HOLY INSPIRATION
The Spirit of Inspiration is the love of the beautiful, the exalted, the excellent,
understood as the transcendent source of life and the revelation of Truth.
The following verses are a compilation of holy voices from the past, most of which are saints, who admonish us to be mindful of our lives so we may aspire to receive spiritual knowledge, grace and guidance from the Holy Trinity. These verses correspond to the stages of meditation, purification and contemplation explained on this site. From many different perspectives, these verses adamantly advise us to learn how to control our bodily impulses, instincts and urges which lead us astray in the material world; this corresponds to Stage 1 Meditation. They advise us to learn how to purge, manage and control our dark emotions and negativity; this is explained in Stage 2 Meditation. These verses inspire us to have a pure heart, love for one another and love for God, the Holy Trinity; this is Stage 3 Meditation. If we accomplish these stages we will be prepared for Stage 4 which is to simply learn how to sit in the holy silence of contemplation. These verses of holy wisdom come from books like: Sayings of The Philokalia, The Desert Fathers, The Cloud of Unknowing, The Book of Privy Counseling, Mystical Theology by Dionysius, and many others. These verses have been edited and updated for easy reading. May the Grace of our Heavenly Father inspire and enlighten you.
Those who truly love God pray without distraction and they who pray entirely without distractions truly love God; but those whose consciousness is fixed on worldly things do not pray without distraction, and consequently, they do not love God truly.
Just as the thought of fire does not warm the body, so faith without love does not actualize the light of spiritual knowledge in the soul. Just as the light of the sun attracts a healthy eye, so through love knowledge of God naturally draws to itself the pure conscious-self. A pure intellect is one divorced from ignorance and illumined by divine light. A pure soul is one freed from passions and constantly delighted by divine love.
People who love God value knowledge of God more than anything created by God and pursue such knowledge ardently and ceaselessly. If everything which exists were made by God and for God, and God is superior to the things made by Him, those who abandon what is superior and devote themselves to what is inferior show that they value things made by God more than God Himself.
The effect of observing the commandments is to free us from the passions of our conceptual images of things. The effect of spiritual reading and contemplation is to detach the conscious-self from form and matter; it is this which gives rise to undistracted contemplation and prayer.
Love is a holy state of the soul, inspiring it to value knowledge of God above all created things. We cannot attain lasting possession of such love while we are still attached to anything worldly. Since the soul is more noble than the body and God is incomparably more noble than the world created by Him, one who values the body more than the soul and the world created by God more than the Creator Himself is simply a worshipper of idols.
If people distract their conscious-self from its love for God and concentrate it, not on God, but on some material object, they thereby show that they value the body more than the soul and the things made by God more than God Himself. When the conscious-self is concentrated on the love of God, one will pay little attention to visible things and will regard their own body as something alien. Blessed is the intellect that transcends all sensible objects and ceaselessly delights in divine beauty.
God, who is by nature good and dispassionate, loves all men equally as His handiwork. However, He glorifies the virtuous man because in his will he is united to God. At the same time, in His goodness He is merciful to the sinner and by chastising him in this life brings him back to the path of virtue. Similarly, a man of good and dispassionate judgment also loves all men equally. He loves the virtuous man because of his nature and the purity of his intention; and he loves the sinner, too, because of his nature and because in his compassion he pities him for foolishly stumbling in darkness.
Do not say that you are the temple of God, for this is impossible, unless you also acquire love for Him through consistent spiritual progress. Nor should you say that faith alone in our Lord Jesus Christ can save you; as for faith by itself, the devils also believe, and tremble.
He who has been granted divine knowledge and has through love acquired its illumination will never be swept into confusion by the demon of self-esteem. However, he who has not yet been granted such knowledge will readily succumb to this demon, but if in all that he does he keeps his gaze fixed on God, doing everything for His sake, he will with God’s help soon escape.
He who gives himself to desires and sensual pleasures and lives according to the world’s way will quickly be caught in the nets of sin. And sin, when once committed, is like fire put to straw, a stone rolling downhill or waves eating away the river’s banks. Such pleasures, then, bring complete perdition on him who embraces them. So long as the soul is in a state contrary to nature, running wild with the weeds and thorns of sensual pleasures, it is in a dwelling-place of grotesque bestial lusts.
