1927_08_19_2 THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD

[Ani]

From  The Way of the Disciple, AlphaDar

 

 

THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD

 

"The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is over me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek."

 

Long, long ago, even before the Christian era, we found an outstanding prophet of Israel saying: "The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is over me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek."

 

What has the prophet meant by saying: "The Spirit of the Lord is over me." For a contemporary man, a man of ordinary consciousness and conception of things, the words "The Spirit of the Lord" sound strange. Why? Because "the spirit" as a whole is something invisible. Even when anything is said about the Lord, or about the place He inhabits, it sounds strange to many people today. We say: God lives outside of time and space. When we speak of time and space, we imply the idea of the beginning of this realistic, physical life. Therefore, under "time and space", we must understand everything visible, limited and changing. However, behind time and space, there exists one another reality. How can we define that reality? It is a reality which limits us. No matter how small your knowledge of this question might be, each one of you has at least one experience of this kind. For instance, you decide to do some hard work. What do you do after the decision has been taken? - You do not sleep all night, sometimes even for several consequtive nights you think over your plan. Just as you have settled your mind on one thing, another thought comes and spoils your plan. Then you start making other plans, but still you are not contented and you haven't settled on anything. All nights long you struggle with yourself, rejecting one project after the other, until at last, you decide on one and say: "I decided to do this work in such a way." I ask you: Why is there such a battle within you?

 

I will use an example, in order to clarify my idea. Suppose you are a cashier in a bank. One day you find yourself in need of money. You turn to a friend and ask him to lend you some, but he refuses to help you, saying he has no money. Then you go to another friend, but the result is the same. What should you do? To take money from the bank without a right to do that would be a dishonest act and your conscience does not allow you to do it since you are a respectable and honest man. You struggle with yourself, you think it over and at last you begin to consider seriously whether the bank would not lend you some money. You turn to it and say: "You are so good and silent, could you lend me some money? I hope you will not refuse me." It takes you a long time to decide to take money or not to take.

 

You struggle with yourself day and night. I ask you: Why do you struggle with yourself to take or not to take money? Why don’t you take at once as much as you need from the case-box? If you decide to take money, on what grounds would you act like this? You must have a clear idea about the inner motives which underlie the acts of people today. It is not enough to know only the motives of the acts of people, but also those of the entire organic kingdom, for the great law which regulates the entire organic kingdom is one and the same. This law, this reality in life is rational, but people do not have the same perception of it. For example, the consciousness of plants is not as keen as that of animals; the consciousness of animals is not as keen as that of man. And finally, the consciousness of all people has not attained the same degree of evolution. The consciousness of a farmer or of a merchant is not as keen as that of an educated man, of a philosopher who deals with abstract questions. However, the consciousness of the philosopher is not keen enough yet. One may be a philosopher, a scientist, a poet or a writer, but in order to consider his consciousness keen, it must be a synthesis of the consciousness of all poets, scientists, philosophers, merchants, farmers, etc. There is an inner law, a rational Consciousness, which governs the consciousness of all human beings. This very Consciousness regulates and defines the position of each one of us in life. You think that the different occupations which exist in this world are arbitrary, but that's not correct. All occupations, which exist from ages, are determined by this great law. The merchant, for instance, bears a certain idea in nature. The writer, the poet, or the scientist bear also certain ideas in nature. Thus, the work of every man is predetermined. Every man is in cooperation with nature. No matter what position he has in life, how mean it may be, it has its definite place. If one does his work as he should, he is considered as a respectable and noble man.

 

In ancient times, a Greek citizen by the name Socrates, who became later well-known as a great philosopher, had been sweeping the streets of Athens and this was one of the lowest jobs at that time. First he learned how to sweep the streets, and then he studied philosophy. He is known to have often been saying: "If I am capable of raising off the dust from the streets, I can be a master in raising off the dust from people's minds. If I can make the streets of Athens clean, I will be able to make the minds of the Athenians clean also." Socrates had been a man of original mind. From your point of view, he should be considered as an eccentric man. For instance, thinking whether he should marry or not, he had not regarded it as an institution of happiness and ease, as men of today regard it. He had said: "I will marry the worst woman and if I can stand her conduct, I will understand that I have a positive philosophy in life and become a genius man." And actually, his patience and calmness serve as a model for all times. One day he invited one of his friends to his home, and acquainted him with his wife, saying: "My wife is a fine woman, there is no other like her in Athens. She is noble, educated, industrious and whatever she decides to do, she does it without hesitation." But what happened? Just at that moment, his wife took a basin of water and poured it over the head of the philosopher. He turned calmly toward his friend and said: "My wife knows that I have not had a bath for a long time and need one, so she is fulfiling her duty exactly on time, not taking into consideration the fact that I have a visitor." When someone wants to give an example of a woman who is really bad and uncontrollable, he most often gives the example with Socrates' wife. I ask you who is by nature better than she is? But we may assume that Socrates owed his philosophy to his wife Xanthippe. She loved Socrates and he loved her and what people have considered as the evil in her character, has been her active will and mind. Socrates' mind had not been so alert and active as his wife's mind. He had a well-shaped forehead, but his nose was not nice. As a child, he had been self-willed and had led a bad, vicious life. Once when a physiognomist was describing all of Socrates’ bad characters and shortcomings, he received the following answer from the philosopher: "Your science is correct, I was such as you describe me in the early years of my life, but today, thanks to my kind wife Xanthippe, I have corrected all my faults and freed myself from all evil tendencies." This is the story of Socrates, as it has been handed down to us. But who can speak in the way Socrates did? Only that man whose consciousness is keen. And in fact, Socrates had possessed a sound consciousness during the latter years of his life. Recently here is a writer, who resembles in some way Socrates - this is Tolstoi. What is the resemblance? In the shape of their heads, their foreheads and noses.

