which we've almost got to the end of, we've got to the middle of page 127. Next time we can go on with that one on refusal to judge our neighbour, which you find a lot of background for in the Sayings of the Fathers, remember, there's a whole section of the Sayings of the Fathers on that subject. Also there's a book of Joe Brode, which would be opportune at that time. I may have to get that one open to make prepare for that. And if the other copies come in then we can use that. Because that's exactly what he's talking about. Because there are two sides to that story. On the one hand, we're not supposed to judge our brother, on the other hand, obviously we have to. Because obviously we're living together, we've got a duty of fraternal correction. So how do we navigate between those two extremes? So that'll be for next time. Now, this business of consultation, just to go back for a moment

[01:03]

before we finish this discourse, you remember what he's talking about. He's talking about consulting the elders. Consultation is an odd term. So that's not his title anyway, is it? What was it? That it's not good to... It's your own will, basically, but it's also your own counsel. It's not good to follow your own counsel solely. And of course, he's not talking about just consulting anybody, he's talking about consulting the elders. It's not good to follow your own judgment. That's the title of the discourse. And as we go on with these discourses, these conferences of Dorotheus, we see he's sort of always talking about the same thing, and he's circling around it. And we hardly know what name to put on that same thing. But it's the movement from one condition to another condition. In a sense, from one place to another place. Okay, his principle, which sounds so extreme, is this.

[02:10]

I know of no fall that happens to a monk that does not come from trusting his own judgment. A philosopher could say, well, that's a tautology, because how can you make a mistake if you don't take any initiative, right? How can you fall if you don't take any chances? How can you sin if you never follow your own judgment? If you never make a decision, in other words, how can you make a mistake, all right? To be criticized from that point of view. Which, of course, is unfair, but yet there's a point there, which we have to talk about afterwards. Does this principle cover the whole of human life, or the whole of the life of a monk, or is there something else involved? We know there is, but it's hard to put a finger on it to express it. Okay, let's go on with his thinking. And then you remember his own experience. Everyone who puts himself under obedience to the Fathers has this peace and freedom from anxiety. And then the cynic comes up, the voice from the back comes up and says, freedom from anxiety,

[03:10]

yeah, but what kind of freedom is that if it's in a bottle? That is, if he's freed himself from anxiety by setting aside his humanity, setting aside his freedom, and so on. So we have to continue that. Now this is a fact that he's talking about, it's a truth that he's talking about, but there's another angle from which we really have to come to terms with today. We'll get back to that afterwards. Often for the monk who has a strong vocation, there's no problem at all with this. There's no problem at all. The problem can come up years afterwards, but the grace of the vocation itself sets all those matters and those possible criticisms aside, so that the person just gives himself totally and expects, like a child, to receive the word of God and the will of God from his elder. And that's right. It's right for him to do that. Be careful to make inquiries, brothers, and do not set yourself up as your own judges. Notice, I didn't think of it before, but notice the correspondence between this...

[04:12]

There's a real structure in this thing of Dorothy. It's even the way they're put together. I don't know whether he had them in this order. But this is not following your own judgment, and the next one is the refusal to judge your brother. I didn't notice that before. And on the conference we had just before this one, it was that matter of parricide. The self-confidence which really is based on an implicit self-judgment, on a kind of implicit espousal, unhesitating confidence in one's own judgment. So you see how all of these things compare. And learn by experience how much freedom from anxiety, how much joy, how much peace this brings. Now, there's one thing to be free from anxiety, you know, by separating yourself from problems. It's another thing to be free from anxiety in the presence, in the face of problems, in severe conflicts. And it's another thing to be free from anxiety with a kind of abounding peace that rises up like the water in a well, and it sort of lifts you off your feet, lifts you off the ground. We have to remember that, that what he's talking about is a kind

[05:15]

of abounding peace, it's a kind of overflowing internal freedom. And when a person has it, he doesn't have any doubt. It's not the kind of neutral zone, which is just maybe kind of numbness, kind of novocaine. Because he hasn't got any words to... See, we don't have any words to describe the positive content, say, of Christ, or the Holy Spirit, or spirituality, do we? There's no... How do you describe health? How do you describe well-being? You've got a small heap of words, of pebbles to try to explain those things, and then you run out of them. And the rest of it is all beyond words. We've got plenty of words to describe our hang-ups, and our difficulties, and our aches and pains, but we don't have any words to describe our well-being. All that a person can do is sing, or something like that, or burst into jubilation. It's an anomaly of the ancients. Although I was saying that I'm never troubled now, listen to what happened to me sometime...

[06:17]

And then he tells us this experience of his, in the synogine. Now, notice that this is a great trial, and how it's a great desolation, the kind you find in John of the Cross, even though this is a brief one, it's a kind of touch. And notice he's in the synogine, and we might think that these great trials, and this kind of interior solitude, because that's what it is, could only happen in a solitary life, but no, it happens to him in the monastery, of course. This is talked about in the introduction of people of number, and the author, the translator is asking if Dorotheus has had mystical experiences. That's the modern question. Is somebody a mystic? Has he had mystical experiences? And he decides that this definitely isn't, and he compares it with the dark night described by John of the Cross. This is on page 53. He points out that this, like this,

