Action and Contemplation

The Need for Christ Consciousness in the Work of Justice

And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying.

-John 20:12

I am excited to share a resource from the lovely YouTube channel Reflections of Life. Their entire catalogue contains dozens of beautiful interviews with various people all sharing their perspectives on those things which are most meaningful and life-giving. Some, like the video I have shared above, come from a specifically religious point of view, while others remain a-religious. There is, however, a unifying theme that connects all of these individuals; an understanding that for life to be meaningful and rich, it must be lived from a center of silence and simplicity. There is a subtle re-enchantment of the world as you work your way through these interviews. Each presenter (often, although not always, an elder) has an outlook on life that sees the inherent magical and mysterious qualities of this cosmos we inhabit.

In this particular interview, Antony Osler (the speaker), draws deeply from his life as a practicing Buddhist with its tradition of mindfulness and silent meditation as being at the core of a meaningful life. Wisely, he recognizes that it is from this soil of contemplation that the work of binding the wounds of a broken world is made possible. The driving force behind the act of contemplation is not a type of solipsism or interior retreat. He notes that every effort to insulate ourselves from suffering only makes us more brittle and susceptible to shattering when we inevitably encounter the radical injustices of the world. Rather, in contemplation we allow the injustice and suffering of the world to “touch us” and awaken us to our true being which is always in connection with the cosmos and all things that inhabit it. For we cannot become real people if we attempt to shut out the unsavory aspects of life.

Osler reminds us that doing the work of silence is a way for us to discover that what is most needed in our lives is not something outside of ourselves, but rather that which is already within. Christ instructs us, with one of Christianity’s Mahāvākyas (great sayings), “The Kingdom of God is within you.”¹ To find God, the lover of mankind, is not an effort that is found in the accumulation of material goods, or even (as I often need reminding) in the reading of spiritual literature, and the collection of prayer books. Rather, it is an encounter with the One who is “Closer to you than your jugular vein.”² When this becomes no longer epistemological knowledge but a genuine gnōsis of the heart, we are granted a certain interior spaciousness allowing us to more capably step into the shoes of the other. By its consistent practice it allows us to grow in empathy and compassion seeing others as temples of the Holy Spirit and the very image of Christ himself.

How different this mentality and way of living is from our modern understanding of the “use” of contemplation as merely another technique for stress reduction and anxiety management. While these are important, the kind of contemplation Christ calls us to when he invites us to enter into our inner room, to shut the door, and to pray to our Father who sees in secret—is of a qualitatively different order. It is, in part, about returning to our natural state, the state of the uncarved block. It is to enter within and find the “Lord of Love, who dwells in the heart of every creature”³ or as the words of the Orthodox funeral service read

You Who of old did fashion me out of nothingness, and with Your Image divine did honor me; but because of transgression of Your commandments did return me again to the earth where I was taken; lead me back to be refashioned into that ancient beauty of Your Likeness.⁴ (emphasis added)

A further problem with this modern commodification of contemplation as a technique to reduce stress or mental discomfort is that it reflects an idolization of an unbothered or disengaged mental state approximating something like an emotional prosperity gospel. This is contrary to the ancient Christian witness of contemplation whose exercise often leads to emotional perturbation such as tears of repentance drawing us closer to God and, by extension, the whole world. Secular pop-contemplation often treats itself as a panacea, or a “happy pill”, rather than a process which stirs the waters of a deep well, during which mud may bubble up to the surface allowing us to become conscious of our failings and heal them.

Our modern assumptions about contemplation are challenged when we explore this more ancient perspective in which contemplation functions as a way to more deeply wade into the vagaries of human suffering and operates as a first step in the work of rectifying injustice and ameliorating oppression as opposed to self-hypnosis. Often it is with disdain that we refer to those holy men and women of all religions who have donned the monastic garb. We see it as a refusal to engage with “the real world” choosing to live in a pietistic enclave that shelters them from the vagaries and sufferings we who are not monastics endure. This could not be further from the truth and belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what the task of the monastic is. For as we move inwards, this is not a retreat from the world, but rather a deeper truer extension into it. It affords us a different consciousness capable of speaking prophetically into the injustice and oppression that surrounds us. Rather, by being connected to that more primordial source of life, the “Mind of Christ”, instead of using the tools of the world to resolve the problems of the world, we discover this new consciousness, in Christ, to be the only consciousness capable of resolving those most intractable of conundrums we face.

