Our era is one of great spiritual confusion and a departure from God’s will. The architect of this state is the devil, who uses people misled by deception to fulfill his plan of human destruction. This confusion is largely nurtured by the groups associated with the so-called New Age. Their fundamental dogma is that all religions are the same. They claim that all are “paths leading to the same goal.” However, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself refutes this by saying in the Gospel: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). Therefore, there are not many paths to salvation, but only one—the path of Christ and His Church.
The proponents of confusion equate Christian prayer with yoga and meditation, which are techniques of Eastern religions and occultism.
With what follows, I hope to dispel this confusion.
Christian Asceticism
Asceticism is ordained by our Lord Himself in the Holy Gospel. It is a means to achieve the goal of the Christian life, which is the liberation from passions and union with God (deification by grace). Forms of asceticism include fasting, vigil, prayer, sincere repentance, and confession, humility, striving to cut off one’s own will by being obedient to God’s will, not trusting in our non-existent strength but in God’s power, offering all our goods and every advancement on the path of virtue to God while taking responsibility for our sins. To this, we must add the study of God’s word and conscious participation in the Holy Mysteries of our Church, especially the Holy Mystery of repentance and confession, and the Holy Mystery of the Divine Eucharist. Asceticism is not only for monks and clergy but for all Christians, as clearly seen in the Holy Gospel and the lives of the Saints of our Church. This path of salvation has been walked by millions of Saints of our faith. Asceticism essentially involves a person removing the verb “I want” from their vocabulary. The verb “I can” is placed in the hands of the Almighty God.
In this way, the person afflicted by sin gradually heals. This healing occurs only in the spiritual hospital known as the Church. To achieve this healing, asceticism is necessary.
Asceticism in the Orthodox therapeutic tradition is not a technique or a set of exercises.
Rather, asceticism is a fervent response to God’s love. It involves doing everything necessary to cleanse the inner person so that God’s grace can come and dwell within us. God, after all, takes the first step to meet man, not the other way around. This brings us to the critical point.
Alleged Similarities
There are certain similarities between asceticism in the Orthodox and non-Orthodox realms, which might impress someone who focuses on the superficial similarity of the leaves on trees while ignoring the differences in the trunks, roots, and especially the fruits.
The external similarities of the so-called psychosomatic method of mental prayer with meditation techniques have been a reason for much discussion, particularly in recent years. Let us not forget that the counterfeit always imitates the authentic. The devil can even disguise himself as an angel of light to deceive.
But what is prayer? Prayer is a conversation of the soul with God. Well-known in monastic tradition is the so-called mental prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”), practiced by all God-loving souls, not just monks.
What does the so-called psychosomatic method of mental prayer consist of? It involves sitting on a low stool with the head bent so as to gaze toward the chest, under the heart, while attempting to synchronize breathing with the Jesus Prayer, focusing the mind on the words and meaning, and warming the heart.
However, this is not prescribed as a formula, nor is it given by all teachers of mental prayer, nor is it given to all who wish to practice it. Of course, spiritual guidance is necessary from a spiritual father. We must not forget that while this method may help, it is not the goal. We will explore this issue further.
Meditation, on the other hand, is defined by the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba as “a method by which the mind learns to concentrate.”
In attempting to link mental prayer and meditation, there is a dishonest effort. It is an attempt to suggest that we supposedly have two different but essentially related paths leading to the same goal and that we have two different traditions that essentially describe the same experience. Unfortunately, even professors of Orthodox theological faculties, such as Professor Savva Agouridis, support this view.
This attempt at confusion fits within the syncretistic frameworks through which the so-called New Age views things. As we mentioned at the beginning, they say this to deceive and mislead the unestablished into believing that everything is the same. However, in reality, they do not believe this themselves because they believe that their faith belongs to the New Age and therefore is on a higher developmental level than us Christians, who, as they say, are stuck in the old era—the Age of Pisces, as they call the era of Christianity!
We could say much about the concept of God, man, and the world, upon which Christian Orthodox prayer is based. Conversely, we could equally say much about the concept of God, man, and the world upon which yoga and meditation are based. These two concepts are completely opposite and incompatible. For us Christians, God is a Person. Out of love, He created man, who is also a person. God also created the world out of love and cares for it, just as He cares far more for man. On the contrary, according to Eastern religions and the New Age, God is an impersonal super-consciousness that is identified with the entire world. Therefore, we have pantheism. According to them, man is a drop that must dissolve into the ocean of the impersonal God—the universe. There is no freedom, nor responsibility according to the understanding of the New Age. They say that everything is determined based on the blind law of karma and reincarnation, which, of course, is not a law but a religious belief of Eastern religions and occultism. According to this delusion, the soul, after the death of the body, enters another body, whether it is human or animal. It can even enter a plant or a stone because, in essence, everything is the same, as they say.
