Ani

ANGER AND FEAR “Only the radiant path of Wisdom leads to the Truth” It constantly makes us happy. REFLECTIONS A resume on the subject “The role of the red and white blood corpuscles” was read and so were several papers on “The distinguishing features of meekness and restraint” and “The seven words with their corresponding colours”. Theme No 6 is for next time: “The distinguishing features of courage and firmness”. What colour is the word “anger”? Under what sort of conditions is anger born? Anger is transferred strength in a decreasing degree. It is excess energy. How was this energy created? Every wish that encounters opposition is refracted. Half of its energy is turned into an abnormal heat which goes to the brain, and it is this heat which creates anger. It is anger which raises the body’s temperature. It means another degree added to the body’s usual temperature, and its effect is destructive. What I mean here is anger in everyday life, where it is an ordinary occurrence; but when one is engaged in exalting oneself, with the Divine, then anger cannot even be considered. The ideal life excludes all forms of anger. Anger is not a quality of the human mind, but it is something grafted onto the feelings, a handicap. When you give way to anger, you can Justify yourself by saying that someone has insulted you. Yes, but you may become angry without anybody having spoken an unpleasant word to you. You are walking along the road when somebody bumps into you and you immediately “boil over”. This is a burst of energy. Man is not always disposed to anger. You can make an experiment. Go and gently push the most irascible man according to the law of Love, and he will smile and say to you: “Push me again!” Hence we arrive at the following law: when two positive forces meet, they always rebound and create anger. For example, if two extremely ambitious men meet, they may easily become angry. Imagine that point “0” represents the centre of the brain. Line CD represents the flow of moral forces in man. Line OD represents the flow of personal forces, man’s personal feelings. When the line OD is longer than the line OC, anger always results. If line OD is very short, then man becomes indifferent. Any kind of energy which the body cannot assimilate correctly creates a surplus. This surplus is anger, which is always indicated by the colour red. There are several symptoms which accompany anger. The face becomes red, the brows draw together, the muscles around the mouth twitch, the hand becomes a fist and a person is ready to manifest his feelings. The dangerous aspect of anger is that a man can stray from the correct path of his development. The subject I set for you this evening was meekness and restraint. A meek and restrained person is a person without anger. It is not that there is no anger in him: it is that he, from the very outset, transforms anger into useful energy. A scholarly Bulgarian was telling me about the results of a method he had applied on himself. He had graduated from two faculties abroad, and upon his return to Bulgaria, before embarking on work of any kind, he had asked himself whether or not he could prove himself as a real person in life. For this purpose he had chosen the following method: he found a labourer and asked him to say to him the worst things he could think of, for which he would be well paid. The labourer began to rant and swear at him; the scholar listened and listened until he understood whether he would be able to withstand the vicissitudes of life, whether or not he would become the right kind of person and said to the man: “That’s enough!” The experiment was indeed very successful. You frequently come across people like the labourer in your lives, people who serve you without being paid, but you are displeased. The example I have just given you is a true one, but only people who possess moral stability can do such things. Not everybody can make such an experiment. And indeed, all the great people in the world have always been subjected to such discipline. Examine the life of any great person, and you will see that he has been subjected to insults and persecution, and that the very worst things have been said about him in order to see whether all this can be borne. He who can withstand it is a person who can be given a mission. Some of you, as students of the occult school, will undergo such discipline, that is why I am raising the matter. You cannot avoid this road. Whether you will undergo such discipline as pupils of the school or outside of it does not matter, but the important thing is that you will all undergo it. Thus, the first important lesson for you is to control your an^er. In this case self-control is necessary. Apart from this, you must develoo your intuition. You will need to understand human character to understand who resembles you and who does not. You will be able to get on well with people who resemble you, but you must keep your distance from those who do not. When you are able to understand which people resemble you you will be able to make the following experiments. When you are very angry ask a friend to come and put his hand on the back of your head. If you resemble one another, if you are in harmony, he will comprehend your mood and your equilibrium will be restored. If, however, you are not in harmony, your bad mood or anger will increase. I have noticed that people from political circles are extremely ambitious, and if one of them happens to say anything at all to one of those leading politicians, whoever he may be, even in a gentle way, he can offend him to such an extent that he will provoke a strong reaction in the former. It frequently happens that personal feelings are so strongly developed in statesmen and politicians who are in power that they are capable of declaring war for the sake of one word, even if it is said tactfully. All of you must have a definite ideal in life; you must know where the essence of life lies. When is a person’s prestige undermined? A person’s prestige is undermined when somebody tells him a lie. When, however, somebody speaks the truth, whatever language he uses, that person enhances your prestige. Most of you are afraid to tell the truth. Now, when you are speaking the truth you must be brave. When you are speaking the truth you do not need much philosophy; do not think of what the consequences will be! Be brave! But when you are going to express your personal opinions, be extremely cautious. If you are speaking the truth, do not be afraid at all. Speak the truth and it will take care of itself. You will learn to distinguish between the truth and your own convictions. This discrimination is necessary at your present stage of development. If you do not take it into consideration, it will not be long before you find yourself in a dead-end street, which the Turks refer to as “cikmaz sokak” — a blind street. If you enter such a street, you will have to retrace your steps. You must lay firm foundations in your life upon which the knowledge you are now acquiring can be developed. What knowledge? Knowledge that will be of use to you not only in this life but also during the centuries of your existence to come. If you acquire knowledge that will only be of use to you during this life, you will be a mediocre person in your life. Such transient knowledge is necessary only for entertainment, but each one of you must have in your lives one positive idea at which to aim constantly. You may come across another handicap in life — fear. Most of us are afraid of anger. Inasmuch as anger is dangerous in a positive sense, fear is also dangerous in a negative sense. Anger can cause one to commit many crimes, to strangle somebody, to commit murder or arson. Under the influence of fear the reverse takes place. You will not commit such crimes, you will be very careful, but lies, deceit, toadying, meanness and other similar features will develop in one’s character. Anger is psychological intoxication, it increases one’s courage, and we think we can do everything; but when we become sober, we will say to ourselves: why did I have to get angry? Why do I have to get worked up about these things? This means that anger is not man’s natural condition. So, you have these two handicaps in yourself, and you must protect yourself from them. These handicaps are not a recent thing: they have accompanied you throughout all of your existences. They are a useful thread running through the latter, but you must understand them. If you know how to make use of fear correctly, it will turn into an element of prudence. If you know how to make use of anger correctly, it will become an element of will-power and courage. This means that anger can be transformed into courage and fear into prudence. Where fear exists, a small “plus” is needed. Translated into the language of chemistry, fear is the alkali which needs a little more acid to be neutralised. An irascible person must be sensible, so must a timid person. An irascible person, when he starts to use his mind, becomes brave, and a timid person prudent. The former will take out his knife and solve his problems that way, and the second will take out his pen and write articles in the newspaper, solving problems by becoming a writer. All writers who write are not brave people. They are only brave sitting in their studies, pen in hand. But outside they are not brave. They are brave when they are writing because they do not know what the consequences will be. What is the colour of fear? What is a man like when he is frightened? He becomes pale, his face turns yellow. In other words, fear makes one think. If a person makes a mistake, his outer self becomes yellow. Consequently, fear is cured only by means of yellow, and what colour is used to cure anger? Pink. This demonstrates that dark red must be turned into pink or blue. Think about these colours. These vibrations will bring about a calming effect, and you will begin to think, to consider. Which colour comes to the fore after pink? With whom does the rose fall in love? When a person falls in love, he begins to think. Thus, after pink comes yellow. Pink and yellow are in harmony. When you wish to cure a certain ailment concentrate on these two colours, and they will produce a small, but favourable result. What do you consider the correlation between yellow and blue to be? Which is the predominant colour on earth now? Green. We are surrounded by green, we pass through it. Green is the colour of human individuality, it makes man independent. As you see, you can cure yourselves with colours. When your nervous system, your mind or your heart starts to become impoverished, doubt arises within you. If you have become impoverished, imagine the following colours — pink, yellow and green. When these three colours are brought together, they form a combination that encourages one to feel like an independent individual. It is then that a man says: “Now I can do everything.” Which word corresponds to pink? Which word causes pink to manifest itself externally. The answer is joy. A person who falls in love first of all rejoices, does he not? Each person or thing that you love arouses in you a feeling of joy. Which word corresponds externally to yellow, or to wisdom? You already know about a person who is in love: he or she rejoices. When a child receives a present from his father, he jumps up and down and is happy. But what quality will a wise person manifest? Seriousness, being deep in thought, satisfaction? No, the external face of a wise person is work. Only a wise person works. If he is a painter, he takes up his brush and paints. If he is a poet, he takes up his pen and writes. In whatever are in harmony, he will comprehend your mood and your equilibrium will be restored. If, however, you are not in harmony, your bad mood or anger will increase. I have noticed that people from political circles are extremely ambitious, and if one of them happens to say anything at all to one of those leading politicians, whoever he may be, even in a gentle way, he can offend him to such an extent that he will provoke a strong reaction in the former. It frequently happens that personal feelings are so strongly developed in statesmen and politicians who are in power that they are capable of declaring war for the sake of one word, even if it is said tactfully. All of you must have a definite ideal in life; you must know where the essence of life lies. When is a person’s prestige undermined? A person’s prestige is undermined when somebody tells him a lie. When, however, somebody speaks the truth, whatever language he uses, that person enhances your prestige. Most of you are afraid to tell the truth. Now, when you are speaking the truth you must be brave. When you are speaking the truth you do not need much philosophy; do not think of what the consequences will be! Be brave! But when you are going to express your personal opinions, be extremely cautious. If you are speaking the truth, do not be afraid at all. Speak the truth and it will take care of itself. You will learn to distinguish between the truth and your own convictions. This discrimination is necessary at your present stage of development. If you do not take it into consideration, it will not be long before you find yourself in a dead-end street, which the Turks refer to as “cikmaz sokak” — a blind street. If you enter such a street, you will have to retrace your steps. You must lay firm foundations in your life upon which the knowledge you are now acquiring can be developed. What knowledge? Knowledge that will be of use to you not only in this life but also during the centuries of your existence to come. If you acquire knowledge that will only be of use to you during this life, you will be a mediocre person in your life. Such transient knowledge is necessary only for entertainment, but each one of you must have in your lives one positive idea at which to aim constantly. You may come across another handicap in life — fear. Most of us are afraid of anger. Inasmuch as anger is dangerous in a positive sense, fear is also dangerous in a negative sense. Anger can cause one to commit many crimes, to strangle somebody, to commit murder or arson. Under the influence of fear the reverse takes place. You will not commit such crimes, you will be very careful, but lies, deceit, toadying, meanness and other similar features will develop in one’s character. An^er is psychological intoxication, it increases one’s courage, and we think we can do everything; but when we become sober, we will say to ourselves: why did I have to get angry? Why do I have to get worked up about these things? This means that anger is not man’s natural condition. So, you have these two handicaps in yourself, and you must protect yourself from them. These handicaps are not a recent thing: they have accompanied you throughout all of your existences. They are a useful thread running through the latter, but you must understand them. If you know how to make use of fear correctly, it will turn into an element of prudence. If you know how to make use of anger correctly, it will become an element of will-power and courage. This means that anger can be transformed into courage and fear into prudence. Where fear exists, a small “plus” is needed. Translated into the language of chemistry, fear is the alkali which needs a little more acid to be neutralised. An irascible person must be sensible, so must a timid person. An irascible person, when he starts to use his mind, becomes brave, and a timid person prudent. The former will take out his knife and solve his problems that way, and the second will take out his pen and write articles in the newspaper, solving problems by becoming a writer. All writers who write are not brave people. They are only brave sitting in their studies, pen in hand. But outside they are not brave. They are brave when they are writing because they do not know what the consequences will be. What is the colour of fear? What is a man like when he is frightened? He becomes pale, his face turns yellow. In other words, fear makes one think. If a person makes a mistake, his outer self becomes yellow. Consequently, fear is cured only by means of yellow, and what colour is used to cure anger? Pink. This demonstrates that dark red must be turned into pink or blue. Think about these colours. These vibrations will bring about a calming effect, and you will begin to think, to consider. Which colour comes to the fore after pink? With whom does the rose fall in love? When a person falls in love, he begins to think. Thus, after pink comes yellow. Pink and yellow are in harmony. When you wish to cure a certain ailment concentrate on these two colours, and they will produce a small, but favourable result. What do you consider the correlation between yellow and blue to be? Which is the predominant colour on earth now? Green. We are surrounded by green, we pass through it. Green is the colour of human individuality, it makes man independent. As you see, you can cure yourselves with colours. When your nervous system, your mind or your heart starts to become impoverished, doubt arises within you. If you have become impoverished, imagine the following colours — pink, yellow and green. When these three colours are brought together, they form a combination that encourages one to feel like an independent individual. It is then that a man says: “Now I can do everything.” Which word corresponds to pink? Which word causes pink to manifest itself externally. The answer is joy. A person who falls in love first of all rejoices, does he not? Each person or thing that you love arouses in you a feeling of joy. Which word corresponds externally to yellow, or to wisdom? You already know about a person who is in love: he or she rejoices. When a child receives a present from his father, he jumps up and down and is happy. But what quality will a wise person manifest? Seriousness, being deep in thought, satisfaction? No, the external face of a wise person is work. Only a wise person works. If he is a painter, he takes up his brush and paints. If he is a poet, he takes up his pen and writes. In whatever direction it may be, he is active, he works. He works, but he does not labour. Labour is not a quality of wise people, but of ordinary ones. Some people ask: “What should I do to become wise? “ Do not labour, but work. Everyone has work to do: to refine his character, to cleanse his mind of bad things. Removing one’s known faults and attaining good qualities is work! You want to become wise, brave, of good judgement — that is a noble task, and you will work on it. The thing which binders modern science from finding the Truth, to point to real methods of education, is the fact that its ideas are scattered. In modern science there are no ideas that are intertwined, as it were. On the contrary, all its ideas are scattered and confused. For example, the idea of “being good” is considered to be a proposition, something like a walnut that can be consumed. No, in order to be good you must mull over your opposing idea two or three times, plant the walnut in it and await the fruit. Goodness is a fruit. The most difficult of all arts is that of being good. One cannot suddenly become good. First of all begin with joy, after that will come virtue. The latter will come about as a result of joy and work. Nature does not like scattered ideas. We are very logical, but the Truth is lacking in this logicality of ours. Nature, on the other hand, is so precise that she will tolerate no lie, no deceit. Do not think that just because she tolerates us we can get away with it like that. One day she will take everything we possess, will scatter it and will leave us nothing. Do not delude yourselves that she will accept lies. The Scriptures say: “Blessed is he who is punished by God.” This means “Blessed is he whose sins are pointed out by God at the very beginning.” If a friend comes to you and points out some mistake of yours, thank him. Nature has sent him to you, he is her emissary. If you refuse to receive him one day, she herself will come and take you away without any ceremony at all and throw you into her retort. All that will remain of you is vapour. The first thing for all of us is that we should learn to love the Truth. I am not talking about absolute truth but about the one that is inherant in life, which is necessary for the creation of your character, for the stability of your science. Your science must be firmly cemented, must become a solid element in life in order to be an incentive to work. My aim now is certainly not to give you any moral precepts. I am merely explaining how a certain law works in nature. And without it being said people will gradually arrive at the same results by way of suffering. However, a sensible person can take advantage of other people’s experiences. A person who has suffered for a long time arrives at the Truth. Then he understands the words of the Apostle Paul, who said: “Be eternally joyful and pray unceasingly.” Now, how are we to interpret the word “joy”? Imagine that joy is a monad. What does the first letter of the word “joy” signify? You are aware that there are no coincidences in nature. Consequently the sign was not chosen at random. It may have been taken from the Roman alphabet, but it also exists in Egyptian hieroglyphs. These signs also exist in nature. The letter “p” in the Cyrillic alphabet is a monad and the letter “a”, the root of that monad, descending. Consequently, as it is a root, it is in itself equivocal, at the same time bitter and sweet. As a root it expresses all those things that appear in matter. Bitterness and sweetness correspond to the two conditions of sorrow and joy. These two opposites are encountered in the present conditions of life. After a great joy comes a great sorrow A friend lets you have 10,000 levs and you are glad. But before much time has passed he is asking for his money back. I ask: what are his reasons for letting you have the money and then to ask for its return? If you do not repay the money, he says: “I used to think you were my friend, but now I am disillusioned. Give me my money back!” He sues you, you are sentenced and put in prison. You ask yourself why on earth you agreed to take the money. The reason for all this can be explained psychologically, but I have come to the following conclusion: a person who acts according to the laws of Love and Wisdom will never go to prison for 10,000 levs. An intelligent person is only put in prison for the Truth. He says: “I can only be in prison for the Truth, but not for anything else.” It is a disgrace to be in prison for 10,000 levs! To stay in prison for the Truth, to be beaten for the Truth is understandable, but to be beaten for some trivial thing is shameful! I could only bare my back for the Truth — let them beat me. You will remain silent. If you betray this law, the Truth itself will punish you. That is why it says: “Stop, do not defend yourself.” Some will say: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” No, that is the teaching of Moses, and it has nothing in common with the Truth. We can apply the rule “an eye for an eye” in other places, but when it comes to the Truth, you will turn your back on it, for the Truth says “Do not defend yourself, I will defend you. When you decide to defend yourself, you have failed, you are already defeated. Leave it to the Truth to defend you. The person who has struck you three times to-day will be your friend in a year’s time. But when? If you are silent for the sake of the Truth, he will come to you and say: ‘Forgive me, I made a big mistake as far as you were concerned, but because of that I am from this moment your friend.’ “ I do not want to take up all your time for the study of what we are talking about now. Use only the time that you do not know how to use, only your spare time. According to me, spare time is as follows: sometimes you are unwell, and that is spare time. It is then that you should apply the doctrine of Living Nature, devote time to it. If your mind is occupied, put it aside. When you life seems to have no point, when you are afraid of something, when you are upset, again turn to the doctrine of living nature. This is the only way to restore your equilibrium and the forces in your body. When you are discouraged with life and you think you will not achieve anything, take up the doctrine of living nature. Work on colours, love, wisdom and if you find something which is important for you, hold on to it. I am sure you will be able to find three to four hours’ free time every day to devote to the new Teaching. Sometimes one sees a poet with dishevelled hair. There is nothing worse than that. Try to keep your hair as tidy as possible. Sometimes, though, hair seems to have a will of its own. The way in which each hair falls on your head forms a certain angle. These angles play a very important role in the refraction of light. You may consider these things unimportant, but you know that life is bound together by little things. If you want to build character, you should know that it is created by these little details in your hair. If your hair does not bend to your will, if your thumb does not bend to your will, you must take care. Your every movement must be under the control of your will. You say, for example: “I do not know what is the matter, but I cannot bend my thumb! “ You must bend it, you must not leave it at that. Then you say: “I do not know what is the matter with my hair, it is terribly dishevelled, I cannot keep it tidy.” You will order your hair to stay tidy. If you cannot give orders to your hair, to whom can you give orders? Do you know when a person’s hair stands on end or is dishevelled? When he cannot control himself. Then anger takes over, he becomes impatient and his hair becomes dishevelled and cannot be brought under control. When he becomes calm, composed and patient, his hair lies as it should. Have you noticed how great people are depicted? With smoothly combed hair and a straight parting. Some women wear their hair smooth with a straight parting. This is a good sign. The hair should fall equally from both sides of the parting. Each hair falls according to a certain angle, and it also exerts a corresponding influence on human character. The hairs have their own origin. One day I shall set the following subject for you: “When did hairs first appear in the world?” This is an interesting study but quite difficult. Fish have no hairs, and only a few of them have whiskers. 16 XII 1923 Sofia “All the things I am saying to you are necessary for you because you are still young. Do you realise why I am explaining all these precautionary measures to you? It is because the sea you are crossing now is a stormy one, and some of you will experience crises. The ship will roll and pitch — it will not sink but the passenger might turn a somersault all the same! So, keep in touch with God! Make sure that your eyes are in a normal state, that you do not make unconscious gestures with your hands, for example. What should your movements be like? You will make gestures, of course, ones you find pleasant, which please you. When you make a natural gesture in accordance with the laws of nature, you will experience a very pleasant feeling. When you make an unnatural gesture, you will feel as if something is cutting you with a knife. You must take great care over the expression in your eyes and the way in which you address people. This is not for the sake of other people but for the sake of your own inner development. As students of the occult you must be different from others, you must distinguish yourselves. Sometimes, when a person is frightened, he opens his eyes wide and when he wishes to receive fewer impressions from outside he closes them. Sometimes one inclines one’s head forward, backward, to the left or right. This is not a matter of coincidence: it is the result of something. These are all angles which point to a certain lack of harmony in a person. A disciple of the occult must not be “conte”, as the French say. What does “conte” mean? This is when a person is “dressed up to the nines” and minces along, glancing from side to side. This, though, is a distortion of character. When you walk, your movements should be in harmony with your general thoughts and feelings. When I say “general” I mean the human in you. Your will must also be in harmony with your feelings. That is the language of nature. Now, you will keep your awareness awake and maintain your contact with God. That will be your task for one month. You will think about it for Fifteen minutes every day, when you are walking along the road. If you see one of your sisters, look at her as you raise your eyes towards God, smile at here inwardly, very slightly, unnoticeably, and see how she will feel. When you look at her like that, she will see in your gaze a gentle, tender smile and she will be glad. When you meet a young brother, look at him as if you know him. These glances will have an excellent effect both on yourself and upon those around you. Some day you may make an unsuccessful attempt; instead of sending your ray upwards you send it downwards. Then you will be fined. When one is experimenting one may make some mistakes, but do not let that worry you.”

VIII YES, HE COULD HALT A STORM! Yes, he could hall a storm, drive away hail and “read” the clouds. The most important thing for him, however, was to change, to utterly transform the human condition; to drive away the storms of anger, to transform fear into prudence, pride into self-respect. Is that not a wonder? He attached greater importance to awakening the core of corn passion in people than to raising the dead. How could this be achieved? Where does compassion lie? In one of his lectures the Master had the following to say: “The feeling of compassion lies in the same place as man’s religious feeling, that is, in the crown of the head.” When you want to establish the location of this feeling in a person’s head, do the following experiment. Summon two persons in whom this feeling is well-developed. One of them should place three fingers on the crown of the other person’s head, where his religious feeling is centred, and he or she will at once experience a feeling of light. Let us assume that the feeling of compassion is lacking in somebody. How can he acquire it? Such a person should associate more with philanthropic persons who are ready to make sacrifices for the good of other people, or he should read books about or containing examples of persons in whom this feeling is strongly developed. It is beneficial for him to place his hand on the “centre of compassion” for ten to twenty minutes every day so that a certain amount of energy will come to him. It takes between one and two years to develop this feeling within yourself. These feelings are nourished with energy. As you can see, it is a matter of application. The forms of these things come to life in us. When it comes to bringing up children one must bear in mind the means by which the forces of living nature are centralised, because the forces in the human brain are centralised in the same way. I say: work consciously on the development of your intuition. If a person leaves himself free, relying completely on his intuition, he will obtain better results than if he acts exclusively according to his reason. Leave yourself free, do not fear your intuition, that is, the divine in you, and you will see what sort of results you obtain. If you are sick and you place yourself in the hands of your intuition, that is, the laws of reason which govern the whole body, you will be healed in a very short space of time. Express your thoughts, feelings and actions in the conditions of the greatest harmony Let this be an ideal to aim at. HE WAS ADDRESSING EVERYBODY when he said: “The people of to-day must perform a great task. Your task cannot be left to the next generation, for which another task has been set.” “Every nation considers that it has been given the task of setting the world to rights. Nations are right in thinking that they have been chosen by God, but it is not only one nation that is concerned, but all of them together. “All nations should unite as one body, and they should fulfil God’s task. Blessed is the day when all nations are chosen by God. “If the people of to-day do not submit and do not hold out their hands to one another, afate which is unimaginable will befall them.” “Remember, over the next forth-five years the present world order will change and not a memory of it will remain.” (This was said in 1941.) “Who will win? Those who are bearers of love. Love is the powerful locomotive force of the whole of life. All contradictions disappear in the fire of love. Love will come to the world, the day of conciliation will come.” That was how he spoke and everybody lived around him in that daylight, which remained on earth. All we have to do is to seek it in his word. He diminished himself and came down to us so that we too should drink water from that spring.

“CORRECT BREATHING DEPENDS ON LOVE” THE MASTER ON BREATHING “Breathing is praise to God” In his Talks, especially those conducted in the mountains, the Master often dwelt on deep breathing. One could say a lot about the breathing method imparted by the Master through exercises and singing, and likewise about his mystical definitions of our connection with the air through which the Holy Spirit works. The following is a brief listing of the Master’s thoughts on breathing, taken from his Talks. 1. DEEP BREATHING IS FULL BREATHING. During such breathing both the upper and lower portions of the lungs take part. When we take in more air the capillaries are filled, as a result a person maintains the air in his lungs for a longer period of time. 2. The more air a person takes in the more prana enters his lungs. From the lungs the prana penetrates the whole organism. Along with the prana a person receives more ideas, which are accomplished over time. 3. This means that part of our ideas are received from the air, and they are fertilised in our lungs. 4. Fast breathing is unhealthy. Whoever breathes quickly becomes exhausted quickly and cannot finish the work he has undertaken. Today people inhale and exhale twenty times a minute. That is fast breathing. During quick oxygenation of the blood the combustion in the organism is incorrect, as a consequence of which a portion of the combustible materials cannot be burnt up and are deposited in the form of deposits in the arteries and veins. 5. He who breathes quickly has a weak will. Concentrate on your breathing and gradually lower your inhalings per minute from 20 breaths to 19,18,17,16,15 ... If you can reach ten per minute, that will have a healthy effect on the organism. He who wishes to strengthen his will should breathe slowly. A strong will can regulate the breathing, can make it normal. 6. Man’s strength does not come solely from his physical nourishment. In order to be strong he must know how to make use of the air, which he breathes, to send it to all the pulmonary cells, so that the breathing can become correct. Note: A breath means inhaling, holding and exhaling through the nose. 7. If you see a person who is breathing quickly, this means that only the upper portion of the his lungs is engaged in breathing. Such a person is unable to be patient. Whoever wishes to become patient must learn to breathe deeply! If he does not breathe deeply, he becomes nervous, quick-tempered and impatient. If you order two people, one of them patient and the other impatient, to write on the same subject, you will find a great difference between their work. In the paper by the patient person there will be greater depth and thought than in that of the impatient one. They both think, but their thinking is radically different. 8. If you find yourself free for a half hour or an hour, breathe deeply! Send your thoughts on high, toward God, join yourself to Him and begin to breathe rhythmically. 9. The diaphragm plays an important role in breathing. Whoever studies the science of breathing pays great attention to the diaphragm. As soon as the diaphragm is functioning correctly you will be healthy. When it moves upward, a person’s heart begins to pound; he will have a cough, colds, and many other problems. In order to stop coughing fill your lungs with air. When you become tense, your diaphragm does not release air, and as the air puts pressure on it, it moves it. When you leave the lungs full of air, the diaphragm moves upward. I say: take in air. It is a natural medicine. 10. Incorrect breathing creates deposits, sediment in the human organism. When does a person breathe incorrectly? When he thinks and feels incorrectly. 11. You must learn to breathe smoothly! There must be harmony between the thoughts and feelings of a person. When there is not harmony between the feelings and thoughts of a person, his breathing becomes incorrect. 12. Breathing must proceed musically. Fast breathing is a weakness. You must breathe slowly. Each breath should be measured. 13. If you do not breathe correctly, your digestion is incorrect. And your thinking will not be correct. And your feelings will not be correct. 14. Practise breathing deeply, keeping the air within your lungs for a certain period of time. The longer you keep it in, the better you will feel. 15. Through deep breathing you can regulate your nervous system. When your nervous system is in good working order, your organism is healthy. 16. Breathing, as a process of taking and giving, forms the foundation of life. That process lies in one’s thoughts and feeling. When a good person exhales something, good goes out into the world. A healthy, good, sensible person cannot be poor. He has been richly endowed by nature. 17. Negative things interfere with correct breathing, and positive things improve it. Correct breathing requires beautiful and peaceful thoughts. Consequently, think about flowers in bloom, about swift mountain streams which flow and water the valleys. 18. Correct breathing depends on love. You will breathe deeply, you will hold the air in your lungs for a long time, with love. You will do this three times a day, for ten or fifteen minutes, each time. 19. Breathe with joy and love, with a smiling face, standing straight. Your back should form a parallel line with the straight line that joins the centre of the sun with the centre of the earth. Your chest should be thrust out, not slumped inward. Those are elementary rules for breathing, which should be maintained in order for you to be healthy and good-humoured. When you breathe correctly you link yourself with the rhythm of nature and you become stronger in spirit and body. 20. BREATHING EXERCISES: The arms are brought to the side slowly, as one breathes in deeply; afterwards they are raised upward, and the air is held in. The arms are raised above the head, then slowly lowered, as one breathes out slowly, 21. One of the ways to strengthen one’s respiratory system is hiking. If a person does not give rich nourishment to his lungs as a result of such a hike, the hiking has not accomplished its purpose. When one’s lungs are filled with pure air, one’s stomach works well. 22. The new education for mankind strives for the regulation of the digestive, respiratory and nervous system of man, so that there will be a correct interchange among his energies. That is why I recommend complete calm to everyone, 23. The air is the storehouse of the divine energy. If you do not breathe correctly and your digestion is incorrect, your blood circulation will be incorrect. If your blood circulation is incorrect, your thinking will not be correct. If your thinking is incorrect your feelings will not be correct. 24. Your mind cannot be radiant and capable of judgment, if it does not have pure blood! Your blood must have a bright red colour. This colour depends on deep breathing. If while you are breathing you are anxious and aware of the fact, your blood cannot take on that colour. That is, it cannot take on the life energy called prana. 25. Breathing is a measure for defining a man’s development. 26. Remember three words: goodness, song and poetry. Think about them.

