UDK: 233-852.

5Ы
27-534.3

Milica Bakić-Hayden
University of Pittsburgh
[email protected]

TWO METHODS OF CONTEMPLATION:

YOGA AND HESYCHAST PRAYER
An Exercise in Comparative Religion*

Using Arvind Sharmas’s comparative method of reciprocal illumination,

this essay examines two contemplative methods, the Hindu yogic, as de-
fined in Patañjali’s Yoga-sūtra, and the hesychast, as developed primarily
within the Eastern Christian monastic tradition. Despite differences in the
overall theological context, the similarities in several aspects of the tech-
nique are worth noting as they point out that the practice, rather than the-
ory, reveals the common ground – a similar understanding of the nature of
human mind, and its inner workings.

Key words:
comparative religion, contem-
plation, Hinduism; Yoga-sūtra,
Eastern Christianity, hesy-
chasm; Jesus Prayer

“Comparison is the hallmark of the study of religion,” notes Arvind

Sharma, “and the raison d’Ltre of that form of it called comparative religion.”1 De-
spite its critics, the comparative method remains very important in the academic
study of religion, which has increasingly become multitraditional and polymethodic
in nature. Sharma’s method of reciprocal illumination, in which “comparison is
not meant to serve some other end, but is used to clarify the items under comparison
themselves,”2 is especially suited for the study at hand, in which the data from two
religious tradition, Hindu and Eastern Christian, are not used to valorize them in
any way, but rather to put them in a dialogical relation so that the very exercise of
comparative examining may enhance our overall and/or specific understanding of

* This paper is part of author’s book project on topics in comparative religion.

1
Arvind Sharma, Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology (Albany: SUNY, 2005), 247.
2
Ibid, 254.

171
 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA LVI (2)

religious phenomena we are looking at. In other words, our goal is not to establish
theological or ontological superiority of one method over the other (theological and
ontological reductionism), nor is the purpose of the comparison to simply show
similarities between the two ways. Rather, the intention is to see if one contempla-
tive practice can shed light onto another so that the experience of each, as described
by the practitioners, “the insiders”, may become more intelligible to those who
study them – hence reciprocal illumination.
Yet in our case, right at the beginning, we are reminded by Theophanis the
Monk, one of the spiritual masters of hesychasm, who says in his Ladder of Divine
Graces that “experience teaches one, not words.”3 Thus our task of comparative ef-
fort takes place in the shadow of the question of how to approach our subject know-
ing that it is grounded in practice and that means experience rather than solely on
speculation, or divorced from it. The answer to this question, however, is only go-
ing to be sporadic, more as a sign of awareness of the problem than an attempt at
tackling it. If the knowledge in question is gained through experience, and for yogis
and Eastern monks alike, experience is a way of knowing, all we can know as
scholars is about the experience. In that sense it is “about” that we are talking about.
Since in our times the term yoga has acquired various popular connota-
tions, one feels compelled to specify the context in which it will be used here. My
discussion on yoga is based on one of the classical texts of Indian philosophy called
Yoga-sūtra ascribed to the author Patañjali.4 Scholars commonly distinguish six
schools or ‘views’ (darśanas) in Indian philosophical tradition, yoga being one of
them. It is often paired with another school called sā۪mkhya,5 which is interesting for
us here only in that Patañjali uses its two key concepts in his own elaboration of
yogic contemplative practice: those terms are puruşa, often translated as pure con-
sciousness or spirit, and prakŗti, material nature.6 Another interesting idea from
sāmkhya is its theory of evolution of unconscious matter, which takes place or can
take place only through the presence of conscious puruşa, who is only a witness,
but who mysteriously becomes entangled in and thus bound by material nature fal-
ling into the fatal error of identifying its being with it. Material nature is understood
as energy in potential form, always ready to flow out and actualize itself. The term
that defines the relationship between pure consciousness and material nature ac-
cording to both philosophical views is that of ‘ignorance’ (avidyā). While
sāmkhya’s answer as to how this ignorance should be removed is more theoretical

3
Philokalia, vol. III, G.E.H. Palmer, et.al eds. (London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1995), 67
[emphasis added].
4
The dates on Patañjali waver as far apart as the 3rd or 2nd century BCE (thus identifying him with
the famous Sanskrit grammarian Patañjali, the author of Mahābhāşya), and the 3rd century CE
(based on the textual analysis). The issue of dating is not of any significance for us here though.
5
The first proponent of sāmkhya is said to be Kapila (ca. 7th century BCE), but the first complete
text of this philosophical school , Sāmkhya-kārika of Īşvarakŗşņa, was composed several centuries
later (ca 3rd century). The other two philosophical pairs are nyāya-vaiśeşika and pūrva mīimāmsa
-uttara mīimāmsa; the latter is better known as vedānta.
6
The two can also be discussed in terms of subject – object.

