The Sublime in the Human Being
Wednesday,
(The sky is
clear. The weather is calm, warm and pleasant. There was a beautiful sunrise)
“The Good Prayer”
I am going to read you from
the Bible, 1 Corinthians 6:6: “But brother goes to law against brother, and
that before unbelievers” /The Holy Bible, ABS/
Science is a necessity in life. All people stumble over what they
know. A child stumbles over what it knows, because what it knows has to be
changed as it is appropriate for this age only. Each age has its knowledge, its
potentialities. I shall give you a simple example: You are invited to have
lunch. You are most of all interested in the meal - not whether it will satisfy
you, but whether the meal will be tasty or not! You are interested in the outer
appearance of the meal, in its taste, in its fat in order to receive an
external satisfaction. It is an external understanding of the feast. Even when
you know something, again you are interested in its external side. You say: “He
is a good man; but that man is better.” May one be better? If he is good, he is
good. How shall you understand the word ‘good’ and the words ‘better’ and
‘best’? A good man has little of the Good in himself. The better one has more.
What is the difference between the good, the better and the best man? It is
analogous to the comparison: This man is beautiful, that one is more beautiful,
but the third one is the most beautiful. A garment may be qualified as good,
better or best. What is the difference between them? Everyone here would like
to wear the best garment. But once you have the best garment, how will you
benefit of it? It will by all means add something to your mind.
These are now only comparisons, leading us to more essential
issues. Let us assume that you are coming into class to learn something. What
will you acquire after leaving the class? What will you acquire today, for
example? You by all means will acquire something - never mind if you mind or
not. You by all means will be filled with something. No one can stay empty.
Empty things do not exist. You say that a bottle is empty. It is empty of
water, but there is air inside. What is the difference between the air and the
water? The water is heavier and the air is lighter. The bottle is empty in
respect to the water, but full in respect to the air. Even if you empty the
bottle of the air there will be again something in the bottle, some other
substance.
What is the most essential thing for you today? What is that
essential thing which is able to transform your state? Some of you are
indisposed, but later on their mood is improved. Someone is gloomy. Why? The
Sun is shining so lovely! Why are you gloomy? You were told something
unpleasant, someone has uttered a thought. But this thought is neither a stone,
nor an iron or something sharp to stab you or to hurt your head. Even so you
are indisposed. Or you saw something in the distance and you got scared. I am
asking: “What are the reasons, what is this, which is modifying your disposal?
We are claiming: “The Spirit of God is acting in me”. All that is
true. It is right: the Spirit has been always acting; but nevertheless, when a
small thought comes to us, we forget about God and our disposal is modified.
When the darkness comes, you say to yourself: “Who knows if the way I am going
along is right?” And you start doubting and hesitating. Sometimes we would like
to show that we have knowledge just as somebody likes to show his strength, by
carrying a certain weight. We have to abandon the delusions. Let us assume that
somebody is carrying a sack full of sacred books on his back. You say: “I am
carrying so many books, what have you seen!” Someone else may carry only one
book under his arm, but he has already opened it, read it and learned something
from it. The first one is just carrying the holy books, but he is not reading
them. Which case is better then? What is tormenting you now? What can you rely
on? There is always something you can rely on.
There is one process, which is mechanical and one process, which is
organic in man. Slaughter a lamb, take his hide and make a Bulgarian bagpipe of
it. How will this bagpipe differ from the lamb? The lamb had walked and
breathed; but the pipe would tell you: “Put something in me, inflate me a
little, so that I may show the people, that I can play.” The bagpipe would
always mumble, but the lamb would say: “Give me freedom, I shall graze grass
and breathe.”
Which state is better: to be a lamb or to be a bagpipe? Someone is
saying: "I cannot think in my way, but in the way the Spirit teaches me!”
It means that he is a bagpipe. Which state is better? A bagpipe is useful only
to play at weddings, feasts, but when it comes to work – to write, to plough,
it can do nothing. The bagpipe - it is like a human world. Man has taken the
hide of a lamb and he has made a bagpipe. He has put also a drone. Sometimes we
play like a bagpipe- we have some morality, some understanding. But it is a
human understanding. It is a mechanical process - coming to a specific point,
you say about it: “I do not know it!” You shall hold the other process - the
Divine one. It does not already resemble a bagpipe.
So, first of all you have to study these two powers acting in the
world and changing the state of man. The collective consciousness of all beings
is mighty enough to change your consciousness. And the consciousness of God,
the Spirit of God is also ruling. In the same way as your consciousness affects
all beings, their collective consciousness acts upon you. And if you do not
realize that law, problems will appear for you. The collective consciousness of
all beings may change your consciousness and your way, pushing you in an
unwanted direction.
