Ani

The Book - The Spirit and The Flesh. Beinsa Douno Translation from Bulgarian - Vessela Nestorova THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE … whho whhen found a pearl of great price went and sold all that he had and Bought it.10 This morning I shall speak on the apparently least significant verse in this chapter of Matthew in connection with the other Law—the seventh and the greatest Law of Nature—the Law of genus. Everything has genus, or gender—masculine and feminine. Who does not know what a man or a woman is? There is only a dispute as to who of the two is higher up the scale. It is said that when God first created a human being, He created man. And men, defending their cause from their point of view, prove that because of this they are higher than women. On the other hand, the women, defending their cause, affirm that they stand higher than men. There is a dispute on this question even among the people of learning. For a long time the scientists have measured the brains of men and women to see how much they weigh and determine their qualities by their weight. They say that since man's brain is heavier, man stands higher than woman. However, there is an axiom in Hermetic philosophy according to which every truth is a half-truth and, inversely, every lie is a half-lie, by which it follows that every affirmation is half-true and every negation is again half-true. Therefore, when one affirms anything, if they want to be right, they should diminish their affirmation by 50%. You know the story of a man who was frightened and said to his wife, "Wife, I saw 100 bears in the forest and ran away!" "Come! Come!" answered his wife. "If they were not 100, they certainly must have been 80." "Come! Come!" exclaimed his wife. "They must have been at least 60." "Too many, my husband, how can 60 bears get together to run after you." The man diminished their number to one and then said, "There was a rustling noise in the bush, but I cannot say whether it was a bear or not." In contemporary philosophy there are many exaggerations too. This comes from the fact that people take a subjective, not an objective, view of things. The objective standpoint is that of a man, the subjective is a woman's standpoint. Consciousness is a man's aspect; subconsciousness—a woman's. There are different terms in philosophy. They say that a man has an objective mind and a woman—a subjective mind. Every object must be viewed from these two standpoints and then we shall have a true idea of it. Now you may say, "What relation has the verse you read to man and woman?" It has a relation. See how pearls are made. They say that sometimes a small grain of sand gets into the clam which starts a liquid secretion to envelope it so it would not disturb it. The clam models it like a sculptor. It makes it smooth and turns it into a precious pearl. If the grain of sand does not enter a clam, it remains without any value. Since the grain is rough, it disturbs the clam which starts thinking—it cannot get rid of it without the organs to do that and thus it comes to its mind to make it precious, so it says to the grain of sand, "You are my enemy, but I shall start loving you and make you precious." This is the Teaching of Christ who says, "Love your enemies." You would throw out this grain of sand, but the clam makes a pearl out of it for which you pay much. Not only this, but Christ praises this clam for having done such fine work. I ask you, if Christ came among you, would he find your work as perfect as the work of this clam? Would He find pearls? You say, "We have no conditions." Women say, "When we want to work, men obstruct us, we have no conditions, no houses of our own, we need this and that and so we cannot work." Men on their part say, "We cannot work, because women disturb us, society obstructs us, and we cannot do anything." But the clam does not say it has no conditions: a being with no hands, no feet or human brain, out of a grain of sand it creates a pearl and Christ praises it. I ask you: can you not do as much as this clam? You can do something more than it. Now let us come to the basic Law. The external forms are the result of the inner differences existing between man and woman. Every shade, every feature on the human face is due to an inner deep cause in a person's soul. When you consider this subject, you think there is no difference between man and woman. If I ask you what you want to be, you will all want to be born men. What progress would there be in the world then, if only men were born? God made man first. However, man said, "This will not do, I cannot do all this work alone. How can I cultivate this big garden, paradise, with all the trees in it? The animals cannot understand me." Then God said, "Very well, I shall create a partner for you to help you." And so this great Law, this process which moves the world, came into being on the stage of life. No progress, no development, no ennobling could exist, if this Law had not been created. You see only the external side of things, but there is a much deeper sense in them. The only thing you know in Nature is the female aspect; the male aspect is invisible. The Sun you see is a female sun—the male sun is invisible. The former sun draws energy from the male sun. Contemporary science confirms this fact by saying that energy is always manifested in the negative pole of the electric currents. Some people consider the word negative or passive in a bad sense. By passive we understand a person without character, a weak-willed person. This is a wrong conception, however, so scientists have substituted the word negative with the phrase cathode rays—the pole where all energy is made apparent. I shall explain many things on the basis of this principle. Humans have a brain, but you say sometimes, "There is nothing on my mind." Why is there nothing on your mind? Because you are a barren woman who cannot bear children. Someone says, "I cannot love." That means you are barren. Those who cannot think and feel, be they men or women, they cannot bear fruit. It says in the Scripture that anything that cannot bear fruit is near hell. I wish all of you to bear fruit. The greatest blessing for a person is to know how to create and to take care for their creation. How can a person not bear, not create a good thought, or a good desire in him or herself? Giving birth to something is a creative principle, worthy only of thinking beings. Of course I am not speaking of that creative principle which can create something out of nothing—the Creator—but about the beings of the male and female gender. In Christian philosophy we call this Christ—the God-Man. No one has understood the principle about which Christ says, "The Father lives in Me." Nobody has seen God; no one has seen the Father of the world. We know the Mother because God appears in us as a mother who creates, nourishes and takes care. This way we know Him. It says in the Scripture, "Christ came to earth to manifest the Father to us." According to the same Law humans, who have come down from heaven, were originally like that tiny, formless, insignificant grain of sand, which the Divine Spirit, after a long time of work, made into a pearl. You should thank this Clam— the Clam you have entered—for all you have in yourselves. If you are of value today, you should be thankful to the Divine consciousness that has worked for a very long time over you. According to this conception, the value of things sometimes is in their content, while at other times—in their form. Take a marble stone, sculptured by a skillful sculptor who has deposited in it a great idea, and see where this idea is expressed. This idea is hidden in the delicate lines the artist has chiseled in the stone. If a foolish person destroys these lines, an ordinary stone of no value will remain. What gives you value are the noble thoughts, desires and acts, deposited in you by the Divine Spirit. Only those traits that God has inscribed on your brain, on your heart and on your soul give value to you as a person. The same is stated by science. Contemporary scientists affirm that the number of thoughts your mind can produce depends on the number of convolutions in your brain. What are the convolutions? They are the traits that are visible on it. These fissures canalize your thoughts. Some people want to have a smooth face like a ball, thinking a person is handsome when the face is smooth. No, the face is a mask then. There must be certain marks on the human face that show first that one is good, second—that they are just; third—that they have love, that they are wise, that they are truth-loving. These things must also be expressed externally as well. Therefore, all people are written books in which their qualities can be read. Some people ask me, "Do you hear God, have you ever heard Him?" I answer, "I do not only listen to Him, but I see Him as well; I see Him when He speaks to me and listen to His words." Human words can be heard only, but God's words can be seen as well. God, Who is glory, has become incarnate in Christ and become visible. Each one of you is Divine glory expressed, incarnate, and visible. And after all this you ask me if I have heard or spoken with the Lord! For two thousand years I have been listening to Him. Christ's Teaching is an excellent philosophy—not a philosophy by which we grope in the darkness, but one by which we can see, touch, smell and taste. An anecdote tells about a learned European who studied the esoteric sciences. He wanted to investigate the profound mysteries of Nature and once he happened upon a society of blind people, whose eyes where caved in. When they were speaking with him, they asked him, "In what way do you differ from us?" They touched his eyes and understood that they were bulging, which was the only thing he differed in. Then they said, "Let us make his eyes caved in so he can be like us." Contemporary philosophers are of this kind, for when they find a person with bulging eyes, they press them down and say, "You must reason like us, your ideas of the world, of man and woman should be like ours, you should think like us." Yes, this philosophy is related to life, to a great reality which you must test every day, every hour, every minute, every second, because you must work, build. You often ask, "Why are all the misfortunes?" Do you not have a positive science?! You know how many stars there are in the sky, you are wise people measuring space, the sky, you can make compounds, you know what oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen are, but you do not know how to put order in you home. Thus there are things you do not know. Some say, "There are unattainable things in life." You should know that everything is relatively, not absolutely, unattainable. Everything is attainable, but time is necessary for that. A child understands little at first and gradually begins to understand more and more and when they become a grown up person, their view on the world changes. Now I shall ask you a question, "When you come to earth after a thousand years, what will be your views?" Of course, they will be like the ones you have today with a certain addition. But now, to return to the topic. Why does this difference exist? People must not be alike. The Law is such: people are alike in essence, but different in degree. There must always exist a certain difference among people. This is the Divine Law. And if you want someone to love you, there must be some difference between that person and you which should be harmonious as between the tones in music. The harmony we admire lies in these regular combinations, in this very difference. We should come to that harmony which actually, essentially, exists in both man and woman, and we must apply this Divine principle. Woman is the emblem of Love. Love cannot be manifested in man. I am not speaking of the man with a moustache, because woman can also have a moustache, as some animals, but I have in view certain qualities which distinguish man from woman and these qualities will remain in her forever. Another Divine power lies in man which is called Wisdom. When Love and Wisdom marry, the Truth is born. If you want to acquire the truth, you must find your father—Wisdom—and your mother—Love—and after they give birth, they will tell you what the truth is and how it can be manifested. The Truth takes after the father, it is of the masculine gender—it is the son of Love and Wisdom. The father and mother, i.e. Wisdom and Love, will give birth to Virtue; that is your sister. And Virtue joined to Truth—that is Righteousness. This is how this question stands. If you want to create this pearl, your soul must cultivate it. But what are people engaged in? They often ask me, "Do you preach things in conformity with the church?" I preach things in conformity with the great Divine Law. I do not lie before God. It is all the same to me whether my Teaching is according to your views, or not; it is important to me that my views should be in accord with the great Law, that I should not be like a liar before God, before heaven, before the angels, before the saints. This is the important question for me. If everybody understands the Teaching this way and thinks this way, there is nothing to be afraid of. Some say, "You have a purpose to found a sect." According to me those who found sects are petty people. Everyone can form a sect. How? Take an axe, cut up a tree and you will form a sect; take a hammer, pound up a stone and you will make a sect; go among people, make the quarrel and you will make a sect. Sects are easily made. In an American church there was a dispute on the question whether to raise the cup when the communion is being sanctified or not. Those who maintained that the cup must be raised forgot to do it. You often forget what you preach; you forget that principle that unites you. Our problem is to restore the Kingdom of God on earth. We want to form a sect, but what kind? To become conductors of the Divine Law which should take possession of all minds and hearts that all—men, women and children— should become Sons and Daughters of the Kingdom of God and start living on the Earth as they should. And now when people complain that great misfortunes have assailed them, I say, "I am happy your prisons are being torn down, your old concepts are falling off." Why? If water that has been kept for a long time in a bottle, is not poured out, new water cannot be put in the bottle. When Christ came to earth, the Jews should have cleaned themselves the same way