Беседа 35. О цели возвышенного служения разума, которое есть совокупность всякого подвижничества, совершаемого посредством телесных чувств; благодаря ему 1166 входит человек на всякий миг в совершенное слияние 1167 с Богом.

1. When a person achieves insight into created things 1168 on the path of his asceticism, then from this he rises above prayer, to its limits, for it is unnecessary for him from now on to limit prayer to certain times and minutes: he has already left the state in which, when he wanted, he would then pray and praise. From that moment on, he constantly finds his feelings subsided and his thoughts bound by bonds of amazement. And it is constantly filled with vision, abounding in praise, which occurs without movements of the tongue. At times, again, the prayer partially 1169 remains, but the mind is taken away from it to heaven, like a captive, and tears, like springs of water, flow and water the entire face against its will. At the same time, the person himself is calm, silent, and inside himself is filled with an amazed vision. 1170 Very often he is not even allowed to pray, and truly this is that cessation that is higher than prayer: it consists in being in constant amazement before every creation of God, like those who are mad from wine. This is the wine that gladdens the human heart. 1171 2. But let us beware, 1172 lest there be a person who, with idle thoughts, abandons prayer and psalmody when he hears about this, imagining that the silence about which we spoke comes by will. 1173 But let everyone who encounters such objects understand that such actions do not come from people and that they are not subject to the will. For those who fall silent in contemplation and freeze before the mysteries are those who, in moments of prayer, or also at other times, are delighted with a mind thirsting for God. But especially at the moment of prayer, states 1175 similar to these arise due to the special sobriety that accompanies a person. 3. By prayer I do not mean only set hours or “halleluias” 1176 Psalms or liturgical hymns. 1177 For he who has achieved this knowledge, more than in all virtues, remains in prayer. From insights it receives 1178 its beginning, but through insights, again, it is pacified 1179 and returns to silence. For the illuminated man looks at all the creations of God with the eye of reason and the economy of God that accompanies them at every moment; heavenly providence, full of mercy, constantly visiting creation - sometimes in the form of trials, sometimes in the form of benefits. 1180 And the grace of God reveals to this various types of actions that are hidden from the crowd, 1181 - which the Creator uses for miraculous assistance to every nature, whether verbal or inanimate, - as well as the invisible reasons why these changes happen to everyone thanks to the providence inherent in love, and that creative and guiding power that guides the creation with amazing care. 4. When a person constantly receives the sensation of these mysteries through that inner eye, which is called spiritual contemplation and which is vision, from grace, then at the moment he perceives one or another of these mysteries, his heart immediately subsides in a kind of amazement. Not only does his mouth stop saying prayer and fall silent, but his heart itself is dried up from thoughts thanks to the miracle 1182 that attacks him, and he receives the sweetness of the mysteries of the wisdom and love of God from grace thanks to the conscious activity 1183 of actions and natures. 5. This is the completion of the asceticism of the soul in the body and the limit of spiritual service, which is performed in the mind. Whoever wants to experience the love of our Lord must ask Him to open this door for him. I will be surprised if anyone who has not approached Him with this and who has not known the sensation of 1184 vision of creatures and the providential in them is ever able to feel that love that captivates the souls of those on whom it descends. These are the ones that open for us the door to the knowledge of truth, which transcends all and which gives the mind the way to the glorious secrets of the venerable and divine Nature. 6. Even more surprising is when, uninvolved in silence and great detachment, 1185 they dare to speak and write about this mystery of the glory of God in creatures. Blessed is he who has entered through this door through personal experience! 1186 All the power of ink, letters and phrases is too powerless to express the pleasure of this mystery. 7. Many simpletons believe that the purpose of philosophers' meditation is to taste this conversation, which carries the beauty of all the mysteries of God. Blessed Basil the Bishop, in one of his letters to his brother 1187, makes a distinction between this philosopher and the perception that saints receive in created things - that is, the mental ladder, which Blessed Evagrius spoke about 1188 and which rises above all ordinary vision. 8. “There is,” he says, “a conversation that opens the door to peer into the knowledge of natures, but not into spiritual secrets.” 1189 He calls philosophers “knowledge from below,” which, according to him, even those subject to passions can possess; and he calls the perception that the saints receive through the mind through grace “the knowledge of spiritual mysteries from above.” 9 . So, whoever has been awarded this remains in such a state night and day, as if someone has left the body and is already in that world of the righteous. 10. This is the divine sweetness about which the sincere 1190 and wonderful Ammon spoke, “sweeter than honey and the honeycomb,” 1191 but few hermits and virgins knew it. 11. And this is the entrance into the divine peace that the Fathers spoke about, 1192 and this is the transition from the area 1193 of passions to enlightenment and to the movements of freedom. 12. And this is what Evagrius, abounding in spiritual revelations, calls “the hundredfold reward that our Lord promised in the Gospel.” 1194 And in amazement at the greatness of this pleasure, he well called it “the key to the Kingdom of Heaven.” 1195 13. As I say before the true God: the members of the body cannot withstand this pleasure, and the heart is unable to contain it because of its great sweetness. 1197 What else can be said if the saints call this “the perception of the Kingdom of Heaven?” For this is the mystery of the future amazement of God. It is not thanks to insight into the material 1198 world and its deeds that the righteous enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven, but thanks to those who raise the mind, as if on some kind of ladder, to the One who is the Kingdom of saints, and remains in amazement. This perception is well called the “mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven”; for in the knowledge of Him Who is the true Kingdom of all, we through these mysteries whenever the mind is moved by them, by the gift of the power of God. Sire. hultana (“mixing”) The term sukkale d-beryata, literally meaning "insights into created things", "the meaning of created things", is the Syriac equivalent of the Greek expressions logoi ton onton and logoi ton gegonoton ("logoi of created things") found in Evagrius and other Greek ascetic writers. According to the teachings of Evagrius, contemplation of the logoi of created things (“natural contemplation”), i.e. penetration into the meaning and content of everything that exists constitutes the middle stage of spiritual progress on the path from “praxis” (fulfillment of the commandments of Christ) as the lowest stage to “theology”, or “gnosis” (contemplation of God), as the highest stage. Lit. “filled with a vision that is filled with wonder.” Var. "but let him be careful." Rev. Isaac argues with the Messalians. Lit. "differences", "different". In the East Syrian tradition, the entire Psalter was divided into twenty “halleluias” or “hullales”, which in turn were subdivided into “marmyata”, containing from one to four psalms. Var. "melodic hymns". Lit. “sometimes in the form of what is on the right, sometimes in the form of what is on the left.” Sire. dummara also means "amazement". Lit. “didn’t feel the sensation.” Var. “great absence”, “great nakedness”, i.e. exposure (renunciation) of everything earthly. Lit. "from the experience of one's own soul." Wed. Evagrius. Gnostic chapters 4.43 (about Jacob's ladder). Basil the Great. Letter 2. Ammon. Ibid (about the “divine power” leading a person to peace). Wed. Evagrius. Gnostic chapters 4,42. Or “the greatness of enjoying it.” Lit. "bodily", "carnal". You might be interested in: