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OLD AND NEW WINESKINS
" And no one puts new wine into
old wineskins…….But new wine
must be put into new wineskins
and both are preserved"
Luke 5:37-38
This short proverb is classical in its expression and content. Christ made a great generalization of the ideas: he said that no one should fill old skins with new wine because they would fissure. Do we have to understand this word for word? No. It is true in its figurative sense. Here we find an analogy of the new teaching with the new wine and of the old people with the old skins. Since the old wine has ceased fermenting it can be kept in an old skin, but the new wine has not ceased fermenting and if you pour it in an old skin, the skin will burst. This proverb has a hidden meaning, a great law: that for the God’s ideas that are given to this world new skins are needed, more resilient and sustaining the pressure of fermentation, i.e. people who have the intellect and the heart to perceive the new truth. When old ideas, thoughts and feelings block the mind nothing new can penetrate in it; in other words, the old formations can not be expected to have strength for heroism. In this respect young people are generous; you have to ask ninety year-old people ninety times until they give you a stiver because they have natural fear, they feel weak and invalid to command their strength and resources as young people do. And that is why Christ says that new wine must be kept in new skins.
When the new teaching is given to the world it conceives a reaction in old people-they think it is no good and it will spoil the world. Nevertheless there is no father who wants his son to be born with old ideas; everyone wishes his son to be modern and to perceive the thoughts and the ideas of the century.
The wine itself is a strength. To stimulate human evolution we need strength; this strength is nothing else but the human spirit taken in a broad sense, a rational strength which works and creates in accordance with the Heaven laws. One of the God’s goals is the growth and development of everything; God does not love the old skins; He puts them in the under basements as the wine-growers do; there will come a time when there will be people to drink the old wine. Having adopted the new teaching, you are lying to yourselves if you think that it will not ferment in you, that you will stay the same people-this is impossible; it is the same as if the sculptor could hammer the marble without breaking off a piece. Many pieces will break of to the left and to the right and old people should stay away if they fear to be hit by a piece on the head. It will not be the sculptor’s fault, but the old people’s fault if they don’t go away. " I am sculpturing a statue for the future generation "- he says" and everyone should stay away ". The artist may work with a brush, he may work with a bow, he may work with a hammer-it depends on the way he works; it is not important, it is important whether he works in accordance with the God’s order. When there is trouble in work we must not say:" My head is ready to burst": the eternal calmness is in the grave; those who want to progress must strive for God, those who want to progress in Heaven life must work and fight. This striving comprises the good of the individual, the good of the society, the good of the whole mankind. Those who want to rest can keep the old ideas of life, they don’t understand the active life of the new ideas, expressed by the proverb about the new wine. Do you know how much time needed the vine-twig to accumulate this wine? And more, do you know its strength? First it is sweet, then it is sharp and finally it becomes so strong that if you drink too much of it you lose your normal condition.
So those who want to perceive the new teaching must get free of the old skins. If you don’t have new skins, stay away; new people will come to adopt the new teaching. You can adopt it too but first you must sell the old skins- to lay aside all wishes and vices that obstruct the acquirement of the new teaching. There are famous snake trappers in India who tame many snake representatives and send them to Europe. They use barrels in which they keep the snakes, from the very little ones to the very big ones and from the harmless to the very dangerous and there they tame them. But one evening, closing the barrel incautiously they could not cork it up well; in the night all snakes crawled out of the barrel and wound around their trapper; at the morning when he woke up and saw what had happened he didn’t move at all, because every move would cost his life; he had the presence of mind to keep quiet. At a time his servant came, wondering why his master was not coming out; he opened the door and saw that all snakes had wound around his master; but the servant was very smart: he went right away, brought a big caldron with boiled milk and left it in the room; when the snakes smelled the milk, they unwound the master and crawled to the milk; the Indian stood up and carefully closed them in the caldron again, saying to himself: "I have to close this barrel very carefully". You will also some day find yourself in the position of this snake trapper and you will need then a presence of mind and milk, and the sensible life is this milk.
