VIEWS FROM MT. ATHOS--a personal synopsis
I'm presenting a summary of what I found extremely valuable in Views from Mt. Athos by Robin Amis. Mt. Athos is a monastic republic on a narrow peninsula protruding into the Aegean Sea in Northern Greece. The destination for pilgrims over the centuries, it had its beginnings before the 10th century A.D. Amis, an Englishman, has made over 60 visits/pilgrimages to the holy mountain, staying at one of the 20 great monasteries established there, or perhaps at one of the many smaller monastic communities. The book is written as a spiritual travelogue, interfusing daily experiences of a traveler with insightful gems drawn from the 'inner journey' he is making.
I am disregarding many of Amis' personal meetings, travel difficulties, and other commentaries. I will take a strictly personal approach of what is most meaningful to me, for the book has opened windows in my journey that I did not know were closed or at least shrouded. I now see more clearly as the opening occurred in my heart much more than in my head. I will also include my own reflections and commentaries.
The first chapter showed the need to be flexible, to give up certainties. To back it up, Amis said he participated in a research program which showed a clear 'correlation' in persons between a dogmatic need for certainty and 'neurotic states.'
Science, of course, seeks certitude, and exists to change the world by control. It solves problems by 'doing' something about it. Unfortunately, this approach can create 'an age of uncertainty' fostering a civilization based on fear of the unknown, engendering a cruel arena of competition and conflict.
Athos, on the other hand, expresses its own kind of knowledge, it's own spiritual-science, and does so by teaching us to relinquish control. This inner science is based on its own kind of evidence, conforming to different rules as it takes the form of inner experience, or recognized revelations. The evidence is often unpredictable and not repeatable, which some may then term 'unscientific.'
It can hardly be called unscientific when men are changed beyond belief, and for no purely external cause. This is a different form of science that proves itself by the changes it makes in people. This knowledge leads to the true "theology of experience. This is a science in which truths are recognized not so much through the changes they make in circumstance, as for the changes they make in men and women. A different science leads to different attitudes, and different attitudes may lead to a different society."
Science seeks to change the world, but the world also exists to change us. I think both approaches are required, one scientific and the other spiritual based. Both helped bring about what a learned Mt. Athos monk pointed out as Europe's unique contribution among the great civilizations. It enabled the world to comprehend the meaning of the person and of a person-centered society.
A case in point is how each, science or spirituality, deals with affliction. It is well known how science, through technology or medicine for example, seeks to ease the burden of life. We have less disease we live longer, and we have far fewer labor-intensive factories.
Affliction can also be treated from within, by attentiveness. What we don't learn the easy way, by being watchful, we learn the hard way, by failure and disaster. There is a link between watchfulness and God-mindedness, but also between carelessness and the difficulties that arise from it. Attention decides what goes Into memory and what comes out of memory. It has even further effects, for our predispositions depend on what we remember. The stress on mindfulness is common to many other spiritual traditions, which hold that it is essential for inner realization and growth.
Mt. Athos' attention is centered on the inner person, especially on "the knowledge of the heart," the key to change of heart. Probably in the past, the Greek word for this kind of knowledge was gnosis. The real thing is in general so uncommon that our memories fail and substitutions occur. The Latin word educare originally expressed a process of 'drawing truth out' of the student, not 'knocking it in.'
Change of heart takes place with direct, immediate experience. This is so true that everything at Mt. Athos is for this purpose. Direct immediate experience is so unique for the individual that it is not repeatable, and, therefore, appears to be 'unscientific.' As a result, the experiencer often forgets that it cannot be duplicated. Then the lack of continuity in the experiences may make someone feel adrift.
Since the divine is not simply and directly describable, there can be neither easily-demonstrable nor dialectical proof. Verbal knowledge can obscure the riches of life. Since the theology of Athos is a direct spiritual and mystical experience, a theology of light-seeking-light, it confirms the insight that theology once meant not 'theory about God,' but 'Theosis,' the luminous experiential knowledge of God.' The Eastern tradition has never made a sharp distinction between mysticism and theology, between personal experience and dogma.