 

Their eyebrows are also similar. Both of them have possessed an objective mind and have not occupied themselves with abstract questions. Their main field of mental activity has been the realism of life.

 

I shall refer again to the verse: "The Spirit of the Lord is over me." How can the Spirit of the Lord penetrate us? One of the questions modern science is dealing with, is the question of how the thought of a person may penetrate the thought of another person. From this point of view, thought is considered as something material, possessing a form of its own. The formation and harmonization of all these forms is based on certain laws.

 

Therefore, each man that knows the laws which govern the order of your thoughts, can influence you. How? By his thought. You can not save yourself from the influence of his thought. The influence of thought is not dangerous. Because of this law, all people, both good and bad, exert influence on one another. For instance, the sun, the planets, the water and the bread, our parents, brothers, sisters, friends, etc. influence us. Common sense, however, requires that we find the proper place of every influence, in order to obtain healthy beneficial results in our souls. Through the power of influence, we can make people think that God reigns this world. All religions maintain this idea. Contemporary science also affirms the same idea, by saying that there exits only one law in life, which directs and governs all things.

 

There are some scopes of science and certain questions which are still to be investigated. For instance, there are new methods by which people can be healed without medicines. These new methods are already being applied in larger cities like Paris, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York and others. What is characteristic of these new methods? Notice, that we are not speaking about any sort of miracle-performers, but about ordinary scientists, who work in accordance with the laws of nature. These methods prove the powerful influence of human thought. Man’s thought is a great factor in his life. It produces miraculous results. But these men who heal the sick by the new methods, are extreme materialists, yet some of them are objective. They cure a sick patient in the following way: a man, for instance, suffering from paralysis is seated in a chair and the one who is to cure him, places his hands above the head of the patient and moves them slowly downward to the feet, then he shakes his hands and moves them a second time from the head down to the feet of the patient. Then again he shakes his hands. These movements of the hands are repeated several times, following a certain rhythm. After 10 -15 times, the patient falls in a pleasant, magnetic nap, as a child falls asleep in the arms of its mother. Put a child in the arms of a nervous servant and see how it will cry to exhaustion. Thus, when anyone asks me why a certain man is crying, I say: He is crying, because he finds himself in an inharmonious environment. Place him in a harmonious environment, among good friends and he will smile immediately and stop shedding tears. You ask: "What is the cure of tears?" A harmonious environment. "What is the cure of poverty?" A harmonious environment. All educated people prove this same fact to be true. Today doctors prescribe all sorts of medicines to the sick people, instruct them to feel comfortable, to take mineral or other baths, etc. The new methods of curing the sick exclude all these means and say: create a harmonious environment for the sick and his spirit will be calmed. When you go to a sick man, do not allow a single negative or inharmonious thought to cross your mind, because the sick person is extremely sensitive. There are certain instruments by which the expansion of his wraith can be proved. This expansion makes the person irritable, which is the begining of neurasthenia. In all people suffering from neurasthenia, the wraith has expanded and occupies more space compared to a normal condition. As a result of this great expansion, nature imposes a tax on them, as any national government imposes a tax on those who own land within its territory. Someone buys a large piece of land and the government asks him to pay his tax, saying: "If you do not want to pay such a great tax, you must possess a smaller piece of land." One has to pay a tax, whether he possesses a large, or a small piece of land. All people pay taxes for water, for their houses, for the right to walk on the streets - for almost everything. But when we come to the question of nature, do you think that we can live in harmony with it without taxes? No! But here we come to the great law of reasonable change: a change in feelings and thoughts.