HERE THERE SHOULD NOT BE HUNGRY PEOPLE! “NOURISHMENT” This word ‘nourishment’ brings us back to those unforgettable moments when, at The Sunrise (lzgrev), there was a salon, and when before a wall of hazel trees there extended white tables and benches beneath the soft and light shade. From the small salon, which was the dining hall, the sisters carried forth tasty, simple dishes prepared with Love, prepared simply and with cleanliness, and voluntarily. In the kitchen two enormous kettles of honey, their silver plating shining, were giving off a light sweet steam. On Fridays they were full of angel soup, the very light and beautiful food after the Friday fast. The Master sat at the table, having lightly come down from his Upper Chamber, his room with a balcony. Over this table made by brotherly hands, there shone a heart filled with the tender rosy flame of love. Here, opposite the Large Salon, in the midst of small rose gardens, the brothers and sisters sat at dinner. Anyone could come to those dinners, the hungry, the persecuted, whether he was a member of the Brotherhood or not. How many poor students remember the warm, pure food prepared with Love! A bowl made its way around the table. Whoever had five pennies to drop in could do so; whoever didn’t did not have to worry. And those who had a little more dropped it in for the others. This table for the brotherly dinners was created during the time when Sunrise was being built, the little settlement in which the Master lived during the last twenty odd years of his life. It was not an ashram, but a settlement of brothers and sisters, the disciples of the Master. The gardens and yards with the fruit trees, meadows, small wooden houses or simple barracks, in the midst of grass, without any fences or other division of the land. When the Master spent the first night in the tent raised for him in that place, near the young pine forest, on a hill near the capital of Bulgaria, he spoke these words: “Here there should not be hungry people!” The brothers understood. The brothers rose to their feet. It was necessary to build a common dining hall. And they built it! A long spacious structure with enormous windows and white tables with benches and chairs. Next to it the kitchen with places for huge kettles. Who brought them, how did they get there, where did the sisters come from who prepared the food voluntarily? Everything was accomplished. And so there were no hungry people at Sunrise! When a hungry person came here he went away satisfied. And when Spring arrived the outdoor tables became the dining hall, a place for rest and song, a place for conversation with the Master. A place for song and sweet bread. “Here there should not be hungry people.” There will be no hungry people in the world. This is what the Master’s words mean. No one should die of hunger. Bread should be free. The dining hall under the hazel trees will never be forgotten. Under the overhanging branches he sits, while the brothers and sisters as well as occasional guests eat slowly and with concentration. The Master eats very simply and gracefully. Each gesture of his conveys music. His eyes sparkle like diamonds. He eats every day at the common table. HERE THERE SHOULD NOT BE HUNGRY PEOPLE! there WILL BE NO HUNGRY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD! I hat dining hall is imprinted in space ... That model must go throughout the world with his words: “Here there should not be hungry people!” Who will be the first to accomplish this most simple and beautiful deed in their own country, for their own nation? The following are some thoughts extracted from his Talks. They are insufficient to give a general idea of his conception of nourishment. They will be added to from time to time, as his word is made ready by those who have come with a thirst to know the truth. Beinsa Duno pays special attention to nourishment. In his special lectures on the occult he spoke on nourishment. He spoke about laws which were so simple and great. Because they concern pure, natural and simple food, which in turn connects with deep principles of existence. What kind of food did the Master talk about? He talked about natural food, which grows and bears fruit. Of course, it was vegetarian. But there was a deep mystical idea behind that vegetarianism. The Master explained it in this way in one of his pamphlets: “Now you must become vegetarians, but in a spiritual sense, ceasing to be involved with evil. That is just as possible as it is for a man to cease eating meat. In my opinion meat-eating is an evil which came into the world from outside, and it has encroached upon the good in man. Vegetarianism is a good in the world. It is a basis for life on which one should build. In this sense good, pure, healthy food is that which continues life. In nature there are two processes which are accomplished by two types of cells: one group of cells is of divine origin and serves for the creation of life, for the creation of organisms from the tiniest up to man. The second group of cells does not have divine origin, consequently they cannot create, rather they destroy, they create contradictions, provoke illness. Consequently, whoever uses food containing the first type of cells, those inducing life, will gain immortality, will pass from life to life, from the word to glory. Man has four friends: light, air, water and food. Nourish yourself with ihe superior qualities of air, water and bread. Remember to keep contact with spirits of the Light, which have contact with the world of the intellect. Keep contact with the good spirits of the air, which is the breath of God. Keep contact with the good spirits of water and bread, from which come the blessings of life. If you sin, it is your fault. Light, air, water and food never sin. Contemporary people should nourish themselves with light. There is no better food than light. In plants and fruit everything is condensed light. The sun sends light to the earth, the plants collect that light, using it to maintain their life. They transform the rest (the excess) into fruit for man. They are factories which prepare products for human existence. Contemporary man has a very obscure understanding of plants. He studies only the mechanical aspect of plants. But plants are the purest beings which are on earth today. They are so selfless that they give away the most beautiful fruits. What is the cause for this? The cause is the all-encompassing love of the One who sent us to earth. Because He is thinking about us, they feel this love and are ready always to serve us. Plants love very intensively, they become very attached. They have a very enduring love. Some plants become so attached to a person that if he dies they dry up. In order to manifest higher spiritual qualities a person has to have finer matter. This comes about through his food; but a person should know how to extract what is important from it. When he is not upset, he can easily receive a food’s energy, its prana. When a person is eating, he should be in touch with living nature and give thanks to God. The best food is that which leaves a person satisfied. It is good for a man to eat three times a day, but the most important thing is for a person to eat with satisfaction. Every living being which eats incorrectly perpetrates evil. One of the universal processes to which everyone is subject is eating. In spite of that fact no living being knows how to nourish itself. Take man, the most. perfect being on earth; even he does not know how to eat. He eats quickly, without keeping the food in his mouth, and consequently his digestion does not take place in the correct manner, Above all, the food should be kept for a longer time in the mouth, so that a portion of its energy can be ingested by the tongue. Through the tongue that energy is directed to the brain, and from there to the heart. Christ knew the law: the bread was multiplied. You say: Christ could do it. That’s because He believed, He loved. He lives according to the law of Love, Wisdom and Truth. Every person who lives according to the same law can do it. It has been said: “You are what you eat.” The manifestations of a person depend to a certain extent on what he eats. If physical food exercises an influence on the character of a person, how much greater will be the influence of psychic food on his organism! A person should follow the rules which nature provides while eating. And just as he follows her rules while eating, so too should he follow her rules concerning breathing and working. Nature has defined for every man just how much food he needs daily. And not only that: he must also use such food intelligently. Just what food people should eat has already been defined. What a person needs in today’s life is wheat. Today wheat is abundant, and no person should complain that he will die hungry. When life becomes difficult for me, I eat 90 grammes of wheat a day: 30 grammes in the morning, 30 at dinner, and 30 in the evening. How much does ninety grammes of wheat cost? Contemporary people expect to achieve great things without even knowing the basic laws of digestion, breathing, and thinking. If a person (jogs not understand the concept of nourishment, breathing, and thinking, life will remain incomprehensible. Life demands that man’s thought should participate in all kens. A person should pay attention to his spiritual food, which expresses itself in his thoughts, feelings and desires, and beliefs. If he continues to nourish himself with the old beliefs of his grandfathers and great-grandfathers, a person cannot progress. Nature has provided all possible forms of nourishment, and a person should nourish himself with food that is specially for his organism. Every person, every nation, every society should select the food that is appropriate for it. The genius should eat the food for geniuses, the holy man has his appropriate food, and the king as well. A pregnant woman should eat specific food, and her husband, before he becomes a father, should use specific food. That is science. Pure food is that on which not a single drop of blood has been spilled. Many civilisations and cultures have perished because of the poisons contained in meat. The people of Atlantis, for example, disappeared because of the poisons contained in animals. Contemporary culture is destined to perish for the same reason. Animal or human blood spilled in a violent way cannot help but bring evil consequences to man. That is an inescapable law of nature. The solution of all social and economic problems depends on correct nourishment. Man’s welfare comes from his food. God will never help people who do not know how to eat, to breathe and think. Man’s nourishment is linked to the process of Love. Whoever cannot eat properly cannot love also. Eating is connected to the sympathetic nervous system, with man’s feelings. All people who do not eat correctly destroy their nervous system. As a consequence they are nervous, easily upst and given to anger. Whoever want to be cured of his nervousness must eat properly When he first sits down to eat, he should look at his food and decide whether he should eat it or not. Every human being has an internal feeling which eat whatever he finds, you will know that he has opened the doors of his organism to all kinds of illness. A person should not eat what he finds before him, but rather he should know what food is appropriate for his organism. While he is eating, his heart, mind and will should take part in the process. Every cell in his organism should play a role. Only under such conditions can a person be healthy and preserve his youth. Every stomach has a specific time during which it should receive food. Every person should know the time when he should eat, as well as the amount. The general rule is that he should remain a little hungry, that he should feel as though he could eat more. In that way he will not expend all his mental energy. Every person’s brain should have a certain amount of reserve energy. Man is not allowed to overeat. On the one hand, he destroys the forces of his organism, and on the other, he takes a portion of the food that is meant for others. Overeating and hunger are two extremes. The art is to eat in such a way as to transform the energy acquired from the food, to change it from a lower to a higher state. This means that you understand the divine life and make use of it in an intelligent manner. The stomach is tied in with the sympathetic nervous system. It should not be overloaded with excess substances. If such a thing happens one should fast, in order to restore normalcy. A fast should be moderate, sensible, and last until you have rid yourself of the excess fats and deposits. A fast produces certain reactions in the organism. Do not let them frighten you. But also do not think that you will immediately rid yourself of the excess. It makes sense for you to fast, just as long as you introduce the idea of fasting into your mind, heart and will. To fast in such a manner means to avoid evil thoughts, feelings and actions. Such a fast conceals within itself magic powers. While fasting it is good to be among harmonious people and not near excitable, nervous, or evil people. People who work at concentrated intellectual labor, and who strive spiritually, never become fat. If digested food penetrates the three worlds, the physical, spiritual, tells him whether he should eat or not. The most beautiful gift that nature wishes to give man it has placed in his food. Food belongs to a higher culture. In order to know how to eat a person has to be of a higher culture. If he does not know how to eat, his thought will not be clear or fresh. If he does not eat correctly, then the breathing process, which is very important, will not take place correctly. If his breathing process is incorrect, then his thinking will not develop properly. People who nourish themselves with the everyday word will have a certain character, and those who nourish themselves with the divine word will have another. When a person comes down to the Earth, the invisible world predetermines exactly the size of his limbs and the food which he needs. A person receives the prana through the nerves of his tongue, palate and gums. This is why one’s food should ke kept in the mouth for a certain amount of time. The food taken by the tongue is spiritual, that received by the stomach and intestines is material food. When you are chewing your food, you should think. When you think, you intensify the process of ingestion of the prana. When you eat you come into contact with reality, with those beautiful things which God has created. If a person knows how to eat, he will live longer years than if he eats too much and lives in luxury. Nature has a defined time for all beings. Nature also has a time for work. A person should eat moderately and at the proper time. He should neither starve nor overeat. He also should not mix his foods. While eating one should be conscious that food is a conductor. If you want to nourish your heart you should have the nicest feelings. They too are food. If you wish to nourish your mind, you should have the most beautiful food. You should not overload your heart and mind. We should not be seduced by the food of others. We must be satisfied with what we have. We have fresh bread and apples. We must be satisfied with what nature has given us. If you hear someone say that he can Christ showed mankind what the true food is. Some day the soul will be nourished only with the divine word. Whoever nourishes himself with this word will always be healthy. If he does not nourish himself with the divine word, he will become ill. Consequently, if you are sick, you know you are not nourishing yourself with God’s word. The majority of diseases come from an abnormal diet. Water conceals a magic power. No culture can exist without water. Contemporary people drink water in the same manner as their ancestors. Few know the significance of water to the organism. Water contains a magical power. The typical person knows that he is thirsty and that he should drink water in order to quench his thirst, and that is all. But that water cleanses the organism, that it dissolves deposits which have accumulated, that it is a good conductor of magnetism, he does not know at all. Contemporary man does not know how to drink water and in what quantity. Every organism needs a certain amount of water, which is maintained in the cells to keep them moist. If they lose their moistness, the organism dries up. Such people are usually nervous, dry, irritable. In order for a person to be healthy he must keep that dampness within his organism. Without internal moistness and water, a person cannot purify his organism of external and internal sediment. Nourishment educates the will. It is the fundamental key of education. The most powerful foods are sweet, but you need to know how to transform this sweetness. It has been said that “a sweet word opens even iron gates”’. Consequently say a sweet word to a person so that you can elevate his spirits and calm him. A sharp and coarse word incites and irritates a person. The kind word is the natural food of man. Give him sweet food, if you want him to thank you. A person should eat food which gives him the spiritual strength necessary for his development. and divine, we say that a person is eating correctly. Eat as slowly as possible. If you chew your bread well, you will assimilate it in one way, and if you do not chew it well, you will assimilate it in another way. Food should be hot. If raw food is cold you can put it in hot water until it gets hot. A person should take warm water, not cold. The stomach is injured by cold water or by cold ice cream. Many illnesses come from a person’s eating cold things, cold melons or cold dishes. One should make the correct combination of foods. For example, one should not mix milk and dairy products with fruit. One should not give a child other food after he has eaten fruit. For people who are recovering from illness it is good to eat raw food. You should try to eat raw foods. Some of you suffer from certain illnesses. You should try raw food. For example: pears, wheat. Always, while eating, your mind should be engaged. When you warm bread over the fire, give thanks to God and then begin to eat. When a person is heating bread, he acquires patience. If you have problems with your nerves, try eating heated bread. In the future people will eat only fruit, like angels. We distinguish three types of food: sweet, sour and hot. Sweet foods relate to Venus, sour to Mercury and hot to Mars. Because the Bulgarians are a Saturnal type, they like spicy foods. The Englishman, who is Mercurial, prefers sour foods, but he will also eat sweets. Generally speaking, every age has its own special food. This is a question which will be researched in the future. Eating makes sense when a person is good. If he is not good, no matter what food he takes he will not enjoy it. In my opinion it is enough for a person to change his way of eating to get well. Once he has healthy food, pure air and light, the problem is solved. What is responsible for the impure blood in the human organism? Impure, unhealthy food. By pure, healthy food we mean not only physical food, but also pure thoughts and feelings. They create within a person an impulse toward what is new and elevated. If you want to remain an average person, you should eat roast duck and chicken; but if you want to become a scholar, saint or philosopher, you are forbidden to eat such things or to live in willfulness. Christ tells us that the good life is not to be found in abundance and wilfulness, but in the correct understanding of the laws of nature and their correct application. Vegetarianism is nothing more than a method of healing. Until nations have been healed, we must eat leaves, i.e. growing plants. After that we shall come to true nourishment, fruit eating, which was the first food of man in paradise. He who wishes to reform, to organise his body, should first eat wheat, rice and corn, and afterwards fruit. Barley is not to be recommended: it promotes weight. If you have neurasthemia, eat beans. If you have hypochondria, eat wheat. If someone is very excitable, let him eat corn. If someone lacks the ability to fulfil his obligations, let him eat rye. There is something idealistic about rye. It grows tall. When it enters man, it creates idealism. You cannot become a vegetarian unless you turn toward the sun. You must pursue the sun, angels, God. That is where you will get your ideas and awaken your conscience. As you come to love God, you will come to love all the beings in your environment from the tiny to the largest. And then you will no longer have any desire to eat meat. All carnivores tend toward the centre of the earth, their aspirations are downward. Such a person can talk with you about ideas, about God, but for him these are secondary subjects. His conscience is not awake. He is in perpetual conflict with himself. Preserved food prevents the correct development of a person. He who eats preserved food cannot go before God. If an angel should eat human food, he will become a human, he will lose his angelic qualities ... When Moses led the Jews from Egypt, he drove them through the desert where they lived for forty days on manna, so they could become men. What greater pleasure can there be than to eat an apple, in which divine energies are hidden! Red cherries, like all red fruits, have come from paradise. The cherry is a beautiful fruit. It begins with a red flower. If your stomach is constipated, eat cherries and think about the garden of paradise. If a man eats pumpkin, he learns to be calm. When you are in a dark mood or indisposed, eat beans. Beans clean one’s system, but if you eat too many you will develop gout. Eat beans one day a week. It’s not good to eat them every day. Cherries are excellent for the nervous system. Cucumbers are good for the nervous system. Black beans develop intuition. Nuts make a man think. Egg-plant calms a person. Water-melon cleanses the stomach and the intestines. Eat water-melon after it has been in the sun. Break off its stem and eat it. But you eat water-melons after they have been in a store for a long time. Musk melon is good if you want to be polite, to get along with others. In general all fruit serve to manifest one or another virtue in man. The particular combination of virtues will depend on the particular use of fruit and grain. A man should eat whatever fruit he needs. Do not eat what you do not like! Eat what you like and what attracts your attention. For breakfast, dinner and supper over ten days take one pear and a bowl of wheat. The following tend day take one sour apple and the wheat. After that, for the next ten days, take half a kilo of cherries. The food which nature has prepared for man is very varied. Afterwards you may take cranberries and grapes. Eat fresh cabbage, and you will rid yourself of many illnesses. Do you know how many illnesses cabbage cures? Tomatoes improve the circulation. Peaches and mulberries heal the stomach. Chew them well as you eat them. Grapes should be washed several times with warm water. The red muscat grape is most effective for improving the blood. The muscat regulates the cerebral and central nervous system. The musk melon improves the disposition and acts on the mind. Figs are very useful for a man’s health, if they are eaten directly after they are taken from the tree. Sweet foods give softness, salty foods give balance, one should use spicy foods in exceptional situations. They give vitality. Sour apples are good after eating. They aid digestion. Sweet foods should not be mixed with other foods. They are easily digested. Peaches should not be eaten after apricots. Roasted peppers are sweeter, but raw peppers are more healthy. If you want to acquire manners, to get along well with others, try eating apples. If you want to acquire greater intelligence, eat pears. If you want to develop faith, eat plums. If you want to strengthen hope, eat cherries! Cherries contain within them a reserve of the energy which nourishes hope in man. That means that hope nourishes our hearts. Fruit trees came down on earth in order to aid man’s development. A person should observe the influence of fruit not only on his physical disposition, but also on his character, in order to make use of them as a method for the education of children, A person does not have to use one and the same fruit constantly, but only when he consciously wants to make use of its particular quality. Whoever is apathetic should take one piece of lemon every morning, so that he may combine with the forces that are found in it. The bitterness of lemon increases a man’s activity. Cucumbers act beneficially on the nervous system, but they should be eaten in the morning and at dinner. In the evening they can have an adverse effect on the stomach. Cucumbers should not be eaten in the evening. All food originates in wheat. Wheat represents the first “atta matter”, which gave the impulse to the organic world. That impulse is divine. Consequently, he who wishes to obtain that impulse in himself must eat wheat. Wheat can help him by showing him the way to organise all his activities. Bread contains more nourishing substances than any other food. If you wish to eat the finest food, go to the fields at the end of spring, just before the wheat is completely ripe. That is the finest grain. It is the manna which the Jews ate in the desert. Only he who has within him a disposition similar to the energies contained in wheat can drink wheat juice. This pertains to the interior side of nourishment. Wheat and bread serve only as conduits through which life passes, but life itself is maintained by a person’s impulse to eat. This impulse, this feeling attracts certain energies from nature, which actually sustain life. It is good for you, from time to time, to eat only raw grain. Those of you who have weak chests or weak stomachs, try a wheat diet for one, two or three months maximum. During that time you should not take any other food, not even bread just chew raw wheat that has been cleaned and washed, without any dust. If one month seems a long time to you, try it for one week, taking one hundred grams of wheat a day. Put one hundred grams to soak in a glass of water in the evening, and the next day take it for breakfast, dinner and supper. You can drink as much water as you wish during the day. Those of you who have poor teeth may cook the wheat a bit. If you had tried such a diet earlier, your teeth would be better and your nervous system would be in better shape. Nature controls you through the foods you eat. Depending on the food you eat, nature determines your character. Once the eating process is correct, circulation and breathing are improved, and the cerebral and nervous systems as well. Once this cycle has been achieved a person thinks correctly. With respect to quality, quantity and composition of food, the stomach understands more than contemporary chemists. If you give it some inappropriate food, it throws it up and says: “Give me something nice to eat.” All misfortunes originate with incorrect food. If you want to develop your mind, heart or will, you will have to take the appropriate food. The meat of nuts, with their creases, resemble man’s brain. There is an internal tie between the brain and nuts. This is why they are useful for increasing brain power. Lentils have a link with the eyes: that is why they stengthen the eyes. Rice is beneficial for reflection or meditation. Parsley acts in a healing way on the stomach. Sugar-beets have a connection with the eyes and heal the eyes. Slices of boiled sugar-beets are applied to the eyes and the water is drunk. Cucumbers are good for anemia. Tomatoes are good for the faint of heart. Garlic heals. When you have a pain in your tonsils, take hot garlic. They make excellent pills. Sour foods, lemon, sour cabbage, are good for the gall bladder. Stay away from fatty foods, they have a bad effect on the liver. Avoid unharmonious feelings and all lower types of feelings because they have a bad effect on the gall bladder. I call food the fundamental religion. All beings, from the tiniest to the greatest, to the very angels, maintain the religion of food. It has four parts: 1) the reception of light; 2) correct breathing: 3) taking water; 4) eating. Eating is a special type of music. Man’s health depends on that music. Without having read any special book, the sheep knows what kind of grass to graze. But contemporary man must read all kinds of books in order to know what food is good and what is not. If man returns to his first state of purity, he will reach a state where he can distinguish what food is good for him and what is not. If man relies on nature, she will guide him, she will decide correctly for him not only the question of food, but he will positively know what kind of life he should lead and how he should live. Goodness is the true food which people should use. Eating is a sacred act; man’s health depends on it. If you do not like food, leave it alone. I call vegetarian food that food whose vibrations fully correspond to the vibrations of our muscles. This means that between the cells of the food and the cells of our organism there should be complete correspondence. Many years must pass before the ideal manner of nourishment is realised. The people of the sixth race will eat purer and healthier food. They will stop using knives and forks; copper vessels will be replaced by vessels made of a more beneficent metal. But it is not yet time for the ideal, perfect manner of nourishment. Once man was nourished with light only. Today he has forgotten that manner of eating. Today only his eyes have preserved the art of being nourished by the light.“ Whoever wishes to enter the race of Love must give up meat as a matter of conviction. Man must rebuild his organism.”

Master, why do you take such pains to come down to our level? MAN TREADS THE PATH TO HIS OWN LIBERATION “The disciples ask me: why, you Master, do you take such pains to come down to our level?” What they meant is that he was so modest he seemed to be one of us. But he was not like other people, even if he was exceedingly modest. He said that Christ had to shrink a million times in order to come down to earth. “What a charismatic person, what an extraordinarily intelligent man!” These were the thoughts of people who happened to wander into the salon. He talked about all things as if they were living beings — the trees, the clouds, yes, he could tell events by looking at the clouds. He would tell his disciples that if they were not disposed to listen or if they had told a lie the heavens changed their colour. He taught them to carry the truth within themselves so that the sky above us would be clean. Outsiders found his gait exceptionally beautiful and harmonious. Clairvoyants considered that he walked on air, that his feet did not touch the ground. The young people were surprised at the speed with which The Master moved, when everybody was gathering firewood in the Rila mountains for the evening campfire (old, dry pieces of wood, not living trees, for their lives should not be cut off short), they remarked that he walked up the slopes so swiftly that there seemed to be no gradient at all and he did not appear to be carrying a load. He was nearly eighty then. When Doctor Furtounov, who was in attendance at the palace, examined him, he said to the disciple who had brought him: “In the whole of my medical practice I have never seen a more youthful body than this.” The Master was then eighty years and six months old... In everyday life he was out of the ordinary in comparison with all others, although he was exceedingly modest. Those who are able to see the radiance and the spirit in him, the unusual light and strength, say: “It is as if we are seeing Christ.” Painters who visited Sunrise would also say: “He would make a wonderful model for a picture of Christ!” The Master had an unusually expressive and handsome face. His eyes were dark brown, as are those of most Bulgarians, but all colours were to be seen in their depths. A poetess compared them with precious stones in them shimmered the living strength of the entire universe. That was no exaggeration, for his eyes could caress, they could flash, they could warm and they could speak, too. Above all else they contained sweetness. His hair was white, and fell freely. His disciples said that each hair was a ray of light. When he walked, dressed in white or dove-grey, he moved in such a way that the whole harmony of the world was reflected in his steps. A great dancer saw how he climbed the short flight of steps to the dais and exclaimed in wonder: “He is the greatest dancer who every came to earth!” Harmony should be sought everywhere. The Master would stop by mountain streams and move the pebbles in them around until the sound of the waters became clear. He even purified the tones of water... “For,” as he said, “without music and harmony man cannot think. And if he cannot think correctly, he cannot achieve anything. First of all we shall study the music of nature, the pure tones that are not corrupted. In all the songs I have given you till now the most important thing are pure tones: they liberate man from his past life.” The Universal Master was as one with Nature and lived with the laws of harmony that rule the universe. All that happened at ‘ lzgreva”, the hill overlooking Sofia by the pine forest, a place of meadows, fields and gardens chosen by him. From that point one could watch the sun rising over the distant mountains. From here one could see the mountain referred to as Mount Ida by the ancient Thracians, which towers above Sofia. A sacred mountain. The Master honoured it with his presence. In the twilight of early dawn, a procession of disciples, led by the Master, could be seen wending their way towards that mountain... They became accustomed to living with the mountain. He chose a sunny spot near a pyramid of stones and this became the Brotherhood’s camp. It was here that a campfire burned and the brothers drank tea made of fragrant wild thyme. It was here that the Master sat next to a great grey stone and sang his last song. His disciples wrote down the words but the melody was lost in space, for it did not correspond to the familiar human musical tones... Did he work miracles, though? Yes, constantly. Little, everyday miracles. People could see them all around him. As the sister who greeted visitors in the rose garden in front of the hall watched him descend the stairs from his room, she would suddenly see him in the glade and would wonder how and when he got there! Miracles were not his aim. He did not want to attract people with them. All he needed was a little dais from which he could preach the Teaching, the New Teaching of Love, Wisdom and Truth. In any case, the Master’s followers at Sunrise lived in small wooden huts consisting of one room with a table, chair and stove — frequently without a stove. In the mornings, the young people who lived in a little hostel there would have to break the ice in the pitcher to wash their faces before they went off to classes in the main hall. In spite of this they were healthy, amazingly healthy, nobody became ill. If, however, somebody happened to fall sick, the Master cured them by simple, invisible means. He would give them some fruit and say: “Go now, you will get better.” He cured them by means of a simple life in accordance with nature, with pure food, selected fruits, with wheat and water, with the bringing of pure spring water, and by pouring water that had been warmed in the sun over the patient, and this was done mainly in the mountains. It was something wondrous, but modest and invisible. Sometimes he would say: “Place this cloth upon the face of that incurably sick child,” and the child would recover, much as if the miracles in the Promised Land were being repeated. People had not seen him even, they had only heard about him. He knew why illnesses come. There was a young man suffering from tuberculosis. The Master looked deeply into his eyes for a long time, thought for a moment and then said: “Are you prepared to change your way of life?” And he cured him. The Master lived in the Upstairs Room, where the blue light of his lamp burned almost all night long. He worked and watched over mankind. He found solutions to world problems and listened to suffering people. Everything on earth passed through his mind. At lunchtime, when lunch had been prepared in the little hall downstairs by the sisters on duty, he would trip lightly down the stairs and sit down at the table with everybody else. He would praise the food and then ate with such natural and harmonious movements that his gestures seemed like music, both elegant and simple at the same time. When he climbed the outside spiral staircase to his room in the evening he would encounter somebody who was troubled, somebody who was worried, somebody who wanted to ask him something on each stair, and on each stair he would give an answer as if this were the endless staircase of mankind ... He was very strict, however. As one of his disciples put it: “He was open to everything that came from above, but refused to look at anything that came from below.” It was to people like this that he came and spoke these words: “Even if you are silent, the stones shall speak! “ The stones and boulders on the mountains, wrapped in the patina of time, contain those words like sacred tablets. They echo his voice and that laughter. What wonderful laughter! The Master laughed a lot, so much that he had to wipe his eyes with a handkerchief. What children they were, how small their troubles were! One day he had this to say to a disciple who was standing among the pine trees: “I wouldn’t give a hair of your beard for your personal affairs. For me the important thing is God’s work!” He was a very patient listener, though. What patience he had! “I’ve always wondered at this endless patience,” the man who published his Talks would say. He would listen to people who told him seemingly endless stories for hours on end. It was not only his disciples who visited him. people came from the outside world. There was one of the leading intellectuals, a translator and a very rich woman who was one of the first car-owners in Sofia. She drove her own car. A woman friend was sitting by her side and they were going to visit the young woman’s Fiance, who was later to become a professor of sculpture. Suddenly a child ran out of a side-street, holding up his hands as if to stop the car. The woman who was driving could not react quickly enough. She stopped, but seemed to feel the car pass over the child’s body. The two women got out. The child was safe and sound, he had managed to jump back at the last second, but the woman had experienced the horror of having killed a child. She herself yearned to have children. She fainted, and then she could not stop crying for days. She shed a constant stream of tears and went into convulsions of horror. Her wealthy husband sought the aid of the most eminent specialists. Nothing helped. Then somebody said: “Why don’t you go to Sunrise?” She went. Everybody was just coming back from the glade after the Paneurhythmia. There was a small room on the lower floor of the building where the Master received visitors. She was invited in. She entered and saw how exceedingly modest the room was. Everything was white, from ‘the curtains to the tablecloth, from the bedspread to the whitewashed walls. And the meditative man with the white beard and gleaming hair was dressed in white, too. This was Doctor Dunov. He was wearing white woollen socks and a suit of thick woollen cloth, also white. Even the potted plant on the windowsill, which was in bloom in those early spring days, was a white hyacinth. A smell of roses and hyacinths filled the room. The clever intellectual was crying, she could not hold back her tears. The Master had closed his eyes; he was silent, lost in meditation as if she weren’t there at all. That is how most people remember him during conversations, when he wandered in other spaces and dimensions in search of the reasons for things. She tried to tell him something, but not a sound came out of her mouth. Then he opened his eyes and spoke. “Well, you didn’t run over the child, did you?” How did he know about it? The Master continued: “It is a terrible thing to kill a person’s body, but it is far worse to trample upon his soul...” A very unusual conversation ensued. She could not remember it or repeat it afterwards because its level and awareness were unusual. She was amazed, however, to Find that her tears and convulsions had stopped. She felt renewed, cleansed of all her troubles. Then she asked him about what was troubling her most: “Mr Dunov, why am I childless?” He looked at her in mild surprise. “Are you childless? Am I childless, too? Everyone, all the people who come here to see me are my children...” She understood. Childlessness was not a physical phenomenon. “Show me a miracle,” she said to him. “You want to see a miracle? We are surrounded by miracles! There is the miracle of seeing, of looking, is that not a miracle? Even that little flower is a miracle.” Such was his greatness that he saw a miracle in the white hyacinth on the windowsill... The woman left, having come to the greatest fountainhead of all. One of his young disciples was walking through the outskirts of the city towards Sunrise, thinking about the questions he would put to the Master. Such important questions! And as he stood in front of the Master before he had said anything at all, he received an inner answer to his questions, and there was nothing left to ask about. There was another friend of his (they had been at school together). The two of them had decided years before to go to America to earn money and then go to India to study the spiritual sciences, to find their Guru. In fact their Guru was in Sofia, right under their noses. They discovered him and everything in their lives changed, just like the coming of the Light. One of them continued to dream about America. He bought a ticket and was set to go off to study at Eddison University. The Master listened to him and said: “That’s fine, say I.” That was how our Master expressed himself. He did not want to burden other people, to force his opinion on anybody. He wanted to leave the spirit of his interlocutor free. So when he made a recommendation and emphasised something, he would use the expression “say I”; Just as they did in the gospels and the parables ... “That’s just fine, I say. You’ll go to this famous university. But what you will hear and learn here in the Teaching, you won’t hear or learn anywhere else in the world.” In Master’s circle there was a holy purity and air of sacredness. Everybody could feel it, whether they were educated or not, intelligent or simple. What does “uneducated” mean? Were his disciples from the villages, those who lived in the old lands of the Bogomils, “uneducated”? They wore their national costumes of rough cloth with a broad, red cummerbund, but they were philosophers, they played the violin and sang the songs of our Master as well as the best singers. Their rough fingers moved precisely over the strings. They had developed their gifts because that was how they served God. They lived fraternally, ploughed their fields together, ploughed the fields of the poor and the widowed. And, surprisingly enough, they did not eat meat. Instead of pork and poultry these peasants ate wheat, homemade bread with an apple or pear, they drank hot water and got up before sunrise in order to greet the sun’s light on some mountain or hilltop. They were so different, so out of the ordinary, these simple, uneducated peasants. “Think correctly, adopt only pure thoughts in order to sing and play well, that is, to live well.” Did his students remain uneducated? No, they all learned sooner or later. They were excellent students but they were not always occupied with science, they preferred the simple crafts and work in the fields, and they were all on an equal footing with the uneducated in our Master’s school. One of them, a blacksmith, was given a task by the Master -to write down the intensive growth phases of the grapevine, at which hours of the day the climbing vines were filled with the sap of sunshine and “bled” when you cut them. He understood the task, researched it scientifically; it was when the birds were singing most of all, before sunrise. The vines grew while the nightingales were still trilling, their flexible sterns curling upwards. One of his friends, who heard about this event, had the following to say: “I have never heard any man on earth pray more beautifully than that simple, uneducated blacksmith.” Such meetings were part of his everyday life. In the mountains, however, the Master had other encounters. He spoke of the little blade of grass, for man was the little blade of grass. He told parables about the new human being: “Man treads the path to his own Liberation.”

