Master’s Sixth Lecture delivered at the Youth Esoteric Class on 8 November 1922 – Wednesday, 19.00h, Sofia
Fir-für-fen, Tao-bi-aumen
Secret prayer
Your topic to write on for the next time is, “The Difference between Soul and Spirit”.
When writing on the topic each one of you should try to feel free, not to be under the influence of anyone else’s opinion, or of what certain authorities have written. Each one shall be one’s own authority. Write about what you know and what you understand the soul and spirit to be. You may also read what other authors have written on the issue, but it is important for you not to be influenced, to be true to your own understanding.
What is your understanding of the word difference? You talk about the difference between two variables, between two equations. What we mean, when two variables are compared, is the difference between them. There is a quantitative difference; there is also a qualitative difference. People speak about difference in colours, so there must be a difference between the quantities of vibrations. We also talk about difference in the beliefs of various people; what is meant here is the degree of human evolution, and the lifestyle people keep. Everyone lives according to one’s beliefs. Human intelligence, as well as human life, is determined by one’s beliefs. Therefore, people say, “Do not dwell upon what one says, but dwell upon the way one lives.” One’s life style determines one’s beliefs, one’s views, and convictions. Some say that they believe in God, but when requested to do a favour they immediately delve into their memory to find out whether the person requesting the favour has done any wrong or harm to them. And if one is found, then they immediately give up doing the favour. Such people remember the evil for years. What belief can this be, to remember the evil?
I now want to take your attention to the consonants. In this particular case neither the character of the letters nor the symbol, expressed by them, is of importance; the importance is the intensity of energy contained in each letter and needed to pronounce it. For example in order to pronounce ‘b’ one brings the lips nearer and applies a little tension. The upper lip is connected with the forces of the Astral World. Two types of energies flow out of the lips simultaneously: active energy from the upper lip, and passive energy from the lower lip. The letter ‘b’ stands for the creative principle in Nature. Note that when one wants to do something, one is tense, and makes an effort as if pronouncing the letter ‘b’. Chest thrown out, eyebrows puckered, straining oneself, one says, “Baa, I can do this thing!” Which is to say; that having pronounced the ‘b’ sound you connect to certain types of energies in Nature. This shows that nothing is accidental, nothing happens by chance. The graphic sign for the ‘b’ sound may vary with different peoples, but the particular energy related with the sound is not accidental. The intensity of this energy is a precisely determined quantity. Having pronounced this sound, one manifests one’s desire to create; in order to realise one’s desire, one should know how to pronounce it. When God pronounced this sound, He created the world; He said, “Let there be Light!” The Holy Scripture is known as The Bible, where the first letter is again ‘b’1.
While pronouncing the sound ‘v’ you place the upper teeth upon the lower lip. Teeth are connected with the physical world. Hence, when pronouncing this sound there goes a unification of an active principle from the physical world (teeth) with a passive principle from the Astral world (lower lip).
When pronouncing the ‘g’ sound, you have to pay attention to the position of the tongue. The word ‘glottal’ begins with the ‘g’ character2. Such is the shape formed when pronouncing the ‘g’ sound. This shape stands for infinity. When pronouncing the sound ‘g’, the tongue touches against the palate, close to the throat, which is to say that you have to understand the measures used to determine the infinite order of energies or figures. With the sound of ‘g’ there is a little rounding of the epiglottis, not of the lips. This sound represents a musical figure. The energies connected with it come from the Spiritual World, therefore the word ‘God’ also begins with the same letter. The letter ‘G’ designates infinity3; it is the sign for infinity. When we say that God is infinite, boundless, this particular attribute is contained in the letter ‘G’ standing at the beginning of the word.
When pronouncing the ‘d’ sound, the tongue touches the palate, up there near the teeth. The tongue stands for the reasonable principle in human beings. The palate represents an active principle from the Divine world. Thus, when articulating the ‘d’ sound the principle of Reason within human beings interacts with the Divine world. The function of the tongue is three fold: to taste, i.e. to try the taste of things, to move, and to talk. When articulating the ‘d’ sound its tip only touches slightly to the Divine World. The sound ‘d’ contains such an active power, which is capable of reconciling the oppositions between the physical and the Divine Worlds. This letter represents an equilibrium law. The ‘d’ contains such rules, through which the forces of Nature can be regulated, counter-balanced and harmonised.
