John 6:32-40
Everything that man has or that man knows contains something valuable within itself. Nonetheless, one often does not appreciate what one knows and what one possesses. This is the reason why one is constantly striving to attain more and more new things: if one has little knowledge, one strives to attain new greater knowledge, to become a scientist; if one is good, one wants to become better, [to become] a saint. This person, however, has no idea what it means to be a scientist or to be a saint. The form of the scientist, of the saint is big, but this external form must correspond to relevant internal contents. Perhaps the hen too desires to lay an egg as big as the camel’s, but for this purpose it has to change, it has to become bigger. What has the camel bird contributed with its eggs?
Therefore when assessing things the important point is what it has contributed, in this particular case, to your life, or to the good of your soul! The good of the human soul is determined by one’s internal life. The internal life in its turn is characterized by an internal unity. The unity of things exists only where the Will of God is done. The one who does God’s Will is connected with the Whole, with the One. The unhappiness [misfortune] of contemporary man is that he is deprived of internal unity. He looks for happiness outside the Primary Cause, outside oneself. However, you cannot find happiness in this way. Everything that is outside man, outside the Primary Cause, presents a shadow over things. What is inside man, presents the essence of things. People run after shadows because these are seen. Nobody can see the essence, the reality. You look at yourself in the mirror and you say that you see yourselves. What you see in the mirror is your shadow, it’s not you yourselves. You see only your outer appearance in the mirror; whether you have wrinkles on your face or not; whether your cheeks are red etc. This, however, is not a human being. You do not see in the mirror your elevated thoughts and noble feelings which actually constitute the person.
What does the human face, as well as the entire human body, present? The human body [re]presents a house where one spends one’s entire life. From morning till night one plasters [coats], smoothes, makes one’s house comfortable to live in. The host of the house must be an intelligent, considerate [mindful] person; to keep one’s house clean and tidy all the time. If the host is not an intelligent person even the best house won’t be of any use to him. If the person is intelligent, this house is in its [proper] place; he will make good use of it. One’s house has to be cleaned, washed, tidied everyday – to be in an absolute order. This is one of the forthcoming tasks of every person.
Many ignore this forthcoming and important task and take an interest in big issues, e.g. what the world will be like in a thousand years. This issue should not interest you; it refers to that One, Who created the world. Engineers are building a school. You see the foundations of this school, however, you are not satisfied with this only but you want to know what will happen to this school after ten years. Those who build the school have a plan; they know what will happen with it, when they will complete it etc. If it interests you so much, they can show you the plan of the school, but you won’t understand anything out of it. The plan for the school is the shadow of what will be built in the future. When the building is completed you will see what the school looks likes. Others yet are interested when they leave for the other world where they will be: in the Kingdom of God or they will remain again here on the earth. This is none of their business either. The work that man should daily tend to is more important than all the remaining questions.
One should dwell upon the valuable in one’s life and should strive to realise it. Imagine that you are given a baggage bigger and heavier than you can carry. Your strengths are not sufficient to take this load to the specified place. You are immediately split-minded, you do not know what to do. Human split-mindedness indicates a certain weakness in man. What do you have to in this case? You take a look at the load, you find that everything is valuable, you do not know what to give up, you want to carry the whole load. You look round to the left and to the right, looking for a person to take over your load, but you fond no such person. How will you solve the issue? Download the baggage, open it and take with you the most valuable, the most essential that you cannot do without. Leave the rest aside. When you are free, carry it as well.
Therefore when you think, and when you feel, and when you act, you [should] always choose the most valuable, the most essential, i.e. what is directly your business, what relates to you directly, what is closest to implementation [realization]. For instance, you are a son of a rich, good, capable father. You are sitting at home thinking, ‘Does my father love me or not? Will he leave me a legacy after his death and how big this legacy will be? Whether my brothers and sisters will not take a share bigger than mine?’ None of these issues, occupying your mind, relate to you in the slightest. This is your father’s business. For you, however, this is a big burden that you have taken upon yourselves. You do not need this burden now. Perhaps in dozens of years you will have to take [upon yourselves] something from it. Take the most valuable – the options of the day – and pay no more attention to it. Your responsibility is only to study. By finding out that you do not perform your obligations the teacher knows that you do not study as you should, you distract yourself, you keep company with bad guys, you cheat a little and thus you waste your time.
