I want to share on the topic of contemplation and things connected.
Grace works in three ways. First, grace works through us, outside us, to do God’s work through the vessel of God. Second, grace works inside us to bring us God-likeness, and a sacred work is done inside us, as apostle Peter said, “Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts” (1Peter 3:15). How can we sanctify the Lord God in our hearts? – It’s when we obey the working of the inner grace. It deals with our holiness, our inner calendar. Man lives according to his inner calendar, his life rhythm. Some people live a very short life and burn as a feather above the fire, and they burn wrong. Jesus lived a short life. But personally I don’t think He lived 33 years, I think, He lived more. He was to be fully man, maturity was to be embraced by Him as a Man. Historians have said many things, made up Christmas, all kinds of calendars… well, this all isn’t important, this is all your opinion. The reason why the Bible hides certain fact is that those things aren’t important. The Bible, the Holy Scriptures isn’t an accident. All that is hidden there we don’t need. And we should not search out to know what is hidden. We’d rather focus on what God wants us to know – this is certainly embracing the heavenly Kingdom, which is the inner grace. When He rose again, He taught to embrace the Kingdom of heaven. And for His will to be on earth as it is in heaven, it the work of God’s grace through us.
Third way the grace works is its sovereign work, independent of us. Whether you want it or not, whether you are carnal or spiritual – God work as He wants, independent of us, and praise God for that, because we would surely spoil a lot of things, with all our love.
Even as we pray we try to control God, if you’ve noticed. Why doesn’t God answer prayers? Because He loves us. If we gather all our requests – that is Babylon, there will be many things that are wrong. If heaven ran around fulfilling our petitions, it would turn into chaos.
Contemplation allows us to get quiet. I am not speaking against prayer, we should always pray, but pray according to the will of God. Prayer reading, praying Scriptures is a good way. Jesus prayed Scriptures even on the cross. All His life through He quoted Jeremiah, Isaiah and other prophets, He spoke Scriptures all the time, because He was the embodied Word. This is the highest wisdom, when we follow God and push Him forward to serve our interests. We make up our own ideas about what is pleasing to God, make up “strategic” ways and push Him in the back to serve all this, of course, “for His own glory”.
Jesus was obedient to God. He followed God, obeying Him absolutely in everything. This is what I mean when I speak about contemplation – when you give your maximum attention to God and His heart. This is the highest beauty that man is capable of – to give oneself completely and dissolve in the Creator.
This is the highest quality activity, which man can give for the glory of God. Some mystic said that attention is the highest form of prayer.
If to take two lovers, but on is inattentive to the other, he is absorbed by his own emotions and impressions and is distracted. And the other one remains without warmth and love, because the one he loves gives no attention to him. So attention is the highest form of love. This what we mean when we talk of contemplation.
We often steal from God, when we deprive Him of our attention. Think, we serve God and don’t give attention to Him. We do outreaches, works of charity, go to orphanages and handicap houses – but to Him we don’t give attention. Such a paradox. But He turns to you and says, “Listen, Martha, you care for a lot of things, but that is all for you. I want only one thing, and Mary chose the good part. Yes, we will eat in its time. But where are you? In the kitchen? And there’s this activity of Christian churches, like “kitchen churches”, which keep doing things, but give no attention to God.
This is what we imply, when we speak of the higher nature of prayer – when we ask, speak, declare, worship, speak words of love; this is also a form of worship – to speak about your love to Him. Many of us even in marriage don’t know what love is, because they use each other to serve their own emotions, ambitions etc; their made up ideas about love. And conflict arise on this ground, because they made up what love is, but that is no love at all; and they don’t give a bit of attention.
So, be careful with this. Higher attention to God, to the object of love is manifestation of love. And lack of prayer in this kind of manifestation is lack of worship. How can you worship the One, to whom you come for five minutes as you sing?
This is what we are doing here – we are stabilizing our inside with the outer work of grace, sort of bring the left wing in order. We may have the right one strong – we are always busy, don’t miss a service, we are good at attending meetings, but inside we may be poor; we have no experience inside, namely experience. Contemplation is first of all experience, not any philosophy or idea. It is experience and nothing else, but experience. This is why it s higher than any knowledge, any intellect, higher than intuition. This is not about inner resources of a man. The source and the key to this lies NOT inside you. Don’t seek for it inside, this is not any psychic thing. Contemplation is higher than a place, it is higher than your own self. And it is not inside you. This is a GIFT OF GOD, a gift of grace.
