"The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner."1
Is there anything of interest in a rejected stone? You will ask me, "What content or philosophy is there in a rejected stone?" There are millions of such neglected stones in Bulgaria. In the building of a house many stones remain unused. The trouble of it is that they turn into obstacles in life. After reading the whole chapter of Mark you will see the relation of this verse to the other verses and understand why these words were spoken.
If there were no builders, this stone would not be mentioned, therefore, the builders are to blame. When a house is being built, the builders pile up stones and break them, that is why many stones are left over. Therefore by the word "stone" the process of building is implied.
People who pursue the positive sciences say that all things must be visible, tangible and real. However, not all tangible things are true or real. Thousands of things in the world are not proved, yet they are true. There are thousands of philosophers in the world we know nothing of, but what they have said is right. There are many eminent philosophers as well, but their philosophy is not right. When I read a book of philosophy, I renounce 50% of its truthfulness, then I subtract 25% more and consider only the last 25%. The number 25 is meaningful to me - it is a law by which I measure all things. You may object, saying that days and nights are measured by a 24 hour cycle, but the earth does not turn around its axis in 24 hours exactly, but rather in a period of about 25 hours. The number 25 has a relation to the human life as well as to the earth. Number 25 is composed of two numbers 2 and 5 which added give the number of 7. You will say that you have known the meaning of the number 22 since your schooldays. All students weep when they get a 2 at a subject, in fact the whole world is weeping because all suffering, all sins, the destruction and creation of worlds begin with the number 2. You may have a noble son, pure as virgin, for whose education and upbringing you have not spared any money. One day a young woman sets her eyes on him and wants to marry him because the number 2 without 1 is only a reflection of the number 1. Every number has its reflection. When you study astronomy, you will see that there are certain reflections also. In physics, too, there are reflections. For instance the light on the earth is a reflection. It is the shadow of light which consists of billions of vibrations. Now you are studying only things in which there are vibrations, e.g. you are studying only the shadows of the reflections. Where there is motion, there is the place of shadows. I do not say that shadows are not real things, but they are transitory. A shadow may serve us temporarily, but you cannot make it a foundation of your life.
But why is it that the numbers 2 and 5 have an equal relation to us? The number 5 is the sum of 2 by 2 plus 1. Therefore, the human mind is nothing but 2 women married to the same man. The human mind converses with two women, agreeing with the one and disagreeing with the other. This state is similar to a country of two parties - a conservative and a democratic one. The occultists call one the higher mind, or higher manas, and the other - the inferior mind, or manas inferior. But I call such mind a mind of two women and according to the present laws of the church such a mind is subject, to excommunication. For this reason it must learn to live with a single woman. What will remain then? When we subtract 2 from 5 3 remains - the number with which we can start our life. A man and a woman may quarrel, but when two women start quarrelling the house gets all "smoke and dust". To verify this, read the story of Jacob who married the younger and older daughters of Laban. See what their relations were. Jacob had 12 sons the eleventh of whom was Joseph. Why did his brothers sell Joseph, who was the eleventh, and not some other? You will say this is a "chance coincidence". Coincidence is a karmic law, it is a measured law of action. I shall not stop to explain why Joseph had to be sold. The stone among Jacob’s sons was the one which should have made the corner stone but the builders rejected it. Joseph was sold by his brothers, but later he became the head of the corner. During the great famine, as an eminent man in Egypt, Joseph saved from hunger many people, including his brothers. This story does not refer only to the Jews, but to all people as well. The misfortunes of every home are due to the rejection of this stone. It is the number 11.
