|
WEB 4 - ARCHIVE
Commentary 19 - Page 7 |
||||||
|
HOME . PRAXIS NOW . PRAXIS PAST . CLASSES . EVENTS . BOOKSHOP . WHAT'S NEW . REGISTER . LOGIN |
||||||
|
PRAXIS NOW
Darkness of
the psyche The Hermit's Message
Way of Theosis Psychological method Prayer of the heart
praxis studies
Introductory studies
LOGOUT |
Conclusion: conscious actions in a clear mind The teacher outside you only exists to awaken the teacher that sleeps within you; the nous of early Greek thought. The instrument of the purified nous is consciousness itself, bringing the clear light of discrimination - the early Christian word was diakrisis - to the heart of the mind, in that faculty sometimes described as the eye - or sometimes the eyes - of the psyche. The idea of diakrisis is the same as the 4th Way teaching of the idea of A, B and C influences. In some early teachings the word 'spirit' is used in exactly the same meaning as the modern word influences. According to St. John Cassian, influence A is the spirit of this world. Influence C is the Spirit of God. Christian Esotericism - monastic or Fourth Way - begins by awakening this conscious heart, awaking or intensifying in the student the first signs of self-awareness. It is then up to the individual, beginning from these moments, slowly to bring his or her whole organism under control. Saint Anthony the Great, sometimes regarded as the founder of Christian monasticism, said about this process: "The nous then starts to discriminate between the body and the soul, as it begins to learn from the Spirit how to purify both by repentance. And, taught through this conscious influence, the nous becomes our guide to the labours of body and soul, showing us how to purify them." We should try to understand what this means in terms of inner experience. What happens is that with certain other practices the light in the inner mind or nous grows brighter. If this happens to you, you will find that as it does so it begins to become directly aware of the difference between on the one side the body and all its activities, and on the other hand the activities of the psyche: the thought, feelings, sensations and active impulses. Then, as this watching continues it begins to get intimations about how to act, in body and mind, in such a way as to purify the busy modern psyche. Soon after, Saint Anthony continued: "The nous separates us from all the fruits of our animal life which have been mingled with all the members of the body since the first transgression, and brings back each of the members of the body to its original condition, having nothing in it from the spirit of compulsion." The process continues just as Saint Anthony describes: we begin to be aware of activities - desires and memories of desires - that originate not from the psyche itself but from our body. It is only now, 'with new eyes', that we begin to see that over the years these desires have become compulsions, which is to say that we have become slaves to these desires so that they reduce us to something a little less than our full human potential. This awareness, in its purifying action, slowly separates out this silent inner eye, the nous, from all the activity around it, so that for increasing periods it looks on all this activity while remaining unmoved. After long periods of this separation of the nous, the compulsions of the body begin to fall away and the fallen psyche becomes once again a simple reflector of realities. |
GOD'S DRILL
PRAXIS PAST
A New Vision The Ark Text List SITE INFO Recent site changes Search Site |
||||