My Macro Pics
But the soul, so long as it is joined to the flesh, can recall itself to its natural state at any time it wishes; and whenever it does so and disciplines itself with diligent effort, living in accordance with God’s law, the wild beasts that were lurking inside it will take to flight, while the angels who guard our life will come to its aid, making the soul’s return a day of rejoicing. And the grace of the Holy Spirit will be present in it, teaching it spiritual knowledge, so it may be strengthened in what is good and rise to higher levels of understanding.
There are three principal passions, through which all the rest arise: love of sensual pleasure, love of riches and love of praise. Close in their wake follow five other evil impulses, and from these five arise a great swarm of passions and all manner of evil. Thus, he who defeats the three leaders and rulers simultaneously overcomes the other five and so subdues all the passions.
When passions dominate the intellect, they separate it from God, binding it to material things and preoccupying it with them. But when love of God dominates the intellect, it frees it from its bonds, persuading it to rise above, not only sensible things, but even this transitory life.
Self-control together with humility withers passionate desire, love calms inflamed anger and intense prayer together with mindfulness of God concentrates distracted thoughts; thus, the triune soul is purified. It was to this end that the apostle said: “Pursue peace with all men and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Heb12:14).
The conscious-self which dallies with some sensible thing clearly is attached to it by some passion, such as desire, irritation, anger or rancor; and unless it becomes detached from that thing it will not be able to free itself from the passion affecting it.
The memories of all the impassioned actions we have performed exert an impassioned tyranny over the soul. But when impassioned thoughts have been completely erased from our heart, so that they no longer affect it even as provocations, this is a sign that our former sinful acts have been forgiven. For so long as the heart is stimulated by passion, sin clearly reigns there. Bodily passions or passions concerned with material things are reduced and withered through bodily hardship, while the unseen passions of the soul are destroyed through humility, gentleness and love.
Whatever we love we inevitably cling to, and in order not to lose it, we reject everything which keeps us from it. So whoever loves God cultivates pure intentions, driving out every passion that keeps us from it. Those who drive out self-love, the mother of the passions, will with God’s help easily rid the soul of the rest, such as anger, irritation, rancor, etc. But those who are dominated by self-love are overpowered by the other passions, even against their will; self-love is the passion of attachment to our body.
Being servants of love and peace, the angels rejoice over our repentance and our spiritual progress in holiness. Hence, they try to develop spiritual contemplation within us and they cooperate with us in the achieving of every form of blessing. The demons, on the contrary, being producers of anger and of evil, rejoice when holiness diminishes in us, and they attempt to seduce our souls with shameful fantasies.
Those who live in the world are associated with material things which feed the passions; thus, the dark forces wage war against them through enticing activities and confusion. While those who dwell in the wilderness, where material things are rare, the dark forces fight them by troubling their minds with evil thoughts. This second mode of warfare is far more difficult to cope with, for warfare through things requires a specific time and place, and a fit occasion; whereas, warfare of the intellect is mercurial and hard to control. However, as a trusty weapon in this incorporeal fight, we have been given pure prayer; that is why we are told to pray without ceasing, i.e., focus on repeating a favorite mantra such as “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.” Such prayer strengthens the conscious-self in its struggle against desires as it can be practiced without the body taking part.
Humility and ascetic hardship free a man from all sin, for the one cuts out the passions of the soul, the other those of the body. This is what the blessed David indicates when he prays to God, saying, “Look on my humility and my toil and forgive all my sins” (Ps.25:18). It is through our fulfilling of the commandments that God makes us dispassionate; and it is through His divine teachings that He gives us the light of spiritual knowledge. All such teachings are concerned either with God or with things visible and invisible, and likewise with the providence and judgment relating to them.
True inward faith begets fear of God, i.e., fear of being punished for wrong actions, but there is also “fear” that we are not living up to what God expects of us. Fear of God teaches us to keep the commandments. For where there is fear, it is said, there the commandments are kept. The keeping of the commandments establishes practical virtue, the precursor of contemplative virtue; of these the fruit is dispassion. Through dispassion, love is born within us. The beloved disciple said, “God is love, and he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.” (1 John 4:16)
Natural knowledge is whatever knowledge the intellect acquires by its own natural means. Whereas, supernatural knowledge is that which enters the intellect in a manner transcending its own means and power; that is, the intelligence which constitutes such knowledge surpasses the capacity of an intellect joined to a body. Such knowledge is infused by God alone when He finds an intellect purified of all material attachment and inspired by divine love. Not only knowledge, but virtue as well is divided in this way. One kind of virtue does not transcend nature and this can fittingly be called natural virtue. The other, which is energized only by the primal source of beauty, is above our natural capacity and state; this kind of virtue should be called supernatural.
