Lecture 5 of the Youth Occult Class
Given by the Master Beinsa Douno March 29, 1922 – 19.00 local time, 21.00 GMT, Sofia
Secret Prayer
Now you want to know what to pray for. This question is like asking about the typical characteristics of believers, listeners and disciples. Faith is a characteristic of believers, listening – of listeners and studies – of disciples. Therefore, disciples will pray for their studies.
There was a presentation of the disciples’ works on Will and on White colour.
Next time write on the topic: “The Distinctive Characteristics of Good and Evil.” You should note the most important things about Good and Evil, in the way you understand them.
How did you fulfil the exercise I gave you last week? Did you manage to get up on time, all of you? Everyone should have suggested to himself to get up on time. All the tasks and exercises given in the Spiritual school should be performed consciously and not mechanically. These tasks and exercises aim at the elevation of the disciples’ consciousness; moreover, they should be fulfilled in Love. A disciple will achieve nothing, if he does not work in compliance with the Law of Love. He will attain just ordinary experiences and ordinary results, achievable in ordinary schools. If Love is in your soul, you will be able to get up on time and you will feel a great joy within. If Love is not in your soul, you will hesitate whether to get up or not, you will think what the weather will be like, etc. Meanwhile, the temptations will come and you will need much more time to overcome them. Temptations, doubts and hesitations are weeds in the Astral world. Therefore, when exercises and tasks are given in the Spiritual school, weeds are also awakened together with Life, and these weeds begin to grow and develop. In this sense, weeds are in fact very dangerous for the development of values and Virtues in the disciple’s soul.
I will use the following analogy to clarify this thought. Imagine that you have planted a little flower close to the roots of a big oak. What do you think, will the flower grow well? It will not. Why? Soon it will wither, because the oak will take all the nourishing juices from the soil together with the sunlight, leaving almost nothing for the little flower.
Therefore, take into consideration that the old man who is living in you together with all your old convictions and views of science and Life represents a big tree in you like the oak. And if you do not go away from the roots of this tree, you will not succeed in any work you take up. Why? The big tree will suck the juices of your Life. The occultists called this tree “The Tree of Knowing Good and Evil.” Consequently, you should stay away from this Tree, so that you can grow freely and properly. This means a liquidation of one’s karma. The karma is like a tree that has its own demands and wishes, so that it may grow and develop. The tree representing your past life must be uprooted and replaced by a new one.
Whoever has tried to uproot this tree knows the meaning of the saying: “to take the devil’s nail out of you”. If you will just make an effort to do it, it will cause you a great pain. When you see that it is painful, you will start cutting it. No, painful or not, you must get rid of this nail, you must take it out of you together with the roots. And it will be your salvation as a human being. If you begin pulling the nail out, but then you leave it because of the severe pain, this will cause you even bigger pain. Whoever wants to become a disciple should cope with the devil’s nail at once.
I say, if you cannot uproot the old tree of your life, at least go away from it. And then plant the New life, the new ideas and thoughts, far away from the old ones. Thus, without wanting it, you will have a double standard of living. In this situation you will notice that in the days of high spirits and noble feelings you are ready to manifest the Great and the Beautiful in you and to tell the Truth; and the opposite - in the days of indisposition you may not even understand how you have said and done unwanted things. And when you remain alone, you are discontent with yourself and wonder how you have succumbed to the temptations. It may happen to both young and old people – it happens to all humans due to the old life in them.
When people hear about Truth, they say: “Truth is inapplicable to Life.” This indicates that the Divine life requires advanced souls. Contemporary people cannot serve the Truth of God, because they lag behind in their development. The Lodge of darkness contributed much to this by creating a number of religious systems that delayed the development of human souls. But in my view, it is easier to live for Truth than for the world; it is easier to serve God than to serve the world. Many people think that it is easier to live for the world than for God. Why do they think so? Because the world demands its right by force and imposes it by violence, while Divine Truth demands its right by Love and in a voluntary way. As you see, violence has a much stronger power over humans. They[A1] do both Good and evil by means of violence. But the method of violence is temporary; its results are fruitless, but nevertheless it has brought numerous sufferings and misfortunes to human beings. As you have not learned to work out of Love, on free will, you will see that many disciples will leave the Spiritual school in a few years with the excuse that the Spiritual science is not for them.
