‘This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightiest war a good warfare’. 1 Timothy: 1: 18
The word warfare and feat are similar because it takes the right warfare to perform a feat in the world. The word feat implies elevating. Warfare elevates the human spirit, while lowering down is the fall of the human spirit.
Above all, it is simplicity that is required from all of us, which is not to say that you should be simple, but that all the knowledge you have, should be simplified. Things should be simple in their foundation, just like the warp is simple before one starts weaving, and then it becomes complex through intertwining. So, concepts should be clear and simple in their foundation.
Simplicity should reign in your minds and hearts. I want you to grasp the word simplicity in order to understand it. When you are worried, please, pronounce this word and you will feel peace in your soul. Each good word should generate peace within you.
I shall speak to you about the word warfare and I shall draw your attention to one fact, so that you can understand the contradictions existing in life. Since I notice such contradictions among you and you cannot clarify them. Do not think that I want to give you a dressing-down. No dressing-down; I want certain thoughts and desires to become clearer to you. Imagine you are in a rich garden, you are sitting on a chair and there is an apple tree with beautifully shaped leaves and blossoms in front of you. You take delight in watching it. Let’s assume that the leaves of the tree are quiet and tranquil, talking to one another, saying, ‘How nice the Divine world is; we live in peace and agreement!’ But some time afterwards, there comes a wind, the leaves start rustling and some of them fall. In this society, up there in the tree, rows begin, ‘You do not understand Christianity, you are a savage’ etc. You are in a similar situation, when you start going from one house to another and you say, ‘Do you know that woman, she is such and such a woman.’ This shows that there is a wind amongst you. People ask why somebody goes from one house to another to spread gossip about this woman and about that woman. I ask, ‘Why is there a wind?’ The cause is external. You have to understand these external movements that are beyond you. If you are a leaf and if there comes a wind, you will inevitably bump into somebody. This is why you should tell that person, ‘Sorry, I did not mean to!’ This is why you should forgive one another. When the wind abates peace and agreement will reign again, but if the wind comes again, rows will start anew. This is one actual fact of life and you should say, ‘A wind is blowing.’
Each one of you should have a cap, so that when the wind starts blowing, you can put it on your heads and everything will return again to peace and agreement. Such a cap implies that one can restrain one’s thoughts and desires. If one has such a cap, one’s thoughts and one’s desires will be in order; if one has no such cap, one is in trouble. If you enter the Divine Life, there will be no such winds, there will be slight puffs of wind instead, which will only stir the leaves like the leaves of aspen trees and these puffs of wind will show that you live in the world of winds. Whatever you do, you will tell this leaf, ‘Be assured that I will never do this again and that I repent.’ Everyday there will be mistakes and repentances. Such are the people – moralists who say that we have to live a good, fair and honest life. No matter how clean the tree leaves are, when dust falls upon them they get dirty. Similarly there will be dust and cleaning, and rows and so on in everyday life, but this life has to go on.
When you, two sisters, get together and start quarrelling, you will say, ‘Sorry, my sister, there is a wind, therefore we are shaking.’ This is the right resolution to the problem. When you are cross with each other, get together and say the following formula, ‘Christ is equal to y [whai],), 0-0, 1-1.’ This is the meaning of the last line of the Proverb1. ‘This one, who listens to me, will live in peace and safety, not fearing any evil.’ This is the same law.
