for the day of resurrection. In the church people are given the cross to kiss. I say, before you kiss the cross, it must be purified. The cross is in the mind, in the heart of man; therefore, you cannot kiss a man's cross before it is perfectly purified, i.e., before the mind and the heart of this man are completely purified. All people are living crosses which must be uplifted. When this happens a sphere will form around the cross which indicates eternity. Therefore the cross will change into a sphere which will be constantly in motion.

 

With His teaching, Christ wanted to show people the basic laws through which they can change the order of things which they themselves have adopted. In order to change this order, a man must have an ides to lay as a foundation of his life, and then endeavour to fulfil this ides. Modern men cannot realize their idea for the simple reason that they are victims of their merciless egotism; everyone thinks only about themselves, everyone wants to be the first. In one of his paintings, an artist represented the human egotism very well. He painted a high mountain peak on which was placed an idol. Millions of people looked towards this peak and everyone desired to reach it first and worship the idol. He who first stove towards the peak was stopped immediately by those behind him, so that he may not be the first to reach it before them. In this way they hindered each other, and as a result, no one has yet reached the peak. What do we see in life? As of today people still continue to fight, to hinder each other, so that no one will reach the peak and receive the wreath of laurels. In the races in the Olympic games in old Greece, he who was first received the crown of laurels. Yet in man's aim towards Christ victory, every one who fulfils His teaching can receive the wreath of victory.

 

And so in Christ's teaching, there are three important words: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. If you can pronounce these words in their depth, and full meaning, you have already entered the teaching of Christ. When you say the word "Father", you must feel the pulse of your Father who moves the world. You must feel Him in the same way a mother feels the pulse of the child in her womb. To feel God's thought is to come to understand and know it. If you have attained all this, you will understand the verse in which it is said: "Before you even wish something, God will fulfil your desires." All must have this relationship, of sons to God, so that they may fulfil their obligations to Him, to their Father. He did not come to earth but sent His son as a sacrifice, so that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish. On the same grounds, once we have come to earth we must sacrifice ourselves. Many people fear the sacrifice because they think that in a sacrifice there is no life. They are confused by Christ's words: "If you not eat my body and do not drink my blood, you have no life within you." In order to live, we eat every day. The wheat grains, the plants, the fruits which we eat every day, do they not sacrifice and die? This sacrifice must be justified! They say: "We are ready to die, to sacrifice for you, as long as you become true men." Milliards of beings serve men, but what do they do in exchange for this? They occupy themselves with scholastic questions as did the theologians in the middle ages, who pondered how many devils can dance in the peak of a knife?

 

I say, Christ's teaching holds within it the meaning of life. Between two great epochs there is always a lowland. If we study the brain of man, we can see that in it too, are noticeable depressions and elevations. The human thought can circulate due to these depressions and elevations in the brain. In earth there also exists these depressions and elevations in which we live. Someone says: "I do not want to live in a valley." - Where do you want to live then? - "On some high mountain peak." I ask, how many people can live on one mountain peak? All people cannot live on peaks. Some will live in the valleys, other - on the peaks. Everyone will live on his own earth; once he will be in the valley, another time he will be on the peak, the third time he will descent into the valley, the fourth time he will climb the peak. This way he will constantly descend and rise until he will realize that the law of evolution is a movement in a broken line, in which there are depressions and elevations. When man learns Christ's teaching, which is related to the movement in the circle of eternity, he will enter into another evolution, in which there is no descending and climbing, but a circular movement.

 

"Baptize them in the name of the Father, of the Son and the Holy Spirit." The teaching of the Spirit is a real teaching which modern men reject. The Father is the creator of all things. The Spirit implies the unity and diversity of all things. Christ, the Son, represents the sap that flows in the "Tree of Life". The Spirit also represents the environment in which we live. Modern astrologers say that man is in contact with the whole of the universe, which is to say that all beings are in a certain relationship to each other. The heart, the brain, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth, are organs through which flow powers correspond to certain beings in space. When among some of them, there occurs a conflict, in the respective part of the body man feels some change. And in fact we see that he starts to complain about pains in his hand, in his leg, or another part of his body. This is due to some external influence, which according to the learned men comes from Jupiter, or Saturn, or Mars, etc. Someone may object: "How is it possible that Mars has an influence upon the people?" I ask, if one nation can with its thoughts and ideas influence another nation, why should it not be possible that a planet can do the same? We see that England. France, Germany, Russia, and other countries influence each other. In the same basis the beings, who live on Mars influence people in certain way. Their thoughts travel through space creating a flow. Whoever enters this flow becomes aggressive. Modern men under the influence of Mars, and for this reason they fight until this influence fulfils its purpose. You may object that Christ's teaching stands for peace, therefore, war should not exist. It's true that Christ is for peace, but if the peace, the balance which Nature has established, become violated, war will become inevitable. According to the existing mentality of people, the violated balance can be restored only through war. We can see this law also in practical life. When a housewife wants to extract butter from the milk, she puts the milk in a churn-staff and starts to churn it, therefore, the war in the world will stop only when people will have extracted the butter from the milk. Why do people fight? - So that they may acquire butter. Christ says: "I want some butter from the people with which they can lubricate themselves and become softer, more gentle." Modern men are dry, crusty even more that necessary. One can see the need of lubricant from the proverb about the five unwise maiden who had forgotten to supply their lamps with oil, and for this reason had to remain outside. He who wants to enter the kingdom of God must by all means have oil in his lamp.

