“You shall love the Lord your God; you shall love your neighbour, as well.” Mathew 22: 36-40
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Now, I would like you to pay attention to what I am going to talk about. The Teaching that I am delivering to you today is the basis for the development of the soul, the mind and the heart. It is a Teaching that brings Peace and Tranquility to the heart; it is a Teaching that brings Light to the mind, rejuvenation to the soul and Strength to the Spirit. This Teaching has the power to heal the legs of the lame, and open the eyes of the blind; this Teaching makes the deaf hear, restores health to the sick, and raises the dead. It brings harmony to everything. This Teaching knows no obstacles. It is the Teaching of the living God Who is among people, among stones, among plants and among animals alike. The living Lord Whom I am talking about is everywhere; He is known to all. This God is the only real and essential thing in this world.
Some want to solve philosophically the question of God’s existence. I say, leave aside the philosophical speculations and the brain gymnastics, for this question can be solved only through experience. The important question is this: why do we need to love, why do we need to have one command. What is a command? It is a foundation; it is the soil on which one can build; it is a Force with which one can work; it is a point of support from which one can start. How can we tell if we have a point of support or not? You can tell by standing in one place and lifting a heavy object. If the soil under your feet is sturdy and you do not sink then I can tell you that you have a point of support; if your feet sink, then the soil is not sturdy, i.e. your point of support is not reliable. If, after having done certain work, you sink lower instead of rising higher then I can tell you that you do not have a foundation under your feel If your mind becomes disturbed when you think about something, then you do not have a foundation under your feet; when you love and you doubt your Love, then you do not have foundation under your feet. You can give a number of philosophical explanations of the concept of “command”, but they will be pretty only on the outside and empty inside. These explanations are like sweets and pastries. If one eats sweets and pastries, one becomes very ethereal. A man needs healthy, high-quality food that contains all of the essential elements. Such food provides the necessary conditions for the development of the human mind, the human heart, the human soul and the human Spirit. The elements which man uses are all the same but the methods for their absorption are different. Every food is good for man. It is important, though, for man to know how to absorb it. I am not telling you what food you should eat and what food you should not, but I am advising you to eat with Love. It is of secondary importance what the hygienists, the physicists and the chemists have to say on this topic. What is most important is for you to use food that gives strength. Sometimes you feel week, but then you eat certain food and it makes you feel strong and energized. Such food is essential food.
They asked Christ, “Teacher, which is the great law?” The great law is the law that can teach us how to live. This means to know God. For the past two thousand years philosophers have been trying to explain where God is: in Heaven or on Earth, but they cannot answer this question even for themselves. This causes a number of contradictions due to which some people accept God’s existence and others deny it. God just stands aside watching both sides and is amused with them for not knowing Him. Why is it that they do not know Him? It is so because they have put on glasses of different colour. Some say that their Father is red, others say that He is yellow, third say that he is green and yet another say that he is black. Everyone sees Him one way or another according to the colour of his or her own glasses. “Could God be black?” some of you ask. Now, don’t be so literal, I say. The color black has a few meanings. It can also stand for rest. The word “bad” also has two meanings. When we say “a bad person” we mean an energetic person. The bad, the evil carries a force in itself and this force should be applied correctly. If it is not used right then the evil can be destructive.
Which is the great command? To love the Lord. This command teaches us to think right, feel right, and act right. This is an experiential philosophy; one needs a few years to understand it fully. A man needs to do a lot of work in order to learn to think right, to feel right, and to act right. A man needs a lot of time to get to know the Lord. To me God is Great reality. He is more real than you are as I see you standing before me here today. You may say that I am using strong words. If I could find stronger words, I would use them to explain what God is. God can be just as real to you as He is to me. You can know Him after years of searching, but you can also know Him in an instant. You know from physics that when two electric poles come in contact, they produce a spark, a light.
Here’s what I say: turn to the opposite pole of Life in order to find the Light that you are looking for. This can happen in an instant; it depends on you. You are standing with your back to this Light, asking, “Where is God?” Many people, both learned and simple, stand before Lord’s doors and ask themselves if the Lord will let them in or not; if they are worthy of Him or not. This is all idle chatter. You have come out of the Lord and you will return to Him. He will accept you because he is All-gracious and All-merciful. “Am I a good person”, you wonder. I have not doubt in your Goodness because it is my Goodness, too; your Wisdom is my Wisdom, too. “Is this true”, you ask. Yes, it is true. People are so interesting! Should a feverish person believe that not having an appetite is a normal condition? Today, being sick, he does not have appetite and he does not enjoy his food, but this is not permanent. He used to enjoy his food before getting sick. Once he is healthy again, he will be able to enjoy is food again. There is a certain difference between how the nervous system is today and how it used to be in the past, but this state is temporary. Therefore, if you become ill, you should tell yourself, “Listen, do not succumb to your illness. It is here to visit you only temporarily. You are a healthy person; you can think right, feel right, and act right.”
