Knowledge ought not to come solely from outside nor be considered literally, wholesale and as a given
Оригиналът на български виж ТУК.
Interview by Diana Ivanova-Nikolova with Ralie Blag
for “Bright Spaarks in the Aura of Bulgaria”
(Download pdf of the book for free)
Translation: Neil Scarth
Photos by Alexsandra Vali, Ralie Blag, Nikola Donev
In someone’s life various colours exist. For some these are the classics black-and-white; for others there is a multi-hued rainbow. Every person chooses his path and colour in life. In the series ‘Bright Sparks in the Aura of Bulgaria’[1] there are stories of people who have chosen the sometimes difficult, but unfailingly colourful way of living. Through faith, persistence and a strong spirit a person reaches his or her desired goals in this life along with hard-won truths about how to change it and often how to enrich it with creativity. It’s important to be not only a human being but a humane being. It’s important not to give up…
We share more regarding all that surrounds the project, adding elements of a rather personal interview, direct from the creator of the work, the editor-in-chief Ralie Blag.
Hi, Ralie! By way of introduction, let us know what you’ve studied, what your passion is, what you believe in and what brings you joy in life?
I’m a library worker by education but what really attracts me are the spheres of publishing and media. I haven’t worked professionally as a librarian. Books are nevertheless so close to my heart that even my degree dissertation on librarianship at university emerged in the form of a booklet – with pink covers – because it was dedicated to Mozart, one of my eternal favourites Nowadays I’m involved mainly in editorial work, page design and the writing and preparation of materials for online publications such as the magazine ‘Green Highlights’ of the Bulgarian Vegetarian Society. One absolute favourite piece amongst the projects I’ve worked on was the last and 13th episode of the TV series ‘Aria from the folklore of Bulgaria’[2]. In it there are extracts from Ensemble Bulgare’s grand show and the scenes with Patriarch Euthymius[3] and Kocho Chestimenski in particular always have a massive impact on me, but actually the whole episode is pretty inspiring, uplifting and moving.
As for other matters, I’ll quote what I’ve been written down once: ‘I love science with soul and art imbued with wisdom and child-like purity. I believe that it is not the mind alone which is the parent of ideas but the unity between it and the soul brings them to us. I seek knowledge which makes us more far-sighted co-creators of our shared reality. I adore action and activeness (and not only in the literal sense) because they underpin our life – the world. I delight in beautiful relations between people, spontaneous or – then again – intelligent humour, difficulties and misunderstandings overcome. I enjoy sharing and passing on things which have impressed and enriched me.’
How did your passion for writing come about? And how long have you been working as an editor?
Hm… I must’ve been 12 or 13 years old when one night I couldn’t get to sleep because of the thoughts in my head. I hadn’t agreed with something we’d been learning at school. And I was explaining silently why I wasn’t in agreement. (I often did this, though always in my head because I’d never believed that someone might be willing to hear my voice and that there was any point in speaking out about something.) That night I got out of bed and, since I was sleeping over at my granny and grandad’s, I didn’t know where they kept any paper, so I found some white napkins and started writing on them. After that I started a diary of my thoughts – and to this day I keep some of those texts. Then I also started to write down some of my dreams…
Here’s something from the time when I must have been around 16: ‘I want to help myself and humanity to reach that Truth, still too far from us, that is unfathomable and radically different from our present era! Knowledge needs to come from within, to penetrate along eternal inner planes of space, thought and energy. Knowledge ought not to come solely from outside nor be considered literally, wholesale and as a given. Creative thinking – this, it seems to me, takes us, leads us inwards.’
Regarding editorial work – I suppose that comes from my passion for correcting and enhancing things. And also for selecting topics and materials. I can’t even remember exactly when this passion of mine started, but it comes to the fore particularly when it is the vehicle for communicating various ideas. That’s how we made a fan-book for Ivan Angelove’s participation in the Music Idol reality show – a book of 1000 pages with aphoristic ‘biblical’ shades – because of the ideas in it, you know They’re based around the story of talent that mediocrity wants to kill: Mozart and Salieri, the Crucifixion… It was an unforgettable experience doing editorial work on the ideas although it’s debatable how far the real Ivan actually embodied them and whether it wasn’t more a well played role on his part. (At the end of the day this way or another it was something special for sure!)
