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Note 3 The talents “And to one He gave five talents, to other two, and to other one – for everyone according to his power.” Mathew 25:15 I shall speak you upon the15th verse from the 25th chapter from the Gospel of Mathew. There is no doubt, you have read this chapter many times, you have been stopped to the talents to think; you maybe did and some conclusions, some of them were closer to the truth, other – further. I shall take this verse in its ordinary sense. When Jesus expressed one sentence or proverb, He had in mind the main Divine thought, the Divine law, i.e. He didn’t speak only to find reason to speak but expressed some truths. Now we may ask the question to ourselves why He gave to the one five talents, to the other – two, and to the last – one. Is this accidentally or deliberately? In Nature all the things that God created are not accidental – there is nothing accidental. We say for many things that they happened “accidentally” when we can’t explain them. We meet one man and we say that we meet him accidentally; one of the laws of Life says that our meeting determines from some preceding reasons which made us meet; when we don’t know the law, we say that we meet accidentally, without any reason, but it is not like that. What we have to understand under the words five talents, two talents, one talent? There are three kinds of people: ones who correspond to the five, other – to the two, and a third – to one talent. Now who are those to one talent? They are those who live only for themselves. – “To eat three times a day, to drink, to lie down for a while until our body becomes more fattened, and to dress more nicely – that is why – they say – we came to this world.” They are egoists, fruitless, seedless – people with one talent. And who are those with two? A man who married, he is one talent, and his wife – the other; two men get together and win two talents more; kids are born to them, they become fourth and say: “God, we used the two talents – reared kids and won two more.” It is in the first sense; in the second sense they are people who live for their home, for the society, for the nation. These men, with the five talents, they already have something more – the five talents correspond to our five feelings; it means people in who all the feelings – eyesight, hearing, the sense of smell, taste and the sense of touch – are in their places. They are people with the right reasoning and conclusions for everything what God created – they understand Nature, understand the things, understand the causes and the consequences; they are teachers of the world, they live for the whole of humanity. Now, let’s make one little calculation of the given talents: we have 1+2+5=8 talents. Is the number 8 accidental? No, it is a number of labour. The Writing says that God made the world in six days and on the seventh He had a rest. After every rest a new working day is coming. We are on the eighth day. And God said to the people: “Here, I made the world, now your day is beginning, work and one day I shall come to see you revise your work.” We live on the eighth day and since we don’t know how to work we make mistakes, but God says: “Work, go ahead, mistakes, of course, you will do.” Which teacher doesn’t expect his disciples to tear books and to make much noise in the school; which woman who does the housework, doesn’t make much noise; which dyer will not soil when he paints?; which man who works will not dirty and reduce his clothes to rags? In the process of our development we don’t have to want the impossible, we constantly have to expect change and disappointment. Are you afraid of death but what is death? Death is growing old, the rupturing of our cloth. This is the law – the body changes gradually. The Writing says: “God made the man in his image and likeness”. Yes, the Divine plan is this, but because he left us to work, to create mind and heart, character to educate in execution of this Divine plan, the fact that we will make much noise, with soil around, doesn’t mean anything. When a house is building upon the place there are stones, bricks, and sand scattered– many things but after the house is built, all these things are cleaned and then the people enter to live in it. Therefore we are now in the period of the eighth day and we build. And in this building three categories of people work: ones who have one talent, other – two, third – five. Now let’s come to gather these talents: to that man who won from the fifth, five more – it becomes ten; from the two – two more – four, they all become fourteen and with one buried in the earth – fifteen. Well, from this number when we take eight, how many are the won ones? Seven. What does the number seven mean? We said – rest. Now we have the law, the thought which Christ has hided there, which thought captures only he who knows the Writing – namely those who want to rest have to be worked and those who don’t work, must not take a rest. Because God worked six days he had a rest on the seventh. We often say: “When shall I take a rest! “ You still didn’t start to work, so what rest you are looking for – you just raised the hoe on your shoulder and you want a rest; after you dig the whole vineyard, then you have to want and the rest will come. We have to understand the main Divine law that the rest is as a result of the work. Only these men will be joyful, happy, who worked; and Christ says it: “These men who worked, will enter in the joy of Grace; all the goods which I have they will have too.” And what did He say to that man who didn’t work but has hided the talent on the earth? – “Take from him the one talent and give it to this man who has five and turn him out, into the darkness, to learn to work there.” Which is this outside darkness? The worms which work downwards in the earth. If you don’t learn to work, God will turn you into worms and will put you in the earth to work in darkness till you learn to do it. All these men who want to philosophize upon the Divine law will taste if these words are right or not. I speak to you this morning upon this main law; we have to work. And only when we work for the God, it is work; when we work for our selves, it is labour. The work understands Knowledge. That man who took five talents has five feelings – God gave to him all the abilities and necessary knowledge; and that man who has two talents, he possesses abilities too, accordingly with his knowledge. I shall make one comparison more: With the one talent – this is a man who is like one mineral which can’t multiply, it always stays one. In it the sun light may refracts very well but it can’t be a sensible being. When your heart hardens like mineral, you are a man who has only one talent. And there the danger is hiding because the Writing says: “And I shall deprive the stone heart from you.” And this one talent has to overturn and to begin to produce and develop. The other talents understand – the wheat grain, the plant life, which stay little higher than the minerals and which multiply and earn. What the beautiful minerals