Hi Wil —
... but I believe I've had those glimpses into momentary blisses of that which I cannot explain.
I believe so too, I believe we all have ... But we should proceed carefully. Christianity doesn't make too much of 'bliss'; it's a bit too 'erotic' for the Latin West, and far too psychologically suspect for the Greek East!
Christianity tends to think that 'bliss' misses the point ... in that the quest is not for personal enjoyment, as it were, and bliss is just an overload ... but then again, we're not all ascetics!
Can you expound upon what you have just stated?
What, me, blether on about Christian theology?
fnark Does the pope pee in the woods? (No, hang on, that's not right ... does a bear go to church on Sundays? No, still wrong ... aw, forget it! Anyway ...)
What I'm putting below speaks of a linear ascent, but humans are more organic than that, so a person can occupy different points along the path, be high one moment, low the next ... but what matters in the end is constancy, that determines the average, if you like. And inconsistency tends to undo all the good that is done.
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The practice of
hesychia can be traced back to Scripture ... It came to the fore in certain Eastern monasteries who claimed that through ascetic
practice it is possible to perfect quietude of body and mind and arrive at a vision of the Uncreated Light of the Godhead.
The idea was not universally accepted, although I think much of this has to do with poor transmission. The West especially took issue over the implication that 'technique' could be used to induce the Beatific Vision (if that is what the monks actually meant), and to the idea that one could 'see' the Holy Spirit. There was quite a hoo-ha, and it became one of those ‘issues’ that separated East and West, although it now seems there is a
rappprochement —
hesychia is OK and Gregory Palamas, who defended it against the Latins, is considered a saint, although he has yet to be ‘officially’ beatified.
Hesychia neverthless is regarded as an 'advanced' (although not esoteric) spiritual practice, in that it requires the total renunciation of the world. Saint John Climacus says: "A hesychast is one who strives to confine his incorporeal being within his bodily house." Saint Theophan says of hesychia that: "This activity of the heart is surrounded and guarded by preserving stillness of thought." He goes on to say "neither earnest prayer nor inviolable activity of the heart can ever be achieved if the heart is not first completely disengaged from affairs." The key to peace of mind is a heart that is utterly detached from all temptations.
Such ascesis is not simply a technique, it is a way of life. Nor is it something 'one has to do', like giving up cakes if you want to run a marathon, it is something one chooses to do, rather than any other. It's a vocation, a calling.
St Maximus the Confessor wrote much about this. Indeed, in his exegesis of the Transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah appear alongside Our Lord, they stand for the Law and the Prophets respectively, which he corellates to asceticism and spiritual insight — the two things necessary to make the journey of Mount Tabor.
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Ascetic struggle is the first stage, "the complete mortification and cessation of desire in the senses" (
apatheia), but that does mean one eventually surpasses it, or not longer has to practice it. The ascetic struggle is a lifelong one. It's a dynamic practice.
Once a man makes that choice, then the entire pantheon of the angels and the saints open up to him:
For God provides equally to all the power that naturally leads to salvation, so that each one who wishes can be transformed by divine grace. And nothing prevents anyone from willing to become Melchisedec, and Abraham, and Moses, and simply transferring all these Saints to himself, not by changing names and places, but by imitating their forms and way of life
(This, by the way, shows the error of those who read the doctrine of reincarnation as being present in Christian Scripture. Many cite Luke: “And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples also were with him: and he asked them, saying: Whom do the people say that I am? But they answered, and said: John the Baptist; but some say Elias; and others say that one of the former prophets is risen again. And he said to them: But whom do you say that I am? Simon Peter answering, said: The Christ of God” (Luke 9:18-20).
In the oral tradition it is understood that the same spirit animates all, so when the people say ‘John the Baptist’ or “Elias’, they don’t mean these figures reincarnated, but rather the same animating spirit “is risen again” in that person, not the person is risen again as another.)
