Part 1. Real, Ontological, Existential Connection with God
Elder Aimilianos with the young Fr. Eustratios, now Bp. Emilianos
When you exercise such a practice as watchfulness, you need to have a spiritual father who knows about it himself, so when you get stuck, you can talk to him.1
Everyone who wants to practice a spiritual life needs a spiritual father. It’s very simple. And if you’re going to practice prayer and watchfulness, you need to find a spiritual father who knows about these things. If you have a spiritual father who doesn’t know about these things, you won’t receive the right guidance regardless of how much he might want to help you. You need a specialist, not a general practitioner. When we need to address something specifically, we go to the right specialist, not a generalist. It’s not safe. We’re not equipped to deal with these things ourselves. Without the knowledge, it’s very dangerous. People have even lost their minds over these things.2
What’s also important is that at some stage in our lives, we find a spiritual father to whom our heart can totally open and be comfortable with. We won’t wish to hide anything at all from him. This is how the Apostles were with Christ; they were like an open book, they hid nothing. This was because they were not afraid of Him; they knew how much He loved them. They could feel the Holy Spirit inside Him, even though they didn’t yet know what the Holy Spirit was. This relationship between a spiritual father and a spiritual child is what will help us through
any problems in our lives. But we need to find the right person. In the Orthodox Church, if someone is not happy with me as their spiritual father, they can find someone else; they’re free.
But we can’t just go around in circles and try thirty spiritual fathers and then blame them because we’re not comfortable. Once we find someone we’re comfortable with, someone we can totally open up to, we need to be obedient to him and stay there. By doing this, we help him to help us.
The spiritual life is not something you can read about and simply go ahead and do. It doesn’t happen by fasting, praying, or following rules; it happens when you entrust yourself into God’s Hands and you have the right guide, the right spiritual father, who has been through the spiritual struggle and has the experience to help you grow. It’s like a sport–if you don’t have the right trainer for boxing or gymnastics, you will never achieve anything. You need the right trainer, someone who really knows.3
Saint Ephraim of Katounakia once said: “If you have a Spiritual Father who is a King Spiritually, you yourself are born Spiritually a Prince or a Princess. If not, you need to work extremely hard to become rich Spiritually.” It indicates how blessed we are if we have such a Spiritual Father, and points out how we may need to fix our inner disposition if we seek to find such a Blessing in our lives.4
I completely understand the lack of bright elders in today’s world. I understand that despite our best attempts, we may have never found a Fountain of Light, a Fountain of Life, a Fountain of the Holy Spirit in our surroundings. I know how difficult this search is and how profoundly important it is for our future in Christ.
However, I firmly believe that if we honestly and wholeheartedly seek such a Source of Light, even if we don’t consciously realize it, God will provide us with one. The All-Knowing God has placed us in a specific place and time in the history of humanity, where our thirst can meet someone who might offer us water, allowing us to quench our own Eternal thirst and become Fountains of Living Water, exactly like the seemingly “random” Samaritan woman. There's no such thing as “random ” in the history of humanity, there’s only God. God alone! He manages His creation, He knows His creation before creating it, and He ensures that we are born in the right place, at the right time, in the right environment and under the right circumstances. There is a Master Plan, and our Master skillfully Masters it for us all (His creation), in a Magnificent and Incomprehensible way.5
The timing of these important encounters with such people in our lives is guided by the Holy Spirit. It is never a simple matter of coincidence that we met our Elder in the manner we did; it was meant to be. God was preparing us for this meeting before our birth, carefully organizing the specific timing and circumstances. History, both personal and of our environment, obeys this Divine governing of time to generate the unique moment when Christ will ask us: “Give me a drink”. Every small detail of this irreplaceable scenario appears very natural, and indeed it is, as God is the One Who orchestrates the very laws of nature.
