Tag: meditation

FROM DREAM TO REVELATION

Nikitas Stithatos

Philokalia, vol. 4, On the Inner Nature of Things and on the Purification of the Intellect:

The understanding of dreams serves as an entry point for Stithatos’s broader mystical philosophy of theosis, the gradual process of becoming more like God. This transformation unfolds in three distinct stages: dreams, visions, and revelations.

  1. Dreams: The First Step of Purification
  • There is a direct correlation between who we are and what we dream. If we are attached to material things, for example, we will dream of possessions. If we are addicted to praise and success, we may dream of ourselves in powerful positions, dominating others and being admired.
  • A virtuous life produces peaceful dreams. We rise from bed filled with  peace, gratitude and the living presence of God
  • However, Stithatos notes that even these purified dreams are imperfect. They are produced by the “image-forming faculty of the intellect,” which is mutable and thus unreliable.

2. Visions: Beyond the “Image-Forming Intellect”

  • Moving beyond dreams, the soul can experience visions. Unlike the fleeting images of dreams, visions are constant and unchanging, leaving an unforgettable imprint on the intellect.
  • These visions reveal future events, inspire the soul with awe and engender a sense of repentance.

3. Revelations: Union with the Divine

  • The final, and most advanced, spiritual stage is that of revelations. With a purified and illuminated soul, an individual can transcend ordinary sense perception and understanding.
  • It is like a veil has been lifted and we can perceive the true, inner essence of things that lie beneath the surface. We are no longer separated from God,  so we are whole and free from struggle, conflict and contradiction. We have advanced beyond words and images to become God-like and perceive His hidden mysteries. Everything now makes sense, and  we understand the ultimate purpose of all things, and our own role in God’s creation.

Stillness as the path to Theosis

Those who achieve visions and revelations are no longer troubled by everyday anxieties and concerns. This allows them to achieve a state of inner stillness, which is a prerequisite for theosis.

Reaching this state of stillness requires restraint, conquering our will and triumphing  over our own impulses. The path of the monk or nun—involving fasting, poverty, and other forms of ascetic discipline — is one example of a complete surrender of the passions. For modern readers, asceticism can seem unrealistic or off-putting, but its core principle is highly relevant: gaining control over our passions and “addictions” rather than being controlled by them, and achiving inner peace.

Without restraint, our will to succeed, possess, indulge, gain status, receive praise and approval, control or defeat drives us.  

We use external things to quell our inner fears and anxieties: we abuse substances, become workaholics, become dependent on others’ approval, and chase success at all costs. We sacrifice inner peace and contentment for perceived material success, becoming addicted to external gains and desires.

In this state, Stithatos writes, our true, God-given soul is “disordered” and at war with itself, unable to receive divine grace.

A passionate soul, like a leaf in the wind, is unstable. It is elated by praise and success but devastated by criticism and failure. Stillness is the antithesis of this instability. It is “an undisturbed state of the intellect, the calm of a free and joyful soul.”

 In stillness, however, since our contentment is no longer dependent on external factors, we experience an “unwavering stability of the heart in God.”

The Result of Stillness
Freed from the inner battle, our perception becomes clear. We can ascend from contemplating visible things to a profound apprehension of the divine, eventually transcending images, words, and thoughts to achieve complete union with God. The pure intellect, having internalized divine principles, then reflects God’s wisdom, uncovering the deeper mysteries of creation.

Starting with dreams of things visible we ascend to the ever-increasing apprehension of things until we reach beyond images, words and thoughts to become united with God.

When the intellect has interiorized these principles and revelations and made them part of its own nature, then it will elucidate the profundities of the Spirit to all who possess God’s Spirit within themselves, exposing the guile of the demons and expounding the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT BY JOHN CLIMACUS: ON DISPASSION (step 29)

“By dispassion, I mean a heaven of the mind within the heart which regards the artifice of demons a contemptible joke” says John in the beginning of step #29, as he brings us to the last rung of the ladder before reaching the summit.

Very early in our journey, on step 3, we were introduced to the principle of detachment-turning away from earthly passions.  Dispassion, however, goes beyond struggling to detach from destructive passions, to inner transformation!  We have already broken free from the dominance of passions and temptations and we now experience our lives as transformed.  

“Its effect,” John reports from accounts of those who have reached a state of dispassion, “is to sanctify the mind and detach it from material things, and it does so in such a way that, after entering this heavenly harbor, a man, for most of his earthly life is enraptured, like someone already in heaven, and he is lifted up to the contemplation of God.”  Through dispassion, we are afforded a foretaste of a sanctified life in which “the artifice of demons,” instead of tempting us, appear so contemptible we are reduced to laughter.  

Dispassion is calmness in the face of turbulence.  Dispassion, John reminds us, is also the strength to “keep thoughts under control in the face of praise.”  The latter is much harder than the former.  The highest “state of dispassion is when one is in such close union with God that he is oblivious to any evil around him and there is longer a necessity to control evil thoughts.  At this point he cannot separate himself from God…The will of God becomes for him as sort of inner voice through illumination.”

“Think of dispassion,” John asks, “as a celestial palace with numerous mansions. Think of the forgiveness of sins as being the fortifying wall of Jerusalem.”  If we falter or fail, we can still recapture the palace as long as we make sure that we at least remain within these walls. Forgiveness, therefore, is a basic pre-requisite—even if we have lost everything else.  As long as anger, bitterness, hatred and countless of petty grudges cloud our soul, nothing else can enter.  To be whole, John urges us to break that wall of separation.  He ends with a ray of hope as he reminds that reaching dispassion and sampling the joy of the Resurrection are achievable and within our nature as children of God and that God Himself is dispassion.  

Be still and know that I am God and am Dispassion (Ps 45:11)