But let me add something else, by way of a lyrical digression – apropos another book which grabbed my attention with its main idea and which I associated once again with the attitude of society towards a human being. I’m talking about ‘A childhood without tears’ by Alexander Milanov. A book about life in orphanages but written in such a beautiful and inspired way so as to be moving and thought-provoking, not only to portray some kind of ugly social reality. When it arrived by courier and I leafed through the pages, I opened it to a chapter entitled, in large print, ‘Guilty without guilt’ and the tears started to flow. Because chapter 4 of the book about Ivan is marked by the same title. This is like an overarching symbol, in my view. It even reflects the petrifyingly misunderstood Old Testament idea of the Fall of Man – when you reach out for the apple of knowledge you don’t become evil, you just start to work actively with your mind and to know death because you can now see yourself into material as a physical being. But spirit and the soul are still within you. But be that as it may…
I wanted to say that for me Alexander is an advanced soul who has taken on the task, whether because of karma or not, of passing through those social institutions in order to show what we’re in need of changing as a society there. Just as Ivan demonstrates, as a talented ‘indigo-child’, ‘what kind of show we are dealing with’ in the entertainment industry. The idea of ‘the beyond’ was what impressed me in the case of Ivan whereas with Alexander it was his admission that it’s education which saves us from sinking… Love and knowledge – that’s what we all need
Where do your ideas come from? Is there something which inspires you? Real life incidents, dreams, people?
From everywhere! From Facebook, from TV, from the cinema, from conversations and, yes, even from dreams too. Various things make an impression on me and after that I connect them. Analysis and synthesis – those are my strong points, but only when it comes to ideas and topics that can fire me up. Then I see the essential and what’s connected to other things. Apart from that, I try to be perceptive regarding finer details and to recognise the truth behind the facts. And even as a teenager I realised that unorthodox and very special kinds of knowledge come via particular outstanding figures in art, in science and other kinds of teachings. I started to seek them out, to be full of admiration for them and to be saddened that we are not all together, that I don’t come across them every day around me. I suppose I still do this – I am always searching and looking around for those precious ‘grains’ with which we will be able to help each other in transforming our world and I think the process of gathering them has begun
Just like in the bit at the end of the film Tomorrowland, when the machine broadcasting ominous images had been destroyed and a new one had to be built by those who had not given up: the dreamers started to get together. When I watched it, my whole day was melancholic and euphoric at the same time. And, what do you know, even in the film I saw a link to three of my dreams. One of them sprang to mind in connection with the two wolves mentioned in the film – which of them will we feed in our lives, the one of darkness or the one of light, metaphorically speaking.
The other two dreams are connected to each other – I’ve labelled them ‘The two eras’ because that’s just what they express in my view (according to Zoroastrian symbolism in which the god of Evil, Ariman, is to reign for a set period of time whereas the god of Good is Ormuzd and when he manages to overcome Ariman, he is to reign for all eternity). But it wasn’t until the second dream also came along – three years and three months after the first one – that I could interpret them. I assume that there’s bound to be someone or other who’ll find them interesting, so I’ll share them briefly.
In the first one I dreamt that I and a few other people were sat around on small chairs separated by a large distance one from the other, without touching. Someone passed behind me and put his palm over my forehead. I felt a huge, mute sorrow pouring out of him. It was that soft, quiet but deep sorrow born of bitterness at human backwardness and lack of understanding. A moment later he may have gone away, I no longer remember. I had been touched by the enormous pain of a truth which had failed to emerge as a real presence and had not been shared by the world; but however powerfully this feeling had entered into my soul, it was transitory – it passed away as if it had never been, just as the era of Ariman will pass away.
In the second dream I and various people had gathered around someone and he was telling us something with a kind of discreet satisfaction. Warmly, smiling slyly… and at one point he put his palm on my forehead – just like in the other dream, but this time with ‘Joy, the smile of Wisdom’. It was so lovely to feel his palm on my forehead that my heart sank in anticipation of the loss just about to come, which, to my great amazement and admiration, never actually happened. He continued to talk to us in the same mischievous spirit and his palm was not for a moment removed from my forehead! The joy of this touch just did not leave me – because Ormuzd is the true ruler, Ormuzd the eternal!
