World Philosophical Heritage

Wisdom and teachings of
Orthodoxy

99 quote(s) | Page 3 / 4

T here is no gainsaying what the fathers have so well affirmed, that a man does not find rest except by acquiring inwardly the thought that God and he alone exist; and so he does not let his intellect wander at all towards anything whatsoever, but longs only for Him, cleaving to Him alone. Such a man will find true rest and freedom from the tyranny of the passions. My soul, as David says, is bound to Thee; Thy right hand has upheld me (Ps. 63:8. LXX).

quote 3389 | The Philokalia
St. Theodoros the Great Ascetic in A Century of Spiritual Texts: ("Philokalia (Vol. 2)", p. ?)

A man who merely practises the remembrance of God from time to time, loses through lack of continuity what he hopes to gain through his prayer. It is a mark of one who truly loves holiness that he continually burns up what is worldly in his heart through practising the remembrance of God, so that little by little evil is consumed in the fire of this remembrance and his soul completely recovers its natural brilliance with still greater glory.

quote 3388 | Diadochos of Photiki
On Spiritual Knowledge: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 294, text 97)

W hen you are praying, do not shape within yourself any image of the Deity, and do not let your intellect be stamped with the impress of any form; but approach the Immaterial in an immaterial manner, and then you will understand.

quote 3387 | Saint Evagrios the Solitary
On Prayer: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 63, text 67)

H e who wishes to be spared all misfortunes should associate God with everything through prayer; with his intellect he should set his hope in Him, putting aside, so far as possible, all concern about things of the senses.

quote 3386 | Saint Mark the Ascetic
On the Spiritual Law: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 140, text 172)

T hink nothing and do nothing without a purpose directed to God…

quote 3385 | Saint Mark the Ascetic
On the Spiritual Law: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 114, text 54)

Y ou cannot attain pure prayer while entangled in material things and agitated by constant cares. For prayer means the shedding of thoughts.

quote 3384 | Saint Evagrios the Solitary
On Prayer: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", pp. 62-63, text 71)

S tand on guard and protect your intellect from thoughts while you pray. Then your intellect will complete its prayer and continue in the tranquility that is natural to it. In this way He who has compassion on the ignorant will come to you, and you will receive the blessed gift of prayer.

quote 3383 | Saint Evagrios the Solitary
On Prayer: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 63, text 70)

W hen your intellect in its great longing for God gradually withdraws from the flesh and turns away from all thoughts that have their source in your sense-perception, memory or soul-body temperament, and when it becomes full of reverence and joy, then you may conclude that you are close to the frontiers of prayer.

quote 3382 | Saint Evagrios the Solitary
On Prayer: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", pp. 62-63, text 62)

T he delighted intellect delights in the light of the Lord when, free from concepts, it enters into the dawn of spiritual knowledge. By continually denying itself, it advances from the wisdom necessary for the practice of the virtues to an ineffable vision in which it contemplates holy and ineffable things. Then the heart is filled with perceptions of infinite and divine realities and sees the God of gods in its own depths, so far as this is possible. Astounded, the intellect lovingly glorifies God, the Seer and the Seen, and the Saviour of those who contemplate Him in this way.

quote 3381 | Saint Hesychios the Priest
On Watchfulness and Holiness: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 185, text 131)

T o human beings it seems hard and difficult to still the mind so that it rests from all thoughts. Indeed, to enclose what is bodiless within the limits of the body does demand toil and struggle, not only from the uninitiated but also from those experienced in inner immaterial warfare. But he who through unceasing prayer holds the Lord Jesus within his breast will not tire in following Him, as the Prophet says (cf. Jer. 17:16.LXX). Because of Jesus' beauty and sweetness he will not desire what is merely mortal…

quote 3380 | Saint Hesychios the Priest
On Watchfulness and Holiness: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 188, text 148)

B ecause every thought enters the heart in the form of a mental image of some sensible object, the blessed light of the Divinity will illumine the heart only when the heart is completely empty of everything and so free from all form. Indeed, this light reveals itself to the pure intellect in the measure to which the intellect is purged of all concepts.

quote 3379 | Saint Hesychios the Priest
On Watchfulness and Holiness: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 177, text 89)

W e should strive to preserve the precious gifts which preserve us from all evil… These gifts are the guarding of the intellect with the invocation of Jesus Christ, continuous insight into the heart's depths, stillness of mind unbroken even by thoughts which appear to be good, and the capacity to be empty of all thought.

quote 3378 | Saint Hesychios the Priest
On Watchfulness and Holiness: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 180, text 103)

W hen there are no fantasies or mental images in the heart, the intellect is established in its true nature, ready to contemplate whatever is full of delight, spiritual and close to God.

quote 3377 | Saint Hesychios the Priest
On Watchfulness and Holiness: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 178, text 93)

F or the good is not good if it is not rightly done. It is really good only if it is not done with the purpose of receiving some reward: as, for instance, the search for popularity or glory may be rewarded by fame, or by excessive gain, or by something else that is wrong. God is not interested in what happens to turn out to be good or in what appears to be good. He is interested in the purpose for which a thing is done.

quote 3376 | The Philokalia
St. John of Damaskos in On the Virtues and Vices: ("Philokalia (Vol. 2)", pp. 339-340)

H e who does something good and expects a reward is serving not God but his own will.

quote 3375 | Saint Mark the Ascetic
No Righteousness by Works: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 130, text 57)

