The eleventh lecture of the Master Petar Deunov, delivered at the General Esoteric Class on 11 May 1922, Thursday, 7:30-9:00h, Sofia
Secret Prayer
Silence
For next time write down your favourite word or favourite sentence. So, you will write down either one word, or one sentence, which impressed you most.
When the Infinite World or The Infinite confined itself, the Objective Divine World was formed. So it is from the Infinite, from the Objective Divine World, that one’s subjective, internal world was formed. It is from one’s subjective internal world that the present objective external world was created. Or put in other words, what is visible to God, is invisible to us; what is known to God, is unknown to us. So now, when someone, in an esoteric school, says “I don’t know”, this means that one is aware that one does not know. The implication, however, is that what one does not know, is known to elevated Creatures who know it. Therefore you could appeal to these Creatures who are aware of the knowledge to teach you what you don’t know at any specific moment. The same law operates when one says one has a bad, uncultivated character. So if it is bad, there are Creatures who are good, and they are in a position to rectify one’s bad character.
One’s badness can be explained in two ways. If a master has made the parts of a violin and leaves his apprentice to assemble it, and if the apprentice did not assemble the parts properly, then this is a bad violin. Therefore it cannot produce the sound that is required. What can be done? This violin should be examined by the master and its parts should be re-assembled, as it is meant to be. And in the present life of the contemporary intelligent beings, who passed before us and who will come after us, there are many parts in their organisms that are not placed properly. It’s not that any of you are deficient, but there is something out of place. As long as something is not in its proper place, the qualities, the forces needed in any given case to create a character, cannot be acquired. Then such a violin should be disassembled in parts and should be re-assembled again by the master – thus it becomes a proper violin. The esoteric school should re-assemble you; this is the objective of the Esoteric School. You will be taken apart in this School – not everything, but there will be certain things, which have to be taken apart and re-assembled again. This is what is called internal harmonization. This cannot be done against your will; no esoteric school does anything against one’s will. You will knock ten times on the door of the master who has to re-assemble the parts, and you will be waiting outside at the doorstep, until the master comes and you are admitted in. In Christianity this master is called the Holy Spirit. And then when He enters in, He won’t transform the human being overnight, He shall first start with disassembling the parts. And while parts are being taken apart you will feel an internal pain, this knife of his shall start working there.
There is a story about a distinguished violinist who had an excellent Stradivarius violin. It had a small defect, so he took it to a well-known famous master in Italy to have it repaired. He invited him to take a seat and he himself started disassembling the parts with a knife, but every time when he stabbed the knife into the violin, the violinist gave a moan and when the violin was re-assembled the master noticed that the violinist had fainted. At present, the human soul is similarly intertwined with the body – within this instrument, that when the Great Spirit comes to work and drives the knife through it, you would inevitably feel internal pains. If you are sick and if there is a master, then this knife by all means would be exactly what you need, so that the various misplaced parts are properly re-assembled. After repairing this part, one will feel an internal lightness, one will experience an internal enlightenment.
Many times certain issues have been discussed, many speak about the Spirit, but this is an obscure concept. How many of you have a clear understanding of what the Spirit is like? Moreover, how many of you know the situation a Master is in – not by the form in which He appears, but the internal aspect of the Spiritual Teacher? How many of you have such a clear understanding of Love? All of you have had your small experiences of it, but the clear concept that generates great experiences, that engenders an entire revolution within the soul and transforms all bodily particles, so that one, after coming out of this Divine fire, feels like a newly born baby, because one steps into a new world, a world of different understanding – such an experience you haven’t had.
Many times we have spoken about Love, about God, and nonetheless when it comes to taking an exam, we always manifest our old habits. We should not fool ourselves about the training we have passed, because many people are trained, but are not raised well. Many people are still in the process of transformation, but are not transformed. If you reach your hand to a tamed tiger, it can keep licking it for a long time, but just one drop of blood would immediately arouse his old instincts. You can make that old wolf behave like a dog, but it’s out of the question that wolves will grow out of their old habits. Then, if we want to get closer to God, to acquire this knowledge, which brings future happiness, i.e. this Prudent life, we shall inevitably have to observe the great laws upon which the proper structure of our present development rests.
