Fourteenth Lecture by the Master, delivered to the General Esoteric Class on Friday,
June 2, 1922, 8-9:30 p.m., Sofia
Keep in mind that tonight we have not gathered here to sit at a laden table; that is, I have not called you here for a feast. This is not the time for a feast, nor is it the time for me to give you advice or instructions, but rather, it is a time for learning. Therefore, I want you to listen to me with your minds, to feel with your hearts and to use your willpower to apply what you have learned.
The methods of the Esoteric School are different from all those methods that present day schools use. The various views we hold of Life depend on our environment. Say you found yourself 10-15 meters below sea level and looked at the world from that viewpoint, what would your views be? And then, how would you perceive things if you were to descend another hundred meters or another two, three, four hundred meters, and then went further down to a thousand or two thousand meters? As a result, the refraction of light would be different. Now, let us imagine the reverse process: how would you view the world if you were to rise above sea level and ascended into the air to a hundred meters, then two, three, four, five hundred meters, then you went further up to a thousand or ten thousand meters? What if you were to go up not a thousand meters, but ten thousand kilometers into the air? On the other hand, if we were to stand on Earth, it would act as a balancing force. Therefore, your perception of the world from the bottom of the ocean and from the highest atmosphere would be from two opposite poles of understanding: those of sunrise and sunset. Sunrise, this is up in the air and sunset is down below, at the bottom of the ocean. However, the analogy that I’ve made is not correct in all of its points of view, because our sunset is sunrise for others, and vice-versa, our sunrise is sunset for others. Henceforth, when your Sun is rising, your sunrise is sunset for someone else; and when your Sun is setting, others have a sunrise.
Therefore, sunrise and sunset are relative notions, not an Absolute reality. At the place where we are now, there is sunrise and sunset. However, if you were a clairvoyant, there would be neither sunrise, nor sunset for you, for you would be able to see the Sun on the opposite end of the Earth even in the middle of the night, and so there would be no sunrise for you. Even the Earth would not move for you if you were a clairvoyant because movement exists only for those who move, and as such cannot register this movement; but for those who are able to register it, there is no movement. Because, if I move faster than a train, will there be any movement? Take the following example as clarification: imagine a point in the Universe that moves so fast that it is in all places in the cosmos at the same time. Well, if it is at all places at the same time, is there any movement then? Yes, there is movement, but it cannot be registered. How can you register it when it takes place simultaneously at all places? We perceive movement only when there is a certain relation between speeds. But if you have an absolute speed we regard this point as a constant.
Now, in this world, unstable people are those who move rather slowly. Snails, for example, are quite unstable. You cannot count on a person who moves like a snail because as soon as he touches a leaf, he, like the snail, retracts his antennas and says, “This is not my kind of thing.” You, then encourage him by saying, “Listen, there are such and such laws; there exists order in everything,” and he pulls out his antennas again. However, as soon as he encounters the next leaf, he hides inside the shell and says, “There is no law here.” And this is how it goes: in and out, in and out. Why does this snail move? From an esoteric point of view we explain it like this: this snail has encountered obstacles on its way. And when you throw this obstacle into the train engine, the wheels start turning. Therefore, when the engine driver comes to this obstacle, he uses it. If he stopped every time he came to a certain point, there would be a waste of energy. However, the engine driver collects this energy, gives it a slope and the wheel starts turning. The engine driver has learned from the snail’s obstacles and says, “If you want to use misfortune for your benefit you should put this misfortune in a curvy line.” Why does the train move? Because of the snail’s mistakes; our trains are the mistakes of the snail. Often, when people travel from one town to another, there are accidents on the way, i.e. in this case the snail did not retract his antennas on time. Thus, the engine driver miscalculated the time and so he could not hide away in time, and then when the accident happens, all travelers jump out of their shells. Now I’m speaking of your consciousness, for it can be that of a snail.