and started a new life, but they said, "We know Moses, we do not know you; you want to form a sect." But He did not form a sect, as you see, although from a Jewish point of view, He was a heretic. Some ask, "Are you a true believer?" I may be a true believer before God, but from the point of view of the church, I may not be such. They were saying about Christ also that He wanted to destroy the Hebrew nation, but we should not reason as the Jews after 2,000 years. I ask you, what did the Jews gain by crucifying Christ? Nothing at all. They were scattered all over the world. There is nothing easier than crucifying a man— only four nails are necessary. I shall take up our subject again. I want you to reason and think deeply about these things. I shall say something more about the principle of man and woman. First, you must love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength; secondly, to love your neighbor as yourself; and thirdly, to love your enemies. I just spoke about your enemies—the small grain of sand. Christ did not come to earth to save the noble and the righteous, but those rough grains of sand—He descended to hell for them to take them out. In order to take the pearls out of the clam, it must be caught and opened. By the same Law, people are caught in heaven, opened up and when the pearl is found in their soul, it is taken out. When someone dies, people say, "The clam died!" They walk behind this clam and weep, "The poor clam is gone!" I say, it has gone to heaven to take the pearl along which it has created and cultivated. If it had not made that pearl, it would not have gone to heaven and would have been of no value. I shall consider some basic features of man and woman. Those who have studied the human constitution say that the external features of a person are due to their inner nature, i.e. what a person is inwardly, is outwardly as well. There are no two opinions on that conviction. They say that the feet of a normally developed man or woman must comprise one sixth of his or her height; the face must comprise one tenth of the height, the chest—one fourth, the length of the hand—one tenth; the neck must be double the circumference of the wrist. Naturally, there will be some differences among different individuals; some people have long, pear-shaped faces; others—round faces. What are these features due to? People with round faces are not very active, they are conciliatory and diplomatic. Round faces are more typical of women, or people who follow the female line. By giving you these descriptions, I want to make you take a new view of Christianity and comprehend it more deeply as a science of life. Christianity is a positive science which must teach us how to live. People differ only in terms of application—there is one type of application in the physical and another in the spiritual world. Men and women cannot be alike; there must be a difference between them. If your husband is active and brisk, you should be happy and do not say, "I want to be a man." In every manifestation there must be activity, if not on the physical plane, on the mental, and if this activity is not in the mind, then it should be in the heart. A person must be active. Activity means work, production in a triple sense—physical, mental and spiritual. All people cannot work at the same time at one and the same place and in one and the same direction. They will work in different fields. The difference existing among people can create either harmony of disharmony, it depends on them. When the husband and wife are quick-tempered, they should make concessions to each other; when one says something, the other should listen to them; when one is "playing the fiddle", the other should be listening. This is the Law in force on the physical plane. If one can keep quiet, the other one will appreciate this feeling of patience and will repay in another way. However, if the wife does not behave like this, her husband will say, "There is no worse woman than my wife; she has a very long tongue. May God liberate me from her or her from me." Do not think you will be liberated! If you have persecuted one another in this world, you will do the same in the other world too. What can change your life is your understanding of the Divine Law and its application to life. You will make thousands of mistakes, God will not judge you for them, He will forgive you, but under the condition that you learn the Divine Law and work. However, if you do not learn any lesson after one hundred mistakes, God will not forgive you. All things in the world must be made use of. If there are thorns on the pear-tree, or on the rose, this is in the order of things; they have not been put haphazardly. Those who climb the pear-tree should not wear clothes which can be torn. I have seen children hanging from pear-trees who had to be brought down by a ladder. Those who do not know the Law say, "This pear-tree has thorns, it must be cut down!" It is thorny, but it bears nice pears. Now, I shall tell you a story about a woman, but it concerns equally both men and women. A wife was a very nervous and stubborn woman who never did what her husband wanted her to do; on the contrary, she always did just the opposite. One day she wanted to sit on a well, but he told her not to, adding, "If you sit there, you will fall in and I shall remain without a wife." "I shall sit on it," answered the wife and she sat, but fell in. He started wailing, "I told you that you would fall, if you had obeyed me, you would not have fallen in the well." After an hour he saw a white-haired devil, coming out of the well. "What is it?" asked the man. "My hair turned white in an hour because of a woman!" The devil said this and ran away. The man began to think how to make use of this incident. Finally he thought out something. When he visited homes in which there were evil spirits and used all kinds of conjurations and prayers to make them go out and they still stayed in, he finally began to say to them, "Run away, for my wife is coming!" At these words all evil spirits ran away. In this way the woman, who fell in the well, did much good to the world. When her husband saw that she frightened the devil in the well, he understood that the devil is afraid only of woman, not of man. It was enough for him to cry out, "Run away for my wife is coming!" and all devils were chased away. Thus, thousands were liberated by the suffering of one single man. That is why women have the keys to the Kingdom of God. And when Christ said to Peter, "I give you the keys to the Kingdom of God," He meant this deep inner Law that there should always exist an essential difference between man and woman. In the difference lies the basis of the love which man has for woman. The day woman changes the position in which God has placed her, man will stop loving her, regardless of the precious diamonds and the silk dresses she may deck herself with; no external power can make man love her in such a case. Man is the Lord for the woman, she must see that God lives in him. To be loved by God, she should deserve His love. How? By doing some work for Him. Since He Himself cannot come down to earth to work, He gives us a mind, a heart and strength to conquer the Earth and put Law and order on it for which work He sends us all the blessings in life. Some people say, "God will come and put order in the world." He puts order in it now, yet not Himself, but through others. On the one hand, the Germans, on the other—the Russians, the French, the English are putting order in the world by their guns. Some ask, "When will people stop fighting?" When the wall they are breaking is broken through. It can be calculated mathematically how many blows a stone can stand. Some stones break after 100 blows, others—after 200 or 500 blows. The same way it can be calculated when the war will end. The war will end when the necessary shells and bombs have exploded and when a new consciousness dawns on people about their destiny on earth. Then, they will say, "We have done an excellent work." When Christ turns to His disciples, He says that the man who sought the pearl—the sense of his soul—when he found it, he went and sold all that he had, in order to buy it again. If you are not ready to sacrifice everything in this world, you will not gain anything. You still have to make some sacrifice, in order to gain some pearl, something sensible. This sacrifice must be sensible. There are people who sacrifice all their property, but do not gain any pearl. Why? Because they sacrifice it for drinking and gambling. If I would find the pearl Christ speaks about in a poor person, I would sell my whole property. In order to do good, it is not enough to give all your property to the poor. Why? When Christ says we should do good, He has in mind that this good should be done sensibly. It would be an insensible thing to give a wolf a lamb every day; they do this in the zoological garden because they keep the wolves there on exhibition, but this Law cannot be applied in any society. We cannot sacrifice the lambs for the wolves, we can sacrifice them for the people—there is sense in that—but not for the wolves. Now I shall tell you briefly a story. In prehistoric times two kingdoms divided by an impassable mountain range existed. In both kingdoms the wise men said that he who could dig a passage through this mountain and connect that way the two kingdoms, would do the greatest good to these two nations. But this should be done under the condition that the one who starts to work should not turn his head back until the passage is dug. Many people appeared and started digging, but each time one would start work someone else would come and ask him what he was doing and he would turn his head to answer him. The moment he turned his head, the place he had dug would get filled up again. Finally a prince appeared and started digging. People who passed by asked him what he was doing, but he kept silent. Once a philosopher, passing his way, wanted to show him an easy way of digging the hole, he turned his head to listen to him and the hole he had dug got filled in with gravel. He promised himself he would not turn again no matter who spoke to him and started digging again. People passing by spoke to him, but he paid no attention to anyone. Finally he dug the passage, connected the two kingdoms and married the princess of the other kingdom. In this way these two nations began to live a happier life. This is not only an allegory, but a great truth. The big mountain, which separates the two kingdoms, is the human sin which separates earth from heaven. If you were clairvoyant you would see this black wall with fortresses, guns and sentinels. Christ came to earth to dig this passage, this hole in the mountain and he did it. And when He says that there is only one path which leads to the Kingdom of Heaven, He implies this hole, this narrow way. For two thousand years this narrow way has been dug, but few are those who walk on it. There are many broad paths, but they do not lead where the narrow path leads to. Many people do not believe and say, "Prove this to us!" It is easy to prove it. How? It is enough for a person to go out of their house, but they say, "I do not want to go out." However, everyone will go to this wall and come back again. That is why knowing that you will pass through this hole only by the Law of the genus between man and woman, you must become related. When we speak of new birth, repentance, we understand that harmony must be achieved between us and God. If God does not love you, who can love you? Someone says, "I have no friends, no one loves me, God does not love me either." This is not true. God loves you but you must learn to love Him too. He is not invisible—you can see Him everywhere. God speaks to you everyday at least ten times, He meets you, advises you and so on. When you think of doing something evil and you meet a friend in the street who tells you not to do it, God speaks to you through them. And now when I am speaking to you, again God is speaking to you. The words are mine, the cover is mine, but the content is of God. You receive a gift. What should you do? Take the cover off and you will see its content. Therefore, men and women must understand each other. You have certain wrappings about yourself: you want to become great, rich, to have houses, knowledge, power, and to be loved by all and, whatever you desire, to achieve it at one scoop. However, this is not done like in the lottery. You must learn the Divine Law and start inwardly. If you take the verse of the pearl and spend only ten days a year, or a month in meditation on it, do you know what secrets you would learn? As a scientist takes a few prisms and puts them in a certain combination, can see below them the most microscopic beings, in the same way, if you combine the prisms existing in your mind, you will see many things which cannot be seen by the ordinary eye. As a scientist sees under the microscope a whole world of life in a drop of water, the same way those who make use of Divine Wisdom will see things others do not see. Sometimes in the morning you get up badly disposed, but you do not know the cause. You do not succeed in some work—there is a cause; you are ill—there is a cause; you are not beautiful—there is a cause. Beauty must be an ideal for man as well as for woman, because all angels, saints, Christ, are beautiful. When a woman says her husband does not love her, I understand that she is ugly. Every soul in which the words Virtue, Righteousness, Love, Wisdom, Truth are inscribed, is a great, beautiful soul and everybody can love it. And if nobody loves you, it means that you have none of these qualities. Go to God and say, "God, let your hammer work more on me so that these virtues may become inscribed." If God does not work with His hammer on someone, they will remain an ordinary stone of no value. Now, let us come to the application. How must the man and the woman work? They want to have children. Children are bearers of Truth. Know that if you want to understand Truth only your children can teach you. If you want to learn humility, only your children can teach you what humility is. A woman who has never given birth to a child can be neither good, nor humble—she will always be proud. The same thing applies to man. Every thought and every desire of his take on life when they are born. These manifested thoughts and desires house a great being; an angel is concealed in them who, at some point, will be your friend. Some time in