BROTHERLY LIFE

[Ani]

BROTHERLY LIFE

 

I am often asked: "Do you preach something, which is in accordance with the church? " I reply: "I preach things, which are in conformity with the great Divine law; I don't lie in the face of God; for me it does not matter if my teaching conforms to your views. For me, it is important that my views are in accordance with the great law, that I don't lie in the face of God, of Heaven, of the Angels and Saints - this is what matters to me. If everybody understands the teaching in this way and think along these lines, there is nothing to be scared about. Some say: "You want to form a sect ". Those who establish sects are, according to me, very petty people. Everybody can form a sect - take an axe and chop a tree - you'll make a sect, or take a hammer and break a stone - you'll make a sect. Sects are easy to make. In an American sect there was a quarrel over an issue - in the consecration of the Eucharist, is the glass supposed to be raised; however those who maintained that the glass was supposed to be raised, forgot to raise it. We often forget what we are preaching and the principle, which unites us. Our objective is to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. I want to form a sect, but what sect that is? To be conductors of God's law, which would overwhelm all minds and hearts, so that everybody - men, women, children - become sons of the Kingdom of God and start living here on Earth, the lives they should.

 

THE MASTER

 

One day the Master told brother Boev to be ready at four a.m. on the following morning, so that they both go to Vitosha. They started at the agreed time. When they were already in the mountain and exited from the woods to a small clearing, a neat villager, a "shop" (the Bulgarian word for native of the Sofia region), dressed in white clothes and with a nice fur cap, came towards them. They greeted them, he greeted them back and asked them: "Do you have bread and light?" Brother Boev replied that they did. They both continued up, and the villager entered the woods. After the walk the Master asked brother Boev: "Do you know who this man was? And what h wanted to say with his words: "Do you have bread and light "? He was one of the wandering adepts of Agartha and by asking if we had bread and light, he wanted to say: "Do you have the Word and Love in you?"

 

A reminiscence of brother Mihail Angelov from Varna: "I had heard about the Brotherhood and knew some of the brothers, but I still didn't know anything about its ideas and about living in it. One day the Aradzhiev brothers told me: "In Tarnovo there will be a council. We will take you there to meet the Master." At that time I was in a spiritual dead-end street, I was feeling deeply disturbed and was trying to find а meaning in my life. I was a bit anxious to go to the council in Tarnovo, because I didn't know either the Master or the brothers. But after the Aradzhiev brothers insisted, I decided to go - they told me that everything was going to be fine. And I needed some kind of support, because I was in such a condition, that I was even thinking of ending my life.

 

When I went to Tarnovo, at the council I saw many people dressed in white, but my soul felt black. We arrived in the city on Friday, and the council was to commence on Sunday. Brother Ivanov, who was the head of the brotherhood in Varna, had arrived in Tarnovo before us. When he saw me, he told the Aradzhievi brothers: "Why did you bring this man here - he's new, and only composed brothers come here!" I felt very sad and wanted to go away, but the Aradzhievi brothers didn't let me go.

 

Ivanov brought my case to the leaders from all over Bulgaria and they said that I wasn't supposed to remain at the council. They told me to pick up my things and go back to Varna. I didn't answer anything, but thought that I wasn't going to go back to Varna, but go to the bridge over the Yantra river instead, and throw myself in its waters. This is what I was thinking in myself. Then brother Savov from Sofia came and when I told him about my condition, without knowing him, he advised me: "Brother, don't listen to the leaders, but go straight to the Master and he will accept you ". He started telling me about the Master and I said to myself: "If this Master is Christ, he will recognize my internal condition, he will see my strong desire to remain here, he will understand my spiritual conflicts and help me. If he does not accept me and doesn't help me, I am done." Savov told me: "Today you will be fasting and tonight you will go to the Master". I agreed. Once again I said to myself: "If the Master is Christ, he will understand and accept me".