VII THE SUNRISE (IZGREVA) WHAT IS SUNRISE? ABOVE ALL ELSE, SUNRISE IS LIFE, IT IS NOT ONLY A THING. SUNRISE CAN ALSO BE THE STATE OF THE SOULS WHO ARE WAITING FOR GOD. THE MASTER SAYS: SUNRISE IS A LIVING FOCUS TOWARDS WHICH THE THOUGHT OF GREAT, RATIONAL BEINGS IS DIRECTED. When the sister member who was most frequently to be seen with the Master was asked whether she had ever been abroad, whether she had ever crossed the frontiers of Bulgaria, her surprised answer was: “I’ve never lived in Bulgaria! I’ve always lived at The Sunrise!” lzgreva! The Sunrise! As if it were part of another world, a radiant place filled with sunshine. A place that did not exist in Bulgaria, nor, indeed, in any other part of the world. Life at “The Sunrise”, the settlement founded by the brothers and sisters, with its lecture hall, refectory, garden and vineyard — in which there is but one vine now — and its little coppice of pine trees; like a remnant of the Garden of Gethsemane..... “The Sunrise (lzgreva)” is no more. It has gone away, perhaps to the sun itself. They lived at “The Sunrise” with the Master. His footsteps illuminated that extraordinary place. He said it was a peak that rose ever higher... This was probably due to the vibrations that swelled it, as the moon swells the seas and oceans. He lived in a modest whitewashed room with a bookcase, table and wooden bed. The door opened onto a semicircular balcony. Next to the balcony there was a small ante-room and a staircase leading upwards to a little, sun-filled observatory. From this room he would gaze through his telescope at the other worlds in the sky, worlds that inhabited his world. The sound of a violin came from his room — a rare and valuable Stradivarius which he jokingly referred to as “my fiancee”. With this violin he would turn the tragic and terrible life of his people into music. He changed the human condition, transformed worldly human suffering. A Visitor to this earth. It is no exaggeration to call him a great Visitor to this earth, because a universal Master comes down to earth once in two thousand years... A particular atmosphere reigns in the village of Nikolaevka, near Varna, at the Black Sea. The village lies on a plateau beneath the skies. It is surely a wonder that such virile springs flow from this dry earth that they melt the soil with their fertility. In the village there is a church that has been turned into a museum. Half of the building was intended as a school and half for worship. This was where the priest Konstantin Dunov taught children and adults to read and write the Bulgarian language. He also held his church services in Bulgarian, which needed a lot of courage at that time, because church services were held in Greek, which was a foreign language as far as the Bulgarians were concerned. A great struggle began in which the father of the Master took part. He was also a great composer of hymns, and of a Song of Praise to the Virgin Mary — all of which are known in the Orthodox church and which bear his name to this day. In the yard of the church and school at Nikolaevka there is a marble gravestone bearing the name of Chorbadji Atanas, a loyal Bulgarian who gave his life in the cause of a free Bulgarian church. It was he who sold his entire property and set out for Istanbul to recruit a Bulgarian who would be both priest and teacher in the village. One who would help to win back the freedom of the Bulgarian language -a language that had been used officially in the ninth century by the brothers Cyril and Methodius and their disciples at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome... The language in which the brothers had preached the gospel was to become the classical language of all the Slavic peoples. That was what the Bulgarians were campaigning for, and fierce was the struggle against the Greek clergy during the National Revival Period. Patriots like Chorbadji Atanas gave all they had, including their lives, in the Bulgarian cause. He filled his saddlebags with gold, mounted his horse and set out through the mountain passes of the Balkans for Istanbul, where there was quite a large Bulgarian minority in the city’s Bulgarian quarter ... There were Bulgarian shops owned by patriotic men and there were educators such as Petko Slaveikov, who laid the foundations of the New Bulgarian Poetry and campaigned for freedom of speech for Bulgarians in their own language. The patriotic Chorbadji from Nikolaevka and the young man from Ustovo in the Rhodopes, whence came the purest-blooded Bulgarians, met in Istanbul. And what happened to the young man from the Rhodopes? He was an orphan and worked for his uncles, who were coppersmiths, members of an old and honourable profession. He finally went to study at the seminary at Tatar Pazardjik. Upon graduation he became the first Bulgarian teacher in his father’s village, Ustovo. The house is still standing. The people of Ustovo evicted the Greek priest and went to the Sublime Porte to obtain justice from the Sultan, to ask for permission to build a Bulgarian church, and they won! Young Konstantin had thought of taking monastic vows on going to the Bulgarian monasteries on Mt Athos — the refuge of nationally-conscious monks and a stronghold of the Bulgarian monastic tradition. Monasteries that had been endowed with privileges by enlightened Bulgarian tsars in the early middle ages... There Bulgarian gospels were illuminated in crimson and gold and adorned with exquisite miniatures. The memory of Bulgarian was preserved there. Some of these gospels, guch as the 13th century gospel of Tsar Ivan Alexander, w^ich are famous for their beauty and art, can be seen in the British Museum in London. When Konstantin Dunov was on his way to Istanbul a miracle took place in the Church of St Demetrius in Salonika. Out of the gloom came an elderly monk who asked the young man where he was going. Konstantin told him of his desire to go to the Bulgarian monasteries on Mt Athos, to serve God and his people. “No,” said the monk. “Go back. Your road is a different one. You will marry and have a son who will bring much benefit to our people.” To convince him that this was reality and not a dream the monk gave him a prayer-book of the kind that is used in Orthodox services. The young man took the prayer-book and the elderly monk vanished. Who could he have been? Meanwhile, in Istanbul, Chorbadji Atanas had met the young man from Ustovo and had realised his spiritual strength. Chorbadji Atanas persuaded Konstantin to return with him to Bulgaria, to the village of Haturdja, which later became Nikolaevka, to become its Bulgarian priest and teacher. And so it came to pass. Konstantin married the daughter of a patriotic Bulgarian... Her name was Dobra, which means “kind” or “Good”. Dobra was the mother of the Master. He was born of Goodness. Chorbadji Atanas continued to go to Istanbul to seek justice for the Bulgarians. He was buried in Istanbul. Afterwards, the marble gravestone embellished with flowers and other motifs was brought back to Bulgaria and placed in the courtyard of the school in his memory. On the other hand, the grave of the priest Konstantin Dunov is in the courtyard of the Museum of the National Revival Period in Varna, the pearl of the Black Sea coast. On his white gravestone there is an open book embossed in gold... Here, in the church and school where he held services and lessons in Bulgarian for the rest of his life, was the first centre of Bulgarian education and learning in those years of foreign domination. Letters flew between Varna and Istanbul, from the bishop to the Patriarch. With anger and shock he informed the Patriarch that the Bulgarian priest Konstantin had dared post Bulgarian youths at one of the city gates to invite passers-by to worship at the Bulgarian church. He had even dared do something more scandalous. He had ordained young Bulgarians as priests, trained them and sent them to different parts of the country. It was in the parsonage belonging to the church which is now the Museum of the National Revival Period in Varna that the father lived alone -because he had been widowed early. He would rest beneath the old mulberry tree, and when his son Petur came, they would sing some of the finest hymns together. Konstantin Dunov, the priest, knew of his son’s mission. When Petur was grown up, his father asked him once: “Where is the prayer-book that I gave you in the church at that time?” This in itself was wonderful, but not strange. “Was it you?” he asked his father. The old priest played an active part in the best years of the new Bulgarian state, together with the Shkorpilov brothers, who founded the Varna Archaeological Society. The Shkorpilov brothers, for their part, laid the foundations of Bulgarian archaeology. They were, in fact, Czechs, nephews of the first person to write the history of Bulgaria, Konstantin Iricek — a man who spent his life among the Bulgarian people. The Czechs, who are Slavs, gave great support to the cultural life of Bulgaria. They were also the first professors to teach in the Fine Arts Academy, musicians and teachers of music. Thus, imbued with the radiant spirit of the new Bulgarian state, the old priest worked in this region until the end of his life. Books of remembrance in which gratitude and respect were expressed were issued after his death. There is a great deal of literature about the life and work of Konstantin Dunov, and a rich bibliography, too. The old priest had the good fortune to visit “The Sunrise (lzgreva)”. He would sit in the green shade of the hazelnut trees. He was modest, with a face of beauty and inspiration. It was to this place, where grass grew knee-high in the glades, that people started to come to greet the sunrise. Our Master would lead them and speak to them as they trod the dewy grass. “If you say so, this place shall be ours!” “The Sunrise”, the place on a hill that becomes higher with every passing year, became a centre of the Brotherhood... And here the finest speeches were made in Bulgarian. His father had campaigned for the use of Bulgarian in churches and Petur had created, though not with his hands, a Temple of Truth! Back in the 9th century the brothers Cyril and Methodius, creators of the Bulgarian alphabet and Slav literacy, translators of the holy scriptures, sacrificed themselves for the recognition of the Old Bulgarian Language in which they wrote and spoke, for its recognition as the equal of Greek and Latin. In his missive to the Bulgarians and Slavs written in the ornate language of earlier days, the Master says: “O, Slavic people, I have called forth the Two Brothers from the depths of eternity to help you.” Is this why there is no other people on earth that has a public holiday in honour of education — the day of Cyril and Methodius? The Teachers of the National Revival Period began to celebrate the memory of the Two Brothers. Children sang songs about them... There is no other people on earth that has an anthem dedicated to education and science. This is sung on 24 May by the entire Bulgarian nation. The anthem was created by the poet Stoyan Mihailovski, who was pupil of the Master. THE LAND OF MIRACLES His Revelation was not one of religion or frontiers but of a World that encompassed the entire universe. Man’s abode was the Universe. That was why Sister T. was surprised when asked whether she had ever been out of Bulgaria. “I’ve never lived in Bulgaria. I’ve always lived at the Sunrise!” “The Sunrise” became the land of miracles. People from all walks of life, simple and educated, intellectuals, teachers, workers, peasants in their beautiful national costumes came to lzgreva and became followers of our Master. They all spoke the same language and lived in brotherly understanding, for theirs was the most open, the most democratic of spiritual communities. It was not a community in the strict sense, but a teaching of love in which the soul dissolves as it would in its own spiritual homeland. This is an incarnate light. At their headquarters, which the Master and his followers naturally named “The Sunrise”, there were orchards where the trees were heavy with fruit and wild strawberries grew, as did the children of the community. The children would compare their height with that of the growing trees. Here people lived in brotherly love, which is the message of the Master’s songs. First of all tents, and then little wooden houses, or rather huts, were erected. People from Sofia and other parts of the country settled here and pronounced the name with love — “The Sunrise”, “at The Sunrise”. lzgreva was modest in appearance. Rambling roses covered the walls of the little houses with their irregular walls and ceilings built according to our Teacher’s instructions. There was no piped water. Water had to be carried from a spring discovered by the Master in a little hollow below the edge of the forest. There were no paths at first and it was muddy. Then a proper path was laid. And people would come from far and wide, through the dark forest, to hear his morning Talks — which were given at lzgreva. There is an unusual salon with huge windows facing eastwards. There are rows of benches in the hall and the sun’s rays warm the backs of the disciples sitting there dressed in white... Chairs have been arranged in the salon. Facing eastwards there is a small platform with steps leading up to it. The Master ascends the steps and sits down at the simplest table of them all with its white tablecloth. It was from this table that his sermons were preached. So simple and natural that when one of the Brothers asked the person sitting next to him when the Talks would start, he was told: “It has already started.” This Talk was so simple that it bore no resemblance whatsoever to a pompous speech or conventional sermon. The voice of the Master, quiet and musical, reached the back of the hall quite clearly. There was something in it new and unusual, devoid of effects and rhetoric. He has already started! He has been talking to us for half a century now! What was so unusual about lzgreva? The fraternal life, the hall in the glade surrounded by pines and the circular track worn in the grass where Paneurhythmia was danced. He would dance in the centre, alone, and his white hair gleamed in the sunlight... Here he sang not one, but many of his songs. A blue lamp would burn in his little room above the salon. . .

PEARLS OF WISDOM FROM THE BOOK OF THE GREAT LIFE Walk in the radiant path of life where fire burns, where water flows, where air wafts, where grass sprouts, where colours bloom, where fish swim, where birds fly, where men think, where the spirit maps out the future and the truth reigns. Open your eyes when virtue smiles. Listen when the truth speaks. Work when the spirit of wisdom is mapping out the future. A path without light, a house without a door, a river without water are all in vain. Radiant thoughts, a pure heart, an exalted soul and a strong spirit are man’s friends. Listen hard to the instructions of your spirit and the promptings of your soul so that all shall be well always. 30 July, 5.0 a.m

SALVATION “If you would enter into life, keep the commandments” Mt.XVII 21 Cultured people of the twentieth century, lay and religious, have a confused understanding both of the Law of Moses and of that of Christ. For the last two thousand years Christians have been dissecting the teaching of Christ and have worn it so bare that, if you look at it with the eye of a Seer, it will appear to you like a tree with its bark peeled. All the critics and writers, all the preachers speak of salvation through good works, through the fulfilment of God’s laws, but salvation proceeds from one fundamental law of nature, which exists not only from the time of Christ, but from much earlier — from the beginning of Being. Consequently, what remains to-day in the human soul, in societies, in nations, in the whole of mankind, flows from Being itself, from the prime source of life. The word ‘salvation’ has many meanings. If somebody falls into the water and is drowning, somebody takes him out. All rejoice and say: “This man is saved.” Somebody falls ill of a serious sickness and gets well. They say: “He is saved.” Somebody strays from the straight path, but after a time he mends his life and begins to live as he should. Of him, too, they say: “He is saved.” In the usual sense the word ‘salvation’ has an undertone of the return of man from the bad to the good life, or the emergence of man from the torments and misfortunes of life and his entering into better conditions of life. In a broad sense of the word, salvation implies the entry of man into everlasting life. Very natural! It is not enough for a man to be saved from drowning but after a while to die of hunger; it is not enough to throw off a serious malady, but after a while to fall ill with another. That means to save himself from one evil and to rush upon another. A man needs true salvation, to re-establish his link with the First Cause of things. Until he re-establishes this link, he cannot be saved. Beyond this, no kind of salvation exists. Thus is salvation understood to-day, thus Christ understood it, thus all the saints understood it, righteous and good people on the earth. Christ came on the earth to create a strong and everlasting link, on the one hand between people and the angels, and on the other, between people and God. To the question of the young man what he should do to inherit eternal life, Christ said: “Do not kill.” That means that murder is of a nature to break the link of man with God, with the angels, with his elder brethren. Christ went on: “Do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness; honour your father and mother and love your neighbour as yourself.” These are the laws of the spirit, which have reference to the present time. The young man said to Christ: “All this have I done from my youth; what else do I lack?” Jesus said to him: ‘ If you would be prefect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor; come, and follow me! “ With the first few commandments Christ explains the reasons which can break the link of man with the sublimely reasonable world. With the second group He explains the means which re-establish the broken link. “Do not kill!” The word ‘killing’ has a wider meaning and significance. When you hear this commandment, you say to yourself: “Thank God, so far I haven’t killed anybody.” But I say to you: “There is not a man in the world who has not killed.” Killing does not mean only that you take away a life. Consciously or unconsciously, a man every day kills his own good intentions, his good feelings or desires. So too a man kills the good thoughts, wishes and behaviour of his neighbours. For example, you meet a man who believes in God, but you manage to destroy his faith. Is not this killing? You kill a sacred feeling in him. How do you know that God does not exist? Whoever denies God wishes to occupy His place. Consequently, if you say about somebody that he is not rich, good, handsome, learned, it means that you reserve these qualities for yourself. Denial of the good, the beautiful, the elevated, distances a man from God. In these ways, you break your link with Him and expose yourself to death. You say that people like you. That means nothing. People can like you, and still you suffer and torment yourself. It all depends on what is the nature of their love. The love of most people is the love of eagles and of crows. That should not offend you, but know that that love which is not constructive is animal. The commandment ‘Do not kill” refers specifically to this love. You say that love should be praised. Which love should be praised? That which destroys or that which builds up? How many girls and boys with noble thoughts and desires are disillusioned with love? How many girls and boys have killed themselves after their marriage? Why is the girl disillusioned? Because she does not find in her beloved those elements which are necessary for her development. And the boy is disillusioned about his beloved for the same reason. Does not the same happen also with the religious convictions of man? You meet somebody who is religious, joyful, inspired, but you destroy his faith, prove to him that life is only on this earth, and he becomes disillusioned, loses his inclination. A day will come when the consciousness of people will awaken, and they will enter from one life into another. They will understand that there is no death, that life is eternal and uninterrupted. “Do not kill!” That means do not destroy even one good thought, even one good desire, which God has placed in your or in you neighbour. Instead of destroying his life and miking it meaningless, a man must build. The meaning of human life amounts to putting aside the evil qualities in oneself and cultivating the good, which raise him up and create for him the conditions for salvation and for unification with God. How can a man free himself from evil qualities? He must sweep from his path all conditions which break the link with the world of God. What are the signs by which we know that a man kills? Being sour, that is, dissatisfaction. If a man turns sour, gets angry, is dissatisfied, then he is ready to kill. Christ says also: ‘Do not steal!’ What should we not steal? Good thoughts and desires of men. I am ready to give all that I have, but in no way to have anything stolen from me or to steal something from the mind or heart of man. Just as you must not kill the good thoughts and desires of your neighbour, so too you must not steal them. Christ says: “Do not bear false witness!” In his relations of giving and receiving in trade, a man must be absolutely honourable, not to allow the least lie. If he receives a kind thought or a kind wish, he must reply in kind. If he receives a kind thought and gives a bad one in exchange, then he is employing a lie. If you return evil for good and think that you have applied a good one, you destroy first yourself and after that your family and society. It is not permitted for a man to kill, to rob or to lie. A woman or a man who allows himself to steal the mind and heart of another are on the wrong path. Not much time will pass before they see the lie in which they have been living. Where the lie is, there is murder and robbery. Free yourself of the habits and vices of your past, so that you can get to love your father and mother and neighbour. How must you love your neighbour? As yourself. Who are you, who is your mother and who is your father? Your body, that is you; your soul is your mother, and your spirit your father. Man is the child of his soul. That means that the body is the child of the soul. It exercises maternal care for the body, to look after it and bring it up. Some ask whether they will live in their present body in the next world. That means: is there a link between the body, the soul and the spirit, that is, with the mother and the father? The son must be upright, so as to rejoice his mother and his father. He must honour and respect them. The mother and the father are in the same man, and not external from him. In the day that you break God’s law and cease to honour your mother and father, to love your neighbour, you are outside the conditions of life. Apply Christ’s teaching every moment of your life, so that you may see that it is the teaching of life and of power. If you are unwell, turn your attention to your life so as to see which of the three commandments you have broken. It is enough to be sincere with yourself to understand which commandment it is that you have transgressed: do not kill, do not steal, and do not bear false witness. Christ says: ‘ If you would be perfect, go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor; come, follow me.” To whom should you distribute your property? To your thoughts and desires? Whom should you follow after? The Great Teacher of life. God does not want your property. He does not need your houses and money. By the word ‘property’ something different is understood. Only that man can give away his wealth who is ready to show the good which has been placed in him. The good in man is his property. The good is connected with the law of love. When mercy and love operate in a man, then he is ready to exhibit the good and to do good deeds. Outside mercy and love, the good does not exist, that is, cannot exhibit itself. There is not a man in the world who can do good without good thinking and good desires in himself. It was said: “Honour thy mother and thy father.” The mother and the father represent the object of your love, and your neighbour is the stimulus which forces you to exhibit the love. The mother and the father are a symbol of the strong, and the neighbour a symbol of the weak. Man can love only the gentle, the weak and the delicate, which need his help. The strong you can respect and honour, but the weak you can love. If you would help the man, find the key of his door and say to him: “Take the key which you lost some time or other, open the door of your house, clean it, open all the windows, so that the sun can get in to enlighten it.” It is the natural duty of every man to clean his own house, not to leave the servant-girls to clean it. Your house is God’s temple, built specially for you alone. What will happen if all the temples are gathered together in one place? That means to make confusion in the whole world. Of this temple particularly Christ speaks: “Enter into your secret room and pray to God, who sees you in secret.” The secret chamber is the temple of the human soul. For a man to enter into the temple of his own soul means that he must cast from himself all anger, dissatisfaction, all hate and envy. Anger and dissatisfaction lead to killing, killing to stealing, and the two together to a lie, the greatest vice of human life. The first four commandments: “Do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not bear false witness,” shew man what he ought not to do. The second three commandments: “Honour your father and mother and love your neighbour as yourself,” shew what he ought to do. That is, a man should honour his father and mother and love his neighbour. The neighbours of a man are his good thoughts and desires. Through them he can root our evil thoughts and desires, he can put them in to good conditions, that is, he can improve and ennoble them. To love your neighbours means to sow in your garden the best fruits, through which you can turn wicked thoughts and desires into good ones. With these commandments Christ wanted to turn the attention of the Jews to the meaning of life, to get them to love one another, so as to reject killing. According to their laws they used to kill for little reason. That is the reason they did not have a long-lasting kingdom. All peoples, all tribes which even now still apply the old Hebrew law, are constantly killing, stealing and lying. Follow the history of the Hebrew peoples, and see how many wars they waged, how many campaigns they undertook with the object of liberating Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be free when the peoples cease killing, stealing, committing adultery, bearing false witness. Let each of you follow his life from the beginning to the end and say to himself: “From this day I am putting a cross on every lie, theft, killing and act of adultery.” After that, turn towards Christ and ask him what more are you lacking in order to inherit eternal life. He will reply to you: “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor; come, follow me.” Who are the poor? Your neighbours. Consequently, if you want to keep your disposition, you must love your neighbours. That which is noble and bright, which you carry in your mind and in your heart, represents for you a great world, your happiness. Everything is hidden inside you. It is enough for you to keep good thoughts and feelings in your mind and in your heart in order to have the wealth of the whole world. And then you will not be poor, but will give of yourselves, as a spring constantly gives water. Open the treasury of your life — your soul, and give generously. Your soul is full of blessings and of good seed, which you must sow in God’s field. Do not think that you are paupers. God has given you all, but you do not know how to make use of the blessings of life. Do not think that happiness is concealed in material wealth. Common sense is demanded of man. The sensible man uses correctly the blessings which are given him, and so he passes for a rich man. Misfortune for man is not due to lack of blessings but to the fact that he halts the good thoughts and feelings in himself, does not exhibit them externally. In other words, he does not enable God to manifest himself in him. God whispers to you quietly: “Do a good deed. I do not want to.” “Then leave it for Me to do.” “I do not allow it.” Under those conditions, can you be happy and find God? Where is the Lord? In you. Open your heart, and He will shew himself. As he is not conscious of the wealth and blessings which he bears within himself, man weeps, suffers, loses heart. The Bulgarian proverb is recalled: “He flounders in water, he goes thirsty.” If you love the Lord, you will obtain everything you want. Without God man cannot keep either wealth or power, Man’s task is to work upon himself, to be healthy, strong and sensible. Good thoughts and desires give man the possibility of obtaining health and power and to manifest his reason. This is demanded of everyone — men, women and children. Under these conditions, societies will be reconstructed magically. When the parts are in order, then the whole is orderly. For ordinary people things happen slowly, but for the wise men they happen at once. They know the laws and do not misuse them. If the ordinary man works with the mighty laws of Genesis, in one day he will destroy the world. God does not give the great knowledge to ordinary folk because they are still applying the law of Moses: they kill, steal, bear false witness and so on. What is man to do to get away from the ordinary life? He must unite with God, who is now working in the world. Work with Him, you too, so that you may have a share in the Kingdom of God. For a man to work with God means that he applies love the Mother of God, of whom Christ says that she must be honoured. He who loves — only he can honour his mother and father. He is a good, righteous and honourable man. Somebody complains that people do not love him. How should they love a man who does not honour his father and his mother? Woe unto that girl who marries a young man who does not honour his mother and his father! Woe unto that man who marries a girl who does not honour her mother and her father! The boy and the girl who honour their mother and their father, God both loves and blesses them. Whosoever desires the love of his neighbour must honour his mother and his father. This is a law which works from the beginning. Outside that law, loves does not manifest itself. Honour your soul and your spirit, honour the soul and the spirit of your neighbour so that you may be the beloved children of God. Whom God loves, the people will love him also. Whosoever does not honour his father and mother, he is a miserable man. Whoever does not love his neighbour is also miserable. He is a sinful man, condemned to suffering. This is what Christ meant in the verse: ‘ If you wish to be perfect, honour your father and mother, that is, your spirit and your soul; love your neighbour as yourself; give away your wealth; come, follow me.” Whom must a man follow? Him, from whom came every thing — the First Source of life. To follow God, that means to give meaning to your life, to convert suffering into music, hunger and poverty into a pleasant task. In such a position a man does not fear hunger and want. The Source from which a man draws his food is not one alone. Give away your possessions and do not think from whence shall come other possessions. Until you pour away the foul water from a bottle, you cannot fill it with clean. Empty your purses that you may fill them anew. Empty your bottles and bags that God may fill them with clean water and pure food. Empty your hearts of the old feelings that God may pour in to them new feelings, a new warmth which will rebuild them. This is what the verse means: “I shall take away their stony hearts, and I shall give them new.” The world has need of good people, of beautiful flowers, which spread their scent far and wide. The world needs noble souls and hearts, sensible mothers, fathers and children. This is what God wants. This is what Christ preached two thousand years ago. At one time people fled from the world; they went into the forests and lonely places, and there they performed feats of abnegation in the service of God. To-day all are told to enter into the world, to work there. At one time people fled from Hades were afraid of it. To-day they live in Hades and work to raise up those souls which have fallen and have wandered away from the true path. It is time to reject the old beliefs, to pull down your old houses. The old falls and the new is already being built. The stage must constantly be renewed; the same play cannot always be put on, God does not love monotony. While man lived under the Mosaic law, he still served evil in which murder, lies, theft and adultery were practised. While he served evil, man lived under the law of birth and re-birth. When he rejected that law, he served the good and entered the universal law. That law implies the application of the following commandments: “Honour your father and mother, love your neighbour and give away all that you have to the poor.” In whatever service you work, you must be honourable and truthful. If you want to be free, always speak the truth. Do not force a man to do what his soul does not wish. Do not force your own soul either. Some boy or other does not wish to marry, but his family deceives him in some way and force him to marry. After that he regrets that he has given way to the advice of others. Do not compel others, lest they compel you too. Do not deceive others, lest they deceive you in turn. Be true to your soul and to your spirit. Be true to your Master. Be true to Him who has given you everything. Cleanse your temple, so that you can receive the Saviour into it. If you want to clean your temple, you must watch your neighbour closely. Think only good of him. The evil which you see is connected with his past life. To-day he is striving towards the good, and he will become good. Wicked people will become better than those who to-day pass for good. I have made it my task to help all the lame, the blind, the crippled to get well and to rejoice in life. All deserts must be turned into oases of life, where the weary traveller may rest and quench his thirst. All the empty places must be sown with fruit trees, that whosoever passes by them can be given something, that the wanderer may stop before them and taste of their sweet and good fruit. Free your thinking of all negative things — doubt, hesitation, suspicion. I believe in your soul, I believe in the possibilities which are hidden in you, and I know that one day you will begin to see. And if you do something bad, if you sin, if you do some violence, your soul will not change. I love sinners who repent, and so I hold out a helping hand to all the weak, the ignorant, and to sinners. This may be weakness, but Christ too showed this weakness towards sinners. He came into the world for them, to help them, to raise them up and liberate them. I want you too to have the same weakness, to love sinners who repent and to help them. ‘Come, follow me!’ says Christ. In what? In what I am telling you. A Talk delivered by the Master, on 25th February, 1917, Sofia. * * * In his Sunday Talks, at ten o’clock, the Master reads a verse from Holy Scripture, and pausing upon the reality, completely free of the letter, He gradually, with marvellous knowledge of human nature and in easy and elegant Bulgarian, full of ancient words and images, reveals the deeper meaning of the verse; evokes the eternal life, which gave him birth. Dressing it in this form, he projects it into the consciousness of contemporary man. The Teacher employs forms freely, because the Spirit which creates, contains the Truth and can always create a suitable form in order to minifest itself. So everyone who listens to him, feels a liberation, raputre, inner joy. It returns to its distant Motherland, from which the soul began its journey. So in his Sunday Talks the Master surveys life in the light of Divine Teaching. * * * The people of today easily become bored; they are in constant search of new things, of variety. There are, however, things with which one cannot become bored. They are like a sacred book: the more we read, the more new things we learn. Examples of such things are the mountains, the sea, the earth and the sun. Could the sun possibly bore a person? We should give thanks to the great horse that gallops across the sky on its true path, day and night, pulling behind him the earth on which we live. What I am talking about now is the good of the whole of mankind. There is a path that we must all tread to be cleansed. Cleansing pertains to the body, the thoughts, feelings and wishes of man. They are the soft soil which should be cultivated. Man’s difficulty stems from the fact that it is he who cultivates this soil to make it fertile. Some people say: “I cannot make out why I have become so ugly.” Ugliness stems from man’s evil thoughts, feelings and wishes, which he must get rid of. They are raw materials which need to be refined. It is man’s worries and troubles that he does not need. There is something in man which never ages: that is his aspiration, Aspiration is a quality of the human spirit. Man’s aspiration does not age: it is lasting and serves as a locomotive force for the human soul, stimulating it to move ever upwards and forward. This aspiration is called love. So love is the eternal principle in man which creates and generates. What is love? Love is not a burden, love does not bring disillusionment, love also cannot be called a force. Love is the principle in man which liberates him from all tormentors, whether they be in the guise of contradictions, errors or limitations. Love is the principle in man which brings him wealth, strength and power. I will give you a few sentences to think upon: After you have eaten cultivated pears, do not eat wild ones which are sour. Do not drink wormwood wine after you have drunk sweet juices. When you have said a few kind words to someone, do not dress them in your own dirty rags. When you have done a good deed, do not shout about it. When you have expressed a great thought, do not make a prison for it. When you have written a love-letter, do not prattle about it. When you have fed somebody, do not take his money, do not fine him for eating. For if he pays you, it is a fine. Say thank you only when you know that love goes with you and you can see what it is doing. Knowledge does not come only from one source, and light does not enter only through one window. The paths of knowledge are too numerous to be counted, as are the windows of light. Loves does not speak only from one mouth. Love speaks from a thousand mouths. Believe them all. The road to the Truth has no paths leading off it. Such a road is not the road of this world. The road which has no paths leading off it is the road of the spirit. A dusty road is the road of error. A road without dust is the road of enlightenment. Walk where the light is, work where the spirit works. Descend where the water descends, work where the spirit works. Love is living, wisdom shines and the Truth bears our future.

TO GIVE THEM LIFE 1. What does man wed? Correct thought, exalted feelings and a healthy body. In these is contained man’s progress. 2. A person who is healthy can achieve anything. In order to achieve everything in life you have to understand your own life and not the lives of others. 3. Most people say that life is difficult. Life is difficult when we think only about people and not about God. 4. Life manifests itself over a wide area. The wider the area, the more this can be made use of, both by individuals and the whole of mankind. 5. The sense of life consists of what a person, at any given moment, can reasonably make use of. 6. Life must be understood, not improved. 7. If a person first of all expects the conditions of his own life to improve and then to live better, he is on the wrong road. 8. Life is good in itself, but man must understand and moke use of it. 9. Some say that one can learn from all sources and from everything. No, one can only learn from that which comes from God. 10. Man should know that he is in a world created by God, in which God rules. 11. If a person can take advantage of the bounties of this world, it will be for the sole reason that he bears the Truth within himself. 12. If he renounces this truth, he cuts off the road by which these bounties come and thus severs his link with life. 13. The greatest bounty jw man is life itself, but as we live we must learn to distinguish true thought from false, true freedom from apparent freedom. 14. If a person thinks that others can carry out work on his behalf, that is a misunderstanding of life. 15. Human happiness lies in understanding, adopting and applying things. 16. In his present condition man is seeking a path along which to pass with the least possible expenditure, obstacles and contradictions. 17. If he has not placed himself in God’s hands, a person has the right to seek the easy way, to look after himself. If, however, he has placed himself in God’s hands, there is no need for him to take care of himself, to seek his own path. 18. Now we come to the beautiful side of life. This is knowing why we are here on earth. 19. The following thought will now come to your minds: which doctrine is correct? A correct doctrine is one which is founded on complete, absolute faith. That means even in life’s most contradictory situations not allowing a shadow of doubt about God to enter one’s mind. 20. Life is a place for setting things up, for work. If somebody has got dirty, it does not matter. Fetch some clean water and help him to clean himself. That is the path of lave, of exaltation. 21. Show tolerance to yourself and your neighbours and be thankful that you were sent to earth to correct yourself and to learn. 22. Do your work calmly, without becoming indifferent to it. This needs understanding. 23. Man comes to earth to test his love far God. 24. When will the kingdom of God came to earth? On the Day of Judgement. The Day ofJudgement will be dark, it will be a dark, stormy day. To greet this day joyfully you must have a lighted candle by which to read easily throughout all the storms and hurricanes, all adversities. 25. The people of to-day have studied all the sciences except the science of life. When suffering comes, they will have to learn it whether they like it or not. 26. Do not limit yourself or others. 27. Learn to give, as other people give to you. 28. The people of to-day have already entered the wide world. What should they do there? They must learn contentment, lo be contented under all conditions. 29. Man must now learn love for his own self rather than for other people. 30. “Fear God!” When will man stop being afraid of God? When he is liberated from fear, which is an animal state. 31. “Love God!” How shall we love God, from within or without 32. How will you find God? The only way to find God is love; only he who loves can find God. 33. Man mast seek that which is new, that which bears eternal youth. 34. Seek the new! Seek the new life! In order to enter this life you must find in everybody one good characteristic which enables you to love that person. 35. The intelligent person should love all people without their suspecting it. 36. Helping somebody who is in need without saying a single word to him, without showing that you love him is what is new on earth. 37. What is the distinguishing feature of the new life? The new life carries freedom; it frees man from all bonds, from all delusions. 38. Thus, he who wishes to set out on the true path of life must live according to love. Living according to love means loving all people without creating laws. 39. Do not adhere to the law but to love. Let love be the standard in your life. If people embarrass or offend you, you will never find the path. 40. Where can we find what is new? The new is distinguished from the old by the way in which it is given. In the old life a person would give something and expect something to be given in return. In the new life a person gives without expecting anything in return. 41. Love is not yours. God is love, not man. 42. God’s love will not be subject to any law. When you come into contact with it you will be imbued with a sacred feeling, and you will say that everything love per forms is right and good. 43. Whatever love performs you should consider a great secret. 44. Delusions do not stem from life, but from you yourselves. 45. Beauty in life lies in the fact that when things are not going too well for somebody, still he does not worry. 46. The new Teaching will tolerate no troubles or worries. 47. Where does life’s meaning lie? In affection. 48. The good things which people seek are ordinary things, but human consciousness should not be occupied with ordinary tasks. 49. Ordinary life should serve only as a source of reference for us. 50. When he understands the great law of life, man will be liberated from all things which until then have served as aids. 51. Thus, until you place everything in God’s hands and stop thinking about what will happen to you, you will never find freedom. 52. What are tribulations? They are conditions for getting to know oneself and one’s neighbours. 53. All people want to hear something new. They seek the new but live in the old way. 54. If you want to acquire new life, you will work on yourself, you will win your own inner peace and freedom by yourself. 55. Should we not live? Should we not love? You will live and you will love, but you need to know how to live and love. 56. You will say that one should help the poor; but which poor should be helped? There are poor people who are, in fact, not pom at all. For them poverty is a blessing. But we have to use force to take money away from the rich to give to the poor, and that means creating unhappiness in the world. There is no need to resort to violence to increase artificially the suffering which, in any case, will come as a method of correcting mankind. 57. The time has come for everybody to be tested, for everybody to see for himself how far he had got. However far each of us has got, we should remain there and be tested. If that person is a minister, he will be tested as a minister; if he is a soldier, he will be tested as a soldier; if somebody is a student or teacher, he or she will be tested as such. 57a. In order to come to the reality in which God manifests Himself, one needs to penetrate into everything. 57b. You are not on the true path until everything inside you comes to life. When everything inside and around a person comes to life, he is on the right path and has found the Truth. 58. Your life is difficult, even unbearable, which shows that you are in need of a new set of assumptions, a new philosophy for life. 59. What should you do? You should study. 60. One should study unceasingly. Study embraces the application of the divine life. 61. God wants us to live and to be satisfied with our lives. 62. The sense of life is not in large numbers of quantities, but in what you yourself have worked upon and applied. However little it is, it should have been worked upon. 63. Man should reach his own thought from within, he should reach the unity in himself and listen to it. 64. The cause of the pain, unhappiness and illnesses that people suffer from lies in the fact that they live in an unorganised world. What is the difference between an organised world and an unorganised one? In an organised world each component lives for itself and at the same time lives far the whole. In an unorganised world the components live exclusively for themselves. 65. The organisation process should begin from the human mind. So that the human mind may be organised, something new needs to be brought into it. Only the new is able to rejuvenate man’s mind. 66. When we say ‘a good life’, we also mean common sense. A sensible person learns from everything and seeks the causes of things. 67. You must set the divine in you in motion and await the results. The divine is within a person, not without. 68. When the divine in man starts to manifest itself fully, people will understand one another well and will always love one another. 69. People are divided when their interests are different. 70. It is not bad far a person to look after himself and his home, but he thus limits himself and does not allow the Divine in him to function freely and correctly. 71. The Divine excludes any kind of insult or offence. 72. If you have insulted or offended somebody, what should you do? Do not apologise to him, but look for a way of helping him. When you find him in some sort of difficulty, make haste to help him. In this way the offence is wiped out. If you help him, he will forget everything. Otherwise, however much you apologise, however much you talk, nothing will help. 73. The people of to-day have reached the most perilous place, the boundary of human life where big mistakes can be made. They are like travellers picking their way over a slippery place in the mountains. 74. What should they do to pass in safety? They should be wide-awake, aware and. strongly imaginative. 75. It is now time for people to enter the divine life, to set in motion the divine ideas within themselves. It is these ideas which will make life worthwhile and not the ideas of men. 76. Happiness is only to befound in the divine life. True science is only in the divine life. 77 Work and. study are what the divine life demands of man. It is only there that he will understand its essence. 78. To improve your life you must first of all improve your mind. How can this be done? By entering the divine life. 79. Only the divine life is able to change the human mind. 80. All energy is used sensibly in the divine life. 81. The human is corrected by the divine. It is sufficient far one to have a strong desire to correct one’s life in order to be helped. Higher beings come down from the divine world to help one. 82. How does this happen? In various ways: externally by means of other advanced people and internally, through the person himself. 83. Now study human and divine life at the same time and apply whatever you understand in your private life. Mind you do not turn sour, for this is afeature of human life but not of divine life. In the divine life the fruits do not turn sour. 84. The people of to-day aspire to progress. They do not even suspect that progress means finding the truth, a deeper inner understanding of things. 84a. He who possesses a deep inner understanding of things gradually overcomes the difficulties of his own life. This means that one passes from divine to human life. Then even if he was a weak, mediocre student, he begins to develop gifts and become a gifted student. 85. If you have a talent for singing, you should use your talent to acquire something significant. Sing, apply the divine in yourself for the improvement of your life. If you have strength, use it too, and do the same if you have patience. Everything should be applied at the right place, at the right time. 86. This is so because, if you understand the laws of life, you will understand people, you will know how different people manifest themselves — in a human way or divinely. For example, you see that a man is angry. You must know why he is angry and what the nature of his anger is. He may become angry when God’s laws are broken. Such anger is not out of place. He may become angry when his personal interests are adversely affected. That is human anger, and it is out of place. 87. Now, in order to make use of the life that has been given to you, you. must reason correctly, you must learn. 88. You are good, but you have not manifested your goodness as you should. You have gifts, but you have not yet manifested them. Why? Because you are seeking the easy way. 89. You are confronted with a great task in which everyone must participate. 90. Everybody should cultivate something precious in himself which will distinguish him from other people. The precious thing inside him is his capital, his strength with which he works under all difficulties and vicissitudes. 91. Speaking of himself, Jesus says he is the true vine on which people should be as shoots, capable of developing and bearing fruit. In other words, people must study, must recognise the will of God and be prepared to carry it out. It is only under these conditions that their lives will develop correctly, on earth and in heaven. 87. Now, in order to make use of the life that has been given to you, you must reason correctly, you must learn. “I am the true vine.”

