“But the very hairs on your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
Luke 12:7
It takes a lot of arguments, facts and logical conclusions to convince modern people that there is a Divine Design, which gives direction to human life through certain laws. All thoughts, desires and actions are defined by certain laws. Sometimes, we incorrectly interpret the things that happen in life, which are strange to us. As a result of this, and as time and generations pass by, we have formed the strange philosophy that everything in the world is supposedly random, i.e. that there is supposedly no law and order, that the power belongs to the strong, the smart, the cunning, etc. Do I need to prove to you that this is a great delusion?
When we look at Christ’s life, we can see that Christ always paid attention to the small things. He told his disciples straight away: “Don’t worry, your life is secured,” and as an example, he says that out of five sparrows not a single one will fall to the ground without the will of the Father. Why did Christ use the number five and why did he not take one sparrow as an example? There is a law in place here, the law of the number five, and everyone who is under this law will not fall without the will of the Father. With the second comparison, Christ tells us: “You are provided for, the hairs on your head are all numbered,” and stops at that. We may think to ourselves, “Of what importance is it that our hairs are all numbered?” The fact is that if God has counted these hairs, if He keeps their number in his account, then they must be of some importance. Do you know how many hairs there are on the human head? Many have counted them to find out that some people have two hundred and fifty thousand, others have three hundred and twenty thousand hairs, and God keeps a count of all these hairs, much like a farmer keeps a count of his fruit trees by putting a number on each tree. We may pluck out a hair from our head and throw it away but this hair serves a purpose and it plays a very important role on our head.
If I now start talking about the meaning of hairs, I will get distracted from my topic, so I will go back to the example with the sparrows, instead. This comparison implies that our spiritual life is protected by the Divine Design. In turn, the comparison with the hairs on the head implies that our physical life, too, is protected by the same Divine Design. It is necessary that deep inside we build faith in this Design, because only when we believe in it, can we evolve correctly. Every suspicion, which penetrates our minds and hearts, that there is no Design in the world takes us away from the correct understanding of the order of things and makes us try and create another order and other rules that reflect our own views. When a man and a woman get married, they think that God has given them power over each other. The man says, “You lived a certain way in your mother’s home but now you will live under new laws in my house. I am a little touchy and I take offence easily, so watch out because if you insult me, I will apply this strict law.” The woman, in turn, says to her husband, ”I am very sensitive and delicate; I was not brought up to work, so do not make me do difficult chores. If you break this law, the situation will change right away.” As you can see, all people make up a set of their own laws, but what happens eventually is that the man and the wife end up fighting. Why? Because the position they take is false in its very foundation, for the truly good marriage is not something that was tied on Earth.
There are three kinds of marriages: one kind that is made in Heaven, another that is made on Earth and the third that is made in hell; one kind is made by God, another is made by people and the third is made by the devil. When one enters into a marriage arranged by God, it will bring Love, Peace and Joy into one’s home. There will always be understanding between the husband and the wife, they will never exchange a single bad word and will live a blissful life together. When a marriage is put together by people, it will be such that one will be able to perfect oneself through it. There will be conflict between the husband and wife, they will be grating on each other, which will help them smooth out the rough edges of their character, just as in the proverb which says that two sharp stones cannot grind wheat together. Such marriage is not a Divine work, but human, and as such, the work will only be as good as human thinking is. When God starts doing something, He, being all-wise, plans everything well. When people take care of things, they arrange them in such a manner that there is always conflict, there is always “grating” that helps the self-perfection, it helps people smooth out their character. However, when the marriage is arranged by the devil, there will surely be discord, lechery and all those bad things. In a home where people live like that, their marriage was arranged by the devil. Therefore, give each thing its precise definition and do not take God’s deeds for human deeds, nor for the devil’s deeds.