This is magazine-album about the spirit and mission of Bulgaria but going by what you say – you are brimming with ideas: do you have some for the next edition?
Yes, new topics are already ‘arriving’; those will be connected to good and effective ‘green’ practices here in Bulgaria and around the world, brought together under the motto ‘Let’s make Bulgaria a symbol of an ecologically pure zone in Europe’.
I’ve also been contemplating a topic about innovative systems of education which work in practice, such as the Vittra state schools in Sweden, for instance (more about read HERE). There, apart from the change in methods of teaching – all of the students have their own individual curriculum – there is a change in the format of the teaching environment. There aren’t any typical classrooms or labs. There are spaces with particular purposes which serve different types of educational relationships. The Camp-fire is the place for an individual to communicate with the multitude in discussion mode. The Mountain summit is for when someone addresses the whole world to relate his achievement; The Cave – for solitude and contemplation; the Watering-hole: for free conversing; the Laboratory for practical activities; but anyway, that’s enough about that: for once let ME give a brief-ish answer too! :)))
And how did the idea for the current edition come about?
The idea once again came from the world of dreams But it all started off with my sister Alexsandra. She is involved, you know, in photography and had wanted for a long time to start a magazine FashionVision. Well, in 2015 she finally went and did it online, in pdf format, and she got me on board to edit the texts. It was in connection with this first issue and the subject of the fitness reality show in it that Bogomil had sent her the video with his story and she asked me for my opinion about whether we should include it in the next issue of the magazine – and those kinds of moving stories with a moral are right up my street – and that’s how I got inspired to think of further topics and some long texts started to pour out… so I started to worry about how, with my tendency to get really deep, I’d make a smart up-and-coming magazine into something heavy and hard to digest. Here I have in mind my online magazine Enthusiast, which is, well, wow: tens of pages of text. With a lot of illustrative material too, of course, but… well, you know…
Apart from that it worried me that the topic I was so very fond of, the idea of Bulgaria and her mission, would end up in precisely issue number 2: it just didn’t seem right somehow And then I dreamt that a friend was asking me to send him the second issue of FashionVision over the Internet and, what do you know, I actually took it and showed it to him in the dream and it had been printed as a booklet. And I have another long-term dream – about some kind of albums full of ‘magic’. And so one night with plenty of thinking brought me face to face with the solution: it would be ideal for us to make something like a photobook or album which would be a separate publication (that ended up as series) and would be called ‘Bright Sparks in the Aura of Bulgaria’. I like the pun on ‘bright’ in connection with the people portrayed. And after that we linked the project with another dream of ours and so it went…
What is the main idea of this publication actually?
I would say that the main thread of ideas running through the message is to raise a massively neglected series of issues, namely the need for us to reach self-awareness as spiritual beings with a soul and a body, thus that neither is the body regarded as a diabolic creation nor is the soul considered some kind of fiction. Everything is important and what is especially important is a proper attitude towards their hierarchy – that the rightful place of everything is known. I believe that Bulgaria has a mission to bring a new world-view to the world, one which will bring knowledge that it’s time for us to transmit, to master and to apply in real life and personal relations.
Following this train of thought, this may be a publication for those who thirst for an unconventional and creative view of our existence here and who take joy in discovering themselves in concepts which they have been preparing themselves for over the course of lifetimes Because for those of a more rational or orthodox turn of mind, even the scale of virtues of someone like Plotinus will certainly be either sacrilege (from the point of view of the dogmas of religious teachings) or actually humorous – to an atheistic scientific or pragmatic way of thinking. But for Plotinus (and this is a thinker from as early as the 3rd century A.D!) the lowest rung on the ladder of a person’s development is the acquisition of civil virtues – to be a good and honest representative of society. The next rung is already something much more – it makes you a child of the gods and for this you have to have passed through the cathartic (that is the cleansing) virtues – inner turmoil, fermentation and growth are what’s important. Next is the acquisition of theoretical virtues – when you have developed depth and insight into the nature of things in the world, which makes you a god. And finally we have the paradigmatic virtue, which makes you the Father of the Gods.