 

This is the teaching of the Spirit. Now, I speak in an allegorical sense, but if you stop and think deeply about this question, you will see that there exist powers that act as an emollient upon man, and you will understand their relationship to him. You ask: "Why did God create the world?" - So that you may learn. The spirits that were created at the very beginning become crystals. After that the earth had to be created with new cells having a round and not a geometrical form. In order for the crystal to evolve, and change into a living plant, it must first change into a living cell. By this same law even the most evolved and ennobled plant must change its woody, immobile cells into muscles and nerves, so that like the animals, it may feel and move about from one place to another. In the same way we too, must pay off everything, so that we may form in ourselves that cell which creates saints. For the time being, the people are dead. In heaven they are planted with their heads down. A man must self-sacrifice, become a rational cell, become one with Christ, and when he passes through Christ's body, through His mind, His heart; to become tuned, to understand the deep meaning of all things. For the moment I will not go into explaining these deep truths, because this would take me away from the central idea.

 

The first thing in life is obedience. In ancient times a Greek learned man went to Egypt in order to learn the secret sciences, and for this purpose he become a student of the so called school "White Brotherhood". The high priest of the temple of Izida guided him through many places and took him at last to a statue and said to him: "This is Truth." - "Why did you not take me first to Truth, but took me to other places? You should have taken me here right away", was the answer of the disciple. "This is not possible, because that is the path to Truth. Be careful not to lift the curtain of this statue, not to touch its veil. Study it only from outside." The disciple had the greatest desire to see what was beneath the veil. He thought: "If I lift the veil, I will find Truth, and when I return to Greece I will posses great power." One evening he silently went out, entered the temple and lifted the veil. And in the morning he was found dead in the temple at the foot of the statue. What did he learn? Nothing. Someone says: "Why don't you lift the veil, I want to see Truth!" - It is dangerous to lift the veil of Truth before time. Man must be ready for this moment. Christ has come to earth to prepare us, so that we may meet this moment without fear.

 

First you must understand which life leads to salvation. After that you must pass through another process which says: "If you are not born anew you cannot enter the Kingdom of God." It was said also to Nikodemus that if he is not born of water and spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God, therefore, there exist two kinds of birth, but not rebirth, because rebirth implies a process of interruption, of braking up. Rebirth is a process of disharmony. To be reborn means to start again the work which one has left. You are taken captive and imprisoned for twenty five years. When you stay in prison ten years, fifteen still remain, but one day you decide to run away, you are caught again and penalized for ten more years, which causes you to be imprisoned for twenty five years. After five years you run away again, and again you are caught, judged, and imprisoned for a third time, and your penalty is even greater. Therefore, a man who does not want to serve his time, transmigrates. Or, said in different words, he who is sent to earth but does not want to live according to God's determination, goes through rebirth. He wants to live in an easy way, he wants to run away from prison. For this reason he is caught and penalized anew, and if he continues to run away from prison, this penalty will not finish in eternity. The law of being born anew implies fulfilment of God's will. It is not difficult to fulfil God's will. The difficulty is in the misunderstanding of life. Modern man are inclined to criticize. Everyone sees the shortcomings of others - someone is not living as he should. - Can you say that you live as you should? - He is not a good man. - Can you say that you are good? First of all man must come to know himself. He must study his construction. Do you know why God has given you a nose, two eyes, two ears? Do you know why some eyes are black, others blue or green, and why a man has eye brows? The eyes form the number eight. What does the number eight signify? It is a number of work. The nose is the plow in man. When you place a man in horizontal position this indicates that he must plow. Then God's blessing will come upon him and support the growth of that which he has sown

