Course XLVII - Teaching 9: Master’s Parable Instructing His Servant to Invite His Friends to a Feast That Night (January 1st, 1956)

The servant gets back and says that none will come: one of them because of a previous appointment, and another guest for other motives. Then the distressed Master instructs his servant to go to the public square and to invite all beggars and destitute persons.
The Divine Master calls those souls that are his friends, who remained close to him; he calls them continuously; he wants these souls to be ever-ready to come immediately as soon as he calls them.
He took these souls out of the world and of its misery, and filled them up with his gracious friendship; but he wishes them to be ever-ready to his call. As these souls are involved in the world, he chooses the most poor and needy persons, and invites them to his supper. These are some few chosen souls, who can remain there only by efforts and by offering themselves entirely.
So the Master says something apparently incompatible with his love and mercy: “Hate your father, your mother, your brothers, your friends, and your companions”. To hate one’s father and mother, that is, the physical world, the blood that is race, nationality, and religion; to hate brothers, that is, the world of the personality with its customs, habits, impulses, feelings, studies, culture, passions and desires; and to hate friends and companions, that is, illusions and ideals of one’s mind. Nothing must exist between him and the soul; nothing must impede to go as soon as he calls.
The human aspect and the divine aspect cannot exist in the soul at the same time. Therefore the Master says; “Hate, abhor the world”, since if the world does not die in us, we cannot remain ready to his call, because our will always shall find certain impediment, and the soul will be forced to postpone its response to the divine call.
He has chosen us because our vocation is renunciation; he has separated us from all so that, being ourselves dead for the world, we may be ready to go. Through one’s death to the world in us, our acts become totally supernatural and divine, and we can take part in the divine feast.