Since my last lecture was philosophical and critical, you now ask, “If this is not Love and if that is not Love, what is Love, then?” When I discussed Love, I had in mind your love as you express it now. I say that what you consider love is worth nothing; this is not Love. You ask, “If this is not Love, then what is?” I will tell you what Love is. Here is an example: let’s say that you have a bottle full of water. This water has been sitting for ten days and has started to smell; there are a number of tiny microscopic bugs swimming in it. I try your water and I say, “This is not water.” “What do you mean, this is not water? We just filled it from the tap.” “It might have been great water but this water today is not healthy.” I, then, take your bottle, pour out the water and you complain, ”This is outrageous! He emptied out our bottle!” Then I say to you, “Wait, come to my water tap.” I take the bottle, wash it out a couple of times; then I boil some water and scrub it inside with sand. “You will break the bottle,” you protest, but I tell you, “Wait a bit longer.” I then rinse out the bottle, I draw from the premium water and I ask you, “Do you remember how your water tasted?” “Yes.” I pour you some water and I give it to you. “Now drink from this water,” I say. This is the only way you could understand the difference between the kind of Love I’m talking about and the other one. You need to keep these two moments in your mind simultaneously and you need to be able to tell the difference between the reality of consciousness and the other reality that can be manifested.
Sunrise is a moment in consciousness and this moment is only the initial one when the Sun comes up from behind the horizon. After the Sun has emerged fully, then this is not sunrise any more. Likewise, sunset is that initial moment when the Sun touches the horizon and then sinks below it. Once again, sunrise is the other moment: the moment when the tip of the Sun first appears, and then it lasts until the sun has appeared fully. Everything in between these two moments is neither sunrise nor sunset. Therefore, in your whole life you will have two moments: every day and every minute you will have either sunrise or sunset and those will consist not of hours but only of a few moments. And if you are able to fully comprehend these moments of your consciousness you will be able to think correctly because your sunrises and sunsets are different every time. Notice that in Nature, sunrises are never the same. For example, sometimes the horizon is not so clear and at other times it is very clear; sometimes you cannot see the sunset and at other times you cannot see the sunrise - these are all mathematically related. These sunrises and sunsets show the relations that exist inside our consciousness, for sunrise and sunset exist as a reality only in our consciousness. If you are not aware of this reality - that the Sun rises and sets - it won’t do anything for you. If the Sun is rising and setting, it is only for your consciousness and once your consciousness is able to perceive the rising of the Sun, then your mind, your heart and your willpower will take part in your consciousness. Therefore, your mind will dwell on the forms and the vibrations of this light that expands; your heart will dwell on the content, and your willpower will focus on the results that may ensue from the combining of the forms with the content. This is all philosophically put.
Now you cannot see the relation between these two ends. I am explaining the sunrise and the sunset in relation to consciousness. I am explaining the fact of the expansion, the content, and the effects of the Light that penetrates into our consciousness. We perceive the Light that is manifested into our consciousness in a specific way. Presently, the extent in which you can comprehend Love is determined by your inner consciousness. Now, you often speak of love the way you perceive it now: you have a pleasant feeling here, in the solar plexus, or you have a pleasant feeling in the hypothalamus on top of your head. I am speaking only of these two centers, but nevertheless, this pleasant feeling is not very real, because this condition can change in a short while. I am telling you a sweet, kind, and harmonious word but we do not seem to understand each other, for the fact is that you are hungry, right? Now I will speak your language. You have been hungry for three days and you expect something, so I will tell you this: “Now I am going to apply the notions of sunset and sunrise to eating, because in eating, too, there is sunrise and sunset.” Imagine that you are poor and you have been eating only beans all your life. You are so sick and tired of it that even at the very mention of beans, you object, “Did God create all those beans just for me alone? I am tired of beans!” If you have been hungry for three days and I tell you, “There is roasted turkey,” then the turkey will be like a sunrise for you. “What about beans,” you say. Here, beans are your sunset. “Your day came to an end very quickly,” I say. In this case, the beans, in your mind, represent the sunset. If I said to you, “There is bread and a chicken roasted with lard,” you would say, “Excellent sunrise.” Then your day would be on the rise, and you would be joyful, right? I’m asking you this, why do the chicken and the turkey produce this joyful feeling in your mind and the very thought of the poor beans makes you say, “I wish it was something else.” Why are you unhappy with the beans? So then I say the following