 

I ask, what is the essence of thinking? What process is thinking? Someone will say that thinking is a process of concentration. What is concentration? Years ago in the town of Varna, I met a Bulgarian, a man with liberated conceptions who told me: "I had saved eight thousand leva, but with that money I helped a man who was merchant and he lost it. With him, I too have lost but God is good, I will earn some again." I say, here is a man who has understood the law. He is not a mystic, but he knows a law that will guide him in what to do, so that he may earn some money again. He says: "God gives and God takes." Wealth, power, knowledge are transitory things in the life of man. Through them God is trying us as the mother tries her children. Often mothers call their children angels. Some mother says of her child "My little angel!" I say: Try it, and see if he will become an angel. Give him an apple and wish him to give it back to you. If it returns the apple without becoming angry, it will be an angel. In the same way God gives you a blessing and says: "With this blessing give to others also!" - "I do not give." - Here is an unknown quantity which you have not solved. - ""But I do not believe in life!" - This is a second unknown quantity which you have not solved. - "I will escape from life." - A third unknown quantity. Often you solve mathematical problems with several unknown quantities by finding what they are equal to, but when it comes to real life you cannot solve them. Each unknown quantity has a content, has its value, which one can define only through work. Therefore, in order to be able to define what an unknown quantity equals, you must apply your thoughts and feelings in work. When a man cannot solve the unknown quantities in his life he weeps, he feels unhappy. The world is a school in which only he who wants to learn can enrol. If you do not want to study, to concentrate, you should not have enrolled.

 

If you do not want to learn then enter the plant, the mineral. Only trough intense concentration can you understand the teaching of the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit, and come to love God. Many say that only the ignorant loves. No, love is an unknown quantity which must be calculated, its true value must be defined. Only from the point of view of the teaching of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit can the riddle of love be solved.

 

The master of this teaching comes down every morning and plants in your souls one thought, yet you still deny yourself. Why do you deny yourself? Because you cannot evaluate the thought which Christ is giving you. Someone says: "I want glory, I want wealth, knowledge." - The blessings which Christ gives are more essential then those which you desire. The glory of God costs much more than the glory of the people. Christ wants to give power to all of you, to become masters over life and death. Do you know who creates death? - These milliards of spirits that constantly destroy. Every day you are filled with doubts, envy, and at the same time you want to be people of the advancement. There are some who even speak of the secret teachings, but their thoughts are not free, they do not understand life.

 

Christ resurrected and indicated the way through which we must pass - through the process of birth. What is birth? Tolstoy speaks about one of his dreams. One night he dreamed that he was pregnant and that he was in labour and in great pains. When he rose in the morning he asked: "Do women have great pain when they deliver?" When his question was answered positively, he said it is not easy to be a woman! A thought is conceived in your mind; great sufferings will be brought to you until you give it birth! Do not think that sufferings are a bad sign. As the mother gives something of herself, so you too, must give something to your child. You must give life and power to a noble thought in your mind. Lastly you must have the courage to role away the stone from the tomb and not sit like the modern philosophers, who ponder: has Christ risen or not. There are people who were present when Christ arose. You may say: "Give us a prove!" I can prove it but you must be in the same condition, an important law must be observed. What is to prove? - You will bring the man to a certain path and you will give him a method by which he himself will prove the truth.

 

The last hour has come and we all must resurrect. We must resurrect and we will resurrect! When you come to resurrection, you must not ask if Christ truly resurrected, but ask if the time for your resurrection has come. Many ask the question even today: "Did Christ stay three days in the grave?" Leave this question aside. For eight thousand years you are in this grave. Is this not time enough? - It is. The angel who comes from above to role the stone away is Christ's appeal, which is that the Last Judgment comes. How will Christ find you? If the stone of your grave is not moved away could Christ say: "Lazarus, come out!" Your friends and neighbours must grant you the favour of rolling aside the stone from your grave. Then Christ will say: "Rise!" - and you will resurrect.

 

To all who listen to me this morning, I role aside your grave stones and say, Christ is coming! He will stop in front of your open graves and say: "Come out!"

 

2nd ser. 3rd lecture of the Master, March 22, 1915

 

 

 

Source

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

Note 2

 

Easter

 

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.”  From Mathew 28:19

 

In the sermons of the entire Christian world the text about Christ’s resurrection is read today; Only in America there are eighty, ninety, one hundred thousand preachers, and in Bulgaria – three thousand and three hundred priests, who preach the Resurrection today – everywhere people talk about it. Because so many people talk about it, I would like to take a small detour.

