The Reality of Life

I shall read chapter eight from the Gospel of Joan, from verse 14 onwards.

Many people ask themselves: Is the life on earth real or unreal? Is it actual or not actual? It depends on people’s understanding of life and from the sensible application of their understandings. For example, no matter how much you talk to the Angel about the sufferings of people, they remain a theory for him. Even to show him your sufferings as experience, they again will remain for him an unknown area for him. He sees the human sufferings as a mathematical problem. The same refers * and to you. Some real things are tasks for you without understanding them. You say that one angle deviates to two, to three and more degrees, but what the deviation is in fact, you don’t know. You say that this deviation may be ascending or descending without understanding it. You say: A:B = B:C. But you don’t know what this relation represents in Life. These relations must be explained. For example the steam has relation to the water. If there is no water, the steam would not exist. The steam has relation and to the rain drops, came out from the same source as the water. You don’t know what the relation is between the water steams and the rain drops. You know only that the water transforms into steam which goes into space, where it cools off and in the form of rain drops falls onto the earth again. Have you fallen down from a height of four – five kilometres, as the rain drops, hit the earth and stayed alive? You will say that it is a relation, but what is said from you is not enough. You can’t imagine how man may be in relation as the steam is to the water and the water - to the steam.

I say: Things become real for man only when he tastes them. People speak about love but they don’t understand it. For them it is not real. – Why? – Because they haven’t tasted it, they don’t know it. If it is eating, if love is drinking, they don’t know it. Someone says that he feels things, therefore he loves. The feeling, the sensation is not love. Another says that he has become hot, that he burns from love. – The process of heat, the warming is not love. When somebody falls in love, he notices that his neck, legs, arms widen. – It is not love either. The widening is a consequence of something.

Characteristic of the matter is to widen from the warmth. Love is something elusive: it can’t be looked, it can’t be heard, it can’t be touched. You read the book of some genius, great scientist or philosopher. You admire from it, keep it as something holy, but where is the holy thing? Where is what fills you with enthusiasm? You search for it in the words but you don’t find it; you search for it in the letters, it is not there either. You hear that somebody speaks or sings on the radio. You say that man speaks or sing, but where is man? The voice comes from afar but man can’t be seen. If your consciousness is awake, you will differ whether one man speaks or a few do; if one man sings, or the whole choir. And you may distinguish the different voices of the singers. No matter how much you can distinguish the different voices, you can’t accept again what a real man is. He is elusive too, as love. You say: This man is sorrowful. – Where is his sorrow? – He is joyful. – Where is his joy? You don’t see either his sorrow, or his joy. His joy and sorrow don’t represent man himself. They have a relation to him but man can’t be seen.

Every man has relation to the outside world but he can’t explain alone the contradictions which penetrate his soul. You stay alone and are being confused. Why? – Something worries you. You are a trader and you hear that people speak on the radio that the price of wheat has fallen. You deal on the stock-market and when you hear this news on the radio, you lose your peace immediately. You have just calculated that, when you sell the wheat at one defined price, will make a big sum of money. The wheat isn’t interested in its price. It doesn’t want to know if its price has fallen, or has risen. And the ox doesn’t care what price they will sell it for. He stays calm and ruminates. Who has bulls, he cares if their price falls. If their price has risen, you are glad and say: “My work is being put in order.” Your work is being put in order but not and the work of the ox or of the bulls. If the price of the bulls goes down, your work becomes bad. But the bull doesn’t care about this, its work doesn’t put in order again. Whether your work is put in order or becomes bad, the work of the bulls always remains wrong.

