RAJA YOGA AND HESYCHASM

People who pray to God are, or should be, in some sense mystics.  Their faith should give them a new vision, a different consciousness of themselves, of other people, of the world, and of God. The chief task of the spiritual life is the opening of the spiritual eye in order to take into consciousness the grace always present and offered freely by God. When we choose to do Raja Yoga Meditation, it becomes the tool to re-open the third eye and it
allows us a subtle power to see beyond the physical and regain our inner powers and original spiritual abilities. This task is accomplished by believing, transcending, and experiencing the presence of God.

Raja Yoga
In Raja Yoga focusing on a mandala suggests a movement of consciousness toward one’s center until he or she reaches and penetrates the bindu, or point of light, which has meaning and importance only on the level of consciousness where it paradoxically is perceived as an orb of infinitely expanding light. 

In the end worship of the one God is offered solely to the essence of the luminous light with the understanding that God is the ineffable Light. There is nevertheless a plane on which the distinction between God and the devotee is played out as an eternal exchange of love.

This form of meditation is based on understanding the incredible power of the mind. Raja Yoga meditation redefines the self as a soul and enables a direct connection and relationship with the Supreme Source of purest energy and highest consciousness. Raja Yoga can be translated as ‘supreme union’, or as ‘highest connection’. Every soul has a right to experience this ultimate relationship. 

When anyone chooses to do Raja Yoga Meditation, it becomes the tool to re-open the third eye and it allows us a subtle power to see beyond the physical and regain our inner powers and original spiritual abilities. Raja Yoga is concerned principally with the cultivation of the mind using meditation (dhyana) to further one's acquaintance with reality and finally achieve liberation.

Raja Yoga is so-called because it is primarily concerned with the mind.  The mind is traditionally conceived as the "king" of the psycho-physical structure. Because of the relationship between the mind and the body, the body must be first "tamed" through self-discipline and purified by various means, e.g. Hatha Yoga.  A good level of overall health and psychological integration must be attained before the deeper aspects of yoga can be pursued.  Through restraint (yama) such as celibacy, abstaining from drugs and alcohol and careful attention to one's actions of body, speech and mind, a person becomes fit to practice meditation. This yoke that one puts upon oneself (discipline) is another meaning of the word yoga.

Every thought, feeling, perception, or memory causes a modification, or ripple, in the mind.  It distorts and colors the mental mirror.  By restraining the mind from forming into modifications, there will be no distortions, and then comes an experience of the true Self.

Hesychasm and Hesychia as a Method of Transformation

The study of the patristic texts and particularly those of the hesychast Fathers of the Philokalia, many years of studying St.Gregory Palamas, association with the monks of the Holy Mountain, many years of pastoral experience, all brought Metropolitan Hierotheos S. Vlachos to the realisation that Orthodox theology is a science of the healing of man and that the neptic fathers can help the modern restless man who is disturbed by many internal and existential problems. Within this framework he has written a multitude of books, the fruit of his pastoral work, among which is "Orthodox Psychotherapy".

[The following quotes are taken from Orthodox Psychotherapy]

"One of the fundamental methods of curing the soul is stillness in the full sense of the word. I believe that we have already made this clear. Contemporary man is seeking healing for his life, especially for his inner condition, precisely because he is over-strained. Therefore one of the messages which Orthodoxy can offer to the contemporary weary, discouraged and floundering world is the message of silence. I think that the Orthodox tradition has a great deal to offer in this area. So in what follows I shall try to explain further the value of hesychia and hesychasm for the healing of the soul, nous, heart, and intelligence. We have the impression that hesychia and hesychasm are among the most basic medicines for gaining inner health. And since lack of silence is what creates the problems, the pressure, anxiety and insecurity, as well as the psychological, psychical, and physical illnesses, we shall try to look at their cause, which is anti-hesychasm. The anti-hesychastic desert wind that is blowing and burning everything is prevalent everywhere and is the dominant cause of the abnormal situation. So we shall look at hesychia as a method of healing the soul, and anti-hesychasm as a cause of psychic and physical illness."

