Course X - Teaching 8: Renunciation as Asceticism

I shall deal with the so important problem of asceticism. The reading of books and practical experiences did not achieve other thing than to mix up theoretical, practical and personal knowledge that of course confuses the souls.
The direction of the souls, transcendental mission of the Ordained Sons, has obliged to make so many experiences and readings in order to canalize in them the clear and certain definition of what asceticism means. So, Superiors should have a clear idea about what asceticism is.
Asceticism is lived; otherwise, it cannot be known.
Asceticism is in intrinsic gift of persons.
Any theory is harmful, or rather, sacramentally diabolic, and leads to the physical and mental destruction of those who practice it. Let us detach the Sons from any practice not controlled by Superiors.
Today, in my view, so many books dealing with asceticism should be burnt because they carry bring to the soul. But there are ascetic aspects that, if properly directed, guide the soul toward his definitive end. According to a sensitive Hindu opinion, one cannot start any ascetic exercise without a guru.
Let us re-consider history, and these viewpoints, here posited, shall be unveiled.
Here is a prominent personality, Sri Aurobindo, a great scientist, expert in Sanskrit, and versed in oriental subjects beyond any comparison. He starts his ascetic path on the basis of this great truth: If man takes part in a divine principle, his possibilities are divine. After twenty years of asceticism, he leaves everything behind and begins to have disciples, practices absolute silence, establishes a city for his faithful disciples, and acts before them through his wife (an Israelite woman, previously married to Richard, his main disciple); that is why she is called Mother. He appears physically before his disciples only once a year and for a short while. He dies in 1950, and the great question remains: was his asceticism success or failure? He did not overcome death; no writing contains the exact date of his death.
Lets us go further backward and quote a great singer of immortality on the human being: Vivekananda. He affirms the possibilities of the individual being through the practice of yoga. One day he dies of diabetic shock, and the great question about his asceticism remains. He was thirty nine years old; his writings do not mention the date of his death. Through his asceticism he does not get a message of peace transcending his physical life. His disciples honor him because of his ecstatic death, but here is the doubt: if insulin produces cataleptic death, his diabetic shock apparently confirms it. His asceticism is mainly vigorous in his physical body but evil stays in intimate depths of his being and impedes knowledge through the practice of ascetic exercise. Of course, the great labor of this being is beyond discussion but we are only examining his ascetic method that was helpful in practicing his exercise that he appreciated so much.
Let us go back a little more to the past. Let us consider a great saint and great woman, Saint Therese. On her ascetic practices she described every step taken to lift the soul and told with accuracy her own emotions, but even in such great being her writings do not unveil some time the date of her death. Medically considered, her life reveals a carcinoma in the matrix, and she passes away as the result of a persistent bleeding. Question: did she die of ecstasy or cancer?
In asceticism we recognize certain strength, certain power in motion but we do not know if its result is effective.
My own personal experience tells me that the practice of ascetic exercises did not add a gram to virtue, that is, to permanent soul wealth.
On September 17th, 1934, during my exercise I sent Kundalini to the coronary center but this exercise would demand constancy for its realization. If you neglect it, gradually its result is nil. Apparently it is something forced in the individual being since is not natural in him and therefore becomes impermanent. Truly, this exercise was helpful to me to establishing Cafh in America, but this exercise by itself does not improve my spiritual value. Truly, it is easy to come back to this practice according to our own experience but this confirms that this practice is not naturally permanent in the individual being.
For years I practiced food abstinence, respiratory exercises, postures, and so on, but I only achieved effects during this practice, and therefore doubtless now I can state that I did not add a gram of humility to reduce my pride.
In 1936, I practiced exercises to attain lower planes, and repeated them later. In 1944, en route to Tucuman, I re-produced the suffering of a great being: I lived the crown of thorns, the pain of his wounds, et cetera. But always the question remains: Does Christ come to me, or do I go to Him through my concentration exercise? The same could be said about Saint Gemma Galgani, Therese Neumann et cetera: Is their asceticism producing this approach, which lasts a natural period of time while we exercise our will, or is the Great Being graciously descending to us?
Asceticism is strength, power, but is not natural in a human being. One does not get a gram of virtue through it. So, is asceticism good or bad? Is its practice helpful or not? Surely, it should be good and valuable, but in fact man does not know how to handle this power. In asceticism there is a power that so far cannot be checked. Likewise we see it in scientists and the atomic energy; they destroy and do not control the power of the atom through their practices.
Other example: Hatha Yoga. A good athlete controls his physical body but gains nothing of spirituality. If he is little intelligent remains so. He produces a perfect body but hurts certain organ. Certain physical negative part remains hidden in an organ and destroys it. Also I stopped my pulse and heart for one minute but such exercises gave me only one thing: experience.
One could say today there are not epidemics since there are vaccines for all of them. But, as you can see, the negative root of evil (in poliomyelitis) remains hidden in the most civilized countries in the depths of being: in the spine.
Our ignorance about the ascetic power forces us to grope about in the dark.
Therefore, if one has to define if asceticism is helpful or harmful to perfecting a human being, so far it does not oblige us because of its harm.
But we were bound to experience it in order to instruct and guide the souls, not as gift but as a punishment.
Sons, first you must acquire spiritual inner purity before anyone wants to control through ascetic practices those powers that just can be controlled by the pure of heart.
But then, which is asceticism of Cafh?: asceticism not to harm us but to prepare the Sons for the new age, for the new atomic world.
The Divine Mother gave me this answer: “Asceticism in Cafh is asceticism of death, asceticism of non-power, patience, routine, settlement, active inertia, boredom and ignorance; all this for the sake of a glimpse of peace”. (Put your brain in the center of your heart.)
This is what we have to trust to the Sons; a great treasure has been trusted to us.
Basically, asceticism of Cafh consists in promising nothing to the Sons. The Son can achieve the highest and perfect state but by his own means, but not expecting it from certain book, practice or chance.
The ascetic path of Cafh leads to the Union with God only through inner means –those of renunciation– that are opposite to an ordinary methodology.
We must deprive the Sons of any aspiration and illusion (clubs, arts, sciences, religions and particular ways to pray, and so on), so that nothing external prevails; so, they shall become a virgin land with the vivid radiance of their unique love: the Divine Mother.
Father Gracian promises to Saint Therese certain novice girl who knew how to pray much and well, and the Saint replied: “We are not interested in her. It would be too much difficult for us to remove her predilection for prayer and to prepare her for our work. Father, give me living and intelligent daughters, but of little knowledge already formed about ascetic paths”.
We want the same for the aspirants of Cafh: Sons with poor learning. They should be some few but not difficult to destroy what they have learned.
One must tell them: throw away any aspirations, especially books. There is no better book than the Teachings, since as you seek book knowledge, you mix concepts, confuse the doctrine, and later there is too much work for their new guide. Preaching among companions pre-establishes wrong ideas in them.
Let us remove from them the practice of sport, clubs and so on.
This is the principle of the asceticism in Cafh: to lead them to the Great Current being pure, by annihilating their defects and personal likes. This is the will of the Divine Mother.
Above all, we have to remove from the Sons those concepts and ideas that they bring from their own religion. Religious habits are unimportant, but we must remove them in order to know about doctrinal and non-emotional attachments of the Sons. Otherwise, we lead them into a negative road with positive forces. These two forces collide, and just this way we can know fearful results in the Sons.
The first step is their great cleaning; otherwise, their concentrated mental power gives life to monsters for their future.
The Son that enters Cafh and collides and undergoes the shock of the Great Current, this is so because we did not know how to clean him, that is, to dress him in order to receive this Current.
Great is our task; to heal the sick, relieve the needy and lead the souls, not to feel obliged to have more work by admitting Sons that apparently have no other way of religious or worldly life according to their response in their works.
When the Son contacts the Great Current here is the more transcendental and decisive step taken by the soul. His entire future is decided there. The need of this “something else” that he experiences must be pure love to God and surrender to the Divine Mother. His surrender is to surrender to success or failure since that way he determines his future Body of Fire, a real and divine body that shall sustain the principle of immortality with his soul.
This is the moment when we the Priests of God and of the Mother put the souls on the fire, not on the water. Souls of innocent children that we do not know if their soft flesh shall resist the purifying contact with the fire.
Through this road of renunciation given by asceticism for the future we want to take the Sons to the summit, so that they overcome and be integral; we want their happiness, not their death.
But, above all, it should be known that he who starts this road knows where this road shall lead him. Renunciation, as asceticism, shall lead them to get used to true renunciation. Asceticism in Cafh is to achieve permanent cerebral centers, not transient forms achieved by exercises demanding constant habit in order to possess these centers. We should attain dynamic centers to make fit beings to live on the new atomic age; otherwise, being unable to overcome it, they shall succumb as ordinary human beings. Time counts for it and this problem must be totally unveiled on next ten to fifteen years.