So none of you should give in to self-blaming, but should instead monitor oneself and should one notice any internal shortcoming, any part which is not in its proper place, then one should call this great master – the Spirit, to help one rise to one’s feet and to rectify it. Now, such rectification can be done either here or in the other world. This is inevitable; postponing things is not a way out. You might say “This may happen under more favourable conditions, when the circumstances are most favourable.” If a thought has crossed your mind just now, is this moment not the most favourable moment? If it is the Spirit speaking within you right now, is this not the most favourable moment? Every thought is important at a certain moment; such a thought may come and go.
So, those of you who walk along this path, should develop such senses, should be so sensitive, so quick of apprehension and so delicate, because being sensitive and delicate is for your own sake. If you are delicate, if you are sensitive, if you are quick to apprehend, the nobleness of your heart, the strengths of your mind shall be useful to you and shall in turn be useful to the people close to you. Then you will have the right relationship. Two able spiritual students can easily understand each other, two noble persons can easily settle their accounts, can easily correct their mistakes, but two stupid persons cannot – one would insist on having it one’s own way and the other would insist on having it their way.
So, where is one’s place in Nature? Nature under the present conditions is just one opportunity. Nature – this is the objective Divine world, it is the primary world. From this world we should create our internal subjective world. This entire Divine world that we can see externally and that is real, we shall perceive it and shall then project it externally and shall thus create our objective world. And only having created it, can we shape the character within us.
God manifests Himself within all of us; we are objects to God. He works within all of us and there is no way we can escape His influence. He has commissioned you to work and you will accomplish His Will – voluntarily or through coercion, either way you shall accomplish His Will, there is no other way out. A person who believes that one can oppose God, such a person is fooling oneself – all the same such a person shall accomplish the objective Divine will. You may keep opposing and at the same time God will see to it that His work is being done. Your refusal to go along with Him shall not produce disharmony in His path. And now that we have such an understanding of the laws that form your subjective world, we realize that the objective Divine world, which descended from God, is ideal and we should not think that there are defects in it. Nature cannot have defects; there are no defects in nature. The defects, which seem to manifest themselves in Nature, are only results from these beings that manifest themselves individually. Take for example a lioness, which is so cruel to others, and then consider how loving she is to her children – this is Divine substance. She can strangle the lamb, can eat it, can be very cruel to it, but her child she would lick, she would fondle – this is the Divine manifesting itself within her. If this lamb comes to be delivered through her, she would be equally good to the lamb. Why? – Because this lamb would have come along the Divine path – and the lioness would know this by the lion’s form, which she recognizes as Divine. She has got that far to believe that only what has come out of her is Divine, while everything else which is different from her, she would consider not to be Divine. This law operates in all human beings. Now, when you enter the Spiritual School, you believe that only what your mind generates is good – again the same law. When someone writes a certain good sentence, that person likes it. Why so? – Because it came out of him or her. Had, however, this sentence come out of someone else, then the first person is bound to find fault with it. But if the writer of the sentence is in harmony with the first person or it comes from within one’s relatives, the first person would again like it. Therefore, in order to be able to understand each other your thoughts should, without doubt, flow in the same direction. You should be convinced that the Divine Spirit in any certain case acts in a particular special way in all of you. This is true – there is diversity in Spirit – each single person, or each single spiritual student has unique vocation.
I am now saying that the vocation of the human being in Nature is to learn from this objective Divine world, so that one can create one’s own subjective world. Thus one can draw on these materials. Say for example you want to be good; where can you obtain materials for the Good? You have a friend of yours, who is hungry; you want to prove your noble heart, to help him – you cannot cut off your flesh to feed him; it will not be wise to take your clothes off, as you will have nothing on, while he will be clad. If two persons have only one suit, this is good, if you are naked. Because if you take it off and put it on your friend, then this is good and bad at the same time – these counter-balance themselves, so you would have achieved nothing. Therefore we shall have to obtain such materials from nature, from the Divine world, which are needed, and shall have to put them to use for the sake of the people close to us.
