The Sunday Lectures, Vol.II

1

Birth

For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.—Luke 2:11 (WEB)

He is born is the most sobering word in life on earth. What does this word contain? Birth contains the lofty, the powerful, and the strong, which drives all of mankind toward perfection. They often ask, how can one enter the Kingdom of God? How can we free ourselves from the limitations of laws, of nature, and can we master them? I answer: When you’re born. I speak of the word birth, and not rebirth. Man reincarnated thousands and millions of times. He started his life as a microbe, grew, reshaped himself in order to be born, finally, as a man in the full sense of the word. Reincarnation is a process, but birth is a completed cycle in this process. When it says in the Gospel, today is born... it’s understood, of course, that it is He, who was conceived millions of years ago, who is born at last. The word birth contains a great idea that God put into the Spirit. And when every one of you senses that [you are] born, then you’ll be saved and you’ll understand the meaning of life. Because many of you have yet to be born, but you reincarnate, and in reincarnation you must one day be born, then the angels will speak of you: He was born in the city of David. Christ must be born in all hearts and souls. Modern people say, he was born in Jerusalem, and go there on a pilgrimage, but they still don’t understand the meaning of the birth; they don’t aspire to live like Christ. He was born among the Jews, who were the chosen people, but they too didn’t understand the deep meaning of His birth, what He carried within Himself for all mankind—God’s love.

Every birth is accompanied by suffering. In order for Christ to be born, therefore, in the human soul, one must surely pass through suffering. It’s the same as when a mother gives birth: she must endure some suffering, to assume all care-giving responsibilities for the child. By the same law, every nation or society in which Christ must be born must assume all responsibility to take care, to prepare the soil, so this child may be born and raised. Perhaps this idea seems a little vague, but don’t let that bother you; it depends on how far or close things are, and the kind of light we can use to examine them. Anyone can understand things according to the amount of light he has. When the angels declare, today a Savior is born, they determine the kind of happiness He brings to mankind: peace, the highest declaration of God. The Lord expresses Himself as peace. And peace is a law of harmony, of the unity of reason, of lofty character, of love, wisdom, of truth, of goodness, of righteousness—this is peace. Only the one who carries peace can be born. You cannot be born until you understand these profound truths, until you acquire peace in yourselves.

Now let’s examine the word birth from a psychological standpoint. This word relates to mysticism. A Christian who wants to become a mystic, to study Divine nature, to be honored with the name man, must understand the word birth well. You read in Genesis that God created man from dust, breathed into him and he became a living soul. Then the process of breathing ruled, but now—the process of birth. I would explain the word breathing, but even my explanation would be incomprehensible, because in this word is something indescribable to the people of today, but a day will come for you to understand it. Now let’s move onto oppositions, which are required by the law of birth, which is a law of eternal development. Through this law, the Lord fully manifests Himself in our soul, and through Him the Spirit works positively. All your aspirations are governed by the law of birth. The higher, Divine consciousness in man manifests and perfects through it. Ordinary consciousness is a dark notion. There are different perceptions regarding birth. If they ask you about this word, you’ll say, birth means for a child to be conceived and born. Birth is not understood in terms of the body, but in terms of the human soul; that is, the conception of this Divine seed of which I spoke, and its birth, and when we say, a man is born, aside from the process of germination and growth, we also infer the process of knowledge and wisdom. When he lacks knowledge, man cannot say he’s born. The animals, and the fish, and the microbes reincarnate and aspire to end this cycle of rebirth. In the Bulgarian language the word rebirth implies a reworking of things. So, even we on earth do nothing but rework some experience that we acquired millions of years ago.

Some ask, where do we come from? From the great sea. You might ask, how many years did we spend there, and how did we emerge? After shining on you thousands of years, the sun of life raised you up and, by the law of infrigidation of bodies, you came down. So the Spirit lifted you, the way the sun lifts vapor from the sea, and sent you to earth. Don’t think it’s a great misfortune for you here—it’s a great blessing. I tell you that there’s no greater knowledge in the world than this, to know how to suffer. Suffering is the highest manifestation of love. Whoever hasn’t understood the meaning of suffering, he’s still an animal, a microbe that will reincarnate a lot, and vice versa: the one who understands the meaning of suffering—he is born; he’s a man.

Suffering is something allotted only to man. The animals don’t suffer the way man does; the blows to them are just a massage. The dog howls from the stick placed over his back, but the moment it gets withdrawn, the suffering stops. In suffering is the profound meaning of life, the so-called peaceful sorrow. The secret in life lies in suffering. If you want to learn Divine wisdom and the mystery of nature, I tell you, there’s no other way except suffering. When man wants God to send him to earth, God asks him, do you want to pass through the law of suffering? If you want, I’ll send you. If he says, I don’t want to, He will tell him, stay with me in the great sea, because as soon as you come out of it, you’re then a worker who has to labor and suffer on earth. And what is the earth? She is the vast woman, your mother who gives birth and raises people. Once she accepts you, she will keep you millions of years to reshape you, until finally she pulls you out complete and says, here is my child who can now speak in the Divine language of things.