[07:21]

touches what John of the Cross talks about as a permanent effect on him. He gives him a permanent Okay, here's his trial. There came to me only once a great and unspeakable trial. I had to go through this in order to reach that point of solidity. I was in such dire straits that I was almost at the point of departing this life. That means dying, I don't know. But this affliction was contrived by the devil. A trial of this kind could only be brought upon us by the devil's jealousy. You know, there's more than one side to that thing, because if such a great good resulted from this trial, can it be said that the trial itself is only evil? Can it be said that it's only the devil's jealousy? Doesn't that devil's jealousy and his being exposed to temptation somehow have to lie within God's plan, within the hand of Providence, if it's going to lead to this great good that he experienced from it? Of course it does, I think. It's like Job, you know, Job is delivered over to

[08:28]

be tempted. Somehow it's all within God's will. And his struggle is not with the devil, his struggle is with God, isn't it, throughout. And there's a little parable that says that the cross is a cross. Yeah, yeah. And it's the same basic thing in the last one. Well, I shouldn't say that, because most of the trials are out in front of you, in the Ascended Biblical life, the way he's been describing it. You know what's wrong. You're having a struggle because your brother is doing something awful to you, that's the way it is in Dorotheus mostly. So this is unusual for his life. It's a purely interior trial. He doesn't give any cause for it. And so, that's true. The interior trial is something which is not frankly aimed at, let's say, in a lot of Christian monasticism. Like Martin points out, if you get too deep into the Night of the Spirit or something, it can give you shock treatments. If you get too irrational, if you get into too much of a crisis,

[09:32]

it can bring you back to normal. But you find a record of these things in the tradition. Amonas is the first one that I remember that talked about this kind of thing. Amonas, the disciple of St. Anthony, who talks about the great desolation and how you have to believe and you have to hang on and plead for God's grace if you want to get through it. If you get depressed and if you just sort of slack off and just go limp, then you won't go through it and you won't know the grace of the Holy Spirit. You've got to plow through it in faith, begging God's help. Dorotheus doesn't tell what his response would be. That's right. No, you can't. In fact, exactly what it is, is a helplessness. It's not having any gas in your

[10:54]

tank. There's nothing there. There's no life there. And sometimes, like what are the Fathers saying to the Fathers? They say, go in yourself, stay in yourself, whatever you do, don't leave, don't abandon your situation and wait for God's grace. That's what they usually say. But the monk needs that word of encouragement from somebody who's been through it and come out the other side in order to be able to do that. He needs that support at least. So that's what he's talking about. He's talking about this great trial, because we could consider that this experience has nothing to do with the rest of the discourse, you see. It sounds like an irrelevant thing that he brought in, saying how he got that way. But who is that figure of the bishop? The figure of the bishop is a kind of symbol, a kind of archetype for the spiritual Father, for the helper, for the one that comes and releases him from the problem, you see. Because the whole point of what he's saying here is that he got this security through confiding himself to the elders. So the image of the bishop is a kind of image of the elders.

[11:57]

It's a strange thing that he doesn't explain that, you know, it just leaves the connection implicit. That's the way it seems to me. It's great that he's a bishop, you know. It's great that he didn't see the vision of an old monk coming and helping him. But he didn't, he was a bishop. And the fact that it's a bishop somehow ties it into something else, and somehow ties it into the whole apostolic tradition of the Church. And as it were, it seems to put the elders in the apostolic tradition, recalling those words of Jesus, that he who hears you, so to the apostles now hears me, that kind of thing. And so somehow that experience is tied in to the lesson that united to the experience, this lesson of consultation. Otherwise it would be irrelevant. Otherwise you could say, well, look, he got what he got, that solidity, simply through an individual experience. It doesn't have anything to do with his consultation with the elders that he's talking about. It would be a counter-argument other than a positive one. But he interprets it differently, it seems to me. I can tell you, even though I haven't read it, there's a period in his life that he describes

[13:00]

which is, to me, remarkably relevant to this experience. But it actually also has a link with maybe the time of Philharmonic, when he came to have walks with him in New York, during a period when some complicated stuff had been brought up since then, and said it was a battle of insubordination. But that was the figure that I guess he projected his own resources towards him. He would actually walk up and down the driveway and scream at people and say, you've got a lame foot, you're an insubordination. My heart was heavy and my mind dark. Nothing could comfort me and there was no relief anywhere. But I shed him on all sides. And he didn't go there. He didn't go to consult anybody, it seems. The grace of God comes swiftly to the soul when endurance is no longer possible. No waiting for Abhijan. I was then, as I said, in a state of temptation and distress. So he was standing looking, sort of, just gazing at the light, praying about it.

[14:09]

And I turned towards the church and perceived someone having the appearance of a bishop come into the sanctuary. Now this is as though carried by wings, however, it doesn't hold up in the original, unfortunately, I don't think. The translator in the French here, it's a strange word, you see, that he uses. And the translation in the French is, what is it? Wearing a vestment of ermine. The word that Wheeler translated, wings, you know, or a wing, it comes out as ermine in the French. But he's not sure of it either. And he says that somebody else translated it, bringing an offering, bringing oblation into the sanctuary. So it's pretty obscure. I don't know where Wheeler got his wings.

[15:11]

He must have had his wings. Ordinarily, he never approaches to a herculean thing. Something drew him to the paraphernalia, it's a very convincing experience. It's a lot like, a lot like, it resembles the experience of Saint Arnold at his conversion, remember, when he had the vision of Saint Apollinaris walking through the church, the bishop of Apollinaris, walking through a church in Saint-Saëns-en-Val d'Azur. Well, that was already a change, that was one change. Yeah, but he saw him twice, didn't he? Two or three times. Yeah, but the second time, he converted, he became a monk. Are you thinking of that later experience with the psalm? Oh, you mean, but it was in the same time.

