The talents

“And to one He gave five talents, to other two, and to other one – for everyone according to his power.”

From Mathew 25:15

I shall speak you upon the15th verse from the 25th chapter from the Gospel of Mathew. There is no doubt, you have read this chapter many times, you have been stopped to the talents to think; you maybe did and some conclusions, some of them were closer to the truth, other – further. I shall take this verse in its ordinary sense.

When Jesus expressed one sentence or proverb, He had in mind the main Divine thought, the Divine law, i.e. He didn’t speak only to find reason to speak but expressed some truths. Now we may ask the question to ourselves why He gave to the one five talents, to the other – two, and to the last – one. Is this accidentally or deliberately? In Nature all the things that God created are not accidental – there is nothing accidental. We say for many things that they happened “accidentally” when we can’t explain them. We meet one man and we say that we meet him accidentally; one of the laws of Life says that our meeting determines from some preceding reasons which made us meet; when we don’t know the law, we say that we meet accidentally, without any reason, but it is not like that. What we have to understand under the words five talents, two talents, one talent? There are three kinds of people: ones who correspond to the five, other – to the two, and a third – to one talent. Now who are those to one talent? They are those who live only for themselves. – “To eat three times a day, to drink, to lie down for a while until our body becomes more fattened, and to dress more nicely – that is why – they say – we came to this world.” They are egoists, fruitless, seedless – people with one talent. And who are those with two? A man who married, he is one talent, and his wife – the other; two men get together and win two talents more; kids are born to them, they become fourth and say: “God, we used the two talents – reared kids and won two more.” It is in the first sense; in the second sense they are people who live for their home, for the society, for the nation. These men, with the five talents, they already have something more – the five talents correspond to our five feelings; it means people in who all the feelings – eyesight, hearing, the sense of smell, taste and the sense of touch – are in their places. They are people with the right reasoning and conclusions for everything what God created – they understand Nature, understand the things, understand the causes and the consequences; they are teachers of the world, they live for the whole of humanity.

Now, let’s make one little calculation of the given talents: we have 1+2+5=8 talents. Is the number 8 accidental? No, it is a number of labour. The Writing says that God made the world in six days and on the seventh He had a rest. After every rest a new working day is coming. We are on the eighth day. And God said to the people: “Here, I made the world, now your day is beginning, work and one day I shall come to see you revise your work.” We live on the eighth day and since we don’t know how to work we make mistakes, but God says: “Work, go ahead, mistakes, of course, you will do.” Which teacher doesn’t expect his disciples to tear books and to make much noise in the school; which woman who does the housework, doesn’t make much noise; which dyer will not soil when he paints?; which man who works will not dirty and reduce his clothes to rags? In the process of our development we don’t have to want the impossible, we constantly have to expect change and disappointment. Are you afraid of death but what is death? Death is growing old, the rupturing of our cloth. This is the law – the body changes gradually. The Writing says: “God made the man in his image and likeness”. Yes, the Divine plan is this, but because he left us to work, to create mind and heart, character to educate in execution of this Divine plan, the fact that we will make much noise, with soil around, doesn’t mean anything. When a house is building upon the place there are stones, bricks, and sand scattered– many things but after the house is built, all these things are cleaned and then the people enter to live in it. Therefore we are now in the period of the eighth day and we build. And in this building three categories of people work: ones who have one talent, other – two, third – five.

Now let’s come to gather these talents: to that man who won from the fifth, five more – it becomes ten; from the two – two more – four, they all become fourteen and with one buried in the earth – fifteen. Well, from this number when we take eight, how many are the won ones? Seven. What does the number seven mean? We said – rest. Now we have the law, the thought which Christ has hided there, which thought captures only he who knows the Writing – namely those who want to rest have to be worked and those who don’t work, must not take a rest. Because God worked six days he had a rest on the seventh. We often say: “When shall I take a rest! “ You still didn’t start to work, so what rest you are looking for – you just raised the hoe on your shoulder and you want a rest; after you dig the whole vineyard, then you have to want and the rest will come. We have to understand the main Divine law that the rest is as a result of the work. Only these men will be joyful, happy, who worked; and Christ says it: “These men who worked, will enter in the joy of Grace; all the goods which I have they will have too.” And what did He say to that man who didn’t work but has hided the talent on the earth? – “Take from him the one talent and give it to this man who has five and turn him out, into the darkness, to learn to work there.” Which is this outside darkness? The worms which work downwards in the earth. If you don’t learn to work, God will turn you into worms and will put you in the earth to work in darkness till you learn to do it. All these men who want to philosophize upon the Divine law will taste if these words are right or not. I speak to you this morning upon this main law; we have to work. And only when we work for the God, it is work; when we work for our selves, it is labour.