You say: I made a mistake. – The price of the bulls is falling. – How have you made this mistake? One bad thought passed through your mind. – This thought has soiled me. – It is as if an automobile has passed near you and has splashed you. It has soiled your clothes, not you. The mud hasn’t reached you, and you start to feel sorrow. It shows that the present people have vague concepts over some questions. – I want to understand everything. – How will you understand? You understand only when the prices of the bulls rise or fall. In the first case you are being glad, and in the second case you feel sorrow. When the prices falls you say: It is painful. – Nothing is being painful to you. It is a reflection. – I shall lose the respect of people, I shall lose the status I hold in society. – It is the truth. Man is not being respected for the dignity which he has as a soul, but is being respected for the money, for the houses and the fields, for the bulls, for the possessions, for his physical power. It is a respect of outside things. It doesn’t depend on what man brings in himself which is invariable. The money, the bulls, the houses, the possessions, the wealth may be taken away from you. What will you do then? You will say that you are in the state of the just Iov who has lost everything. Even people acknowledged him for justice, Iov had to make one correct philosophy for life. He was a rich man, esteemed and respected by everybody as good and pious, but in spite of this, he supported the philosophy: Everyone for himself. But, when he passed through big sufferings, he acquired something valuable, he understood his mistakes, he repented and became a real just man. Iov had reached the third category of life. After this, Satan came to tempt him. In one of his advices God asked him: Have you seen my good slave? Do you know him? Satan answered: He is rich, has children, fields, vineyards, bulls, he is satisfied in every way. Take away his wealth, then you will know him. Give me the right to test him. I can’t give my opinion right now. When I test him, then I shall give my opinion of him.

The story for the just Iov is occult. In it, is hiding, one inside side of life, You can’t imagine how God pushed Iov into the hands of devil to torment him. God said to Satan: After you want, you can test Iov. First you will take away his whole wealth, afterwards his sons and daughters, at last you will touch and his body. In this way you will know his power. You will test his love of wealth, to his children and, at last, to him himself. You will not go further than these tests. When Iov lost his wealth Iov said: God gave, God took. When he lost his sons and daughters, he said again: God gave, God took. But when he fell ill and his body was covered with scabs, he didn’t say as in the first two cases but cursed the day of his birth. It was one hard serve which he had to make. Since the beginning he didn’t understand what was wanted from him and how to execute his serve, he said: Let the day on which they put me on this hard serve be cursed! You say that it is not Divine when man curses his destiny. With it you want to say that Iov was soft, of a weaker character man. Who between you, if they put him in the state of Iov, may give a better example? What will you say and if your body is covered with scabs? You will say: It would be better if I had never been born, i.e. not to accept this serve. When you acquire material goods, you feel glad and afraid that somebody may take them away from you. Somebody may take them but they may not to take them, but through wealth the biggest trials and unhappiness will come to you. Wealth is beautiful, like a loose woman, without any morals. Whoever smiles at her, she is ready to go with him. There is no man whom she loves. What is important for her is that he is rich. When she meets him, she looks at his hands, for the money, and says: Hold the money out, don’t lose it. In it stays your grandeur. And the money says to man: Till I am with you, everybody will esteem and respect you. After I leave you, you will become an ordinary man, a beggar. It means the tinkle of the money. And nature has one coin it serves with. Its coin is made from clear gold. It is a beautiful, noble woman. Between the money and the noblest woman is the gold. It hasn’t got any weakness: it doesn’t oxidize, neither does it rust. Wherever it enters, whatever it makes, it never soils. As you know it, keep yourself from money, i.e. from the women who oxidize and rust it. They bring poison in themselves.

And so, if you want to understand life, take over my words, to understand their inside sense. You will assure yourself alone how much you know. You think that you know much. No, these are old clothes, a remainder from the past which you sell at a rag-fair. If you sell these old things, you will receive or millions, or they don’t cost anything – it depends on their inside contents. As you know it, strive yourself towards the new which opens the way of man to the boundless life. You ask me what the words that love is a door through which it has to be passed means. – No matter how much is spoken about this, you will hardly understand it. Instead of explaining it to you, I will take you by the hand and we together will pass through the door of love. To speak about the door of love, is as if we are speaking about money, or about material works. On earth, people speak mainly about material things. On earth, real things are not being spoken about. Sometimes, charity is spoken about as if it is a real thing. Who has seen the charity? How may the charitable man be identified? Some say: I am a charitable man. – I look on the head, I don’t see charity anywhere. If you want to see a charitable man, let us visit ten men and I shall show you who between them is the most charitable. I shall tell you how the charitable man may be known.

