THE FOUR RULES
"Bless, my soul, the Lord" - song.
(Too quiet)
Secret prayer
All of you require order, discipline, but not that I impose it on you. I want each of you to impose discipline on your thoughts and feelings. If you cannot impose such discipline, do not come. And if anyone allows himself to come without this discipline, then I do not respond. I want an absolute harmony! Outside you can criticize me, but here, the one who criticizes me, I do not respond to the consequences. When a man enters the temple of God, he must know that this is a temple; When you come to school, you should know that this is a school. If you come here to compare your knowledge, to see how much you know, there is no reason to come. You want us to be friends, right? And friends can we be only when we fulfill the law of Absolute Love, when we fulfill the law of Wisdom, the law of Justice. These are the same for everyone, there is no exception for anyone, the law there is absolute. Love can be Absolute and relative; there is Absolute Wisdom and relative wisdom, Absolute Truth and relative truth, Absolute Justice and relative justice, Absolute Good and relative good. We walk by the Absolute and not by the relative; the relative is out in the world, that we understand each other. So in the Absolute there is an opinion, and in the relative there are many opinions. And you should know: only in this way can you have the cooperation of Heaven. Heaven is a place of order, a site of discipline. In Heaven there are no such orders and such guardians as on Earth. There are no written laws, but each one carries laws written inside - well in his mind, well in his heart, or in his Spirit, according to the level of development the creature possesses.
Now my desire is to free you from the sufferings and unnecessary difficulties. If a student who goes to school has a blister, scrofulosis * on his leg, or pain in his belly, can he study? He must be free. If this student is hungry, if he hasn't eaten for three or four days, can he study? Then you must have food, you must have clothes, you must have everything you need. So, if you come with your afflictions, we have no need of you - this is not an orphanage - it is not a home of salvation. Your coming here on Sunday can be considered a home of salvation, but here now, it is a school - we need healthy people. He who is sick may remain outside, and he who is healthy may come. So we can all be healthy. If you are sick, there is justification, but let the sick remain outside. In a hidden school, people themselves become sick and by themselves they become healthy. Now to this question I will answer directly. When you left God, did you get sick? - Healthy. Therefore, what causes you to be sick? - Yourselves. When you left God, did you go out ignorant or prudent? - Prudent, and not ignorant. Your current ignorance is due to this, that you have eaten and drunk everything. If you have eaten and drunk everything, you have become impoverished in the physical field.
Now we are going to take a step towards positive Life. That we leave the distant past and the distant future and that we deal with the present. When a contemporary author decides to write a book in the form of a narrative or in the form of a novel, he has two objects - a hero and a heroine. The hero is a man and the heroine is a woman, and around these two heroes the author distributes all the other characters and makes his narration interesting. Now, I ask the question why are these two heroes necessary? The hero-man misunderstands the heroine-woman, and the heroine woman misunderstands the hero-man. If you destroy one of the heroes, the other disappears by itself. And man has two heroes in himself; What are they I am going to tell you: the first hero is the mind, and the second hero is the heart. Around these two heroes, the author, that is, the Spirit, distributes the other characters. The Spirit is the author who chooses for himself the two heroes the mind and the heart, and on them he builds his story, around them they are ordered All other characters. Now, this author chooses his heroes, he determines exactly what the heroism of the hero and the hero consists of, and transmits them certain moral qualities. For example, the hero will give strength, courage, decision, so that he can endure it, he will put it in the greatest temptations and she will overcome them, It gives a negative role. Well, what should the qualities of your mind be then, how should the hero be? Your mind must be strong, brave, determined. If the mind says itself: This is not for me, she is deprived of her heroism. If your mind looks for the easy thing in the world, only a sea star or a sea mushroom can come out of you, nothing more. And when an angel descends to Earth to observe people, he knows from the mind what everyone wants. If a student, who enters the School, looks for the easiest way, nothing will come of this student. If he comes to difficult duties and passes them on his side, or gives them to others to solve them and with a foreign duty he enters, we know, what can come out of him. . And now all the leaders in the world, who are in the lead, have left such schools where they solved only easy duties.