 

Certainly many examine the issue from a historic and philosophic point of view, i.e. whether Resurrection is possible to happen. The dispute is also on a purely physiological level: is it possible for a person to rise from the dead. Ideologists and theologians keep writing and trying to prove that Resurrection is possible, but even they fail to prove it.

 

I would like to dwell upon these words ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ The teaching about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is a profound teaching. What is this science about? You often say these words Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, but what do they mean to you? They can be meaningful to you only if they can produce a certain effect. When you hold a match from a box of matches, you will never see its force unless you have the skills to light it; only when you light it can you see its force. Similarly resurrection will be a subject unknown to you, if you do not light this word like the match – to produce Light in your mind and in your heart or if you do not sow it like a seed, so that it can grow, to see its fruit. It is enough if in one’s life there are two or only one such word, which one can understand properly, this person will become a genius; when this person understands two such words, such a person will become a saint; had such a person understood three words, then one will become one with Jesus Christ. So, in each language which we speak, there are words, which when understood, acquire magical meaning. Moses when he raised his staff at the Red Sea spoke one word and it divided into two. And Christ, when standing in front of Lazarus’s grave and cast a glance above, spoke only one word, ‘Lazarus, come out of the grave!’ And in the beginning God spoke only one word and the world was made.

 

We know how to speak and write properly, grammatically correctly – with the commas and full stops, question and exclamation marks; we debate over many philosophical issues, but we not how put our life in order. We resemble that philosopher who went out in the sea and while talking with the boatman, he asked:

 

- Are you educated, do you know anything in astronomy?

- And having received an answer, ‘I do not know’, he said:

- You have wasted one quarter of your life.

- Do you know anything in geology, he asked him then.

- No, I do not know.

- You have wasted half of your life. How about mathematics, don’t you know mathematics?

- No, I do not know.

- Three quarters of your life you have wasted.

 

There came a violent storm shortly after and the boat was just about to turn upside down; then the boatman stood up and asked the philosopher, ‘Can you swim?’to which the latter replied, ‘No, I can’t’. Taking his turn the boatman said, ‘Four quarters of you life you have wasted.’

 

We are now like these philosophers and are asking ourselves how Christ was born and how He came down to Earth, but as soon as a storm starts brewing in our life, as soon as we experience ceratin difficulties and sufferings, we find out that we can’t swim and we start sinking; where then is the your philosophy, your mathematics, what use can they be to you? Mathematics, however, is a science – how to build a meaningful life; biology – how to put our cells in order; geology – what is our attitude to the earth and so on.

 

There are three periods in Christ’s life, which are significant – they are present in everybody’s life – birth, death and Resurrection. Note that when Christ was born, the Angels appeared in the sky and announced Peace among people; so, Christ was born in triumph, but we see that this triumphant Christ had to undergo a most humiliating death. The question is why should he have had such a death? Modern people die and I was often asked why they die – there are reasons. Christ died a shameful death and finally He rose from the dead.

 

I shall now make a short comparison – how did death appear in the world? We know that when Adam was in Paradise, God embodied Life and death in the form of two fruit trees, one of which He called The Tree of Life, and the other one – The Tree of knowing Good and Evil. In a purely esoterric and mystic sense, The Tree of Life stands for all the aspirations of Nature to God – the aspiration, which travels upwards; this is the tide, which keeps growing. The Tree of knowing Good and Evil, however, grows downwards. So now, where did death come from? Following the most natural path, what will happen, if we start trains from two juxtaopposed points to travel towards the same destination? – An accident. Adam found himself between two such trains and not knowing how to evade the accident, he died. And each one of you shall have the same end, if you touch the fruit of the forbidden tree – this will happen to you on the day you touch the tree. But since, when you touch the tree, you will enter this great current flowing downwards – to the Earth, only a Divine power can rescue you from this current. Precisely for this did Christ come down to Earth, to guide people back to the primary current of Life – into the reverse process, which we call Resurrection.

 

In order to be able to understand this teaching, we have to understand the teaching about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. What should we understand the Father to mean – the teaching about the Divine Wisdom; the Son – the teaching of Divine Love; the Spirit – the teaching about the rising, the evolution of human beings. And the Scripture reads, ‘These who believe in this teaching, shall be saved’ – we have to understand the principles of this teaching. What are we supposed? Each one of you is a father, but do you understand you calling as fathers; each one of you has been in the position of the son, but do you know what the attitude of the son to the father should be? In the position of the Spirit you have not been, but you will be; you are now exactly in the process of the Spirit – this particular Spirit, which rises people and which should now raise Christ in us.