 

I went to the vineyard, didn't eat anything all day and spent my time in thought and prayer, although I still didn't know how to pray. In the evening I started to see the Master and as soon as I approached the cabin, I saw him coming towards me. When I looked at him, I saw in his face such a fatherly look, that it seemed that it was illuminated in light. I quickly headed towards him, kissed his hand and almost cried: "Master, the brothers want to drive me away, they don't want me here!" He looked at me softly and said: "Stay here, the council will commence on Sunday". He said no more - not another word of comfort, but as soon as I heard that, I calmed down. I went to the Aradzhiev brothers and told them that the Master had allowed me to stay. They were very happy. At that time Ivanov met me and said to me in anger: "Who let you go see the Master! You can only visit him with permission!" And once again he ordered me away. Most of the brothers from Varna were on my side. As long as the Master had accepted me, I didn't listen to Ivanov and stayed there. Now I was calm In the morning before the council I woke up early and everything seemed to me very solemn. Together with the brothers and sisters, I met the rising sun. We read the prayer together. After that we sat on the grass. I took a seat by brother Hristo Aradzhiev and kept hiding behind him, so that the Master doesn't see me. The subject of the lecture was: "The student, who waiter at school's door to be admitted to study. He's waiting for his professor's words - is he admitted or not." This was the first lecture of the "Sacred Fire". The Mater started: "Yesterday a young brother from Varna came to me, asking: "Master, I want to study with you, to follow your teaching." I listened to him and thought: "Let's see what the Lord will say about this brother?" The lord said unto me: "If I have send him to you, you must accept him!" Who am I not to accept him?" After that the Master continued his lecture. I was ashamed and hiding behind the back of brother Hristo, but I felt joyful and cheerful, for I was admitted to Master's school. When the lecture was over, everybody dashed towards me and started embracing me."

 

An excerpt from brother T.B.'s notes: "I had to go to the Master to ask him for a cut of the cover of "Wheat Grain". It happened around 1933-1934. We talked on that matter and the Master said: "In my residence at 66, Opalchenska str., there's a painting that shows the four phases of man's life, shown through the different ages - childhood, adolescence, manhood and old age." I had forgotten that painting. The idea was very good, but it wasn't well accomplished, and I expressed my opinion before the Master, that the painting was too old-fashioned and inappropriate for a cut. Then he took out an album of Steiner's paintings, which portrayed the seals from the Revelation and other images taken from there. The Master showed me the picture of a woman, dressed in the sun and told me: "Take this one, it is nice, but when it is re-drawn, make sure it is enclosed by the zodiac circle, as Aquarius is to be at the zenith". We made a cut, based on that picture and used it for a cover of the magazine."

 

During a conversation in Marchaevo with brothers and sisters, Steiner's name was brought forward and the Master said: "He's the reborn Pythagoras".

 

When Morya's new books began being published under the common name "Agni Yoga ", some friends asked the Master what that teaching was. He briefly replied that it was an old teaching, not adjusted to the modern world. Brother Lulchev was in contact with Morya. He told me that personally, he also told me that Morya had visited him and that Morya and his friends were at war with the Master. Despite that Lulchev continued to maintain connections with him. Once Morya gave him occult symbols, which Lulchev drew on the door of his cabin at Izgrev. The Master called a sister and told her: "Go and tell Lulchev to remove those symbols from his door - what does he want - to destroy Izgrev!" The sister delivered the message and Lulchev obeyed and removed the symbols.

 

In the first years of the existence of the brotherhood in Sofia, there was a spiritist, who often invoked spirits, while in the same time he maintained connections with the Master. One day he sent him a not through one of the brothers to pay him a visit.

 

The spiritist went to see the Master, while he was reading a lecture. The man arrived in front of the hall, but saw that there were many people at the door, so he stood there and waited. After a while a brother came out and told him that the Master was waiting for him. When he entered, the Master rebuked him sternly: "When are you going to stop with all that spiritism? Spirits have other work to do, you must leave them alone!" The man was surprised and started making excuses, and then promised that he would stop and won't perform any spiritist sessions. However, he had gotten used to it, and couldn't keep his promise, so he continued his sessions with pencil movement over letters. One evening after the spiritist session, he fell asleep. In his sleep he saw the Master coming to him and speaking sternly: "You promised to stop with these sessions, why didn't you keep your promise?" He took the pencil from that man's hand and broke it and left after that. The man started from his sleep, woke up, remembered his dream, looked and saw that the pencil was actually broken. He realized that the Master had come during his sleep, had materialized and broken the pencil, reproaching him. From that moment on, that man stopped performing any sessions.