 

What we do not see in the world is God Who thinks. Therefore, a right change must take place between the thought of God and our thought. The thought of God can be expressed in various forms. The sun, for instance, is one of the forms of God’s thought. The moon and the stars are also forms of God’s thought. Man is a form of God’s thought. Planets, animals, water, air, fire - all these are forms of God’s thought. Therefore, when you start a fire, if you understand the law which it is subjected to, you can enter immediately in communion with God’s thought. And in case you start a fire in a place where it must not be started, you will cause yourself some sort of suffering. It is very important for the disciples to understand and to apply the laws of life correctly. If you go to a forest, you have the right to start a fire there only in case you need to warm yourself, or to warm water to drink, but you have no right to play with fire. When you go to some pure spring, you have the right to drink from it, or to sprinkle your head with water in case you have a headache, or wash your hands and feet, if they are not clean, but you are not allowed to play with the water. Children like to throw stones in some mountain springs. What happens after that? Great misfortunes befall them. The water does not like to be disturbed by stones. If you wish to put a stone in it, you must wash it well and drop it in carefully. You must know that water hides within itself rational powers. Some people think that there is no rationality in water. How can this be possible? Does not water heal all diseases in the world? Make an experiment to see what influence it has on the organism of some irritated, indisposed people. How can its influence be tested? By drinking hot water or washing our body with it.

 

Today, all religious people as well as all others, have lost the right, rational thought which exists in living nature. When you have this right thought, you know that all things in nature are alive, therefore you must have great respect for everything. If you have this wisdom, whenever you pass by a plant, you will look at it and then raise your eyes up in respect for the life which manifests itself in this plant. It is a small form, which is an image of God’s thought. If you see a spring making an effort to find its way out, and you start criticizing it for not having come out at a very nice place, it will become sad and say: "It's just me who knows what efforts I have made in the years, so that I could come out in this place!" That spring will have a better place in the future. The springs like all living beings, change their places - they also undergo a certain evolution. Plants, animals, springs, rivers, lakes - everything evolves and is constantly undergoing an inner transformation. The Divine thought manifests itself everywhere. It changes and regulates all things. So, when we speak about living nature, we mean the manifestation of Divine thought; the manifestation of that great law through which God works in the world.

 

Suppose many different diseases attack you: headache, stomach-ache, weakness in the chest, rheumatism, inflammation of the aciatique nerve, diabetis, etc. What are all these diseases due to? They are the result of an inner disharmony in life. The diseases show the ways of our digression from the Great Divine life or from the right thought. Today many doctors and medical students, who investigate the different kinds of diseases, write whole volumes about the way people should heal themselves, and say: "Any sick man can be cured from any disease by removing its cause." How can thi$ be achieved? By removing that defect or human infirmity, which has originally evoked that disease. These people maintain that there is a psychic cause at the bottom of all organic diseases. Therefore, one must look for the psychic cause of any defect or inability of a person to manifest his natural talent. For instance, the memory of many people is very weak or its normal functions are badly impaired. Such people forget easily everything. I have observed how such people behave in different cases. Someone puts his pen behind his ear, and forgetting that he has put it there, starts looking for it, turning the whole house upside-down. Another man puts his hat on his head and then, not find it in its usual place, starts asking his wife and children where it is. His wife says: "My friend, can you not see that your hat is on your head?" He wonders when he has put it on. Some men reach a state of utter self-forgetfulness. What is this distraction due to? The cause lies in the fact that heat is developed much faster and on a larger scale than light in such a person. This increased production of heat causes an anomaly in the feelings. That's why many diseases cause a high temperature in the body, due to excessive burning. Doctors apply certain methods to lower the high temperature caused by the excessive burning. In fever, the burning is on the surface of the body and the temperature rises several degrees higher. That is, in the organism, the burning process is more intense than it normally is. When certain cells in an organism do not function in harmony with the rest, they produce more heat than necessary, which acts destructively on the organism. The nervous state you experience sometimes, is due to this excessive heat. People who are engaged in healing other people, recommend water as good means for curing diseases, because water absorbs the excessive heat and reestablishes the normal balance within the organism. This balance is due to the hidden organic force within our body. We must never exhaust indiscriminately the heat of our organism, because nature uses it for different important, rational purposes.

 

The prophet says: "The Spirit of the Lord is over me and He has anointed me." The word "anointed" signifies that you are called for a certain service, which you can fulfil. Only the strong, the good and the wise people can be anointed.

 

Know that the thought of God manifests itself in every new movement, in every new beginning in the world. For instance, ever since the year 1914, even before that time, everywhere in the world there have been certain phenomena, certain events whose meaning the scientists and the educated men can not correctly interpret. These phenomena are becoming more frequent nowadays. Their purpose is to awaken contemporary humanity, to stimulate and activate man’s thought. Why is their awakening necessary? Because the time for inner, spiritual work has come. When do people sleep? At night. At daytime, after the sun rises, they should be up on their feet, ready for work. When favourable conditions for spiritual work come, everyone must be ready.

 

"The Spirit if the Lord is over me." How should we interpret these words? They mean that God’s thought is over me, that it is for us. We have reached the phase of life where we can study the thought of God and come in contact with it. Every person who can manipulate with the thought of God and enter into contact with it, can be a master of his own life and a master of the conditions he lives in. I shall give you an example to show you how the thought of God can affect a person. One of our sisters was paralyzed almost for an year. Her hand became often very stiff and this stiffness spread over her whole body so that she felt all paralyzed. I told her that she must restore harmony within herself, but up to the time when such a harmony could be achieved, she would pass through several crises. How could she attain harmony? By coming into contact with God’s thought. Everyone healing himself by a Divine way, can not become healed at once, as if by magic, but gradually, passing through a certain number of crises. What did that sister do? She went up to Vitosha mountain and there she applied all the rational methods given to her. As a result of these methods, a terrible crisis ensued: she had such a sharp stomach ache, that she thought her last hour had arrived. But soon after that good purification, her pain disappeared completely and she was healed.