And then, what should be the qualities of the heart? They, then, correspond to the hero. The mind must be strong, brave, determined, and the heart must have plasticity, endurance, patience. These are the qualities that the student must acquire. There are conditions for this, and you must acquire them, so that you can understand the great Nature. Now, what do you think, if this hero has hesitated five-six times and has retreated from his vocation, what awaits him? He has lost once and for all the veneration of the hero and the question with him is finished. And the opposite is true when the hero has retreated from her beginning, from her vocation, she has also lost her heroism. Do not fool yourself and say: No grace? This is another matter. In mathematics, homework is solved only in one way, there is no exception allowed. But a 1, an error! . This one, this error in a large number that is repeated many times in the calculations, produces a great damage.
So you are going to work with your hero, that is, with your mind, and with your hero the heart. Then you are going to ask me: "Where is the human will?" The human will, according to my precept, is a child of the mind and of the heart. Therefore, if man has a will, I understand that the mind and the heart are productive, that they have worked according to the Divine law. If he has a will, this indicates that the mind and the heart walked the new way; if he has no will, this indicates that they are sterile (without children), these people have lived an incorrect life - this is the solution. A man without will, this is a degeneration in the Spiritual life. This is the determination as to the will, but it is not like the determination of contemporary philosophers.
Now, so that you can understand your mind, so that you can understand your heart and your will, you need four other elements. These are the so-called temperaments. There is a nervous or mental temperament that belongs to the brain; there is blood temperament that belongs to the lungs, to the respiratory system; choleric temperament that belongs to the bone and muscular systems; and phlegmatic temperament that belongs to the stomach.
When the nervous or mental temperament is of the highest quality in the manifestation of the forces that form it, thought flows plastic and cadentiously, the mind is productive, there is no obscurity in it - she will always work, you will be fast and deep in your thought. This happens only then, when the mental temperament is of the highest quality. All temperaments can be top quality, medium quality and low quality. When the temperament of the mind is of a low quality, you will have to work a long time. Since in this temperament the main role is played by the brain and nerves, you will therefore have to learn to regulate your electricity. The brain is a place of electricity. We can ever do a test, this region is wide. Different areas of the brain accumulate, collect different types of energies. You can even do a test, so that it shows that if certain energies are removed or transmitted, your mental state will immediately change as well. Let's say you're afraid of something, you can't live at home, you want to run away. If someone braver than you puts his hand on a certain part of your head, where the center of fear is, he will immediately remove the corresponding energy and your fear will disappear; and on the contrary, if a coward puts his hand in this place of someone's head, he will become a coward. So fear can be transmitted, or it can be taken away. These are currents inside the brain; when we arrive at these currents, they can produce in the corresponding centers certain movements, and then, in the conscience a removal accompanied by danger will appear. Then, let's say that some man is pious or compassionate; This energy is again located in a certain part of the brain. If you have decided to do an act of charity and a man with negative qualities comes to you - a man who is not pious, and puts his hands there, in the center of mercy, the same desire for no will also be born in you give anything; On the contrary, if someone does not want to give alms and another who is very pious puts his hand on this center, in this man the desire to give alms will be born immediately. So someone says: "I have no disposition to do this thing." I ask: Has this come from your mind? Is this your thing? You must know if a thought is yours or is alien. "I - he says - I have no disposition." Yes, but this is not philosophy. This indisposition can be alien and if every day you live the dispositions of others, what experience can you have? Any. The Bulgarians say: "The alien is always alien, it and at Easter it is taken." No, you will leave only this, what is within you, only yours, only that which has passed through your mind, which is proven by your heart and applied by your will - on this you can work. I wish that what you are going to study in the School, go through your mind, through your heart and through your will. I don't have the goal to convince you of this, no, this thought is far from me. In this great hidden school the test plays the whole role. Food itself is recommended, right? I will not recommend it, I say: "Try this food!" By the results you will judge on the food. From this, what you are taught, I want you to give yourself an opinion, whether it is useful or not.