In order for us to think correctly and logically, we need to understand the source of things. If there is anything useful in modern science at all, it is that they have determined that certain laws exist in the world, which regulates the relationships between things, elements and bodies. There are clearly defined laws of physics, chemistry, of the human soul, and these laws regulate the relationships between things; no one can break these laws without suffering the consequences in one way or another. So, three kinds of people exist: one that understands things in a Divine way, another that understands things in a human way and a third that understands things in a devilish way. The first situation is when we understand things the way they are predestined by God from the beginning of time. The second is when one thinks that God does not have a hand in all matters; therefore, we need to interfere in order to straighten things out. For example, when God does something we say, “God couldn’t finish this, let us correct it.” The third situation is when one wants to become God oneself. Thousands of years ago, people used to perceive things Divinely, but in their fall they lost this understanding. When you are in a good mood, you, too, believe in God deep in your soul. If things are going well for you, you say, “Thank God, our Lord is taking care of us,” but as soon as some misfortune befalls you, you say, “God has forsaken us.” But on what grounds do you claim that God has forsaken you, and that He is the reason for your suffering? God says, “Because you have forgotten Me, I will forget about you, too.” If you distance yourselves from Him, He will distance Himself from you. Some think that God, who is unchangeable, and constant in His Love will have to follow them when they start distancing themselves from Him and that He will have to cry like a mother after her child, “Wait, my son, do not walk away from Me.” No, God stays in His place and when you say, “God has distanced Himself from me,” I take it to mean that you have distanced yourselves from Him, and not He from you. Some people travel around God on a correct path, with little variation; sometimes their path swerves a little away from Him, but then it winds back towards Him, just like the path of the Earth around the Sun. Others, however, move along a path like that of a stray comet - at times it moves too close to the Sun, then it stays away from it for centuries. The same way you, too, when you move away from God, say, “God has forgotten us.” Well, I am telling you this, in seventy-five years when you go near Him again, just like Haley’s Comet, then God will remember you again. It all depends on the orbit on which you travel around God - when your path nears Him, He will remember you again.
Now, all of you are moving along a certain path but not all of you can understand me equally. Why is that? Because you do not all move within the same orbit. I am not judging you; I am considering these things objectively, philosophically. “This is our path,” you may object. Well, the question is if your path was meant to be this way or if it was you who made it this way. I am telling you that your path was not meant to be this way. For example, between Sofia and Varna there are train tracks that break all the time, and require great expense to be repaired. Did God make these tracks? If he had made them, they would have been built very wisely, but it is because people made them that they were made in such an imperfect way. If you follow the laws of the Divine design, then when you build the train tracks no accidents will ever happen. However, the technicians’ understanding of the needs of construction is better than the Christian believers’ understanding of Life. The former ones say, “We need to do very precise mathematical calculations of the kinds of turns and slopes the train will take on its way, so that we can regulate the force of movement. If we don’t do this, there will be an accident.” The Christians, on the other hand, think to themselves; “God is good, He takes care of us, so whatever slope we may take, it won’t matter.” And when the car turns over they say, “Our things are not going well.” Of course your things are not going well, because when considering the turns of the train tracks, you have not taken into account the law of the Divine Design. Therefore, in some cases the spiritual people may need to learn from the worldly people; you may need to be their pupils. It is not embarrassing to be a pupil. And then, when it comes to the spiritual matters that are unfamiliar to the worldly people, they will become your pupils. You cannot be teachers in all matters of life - sometimes you will be teachers, other times you will be pupils.
The Divine Design has strictly defined all things and phenomena - there is nothing accidental. All events from whatever character they may be - physical, mental or social - are governed and ruled by one Supreme Being, which watches over their development. Just like there is an engine driver who watches over the train engine because the lives of the passengers depend on him, the same way our Earth, which travels in space, has its own driver who sometimes puts more coal in the engine, and at other times less. The path of the Earth has certain curves and bends; therefore, the Earth sometimes moves closer to a bigger planet that affects the Earth in a certain way. However, as these things are a little far-fetched, you will need to study them in the future in order to understand them.