Which of the two women remains in the home? The most intelligent and practical one, but in my opinion, not the best. A good woman is always ready to give her place to others. Contemporary society and contemporary homes suffer an inner division, because two women are competing for the same man - who should possess him. You know how Jacob’s two wives bribed him. One day one of Jacob’s sons was sent by his mother to bring her some mushrooms. Then his mother said to Jacob, "I bought you tonight with mushrooms, that is why you will come to me." You will say, "Can a person be bribed this way?" All people can be bribed. Tell me whether during this war there remained a single unbribed person!" All of you, men and women listening to me, can you honestly say you have not been bribed? I do not judge you by saying this, but I am stating a truth. In one of his poems Slaveikov3 says with irony, "Coin, coin, almighty queen, with one’s in paradise; without you, he’s nowhere." All the spiritual people today talk about the Lord all the time and recite, "Lord, Lord, You are our coin and when we worship You, we are in paradise, but if we forsake You, we are nowhere." Money is a woman corrupting contemporary society - it is a house of debauchery. And actually all crimes today are committed only for the sake of money. A woman marries a man for his money and because his hands are strong and can earn a living. When someone says they love ideally, they deceive themselves. The cat catches the mouse in the same ideal way and the wolf seizes the sheep similarly. In the past when God created the wolf, He sent him to guard the sheep as their shepherd. At first the wolf started making use of their wool, then he tasted their milk and finally - their flesh. God chased the wolf away into the forest for his last act and put in his place the dog, which faithfully fulfills its mission to this very day.
Basically, what is this stone which the builders rejected and which became the head of the corner? How can this be geometrically understood - the head of the corner? Why should it not be the head of the line? You, who have studied geometry, what can you say about the direction this head must be turned to: must it point upward, downward or sideways? If we turn this angle downward, we have one direction of movement, if we turn it upward, there is another direction of movement. Your body without the arms represents this stone, while your two arms form the angle. I want you to study the living geometry. A person is built upon geometric principles. You may ask me, "Can there be an angle without lines?" No, that cannot be, it is a law. The angle shows two opposite forces acting in the same direction and having the same center. Since these forces are heterogeneous, there will always be certain space between them forming a plane called an angle in geometry. If the forces are homogeneous, they will move along a straight line. You will say you know these things. No, you do not understand them yet.
"The stone that the builders rejected became the head of the corner." Where did they reject it from? There is a legend about the great Egyptian pyramid in Ghizah which tells the story of the top stone of the pyramid. When they started building it, the top stone was the first to be cut out, but since the pyramid was built for ages, the stone being laid aside remained unused since no one knew what it was for. When the pyramid was completed, the chief master came and placed the rejected stone on the top as the head of the pyramid. Thus that stone became the head of the corner. The pyramid shows human evolution. The stone which must be placed on the top so that the evolution of man should be completed, lies kicked around. Today all philosophers kick that stone around. Do you know the size of this pyramid? There were about 6 million tons of stone in it. Archeologists say that for the transportation of the material of this pyramid, 60,000 machines each containing 100 tons are needed. You can imagine what human efforts this pyramid had cost! You will say, "What is the meaning of this pyramid?" It has great meaning for it is the emblem of the present person and its dimensions and measurements contain encoded all the events which took place in the past and will take place in the future. It also contains all the astronomical lore in all detail. One might read the past and the present history of humanity on this pyramid, though few can really do it for the language is very difficult to understand. Some scientists today read a few books and think they know much. Do not deceive yourselves thinking that way. In my opinion only the person who can lay hold on death and control it has real knowledge. Therefore, you may be a philosopher, a theologist, a mystic, or anything else, but if death crushes you, your science is not positive and your stone is rejected.