When articulating the ‘e’ sound, there is a slight contracting of the throat and the tongue has a special position in the mouth – it touches slightly upon the lower teeth, upon its passive side. The letter ‘e’ stands for propagation in Nature. At the same time, it also designates two semi-circles, resulting from the division of the circle in two parts. The sign, placed in this position denotes the sound ‘e’, while when it is turned to face west, the same sign denotes the number ‘3’4, if turned upwards to face north, then it denotes the Hebrew letter for ‘sh’, ‘shin’, ‘w’. From this point of view, the sign of the letter ‘e’ denotes descent of Divine energies into the physical world, to be utilized for the propagation and realization of everything that wants to manifest, to materialize itself.
When articulating the ‘z’ like in the word measure [mezə], (the Bulgarian sign for this letter is ‘ж’), there is a small hole between the palate and the tongue. This is to show that this sound is connected to such energies, which facilitate the growth of organic seeds in Life. If you examine the Bulgarian letter ‘ж’ carefully, you will note that it consists of two shin’s or of two letters ‘e’ – one facing up, the other facing down. This is to show that there is a double growth in this case; the upper growth is in the branches where there are blossoms and fruit, and the lower growth is in the roots, which grow, get stronger and propagate. Hence, the sound ‘z’/‘ж’ is connected with forces and energies fostering growth and evolution.5
Fig. 1 (up) and 2 (bottom)
One should study the sounds in order to get connected with the energies flowing through them, so that one can experience the influence. It is the energies, which come out of the thoughts, feelings, words and acts of human beings, which account for the harmonic or disharmonic situations experienced by human beings. Imagine you are thinking about a friend of yours, and when you remember about him or her, you feel pleasurably harmonically predisposed. What is the reason for this predisposing? The good thought you are sending out to your friend. Thoughts do not travel along straight lines; they follow sort of wavy lines. At the same time, your friend is sending out a good thought to you, and is at the same time, preparing to visit you, as he or she had promised. Your thoughts meet your friend’s thoughts and the thoughts of both of you follow a proper exchange. As thoughts are wavy in shapes, the ups in your friend’s thoughts coincide with the downs of your thoughts and they continue on their way (Figure 1). What you feel is harmony spreading over you. However, the least suspicion in respect of your friend breaks the harmony of your thoughts and you feel a headache, a tension around the temples. Suspicion causes the collision of your thoughts. How do such collisions occur? The ups of your friend’s thoughts no longer get into the downs of your thoughts, but ups meet ups, hence the repulsion of thoughts (Figure 2). This repulsion is the cause of your headache.
So, when there is harmony in the thoughts of one person or between the thoughts of two or more persons, there always appears Light; as soon as the harmony between thoughts is interrupted, darkness and obscurity come to one’s mind. This law can be verified everywhere in Life. A teacher explains a problem to his students. If a student is in doubt whether he or she can understand the problem, immediately the explanations given by the teacher vanish and the problem becomes obscure, non-understandable. Therefore, when the teacher explains something, the students must be in harmonic connection with the teacher. A single doubt interrupts the connection. When the students are in connection with their teacher, the latter elevates their thoughts higher, links them with the vibrations of his own thoughts and the students are happy and find the subject clear and easy to understand. They are glad that there is light in their mind and consciousness.
This is how, when two harmonic thoughts meet, there appear waves, which flow properly along their course. The ups of the one thought get into the downs of the other thought and thus they form one wave (Figure 1). Similar is the position of two cogwheels, when they get into each other. If the movement of these two wheels is altered this immediately leads to disharmony and they stop moving. If they do not stop, there will be frictions, which may break some of the cogs.
