Thoughts, Watchfulness and Prayer
Taken (with minor adaptations) from ‘Christ the Eternal Tao’ by Hieromonk Damascene
Watchfulness and Metanoia
For our metanoia to be constant, it must be linked with what the ancient Christian ascetics called “watchfulness” (nipsis in Greek): a state of inner vigilance, attention and sobriety.
When The Way became flesh, He spoke much concerning watchfulness, as much as His listeners could understand. “Take heed to yourselves", He said, “lest at any time your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life”.
To further impress upon the people the need for watchfulness, He told parables about it, such as the story of the five wise virgins who trimmed and guarded their lamps, or the tale of the unwise steward who fell asleep when his master was away. "Let your waist be girded about”, Christ said, “and your lamp burning; and you yourselves like men who wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the lord, when he comes, shall find watching. Verily I say to you, that he shall gird himself and have them to sit down to eat, and will come forth and serve them. And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants”
If continuous metanoia is the foundation of the life of the follower of the Way, then watchfulness is the foundation of continuous metanoia.
For this reason, the ascetic tradition repeatedly underline the necessity of inward attention.
When The Way took human form, He did not only tell us to pray. Instead, He said, “Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.” First watch, He tells us, then pray while watching.
Prayer cannot be pure if the mind is actively engaged in following thoughts. For prayer to be pure, it must arise from a pure spirit; and this can only occur when one first stands watch and thus rises above thoughts and images. That is why Christ said, “Watch and pray”: prayer and watchfulness are inseparably bound. As St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, a nineteenth-century Russian ascetic writes: “The essential, indispensable property of prayer is attention. Without attention there is no prayer”
St. Symeon the New Theologian: “Watchfulness and prayer should be as closely linked together as the body to the soul, for the one cannot stand without the other. Watchfulness first goes on ahead like a scout and engages sin in combat. Prayer then follows afterwards, and instantly destroys and exterminates all the evil thoughts with which watchfulness has already been battling, for attentiveness alone cannot exterminate them. This, then, is the gate of life and death. If by means of watch fulness we keep prayer pure, we make progress; but if we leave prayer unguarded and permit it to be defiled, our efforts are null and void”
Wrong Struggle and Right Struggle
Above all, says St. Theophan, our inward attention should be directed at thoughts, for “the passions and desires rarely attack by themselves – they are most often born of thoughts. From this we can make a rule: cut off thoughts and you will cut off everything”
When thoughts come, we should not attempt to get involved or argue with them, for such struggle only binds us to them.
St Silouan: “The experience of the Holy Fathers shows various ways of combating intrusive thoughts but it is best of all not to argue with them. The spirit that debates with such a thought will be faced with its steady development, and, bemused by the exchange, will be distracted from remembrance of God, which is exactly what the demons are after – having diverted the spirit from God, they confuse it, and it will not emerge ‘clean’”.
Struggle against thoughts is vain and futile. It is enough simply to observe the thoughts as they arise, as St. John Climacus teaches, then let them go without reacting to them or following them.
Each time we catch ourselves in a thought, we just return our attention to what is above it: to our spirit and to God. We do not validate the thought by giving it any more attention. This is already to repulse or cut off the thought without directly struggling against it. It is active, not passive; but the action does not involve movement towards the distracting thought. Rather, it is like a train that has been switched to a sidetrack and must simply be switched back to the main track, which alone leads to one’s destination.
If, in struggling with thoughts and emotions, we rely on our own power rather than God’s power, then we will have to take our power from the very emotions that we should be conquering. In other words, the emotional energy that we employ in the struggle against negative thoughts and emotions will connect us to the very things that we are trying to struggle against. We will only wear ourselves out.
Thus, if we have the wrong idea of struggle, we will be struggling in vain against thoughts, until at last we give up. With the right idea of struggle, we struggle in a constructive rather than a destructive way, and this gives us strength and incentive to persevere.
To raise our attention to the Creator is simply to humbly yearn for Him: to look not to our false wisdom but to what is above it. It is as if we are looking up towards Him with the eye of our soul, even as we are yearning for Him with our hearts. “Never allow your mind to be dragged down”, says St. Macarius of Egypt († A.D. 390), “but always raise it on high, and God will help you”.
Raising our minds to God does not mean rolling up the pupils of our eyes in our heads and trying to «see» something. Neither does it mean thinking about or imagining God, for that is already a descent to the level of the active consciousness. To deliberately create images in the mind is only to create more distraction.
Distrusting Thoughts
Throughout the life of our ego, we have become habituated to trusting our problem-solver and its thoughts and feelings. To practice watchfulness is essentially to practice distrusting them.
Elder Paisius of Mount Athos, a beautiful, innocent soul and a much-loved spiritual father of our times, gives this advice: “The devil does not hunt after those who are lost; he hunts after those who are aware, those who are close to God. He takes from them trust in God and begins to afflict them with self-assurance, logic, thinking, criticism. Therefore we should not trust our logical minds. Never believe your thoughts.”
