The Old Ornaments

The Old Ornaments

Contemporary people have to keep themselves from one weakness – from holy laziness. You meet some poor man and you admire him – he is industrious, diligent, he doesn’t expect to anyone. But if this man becomes rich, he immediately eases off, succumbs to laziness – the laziness forces its way in the spiritual life of man. When some man enters the spiritual way, at first he prays to God, works, helps his fellow men. If he becomes rich, he stops to pray, he doesn’t work much and says: “Now let others pray, I have prayed and worked enough.” This state namely is most dangerous for man. According to me, the spiritual man has to work more than others; it means – the rich man has to work more than the poor man, the healthy man has to work more than the ill man. The rich man represents the healthy man, the poor man – the ill man. That is why the rich man, i.e. the healthy man has to work more than the poor man, i.e. the ill man. What happens now? Exactly the opposite – the poor, the ill man works more, and the rich, the healthy man works less.

I ask what is the reason for this abnormality in Life? Laziness. When laziness catches the rich man, he puts some weight on, which affects his leg, has some injection on his back or in another place and says: “Don’t you see that your leg has swollen, how will you work with such a leg, it is better to lay down, to rest till you get better completely. There is a time for everything, you will work after that.” But some other person says: “Look what shooting pains you have in your back, do you know what consequences may arise from those shooting pains, look after yourself, don’t work, rest till your shooting pains pass, then you will work.” These are inventions of the devil who wants to create conveniences in the house of man. If man doesn’t acquire wealth, if he becomes spiritual, he has to rely on his health, to trust in God and not to be afraid of anything. If in the physical life man is afraid, he has to know that in the spiritual life there are bigger difficulties.

It is said in Genesis: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Therefore before the creation of Heaven and Earth everything was chaos, not arranged, unorganized. Before the Sun, Moon, and the stars were created, there was only darkness everywhere. That is why, when man meets the rising of the Sun and is glad from its light, let him have in mind that he hasn’t finished his work on Earth – why? Because, before the creation of the Sun had many not arranged works, as and its creating there are many more works not arranged and desert. Today the Sun shines namely for this - to show us what work is left to do. Man has to move back in his consciousness to the past, to come to the Real world in order to see what had happened sometime in the physical world. If he doesn’t come to this Real world, he can’t understand anything from the Spiritual.

Now you will read chapter four from the “First message to the Corinthians” in which Apostle Paul speaks about what is wanted from the builders of the Divine secrets. One of the qualities of the builder is to be devoted. The question is not for the pear tree to be very big, very branchy, or with many leaves, but it is important for it to give fruit, good-quality fruit. It means that we interest from the fruit of the pear. And man is interesting for us since the fruit which he gives. A quality of the real man is the Good, and the Good is a fruit of Love. The good man is not sugar – if he is sugar, they will eat him; the good man is not gold – if he is gold, they will steal him; the good man is not a lit candle – if he is a lit candle, he will burn out. These are a number of contrasts which force man to think. May man go without sugar? He may. Without gold? He may. Without a candle? He may go without gold and a candle. The sugar, the gold, the candle are human productions which one may live without. You say: “How may one walk without a candle in the darkness?” Yes, contemporary people can’t walk in the evening without a candle, but there are Creatures which walk in the darkness without a candle – they have their own Light which orientates them in the darkness.

Now, let us come to the inner part of the question. When man depends on conditions, he places his trust on the candle; after his candle burns out, he can’t walk in the darkness. What may the candle be compared to? Someone has two hundred thousand leva deposited in bank – he relies, and trusts in it and says: “I always have something in the bank which I rely on.” This money represents his candle which burns and helps him to go out in the evening in the darkness. One day the bank goes bankrupt, i.e. the candle of this man burns out; what is his state then? He finds himself in the state of a bankrupt trader and he doesn’t know what to do – the candle he relied on is burned out, and now he can’t go in the darkness. Some other man relies on his house, but a fire breaks out and the house is gone. This man remains thoughtful, sad – his candle has burned out and he can’t walk in darkness, he stumbles and falls with every step. I don’t say that he could live without a house, but this man has deposited all his hopes in it and now his life stultifies.

You say: “Why has God allowed the candle to burn out?” God says: “If you don’t want your candle to burn out, you have to make it from material which doesn’t get destroyed in burning – occupy yourself with making a new candle.” – “But it needs a lot of time, and work.” Yes, if man wants to make a candle, which doesn’t burn out, it demands at least fifteen-twenty years of hard work. How do they make candles today? They take some cylindrical moulds, put candle-wicks in them, and from above they pour tallow. The more tallow they pour in, the thicker the candle becomes. One thing is important for man: no matter what changes he passes through, he has to keep in himself the good qualities, which follow him in this world, and the other world. The Good goes everywhere with man, the Divine always goes with man. What goes with man is his; what doesn’t go with him in every kind of condition in his Life, it is not his, it is somebody else’s. Everybody can take somebody else’s. Therefore Good is only what always goes with man. Nobody can deprive the good of man – it is his true friend, it is his eternal fellow-traveller in Life.