172
 M. Bakić-Hayden, Two Methods of Contemplation...

in nature, Patañjali’s concern in his Yoga-sūtra is more pragmatic, making yoga

more of a path-philosophy in which speculative and practical go hand in hand. In
words of one scholar, “Patañjali is not engaged in a search for new knowledge.
Rather, he seeks a new perspective on the nature of knowing…”7 Patañjali thus
provides a method, a liberating discipline by means of which yogi realizes an abso-
lute calm, beyond words and our ordinary ways of knowing. Some would call such
experience and/or state of mind mystical; others would deny it any mystical dimen-
sion.8 However, the question can be legitimately asked – how do we (scholars)
know whether it is one or the other? Isn’t the question as much about what we un-
derstand as “knowledge” as it is what we hold experience itself to be?
The text of Yoga-sūtra, its 195 aphorisms (sūtras), is divided into four
parts: the first (samādhi pāda) contains the famous definition of yoga, and refers to
a blissful state (samādhi) wherein yogi witnesses his true nature. The second (sād-
hana pāda), which contains his equally famous eight limbs of yoga, i.e., the disci-
pline of freedom itself. The third, (vibhuti pāda) discusses the supra-normal powers
that develop as a side effect of the ascetic effort and the dangers and subtle chal-
lenges they pose for yogi; and lastly, in the fourth part (kaivalya pāda), Patañjali
describes the nature of spiritual liberation and the reality of the transcendental self.
At the very beginning of Yoga-sūtra, Patañjali defines yoga as: citta-vŗtti-nirodha.
Namely, yoga is cessation (nirodha) of the turning (vŗtti) of the thought (citta). The
notion of citta is very complex indeed; it is commonly translated as mind or
thought, but in reality it comprises the totality of mental processes including
thought, memory, dream, imagination, associations, and the like. In other words,
yoga is inhibition of the oscillations (vŗtti) of mental substance. The oscillations of
mental substance, such as thought and imagination, for example, take place auto-
matically and are opposite in nature to concentration, which is the first of the three
steps on an inner ladder of ascent to the state of complete spiritual emancipation
(samādhi). However, before one gets to the three inner steps, there are five outer
ones to contend with. Or, to be more precise, there are three strictly outer, and two
mediating between the outer an inner. They together constitute the famous eight
limbs of yoga: The first limb (yama) is a commitment (vow) to live by five moral
principles. The second limb (niyama) pertains to observances while the third to the
body posture (asana). The fourth limb is breath control (prāņāyāma); the fifth is the
withdrawal of senses (pratyāhāra). Finally, there are three inner limbs, which de-
fine yogic contemplative practice in the narrow sense: concentration (dhārāņa),
meditation (dhyāna) and contemplation (samādhi). I will return to these in a mo-
ment.

7
Barbara Stoler Miller, Yoga: Discipline of Freedom (Berkeley, University of California Press,
1996), ix.
8
Thus Barbara Miller, for example, says that what Patañjali talks about is “far from the mystical
ecstasy of poets like St. John of the Cross or the ritual ecstasy of the shaman in the trance.” Ibid.,
x). The problem here, and otherwise when such claims are made, is that the statement implies that
the scholar knows what St. John of the Cross experienced in contradistinction to a yogi.

173
 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA LVI (2)

In the hesychast tradition of contemplative practice – a spiritual trend

which coincides with the very beginnings of monasticism in Christian East, but
which was codified as a specific method of prayer in the course of the 13th and 14th
centuries – the key term to is the hesychia itself. The etymology of the word is not
certain, but we encounter it in the use of ancient Greek philosophers as the state of
calmness, the cessation of external causes of trouble or the absence of inner agita-
tion.9 In the Old Testament the similar meaning is found and in the New Testa-
ment, as in the Gospel of Luke (14:4) it is also used in the sense of being silent, or
in reference to observation of the “Sabbath rest” (Lk: 23:56).10 However, the cur-
rent understanding of hesychia in Orthodoxy draws primarily on its interpretation in
the writings of the holy fathers from the 4th to 15th century, assembled in The Philo-
kalia, that anthology of the Orthodox spirituality, (compiled in the 18th century), or
from the writings inspired by it. There hesychia means stillness: “a state of inner
tranquility or mental quietude and concentration which arises in conjunction with,
and is deepened by the practice of pure prayer and the guarding of heart and intel-
lect.”11 However, in The Philokalia stillness is sometimes seen as “a virtue, some-
times as a method of the control of senses and the acquisition of the virtues, and
sometimes as the fruit or end result of ascetic practice and self-mastery.”12 Since
this stillness is discussed primarily in relation to mind or intellect, nous, another
complex concept, we have to look into its meaning first. Nous does not correspond
to the current use of intellect as a discursive rationality grounded in sense percep-
tion, but rather it is a spiritual intellect which has a potential for a direct apprehen-
sion of the eternal truths about God and the meaning of the created world (gnosis).
However, in order for one to ponder the eternal truths, the intellect has to
be induced to come back into one’s self and be enclosed within the body. It was
precisely this aspect of prayer practice which involved body that became an object
of attacks by theologians from the west, such as Barlaam of Calabria, resulting in
Gregory Palamas’ famous defense of those who devotedly practice a life of still-
ness, namely the hesychasts.13 From the stand point of our topic, it is this psycho-
somatic aspect of the hesychast practice that links this method of contemplation
with the one outlined in Yoga-sutra of Patanjali. Of the holy fathers who paid spe-
cial attention to the psycho-somatic technique we can mention Nicephorus the He-
sychast (the Solitary), Gregory of Sinai, and Pseudo-Symeon. Even though the de-
scriptions of the hesychast techniques may vary the prayer that they all have in
mind is the prayer of the heart, also known as Jesus Prayer. The full version of this