A Bulgarian country priest, a good, noble person complained from his son. I sent my son to school, already 17 of age, but I see that he is not keen on studying, other thoughts interest his mind. To avoid my supervision he wanted to sleep in the garden in the evenings, because the air there was said to be fresher, cooler, while his room was stuffy. I agreed to this as well, in the only hope that he would study. However, he was cheating. He went out partying with the young maids in the evenings and he did not study at all. In order that I do not notice his absence, he took the wash-tub, covered it with his quilt as if there was a person in bed. I went into the garden to see what he was doing. I groped the bed, I saw that it was not empty and I thought he was sleeping. In fact the wash-tub was there, while he was partying.
Every person has such a wash-tub to cover up the reality. This is a mode of life. For example, somebody is discontented, indisposed that he cannot solve certain issues. When he is alone in the room, he is his real self. As soon as people come in, before whom he has to perform, he immediately takes the ‘wash-tub’ with himself, he smiles, talks, presents himself for what he is not. This is an unnatural state into which people fall in the ordinary course of life. However, spiritual people also fall in the same state. Why? – Because they enter spiritual life unprepared, and subsequently they encounter a number of contradictions. Internally they think and feel one thing, but externally they present something else. Now, this is how actors behave. What will you see when you go to the theatre or to opera? Painted faces, laughter, conversation, weeping, but all of this is not natural. You watch, listen, get into the mood and start crying with the actor, who is crying. If the point is to cry, go to a poor widow’s house or to a woman beaten by her husband. The widow cries because her children are hungry. The beaten woman cries out of the bottom of her heart because her husband had beaten her, had abused her. An actor cries without being beaten. He cries in order to get paid. And the audience itself watches the performance or the opera, but is not pleased; the audience finds that actors do not play properly.
By this example I do not denounce the theatre or the opera. These are pleasant entertainments, but watching what is being performed on the stage, one has to recover things, to present them in their primary aspect. This is what scientists do. A natural scientist finds scattered bones from an ancient animal and starts studying it [the animal], starts examining it. He must carefully gather all the bones, must put them on their places and from this reconstructed picture, he has to describe the entire primary form of this animal: its structure, size, method of feeding etc. He must reconstruct the primary form of a given animal.
Now that I am talking about actors many would ask themselves whether I do not mean anybody in particular. No, I do not mean anybody, but I draw your attention to the point that you do not know yourselves as yet. What distinguishes a person who knows oneself? The one who knows oneself is a master of the conditions in life. Nothing can be an obstacle to him. As long as the external world is an obstacle to you, you do not know yourselves. As long as you expect the others to do your work, you can have no relations with the invisible world. For instance, one of you wants to go on an excursion. Something is telling you internally not to go on an excursion today, because the weather will go bad. You do not want to listen, you say that the weather is fine and do not want to miss the opportunity. At the time you are starting the weather is fine, but you do not know whether it won’t change later on. Drastic changes in the weather show that you live in your unintelligent world. Why? – Because you do not know yourselves, you do not know the intelligence that surrounds you. As long as man lives in the unintelligent world, as long as man thinks only of oneself, man cannot be happy. Is it possible for man not to think of oneself? Man must think both of oneself and of the others. The mother and the father think apart of themselves of their children too. Apart of oneself, the master thinks of his servant too. Apart of oneself, the boss thinks of one’s subordinates. These are personal relations, which exist naturally. Every human being must arrive to the consciousness of Christ and must say, ‘And this is the Father's will who has sent Me, that of all which He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the Last Day’.
Which one is the last day? The last day may be today. The last day means the last maturity day for the repayment of the policy. If you do not repay your policy on that day, you lose. The last day to appeal is today. If you do not use this day, you lose again. If the last day for you has gone [passed], what will you do? You will start fussing, you will start worrying. I do not say that the last day for you has gone, but you have to be awake, not to spend this day without repaying your obligations. Christ says, ‘I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the Last Day’. Rejoice if this day has not come as yet for you and you have not wasted it. But watch out not to waste [miss] it. This day contains everything valuable which you have to expect. Imagine that a friend of yours has promised to lend [give] you a large sum of money. For this purpose he had appointed a time and place where you will meet so that you can get the money. However, you do not turn up at the appointed time and when you go [to the place], you see that your friend is not there. Who is to blame for this loss? You will say that your friend had to wait a little or to give the money to somebody to bring it to you. This is not the point. Many options can be found for the money to reach you, but your friend trusts only you and wants to meet you personally at the appointed time and place. Therefore, whatever you may do, expect the last day as the most important, most valuable because it contains within itself the potential for your resurrection. If you miss this day, you have to wait at least for a thousand years more until another last day comes.