You may perform an experiment, to find out what impact harmonic and disharmonic thoughts have upon people. Out of two thoughts in harmony, one is positive – it is connected with the cold currents in Nature; the other thought bears negative energy – it is connected with the warm currents in Nature. As long as one keeps moving between these two currents, one finds oneself feeling all right, and healthy. Then in the one hemisphere of one’s brain there appear cold currents, while in the other – warm, magnetic currents. When the head gets hot, one finds oneself sick. In order to restore one’s healthy condition, one has to trigger a certain split of the mind within, so that there would be two different currents running in the two hemispheres of the brain. As soon as such a state is achieved, blood starts circulating properly and one starts feeling healthy. Rain in Nature is also formed under the same conditions, namely when two different currents – the one warm, the other one cold – meet. The same can be said about the origin of one’s thoughts and desires – they are also formed when two opposite waves or currents meet.
Let’s go back to letters and words. When you pronounce letters, it would be good if you write them and study the movements of the throat, tongue, and lips. Little by little, you will move from letters to words. You will see that many words are grammatically correct in writing, but there is a certain lack of correspondence between their meanings and the forces acting within them. For example, the word criminal, by its meaning is a bad word, but as far as the forces or energies contained within are concerned, it exhibits an ascending movement6. When you call someone a criminal, you mean a person violating the law. However, the energies contained in this word are of an ascending order. This word is of a noble origin. With the Bulgarians when a child starts walking, i.e. the child makes its first step in life, the mother makes honey bread and invites neighbours to a treat. Consider there is a prison awaiting the criminal, while there is bread awaiting the newly walking child. This shows that even though certain words have acquired negative meanings, they have not completely lost their purity, have not been corrupted. I shall explain how this happens in the following example: Imagine you have a beautiful bottle made of pure high-quality porcelain; and you pour strong acid into the bottle. Acid is harmful, dangerous, but it does not corrupt the bottle, it does not penetrate through the holes of the porcelain. When the bottle is emptied you want to pour pure fine water into it. What do you have to do? You rinse the bottle thoroughly, and you see that it becomes pure, so that you can freely fill it with water. What does this show? This shows that the contents of the bottle were impure, but the very bottle itself has retained its primary features. Similar is the situation with the word criminal, which is corrupted only in its sense, but not in its primary origin, substance, and vibrations. As soon as we get rid of its sense, it acquires the features it originally had. Apart from form, contents and sense, words also have age. Some words come to live only a few years; others – a hundred, two hundred years, while still others – live a thousand years, two thousand, and longer. The word criminal is not a negative word, but it acquired a completely different meaning in Bulgarian and has become corrupted. Similarly, the word chantteuse is corrupted. It is of French origin. France is its native land, its mother and father are there, and it means a lady-singer. This word is of a high, noble origin. When it left its fatherland, it was motherless and fatherless, wandered among foreign peoples, knocked on foreign doors, which completely distorted its sense and meaning. Wherever it wandered, it was made do servant’s work – to wash up the dishes, and consequently the word today is corrupted. Chansonnier is understood today to mean an easy profligate woman of low morals.
So, while you are studying various languages, pay attention to the positive and negative words. For example, the word light is positive, while the word darkness – is negative. Darkness always follows Light. These are two sisters; one is dressed in dark clothes, the other – in light ones. Having dipped below the horizon, Light becomes invisible. Darkness, however, follows it closely. Therefore, darkness is the opposite force to Light, to Love – hatred, to the Good – the evil. Light, Love, and Good are positive words, while darkness, hatred, and evil – negative ones. While classifying the words in such a manner you will dwell on the word criminal, to find out which other word corresponds to the contents implied in it. You have to find the father and mother of the word criminal, to study its origin. If the mother and father of this word are good, noble people, it is impossible for their daughter or son to be criminals – this is the law. Although, sometimes while a person is growing there are deviations – but there is no way such a deviation can be a crime. You say that the word criminal can be substituted with the word evil-doer. This word means a person who works according to negative methods.
While studying the positive and negative words in any language, you have to dwell also upon the neutral words. For next time make a list of fifty positive and fifty negative words so that you could see whether the contents and sense of the words always correspond to their outer appearance, to their external expression.
Being esoteric disciples, you have to do a number of exercises, to reach a point where you would understand words by their contents and sense. Why? Because esoteric disciples are not allowed to use ambiguous words. When you want to state a Truth, the words you use have to be positive in form, in content, and in sense. Moreover, each word represents a picture, an image of something alive, be it from the physical or Spiritual worlds. Remember the first esoteric musical exercise you were given at the Esoteric School. The first musical exercise was from the physical world: “Force alive, spring-like, flowing”. It represents a live picture of flowing moving waters.