When the intellect associates with evil and sordid thoughts it loses its intimate communion with God. Some passions pertain to the body, others to the soul. The first are occasioned by the impulses of the body, the second by external circumstances. Love and self-control overcome both kinds, the first curbing the passions of the soul and the second those of the body. Some passions pertain to the soul’s inflammatory or provoking inclinations and others to its desiring aspect. Both kinds are aroused through the senses; they are aroused when the soul lacks love and self-control.
While characteristics such as forgetfulness and ignorance affect but one of the soul’s three aspects – the inflammatory, the desiring or the conscious-self - listlessness alone releases control of the soul’s powers and allows for all the passions together to be aroused. That is why this trait is more serious than all the others. Hence our Lord has given us an excellent remedy against it, saying: “By your endurance you will gain your lives.” (Luke 21:19)
Those who are not indifferent to fame and pleasure as well as to the love of riches which exists because of them and increases them, cannot cut off occasions for anger; those who do not cut these off cannot attain perfect love.
One has not yet acquired perfect love if your regard for people is still swayed by their characters such that you love one person and hate another or if for the same reason you sometimes love and sometimes hate the same person. Perfect love does not split up the single human nature, common to all, according to the diverse characteristics of individuals;
but, fixing attention always on this single nature, it loves all men equally.
“He who loves Me, says the Lord, will keep My commandments; and this is My commandment, that you love one another.” He who loves God will certainly love his neighbor as well. Such a person distributes his goods in a way befitting God, being generous to everyone in need. He who gives alms in imitation of God does not discriminate between the wicked and the virtuous, the just and the unjust, when providing for one’s bodily needs. He gives equally to all according to their need, even though he prefers the virtuous man to the corrupt man because of the purity of his intention. Our Lord Himself prayed for His murderers and asked the Father to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing. Blessed is he who can love all men equally.
Perfect love loves the good as friends and the bad as enemies, helping them, exercising forbearance, patiently accepting whatever they do, not taking the evil into account at all but even suffering on their behalf if the opportunity offers, so that, if possible, they too become friends. If perfect love cannot achieve this, it does not change its own attitude; it continues to show the fruits of love to all men alike. It was on account of this that our Lord Jesus Christ, showing His love for us, suffered for the whole of mankind and gave to all humans an equal hope of resurrection, although each of us determines our own fitness for glory or punishment.
If there are some men you hate and some you neither love nor hate, and others you love strongly, and others you love but moderately, recognize from this inequality that you are far from perfect love. For perfect love presupposes that you love all men equally.
Humans love one another for the following reasons: either for the sake of God, as the virtuous man loves everyone and as the man not yet virtuous loves the virtuous; or by nature, as parents love their children and children their parents; or because of self-esteem, as he who is praised loves the man who praises him; or because of greed, as with one who loves a rich man for what he can get out of him; or because of self-indulgence, as with the man who serves his belly and his genitals. The first of these is commendable, the second is of an intermediate kind and the rest are dominated by passions and compulsion.
If you are not indifferent to fame and dishonor, riches and poverty, pleasure and distress, you have not yet acquired perfect love. For perfect love is indifferent not only to these but even to this fleeting life and to death. Listen to the words of those who have been granted perfect love: What can separate us from the love of Christ? “But in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom.8:35-39). Those who speak and act thus with regard to divine love are all saints.
Almsgiving heals the soul’s inflammatory nature; fasting withers sensual desire; prayer purifies the intellect and prepares it for the contemplation of created beings; for the Lord has given us commandments which correspond to the powers of the soul. “Learn from Me,” He said, “For I am gentle and humble in heart.” (Matt.11:29). Gentleness keeps the soul’s inflammatory power in a calm state; humility frees the intellect from conceit and self-esteem.
