In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
Last time we spoke about the silence of the Pskov Caves Monastery. Many of us are drawn to the mystical silence of monasteries, to prayer, to the services. Our contemporary, Abbot Tryphon in America, says that even a bus can become a monastic cell for us, isolated from worldly noise and fuss:
The Jesus Prayer is ideal for travel, for the road—from it, warmth, peace, and joy spread throughout the heart and the soul opens to God.
Sometimes the only and best way to enter into the cell of your soul is to disconnect from the outside world and simply immerse yourself in silence. It’s precisely in silence that we’re able to hear the voice of God.
It may seem scary at first; the silence may frighten and irritate us, since we’re so accustomed to noise, music, conversations. But it’s only in silence that you can sense God and the peace of Christ.
But the inner silence that we acquire through prayers and sobriety isn’t the goal. It’s simply a room, an inner temple. We don’t need silence for silence’s sake, but that within it you might meet the one Who wants to speak with you; that you might, in silence, meet the Bridegroom of your soul. But here we’re faced with a difficult and subtle question of the spiritual life: How can we hear the voice of God and not our own projections, or dreams; not the voice of the evil one, who is able to take on the form of an angel of light?
We have one of the signs already from Holy Scripture. On Mt. Horeb, the Prophet Elijah experienced an encounter with God. There was a mighty wind that rent the mountains and crushed the rocks, an earthquake, fire, but the Lord wasn’t there. And then there was a “still small voice,” and that was the Lord (1/3 Kg. 19:11–12). This is one of the keys to hearing. God doesn’t invade the soul with a bang. His voice isn’t a command from a loudspeaker, though He may sometimes address an insensitive soul rather loudly, but this happens through other people and circumstances. But within the soul, His voice is an almost imperceptible breath that can be discerned only in a state of inner stillness. This is why our Fathers didn’t search for voices and visions—they trusted the undoubted but quiet testimony of the Spirit, which is heard in a heart cleansed by repentance. God speaks quietly, but precisely. You can’t confuse Him with anything if your heart is pure. It’s precisely purity of heart, found in silence, that serves as the auditory organ that catches the Divine.
But who among us can say he’s already purified his heart? St. Sisoes the Great, a disciple of St. Anthony the Great, who labored in the Egyptian desert for sixty years, who once resurrected a boy, who saw Prophets and Apostles when he was dying, told the brethren gathered around his deathbed: “I do not think I’ve even begun to repent.”
A man’s inner world is a field of constant battle for the heart. Even when the passions have subsided, there is still the difficult work of discerning voices and thoughts. The ascetic Fathers taught a simple but unmistakable principle: the voice of God always brings peace, humility, and love, while the voice of the enemy sows confusion, anxiety, self-aggrandizement, or despondency. A demonic thought is intrusive; it requires immediate action; it rushes and inflames us.
Abba Evagrius wrote: “After thoughts from the adversaries, the soul is troubled, that is, it’s immediately stirred by the passions: wrath, lust, arrogance, vainglory. But after thoughts from the angels, the soul acquires a long-lasting and ineffable peace, stillness, and great humility.”
In St. Macarius the Great, we read: “Whatever is of grace, there is joy, peace, love, truth… But every type of sin is full of confusion; there is no love or joy in it before God.”
“False thoughts in faith immediately expose themselves and kill the life of the heart—a sign that they come from the liar, the deceiver, the one who holds the power of death—the devil,” says St. John of Kronstadt.
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), an expert in human nature, writes:
There’s an action arising from the blood, which appears to the inexperienced as good and spiritual action, but it’s neither good nor spiritual—it comes from our fallen nature and is recognized by the fact that it’s impulsive, heated, and disturbs the peace in ourselves and others. Spiritual action is born of peace and gives birth to peace…
A lie, even if clothed in the guise of good, is recognized by the confusion, darkness, uncertainty, and inconstancy it produces.
Sts. Barsanuphius and John, summarizing this, say: “If we notice even the smallest disturbance in a thought, we mustn’t act according to its prompting.”
This reveals the meaning of watchfulness: Only a mind that is accustomed to prayerful silence is able to notice this difference—a subtle hint of something alien in what otherwise seems to be a logical thought. It’s no coincidence that the Fathers insist so much on the unceasing Jesus Prayer: It helps the mind stay vigilant and quickly recognize a wolf in sheep’s clothing amidst your thoughts. Prayer becomes a kind of internal compass, keeping the mind from being led astray.
The second most important criterion for discerning is the fruit. The Apostle Paul enumerates the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (Gal. 5:22–23). The voice of God leads to these fruits being multiplied, even if His word seems to be a rebuke or criticism. Conversely, the voice of the passions or a fallen spirit, even if saying something correct, invariably breaks our peace, leaving a residue of either bitterness, despondency, or vain complacency in the soul.
Interestingly, when the Elders received visitors, they listened not only to their words, but also to what was behind the words—the tone of the soul, which reveals the source of the thought. But we must first of all listen to the tone of our own soul, not that of others. The Fathers taught that the gift of discernment is the natural fruit of deep inner silence, where our own self no longer sticks out, doesn’t scream, and therefore doesn’t hinder us from hearing God.
When we talk about hearing God, we mustn’t reduce it to merely questions and answers. Prayer itself is living dialogue. And in this dialogue we have to learn not only to speak, which we more or less know how to do, but also to listen. After we’ve expressed our need, gratitude, repentance, and petitions to God, we have to be silent and give God room. Just be silent before God. In these pauses, when our words stop and the heart abides in the Divine presence, an intimation of grace may come. This intimation may come immediately, or maybe later—through circumstances, through the word of a random person, through lines from a book. But again, here we must discern the spirits and test what has come, by what fruit it brings.
Thus, hearing God shouldn’t be a single act, but a continuous state. It’s not a search for signs and indications, but life in such close connection with the Source of life, when all of life becomes a dialogue. A man who has acquired inner silence no longer rushes about searching for the will of God like a riddle that needs to be solved. He begins to simply live in God, in His providence, and his every step, every decision that has passed, as it were, through the filter of peace and has brought peace to the heart, is the fulfillment of the will of God.
And this brings us to yet another summit of the spiritual life—to the mystery of obedience.
Amen.