The work understands Knowledge. That man who took five talents has five feelings – God gave to him all the abilities and necessary knowledge; and that man who has two talents, he possesses abilities too, accordingly with his knowledge. I shall make one comparison more: With the one talent – this is a man who is like one mineral which can’t multiply, it always stays one. In it the sun light may refracts very well but it can’t be a sensible being. When your heart hardens like mineral, you are a man who has only one talent. And there the danger is hiding because the Writing says: “And I shall deprive the stone heart from you.” And this one talent has to overturn and to begin to produce and develop. The other talents understand – the wheat grain, the plant life, which stay little higher than the minerals and which multiply and earn. What the beautiful minerals can deliver in our Life; we all should die if it remained to live from them. Thanks to the wheat grain which brings two talents, thanks to the industry and thanks to these five talents (abilities which our mind possesses for a higher spiritual life, which shows how we have to work out the goods which God gives us) we may be rescued from many misfortunes in this world.

We have to ask the question what this means “for everyone his power”; it means that every one of us has to know his power. The people often say: “I want to have bigger gifts, bigger abilities.” Good, if you didn’t use these gifts that you have, don’t know how to work them out, who will give you more? Every one of us has so many gifts that if we would work them out, they are enough to create a base for five talents. But just a few have five talents. I believe that the majority of you, who listen to me here, have two talents; even positively I may say that you all have two talents. But if you transform these two talents in four it will be other thing. And what does the number four mean? It means that you have to find the process of purifying your life. You need water but it is turbid; you have to find the means to purify it, haven’t you – if you drink it with mud, it will damage you. So, the number four is the Divine process, through which our desires and thoughts in this world filtrate. That man who has two talents has to work to the moment until he makes one filter. But do you know how much it costs? Ask one dairyman, go to one dairy and ask that man who makes cheese what remain in the filter. Through it only the whey may be filtered out. Your filter is your critical mind which you must have for the things of Life. When you say about somebody that he is critical, you have to understand that he has a filter, in which when he puts something in to filter, the precious remains and the useless is filtered out. It depends what you filter – if you filter cheese, it remains in the filter, but if you filter water, the clean, the limpid water, will exit the filter, and the turbidity will remain. Your filter has to have two essential qualities, it means two talents: when you use the one talent the precious has to remain in the filter; when you use the second talent, the precious has to be eliminated. I’ll make another comparison: The filter with the cheese – it is your wheat garner; the water out of the filter – it is your wheat sown outside, in the field – in Life. The first talent has to exercise from the fruit which God gave you, and the second talent you have to sow – to work with it. In the world you have different purposes: some time in your initiatives you succeed, in other ways – no; this shouldn’t discourage you not in the least because those who have little talent and want to acquire more, have to work more – this is the law. It is dangerous for that man who has one talent and who didn’t work with it at all. The first thing which is required from us is to know how to work.

I said to you that you have two talents; you will ask which are they? Your mind and your heart – these are two talents. But you will say: “For what can I use my mind? “ – To some man’s car breaks down in the street; you go by there, you have knowledge, repair his car; he will be grateful to you, and sometime, when it is his turn, he will help you – in the case you win too. The second talent – it is your heart. Some man is ill; your heart has to get you to drop in to see him and to serve. The two talents – these are the roots of our Life. From our heart we have to understand the roots of our Life, and from our mind – the branches and the leaves outside. You know that in Nature there exists one correlation between the roots and the twigs – to every twig there corresponds one little rootlet down in the earth and when down some root withers dome, dries and the respective branch. The law you have to observe is this: to know that if in you one desire dries up, and one thought will certainly dry up; if two your desires dry up, two thoughts will dry up; if three desires dry, three thoughts will dry and one day, when your feelings atrophy perfectly all the twigs will dry up and you will transform into men who have only one talent.