A Hindu master went to France to establish a spiritual school. In the beginning five hundred people, who were noble French people, joined the school. But when they heard the rules of the school, they left one by one. Only five disciples remained by the end of the year, one per a hundred. Why had so many disciples left the Hindu school? – Because it demanded from them persistence, efforts and hard work. Nowadays, many people are attracted by the systems of the East and by Hindu teachings. But you should know that many of the Hindu rules and methods do not comply with Living Nature. For example, if the Hindu techniques of breathing were applied in the West, they would bring negative results. Why? – Because these systems were created during the descent of humanity into the material world, i.e. they are in compliance with the law of involution. And due to the reason that the Fifth human race began its development according to the law of evolution, i.e. on the Path of ascent, these systems need a transformation in order to be used nowadays.
I will give you an example from the Hindu philosophy to clarify this. The Hindus say: “You cannot go without a Master”, i.e. you cannot develop spiritually without a Master. In our view, the Master is a being who thinks. Therefore, we present the same idea in the following form: you cannot go or you cannot develop without a bright mind. So, if someone wants to study, this one should obligatorily have a bright mind, in order to be able to receive knowledge. And then Truth will be one for both the Master and the disciples. In this respect, a talented disciple needs a good Master in the same way as a good Master needs a talented disciple. This law should be applied everywhere in Life.
The disciple needs a number of protection rules, before joining a spiritual school. For example, many disciples on entering into school begin to complain that they are still young and lack their natural way of living, so one day they leave school. It is a wrong view. The Spiritual school aims exactly at teaching young people how to live. Therefore, the Spiritual science has the task of both correcting the way of living of old people and teaching young people how to live.
It is a law: old should be rectified, young should be taught. If the old religious beliefs and the old views of Life emerge in young people, they will hamper them. Due to this reason, young people should be taught how to live properly before they come to such a situation. Many contradictions will appear in both old and young people, but they could easily overcome such contradictions if they know their origin. The New life and Truth coming to the world will remove all these ailments and contradictions. That is why, when these contradictions emerge in you, you should not be tempted, thinking that the New life and its new ideas are not for you. If you say so, you will yourself pass judgement on you. According to the laws of the Spiritual school, the disciple creates one’s fortune or misfortune alone.
I will give you a brief explanation about the relative truths in Life. Take the Sun as a point in space. We will direct a lever to it in order to show that the planets of the Solar system are located in a straight line. If this lever can go around, what will you notice during its rotation? The planets that are more remote from the Sun will go faster, if the lever turns faster, the closer planets will go slower. According to this law, the faster the motion of a body is, the bigger its distance from the centre, and the opposite – the slower the motion of a body is, the closer it is located to the centre. But it is just the opposite in our Solar system at present. According to the evolutionary law, all bodies that are close to the centre move faster and those bodies that are remote from the centre, move slower. If you apply this law to religious and worldly people, you will see that it is true. You will notice that worldly people, who do not think of God and do not pray, are more lively, energetic and diligent than religious people. They begin their work right after they get up in the morning. While religious people, on getting up in the morning, will start praying, reflecting, meditating and walking, but they will not start working. Worldly people think that religious people are lazy and unwilling to work. When someone becomes spiritual, actually this person does not want to work or works a little. Why? – Because he worked a lot, when he was a worldly man. And today he says: “I have worked enough by now, so this time I can take respite from the toil.” That is why religious people talk all the time about relaxation. I say, humans will come to the state of relaxation one day, but they should not be in haste.
Many occultists make a similar mistake, when they want to ignore science. They prefer to reject official science completely and to use only their spiritual knowledge. But rejecting this, rejecting that, they see that nothing remains at the end. If they think that they have come to the centre of their knowledge, they deceive themselves. Each centre represents a planet of another lever, which is connected to many other systems and the motion there is executed according to absolutely different laws.