Amis quotes from two other traditions to demonstrate the importance of trusting our inner experiences. "The spiritual," said Emerson, "is that which is its own proof." "Atman, the spirit," teaches one of the main traditions of Yoga, "illumines everything, and can even illumine itself."
"The problem lies in the fact that our thought is based on an assumption, on a myth, or on a habitual demand for control over our own lives. For what we cannot control, we cannot repeat to order. 'The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings,' (William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar).
The inquiring mind often thinks it is the final arbiter. Our alphabet, our system of numbers, the points of the compass, the Fahrenheit or Centigrade thermometer all indicate a modicum of control, but they can also lull us into seeking to, and thinking we can, control everything. The intellect's systematizing so much of the material world can blind it to its own limits. The heart, the love finder, on the other hand, knows no limits.
Athos' inward sally continues in its attitude toward prayer. The main point in prayer is a slowly developing relationship with Jesus. This is easier to do when we remember that John's thought in the New Testament is that we must stay in love with Jesus, and love others. Prayer has to be like talking with someone in the ordinary way. Only then will it grow, will it change, will it lead to something new. True prayer involves heart relationships. Being personal and emotional energizes us to want to pray. Only when we want to pray can we give 'attention' to our prayer throughout the time of prayer.
"These energies, unlike the active energies of modern life, convey stillness, and this paradoxical link between stillness and activity is an essential ingredient of prayer. This comes always with a sense of something greater than ourselves, of dependence on God and on His Holy Spirit."
Later in his book, Amis points to what interferes with praying from the heart. The 'verbal mind' usually dominates, associated with 'learned and imitative actions.' The dominant side of our brain, formed while we are young, dictates compulsive over-activity, that overlays our natural capacity to speak and act 'from the heart.' I need to break the authority of words and get the 'doing' mind to stop being active for a moment. He says we should learn eventually to pray only to the dictates of the heart.
We can do little for ourselves without grace. Here Amis gives a valuable explanation of the Old Testament truth of a "jealous God." The truth seems to be that His grace is not available as long as we set specific requirements or demands upon our situation, which is for as long as we are 'half-hearted.' "Half-hearted" may be more properly described as "wrong-hearted," and the biblical analogy of hearts of stone comes to mind.
Everything depends on synergy, that is, in the spiritual life, everything depends on our own efforts and on these coming in line with the Grace of God. What must change is our willfulness, not our true will but a hypnotic loss of proper will which has been captivated by our past, by passions, and by pressures of all kinds.
The basic obstacle to synergy is temptation. There are all kinds of pressures upon us and within us to tempt us and bind us. A typical example lies in the fact that whatever we are doing, wherever we are, we almost always want to be somewhere else or doing something else. Being here now is often a rare occurrence.
Faith on Mt. Athos is very far from blind-faith. It is closely associated with acceptance, but not simple acceptance of life. It is acceptance of the uncertainties of life. We take our willfulness out of the way.
It is enlightening and refreshing to look at how the meaning of the word 'sin' has developed. The Greek word 'hamartia' meant 'missing the mark,' or 'failure.' This is the word translated in English as sin. Once it did not imply crime in the sense of crime against someone else. If sin is a crime at all, it is a crime against oneself, and therefore against God.
Success, as the opposite of 'hamartia,' lies in the expression of knowing. It is the simple knowing of the very young child that is then linked spontaneously with action. It grows by taking responsibility, a responsibility that acts on its own ethic and never responds to outside pressures. As soon as it responds to outside pressures, it is not spirit but passivity.
This self expression is the will of God. "The depths of a man can only be known by his own spirit, not by any other man, and in the same way the depths of God can only be known by the Spirit of God. Now instead of the spirit of the world, we have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts that he has given us....Who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may teach him? But we are those who have the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:11-12, 16).
Robin Amis says, "The greatest puzzles of Athos lie in the need to trust." What is meant, of course, is "to trust God, to trust things as they are, and so, above all, to trust ourselves, for as St. John said, 'we are given power to become sons of God'" (John 1:12-13). The Greek word, 'pistis' is translated 'faith' in the New Testament. It really has a broader meaning and is better understood by such meanings as "trust, engagement, commitment." A true son of God trusts not only God, but also life, which comes from God.
