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Overview
Arguing that human beings yearn to be rooted in something greater than themselves and to know enduring joy and peace whatever the circumstances, this classic early-20th-century text examines higher consciousness and the divine mysticism of Eastern Christianity. Written by a Russian philosopher and theologian, this book explores the differences between Christian philosophy and other systems and discusses the beliefs of sainted men and women, such as Francis of Assisi, Seraphim of Sarov, and Simeon the New Theologian. Musing upon martyrdom in the epoch of the first two Ecumenical Councils, this book also contains ruminations on the writings of Leo Tolstoy as well as a conversation between him and the author.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780884651994 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Holy Trinity Publications |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 280 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Light Invisible
Satisfying the Thirst for Happiness
By M. V. Lodyzhenskii, Mother Magdalena
Holy Trinity Publications
Copyright © 2011 Holy Trinity MonasteryAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-88465-199-4
CHAPTER 1
Light in the Darkness
And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:5)
If we compare some typical opinions that have come into use in our everyday life with the opinions by which people of Christian spiritual endeavors are guided on their way, then we are faced with really startling contrasts, indicating how sharply our rational life in the ratio differs from life in the Logos, of which speak the Gospel and Christian saints. For this, let us take several examples.
One cannot go a certain way, not having become that way oneself, says human reason in the consciousness of its own might. The more one dares, the more one receives.
Christian saints say, "We must always be firmly convinced that there is no way we can attain perfection through our own works and strivings ... if God Himself does not help us in this."
* * *
Happiness lies in power and possession, says our reason. We place our stakes only on the rich and powerful; the representative of governmental power guides our thoughts.
"The All-good God left the strong, wise, and rich of the world and chose the weak, simple, and poor by His great and unutterable goodness," say the Christian ascetics. "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden," we read the words of the Holy Gospel.
* * *
"I'm not some kind of beggar who has to pray. I'm not a useless pariah who has to waste time on this," says the man of proud riches and acquisitive energy.
"If you deprive yourself of prayer, "says St John Chrysostom, "then it is the same as if you were to take a fish out of water, for as water is in this life, so is prayer to you."
* * *
There is nothing more unpleasant than the feeling that people call humility, says our reason. Humility is self-abasement. The first quality of a human being consists in his preserving his dignity and not losing self-respect.
"If there is no humility in a man then he will not inherit the kingdom of God," say Christian ascetics.
* * *
Poverty is loathsome, says our reason. Anyone who does not knock himself out in the pursuit of money we consider a powerless man, devoid of ambition.
"If you have more than is necessary for your daily needs," says the sixth-century ascetic St Isaac of Syria, "give to the poor. Nothing so draws the heart to God as alms, and nothing so produces peace in the soul as voluntary poverty."
* * *
The growth of interest on capital is an entirely lawful act, says our reason. Interest on capital has been consecrated by the practice of government loans; they have entered into all human economic relations.
"Children! Do not lend money on interest," instruct the Christian saints. "If, having given someone a loan, forgive him, then you will be an imitator of Jesus' nature, but if you ask for it back, then Adam's nature; now if you take interest, this will not even be according to Adam's nature."
Enough of these comparisons. The startling contrasts between our rationalistic life and the spiritual life are strikingly illuminated by the examples presented. Life in the ratio and life the Logos are like two different worlds, having nothing in common with one another.
Although he may strive for perfection, man, when using his own powers structured on rational will, cannot extricate himself from the moral contradictions from which his whole life is woven. Now we all feel and recognize that in man's soul every thread of his higher motives is criss-crossed with threads of egoism; every moral act is poisoned with the venomous admixture of a self-loving motive. Man is unable to renounce all this with his own powers — for this help is indispensable, strengthening him in his spiritual endeavor.
Christian ascetics see this help in the action on man of spiritual world-embracing power that they call divine grace. Not only do they believe in this power, but also they know it and feel it through their spiritual super-consciousness.
For our part we cannot but acknowledge that this power is undoubtedly a real force, because we know that it has called forth and does now call forth great and real consequences. Christian ascetics lived their lives, which are examples of the action of extraordinary spiritual energy surpassing human nature, not according to the pattern of our lives. Against the background of our commonplace lives, the lives of the saints, proceeding according to the way indicated by the Savior of the world, deriving strength for their ascetic endeavors from divine grace, appear before us as light piercing through darkness.
This light flared up especially brightly during the first age of Christianity — in the age when it was ignited from its Great Sun, enlivening the spiritual world, when this Sun, the Logos Himself, became incarnate as man.