The second musical exercise was “The Sun is rising”. When you articulate the words the Sun is rising, you start thinking. You can see, before you, a live picture of the rising Sun – you can imagine how the Sun is rising, how it sends its light to all Nature, and what this light performs.
“The Sun is rising, sending its light, bringing joy to life.” What is this Joy due to? Joy is due to the fact that all plants shoot, grow and develop. This is another picture, but it belongs to the Astral world, where the energies are superior, finer than the ones in the physical world.
The third musical exercise that was given to you was “Honey Sweet”. It also conjures a number of pictures in your imagination – about the Sun, the flowers, bees and their lives, their culture, their great purity. These pictures bring meaning to the words of honey sweet. It is from these pictures that the idea, contained in the words honey sweet, stands out. The sweet has come from the Sun and has penetrated the flowers, from where bees suck it out and processes it. They convert it into honey and use it for food. When you try to visualize the picture about the life of the bees, the first that meets the eye is their physical cleanliness and great assiduousness. The tiniest deviation from the law is enough to inflict a severe punishment to any bee.
Well, when studying a language it is good for you to classify the words in such a way that each one falls into the relevant world – physical, Astral or Mental. Thus allocated, each one at its own place, the words will be clear, understandable in meaning and content. Then there will be no such ambiguity, as you sometimes encounter with certain words. For example, you often use the word love, but some feel shy when they pronounce it, while others are wondering what kind of love is meant. This shows that this word has several meanings, which result from the various currents within it – ascending and descending. The fact that you ask yourselves what kind of love is meant shows that there are several kinds of manifestations of love: love manifested among animals, among people, among Angels, and finally there comes the Divine Love.
What is the difference between Angels Love and Divine Love? As disciples of Love, you will say what the difference is between the one and the other kind of love. (- Divine Love contains forces, conditions for growth) – Divine Love stands out with Absolute fidelity – within it there is no changing, no betrayal; it does not alter by form, or content, or by meaning. Angels love alters by form, but never by content and meaning. If it does not alter by content and meaning, then this shows that Angels love is free of passion. If you talk to an Angel about passions, the Angel will understand nothing: Angels are absolutely ignorant in this respect. As far as human love is concerned, you are familiar with it, no need to dwell upon it. You all know that human love is interspersed with animal love, and this is precisely why it changes by form, by content, but not by meaning. It includes passion and excludes Purity. A distinctive feature of human love is that it always imposes restrictions. Suffice to say that if somebody falls in love with you, he or she immediately restricts you. He or she says, “I love you and you will mix only with me and my friends, you have no right to befriend anybody else outside this circle.” Animal love changes by form, by content, and by meaning; it is forgetful of everything.
If we examine closely the Latin word anima meaning soul, and the word animal7, by content and by meaning, we consider them positive words. When we want to exaggerate something, to show that the energies flowing somewhere are lower, we use the word animal, but this word, does not in the least, contain lower energies within it. There are, for example, animals that manifest love at a level higher than human love. A rat was observed taking grains to a pigeon, to feed the pigeon. We consider animal love at a lower level, because it is predominantly connected with matter. It does not acknowledge a world higher than the material one; as soon as the material world stops existing, the animal love comes to an end as well. Animal love goes as far as their interests are connected with matter. Human love, however, spans both worlds - the material and the Spiritual worlds. When you study the bird life, you notice that they get together in great numbers not out of love, but out of need to defend themselves, to attack their prey etc. They disperse as soon as the danger is over. Human beings also pass through all of these states. In order to arrive at great Love, human beings have to go through all the phases of Love – through animal love, through Angels love and finally one will enter Divine Love. These are phases of Love, which one has to observe and study within oneself.