the past, the children you have now have been only a dream in your mind, which you have clothed now. You have in yourselves the pearl Christ speaks about, only that some of you, instead of making it noble (as the clam does with the grain of sand), want to throw it out of yourselves. You say, "God has not made it well," and you hew it a bit, but it looses its sense. Do not hew the lines God has put in the human soul. I am against these philosophers who say, "Since the world is not made the way it should be made, let us hew it a bit." For instance, a woman wishing to look slimmer puts on a corset. If you do not wish to grow fat, you must fast. Now you eat three times a day, try to eat twice or once a day and see what noble traits will develop in you. You say, "We cannot live without food." Do you know how much food you must eat in a day? There are certain Laws in life which regulate eating. If you have no appetite for several days, do not eat—wait till a natural hunger appears in you. A man says, "My wife must eat or she will look bad." She looks ill now, but will look well if she does not eat. There are animals that do not eat when they are indisposed. I say that you have the pearl of which Christ speaks, only some of you want to cast it out, which is nothing other than abortion. The statistical data show that there were one hundred thousand abortions in the city of New York in 1905. If some want to be Christians, they are not allowed to apply abortion—in the body, in the mind or in the heart. When a good thought comes into your mind, you say, "I shall apply abortion!" You will do that but you will be ill after that. Some say, "I had a bad thought." It is not a sin that you had a bad thought, but it is sinful to apply abortion. All people do this and wonder why there is no order in the world. Why? Because of abortion. The bad thoughts and desires that torment you are those aborted children of yours in the past and now they say, "You are an unworthy mother." They obstruct you in all your initiatives and you are an unhappy person. If you want to be happy, to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, it is best that from now on you should not apply abortion and pray to God to forgive you your misuse of all good thoughts and wishes—of all your aborted children whom you have killed and robbed of their riches. That is why in the future you should mature every noble thought, every noble wish, since they shall have an effect on your nose, eyebrows, eyes and you will attain to the Apollo type of head and face. At present many people look horrible and ugly. If they go to heaven on this day and see the beauty of the angels, they will run away from there. Now you must pray to God to help you bleach yourself. This is not hard word. If a clam can make a pearl for which Christ praised it, can you not do the same? When you enter heaven, what will Christ praise you for? Someone will say, "I was first minister in Bulgaria." Christ will ask him, "What good have you done to the Bulgarian people?" "Nothing." "Have you a pearl?" "No." "Then, go out, go and stay on earth until you make a pearl, for I cannot receive you in the Kingdom of God without this pearl." A bishop comes along: "What have you done?" "I taught people to do good, I believed in you." "Did you make a pearl?" "No, I did not." "Out with you!" To those who have made a pearl, Christ will say, "I am happy, my son, that you did not shame me. Come to me; you are a worthy son." The same way when you, men and women, go to heaven, there you will meet some son—your pearl—who will say to you, "Thank you, mother, that when I was a big sinner you took me in your womb and made me a person. In this world I shall serve you with all my soul." This will be your happiness. This is what Christ wants to say in the verses I read of which I chose the least meaningful. You see how much it contains, the others contain much deeper things which you will learn some day, but not on the Earth—when you go to heaven. Then you will have new conceptions, new emotions, and new abilities. Then you will see other pictures which you will be able to understand. At this time you can be given this much. If more is given to you, you will not be able to bear it. This would mean blowing a soap-bubble more than it can expand—then it will burst. That is why, when Christ says, "You women are the emblem of Divine Love, God lives in you," women must listen silently, modestly and show themselves worthy of bearing their share. You say, "You should know, Lord, that the present world is not such as You have made it." There is no need of you Teaching the Lord. When He speaks, we must keep silent. When He stops speaking, we shall begin our lesson and say, "I did this in such a way, that in another way." Then God will tell you where you are right and where you are not right. Therefore, the Teaching of Christ implies our listening to God and applying His Teaching in our life. And when Christ says to woman, "Love your neighbor as yourself," He means she has to love her husband as herself. And when He tells man to love his neighbor, He means that he should love his wife as himself. If you give such examples, then your sons and daughters will follow them. This is what the creation of the pearl means—the alchemic Law, applied in the physical world. Sermon held on April 19, 1915, in Sofia. ____________________ 10 Matt. 13:44.

Note 4 EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS 8 000 х 365 days = 2 920 000 days 8 000 х 12 months = 96 000 months 96 000 х 4 weeks = 384 000 weeks 384 000 х 7 days = 2 688 000 days 2 688 000 х 24 hours = 64 512 000 hours 64 512 000 х 60 minutes = 3 870 720 000 minutes 3 870 720 000 х 60 seconds = 232 243 200 000 seconds The longest period of time from the creation of the World is the first period – when man descended from Heaven to Earth, which he did after the mammals. The plants had descended first. The first time period lasted 75 000 years. Adam is how we name the white man, the spiritual man, and the spiritual Adam came on after Christ. All earlier races knew about the White Race and expected it as a Messiah is expected. The earliest race in the physical world is the White one; all others are older in the Spiritual world but younger in the physical world. The White Race shall be succeeded by the Sixth Race – the luminous race, the race of God’s Children. Both Nature and climate will change to accommodate this Race. Presently, there is a dark zone circling the Earth built up from the bad thoughts and desires of people. God immersed man in the Astral world./God overthrew man in the Astral world (Genesis, Chapter 6). Jacob – thief, liar. And God said to him, ”You will no longer be called Jacob.” (Thy name shall not be called Jacob any more. (Genesis, 35:10)) The physical body has been formed during a million years and is now complete. Now the Astral body is being formed. Calculation: 8000 x 12 x 4 x 7 x 52 x 365 x 24 x 60 x 60 gives the number of years from the creation of the Earth. How long each period of time lasted can be seen from the Earth’s layers as each layer was formed. If you descend into hell, you will feel thousands of times heavier. Only heroes descend into hell – that’s what the Greek mythology tells us too. There are valuable things in hell too – there is a population that lives there with the belief that they own the place. Whoever goes there has to take their shape. Hell is like garbage that has been piling up for over twenty years and is now decaying and rotting; the one who can estimate it shall make use of it but the one who can’t shall say it’s useless junk. The deepest hell is in the centre of the Earth. A hundred kilometres from it there is a solid zone inhabited by another population; a hundred kilometres further on there is another zone, etc. One hundred kilometres in diameter above our Earth there is a light solid zone through which solar and stellar lights pass; the population in this zone is the Astral world. Another 100 – kilometre zone spreads around it, and so on. There are seven external zones around th)e Earth, i.e. seven heavens, and another seven zones inside the Earth; in the centre of the Earth is fire – the hell. The deceased who have left can stay in the Astral world, but live in the physical world and appear at séances, talking about their worldly affairs – where their money is, or documents, or about quarrels, etc. This is so because the level of their conscience and spiritual understanding is low. We, who sojourn in the spiritual field and form our Astral bodies, shall enter the Astral world with awakened consciousness. The one who urges peoples’ hearts to do good is named God. And God through His Son Jesus Christ constantly teaches each person many good and perfect things. And thou who hearken to Him shall be blessed./Those who follow Him shall be blessed. January 25, 1915, Extraordinary lectures Burgas (7 February 1915 – Burgas - Old Style)

Note 5 IF YOU LOVE ME “If you have love for me, keep my commandments.” John 14:15 The teaching of Christ is for this world, not for the next world, as most people assert. Between the Invisible world and the visible world, there is such a relation as there is between the roots and branches of plants. When we walk into the paths of Christ, then the saints and the Luminous beings rejoice that we are in connection with them and they feed us. A tree feeds from its roots and from its branches – from below and from above. If we keep the commandments of Christ, He will give us everything we ask in His name; if we are not given what we want, it is because we have done wrong. The Earth is not a place for sufferings, it is a school; we cannot uplift ourselves without the Earth. We have brought tears to the Earth’s eyes more than once, and when it gets angry because of us, it shows us its attitude by its convulsions – its fur bristles up from our bad actions. When we listen attentively to His commandments, He will manifest to us in bright thoughts and wishes. Divine Love is needed, which manifests in Grace[1]. What is Grace? For instance, in the Thames River there are small ships, up to twenty or thirty thousand, which go fishing, and all of London earns its living. At low tide these ships are left in the dry, in the slime; the tide rises – this is Grace, then they are raised and start sailing in the sea, they go fishing. There is high tide in Grace. We have to seek these moments of Divine Spirit when the tide is high; if we lose this moment, we will lose Grace and will have to wait “twelve hours”, and this is twelve weeks, twelve months, twelve years, twelve centuries, etc. First of all, wWe have to apply Divine Love at the core. It works in the heart, which is the most important organ. The heart measures out the pulse, and when the Divine heart pulsates, we revive, we heap upamass tide. In the day when we do not manage to keep the Divine commandments, disharmony appears within us, and we are no longer Christians – we will search for Christianity in ourselves, but we will not be Christians. We often ask ourselves whether we have lost the goods[2], or we have gained more in this world. We may make mistakes, but Christ will judge us if we do not correct them – we must not repeat mistakes any more, but we have to correct them. We ought to learn from our mistakes, that is, we have to free ourselves from our[O1] bad thoughts; and this means not to talk with the devil, otherwise he will gradually settle his entire self inside us and will say: “If you do not feel comfortable, go outside, I feel fine here.” Such is the example with the camel and the water-miller, in whose water-mill it asked and received permission to warm only its head, its muffle, but bit by bit, it settled its entire self in and told the miller to go outside if there is no room for him in its presence – the camel felt comfortable. People go out of themselves every day, because they have given room to the devil inside themselves. First we have to purify our heart, and in the second place we have to purify our mind. When we do not muddle the spring, it will cleanse our hearts[O2] by itself. “I will give you a spring of life-giving water.” That is why we have to set a good thought against every evil thought, and we will cleanse ourselves in the course of time. Love lies in preserving Christ’s commandments – therefore we have to study them, and gradually at that. The Master will show us the method, the succession of this study. Love is not only a feeling, but a mindful[3] act. It implies sacrifice – it is a rucksack that is carried all over the world. Everyone must carry this rucksack, even though it may be heavy, for we will be elevated by it and will learn Christ’s commandments. When we experience sufferings, then the Lord tries our Love, and if we stand the sufferings without a murmur, it shows that we have the Divine Love. For instance, a rich person in Paris decided to test his relatives, to see if they would support him, by pretending to be a very poor fellow, and made those who took care of him, to be his inheritorsthe heirs of his fortune[O3] , while he deprived the others, even though they were angry at him – such was their reward. Christ says that if you love Him, you will keep His commandments, and they are in relation to our brothers, sisters, teachers, societies, etc. – and we have to keep these correlations towards everyone. We ought to avoid the exchange of firing inside life, which we have in all Christian sects. They preach Christianity but do not observe it. A Christian will show his own strength in the struggle with the devil who is a very big coward – once the Christian shows him the net, and the devil runs away; he is the father of the lie and that is why he runs away from the Truth, from the Light. Once in a town, public baths were made; a dispute was carried on among the citizens eight years along[O4] , whether the boards should be planed or not planed, and the baths stayed unfinished, because they did not come to agreement. Both sides gave their motives for comforts and discomforts, for practicality or lack of practicality of smooth or not smooth boards, and vice versa. They brought the dispute to a great architect for a solution, and he arranged for them to alternate the boards, so that both sides would be satisfied. In this way we must proceed also with those Christians who are dogmatic and support the outer side. Every morning we should read a chapter from the Gospel, seek for some commandment and apply it during the day in our life. And then Christ will come