SAINT SIMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN
There are three methods of prayer and attentiveness, by means
of which the soul is either uplifted or cast down. Whoever employs these
methods at the right time is uplifted, but whoever employs them
foolishly and at the wrong time is cast down. Vigilance and prayer
should be as closely linked together as the body to the soul, for the
one cannot stand without the other. Vigilance first goes on ahead like a
scout and engages sin in combat. Prayer then follows afterwards, and
instantly destroys and exterminates all the evil thoughts with which
vigilance has already been battling, for attentiveness alone cannot
exterminate them. This, then, is the gate of life and death. If by means
of vigilance we keep prayer pure, we make progress; but if we leave
prayer unguarded and permit it to be defiled, our efforts are null and
void.
Since, then, as we said, there are three methods of attentiveness and
prayer, we should explain the distinctive features of each, so that he
who aspires to attain life and wishes to set to work may with firm
assurance select what suits him best; otherwise through ignorance he may
choose what is worse and forfeit what is better.
THE FIRST METHOD OF PRAYER
The distinctive features of the first method of prayer are these. When a
person stands at prayer, he raises hands, eyes and intellect
heavenwards, and fills his intellect with divine thoughts, with images
of celestial beauty, of the angelic hosts, of the abodes of the
righteous. In brief, at the time of prayer he assembles in his intellect
all that he has heard from Holy Scripture and so rouses his soul to
divine longing as he gazes towards heaven, and sometimes he sheds tears.
But when someone prays in this way, without him realizing it his heart
grows proud and exalted, and he regards what is happening to him as the
effect of divine grace and entreats God to allow him always to be
engaged in this activity. Such assumptions, however, are signs of
delusion, because the good is not good when it is not done in the right
way.
If, then, such a person is pursuing a life of stillness and seclusion,
he will almost inevitably become deranged. And even if this does not
happen to him, it will be impossible for him to attain a state of
holiness or dispassion. Those who adopt this method of prayer have also
been deluded into thinking that they see lights with their bodily eyes,
smell sweet scents, hear voices, and so on. Some have become completely
possessed by demons and wander from place to place in their madness.
Others fail to recognize the devil when he transforms himself into an
angel of light (II Corinthians 2:14); and, putting their trust in him,
they continue in an incorrigible state of delusion until their death,
refusing to accept the counsel of anyone else. Still others, incited by
the devil, have committed suicide, throwing themselves over a precipice
or hanging themselves.
Indeed, who can describe all the various forms of deception employed by
the devil? Yet from what we have said any sane person can understand the
kind of harm that may result from this method of attentiveness. Even if
someone who has adopted this method may perhaps avoid the evils we have
mentioned because he lives in a community -- for it is solitaries who
are especially subject to them -- none the less he will pass his entire
life without making any progress.
THE SECOND METHOD OF PRAYER
The second form of prayer is this. A person withdraws his intellect from
sensory things and concentrates it in himself, guards his senses, and
collects all his thoughts; and he advances oblivious of the vanities of
this world. Sometimes he examines his thoughts, sometimes pays attention
to the words of the prayer he is addressing to God, and sometimes drags
back his thoughts when they have been taken captive; and when he is
overcome by passion he forcefully strives to recover himself.
One who struggles in this way, however, can never be at peace or win the
crown of victory. He is like a person fighting at night: he hears the
voices of his enemies and is wounded by them, but he cannot see clearly
who they are, where they come from, and how and for what purpose they
assail him. Such is the damage done to him because of the darkness in
his intellect. Fighting in this manner, he cannot ever escape his noetic
enemies, but is worn out by them. For all his efforts he gains nothing.
Falsely imagining that he is concentrated and attentive, he falls
victim unawares to self-esteem. Dominated and mocked by it, he despises
and criticizes others for their lack of attentiveness. Imagining that he
is capable of becoming the shepherd of sheep, he is like the blind man
who undertakes to lead the blind (Matthew 15:14).
Such are the characteristics of the second method of prayer, and
everyone one striving after salvation can see what harm it does. Yet
this second method is better than the first, just as a moonlit night is
better than a night that is pitch-dark and starless.
THE THIRD METHOD OF PRAYER
-- Let us now begin to speak about the third method of prayer, which is
truly astonishing and hard to explain. For those ignorant of it, it is
not only difficult to understand but virtually incredible, and there are
very few to be found who practice it. It seems to me that it has
deserted us along with the virtue of obedience. For it is the love of
obedience that delivers us from entanglement with this evil world,
rendering us free from anxiety and impassioned craving. It makes us
wholehearted and unflagging in pursuit of our aim -- provided, of
course, that we find an unerring guide. For if through obedience you
make yourself dead to every worldly and bodily attachment, how can
anything transient enslave your intellect? If you entrust all the care
of your soul and body to God and to your spiritual father, no longer
living for yourself or desiring the good opinion of others, what anxiety
can distract you?