to your mind, “If you are tired, there is a turkey for you,” but I don’t tell you that there are beans. All right then, I mash the beans with a little butter and I tell you this, “I have meatballs here that were made with good meat.” However, when you eat this meat, it gets all mushy in your mouth. You sit at the table, start eating the turkey and the meatballs and you say, “Excellent meal!” I ask you, what is real here? In the first case I tell you the truth and I say, “You will eat beans,” and the second time I name the beans differently, and I say, “These beans were cooked with meat and butter,” and then you ask, “Was the meat veal, lamb or chicken? It was excellent!” Likewise, sometimes you cook bean meatballs from your actions in life and you tell yourself, “Do you know what great meatballs we have made, with such great meat?” However, all you really have is beans. But if I told you the truth, that it was beans; then you would say, “I know what kind of beans these are.” Modern philosophical systems, too, are made only of beans; those are bean meatballs they feed you, but they were fried in butter and cooked so well that everyone who eats them says, “These are excellent meatballs, they are very good. This is a great culture, a great science!” But those who know the Truth, would smile and say, “Yes, they are such excellent meatballs…”
Therefore, we must be able, in our consciousness, to distinguish between the true Reality in the world and the transient one. For example, transient reality is when someone says, “There is God, there is future life.” This statement is a transient reality, because the person who says that there is future life has a distorted consciousness; he does not know what future life is. An occultist will never say that there is future life; instead, he would say this, “There is no future life, because, from a purely esoteric standpoint, if there was future life, it would be exactly like the present one.” However, if we take the word sunrise to mean expansion of our consciousness, and division, and expansion of the Divine life in us, then we regard sunrise in a wider context: we view it as reality. Because Life is one and cannot be limited; it is we who limit Life by saying that there is future life. Life is neither past, nor present, but is Life in itself. In our consciousness Life has sunrise and sunset for three and a half minutes; it only takes three minutes for sunrise. Do you know how many minutes it takes for a person to die? It is almost as much time as it takes for a person to be born. It takes a person’s consciousness the same time to awake as it takes for the sun to rise: three and a half minutes. The child is born and forgets again. And because there is sunrise, you think that the sunrise is getting born and you are happy for as long as it lasts in your consciousness. When this child is about to die, you see how the Sun is going down. There are some people who can live until midnight even after the Sun has set. After the Sun has gone down, they say, “We are going to die.” It is a fact that the Sun of those people who say, “We are going to die,” has already gone down. Therefore, from a purely esoteric viewpoint, you can be born prematurely and you can die prematurely; you can become rich prematurely and you can become poor prematurely; you can become healthy prematurely and you can become sick prematurely. Remember this fact, for all of this will remain in your consciousness. And when I say that we can do anything, it is true; we can do anything but all we need to do is leave the conditions of the earthly life. The clairvoyant, who can see the Sun in its path, has nothing to fear. And this Sun is the manifestation of the Divine in the world and into our consciousness. We are always able to see God.
One of our friends who is here - I won’t mention his name - told me about an experience he once had. He said to me, ”I used to feel a light like that at sunrise. This light used to move before me. But this light has disappeared lately, it is gone.” He felt sad. Before he felt like this light would rise all the time and every time he would leave to go somewhere, the light would stream inside him all the time. This is the beautiful in Life. From an esoteric point of view, every mistake you make will cause your sun to set prematurely, and this is a great evil for your life. Even the smallest mistake will spin the wheel of your Earth and it will start moving faster. The Sun will set prematurely and it is then that all kinds of misfortune will befall you. And when I say that you should not make mistakes, this from an esoteric point of view, means that you should not let your Sun set. Once the Sun has gone down, all work comes to an end. Therefore, your Love will come to an end, too. Now, you have experienced this, at least when you love someone and feel a certain vibration in your solar plexus, combined with this tiny warmth in your heart. However, when you lose this warmth, you start suffering. A knot starts forming in your solar plexus and you feel cold; you feel hatred starting to form and you feel that the person you love is gradually moving away from you, and that you are moving away from him, too. This is the law of sunset: your friendship has set and the two of you are in the night of Life. Then the power of your mind wanes, and no matter how you pray or what prayer you say, you feel as if there is an icy layer above you and your prayer goes up only two feet above your head and descends right back down. What should you do then?
