The Inner Work of the Spiritual Life

“This is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” (John 17:3)

μεταμορφοῦσθαι εν τῇ ἀνακαινώσει τοῦ νοὸς ὑμῶν,^[1]  (Romans 12:2)

“Be transformed in the renewal of your nous.”   Metanoia

The inner work of the spiritual life is the real substance of being an Orthodox Christian.  Salvation, eternal life, is about coming to know God. We can live a purely external religious life, go to church, read the prayers, fast a little, partake of the sacraments and be nice to people; this is good and may bring us to heaven. But there is far more.  If we remain on the level of simply formal religion, and it does not transform our mind and our heart and does not lead us to a conscious communion with God and the saints, we are missing the full potential of Christianity.  We can know all about God, but not know Him.  This misses the mark!

Orthodoxy is the complete integration of the religious with the spiritual.  The material religious forms support the spiritual ascent and give it expression.  However, the religious forms and rules, taken in a legalistic manner, miss the whole point of the spiritual transformation because it is devoid of the dynamic of repentance.  This is what the Apostle refers to as having a form of godliness but denying its power (2Tim. 3:5).

The heart of the Gospel is the process of repentance, in which we are transformed by the grace of God, purified of our sins and passions, and raised up by grace to the very throne of God and made participants of the Divine Mystery of the Kingdom. Our lives can be lived so that they parallel the Liturgy: to join the choir of the cherubim and sing the praises of God with the angels and saints, in this life and in the life to come.  We can have the Liturgy perpetually going on in our hearts, in church and everywhere.  We become mindful of God.

So, with all this in mind, how should we who live in the world, conduct our spiritual life? We don’t have to be monks to learn to pray.  There are some laity that have deeper prayer lives than many monks.  The point is that when we embark on the path of repentance, we need to completely commit our self and whole life to Christ, everything we have and everything we do.  We have to come to the point of surrender to God, surrender our thoughts and desires, our ego and our conceptions of even theology.  This is a process. 

The process is theosis, deification.  It has three phases: purification, illumination and deification:

1. Purification means letting go, renouncing and detaching from all the things of this world that we have used to create our ego, our worldly identity. It means forgiving everyone who ever hurt, abused or betrayed us, and letting go of all resentments.  It means learning to watch over our minds and cut off our thoughts and selfish will, so that our thoughts do not turn into passionate sinful actions. In other words, we need to strive for dispassion.  In short, it means to learn not to react to our thoughts.
2. Illumination is the grace of God poured into our souls, forgiving our sins, healing our minds and hearts, enlightening and transforming our spiritual consciousness. God makes us aware of Himself, of His Presence and activity.  God’s grace is His energy, His love, that embraces us and raises us up, and allows us to behold His glory.
3. Deification is the dual action of grace and our own will that brings us into synergy with the will of God, so that we live in a state of communion with God, united with Him in all that we do.

This is the process of salvation, to become like Christ, live in Him, and by the grace of the Spirit share His relationship of Sonship to the Father.  This is a long process, a whole lifetime.  Yet we participate in it through our spiritual life of striving for God here and now, little by little.

What does that look like?  As Orthodox Christians, we are called to live a life centered around the Church and its services. We go to the Liturgy, confess and receive Holy Communion.  We have a prayer life at home, personally and with the family.  We observe the fasts and feasts, fasting as we are able.  We give to the Church and to the poor and try to do good deeds.  All this is formal and external. The external disciplines are there as a tutor, but they can lead us deeper and deeper into the experience of the mystery of God if we let them.  The externals are good and shape our life. But there is far more. The externals are “religion,” the words, the forms, the services, images and concepts, theology and so forth.  This can remain on the level of the rational mind, which processes these things through thoughts.  The nous can be engaged, but noetic awareness is often not developed: the religious practice is often not integrated with perception by the nous.  It remains of this world, not of the Spirit.

An essential aspect of spiritual life is coming to know yourself, in honesty and humility.  Who you really are (the true self) is usually quite different than who we think we are, the ego or false self.  Through repentance we become our true self.

Νikitas Stethatos writes:

What I am is an image of God manifest in a spiritual, immortal and intelligent soul, having an intellect (nous) that is the father of my consciousness and that is consubstantial with the soul and inseparable from it.  That which characterizes me, and is regal and sovereign, is the power of intelligence and free will.  That which I relate to my situation is what I may choose in exercising my free will.[2]

What is in accord with this, we have to develop.  What is contrary to this and takes us down the path of self-will and disobedience to God, egocentrism, we have to renounce.