"That Christ overturned the whole history of the world is a fact which the whole world must acknowledge," says Nicholas Berdyaev,
and this must be acknowledged not only by the conscious Christian world, but by the world alien to Christ, hostile to Him. Christ captivated the world, mesmerized it; from Him proceeded folly, incomprehensible to the heathen, even to this day. It was as if humanity went out of its mind, out of its heathen natural mind, and was captivated by the mysterious person of Christ. ... In the history of the world a cosmic upheaval took place, a truly new epoch began, and this miraculous role of Christ cannot be explained by those who see in Him only a man, though a most unusual one. And the whole baptized Christian world, even having lost the higher religious consciousness of who Christ was, feels mystically that hidden in Him is a great mystery, that bound up with Him is the greatest problem of world history. Let them mentally compare Christ with Buddha, Socrates or Muhammad, but just the same deep down they feel that this is not the same, that with the coming of Christ the cosmic structure of the world was changed, that a power entered the world which was not of this world. ... The most positivistic historians know that after Christ the axis of world history changed its direction; Christ became the theme of world history. The whole fabric of human existence lost its resemblance to the threadbare heathen fabric. After Christ the history of the world went not according to the path of least resistance, as the positivist historians would like to think, but according to the path of most resistance, according to the path of resistance to all the sinful order of nature.
But beginning after Christ, the movement of human history according to the path of greatest resistance was not a linear process. The era of maximum tension of the human spirit has given place to the era of its slackening. And if, as we see this now, a period of general moral decline sets in along with its attendant intensification of human suffering, if we now find ourselves at the trough of the wave, then we can expect its upsurge, for consciousness of the life of the spirit, implanted deep in the hearts of men by the Great Sower of good, lives in the masses. And one must say that it lives especially vigorously in the soul of the Russian people, feeling within itself the power of the higher reason, an elemental power, that cannot be opposed. Christ said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church which He raised, and the Russian people profoundly believe these words of the Savior. No matter how refined evil may become, no matter what new forms it might take on, the life of the Russian people will continue to follow the path of greatest resistance to this refined evil.
* * *
Meanwhile this evil, which in essence is that old heathen evil, would not even think of surrendering to Christianity. It again begins to dominate, only it pursues its goals in different, secret ways. For this it has long ago changed its former tactic of direct violence against Christianity. Alongside the all-visible triumph of Christianity, this evil strove to steal its way into the Christian organization itself and there undermine its basic roots. And it did, in fact, steal its way in and began accomplishing its destructive work. Christianity became tainted with superstitions and produced the Inquisition. It deviated into papism and soulless heathen Caesarism. Besides this, according to the keen observation of the publicist M. O. Menshikov, Christianity has now reached the point of Christ-damning Nietzscheism, to freemasonry that is hostile to Christ, to positivism that denies Christ, to the complete unbelief of agnostics and nihilists, to the total godlessness of anarchists. On the one hand, we see that in place of the heathen power of the sword holding the world in its iron embrace, instead of the power of direct violence, a different power has ascended the throne, the power of gold, soulless force, the might of indirect violence, power based on the torment of need. And here we are, masters of this gold (or, rather, subjugated by this evil) again at the trough of the wave. The calm of darkness has enveloped our intelligentsia, the calm of people's isolation, the calm of cold reason, the calm of stony insensibility. And if on the backdrop of the heartlessness of the dominant classes life now flares up, then this is chief y only in the manifestation of vice that is so highly regarded on the exchange of human vanity — subtle vice putting on a mask of goodness. And therefore moral sufferings have not lessened; they are all the same sufferings of the heathen world. As at the end of ancient times, people are tormented by mental anguish and the horror of unbelief. So our intelligentsia, unable to figure out and understand where in all of this lies the root of evil, with irony tosses at believers the reproach, "This is what Christianity has brought the world to!" And they say this without understanding the essence of the matter, completely blinded by their cold autocratic ratio, which the intelligentsia has made its sinless deity.
Given such a general state of affairs, protest against evil, heathen force, against life based only on reasoning, must of course again flare up, and it will flare up. But will this be soon? What kind of envoys of the Higher Power will come to us? Will these be people of meek love and profound religious mysticism, such as, for example, St Seraphim of Sarov was? Or instead will we hear finally the burning, protesting speech of a preacher, kindling the hearts of men, such as was the great Christian homilist St John Chrysostom?
For these fiery preachers to come, maybe we need special exceptional conditions, maybe we need an acute intensification of human torment and oppression of life. Maybe for this we need mighty armed conflicts, brought upon man by his heathen ratio;17 maybe we need terrible social upheavals of nations, when finally everything will begin to shake, when no one will be sure of the next day. And maybe only then the speeches of fiery preachers, powerful in the higher reason, will be heard and felt.
However, enough of all these oppressive thought about the evils of the world and the calamities to come. Even without this, life is joyless and we cannot escape it; we are called on to endure it with Christian patience. This is a great force, if it is combined with love and prayer to the Logos — a force essential for active struggle, the energy of which should be first of all directed toward self-amendment.
