Number 67.– The Expansion
To spread the Teachings and reach the furthermost corners in the Planet, with different languages transferred to thousands of receiving PCs in Internet and multiplied by private printings, is not Expansion of the Message, but a previous, indispensable and quite helpful step taken to make the idea known and divulged.
To communicate orally the Teachings, from Master to Disciple, from Speaker to audience at Meetings of the spiritual Director in private Spiritual Conference with the receiving soul, is not to get the Teaching either, since this Teaching is an inner phenomenon of the individual being with himself.
To carry out orders of Observance in a Community, day by day, in wakeful state or asleep, such as the Course “ Intimacy of the Perfect ” points out, is not to possess Renunciation, but an approximation to it. In the lecture “ Integral Perfection ”, 1951, Master Santiago proves boldly how to be perfect in a line of mystical development, therefore is not spiritual realization, but only conquest of a virtue. An exalted life is intensely wider than discipline in Community, hermit experience or ascetic mysticism (these experiences are especially for persons inclined to self-realization through these ways, but not for all). In the Universe, Renunciation is law to obey indistinctly by all if they want to survive. A man can find God in worst imaginable social conditions, according to the example of Saint Margaret of Cortona and Saint Catherine of Siena and their famous sentence about love for God. Sometimes one has to give up blessings of retired life and launch himself to noisy streets of modern men in order to carry out the mission appointed, as Master Santiago did when, as a youth in Venice, left behind the peace of the Chef Order, companions, Master and security, and left for a strange land, Argentina, to expand the Renunciation Message.
Master Santiago's Teachings are spread globally through the best mass media so that all men, without any exception, can know new ideas about Renunciation. It is the starting point to change. If one is unaware of concepts that are penetrating softly into the human minds, men shall never know where they stand. In these times of crisis between two quite different, strange one another and even contradictory cultures, thought currents intermingle and acquire movable, alternative and harmful forms. A guide is necessary to develop in the right direction. Such foundation is the Teachings Canon summed up by the Master with intelligible, easily understandable courses.
The book with most readers, the Bible, has been translated into every language in the world, but Humanity never has been so far away from God as today. Where is the power of words? >From centuries the Moses's Law teaches the Jewish people how not to kill, steal, and so on, but no one acts consequently. Uttered, written and digital words do not constitute the power of ideas; they are communication signs among persons to understand an idea, but are not the idea itself. Some time Alan Watts wrote, “It is impossible to take a bath in the same water”. Teachings are not the Teaching. Renunciation Teaching is not Renunciation in itself either. Renunciation is a continuous, dynamic, alternative and analogical experience. To float on deep and rough waters one is bound to swim; just corpses float and remain motionless.
Except in poetry, words are not reality; they constitute a platform expressing it. The David made by Michelangelo needs a base to stand; otherwise it should fall down if it were supported only by the feet. No thing keeps itself by its own, since the world is a compound of interlinked parts animating one another. The man is not simple but composed by many interdependent and indispensable parts. Renunciation is not reality, but law of the Universe keeping it in a continuous analogical contradiction.
Master Santiago's Teachings contain many contradictions since they do not follow a straight line but an alternative line; they express themselves with seven interpretations. Spiritual development in straight line leads to an outburst. Those mystics that achieve something, a psychic state, a power, a virtue, or a supernatural gift, burst if do not transmute it into a higher state of offering.
The Renunciation Doctrine contains seven interpretations: a first reading of the Teachings expresses that such Doctrine grants quite valuable rewards that the souls appreciate and keep, a treasure of permanent blessing. A second reading warns: any possession, even the highest one, is a trap, or a golden cage catching the liberty of the individual being. In Cafh quite few persons went ahead of the first stage, in these bourgeois, mercantilist and spiritual mediocre times. The ancient and polytheistic Amon Initiation Temple in Egypt had seven gradual and progressive chambers. Master Santiago's Teachings are a written and ideal expression of the Solomon Temple (“ The Initiation Temple ”, in Course “ History of Esoteric Orders ”).
When Master Santiago handed over his spiritual testament through the 1962 Full Moon Message, he did not ask anything strange, but the fulfillment of the following development step of the Work. “Expand the Renunciation Message throughout the world”. Resources to spread and divulge writings, and communicate ideas were as efficient before as printings, lectures, radio and TV are today. In certain occasion, shortly before his death, he had announced his public lectures in the United States, in ceremonial cloak and with a translator, by starting personally the spread of the Message in the great nation of the North.
Men are fit to receive modern spiritual ideas and concepts of any philosophical current. In the Order, those who received the Teachings were ordinary persons with no special preparation: housewives, secondary education students, workers, civil servants, et cetera. They would receive the Teachings in return for studying them, and nothing else. Every one was bound to grasp, understand and realize such ideas by his own means, exactly as even now. The dictionary is clear: To expand means to extend, dilate, spread and divulge. It has been done with electronic means by reporting the Doctrine throughout countries in the world. Any other interpretation given to the word “to expand” is subjective and irrelevant. We do not need to take planes, move to another place, or count on big equipment to do so; modern technology works by its own, in real time, with no deformations. Any person ready to accept and willing to join the Master's mission, should take only the most pleasant Teaching, or all Teachings, and divulge it (or them) through his own domestic PC. The Doctrine is of all, and at a mass media, Internet. This expansion costs nothing; it is free of charge. It is not private property.
Master Santiago was precise as to the meaning of words he used, and would not admit subjective interpretations on doctrine matters. “Cafh is a reunion of souls in search of their inner liberation though an outer discipline”, the 1 st Article of the Regulation reads. Any other definition is illegal. Renunciation is not a dogma, but a spiritual path to tread on, according to the Master's explanation in the work. The Message expansion is formal, explicit, and objective, and can be seen and touched, it is reproduced, multiplied and listened, can be handed over, and runs by telephone and mail. It is the platform on which the Renunciation ideas are established. If they did not move externally, how could reach the souls?
Teachings conveyed by Santiago Bovisio to few men during Cafh's meetings, now are divulged to remotest places by other means. They were formerly released through carbon copies written on mechanic typewriters. Now the same original Teachings are spread such as the author wrote them in his own handwriting. Communication tools and spread environments are the only change, but the real work the Teachings promote go on to be the same: Inner, voluntary and selfless efforts made for self-improvement by transforming the old man.
In these dark times, with so many natural and social calamities overwhelming families everywhere, how can men tread on the same path of life not getting lost, becoming desperate, and being disturbed in the struggle? Where can they find an acceptable guide for the education of their children and choose a non-dehumanizing profession; where can they spot a peaceful place for the sustenance of their families? How can they escape from the brutal invasion of hard drugs, TV, vogues and pandemics? There is no safe place on Earth, woods, cities or sea, and at home either. In this difficult night enveloping us we need a light, however little, to illuminate our path; we are wanderers and travel through it trembling, since the path is dangerous and hard. Insecurity overwhelms us. Fear disturbs our hearts. Is there no one to help us? We are alone and in the dark. A little light illuminates the road: it is the Master coming to us with his burning lamp and holding the Teachings. Also there are other lamps. The Teachings are not the road I am bound to tread on, but they illuminate it, show me in what direction to go, warn me about obstacles and pebbles in the way, and encourage me to go on and progress. I should not stay at this uncertain place; I am bound to follow in the midst of the storm. The Master's burning lamp illuminates my steps, and as I am progressing, I transform myself on the road.
Men need to know the Teachings; they have the right to carry in their hands a light guiding their steps. As other lamps go off, the Renunciation Message expands on Earth illuminating the march of Humanity to the new world.
José González Muñoz
January, 2006
