The Watchful Gate

From "We Shall See Him As He Is"
By Archimandrite Sophrony

"Christ is Living Truth 'I am...the truth, and the life' [John 14:6]: life without beginning, life totally unrestricted, unconditioned, co-eternal with the Father, inseparable from the Father, indissoluble. His Love and His Light touched me in the dawn of my life. But even this gift of grace did not preserve me from sliding into the dark abyss of the non-existent. As soon as I became an adult I committed a great sin - on a mad impulse of ignorant pride I abandoned Him in favour of another, imaginary Supra-personal Absolute. Repressing the good habit of praying to the God of my childhood, I spent hours of meditation aspiring to absolute being. I stripped myself, so it seemed to me, of all that was relative, of all amalgams visible or invisible, physical or mental. Stubbornly I went into the darkness of ignorance, in order, by divesting myself of everything that was transitory, to arrive at What or Who transcended the boundaries of all that is inconstant. There were times when I experienced a certain peace and solace. In a more forceful inpulse towards the unnameable, all-transcending Being-Non-Being I saw my mind as light. I did not pursue anything on this earth except the Eternal, and at the same time in my painting sought to express the beauty proper to almost every manifestation of nature. It might be supposed that that period of my life was full of inspiration but I recall it far from pleasurably, now that I see how at the time I was indulging in a peculiar easing of the mind that was really suicide in the metaphysical sense.

I could never have got out of this erroneous situation of my own strength but the Lord had pity and caught up with me, perhaps at the last moment. He performed a miracle of mercy and came into my heart, which for a long while I had tried to disregard. I do not know how to relate in due sequence the spiritual events of those days. Suddenly, as it were, it became obvious to me that my artificial absorption in the abstract mental sphere would not afford me authentic knowledge of the First Principle of all principles. My austere 'putting away' of all that was relative had not brought real union with the One I sought. My mystical experiences had been of a negative character. It was not pure being that lay before me but death, complete and final.

The commandment to 'love God with all thy strength; and thy neighbor as thyself' [cf. Luke 10:27] in an unexpected fashion occurred to my mind in its evangelical context: existential fusion with God is effected through love. Thus what had formerly deflected me from the Gospel - when 'love' had appeared to be pitiable psychism that strange day as I walked along a Moscow street - now pierced my heart and mind like the light of true knowledge: existential union proceeds from the act of love. The Gospel conception of love goes incomparably farther than our psychical or sensual comprehension. The God of my childhood returned to me in the light of understanding.

Christian life is the conjunction of two wills: the Divine, eternally one, and the human, which vacillates. God reveals Himself to man in myriad different ways. He does not compel man. If we accept His approach to us with love He will often visit the soul with His meekness and humility. It can happen as the history of the Christian faith testifies, that He may manifest Himself to man in
great Light. The soul, having beheld Christ in the Light of His love, is drawn to Him. She cannot, she would not wish to resist this impulse. But He is Fire consuming us. Every proximity to Him involves painful stress. It is natural for us in our fallen state to recoil from pain, and we falter in our determination to follow after Him. But to remain outside His Light is likewise abhorrent. And so my spirit was faced with the choice between wrongly abasing myself and getting lost in the life of the world around, thus condemning myself to corruption, or accepting Christ's dread summons. When I  chose the latter course I was reborn into life in the Living God."