Fear of God is of two kinds. The first is generated in us by the threat of punishment. It is through such fear that we develop in due order self-control, patience, hope in God and dispassion; and it is from dispassion that love comes. The second kind of fear is linked with love and constantly produces reverence in the soul, so that it does not grow indifferent to God because of the intimate communion of its love.
“Put to death therefore whatever is earthly in you: unchastity, uncleanliness, passion, evil desire and greed.” (Col. 3:5). Earthly is the name St. Paul gives to the will of the flesh. Unchastity is his word for the actual committing of sin. Uncleanness is how he designates assent to sin. Passion is his term for impassioned thoughts. By evil desire he means the simple act of accepting the thought and the desire. And greed is his name for what generates and
promotes passion. All these St. Paul ordered us to mortify as “aspects” expressing the will of the flesh.
When in a pure state, the conscious-self, on receiving the conceptual images of things, is moved to contemplate these things spiritually. But when it is sullied through indolence, while its conceptual images may, in general, be free from passion, those concerned with people tend to produce thoughts that are shameful or wicked. When the intellect which has not yet attained dispassion rises up towards heavenly knowledge, it is held back by the passions and pulled down to the earth. The intellect that is free from passions proceeds undistracted to the contemplation of knowledge (See: Path of Light) regarding the Holy Trinity (See: Becoming).
First the memory brings some passion-free thought into the intellect. By its lingering there, passion is aroused. When the passion is not eradicated, it persuades the conscious-self to assent to it. Once this assent is given, the actual sin is then committed. Therefore, when writing to converts from paganism, St. Paul in his wisdom orders them first to eliminate the actual sin and then systematically to work back to the cause. The cause is greed, which generates and promotes passion. In this case, greed means gluttony because this is the mother and nurse of unchastity. For greed is a sin not only with regard to possessions but also with regard to food, just as self-control likewise relates to both food and possessions.
When during prayer no conceptual image of anything worldly disturbs your intellect, then know that you are within the realm of dispassion. Once the soul starts to feel its own good health, the images in its dreams are also calm and free from passion. Just as the physical eye is attracted to the beauty of things visible, so the purified intellect is attracted to the knowledge of things invisible.
When the conscious-self begins to advance in love for God, the demon of blasphemy starts to tempt it, suggesting thoughts such as no one but the devil could invent. He does this out of envy, so those of God, in their despair at thinking such thoughts, no longer dare to soar up to God in their accustomed meditation or prayer. The demon does not further his own ends by this means; on the contrary, he makes us more steadfast. For through his attacks and our retaliation we grow more experienced and genuine in our love for God.
When the conscious-self turns its attention to the visible world, it perceives things through the medium of the senses in a way that accords with nature. The conscious-self is not evil, nor is its natural capacity to form conceptual images of things; nor are the things themselves evil, nor are the senses, for all are the work of God. What, then, is evil? Clearly it is the passion that enters into the conceptual images formed in accordance with nature by the intellect; and this need not happen if the intellect keeps watch.
Passion is an impulse of the soul contrary to nature, as in the case of mindless love or mindless hatred for someone or for some sensible thing. In the case of love, it may be for needless food, for sex, for money, for transient glory or for other sensible objects. In the case of hatred, it may be for any of the things mentioned or for someone on account of these things.
All beings endowed with the light of intelligence are either angelic or human. All angelic beings may be subdivided further into two general moral categories or classes, the holy and the accursed — that is, the holy powers and the impure demons. All human beings may also be divided into two moral categories only, the godly and the ungodly.
Demons who are always trying to lay hold of our soul do so by means of our impassioned, negative thoughts or evil motives, so that they may drive it to sin either in the mind or in action. Consequently, when they find our conscious-self unreceptive, they will be disgraced and put to shame; and when they find the conscious-self occupied with spiritual contemplation, they will “be turned back and suddenly ashamed.” (Ps 6:l0)
Trials are sent to some of us so as to take away past sins, to others so as to eradicate sins now being committed, and to yet others so as to forestall sins which may be committed in the future. These are distinct from the trials which arise in order to test us in the way that Job was tested. Sensible humans, taking into account the remedial effect of the divine prescriptions, gladly bears the sufferings which they bring upon us, since we are aware that they have no cause other than to remove our sins. But when the fool, ignorant of the supreme wisdom of God’s providence, sins and is corrected, he or she blames either God or the people responsible for the hardships they suffer; they never blame themselves.
