A Letter Of Hieromonk Seraphim Rose To A Spiritual Seeker
Fr. Seraphim wrote the following letter toward the end of his
life. He was addressing a young man whom he had never met, but
whom he had heard was interested in the writings of the French
metaphysician Rene Guenon. As stated earlier, it was Guenon who
had first taught Fr. Seraphim the necessity of orthodoxy and of
tradition. This understanding had led him to value the Chinese
tradition with its strong sense of orthodoxy, and Gi-ming Shien
as an authentic transmitter of that tradition; and had finally led
him to embrace the traditional expression of Christ's revelation in
Orthodoxy. In an unusual turn of ideas, Fr. Seraphim shows in this
letter how his path to tradition and orthodoxy enabled him to find
Truth that is ultimately not a tradition at all. He acknowledges
his identity as a Westerner and affirms the Christian roots of the
West, then explains that the path of Christ is not specifically
Western or culture-bound.
In this letter it will be seen how Fr. Seraphim falls into neither
"fundamentalism" nor syncretism. Religious fundamentalism (believing
that anything from a tradition outside one's own must be wrong) is
intellectually satisfying to narrow minds, while religious syncretism
(believing that all traditions are equal) is satisfying to broad
minds. In avoiding both extremes, Fr. Seraphim followed a path that
was not intellectually satisfying at all, for such is the path of
Truth. As he himself wrote. "When I became a Christian I voluntarily
crucified my mind, and all the crosses that I bear have only been
a source of joy for me. I have lost nothing and gained everything."
Dear Ken,
Solomonia (Rhonda) has shared with me your recent letter to her
and in reading it I sense in you a kindred spirit to whom a word
from me might not be in vain.
It so happens that Rene Guenon was the chief influence in the
formation of my own intellectual outlook (quite apart from the
question of Orthodox Christianity). I read and studied with eagerness
all his books that I could get hold of; through his influence I
studied the ancient Chinese language and resolved to do for the
Chinese spiritual tradition what he had done for the Hindu; I was
even able to meet and study with a genuine representative of the
Chinese tradition [Gi-ming Shien] and understood full well what he
[Guenon] means by the difference between such authentic teachers
and the mere "professors" who teach in the universities.
It was Rene Guenon who taught me to seek and love the Truth above
all else and to be unsatisfied with anything else; this is what
finally brought me to the Orthodox Church. Perhaps a word of my
experience will be of help for you to know.
For years in my studies I was satisfied with being "above all
traditions" but somehow faithful to them; I only went deeper
into the Chinese tradition because no one had presented it in the
West from the fully traditional point of view. When I visited an
Orthodox Church, it was only to view another "tradition"--knowing
that Guenon (or one of his disciples) had described Orthodoxy as
the most authentic of the Christian traditions.
However, when I entered an Orthodox Church for the first time (a
Russian Church in San Francisco), something happened to me that
I had not experienced in any Buddhist or other Eastern temple;
something in my heart said that this was "home," that all my search
was over. I didn't really know what this meant because the service
was quite strange to me, and in a foreign language. I began to attend
Orthodox services more frequently, gradually learning the language
and customs, but still keeping all my basic Guenonian ideas about
all the authentic spiritual traditions.
With my exposure to Orthodoxy and to Orthodox people, however,
an new idea began to ender my awareness: that truth was not just
an abstract idea sought and known by the mind, but was something
personal--even a Person--sought and loved by the heart. And that is
how I met Christ. I am now grateful that my approach to Orthodoxy
took several years and had nothing of emotional excitement about
it--that was Guenon's influence again and it helped me to go deeper
into Orthodoxy without the ups and downs that some converts encounter
when they are not too ready for something as deep as Orthodoxy. My
entrance into the Orthodox Church occurred at the very time I left
the academic world and gave up the attempt to communicate the Chinese
tradition to the Western world. My Chinese teacher also left San
Francisco shortly before this--my only real contact with the Chinese
tradition--and in Guenonian fashion he disappeared utterly, leaving
no address. I remember him fondly, but after becoming Orthodox I
saw how limited was his teaching: the Chinese spiritual teaching,
he said, would disappear if communism endures in China. So fragile
was this tradition--but the Orthodox Christianity I had found would
survive everything and endure to the end of the world--because it
was not merely handed down from generation to generation, as all
traditions are; but was at the same time given from God to man.
I look back fondly now on Rene Guenon as my first real instructor in
Truth, and I only pray that you will take what is good from him and
not let his limitations chain you. Even psychologically, "Eastern
wisdom" is not for us who are flesh and blood of the West; Orthodox
Christianity is clearly the tradition that was given us--and it can
be clearly seen in the Western Europe of the first ten centuries,
before the falling away of Rome from Orthodoxy. But it also happens
that Orthodoxy is not merely a "tradition" like any other, a "handing
down" of spiritual wisdom from the past; it is God's Truth here
and now--it gives us immediate contact with God such as no other
tradition can do. There are not many truths in the other traditions,
both those handed down from a past when men were closer to God,
and those discovered by gifted men in the reaches of the mind; but
the full Truth is only in Christianity, God's revelation of Himself
to mankind. I will take only one example: there are teachings on
spiritual deception in other traditions, but none so thoroughly
refined as those taught by the Orthodox Holy Fathers; and more
importantly, these deceptions of the evil one and our fallen nature
are so omnipresent and so thorough that no one could escape them
unless the loving God revealed by Christianity were close enough to
deliver us from them. Similarly: Hindu tradition teaches many true
things about the end of the "Kali Yuga"; but one who merely "knows"
these truths in the mind will be helpless to resist the temptations
of those times, and many who recognize the Antichrist (Chalmakubi)
when he comes will nonetheless worship him--only the power of Christ
given to the heart will have the strength to resist him.
It is my prayer for you that God will open your heart, and you
yourself will do what you can to meet Him. You will find there
happiness you never dreamed possible before; your heart will join
your head in recognizing the true God, and no real truth you have
ever known will be lost. May God grant it!
Feel free to write whatever is in your mind or heart.
With love, Fr. Seraphim