We must completely surrender to God, and let Him lead us. If we just go through the motions, without it changing our whole life, we miss the point. If we engage the spiritual life with our whole heart and mind, we find lifegiving grace that transforms our very being.  We access that grace by making our spiritual quest the goal of our life: to strive to attain to conscious mindfulness of God.  We become watchful over our minds so that we do not allow ourselves to fall into sin, which is forgetfulness of God; and when we do, to immediately repent.  It also means that we strive to cut off our passionate reactions which lead us into sin: gluttony, lust, anger, greed, despondency, envy, vainglory and pride.  We try to not let ourselves react to these temptations when they present themselves but remain ever watchful so we are not beguiled.  In short, it is to become a spiritual warrior engaged in the battle with our fallen nature and with the demonic forces.

The first stages in spiritual life are formal and external discipline: they prepare us for a deeper experience of God.  This includes basic morality and theology to shape our mind, and we learn the boundaries of the Holy Tradition.  It includes rules of prayer and fasting, attendance at services and so forth, even the beginning of the practice of the Jesus Prayer.  These are means and not ends.  They bring us to the place where we can let go of the old man, corrupt through the lusts of the flesh, and prepare us to become a new man, renewed in the image of Christ by the Spirit.  There is a deep connection between these disciplines and the direct encounter with God.  Many of the texts and rituals of the services, the writings of the Fathers, as well as the Scriptures, are anagogical: they lead us up into contemplation, to the awareness of the Presence of God.  The motor, as it were, that powers us to advance from the religious forms to the spiritual experience is the grace of the Spirit which we access by contemplative prayer.

Contemplative prayer, in Greek theoria, the practice of Hesychasm, is the context by which we ascend to conscious communion with God.  Scholarly writing often reduces it to the Jesus Prayer.  This is a mistake.  The Jesus Prayer is a means to attain to Hesychia, as are the reading of the Scriptures (as in the practice of Lectio Divine), attendance at services and highest of all, the Eucharist.  The Jesus Prayer takes us to a point where our attention is no longer on words, but on the living Presence of God.  It transports us, raises us up, and our attention and our mind become entirely rapt in awe, silenced before God.  This is only the beginning.  God takes it from there, and we enter in and cooperate with Him as He fills, sanctifies, purges and transforms our consciousness.

There are important disciplines that go along with this level of prayer: dispassion or apatheia, and detachment.  Dispassion means to learn to not react when we are confronted by events, what someone says or does, or whatever happens.  It means self control, to remain sober and collected, and not allow our emotions to govern us.  This includes not only external reactions, if someone insults us or offends.  It means to keep watch over our thoughts, so that we do not react when assaulted by passionate thoughts or images. Rather, we should respond rationally, often simply dismissing the thoughts.  This is particularly important if we are going to practice hesychastic prayer, in which we allow no thoughts to disturb our attention.

Detachment is essential in the spiritual life.  It means renunciation of the “world”: “the lust of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life.” (1John)  In monasticism, this is formalized by the vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability.  Poverty is the renunciation of the pursuit of wealth, non-acquisitiveness.  It means detachment from material things, not only money but also possessions.  Chastity is not only the renunciation of marriage for the sake of Christ and the Kingdom.  It also means the renunciation of physical gratification and using others for that purpose. Ultimately, chastity means integrity of life, the renunciation of selfishness.  Obedience is the renunciation of one’s selfish will, desires, and autonomy, in order to become entirely obedient to God. This means to enter into synergy. In monasteries this means obedience to the abbot or abbess; in the world, it means synergy in marriage, but also obedience to one’s superiors, bosses, the authorities.  It is about communion with others, transcending individualism to become authentically a person in union with God and others.  Stability means to not only renounce moving around from one monastery to another, but the inner stability of commitment, whether in monastic or married life. It also means inner emotional stability. We have to detach from our desire to flee difficult situations and work them through. 

No one is able to develop a deep spiritual life if they are pursuing money, sex and power, or if they are not stable in their relationships and commitments. Spiritual pursuit requires a quiet and stable environment, and time that can be used for prayer without distractions.  Of course, we also have the services of the Church, and the daily needs of life to attend to.  If we can set aside half an hour morning and evening, with no noise and no distractions, it will facilitate our the spiritual journey.

The services of the Orthodox Church have multiple levels of meaning, and the longer you go to the services, and understand them, the more those levels unfold.  However, they also elevate our mind and exercise our noetic awareness, so that attending them can lead into the higher levels of prayer.  There is a direct parallel to the liturgical ascent to Communion in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, as there is in the ascent to contemplation in the Jesus Prayer.  The deeper your personal prayer, the deeper your experience of the Liturgy, and especially of Communion.