The Scriptures say that the rejected stone became the head of the corner. Of which corner? Of love and wisdom in the invisible world. A great secret is concealed in the creation of the world and of the whole cosmos. You think that only present-day people are fighting and experiencing such enmities. What is happening today is the reflection of the past. All this hatred and wrong-headedness among people is not a product of the present, but of the past. I can prove this by a number of facts. For instance, a person falls ill in some part of their body, but this illness has its cause 100, 200 or 1,000 years ago. The doctors say this illness has appeared about 20 years ago at the most. The illnesses are caused by a large quantity of sediments in the body causing an anarchy and a reaction in the organism as a result of which the temperature rises up to 39°, 40° or 41° C4 and we are horrified of the coming end of life. But there is nothing horrible about this temperature. A person may remain alive not only at 41°, but at 100°, 200°, 2,000° degrees Celsius. "Can a person survive at such high temperature in his present physical state?" People today are a laughing stock of humanity in their present physical state. If you had a chance of studying a person under a special microscope, you would see how beautiful s/he is. We may mix up two ideas in our mind - that of the spiritual and of the material. We live with spiritual ideas in our mind, but when we have had a good meal, we say, "Today we are well." But when we get hungry on the next day, we begin to worry again and think of the material. After a woman has eaten, she says, "Thank you, God, I am pleased today, there is no deficit." I ask you: what science is there in a life full only of deficits? Today men, women and children enter the kitchen and say, "How good it smells!" This is the way bishops and teachers act and then they say, "We are cultured people, ideal people." Yes, you are cultured people of the frying pan and the butter.
Some ask why I do not teach you something more philosophical. Give me some of your philosophy so that I can see what it is like. I draw a circle and ask you what it means. It signifies a great idea which has given rise to genesis. This circle shows the way the world began. Originally the world began with a circle without a center which later was formed of itself, or this Original Cause moved circularly and then stopped. After that from the surface of this first movement, the original condition was lost and an inactive state, or as the Hindus say "darkness", was formed - the period of Kaliyoga. In time a small point appeared in the center of this circle as you place a compass on a piece of paper and clraw a circle. Thus, this power after defining the limits within which it would work, entered the center and worked out its circle, in order to form the universe. I call this a state of pregnancy of the cosmos with a great idea. This small point is the important thing. You say, "How can this small point be important!" Yes, these small points do everything in the world. For instance, a sickness attacks you, but at the same time a small pimple forms puss somewhere on your body and attracts your attention. So, all your worries concentrate on the small pimple. When a certain harmony is to be attained within you, a small point must appear - you see your ideals in the center and say that now life makes sense. But I say - now your life is pregnant with an idea. You ask, "Do people live only with ideas?" Yes, people vegetate with food, but live with ideas. You should not mistake vegetating with living - these are two different states. You ask, "Shall we exist?" Has there been a time when you have not existed? Can a part say it has not existed in the whole? Every part has existed in the whole. When a part is individualized within the whole, it starts its individual existence. Existing5 means manifesting, coming from the Sanskrit word sat meaning to manifest. When you begin to think, to move and to do good and evil, you exist. In this respect good and evil are the two acting forces in the world.
Evil lies in the fact that the builders rejected this stone. When a person rejects a great idea in his/her mind or a good desire in his/her heart, and when a nation rejects its ideals and is bribed for money, they lose. If the statesmen paid heed to the ideals of the people, they would not make mistakes. When the statesperson and the spiritual person become individualized, they begin to think that their prosperity lies outside this stone. You can build a whole human body, it has no value whatever. You may be a millionaire, but without this stone you will be a person without a head, or a positive soul, or a positive spirit. The mind, the soul and the spirit are three different ideas. What is positive? What undergoes alterations, but does not change. The positive is master of its fate and does not try to dominate the world. In the positive there is always an aspiration to be in accord with the great harmony which has existed since times immemorial. There must be harmony everywhere among men, women and children, there must be harmony in all homes. Some say, "I can get along well with my husband even if there is no harmony between us." No, you cannot live that way. How many men have I seen running away from such a life! Do you know what these men can be compared to? One day Nastradin Hodja6 was leading home ten donkeys quite loaded with wood, but when they got tired, they did not want to walk anymore. Nastradin Hodja wondered what to do to make them walk. A traveller passed by and said there was a cure against the stubbornness of the donkeys. He gave a hot pepper and told Nastradin Hodja to rub their bottoms below the tail. This being done, the donkey quickly got home. Do not take this example in a bad sense, however. The same thing applies to you as well. When you have a sore throat, they give you some hot medicine. In order to be cured, you are given something bitter or hot. A husband, after his wife has rubbed him with her thoughts, either takes to the tavern or runs away to some foreign country. This refers to women as well.