THE HYGIENE OF LIFE In order to maintain life, man needs three vitally important things: light, life and love. Light reveals the physical world and helps us to understand life. If a man does not understand the laws of light, he cannot understand the laws of life. If he does not understand life, he cannot understand the laws of love. If a man does not understand the laws of light, of life and of love, inner contradictions will arise and will create an external dissonance. In the organic world, light is connected with the food which man consumes. Without light and warmth no food may be produced. Consequently, the human stomach is completely dependent on light and warmth. Food is necessary for the provision of those elements by means of which life manifests itself. Today all people, all living creatures, big and small, strive towards happiness and security. This striving exists in families, in societies and among peoples. What I am asking is this; who succeeds in this aspiration? It is the more sensible families, societies and peoples, those who understand the laws of light, life and love, who are able to some extent to organise themselves so that they can live comfortably. The remainder, who do not understand these laws, resort to superstition and achieve nothing. Why does this happen? It is because they seek happiness in the beginning of their lives, at the beginning of each undertaking, when in fact happiness lies in the end result of life. All modern people desire to grow, to become richer, to become educated, strong, or, in other words, to achieve happiness. Consequently, if happiness is the aim of life, then everyone should try to learn the ways in which happiness may be achieved. Without happiness life has no external means of expression. The expression of happiness on earth is health. The most important thing for man is health — man must be healthy! However, health depends on the physiological relationships between the organs of the human body. If the interaction between brain, lungs and stomach is correct, then man’s health is good. These three organs comprise three great worlds. Many confuse a man’s belly with his stomach and say that we should not eat a lot. The belly and the stomach are two entirely different things. The stomach is a world entirely independent of the other. In the stomach there are ten million working cells which deal with digestion. If each ‘worker’ were paid only one lev per day, we would each have to pay a total often million levs per day for digestion. This shows what a colossal task these cells perform. And after all that, people do not value life. Why? Because they do not even suspect just how many beings work for them free of charge and how much energy is expended by nature for the maintenance of life. Contemporary man, rulers, scholars and philosophers, are all occupied with one abstract idea — to imbue life with legality, justice and happiness without comprehending the laws of happiness. In spite of people’s aspirations, ideal families, societies or states are to be found almost nowhere. This is due to the fact that there is no harmony, no correct correlations between the three worlds, the physical, emotional and mental. For example, if the light which shines into the eyes is very bright, the pupils immediately contract because they cannot bear such a bright light. Otherwise, great harm will be done to the eyes. If on the other hand the light is very dim, the pupils dilate like owls’ eyes in order to take in more light. However, this exceptional dilation creates another defect. The pupils of human eyes should not be excessively dilated nor should they be excessively small. People whose pupils are dilated understand life in terms of darkness. Those whose pupils are contracted see life in terms of daylight. These two types of person are entirely different, and they can have nothing whatsoever in common. What can be born in the hours of night? Corn does not grow and fruits do not ripen. The night was intended only for rest. True life, true growth and ripening take place during the day. During the hours of night the materials the body has absorbed during the day are processed. I say that night represents life’s sufferings and day its joys. You ask why sorrow and suffering exist. There is a certain correlation between suffering and joy. Sorrow and suffering are necessary for man to rest and joy for him to work. Sorrow and joy do not exist outside of life, nor can they be divorced from life. If you divorce sorrows and joys from life, then the latter will become devoid of sense. And there is no greater suffering for man than for his life to lose its sense. It is only thus that man realises that suffering and joy have their place in life. However, if suffering and joy cannot be made use of correctly, then they have not played their part. He who has not made use of joys and sufferings is like a blind man and cannot see the good things that are passing in front of him. For example, we meet a person who possesses great material wealth, expressed in money, who lives in constant fear of his money being taken from him, that he will somehow lose it and become poor. I say: what does this man gain from his life, what joy does it bring him? None at all. This man lives in suffering, in fear that he will lose his happiness. Consequently, this man’s happiness or prosperity brings him more suffering than joy. When does a person’s prosperity cause him suffering and not joy? When the people around him want to become rich without working. The unhappiness of modern man lies in the fact that few people like to work. Everybody wants to work as little as possible. I can understand that. Excessive work is senseless. We were not born in order to become slaves to work. It is the human desire to become rich, to achieve security, that underlies excessive labour. Heavy labour must be replaced by sensible work, and sensible work can only exist when people have at least one thing in common. Thus, when people have at least one thing in common, they will be able to create a sensible link between light, life and love. Light represents a sum of the awareness of all living creatures, from the tiniest to the biggest, including man. Life represents the internal aspect of life as a whole. This shows that between all living beings there is a point in common — namely, they are all living; so in the life of each one there is a common factor. However, the life of man is distinguished from that of other creatures by its wisdom. In this sense only man is alive. Wisdom, or perception, is the most precious thing in human life. The word life’ includes wisdom. Where there is wisdom, there is life. If wisdom exists, even if it is weakly manifested, there is also life. The forces which maintain life as a whole emanate from the three main elements in it — from light, life and love. The same thing could to a certain extent be said of man. He can draw the energy for the maintenance of his body directly from light if he knows its laws. From life if he understands it, from love if he aspires to it. These are the three sources from which man can draw strength, life and health. If he has these three things within himself, he has achieved true happiness on earth. I say that, whatever a person may be like, however good he may be, if he does not understand the laws of light, he will not have a correct grasp of the world and will view it as one would view an exhibition of paintings. However, there are rules and methods by which one may enjoy the benefits of light. Sometimes a person’s indisposition is due to a number of abnormal combinations caused by the incorrect perception of light. Or, to put it in scientific terms because light is stored differently in different kinds of food, in consequence some of these have a beneficial effect and some have a negative affect on the human body. As a result, the foods which man consumes represent light stored in various organs in different ways. Thus, each person who wants to be healthy must consume foods that suit his body. This is where the true hygiene of life lies. Thus, the hygiene of life must start with the correct use of light stared in plants awl fruits. If the light absorbed cannot be turned into living energy, we say that the food has not been properly assimilated — that is, that there is no interrelation between the food and the body in question. As far as the choice of food is concerned, nature has given man an instinct in this respect. If man returns to his primitive state of purity, then he will reach the state of being able to understand which foods are good for him and suit him best. If we surrender ourselves to nature, she will lead us, she will make the correct decisions — and not only in terms of food. She will know with certainty what kind of a life we should lead, how we should live. Ever since man strayed from the true path he has forgotten what he was taught at the very beginning and is now relearning it again. However, unanimity is lacking and people often ask themselves who will teach them, who will show them the way. They forget that they have been ‘programmed’ with this knowledge, that they can easily renew it. When will this happen? When they return to the road they originally set out on, the road to a life of purity. All people say that God is love, but they do not know that God’s love relates to them. However, if people manifest God’s love properly in their lives, they will lay the foundations of a sensible way of life. A sensible life is a life of immortality, a life without suffering and grief. Without God’s love you will have a life full of suffering and limitatwns. But man was not born m order to suffer. He was born in order to learn to develop properly. Now, bearing in mind the three important things — life, light and love — we will encounter three categories of person. The first type devote themselves exclusively to life, they wish to study it in the minutest detail and in consequence they go to extremes. The religious, on the other hand, neglected physical life, they neglected light, as a consequence of which they lived in the wilderness, in monasteries; but even in this way they were unable to find the sense of life. They have denied physical life in favour of spiritual life. The third category have fallen into deep mysticism with the one and only aim of knowing love, but even in this way they have not found the sense of life. That, too, is an extreme. The path of the mystic is not a bad one, but he must transmit his mystical state to people who do not have his experience. In order to understand the sense of life and to be useful to oneself and to others one must begin with the physical and with light and move gradually towards the spiritual and the world of God. He who understands life correctly must study the three worlds as well. The light in which we live is not an arbitrary thing. It represents a source of goodness which we must use. If we can process physical energy into spiritual energy and carry it over into the world of the spirit, this implies the transfer of material wealth into the world of the spirit. Consequently, people must study the laws of life, of light and of love and apply them if they want to be happy. Knowing the laws is not enough: they must also be applied. Many folk say: It is written that the field should be deeply ploughed.’ However, they do not plough it in this way. It is written that the field should be sown with good seed, but they do not sow it with good seed. It is written that one should do good, but they do not do good — and after all this they expect good results. Knowledge which cannot be applied in life will yield no results. I ask this: if a man cannot imbue his mind with the most exalted thoughts, his heart with the noblest feelings and his will with the most decent actions, how will he express his life? If he cannot give expression to his life through his thoughts, feelings and actions, however much he talks about life, light and love, he will not reap the benefit of anything. True feats are achieved only when man enters into contact with life, light and love. Moreover, this contact must not be once only: it should take place many times. When he is born, man enters into contact with life, but in order not to lose contact he must constantly renew it. In the same way he must constantly renew his contact with light and love. Contact with love can only be maintained by thinking about God. Contact with life can be maintained by loving people. He who does not love people cannot have life. Contact with light is maintained with love for physical life. He who does not love physical life cannot have any relationship with light. The most important and exalted things in physical life are light and warmth, and for this reason we should love this life as a whole. Consequently, without light and love we cannot understand the relationships, structure and manifestations of life as a whole. Since we do not comprehend life and love we will not understand. Love represents the world of God, upon which all the other worlds are built. The mistake of the people of today lies in the fact that they separate God from love, that is, from the world on which everything is built. God does not exist outside of love. Outside of love we cannot recognise God. Consequently, love is the exalted, ideological side of life. Man should turn his attention to love, for love is also the light of his life. 2 August 1931 — The Seven Rila Lakes Thus, if we understand life’ in the narrow sense of the word and neglect light, we will be dead as far as light is concerned. If, on the other hand, we understand only love, then we will become totally absorbed in it and will neglect the manifestations of life. This also holds true for one’s private life. But man’s awareness can also encompass life, light and love at the same time, that is, the physical, spiritual and divine life. If a person ignores light in physical life, his stomach will grow weaker and thus his body will become weaker. If he ignores life, his lungs will grow weak. If he ignores love, his brain will grow weaker. This is because, when the laws of light are broken, the stomach suffers. When the laws of life are broken, the lungs suffer. When the laws of love are broken, the brain and the head suffer. The sentence ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’ can be rendered as ‘I am light, life and love’ The way represents physical life. Life represents man, and moreover life is manifested only in the truth, in wisdom and in love. This is what Christ meant with the words ‘I am the good shepherd. ‘ Consequently, a person can be a good shepherd for himself, for new thoughts, for his feelings and his behaviour. This is what Christ preached two thousand years ago, and this can be applied to-day in both parts of our lives and in life as a whole.

V A SINSIBLE WAY OF LIFE THE GRAIN OF WHEAT AN OCCULT MAGAZINE Year IV Sofia May 1928 Book 4 A sensible way of life has its own inner sense, its own physical inner sense, its own spiritual inner sense and its own divine inner sense. It is only thus that we realise that in life as a whole, just as in nature as a whole, there runs a thread of sensibility. The thread could be referred to as ‘awareness’ or ‘consciousness’. The human mind has the direct task of protecting this thread, of ensuring that it is not broken. That is why it requires an alert consciousness. If this thread survives unbroken, every person will be in contact with the Primary Reason, with the eternal beginning of life. While man worships and respects this Primary Reason above all else, he will have a radiant and beautiful future. Should he cease to worship it, should be choose another cult in his life, he will lose the sense of life. Only the Primary Reason which inspires all men, poets, artists, musicians and scholars, is perfect in all its manifestations. Anyone who wishes to understand the Primary Reason in all its manifestations must possess pure consciousness, pure awareness. Today all mankind is in need of continuity of awareness and of purity of consciousness. While this continuity and purity of consciousness exist, among people, a true, positive science will exist. While your eyes are closed to the outside world, how will you be able to study it? While your ears do not hear, how will you be able to study music? While your judgement is limited, how will you be able to establish a connection between the reasons for and the consequences of things? When we speak of the relationship with the Primary Reason, with God, many people ask: where does God manifest himself in man? The first manifestation of God is in the human personality, the most basic manifestation; the second manifestation is in man’s individual life; the third manifestation is in his soul and the fourth manifestation in his spirit. If God manifests himself simultaneously in all these lives of a man, then he will fully understand the situation and he will be a sensible man in the full sense of the word. One judges the sensibility or reasonableness of a person according to his life. If a house is built and then collapses, we condemn the man who built it. If the house cannot withstand the slightest storm, we say that the man who built it lacked sense because he failed to foresee all of life’s conditions. If a house is comfortable, hygienic, economical and withstands all of life’s difficulties and storms, we say that the person who built it was sensible. Someone says: ‘Economy is necessary in life.’ By ‘economy in man’s life’ we mean that human energy should not be wasted. A sensible life requires that a man should not allow foreign bodies, foreign elements that could sever the link with the Primary Reason, to enter his mind and body Christ says: ‘He who strays from me strays from Him who has led me.’ to-day all people stray. What do they stray from? From the truth. Any man who strays from the truth, be he educated or simple, rich or poor, has seen no good in this world. Such a person cannot become great. All great people who are respected and recognised as such by the whole of mankind have loved the truth, have loved God. As long as you love God, you will also love your neighbours: so long as you love your neighbours, you will love everything that is around you. It is only in this way that one can create a favourable environment for work. Everything that God has created in this world is alive. To-day people pay huge sums of money for the statue of some great sculptor. How much more, then, will a man have to pay for his own, immortal statue given to him by God? For how many years has nature been creating this great statue! In this respect, every person to-day must be a great artist, the sculptor of his own statue, must model and perfect his own statue that the Primary Reason has given him as a priceless and irreplaceable gift in life. And, after all that, must a man deny it, must he sever this link and create for himself a new cult? Each person, each home, each society, each nation must arrive at an inner unity with all living things. Small nations must understand this law because it is thus that they shall be elevated. If the Primary Reason is on a nation’s side, it will elevate that nation, it will create a healthy brain, healthy lungs, a healthy stomach, a healthy body. A healthy brain means a healthy mind; healthy lungs mean correct sensitivity; a healthy body and a healthy stomach mean the healthful activity of human life. If your mind tells you to think only of yourself, then it is not a healthy mind, and it has already signed your death warrant. If your heart tells you that it should beat only for you, it is not healthy and it has already signed your death warrant. If your body and your stomach tell you that they should function only because of you, to carry out your work, they have signed your death warrant. Nobody in the world has come here only in order to carry out his own work. Each of us must contribute something towards life’s joint capital. Science should be in the service of the Primary Reason. Religion should be in the service of the Primary Reason. Art, painting, music, management, should all be in the service of the Primary Reason. Only thus will the general harmony of life be restored. Thus, the words ofJesus Christ can be rendered the other way round: ‘He who does not stray from me will not reject Him who led me.’ It is then that a man will remain true to his own inner convictions and will know that everything God has created in the world has its own inner intention. To-day the world is in need of a new, positive science, of a new creed which will bear the relationships of the Eternal Love, it needs a new structure, new norms and rules for the life of the personality, of the individual, the soul and the spirit. The life of the personality, of the individual, of the soul and of the spirit must be assigned to their correct places. And then, let us all, as Christians, apply Christ’s teaching, Christ’s love, according to our own personalities, our own individuality, our own soul, our own spirit. Thus, Christ’s words will be fulfilled when he says: 1 shall be with you until the end of the century.’ Now all people are living at the end of the century. By this we mean the end of the old world, the end of old ways of seeing things, the end of violence. This will be followed by a new era of light, of love among people, among all living things — a new era of truth and justice, of immortality and freedom. The expression of happiness on earth is health!

PEARLS OF LOVE Beinsa Duno about the happiness 1. Happiness is a radiant, exalted spirit, which follows only the man of truth and freedom. 2. People today seek happiness. Why? Because happiness implies blossommg. Everyone wants to blossom, to bear fruit, and to mature. The fruit aflije ripens under the influence of the rays of love, which bear life, joy and gaiety. 3. Love a person so that he feels free, happy, full of life and immersed in the space of truth. 4. When a person understands freedom, truth, happiness, and life, he is already in the land of great Love. What greater happiness can there be for a person than that he love someone without restricting him? 5. In order to attain happiness, a man must pass through the physical world, which inevitably brings suffering. Is it impossible without suffering? It is impossible, but life without suffering is life without experience. 6. Under today’s conditions, and with the present development of man, suffering is a part of nature’s plan. Life with suffering is the life of a hundred-year-oak. It is good for a man to have the patience and steadfastness of an oak. 7. When we speak about great love, many are afraid that it may replace human love. No, with the coming of great love to man, human love will be liberated, will become limitless, will be able to manifest itself freely. 8. When a person renounces his perverted intellect and his perverted heart, he will enter the path of great love, which brings happiness. 9. Love gives nourishment to life. Truth implanted in life as into the soil gives the conditions for freedom to germinate, to push up its shoots. 10. Whoever strives for freedom must revolt within himself, nourish a sacred revolt, a sacred wrath within his soul, to break the ties with the past. The truth must be spoken. If the truth is not spoken, everyone will receive what is coming to him. 11. A man can criticise everything, but if he comes before God, there he will have to befilled with holy trembling and awe, with the sacred ideal. A person should have one sacred idea in himself concerning his Creator, which gives him the impulse to knowledge, freedom, truth, beauty, and happiness. 12. And so, learn to think in a new way! 13. Love truth, so that you will befree. The truth will make you bold and decisive, so that you will work for your freedom, so that you can deal on the one hand with troubles within yourself, and on the other with external troubles. 14. If you attain truth within yourself, then happiness will came, i.e. happiness will follow you. Rejoice when happiness follows you, when it is behind you. If happiness is in front of you do not rejoice, do not think that you have attained it. 15. Happiness and freedom should, always be before you, be fore your person, and happiness should be behind you, as your rear-guard. In this manner happiness tells man: if you love truth and freedom, I shall always follow you, I shall be your rear-guard. 16. Happiness is a radiant, exalted spirit, which follows only the man of truth and freedom. If that spirit should look at you just once, it is enough to make your soul tremble for all eternity. 17. The attainment of happiness is a great moment. To gain happiness as his rear-guard in life is the task of every man. 18. It is already time for people to enter the divine life, to set in motion the divine ideas within themselves. These ideas, and not human ones, will give meaning to their lives. 19. For a man to live in love with his brothers requires a certain tenderness from him. To love someone means to win a soul. Everything that a man does for someone else will come back to him one day. 20. Love is aforce which nothing can resist. The new times demand new understanding, new thought, new love. For people to accept and understand the new love their consciousness needs to beprepared. 21. Today everyone talks about the new culture, and they do not understand that the new culture requires new people, who have loving relations with one another. In the new culture everyone will work. If someone makes a mistake or some crime, no one has the right to judge him. Everyone will pass by him silently and will allow him to correct his error on his own and to judge himself. 22. Every living being who enters the province of the new culture is responsible for his actions. There are ways to enlighten the mind, for making the heart mare gentle, and for educating the will. When these ways are applied, the world will become better. 23. And so, learn the ways to apply love to life. If love were applied as a method for educating children, the results would be radically different from what we have today. 24. Love and freedom are the attributes of all living beings. When love visits a person, he becomes a garden in which everything begins to grow, to flower, where there develop zeal, tenderness, reverence and judgment. This shows that love is the force under whose influence everyone grows and develops. 25. Now try the first experiment: love without expecting others to love you in return. You are already loved: God loves you. Nothing else remains for you to do except to manifest your own love. Every living being is given as much love as he needs. 26. You need to know one thing: love is an expression of great wisdom. It represents the totality of higher beings who have finished their development. They have tasted divine love, they recognise it, they apply it, and for that reason they come down to earth. 27. Love is a powerful, thing. When it is in a man, he is ready for all kinds of sacrifices. As students of the Great School you need to begin with love, which gives stimuli, impulses. Without love life becomes devoid of meaning. 28. The new culture seeks people free of the old give and take. And so, apply love to your lives so that you will not fall into negative states. 29. Do not expect that your salvation will come from outside you. A person’s salvation depends on himself. 30. I wish for you to begin with love. In the morning, when you see the rising of the sun, in the evening when the stars come out, at every moment, let your hearts tremble at people and animals, as the Divine Spirit is present among you. 31. Everyone seeks happiness, but happiness moves according to certain laws. Happiness is not located in one’s environment, or in money, or in knowledge, or in beauty. Happiness is something internal. Happiness is brought about by certain laws. 32. A person can be beautiful only when he is happy. A person can become musical only when he is happy. Without happiness a person cannot achieve anything. Happiness is the first point of contact of a person with God, or of a disciple with his Teacher. 33. When a person is freed of his personal life awl fuses with the life of his Teacher, the two of them are happy. When he achieves that happiness, a person’s consciousness fuses with the Higher Consciousness of Conscious Nature, with the Divine Spirit which hovers in it. This means an over all union with Nature. The unity of consciousness between two souls signifies deep internal understanding, internal fusion. 34. Consequently, happiness is the fusion of two souls. Where there is no fusion, there is no happiness at all. There exists a temporary, feigned mood which disappears at any moment. True happiness never disappears. The happy person is never poor, can never be ignorant. He has at his disposal riches and knowledge. Can a person be poor who has united with the spirit of nature? He will make use of the riches and knowledge of Nature as if they were his own. 35. This happiness can be attained only when a person fulfils the laws of love. In order for people to love one another they must have internal fusion. Without that harmony there is no love, no happiness. Now when I speak about happiness, I touch upon a law which unites all phenomena in nature. Whoever his attained happiness is uniform in his relations to all living beings. 36. Happiness cannot come from a husband, or a wife, or children, or from learning. Happiness comes from only one place, from the Universal, Omnipotent Divine Spirit. With his wealth the happy man can travel the whole universe. He does not have to live only on earth and to tremble like other people at the possibility offailing a test, whether in the university or in life. He is in a condition to make people around him happy. 37. The knowledge which I give you now is new. It relates to the sixth race, and not to the fifth. The fifth race will pass away, along with its old views. The sixth race has a new morality, which rests on the law of love. The. new man will converse with the atoms and molecules of his body as with friends. Atoms and molecules are living, intelligent beings. There exist tender feelings among them. 38. When the invisible world sent man lo earth, it charted his path in advance. For every person a special task has been defined, which he must solve. His right to make use of the privileges of intelligent nature to be a collaborator with her intelligent beings depends on his correct solution and fulfilment of the task and the service which have been given to him. 39. Our man will converse with the atoms and molecules of his body as with friends. In the morning, when he gets up, he will ask them how they feel, whether they have extra energy in their empty spaces in order to take measures to open all paths, so that that energy may come out. If they say that they have extra energy, he will immediately do a good deed and will free them of their extra load. 40. When a person feels extra energy in himself, he mast do a good deed in order to protect himself from an explosion. In whatever form good is, it absolutely must be accomplished. 41. Every person expects to find his Master, who will bring the Divine igniter of liappiness. Without a Master, as a superior perfected form, as a model in life, no one can develop correctly. Through a higher form a higher energy is transmitted. 42. People on earth live in bountifulness, but they are not happy. Why? They cannot make use of the bounty which is given them. A person can become, happy in a moment, there is no reason for him to put it off. However, if he expects happiness, lie must be satisfied with the least thing that is given him, with tile dawning of happiness. 43. Today’s people do not succeed at much, because they think that tile treasures which they seek can be attained in a mechanical way. Everything which takes place around you is an object lesson, and a person should learn from it to develop his intelligence. God manifests himself through the thoughts, feelings, and actions of a wise man. The will of God is included in the help which you can give to those who are weaker or smaller than you. 44. When happiness visits you, you will be in a completely different world, neither in the sky, nor on earth, but in the world of love. Love will be the environment, the condition for the development of man. In that world there do not exist the concepts of good and evil. Love is the fruit of the Spirit. That is how a person should think, in order to have a clear conception of the world. 45. When they do not understand the laws of love, people seek happiness in a mechanical way. Now I am examining happiness in a broad sense, as the first step, as the first connection in life. Whatever nature tells you, you should obey. She is the Great Teacher, who guides you. The attainment of happiness is the ideal of humanity. Happiness represents first a connection, the fusion of two souls. When souls begin to fuse, a new foundation is laid, a new world is created. From that moment new children are born, new relations are established, a new culture is enthroned, a culture without division, without programs and compulsions, the culture of Love. 47. In order for the world to be corrected, all people, two by two, need to fuse with the Primary Spirit. If you. reach happiness, you will begin to speak in a comprehensible language and everyone will unerstand you. There is nothing greater than the fusion of souls with the Primary Spirit. 48. It is important for you to know one thing: that all phenornena in nature have an unbreakable connection. Behind every phenomena is hidden an intelligent cause. A rnan needs to think correctly, to compare facts and draw accurate conclusions. 49. Whoever thinks correctly will see the connection between all phenornena; he will mike use of the light of that knowledge, and will move forward. in order to make use of that light a person must be open to it, must be well disposed in his soul. 50. Whoever wishes lo improve hs life must know the laws of the light arid apply them. A person cannot be either moral or spiritual, if he does not understand the laws of the light. 51. Moral and spiritual life imply an abundance of light, which introduces spirit and good disposition into a person. That light reflects favourably on the development of a person’s brain. It enters not only through the eyes of a person, but through all his pores. 52. Now, as I speak about the light, you will have in mind the physical light, which comes from the sun. It is the first phase of the light. As soon as you have learned the laws of that light, you will aspire to the spiritual, light, you will begin to learn its laws as well. 53. Spiritual light, also known as astral light, has the opposite effect from physical light. It is gentle, pleasant, and represents the reflection of physical light. In order lo make use of the light a person should understand its laws, so that he will not be afraid of it. 54. Once the light is refracted correctly, the reflected light is gentle and acts beneficially on a person. Why do you not see the errors of the person you love? Because you haw placed him in a shrine with spherical form, in which the light is refracted and reflected correctly. 55. Love and hatred for a person are explained not only through the laws of the falling and reflection of light, but also by the great law of Love. When a person behaves according to the law of Love, intelligent beings are developed through him, who understand the light and simultaneously understand life. 56. And so study the laws of the Divine light through which comes knowledge. Without light there is no knowledge. 57. Today’s people need lo free themselves from their misconceptions, from their old beliefs. They think in a new way, but they live and. behave in the old way. And when they have no success in their life, they lose heart. What kind of success can they expect, where there is no connection between their thinking and their lives? 58. It is an art for a man to know how to free himself from the old life and to enter into the new one, into eternal beauty and harmony. In order to free yourself from bad conditions in your lives, you need humility. You will ask how you are supposed to become humble, i.e. how should you behave? Look at the way children behave. 59. And so when you become like little children, you will be in a condition to solve your problems correctly. Do you teach a child how to eat honey? 60. On the day when you have learned the construction of your brain you will reach the positive science of life. Then you will look at your brain as a dynamo in which there meet the intertwined energies of the whole cosmos. The energies which pass through the brain and the heart are radioactive forces of the cosmos, which sometimes you are conscious of and sometimes not. 61. Nothing more is asked of you than that you be in harmony with the whole cosmos. The environment in which you live is extremely troubled, as a consequence of which you cannot receive the cosmic energies. If a man is in a passive state, he can easily receive the higher cosmic energies and make use of them. 62. As disciples you are expected to learn the laws of transformation of the energies, to send energies from the brain centre to another. You must work in the same way that nature works. A person can develop all centres correctly, once he conforms to the program which nature lias ordained. 63. As he understands life, a man observes all the laws and rules of nature. Today that does not happen, because he has dislocated things. True knowledge is that which can be applied at all times. 65. What do you need to do in order to obtain positive knowledge? In order to obtain that knowledge as disciples, you need to follow the following rule: have absolutely no doubt in the First Cause of things! When you reach it, you will exclude all doubts, all contradictions. 66. When it is said that you should love your neighbour as yourself, you should know who your neighbour is. By “neighbour” is understood that person in whom the Divine Principle has been awakened. Your neighbour represents aflower in bloom, which has sent its aroma afar. 67. In the same way that you behave toward your neighbour and toward yourself, so should you behave with every good thought and with every good feeling; you will water them until they germinate, blossom, and bear fruit. 68. The new teaching implies harmony between the thoughts, feelings, and the actions of people. The Divine manifests itself in small things and not in big things. Sometimes a small movement, carried out with divine energy, is worth more than the riches of the whole earth. 69. Pure thought, free from all misconceptions, and a noble heart without any human limitations. That is what is sought from the disciple. 70. Be faithful, truthful, pure and gentle, and the Lord of the world will fill your heart with all good things. 71. When a man is young, his eyes are healthy and he lives in the light. \Vhen he grows old, his eyes become weak, they cannot regulate the light correctly. 72. If an old man knew the laws for regulating the energy of his eyes, and at the same time how to balance his nervous system, fie would never fall into a condition where he could not see. 73. Once the optic nerve becomes weak, a man begins gradually to lose his sight. In order not to reach that condition a man needs to raise his thought and consciousness to a higher field than the one in which he finds himself. This means that he master the laws for rejuvenation. 74. When a man becomes alarmed a lot, the alarm causes the first shock to his digestive system, from there the shock is transmitted to his lungs, from the lungs to the brain and from the brain to the optic nerve. 75. In order to restore his sight a person should begin in the reverse direction in order to restore the normal condition of his organs: first the brain, next the lungs, and finally the stomach, from whence came the first shock. Afterwards he should find the cause and eliminate it. 76. Shocks which a person experiences always produce either an expansion or a diminishing of the space between the molecules of living matter. Thus the molecules of the nervous system lose their stability and plasticity, and it cannot transmit magnetism. 77. The thoughts of man penetrate the intermolecular space of the brain’s nervous system, while his feelings penetrate the interatomic space of the sympathetic nervous system. 78. If a person represses some thought of his, i.e. does not give it the possibility to be realized, it will cause an explosion in the brain’s nervous system. If, however, he represses some feeling, it will cause an explosion in the sympathetic nervous system. 79. In order to protect a person from the destructive action of the forces which are hidden in the interatomic and intermolecular spaces of his nervous system, occult science says: Do not resist your good feelings and desires! Do not resist your exalted thoughts. 80. Whatever nature says, you must listen to. She is the Great Master who guides you. If you obey tier, ifyou fulfil her laws, you will befree, you will live intelligently. 81. When one preaches to people that they should live good lives, that they should not torture or slaughter animals, the purpose is to force them through prayers, through good deeds, to refine the undifferentiated matter on earth, to unclog the blocked up openings, to avoid the earthquakes and catastrophes which take place on earth. 82. Dysharmony, the cause of which is people, exists only in the physical, world. In the Divine world there do not exit any shocks, any catastrophes. 83. In conclusion, we say that a person should be idealistic. Only that person can be idealistic who has content within himself. But he must be full of that content, not just half full. 84. Nature does not tolerate empty spaces. When it pours content into a barrel it fills it to the top, so there will be no room far air. Consequently, the good person represents a barrel, which is full to the top with content. In barrels full with content, i.e. barrels of ideas, the hoops never fall off. 85. For every person there has been designed a special task which he must solve. On the correct solution and fulfilment of the task and service which have been given to him depends his right to use the riches and privileges of intelligent nature. TO be the co-worker of her intelligent beings. 86. When we say that a person should renounce the personal in himself, we imply that something great will enter him. Only the great can replace the personal. 87. If a person’s personality is destroyed, he will receive one of God’s persons. That means that God will dwell in him. In this sense, man is a weak reflection of God’s personality, of God’s person. 88. This is a philosophy which is not abstract, because it can be applied in life. 89. When a disciple renounces his personal life and fuses with the life of his Teacher, they both are happy. 90. When I talk of happiness, I touch upon a law which unites all the phenomena of nature. Whoever has obtained happiness is uniform in his relationship with all living beings. 91. When he obtains this happiness, the consciousness of a person fuses with the consciousness of intelligent nature, with the Divine Spirit, which hovers in it. This means that a person has achieved unity with Nature.

