In the prayers of the faithful said during the Divine Liturgy a special petition for the faithful is offered, that they “grow in faith and life and spiritual understanding.” But growth in faith involves keeping watch over the heart. We must discover a deeper awareness of what the hidden movements of the heart are, of how such movements are at any one time inclined towards good or evil, and of where these hidden movements are leading – towards the light or the darkness.
In addition to this, the holy fathers say that this kind of inward sensibility (and sensitivity) is the essence of the spiritual life, and that those who are lacking of this are those who live not as human beings, but who live “like the beasts.” Or in St. Basil’s words, are “even worse than the beasts” because the beasts at least, in their simplicity live according to the purpose that God had in mind for them when they were first created. Conversely, the “carnal man” is the one who lives “for the flesh,” and judges the inner experience of the spiritual life as nothing more than the fanciful imagination of religious idiocy.
Which here proves that the question is really all about how to enlighten, enliven, and enlarge the heart of man that lies hidden, as “a pearl of great price,” beneath the physical, intellectual, psychological, and emotional layers of our existence. The greatest poverty of the postmodern world is the fact that there are few who truly know the greatness of the gift that lies so incredibly close to us. It’s as St. Augustine says, “Men go forth to wonder at the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vast compass of the oceans, the courses of the stars: but they pass by themselves without wondering whatsoever.”
That the heart is what makes us most human is also why Orthodoxy attests to all that is needed in order to gain an awareness of the “inner man.” But what is needed? What is first needed comes straight from the teachings of the gospel, that we observe the teachings of the commandments. When the rich young Jewish Ruler came to Jesus in the gospel and asked, “What good thing must I do in order to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied, initially at least, by saying “Keep the commandments,” only because it is the commandments that begin the process of the inner cleansing the senses. Yes, there must be faith in Christ, in addition to, or rather as the consummation of the commandments, which is what the Rich Young Jewish Ruler was told. But even so, if the human soul is a window that opens up to heaven, it becomes self-evident that nothing of heaven will ever be seen as long as the glass is coated with the grit and grime of sin. Thus, the measure that one observes these basic commandments is the measure to which one is being cleansed of that which darkens and suffocates the human soul. Growing our hearts means enlivening the soul through the cleansing of the passions. This is the first aim of the spiritual life.
Having stated that one cannot grow in the Christian faith without knowing that the locus of eternal life is the human heart, and that the commandments are necessary in order to cleanse the senses so that the heart might be purified and revitalized, we now move on to the next step intrinsic to the spiritual life, which is the illumination of the mind. Today, quite unfortunately, we view the mind in a very limited sense, as being an autonomous “faculty,” i.e., as the biological expression of the human intellect. This is the mind employed for reasoning, deduction and analysis, and according to the European enlightenment thinkers, it is this biological mind – atop of the neck – that makes us uniquely human. As Rene Descarte said, “I think, therefore I am.”
But from the Orthodox perspective, the human mind is not simply the cerebral expression of our biological nature. Instead, it was originally meant to be linked to the heart as its spiritual “eye,” through which we as human beings gaze upon all things. This eye is the “lamp of the body” of which Christ speaks as being either filled with darkness or light. If it is filled with darkness, it is only because the fallen egotistic self has come to see itself at the center of all things. Or to say this more accurately, it is because the fallen self has become the lens through which all things are perceived and judged. So, that which benefits the egotistic self is judged as being good while that which detriments the egotistic self is judged as being evil.
Yet when the mind is cleansed from the passions, it becomes enlightened by the Holy Spirit and becomes transparent to the light. The darkness is dispersed by the light and the mind is immersed in grace and is made able to see and understand all things in their relationship to God. In paradise, Adam and Eve saw the world and all things in it in harmony with God and with themselves. The uncreated light which shone from the beginning of creation (“Let there be light”), they perceived as being present in all things, and giving life to all things. After the fall however, the human mind became darkened and was no longer capable of seeing how the entire cosmos was, and still is, God’s first “burning bush.” Human experience became narrowed into a single carnalized dimension, and the earth became desolate as a result. Even so, through the practice of unceasing prayer, the darkness is dispersed by the presence of grace. As St. Paul says, “For the pure, all things are pure.” Because of this, prayer is foundational to spiritual growth. Prayer is the means by which one transcends the flesh in order to become a “child of the light.”