 

In order to be able to properly understand the teaching of Christ, we have to cast down many frivolities in this world; not to deny the world, because this woud be a distorted understang. The world has two faces: one purely Divine and one exteral face of things; and when we are told that we have to deny the world, this should be understood to mean tat we have to deny all these elements, which are of a transient, decieving nature, which do not contribute anything substantial to our life. But all this which facilitates our rising on the Earth, we have to keep, because the Scripture says elsewhere, ‘God loved the world so much, and He gave His Only Son to help it.’ That the world has two sides can be seen from another line from Aposlte Paul, which reads: ‘The image of this world passes, but there is an image which is unchangeable.’ One is born, grows up and believes that one will put the world in order and will conquer it, but at the age of forty to fifty-five and one notices certain weakening, feels that one’s strengths are leaving him/her and then one grows wiser and starts making the young ones to work for him/her; one becomes milder, more polite, because one is weak and because there is a thought developing in him/her that one is getting older and that one might die on the following day. Such thoughts are coming to mind, which may ease resurrection; modern people are altogether contaminated by the view that one cannot rise from the dead, cannot live again – this is exactly the biggest deceit in present life. One can rise from the dead, the way one can die – these are two relative domains. Once you counteract the forces of Nature, your form will disintegrate, if you do not understand the principles, you will be trampled down.

 

We have to free ourselves of these inherited obstacles existing in our souls. I shall give you an example and shall explain one great principle, which regulates Life: several sailors, Englishmen, left the ship to visit a European town. They took a walk around the town, got into various pubs and got drunk. On the way back they got into the boats, but forgot to unfasten them from the poles at the shore to which they were tied, and started rowing; they kept rowing and rowing all night long, thinking that they were coming closer to the ship, but they could see that they were still at the shore. Why did they not reach the ship? This short rope, coiled round the poles, this rope fastened them. People cannot rise due to exactly this reason – they are fastened to a pole. I have often seen little children catching birds and letting the birds fly on a string – the bird tries soaring, but falls back to the ground; are all people tied to a string just like this. People must have an ideal – but what ideal should this be? An ideal to draw them to Heaven. ‘I started flying, but I fell and I do know why’; because you are tied, you have doubts about your mind, there are important questions, which you have not resolved – unfasten your boat, peddle with the rows and follow your destination. We cannot avoid the consequencies of the causes: we think that our thoughts and desires are of no impact, but actually each thought, as weak as it can be, does have an impact. Moses, I think, says in the Deuteronomy, then God administers retribution for crimes up to the fourth knee – one crime should be liquidated for one hundred years. Those who have studied the principles must have noticed the following: if a black woman has a coitus with a white man, a white child may be born in the first generation, and if not in the second or third generations, then inevitably a black child will be born in the fourth generation; if the [black] child is born in the beginning, this is OK – this will put an end to the karma. The principle has a reverse effect too: if a white woman has a coitus with a black man, the black child may be born in the beginning and if it is not born then, then after a hundred years a black child will inevitably be born. And people wonder, ‘Why should God have sent to us this black child?’ A great-great grandmother of yours must have had a coitus with a black man. This principle works also in our feelings and thought: you stay calm for seven days and a bad thought comes to your mind – why? A hundred years ago your soul must have had a coitus with a black man – such a black man is called a devil. A bad desire of yours is also a child of yours; this karma principle is strict – we have to take good care of ourselves, because we cannot get away with the consequencies. We should never make room in our minds for a bad thought, because it will produce its own form and in the future, it does not matter when exactly, we will stumble over it. The issue is not that someone was born from a coloured man; the issue is that there are vibrations of black and white people, and these vibrations are different. Black people have aspirations to the Earth, not to Heaven – these are the people of that Tree from which your primary mother ate; the white people, who are now coming, are people of the Tree of Life. Hence we shall become what we eat.