One thing is required from the disciples: to be aware of each of their actions in order to put it at the right place. I want from you to be like artists in this respect. There are masters of painting who can make use of any line or trace on the canvas, never mind how crooked it is – they use it as a part of some complex figure or take it as a model of an object. You may also try to give some meaning to your thoughts, feelings and actions, using them in the same way as a master uses every dot and line in his work. Therefore, instead of fighting your past, it is better for you to use the experience it has brought to you as a foundation for your future.
The second experiment that you will make for the given task, will be tonight (on Wednesday) and tomorrow evening (on Thursday). You will not go to bed until 12 o’clock in the evening, in order to do the exercise. You will set your watches right in order to observe the determined hour. You will start the exercise at 11.30 p.m. and it will last half an hour until 12.00 p.m. The time for the exercise will certainly not correspond exactly to the physical time. There will be a slight difference. You should observe your inner sense, in order to guess if the time is around 12.00 p.m. If the time is on the hour, you will feel a little inner joy. If it does not coincide, you will feel an inner discomfort. When you start the exercise, first you have to pronounce silently the names of your classmates. Then you have to direct to each of them consistently the two formulas: “Without Fear and without Darkness!” and “Without Fear in the Boundless Love!”
In the first experiment you have sent good thoughts to each one of your classmates, but with some exceptions – several disciples were not precise.
When you pray, if you feel inner joy, it means, that you have turned to God. It is the same as flowers turn to the Sun. It is enough just to think of God and He will radiate a ray to you, which will penetrate into your soul. The rays of God are essential for the development of human souls in the same way, as the solar rays are essential for the development of flowers.
Disciples of the Spiritual schools should strive for quite different knowledge and understanding of God in comparison with that of ordinary people. Humans always want to give some form to God. But I ask, what form can you give to Light? Light itself creates forms. How does it create forms? When Light encounters some obstacle, it creates a certain form. Therefore, if you want Light to create some form, place an obstacle to it. If you make the media of your thoughts thinner or denser, these thoughts will be immediately refracted. It is important for the disciples to understand their relationships with the entire Life, their participation in the Great Divine life, their destination and their tasks as humans and as beings who have come to Earth to live. When a disciple gets aware of all this, this disciple will be able to fulfil his/her own destiny. The conditions and possibilities of the present life give you only one way of proper development. The future conditions and the future life will bring the human beings some other ways to develop properly.
Divine Love is the only proper way, in which human beings can develop. It gives them the possibility to conceive the highest and the noblest in Life and to love one another due to it. People today love one another in an external way, but that is not love. Love for others means loving what is noble and Divine within oneself. But you cannot love others until you have not revealed and loved the Divine that is lodged in you. All sufferings and contradictions in the world are due to the fact that you seek Truth and Love out of oneself. You are supposed to discover Truth and Love first in you, then in others, and finally you will find them in the external environment as well. When two beings become aware that they have a common Divine source within themselves, they already know each other, they have two, three, four or more points of contact, and they form planet systems. That is why, if you look for the Divine lodged in you and in others, you should not pay attention to the small inconveniences in your daily life.
I will draw a picture now that illustrates your inner conditions. Imagine a magnificent feast in a big, rich palace. There are many guests who are refreshing themselves, who are drinking, singing and rejoicing. The main entrance of the palace is closed, because all the guests invited to the party have arrived. But the palace also has a back door, which is only for the closest friends of the host. The host has promised to one of his friends to converse with him. What should he do in this case? He should leave the guests in the palace to have a jolly time and should go out from the back door to talk with his friend, undisturbed by anyone. This means the following: when the beings in you are feasting, drinking and enjoying themselves, you may not pay attention to them, but leave them alone and go out from the back door, so that no one will see you, so that you may converse with your good Friend. The feast and the entertainment of your guests should not bother you. You should not worry that they will learn about your talk with your Friend. They will not even notice that you are not with them. If you want to go out unnoticed, offer them more food and more drinks and they will forget themselves.