can deliver in our Life; we all should die if it remained to live from them. Thanks to the wheat grain which brings two talents, thanks to the industry and thanks to these five talents (abilities which our mind possesses for a higher spiritual life, which shows how we have to work out the goods which God gives us) we may be rescued from many misfortunes in this world. We have to ask the question what this means “for everyone his power”; it means that every one of us has to know his power. The people often say: “I want to have bigger gifts, bigger abilities.” Good, if you didn’t use these gifts that you have, don’t know how to work them out, who will give you more? Every one of us has so many gifts that if we would work them out, they are enough to create a base for five talents. But just a few have five talents. I believe that the majority of you, who listen to me here, have two talents; even positively I may say that you all have two talents. But if you transform these two talents in four it will be other thing. And what does the number four mean? It means that you have to find the process of purifying your life. You need water but it is turbid; you have to find the means to purify it, haven’t you – if you drink it with mud, it will damage you. So, the number four is the Divine process, through which our desires and thoughts in this world filtrate. That man who has two talents has to work to the moment until he makes one filter. But do you know how much it costs? Ask one dairyman, go to one dairy and ask that man who makes cheese what remain in the filter. Through it only the whey may be filtered out. Your filter is your critical mind which you must have for the things of Life. When you say about somebody that he is critical, you have to understand that he has a filter, in which when he puts something in to filter, the precious remains and the useless is filtered out. It depends what you filter – if you filter cheese, it remains in the filter, but if you filter water, the clean, the limpid water, will exit the filter, and the turbidity will remain. Your filter has to have two essential qualities, it means two talents: when you use the one talent the precious has to remain in the filter; when you use the second talent, the precious has to be eliminated. I’ll make another comparison: The filter with the cheese – it is your wheat garner; the water out of the filter – it is your wheat sown outside, in the field – in Life. The first talent has to exercise from the fruit which God gave you, and the second talent you have to sow – to work with it. In the world you have different purposes: some time in your initiatives you succeed, in other ways – no; this shouldn’t discourage you not in the least because those who have little talent and want to acquire more, have to work more – this is the law. It is dangerous for that man who has one talent and who didn’t work with it at all. The first thing which is required from us is to know how to work. I said to you that you have two talents; you will ask which are they? Your mind and your heart – these are two talents. But you will say: “For what can I use my mind? “ – To some man’s car breaks down in the street; you go by there, you have knowledge, repair his car; he will be grateful to you, and sometime, when it is his turn, he will help you – in the case you win too. The second talent – it is your heart. Some man is ill; your heart has to get you to drop in to see him and to serve. The two talents – these are the roots of our Life. From our heart we have to understand the roots of our Life, and from our mind – the branches and the leaves outside. You know that in Nature there exists one correlation between the roots and the twigs – to every twig there corresponds one little rootlet down in the earth and when down some root withers dome, dries and the respective branch. The law you have to observe is this: to know that if in you one desire dries up, and one thought will certainly dry up; if two your desires dry up, two thoughts will dry up; if three desires dry, three thoughts will dry and one day, when your feelings atrophy perfectly all the twigs will dry up and you will transform into men who have only one talent. Let’s take a man who has five feelings – eyesight, hearing, sense of smell, taste and sense of touch; what role have these feelings in our life? They are the five doors through which man enters in this world, through which we experience Nature – five areas from which we may obtain wealth. A man deprived, in the full sense of the word, from hearing, is a stupid man; to be deprived psychically from eyesight means to be deprived from the possibility to see the truth; to be deprived from a sense of smell in psychical relation means to be deprived from your intellect; to be deprived from taste means to be deprived from love etc., we may enumerate plenty of things like these. Every one of our senses corresponds to one great Divine virtue and every one of us has to observe if his feelings are in harmony with his heart, if they are in connection with the Truth. If we look to this world, he is a clothing of the Truth; the visible world is in expression of the Truth; in every leaf, stone, spring, rock there are great lessons, great knowledge is hidden. Oh, what truths Nature can reveal to us! We take one stone, we roll it a little and throw it away and we say that it doesn’t cost anything – we didn’t understand the sense of this stone. Or we take one flower, tear its leaves and throw it away – it doesn’t cost anything; we didn’t understand the sense of this flower. Let’s come now to our ear; we hear the word love – it is one flower; did we understand the sense of this word – what does it means? No. “What is it, we ask, - nothing” - and we throw it away. But we hear the word truth and say: “It is an empty word.” What is then most important for us? – “Man to have a bite and after he has a bite to drink one glass of wine” – say some men. When it comes to the satisfaction of the taste, it is right, but not everything is concluded in eating. Really man has to eat, but under this law for the five talents he has to eat with five kinds of food – every feeling has to feed with its respective food; if we don’t feed it like this, it atrophies. You see that Christianity is one science, it is not amusement. And do you know what science is Christianity? It is one great School with its departments, classes, universities, academies, and everyone who comes to listen to it has to understand what he listens to. I don’t want people with one talent who are buried in it; in the school I teach that I want people with two talents. Why? Because I don’t want to waste my time with vain work. Would you like to breed lice or fleas? These are the creatures with one talent. All the parasites are people with one talent – spongers, lazy beggars who live only on the back of others, big punishment awaits them. Test the spirits – when one spirit comes first take it and study it: if it is with two talents, take it and feast it; if it is with one buried talent, don’t receive it, if it is with one talent – out, it is louse, flea, it is one wolf which you can’t ennoble. But some people say: “This man may be ennobled”; I say that he may only breed lice. How the master acted with that man who had one talent? He took him and turned him out, to teach him to work. We never have to give courage to the man with one buried talent, we have to tell him: “You, my friend, the biggest danger in Life waits for you” – we don’t have to lie to him, but we have to tell him the truth. We often say: “No problem”. You have a child; if you see that he has one talent, turn him out and let him go to roam in the world. You will say: “Isn’t this cruelly?” Take his talent because he didn’t know how to make use of it. You have son with one talent, you send him into foreign parts to study philosophy or medicine or some art; he writes you: “Father, send me four–five thousand leva because I need so and so”, and actually he takes the money and feasts on the public houses. It passes two-three-seven-ten years, the son doesn’t graduate; the father says to himself: “O, it is very deep science”, spend twenty-thirty thousand levs on him and expect many things from him. After seven or ten years the son comes back, but except that he didn’t earn knowledge, except that he spent so many funds, he comes back with ten degrees further down, completely decomposed, lewd in the thoughts and the desires and then the father says: “Why, my God, did you give him to me?” Did God give him to you or did you take him by yourself? When one thief steals a farthing which doesn’t cost, is that man who had it guilty? No, the thief himself who stole it is guilty. Often, when some man steals from God, he steals this which doesn’t cost. Of course, with my lecture I don’t want to scare you, because my aim is not like this. When one disciple is in a school, when he is in the lead in the laboratory for experimental attempts, the teacher has to explain to him the characteristics of the different things and to tell him that if he is not careful one attempt may cost to him dearly. Because many people from carelessness lost their eyesight and the other their senses. Let’s apply Christ’s rule in the social life. They often ask me why Bulgaria suffers. But you proposed to the government for prime minister a man with one talent and you want him to set Bulgaria right; how will it happen? This man, as Christ says, has to be pulled down and to be turned out. For the post of prime minister a man with five talents is wanted, not even with two – people with two talents should be policemen, soldiers. The officers must have four talents, the generals and the ministers – five, and for the kings who take the highest position in the country, ten talents are necessary. Bulgaria suffers because in relation to its government it’s not putting forward people with five talents – often people with one are put and after that they call them and judge; as you see they judge them and now. These men who stole are stupid, but and these men who put them to rule are even more stupid. One man appoints an unfit servant and expects from him good work, and after that he wonders why the work hasn’t been finished. We have to wonder as soon as possible to the master. And now in Bulgaria we need people with two, four, five, ten talents. If we have them, we will be the first nation in the world, there will not be difficulties and hindrances for us there – even all the countries who plot against the Bulgarian nation, will not succeed. Then, I assure you, any unhappiness can’t befall us. That is why, you pray for these people to be created. They will come. Let’s put these talents – two, four, five, ten - to work. And in the end I ask why did God give this mind to us? Firstly it is one filter. Did you filter the milk, do you know how to curdle and turn it into cheese? Let’s apply in the Life this law for filtering. They often complain: “I have got no friends in the world.” Why have you got no friends? When you tell me: “I haven’t got even one friend”, I already may doubt and to tell that you are a man with one talent. If you say: “Nobody loves me” I shall make a conclusion that you are man with one talent, who is buried all Divine in the earth; man-egoist who lives for himself deserves to be without friends, to be out, in the darkness. This is what Christ says with these talents. You will ask: “Well, what is this ferment we have to work with?” You have it but you have to know how to curdle it, to turn it into cheese the milk. If the milk is too cold can it curdle? It can’t. If it is too hot, can it? Again it can’t. You have to observe one main law in the curdling process: you must have good feelings, good wishes – to curdle the man with good yeast, to curdle him in the way that he is not going to go sour, to moisten him with the Truth. And if you moisten him with it you are people with two talents – then you will have four. And when you have four talents, you are already people who are saved, it means that you have passed through the law of Jesus, through the process of the self-perfection, the purging from evil desires. These are the two talents which you have to apply in your life. You may have listened to other sermons upon the talents. They mean money, abilities, power; they are something objectively, not subjectively. Talent is always power which is introduced outside which could be given to us and to be taken again. The talents never could be in possession of the man, they are belonged and belong only to God and He gives and takes them, according to how we act. You are born on the Earth – He gives you two talents and says: “Work! If you win two more I shall multiply them, I shall give you five, and you will enter in My joy.” And even if He gave you only one talent, again there is a place in the world: if such a man says that he wants to win one more talent, he will save himself. And when we see that such a man makes efforts and suffers, this shows that he wants to win one talent more; because when one man suffers, in him suffers this originally sinful being who has only one talent. Such a man has to pass from the one, from his me first attitude, from his egoism to the Divine Love and the self-sacrifice – a man who has only one talent has to sacrifice him to win two. To work out your heart and mind, this means to have two talents, and five – to develop all your feelings in perfection. Do you know what thing is to the development of all these feelings? Many people look but don’t see; listen but don’t hear; taste but don’t understand the good. For example when man tastes bread, is he sometimes saying?: “God, thank you for the bread which You gave to me, thank you for the life which You introduce in me through it!” If you don’t thank, it shows that you not only did you not understand what thing is taste, but didn’t understand what this mouth is made for. It is necessary to enter in it first the life of the Love which is the basis of everything. Keep these thoughts in yourself: if God gave you one talent, pray to Him to be with you and to give you two – there is the salvation. Christ came to save the world, to save more of