"Stillness of the body is a limiting of the body. 'The beginning of hesychia is godly rest'. The intermediate stage is that of "illuminating power and vision; and the end is ecstasy or rapture of the nous towards God". St. John of the Ladder, referring to outward, bodily stillness, writes: 'The lover of stillness keeps his mouth shut' "

"It is well known to those engaged in studying the works of the Fathers and to those trying to live this life of quiet, that there is hesychia of the body and hesychia of the soul. The former refers to outward things and the latter to the inward. Hesychia of the body usually refers to the hesychastic posture and the effort to minimise external representations, the images received and brought to the soul by the senses. Hesychia of the soul means that the nous [eye of the soul] attains the capacity and the power not to accept any temptation to delusion. In this state man's nous, possessed of watchfulness and compunction, is centered in the heart. The nous (energy) is concentrated in the place of the heart (essence), uniting with it, thus attaining a partial or greater knowledge of God."

Yoga and the Jesus Prayer Tradition is the title of an unusual book by a Greek Orthodox priest, Father Thomas Matus.  Fr. Matus bridges a gap between the Christian religion and Hindu Yoga practices by bringing together the two spiritual traditions, Eastern Orthodox Christian meditation and Raja Yoga.  Beneath the obvious theological differences of conceptual framework, rituals, and prayer practices Father Thomas gives a brilliant exposition of the similarity of spiritual experience.  He shows that Raja Yoga is not as some western critics may suppose, a religious aberration of the human mind, but a profound sacred encounter with God experienced by Christian mystics.  The far-reaching implications of this deeply mystical experience can be seen as a providential means of spiritual transformation that has potential for affecting every dimension of human activity. For that reason alone this work has great value. 

This author examines the practice of meditation associated with hesychasm.  Hesychasm is identified with a certain meditation practice known as the Jesus Prayer and has a striking resemblance to Raja Yoga.  This meditation/prayer practice is today used by monks on Mount Athos and to a very limited extent elsewhere.  Hesychasm began to be widely practiced at least at the beginning of the fourteenth century and gradually faded in popularity as a result of conquest of major portions of the Byzantine Empire by the Turk, the spread of Islamism by Muslims, and perhaps in part due to the great schism between Roman and Greek Catholics. In actuality this spiritual practice may be older than Christianity with antecedants in and older than even the Jewish religion in the great religions of India and the Far East.

 The search for a Christian identity, the practice of Yoga, and the certitude that goes with it is not the same thing as a search for “the true religion.”  As Fr Matus says, “In this situation two certitudes reassure me: the one, that it is not madness to be afloat in God, and the other, that I am not alone on this sea.”  The question he answers is, “What meaning can yoga have for a person whose spiritual identity is defined by belonging to Christ and being a true Christian.  I have concluded that the Christian practice of centering consciousness moves in the same way and the same direction as Raja Yoga.  This movement can be found in hesychasm (from the Greek word hesychia, meaning “quiet” “stillness” or “silence.”  Mystical experience of the Divine Presence outside the traditional theology of western branches of Christianity may appear very different, but can in fact be true mystical experience of the living God.  This experience is what moves one to bear active witness and is necessary for the intellectual understanding of theology.  One definition of experience is “the non-conceptual knowledge of a present reality.  This non-conceptual experience of the ineffable transforms the believer’s mind, heart and senses and plunges them into what has been called “divine darkness” or a “cloud of unknowing” which is the personal experience of the living God. It is the culmination and end of faith and quest for spiritual transformation or spiritual perfection.

St. Symeon – The New Theologian

St. Symeon was one of the greatest medieval mystics in Christianity and a father of hesychasm. He was born in Paphlagonia in Asia along the southern coast of the Black Sea. As a young man of twenty he was employed in the imperial court in charge of the personal affairs of a relative who happened to be a patrician.  He gained some experience as well as some enemies in the imperial courts. At the same time he was looking for a spiritual guide, whom he found in the person of an old monk, Symeon Eulabes.  The monk gave him some books to read, and counseling him to enter a life of monasticism, interior prayer and silence. 

The ultimate experience of transcendence in silence is exemplified in the life of St Symeon (949-1022), known as “The New Theologian.” Symeon the mystic was orthodox Christian.  In his writings he describes his own progression as a blind man coming to perceive a vision of light; eventually becoming one with that light.  He was a hesyhast, not because he practiced a specific method of meditation, but because of visions of what he described as the Light of God and the uncreated energy of the Living Christ. The meeting place with God is described as a state of consciousness, effulgent and radiant with Light and being himself merged with that Light.

