Wisdom

"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy."

Letter of James 3: 17

I will take this verse in reference to the foundation of life. How does Wisdom relate to human Life? The relation between Wisdom and human Life is as that of a mother towards her child. What would the child profit from if the mother was ignorant? We can never reach that profound, inner understanding of human Life. It has a double meaning - a wider and a narrow sense. In a narrow sense it is transient Life, in a wider sense it is eternal Life.

We said that the relation between Wisdom and Life is like that of a mother to her child. Therefore, you would be incapable of beginning your life unless Wisdom takes the role of a mother. Apostle James defines Wisdom, defines one of its qualities, one of its attributes, which is namely - Purity. If there is no Purity, there is no Wisdom. The same way as a mother who does not love her child is not a mother. So, if we have Purity inside us, we have Wisdom. This is the first connection and all success in Life depends on this Purity and Clarity. Clarity and Purity are synonymous. That is, if our eyes do not possess purity and clarity, then what are we to do if we begin on a long journey? We would come upon many hindrances, of course. Therefore, if you have obstacles in your life, it shows that wisdom lacks its main attribute - Purity.

So we should elevate Purity. It is also necessary in science. All Great teachers who have come to enlighten the world have had this Purity, i.e. have possessed Wisdom's main quality. Purity suggests that there should never be any desire and passion in the human soul. One of the main characteristics of Life are Passions. They stand like a hoop around our brain. Situated three fingers above the ear are the human feelings and emotions. People who love literature have emotions. Feelings make up the highest level of human life. By feeling I mean that a man is listening, i.e. to have feelings means to hear. In a Divine sense to feel means to hear, to experience the slightest nuances of feeling that a man is capable of. When eating, when reading, when writing we enjoy what we experience and feel. This is Life; beyond these experiences everything is invisible.

James says that the main quality of Wisdom is Purity. And then, Wisdom is peaceful, its surface is still, calm and unruffled. What kind of people get unsettled? The people in whom passions prevail, people who exist at the base of their brains - above their ears. This area of the brain is connected with the olfactory centre, and when you pass by a restaurant you feel like eating some meat and having a drink. So you come down from a higher level and start thinking of having some chicken, beef, some wine and other stuff, and when all this fills your mind, your Wisdom is gone. Then woe to the cook who has not prepared a good meal! Half of all troubles stem from this little centre in the brain. This is Epicureanism. Such people could say that Life has no meaning. A person should be a scholar or a banker in order to feed that part of the brain. And after feeding it for fifty, sixty, one hundred or more years, it finally breaks, the watermill falls apart, loses its trade and people go to another watermill.

Since we have come here on earth, we should aspire to reach our inner Divine life. Only within it can we be happy and blessed, that is, as far as we can follow the Divine law. Many people stumble from the words of this message. When James spoke, he had the Divine spirit, he had a revelation and that is why he spoke those words. Many have read the Bible, but do not understand it. In order to understand it, they should have experienced what the apostles had; they should have the apostle's spirit, soul and mind.

Some say: "I want." Good, but there are three things that one needs: first - to search, second - to understand things, third - to apply them. This is equivalent to what Christ says: "Ask, seek and knock." If you do not seek, you will not find. These three elements should unite, in order for man to understand the main cause of things. A good gardener should first of all have knowledge of the soil, then plant a tree, plough its soil and after a few years it will give fruit. The same applies to Divine Life, we plant a thought and after a while it gives fruit. You will plant the Divine desire in your heart, and plant the Divine thought in your mind. But before you plant them, your mind and heart should be pure and peaceful. Man should exempt himself from the greed existing in the world.