in us and will make a dwelling inside us, and thus we will understand the deep Divine matters. Life is eternal, and Christ will reveal a lot of great things to us, but gradually – now we are not ready for these great secrets. There is an example with a person who wanted the Lord to reveal to him at least one of His secrets, and the Lord sent an Angel who took him up, leaving his body while taking his Spirit together with the human heart; after seeing a series of majesties, this person began to pray to be taken down because he could not endure it as they carried him through the high places in Heaven. When keeping the commandments, we will prepare this path for us and we will not wish to get back down. First of all, health in the mind and health in the heart are required. We have to make attempts every morning. If we have fear, this is spiritual cold[4], that is why we should breathe deeply, and through this we will get connected with the Angels, with the Heavenly Forces. People easily turn sour every day, but this is not a rule in life. People ought to turn from sour to sweet, just as the fruit turns from blossom first into green fruit, and then it ripens and becomes sweet. The Lord says: “Everything will turn into good”. The bigger we are, the bigger difficulties we will have – so it is with children, men[5], saints, etc. Christ says: “How much longer will I have patience for you?” We seek Him, we find Him, and when He comes in us, we crucify Him. He will resurrect and leave, but when will He come again? In ten, hundred, thousand and so years. Christianity is not hard, it is easy. Those who died for Christ’s sake, have died with Joy, but their names are written above. It is better for us to die tortured as Christians, than as bandits. For the bandits, Moses will come, Elijah will come, Prophet John will come, and they will whip the faults out of them all. Therefore Christ says: “My burden is easy”. The Lord, who speaks to us, will lead and rule over us. The greater sufferings are, the closer Christ is to us; if we have no sufferings, then the Lord is away from us, and this is wrong. That is why everyone has to fulfill Christ’s teaching at one’s own place – as a chief, teacher, professor, etc. This is Christ’s commandment; the Lord will help us in its accomplishment, and will raise us, from small persons making us great people. John of Kronstadt[6], since he devoted and dedicated his life to the Lord, he has become John of Kronstadt, and before that he used to be dull-headed. To dedicate your life does not mean to take off and go to the woods, but to fulfill His commandments in our life – to enlighten our minds, our hearts to become warmer, our souls to revive, our Spirit to come to life and to be exhilarated. 24 January 1915, Bourgas[7]

Note 4 RELATION OF THE NATURAL FORCES TO THE HUMAN SOUL Twenty-ninth lecture by The Master, held before the Youth Occult Class on May 30th, 1923, Sofia - Only the bright path of Wisdom leads to the Truth. - It constantly cheers us. Reflection A summary of the ninetieth lecture from year one is being read. Figure 1 As disciples, you have to study the forces of Nature, because they have a relation to the human soul. Just as you are now studying Nature, on one hand, you are looking upon it as a reflection of your inner world, and on the other hand, you are looking upon the physical world outside of you, and are saying, “This is Nature.” No, the outer world, Nature, has to be studied in a special way. Imagine now, that in front of your eye C there is an object AB (Figure 1). You are watching from the outside and do not know what the object AB is. Let us assume that the light, to which your eye reacts, goes through it and casts a shadow. Because the rays go through the lens C of the eye and reflect on the other side, we receive an image, opposite of AB, and bigger than it – A1B1. The object AB is real; A1B1 is its reflection like in a mirror. After that you project the reflection A1B1 outwards anew, this reflection reacts upon the centre of your brain; this happens in several phases, which I will not explain now. After that you acquire a certain idea of the object, and start describing it. The object AB could be inanimate, or it could also be a man, about 165 cm tall – a normal measure of the average height of man. The height of this subject determines his aspiration for going upwards. The taller a man is, the more favourable the circumstances of his development. In the vegetable kingdom the height of plants, and trees, is also dependent on the conditions. When you enter a forest in which the trees are close to each other, you will notice, that every tree has an aspiration for growing aloft. There, a race between the trees is noticeable; each one of them wants to grow higher than the neighbouring ones. That aspiration is very natural; every tree wants to rise above the others, so that they do not shadow it, and do not deprive it from sunlight. What is the difference between the tall and the short man? When we are speaking of a short or tall man, we need to have in mind in what way that man is short or tall. There are several types of heights: physical, moral, and intellectual. It is easy for man to measure his physical height, but how would he measure his moral and mental height? As I am looking upon this matter, it is notional. Why? - Because you do not see the inner links of Life. In this respect every science is only as real, as far as it has an application in Life. For everything you have to have a clear notion, not to be misled, not to waste your time in vain. And then you will know that the real actual Life is the spiritual one, because the quantities, with which it deals, are constant, unalterable. Do you think that the reflection, which has been obtained in your brain, will give you a real notion of the object? For instance, you meet a man who looks intelligent to you, noble, polite – this is the first impression of that man. A year later you already have a totally different opinion of him – you say, that this man is not as noble and intelligent as you thought. What proof did you have initially, on what was it based when you said that this man was noble and intelligent? If you asked a mathematician about the insignia or signs of something, he would immediately point them out, after which, based on them, he could solve any problem in the field of mathematics. Since he is able to solve any mathematical problem[1] he is a first-class mathematician. Therefore, a first-class mathematician is the one who can solve not only the existing problems in the Cosmos, but also those that are yet to be solved. He solves all problems a hundred percent; the second-class mathematician solves seventy-five percent of the problems he is given, and the third – only twenty-five percent of all the problems. The last mathematician would be least useful to you – if he could illuminate you and advise you in twenty-five cases, in seventy-five cases he would mislead you. Such stages, such categories we see also in the moral life of men: a first-class moralist is the one who solves his problems a hundred percent; a second-class one is he who solves his problems seventy-five percent; and a third-class one – the one who solves his problems twenty-five percent. How many problems would you solve if you had a third-class teacher? Barely twenty-five percent. Do you think that this teacher would get you on the way with a hale spine[A1] ?stout back? You would meet the first-class teacher in the physical world, the second-class teacher – in the Spiritual world, and the third-class one – in the Divine world. As a standard for everything I take the measure seventy-five percent. If you want to know how strong you are, take a hundred-kilogramme sack and try to lift it; if you cannot, you will know that you are not a first-class champion; you would take twenty-five kilograms out of the sack, and try to lift it. If you can lift it, you are a champion of the second rank. He who can lift a sack weighing twenty-five kilograms is a champion of the third the rank. Figure 2 And so, every idea which goes through your mind has to be definite. Once your ideas are clear and strictly defined, you will progress more and more, until you come to a gradual increase in the percentage. If you could once solve seventy-five percent of your problems, then you would solve seventy-six, seventy-seven percent, until one day you reach one hundred percent, when you would enter the category of first-class disciples. Those disciples live in the Divine world, where everything is alive and intelligent. In the Divine world all creatures think, and the legs of those creatures think as good as their heads – they solve problems with their legs the same way they solve them with their heads. The creatures of the Divine world have the shape of a circle and live in the centre of that circle. From the centre of that circle (Figure 2) radiuses reach out to every point of the circle. These radiuses are a projection of the thoughts, which[2] show that every fragment, every cell of those Creatures is alive, intelligent, and is able to think. They project their consciousness everywhere; Life in that circle is distinguished by its superior and intensive action. In the Divine world everything is in completeness – a hundred percent; in the Angelic world the action diminishes, it becomes seventy-five percent; when you come down to the physical world, the action grows even smaller – you have twenty-five percent conscious action, and seventy-five percent – unconscious. In other words, in the physical world twenty-five percent of the creatures are awake, and seventy-five percent are asleep; in the Angelic world seventy-five percent are awake, and twenty-five percent are asleep; in the Divine world a hundred percent of the Creatures are awake. Everybody can check that in himself: sometimes your mind is awake, bright, you think well; sometimes though some mental obscurity occurs, you cannot think correctly. Sometimes you think you have settled all matters in your life; other times you think you have not settled anything. Which category do you pertain to when you think you have settled something? (- To the third.) – In my opinion you are in a lower category – fourth, fifth, etc. If you were in the third category, you would have had a standard – twenty-five percent. You are lower than the category of twenty-five percent, where the illusions of life are born. That is the reason why quick and sudden changes happen to you – today you think of one thing, tomorrow – of another; today you believe in your friend, tomorrow you start doubting in him and become suspicious of him. Now, have you taken into account what the sudden changes, which happen to man, are due to? Every change which creates declining conditions in man is due to an interruption of the connection between the Divine and the human world, or to an interruption of the connection between the Mental and Cordial world. Such interruptions also occur also in the moral world. To preserve his condition, so that no sudden changes happen in him, man must restore his connection with the Divine world, and restore the connection between his mind and his heart. For man to restore his connection with the Divine world, means to restore the connection between his mind, his heart, and his will. When he breaks that connection, man lapses into great obscurity, into darkness of consciousness, he walks here and there, wanders about; he cannot find shelter anywhere. What is the reason for this condition? The reason for it is his friends, with which he has been connected. He has connected with his friends the moment they have been in dusk, i.e. when they have been in respite. Everyone has experienced such a condition – you go from door to door, you knock here, you knock there – nobody answers. When you feel lonely, and abandoned, you say, “It is not worth living, friendship does not exist in the world.” Who is to blame for that? You are to blame, the mistake is in you yourselves – you have chosen the most disadvantageous moment for a visit. When you want to visit a friend of yours – go to him during the day, when the Sun shines, when he is awake, not when he is sleeping. How can man free himself from the dark states of his spirit, from the obscure states of his consciousness? In order to free himself from these states, man has to channel his thought towards the Divine consciousness, which penetrates the whole Cosmos, and to connect with it without any criticism, with no doubt or hesitation. If he manages to do that, he will experience a pleasant mood, which will transform into a comely, warm feeling and the feeling will transform into a bright, elated thought. And then man will not even notice how his dark mood will disappear, will lift from his consciousness, as clouds disperse from the sombre, darkened sky. In some cases worldly people are able to deal with these conditions easier than occult disciples, since they develop their practical mind, and employ only one philosophy. They do not jump from one philosophy to another; they do not look for and do not fix on the views of various philosophers, like some occult disciples often do. For instance, they do not fix on the views of some philosophers of the objective or outer world and the subjective or inner world, and then they say that the subjective world, i.e. that which man experiences within himself, is more real than that which surrounds him on the outside. Actually the subjective world has its own reflection on the objective world, and contrariwise - the objective world has its own reflection on the subjective world. In other words, every outer object reflects upon man, upon his subjective world, and every subjective experience of man has its own outer expression. As long as the outer world reflects on the inner world of man, he is not yet in the reality of Life; and as long as his inner world reflects on his outer world, he is not yet in the reality of Life. The Divine world is Absolute reality, without any reflection. When you climb up a ripe pear tree and taste its fruit, do you have to show interest in the shadow of that pear tree? Therefore, as long as he is interested in objective and subjective things, man lives with the shadows of things, he is still far from the Truth. For instance, somebody comes to you and says that someone has been saying bad things on your behalf; you immediately become prejudiced and are ready to break any relations with that man. Why do you rush to become prejudiced against that man? Above