Now, I’m going to read a part from Isaiah, Chapter 49, starting from verse 15. This is the teaching of the Old Testament people, the old people of the flesh. Their views of that time are expressed here.
I shall also read from Matthew, Chapter 15, and make a parallel between the two chapters. I start again from verse 15 and onwards.
This gathering is the first one of its kind. The first day begins with the day of Love.
We divide people into four categories: Old Testament people, New Testament people, righteous people of the new times, and disciples. In the Old Testament you will find what your thoughts and views about Life in the past were. In the New Testament you will find what your views about Life as New Testament people were. If you look for the Path of the disciple in the Gospel, you will not find it there. So, the Path of the disciple is the new that God gives today.
Somebody says: “I speak and think.” No, no one in the world can speak or think. Only God expresses Himself in the world, and all people are bearers of the great wisdom of God; it flows through them. And anyone who claims The Divine as his own and says that it belongs to him is not a man. Once, one of the greatest spirits of the first universe looked at himself in the Divine mirror and seeing his beauty unrivalled by any of the other spirits, said: “That’s me!” But at the moment he said “that’s me” he began to fade, losing his beauty. Why? This beauty did not belong to him. We call this spirit Lucifer.
Some people ask what sin is. Sin is a deformation of inner physical life, i.e. of the great Divine life. When we speak of sin we do not mean the spiritual life but the material life of people. In all material worlds, sin follows the same way as a shadow does after the wheel; it is inevitable. Wherever there is Sun, there is a shadow and there is also sin. Wherever there is no Sun, there is no shadow and there is no sin. However, in the physical world it seems that the Sun rises and sets. In fact, the Sun never goes down; therefore the shadow always comes after the wheel.
Today, there are certain contradictions in the consciousness of all people. For example, sometimes you think that you are on the right path and that you have found God. Then you are joyful, merry, erudite, and you think that you know everything; it is so indeed. You are as righteous as one can be. You are as holy as one can be. You are as erudite as one can be. There are restrictions and bounds in all of this. When we speak of Knowledge, we do not mean complete knowledge of God or even complete knowledge of Angels, but the Knowledge that is made known to the human mind. When we speak of Goodness, we also mean the Goodness made known to the human Heart. When we speak of Power we mean the Power made known to the human Spirit.
So, first of all you should have a clear idea about the Old Testament man, following this you should have a clear idea about the New Testament man, then you should have a clear idea about the righteous man – the man of the new age, and finally, you should have a clear idea about the disciple. These are the paths, and the stages that a disciple should know.
Therefore, when we speak of riches, of material welfare in the world we mean the strivings of a certain kind of people. These are the Old Testament people. Their strivings are right, therefore God allows this. As long as they are Old Testament people they have the right to possess fields, oxen, different kinds of cattle, hoes to plough and dig the earth, to be born and reborn, to kill each other; they can do anything. This is the position of the physical world. The potter who makes pots for sale will make many pots; some good and some bad. Some of them will crack; others will prove to be good and he will sort them out according to their quality. It depends on his knowledge and skills as a potter. He will send both kinds of pots to the market but according to his opinion he will determine which pots are more suitable for a superior use. There is a market for all kinds of pots in the world. If pots had a consciousness, then those of a lower quality would say: “Why did the potter do this to us? Why did he give those pots such a good shape and make us so ugly? Why did he give them such honour and glory in the world, and expose us to such a disgrace?” I ask if the potter is responsible for all of this. This is the outer, physical side of Life; this is just a temporary notion about things.
In this example, I do not only mean the state of the potter. It is an expression of Living Nature working within us. Today, all of us are about to solve this significant problem in Living Nature. In this sense, I ask you if your stomach has the same place of honour as your lungs have? Do the large intestines and the small intestines have the same place of honour as your brain? Do the feet of the legs have the same place of honour as your eyes? How can you explain all the contradictions in life? However, all organs in our body, no matter what their position is, are built from living cells, living souls who have a common, united soul. And if one day they are given favourable conditions to develop then they will become as clever as you are, as beautiful as you are, and with as much knowledge as you have. They can also take the same place of honour in society which you hold. But nowadays these cells are diminished, and put into such unenviable positions in order to learn to be humble. They are content with this insignificant service.