One needy man goes to the first of them and says: Please, accept me, I want to say something to you. – I am busy, I can’t now. He goes to the second, he receives the same answer: I am busy, come another time. He goes to the rest of the seven men but they don’t accept him either. The tenth accepts him, listens to him and satisfies his needs. The applicant wants from him one sum to support his family. – How much do you want? – 20 thousand leva in all. I have a son and a daughter who study, I have to pay fees, to buy them textbooks. He takes this sum, says thanks and says to himself: This is a good, charitable man. He says good bye and goes home. He passes through one wood where robbers meet him and attack him. They take his money, but because he resists, they fight him well and break his leg. He remains in the wood helpless, with a broken leg and without any money. He looks here and there, he hopes that somebody will come to help him. The first of the ten men passes by, but he hurries on, he was occupied, doesn’t stop. The second one passes by, he doesn’t stop either. The third one passes by and immediately stops and starts to speak in a distressed way. – What happened? Why are you crying? – One good man has given me 20 thousand leva, but the robbers met me, robbed me and broke my leg. It would be better if he hadn’t given me anything, not to happen this unhappiness! If I hadn’t been passing through the wood, nothing would have happened to me. The charitable man consoles him, binds up his leg, put him on his donkey and takes him to his home, there to cure him. He says to him: My friend has made one mistake which I shall correct.

When he became well the ill man, the charitable man said to him: Call your wife and children to see them. They came to him. He helped everyone. He satisfied their needs and sent them on their way. They had to passed through the wood but no-one of them has suffered – they haven’t brought money. They spoke with the robbers and separated in a friendly way as they have given them one little sum. The robbers remained surprised as a result of this meeting and huddled up between the trees with the desire to rest and to think what to do next. In the same way that sometimes Adam has huddled up and hidden from the face of God. He hasn’t any notion how merciful and gentle God is. When God had searched for him through Paradise, Adam had been silent, he hadn’t wanted to say anything. At last God found him and asked: Adam, why are you hiding? – I made a mistake, God. The woman you gave me lied to me. I fell into temptation with her.

The real charity we see is in the face of Christ. He came to earth, took the sins and the sufferings of the whole of humanity and liquidated them with his life. He showed to people how charity manifests itself. It is not necessary to give money to people and to let them pass through the wood, to expose themselves to new sufferings. Be charitable to people, remain to live together with you, where there is order. If you make your charity in a human way, you will expose people to trials and sufferings by all means. Wealth leads to trials. First Christ showed how charity has to be manifested without putting man to unnecessary risk.

You say: Tell us something more for charity. – I have given you the material, you have to develop it. What has the teacher on mathematics got? He gives rules to his pupils, explain to them what is a simple triple rule, a complex triple rule, equation and after that he leaves them to decide alone. If there just is a sense, after he has given the rules and models for their decision to waste his time with them to decide all the tasks? The pupils will decide their tasks alone. There are tasks for the decision for which a lot of time is needed, but the pupils are indebted to decide. You search an easy way to decide the tasks. The easiest way is through addition. One one and one one make two ones. One ox and one ox make two oxen. One louse and one more, make two lice. You will say that the lice can’t be added. You are right, any teacher hasn’t given to his pupils tasks in which to add lice. In fact, the mother is the first teacher of the child but not in addition, but in deduction. When she sees that the child has lice, she immediately takes the hair-comb and takes them away. Really, it is not correct way of the work. You can’t teach your child to deduct if you haven’t taught it to add. One is wanted from man: when he adds some quantities, to be ready to bring the consequences of their addition.

You ask yourself why people don’t succeed in their life. Very simple, they don’t succeed because they have started with the deduction, not with the addition. It is a wrong method of working. Two men gather in one place and they immediately hurry to separate. This is deduction. Everybody wants to go back from where he has come out from. When the young girl falls in love in some young man, she hurries to gather with him. Till that time everything goes well. After they marry and she wishes to go to see her mother, all the work collapses. It is a process of deduction. But, nature allows the deduction as an action only between the lice. It is not allowed to be taken out of people.