I will tell you the law for this and I won’t use the same example I have given other people before. I will take snow as an example. Snow has a white gown; it is clean. Imagine that a person is like snow, but is cold. If you take a snowball and look at it, it is beautiful and white. You hold it in your hand and look at it: it is perfect, white and clean, but it is cold. Someone says, “May I be clean like snow.” All of you want to be clean and you sing, “May we be clean like snow,” but how are you going to be in Heaven? So, the snow that the Psalmist sings about is not your snow, because when we conduct an experiment and melt the snow, it loses its whiteness. Imagine that snow has its own consciousness and says, “What did you do to me? You have depraved me, for I used to be white and now I have lost my whiteness. You have ruined me.” This is a kind of consciousness. Then someone else comes who is like water and says, ”I am fluid like water, I can adapt to all conditions.” Modern people like adaptation and water will reach a balance in whatever position you put it; it will be pals with ninety-nine kings. Take a bottle, turn it on one end or the other and you will see that whichever way you turn it, the water will reach a balance: it will maintain the same position. This is an excellent example. But if we are like water, what will our life be like? As soon as there is a crack in your bottle, the water starts dripping away and disappears. Then when you look at the bottle you will find out that it is empty. Imagine that water comes to me like a vessel, like a bottle and tells me, “Listen, I am a thinking being, easily adaptable to all conditions. I never oppose anything; I am a very good person who holds nothing against anybody.” However, I take this water, I put it in my oven and I start heating it up, saying, “Yes, you are truly very good.” I heat it up, but then I see some steam coming out; its shape is changing because of the heat. It expands, rises up and comes out as steam. Water will then say to me, “You have changed my form and now I have no stability at all.” Now it looks at its relation to air and says, “I will reach God,” but as it goes up five-six kilometers it comes across a cold current and is corrupted again: it turns into hail, becomes condensed and falls back down to Earth, muddy and corrupted. Then it sinks into Earth, and finally, through great toil and turmoil, it comes up as a cold spring. A thirsty, suffering soul finds the spring, drinks from it and says, “What a beautiful spring this is!” But once this spring was white like snow, then it was fluid, adaptable like water; then it turned into steam, rose up into the air, hardened, fell down as hail and now, after having passed through all this suffering, it carries something new in itself and it says, “Brother, do you know what oven I had to go through to reach this condition as a clean and cold spring? I lost my cleanliness, I lost my fluidity, I lost my expansion, and then I turned into droplets, fell down and became muddy.” And you reply, “Oh, brother, this is all very well, very well.” “Yes, very well it is, but have you been in my condition?”
And when we speak of the Love of a being, we should keep in mind that in order for it to express what we consider Love, this being must pass through nine hundred and ninety-nine million forms. Make a note of this: only after it has passed through nine hundred and ninety-nine million forms can it express the smallest Love. And when you have this smallest experience of Love, it will be like a spring for you; it will be the most pleasant feeling you will ever feel. At first you will feel it only for two and a half or three minutes, and then it may disappear for the rest of your life. And then, like a novel written on a white piece of paper, you will reminisce and say, “There was so much joy, so much happiness, such bliss in those two and a half minutes!” Anything may happen after that: you may become a king, you may have feasts laid out before you, or people may give you money, but these two and a half or three minutes will be the crown of your whole being, and you will say, “I have never had anything like those two and a half or three minutes!” They will be the head and all your life will be included in these three minutes. And we go through all our life only so that we can have these three little minutes. Where are the three minutes? They contain a whole eternity. And do you know that it takes the effort of all infinite eternity in order for Love to be manifested in its smallest form. Love can be manifested only through the effort of all eternity, for it needs this impulse so that Reality can pass through all these forms.
And do you know now if you are disciples or proselytes? This thought is so grand that you should keep thinking about it at all times. It is a grand thought, indeed, so grand that it takes a whole eternity to be able to comprehend this profound and meaningful concept. It takes a whole eternity to understand these three minutes and this eternity means that you need to have a sunrise and a sunset. If the sunrise is faultless, the sunset will be faultless, too. If the sunrise is faulty, the sunset will be faulty, too. Your understanding of things will depend on the basis on which you build when you enter the Esoteric School. For example, some come here to study, but what they really hope is to learn some secrets. No, they will not learn any secrets, for I tell no secrets. You will need a whole eternity to learn the secrets you want to learn. Therefore, no one can take away our secret in only one day or one hour. What do these people study, I ask? You will not learn anything this way. But he, who enters with a pure heart in search of God and Love, will be able to understand a lot.
And so, it is my wish now for everybody to rise like the Sun. I am saying this to the young ones; I call young those who are rising and the old, ones who are setting. But now you, the young ones, may say, “You should know that we are the ones rising.” However, once the old ones were in your place and they, too, used to say, “We are the ones rising.” Some day other young ones will come in your place and will say, “We are rising.” I ask you this: if you think like this, what is your definition of Life? You will say, “We rise correctly,” and the old ones will say, “We set correctly.” You should shake hands now, as Life will not come to an end, because when the young ones come to your place, the wheel will turn and then your Sun will rise and their Sun will set. Then, if your sunset was faultless, your sunrise will be faultless and if their sunrise was faultless, their sunset will be faultless, too. These two sunrises have nothing to do with your present suffering, of course. You may say, “This is all good, but what can we do now; we are suffering?”