From a practical standpoint, the illumination of the mind allows us as human beings to begin the process of discernment, which is the gift of knowing the difference between good and evil thoughts. For those who live in the flesh, there is no understanding of how the thoughts of the mind affect the soul. There is no critiquing of whether or not such and such a thought will lead us to heaven or lead us to hell. For example, the more one lends himself to the passionate thoughts of anger or greed or lust, the more entrenched he becomes to the corresponding passionate behaviors. Yet, through the practice of repentance, it becomes possible to discern how these evil thoughts are what lie at the heart of the problem. Simply put, this means knowing that a single thought has the power to move the soul in either a positive or a negative direction. Negative thoughts are the temptations that come from the demons. They are the seeds that the devil has cast into the field so that they might grow up and spoil the harvest. Yet, by maturing in the faith it is possible to first know that these thoughts are harmful to body and soul and second to know that we can renounce them through the practice of prayer. We need not be a slave to our bad thoughts.
The third stage of spiritual growth in the Orthodox Christian spiritual tradition is that of perfect communion with God. For if the message of the gospel is that the Son of God has come into the world in order to overthrow the tyranny of death and restore the human race to its original perfection, such perfection must be understood as being nothing else but a state of unending communion with God. To believe in Christ thus means, as we have already said, to live out our baptism by first cleansing ourselves from the passions, for it is the passions that give birth to sin, and it is sin that produces death. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.” The first step towards becoming one with God is to drown sin so that the new life in Christ might be manifest in all of its glory and beauty. The old human nature must be put to death so that the new nature, which is the living person of Christ Himself, might be raised up within. In Holy Baptism, we are thus united to Christ, and through the anointing of the Holy Spirit (in Chrismation) we gain the virtues.
So, to say that the key to our salvation lies in baptism means to say, quite simply and directly, that the human person cannot be properly understood apart from his or her relationship to God. This is why the Scriptures testify that from the beginning we as human beings are unique from the rest of creation in that we were created according to the image and likeness of God. And although the likeness has been marred by the effect of sin, the image, according to the holy fathers of the Church, remains indelibly imprinted within each of us. Salvation in the gospel thereby means to realize the divine likeness by sharing in all of God’s goodness. The Holy Fathers of the Church summarize this by saying that “Everything that God is Himself by nature, we must become by grace.” That is, all of God’s divine energies, His love, creative power, wisdom, intellect, understanding, freedom, mercy, kindness, just to name a few, He freely shares with us human beings so that we might become fully deified. Deification is the destiny of every human person. Everything else that human beings “do” must be done in light of this calling, or else all is for nothing.
As one Athonite theologian writes, “Since man is “called to be a god” (i.e. was created to become a god), as long as he does not find himself on the path of Theosis he feels an emptiness within himself… he feels that some- thing is not going right, so he is not joyful even when he is trying to cover the emptiness with other activities. He may numb himself, create a glamorous world, or cage and imprison him- self within this world, yet at the same time he remains poor, small, limited. He may organize his life in such a way that he is almost never at peace, never alone with himself. Surrounded by noise, tension, television, radio, continuous information about this and that, he may seek to forget with drugs; not to think, not to worry, not to remember that he is on the wrong path and has strayed from his purpose.”
This brings us back to the beginning of the faith once again, which is simply to remember that the Son of God became the Son of the Virgin so that we human beings might once again enter into the divine life of the Holy Trinity, so that we might have a share in the communion of love that exists among the three persons of the Holy Trinity for all eternity, a love which itself the truest content of eternal life. “That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they, too, might be in us.” (John 17:21).
Let us long for this life and this love above everything earthly and transient, for it is here that we find true peace, happiness and joy.
Fr. Paul Jannakos