F or desire is drawn towards three things: the pleasure of the flesh, vain self-glory, and the acquisition of material wealth. As a result of this senseless appetite it scorns God and His commandments, and forgets His generosity; it turns like a savage beast against its neighbour; it plunges the intelligence into darkness and prevents it from looking towards the truth. He who has acquired a spiritual understanding of this truth will share, even here on earth, in the kingdom of heaven and will live a blessed life in expectation of the blessedness that awaits those who love God.

quote 3374 | The Philokalia
St. John of Damaskos in On the Virtues and the Vices: ("The Philokalia (Vol. 2)", p. 339)

A s Antony, the great servant of God, said, "Holiness is achieved when the intellect is in its natural state." And again he said: "The soul realizes its integrity when its intellect is in that state in which it was created." And shortly after this he adds: "Let us purify our mind, for I believe that when the mind is completely pure and is in its natural state, it gains penetrating insight…" So spoke the renowned Antony, according to the Life of Antony by Athanasios the Great.

quote 3373 | Saint Hesychios the Priest
On Watchfulness and Holiness: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 194, text 179)

N atural knowledge is that which the soul can acquire through the use of its natural faculties and powers when investigating creation and the cause of creation -- in so far, of course, as this is possible for a soul bound to matter… Supranatural knowledge, on the other hand, is that which enters the intellect in a manner transcending its own means and power; that is to say, the intelligible objects that constitute such knowledge surpass the capacity of an intellect joined to a body, so that a knowledge of them pertains naturally only to an intellect which is free from the body. Such knowledge is infused by God alone when He finds an intellect purified of all material attachment and inspired by divine love.

quote 3372 | The Philokalia
St. Theodoros, the Great Ascetic in Theoretikon: ("Philokalia (Vol. 2)", pp. 39-40)

I f the intellect has not risen above the contemplation of the created world, it has not yet beheld the realm of God perfectly. For it may be occupied with the knowledge of intelligible things and so involved in their mulitplicity.

quote 3371 | Saint Evagrios the Solitary
On Prayer: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 62, text 58)

B e on your guard against the tricks of the demons. While you are praying purely and calmly, sometimes they suddenly bring before you some strange and alien form, making you imagine in your conceit that the Deity is there. They are trying to persuade you that the object suddenly disclosed to you is the Deity, whereas the Deity does not possess quantity and form.

quote 3370 | Saint Evagrios the Solitary
On Prayer: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 63, text 68)

T he soul can attain to the secrecy which is in God, where the mystery of unity beyond understanding and speech is celebrated, only when it has gone not only beyond the categories of vice and ignorance and of falsehood and wickedness - the vices which are opposite to virtue and knowledge and truth and goodness - but even, if one may say this, beyond the categories of virtue itself and of knowledge and truth and goodness as they are known to us. In the Kingdom of the Spirit of God, which lies beyond our senses and intellectual concepts and virtues, everything exists in a different way. It exists truly.

quote 3369 | Abbot Vasilios of Iveron Monastery
Hymn of Entry, p. 102

S o I entered the place where I usually prayed and mindful of the words of the holy man I began to say, "Holy God". At once I was so greatly moved to tears and loving desire for God that I would be unable to describe in words the joy and the delight I then felt. I fell prostrate on the ground, and at once I saw, and behold, a great light was immaterially shining on me and seized hold of my whole mind and soul, so that I was struck with amazement at the unexpected marvel and I was, as it were, in ecstasy. Moreover I forgot the place where I stood, who I was, and where and could only cry out, 'Lord, have mercy,' so that when I came to myself I discovered I was reciting this. But who it was that was speaking, and who moved my tongue, I do not know - only God knows.

quote 3368 | Saint Symeon the New Theologian
Cathecetical Discourse XVI

W hat is a charitable heart? It is a heart that is burning with charity for the whole of creation, for men, for the birds, for the beasts, for the demons - for all creatures. He who has such a heart cannot see or call to mind a creature without his eyes becoming filled with tears by reason of the immense compassion that seizes his heart, a heart that is softened and can no longer bear to see or learn from others of any suffering, even the smallest pain, being inflicted upon a creature. This is why such a man never ceases to pray also for the animals, for the enemies of Truth, and for those who do him evil, that they may be preserved and purified. He will pray even for the reptiles, moved by the infinite pity that reigns in the hearts of those who are becoming united to God.

quote 3367 | Saint Isaac the Syrian
The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church by Vladimir Lossky (Crestwood, NY: St. V1adimir's Seminary Press, 1991).

D uring the day he managed a patrician's household and daily went to the palace, engaged in worldly affairs, so that no one was aware of his pursuits. …One day, as he stood and recited, "God, have mercy upon me, a sinner" Lk. 18:13), uttering it with his mind rather than 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 if 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 his mind. Instead, he seemed to 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. In a wonderful manner there appeared to him standing close to that light, the saint of whom we have spoken, the old man equal to angels, who had given him the commandment and the book. …

quote 3366 | Saint Symeon the New Theologian
The Catechetical Discourses XXII

D eification is an enhypostatic and direct illumination which has no beginning, but appears in those worthy as something exceeding their comprehension. It is indeed mystical union with God, beyond intellect and reason, in the age when creatures will no longer know corruption.

quote 3365 | Saint Gregory Palamas
The Triads in Defence of the Hesychasts, Book 3, Chapter 1, Paragraphs 29

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Wisdom and teachings ofOrthodoxy

Wisdom and teachings of
Orthodoxy