This is to say that in certain instances God uses us as a means, in order to show our internal desires. Someone could have been asking for knowledge for a long time; and finally He would send a Spiritual Teacher to that person, and He would implant the Spirit in this Teacher, so that He could manifest Himself, to deliver what is needed. This is to say; everything given to you in a particular instance requires you to be so prudent – to discern whether it comes from God and, without opposing or contradicting it, to immediately receive it. If it does not come from God, i.e. from this real, objective, Divine world, do not receive it. Let’s assume that I bring a live pot plant to you and also an artificial false plant, I am asking you, if you cannot tell the difference, if you do not know the different features of these plants, will you not be deceiving yourselves? I give you the two pots, but keep in mind these are so skilfully made that you could go for the false one; my question is, what will you gain? No changes can take place in this artificial plant. If an idea does not develop and cannot grow, it is a false idea. The same with you: when you become so good that no change can take place within you, you are on the wrong path, you are an artificial plant. And currently the danger in the present day world is that it has become a false substitute world. Falsehood is rooted in the fact that we do not want to experience any suffering; we want to be facilitated in everything - anyone else can suffer, to us, however, life should be a bed of roses. The student of the Esoteric School should know that suffering is what results from the transformation process of any energy. It is always the case when a human being moves from one state into another, that one experiences particular internal suffering. If there is suffering there is progress, if there is no suffering, one remains in the same place. Therefore you should remember that the changes taking place within you reveal that you are walking along the path.
Now, in this Esoteric School where you are, you should analyze your thoughts. This analysis consists of the following: there are a lot of lurking thoughts from the past lying low in your consciousness or sub-consciousness. In a certain situation these thoughts will come to the surface and start talking to you like a record-player and you will say, “Some spirit is telling me something.” you will know, by everything you have been told, that this spirit has been saying the same thing for years. The spirit will tell you to be good, to be chaste, and to be honest. What is exactly new about it? – “You have to improve your life, so that the Lord could love you.” What is new about it, is this something new? This is just a reflection of your thoughts. Well, how can you recognize them? – If there is an external reality, i.e. one always knows when God speaks in the objective world. It is easy to distinguish when we speak and when He does. If an internal voice tells me that within ten days I will have ten thousand leva – and there I keep waiting and waiting, and no money comes; and then another voice suggesting, “You will get married in two years, you will marry an excellent maiden” – and in two years there is no maiden; “In four years you will be admitted to a University and you will have the best of professors” – time passes, no professors whatsoever; “In six or seven years you will be Prime Minister of Bulgaria” – time passes, I do not become the Minister. Someone might say, “The spirit said this, said that, this was what came to my mind” – these are purely subjective, distorted misinterpretations of the very person. Sometimes there can be such misrepresentations that you can believe you are gifted, “I have brains, no one else has brains like mine.” But before two or three months elapse, you are given a task – you cannot solve it. You think that you are very talented, while you cannot resolve a simple difficulty; what is so unusual about you? Sometimes you think that you are a mighty hero and that you can fight the whole world, but in the evenings a lad walks a girl home, and no sooner had two other lads made advances at him, than he leaves the girl and runs away. He is strong to fight the whole world but two persons can scare the wits out of him. The student of an Esoteric School should not entertain any illusions; one should know how many people one can fight, let’s say one, two, one should also know whether one can run well – one should be aware of everything, and not be a coward. Only if one is capable of understanding, only then can one investigate the objective Divine world.
subsequently, due to these shortcomings in us, we cannot understand and cannot apply the good we have within. Why? These old thoughts, old feelings are constantly undermining the good within us. These are like a sea wave – we scribble the Good on the shore, a wave comes over and washes it away. Then we say again, “God is Love, God is Truth” – then comes a wave and washes it away. We keep writing – it keeps washing it away; we fight against the sea. And then I shall ask you who is going to win. The sea, in the end it is going to be the sea. You should not be fighting the sea. And I would now let you know a rule: a gourd entering the sea should be empty and well sealed at that; if it is full it will sink to the bottom. Empty it should be, so that it could float on the waters; this gourd, when inland, has to be full. So when you go to God, your gourd has to be empty so that you can cross this immense sea – the astral sea. If you are full of your ideas, you will sink, you will never reach God. When you reach firm ground, you are bound, by all means, to be full – this is again a symbol, this symbol you are to keep in mind. When you get to God, you shall be empty, when you leave God, you shall have to be full. If you go to God full, you shall come back empty, and having come back empty what is going to happen to you? – You are bound to experience suffering. You will start reasoning now: these are principles; you will start building upon them. Because in an Esoteric School you will investigate Life, learn about ways and methods to transform the energies circulating within your physical bodies. Do you have any idea how much energy has accumulated in you? This energy should be put to use on time. And provided you do not put to use every single energy, implanted in your bodies, others will.