MACHAR BENU ABA This exercise is referred to by the Master as the Disciple’s Prayer. It should be sung with concentration, with an expression of gentleness. ‘Mahar’ means ‘great’, ‘Benu’ means ‘he who blesses’ and ‘Aba’, ‘Father of air THE DARKNESS IN GLOOM . , . is the second part of the exercise and is a translation of the concepts embodied in it. The mystic meaning of the song is an ascent — Benu — towards the Sun of Life. Aba — we have set out along a road which is pure and holy for us after living in gloom and darkness. The meaning of the Bulgarian words is as follows: -”Our life was lived in darkness and gloom, but the sun of life shone upon us and we set off on a road which is pure and holy to us.”

IV THE PATH OF THE DISCIPLE TO BE A DISCIPLE IS THE HIGHEST NAME ON EARTH. Christ gathered his disciples to him, calling them friends. The Master says also: I PUT YOU ON THE SAME FOOTING AS MYSELF. Concerning THE WAY OF THE DISCIPLE. THE MASTER was speaking injust that very year when the Salon was built for the lzgrev — the year 1927. The House was finished when the disciples were called to the Synod. This was the great DEDICATION. Then it was as if the heavens were opened and from thence came down angels. There was great rapture. The disciples came from all Bulgaria. Holy, inspired people, clothed in white, with long hair which reached the bottoms of their ears, cut evenly. The hair is a man’s antennae. The hair contains his whole character and position. The sisters were also clothed in white. They had white hats. The style of their dress was free, the line of the shoulders was natural. How different they were from the fashion of those days! They had long hair in a bun, and in their hair were silver slides, — silver, the metal of good health. THE MASTER was all shining in gold light. THE SYNOD BEGAN AT 7 in the morning of 19th August. THIS SYNOD IS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND, said the Master. The First Day began with the Day of Love. We divide people into four categories: Old Testament, New Testament, the justified — the people of the new times — and DISCIPLES. What were your thoughts and views of life in the past, you will find in the Old Testament. What were your views of life as New Testament folk, you will find in the New Testament. But if you seek in the Gospel the Path of the Disciple, you will not find it. THE PATH OF THE DISCIPLE, that is NEW, and God gives it today. As disciples, you must have a clear concept of the Path of the Disciple. From this viewpoint we pass no moral judgments, we do not say that this one is wrong, that one right. We have absolutely no concern with people’s sins. For us they do not exist. For us there exists only the true life — the life of LOVE. I say unto you: God is the God of Love, of Light, of Peace and of Joy. Consequently these are the QUALITIES OF THE DISCIPLE. If you ask me what must be your ideal under the present circumstances, I say unto you that you ideal must be: LOVE, LIGHT, PEACE AND JOY FOR SOULS. That is not some ideal for eternity, but it can be achieved this day. Now, at the beginning you must have LOVE, BUT NOT WITHOUT LIGHT You must have LIGHT, BUT NOT WITHOUT PEACE You must have PEACE, BUT NOT WITHOUT JOY. What is Love without Light? Surely all the Old Testament people had Love without Light? What good did it do them? What good did it do them? What is Light without Peace? The disciple can tell of one experience of Love in which there is Light. The disciple can tell of one experience of Light in which there is Peace. The disciple can tell of one experience of Peace, which brings Joy to his soul. In this life Love is not given, Light is not given, Peace is not given, And Joy is not given, I SPEAK OF THE NEW LIFE, WHICH IS NOW COMING. IT WILL COME THROUGH THE NEW LOVE WHICH NOW ENTERS THE WORLD. THIS IS THE PATH OF THE DISCIPLE. Those of you who listen to me must understand me well. TO THINK STRAIGHT. None of you should be disheartened, nor be seduced. The men of the Old Testament are embittered, The men of the New Testament are seduced, The Justified are afflicted, THE DISCIPLE ALWAYS REJOICES AT THE CONTRADICTIONS WHICH HE MEETS IN HIS LIFE. He knows that every contradiction is a task in his life, which he must resolve. THESE CONTRADICTIONS are not only facts, but are the result of every kind of life which flows in our organism. The Old Testament life flows in your veins, in the great bowels. You cannot free yourself of it. Consequently it bears a series of contradictions in itself, from which you cannot flee. The New Testament life flows in your lungs, spreads to your sympathetic nervous system, into your solar plexus. The life of the Justified takes up the lower levels of the brain. BUT THE LIFE OF THE DISCIPLE FLOWS ON THE HIGHER LEVELS OF THE BRAIN. SO THAT LIFE REPRESENTS THE IDEAL IN MAN. By what is the disciple known? You will recognise him by the following qualities: THE DISCIPLE bears within a gentle light, which provokes no irritation to the eyes. He talks with such a soft voice that he never provokes the ear. He can feed you with such food that he will never disturb your stomach nor spoil your taste. You must understand these things not by their literal meaning, but by their internal meaning. WHEN YOU ARE FULL OF JOY, which expels all the contradictions from you, you have touched a small part of the Path of the Disciple. I ask: what is THE JOY OF GOD? It is a MORSEL OF BREAD which a small raven brings in its mouth. But you, like the Old Testament man, say: I did not need such a small crumb. While you are displeased, you are an Old Testament man. But when you understand the great law of God, that you will be pleased with the small crumbs which the raven brings you, you pass into the New Testament: you cease to be savage, you begin to be reasonable, to justify the raven and to say: “Verily, how much this small raven is able to carry” Now indeed you do not doubt, and from a New Testament man you be^in to prepare to enter into the life of the Justified. You begin to be bitter: “Cannot more ravens be found to bring me more crumbs?” WHAT MUST THE LIFE OF THE DISCIPLE BE? IT MUST NOT BE WAITING FOR THE RAVENS TO BRING HIM BREAD. The Disciple already has one practical experience: he has a reasoned link with the unseen world, since he has passed through the three stages of life. Now indeed he enters on the Path of the Disciple, in which there are other concepts of life. And so I want you to understand me well: if you become angry, grow savage, you must understand that that is the Old Testament life which is flowing in your veins. BUT THE OLD TESTAMENT LIFE IS NOT YOU, DO NOT MIX YOUR PERSONALITY, YOUR INDIVIDUALITY, YOUR PERSONAL UNDERSTANDING OF LIFE, WITH THE DEEP INTERNAL DESIRES OF YOUR SOUL. EVERY MAN WHO ENTERS THE PATH OF THE DISCIPLE WILL GIVE BIRTH, WILL CREATE ONE NEW THOUGHT, ONE NEW EMOTION, and that not only once in a year, but almost every hour, almost every minute. THOSE OF YOU WHO WANT TO BE DISCIPLES WILL HAVE ONLY ONE CONCEPTION OF THINGS. YOU CAN HAVE ONLY ONE MASTER IN THE WORLD. Christ says: “I no longer call you servants but friends.” There is slavery in the world of the mind — you are not free to think as you wish. There is slavery in the world of the spirit — you are not free to feel as you wish. As long as others define a creed for you, as long as others impose a teaching upon you, you cannot be free. Why did the Lord give freedom to two disciples in paradise? There are limitations everywhere. There are limitations in the Old Testament life. There are limitations in the New Testament life. There are limitations in the life of the Justified. IN THE LIFE OF THE DISCIPLE THERE ARE NO LIMITATIONS. THERE HIS EVERY ACTION IS CONSCIOUS AND REASONED. In the Old Testament life you have to pay for your sins. In the New Testament life you will perfect yourselves. In the life of the Justified you will help others. BUT WHEN YOU COME TO THE EARTH AS A DISCIPLE YOU WILL LEARN THE FIRST RULE, THROUGH WHICH LOVE MAY ESTABLISH ITSELF IN YOUR LIFE. THROUGH LOVE I DEFINE MYSELF, MY ACTIONS, MY RELATIONS WITH PEOPLE AND WITH THE HIGHER BEINGS. I SAY: THOSE OF YOU WHO WISH TO ENTER INTO THE PATH OF DISCIPLESHIP, MUST HAVE A LOFTY IDEAL. They must learn internal restraint. You ask what is sin? I will tell you. Sin begins with great things, but good begins with little things, with small matters. What is sin? Sin is the perversion of the great life of God. What is life? It is the great daughter of God, whom alone you can take as a teacher. She will take you to your Master. The Master has four disciples in this world, whom he loves. And if these Disciples recommend you to Him, He will accept you into the school. IF LOVE RECOMMENDS YOU TO YOUR MASTER, HE WILL ACCEPT YOU INTO THE SCHOOL. IF THE LIGHT RECOMMENDS YOU TO YOUR MASTER, HE WILL ACCEPT YOU INTO THE SCHOOL. IF PEACE RECOMMENDS YOU TO YOUR MASTER, HE WILL ACCEPT YOU INTO THE SCHOOL. AND FINALLY IF JOY RECOMMENDS YOU TO YOUR MASTER, HE WILL ACCEPT YOU INTO THE SCHOOL. If these four disciples stand credit for you, the Master will open the gates to you, will give you free entry, will bless you, will introduce you to the other disciples, and from that moment you have the entry to the school. If you have not love, your Master cannot accept you. I SPEAK OF LOVE AS ONE OF THE REASONABLE BEINGS, FIRST IN RANK. IT IS THE MOST POWERFUL SPIRIT, THE MOST MIGHTY ANGEL. THAN LOVE THERE IS NO MORE BEAUTIFUL, STRONGER, MORE NOBLE BEING. When you look at the face of that angel, all bitterness goes. When he meets you, he will embrace you, he will caress you, and when he lets you free from his bosom, all your sufferings and all your sins disappear, And after that, when you look in the mirror, you will see that you resemble him. But if you say that all that is your own, you at once grow darker. THEREFORE YOU WILL EMBRACE THAT ANGEL, YOU WILL THANK HIM AND YOU WILL SAY: STAY BY ME, DO NOT LEAVE ME. FROM NOW ONWARDS I SHALL WALK IN THY PATHS. SPEAK TO ME OF MY MASTER, I WILL LISTEN TO YOU GOD’S BLESSING DOES NOT REST IN THE GREAT THINGS BUT IN THE SMALL. The small grain of wheat, for example, contains all the conditions for a great life. So you also contain all the conditions for a great life, Where are they hidden? In your mind, in your heart, in your soul, in your spirit. But for this you need time to understand Love, Light, Peace and Joy in a planet, but God has given you as much time as you want. THE PATH OF THE DISCIPLE MUST BE THE PATH OF LOVE, A PATH OF LIGHT, A PATH OF PEACE AND A PATH OF JOY. Can you enter upon this path, not in the future, but right now, this very moment? Love does not depend on knowledge. Knowledge is a secondary thing. Love does not depend either on your strength or on your beauty. Knowledge, strength, beauty, these are only conditions which your soul can exploit so as to solve tasks. Love is able to solve all questions and, with the smallest exceptions, to resolve all difficult problems. Love is able to resolve 75% of your difficulties. DIFFICULTIES ARE TASKS FROM WHICH THE DISCIPLE MUST NO RUN. If a man grumbles that the Lord has given him such a task, then he is not able to be a disciple. On the contrary, he must say: Lord, I thank Thee that thou hast given me this difficult task. WHEN THE LORD OR THE MASTER PUT A DIFFICULT TASK BEFORE YOU, THEY HAVE A HIGH OPINION OF YOU. To the disciple who wishes to learn, the Lord gives everything good. The disciple then says: Lord, everything which Thou has put before me is beautiful. I rejoice in the task which Thou hast given me. That beautiful day is for the Disciple who wishes to learn, for the beloved of God. It follows that only the disciple can say: beautiful is this day. He will not say it aloud, but he will feel in his soul that this is God’s blessing. This indicates that, if you walk in the Path of the Disciple, according as I have spoken to you, your internal heaven will be as clear, and your heart will be as pure, as the heaven is this day. So too both your mind and your soul will be like today’s clear sky, a pure and bright heaven. THE LIFE OF THE DISCIPLE — THAT IS WHAT IS NEW IN THE WORLD. You will not get rid of the old life, but you will push it aside, so that it will not mix with the new life. The first three kinds of life flow in the roots of the whole of mankind, we cannot isolate them at once. Their isolation can happen gradually, as we overcome them, gaining true knowledge in life. Can we isolate these lives? We cannot. It is not a question of isolating them, nor of using them. Christ turns to his disciples and says to them: “I no longer call you servants, you have passed along that path, but I call you friends, because everything I heard from my Father I have revealed to you.” WHAT DID CHRIST HEAR? Christ told his disciples about the power of nature, about which on one occasion they asked Him: “Master, according as we have been told, we take fire from heaven, as Elijah did, to frighten those men?” CHRIST ANSWERED THEM: “That fire is not for now. YOU WILL TAKE FIRE FOR THE HEARTS OF MEN, and not from outside. YOU WILL PUT FIRE INTO THEIR HEARTS. If you take that fire from outside, you will lose your path as Disciples”. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING IN LIFE IS TO ENTER AS A DISCIPLE INTO THE SCHOOL. Ask: when, next year? No, this very day. Not even afternoon. Do not enter now, the hour is already past. Now, this very hour, while I am speaking! I said to you that this day is the first of its kind. In what connection? The first day of this Synod begins with the day of Love. THAT IS WHY YOU MUST APPLY LOVE THIS VERY DAY If you begin with Love, everything will go on as honey and butter, as the Bulgarians say. Then even the Light will come to you. HOW WILL YOU KNOW THAT LOVE IS ACTING WITH YOU? WHEN YOU GET UP IN THE MORNING, IF NO OXIDATION HAS HAPPENED, THAT SHOWS THAT LOVE IS ALREADY ACTING IN YOU. It is not enough to test this only on one day, but if there pass two, three, then, a hundred, five hundred and a hundred thousand days and no oxidation is observed in you, no confusion, that means that you have achieved the NEW LOVE. Some of you, as you listen to me, will say: look, our Master wants us to leave the world. No, I am not one of those who want you to leave the world. I am not one of those who want you to leave the School. I WANT YOU TO SOLVE ALL THE DIFFICULT PROBLEMS IN LIFE, ALL THE DIFFICULT TASKS A man must learn in the school of life until his most advanced age. Till the last hour, to the last moment of his life, a man must learn. According to the new understanding of life, you must give an impulse to the talented among you, to be interested in their good works. Some of you can sing well, others — paint, a third group — write. You say: I have one small talent. No, you will give thanks to God for this your talent, and you will know that even small talents can be increased and become great. GOD IS THE SOURCE OF ALL GOODNESS. To Him you will give thanks, and to Him you will turn your mind and heart. You will thank God for the good weather, for the good life, for favourable conditions, you will give thanks that He sent you onto the earth among this people. You will give thanks that you are a member of mankind, you will give thanks that you are linked with the angels, and that sometimes even He himself deigns to talk with you. WE REGARD PRAYER AS CONVERSATION WITH THE UNSEEN WORLD, AS CONVERSATION WITH GOD. TO PRAY MEANS TO LEARN TO SPEAK. MAN MUST SPEAK. Today we suffer, for we have not learnt the heavenly language of God. It is not enough for a man only to pray: the prayer must represent an expression in which the whole human spirit must take part, the whole of his soul, the whole human mind and the whole human heart. WHAT MAN WANTS FROM GOD MUST HAVE ONLY AN INTERNAL SENSE. If you pray, say: LORD, THY WILL BE DONE! I WILL ACCEPT IN GOOD WILL THAT WHICH COMES OF THY HAND, AND I SHALL FULFIL THY WILL WITHOUT ANY TRANSGRESSION OF THY LAW. And thus the Disciple must say to his Master: MASTER, I SHALL SOLVE ALL PROBLEMS WHICH THOU HAST GIVEN ME IN LIFE. I SHALL BRING THEM TO YOU FOR APPROVAL, AND WHATEVER CORRECTIONS YOU MAKE I SHALL ACCEPT WITH GOOD WILL. I say: we shall all open our hearts for the NEW DAY. That is the Day of Love, it is the day of Everlasting Life. GOD REIGNS IN THE HEAVEN. GOD REIGNS ON THE EARTH. And every intelligence, every knowledge, every power, every goodness and every might, whether of man, whether of the people, whether of the whole of mankind, is due to Him Who created the earth. We are members of that earth and must fulfil God’s Will. That is the great law of Everlasting Life. THAT IS THE GREAT LAW OF THE DISCIPLES, WHO WANT TO MAKE REAL THE GOOD AND THAT AS IT IS WRITTEN IN GOD’S BOOK, WHICH IS NOT YET PRINTED UPON EARTH. AWAKENING THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE DISCIPLE Only perfect Love can bring us near to God. Secret prayer. The theme of today’s talk will be one of the most difficult. It will be in practice almost inaccessible to your minds. Sometimes the monotonous situations in life cause a surfeit. There is a surfeit in the physical life. There is a surfeit in the life of feeling. There is a surfeit, too, in the mental life. That means there is a surfeit in the material life, There is a surfeit in the spiritual life and in the life of God. THE GREATEST MISFORTUNE WHICH CAN VISIT A MAN IS A SURFEIT The world is full of surfeited people. All the sicknesses in the world take their beginning from a surfeit. I want to guard you from a surfeit and from hasty conclusions. In the process of the awakening of a disciple’s consciousness he will often fall and will rise again. With what does the disciple fight? With certain difficulties in the world. A thousand contradictions can be born in you. That is not my concern. Contradictions are things which inescapably exist. For example, how can you reconcile the good and the evil? They cannot be reconciled by any means. But you can conciliate the good and the evil in yourself. They have points of contact. To reconcile good and evil means to undertake a grandiose task, such as even the gods cannot resolve. I will ask you: what will the disciple do in the world when his consciousness is awakened? — He will work. How? The Scripture says: Nothing will remain of the old heaven and the old earth. That means: that of the world of the disciple, of his brain and of his consciousness everything will disappear and he will be left as in a desert. Of his heaven there will remain neither sun nor moon, nor a single star. He will hang alone in the air. He will be left absolutely alone like a lonely traveller in the desert. When he speaks, he will not recognise even himself. He will find himself in a terrible contradiction in life. Everything which rejoiced you and made you happy, everything which you knew in life, everything in which you believed and upon which you relied, disappears. Then you will find yourself in the position of Christ when he was on the Cross and like Him you will shout from the depths of your soul: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” — “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Sometimes now it is hard for you when they abandon you. You have not yet experienced the meaning of real abandonment. BUT EVERY MAN MUST BE ABANDONED. WHEN I SPEAK OF THIS ABANDONMENT I understand AWAKENING THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE DISCIPLE. ONLY IN THIS WAY CAN THE DISCIPLE UNDERSTAND THE REALITY OF LIFE. So I say that when there comes that terrible great moment for the disciple on the first day — STILLNESS — there will be no light about him and he, from the depths, from his own experience, will call upon that Invisible, unknown God of Eternity, creator of all things upon the earth. He will call upon Him with all his soul, with all his spirit, with all his mind and all his heart and will say: LORD, I WANT TO TRY THEE! THOU ALONE ART THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS! THERE IS NONE OTHER IN THE WORLD SAVE THEE! If the Disciple can call upon God with this completeness SOMEWHERE IN SPACE THERE WILL SHINE FORTH A SMALL MICROSCOPIC LIGHT, WHICH WILL CAUSE HIM SUCH GREAT JOY, THAT HE WILL AT ONCE FORGET ALL HIS SORROWS AND SUFFERINGS. From somewhere far away he will hear the voice of the Lord, the voice of his Master: “DID YOU NOT WISH TO KNOW ME DID NOT YOU WISH TO TRY ME? PREPARE YOURSELF NOW FOR WORK”. THEN COMES THE FIRST DAY OF YOUR LIFE. AND GOD SAYS “LET THERE BE LIGHT” and there was Light. THE DISCIPLE WILL SAY: “MAY THIS LIGHT, WHICH I SEE SO FAR AWAY, SHINE IN ME!” And if he is of the chosen disciples, when he says “Let there be light”, light will come upon him. Consequently, the day will begin with good, the night with bad. This mingled life of light and darkness will be separated: On the one hand will appear the light, which brings good with it; on the other hand will appear darkness, which bears evil of itself. SO THE DISCIPLE WILL CREATE THE FIRST DAY IN HIMSELF. T H E L I G H T. By “LIGHT” I understand the great urge of the Disciple to learn. This means the Disciple must begin with the LIGHT (in Bulgarian — Videlinata). “And He divided the Waters from the Waters” — the second day, meaning that God divided the life of Heaven from earthly life, from the life of man. The firmament is the boundary between the Heavenly and the earthly life. THE DISCIPLE WILL CREATE THAT FRONTIER IN HIMSELF AND IN TIME OF BITTERNESS HE WILL DRINK OF THE WATERS WHICH ARE ABOVE. Sometimes you want to drink of the waters of the earth, of earthly life. If you drink of those waters, you will never quench your thirst. You are now dealing only with the water which is on the earth. Note that all the saints who have dealt with the Heavenly world, when they have been curing some sick person, have gone to the waters above the firmament. Turned into scientific language this means: they have cured only when they have succeeded in attracting the sun “Prana” or the Heavenly life to act upon the man, and he has immediately produced a reaction. Sometimes your life becomes meaningless, and you have no impulse to go forward. How are you to give meaning to your life? That is one of the great mysteries. IT IS ENOUGH TO GET ONLY ONE TEN THOUSANDTH PART OF A MILLIGRAM OF THE WATER OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE AND TO INTRODUCE IT INTO YOUR BODY, AND IT WILL AT ONCE PRODUCE A BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE UPON YOU, AND YOU WILL BE BASICALLY CHANGED. EVERY MAN MUST LIGHTEN HIS OWN EARTH AND HIS OWN HEAVEN. YOUR SUN, YOUR MOON AND YOUR STARS MUST SHINE FORTH. In this manner you will have means, measures with which you will understand things. And in this sense, every man can say: the Lord created the sun, the moon and the stars for me to be able to separate the days, the years and the seasons of my life. MY LIFE IS A BOOK UPON WHICH, WITH THE HELP OF THOSE LIGHTS, I SHALL DESCRIBE WHAT THIS LIFE IS THAT GOD HAS CREATED. The season of my life is a definite document in which it will be noted WHETHER I HAVE CREATED A SMALL UNIVERSE AS GOD WISHES. When we speak of the Disciple, we understand a life of creation and not a life of blessedness, which he has been given. When the Disciple has passed through the first three lives, he is given the opportunity of applying his strength on a small scale, to see how the old life differs from the new. THE NEW LIFE IS A LIFE OF PURIFICATION. AFTER THAT REAL CREATIVITY BEGINS. When you come to the work, you need examples, to know what the new life demands of you, and how it must come. WHEN THE NEW LIFE COMES, EVERYTHING THAT YOU NOW SEE WILL NO LONGER INTEREST YOU This life must be in conformity with God’s Love, with God’s Light, with the world of God and with God’s Joy. When I speak of the disciples, I see for them a great work, for which they must prepare. WE LIVE IN GOD’S REALITY OF THINGS, BUT WE MUST UNDERSTAND ITS LAWS. Everything has its cause. Consequently, in order to comprehend the causes and impulses of things, you must learn all manifestations, all phenomena in life and nature. When a thought is born in you, you must look at it carefully to see whether that thought is yours or is a guest, whether it is your sister, mother, or father. You must understand the origin of every thought which is born in your mind. You must create in yourself a House of God. IT REPRESENTS THE NEW BODY OF THE MAN, WHICH HE NEEDS FOR THE NEW LIFE. There is THE NATURAL BODY, THERE IS THE SPIRITUAL BODY. Many people ask: what thing is the New Teaching? WHAT THING IS THE NEW TEACHING? IT REPRESENTS THE HARMONIOUS CONJUNCTION BETWEEN A TRIANGLE AND A SQUARE. What is the figure of a square, which shows how family life should be organised? Therefore we must learn this great law. Therefore the father and the mother should together arrange the life of their son and daughter. And the son and daughter should together arrange the life of the mother and the father. In contemporary mathematics it is stated: “lfa conceived or imaginary number, that is, such as does not exist, is multiplied four times by itself, or it passed through four different conditions, the result is units which make a real number, with which we can contend.” What does this mean? We shall consider it in relation to the square: The square remains inconceivable to us as long as it exists somewhere in the unseen world. But when it is multiplied four times by itself, it achieves real unity, a real home. On the basis of the same law, when a man is multiplied four times by himself, it means that he passes through the causal world, through the mental world, through the astral world and finally through the physical world. If a man knows how to multiply himself by himself, then he will know his own reality. We come at last to those laws of alchemy, to that higher mathematics, which we must understand. The corners of the square have relationship to the man, because every corner is the centre of certain forces, which act in the direction of the diagonals. How do we measure these forces? They are measured in the centre of the square, that is, in the centre of the square where the two diagonals intersect. The centre represents the whole. All the forces of the square have direction towards this centre. WHILE ALL FORCES STRIVE TOWARDS GOD, CONTRADICTIONS DO NOT EXIST IN THE WORLD. They exist only as a creative act. What is the triangle? A LAW OF RECONCILIATION. Here you have three points of contact, but that is GOD’S CONJUNCTION. TO HAVE A HARMONIC CONJUNCTION BETWEEN TWO SOULS, FIRST OF ALL THERE MUST BE BETWEEN THEM AT LEAST THREE POINTS OF CONTACT. And now, from the conjunction of the triangle and the square, there is formed the pentagon. It represents the home, the house in which five souls must live, under one roof. As you see THINGS IN NATURE ARE NOT RANDOM. WE LIVE IN GOD’S REALITY OF THINGS, BUT WE MUST UNDERSTAND ITS LAWS. And so the square is the measure for the definition of all forces which meet in us. YOU MUST CREATE IN YOURSELVES A HOUSE OF GOD. IT REPRESENTS THE NEW BODY OF MAN WHICH HE NEEDS FOR THE NEW LIFE THERE IS THE NATURAL BODY, THERE IS ALSO THE SPIRITUAL BODY. Now, as disciples, you must have a strong desire to go forward. YOU WILL HAVE DIFFICULTIES IN YOUR LIFE BUT YOU MUST NOT BE DISHEARTENED. YOU WILL MEET CONTRADICTIONS, BUT YOU WILL NOT LOSE YOUR FAITH. YOU WILL MEET HATRED WITHOUT HATING. You will bear the evil and the good on your back, without taking part in their conversation. Have you born your cross in this way? I ask: who will liberate you from his cross? THAT IS THE GREAT TASK WHICH YOU HAVE TO SOLVE AS DISCIPLES. Whether you are a believer or not, whether you are a worldly or a spiritual man, you cannot throw off the contradictions of life. WHEN WE SPEAK OF LOVE, WE UNDERSTAND THE SINGLE FORCE WHICH CAN ACCOMPANY YOU ALONG YOUR DIFFICULT PATH AND SUCCESSFULLY LEAD YOU OUT OF IT. And now, I want you to be active, not inactive. The disciple has work, he has something to do. What does the good son do? He goes every day to the work. Today he goes to sorne garden, tomorrow to a vineyard, he digs, he cleans up, and when he has gathered up enough richness, he takes it home to his household. So too you, — whatever you gather on the earth, you must take it above. How do you think you can get there? Do you think that if you go as a sinner with empty hands, they will greet you with wreaths of laurel? So I say, when you return to God, you must work either as a servant or as a son. Which position do you wish to occupy? AND SO THE LIFE OF THE DISCIPLE IS A great LIFE. WHEN YOU ACCEPT THE GOODNESS OF THAT LIFE, YOU WILL SAY: THERE IS REASON TO BE ALIVE! THE DISCIPLE MUST SAY: WHEN I SEE THE FACE OF MY MASTER, WHEN I UNDERSTAND THE SENSE OF THAT KNOWLEDGE WHICH I HAVE LEARNED FROM HIM AND WHEN I BEGIN TO USE IT WITH ALL MY POWER, I SHALL BE SATISFIED WITH MY LIFE. Christ knocks on people’s doors, so that he can show them the way by which they can solve the difficulties of their lives. DOES CHRIST KNOCK ON EVERY DOOR? — NO. HE KNOCKS ONLY ON THE DOORS OF THE DISCIPLES, AND ON THOSE OF PEOPLE WHOSE CONSCIOUSNESS IS AWAKENED AND WHO HAVE SPENT MUCH TIME IN PRAYER. CHRIST WILL KNOCK, THE DISCIPLE WILL OPEN TO HIM, AND CHRIST WILL HIM GIVE THE FIRST LESSON. Behold I knock on your door, says Christ This verse refers to the disciples, to awakened souls. The Talks from the Synod “The Path of the Disciple” lasted for hours. They poured out in a broad, bright wave, reaching the consciousness and to the super-consciousness of the disciples. They provided food for the heart, the mind and the will. They were, too, rules for life. What we give you now is a summary, also taken from the Master’s Words, spoken at one of his lectures to the secret Youth Class during 1943: “Extract from today’s lecture a short, scientific summary, which can be printed in the periodical Grain of Wheat. You will write little, but concentrated, in scientific form!” I believe that we are carrying out his advice and his testament.