At the first temperament - the mental one - I call it dynamic. Therefore the head is dangerous, she is a dynamo. She is like a baton and he who has a strong head, if not good, on whom he puts this baton, can do him great harm.
The second temperament - the blood one - I call it aerial, it has the capacity to expand. And therefore he is necessary, since when man has this blood temperament, he expands his dynamic force so that the shape of the head becomes larger. And this temperament develops, so we must use the breath as a means of its development. Those who have a weak breath, who are narrow chest, in whom the lungs are not developed, the blood vessels are weak, in them this temperament is of a low quality and as a result their mental system will not work properly either. There is correspondence between temperaments. And so, the first thing, you will look to develop your lungs in correspondence with your nervous system. In the blood temperament enter the lungs and the circulatory system, they form it.
After the first two, comes the phlegmatic temperament, or as some call it - the vital temperament -. I call it convergent temperament - the one who condenses -. He is the stomach temperament. When the man has a normally developed stomach, the feeding process happens correctly - neither too hungry nor eating too much. Therefore, this temperament is necessary for it to collect energy. And those, who are deprived of the vital temperament, often dry up like flowers, they are without annoyance around and begin to become dry. They say: "It is not worth the man to be fat, " but when the belly is too small, it is not valid either. In this temperament the important thing is not the volume, but the organization of the stomach, and he has the quality "eat well." You will eat on time and you will not overeat if you want to rearrange your stomach.
And finally comes the choleric temperament, the temperament of the bone and muscular systems, or the temperament of the physical man. I call him executive. He leads the executive part of human life. Everything that must be fulfilled in the world is always done by this temperament. Those, in which this temperament predominates, have elastic muscles, their bones are strong, a bit burditos, their tongue is a little uncontrollable, they do not communicate with words, but with hands and legs.
Now, each temperament has its zone of action. When the choleric temperament predominates, then the corresponding centers in the brain - around the ears - are developed. Because each inner center has a representative up in the brain - there these parts are strongly developed. In the blood temperament the upper part - the imagination - is strongly developed. In the phlegmatic temperament the parts of the temples are developed, and this indicates that when such a man smells like food, the pleasant desire to eat is born in him. When the mental system predominates, then the entire construction of the front of the forehead has a beautiful shape.
You must study temperaments and begin to develop them. If you cannot build a certain temperament and introduce its corresponding qualities, a fault will remain in you. Patient man can be one who has a vital or phlegmatic temperament. Even the well-developed man, if he loses the qualities of the vital temperament, cannot be patient. He cannot be fast if the blood temperament is not developed in him. Then, if the nervous temperament is not developed, your thinking cannot be awake to perceive quickly. First you are going to take care of working your temperaments. Now, with respect to temperaments there is a certain measure, but if I give you the measures, you, who are not familiar with these laws, can mislead the precepts. For example, the width of the nose below and the areas of the temples, will show to what extent your vital temperament is developed, because between all the parts there is a correspondence. The width of the nostrils corresponds to the width of the hand and also to the face. Then, as your stomach is organized, so your fingers will be organized; as your lungs are organized so your whole hand will be organized, as well as the soft parts of the fingers that correspond to the lungs. He who understands this, when he looks at the parts of his fingers, will know what state his stomach is in, will know everything, in this aspect there is nothing hidden and covered. And you, as students, have a very serious job ahead.
Now I want to determine the following: in this school, for work you are going to use only your leftover time - that you don't know where to use it. I don't want you to leave their homes. How many hours can you determine? An hour, half an hour, or more? You need at least an hour, and if you can an hour and a half, up to two hours during the day, better yet, but don't leave the job for scandals to happen, no, scandals I don't want to. The student capable of little time is necessary, and the student worker little time is necessary. You know that fable where the frog and the rabbit were running, right? The rabbit ran very fast, but slept in many places, and the frog walked slowly, but did not rest, and beat the rabbit. So sometimes fast people take longer than slow people.
