Beauty without eyes, wisdom without ears, intelligence without a nose, love without a mouth, power without hands and goodness without feet are incompatible things.
Leave at rest in your home all your thoughts, desires and acts which contain incompatible things, and set out on the broad way to work without them.
The meaning of life lies in compatible things.
Life without length, feeling without breadth, thought without depth and height are unattainable things. Do not seek the unattainable! If you seek it you will become simple and ignorant.
God created beauty. He created human wisdom, human intelligence, human love, human power and human goodness, in order that men should know His kindness.
The human leads to God.
Guard the truly valuable which always gives meaning to life.
Do not dig up slime which is deposited on its way.
Do not try to extinguish that which cannot be extinguished. Do not try to illuminate that which cannot be illuminated.
Do not waste your time counting the particles of dust which the wind stirs up every day.
Do not try to gather all the raindrops in a single place.
Do not give as a gift that which can not be given as such.
Do not eat that which cannot be eaten.
Do not think about that which cannot be thought about.
When you see water, go to it and wash your feet.
When you feel the air, receive it in your mouth.
When you recognize wisdom, open your ears.
When you come to love, speak up!
- This is the way that leads to all attainments.
Now I shall ask you a question: Why and for what reason does a man cry? If you can not answer this question, I shall give you an answer: Man cries because he has not eaten; man cries because he has overeaten; man cries because his food is not tasty. This is the philosophy of crying. Generally, man cries for the things he has not attained. Which things are not attained? When a man cannot obtain an apple, he cries. When he has eaten the apple and feels that it has become bitter in his stomach, no cries again. He is not content that the apple has not thanked hint for the service he has rendered it. When food is not well cooked, man is indignant when it enters him, because it does not speak pleasantly to him. Which man would be grateful if he were cooked? Who would rejoice if he were eaten? Which man would be happy if he were put in prison?
Therefore, when food remains in the stomach longer than it should, it begins to get indignant at being closed up. Whenever you lock up food in your stomach for a long time, it causes you pain. Man cries when he does not have anything to eat. He also cries when there is no one to comfort him. When bread comes to you, what must you say to it? You must thank it and be glad that it has visited you.
You meet a beautiful maiden whose beauty interests a whole society. Everybody speaks about her and admires her, and she walks with dignity, with her head up. But another, more beautiful maiden enters the same society. The admiring glances of all are directed toward her. In the heart of the first maiden there is bitterness, since she considers the newcomer a competitor. What should the first maiden do? How should she act toward the second one? She should enjoy the other's beauty as everyone else does, and stop thinking about her own beauty. As long as you are unique with your beauty among men, enjoy it, but as soon as another, more beautiful person comes, enjoy his beauty also. When two beautiful persons meet, they will distribute their work between themselves in the right way; one will be the canvas, while the other will be the image on the canvas. But the canvas is of no value without an image.
That which I told you now is a small lunch for the hungry man. Such a lunch can only allure him, as children are allured by candies. The joy of many people is actually due to the candy they receive. When there is no candy, they cry and grieve. The greater their grief, the bigger the piece of candy they are deprived of. Which is the biggest piece of candy in man's life? The biggest piece of candy for the young maiden is the young lad; for the mother, the child; for the educated, the book; for the strong, the knife; for the workman, the hammer; for the artist, the brush; for the loafer, the phonograph.
In spite of all this, contemporary man is disappointed by the dynamic and transitory in life and seeks something lasting and constant upon which he can always rely. Man is young, he grows old and he dies. Youth is a dynamic value in life, and as a result, man cannot rely upon it. The young man grows and develops until one day he notices that he is beginning to grow old. But age is also a transitory value, since the old man dies. Neither youth nor age is a constant value in life. Both come and go, leaving no trace behind them. Why does the young man grow old? And why does the old man die? The young man grows old and the young man dies because they live on candy. Stop living on candy if you do not wish to grow old and die.
The young man is loved, the old man is respected.
The young man is loved for his love, the old man is respected for his wisdom. When the young man loses his love, he grows old. When the old man loses his wisdom, he dies. In other words, when someone loses his love, the youth in him has grown old; when he loses his respect, the age in him has died, When people stop loving the young man, he has become old; when they stop respecting to old man, he has died. In order not to grow old, the young man must eat the living bread prepared by an old man; in order not to die, the old man must eat the living bread prepared by a young man. Thus he who does not want to become old and die must go by these two formulae in his life.
In order for one to be eternally young, it is not sufficient that he merely eat the living bread; he must also know how to chew it. Therefore, if you do not know how to chew the Word which you hear, you will swallow it without benefiting from it. In the same way, mammals swallow their food without chewing it.
This quality distinguishes them from man. Man chews his food, but he must know how to chew it. Every thought that man receives must be chewed well, i.e., understood and applied. Application is a process of digestion. In digestion every particle of food is directed to its assigned place.
I take the images of the young maiden and the young lad as symbols. The young maiden symbolizes youth, while the young lad symbolizes old age. When they meet they neither understand nor know each other; consequently, the young maiden loses her youth and becomes old, while the young lad loses his old age and dies. Both of them lose. They say that the young must meet, but a young man can not meet a young woman. This is incompatible, When the young woman meets the young man for the first time, she has met old age; when the young man meets the young woman, he has met youth. If the young woman thinks that she has found youth in the young man, she is deceiving herself.
Therefore, when you meet a young man, ask him what kind of man he is; when you meet an old man, ask him the same question. Then ask yourself also whether you are young or old. It is necessary to ask yourself this question, because it is incompatible for two young people to meet. It is also incompatible for two old men to meet. A young man and an old man can meet -this is compatible. In the ordinary life, however, young may meet with young and old may meet with old, but in the Divine world this is incompatible. In the ordinary life, every man can be a painter - one simply buys a canvas, paint and brushes, and starts painting. This is not art, however, it is just dabbing. These are incompatible things. When the observant eye of the artist looks at the canvas with the dabbings on it, he finds that that is not the way to paint. In nature everything is placed exactly in its proper place. The colors nature applies to its pictures are the most appropriate ones in hue; they are neither darker nor lighter than they ought to be. The colors which nature uses do not change. They differ in hue, but the basic color remains. For instance, there is a blue color in nature which never changes; rather it produces certain nuances of the same color. The same thing is true of the precious stones. The precious stone retains its color, but it only reflects the light; consequently, there appear to be different hues and colors of that light. In scientific terms we say that the precious stones reflect and refract the rays of light.
What I said to you today is food; it is material which you must understand, assimilate and apply; i.e., perceive, cultivate within yourselves, and direct each particle to its proper place.
August 16, 1935 - Rila
|
