The Philokalia Vol 5 by G.E.H. Palmer;

Author:G.E.H. Palmer;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookwire GmbH
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

ON CONTEMPLATION

50.8 Our intellect is as it were a place that receives the light of divine revelation; but the particular character of this place, about which I am going to speak, is astonishing and is altogether different from that of a physical place. The more a physical place is extended, the greater is its receptive capacity. With the intellect the contrary is the case: the more it contracts and draws in upon itself, the greater is its capacity to receive things. And when it has cut off and suppressed all its modes of activity – reasoning, cognition and whatever else – then it sees God, who is greater than anything. It sees Him to such an extent as the grace of the all-holy Spirit enables it so to do, and to the degree that an embodied and created reality can see that which transcends matter and creation. It does not see empty fantasies, nor does it see as in a dream fabrications of its own thought. It sees by the light of the heart that is energized by the unutterable power of the Holy Spirit and transformed in a supranatural manner.

When through grace the intellect has been brought into this state, it becomes still and sleeps while the heart remains awake (cf. Song of Songs 5:2). One could as soon fail to be aware that one is a human being as not to recognize that this is the consequence of an energy that is divine and spiritual. For at that time one experiences a constant spiritual activity in the heart, an activity that is ardent and overflowing with life, and usually accompanied by a gentle flow of tears. This makes the heart at peace not only with itself but also with all other people. It engenders purity, happiness, silent cries of supplication, the opening of the heart, gladness and unutterable delight. He who hears of this state and is privileged to attain it shuns in very truth, and not with dissimulation, every form of bodily pleasure, all delectation, riches, or glory derived from the fleeting things of the outer world.

A person who has received all these blessings possesses them in a divine and spiritual manner within his heart and intellect. He possesses them not merely as speculative ideas but as certainties. He does not rejoice in them through the natural light of his own mind; for this natural light, subject as it is to the distraction of the senses, dulls the light that is divine, spiritual and truly delightful. Thus he makes use of this natural light as sparingly as he can, and then only to the degree to which he has to assuage his external material needs. He bears all things, endures in all things (cf. 1 Cor. 13:7), and in all things he is protected by his inner joyous state of divine love and contemplation. And apart from sin there is nothing that afflicts or grieves him.

For the sake of this place – by which I mean the

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