Christ says: "Do not keep new wine in an old skin", because it will upset you. If a religious person gets upset, he is an old skin who could not bear the new wine- the new teaching. It is impossible to make peace between two ideas that collide. The mosaic law says: a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, but according to the Christian teaching the law is absolutely opposite-love your enemies; if you get slapped on your cheek, turn your other cheek for a slap too. How will you make peace between this new teaching and the old one if you keep the old one? The Mosaic law is for an old skin, the Christian teaching needs a new skin. As the old people are not able to fight the new tendencies according the mosaic law, they want to grab the opponent and gouge his eyes so that he can not see and find them, but the Christian teaching says: you can make your opponents your friends, you can disarm them and even make them serve you.
And let’s take a look now at the inner psychological sense of the Christ’s words. We must never think in life that we have completely understood the truth and we have nothing to learn more, because we will be these old skins that have stopped their development on earth. " We are learned". But where is your learning kept? - " We have read a lot". So what of this? We must penetrate this philosophy which can put in order our life and give us the happiness we look for. I have explained the word " happiness" before: which are the letters that compose this word? One of them is the working human hand. The other one is the strength that pushes on work. The third one is the human nose - we don’t need only work, but also mind that knows how to work. The next one stands for the human heart and if you turn it upside it will become a boat, because what is earned must be stored. The other symbolizes the wheel that drives the car ahead and the last one shows the center that you must hold to. Therefore what you need is: hand, strength mind heard and a goal. I will adduce an anecdote from Bulgarian life. Our people believe that fever, when coming, is alive. A shepherd stopped on a bridge and listened to two fevers talking. One of them said that it would catch that shepherd in the mountain. The second one asked how it would catch it and the other answered: " I will be in the first milk spoon that he will swallow in spring". The shepherd hearing that he was the subject of the conversation, decided to take precautions. That day died one of his sheep, he stripped it of and made a skin. When the time for the fever to catch him came, he put the first milk spoon with the fever in the skin and tied it. Then the fever filled out the skin and every day at noon shook it. In autumn the shepherd untied the skin and let the fever go. The two fevers met each other under the bridge again and the first one said to the other: " I had the misfortune to get into the empty skin". And if you want to use the old skins you will look like this fever and when they let you out you will say: " We learned how to shake the skins". I see this kind of people constantly and when they are let out in life, they say: " We learned how to shake the skins". Such are the contemporary dogmatic people who only shake skins. " It is too narrow for us", they say. No, it’s broad for them, but they do not have food. There is a whole philosophy in the folk belief that I just told you about - the judge who decides the fate incorrectly must be brought to his senses if you want a new fate for the world. We have to put the new wine in our children, because it is strength. Mothers who want to have good children must be inspired with new ideas. If you are old I do not recommend you a child - bearing. What will you give birth to? People, unequipped to meet life, of whom there are thousands. The Holy Scripture says: " Breed and multiply"; it doesn’t teach you to bear half-backed children, but people in God’s own image. This is the new teaching that Christ preaches and that if is understood can set the world right. Both the vine and the saps are in us; when one day our vineyard bears fruit, the saps of grapes will start fermenting. This is an implacable in the world and the one who intends to live without to ferment, does not understand life. Somewhere else Christ said: Those who want to follow Me, must bear their crosses"; the new wine is the cross. The cross is a strength for the one who understands. There are different crosses in the world and people complain about them! But here is what Paul said about the cross: " I will praise with the Christ’s cross". You complain about your sufferings and you say that they are uncommon, unbearable; but you are like the one who complained about the heaviness of his cross and here is what happened to him. God said : " Take his cross" and lead him in a hall and told him: " There are big and small, golden, silver, iron and stone crosses, choose one"; the man picked a small cross and said: " I want this cross" - " But this is the cross that you bore by now; this is the cross I had given you". We often exaggerate our sufferings and want to change our fate; we can not change it, we can not throw away the burden we must carry. You say: " When I set my things right, I, my wife and my children will turn a new leaf and then the new wine will ferment". If you intend to arrange your worldly matters and then follow God you lie to yourselves. The education is a process that must go at the same time for everybody - father, mother and children: when the parents are educated, the children are educated too.