THE MASTER ON PRAYER WHAT IS PRAYER? Communion with God, with the First Cause of things. PRAYER IS A DEEP INTERNAL PROCESS PRAYER IS OUT OF TIME WHAT IS PRAYER? Prayer is a preface and introduction to Love. Prayer is nothing other than a linking of the soul with God, in which a man puts right his mistakes and gives thanks for all the blessings which he receives every day. WHEN A MAN PRAYS, he links himself with bright, elevated beings, who listen to him and record his every word. WHAT KIND OF PRAYER IS THAT. which is filled with complaints and grumbling against fate? HOW SHALL YOU KNOW THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED A REPLY TO YOUR PRAYER By that quiet inner joy, by that inner light which will help you to solve certain internal questions. PRAYER ENHANCES THE VIBRATIONS of the human aura. With this he becomes immune to surrounding lower influences. THROUGH PRAYER man protects himself from the alarms and terrors of the world. WHEN PEOPLE ARE PRAYING, DO YOU PRAY TOO! THE PRAYER OF A SINGLE MAN IS POWERFUL ENOUGH TO REPEL THOUSANDS OF ILLS. IF YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A DIFFICULT POSITION whatever it may be, turn to God with all your soul and spirit. Do not think that you can buy yourself free with a candle or two. THE STRONG PRAYER is able to fend off all of a man’s ills. YOU MUST WORK UPON YOURSELF so as to experience the power of prayer. THERE IS A WAY BY WHICH each one of you must teach himself precisely how to pray. A MAN CAN GAIN NOTHING IF HE DOES NOT PRAY PRAY, so that more light may come into your consciousness. ASK OF GOD THAT HE LIVES IN YOU AND TO MANIFEST HIS LOVE THROUGH YOU. PRAYER IS NECESSARY FOR THE BRINGING DOWN OF HIGH ENERGY FROM THE UNSEEN WORLD. GOD DOES NOT LIKE US TO PRAY FOR TRIVIAL THINGS. Trivial things are those, the fulfilment of which depends on ourselves. IF YOU WANT ANYTHING OF GOD, ask for life, ask for knowledge, ask for freedom, but never ask for money. When a man asks something of God, he must ask for the smallest things but at the same time the most necessary things. WHEN A MAN PRAYS, HIGHER BEINGS ARE PRESENT. SOMEBODY SAYS THAT HE PRAYS BUT THERE IS NO ANSWER. The reason is that his consciousness is not awake. PRAYER TO GOD RENEWS AND REJUVENATES THE PHYSICAL BODY ITSELF. BECAUSE ENERGIES REACH IT. REMEMBER THE FOLLOWING TRUTH: there is nothing more noble in life than the man of prayer. DO NOT FORGET the significance and necessity of prayer. IN INTERCOURSE WITH GOD, IF MANY PEOPLE HAVE UNITY OF SPIRIT, THEIR PRAYER IS ACCEPTED. But if a single man has unity of spirit, then his Prayer is accepted. When many people pray for the same thing, then their Prayer is accepted. WHEN A JUST MAN PRAYS ALONE, THEN his prayer too is accepted. WHEN HE PRAYS, a man links himself with all who are praying. A MAN CANNOT PRAY IN AN UNCLEAN PLACE. Prayer must only be offered up in a clean place. WHEREVER YOU MAY BE, IN WHATEVER POSITION YOU ARE, PUT ASIDE HALF AN HOUR OR AN HOUR FOR THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD, Thus the consciousness is widened. A MAN WHO PRAYS FOR A LONG TIME, who prays for years, HE COLLECTS ENERGY TO BE A HELP TO HIM. ONLY THAT MAN WHO LIVES IN THE LAW OF LOVE ALWAYS HAS THE DISPOSITION FOR PRAYER. In the life of a loving man, everything is prayer. PRAYER IS THE MOST HOLY ACT, WHICH IS A POSSESSION ONLY OF THE SOUL WHOEVER WISHES HIS PRAYER TO BE ACCEPTED must know the law of sacrifice. THE PRAYER OF MAN must contain something special in himself. HE WHO IS NOT IN HARMONY WITH HIMSELF AND WITH HIS NEIGHBOUR cannot receive an answer to his prayer. THE BEST METHOD OF PRAYER IS FOR A MAN TO BE STANDING. You will stand upright and will look neither to the ground nor upwards, but straight forward, in a direction at right angles to the forehead. THE AWAKENING OF CONSCIOUSNESS BEGINS WITH PRAYER. WORKING, TOO, IS PRAYING. The good man is always working, that means that he is always praying. Many think that prayer is not work. Prayer is an important work! It can bring much profit to the man. THERE IS NOTHING MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN THE PRAYER OF THE MAN WHOSE CONSCIOUSNESS IS AWAKENED. ONLY HE CAN PRAY CONSTANTLY who lives under the law of Love, that is if in God’s Kingdom. IN THE LIFE OF THE LOVING MAN EVERYTHING IS PRAYER. PRAYER IS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD. WHAT IS PRAYER? It is the music of Heaven. PRAYER IS A HIDDEN INTERIOR ART WHEN A MAN PRAYS, he talks with the beings of the Kingdom of God. PRAYER IS DIRECTING ONE’S HEART TOWARDS GOD and concentrating the mind so as to be able to receive certain Divine currents. These currents must pass through your heart, so that you can feel them, and then can you pray. WHEN THE MAN OF THE NEW WAY SEES that somebody is sinful, he says nothing to him, nor passes judgment, but, deep within himself, prays for him. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PRAYER CONSISTS IN THIS, that a man thinks about God as the source of life. Whatever the physical duties of man represent, Prayer represents something similar for man’s spiritual life. WHAT IS THE MEANING OF SECRET PRAYER? It remains cut off from the telephone wires linked with the world. MEDITATION AND SECRET PRAYER ARE NOT THE SAME THING! You yourselves can find the difference. SECRET PRAYER IMPLIES raising the mind of a man towards God SECRET PRAYER IMPLIES RAISING UP THE GLANCE OF MAN TOWARDS THE SUN THE SOURCE OF LIFE. TO ENTER INTO YOUR SECRET CHAMBER, that means to enter into your own virgin soul. Then you will understand the meaning of things and why you live. SOME MEN THINK THAT YOU CAN MANAGE WITHOUT PRAYER. PRAYER IS BREATHING. I CONSIDER PRAYER THE BREATHING OF THE SOUL. YOU CAN PRAY EVEN WHEN YOU SLEEP, and when you awake from sleep. You will pray even when you work and when you rest. IF SOME MAN THINKS that he can manage without prayer, contemplation and meditation, he is on the wrong path. PRAYER IS THE MOST POWERFUL ACTION IN THE HUMAN LIFE. It condenses into one the thoughts, feelings and will of man. So powerful is prayer! It works miracles. AT THE TIME OF PRAYER a man must feel himself alone, without any kind of appointments and links, as if he had come to this world for the first time. At this moment nobody must exist for him save only God. WHEN PRAYING, A MAN EMERGES WITH HIS HIGHER CHARACTERISTICS OUTSIDE, while the lower ones remain behind on the ground. That is, at prayer there is a kind of emanation. WHEN A MAN PRAYS AND OPENS THE BIBLE, the reading is not by chance but is sent from above. A MAN MUST PRAY THUS: teach me, Lord, how to apply the Divine Teaching. Whatever the weather outside, go out in the evening to observe the heavens. Send up to God a little prayer of a few words, but let it be steeped in Love. IT IS GOOD FOR A MAN TO REALISE THAT HE OCCUPIES A PLACE IN THE MIND OF GOD. PRAYER IS A WAY OF SOLVING THE MOST DIFFICULT PROBLEMS Often the mind of man piles up spare energy, and if he knows how to pray, he will cope with that energy. PRAYER AND CONTEMPLATION ARE THE EFFORT OF THE SOUL TO CLIMB TO A HIGH PLACE. Thence comes an influx of mental energy, and this assists the work of the conscious human life. TO PRAY AND TO CONTEMPLATE MEANS TO SEND IN YOUR REPORT TO THAT GREAT CENTRE FROM WHICH YOU CAME. ABOUT WHAT WILL YOU REPORT? About the work which you have finished. THE LAW OF PRAYER IS THE SAME AS THE LAW OF EATING. When a man goes without food, he feels a certain lack. When the soul goes without prayer, it also feels a lack. PRAYER IS THE INTERNAL NEED OF THE SOUL. PRAYER IS REALITY AND NOT A SHADOW. What gives power to the mind, the heart and the soul, at a given moment, comes from beyond the ordinary consciousness. PRAYER IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WORK. How beautiful it is, when you rise in the morning, to talk with the Eternal One ...

THE FORMULAE The Formulae, these short prayer-sentences, which are usually said three times, the Master gave at the very beginning of his lectures and talks, either as a topic for meditation, or as a concluding thought in a series of talks, or in the sermons themselves. They are particularly powerful. They are pronounced loudly, in a harmonious voice, concentratedly and in a prayerful mood. As with every prayer, they are said when we are standing for prayer. Some are for protection, like the formula: “Protect us, Lord, with Thy white light, encircle us with Thy diamond wall.” Others the Master gave to be said in exceptionally difficult situations or in time of trouble. Such is the formula: “Lord, Thou canst do all ...” The formula “Only the bright path of Wisdom leads to Truth. In truth is concealed life,” the Master gave in the first sermons of the Synods in a shorter form, as it is in The Path of the Disciple, but later, in the booklets of the secret Youth Class, he gave it an enriched form. It is one of the most powerful and brightest formulae. It can be pronounced at any time. It bears hope, light and joy. The Path is found — Wisdom, Life and Truth are united! “May God be among the White Brothers and may the White Brothers be in God’s love.” This formula is especially powerful. It is said at general meetings, after the sermon, afterprayers. This formula the Master said often during the last days of his life on earth.” GREETING We greet each other with the formula: THERE IS NO LOVE LIKE GOD’S LOVE! The reply is: ONLY GOD’S LOVE IS LOVE! “This is the simplest formula which I have given you. Greet one another with good will, respect and love. You will say quietly (that is good for you and for him whom you greet) THERE IS NO LOVE LIKE GOD’S LOVE. This greeting is a mathematical formula. The greeting is expressed not only with words, but with tender feelings and with a kind look.” FORMULAE FROM THE MASTER BEINSA DUNO 1. ALONE THE BRIGHT PATH OF WISDOM LEADS TO THE TRUST. IN THE TRUST LIFE IS HIDDEN 2. ALWAYS BE FAITHFUL, TRUE, PURE AND BLESSED, AND THE LORD OF THE WORLD WILL FILL THY HEART WITH ALL GOODNESS 3. THERE IS NO LOVE LIKE UNTO GOD’S LOVE GOD’S LOVE ALONE IS LOVE 4. THE DISCIPLE MUST HAVE A HEART PURE AS CRYSTAL, A MIND BRIGHT AS THE SUN, A SOUL WIDE AS THE UNIVERSE, A SPIRIT MIGHTY AS GOD AND ONE WITH GOD 5. IN FULFILMENT THE WILL OF GOD IS THE STRENGTH OF THE HUMAN SOUL 6. CHRIST IS THE MAN OF ABUNDANT POWER, CHRIST IS THE MAN OF ABUNDANT FAITH, CHRIST IS THE MAN OF ABUNDANT LOVE, 7. LORD, THOU CANST DO ALL THINGS AND THY SPIRIT, WHICH THOU HAST SENT TO GUIDE ME, THROUGH THEE CANST DO ALL THINGS AND I, THROUGH THY SPIRIT, CAN DO ALL 8. WITHOUT FEAR, WITHOUT DARKNESS INTO LOVE WITHOUT BOUNDS 9. GUARD US, O LORD, WITH THY WHITE LIGHT, PROTECT US WITH THY DIAMOND WALL Prayer is an inaccessible internal Art

PRAYER The Master’s prayers are above all beautiful. The Master Beinsa Duno said much about prayer. He expressed himself through deep mystical experiences and cast light on it from every side. Whole books could be written about what the Master said about Prayer. He also gave formulae, short prayer-like sentences, which he introduced into his sermons, as thoughts or conclusions, as a theme for meditation after the sermon, or in a series of talks with a particular formula. The Master’s prayers are, above all, beautiful. They fill one’s consciousness like some imagery of experience, linked with an awakened higher consciousness, with the experience of the Teacher. In the Master’s school, prayer, contemplation and meditation occupy the first place. Prayer is joined with the talk as a unified experience, and it can be said that it is left to echo in one’s consciousness and remains there for ages. Not the long prayer, not the whisper of words, but experience, positive thought, sent upwards, the tender appeal of the soul for help and the readiness to serve God, that is the prayer of the pupils. He says that if you are very weary, or have no time to say a special prayer in the evening, then say: Lord be merciful to me. I shall do Thy will. Or the lovely prayer of the mother: Lord, bless my child. Guard him from all ills and help him to develop all the gifts and capabilities which Thou hast laid in his soul. This the Master said when his own child was born. But this prayer we say every day for our children. And let the mother not forget: When her child is born, she must smile at him. Then the child will be happy. Not with frowning brows, but with a smile mothers from henceforth must greet their children on earth. And something else, our prayer must be accompanied with a song: then, says the Master, an angel accepts your prayer and carries it to God. The prayers of the White Brotherhood are accompanied with song, — a song-prayer, prayerful songs. There was no more beautiful moment and experience than when the prayer-song floated from the Prayer summit ofRila, where the Master spoke. The sun slowly and triumphantly rose. A valley like something from a fairy-tale dream opened below the mountain. From that valley the sun would take its journey upwards. And the pupils sang “God is Love” ... The songs of the Master are prayers. Because they express the Word. In a most beautiful form they express the laws of Love, Joy, Light and Peace. They are in the brightest ascending scale! The new music of the New Mankind. The song-prayer of the disciple: Phir Phyour Phen Tao bi aournen Tao bi aoumen Tao bi aoumen His most powerful prayer expressing the rules, the ten laws, the Master called THE GOOD PRAYER. He set it also as a task. For one year the pupils had to meditate daily upon it, to penetrate into the laws, to understand its universal content, in which man speaks with God ... What is it, asks the Master. It is the heavenly singing. Prayer is an inaccessible internal art. When he spoke about the Lord’s prayer “Our Father”, the Master gave it the following interpretation, or this is one of his interpretations: As the prayer begins: “Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in Heaven, so too on earth,” This means: Our Father, who are upmost in my mind, may Thy Light enter my mind, so that I can accept it. May Thy Will be in my every deed, in my thought, in my feeling, in all my deeds. May Thy Will be present in my breathing, in my circulation, to send the blood throughout the whole body to feed it, to serve Thee with Joy and Love. Brotherly meetings and sermons always ended with “Our Father.” In his Talks the Master speaks long and in detail about Prayer, that “Communion with God” as he names one of his sermons devoted to Prayer. With beautiful and profound definitions, He often gives a heavenly, new definition to Prayer. They sound unusual. The Master gives powerful, meaningful explanations, full of deep mystical meaning. The formulae are powerful spiritual aphorisms, condensed Light, infinitely powerful and powerful words, to be precise — formulae for health, for Joy, for Contemplation; they are also a moral law. Only the Enlightened Path of Wisdom leads to Truth. In Truth is concealed Life. With a formula the disciple defends himself: Lord protect us with thy white Light. Defend us with Thy diamond wall. With a formula which is made of movement, a magnetic stream from the crown of the head, the milfoil slowly pours through the body; with both hands the Blessing and Joy from on high are brought down; the Panevritmia concludes: May God’s peace prevail and may God’s Joy shine forth and God’s happiness glow in our hearts. (Da prebude Bozhiyat Mir i da lzgree Bozhiyata Radost i Bozhieto Veselie v nashite surdtsa) Or at the end of a sermon the Master gives the formula: Christ is the man of Bounteous Power. Christ is the man of Bounteous Faith. Christ is the man of Bounteous Love. These formulae are thrice repeated. They enter into the understanding, and the soul stores them away in its treasury for future ages. The Master also gave a formula as a short grace before meals. It is spoken three times, with open palms thankfully directed to the blessing of the good and its deep meaning: God’s Love bears plenteous and full Life. At the end of the meal, it is also spoken three times. How beautifully it sounds in the Bulgarian tongue! This is a tongue holy and musical, rich and ancient. This formula should be pronounced in the language of the Master: God’s Love bears plenteous and full Life, — three times in Bulgarian: Bozhiyata Lyoubov nosi izobilen i pulen zhivot! (Божията Любов носи изобилен и пълен живот!) Its efficacy and power, pronounced in the Bulgarian language, is inexpressibly powerful. And how would a formula sound which evokes the Light! Without fear, without darkness, in boundless Love. This formula shakes the depths of consciousness. And we, as it were, see the Light as the foundation of the World, when the Creator said: Let there be Light, and it became Day. A special word: that is the spiritual name and meaning of the Light is contained in the Bulgarian word VIDELINA (ВИДЕЛИНА). In the Gospel of John it says in the Bulgarian translation precisely this: And the Light shone in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. I VIDELINATA SVETI V TUMNINATA I VIDELINATA YA NE OBZE. (И виделината свети в тъмнинате и виделината я не обзе.) Of the first words of that Gospel, the Master made a prayer-song: In the Beginning was the Word —V NACHALO BE SLOVOTO (В началото бе Словото)

III THE GOOD PRAYER O Lord, our God, our blessed Heavenly Father, Who has given us life and health so that we may rejoice in thee, we beg Thee to send us Thy Spirit to guard and protect us from all evil and wicked intent. Teach us to do Thy Will, to glorify Thy Name and to to praise Thee always. Enlighten our spirit, illumine our hearts and minds to keep Thy bidding and commandments. Inspire us with Thy Presence, Thy pure thoughts, and guide us to serve Thee wlth joy. Bless Thou our lives, which we dedicate to Thee, for the good of our brothers and near ones. Help us, assist us, to grow in all knowledge and wisdom, to learn from Thy Word and to abide in Thy Truth. Direct us in all things which we think and do, so that they may be for the success of Thy kingdom on earth. Feed our souls with Thy heavenly bread, strengthen us with Thy power, to be successful in our lives, as Thou givest us all Thy blessings. Apply Thy Love so that it may be our everlasting law. For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever. Amen. Given by the Master Beinsa Duno.

LOVE “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become a sounding brass, or a clashing cymbal.” I Corinthians 13,1 The word ‘Love’ has become prosaic to such an extent that it has lost all meaning. When a word loses its meaning, it becomes saltless, and all things which become saltless lose their power and decay. In the organic world, when certain foods enter the stomach and do not react correctly with it, a state which doctors call indigestion comes into being, which causes an unpleasant feeling in the whole body. This law is true not only in the physical world, but also in regard to the mental life. When a thought arises which does not react with our brain, and the mind cannot perceive it, a similar condition follows. The same thing holds good for the human heart. When a desire enters a man’s heart and cannot react with it-as a result of which the heart cannot accept it, a similar condition is the result. Human nature has a threefold conception of things. Take an apple, which is red, colourful and pretty. First, its form will attract your eyes and you will take it, turn it this way and that, and form a certain idea of its colour and external form. After your eyes have finished their process, you will put the apple near your nose to see if it has any smell; your sense of smell will define the quality of its smell. When your sense of smell has done its work, your tongue and teeth will taste the apple; they will spoil its beautiful dress, and nothing will remain of this colourful outfit. And the tongue will say: “This apple tastes good.” In the same way love has a threefold expression in life in regard to people, but because of a misunderstanding of its relations, people have a wrong conception of it. Some say it is a feeling, others that it is a force, still others that it is an illusion, and so man’s mind determines his state; therefore his conception of love will be such as his mind is. Everything must be tested in its own place. Therefore when we come to talking about the meaning of love in a broad sense of the word, you will not all be ready to understand what I can tell you, and in order to make my idea comprehensible, I shall put it in a simple form. When a child is born, his mother first gives him milk, and after he has grown a little, she prepares liquid foods for him, and the child enjoys the milk and the soft foods. However, in order to give him hard food he must have teeth to chew, otherwise his stomach will be spoiled. But before the child’s teeth start growing a process takes place: the child falls ill and his temperature rises. The scared mother thinks it is a fever of which the child may die, so she calls the doctor. But as soon as the teeth have grown, that condition passes. In human life there exists such a state when man a is given hard food — love. He passes through the process of sufferings. Therefore when we say that sufferings are necessary, we understand that we must pass through sufferings in order that our teeth may grow and so we can eat hard food. What these teeth are needs further explanation, but now I say to you that, as soon as your sufferings begin, it is a sign that your teeth are growing. After you have passed through this process, you are of the same form as Christ: you have thirty-two teeth, and you are at Christ’s age — thirty-two. Now I shall carry out a little analysis of the Apostle Paul’s conception of love. In order to understand love, we must compare this idea with its opposite ideas. In the world today all people want to be eloquent orators, because all know that a man can influence a group by the power of his speech. But the Apostle Paul says: “If I had all the eloquence a man may attain in his own language, even if I had the eloquence of the angels and did not understand love, it is of no profit.” It would be like looking at the outside of an apple. Further on, the Apostle says: “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing.” Even though we may have all the gifts mentioned by the Apostle Paul, but have not love, we are deprived of the most precious thing. It does not mean that these gifts are of no value, but they concern the external man, not his soul. Let us look at the positive qualities of love. Its first quality is long-suffering. Do you know the meaning of patience? It is the basic pillar of life. If you have patience, you can attain everything, but if you do not have it, you will not attain anything in life. A man of patience is like a ship with an anchor: a man without patience is like a ship without a rudder. This is in reality the distinct property of love. This is why it is said: “God is love,” since He is long-suffering. Long-suffering is the sign of the great love which God has for us. If He did not have such love, He would not have tolerated us for so long; He would not have tolerated our ignorance and our baseness and would have cleared the world of men a long time ago. So no matter what work we take up or what benefits we want to acquire in life, patience is absolutely necessary to us. In order to be patient we must be leavened by three basic qualities: wisdom, truth and virtue. Why does a mother tolerate certain faults in her child and try to bring him up? She foresees that, although her child has shortcomings, he will one day become a great man, useful to his home and country. Foreseeing all that, she says: “I shall bear all hardships and all his shortcomings.” And she acts wisely. The patient man is wise and foresees the future. Take a young maiden, for instance: before she marries, she keeps her hands very clean, does not want to dip them much in water, and uses creams, perfumes etc.; but once she is married, she does not mind soiling them even with the mess of the child: she even finds pleasure in it. I am speaking to you about love in its broad sense. Some people think of love as a pleasant sensation, or a pleasant disposition of the heart. This is not love, because one may drink some wine and have a pleasant feeling in the heart. You have a massage to alleviate certain pains and again you have a pleasant feeling, but this is not the pleasantness which love gives. When a man loves you, he may cause you pain sometimes, for love always causes both suffering and joy: that is its property. It is a two-edged power: it caresses all, but it also punishes all. And how does it punish you? When it leaves you, you become sorrowful and say: “I am unhappy.” Why are you unhappy? Because of the absence of love. “I am happy.” Why? — “Because love is present in me.” But love says something else: patience is the way by which it can come into a man’s heart. Long-suffering creates conditions for the manifestation of love. Love cannot enter us without patience. It is the first basic quality, the avant-garde of its coming. When you acquire this patience in its broad sense, you will see that it is a great power in the hands of a brave and resolute man: such a man has a great future before him. Now I shall consider the word ‘benevolence’. This is the positive, active aspect of love, while patience is the passive, preserving aspect, where you have to sustain a certain burden. Benevolence is love in order to build up and do good to someone, regardless of who he may be. If you meet a beggar who wants you to do him a kindness, do it. We want people to love us and be polite to us, but we ourselves often break this rule, and besides our lack of patience, we do not show the benevolence we owe them either. Someone says he loves a person, but speaks evil of him before another. One day the echo of these words will be heard, because a man reaps what he sows: if he plants apples, he will gather apples; if he sows thorns, he will reap thorns. I am not saying what my relations to you must be, but I always have in view what my relations to God must be — to love — i.e. to do what is required of me for my brothers. How I understand my actions is a secondary problem: the important thing for me is to be ready to fulfil the basic law which love requires of me. Can I be as patient as love wants me to be? Can I be benevolent according to it? This is the important thing for everyone, for the whole world, for all those who have a heart. Some people say: “I have no chance in the world, and I am an unhappy man.” I answer him: “Because love has not visited, you are unhappy.” “But why does it not visit me?” “Because you are impatient. You are not benevolent.” Now you say: “These are easy things to do, and I shall do them,” but you do not do them. I say to you as a physician: “You are all ill,” for I have not met a healthy man in the full sense of the word. Only the saints and the angels who live in Heaven are completely healthy. People are ill, but, of course, not to the same degree. When a doctor visits your home, he will say; “Your house is not healthy because it faces the north, you must leave this room and move to a southern one; you should keep your window open much of the time so that pure air and light can enter in; you must change your bedding, your food also, and many other things.” Love says the same thing: “You have a room which faces north, it is not healthy and you should occupy a southern room where the sun can shine on you,” i.e. it wishes to say: “You must be patient and benevolent.” Therefore, those of you who can understand must realize what patience implies in the complete sense of the word. It is not just the patience of tolerating offences. The secret of patience is, when a man offends, to discover the good side of his offence and to make use of it. The offence is a very hard nut which someone has given you, but you must break it, find the kernel inside it and eat it. If you can nourish yourself in this way, you will be a completely healthy man. When people speak evil of you and insult you, they give you food, and if you can use this food, you will be more than satisfied. When people throw hard stones at you, you must break them, because inside them there are treasures which you can use to enrich yourself When you go home, begin to meditate and pray to God to help you understand what patience is. Up till now many people have been engaged in useless things; many Christians want to be great and famous, or have much knowledge. Well, knowledge can be a power which can favour both yourself and your neighbour, if you know how to use it correctly, but it can also be a heavy rucksack upon your back. Loves does not envy. Therefore, in order to understand if real love has visited you, test yourself whether you envy or not. If you envy, you have no love. Love must always be present in our actions, for it is needful not only for this life, but for all our future lives, and the higher we ascend, the more significant it will become. We must start on this way now: there is no other way to Heaven. You will ask: “What is love, and of what elements does it consist?” Love is the food of life, without it you cannot live, or attain anything in the world. Many people have an obscure idea of love, be it in regard to trade, education, or war. We should have love everywhere, for it is a great power. The force with which I raise this glass is also love. This same force can be put into a cannon and kill many people, or it may be expressed in an earthquake, or destroy the whole earth, but it can also create a new world. The important thing is the use to which we put this force. Love is a force which can be used by being regulated. People are selfish, and when love comes, they want to shut it in themselves. But if we shut it in, it will tear down our walls and get out. It cannot stay in such a place, as we wish to have it stay, for then death is born. Death is a process of destroying every egoistic thought and desire, but God destroys all enclosures wherein the bad spirits have enclosed themselves. Our heart and our mind must have all the necessary conditions to accept love. It is calm and quiet, but at the same time in its actions it is a terrible power. When we are in harmony with it, life is blessedness, but if we are not in harmony with it, there is no more dangerous force in nature than love. That is why experience has taught people to say: “He who loves much, hates much as well.” It is as strong in its positive aspect as it is in its negative one. That is why we must be very careful with it. Many say that God is love, and as such He should not punish. God, being so kind, is at the same exigent. When He sees us dissatisfied, he says: “Put a kilogram on his back.” We ask: “Why do they put this weight on me?” But He without answering says: “Put one more kilogram on his back.” “But I cannot bear this.” “Put one more kilogram on his back.” And when we are so loaded that we cannot move, then we begin to say: “God, forgive me.” “Take a kilogram off his back,” God answers. We repeat the petition. “Take one more kilogram off his back.” The more we pray, the more kilograms come off our backs. And after taking off all our load, God asks us: “Have you learnt the lesson yet?” “We have learnt it well.” “If you do not wish to be loaded any more, you must be benevolent and patient to all those around you, as they also must be patient and benevolent towards you; these little brothers of yours may make mistakes, but you must have patience, as I am patient. The day you break this law, I shall burden you again.” I told you how we can become free from our load. Everyone must say from his heart to God: “I am thankful with all my heart and soul for everything you have given me.” God has given thousands of benefits to every man, but man does not know how to use them. There is a saying: “He wades in water and is thirsty.” Many merchants are dissatisfied. Why? Because they had ten thousand leva and it is insufficient to them. If you give them twenty thousand, still the sum would be insufficient; give them fifty or hundred thousand, and still they will be dissatisfied. As we often like to put salt and pepper in our food, so in the same way God will put some salt and pepper in us when we are not satisfied in order to make us satisfied. For life does not consist in the great quantity which we have, but in what we can use at any given moment, and in being thankful for what God has given us. Then God will give us greater benefits. This chapter of the Apostle is to be applied in practical life; we should start working in order to be useful to our brothers around us. We are here as in a school, not as in a hot-house. In a hot-house you can grow anything, whereas in a school you grow only those things which can be useful. You say: “Why has God not given me greater abilities, more power and more money?” I see many reasons for that. Because as many times as He has sent you and your ancestors to the field to work, instead of cultivating your minds and hearts, you engaged yourselves in tasting the forbidden tree, in making more and more experiments which cost you all your capital. As many times as you came together to this field, instead of working, you ran away and returned to Him, begging Him to give you something without effort. You are like students, whose father and mother want to make them learned men, but who do not study and run away from school. Many of you have run away from this divine school. You say: “I can make nothing out of this, so I shall run riot.” But he who wants to learn the divine law and receive a higher degree, reaching the state of the saints from where he can observe life clearly and receive the benevolence of God, must finish the divine school on earth and graduate with matriculation exams. The good of every man depends on this graduation. If you remain unprepared in this world, you will drive horses, plough, break stones, and make roads until you learn what the horses, the plough, the stones and the roads have to teach you. God makes the disobedient children break stones, but He gives nobler tasks to His obedient ones. He will say: “This teaching is difficult for the indolent, but it contains wealth for the diligent.” Yes, it is true that the teaching is difficult for the indolent, but it contains wealth for the diligent, the industrious and the humble. Do you know why the worm is in the ground, the frog in the water, the bird in the air and man among them all? These are the four great states of life. But you will say: “These are abstract things.” They are not abstract things, but four great truths which show you the narrow way, the way of God’s thought. It is narrow indeed, but there are deep reasons for this which I cannot explain now. They are beyond the boundaries of this world. I shall revert to the word love’ which people have rendered saltless and have perverted. We say: “Love is one of the illusions of life, empty dreams of green young girls and men who chase the illusive shadows of life.” Yes, it is a shadow, but behind this shadow there is the reality from which flows the sap of life, incessantly satisfying the soul’s thirst, as a tired traveller satiates his thirst at a clear, cold, mountain spring. What invaluable wealth, what knowledge lies hidden in this single word! And if people knew how to pronounce it correctly, as it was originally pronounced by God’s mouth, everything around them would smile and tenderly listen to this heavenly call. They would be in possession of the magic wand of the ancient sages, before the power of which everything bowed down reverently That is why we must be thankful for what God in His .great Wisdom has deigned to give us. I do not advise you ever to listen to peoples’ advice. You may draw a lesson from their advice, but every man must listen to the advice which God has deposited in his own conscience. Hear what people say, and if it is in accord with what God tells you inwardly in your conscience, listen to them; if not, do not ever follow others’ advice. If you want to be free from faults, you must listen to and obey God. He who does not listen to God is not a wise man, but a slave to his superficial inclinations and a slave to men in all things. You are searching for God, but where? He is in you, in your mind, in your heart. He is manifested in these two talents. Listen well to your mind and heart, for God speaks to you through them. Some will preach to you that the mind and the heart have been spoiled. That is not right. If your mind and heart had been spoiled, how would we come to know God? Some things in us are spoiled, but not everything. And I ask you, if you do not believe in your mind and heart, whom do you believe in? If your mind and your heart were spoiled like mine, why should I believe in you? Whom must we believe in? — In God, who lives in us. And when we believe in ourselves, we shall believe in our brother also. He who does not believe in God who lives in him cannot believe in other people either. And he who is not benevolent toward his neighbour is not pleasing to God. That is why God tells us to love our neighbour. Your neighbour is wounded and crucified, nailed to the cross. Your God is not in Heaven: you have nailed Him to the cross. Read the New Testament to confirm that this is true. Your salvation will be effected in no other way, but by this nailing, by patience and benevolence. Then your liberation will come. You will say: “This is a difficult task.” But it is not difficult, be not afraid. If Christ had not worn the crown of thorns and had not been crucified, how would He have expressed His love? Would you love Him to-day, if He had wanted to live like a king and had done so? You love Him, because He was nailed to the cross from your salvation. That is why from now on you must be heroes and not be afraid of sufferings, you must tell the world that you are men ready to bear not one, but ten crosses. Sufferings are the sign of God’s love, and let us all bear this cross. That is why God gave these sufferings to the whole Bulgarian nation, that they might acquire these two great qualities — long-suffering and benevolence. You say that the Greeks and Serbs are doing such and such things. Never mind what they are doing; do not pay attention to them. You learn the lesson for your salvation and leave them alone: they have not gained anything, and the time will come when they will study the lesson which has been given you earlier, for which you must be thankful and not complain. “They crucified us.” “Never mind, you are nearer Me,” God answers. When they crucify you is the time for your entering into the Kingdom of God. That is why we should rejoice. Let us all be followers of Christ and worthy on earth of the name of Christians! Let us ignore what others may say! Let us be long-suffering and benevolent and fulfil our duty to God as we understand it in our pure thoughts and desires! And let us never stumble on this great path, but rather fight resolutely and bravely, and encourage everyone who is fighting alongside us. This is the power by which we shall overcome the present hardships, Talk given on July 6th, 1914, Sofia