So, as long as human beings are preoccupied only with material life, they are within the confines of animal love; as long as human beings are preoccupied with material and spiritual life, they are within the confines of human love; as soon as human love sheds passion, human beings enter upon Angels love; and finally when human beings get to know the reasons for all phenomena in Life, they enter upon Divine Love. If you want to verify the truthfulness of my words, keep an eye on your manifestations, as well on the manifestations of the people close to you, so that you can find what phase of Love you have reached. You will notice what subtle distinctions there exist in the various manifestations of Love with different people. Being esoteric disciples, you have to study Love in all its manifestations, in order to understand the supreme Love – God’s Love. If the word Love is not determined, the reason for this is that it contains four types of currents within, amongst which there is a certain correlation. Out of these four types of currents in Nature you can make four equations, where you will designate Divine Love with the letter “D”, Angels Love – with the letter “A”, the love of human beings - with the letter “M” (from the word manas, meaning man), while animal love – with the letter “N”8. If the stomach prevails over the other organs, one manifests human love; if the lungs prevail, one manifests Angels love; if the brains prevail, one manifests Divine Love.
Fig. 3
Now, if the width of the head, i.e. if the width of the brain is bigger than the length, this shows, that with this person animal love prevails. The width of the head is measured by the distance from the one ear to the other one. The bigger the width of the head, the greater the intensity of forces active in these centres. Apart from its width, each organ has certain activity, which is a function of its volume, of the space it takes at a given moment. If you draw radii from the middle of the ear to the front and upper part of the head, the length of the radii will allow you to determine the kind of love within this person (Figure 3). If the OA radius is longer than the other radii, human love prevails; if the OB radius is longer than the others – Angels love prevails; if the OC radius is longer than the rest – Divine Love prevails. Hence, the length of the radii determines the intensity of Love manifesting itself in a person. The length of the radii determines the degree of Love’s intensity.
Fig. 4
If we draw two lines from the ear – one, OA, above the nose, and the other, OB, below the nose, there will be an angle of 30 determining the intelligence of the person (Figure 4). The value of this angle determines the various degrees of intelligence with animals. Originally, the brain’s centre of gravity was located somewhere behind, but alongside the gradual evolution of humankind, the centre of gravity moved to the front part of the brain. This is exactly why the forehead of the human being is straight, while that of animals – is slanted, sloping. This is the reason accounting why animals walk on four legs, not on two like human beings. The AOB angle determines the intensity of mental energies with human beings. If you examine how the word love9 is written in Bulgarian, you will notice that the first letter ‘v’ represents an angle, similar to the AOB angle. This angle is composed by two variables – AO and BO, which head in two different directions and counteract each other. When you write the word love, you will notice that the ABC angle (Figure 5), which is a replica of the letter “V”, is also formed by two variables AB and BC, moving in different directions. In order to implant reason into Love, you have to link the A and C points with a straight line, so that you draw a triangle. In this situation, the three sides of the triangle can be equal, but their lengths depend on the direction of movement of the AB and BC lines. If these lines are longer or shorter than the AC line, there will be a right-angled triangle, to which one can apply the Pythagoras theorem: the sum of the squares of the two catheti is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. The surface area is a measure for forces. Thus, the forces acting within the square of the hypotenuse are equal to the sum of the forces acting within the squares of the two catheti.
Fig. 5
Often in life, people talk about the straight path, which is symbolically represented by a straight line. However, the straight line does not in the slightest mean a straight path. The straight line determines the shortest distance between two points, but in no way does it determine the straight path. Why? Because even villains choose the shortest path, without actually taking the straight path. There is a huge difference between a straight line and a straight path. The straight path is determined by the intensity of the forces acting within a person. I shall give you a graphical representation of this idea (Figure 6). There are the forces – M and N – coming from two different directions and moving towards point A, but they encounter the resistance, CD, and are repelled. This resistance is a rock, in the middle of which there is a spring A. The M and N forces heading towards A, represent the forces of the mind, MA, and of the heart, NA. When these forces encounter the resistance, CD, they go back, forming a circle. Having traversed this circle, they go back to where they have come from. To avoid repulsion these forces have to be employed to work. This is to be done by the will. The will is a force, which employs one’s thoughts and feelings to work, and produces a number of actions. When a person has a weak will one’s thoughts and desires form a circle each, without performing any work. When a person has a strong will, such a person employs his thoughts and desires to work and thus performs something.
