Course XVI - Teaching 5: The Perfect Holocaust
The soul wishing for the transformation by God and also the perfect life of the Divine Master must dive in the blood of the sorrowful passion, and suffer intensely so that the human nature is redeemed, and the personality destroyed and dead, with a super-individuality shining in the soul.
Suffering has to purify the soul.
The Master silently expects the soul’s decision to follow the way of renunciation and sacrifice, but as soon as this soul breaks the tie that obstructed its heartbreaking experience, then He instructs it in a divine way.
But eager for perfecting himself and finding the path of the true wisdom, the disciple asks the Master:
“Look at this sea of uncertainty, anguish and suffering where I am! Look at the depths of my heart: You are my only wish! I look for following You! But how slow is my progress! I am spending more and more seasons without the consolation of feeling you near me”
“I think there is no deeper suffering than to be away from You. Master of mine, is this like staying on the Calvary?”
“I understand this: sorrow is necessary, and I bless it because it shows me how little I really did. In spite of all, in this night of darkness and heavy senses, being myself seemingly far away from You, I offer to You my heart, my little sacrifices, my poor efforts and every drop of my blood shed for my own purification. But, alas!, please do not forsake me at this cruel night!.”
Emerging from the depths of his disciple’s heart, the Master rewards his holy sacrifice and instructs him with the Divine Word:
“I admire your efforts and share your sorrow, such as I promised. Learn this: when you did not see me, I was hidden in your own heart. Sweat, my soul, sweat blood. May all bad habits and all your low instincts go out through your pores along with these drops of blood. Sweat blood; expel from you all that now is not yours and that you want to consign to the past and oblivion. Struggle you alone, suffer you alone; all your friends have abandoned you, and your dearest ones have betrayed you because they cannot understand your path toward perfection.”
“You are like a stranger amid your acquaintances; everybody mentions you as a deserter because you do not share their mean lives. They are taking you from Herod to Pilate, with irony and backbiting. Suffer this, and so you shall not backbite, criticize or see faults in your neighbor.”
“Let me see your back, let me touch these bruises that your lashed flesh has suffered for My love.”
“Sometimes in revolt, you want to come back, not to suffer so much, but later your suffering is greater because you weep for your weakness and frailty.”
“Before you lived as if you were dreaming, carefree, dazed and thoughtless; but now, how many are your worries, problems and riddles to solve! Sometimes these thoughts are like thorns in your head, but you refuse to stop thinking. You enjoy this pain, because you notice to what extent suffering causes mind to be more flexible and tolerant. I took My crown of thorns out of Myself and offered it to you, by putting it as a royal crown on your head. You would rule over the world with this crown; but your reign shall not be over a world with transient and non-real power, but over the essence of things and beings.”
In these words, the soul intuits great painful secrets and understands its unusual value to progress spiritually.
Many souls have their oddities and intense penitence, but these are fake pains. True pain is closely united with life, and part of the nature of being, for a man is made to become perfect and reach God through trials and suffering.
You should reject pain of despair and hatred; this corrodes your heart. But you need pain to overcome and go forward in quest of self-control; this is an invaluable pain.
When you understood how valuable pain is to redeem yourself, you killed the desire, totally gave your own blood, purified and redeemed for the sake of men, and then you achieved the mystical death.
Forsaken and lifeless, Christ rests; he gave totally His blood, and His open wounds shed drops of human passions, which have been overcome and banned one by one. But now this life does not belong to Him; His mind is absolutely relaxed, and opens the door to a superior life –the spiritual life; He gives His dead body as an offering to the Sorrowful Mother.
It is high time to be detached from and dead to all things, beings and loves; then, one path, just one path, looms ahead in the just-opened eyes to the eternal life in a divine way.