Certain things stop the movement of the passions and do not allow them to grow; others subdue them and make them diminish. For instance, where desire is concerned, fasting, labor and vigils do not allow it to grow, while withdrawal, silence, contemplation, prayer and intense longing for God subdue it and make it disappear. The same is true with regard to anger. Forbearance, freedom from rancor and gentleness, for example, all arrest it and prevent it from growing, while love, acts of charity, kindness and compassion make it diminish.
When our conscious-self is constantly with God, our desire grows beyond all measure into an intense longing for God and our inflammatory nature is completely transformed into divine love. For by continual participation in the divine radiance, the conscious-self becomes totally filled with light; and when consciousness has reintegrated its spirituality, it redirects this love towards God, as we have said, filling it with an incomprehensible and intense longing for Him, and with unceasing love which draws the conscious-self entirely away from worldly things and back to the divine.
If a man is not envious or angry, and does not bear a grudge against someone who has offended him, that does not necessarily mean that he loves him. For, while still lacking love, he may be capable of not repaying evil with evil, in accordance with the commandment (Rom.12:17), and yet by no means be capable of rendering good for evil without forcing himself. To be spontaneously disposed to “do good to those who you hate you” (Matt.5:44) belongs to perfect spiritual love alone.
The darkness and demons are weakened when the passions in us decrease through our keeping the commandments; and they are defeated totally when they are routed by dispassion, for then they no longer find anything through which they can enter the soul and fight against it. This is what is meant by “they will be weakened and defeated before Thy face.” (Ps.9:3)
The reward of self-control is dispassion, and the reward of faith is spiritual knowledge. Dispassion engenders discrimination and spiritual knowledge engenders love for God.
When the conscious-self practices the virtues correctly, it advances in moral understanding. When it practices contemplation, it advances in spiritual knowledge. The first leads the spiritual contestant to discriminate between virtues and vice; the second leads the participant to the inner qualities of incorporeal and corporeal things. Finally, the intellect is granted the grace of theology when, carried on wings of love beyond these two former stages, it is taken up into God and with the help of the Holy Spirit discerns - as far as this is possible for the human intellect - the qualities of God.
Those who combine the practice of the virtues with spiritual knowledge become empowered. For with the first we wither our desires and tame our inflammatory nature, and with the latter we give wings to the conscious-self and go out of ourselves into the Divine Presence.
For those who are perfect in love and have reached the summit of dispassion there is no difference between our own or another’s, or between Christians and unbelievers, or between slave and free, or even between male and female. But because we have risen above the tyranny of the passions and have fixed our attention on the single nature of the human, we look on all in the same way and show the same disposition to all. For in Him there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, bond nor free, but Christ who “is all, and in all.” (Col.3:11; Gal.3:28)
There are three things which impel us towards what is holy: natural instincts, angelic powers and the purity of our intentions. Natural instincts impel us when, for example, we do to others what we would wish them to do to us, or when we see someone suffering deprivation or in need and naturally feel compassion. Angelic powers impel us when, being ourselves impelled to something worthwhile, we find we are providentially helped and guided. We are impelled by purity of our intention when, discriminating between good and evil, we choose the good.
There are also three things that impel us towards evil: passions, demons and sinfulness of intention. Passions impel us when, for example, we desire something beyond what is reasonable, such as food which is unnecessary or untimely, or easy sex with someone who we have no feelings for, or else when we are excessively angered or irritated with someone who has dishonored or injured us. Demons impel us when they catch us off our guard and suddenly launch a violent attack upon us, stirring up the passions already mentioned and others of a similar nature. We are impelled by sinfulness of intention when, knowing the good, we choose evil instead.
The Eyes of Luna
The rewards for the toils of virtue are dispassion and spiritual knowledge; for these are the mediators of the kingdom of heaven, just as passions and ignorance are the mediators of eternal punishment. It is because of this that those who seek these rewards for the sake of human glory and not for their intrinsic goodness are rebuked by the words of Scripture, “You ask, and do not receive, because you ask wrongly.” (Jas.4:3).