Here, in the Esoteric School, there is no place for sick disciples. He who is sick cannot be a disciple, a believer, or a proselyte. I would like for you to give me a piece of paper so that we can make a list of all those who are sick in the School. Here we have hospitals and doctors, and we will send all of you who are sick for a course of treatment and then you can come back afterwards. We have special hospitals and special doctors for the esoteric disciples and when you go to our doctors they will prescribe for you their own system of treatment. And here, in the School, I can see your thoughts, “This teaching is good but we have difficulties in our life.” The difficulties in your life are a blessing for you. The greatest blessing for a disciple of the Esoteric School is to have difficulties and to have great difficulties, at that! Then he passes for a hero. If there are no difficulties, then he is neither a proselyte, nor a believer. The first thing is this: if you have difficulties, you are disciples; if you have no difficulties, then you are done. The math students in the university have such difficult problems and they go up to the blackboard so many times and try to solve the problems one way or another. If you look at an astronomer you will see that he watches out for the minute, for the second when the comet will pass; he observes so closely and has such difficulties, such worries. You sit here and say, “God is good; when the Spirit comes upon us, everything will happen the way God says.” This is a childish view; God has already done and made everything that he wanted to do or make: I can see this in everything that exists. The question is; do we learn everything that God has made and done? “God can do anything.” Now, as I live, I know that God has made the body that I have. You might say, “Do I understand what God has made, do I know the laws; am I open to the knowledge that He has instilled; does His Word enter my consciousness; do I rejoice in His deeds and in His thoughts that are sent down by His Spirit?” “God is great,” you say, “He has made the Sun!” Have you ever explored the Sun to find out about its Essence? Can you visit on the Sun? An esoteric disciple of a third degree - not of a first or a second, but of a third degree - can go to the Sun. You may say now, “I am the first candidate!” You are like that American who calculated that it is possible to throw a grenade on the Moon. He measured the length of the grenade, then the space and also the slope, as he wanted to find out how long it will take for the grenade to fall on the Moon. He made his exact calculations, collected some money, found two candidates and chose one of them to enter the machine and go to the Moon. Now, you, too, as soon as you hear me talk about the Sun - lo and behold! – you are candidates to go to the Sun. This is not the way to go to the Sun. If you can transform your consciousness and if you can acquire, after nine hundred and ninety-nine trials, the smallest form of Love, you will be visitors on the Sun right away. The residents of the Sun will welcome you and when you come back you will be happy and with a grin on your face and you will say, “The Sun is an excellent place!” And you will know the reason for how and why this Light streams incessantly and what this Light means; you will know the language of Light. But you should know that in order for all of this to happen, a transformation of consciousness is necessary. You need a transformation, a change inside your consciousness in order for your mind, your heart and your willpower to be a part of your soul. Therefore, the Esoteric School is not a School for consoling people, but is a School for studying the great unchangeable laws of Existence and of God’s manifestation. It is within those laws that our Life develops evenly and harmoniously. Therefore, only through the expression of such Love will we be able to be in conscious contact with that Being which permeates the cosmos, i.e. we will be able to be in conscious communion with God. And only after going through nine hundred and ninety-nine million forms, will we be able to hear the smallest voice talk to us. And, like in the book of Job that I quoted earlier, when we hear this smallest voice we will understand why we live on Earth. As soon as you understand why you live on Earth, this same Earth will stand before you right away like a living being and it will not be the old Earth, for the old Earth will have disappeared. And then, everywhere you go on Earth, you will bring a different moral: when you walk on this being, you will do so delicately and you will say, “This being is so mighty and gracious.” You will, then, make sure you do not cause this being any shock or pain and you will walk on it the same way you walk in a friend’s house. Of course, this Earth is related to our consciousness. Only when we start thinking this way, will the young and the old be able to live well.
