Course XVII - Teaching 6: Contemplation

Renunciation leads naturally to contemplation. One cannot define Renunciation itself. There is void between perfect state and ascetic state, and a continuous Renunciation of the soul should fill this void.
Renunciation actions mean privation, mortification and discipline. But external and internal actions break any real tie. Ambition, possessiveness, blood and affection ties, and attachment to life demand whole asceticism for their sublimation as divine love.
Innwe asceticism needs external action, not only as confirmation, but also as method. “I cannot know if I love myself until I decide never to talk about me, or about my sorrows, problems, desires and difficulties, and even about my virtues. I cannot keep my soul silent if I am unable to keep my lips silent. I cannot say I am detached from the world if I am unable to stop my eyes seeing the world ceaselessly. I cannot feel I have broken blood ties, until wellbeing and happiness of any person is as important as wellbeing and happiness of my kindred, and until my dear ones do not occupy in my heart more room than any soul. I cannot say I have renounced to my own life when my person, my future, my needs and my achievements are more important to me than those of my Sons or those of the world.” This attitude always transcends outside through gestures, glances, postures, words, talks and events of living.
Asceticism must take place conjointly; inner renunciation gives rise to outer mobility, and outer control gives rise to a new soul attitude.
Renunciation transforms each Cafh’s Son into ideal, perfect and impersonal Son. This integral asceticism, particularly by acting on your whole being, always must result in mystical contemplation. Your whole being experiences a transformation.
Seemingly so simple actions (a posture, a glance, a silence or a continuous work), which form this internal and external control, demand will and efforts totally devoted to achieve perfect Renunciation. Really they are death to the external man and, if you analyze them properly, you shall see how, without any further quest, successive stages and achievements derive from them one after the other; the soul must experience all this until the Divine Mother’s realization and its expansive consequences of participation and presence.
The secret of spiritual contemplation is not a secret: simple actions give divine results. But the simplest actions are the hardest actions to do, when they must persist on time, as a dry routine, without immediate possessions within our reach, and being ourselves sustained just by an extraordinary love to Renunciation, which is the Divine Mother.
In fact, an accurate definition of contemplation might be impossible, but certainly there are ascetic-mystical rules leading to contemplation. As a whole, these rules organized as a method of living, are named “state of perfection”, adopted by all religious and spiritual systems that aim at the union of man with God. But, all men can achieve this asceticism-mystique by whatever means and in whatever place. Asceticism-mystique of Renunciation can be summed up as follows: Silence, Patience and Routine.