1924_11_ 02 The educational power of suffering

[Viktoriya]

Беседата на български

Translated by Victoria Koleva

 

 

 

THE EDUCATIONAL POWER OF SUFFERING

Year 4, Lecture 3 of the Youth Occult Class (Special Class)

Given by the Master Beinsa Douno

On November 2, 1924, Sunday

 Sofia

 

 

 

 

Love begets the good!

The good brings us Life, Light and Freedom!

Contemplation.

Essays on the following topics were read: “What is the relationship between psychology, logic and ethics?”

Topic No.2: “The first distinguishing characteristic of thought”.

I will ask you a few questions related to the topic that you wrote on for today. Did grammar come first, followed by speech? Did logic appear first, followed by the first reasoning? Did morals come first, followed by the relationships of the human soul?

Grammar did not exist in itself before the human spirit which created speech. It is the human spirit that created this grammar. Each speech needs to be expressed in one way or another; the words need to follow a certain order, just like all objects in the world need to be in a certain relationship or juxtaposition to each other. There are two types of grammar in the world: one of them is a type of grammar in which speech is free to express itself through whatever words it wants to which are freely arranged. The other type is the grammar of the law where words follow a strict order like soldiers following each other in a specified sequence. However this order is not the same for all people. In the Bulgarian language the verb usually comes first, although there are cases when it comes last in the sentence. In contrast, in the German language, after composing a long sentence you need to place the verb at the very end of it. I am asking you: why has the Bulgarian grammar placed the verb in the beginning, and the German one has placed it in the end? Of course there are exceptions there too. You would say: this is an inherent characteristic of the language. What do you think, why is it an inherent characteristic of one language to place the verb in the beginning, and of another one – to put it in the end? (- Because in one case people act first and then think, and in the other case they think first before they act.) It follows that Bulgarians act first and think second, whereas Germans do the opposite. Do you all agree with this? (- In fact, Germans act more than Bulgarians.) However Germans used to be people of philosophy and only later on, following the lead of the British, took this direction and gave up on philosophy. Maybe in the future their grammar will change again.

Make note of something else as well: in the English grammar there is a tendency, a pursuit of abbreviation of words, whereas Germans tend to expand words. I am asking you: why does this difference exist between the English and the Germans given the fact that they belong to the same race? These are all questions we can ask ourselves but we cannot find the answers today.

There are other questions too. Do you know which word appeared first in human speech? Has anyone here read anything about this? (- According to science conjunctions or mimetic sounds appeared first.) Yes, and scientific research now shows that when a person starts to become ill, he loses his nouns first. This shows that they are of a more recent origin. Next he loses his adjectives, then the verbs and he is only left with conjunctions. And when the person starts to get well again, the words come back in the same sequence. When a person can’t use nouns, he uses verbs, e.g. instead of using the word ‘axe’ he says: ‘the thing that cuts’, etc. Indeed, man’s first form of speech was monosyllabic; later it became two-syllabic. What was the first syllable that was pronounced? It is similar to the first word; the whole meaning of life was contained in it.

You have all studied triangles in geometry. You know that all triangles that exist in geometry as well as those that haven’t been drawn yet contain an idea, a strictly determined original idea. Similarly all existing curves in the world, whatever their nature, have an inherent meaning. Everything has meaning in sacred living geometry. By the deviation of the angles of any line one can judge about the intelligent action that has taken place. Let’s say that one being makes a deviation of 1˚, another one – of 2˚, and a third one makes a deviation of 3˚ - what conclusions can we draw about the movement of these beings? Here is some analogous food for thought: if you throw an object very fast, what will happen to it at this speed if it encounters resistance from the environment it moves in? More than anything it is the degrees that will determine the power with which it moves. The higher the degrees, the higher the strength and the speed; the deviation will depend on the environment the object moves in. When the power weakens, the deviation will disappear too. However, the force that throws the object into space needs to have a certain idea too. If we throw an object in space and it doesn’t encounter any resistance, what will the path be? ( - In physics, the law of inertia defines the cases when a body moves evenly in a straight line.) Yes, they are right, but that is the case in the Divine world only. That is the only place of complete harmony and no resistance.