So, when you look upon external Nature in the capacity of an Esoteric student, you will realize that Nature was meant to create your subjective world, i.e. all these principles which underpin it, so that you could grasp it on principle. You should have very good understanding about everything. Your measure of Truth, your attitude to people, and how to judge – you should have all of these correct. Someone wants to show me that I have made a mistake. I can unmask a person in several ways. I can unmask that person so powerfully, that it would be an operation. If the bad doctor, who cuts off the furuncle, cuts twice as much healthy flesh as sick flesh, this operation is no good. One has to be a master – to tell the Truth in such a way that no single cell of healthy flesh would be cut off; no single cell of the Divine organism should be wasted, i.e. by telling the Truth one should not damage any Divine flower. And finally, no unmasking is allowed in the Esoteric School; the Truth you may say, but to unmask someone - you may not. If one unmasks someone else, one is to be expelled; anyone who dares unmask someone else will be expelled and it may take thousands of years staying outside – a severe punishment this is. And whenever you want to unmask someone, you should stop and tell yourself, “If it is to tell the Truth, the Truth I shall tell” – neither more nor less. This is a great Divine law and I am warning you about it, not to put yourselves through needless suffering. So far, you have been walking along the road of unmasking. If unmasking could remedy the world, the world would have been rectified already. One should only be told the Truth, and shown the ways, methods and paths, as to how one can rectify one’s mistakes. Well, I shall explain the principle: I go to a brother, let’s say he is a trader, has a certain business, has borrowed money from other brothers, has accumulated a debt of twenty thousand leva, then he does not return the loan, he has no money to return, and he occasionally lies to avoid paying. But no, why should he be lying, why shouldn't he tell the Truth? You will suggest that we call him to unmask him – this is the wrong path. We shall ask him to come and we shall tell him, “Brother, is it not better for you to pay these debts, can't you repay? We shall help you, and you keep working and little by little you will repay the debts.” But we say, “You must get the money whatever it takes, but repay your debt!” – This is unmasking. We shall help him. And when the Lord wanted to rectify the world, He sent Christ, He placed a lot of credit in Christ and Christ said, “I came to give you new life and with this capital you will repay your old debts.”
I want absolutely no unmasking among the students of the Esoteric School. The Truth you will speak – you will call each other and you will speak the Truth in a gentle way. You will keep improving, helping each other, creating your internal world, and to gradually elevate yourselves. You know how gradually a student in music trains one’s hand. What difficulties the student encounters in the beginning, until one’s hand becomes flexible enough to play the music, until one’s fingers finally seem to become conscious of the music and only then can the musician play without any effort. Why? One’s fingers have learnt how to play, these fingers understand how playing takes place. We also should nourish such habits and should be aware of how to comply with certain virtues. One has to necessarily develop a habit, a right thought.
Now, where does one belong in Nature? In order to appear, one human being has to necessarily have a will. And in order to show your will, you will start with the smallest attempt, with the smallest things, do not make great efforts. In order to get to know whether your will is strong, you will experiment with small things. Set yourself a task in your mind; let’s say to get up at 12 o’clock sharp at midnight and starting from here, from Sofia, go to the Vitosha Mountain. So, what does it take to go to the Vitosha Mountain; what difficulties might you encounter? There are no difficulties facing you on your way to Vitosha. First, you will think that it is dark, that you may lose your way; secondly, that you may come across villains, there might be bears or wolves – these are the pictures flooding your imagination. You, after making the decision to go to the mountain, will go out, but then you will come back and say. “I will go to the mountain in more favourable conditions, when the Moon is shining.” If you leave it for later, your will is weak. The Moon shining or not, you have to go. If you say you are going to do something and if you postpone it, your will is weak. If someone has insulted you, you experience a desire and you say, “I will put up with this person” – do it. You have decided on going to Vitosha and at this moment someone comes along and tells you what the weather is like and you say, “Come on, I will do it in a month’s time.” A month is gone, two, three, four are gone – you do not go. If you do not have sufficient will to acquiesce, how can you then accomplish God’s Will and what kind of disciple will you be?