[16:20]

So he remained standing in a position of prayer, and I stood behind him in great fear, praying. And then he turned and came towards me, and this is a kind of a long sort of liturgized thing that happens. He drew near to me, I felt my pain at the sort of very presence of this person, and he never identifies this person. Then he stood in front of me, stretching out his hand, touched me on the breast, and tapped me on the chest with his fingers, and then he recites the psalm. And he keeps tapping him, evidently, throughout the psalm. He repeats these words three times. Then he departed, and immediately light flooded my mind, and there was joy in my heart, and comfort and sweetness. And that psalm is typical of the psalm, it's typical of the individual lamentations, as they call it, but the psalmist goes down into the pit, and then he's rescued, and those are the bread and butter, the food and drink of the monk, those psalms. And his experience somehow relates to them, and that was the way it was here, because the psalm exactly reproduces this experience. Does that psalm 40?

[17:42]

Some of the other psalms are 22 and 68, they have that same shape to them, that same trajectory, down and then the rescue, and the praise of God at the end. I was a different man. I ran out after him, hoping to find him, but I could not, he disappeared. From that moment on, by God's providence, I have not known myself to be troubled by sorrow or fear, but the Lord has sheltered me until now through the prayers of the seniors of the Abbas. So he connects that somehow, it confirms his belief in the tradition of the Abbas. Maybe there's something that he left out, maybe there's something that he didn't tell about this, that explains why he makes that connection. Maybe there was a prior connection in his mind, in his problem itself, about something, about his relation to the Fathers or something like that, but he doesn't tell that, so we don't know. Yeah, because he didn't go to anybody, and here he gets this vision.

[18:49]

Yeah, I'm going to wait for a vision. But it confirms his conclusion. So there's a context there that we're not aware of, it doesn't tell us. I told you all this so that you may know how much rest and tranquility a man may have. In some ways, as if he had been tempted against the tradition of the Fathers, that he had been tempted in some way to doubt, and that this had confirmed him in his relation with his Abbas. But he doesn't say it explicitly. By not settling anything by himself, or by casting everything that concerns himself upon God,

[19:55]

and on those who after that have the power to do anything, learn then, brothers, to inquire, and convince them not to set one's own path as a great thing. Do not form the opinion, the translation is too mild here, that there is any other safe way to travel, really, because there isn't any other way to be saved. Now, in a case where you have nobody to ask, my spiritual father doesn't understand. He's too shallow. God never leaves him to himself, but always guides him according to his will. If a man really sets his heart upon the will of God, God will enlighten a little child to tell that man what is his will. But if a man does not truly desire the will of God, even if he goes in search of a prophet, God will put into the heart of the prophet a reply like the deception in his own heart. You find these things sometimes in the stories of the Fathers. I couldn't take the time to pick out some examples, but the reply of the Father very often corresponds to what the disciple brings with him.

[20:56]

In other words, if he's not really fully open or fully resolved, if he's half-hearted when it comes to his spiritual father, he'll get a half-hearted or a half-cut rate reply. They'll say, well, why did you tell him such a hard thing that morning? The Father says, well, because he's a real worker, because he really is seeking the will of God. And why did you give that other guy such a light assignment? Why did you let him off so easily? Either because he needed that, because he's not any stronger, or because he's not really sincere. It's that kind of thing, which is surprising. You'd think that the spiritual father would always cut right through like a sword, you know, and give the person a complete life. But evidently that doesn't work. Evidently it wouldn't. They can't do that. They can't batter down the obstacles. That's a strange thing. But it seems to be that way with God, in a sense, you know. That if we go to God with only half a heart, we'll get only half an answer. If we only go halfway to me,

[21:58]

and he'll only go that way, and that way, and that way. It's his assignments, isn't it? I think it's his assignment, too. Sometimes, of course, he goes all the way, like it's no problem. But really what he wants to do is to bring us to him, is to bring us to a kind of whole-heartedness, a single-heartedness, and then we'll get a clear answer. But you see how we have to put it together on one side with our faith in order to have it put together for us on the other side with his grace. We have to pull ourselves all into one, and then we find ourselves sort of confirmed in that unity, that singleness, that centeredness that we have pulled ourselves into. And how do we pull ourselves into it? By faith, and by the tension of prayer, by moving towards him against the opposition of doubt, and of delay, and of disappointment, and all of that. And then we get the answer. And the answer is what? The answer is the breath of the Spirit in our hearts, which simply makes us larger than we were, makes us freer than we were, illuminates us, and somehow just fills us,

[23:00]

like the Dorotheus experience that we commissioned in the psalm. This quotation here is from Ezekiel 14, 9. If anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart, and putting a stumbling block of his iniquity before his face... You see, putting his idols into his heart. If we're hiding an idol somewhere in our hearts and we don't show it, and we even come to the prophet, the prophet's going to be deceived. Taking his idols into his heart and putting a stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, he's as if blinding himself and then asking to come into the enlightenment. And yet comes to a prophet to inquire for himself of me,

[24:02]

I the Lord will answer him myself, and I will set my face against that man. I will make him a sign and a byword and cut him off from the midst of the people. And you shall know that I am the Lord. And if the prophet be deceived and speak a word, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and will destroy him from the midst of my people. Now, here he's talking about a perverse prophet, too. He's not talking about a... He's talking about a deceived prophet, a dishonest prophet. And a prophet who is deceived also morally, so that the prophet too is in for it, and he too suffers the same penalty as an inquirer. It's the same thing.