9
Tomaš Špidlik, Prayer: The Spirituality of Christian East, vol. 2 (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cis-
tercian Publications, 2005), 321.
10
Ibid.
11
The Philokalia, vol.1 (London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1984), 364.
12
See Vincent Rossi, Presence, Participation, Performance in Paths to the Heart: Sufism and
Christian East, James Cutsinger, ed. (Bloomington, in: World Wisdom, 2002), 74.
13
St.Gregory Palamas, the 14th century Greek father, Archbishop of Thessalonica, systematized
main ideas and practice of the hesychasts; also known for his doctrine of essence and energies of
God common in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

174
 M. Bakić-Hayden, Two Methods of Contemplation...

prayer is: Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. In practice,
however, a shorter form is often used: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Other
elements that are commonly associated with this prayer are: a) a quiet, possibly
darkened place (monastic cell, for example) to keep the mind from distractions, b) a
low chair on which the monk sits, “because attentive prayer requires a restful posi-
tion,”14 and c) especially breathing, which is the most important aspect of the tech-
nique, but of course not of the prayer itself. It is done in such a way that while sit-
ting the chin or beard is pressed against the chest while the eyes and attention are
brought to the center of one’s belly, the navel. This is why the critics of the hesy-
chasts called them ‘navel-psychics’ with the clear intention, as Gregory Palamas
notes, to slender and disqualify them. He and many Orthodox spiritual masters be-
fore and after, have pointed out that it is not at all “out of place to teach beginners in
particular to look within themselves and to bring their intellect within themselves
by means of their breathing.”15 Palamas goes on to explain breathing as a method
helpful to those whose intellect, due to inexperience, continually “darts away” as
soon as it has been focused on something.
“That is why some teachers recommend them to pay attention to the
exhalation and inhalation of their breath, and to restrain it a little, so
that while they are watching it the intellect, too, may be held in check.
This they should do until they advance with God’s help to a higher
stage and are able to prevent their intellect from going out to external
things, to keep it uncompounded, and to gather it into what St. Diony-
sius calls a state of ‘unified concentration.’ This control of the breath-
ing may, indeed, be regarded as a spontaneous consequence of paying
attention to the intellect; for the breath is always quietly inhaled and
exhaled at moments of intense concentration, especially in the case of
those who practice stillness both bodily and mentally”16
With this Palamas not only justifies the use of breathing in Jesus Prayer,
but also explains that it is only a physical method, a preparation of the body for true
inner prayer – the prayer of the heart. The heart that occupies central place in Or-
thodox ‘spiritual anatomy’ does not refer to the faculty of being passionate or emo-
tional in the usual sense of the word. As the Coptic monk Makarios of Egypt in his
Spiritual Homilies observes, heart is a place of unity of human person as a whole –
body, soul and spirit:
The heart governs and reigns over the whole bodily organism; and
when grace possesses the pasturages of the heart, it rules over all the
members and the thoughts. For there, in the heart, is the intellect
(nous), and all the thoughts of the soul and its expectation; and in this
way grace penetrates also to all members of the body.17

14
Špidlik, 341.
15
Gregory Palamas, Philokalia, vol. IV, 337.
16
Ibid.
17
Quoted in Kallistos Ware, How do we Enter the Heart?, in Paths to the Heart, 12.