The Nous and Spirituality: The Patristic teaching

The image of God is one thing, and that which is contemplated in the image is another. For the image of God is the noetic soul, the intellect and the consciousness, which form one indivisible nature. What is contemplated in the image is that which is sovereign, royal and self-determinative. Thus the glory of the intellect is one thing, its dignity is another, its being in the image of God is another, and its being in His likeness is another (cf. Gen. 1:26). The glory of the intellect is its power of ascent, its constant movement upwards, its acuity, purity, understanding, wisdom and immortality. The dignity of the intellect lies in its intelligence, its royal and sovereign nature, and its power of self- determination. Its being in the image of God resides in the self-subsistence of soul, intellect and consciousness and in their coessentiality, indivisibility and inseparability. For intellect and consciousness belong to the incorporeal, immortal, divine and noetic soul; these three are coessential and coeternal, and can never be divided or separated from each other. The intellect’s being in the likeness of God resides in its justice, truthfulness, love, sympathy and compassion. When these qualities are energized and guarded in a person, that which is in the image and likeness of God is clearly manifest in him; he acts, that is to say, in accordance with nature and enjoys a higher dignity than others.[3]

The Scriptural and Patristic texts frequently refer to the nous, the spiritual awareness and consciousness, often called the heart in Orthodox spiritual literature. It is foundational to the Orthodox understanding of anthropology, and spiritual psychology. The image of God in human persons is the noetic soul, which is composed of intellect (nous) and consciousness, forming a single indivisible nature.  This is the fundamental structural basis for all patristic Orthodox spirituality.

Nikitas Stithatos was the main disciple of St Symeon the New Theologian in the 11^th Century.  His writings, following the tradition of his elder, has the most succinct teaching on the nous:

The tripartite deiform soul possesses two aspects, the one noetic and the other passible.

The noetic aspect, being in the image of the soul’s Creator, is not conditioned by the senses, is invisible to them and is not limited by them, since it is both outside them and within them. It is by virtue of this aspect that the soul communicates with spiritual and divine powers and, through the sacred knowledge of created beings, ascends naturally to God as to its archetype, thus entering into the enjoyment of His divine nature.

The passible aspect is split up among the senses and is subject to passions and prone to self-indulgence. It is by virtue of this aspect that the soul communicates with the world that is perceptible to the senses and that fosters nutrition and growth; and in this way it breathes the air, experiences cold and heat, and receives sustenance for self-preservation, life, growth and health. [4]

The soul has two distinct elements, which are passible and the impassible. In other words, the passible is that which can change and the impassible which does not change.  The passible aspect of the soul is related to the material animal aspect of our being, which is conceived, grows, changes, learns, grows old and dies.  The rational aspect of the soul is the mind, which we identify with the brain.  The soul animates the body, and through the mind learns, thinks, speaks; it is what processes the data from the senses, and everything that is learned.  It is the realm of language, literature, music, science, mathematics, art, and so forth.  It operates by thoughts, which are “conceptual images” in the words of St Maximos the Confessor.  The nous, while still created, is of a different nature, noetic or angelic.

The human being is a composite being and we are made-up both of material of this world and of the invisible noetic or spiritual world. We were formed from the dust of the Earth, however that happened, and then God breathed into us a life-giving spirit (the nous)[5].  He implanted within us his image, at the core of the nous, at the moment of conception.  It is the dynamic potential of each particular person, a unique image of God. Through it we perceive God.  The first created man and woman walked the Garden with God: their noetic awareness structured their consciousness. In the Fall, that noetic perception was darkened, and the rational mind took over.  The direct perception of God was impeded.  Our task is to return to the state of Adam before the Fall and live in “constant unbroken conscious awareness of God” (attributed to St Symeon the New Theologian). [6]

The Nous is the locus of the image of God in the human person. The Nous is implanted into us at the moment of conception.  The image of God in our nous is immutable, unchangeable, and immortal.  It cannot be damaged or disfigured.  It is forever good, true, holy and beautiful.

