One of the struggles I have as I strive to pay attention to my heart, is that (at the same time) I perceive in my heart very sad things and joyful, hopeful things. It’s as if two realities, or two reflections of the world around me are manifest within me. When I first started to notice this reality within myself I found the concept of “bright sadness” helpful. I first ran across…
Archimandrite Aimilianos in a lecture entitled “On The State That Jesus Confers” says that the basic human problem is that we do not see God. In fact, most people cannot see God, but can only seek Him. This is because our eyes (both physical and the eyes of our souls) are earthly, they are trained to see, to think about and to contemplate only physical things and what can be deduced from…
Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra Monastery, in the first half of a transcribed (and then translated) speech called “The Progression of the Soul” speaks of stages to the beginning of the spiritual journey. The beginning point for him is found in rightly negotiating the second stage. The first stage of the spiritual journey he calls the feeling of exile, the feeling that we are far from God, that there is a wall…
“What must I do to be saved?” This is a natural question when we reach the stage of our spiritual journey at which we begin to realize that something is wrong, something is wrong between me and God. It is a natural question, but it is the wrong question, at least according to Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra (monastery on Mt. Athos). Archimandrite Aimilianos says the following in a lecture called “The Progression of…
