1924_05_25 THE LITTLE ACQUISITIONS IN LIFE

[Ani]

Note 2p

 

THE LITTLE ACQUISITIONS IN LIFE

 

 

Thirty second lecture of the Youth Occult Class, given by the Master Beinsa Douno on 25^th May 1924 in Sofia

 

“God of Love is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

 

Secret prayer

 

I am going to tell you a few words on the little acquisitions of Life.

 

As you see, the number one is written on the board; what relation does it have to you? In order to determine itself the number one should grow. All right, look, with straight lines I will draw the nose, the mouth, the eyebrows and the eyes of the human face; what can you conclude from this face? In the middle of the face is the number one – the human nose. In order to give a meaning to the number one, we put will the number two above – the eyebrows. They represent branches – dynamic acts – this is the way the number one has been growing. I ask: why the number one makes these two branches one going to the left and the other – to the right? This shows that there are two currents in the number one itself. These currents exist in the human organism itself: if you divide a person in a direction perpendicular to the earth, the two halves represent these two currents – there is minus and plus (-/+) in the left half and plus and minus (+/-) in the right one. Positive forces in Nature do not act as you think. If you have a friend who is merry, fresh, in good spirits at a certain moment and you put another plus on their right side, their mood will change at once – they will turn sour. You ask, “Why does one turn sour?” Assume that you are carrying the rucksack of a friend of yours weighing about ten kilograms; you are carrying it easily, you are fresh on the path and you say to yourself, “I am very pleased, I will carry it for my friend’s sake, for my love to them.” But another friend of yours comes and puts their rucksack of ten kilograms on your back too – you turn sour at once. Hence, adding does not always bring a good mood. And so, if you want to spoil someone’s humour, add something to their right side - from the left side it is usually taken away. Opposite is the situation when someone is sad, sorrowful, indisposed: if we add something to their left side – a plus, we will thus take away their sorrow and he or she will become merry. You say, “Why does one become merry?” Assume that while going on the way, someone falls into a pot[A1]  three-four metres deep and cannot get out of it; that one is in a worried, sorrowful condition. You are passing this place; you hear someone groaning, drop a rope and pull the person out – that one grips the rope, gets out and brightens up.

 

In general, the currents in the left side of the human head show that people are lacking in something; the currents in the right side of their head show that they are connected with the Sun. Once you are joyful, do not wish to be given anything more because your joy will be spoiled. If you are joyful and someone wishes to give you some more, tell that one, “Give this joy to someone who is sorrowful!” For example, you are merry, fresh, but someone comes to you and expresses their love to you, you say, “How much this one loves me!” No, these people do not love you – if you think they love you, you will lose your joy. They just feel your joy, your mirth in this case and this means that you are giving them a feast. When you have guests at your home all are joyful, are they not? Why are they joyful? Because you are hosting them. So, if they are kind to you, it is for the party you are giving to them. Do not think that the guests give you something; if you think like this, you will be under a delusion. If you perceive something from them, it will be a negative load – the guests will surely take something away from you and your humour will change. That is why when you are content want nothing more from your fellow men.

 

Let us say that some of you or some people of the world are very ambitious; what would they want? – To become famous and to be the only talk of the world. This is impossible. According to the laws of Nature, at the most fifty people out of a hundred would be on your side, twenty five would be both pro and con and twenty five would be absolutely against you. The last twenty five people spoil everything wherever they go, that is why you cannot and should not rely on these people. You will ask me, “Why can I not be reputed to be good by all people?” I will explain: you want that these hundred people glorify you but imagine that these hundred people want to be glorified too. What would happen with you then? It is the same as if you faced the following dilemma: you have one hundred levs[1] and each of these hundred people wants to possess these one hundred levs. What would come of it? – You would have to duel and who would turn out to be the greatest hero and to beat the rest would take the hundred levs. I ask: would that one be happy in that case? – No. In this case your happiness is the one lev, not the hundred levs. If you strive for the hundred levs, they will be your unhappiness.