Fig. 6
These are explanations, which distract students’ attention. Such explanations are needed as a break. This is how teachers treat little children – when the teacher notices that the children are tired, the teacher discontinues the lesson and tells the children a story. When they have had enough rest, the teacher goes back to the subject. Now you too, listening to my explanations about the forces, find it difficult to relate what I started my lecture with and what I am now telling you. The relation is in the point that whenever you pronounce a word, you have to manifest a thought, a feeling, and an action. From an esoteric point of view, each articulated word, each movement contains either positive or negative forces within. For example when you want to hit someone, you make a downward movement; when you want to prevent someone from committing a crime, you make a movement with the arms ahead. The upward movements we make contain ascending forces and can be positive or negative. The downward movements are descending and can be positive or negative. Now that you know this, you should be very conscious of your movements. Never keep your head facing downwards, to the ground, as you will connect with the forces of the Earth, which will affect your thoughts. Therefore, keep your head up, so that you will connect your thoughts with the forces coming from the Sun. It is at times necessary for one to take a look at the ground, but if one constantly looks at the ground, this person will be distorted. The Bulgarians have a saying, “Beware of a person who looks at the ground!” The Turks have a saying, “One who looks at the ground, burns the hearts around.” Each movement is a function of certain forces, regardless of the fact whether one is aware of these forces. These can be coming from the mind or from the heart. Movements can also stem from the consciousness, from the self-consciousness, from the sub-consciousness and from the super consciousness of the human being. Disciples should watch themselves, should study the movements and the forces related with such movements, so that disciples, via words, can regulate them properly.
Now that you write on the assigned topic, “The Difference between Soul and Spirit”, for some time dwell upon the words spirit and soul; give it a thought. These will enlighten your consciousness and you will write something on your own. These words are ideal as they carry Light within themselves. By dwelling upon the words, you will learn how to understand the profound meaning implied in them. Esoteric disciples should never be in a hurry. Having, calmly and quietly pronounced several times the words soul and spirit, at the word soul you will feel a special warmth, special mildness in the pit of the stomach and will experience a desire to caress everything around you. Having pronounced the word spirit you will feel a special strength, special activity. The word soul generates mildness, while the word spirit generates strength. The word soul produces an internal opening towards a certain centre, while the word spirit – opening towards the external, accompanied by a desire to conquer the world. These are experiences you will go through having pronounced soul and spirit. You will then ask yourselves, “Am I a soul?” – “I am a soul, because I sniff, I smell something.”10 As you can see the Bulgarian word for soul has several meanings: sniff, smell something; strangle11 somebody, i.e. take somebody by the throat, i.e. try him or her, whether they are souls or not, whether they live or not. You will then tell yourselves “I am a Spirit.” Having said this word you will experience a current of a force flowing into you, of an activity having a desire to break loose, get outside. Having pronounced these two words, two currents will form; one flowing from outside, passing through the head and going down to the sympathetic nervous system; while the other one flows out of the sympathetic nervous system, passes through the heart and hence spreads over to the head. When pronouncing the word soul, the currents come from above and penetrate inside the organism; when pronouncing the word spirit, the currents follow an outbound direction.
Now that you know this, you should regulate the energies in your organism properly. If the energies of your organism are not properly distributed, this will cause a number of sufferings for you. Now that I watch you, I can see that your energies are not properly spread – there are more energies clustered at certain places, while at other places there are less energies clustered, and subsequently you have disharmonic experiences. When we say that a person has a character, this means that the energies within this person are distributed exactly at their proper places and are in harmony with each other.
Being disciples, you have to understand the law on the energy transformation within your organisms, not to be left to deal with deviations. To this effect, you have to regulate the forces of your organism, to balance them, to control your mind and heart, to direct your will, to understand the relationship between the Spirit and the Soul. As soon as you accomplish this, you will be able to perform the duties you have to Nature; you will also reach the objective you are aiming at – to get to know God, to know yourselves. This is the meaning of Life. To find the meaning of Life – this is one of the great tasks of esoteric disciples. To achieve this, disciples have to start with the smallest task – work upon one’s body. This takes exercises, efforts and diligence.
