Many ascetical practices have a tendency to bring about interior rest and stillness which is what is missing and sorely lacking in our culture and western societies; the Third Commandment. Keeping Holy the Sabbath is not kept by being busy to keep it Holy. It is kept Holy, so you go into "rest". The Most High has indicated that He is the Abode of Rest; The Living Rest. The Lord spoke to the Israelites after bringing them out of Egypt and said "This generation shall not enter into my 'rest'". They spent 40 years in the desert, and only the generation who was birthed from those, who were taken out of Egypt, were able to enter into the Promised Land.
"Be still and know I AM". It is about doing our part to create the conditions for interior stillness; doing what it takes, to become still and enter into the Sabbath. Just like when you go on vacation and go to the beach. It's a curiosity; busy people full of worries, and tensions, come to a place in nature that is about 50 feet wide, composed of sand, where they lie down... and do nothing. Just because they are lying on the beach, which helps to produce a state of rest, doesn't mean they worship the sun god; for the sun and the sand, the sound of the ocean and the fresh air all help to produce a state of rest. It's all about making the proper distinctions and helping others to learn how to "Be still". Ascetical practices, properly implemented, can produce the conditions for interior stillness and active contemplation.
*(Passive contemplation cannot be induced or produced by any practice or effort, on the part of the disciple.)
Therefore, it is our experience that to Love God and to serve God we must first Know God, and The One Most High shows us the way. The proper implementation of the Third Commandment; Observe the Sabbath and Keep it Holy, is essential to having an authentic spiritual life and it is our understanding that there are many forms of asceticism which can help the disciple of God, to bring about the condition of interior stillness, if understood properly, and effectively applied.
*Given that someone could approach God, even in dark Faith, and make oneself available to God, in time and in dark Faith, does not in any way, guarantee, pre-suppose, anticipate or presume, the initiation, by God Himself, of such individual into passive contemplation. To understand this better would be to refer to the form of prayer described in the fourth Mansion in the treatise of the Interior Castles by St. Theresa of Avila. Descriptions of passive contemplation are put forth and granted in this book. The Fourth Mansion begins with the prayer of quiet, properly so-called. Eventually, this prayer of quiet is often accompianied by, what is referred to as inebriation, where the soul goes into a daze in the experience of God's actual Presence. This experience is part of passive contemplation, whereas in active contemplation, the emotions are aroused by God's Grace. The direct experience of God's Presence; this is what is called the mystical life, and only belongs to Passive contemplation i.e. being in repose. A mystic can fluctuate between the two; active contemplation and passive contemplation. In the mystical state the interior senses are opened and they see, hear, and smell God directly. That's what makes them a mystic. They have a direct experience of God's Presence. These interior senses are mostly blocked because of worldliness.
Asceticism, properly implemented, drains the soul of worldliness, like draining a sponge and squeezing it out, putting wonderful ointments on it and making it clean again. Worldliness, on the other hand, puts barnacles on the soul and so the soul cannot operate as it could... if it were resting in God's Presence, accompanied by nature; nature being our relative and that which we have also a direct relationship with. We experience nature's presence and nature experiences our presence. Nature can "enjoy" and support the human being if the human is respectful to nature.
"Bringing about the conditions for interior stillness can create the condition for Active contemplation; a mental awareness of welcoming the Presence of God and making oneself available in non-doing for the possibility of, in Faith, recognizing the Presence of God."