those men who have one talent. But do you know how many sorrows these sluggards cost Him? A lot. If a man has one talent, leave it to God; I tell you: turn him out. Why? Because only God is in a position to cure him, to save him, you are not in a position to do it. When I tell you: “Turn him out”, I want with this to make him good, to find God. Because when he holds onto you he will never work; when he finds himself abandoned, he will turn to God and will be saved. Don’t give him anything to eat, let him starve for two-three-five days, let him torment a little, what there is! What is this? How many times in a day does the kid cry? If it doesn’t cry, the mother will not feed it. People with one talent – there is no Life in them; it is just the same as a dead body works, just as a man with one talent; it just like a miser sacrifices, just as a man with one talent is able to help. I say to all of you, who are here, who have two talents: if you begin to look like that kind of man and you transform into one talent, you will commit a great crime. You are people that can have four. And when God finds that you work, and you say to him: “With the two talents that you gave me, God, I earned two more”, He will say: “Good servant, enter to My joy!” 10th of May, 1914, Sofia Source

From Peace be with you The Appearance of the Spirit "But to each the appearance of the Spirit is given for benefit." (1 Corinthians 12:7) There are many questions that occupy the human mind, many questions that humanity has been occupied with in the past; there will also be such questions in the future. I will give you a short definition of the notion {poniatie} [1] "Spirit". Many minds have a vague conception {poniatie} of the Spirit. This notion is vague even in the minds of people who possess vast knowledge. You will ask: "How is it possible for a man to be learned and his conceptions of the Spirit to be vague?" I answer: quite naturally. If you were deprived of vision and had a painting in front of you, you would have quite a vague conception of it. Consequently, for the learned man, too, the conception of the Spirit can be vague. When we examine this question, we should take into account whether we have the appropriate feelings and abilities to come into contact with the true reality of things; because we can have a conception of the world and its regulations directly or indirectly, but these conceptions of ours will differ from one case to the other. I will give you a short translation of the word "ДУXЪ"[spirit]. In Bulgarian this word has four letters [2]. If we take the letter "Д" [D], it makes three angles and underneath [it] the letter "П" [P]; the three angles show the triunity of God, the three forces which manifest. The letter "У" - two fingers, the index finger and the middle finger raised up - show that man's hand is working [on something] [3]. The letter "X" [H], the cross - this is the manifestation of the force that acts in four ways: the line that goes up and the other line that crosses it show man's manifestation, that is, the two forces which are not in accord, which cross. When we raise a finger upwards, this shows that we point to God, while when a man comes into opposition, this is the other line of the cross, which means, that the Spirit descends and defines this contradiction between God and His children. The letter "Ъ" [EU] [4] denotes the balance of the human mind which wants to give people understanding of the basic laws [5]. I derive this interpretation from the very letters of the word. Now, the other interpretation of the Spirit is: the manifestation of Its essence. Take, for example, the light which descends from above - this is the Spirit. We do not know what the Sun is; the scientists say that it is situated 92 million kilometers away from the Earth; it may be so - we do not know; there can be a difference of a few million kilometers in this calculation. If we decide to check, it is questionable whether we will find it at the point defined by the scientists. And what is the internal state of the Sun - a profound philosophy. Some say that it is liquid, some say - solid. It may be that either is true. But of the light which descends we already have a real conception, because we see what comes down from the Sun and reveals the whole Earth before our eyes with all the objects upon it. The Light is Spirit, Which comes down from the Sun and has direct contact with our life. To this Sun we can also liken the Spirit. He will not descend otherwise, for if He descends, He will melt, like the Sun, everything we see around us; everything will become dust and ashes or it will be turned into a gaseous state. This is why God says: "I will not come down, but will send My Spirit through space to bring people My blessing". This is why God does not want to come down to us but sends His Spirit - the Light. This Spirit, this creative capability, is exactly what builds within us. We owe everything we have to Him. This rational force which is manifested by God is defined by the learned people in terms of laws, of force, of relations between the elements etc - they give it different names. But this is a rational essence, which works [6]; this is [a] Spirit, Which creates laws. The Spirit has direct communion with our soul. We gain a conception of His origin precisely through the changes which occur in our soul world. Without the soul we would not have any conception of the Spirit. The soul, with its way of thinking, [re]presents the Divine world within us. And if there is anything Divine within us, it is the luminous soul, which thinks. That is why, when we speak about man, we need to understand her [the soul] [7]. Separate from man the rational soul - what is left is a regular animal on four legs; there is no other difference: he eats, sleeps and has all the needs and weaknesses of the animal. The Spirit manifests in the human soul. Because of this, man, in contrast to the other creatures, walks upright. Why is it that the other animals do not walk upright? Because they are at variance with the Lord. Where they walk on all four legs, it shows that their will is in contrast to the manifestation of God. There will pass, perhaps, thousands of years, and they will achieve that stage of man - to rise and stand upright. We have elevated ourselves relatively, and we are striving to elevate ourselves more, for we want to come nearer to God and to be in accord with Him - there is a desire in us to follow the Divine path. And if we make mistakes, we do not do them out of ill will, but for other reasons that lie in our past. Now, it is said that this Spirit is given to everyone for benefit; in what exactly does this benefit consist? The word "benefit" itself has a certain content, because everyone works for [some sort of] benefit. The worker hoes a vineyard, but expects to be paid a wage of 2-3 levs. The wife does something for the husband, but she also expects something for Easter, for Christmas, for the festive occasions, for the summer season - everyone is always working for benefit. Some think that life is quite ideal; but what do they