When the first man makes a mistake, he is transformed into a louse which was taken out from Paradise. Therefore, the first action which Adam learned was deduction, not addition. When he put the first people in Paradise, God gathered them but they haven’t understood this process. They transgressed and there why were they taken out from Paradise. If just two people gather in one place, what do they have to do? Can you gather them? Can you gather two saints in one place? It is the most difficult work. You may gather two saints in one place if one is bigger than the other. If the two are equally old, you can’t gather them in any way. The most difficult action is the addition. You ask: Isn’t the equation addition? – It is not. The equation is a process of taking and giving. When he makes a mistake, man creates conditions for the drawing up of equations in him. As a process, the equation is still incomplete. Are your relations to God, to your fellow-man, to yourself equations? The teacher has given some tasks to his pupils. It is his obligation. The work of the pupil comes down to the equalization of his relations. If he doesn’t equalize them, he hasn’t decided his task. When he just accepts his obligations and tasks, man executes the will of God, and simultaneously knows himself and his fellow-man.

You ask: Will we know each other in that world? – You don’t know yourself here, it is hard to believe that you will know yourself there! The knowing has a relation to love. You can’t know somebody if you don’t love him. It is a law. If you don’t love man, you don’t know him. – I know him. – It is an illusion. You can’t speak for that world until you have seen and felt it. I speak to you for that world, for the heaven, for Divine world, but they still remain misunderstood for you. You don’t have an image for the Divine world. You torment yourself, you want to present it, to understand it in some way but you don’t succeed. The difference between the earth and life in heaven is enormous. In order to understand life on earth, to use it and for it to be useful to others, you have to be healthy, to have knowledge and at least one virtue. Only in this way will you enter into communication with people, with life and will be useful for everybody. – Can’t it be without virtues? – It can’t. You can’t love one man who hasn’t at least one virtue. You may love one dead man but you love him for something: there is one good feature in him, or some virtue. You may have respect for the educated man, but not love. But the virtuous man you may love.

What is demanding from man in order to be esteemed and respected? In order to be esteemed, it has to have something in you with which to respond to the esteem and the respect. You can’t be a banker if you don’t have money; you can’t be a farmer if you don’t have a field; you can’t be smart if you don’t have a mind; you can’t be good if you don’t have virtues. Man has to have something in himself with which to respond to the reality. You want to study the reality but the time for some things hasn’t come yet. They are for the future. – Whenever it was, after you have entered into the School, you have to study. The letters of your primer are torn, you have to study it again. – We need money. – How much money do you want? – Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? A million? A Milliard? No matter how much money you have the question remains undecided. Do you think that the money will fall in love with you? In the end, they will draw from you. Your mind, heart, lungs also will leave you. And your virtues will leave you too. – The whole earth will leave you and you will remain alone. What will happen with you? – When it will happen? – When will you go to the other world.

Now, when I speak to you about death, you say: How will we die? What dies in man? – The unreal dies. All the shadows have to die – nothing more. First the painter puts many shadows over his picture, but he deletes one part of them. He remains only these shadows which give the expression of the picture. If the picture has more shadows than is necessary, it loses its beauty. You will say that around the eyes it has to have circles around the eyes, to look deeper. The eyes are deep and without circles. They present a deep valley which you may kill yourself in. If you fall in it, you can’t get out. The eyes are a deep lake, in which, if you don’t know how to swim, you will drown. You will say that the black eyes are beautiful. They are beautiful but they are and deep. Who doesn’t know how to swim may drown easily in them.

As disciples, it is good for you to study the eyes, if they are concaved or goggle, as and their colour. If the eyes are concaved, the physiognomic says that you have in front of you a deep lake; if they are goggles, you have a mountain top covered with snow and ice. If you cheat in such eyes, you will go deep into the valley. What will you do then? Take one rubber boat and descend with it into the deep lake. So, if you are on the black and concaved eyes, i.e. on the deep lake, take a boat and descend with it into the lake. Otherwise you will drown. If you are on the goggle eyes, i.e. on the mountain top, covered with snow and ice, put points on your shoes not to cheat yourself and fall into the valley. When you want to penetrate into the eyes of man, it means that you want to understand his spiritual life. Remember: Truth is behind the eyes, Wisdom is behind the ears, Love is behind the mouth. Behind the nose is a human mind, behind the lips is a human heart, behind the arms is Justice, and behind the legs – the virtue. Now it seems to you as a theory. In future, these things will revive for you and will become real. These are symbols behind which something real hides. Justice, the virtues are real things which today few people understand. One day, when you understand them, you will see what they represent. They have their language too.