We have the full potential of the image of God within us that needs to develop, physically, psychologically and spiritually. This is that inborn potential. In an infant there is physical development from an embryo into a fetus into a child, into a teenager, into an adult. There is psychological and emotional development, and learning. But there is a spiritual process as well, and that process is the movement from image to likeness. It is because the image of God within us is pure dynamic potential and it has to be actualized. The quality of image is focused in the nous, but the other aspects of our being also bear the image, and its dynamic potential, each in its own way.  Synergy with God means cooperation with God, in other words, obedience to God and doing His will. We bring our natural energy into sync with Divine energy. By sin we disrupt synergy with God, and don’t bring ourselves to fulfillment of the potential within us.  But the nous remains forever unchanged, though our bodies corrupt in the grave awaiting the Resurrection.

As we grow and mature, there is a point in our spiritual development where we decide that we are going to surrender to God and consciously lead a spiritual life. That is where a lot of that development starts. In other words, from the moment of our repentance. That moment is a spiritual awakening, where we first become aware of God and accept that awareness as the foundational reality of our lives. In short, it is the opening of our noetic eyes. This is what happened to St Paul on the road to Damascus.[7]

Repentance is essential. The very word repentance means, as Saint Paul summarizes it in Romans 12:2 and in several other places in the epistles: “be transformed in the renewal of your nous”. He uses the word metamorphosis, which means transformation or transfiguration, and is the core meaning of the idea of metanoia, repentance. It is not about feeling guilty and beating yourself up. It’s about a spiritual transformation that moves us from a state of being basically unconscious of spiritual reality to a state of being in communion with God.  The goal of that transfiguration is that we will be like Christ when He comes again, radiant with divine grace.  Likeness to Christ is the fulfillment of the potential that is the image of God.

Nikitas Stithatos again: When the noetic aspect of the soul holds sway and this mortal aspect is swallowed up by the Logos of life (cf. 2 Cor. 5:4), then the life of Jesus is also manifested in our mortal flesh (cf. 2 Cor. 4:11), producing in us the life-quickening deadness of dispassion, and conferring the incorruption of immortality in response to our spiritual aspiration.[8]

Spiritual maturation means that we go deeper into communion with God, into union with God. It means that we synergize our passible soul and body with the perception of our nous.  That is the function of our nous. The nous is that aspect of our soul that perceives God and perceives His will. It also perceives other noetic beings. The nous is the part of the soul that communicates divine Grace to the rest of our being. The spiritual part of our soul is noetic, just like the angels are noetic. The nous is created, like the angels, with a beginning but no end.  God himself is the ultimate nous, but uncreated, with neither beginning nor end. The created is a type and image, icon, of the uncreated.[9] 

The noetic quality or aspect of our soul is the locus of the image. Now this has several other corollaries that go along with it. First, we totally reject the idea of total depravity. Because no matter how badly we sin, we still have that spiritual, impassible, unchangeable noetic aspect of our soul, the image of God within us and thus a permanent and essential character, an essential aspect of our being.

It also means that within every person, no matter how damaged or disfigured, no matter how degraded they feel themselves to be, at the core of their being each person is something beautiful and unique and holy. This is not only the image of God within us, but it is also the potential to know God and be like Him; and to know other noetic beings, angels, saints, and other human beings. This is the foundation of personhood: our interconnectedness that becomes the source of our identity.

This all must be considered within a schema of spiritual maturation in three major stages.  St Symeon the New Theologian writes:

For someone who desires spiritual rebirth, the first step towards the light is to curtail the passions, that is to say, to guard the heart; for it is impossible otherwise to curtail the passions. The next stage is to devote oneself to psalmody; for when the passions have been curtailed and laid to rest through the heart’s resistance against them, longing for intimate union with God inflames the intellect. Strengthened by this longing the intellect repulses all distractive thoughts that encircle the heart, attempting to get in, and it rebuffs them through attentiveness. So it applies itself assiduously to the second stage, that of attentiveness and prayer. This then stirs up the evil spirits, and the blasts of passion violently agitate the depths of the heart. But through the invocation of the Lord Jesus Christ they are utterly routed and all the tumult melts like wax in the fire. But though they have been driven out of the heart the demons continue to disturb the intellect externally through the senses. However, because they can only trouble it superficially, the intellect soon regains its serenity; none the less, it can never be completely free from the attacks of the demons. Such freedom is to be found only among those who have attained full manhood – who are totally detached from everything visible and who devote themselves unceasingly to giving attention to the heart. After that, those who have achieved attentiveness are raised little by little to the wisdom of old age, that is to say, they ascend to contemplation; and this is the stage of the perfect.[10]

Purification or catharsis, illumination and deification, or theosis, is the process of the transformation of our soul and body. In the stage of purification, what we are trying to do is to reestablish noetic awareness within ourselves, which is communion with God, so that we become aware of God and of His will, and let that awareness of God permeate our whole life. We thus can perceive God’s will in order to do it and come into synergy with Him. But this is blocked by the passions. It is blocked by sin, by resentment and hatred. It is blocked ultimately by the ego, which is the “old man” in Saint Paul’s language. Our task is to overcome the old man, which is the false self that we have created in our own mind.

