19. Abstract of: 'God’s drill' The Christian psychological method appears to function through two very different paths, but in fact these are intertwined. - One method is essentially under our control, and depends on complex methods that search deeper and deeper until we totally transcend our ordinary everyday state of consciousness. - The other is outside our control and involves the great crises in our lives; crises that may wake up individuals or, as in the time now coming on us, whole civilizations, crises that go so deep that one early father described them as 'God's drill. ' The beauty of some Christian services is a support for those who lack a sufficiently strong memory of the reality of the divine light of consciousness itself. In esoteric Christianity, this memory is achieved in two ways. One method is essentially under our control, and depends on complex methods of taking the search deeper until it totally transcends our ordinary everyday state of consciousness. The other is outside our control and involves the great crises in our lives; crises that may wake up individuals or, as in the time now coming` on us, whole civilizations. Starets Leonid in Russia, conscious guide of one of Russia’s great esoteric monasteries, sadly closed down by the Communist regime, clearly recognized the existence of these two possible paths of growth I referred to earlier. He spoke of two forms of practice that can be described as the path of effort and the path of suffering. "Whoever the Lord visits with a grievous trial, sorrow, or the deprivation of a beloved person or people close to him such a person will involuntarily pray with his whole heart and all his thoughts and with all his mind. Consequently the wellspring of prayer is in everyone, but it is tapped either by gradually delving deeper and deeper into oneself in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Fathers, or instantaneously, by God's drill." ( Clement Sederholm - Elder Leonid of Optina - p40 ) |