all this is a subjective opinion of those words of the man who said them, on your behalf. Whence do you know what the words you call insulting contain? Maybe that man had something completely different in mind when saying those words, and by some odd coincidence of conditions they sounded incorrectly in the ears of the one who delivered them. People in general succumb to certain coincidence of things, get influenced by them, and as a result they form distorted opinions. This is seen in the common relations among people, this is also seen in science. Such a coincidence exists between matter and the Spirit, because people take matter as something real, and the Spirit – as something unreal. The coincidence lies in the fact that because the human mind perceives the outer impressions through matter, it takes it as something real. Whether he would touch something, whether he would taste it, whether he would smell it, whether he would see or hear it, man would always make use of one of the five physical senses – that is why he says that everything in the world is matter. Man does not stop to think that when he touches with his hands they are nothing more than pincers which the Spirit uses. Matter represents the pincers of that intelligent factor – the Spirit, who truly examines and studies things. If the Spirit did not function in the hand, the tongue, the nose, the eye or ear of man, he would not know the outer world, or his inner world. So matter represents outer tools which the Spirit uses. Matter represents a cumulation of living, but sleeping creatures, which the Spirit uses as subsidiary tools to reveal himself in the physical world. Without matter the Spirit cannot be revealed. Matter is a congregation of sleeping creatures; the Spirit is a congregation of awakened creatures, which at every moment are ready for activity, for creativity. When man is asleep, all images to him are scattered; when he is awake, all images to him are in a state of a consecutive, unbreakable connection. That is why when a man is said to be a materialist, it shows that he is in a sleeping state, a sleeping spirit; when someone is said to be a spiritual man or an idealist, it shows that he is already awake, he is up from a deep sleep; when someone is said to be a Divine man, it shows that he has already begun working, creating. And so, the materialist sleeps, the spiritual man awakens, and the Divine man works. These are states through which man goes not only once, but several times in his life – they reiterate. Contemporary people, and particularly occult disciples, when they do not know these things, when they do not know the secrets of Nature, think they can achieve anything in a magical way – when they swing the magic wand everything sets according to their desire. However, they see that is not the way it happens. Somebody thinks of something – it looks like a piece of cake to him, when he takes it up he sees that nothing is coming of it. Another thinks of writing something grand, but when he sits to write it, he sees that it is not as easy as he had imagined. Every Divine idea or every Divine feeling that penetrates into the mind and heart of man is strictly defined – they do not accept any deficiency, or the slightest surplus. If you could express them as accurately as you have perceived them, you have used the magic wand. Thus carried out, the ideas or feelings bring in complete satisfaction, complete gratification to the human soul. If they are not carried out in this manner, in the soul of man a certain void remains, which he wants to satisfy in some way. And if he does not stumble upon some Divine idea or some Divine feeling, he will fill the void inside himself with something human, which will bring him a number of difficulties and hardships. Now, as youths, the future stands before you, for which you have to work. Some of you study mathematics, others – philosophy, third – music, fourth – art, and so on. Is all of that an aim in your life? No, study of the various sciences cannot be an aim in the life of the disciple – it is only a means of achieving something. Why? Because if you entered the Divine world, you would see that sciences there have a completely different distribution than those on Earth. On Earth science serves only to connect the mind, heart, and will of man into one, i.e. to restore the connection between them. Once the connection between the mind, heart, and will of man is restored, simultaneously with that his connection with the Divine world, with the Lord, is restored. Without this connection man cannot think correctly, he cannot grow and develop correctly. During your current development, seventy-five percent inside you is hesitation, doubt, and only twenty-five percent is the positive. Since it is that way, keep the positive as a basis of your life, and build on it. Leave doubts aside, do not occupy yourself with them – they are an alien, dangerous area, which you must not enter. As disciples you have to increase your will, without being capricious; you have to develop moral feelings inside you, without affecting yourself; you have to give priority to ideas inside your mind, without stopping for transitional thoughts. Only in this way can you develop inside yourself something constant and positive, on which you can always rely. For next time I will give you the topic, “The most definite thought of the human consciousness.” This topic refers to your current development, not to that which some writers, and generally some scientists and philosophers understand. Figure 3 Now I would like to partially answer the question of from whence the contradictions in Life evolve. Imagine that point A of Figure 3 is a thinking creature which projects its thought in the direction of point B – a living object. In general the human thought always projects towards some living object. Someone would say he thinks about chalk. No, man cannot think about chalk, about black boards, or about any other inanimate object. Man is able to think about inanimate objects only as far as they are connected with a particular person, with some conscious creature. Man is able to think only about the living, the conscious, the noble, and the elated in the world; out of this, thought does not exist. If at the same time the creature D (Figure 3) projects its thought towards B, then A and D share a point of contact in their thought; that is the first meeting of these creatures in the physical world. If the creature D has a bigger ambition and wishes to infuse itself into A, the latter creature would feel the desire to run. Why? Because it cannot withstand that tension, that powerful energy; in it an explosion might happen, as a result of which it has the desire to run. The creature A is already in a certain contradiction. So the great love of people is sometimes the reason for contradictions in Life. In order to save themselves from contradictions, to the aid of the creatures A and D comes another creature C – with a higher consciousness, with bigger intelligence than theirs – and starts drawing them to itself. They immediately project their thought towards this new object C, direct their energies towards it, and in this way they find a purpose in their Life. In this case the purpose of the creatures A and D becomes more elated – they start moving not only in the physical, but also in the Spiritual world, thus creating the triangle ACD. Therefore, in order to create an aim or some high ideal in the life of man, he has to, by all means, connect his thought with some other creature, and after that both of them together need to direct the energies of their thought to a third high, elated centre C. That centre, that object could be God. Only in this situation will man free himself from the contradictions. Because, when two people love each other, they have to direct their energies to a third centre C, common to both of them. That centre has to be some high ideal or some Elated creature, which is in a position to regulate the energies of the creatures A and D. Otherwise, should the energies be left to infuse into each other, they will collide, they will get lost in space. In order to prevent this from happening, the disciples of all schools are told: the disciple must have one credo, one ideal, one purpose! Whether you are musicians, poets, philosophers, or scientists, Love to God is preached to all. Let God be the centre C,; let Him be the object into which every soul aspires to infuse its energies. Only in this situation will man have a purpose which will make his life worthwhile. Therefore I say it to you too: determine yourselves! This means: create an ideal for yourselves, such a purpose, such an idea, such an object towards which you can safely direct your energies. That object can only be God. Two by two, all people must turn their steps towards this object. When, in the relations between two people, the slightest disharmony occurs, the slightest contradiction, this shows that they have betrayed their credo, they have lost their ideal, they have lost their purpose, towards which they have initially aspired. And so, as long as man directs his thoughts and feelings towards a centre C with a higher consciousness than his own, he will always benefit from the Light of that consciousness, which will gradually increase. Should the consciousness of man bifurcate, he is already in front of another centre C1, as a result of which his Light diminishes. In this case contradictions are inevitable. Why? It is impossible for a seed to be sown and to grow in two places simultaneously. It is impossible for a walnut to be sown in two different places, however, in time, after that walnut grows and yields ten walnuts, there is a possibility for these ten walnuts to be sown in ten different places. In this case also the ten walnuts will have a common centre C, towards which they will aspire – that common centre is the Sun. Therefore, when two people love each other, their energies have to be directed towards the common centre C, in order to form the triangle ACD. Two other people again will form a triangle between each other, and so on; however, among all triangles there will be a certain correlation. All triangles have a common centre C. Only in this situation can souls develop correctly. As long as this law is observed, the harmony between souls will not be disturbed; should this law be violated, all harmony disappears. When the disciples in the class do not have harmonic relations, the reason for this is due to a disobedience of the law. Many of the disciples are in the phase of infusion of the energies. In the physical world they are in that point where explosions happen – in this place particularly, bombs are created. If a certain desire is directed towards an object, which is an explosive substance, and this desire manages to pour out in a certain form, then the slightest quake is enough, the smallest lighter, for a big explosion to happen. Every suppressed desire in man is in a position to create an explosion. For instance, the son of some rich man desires to learn, to study abroad, however, the father opposes that desire. The son ostensibly acquiesces, but inwardly, during his whole life, he keeps in secrecy disaffection and ill-disposition towards his father, which will one day inevitably explode. In order not to fall into such situations, the disciple needs to differentiate his desires – those that are human, and those that are Divine; and then to give effect to the Divine ones, and to restrict and stop the human ones. Every Divine desire, every Divine impulse has to be realized – even if it costs your life, the Divine must be realized. One, who has, even for once, stopped and restricted the Divine within himself, has always regretted it. There is nothing more terrible for man than to stop the pace of the Divine beginning within himself. When such a soul goes in the hereafter and realizes what it has done, it starts to bitterly regret it, and wishes to return to Earth to correct its mistake. Every unrealized Divine desire leaves a void inside of man – this state could lead him to a certain mental derangement. Indeed, every man who has doubted in God or who has tried to oppose the Divine beginning within himself, has ended upeventually gone insane. This has been tried by many, take advantage of the experience of these people. Each doubt is a loss of basis, soil in Life, loss of a supporting point. Be careful of doubts, so that you do not lose the right direction in your Life. Always think straight – direct your thought upwards, towards the centre C, and do not worry about anything. – “Yes, but that guy insulted me. It is his fault I deviate from the right way.” No, no man on Earth can be a hundred percent guilty – always look for fifty percent of the guilt inside yourself, and fifty percent – in your neighbour. Should you impute all of the guilt to him, the matter will remain unsettled. Matters can be settled on condition that every man, in every case, considers himself fifty percent guilty, and; the remaining fifty percent should be distributed among his neighbours. Therefore, do not restrict the Divine within yourself, neither should you destroy it – it adds worth to man. Having this in mind, you need to be attentive to every soul, to every man, because of the Divine within him. In the Divine world the soul represents a mathematical formula with a strictly defined quantity and value. Respect the soul because of the value, because of the worth which God has determined for it. Should you humiliate your soul or the soul of anybody else, you will inevitably come to grief. Do not say that you will never amount to anything. Acknowledge sincerely and deeply in yourself, that you have not utilized the circumstances which you have been given, and as a result, both now and in the future, a lot of work lies ahead of you. Every man has had both inward and outward favourable circumstances; everyone has had gifts that he has not utilized properly. Many, either because of submission, or because of some other reason, deny their gifts. No, everybody has certain gifts and abilities at his disposal, which he has to develop and apply in life. If he has no respect for his gifts, then every day man will put off his work for their development, or generally he will put off his work from today to tomorrow, until one day he finds himself in the condition of the servant who had buried in the ground the talent gifted by his master. Such is the case of the drunkard, who every day puts off his decision to stop drinking, and