You ask what sin is. I shall tell you: sin begins with great things, and Good begins with insignificant, little things. Great things as they grow smaller produce sin that destroys. And vice versa, little insignificant things as they grow bigger produce Good. The difference between Good and evil lies in the following: when Good grows, cells multiply, and unite into a whole forming the organism. And when these cells after multiplying start dividing again, individualization takes place among them and thus evil is born. Therefore, it is enough for two, three, four, five, six or ten people that have lived in harmony, to individualize themselves and each of them in order to get notable in something start insisting on having their own way. They are already on the threshold of evil, on the threshold of sin. They separate and no longer have a common aim. Sin is deviation from God. When people deviate from God they have different aims, different strivings. In sin, there is a variety of ideals, a variety of forms. In the life of righteous people, there seems to be an outer monotony towards the aim they pursue. Everyone strives for one and the same thing – to be righteous. The sinner never says he wants to be sinful but says: “I want to live my life, to try everything in the world; this is exactly why I have come to Earth. My father has a great fortune so I should use it. In my old age, after I have tried everything in life, after I have acquired knowledge and wisdom, then I will think how to serve God with these acquisitions. Then, I shall be more experienced and will know how to serve God.” Thus the wise man of sin speaks.
So I say: as disciples, you should have a clear notion about the Path of the disciple. In terms of what the Path of the disciple should be, we absolutely do not criticize anyone, we make no judgments. From this point of view we do not moralize; we do not say this one is wrong, and that one is right. We absolutely do not deal with people’s faults; they do not exist for us. For us, only the correct life exists, a Life of Love. I say: God is a God of Love, Light, Peace and Joy. Therefore, these are also the qualities of the disciple. If you ask me what your ideal under the present conditions should be, I shall tell you that your ideal should be Love, Light, Peace, and Joy for the souls. This is not an ideal to be attained in eternity; it can be attained even now. You cannot say you love Truth, Wisdom, and you want to attain them. Another age will come for Wisdom and Truth; they are not for now, not for the present times. Now, at the beginning, you need Love, but not without Light; you need Light but not without Peace; you need Peace but not without Joy. So you need Love with Light, Light with Peace, and Peace with Joy. All these things are connected into a whole.
What is Love worth without Light? Did not all Old Testament people have Love without Light? What did they acquire? What is Light worth without Peace? Did not all New Testament people have Light without Peace? What did they acquire? That is why you should understand correctly the inner process of Life. After acquiring knowledge, this knowledge should give you Light. Is this indeed the case? You have a lot of knowledge but you are not satisfied with your life, you do not have Peace inside. Religious people lack not only Peace inside themselves, but they lack Joy as well. That’s why when religious people tell of their experience, their views and conclusions are ordinary. When a disciple tells of his experience he can tell of an experience of Love in which there is Light; the disciple can tell of his experience of Light in which there is Peace; the disciple can tell of his experience of Peace which brings Joy to his soul. All disciples of the Great Universal Brotherhood have lived amongst both Old Testament people and New Testament people. Nowadays, they live amongst righteous people.
I call righteous the people who have courts with established rules and order. All people look for Justice in the world, they want to attain it but they do not have the methods in which to apply it. Nowadays, all people ask themselves how to correct the world. By the word "world" I mean present-day life in all its manifestations: individual, social and universal; common to all mankind. How can all these kinds of life be corrected? – Through Love, Light, Peace and Joy. In present-day life, Love is not given, Light is not given, Peace is not given, and Joy is not given. I speak of the New life that is coming now. The New life will come through the new Love that is already entering the world. This is the Path of the disciple. You should know how to perceive this Love; you should know how to meet the new Light coming to the world; you should know what place to give to the new Peace in your soul; you should know what richest feast to give to the Joy coming to the world: there is feast only where Joy is present.