And this is true: the most capable students in school, those who promise a lot, in Life give nothing. It is not that they cannot give, but that they are spoiled by praise. Now, many say: Praise us. No, praise is very dangerous. Once a year you should praise someone and also only on Easter Sunday ( Holy Week note from the translator ), but praising him every day is very dangerous. On Earth it is very dangerous to praise man. It is dangerous also that we reproach, there is no reason to reproach. As much as one is dangerous, the other is dangerous. And the reproach and praise both have an egoistic wedge. We praise a person; Why? To bribe him our thinking is not t that he is noble but we want to bribe him. Do we ever say: T you are very bad ; With this we want to influence you. And he says: I'm not that bad. In the Hidden school, both the one and the other way are not used they are not allowed to be praised or reproached.
Now, we have capabilities imposed on us and each one has them greatly. These capabilities must be developed. In some there are more conditions for this and in others less . In the current conditions all of you cannot be equal and the same results cannot be achieved. Even among ten people one or two of them are talented, they can accomplish many things, only they are heroes and the others are second level. If in this life we cannot achieve much, then in the other, but this should not discourage them. When your turn comes then you will be ready so should the student look. He must use the present for those goals far from his existence. One day we will call and they will tell us: Fulfill your role! If we are ready we will fulfill it. Then your turn will come.
So, so that you can develop your mental or nervous temperament, without fail you must learn to master your thoughts. About self-control has been spoken many times. Self-control is an art for the student. Afflictions will come, tests will come and these are natural. They will come, but when all these concerns appear and you get a good from them for yourself, you will have mastered your thoughts. That each of you without fail have a notebook or a notebook. If you ever fall into temptation if you worry, take note how many minutes you would need to calm down. If the anger begins, say to yourself: At 10:30 a great storm occurred in me and after five, ten, fifteen minutes, half an hour, one hour (you go to mark exactly when), this storm ceased. Someone says: This anger will go through itself. Yes, the anger itself will pass, but it can take everything and then she is dangerous, and if you do not put her to work, everything will be retained. It is not bad that anger comes, but when it takes everything, then it is dangerous. You will put this energy to work. Or a good thought comes to them; mark how much time you would need to do it. Do not mark all thoughts, but one thought a day is enough. If it is negative, see how much time you need to transform this state until you receive a pleasant disposition inside and say: Thank you, I have learned the lesson well. This means that you solve your duty alone? And it is remarkable when man enters the spiritual path, he immediately creates unpleasantness. Take your child who has been calm and playing, send him to school and immediately the teachers create a misfortune. When he comes back he cannot play, he begins to think that about this and this subject he has to study, and you say: "This child of mine studies hard." And the mother worries that her child studies hard. There is no danger of much study. Now, in you you can put the thought that this is a simple job. No, it's a basic job!
Tolstoy tells a story. I'm not going to tell the whole story, but only a part that clarifies my thinking. This is the following: one wanted to become clairvoyant and thought that when he became such, he could use clairvoyance. And it really was given such a moment. He saw that a thief enters a rich man's house and wants to loot him. And he thought to do good: he went to the rich man, punctured him to get up and see the thief; The rich man got up and killed the criminal. Another case: the clairvoyant saw that two young men loved each other; in a moment another girl approaches the girl; he is going to tell his beloved to save her; the boy goes quickly, but the two fight and kill each other. The clairvoyant wanted to fix his life. Third case: he saw in a field that one is going to steal the sheaves of which the field belonged, for he was poor; the clairvoyant leaves and says: "Do you know that they are stealing your sheaves?"; This goes, grabs the thief, they fight and they kill each other. This is not science. This is why the Scriptures say: "If anyone is going to do a crime, let him do it, and the student who walks along the way." I like that example with Jean Val Jean in Víctor Hugo's novel "Los miserables", who is taken with the candlestick in his hand and taken to the bishop. The latter says: "He did not steal it, I gave it to him." This is a noble example!