The value of things does not sit in their appearance. The externally beautiful things are not the most intelligent, [are not] the richest. Somebody may have a nice solid house, may dress in beautiful new clothes, but this does not mean that this person is very advanced [has made a big progress]. The bird of Paradise has a beautiful garment but is not the most intelligent among birds. Because of its beautiful garment it often suffers, its feathers are plucked for decorations.
So, there is nothing better in one’s life than knowing how to relate to and how to value things. When you meet a person, keep your mind on the valuable he has within himself. By assessment of things I do not mean that external mechanical reference to something nice in the person, but an assessment of that trait or qualities of a certain object, of a certain person that has any relevance to you yourself. A book is valuable not for its fine binding, but for its contents that benefits man. For me to have an attitude to a book means that I know how to keep it. Man should value and know how to relate not only with persons or objects outside one[self], but one has to value one’s mind and one’s heart and [has] to know how to relate with them. If you do not know how to relate with your mind and heart, if you cannot keep them pure and [if you] do not know how to value them, you can accomplish nothing. When the people in a certain society are discontented with one another and say that they cannot live together, there is nothing else left to them except for everybody to go where they think they can live well. If the rabbit happens to be in a society of wolves and foxes, what will happen with him? Foxes are clever, mercenary [self-interested]. A fox will strip off the skin of the rabbit from its meat and will treat itself to a sumptuous feast. And this won’t satisfy it. It will ask the rabbit if it has young rabbits, if it has relatives and acquaintances. If the rabbit says that it has young rabbits that it has many relatives and acquaintances, a fox will get to know them in order to benefit from their meat. These are no relations.
Therefore, when somebody wants to get to know us, we have to be vigilant, to watch what attitude he will have. If his attitude to us is like the attitude of the wolf, of the fox, of the bear, of the snake, we understand the purpose of this getting to know us. By studying the animals and the birds, we see their attitude to one another, as well as to beings distant to their genus [kind] and make a conclusion about what is hidden in them. If a spider has no attitude, does not value things, this is understandable for it. It’s not understandable for man, who was given an excellent mind and an excellent heart, not to have an attitude, not to value what is invested [planted] in one’s neighbour’s soul. This is why everybody must aspire to develop a proper external attitude and a sense [feeling] of valuing the small things. By developing this sense within oneself, man develops at the same time an internal attitude too. Those who have no proper external and internal attitude, they come into clash with God’s will. How is it possible for man not to know how to relate with all that the Great created? How can man not appreciate [value] what his Father created? Not to value these things is falling into a clash with the Great law acting in the world as well as in us.
Any discontent, any indisposition of man is due to violating the law of relations and to depreciating the small things. A great thing is the relation! It’s not enough for man to have only an external relation. Man must have an internal relation as well, i.e. he must love every living creature, to behave [relate] to it the way he behaves [relates] to oneself. Loving somebody presupposes giving [it] even the smallest [piece of] love. Man needs a little. Pay a little attention to somebody and he will be happy. In order to show that you value [appreciate] somebody, behave [relate] to him the way you behave [relate] to yourself. If a stranger comes to your place, give him ample water to wash his feet, hands, face; then feed him and offer him to have a rest. By doing this to him you show him that you value him. This person will thank you, he would like to meet you again.
Yesterday we took a walk over to Kalininite peaks1. Some of our friends wanted to go round all the peaks. To me this desire is indicative of human vainglory. It’s pointless to climb one peak after another. When you reach one of the peaks, observe the others from a distance. In this way one will have more time to read what God’s Spirit wrote on the peaks. Some ask why these peaks are called Kalina’s peaks. There is an old legend [tale] about these peaks. They are called Kalina’s because once upon a time there lived a hard-working tidy maid, Kalina, who all the time carded, span and wove wool. Now that there was no market for her wool, she spread it over these places out of which Kalina’s peaks were formed afterwards. The two lakes, however, called Kara-gyol2, are Kalina’s two eyes which in fact are not black, but light, almost blue in colour. They look black in the dark, while in the sun they are white nearly bluish. The cliffs surrounding these lakes add a dark colour to them. Kalina’s peaks are an open book where one can read everything God’s Spirit wrote. Those who cannot read this book, they take a look to the right – to the left, throw a stone to the peaks, another stone – to the lake and go back finding everything here disorderly.