THE TALENTS Today I shall speak to you on the 15th verse of the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Si Matthew. No doubt you have read this chapter many time.! and have meditated about the talents, probably drawing certain conclusions, some of which have been closer to the truth than others. I shall take this verse in its ordinary sense. When Jesus made a statement or told a parable, He had in view the basic divine thought, or divine law, which He should reveal to people by His speech; He always revealed certain truths. Now we may ask the question: why did he give five talents to one man, two to another and one talent to the last? Was this done by chance, or was it a deliberate act? In nature nothing is done by chance. When we cannot explain something, we say it happened by chance. We meet a person and call it a chance encounter. But one of the laws of life states that our meeting is determined by previous causes, but since we do not know the law, we think that we meet by chance without any cause. However, that is not so. What must we understand by the five talents, the two talents and the one talent? Who are the people of one talent? They are those who live only for themselves. They say: “Let us eat three times a day, drink and go to bed, so we can get fatter, dress well and live comfortably; that is why we have come into this world.” They are egoistic people, fruitless, without seed — people of one talent. And who are those of the two talents? The man who is getting married is the one talent and his wife is the second. The two come together and bear children, so they become four and say: “God, we used the two talents by bringing up children and have gained two more.” That is in one sense of the word, but in another they are people who live for their home, for their society or nation. But those of the five talents possess something more. The five talents correspond to our five senses, that is, people who have developed their sight, taste and sense of touch. They are people of right thought and who have a correct evaluation of all that God has created. They understand nature and life’s phenomena as well as the causes and results of things. They are teachers of the world and live for the whole of mankind. Now let us make a small calculation with the talents given: we have I and 2 and 5 = 8 talents. Is the number 8 arbitrary? No, it is not, it is the number of work. The scriptures say that God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. After every rest comes a new day for work. We are in the eighth day. And God said to people: “I made the world, now your day for work begins, and some day I shall come to inspect your work.” We live in the eighth day, and since we do not know how to work, we make mistakes. But God says: “Work and go forward, of course you will make mistakes.” What teacher does not expect his students to tear paper and cause disturbances at school? What woman, when starting to tidy the house, has not first allowed it to get into disorder? What dyer does not become spotted with dye when dying? In the course of our development we must not expect the impossible, but we must always expect change and the wearing out of the body. Now if we add these talents together, we get the following result. The one who had five talents gained five more, which adds up to ten. The one with the two talents gained two, which makes four, and ten equals fourteen, and the one buried in the earth — fifteen in all. If we subtract from this number the original eight talents, how many have been gained? Seven. What is the meaning of this number? We said that it meant rest. Now we must understand the basic divine law that rest is the result of work. Only those will bejoyful and glad who have worked. Christ also says: “Those who have worked will enter into the joy of the Lord; all that is given me will be given to them also.” But what did He say to the one who had not worked, but had hidden the talent in the earth? “Take the talent from him and give it to the man who has five, and cast this man into outer darkness where he should learn to work.” What is this outer darkness? It is the worms working down in the earth. If you do not learn how to work, God will make a worm of you and put you in the earth to work in the darkness until you learn how to work. All those who want to philosophize on the divine law will test these words as to whether they are right or not. This morning I am speaking to you about the basis law: we must work. And only when we work for God, is it work: when we work for ourselves, it is hard labour. Work implies the idea of knowledge. The man who took five talents had five senses: to him God had given all abilities and the necessary knowledge to use them. The one who had two talents also had abilities corresponding to his knowledge. I shall give you one more analogy. The man with the one talent is like a mineral which cannot be multiplied: it always remains one. It can refract the sunlight very well, but it cannot be a rational being. When your heart is hard like a mineral, you are a man of only one talent. Therein lies the danger, for God says: “I shall take away your stony heart.” But this one talent must be transformed and begin to develop and multiply. The two talents signify the grain of wheat, or vegetable life, which is a little higher than the minerals and can multiply and develop. What can beautiful minerals give us? We would all die if we had to live on them. Thanks to the grain of wheat, which corresponds to the two talents, thanks to our industriousness, and thanks to those five talents — the abilities which our mind possesses for a higher spiritual life, which show us how to cultivate the benefits God gives us — we can be saved from many calamities in this world. We must ask ourselves what is the meaning of ‘according to his several abilities’. It means that each one of us must know his abilities. People often say: “I want to have greater talents and greater abilities.” If you have not developed or used the talents you have and do not know how to apply them, who will give you more? Everyone of us has so many abilities that, if we develop them, they are sufficient to form the foundation for five talents. But few men have five talents. I believe that most of you who are listening to me have two talents. But if you turn these two talents into four, that would be a different thing. What does the number 4 mean? That you must find the process of purifying your life. You need water, but it is muddy, and you must find a means of filtering it. If you drink it with the mud in it, it will harm you. Therefore the number 4 is a divine process by which our desires and thoughts in this world are filtered. He who has two talents must work until he makes a filter. When they call a man a critic, you must understand that he has a strainer by which he strains things until only what is valuable remains in it: what is useless passes through it. It depends on what you are straining. If you strain cheese, it remains in the strainer, but if you strain water, the pure water will pass through, and the sediment will remain in it. Sometimes you succeed in your straining enterprises and at other times you do not, but this must not discourage you in the least for he who has few talents and wishes to acquire more should work harder. Such is the law. The danger lies in not working with the one talent, if we have one talent. The first thing required of us is that we should know how to work. I told you that you have two talents; so you will ask what they are. Your mind and your heart are the two talents. But you will ask: “What can I use my mind for?” A traveller’s carriage breaks down on the road. If you are passing that way and know how to repair it, do so: he will be grateful to you, and some day in his turn he will help you. In this case you gain as well as he. The second talent is your heart. Someone is ill. Your heart must make you visit him and help him. The two talents are the roots of your life. By the word ‘heart’ we must understand the roots of our life, and by the word ‘mind’ the outside branches and leaves. You know that there is a relation in nature between the roots and the branches. Every branch has a corresponding root in the earth, and when a root dries up, its corresponding branch dries up too. The law which you should observe is the following: you should know that, if a desire dies in you, a thought will certainly die too; if two desires dry up, two thoughts will do the same; if three desires dry up, three thoughts will dry up, and one day, when your feelings become completely atrophied, all the branches will dry up and you will turn into men who have only one talent. Let us take a man who has five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. What role do these play in our life? They are the five doors by which a man enters this world and by which we test nature — five realms out of which we can draw riches. A man completely deprived of the sense of hearing is a foolish man; to be deprived of sight means to be deprived of the possibility of seeing the truth; to be deprived of the sense of taste is to be deprived of love, etc. We can enumerate a number of things of this kind. Each of our senses corresponds to a great divine virtue and every one of us must watch to see if his feelings are in harmony with his heart and if they are in contact with the truth, If we look at this world, it is the garment of truth; the visible world is an expression of the truth. In every leaf, stone, spring or rock there are great lessons, great knowledge lies hidden in them. What wonderful truths nature can reveal to us! We pick up a pebble, roll it a little and throw it away, saying that it is worth nothing. We have not understood the meaning of this pebble. Do we take a flower and pick off its leaves, and then throw it away, saying that it is worth nothing: if so, we have not understood the meaning of that flower, Now let us come down to our sense of hearing. We hear the word love’. It is a flower. Have we understood the sense of this word, what it means? We have not. We ask: “What is it?” and answer: “Nothing”, and throw it away. We hear the word ‘truth’ and say: “It is a senseless word.” What then is the most important thing for us? “Man should eat well and after that drink a glass of wine”, some would answer. We must satisfy our taste, that is true, but eating is not everything. Man should nourish himself, but according to this law of the five talents he should absorb five kinds of food: every sense must receive its corresponding nourishment, otherwise it will be atrophied. You see that Christianity is a science and not an object of amusement. And do you know what science Christianity is: it is a great school with its departments of classes, universities and academies, and everyone who comes to listen to it should understand what he hears. I do not want people of one talent, who have buried it. The school in which I teach requires men of two talents. Why? Because I do not want to waste my time in fruitless work. Would you like to raise lice and fleas? These are the creatures of one talent. All parasites are people of one talent, spongers, lazy creatures living on the backs of others. A great punishment is in store for them. When someone visits you, study him first, and if he is of two talents, set a table for him, but if he is of one talent, which is buried, send him away, for he is a louse or a flea, he is a wolf whom you cannot elevate. Some may say: “But this man can be ennobled.” I say that he can only raise lice. How did the steward act with the man of one talent? He chased him out, so that he could learn how to work. We must never encourage a man of one talent, but rather say to him: “Very great danger is ahead of you, my friend.” We should not deceive him, but tell him the truth. If you have a child of one talent, chase him away. Let him go and wonder aimlessly in the world. You will say: “Is not this cruel?” No, take away this talent, because he has not known how to make use of it, Of course, I do not wish to frighten you with this talk; that is not my purpose. When a student is taken to a laboratory to carry out experiments, the teacher must explain to him the properties of the different elements and warn him that, if he is not careful, it may cost him dear. Many have lost their sight or some other sense by being careless. Let us apply Christ’s rule to social life. People often ask me: “Why does Bulgaria suffer?” When you place at the head of the government a president of one talent and wish him to set things in order, how can he do it? That man, as Christ says, must be thrown out. The post of president requires a man of five talents, not a man even of two. The men of two talents should be soldiers and policemen; the officers should have four talents; the generals and ministers should be of five talents; but the kings, who have the highest place in a nation, should have ten talents. As you see, Bulgaria suffers because at the head of the government do not stand men of five talents but often men of only one talent, and they are convicted in the end. They are being convicted at the present moment. Those who have robbed are foolish men, but those who have put such men at the head of the government are even more foolish. A man hires an inefficient servant, expecting good work from him, and then wonders why the work is not done. We should rather wonder at the master. Now in Bulgaria we need men of two, four, five and ten talents. If we have such men, we shall be the first nation in the world: there will be no obstacles and troubles for us. Even if all nations should proclaim themselves against us, they would not succeed. Then, I assure you, no misfortune would befall us. That is why you should pray that such people should be created. Finally, I ask: “What is this mind which God has given us for?” First of all, it is a filter, or strainer. Did you strain the milk with it? Do you know how to make yoghourt or cheese out of it? Let us apply this law of straining in life. Often people complain that they have no friends in the world. Why is that so? When you tell me that you have no friends, I can presume that you are a man of only one talent. If you say: “Nobody loves me”, I shall conclude that you are a man of one talent and have buried everything divine in the earth. An egotist who lives only for himself deserves to be without friends, to be out in the dark. This is what Christ means by the parable of the talents. You. will ask: “Well, but what is this leaven with which we must work? “ You have it, but you must know how to make yoghourt or cheese. If the milk is very cold, can you make yoghourt? You cannot. If it is very hot, you cannot make yoghourt either. You should observe a basic law in leavening: you must have good feelings and good desires, if you are to leaven a man with good leaven, and leaven him so that he does not turn sour. You may have heard other sermons about the talents. They signify money, abilities and power, for they are something objective, not subjective. The talent is always a power from an external source which can be given to us and which can be removed from us. The talents can never be a possession of man: they have belonged and belong only to God, and He gives them, or takes them away according to our actions. When you are born on earth, He gives you two talents and says: “Work now! If you gain two more, I shall multiply them and give you five, then you will enter into My joy.” To cultivate the heart and the mind means to have two talents, but to develop all your senses to perfection is to have five talents. Do you know what it means to develop all your senses? Many people look without seeing, listen without hearing and taste, but do not understand the benefits they have. For instance, when a man tastes bread, does he say at times: “God, I thank You for the bread You have given me. I thank You for the life which enters me through it”? If you do not give thanks, it shows that you have not only not grasped the meaning of taste, but also that you have not understood what the mouth was made for. It is necessary first of all for the life of love to enter into it, which is the basis of everything. Keep this thought in yourself: if God has given you one talent, pray that He may be with you and give you two talents; therein is salvation. Christ came to save the world, but still more to save those who have one talent. But do you know how much sorrow those sluggards caused Him? They were very costly to Him. If a man has one talent, leave him to God; I tell you to turn him out. Why? Because only God is able to heal him and save him: you are not able to do this. When I say: “Turn him out! “ I want you in that way to do good to him so that he can find God; for if he holds on to you, he will never work; while finding himself alone, he will turn to God and be saved. You say: “But is that right?” How often does a child cry in a day? If he does not cry, his mother will not give him food. People of one talent have no life, and they can work no more than a dead body can. A man of one talent can help you as much as a miser can sacrifice his wealth. I speak to all of you here who have two talents: if you become like this man and turn into a man of one talent, you will commit a great crime. You are people who can have four talents, and when God finds you working and you say to Him: “God, I gained two more talents with the two You gave me,” He will say: “Good servant, enter into My joy.” Talk given on April 27, 1914, Sofia

THE IMPORTANCE OF LITTLE THINGS “Take heed. that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you that their angels in Heaven do always behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven.” In general people of both sexes aspire to great things and important affairs, and everyone by virtue of an inner weakness despises the little things. If you are given a penny, you say: “It is of no value; if it were a thousand, ten thousand or a hundred thousand leva, that would be something, but a penny — I am not a beggar.” You are given a walnut, and you are offended. I understand. “If you give me five to ten kilograms, but a single walnut — are not you mocking me?” By aspiring to great things we are also trying to get acquainted with people in high positions — kings, presidents, directors, scientists, philosophers, calling the men in low positions ignorant and simple. Throughout our life we see everywhere contempt for the little things and a search only for the great things of the world. But Christ turns to His disciples and warns them not to despise the little ones. Why? Do not despise them, because you offend their angels who serve them in heaven. If you despise the little ones, you despise the angels whose children they are. When we want to split a stump of wood, first we cut very small sharp wedges, and when they are driven in, they make room for the larger ones. If the first wedges are large and blunt, how can they be driven in? Therefore the small things open the way for the large ones. In the world too the whole process of development starts first with the small things which you despise: all progress in the universe is due to them. We say that the plough feeds the whole world and that, when the ploughman has ploughed the field well and sown it, it gives great abundance. That is right, but we should not forget the part that the millions of small worms play in ploughing the field. When we despise the small causes, we allow great consequences to come to pass. I can say that all our general and personal misfortunes are due to this contempt of the small things in the past. That is why Christ tells his disciples not to despise ‘these little ones’. Now who are ‘these little ones’? Some may say that they are our children. But when we come to a complete application of Christ’s law, we shall see that there are many other things which should not be despised. “Do not despise these little ones.” I shall explain the hidden sense of these words. A Hindu gives a walnut to his son and asks him to study it, but the son breaks the walnut and eats it. “What does the walnut contain?” His father asked his son after that. “Nothing special, only a tasty kernel,” The Hindu asks his son again: “Did you not find anything else in that walnut?” “Nothing at all.” “Son, a great power was hidden in that walnut, and if you had not eaten it but planted it in the ground, a great tree would have grown out of it, and you would have seen the greatness of this small thing, which is the germ of a great thing.” God sends you a small thought, an apple seed, but you say: “That is nothing,” and throw it away. But God says: “Ask what power it contains; plant it, and you will see what a tree will grow up from it.” It is because of this contempt which we constantly have for the small thoughts that we have come to the state of saying that the world is bad. Christ says: “Do not despise these little things, do not strive for the big ones but learn to discern what power is hidden in the small things and use them, for they will help you to obtain the big things.” Your house is built of small, microscopic particles all put together. Upon these small things, such as the grain of wheat, fruit and other trifles, depends our daily life. This is in regard to the body, but also in regard to the mind it is the small thoughts and wishes that produce joy and happiness in life. We should not despise any living being which has a relation to someone and is useful. This living being may be a pigeon, a hen, a sheep, an ox, a horse, or a donkey, but there is a book for everyone, in which it is written: this day you have put such and such a load on the donkey’s back, and if God puts a tax of five leva a day on this work, in a hundred years — if he has served you for a lifetime — what sum will you have to pay him? Some day you will be summoned like that debtor and told that you owe him ten thousand talents. You will say: “I do not remember,” but God has written in the book that that is how much you owe. Thus we all are indebted to those little ones. We owe our present development, our present thoughts and desires to those little ones of whom Christ speaks, and since we are indebted to them, we must love them, knowing that they have worked for us and that we must work for them now. Love is not for the great men, for the angels and the saints: it is for the little ones, the poor, the miserable and lost brothers. That is why the mother has such great love for the child: she loves it under the compulsion of this great Divine Law. She loves it simply because the child is unknowingly in possession of the inner fire of God. You want to see God, but when He comes through this child you say: “Why did you give me this child, God?” You call upon God every day, and every day you chase Him away. And you pass for wise people! It is not only you who behaves in such a way, but the whole world as well. God tests your mind every day to see how much you love Him and whether you speak the truth or not. In the past, when the world was spoiled, a rumour spread that God walked upon the earth to see how people lived, and the people said: “Now that there is no God in Heaven to control us we can live at liberty.” God saw in a place a man who was selling a blind horse saying to the buyer: “I swear by God he is not blind.” “Since you are swearing by God, I believe you,” replied the other and bought the horse. God passed by a house and saw a man beating his wife. “For God’s sake,” she said “forgive me!” and he forgave her. After a time these two, the horse-seller and the woman, appeared in Heaven and said: “God, we preached your name on earth.” Contemporary people also call upon God when they want to sell a blind horse and when they want not to be beaten. It is these little things that brings misfortunes. You have a blind horse and try to sell him in the name of God, but watch out and keep an account of what you are doing. Do you know who this blind horse is? He is your body. And people are always talking against it and punishing it, calling it wicked, but the body is not to blame. Nor should you torture your body, this temple which God has created. Therefore you should be very condescending to your body, because you can work only when it is healthy. Now when Christ says ‘their angels’, He means those intelligent creatures who keep account of our actions. What we call ‘conscience’ ose angels who live in us and note down every act of ours, good or evil, and who say: “You did well” or “You did badly.” You offend someone, and his angel says to you: “Your action is not right.” You begin to excuse yourself: “Please excuse me, I was nervous, indisposed; such were the conditions.” Your being in such a state has nothing to do with the rule that you must not despise those little ones upon whom rest the Divine laws. In our life today thought contains a great Divine basis, and if it falls on good soil, it can regenerate us. What we call ‘regeneration’ exists as a law of the spirit. It is that inner Divine process which uplifts and renews the human heart, the human mind, the human soul and the human spirit. This is a process of elevation, and upward movement. And in this Divine aspiration our elevation, redemption and salvation are worked out. That is why all beings from the smallest to the greatest are endeavouring to be renewed and uplifted, and in youth is hidden the blossoming of the human soul. When you speak of being condescending to the little ones, you speak of grieving God, because when we grieve a person, we actually do not grieve him but God, who is in him. When we do good, we help God. When we help a person, his angel who is in Heaven will be at our service. Therefore, if we want to have friends in Heaven, we must serve the little ones, and their fathers — the angels in Heaven — will receive us into their home and give us a feast, and we shall feel at home. Service for service, love for love — such is the world. Now do you know why Christ turned to His disciples with this thought? Contempt is a state which you must cast out of your soul. For instance, you meet a person whom you do not know, and contempt overwhelms you, making you think that he is perhaps lower than you. If you only note his ignorance and help him, that is a different thing, but if you despise him, that is poisoning. And the movement is always from the bigger to the smaller, i.e. God is always seeking the little things: He is not engaged in big affairs. He has made the world, but the management of the whole world does not give Him as much pleasure as His dealings with the children. His work is, when He sees people committing sins, to teach them, and He gives us an example not to despise the little ones, but to tolerate and teach them. When a teacher is engaged with his students, he gets pleasure from that, and he prizes those who study well. The saints and the priests deal with the sinners and try to turn them to God. But we all have the problem of turning our attention to the feeble people and to little things. When someone says: “I cannot rest,” I understand that he is engaged in great things, great thoughts. How can he rest, if he puts on his back a rucksack which is too heavy for him, containing ten, twenty or fifty kilograms of gold? If he leaves only one pound in the rucksack, he will easily rest. And now God is coming to say: “Down with all rucksacks!” He wants to liberate the world from them. “Down with all arms which destroy your hearts and minds! You should all become like children and not despise the little things which I have created.” God wants to return people to that pure original state which people call savage, but which is not savage in fact. ‘Deva’ means ‘pure’ in Sanscrit, and I want all people to become ‘devas’, pure, and to approach God, instead of being rude and evil. I wish the whole world to become pure and noble and not to despise the little things which God loves, but to place love, justice, wisdom, truth and power on that high place where they must be. Therein is salvation. Talk given on August 3rd, 1914, in Sofia

BEHOLD THE MAN Behold the Man! Then came forth Jesus, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! John 19.5 The word ‘man’ in Bulgaria signifies a being who lives for a whole century. However, in the archetypal language in which this phrase is written the word ‘man’ has a different meaning: Jesus, the man who visits the earth, the brother of those who suffer. What should we understand by these words? Would people in the world, upon seeing us, say: “Behold the man”? To deserve this name a man must possess four things: wealth, strength, knowledge and virtues. But you may ask: “What does wealth signify here ?” Wealth is the soil or the condition under which a man can develop, which in turn imparts heat and light. As to knowledge, it is the method by which our life must be understood and regulated. Virtue is the goal for which we must strive. People often ask: “What must we do?” Sow a grain of wheat, and it will show you what you must do. You will say: “How?” Give it moisture, and the sunbeams will show you. The sun, the source of life, is the only direction for the grain of wheat. We, like the grain of wheat, must grow and strive for God. Someone may ask: “When the wheat has grown, does it reach the sun? No. But I want to find God.” It is not necessary for you to know where God is: you must only strive for Him. The grain of wheat knows what the sun is and has received what it wishes. The same law applies to us; we must produce the same result. We too should be sown. We shall encounter troubles of all kinds in our life, but they are the necessary small obstacles such as those which the grain of wheat meets: a certain pressure is needed, after which the process of the growth of knowledge will start until we bear fruit, that is, the acquisition of virtues. Then the Master will send reapers to gather the wheat, and He will separate the grains from the weeds, and the wheat from the chaff. I shall read you the 19th chapter from the Gospel of St.John in order to show you the four things which Christ bore on the cross: virtue, knowledge, strength and wealth. God says: “When I work, you should be calm.” But since man does not stay calm, God says: “Nail him, that I may be calm in my work.” When we are nailed to this cross, we should not weep, for then God is working for us. Unhappy is the man who is not nailed to the cross! He who wants God to deal with him must pass through his process of development. I am speaking allegorically. Once we have been called upon a.nd have started on the divine path, we should have the simple faith of children and avoid weaknesses, as shown in the following story. A great artist in England wished to paint a picture of extreme poverty. For months on end he walked the London streets looking for a suitable person for his idea. Finally he found a child all in rags who appealed to him, and he thought he had found the person for the picture. He approached the child, handed him his visiting-card and said to him: “Come to my place in four days, I have to speak to you.” When the child saw awell-dressed man, he thought: “How shall I go to him in these rags?” He at once went to some friends to find some clothes to present himself as is fit before kings. Then he went to the painter in these clothes. “Who are you?” asked the painter. “I am the ragged child to whom you gave your visiting-card.” “Go away! If I wanted a well-dressed person there are thousands of them. I needed you as you were on that day.” We are not to take our earthly clothes to Heaven. When God calls us, He takes off all our clothes here. He says: “Bring him just as he is.” When someone dies, everybody turns away from him. Even those who loved him say: “Take him away at once.” Where is their love? But God does not turn away. He says: “Bring him here, I need him as he is.” And when they put us into the grave and leave us alone there, what does God do? He begins to talk with us. He asks us: “Did you understand life, did you understand the meaning of the life which I sent you?” The process starts then: the people who have buried the man start weeping and giving an account of all his good qualities — they see the divine picture expressed by the qualities. Jesus with his earthly sufferings wanted to-give us an example of how we must submit ourselves to this divine process. At one place he says: “Have I not the power to ask my Father to send thousands of angels to save me? But if I do not fulfil the purpose for which I have come how can mankind be raised?” And He Himself wanted to be raised. You are on earth, and some day storms and sufferings will come and possibly the same fate may be yours; but when this hour comes, do not in the least consider it a misfortune, for where there is no suffering, there is no gain, where grief comes, joy comes also, and where death comes so does resurrection. He who does not want to participate in the sufferings of mankind will not gain anything. After all, what are sufferings? The results of mistakes we have made at some time in our ignorance. And these mistakes are corrected by the process of suffering. Now I shall speak to you about God not as an abstract being, as the philosophers do, scattered throughout space so that no one knows where He is, but about the God of whom I preach to you, who thinks about us and observes our actions, who corrects and punishes us, who clothes and unclothes us and causes us to be born and to die. God is performing an operation, seeing that you are going to lose much and shorten the process of your life. He says: “In order not to accumulate more debts, take this capital which I have given you, and come to me now”. And in this process we think the world has forgotten us. But if the world has forgotten us, God thinks about us. The Scriptures say: “God is not only in Heaven: He lives in the heart of the humble.” Therefore the first quality you must obtain, in order that He may come to live in you, is humility. But this humility must not be that of a sheep, so that when they beat you or break your leg you say: “There is nothing I can do. It is humility if, when they take all that you possess, you say: “We are humble.” Humility consists in this: when you have wealth, strength, knowledge and virtue, you realise all this and say: “God, all I have is at your disposal, You dispose of it.” Jesus wanted to show us the right way to live. Many Christians think that, when they become Christians, they must leave the world. But you may give up your houses, riches, wives and children and still be thinking of them. You may go to some distant monastery, and still be thinking of what may have happened to your wife, children and houses, which means that you have not given them up and you are not free. To give up things does not mean to desert them, but to leave people free, to let your wife act as she wishes, to let your son act as he wishes. To leave the world means not to stand in its way Let it follow its course, for can we stop the flow of a river? No, but we can make use of it. In the same way we cannot stop life, but must only make use of things. People say: “Why does God who is almighty not set the world right?” How should He set it right? “He who lies, let his tongue go dry, and he who steals, let his hand wither.” But then we would have a world only of dumb and crippled people. What do you think? Would such a world of maimed people be pleasant to us? God, however, gives a diametrically opposite kind of government by saying that he who wants to become a master must become a servant. The strong people usually want all rivers to flow into their river, but in the good the process is contrary God flows into small rivers, and instead of conducting them, He lets them rule themselves. Some complain: “Why does not God see our sufferings?” But He says: “I have no time; I am so engaged in your affairs and much more important matters that when there is a little time left for Me to deal with your outside petty disagreements, I shall do that.” This is no allegory, but reality. There is a verse in the Sacred Scriptures where God says: “I was for Israel as a loaded wagon into which people constantly throw everything.” However, the sufferings we experience here are sufferings of God — it is He who is suffering and weeping within us. We say: “I weep, and my soul is full of grief;” but when we say: “God, forgive me that I caused you so much suffering by my impure thought and acts,” then we shall come to that real path which will lead us out of the present evil. And finally we must let our God become strong within us. We have bound Him up with ropes and nailed him. We must lay Him in the grave calmly and leave Him quiet. He will then rise and set us free. And know this — those who put obstacles in God’s way are we, humans; the devils do not obstruct God’s path. Since He has laid down the law of freedom, He cannot and does not want to change this law and He will save us only when we come to the consciousness of voluntary submission to Him. We must become deeply conscious of becoming like Him before we can use our wealth, power and virtues for the upraising of our brothers and neighbours. Let me go back now. First we must live in this world as a preparation, for we cannot live in heaven, since the heat and light there are very strong. Tust as a gardener, planting pine trees brought down from the mountain heights, must first get them acclimatised, so in the same way our Heavenly Father cannot take us from here and plant us in the garden of paradise directly. We want to be virtuous, strong and rich, and we can have virtue, strength and riches, but the conditions necessary for their development are the divine germ which lies in our wealth. But you will ask me: “ How shall we find God?” It is a very easy thing. A man once wanted to tease his friend. So, when the latter told him: “Now we are in an orchard full of fine apples,” he closed his eyes and said: “But I do not see anything”. His friend slapped him in the face, and he looked up and saw the orchard. In the same way God at times slaps us in the face, and we open our eyes and see. Those of you whose eyes are closed must want to have them opened. Contemporary people argue and say: “Where is God?” However, when misfortunes come, they all look up and, seeing that He is there, cry: “God!” — that is why misfortunes come. They are God’s slap in our face when He says: “I created you with eyes to see; they should not remain closed.” So in order for us to rise, we must come to the state of children, to see and be receptive. Now another question. What must be our method of work? From now on we should be always connected with people on earth through our minds and hearts, because salvation comes from our common prayers; in unity is power. And, when the minds and hearts of all men become united, then the kingdom of God will come on earth. We must learn not to look for weaknesses in the friend we love; he may have faults just like us. The weaknesses and faults are the external garment with which man is clothed. The human soul is pure, and it can never be spoilt or destroyed. It may get spotted externally, but since God abides in it, nothing can spot the soul inwardly. It is impossible to destroy something which God protects. We can submit to the world just as Christ did when Pilate said to Him: “I submit to the one who has given you this power, but my soul is free.” We must submit to our temporary sufferings, although we cannot understand them now; when we die and rise again, we shall be able to understand them. Everybody until now has been tormented by constant fear in life. But this is not life. Man lives life when he is filled with noble feelings. Happy is the man who can rejoice that he has done a good deed selflessly. We usually take off our hats to a man in a superior position, whereby we want to say: “Can you give me a higher post?” There is a devilish fish in the sea which greets everything it meets. Man also takes hold of another’s hand, but why? These devilish fingers on the human hand speak much; for instance, the small finger says: “Could you give me some money. I must set up in trade.” The fourth finger says: “I want the fame and knowledge of an artist.” The middle finger says: “I want rights and privileges.” The forefinger says: “I need honour and respect.” The thumb says: “I want power and skill.” If the one who was greeted is able and wishes to give these things, he will do it. ButJesus is standing today before you and I am saying to you: “Behold the Man you are looking for, the Man who alone can fill your hearts with calmness, who can give you a clear mind, health, social position, who can raise you, show you the way and bring light into your mind.” But you in your doubt say: “Show Him to us that we may see Him!” I shall use an analogy. A man appears far off one night carrying a small candle, and I say to you: “Behold the man who brings you light! “ However, you see the candle, not the man. When will you see him? When the sun rises. Let me use another analogy. Suppose I take you to a richly furnished but dark guest-room, and say: “This is a room with beautiful ornaments, great riches; in that corner there is this and that, in the other etc.” “That is possible but who knows, I do not see anything,” you answer. I bring in a small candle, the nearby objects become more visible. If I bring in a second candle, the objects become yet more visible. The more candles I light, the brighter the room becomes, and when an electric light is lit, the room becomes quite bright; but particularly when the daylight enters the room, then everything can be seen. The world is like this room; each one of us must be a light-bearer and carry a candle, so that when we all enter with lighted candles and put them together, the light will increase and we shall see much. Your brains are candles, I do not like people who carry blown-out candles, but such as carry lighted candles, as people do on the night of Good Friday. Each one of us must himself be a lighted candle. A devoted, loving and good man is a lighted candle. In the year 1899 there was a great drought in the Novo-payai region. The Turks of thirty-nine villages gathered together from the neighbouring regions to pray for rain. And the rain came. The Bulgarians thought that if God sent rain to the Turks, He would send them rain as well; but no rain fell in their villages, and all their cattle became lean for lack of food. When people pray, you too must pray and make your petition. God will not make a special provision for you, if you do not pray. Prayer is a great power, and men today ought to be men of prayer; for by prayer we shall prepare our minds and hearts. And we should not pray for ourselves: that is egotism. I do not want to have dealings with people’s minds, but rather with their hearts, for all evil is concealed in their hearts. God himself says: “My son , give Me your heart.” Something else is important. Jesus has come to work, and when the light comes, it comes gradually and without any noise. He will not come like thunder, as some expect Him. This may happen, butJesus will not be there. When the prophet Elijah went to the wilderness to fast and pray, and a storm and fire came, Elijah covered his eyes. But God was not in the storm and fire, but in the still small voice which was speaking to him. God is not in your sufferings, in your power or in your knowledge. He is in love. If you love, He is in you. If you do not love, He is not there. And now you must love — this is the law. We do not love and expect others to love us. It is like sitting by a stove, expecting someone to bring us wood and light the fire so we can get warm. We, we ourselves should have this fuel which others may use as well. We who are following Jesus, who has given us enough strength, should at last allow Him to enter us. Now I am leaving it all up to you. Will you accept this Man, or crucify Him? Will you let Him in, or say: “We do not want Him”? This is the question you must solve. If you say: ‘Let Him in, He is our Lord,” you will solve the problem, and the blessing will come. And then the word of the Scripture will be fulfilled: “I and my Father will come and make our abode in you.” Then will the light be in us, and we shall all be reconciled. (Talk given by the Master on March 16th, 1914, Sofia)