 

Let us come back to the number one. In the present case the number one represents the beginning of the human mind – it represents the mind of man with which man works. Eyebrows show the intensity of the feelings. They can be arched, straight or bent upwards. If eyebrows are arched, they show that there is more mellowness in the feelings; if they are straight, there is more energy and quickness of mind in the feelings. And if they are bent upwards, what do they show? In order to have the eyebrows bent to one or another direction, there is a reason for that acting out of man – they show what the environment in which man has lived was. If someone has arched eyebrows, this shows that they have lived in an environment where people, maybe somewhere in the past, have been very sensible. But if the eyebrows are straight, this shows that these people are more energetic and often materialists – people of not so much feelings as mind. As the straight lines in Nature are lines of the mind and the round, the curved lines in Nature are always lines of the feelings – you shall take this as symbols. So, when creating the nose, all dynamic, positive forces have acted and when the feelings started acting, the curved lines were formed. Feelings make the spiral lines as well. Note that when you meet someone you love, you do not go to them in a straight line, but you go around a little and then you meet them. Sometimes you go about – you cannot realize why this happens. – Such is the law of your feelings. If you act consciously, of your free will and if you are highly raised[A2] , you will go straight on. Such are the manifestations of the mind and of your feelings. This is a law of the past and a law of the future that acts now.

 

And so, you should utilize the little acquisitions. Often your thoughts and feelings exercise certain influence on your actions. When your feelings act, you always like to put off things, to quibble concerning the matter; when the mind acts, it likes the sudden changes – it does everything immediately, it says, “There is no need to prolong this matter”. When the feelings act, then one says, “Wait, let my mind start working and then I will see what to do, there is no need to be in a hurry.” I say: in one case the heart works, in other – the mind. And for this reason Nature has put a curved line for a nose. And you, being mathematicians, should judge the dynamic forces, acting in you, by the length of these lines. These forces act in your heart, too, and leave imprints on your face. You should study these lines. If your nose is wide and the curved lines prevail, you shall know that your heart takes more part in your life. And whatever your philosophy is, your heart will give its colouring; and if your mind takes more part, it will give something hard. The heart will make you soft like a mess; and if you listen to your mind, it will make you hard like a flint. Someone says, “I am not going to be soft like a mess.” And if you are hard like a flint, is it better? Which is better? There are circumstances in which the flint is in its place – for example, the flint is used to thresh by flint-studded threshing-boards[2] but if the dough you are kneading becomes hard like a flint, what will you do? Consequently, there are circumstances in Life in which feelings should prevail and there are circumstances in Life in which the mind should prevail.

 

You shall observe the following law: if you are indisposed, stroke the left side of your head for a while – you shall consciously run your left hand through the left side of the head with the wish to balance your state of mind. As soon as you are indisposed, do this experiment and say, “As a disciple of this spiritual School, I should be always in high feather! In the name of God’s Love I have this mood!”

 

Disciples are not allowed to scowl! It is allowed to scowl for one-two minutes only and at that if they are alone; but if they are among people, they should not show their discontent, for people are not to blame for that. And if you are too merry, run your right hand through the right side of your head. Once you turn sour, put the left hand on your head and say, “Wait, wait!” This law works only if you put it in action and consciously at that. You should know that, if your hand fulfils the command of your consciousness, of your mind, of your soul, there will be results from the law, but if you do them mechanically, you will not have results and it will be the same as when all stroke themselves on the head. For example, someone puts their hands to their head and shakes it; we know what this means, we will not ask them why they are shaking their head but we comprehend the laws. If we ask them, they would say, “I do not know; this is how I feel.” There are reasons for this – the high consciousness wants to tell them, “Your things have muddled as you did an injustice and that is why you suffer.” Others shake their heads; the high consciousness wants to say to them too, “You shall not look downwards, you shall look upwards!” They shake their heads up and down because there is a fight between the mind and the heart. The high consciousness says that the lower energy should be transferred into a high energy; for this reason, in order to solve the matter rightly, they should look upwards.