And so, enough of these bitter reflections, depressing the soul. Let us refresh ourselves with bright and joyful occurrences that have illumined and still illumine the world. Let us look at examples of Christian strength, as manifest in the lives of ascetics and saintly people. Let the light of their lives, contrasting with the darkness of our own, uphold our faith and enliven our love. This light, emanating from the great saints, is, as it were, a reflection of another higher and for us invisible sphere, of another higher and for us Light Invisible. And it is inextinguishable, this great invisible-to-physical-eyes light. Darkness cannot comprehend it.
* * *
One of the main divisions that we first of all come into contact with when studying the lives of the saints is how their lives' paths relate to two basic types of ascetic endeavor: the contemplative type and the active type. These types are determined by the distinct character of the ascetics' spiritual love and the various means by which this love is attained. While investigating the saints' biographies, we see that the path of development of their spiritual lives proceeded either through the cultivating within themselves first of all love for God, or through the developing within their heart, mainly, love for our brethren — our fellow men. To explain what has been said, let us recall the scheme of Abba Dorotheus that we discussed earlier. The summarizing points of this scheme are as follows: (1) "the closer we come to God in love for Him, the more we are united in love with our neighbor" and (2) "the more we are united in love with our neighbor, the more we are united with God." This summarization elucidates the essence of the matter under consideration; it point out the two main paths to perfection: the active path passes in works of love for one's neighbor; the contemplative or ascetic path is accomplished when the spiritual striver goes toward his goal through the direct cultivation within himself of immediate love for God. Such a path leads to mystical revelation, to the mystical contemplation of the Divinity and His powers. But here we must again make one more important digression from our main theme.
We find it necessary as a preliminary to our ensuing discourse to express several ideas regarding the mystical language that we will have to use at times in our present work.
Just now we used the expression, "to the mystical contemplation of the Divinity and His powers." The reader has every right to ask what one must understand by these words. But to acquire an approximate understanding of divine mysticism, it is essential at least to some extent to understand what the process of the aforesaid mystical contemplation is; namely, how do we experience it?
To this we must answer that to understand what mystical contemplations is, and how we experience it, we have only one path — this is the path of analogies, and the most vivid analogies, besides. And only in these analogies can this understanding be expressed.
Christian ascetics also resorted to analogies. But because in the era of their creativity their general knowledge of things of the visible world was primitive and far from rich, the imagery of ascetics could not have much variety. As regards this, we the people of the twentieth century are more fortunate. With the development of aviation and everyone's being aware of what aviation represents, applying this word to spiritual contemplation makes it possible through analogy to sense what spiritual aviation is. The concept of the wireless telegraph gives us a certain understanding of clairvoyance, of the possibility of influencing people at a distance by the power of thought or the power of spiritual intuition, and so on. Our knowledge is growing, and along with it our ability to make analogies is broadened.
Thus, we now have more extensive means than the Christian saints had with which to represent the kind of experiences that mystical contemplation gives to man. Although such great saints as, for example, St Isaac of Syria tried as best they could to convey with their concepts the sensations of this contemplation, yet their communications regarding this is for us still unclear; it requires quite an effort to comprehend their deep meaning. The imagery of St Isaac was completely understandable to his contemporary Christians, sensing mystical perceptions experientially, having developed within themselves a mystically musical ear. But for us in our era — an era carried away by the intellect, when mystical language, the language of feelings and higher emotions, is rarely heard, and when in the vast majority of the intelligentsia there is a total lack of mystical understanding — the words of St Isaac of Syria sound obscure; they rarely touch one's soul.
Let us take for example just the following words of his description of the mystical state during contemplation, of which we spoke above (mystical contemplation of the Divinity and its power). St Isaac of Syria represents this mystical state with his own particular analogies in this way: he says that in this state, man's consciousness "can be carried away into the bodiless realms, can touch the depths of the intangible sea."
Upon reading these last words, involuntarily we ask the question "What is this 'depths of the sea' and what is this 'sea' that St Isaac talks about?" As soon as we begin to sense the meaning of these words and understand St Isaac's thoughts, along with it, we feel the urge to transmit his thought to the reader in the clearest way, to convey it using our own more varied imagery.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Light Invisible by M. V. Lodyzhenskii, Mother Magdalena. Copyright © 2011 Holy Trinity Monastery. Excerpted by permission of Holy Trinity Publications.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface to the English Language Edition,Introduction,
1. Light in the Darkness,
2. Seraphim of Sarov,
3. Francis of Assisi,
4. The Mysticism of St Seraphim and St Francis,
5. Mysticism of the East and Mysticism of the West,
6. Striking Features from the Lives of the Saints,
7. The Aspiration for Happiness,
8. On a Good Death,
9. Manifesting the Light Invisible,
Afterword,
Appendix 1 Terminology of the Christian Ascetics,
Relating to the Understanding of,
Higher Reason and Lower Reason,
Appendix 2 A Short Biography of M. V. Lodyzhenskii,
Notes,
Bibliography,
Index,