Often people discuss what is sin and they say of someone: This man is sinful. I do not know which people are sinful according to the way you understand sin. I do not know any sinful people but I know some people that make mistakes. From the standpoint of the great law of Love my view of sin and those who sin is different. For example, a teacher gives his student a task to draw a picture. The student starts to draw, but smears the lines, then erases them, then smears them again and so on until one day he finishes the picture according to his teacher’s requirements. Would you call this student a sinner, because he smears and erases his lines? This student is not a sinner but simply has not worked hard enough and has not practiced enough. In the future, after having practiced enough he will draw the picture well, with no smearing and erasing. He will be able to avoid all mistakes. Do not slander the Lord in you by saying that He has made you sinners. If he sees that you are disheartened, God will say to you, “Do not despair, my son! You will become a good and just person in time.” Some philosophers, not understanding the laws, talk about the mistakes people make. They make mistakes themselves, but speak of the mistakes of those around them.
Christ says, “We shall love the Lord!” People also talk about Love, but without knowing what It is. Someone says, “I’m dying for love.” After getting married, he says, “I’m dying of love.” Before getting married he was dying of love and after getting married he is dying of love again. You need to take the word “death” to mean something else. One is dying even while being born. To be born on Earth means to die in Heaven. To die on Earth is to be born in the other world: one is being born to a superior Life than the earthly one. In the greater sense of the word, both to die and to be born mean to go to work. Whether going up in Heaven or coming down to Earth you will be working regardless. Work and labour are two different concepts. This is why Christ says, “Come to Me, all you who labour and I will teach you to work.” When I talk about Christ I do not mean the man Who lived two thousand years ago. I have in mind this other Christ Who is among people even to this day. It is a different matter how He manifests Himself. The important thing is that everyone who is in need can go to Christ. Those who regard Christ as a man who lived two thousand years ago go to Him with black scarves on their heads. Those who can see Him in their midst go to Him with white scarves on. Why do you wear white clothes at weddings? You say that this is what the church advises to do. God has said, “Those who are going to get married and carry Love in their heart shall dress in white. Those who have lost their Love shall dress in black clothes. For how long should they wear the black clothes? For as long as it takes them to find Love. You should wear white scarves on your heads, white scarves in your hearts and white scarves in your minds so that you can find the Lord. You can find the Lord right now, right at this moment- it all depends on you. As long as we love God we are in Heaven, in paradise. As soon as we start doubting Him we find ourselves in hell: at the place of suffering, darkness, and embitterment.
“We shall love the Lord!” This is the great commandment on which our Life is based. How should we love the Lord? As our neighbour? The love of God and the love of one’s neighbour are two diametrically different things. If you are to understand the Love of God you need to forgo what you know and try what I know. You have tried your knowledge; now you can try mine. If yours is better I am ready to accept it. I am one of those people who can both give and take. That man who loves God is a man of great concentration and a great inner Life. On the outside he seems to keeping his distance from all other people and is regarded as an eccentric, but he isn’t that way, really. The love of God is like venous bloodstream that takes the impure blood to the heart and lungs to be purified and turned into arterial blood. Venous and arterial bloodstreams exist not only in man’s body but also in his feelings and thoughts. Hatred and jealousy, for example, are the venous blood in man, whereas Love and Joy are the arterial blood. The light and pure thoughts are the arterial blood, whereas the dark and negative thoughts are the venous blood. Therefore, by loving God man can transform the current of negative forces that runs in him into positive forces, and can transform the impure blood into pure blood. He goes to God, Who asks him, “Now, do you know me, son?” “I know you now, Father.” After this, like the arterial blood, man goes around the whole body to feed all its cells. This is the Love of one’s neighbour. By loving God you enter into His lungs and into His heart and you can purify yourself. Being thus purified and focused you leave to take the blood to the most remote cells of the body- to your neighbours- thus feeding them. Now that you know this, may you love God and may you take His blessing out to the whole world. As you spread the good among the people you may feel tired and you may feel the need to return again to that Life center, Which purifies and restores the energy. Every twenty-four hours man goes back to God for rejuvenation and purification. Thus purified he leaves God again to go to his neighbour. After all this he finds himself wondering, “Where is God? Does He exist?” This shows lack of understanding of Life.
