(go to part 1)
Somebody says, „I will study a lot, I will read a lot.” Yes, you will read as long as you are able to give an apple, a pear or a bun from your bag, to every person you meet; in the evening when you go back home, you will count how many pears, apples, or buns you have given, to whom you have given them and you will write all that in a special diary. Then you will study why the Moon waxes and wanes. Many of the contemporary scientists do not know the real reasons for the waning and waxing of the Moon, and discuss the creation of the Sun, why it has been created and so on. The scientists have created a number of theories for the creation of the Earth and the Sky, but they are still far from that absolutely positive truth about that issue. How have the Sky and the Earth been created, why does the Sunrise and set - these are questions about which the science of the future will give its final word. When a man begins looking for the Truth, his Sun rises. While he is searching, his Sun is constantly shining; when he says that he has found and recognized the Truth, his Sun sets. The same thing happens when a man starts and finishes reading a book: while he is reading and studying a book, it stays open before him; having read and studied the book, he closes it. The opening and reading from the book is like the Sun rising; finishing and closing the book is like the Sunset. Opening the Bible and reading it is a Sunrise; closing the Bible is a Sunset. So, at the Sunrise the man starts learning, and at the Sunset he has already learnt his lesson and repeats it, not to forget it. When the man is happy, when he has gained something, there is a Sunrise inside him; when he is sad when he has lost something, the sunset is inside him. Therefore, when the Sun rises, the man learns; when the Sun sets, he has already learnt his lesson. If he has not learnt his lesson, he should beg God to prolong the day a little bit more.
For the most gifted, for the most talented students the day has twelve hours; for the less gifted the day has twenty-four hours; for the ordinary students the day continues for six months. So, the ordinary people come from the North Pole, because for them the day lasts for six months until they learn their lessons. The words north pole in this case means unfavourable conditions. When a student is in unfavourable conditions for his development, this shows that he is not very gifted. Somebody says, „I have suffered much.” Why? Because you are not of the gifted students. - „I had a big heritage from my father, but I gave it to people and now I am suffering.” Be happy that you have given it to others - do not regret what you have already done. When you regret, this means, „I have loved many people, I have scattered my love, but now nobody loves me.” Be happy and while you have it, give from your bag and do not regret it. If your bag does not get full and empty, you are not on the right way - your bag must always be full. - „I already do not love anybody.” - Why? - „Because nobody loves me, either.” - Then this means that you are a tradesman, who has only takings and giving's, losses and profits. As far as people think in that way, they cannot create anything new. If in that way a kind of society is formed, the people in it will also die, suffer, and will create nothing new. A real man is never sorry for having loved people - he loves and is not interested if the others love him. The one, who loves you, thinks that everything in you is good. Take for instance the mother: whatever her child does, she is happy. She finds everything good in the child.
I say, the man of Love is a man of the new. If you want to get free of the old, take Love inside you. Today the old is worth nothing; in the old days it meant something, but now no one is interested in it. The one, who wants to get rid of the old doctrine, must replace it with the new one that can help him do good. - „What shall we do with the old doctrine?” - Sell it to me, I will buy it as an antique, I will give a stiver for it. The one I buy it from, I will write down his name. You say, „Then what is sure in Life?” Only what can withstand all hardships in Life is sure. Somebody says, „I was ill for some time and I turned to God as the safest place, but my prayer was not accepted.” So, there must be a reason for that. You should not be discouraged, pray again until you receive an answer to your prayer. The reality or security of Life lies in our connection to God - if we are connected to God, our prayers will always be accepted.
Somebody says, „When I die, I will learn many things, then I will get to know God.” I am asking if you are sure that when you die you will go to God and you will recognize Him? If you die and you do not go to God, then neither suffering nor death have sense. However, if after your death, you go to God and you know Him, then both suffering and death are justified. When the young maid goes to the mountain to meet her beloved, all difficulties are justified if her date is fulfilled. However, if she goes to the mountain and does not meet her beloved there, her suffering will not be justified. You should know one thing: the beloved of the human soul is only God. And then if a man goes to the mountain to meet God, he will always have success. If you find God, you will find everyone. If you find God, you will become stable and you will say, „Now I am already a rich man, my bag is full and I can give to everybody who needs it.” Without God, every person is unhappy - why? Everyone is complaining that he has no money, no house, no friends and so on. I say, whoever believes in the Only God – in one Love, in one Wisdom, in one Truth, in one Justice and in one Virtue, will have everything in the world.