Let’s take a man who has five feelings – eyesight, hearing, sense of smell, taste and sense of touch; what role have these feelings in our life? They are the five doors through which man enters in this world, through which we experience Nature – five areas from which we may obtain wealth. A man deprived, in the full sense of the word, from hearing, is a stupid man; to be deprived psychically from eyesight means to be deprived from the possibility to see the truth; to be deprived from a sense of smell in psychical relation means to be deprived from your intellect; to be deprived from taste means to be deprived from love etc., we may enumerate plenty of things like these. Every one of our senses corresponds to one great Divine virtue and every one of us has to observe if his feelings are in harmony with his heart, if they are in connection with the Truth. If we look to this world, he is a clothing of the Truth; the visible world is in expression of the Truth; in every leaf, stone, spring, rock there are great lessons, great knowledge is hidden. Oh, what truths Nature can reveal to us! We take one stone, we roll it a little and throw it away and we say that it doesn’t cost anything – we didn’t understand the sense of this stone. Or we take one flower, tear its leaves and throw it away – it doesn’t cost anything; we didn’t understand the sense of this flower. Let’s come now to our ear; we hear the word love – it is one flower; did we understand the sense of this word – what does it means? No. “What is it, we ask, - nothing” - and we throw it away. But we hear the word truth and say: “It is an empty word.” What is then most important for us? – “Man to have a bite and after he has a bite to drink one glass of wine” – say some men. When it comes to the satisfaction of the taste, it is right, but not everything is concluded in eating. Really man has to eat, but under this law for the five talents he has to eat with five kinds of food – every feeling has to feed with its respective food; if we don’t feed it like this, it atrophies.

You see that Christianity is one science, it is not amusement. And do you know what science is Christianity? It is one great School with its departments, classes, universities, academies, and everyone who comes to listen to it has to understand what he listens to. I don’t want people with one talent who are buried in it; in the school I teach that I want people with two talents. Why? Because I don’t want to waste my time with vain work. Would you like to breed lice or fleas? These are the creatures with one talent. All the parasites are people with one talent – spongers, lazy beggars who live only on the back of others, big punishment awaits them. Test the spirits – when one spirit comes first take it and study it: if it is with two talents, take it and feast it; if it is with one buried talent, don’t receive it, if it is with one talent – out, it is louse, flea, it is one wolf which you can’t ennoble. But some people say: “This man may be ennobled”; I say that he may only breed lice. How the master acted with that man who had one talent? He took him and turned him out, to teach him to work. We never have to give courage to the man with one buried talent, we have to tell him: “You, my friend, the biggest danger in Life waits for you” – we don’t have to lie to him, but we have to tell him the truth. We often say: “No problem”. You have a child; if you see that he has one talent, turn him out and let him go to roam in the world. You will say: “Isn’t this cruelly?” Take his talent because he didn’t know how to make use of it. You have son with one talent, you send him into foreign parts to study philosophy or medicine or some art; he writes you: “Father, send me four–five thousand leva because I need so and so”, and actually he takes the money and feasts on the public houses. It passes two-three-seven-ten years, the son doesn’t graduate; the father says to himself: “O, it is very deep science”, spend twenty-thirty thousand levs on him and expect many things from him. After seven or ten years the son comes back, but except that he didn’t earn knowledge, except that he spent so many funds, he comes back with ten degrees further down, completely decomposed, lewd in the thoughts and the desires and then the father says: “Why, my God, did you give him to me?” Did God give him to you or did you take him by yourself? When one thief steals a farthing which doesn’t cost, is that man who had it guilty? No, the thief himself who stole it is guilty. Often, when some man steals from God, he steals this which doesn’t cost.

Of course, with my lecture I don’t want to scare you, because my aim is not like this. When one disciple is in a school, when he is in the lead in the laboratory for experimental attempts, the teacher has to explain to him the characteristics of the different things and to tell him that if he is not careful one attempt may cost to him dearly. Because many people from carelessness lost their eyesight and the other their senses.

