Course XIII - Teaching 2: Discriminative Asceticism

It is fundamental to know how to discern in order to guide souls through prayer asceticism.
What kind of exercise is fit for inner characteristics of each beginner and what type of mystique is convenient for him should be known.
He should be given fit teaching for every moment of his spiritual development, not accelerating inner processes, and letting the Divine Mother to operate in the soul.
Exercises of meditation should not be forsaken as soon as some glimpses of contemplation have been attained.
Possible difficulties and trials to overcome in different (physical, rational, affective and spiritual) stages should be known beforehand.
Guide should be given not touching particularly the illuminative way.
Continuously, realization in the mystical way should not be lost of sight as a whole.
Basic dangers such as psychical deviations and dehumanization should be avoided.
Experimentally, the human soul course to follow should be known.
This knowledge cannot be attained by any sure means; the exact knowledge about souls and their way can be given only by deep inner life and soul participation. “Nothing is difficult for the one who loves.”
Life in the world is asceticism, but not asceticism oriented and concentrated on the divine realization which is that of integral values of the individual being, but scattered, disordered asceticism lacking a conscious objective in man.
So far human asceticism has not been effective means to realization of the individual; progress of institutions has been in them like independent abstractions from human reality.
Asceticism in the world, more than means to realization, is continuous atonement of mistakes in man. Therefore, all efforts through mystical ways make lead souls to stop being identified with the world and make of the world what the world is: a realization instrument. All mental and emotional powers are brought into action in order to produce detachment from the world, since one needs both quite clear discernment and inner strength as well to transcend the attraction of human goods.
It is not enough to know that the world is not ours; we should detest it and feel desolate in it. At the same time, one causes the whole emotional power to emerge from unknown depths of the heart in order to maintain this power more and more steadily in the thought and ideal image of the Divine Good that we wish to achieve.
Outer and inner rules are given so that, in this world and according to the place occupied in it and to the type of life chosen, all simple deeds may become effective means to divine realization, and specific exercises are taught in order to canalize affections, check passions and to strengthen mental powers in the individual being.