St. Isaac the Syrian - Slipping Beyond the Bounds to Attain the Unattainable

Archimandrite Vasileios opens our view to the horizon in this reflection in order that we might catch sight not only the journey ahead but that we might be filled with fervor and wonder for what is held in store for us.  We are on a ceaseless journey and everything in this world is transcended as we enter into the eternal silence and repose of God.  The movement is beyond virtue and ethics and all worldly hope and freedom.  The struggle is great, but the glory that is beyond prayer and freedom and that is filled with the joy of the divine, makes all other things seem as nothing.  There is a time for everything and one cannot elude the necessity of bodily toil and asceticism.  We suffer the shame of the cross in order to share in its glory and the reception of the Comforter.  The path ahead holds violence born of fervor beyond measure.  One transcends oneself and moves from glory to glory; all requiring the death to the false self, a willingness to experience the painful separation from the illusions we create for ourselves in order to be drawn into a vision of God.  In the eyes of the world it is a state of derangement where one is no longer directed or set upon the order of things here, but upon an ineffable sweetness that descends and floods man's being.

It is a ceaseless journey, an ascent, an ascension.

All things reach the point of transcendence.  They are surpassed.  They are done away with. They cease.

We enter into absolute silence and repose.

A person freed from passions, from ignorance, from vice.  He is not bound by "the other means which dishonor a man."  The present life is not big enough for him.  He does not bind himself to the present life.

He is not confined to worldly ethics and hope.  "For the hope of this present life enfeebles the thinking."  Despair shatters the hard, confining shell of worldly hope, the prison of sterility - "no weapon is stronger than despair" - pouring forth torrents of light in darkness.

He does not make good works, virtue, his aim in life.  He attains these, and by the grace of God moves beyond them: "Faith's way of life is more exalted than virtue, and its labor is not works, but perfect rest and consolation."

Calmly he moves on beyond the bounds of motion, speech, sensation, knowledge, activity of any kind.  "He becomes a free man and a ruler of himself, and as a son of God with authority he freely wields all things."

In the end he casts off even his own freedom. "Then a man's nature is deprived of its free will . . . it is led whither it knows not by some other power . . . at that moment it is held fast in captivity."  He finds himself then in the "ignorance" which is above all knowledge and the "captivity" which is above all freedom.

He has broken every barrier.  He has attained the Unattainable.  "His intellect is confounded and swallowed up in awestruck wonder, and forgets the very desire of its own entreaty."

From now on "the mind no longer possesses prayer, or movement, or weeping, or dominion, or free will or supplication, or desire, or fervent longing for things hoped for in this life or in the age to come."

But getting there takes a real struggle.  And Abba Isaac does not merely speak to you about this.  You see him in his book actually going beyond the bounds of corruption.  You can make out the divine changes in his person and the fact that he is wholly in that realm which is beyond the world, where everything has been done away with and transcended.

Now, "making his abode in the glory which brings joy," he reveals through his being how the spiritual laws work and how one progresses towards transcendence in all areas, subjects and levels.

Each thing has its own rhythm and its own time.  You have to wait and let it move along on its own.

An illness has to go run its course before it leaves the patient.  A fruit has to go through all the stages, in appropriate climatic conditions, in order to ripen.

We cannot ask for things that have their proper time when it is not their proper time.  

"When it is not the proper time, let us not yearn after the lofty things, let us not yearn after the lofty things of the noetic discipline, lest we be made a laughing stock by our cunning adversary."

"Every man that before the time begins things that are beyond his measure makes his harm twofold."

We should not ask for things that prosper in one particular place where it is not the place for them.  "Let every work be honored  in its own place, lest we become confused in our discipline."

So then all this is necessary - a place, a time, a special procedure - in order for something genuine and true to come out of what we do.  ("There is an order for every work, and for every discipline there is a fixed time."  Afterwards, this outcome speaks, stands and comforts man in every time and place.

Physical toil precedes spiritual rest. "And just as in the beginning, the fashioning of the body preceded the inbreathing of the soul, so the works of the body precede the labor of the soul."  "Regard every virtue performed without bodily toil as premature, stillborn fruit of the womb."

First comes force and toil, and later we reach the point where things are unforced and effortless.  First comes the struggle, and later we attain to rest, enjoyment and plentitude.

