The Value of Things

[Solve et Coagula]

The Value of Things

Everything a man has or knows contains something valuable. In spite of this, man often does not value that which he knows and possesses. This is the reason why he is always striving to acquire more and newer things; if he has a small amount of knowledge, he wants to acquire great, new knowledge and become educated; if he is good, he wants to become better, or a saint. However, that man does not have any idea what it means to be either educated or a saint. The external forms of the educated man and the saint are imposing, but the inner contents must correspond to this external form. Perhaps the hen may have the desire to lay an egg as large as that of the ostrich, but for this purpose it must change and become bigger. What has the ostrich contributed to life with its large eggs?

Therefore, in the process of learning the value of things, the things which contribute something to your life or to the benefit of your soul at a given moment are of importance. The good of the human soul is determined by its inner life. The inner life, for its part, is characterized by an inner oneness, or inner unity. A unity of things exists only where the will of God is performed. He who fulfills the will of God is connected with the Whole, with the One. The misfortune of contemporary man lies in the fact that he is deprived of inner unity. He seeks his happiness outside of the Primary Principle, outside of himself.

Unfortunately, one can not find any happiness in this way. Everything outside of man, outside of the Primary Principle, is a reflection of things. That which is within man is the substance and essence of things. Men chase the reflections because they are visible. The essence, the reality, remains unseen. You look at yourself in the mirror and say that you see yourself. What you see in the mirror is not you, but your reflection. You see only your external image in the mirror; you see whether or not you have wrinkles, whether or not your cheeks are red, etc. This, however, is not the man. You do not see in the mirror your lofty thoughts and noble feelings which represent the real man.

What does the human face, as well as the human body, represent? The human body represents a house in which man spends his whole life. From morning till night he arranges and strokes his house, in order to make it convenient for living. The host of the house must be wise and painstaking and sustain the cleanliness and hygiene of his house. If the host is not a wise man, he will derive no benefit from even the best house. A wise man will make good use of his house. The human house must be cleaned every day, it must be washed and set in order. This is one of the closest problems of every man.
Many neglect this closest and most important problem and become interested in general questions, for instance, what the world will be like in a thousand years. This question should not interest you, for it concerns the One Who has created the world. Engineers are building a school. You see the foundation of the school, but you are not satisfied with only that, you want to know what will become of the school after ten years.

Those who build the school have a plan and know what will become of it, when it will be finished, etc. If you are very interested in it, they can show you the plan, but you will not understand anything. The plan of the school is the shadow of what will be built in the future. When the process of construction is ended, you will see what has become of the school. Other people want to know where they will be when they go to the other world, in the Kingdom of Cod or on the earth. This is not their business either. The work which man must perform every single way is more important than all the other questions.

Man must focus his attention on that which is valuable in life and try to realize it. Imagine that you are loaded with baggage heavier than you can carry. Your strength will not allow you to carry this baggage to its destination. Immediately your mind is divided and you do not know what to do. This feeling of doubt in the human mind speaks of a certain weakness in man. What must you do in this given case? You look at your load and find that everything is valuable, but you do not know what to leave out, wishing to take the whole load. You turn this way and that, looking for someone to help you, but you can not find anyone. How will you solve this problem? Unload your baggage, open it, and take with you only that which you cannot do without, the most valuable and the most essential. Leave the rest aside. Then, when you are free, carry that also.

Therefore, when you think, feel and act, always choose the most valuable and essential, i.e., that which is your direct concern, which has a direct, bearing upon you and is nearest to being realized. You are, for instance, the son of a rich, kind, and versatile father. You sit at home and think: does my father love me or not? Will he leave me an inheritance after his death, and if so, how large will it be? Will not my brothers and sisters get a larger share? All these questions which occupy your mind should not concern you in the least. This is your father's problem. For you, however, this is a great burden which you are trying to carry. There is no need for this burden at present. Perhaps after many years you will have to bear a part of it. Take from this burden the most valuable part - the opportunities of the day - and be disinterested in the rest of it. Your task is only to study. Since you do not fulfill your duty, the teacher finds that you do not study as you should; you are distracted, you keep company with bad boys, you lie a little, and in this way you waste your time.

A Bulgarian village priest, a good and noble man, complained of his son. He said: "I sent my seventeen year old son to school, but I noticed that the boy did not study and occupied himself with other things. In order to escape my observation, he wanted to sleep outside in the garden, saying that the outside air was purer and cooler and it was suffocating in his room. I did all I could to make the boy study. But my son fooled me this time. He went out evenings to different late parties and did not study. In order to conceal his absence, he put the wooden wash-tub in his bed, covered it with the quilt and made the bed look as if a man were lying in it. I went one evening to see what my son was doing and touching the bed, I thought my son was sleeping, while in reality the tub was in his place and he was having a good time with the girls."

Every man has such a tub by which he conceals reality. It is a manner of behavior. For instance, someone is discontented and in a bad mood because he can not solve certain problems. When he is alone in his room, he is in a natural state, but as soon as people come, he takes the "tub" with himself, smiles, talks and presents himself such as he is not in reality. This is an unnatural state into which men can fall in their ordinary life. But spiritual people fall into the same state. Why? Because they enter the spiritual life unprepared; consequently, they come across many contradictions. They think and feel one thing, but on the outside they shout another. This is the way actors perform also. When you go to the theatre or to the opera, what will you see? Dabbed faces, laughter, weeping and talking, but all this is artificial. You look, listen, fall into certain moods and begin to weep with the actor who is weeping. If it is a question of weeping, visit some poor widow, or some woman beaten by her husband. The widow is weeping because her children are hungry. The insulted woman weeps with her whole heart because her husband has beaten and insulted her. The actor weeps without being beaten. He weeps in order to be paid. But the public sees the play or the opera and is dissatisfied, finding fault with the actors.

By this example I do not reject the theatre and the opera. They are places of entertainment. But while looking at a play, one must rebuild things until they acquire their original form. This is what scientists do. Some scientist in natural history finds the scattered bones of some antediluvian animal and begins to study and examine it. He must carefully collect all bones, put them in their places and describe the original shape of the animal by that reconstructed image; its construction, size, way of life, etc. He must restore the original form of a certain animal by means of the scattered, dry bones.

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