If you wish to get rich, this means that you want to send all your guests away, you want to be alone, so that you may freely go in and out from the back door to converse with your Friend in secret. Some disciples delude themselves in their wish to get rich at once. That is why they say to their guests: “Today I have an appointment with a friend, come next time.” When they say this, the obstructions follow one after the other. Leave your guests to feast and drink, do not turn them back. What if they feast and drink? Thus they will be busy and will not disturb you. Otherwise, requiring this and that of you all the time, they will not leave you in peace.
These guests represent the world in the human being. Never mind how much you are connected with the world and what may happen to it, this should not concern your life in the least. The world should not obstruct you. You have a back door and you can always go out of it. The main entrance is usually closed, but the back door is always open. You may go in and out from this exit whenever you wish.
I am asking you the following question: “What is Your Purpose in Life?” This will be a task for reflection until our next lecture. Since you are young people, I also want from you to get rid of your pessimism. Absolutely no pessimism shall remain in you! Be lively, bold, determined and serious to Life! When dark, obscure thoughts and wishes attack you, say to yourself: “This state is not mine. It is due to the guests in me who are discontented, because they have nothing to eat and drink.” You will be always discontented, if you live with old ideas and views, if you maintain the ideas of your grandparents. Old people are insulted each time, when they wish something, but they are not satisfied or served. They say: “What is this, I am an old person, I want something, but my word is not fulfilled!” In this aspect, young people do not need external help. They are able to plough, dig and carry water – they can do anything alone. If so, should they worry and be troubled about trifles? But old people who cannot do anything alone are usually cross with those who do not help them at a certain moment. Therefore, if you want to avoid the state of being cross and insulted, think that you can do everything alone.
When I say that you can do things alone, I have in mind the Law of Love. Everything is possible in Love. Those who live in the Law of Love can do everything and will always be young. When they lose Love by leaving Its law, they get old and need external help. Make an attempt to apply this law, in order to see that it is true without exceptions. Have a reflection on the arrangement of the world in the Great Law of Love. Once upon a time, the prophet Elias slaughtered four hundred prophets, believing that he could liberate Israel, but he did not succeed. He was not frightened by his deed, but by a woman and so he escaped. Then he had to go to the desert, to keep a forty day fast and after that he was shown the way, in which the world has been arranged. He spent some time in the mountain among the rocks, where a big storm began and then a fire emerged, but God was neither in the storm, nor in the fire. Finally he heard a quiet voice, i.e. the voice of Love, the voice of God. Just then the prophet understood that the human beings could be perfected only by the quiet voice. The storm represents the method used by contemporary people. The storm represents the modern life of people. The fire represents the sufferings, experienced by the human beings. But the world cannot be arranged properly by means of storm or fire. The storm can destroy rocks and uproot trees, but in no way can it arrange the world. When Elias heard the quiet voice, he closed his eyes and comprehended the deep sense of this voice. Now I am also directing your attention of disciples to the quiet voice – to see what it can do. Until today you wished to be strong as the storm and the wind, so that you may show others who you are and what you can do. But we want to teach you to speak quietly and to see what you can do in a quiet way.
You should keep in mind the following: do not tell others anything until you have not studied and tested the things well! Do not offer anyone from the fruits of your tree until they have ripened. Until then you also do not know anything for certain. After disciples have put the seeds within, whenever they get fruit, they should bring it first to the Master and then - anywhere they want. The disciples should bring their first fruits to the Master. They could bring the rest anywhere and in whatever quantity they want. But if you hasten to bring others unripe fruits, tasted and examined by no one, you will be confronted with a number of contradictions. So, do not hurry to tell inexperienced and unchecked things to others! They will listen to you probably without comment, but anyway, they will convict you in themselves. They will say: “How strange! What idle things these people are doing!” Thus they will introduce a conflicting thought into your consciousness. You have been experiencing such situations for thousands of years, since you are living on Earth. Is it reasonable to experience them once more? The aim of this School is to give you methods and rules of transforming your old life into a new one – something that is preached by the alchemists too. They also taught people how to become young. For this aim they made a series of experiments with them, applying many different methods. For example, they would close an old person hermetically, putting him under different reactions. As a result of these reactions that old person would become young and he would attain new forces and energy for work. You will be also closed hermetically in order to become young, but it will be in the future, not in the present.