consider an ideal life? I understand the ideal life thus: to have harmony, accord in all our relations. Some wish to live in Heaven; but where is Heaven? Under the word "Heaven" we understand a state where complete order exists, where people keep their rights and responsibilities {zadaljenia} to each other. A man wishes to advance, but you hamper him, you delay his advancement by imposing your rights on him, whereas you should to realize that you have obligations {zadaljenia} toward him. The chapter from the Gospel I have read shows what our relations should be. "But there are some meaningless things there" - you will say. A Russian proverb says: "Even in disorder there is order" [8] - even in the unseemly there is seemliness, I will say. I will give an analogy, in order for you to understand where the distorted conceptions of things stem from. For example, I give to someone a walnut and tell him to do research on it. Someone will do research on its taste, he will try the external green shell, he will bite it and will throw it away. I give the walnut to another person, he, [being] quite sensible already, peels off its external green shell, but when he tries the second shell he breaks his teeth, and also throws it away. I give the walnut to a third person, he, however, [being] even more sensible, peels off the external shell, breaks the hard nutshell with a stone, takes out the kernel and eats it. If we gather these three together and ask them what [sort of thing] a walnut is, one will say that the walnut is an astringent, pungent and poisonous fruit; the second - that it is a hard fruit that breaks people's teeth, the third - that it is something delicious and pleasant. This analogy can be adapted to our errors: all things in the world are wrapped in shells, and if we do not have enough knowledge, we will not find the essence. Food is necessary for the body, but also necessary is food for the mind and the soul; that is, we have to eat in two ways. And when we say that it is not good for a man to overeat, we understand that the body, the mind and the soul have to be equally fed. It is a whole triple circle, which forms the man. This is why those three people who pronounced themselves on the walnut are not sufficiently clever. The one who ate the walnut thinks he is the cleverest. No! I give the walnut to a fourth person, he takes it, but instead of eating it, plants it and in 10 or 15 years this single walnut gives thousands of walnuts. So, we have four categories of people in the world who philosophize: some say: "The world is no good, lecherous, it is not worth living"; others say: "In it [the world] egoism rules, it cannot be worse"; the third: "The world is good, pleasant"; they are closer to the truth. And who are the fourth? Those who have entered the Divine school and have started studying i.e. started planting the good things. The best conception for man is to know that the Earth is a Divine school in which he is set to study, to learn to peel off the upper and the lower shell of the walnut, and not to eat the walnut but to plant it. And when he learns the properties of all things, he will understand the true meaning of earthly life. And as a master sends his servants to the vineyard to work and gives them bread and tools necessary for the work, so God has given man the brain as a tool for work. What is it given for? To break stones or to try the bitter shell of the walnut? No, but to learn to plant the walnut. "Would I feel any better, if I only plant walnuts" someone will say, "I will not feel better". Under the word "walnut" we should understand the good thoughts, wishes [9] and acts which we can plant in others. This work will bring you prosperity. When you meet a certain resistance in achieving some wish, do not despair and do not give up: God has dressed a certain thought in three or four garments - one may not be favorable, but the other will be favorable. If you take off the bad garment, if you plant your thoughts in good soil, regardless of anything else, they will give good fruit. This is how I view the world. Evil is illusory {prividno}; these are the external shells of things. And people are only seemingly {prividno} bad. Not that they are not bad, they are bad, but in essence again they are not bad, because evil cannot proceed from God. The evil originates from certain relations that we have in the world. Two families live in one house, with four rooms; one family has more children, the other less, they start arguing first about the rooms, who will take how many rooms, and look - suddenly they have quarreled. I ask: why this quarrel about rooms? This is quite a negligible cause. And one of the families starts speaking about the other family: "They are unreasonable people", while the second one speaks about the other [(first) family] - the same. But in reality both families are unreasonable, because a reasonable man never quarrels. This word "{kara}" ["quarrel" in Bulgarian] originates from a Sanskrit root: to quarrel means to be in darkness. People, who are in [the] light, do not quarrel. A certain manifestation in our brain darkens {pomrachava} our thoughts and then bad wishes follow. When we have enlightened thoughts we are ready to live in peace and accord; when, however, a small cloud {pomrachenie} comes, we are ready to change our relations. So, evil originates from the darkening {pomrachenieto} of the human mind. Now, because God knows that a certain darkness which causes harm exists on the Earth - darkness always causes harm: if we were living permanently in darkness, it would cause an atrophy to all our feelings, eyes, ears etc., just as there are certain fish, which have lived in the underwater caves for years and have lost the ability to see - He has sent precisely this Spirit to react upon us, upon our thoughts and feelings, upon the body, in order for us to think correctly about things and to establish true conceptions about them. In the first place we need to establish a right conception about ourselves, i.e. what our relation to God should be. According to my understanding, the Earth is only a school for the individual human soul. If there is something real in the world, it is the human soul. Some ask themselves: "What am I?" - I am that which thinks, that which feels and desires. But every thought, every feeling and every desire has its own form. When you want to make a weapon, with which to kill people, how do you adapt it? You take certain practical considerations [into account] about what it should be like – it has to be sharp, it has to be able to destroy. You make a ball for children to play with: do you make it sharp? No. You make it round, smooth, in order it not to cause harm to the child, because all things that are sharp are harmful. They say about someone that he has a refined mind; yes, if it is necessary to [wage] battle, he should have a very refined mind and explosive powers - to shatter wherever they hit. But, when a man lives in a peaceful society, what need and what benefit does he have from such a sharp and refined mind? And if during the time of battling you