This brings up the other part of the soul. The passible aspect or the rational part of the soul is what animates the body. It is focused in our brain. As Americans and Westerners, we have this idea that the heart is all about emotions and feelings; in Orthodox ascetic theology, the heart has nothing to do with emotions, because the heart is the nous. It is our spiritual center. And so the task of purification, using prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and ascetic tasks, is accomplished with tools to help to gain control over our body, mind, emotions, habits.

The goal of the process is to learn to control our thoughts and to be able to dismiss them, as thoughts are the root of all sin and distraction; and to be able to enter into a state of profound inner stillness and remain there without being disturbed by thoughts. This is step one.  Purification prepares us for illumination, the indwelling of the grace of the Holy Spirit healing and enlightening our mind and heart. This is all process. Illumination comes when we’ve begun to get some control over ourselves, purged our mind and memories of all that is contrary to the Presence of God, and confessed all our sinful thoughts and behaviors. We gain greater control through this, particularly through the grace of absolution. When we have begun to be able to control our mind, and to focus our attention precisely on the presence of God, we allow the Holy Spirit to enlighten us by His Grace. This process is a cycle of purification and illumination, that leads to deification, and opens our consciousness to the awareness of God. That focus on the presence of God literally transforms our consciousness.

The nous can be understood in terms of consciousness. There are two aspects of consciousness, physical and spiritual. We can be conscious of the material world around us in our rational mind, and oblivious to the spiritual dimension of reality. We can also be noetically conscious of the presence of God and his grace within us, and let it integrate our conscious awareness. All of this is developed within the context of contemplative prayer, of the ascent to communion with God through the prayer of stillness, hesychia. So how do we get there?

The first step is to purify our souls and learn how to control our thoughts, striving for inner stillness.  The next is what is called natural contemplation, when the illumination of the Spirit becomes a constant presence. Natural contemplation is the stage in which the Uncreated Light begins to reveal itself within our mind and within our heart. This is where grace begins to transform not only our minds but our senses.

Another aspect of natural contemplation the fathers talk about, particularly Ss. Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas, is the contemplation of the inner essences of created beings. In other words, we begin to comprehend the logos, the defining principle of each being. This is the beginning of the perception of the image of God and its potential within each person or being. There is another aspect of this, in which our very senses become transformed, and our illumined vision beholds the whole creation dancing and radiant with the grace of God. It is to see through the creation to the Creator.

The third level is deification, the mind being thoroughly illumined with the grace of God, having gone through the process of purification, and through the process of complete surrender to God, and of the body being sanctified by grace. Thus the image is fulfilled in likeness.  This has an eschatological component to it. The fulness of deification of our souls and bodies is in the Resurrection, when we will be like Christ as He is.

The rays of primordial Light that illumine purified souls with spiritual knowledge not only fill them with benediction and luminosity; they also, by means of the contemplation of the inner essences of created things, lead them up to the noetic heavens. The effects of the divine energy, however, do not stop here; they continue until through wisdom and through knowledge of indescribable things they unite purified souls with the One, bringing them out of a state of multiplicity into a state of oneness in Him.[11]

The teacher of Nikita Stithatos was Saint Symeon the New Theologian. The reason he was called a theologian was because he entered into Theologia, which is the vision of God and noetic knowledge of God beyond all rational cognitive forms. 

Epistemology: Theory of Knowledge

We make a distinction, at least in English, between “belief” and “faith.” There are different types of knowledge, one proper to the rational mind, and distinctly noetic knowledge.  The rational mind not only processes all the data from the senses, but also is the faculty we use for cognition, reasoning, thought, learning, not only from the senses per se, but what we are taught, read and understand.  That understanding is in the form of thoughts: cognitive images which we comprehend and communicate, and conceptual images, words and ideas.  The mind, the passible aspect of the soul, also includes the emotions, memory, imagination, and feelings.  Our rational faculty can process and analyze concepts, critically approach questions and creatively develop ideas. This type of awareness or consciousness is the knowledge of the rational mind, psychological (Gr. psychikos) or carnal/bodily knowledge.  Our mind processes the data that comes in, analyzes it, and it is understood through the screen of our passions—what makes us angry, upset, aroused, etc.  Thus it has an emotional evaluation attached to it as well.