 

For certain diseases, it is advisable to massage the body until it sweats. What is sweat? - It is caused by a rational force, which indicates that all the pores of the body must be opened. One has seven million pores on his body, that is seven million become poets and writers, but they do not know yet the beauties of nature and can not benefit by them. Those who live in the plains and in the valleys are more intelligent, more developed, because they have more chances for work. At present, the Divine thought functions more in the material world. God is working more in the plains and valleys than in the high places. You may say: "If it is so, let us lead sinful lives." This is an easy thing to do, and people know this art, but they must remember that everyone who misuses the credit of a bank, takes upon himself many debts and is punished at the end. Any bank, no matter how much credit it may give you, keeps a record of everything and one day it will require what it has given. Either you or your children, will have to pay.

 

Nature acts in the same way. You can not deceive or cheat it. It has account books in which it keeps records of everything people take from it. And when someone goes to it for a new credit, immediately it opens its book to see how many times that person has taken money from it and how much he owes. The degree of development you have reached can be judged by the way you study and understand the physical and spiritual worlds, and by the way you understand the thought of God. What causes your inner struggles? Struggles always arise from a disaccordance between your thought and the thought of God. If you struggle, it means that you are not in accordance with God. When you want to do something bad, the Divine thought says: "Listen, do not do what you are planning to do. If you do it, you will suffer and bear the responsibility." You all have such experiences. How many of you have acted fully in accordance with this inner voice and resp wisely? Someone says: "I struggled all night until I decided on a certain question." Such an example is Jacob, who fought all night with God. This struggle is presented as a physical process, but in fact, it represents a living, inner process. After that process, Jacob was transformed, because new ideas entered into his mind. At last he said: "God, from now on, I will serve Thee well and will not act unrighteously in this world." Therefore, we struggle and fight, in order to attain better thoughts and create in our minds the right thought.

 

Some people ask: "Why must we study?" In order to come to know God. "Why must we be good?" In order to come to know God. "Why must we love and seek the Truth?" In order to know God. The most essential and most real thing, which we must aspire toward during our present life, is to know the forms of God's thought. God can help everyone who knows the forms of his thought.

 

The prophet says: "The Spirit of the Lord is over me." I would interpret this verse like this: "The forms of God’s thought are in me. I know the laws of the objective thought of God." Therefore, when one comes into a real contact with the thought of God, he will feel this contact.

 

I have often given to those of you who are ill, certain instructions. To those who feel physically weak, I have said: Go to some old, but healthy oak tree, and stand with your back on it. Rest in this position 5-10-15 minutes, half an hour at the most, and say to the tree: "Since you are full of the thoughts and forms of God, be so good and give me some of your energy." The oak tree will unburden you of some of your inharmonious energies, you will feel calm, with restored strength and will return home with a light and happy heart. This shows that the oak tree has given you something Divine. In case you are very nervous or irritated, pour a pail of fresh, pure water over yourself. This act will relieve your head from many unnecessary elements and a Divine thought will enter into your mind.

 

There is an infinite number of life forms in nature which the philosophers consider as a fine, living matter penetrating our organism. This matter enfolds the cells as a protective force, which scientists call immunity. When each cell is immune through the Divine Thought or when the human organism is immune through the Divine Thought, one is entirely under its protection against any unexpected evil events, troubles and misfortunes. The day you break this immunity, the Divine Thought begins to withdraw from you. This means that you have broken your harmony with it. Then misfortunes begin to come into your life. Someone says: "My life is unhappy." I say to him: A harmonious environment is what you need. Make friends with people who not only speak about God, but who also live in God! Seek the company of people, who not only speak about love, but who manifest Love! Seek the company of people, who not only speak about truth, but for whom the Truth is a constant standard measure in life! You say that there are not such people in the world. Do not say this! You will meet such people not only in Sofia, but all over the world. Not all of these people are educated.

 

Some of them are simple or peasants. A peasant who ploughs his field all day, without even suspecting that he has the Divine within himself, may be of these people. You may have to travel 10-15-20 miles, in order to find such a person, but go and find him. Go and speak for a while with him and you will see what inner harmony you will begin to feel and how something pleasant and new will start to flow into your soul. There are such people in every country. Bulgarians call them fortune-tellers. When some Bulgarian finds himself in a difficult situation, or when his affairs, in general, are not going as they should, he goes to such a fortune-teller and says: "A great misfortune has befallen me!" Please throw the beans, or mould the wax and tell me what is the reason for all my suffering! The fortune-teller melts and moulds the wax or throws cards and says: "The reason for your sufferings is the following. Several years ago, your father has stolen ten oxen from one of your neighbours and now you have to buy them and give them back to him. In case you do this, you will be cured. That's what my wax says." That man goes to market, buys the oxen, gives them back to his neighbour and actually his illness disappears. If you decide to heal yourself this way, you must give back all you have stolen. Whether you know this fact or not, is a different question, but everything stolen must be returned. The theft might have been done by your grandfather, but since you are his heir, you are held responsible to render back the stolen thing.