“Live simply and without thinking too much, like a child with his father. Faith without too much thinking works wonders. The logical mind hinders the Grace of God and miracles. Practice patience without judging with the logical mind”.
Often the logical mind will say, “If I just think about this problem long enough, or think enough about what I should say to that person, eventually the answer will come and the problem will be re solved». Thus untold mental energy is wasted on compulsive thinking. If an answer does come, it cannot be a true answer, for it comes from a false self and a false god – the ego – laboring under the illusion of its self-sufficiency.”
“Thoughts are like airplanes flying in the air. If you ignore them, there is no problem. If you pay attention to them, you create an airport inside your head and permit them to land!”
Mulling over the past and future, imagining scenarios of what might have been or what could be – all this is illusion. The truth is in the present moment. There alone do we meet our Maker, Who is Himself Truth, and lies outside our vain imaginings
We take refuge in our thoughts, fantasies and emotions because they give us a deceptive sense of security. But Christ tells us to abandon that security and make ourselves vulnerable, relying wholly on our Creator. The Way likened this state of self-abandonment to the mind of a little child who has not yet developed a mature ego, who has not yet become accustomed to trusting his problem-solver. “Become as little children”, He said. A child, although also touched by the primordial fall, is closer to the true Source of knowing than an adult. Simple and spontaneous, he knows without knowing how he knows. He can be happy without knowing he is happy. What adults often consider happiness is in reality the emotional excitement of the ego; while a little child’s happiness consists in the simple, selfless joy of being alive.
Hearing the Wordless Word
We do not practice watchfulness so that we can become silent and peaceful. Rather, we become silent so that we can know the unpleasant truth about ourselves, and so that we ‘hear’ The Way speaking directly to our inward being.
He does not speak in an audible voice; His voice makes no noise even in the mind.
Scripture calls His voice ‘still and small’. We cannot hear it unless we tune in to it by separating from all the static noise in our heads.
“Everyone who is of the truth”, says Christ, “hears my voice”.
If we cannot hear that silent voice speaking to our spirit, we will never develop a relationship with Him.
In this regard we would do well to recall Christ’s sobering words: “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of my Father Who is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonderful works in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you: depart from me, you who work iniquity’”.
As the Creator of the universe, the Word of God of course knows everything; therefore, when He says, “I never knew you”, He is clearly implying more than that. In effect, He is saying: “You never knew me. You and I never developed a relationship because you were always listening to your thoughts, emotions and desires rather than to me. You did not learn to distinguish my wordless voice from all the other voices in your head”.
Through watchfulness we begin to understand, even in the minute details of our daily lives, how the Word is informing, guiding and helping us. We hear His silent voice directing us. We begin to discern His will and follow it naturally. We understand, and He knows we understand, and in that mutual recognition we make a connection with Him. One such connection is then linked to other ones, and thus we form a relationship with a Being we have never seen. Then He will not say to us, “I never knew you” – for He did know us, and we knew Him.
St Macarius the Great on the name of Jesus
St. Macarius said , “Call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ with a humbled heart and let it flow from your lips, then ruminate on it. Don’t let it only be in your mind, but be alert when you call on Him saying, my Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.When you do this, in silence, you will find that His Divinity rests in you”.
A brother sinned and went crying to St. Macarius and told him, “Abba pray for me because I have committed a grave sin. St. Macarius told him, “Be of good courage my son and hold to Him who is above all ages, who has no beginning, remains forever and has no end. He is the help of those who have no hope except in Him. He is the sweet name in the mouth of everyone, the only real sweetness, the absolute life, the owner of the many treasures of mercy, our Lord Jesus Christ our true God. May He be your strength and your help and may He forgive you my son”.
St. Evagrius said, “One day I went to St. Macarius as I was in anguish from the evil thoughts and fleshly lusts and told him, “Abba give me a word that I may live”. This is the traditional question that a brethren asks his spiritual father. “Abba give me a word that I may live”. So, he told me, “ Tie the rope to the anchor and by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ your ship will overcome the satanic waves and the darkness of this vain world”. Then I told him, “What is the ship, what is the rope and what is the anchor?” St. Macarius told me, “The ship is your heart, guard it. The rope is your thoughts, bind it to our Lord Jesus Christ who is the anchor that is stronger than any of the satanic waves that fight the saints. Isn’t it easy to say with every breath we breathe, my Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, I bless you. My Lord Jesus Christ help me”.
St. Macarius said, “One day I went to visit an elder who was sick. This elder loved the name of salvation and the blessed name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When I asked him about the economy of his salvation, he said with joy as I was continually meditating on this sweet bread of life. The elder told St. Macarius, “as I was continually meditating on this sweet bread of life, which I mean the Holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ. One day I fell into a sweet trance and saw in a vision the King Jesus Christ and He told me three times, “Look, look, I Am, (The Lord your God); there is no other.” Then I woke up very joyful and I forgot about my pains.The elder in his last days before he departed was nourished by the sweet bread of life, i.e. the Holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that made him joyful”.