"Ascetical endeavor is the mother of sanctification . . . Let know man deceive himself, and imagine divinations; for a polluted soul does not ascend to the pure kingdom, nor is such a soul joined to the spirits of the holy."

We shall start, then, with the works of the body.  Matter, force, struggle will form the initial steps that enable us to climb.  Without these, we cannot make any headway: "When you desire to draw nigh to God with your heart, first show Him your yearning by bodily labors."

Without passing through the dishonor of the cross of practice virtue, it is not possible to reach the second part of the crucifixion, the glory of the cross, when man is released from passions and conceptual images.

"Until a man has received the Comforter, he requires the divine scriptures."  This is why he advises: "Fetter your intellect by reading the Scriptures."  "Occupy yourself with reading books, which will make plain to you the subtle pathways of divine vision."  "Without assiduous reading, a man will know no refinement of thoughts."  "Continual reflection on Scriptures is a light to the soul."

But "when the power of the Spirit has penetrated the power of the soul . . . then he is secretly taught by the Spirit and needs no help from sensory matter."  And "his mind will be exalted above the images of things."

He starts with teaching, and speech which "is an instrument of this world," and attains to the "silence which is a mystery of the age to come."  He is "silenced by his ignorance of all that is found there.  This is the unknowing which is more sublime than knowledge."

"Knowledge is a step whereby one can climb up to the lofty height of faith; and when one has reached faith, one no longer has need of knowledge."  One transcends the whole of the sensible world, and "perception is received by the spirit and not by the senses."

In this state, "knowledge is abolished, works come to an end and the employment of the sense become superfluous."

"Mourning is the work of the monk."  "And when the soul is given fervor, the contrition of mourning is taken away."

Tears are a bodily sign that your intellect has come out of the prison of this world.  "If you observe that your eyes are filled with tears . . . then know that a breach in the opposing camp has begun to appear for you."

"But when the mind is exalted above created things, the body also takes leave of tears and of every movement and sensation."

From just judgment it passes on to mercy.  This is the fulfillment and transcendence of just judgment. "Mercy is opposed to just judgment."

After a long life in stillness, "you find a joy which is without cause . . . and then your eyes are opened to see God's creative power and the beauty of created things."  But even there you do not stay long.  "Since all the beauty of things to exist in the newness to come is inferior to God's beauty, how can the intellect depart, through contemplation of it, from the beauty of God?"

"From activity that demands violence there is born fervor beyond measure."  And it attains to the prayer which comes about "without effort or wandering of thoughts."

In the beginning, arduous toil and pain are needed in prayer: "Reckon every prayer wherein the body does not toil and the heart is not afflicted to be a miscarriage."  Later on, "a man does not pray with labor and weariness . . . but because his heart is full of joy and wonder it continually wells up motions of gratitude."

Ultimately, even prayer itself is done away with.  "For what pertains to prayer has ceased, while a certain divine vision remains, and the mind does not pray a prayer."  "The intellect comes to be above prayer, and by the discovery of something better, prayer is abandoned."

There is a divine visitation and heavenly joy which fills the whole body.  Earthly things are abandoned.  A person forgets the things that are in the world, because an ineffable sweetness descends and floods his being.  "A fountain springs up in his heart, gushing forth sweetness: his members grow feeble . . . so that because of the joy which surges through his entire body, he cannot make prostrations."

In that state there is no distinction between body and soul.  "Whenever that delight which surges through his whole body sojourns within a man, at that hour he things that nothing else is the Kingdom of the heavens save this."

He experiences the grace of the incarnation and the blessing of the union, without confusion or division, of the two natures of Christ.  He is anti-Nestorian in both his teaching and his life.  The grace of interpenetration sets its seal on his whole being and character and gives it life.  Then night and day are one; sufferings and joys are one.  And he finds trials and tribulations sweeter than honey.

In this state, the passions are confronted in a way that is dynamic. They are overcome by other, greater things.

"The joy that is in God is stronger than the present life."  There is a divine drunkeness which makes the body insensible to all tribulations.  "When the soul is drunken with the joy of hope and with the gladness which is in God, the body becomes insensible to tribulations, even if it be feeble."

Thus, "entrance to the heart is denied to the passions not as a result of struggle, but because of the repletion of our conscious mind."  "This is not because the assaults of the passions have ceased to exist, but because the heart which receives them is now dead to them and lives in something else."  "For the conscience is satiated in the enjoyment of something else."  And "in the place of the assaults another desire, stronger than them, has gained the mastery."

