hesychasm

"Hadji-Georgis had had profuse, guileless love for everyone. He had always been peaceful, long-suffering, and forgiving. He had had a big heart, which is why it had been able to hold all things and all people exactly as they were. He had somehow become incorporeal. By having lived the Angelic life, he had become an angel and flown to the Heavens because he had not held onto anything, neither passions of the soul, nor material items. He had cast them all aside, which is also why he had soared to great heights."

"While the superior rejoiced and was delighted with Romanos' obedience, zeal and propriety, in his mind Romanos pined away, desiring that he might again abandon the tumult of the world, and that he might live in a a deserted place far from men, like the turtle­dove which loves solitude. He had learned about Paroria where a monastery was being built by a great man before God, Gregory of Sinai, who brought souls to God each day by the music of his words and the example of his life. Romanos was engrossed in planning a departure and wished he had wings so that he could fly through the air and get there as quickly as possible. So great a yearning did word of that holy man inspire in him, as I have heard him relate. From that time on then, while Zagora held his body, the wilderness of Paroria possessed his soul. Just as the thirstiest deer seeks the fountainhead he thirsted, and he asked God that he might go to Paroria."

"While the superior rejoiced and was delighted with Romanos' obedience, zeal and propriety, in his mind Romanos pined away, desiring that he might again abandon the tumult of the world, and that he might live in a a deserted place far from men, like the turtle­dove which loves solitude. He had learned about Paroria where a monastery was being built by a great man before God, Gregory of Sinai, who brought souls to God each day by the music of his words and the example of his life. Romanos was engrossed in planning a departure and wished he had wings so that he could fly through the air and get there as quickly as possible. So great a yearning did word of that holy man inspire in him, as I have heard him relate. From that time on then, while Zagora held his body, the wilderness of Paroria possessed his soul. Just as the thirstiest deer seeks the fountainhead he thirsted, and he asked God that he might go to Paroria."

"Things being thus, they learned that the wilderness of Paroria was faring well since Emperor Alexander had severely threatened the robbers and plunderers, who used to make trials for the servants of God, that if they did not stop, they would be executed. Those holy servants, having heard carefully the good news, abandoned Zagora and headed back to Paroria, their beloved wilderness and retreat. Truly this was such a place which on sight alone could bring tears of compunction to God­-loving souls. For dwelling ­places, as it is written somewhere in the Scriptures, have been created to lead our mind to contemplation. At any rate, as we said, they went there quickly, and arriving near the monastery of the great Gregory, they built cells and settled down."

"The greatest memorial service for both the people in the world and our ancestors is our spiritual progress, because then they are entitled to divine help. This is apart from our prayer, which is bold before God, and the joy which our grandparents feel over us, their pride and joy. But if we lead a bad life, they suffer threefold."

"God is infinite Nous and man, through his nous, is both related to God, and also approaches Him. God is infinite Love, and man, with a purified heart, experiences God. God is simple, and man believes with simplicity, and struggles humbly and in a philotimo-filled way, and experiences the mysteries of God."

"A hesychast missionary in the spirit of St Gregory the Sinaite, whom he had known in his youth, St Nicodemus established his rule of life in the many communities founded by himself or his disciples in the three Romanian lands. Romanian monasticism thus owes to him its hesychastic orientation in the 14th century. The resulting cultural and spiritual blossoming was to continue, more or less without interruption, for the next three centuries."

"There came to my mind an Athonite anecdote, typical of the monastic sense of humour, about an elder who was celebrating the pre-dawn service with his disciples. Disturbed by the noise of the nearby frogs, he went out of the chapel to remonstrate. ‘Frogs,’ he said, ‘we’ve just completed the Midnight Office and are starting Matins: would you mind keeping quiet until we’ve finished.’ Whereupon the frogs replied, ‘We’ve just completed Matins and are starting the First Hour: would you mind keeping quiet until we’ve finished.’"

"A divine philosopher is he who through ascetic purification and noetic contemplation has achieved a direct union with God, and is a true friend of God, in that he esteems and loves the supreme, creative and true wisdom above every other love, wisdom and knowledge."

"Given all the ways – both explicit and subtle – in which hesychasm is profoundly embroidered into the fabric of contemporary monasticism at the Holy Mountain, it is thus justified to conclude that not only is hesychasm Athonite, but Athos too is fundamentally hesychast."