I’ll make a slight deviation. In birth is hidden a great force of movement; it’s the strongest impulse that can be given to a person. If you could carry yourself over to the sun through the eye of a clairvoyant, you would understand the enormous energy with which it sends its rays. You say the cannon is very powerful, because it can throw a grenade with such power that it sends it at a distance of 120 kilometers. But imagine the kind of power and speed with which the sun throws the waves from its rays every second, and how many kilometers they travel until they stop in one place! According to physicists, they are 300,000 kilometers per second. Can you imagine this power? These rays gradually diminish and the light dims, because the light is dependent upon the force of motion. The stronger the motion, the stronger the light, until this projectile reaches its limit and stops and turns to darkness. And do you know what darkness is? It’s the opposite process: the projection of light is from the bottom-up, but the motion of darkness that reaches its limit is a motion from top to bottom, that is, from the periphery to the center. It’s the slowest movement. And so, the darkness is above, but the light is below. But you’ll say, don’t we know the dark place? It’s hell. What is hell? Some think hell is a specific place for suffering. A person who is born and sins deviates from the law; a downfall awaits him and it’s terrible. He’ll be placed into the cannon of the sun yet again, thrown out with great force, and he’ll travel in space for millions of years and stop somewhere (it’ll depend on the force with which he’s thrown out from the Lord). And if he’s thrown out with great force and travels 100,000,000 years, that’s how many years it’ll take to return. The more powerfully he moves through space, the slower he’ll move back to God. And when he comes near, God will attract him with an even greater speed. And so, for man to be born, it means to reach the final destination at which his soul is thrown into space, where he’ll stop and take up his evolution yet again. And when he completes his reincarnations thusly, he’ll be born.

Humanity lost hope with Adam and Eve’s transgression. Two children were born to them, but death subdued them. There was no-one to comfort them, and they, like some wealthy people who have no children, complained: We have no heirs; all this will be left to strangers, and they became discouraged. Mankind was in such a position, but God gave us an immortal child to redeem us—it’s Christ.

New thoughts are often born in your minds. I listened once to a prominent preacher who said, I have so many ideas that in the span of 10-20 years I wouldn’t be able to say them all. But after only 10 sermons he confessed that he threw out all his material. When you think you have many ideas, you’re in the law of reincarnation. Weren’t the less evolved animals created first? Bugs, flies, and so on. This is the worth of your many thoughts; it’s such that you cannot put them to work to do a decent job. They can’t bring perfection to your life. But when that underlying Divine thought comes, it’ll be alive and one with you. It’ll develop like a newborn child. What Christianity calls the coming of Spirit is that Divine thought that some call subconsciousness, others consciousness, and a third kind, superconsciousness. Theosophists call it the awakening of the higher Ego, occultists, the manifestation of the sublime, and so on. When you come upon this condition, you’ll experience peace, constant joy that never changes. Someone will say, I have that joy. Hardly half an hour passes and you see that joy of his completely dried up! That joy is transient, inconsistent with the law. How can a gemstone disappear? You’re deceived; it’s not joy, but a fly that lives for only a day, which dies, and you start crying. Someone says, I have peace. I’m calm. Tomorrow he’s agitated, and he immediately starts scrunching his eye-muscles; where, then, is the peace? It doesn’t leave him, and it wasn’t actual peace. I’m a Christian. I’ve been practicing for 10 years. I read such-and-such writers—Spencer, Spurgeon, apostle Paul. They all said very well, but what do you have to say? Because when you go to the Lord, He won’t ask you what apostle Paul said, and what Spencer did, but what did you do? You can’t bring apostle Paul, nor Spencer there: They’ll go to the Lord themselves, but with whom will you go?