And now, because of our limited consciousness, everyone says, “I will live the way that suits me best.” I ask then, does this rule give you good results? Would Life have any meaning if all of us lived the way that suited us best? No, it would not. “So that I can live!” If you take the word “I” to mean the Divine inside you, then it is good to live according to the law of the Self, the law of consciousness. But if you take the word “I” to mean that you can use the temporary comforts of this limited life, then you have a wrong understanding of Life. Take, for example, a living example from your life: you have a son, you bring him up, educate him, send him to school and church, and this child grows up beautiful and obedient like his father and mother. The parents expect a lot from their son and they say, “Our little boy is very intelligent. He does great at school; he is diligent and earns excellent grades.” However, when he turns 17-18, he starts growing a little moustache and starts pushing his lips. Earlier, he would listen to his mother and ask her, “What can I do for you, Mother?” then he would take the water jug and go to the well for water. However, as time passes, he starts becoming absent-minded and his mother notes, “Our child has a new habit of pushing his lips every now and then.” Why does this boy touch his lips? I will not discuss the meaning of this gesture, for it is a secret that I am not allowed to divulge, but this little boy says, “I saw a young girl, I feel like wooing her.” How does he do that? By pulling one side of his moustache. Should it be the right side or the left side? He pulls it to one side, then he says, “I will pull both sides,” and then twists up his moustache. Then he thinks, “No, no, it’s better when it’s pointing down,” and then he looks at himself again. All of you here, young and old, have done this. There isn’t a single one of you who has not done this, be it consciously or unconsciously. The young ones are doing this right now. Someone wants to steal a certain young woman and he goes to her and says, “Listen, we will live together. I am very noble. Your old folks do not live well but when you live with me you will have all the comforts.” And he starts enumerating, “You will have a house, you will have this and that, we will live in the Kingdom of God like Angels.” “Really?” she asks. “Really, really,” he answers, “Don’t look at how your parents live for they are ignorant and they do not know, but see, I, on the other hand…” and he tugs on his moustache. All right then, they get married and what happens next? Nothing but the same old, fashionable lie, for they end up living just like her parents have lived. A man, who twists his moustache like that, cannot live well. Anybody who twists his moustache up cannot live well, no matter how hard he tries. I am not talking about your personal life but I am trying to explain a psychological point about consciousness. I do not know why and for what purpose, but this young man thinks about his moustache every day. Now, the young woman, too, starts raising her eyebrows and stroking them before the mirror. She tells him, “You should know, sweetheart, I am not like my mother. I am from a different culture. I will do this and that,” but she, too, does not speak the Truth. Those who stroke their eyebrows, too, cannot live well. The moustache and the eyebrows are two symbols, two metaphors.
I will explain in some other way why he says, “Right or left?” This rule talks to itself like this, “I will speak the Truth to him if he touches his right eyebrow." Then, if he touches his left eyebrow, it says, “Why don’t I say a little lie to him? Some darkness won’t hurt; I can tell a little bit of Truth and a little bit of lie and that is how life goes.” For example, sometimes the young woman makes her eyebrows look thicker and sometimes she wants them thin; then she says, “Oh, this is no good and that is no good. Oh, oh!” This is no laughing matter; this is a psychological law. Sometimes you say these same things to yourself, but if you understand the law of your consciousness, you may be able to see and use things differently. In that case, a change of consciousness takes place, as well as a change in your heart, your mind, and your will, and if you have a correct grasp, you will be able to use the moment; if not, all these favourable conditions in Life will pass and you will say, “We were not successful in our work.” I am not saying that this is bad, but you should know that every tug leads to certain consequences. And the same law is at work when the young man puts it in his mind to stroke his moustache. Back in time, before the fall of man, when the original man stroked his moustache to the right or left, he also pronounced a certain formula, he pronounced certain words: particular words for when he stroked his moustache to the right and other words for the left. The young woman, too, has to pronounce certain words. And now, you do not pronounce any formulas. For example, if you are to pronounce the word Love, how are you going to pronounce it? The word Love has its key. First, you need to put in the key, then you need to prepare yourself, and only then will you pronounce the word Love; only then will it have a meaning. Another time, when you are to say the Truth, you will need to put in the key first: the key of Truth. All things have their own key and when you use it, these things will be understood in your mind.
