Course V - Teaching 3: Presence of the Eternal Hour

To renounce is to overcome a dimensional time to live a time that is expansive, immense and eternal. But these words sound very hollow and theatrical if you do not try to live and grasp them within, by transforming the sense of time into eternal reality.
Many great Masters preached this admirable doctrine by which a person stops being self-absorbed and narrow-minded in order to live in the eternity, free, on the space. These doctrines, which deserve great admiration and respect, and appear in wonderful Krishnamurti’s pages, are only words if man continues to live tied to time and need. Because the experience proves that those who speak of living the eternal hour without timetable and regulations and demands (because it comprises all this) unfortunately are tied to everything as the rest of men. Poor man if he wants to escape and ever falls into the trap!
A wise lady told that once a couple did not get on; the wife would work, scrub and sew the whole day, and was abused by her husband. Some friend said to her: “And why don’t you leave this man?” And wisely she replied: “For two very simple reasons: the one of God and the other of earth. The reason of God is that this man, whether bad or good, is the father of my children, which He gave me, and this never can be changed. The second reason is because I have observed that all those who want to escape from a routine or duty, are like the poor fish that falls in the fire to escape from the oil”.
Those souls that speak of so much freedom and expansion, and of living their spiritual life without any impediment, may get rid of certain things, but fall in other bigger ties, that is, in the tyranny of time. You cannot overcome by doing just as you wish, but by transmuting, conquering and living this time.
If you ask: “Why don’t you get up earlier”, he replies: “I like to remain in bed for a while, and for what should I take on a rule?” But some day he has a duty, finds impossible to get up, and says: “I am slave of the bed”. He is tied to this habit, to this custom.
These liberalities bring other habits, reduce the individual to other time and emphasize his bondage because this way he has two masters: duration of time and duration of his bad habits.
Since the Divine Mother regulates the life of the Ordained Son to give him true freedom, apparently she imposes on him more severe norms of life, as if she were tying him to time by such strict distribution of his days and living. Seemingly he is tied to an unavoidable daily rule. But in fact, this way the soul can get rid from dimensional time and enter the expansive time, and you can achieve this by living very strictly in time, through more precise habits that you should live quite intensely.
Man is slave of time because puts all his senses in time: he eats, goes out or walks when he wants; he plays music, goes to theatre or remains doing nothing when he wants. All this is nothing more than to remain into the personality, into the instinctive soul of being. To overcome time and get liberation, one must do all, but without any participation of predilections or anything, and by responding only to one’s straightforward will.
If you do everything at certain time without sensible likes, you lead your soul to a higher joy. So we are told: “I walk because I feel like going for a walk”. The horse does not lead the master, but its master orders and says: “Stop right now, walk even now!”
A good use of time is not only this. Usually a free person might make a better good use of his hours and his day; but for instance, often you must write a letter and all your ideas come during the hour of meditation, and later, when you are ready to write it, you do not find any thought to express. You have spent the internal, spiritual time; you have burnt it for the sake of imagination.
The same occurs when you think of your tasks during an improper hour, and when you are ready to fulfill them, then those works are unproductive and wrong, and you waste your time.
One lives in dimensional time, and you control time only when you live in time of eternity, in expansive time. You should say: “Time does not control me; I hold it in my hand”.
The value of the timetable in Community is extraordinary.
First we shall deal with the mystic value of time in Community.
If you observe and study the time in the Seminary, you will see that this timetable of twenty four hours (including day and night) is divided into four perfect periods in which the Sons must give as a whole all powers of their physical, astral, mental and spiritual possibilities.
That is, Sons have: six hours of mental work, six hours of manual work, six hours of active relaxation and six hours of passive relaxation.
Of course, the timetable is entirely elastic by Regulation in accordance with chances of every one. It is like a music that contains several notes, where the soul can use its physical, astral, mental or spiritual forces, in accordance with its chances.
This triumph over dimensional time, through perfect distribution of hours in accordance with human nature, is confirmed by the two cosmic powers of both Boas and Jakim. It is routine transformed into eternal hour: patience transformed into human pillar supporting the divine force of the Eternity.
If you wish to live the eternal, expansive hour, you should overcome this time that is harassing men from life to death; you have to possess this time that is called routine and patience.
How many years the individual being is harassed by time, and how long time he needs to become man! His mother has to raise him and to start teaching him. He must go school, later to universities, and when his preparation is over, at the age of twenty-five years, a third part of his time is gone. From twenty-five years on, man begins to look for a position, to fight, but all his beautiful ideals are lost. Why?, because time is tyrant. When he can say, “I got my position”, he is forty-five years old and all begins to collapse: neither his energy, nor his strength, nor his mind is like before. Now he cannot achieve those wonderful ideals of his youth; time harasses him. Man must run to get his harvest. His life is about to go: and weakness and old age come. In short: he has been at the service of time as a true slave. His life is about to go and he possesses nothing. Being harassed by time, he had to earn a living, create a status and establish a family.