"Peut-être les moines qu’on appelle « gyrovagues » exaltaient-ils particulièrement notre condition d’étranger éternel : marchant sans cesse de monastère en monastère, sans être fixé – ils n’ont pas tous disparu ; il en reste, paraît-il, quelques-uns encore sur le mont Athos : ils marchent leur vie durant sur les sentiers étroits des montagnes, tournant en rond, s’endormant à la chute du jour dans l’endroit où leurs pieds les a portés ; ils passent leur vie à marmonner des prières en marchant tout le jour, sans destination ni but, ici ou là, au hasard du croisement des sentiers, à tourner, retourner, ils marchent sans aller nulle part, illustrant par l’éternel cheminement leur état d’étrangers définitifs au monde d’ici-bas."

"Considered in its entirety, the work of Nikodimos represents an original synthesis between the hesychast movement imported from Mount Athos and the artistic and literary influences coming from Serbia. Contrary to the currents that supply the first literary school in Moldavia established at the monastery of Neamț by the monk Gabriel (1424–49), it stands apart from the Bulgarian tradition of the fourteenth century. Nikodimos’s relations with Patriarch Euthymius of Trnovo merely assume the character of an episode without profound implications for the life of his foundations."

"The principal forms of contemplation are eight in number."

"The source and ground of our distractive thoughts is the fragmented state of our memory. The memory was originally simple and one-pointed, but as a result of the fall its natural powers have been perverted: it has lost its recollectedness in God and has become compound instead of simple, diversified instead of onepointed."

"This stillness, this silence, is everywhere, pervades, all, is the very essence of the Holy Mountain. ... But this stillness, this silence, is far more than a mere absence of sound. It has a positive quality, a quality of fullness, of plenitude, of the eternal Peace which is there reflected in the veil of the Mother of God, enshrouding and protecting her Holy Mountain, offering inner silence, peace of heart, to those who dwell there and to those who come with openness of heart to seek this blessing."

"Nothing so fills the heart with contrition and humbles the soul as solitude embraced with self-awareness, and utter silence."

"The short ladder of spiritual progress – which is at the same time both small and great – has five rungs leading to perfection."

"He who practises hesychasm must acquire the following five virtues, as a foundation on which to build: silence, self-control, vigilance, humility and patience."

"According to theologians, noetic, pure, angelic prayer is in its power wisdom inspired by the Holy Spirit."

"For beginners prayer is like a joyous fire kindled in the heart;"

"... through them [the disciples of Gregory of Sinai] their master’s writings and oral teaching spread through the monasteries and royal courts of Eastern Europe. Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Rumania and Russia were all affected by this new cosmopolitan movement: monks, churchmen, writers and artists, travelling from country to country – ‘wandering for the sake of the Lord’, as a fourteenth-century writer put it – found themselves in a similar spiritual and cultural environment; and through this ‘Hesychast International’, whose influence extended far beyond the ecclesiastical sphere, the different parts of the Byzantine Commonwealth were, during the last hundred years of its existence, linked to each other and to its centre perhaps more closely than ever before."

"When you sit in stillness, by day or by night, free from random thoughts and continuously praying to God in humility, you may find that your intellect becomes exhausted through calling upon God and that your body and heart begin to feel pain because of the intense concentration with which you unceasingly invoke the name of Jesus, with the result that you no longer experience the warmth and joy that engender ardour and patience in the spiritual aspirant. If this is the case, stand up and psalmodize, either by yourself or with a disciple who lives with you, or occupy yourself with meditation on some scriptural passage or with the remembrance of death, or with manual labour or with some other thing, or give your attention to reading, preferably standing up so as to involve your body in the task as well. ... With the help of prayer ignore all images, whether sensory or conceptual, that rise up from the heart. For stillness means the shedding of all thoughts for a time, even those which are divine and engendered by the Spirit; otherwise through giving them our attention because they are good we will lose what is better."

"I have never actually seen wolves on Mount Athos, although in the past I have noted what I took to be their footprints in the sandy paths not far from the northern frontier of the monastic territory. No doubt they were observing me from the undergrowth nearby. The presence of wolves on the Mountain, at least as recently as the 1970s, always struck me as a reassuring sign. For wolves in their own way are hesychasts, who dislike disturbance and noisy intrusion from human beings. So long as they continued to make their home on Athos, this was an indication that the Mountain remained still a place of silence and seclusion. Their disappearance troubles me."

"Here every stone breathes prayers."

"The energy of grace is the power of spiritual fire that fills the heart with joy and gladness, stabilizes, warms and purifies the soul, temporarily stills our provocative thoughts, and for a time suspends the body's impulsions. The signs and fruits that testify to its authenticity are tears, contrition, humility, self-control, silence, patience, self-effacement and similar qualities, all of which constitute undeniable evidence of its presence."