Secret prayer
Fir-für-fen
Tao-bi-aumen
1 The Master makes reference to the beginning of the Holy Scripture – Genesis. The Bulgarian for Genesis is Битие [Bitie] - a word beginning with the letter ‘b’. In order to retain the Master’s idea Genesis was translated as Bible – thus retaining the same reference source and keeping ‘b’ as the first letter/sound of the word. (tr. note) According to the Hebrew Bible, God created the world with 'b' (beth) and the first word in the Hebrew Bible is (Bereshit) which means in the beginning. The Book of Genesis is called Bereshit in Hebrew. Genesis means the coming into being of something; the origin. (Ed. note)
2 The Master makes reference to the ‘g’ sound – and his example is the Bulgarian word гърло [gə:rlo] meaning throat. Moreover the sound ‘g’ is articulated in the throat, but is not present in the word throat. So, to preserve the reference to the ‘g’ sound and to the organ of articulation, гърло [gə:rlo] was translated as glottal. One more so to say deviation from the original – the Bulgarian letter for the sound ‘g’ is “г” – the Master says that this is the shape that stands for infinity. Perhaps, infinity can also be seen in ‘g’? …
3 The Master comments on the Bulgarian block capital letter for ‘G’= ‘Г’, which is a lop-sided ‘L’ sign. Quote: The ‘G’/‘Г’letter consists of the figure 1, upon which the sign for infinity rests… but the figure 1 is not a constituent part of the English letter ‘G’. So the translation of the above sentence in italics was condensed to: The letter ‘G’ designates infinity, it is the sign for infinity.
4 The mirror image of ‘E’ in Bulgarian is ‘3’=[z]; as the Master talks about multi-functionality, I was trying to find a letter which the ‘E’ sign would designate when facing west. Well, in English, when ‘E’ faces west, it designates the number/figure ‘3’
5 The Cyrillic letter ‘ж’ presents a problem. It has no single letter/sound correspondence in English – the directly corresponding sound can be represented by a graphic sign only in the English transcription in [plezə] in pleasure; [mezə] in measure.
6 In this context, the Master comments on the Bulgarian word for criminal - „престъпник” [pres’təpnik]. The point the Master makes can be understood only through understanding the meaning vested in the Bulgarian word – it is derived from a verb meaning to take a step beyond. However, this word has two meanings a) to take a step beyond on the physical level, and 2) to take a step beyond on the moral level, i.e. beyond the limitations set by law; the second meaning translates in English as transgress -‘trans’=beyond & ‘gradi’=step. Hence the common deep sense in both meanings of the word in respect of a criminal and of a child. These comments do not directly refer to the origin of the English word criminal.
7 The Bulgarian word for ‘anim-al’ i.e. ‘живот-но’ is derived from the Bulgarian word for ‘life’ i.e. ‘живот’ - just like the English word ‘anim-al’ is derived from the Latin ‘anima’ – although anima and life are two different words the Master traces a derivative pattern and comments on the root word – life in Bulgarian – the closest approximation in English was achieved through the Latin word anima meaning soul in English..
8 The Master wants animal love to be designated by the Bulgarian letter ‘ж’ standing for ‘животно’ = ‘animal’. 1. This letter has no directly corresponding English letter; 2. The English word animal begins with ‘A’; 3. ‘A’ was assigned to Angles’ love – So, ‘N’, being the second letter in the word animal is suggested to stand for animal love.
9 The Master refers to the Bulgarian word for Love = Любов [ljubov] (the two words begin with the same sound), and comments on the shape of the first letter ‘Л’ in relation with the angle – similar shape, hence resemblance to the angle, has the English letter ‘V’, although as if turned upside down. This letter is present in the word Love. But the first letter of the English word, unlike the first letter in the Bulgarian word does not show any resemblance to the angle – which is the point the Master makes. The translation deviates from the original text only in that it compares not the initial letters of the two words, but the initial letter of the Bulgarian word to the third letter in the English word, as these two bear resemblance.
10 The Bulgarian word for soul has several meanings. Moreover, the Bulgarian words for soul, sniff and smell are homophones, i.e. these three words, having three different meanings, are spelt and pronounced in the same way.
11 The meaning of strangling is achieved by shifting the stress of the word to the second syllable
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