When listening to these things, some people say: We were stupid people. If you understand the sense of the world stupid man, it is true that you are stupid. Not only you but even and the genius, and the saints are stupid people. It is like that on earth. You see one saint humbled, silent, passes imperceptibly between people. You meet one rich man dressed with a leather coat, with a sable hat, with a cane in his hand, look around proudly, self-satisfied, as he has fascinated the world. But the saint walks humbly and says: I am an ignoramus, I don’t know anything. – He doesn’t know anything but people search for him, please him to cure them. He puts his arm over their heads and they become well. How it happens, he doesn’t know either. He walks and speaks to himself: I am a stupid man. Everybody says for him that he is good, educated man. He is really good because he doesn’t tempt anybody. According to me,a good man is that one who doesn’t tempt anybody. When the saint meets one beautiful girl, in order not to tempt her, he immediately disguises himself as an old man, with a wrinkled face. She asks him: Grandfather, where are you going? – I go to walk a little. She goes with him and they two start to speak. He tells her his life story and she listens carefully. She invites him to her home and says to her mother: Mother, I am inviting one guest, one grandfather, who has passed through many sufferings. I ask the girls: Have you walked with some saint in order to know what he represents? I ask the young men: Have you walked with some saintly woman in order to know what she represents? The girl searches for the young saint, and the young man, the young saint-woman. It is not for reproach but I say that the reality is not in the outside side of the things. You say that this one is young, that one – old. Young is that one who doesn’t understand the reality of life. What is reality expressed in? – In love. Out of love, everything is temporarily, meaningless. Out of love, life can’t be understood. You say that life is good. – What else will you say? Life is good but it could be better.

You live on earth but think about heaven. You ask: Will you be the same on heaven as you have been on earth? – From your present body will remain nothing. – Will we know each other? – You will not know each other. When you see one old, broken down man, will you know in him that little boy which you watched tens years ago? You say: And this was sometimes a little, beautiful boy. But, in reality the old man and the young man may live together, to understand each other and to love themselves. In this state, the old man may take the form of the young man, and the young man to take the form of the old man. In this way they will execute two services: The services of a young one and of an old one. But in the unreal world, neither the old man may execute the role of young man, neither the young – of old. In the real world man may take the role of a woman, and the woman – to man. On earth it can’t happen. Why? – Because the life on earth is unreal. It is a world of illusions. Until are on earth, man and woman constantly fight a woman wants to be a man, a man doesn’t want to be a woman. But, neither woman may be a man, neither man – a woman. – Why? Because they have both stepped over Divine law, but they make mistakes up and until today. – What do I have to be? – A man. It is said in the Writing: “And God made man by His image and likeness.” Now I don’t want to have the form of man, either the form of a woman. You have to refuse from your form too and to wish to be a man. If you don’t refuse from your form, you will not enter into the Divine Kingdom. It is said: “Flesh and blood will not inherit the Divine Kingdom.”

And so, you live in a relative world which you have to study. All the things you serve with on earth are given to you as temporarily appliances. In front of you, it opens up a great future. What this future is, I will not explain to you right now. What woman will be then and what man is, is not important. We have to be men – it is important. How will you explain, why when the man or the woman who haven’t lived will die, cry each other? The woman says: My man fought me but I am sorry for him. He was good! How I wish he would come back! And man, when his wife dies, says the same. She has tormented him too, but he forgets everything, he feels her absence. What do man and woman represent? Man is wisdom, woman – love. So, man looks for love, woman – wisdom. Man is a form behind which wisdom hides. Woman is a form behind which love hides. As forms, they are shadows of the reality. When they don’t understand it, woman says: I don’t want this man. Man says: I don’t want this woman. The question is not in the not-wanting, look to pass from the shadow of man and woman in the reality of life. You will enter into the reality only when you pass through the forms of man and woman.