I shall read verse 15, chapter 15 from the Gospel of John: ”I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
Those of you who listen to me should understand me well, and should think correctly. None of you should get discouraged or be tempted. The Old Testament people get embittered; the New Testament people are tempted; the righteous people become sad, and the disciple always rejoices at the contradictions he meets in his life. He knows that each contradiction is a great task to solve. These contradictions are not only facts as some people call them but they come as results of all the four kinds of life which run into our organism. The Old Testament life runs into your veins and large intestines. You cannot get rid of it. Therefore, it carries in itself a series of contradictions from which you cannot escape. The New Testament life flows into your lungs, extending to your sympathetic system and to your solar plexus. Life of the righteous man spreads to the lower layers of the brain, and life determining the life of the disciple runs into the supreme layers of the brain, it has taken the best place. That is why this life represents the ideal in man.
How can you know if one is a disciple? You shall recognize him by the following qualities: he bears within a soft light that does not cause irritation to the eyes. He speaks with such a soft tone that never jars the ear. He can feed you with such food that would never upset your stomach or spoil your taste. You should comprehend these things not in letter but in an inner sense. When you have Joy that expels all contradictions, then you have touched a small part of the life of the disciple. This Joy shows you what you should be as disciples.
So far, many people from different ages have strived to reconcile all these tendencies in Life and eliminate contradictions that come as natural consequences. However, the consequences of these lives are essentially irreconcilable. You cannot reconcile the result from the deed of a man who burns a house with the result from a deed of somebody else who builds this house. You cannot reconcile the result from the deed of a man who burns a sacred book with the result from a deed of somebody else who writes this sacred book. You cannot reconcile the result from the deed of a man who kills a man with the result from a deed of somebody else who gives birth to this man and raises him. How can you reconcile these two results? A person after killing someone will talk about karma, God’s rights, creation of the world, etc. These are fabrications of men. Was this man God’s advisor to be sure that everything is the way he says it is? If this is a common law then it should be common for everybody. Why doesn't the righteous man speak the same way? For example: he says that it is God’s will for this house to be built, this sacred book to be written, this man to be educated and raised. I ask what is better: to build a house or to create a body? And what is worse: to burn a house or to kill a body?
These are elementary problems which I am not going to solve. You have passed through these stages of life. You have the Old Testament life within yourselves, you have the New Testament life, you have the righteous life, and now you are at the doorway to the Path of the disciple. These are the four mysteries which you should solve. I pass by the life of the Old Testament man but I should make it clearer. If I have time, I shall explain to you what the Old Testament life is. I say “if I have time” because one should speak only if he has time. All of you live in time and space, and many of you want to do things that are incompatible with the Laws of Living Nature. You say: “How come one cannot do anything he wants, cannot speak at any time he wants to?” For example, you want me to give you a lecture on the Old Testament life but imagine that at the same time there is a terrible earthquake, and all the stones in the hall that I am speaking in, start falling down, and the walls crash down, the Sun outside dims and as a consequence of the strong tremors, you find yourselves half an hour away from the hall. I ask who among you will remain in the hall to listen to my lecture. When the Sun rises again I shall find myself alone in the hall. It is possible for these things to happen. Therefore, in order to discuss such a philosophy, peace is required in nature and no earthquakes.
Then, you want me to explain what the New Testament life is. I begin to talk but imagine just at the same time you are given a sheet of paper informing you that Guirdap credit bank went bankrupt. But you had deposited all your funds with this bank. You put your hands on your head, you are horrified at this situation and from that moment on no matter what I am talking about, the thought of Guirdap bank takes my place in your head. In this case, how will you understand the New Testament life? These are facts in life that distract our attention every day. When we are told something we should be very sincere, our minds and hearts should be so open and free that nothing happening outside should concern us. We are busy with things that resemble the earthquakes in Nature, we are busy with Guirdap bank, with a series of material occasions and say: ”We have to live, don't we; shouldn't we have resources?” – Of course we should live; of course we should take advantage of the conditions in Life. Everyone who has come to Earth to live should have conditions for that; he should have food to eat, he should have water to drink, he should have clothes to wear, he should have a home to go and rest in. Some people say that God thinks over everything. Yes, He thought over everything a long time ago but you should go to the spring by yourself to fetch water. No Angel will come down from Heaven to bring water to you. One of the great prophets of Israel, mighty with his knowledge and strength, while in seclusion felt the need for food; no Angels from Heaven came to bring him food but crows came to serve him. They brought him bread in their beaks. This great prophet realized the Divine law; he was satisfied with It and thanked God. I ask, how much food could a crow bring in its beak. Do not think it brought a big piece of bread. No, it brought a small morsel that it was able to carry in its beak. The prophet was satisfied with this small morsel.