 

When a great moral is being given to the world, it has no reference only to the present, but also to the past and future life. You must rectify and put in order the work of your grandfather, and of all the four generations before you. You must eradicate all falsities, which have been active during the lives of the preceeding four generations, until, at last, you come to your present self. After you have done all that, you can establish a contact with God and harmony with yourself. Then all your affairs will start to follow their natural course. If you want to strengthen your faith, apply this idea in your life. When we speak of the Divine Teaching, we mean a thorough transformation of the entire life. And for this reason we must learn to think right, feel right and act right. We should not renounce life, but rather make use of it in its completeness as past, present and future. We shall not throw away the unclean water, but shall rather filter it and separate the unclean elements in it, then boil it, in order to purify it from all microbes.

 

The prophet says: "The Spirit of the Lord is over me." The Thought of God is over us. Today we are in a new time. Everyone must have the great Thought of God in his soul. This means that faith must become active in all people, not outwardly, but inwardly. We must realize that each person is a projection of God's Thought. That's why everyone must be in harmony with his neighbour. The Scriptures say that we must love our neighbour as ourselves, by which we must understand: to love this great Thought in others as in yourself. It is the Thought of God. Today noone can develop talents or gifts, until he has settled the affairs of all the four generations preceeding him. You are the last of the fourth generation. Yours is the problem of correcting the mistakes of your grandparents. You may ask: "How can we know that this is actually what you say?" Open the book of life and there vou will find all this written down.

 

"The Spirit of the Lord is over me and He has anointed me." What for? To preach good tidings to the meek, to liberate the people, to restore order and equity in life. I wish this sound thought to rest with all of you, present day society. Today the world has peculiar ideas and conceptions of life, and as a result is suffering from many diseases and failures. At present there are many organic and psychic diseases, which the doctors find impossible to cure. All misfortunes, which exist in life, are actually a result of the inner disharmony in people today. The reason why people can not live together well, is that they have no contact with God - their thought is not connected with God's thought. As part of this contact is made, the Divine thought begins to flow into you and you start to write. You are sick - the cause is lack of contact with God’s thought. Make this contact and your health will be restored. Do not feel disturbed by anything, but begin to experiment, at first on the smallest scale, with the most common cases in life.

 

Now I shall give you a new prescription, which is very simple. When you are irritated, angry or doubt something, take a vessel full of good, clean water and start pouring it over the upper part of your left arm. Then take a towel and wipe it lightly, but leave the arm moist. After one minute, do the same with the right arm. Now observe what change has taken place in your psychic condition. If it is not better after a minute has passed, pour water again over your left arm, wipe it lightly and let it rest like this for 2 minutes. After these 2 minutes have past, pour water over your right arm, wipe it lightly leaving it moist, and keep it like this for about 2 minutes. If your condition is still unchanged, wet your left arm, wipe it and let it rest for 3 minutes. Do the same with the right arm. Leave it also for 3 minutes and watch your condition. If it is still unchanged, continue the experiment in the same way, increasing the time of the interval, until it comes up to 10 minutes. After you have poured water over your arms within the 10 minute interval, your condition will change and what oppresses you will disappear, will melt like ice in a hot day. What is better now, to wet first one and then the other arm or to have a massage? The first experiment is preferable. Even if you are travelling, you can apply this method. You may say: "But we shall waste our time in doing this." No, the time in doing this experiment is not wasted. The time is given for healing. It is given to you for the manifestation of God’s Thought. Do not consider this method as a magic formula. It is only a practical method by which you can change your bad disposition at any time.

 

There are a number of different psychic indispositions and bad states, which you can not change in this way, but you can transform them by applying water to different parts of the body. For instance, you can wet your neck, or the part of your head behind your ears or your legs from the knees down, etc. Washing different parts of the body produces different psychic changes in the brain.

 

I am telling you that as disciples, you can use water for healing. If you believe in the power and influence of water, you can be cured by it, but you can also apply the power of your thought. If one does not believe in the power of water, he can not be cured by it. You can use water not only in the actual, physical sense of the word, since it can have the same effect on you, if you apply it in your thought. Suppose you want to take a mental bath for your backbone. Imagine a fountain, or a spring of pure water at a distance of one mile from you. Take a jug and in your thoughts go to that spring. Fill the jug with water and return home. Take off your clothes, leaving only your shirt on, and again in your thoughts pour the spring water over your back. Then lightly dry your wet back with a towel, put on your clothes and see if after 10-15 minutes you will not feel such a powerful effect, as if you have actually taken this bath.

