Course V - Teaching 10: Goods of Renunciation

The Gospel says: “And everyone that has forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life”.
Jesus says to his disciples: “Whoever loves his life shall lose it; and whoever hates his life in this world, shall gain it for everlasting life”.
In some few words, the whole Mystique of the Heart, of Renunciation, here is summed up.
To Renounce, to leave everything, to abandon the world, affections, personality and selfishness, and to die in order to follow the path of God is in fact to lose everything, but under a divine law of succession, all those things will give to the soul not only the divine state of inner liberation, but also this soul will be fit to his mission in the world. His hands will be full of treasures to give, “centumplum accipietis et vitam aeternam possideveris”.
When the Son abandons the world and leaves everything in hands of God, here us a divine bank that grants an unsuspected interest, not for him but for Humanity.
One day, when his subjects asked of the Emperor Otto, “the Great”, his grace to save the life of one of his knights who had committed a tremendous crime, he said: “This is a very serious fault, and the Emperor cannot forgive him; it would be weakness”. By chance this occurred near Saint Romuald’s hermitage and some knights went to see him and asked for the life of this unfortunate knight and friend. Romuald did so, and the Emperor set the knight free, but when someone asked why he had heard the voice of that holy man, he replied: “He can do so, but I do not; he possesses the word of God and the Laws of God in his hands. He is greater than me; and if he asks so it is because necessarily this man has to be forgiven, saved and kept alive”.
Always is like that. Men of God can do everything if they are true men of God. They are dead to the world, and their wealth is not of this world.
Naidu, a Hindu poetess and Gandhi’s disciple wrote these noteworthy words: “Our little father has left everything and is entirely poor; but, how much material wealth he possesses and distributes! It is beyond imagination how much money passes through his hands to sustain his works. To maintain our little father is very costly”
In fact, works of God are truly established in a royal throne, and treasures of heaven and also of the earth are managed from there. Not only “centuplum accipietis”, but also “vitam aeternam possideveris.”.
This is a grace ever given only to those people devoted to Renunciation: they can do extraordinary things, which are impossible for other men in the world. And the Sons were about to start their work, like little ants in a just-founded work; they were just-arrived beings to serve God and Humanity; and then they heard: “This is crazy; where to get so much money to achieve those projects?” But Divine Providence always provides necessary incomes for works of Renunciation.
Usually men act according to their calculations: food and clothes for everybody without exception; but this is not like that with the Sons of God, because they live in His Hands; when they are in need, they go and knock at the Bank of Eternity: the Mother always has something under Her robe for Her children; something that they neither saw nor realized. She provides not only for their spiritual needs but also for their material needs.
It was so throughout history. Works of God have ever made impossible and unachievable things.
In the world there is a noteworthy and respectable fact: the Israelite mystique. All peoples are destined to come into being, shine and finish. However great a people may be, it disappears after the end of its cycle. But this nation, which transmuted its material power into power of love and worship of God, does not die. Perhaps it may die that possesses land again, but until now it did not finish.
What is the mystique of this people, not of the people in general, but of its highest exemplars? They transmute their land into a Promised Land. The Bible teaches that they do not posses land; they are settled in an ideal land, not of man, but of God. During forty years, Moses led them wandering through deserts and forests for a place to settle. They create a law and do not possess land. Forty years just on the basis of a heavenly promise. Since then, its mystique of detachment developed. We see them persecuted until their captivity in Babylon. It is the mystique of the landless people that will settle in faith, in God’s promise and in what God may wish to give tomorrow. It is mystique of renunciation and pain, mystique of Eternity.
“Over there, near Babylon, we are sitting and weep, remembering our lost land, and if I do not weep or am in mourning, may my tongue stick to my palate, my brain be torn to pieces, and I be cursed ever after.” It is mystique of pain and despair: without temple and fatherland, but throughout centuries this lost land will bring a greater mystique: that of renunciation and pain.
Which was the only desire and aim of these eternal wayfarers in the world, but to come back and die in their land? Their mystique is that of mourning and pain, of being persecuted everywhere, of not possessing land, and of wandering to-and-fro.
This mystique of detachment, even in a material sense, brings a strength that is not of this world. These persons acquire through times a magnetic, economic state. Economy falls in their hands. However incredible it seems, this is like that; money moved in their hands because only they knew how to manage it, because they knew how it was to be in the world without a land to settle and to say: this is my house, my fatherland, the place destined by God to be my own land.
There is like an astral reward for those who posses nothing. Of course, this is only a comparison, but in fact, mystique transmutes detachment into a possession that in this case, now, is one of the most serious dangers in the world, and perhaps a factor of destruction or salvation.
Always whoever possesses and trusts in God, whoever has lost everything, but resigns and transmutes this pain and this loss into a higher offering and into a heavenly mission, acquires a power and strength that other beings in the world do not possess.
Today, in the world, there is another economic factor that becomes a serious danger and is related to churches. The wealthiest institutions are those of men who have followed the path of renunciation.
Is it likely that all this wealth is in hands of men that have left everything? “Centuplum accipietis”. Whoever is self-sufficient can sleep anywhere; the same clothes are always enough to him and he acquires a power that is not only material but also spiritual.
All their possessions and dwelling places may be destroyed, but none can have the strength of those who renounced and left everything; they do not worry over food, are self-sufficient in all their needs, fit to heaviest and finest tasks, and workers if necessary: consecrated souls always will have enough to live; united are invincible, and never will lack bread. Even in the wild, they will count on their guide, and if someone cannot walk, other being will take them, and certain sister, on her throne, will see round and will lead and teach them; and if someone is cold, he/she will be covered by those who do not. For what do these souls want worldly goods? They do not, but likewise they flow like water to those souls.
What happens in organizations, Jewish trusts and Catholic ecclesiastic institutes, which accumulate wealth and so much power? This very power overwhelms them.
The only power of the Son is to possess that “hundredfold”, but not to become rich, but to give it. He might become rich very easily; none in the world can possess this power of renunciation to gather material goods, but later this would lead to overwhelm him. Once he possesses house, why to accumulate more? It is necessary to distribute. Today you cannot make the same charity of yesterday, when you had a half of material resources; you must duplicate your gift. Your must give continuously because, poor Sons those who accumulate a wealth that their arms and shoulders cannot sustain later! Here is the only way to become wealthy in a holy and good way: by leaving all. So you can give to others, and you will never be in need for your work.
How much work these great institutions would be able to do! They should not accumulate what they have to distribute among poor beings of the world!
Renunciation gives freedom, true freedom of the spirit; but not only this, because this would be spiritual selfishness, that is, the greatest selfishness. This good, which you took spiritually, mentally and materially, only is valuable when you distribute it among all men.
This occurs not only materially: the Son knows better than men do because of his way of living. His chances are infinite, and very great his reserves of knowledge.
The power of the Sons is very great, but… how great is their Renunciation for Humanity!