Many human activities, good in themselves, are not good because of the motive for which they are done. For example, fasting and vigils, acts of charity and hospitality are by nature good, but when performed for the sake of self-esteem they are not good. In everything that we do God searches out our purpose to see whether we do it for Him or for some other motive.
When we hear the words of Scripture, “Thou shalt render to every man according to his work” (Ps.62:12), do not think that God bestows blessings when something is done for the wrong reason, even though it seems to be good. Quite clearly He bestows blessings only when something is done for the right purpose; for God’s judgment looks not at the actions but at the purpose behind them.
Almost every sin is committed for the sake of sensual pleasure; and sensual pleasure is overcome by hardship and distress arising either voluntarily from repentance, or else involuntarily as a result of some salutary and providential reversal. “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, so that we should not be condemned with the world.” (1Cor.11:31-2). When a trial comes upon us unexpectedly, do not blame the person through whom it came but try to discover the reason why it came, and then find a way of dealing with it. For whether through this person or through someone else we had in any case to drink the wormwood of God’s judgments.
As long as we have bad habits, do not reject hardship, for through it, we may be humbled and reject our pride. Sometimes we are tested by pleasure, sometimes by distress or by physical suffering. By means of His prescriptions the “Physician of Souls” administers the remedy according to the cause of the passions lying hidden in the soul.
Those who have come to know the weakness of human nature have gained experience of divine power. Such people, having achieved some things and eager to achieve others through this divine power, never belittle anyone. For they know that just as God has helped them and freed them from many passions and difficulties, so, when God wishes, He is able to help all who desire it, especially those pursuing the spiritual way for His sake. And if in His divine providence He does not deliver everyone together from their passions, yet like a good and loving physician, He heals with individual treatment each of those who are trying to make progress.
In communicating illumination to each other, the angelic powers also communicate either their virtue or their knowledge to human nature. As regards their virtue, they communicate a goodness which imitates the goodness of God, and through this goodness they confer blessings on themselves, on one another and on their inferiors, thus making them like God. As regards their knowledge, they communicate either a more sublime knowledge about God or a more profound knowledge about embodied beings, or one that is more exact about incorporeal beings, or more distinct about divine providence, or more precise about divine judgment.
Those who are not attracted by worldly things cherish stillness. Those who love nothing merely human love all humankind. And those who take no offence at anyone either on account of their faults, or on account of their own suspicious thoughts, have knowledge of God and of things divine. It is a great achievement not to be attracted by things, but it is a far greater achievement to remain dispassionate in the face both of things and of the conceptual images we derive from them.
Virtues separate the conscious-self from the passions; spiritual contemplation separates it from its passion-free conceptual images of worldly things; pure contemplation and prayer bring it into the presence of God Himself. The virtues exist for the sake of the knowledge of all living creatures; knowledge for the sake of the knower; the Knower (Self-Knowledge), for the sake of Him who is known through “the cloud of unknowing” and Who knows beyond all knowledge.
As the world of the body consists of things, so the world of the intellect consists of conceptual images. And when the body fornicates with the body of another, so the intellect, forming a picture of its own body, fornicates with the conceptual image of the other. For in the mind it sees the form of its own body having intercourse with the form of the other. Similarly, through the form of its own body, it mentally attacks the form of anyone who has given it offence. The same is true with respect to other sins; for what the body acts out in the world of things, the intellect also acts out in the world of conceptual images.
The origin of all the passions is self-love; their consummation is pride. Self-love is a mindless love for the body and those who cut this off, at the same time, cut off all the passions which come from it. Self-esteem, whether it is eradicated or whether it remains, begets pride. When it is eradicated, it generates self-conceit; when it remains, it produces boastfulness. Self-esteem is eradicated by the hidden practice of the virtues, pride, and by ascribing our achievements to God. Those who have been granted knowledge of God, and fully enjoy the pleasure that comes from it, despise all the pleasures produced by the soul’s desiring power.