-- This third method, then, destroys the invisible wiles of the demons,
with which as with ropes they seek to drag down the intellect into all
manner of devious thoughts. Set at liberty, the intellect wages war with
its full strength, scrutinizing the thoughts insinuated by the enemy
and with masterful dexterity expelling them, while the heart in its
purity offers prayers to God. This is the beginning of a life of true
seclusion, and those who fail to make such a beginning exhaust
themselves in vain.
-- The starting point of this third method of prayer is not to gaze
upwards, to raise one's hands aloft, to concentrate one's thoughts and
to call down help from heaven. These, as we said, are the marks of the
first form of delusion. Nor does it begin, as the second method does, by
keeping guard over the senses with the intellect, while failing to
observe the enemies who attack from within. In such a case, a person is
struck by the demons instead of striking them; when wounded he is
unaware of it; taken captive, he cannot retaliate against his captors.
His enemies constantly attack him, and from behind and even face to
face, and fill him with self-esteem and arrogance.
-- If you desire to embark on this light-giving and joyful task, begin
as follows. You must first practice exact obedience, as described above,
and so act always with a pure conscience; for without obedience it is
impossible for your conscience to be pure. And you must keep your
conscience pure in three respects: first, with respect to God, you must
keep your conscience pure by refraining from doing anything that
conflicts with the worship due to Him. With respect to your spiritual
father do everything he tells you to do, neither more nor less, and be
guided by his purpose and will. With respect to other people, you must
keep your conscience pure by not doing to them anything that you hate
(Tobit 4:15) and that you do not want them to do to you. With respect to
material things, you must take care not to misuse them, whether food,
drink, or clothing. In brief, do everything as if you were in the
presence of God, so that your conscience does not rebuke you in any way.
-- . . . In short, if you do not guard your intellect you cannot attain
purity of heart, so as to be counted worthy to see God (Matthew 5:18).
Without such watchfulness you cannot become poor in spirit, or grieve,
or hunger and thirst after righteousness, or be truly merciful, or pure
in heart, or a peacemaker, or be persecuted for the sake of justice
(Matthew 5:3-10). To speak generally, it is impossible to acquire all
the other virtues except through watchfulness. For this reason you must
pursue it more diligently than anything else, so as to learn from
experience these things, unknown to others, that I am speaking to you
about. Now if you would like to learn also about the method of prayer,
with God's help I will tell you about this too, in so far as I can.
-- Above all else you should strive to acquire three things, and so
begin to attain what you seek. The first is freedom from anxiety with
respect to everything, whether reasonable or senseless -- in other
words, you should be dead to everything. Secondly, you should strive to
preserve a pure conscience, so that it has nothing to reproach you with.
Thirdly, you should be completely detached, so that your thoughts
incline towards nothing worldly, not even your own body.
-- Then sit down in a quiet cell, in a corner by yourself, and do what I
tell you. Close the door, and withdraw your intellect from everything
worthless and transient. Rest your head on your chest, and focus your
physical gaze, together with the whole of your intellect, upon the
center of your belly or your navel. Restrain the drawing-in of breath
through your nostrils, so as not to breathe easily, and search inside
yourself with your intellect so as to find the place of the heart, where
all the powers of the soul reside. To start with you will find there
darkness and an impenetrable density. Later, when you persist and
practice this task day and night, you will find, as though miraculously,
an unceasing joy. For as soon as the intellect attains the place of the
heart, at once it sees things of which it previously knew nothing. It
sees the open space within the heart and it beholds itself entirely
luminous and full of discrimination. From then on, from whatever side a
distractive thought may appear, before it has come to completion and
assumed a form, the intellect immediately drives it away and destroys it
with the invocation of Jesus Christ. From this point onwards the
intellect begins to be full of rancor against the demons and, rousing
its natural anger against its noetic enemies, it pursues them and
strikes them down. The rest you will learn for yourself, with God's
help, by keeping guard over your intellect and by retaining Jesus in
your heart. As the saying does, "Sit in your cell and it will teach you
everything."
from The Philokalia: Volume IV, edited and translated by G. E. H.
Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Bishop Kallistos Ware, (London: Faber and
Faber, 1995), pp. 69 - 73.