I will tell you a story, which originated thousands of years ago. This took place during the reign of the ancient king Harun On Rashid. He had the habit of disguising himself and visiting the city, in order to see how his people lived, and whether there was law and order. He was generous and performed good deeds. One day, he met a beggar and gave him a golden coin. The beggar told him: "My lord, if you slap me on the cheek, you will do me a lot of good." The king did not want to comply, but since the beggar insisted, he ordered one of his men to slap him. The king found it strange that the beggar would want to be slapped and invited him to the palace to inquire about the reasons behind his wish. The beggar began telling the story of his life. He had been the son of a rich merchant and after his father's death he had bought about eighty camels and thus became rich himself. On one of his journeys he had met a dervish, who had told him he knew of a great treasure and needed the camels to transport it, and in the end they would divide the treasure between themselves. The merchant agreed, they put the treasure on the camels' backs, but the dervish took a small box filled with some kind of oil, and hid it. They began dividing the treasure and the merchant asked the dervish to give more camels to him and keep less for himself, since the dervish, being a spiritual man would not need many material possessions. The dervish agreed, gave up most of his camels and kept only ten. After some thinking the merchant asked again: "Give me all the camels, keep only one." The dervish again agreed. Then the merchant asked for the last camel and got it, but had noticed the dervish hiding the little box and asked what was in it. The dervish replied that it contained an ointment which had the following effect: if you rub your left eye with it, you can see all the treasures in the world, if you were to rub your right eye, you would go blind. The merchant asked him to rub his left eye with the ointment and indeed saw the treasures of the world. Then he wanted to put ointment on his right eye, the dervish refused to do that, warning him that he would turn blind. Thinking that he would be given the ability to see even more, the merchant kept on insisting. Finally, the dervish put some of the oil on the merchant's right eye, and he became blind. He started yelling and crying and the dervish said to him: "Since you were so greedy, you should suffer all the consequences." So the beggar ended his story and said: "That is why I want you to slap me. And everyone else who wants to do me good I ask to do the same, i.e. to put ointment on my right eye."

Thus God has rubbed one of your eyes. In men it is the left eye, in women the right one, however; they want both their eyes rubbed. This is how people go blind - this is the way they sin. The Knowledge and Wisdom that God gives us, we cannot obtain from Life. Life on earth is clearly determined - man has an inner striving to elevate his soul. By 'elevate' I mean to enter the other world and take the elements needed for his existence. For example, the human heart has desires, but some desires are poisonous, and when they enter the human soul, they destroy it. For instance, how insatiable is the desire to be rich. And the richer one gets, the harder his heart gets, in the end it gets so hard that it breaks. The extreme end of this condition is the body becomes fragile. In social life such greed leads to isolation from people and then ruins the person. A person lives while he is surrounded by relatives and friends, to live individually means to be outside God. If we live in disharmony with people, we live in disharmony with God. You say: "I hate him." - Thus you hate God too. You say: "I will steal his money." -Thus you steal from God too. These are negative states and vice versa-if you do good, you do good to God too, you work with Him.

Wisdom comes from above, to teach us, the children of God, to seek true Knowledge. Many want to learn, but are dissatisfied and say: "Why has God done this?" I say, if you have started judging Him, then you do not understand God. If something bad happens to you, do not ask why it happened in that way, but say to yourself that it is for your own good. When we assume that things in the world are not harmonious, that means that we don't understand them. For instance, in America there are desert areas, where people walk, raise a lot of dust then think that everything around them is enveloped in dust, and they do not realize that they are the ones who raised it. The same happens with your thoughts and desires - you have raised a lot of dust around them. Let your Wisdom be pure and peaceful, let the dust settle and only then you will understand the profound meaning of your soul. For two thousand years now, people have preached about Wisdom, but it appears not to have influenced them. Rather, it has not influenced those who are here on earth, but has affected those who are in Heaven.

Some say: "I want to live." Good, but try to utilize Life properly. Those who want to go to Heaven should understand the inner Divine Wisdom. What is the reason for that? I would like to see one church in the world, where the priest preaches out of Love. Now he preaches, because he has a wife and children, but says: "I preach in the name of God." You do not preach in the name of God, but because your wife pushes you to. A teacher says: "I preach in the name of God." You do not preach in the name of God, either, you do that for your wife and children. I do not mean to say that this is bad. For instance, a preacher gathered some ideas, put his lecture together well, hoping that he will make more money, but his audience did not give him as much as he thought he deserved, they put less value on his speech and in his next lecture he began reproaching those who did not give him money. A lecture in which money plays a great part is not pure. I speak of clergymen who claim to be servants of God. That title should match the person's purpose. Everyone should do their job so that it matches their title. For example, someone says that he sells clothes, and indeed that is what he does. We should be pure and sincere. And if I do not preach the Truth, I will say: "Pardon me, for I preach only half the Truth. Today I preach only for money, because I need it, one day I will preach for free."