put a man with a blunt mind at the helm, he is out of place as well. We have changed the order of things: we have put the blunt things with the sharp ones or vice versa. I am not saying that there should not be battling on the Earth; battling in Nature has two principles: one which destroys and one which builds-up. But in both one and the other there is a constant exhaustion. We exhaust ourselves not only when we love, but also when we hate, because the one who hates breaks stones, and when we exhaust our life by breaking thousands of tonnes of stones, what meaning will life have for us? When we constantly think evil, we constantly break stones. But God, incidentally, needs this material as well: He will use our labor to make smooth roads, and people will indirectly thanks us that we have crushed the stones necessary for their road. Whatever we do in the world, our labor will be useful, if not for us, then for others. In one case, if we love, we perform conscious work, in the other case unconscious [work], and, consequently, the reward cannot be one and the same. Thus, if you wish Divine Love to manifest itself, the Spirit must be in you, you have to give Him room to manifest Himself. But the Spirit is a very delicate being; do not think that He will come to knock strongly on your door, no; he will knock quietly on the door of your heart and if you open, immediately your life will change completely, He will show you how to live; if He knocks on the door of your will, He will show you what to do and do it consciously. But if you do not open, you will soon understand what you have lost. When you meet an idiot, you have to know that in the past, when the Spirit had knocked on his door, he did not open [the door] for Him. You say of somebody that he is foolish. Why? Because when the Spirit once knocked on the door of his mind, he rejected Him. If anyone is violent, you should know that when the Spirit knocked on his heart, he also did not accept Him. Violence is like a crystal that does not have softness. But you should no think that among the violent people there are not occasionally good people; but in general they are not suitable for an organized human society. And so, we must always be ready to give the Spirit place to penetrate [10] and to manifest in each one of us. Some say: "We want to see the Spirit". But the only thing you see is the Spirit. He speaks, but because your ears are blunt, you cannot hear, just as when you speak to deaf people, they do not hear. You want to hear; good then! Adjust your ear to comprehend what the Spirit speaks to it. "I want to see the Spirit". Excellent, but if your eye is veiled, how will you see Him? The only thing that we see in the world, I repeat, is the Spirit. This flower here, which I hold in my hand - it is Spirit, and if you were able to see, you would observe a whole human figure in it. Now, why are you not able to see? Because your vision is restricted, you see only the dense parts, but the rarefied parts you do not see. For example, some things seem round to you - the walnut; but if you plant it, will it grow a round stem? It will immediately express its essence . In order to recognize things, you need to plant them in their soil. And if you could plant this flower in this way, you will immediately see that it is an intelligent being. And what does this flower convey to you? Why has this color been applied to it? It is has been applied to show that life without love does not have meaning. And for thousands of years the flower has been speaking to people what they should do - that they should love, that the mind should be neither too sharp, nor too blunt. In some cases it has to be sharp, but when you are among clever people, you do not need wit [11]. When you are among enemies, the heart has to be hard, among friends - soft. You must know how to love [12]. When you take a rose and smell it, two things are manifested: one - the tender aroma, the other - thorns. Every man has his thorns, but of course, they are not the man. The thorns are for those conditions in life when man has to wage battle, to defend himself, when he does not have to be very soft. You should not make rendezvous with the devils; against them you have to have spikes. But among friends your gunpowder has to be moist. There are times when it has to be dry and times when it has to be moist. What will the husband [13] do when his gunpowder is dry and his wife [14] teases him every day? When they get married, both of them have to make the gunpowder moist. In the world, your gunpowder has to be dry, just in case . . . This is an allegory, which I give so that you may learn all these relations that exist in the world. You have friends and say that you know them, but until you learn both the dark and the bright side of your friends, you do not know them well. You want to be good always; you should be good under certain conditions and bad under others. When you anger your friend you already have to defend yourselves, and, in order to defend yourselves, you have to know how to wage battle. If you fight with an enemy you are doing your duty; if you wage battle with peaceful or unarmed people, you are doing a foolish thing. They say: "Life is a battle {borba} [15]". And man, when he gets married, says: "Life is a battle". But against whom does he battle? Against his wife, and the wife against her husband. They give birth to children, and the children also read the motto: "Life is a battle" and say to themselves: "So, who do we fight with - brothers with sisters". And a fight starts, they pull each other's hair and bursting into tears, off they go to mum and dad. People have a motto! When they do not have a real opponent, they create one - the husband with the wife, the brother with the sister, the priest with his parishers, the teacher with his pupils. Here we have people who do not understand life. Battles have to exist, but with that nature which has to be subjugated. I understand if we were to act like this when we are about to shatter a certain rock in the mountain, so as to bore a tunnel, but to apply these means in an organized society, this I do not understand. It shows that people do not understand the relation that exists between them and their spirit, the tasks that the latter sets to them. Apostle Paul describes in the chapter [we] read what this relation should be. You may ask me the question: "Are there not in existence thousands of relations in the world?" - But we should choose only those which are favorable for us. We should know, for example, the relations of the water towards us. If we put it in the stomach, there will be favorable consequences; if, however, we put it in the lungs, it will produce entirely different consequences. If we bring air in the lungs, it will be favorable for us, but if we put it in the stomach, it will have exactly the opposite result and so on. Things have relations to certain organs. We should know what the right place is for the water, the air, the light, the sound and the smell. You will say: "But we know these things - that the light is necessary for the