 

Now, the little acquisitions in Life lie in to be, in any case, content in your soul with a little thought, with a little feeling. One of the best qualities of the disciple is to be content with the least act – with the least thought causing a little joy and with the least feeling bringing happiness to them. Each little thought and each little feeling are a little seed which is barely coming out from the earth and is enjoying the wide world. This little thought will bring you a great good, a great joy after a time. Many of your mistakes are because you are not content with the little things. You say, “I want something great. It’s neck or nothing!” No, there is no such a law in Nature, in Nature all things begin with microscopic acts. And note students in school, who have been very good, capable in the primary-school classes, finish the senior-school classes poorly. There are opposite case too – some students start very poorly but gradually do better and better and finish school with excellent marks. Human energy should be developed consecutively.

 

Mothers and fathers constantly vaunt those children who are good, capable; indeed, they have many resources in the beginning but there is a danger for them that they may stop suddenly – such a development is premature and these children usually come to a bad end. Be careful when people speak favourably of you because when someone speaks favourably of you for being very talented as a poet or a writer and you accept this and rejoice, you may collapse. In order to check this, make the following trial: write an article without putting your name and look what people will say about you. They may say, “What a foolish person!” If they say so, do not lose heart, write again – do not listen to what people would say. You will see that you are not the kind of a man they judge because others would say that you are genius. Then, writing an article in which people will be pleased, do not put your name again, and let it be a little inner joy for you – say within yourself, “I know who this poet is.” Keep this little joy that may come to you within your heart, let it rejoice you internally – it will give one addition [A3] to your character.

 

Do not appear in Life with all your resources at the same time. Show yourself little by little and as you are going farther your resources will increase in a natural way until the entire spiritual life reveals within yourself so that you be in full harmony with it. Then you will know the laws how to act in your life in general. At present, many of you have started with your big trumps. One, who understands the play[A4] , plays first the weak trumps and holds the good ones – in the end they show their good trumps and win suddenly, all the others give up. Why? Because it is possible to win with good trumps only. When the good trumps come, the battle is won at once. So, you should act in the same way – leave your strong feelings and thoughts last, do not expose them at once, lay them aside, send your least resources ahead.

 

These are practical directions helpful for your life. Many philosophical works that you know will not help you, but these little understandings will help you. When you look at your eyebrows and see that they are arched tell your friend, “I am an emotional character, I know no bounds, but when I speak come and jog me from time to time.” One American preacher liked to overstate things – he had such a weakness; he was reading a sermon on the force of Samson – how he used to catch foxes by their three metre long brushes. This preacher had a good friend who used to advise him against overstating things. One day they agreed that when the preacher overstated something, his friend would move his finger from a distance and he would correct himself. So, when the preacher began to talk that the brushes of foxes were three metres long, his friend moved his hand and the preacher corrected himself saying, “It seems to me the three metre brushes are too long, this is almost incredibly but I suppose they were at least two and a half metres long.” His friend moved his hand again – he corrected himself, “It seems to me that this length is impossible at the present circumstances but according to some other author they were two metres long.” His friend moved his hand again while the audience was listening to him. Finally the preacher shortened to half a meter, his friend moved his finger again, but the preacher told him, “I am not going to shorten any more”, i.e., “I accept to consider that these foxes had half metre long brushes.” So, you should always have a friend to move their finger in front of you so that you could shorten the length of the brushes of foxes.

