A few quotes from recent readings. Part I
Archimandrite Meltios Webber has a fantastic article in the recent issue of Divine Ascent, the journal of the Monastery of St. John the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco. His article is entitled “The Mind, the Heart, and the Way of Salvation.” It is one of the best introductory articles on Orthodoxy I have ever read. He briefly outlines the difference between the Orthodox and “Western” attitude toward mystery, theology, and the human condition. He goes own to outline how our mind and the thoughts it produces are often left unchecked and are destructive to our salvation.
I really can’t do this article justice. Instead here are a few quotes:
“In general terms, Western civilization is dominated by the human mind, and “knowing” seems to take precedence over “being.” In the East, experience is valued over thought, and the “nous” of man–described by Saint Makarios as the “eye of the heart” and identified by Saint Diadochos as the “innermost aspect of the heart”–is considered the most important element by which a person communicates with God and, indeed, with the rest of the universe. In the West, a mystery is a problem to be solved, as can be seen daily on television. In the East, a mystery is an area where the human mind cannot go, and where the heart alone makes sense, not by “knowing” but by “being.”
According to Orthodox theology, the fall of man is exhibited through the failure of his “nous” (his “heart”) to function soundly or even to function at all, together with a general confusion of the “nous” with the functions of the brain and of the body in general. This confusion goes so far as to imply that the mind, together with the thoughts, is all that really exists, and that the real center of being, the “nous” or heart, is of minimal importance (if it exists at all). Thus, most human lives are completely dominated by the tyranny of the mind (together with its properties: fear and desire, depression and anxiety) and the real center of being, with its natural state of serenity and communion, is ignored.
The entire basis of Western experience, summed up definitively by Descartes as “Cogito ergo sum” (“I think therefore I am”) is, in Orthodox terms, the greatest of deceits. Far from being true, it is actually an expression that perpetuates the very factor that causes the ongoing fragmentation of the human person.
Father Meletios goes on to explain in detail this fragmentation and that salvation, union with God, is to be found in the process of reuniting (or defragmenting) our selves–healing the rift between our mind and our heart.
Another Orthodox blogger has refered to this article here.