Now, which situation would you prefer: that you would go to God or that He would come to you? Whoever goes to God, his bag must be full, so that from a distance it can be seen that he is doing something good. And Good will look at him to see if there is something in the bag of this man or if it is empty; God does not like people with empty bags. In other words, the man must have a heart filled with love. When God sees that the heart of a man is full of Love, God will give him something, but the man must also give something to God. If God comes to the man, He would give him a full bag; full of what? Gifts. The gifts that God gives to people, these are the reasonable sufferings – in this the great secrets of Life are hidden, which people should understand and study; there is spiritual experience in them, that should be used.
Contemporary religious people, not understanding the language of the Spiritual world, fall into a number of fallacies and self-delusions. For instance, someone says, „I saw God, dressed in a white coarse woollen mantle typical for the Sofia region.” I am asking why God was dressed in a piece of clothing from the Sofia region – probably out of love for you, who are from the Sofia region. Indeed, when God visits somebody, he comes down to his level – for that reason, man hesitates whether God has visited him or not. To understand and recognize God a man needs not one, but several eternities. So, if God visits somebody, he should only be happy without delving into himself if it was God who visited him or it was someone else; a man must get rid of the old habit of digging. He must say, „In the old times as a pig I used to nuzzle with my snout, but now I will dig with my fingers, I will make holes in the ground and in each hole I will put in a seed.” If that kind of desire for digging comes to you, you will take a pen with your fingers and instead of digging, you will write down some nice thought. In that way, you will educate the pig instead of nuzzling with its snout, to put seeds in the ground and to write down nice thoughts and poems with its finger.
Now I will make an interpretation of the word pig: it is a symbol of an unwise life, of an unwise philosophy. The bad thing in the pig is its habit of digging – when it goes into a garden, it immediately begins nuzzling, without paying attention to the fact that it will damage the nice flowers and fruit trees. Don’t some of the contemporary people do the same thing – they enter somebody’s home or in some religious society and start teaching the people how to live, how to pray to God and so on. If you want to teach somebody how to pray to God, take him to a fruit garden, stop at a tree heavy with fruit, and say, „Raise your hands to pick a nice, ripe fruit!” When he raises his hands, you will tell him, „This is how the man should pray!” Then you will show the man how to kneel; when the man raises his hand to pick a fruit and he cannot reach it, he must kneel down on the ground and take it from there. So the man will kneel down to take the fruit that has fallen from the tree and will say, „God, I sinned, I could not take the fruit, created by the Tree of life.” However, on the ground only that man, who bears humbleness inside, can kneel. If a man is not ready to kneel down at every suffering soul and help her, he has not kneeled. If you see a suffering soul, do not ask it why it is suffering, but give it a fruit, not teaching it how to eat it; tell this person, „Brother, the whole world – the Sky, the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the stars – all of that is created for you, why do you have to suffer?” - „Aren’t you telling me lies?” - „No, I am telling the truth – God has created everything for people to learn and work.” Then give him some golden coins and tell him, „Brother, you are a young man, you have a beloved girl who does not want to see you in that pitiful sight – buy new clothes, put them on and go to her; buy a watch, to determine the time.” Every person must have a watch as a time measure – in that way he will get oriented in Life and will be able to solve some of his tasks in the right way.
When I am talking about a watch, I consider it as a symbol of Life. Every touch to the watch is a reminder of the hours, the minutes, and the seconds. This keeps man awake – not to lose even a second of his time. There are people who have come to the situation not to lose their hours; others have gone further ahead not wasting their minutes; a few have come to the position not to lose the seconds. The man of the minutes meets somebody on his way, quickly takes out a pear from his bag, and gives it to the man. - „Why are you giving me this pear?” He takes the pear back, puts it in the bag, and continues on his way. The other person is wondering why he was offered a pear. What makes someone not to take, makes the others give. This man has prayed for some fruit for a very long time, and when it was offered to him, he wonders why this happens. This pear is nothing but an answer to his prayer. Who carries a bag of fruits is a postman and whoever he meets, he gives him a fruit. And everyone would ask him why he was giving him the fruit. This asking is similar to the question that people ask themselves: „Does this man love me or not?” the fruits of those, who love you, are perfect, with no defect. Take the fruit they offer you, taste it and you will see that it is extraordinarily delicious, fresh, just picked from the garden.