[25:03]

It's the same principle. And it's mysterious, because we don't think it's right, actually. And we think, well, why doesn't he enlighten him, you know? Why doesn't he just tell him? But that's the whole thing about the mystery in the scriptures and the mystery of God's word, that we're supposed to do something. Until we're ready to do, we're not going to know. Until we pull ourselves together and we really are ready to believe, we're not going to hear. Until we're ready to follow, we're not going to get the word. Until we really want the truth with the whole of ourselves and listen for the truth with the whole of our heart, which means also with that part of the heart which we'll do, we're not going to hear, because the truth is for the whole of ourselves. And it's hard to know how to express that. It's kind of like Beavis' thing, you know, sending somebody back from the dead. They weren't dead, no.

[26:04]

And that sending somebody back from the dead, of course, was Jesus himself, and it seems there is a Christ and they don't hear him. It's kind of just like a love relationship where you get to hear, to receive, so if there's not that interchange, you can stay. That's right, that's right. And it really is a love relationship, too. We can talk about light or word or information or guidance, but what we're really talking about is an exchange of selves, you know. To the extent that we give ourselves, we receive the self of God in the Holy Spirit. But to the extent that we close ourselves and sort of hide our idols in our heart, and worship someone else, which is really ourselves, we're closed. And it goes beyond the words and the light that we get. It's on another level. And then there's this other thing. Okay, that is why we ought to use all our ability to take a straight course towards the will of God, not to taste the promptings of our own heart. According to him, a straight course towards the will of God is had by consulting somebody else, by consulting the elders.

[27:05]

There's something good to be done. We hear from some holy man that it is good, then we should hold it as good to do it, but not believe that we've done it perfectly just because we've done it. Then the translation gets messed up. Actually, Father Desai here in his spiritual guide draws a lot from Dorotheus, and he's even got a translation of this passage. This is in the two sections on discernment of spirits and manifestation of thoughts to the spiritual father, which starts on page 28. And then the following section on the cutting out of self-will and obedience. And about at least 50 percent of this first section is from Dorotheus. Let's see how he translates this. If a thing is good and we hear a saint say that it is good, we ought to judge it as such without thinking for all that that we are necessarily doing it right, just as it should have been done. We must do it the best way we know of. Then refer to...

[28:10]

Actually, we should refer to him again. Refer to it again to find out if we really did the right thing the right way. That means consult again. Even after this we cannot be definitively free from all anxiety, but we must wait for the judgment of God. Somewhat like the holy abbot Agathon was asked, Father, do you also fear? And he answered, at least I have done my best, but I know not whether my works have been pleasing to God. Because God's judgment is one thing, man's judgment is another. Remember that reading of Isaiah 51, my thoughts are not my dear thoughts, they are my words, my ways are not my dear ways. That saying of Agathon, it's worth looking up the story, which is Agathon number 19 in the sayings of the Desert Father, page 20. No, it's 29, number 29. It was said of Abba Agathon that he forced himself to fulfill all the commandments.

[29:10]

He was a war worker. When he sailed in a vessel, he was the first to handle the oars, and when the brethren came to see him, he laid the table with his own hands, as soon as they prayed, because he was full of the love of God. He was also full of the fear of God, you see. When he was at the point of death, he remained three days with his eyes fixed wide open. I don't have any kind of fear. The brethren roused him, saying, Abba Agathon, where are you? He replied, I am standing before the judgment seat of God. They said, are you not afraid, Father? I think, you know, in another version of that you get, are you afraid, Father, are you afraid too? Often that way, these things get hunted down, that's the easy thing, you see. But the answer is not so. He replied, until this moment I have done my utmost to keep the commandments of God, but I am a man, how should I know if my deeds are acceptable to God? The brethren said to him, do you not have confidence in all that you have done according to the law of God? See, that's not in continuity with the earlier thing. Often that's how you can tell if these things are translated,

[30:12]

there's some bug in them. Because they probably asked him, Father, are you afraid? Not expecting that you should have any fear, because that would be a continuous fear. The old man replied, I shall have no confidence until I meet God. Truly the judgment of God is not that of man. When they wanted to question him further, he said to them, of your charity, do not talk to me anymore, for I no longer have time. So he died with joy. So in spite of his uncertainty, he died with joy. And that's the paradox, that with this lack of certainty about our own justice, we can have a liberty and a joy and a peace. That's the paradox of the saints, the paradox of Dorotheus sort of saying that, well, still don't trust in your own justice, still don't believe that you have pleased God necessarily, and yet he's able to be completely at peace. He said, don't be without anxiety, have some anxiety, the right kind, but yet he says, I'm without anxiety. So it's that peace that goes beyond the ordinary.