At first, when you enter any Esoteric School you will be put to great tests – some will be told “Your father and your mother you will leave!” Someone will say, “This is not for now.” Don’t you take my words wrongly? There will come a time when you will leave your father and mother, you will renounce your brothers and sisters – you will go. You will then think – either of the two: if you do not renounce them, you will stay at home, while if you renounce them, you will enter the Esoteric School.
You now want to be entrusted with things from the Divine world. How can such things be entrusted to you – to use them for your own sake, to keep them at home? And the Lord knows that if He gives these to you under the present conditions, when your subjective world is not formed, you cannot form your objective world and all of these Divine Goods will be wasted – you will fall into your old habits. And if the Lord grants to you a small gift, all your life you will write stupid poems, dramas, novels; you may write dozens of volumes, but in ten years time these volumes will be forgotten and no one will remember of them. Yet this Divine energy has to be applied properly, it ought to generate specific results.
And now you all want to be good, to be welcomed by the Lord, to see Angels etc. But in order to see Angels, you must have the predisposition of one Angel – when you love someone, that someone is ready to meet you. Angels like to make new acquaintances very much, but when they see the disciples in the present situation, they do not like to talk a lot. What can an Angel tell you when the Angel comes down from Heavens? An Angel steps in your house and there you go telling him about your misfortunes. To the Angel these misfortunes mean nothing; he will stay, will look at you, will listen to you and will leave. And you know what happens sometimes? – Just like that, the Angel will disappear before your eyes; and these Angels of yours often disappear like this. You will ask, “How do they disappear?” I can tell you how they disappear: Let’s say you are in such a frame of mind that you feel like a master of the world, you have a feeling so delightful, so noble, you have an impulse to accomplish God’s Will – the Angel has come. But that day a small reason will get you out of this frame of mind and your Angel will melt, will disappear and you will say, “Gone is this delightful state of mind.” Why? – Perhaps because someone did not pay you, someone who had to give you back a hundred leva – because of these hundred leva you spoil all your happiness. And then you will say, “I understand what Esotericism is, I have a grasp of esoteric science, I have read about it, I have done certain things.” You have read nothing, you have done nothing. If a hundred leva can knock you out, if an ordinary dish of food can knock you out, if the bad attitudes of people can knock you out, then you will be a loser, then your will is weak. The disciple after entering the Spiritual School has to be prepared to be spat upon – the disciple may be told, “You are ignorant, you are stupid.” Well, if I go to the blackboard and solve the problem well, shall I trust myself or shall I trust them? If I, after taking back my seat start playing the violin, and I enjoy myself, while someone else can say, “Your playing is no good”, shall I trust their ear or shall I trust my ear? Similarly we can experiment: I shall not invite, in this particular case, expert violinists, I shall invite simple violinists, shall take them to a menagerie or to the woods, where there are tigers, and I shall tell them, “My music is so enchanting, that it could tame animals.” If all of them listen to me and if I tame them, then I am asking you whether or not I am a violinist? – I am a violinist. My playing is worth it, because when I play, all people may walk their way at ease. This is the way – if we, in Life, can tame all those tigers, bears, wolves with our playing, there is an internal art within us. This is to say that we have an understanding for the objective Divine world, we have applied it to our internal subjective world and we can now project the external objective one.
So, I want you to have a proper grasp. Goods shall not come on their own accord, shall not drop into you laps like ripe pears; these may come and go. If you want one Divine good to remain with you not only for one, five or ten years, but forever, as a companion of yours, you shall have to receive it only under the rules of Truth.
Now that I am talking to you, I do not want my disciples to think that I have someone particular in mind. No, I am speaking on principle. When we talk and mean someone particularly, we mean what the Divine world is like. I believe that all of you are willing to make progress. None of you is willing to be bad or stupid – you all want to be good and smart. It is not that you are not smart, smart you are, but if you implant the brain of the smartest monkey in a child, not even once will the child be able to turn the wheel. Therefore with your present intelligence, your strength; if placed in the intelligence of an esoteric student, not once will the esoteric student be able to turn the wheel. Moreover, do you think that such intelligence is enough? No, this intelligence has to be increased thousands of times, because it has to turn a big Divine wheel. And so Paul says that natural persons have to be transformed into spiritual persons, because natural persons cannot understand spiritual stuff. And you, being disciples, have to transform your present state. You will agree that certain things, which you find delightful, you are prepared to listen to, while about things you do not find agreeable you will say, “These are out of place.” For example if a creditor of yours wants his or her money back, you say, “Now is not the right time.” Why? – You have no cash. No, no, this is the right time. You may say that a certain action of someone is not timely, but that person may also say that your action is not timely, but whether any action is timely or not, can be decided only from the Divine world’s point of view.