Many people say, „We have to settle our life.” How can Life be settled? Without Love, Life cannot be settled, without the Good, Life cannot be settled, without the participation of the mind, the heart, and the will, Life cannot be settled. Some people think that life on Earth can be settled and say, „The way you were born, in that way you will be gone.” Others say, „Let’s hope that after death it will be better.” No, death cannot solve the questions of Life. Death comes when the man is dissatisfied with what God has given to him. It says, „God sent me to teach you to become grateful.” Death is a stick, telling the man, „Open up your bag!” He opens the bag and the death starts beating, taking everything that is in the bag. Love gives everything, death takes everything.
Therefore, death has a meaning only when it emancipates a man from evil; however, it has no sense if it frees a man from Love. For a man to die for his old conceptions there is sense in this; to die for the goods of God, there is no sense in it. The sense is in Life, not in death. We also have come to the mountain to live, to enjoy the domains of our Father. When you have come here, forget about everything at least temporarily. There must be a great volte-face in the conceptions of everybody – you have to renew, to start thinking, feeling, and acting in a new way.
I am talking about those, who are interested in these matters – only they will receive something from the bag. Those who are not interested, they would receive nothing. Many people ask, „Which is the way, the method that I could become a student?” Whoever wants to become a student must have a full bag, i.e. a heart; and his heart must be full of Love. Sometimes the heart of the human beats harder than usual and he gets frightened. There is nothing frightening about such a beating – this heart is constantly opening and closing, i.e. it is giving and taking. What is frightening about the opening and closing of our bag – this is how the circulation of blood occurs. When the bag opens, it shrinks; in the moments of opening and closing of the bag, a man takes out or puts something inside. The opening and closing, the contracting and expanding are two processes that occur also in the very Nature. When the heart contracts, God takes something from it; when the heart expands, God gives something to it – God gives, God takes. I said to a person, „You will give!” - „What?” - „What you have in your heart.” Press a little and your blood will immediately come out of your heart – you give blood to one man, to another and everyone is glad. Arterial blood goes to one side, and venous – to the other. Only in that way, can a man see all processes through which God teaches us how to love. A man must keep in his mind the thought that he will receive as much as he gives plus a little addition, equal to the interest of the given amount. For example, if a person does a good deed, even till the same evening he will be paid back, but with interest. If someone makes an effort to climb up the mountain, when he gets back he will have a little addition that will have a wholesome effect on his organism – this is the law.
Hence, every day man should do the least Good, expressed in a thought, a feeling, or an act. The Good can be done to a spring, to a plant, to a little fly, or to a person. No matter how little the Good is, it must be done – the least Good is an expression of God's teaching, of the man's internal law. If a person lives in that way the Angels, the saints, and the good people will know and visit him. Finally, his Teacher will visit him, too. Only then, man will have a correct and deep understanding of God.
Now, I would like to present to you God's teaching in a simple form easy for application right now, not in the future. If it is left to be understood and applied in the future, it is a teaching not understood. For instance, many people are waiting for the gathering; I say, if they cannot understand the gathering today, they would not be able to understand the other one, too. To understand God's Wisdom, this is a gathering; to understand God's Truth, this is a gathering. If we gather together all this, it is the greatest council in the world. If we gather at one place to interchange our Love, our Good, to send our thought to the world, to soothe the poor, the suffering, this is the greatest council. Because the purpose for which we have gathered here is again a council.
