Contemporary
man has altogether forgotten the world that is within himself and has occupied
himself only with the world that is outside himself, the material world. And he
investigates by means of science “the outside of the cup and platter” (Matthew
23:25).
One
of these worlds is material, the other is spiritual. One of them is for the
transitory life; the other for the eternal. One of them is in space and time,
while the other is beyond these.
Today’s
man lives materialistically, busying himself with pseudo-spiritual things. Only
matter interests him, the rather coarse, more tangible aspect of the universe.
He cannot experience spiritual reality by means of his bodily senses and does
not concern himself at all with it. He who hurls into space with machines made
of aluminum, he who has his brain full of numbers, screws, springs, and other
such things, cannot understand what is hidden behind the material world that he
perceives by means of his physical senses.
How
can he taste the fruit that is hidden inside the husk of the universe? He
nourishes himself only with the husk, for it is this husk that his materialistic
science is constantly studying. How can he understand the words of Christ, who
says: “The kingdom of God is within you”, or those of Paul the Apostle who says:
“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in you”
(1
Cor. 3:16). How can this barbaric and hard heartened mankind, which is attached
to the mud of matter, understand those words of divinely inspired Paul, who says
that carnal men “worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator”?
(Rom. 1:25)
For
those who are engrossed with the knowledge of material
things,
“the
mystical gate is closed”, and they are unable to cast a glance “into the Holy of
Holies.” Their materialistic minds do not experience any other life besides the
life of the flesh. They have placed all their hopes in it and are incapable of
hearkening to the words of Paul, who says:
"If
in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable”
(1 Cor. 15:19); that is, “If we believe only in this life, we are the most
miserable of all human beings.” And elsewhere he calls such materialistic
individuals persons “who have no hope” (1 Thess.
4:13).
And
indeed we see that such people are full of anguish, fear and agitation, because
the “wages of sin is death”. “For whatever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap, for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he
that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Gal.
6:7-8). And elsewhere it is written that “to be carnally minded is death; but to
be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6). In saying ‘peace’, Saint
Paul means true peace, whereas pseudo peace is to be found in the external,
material world, in which the materialists believe.
“What
is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”,
asks Christ (Matt. 16:26). But who listens to Him? All of us are striving to
gain this unreal world, and we do not want to understand that which used to be
sung by a beggar with the wisdom that is possessed by simple
men:
I
entered into the world naked
and
will go out of it naked.
The
world is alien,
it
belongs to no one.
Listen,
therefore, my brother to what Saint Paul again says, and try to understand
something about the hidden world of mystery that is behind the external world
that we investigate with the aid of machines, believing in our learned ignorance
that we possess knowledge of the roots of the totality of things. He says: “The
creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption” (Rom. 8:21).
‘Bondage of corruption’ is the slavery of those who live and labor for the
corruptible world of matter; those whose thoughts are bad, foolish; those who
are without faith and without love - full of death, since they are preoccupied
with the world of corruption that has no hope, but is full of darkness and
despair. These individuals are the faithful followers of Satan, who serve him
obediently without knowing why.
On
the other hand, the faithful ones of God, “the children of God”, possess
freedom, true freedom, which consists in knowledge of the Truth, that is, of
Christ. Only with this knowledge do the nuptial doors open, from which the soul
beholds the wondrous light of the incorruptible essence of the cosmos. The
thoughts of these children of God are good, peaceful, and gladdening. “Become
peaceful within yourself”, says a certain saint, “and heaven and earth will
become peaceful. Enter into the chamber that is within you, and from there you
will behold the palace of heaven” [St. Seraphim of
Sarov].
The
things that exist in the incorruptible heaven that has been revealed by Christ,
and that which the soul looks from the mystical chamber that is inside us, are
the true things. They are blessed, peaceful isles in the ocean that extend
beyond every material constellation and are outside the slavery of space and
time.
Translated
by Dr. Constantine Cavarnos from Kontoglou’s Mystical Flowers, Vol. 6,
Works (Erga), (Athens: Astir Publishing Company, 1981), pp.85-88.
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