Fear and shame come first.  "The fear of God is the beginning of virtue."  "The intellect weighed down by fear of God and shame is not readily upset by the things that sway it."

And when the temperature of love rises, "there is seen an unaccustomed change."  (He talks about this state in the thirty fifth homily).

The love of God is by nature fervent.  And when it comes upon a person without measure, he cannot contain it.  "Love does not know shame, and for this reason she does not know to give a form of propriety to her members."

And it brings about an unaccustomed changed in him, the signs of which are perceptible on his body. His face becomes flushed and shining with joy.

Fear and shame leave him.  He becomes like someone in a state of ecstasy.

The power of his intellect deserts him, and he becomes like a man out of his wits.

Fearsome death he regards with joy.

The contemplation of his intellect is permanently fixed on heavenly things.

Though absent, he consorts with others as if he were present, unseen by anyone.  

His natural knowledge and sight pass away; he is not aware of his movement by sense perception.

If he performs any action he is not altogether aware of it, because his intellect is rapt in contemplation.

And his mind is constantly in converse with someone else.

This is the spiritual drunkenness with which the Apostles and Martyrs were inebriated; and being wise, they were thought fools.  Others wandered in the wilderness . . . being well-ordered amidst disorder.

May God grant us to attain such derangement.

Archimandrite Vasileios

Abbot of Iveron Monastery, Mount Athos

Abba Isaac the Syrian

An Approach to His World

"Be Still and Know that I am God": St. Gregory of Sinai on Prayer

In a culture that thrives upon and craves constant stimulation of the senses and imagination, the spirituality of the Christian East presents the Western mind (as noted in a previous post) with something of an enigma.  With the exception of a few rare instances, the ascetic struggle and the manner of praying that is part of that struggle, notably the practice of the Jesus prayer, the Philokalia presents a spirituality that is “apophatic”.  While it allows to a certain extent a place for the feelings and for the meditation on things Divine through the liturgy and praying the psalms, the spirituality of the Philokalia and of St. Gregory of Sinai whose work “On Prayer” we will be considering in this post, avoids any trace of sentimental emotionalism and carefully warns against the ever-present danger of delusion by false visions of light and of indiscriminately trusting one’s own judgment in regards to spiritual realities.  “In the West, there is a strong tradition of using images (kataphatic prayer), as well as imageless (apophatic) prayer.  In the East, however, and especially in the Athonite spirituality contained in the Philokalia, the use of images is strongly discouraged. . . .Imageless prayer is seen as superior to the use of images in prayer and as necessary to unceasing prayer” and to defeat the devil’s attempt to distract us from the pure and inner prayer of the heart.  This can often be challenging for those in the West who are given to understand that words and images are integral to the practice of prayer.  The stilling and purifying of the intellect (nous), that is the eye of heart, is essential in the Philokalic tradition.  “Unceasing prayer is an inner activity of the intellect, and the lack of outward expression does not mean that it has ceased.”  Rather, the goal is to open the heart fully and completely to the indwelling presence of Christ: “The aim of the Jesus Prayer, as of all prayer, is to reveal in a conscious and dynamically active way ‘the energy of the Holy Spirit, which we have already received in baptism.’  Through the invocation of the Holy Name, we are enabled to pass from the stage when baptismal grace is present in our hearts merely in a hidden and unconscious manner, to the point of full awareness at which we experience the activity of this grace directly and consciously.”  

As we shall see in the writings of St. Gregory, this is a labor of love that requires patience, endurance, humility and, most of all, the grace of God. 

“No one can master the intellect (nous) unless he himself is mastered by the Spirit.  For the intellect is uncontrollable, not because it is by nature ever-active, but because through our continual remissness it has been given over to distraction and has become used to that.  When we violated the commandments of Him who in baptism regenerates us we separated ourselves from God and lost our conscious awareness of Him and our union with Him.  Sundered from that union and estranged from God, the intellect is led captive everywhere; and it cannot regain its stability unless it submits to God and is stilled by Him, joyfully uniting with Him through unceasing and diligent prayer and through noetically confessing all our lapses to Him each day. . . ; for the mind is brought under control only in those who have been made perfect by the Holy Spirit and who have attained a state of total concentration upon Christ Jesus” (Philokalia, Vol. 4, 277).