When you are seeking your way in a period of suffering, the higher
beings and God stop you and start asking you: “Where are you going?” You say:
“To grow up and to become a great and a rich man.” When you grow up, becoming
rich, does it matter? What is the difference, if a creature was a little donkey
and becomes a big donkey? The master will load the little donkey less, but he
will load the big donkey more heavily. If you have knowledge, knowing also why
you need it, what is your position? You have morality, you have love, but you
say: “Let me receive the great love, the great inspiration. I have a little
inspiration now. When the great inspiration comes to me, then I shall start
working.” I am asking you: Is it practical to wait for the great inspiration?
What is the difference between that one who loves you very much and that one
who loves you a little bit. If you cannot appreciate the Love of God, what have
you realized then? The Love of God is the greatest Love.
You all are expecting some great inspiration, some great Love, etc.
But some of you have started to lose what they have. You, the dearly loved
children of God, have been bent with the great Love of God. And all people get
older with Love. Love actually makes people older. It brings anxiety and
troubles. Who of you had happy days being fallen in love? Giving birth to a
child, you will have troubles – you will care his eyes not to get hurt, his
stomach not to ache, his school activities to be successful and so on. What
philosophy exists in that? Then you will become a religious man. You will start
worrying: “What is the attitude of God towards me? Am I a good man or not?
What, if I cannot go to heaven? What, if I meet a devil? What, if I meet a
woman? What, if I meet somebody to grasp my neck?”
Is there something improper, if a woman meets you? You say: “Women
are bad.” You meet a man - you say: “Men are bad.” You meet a merchant - you
say: “Merchants are bad.” You say of somebody: “Stay away from him, he is a
devil.” There is a misunderstanding in the world. What is in fact evil?
Somebody will say: “I do not understand evil now, but I shall understand it in
the future.” You will not understand it in the future either. In the future you
will understand that you have not understood many things. Nothing could be
understood following this very way. You will get an understanding for some
time, but then the opposite process will start. From the morning at sunrise
till
You cannot hold Love. The whole error in you is that you want to
hold Love. You cannot do this. You cannot hold Light either. Love could not be
held. It is the point, where people are breaking their heads. You want to hold
Love. You want to tempt it somehow. You cannot tempt Love with anything. It is
said in the Scriptures that the only thing you can attract the attention of
Love with - it is the Truth. It is said of God that He has loved the Truth, which
is in man. The Truth presents the human soul, or what has come out of God. God
has loved in us that Divine part, in which we are unchangeable. God considers
the other things, which we gathered around - our clothes, our houses and
knowledge – as entertainment, as our toys. They are not important to Him. He
leaves these toys onto our account; but He is interested just in our soul. The
only precious thing in man is his soul. And if you do not pay attention to your
soul, then what will you pay attention to? If you do not know your soul, how
will you know the souls of others? If you cannot love your soul, then how can
you love the others? What can you love in the others? Their souls. Everything
else you love in man – you love his clothes. If you consider the modern world,
the whole contemporary system – it is violence from one end to the other. There
is silent violence everywhere. Can you tell me something else? The violence is
not only among people. Somebody is saying to me: “How beautiful Nature is, how
beautiful the green grass is, how great the world of God is!” I have observed
the grass too. I watched with a magnifying glass, with a magnifier, two little
creatures gripping at their necks. The one was gnawing the other and vice
versa. Sufferings exist there as well. These two creatures tortured each other;
they were quarrelling to divide something. One of them was at the one hole, the
other – at the other. The distance between them was small, that was the reason
of their quarrel. We say: “How great God has made the world!” We also say: “How
great God has made man himself!” Where is the grandeur of the human face, for
example? I see: the human face has darkened being with pale lips and dull eyes.
Where is the grandeur of man? It is revealed only in that moment, when you come
to an ordeal, but you do not hesitate - for something constant has remained in
you through all the hardships. That is man himself, but not what you think.
When you come to a big hardship and you do not tremble – that is precious in
man. All the blossoms that bloom and all the fruits that grow are valuable, but
the long-staying fruit is the most valuable. There may be thousands of fruits
but only a few of them are remaining. They are of the greatest significance.
Every one of you is saying that something evil exists in man. Well, I agree
with you, I am on the same opinion. Since we are bad, what shall we do? What
shall we understand by ‘a bad person’? Define for me now what you understand
under these words. Define explicitly to avoid the need of a second definition.
Whoever does not behave in the way we expect, is a bad person. I am going my
way. A man there hits me, so I say that he is a bad person. If he has swerved
right or left, I would consider him a good man. You also can be bad for him as
well as he can be bad for you. Who is good? Everyone who thinks like us and who
acts according to our desire is a good man. At least, that is the practical
wisdom of the world. That is the present morality. People speak about one kind
of morality, but behave according to another.