Now, you are young, if I asked you to, would you be able to write on the following topic: “What is one of the main distinguishing characteristics of a young person?” What distinguishes a young person? (- A young person has a lot of enthusiasm for the realization of ideas and everything in life that contains light, whereas an old person says to himself: “These things are unachievable in this lifetime.” Here is another question: What makes a young person young? (- Aspiration.) It is not aspiration. A young person’s aspiration is like that of a grenade. However this grenade contains explosives. Thus a young person has energies in him which make him young whereas an old person has used up these energies and is now called ‘old’. However a young person can grow old within 24 hours too. If we hypnotize a young person and suggest the idea to him that he is old, then he can grow old. In the same way if we subject an old person to deep, level 5 hypnosis, and suggest the idea to him that he is young, he can become younger too.

In the new psychology you need to beware of the following: if you don’t understand the laws in nature and go through the deep experiences and moral concussions that you will go through, they can make you age prematurely and deprive you of the energy of your youth. When an old person experiences a certain joy in the right way, he gets rejuvenated and gains new energies. Here is the second situation: both the young and the old person think, but here is where the difference lies. Let’s say that there is an apple tree in front of me, a 10-year-old, well-developed tree with fruit, and I am holding an apple seed in my hand. I am asking, is the seed bigger than the apple tree? No, it isn’t, but the seed contains a certain meaning, an idea. A young person is a seed that needs to develop. He hasn’t expressed himself in his life yet. An old person’s thought has already found expression and realization in life; his energies have been used up and have become kinetic, because, according to the law of reincarnation, if he has used up his energy and this is what has made him old, then I am asking, after he transitions into the other world, how does he get born again, where do these energies come from? However old age is something external to the human soul, it is not something inherent. All young people feel that they are young and it is only their body that has aged. It is not natural for the soul to grow old, these are secondary states. They have been imposed on people through suggestion. For thousands of years people have been suggesting to themselves that they are old and are growing older, that everyone else will grow old too, and after you pass the age of 45, 50, 60, the thoughts of thousands of generations enter your mind and say to you: “You are already old.” You respond: “Ok, whatever you say.” Otherwise you need to be a genius to fight these thoughts successfully.

But then you will resemble a certain Turkish imam. They gave him a child for christening the orthodox way because there were no other priests, they had run away. He took the child, submerged it in the water and said: “Let this christening happen as your priest does it.” He took the child out of the water, then submerged it again. He repeated the usual words of the priest: “Let it be so.” He did the same once more and christened the child.

The law of suggestion has such a strong power that many prophets in the world and many virtues are supported by suggestion. Their stimulus comes from suggestion. Sometimes a person says to himself: “I will commit a crime” and feels that he carries something inside himself. However this is a suggestion of some lower forces. The opposite is true as well: sometimes a person wants to do good to someone and this is a suggestion too – either from some good people or good beings – higher forces. What does education consist of? Of always suggesting the good, supporting the suggestions of the positive forces and maintaining one’s connection with them.

As students in this occult school you will have to fight some inherited thoughts which you can and have to overcome. Of course it is difficult to fight them but everyone can help himself if he understands the law. There is a lot of scientific data on this. In geometry, for example, vice has certain characteristics. However, given your current state, if I show you one of the lines of vice, you will keep thinking about it and it will stick to you like a tick.

For example, it has happened to you that while talking to someone he would make a grimace with his mouth, move his upper lip out and to one side and his lower lip in and to the other side and thus a curve would form. However a great danger lies in judging a person’s character by this positive data (to a descending degree). You have no right to make a statement about anyone. You can only define a person’s character geometrically and mathematically. People have data on their faces which is constant. I would determine a person’s character by the size of his eye, his nose, the thickness, length and size of his mouth, the length of his ears, the width and height of his forehead, and then I will take his chin into consideration. These are the main features. Now, if we take a big ear as an example, it embodies both positive and negative traits. It has been noticed that people with big ears are generous whereas people with small ears are stingy, but at the same time people with big ears like living an opulent life. Here a positive and a negative trait are found together. These are probabilities, mathematical variations; however a law can be derived through a number of observations. There is a certain interrelation between the ear and the head. A well-shaped ear needs to be as big as the nose and well-shaped eye-brows need to be almost as long as the nose. Then the forehead needs to measure 1/3 of the face, the nose – 1/3 and the chin another 1/3. These are the measures of a regular-shaped face. This regularity depends not only on your aspirations but also on the mindful connection between your thoughts and your feelings.

We are now talking about the right thought. Can anyone tell me what the distinguishing characteristic of a right thought is? Does the right thought have such distinguishing characteristics that define it in any given case as right? And finally, can you express a right thought with just any word you choose to?

