Conversing with our thoughts
November 20th, 2008 ~ Orthodox perspectiveWhy is there no peace in our bones, in our soul and in our heart? Because of our sins! Because we are not at all instructed in humility, because we very much love to argue and prove that we know more than others, because we do not stop conversing with our thoughts, which — along with sorrows — continually torment us.
– St. Anthony of Optina
The above quote is too long to add into quote sidebar, but it has been on my mind since I read it in “Daily Lives” on Monday. The boldfaced portion especially stays with me. He’s right — this echo chamber of restless argumentative thought is always going in my head, and it’s a misery. I think it’s the kind of thing that our current culture would try to say is some kind of secular blessing, but that’s really just nonsense. Good things don’t come from it, and it steals peace from me more often than I can bear to think of. Replayed memories, imagined arguments, dreamed-up scenarios — it’s a veritable theater of egoism. Lord, have mercy!
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November 21st, 2008 at 8:35 am
I found similar thoughts in a collection of Met. Jonah’s editorial pieces in Divine Ascent:
“…we stayed up all night talking about the book Saint Silouan the Athonite, and through that discovered how much of one mind and vision we are. It was the passage about the young archimandrite, a missionary to somewhere, who was zealously trying to tell the people that their non-Orthodox faith was in vain and they were going to hell. St. Silouan said, If you tear down their faith, they will not believe you. Rather, the way is to affirm what is right, and build on it.”
…
“[The Abbot of Valaam Monastery in Russia] had to return to the main monastery, leaving us with Father Isaakiy [of Valaam’s Skete of the Forerunner]. We began to talk about spiritual warfare; Father Isaakiy was known among the brothers for the intensity and tangibility of his battles. We experienced first hand an example of that warfare, which brought us to greater sobriety.
Then the question was posed about how we grow to spiritual maturity. This began a wonderful conversation that lasted for several hours. In this conversation, I discovered Father Isaakiy to be not only a man of profound spiritual life, but an intellectual of the first class, well educated and very well read. The focus of the discussion was about the works of Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), the founder of the Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Essex, England, and disciple of Saint Silouan.
How do we grow from a psychological religious life to true spirituality, s dushevnosti do duxovnosti? How do we attain authentic personhood? What is the meaning of noetic vision in this quest?
In the beginning of our spiritual journey, when we are spiritually immature, our entire religious outlook is ego-centered, emotional, and rational. The deeper level of awareness, the noetic consciousness, has not yet been fully opened. We don’t know our true self, and we live in function of rules and external observance. Our prayer is words in the mind, and not yet descended to the heart. We love God from duty, and our neighbor from obedience. Yet, it all remains self-centered, ego-centered. We want to be “right,” and we zealously defend our positions, whether doctrinal, ritual, or otherwise. In short, we are our egos, defined by our passions. We are far from being authentic persons, caught up in our isolated individualism.
As we grow, and gain more and more control over our passions, and our soul is purified, grace illumines our spiritual (noetic) consciousness. We become more aware of God’s presence, more aware of the other. We move away from our self-centeredness, to the restoration of the focus of our attention on God. As this happens, as Father Isaakiy put it, our own personal “I” expands, and encompasses others, so that we cannot conceive of ourselves in isolation from God and our brothers; they are who “I” am, and “I” includes them. It is the bond of authentic spiritual love, powered by grace. The more we grow in this noetic consciousness, the more our love embraces all those around us. We pray from the heart for them, and for the whole world. We are purified by grace, so that we can authentically love in a purely unselfish way. This is the essence of what it means to be a Christian: to authentically love.
By truly loving God and our neighbor – for our love for our neighbor is the criterion of our love of God (cf. 1 John) – we are purified, illumined, deified. We are healed from our fallenness, from our ego or self-centeredness, from the tyranny of our rational and emotional consciousness. The passions come under our control, subordinated to the love of the Other. We become purified of all that focuses us in ourself, and becomes a barrier to love.
“Our brother is our life” as St. Silouan said. This is what authentic monasticism is: the love of our neighbor. The more purified our love is, the more we actualize our own personhood, and the more our personal “I” expands, to include the whole monastic brotherhood, the town, the region, the country, the Church, the whole world. The saints are those whose “I” includes the whole Church, and their prayer is for all as their true self. Having attained to true personhood, to authentic spiritual maturity, the Christian realizes in his life what Father Sophrony calls “the hypostatic principle,” existence like that of Christ, in Christ, for Christ, as Christ. Our deification is realized in becoming perfected in love, embracing the whole creation, as Christ did, and being grounded in His divine Person. It is a state of true synergy with God: our love in cooperation with His love, which is His energy, His grace, His life.” (emphasis mine).
- From “A Vision of Contemporary Monasticism: Valaam and Elder Sophrony” by Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen), Divine Ascent, No. 9 (2003)
November 21st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Wow. What an amazing passage that is (and MANY thanks for taking the time to input the entire thing!)
‘…we are our egos, defined by our passions…’ There’s something to chew on.
Many years to Met. Jonah!
November 21st, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Ooooh, how true that is, Grace. Thank you.
November 22nd, 2008 at 1:07 am
Nice post. Did you see this NPR piece: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96213400