Personally, I believe that God created me to be a disciple of my Elder. This is how deeply his personal words for me would resonate with my soul. I felt I was created to be his disciple! Who could ever compete with such a God-given connection? I was always free, yet I always wanted to be around him. My choice, no one else’s.6
My Elders’ words were engraved in me because my soul thirsted for God’s Will. Everything he told me felt like it was already within me, though hidden, simply waiting to be unearthed. I felt, sensed, accepted and realized that his words were for me and from God. My Elders’ guidance basically verified the data already downloaded in my soul. He cleared my path for understanding and adjusted my perspective to allow me to see what to do next, how to be, how to exist. His deep insight discerned what I was created and what I had the potential for, to achieve in this life. He could clearly see God’s ways in me and simply explained them. Recognizing the word of my Creator in his words, and boy I heard him, I absorbed every single letter of his words. I clearly sensed my inner existence finding its fulfillment in his words.7
The more profound the love, the deeper the connection. The deeper the connection, the greater the absorption. The greater the absorption, the higher the knowledge. The higher the knowledge, the broader the understanding. The broader the understanding, the clearer we can talk about something.8
Christ and Church-like spiritual father does not pass on his spirit to his Church and to his spiritual children through authoritative force. He makes them feel loved and taken care of. He fosters an atmosphere in which they are comfortable and natural around him. Spiritual children need to know that his living love allows them to feel safe, to feel secure, to be protected, and to be unjudged. When they freely and fully give themselves to him, then and only then is he able to pass on his spirit—to keep, to guide, to protect, to enlighten and to Deify them. This is the role of a spiritual father as the head of our Church. This is the work of a spiritual father as a crucified Christ. This is the characteristic of a spiritual father as a Loving Living Mother of God, a Loving Mother of the Church—not a mother-in-law or a stepmother.
“I thirst!” I believe Christ still thirsts for such people. Our Church thirsts for such spiritual fathers and our spiritual children thirst on their daily cross for someone to quench their thirst, if not excite them like wine would. We must stop offering the taste of authoritative vinegar to those around us.9
And here’s something else: We must become an open book. Not just before God, but also before our spiritual father. We must stop hiding. Here we return to our previous point about the need of a spiritual father.
What does it mean to have a spiritual father? It means having someone who will guide our spirit into Union with the Holy Spirit. But for that to happen, there must be a relationship, the way the Apostles were with Christ. If we are afraid of our spiritual father, if we feel he doesn’t love or understand us, it won’t work.
We must be an open book for the eyes of God and of our spiritual father. So open, that if our soul were a manuscript, we would lay out every single page, magnify every single letter, indicate every single comma and point to every single full stop, so that he could see clearly and understand what happens inside us, even if we ourselves are not fully conscious of it. While we might not be able to explain ourselves perfectly, we honestly try. If we over accuse ourselves, he will understand. If we unconsciously hide behind our anxiety, he will understand. If we do not have the will power to give up our ego, he will understand. Just be an open book, no matter what this book might read. This is how we entrust our soul to our spiritual father, and through him we place our existence in God’s Hands. That’s what it means to have a spiritual father.
When the Apostles were with Christ they were at peace. Christ gave them His Peace, Who was the Holy Spirit. If we don’t feel at peace with our spiritual father, something is wrong. And there are usually two reasons: either our ego is blocking us from opening up, or he is simply not the right person for us. Either way, we need to sort it out.
In the Church we are free to keep searching for an understanding spiritual father. It is the Holy Spirit Who will lead us to him, and then, when we find him, “something” inside us will let us know. We will get a feeling as if God is informing our heart: “Now you are in good hands. Let go of your fears. Let go of your anxiety which forces you to act in control. Let go of everything. Entrust yourself, and I will take good care of you. You are in a safe place, exactly where you are meant to be”. The Holy Spirit will gently develop this feeling inside you, and it will be the proof that He Himself is working your salvation through your spiritual father. You just found what you were looking for.
Follow Christ in the person of your spiritual father. That’s what it means to be an Apostle. This is the proof that you have a spiritual relationship with your spiritual father and therefore you did find the right person to guide you to God. At the end of the day, a genuine spiritual father is someone who is empty of himself and whose only aim is to connect you not with himself but with God alone. Nothing more, nothing less and nothing else…
As we’ve said before, when a spiritual father has a deep Orthodox spirit, he will never want us to become dependent on him. His goal is to give us enough knowledge, enough guidance, that even when he’s not around, we know how to act. We know how to live in a way that reflects Christ.
If we cannot live without our spiritual father’s constant presence, then something is wrong. If he did not raise us spiritually discerning adults, if we cannot stand on our own spiritually, if we do not know how to solve spiritual problems in his absence, then his presence has been ineffective. If our spiritual father hasn’t taught us how to hear God’s voice within us, he then hasn’t fulfilled his role. We will remain spiritual infants, and when he passes away, we will be spiritually like ‘lost in the night’.10
In Conclusion
Nepsis (watchfulness) is for everyone. If our hearts are thirsty, it doesn’t matter what we look like, what our job is, if we’re single, married or have twenty kids. The only thing that matters is our desire to draw closer to God. We can’t judge a book by its cover, it’s not fair. It’s God’s Will for us to draw closer to Him, and it’s a foretaste of what is going to happen in the next life. All of this is given through watchfulness. That’s how important watchfulness is.11
Elder Aimilianos, my father”s example was always: “And his own soul he throws away for joyous bleats.”12
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