James uses the word wisdom in a wider sense. Many Christians say: "I want to understand the Divine Wisdom." Are you prepared to give everything for God? Christ said to deny yourself, which means to give all riches you have on earth to the poor, work together with them and teach them labour and perseverance. Some people point at Carnegie's achievements. Funny are those people who consider Carnegie to be an ideal. To be rich is a burden. There is the saying of the donkey, which was carrying icons and crucifixes on his back, wherever it went everyone was bowing, and it thought that they bowed at it. You might be in Carnegie's position and be a donkey. People's respect for you should be respect for your Spirit and Wisdom. Your head should not be filled with Biblical verse and sentences; they should be in your soul where they would form a Divine tissue. This is the purpose of true Christianity. Someone might tell me: "You do not preach well." I have nothing against the order of today; however, the pants of a five year old do not fit a ten year old child. And since humankind has grown up, we need new things, new order, and new thoughts. The little girl can play with dolls, and that will be fine, but when a grown up girl does the same I will tell her: "You need live dolls; you should view life in a different way." When a little boy plays with a toy horse, that is fine, but when a man does the same, I will tell him that he needs a real horse. The horse is the human mind, and the doll is the human heart.

When the mother gives birth to her child, she gives birth to her heart in order to educate it again. And when an old man cannot educate his heart he should die. That is why God has said: "Until a man becomes a child, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Man should see his heart go through rebirth - it should become small. By "small" it is meant a flexible element, capable of evolving properly and not losing the elasticity of Life. A woman says: "I gave birth to five children." Good, but did you rear them? "No." Then you haven't learned the purpose of Life. Another would say: "I haven't given birth to a child." You should give birth. The Wisdom that comes from above says: You should give birth and your child should be peaceful. It is good that you have children, but sometimes you worry, get annoyed, then become red with anger, and your head aches, your stomach or your lungs too, and you say: "Hurry, call a doctor, I am going to die." How do you know that you are going to die? That means that we don't understand the relations and interconnections among which we exist. Everyone, in whom Wisdom is not pure and peaceful will die, will decay. That means that in the invisible world there are other laws, according to which hard matter should turn into soft matter, so that it becomes suitable for Life. Because of these new conditions our body should become subject to that law. Every one of us should sacrifice their body, as the flower sacrifices its petal, in order to produce its seeds. This means that we should let go of our petals.

Nowadays people want to live in the physical world, but they do not consider that world to be the best one. In the Physical world, your view of the Invisible world is that of a child in its mother's womb - it lives in its small surroundings and to it that is the whole world but when the child is born, these surroundings, this body should be sacrificed, it should die. Therefore, in comparison with the Spiritual world, this world is only a womb and that is why man feels confined and uncomfortable. Some say: "I want to set the world straight." There is no need to set it straight, you should come out of your mother's womb. Sometimes the child moves inside the mother, but does not want to come out. Even when labour begins, he still refuses to, so they call for midwives to take him out, that is why the mother screams, and yells. In the same way, we don't want to come out, and God is pulling us. We should go out of the physical world and enter the Spiritual one, which offers better conditions for our evolution. Now you look at your body and say: "After some years I will lose all this." Or you look at yourself in the mirror and notice that you have grown old. I say: You will come out of your mother's womb. Christianity is a science, which shows how people should go out of this world. It is a narrow passage - narrow so that only one person (at a time) can go through it.

So, one should remember, that Purity in the heart and in the mind is a quality and an essential attribute. Striving to be rich is right, but the fortune that we acquire must be placed where it won't be lost. We should not be poor. Some cite: "Blessed are the poor of spirit, because theirs is the Kingdom of heaven". That does not mean that man should be poor, rather it refers to the man that is immortal, who has understood Life. The Kingdom of God belongs not to the poor, but to those whose hearts bear no thought of robbing the world, who are always content, ready to sacrifice themselves, complain of nothing, and to whom everything is good. If you should send them to hell, they will feel good there, if you send them to heaven, they will be good there too. Such are the poor of spirit. Some say: "I want to be poor of spirit". Fine, you can be that right now. But if you say that with a smile, that would show that you still want to live a little. If you have lived a month in your mother's womb, then you have some more time to live, if you have lived there for two - three months, then you have some more to live, if you have lived there four, five, six, seven or eight months, you have more time to live. However, if you have lived there for nine months, you must immediately come out, and if you don't, you will die in your mother's womb. When a time comes for a person to die, he must come out.