Somebody says, „Will God forgive my sins?” I say, God cannot but forgive the sins of the one who loves Him, no matter how big and whatever his sins are. Love erases everything; without Love no one is forgiven for his sins – this is a law. If Love is set as a basis in Life, all sins that exist will disappear, everything old will burn out. The Good is the condition for the realization of Love. When a person is good, the Love will surely show in his life. Someone says, „Do people deserve my love?” you should consider the following rule: every living creature deserves Love, i.e. it deserves to be loved – why? Because every creature has originated from God. If this creature does not look like you, it doesn't matter; the fly also deserves Love, although it bites. The fly bites because the superior creatures also bite – even the man bites sometimes. The fly should know that by biting it would not go far – if somebody forgives it, another one will punish it for the biting. The fly uses the excuse that this is a habit, which she cannot get rid of; however, for that bad habit it pays with its life. I am asking why the flies bite. The fly says, „Once upon a time God sent us to the world to bite the animals, because they were very lazy – our biting was a goad for them.” Today, the fly does not only bite cattle, but it also bites a man, who has graduated from four faculties and does not need a goad. This person can easily deal with this fly: he closes the window of his room, catches the fly, fixes it on a special pin, and starts studying it. Then he writes down the date of his research, the place where it was caught and its Latin name – with that the life of the fly is over.
I say, people have habits, similar to those of flies, snakes, lizards, etc. They are abnormal remainders from the past. If a person has one of these habits, he must say to himself, „I should not go back to the past and repeat it in that way; in the old times I used to bite, sting, but now I am a human and I must act gently.” By saying so, a man gives a meaning to the existence of all living creatures below him. Today, man must lead a pure and sacred life. Love should pour out of the heart like a spring; he must follow God's Will and enjoy everything surrounding him - the stones, the trees, the springs, the animals. When a man climbs up a mountain, he should look around, and scrutinize all the pictures that are revealed before his eyes. When you are looking at the picture of some artist, you know that he has considered which colours to use in order to present the object as truthfully and exact as possible. Sometimes the colours, the features of the picture are successfully represented, but sometimes they are not. In the same way, every little stone, every tree, or every spring in the pictures of the Live Nature are put in place, according to the view of the artist or the scene-painter. You are faced with the nice task of studying these pictures - from Nature man will study the laws of perfection and will apply them in his life.
So, a man must aim for perfection. This can be achieved when a man has the right attitude to Love, when he is ready to make any sacrifice for it. If a man comes to this position, his bag will always be full. When the bag of some person is full, and things are not well, what is the reason for that? The reason is his reticence - he either opens his bag very rarely, or never opens it. Many of the contemporary people have nice bags made of silk, linen, or another fine cloth, full of all kinds of fruit and buns, but since they are rarely opened up, the fruit inside has dried and the buns have turned into rusks. Somebody says, „Do you know what I have in my bag?” I know what is in it - dried apples, pears, plums, buns, etc. in my opinion every heart that does not open from morning till evening, to give everything that it has, and to take everything that is given to it, is abnormal - a heart that does not beat in the right way. The normal heart is a bag that constantly opens up and gives what it has to poor, suffering people; it will leave for itself only one apple, one pear, one bun and will thank God for everything that he has given. Then God will look at this heart with favour and will say, „This heart has understood the meaning of Life.”
So, the bags of all people must be full so that they can give. That is why it is said in the Script: „ You have for nothing, you should give for nothing!” In that respect, Nature gives us an example of absolute disinterestedness. For instance, we have been here for the long time, we are here, and we use free wood for heating, for cooking. In the evening, gathered around the big fire, we have the possibility to sing, to play instruments a little and to thank God that for the goods that we have used during the day. Our brothers, who were playing the fiddle, gave a good example of disinterestedness: one of them came, took his fiddle, and gave; the fiddle is the bag from which he takes a music piece instead of an apple, second - instead of a pear and third - instead of a bun. Every brother and sister, who plays, should perform three pieces at most - every evening each of them will play three pieces, and every time they will be new; the real fiddler had a great repertoire. These are the new concepts that everyone, who wants to be a student, should apply. The bag of the student must be full and he should give out generously.