The original human language was figurative. When you pronounce a word, an image comes to your mind. Let’s take the word ‘river’ – you have a living image in your mind’s eye. Eastern languages used to be figurative, the idea stands out clearly. If we look at modern words we see that there are words that create no image. If you say: “I am hungry”, “I am thirsty”, “I am sick”, these words always create images in our minds. They are strong words. And then the words you find in a language that create images, these are the strong words, whereas the other words are all secondary. In order to understand their inner meaning we interpret them; one day they will acquire images too. They stand a chance.

Here is a word without an image – what does the word ‘chance’ mean? There is a possibility of me getting a job - that is a chance; the words that have images are the sensible ones. The word ‘sing’ creates an image, so does the word ‘cry’. We need to strive towards creating a figurative language in which each word has a living image, because when each word has or acquires an image, then the language becomes clear and comprehensible to us. There is an animalistic or objective language which is materialistic and only serves to fulfill needs. That is the language of the wolf. It only needs the sheep in order to eat it. Then there is the language of humans, of people, which is figurative and snappy, it already reveals some idea. It encompasses life, light and man’s freedom. There is a third language, a language of ideas which belongs to angels; it is a figurative language too. It encompasses Love, Wisdom and Truth.

Now we often talk about the good life. A good life, but in what way? The concept of good is undefined for you. What is a good person? By a ‘good person’ Bulgarians mean a person who can examine you, i.e. who can help you, feed you and serve you in a given situation. By a ‘bad person’ they mean a person who doesn’t do you a favour when necessary, someone who doesn’t examine you.

What makes a right thought? Imagine that I meet you somewhere and ask you: “Tell me a right thought, I need it.” Imagine that someone passes you by and tells you: “Listen, my friend, I need your advice on something. I have taken this stick and I am thinking of beating someone up but I will do as you say – should I beat him up or not?” If you tell him to beat the person up because his self-esteem had been wounded and this would prevent the person from talking like that in the future, you would be expressing a thought which isn’t right. That is because some other time he will beat your friend up. Therefore you would be sharing a thought that has negative consequences. You should tell him the following: “Why do you need to beat him? Let him be, things will figure themselves out, you have more important work to do now.” Thus you would be giving him a sober thought.

I will ask you another question: should we cause suffering to people or not? (- You have said that we should neither increase nor decrease people’s suffering.) (- Let those who know how to cause suffering do that, but it shouldn’t be done by everyone.) Now make note of the fact that there is an area on earth that encompasses almost all the people of the white race and where suffering is enhanced because of their nervous system. Suffering is a great privilege. Beings who suffer are looked upon with great benevolence by nature. It isn’t benevolent towards people who don’t suffer. Joy is just a consequence of suffering. Joy is the fruit of suffering and a person who hasn’t suffered cannot have the fruit of joy either. We are now talking about sensible suffering because there is non-sensible suffering as well. Sensible suffering in nature is a privilege. This is a law; you should know it and enjoy this privilege that comes from the invisible world.

If you learn to experience joy in this way – not by getting drunk, breaking your head somewhere and suffering from that – this isn’t suffering. When you suffer internally, morally, when you lose your wealth, your social status, and you suffer in the name of an idea – that is a privilege. And according to the law this suffering will bring you joy. You need to put this to the test. When you are suffering in this way consider it a privilege from nature. Nature or God always express their benevolence towards you through suffering. The first act of God, his first manifestation, when he limits himself and suffers internally, he experiences a type of suffering that you are unable to imagine. He knows, however, that the fruit of this suffering will be for the benefit of humanity and he gives humanity this privilege believing in his wisdom that it is necessary.

Therefore suffering, and I mean sensible suffering, is at the core of life. There are those of you who after entering the school started undergoing such sensible suffering and you are saying to yourselves: “This is not for me.” Well, what is good for you then? There is no easier work for a human than suffering. You make no expenses when you suffer. You don’t need to rent a separate room for it. It says: “I am a noble person, I will live inside your home and you will make no expenses for me, I am very modest.” In addition, this internal moral suffering brings depth to the human soul and broadens the mind. That is because when a person suffers, he has to think. This suffering doesn’t paralyze him; it gives him an incentive to think. (- Well, should we cause suffering to others?) Do not cause them suffering and do not deprive them of their suffering. If you deprive them of their suffering you will cause them suffering, because you will be removing their natural suffering which is necessary for them, and you will be causing them additional unnatural suffering.