And so, this is the underlying idea that we must ponder over today. I know that some of you have misconceptions regarding the Spirit: some think the Holy Spirit and the bad spirit are one and the same. The good and bad spirit are diametrically opposed. There’s no such law where a wellspring pours both sweet and bitter water; just as bitter water always remains bitter, and the sweet always remains sweet; in the same way, the good is always good, and the evil remains evil. What’s good and what’s evil? This is a very profound question, and if you think you’ll figure it out in the span of 5-10-100 years, you’re lying to yourselves. At least 1,000 years are required for Christ to teach you. Then you’ll have somewhat of an understanding regarding one and the other. With this, I don’t want to discourage you in the least, but I want to tell you what the laws are that guide our life, so you can free yourselves from some of your illusions. Every day, every hour in life has its own schedule. We must complete that underlying task of the day, on which our progress depends. With that, there’s no reason to worry a lot whether you’ll progress. You’ll progress—I positively assure you. Some ask, will I develop? When they throw you on the earth, not only will you develop, but you’ll even pass to the other side. How much time is required? A thousand years. It’s a lot. But 1,000 is a human number. It’s not a very big number. A hundred years are a lot more than a thousand. Ten years are even more. It’s the opposite in this process: a thousand years is the smallest number; a hundred years is the bigger one. You’re confused. The number 1,000 has three zeros that show the three conditions, the three stages you’ll pass through. In 1,000 years you have to assemble three bodies: in the outer-most zero you’ll assemble your physical body. When you pass through to the second zero you’ll assemble your heart. And when you enter the third one, you’ll assemble your mind. When you reach [number] one, you’ll be born, you’ll rise upwards and you’ll say, here we are before you, Father. Now we too can work for You. This is birth. And the birth of Christ marks a Great Age in the world—the appearance of the Son of God. That’s why all of us must celebrate.

The temporary sufferings you have are the greatest blessing for you. There’s nothing better than suffering, because only through it the Lord will give you a blessing. When someone complains to me of his sufferings, I tell him, give me some of your sufferings. I give you my joy. And I add: Now I feel the pleasure of life. He says to himself, this man is very good, but I too say to myself, thank you, because you gave me more than you took. To me, sorrow is worth more. And the Lord preferred to leave His greatness, His glory, to come to earth and suffer. There are reasons for this, and it’s the greatest love the Lord expressed. When we begin to comprehend, to understand suffering within, we’ll come to the real process, which the Christian calls salvation. We cannot be saved unless we admit that sufferings are a blessing. Stop and say to yourself, suffering, you’re very useful, so I can be born. If you suffer more, it shows that you’re closer to God. When suffering reaches its limit, joy is immediately born. The mother experiences the greatest suffering when giving birth. In that final moment, everyone runs and hides. But when the child is born, everyone rejoices. Yes, in order to be born, everyone must cry out—even the mother and the husband. They told me about an incident in the village of Nikolaevka, which happened 50-60 years ago. The wife of a prominent Turk had a toothache. There was a Bulgarian in the village who pulled teeth. The Turk brought her to him so he could pull her tooth. The lady went upstairs (the house had two floors) while the Turk waited downstairs. At one point, the woman began to cry out, and the husband also started crying out downstairs. The tooth-puller wondered, I’m pulling someone’s tooth, but why is the other one crying out? We’re connected the same way: when someone else’s tooth is getting pulled, we too must cry out. I’m telling you this because you’re living in an age of great sufferings. You have to look upon things as mystics, not as ordinary inactive spectators. You should know that sufferings are the greatest blessing given to us by the Lord. One day you’ll see for yourself. People massacre each other, there’s hunger, pestilence, fathers and mothers lose their children, sisters are raped, families are desecrated—from all these sufferings you must draw some use. Send joy to the ones who suffer, and say, give us some of your sufferings. You sit and say, it’s good that we’re not on the battlefield and we don’t hunger. What experience will you gain from this? On the contrary, enter the position of the souls who suffer. Go and help them. Then you’ll be blessed. But how can we help? It’s the easiest thing. If you can’t do it directly, you can help people spiritually. Every person is required to take at least half of the sufferings from his friend, and to give him his joy. You tell him, may the Lord bless you! The Lord blesses people through you. But you say, let Him find someone else, not through me. When the electrical current passes through an iron rod, it magnetizes it. If the Divine electricity doesn’t pass through you, how do you think you’ll elevate yourselves? And now many of you think your ideals are destroyed, wasted. They’re not wasted. Many flies, beetles, fish, birds, and mammals have gathered around you, and when you cleanse yourselves from them you’ll become wise. When you gradually build your temple, the Lord will come to be born in it. That Jesus Christ was born 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem—this won’t serve you, not in the least. You can sing this song another 4,000 years and it still won’t serve you. You’ll elevate yourselves only when the angels enter your soul and say, today a Savior is born in the city of David. And when Christ is born, Herod will be there, and Pilate, and the head priest Caiaphas. Now you’ll say, but that child—it’s mischief. Let’s free ourselves from him, and you might give him to Pilate to crucify him, and he’ll go to others. Just as Christ left the Jews and went to the Gentiles, in the same way your child will go to others—to those who will give him shelter. And you’ll be a chosen, but abandoned people! And when they ask you, why do you suffer? you’ll answer, because we betrayed our child to Herod and Pilate so he could crucify Him. That’s why I say that you have to defend your Lord and say, I will live for the Lord. If He lives, I too will live. If He dies, I too will die. And just as Christ resurrected after suffering, in the same way you too will rise. You’ll learn the law of immortality. There are people who are close to resurrection. The apostles rose, and they’re working on earth. You’ll say, why don’t we see them? The one who has risen can see the resurrected, just as the musician understands a musician, like the doctor understands the doctor, and so on. You must have that ability to understand, and that’s precisely why you’re on earth.