Sometimes, there is a struggle between the mind and the heart, there is a split between them – the heart desires one thing, the mind – another; there is a dispute. You decide to do one thing, but actually you do another thing. Life is not cheap words. Let’s assume that two of you have a hundred dca2 of land each left by their father. One of you is a good worker, tills her land, made a garden, planted fruit trees, and the rest of the land is planted with wheat, barley, corn etc. However, the second one says, ‘I do not need these things’ and leaves her land uncultivated. Both go to see their wealth, one of them has wheat, corn; she takes delight in everything, life has a meaning for her; while the land of the other one is grown with weeds and she says, ‘Life is meaningless.’ Who makes life meaningful or meaningless? You say, ‘The Lord should grant us this and that!’ The Lord has granted you land, which is your heart; cultivate it! The heart can be cultivated the way fruit trees are cultivated. Grant your heart all the good wishes, plant the desires in it! You should plant on time, not out of season. For those who plant trees there are two planting periods – summer and winter. Farmers also have two planting periods – summer and winter. There are certain planting periods for those who plant corn, too. So, when good wishes rise within you, do not postpone them for after having done the other work, you should plant them immediately. If you start asking how to plant them, this means you pay attention to what various people have done to you. Put everything aside, plant the good wish! Let’s say that you may be indisposed; leave your indisposition aside, your indisposition and you are two different things! Do you know what you look like when you are angry with one another? Imagine a fly comes and spits over your nose; you immediately start shouting, ‘What right does it have?’ You start chasing it, you are angry with all the other flies. Just clean your nose and this is all there is to it! Somebody has said something about you; clean it and that is all there is to it. But you ask, ‘Do you know what this fly did to my nose?’ Leave it aside. Somebody insulted you; do not tell others what that person has said to you, because you plant it in their minds. But you, however, start telling each other what insults you have suffered and thus you spread the words among the entire society. One woman tells something to a second woman, the second woman tells it to a third one, a tag is added to the original words and in the end there is a big story. Such are the students of the 20th century. This, of course, for the world, for the people who have no work, is useful, but for those who have work, there are more serious things for them to do.
So Apostle Paul addressed the Timothians with the following words, ‘To the King of centuries honour and glory be forever. Amen!’3 If God has given you such a heart to glorify Him, you have to plant the good wishes in your hearts for the Lord to cultivate them. All the good wishes are to be planted only in the morning; nothing should be planted in the evening. Seeds grow in the evening; seeds should be planted in the morning. This is the rule in the spiritual world. Do you know what morning means? – Morning is youth. In the morning, the Sun is a young lad, at noon – the Sun is a married man, while in the evening – an old grandfather. When you watch the Sun in the evening, it says to you, ‘Well, everything is gone, it has been a hundred years since; you should have come when I was young, when I worked, so that I could give you something.’ Go to the fields and ask an old man to help you, he will tell you, ‘I am old, I can’t, my bones ache.’ Ask someone young, and the young one will promptly come to your aid. Who reaps the field? – Young lads and girls. In order to work in the world, you will have to be young; in order to be young, you should not sin. Those who sin get older, those who do good get younger. So, use the words, ‘Let my Sun rise in my soul and renovate my heart.’ This will bring rejuvenation. This shows that you want to be good, and a good person is a person with many fruit trees in one’s garden.
How to plant – with or without water? Certainly, with water. This law acts in the following way. You try to make an experiment. Sometimes you may have a big misfortune or unhappiness in life, which may be of a different nature. You are in despair from what has happened to you. After such unhappiness, a good thought is always bound to come; water it. Now is the time. One who has not suffered cannot have good thoughts. When you are beset with sufferings, this shows that the Lord pays attention to you, that it is time to plant. This is the right interpretation. Somebody has said something about you, a deadly insult, you will suffer, you will weep, but there will come a sort of calming down, a good thought will come. Get to work immediately, and plant it! This planting will pay off the debt for the insult.
I will explain to you the law which states why you should not take revenge. Let’s assume that somebody breaks into your house and steals 1000 leva4 from you. However, on the same day you have a very important job from which you will make 100 000 leva. If you start running after the thief, you will lose 100 000 leva. The Lord says, ‘Forget about the 1000 leva, you will gain 100 000 leva, see to your work.’ Somebody insulted you but at the same time you have an important job to do for God; finish your work, because you will lose double the amount if you decide to avenge yourselves. Is there any philosophy in this? – Yes, there is. Try it for yourselves to find out whether it is true or not.
Apply this on the first chance you get. I often meet people along the road trying to get 1000 leva.
- Where are you going?
- Money was stolen from me, 1000 leva.
- You will lose 100 000 leva.