 

Excerpt from the memories of a sister: "The Master had come to Tarnovo, visiting Mrs. Kazakova, a former teacher of mine from my high school days. She invited me and my husband, the family of Major Nedyalkov, of Dr. Lechev, Doynovs and several young women, to attend the spiritist session, which Mr. Bachvarov and Mr. Golov were going to organize in her home, in the presence of the Master. We all sat around a table in a circle, holding our hands and waiting for a spirit to materialize. The Master was standing aside. Then he came between me and Miss Milka Doseva, but after one minute he dropped our hands, saying quietly, almost to himself: "Nothing is going to happen". We continued. Dr. Lechev's wife came as a medium and the hand started knocking on the table. She removed all the items from the table and started writing on a sheet of paper" "Your father, your father". The hand continued to knock, without anybody being able to stop it. Then the Master approached and said rigorously: "Quiet, quiet or I will command that you are arrested up there!" The hand stopped immediately."

 

Brother Georgi Kurtev remembered his first meeting with the Master. In Aytos there was a small group, engaged in spiritism. When the Master was in Aytos, the spiritist group gathered and invited

 

him. Brother Georgi was also there. They started the table-turning session. After a while the Master asked them to leave the table to him for some time. He rapped on the table and rapping started all over the room. Then the Master told them: "Turn off the lamp and whatever you see, don't say it out loud". Everybody saw the red cup, placed on the table, moving around the room. The spiritists called out: "The red cup is moving around the room!" And brother Georgi notice something resembling a sun, above Master's head, and inside it there was Master's image. The next day, when the Master and brother Georgi were alone, he asked him: "What's the name of the man, who was sitting next to me?" Brother Georgi replied that the man's name was Mihail. Then the Master said firmly: "Mihail he shall remain". And about the other one, who sat with his legs crossed by the Master, he said: "This is a beggar, he'll take the last two leva from you". And after that he gave brother Georgi a note with the sacred signature and told him: "You're going to be the Leader of the Brotherhood in Aytos." Brother Georgi objected that other people had been in the Brotherhood longer than him and it was proper that they would be leaders. But the Master repeated that he made brother Georgi the leader of the Brotherhood in the city. Later brother Georgi lost the not, but soon he found it in front of his door clean and well preserved.

 

In 1919 brother Stefan Toshev was the chairman of an economic committee and received a significant salary. He recalls that time: "I wasn't satisfied with my job and I decided to quit, and to become a judge. I told the Master about that and asked him to tell me in what city there was a Brotherhood, so that I go there to work. I had prepared a list of a number of towns and cities, by he didn't even take a look at it. He returned it to me with the following words: "Take back your list! As for the assignment, Heaven has decided where to send you." I applied at the Ministry and was sent to Svishtov, where there was no Brotherhood. With time we formed a vast brotherhood there and the Master came to see me. After that brother Boev was assigned there as a teacher.

 

A brother always thought that if the Brotherhood had a lot of money, things will be much better. During a lecture he was making various plans in his mind, to get more money, so that he can help the Brotherhood. Then the Master inserted these words in his lecture: "If you want to do the worst harm to a spiritual movement, give it money". This is how he replied the thoughts of that brother.

 

The Master was in Aytos and during the celebrations for St. Peter's day he went with his friends to St. Peter's Peak near town. On their way back, brother G. Kurtev was walking with him and told him that they wanted to make a garden for the Brotherhood in Aytos. The Master asked why did they want to do that, and brother Georgi replied that they were going to create the garden for ideological reasons. Then the Master told him: "Pray and the garden will come alone!" So it happened. Sister Vasilka Ivanova, in a partition with her brother, received the place, where the garden is now located, and gave it to the brotherhood for free.