Living by day as an ambitious young man at court, he devoted a good portion of his nights to prayer. Eventually his nocturnal spiritual practices induced a phenomenon which overwhelmed him.   “Suddenly there was a light.” In Symeon’s own writings he reports that the night became “as bright as day” and light “filled the whole room. And then it seemed to him as if he had left his body, the house, and the entire world.  Drifting into a state of ecstasy Symeon lost all awareness of his surroundings and forgot where he was. .  . . and a fine ray flashed through my spirit faster than lightening. What appeared to me next was like a torch in the night or like a small, flaming cloud which rested upon my head, as I lay face down in prayer.  Then the cloud flew off, and shortly I saw it in the heavens.” After this unexpected wonder his life thereafter became a progressive initiation, God communicating to him secretly.” An answer came to Symeon in prayer, “I am the God who, for your sake became man and since you have sought me with all your mind, from now on you will be my brother, my fellow heir, and my friend.” Symeon traces the further development of the divine light in his mystical experiences. . . . But when one has spent some time in the quest for this vision without ever turning  back, it all becomes clear and open to him. . . . It is the light which does this, the same light that is within the house of the soul, I mean this earthly tent, that marvelous light enters into him, bright beyond measure, making him light. . . . From this stage he is in the light, or rather united with the light – but not as if he were in a continual state of ecstasy.  Rather he perceives himself and his surroundings, and he sees his neighbor as he is.  The mystic foresees and perceives the good things to come – when he will be freed from captivity. . . . when he will contemplate the unbearable light as it truly is, when he shall behold ‘what eye hath not seen  nor ear heard nor human mind conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him,’ all this will be revealed to him, because   here and now the light dwells in him and makes him light.

At the age of twenty-seven he entered a monastery in Constantinople. Symeon’s spiritual father Symeon Eulabes took him to the monastery of St. Mamas on the outskirts of the city where he entered as a novice, was clothed with the religious garb, later ordained a priest, and elected abbot in three years.  As head of his religious community he found that the monks were content with practicing external rituals and formalities of monastic life, but were not greatly committed to contemplative life.  He was accused of doctrinal and disciplinary errors and there ensued a slow “war of attrition between abbot and monks,” culminating in a rebellion by the monks and his decision to resign his position as abbot. Later he was exhonorated by both civil and ecclesiastical authorities.  Having been “rehabilitated,” he spent his remaining years writing and in prayer.

St. Gregory Palamas

According to Fr. Mathus Symeon’s experience can be adequately explained only in terms of the Palamite doctrine, and what Gregory Palamas himself taught can be properly unjderstood only in context of Symeon’s experiences of the uncreated energy or Light.  For St. Gregory of Palamas practice of hesychasm and doctrinal defense of the mystical life were the same as for St. Symeon.

Fr. Matus goes further in comparing and contrasting yogic and hesychastic experiences to answer a question many people ask todeay: “Can the practice of yoga (and in particular Raja Yoga) lead to an experience which is truly Christian, without blending Christianity with Hinduism and Buddhism?  He concludes by asserting that there is more to yoga than what is usually peddled under that name in the West. He expresses the conviction that by entering into the mystical spirituality of Christianity, is turning East without abandoning Christian identity.

The emphasis in this form of prayer derived from the monastic tradition is complete interiorization.  In other words religious traditions proclaim that salvation or liberation is an experience of unity in consciousness with God beyond all conceptualization and expression; an experience which comes from within and which can be reached only by the return of individual consciousness to one’s own center of being.

The Yoga of Christ

In order to understand the concept of interiorization of light in the thought and in the tradition, which St. Symeon and St Gregory represent, one needs to be aware that the reality of divine light is substantiated in the Bible with specific scriptural references throughout the New Testament books.  Christian fathers and church leaders have done nothing more than elaborate and confirm the reality of the light as a living reality and not merely an archetypal symbol as might be interpreted according to concepts advocated by psychologist Carl Jung.

A Christian’s yoga as developed by Fr Matus is taken to be the yoga of Christ.  Meditation on the life of Jesus and the mysteries leading to His transfiguration to a being of Light is no more than dharana, a transient fixing of consciousness, of the mind’s attention. Christian Samadhi is assimilation  (homoiosis) to Christ’s total existence as the Light and this is true yoga. As one begins to have the mind which was in Jesus the Christ, there is an assimilation with the light of Christ. Just imagine a world where everyone's third eye is open!