So, when you go to the mountains, keep them clean. This is the simplest expression showing that you value [appreciate] what intelligent Nature created. Thus you will connect with the advanced beings in the invisible world that will help you. Otherwise they will give you up. A teacher says to a student to study, to work upon oneself. If the student studies [diligently], the teacher will help him. If he does not want to study, the teacher raises his hands [gives up], does not want to know about him, the teacher is no longer interested. The Divine speaks several times to man. If he does not listen everybody abandons him. Once his heart is spoken to, secondly his mind is spoken to, thirdly his will is spoken to and, if he does not listen, the person is spoken to in another manner. While one is spoken to with love, he must self-train oneself, must use [benefit from] the good conditions. One wants the others to have a good attitude to oneself, one wants to be valued. However, if this is what one wants for oneself, this is what one must give to the others. Watching your relations I see that each two of you have a good attitude to each other, but this is not enough. Everything that you see around you is created by God. Hence, relate all right with all that He created. Value everything that He Himself values.
Many think that no matter how they live, they are guaranteed God’s Love. This is a wrong thought. Love cannot be benevolent to you if you do not have the right attitude to [relation with] all It created and if you do not value what It created. You will say that you are not perfect yet. – No, as early as today you can have the right relations with everything surrounding you and can value it. We came to the mountains in God’s good grace and we benefit from the air, from the water, from the light because of the good within us. Then give vent to the good you have in yourselves, manifest it externally. Without this great benevolence we would not have been able to stay in the mountains for a single day. If you relate all right, if you value things, the sin and the evil will disappear from you. But for this purpose you are all required to work consciously – to work with love.
Christ says, ‘to raise it in the last day’. And I am telling you too: the last day, for you to raise it, has come. If you do not raise it today, you will raise it in a thousand of years. Don’t be scared. The last day that Christ talks about is a long day, not of 24 hours, like the ordinary days. For you this day starts today and lasts at least for 50 years. Work upon yourselves during this time to attain the correct relations, to develop a feeling within yourself to value everything that is given to you. Value your mind, your heart, your will. Relate properly with the people close to you [your neighbours], with all the plants and animals, with the entire nature. Value everything surrounding you. Once you attain these two, you will be a person of the new, a person of love. Even if you are a son of the King, you have to have a correct relation and to value things. When you enter the school everybody will cast a glance at you, to see your relation [attitude] as a son of the King. The higher you are placed the more is required from you. Both teachers and students, everybody will demand a good relation [attitude] from you and a skill to value things. Things are not valued by their external situation. The son of the King has a high position, but he may meet students doing better than him. He may meet students having better relations, having a subtler feeling of assessment.
Hence if you want to be strong, beautiful, happy with life, have good relations, value properly everything that the Primary Cause created. If you do not have these qualities, you have neither strength nor beauty, not satisfaction. Then you will find yourselves in the situation of Stoyan, the young caval3 player, who boasted of his caval. He often said, ‘My caval replaces any gun. When I point it against the enemy, when I click several times with it, my enemy will re-bounce far away.’ One day a bear was listening to him in the forest. Stoyan picked up the caval, pointed it against the bear, clicked it two-three times: the caval did not go off, and the bear didn’t ran at that. When Stoyan saw himself in a tight corner, he climbed up a tree and thus he saved himself. He saw that even the caval did not help at times.
The caval represents the external aspect of things. You have money that you count on, but when the money does not help, you will climb up the tree. The tree represents the intelligence in life. What would have happened if Stoyan’s caval had hit the bear? Stoyan would have remained alive and the bear would have been killed. Now that he climbed up the tree, both he and the bear remained alive. Stoyan has to climb up the tree and from there to teach the bear as a preacher. What wrong is there in this? You also have to act in the same way. You talk to somebody, you teach him, but he does not understand you, he does not want to listen to you. So, your caval did not do the trick. Climb up a tree then and say several words from there. That somebody will take a look at you and will say, ‘This is an intelligent person. When I pass by him another time we shall have another talk.’ Bears have one good trait, which people do not value and do not know. If you do good or some favour to a bear, it remembers it for a long time. Bears never forget the good done to them. Bears are concentrated in themselves, bears are not absent-minded [distracted]. Bears also remember the evil done to them, but this figures as an exception in their life. And I am telling you too: Remember the good somebody did to you.
‘I will raise it on the last day’. Everybody who has developed good relations in oneself and the feeling of valuing things will be raised on the last day.
The path of the righteous is a path of light.
You too should follow the path of light.
21st August, 5 o’clock in the morning.
1 Kalininite peaks means Kalina’s peaks – Kalina is a name of a woman
2 Kara-gyol – from Turkish – Black lake
3 Caval is a wooden Bulgarian folk musical instrument similar to the flute.
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