And so, when you are on your way to God do not stop to converse with people. You should say to whomever you meet on your way, “I am going on an important business. I will meet with you and talk with you after I am finished with my work. Then I will tell you about God: what He does and how He lives.” Let’s say that someone is ill and needs medical help. He goes to a few doctors but they cannot help him. What should he do then? He should turn to God with all his Trust and Hope and he should say this, “I put my faith in You, my Lord; I give my burden to You.” Once you have shed all human philosophies from yourself and have put your faith in God, He will help you. The stronger your faith is the sooner you will receive help. God helps the weak, the sick and the laboured alike. Man’s Love of God can make all ailments, both external and internal, go away. Both blindness and deafness will go away as soon as you turn your love to God.
People today suffer from knowing too much. I do not mean to offend you, but I have decided to speak to you in an unusual way. Please, try to understand me right. You must cast aside the black clothes that you have donned. You must cast aside doubt and suspicion. They are like manure for Life. If there is the slightest shred of hatred left in your heart you must cast it aside. If you tend to become angry easily you must renounce your anger or take it to some factory where it belongs. If you are often visited by anger, why don’t you put it to work? When you put it to work, the anger says, “I have a clever master!” Is it possible to live without anger? Yes, it is possible. If you are visited by jealousy and hatred, you should put them to work, too. Through working they will connect with Love. Whatever negative thoughts and feelings might visit you, take them to God. Tell them, “I’m going to God. If you want to be with me, you should come along.” Take along with you all who are blind, deaf, lame, and maimed and take them to God. “But we are naked and we are embarrassed to show up before Him”, you might say. Go to God the way you are. He will clean you up and will dress you in new clothes. God does not need righteous people. Enter the Divine fire to cleanse yourself and then you can say, “We saw the Lord and we knew Him.” It says in the Old Testament that Moses ate with God. “Is this possible”, you may ask. It is possible. Eating is not only a physical process. One eats in the physical world, in the Mental world, and in the Heart world, as well. Thoughts and feelings are food just like bread is food in the physical world.
Many want to be loved. Why should they be loved? They are hungry and they want to be fed. If someone says that he wants to be loved this means that he is hungry and that nobody thinks about him nor wants to feed him. Tell such a person, “Come to my home, brother, and I will feed you.” You will feed him and God will bless you. As long as they are in the realm of Love people sing and praise the Lord. They forget about the bad and wrong relationships they have with each other. As soon as they come down to Earth, they start quarreling. “We are sinful and that is why we have quarrels,” you say. Do not think that you are sinful or fallen people. You can be saved in any given moment. You say, “We will do good to propitiate God.” Put the good deeds aside. God loves you at all times; He is ready to help you at all times regardless of whether you are righteous or sinful. God loves us despite of all our sins and wrongs. His Love has never faltered. Some people may say bad things about you: let them do it. In response, you should say to them, “Come to me, brother, and let’s go to together to the Lord.” No matter what difficulties you are enduring, just tell yourself, “I will love the Lord, Who is living in my soul.” Some may object to this, saying, “I cannot see the Lord.” This does not mean anything. If you cannot see Him today, you will be able to see Him tomorrow. Today even the simplest person knows that the friction from rubbing two pieces of wood together makes fire. A man and a woman are having a quarrel somewhere. Let them quarrel so that they can produce more Light for the two of them. Let them rub together and make fire. Once they have made fire, they will reconcile. It does not matter in what direction they will rub together: parallel or cross-wise; what matters is that they produce the necessary Light.
And so, according to the language of the new Teaching, when there are frictions, you should say this, “Rub me, brother, until I produce Light for you.” This friction is necessary for the making of Divine Light. Even in the battlefield people rub on each other until they produce this Light.
I see these people some of whom are blind, others, lame or maimed, and they are all going to Christ. He says to them, “It is better for you to be with one leg, with one hand, or with one eye, but to come to Me.” God greets these people, feeds them and asks them, “What are the rest of the people doing down on Earth?” “They are still rubbing on each other.“ Then God says, “Let them rub. I will go down to Earth among them and they will all reconcile with each other.” I can see the ones who are up there with Christ. They are joyful and merry. When I say that they are up there, do not think that they are some place very far away. “I want to go to them.” “You should go to the battlefield first. From there they will send you up to your brothers.” “But I am afraid.” You need heroism, and not fear. You need to understand the deep meaning of Life. Remember this: there exists no evil in God. He makes everything right and fixes people’s mixed up deeds. He sets broken arms and legs. He puts in eyes that have been taken out. He brings order to everything. He is Father to all.