I am telling you also, I have seen you running after 1000 leva; be aware, you will lose 100 000 leva. This is what the Gospel preaches: do not seek revenge, because the Lord says, ‘Revenge is for me’. ‘Do not judge, in order not to be judged.’ Everybody has an important work to do in the world, rather than judge others. You will then have a peaceful and calm life; but only if you listen to your Lord – the One you know. Every day you may try who this Lord is. As long as you perform His Will, you will be calm and peaceful, if you do not perform His will – you will not be at ease. Why then is the Lord not there? The Lord comes only in times of suffering. The Lord descends when the world is in greatest sufferings. When one is in dire straits, the Lord visits such a person, and when one feels fine, the Lord says, ‘Ask this person here.’ We say, ‘God rest his soul, he has departed.’ But I say, ‘this person has gone to visit his Father in his fatherland, has gone to his home, and then he will come back again.’ So this is what happens – sometimes the Lord comes to us, sometimes we go to Him. What does this remind us of? When a father gets his son married, the son is separated to live in a new house and sometimes the son visits the father, sometimes the father visits the son. Tell me, when do you visit the Lord? - When you are in great desperation, when you are in suffering. And if someone tramples down on your toes at this time, then the Lord has visited you. This is why you have to pay visits to suffering people. From now on, you will know that you can visit God ten times a day, while the Lord can visit you – once a day.
Praying is appealing to God. You are aggrieved, you are sad – pray. The Lord gives comfort in three ways: He will send a person to help you, he will send an angel, and He will descend Himself to comfort you.
You ask why we were born. To visit the Lord – this is why you were born. This is the great law, according to which people in grief and people in earthly need get closer. If they have no need, we would not understand what the niceties in Life lie in. You will remember this thought: Life, the way it is, is the best life, and you, the way you live now, have the best of lives. Some may say, ‘I am a bad person.’ In what respect? You are not bad, but you have land that you do not want to cultivate. You are lazy. You have to work. Get down to work – you will not be sinful. How does sin come about? If you do not work, you will sin; you will be thinking where to take something from, what to do and before you know it you will be in debt to the whole world.
So, you are not sinful at heart, but some of you do not want to work. For example some say, ‘How can I get up at four o’clock in the morning? Is this time for getting up?’ Yes, it is, because the night is meant for sleep, but the morning – for work. When the Sun rises, everybody should be out of bed, and when the Sun sets everybody should be in bed. This is what birds do as well. If you want to understand Christ, this is what you have to do and this how you have to live. When suffering comes, you should say, ‘It’s time for work’. Get ready to sow! When the first good wish comes to you, sow it and within a year you will see how rich you will be. This is what the Bulgarians mean when they say, ‘One’s eyes have opened.’ When one becomes rich, then one’s eyes open. For example, a poor man makes a windowless hut; when he becomes better off he immediately opens one, two or even more than two windows. Those who know, they have windows. The sufferings sent to you are necessary for your development.
Saying ‘Let my Sun rise’ is an indication of the incarnated human being on Earth. You have to use this Sun which rises. Every morning, when you wake up, you are born, and every evening when you fall asleep, you die. Therefore, if you do not get up on time in the morning to give birth to your child, it will die. Please watch people who get up late, they are indisposed for the whole day. We say about them that they have not given birth to their children. You have to comprehend the deep meaning of things, not to stick to the letter of the things. Under ‘morning’ I mean all the good conditions given to you by God, therefore do not postpone them. They are one morning in Life. Is there any reaction in you to getting up early, say for example any disease?
I will recommend several rules: I have noticed that some people walk very fast, but you have to walk lightly, because otherwise you sweat, which accounts for the light diseases.
The second rule: watch the colours of the Sun, particularly on Midsummer Day. While watching, sow good thoughts in yourself. Let’s assume that there is a profusion of good thoughts in you; you have to share these thoughts with others, so that they can also sow some of them, i.e. you should transmit them to others too. If there is any disharmony among you, let it decrease by fifty percent at least.
I will give you a third rule: when you hear that two sisters have had a row, you should say, ‘there has been a wind, so let’s get together and pray to God for them to make up.’ You will send your good thoughts to them. Apart from this, get in groups and all of you take turns to visit them at their homes. You will get the following result: for example, one of your sisters has 100 leva, somebody comes and takes it from her. Therefore, when you go and visit her, each of you should give one leva and she will recover the loss. She has suffered and this is why something good must be given to her.
These issues should not be considered from your point of view, but they should be resolved on principle, the way issues are resolved at school. Human beings cannot live on principle until they unite with the Lord, until the Lord starts living within them. Can a divorced woman live a good life? Never. Leave a child without a mother and it will become rough. If the child lives with the mother for fifteen or twenty years, she will impart a little delicacy to the child. While those who have lived without mothers are a little bit more callous; therefore they are given sufferings, to ennoble them. When somebody is suffering, I say, ‘Your mother has departed early; therefore you need sufferings to become ennobled.’ This is the path for those who want to develop, to grow, and to become elevated.