 

You should know that the tail of animals shows their intelligence. For example, a lion has a long tail, it is aware that the tail represents its intelligence – it is its pride. Hence, your mind should not make the brushes of foxes so long – you are not able to do everything. Someone says, “I am a strong person, I can do everything.” It is a debatable point what you are able to do. I ask them, “Since you are so strong, are you able to lift the whole earth? As you are not able to lift the earth, do not say that you are strong.” This is a measure for the strength. Say, “Really, my mind can catch something, I comprehend things to a certain extent and I can lift a load up to twenty, fifty or a hundred kilograms, but I cannot more.” Then, in the mental respect you say similarly, “I know a lot of things.” What do you know, what can you solve, can you solve the higher problems in mathematics? Then, can you transform the states of heart? Do you know what your mother and your father think about you, and what do your friends think? Everyone who thinks that they know much should know things concretely. And what will they see? – That their knowledge is a mere long fox brush that has to be shortened – nothing more. So, be pleased with every little fact. If you know, there should be a norm to determine what you know. You should know, for example, why your character is such or such and to be able to explain everything to yourself.

 

I have said earlier, too, that human intelligence cannot be put into the head of a fly. In Nature, there are particular forms for particular manifestations – particular curved lines, particular straight lines with particular lengths at that. For example, we say that the human nose should be long but it should have a certain proportion with the entire face. If this proportion is proper, the nose will be shapely. If the nose is too long and is not in a certain proportion with the entire face, then its shapeliness is lost and the intelligence of this person will be abnormal.

 

Therefore, the proportion between the parts of our face shows that Nature likes harmony in the thoughts, in the feelings and in the actions. One thought has no right to take the place of some other thought; you may put it in the place of some other thought but it will be of no use to you. Nature has determined the place of each thought, has given it a specific form, a specific scale of development and it should be distinguished from the others. If you distinguish it more than needed, you will cause a real misfortune to yourself – that is why you should not be in a hurry in your development. For example, many children would like to grow quickly – being little children they are in a hurry to grow up like their father, to grow moustaches etc., and this idea wrinkles them all. Do not think about when you will grow up and when you will become like your father. Do want to rise to greatness in the world but do not fix time in a certain amount of years; do want to become a musical person, but do not set a time-limit when exactly; you may achieve a certain development, but do not define when, because it will be to your disadvantage. If Nature had put feelings for the music in you when creating you, it has exactly determined a certain period – in what time you will be musical. And you will follow its plan. Also, your mind will develop in accordance with the laws in Nature. While people of today make various plans by themselves – they do not listen to the voice of Nature and for this reason they do not succeed.

 

Twenty years ago a teacher from Razgrad came to me and told me the following: “I should like to study music, mainly to learn violin.” I looked at him and asked, “Was this desire born together with you or did it come later?” – “It came later – four years ago I listened an orchestra and then the thought that I could become musician and learn to play came to me.” I told him, “You will not make a good violinist; you might make a good merchant whereas you would only scrape on a violin.” That is exactly what happened. If a thought to play the violin has appeared in you from before just four years, it is not a gift of yours; if the thought, the wish of music was born together with you, only then you may make a musician. So, in order to be a musician, you should be born musical – this impulse to music should be in you still from your birth. If you start to develop later, this means that these are talents of secondary importance. For this reason you should start with those talents which Nature has put in you right at the beginning and on their shoulders you should develop your weaker resources. Some of you are good at mathematics; others have a good memory, the third have great powers of imagination, the fourth are poets, musicians, writers, etc.; everyone has a certain little talent which should be developed in this life. Be happy with the little you have. Look to be happy for yourself with what you have, do not pause on the praises of people. If you, being a small poet, go to a first-class poet, a poet of genius and you boast of your work, he would look at you, would just smile faintly but would not speak favourably of you neither would encourage you much but would only say, “This is a good thing.” While one who does not comprehend poetry, would tell you, “This is an excellent thing”, but this praise is of no use to you.

 

People with big lips are rich in feelings: they speak much, they have feelings but their minds are not so imbued with ideas - there are more forms but not content in them. Why has the mouth of such people become so big? (- From many exercises). They have been in close contact with the physical world; the needs of the world have forced them to speak more. The thick substance in which man lives has created the big mouth. In the same way we can examine the rest parts of the human body as well.