Well, I’m not sure how many people have heard of such a scheme for our development or how far they will be able to sense it, but the Teaching of Wisdom today (for English readers see Vaklush Tolev’s biography) confirms the existence of these forms of Christ’s knowledge which have still not been acquired over centuries. And I say ‘Christ’s’ because He very clearly laid down the paradigm ‘I and the Father are one’ and ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’ – along with what he hinted: ‘It is you who are gods.’ (John 10:34) And a favourite thought of mine from Wisdom along these lines is: ‘It’s time for the gods who became bad people to be replaced by the people who are good gods!’ But I like even more another one in the same spirit: ‘The battle for Man has ended, now the battle for bringing out the God in Man begins.’ Wow!
In the publication we understand that the accent is on the spiritual – is there any mediocrity even in this field in your view? What do you think?
Oh, just like everywhere else mediocrity is… a frequently encountered phenomenon here too.
One thing you can be sure of finding in this area is the con-trick of undoing of magic, with all sorts of charlatans. More importantly, it’s often the case that the knowledge on this plane is of dubious reliability. Simply because it’s not at all sufficient for a person to have their vision of the finer spheres awakened; it’s also important to have developed judgement, insight, to have well-honed thinking, intuition, responsibility and much more – i.e. a certain level of accomplishment as a whole and absolute conviction of the invisible inner hierarchy are of fundamental significance.
Just as in art or science we’ll say about one person that they’re talented, about another that they’re a genius, about yet another that they’re out and out ‘God-like’. It’s obviously significant whether some knowledge comes from ‘a child of the gods’ or from a Father amongst the earthly representatives.
An excellent example of the multitude of judgements around is the interpretation of Turkish slavery as Bulgaria’s karma due to the persecution of the Bogomils in the past. This theory comes from the occult teacher Peter Deunov (since he, along with many of his followers, is considered to be a re-incarnated Bogomil) and is repeated uncritically and en masse. But that’s not all: in its quest for more purity and truth, Bogomilism does not actually strive to make the institution more spiritual, but to literally demolish it: the church, the state. This is a general mistake in principle. And lo and behold: a certain Patriarch Euthymius[3] does something radically different – he introduces the purity of prayer and the withdrawal into the self of Hesychasm into our Church and thus lends it resilience for the centuries ahead so that the spirit of this nation remains unbowed. He turns its gaze inward – there to seek wellsprings and pillars of strength. He doesn’t fight against the institution of Christ but illuminates it with a new ray of real mysticism and holiness. The life of Patriarch Euthymius is very interesting indeed – it’s simply there to see how his path is pre-destined to leave us in the hands of the Holy Trinity, as they say, for the hard ages ahead. Nothing else could really have preserved us against the invasion… And the path of Beinsa Duno (Peter Deunov) puts me very much in mind of that of John the Precursor sometimes…
Contribution to European History
by Ivaylo Balabanov
Translation: Neil Scart
While young unshackled Europe
was reading tales of knightly pride
in a dawn still waiting to light up
knight Ivan Shishman fought and died.
While Europe wept for Juliet dear
and lent to Bach adoring ears
with lupine howls, in fields of Thrace
the wild hounds of Allah did pace.
Served on hand and foot in luxury
their majesties wallowed in depravity
while at the slave market of Thessaly
infidel maidens sold two a penny.
Cathedrals, castles towered high
when in the Balkan mountains olden
thin linden flutes were heard to sigh
weeping their grief for Stoyan, Golden.
With blood their fortresses were stained
head upon severed head each wall
while unassailed, unbowed remained
the land where brigand eagles call.
Land smaller than a shepherd’s cap
as wide just as a lion’s spoor
but wolves soon lined the fearsome trap
and bathed in blood its bone-strewn floor.
With nothing more than stick, stone, flintlock
at Europe’s door were standing sentry
our forefathers, arrows tipped with hemlock
no Turk to Paris could gain entry…
Why then this centuries-long slavery?