You say: What is being spoken now to us is much wronged. When we come upon to what we have learned and what is being imminent to learn, we totally acquire the wrong image. – Tell me then something in a more clear language. If the daughter invites one old grandfather into her home, her parents will say nothing. But, if she invites one young man, they will remain in a special opinion. The mother will immediately ask her daughter where this young man comes from, if he has an education, what he has finished, what he does, how much he receives. – I don’t know, I haven’t asked him, I don’t dare to talk about it. What meaning is there for you where the young man has finished, what he does and how much he receives? If the young man invites one girl into his home, he will be asked too: Where this girl is from, if she has an education, if she has money? Woman – housewife has to have two qualities: To cook well, to satisfy the taste buds of her man and to dress well. It makes a man glad. If she has these qualities, a woman may always satisfy her man. In the ability of a man to dress, hides the ethics of life. Who doesn’t dress well, is far from these ethics. Who cooks well, he lives well. Therefore, if you want to understand what the girl is, look how she dresses and how she cooks. In order to guess what a man is, understand how he thinks. A man has to think well. It is demanding for him. If the woman says to her man that he thinks well, it shows that she has valued him correctly. On earth, in order to facilitate a good life between man and woman, man has to think well, and woman – to cook well and to dress well. These qualities have a relation to the practical life of man. Man and woman have to apply these qualities in their life in order to understand each other and to acquire good results. When some woman comes to me, I ask her: Do you know how to cook? – I am learning now. – Your head will suffer a lot.

In Turkish time, somewhere around Varna, in the home of one Bulgarian and one Turkish bey the bold came on a visit. Ivan said to his wife: Aim to cook well because the Turkish bey the bold will come to lunch at home. – I shall cook a chicken to satisfy him. When they sat to have some lunch, the bey the bold first tasted the meal and said: Ivan, who has cooked? – My wife. – Come to me. The bey the bold picked up the pot with the meal and poured it over the head of Ivan. When she saw him, his wife asked: Ivan, why are you so soiled? Who has soiled you? The bey the bold. Look out, you have to cook well another time in order not to bring about the consequences of your carelessness.

And so, the Divine Spirit gives an impulse and to woman, and to man to think. To think correctly, it is wanted from every man. Generally, woman takes the inside work, man – the outside. When he comes back from work, man works on probation to his woman. There are and man cook but the women are specialists. Man has to learn from a woman how to cook and to dress well. Man stays humbly by his wife and listens to her lectures on cooking and good dressing. He is satisfied from these lectures and says: Do you see how beautifully I dress myself? – Till you dress well, you will live in Paradise. When you don’t dress yourself well, people will chase you away outside. Cock-a-double-doo! – it is what the cock says to the hen, too. It struts, passes near it and goes on its way.

I say: Use from the new which life brings. If you remain with the old, you will be endure huge sufferings. Some woman complains that she can’t live any more with her man. – Who forces you to live with him? – I can’t remain in his house any more. – After you can’t, go out. When you don’t feel well with him, leave his house. He hasn’t called you by force. – I can’t live on rent, I am already tired. He has to make a house, not to move from one house to the other. – Where will the man find money from? – I want to have three-four rooms available, with steam heating and a bathroom. – You want too much. You search all the conveniences on earth and in, spite of this, expect to be accepted on heaven with beys, as a saint. – How will we go to the other world? – As butterflies. Till you are on earth, you will be treaded on as worms. After you transform to butterflies, you will leave earth and will go to the other world.

Many people say: We learn so many years and haven’t acquired anything. – How many years you learn is not important. How you learn, is important. I have given you many examples. Have you taken over them? Have you understood their sense? What lesson have you taken out from the example for the Persian saint and his followers? Do you remember this example? The Persian saint had many followers. One day he decided to test their love. For this aim he called everybody and said to them: I want you to sacrifice for me. Who is ready, let him enter into the dark room to give his life. When they heard it, one after another people started to step back. Only five to six men remained at the door of the room, but they hesitated too. One young girl called: I am ready to sacrifice myself. Immediately after this, her sweetheart called too: And I will come with you. You know that I can’t live without you. The two young men entered into the dark room and waited for the moment when the saint steps over to the operation. He took out one oven in front of them, drove the knife into its throat and let all the blood run outside. When the followers who were waiting outside saw the blood, they bristled with terror and one after another took flight. The young men, who were in the room of the saint, stayed patiently and waited for their time. They thought: We love each other and we will see to the other world – nothing will separate us. Then the saint has risen his arms upwards and said: Be blessed from God! You are worthy of life. Live in peace and love!

