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WEB 4 - ARCHIVE
Commentary 8 - Page 6 |
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Inner experience the 'ground' of germination A little before the year 1000 an Abbot in Cappadocia, St. Symeon the New Theologian, (already quoted above), repeatedly made the point that spirituality had a real aim, which would be revealed through real experience. For this insistence his monks eventually arranged for him to be driven into exile. Saint Symeon describes - as if it happened to somebody else - his first major experience of the uncreated light. This - which happened when he was 20 years old: "One day, as he stood and recited, 'God have mercy upon me, a sinner,' (the Jesus prayer, from Luke 18:13,) uttering it with his mind rather than with his mouth, suddenly a flood of divine radiance appeared from above and filled all the room. As this happened the young man lost all awareness of his surroundings and forgot that he was in a house or that he was under a roof. He saw nothing but light all around him, and did not know whether he was standing on the ground. He was not afraid of falling; he was not concerned with the world, nor did anything pertaining to men and corporeal beings enter into his mind. Instead, he was wholly in the presence of immaterial light and seemed himself to have turned into light. Oblivious of all the world he was filled with tears and with ineffable joy and gladness. His mind then ascended to heaven and beheld yet another light, which was clearer than that which was close at hand." Saint Symeon the New Theologian - 'Discourses' He also wrote: "The nous immersed in Your light becomes so bright that in the end it is light itself, in the likeness of Your glory. The nous of man to whom this has been granted is called Your own: he is then deemed worthy to possess Your nous, and he is made one with You, never to be parted." St. Symeon the New Theologian - 'Discourses' Saint Paul said of this that we should, "put on the mind (or nous) of Christ." "By Thy light we shall see light," says the Orthodox liturgy.
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