The deep need to trust springs largely from our own inability to control so much of life. The quiet of Mt. Athos leads to a quieter self, where one can more easily re-establish contact with the eternal in oneself. "It is dependence on the eternal: eternal place, eternal being, eternal unchanging, when the human mind can rest and become still. It is in that strange stillness that one begins to become still at the center of one's being, and it is there, as I understand it, that one may find CHRIST." God's will is something within me.
I think one of the main reasons we don't trust is that on so many levels God is beyond our comprehension. We trust what we know and can prove. It has often been said that God cannot be thought but He can be loved. Amis gives a beautiful quote on the 'indescribable God.' "Thou art God ineffable, incomprehensible, invisible, inconceivable...rises before us like a very mountain, steep and hard to approach, from Which the uncreated breeze descends and swells the lungs of man, bringing life to his innermost parts with joy and freedom, of something unqualified, dangerous and wholly alive. How often we want to make God conceivable, expressible, visible, perceptible to worldly senses. How much we want to worship idols."
What Amis tells me is that God cannot be seen, heard, or touched. But since all is One, we can 'become' God in some way. Whatever God is, however God is, IT can be lived in human form. The Unmanifested Absolute becomes absorbed manifestation.
The experiences of the monks of Mt. Athos parallels in many ways the meditative discoveries of other traditions. Amis gives us an exemplary treatment of getting to the inner life, the soul, of Christianity. He reflects what Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you." This in no way downplays the necessary outreach that Christ imposed: "Love your neighbor as yourself," but even that must be motivated from within.
Amis does a great service in showing us the psychological forces underlying human behavior. Amis ends his book with a section, "Actions of the Heart." It helps make clear the idea of 'affliction' and other related questions he discussed. He warns, however, that these instructions have to be understood in a particular way and can be easily misunderstood. One should have face-to-face communication with someone who regularly practices them and not try to interpret them on his own in any final way.
"The basis of these instructions lies within our reach if only we can remember certain moments we have already experienced: those moments when we are, by some failure of ours, or some good action of others, made clearly and emotionally aware of our own inadequacy, our own unwillingness, and so on. This can happen when we hear of, or more rarely, observe some noble act or example which appears to be beyond our normal ability: charity; heroism; unselfishness; self-sacrifice. Sometimes this experience inspires, sometimes it falls on the wrong side of our mind, and then it simply feels uncomfortable." In this context I think the words of Jesus apply, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."
Compunction or 'remorse of conscience' over something undone can alert the heart. In so doing I become more myself and and feel more 'at home.' True compunction can be recognized in that it awakens the heart without excitement. It has a unifying quality that evokes a different and more flexible quality of conscience. This changes our 'wanting' and brings the right emotions to the point of prayer.
Experiencing 'remorse of conscience' is virtually identical with those moments of discomfort, when, hearing about some person or some action of exceptional 'goodness,' we feel sincere discontent with our own performance. This kind of remorse can be very constructive, can give us strength to pray, and so in this way can change the direction of our lives. Childhood memories are more vibrant than the muddled recollections that come later. Those early experiences have great power to change us because they happened when we were more connected with our emotions and heart strings. Re-viewing them brings clarity; new awareness energizes us to let go of the past.
"The idea of keeping your soul in hell" sounds like a repugnant idea. Amis explains its meaning, telling how monks have used it to great advantage. The idea "is particularly related to pride. If you keep in mind your mistakes, your wrong actions, and allow this to make you unhappy, to arouse an emotional remorse at your failures (harmatia), then you have some means of eliminating this demon pride. But one must not take this so far that one despairs. One must take it in moderation, and when one gets too despondent, must cease this practice. It is a matter of using it in measure, in order to hold a balanced or central-position."
"Sometimes, this process of change in direction is gradual but progressive. But one problem is that suitable 'data' for creating this compunction are rarely available in our modern world. We need more 'good news' in the sense of news about good, unselfish actions."
I find so much of the Mt. Athos material that Robin Avis presents extremely practical. Offerings such as: needing to be flexible, accepting the uncertainties of life, and taking up again childhood experiences, to mention just a few, have been most helpful in my spiritual life. Putting them into practice helps me see why so many do not enjoy God.
