“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.”
From Mathew 28:19
In the sermons of the entire Christian world the text about Christ’s resurrection is read today; Only in America there are eighty, ninety, one hundred thousand preachers, and in Bulgaria – three thousand and three hundred priests, who preach the Resurrection today – everywhere people talk about it. Because so many people talk about it, I would like to take a small detour.
Certainly many examine the issue from a historic and philosophic point of view, i.e. whether Resurrection is possible to happen. The dispute is also on a purely physiological level: is it possible for a person to rise from the dead. Ideologists and theologians keep writing and trying to prove that Resurrection is possible, but even they fail to prove it.
I would like to dwell upon these words ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ The teaching about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is a profound teaching. What is this science about? You often say these words Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, but what do they mean to you? They can be meaningful to you only if they can produce a certain effect. When you hold a match from a box of matches, you will never see its force unless you have the skills to light it; only when you light it can you see its force. Similarly resurrection will be a subject unknown to you, if you do not light this word like the match – to produce Light in your mind and in your heart or if you do not sow it like a seed, so that it can grow, to see its fruit. It is enough if in one’s life there are two or only one such word, which one can understand properly, this person will become a genius; when this person understands two such words, such a person will become a saint; had such a person understood three words, then one will become one with Jesus Christ. So, in each language which we speak, there are words, which when understood, acquire magical meaning. Moses when he raised his staff at the Red Sea spoke one word and it divided into two. And Christ, when standing in front of Lazarus’s grave and cast a glance above, spoke only one word, ‘Lazarus, come out of the grave!’ And in the beginning God spoke only one word and the world was made.
We know how to speak and write properly, grammatically correctly – with the commas and full stops, question and exclamation marks; we debate over many philosophical issues, but we not how put our life in order. We resemble that philosopher who went out in the sea and while talking with the boatman, he asked:
Are you educated, do you know anything in astronomy?
And having received an answer, ‘I do not know’, he said:
You have wasted one quarter of your life.
Do you know anything in geology, he asked him then.
No, I do not know.
You have wasted half of your life. How about mathematics, don’t you know mathematics?
No, I do not know.
Three quarters of your life you have wasted.
There came a violent storm shortly after and the boat was just about to turn upside down; then the boatman stood up and asked the philosopher, ‘Can you swim?’to which the latter replied, ‘No, I can’t’. Taking his turn the boatman said, ‘Four quarters of you life you have wasted.’
We are now like these philosophers and are asking ourselves how Christ was born and how He came down to Earth, but as soon as a storm starts brewing in our life, as soon as we experience ceratin difficulties and sufferings, we find out that we can’t swim and we start sinking; where then is the your philosophy, your mathematics, what use can they be to you? Mathematics, however, is a science – how to build a meaningful life; biology – how to put our cells in order; geology – what is our attitude to the earth and so on.
There are three periods in Christ’s life, which are significant – they are present in everybody’s life – birth, death and Resurrection. Note that when Christ was born, the Angels appeared in the sky and announced Peace among people; so, Christ was born in triumph, but we see that this triumphant Christ had to undergo a most humiliating death. The question is why should he have had such a death? Modern people die and I was often asked why they die – there are reasons. Christ died a shameful death and finally He rose from the dead.
I shall now make a short comparison – how did death appear in the world? We know that when Adam was in Paradise, God embodied Life and death in the form of two fruit trees, one of which He called The Tree of Life, and the other one – The Tree of knowing Good and Evil. In a purely esoterric and mystic sense, The Tree of Life stands for all the aspirations of Nature to God – the aspiration, which travels upwards; this is the tide, which keeps growing. The Tree of knowing Good and Evil, however, grows downwards. So now, where did death come from? Following the most natural path, what will happen, if we start trains from two juxtaopposed points to travel towards the same destination? – An accident. Adam found himself between two such trains and not knowing how to evade the accident, he died. And each one of you shall have the same end, if you touch the fruit of the forbidden tree – this will happen to you on the day you touch the tree. But since, when you touch the tree, you will enter this great current flowing downwards – to the Earth, only a Divine power can rescue you from this current. Precisely for this did Christ come down to Earth, to guide people back to the primary current of Life – into the reverse process, which we call Resurrection.
In order to be able to understand this teaching, we have to understand the teaching about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. What should we understand the Father to mean – the teaching about the Divine Wisdom; the Son – the teaching of Divine Love; the Spirit – the teaching about the rising, the evolution of human beings. And the Scripture reads, ‘These who believe in this teaching, shall be saved’ – we have to understand the principles of this teaching. What are we supposed? Each one of you is a father, but do you understand you calling as fathers; each one of you has been in the position of the son, but do you know what the attitude of the son to the father should be? In the position of the Spirit you have not been, but you will be; you are now exactly in the process of the Spirit – this particular Spirit, which rises people and which should now raise Christ in us.