 

What do you think, which man is healthiest? If someone is hollow-chested, there are certain mental reasons – this hollowing of the chest is a bad sign. Never let your chest become hollow – the chest should be upright in front. They should not be too bosomy either but only a little bulging ahead. To not have your chest hollowed you should regulate your feelings. Keep harmony in your feelings and you will regulate your respiratory system – if you regulate your respiratory system, you will regulate the displays of your feelings too. And some of you are square-shouldered; in others the shoulders are starting to bend, but this is a bad sign – this bending shows that your feelings prevail over the mind. Curved lines in man show that the feelings, the magnetic forces prevail in them. And when the shoulders become too narrow, this is not a good sign – this shows a distortion of feelings. Curved lines are not bad but they should be beautiful.

 

Nature likes harmony everywhere and you shall aim at that. While walking, do keep in your mind the idea for your organism to have beautiful shapes, i.e. shapes that Nature requires. Your shoulders, your face, and your eyes – everything should be regular and beautiful. Set yourself an ideal in Life which you want to realize. This ideal is to be found in Nature but you should work for its realization. If your mind works, you will form your forehead; if your feelings work, you will form your nose; if your will works, you will form your chin, the lower part mainly. If you project all your feelings into work, you will develop your body normally; if you are very active, you will develop your lungs normally; if you act rightly in your material matters, your digestive system will be normal as well. Nature registers all our acts. Right feelings and physical acts are being created in the stomach, right thoughts are being created in the brain. So, we form our lines and organs according to how we act. You either build or demolish – according to how you act. That is why I say, “Each act of yours, each feeling of yours will put a small stone in the building of your construction. And if some day you have a beautiful feeling, be pleased all day that you have the opportunity to put a nice stone in your construction – be satisfied that you have placed this nice stone. As soon as there is an idea of something beautiful in you, of something great, you should work perfectly.

 

Now, this science, which I am speaking to you about, is very complicated and you should be very careful when studying it. You should spend at least ten years in studying what the relation between the lines and the energies being generated between them is. Also, you shall study the relationships between people – this is a very complicated process. At present, for example, you guess things. You like someone and you say, “I like this person, he is good”, but you cannot define why and for what reason you like him. But you can and should define why you like him. Nature has strictly defined all lines of eyes, of eyebrows, of nose, etc. – they all are mathematical quantities, strictly defined, precisely measured by a tape-measure. Regular faces have precisely defined dimensions, you can check these things. I have been checking this truth as many as eleven years and have met no exclusion. Moral people have always precisely defined features: their face, their arms, their eyes, their ears – everything differs in them. If you come across a type having no moral principles, the centimeters will differ now. There are measures in Nature by which a moral person differs from the other types; in immoral types, there is a different combination of numbers and sizes – the features of these people are disharmonious. In Living Nature, everything is in harmony but a deep understanding is required.

 

So, in all your actions you shall strive for the elevated, for the little manifestations that are being met in Nature. If the thought whether you are from the moral types or not occurs in you, you should know that an immoral type is one who has all the time opposing the good desire of Nature – they had abused all those good conditions which Nature has been giving. Therefore, each one may know very well by oneself to which type they belong – Nature registers everything. The mistakes of people are not hidden in Nature but in their malice – they have not wanted to take advantage of its good conditions. That is why still in their present life, once people admit their mistakes, they can easily turn over to the next page and change their immoral actions into moral ones – this is a karmic law. Once you admit that what you have been doing so far is unjust to Nature and begin to gradually correct your actions, not long after that your life will change, will mend.

 

Now, as the summer vacation is coming up, I am going to stop my lectures for the time being but you may still meet. Meet for a half an hour and spend in [A5] meditation; then have a word with each other and go home. You may do the next meetings in this way until we begin the new school year. Start with a meditation for twenty – twenty five minutes at most, direct your mind to everything elevated and perfect. I am not going to give you any topics. This will be a respite for you and a little variety to your meetings at the same time.