Therefore, when you are ready to love you should go deep inside yourself and focus; feel neither doubt nor hesitation! Be certain that God will give you from His Love and will make you joyful and merry. If someone asks you how you know this, you should tell him, “Get away from me, don’t tempt me.” I say to you: each impulse you have comes from God. “When will I find God?” “When you fall upon difficult times.” “How will I find Love? What is it?”
A disciple went to one of the great Teachers of India to ask him what Love is and how to find it. The Master was silent, saying nothing in response. On the second day the disciple asked the same question but the Master remained silent. The disciple visited his Teacher six days in a row looking for an answer to the same question, but the only response was silence. On the seventh day the Teacher took the disciple with him and took him to the Ganges River. He took him by the arms and pushed him under the water. The disciple kicked and struggled until, finally, the Teacher took him back to the shore and asked him, “What did you feel while you were in the water?” “I was suffocating. I needed air. I was about to burst for lack of air.” The Teacher told him, “You will understand Love and will really start looking for It when you feel such need for Love as you felt for air in the water.
What the disciple felt in the water is what all those fighting in the battlefield feel. They feel the need for Freedom, for space. Now God has people by the scruff of their necks; He has dipped them into the water and will hold them there until they feel the need for Freedom. This is the Divine school that everyone needs to go through if he is to learn something. So many times our body parts have been strewn across the battlefields but God collects them every time and puts them back together. “Prove this”, you may demand. I will prove it. Say you are blind or lame. I open your eyes and you start seeing. I set your broken leg and you start walking. What other proof are you looking for? The proof is in restoring the harmony between all parts. Everyone needs to find proof for oneself; everyone needs to find Truth for oneself. One should go to God alone and one should come back alone. This is how one can acquire a deep inner Knowledge. This is how you will understand what temptation is. Sometimes you are happy, but all of a sudden your mood changes. You say, “I am unhappy in Life.” This is not your thought; you have been visited by some devil. Do not fight him but say, “Thank you, Lord, for sending me this brother to talk with.” You think that the devil is evil. I will speak well of him. Once he used to be good but then he fell and sinned. You may object, “The Scriptures say that we should resist the devil, the evil in the world.” This means: rub the devil until he opens his eyes and sees the Light before him. Once there is Light in his mind, he will renounce the wrong way.
The second commandment is: “You should love your neighbour as yourself.” This Love is the way our heart and soul manifest themselves externally. It is through our neighbour that we can manifest our Love externally. The Love of one’s neighbour is also indicative of one’s Justice. Here is a story to explain this: one mother gave birth to two babies at once. She was able to nurse both of them at the same time, and so each baby was given its own natural pacifier. However, one of the babies had bigger appetite and wanted to suck from both pacifiers. What did the just mother do? She spanked it to teach him a lesson. Not understanding the law, the baby decided that his mother was bad. God, too, allots one pacifier to each one of us that we should keep well. Christians today have each other by the hair and fight because everyone wants to take the other person’s pacifier. If you have one pacifier, do not be greedy for a second one. Those men, who have not yet produced fire, can have frictions. However, those, who have already made fire should return to God and bestow Him their gratitude.
A woman told me once that she took care of her sick husband for twenty years, and she never got tired of this for a single moment. Why was that? She loved him. A man took care of his epileptic wife and never got tired of it. Every night he kept a close eye on her lest she should have a fit and he never said a word about it. He loved her and that is why he never got tired of taking care of her. Years and years ago an American ship had an accident and sank in the ocean. Most of the passengers were able to get into boats safely. There was only one space left in the last boat. A woman and her little boy were trying to climb into it, but there was no room for two people in the boat. Those people, who were in the boat looked at each other, trying to find a way to solve the situation, but then the mother quickly pushed her boy onto the boat, bid him Goodbye and told him to send her love to his father.
Which one of you can show such a spirit of selflessness and composure and can say like this mother, “Give my love to your father.” What do people do today? Most of them think about themselves and leave their children at the mercy of fate. People ask someone, “Where is your brother?” “I don’t know,” he says, “My brother is a big sinner; he must have gotten lost somewhere.” God tells this person, “You are not doing the right thing. You should extend your helping hand to your brother.” Once there was a great artist painted two beautiful pictures. Both paintings were of people who were drowning. The first picture was of a terrified woman who was reaching with both hands for a rock to hold onto for her own safety. The second paining was also of a woman, but she was holding onto the rock with one hand and was reaching out with her other hand so that someone else might be saved as well.