In order to be able to properly understand the teaching of Christ, we have to cast down many frivolities in this world; not to deny the world, because this woud be a distorted understang. The world has two faces: one purely Divine and one exteral face of things; and when we are told that we have to deny the world, this should be understood to mean tat we have to deny all these elements, which are of a transient, decieving nature, which do not contribute anything substantial to our life. But all this which facilitates our rising on the Earth, we have to keep, because the Scripture says elsewhere, ‘God loved the world so much, and He gave His Only Son to help it.’ That the world has two sides can be seen from another line from Aposlte Paul, which reads: ‘The image of this world passes, but there is an image which is unchangeable.’ One is born, grows up and believes that one will put the world in order and will conquer it, but at the age of forty to fifty-five and one notices certain weakening, feels that one’s strengths are leaving him/her and then one grows wiser and starts making the young ones to work for him/her; one becomes milder, more polite, because one is weak and because there is a thought developing in him/her that one is getting older and that one might die on the following day. Such thoughts are coming to mind, which may ease resurrection; modern people are altogether contaminated by the view that one cannot rise from the dead, cannot live again – this is exactly the biggest deceit in present life. One can rise from the dead, the way one can die – these are two relative domains. Once you counteract the forces of Nature, your form will disintegrate, if you do not understand the principles, you will be trampled down.
We have to free ourselves of these inherited obstacles existing in our souls. I shall give you an example and shall explain one great principle, which regulates Life: several sailors, Englishmen, left the ship to visit a European town. They took a walk around the town, got into various pubs and got drunk. On the way back they got into the boats, but forgot to unfasten them from the poles at the shore to which they were tied, and started rowing; they kept rowing and rowing all night long, thinking that they were coming closer to the ship, but they could see that they were still at the shore. Why did they not reach the ship? This short rope, coiled round the poles, this rope fastened them. People cannot rise due to exactly this reason – they are fastened to a pole. I have often seen little children catching birds and letting the birds fly on a string – the bird tries soaring, but falls back to the ground; are all people tied to a string just like this. People must have an ideal – but what ideal should this be? An ideal to draw them to Heaven. ‘I started flying, but I fell and I do know why’; because you are tied, you have doubts about your mind, there are important questions, which you have not resolved – unfasten your boat, peddle with the rows and follow your destination. We cannot avoid the consequencies of the causes: we think that our thoughts and desires are of no impact, but actually each thought, as weak as it can be, does have an impact. Moses, I think, says in the Deuteronomy, then God administers retribution for crimes up to the fourth knee – one crime should be liquidated for one hundred years. Those who have studied the principles must have noticed the following: if a black woman has a coitus with a white man, a white child may be born in the first generation, and if not in the second or third generations, then inevitably a black child will be born in the fourth generation; if the [black] child is born in the beginning, this is OK – this will put an end to the karma. The principle has a reverse effect too: if a white woman has a coitus with a black man, the black child may be born in the beginning and if it is not born then, then after a hundred years a black child will inevitably be born. And people wonder, ‘Why should God have sent to us this black child?’ A great-great grandmother of yours must have had a coitus with a black man. This principle works also in our feelings and thought: you stay calm for seven days and a bad thought comes to your mind – why? A hundred years ago your soul must have had a coitus with a black man – such a black man is called a devil. A bad desire of yours is also a child of yours; this karma principle is strict – we have to take good care of ourselves, because we cannot get away with the consequencies. We should never make room in our minds for a bad thought, because it will produce its own form and in the future, it does not matter when exactly, we will stumble over it. The issue is not that someone was born from a coloured man; the issue is that there are vibrations of black and white people, and these vibrations are different. Black people have aspirations to the Earth, not to Heaven – these are the people of that Tree from which your primary mother ate; the white people, who are now coming, are people of the Tree of Life. Hence we shall become what we eat.