Therefore, those, who’ve embraced it, including Christian mystics, have not only experience of God’s sovereign visitation. You know that God may visit sovereignly. But nothing is sovereign; in a sense God answers our questions when He manifests His will, in order to demonstrate His love to you personally. This doesn’t come from emptiness, like the Word didn’t come from nowhere.
The Word came from the womb of God. And the Word wasn’t birthed in chaos, it came into chaos. The light was not birthed in the darkness The light was birthed in the heart of God. And the light that became the Word came into the chaos of the darkness, into the abyss, not simply birthed in the abyss as a spontaneous action. And we were not chosen spontaneously. We may not understand why, but there are causes. The causes are hidden from us so far. Whoever says that he knows the causes, knows yet nothing. We give God the right to be God. We give account to ourselves that we do not know, and this is normal, we get humble about that. We know less than we don’t know – this is normal. A true mystic never chases knowledge. He is not worried about not having enough revelations. He is content, not in a sense of being relaxed or indifferent about His intimacy or evidence of his love to God.
Love has a language. It is giving. If love gives nothing, that’s weird. It happens so and the others feel that the man is cold and doesn’t understand what they want from him, but doesn’t give anything to anyone, trying to explain it, but people’s inside rejects it, and they actually feel that the man is cold. He has no love, because he is either relaxed or insane or has a pathology, which means he has known the wrong way, etc his parent’s experience, but should one live by your parent’s experience – you have your own access to all things.
Here’s an interesting revelation: “The man of God was giving new seeds to brothers and sisters. The seeds that they already had, were though big, but empty inside. Some were saying that the old seeds are better and are still good to use. But the man of God took their seeds to the light and the empty insides became clearly seen. Brothers and sisters took the new seeds, and the man of God said they should plant them as soon as possible, so that they don’t end up like the old ones. Whoever did so, saw the sprouts.”
So, if we don’t do anything with what we hear here, this won’t be more than a massage salon for treating cancer. Many Christian meetings are like that, like psychic session where get comfort with some soft music – massage for our spirit or intellect, but you don’t actually do anything with this. You have no practice, you do nothing in regard to experience. Contemplation gives us abstract thinking. If you are a pragmatic man, you need to set free from that. Contemplation gives an associative world view, not practical. A mystic is not one “of these objects”.
Someone said that the reality of the world makes us material. This is not the right reality. Spiritual reality is higher than material one. But many of us understand God as the One who manifests in the matter – this is the lowest primitive level of comprehending God’s way. You pray – you get healed, you ask- you receive – this is like trading, cause and effect relationship.
Contemplation is no cause and effect relationship. I say it again – this is a gift of God, which man is to attain. Find your own righteousness and stand in it. And the seeds that we give here must be planted – into your own life! Plant them into the experience of your day, into your 24 hours. What are you going to do with this today? At least you hold on to this wonderful purple color above the horizon. Don’t quit your focus till it’s gone. See the sunset off to the end, till the sun melts completely. Don’t wink – this is about the way attention is given. Only it’s inside, when you hold your gaze longer than anyone else. It’s like blowing shofar the longest. This is very important, this is spiritual endurance. Many fall very soon as if blown off by the wind, they don’t stretch themselves to the utmost. But this is vitally important and essential.
Here’s a Scripture:
“Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple”. (Luke 14:31-33)
Interestingly, the Lord speak about war, about getting ready for it, and as a final thought of this message He speaks of forsaking all things. How is that He puts it together, war and forsaking? Shouldn’t it be just the opposite? In other words, He says that before you go to war you must sit down and take a good counsel because the enemy is bigger in number. And our flesh is bigger in number than our spirit: we have a need in food, drink, sleep, communication, fellowship; we need to overcome many fears in the society; also the demands this society is trying to impose on us – yes, it’s bigger in number. And with the ten thousand of our spirit we must defeat the twenty thousand of the flesh. So you need a good counsel, so that you are not put to shame at the end, because you are all fleshly, all at work, like an ordinary man of this world. What makes you different if to take away your words, your going to church?
Therefore, unless you forsake all those things, all those twenty thousand, all that he has, not only in his valet or at home, but all that he has inside – this is what contemplation is – he can’t be My disciple.
