Contemplative Chapters by the Same Author

Contemplative Chapters by the Same Author. The mind, raised to the height of contemplation, is enlightened after reading these words, and when it falls into passion, then, on the contrary, it is darkened

1 The wise person needs to know when his mind is in contemplation, when in thoughts, and when in sensible things. In sensible things it remains the most, whether it is time for this or not.

2 When the mind is not in understanding, it is in thoughts; when it is in thoughts, it is not in contemplation; when it is in the senses, then it is with all.

3 Through understanding the mind passes to the intelligible; through thought the word comes to the rational; to the active, through imagination comes the sense.

4 When the mind concentrates within itself, it sees neither those who live by senses nor those who live by thoughts. For naked minds and divine rays pour out peace and joy.

5 To contemplate something is one thing, to understand is another, and to perceive with the senses is still another. The first is nature, the second is accident. In that lies the difference between contemplation and understanding.

6 The mind travels many roads and proves insatiable. Gathered to a single road—prayer—until it reaches perfection, it sees itself oppressed. When it prays, it becomes a partaker of what it left behind.

7 The mind, brought down from on high, will not ascend there unless it completely despises the things below, withdrawing for the sake of the divine.

8 If you cannot reconcile your soul with the thoughts that are in you, then force at least your body into solitude, always meditating on the sufferings it endures. Thus over time, by God’s mercy, you will be able to reach also the original dignity.

9 The active person will easily subject the mind to prayer, and the contemplative—prayer to the mind. The first gathers visible images by the senses, and the second leads the soul to the understanding of images. The first teaches the mind not to listen to the body, and the second—to understand the words of the bodiless. The words of the bodiless are their properties and their essence.

10 When you free your mind from the body, possessions, and sweet foods, then everything you do will be as a pure gift to God. And you will be rewarded by having the eyes of your heart opened and clearly learning God’s words written in the mind, which will seem sweeter than honey to your intellectual throat.

11 You will not be able to set your mind above the body, possessions, and unnecessary foods unless you lead it into the clean place of the righteous. In this place the memory of death and of God, flowing from the earthly heart, will smooth over all the turmoils of desires.

12 There is nothing more fearsome than the thought of death and more wondrous than the remembrance of God. The first gives saving sorrow, and the second grants joy. “I remembered God,” says the prophet, “and was glad” (Ps. 76:4). And the wise man says: “In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin” (Sir. 7:36). It is impossible for him to feel joy who has not experienced the bitterness of sorrow.

13 Until the mind sees God’s glory with an open face, the soul cannot say in its sense: “I will be glad in the Lord (Ps. 103:34), I will rejoice in His salvation (Ps. 34:9).” The veil of self-love lies on her heart, therefore what is and what will be will not be revealed to her until the veil of self-love is removed from her by voluntary or involuntary labors.

14 Not after the flight from Egypt, that is, not after the cessation of the action of sin, and not after the crossing of the sea, that is, the cessation of the inclination to sin, but after staying in the wilderness, that is, in the midst of the action and movements of sin, the leader of Israel can see the promised land, that is, dispassion, sending his spies—the power of contemplation.

15 He who lives in the wilderness, that is, in the inactivity of passions, can only hear about the blessings of that blessed land. But those who send the power of contemplation see the promised land as if in some subtle vision. And those who were deemed worthy to enter it will be saturated with all the senses that flow from it, like honey and milk, by the words of the first and second vision.

16 He in whom the natural movements of the body are alive has not yet been crucified with Christ and has not been buried with Him, for he is still attracted by soulish thoughts. How then will such a one rise with Christ to live a renewed life with Him?

17 There are three main virtues in the soul: fasting, prayer, and silence. Whoever wants to withdraw from prayer must rest in natural contemplation. To withdraw from silence—in instructive conversation, and to withdraw from fasting, it is necessary to move on to other gracious food.

18 As long as our mind remains in divine things, it saves its like, showing itself good and merciful. When it passes by sense to created things, if it does this in a timely and appropriate manner, it gives them its experience, receives experience from them and, giving thanks, returns to itself. When it departs from divine things untimely and without need, it becomes like some reckless commander who wastes a lot of strength when the battle comes.

19 The paradise of dispassion, hidden within us, is an image of the paradise that the righteous will one day receive. However, not all those who could not be inside the paradise of dispassion will find themselves outside the future paradise.

20 The natural sun cannot send its rays into a closed room, and the spiritual Sun cannot send its sweet rays into the soul of him who expects them but does not block his senses from visible things.

21 Contemplative can be called he who arranges his descent well, and the ascent of the soul—humbly.

22 The bee flies around all flower beds and always brings honey; the soul lives through different ages, and from each it brings sweetness to the mind.

23 When a deer eats a snake, it hastens to the springs to extinguish the fire of the poison. When divine arrows strike the soul, it constantly draws to Him Who struck it with love.

24 Subtle thoughts grow in a solitary life, and designs—in a separated one. In a silent soul thoughts suffer exile; only spirits approach it and reveal to it the understanding of providence and judgment, as if opening some foundations to it.

25 In a separated life it is unusual to see simply male and female sexes. So it is in the monastic life, where in likeness to Christ Jesus there is no difference between man and woman.

26 Thoughts are not the wordless part of the soul (wordless creatures have no thoughts) and not the noetic (for there are no thoughts in angels either). Thoughts are actually the product of the rational soul; through imagination, as on a ladder, they ascend from sense to the mind, transmitting the sensible to the mind, and descend from the mind to the senses, advising the senses of the intelligible.

27 Evil thoughts seem to flow from the depth and, taking nothing to help themselves, cause trouble to the ship of the soul.

28 Thoughts gathering around the soul can, depending on their nature, either sink it, as sea robbers sink a ship, or, like rowers, help it float out. Some draw it into the abyss of unseemly thoughts, and others, choosing a shorter path, guide the ship of the soul to quiet shores.

29 Until the soul casts away all thoughts, it will not cast away the last, seventh thought—vanity. Until then, it will not be able to put on the eighth thought, which comes after them all and which the apostle called a heavenly dwelling (2 Cor. 5:1-2). It will sigh because it has not yet completely freed itself from all that is earthly.

30 With perfect prayer come angelic thoughts, with intermediate prayer—spiritual thoughts, and with the prayer of a beginner—natural ones.