I will give you another example. They say that when once the American preacher Moodi preached a boy that listened to him asked his father: "Why aren’t you singing, father?"-"I have my strong position in faith, you must sing. Singing is for you-we, the old people, have listened enough."-he answered. And the child thought to himself: "It is good that my father has strong positions in faith.". One day the father put a horse to a small cart and prepared to go but at some time the horse stopped, then the child said: "Father, the horse confirmed". When we stop, we have strong positions, we are old skins, in which the new wine can not ferment. But we prepare for Heaven, intend to go in Paradise and live angels’ life, to understand the God’s truth! How shall we understand them when we live in these basements? That is why Christ turns and says; "We need new skins.". The old people are old skins and the young people are new skins; nothing bothers the old people; but the young people say to the old people: "Let us put new wine in you too". You must not give new wine to the old people: the old people have finished their evolution. The new wine must go in the arteries and vanes of the young people. There is a conflict and complaint in us because the old and the new wine collide. Christ meant: do not put the new wine in yourselves, if you are not ready and he said: "Cleanse yourselves first": Every teaching is useful for us only if we are clean. Dynamic progress, spiritual advance- this is the new teaching. If we could give a look in the old man’s mind from an occult point of view, we would see a glimmering candle; if we looked in the new man’s mind we would see that his candle shines brightly. We can compare the old man with the earth, illuminated by the Moon and the old man with the earth, illuminated by the Sun. For the advance of soul new wine is needed. Let us ask ourselves whether we have it? The one who has drunk old wine and hasn’t tasted sweet wine, says: "The old wine is better"; but after the wine ferments and settles, it can not ferment any more: it can only make people drunk and give them joy, but it can never make them work and progress. If we are unhappy, that is because our life ferments, the wine becomes sour or sharp and it is not sweet any more. I have watched the Bulgarians-after leaving the church they go in a pub, group in two: "Give us some old wine-cheers!", they drink 1-2 glasses; then they get together in groups of three or four and go on drinking and the conversation becomes louder, everybody in the pub starts talking; at a moment you hear noise and see that they beat somebody. Why do they beat him? He hasn’t put a fence around his field-they beat him in the pub to make him put a fence around his field! But it is not like this only in the pubs: visit the stock exchange, where the trade transactions are made and will find out that everybody there is crazy. Even a woman who visited the stock exchange asked her husband: "Why did you take me here in this madhouse, I want you to take me to noble people, to the stock exchange". When the quarrels and the sharing start at home, then the wine has started fermenting- not being able to create anything new, people want to take possession of someone else’s property; just like a mother who can not bear a child and takes someone else’s. So, for the new wine which will give us new life, which will teach us how to live and work, how to establish strong relations between us, we need new skins. This is the Christ’s teaching. They say it is not applicable. It is applicable. Just think over it for five minutes per day. Take this proverb, read it and stop for five minutes a day to think about the new wine and you will feel the results. Stop for five minutes and think of God, think of the good people on the earth who work constantly; the good mothers who raise their children patiently; of the good fathers who take care of their families- you will see what a process will start the new wine. A woman says: "I married but my husband is not worth anything". Well, who made you marry an old skin? Do you know that, saying this, you are like the one who in Turkish times stole a donkey and explained to the judge: "I was on the pear tree, then I fell on the donkey and it carried me away."? Tell yourself:" I need new wine" in the ideas, in the heart, in the world. How can a 60-80 year-old marry and have children! I understand that there are exceptions like Abraham who bore in his old age: but he had new ideas, he was not old: the nowadays people grow old in their forties-" let our children live, we are finished!" Then you are an old skin and you must be put in the basement; you are lazy; someone who does not want to understand the Will of God. You must say:" I understood you, God, I want to work for you", as a young man works. Down with your passion, put your old skins away, far away! People with old skins and old wine are not allowed in the Kingdom of Heaven. I don’t want them to pour out their old wine, but I want them to put their new wine in new skins. When they comprehend this Heaven thought, it will raise them with its strength. They wonder how to educate people. The method is very easy. When a boat in the sea is pierced, they plug the opening with a stopper; if they don’t put the stopper, the boat sinks. Check whether your boat is pierced, plug it and then you will be safe. Some day you are not delighted- you have a hole in your boat, your skin is perforated; you will see no good if you don’t plug the hole. There are moments when a man must be very obedient, just like that child of an engine-driver, whose house was nearby the railway : the child was playing and when the train approached somebody shouted to him: " Lay down!", the child listened, laid down and so saved himself. Sometimes you are said: "Lay down!" - " But why?" - Lay down and don’t ask why - when the train passes by you will see why. There are dangerous moments when we must knee, and when the danger passes by, we must thank God.
But somebody says: " I don’t want to adapt to the conditions, I don’t want to be flexible". You will adapt. The rain will not consider whether you are dressed or not; the sun too - whether you can bear its light, you must adapt to all the changes, you must be ready to sustain them. The rain and the sun do their job well. Let the sun shine, let the see ruffle, let the old skins perforate - this should not bother you, because God has decided to burst the old skins and pour new wine in new skins. If people with old ideas and thoughts want to live in the new conditions, they completely lie to themselves. This is the fate, this is the low of God. God wants you to rejuvenate, to regenerate. "How shall we regenerate", some ask. You will regenerate, a new form will be made, in which you will put your life, a real form, not a dream. If you could understand the law according to which you now live, you could rejuvenate. How can this happened? When you learn the law you will rejuvenate in your soul. When I talk about resurrection I mean the forms that God makes in us, we must prepare the new skins: then God will say: " Bring them to put new wine in them". Some ask: " What is God doing with the world?". He prepares new skins, he creates new wine. And that is why Christ said: " My Father, work and I work for you". And we must be ready not to ruin these skins, because it is very easy to spoil the mind and the heart of a man, but it is very difficult to improve them. Let God see what you have done. You ask yourselves why is life such. In the eyes of many people I see that they are drunk from the old wine, that they are hang-over. They must get sober, joy must feel your hearts, because this world is created for you with all the conditions for your development. " But there is war, disasters". Nothing! As the Russians say. - " But the world is ruined"- Nothing! Nothing is lost. Maybe thousands of old houses, old skins will be ruined, but new will be made. Now God is putting new wine in new skins. Only the drunk ones fight; men and women, who fight are drunk. Where there is new wine, there is music, singing and peace. This is the Christian teaching. Read the Gospel and perceive this teaching, think for five minutes every day of the eternal life of God, of good people, of good mothers and fathers, of good friends; think of something noble and it will raise you. Then you will understand deeper things. Oh, what kind of things you still have to learn! But you must prepare for this comprehension preliminary. What will the future life be? - Excellent - what you have not seen, heard, dreamt. How can a man see the beauty of the world since he sleeps? Your sleeping souls must wake up; you must put the barrel with the milk; so that to close the evil. You must be the heralds of the new wine, the new teaching. Preach joy, merriment in the world and when you suffer, say that you suffer, because you have not obeyed the God’s law.
We often say that conditions create life. But man also creates conditions. I have told you about an English lord who went on a trip with his daughter and his servant and suffered shipwreck. So in the world you can be either a master or a servant. You have the knowledge how to execute the God’s laws - you are a master; you don’t know how to execute them - you are a servant. The one who wants to be a master, must be filled with the new teaching: it is the key of life. If this lord had not landed the desert island, he would not have known how to cultivate life; he learned this art there. In our life we can get in trouble and someone can become our master; let us learn how to serve and God will take us out of the desert island. Thank the Providence that you have landed the desert island and learned how to process wheat, i.e. life. You have not learned by now how to cultivate your mind and heart and that is why you have hunger and you are unpleased. You eat 4-5 times, you grow fat, you moan, the same fat you have in your mind. And you must turn this fat into energy. Have you noticed that people who work intensively mentally , who have active souls, never grow fat. If you gather fat, put it in the car of life and go ahead to realize your noble dreams. There is your welfare.
A lecture made on 13. July 1915
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