Jesus is interested in us bringing much fruit. But here He speaks namely about spiritual life. If first thing we manifest is guilt, “Lord, forgive me” instead of “glory to You, Lord” – it means we haven’t solved it in our conscience yet, we have the gospel of conscience. As soon as the light shines you hide your spots instead of totally exposing yourself to the light. Your guilty complex drags you into the darkness of your soul: “let me bring myself in order, I’ll solve this…” Some pray so loud and tense as if the Lord weren’t there. That is all “a syndrome of the lost God”.
What is not contemplation? The source of contemplation lies not inside us. Some leave the primitive understanding that it is outside, and go to the deeper thing saying, “it’s all inside me” and delve inside seeking for a “Zen”, then yawn and eventually go to sleep – because it is not inside you, not in your belly. The Spirit lives not in the belly. Or has God made Himself comfortable around your solar plexus? Of course not! “In the womb” means in the very deep of the source. This is where life is birthed. Men also have a womb, and with women it is more than birth organs.
What is not contemplation? Contemplation is higher than efforts, it is not a result of any efforts. It is experience; and it is His response to you; it is His emotions toward you. He is not any cola-machine that doesn’t feel who’s come up. Cola-machine gives cola to all who come up. It doesn’t work so here, it’s no formula. It is always you and He, always, always. That makes you happy, doesn’t it?
Contemplation is a miracle. Realize this. When you enter inside the miracle as a part of God’s creation, of all that was created, and you were born in Jesus; and you enter in the miracle of love with the Creator and God. As Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”
Do not narrow down understanding of God as of the Father. “Abba” is a little more than “Father”, which sounds official, and we subconsciously project it to the fatherhood in general. And when we put “Father” next to “God”, we lower the understanding of Him. God is God. And watch that you don’t make God a man. Christ came, He is the Son of man, and He is the bridge because He is also the Son of God.
We were not sons of God, we became such, according to the spirit of holiness, through faith, through the resurrection of our inner man from the dead there happened a miracle of being born from above, of us being inspired by the Holy Spirit, and we transited. Feelings slow us down, they take us lower and keep us low. Some people are emotional and give much emotion as they give testimony, others are not – but this is not important, because a miracle has happened, a transition has been made from Golgotha to the Mount of Olives, Mount of Ascension. Stay in this, be on this path. Do not leave into Christian activity – I mean, when you plop down on the earth and start running around trying to earn God’s favor. It has already happened, you’ve been adopted, you don’t serve for the sake of having a higher quality mood or stability inside. Do not boast in good works, boast in God, you aren’t greater than the others. Mary didn’t do much on that day, but she was closer, and that was enough.
The awareness of miracle that happens in our worship, our contemplation is important, when you begin to comprehend, to penetrate, and our praise gets cleansed, words gain different sense. It proceeds from the invisible, it doesn’t come from the visible. You can’t make something and then give it to God and say “Lord, look I have a gift for You”. No, God doesn’t want this gift. God wants you.
And this is a gift of grace, not simply a gift. This is God’s grace that comes to you. This is connection with the source, with the source of all things, not only your own source. You dissolve with Him. And this is experience.
Contemplation is higher, beyond the borders of faith. It is beyond the borders of faith and mind. This is not what you understand. This is above things you understand, it is above what you are aware of or what you believe. This is higher. Psychics are not capable of this, not a single one of them, they don’t even get close to this spot, because magic is the work of the flesh – what they do and their motives speak that this is the work of the flesh. But contemplation takes us beyond faith and mind, higher than our intellect, higher than intuition. This is the gift of grace. This is a miracle!
If you don’t forsake all that you have… It comprises forsaking, liberation, freedom. You gain and you lose it right there. Some of us can’t let things go, things sacred, scared even to look that direction. But a true mystic lets it go having scarcely touched it. He is able to part with things freely. He has no things he would be dependent on. He is absorbed with one thing, which one can’t express in words. True, we can’t give a definition to forsaking. We can’t because this is all-consuming Christ. This is all-embracing Christ, this is consciously beloved Christ! This isn’t any light at the end of a tunnel. This is not a star that flickered to me before I die. Perhaps this was His light, but not Him, it’s just His rainbow. But Christ is a Person, His heart turned to you.
So I personally wouldn’t try to give a definition to things that have no bottom.