always keeps drinking. He gets up in the morning with a serious decision that from today on he will no longer drink; sometime later he goes out to the city, and when he sees some tavern, he drops by for a little while to have just a cup of wine. When he drinks one cup, he desires to have a second, third, fourth, and comes back home perfectly drunk. When he sobers up, he regrets that he has drunk, and again decides not to drink. Since he has made such a decision, he has to put a glass of clean water before himself, and say, “From this day on I stop drinking wine.” Then he has to raise the glass of cold water, and no longer look for any wine, no longer drop by at any tavern. Should he promise this to himself, he must absolutely carry it out. No postponement of promises! As I disclose this example, I do not mean anybody in particular, but I am talking about the human behaviour in general. The human always displays in the same way, but in different forms. You meet two friends; at some time they start quarrelling between each other – one of them says an insulting word to the other, the other responds with several. The first one says, “I am sorry I said that insulting word to my friend. I want to reconcile with him, but before I reconcile, I will tell him one more thing, so that he understands me.” He then goes to his friends, tells him a couple of words, but his friend gets angry, tells him some heavy words, and instead of reconciling, they strain their relations even more. Why did that word have to be said? “To understand.” Let there be at least one uncomprehended word in the life of your friend. Often the Peace of man depends on one uncomprehended word. How can the Peace of man depend on the ignorance of one single word? Imagine that in your pocket you have a nice jewel; after you walk along, a couple of people, the honesty of whom you cannot depend on, do not know that in your pocket you have such a nice precious gem. You turn to them, take the gem out of your pocket, and say, “This gem is mine.” From that moment on, the calmness, the Peace of those people is disturbed. They start thinking about the way they can get the jewel. Simultaneously with that, your own calmness is disturbed – you sense the thought and desire of these people to rob you, and this starts to trouble you. The gem had to remain in your pocket and nobody had to know about it. In this way you would have freed both yourself and them from temptation. Therefore, when your friend comes to you, do not tell him your last thought, do not tell him your last word. Let this thought, this word, remain unknown, uncomprehended to him. Every man must have a thought, a feeling, or at least a deed, unexpressed and uncomprehended by the others. Every man must have an x, i.e. something unknown to the others. If he has no x in himself, things will not go well for him. It has been seen that the last word, the last feeling that man could express or display outwardly, always ruin things – that is a law. Another thing that you always need to keep in mind is the matter of mistakes. For instance, when you insult someone, do not excuse yourself with the reason that he has provoked you, but instead look for the guilt in yourself. The mistake you are making concerns you; the mistakes that others make concern them. Therefore, there is no reason to console yourself or decrease the guilt with the fact that others also make mistakes. The same thing holds true in respect of the thoughts and feelings of man; when the thoughts of man are straight, his thoughts and deeds will be in place – in general there is a full dependence between thoughts, feelings, and deeds. Man cannot have noble feelings and distorted thoughts and deeds. Some philosophers support the thought that man might not need to be learned, in order to be noble by heart. This is possible. Why? Because outward erudition or ignorance does not yet infer culture of the soul. When man is noble by heart, he has got inward, natural intelligence, without being learned outward. A clever man, in the positive meaning of the word, is the one who is both good and strong. The strength of the clever depends on his moral principles. Only the one who has at least one fundamental idea in his life to which he aspires can call himself a good man. As disciples of an occult School, you are required to maintain full harmony among yourselves. In order for this harmony to be achieved, you have to create a new thought for yourselves, not just to repeat the given formulae and rules in the School. Each formula, each rule, has a meaning only as long as it can suggest something to the disciple. The disciple has to think in an absolutely new way. It is not a matter of repeating similar thoughts – repetition does not lead to knowledge. Whatever the circumstances are, under which you live, they cannot be even the slightest obstacle to perceiving the new. One who waits for favourable circumstances to come (to him), and thenin order to perceive the new thought, is on the wrong track. If you trace the history of human development, you will see that the greatest and most ingenious people, along with the Greatest Masters[3] in the world, have undergone unfavourable circumstances. Their grandeur and genius are concluded from the fact that they have been able to surmount the unfavourable circumstances. Every man who has undergone favourable circumstances of life eventually falls. Every man who has come to Earth has begun from the elementary things; he does not know anything, but starts learning, and gradually acquires knowledge. That is why even the most elementary things look difficult to him. When tasks are given to children, they initially find themselves in perplexity, but gradually start to solve them, and then the tasks start to look easy to them. You would say that the genius is born that way and he does not need to study. Indeed the genius is born a genius, but in order to develop his genius he has to work, to study. What does the disciple need in order to study? Light. Without Light nobody is able to study, nobody is able to develop himself. Imagine that you enter a well lit room; you sit at the table and begin studying. Meanwhile, somebody enters the room and puts off the switch from where the Light is coming, and you stop studying. Since you cannot study, you also cannot think. Who could take the light away from you? The one who gives it to you. Therefore you depend on the One who gives the Light. He holds the key to the Light – it depends on Him whether you would study or not. Light does not bring forth knowledge, but it is a condition for acquiring knowledge – wherever there is the Light, there is Knowledge. Many want to know which teachings are correct. This can be proven very easily – not with words, but with experience. Let us assume that two people (one of them – a follower of the new teachings, and the other - of the old teachings) plant corn, for example, and observe its growth. The corn of the one who follows and applies the new ideas will have a big, robust cob, with large, fine kernels; the cob of the other one will be weak, puny, and with tiny kernels. The former kernels will be of better quality than the latter. What bigger proof than this could you want? Every teaching which illuminates the mind, dignifies the heart, and increases the will, is a Divine teaching – if it is Divine, it is a right teaching; every teaching which affects the mind, coarsens the heart, and weakens the will, is human. Therefore, as long as you are coarse, you are on a wrong way; if you are dignified, you are on the right way. Figure 4 And so, you all have to observe the law of the triangles, because it solves the contradictions in Life. Let us assume that we have two rational beings A and B (Figure 4) which are moving facing one another. On the path of their movement they would stumble upon a number of misconceptions, which would finish with an explosion. In order to avoid the explosions between them, they have to direct their energies upwards, toward the elated world C, and meet there. The creatures A1 and B1 have to do the same thing – they have to direct their energies towards the centre C1. If another two creatures A2 and B2 have relations, they also have to direct their energies towards the centre C2. In this manner all people would meet at the centres C, C1, C2 of the triangles ABC, A1B1C1, A2B2C2, and would move on a straight line. The right way of movement in the relations among people is through the centres C, C1, C2. In other words, all things are achievable only in the Divine world. For the Divine, everything is possible. All Divine ideas can be realized completely, while the human – partially. These are sketched out thoughts over which you have to speculate, and take into account how far have you reached in mental, cordial, and moral terms. When you know what you have at your disposal, you can take your stand on a solid basis. And then, whatever knowledge and whatever experience you achieve through your mind, heart, and will, you will use for good. When you study yourselves, when you study your neighbours, you will see a slight disharmony, but it should not trouble you. As long as you live in the physical world, disharmony is a necessary condition for your growth – it represents a slight opposition, placed in the way of every man, so that there is something to overcome. As he gets over the obstacles and difficulties of his life, man gradually grows. That is because the disharmony, the contradictions in the life of man are necessary for his growth and development. Whatever happens to you, do not be afraid, use everything for good. Nature works for the good of those who understand her[4], those who think, feel, and act correctly – those are the judicious people of the world. If you look into the life of intelligent people, you will see that they make more mistakes than the foolish. You can make a calculation in order to see what the percentage of mistakes is in the deeds of the intelligent people and in what the percentage of mistakes is in the foolish people. If in the solution of a problem you make seventy-five percent mistakes, this shows that you are not one of the smarter people. One day, when you solve your problems, you will see that all difficulties, all obstacles, and contradictions that you have come across on your way have contributed something to the achievement of your main goal. That is because, whether you believe in God or not, you will all have great difficulties in your way, which you must by all means overcome. The easier you overcome them, the bigger the moral principles or the stronger the moral backbone you have. If the moral backbone of the disciple is strong, his neural system will be able to withstand even the biggest shocks. Occultism is a great laboratory in which various acids and bases are worked with. The slightest inattention on behalf of the disciple during the experiments with these acids and bases could cost him dearly. Nature is alive, rational. She pays back dearly to those who would treat her condescendingly. Once he has come to Earth, man will inevitably get into the hands of Nature, which will put him through a number of difficulties and hardships. In order to endure all that, man needs to be pure. Once he gets into the hands of Nature, he will feel her laws and methods. She does not make exceptions for anyone. When he gets into the school, the disciple could weep a bit before his master, he could say he has not understood or learnt his lesson, and the master would excuse him. However, Nature does not excuse anyone, she says, “One who has come to my school, he will study, he will work, and he will apply. Here tears are not accepted, this is not a place for weeping or for discouragement; this is a place only for study and work.” – “But I got discouraged.” Discouragement does not solve the problems. – “I have fallen into despair now; I do not want to live anymore.” Since you have despaired, they will send you there where thousands of creatures would trouble you, they would prick you with their goad, until they coerce you to work, to carry out the Will of God. There is a goad for the occult disciples too. Nature loves only those who study. We take learning in its broadest sense. Nature has many schools at her disposal, in which many sciences, many arts are studied. A great future stands before you. All people have come to Earth to prepare for a great future. Whatever difficulties and hardships come to you, do not lose heart. Consider them as given for your own good. Many people are dissatisfied with the life on Earth, they regret coming here to suffer. What would you say then for the creatures that live under the Earth? If they could come out to the surface of the Earth, they would consider that a privilege, a great bliss. For them, your life is a great ideal. You consider your life a torment. Why? Because you compare it with the life of the Creatures who are more advanced than you. If a millionaire fell to the position of a pauper of the first water, he would be happy if he occasionally received a small sum. He could lose a hundred million leva[5], but if he won back even a million back, he would consider himself a happy man. Therefore, what is most important for man is that which he has at his disposal at a particular moment. Nature does not brook any surplus – she allots for every man only as much matter and energy as necessary for his growth. And so, the deep, the strong which takes part in your feelings, thoughts, and deeds, is the Divine beginning in you. In the Divine there is always an ideological content, honesty, justice, sincerity – to oneself and to acquaintances alike. Everything that is best is hidden in the Divine – science, music, art. In order to study that which has been ingested in you, you need to know maths, as it is also included also in science, maths, andin music, in arts. For the solution of mathematical problems, high moral life is required – without that life you cannot achieve anything. Contemporary science is based on that high moral which Christianity places as soil, as a basis of Life. Secret prayer - Only the bright path of Wisdom leads to the Truth. - It constantly cheers us. [1] The word “problem” in the text almost everywhere refers to a mathematical problem. [2] This “which” refers to the ‘thoughts’ in general. [3] It is used in the meaning of ‘teachers’. [4] Refers to Nature. [5] The Bulgarian currency [A1]This saying is unknown in English. I understand it to mean, a pat on the back, for something done well.