I am telling you this: do not hold onto the saving rock of your life, Christ, with both hands. Hold onto Christ with one hand and help your neighbours with the other one. Do not think that people are sinful. Only God knows why people commit sins and suffer. If you follow the way of Christ you will understand why He loved people and how He showed His Love. Therefore, if you are feeling ill, say in yourself, “I love you, Lord.” As soon as you say this, you will be cured. He who goes to God will be cured if he is ill. If you are healthy, it means that you are with God already. If you are ill, it means that you have not gone to Him yet. Why haven’t you gone in to Him? Because you still need some more friction before you can produce Light. Once you have acquired Light, you will be saved by grace. This means: “We have come out of God and we shall return back to Him.”
“You shall love the Lord.” How? Not the way merchants associate and love. Two merchants liked each other and became friends. Because they shared common interests their families, too, lived well together and loved each other. This is the love of sinful people. It is said about them that the Lord will teach them the way. I also love sinful people: the blind, the lame, and the maimed. They need someone to show them how to live. They can be helped. If you are sinful, do not be afraid, for this is a test that you have failed. You may have a low grade today, but tomorrow when you learn your lesson you will earn the highest grade. Why are you afraid to receive a two for a grade?1 The Scriptures say: “Love makes all fear go away.”
Now I am here to preach about God’s positive forces. I am telling you this: go to God and love with no fear of hatred or jealousy. If hatred pays you a visit, tell it, “I love you, sister. I forgive you all that you’ve done, for this is your nature.” You need to say this from your heart, not just to say the words. If all you have is empty words you will be like that count from the story who fell in love with a young and beautiful woman and every time he saw her he would speak of his love for her. At the same time, the count’s servant was also in love with the young woman but he reverently kept his feelings to himself and did not talk about it to anyone. One night the count went out on a walk with his beloved. They climbed into a boat and rowed down the river. When they reached the other shore they were attacked by bandits who jumped out of the forest. The count was very scared, but managed to run away, leaving his beloved behind. At this moment the servant who accompanied them in a separate boat pulled his boat onto the shore and saved the young woman. He comforted her and took her safely home. The next day the count visited his beloved to make sure that she was all right, but she told him coldly and sternly, “You stay away from me. I do not want to see you any more.”
The same happens today with God. You are in the boat with Him, but when the robbers attack you, you run away and leave Him alone. You say, “I don’t want to suffer because of the Lord.” And then, once the danger is over, you go looking for Him and you tell Him, “Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned.” He who loves the Lord must be brave! God is the only One Who knows how to Love and we, too, must learn to love. God is the only One Who knows how to work and we, too, must learn to work. Even in your hatred you can show Love of God. Once you have entered the realm of Love you will be able to see things the way they really are. Then you will be able to understand why some objects are hard and others are soft. In the light of Love you will be able to see clearly what you could not see in the dark. The diamond, for example, is the hardest mineral, but is very valuable despite its hardness. If one swallows a diamond, one will choke on it. It is valuable, but you will choke on it. Why is that? Because you did not use it wisely. Likewise, both hatred and jealousy are forces with a great purpose, but they need to be used in the right place. From the point of view of the Divine teaching everything in the world is Good, everything is harmonious only when it is applied correctly.
Christ says, “The first and great commandment is this, ‘You shall love the Lord.’” When you love God you will be able to accept Life and death equally. Years pass and you grow old: your eyesight and hearing become weaker, your arteries are not so supple any more and you can see that the end is near. Your relatives call for the doctor hoping that he could help extend your life. I say this, “If one’s time is up, one should move along.” But one needs to realize this for oneself and one should tell oneself, “I have been called for now and I need to go. I am leaving my fortune to my smaller brothers, the worms. Let them have a meal and be happy.” The butterflies are beautiful. I converse with them very often. They tell me that they are sorry that sometimes they inadvertently do mischief. They say, “This is our job now. In the future, when we evolve to your position, we will be good, too.” I tell them, “It is all right. We forgive you. If we were you we would have been doing mischief, too.”