I say: as you have come on the mountain, you have to use sensibly the goods which are given to you. Some say: “What will we do when, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, we have to go down from the mountain?” To speak like that, this means for man to rely on the conditions. While we speak of “today, tomorrow”, we are people of the conditions. In a way, when you say that the day will come to go down from the mountain, it may be compared to getting down from the back of the horse. In this sense some say: “What shall I do when I get down from the horse?” When you get down from the horse, you will not be better but at least you will rely on yourself. Man doesn’t have to hope on the conditions, on the days and etc. – In God there is only one day. Therefore, when we speak about the days, we have to understand one day – only the Divine day. For example you see one branch and you say: “This branch is from such and such a tree.” It is not correct thinking – this branch is from the Divine tree, because there is only one tree in world, and all the rest of the trees are organs of this big, Divine tree. The Divine day, when it can’t be projected completely in one day, it distributes in many days, which gathered together, contains the material of the Divine day. Therefore all the days together, and the Divine day separately, express the whole Truth. We say day and night because we have the rising and setting of the Sun. If we wouldn’t see the Sun, could a day exist for us? What would the state of man be if he would see the Sun in the evening, when it has already set for all the creatures? Then man would live in a constant day – for him night would not exist, for him there wouldn’t be evening, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and etc. Wherever man turns, he will see the Sun everywhere.

Many people say: “We believe.” The belief of some people is contemporary, changeable, since they believe in things which they always have seen or which they see today. I ask: what is the need of faith here. The real faith refers to things which you haven’t ever seen, or seen today. Someone says that he lost his faith; what does it mean for man to lose his faith? The loss of faith means that man has lost the conditions to see things. For example somebody goes to foreign lands where he spends several years far from his fellow men; he loses faith that a day will come where he will see his fellow men again. If he thinks that he will see them, his faith will come back – seeing is a process which restores faith. Therefore faith is a power which leads man in his way. Till man doesn’t see things, he has to go with faith; after he sees things, he will go with Knowledge.

As we have come on the mountain, we get up early to pray and thank God for all the goods. Some men don’t want to get up early, they want to lie in bed and find a number of justifications for this; that they are not well-disposed or that they are tired, etc. I ask what will you do if you are a servant of some hot-tempered master who wants you to start early in the morning and on time; will he take in consideration your indisposition? If you oversleep, he will shout, will be angry and at last he will chase away you, saying: “I don’t need such a servant, come on, good luck!” You think that in the mountain there are no masters – there are masters here too, and what masters! Do you know what these masters may do when they become angry? They will send thunder, lighting, rain, and hailstorm immediately and you will wonder what to do, where to hide. The rain will wet you thoroughly and the hailstorm may tear up your tents. These masters will say to you: “Come on, get yourself up from here, we don’t want such servants!” The brothers, who came here first, experienced what the masters of the mountain may do – they sent thunder, lighting, rain, and said to the brothers: “Get up?” With such masters man has to be very humble. These masters said: “When your brothers and sisters come here, you will warn them to be careful in their duties because we will wet them.”
Tomorrow morning we will go to the Fifth Lake (Mahabur), the Kidney, in order to see if there is a difference in the water from the past year. In the morning at 4 o’clock you all have to be standing. Put aside all the decorations, all the ornaments!

Under the word ornaments, I understand the ailments in man. A leg hurts you – say to yourself: “I don’t need this ornament”; an ear hurts you – say to yourself: “I don’t need this ornament”; you have some indisposition – say to yourself: “I don’t need this ornament”. Leave all your ornaments at home and go out to the clean air without any ornaments. – “I can’t think.” Leave this ornament aside too. When you set yourself apart from the ornaments gradually, throw them away from you and leave only with the Divine which follows you everywhere. After you are indisposed, you wait for the servants to come to improve your state, but until they come, the whole day will go by. If you fall in some heavy state, indisposition of the spirit, say to yourself: “My servants will hardly be able to come today, it is better to occupy myself with changing my state, i.e. to change my ornaments; here, the morning already went by and in the same way the rest part of the day will go.” After man starts some work, his state changes.

And so, in order for man to set himself free from holy laziness, he has to make efforts to work. There is no better thing for man than serving. Here you have favourable conditions for work, for serving, for yourself, and for others. You will divide your time in a way that you will work for yourself, for your fellow men and for God. Said in another way, part of your time you will use for your mind, part of the time – for your heart and part of the time – for your body. Or one part of your time you will use for your Spirit, a part – for your soul and a part – for you yourself. Let everyone divide his time as he understands. Every work, which you do, has to have a relation to the physical, to the Spiritual and to the Divine world.

Today I shall give you, for reading, chapter 55 of Isaiah, 5th verse: “Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the LORD thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee.”

FAIR LECTURES held by Petar Deunov (Beinsa Douno) on the seventh Rila lakes on 13th July 1931, 5a.m.

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