And so, Christ now appears. He now lives; He is among you. He works in many of you. And so, what people call resurrection is birth. That’s what the Christians call resurrection—to come out of the grave. To me, many of you are graves, some larger, others smaller. I see various signs over your tombstones: so-and-so Ivan, who lived this many years; so-and-so Elena, who lived this many years. Someone else, however, when he died, was buried again in the same grave. How many times did this Elena die and [continues to] carry her tombstone with the inscription of all her relatives[?] You ask, when will we rise? You can rise today, but your tombstones are very heavy. Some angel must come and take them away. If an angel had to come for Christ to roll away the stone from His grave, how much more he must come for you! In 33 years, Christ endured a great transformation, which in the end is called resurrection. In the word resurrection I understand the struggle and victory of a child over death. And that’s why man is born, in order to struggle and overcome death. When you overcome death, the day of resurrection will come. Some say, when Christ was born and the angels declared peace to all mankind, why didn’t the people rectify themselves? Because they didn’t learn the Christian doctrine properly. Christ will yet again preach in this world. You’ll see Him, I can assure you. Some of you will not see Him. Why? Very naturally, because they’re blind. And for a long time they’ll shout like the blind man, Son of David, be merciful to me, put your hand on my eyes! When He touches your eyes, He’ll ask you, do you see?—We see, Lord, the people as trees. Then He’ll touch you again: Now what do you see?—The people are moving. What does that mean? That your thoughts and desires are first immobile, like the trees, and when you begin to see, things come alive, like people. Then you’ll understand what virtue is. Christ came to show that we must struggle with death, to overcome it, and to rise. That’s what birth means.

—Lecture held on Christmas Day, 1915

2

The Truth

…the truth shall make you free.—John 8:32 (NKJV)

Pilate asked Christ a question: What is truth? Here’s a profound philosophical question. It’s easy to ask, but difficult to answer. Truth in itself is something concrete, real, unchangeable—eternal light, eternal wisdom, eternal love, eternal righteousness, eternal life. But this very definition itself requires us to find out in more detail what the truth is. I will focus on this idea: Truth is what gives freedom. Freedom is the aspiration of the human mind, heart, soul, spirit. Truth—this is life, and life is meant to seek the truth and to search for it, not as Tolstoy says in his book, My Conversion. He speaks there about one of his dreams which accurately characterizes his mental condition before his conversion: I find myself, I relate a summary of his story, sleeping in a bed. It’s neither too comfortable, nor is it pleasant. I move to see what this bed is, what it is made of—from iron or wood. I notice at one point that the sticks holding up the bed on the side of my head and feet are starting, one by one, to fall. Finally, there remains under my waist just one stick. At that time a voice calls: ‘Don’t move any more, neither with the head, nor with the feet. Keep your balance!’ And I see beneath me a large pillar and a bottomless pit below it. Often there are philosophers who lay on their backs and study the Divine world, but only one stick remains under their waist, and the Lord tells them, keep your balance! And when you say balance! the catastrophe is avoided. When you study the truth, you must stand upright on your feet, and not to lay on your back. Only the dead lay like this. I take the word dead in a figurative sense—a person with limitation who doesn’t think. You must turn to the east, so when Christ appears, you must meet Him. Many act like Tolstoy, but Christ tells them, balance!

The truth will make you free. Truth is real, it’s actual life. Don’t think it’s something imaginary. It’s a world that has its own beauty, its colors, tones, music—a world that existed and will always exist. Christ says, whoever understands this world, these laws and forces, he will be free. And more: For this reason I was born—to bear witness to the truth. And then Pilate asks Him, what is truth? Modern people have strange notions about the Lord. The Lord—this is the truth. One day, when you feel joyous and cheerful and start singing, you see the truth, the living God, is in you. You think good things, you do a good deed—the Lord is in you. The truth is movement, an impulse. And when Christ says, I am the way, it implies that one must move, not to stand in one place, like some tied up animal. In this world, things are strictly mathematically determined; there’s nothing unpredictable, accidental; your life, your sufferings, anguish, agony—all this is predetermined. It’s a plus and minus. Truth takes into account the four arithmetical functions: adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Whoever has much adds; whoever has little also adds; however the addition here is different. You have 2,000 leva, but with a minus or a plus? To give or take? This will determine the attitude. If you say, I have 2,000 years, and add a minus, I understand that in the past you lived a wicked life for 2,000 years. If you say, "two thousand years plus," I understand that you lived an excellent life and, therefore, are truly wealthy.