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The fruit of the ascetic struggle is the acquisition of virtue. In the Christian tradition, the virtues are the gift of God, that flower in the soul that has been cleansed by the rigours of spiritual discipline.
One of the blessings that the indwelling Presence of the spiritual virtues conveys is the ability to read and understand revelation: "As soon as anyone practices the virtues with true intelligence, he acquires a spiritual understanding of Scripture" (
Centuries on Knowledge).
Maximus insists that we may attain correct knowledge of things divine, but such an attainment is not of our own devising: "a man whose intellect has been formed by the knowledge that comes by dint of the virtues through the divine Spirit is said to experience divine things; for he has acquired such knowledge not by nature, thanks simply to his existence, but by grace, thanks to his participation in it." (
Centuries on Knowledge).
Spiritual knowledge, then, is a divine gift, and this is what the Orthodox calls "theology" — not at all the academic pursuit of the West — St Theophan said "the theologian is one who prays". The practice of theology then is not in the acquisition of facts about God, but in a completely transforming process in God and for God so that, with St. Paul, we may say, "It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me." (Galatians 2:20).
This transposition of the self, this total gift of the self, through ascesis and prayer, means that the spiritual knowledge acquired consists not of tangible facts and figures that can be discussed and disseminated, but is to be understood more as knowledge beyond the empirical. (Or as I have been arguing:
esoteric knowledge.) For Maximus, "spiritual knowledge unites knower and known" in "an erotic union in the Spirit." (
Centuries on Knowledge)
The spiritual knowledge we acquire does not provide us with any "new data" beyond the Christ of Scripture. Maximus especially eschewed the pursuit of innovation that was so prevalent in 2nd century Gnosticism, but rather declares that spiritual knowledge takes one into the realm of tried and true dogma: "the saints have received the many divine mysteries ... and were immediately initiated into knowledge of reality in accordance with the tradition passed down to them from those before them." (Difficulty 42).
Not only is spiritual knowledge not new information, it is a way of knowing that transcends knowledge as it is commonly understood — and this too is an ongoing dynamic process:
Having become man he (Christ) himself remains completely incomprehensible, and shows his own Incarnation ... to be more incomprehensible than any mystery. The more he becomes comprehensible through it, so much the more through it is he known to be incomprehensible. 'For he is hidden after his revelation,' the teacher says, 'or, to speak more divinely, also in his revelation.' And this mystery of Jesus in itself remains hidden, and can be drawn out by no reason, by no intellect, but when spoken of it remains ineffable, and when understood, unknown. (italics are mine. What Maximus is talking about is true faith, and nothing less.)
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Of all those who have undertaken the path of ascesis and prayer, and have been granted the virtues leading to theology, some will ascend still higher via a "hidden apophatic theology" in which "the blessed and holy Godhead is by essence beyond ineffability and unknowability and countlessly raised above all infinity, leaving not the slightest trace of comprehension to those who are after it, nor disclosing any idea to any being."
Maximus sketches out what awaits them as awaited the Apostles whom Christ took with Him to His Transfiguration:
They passed over from flesh to spirit, before they had put aside this fleshly life, by the change in their powers of sense that the Spirit worked in them ... Then, having both the bodily and the spiritual senses purified, they were taught the spiritual meanings (logoi) of the mysteries that were shown to them ... Thus they arrived at a clear and correct understanding concerning God, and were set free from every attachment to the world and the flesh.
My emphasis again: this is in the flesh, in this life.
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This is the highest calling: if man is spirit alone, then man is only half what he can potentially be (and not half as good as an angel, who is a creature of spirit entirely), for man is the union of spirit and matter, but now we are in opposition in ourselves, but the aim is to overcome that opposition and enter into the union, to sanctify this life in His name.
Whither mountains will be moved I know not, but the world will be healed, and made whole, and then maybe the world will live for ever and ever ...
God bless
Thomas
(Most citations are taken from St Maximus the Confessor,
Difficulty 10)