 

The Violinist Petar Kamburov told me the following story: "In 1921-1922 when I was in Tarnovo, in the cabin, the Master gave me this advice: "The property that you have in Stara Zagora - don't sell it, but keep it!" But when I was left alone in the winter of 1923, I felt nostalgic and kept thinking of the future commune, so I said to myself: What this commune will be without money? I decided to write to my father to sell the entire property in Stara Zagora - the vineyard, a field, the house and the yard - so that we can use this money to start the commune. We would buy horses, carts, tools and land. I sat at the table to write that letter to my father. I had only just started with the heading, when the pen turned in my hand, as if someone grabbed it, raised it in the air and stuck it in the table. I put it out and decided to continue. But then for a second time some kind of a force took it out of my hand and once again stuck it in the table. It happened one more time, and it was only the fourth time I tried that I finally managed to write that letter. Next spring my father sold everything. I went and took the money - 100 thousand leva. I bought a property, horses, a cart and started work. But in 1925 the commune disintegrated. The Master put an end to it himself. He sent us to Kazanlak and the others scatter to various places. It was only then that I realized my mistake and remembered the warning with the pen."

 

"I was to visit my mother for Easter in Tsaribrod, Yugoslavia - sister Olga Slavcheva recalls. - I was travelling with a safe-conduct. It was 1921. I went to the Master and told him: "Master, please tell me what I can do for my Bulgarian brothers on the other side of the border". The master placed a back-pack full of lectures on the table. I knew that one sheet of Bulgarian literature couldn't be carried through, the control was very strict. I get off the train at the Tsaribrod station and the controller took me to a room. She took a look at me, and then at the back-pack, without opening it, then she just said: "Хайде, иди кот матер" /Serbian: "OK - go to your mother"/. The Bulgarian young people greeted me with joy, took the books and paid for everything with dinars for the Brotherhood."

 

In 1920 the Master and a group of disciples went camping at the "Blue Stones" above Sliven. One morning, after the prayer and witnessing the Sunrise, the Master announced to everybody: "Today an important delegation will arrive from Sofia". The friends asked him what that delegation was and how did he know about that. He replied: "I found out about that delegation by reading the clouds". A few hours later sister Pasha started from the camp at the "Blue Stones" to go back to Sofia. When she reached the station, the train from Sofia stopped there and three people got off. They were going to meet the Master in the camp at the "Blue Stones". The sister told them that the Master was waiting for them, and they wondered how did he know that they were coming, for they had told nobody. The sister went away, and the three of them headed towards the camp.

 

The arrived there and one of the three - a high-school teacher, spoke with the Master in his tent in the presence of the other two, for hour and a half. Their mission was to convince him not to return to his lodging at 66, "Opalchenska" str., for the landlord there was accused of immoral behavior. After having listened to them, the Master in just a few words shattered their eloquence to pieces. Then he added: "For daring to question the Divine ways, all of you will suffer: one of you will be gone within a year, the other will lose his fortune and the third one will be left alone in his old age and will die abandoned by everybody".

 

Master's words proved to be perfectly true: one died within one year, the other lost his fortune and got extremely poor, and the third remained lonely and abandoned by everybody until the end of his life. When they were still in Master's tent, he told them that all three of them will be sick for at least one week. And indeed - severe fever seized them before the night fell.

 

A brother made a minor mistake, and everyone reproached him - it happened in the camp in Tarnovo. When the Master went to the city for the council, he personally invited the accused brother to go with him. At the council group prayers were performed, but nobody wanted that brother to be in his group. Then the Master called him and went with him to the garden to pray.

 

During a conversation between the Master and a brother, in the middle of the conversation, he told him, without any reference to the discussed topic: "Boris is going to show how the disciple is supposed to take his exam". Then the Master continued the conversation they were having. Later the brother mentioned: "I didn't understand Master's words back then, but when Boris (Nikolov) was giving his testimony in court, protecting the Brotherhood, I heard his replies and realized that the Master had seen everything back then".