Course XLV - Teaching 13: Purifying Void

Ordination, and over all, Ordination of Community, is the most perfect practice of the Vow of Renunciation. And perfection in this Vow is a constant practice of the same steady effort of will to achieve it up to that moment when, by discarding any effort, grace and understanding of Renunciation permeate the soul.
In due time, this Divine grace runs into the soul and permeates, cleans and annihilates all, and leaves therein the great void of union.
As long as the Son practices and struggles for conquering to the full his Vow of Renunciation, experiences many ups and downs, trials and temptations, and also moments of joy, but this soul is ever protected, assisted and personally taken by the Divine Mother.
But as the soul is coming close to realization, is not satisfied with any emotional state, however lofty it be.
The soul feels the giddiness and attraction of the void, but fears to jump in it.
Here is the description of a Son about his desire of void and, at the same time, of his attachment to spiritual sensibility: “How incomprehensible are these states of my soul! Yesterday after thirty minutes of prayer, I said, ‘I will meditate in Ordination’s style’, and chose the Golden Temple in search for consolation. I began, ‘Mother… Mother…! I suffer and I do no know why. Mother, come… embrace me…; tell to me, what must I do? What must I think? Mother… Mother…’, at the only word that at the end I articulated was, ‘Mother’. Suddenly, a painful and sorrowful feeling permeated my soul. Seemingly, it was like a son that insistently requests something and she refuses to give it because she knows that it is neither good nor can offer true happiness, and that on the contrary may be harmful; that is why she is reluctant. But as soon as his mother sees that his child is so sad, gives in with great pain. So, I felt as if She said: ‘Come, Son, do as you wish’, and when I realized that this was painful to her, I was sorry and cried, and my weeping was not violent, but soft. Deeply afflicted, a purpose emerged from me, which translated into words would mean: ‘Mother, I do not want anything, anything. Thy will be done. Illuminate and strengthen me to understand that Your Will be done’”.
This Son still desires a sensible consolation, but at the same time does accept it because he knows that he has to reject all and that then Her Divine Will shall be done and shall launch him to the Great Void.
The soul finds very difficult to be detached from the volitive feeling of his Vow of Renunciation, but nothing satisfies him or produces in him pleasant feelings, and if he has them, also he understands that these feelings are not a full spiritual life. Whatever he does, internally or internally, does not satisfy him, and the fulfillment of his own duties becomes a heavy burden. Seemingly, nobody can understand him or come close to him, and everything becomes pain, tiredness, anguish and loneliness. A soul in this transition state writes to his Director: “I am alone, in an inaccessible loneliness. It is as if I was in the middle of an ice-field and far away, on the edge; friendly faces smile at me, extend their hands, but cannot come close and are just like figures. Even I cannot bring anyone near, and they do not want come; they fear me because I could cause them my own pain and they move away as if they wished to escape from certain deadly influence. From afar, they invite me to go out of this ice-field, but I know that I cannot return, because over there other people call me and say I should move further into this frozen area”.
Now the Son cannot stick to anything and is as if he got lost. The Great Mystical Death is getting ready within. This state of void is so impressive and concrete that at first sight confuses in such a way this Son accustomed to certain reserve in his personal life, that gets scared and despairs. Psychical and physical phenomena come up. The world and figures of beings disappear before his eyes and sometimes his eyes “see but do not see”
His head hurts, his bones crackle, his entrails refuse to receive food and everything is against the Son when he reaches the Threshold.
It is as if all barriers were open or broken.
So impressive and terrible is this anguish that permeates the soul that the Son just desires his own death to escape from that spiritual death that has to grant to him a Real Life.
His heart beats at an accelerated speed, his mind gets lost and cavils, his nerves burst, and his senses seem enraged and unleashed wild beasts. The soul cannot tolerate the great void even making use of human resources; a deadly and divine void takes place in the soul like the deepest nostalgia, the most marked dissatisfaction and the most maddening weariness.
Now, when the Son enters the Eternity on this solemn instant, the most important thing is to keep his eyes fixed on the unique point of the Divine Mother.
After this mystical death, in this great inner void, the soul wakes up to a new life, of infinite quiet and peace.