Let’s apply Christ’s rule in the social life. They often ask me why Bulgaria suffers. But you proposed to the government for prime minister a man with one talent and you want him to set Bulgaria right; how will it happen? This man, as Christ says, has to be pulled down and to be turned out. For the post of prime minister a man with five talents is wanted, not even with two – people with two talents should be policemen, soldiers. The officers must have four talents, the generals and the ministers – five, and for the kings who take the highest position in the country, ten talents are necessary. Bulgaria suffers because in relation to its government it’s not putting forward people with five talents – often people with one are put and after that they call them and judge; as you see they judge them and now. These men who stole are stupid, but and these men who put them to rule are even more stupid. One man appoints an unfit servant and expects from him good work, and after that he wonders why the work hasn’t been finished. We have to wonder as soon as possible to the master. And now in Bulgaria we need people with two, four, five, ten talents. If we have them, we will be the first nation in the world, there will not be difficulties and hindrances for us there – even all the countries who plot against the Bulgarian nation, will not succeed. Then, I assure you, any unhappiness can’t befall us. That is why, you pray for these people to be created. They will come. Let’s put these talents – two, four, five, ten - to work.

And in the end I ask why did God give this mind to us? Firstly it is one filter. Did you filter the milk, do you know how to curdle and turn it into cheese? Let’s apply in the Life this law for filtering. They often complain: “I have got no friends in the world.” Why have you got no friends? When you tell me: “I haven’t got even one friend”, I already may doubt and to tell that you are a man with one talent. If you say: “Nobody loves me” I shall make a conclusion that you are man with one talent, who is buried all Divine in the earth; man-egoist who lives for himself deserves to be without friends, to be out, in the darkness. This is what Christ says with these talents.

You will ask: “Well, what is this ferment we have to work with?” You have it but you have to know how to curdle it, to turn it into cheese the milk. If the milk is too cold can it curdle? It can’t. If it is too hot, can it? Again it can’t. You have to observe one main law in the curdling process: you must have good feelings, good wishes – to curdle the man with good yeast, to curdle him in the way that he is not going to go sour, to moisten him with the Truth. And if you moisten him with it you are people with two talents – then you will have four. And when you have four talents, you are already people who are saved, it means that you have passed through the law of Jesus, through the process of the self-perfection, the purging from evil desires. These are the two talents which you have to apply in your life.

You may have listened to other sermons upon the talents. They mean money, abilities, power; they are something objectively, not subjectively. Talent is always power which is introduced outside which could be given to us and to be taken again. The talents never could be in possession of the man, they are belonged and belong only to God and He gives and takes them, according to how we act. You are born on the Earth – He gives you two talents and says: “Work! If you win two more I shall multiply them, I shall give you five, and you will enter in My joy.” And even if He gave you only one talent, again there is a place in the world: if such a man says that he wants to win one more talent, he will save himself. And when we see that such a man makes efforts and suffers, this shows that he wants to win one talent more; because when one man suffers, in him suffers this originally sinful being who has only one talent. Such a man has to pass from the one, from his me first attitude, from his egoism to the Divine Love and the self-sacrifice – a man who has only one talent has to sacrifice him to win two. To work out your heart and mind, this means to have two talents, and five – to develop all your feelings in perfection. Do you know what thing is to the development of all these feelings? Many people look but don’t see; listen but don’t hear; taste but don’t understand the good. For example when man tastes bread, is he sometimes saying?: “God, thank you for the bread which You gave to me, thank you for the life which You introduce in me through it!” If you don’t thank, it shows that you not only did you not understand what thing is taste, but didn’t understand what this mouth is made for. It is necessary to enter in it first the life of the Love which is the basis of everything.

Keep these thoughts in yourself: if God gave you one talent, pray to Him to be with you and to give you two – there is the salvation. Christ came to save the world, to save more of those men who have one talent. But do you know how many sorrows these sluggards cost Him? A lot. If a man has one talent, leave it to God; I tell you: turn him out. Why? Because only God is in a position to cure him, to save him, you are not in a position to do it. When I tell you: “Turn him out”, I want with this to make him good, to find God. Because when he holds onto you he will never work; when he finds himself abandoned, he will turn to God and will be saved. Don’t give him anything to eat, let him starve for two-three-five days, let him torment a little, what there is! What is this? How many times in a day does the kid cry? If it doesn’t cry, the mother will not feed it. People with one talent – there is no Life in them; it is just the same as a dead body works, just as a man with one talent; it just like a miser sacrifices, just as a man with one talent is able to help. I say to all of you, who are here, who have two talents: if you begin to look like that kind of man and you transform into one talent, you will commit a great crime. You are people that can have four. And when God finds that you work, and you say to him: “With the two talents that you gave me, God, I earned two more”, He will say: “Good servant, enter to My joy!”

10th of May, 1914, Sofia

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