Now I want to go back to the Divine Design and, since it is important for you to understand it, I will use a story as an example. You can take this story as a prehistoric legend because the events that are described in it are fantastic and allegorical. Some people date this story back to Solomon’s time, but the things that are mentioned in the story relate to a much earlier time in history. They say that once upon a time there was a very learned and wise king who could speak the language of all animals. He used to gather all the animals each year and at these gatherings he would teach them and preach to them, and at the end, he used to conclude all his speeches with the following words, “What God has done no one can undo.” At one of these gatherings, there were two big eagles called rockas. One of them said, “I can undo what God has done.” The king said, “Very well, prove this with facts,” and dismissed the gathering. In that same year the daughter of another king was getting married to a prince. After they got married they were walking back from the temple, rejoicing with each other, when one of the eagles swooped down, picked up the bride, took her to a far-away island, and dropped her into its nest in a big tree. The groom was left alone without his companion; he became desperate and set out to travel. He boarded a ship that was wrecked a few months later. The waves then washed the desperate traveller onto the same island on which his bride was taken to. Not knowing this, he started complaining to God, “Oh, Lord, was it not enough of a misfortune to lose my wife and now I am washed onto this deserted island. I wish I’d never been born.” His wife, who was in the nest on top of the same tree, heard a man cry and climbed down to see who it was. When she saw that it was her husband, she hid him in the nest. When the time came for the next gathering of all animals, the two eagles picked up the nest with the bride in it and took it to the gathering. The king talked again, and at the end he finished his talk with the usual words, “What God has done, no one can undo.” Then the eagle spoke up again, “I undid one of God’s deeds.” “Prove it,” the king told him. When the eagle told the story of the wedding, the king asked to see the bride. When the eagle called for the bride to step out of the nest, the groom appeared alongside her. When the eagle saw that he could not undo what God had done, he exploded with anger.
You should take the eagle as a symbol of the human mind. Sometimes we say that we can undo what God has done, and that we can change the form of things, but in the end, things happen the way they were designed by God to happen and we, like the proud eagle, explode in our anger.
The modern teachers teach at every step, “Be smart, stupidity does not make the world go round.” I say instead, be thankful for the stupid ones. It is because of them that God is still keeping the world. There are no smarter spirits than the devils in the world. Have you been in their kingdom to see how they live? You talk about human intelligence, but if you descend to these fallen spirits, you will find concepts of physics, of chemistry, and of spiritual manifestations; you will find a lot of knowledge on how to lie, cheat, and do so many things, but their knowledge cannot bring order and harmony because it is not based on those elements that can solidify Life. Knowledge needs to be solidified through Divine Love. Therefore, when someone talks about knowledge and facts, I ask, “Do you have concrete to solidify these things?” If you have concrete, you truly do have Divine knowledge, but if all you have is bare facts and no cement for them, they cannot be of any service. I am asking you, if you gather two hundred thousand or a million strands of sheep wool, but do not know how to tie them together, what good will they be for you? Only when you spin them and weave them together in a certain way will you be able to make clothes to dress yourself with. According to the same law, when we can solidify our thoughts and desires through this Divine cement, the Divine Design, only then will we be able to make a dress to cover our internal nakedness. Therefore, we need this Design in order to live and evolve.
That is why Christ says, “Do not fear,” and asks why the five sparrows do not fall. You use the number five in other ways, too: five senses, five fingers, etc. It is an emblem of human beings on Earth. The number five represents the human being - the wise, thinking person - and says that this wise person will not fall as long as he does not err. If you are wise and fulfil God’s Will, you will not fall. However, the day when you err, God will let one of these sparrows fall to the ground, and when it falls down, the hairs on your head will start falling off, too, which means that your life will start falling apart.
So, always keep in mind that the Divine Design will take care of you for as long as you move unswervingly along the path of its laws. If you move away, your life will start falling apart. If you want to start evolving again, you will need to turn once again towards the Sun of this Design.
June 6, 1915, Sofia
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