 

And the Tree of Life is Christ. When this great thought about christ penetrates you (not the abstract thought that Christ is to the right of the Father, but Christ – the power, which has penetrated the entire Earth) and when this stream penetrates all beings, young and old alike, then Salvation will come. When Christ died, it became dark, people felt this emptiness, and the Scripture reads that Christ entered hell and preached this teaching there; and all who listened to him, got out of hell and came to the earth. Weren’t you also there when Christ taught? You were, but you have forgotten. And what did Christ tell you, when he descended there to get you out of darkness? ‘Go out and do not sin any more.’ Because you will have to deliver, as I told you above, black children – you will experience suffering after suffering. And because Christ is on Earth, He had decided to save human beings and He will – there is no power in the world, however mighty it may be, which is in a position to counteract Christs’ strength. He says, ‘The sheep that Father gave Me, nobody can take away from Me, because no one is greater than My Father.’ And if sometimes a doubt enters your soul, this is your black father – sever your bonds with him, no pure soul should mix with an impure one! When a child of any mother gets dirty, does she go hugging the child? No, she gives the child a good smacking first, then she gets the child washed, then she cleans the child, puts clean clothes on the child, and only then will she kiss the child – this is the simple philosophy of Life. Someone may tell you, ‘But you do not love me’; your clothes are muddy, my friend, there is mud all over, my sister; come, I will pay for your bath, clean yourself, wash your body, as well as your heart, the way it has to be done, and only after doing this, only then will you rise from the dead.’

 

Now, do you know why Christ suffers? The cross stands for the human house – a cube, unfolded, makes a cross, and Christ was resurrected on this cross. And God says now, ‘Clean your house, open the windows, clean everything!’ Some say, ‘Kiss this cross’, but this cross has to be cleansed. The cross is in the mind, in the heart – this is a cross people cannot kiss, until it is cleaned. We are all crosses – living crosses. We have to put up these Divine crosses in our hearts and having done this, we shall draw a circle, standing for eternity, and shall make a wheel or a propeller out of the cross, to get it moving.

 

Therefore Christ with His teaching wants to show us the main principles, which can help us change the order of things. And change the order of things we can. We have to have an idea first, and secondly, to aspire to accoplish it. Modern people cannot accomplish it, due to one simple reason: an inexorable selfishness – everybody wants to be first. An artist made it very clear in a picture: the artist painted a mountain peak, upon which there rests an idol, and millions of people are looking at this peak; and if one tries to climb up and reach the idol, the others clutch at him and do not let him go’ so similarly people are constrantly fighting and nobody can reach the peak. During running contests at the Olympic games in Ancient Greece the one, who first reached the finish, was the one to take the wreathe. In the quest for Christ, however, everybody can take this wreathe, as long as one is diligent and follows Christ’s teaching.

 

So there are these three things in the teaching about the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, if we can pronounce these three words in their full sense. When we pronounce Father, we should be able to feel the pulse of that being which makes the world moving – to feel it the way a mother can feel the pulse of her child; to feel the Divine thought, actually means to understand it and to be aware of it. ‘Then, as God said, before you have asked for something, I will grant your wishes.’ We all have to have excellent attitude to God, like son to father – to do our duties to our Father. He did not descend to Earth, but He sent His Son, and we have to make sacrifices in this world. Many are apprehensive of sacrifices and say that there is no Life in the sacrifice; and many are bewildered with Christ’s words ‘If you do not eat of My flesh and do not drink of My blood, you shall have no eternal life.’ We eat everyday, in order to live; doesn’t this wheat grain, these herbs, whose juices we swallow, die and sacrifice themselves for us? But they say, ‘We can die, if this makes you people.’ How many mirriads of beings serve us, and what is it that we do on Earth? We tackle scholastic issues, like those old theologicians in the Middle centuries, who kept trying to find out how many devils can there be on a knife’s blade – this is what we are still consumed with.

 

I say that Christ’s teaching contains the meaning of Life in itself. There is always a low land between two great epochs; if we examine our mind, we shall see that there are concave and convex areas in it as well – due to these crevices can human thought circulate. The earth also has similar concave areas, which generate certain currents, due to which we can live. Somebody may say, ‘I do not want to live in a valley’; well, where do you want to live, how many devils can live on a mountain peak? Not all can live there; everybody shall be – in the creavices of one’s life: once – in a valley, another time – on a peak, yet another time – again in a valley, and yet another time – on a peak; there will be climbing up and climbing down, until the principle, that evolution is a movement along a curved line, is grasped. When, however, one learns Christ’s teaching about the circular movement in eternity, one will enter another evolution, which does not follow and up-and-down path, which will move in a circle.