Let’s get to the point, right? Well, of course, I have no way of knowing this clearly but here is a verse of Ivaylo Balabanov’s which gives poetic expression to the thought we’re trying to grasp. And it’s in unison with the theory of theologian Vaklush Tolev, who suggests that if the logic about the persecution is true, then the whole of Europe should never have awoken from slavery – to see the light of day, I mean. Because Christians were persecuted for centuries on end, for example. Why then were there centuries of slavery for some nations but for others almost none? And here his theory is that we, as a people, have that level of development, maturity and readiness to allow us to bear the cumulative burden ourselves in order for other nations to progress and develop in science and knowledge. It’s by just this logic that Christ himself makes of himself a sacrifice – by predestination not for reward. And He rises! As we do…
But the Jewish nation refers to itself as ‘the Chosen People’, doesn’t it – and now you’re saying it’s the Bulgarians?
As it turns out… The Jews, as is known and apparent, are the leading people in the present Fifth Root Race. This is the race which gives priority to the mind in all regards and the Jews have shown that they are really capable in this, unfortunately in a somewhat selfish direction sometimes but in fact ‘the two sides of the coin’ are part of the actual character of the Mind-based Principle: a middle ground between Heaven and Earth. I recall a really beautiful expression in this regard from theosophical literature: ‘The mind is either a killer of reality (spiritual reality is what they have in mind) or a bell tolling for awakening.’
Without the mind there is no self-awareness but without it being refined and imbued with spirit, there is no divine consciousness… Hm… this puts me in mind of a beautiful figure that remains imprinted on my mind, which illustrates the withdrawal of the Spirit in its capacity as an invisible form of leadership in the development of our Fifth Race; it’s something I’ve remembered from the stories of Edouard Schure about the path and life of Rama. And Rama, by the way, like Christ, is called ‘The spiritual king of the world’ and in reality he lays down the foundation for the first sub-race of the Fifth Root Race – Arian. He was already a ripe old age and had experienced all kinds of transformations and new ideas to put into practice, ideas which he passed down to his chosen followers, when kings and their emissaries came before him to offer him ultimate earthly power. And then Rama dreams of the Fifth Race in the form of a white woman bearing him a magnificent crown for him to wear and the two of them to reign over the world together. But then the Spirit which leads him appears to him to tell him that, should he accept the crown, Divine Reason will leave him and, should he embrace this woman, she will die from his happiness. If, however, he leaves her be, she will live freely and prosper on the Earth, and his spirit will reign unseen over her. Then Rama lays his hand on her forehead and frees her of himself with his blessing. That’s the story.
The White Race, then, in order to proceed on its way, is in need of being left to its own devices – to develop and manifest its ego, making its own choices and learning from its own mistakes. If the race remains under the direct control of spirituality, it won’t be able to work this individualistic character out of its system.
This process of ‘separation’ might well turn out to be the most difficult and problematic stage of evolution, but, after all, it comes to an end at some point. And, though I can’t say whether it’s an accident or not, now I’ve noticed the detail with the laying on of the palm on the forehead… I must have read Shure’s book (‘The Great Initiates vol. 1’) before dreaming of the era of Ariman and that’s where I got the symbol from… without even being aware of it.