[31:16]

You mean when he died with joy? It could be, yeah. Sometimes it is, but it doesn't seem to always be that way, even for the saints. So he died with joy. They saw him depart like one greeting his dearest friends. Okay, so he departed with that kind of confident movement, finally, because he was seeing God in some way. You know, he was so much in his presence that he had no more fear. There's something there that we actually reached through, in a way, that there's a cracking that can occur somehow in our own thing through faith,

[32:23]

by which we don't even reflect sort of about the judgment of God, or try to say put it on one side and the mercy of God on the other side, but faith trusts in the mercy of God in such a way that it is its own assurance, okay, I think. That's what Saint Paul is saying when he says we're justified by faith, and that's what Luther is saying too. Luther goes way over and exaggerates the thing, exaggerates it in the sense that he cuts off the other side, and becomes a kind of rationalist. But the principle there is somehow that if we sincerely have that faith in the mercy of God, in the grace of God, we can only do that when the grace of God itself is speaking in us and giving us that faith, you know. It's like that thing, like that thing of if you really believe you can say to this mountain, but this is another kind of mountain, but maybe it's more likely that Jesus means that mountain, the mountain of our sins or something like that, you know. If you really believe, and if you really believe you'll know that you believe,

[33:28]

because the evidence of that forgiveness and freedom will be inside of you, and grace will be sustained in that way. John, did you have something? No, I don't think so. Well, it sounds like there was a process there, in that when he said he was before the judgment seat of God, but it's as if he wasn't feeling so much the reassurance of God yet, but was still in sort of the ante room, you know, in a state of... the state before that full assurance that he received just before he dies. That's what it sounds like in the story. And then he said, I won't be reassured until I'm really in the presence of God, until I see the face of God, something like that. And then he practically did at the end, as if he were greeting his friends,

[34:32]

as if he had seen the face of God as he was moving towards him. Yeah, it sounds like maybe that's what you're suggesting, that description. That's right, there's a process there. Okay. Any questions about that before we go on? Just try to tie this up. I'd like to ask you a question about how that decision was brought to your attention. Now, could there be a possibility that he's using the vision of what he called the vision as a blessing, that even in that he was going to his spiritual father, because his vision was like his spiritual father, but it doesn't say that he consulted his spiritual father about this vision.

[35:38]

Right, that's a strange thing. I think he means that in a way, that this was a vision of an elder, it was a vision of the father figure who comes to comfort him. Now, if he had been deprived of his own spiritual father at that time, it would explain it all in a sense. He wasn't able for some reason to consult that, but then it would be logical, but he doesn't say that. In all the other examples, it's so explicit about going to his spiritual father. There's something missing. I don't think so. No, it's the same in the original. It's curious. Ordinarily, I'd blame it on the translation, but we can't do that. Okay, just to try to put this into context a bit,

[36:39]

also to just bring to light some of the objections that there are bound to be. Remember that whole thing about the false self and the ego, and then the true self, and the movement from one to the other. That's what this is about. And some people, you know, nowadays this Progolf journal thing, one of the sections in the Progolf journal is to write a dialogue with a wisdom figure of some kind. And when you do that, it's as if you were writing a dialogue with yourself, or writing a dialogue with God, or somewhere in between. Now, there's a kind of modern version, a modern and isolated version, in a sense, of this recourse to the spiritual father. And of course, it lacks the sacramental thing, but what you do is you get beyond your ego. Your ego does a dialogue with something beyond itself, you see? And that's what we're doing in this tradition. Now, we have to remember the basic role of the spiritual father tradition in monasticism, not only Western monasticism, but almost universally, the idea of a guide, one who initiates, and so on.

[37:41]

And even if the guide is not a realized person himself, especially in Christianity, he plays a sacramental role. He somehow fits into the providence of God so that he can be a channel in grace. The typical place we find this, of course, is not in the... The strongest place we find this is not in the monastic tradition itself, but it's in the other tradition. It's in the hierarchical tradition of the Church, where you have priests, you have bishops and priests, and people who have, by virtue of their ordination, a certain role to play for the people of God. Now, whether or not they have a special charism, or whether or not they're faithful, or good, or holy, or wise, or anything like that, they still have this role, and they still are channels of grace for people. The most obvious example is in the sacrament of penance. But there's a larger sphere in which that's also true, in which God puts those people in the Church as sacramental people in some way, so that people may receive grace as well. Remember in the Old Testament, where the leper had to go to the priest,

[38:42]

and he shows up to the priest, and Jesus even sends the lepers to the priest when he heals them. Somehow to keep that sacramental thing intact. And of course in the New Testament it's more meaningful, because the grace of the Holy Spirit, the charism, is really there. But sometimes it's only there in the official way, and sometimes it's really there in the personal way. So the person not only is a sign and a channel of grace in the sacramental way, but also in the personal way. But very often it's not true. Now the same thing is true around the monastic side, even where there isn't a charism or ordination. But now, we don't have a tradition of non-priest spiritual fathers now, but that will probably grow up, especially with the limits, and if the women don't become priests, and with the charismatic movement, because in the charismatic movement you have the beginning of a tradition of spiritual consultation, which is horizontal instead of vertical. People just talking to one another, sharing their spiritual experience and life with one another, and then getting guidance from one another. Getting, as they say, a word of the Lord from one another.

[39:44]

This thing of prophecy growing up, you see, takes the place, to some extent, of the teaching role, or the spiritual father role. Now, of course, it can't totally replace it, but in the absence of spiritual fathers it is a partial replacement. Then... He just says that your office, say, the monastic office, your office has a sacramental character in itself, besides any particular charism that you as a person might have. That's right, yes. That's differently evaluated in the Western tradition and the Eastern tradition. That's interesting if you look at it, because it's typical. If you look at the West, you find that charism offers very strong interest. So, for instance, the abbot is a real source of grace for his monks, even if he's not at all holy or wise himself.