This is ego-centered awareness and knowledge, as the ego is the self-consciousness of the rational mind.  The ego is the false self, created by our own mind, on the basis of our own experience in the world, memories, emotions, sins and temptations. With the Fall, ego-consciousness replaced noetic awareness as the dominant factor governing human life.  Noetic awareness was buried by the animal mind, so that many live completely oblivious to the spiritual world, to God and other spiritual realities.  The goal of Orthodox spiritual discipline is to make the noetic awareness dominant, and reintegrate our consciousness accordingly, so that the rational acts in synergy with the spiritual, and so that we can enter into synergy with the Will of God.  This is the process of theosis: of being made a partaker of eternal life in the knowledge of God.[12]

Salvation, eternal life, is the knowledge of God.  “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (Jn 17:3).  The only way to knowledge of God is direct communion with Him, by noetic awareness; it is not knowledge about God, which is rational and objective.  St Isaac the Syrian posed the question,

Question:  What is knowledge?

Answer: The perception of life immortal.

Question: And what is life immortal?

Answer: Consciousness in God.[13]

Faith is conscious noetic awareness of God, regardless of the doubts and disbelief of our ego. When we bring our egos into submission to God, then our faith and belief begin to synergize.  We are saved by Faith—by living communion with the Living God, in Christ by the Holy Spirit.  The more deeply we penetrate into this mystery of living communion with God, the more our consciousness is transformed. We come to a point in contemplation where we silence the rational consciousness, and God leads us deeply into Himself, beyond any duality.  It is not that we are absorbed; rather it is the state of union with God by grace. This can only be understood by experience.

Our rational, egoic, animal consciousness operates in a subject-object dualism.  Religious knowledge is primarily rational: God and salvation become objects for meditation, His characteristics, how He operates, the Trinity.  These conceptual propositions have been the source of vast amounts of theological studies, dogmatic treatises, and Conciliar dogmatic decrees. They are perhaps as close as the rational mind can come to an idea of God.  Many of these propositions are kataphatic—positive descriptions drawn from Scripture and the writings of the Fathers.  Their source of their theology, however, is rooted in the spiritual ascent through noetic mystical prayer. The great Fathers were those whose spiritual vision was purified. They had the intellectual ability to translate the mystical vision into words and concepts.

God cannot be reduced to any concept.  He cannot be described.  He cannot be known by the rational mind.  All words and concepts are inadequate.  As St Gregory of Nyssa wrote, to paraphrase, Ultimately we are all liars, because no words can comprehend God.  Or as Vladimir Lossky wrote, All theology is necessarily mystical theology.  We can thus well understand Thomas Aquinas, who at the end of his life had a vision of the Living Christ, and said that all of his theological works are as straw.  St Gregory of Nyssa wrote:

For the truth of reality is truly a holy thing, a holy of holies. …Believe that what is sought does exist, not that it lies visible to all, but that it remains in the secret and ineffable areas of the [seeing mind].[14]

In the Orthodox tradition, study of the Scriptures and the Fathers is a valuable thing.  However, it has major limits.  When it is an end in itself, it does not lead to salvation.  It is only rational knowledge, as philosophically exalted as it might be. The great value of the study of both the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers is that these writings are anagogical: they are jumping off points, as it were, that launch us into the prayer of contemplation, theoria.  Only through contemplation, the silencing of the rational mind, emotions, thoughts, etc., and being present to God, can we enter into the living communion with God which is contemplative prayer, and to the noetic vision (theoria) to which it leads us.

Whereas rational knowledge is analytical, critical and always cast in term of the subject-object dualism, spiritual or noetic knowledge is non-dual.  To know God means to be united in God, to be in communion with God, to be conscious in God.  There is no subject-object.  God is not external to us but is the ground of our being.  We are mostly either unconscious of this, or in denial.  We come to know God not by critically analyzing Him, but by humbly emptying ourselves and opening ourselves to Him.  This is not in the realm of rational thought, conceptual images, feelings, emotions or any other rational process.  It is precisely the activity of the Spirit, the energetic action of synergy in communion.

Contemplative prayer, theoria, is the goal and fulfillment of our spiritual discipline. It is the fruit of repentance, prayer and fasting, and long spiritual striving.  The disciplines of gaining control of our passions and thoughts is essential, as is learning to ignore thoughts.  We take our thoughts too seriously, and think they mean something; but they don’t.  They are just thoughts, and ultimately, distractions.

