(Archimandrite Zacharias of Essex)
It is unfortunate that there is
widespread confusion, not to mention delusion, in the
inexperienced, whereby the Jesus Prayer is thought to
be equivalent to yoga in Buddhism, or
'transcendental meditation', and other such Eastern
exotica. Any similarity, however, is mostly external,
and any inner convergence does not rise beyond the
natural 'anatomy' of the human soul. The fundamental
difference between Christianity and other beliefs and
practices lies in the fact that the Jesus Prayer is
based on the revelation of the One true living and
personal God as Holy Trinity No other path admits any
possibility of a living relationship between God and
the person who prays.
Eastern asceticism aims at divesting the mind of all that
is relative and transitory, so that man may identify with
the impersonal Absolute. This Absolute is believed to be
man's original 'nature', which suffered degradation and
degeneration by entering a multiform and ever-changing
earth-bound life. Ascetic practice like this is, above
all, centered upon the self, and is totally dependent on
man's will. Its intellectual character betrays the
fullness of human nature, in that it takes no account of
the heart. Man's main struggle is to return to the
anonymous Supra-personal Absolute and to be dissolved in
it. He must therefore aspire to efface the soul
(Atman) in order to be one with this anonymous
ocean of the Suprapersonal Absolute, and in this lies its
basically negative purpose.
In his struggle to divest himself of all suffering and
instability connected with transient life, the eastern
ascetic immerses himself in the abstract and intellectual
sphere of so-called pure Existence, a negative and
impersonal sphere in which no vision of God is possible,
only man's vision of himself. There is no place for the
heart in this practice. Progress in this form of
asceticism depends only on one's individual will to
succeed. The Upanishads do not say anywhere that
pride is an obstacle to spiritual progress, or that
humility is a virtue. The positive dimension of Christian
asceticism, in which self-denial leads to one's clothing
with the heavenly man, to the assumption of a supernatural
form of life, the Source of which is the One True,
Self-revealing God, is obviously and totally absent. Even
in its more noble expressions, the self-denial in Buddhism
is only the insignificant half of the picture. In the
mind's desire to return to its merely 'natural' self, it
beholds its own nakedness in a 'cloud of divestiture'. But
at this point there is a grave risk of obsession with
itself, of its marvelling at its own luminous but created
beauty, and worshipping the creature more than the Creator
(Rom. 1:25). The mind has by now begun to deify or idolize
its self and then, according to the words of the Lord,
'the last state of that man is worse than the first'
(Matt. 12:45).
Such are the limits of Eastern styles of contemplation,
which do not claim to be the contemplation of God, and are
in fact man's contemplation of himself. This does not go
beyond the boundaries of created being, nor does it draw
anywhere near to the Truth of primordial Being, to the
uncreated living God Who has revealed Himself to man. This
kind of practice may well afford some relaxation or
sharpen man's psychological and intellectual functions,
yet 'that which is born of the flesh is flesh' (John 3:6)
and 'they that are in the flesh cannot please God' (Rom.
8:8).
In order to be authentic, any divestiture of the mind from
its passionate attachments to the visible and transitory
elements of this life must be linked to the truth about
man. When man sees himself as he is in the sight of God,
his only response is one of repentance. Such repentance is
itself a gift of God, and it generates a certain pain of
the heart which not only detaches the mind from
corruptible things, but also unites it to the unseen and
eternal things of God. In other words, divestiture as an
end in itself is only half the matter, and it consists of
human effort operating on the level of Created being.
Christianity on the other hand, enjoins the ascetic to
strive in the hope and expectation that his soul will be
clothed, invested, with the grace of God, which leads him
into the fullness of the immortal life for which he knows
he has been created.
Many admire Buddha and compare him to Christ.
Buddha is particularly attractive because of his
compassionate understanding of man's condition and his
eloquent teaching on freedom from suffering. But the
Christian knows that Christ, the Only begotten Son of God,
by His Passion, Cross, Death and Resurrection, willingly
and sinlessly entered into the totality of human pain,
transforming it into an expression of His perfect love. He
thereby healed His creature from the mortal wound
inflicted by the ancestral sin, and made it 'a new
creation' unto eternal life. Pain of heart is therefore of
great value in the practice of prayer, for its presence is
a sign that the ascetic is not far from the true and holy
path of love for God. If God, through suffering, showed
His perfect love for us, similarly, man has the
possibility, through suffering, to return his love to God.
Consequently, prayer is a matter of love. Man expresses
love through prayer, and if we pray, it is an indication
that we love God. If we do not pray, this indicates that
we do not love God, for the measure of our prayer is the
measure of our love for God. St. Silouan identifies love
for God with prayer, and the Holy Fathers say that
forgetfulness of God is the greatest of all passions, for
it is the only passion that will not be fought by prayer
through the Name of God. If we humble ourselves and invoke
God's help, trusting in His love, we are given the
strength to conquer any passion; but when we are unmindful
of God, the enemy is free to slay us.
The title was added for publication on this site. The
untitled excerpt is from Chapter 5, "The Building Up
of the Heart by Vigilance and Prayer".
From The Hidden Man of the Heart: The Cultivation of
the Heart in Orthodox Christian Anthropology, by
Archimandrite Zacharias (Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing,
2008), pp. 66-68. Copyright 2008, The Stavropegic
Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex, UK. Posted on
8/9/2008 with the permission of the publisher.
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