Course XIV - Teaching 5: Retirement

Spiritual Retirement or entire detachment from the world during a year is indispensable to a proper development of ascetic exercises.
When a disciple is sufficiently advanced in concentration, he can abstract his mind whether in the most silent cavern or in the most boisterous metropolis, but as disciplinary postulate has to seek his periodical detachment from the world.
Just as office workers anxiously expect the weekend to go out of the city, to go to the country, to get some fresh air and freely live in contact with Nature to invigorate the physical body, so mind needs its rest and change of environment to be pervaded by magnetism and to renew its vigor.
You can do different Spiritual Retirements during the year.
One annual 8-15 day Retirement.
One quarterly 1-2 day Retirement.
One monthly 1-day Retirement
The annual Retirement must be extremely detached and rigorous. Seek a silent place, far from noises and usual point of residence, and try to leave entirely any worry aside. Think that you broke with the world and are without job, family, friends and responsibilities. Try no to talk at all about things referred to your private life and that no strange thought disturbs your mind. Since this annual Retirement is made in common with other companions, obey entirely the person that leads the Retirement and the established timetable.
In the morning, rise your thought to the Divine Mother and Masters for their orientation during the day toward the noble purpose already established; if the subject is not previously determined, then choose a subject of prayer as your guide during the day; later fulfill your hour of meditation.
Listen very closely at the teaching and lectures, and try to keep in mind the main points to consider them later.
Next go out and in the open invigorate your body with handicrafts, suitable respiratory exercises and baths with natural water of river, sea or cascade.
Then you shall take a long stroll and prevent your mind from thinking anything strange to natural forms that you are observing in the way.
When you are back, you shall study teachings related to your daily meditation until lunch time. In your breaks you should converse about spiritual or helpful things and avoid excessive laugh, ordinary talk and controversies.
You should keep absolute silence during hours not devoted to strolls.
In the morning, you should raise your thought to the Divine Mother and the Master for their guide, during the day, toward the noble end established and, if this end is not established beforehand, choose a subject about prayer as your guide for the whole day; later do your meditation hour.
After lunch, your long rest shall enable dreams to continue the mental work.
The afternoon shall be more or less divided as the morning: before you retire, in your backward survey, try to recall those more stimulating subjects and words for your devotion and attention all day long, which may be a helpful guide after you finish your Retirement.
The quarterly Retirement shall be performed as the annual Retirement, with little variations.
If the disciple cannot get teachings and lectures, he shall prescribe his own subjects for daily meditation or shall read them on a proper book.
Every person can make his monthly Retirement at home or in the open.
Some people have at home a room particularly devoted to prayer and study; it is a little sanctuary where none enters and whose purity is kept by prayers and holy thoughts. There the disciple can be detached and meditate, read spiritual writings and be encouraged at hard moments.
The timetable for Retirements will be as follows: in the morning, when you get up, one hour for tiding yourselves up: later, thirty minutes of meditation. Do not eat anything until after his exercise, and you will have breakfast only after it. And have thirty minutes for this purpose. At once you shall go to the teaching, which shall last one hour. Manual crafts shall take place when this hour finished.
You should do your best in your works, not intervening in tasks of others, and conversing only about indispensable things.
Later you’ll have thirty minutes for lunch and thirty minutes of recreation.
Later the silence shall be strict, and not only none shall speak during it, but even every one shall remain in his bedroom or proper place avoiding any annoying noise.
In the afternoon, silence shall last two hours. Later you shall study until the refreshment time, which shall last thirty minutes.
Later a lecture shall be given, which shall last thirty minutes. Next, thirty minutes of meditation and later we will make a stroll until the supper time. Make the stroll all together, not moving away or forming groups apart, and converse about spiritual things.
After the stroll, thirty minutes for the supper and thirty minutes of recreation. Later you’ll have thirty minutes of spiritual reading and fifteen minutes of backward examination.
Then the silence shall be strict and doors of the house will be under lock and key.
In the morning of the last day of Retirement, you shall be given an exhortation, and after the time for lunch, the Retirement shall finish enabling the Sons to enjoy among them a healthy relaxation for a while.
The Sons shall entirely perform necessary tasks related to arrangement, cleaning and nutrition, so that no person from outside may disturb them during their days in Retirement.
You should have a wide room for study, and bedrooms properly ventilated.
For those Sons who wish an absolute Retirement for some days or for a season, there must be suitable little houses with one or two rooms, where they can keep themselves entirely away and apart from any contact with the world or men.
Before the Sons start such Retirements, they Sons shall receive food, fire and necessary clothes for this period of time. Some of the Sons shall be in charge of picking up, at certain place near the house, a letter where the man in retirement shall express his most urgent needs, and later of putting there what he needs so that this Son may get it once the messenger has left it.
Such Retirements can be done in the open, by choosing a lonely place and apart, keeping more or less the same timetable of other Retirements.
These Retirements can last several days or even months when the Sons are sent by their Superiors to a particular mission or they travel in pilgrimage.
The Mother’s Sons sometimes love high and snowy mountains though do not disdain their houses in shaded and deserted places. Sometimes they used to be hidden in remote and unknown islands watching over the Holy Grail, but when it is necessary for the sake of souls they use to abide in great cities and active centers. But all of them are continuously sighing for that place that She promised but no human foot has trodden as yet.