Christ says, the truth will make you free. Truth is necessary for man and woman; the whole social system rests on it. Everyone strives for freedom and has the right to live freely, but this freedom will be given to him freely insofar as he can use the good things brought by the truth. The sufferings of a nation are necessary for the latter, just as they are for the individual person. The sufferings and anguish are our inventions. Your husband receives a salary, say 50 leva, which are barely enough to get through the month: But, you say, "Easter is coming. There isn’t enough for kozunatsi; ¹ sugar and eggs are expensive. There isn’t enough for shoes; a hat costs 50-70 leva. Why don’t we have 150-200 leva? So there may be peace, leave the kozunatsi for next year. This isn’t the only Easter in the world.—No, now! But the Lord granted only 50 leva. Be satisfied with what you have. Don’t spoil Easter. The woman in this regard must give the man the freedom, and the man [must give freedom] to the woman. Down with the kozunatsi! Here is freedom, and also truth. And therefore the Scripture says, be thankful for everything." Don’t think that God didn’t give you wealth. He gave it; many of you are wealthy, but you have to look for it.

When perceiving the Divine ordinances we must have inner freedom, not to have preconceived notions. Truth is independent of yours [as well as] my opinion. Whether you think in one way or another, whether you move closer or further from it, you won’t alter its relationship. It’ll always exist as it is in this intelligently-created world. The light we have comes from the light of truth. Love comes from above, from the truth, and when it conquers the world, it’ll make you free. Love always aspires toward truth. Beauty is also an expression of the truth: whatever beauty is in relation to man, such is the truth in relation to the Divine world. It’s one of the faces of this world, which is a world of harmony, of beauty. And when you say, why are we unhappy? the truth answers you: Because you’re ignorant, because you transgress the law. I know, one time in Varna, the Gagauzi women fell in love with the Bulgarians and wanted to marry them. The Greeks were drunkards, but the Bulgarians looked like nice and calm donkeys—but this isn’t an understanding of truth. Truth is a science; to learn what the mutual relations between people must be. Unless one brings his mind, his heart, in balance, in agreement with the truth, he cannot be free. Only then can he unite with the Divine world.

Many ask, can’t we do without suffering? We can.—And without anguish and sorrow? We can, why not? But the sufferings are necessary for the evolution of man. One wants to study in the world, so he’s always suffering. And the earth is a place of suffering. But, he says, how could I know? Why didn’t you ask the wise beings before coming down? One time a little angel who heard them talking a lot about people, said to a bigger angel, I really want to see these people. Why don’t you take me to earth so I can see them. He brought him to earth. The angel then said, I wanted you to take me to the people, but you took me to hell.—"But hell is these people, answered the big angel. And indeed, we are hell. In the word hell, in our country they take to mean boiling, bubbling underneath, grabbing by the throat, the beating of brother against brother, why someone took more from the father’s inheritance and the other one less. Equality is required." He’s older, let him take more.

We on earth have exactly those relationships that God placed, and for which His laws testify, and when we apply them according to the truth, their result will be freedom. And whoever wants to study truth, he must study the quality of freedom. If you ask me what music actually is, I can’t define it, but what music gives birth to in itself, I can define. It’s harmony, a relationship between tones. Sit in front of a piano or any other instrument, play and see what music is. But the manifestation of music requires three things: first, an idea in our mind about a song; secondly, an instrument; and third, an artist. So, what’s required is musical ability in the mind, a sensitive ear, and then an artist to play. And if you ask what a teacher is, I can tell you what the teacher produces. He gives knowledge. And if you learn what knowledge is, you’ll be close to the teacher. You ask what virtue is. It’s better if you ask what it gives birth to. Before you go to study the essence, study the results of things.

