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CONTENTS:
Teaching 1: Prayer is Love
Teaching 2: Clear Idea during Prayer
Teaching 3: Initial Purification
Teaching 4: Heavenly Ladder
Teaching 5:
The Perfect Holocaust
Teaching 6: The Immortal Book
Teaching 7: New Life
Teaching 8: Sanctified Work
Teaching 9: Divine Presence
Teaching 10: The Eternal Hour
Teaching 11: Redeeming Passion
Teaching 12: Holy Union
Teaching 13: Inner Solitude
Teaching 14: Mystical Death
Teaching 15: The Master’s Teaching
Teaching 16: Need for Loving
Teaching 1: Prayer is Love
Love and feeling must be brought into motion toward their summit since otherwise no soul power, idealistic dream or realization can be possible.
We would fail if we had to achieve just a great mission or to give a great idea, and we would lack the fit feeling to make it live, fructify and lead to a happy end.
Love for realization is the only thing that should crown the soul called to the mystical path. Nothing shall exist without love. Best ideas die if love does not instill life into them. Finally, best ideas die when there is not a constant flame keeping them alive.
Even mystical communities, where the only exercise of those who have left the world is to be perfect, would be deserts, “without form, and void”, if the living flame of love is not burning in them.
And this love, this lofty culmination of a feeling, is possible only when the individual being is constantly devoted to his loved object, that is, through prayer. Prayer is a basic stimulus channeling the emotional power of man toward the ideal he has chosen.
What is the first thing that any religious founder should teach, and in fact teaches to a group chosen to create his church, but prayer? What is the first thing that great mystics of east and west teach during their first meeting with an eager group for perfection?: Prayer
Spiritual Directors discover real miracles in the soul of faithful disciples who many times can transform their lives with this exercise alone.
A simple woman said to her Spiritual Director: “I like the spiritual path as a whole, but I do not understand one thing: What is the use of meditation? What can we obtain by sitting down apart and practicing spiritual prayer? Is not meditation a waste of time?”. Her Master replied; “Still you do not understand, but please, persist: Go on wasting your time”. After wasting that time in such divine way, this woman said she had channeled all his love to human beings toward the Divine by praying constantly.
Once, certain person saw in a vision a wonderful being climbing quite rapidly a ladder from earth to heaven –both earth and heaven with sublime characteristics. Interested in knowing about the life of this marvelous creature on the earth, he found she had been a humble woman who transformed all her actions into a flame of love turned toward God –this flame aimed at the bosom of the Most High, at the centre of her yearnings, and at that power that attracted her love. Her prayer had been the secret of her rapid improvement.
Teaching 2: Clear Idea during Prayer
The soul is alive and present in the depths of one’s being. But the soul remains covered by veils. The Son should do a great work, that is, to destroy those veils.
A loving feeling, based on a clear idea, is indispensable to a right prayer in search of these goals.
Words are not enough during meditation. These words should be felt within, as strong as life itself, and invincible as death.
The Son has been chosen to take part in a task on the world, and perhaps he may never glimpse the transcendence and projection of this task as a whole. But in fact, though he does not grasp the Great Work, he has been chosen and is obliged to promote his important unknown energies, potentially deposited in his soul depths; so, as a result of these energies discovered and updated through prayer, veils of the soul are removed.
The Son should remember his privilege of coming into contact with the divine, and that God Himself is claiming so that men may relate to Him directly and freely. And this right is confirmed in the Son because this Son was able to reach a path discovered in a vocational way. He may fail in some way, but the most important step has been taken. Now, this power should emanate continuously from him, affirming himself more and more on this unique idea, that is, the divine is worthwhile, and nothing more. He must be certain, with a certainty that allows him to exclaim beyond any doubt: “The Divine Mother dwells in my soul”.
The soul force, re-discovered by prayer, should be present in the Son and with so great certainty in his mind so that he may express this idea to the full: “This is so because is so”.
He can never think he is not eternal.
Veils should be destroyed and swept, but this demands a soul united with the divinr in an indissoluble way.
Intimately, the Son knows himself to be an abode where both human and divine factors fuse together.
He shall convey this formula to other souls: that of great freedom, unique and stainless.
The souls are in quest of an amulet because are deprived of this total faith; any shadow would fade away if they had this certainty; then, they would gather immediately divine light, air and sun. And this is the Son’s primordial mission, –his characteristic mission.
So, a being must ask and try to discover continuously, through his loving prayer, where his vocation can find again those divine and human values.
So, the soul is saved through an intense bliss derived from a rotating love, which is the result of a pure feeling supported by a simple, clear and unique idea, the divinity of the soul. So, the Son should learn how to love through prayer, and to teach others this wonderful method of prayer.
The Son is able to attain a true and genuine happiness by means of a prayer leading him to the pure love; this prayer shall be the safest rudder to sail through the eternal waters of the divine.
Teaching 3: Initial Purification
In spite of his good wishes for spiritual progress, continuous distractions are obstacles in the mind of a Son that usually does not respond to inner orders.
When the Son understands that his desires and interests are as those of worldly men, his entire being claims:
“Beloved Master dwelling in my heart: you have called me to this spiritual path just for your great love. How dark is still this path to me. I am your Son, bound to the great divine realization, but my mind is darkened by all those images of the world and by all those influences of the past.”.
