Magnetism
To reach the top of a mountain we often have to climb, we have to literally climb rock walls and takes experience, physical training, a flexible centre of gravity, balance, and we need to follow precise rules, otherwise we may not only fail to reach the top, but we can also fall and die. Climbing requires a perfect knowledge and use of physical laws related to gravity, good balance, human physical strength, so that we can pull and push safely and effectively, without wasting power.
Without the knowledge and implementation of these and other precise fundamental laws, hiking, ice and rock climbing are not possible, or they become very dangerous and we cannot achieve our objectives.
If, instead of climbing or hiking we want to hang glide to the top, we must learn to fly. Flying requires the knowledge of other laws and practices to develop different skills. In order to fly we must have the courage to take off from ground. It is taken for granted, but indispensable. In order to fly we have to jump, and each time we risk our lives.
Every time we leave the ground, nothing supports us, there is nothing we can hold onto. It is a new dimension, a totally different story.
In God's Laws, His commandments are essential to climb the heights of our daily existence, to get through the rough, difficult terrain of human relationships, social relations, economic exchanges and use of earthly resources. The Commandments are the basic laws to follow if we want to ensure a minimum of human dignity and peaceful coexistence.
Do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness are basic principles that we need to follow if we want to live in a sufficiently easy way and without tripping and falling into the terrible abysses and ravines of stupidity, war and self-destruction.
A man ran up toward Jesus, kneels down before Him, but he does not ask for miracles or healing. The man asks the Master what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus answers: You know the commandments. According to biblical terminology, to know means to love deeply, to let a reality enter into one's being.
Before saying anthing else, Jesus verifies whether the man knows the commandments, if he has let God's commandments - those fundamental and primordial laws about social life and human survival - enter deeply into his heart and daily practice. The man responds in an affirmative way. Jesus looks at him, loves him, favors him and chooses him. At that point, realizing that the man is able to live his life according to the laws of God, Jesus proposes the jump. The Master can show the way to learn to fly, to learn to go through life in a different, more luminous, more economic, advantageous way. The Master can go beyond the laws of survival, that is beyond those powerful, but basic commandments. He can go beyond, towards knowledge of the supreme laws. The Master can show a superior way to live our earthly experience without walking and climbing on rough terrain, but flying, flying high. Jesus shows us how to use our wings, the wings of our souls and hearts: Go, sell what you have, and give to (the) poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.
Jesus indicates that renouncing every form of attachment is the way to eternal life. Renouncing attachments is not just a matter of giving away the goods of the earth, but of learning to enjoy everything and everyone without attachment, without possession.
In order to walk, the force of gravity is essential, but if we want to fly we need to overcome it. Surely the earthly mass attracts us, but everything on earth has in itself a force even greater than gravity and can limit our capacity to fly by attracting us through the magnetic field of possession.
This does not mean we have to demonize and dismiss all earthly goods and realities and doing so would be a satanic and hypocritical process. Earthly goods and realities are, instead, to be lived even more powerfully and passionately, with love and determination, but without attachment, without the magnetism of possession. Any form of attachment through bonds of possession limits any physical or spiritual movement and leads man to necrosis. God created life as movement, total and continuous movement. Without movement everything dies, rots, breaks down and vanishes. Through the emotional magnetism of possession, the burden of attachments reduces every movement and flight of the soul and the heart until man is blocked within the tight spaces of starvation, envy, fear, anger and death.
All of our equlibirums tend to fix and crystallize in some form of attachment and ensures their survival through the straining energy produced by thousands of daily activities connected to possession. There is no anxiety or fear in the soul if no attachment is at risk, there is no palpitation of our heart if no possession is in danger.
These expensive and not at all economic equilibriums cause us to consume a great deal of energy to the detriment of our health and are the source of all human suffering and pain. These costly eqilibriums reduce and block personal growth, intellectual development, harmonious evolution of emotions and abilities for personal fulfillment. Any form of attachment blocks our energy and dissolves it into pain and discomfort. Attachment is the source of all our troubles and of any personal, familial, relational, sexual, social, collective disharmony. Overcoming attachments is the high road through life. That is why Jesus, as a sign of love and predilection, showed that man a completely new path of inner and communal spiritual progress, beyond the law, beyond duty, effort: the way of abandoning any attachment.
The first inevitable step is to give up riches, but in order to escape the bonds of attachment, renunciation for its own sake is not enough. It is effective and liberating only if it coincides with giving and offering energy to the poor in a spirit of true sharing. Renunciation makes no sense if it does not become a gift, a gift made by following Jesus' steps. As He pointed out the way of life, Jesus completed His offer to that man in the passage by saying: now follow me.
Now follow me means immediately, right now. No waiting, no regrets, no parental bonds, no attachments to one's career, judgments or people's expectations. Now follow me means immediately and, at the same time, forever.
The way of life practically means to follow Jesus, which opens all the paths and doors to eternity. But we cannot follow Jesus while our heart is still attached to other earthly goods. Impossible, we cannot do it.
The way of life in practice is to follow Jesus, the One who opens all the roads and doors to eternity. But we cannot follow Jesus with a heart chained by attachment. It is impossible, no one can do it.
But then, who can be saved? Jesus' answer is disarming: For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God. Without God's help, without the power of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible for us to free ourselves from attachment and possession. And accepting this truth with faith and humility is the first step on the way of life. The first and most deeply rooted form of attachment is the sovereign illusion of being able to unchain ourselves by ourselves.
This is the first link of the mental chain that keeps us in complete illusion and deceipt and determines all of humanity's stupidity and arrogance of humanity. Jesus wisely and simply offers us the way of life by releasing any attachment, which is impossible for us, a step we will never be able to do by ourselves. It is a step that kindly and humbly leads us to acknowledge that we are totally powerless in eradicating any form of attachment, and at the same time it manifests the beauty and effectiveness of our abandoning ourselves completely to God and His hands.
The first step towards awareness occurs when a light starts dawning inside us which illuminates the first of all truths: without Him we can do nothing, nothing whatsoever. Without Him we can do nothing, nothing true, luminous, effective, effective, winning, peaceful, beautiful, joyful, liberating.
Every step, every single step we take with the Lord's power along the path of freedom from attachment and possession is a step that, by divine order, multiplies a hundred times over. Miraculously, divinely, for every act of liberation from attachment that we are able to perform we will receive in return a hundred times more.
It seems an incredible paradox. Why does Jesus propose to us that we become detached from possessions and then promises that for everything we give up in the name of the gospel we will receive a hundred times more in return? Why should anyone give up his/her possessions just to receive them back a hundred times more?
Wonderful, beautiful, perfect. Jesus' divine desire for humanity is that we should live freely and serenely in deep joy and peace, and He knows that we cannot live in true joy if we do not learn to abandon possession and attachment.
For this reason He heartily invites us to get rid of any attachment and possession with His help. Attachment kills and leads us to kill life, all life, so it must be overcome and transcended because it blocks the movement of the spirit, reduces life, deprives man of health and peace.
This is not the goal of life, this is the way. The goal is joy, peace, true well-being of mankind, and that is why Jesus, for each gesture of renouncing the slavery of possession, for every act of giving up attachments, paradoxically promises us a hundred times more all the wealth and beauty of life. Jesus does not want us to live poor, miserable, and weak, but to learn to live detached and free from all possessions and to learn the divine art of sharing with anyone in need, so that everyone can enjoy the fullness of life, a hundred times the grace and power of life, of whole life, for all of eternity.