And if we return to the subject of those chosen by God – the semitic tribes are highlighted by the occult literature as the fifth sub-race of the Fourth Race (of Atlantis) and that’s why it’s from amongst their ranks that the chosen ones to lead the emergence of the new Fifth race must come. This race starts the active development of the mind and breaks off the direct link to the Heavens. At the same time, though, the remaining sub-races of the Fourth also develop (everything is in 7s you know)[4]. And also simultaneously, the kernel which will lead the emergence of the new Root Races is prepared. It is thought that the Bulgarians are appointed to bring into the world the culture of the new Sixth Race, which will turn once more to spirituality but this time as a personal choice and hard-won maturity. With us apart from a well-developed mind – and we have more than enough proof that we are highly capable and can even surpass the Jewish people in this regard (if we only take the chess tournaments or physics and maths competitions as an example, but it’s far from just that), there is also – I’m not sure how to put it – the purity of our Causal world, for example. As a nation we lack any ill intention or malice towards our fellow man. Until quite recently, the so-called developed and civilised part of humanity practised the enslavement of their fellow men and we have never had such a practice as a nation – isnt’ it unique? While at the same time the ‘smart’ ones without a conscience who rule the world from behind the scenes scheme as to how to make the whole of humanity their slave-like subjects. Well, let them scheme, it remains for us to create and inspire, by way of personal example too, the greatest instance of which is Christ, of course, who is preordained and awaited, but remains to this day unacknowledged by Judaism. The irony of the Mind – short-sighted and dogmatic 😉
You told us at the beginning what delights you in life – what is it that you find a burden in our current existence as the ‘White’ race?[5]
The thing that gets me down the most is that there is not much love around in our world nowadays, nor is there knowledge, as I mentioned. All of this ill-natured talk in the public arena – in politics, show business, in public life. Hostility, tabloid mentality, lack of understanding of one’s fellow man. Everyone wants to be loved and acknowledged, but we haven’t learnt how to point out each other’s faults without it seeming as if we are actually ready to stone the other person to death. In public life today I’ve only seen Jamie Oliver perhaps as someone who manages to make of his opponent a loyal supporter – with patience, good intentions and by gradually demonstrating that his ideas are correct and beneficial for everyone. That was in his TV series about introducing healthy food in an American school. For me he is an example of how real change in the world ought to be made: first and foremost he puts his whole heart into it and he definitely has no concept of enemies – he puts himself in the shoes of the other person and he seeks the point of least resistance to open him up to the new idea and for him to embrace it as his own. The moral is that it’s vital to find a way to get someone on your side, without that person ending up taking advantage of you, of course.
We gather that besides writing you also have a passion for drawing?
Oh, that was at one time, long ago – I really adored it, yes. But when I was little. And half of my drawings were all about the subject of the Cosmos and the other half: landscapes and princesses I lost my most beautiful big drawings though on the way home one day: I’d left the folder on the bus. At that time I was upset, but now I regard it as a sign that drawing was part of my past consciousness – now I have other tasks. I still have some of the smaller drawings but these days my passion is for pre-press and video as a contemporary form for expressing a certain view of the world with a leaning towards the cosmic or the aesthetic Maybe that’s why, apart from bookish stuff, I also quote films a lot 😉
And do you have any favourite artists that you’d really like to share something about but weren’t able to include in this album for some reason…?
I have many favourites, both Bulgarian and foreign. I’m almost like a collector – a huge fan of all kinds of artists and I genuinely wonder how to make them more accessible to more people by presenting them in some way. I’ll leave out Mozart this time – just for a change :)))
Salinger, for example, made a great impression on me with his idea of the poet-artist – clairvoyant. About the ability of the Chinese or Japanese poet to discern ‘beautiful plum, beautiful crab, beautiful mosquito bite’. That is the ability to penetrate to the essence and to capture the spirit of the visible – just as in the Daoist parable from his novella ‘Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters!’. Then the conclusion on the subject of the poet: ‘and if he lacks this ability, no matter how unusual and how charming his semantics, no matter how tempting his intellectual strings sound when you pluck them, then no-one in the mysterious East will count him as a poet…’ (from ‘Seymour, an introduction’).
Salinger is one of my first favourites amongst the classics, incidentally. I was around 15-16 when I came across him. It was even thanks to him that I realised I had a religiously inclined view of the world: before that I’d had no idea of this. So his main character is a poet called Seymour – which can be read as ‘see more’. And the word ‘poet’ itself can be translated from Greek as ‘clairvoyant’.
After that Dostoyevski made an impression with his supposedly ‘unfounded assertions’ about the belief in the immortality of the human soul as the most elevated idea ‘since all the other lofty ideas about life which a person can live with, originate solely from this’ as he says. How could you not quote the man, I mean!
‘I maintain (and once again without foundation for now) that love towards humanity is unthinkable, unclear and utterly impossible without the belief in the immortality of the human soul. And those who have deprived man of the belief in his own immortality and want to replace it as a lofty goal in life with ‘love for humanity’ – they, I say, are lifting their hand to strike themselves, because instead of love they are planting in the souls of those who have lost their faith the seeds of hate for humanity. Let the wise ones with the cast-iron ideas shrug their shoulders at my assertion. But this thought is more complex than their complicatedness and I believe that one day it will become an axiom for all of mankind. Even if for now I say this without supporting evidence.’ (from ‘Unfounded Assertions’, Collected Essays, vol. 10)
Well, what inspirational ideas we can also find in Christopher Marlowe via Shurbanov, the Bulgarian translator of British classics, in his commentary on the play ‘Tamburlaine the Great’ about the nation of the spirit where ‘everyone must learn to breathe the fiery ether of this sphere if he wants to be allowed to stay in it’!