When we look at the lives of the monastic saints, their stories are so often the same. In their apparent “retreat” from the world, they are in fact running face first towards the very demons that are the cause of suffering. In overcoming these demons and attaining a state of apatheia, do these saints become then a blessing to those around them as they continue on their journey of the three-fold path. The lives of two different monastic saints highlight how this process of the contemplative life rejuvenates and enlivens us more deeply so as to care for the world. The example of St. Anthony of the Desert is one in which, as an anchorite, he retreats to the wilderness of the Egyptian Thebaid. In doing battle with the enemy, he acquires the spirit of peace and becomes a light for those seeking guidance. Hundreds flock to him thirsty for help and answers to their problems. Over time, and to his chagrin, a community develops around him, and yet, in obedience, he acquiesces to this development recognizing in this his duty to care for the spiritual needs of those who came to him. On the other hand, we have the example of St. Herman of Alaska, who was sent from his monastery on the island of Valaam to the Aleutian chain thousands of miles away. Risking his life, and in radical solidarity with the native people against the oppressions of the Russian American company, he lived with and for the people of Alaska becoming a light in North America of sanctity and is warmly remembered as “Grandfather” among Orthodox Alaskan natives. In both cases, contemplation was the well out of which flowed living water nourishing all those around them, bearing within themselves the refreshment of paradise.

In the Mountain of Silence, Fr. Maximos comments on what the nature of true justice looks like

Real justice, Father Maximos responded, easing his voice after a deep breath, is for God to help us through his grace to rectify that which truly wronged us. And what is that? Our estrangement from our Divine nature. Real justice means the attainment of Theosis, the reunification with God who created us in His own image. We are endowed with the potential of becoming gods through grace. Our ultimate goal is reunion with our maker, our real homeland and final destination. It is exactly at the core of our being, ontologically speaking, that we have been wronged, through the fall.⁵ (emphasis added)

Justice, that is to say the act of setting things right, is to be resolved within oneself. And this can only become a reality when we surrender ourselves into the embrace of Silence who purifies us in his own way and in his own time. It is after undergoing this purification that we are capable of seeing things as they truly are and addressing them in the most compassionate manner possibly. St. Seraphim of Sarov said, “Acquire the spirit of peace, and a thousand around you will be saved.” In like manner, theosis, as Fr. Maximos describes it and has been understood in the life of the Church, is not a personal achievement. Rather, in being transparent to the grace of God, one understands that within himself resides the whole world, and that as he enters within, he prays not just for the world, but as the world. His interbeing with all of creation becomes not merely a pious concept but a fragrance capable of transforming the world itself. In fact, it is the only thing capable of transforming the world for Love because it is love.

St. Isaac the Syrian, a hesychast and a great lover of silence wrote,

Love silence above all things, because it brings you near to the fruit that the tongue cannot express. First let us force ourselves to be silent, and then from out of this silence something is born that leads us into Silence itself. May God grant you to perceive some part of that which is born of silence! (Homily 64)

This fruit is none other than Christ who is that great Silence which the Prophet Elijah experienced in the cave. By the cultivation of silence, Christ is then borne of us and through us, making us God-bearers for the salvation and transformation of the world. This is not according to our making and our perceptions of justice, but in light of God’s own mysterious, particular, and transformative Light. What great humility this ought to engender within us. That to save the world we must, in a sense, offer up our own sense of “making the world right” according to our precepts and live in silent watchful stillness “At the Lord’s feet, listening to His word”⁶ for this is “the good part, which shall not be taken away.”⁷

1. Luke 17.21

2. Qur’an 50.16

3. Easwaran, Eknath. 2007. The Upanishads. 2nd ed. Easwaran’s Classics of Indian Spirituality. Tomales: Nilgiri Press. 159

4. Evlogitaria for the dead. See Funeral Service - Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

5. Markides, Kyriaco. The Mountain of Silence. Image Publications, 2002. pg. 177

6. Luke 10.39

7. Luke 10.42, See Luke 10.38-42