Course XI - Teaching 9: The Superior before the Soul

The Superior cannot develop a true spiritual work in the soul of the Son if this Superior does not know intimate aspirations of this Son.
From the beginning, the Superior has to know those intimate thoughts and secret feelings of the Son.
The Superior begins knowing intimately the soul by knowing the Son’s life in the world. Necessarily, he should let the Son’s conversation to be spontaneous and free for a gradual opening of the soul.
The Superior has to know the family situation of the Son in order to know the soul of this Son. He has to be acquainted with his parents and relatives, and his social condition and family environment, and over and above, he shall try to get the soul result derived from the Son’s family life.
The Superior will ever confront different cases: or the son becomes the center of attraction or is rejected; or the son is welcome or unwelcome. These parental inharmonious states bring complexes to the souls of the children, which grow and grow throughout years and eventually attain alarming dimensions.
So much comfort brings to children a psychic state of excessive security, which shall lead them to vanity, pride and inactivity for fear of failure, while misunderstood children will develop a psychic state of inner incapacity which turns them shy, elusive and distrustful.
Psychically, the ones who in their childhood did not get much care and were not too much chastised by fate eventually shall be more successful.
The Superior has to know the school formation of the Son. He has to consider rightly those complexes derived from age, where the Son has molded his education and primary studies. Extreme cases are, for instance, or an outstanding pupil, or an unfit pupil. Such extremes lead to form in an outstanding pupil his sense of responsibility with good marks, and this invites to confine him in the equivocal situation of being reluctant to dispose of continuous success.
So, when many children of this kind start higher studies and experience the most insignificant setback, fall defeated and inhibited, because they lack necessary strength to face the reality.
So, an unfit child for study acquires sometimes a complex of inferiority in the wake of some tactless words of his teacher. Then he acquires a mental state of incapacity inhibiting him constantly, which impedes a spontaneous development of his normal faculties.
Also the Superior has to know the social formation of the Son. He has to know in detail those circumstances confronted by the Son throughout his life. An adolescent has to confront life in a false or premature or violent way, and this leads his soul to have a wrong view about life, especially in its sexual aspect.
Sometimes these souls whose minds are filled with fantasies, illusions and fairy worlds receive a violent shock once they confront natural ugly things that can spoil their emotional development as a whole.
That is why the Superior has to know these early soul reactions if he wants to free the latter of impediments and troubles, and to lead the soul to find again happiness and peace through the spiritual path.
When you begin dealing with souls, they respond more or less to questions asked by their Superior: Their name, identity, job, et cetera. But all these questions reveal just the personal and outer ego covering the soul, which is like a self-protected shell against the world.
This outer ego is nothing more than the product of all those things that one wants to hide and refuses to tell.
The first extraordinary mission of the Superior is to teach the souls the Backward Survey whose purpose is not only an exercise, but also a spiritual habit achieved through practical exercise, introspection with no perils, recognition of his troubles, and knowledge of his inner ego.
Once the Superior has succeeded in causing the Son to realize that he has arrived home –the House of Love– it is the Son that will divest himself of his outer personality and will be able to recognize the deepest part of his heart. He shall not be afraid of seeing himself such as he is and, by looking at himself properly, he can break the limited circle that restrains him and reduces his possibilities.
Naturally, in the beginning, the soul will be reluctant to show intimacies to a Superior; that is why the soul should experience by itself the inner bliss of its own recognition.
Some months may pass in this labor, but this first bliss individually achieved, shall bring a sincere confession, and an imperative need of communication, confession and trust in the Superior.