[40:48]

And then in the Eastern tradition, remember Peter, Peter and the, what do you call it, structural, institutional, official dimension of the church, which is real, too. It's real to the extent that you believe in it, to the extent that you don't believe in it, then do it again. In the Eastern tradition, you find somebody like Simeon the New Theologian saying that if a priest is not holy, he can't even forgive sins. He says something like that, right? That is, the sacrament of penance is made a totally personal thing. Now, he's not typical of the Eastern tradition. He's an extremist. But remember, he's a saint for them, right? He's one, he's the new theologian for them. And so that's not too far off the main track of the Eastern belief, that the charism has to be there in a personal and realized way. Now, there's something, something, right, but it can really leave you in a bad position, you know, if there aren't any priests around that are like that, what are you going to do? So really, the Catholic thing, as you're, it's a Mahayana, the Catholic, the Catholic tract, the Roman Catholic tract is a Mahayana

[41:52]

where even where the charism seems to have disappeared in some way, the people can find grace, the people can find grace in these ordinary sort of humdrum-looking channels. And I believe in that. That's part of it. That's part of Christianity. That sacramentality, just like the Eucharist, it's ordinary bread, you know, but it's the life of God. And so the priest may be ordinary bread too, nothing special. But it's God's grace, it's the Holy Spirit that comes to your throne. I read an article about that, Daniel, about the relationship, what the difference, the transcendence of Christianity being able to put together a world of difference. And he says that at any given time, the greatest religious personalities in the world may be all completely different. They may not be the greatest religious personalities within the Church, but Christ did this himself. He actually said, there is no man nor woman greater than John the Baptist. But at least, sometimes there are few men greater than me. So it's hard to accept that from the Eastern point of view, not from even from the Orthodox point of view,

[42:53]

the charism is just so much. And from a monastic point of view, it's hard to spell it, of course. It's the truth. Now Peter is exactly the example. Peter is the model of this. He's the one who stands for this exactly. He's the stone which is sunk into the ground, and which is completely ordinary, completely common. Koinon, Koinon. And from the koinon comes the koinonia, comes the communion. From the common comes the communion. It's the same word. And because he is sunk into the ordinary, in that way, he's just plain humanity. Therefore, he becomes a channel to all of humanity, a channel of grace to all of humanity, with no conditions, no special qualities. And that's the beautiful thing, the beautiful hidden thing about Catholicism. And even, for instance, when the Pope is not holy, like some of us medieval situations, that thing remains. And somehow it remains unshaken for most of the people, too, in spite of the incongruent matters where we have holy Popes, etc., etc. And I'm not just talking about the Pope here.

[43:54]

It's the whole hierarchy, and the whole of the Christian, everyone who has office. I never heard that derivation of Simon from Reed, but it's interesting. Okay, this whole thing we were talking about last time,

[45:01]

the risk of illusion and so on, and the risk of appropriating grace in a bad sense, so that the ego gets inflated, and we become our own guide, and we sort of put our spirituality or grace in our pocket in some sense, which becomes totally upside down. And yet we may feel it, that it's never going fine. Precisely, we may feel well-being here. The ego impersonating the self, impersonating the true self. But remember, as long as we use this language, we're still not quite in the Christian framework. As long as we're talking about the false self and the true self, that's it. It's an artificial scheme, which is not quite the Christian thing, but we use it as a kind of scaffolding, and then take it away, to find what we're really talking about. There's this contrary problem, of course, of the expression of this thing in the Old Testament, where the whole structure gets built up as a kind of ego structure of man's religion, and then finally, in order to accept God

[46:02]

when he comes into the flesh, we don't hear a word of God. But there's a contrary problem of the kind of tendency of a church structure to suppress freedom, and to overdo this thing of obedience and authority and so on, until the liberty of the spirit isn't able, really, to appear. And so we're between those two things. That's the other side of the Peter thing now. And the other side of the James thing, I don't know, I just want to cross that. When James really gets the upper hand, over Paul, then the liberty which is supposed to be the fruit of the pedagogy of the church doesn't appear, because it's all pedagogy. You always remain in school, you know, you always remain in a minor school. You never graduate until you've given the sons of God. So that's the risk on the other side. And one can say, well, that's where Dorotheus is putting us, you know? He's putting us in that school. So when you enter there, you're content with that progression.

[47:03]

Because, as a matter of fact, it's always been very difficult for the church to leave. Now, parallel to this, the cenobitical life and the monastic life, right? Where the cenobitical life is the structure, and the monastic life is called the life of obedience. The cenobitical life is called obedience, something like that. And the purpose of that obedience is really, of course, to lead somebody to the freedom of the sons of God by helping him to get behind himself the obedience of this inaugurant and the stresses of this inaugurant, and, of course, the communion of this inaugurant. Help a person both with a stick and with a carrot, in a sense, right? That is, the positive support helps a person to get beyond himself and relaxes him to a climate of love, as it were, and communion. But the aspect of obedience, the harder aspect, helps a person to get beyond himself by going where he wouldn't go on himself. And between those two, the vertical and the horizontal, and you find both of them very clearly in Saint Benedict, right? Christian monasticism, that is, the peculiarly Christian qualities