Go home now without fear and without darkness!
What will be your message tonight? Wish deep in your heart that true knowledge could penetrate into your mind and consciousness. Perform these exercises in the best way, because one’s power is in the exercises that one is performing. Without exercises, all your efforts will be fruitless. Someone may ask why he should execute the exercise at 12.00 o’clock at night and not at 1.00 a.m. You should not be interested in this. You have to get up at the prescribed time, reflect for half an hour and write down precisely the thought you have sent to your classmates. For this purpose you should have a notebook or a pocket book to note the performance and the results of the exercises.
Suppose that one of you is sent somewhere in Bulgaria to conduct a spiritual course. What will he do? If he does not know a lot, he will look in books for some methods and rules. He will open, for example, the book “Light on the Path” and start reading: “Eliminate all your wishes!” I ask, what will remain in you, if you eliminate all your wishes? It is a wrong translation of the spiritual idea. Spiritual truths cannot be translated literally. The elimination of your wishes is not a physical act of murder, but it means your turning to God. If a thought, a feeling or a wish of yours is going down to the Earth, turn it in the opposite direction – upwards. When someone wants to take his money back from a person, he goes to him and starts threatening him with the court, with death, if he does not want to pay. This is violence! What would he win, if he sued his debtor or killed him? In a while, his thought may take another direction and he will say: “I am not going to sue or to kill this person, but talk with him in a friendly way.” If his thought has taken an upward direction, he will achieve his aim and get his money back.
In the same book “Light on the Path” we can read the following: “Only that person, whose tears have ceased to run from his eyes, will find Truth.” I ask, what will happen to the Earth, if all springs cease to run? It means that the above thought is not translated correctly either. That is why, when you deal with the spiritual science, you should seek the deeply hidden meaning of any idea.
Others may say: “You can find the Truth only when your tears cease and your feet are washed by blood.” The readers of these phrases think that they comprehend a lot. But these symbols need a deep inner translation. Only after being understood, they will bring benefit to the readers. That is why the above book should be thoroughly translated. All the rules in it should be carefully filtered and carded. This book is like unclean wool that should be carded and picked thread by thread, so that you may separate clean from unclean, shake the dust off and then offer pure and high quality food to your mind. It contains expressions and formulas from both the Astral and the Mental worlds, but when these are brought down and put in the language of the physical world, they create a confusing mixture - something like an onion stew from the point of view of modern culinary art.
Mediums often prescribe different diets and foods. For example, some mediums recommend that you drink wheat infusion, but they themselves do not know what is hidden in wheat and whom to recommend it. Only persons with a disposition similar to the wheat energies should drink wheat infusion. Whatever you take – oats, leeks or something else – it is good to be disposed to the energies of the relative food. That is the inner meaning of nourishment in general lines. You should know this and apply it in your life. Without knowledge you will always come to a number of disappointments and wrong interpretations.
Disciples often encounter, for example, a delusion like this: it is said that the spiritual science is not for young people. This is not true. In my view, it is just the opposite. Why? Young people have stronger individualities[A2] than the old. In this respect poor, ordinary people are stronger than rich, learned and religious people. These people are poor and ordinary just in their appearance, but inwardly they are like rich fields of well-ploughed and processed land. That is why, in this age the High beings are embodying mainly in poor, ordinary persons. This is not an absolute rule, but it is observed in most cases, because in such way the Invisible world intends to elevate weak, poor and ordinary persons in the world. Therefore, the High beings embody mostly in poor and ordinary persons, while the low beings embody mostly in rich and learned people.