 

On the other hand, the teaching of the spirit is a realistic teaching, which is denied by modern people. When the Divine Spirit works within us, He implies unity, implies multitude too. The Father created things, The Spirit is a multitude from the one pole to the other pole, while Christ represents the juices flowing continually in the Tree of Life. The Spirit represents the conditions in which we live. Modern astrologers say that a person is in communication with all the Universe, which is to say that all beings are to be found in a certain correlation; the heart, the mind, the ears, the eyes correspond to certain beings in space and when there is clash among them, then a person feels, certain impact in the respective body parts, be it in the legs or in the head. It happens sometimes that a hand or any other body part aches – this is an impact coming from outside, an iflunce, as it is called, of Jupiter, of Saturn, of Mars. Somebody may object, ‘How can Mars influence people?’ We say: England has a certain influence, the land or the people of England, who live there, the English people, with their thoughts exercise this inluence; therefore those beings, who live on Mars, influence us too by their thoughts through space, by forming one current and we, coming under this current, become belligerent.

 

All people are under the influence of Mars – they will fight until this influence accomplishes the goal for which it exists in the world. Do not think that Christ’s teaching is a teaching of Peace; it is of Peace, but once the equilibrium is unbalanced, there will be a war, and only a war can restore, in time, the disbalanced equilibrium. And we know this principle from experience: when a woman wants to make butter from milk, she churns it in the bottle. Similarly war in the world will be over when butter is produced. Well, why do people fight? Christ says, ‘I want butter – when you annoint yourselves you will become softer, because you are now rough and coarse.’ Butter is now being churned and when Christ annoints you, you will become tender. That this is so is evident from the fable about those stupid virgins, who forgot to take oil for their lamps and remained outside; in order to enter the Kingdom of God, you must inevitably have oil.

 

This is the teaching of the Spirit. I speak alegorically, but if you give it a thought, you will understand the correlations between these forces, which have the impact of softening. And do you know why God created the modern world? Those spirits who were first created, crystalised; our Earth had to be created afterwards, for new cells to be formed not under any crystal, winding, geometrical form, but in a circular form. A crystal, a diamond has to become a live cell in order to be able to develop – just like a plant; if you reflect deeply upon this thought you will understand that even the noblest of plants has to transform its wooden immovable cells in meat and nerves, in order to be able to feel and to move the way animals feel and move. The same way we have to pay everything in order to generate this particular cell, which makes saints. We are now dead. In Heaven we are planted head downwards. We have to sacrifice ourselves, so that we can become sensible cells, to become one with Christ and by passing through His body, through His mind, through his heart, only then we will be able to tune ourselves, to understand the deep meaning of things. These things are, of course, very abstract and if I go in details to explain them, we shall be distracted from our topic, and this will be of no use to you.

 

The primary issue in Life is humility. A Greek desciple in Ancient times wanted to learn the secret sciences and therefore he went to Egypt, to the school of the so-called Brothers of Light. The principal priest of the Isis Temple, while showing him round, took him to a room and told him, ‘This is the Truth’. ‘Why did not you take me earlier to the Truth, why did you take me to other places; you should have brought me here in the very beginning’, objected the desciple. ‘It is not possible’, said the priest and added, ‘Do not lift the curtain off this statue, do not touch its veil, study it from a distance.’

 

The desciple was very intrigued to find out what there is underneath the veil; and he thought ‘When I lift this veil, I will find the Truth and when I come back to Greece, I will have a great power.’ One evening he went out quietly, sneaked his way through and got into the temple, lifted the curtain, but, in the morning however,he was found dead before the statue. What did he learn? Some say ‘Lift the curtain, I want to see the Truth.’ It is dangerous, if the veil is lifted – one should be prepared for the moment. Christ came to Earth to prepare us to meet this moment without fear. We should first understand what life leads us to Salvation; afterwards we have to undergo another process, of which He says, ‘If you were not born from above, you will not see the Kingdom of God’ – and Nicodemus was also told that if he was not born from water and Spirit, he wouldn’t be able to enter the Kingdom of God. (John 3:1)

 

So, there are two births, but not re-incarnations. Because reincarnation implies an intermitten process; reincarnation is the principle of disharmony in the world: to be reincarnated means to start anew the work you left – you are captured, imprisoned and after a twenty years of incarseration, when there will be about fifteen more years left to serve, you run away, but you are captured and made to return and you are sentenced to ten more years, so again you are facing twenty-five years of service; in five years you run away again, you are again captured, emprisoned for a third time and you are given a longer sentence. This is what reincarnation is about – one who does not want to serve one’s sentence; or put in other words: when you are sent to the Earth and you do not want to live as God determined, but wants to have an easier escape, then you will be caught, put in prison and if you keep escaping, you will serve in prison for ever. The principle of renovation implies that human beings have to follow God’s will. And it is not difficult to follow, the difficulty lies invarably in the profound reasons related with poor the understanding of the meaning of Life.