I do not want to blame you by telling you all this. I take the number two as a form. This number exists within you as a state of contradiction. We shall get rid of the contradictions in life when we place this stone as the head of the corner. It alone can unite love and wisdom so that they can work in the great harmony; it alone can make the body, lungs and all organs function properly so that the whole person can be manifested. I hear people talking today that the Lord will set the world right. I also believe that the Lord will set the world right, but the question is whether we shall be able to set our inner world right. When spring comes the flowers begin to bloom, the healthy people welcome it by joy and smile, but the sick people meet the sun and spring quite differently. Spring is pleasant to the healthy people, but it means cleansing up of the organism of the sick, so that the months of April and May are months of crisis for them. The Bulgarians say that the months of March, April and May put paid to the accounts of the sick and give energy and impulse to the healthy. We are linked with all forces of nature, since they function in our body as well. We are the builders rejecting this stone - this conscious understanding - and saying, "General bettering of the world is necessary." This bettering, however, is like spring. What is important is whether I shall be in a state to profit by it. You say, "Humanity must be bettered first." Humanity has been set right since the distant past, but its individual members, regardless of sex and title, have not been set right. I say that everyone lacks something. So long as we die, we have no head; so long as we suffer, we have no knowledge. Thus, when the center of the circle came into being, the universe became pregnant, then the point moved and divided the circle in two. By that the universe determined itself and first bore the woman who divided the world originally. That is why half of the world is light and half of it dark. Man became angry with the woman who divided the world that is why today he illuminates only half of the world - the half he likes. These two women chase one another, but he always gives light to the one he likes.
The woman who rejoices is called day, but the angry one is called night. Or in other words, the rejoicing woman is manas superior, or the day, while the angry woman is manas inferior or night. These two angles are the two women. Why does a person have two hands, two legs, the brain and the lungs double, the heart double too and so on? Everything is divided because there are two women. You will say, "Then let us do away with the number two." We need not do away with it, but rather understand its essence. In my opinion, matter is a reflection of the spirit. Matter is also a woman. This woman does not bear children all the time. We have fallen into the arms of the dark mother who is constantly kneading us saying, "Will you still hold on to that father who was disloyal to me? Leave him and come to me for I shall give you happiness." Those people who believe in the reality of the world, we call materialists. Tomorrow when your eyes, arms, stomach, brain and so on decay, all reality is lost. The nerves decay too. Where is reality? Where is the positive in the world? You will say, "We are believers, we believe in one God." I am glad for that, but have you been with your light mother, have you seen the light side of the earth? In order to come to know the earth, you must go 10,000 kilometers in space and see from that height what it is like. From the point of view of the cultural people living higher than you, you are like fish living on the bottom of the ocean. The cultured people living above you say, "Shall we leave this person here, or shall we send him/her to reincarnate?" And death is nothing but bait on a fishing rod for catching the fish. The Lord says, "This divine net will be cast to the end of the world; some will be taken out of the sea on the shore, while others will be cast again into the sea."
In all manifestations of nature we must see positive unchangeable things. What does the unchangeable consist in? In our desire to be in brotherly relations with all people and understand that all people suffer the same way in this world, regardless of the fact whether we are rich or poor, educated or simple, parents or children. When we realize the fact that we have the same suffering and the same fate, that the salvation of one is a salvation of another as well, we shall come to a right philosophy of life. But not to an understanding as the world and the church have today. Why? Because if the solution of a small problem is right for a student, it does not mean that the whole of mathematics is exhausted. In geometry, too, there are many geometrical formulae which are not proved. The theorem that the sum of the three angles in a triangle is equal to two right angles does not contain the whole of geometry. Therefore, we should take a more serious attitude to all problems and consider what kind of people we should be at the present moment. If we say we are bad now, but shall be good in the future, this is not a right solution to the problem. Your present bad experiences are your past, but your present good deeds are your future. Our goodness can be tested. It can be tested the same way as the change occurring in a hungry person can be tested after s/he has eaten. Such a person becomes more cheerful and gay. To think idealistically is to haye for the present time such essential food which can give strength and an impulse to our mind.
