Tag: faith

SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE: ST. PETER OF DAMASKOS

(Philokalia Vol. III, G.E.H Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware)

We are born, St. Petter writes, with an innate spiritual knowledge which we later lose through passions.

What is the meaning of spiritual knowledge then?

It is the ability to see things as they really are in nature, to uncover the mystery that lies beyond appearance and physical attributes.

The intellect then sees things as they are by nature ….by others it is called spiritual insight, since he who possesses it knows something at least of the hidden mysteries- that is, of God’s purpose- in the Holy Scriptures and in every created thing.

Passions, however, “darken the intellect” and confine us to the surface of things.

Living on the surface is easily exhaustible. We burn through material things, praise, career milestones etc., rapidly. We are, thus, on a frantic course of constantly replenishing the supply and yet, for many of us, a sense of emptiness remains.

The Greeks had an extraordinary understanding of the physical and intellectual realm, we are told, yet they lacked spiritual knowledge, defined here as the discernment of purpose.

Without understanding purpose, one cannot penetrate the true meaning of all things.

…for the pagan Greeks perceived many things but, as St Basil the Great has said, they were unable to discern God’s purpose in created beings, or even God Himself, since they lacked the humility and the faith of Abraham.

Viewed through the lens of spiritual insight, then, nothing is insignificant and worthless. Nothing is dismissible.  Nothing is empty. Even a crumb of bread or a boring daily routine points to a larger meaning and purpose.

 (God’s purpose) is clearly revealed in the world to come, when everything hidden is disclosed.

A significant difference between Christian and other types of meditative traditions is that the true meaning of things cannot be deciphered through our own resources and will not be revealed without faith.

The gnostic ought not to rely in any way on his own thoughts, but should always seek to confirm them in the light of divine Scripture or of the nature of things themselves. Without such confirmation, there can be no true spiritual knowledge, but only wickedness and delusion.

God and his purpose are there to be discovered—ensconced in simple and lofty things alike, in humble daily discourse and scriptural writings. All we have to do is rid ourselves of passions, assumptions and obsession with our self-interest so we can be filled with spiritual knowledge and allow for the revelation to occur.

We have all seen little children’s wonder-filled eyes as they explore the world with hope, faith and awe. Everything is new, sacred, and filled with unending mysteries and delights. Even a speck of dust is a source of wonder and reveals to them something about a vast and unknown world. This is the state of innocence we must achieve in order to be filled with spiritual knowledge.

Peter expounds on the meaning of faith. It is, he says, going beyond the visible to extrapolate the invisible.

A person is said to have faith when, on the basis of what he can see, he believes in what he cannot see.

Yet, discerning hidden mysteries is not enough if you lack faith in their creator. “But to believe in what we can see of God’s works is not the same as to believe in Him who teaches and proclaims the truth to us.”

Faith must proceed from the head to the heart. According to St. St. Peter, it is through suffering that one acquires faith, then fear, then awe, then gratitude and humility and, finally, true spiritual knowledge.  

In this way, the person who in faith endures these trials patiently will discover, once they have passed, that he has acquired spiritual knowledge, through which he knows things previously unknown to him, and that blessings have been bestowed on him. As a result, he gains humility together with love both towards God, as his benefactor, and towards his fellow-men for the healing wrought by God through them.

PATIENCE AND ENDURANCE: St. Peter of Damaskos

(Philokalia Vol. III, G.E.H Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware)

When I look for an urgent answer or solution, my double “A” personality often kicks in. There have been times when, in my impatience for an immediate answer, I stayed up until dawn, doing Google research, drawing diagrams, or making lists. Even if I become exhausted and unproductive, I am sure that if I just persist a little more, I can get results within my timeline.  

How much of our inner peace do we sacrifice, in our efforts to force our agenda and sense of timing on the universe?

St. Peter advises that we apply “conscious awareness of our own hearts” to discern God’s perspective and free ourselves from the frantic pressure to bring about the results we want, when we want them.

Harmonizing our will with God’s brings about patience and endurance. Patience and endurance are not simply two of many virtues. They are, instead, the preconditions for possessing our soul. If fact, St. Peter believes that “you come into yourself when you endure with patience.”

Without patient endurance, we live in turmoil, burdened by the idea that unless we force results, nothing worthwhile will happen in our lives. We are riddled with anxiety, uncertainty, and lack of clarity as our passions obscure the true nature of things.

How many tears would I like to shed whenever I gain even a partial glimpse of myself! If I do not sin, I become elated with pride; while if I sin and am able to realize it, in my dismay I lose heart and begin to despair. If I take refuge in hope, again I become arrogant. If I weep, it feeds my presumption; if I do not weep, the passions visit me again… In my ignorance all things seem contradictory, and I cannot reconcile them.

Patience is living in God’s infinite time. It is abandoning the futile struggle of forcing our temporal time frame on a God-created universe. It is acquiring humility to put aside our own assumptions; and discernment to understand the connecting links among things that appear contradictory.

Patient endurance is not a solitary virtue but the result of a transformative process that begins with faith and fear of God. As we no longer see ourselves as the center of the world, we experience awe, humility, clarity of vision, gratitude, and inner stillness.

For if such endurance is not born in the soul out of faith, the soul cannot possess any virtue at all.

The working assumptions for most of us are that we acquire and increase knowledge through our own efforts, feel justifiable pride in it, receive recognition for it and continue to ascend levels of accomplishment until we become “experts” or wise. It thus becomes easy to judge others, become anxious about winning arguments and impose our opinions which we “know” to be wiser than others.’  

St. Peter, and other desert fathers, turn this value system on its head. Spiritual knowledge begins with acknowledgment of ignorance and the recognition of the need of God’s grace.  

For this reason it is good to say ‘I do not know’, so that we neither disbelieve what is said by an angel nor place credence in what occurs through the deceitfulness of the enemy.

Giving up the pressure of forcing results and timelines, judging, impressing, and dominating others frees us from impatience. We now live in God’s time, realizing that experience and insight may take years, rather than hours or days, and that we cannot achieve anything on our own without God’s grace.

We may wait for many years until the answer is given us, unsolicited and unperceived, in the form of some concrete action- as someone has put it with reference to the contemplation of created beings. In this way we reach the haven of active spiritual knowledge. When we see this knowledge persisting in us over many years, then we will understand that truly we have been heard and have invisibly received the answer.