And the Tree of Life is Christ. When this great thought about christ penetrates you (not the abstract thought that Christ is to the right of the Father, but Christ – the power, which has penetrated the entire Earth) and when this stream penetrates all beings, young and old alike, then Salvation will come. When Christ died, it became dark, people felt this emptiness, and the Scripture reads that Christ entered hell and preached this teaching there; and all who listened to him, got out of hell and came to the earth. Weren’t you also there when Christ taught? You were, but you have forgotten. And what did Christ tell you, when he descended there to get you out of darkness? ‘Go out and do not sin any more.’ Because you will have to deliver, as I told you above, black children – you will experience suffering after suffering. And because Christ is on Earth, He had decided to save human beings and He will – there is no power in the world, however mighty it may be, which is in a position to counteract Christs’ strength. He says, ‘The sheep that Father gave Me, nobody can take away from Me, because no one is greater than My Father.’ And if sometimes a doubt enters your soul, this is your black father – sever your bonds with him, no pure soul should mix with an impure one! When a child of any mother gets dirty, does she go hugging the child? No, she gives the child a good smacking first, then she gets the child washed, then she cleans the child, puts clean clothes on the child, and only then will she kiss the child – this is the simple philosophy of Life. Someone may tell you, ‘But you do not love me’; your clothes are muddy, my friend, there is mud all over, my sister; come, I will pay for your bath, clean yourself, wash your body, as well as your heart, the way it has to be done, and only after doing this, only then will you rise from the dead.’
Now, do you know why Christ suffers? The cross stands for the human house – a cube, unfolded, makes a cross, and Christ was resurrected on this cross. And God says now, ‘Clean your house, open the windows, clean everything!’ Some say, ‘Kiss this cross’, but this cross has to be cleansed. The cross is in the mind, in the heart – this is a cross people cannot kiss, until it is cleaned. We are all crosses – living crosses. We have to put up these Divine crosses in our hearts and having done this, we shall draw a circle, standing for eternity, and shall make a wheel or a propeller out of the cross, to get it moving.
Therefore Christ with His teaching wants to show us the main principles, which can help us change the order of things. And change the order of things we can. We have to have an idea first, and secondly, to aspire to accoplish it. Modern people cannot accomplish it, due to one simple reason: an inexorable selfishness – everybody wants to be first. An artist made it very clear in a picture: the artist painted a mountain peak, upon which there rests an idol, and millions of people are looking at this peak; and if one tries to climb up and reach the idol, the others clutch at him and do not let him go’ so similarly people are constrantly fighting and nobody can reach the peak. During running contests at the Olympic games in Ancient Greece the one, who first reached the finish, was the one to take the wreathe. In the quest for Christ, however, everybody can take this wreathe, as long as one is diligent and follows Christ’s teaching.
So there are these three things in the teaching about the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, if we can pronounce these three words in their full sense. When we pronounce Father, we should be able to feel the pulse of that being which makes the world moving – to feel it the way a mother can feel the pulse of her child; to feel the Divine thought, actually means to understand it and to be aware of it. ‘Then, as God said, before you have asked for something, I will grant your wishes.’ We all have to have excellent attitude to God, like son to father – to do our duties to our Father. He did not descend to Earth, but He sent His Son, and we have to make sacrifices in this world. Many are apprehensive of sacrifices and say that there is no Life in the sacrifice; and many are bewildered with Christ’s words ‘If you do not eat of My flesh and do not drink of My blood, you shall have no eternal life.’ We eat everyday, in order to live; doesn’t this wheat grain, these herbs, whose juices we swallow, die and sacrifice themselves for us? But they say, ‘We can die, if this makes you people.’ How many mirriads of beings serve us, and what is it that we do on Earth? We tackle scholastic issues, like those old theologicians in the Middle centuries, who kept trying to find out how many devils can there be on a knife’s blade – this is what we are still consumed with.
I say that Christ’s teaching contains the meaning of Life in itself. There is always a low land between two great epochs; if we examine our mind, we shall see that there are concave and convex areas in it as well – due to these crevices can human thought circulate. The earth also has similar concave areas, which generate certain currents, due to which we can live. Somebody may say, ‘I do not want to live in a valley’; well, where do you want to live, how many devils can live on a mountain peak? Not all can live there; everybody shall be – in the creavices of one’s life: once – in a valley, another time – on a peak, yet another time – again in a valley, and yet another time – on a peak; there will be climbing up and climbing down, until the principle, that evolution is a movement along a curved line, is grasped. When, however, one learns Christ’s teaching about the circular movement in eternity, one will enter another evolution, which does not follow and up-and-down path, which will move in a circle.