"We recover the original state of our memory by restoring it to its primal simplicity, when it will no longer act as a source of evil and destructive thoughts. For Adam's disobedience has not only deformed into a weapon of evil the soul's simple memory of what is good; it has also corrupted all its powers and quenched its natural appetite for virtue. The memory is restored above all by constant mindfulness of God consolidated through prayer, for this spiritually elevates the memory from a natural to a supranatural state."

"Noetic prayer is an activity initiated by the cleansing power of the Spirit and the mystical rites celebrated by the intellect."

"As just remarked, there are two main forms of ecstatic longing for God:"

"Illumination is followed by interruptions in the prayer and frequent theorias, rapture of the nous, cessation of the senses, stillness, profound silence of the bodily members, and union of God and man into one. This is the divine exchange in which, if one endures temptations and does not stop struggling along the way, one exchanges the material for the immaterial…."

"Then grace overflows and one is filled with illumination and infinite joy. And since he who has been seized is unable to bear the fire of love, his senses cease, and he is caught up into theoria. Up until this point, man acts with his own will. Beyond this, he is no longer in control, nor does he recognize himself. For he has now been united with the fire and has been entirely transformed — a god by grace."

"So when grace abounds in a person and he knows all that we have written, he attains great simplicity; his nous expands and has great capacity. Just as you tasted that drop of grace when much joy and exultation came upon you, it comes again in the same manner when the nous remains in prayer. But much more comes, like a subtle breeze, like a mighty gust of fragrant wind. It overflows throughout the body, and the prayer stops; the bodily members cease to move, and only the nous is in theoria within an extraordinary light. A union of God and man occurs. Man is unable to distinguish himself. It is just like iron: before it is thrown into the fire it is called iron, but once it ignites and becomes red-hot, it is one with the fire. It is also like wax which melts when it approaches fire; it cannot remain in its natural state."

"Since God is continuously present, why do you worry? For in Him we live and move. We are carried in His arms. We breathe God; we are vested with God; we touch God; we consume God in the Mystery. Wherever you turn, wherever you look, God is everywhere: in the heavens, on the earth, in the abysses, in the trees, within the rocks, in your nous, in your heart."

"The waves of thoughts amaze my mind; my tongue grows numb and cannot speak, unable to utter the words in time. The noetic siphons gush forth dew in torrents - however, there is but little soil in our days. The riches of our Lord are many, but unfortunately there are few heirs. To inherit them requires a bloody struggle, but here there is only laziness. Thus I am compelled to open the ducts unto the world; for there is hope that pure souls will receive the word, and then I shall receive the reward of love. So listen to my words, lend me your ears..."

"So he got up and went inside the place where he was staying, for it was already night. Then he bent his head upon his chest and began eating the sweetness that gushed forth from the prayer that he had been given. Immediately he was caught up into theoria and was totally beside himself. He wasn’t confined by walls and rocks; he was beyond all volition — without body and with a deep tranquility, in extraordinary light, and unlimited breadth. His nous contemplated only this thought: “May I never return to the body, but remain here forever.” This was the first theoria that brother saw, who then returned to himself and continued struggling for his salvation."

"Behold, another new year! Once again, wishes and hopes. But death is lurking somewhere, waiting for us, too. Some day or night will be the last one of our life. Wherefore, blessed is he who remembers his death day and night and prepares himself to meet it. For it has a habit of coming joyfully to those who wait for it, but it arrives unexpectedly, bitterly, and harshly for those who do not expect it."

"Stillness does not come and go. It is we who come and go. Stillness abides, like a vast evenness, limpid and pure. It is a transcendent realm of infinite clarity."

"When grace comes, all the schemes of the evil one cease, for it abolishes them. It comes like a gentle breeze, like a subtle, fragrant zephyr which deadens the flesh and then raises the soul. It enlightens our nous. And in the end, when it comes, grace itself teaches a person."

"In the Odes of Solomon, Christ says, “I opened the gates that were shut; and I broke in pieces the bars of iron. My fetters grew hot and melted before me, and nothing seemed to me to be shut, because I was the opening of everything.” He also says his prayer was his love, releasing the prisoner’s bonds. Such prayer, inspired by the Spirit, inspires intercession in the desert in the spirit of liberating openness. Ineffable openness is eternally open to love’s openness to love, eternally overcoming separation at the heart of separation. Eternal oneness is eternally one with love’s overcoming of separation at the heart of separation. Uncreated presence is eternally present at the heart of separation, overcoming separation. So when love assumes separation to overcome separation, separation dissolves. When oneness assumes confusion to cure confusion, confusion is released. When presence assumes absence to undo absence, absence transmutes into ever present completeness."