It seems to me that I often have a choice to make, that I come to a fork in the road. When it happens, I can be resentful or accepting. I know from experience that accepting is a step away from trust. What comes to mind is a newer translation from the Aramaic of one of Jesus' saying in the Beatitudes. Instead of "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," what makes more sense to me is, "Blessed are they who soften what is rigid within, they shall receive power and strength from the universe."
I am disregarding many of Amis' personal meetings, travel difficulties, and other commentaries. I will take a strictly personal approach of what is most meaningful to me, for the book has opened windows in my journey that I did not know were closed or at least shrouded. I now see more clearly as the opening occurred in my heart much more than in my head. I will also include my own reflections and commentaries.
The first chapter showed the need to be flexible, to give up certainties. To back it up, Amis said he participated in a research program which showed a clear 'correlation' in persons between a dogmatic need for certainty and 'neurotic states.'
Science, of course, seeks certitude, and exists to change the world by control. It solves problems by 'doing' something about it. Unfortunately, this approach can create 'an age of uncertainty' fostering a civilization based on fear of the unknown, engendering a cruel arena of competition and conflict.
Athos, on the other hand, expresses its own kind of knowledge, it's own spiritual-science, and does so by teaching us to relinquish control. This inner science is based on its own kind of evidence, conforming to different rules as it takes the form of inner experience, or recognized revelations. The evidence is often unpredictable and not repeatable, which some may then term 'unscientific.'
It can hardly be called unscientific when men are changed beyond belief, and for no purely external cause. This is a different form of science that proves itself by the changes it makes in people. This knowledge leads to the true "theology of experience. This is a science in which truths are recognized not so much through the changes they make in circumstance, as for the changes they make in men and women. A different science leads to different attitudes, and different attitudes may lead to a different society."
Science seeks to change the world, but the world also exists to change us. I think both approaches are required, one scientific and the other spiritual based. Both helped bring about what a learned Mt. Athos monk pointed out as Europe's unique contribution among the great civilizations. It enabled the world to comprehend the meaning of the person and of a person-centered society.
A case in point is how each, science or spirituality, deals with affliction. It is well known how science, through technology or medicine for example, seeks to ease the burden of life. We have less disease we live longer, and we have far fewer labor-intensive factories.
Affliction can also be treated from within, by attentiveness. What we don't learn the easy way, by being watchful, we learn the hard way, by failure and disaster. There is a link between watchfulness and God-mindedness, but also between carelessness and the difficulties that arise from it. Attention decides what goes Into memory and what comes out of memory. It has even further effects, for our predispositions depend on what we remember. The stress on mindfulness is common to many other spiritual traditions, which hold that it is essential for inner realization and growth.
Mt. Athos' attention is centered on the inner person, especially on "the knowledge of the heart," the key to change of heart. Probably in the past, the Greek word for this kind of knowledge was gnosis. The real thing is in general so uncommon that our memories fail and substitutions occur. The Latin word educare originally expressed a process of 'drawing truth out' of the student, not 'knocking it in.'
Change of heart takes place with direct, immediate experience. This is so true that everything at Mt. Athos is for this purpose. Direct immediate experience is so unique for the individual that it is not repeatable, and, therefore, appears to be 'unscientific.' As a result, the experiencer often forgets that it cannot be duplicated. Then the lack of continuity in the experiences may make someone feel adrift.
Since the divine is not simply and directly describable, there can be neither easily-demonstrable nor dialectical proof. Verbal knowledge can obscure the riches of life. Since the theology of Athos is a direct spiritual and mystical experience, a theology of light-seeking-light, it confirms the insight that theology once meant not 'theory about God,' but 'Theosis,' the luminous experiential knowledge of God.' The Eastern tradition has never made a sharp distinction between mysticism and theology, between personal experience and dogma.
Amis quotes from two other traditions to demonstrate the importance of trusting our inner experiences. "The spiritual," said Emerson, "is that which is its own proof." "Atman, the spirit," teaches one of the main traditions of Yoga, "illumines everything, and can even illumine itself."
"The problem lies in the fact that our thought is based on an assumption, on a myth, or on a habitual demand for control over our own lives. For what we cannot control, we cannot repeat to order. 'The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings,' (William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar).