How does freedom stand out? In that it gives a wide open space for action. Out of necessity, you have only one way—you’re tense. The bullet may be gold, very nice, but you must walk only in one direction—forward. If you stop, the whip will fall on your back. In freedom, on the contrary, you have a choice. You have the choice to climb a mountain peak, to climb from any side, but when you roll down you then go only in one direction. But why does man think like that? He’s free to think. But he’s an atheist.—It’s a temporary delusion. He’s bad.—The consciousness for goodness hasn’t developed in him yet. He sins.—His will is not yet tempered. So-and-so gave birth out of wedlock.—Adjust your relationship between the genders. I consider people free. The fearful [ones] are not free, and they, namely, commit crimes. They don’t have the heroic nature to take responsibility. Which people are strong in the world? Whoever is free and can endure sufferings and hardships, being sodden, disgraced; these things are trials and whoever can bear them is doing a heroic deed. The sufferings are given to test who is a hero and who is a coward. Whoever doesn’t want to suffer, whoever wants others to do his chores, passes into the catalog of cowards. If you suffer, you’re a hero. Why don’t you say who the Bulgarian people glorify? Those cowards who in Turkish times betrayed the people, or those who suffered for this nation? And how much more will they be exalted who suffer for truth! It’s the same principle. That’s why the science of truth is a science of social life. Truth always makes people free. Those who die for others make the people free. If Stephen hadn’t died, Paul wouldn’t have been born. When Stephen died, his spirit settled in Paul, and then both of them started working together for the Lord. Stephen taught Paul to suffer, to endure 39 blows three times. Paul is known for that patience. And do you know why they administered 39 blows? Three plus nine equals twelve: the number 12 is the law of completing an evolutionary circle of all the days of human life. And when they beat like this on earth, in the other life they won’t beat anymore. If you ask why they beat Christ, He’ll answer you, "I suffered so you could be free. When someone hits you here on earth, a thread that keeps you tethered to your evil fate tears. This is why Christ says, if they strike you on one side, turn the other." Only the strong can hit, and when the strong hits, its grace. What do the peasants do? When they want the fields to yield more they send the sheep there to trample it. They know this law regarding the fields, but don’t know it in regard to themselves. So, finally, let the sheep of this world trample you a little. Christ says, that’s why I was born. Birth is understood here not externally, but internally. And internally, in every mind and every heart, to testify to this truth. When the truth begins to give birth in you, you’ll begin to feel freedom. When a woman marries, she wants to have children, because she comes from the truth, and only in this way can she fulfill the law, to inherit property. It’s the same in the spiritual world: if you lack truth, you cannot inherit Divine wealth. So the truth must be born in you. Then you’ll have wealth and will spend your life in greater ease. There’s a legend about Moses: when he went to the mountain of Sinai, he saw a happy shepherd and asked him, why are you so cheerful? The shepherd replied to him, because today the Lord will come to visit me as a guest, so I slaughtered a lamb, to serve my guest.—The Lord doesn’t eat lambs. It’s a delusion in your mind, answered Moses and left. But the shepherd became troubled. His spirit was very distraught. When Moses reached the mountain of Sinai, he noticed the Lord was displeased with him for making a big mistake, and he returned to the shepherd to tell him the Lord would indeed come to him as a guest, and would eat his lamb. When he told the shepherd what the Lord ordered him to say, he decided to secretly observe what will happen. At one point he sees the shepherd falling asleep calmly, and fire coming out of heaven and burning the lamb. The shepherd got up and said, how happy I am that the Lord came down and ate the lamb! And when the truth descends and comes into you, the fire, love, will make a sacrifice pleasing to God. To some, He is not real. But there are many—they’re not one or two, or ten, but they’re by the thousands across the whole world, who are familiar with that truth. It has to be planted for a long time. You see how beautiful these flowers are before you—a little yellow, a little red, a little blue, and you yank them out, but have you understood their meaning? You say, this flower smells very nice. What does that smell mean? It shows the flower’s great sorrow. The nectar forms out of its sorrow, destined for your life. There are people who, with their wealth, say, there’s no God, but when they lose their wealth or their health, or their social standing, the Lord pulls them taut—they start smelling: There is a God! The wealth would kill their mind and when the Lord takes it away from them, they start seeing things properly. What you see on earth is something transient. It’s not real. Young, beautiful girls—should a little time pass, their faces start wrinkling and at some point they become old grannies. I ask: where did those little girls go, whom we admired so much before? It’s the same with the young men: where did their robustness hide? You still don’t know yourselves. When you learn the law of truth, it’ll give you authority over matter, to understand its inner composition and to perfect your lives. It’s the law of movement, for man to constantly change and to pass from the temporal to the eternal, in order to understand the unchangeable essence of truth.

The people say, Christ was born and preached the truth. Let’s see what this truth is. Christ wants to liven up your mind, to give you the impulse towards an idea, [which is] to connect [you] with the Divine world. You’re all eternally connected to God. You have friends in the world, and if those friends sometimes act insensitively, it’s because of your relationship due to ignorance. Paul says, God despised human ignorance and let people walk in their path, but now they are calling them to fulfill the Law. What should the mother do, given that she too is called to fulfill the Law? First and foremost, she must give birth to good and wise children—this is her task. Some women complain and say, why am I a woman? I ask: Who, then, should be in their place? The man must prepare that material of thought, will, character, [which he must] hand over, and the woman must give birth.