[48:06]

of monasticism are so visible in Saint Benedict. Obedience and communion. Obedience would somehow insert you into the will of God and also help you get beyond your own self-will. And the communion would help you to get beyond your own self-love and your own self-will by sort of disappearing into the flow of life and one another. Those are called Christian qualities. Not exclusively, but that's where they appear in the first term. But that's the sentimental life, not the aromatic life, in the other hand. It's supposed to give you space for liberty, space for freedom, in the sense of God. But the freedom of Saint Benedict is largely an interior freedom because, basically, it's light in a very simple light, in a very austere light, which is hedged in in various ways. But the fact is that the major item in it is not obedience. Obedience is the major item in the sentimental life. And then that pressure of obedience is lifted when the person himself is somehow locked into the will of God, when he somehow,

[49:07]

his own spirit, is fused with the Holy Spirit in such a way that he has the discernment and also the freedom to be able to follow the will of God. And the sentimental stress is no longer necessary. And this, at least, is the theory, and I think it's true. The trouble is, of course, a couple of troubles, a couple of possibilities. One possibility is that the person never graduates from school and he just keeps getting reset, going round and round and round, but he just stays permanently in a structure which does not know how to encourage freedom, which does not know how to lead on to freedom. In other words, which doesn't know how to let go, a structure which doesn't know how to let go of the person, so that the person can be a person but wants him always to be a schoolboy. And the other possibility, of course, which is both of these happen all the time, but the other possibility is that the person gets an imaginary spiritual freedom before he's really gone even halfway up to God, you see, and that he graduates while he's still in the third grade, existential, and therefore he remains

[50:09]

on the shadow of everything else in his life, going around in a circle following his own dreams and all those things. So those are the two risks the devil and the deep blue sea see. It's very hard to avoid them, and it takes a kind of interaction between the values of obedience and on the other hand, this openness to the person will always be, see if there's a more likely condition. I want to read some things from Desai because he's good on this. I have to remember this isolation and individualism of what modern western man, and we come out of this, and then also that apostolic cross that we're talking about and the real cross of Christianity What's the cross for Jesus and for Saint Paul and for the apostles? Persecution by good people. So it's the tension within the church which very often is a real cross

[51:09]

in this time. The tension between Paul and James in a sense of it. Maybe not between Paul and James but between Paul and the less enlightened disciples of James and between James and the less enlightened disciples of Paul. The partisans of the law and the partisans of the freedom of the flesh. And in the middle, the holy men, sometimes, somehow trying to keep it all together in the conclusion and despite the tension between the two principles because people are different in the church and they pull in different directions. This is the strange thing which on a deeper level, on the ultimate level, are really the same direction. The mantra has a particular approach and that's interiorization. Interiorization. Acquiring despite exterior limitations, whether in the Sanhedrical life with its stress or in the Aramidical life, basically with its openness and with its emptiness, the desert. The desert is not a, is not Disneyland. The desert is not, doesn't have the satisfactions of the world.

[52:11]

It's an emptiness. And if a monk, the hermit is surrounded by austerity. Now if we get the wrong kind of idea of the spiritual negative of the hermit, then we're going to see him as kind of a happy guy over here. He's going around and sort of having, having spiritual fun. But that's not it. His liberty is really interiorized. And he only does those things sort of when the spirit leads him to him, sort of by way of acceptance. That's not his ordinary thing. Um, let me read some steps from Disabled. This is the first in a section on the discernment of spirits and manifestation of thoughts. This is parallel to Dorothy's conference we've just been reading.

[53:11]

First he talks about God's sort of exceptions and how he doesn't treat everybody the same. These requirements may often be manifested to us, these requirements of God, of the spirit, under the form of interior inspirations of intimate impulses and attractions. Attractions on him. This is an excellent thing. And the fact that our way of acting proceeds from the spontaneous outburst of the heart, rather than from a passive submission to an exterior goal, which it can be, which it can be, especially in San Diego. Lends to our action its true quality and its value of personal commitment. The new law of the gospel is, does not consist in an exterior code of precepts, but in the intimate action of the spirit that moves us. However, we must add that all the inspirations or thoughts that arise in us, even when they apparently look excellent, do not necessarily come from God. Satan is a clever one at transforming himself into an angel of light. And the secret of our deep motivations very often escapes us. We have to realize that a certain skepticism

[54:17]

as regards our reasons for doing a particular thing or for wanting a particular thing. And it's that skepticism connected with the fear of God which makes us able to consult, to ask somebody else. It makes us able to leave it open to discussion within ourselves and outside of ourselves, rather than rushing inward. We've got more trust in God and in God working through others than we have in our own life. That's the point. Which is really is a trust in the communion. An ancient has said that zeal for fasting, solitude or prolonged prayer, or inversely, the seemingly legitimate concern about the maintaining of one's health or, again, the spiritual and material welfare of neighbor, may well proceed from a basic egotism which, to better satisfy itself, takes on the master virtue. Examine the sweetness you feel in your soul lest it be a fraudulent device contrived by some cruel and treacherous position. It's a standard of the ancients. We must, therefore, be extremely careful

[55:17]

about not letting ourselves be taken by surprise. Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone on into this world. Okay, then he goes on about discretion, discernment. The mother of all virtues according to Martin. The fathers have often enumerated the criteria of the discernment of spirits. Barth and Uphius re-echoes the old tradition when he writes. This is from a letter of Barth and Uphius. Every thought in which the calm of humility does not prevail. Notice that juncture of two notions, calm and humility. And remember that catastasis, that state that Dorotheus was talking about before when he was talking about work and how to know what to do when you work on a disturbance arises. And the purity of heart and passion is really the same thing. The calm of humility does not prevail, is not according to God, but is obviously a so-called good inspiration coming from the evil spirits.

