1923_11_18 ANGER AND FEAR

[Ani]

Note 2p

 

ANGER AND FEAR

 

 

6^th lecture given by the Master to the Youth Occult Class

 

18^th November, 1923, Sophia

 

 

-Only the light way of Wisdom leads to Truth.

 

-It gives us constant Mirth and Joy.

 

 

Reflection

 

The summary on the topic: ”The Importance of the Red and White Corpuscles” was read.

 

Some of the works on the topics: “The Distinctive Features of Mildness and Temperance” and “The Seven Words and Their Corresponding Colours” were also read.

 

For next time – Topic Nr 6: “The Distinctive Features of Courage and Firmness”

 

What’s the colour of anger? What gives rise to anger? – Anger is a force transformed into a low degree. It is a surplus energy. How was this energy created? – Each desire that confronts resistance breaks up. Half of its energy transforms into some unnatural heat that goes to the brain. It is this heat that converts into anger. It is anger that raises body temperature. Anger comprises a surplus to the normal body temperature and acts destructively. My word is about anger in ordinary life, where it is a common phenomenon. However, when man deals with the Divine, anger is excluded. Life in the realm of ideas excludes any kind of anger. Anger is not an attribute of the human mind; it is attached to the shortcomings of feelings, which arouses anger. Whenever you get angry, you try to justify your anger as a result of having taken offence. However, you can get angry without being hurt. You might walk along the street and if a passer-by pushes you, you lose your temper. What happens is that your energy is stirred. One is not always in a disposition to get angry. You might try this – if you push the most quick-tempered person, in accordance with the laws of Love, he will smile at you and say, ”Push me once more!” So, we can infer the following law: when two positive forces meet, they always clash, thus forming anger. For example, when two extremely proud and touchy people meet, they can easily lose their temper.

 

 

Fig.1

 

Let’s say that point O is the centre of the brain, line CO is the current of the moral forces and line DO is the current of the personal forces. When line OD is longer than line OC anger can be engendered. When line OD is too short, man becomes indifferent. Any kind if energy that cannot be assimilated by the body gives rise to a surplus. This surplus is anger, which is always marked in red. There are a few indications of anger: the face blushes, the brows knit, the muscles around the mouth twitch, the hand folds in a fist and one is ready to act out. The darker side of anger is that one deviates from the right way of growth.

 

Tonight’s topic for discussion was “Mildness and Temperance”. A mild and restrained person knows no anger. It is not so much that there is no anger in him, only such a person is capable of converting budding anger into some positive energy. A Bulgarian scholar told me once about the findings of a method he applied to himself. After graduating from two colleges abroad, he decided to come back to Bulgaria and before starting whatever job, he wanted to find out what kind of a person he was. To this aid he chose to apply the following method: he found a navvy whom he asked to swear at him as much as he could, for which the navvy would be paid. The navvy started swearing uttering the worst obscenities, while our fellow listened until he finally was clear about whether he would ever be able to withstand the cruel blows of reality, and said, “Enough!” The experiment turned out to be very successful indeed. Very often you encounter people who are willing to do you a favour for free, yet you are displeased. The example I gave you is a true story but this is something that can be tried only by people of great integrity, as such an experiment cannot be carried out by anybody. Indeed, all great people have always experienced such self-discipline. If you examine the life of any great person, you will find out that all great people were persecuted, abused, or denigrated just to be tried out. A person capable of bearing all this is strong and reliable enough to be given a mission.

 

Some of you, as students of the Occult School will have to cope with such discipline that’s why I raise the issue. Whether you will have to undergo this as students here or outside the school, does not matter, what counts is that you will have to experience this.

 

So, it is of prime importance for you to restrain your anger. In such cases you need self-control. Besides, you will have to develop your intuition. You need it to be able to understand the human character. You need to know who is like you, and who is not. With people who are like you, you will get on well, while those who are different from you should be kept at a distance. If you can identify people who are like you, you can try the following: when you are very angry, call a friend to place a hand at the back of your head. If you are a good match, your friend will receive your disposition and the balance will be redressed. If you are not a good match, your indisposition will intensify. I have noticed that people from some political circles are extremely ambitious and if it happens that any of them says something about any of the prominent figures, one might get hurt so much, that a series of reactions can be triggered. It is common for statesmen or politicians to have such intense personal feelings that they are capable of waging war even for the slightest offence.

