Sharanagati

Thank you for coming, I greet everyone with a warm heart! And please excuse me for one of my big shortcomings – that I don’t speak your language. But I have learned something in Bulgarian: “Крушата не пада по-далече от дървото.”[1] This is a proverb, but it has got a deep spiritual meaning also.

We share the same experience – we all live. This is like a common experience for all human beings and for all other living beings. Some 25 years ago my spiritual master told me: “Don’t forget: everything is connected to everything!” Since that time I am wondering about this: “What does it mean? Where can I find the key, the answer to this connection?” And I hope we shall come to some points which will help us to understand this network.

Human beings are very difficult to identify by themselves. If we have to introduce ourselves, we say our names, our family status, our job, etc. But these might change any moment. Yet something is permanent beyond all these changing features. Actually the search for this eternal part, the search for this permanent side is very important in our life. We live in a very unique time. There are so many expectations and so many changes going on. It’s difficult to find the permanent points. Yet our identity is the same. Whatever changes – that is the superficial; what is permanent – that is the spiritual side. So, human beings are in an intermediate position. We all share the same common features. A little bit we are angels and a little bit we are like animals. One side of us is down to earth, and the other side of us is up to the sky. Human life generally is the experience of this middle position. What is a middle position you can understand or you can explain in two ways. One explanation is ‘neither here nor there’. The other explanation is ‘as here, there also’. So we have the chance either to alienate ourselves from both destinations – the material and the spiritual – and to have a vacuum which will not really satisfy you; or you can unite both spheres to have normal and reliable good standard in the material sphere and also achieve spiritual benefits.

The past, the spirit of the past is for separation. If we look back, all the different problems and conflicts usually separate people from each other. Concerning the family affairs or the national affairs, or religious affairs – so many differences are there. There are so many conflicts in the past. What about the future? I think a better future will come if we learn, if we find the way to unity.

This is not only a theoretical question, this is very practical. Just like here in this hall we are united, right? We are all here, in this room, we share the same atmosphere. So there is a unity principle manifesting in this room. At the same time there is the difference principle also, because you listen, I speak – that means an exchange. So we can speak of exchange only if there is the unity and diversity principle present. Both aspects are very important in order to have this communication.

(to be continued)

[1] “The fruit does not fall too far away from the tree.” – Bulgarian saying.