"God is everywhere. There is no place where God is not. The more you pay attention to Him, the more He pays attention to you. You cry out to Him, “Where art Thou, my God?” And He answers, “I am present, my child! I am always beside you.” Both inside and outside, above and below, wherever you turn, everything shouts, “God!” In Him we live and move. We breathe God, we eat God, we clothe ourselves with God. Everything praises and blesses God. All of creation shouts His praise. Everything animate and inanimate speaks wondrously and glorifies the Creator. Let every breath praise the Lord!"

"I am ‘I AM,’ thy God."

"In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says that whoever drinks his wisdom, shall become like him. God’s ‘I AM’ is recognized as ‘I AM’ from ‘I AM.’ The Name of God is all consuming fire. Yet the bush is not consumed."

"For the time being I live in a cave. I have wonderful stillness. I am the luckiest of men, for I live without cares and enjoy the honey of stillness unceasingly. And when grace departs for just a little, stillness comes as another grace and it shelters me in its harbor. And thus, the pains and sadness of this evil and tiring life seem less significant. In the present life, until one's final breath, sadness always comes mixed with joy."

"In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says we all come from the light, destined to be children of light, chosen of the living Father. Our origin is light, and our end is light, and when we reside in primordial light, we awaken to the light of the glory of the age to come."

"Stillness is neither dissipation nor dislocation. She is neither exclusion nor suppression. She is neither addiction to confusion nor fixation on separation.Stillness is ineffable freedom. Everything is ineffably free in true stillness. She is inexhaustible. She is endless. ‘After fire, a still small voice.’"

"Stillness is neither thought nor the cessation of thought. Stillness stands steadfast as wisdom when the heart is luminous and clear. Uncontrived and unfabricated, wisdom is overlooked by blind oblivion.Stillness is not one state opposed to another. It is not an external phenomenon. It is incomprehensible and ineffable because at root, it is uncreated and unconditioned. It unifies, so as to ground what is integral. It illumines, so as to clarify what is translucent. It glorifies, to liberate the glorified. It deifies, to transfigure the deified."

"So, true stillness is of God, from God, and wholly in God. With this we begin to enter into our rest. We begin to rest in peace. We begin to taste the bright mysteries of holy dying, that overcome death through death.Stillness is resurrection. It overcomes death by death. It reveals glory to wisdom. It unveils vision and wonder. Such wonder binds confused, divided thoughts. It is serene."

"So come, my dearly beloved son. Come now, even if for only one day, to talk about God and to theologize; to enjoy what you yearn for; to listen to the rough crags, those mystical and silent theologians, which expound deep thoughts and guide the heart and nous towards the Creator. After spring it is beautiful here — from Holy Pascha until the Panagia’s day in August. The beautiful rocks theologize like voiceless theologians, as does all of nature — each creature with its own voice or its silence. If you bump your hand against a little plant, immediately it shouts very loudly with its natural fragrance, “Ouch! You didn’t see me, but hit me!” And so on, everything has its own voice, so that when the wind blows, their movement creates a harmonious musical doxology to God. And what more shall we say about the creeping things and winged birds? When that saint sent his disciple to tell the frogs to be quiet so that they could read the Midnight Service, they answered him, “Be patient until we’re done with Matins!”"

"When the monk cleans the senses in stillness, the mind becomes peaceful and the heart is cleansed, and he receives grace and the light of knowledge. He becomes completely light, completely mind, completely transparent. Then he gushes theology, such that even if three people were to write down his experiences they wouldn't manage, the flow of waves is so great, and it spreads peace and the complete cessation of the passions throughout the body. The heart is enflamed from love of God and shouts out, "slow down the waves of Your grace, my Jesus, for I am melting like a candle!" And truly he melts without suffering. The mind is taken up into divine vision; and a mixing takes place. Man is transformed and becomes one with God, such that he doesn't recognize himself, just as iron becomes one with fire."

"Genuine wisdom astounds. It astonishes. It amazes. It transmutes pious opinion into silent reverence. It penetrates dogmas to unveil their core. It reveals. It illumines. It deifies. The two-edged sword was never totally lost, like lost gospels in caves and sand. But when the ancient neglected texts are found again, wisdom knows her own."

"There are three things I cannot take in: nondogmatic faith, nonecclesiological Christianity and nonascetic Christianity. These three - the church, dogma, and asceticism - constitute one single life for me."