The inquiring mind often thinks it is the final arbiter. Our alphabet, our system of numbers, the points of the compass, the Fahrenheit or Centigrade thermometer all indicate a modicum of control, but they can also lull us into seeking to, and thinking we can, control everything. The intellect's systematizing so much of the material world can blind it to its own limits. The heart, the love finder, on the other hand, knows no limits.
Athos' inward sally continues in its attitude toward prayer. The main point in prayer is a slowly developing relationship with Jesus. This is easier to do when we remember that John's thought in the New Testament is that we must stay in love with Jesus, and love others. Prayer has to be like talking with someone in the ordinary way. Only then will it grow, will it change, will it lead to something new. True prayer involves heart relationships. Being personal and emotional energizes us to want to pray. Only when we want to pray can we give 'attention' to our prayer throughout the time of prayer.
"These energies, unlike the active energies of modern life, convey stillness, and this paradoxical link between stillness and activity is an essential ingredient of prayer. This comes always with a sense of something greater than ourselves, of dependence on God and on His Holy Spirit."
Later in his book, Amis points to what interferes with praying from the heart. The 'verbal mind' usually dominates, associated with 'learned and imitative actions.' The dominant side of our brain, formed while we are young, dictates compulsive over-activity, that overlays our natural capacity to speak and act 'from the heart.' I need to break the authority of words and get the 'doing' mind to stop being active for a moment. He says we should learn eventually to pray only to the dictates of the heart.
We can do little for ourselves without grace. Here Amis gives a valuable explanation of the Old Testament truth of a "jealous God." The truth seems to be that His grace is not available as long as we set specific requirements or demands upon our situation, which is for as long as we are 'half-hearted.' "Half-hearted" may be more properly described as "wrong-hearted," and the biblical analogy of hearts of stone comes to mind.
Everything depends on synergy, that is, in the spiritual life, everything depends on our own efforts and on these coming in line with the Grace of God. What must change is our willfulness, not our true will but a hypnotic loss of proper will which has been captivated by our past, by passions, and by pressures of all kinds.
The basic obstacle to synergy is temptation. There are all kinds of pressures upon us and within us to tempt us and bind us. A typical example lies in the fact that whatever we are doing, wherever we are, we almost always want to be somewhere else or doing something else. Being here now is often a rare occurrence.
Faith on Mt. Athos is very far from blind-faith. It is closely associated with acceptance, but not simple acceptance of life. It is acceptance of the uncertainties of life. We take our willfulness out of the way.
It is enlightening and refreshing to look at how the meaning of the word 'sin' has developed. The Greek word 'hamartia' meant 'missing the mark,' or 'failure.' This is the word translated in English as sin. Once it did not imply crime in the sense of crime against someone else. If sin is a crime at all, it is a crime against oneself, and therefore against God.
Success, as the opposite of 'hamartia,' lies in the expression of knowing. It is the simple knowing of the very young child that is then linked spontaneously with action. It grows by taking responsibility, a responsibility that acts on its own ethic and never responds to outside pressures. As soon as it responds to outside pressures, it is not spirit but passivity.
This self expression is the will of God. "The depths of a man can only be known by his own spirit, not by any other man, and in the same way the depths of God can only be known by the Spirit of God. Now instead of the spirit of the world, we have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts that he has given us....Who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may teach him? But we are those who have the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:11-12, 16).
Robin Amis says, "The greatest puzzles of Athos lie in the need to trust." What is meant, of course, is "to trust God, to trust things as they are, and so, above all, to trust ourselves, for as St. John said, 'we are given power to become sons of God'" (John 1:12-13). The Greek word, 'pistis' is translated 'faith' in the New Testament. It really has a broader meaning and is better understood by such meanings as "trust, engagement, commitment." A true son of God trusts not only God, but also life, which comes from God.
The deep need to trust springs largely from our own inability to control so much of life. The quiet of Mt. Athos leads to a quieter self, where one can more easily re-establish contact with the eternal in oneself. "It is dependence on the eternal: eternal place, eternal being, eternal unchanging, when the human mind can rest and become still. It is in that strange stillness that one begins to become still at the center of one's being, and it is there, as I understand it, that one may find CHRIST." God's will is something within me.