If there is no true liberation, time will go on to tie men. It is a wheel, the wheel of time inexorably rotating and its velocity is such that the weak human nature cannot follow it; you are ever behind.
Shores are full of castaways, failures and defeated people.
But Renunciation liberates from time ideally, theoretically, and a practical life of renunciation liberates really, substantially.
The Son does not run on straight line; he lives in expansive time, as if his life were a great circle that becomes vaster to the extent of comprising the entire Universe: the mind expands, becomes larger and encompasses the entire Universe.
It is like in the astral world when in a dream-like hour you start seeing images. If you are quiet, this image shall expand and become larger and larger, becoming clear. If you see a face, you see this face bigger and bigger, in such a way that we are told that in the astral world things become large; this is an illusion. It is you who expand. But if another image enters and you are afraid, then the figure falls away.
In the astral world there is no time, but intensity; this is expansion. But man does not know this properly, although he has it: he possesses it in the soul. He might intensify his thoughts, his energy but he cannot because he runs after time. Time is a train departing and the soul runs after it to see if it is possible to catch it. This train shall never conquer time while the soul is not such as it is.
Time is an illusion: you are time. You live eternally if you intensify your own force; you do not live if you limit this force: you run, jump, go and come; you are the happy monkey like all men.
That is why surprisingly certain Ordained Sons speak of time and of limited timetable, and did not realize how much benefit the Divine Mother has granted to them.
The first treasure is to know how to control time and live subject to a timetable allowing expansion and total use of energies, that is, of our own forces.
For Ordained Sons, the schedule is like everything: it may be bondage or freedom. Timetable is bondage for him who does not love a timetable. For him who lives it, this timetable becomes a considerable good: he has time for everything.
It is beyond imagination Ordained Sons saying they have no time. They do not live properly their time. That is, they do the one thing instead of the other, and act improperly. If they fulfilled perfectly what the timetable orders, they would have extra time; they would write a Summa Theologica, would erect a monument, would be able to have dreams of Eternity, and would possess strength as no other man on earth does.
But Renunciation is not to have Renunciation: it is to love it over all things and to conquer it step by step. The Hindu theory of “You are it” is nonsense, that is, that if you believe that you are God, then you become God. Man cannot say this. He can achieve it only by conquering it step by step, as the Buddha once said: “If you wish Nirvana, you will have Nirvana, but you have to conquer it in eight stages”. One has to achieve it gradually, and here is the extraordinary good that you find in the timetable. Timetable is joyful bondage; a chain that gives true freedom.
The timetable marks six hours of mental work, but always in an elastic way, according to the adaptation of every person.
The Ordination is an open way to every soul: to souls who love to work, to those who love to study, and to those who soar more or less. This timetable that is like bondage shows its love to every temperament.
An Ordained Son that was not of Community said, “Seemingly you have few hours of study in Community”. He never had lived in a Community. Communities are mainly made for mental work, for education of the Sons and for education of the souls.
Mental work is perfectly divided into rational work, work of understanding and work of illumination. That is, there is time to study (rational time), to transform this reasoning into understanding (time to study intensely), and mainly time to think in an abstract way (time of prayer).
An Ordained Son begins his day with intellectual work: his first work is mental. Its purpose is to raise it to higher regions. He begins his day with one hour devoted to prayer; thence his mind must become fit to an accelerated rhythm: thirty minutes of exercises and thirty minutes of meditation.
Meditation is the most extraordinary of mental works because, where from does everything come to man (wisdom, knowledge) but through prayer? Someone asked Saint Bonaventura which was the book where he would learn his beautiful sermons, he led him to his cell –to a corner where usually he would pray– and replied: “This is my book, my master, my teacher”.
Meditation, the hour devoted to God, is source of every light and wisdom. But the timetable still grants much time to study: two hours of Strict Silence, one hour of Teaching, one hour of duties of the Ordained Son (Interpretation and Study), and even thirty minutes at night. Those who love study and wish to know in depth have hours of peace, and then none shall interrupt or distract them.
So, mental work, although separate, is elastically located and through it you can study anything you wish. If the Sons of the world believe that an Ordained Son has no intellectual work it is because they do not know life in Community.
These six hours of intellectual work are compensated by six hours of manual work to restore energies.
These hours of manual work are glorious for many Sons.
Basically, manual work removes every evil from mind and heart. But also it is hour of delight; it must be fulfilled in silence and leads to an activity that sometimes becomes entirely unconscious. Hence the teaching: when Sons are assembled, they have to sing hymns, recite prayers or read teachings.
So, by purifying the body not only of physical evils, but also of astral and mental evils, the Son has time to unite his thought with God.
But sometimes you observe that many Sons that have to be alone do not get used to pray and recite psalms and prayers. They do so internally, but everything would be all right if they would keep this custom.
