UNION WITH THE DIVINE LIGHT Saint Silouan the Athonite

UNION WITH THE DIVINE LIGHT

Saint Silouan the Athonite 

Whatever means he employs, the proud man will never attain to genuine union with God. Just by wishing it, man cannot unite the mind with the deep heart, and even if the mind does somehow penetrate into the heart, it will see only itself, its own created beauty - splendid, undoubtedly, having been created in the Divine image - but God Himself will not be found.

This is why the Blessed Elder in his striving after humility seized on the fiery weapon given him by God: 'Keep thy mind in hell, and despair not.'  Here was no subtle intellectual talking, but a 'simple', and 'ignorant' man who many a time was found worthy of pure contemplation of God, and had, indeed, grounds for saying,   'If you pray purely, you are a theologian.'  Or, 'There are many on earth who believe but very few who know God.'  By 'knowing God' he meant, not gnostic (esoteric mystical knowledge) theories, not theological speculations, but the experience of lively communion, of real union with the Divine Light. Knowledge is co-existence - that is, a sharing of being.

Keep thy mind in hell, and despair not. What does it mean - to 'keep the mind in hell'? 

Can it be that we are to use our imagination to conjure up circumstances for ourselves similar to those figured in some primitive painting? In this instance no!

Father Silouan, like certain great Fathers - St. Antony, St. Sisoë, St. Makarios, and St. Poimen - during his lifetime actually descended into the darkness and torments of hell. They did this not once but over and over again until their hearts were so permeated that they were able to repeat the movement at will. They took refuge in it when passion - especially that most subtle of passions, PRIDE - reared its head.
The struggle against pride is, in fact, the final stage in the battle against the passions. 

To begin with, the ascetic must wrestle with the greater passions of the flesh, then with irritability and, finally, pride. This last combat is undoubtedly the most painful of all. Taught by long experience that pride leads to loss of grace, the ascetic consciously descends into hell where every passion is 'seared with a hot iron'.

The Holy Spirit, sweet and gracious, draws the soul to love the Lord, and in the sweetness of the Holy Spirit the soul loses her fear of suffering.

“Filled with love, the holy Apostles went into the world, preaching salvation to mankind and fearing nothing, for the Spirit of God was their strength.

When St. Andrew was threatened with death upon the cross if he did not stop his preaching, he answered: ‘If I feared the cross I should not be preaching the Cross.” 

In this manner all the other Apostles, and after them the martyrs and holy men who wrestled against evil, went forward with joy to meet pain and suffering. For the Holy Spirit, sweet and gracious, draws the soul to love the Lord, and in the sweetness of the Holy Spirit the soul loses her fear of suffering.”