|
WEB 4 - ARCHIVE
Commentary 22 - Page 2 |
||||||
| 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 |
Several centuries ago, there was a move that began in Moscow but which spread widely through the Orthodox Christian world, to rediscover in writings including those of the fathers of the church - writings that then were inaccessible to most of those who sought - Christian truths that were no longer a part of Western Christian teaching. Again in Europe, in the nineteenth century, some of these works were translated and made generally available, and were clearly valued by a few souls who glimpsed the treasures hid in them. But none of these attempts succeeded in restoring this knowledge to the ‘mainstream’ of Christian thought. The time was not right, and what these texts contain is so different from what is now generally understood as Christianity, that by that time, practically nobody possessed the tools with which to grasp those ancient truths. In Russia, the story was different, because 'the times' were different. In the nineteenth century, Russia was still in the throes of the Westernisation forced on her by Peter the Great; Western or at least Westernised philosophical and scientific thought existed alongside surviving streams of thought and spirituality in an Eastern church that later survived the Revolution itself. The interaction between these two powerful rivers gave rise to similar investigations and these, the discovering of these ideas by people in active contact with the spiritual practices that endure almost unchanged over the centuries, in certain corners of the Eastern church, bore different fruit; a greater valuation of the ideas discovered, which led as a result to more active and sometimes more successful attempts to apply this ancient knowledge. In the nineteenth century certain teachers appeared to transmit this knowledge, some of them, such as Saint Theophan the Recluse, were conventional, others, laymen with more Western backgrounds, were highly unconventional both by the standards of Eastern Christendom and Western humanism. It is generally supposed that there was no contact between Gurdjieff and Ouspensky on the one hand and the formal streams of the tradition on the other. In fact, not only was P. D. Ouspensky in friendly contact with the hermit Father Nikon, on Mount Athos, but certain of his students visited that hermit, and this contact with the mainstream has had considerable effect on Western spirituality, since it was this that led directly to Gerald Palmer’s translation into English of parts of the Philokalia,2 the great compendium of teachings of the early fathers that has driven Eastern monasticism since the sixteenth century. His co-translator in this, also co-translator of the Art of Prayer and Unseen Warfare, was Madam Kadloubovsky, who for many years was Ouspensky’s secretary.
|
RESEARCH
PRAXIS PAST
A New Vision The Ark Text List SITE INFO Recent site changes Search Site |
||||