Note 4 EVOLUTION OF BRAIN CENTRES Master’s Nineteenth Lecture delivered at the Youth Esoteric Class on 28 February 1923 – Wednesday, Reflection A summary of The First Thought Generated by Human Brains topic is to be read. Your topic, to write on for the next time, is “The Usefulness of Rivers, Seas and Oceans”. Figure 1 Often we talk about the evolution of human beings, about the evolution of everything. The word evolution implies movement, development in an upward and forward direction. Such a movement is to be noticed in the evolution of all living creatures. For example, studying the snake, you will see that its head is joined together with its backbone and forms a straight line without any deviation. Point A (Figure 1) represents a snake’s head, which together with the backbone constitutes the straight line AB. The higher you climb up the ladder of the animal kingdom and reach as high as dogs, for example, the clearer you will see a deviation from the straight line, which is equal to a 45° angle. The face starts enlarging, moving backwards and forwards. In such a deviation of the head from the straight-line dogs manifest a much higher level of life than snakes. The brain’s centre of gravity in animals is [located] more to the back compartment, therefore they move in a direction parallel to the ground. Simultaneously with the centre of gravity moving forward, animals start moving toward a standing position. This was a gradual process, until finally we get to human beings. Today we see an erected human walking on two legs; standing in a position perpendicular to the ground, face parallel to the backbone. Well, the deviation angle has been gradually increasing – from 45° to 90° and from 90° to 180°, as is the case with the human being. Thus, the human face has turned at a 180° angle from back to front. This considerable deviation is due to the currents, to the forces of Nature, which were gradually passing through from one field to another. Some people are said to be double-faced. What is the meaning of the word double-faced? This means a person with two faces – one in front as with human beings, while the other one is behind, as with animals. Hence, such a person behaves at times like a human being and at times like an animal; therefore, such a person cannot be relied upon. Human beings differ from animals not only by the weight of their brain and spinal cord, but also by their facial shape and size. No other animal has the weight of a human being. Human intelligence is judged by the size, form and evolution of the front brain centres in the forehead. Human beings differ from animals not only by the quantity but also by the quality of their brain. Human beings, in comparison to animals, were created under completely different astral circumstances. Put in other words, at the time of creation, human beings descended to the Earth through a different gate. Human embryo has passed through about four to five hundred thousand inferior evolutionary forms until it reached human form. Today human form is the most sophisticated form in which Life manifests itself on the Earth. There are many other superior forms through which human beings will pass in the future. For the time being, however, human beings have to work upon their brain, to prepare for the future conditions. Having its current structure, the human body is subjected to huge changes. A severe illness can reduce the human weight by twenty to thirty kilograms, but there is hardly any reduction in the weight of the brain. The most sustainable substance in the human organism is that of the brain. So, the most precious substance in the human organism is the brain. Therefore one should be able to command one’s brain, which is to say, to know the law governing it, so that one can make a reasonable use of its energy. The brain is a great driving engine, generating forces, electric power, sending it all over the organism. Provided one knows how to properly avail of this energy, a person can cure one’s organism on one’s own. Faith, Hope, Mercy, Reverence, as well as the moral feelings in the human beings are positive variables, which have their places in certain centres, in certain brain areas. Those who know how to utilize them will become aware of the good they can do, and of their wholesome effect upon human beings. Certain other feelings like apprehension and fear are negative variables. Apart from the positive and negative feelings, there are many other centres in the brain, some of which are simultaneously positive and negative. Such centres, for example, are conscience[1], [M1] self-respect, communicativeness etc. Apart from the feelings and abilities mentioned, there are many similar ones in the human head: destructiveness, comparison, conscience etc. When a person has a highly critical mind and a highly developed destructive feeling, such a person manifests in Life as a big destroyer – whatever obstacle there may be in his or her way, such a person wants to destroy it, to remove it. If a person, whose comparative centre is developed, comes upon whatever obstacles in Life, such a person will remove these obstacles with his or her mind – such a person will be reflecting for a long time and only then will such a person act. When the comparative centre is fairly well developed, such a person will compare things, examine them carefully and such a person will then form an opinion. As soon as encountering two different ideas, such a person starts comparing and analyzing them and only then can such a person either accept or reject the two ideas, or accept the one and reject the other idea. When the reasoning faculties are developed, such a person is prone to examining the causes of things, thus finding one’s way among the potential consequences. The highly developed feeling of apprehension generates fear. Fear is a law in the animal kingdom; it regulates the relations – the weaker one saves its life by running away; the longer the legs, which are more suitable for running, the better for such an animal. The fact that this feeling is well-developed in animals shows that their living conditions were not favourable. Fear in animals is a safe guard against dangers they might come upon. It’s not good for human beings to develop too much of this feeling. When the conscience is highly developed while reason is under-developed, such a person becomes a fanatic. Well, because in the contemporary human beings, brain centres are not developed harmonically, so they cannot receive properly the energies descending from the superior worlds and consequently their thoughts, feelings, and actions are wrong. When moral feelings develop well, the human head grows upward and assumes a beautiful dome-shaped form. When the physical feelings – e.g. the feeling of self-protection is too developed, the human head grows sideways. When the social feelings are over-developed, the back of the human head grows. If the feeling of self-protection and the social feelings or the so called domestic feelings are strongly developed, the movement is in the left direction, i.e. the human head grows better its left side, and consequently the moral feelings are under-developed. In order to give impetus to the moral feelings, blood should be directed to circulate first upwards, and then to the right. Those of you who want to develop their reasoning abilities have to think about the causes of things. Generally speaking, contemporary science is doing its best to develop the various brain centres harmonically, so that human beings can manifest their gifts and abilities. Now that you are students, you should be working consciously to regulate your feelings. Your feelings must be balanced, must be in harmony with each other. If your personal feelings are strongly developed, then regulate them. If your moral feelings and reasoning abilities are underdeveloped, work upon them to strengthen them. Some say, “I feel ashamed to lie, this does not become me, lies undermine my dignity, my honour.” In this case such persons speak on the basis of their semi-moral feelings; they live in a world where they themselves are in the centre. However, when someone says that it is not right to act in such a way, regardless of the fact whether one gains or loses from the situation, such a person acts on the basis of one’s moral feelings coming from a supreme world. Figure 2 In Figure 2 there are several semi-circles, which represent projections of forces. Which of the projections is the biggest? The last one, i.e. the sixth one. Consequently the more intensive the force, the bigger its projection. Therefore, aim at having broad views, broad vistas. If one wants to reach beyond the physical world, to feel free at large, one must keep great, elevated ideas in mind. What greater idea can there be than the idea of God, of the Primary Cause of things? These who can relate with the Divine World, they will use the healthy energies in Nature, which elevate and rejuvenate people. In order to be able to receive such energies, one must have developed one’s moral feelings. These reside in the upper part of the head. With contemporary people, the personal feelings are best developed of all, residing in the back of the head, where there is no culture. Or if there is any culture, it is at an utterly low level. This fact is evident in the last European war: Christian people believing in the same God fought this war. The war is over, but even today these people are not reconciled with each other. What is the discord among Christian people due to? They have the same religious faith, but different political beliefs and convictions, different interests. Their interests and convictions dominate their religious faith, and consequently they are irreconcilable. Their personal feelings prevail over their moral feelings. One day when human forces start ascending to the moral superior world, all family, social, public and general human issues shall be resolved automatically. The same law applies to each individual human being. Apply this law in your personal life and you will see how easy it will be for you to solve your problems. Imagine someone insults you; if the insult touches upon your personal feeling you will immediately tune yourself against this person and you will say, “I can do everything, but I will never forgive you for the insult.” If you do not forgive, what will you gain? There will be someone else who will feel insulted by you and won’t forgive you, yet someone else will feel insulted by the second person - and won’t forgive him or her etc. What will you gain? You will gain nothing, but there will be a chain of insulted people, whose personal feeling will be affected. Against these circumstances there will be somebody who will boast that he or she is very noble and can easily forgive. How does one forgive? By making the other person pay through the nose. This is no forgiveness. Anybody can forgive like this. Forgiveness is not an arbitrary process; it stems from an elevated place, which resides in the upper part of the human head. Why should one forgive? Because every insult, dealt to you by anyone, willingly or unwillingly, has the purpose of protecting you from an evil, which you are about to experience. Imagine someone ties your hands and legs, and places a sack, containing five hundred kilograms of gold, upon your back; then this person places you in a boat and sets the boat on water. What will happen to you? You will hardly have passed ten-twelve meters and the boat will start sinking. However, in this particular moment, a thief is after the boat, cuts the rope around your hands and legs quickly, takes the sack of gold and takes you back to the surface. You come back safe to the shore and are happy to have your life back. Will you be angry with the thief for taking the bag of gold? You will not be angry with the thief – the sack of gold will be his payment for saving you from drowning. These are moral reflections, which you must use when you want to transform your state of mind, for example; to transform the insult into a blessing for your soul. Such is the new culture, which humankind must adopt. The new ideas the new concepts allow students to tell the difference between one’s own experience or understanding and somebody else’s. What is the difference between the caterpillar and the butterfly for example? Caterpillars and butterflies eat in different ways; caterpillars eat a lot and are greedy, while butterflies eat little and are moderate. This is the reason why everybody can trample on caterpillars. Who can trample on butterflies? Nobody can. They have wings, fly from one flower to another and suck in sweet juices with their proboscis. One after another, there comes a second, third, tenth butterfly and they all suck from the same flower. Therefore, at least twenty butterflies can feed themselves with the juice of one flower, while one caterpillar will not be fed even if it ate twenty flowers. Greediness is a fiercely destructive force. A similar sight is to be seen with certain human desires – insatiable as caterpillars. Having realized this, one has to transform the forces in one’s organism arousing greediness. From caterpillar’s forces, energies, one has to transform these into butterfly’s energies, as butterflies are satisfied with the sweet juice of flowers. The life of caterpillars can be associated with the materialistic life of human beings, while the one of butterflies – with the spiritual life of human beings. Butterflies have developed intelligence; this is evident by their ‘clothes’. It is pleasant to watch the wings of butterflies, on such a small area there are so many colours, so many patterns, properly combined in harmony and placed where they belong. Well, you have to know, that from a moral point of view each reflection has an influence upon future forms, which will be created. Therefore, whatever reflections come to your mind, try to be calm. Do not be disconcerted if many negative thoughts visit you. One has to acquire such a self-control that even when prodded with a needle one will not flinch, and will stay calm and quiet as if nothing is going on. In this respect, Life is favourable to contemporary people; the conditions of life are so changeable, that even the willy-nilly one will develop self-control. Today you meet one rich person happy with the situation, tomorrow you see the same person poor, unhappy; today this person is pre-disposed, having a great impulse to work, tomorrow the same person is indisposed, despondent, sees no point in life. These changes of circumstances take place in order to test one, to get to know or find what progress such a person has made. If such a person has acquired certain