Now, I shall make a little comparison. You are in the position of Prophet Elijah who spent some time in seclusion, isolated somewhere in the mountain. There, crows brought him bread. Do you know how hard the situation of Israel was at that time: years of scarcity, no rain for three years, drought everywhere, almost everything was scorched, and dried-up. The granaries of Israel were empty, there was not enough bread, only the rich people had wheat, and the poor ate roots. Imagine that you are in the same unenviable position as Elijah was. What would you feel if a crow came to you and brought you some bread in its beak? – Divine Joy. Then I ask what Divine Joy is. – It is the small piece of bread that the little crow brings in its beak. But just like the Old Testament man, you take this piece of bread and say: “It is better without it, it only irritates my stomach, I do not need such a small piece of bread; I need at least thirty or forty pieces!” You are not satisfied, you protest. I say: wait do not be in such a hurry! On another day, the crow will come again and toss another piece to you. After starving for ten days, you stop being an Old Testament man and become a New Testament man. You get this small piece of bread saying: “This bread is not enough but I shall try to ease my hunger.” You take this small piece of bread and you eat it but remain unsatisfied. On another day, the crow brings you another morsel. While you are discontent, you are an Old Testament man but when you understand the great law of God, which is feeling content with the small morsels that the crow brings to you, then you turn to the New Testament, you become a New Testament man, you stop growing bitter, start reasoning, excusing the crow, saying: “Indeed, how much could this little crow bring in its beak? As much food as it could eat. I see its wings are small and fragile. I am grateful even for that.” Now, you grow bitter no longer, do not have doubts, and from a New Testament man, you prepare yourself to enter the life of righteous man. As such, you start to feel sorrow that there is not much food, saying: “Could there not be more crows, at least ten, to bring me more morsels?” When you come to this situation, the problem could be solved easily.
In the present-day world, there are many righteous people who say: “We should have more food!” The beggar who goes begging all over the world, says: “I hope there are more righteous men in the world, for one will give me a penny, the other will give me a penny, a penny from a hundred places makes twenty gold leva1!” I present to you the forms the three kinds of Life could have.
What should the life of the disciple be like? – He does not expect the crows to bring him bread. The disciple already has some real experience; he has a reasonable connection with the Invisible world because he has passed through the three stages of Life: the Old Testament Life, the New Testament Life, and the life of the righteous. And now he enters the Path of the disciple, in which he should have other views and concepts on Life. Christ says: “Those of you, who have passed through these paths, must deny life.” What life? – The life of the Old Testament men. Also, what other life must you deny? – The life of the New Testament men. And then finally, you must deny the life of the righteous.
If you are an Old Testament man you become embittered; if you are a New Testament man you have doubts; if you are a righteous man you become sad. These are not sins but natural states that all people experience. These cultures existed in the past. For lack of other terms, we use the words Old Testament man, New Testament man, righteous man and disciple. If we turn the pages of the Old Testament, we see great things expressed but those great things did not remain in the Old Testament; they passed to the New Testament.
