You know what has been said and more than once, that Adam was the first monk. And how not? It is very well said, because the first man lived in an essential nature, in full innocence; this is without malice, without bending, without selfish ends and from that state he listened to the footsteps of the Lord, lived with him.
(When we were novices, we laughed with a friend, saying that man was made a monk and that after tasting the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, he became a layman)
But very well, that says the Holy Scripture and there are many teachings that can be drawn from it, even in this first part of Genesis. But I am going to tell you the story of the first monk after the fall, after the original sin, at a time when men no longer lived the sacred bond with nature, in where it weighed on them, both in his body and outside him, it was difficult for him to live in man, suffering began to be part of his life because he had disconnected from his origin, he left of being authentic man.
This brief story to illustrate says that there was a primitive man, a caveman doing what every caveman did, that is, he was hunting or eating or sleeping or procreating and then back hunting or eating. and the rest. And suddenly one day, this primitive lived the inner experience of amazement . He lived the inimitable and incomparable experience of marveling.
He was walking around one day, looking for prey and tired, sat in the shade. And next to the tree, leaning slightly at the base of his trunk, he saw a flower. And without wishing it and without knowing why, he realized that incredible geometry was dwelling in it. He didn't look at the flower but looked at it. He watched her in amazement, marveling, was stunned. A new feeling was feeling next to surprise and amazement, something thousands of years later would define scholars as ... reverence. This caveman felt reverence.
And he was upset, different, in his tribe they began to notice it weird. To top it off, this ancient man did not know how to explain things as we do now, that we began to classify and categorize and all that reassures us of the new although it takes us away from purity of heart.
So this story continues a few days later, with this ancestor of ours who was living something unusual again, always beginning with astonishment, with wonder as the gateway to the extraordinary experience. It was night and he had lost his way, he could not return to the gorge that introduced him on the path back home ... and looked up and saw the stars for the first time. And, as with the flower, he had always seen them, but the usual mutated him in extraordinary and he did not know why he did not even ask, happened and shocked him.
He was stiff, shocked by the stars, but more than by them by space. It was struck by the perception of space and not as a category but as an immensity of inconceivable existence. He was dazzled by the immensity and at the same time by his own tiny presence in the middle of it.
As you can imagine, he felt much stranger still among his people, his eyes were gone and he began to lose efficiency and interest in the group's activities. Soon, he was no longer a good hunter, nor a good procreator, and he even ate less and slept only at times. Because these unheard things kept happening.
Sometimes he began to breathe voluntarily and was surprised to come in and out of what he did not see in his body; and again, next to the stream, he heard the noise of the water and felt it very beautiful and it was like music for him.
Phenomenon after phenomenon, from wonder to wonder, was growing in him as cultivated by invisible hand, a deep and genuine astonishment . So it was that he was isolated from the group one day, while remaining inadvertently absorbed in the ants and their course. This primitive, perplexed and confused man was left alone.
It was then that full of paradox ignorance fell on the ground babbling a praise. He did not know what it was to praise or to whom it was addressed, he did not have in his mind the names and forms we have today, but he had the purest and deepest reverence.
And he no longer found another attitude that best suited his feeling and so was Eden restored in him, when he no longer wanted to praise. Because all yoke ceased and, wishing only to exalt that feeling, he found that in reality everything was ready for man. And he ate with very little and everything was within reach of his hands and drank from salute springs and slept in caves sheltered with grass.
This primitive made stillness his currency and the way he looked at prayer . Little by little everything became an element of worship and all his gestures were transferred of love. This man was the first monk ...
Something interesting about the story is that it may or may not recreate in us every day. We are surrounded by wonders and each one is a gesture of God. Everything is overflowing with the Lord. It is in the earth we step on and in the sky we look at and in the air we breathe and in our beating heart and in that dog and in the eyes of every brother. There is no grass that is not full of God.
I know that who has not lived the birth of this particular reverence in his heart is difficult to share the experience, because the things I describe are common, without too much grace, because his desires are in other things and these desires make it difficult to reach state of perception necessary. I get it.
Therefore, I want to answer your friend; how to bring to the daily heart this experience of the Presence of the Lord. How to see Jesus Christ in everything, how to notice his meek heart in the midst of tumult and competition and debauchery and voracity.
I am not who, but I am going to give you what I think is a suitable method for the one who, feeling called to life of prayer and life of recollection, is in the middle of the sea of life and does not know how to deepen that experience. And there are many ways and methods and it is very good, because this diversity serves diverse people.
(From the Dialogue between the Monk hesicasta (Father Vasily) * and Mario Rovetto)
* Father Vasily is a fictional name used to preserve
PUBLISHED AT: http://hesiquia.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/la-historia-del-primer-monje/