Now, I cannot cover everything because there are proselytes here. And who do we call proselytes? Once, in England, there used to live a very eloquent preacher. He was so eloquent that his entire audience, the rich and the poor, would be so captured that they would forget about everything. A thief, whose trade was not going very well, heard about this and thought to himself, “I will pretend to be a worshipper and then I will sit among these enraptured ones so I can fill up my pocket. I will have a great profit." So he goes there and sits with the rest. The preacher starts speaking, everybody is enraptured, and so is the thief. When the sermon was over, the thief thought to himself, “I missed the moment.” He left but vowed to himself, “Next time I will not become enraptured. I need to exert some willpower. I am a pickpocket and so I should not be enraptured but I should be feeling their purses, instead.” However, the second time, he became enraptured again, and so he did the third time, too, and so, finally he thought to himself, “I will not go to this devil any more, because I will lose my trade.” Likewise, when God’s Spirit starts talking eloquently like this inside you, you too, will become enraptured in the Divine Truth and so, if an evil spirit comes to you, he too will become enraptured and will say, “I should not go to his gathering because I will lose my trade.” And when he leaves, you will be free.
The first thing an esoteric disciple needs is to have an eloquent preacher in himself, and when this preacher speaks, then the disciple’s mind, heart and willpower will lose themselves in this poetic expression, in this loving speech that comes out of the preacher’s mouth. And so I say to all who are in the Esoteric School: every one of you should express their nature freely, the way God has made you. And I do not want you to change; I want you to be the way you are but I want you to have an eloquent preacher in yourselves. And when your preacher speaks, you should be happy with him. I call this preacher the Spirit of great Life in all Existence. You can call him any way you like, but he is the Spirit of Life in all Existence. He can speak at any time, but in order for him to speak, a mind, a heart, and willpower are necessary. Not wilfulness, not a cruel heart, not a misunderstood mind, but a mind filled with Light is necessary, and a heart filled with Purity, and a will filled with power to put everything into practice.
Now, you, the young ones, can test my words tonight by touching your moustache. Do not laugh. If you laugh that means that you have not understood this matter; you should be very serious. Think about why you want to stroke your moustache. The old ones, too, sometimes put their fingers on their moustache. Stop and think for a minute why you have grown a moustache, what was the original cause of this, why were you given a moustache. You can give yourself whatever answer you would like. And think also about why you were given eyebrows. You may not solve this problem, but some thought or some light is bound to come out of your thinking about it. Consequently, this eloquent preacher will give you a wise interpretation. Do not share it with anyone, but keep it for yourself.
And so, I want all disciples who enter the Esoteric School to be rising like the Sun, because the School of Light is a sunrise for us. The Order of Light represents a sunrise, and the Order of Darkness represents a sunset. Now, I group you like this: if you are setting, you are with the Order of Darkness; if you are rising, you are with the Brotherhood of Light. The Brotherhood of Light is always rising; the morning is their time. The Brotherhood of Darkness is always setting. Therefore, we need to have an understanding of these two moments of Life. If we say, “You have risen,” then you are of the Brotherhood of Light. If we say, “You have set,” then you are with the Brotherhood of Darkness. We know that there is no sunset in the Brotherhood of Light, and if someone says that his Sun has risen, then we know that he is from the Brotherhood of Light. Now you see what enormous difference there is in the esoteric view. The Sun’s setting shows that you are on the wrong path, and you should, therefore, turn your consciousness into the direction of the sunrise.
Now, in saying that the old ones are setting, I made a differentiation. When I say young, I mean the Order of Light, and when I say old, I mean the Order of Darkness. This is a symbol: the old, in getting older, represent the Order of Darkness, but they represent it in form and not in content. They resemble the Order of Darkness in their life and so they must pray. When a man gets old, he becomes decrepit and is in a sour mood. When he sees a young one play, the old one wrinkles his brow and says, “What is this fool making all this racket for?” When the old one sees the young one push his way around, he says, “Keep your hand away from me, do not do this in front of me, for only I know this art; you should not learn it,” and in saying so, the old one is moralizing the young one. No, this is not right. Instead of acting this way, the old one should say to himself, “I used to be like him once,” and now he has moved to the left. The old one should not become angry.
Therefore, we should always be young; we should never judge others. And when the Scriptures say, “Do not judge,” it means the following: everyone who judges becomes old and nothing more - this is the rule. Show me one person who judges and has not become old. He, who judges, becomes angry. This is not right; this is misunderstanding things. This is sliding down. Both the anvil and the hammer that beats incessantly on the anvil wear out in the process and no one gains anything. And the beautiful in Life is this: to think only about the great goods that God has created and to endeavor to be as wise and loving as God. And let us leave He who is all-wise to put Life in order. Because when we say that we live by God, we should do this not only passively, but we should rectify our life.