The people seek comforts in the world, but they must understand that fundamental law that also exists in music—about the minor and major scale. The Lord put some in the minor scale, putting them in bemolle—in sorrow, in sadness, in the depth of their senses; others he put in the major scale, putting them in dièse, in the shallowness of life, because they have no depth of feelings. What can someone see in a dance or march? Dancing, marching, and…fatigue. Don’t move during a sad song. Just watch and think. In the minor tone the Lord created you to think about the other world, and in the major—about this world. Sometimes you want to take someone else’s role. But can religious people dance? They can dance, but what kind of dance? When David carried the ark he was jumping, and his wife said, look, why are you spinning in front of the entire Israelite nation!—Why shouldn’t I jump before the Lord? he answered. The Lord didn’t give us limitations. He gave us great freedom to do good and evil. But good can, in certain situations, be evil. But, you will say, how can this be? Here’s how: Man and wife live very well. Christ, in his turn, says, give away your belongings. The man, in his desire to fulfill the doctrine of his Savior, wants to give away his property, but his wife says, have you gone mad? Do you want your wife and kids to remain unhappy?—But I want to fulfill God’s law.—I don’t want this law. You have no right to give away your wife and childrens’ property. It’s theirs. You have 100,000 leva; divide it, and only with your portion that remains do you have the right to give away. With their money you have no right to make a commemoration to the Lord. This is Christ’s law.—But I have a right.—You have no right. Who gave you that right? From where did you get your wife? Not from the feet, but from your ribs the Lord made her your companion, and you have no right to put her in anguish. This, of course, He gives to the women, and they say to themselves, like so, like so! Never examine the question at hand from your point of view, but from a joint perspective. There are many possibilities in the peaceful life. In the present life you’re a man, but in another they could make you a woman and vice versa. If in this life you declare, I give absolutely no freedom to the woman, in the second life, when they make you a woman, you’ll experience the sweetness of this law. This law, you’ll then say, is no good. But you’re the one who wrote it earlier. Men: set good laws, because a second time, as women, you’ll be under their jurisdiction. Of course, not only the man writes laws, but the woman also writes these, and they themselves create their own limitations to each other. Many women wrote bad laws in their daughters and sons, to hate the father—your father is a scoundrel, a vagabond. Don’t write such laws, because your Father is only one. This man or this woman has become a tool of the Divine Spirit, so an idea can dress in a form, and when you complain, you murmur against the Lord. You shouldn’t change the essential features of the embodied idea. You can change something in the shadows, making them lighter or darker, but the main thing that embodies the Divine idea must remain.

—Lecture held on 24 April 1916

3

Compassion

About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, ‘Cornelius!’ And when he observed him, he was afraid, and said, ‘What is it, Lord?’ So he said to him, ‘Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God.’—Acts 10:3-4 (NKJV)

You may question yourselves regarding the relationship between Cornelius and his vision, and us, who live in the 20th century with progressive ideas; a cultured people with critical minds who claim to have conquered the natural forces. We must always have in mind the following thought: our views and theories, our explanation of life, doesn’t really represent the world as it actually is. This is just our comprehension of the world. Actually, what the world really is is an enigma which, if we even live for millions of years on the earth, we would barely unravel.

The cited verse is in regards to the individual life of man. On earth, in his current phase of development, man has a tripartite relationship; he has three obligations: to himself, to those close to him, and to God. When we speak of man, we must ask ourselves whether it regards his individual life, whether it’s about the life that manifests in his relationships with those close to him, or whether it’s about the life that manifests when we’re connected to God, because in every one of these three viewpoints the world has a different appearance.

If we look at how science examines life, we will see that she has the following understanding: private or individual life cannot continue after death; life is stored inside the body and is just one of its products; thought is a product of the mind and therefore, when these organs are destroyed, life and thought also disappear. This is how modern-day formal science speaks; such are her views. According to her, the mind is a product of the brain. But from a purely philosophical view, in the world there are organs that aren’t just for the production of energy. If life comes from the cells in the body, and if thought is actually a product of the brain (as science claims), then her conclusions are correct. But we have three kinds of organs and three types of functions: organs that produce the energy, organs that release the energy, and organs that transfer the energy. If we take a projectile from the modern-day war artillery, and this little blow that ignites the explosive substance, I ask [whether] the artillery creates any energy? It only projects and steers the energy. The artillery didn’t create the explosive substance. Its function is to just release that energy which, through a certain transformation of molecules inside within the substance expands their circumference and thus creates the explosion. There are also other organs that transfer the energy. Let’s say we have a prism, which, when placed under sunlight, breaks down the rays and produces various colors from this. I ask: does the prism create the colors? No, it only breaks down the rays. If the prism breaks, the colors still exist. In the same way, the energy from human thought exists even after the brain is destroyed. In that sense, we can say that the brain is an instrument through which the Divine thought, the initial Divine energy, breaks down and manifests in the form of consciousness and thought. Consequently, the brain doesn’t produce thoughts; it’s just an organ for transferring thought, but Divine thought continues to exist even after this organ is destroyed.