With the help of God, in the spiritual battle we are to expel thoughts that would pull us away from this concentration upon Jesus.  Quoting St. John Climacus, St. Gregory tells us to “lash your enemies with the name of Jesus, because God is a fire that cauterizes wickedness.”  When embattled and overcome, we are to call out to God who will be prompt to help and “will speedily come to the defense of those who wholeheartedly call on Him day and night” (Ibid., 277).  

As mentioned earlier, in this battle one may make use of praying the psalms.  In fact, St. Gregory states, “to psalmodize often is appropriate for novices in the ascetic life, because of the toil it involves and the spiritual knowledge it confers” (Ibid., 278).  “Psalmody is given to us because of our grossness and indolence, so that we may be led back to our true state”; that is, the stillness wherein one can pray “to God with travail of heart, eschewing all conceptual images” (Ibid., 278) and shedding all thoughts whether of sensible or of intelligible realities. 

Such prayer, St. Gregory states, involves the whole self and so requires disciplining the body as well; in particular, the control of the belly - the “queen of the passions”.  Gregory writes: “If you can deaden or half-deaden it, do not relent. . . Through it we fall and through it - when well disciplined - we rise again.  Through it we have lost both our original divine status and also our second divine status, that which was bestowed on us . . .through baptism, and have lapsed once more, separating ourselves from God through our neglect of the commandments . . . .” (Ibid., 280).  To humble and still the intellect, one must humble the body. Though our bodies and needs vary greatly, those who seek such inner stillness and pure prayer should “always eat too little, never too much.  For when the stomach is heavy the intellect is clouded, and you cannot pray resolutely and with purity . . .To eat again after reaching the point of satiety is to open the door to gluttony, through which unchastity comes in” (Ibid., 281).  

Admittedly, such discipline of mind and body, such a desire to foster a radical stillness and purity of heart, may seem foreign and enigmatic to those of the West and perhaps inhuman.  But according to St. Gregory this “mindfulness of God, or noetic prayer, is superior to all other activities.  Indeed, being love for God, it is the chief virtue” (Ibid., 282).  It is love and no other reason that drives one to seek and foster such stillness - for it is there that the Beloved is found, as He Himself tell us, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46).

The Potential Enigma of Philokalic Spirituality for the Western Mind

To the Western mind, the starkness of philokalic spirituality with its constant emphasis on watchfulness, and the controlling of thoughts through unceasing prayer may be perplexing.  There is in the West an almost inherent suspicion of things, especially spiritual, regarding asceticism involving restriction of thoughts unless such practices are stripped of anything approaching moral judgment or recognition of evil influence.  One might, for example, be attracted to and engage in certain practices of meditation if the emphasis is on obtaining peace of mind and obtaining a state of inner calmness.  Among those who do have religious and moral sensibilities that allow for such asceticism, the lack of emphasis on imaginative meditation on the life of Christ and his passion still presents something of an enigma. While the Western spiritual tradition does not lack such notions and spiritual writers who emphasize the type of spirituality the desert fathers put forward, the prevailing practice centers on imaginative and affective prayer and discursive mediation.  This may make the Evagrian spirituality that prevails in the Philokalia seem obscure and foreign.  Kallistos Ware writes: “Even though only a few pages are devoted to the works of Evagrios Pontus himself, the book as a whole makes constant use of his threefold classification of the spiritual way into the active life (praktiki), the contemplation of nature (physiki) and the contemplation of God (theologia).  It also repeats in many places Evagrios’s description of prayer as a ‘shedding of thoughts’, a laying aside of images and discursive thinking. ‘When you are praying,‘ says Evagrios, ‘do not shape within yourself any image of the Deity, and do not let your intellect be stamped with the impress of any form; but approach the Immaterial in an immaterial manner, and then you will understand.‘  

I mention all of this because it is fundamental to having a clear understanding of prayer and watchfulness as described in the writings of Hesychios that I have been considering in recent posts.  With the exception of a few rare instances, the ascetic struggle and the manner of praying that is part of that struggle, notably the practice of the Jesus prayer, the Philokalia presents a Evagrian spirituality that is ‘apophatic‘.  

The writers of the Philokalia, Hesychios among them, emphasize the interactions between thoughts, passions and sinful acts.  Understanding these interactions and the fathers’ use of such terms is imperative.  Before moving on to consider Hesychios’ teaching on controlling thoughts, it may be helpful to briefly consider a few definitions offered by Gregory of Sinai.  These few paragraphs give great insight into why the fathers place special emphasize on struggling with distracting thoughts.  