 

Now, you should all have a certain ideal in Life. You are expected to know what the point in Life is. When is one’s dignity hurt? One’s dignity might get hurt when one is told a lie. When you are told the Truth, no matter how rudely, your dignity is raised. Most of you are afraid to tell the Truth. That’s wrong. You should be brave when telling the Truth. When you tell the Truth, you shouldn’t think of the consequences, but when you express your personal opinion, you should be extremely cautious. You shouldn’t fear anything when you tell the Truth. Tell the Truth, and it will take care of itself. But you should distinguish between the Truth and your personal conviction – such a distinction is crucial to your development.

 

If you fail to consider this distinction, you will end up in a dead-end street. Once you find yourself there, you will have to take the way back. Your life needs a firm base, on which the knowledge you are acquiring now should be built up. Which knowledge? - The Knowledge you are going to make use of not only throughout this life, but the knowledge you will need in your long-term future existence. If you acquire the knowledge to utilise only in this life, you will be a mediocre personality. Such transitory knowledge is necessary only for fun. However, anyone of you should have a goal, a positive idea to aspire after.

 

It is also possible for you to encounter another negative aspect of life – fear. Many of you are afraid of anger. Anger can be as dangerous in its positive aspect, as fear can be dangerous in its negative aspect. Anger can force you to commit crimes – to drown somebody, to kill, to set a house on fire, etc. While under the influence of fear you would not commit any of these crimes, but you will let lies, fraud, hypocrisy and meanness grow in you. Anger is a psychological drunkenness; it fosters courage and you feel you are capable of anything, but when you get sober, you might say, “I shouldn’t have got angry. I shouldn’t have done this.” So anger is not a normal state of mind.

 

So you have these two shortcomings, of which you should be wary. These shortcomings are not new to you. They have accompanied you in all your previous forms of existence. They are a useful streak for you as long as you are aware of them. If you know how to make proper use of your fear, it will turn into discretion. If you know how to apply your anger, it will turn into an element of your will – bravery. Therefore, fear can be converted into discretion, and anger into courage. With fear you need something more. Translated into the language of chemistry, fear is a base, which needs some acid to be neutralised. Both a quick-tempered man and a timid man need to be judicious. When a man who easily loses his temper starts thinking, he can become brave, while if a cowardly person starts thinking, he becomes prudent. The first will take out a dagger to solve the problem, while the latter will take a quill, will write for the newspapers and will settle the matter as a writer. Writers are not brave people. They are brave only when armed with their quill, inside their study. They are not brave enough outside. They are brave while writing because they are not aware of the consequences.

 

What is the colour of fear? What does one become when frightened? One grows pale, and turns yellow. So fear makes one think. When one makes a mistake, the yellow colour finds its outward expression. So fear can cure only through the yellow colour. How can anger be cured? – Through the pink colour. This comes to show that the intense, deep red colour should turn into pink or blue. Think about these colours. These vibrations will calm you down and you will start thinking and analysing. Which colour stands out next after pink? Who does the rose fall in love with? When man falls in love, he starts thinking. Therefore, yellow comes right after pink. Pink and yellow are in harmony. When you need to remedy some fault, think about these two colours, and they will have a beneficial effect on you. What’s the ratio between pink and yellow? – Which is the dominant colour on the Earth? – The colour green. We are overwhelmed by green. It is the colour of the human individuality; it makes us independent.

 

As you can see, it is possible to heal with colours. When your nervous system, your mind, or your heart wears out, doubt finds its place. If you feel impoverished, try to imagine the three colours simultaneously – pink, yellow, and green. When these three colours merge, they make a blend, which helps the person feel like a separate individual. And then he can say, “I am capable of anything!”

 

Which word corresponds to pink? What triggers the external expression of the pink colour? – Joy. Isn’t it true that one who falls in love experiences joy first? Any object or face you like makes you rejoice.

 

 Which word corresponds externally to the yellow colour or to Wisdom? How can a wise man be recognised? You already know about those in love - they are glad. A child is glad when he or she gets something from their father. What feature will the wise person reveal? – (Seriousness, thoughtfulness, or content) – no, the external expression of the wise person is work. Only a wise person works. If he is an artist, he will take the brush and will start drawing. If he is a poet, he will take a pen and will start writing. No matter in which field, the wise person is active - he works. He works, but he does not toil. Hard labour is not an attribute of the wise. It is typical of the ordinary people. A wise person works and his facial expression shows pleasure. A wise person works with pleasure. So, a person in love can be recognised by the Joy, and the wise person - by work. Someone will ask, “What should I do so that I can become wise?” You shouldn’t toil. You should work. Everybody should work – to brush up one’s character, and to purge evil from his mind and heart. What I call work is to get rid of shortcomings and build up qualities. If you want to become wise, courageous and judicious, you will have to work. That is a noble deed.

