St. Silouan on Struggles with Imagination

The Staretz, St. Silouan, explained aspects the ascetic must deal with regarding the imagination. He wished to teach how to pray without imaginings.

The first struggles the ascetic contends with are the passions. Each passion has a corresponding image, and if one dismisses the image, the passion is dealt with. This takes focus and a defense, then, within the mind. In the passion of desire, the mind must not accept or enjoy the passionate image, or the mind and body will be tyrannized. Hatred is another passion that must be handled by dismissing the image which provokes hate.

Day-dreaming when not checked, causes man to abandon the real order of things in the world. The imagination does not create images from nothing, so the imagination contains elements from the actual world. Imaginative prayer can benefit the beginner who creates visual images inspired by the life of Christ. If these images come to a point in which the person thinks they are of Divine origin, the person can work himself into an ecstasy (not from God, but induced from the person's excited imagination of holy images or visions).

An activity of reason with the imagination is what occurs when a person uses his memory and imagination to think out solutions to problems and then to seek means of practical application or realization of the ideas. "But the spiritual striver, whose preoccupation is to attain pure prayer, renounces every acquisition, even intellectual, lest this sort of imagining hinder him from devoting his first thought and best energies to God--i.e., concentrating his whole self in God."

The final use of the imagination attempts to cause the ascetic to try to in essence, create God in man's image--in other words, to penetrate the mystery of being and comprehend the Divine world. In pure prayer, one understands that God created man, not man who created God; and one then strips away the theological and philsophical creativity. "If grace descends upon him and it is granted to him to savour the advent of God, then this supraconceptual knowledge of God will afterwards be translated into this or that concept, not, however, of the ascetic's or prophet's own invention but received by him from [God] above."

This is important to note, for some seem to not understand what other mystics (John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila) try to explain. Some think that they advise to brush away any and all images. One is to brush away any images that come from within oneself. One is to savor the images that God wills, if He does at all bring any graces and insights of Himself, into the soul. If there is uncertainty as to the origin or the creation of the image (word, vision, thought), then discernment is utilized; and assistance is asked of a wise spiritual director. (St. Ignatius of Loyola writes some invaluable sections in his Spiritual Exercises on "Discernment of Spirits.")

Often, the bestowal of such favors by God, are inexpressible and not recalled. What is left for the soul to savor is the peace and joy of the loving embrace by God, of the soul. "It is the yearning of love that tugs at the heart-strings and draws man to the living God--the yearning, by virtue of our calling, to live in God, the End of ends and the Value of values."

If there are to be any great concepts or further illumination based upon some grace given by God, God will make that known to the soul. Otherwise, if the images come from the human will and imagination, there is risk of going the way of fallen angels and demonic mirages. The demonic images that are conjured up by man gain incredible strength. Here again, there is a distinction between the good and evil images that come from within man's willed imagination, and the actual good images that come from God, and the actual evil images that God allows the devil to introduce. The demonic images and the images conjured by man are not real "in the ultimate sense--not like the Divine strength which creates out of nothing, but are given strength only when the the human will bows before them." Repentance liberates man from the influence of the passions and imagination, and "the Christian thus liberated by the Saviour laughs at the power of images."

It is said that the "simple and humble believer frees himself from the domination of the imagination by a wholehearted aspiration to live according to God's will." It is simple, yet it takes practice and process not only to put the whole heart to such a desire, but also to actually live according to God's will. Through prayer, one practices knowing God's will, discerning His will, and living His commands.

St. Silouan warns against thinking one is in pure communion with God, when one is merely experiencing the beginnings of the "silence of the mind." This is when the person realizes that even when the mind is given over to theological and philosophical creative activity, that the laws of human thought have limited validity. The thoughts of man for God can become deceptive attachments; it is light, but it is the light that Jeuss warned about in Luke 11:35: "Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness." Thinking that one has come to a sense of grasping eternal wisdom, when one has actually succumbed to pride in delight in passing into higher realms, is still in man's mode of contemplation.

The Staretz recommended this criterion for distinguishing if the communion one experiences is genuinely with God or from delusion: love for our enemies. He said: The Lord is meek and humble, and loves His creature. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is love for enemies and prayer for the whole world.

In order to progress in prayer, toward the desire and hope for pure prayer, one must trust solely in God, believe in His commandments, and thus also perpetually before God's judgment. "Every deed, every word, every thought or feeling is submitted to the crucible of Christ's word."

The struggle with darkness and a sense of having been abandoned by God can challenge the soul to revolt, but it is the struggle with pride which is the greatest struggle, for pride can deform God's divine plan of being and bring ruin. Pride is most damaging on the level of thought and spirit, more so than the physical aspets of pride. It's main attack is on the reasoning mind. Faith is the antidote: God, be merciful to me, a sinner!

St. Silouan said that "the trouble lay, not in the reason as such, but in our pride of spirit. Pride strengthens the action of the imagination, whereas humility suspends it. Pride bristles with desire to create its own world,whereas humility is quick to receive life from God.

It took the Staretz many years of warfare in order to be able to keep his mind steadfastly in God, to reject intrusive thoughts [not of God].

"The Saints all said: 'I shall suffer torments in hell'--even though they performed great miracles. They had learned by experience that if the soul condemns herself to hell, but trusts the while in God's compassion, the strength of God enters into her, and the Holy Spirit bears clear witness of salvation. The soul grows humble through self-condemnation,a nd there is then no place in her for intrusive thoughts, and she stands before God with a pure mind."

It is true, that despite the many difficulties described along the ways of God in aspiring to do His will and pray with purity, it is said that the action of the Holy Spirit is the critical component, as in actual life and experience--not in the conjectures of man's reason or the results of critical, theological research. "The man who knows by experience will recognize true contemplation even it if be communicated in unfamiliar form, and will distinguish it from illusory, rational conjecture, however brilliant."

Although the Catholic hermit finds these writings a stretch in comprehension, there is the joy and peace of gaining a sense of rightness and of encouraging hope. All through, St. Silouan keeps coming back, in his own life example, to a certain humility and simplicity. He kept going, he simply kept going, in his practice of love of enemies and thus, his unifying love of oneness, which united Him transcendently with Christ.

If nothing else is learned, the nothing Catholic hermit can practice loving others as itself, especially so the ones difficult to love, and to be willing to crucify it's self-love and accept as its own, the sins of the world, in and with Christ Jesus.