Aphorism on Infinity

What men do not yet know is infinitely less interesting than what men cannot yet know. 

"Now Summer Has Passed ..."

My translation of a poem by Arseny Tarkovsky

Now summer has passed,
As if it hadn't come before.
The sun's warmth still lasts.
But there has to be more.

What could've been for me,
Like a star-shaped leaf of lore,  
Right there in my hands to see,
But there has to be more.

Evil fades in the light,
Good comes to the fore,
It all burned so bright,
But there has to be more.

Life safeguarded my way,
Protected and provided for,
My luck always held sway,
But there has to be more.

Not a twig snaps in the grass,
The leaves burn nevermore ...
The day is washed clear as glass,
But there has to be more.

1967

Spiritual Form

The spiritual life is concerned with form. Pleasure and pain are concerns of the body. The body when guided not by spiritual form, but by pleasure or pain, is the secular. The secular is a place of demonry and deceit. A false place where spirit dies.

To pray unceasingly is the call of the Orthodox. To at all moments be in prayer. To at every moment be spirited. There is no secular. There is only the spiritual form of life. The pleasure and pain of the body is subservient to the form. The form must not break down. Ignore the pleasure or pain. They arrive as challenges to the form. Perhaps they arrive as enemies. But when properly approached they increase the spirit, they grow the spirit by antagonizing the form. Each day invite these enemies of form, for when encountered properly they will strengthen the form and expand it.

The pushup form must not waiver. Neither the pullup. To neglect the form is to encourage injury. Should pain cause one’s form to waiver one must stop the exercise to rest. One has reached his limit. To push past is to push for numbers and not for form. To push past with bad form is an act of the ego. To claim numbers of reps and records. But it is the form, in its complete range of motion, its strictness always, not the number of sets and repetitions, that is the goal. Perfect form. Each rep. The pushup and pullup have become ascetical exercises.

So goes each day for the man of spirit. In all things the spiritual form repeated unceasingly. Discovering the spirit in new ways, extending and growing it. Never allowing discomfort, whether it be soreness or sickness or fatigue, to affect the form. Never allowing pleasure to distract from the form. Never thinking about tomorrow.

The Narrow Way

The difficulty is one of will and attitude. One cannot understand the meaning of Christian practices unless one has submitted and made himself obedient. Philosophy and science each attempt to make religious life submit to their attitude, to answer their questions. Neither are capable of the humility in submission necessary to understanding. The spiritual life exists in its practice. There is no secular (non-spiritual) place to observe it, and accurately account for it.

You will recognize a holy man only if you yourself have attempted to become holy.

Kekule

 The conscious mind is your own. The unconscious mind is not.

Foundation

Rationality is founded on the ego. 

Where the ego cannot go Reason too is unable. 

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The highly rational man lives in fear of death, the loss of his ego. He lives in order not to die. 

They will say of him that his arguments are good and sound, yet life eludes him.

Magic

 Science is an instrument of magic.