And reality itself is a delusion. We live in the cities – this is Babylon. Each city on the planet is Babylon. Here we use one another, we are no friends to one another. Society makes up certain laws, but next to those laws there’s the criminal code meant to punish for breaking the laws. This is not love. We live in a hostile world, and you are being formed into a man of the earth, who has a sphere of faith? No, a true worshiper is consumed with light. Being here on earth is like shoes – it is not a part of you. You wear it, it speaks something of you, but it is foot wear, consumables. It steps on the earth, full of sin, dirt, cigarette butts, human activity products, but this doesn’t make you dirty, you remain yourself and don’t really pay attention to this. This is how we live. This is how a mystic lives in his cities – he is drawn to heaven, he is all there.
But in church we can see such superstitious silly things like “green traffic lights all the way”, which sometimes spills on prayer. And I give this term “reality delusion”. Because our cities are Babylon – confusion, chaos – this is not our reality. Do not look at this. Lift up your eyes – and abide in the true reality, which shines out of the spiritual world, not this one.
We have a value of the spiritual possession, when we possess in the spirit, not in the flesh. Our affections can also become our slavery, we should realize what we are tied to. Even affections toward your child or beloved must not give a sense of slavery. It doesn’t mean you switch on coldness or indifference, no. But through love you penetrate into the inside, into the essence of things, you obtain, and you are free from them. You don’t become free by cutting things off. You go further through them and you still obtain, and you can’t lose this anymore.
There’s a difference between the two things: “I fear to lose faith, that is why I don’t go anywhere”. Or “I go anywhere, through all things, and remain undefiled, and get reinforced. – So forsaking things is something of this kind. Forsaking is not isolation and limitations. Forsaking is penetrating into the essence of things, awareness, when you are free from what is not supposed to hold you. And thus, the world becomes not an enemy. Thus the world becomes a tool. I’ve been inspired by this thought that “the world is a closed door, which yet becomes a way”. This is amazing, because we still live in the world, but at the same time it is a way.
Every time I touch this reality I see new things, and this ensures me that this is the thing. You will never live in the spiritual world by formulas of what you already know. Every time you face things unknown. Paul wrote about this that he did not consider himself one who had apprehended, and who thinks he knows something, knows yet nothing the way he ought to know. He knows, but not the way… Because now it’s experience. Only a man of experience can say so, not a man of theory nor a man of education, but a man of the way. You go your way and you keep facing new landscapes all the time, new experience. This is why it is also important here to learn listening to silence. What is silence for you? Emptiness? Absence of activity? Absence of sounds? Absence of life? Do you hear the silence? Is silence music for you? And what would you say about inner silence?
Someone said, there’s silence as absence of words, there’s silence as absence of sounds, and there’s silence of thoughts. How about that? You can shut your mouth, but explode inside- the man’s got to speak out! But silence of thoughts – can you control yourself on that level, stop your thoughts?
And these are beginner’s steps of contemplation, when you create silence for God inside you and start to contemplate His beauty. This is why I am asking, can you hear the silence? What is it for you? Does it cause you to panic? Or it makes you feel you are being idle?
We face sufferings. Sufferings are sometimes justified, they are logical and understandable, sometimes they are not. We make up these sufferings through our fear, doubts, through our inner world, we literally birth them for ourselves. But they are not there. For example, you fear cancer, but you don’t have it and will never have it. If to look into the future, you won’t die of it. But you make up your suffering – don’t eat certain things in order not to provoke cancer, but you will never have it, and you can eat those things. These are not justified sufferings, they happen because of our lack of trust and namely contemplation of God, lack of trust to His strength, might and beauty. And the quality of your life lowers, because you now need big locks on your door. This is a pathology, and many Christians live in pathologies – their prayers, their thoughts, their fears aren’t justified at all.
This kind of cleansing, a reload, when we start seeing God afresh, washes all this dirt from us, and you now realize that wasn’t faith and you aren’t a prayer warrior, you are simply about vanity. You convey fears, you are not a prayer warrior…
Sufferings are transformed by the grace. We should not seek to avoid the context and get rid of sufferings. But get rid of this skeptical fearful thinking, like Thomas, who had to stick his fingers into His wounds, in order to believe. But the Lord said, “blessed are those who do not see, but believe”. So sufferings are transformed by the grace. Do not avoid them, but transform them – then, man gets free.
And this is so wonderful that what we don’t know about God is huge. It is attracting to love the one who remains a mystery. The Lord knows this and He remains a mystery.