Somebody says, „Will my sins be forgiven?” If you love, they will be forgiven; if you do not love, they will be not. - „Will my faith deepen?” If you love, your faith will get deeper. - „Can I become an erudite person?” If you love, you can become an erudite, and a philosopher, and a poet, and an artist. If you love, if you have inside you and you give it out to all living creatures, you can become whatever you want. All opportunities and conditions for growth and development are hidden in Love. If you want something more than Love, you will receive a stick. Apostle Paul says, „Shall I come to you with a club or with love and gentle spirit?” Often the old teachers used the club as an educating method; when they taught their lessons, they used the club for the student who did not know his lessons. The contemporary teachers use a stick, but changed into numbers - for example the mark one or two are a club for the students; when the student gets a mark one or two, he goes home unhappy, sad that he could not satisfy his teachers.
This lecture concerns those students who want to finish the school. One of the basic rules in this school is that every student should have a nice bag full of good fruit. The second basic rule is that the student should open his bag on time and give to everyone who has a need. That should be the man of the new time! You say, „How do we have to preach?” You will preach as the bun-seller and the fruit-seller. You will load a horse with two panniers - one full of apples, the other full of pears, and in your hand you will carry a basket of buns and you will set out from town to town, from village to village, shouting, „Come on, pears, apples, buns!” The people will start gathering around you and ask for apples, pears, and buns. To the poor you will give for nothing, to the middle-class people you will give cheaply, and to the rich - more expensively. When these people meet, they will tell each other:
- It's a strange thing, I met a dealer, who gave fruit to the poor people for nothing.
- I bought fruit from him, but very cheaply.
The rich man says:
- To me he sold them a bit expensively.
However, all these people are very happy with the fruits of this tradesman.
As soon as possible, I would like to see you with a horse, loaded with two big panniers full of fruit, and with a basket full of buns in hand. You would say that you do not feel comfortable to do that. I am asking what would you do if the entrance examination for the student was namely like that? You would not only sell, but you also have to shout: „Come on, here are the nice apples and pears!” Somebody would say, „I can do anything else, but this task I cannot accomplish in no way!” Who wants to be a student, he should accomplish all tasks that are assigned at school. If he chooses from the assignments - to do one and not to accomplish another, he is not a student.
Now you would like to know if there will be another lecture today. I say, all day today my bag will be open and I will give an apple, a pear, or a bun to everyone who comes to me. Now I gave everybody an apple, at noon I will give you a pear, in the evening I will give each of you a bun. The apple, the pear, and the bun are symbols that have to be interpreted. The apple represents Life that is born out of Love; the pear represents the Wisdom, and the bun - the Speech, i.e. the Truth. It is said, „The Truth is the Head of the Speech.” Therefore, in God's Love, Wisdom, and Truth lies the complete Life, the whole eternity, as well as the happiness, the welfare of all souls. If you want to enter God's School, the Love, Wisdom, and Truth must lie in the basis of your Life. Only in that way you will understand the sense of everything that God has created. That's why we have come to the Rila Mountains - to learn and understand the meaning of God's creations.
You would say, „Our brothers and sisters that are not here will be sorry about it.” Imagine that all of them are here but their stomachs are disordered; what will they benefit from the goods that God has given? - „They should have done at least two or three trips.” Imagine that they are also here, but their feet are dislocated and they cannot walk, and they are only making a fuss; in this situation how will they benefit from the high peaks? If you think about your brothers and sisters that are not here, this is what you have to do: you will load everything that you have acquired on a horse and when you go to Sofia, you will give to everyone who has not been together with you.
Now you have to interpret the meaning of the horse and the donkey as symbols. No one can enter the law of devotion if he does not lead a donkey with him; no one can fight if he does not ride a horse. Therefore, the donkey is a symbol of devotion and the horse is a symbol of fighting. When the Invisible world wants to teach man the laws of humbleness and sacrifice, it will make him get on a donkey, that will start singing its sweet song and every day will make him pray. The horse, on the other hand, that the man is riding will tell him, „Master, every day you have to whet your knife, to be brave and decisive, steadily to defend your concepts.” The big ears of the donkey show that a man must be generous. The boldness, the decisiveness of the horse when warring show that a man when fighting should also be bold, decisive and take everything, to make a clean sweep of those with whom he is at war. Then he would take everything he had taken and would say, „Let it go.” Because with the donkey a man gives, and with the horse a man takes. The distinctive feature of the horse is devotion. The horse easily becomes attached, while the donkey - difficult; there is creativity in the horse, and in the donkey there is a striving for the Truth, for Justice; the donkey likes to lead the herd, therefore it always walks at the front; the horse likes being at war, it says, „I cannot lead sheep.”