I think one of the main reasons we don't trust is that on so many levels God is beyond our comprehension. We trust what we know and can prove. It has often been said that God cannot be thought but He can be loved. Amis gives a beautiful quote on the 'indescribable God.' "Thou art God ineffable, incomprehensible, invisible, inconceivable...rises before us like a very mountain, steep and hard to approach, from Which the uncreated breeze descends and swells the lungs of man, bringing life to his innermost parts with joy and freedom, of something unqualified, dangerous and wholly alive. How often we want to make God conceivable, expressible, visible, perceptible to worldly senses. How much we want to worship idols."
What Amis tells me is that God cannot be seen, heard, or touched. But since all is One, we can 'become' God in some way. Whatever God is, however God is, IT can be lived in human form. The Unmanifested Absolute becomes absorbed manifestation.
The experiences of the monks of Mt. Athos parallels in many ways the meditative discoveries of other traditions. Amis gives us an exemplary treatment of getting to the inner life, the soul, of Christianity. He reflects what Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you." This in no way downplays the necessary outreach that Christ imposed: "Love your neighbor as yourself," but even that must be motivated from within.
Amis does a great service in showing us the psychological forces underlying human behavior. Amis ends his book with a section, "Actions of the Heart." It helps make clear the idea of 'affliction' and other related questions he discussed. He warns, however, that these instructions have to be understood in a particular way and can be easily misunderstood. One should have face-to-face communication with someone who regularly practices them and not try to interpret them on his own in any final way.
"The basis of these instructions lies within our reach if only we can remember certain moments we have already experienced: those moments when we are, by some failure of ours, or some good action of others, made clearly and emotionally aware of our own inadequacy, our own unwillingness, and so on. This can happen when we hear of, or more rarely, observe some noble act or example which appears to be beyond our normal ability: charity; heroism; unselfishness; self-sacrifice. Sometimes this experience inspires, sometimes it falls on the wrong side of our mind, and then it simply feels uncomfortable." In this context I think the words of Jesus apply, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."
Compunction or 'remorse of conscience' over something undone can alert the heart. In so doing I become more myself and and feel more 'at home.' True compunction can be recognized in that it awakens the heart without excitement. It has a unifying quality that evokes a different and more flexible quality of conscience. This changes our 'wanting' and brings the right emotions to the point of prayer.
Experiencing 'remorse of conscience' is virtually identical with those moments of discomfort, when, hearing about some person or some action of exceptional 'goodness,' we feel sincere discontent with our own performance. This kind of remorse can be very constructive, can give us strength to pray, and so in this way can change the direction of our lives. Childhood memories are more vibrant than the muddled recollections that come later. Those early experiences have great power to change us because they happened when we were more connected with our emotions and heart strings. Re-viewing them brings clarity; new awareness energizes us to let go of the past.
"The idea of keeping your soul in hell" sounds like a repugnant idea. Amis explains its meaning, telling how monks have used it to great advantage. The idea "is particularly related to pride. If you keep in mind your mistakes, your wrong actions, and allow this to make you unhappy, to arouse an emotional remorse at your failures (harmatia), then you have some means of eliminating this demon pride. But one must not take this so far that one despairs. One must take it in moderation, and when one gets too despondent, must cease this practice. It is a matter of using it in measure, in order to hold a balanced or central-position."
"Sometimes, this process of change in direction is gradual but progressive. But one problem is that suitable 'data' for creating this compunction are rarely available in our modern world. We need more 'good news' in the sense of news about good, unselfish actions."
I find so much of the Mt. Athos material that Robin Avis presents extremely practical. Offerings such as: needing to be flexible, accepting the uncertainties of life, and taking up again childhood experiences, to mention just a few, have been most helpful in my spiritual life. Putting them into practice helps me see why so many do not enjoy God.
It seems to me that I often have a choice to make, that I come to a fork in the road. When it happens, I can be resentful or accepting. I know from experience that accepting is a step away from trust. What comes to mind is a newer translation from the Aramaic of one of Jesus' saying in the Beatitudes. Instead of "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," what makes more sense to me is, "Blessed are they who soften what is rigid within, they shall receive power and strength from the universe."