On the other hand, the teaching of the spirit is a realistic teaching, which is denied by modern people. When the Divine Spirit works within us, He implies unity, implies multitude too. The Father created things, The Spirit is a multitude from the one pole to the other pole, while Christ represents the juices flowing continually in the Tree of Life. The Spirit represents the conditions in which we live. Modern astrologers say that a person is in communication with all the Universe, which is to say that all beings are to be found in a certain correlation; the heart, the mind, the ears, the eyes correspond to certain beings in space and when there is clash among them, then a person feels, certain impact in the respective body parts, be it in the legs or in the head. It happens sometimes that a hand or any other body part aches – this is an impact coming from outside, an iflunce, as it is called, of Jupiter, of Saturn, of Mars. Somebody may object, ‘How can Mars influence people?’ We say: England has a certain influence, the land or the people of England, who live there, the English people, with their thoughts exercise this inluence; therefore those beings, who live on Mars, influence us too by their thoughts through space, by forming one current and we, coming under this current, become belligerent.
All people are under the influence of Mars – they will fight until this influence accomplishes the goal for which it exists in the world. Do not think that Christ’s teaching is a teaching of Peace; it is of Peace, but once the equilibrium is unbalanced, there will be a war, and only a war can restore, in time, the disbalanced equilibrium. And we know this principle from experience: when a woman wants to make butter from milk, she churns it in the bottle. Similarly war in the world will be over when butter is produced. Well, why do people fight? Christ says, ‘I want butter – when you annoint yourselves you will become softer, because you are now rough and coarse.’ Butter is now being churned and when Christ annoints you, you will become tender. That this is so is evident from the fable about those stupid virgins, who forgot to take oil for their lamps and remained outside; in order to enter the Kingdom of God, you must inevitably have oil.
This is the teaching of the Spirit. I speak alegorically, but if you give it a thought, you will understand the correlations between these forces, which have the impact of softening. And do you know why God created the modern world? Those spirits who were first created, crystalised; our Earth had to be created afterwards, for new cells to be formed not under any crystal, winding, geometrical form, but in a circular form. A crystal, a diamond has to become a live cell in order to be able to develop – just like a plant; if you reflect deeply upon this thought you will understand that even the noblest of plants has to transform its wooden immovable cells in meat and nerves, in order to be able to feel and to move the way animals feel and move. The same way we have to pay everything in order to generate this particular cell, which makes saints. We are now dead. In Heaven we are planted head downwards. We have to sacrifice ourselves, so that we can become sensible cells, to become one with Christ and by passing through His body, through His mind, through his heart, only then we will be able to tune ourselves, to understand the deep meaning of things. These things are, of course, very abstract and if I go in details to explain them, we shall be distracted from our topic, and this will be of no use to you.
The primary issue in Life is humility. A Greek desciple in Ancient times wanted to learn the secret sciences and therefore he went to Egypt, to the school of the so-called Brothers of Light. The principal priest of the Isis Temple, while showing him round, took him to a room and told him, ‘This is the Truth’. ‘Why did not you take me earlier to the Truth, why did you take me to other places; you should have brought me here in the very beginning’, objected the desciple. ‘It is not possible’, said the priest and added, ‘Do not lift the curtain off this statue, do not touch its veil, study it from a distance.’
The desciple was very intrigued to find out what there is underneath the veil; and he thought ‘When I lift this veil, I will find the Truth and when I come back to Greece, I will have a great power.’ One evening he went out quietly, sneaked his way through and got into the temple, lifted the curtain, but, in the morning however,he was found dead before the statue. What did he learn? Some say ‘Lift the curtain, I want to see the Truth.’ It is dangerous, if the veil is lifted – one should be prepared for the moment. Christ came to Earth to prepare us to meet this moment without fear. We should first understand what life leads us to Salvation; afterwards we have to undergo another process, of which He says, ‘If you were not born from above, you will not see the Kingdom of God’ – and Nicodemus was also told that if he was not born from water and Spirit, he wouldn’t be able to enter the Kingdom of God. (John 3:1)
So, there are two births, but not re-incarnations. Because reincarnation implies an intermitten process; reincarnation is the principle of disharmony in the world: to be reincarnated means to start anew the work you left – you are captured, imprisoned and after a twenty years of incarseration, when there will be about fifteen more years left to serve, you run away, but you are captured and made to return and you are sentenced to ten more years, so again you are facing twenty-five years of service; in five years you run away again, you are again captured, emprisoned for a third time and you are given a longer sentence. This is what reincarnation is about – one who does not want to serve one’s sentence; or put in other words: when you are sent to the Earth and you do not want to live as God determined, but wants to have an easier escape, then you will be caught, put in prison and if you keep escaping, you will serve in prison for ever. The principle of renovation implies that human beings have to follow God’s will. And it is not difficult to follow, the difficulty lies invarably in the profound reasons related with poor the understanding of the meaning of Life.