I say, these are side issues. The first thing, important and essential for everybody, is to have full bags, full hearts. The heart must be full of Love, of Light, of Freedom - the one who has a heart like that always rejuvenates. Now, people grow old because they live only with their hardships; they say, „What the situation was like in the old times, and what it is now!” It is not important what it was like in the past, it is the present time, the present day that matters - the present day is worth more than yesterday. The past has played its role, it is the old time, and now is the new day, the day of youth. Today the man should get younger - he must renew his heart, his mind, and his will, to bring in it a striving for the Truth. Somebody says, „I am disappointed, I lost my youth, strength, life.” Leave the disappointments aside, leave what has been lost aside, do not look for what you have lost. If you are looking for a modern watch that does not work, what would it mean to you? What God gives you today is worth more than what he has given you in the past. - „In the past I ate jam.” How you have eaten in the past is not important; today's lunch for instance is worth more than the lunch yesterday - it costs [is worth] thousands of joys. Forget the past, use what the present moment brings. Do not think about the following day - it will take care of itself alone. The past has taken care of itself, the present day takes care of itself, therefore we also, being in the present day, should think and take care only of it.
Many of you, who have come here, are burdened, worried that they do not have enough money, that their tents would not stand for a long time and so on. I say, until the man stands in front of the good apples, pears, and buns, he should forget everything, let him think about them and say, „God, thank you for everything you have given to me.” When the man feels that gratitude to God, everything else - knowledge, virtues, wealth - will come alone. The virtues come to the man like the Angels - when an Angel meets a good person, he immediately tells the other Angels that he has seen a good man on Earth; one by one, these Angels start visiting that man and each of them brings him a precious gift. I am asking what is better than a man being an object of the Angels, the saints, and the good people - there is no other greatest meaning that Life can have.
You say, „How can we get younger?” Open up your bags, give to the suffering and the needy and you will become younger. The one, who has become old and is down on his luck, never opens his bag and does not give to anybody. Open and close your bags if you want to be young and joyful. And if sorrow comes to you, be delighted; when Joy comes to you, again be delighted! The difference will be that you will be delighted with the Joy only once, and with the sorrow - twice. It is said in the Scripture: „When a woman is giving birth, it is a sorrow, but when the baby is born, her sorrow turns into joy that a human was born in the world.” In the education of contemporary people, the new should be introduced, which would radically change their concepts of Life. For instance, what is so bad about grief - in every grief something new is born, something great in the soul of a man. Man grieves until something new is born in his soul; when the new is born, he does not remember his grief any more and his joy is double. In grief, a man sees God; therefore, he must be delighted.
We called today the day of the manifested Love of God, the day of God's goodness. Moreover, you should note how much preparation there was for that day on the part of the Invisible world. Today is 19th July, and there is also a full moon. Yesterday and the day before there was a great cleaning - the rain washed the tents outside and inside. Also there was a bit of humidity, which means that some things must grow. Together with all favourable combinations of Nature, you had the opportunity to row in boats on the lakes. You would say, „What a nice coincidence that one god from the Czech Republic, a guest to the Rila Mountains, had a boat, by which we went boating on the lake.” Ostensibly, these are coincidences, but they are symbols with a deep internal meaning. Wonderful and great are the deeds of God! God is great in the little things, and when we follow God's will, He writes down everything.
Now I too opened my bag and gave everybody something. You should thank God that I have opened the bag on time; you should also be thankful for what you have heard! When I come again my bag will be open again and I will take better things out of it. Better and greater things will be taken out of that bag, but you have to use them wisely.
I wish all of you to be like the weather today - with clear and fresh minds as the sky, with hearts warm and loving as the sun, with a brisk and fresh spirit as the air.
19 July 1931, 5 h.
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