In the contemporary legislation you are asked: “Why didn’t you
observe the law?” You may believe in God, you may love Him, but the judge is
telling you: “Your love to God does not matter. You did not keep the law here.”
So the judge convicts you. Even though you love God, the judge sentences you to
one-week imprisonment. Because you did not behave the way the judge wants you
to, you are convicted. A policeman will abuse you if you do not behave the way
he wants you to, if you do not think the way he thinks. If a son does not
behave the way his father expects and wants him to, he will be reproached right
away.
But this knowledge cannot help you too. What is helpful then? I
shall take an anecdote for example. Once upon a time there was a ruler, a rich
man. He was a man of variety. Everyone wrote to him and he received requests
all the time. “My most dear Sir, there is nobody like you, you are the most
good-hearted, the most beneficent of all. You are the only one who can help me,
kindly grant me a little sum.” They always wrote to him like that. Reading such
letters, the rich man did not give anything to anybody and finally he wrote an
announcement – always, when people wanted to get something from him, they
should write letters to him not in the standard way, but in a way to please
him. "If I like some letter, I shall do something, but I am not going to
answer dull letters." The people wondered how to write to him, everybody
wrote and wrote, but nobody received an answer. But one man wrote to him like
this: “Sir, I do not know how to write you. But I have two boils that appeared
on my body. I need money - I need two bandages. Don’t you have some little
cloth - please, send me two little cloths with your servant to put them on my
boils.” The rich man immediately took two banknotes, put them in an envelope,
sent them to the man and wrote: “Dear brother, I am sending you two cloths. If
you can use them, it will be good. If necessary I can send you some more
cloths.” That man wrote a second letter: “ My things do not go well. Besides
these two boils, one bigger boil came on my other leg. So I need a bigger
cloth." The rich man put a bigger banknote and sent it to him. That man
wrote to him again: “I do not know what to do, I wonder that scabies break out
now in a big area. I need a much bigger cloth.” And so after the rich man had
sent those cloths, at last the man wrote: "Thank you very much, but
because I am dressed now only in cloths, I do not know how to take them off, as
I think of going to the baths. Won’t you give me a towel?” The rich man wrote
to him: “I am glad that you need a towel, but after you get out of the bath,
you will come to me with the towel.”
All that needs a translation. It is symbolical. Things have to be
translated. We are living an artificial life with imaginatively big sorrows.
You say: “I am very grieved!” But it is not true: you have not a big grief, but
a small one. We have not yet learned to tell the Truth. I made some
psychological findings; usually the cause of the biggest sorrows is very small.
But as it gets polarized, it seems to be very big, when in fact it is very
small. Throw it out of your soul. And the cure is very simple. If a big
suffering comes to you, say: “God has made the world, He will take care of me,
then I shall take care too.”
The essential thing is not in observing things. The only thing that
can help you, the needed power will be given to you. Light and everything else
will act in unity for you.
I say, we shall use the small God granted gift every day. If you
expect full barns, knowledge and power as the angels live, you will waste your
whole life in vain. Somebody wants to become a great man, he thinks about the
future, what a saint he will be, how famous he will be, and whether he could become
a teacher, etc. First use life as it is revealed in you, use even the smallest
possibilities in life and sustain your sacred thoughts. Every one of you has at
least one sacred thought, which to sustain.
When you injure your leg, you say: “When my leg gets better, I will
believe in God.” How many times did your leg ache and then got better, but you
did not believe. The same will be happen this time too. And how will you prove
that your leg is aching? You have not examined the origin of the pain. Some
illness you have might be not yours. Its cause might be very remote; it might
be found in America, for example. Probably someone in America is ill and you by
sympathy are connected with him. And since he is painful, you are painful too.
We are placed in the following position: a man lived in a village
near the city of Varna who liked to pull out teeth and was very skilled in
this. Once a bey /*title of a vassal in the former Ottoman Empire/ came to that
village with his wife, who had a bad tooth. The bey visited that Bulgarian to
pull out the tooth of his wife. The bey waited downstairs, his wife went
upstairs. The man took the pliers and the woman started to cry upstairs. The
bey who loved her very much was also crying downstairs. Though the bey did not
have his tooth pulled, he cried together with his wife. The same is with you
now. Somebody is having his tooth pulled, but you are crying and groaning.
There are sorrows out of sympathy. Something pricks you in the breasts, but it
is not real. It is just the feeling of a thought coming by reflection.
So first of all, we shall abandon the delusions of life. A thought
may come to you: “If I break my leg, that and that will happen to me."