Self-Reflection
God created both the invisible and the visible worlds and He also made both the soul and the body. So, if the visible world is so beautiful, what must the invisible world be like? And if the invisible world is superior to the visible world, how much superior to both is God their Creator? If, then, the Creator of everything that is beautiful is superior to all His creation, on what grounds does the ego/intellect abandon what is superior to all and engross itself in what is mundane and worst of all, i.e., the passions of the flesh? Clearly this happens because the ego-persona has lived with these passions and grown accustomed to them since birth, whereas it has not yet had a perfect experience of Him who is superior to all and beyond all things. Thus, if we gradually wean the conscious-self away from this relationship by the practice of controlling our indulgences in pleasure and by persistent meditation on divine realities, the ego-persona will gradually devote itself more and more to these realities, will recognize its own dignity and finally transfer all its desire to the divine.
Love for God leads those who share in it to be indifferent to every transient pleasure and every labor and distress. Let the saints, who have suffered joyfully for Christ, convince you of this. It is said the highest state of meditation and prayer is reached when the conscious-self goes beyond the flesh and the worldly illusion; while one’s focus is utterly free from matter and form. Those who maintain this state have truly attained “prayer without unceasing.”
When the body dies, it is wholly separated from the things of this world. Similarly, when the conscious-self “dies” while in the supreme state of contemplation, it is also separated from the conceptual images of this world. If the conscious-self does not die such a death, it cannot be with God and live with Him.
When the desiring aspect of the soul is frequently excited, it implants in the soul a habit of self-indulgence which is difficult to break. When the soul’s inflammatory nature is constantly stimulated, it becomes in the end cowardly and insecure. The first of these failings is cured by long exercise in fasting, vigils and prayer; the second by kindness, compassion, love and mercy.
It has been said that there would be no evil in the created world unless there was not some power outside this world dragging us towards evil. However, this so-called power is in fact our neglect of the natural energies of our conscious-self. For those who nurture these energies always do good, never evil. If this, then, is what we too wish to do, get rid of negligence and drive out evil which is the wrong use of our conceptual-imagining of things, followed by the wrong use of the things themselves.
There are three things which produce love of material wealth: self-indulgence, self-esteem and lack of faith. Lack of faith is more dangerous than the other two. Self-indulgent people love wealth because it enables them to live comfortably; those full of self-esteem love it because through it they can gain the esteem of others; the person who lacks faith loves it because, fearful of starvation, old age, disease or exile, they can save it and hoard it. They put their trust in wealth rather than in God, the Creator who provides for all creation, down to the least of living things.
All impassioned thoughts either stimulate the soul’s desiring nature, or disturb its inflammatory nature, or darken its sensitivity. It is in this way that the soul’s capacity for spiritual contemplation and for the ecstasy of prayer is dulled. For this reason we must pay close attention to such thoughts and impulses, searching out and eliminating their causes. For example, the body’s urges or desires which are stimulated by impassioned thoughts about sex. Such thoughts are caused by intemperance in eating and drinking and by frequent and senseless talk with the opposite sex in question; these impassioned desires are cut off by fasting, spiritual vigils and withdrawal from human society.
The inflammatory nature of the soul is also disturbed by impassioned thoughts about those who have offended us; these issues are caused by self-indulgence, self-esteem and love of material things. For it is on this account of these vices that passion-dominated people feel resentment, being frustrated or otherwise failing to attain what they want. These thoughts are cut off when the vices provoking them are rejected and nullified through the love of God.
Since God is absolute existence, absolute goodness and absolute wisdom, or rather, to put it more exactly, since God is beyond all such things, there is nothing whatsoever that is opposite to Him. Creatures, on the other hand, all exist through participation and grace, while those endowed with the light of intelligence, a soul and a conscious-self also have a capacity for goodness and wisdom; hence they do have opposites. As the opposite to existence, they have nonexistence, and as the opposite to the capacity for goodness and wisdom, they have evil and ignorance. Whether or not they are to exist eternally lies within the power of their Creator; and whether or not self-conscious creatures are to participate in His goodness and wisdom depends on their own will.
One should love every man from the soul, but one should place one’s hope only in God and serve Him with all one’s strength. For so long as He protects us against harm, all our friends treat us with respect and all our enemies are powerless to injure us. But once He abandons us, all our friends turn away from us while all our enemies prevail against us.
Only God is good by nature (Matt.19:17), and only those who imitate God are good in will and purpose. For it is the intention of such people to unite the wicked to God, who is good by nature, so they too may become good. That is why, though reviled by them, they bless them; persecuted, they endure; vilified, they supplicate; put to death, they pray for them. They do everything so as not to lapse from the purpose of love, which is God Himself.