 

Modern people are inclined to criticism, everybody has eyes for the mistakes of the other people: ‘Whoever does not live as one should’ – well, do you live like this? – ‘He is not right to think like this’ – well, what about you, are you right to think like this? – ‘He is not good’ – well, are you good? Above all one should know oneself, should study one’s construction. Have you learnt why God gave human beings noses, two eyes each, why some have black eyes, others – blue or green, what are the eye-brows above for – the shape formed resembles the figure eight, what does this figure mean? This shows the figure of work. About the nose – it is a plough; when you place a human being in a horisontal position, this shows that one has to plough and then Divine bliss will descend and what was sown will grow. What does the word thinking mean? To concentrate one’s thoughts. What does concentration mean?

 

I once met in Varna one Bulgarian, a non-believer, of free views, who complained to me, ‘I had won eight thousand leva, lent to the money to a trader who went bankrupt, and this is how I lost it, but God is good, I will win again.’ I say: this person knows the principle; this person is not an esoteric person, but recognises one principle, which will teach him how to win again. God grants, God takes. These are things of transient nature in life – in this way God puts us to test, the way a mother will put her children to test. You may try what your child will be; mother usually say ‘Mine is an angel’, but try the child and find out if the child become an Angel – give the child an apple and ask for the apple back; if the child returns the apple to you, the child will become an Angel – if not, the child will become a devil. God gives a blessing and says to you. ‘Give it to others as well’; ‘I can’t give it’ – here you have one issue which you have not resolved. ‘I do not believe in Life’ – here you have another issue, another x, which you have not resolved; you try to escape Life – you have another x to resolve. We say: x is equal to whatever, but mathematically I can’t find what it is equal to; this x has a meaning, its value can be found when we work – trying to solve this x, we have to employ our thoughts and feelings. It is often the case when one cannot resolve the x’s in one’s life, one starts crying and feels unhappy. The world is a school, who made you come to this school if you are not willing to learn, to concentrate upon issues – then you’d better get into a plant, into a mineral. Through a diligent concentration you will learn the teaching of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit and you will come to love God. People say, ‘Love is foolish’ – this is another x, which has a ceratin value. I, following this teaching, can also solve the mystery of Love.

 

Now, the Teacher of the teaching comes every morning and spreads a thought in our souls, but we, in spite of this, are becoming poorer – why are we becoming poorer? Because we can’t appreciate this thought, which Christ gives to us. – ‘I want glory, I want this and that.’ The Good, which Christ gives is much more substantial; God’s glory in this case is worth much more than human glory. Christ wants to place all of us in power, to become masters over Life and death. And do you know who creates death? These mirriads of spirits who continualy destroy. Everyday you are full of suspicions, envy and at that you want to be progressive; there are even people who know about esoterric issues, while their thought is not free – they do not understand Life. Christ rose from the dead, He showed us the path, which we have to follow – the birth process. Do you know what birth is? Count Tolstoy once told me of his dream – how he dreamt one night that he was pregnant and was labouring and experienced such pains, that when he got up in the morning, he asked whether women experience the same pains while labouring; when he was given an affirmative answer, he said, ‘It’s difficult to be a woman.’ A thought comes to your mind; until you deliver, how many sufferings will you have to undergo, but don’t you think that suffering is a bad indication. Just like the mother, you have to give something of yourself to your child, you have to give Life and Strength to a noble thought and at last you will have to be brave enough to push away the stone – not to be like modern philosophers asking and reflecting whether Christ can rise from the dead or not. There are people who have been there when Christ rose; someone will say, ‘Prove this to me!’ I can prove it, but you wil have the same attitude – there is a principle which has to be observed. What does proving mean? You will take someone to a path, you will show him the way, he will try and try the Truth.

 

The last hour is ticking – we all have to and will rise from the dead. And while rising we have to ask ourselves not whether Christ rose, but whether it is time for us to rise – this is the question. Some ask whether Christ lay in the grave for three days; you have been lying in this grave for the last eight thousand years, and don’t you think it’s long enough time? It is long enough. And this Angel from above is the call of Christ, that the Last Judgement is coming. How will Christ find you? If the stone on your tomb is closed, how can Christ say, ‘Come out, Lazarus?’ Your relatives and friends should do this favour to you to remove the stone from your grave and then Christ will say, ‘Rise!’ and you will rise.

 

To all of you, who were listening to me this morning, I can say that I will remove your tomb-stones. Christ is coming. He will stand by your open graves and will say, ‘Come out!’

 

4 April 1915, Sofia

 

 

 

Source

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...