A brother of yours may say, “I am rich; I have an income of ten thousand leva.” Some other brother somewhere else steals one or two thousand leva and people say, “One of the Brotherhood of Light did it.” Well, he is not a Brother of Light, but a Brother of Darkness if he stole ten or twenty thousand leva. Then I say, “Here, take this money, brother. I will even give you interest on it, how much do you want?” Then we will pay honestly, for there is no lie in us. Now, how many of you are ready to pay for someone else? I do not know. Those, who are outside, pay for their brothers who are in the School. And then, there are others, who, when they hear that someone else is paying, demand, “Let him pay for me, too.” No, no, I am pointing out an internal principle. This is a state of mind. Let us all be so loving in our souls, so as not to criticize anyone, because if we criticize, that means that the Spirit is not in us. All of you have experienced this: he, who has sinned and criticized, has lost their Spirit. When you make the smallest criticism in your soul, you will lose your Spirit; the Spirit will be extinguished by all means. And now, one of you who has experienced this, even in the smallest form, should say if this is true or not. Therefore, should the Spirit start speaking in you, you should pay attention. You should aspire for the higher, you should have a correct understanding of the Divine law and you should have no negative thoughts. Then the Spirit in you will explain everything to you and you will evolve with each day and will pass from one glory to another. I demand this of all who are young. I consider all of you young. Why? Because I count you towards the Order of Light; for all, whose consciousness has awoken, are from the Order of Light.
Under the present conditions, all those whose consciousness is awake, should belong to the Order of Light. The old is an emblem of the Order of Darkness. The Order of Darkness is not bad in itself, but in Life these two orders do not follow one and the same principle; they do not follow the same laws. They have their own laws according to which they progress and acquire knowledge. Those in the Order of Light, who want to show the slightest levity, have lost the best conditions of Life for thousands and thousands of years and have no good conditions today. There was a time in the evolution of humankind when it was an honor to be in the Order of Darkness. Back then, the Light ones were setting and the Dark ones were rising. Now it’s the reverse process: now it is an honor to be in the Brotherhood of Light and it is a dishonor to be in the Brotherhood of Darkness. And now you, being disciples of the Esoteric School, should consider it a great privilege and an honor to be members - proselytes, believers or disciples - of the Great Universal Brotherhood of Light, which comes to introduce the New culture in Life. And, as such, you should prepare not in the future, but you should be preparing right now, already. You can start today, or tomorrow, or the day after, for you have the conditions to work; work quietly, silently, and wisely to put the Divine Laws into practice. You will work the way Light works.
(The Master collects all the notes.) Now, I have paid you, therefore I can keep these notes for myself. Are you content? If someone isn’t, I can pay him some more, i.e. I will spend more time with him individually. Some of you have not signed your names on your papers. Those of you who have not signed, should do so, otherwise your wish will not come true conscientiously. See how you wanted to outsmart me, but I outsmarted you in the end. I caught all the trickery of the disciple, and in this case, I have backed you into a corner. So, you did not trust me completely and that is why you did not sign your name. Yes, this is not an accusation, but trickery. The facts say that there is no signature, right? Now, I will let you sign and correct your mistakes. I will not give you back your papers but I will make a deal with you: I will give you your old papers when you bring me the new ones, but I need them signed with your names. The intensity of thought everyone exerts in writing the papers will indicate for me if the work has been signed or not.
(The Master picked out a paper and read.) He wants good for the entire humankind, and wants nothing for himself, and so we will fulfill his wish. It is all right, this is not a great mistake, but I need a signature of some kind. I do not mean a signature literally, but I mean it in essence. In other words, when one writes something and is afraid that others might know his thoughts, then this is the fear of the physical plane. However, when one writes something in order to express oneself, then those sentences are dedicated to the willpower, i.e. he has signed and these sentences will contribute a great deal; such sentences will live on.
Now I will revise your work and I will give you explanations. I will read them over and I will see in what direction your thought was going. These psychological intentions will be interesting for me. I will take my time to turn over every leaf separately; I will read them over individually. It will take me at least three months to look over your papers but your wishes will come true in due time and space. Some wishes will come true in a year, others in two, and some in three years - it all depends. Generally speaking, everything comes true. When will they come true is a question, an esoteric problem to solve.
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