The friends of Christ love all truly but are not themselves loved by all; the friends of the material world neither love all nor are loved by all. The friends of Christ persevere in love to the end; the friends of the world persevere only until they fall out with each other over some worldly thing.
We must not only put bodily passions to death but also destroy the soul’s impassioned thoughts. Hence the psalmist says, “Early in the morning I destroyed all the wicked of the earth, that I might cut off all evil-doers from the city of the Lord” (Ps.101:8) that is, the passions of the body and the soul’s godless thoughts. If we keep the path of virtue undefiled through devout and true knowledge, and do not deviate to either side, we will experience the advent of God revealed to us because of our dispassion. For “I will sing a psalm and in a pure path I will understand when Thou wilt come to me” (Ps.101:1-2) – the psalm stands for virtuous conduct; understanding indicates the spiritual knowledge, gained through virtue, by means of which we perceive God’s advent, when we wait for the Lord vigilant in the virtues.
Some say the Kingdom of Heaven is the way of life which the saints lead in heaven; others say that it is a state similar to that of the angels, attained by those who are saved; others that it is the very form of the divine beauty of those who “wear the image of Him who is from heaven” (1Cor.15:49). Each of these three views is correct; for the grace of the kingdom is given to all according to the quality and quantity of the righteousness that is in them.
A pure heart is perhaps one which has no natural propulsion towards anything in any manner whatsoever. When in its extreme simplicity such a heart has become like a writing-tablet beautifully smoothed and polished. God comes to dwell in it and writes there His own laws. A pure heart is one which offers the mind to God free of all image and form, and ready to be imprinted only with His own archetypes and sights by which God Himself is made manifest.
Those who have struggled bravely with the passions of the body, have fought ably against unclean spirits, and have expelled from their soul the conceptual-images they provoke, should pray for a pure heart to be given to them and for a spirit of integrity to be renewed within them (Ps.51:10). In other words, they should pray that by grace they may be completely emptied of evil thoughts and filled with divine thoughts, so they may become a spiritual world of God, splendid and vast, wrought from moral, natural and theological forms of contemplation.
Those who have made their heart pure will not only know the inner essences of what is sequent to God and dependent on Him, but after passing through all of them, they will in some measure see/feel God Himself, which is the supreme consummation of all blessings. When God comes to dwell in such a heart, He honors it by engraving His own letters on it through the Holy Spirit, just as He did on the Mosaic tablets. This He does according to the degree to which the heart, through practice of the virtues and contemplation, has devoted itself to the admonition which bids us, in a mystical sense, “Be fruitful and multiply.”
Those who through virtue and spiritual knowledge have brought their body into harmony with their soul have become a harp, a flute and a temple of God. They have become a harp by preserving the harmony of the virtues; a flute by receiving the inspiration of the Spirit through divine contemplation; and a temple by becoming a dwelling place of the Logos through the purity of their intellect.
When God brought into being natures endowed with the Light of Intelligence and self-consciousness He communicated to them, in His supreme goodness, four of the divine attributes by which He sustains, protects and preserves them. These attributes are self-conscious being, eternal being, goodness and wisdom. Of the four, He granted the first two, being and eternal being, to their essence; and the second two, goodness and wisdom, to their volitional faculty, so that what He is in His essence the creature may become by participation. This is why humans are said to have been created in the image and likeness of God. Humans are made in the image of God, since their being is in the image of God’s being, and our eternal being is in the image of God’s eternal being. We are also made in the likeness of God, since we are good in the likeness of God’s goodness and wise in the likeness of God’s wisdom, God being good and wise by nature, and humans by grace. Every intelligent nature is in the image of God, but only the good and the wise attain His likeness.
Many have said much about love, but you will find love itself only if you seek it among the Disciples of Christ. For only they have true Love as love’s teacher. “Though I have the gift of prophecy, says St Paul, and know all mysteries and all knowledge and have no love, it profits me nothing.” (1Cor.13:2-3). He who possesses love possesses God Himself, for “God is love.” (1John 4:8). To Him be glory throughout the ages. Amen.
Have Faith & Perseverance
Hang in there!
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