            St Isaac the Syrian, perhaps the greatest master of the way of stillness, defines three degrees of knowledge through which we ascend to the knowledge of God.  He lays out the process by which a person enters into synergy with God on the path to theosis.

The First Degree of Knowledge

When knowledge cleaves to the love of the body, it gathers up the following provisions: wealth, vainglory, honor, adornment, rest of the body, [special means to guard the  body’s nature from adversities), assiduity in rational wisdom, such as is suitable for the governance of the world and which gushes forth the novelties of inventions, the arts,

sciences, doctrines, and all other things which crown the body in this visible world. Among the properties of this knowledge belong those that are opposed to faith, which we have stated and enumerated above. This is called shallow knowledge, for it is naked of all concern for God. And because it is dominated by the body, it introduces into the mind an irrational impotence, and it is concern is totally for this world. This measure of knowledge does not reckon that there is any noetic power and hidden steersman over a man, nor any Divine care that shelters and takes concern for him.  takes no account of God’s providential governance; but on the contrary, it attributes to a man’s diligence and his methods every good thing in him, his rescue from what harms him, and his natural ability to avert the plights and many adversities that secretly and manifestly accompany our nature…  We find this knowledge blameworthy and declare it to be opposed not only to faith but to every working of virtue.[15]

This is the carnal level of awareness, oblivious to God and the spiritual, and purely ego centered.  It is from this type of consciousness that we need to repent.  It is devoid of faith, even of belief in God.  This is the consciousness of the “world,” who live as if God does not exist.

On the Second Degree of Knowledge

But when a man renounces the first degree and turns toward deep reflections and the love of the soul, then he practices the aforementioned good deeds with the help of his soul’s understanding, in co-operation with the senses of his body, and in the light of his soul’s nature. These deeds are: fasting, prayer, mercy, reading of the divine Scripture, the modes of virtue, battle with the passions, and the rest. For all these good things, all the various excellences seen in the soul and the wondrous means that are employed for serving in Christ’s court in this second degree of knowledge, are made perfect by the Holy Spirit through the action of its power. This knowledge makes straight the pathways in the heart which lead to faith, wherewith we gather supplies for our journey to the true age. But even so, this knowledge is still corporeal and composite; and although it is the road that leads us and speeds us on our way toward faith, yet there remains a degree of knowledge still higher than it. If it goes forward, it will find itself raised up by faith with the help of Christ, that is, when it has laid the foundation of its action on seclusion from men, reading the Scriptures, prayer, and the other good works by which the second degree of knowledge is made perfect. It is by this knowledge that all that is excellent is performed; indeed, it is called the knowledge of actions, because by concrete actions, through the senses of the body, it accomplishes its work on the external level.[16]

The second degree of knowledge is the state of most Christians, on a broad spectrum. God has called them out of the world, and opened their spiritual eyes. Many are avidly pursuing a spiritual life, striving in prayer, and trying to live in a sober way of life, as best they can. This is the fruit of repentance. In repentance, the noetic eyes are opened, and a person becomes conscious of God and begins to conform his life to this new perception of reality.  It is the beginning of the synergy of Divine energy, grace, with the rational mind and body.  The bodily works of fasting and the battle with the passions are precisely the action of grace within a man, and the effort to bring himself into active communion with the Holy Spirit.  This is the active life of developing faith, a composite of rational belief and spiritual awareness, an active battle with the fallen body, and living experience of communion. There is still a higher level of spiritual awareness, which is the goal of the ascetic disciplines of this second level, achieved through much labor and then, stillness.

On the Third Degree of Knowledge, Which is the Degree of Perfection

Hear now how knowledge becomes more refined, acquires that which is of the Spirit, and comes to resemble the life of the unseen hosts which perform their liturgy not by the paIpable activity of works, but through the activity accomplished in the intellect’s mediation. When knowledge is raised above earthly things and the cares of earthly activities, and its thoughts begin to gain experience in inward matters which are hidden from the eyes; and when in part it scorns [the recollections of] things (whence the perverseness of the passions arises), and when it stretches itself upward and follows faith in its solicitude for the future age, in its desire for what has been promised us, and in searching deeply into hidden mysteries: then faith itself swallows up knowledge, converts it, and begets it anew, so that it becomes wholly and completely spirit. Then it can soar on wings in the realms of the bodiless and touch the depths of the unfathomable sea, musing upon the wondrous and divine workings of God’s governance of noetic and corporeal creatures. It searches out spiritual mysteries that are perceived by the simple and subtle intellect. Then the inner senses awaken for spiritual doing, according to the order that will be in the immortal and incorruptible life. For even from now it has received, as it were in a mystery, the noetic resurrection as a true witness of the universal renewal of all things.