The Orthodox Position
The Orthodox stance on the mistaken belief that meditation and prayer are the same can be summarized as follows: I read in the book “The Power of the Name” by Bishop Kallistos Ware, a professor at the University of Oxford: “Alongside the similarities, there are also differences. All pictures have frames, and all picture frames share certain common characteristics. What concerns us is the picture, not the frame. In the case of the Jesus Prayer, the natural exercises are like the frame, while the mental invocation of Christ is the picture in the frame. The ‘frame’ of prayer resembles some non-Christian ‘frames,’ but this should not distract us from the uniqueness of the picture, which is surrounded by the distinctive content of the prayer. The essential point in mental prayer is not its repetition by itself, nor the manner of sitting or breathing, but Whom we are addressing; and in this case, the words are clearly directed to the Incarnate Savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of the Virgin Mary.”
And he continues: The Jesus Prayer or mental prayer “is an invocation addressed to another person, that is, to God who became man, to Jesus Christ, our personal Savior and Redeemer. Therefore, the Jesus Prayer is very different from an isolated method or technique. It exists within a specific context, and if it is separated from that context, it loses its true meaning. The context of the Jesus Prayer is, first, the context of faith. The invocation of the Name assumes that the one saying the prayer believes in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior. Behind the repetition of a form of words, there must be a living faith in the Lord Jesus, in who He is, and in what He does personally for me.”
Второ, контекстот на Исусовата молитва е контекст на заедницата. Не Го повикуваме Името како одделни индивидуи, потпрени исклучиво на сопствените внатрешни сили, туку Го повикуваме како членови на заедницата на Црквата…Ниту во еден момент (нашите Свети Отци) не се соочиле со повикувањето на Името Исусово како замена на Светите Тајни, туку прифатиле дека оној што ја употребува, би требало да е активен член на Црквата“.
И да ги дополниме овие мисли:
Нашата цел во молитвата е да комуницираме со личноста на нашиот Господ Исус Христос и да се соединиме со Него, (но тоа соединување не ја укинува личната различност), а во медитацијата целта е да се раствори индивидуалното: Јас да се растворам како капка во океанот на сесветската надсвест, која не е личност.
Secondly, the context of the Jesus Prayer is the context of community. We do not invoke the Name as separate individuals, relying solely on our inner strength, but we invoke it as members of the community of the Church… The Holy Fathers never saw the invocation of the Name of Jesus as a substitute for the Holy Mysteries but accepted that whoever uses it should be an active member of the Church.”
And to supplement these thoughts:
Our goal in prayer is to communicate with the person of our Lord Jesus Christ and to unite with Him (but this union does not abolish personal distinctiveness), while in meditation, the goal is to dissolve the individual: to dissolve oneself like a drop in the ocean of the super-consciousness that is not a person.
In meditation, one does not address a specific person with whom one is connected by love but turns inward, believing that in essence, they are God. Certainly, this is a demonic deception and delusion, which they support by incorrectly interpreting and distorting Christ’s words: “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). However, this does not mean that man is by nature God, as the deluded and deceived New Agers believe and preach. Instead, it means that if someone is baptized, the uncreated grace of God, that is, the Holy Spirit, lives within them. And whoever has God’s grace within themselves is already living what we call the Kingdom of God.
So, meditation is not an act of moving beyond the ego, not an act of liberation from egotism, that is, an act of love, but rather an egocentric circuit.
In meditation, there is an address to the “meditative object,” as they call it. According to the followers of meditation, this could be the image of Buddha, the flame of a candle, or anything else (and why not, we might add, the image of Lucifer, if that “inspires” and “helps” the one meditating).
When those who practice meditation address Christians, trying to deceive them, they say that during meditation, they can focus their attention on Jesus Christ. In doing so, they cultivate confusion because they ascribe a different content to the term “Christ.” For them, Jesus Christ is not, as He is for us, God and perfect man but one of the great teachers among others. However, first and foremost, as they say, He is a state within us! They claim that we are all by nature “christs.” However, we Orthodox do not believe in the demonic lie that we are supposedly gods by nature. Instead, we struggle, with God’s help, to become like Christ and, as a result, to become gods by grace, as the Saints did. The difference is immense. In the case of meditation, the Luciferian lie of self-salvation is at play, while in the case of prayer, the person is sanctified in a relationship of love and obedience to the One Holy Triune God.
The followers of meditation also speak of transcending the meditative object.
However, this “transcending of the meditative object” is entirely foreign and incompatible with Orthodox prayer. Jesus Christ is not for us a meditative object, nor is our goal to transcend Him to reach some “state of pure consciousness” or “deeper self-knowledge.”
Another point that needs to be emphasized is that with the techniques of meditation, a person reaches the heights of pride, while through prayer, one humbles oneself, despises no one, and, realistically recognizing oneself, when experiencing states of God’s grace, considers oneself worse than others, even worse than the senseless animals. Lower than all creation, as we read in the sayings of the Desert Fathers.