We can take this strength and food from anywhere. In my opinion, all writers of all calibers are flowers so that as the bees you can take honey from whichever flower you wish. Do not ask why so many kinds of flowers were created: they all have a definite purpose. Everything good or bad, every thought, every angel or demon also have their role in the cosmos. What are the angels and demons? They represent motion in two opposite directions. The former are full pails going upward and the latter are empty pails coming down. We want only full pails - well, but when they are emptied from where and how will they be filled? Therefore, when righteous people go above, they become sinners, but the sinners will become righteous. This way the wheel along which runs the progress of humanity is in motion. People must be conscious of the fact that they can be sinners and righteous people, but they must do the will of God. A person who builds will soil him/herself. Do not think that you will not be disturbed by the laws of the state. We must have in ourselves other laws which determine our existence, for when Bulgaria and all countries vanish, the earth and the solar system are transformed, we shall still exist. The earth will change, it will not be what it is today, that is why Bulgaria does not determine your existence, but you determine the existence of Bulgaria. Thus I say, on the earth the whole depends on its parts whereas in the spiritual world the parts depend on their whole. I shall explain this thought to you. Twenty million people on the earth can become united by a common idea and common feelings and form a nation. However, one day their ideas and feelings may change just as a caterpillar changes when it is transformed into a butterfly. A nation is placed in a given form only for 40 days during which time it must fulfill all its duties toward itself and after that it must start living with other ideas and feelings. Then we can exchange the words Bulgarian, French, German for quite different notions. When we say hand, leg, brain, lungs, we have a certain idea. Thus everything makes sense in its organism. What does the word Bulgarian mean in the general organism? I place the Bulgarians in the liver, but you must know that the particles in the liver, like all beings, constantly undergo and evolution and change. The same way after a time the Bulgarians will pass into another form of development. You will look for the Bulgarian then higher in the organism.
It is great wisdom to understand the meaning of the rejected stone. A stone represents what is changeless, constant and permanent. We belong to a certain church but we reject the principles of nature. We should know that our philosophers will vanish, but the principles of nature will remain invariable. What \ mother-nature has created survives. Think now why you were born men or women; why in a family a girl is born first or the opposite - a boy comes first; why a certain philosophic system appeals to you; why you have become Christians and so on. You will answer me, "Because Christianity saves people." I agree 50% with you. Then I say, "You were ill but have already left the hospital." In such case what has a hospital have to do with you since you have become healthy and have started to plow and sow? Or will you start returning to the hospital every day to thank the doctor for having healed you? One day the doctor will say to you, "Enough with your thanks for I have other ill patients." You will say, "We must pray to God." Of course we must pray, but not as ill people, rather as healthy persons. As ill people you should drink your medicines, lie on your back, turn over in your bed, kneel out of pain, while as healthy people you will take your plough and go straight to your field or vineyard and make bows there. Every sick person is a Christian. But you will say, "I belong to another party." No matter what party you are from, or what creed you uphold - a Buddhist, a Mohammedan, a theosophist, an occultist, if you are sick, you are "Christian"7. Some people ask me, "Why has not Christianity set the world right?" I answer thus, "Christianity is a doctrine for sick people who it has helped so far as it had been able to, but in the world there is no doctrine for the healthy people yet." Someone says, "I want to deal with great ideas." I ask you, "Are you through with all medicines, with all sick people, did you bid goodbye to all the nurses and did you leave the hospital?" If you have done with all this, you may enter the world to learn the law of Christianity and then you can find your light mother. You, present-day people, are Christians, but you are not sons of God yet. Woe now to them who call themselves sons of God for they will be hanged, called heretics or crazy fellows. The Son of God is a person sound physically, morally, mentally who does not die. This is how I define him.