So when man dies, the soul is born. It should leave its physical body and remain with its ethereal one. After a few days, it will shed its second body too and will enter into its Astral body, i.e. the purgatory, until it is purified. When it has purged itself, it will leave its Astral body and will ascend to its Mental body - a much finer one and a garment that does not tear easily. And when it reaches Heaven, the soul arrives at the so called buddha state – that is: a man who is fully awakened and understands the Divine Wisdom and Love. In this state of awareness, there is no memory of any earthly suffering that man has gone through; there are only pleasant memories of what has happened on earth. And from this height, man will be able to see why things happened this way.

The people of today do not understand themselves. Some say: "I, too, know Christ." I ask him: "Have you ever been out of your body?" - "No, I haven't." So you do not know Christ. And when Christ says: "I am the Way and the Truth", He means the ability of man to know how to exit his present surroundings and how to come back. If now a Christian starts to go out of his body, he faints, and doctors are called to help him. Let him come out of his mother's womb. For example, if someone is suffering, let him be, do not bother him, let him suffer. This is a great blessing, in suffering he experiences what nobody else, who is not in his position, could. Therefore, only to those who suffer, does God reveal Himself, to those who eat and drink, God remains an unknown being.

Through the suffering people undergo today, God reveals Himself to them. Some are fighting at the warfront, others are recovering, i.e. two forces are simultaneously at work - one is destructive, and the other one heals. Thus, conditions are created for people to live well together. For instance, two people who previously did not agree, now meet at the warfront and become close. So, until he is born from his mother's womb, a man cannot understand the outside conditions. According to the same law, if we do not enter into the inner world, we would not discover what God thinks. This is definite. Passions are short lived - they might rise as a fire, but then die down and give way to tranquillity. Sometimes when you get angry, and you get mad at something, your face turns red, after half an hour you start feeling tired and say to yourself: "What a headache!" So, that passion produced an adverse reaction. Tomorrow, you will get angry again, and again a negative reaction will follow. A wolf catches a sheep, and is raging until it has eaten it, and knowing that after that he will suffer for it, he goes to sleep. Often, men too, after having a quarrel with their wives, go to the pub, in order to forget everything, and say: "The passions of my wife will not kill me." After they sober up, however, the suffering starts anew and they go back to the pub. Passions create drunkenness. Forces should be found, that will uproot them. Passions should be controlled, and then they will be removed. If you let a swine into a garden it will create a mess. But you can't blame it for that. Tame your passions!

Nowadays, people say: "I want to free myself from my passions." Good, but when you free yourself from them, what will be left? You should get to work like an industrious woman, and solve the riddle of all such passions. Don't ask why they are given to you, but try to tame them. That is what people today do too. The Iskar River has caused a lot of trouble up to day, but people have now made it work for them, they have brought it into Sofia, where they use the power of its waters to generate electricity. In such a case you will not say: "God, rid us of the Iskar River!" if you want to rid yourself of your passions, you will become dry, because they are your springs. The basic law should be found to put passions to work, to give them mental diversity, to turn emotions into feelings, feelings into happiness, happiness into bliss, and bliss into harmony, and into merging with God. You cannot be happy, until you know what the relation between emotions and feelings is. When we say that a man cannot be happy, we mean that he doesn't know how things in the world work. However, there are happy people, too, who can take the sorrows of the unhappy. Many people come to me and I take their worries, take their passions and tell them: "Now get to work!" The swine should be restrained; passions should become noble and turned into sheep, i.e. into emotions, and then should be transformed into feelings. Then I am thankful to God that he has given me work to do, since even the happy people sometimes feel bored. And to be happy means to help people. Do not be sorry that there are people who suffer, but be thankful to God for everything. And in thanking we will come to that true understanding. Thank God for your money; be thankful for being robbed too. Now there are many examples of this. For instance, many people gain some weight and people say: "Look how much better he looks!" But the next day the same man suffers an apoplectic stroke and they say: "How is it possible that such a strong and healthy man died?" Don't be sorry for that, now he has become healthier. Another man is ill and then he recovers, that means that he has been reborn. You should not be worried by those minor things. Always say: "I have been sent with a mission", and you will feel instant joy.