 

What prevents modern science from finding the Truth and showing the true methods of forming the personality is that its ideas are chaotic. In modern science ideas are not correlated. On the contrary, all ideas are incoherent. For example, the idea to be good is just a suggestion - it is like a nut that can be eaten. But to be good, you have to turn your opposite idea once or twice; you have to plough the soil, plant the nut, and wait for the fruit to grow. Goodness is a fruit. The hardest subtle skill is to be good. You can’t become good right away. You will have to start with Joy and then Virtue will come. It will appear as a result of Joy and work. Nature is not fond of rumbling ideas. We can be very logical, but Truth can be missing in our logic. Nature, on the other hand, is very precise and can’t tolerate any lie or deception. Don’t think that if Nature tolerates us it will pass. There will come a day when it will take from us everything we have and will destroy it completely. Do not believe that Nature is tolerant to lies. The Gospel says that blessed are those who are punished by Lord. It means that blessed are those whom God shows their faults from the very beginning. If a friend approaches you to tell you that you are wrong, you should be grateful. It is Nature that has sent him. He has come as its messenger. If you refuse to speak to him, there will come a day when Nature will come itself. Then without further ado it will take you and there you are – right into its retort will you go without a trace.

 

Your first task is to learn to love Truth. My word is not about the Absolute Truth. I mean the Truth that is part of Life and that is necessary to build up your character and sustain your studies. Your study needs to be cemented so that it can become a solid element of Life and a stimulus to work.

 

My aim now is not in the least focused on giving you any moral prescriptions. I only want to explain how a well-known law of Nature acts. Through suffering people can achieve the same results as without much talk about it. However, a wise person can make use of other people’s experience. One is capable of attaining the Truth through long suffering. Then he can comprehend Apostle Paul’s words to be always glad and always praying.

 

Now, how can you interpret the word Joy? Imagine that Joy is a monad. What does the initial letter of Joy ”J“ (Р) mean? You know that nothing in Nature is pure accident. So, this sign J (Р) is not chosen by chance. It can be taken from the Latin alphabet, but it can be found among the Egyptian hieroglyphs, too. The same signs exist in Nature. The letter Р (J) stands for a monad, the letter A for the root of the monad downwards. Therefore, if it is a root, it has double meaning – it is sweet and bitter at the same time. As a root, it represents all these things that are present in the matter. Bitterness and sweetness correspond to the conditions of sorrow and joy. These two opposites are present in the current conditions of Life: after a great joy there comes a deep sorrow. A friend of yours, for example, gives you ten thousand leva so you are happy. Shortly he says: “Give me the money back!” I ask what has made him give you the money and then, some time later ask for it back? If you don’t give it back he says: “I used to think of you as a friend of mine, but you let me down, give my money back!” He takes you to court; you get convicted and go to jail. You think: “Why did I have to accept this favor?” The reasons for this could be explained psychologically, but I draw the following conclusion: a person who acts in accordance with the law of Love and Wisdom, would never go to jail for ten thousand leva. The smart person gets imprisoned only for telling the Truth; he says: “It is worth being in jail only for the Truth. Nothing else is worth it!” It is a disgrace for a person to stay in prison for ten thousand leva. To be in jail for the Truth, to get beaten for the Truth, that I can understand, but to get beaten for a small thing – it is a shame!

 

Only for the truth can I give my back – let them beat it! You will remain silent. If you violate this law, Truth itself will punish you. It will tell you: “Forget it, don’t defend yourself!” Somebody will say: “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” However, that is according to Moses preaching, and it has nothing to do with Truth. In other cases we may apply this rule, but when it comes to Truth, you will turn your back. It tells you: “Don’t defend yourself, I will protect you.” If you decide to protect yourself, you are broke, you are lost. Let Truth protect you. The person who hit you thrice today will befriend you in a year. But when? – If you accept it silently because of Truth. Then he will come to you and tell you: “I am sorry, I was wrong about you. That is why I’ll be your friend from now on.”

 

Now, I would like you to devote all your time to studying what I am going to tell you. You will make use only of what you don’t know how to use – your free time. What I mean by free time is the time when you are indisposed. Then you should use your time to study Living Nature. If your mind is busy, you should leave this studying aside. When your life is meaningless, when you are afraid of something, or when you are not in the right frame of mind, then you should study Living Nature. This is how you can restore you balance and regain you strength. If you feel frustrated and if you think that you are good for nothing, get down to studying Living nature. You should deal with colors, Love and Wisdom. If you find that something is of great value to you, you should keep it. I think it is possible for you to find three or four free hours daily, which you can devote to the New Learning.

 

 

The secret prayer

 

- Only the light way to Wisdom leads to Truth

 

- It gives us constant Mirth and Joy.