There are people from the present culture as well, who say the sinful man could be righteous. No, a sinner can never be righteous. However, he has the opportunity to correct his sins and then become a righteous man. And when present-time people want to justify their notion that the sinful man can be righteous, they give the following example. They say: “Look at that man, he was up to his eyes in debt but now he put his life and affairs in order. He put on a frock-coat, nice modern pants, patent leather shoes, a top-hat on his head, a nice colourful necktie, a golden watch on a good solid chain, a walking stick with an ivory handle in his hand, and he walks like a gentleman, and according to the rules of noblemen he raises his walking stick, then puts it down, and politely bows to all his acquaintances. Wherever he goes everybody says: “This is a nobleman!” I say: I hope no one hears the other things that people say about him. The hat maker passes him by and says: “This top-hat is mine.” The tailor passes by and says: “Those clothes are mine; they have not been paid for yet.” The shoemaker passes and says: “The patent leather shoes are mine.” The watchmaker passes and says: “That watch is mine.” And we are amazed at this man, at what a gentleman, and what a nobleman he is. He robbed the whole world, wears somebody else’s clothes and pretends to be a man of high origin. No, he is a sinner. I call sinful people “people dressed up in righteous men’s virtues”. They put on righteous men’s clothes and are said to be righteous. The Bulgarians, after understanding this philosophy, say: “Somebody's possessions can be taken even on Easter.” Why not take it? A time will come when all things will be taken. There is a law for that! Policemen will come and catch the well-dressed gentleman, bring him to trial, and take his clothes, top-hat, patent leather shoes, and golden watch on a chain – all this will go back to where it belongs.
So I want you to understand me properly. If you become embittered, if you harden your hearts then you should know that this is the Old Testament life running into your veins. But you are not the Old Testament life. Do not mix your personality, your individuality, your personal view on Life with the deep inner strivings of your soul. Speaking of New Testament life, again we mean the currents inside you. The same thing is in the life of the righteous man. These are common currents in human consciousness. These are the views of all people in the past. Christ says: “Temptations will inevitably come but God take pity on those through whom they come.” What is this pity about? – This man will inevitably suffer. It is said about Old Testament life: “The hardships and sufferings of the righteous one are many but God will set him free from all of them.” As far as the disciple is concerned, Christ says: “If you have Love, i.e. if you have entered the new age as disciples, and if you love me you shall keep My law and have Peace and Joy in your souls.” Disciples will bring Joy to their lives as a solution to their problems. I do not speak of Joy that changes but the Joy of the disciple that nothing in the world could overshadow, and that never fades. It is the highest peak in the material world. No cloud can reach this peak, the Divine Sun always lights this peak up. There are no storms on this peak, Love reins there, Light reigns, Peace reigns, and the Joy itself. This is how we understand the Joy of the disciple.
Love is the eldest sister, the eldest daughter of God born in eternity; Light is the eldest brother born in eternity, and Peace is the most beautiful home in which Joy can live. In the future, if you want to build your body, your home, Peace should come to help you. This is the law. And then, Joy will come to live in this body. Joy is the favourite, little sister caressed by everybody. Whenever there is Love, there is Joy; whenever there is Love there is Light and Peace; and Peace gives a home to Joy. If you do not have Peace, Joy will never come on Earth. It does not come unless you have prepared a home for it. Love, Light and Peace have yielded to Joy the highest peak on Earth.
In the future, when we have more free time, we shall touch upon the question of how a disciple should cure himself, as well as the question about the laws applied to build a new body. For this purpose, he should study the laws of Peace. This is also true in ordinary life. For example, what kind of children will be born to a mother whose mind never worries, never gets confused by the storms and contradictions in the world and whose Spirit is quiet and calm? She will give birth to healthy children. All mothers who have Peace in their soul give birth to healthy children. And a mother, who worries throughout her pregnancy about the living conditions or the unfavourable combinations in Nature, gives birth to ill and feeble children.
We apply this law to ourselves, too. Everyone who enters the path of the disciple will give birth to a new thought and a new feeling, not only once a year but almost every hour, almost every minute. Then, what will your situation be like? How did fish solve this problem? Fish had a high culture in the past but what did they do? They threw all their thoughts and feelings in the form of small eggs into the water. They threw 200,000 – 300,000 eggs at a time and left them. Thus, we sometimes write our thoughts down in books and leave them aside to hatch as fish eggs, but this is not the right decision according to God’s law.
Now, I do not want to keep your attention on my lecture for too long, to elaborate in a philosophical way the new thought about Old Testament life, New Testament life and the life of the righteous, because you shall get tired. Who will remain to listen to me? - No one. If I start to talk about the life of the disciple, he will say: “Speak, Master, I am ready to listen to you!”