And so, you must thank God that you are able to see the Good in the world from the situation in which you are now. The world is good but you need to be pure and holy. If you have not learned your lesson, do not make excuse, but say this, “I love my teacher and I will learn my lesson for him.” You must say like David, “Anywhere you send me, Lord, I will gladly do Your will because I love You.” If you refuse to do God’s will then you do not love Him. We must love God and do His will. Why should we do that? Because everyone has been through losses and disappointments, but the Love of God will restore everything that has been lost; the Love of God will restore one’s health and will set all broken legs and arms. This Love will restore families’ broken lives. It will restore the disturbed balance in Nature. Now those who were killed are having a feast with Christ and those who were left down on Earth say, “Those poor people left before their time was up!” The great truth is that these people are with Christ in Heaven. They are happy. “Now we doubt this”, you say. He who doubts has no Love in his soul.
Remember this: God is at work everywhere and among all people. When there is Peace among people it is God who is among them. God is among people even when they are having quarrels. He manifests Himself among all people. When one speaks good things or bad things to me, it is God Who speaks to me. According to me, there is no evil in the world. It is important that we should accept that everything comes out of the Lord in Whose presence we live and move. The Scriptures say, “God can make a new sky and a new earth.” Love brings the new in the world. God is already coming down to Earth and He is bringing the Love into the human hearts and souls. I can see the Lord; I can feel Him and I can understand all His acts. If there is bounty and fruit somewhere, this means that God is there. Will the uncultivated field yield any wheat? People look for the easy way. They wish that the apple could ripen without light and that the lentils could cook without boiling. No pain, no gain. It is through pain and suffering that God pours his Love onto you. If you find yourself wishing to commit suicide do not chase this feeling away but listen to it, and talk to it to find out what it brings for you. Do not realize this wish but look at it to find out why you are so disappointed and desperate. Committing suicide means leaving the confined world in which one lives so that one can work in some other, bigger world. Some young woman is desperate because her beloved left her and did not want to marry her. Why did he leave her? He found another young woman and says that he cannot love two young women at the same time. The young woman should not despair, but she should remember that there is Someone Who loves her through all times and ages. Be true to that Love, in which there is no change. Once you have started working in the name of this Love, do not give up until you see some results. If you grow tired after sowing your field, you should have a rest and continue on. When you rest, God works. While you are resting you can use the time to watch God working on your filed. Work, rest and think when you have spare time. Think without worrying. Why would you worry about the food that you use? Accept this food with Love and do not worry about it any more. God will finish the work. If you have a headache, do not worry. Trust in God; say a prayer and He will help you. If you have doubts you will not be able to achieve anything; you will not be able to accept the new Teaching of Love. This Teaching is the Teaching of experience. The healthy accept the new Teaching and serves according to its principles. The thinker also accepts the new Teaching. All of you are required to think correctly. Do not say that your husband has taken to the stray path, but say that he has made a mistake that needs to be corrected. When the little child makes itself all dirty this does not mean that is has taken to the stray path. The child is not at fault for being dirty. Clean it up and wait for it to grow up and realize its mistake.
A man from Varna once shared something that he went through. He had a son who was always unhappy with something. One day the man tied up his son’s arms and legs wanting to throw him into the well and get rid of him. When he realized his father’s intention the son said, “Father, you can do as you wish, but think about the consequences. You will be locked up and will not be able to provide for my mother and my sisters.” The father thought about it and then freed up his son, but would tell him from there on, “Nothing will ever come out of you.” One day I met this man’s son and after talking to him for a while, I said to him, “You will become a great person one day.” My words and the faith that I put into these words encouraged him and he really did become a great person. Therefore, if you want to live well then you should tell your wife that she is good and intelligent. Tell your husband that he is good, just, and loving. When he comes back from work, make sure you greet him well and with joy; then give him water to wash his feet. If you tell him that he is lazy, you will make your life worse.
What is required of man? Man is required to elevate his consciousness each day by being aware that God works in him. When God goes up, you will go down to work. When God goes down you will go up to work. This is how Love works. Knowing this, you need to apply the Teaching of Love in your life. Think only about what is required of you, and not about what is required of those around you. Then I will welcome you even if you are a sinner. I am not interested in righteous people; I am interested in lame, blind, and maimed people: those are the ones I am taking with me to God, and there they will be welcomed with a feast.
This is the new era: the era of renaissance. “You shall love the Lord.” This is the great commandment, on which the law and the prophets hang. Everything in our life will go well when we honor this commandment and when we apply Love to our lives. Everything will follow the law of eternal harmony.
1. Lecture by the Master held on October 15, 1916 in Sofia
1 Grading in the Bulgarian educational system uses the numbers 2 through 6: 2 being the lowest, failing grade, and 3 through 6 being passing grades with 6 being the highest one.
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