THE GRAIN OF WHEAT “Except a corn ofwheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.“ The grain of wheat is the symbol of the human soul. It represents a great story in the development of nature. If you could unfold the leaves of the grain of wheat and trace out its history, you would completely understand the human soul. As the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, as it sprouts up, grows and bears seed, the same processes are true of the human soul. Probably the grain of wheat is something very simple and of no value to you, as it is only a sixteenth of a thousandth part of a kilogram. How much would a grain cost if a kilogram costs only one grosh? However, the grain of wheat contains a power, a potential and a spirit of selflessness, by which it nourishes both itself and others. And when you sit at table, you do not think at all about the grain of wheat, you do not know what joy and what thoughts it imparts to you. You do not know its origin. People do not value it, neither do the hens; no one values it. But it is a great mystery in the world. Now, what lies hidden in this grain of wheat? It is an image of life. The Bulgarian word for it begins with the letter (j), which fully corresponds to the grain of wheat two legs below and two small branches above. When we sow it, it shows us the direction in which we must strive. The grain of wheat tells us that we must strive for the One from whom we have been issued God, and that in order to strive for God, we must branch out, blossom, and bear food for the world, i.e. “help and sacrifice yourselves for your friends, as I do”. But in the grain of wheat there is more faith than in us. When it is buried in the ground it decays, but it understands the world of the sun, and as soon as its beams appear, it says: “I shall not die, but I shall rise again and bear fruit for others”, and it starts generating energy and strives for the sun. It bears fruit and ripens. But people do not leave it alone: they cut it down with the sickle; they bind it and pile it up, and trample upon it, and thresh it. Human life passes through the same process. You may ask: “Why must we pass through all this process? “ Man must draw a lesson from this example of the grain of wheat. After the threshing-board and the horses’ hooves have threshed it, men take the grain and put it in the barn. But its sufferings do not end there. They sift the grains, and the bad ones fall below and the good ones which remain are taken to the mill, where two heavy mill-stones grind them and smash them completely. If you were in the grain’s place, you would say: “What kind of a life and what kind of a world has God created?” But the grain of wheat has great patience. It says: “You will yet see what my history is.” It is taken from the mill as flour and carried home, but still men do not leave it in peace. The wife rolls up her sleeves; the flour is sifted; some is thrown away, but the good is mixed with water and leaven and turned into dough. Then it goes into the hot oven, and when it is taken out, we see those nice fresh-smelling loaves of bread. If you were in the place of the grain of wheat, you would say: “Our sufferings have ended at last!” But in a short time people break up the loaves and start eating them. In this way the grain of wheat enters our stomach, forming nutrients which enter our minds, and what happens? Great thoughts are born in these minds and new desires in our hearts. The grain of wheat carries the garments which clothe our feelings, it flows in the pens of writers and poets, in the bow of the violin. This is what the grain of wheat gives us. And if this grain had not passed through the process of this development, we would never see these beautiful things in nature. Why? Because the grain of wheat gives us strength to see. That is why Christ says: “I am the living bread.” In order to be alive, man must be in communion with his environment, helping others and being helped by them. As the grain of wheat passes through this process, so must we be ready for such self-sacrifice. And this sacrifice is not so heavy. Now let us turn to the story of the life of Christ and of the Jewish nation. How do you explain this contradiction: a nation has been waiting for thousands of years for its saviour, its King who is to liberate it, and at the time that He appears the Jewish high-priests and princes turn against Him? You would say that, if Christ came today, we would behave better to Him. I doubt it: see how a man behaves to his wife and how the wife behaves to her husband, and you will know how you would behave to Christ. When the Truth appears in the world, she will not be clothed richly, but rather in a most simple garb. That is why Christ appeared among the Jewish nation in such a simple fashion. That is the reason why people cannot comprehend the Truth. Such are the laws of this world. But there is another law in the world which is manifested in the sunlight. When the sun begins to shine on all the seeds and beings on earth, the light, which produces joy and gladness in some men, produces hatred and spite in others. The light which makes some people well-disposed causes others to be fierce and violent. The light and heat cause a wolf to start looking for a sheep to satisfy his hunger. The same light falling on a thief causes him to think how to steal some money. If it falls on a man who is living to do good in his life, he will wonder where he can find a poor man whom he can help. Give a grain of wheat to a hen, and it will grow nice feathers; give it to a swine, it will produce strong bristles and so on: a wolf, teeth; a fish, scales. The physiologists cannot explain this process. It is inexplicable why evil exists in men and why they prefer hatred to love and falsehood to the truth. Christ says that, if the grain of wheat fallen to the ground does not die, it will remain alone in this world. What really is loneliness? Loneliness is the greatest suffering that one can experience on earth. To be multiplied is the purpose of life. All suffering in the world comes from the fact that people want to live for themselves alone. Evil is always born out of our wish to remain alone and become the centre of the world. For we should be like the sun: when the sun rises in the morning, it rises for everybody because it loves all; it is considerate to all beings from the lowest to the highest; that is why all turn their eyes to it. But does the sun say that we must enter it? It tells us to make use of the benefits it gives us; and just as it illuminates the world, so should we shed light and enlighten those around us. We have some false ideas in our minds which spring from our individual lives. For instance, if you enter a house, which has a single window, but there are about twenty to thirty visitors, you will say to them: “You have no right to be here: I want to look through this window.” Yet while you are looking at the sun, all the other people are deprived of its light, so you should call them all and show them the way out of the house. That is why it is not good for a man to keep many people around him, since they cannot have the benefit of the sunlight and heat all at the same time. We must tell them to leave. That is whyJesus says: “He who loves himself must leave himself”; and at another place he says: “He who loves his father and mother more than Me is not worthy ofMe”. Thus, if a person gets too close to the window, he will shut out the whole view from the others. Keep yourself twenty to thirty steps farther off. That is the way to see it. In this way Jesus means that life does not consist of material benefits: they are only simple tools and aids, as are textbooks, pens etc. to a student. Do not think that God has prepared for you only these simple things: He has prepared much greater things. Ask the frog its idea of life, and it will answer: “I would like more flies to fly around my pond and come so near that I can catch them easily.” And when you see it sometimes sitting quiet like a philosopher, it is observing the flies, and whether they are near enough to catch. Such is its concept of life. So you see what people are doing. In order to say: “We are made in the image and likeness of God,” we must have the qualities of God. What are these qualities? They are virtue, love, wisdom and truth. Virtue excludes evil, love excludes hatred, wisdom excludes senselessness, and truth excludes falsehood. If we have excluded all those negative qualities, we have the likeness of God, but if we do not do that, we are like the small frogs. I have nothing against these frogs: they must eat flies. And why do they eat flies? I shall tell you why. Since the fly lives in a higher state than the frog, the latter, aspiring to fly itself, wants to receive the vibrations of the fly, to develop them, and so become able to fly. Why does the wolf eat sheep? He must eat sheep to become gentle, for when we eat good things, we become good. Actors use this knowledge when wishing to play a role of ideal love. They eat mutton for a long time, for this kind of meat disposes one to such emotions. The wolf has the right to eat sheep, if he wants to become gentle. Some people say: “We must think and criticise,” because science cannot exist without criticsim. It is good to, but how? Criticism, like energy when a diseased part of the human body is removed, is useful, but to remove the healthy parts of the body is out of the question. It is not difficult for anyone to be such a surgeon, for any man can take a saw and cut off someone’s leg, but few men know how to perform a surgical operation correctly. In order to learn how to do this, we must be ruled in all circumstances by the rule of love. When I speak about love do not think that I am teaching you a doctrine of peace and calm. A man who wants to love must experience the greatest sufferings in the world for he who has not suffered, cannot test the divine principle of love. In order to love God, we must be ready for sacrifice, just as God sacrifices Himself for us. To come to know Him, you say: “God, give us what we need.” “Give, give, give!” — this call can be heard from one end of the world to the other. But we do not need riches, only those basic things which make a good life. We have neglected the development of our hearts. We must, therefore, go back to that fundamental principle, which is the development and ennoblement of the heart. Evil does not hide in the mind, but in the heart. Each one of us must ask his heart what it wishes. Our hearts have been corrupted by us, for many times we have made them lie, think evil, etc. God says in the Scriptures: “My son, give me your heart.” He knows and sees men’s faults and wants of us nothing other than the opening of our hearts so that He can enter them. You will ask: “How?” In the same way as we open a window for the light to come into our room. It is said: ‘A room, where light enters, is entered by neither sickness nor a doctor,” and: “Where light does not enter, the doctor never comes out.” In the same way, when God enters a human heart, no devil has admittance there. Christ says: “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Lay up your capital in Heaven, so that God may feed the poor on earth by its interest. It is not the angels who are working out our salvation, but we ourselves must do that. We have all the conditions to do it too. The law does not require all men to be learned to the same degree: each one must know as much as is necessary for him. Someone says: “My brain is small,” but I answer him: ‘ If you cannot take care of a small horse, how will you be able to take care of a bigger one; or, if you have a small heart and you cannot direct it, how would you direct a bigger heart with greater desires?” What, then, must we do? We must not think about the future, but rather take advantage of all the benefits which this day offers us and use them for a good end, for this day carries with it all future benefits. The law states that God, who has given the conditions for this day, will give them for all other days. We should not think of what will happen to us in the future: we should be calm. There are certain laws which regulate human relations. The fact that someone may harm us is not an arbitrary act: it will be done according to the law. However, every misfortune will bring you a blessing, and every obstacle will open for you a new horizon. You can test this fact at all times, which is why you must not worry about the misfortunes which may befall you. Evolution is necessary to us, much greater benefits are in store for us, but we must become quite intelligent and quite good, and this heritage will be entrusted to us when we grow mature. The three things I mentioned, virtue, righteousness and wisdom, are great riches, and when you possess them, you will be healthy and happy. But you will say: “ How can we apply this teaching in the world?” We are not obliged to set the world right: there are no abnormalities in it, for everything moves according to a set order. We know why economic or political events occur. It is not necessary for us to alter the flow of events. But I say that one thing is necessary: every person in the world, man or woman, should correct themselves individually. When the individual person is corrected, as well as their sons and daughters, then their neighbours will be corrected, and the world will be corrected of itself. As the leaven is, so will be the dough. This principle has been established by Christ, and Christ is working for its realisation. And just as the chrysalis starts its development, in the same way the world will be uplifted and changed for the better. There is great unrest in the world, because all those people who cannot form their own chrysalis are worried about how they will spend the winter which is coming. The transformation must therefore take place in our minds, in our hearts and in our wills, and when this happens we shall feel a certain inner power. Then we shall make contact with the higher beings who have advanced spiritually and whom we call saints. When we come into contact with them, our mind will be enlightened. The saints are the teachers of humanity, and we must all be guided by them, for they teach the world how to live. But you will ask: “Where are these teachers, whose images we see in church?” Every object has a shadow by which we can find the object. Your desires in the world are a shadow, your aspirations too; you want to grasp the essence, so you just think of God. How shall we imagine God? You can imagine Him as the best and perfect Man in whom there is absolutely no malice or hatred, who loves people as a real father loves his children — such is God’s attitude to us. Now, do you think He is listening to us, or not? He is listening to us, and He is working in our minds. The good daily disposition we have is due to Him. Just as the sun makes us well disposed every day after rising, in the same way the happy moments in life are due to this inner sun which has risen in us. There is a rising and setting in the spiritual life as well. Those in whom God will rise will feel joy and gladness, but those in whom He will not rise will say: “Life is misfortune, sorrow and suffering for us” They must wait. Why? Because there are no conditions in them for this rising and if the sun rises in them prematurely, it will be a misfortune for them. It is better for them to rest now. I do not say that they are going to die, not in the least; I only state a law. When speaking of rising and setting, everyone thinks of dying .... What is dying? This is a supposition. Each of you must have died in order to be able to tell what death is, but now you are only imagining it. In one of his stories Tolstoi tells of the experience of a Russian monk. The monk was eighty-five years old with a beard. The writer asked him: “What reasons compelled you to become a monk?” And the monk told his story, in short thus: “I come from a royal family, and when I was between twenty-one and twenty-five years old, my parents wanted me to marry a princess. At that time I fell into a lethargic sleep, doctors came and, finding that my pulse had stopped, said: “The heart does not beat, he is dead,” and they wanted to have me buried. I said to myself: Is this really death?’ and wanted to give them a sign that I was alive. My fiancee came with her father, and I heard him asking her to cry a little so that people would think she loved me. 1 never loved him. I love his wealth’, she answered, and I told myself that, if God brought me back to life again, I would start a different life.” How awful it is to be alive and not to be able to tell people you are alive, to see everyone weeping and not be able to tell them you are alive! And how many people have been buried in the same way! There is nothing more horrible than to be buried alive. The greatest misfortune is to remain for days and months in the earth and not to be able to get free from your body: that is the worst prison — hell. If we were pure, we would know when the soul had left the body and we would never pass through such sufferings. The devil is to blame for all these sufferings. But you must not be angry with him. I approve of him in only one respect — that he is very industrious and does not get discouraged. If you chase him out of the door, he enters in through another; if he does not succeed one way, he tries a second, a third, a fourth way. Here is a fine and encouraging trait of his. And God says: “Take an example from him, he is a teacher of men, he teaches them and will teach everybody; when he lies and lies to you, finally you will say: ‘We have learned your lies, and you cannot lie to us anymore.’ “ When you begin to suffer, say: “I have not yet passed through the whole process of the grain of wheat, and when your thoughts and your hearts are transformed and become excellent, then you will acquire the image and the likeness of God, and then God will raise you up as the sun restores to life the sown grain of wheat.” (Talk by the Master given on March 23rd, 1914, Sofia)

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST SERIES OF TALKS ON “POWER AND LIFE” The author of these talks is a Bulgarian — the Master Petur Konstantinov Dunov, whose spiritual name is Beinsa Duno. He was born July 12, 1864, one thousand years after the Christianization of the Bulgarians and fourteen years before the liberation of Bulgaria from the Turkish captivity. Through five centuries of suffering the Bulgarian people was purified and became capable of giving its physical body to the Master. His father, a priest of high rank in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Konstantin Dunov, composed church songs and was a fighter for religious freedom. He was a teacher of the young and the old, as were all Bulgarian priests during the captivity. Instead of using Greek, which was then the language of the Orthodox Church, he preached in Bulgarian and consecrated young Bulgarian priests. And so Bulgaria, which had given classical literature to the Slavs, which had been the cradle of the work of Cyril and Methodius, which had been first in culture and science, and in literature in the vernacular language during the early and later Middle Ages, and which had disseminated the Sacred Word in the Old Bulgarian language to all the Slavic countries, gave birth to the Master Beinsa Duno. The Master gave seven thousand talks in the course of half a century. He had finished his high school in Bulgaria and had taken his university education in America. After seven years he returned to Bulgaria and began his scientific investigations. He studied the Bulgarian people as a type, gave talks and formed small groups. In his letters, epistles to these first disciples, there are mystical discoveries. He introduced new concepts and gradually formed a new consciousness. That was before the beginning of this century. He wrote to one of his earliest disciples in 1908: “Have the courage of a heavenly dweller and of a citizen of God’s Kingdom” The Master Beinsa Duno published his first original work. his doctoral dissertation, “Science and Education” in 1894. His last Talk was entitled “The Legacy of Love”, given just months before his departure from the earth, actually in the days immediately preceding his death (December 27, 1944). At that time there were 144 circles of his disciples throughout Bulgaria, whereas he had begun with only three disciples. Then he said: “thousands will come ...” And they continue to come. From everywhere, from the whole world, from all continents. Up till now 184 volumes have been published, and there remain ten times as many as yet unpublished. He gave talks three and then four times a week. Twice during the week, Wednesday and Friday, and on Sunday morning at 10. The first two were given to disciples of his general and special occult class, and on Sundays he spoke to a more restricted circle in the morning and again at ten, to a broad udience, open to everybody. He spoke everywhere — in the mountains, on trips and in conversations. His message was always the same: it had a supreme Source. During the summer his school was on the Rila Mountain, which has the highest peak in the Balkan Peninsula, the centre of which is Bulgaria. That peak is called Mussala, which means “close to God.” A composer of songs and musical creations, which he called occult exercises, the Master himself was a great musician. Music is inseparable from the life of the society of The Universal White Brotherhood. It is a great method for working with the human soul. Besides music he created Paneurythmic, harmonious movements with music which was also composed by him. From now on Paneurythmic will be studied as a great method for the education of man and for his connection with the creative forces of nature and for the development of the higher cosmic consciousness in man. Paneurythmia are beginning to be practised in other countries. This elevating joyful state and evolutionary movement is an unforgettable experience. The whole brotherly life, the school in the mountains near the seven Rila lakes, the trips to Mount Ida, first given that name by the Thracian settlers in those parts, and the trips to other Bulgarian mountains (Bulgaria is a country of mountains, streams and forests, like Switzerland), created in the disciples of the Master a new life. They are radiant, peaceful, full of peace, joy and love. This was how He was, with his great spirit, mission, and consciousness. He began his Sunday talks in 1914. That too was not coincidental. That was the beginning of a new cosmic cycle called the Age of Aquarius. The Master says about it: “The whole solar system is entering into a new province of the spirit. Up to now the earth was descending. Now it is beginning to rise.” During that time one of the devoted disciples of the Master described his external appearance: “A man of average height, about fifty with faintly grey hair, a gentle and peaceful look, the expression on his face is deeply inspiring. That peacefulness seemed to be transmitted to me.” He seemed to radiate some kind of other-worldly purity. Thirty years later, the court physician, Doctor Furtunov, when called to examine him just before he passed away from double pneumonia, said: “This is the most virginal organism that I have ever seen until now”. During his first Sunday Talks, called “Power and Life”, the Master lived in a poor quarter on the outskirts ot Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. He spoke from his small room, and because it was too small to hold everyone, he spoke from his window. There in the courtyard, even as far as the beehives at the end of his garden, there were listeners. He spoke in snow and rain. He spoke, and they stood and listened. One of his female disciples tried to move her leg after the talk and found that she could not move it from the ground. Her heel had frozen to the ground. It is remarkable that these talks still have meaning today. They contain unfalling light, because they are condensed prana. They begin clearly, simply, and with a fundamental question, which beconies multiplied in waves which reach all the worlds of human consciousness. But what consciousness? We answer with his words: “Higher cosmic consciousness or the consciousness of the spirit and the soul.” “Christ’s task was to develop cosmic consciousness. Cosmic consciousness is a state of great activity. In that since there came down that soul which embraces all beings from the smallest to the greatest and sends his love to elevate them.“ With the great insight of a pedagogue of the human soul the Master says: “Search, yourselves, for the light which Christ, the man bears. It will help you to find the way along which you need to go.” In her first visit to the small house the same sister who describes him in her memoirs says: “He asked barely audibly: ‘Have you read something?’ She did not understand. He was referring to the first small books, like brochures, which contained the individual talks of his series “Power and Life”. The same sister, Pasha, who became his secretary and a worker for the Word of the Master, says: “THE WORD WHICH HE GAVE US HE NEVER CALLED HIS OWN. FROM THAT TIME TO TODAY I SAW, I UNDERSTOOD, WHAT HUMILITY MEANS...” What a difference there is between his deep humility and the magnificent picture of the human spirit in THE NEW COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS, about which he was the first to speak! That is the progression from the grain of wheat in the ground to the full ear. The grain of wheat — the emblem of man’s soul! With that image of the human soul, of man and his ascent, of the evolution of man and the earth, his teaching of Love will introduce the culture of the sun. The time of the shining sixth race of Love. He called this time the time of the Sons of the Resurrection. The road is open. The direction has been given. The Word of Love awaits its dedicated friends.

THE BOGOMILS “The food of the Bogomils was mainly bread and water. They did not eat meat.” Mediaeval writer “A disciple must eat only plants that have sacrificed their lives for love. The only plant which knowingly sacrifices itself is wheat. As long as people are alive they will eat and drink. What will they eat? Bread. And what will they drink? Water. If you eat meat you will see the results. The animal did not sacrifice its own life.” The Master BOGOMILISM AND THE BOGOMILS In 1937, the thousandth anniversary of Bogomilism in Bulgaria was marked by the publication of a book by Boyan Boev, disciple and close associate of the Master, Petur Duno. In a convrsation the Master says, “If somebody wants to study the life of the Bogomils, let them see the life of our “Brotherhood. “ The White Brothers, or Worldwide White Brotherhood, which was founded in Bulgaria, is the spiritual heir of Bogomilisin without being its continuance — for events do not repeat themselves in Nature. The divine is an eternal present. The three branches of the White Brotherhood came together in the Worldwide White Brotherhood in Bulgaria; firstly in Egypt, Persia and Babylon, secondly in Palestine, thirdly, Bogonulism in Bulgaria. These three branches of the White Brotherhood emanate from the Centre of Worldwide Brotherhood whose seat is the solar system and whose highest spirit is Jesw Christ. He is the head of the White Brotherhood. Why is it that in the present age Bulgaria has again become the cradle of such a spiritual movement, as was Bogomilism in the Middle Ages? This is because under conditions of advanced materialism the link between the human soul, the nervous system and the higher worlds weakens. Today is the era of diseases of the nervous system. The Master warned people about this difficult time in these words: ‘ If the peoples of today do not take a new direction they will be forced to do so because of the exhaustion of their nervous systems. They will also become neurasthenic and then they, whether they want to or not, will be forced to abandon the old concepts and aspirations and to set out along a new road ...” It was like that when Bogomilism first appeared in Bulgaria in the early Middle Ages, when mediaeval feudal ignorance reigned and people’s spirits were oppressed and imprisoned. After the wave of Bogomilism in Europe, the whole of the continent was filled with mystic brotherhoods which originated in Bogomilism. Bogomilism was born and nurtured in Bulgaria as a manifestation of the Great White Brotherhood ten centuries ago. It carried out an enormous task, the effects of which manifested themselves in the West as well. This movement is a transition to both a new and an old culture. It is the Worldwide White Brotherhood which is preparing for the coming of the new culture, just as in the darkness of the Middle Ages Bogomilism paved the way for the Renaissance. It was the radiant herald of the liberation of the human spirit and personality Bogomilism was not a sect but a powerful movement which brought a fresh stream into human culture. It carried forward with it the most progressive section of the population of Europe. This was the most precious thing the Bulgarian people had given to mankind because the Bogomils preached a common human brotherhood, just as the White Brothers of today desire mankind to be united by the most exalted law in the universe, the Law of Love. The Bogomils opposed violence in any form, they opposed war, the death penalty and slavery. Who would have dared to voice this protest amidst the fanaticism of the Middle Ages in the tenth, twelfth and thirteenth centuries? As well as the Reformation Bogomilism brought with it freedom of the individual, political equality and international solidarity. For this reason Bogomilism was the herald of all great European reformers of whom civilisation is proud today. Eminent Bulgarian scholars with an international reputation and foreign experts as well have written about the meaning and history of Bogomilism. They were also written about in the Middle Ages. This is what one author has to say: “The thing which makes the greatest impression is the strictness of their morals, the purity and honesty of their lives. The clergy, who are their enemies, say, “We don’t know what to make of people who neither lie nor swear ...” The Bogomils were also referred to as Albigenses or Cathars. The word “cathar” means “purity”, coming from the Greek word “katharis” purity. Purity! The most important and eternal condition for exaltation of the soul. But most frequently the Bogomils were referred to as “Bugri” because of their country of origin. Wherever Bogomilism arose its centre was considered to be Bulgaria, whence came emissaries, apostles to all countries where there were Bogomil communities similar to the first Christian communities. The mediaeval writer Robert Altisoid referred to them as “Bulgarum heresis”. This phrase was abbreviated and they became known as “Bugri” Another mediaeval writer, Wlldhardwen, refers lo the land of the “Bugri” as “Bugria”. Bogomilism was born in Bulgaria during the reign of Tsar Petur, heir of the greatest of all Bulgarian tsars, Tsar Simeon, in the 10th century. Its adopted name of its First propagandor and apostle, Bogomil the Priest. But was the latter its founder? According to church sources and the latest research the founder of Bogomilism was the youngest son of Tsar Simeon and the brother of Tsar Petur, Boyan, referred to by the people as “Boyan the Magician”. Extremely well educated and unusually gifted, Boyan the Magician received an excellent education and was well acquainted with the ancient cultures and mystic societies. Bogomilism, however, was of a typically Bulgarian character because the Proto-Bulgars were the bearers of ancient culture and knowledge. It is written about Boyan the Magician in Byzantine annals that he wore his Bulgarian national costume to Constantinople. That was also the costume of the Bogomils depicted on old Bogomil monuments in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These garments remained in the Bulgarian national costume in certain parts of the country until the beginning of the present century. It demonstrates to what extent Bogomilism, like a wave of light, left in people’s consciousness and traditions traces of the white brothers of the Light, the Bogomils. These Bulgarians are still referred to as “white-garmented”. White is the colour of the White Brotherhood and of unselfishness. White is still the colour worn by the White Brothers and Sisters in Bulgaria. Scarcely any material remains of the Bogomils are to be found in Bulgaria because of five centuries of Turkish rule. There are traces of them to be seen in ethnographical monuments, in stories and tales, in fables and songs, in the embroidered motifs on the shirts of old or in manuscripts. For this reason, what they left behind in Bosnia and Herzegovina is of exceptional importance. It has insistently attracted the attention of eminent scholars and researchers, among them A.Benac, A.J.Evans, M.Hoerves, G Wilke, 0 B Merin and A Solovjev. It was for good reason that they dwelt on what the Bogomil monuments contain, not only as a representaiton or effigy but also a suggestion of those stone sarcophaguses looming up in the plains and wide, fertile fields. They are surrounded by dense thickets and the strange beauty of the karst cliffs with their weird forms and the deep gorge of the River Neretva. Here flourished the free Bosnian state and the Bosnian church, referred to as the “heretic’s church”. Even today there are more than fifty thousand of these imposing stone “steles” — and there were many more of them in the past. The stone is soft karst and this reason is crumbling away. Some are still there, in situ, others have been taken to museums. Here is our wise old man, the apostle of the Bogomils, setting out on his way. In his right hand he holds a book aloft — the New Testament. A New Testament with the Gospel according to Saint John. In his other hand he holds a crutch, which he leans upon in all his dignity. It is as if we can see him now, walking along the roads. He meets one of his fraternity and greets him, raising his hand to the sun. This is how all persons are depicted on Bogomil monuments, with an exaggeratedly large hand and the sun above him like a crown. It is as if he is speaking the words, “We adhere to the Word of Life”. The other person also raises his hand and says the same. The thoughts in St John’s gospel are expressed in this phrase: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was in God. And the Word was God.” Beinsa Duno, wrote a hymn based on the first chapter of St John’s gospel. It is sung in deep mystic meditation. With their migration and the influence they exerted the Bulgarian Bogomils bore their culture and art, their idea, even their clothes and customs to other lands. These figures in the soft karst are an expression, they are not merely images, they are actuality as it was lived and an ideological truth as well, which is contained in the depletion of apostles setting out on ajourney, of the heroes of the Bosnian state and the free church of the Bogomils. There are beautiful horses in a harmonious composition which speaks of rhythm and eternity. Look, they are dancing a “horo”, which has always been part of the life of the Bulgarians. They seem to be leading the dance with a song, rhythmic and free! That song is still sung in Southern France, in places where the Albigenses and Cathars were to be found. It is hummed by all Bulgarians as a song to accompany the “horo”. “Boryano, Boryanke, sal ti li si moma, sal ti li znaish to peesh? Glasut ti se chouva chak do nashta niva, chak do nashta sliva, surpa si ostavih tebe do psiousham.” “0, Boryano, Boryanke, is it only you who are a maid, is it only you who knows how to sing? Your voice carries as far as our field, as far as our plum tree. I put down my sickle to listen to you.” Do not those fine horses with all their accoutrements in a rhythmic canter remind us of the horses by which the Bulgarians are known all over the world as a “Nation of horsemen?” An ancient Balkan legend passed down by word of mouth tells us that the Turks conquered Bulgaria in the 15th century and the last capital of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom in the 15th century, a noble family left Bulgaria and set off over the mountains towards Herzegovina on the Adriatic Sea. Is this not recorded in the rare and half-obliterated inscriptions on the steles, do they not twil us about the Bulgarian nobleman who never forgot his people? He came of a family who provided the tsar and nobles in TUrnovo with the finest horses, horses that charged into battle and fought together with their riders. Was it a matter of chance that led the Bogomils in that direction? The Bulgarians were familiar with the art of stone-carving and the Bogomils took this art with them when they moved westward; and as Herzegovina and Bosnia possessed this heretical church they were also able to lembrace the art of the heretics. Heresy! Knowledge in itself was not heresy. It was an open door through which the people could enter the wide road of independent thought. It is a force which enables a person to comprehend and judge. It is a lighted candle — enables a person to comprehend and judge. It is a lighted candle — and that is the ‘correct thinking’ our teacher was talking about! The Bulgarians, who were the first nation in Europe to hold. church services in their native language (translator’s note: not in Latin or Greek), achieved a truly great feat. Bogomilism was born among the very same people. This made them thinkers, gave them awareness. The Bulgarians indeed had a mighty weapon, the Word, the Daylight written in the Bulgarian, Slavonic language. It was with this book in his hand that the Bogomil set out on his journey! As a Bulgarian historian and writer said in his book “The Bugri”, a spirit of knowledge and criticism flourished in Bulgaria at that time. Educated, thinking Bulgarians could criticise everything, even the church itself and its teaching, and even go so far as to question the dogma itself. Nowhere in mediaeval Europe were there such favourable conditions for such critical thinking. They applied their ideas in practice by means of communities in which they laid the foundations of the Teaching of Love, Wisdom and Truth. They considered work to be the only way to meet the requirements of life and of the community. They were the brothers of the poor, the unfortunate, the imprisoned and the exiled — and all this in the early Middle Ages, the years of superstition and darkness, of injustice and ignorance. Even in those days the Bogomils had schools open to the people, the young people, including girls. They educated everybody by means of enlightenment. The spirit of brotherhood and freedom entered the life of the Bogomil community. How did the Bogomils meet? In the mountains, forest, fields and caves, and at time when there was a lull in the persecution to which they were subjected, in various buildings. At times when the Bogomils were most persecuted their meetings took place at night. That is what happened in Bulgaria and in France as well. They travelled in secret to hold secret meetings and lived in caves during the hours of daylight, whence they emerged to preach to the assembled believers. Loyal young people stood guard at the entrance to the cave and when danger approached, the Bogomils moved on, led by loyal guides who knew secret ways. The Bogomil communities resembled the first Christian communities. They donated their property to the community and everybody worked for one and all. They lived fraternally and shared everything equally, so there were no poor people among them. When a wealthy Bogomil possessed property or land, he worked together with his feudal villagers in the fields and there was nothing at all which distinguished him as the owner of the castle. Bliss reigned in these little communities and blessings rained upon them. Songs and stories remained from those times and troubadours sand about those who died for their beliefs like the first Christians. Their example gave inspiration to many and they, too, became followers of the Bugri. What did the Bogomils eat, what was the food of the apostles, the Perfect Ones? The Bogomils did not kill. They did not eat meat. They were vegetarians. When someone was being interrogated by the Inquisition to find out whether he was a Bogomil, he would be told to slaughter an animal or kill a hen. If he refused, death soon followed. On journeys the Bogomils lived on bread and water. Is not the Living Bread the Word expressed in the gospel of Saint John? What could be better than a loaf baked in the hot embers and pure water from a mountain streamlet or a spring beneath the summit? The prayer of the Bogomils was “Our Father”. They had no rituals, they built no churches. They prayed in the open air and indeed everywhere where the spirit was present. In our age the Master, Beinsa Duno, led his disciples into the mountains. There he opened his school. The high peaks, the sunrise are the aspiration of the disciples of the great school of the White Brotherhood in Bulgaria and indeed everywhere they found friendship and support. How many unforgettable sunrises greeted Beinsa Duno and his students in the ancient Rila Mountains, where the highest mountain in the Balkans is located! In the gentle blue mist of morning one sees the Seven Lakes, set out like a musical scale. Towering over one of them is a stony summit known as the Peak of Prayer, which faces a sleepily beautiful valley. It is from behind this valley that the sun rises and this is the most sacred moment, in which divine consciousness awakens in man, a new consciousness which will awaken all the higher feelings in man? Among the Bogomils, the act of Christening or acceptance into the Brotherhood was the laying on of hands, which means that by way of justice and truth, the symbol of which is hands, I entrust my faith in the divine in you. They laid their hands upon the crown of a new brother’s head, where the silvery leaves of milfoil tremble. It is also the place of the highest human virtues, where love and reverence towards God reside! With a prayer which was uttered at the end of the Paneurythmia, the brothers and sisters make the same movement, saying the words: “May God’s peace be, my God’s joy and happiness shine forth in our hearts!” A new mankind is coming to earth! That is what the White Brotherhood is working for. Today is a transition between a new and an old culture and it is the Worldwide White Brotherhood which is paving the way for the new culture. Modern man’s awareness of the new culture will manifest itself in a completely different way. The wise forces in Nature are preparing a completely different installation for the human nervous system. “ I refer to the new person as a person of light,” says the Master. “You are living in an epoch when the new mankind is being created.” What is the characteristic feature of the new idea that is coming? you will ask. A cosmic awareness awakens in the new person, and this is the factor the Master placed before all others right back at the beginning of the century. He wrote the following lines to one of his women disciples: “Feel like a citizen of the world.” The new person will be formed,” says the Master, “This is the culture of the immortals. The immortals shall live in the sixth race, persons of the ideal,” The sleeping spiritual forces in the human soul are coming gradually to life. New sense organs are developing in man. The Master foretold this with these words: “Leave your prisons! Then a new life will begin. New horizons will open in your minds and then the process of development of the sixth sense will begin in modern man.” Has not modern science also made many surprising discoveries which have led to a deeper understanding of the laws of Nature land then people regard them quite differently? “Something much better is coming!” says the Master. The culture of brotherhood and sisterhood is coming! You cannot live well if you do not live for the entirety. Partial happiness does not exist. Live for everything!