 

Someone may call this delusion. But this is no delusion. There is a conscious inner bond among things. Only the thought of God is real and wherever this thought exists, there you will have good results. When a sick person believes that he will be healed, he connects his thought with God's thought and actually becomes well. But when he does not believe that he will be healed, he makes no contact with God’s thought and can not be healed. The same thing applies to knowledge. When a person, whether old or young, believes that he can learn, he can, in case he does not believe, he does not learn. This thing is true of life - you realize only what you believe in and what you want strongly. You must believe from the bottom of your heart and soul! Light is the result of God's thought. Therefore, if we have light in ourselves, it is because we are in accordance with the Primary Thought, the thought of God, which functions everywhere in nature. And when you approach nature, you can not play with it, but every act you undertake to accomplish, you must begin with a sense of sacred awe.

 

Washing, for example, is a sacred act. How do you wash yourselves in the morning? You must not wash in a hurry, as you generally do, but you must observe certain rules. You should pour some warm water in a clean basin and then lightly splash your face with it. Then dry your face with a very soft towel, leaving it a little moist. You rub your face roughly, which is not good to do. You should wash your face in a new way. Never splash water on it in a hurry and never use force when you rub it with your hands, or with a towel, but rather do all this lightly, as if you are caressing it and feel a pleasure of doing that. The human face is very delicate and sensitive. People use linen or hemptowels, but I would leave those to the sinners to use. For an honest and good man, I would recommend a soft, fine towel. We should not wipe our faces with rough towels, if we would have the Divine thought function correctly in us. Why? Because the face is the mirror of our soul. We can discern man’s link with God in the face. After washing your face and looking at yourself in a mirror, you must be pleased with it. If you are not pleased, wash it a second time 10 minutes later. Wash it ten times in succession, until you are satisfied with the result.

 

Those of you who have more time, can make the following experiment. When you get up some morning in a bad temper, wash your face, your neck and ears one, two, or 10 times at the most and you will see that your bad temper will disappear. If your temper has not changed after this, I will tell you the reasons. Try this method on yourself first, then pass it on to others, but do not tell it to others, until you have tested it several times with satisfactory results.

 

As disciples, you must reestablish your inner link with God. This link will liberate you from all delusions, misfortunes, diseases, sufferings, impurities, etc. There are many people whose feet, mouth and bodies have a bad odor. All these odors must be eliminated. First of all, you must clean up your body. If your feet have a bad odor, try to clean them with your thought. The stomach of many people contains indigested particles of food, which cause a bad odor in their mouth. However, a man can throw all impurities out of his body through the power of his thought. You will ask how this thing can be done. Man is a living, conscious organism and he can give orders to his cells to throw the impurities out of the body. But in order to transform your organism you must show great constancy. One must be a master of his body, in order to discover the power of thought. Being a master of your body does not imply that you must torture it, but rather live with it as with a good friend. So that one day when it leaves us, it may say: "I thank God for giving me such a perfect master with whom I could live so many years. I would like to live with him a second time!" What does our body say today? It says: "God, I thank You for having liberated me from this master." Actually, we mistreat our bodies. The Scriptures, however, say that we are the temple of God. Our body is the temple of God and we want this mortal body to put on immortality. When will this be achieved? When we learn the great laws of God's thought. They will lead us to immortality.

 

All these laws can be applied when one enters the Divine teaching. That's why everyone must learn. Some of you may learn from the more advanced disciples. You must be humble and ask about things you do not know. Some of you think they know everything and can attain all at once. It is not easy to have great achievements in a very short time, as if by magic. Have you ever washed your face ten times in succession, in order to change your temper from poor to good? Have you observed the simplest rule of washing your hands after every work you do? If you observe this rule, it will be a blessing for you. Keep your hands very clean. In such a case, your thought will be transformed. Our purpose is to reestablish our contact with God through external nature by means of which He has made His thought accessible for us. For instance, all mountains and valleys represent God's thought. Light and heat are His thought. If we are in unison with these forms, with these energies, we can study the thought of God. God teaches us like this.

 

Therefore, since we have been working with this living, rational force in the world, it will teach us how to act and live. Do you know how many gramms of water you must drink at one time? Do you know how much water you must drink in one day? Do you know which is the best water and where you can find it? - You do not know. That's why those of you who want to drink the best water, should look for the best springs in the town or village where you live and go there to fill two jugs of water every day. Try different waters and drink the best and the purest! Many of you look for the easy way and say: "This well is near, we will draw water from it." No, this water is calcareous do not drink it. Far away there is a nice spring, go there to take water! Do not waste your time! You may have to spend a whole year, before a Divine thought may enter your mind, but it is worth the time, for it is a great acquisition for you. As soon as you contact a Divine thought, you feel as if a rich guest has paid you a visit and immediately you feel independent. The penetration of the smallest Divine thought into our lives makes us inwardly independent and develops in us an inner self-assurance, which bears a small light, a small peace and a small joy. The growth of this Divine thought in us gradually increases our love, light, peace and joy. In this way man grows.