So, now the first thing for you to do is to put your will to a small trial. Let’s see how many of you would do this. I would put to you the following task. What do you say? Shall I go ahead with the task? I am not imposing the task on you, you may do it only if your feel absolutely free and if you have a strong desire and Love within. You will think it over carefully within one year, and this is only externally, but this is a task for you to accomplish within one year. The task consists of the following: When you get up at 12 o’clock at night, climb to the Vitosha Mountain and come back. You will choose the time, whenever you feel like – it could be in winter, or in May, but you have to comprehend the task at complete consciousness, you have to be thoroughly convinced. This is the only way for you to do it; you should not be making silly attempts. This should be a conscious effort in order for you to benefit from it. If you do it unaware, don’t go at all, but if you have awareness within, you will learn something, I shall not tell you what. You will leave Sofia at 12 o’clock and will go to Vitosha, up there on the flat ground, each one individually. I am telling you, you should be absolutely free – this is absolutely up to your free will and according to the law of Love, from that it takes a deep conviction; otherwise you will not benefit. Let’s see how many of you will do it, this is a trial test – at 12 o’clock sharp you will start, whatever it may cost you. I do not know what the difficulties are for you along the road – whoever starts the journey, will get to know. You are not obliged to do it, let’s state this clearly, only these of you who are willing. No one will contact anyone on leaving and no one would know this – each one will start on one’s own, because you may not do it. Only I shall have to know who is going to start. If two of you meet along the way – this is good, this is excellent. You will choose the time, whenever you feel like. You will leave at night and come back in daytime, i.e. you will go in the evening, and you will return in daytime. You will need a good stick. You will reach above the meadow up there near the stone, above the snowline. This experiment will be done by the bravest of you, not by the cowards. Cowards should not try this experience. It is up to you personally to decide whether to do it or not. This is only a task, one of the minute tasks.
It looks like I am giving you a task which scares you, doesn’t it? What if a Spiritual Teacher comes to you and takes you to the centre of the Earth? A disciple, who cannot make it on one’s own to Vitosha, will not be able to reach the centre of the Earth even if led by a Master. Those who go to Vitosha alone, if they understand, they may be with a Master. But if they keep asking themselves “Why should I go?” such questions are not answered – when you go, you will get to know. Things are never told in advance; why so? – You may or may not get to know. Chances are you may or may not get to know, but you will still learn something. One thing is for sure, you will learn how strong your will is. If your heart sinks at every step, when you return, you will have had a real experience of how far you can go. There will be another task, a more difficult one. Now you will choose the time, while I am giving you absolute freedom. The Moon shining or not – complete freedom; whatever time you choose – it is up to you to make up your mind. If I have to resolve this problem – I shall choose the worst of weather, the biggest obstacles, the most difficult methods. I shall choose the best road, but the most difficult methods. For you the road now is difficult, and I shall leave you to choose the easiest methods. I can also make it easier for you by giving you an option – you may go and you may not go, you will be free to decide, no one will know who has started, absolutely no one will know. You may say, “How can we go after 12 o’clock, we may be stopped.” At 12 o’clock sharp you will start, no one will know about it – you will leave, absolutely no one will know about this and when you return, again no one will know of this. Only your family will know, but they have to keep it an absolute secret. If two or three of you meet, this is good, but they have to keep it an absolute secret as well. (At this point a student asks: “Is it not dangerous for women?”) – There are no men or women in these deeds, there are disciples only, this is a task only for disciples. If you, after getting up, look upon yourself as a woman or a man, do not start on the road at all. After you start, if you look upon yourself as a disciple, then this is good. But if it crosses your mind that you are a woman or a man, it’s not worth going.
I know that there are certain men among you, who will manage perfectly well. There are some among the men, there are some among the women as well – not all, but some. Some of the women may if they so wish, dress as men.
Please note what interest this task has stirred in you, how it transformed you, what excitement it provoked.
Secret prayer
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