Reflection N° 148 - Renunciation of Every Day

The Universe of the Human Civilization is full of possessions giving benefits. Even the remotest rock in the Ocean has an owner –a country, an international consortium, a virtual owner registering it. Artificial satellites have owners, even sunken and located ships, trademarks that are nothing, Internet, undersea mineral fields, copyrights, the Eiffel Tower paying dividends, museums, cemeteries, beauty, Satanism, Egyptian tombs, fear and thrilling films, suffering of sick persons, sex, medicaments, vegetative life in clinics, physicians, Pastors of sects promising Eden in exchange, spiritual retreats, sportsmen and artists belonging under contract to a representative or club. A Pope is tied for life and cannot renounce his charge, like those who have made Perpetual Vows, unless his own de facto resignation. Likewise with hereditary Kings or by resignation, with Presidents, Deputies and Senators who have been chosen for the period of time set up by the Constitution of a country or by resignation, coup d’état or revolution. It is the same with public employees, commerce clerks, and farm and industry workers until their dismissal. Even owners, however powerful may be, are subject to the market laws, as it occurs today with world financial national and world crises. A typical example is Bernard Maddoff: a swindler for billions of dollars, who nowadays is in a United States jail being accused of corruption. Even most liberal activities, arts and individual business, and vendors are subject to vagaries of the money in the street economy. In these days of material splendor, we are living on what we have, being unable to find a way-out unless we change entirely our way of living. Since the beginning, Jesus, Founder of the Christian Civilization, had an economic value used by Jewish priests to destroy him, thirty silver coins that were paid to Judas, who betrayed him. If a trivial deed in those days of the Roman Empire has been charged into cash, what could be expected from the historical development of Christianity century by century without an astronomical multiplication of wealth until fantastic figures of billion dollars, which are the cost of wars, misery of peoples, human degradation and planetary disasters of our days? After the end of this age we are witnessing, we expect to know the Renunciation Law to learn to live in the new time.

With the modern civilization, the instinct of possession is invulnerable. In antiquity, economy was based upon a well-provided slavery through continuous wars created by the Romans with neighborhood nations. In Middle Ages, slavery became servitude to a hereditary caste of powerful individuals who fought each other to appropriate territories with servants subject to earth. The great French Revolution created the right of the citizen just at the birth of the industrial revolution along with automatic techniques to manufacture and transport valuable products. In 1917, the most advanced social experiment of history took place, the Russian Revolution that eliminated the private property and maintained itself thanks to its military and economic power until the end of the century, when the Soviet Union was dissolved and the Russian returned to capitalism. With its millenary wisdom, China created the novelty of a country of two systems and soon became the most progressive nation in the world. Other small communist nations –Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea– are unable to match the Chinese feat and are inclined to the private property to survive.

But the Christian Civilization, such as it is, cannot go on ahead and is self-destructing not only by the excessive practice of the rivalry but because it is in the brink of the planetary chances, of natural resources and of the system. It is not possible to support a population of six billion persons. Compare Africa with Europe, luxurious mansions of Rio de Janeiro with favelas on neighborhood hills, or buildings and stores of Puerto Madero, in Buenos Aires city, with slums of La Matanza, in the Province of Buenos Aires.

History advances by the law of analogical contrariety. After the wonderful psychical powers displayed by the Atlanteans in the 1500-Year War, some few individuals fighting with spears to survive defending their caverns and gradually using the new tool of the reason, advanced from Celtic cities, Egyptian Monasteries, Greek Philosophy and medieval mystique to scientific knowledge and space flights. After reaching the goal, along with genetic engineering, global instant communication, virtual reality and use of all its physical, social and moral powers until its most despicable abjection, Mankind started its decline. Other generations will come in the future until the time when the Planet is on the position of supporting itself without predators. At this small redoubt, a nucleus of survivors will begin to live the Renunciation Law.

This pathetic vision has started in every region and its images come daily to us through communication media. It is not a prophecy but a reality. The majority hides the head under earth not to see. Some few face the news and wonder what they can do. Through information I have about the theme since more than fifty years ago, only the Teachings of Master Santiago, published since 2001 by Internet, are satisfactory to me. Other reports, promises of Eden, extraterrestrial saviors, recovery of the economy through technique, propitiation of planetary convulsions, television and virtual worlds, et cetera, are of no use; or rather they are helpful to enrich a minority of tricksters. But it is necessary to survive and in the Teachings we find guides that will point out possible paths within our reach, whether staying in a big city, working on a factory or tilling the earth. We will not save the Planet because it is already sentenced, but we will contribute to keep the Renunciation Message for future generations that will come as our descendants. To achieve it we should practice the Renunciation now, all days.

Renunciation is not theoretical but an intimate and solitary practice, even when it can be achieves in small groups. The key is in a change of values, produced voluntarily and sometimes spontaneously in a being when he has performed his objective in the soul and it stops being of use. An instructive example of natural Renunciation has been developed in Robinson Crusoe; in front of his usual change of reality, the shipwrecked person adapted himself and after years of perseverant work became a new man who has got rid of the past.

The first thing to do, if one is an student of the Teachings who wants to understand is to see what happens in the society, at work and home, and in himself. Keep quite and become an impassible spectator, not judging only what is good or bad but also the collective forces and individual capacity, and your own situation at any circumstance however pressing it may seem.

Some years ago I met a young couple, with no children, who stayed in the Floresta quarter of Buenos Aires. They had a pretty house with an internal yard, many plants and flowers; on the walls there were handicrafts made by them, fabrics, plaiting, carved wood, leather and ceramics. With a rustic loom they made blankets and ponchos. There was everything. They were aware of certain Teachings of the Master and naturally practiced the observation of the society as we have commented above. As they had read some of my writings, we met at their house through a friend. We talked about the chance of escaping from the large city. I was staying at Valle de Potrerillos, Mendoza, building the Children’s Village. They liked Calamuchita Valley, in Cordoba, where they went every year in summertime and planned to go definitively to the mountains. I recommended them to build by themselves their house and prepare necessary things, and grow an orchard and farm for immediate needs. As I have lived many years in Calamuchita, I was aware of its generous earth when and if you till it well, with no greed. We said farewell and I never met them again but I have news through that common friend who had introduced us. That year they moved to Cordoba, changed their car for a van, sold the house and bought a large lot they liked, with water and electric power, and built a little house, henhouses and a workshop, and tilled the earth following the advice of Seymour: “The self-sufficient farmer”. They have no television set and now and thee buy a newspaper. They sell handicrafts and farm products. They never came back to Buenos Aires but are visited by friends with school children. They are living the Renunciation Law as pioneers of the coming world.

Here is the story of those two friends of mine who discovered themselves looking without passion at what was happening around them; they did not like it and left. Every individual has his potential story which waits for being discovered and developed. While in the opening of Beijing Olympiads there was only one collective experience for 3,000 million of processed brains, in the American Race every man has his private story which comes from many previous reincarnations, and he must investigate them, decide and channel; there is no other chance. In the Teachings of Master Santiago, the student will find much intellectual, disciplinary, historical and mystical help to discover the road that is expecting him. Even when the New Race will take long time to express itself entirely, now we are able to practice it as much as possible like the example of that couple of Buenos Aires who left their possessions to find what they loved.

José González Muñoz
March 2011