Now, I will relate this line of James' message with Christ's parable of the father who goes to his two sons. One of them had said that he would go to the field, but didn't; the other one said that he wouldn't go, but repented and went to the field. There are people who go to church but do not do God's will, and there are people who say that they do not want to serve God, but actually do. The latter are the real Christians. That is why Christ says: "The last on earth, will be first in heaven." The new teaching does not come for the church but for the great sinners, for the worldly people. Let those who belong to a church not presume and say to themselves, that we have Abraham as our ancestor. God says: "from these stones I can raise up children to Abraham." That shows that there should be no sectarianism, we should not claim, that we are this or that. You need to search and apply. How, someone will ask. - First of all Wisdom should be pure and peaceful; then it should be gentle, willing to yield. But everyone will ask: what is the way, through which we can enter and then exit. To a person who does not possess these qualities of Wisdom, I will not reply. You might say that this is cruel. It is not cruel, why talk to a deaf man when he will not hear me? Someone might say: "You are being haughty." By the word "I" I mean God. If you are pure, that Divine "I" will tell you everything. When a child says to me: "I will tell you", I will stop and answer: "Speak, Lord, I am listening." For instance, someone has planted a garden and I go into it, I notice whether it is rectangular or elliptic, what is the shape of its flowerbeds, what kind of flowers are planted there, are they white, red, yellow, what is their size and so on. After I have taken a look at all of that, I will tell you what kind of person planted the garden. If I have a letter, I will tell you about the culture of the person who has written it. Some exclaim: "Look at the hats women wear!" I like looking at the hats women wear, and at the clothes men are wearing, because all this is a sign of culture.

The teaching of Christ is the teaching installed in you. Open your libraries and you will find your books. If you want to enter into the higher state of Life, you will have to find St. Peter - he will give you the keys, he will give you the book of Christ. If you want to move to the lower worlds, you should go down, and in hell you will find Christ. St. Peter has one key, Christ has the other. There are two Testaments, when you read both, you will understand them and will see what the Wisdom that comes from above is. Why doesn't wisdom remain above? There are reasons for that. It comes down, because of you, it is a mother and a father, and it is food and comes down for us. Only after you acquire this Wisdom, you will find your Father, you will see what God is. You will find Wisdom that is pure, peaceful and gentle, and then you will find the inner meaning of God, you will discover what He is. When you get in touch with the Angels, in your Spirit and in your mind a new Light will shine, you will hear such music, as you have never heard before, and you will say: "There is a meaning in life; this is the profound meaning of Life."

Now all of you, who are listening to me, apply Purity. Stop assuming, you are pure and strive toward Purity. Someone says: "I am pure enough and peaceful enough." No, you should be absolutely pure and peaceful. By peaceful, I mean the most intense forces in power, in the world. The Light that comes from above is peaceful, but does the most amazing things. By peaceful I mean the force that will urge you to work and think. I will not teach you how to think, but I will give you an incentive, that will encourage you to work. I would like to take you for a walk sometime, so that you can see what a wonderful feeling one experiences in the midst of Nature. In it one senses the Divine Mind, Wisdom, Power, Love, which are at work., which come down and say: "God, how Great You are!"

I always want to know more. I am not saying that I know a lot, because today we have one vision of things, the next day we have a different one, a different understanding. Therefore, in Life we should see the Divine harmony. Someone might say: "I am growing old." The earth is growing old too. If it wasn't growing old, it would not possess such beauty. The ravines, the valleys, the rivers, the mountains-these are her wrinkles. When a man has wrinkles, he has greater expression. Those lines going upward or downward, reveal what kind of person he has been, i.e. every line has its meaning. Today, the artists and photographers use the brush to smooth the lines. They do not know what is valuable. For example, such a book as the Bible, today you can buy at a very low price or you will see somebody wrapping various goods in it. We, today's people, take the Divine and wrap our cheese in it, then wonder at our lack of culture. With Divine Wisdom we should wrap our minds, hearts, and souls, and then we will be strong and powerful people.