And so, we find ourselves in a Divine world, where there are certain organs that do not decay. We know that in the physical realm there are certain combinations that undergo changes, but in the higher worlds, or in the initial higher states of matter, there are combinations that do not change. I call them stable combinations—initial types, from which the contemporary world is created. We call this world in its outer manifestation the physical; that is, the higher consciousness is not present in it like it is in the intelligent spiritual world. For example, your fingers do not have that sensitivity like your brain, or your ears do not have that sensitivity to comprehend the light like your eyes. What causes this sensitivity of the eyes? Of course, many different answers can be given on this question, but we must always accept an assertion from which to begin our investigations. In mathematics there is an axiom that states: two lines that are equal to a third are also equal to each other. In other words, we must always have a position, a measure from which to begin. That sensitivity depends on the human soul.

I don’t have time now to explain to you what the soul is. The human soul is something vast. It expresses itself both singularly in man, just as it does collectively. Actually, the soul is one, life is one, but the people who don’t understand this philosophical thought will have many crooked notions when I say one or many souls. It’s the same as when they speak, for instance, about the acorn. The acorn is one, but when we plant it, it first forms a branched stalk with three branches, then three more form on top, until it branches more and more and forms thousands of individual leaves and acorns. A being that has no concept of the actuality of the acorn will examine the leaves as separate individuals when looking at the tree. All, however, come from, and are in the acorn, in that grain. That grain is God. Create conditions and plant that grain in yourself, and it will reveal all your abilities, all mysteries and wonders. That grain, this acorn can decrease, but it can also increase; it can turn into a beech-tree, a bear, a whale, a man, an angel. That seed is inside—it’s simultaneously one and many. So, things can gather and scatter, depending on the viewpoint. If we look from above, the things are many, but if we reach the stem, we will see that they are all supported on it. We must look upon all people in the same way. To me, some are as leaves, some as branches, as roots, as seeds, as ripe fruits. Of course, you, who belong to the leaves, cannot understand my philosophy, because your life is short—a life of six months. When spring comes, you become nice, delightful, but once autumn comes and the frost arrives, you whither away and say, we’re done for. One day the storm will tear down the branches of your tree, until finally the entire tree gets taken down. But even then, down in the soil there remains an acorn that carries life and says, I have the power to resurrect you. And it falls on the earth, sucks out its juices and resurrects all. Then where is the end of these things? This is a constant process. Eternity has no end. When the leaves fall on the ground, do not think that the end of the world has come. Don’t reason like Nasreddin Hodja, ¹ who said, when my wife dies, half of the world dies, and when I die, the entire world dies. This world may die, but that Divine world—not in the least! Why do we endure death? Why isn’t our world perfect? When we come to a certain place, we must transform into new flesh, so a new impulse can be given to us for our soul to work.

Cornelius wasn’t a fool. In my grasp [of things], he would have had deep understandings, he was initiated, because the Lord doesn’t appear to stupid people. It would be stupid for a great musician to play to a deaf person and to ask him what he understood. The deaf one would reply to him, I just see you moving your fingers forward and backward. And the musician would tell him, you’re stupid. They’re both stupid. Or, imagine a painter who painted a nice picture; he shows it to a blind person and asks him, how does it look to you? The blind one replies, I have before me a canvas that is a little rough in some places. You bought it from somewhere. The painter tells him, you’re a fool. You don’t understand anything. They’re both fools: one [of them], because he doesn’t see, and the painter, because he doesn’t understand that that person is not in the condition to understand. In the same way, when a higher being comes to us, we must have the ability to understand the internal essence of things. I read many philosophical works; every day I look them over and sometimes I hold my stomach from laughter. Some philosophers resemble the blind one; they work by touch and write like this: This world is a canvas with roughness, with some sufferings, and all people are stupid. You’re right, I tell him, but these conclusions are only yours. The world is more than a canvas, more than these protrusions and grooves. There must be light in the eyes, ears, in the mind, in all the brain centers of a person, in all his powers and abilities, so he can understand the things. And he who understands the world needs to have lived for a long time. A person cannot understand the world in one life. What can you understand in a life of 20-30-50-100 years? In today’s circumstances in the world, what philosophy can you learn? You’ll constantly read in the newspapers what army won, how many people killed the Romanians, how many captives the Bulgarians captured, what inventions the Germans created. For example, the Germans invented 42-centimeter[-long] artillery; the French prepared 52-centimeter[-long] artillery; the Americans, however—54-centimeter[-long artillery]; the Germans have such a number of zeppelins, the French—such a number of airplanes. I ask: what philosophy will you learn from all this?

There are laws that regulate things. Wars take place, for which there are causes. What are the causes when some storm takes place and dust rises in the air? Scientists say that somewhere the air heated