The mistake of all the hidden students is there, that you dig into a small mistake of the others and say: “Why did you do it?” With mistakes we do not deal, in a hidden school we are never allowed to deal with the qualities negatives of others. If someone comes to complain to you about being robbed, take it out of your pocket and pay. Say: "How much did they catch you?" - "Five hundred cams." - "I pay". And the matter is over. Of the students of this School I require that you all straighten in this way the mistakes of others. - “That straightens the mistakes of others! So how am I going to straighten them? ”How? - When you don't allow these negative qualities in you. Never think about the mistakes of others, if you want to get mad. Never, absolutely never think of people! Now, this is only for students in the School, this is not for the outside world. For the world the rule is another - do not apply this rule in the world, the law there is another. But he who wants to be a student in the school of Christ, absolutely must never stop at people's mistakes. These will come, but never stop at them. And God does not stop over our sins either - He creates new things every day, something new creates -. Now, there are many people who stop at the mistakes of others and say: "Is this right or not?" In the Absolute right there is only one rule and I wish that all of you apply this rule: that you always introduce something into you Again, something good. Suddenly you will not become perfect students, I do not want this from you, but that you know how to solve their duties, that you are precise. According to this rule, as much as they give you, so much, never delay, never delay. Do not have a bad opinion for yourself, have for you the opinion that the Lord has for you. If you say, "I am very bad" and you understand that God has made you so, you are very wrong. But if you understand that you are very lazy, this is another matter. Say: " I am able to do this, I am capable ."
And so you will work on your temperaments: on the temperament of your head - the nervous -, on the blood temperament, on the phlegmatic temperament and on the motivated (choleric) temperament. And you will always distribute your energies evenly. In this way your face will begin to acquire a correct form. In those in which the temperaments are twisted asymmetries appear - the fingers are twisted, the hands and feet begin to twist, a disharmony occurs in the manifestation of energies. So the mind, the heart and the will have four elements and with them you must work. In each thought you are going to impose dynamism (electricity), after this, to this thought you are going to give expansion, then density (weight), and finally strength of movement, or as I call it - growth -. If your temperaments work this way, you can do everything. Not only must we sow these things, but they will have to grow and bear fruit. Some writers write well, since they have imposed all these qualities on their thinking.
The mind is the hero, the heart is the heroine, and the son born of these heroes is similar to the father and the mother. When I talk about the will, I understand the son of the mind and the heart. I have observed frequently after my Sunday lessons - after I have preached a good lesson - to two people who contend, dispute for something, and I say: here is how they understood the lesson! The one has been affected and the other has been affected. And when they say, "This is an excellent lesson" and do not dispute, then they have understood it well. But when the two contend, she is not excellent; If two people dispute, this lesson is not top quality.
So the way you will walk is a way of work and perseverance.
I will be punctual, I have only five more minutes of time. Then you will connect the two lessons: the previous era of sleeping, eating and working, and this lesson is for your mind, for your heart, for your will and for temperaments.
Now I am going to give you a duty: that each one of you write ten lines on the subject: What is the best mind? Let each one write what he understands according to him. And then I'm going to leave you, the students, to criticize their own. There will be one or two meetings - for each student to criticize what he himself has written. And so the issue is: What is the best mind? o What are the qualities of the best mind? This is very clear since the mind resembled the hero, right? You will describe the mind just as an author describes the main qualities of the hero - the mind and the hero are alike. Now those of you who can write this, the next time they bring their little leaves and everything you've written we will take out the essence - what you think about the mind - and we will come to some rules - how should the mind be educated? Each one will write, without reading what is written by the other. You will write a half sheet, ten rows, without your name. We will read what everyone thinks about the best mind. We will have an exercise and then we will force one of you, the most capable, to extract the essence of all these thoughts and make a common description, a summary of the best mind.
Secret prayer
"Love is a source" ( Song )
* Scrofulosis: tuberculosis of the lymph nodes in the throat; figuratively - a wound or incurable disease (translator's note).
Third lesson of the Master, given in front of the General hidden class, on March 9, 1922, Thursday, at 1