“I am the Son that defends material interests, money, position, name, nationality, language, as everybody; Beloved Master, I am not different from others at all. This is true, You know.”
“Only You know the truth. Only You know well how miserable, poor and ordinary I am amid ordinary men. How could I achieve Your Work? Verily, how could I instill into the souls an idea that is not of this world?”
“Verily, how could I instill a cold and pure breath into them? Still there is a warm breath as a result of passions and all miseries of mankind. Only You can purify, only You can clean my mind, only You can sanctify my heart.”
“Bless me, oh Master, and truly I shall transmit the Idea Mother throughout the Earth.”
And again the Divine Masters makes the sorry being listen to these Holy Words:
“You must feel the Idea Mother that mankind has to proclaim as union of every value in the world, toward the conquest of the spirit; you must transcend those human values in order to transform them into a divine recognition.”
“You have to feel how every change in life, human injustices, miseries of the world, and continuous changing ideas, feelings and civilizations are experiences leading the soul to this divine recognition.”
“Prayer shall make you take part in all those pains and changes; so, you shall understand your own mistakes, faults and ignorance, reaching the pure world of the spirit through prayer and resignation.”
“May your renunciation to material possessions lead you to mint that new universal coin eventually used by every man on earth.”
“May your renunciation to every personal thing give you the idea of that great universal family, of that great future Humanity and of those winged men who shall go across the earth and after conquering the air shall say as they look at the past: How sad was the life of our ancestors, in those confines and barriers!”
Then the Son feels a surge of new life raising him to new divine conquests, and a holy zeal pushing him to accept life as a whole in order to transform it.
It is the high time for the soul to detest everything that this soul was in the past, including the fact of belonging for so long time to the Black Lady who prevented him from overcoming his weakness.
This abhorrence shall make him glimpse, by means of prayer, a new time of understanding, happiness and love amid men.
When the Son perseveres at prayer, the Master drives away the shadows of ignorance and fills him with holy happiness.
The Son asks the Master to discover His presence, and as soon as His Divine Image appears clearly before his mind, affections and holy wishes flow from his heart. Purposes and new promises seal this hour, and sometimes the soul leaves as if enraptured and filled with a new breath of life.
Then, works and somber struggles of men are too far away!
So, carried away by a loving yearning, the soul beseeches:
“Beloved Master, I understand that all is transient and illusory, and that the only reality is the Divine. But during my daily work, even this so great bliss is sometimes darkened by tasks and worries, and ups and downs of life”.
“I try to tread in the mud and to keep my white raiment stainless, but not always I get away with it; sometimes there are splashes in my soul. Your Divine Image fades away, and as I think over it, I am dazed and frightened because I cannot find You!”
Again the Master teaches his disciple the mystery of the Divine Presence:
“Learn how to stay always with Me by means of prayer. Prayer is a sure weapon to overcome all those enemies wishing to drive you away from My side. One day without prayer is a wasted day.”
“Hours run rapidly when you do not pray; and in the end of the day you are tired and unaware of the usefulness of your time.”
“From tomorrow, as soon as you wake up, pray. Raise your thought to Me as soon as your mind, out of the night veils, recovers the consciousness. Get up rapidly and nimbly in order to stay with Me longer.”
“Think about this: whatever you do, do it for Me, and offer Me beforehand your works, sorrows and joys.”
“The whole night I watched over you and I long for your offering of love and charity. As soon as possible, enter the chamber of our secrets, enter the tabernacle of prayer. This is the most intimate union of your soul with Me.”
“Oh soul of mine, sometimes I see you intending to avoid the prayer exercise because your heart feels dry. But I am nearer to you when you experience this suffering and pain. I ask and beg you: absolutely, do not leave your prayer. Do not avoid this exercise by looking for any excuse.”
“Why do you call me and leave me expecting, oh soul? Why do not you come on the time promised since the Eternity, where you soul looks for Me?”
“Pray to the Divine Mother so that you be attentive to this duty; in your living, nothing should be so important that makes you abandon this duty and forsake Me. Then your soul shall touch daily and continuously those so yearned and wonderful shores of the eternal sea, where the true happiness dwells. So, may your prayer be your heavenly ladder to reach the Divine.”
So, a new force touches and fills the soul, and makes the latter understand the Divine Teaching and expect fervently the time for a new meeting.
From his abyss and desolation, where usually he was sunk, the Son starts climbing ineffable regions of pure and mystical bliss; these are a source where, as a convalescent child, he shall become stronger in order to start his new life.
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.
You can compare spiritual life with a long journey to the Holy City of God. So, the disciple must go forward and learn how to travel through it patiently and constantly, without return or deviation, always on a fixed route.
The Master has to be Divine Companion of his disciple. If the latter perseveres, he shall feel Him at his side, and shall hear His divine voice comforting him continuously.
During his anxious search, the disciple asks his Master:
“Eager for knowing, I seek intensely in books, magazines, lectures and classes of sages all that may be useful to my spiritual life. But all this is useless and just confounds and obstructs my mind.”
Say me, Master, where may I find those books that contain secrets about the progress and development of being? What book should I read, and where to find it in order to acquire knowledge and to progress more rapidly and efficiently?
“I am seeking, but I do not find. Instead of leaving me satisfied, several readings leave me dry and tired, and I do not find an official voice saying: “This is so and so. You need this”. Oh Divine Master, please say, which should be my readings, and which sciences should I devote myself to find you better. My whole aspiration is to be nearer to You and able to offer to you a pure heart and a clean mind.”
And the Master replies sweetly to his fervent disciple:
“Read healthy books, and give ear to words of eternal life.”
“Read about different religions and diverse philosophies, but do not be of anyone of them; you should have your own realization and philosophy, which are those that you have chosen since the beginning as foundation of the spiritual life; because all those things that you read and learn out of the Principle dictated by Me, are not the center of the spiritual life, but a corollary.”
“Read about lives of great men and heroes, but do not imitate anyone of them, because you have chosen Me alone as your unique model, for you have to be a new model, absolutely a new man, with your own exclusive characteristics, derived from a source of true vocation: spontaneity.”
“In the Divine Mother’s Temple I have prepared a book with golden letters to you, my faithful and attentive devotee.”
“My soul, be eager for this Book alone!”
Now the disciple remains calm, bows his head, and rests. A very sweet peace emanates from the lofty and lively blessing of his Master.
A human soul passes rapidly from one emotion to another and can never realize the reality through this veil. Imagination assimilates easily any reading and inserts a veil of fake reality; a good reader should be always like a guardian, who from his beacon focuses attentively the light over the waters in order to detect ships hidden amid shadows.
So, day by day, a new detachment emerges in the soul of the disciple; this detachment shall drive him away more and more from worldly books and concepts (also with fascinating variability) and shall make him approach the Eternal Book, that of the whole experience of the Divine Mother, at her Fatherland, definitive, unique and heavenly.
You cannot start the Path of Perfection if you are not born to a new life.
The past of the disciple and everything that is left behind are an obstacle. He must forget both his good and bad actions. Anyway, his past remains united with him through the essence of good and evil.
Therefore, a loving soul, yearning for perfection, asks his Divine Master:
“I would wish to forget totally my past, by closing the eyes and surrendering myself to a purifying sleep in order to find again a luminous path that I glimpse, though I have abandoned it.”
“May I become a child again, if a childish innocence can make me start the true path and find the spring of the Eternal Love?”
“Many veils and shadows cover me. My Master, can You tell me which is the surest path, among other numberless paths, toward a true discovery and conquest of eternal values?
“Oh, I am eager to hear Your voice! Your voice shall be the awakening to a new life in order to understand simply but deeply the treasures of the spirit.”
“Be You my guide. Choose my path, and help me as if I was a child, step by step, to find the light of the sublime love.”
The merciful Master, who loves eternally the souls, causes His mystical Voice to be heard:
“Become a boy, be a little child again; if possible, come back to your mother’s womb.”
“Because I give you a new mother, The Divine Mother, my holy Mother. Remain in the prenatal state, in Her virgin womb.”
“Do you remember when, after leaving the divine matrix, in your early innocence, She was holding you tenderly on Her arms’ Do you remember this, before forsaking Her for a vague and uncertain memory of the ancient Eve?”
“Raise yourself over your past, fly over it rapidly and backward to the first spring, to the generating fountain. When a sinner comes back to this place, he recovers his innocence, removes veils, heals blows, cures wounds, and is baptized again at the dawn of the first day –the day of the first light beam.”
“This is the sure and quiet port, serene and inviolable: virgin womb of the Eternal Mother.”
“It is as if you were born purified and without past; it is as if you were one with Me since I am One with God.”
“This is the most glorious purification, the holiest baptism, which makes the soul to become whiter than the snow, and even more transparent than the very rays of the rising sun.”
“Learn prayers and simple things; they contain the greatest and deepest mysteries. With the simplicity of an infant, learn how to marvel at everything and to see everything without malice: just with expectation.”
The Master keeps silent, and the disciple remains in deep reflection.
Oh, simplicity is a difficult virtue to the soul. One cannot understand easily a prayer that says, “Ave Maria, gratia plena”. The Divine Mother does not admit any blemish in Her heavenly purity if She is totally filled with grace. It is so difficult to the disciple to dispose of everything and to throw his habits away, at the feet of the altar, and just only to repeat with the Poverello of Assisi: “Our Father in Heaven”.
When you start the spiritual path, you break the amphora full of nectar at the Master’s feet; but almost always, we keep the last drop to ourselves. Sometimes is no more than a little grain of rice, kept as a souvenir of the old life; but this is enough to impede the disciple to be truly like a child in order to start his spiritual infancy.
This is so deep that this yearned simplicity remains as a pearl hidden at the bottom of the ocean.
This total nakedness of all, this mystical death followed by the awakening and rise to a new life, demands from a Perfect Lover of God an outer and inner detachment of his whole being. From his initiation on the path of the spirit, he should get used to it, and finally one day he shall reach the purest detachment where God is the only dweller.
God, great universal worker, teaches daily to man His lesson on work through Nature, but man achieves it with sweat, blood and strenuous sacrifices; it is hard to him to overcome obstacles on the line of duty.
More than anyone, a disciple that follows the Divine Master’s steps experiences these sufferings, and that is why he claims from the depths of his heart:
“Truly, Master of mine, my depression is so great that I fall exhausted. I see how my work, transformed into a tyrannical god, has totally absorbed my vitality. Idealistic dreams of my youth, healthy aspirations and the noblest yearnings have faded away.”
In the beginning, I said: “I shall never work as other people do, who are so methodical, ordinary and corrupt! I shall work in my own way. But afterwards, those open and frightful jaws devoured me, and I became a slave of the work out of habit. This does not bother me, but the frightful established method exhausts me, embitters my life, and deprives me of sweet spiritual hours. On a little scale, I feel responsible for the suffering of mankind, and for hunger, misery, wars and every evil derived from a disordered world economy, and I can do nothing to avoid it, since I am absorbed in my routine and in the blind efforts of my daily work.”
Seemingly, these words make the atmosphere in working places be thicker, the noise of machines more deafening, and the weight of the routine more overwhelming.
With a divine serenity, the Master replies to his beloved disciple:
“Certainly, I see you bored in the line of your duty, since interest and vanity do not tie you to the work in an exclusive way. You are missing those happy hours amid readings, prayer and seclusion, and this cheers Me up.”
“But I wish this good to be permanent, a gift of all your days; I want to see you happy also during your working time.”
“If you work for the sake of work, with love, then you work for Me. Perchance did not you say this morning, I am all yours; I want to devote myself to You? So, I wish you to devote Me your work. Dispose of boredom and tiredness, and think this: I am at your side, working with you.”
“I know quite well how heartbreaking is to be subject day by day to a fixed schedule, to a routine labor, to a narrow scene, at a damp and heavy environment, with factories and offices. I see quite well how overwhelmed are you; your head does not respond to action in due course, and tiredness paralyses your hands. I see the hard or indifferent look of your companions, and the watchful and severe eyes of your chiefs.”
“Your labor may be intellectual or manual, but present working circumstances make them be more painful than before. A worker is affected by competition, enormous tyrannical machines, great factories, poor salaries and a restraining city.”
“But, I wish for you to continue your task. This is your place; live now your present, and try to make use of it as much as possible. Find happiness in your assigned task, and see on several phases of it how useful you can be to mankind. I wish your individual work, indispensable and non transferable; your efforts to improve and dignify work are building a better world to workers of tomorrow; your labor shall not be in vain.”
“Work for the sake of work. If you cannot dispose of your method of work, then there is a gesture of redemption in you because of your good wishes. You must remain there, tied to your chain. Do not you see how this suffering is being transmuted into a good action, and that this action expresses what you want to do? Work, suffer and love; through the sorrowful face of mankind, look at the expression of that monster that has to be destroyed.”
“A new light can be glimpsed on the horizon. Work shall not be a routine effect, eagerness for lucre shall stop, and those who work for the sake of work shall be the winners. You shall be like them, and then your work shall be admirable.”
“Soul of mine, continue your task until the end of your working day. Sanctify your work by desiring to serve and to be of benefit to mankind. In spite of all, men burn their dregs by working, and conquer a redeeming attribute of tomorrow through their energies and life. So, suffer, expect and trust, Son of mine.”
Slowly, sweetly, melodiously, the Master’s Voice fades away on the pure atmosphere from which he descended and spoke to his beloved Son in a holocaust of love. And his disciple feels again how new powers arise within in order to conquer, with his own saving blood, a light of new happiness for the sorrowful Humanity.
The disciple chooses this redeeming Standard at his time of human pain.
The one that some time was visited by the Divine Master and gave ear to His Voice, never can forget it.
He desires continuously to be in His presence and to talk to Him in order to understand Him and love Him every time better. In his new detached life, the disciple finds so precious treasure that is afraid of losing every instant. So, he would wish to stay always there, in the cell of his heart, by the Divine Presence, listening to the Master’s Voice. But not always he is able to hear it.
So, he feels sad and claims:
“Where are you, Master of mine? Why do you go away from me? Why do you leave me in this vale of tears and misery? When can I break these deadly ties and stay with You forever?”
“My life is death, and my greatest torment and hell is to be far away from you. Why should I do things of no interest to me, that only drive me away from You?”
“Break my chains, undo my ties, and let me fly!”
And a light emerges amid this damp and heavy atmosphere of rooms, offices and streets. It is Him, it is the Master, who always and everywhere responds to the call of His beloved soul:
“I am so pleased, you remember me during your working hours; you raise your soul to Me! You must do this always; never permit to be entirely absorbed by your work. Raise many times your thought. Your thought should be a short prayer piercing the shadow like a luminous ray. So, come back continuously from heaven to earth, and leave light wherever you go.”
“Also I would wish to have you at My side, but it is not time to it. Even do not feel you would reach this yearned union at death. Physical death is of no use to unite us; another long and sorrowful barrier would separate us. When your time comes, I shall come to you and by taking your mystical hands, you shall dwell with Me eternally in the Father’s bosom.”
Go on to work; beautify this mud; its hatred never must touch you. Reflect this good you have grasped; but do not forget: come back many times to your thought about Me.”
Remember: You should bear both unpleasant and tough hours with courage. This is important: never cease to pray; pray always.”
“When you cannot be in My Divine Presence, do not be afraid and call, implore and knock ceaselessly on the Sacred Gate. Sometimes I do not open it, just to test you; but always, after shadow and dryness, I shall let you in the tabernacle of my Divine Heart.”
So, comforted by the Eternal Teaching, the disciple strives for kneading his daily bread, along with the human and just “sweat in his brow”, that is to say, the lofty blessing of his still, silent and deep message of divine love.
This choice is Divine; the sorrowful heart of the Son shall be transformed through sacrifice into a luminous Standard of very pure love. This love shall guide ideally men around him in different ways in order to improve life, health, beauty and intimate understanding.
When the Apostle Saint Paul says: “We all shall be transformed”, and Christ says to Peter: “You are Peter, and upon this stone I shall build my church”, they teach upon the stone of our own being, such as it is, with its mistakes and its past, God wants to build His Temple.
This Temple shall be a temple of the Spirit as soon as our being is transformed and our higher nature sweeps our instincts.
When these beautiful thoughts are suggested, the disciple gets enthusiastic, his promises are hasty and easy, and experiences a sweetness that seemingly is the end of the Path, but all this is no more than a very little token as divine promise of realization.
Then, the enchanted soul implores, sighs and sings:
“Lead me, Lord, on this shining path of light; open my eyes to see your beauty forever! Change my life to be totally centered on the unique life, which are You, oh Lord! May this old and earthly body burn so that I wear the glorious raiment!
“I have changed so many emblem. I want my emblem, my brilliant emblem of chastity, renunciation and sacrifice! Oh Lord, I want to suffer for you any trial and pain and thousand deaths, to stand numberless torments, and to know martyrdom as all your more faithful servants in order to deserve Your love!”
May the spark burn once for all! And while this spark is burning, it shall cover my whole being! Oh Lord, do not forsake me now! I cannot live without You; I cannot live if I do not possess You! Do not you see I am more and more hungry and thirsty of You, oh Summum Bonum!”
“I have started looking for you: one cannot stop an arrow on the air.”
“Speak, oh Lord! What do you want me to do? What do you want of me? Tell me, and just Your Will shall be made.”
Poor soul! This disciple asks and promises too much! It is unaware of those hard thorns and pointed stones that he shall find on the Path!
Now the Divine Master is looking at him quite tenderly and covers his eyes with his holy hands when He sees an awful time to come. How many falls of his disciple during his journey! How many times He must raise this wounded soul! How many times his wounds shall be healed! How many times clouds of disappointment and despair shall be driven away from his mind!
Then the Master speaks during that lonely meditation to a soul that desires a new life and is tired of this fatuous world:
“Oh soul, first do not try high flights; do not promise wonders; do not aspire to a higher sanctity. To live well your present day by sanctifying always your little daily works should be enough to you. Follow me with submission and simplicity, and change entirely your life; none and nothing should denote it externally.”
“I know exactly what you were, but now you must be entirely changed within. First, see Me everywhere, the whole day and always. Your eyes should see Me on the face of all men, and as a veil over all things. See Me on the rich and the poor, on children and old people, on saints and sinners, on a flower and the sky, on day and night, on your pleasant work and on your joyful party. Everything may be pretty or beautiful if we see it with serene and passionless eyes, secluded in our secret abode.”
“Afterwards, you shall see Me when compassion is in you by turning you into a meek, calm, discrete, compassionate and wise being, and when the sorrow of others is flesh and soul in you.”
“Join to sorrow; join to love; join to knowledge and action, and you shall find Me; but and tell you again, while this occurs, simplify more and more your living so that it be littler and humbler.”
“Never say, ‘give me’; your order must be always, ‘take’. Do you understand, my Son?”
The disciple remains serene and quiet; after his outbursts of enthusiasm, there is a deep peace in his heart; and then, he starts his journey after he tasted the inner solitude and heard the Master’s Voice.
All is silence around. He has chosen this hour, –the eternal hour.
Teaching 11: Redeeming Passion
Before being able to fly, a disciple must remove entirely the root of evil from his own heart.
Really, this is a painful and great death. It is not death taking your body out, but death taking evil, raising from the earth, driving miseries away, and liberating.
When a disciple starts loving truly, he is strong enough to suffer for his love, and even likes his suffering. First sacrifices and first battles –the cruelest ones– are important. But gradually a disciple becomes stronger and takes advantage of his own sufferings which undergo a transformation; from feared enemies they become instructors that teach and lead.
The greatest sorrow, the hardest sorrow to overcome, is to be deprived of spiritual consolation, because, of course, when a disciple goes forward, has to go through dark valleys and starless nights; and a disciple is deprived of divine consolation by the same generous attitude of removing evil habits from the heart. So, the disciple is very sorrowful for being far away from the Master, and implores:
“Beloved Master, guide me, because You know the hardest paths of all universes, and You are mercy, wisdom and understanding. Seemingly, my soul is fused with shadows, and I do not like anything; it is as if my senses had died and disappeared, and as if I was hollow and void of any love, faith and consolation.”
“Master, seemingly, my night is long and endless. Nothing can give me light in the world. I surrender to your arms and guide. Do not forsake me; do not leave my soul lost in terrible despair, abandoned and discouraged!”
“My Master, In You I trust as a castaway at this hour of hours!”
Before this great fervor, the Master encourages this soul that is in love with God:
“Oh soul, remain on the Calvary at the feet of the cross. What is the use of living with great wisdom if previously you do not overcome this enemy that is undermining your mortal nature? Pay attention because this is a wild beast that can be defeated just by death, and by death on the cross.”
“Live with passion; love suffering, and overcome pain by sinking in it. Sweat blood with Me at Gethsemane; accept lashes and crown of thorns, and know mystical agony and mystical death; know the boundless void and intense cold, which become unavoidable to pass from the kingdom of sorrow to the kingdom of peace.”
“All saints and the true Sons traveled through this path of thistles and thorns, before they reached the Gate of Liberation.”
“Sorrow is quite certain and worthy; all the rest is vain and fleeting.”
“How can you fly carrying a shield or being seriously injured? Do not be afraid, you shall have strength to stand your pain. I shall remain at your side, and with Me, my Holy Mother, the Divine Mother of all sorrows and afflictions shall remain.”
“I hold the cross, which you shall receive to pass with him solemn trials of mind and spirit, and to be able to understand absolutely what the sorrow is during this great night. You must shed your blood on this cross, and die of mystical death.”
“My soul, shed, shed your blood; they are no more than little drops of blood; some day you must give all your blood and unite it with my own blood. From now on, know the red ecstasy, –ecstasy of complete surrender. Shed your blood for the sake of men, along with blood shed by Myself. When this blood, pure and free of desires, unites with the blood of all men, they shall be alleviated and redeemed from their evils. Blood is essence of life, and soul of the world; when you shed your blood, this blood pervades the whole earth with its power.”
“Look at Me without rest as the Sorrowful God-Man. Look at My heart as if torn into pieces, as if an arrow had pierced it.”
“Certain hidden martyrdom becomes crueler than bodily martyrdom.”
“Afterwards, you shall live in the world, but shall not be of the world; you shall be as if you were dead; the world shall have no power over you. Since you cannot be with Me in the glory of eternity for the time being, we shall be united on earth through voluntary sorrow and mystical death.”
A profound humility emerges from the depths of the disciple’s soul before these holy words; seemingly, a divine veil covers his soul, and now he is invisible to enemies.
And then, the disciple drinks at the Eternal Fountain of Love and quenches his thirst, which tortured him so long during his great human pilgrimage.
In this Temple, the inexhaustible fountain of divine consolation springs up to those bleeding souls that knocked on His gate at the high hour of a total surrender to God.
What his flesh demands is quite painful to the soul wishing to be liberated.
Instinctive nature is hard to overcome and a tenacious enemy against the Son’s purposes.
So, the Son attacked by his lower nature, as soon as in sorrow loses heart, implores his Master’s help like a castaway wailing for a safer and steadier port:
“Oh Master of mine, You are seeing my weakness and misery, and how poor I am; please, make me recall my promises of transcendental times, –those of being totally of the Divine Mother and having nothing except Her!”
“Merciful Master, as soon as my purposes cool off and grow weaker, make me recall again my sacred vocation; please, awaken me. Do not permit me to be far away from the Mother.”
“He has chosen me to kindle the souls with divine fire, and to communicate His Love to others; so, because I am unworthy and full of flaws, I need Your Blessing, never forgetting I am of the Mother over all.”
“Sentence me to death before my vocation decreases. Destroy this body of mine before I break my solemn mission.”
The Master sees the sorrow of His Son. He is aware of his efforts and falls. But also he sees a shining flame of vocation in the Son’s heart, and replies:
“First of all, remember this, my Son: the Divine Mother has chosen you as Temple of Her grace, and She stays at the most intimate and secret place of your heart.”
“She has kindled therein a sacred fire that nobody can ever extinguish. You have to feed this fire by your sacrifices, continuous offerings, love and outer discipline; that is to say, with every factor of spiritual life.”
“You should remain always, continuously, in the presence of the Divine Mother, and mystically associated with Her if you wish to preserve truly this sacred flame, like those vestals that in ancient times kept a fire permanently burning at their temples.”
“This flame goes out along with your purpose after an insignificant passion movement or bad thought; and the Divine Mother’s altar, which is in your heart, fills up with smoke.”
“So, mainly, remain retreated within. She is continuously there, and ready to forgive and love.”
“You went over the circle of fire, and found your Beloved, and She has given you Her entire heavenly heart. But beware, lest a love that is not “The Love” comes and makes you forget the Holy Mother who is on the frozen mountain.”
“Where can you remain with more happiness and riches, and with greatest power than at Her feet, side by side with Her, at his chamber of love? Abandon all worries and ties, and surrender everything to Her. She shall solve all your troubles, evils and worries.”
“The Divine Mother shall transform your life. She wishes one thing: you should be always in Her divine presence, side by side with Her. All the rest is a residue, –mental, physical or astral (you may call it as you like), but ultimately a residue.”
“You shall remain there in loving worship, and this never shall end or bore you; you shall be more and more intimate with the Eternal One.”
The Master’s word pervades the soul of the Son and re-kindles the sacred fire in his heart. This fire burns in this heart prepared to love –in this heart that differentiates him for ordinary people.
This is his destiny: to love, and not with an instinctive love, but with an ideal love by which he is nearer to God and returns the Son to his pristine element, –to his true purpose.
This is the Son’s destination: a drop of water again in the ocean, light beam fused with sunlight.
The human soul finds the divine soul! The human love finds its only end: the Divine Love.
A Son that desires peace and quietness finds a source of continuous sorrow in the atmosphere of a city. Then he looks at the sky in quest of the Divine Master, and finally confesses sorrowfully:
“Master of mine, take me out of this whirlpool where I am living. The noise of the world is deafening me. Continuously I look for a peaceful place and a moment of silence, but I find only disorder around.”
“Take me where I can be totally devoted to You, in silence and prayer. I yearn for solitude, so that I may turn all my being to God. Here, amid the turmoil of the world, everything is confusion. As soon as I get up, during my work and rest, the whole day, everything becomes a permanent run, a ceaseless shift outwards. I have to hear vain talks of men, to bear a surge of passions, and to keel vigil every moment not to be dragged by this passivity and these desires.”
“Do not see my soul drowned in this tremendous thickness? Take me to the solitude, to the open air and clear atmosphere of nature that man did not stain. There I can progress on the path. Far away from human noises and voices, I can find my Path; help me, beloved Master; I need this so much!”
The Divine Masters listens with loving understanding this request of the soul, and replies:
“Soul of Mine, I understand your sorrow and bless your holy yearnings. I know how awful is to live amid maddened by their ambition, and toys of their desires. But, My Son, know this, also you can go forward there.”
“Do not give ear to deceitful voices from outside; follow Me, retreated in your own heart, toward a true self-knowledge.”
“Do not feel you may find yourself and know your true vocation by staying on a distant wilderness, a deep valley, or a solitary place.”
“You shall be with Me not only by moving away from the world; also I dwell in your quiet conscience, in your calm mind, in your detached soul and in your senses wisely controlled: I am perfect solitude.”
“If you look for Me, you can find Me at home, at your job, and amid noises of the city and human turmoil.”
“Oh soul, you shall not find true solitude by escaping from men (as I told), but in your own heart. You are deafened not by noises of the world, but by lack of silence within. Sink yourself in your own being. So, at your intimate call, you shall hear the Divine Voice, and find true peace. You shall take this peace with you wherever you go; it shall be shed on men as a divine balsam. Because then, the God’s fullness shall not be tranquility of human silence but true peace.”
“My Son, ceaselessly look for the waters of your own heart, that is to say, the Source of Silence, where you shall find the Incarnate Word.”
And the Son listens quite attentively his Beloved Divine One’s Voice and starts discovering this wonderful spring that flows in the innermost hidden place of his being and has to lead him to the very Eternity.
Under the Divine Master’s loving glance, the Son wakes from his lethargy, with his eyes dazzled by this Divine glance.
But as soon as his initial enthusiasm decreases and becomes stable, he discovers he still is very far away from the ideal he dreamed. Then he understands this: his own enemy is himself.
At this bitter recognition time, he says to his heavenly instructor:
“Master, inadvertently, gradually, I approached Your love through Your loving gifts. But as soon as I noticed there were veils separating me from You, a desire arouse in me: to conquer on my own what You had offered to me.”
“But, Master of mine, look at my sorrow: You are offering to me the eternity; you are offering to me a victory on the very Earth, but when I want to run and conquest it, the shadow of death intervenes between You and me.”
“I did not experience this tremendous fear ever before. My entire being sticks to life with unusual vigor.”
“Please, help me to overcome this instinctive fear. May I be able to break this gross nature of mine, by preparing myself, in this way, for the hour of hours.”
“Help me to overcome right now this ancestral fear, which prevents me from achieving a steady certainty at the final hour!”
Sweetly compassionate, the Master gives ear to this lamentation of the soul. He knows the tremendous power of the self-preservation instinct of the flesh at its transient abode. He knows that this fear of the soul is common among all men and embitters totally their living with its sorrowful presence.
Then the Master suggests to the soul:
“Son, you are eternal. Do not permit to be deceived by illusion. Who cares if your body dies? Who cares if your body lives or dies, when you are Mine?”
“You must achieve only this: to perceive your own nothing and to feel that peace by which you shall be further united with Me. The more devoid you are of your illusion of being something, the more united you shall feel with the full power that I am.”
“So, every moment in your life shall be equal to many lives of worldly men, and by coming into contact with the life of others and by perceiving the same power in yourself, you shall achieve the bliss of taking part in the Eternal Life.”
“Now, nothing is attractive to you; neither solitude, nor silence, nor worldly noise, nor passions can allure you. Results of prayers are not of your concern; you are dead.”
“Son of Mine, merge yourself into the nothing. This death shall raise you from the dead to the Eternity.”
What a precious moment! Then, devoid of all, deeply enraptured, the Son wakes in Her Bosom: She knows the secret, number and measure of the whole Universe.
Teaching 15: The Master’s Teaching
As the disciple glimpses the hidden power living in him and treads on his path of inner realization, he claims, moans and invokes the Mystical Presence:
“Master of mine: You are here, You are, and I am not. I am shadow, and no more; You are light and real life. When I feel united with You, life flows totally in me; and when I do not, then I do not possess anything.”
“Master, please, make this concept about my divinity never be far away from me; may I never lose for one instant my certainty that you live in my soul and are united with me by a divine wedding. Give me the gift of Divine Teaching. Oh Master, give me strength to do so extraordinary mission; I am King, King of souls; you gave me the most wonderful reign that a man can have upon earth: to love all souls and to make them love me. You made me a Priest of souls. ¡My gratitude is beyond words!”
The Master sees in this prayer a shining spark of divine wisdom, and replies to the yearning disciple:
“Son of Mine, you possess the true knowledge. Look at those poor men! They are a drop of water lost on the vast Universe! How can they say if their knowledge is somewhat valuable? They stick to a belief acquired by reasoning and reflecting, when other idea, clearer and more luminous, tears them to pieces. They are disillusioned and disappointed because they have lost what they had taken for reality.”
Divine Wisdom is the understanding that never is enough to the Son; that is why he never says, “I say this”, but always exclaims, “This is possible, but what is behind this?, and what about tomorrow, and later?”
The Divine Wisdom gives the Son a vast detachment from any concept, idea or lesson; always a door remains open to a possibility, to something, to something that may come, to something still not grasped, and to what tomorrow can vibrate differently in his brain.
“This is a clearly intuitive knowledge filtering everything through the purest light of the infinite beauty; a luminous knowledge that turns all complex things into simple things; and transforms the most complicated problems into a simple expression: the loving glance of the Eternal Divinity, the loving glance of the Highest Wisdom.”
This knowledge does not belong to you; you do not exist, since you are rendered to the Divine Will. The Mother expresses Herself through you, and it is She who kindles with love those souls that, being inspired by Her, are listening to you.”
“May beings see the Divine Messenger through you as the sun is seen through a clean crystal. Carry to them the new word instilled by the Divine Mother into your mind. Do not keep anything. Give everything to the souls, and teach them the shining light on the Summit of the Mount.”
These sacred words fill with fervor the loving heart of the soul that is faithful to his destiny. Like a living and burning flame, he feels Her Presence: She dwells in the little grain of sand and in undiscovered Universes. And because of his full love and understanding, the Son wishes to give to other souls the Message he keeps.
The Eternal Master’s Teaching, now in the soul forever, is this all-consuming, inextinguishable fire in the Son’s heart, who can take perfectly to the summit this anxiety that is heavenly wisdom and unrest –the Eternal Teaching of the Master carried by the soul forever.
Now, One that waited for Her Perfect Lover is risen from Her millenary tomb; and this Mother’s resurrection becomes a clear intuition in the Son, who prophesizes in his heart the great Hour of the mystical Wedding.
The meditator should expect the hour for his deep introspective journey as joyful as a man who leaves for unknown lands, and as anxious as a person that feels attracted by the unknown, –he must expect that moment when his fullness transforms the whole day into an act of continuous meditation.
Meanwhile, until that day, he shall be looking forward his hour of prayer, –that of his unique freedom, that of his incomparable teaching.
He shall learn how to discover that he possesses everything and that everything is ready to teach him a science that no book can offer to him. There he shall hear the Divine Mother’s Message to Her Son, in a deep and loving intimacy.
And this devotion and intense love shall lead him every day to reduce his words, discourses and philosophies, and to love in silence and possession of love; eventually, the soul reaches the Mystical Silence through love, where as in those human times of death and sorrow, no words can ever be found.
And while the Son learns how to be quiet, the Master’s Voice shall speak secretly a new language to the soul. It is a language of intuitive love, which shall raise him beyond time and space, where the eternal spirit is dwelling alone.
In this state, every day shall be a feast to him, and he shall live with simplicity among men, but with signals of his Great Journey through the eternal sea.
He shall learn how to recognize –in every philosophy, religion, book and discourse– verities discovered by himself, and shall gave ear to the Master’s Teaching everywhere.
But the Son must come back to the plane of the ordinary living.
He shall not be the same any more, as it was before his great inner experience. His vision of a new life, and the Teaching from the Divine Master’s lips were not in vain.
His living experience, his deeply inner knowledge, and his eternal experience have transformed the Son.
And then, a new fervor is born in the soul; it is a new eagerness never known before; a need for making others take part in his real discovery of the living God, –his discovery of the divine by means of prayer.
This grand experience floods his being and pushes him to convey his good news to those souls that still did not attain this port of blessing that he has just touched.
CONTENTS:
Teaching 1: Prayer is Love
Teaching 2: Clear Idea during Prayer
Teaching 3: Initial Purification
Teaching 4: Heavenly Ladder
Teaching 5:
The Perfect Holocaust
Teaching 6: The Immortal Book
Teaching 7: New Life
Teaching 8: Sanctified Work
Teaching 9: Divine Presence
Teaching 10: The Eternal Hour
Teaching 11: Redeeming Passion
Teaching 12: Holy Union
Teaching 13: Inner Solitude
Teaching 14: Mystical Death
Teaching 15: The Master’s Teaching
Teaching 16: Need for Loving
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