eyes and the sound - for the ear". Just so. But do you understand the internal meaning of this light? In the morning, when the Sun rises, what do you say to yourself? "Right, the Sun has risen". But when somebody says: "The Teacher is coming", what do the students infer? They all shuffle, take their books and sit at the desks. When the Sun rises, each of us should take his book and say: "The Teacher-Spirit is coming" and sit at his desk and ask himself what he should do on this day. The Sun says: "I will listen [16] to you, you will answer me, I will impart to you and you will impart to me". This is what the sunrise means. If we can study the program which our Spirit sets every day, life would proceed [17] very favorably. "But", you will say, "today's Sun looks like yesterday's, it rises in the same way". - No! I have not seen two days alike in my life and the Sun to rise in the same way on both of them; every day differs from every other and each has its own program. And the light which comes is not the same: it differs from the light which came several days ago. Here exactly is the greatness of the Divine Spirit, Who brings countless riches, invisible worlds and reveals what God is in Himself. He is something majestic. You meet a friend of yours and say: "[About] Ivan, how do you appraise him?" - "He is 1 1/2, or 165 cm tall, he has dense eyebrows, thickish lips, enjoys his food and loves to have a drink". But this is not important. A day comes [when] you come to love him and for you his thick lips, his external invisible defects already disappear - you begin to see something else in him. So, you take off the first shell of the walnut, you see his mind. If you plant him, half of the walnuts he will bear will be for you, the other half for him. If you eat him, what will you benefit? Neither you, nor Ivan will benefit. For when the Spirit comes, He says that every day you should plant better thoughts, better wishes. You meet a friend of yours and sometimes you say: "I do not know what to speak [about]". You see people chatting a lot, but you do not know what to say, or you speak many things, but not that which you need. First, you have to plant the walnut and then talk as much as you want. Before you plant the walnut, do not speak. Whoever has worked comes back home and says: "I have worked, I am tired, I am hungry". Speech shows certain relations that exist between us and our actions. The first thing you should do every day is to ask yourself the question: "What fruit should I plant today?" If you plant a walnut, after time it will bring [forth] its riches in abundance. You will only understand this parable when you return, as you will, to the other world, from where you have come; then you will notice what benefit was brought by those good wishes and thoughts which you have planted, the good deeds, which you have done for your neighbors, friends, wife, children. Now these things are still dark for you. - Another example. You say to yourself: "This son, I feed him now, but who knows if he will look after me one day?" "Now I educate him, so that he will look after me when I get old". Do not expect him to look after you, when you get old. You may not even get old, you may pass away earlier without the need occurring for him to look after you. The mother says: "I wish I had a daughter to look after me in [my] old age". This is a very distorted understanding of life. Give an upbringing to your children and do not expect anything for yourselves. If you have planted a good walnut in them, not only will they look after you, but they will also love you. When a mother is not loved by her children, it shows that she was unable to bring them up [well]. Hence, the first thing to do, so that your children would love you, is to teach your children to love you under the guidance of this Spirit. I will conclude my lecture with a comparison. There are three relations that we must keep. In the world God exists, we exist and a certain society exists; some put themselves in the first place by saying: "I, then the society, and last of all the Lord". This is a completely distorted solution of the issue. Others say: "First society: I live for the people, for the society, then I come next, while last comes the Lord". This is also a bad solution. Still others say: "First God, the Lord, my Spirit, then I, the rational soul, which should serve Him first, and afterwards society, and at last of all myself". Here is the right solution. Any other solution will not be a correct solution. All errors originate in the following. We want to know what the head is: the society or us. If we put three heads on a single body, it will not accomplish anything! There will never be agreement on which way to go. Sometimes you struggle what to decide - this shows you have three heads: chop off the two others, let it be so that the Lord is the head. Every thing should be in its place. Now, ask yourself: who is your head. If you say it is the Lord, I would be glad. Put the Lord at the head. And do you know what your state will be then? There will not be any hesitation, fear or tremblings in you, you will have willpower, you will be courageous, decisive, clever, good people. You will be rich in every respect - whatever you grasp with your hand will become gold. Some are afraid of money; only the foolish are afraid. Why? Because they are weak in spirit. You know what the scriptures say about the righteous Job - that he had worms and whenever he gave them away to some beggar, the worms would turn into gold coins. If you are like Job, the worm which you give [away] will turn into gold. Often you do injustice to the worms, but they also do an excellent job in the world, the present-day world owes much to them. When the Lord takes them with one hand and gives them to you, they turn into gold coins. And what is this gold, this coin, which the Lord gives you? You acquire knowledge and experience. A clever woman, when she takes [some] {seriava}, dirty wool, what does she do with it? She washes it, cleans it, spins it and weaves a fabric; the foolish one, on the contrary, when she sees it is so dirty, will throw it away. How many times the Lord has given you [the] Spirit, and you have rejected Him! What does the rule require [18]? When you come back from work in the evening, to take off the rucksack from your back and to leave it at the entrance; all dealings [19] that you have, leave them at the entrance, too; to enter your room free as though there are no dealings for you in the world, and to say: "I thank the Lord for what He has given me"; eat well, thank Him again; and in the morning when you get up, take your rucksack or notebooks again and go to work. What do we do? We come in the evening and go to bed with the full rucksack on our back and toss in bed the whole night. The Spirit says: "Take off your rucksack, its place is not here." We sit down to eat - we feel a certain heaviness, because we have a rucksack on our back. We have to take it off and have the meal. This is it, the message of the Spirit. "But some people have erred"; leave this question out, at