The Fathers call these stages: natural, supranatural, and contra­ natural. These are the three directions in which the memory of a rational soul travels up or down, as has been said: when the soul works righteousness in the [ confines of] nature, or when through her recollection she is caught away to a state higher than nature in the divine vision of God; or when she recedes from her nature to herd swine, as did that young man who squandered the wealth of his discretion and laboured for a troop of demons.[17]

This third level of knowledge or awareness is that of those who after decades of spiritual battle and striving have neared perfection, as far as is possible in this world.  Few even among monks attain this kind of spiritual transformation in this life.  And yet, this is a description of one who has attained neared theosis.  The ultimate fulfillment of this journey, and the fulness of the transformation of consciousness, only comes with the Resurrection.

Conclusion

The ancient Fathers of the Eastern Church laid out the path of spiritual ascent to maturity through ascetic practice.  Most of this literature presumes a monastic context, but does not exclude those who are married with familes.  What it does demand is to be able to be free of distraction to pray, and to live a disciplined life. Most Christians find themselves in the second stage, which can last a lifetime.  Monastic or married, there is one spirituality for the whole church, with the same disciplines.  Whatever our state of life, our lives are sanctified by grace through prayer, fasting and the reception of the Holy Mysteries.  The call to perfection is to all, because that perfection of deification is given freely as a gift by God, at the Resurrection.  While we will struggle in this life, we also await and anticipate that ultimate enlightenment of our souls and the transformation of our bodies when we will be raised to meet Christ as He comes again. That transformation is a gift of His love, so that when He comes, we will be like Him as He is.    Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!

“Let us take refuge in the Lord, and ascend a little to the place where thoughts dry up and stirrings vanish, where memories fade away and the passions die, where human nature become serene and is transformed as it stands in the other world.” (St Isaac, v.2, X:28)

^[1] The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform 2005, with Morphology. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2006), Ro 12:2.

[2] Philokalia v.4 p.116-117. 

[3] Nikitas Stithatos, Philokalia v4, p.142

[4] Philokalia v4 p.142

[5] cf. Genesis 2:7

[6] We need a word about theological context.

It is important to understand that in Orthodox patristic theology, everything is understood in dynamic terms, and in terms of process and energy.  Orthodox Christianity is an eastern religion. Palestine, Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople are not western: they are definitely eastern. Things are understood as existing with an energetic and dynamic model as opposed to a static state model. The Western idea is this static state model. You see it most clearly in Protestantism which in some forms takes the idiosyncrasies of Augustinian theology and emphasizes them. The Calvinist idea, for example, is that people are born utterly depraved, damned. In some interpretations, the image of God is extinguished within them by original sin. A person is predestined for either salvation or damnation by the sovereign choice of God.

In Calvinism, these are these are static states, divinely ordained.  In other Protestant thought, one makes a decision for salvation.  Then one is transferred from one state to the other.  We Orthodox do not accept those categories, especially total depravity, although it goes back to Augustine. At the core of this rejection is our understanding of the Nous.

[7] Acts 9:1-18

[8] Philokalia v4 p.142

[9] cf. Genesis 1:26, Colossians 1:15

[10] Philokalia v4, p.74

[11] Nikitas Stethatos, Philokalia p. 145

[12] This language can be very confusing, as some of the terms are in Greek, like noetic, which has no direct English translation but is often rendered as “mind”; the ancient Latin translation is intellectus, which we generally understand as “rational mind.”  In Latin, Thomas Aquinas recognized the distinction between the “ratio superior” which is noetic awareness; and “ratio inferior” which is rational or ego consciousness.  The Western Church lost this distinction by the 14^th Century, with the ascension of nominalism, rationalism and scholasticism.  The word “intellect” came to be synonymous with the rational mind. For this paper, I have chosen to use the Greek terms “nous” and “noetic” rather than the Latin.  The concept of the nous never made it past the Renaissance into Protestantism and Western culture, despite its being a key Biblical term.

[13] Isaac, Hom. 62, p.298.

[14] Hake, Jesse, quoted in St Gregory of Nyssa; https://www.theophaneia.org/an-intro-to-saint-gregory-of-nyssa-and-his-last-work-the-life-of-moses/

[15] Isaac, Homily 52, p.258ff

[16] Isaac, Homily 52, p.260

[17] Isaac, Hom. 52, pp.260-261