Now, I touch upon this question psychologically. Happiness is what you seek in your life. You also seek riches and Knowledge in the world. Your striving to look for all of this is right. It is said in the Scripture: “Ask, Seek, Knock!” The mistake is not that you seek happiness, riches and Knowledge but the ways and methods in which you choose to achieve them are not correct. There are some deviations in methods. Therefore, for each thing a disciple should have only one idea, not two ideas. If he has two ideas about one and the same thing, he will be divided in his mind.
I shall give you an example from the Holy Scripture. The Spiritual School of the Brotherhood of Light started with two students. Later, two more came, Adam and Eve, made in the image and likeness of the first. They were the second initiated students of this Spiritual School introduced in Eden by God and given the first problem to work on. He summoned them and told them: “You may look after all the trees in Eden, eat the fruits of this tree called the Tree of Life as well as all other fruits but there is a tree you must not deal with and must not taste its fruit. The day you taste its fruits, your mind, heart and soul will be poisoned because all the poisons in the world are hidden in it.” I use modern words, and it is said in the Scripture with other words. God said to them: "The day you eat from the fruit of this tree you will die.” And these were not ordinary people but at least candidate–students. One day, the fellow of one of the students was walking in the Garden of Eden to study the trees, examining them, and taking notes and pictures. When he approached the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, he started studying it, counting its leaves, calculating the number of fruits, their shape, colour, etc. Then the tree was approached by a man of fine appearance with a long black beard, black hanging moustache, dressed in a long black frock-coat like the old-time scholars, with a black outspread gown, a black necklace with a black cross, on his head a gold crown covered all over with black diamonds, and carefully and quietly he asked this student: “May I ask you what you are doing, and what you are studying?” – “Our Master gave us a problem and I am solving it.” – “What do you know about this tree?” – “Our Master told us that the day we eat from the fruits of this tree we shall die.” – “No, your Master has other views on this problem. He told you that in order to test your minds; you did not understand him properly. It is understood from His words that the day you eat from the fruits of this tree you will become like your Master and something more than Him.” – “Is it so indeed?” – “Yes, it is; the signs I have on me show that I know it because I have already finished the Spiritual School that you have just entered. I am already an adept of the School. The necklace I wear was given to me as an emblem of my graduation. Once, I was also examined at that tree like you are now, but I was not as stupid as you are and I solved the problem correctly.” – “Did you? If you solved it correctly, then it is easy!” And the student immediately steps back. This Mister goes on: “I am familiar with your Master. He sent me to shed light on this problem and help you with it.” And they believed. What did they believe in? – That when someone eats from the fruits of this tree, he will not die but he will become like his Master, even superior. And indeed, both students ate from the fruits of the forbidden tree and sinned.
I say: these candidate–students had two ideas about the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. The first idea was that the day when they ate from it they would die. The second idea was that the day they ate from the tree, they would not die but they would become like their Master, even like God. Which thought proved to be true? – The first one. The first thought, the first beam of light in the world is the Divine beam. The second one is a reflection, and the reflection has a reverse side, it does not lead to the desired result. If you have two ideas about one and the same thing then you do not have Reality, but reflection. And if you are guided by the reflection of things, you will have no results. You will return to the same point you started from. Therefore, sinful people will also turn to God one day but from the same point they came from. Do you know the place people initially came from? It is the easiest place a man could go through.
So those of you who want to become disciples should have only one idea about things. You can have only one Master in the world. I am talking about the disciple. Anyone could talk to you and you would listen to him without resistance. What should the spiritual student do in the Garden of Eden while listening to the adept talking to him in front of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil? I would tell this adept the following: “Dear Sir, you are one of the first students in the Spiritual School but I do not want to be first. I want to wear a white dress, not a black one like yours. If you acquired this black colour after studying this tree for so many years, I shall put off my studies until some other time. Thank you for your helpfulness and readiness to enlighten me but I am not ready for this, yet. This Spiritual School recommends to its poor students to abstain from studying the problem. This problem is very complicated and I shall put it off for the future when I am stronger. When I see you next time, we will talk again about it. Goodbye now.” I shall prove all this by scientific methods without offending him.
(go to part 2)
1 Lev /pl. levа/- Bulgarian monetary unit
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