The fourth rule: go and see fruit trees growing in somebody else’s garden, so that you can, similarly, plant fruit trees in your garden.
The fifth rule: you should put down in your notebooks what good, either in words or at heart, you did for the day, if any. If you send a good thought to somebody, note it down. It is often said that the Lord will rectify the world. How will He do this? Through us. If branches do not blossom and do not set fruit, how can they develop? This is the practical side of it. You are very touchy; you are shy of being exposed, of making a fool of yourself before some people or before other people. How many times a day have you been shy before God? As long as you do not see Him, you are not concerned. In time I will give you a method to transform bad words into good ones. I want you to be inspired with these good ideas. Try to apply everything in your entire spiritual life – in eating, drinking, walking, and singing. This is what a spiritual person should be understood to be – to do everything for the Glory of God.
The sixth rule: watch out that no desire to avoid people will arise in you. I want you to have friends from the outside, from the world, not friends from among yourselves only. Why do people marry? To become closer, to befriend each other, don’t they? As early as now you will have to open your purse and start giving to others too. There is nothing to fear, because the one, who gives, always wins more than the one who takes.
The seventh rule: you feel aggrieved on a certain day, burdened, you think that there is no meaning in life; go further down, see those people who are more aggrieved, more burdened than you and you will understand that life is meaningful. And when you want to become elevated, watch how people above you live, imitate them in life, because life has such a spill over effect. If I do not impart something from myself to you, you will learn nothing. Life is imparted through contacts, through influence, thus transferring both the good and the evil. I know many good men, who get worse in a company of bad women, and I also know bad men who improve in the company of good women. The law is very true: we influence one another. And you say, ‘What are we like?’ Put away your old notebooks; turn a new leaf and start writing, ‘From now on I will take and give Christ’s rules!’ You will be cheerful and jovial.
The eighth rule: be careful not to tell your daughters, ‘you do not know life, you have to be smarter; you are young, when you become old you will understand it.’ Do not bring them up along these lines; do not talk to them about old age. Your daughter is cheerful, let her be cheerful, let her play, let her sing, leave her alone. When she gets angry, you say to the Lord, ‘Thank you, God, for letting me see what nice faces my daughter makes!’ The same is true about Nature: you see how a tree bends, makes faces, but this is also enjoyable. You want your children to do what you yourselves do not do. Strange it is how sinners want their daughters to be saints. Let them fly in rage, let them cry a little, but when you look upon all of it from a philosophical point of view and when you are composed, this will have an impact over your daughter too. In the new up-bringing you will apply Christ’s Teaching. It will have to be an entirely new up bringing; do not add new patches to the old style. You cannot sew new patches of cloth to old clothes. You may say, ‘My daughter will be good, if not now, later on!’ Because whatever one thinks, happens. You and your daughter are one and the same thing. Why don’t I think evil of people? Because this is a reflection. When I think evil of people, it will come back to me. The thought creates things and is reflected upon you.
You will apply these rules this month. You will go out to watch the sunrise up to the 24 June and afterwards you will take a rest at home for twenty days. There are other ways to apply the law of walking: if you are not in a position to go out, you will get up early and after praying, you will take an imaginary walk. And when you say, ‘I can’t go out today’, you thus spoil your work. If sometimes you want to visit a sister of yours, but if you are not in a position to do so, sit down in your chair and visit her spiritually. You should not impart negative thoughts that you cannot do one thing or another. Even if you are taken to bed, you should say, ‘I am now repairing my body, but my soul can go!’ So, the law should always be applied by using the word can. This is how human will is manifested. If you are not clear about certain things, several of you should get together and think it over. Because only what you try and learn will be of use to you and will strengthen your faith that you have a positive Science on which you can rely.
Master’s lecture
Delivered on the 31st of May 1917.
1 Quotation from the Bible, Proverbs 1:33
2 Dca – a measure equal to 1 000 m2
3 1 Timothy 1: 17
4 Leva is the national Bulgarian currency
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