I say: If you are able, too, as the two young men, to sacrifice yourself for God, you will have his blessing. Only in this way will you enter into the Divine Kingdom. If you remain outside and look as soon as possible to run, you will never enter into the Divine Kingdom. – Can’t we enter into the Divine Kingdom without trials? – It can’t. The trials are not real things, they are not necessary. When you are being tested, you suffer, but what is suffering in you is what can be sacrificed. Through the sufferings man tests himself alone but and others test him too. Iov passed through big sufferings but they weren’t real too. In spite of it, he has given in, suffered, tormented himself. He lost his wealth, the fields, the vineyards, the bulls, the sheep, his camels, and all these were given back to him. He lost his sons and daughters but others, better and more beautiful than the first, have being born to him. He has felt ill, his body was covered with scabs, but he didn’t die.

And Christ went through hard sufferings. He lost everything too. Have his sheep come back? – They have come back. Today Christ has more than 500 million followers. These are his sheep He has sacrificed for. His daughters still haven’t come back, they are not formed. They are seven – a number of perfection. The sufferings of Christ were incomparably harder than these of Iov’s. The last one had friends he has spoken with. Christ remained alone on the cross. People have mocked Him, they have abused Him and said to Him: You are a son of God, right, get down from the cross! Christ prayed to God but His prayer was a voice in a desert. God has spoken to Iov, but Christ hasn’t heard any voice. He prayed and said: “God, I don’t understand this work. I deliver my spirit in your hands. Let Your will be!” After the resurrection Christ understood what Divine will was. Now I tell to you too: You will also go through the sufferings of Iov, through a dedication. After that you will pass and through the sufferings of Christ, through the great dedication of life. Now I speak to those of you who study the way of the disciple. There are things for studying and in the rest of works, but they pale at the way of the disciple. In the way of the apprenticeship there are imminently serious tasks. Now you think how to arrange your work better. Not only will you not arrange them, but you will confuse them more. As disciples, you will hold for God and will give thanks for everything that has been given to you. Now are times of trials. There is no postponement! You say: One idea has entered my mind, it constantly buzzes, as a beetle. – Leave this beetle aside. When the winter passes away, all the hives rise, the bees start to buzz, they gather on common work. Look what trials come today! Here, according to one statistics, in Spain, only in five-six months, more than a million people have been killed. In the past wars, in several years only around 500 thousand people were killed. You can imagine what would happen with Europe if today a war breaks out! Terrible is what is happening is Spain now! Terrible is the evil in man! Man is a bomb ready to explode. If you don’t know how to touch him, he will explode in a way that and from you, and from him will remain nothing. Be careful with each other, not be offended.

When I speak to you in this way, I shall give courage to you not to be afraid. Which is better: to travel with cart, to shake you, to shake your whole interior, or to travel easily and freely by airplane? You will remember the caret with months, the airplane will remain good, pleasurable memories. Already enough shaking! Whoever I meet today, everybody complains that he has been shaken. I bring the new airplanes. Get into them. It is the new teaching. You will pay the ticket, will get into the airplane and after, an hour and a half you will reach the defined place. Then your net will be so dilapidated as you are now.

I wish you, through the whole year to work consciously with your mind and heart. I wish to the sisters to cook well and to dress well, and to the brothers – to think well. After this we will get into an airplane and will go on an excursion, to be glad of the green grass and of the limpid springs. There we will sit to have a meal and enjoy ourselves. Only in this way will we understand that life has sense.

And so, to cook well, to dress well and to think well! All the rest is foreseen. It means life without contradictions.

To you, the disciples, I wish to work. I draw your way through the year. I can tell you many more things, but it will come out forcedly. If I speak much, I shall be compared to that man who has put milk in one pot to boil. When the milk started to boil, the pot was gradually being filled; the milk overflowed and spilled out. He went up onto the chimney and watched from there how the whole room would be filled with milk. I say: Don’t expect one litre milk to fill the whole room. If the pot fills it, it is enough. Why do you have to be greedy for too much? If you have an excess of milk, you will sell it to become rich. Don’t strive for wealth, but strive yourself to acquire love. The beauty of life is in its correct understanding. The beauty and the sense of life are in the good cooking, in the good dressing and in the good thinking. It is the way the disciples have to walk on, in order to come into the favourable conditions of life, into the new life, into the Divine Kingdom.

In Divine Love is the good of life.

5. Morning Speech delivered from Master on 3 January, 1937, Sofia - Sunrise