There comes a transformation in social life. Changes occur in today's science, various theories emerge. For instance, until some years ago, science considered the elements simple and indestructible, scientists thought they had reached the ultimate limit of division. However, nowadays science which advances faster than religion, succeeded in splitting atoms into ions.16 They say, for example, that in the hydrogen atom there are 700 ions some of which are positively charged and others negatively. So there too, exist men and women who quarrel, i.e. there are 350 men and 350 women. In an atom of oxygen there are 11 220 ions - that is 5 500 positive and 5 500 negative ions. An atom of natrium contains around 16000 ions, that of radium contains around 100 000 ions. Some day science might reach a point where the division of the ion will be possible. I will make the following comparison: if an atom was the size of the "St. Cyril and Methodius" church, then an ion would be as small as a hazelnut. There is great space between ions. When we talk of a fourth dimension, we mean in space.

That is why Christ says: "Until you become a child, until you become small, you will remain a fool." The path of progress is, knowing how to become small, i.e. to know the forms through which one could pierce the world. Big people are not accepted above. Some think that at the second coming of Christ, they will be resurrected with their present bodies, which weigh 150 kilograms. No, man will be resurrected in a specific way he should have an insight, then a Divine body will come in man, which will be capable of becoming so small, that it would go through all worlds, or so big that it would fill all worlds. We should learn to become small, and we should not wish to rob the world. This world is for us, for as long as man wishes. Gradually man will go through all worlds, all planets and then again will start coming down. That is why they say, that Life is a movement from the centre to the periphery and from the periphery towards the centre. This is the inner meaning of Life, which is moving from Love to Wisdom and from Wisdom to Love, from Truth to Wisdom and from Wisdom to Truth, from Righteousness to Love and from Love to Righteousness, from Righteousness to Truth and from Truth to Righteousness, from Righteousness to Good and from Good to Righteousness. Do you understand the meaning of this? This is the space between whole worlds. When we say "Good" that is a whole new world. Righteousness and Love, these, too, are great worlds. Some ask what Wisdom is. Wisdom is to enter its world and live in it.

Then you will discover how great it is to live there.

Now, I want this Wisdom to be pure and peaceful for everyone and when you leave here, I want you to be able to share it not through words but by contact. One cannot share with others something that he doesn't have within himself. Wisdom is shared through Wisdom, Love is shared through Love. We should love everyone, without thought of ourselves. And then everybody will love you. If they do not want to love you, there will be a conflict; when all people start loving, there will be harmony. For example, one hundred musicians gather to form an orchestra, and they have to choose a conductor. If they start fighting over whom to choose they will come to no decision, and there will be no harmony in their work.

In your soul turn to God, He is Life. He is in you and the insight that He will give you, you owe to Him. If Life is viewed thus, a great transformation will come in the world. The Wisdom that is coming into the world is God, it is Christ. Christ is coming down from Heaven. What a multitude of Great souls are following Him! They say to people: "Come witness the Divine!" They bring Purity, Peace, and Divinity. Some ask when this Peace will come. It is coming, I see in humankind a great procession - They come and sing. And when they arrive, there will be harmony in the world, and Peace and Love. This is the second coming of Christ. There will not be an end to the world, but the world will be purified.

I wish that all of you greet Christ thus. With gladness and joy await Him! Let that Wisdom from now on be felt. Now the human soul would have to be examined. You have never studied it before. Now you will learn what a priest, clergyman and a teacher is. Now the Divine Wisdom is coming to teach us the language of things. And for us everything will transform into harmony.

29 Oct, 1916, Sofia 17

16 Ions-this most probably refers to the elementary particles, according to science of the first half of the twentieth century.

17 The lecture "Wisdom" was first published in the compilation "In the Beginning Was", Sofia, 2003