Consequently, the stronger spirits dwell in young people today and they are the ones that should deal with spirituality. That is why they go away from the churches. They are brave, determined and break easily with the old forms. Old people are discontented with the young, they mutter at them and stand in their way. But youth people [A3]should be really very careful, because the Lodge of darkness has prepared many traps for them. Its aim is to catch them and to keep them in a hardly escapable (= virtual!, should be: difficult to escape) slavery. Many old people do not understand Life properly, when they say to the young: “We were young like you before, but we got old. You will also get old one day and you will also put up with the conditions of Life.” What life do they view? - Life that is full of mud, alcoholism, robberies and murders. When you come to it, say to yourselves: “We know this way of living, we have experienced it before, it is not new for us. Now we want to study the New life, which we do not know.” Those who think in this way are young; those who do not think in this way are old. Youth or old age are not expressed in the number of years, but in the way of thinking.
I say, the most important thing for you is to help one another. The New teaching is expressed in the mutual aid. When someone is indisposed, you should support him with your good thoughts and wishes. How do modern people behave in such cases? When they see a young person who is discouraged and heartless, they try to convince him to go out for some entertainment in order to feel happy. This is a delusion. You should know that the world is not just a place for entertainment. Life is not expressed just in one single way. Each soul carries its own happiness that is lodged in it. If you live according to the Great Law of Love, when you enter the world that is not prepared for this law, you will provoke conditions for the manifestation of egoism, i.e. of the human ego in the strong individuals around you. But in other conditions, amongst the advanced souls, Love will create a beautiful world, a world of elevated and pure relationships. Nowadays, contemporary people have a little inner light in them, so they are forced to protect and lock themselves, considering that their position in the world is dangerous. And actually all human beings of the present age are reticent.
Many spiritual disciples think that they are weaker than others. It is not true. Power is not an external feature. You should be brave and determined. And always keep in mind this sentence: “The soul is all powerful, but the flesh, the animal nature in the human being is weak.” The Divine in the human being is always strong, but the animal nature in it is exposed to temptations, weaknesses and failings. Christ said: “Work and pray not to fall into temptation!” You say: “We are young now, but how will our life proceed?” If you follow the Divine path, your life will develop in a beautiful way. If you deviate from this path, you’d better go to the graveyards, hospitals, coffee bars, war fields and amongst the bankrupted traders to see what would happen to you. But as far as you follow the Path of the Brotherhood of Light, you will be protected from any evil. In case that the Brothers do not assist you, it is because you cannot always use rationally what they give you.
Here is an example for this. Suppose that you have a friend, who is a drunkard. From time to time you get some money from the Brothers. But when you receive it, you bring it to your friend. How will he spend it? He will go to an inn to have a drink. In this case, both you and your friend will not win anything. What will the benefit of your help be then? That is why the Brothers of Light will stop their budget for you and you will suffer. Why will you suffer? Your friend should not drink. The person, who wants something from you to satisfy some of his vices, is not your friend. Only the one who is ready to make a sacrifice for your elevation is your friend. The New teaching demands sacrifice not through extortion or violence, but in a voluntary way. Only sacrifice out of Love and Good will is appreciated in the Brotherhood of Light.
You ask: “When are our Brothers ready to help us and to make a sacrifice for us?” When someone has a strong aspiration in his soul to become a disciple of the Great school, then the Brothers of Light are ready to make a sacrifice for him, to help and to guide him. If you ask your helper: “Are you ready to sacrifice yourself for me?” – He will immediately drop a curtain before you and stop his aid. Therefore, everything depends on your attitude – the attitude of the Brothers of Light to you is the same as your attitude is to them. Knowing this, you should lay your relationships with them on a clear base, if you want to receive their aid and guidance. Your daily creative work will be supervised stone by stone and if it is solid and clean, it will be used as a building material for the Divine edifice, in which construction you are also called to take part as collaborators.
Secret Prayer
[A1]Who or what are [they]?
[A2][characters or personalities]
[A3][youth] or [young people]
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