We must understand Christ’s teaching well. Christ says, "I have come not to do my own will, but the will of Him Who has sent me." Who is He? You do not know Him yet. Everyone is groping about looking for Him, lighting candles for Him, burning incense for Him; people look up, eat and drink and read, yet no one knows Him yet. This is the bitter truth. "This is life eternal to know the only true God." What does God mean? God means a movement in the right direction of your life. God is what stimulates your right movement. I translate or interpret the word movement by the word Love, because only Love causes movement. When two young people fall in love, they move towards each other. When people begin to love a teaching, they begin to love everybody. Thus, the sick people whom I call "Christians" have rejected this corner stone, because they do not need it.
Like sick people, we lie on our backs and expect to be served. A doctor comes to the sick person, the latter groans, "Oh, Doctor!" but when they are served meat balls, they eat. They eat but they groan as well. Your cuisines are for sick people. A man comes home from work and starts shouting, "Why have you not cooked anything, don’t you know I am a sick man, a Christian?" You call the name Christian a noble name. Yes, as long as you are in the hospital, but once you leave it you are no more a Christian. Do not understand me wrong, I am reasoning ideally. There are no contradictions in the world for me, everything is clear. If you could understand the problems the way I do, the world would be set right in a single day. I consider people today tied to one another to be more sure in life. But I say: stop tying yourselves for tying shows a sickly consciousness, since only sick people become insured. Old people say, "We must be insured." That means: we must humble ourselves and become Christians living for God in our old age. These are all people who reject the living stone. Every person who does not fulfill the will of God grows old.
I shall tell you a story by Shakespeare taken from the Danish life. A very wise king wanted to make an experiment with a famous man in his land called for his sanctity and purity "Anthony the righteous". The king called Anthony one day and said to him, "I want you to rule instead of me for sometime, but my people must now know about my absence." At first Anthony the Righteous did not agree to the proposal, but later accepted it. He sat in the king’s throne and since there was much debauchery in the land at that time, he issued a severe decree: "Anyone caught in debauchery should be executed." The son of an eminent Danish courtier was convicted of this crime. Anthony the Righteous called him and said to him, "You have committed a crime and according to the decree you should be executed." The youth was frightened and decided to send his sister, who was a great beauty preparing herself to enter a convent, to plead for his life. When Anthony saw the beautiful woman, he said to her, "I shall forgive your brother only under the condition that you become my lover without anyone knowing about it." Anthony the Righteous was married and divorced and had become righteous later in life. The sister was disgusted by that condition and told her brother he had to suffer his penalty. The brother asked her, "Is there anything wrong in this, if you agree, you will at least make a sacrifice for me." The wise king learned secretly this fact and sent for Anthony’s divorced wife, telling her to disguise herself as the beautiful young maiden and visit Anthony on the set day. After satisfying his desire, Anthony issued a verdict for the execution of the young man, thus showing his cunning. The wise king heard about this and ordered the director of the prison not to kill the young man. After that he called Anthony for an explanation. Anthony the Righteous made his confession saying, "I was able to overcome everything in the world, but could not resist the beauty of the young woman and fell.
The fall of all people today is like this. People who join a society or a brotherhood without faith in it, commit the same debauchery. People who pass from one brotherhood to another, who marry twice or three times are like Anthony the Righteous in my eyes and they will not acquire any wisdom. Wisdom is within nature itself, within us that is why we must heed its inner impulse and go in the direction of that stone which will show us whom or what we must join. If a person acquires wisdom and intends to misuse it, they commit debauchery. Those who acquire love and misuse it also commit adultery. Every noble thought or feeling which becomes perverted is adultery.
