HARDSHIPS PURIFY AND DEVELOP VIRTUES

[Ani]

HARDSHIPS PURIFY AND DEVELOP VIRTUES

 

One sister asked: "Master, which is the way of purifying of the human soul?"

 

One of the ways is suffering. Hardships cause a blessing, because without them man will have big troubles. Without suffering man may corrode. There are hardships everywhere in Nature: birds have neither stove, nor quilt; plants are fixed with their heads in the soil. Look: Happiness is a sign that you are clean, and the sorrow shows that you have lost it. As man has come down to work, he has become shady, he has mud himself. And when he goes out of the work, he will become clean in the same way when somebody goes out of the mine, because he has become black of the coal dust there.

 

If you are ill, fill with joy because of the illness. Tolstoy said that after each illness, enlightenment came, new light came in him. Each illness is general purification. Hardships are subsidiaries for restoration of health. Man purifies through the pains and the soul blooms then! In general, man grows through sufferings.

 

There is a reason, for which to live, to think, to work. While man has been in captivity and slavery, he has studied one thing, and now he will study something else. In order bigger Light to come into man, the body shall pass through purification, in order we to be able to perceive it. In this way some dregs go away and nerves are strengthened. Hardships are filters, which filter all thoughts and deeds. Hardships are fires, which purify. And Purity is a law of Life. Without Purity Life cannot be. Man shall not be happy for the hardship, but for the results, which will come after that. Suffering, which is not understood, makes you older. That is why you shall understand suffering from a scientific point of view. When it comes, it brings seriousness and Purity.

 

One mother had children, who did not listen to her. So, she put a hood on her head, she dressed up in this way, and entered the room. The children frightened. After that, when the mother came back to them in her own clothes, they said: "Mum, one monster came, it was going to eat us!" She calmed them: "If you listen to me, it will never come again." Now our Mother, the Rational Nature, dresses up as a monster, when we do not listen to it and visits us in this way. Through sufferings, illnesses and other things, man gains mildness. He becomes merciful and compassionate. This does not mean that we shall wish for illnesses.

 

This does not mean that we shall not cure ourselves, either. But when they come, we shall know why. Each hardship is an Angel in working clothes. The hardship will surround you by a circle, in order you not to be submitted by lower, dark creatures, which hang round you and get rid of them. You raise your consciousness through hardships and you liberate yourself. You make yourself beautiful through necklace of diamond and think of going out, but when the hardship occurs, you do not go out and nobody robs you. Interpret this, because hardships have very good intentions. Sometimes, when they make it beat you, it beats you, but it does it with Love. An agronomist cuts the vines and the tree, doesn't he? You all are cut in the same way. This is suffering.

 

I will give you two formulas for the mornings:

 

"I can love, I can be gentle."

 

"Today I will love God, I will love all people. Today I will do everything for God's sake. I will live well, because of God. My mind shall be bright, because God wants that."

 

I will also give you a formula for hardships: when you are in low spirits or in a hardship, tell yourself: "God loves me and I love Him, too. Everything in God is Good."