 

The way people act today is still the old surgical way. They see only the wrong side of life. The disciple, however, has no right to criticize. Only the sages have this right. You may ask: "Don’t I have to criticize?" If you are a great sage, nature gives you a green light, but if you are a disciple, who is just beginning to study, you must not engage yourself in criticism! You may read what some critics say on different life problems, but you must not express your opinion, until nature gives you permission. Till then, you will study the great law of waiting. How long? Till the time assigned for you.

 

The prophet says: "The Spirit of the Lord is over me." When the Spirit comes, it will say to you: "Rise and tell what you have learned and acquired." What must you say? His Word. Only then you can be brave and resolute, not doubting or'wavering. Many of you have come to the point of the inner rebirth, but you must be careful for your life. When people aspire toward a good, virtuous life, they have in view the thought of God. A sinful life breaks your inner contact with God and obstructs the manifestation of His thought. Criticism, doubt, suspicion, all infirmities and defects, cause men to stumble. As long as they exist, in any form, you can not have union with God, or be free. Freedom is an inner process, it is a contact with God's thought. Only the person whose thought is connected with the thought of God is free. This is the most essential thing for every one. This contact brings light into your life.

 

I ask you: "Why do you feel so well in this hall? Because there is abundant light here. If you were in a hall whose windows look to the north, you would feel differently than you do now. Hold a meeting in our hall here and then in a hall whose windows face north and see how you will feel. Watch for the results in the course of a year. That's why we must open our hearts, minds and souls for God's thought. Many of you have more windows facing north than east and south.

 

Now as I speak to you like this, you say: "Then we must say farewell to our lives. It is not a question of saying farewell to life, but rather of entering into contact with life. Does a child who has been confined nine months in the womb of his mother and one day comes out into broad day-light, say farewell to life? Does it die? Yes, something dies in it, but what is it? Only that thin covering, by means of which it has been nourished in the womb of its mother. I ask you: Is not the second, free life better for the child? Our life till now has been the life of child in the womb of its mother. The life of the flesh is a life in the womb of the mother. While this life, which we are now speaking about and which you must enter today, implies an union with the thought of God, a liberation, or a new birth. In this life your mother will still be by your side, but she will care for you from the outside. In the same way, nature will exercise an influence on you from outside. That means that the Divine thought engulfs you today from all sides, but a day will come when it will act specifically upon you.

 

Some of you often say that God does not hear them. This is not true. This contradictory state you find yourselves in, sometimes shows that your conditions of life have changed. At one time your mother has cared for you from within, now she is giving you food and good conditions from the outside and you must feel alone. To think means to feel alone. To feel means to feel alone. These are the conditions, the food, which God gives us. The more correctly you think, the better your mind is nourished. The more correctly you feel, the better your heart is nourished. What I am saying to you now is not for me. It is good for your body, mind and heart to understand the Truth. You want to be strong, to have bright thoughts and a good heart, to have someone who will love you. I ask you: Who can love you more

 

than God? That's why, if you want someone else to love you, you must ask God about it and then His thought will cause a mental connection between you and those forms, which correspond to your development. When two friends love each other, a natural harmony between their thoughts and feelings must exist. Love can not exist or be manifested without harmony. These things are elementary. The science you are studying now is elementary too, but if you apply it, it will represent a hard rock in your life, which being stepped on, will keep you from wavering. As soon as doubts beset you, you say: "Is this way the right one? Aren't we mislead? Let us go back to the old path!" I say: Your grandfathers act like this. They always look back to the earlier stages of life and say: "Eh, once when I was young." They always think of their lost youth. They are right. Youth is the Divine in us. The Divine is in us, while we are young. I consider young people whose heart is free. He is always ready to serve to someone. As soon as his heart becomes tightened, he says: "My idealism can not settle my affairs. I must marry, so that when I become old, there will be someone to take care of me." As soon as he begins to think like this, his idealism disappears. When one is afraid of life this means he is already an old man. The young person is not a coward. He possesses power and energy, and says: "I thank God for giving me this mind, this heart and these hands. As long as I have all this, I am a capable person and I can earn my living by myself."

 

Thus, it is necessary for all of you to attain the Divine. It will bring youth, purity and strength into you. I do not say violence, but strength and power, by means of which you will manifest all that's good and noble in you and apply it according to all the rules of the New Teaching. Thus, you will all bear God's Thought. Then the brothers more advanced than you, will be glad that you are worthy disciples, at the dawn of your career. When they see how you work, they will say: "These are capable disciples and since something good will come out of them, we will help them in their work. They will be as glad for you as teachers are when their students show good progress."

 

You are disciples and in order to advance, you must pray. Praying as a science. I ask you: When you go to your teacher how will you recite your lesson? If he calls you to the blackboard and gives you a problem in mathematics, how will you act? Will you kneel and throw up your arms? No, you will begin to solve the problem and to speak about it and your Teacher will be listening to you. That's, you will solve, write and pray. When you finish your prayer, your problem must be solved. Prayer in this case, is a great respect and veneration, great love, which we must have for that Primary Principle, which has given us our lives.