I do not accept indifference to other people’s suffering. If you have such suffering and I visit your home, I will not in the least mention your suffering; it is something sacred and I will not touch it. We will talk about something else. In spiritual suffering there is always a connection, some continuity, whereas in physical suffering this connection is missing. For example, when you are sick you say to yourself: “If only I could get well again I would be grateful to God!” However, when the illness passes, you forget about God, thus there I is no spiritual connection. There are so many drunkards who get beaten and who suffer from their own heads and still they forget and continue drinking. They need to be beaten for a long time before they learn a small lesson. This is not suffering; it is an animalistic state, whereas suffering is something sensible which belongs to the Divine world.

I will now ask you another question: should we ever abuse the trust of a friend? And if you happen to do so, what would be the right remedy to restore it? (- It is obvious that we shouldn’t.) Not only you shouldn’t but you should consider this trust sacred. The trust I am talking about is when a friend of yours opens his soul to you and believes that in any case you would treat him the same way that he would treat you. Therefore not only you shouldn’t do this but you should consider his trust in you sacred. This is a rule, you should write it down. It applies to all of you. Everyone has both a physical personality and a spiritual one. Each of you contains a Divine person who always says the truth and always strives for the truth. Somebody would say: “There is nothing divine in me”, but he suffers and that which experiences moral suffering in him is Divine; as for the external world - you have nothing to worry about. All of you need to support the Divine essence that is developing inside you.

Now, coming back to it again – what is the remedy to restore trust? Let’s say that a friend of yours has placed his full trust in you and you have abused it. In order to restore his trust you will now trust him completely and let him dispose of you the way you dispose of yourself. That is your remedy. Since he gave you his complete trust without asking for yours, now you will go back the same way and in order to restore his trust you will trust him and let him dispose of you, that is the remedy.

You should only beware not to get into the situation of a German professor who was doing psychological observations and experiments in taking people’s astral twins out of their bodies. He often used to do such experiments with a student of his. One day the professor decided to do the following experiment: he took out his twin and placed it in the body of the student and let the student’s twin come into his body. After doing this experiment however, the student’s twin got stuck in the professor’s body and couldn’t get out. The professor couldn’t help the student either from inside the young body. Of course he managed to disconnect after a lot of effort but he had to go through a lot of suffering.

I am comparing now the new morals and the old ones to the student inside the professor’s body and the professor inside the student’s body. This is one of the dangerous experiments. This is where people are getting confused now. It is more or less ok for the old professor to get into the young student’s body but for the young student to get into the old body of the professor – that is hard. There are certain old ideas in nature and when a person reaches a certain age they appear, stand out in his mind and his face already gets old. When Jews reach a certain age, they all start to resemble their race – their typical nose, the eyes; everything starts to follow a pattern with features that are strictly defined for them.

Can anyone of you define the word ‘trust’? When do you trust? Imagine that you are being chased, you are on the shore; there is a person with a boat there – will you stop and examine who he is before placing your trust in him? No, you will get on the boat and say to yourself: “Let it be God’s will!” and you will consider yourself secure in his boat. Therefore you are forced to have trust sometimes. You get on the boat not knowing what might happen; it is up to him – he may hand you over to the person who is chasing you. However in some cases one can fully trust another person. Generally speaking, in cases where someone fully trusts another person right away, with very few exceptions he doesn’t get deceived. The soul has the quality of intuitively understanding that each person has positive traits and if you place your full trust in someone it is very rare that he would abuse you. However, exceptions are rare only when you place your trust in someone fully and right away; if you trust after long contemplations and reasoning, exceptions are more common.

Imagine for example that someone is chasing you, you enter a house and you trust these people fully right away because there is no other way out, and so it happens that they help you. In that case it is your trust in them that makes them help. There is trust in animals too and if one believes in them, they too abide by the law of trust. A priest told me once about one of his cats. It was a model of trust. He had full trust in it that it wouldn’t do any mischief in his absence. Whenever he went to work in the morning the cat would come to the door to say goodbye and wouldn’t touch anything before his return, unless he allowed it to. It realized that someone trusts it and it didn’t’ touch anything – it didn’t want to abuse the trust it was given. This is a strong trait. Everyone has such goodness in him. Everyone has a positive trait. You shouldn’t think that goodness is something that you need to acquire now. No, it is inherent in you, what is needed for its manifestation is some time only, i.e. some favourable conditions. It is up to you to create these conditions.

Let us do an exercise with the hands.

Love begets the good!

The good brings us Life, Light and Freedom!