[56:18]

The criterion of Saint Ignatius, as I remember, is peace, isn't it? Peace and a kind of indifference. But the indifference allows you to be peaceful instead of moving forward, thrusting forward. One decision, one thing. The reason is that our Lord always presents himself in great calm, while everything that comes from the enemy is always accompanied by trouble and agitation. And even when they come to you in the clothing of sheep, know for certain that inwardly they are ravening wolves. That's a pretty good application of this scripture in which Jesus says, the false teachers are coming on you in the wolves' and sheep's clothing. And the clothing of the sheep, what is it? It's the clothing of peace, of bondlessness and so on. And yet inside, we shall never have that privilege. We are recognized by the trouble we cause, by the fruits we shall never have. Maybe not instantly, but after a little while. Because we've got to discern even the fruits, because there's a kind of peace, which is the peace of our own will,

[57:21]

and there's a certain glory to it. And then there's the real deep peace, which goes all the way down to the center. And the key to discernment is learning the quality of peace, which is really the sign of the Lord's will. Learning the quality of peace and of food and of joy, which is really the mark of our being totally together and totally connected with that center. Remember the center of the grain of gold that Martin talks about? Now, he says, all you have to do is orient your life so that you're completely in touch with that all of the time. Now, there is a kind of experience, which we can't really feel all the time as such, but there's a kind of experience, or a quality of experience, which tells us that we've got the channel open to that center, that food, that grain of gold. And that's this calm of humility, as Boyce Matthews called it before. Peace and freedom. And the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And of course, there are plenty of fruits of the Holy Spirit, but there's sort of seconds as far as the fruits of the Holy Spirit. There's a second quality, sort of being the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which are not quite joy,

[58:22]

and not quite peace, and not quite love, but sort of close imitation. Which means that we're a little out of joint, a little out of tune with the Holy Spirit. And we're a little bit closer than putting in our self-love here. I'm sorry. Now, it's not all the time, of course, that they say that we're going to be feeling that. But by and large, our level, or the direction that we're going can be judged from this point of view, as to how we relate to that center. And the quality of calm and humility. Remember when John of the Cross, in the 13th chapter of the first book of the Ascension of Mount Carmel, he says he's neither elated when some of the country made a cast down or loses something, but he remains in the center of his humility. The mere knowledge of these criteria does not suffice, however,

[59:23]

to make it possible for everyone to detect with full security the origin of the thoughts and the inspiration which arise in this world. Because it is not enough to possess a theoretical knowledge of a given technique, to perform it, and slowly the cuts come and go. Somehow the experience of this calm has to do that. And then also the experience of its catechists and the habit of judgment. It's something like, remember St. Paul, when he talks about you have to learn to discern between good and evil. You have to learn to eat the bread of the mature rather than the milk of the infants. And he equates this discernment with growth. He equates maturity with the discernment between good and evil, and eating bread instead of drinking milk, and not chewing on it yourself. I don't know what all of that means, but the correlation of learning the lesson of discernment and of maturing is good or not. That's the same thing that he's talking about here. True discernment of spirits proceeds from an instinct. In other words, it's not an adding,

[60:23]

it's not a balancing of things. It's a well, so much over here, so much over here, and see where the needle goes. It's not that well. If there's a needle, it's a needle of instinct. It's a needle of feeling and of that kind of intuitive knowledge rather than a needle of calculation. A very acute spiritual tact, which is a gratuitous gift of God, and which is normally granted to those among them hardest for any fear of God. As long as there remains an innocent connivance with our passions, we're always going to be putting a hand on one side of the scale. The latter are always liable suddenly to falsify the proper functioning of our discernment. We put a foot on one side of the balance, without even knowing it ourselves. This is why only those men who have fully mastered their passions to whom the spirit is granted the gift of the profound and intimate grace of peacefulness, the grace of peacefulness, has a key in the deepest tense, and who, from this viewpoint, are thereby suited for a solitary life, see, very connexively, proceeding from the center of our collective

[61:24]

to the solitary life. Now, this is over-theorizing, a bit, obviously, because where in the world do you have the framework for that sort of free progression from the cenobitical life to the armedical life when a person reaches a certain stage of spiritual development? Only in a kind of remembered paradise of some ancient time, because it hardly exists in the world, maybe in Mount Athos, somewhere like that. So we can't really look for that criterion of holy hermits in our present situation. It would be nice if it could happen, but we don't have it yet. And especially in the modern world, we just don't have that shape of things anymore. Sure they do. But sometimes because they have to, right? In a benedictine monastery, where do you go? There's no provision for the armedical life. Yeah. So if you're in that framework, which doesn't permit the armedical life,

[62:26]

this can't take place, but the person can have reached this stage, you see? He can be there, but he can't externally express it. And that's only now, you see, because they didn't have it until this point. So this is somewhat... Here we have the example of Abba John. He who has not yet... Only he may, with that presumption, exercise the proper discernment in this matter of personal thoughts, at least in ordinary cases. Hence the recurrence to John in Barcinopheus and Basil, the old man. He who has not yet attained to such purity, but there's only one thing left for him to do. The manifestation of his thoughts to his spiritual work to the discernment of love. And he goes on courting passion.

[63:26]

So we'll continue this next time. I think Desai is worth consulting. I'll put this over on the shelf. Where we stopped was on page 30.

[63:34]

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