A meditator who believes that, in essence, they are God, cannot say “have mercy on me.” These are the two words that are the key to mental prayer. In other words, a follower of the dogma “I want and I can” of the New Age “positive thinking” cannot humble themselves.
Furthermore, meditation ultimately leads the meditator into a state of auto-hypnosis. The pursuit of union with the meditative object (which is the main goal of meditation) is nothing but a product of the imagination, which, according to the Orthodox ascetic therapeutic method, should be marginalized. This movement into the realm of imagination (more precisely, into the realm where reality and imagination blend) can reach states that fall under the domain of psychiatry, as happened, for example, with a follower of “positive thinking” who tried to stop a train with the “power of the mind,” as he believed, only to be, of course, run over by the train. Many similar insane examples exist. Undoubtedly, the demonic factor supports all these states.
Repentance and Humility
Asceticism is not a technique. This was evident from the comparison between mental prayer and meditation. It is not something by which we can exert force on God’s freedom. Asceticism in the Orthodox tradition is not an end in itself but a means. Our goal in asceticism is not to mortify the passions and harm the body. We are not taught to be “killers of the body” but “killers of the passions,” says Abba Pimen in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.
Since asceticism is not an end in itself, the Orthodox person does not aim to see lights or visions, have “experiences,” or perform miracles. If ever and anywhere there arises a “desire for visions” or a “desire for miracles,” then we must know that these are deviations from the Orthodox mindset and ethos. The Orthodox person rejects the “experiences” that the devil is ready to offer “here and now” without being asked for them. Certainly, even more so when they are asked for.
There is a great chasm between a true prophet, that is, a saint of Orthodoxy, and an occult magician, fakir, miracle worker, or medium.
Opening a small parenthesis, I will outline the basic points of the difference:
- The prophet, that is, the saint, is not self-chosen but chosen by God.
- The true prophet has a sense of his own nothingness, while the magician is a miracle worker full of demonic pride.
- The true prophet does not open a “service company” nor does he call people to himself, but instead, he goes to them.
- The true prophetic word is usually unwelcome to those to whom it is addressed and provokes them, rather than flattering them.
- The content of the true prophet’s message is not new but an old one that has been forgotten.
And to return to the question of visions and “experiences,” closing the parenthesis, we can add that: God’s grace may visit the purified and worthy, in a manner and time that it deems beneficial for them or for the edification of the Body of Christ, that is, the Church. However, these experiences are neither coerced nor an end in themselves.
The saints advise us to seek repentance, which itself is a gift from God and, according to St. Isaac the Syrian, is the highest of all virtues. So, let us seek repentance, not the power to perform miracles, which, if we lack humility, could harm or even destroy us.
The way the saints reject the temptation of the desire for “experiences” is through a humble way of thinking.
In the life of the blessed Elder Paisios of Mount Athos, the following incident is recounted:
“One evening, while keeping vigil in prayer, it seemed to him that the ceiling of his cell opened and that Christ would appear to bless him. ‘My God, who am I to be deemed worthy to see You?’ was the humble thought that immediately came to his mind, and the vision that the devil was preparing to show him instantly vanished.”
A criterion for the authenticity of Orthodox asceticism is that it is practiced with zeal (a concept particularly emphasized by the blessed Elder Paisios) and love, with humility and discernment, and, of course, without following one’s own will. In other words, it is practiced with obedience, and with “joyful obedience,” to remember another great contemporary elder of ours who has passed away, Father Porphyrios.
Perhaps someone can easily do five hundred prostrations following their own will, their own opinion, their own judgment, trusting in themselves. However, to do one hundred with obedience is more difficult because, in that case, the evil one is the one who obstructs and fights, while in the first case, he gives strength and support.
The difference between Orthodox asceticism on the one hand and demonic “asceticism” on the other is illustrated in a story from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers about Abba Macarius the Great of Egypt:
“One day, as Abba Macarius was going to his cell, carrying palm branches, he met the devil on the road with a sickle. And the devil wanted to strike him, but he could not. And he said to him: Macarius, I find great resistance in you, being unable to harm you. However, everything you do, I do as well. Do you fast? I do not eat at all. Do you keep vigil? I do not sleep at all. But you have one thing with which you defeat me. Abba Macarius asked: What is that thing? And he answered: Your humility. That takes away my power.”
From what has been stated so far, I believe it has become clear that Orthodox asceticism, and especially prayer, in essence, has no resemblance or kinship with yoga and meditation, which are cultivated by Far Eastern religions and the groups of the so-called New Age. Those who claim otherwise either deceive people by fostering the New Age confusion of heresies or fall as victims to that confusion themselves.
The only safe way not to fall victim to heresies is to consciously and organically belong to the Orthodox Church, which is the only ark of salvation for man, as it has preserved the Gospel and the tradition that the Holy Spirit handed down to us through the Holy Apostles and their successors uncorrupted. Only then is one covered by God’s grace, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, and safely guided toward salvation.
Source: Skopje Orthodox Diocese