‘In the world of Tamburlaine everything is beautiful, elevated and free. In it the Word is surrounded by an aura of magic because it is also deed. In it battles are won not by sword blows but with a look in which the strength of the spirit blazes. In this world power is defined and distributed naturally and with ease, according to inner virtue. Friendship is also born of virtue. People’s characters are intact wholes, unified in thought and deed and therefore beyond the reach of the forked tongue of irony. This is the sphere of ‘pure pathos’. (from ‘Between pathos and irony’, Shurbanov)
Sallust, the Roman senator and historian from the time of Caesar, had also made a great impression on me with several things… this, for example, sounds to me almost like Lao Tzu:
‘Everything which is born, dies; everything which grows, grows old. Only the spirit, the indestructible and eternal guide of the human race, governs and reigns over everything. The spirit itself, however, does not depend on anything.’ Or: ‘It is unjust for the human race to complain that by its nature, feeble and transitory, it is governed more by fate than by virtue. It is the spirit which is guide and leader in the life of mortals. When the spirit marches forth to glory along the path of virtue, it is uncommonly powerful, vigorous and splendid and has no need of fate, since it is incapable of either giving or taking away from anyone honour, diligence or other good qualities…. if people sought to achieve genuine bounties with the same persistence with which they strive for useless or even dangerous things alien to their nature, then it wouldn’t be fate that governs them any more, but they who govern it.’ (from ‘The Jugurthine War’)
I can reel them off until the cows come home: for example, specific things from Exupery. Or from pioneers like Einstein, Buckminster Fuller, Tesla… I’ve dealt with them at length in Enthusiast magazine though Here I would like to close the circle with a favourite phrase from the Way of Wisdom: ‘Wisdom has only one face – imbued with Love and accountable before the Truth.’ Yeah!
What would you like to say to people by way of a conclusion?
Many things. And I say them via the materials I present and the ideas in them. By way of some concrete wishes for our common development, I would very much like to encourage them to strive for more in life: to think more, to seek meaning, not to judge and give knee-jerk reactions, to pay attention to those subtle, invisible messages, not to focus on mere survival but on changing attitudes and in this way to change circumstances… Not to despair… ‘We are fine, but will get better’ 😉
Our share of night to bear,
Our share of morning,
Our blank in bliss to fill,
Our blank in scorning.
Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way.
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards – day!
~ Emily Dickinson ~
__________________________
[1] Please note that in Bulgarian the title is literally ‘Colours in the Aura of Bulgaria’ and the word ‘colour’ means also ‘flower’ – metaphorically alluding to the people presented in the book-album.
[2] Episodes from the series are still broadcast on the channel ‘Destination BG’ on Bulsatcom’s network but most of them can also be seen on Youtube.
[3] Patriarch Euthymius of Tarnovo is a major figure in Bulgarian History, both spiritual and social – and is known as the Mystic and Warrior. А significant story from his passional tells about the vision his mentor Theodosius received in the course of a vigil about the unenviable future of Bulgaria and the role of his disciple in helping to bear this heavy cross (500 years Turkish slavery). A kind of testimony to Patriarch Euthymius’ real spiritual superiority and radiance is the legend of his pardoning by the occupying powers (to be followed by years of banishment) – the legend goes that during preparations for his public execution the hand of the executioner froze in the air thus preventing the beheading.
[4] The ‘yellow’ races, for example, are singled out by occult knowledge as the heirs of the last subrace of Atlantis, the ‘red’ ones i.e. American Indians as earlier subraces, whereas black people have a hereditary link with the even earlier Third Root Race.
[5] For further details about the cultural Root Races and the occult reading of human history with a description of the spiritual and physical evolution of the human being, see ‘The Pedigree of Man’ by Annie Besant.
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