self-control, he or she will then take a sombre, calm look at life. If he or she has not acquired self-control, then such a person will be scared; will be dispirited with life. It is an art for someone, having lost everything one has acquired in Life, to rely on one’s abilities and feelings and say, “There is nothing that can scare me as long as I have a brain, a heart and will.” This is a strong person; this is a person of convictions. Three people travel together and arrive late in an unfamiliar village; they decide to eat in the first house in the village and to spend the night there. The first stranger knocks on the door. “Who’s there?” “I am a stranger, who has arrived late, please open the door and put me up for the night in your house.” “Oh, no, it’s too late; we do not let anybody in at this time.” The second stranger knocks on the door, “Please let me in, to have some rest and spend the night in your home.” “Oh, no, we do not let strangers in.” The third stranger knocks on the door, “Please, open the door to me, to take shelter in your house.” They immediately went out and opened the door. Why did they not let the first two strangers in? In order for you to understand the reasons for such behaviour, I will give you the following example: three persons travel and catch up with a familiar cart. The first stranger addresses the cart driver with the words, “Look, I am a poor man. Can I get into your cart to take a rest?” “No, you can’t.” The second one asks the cart driver for the same thing, but he is also refused. The third stranger takes a Napoleon[2] out of his or her pocket shows this to the cart driver and asks, “Can you take us in your cart?” “Yes, I can. Get on the cart.” What made the cart driver take the strangers in his cart? The gold coin. Such substance must have been detected in the third person’s voice and knocking in order for the people to open the door and let them in their house. Hence, there is a difference in the way people knock, in the way people talk, in the words people use. Thus, there is a saying, “Nice words open iron doors.” I shall give you one more example to show you the effect of good words, to see their power: three people take their musical instruments and travel along the road. The first carries a bagpipe, the second one – a drum, the third one – a violin. Late in the evening, they get to a village and stop in front of a rich house. The first stranger takes out the bagpipe and starts playing; the master wakes up, hears the bagpipe squealing and immediately commands the servants to get rid of the bagpiper. Shortly afterwards the drummer starts beating the drum, believing they will open the door; the servants go out, start shooing the drummer away telling the drummer that the master needs quietness, and does not want to listen to either bagpipes or drums. Finally the third stranger takes out the violin and starts playing tenderly, softly; the rich master gets up from bed, listens to it and starts putting his clothes on. The playing goes on; he goes to the window, opens it and sees a violinist – a young lad playing the violin. He immediately orders his servants to invite the violinist upstairs to play music to them. At the same the wife and children get up, put on their clothes and come into the room to listen to the young violinist. Well, in this particular case the violin stands for the good word, which opens people’s hearts and enters their homes. As long as one uses in life one’s own crude feelings and inclinations, such a person will always be unwanted – no door will open to such a person. If you use the tender sounds of your violin, i.e. if you apply the moral feelings in your life, any door will open to you and will welcome you and let you in. Thus, as long as one is not aware of what feelings and abilities to use, one will always suffer. The suffering of the contemporary people is due to a surplus energy in their organisms, which they cannot cope with. Their energy is not evenly spread[M2] through all of their organs, and as a result certain organs, certain centres suffer some surplus, while others – some shortage. The same can be seen in the brain centres: certain brain centres are hyperactive due to the surplus energy gathered there; the slightest touch to one of these centres is enough to produce an explosion. Certain people have surplus energy at the centres near the ears: as soon as blood floods into these centres, they immediately explode. Such people are recommended to do hard physical labour, to dig and send some of the surplus energy into the ground. On meeting such a person, you will have to either avoid him or her, or to be very cautious. There are many methods for energy transformation in the human organism. As students, you will study and apply these methods. Imagine you have been through a big misfortune and you are disheartened, you want to commit suicide, to throw yourself from a treacherous cliff, this situation is due to certain karmic reasons. Do not be in a hurry, do not lose heart, but think of the reasons why such gloomy thoughts should come to your mind and try to find a way to transform your state of mind. One young lad lost heart and decided to commit suicide. He climbed up to a very high rock and decided to throw himself down the precipice. While he was reflecting on this issue, he felt sorry for his life, for his youth and started crying. Why should he be crying? It is very simple, this state is not his, he experiences the state of someone who died long ago, whom he must have thrown from such a cliff and thus must have killed him. The spirit of the dead person wants to avenge itself, to make him throw himself from the cliff in order to die the same death. Knowing this, the young lad had to address, in his thoughts, the spirit of the departed person and to tell the spirit, “Listen to me brother, do not make me make such a big mistake, which will be of use neither to me nor to younot benefit either of us[3]. Look, I have a body, which I am willing to share with you – come into me to live and work together. There is room in my body for many souls, let’s make one big partnership and let all of us work in the name of one common great goal, which will elevate us, which will give meaning to our life.” So wellWell then[4], do not avoid suffering, do not avoid gloomy thoughts, but learn from them. There is nothing more pleasurable than coping with one’s gloomy and negative situations. There is nothing greater than coping with one’s difficulties and sufferings and looking upon Life with Joy. Such was the Life of the old Christians; they suffered and glorified God. Whatever sufferings you have to go through, you have to retain your dignity as a human being, as a student. Externally you may be a servant, to perform the lowest of jobs, but internally you have to be masters. Many are masters externally but servants internally. Preferable it isIt is preferable[5] for one to be a servant externally and a master internally. Now everybody should work on himself - or herself, to cope with their pessimism. Their pessimism resembles childish situations. A girl plays with her doll, the doll falls to the floor at one moment and a leg is broken; the girl starts crying inconsolably. As soon as the leg is repaired, the girl’s sadness is gone. A boy is playing with his horse, but the horse falls on the ground and breaks, the boy starts crying, and falls into despair. As soon as a new horse is bought, his pessimism is gone. Such is the pessimism of the contemporary people. No, one has to analyse, to examine the depth of one’s feelings. Whatever one’s feelings may be, one has to transform them, not to give in to their current. What is so scary if someone has lost one hundred leva? Just as one has lost the money, so in the same way one will make it again. He will say that he is in despair and is going to commit suicide. If one is about to commit suicide for a loss of one hundred leva, then such a person does not understand the meaning of Life. Life cannot be bought back. Those who dare to resist Life will be thrown out in the abyss to find out what Life itself is. A young lad went abroad to earn his living. He asked for a job at one place, asked at another, could not find any job – he went hungry for a day or two, as he had no money to buy any bread. At that time, he passed along a Turkish inn with the smell of the most delicious dishes. This definitely aroused his appetite; he gave a deep sigh and told himself, “Why does God put me in this situation? He is not thinking of me.” In utterly low spirits, he passed the inn and went on his way. At the same time something from within whispered into his ear, “Look down!” He looked down and saw half a lev on the ground. He picked the coin up quickly and went back into the inn to have a meal. Having come backreturned[6] to his normal senses, he thanked God that He did not leave him to die of hunger. From this moment on, however, everything with the lad went perfectly. One has to temper oneself in Life. Ordeals are intended to temper one, to make one study, work, and understand the deep meaning of Life. Working upon oneself, a person will develop moral feelings, be free of any apathy, any despair. As long as you keep losing heart, you are on the level of the physical world; you live in your personal feelings. When you fall into despair, get down tostart[7] reading about the lives of great people, to see what serious ordeals they had to pass through. If you do not feel like working, study Tolstoy, he gives an impetus to work. Whatever you do, you will have to make efforts to work and labour. When you are in low spirits and you do not feel like living, this is what you have to do: go outside and watch the sky, get in touch with the other world above you and reflect on the Reasonable creatures who incessantly work upon you without any remuneration or gratitude from you. In the evenings go out and watch the stars, the Moon, to see how great the world is and what there is in store for you to learn. If the night is gloomy, stormy, go to the nearest mountain – to feel the greatness of Nature. Do various experiments, different exercises in order to transform your state of mind. The purpose of the experiments, of the exercises is to place you in a position to experience something grander than your despair. What is[8] grander and stronger than connecting with Living Nature, with the reflecting world, with God? You have to be brave, decisive, to endure hardships in Life. Nature, curing people from their desperation, places great surprises before them;: either in their dreams or when awake, Nature often makes such ambushes, that people forget about any desperation, any discouragement and disheartenment and are ready to live under most difficult conditions. A person wanted to do harm to a someone[9] close to her/him, but during the night had a dream about enemies chasing and torturing him or her. This person had to fight, run away and could hardly escape. In the morning, having got up, that person completely changes his or her decision to take revenge, to do the intended harm – that person has become kind, considerate, taking care not to harm anybody else. Once one gets to know the price of Life, such a person starts along the right path, the path of Good. Exercise:. Visualize the following picture: on a moonlit night, you climb up to a high mountain peak. Getting toArriving at[10] the top of it, you will find a high cliff, you will sit upon it and will start reflecting, watching the sky. While sitting you will notice small clouds appearing in the sky, which will gradually grow, become becoming[11] big dark clouds and covering the entire horizon in front of you – the Moon is no longer to be seen, no stars can be seen either. You are sitting still on the cliff, intently concentrated in your thoughts and at this moment you see a small light somewhere far away on the horizon. The sky opens, the clouds disperse, dawn breaks and in a short while the Sun rises and its purple golden disk comes into view. The exercise should last five minutes altogether. [1] To Editor; - the underlined word is repeated. I suppose that the person taking notes of Master’s lecture must have been in a hurry. My hesitation is which of the two words to delete – in the first paragraph concerning centres simultaneously positive and negative; or in the second paragraph – other feelings and abilities. Something tells me that conscience is well placed in the first paragraph and should be deleted in the second, but note at the end of the second paragraph, there is an example with conscience – ­so I am leaving this to your discretion. [2] Napoleon – a French gold coin with the image of Napoleon I or Napoleon III [3] Translator’s note – ‘be of use neither to me not to you’ & ‘not benefit either of us’ – are equally grammatically legitimate + have the same meaning – can’t see what’s the point of substituting one with the other [4] Same comment as in footnote 3 [5] Same comment as in footnote 3, 4 – ‘Preferable it is’ = dislocated emphatic word order, as the original sentence contains emphasis [6] Same comment as in footnote 3,4,5 – ‘come back’ & ‘return’ – synonymous – slight difference – ‘come back’ is more colloquial – Master’s word is delivered in a particularly colloquial style – why not keep ‘come back’ [7] Translator’s notes - get down to = to give one's attention or consideration - why then the need to change ‘get down to’ for ‘start’ – as the meaning of the original Bulgarian sentence is ‘to start paying attention to and doing’ [8] Translator’s notes – substituting ‘can there be’ with ‘is’ is actually editing the Master, not the translation… [9] What was wrong with ‘Someone wanted to do harm to a person’ – and what makes ‘A person wanted to do harm to someone’ preferable? – equally impersonal sentences [10] See my previous comments on ‘return’ and ‘come back’ [11] While sitting you will notice small clouds appearing in the sky, which will gradually grow, [which will gradually] become big dark clouds and [which will gradually] cover the entire horizon in front of you – Translator’s comments: because ‘which will gradually’ is implied – I used infinitive, rather than gerund – lets leave the verbs in infinitives and preserve the ‘and’. [M1]{I agree with you about deleting the word conscience in the second paragraph. At the end of the second paragraph, the word conscience shows the negative side that a highly developed conscience could have if reason is under-developed; this has a connection to conscience in the first paragraph, where it says that some centres in the brain (conscience) are simultaneously positive and negative.} [M2]Distributed!?-Yes, this is the meaning