 

When I talk about these lines, there is some danger for you, while looking at yourself, to say by any chance, “My chin is such and such, my nose is strange” and to despair. You have not measured how many centimeters your eyebrows and your nose are. You have a nose but do not know how many centimeters it is length and width; you have a head but do not know how many centimeters the circumference of your head is; how long your fingers are, you know not either; why the fourth finger is long that much you do not know either. So, you have a body and do not know the structure and the proportions of its parts, yet you should turn all this into quantities. How long your arms are you do not know either. Of course, for one who knows, these are important laws. If you want to know what your height should be, you have to measure the length of the arms open[A6] . Sometimes arms are longer – this shows that in the past the forefathers of that person liked to pilfer; if arms are shorter than the standard measure, their forefathers liked to kill. Hence, their desire for pilfering or killing has continued further. This has been ascertained in life: in all killers arms are short and thick while in all thieves arms are long. I explain this with the following fact: while a thief is planning in their mind to reach in some pocket, blood starts circulating more intensely in their arm and it grows more. This is true only one third, because long arms show also skillfulness, vigour. So, if the head of that person is normally developed, their desire to pilfer has been transformed into skillfulness and work. In general, long arms show activity, vigour. When the head is not normally developed, then such a person likes to pilfer, as his grandfather did. A thick arm speaks for propensity to killing – all ferocious animals have strongly developed muscles. However, not every thick arm is criminal, we consider criminal the deformed arm – it is not proportionate with the other parts of the body. When an arm is disproportionately long, it is deformed; when an arm is harmonious and proportionate with the other parts of the body, it shows good feelings.

 

So now, most important for you, is to utilize the little acquisitions in Life. For example, in certain cases you consider that you have no feelings, have no heart or it is not well developed, but one day you reach the fact that shows you have heart – this is a little acquisition and you should be pleased with it. Or, you may consider that you have no intelligence, but one day you come to know that your nose shows that you are intelligent and you establish this in you – this should make you pleased too. Therefore, you should be pleased with your little acquisitions. These little thoughts or feelings which make you stronger in Life are just the scientific information that is fortifying you towards the elevated in Life.

 

And so, the visible life is a formula in the human Life. I consider man as the most complicated formula in the living mathematics and geometry. And there is not a more complicated creature than man on Earth – man is the most complicated creature in an organic respect and the most complicated formula in a geometric respect. A number of years are needed to study man and this is a matter of the future.

 

So, strive now for the nice, for the beautiful, for the elevated. I can see many beautiful features put in all of you. You all should develop, should work not for the present only, but also for the distant future, which is connected with the present. And the little failures, which you may meet in your life, should not discourage you – a failure in one respect is a success in another respect.

 

I will give you advice: draw lessons from plants which in their striving to grow up and to develop, have always been waiting for the Sun. There is a beautiful desire and waiting in them – for the Sun to come! There are no other creatures on Earth waiting for the Sun with such an intensive desire like plants. That is why, when we are waiting for the Divine in us, we should be like plants waiting for the Sun every day. This desire for the Sun raises them and the Sun itself attracts them towards itself. And when we are waiting for the God of Love with the same desire, in this way we will obtain the same goods as plants do as well. As only this intensive feeling to God may raise us up. Do have the same desire to God as plants have to the Sun. As soon as you go to bed in the evening, strongly desire for the Divine to come to raise you. In the morning, when you get up, desire the Divine again. Thus, do intensively want the intimacy of God, i.e. the Divine to come within you. And, as soon as the Divine comes, each of you to take what they need.

 

“God of Love is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

 

 

[1] Bulgarian currency

[2] Timbered farm tool, dragged by a horse, used in the past to thresh on a threshing-floor

 [A1][pothole]

 [A2][elevated]

 [A3][add]

 [A4][game]

 [A5][spend time in] or [spend it in]

 [A6][arms opened out]