Modern people are inclined to criticism, everybody has eyes for the mistakes of the other people: ‘Whoever does not live as one should’ – well, do you live like this? – ‘He is not right to think like this’ – well, what about you, are you right to think like this? – ‘He is not good’ – well, are you good? Above all one should know oneself, should study one’s construction. Have you learnt why God gave human beings noses, two eyes each, why some have black eyes, others – blue or green, what are the eye-brows above for – the shape formed resembles the figure eight, what does this figure mean? This shows the figure of work. About the nose – it is a plough; when you place a human being in a horisontal position, this shows that one has to plough and then Divine bliss will descend and what was sown will grow. What does the word thinking mean? To concentrate one’s thoughts. What does concentration mean?
I once met in Varna one Bulgarian, a non-believer, of free views, who complained to me, ‘I had won eight thousand leva, lent to the money to a trader who went bankrupt, and this is how I lost it, but God is good, I will win again.’ I say: this person knows the principle; this person is not an esoteric person, but recognises one principle, which will teach him how to win again. God grants, God takes. These are things of transient nature in life – in this way God puts us to test, the way a mother will put her children to test. You may try what your child will be; mother usually say ‘Mine is an angel’, but try the child and find out if the child become an Angel – give the child an apple and ask for the apple back; if the child returns the apple to you, the child will become an Angel – if not, the child will become a devil. God gives a blessing and says to you. ‘Give it to others as well’; ‘I can’t give it’ – here you have one issue which you have not resolved. ‘I do not believe in Life’ – here you have another issue, another x, which you have not resolved; you try to escape Life – you have another x to resolve. We say: x is equal to whatever, but mathematically I can’t find what it is equal to; this x has a meaning, its value can be found when we work – trying to solve this x, we have to employ our thoughts and feelings. It is often the case when one cannot resolve the x’s in one’s life, one starts crying and feels unhappy. The world is a school, who made you come to this school if you are not willing to learn, to concentrate upon issues – then you’d better get into a plant, into a mineral. Through a diligent concentration you will learn the teaching of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit and you will come to love God. People say, ‘Love is foolish’ – this is another x, which has a ceratin value. I, following this teaching, can also solve the mystery of Love.
Now, the Teacher of the teaching comes every morning and spreads a thought in our souls, but we, in spite of this, are becoming poorer – why are we becoming poorer? Because we can’t appreciate this thought, which Christ gives to us. – ‘I want glory, I want this and that.’ The Good, which Christ gives is much more substantial; God’s glory in this case is worth much more than human glory. Christ wants to place all of us in power, to become masters over Life and death. And do you know who creates death? These mirriads of spirits who continualy destroy. Everyday you are full of suspicions, envy and at that you want to be progressive; there are even people who know about esoterric issues, while their thought is not free – they do not understand Life. Christ rose from the dead, He showed us the path, which we have to follow – the birth process. Do you know what birth is? Count Tolstoy once told me of his dream – how he dreamt one night that he was pregnant and was labouring and experienced such pains, that when he got up in the morning, he asked whether women experience the same pains while labouring; when he was given an affirmative answer, he said, ‘It’s difficult to be a woman.’ A thought comes to your mind; until you deliver, how many sufferings will you have to undergo, but don’t you think that suffering is a bad indication. Just like the mother, you have to give something of yourself to your child, you have to give Life and Strength to a noble thought and at last you will have to be brave enough to push away the stone – not to be like modern philosophers asking and reflecting whether Christ can rise from the dead or not. There are people who have been there when Christ rose; someone will say, ‘Prove this to me!’ I can prove it, but you wil have the same attitude – there is a principle which has to be observed. What does proving mean? You will take someone to a path, you will show him the way, he will try and try the Truth.
The last hour is ticking – we all have to and will rise from the dead. And while rising we have to ask ourselves not whether Christ rose, but whether it is time for us to rise – this is the question. Some ask whether Christ lay in the grave for three days; you have been lying in this grave for the last eight thousand years, and don’t you think it’s long enough time? It is long enough. And this Angel from above is the call of Christ, that the Last Judgement is coming. How will Christ find you? If the stone on your tomb is closed, how can Christ say, ‘Come out, Lazarus?’ Your relatives and friends should do this favour to you to remove the stone from your grave and then Christ will say, ‘Rise!’ and you will rise.
To all of you, who were listening to me this morning, I can say that I will remove your tomb-stones. Christ is coming. He will stand by your open graves and will say, ‘Come out!’
4 April 1915, Sofia
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