Also, through manual work, as in Cafh, beings qualify for life, not materially, but to make life yield its fruits. Education of the world forms fit men to only one thing, but a person must be fit and have common sense to all to possess time: to stop in order to think, reason and know how to do things.
A Seminary teaches beings to be competent beings, and not only to make a thing but also to take profit of it. A woman is not woman if she does not know how to cook, wash and clean properly. She may have an important office, but is not a complete woman. A man may be a great personage, but if he does not know how to do everything and has no experience he is nothing.
Manual work has made the miracle that, for instance, if there is a Son of one profession, all Sons may have a sense of it and be somewhat professionals: this is a reflection, when a Son acquires a thing, all Sons acquire it. Fitness is contagious if you practice it with true perfection. The Sons are on the same level; they have the same defects and the same virtues: there is equilibrium.
Also, for instance you cannot imagine an electrical engineering as an exclusively electrical engineer. He must be somewhat smith, somewhat carpenter; he must know manual crafts of any kind, and anything that may be useful in a Community. This must be cared in the Seminary; the Director must be very clever, especially teaching the Sons what they do not know. When a Daughter leaves the Seminary she must be perfectly fit to cook. Men must be fit to heavy works. If their health is poor, then they are not fit to this life. The Sons must not be overwhelmed by work without testing their muscles, because healthy muscles denote a healthy brain and ready mind.
Also women must fulfill her little heavy tasks, and mainly must be tested in kitchen and laundry. So when those beings leave the Seminary they are men and women. What they know remains forever.
The other twelve hours in the timetable of the Community are extraordinarily important for the conquest of time: six hours of active relaxation and six hours of passive relaxation.
Most times men are not fit to life because live a hectic, unnatural life; and human nature demands certain needs to meet.
It is difficult to imagine the power of adaptation and resistance of human nature, but if you require too much from it, then it is broken before time. So Humanity is today prematurely sick; but not physically, because of certain defined evil, but because of a nervous disease continuously reflected on tiredness and stomach and intestine discomforts. People have no time for nature, and must pay for it: the operative, mental part suffers. With no time to eat or for a short recreation, human amusement is non-existent; you may spend your Sunday or weekend relaxing in the country and by the river, but this is useless if during all the week your physical body is extremely demanded.
Six hours of active relaxation activate the subconscious of being.
Once a Son of the world said: “How long time the Ordained Sons devote to eat and relax! They waste too much time”. This good Son was not aware of the wise timetable and its rules. Nature is not a machine that works and never stops.
Meals are really important and need their time. In its assigned time, your stomach secretes necessary digestive juices to transform your meal into life.
That is why the Regulation marks six hours for relaxation: recreation, meals and tidiness. But usually Sons and Daughters of Community do not make good use of these hours. Nature ever tends to act improperly. It is a very natural inclination of being not to do things on time, and it is so easy not to do it! Superiors are not free of their holy obligation with the Divine Mother and must perfectly respect the timetable. A fault may appear there and transform everybody into slaves of time. Every hour do what you must do.
For instance: if in your break you are relaxed, this time passes unnoticed. But if you are restless or if you suffer, then you have to leave your recreation for a while. This means that something happens: perhaps you are annoyed or upset. But if you are entirely surrendered, they you do not need to leave your companions.
Also there is another terrible habit: you need to do another thing precisely during the break. This is a loss because you avoid your recreation for a work not fulfilled in due time. You will find time to do it; of course, you will never have time for anything if you study during the hour of manual work.
Superiors and Vice-Superiors must lead the Sons to love recreation during the time of rest. Although you sew or knit during your recreation, this time of work is different from that of manual work: that is, you do not realize what you are doing.
When in recreation time two Sons have to wash and dry dishes, the Son that washes must be quick and work without many assistants. One washes dishes; as soon as he ends up, if the Son that dries is present, the former runs and comes back to recreation. When in a Community there are two Sons, all is more difficult because there is more companionship and they help each other in everything, but observance decays.
The Son must live his recreation. If he wants to help too much, then there is no relaxation, there is much activity and recreation is non-existent.
Six hours to sleep are of passive relaxation.
The Sons have to sleep six hours. The body of young people needs to sleep; then it is better to study less and to sleep more. Later, as the time passes by, they have to sleep six hours. If you notice that they do not sleep properly at night, then you must not sleep a nap.
At present, the nervous structure of a human being can be compared with a panel with little lights blinking continuously. Nervous system is like the tick-tock of a clock. But this rhythm does not remains in human beings; it is like a lightening, an outburst and later, silence; or like a car starting at full power and stopping at once.
This disappears thanks to the timetable of Community.
Your body restores its nervous system when you sleep, but ordinary beings have to sleep much because they do not reach the very deep dimension of sleep; if they attained it, thirty minutes would be enough.
Six hours of sleep are enough when the Son is able to adapt to the timetable of Community. Life in Community is shaped in such a way that transforms the organism into a perfect clock.