 

Now I wish all of you to say as that Jewish prophet: "The Spirit of the Lord is over me and He has anointed me to preach glad tidings." A day will come when all of you, in one or another way, will preach glad tidings, so you must be prepared by the experiences in your life, in order that all you say to the world may be true. When you speak the great Truth, you must have absolute self-assurance. And if someone asks you, if you know God, say: "Yes, throughout my whole life, I have experiences of Him and His thought is over me." So, I repeat: Use the method of washing your hands. If someone does not feel disinclined to do it, let him come to me, I will wash his hands ten times. You will see what will happen then. In the course of all the years, I have made different experiments, which I will reveal to the world. One day they will be known, but now I have another problem in mind. Today people must heal themselves to the extent that health plays the role of a connecting link with the Divine Love in their lives. To the extent that the disciple wants to study the Divine Love, I am ready to serve him and wash his feet ten times. I have rendered services to many people. Someone complains of headache, I take a pitcher of pure water and pour it over his head 3-4 times, and his headache disappears. What happens? I apply God’s thought and say: God, You who live in this water, cure the head of this man, so that he may know that You can work through water as well. This man is healed and says: "I am thankful, for I have already a contact with God's thought." The water, however, knows me and says: -"I will cure the head of this man, but for your sake, and if he comes to know God, and then misuses his knowledge, you will be held responsible. I have contact with God, that's why my experiments give good results. Both the one who cures and the one who is being cured, must be pure-hearted. The one who cures must not bargain with the patient and demand money for the healing. Neither has the one who is being healed, any right to bargain. In bargaining there is nothing Divine. If the world misuses its gifts and talents, it is a different question, but the disciple who studies the way of Truth, must be just, he must be an example of Divine Love. His problem is to realize God’s thought and then leave it to speak for itself, you are to sow the seed and do not think of the results. Let all your friends realize that God is in you."

 

People often give way to the "sour elements" in themselves, which are marked by a certain lack of respect. For instance, as I am talking now, some are in a hurry to go home and say: "Why does not the Master finish His talk?" I read this thought in them. Others say: "Would the Master say something more?" All of them have the right to think so, but I ask myself why I must talk to you. I should have come to you and finished my talk in a few sentences only. I should have said: You must understand living nature. Connect yourselves with the forms of God’s thought in nature. Pour pure water on your heads 3 times a day; wash your hands 10 times a day and wash often your feet. Then I should have put on my hat and gone my way. What would have happened then? -1 would have been travelling fast, while you would have been running after me, saying: "Master, wait for a while! What did you say? How many times should we pour water on our heads? How many times should we wash our hands and feet?" Another one will say: "The Master said so many things, that I am confused and I don't know how many times to wash my face, hands and feet." Now I say to you: You will not run after me and try to catch up with me in the streets, asking me this and that, for I have already spoken a lot and am late, while you, the disciples, must tell one another what you have heard. Also see that when you reach me on the street, you speak about other things and not about what has already been said. Everything said so far has a relation with the practical side of life, but it has a theoretical side as well.

 

Now I want ten persons to apply the method of washing their hands according to the rule I gave you. If we can not find ten people, let there be one-two among you, who in time of indisposition would apply this method and come to tell me the results. We shall begin with two persons and gradually increase the number up to ten persons. Let the rest of you wait for a while. Tomorrow, after the sun rises, begin with the experiment and see what the results will be. If the results are good, come and tell me, and if there are no results, come and tell me too. In both cases, I will explain to you the causes for your success or failure. Maybe there is something wrong with your installation. This experiment is not an easy one. You may wash your hands 20 times and still obtain no results. The first thing to remember, is to do all with faith. Faith is a faculty, which strengthens the human organism and gives it stability. The faith you apply in curing yourselves will exercise a beneficial influence on your whole organism and you will come in harmony with living nature. Just the same way any effort from you has a beneficial effect on your organism.

 

When you wash your hands, face and feet, try to be alone and try not to pay attention to anyone around you. There are not only individual, but collective experiments as well that can be made in special cases. If one cures a sick person, he will obtain one kind of results than if a group of people cures him. For if a group of say, 10, 100 or 1000 persons should concentrate their thoughts on him, these thoughts would have greater power than the power of the thought of a single person. Thought is a power which can cure. There are a number of other experiments in which you will see the inner connection which exists among all things in nature. Nature represents a chain of forms so closely bound, that they help each other. In order to understand this chain of forms, you need wisdom and a sound thought.

 

The Spirit of the Lord and God's thought must come over you. The time for that has come. How can we know it? Man alone will go to the Divine Spring with his own vessels to take of this pure water.

 

Now I wish all of you, present at this meeting, to achieve a right contact with God and to strengthen your bond with Him. In other words, to strengthen the bonds between God's thought and your soul.