Thousands of similar thoughts may come to you in one day. All that may happen,
if you assume it, but if you do not assume it, it will not happen.
I say, stop assuming things. All of you imagine such things and all
of you sit pondering over how the New Teaching will advance in the world;
whether the way you are going is right or not; when, in how many years the
kingdom of God will be established - here on Earth. You are like children. The
Kingdom of God cannot come to Earth in the present conditions. But it is not
far away and we benefit from it. One day we shall go there. Some of you - by a
carriage and others - on foot. But if somebody mentions the world beyond, you
start bothering. You say: “A sister passed away, a brother passed away.” Where
did the passed away brothers and sisters from the Brotherhood go, where are
they? They are here, amongst you, sitting around. What will you say? They are
sitting and laughing and saying: “We are here again!” Once they had their own
houses and now they are coming like tenants. They had sold everything and
everyone rented now a small room; he is coming for the lectures and then going
back.
Let us suppose that you think about somebody. He has passed away.
You can often notice that when a brother from the other world has come, if he
enters in the body of another brother, the last starts to resemble him a little
bit. His ears bent, his eyes change. When the passed away brother leaves him,
the face of that brother acquires its former appearance. So, first of all, you
shall distinguish between your states, to know whether it is really you or not.
Every day you should give an account to yourself when you are alone and when
you are not. Do not consider it as something bad. If a small window is a token
only of little light, much more light will pass through a bigger window. Where
is the transgression then?
The law is: the knowledge that comes from God, the Divine light, to
become a fortune of our souls. It is better, if the light is greater. But we
are afraid that if too much light comes in, we shall lose our ground. You
should have as much light as needed in the given case. The same law applies to
Love too. Sometimes you want more love than you need. Love also can be
unbearable in some cases. You should have as much love as to make you joyful.
For in every given moment Love will come and leave in front of you more and
more of the visible world. It is not necessary for you to see all the blossomed
flowers. You may see just one flower and you will fill with joy, then you will
see another one and so on. You will see one river, then a second one, a third one
and so on. Gradually, going from one subject to another, you will experience
the manifestations of the world.
You think of a brother or a sister and you expect to meet some
saint. In fact you go among saints here. The saints, first of all, do not have time
to invite you to pay a visit to them. How will you benefit, if you see a saint?
How do the saints look in your vision, how do you imagine them? Are they
painted as in the church? The saints are always merry and well disposed. They
have not troubles. When a saint meets you, you say to yourself: “Now I am
stuck!” But he says: ”You are not stuck at all. You go the very right way.” You
say to him: “The devil took hold of me.” The saint will tell you: “The devil
had entangled himself alone.”
The following law exists in the world: The devil tries to push you
in all the snares he is making, but he wants to stay out of them. As you eat
the morsel in the snare, you will be sentenced, you will be imprisoned, but he
will escape. If you have trust in God, being prone to some temptation, God will
catch both you and the devil in the snare – and then you will get released from
evil and you will get free from the devil. Once the devil was caught, all your
affairs will go better. If your affairs do not go well, it means, that the
devil has not been caught in your snare. You say: “I am a bad man.” The devil
has not been caught in the snare together with you. You say : “I am out of
luck.” The devil has not been caught in the snare. As soon as he will be
caught, you will be lucky. Then you should have a childlike faith: God is the
one who reigns. Whatever may happen in the world, turn your mind towards God.
If you have some pain, pause and say to yourself: “That is for good. I do not
know it, but it is for good.” Somebody will say: “But how is it for good! You
do not know it, but it is for good.“ Even if it is not for good, you say: “It
is for good.” While the devil is cheating you, cheat him too. He wants to push
you in the snare. Take his arm, let him in the snare and say: “We are both
here.” I do not know how to say it, but we love the devil very much. After he
has fallen into the snare, out of love we open the door with the words: “Come
on, you may go, I shall stay here for you.” We are very generous. The devil
says: “Thank you very much.” And he goes away. The rule is: when a devil has
been caught in the trap, do not let him go! Tell him: “I love you very much.
Since I caught you we will have a much more pleasant conversation here in the
trap." The people are always caught. Do not open the trap and do not let
the devil out! I see now your devils laughing, but I have a devil who is always
crying. Yours are laughing, mine is crying. My devil often says to me: “Look at
those devils, they are always joyful and I am all the time crying.” I reply:
“They are joyful, but you will cry.” Let your devil cry a little. If your devil
is happy, you will cry. And when he starts crying, you will rejoice. It would
be much better to change your roles: he to cry, you to rejoice. Now I wish you that
your devils cry and you rejoice!
The LORD’s Prayer
30th lecture from
the Common Occult Class
Sofia, Izgrev