the entrance: does the Lord not know that people err; are we [those who are] going to fix the world? There is someone to fix it. In the evening, when we come back, we should thank God that He has sent us among these sinful people, so that they may teach us good lessons. When you meet someone like this, you should say to him: "You are carrying your rucksack very well" He is a sinner and in this state he is a man with a rucksack. One day it will come off his back. Someone is vulgar, sour; why? Because he has not taken off his rucksack from his heart. Someone else cannot think: why? Let him take off his rucksack from his mind, and then he will think well. Now, I will give one more example and will conclude. There are two extremes, two opposites in real life that we should always take into account; these are: good and evil - two [opposing] poles, the touching endpoints of the earthly human life. Once upon a time, a king had two daughters: the older one was very beautiful and slender, but had a very sharp tongue; the younger one was with a very good soul but with a very ugly face. Because of these external and internal defects not one of the princes from the surrounding area wanted to ask for their hand. Anxious about the future of his daughters, the father, because he did not have any heirs, decided to convene a counsel of the wisest people in his kingdom so that they would show him a way out of this desperate situation. Among the many good counsels {seuveti} that everyone offered, the oldest man and, incidentally, the wisest, gave the following advice {seuvet}: "You" - he said to the king - "will make an inn for everybody and the first two young men to enter will be your sons in law, which destiny {seudbata} allots to you". The good father thought that maybe fate {seudbata} will smile upon his greyed [20] hairs and will send some illustrious persons from kingly homes. When the inn was completed and opened, the first visitors were indeed two young lads. However, much to the father's astonishment, one of them was blind and the other - deaf. Surprised by this, the king summoned the old wise man and said to him: "What is the matter - the one is blind, the other is deaf? How are we going to settle this, I cannot see". - "I will tell you" - replied the wise man - "the deaf one you will marry to your beautiful daughter, and the blind - to the ugly one". Thus did the king. And truly, both marriages came out to be happy: the daughters lived well. At some stage the sons in law started to feel uneasy about their defects. The deaf one, when his wife yelled and poured over him all curses, shrugged his shoulders and thought to himself: "That's how it is when one is lacking one [of his] senses. I believe she is saying Divine things, but since I cannot perceive [21] them, this is my misfortune. I would give everything in the world to be able to hear just a single one of her sweet words". The blind son in law, in turn, when he listened to the clever and sweat speech of his wife, the outpouring of her soul, thought to himself: "What a splendid being she is! How pretty she must be! But as I am blind - this is my big misfortune in this life. I would give everything just to be able to see for a moment the external appearance of this Divine treasure". This reached the king's ears and he summoned the old wise man and entreated him [the wise man] to tell him [the king] whether it is somehow possible for the fate of his two sons in law to change, so that they may rescue themselves from their defects. "It is possible" - said the venerable old man - "but this will destroy their happiness and bliss on the Earth". If God has connected you with the beautiful princess and has deprived you of hearing, do not be sorry that you cannot hear her voice. Delight in her appearance and give thanks. Do not wish to hear her words so that you do not become embittered and come into contradiction with your own self. Two good things cannot be gathered in one place on the earth . If God has connected you with the ugly princess and has deprived you of vision, of the temporary illusions of the earthly life, again give thanks. Delight in her kind speech, in her sweet tongue; do not wish to see her external appearance and image, because you will lose even that which you [already] have. Goodness is not always dressed in a king's mantle. Goodness and beauty live together only in Heaven. Here, in this world, it is thus - good and evil alternate in man's life. If in one life God connects you with the evil, thank Him. Do not worry. You do not know the deep causes [of] why this has been done. Know, that the aim is for good. In time, you will understand the great Love of Heaven. If in another life you are connected with the good, thank Him and do not desire to put on a king's mantle and to admire your looks. Do not seek to reconcile good and evil within yourself: it is impossible. This is given to you so that you may learn to know the profound deeds of the life of the Spirit. Your defects will depart when your heart opens, the Spirit comes and your soul unites with Him. --==[][][]==-- ______________________________________ Notes: [1] In Bulgarian, the same word can mean both notion or idea and understanding or comprehension. Throughout this translation the word "conception" is used in an attempt to encompass both aspects, however, the reader should be aware of the subtle nuance between when it is used to mean "notion/idea", and when "understanding". [2] The word "Duh%" in Bulgarian - pronounced "dooh" with a clearly audiable "h" - is spelt here in the old spelling with the added "%" at the end (which is the 26th letter in the Bulgarian alphabet, "") and means "Spirit". After the reform of the orthography finalized during 27 Feb 1945, this word has "lost" the last letter "". [3] literally: "doing something" [4] This letter is not pronounced when at the end of the word. After the reform of the orthography finalized during 27 Feb 1945, this letter ("") is not used any more at the end of words. [5] i.e. to give people the ability to be able to come to an understanding of the great laws. [6] i.e. the action of working [7] In Bulgarian "soul" has a feminine gender "she, the soul". [8] I v besporiadke est poriadok (Russian), literally means "And in chaos there is order" [9] or "desires" [10] or "permeate" [11] literally: "sharp-mindedness" [12] obichate, as opposed to the other Bulgarian word for love liubov, can also mean: to have affection, ardour etc. This distinction is sometimes of importance in the Master's lectures. [13], [14] In Bulgarian, there is a single word for "husband", "male" and "man", and similarly for "wife", "female" and "woman". [15] This is a popular Bulgarian saying. [16] prislusham, but the Master could have said proslusham, which means to test out, to try, examine. [17] literally: "flow" [18] This is a Bulgarian expression; the rule is determined according to what follows. [19] An idiom derived from the Turkish "aleush-verish", which literally means "takings-givings", making business. [20] literally: "whietened (from age)" [21] literally: "understand"