Gregory writes:

“Sinful acts provoke passions, the passions provoke distractive thoughts and distractive thoughts, provoke fantasies. The fragmented memory begets a multiplicity of ideas, forgetfulness, causes the fragmentation of the memory, ignorance leads to forgetfulness, and appetites are aroused by misdirected emotions, and misdirected emotions by committing sinful acts. A sinful act is provoked by a mindless desire for evil and a strong attachment to the senses and to sensory things” (Philokalia IV).

The Fathers of the Philokalia taught that sense factors can evoke the passions. The senses are mainly visual, but can be auditory, taste, touch and smell as well. In anticipation of many modern psychologists, the Fathers understood that cognition, memory and emotions scan also be triggered by such cues.

St. Gregory of Sinai again expresses these factors well:

“Distractive thoughts arise and are activated in the soul's intelligent faculty, violent passions in the incensive faculty, the memory of bestial appetites in the desiring faculty, imaginary forms in the mind and ideas in the conceptualizing faculty ... We are provoked to sin by such thoughts; the irruption of evil thoughts is like the current of a river, and when as a result of this we give our assent to sin, our heart is overwhelmed as though by a turbulent flood” (Philokalia IV).

The Fathers understood that the senses are activated by such distractive thoughts and so the battle must be waged there. Thus, St. Gregory continues:

“By the "deep mire" (Ps. 69:2) understand slimy sensual pleasure or the sludge of lechery, or the burden of material things. Weighed down by all this, the impassioned intellect casts itself into the depths of despair ... sin ... is named according to its external manifestation” (Philokalia IV).

Such thoughts and behavior can become deeply entrenched (habitual) and our only overcome by ascetic struggle, humility, prayer and the grace of God.  St. Nilus noted, "A practice leads to a habit, and habit takes root like second nature. It is difficult and painful to stir or transform a nature.”  Likewise,  St. Gregory of Sinai wrote, "The cause and origin of the passions is the misuse of things ... (and) expresses the bias of the will ... " (Philokalia IV).  

With these considerations in mind, perhaps we can begin to understand the firmness of Hesychios as discusses the kinds of watchfulness and why he wants us to be particularly attentive to these measures and practice them with diligence.  He writes:

“I shall now tell you in plain, straightforward language what I consider to be the types of watchfulness which gradually cleanse the intellect from impassioned thoughts.  In these times of spiritual warfare I have no wish to conceal beneath words whatever in this treatise may be of use, especially to more simple people.  As St. Paul puts it: ‘Pay attention, my child Timothy, to what you read.’ (1Tim 4:13).

“One type of watchfulness consists in closely scrutinizing every mental image or provocation; for only by means of a mental image can Satan fabricate an evil thought and insinuate this into the intellect in order to lead it astray.”

“A second type of watchfulness consist in freeing the heart from all thoughts, keeping it profoundly silent and still, and in praying.”

“A third type consists in continually and humbling calling upon the Lord Jesus Christ for help.”

“A forth type is always to have the thought of death in one’s mind.”

“These types of watchfulness, my child, act like doorkeepers and bar entry to evil thoughts.  Elsewhere, if God gives me words, I shall deal more fully with a further type which, along with others, is also effective: this is to fix one’s gaze on heaven and to pay no attention to anything material.”

“When we have to some extent cut off the causes of the passions, we should devote our time to spiritual contemplation; for if we fail to do this we shall easily revert to the fleshly passions, and so achieve nothing but the complete darkening of our intellect and its reversion to material things” (Philokalia I, pp. 164-165)

The ascetic struggle described here is great and constant, but its goal is not simply self mastery or freedom from thought or sinful passions.  There is a radical personal element involved in the discipline, emphasized in the practice of the Jesus prayer which directs our thoughts and our hearts to God.  We do not seek to cleanse the heart and the intellect (nous: the eye of the heart) for ourselves but for God.  Jesus warns against a failure to keep this in mind as does Hesychios in his final comment.  

“When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.  Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.” (Matthew 12: 43-45)  

If we sweep and clean the house without having Christ coming to dwell in and be Master of that house, more demons will return and we will find ourselves in a worse state than when we began.