Therefore, the whole world is ill. All sick people today are "Christians". The greatest disgrace for Christ to bear in the world today is the "Christianity" with which people deck themselves. If you place this disgrace on your back only for 24 hours, you will feel the greatest repulsion in the world when you see how everything today is done in the name of Christ. All the worst things today are done in the name of religion, civilization and sacred feelings. And how degraded are the incentives for all this! That is why we must all endeavor to become sons of God. Now I shall interpret the word Christianity in a reverse sense. Christ is the man who is always in sound health and has put order in His thoughts and desires, has conquered His passions and deserves to be called the Son of God. Only when we learn the Divine wisdom shall we be able to understand the truth and become masters of the conditions of our life. Only then can we change the world and be called sons of God. But today the sick people rule the world that is why it is full of knives, medicines, hospital beds, needles for injections and so on. This present science will be only for the sick people, but they will be only tormented by it. Today we meet people of different classes who cannot come to terms with each other.
A person today is a cross without a circle, i.e. a person in the hospital who says to others, "We must bear our cross." An Englishman once told me "to put Christ on" and I answered him "to put Christ in," i.e. he told me "to be clothed in Christ" and I answered him "to receive Christ within ourselves." Some songs have the words, "Let us be clothed in Christ." But I say: we should not be clothed in Christ because dressing is a temporary process, it is a transition, but we should accept Christ inwardly, become sons of God and restore our health. If contemporary society thinks this way, it will learn this law correctly. People will learn what is good by suffering. A new element has entered the earth which will set the world right - the pure air. Take a sick person up the mountain in the pure air and s/he will get well in spite of his/her will. A moment is coming when we shall be healed without being aware of it. Sufferings are stimuli which take us up a high place.
When someone commits a sin, s/he gets ill and says, "I shall not do this anymore." That is, they put paid to their account. When we put paid to our sins, we must receive love, the wisdom of health and immortality; then we shall be near the door of the great temple in which we shall learn the great truth of life. We are aspiring for a kind of life which you can have only after you have left these hospitals.
From today on stop saying that Christ saves you, but say, "We shall live for Christ and help the sick to leave the hospitals; then we shall lead them out of the city life, because it is unsanitary." We must go out in the fields and start digging and ploughing there. The Bulgarian who ploughs says that Bulgaria is in order, but they who do not plough worry which lands will be given to Bulgaria, which parts of Macedonia, which part of Dobrudja8, etc. This is not fit for a Bulgarian, such a person does not live even in the liver of the general organism but lower than that. Take your plough and goad, plough and sow without weeds and say, "We are healthy people of the new culture, thank God we got rid of the hospitals!" One more example: there were two paralyzed men in a hospital who were considered hopeless cases, so they were isolated. Fortunately for them one day the hospital took fire and in the hurry all the sick were carried out of the hospital but the two paralyzed men. Lying in their beds they felt the heat and the approaching fire. At this crucial moment of their life, they forgot their illness and ran out of the hospital. Finding themselves healthy again they thanked God the hospital burned so they should get free from this great slavery. You say now, "Let the hospital be set on fire so that we paralytics may go out and say, "Thank God we can think now as God wishes, not as people want us to think."
Sermon held on June 1, 1919 Sofia.
1 Mark 12:10
2 On the 5/6 scale grading system 2 is the failing grade. (ed. note)
3 A Bulgarian poet of the 19th century.
4 0°C= 32°F 39°C= 102,2°F, 41°C= 105.8°F (ed. note)
5 In Bulgarian- sashtestvuvane (ed. note)
6 A Turkish trickster man in Bulgarian folklore. (ed. note)
7 The Master makes distinction between Christianity as a religious institution and Christianity as a spiritual teaching. Used metaphorically, it implies all religions. (ed. note)
8 Reference to the anxieties surrounding the end of WWI. (ed. note)
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