175
 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA LVI (2)

St. Makarios, however, also advances the idea of heart as an unique place
of human and divine encounter and as such he sees it as highly ambiguous: it is
open below “to the abyss of the subconscious” or, in Makarian language, to “drag-
ons and lions” and “gaping chasm;” but it is also open above “to the mystical supra-
consciousness” and the Divine Light, “the angels,” “life” “treasures of grace” – “the
Kingdom” itself.18
Into that heart, thus conceived, Theophan the Recluse, the 19th century
Russian spiritual writer, invites a practitioner to descend. “You must descend from
your head into your heart. At present your thoughts of God are in your head. And
God himself is, as it were, outside of you, and so your prayer and other spiritual ex-
ercises remain exterior.”19 Here the Russian staretz makes an important remark
about a common human misapprehension of God as an “outsider vis-à-vis one’s
self. An yet, the ascent to God is in reality the descent into one’s heart, where the
Kingdom of God is to be found by the seeker in accordance with the Gospel’s “The
kingdom of God does not come with observations; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or
‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Lk. 17:20-21).20 If we
look more closely at what is being suggested here we see that the Biblical assertion
that the Kingdom is not grasped by “observation” suggesting external, tangible
means; the notions of “See here” and “See there” likewise suggest the tendency to
be misled, looking from outside, or distracted, looking from the standpoint of hu-
man mind. In the quote above, Gregory Palamas warns of this tendency of
mind/intellect (nous) to “go out to external things” i.e., be outwardly dispersed
through the senses. Hence the ascetic effort consists in bringing nous back within
itself, into the heart.
Why is breathing suggested as a method to achieve this, and why heart as
the final destination? Is there anything that the two share? What breathing and heart
do have in common is rhythm. While breathing reflects rhythmic patterns of breath
exchange between inside and outside, thus mediating between the two, through ex-
halation and inhalation, the heart reflects and directs the rhythmic circulation
within, by pumping blood in and out of the organ. In terms of prayer practice we
see the shift from cerebral system to the rhythmic system, because the rhythmic sys-
tem is natural, and when focused on makes concentration effortless, as natural as
breathing or beating of the heart. Linking the words of prayer, such as in Jesus
Prayer, with the rhythm of one’s breathing makes the prayer itself flow naturally.
Mental repetition of the prayer in the end gives way to wordless prayer, or silence –
which is the inner state of stillness or hesychia, which resembles the surface of the
calm water reflecting, in the experience of some hesychasts, the uncreated light of
God.

18
Ibid, p. 14 and 15.
19
Theophan the Recluse in The Art of Prayer (London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1977), 183.
20
Interestingly, as noted in the commentary to this Gospel passage “the Greek word for ‘within
you’ can also be translated as ‘among you’ or ‘in your midst’” suggesting that the notions of “in”
and “out” melt away with grasping of the mystery of the Kingdom. See The Orthodox Study Bible
(Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997), 183.

176
 M. Bakić-Hayden, Two Methods of Contemplation...

Now if we step back for a moment and look at these two contemplative tra-
ditions side by side we shall inevitably notice a number of similarities in methods
that accomplish the respective final goals. However, the contexts in which those
methods are used are defined in radically different terms. Before we come to that,
though, I would like to briefly touch on some similarities in contemplative tech-
nique and let certain aspects of one tradition reflect on the other. For example, in
Orthodox tradition the spiritual way is usually divided into three stages, variously
called by different fathers: the first one is praktiki or catharsis or purification; the
second is physiki or photismos or illumination, and the third one is theologia or
henosis or union. The first one, purification, is external in nature and is defined as
practice of virtues. In Patañjali’s eightfold scheme, that we have outlined earlier, we
can see that the first three limbs are external too. (1) Respecting five moral princi-
ples: non-violence, truthfulness, abjuration from stealing, celibacy and absence of
greed, certainly resonates with the ten commandments corresponding, more or less
directly, to some of them; (2) Observances, such as ascetic practices (fasting), the
study of sacred lore, and dedication to the Lord of Yoga,21 correspond to the fasts
(purification of body), vigils and prayers (purification of mind), on the one hand,
and feasts of the liturgical calendar in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. (3) Posture is
also a shared concept but, interestingly, completely differently conceived. Even
though Patañjali does not specify what he means by posture other than saying that it
should be comfortable and relaxed (“steady and easy” are his words), the tradition
holds that what is meant by yogic posture is the so called lotus posture, i.e., sitting
cross-legged with the back straight, often with eyes closed and generally relaxed
body. The hesychasts, as we have seen, talk about curved back, chin on the chest –
a circular body position, so to speak. (4) Breathing or breath control is understood
and used in both traditions in a similar way: in Yoga-sūtra it is said: “The modifica-
tion of breath in exhalation, inhalation, and retention is perceptible as deep and
shallow breathing regulated by where the breath is held, for how long, and for how
many cycles.”22 We have seen from Palamas’ quote above that hesychasts under-
stand breath control in this way, too. Difference comes in later developments, be-
cause in yogic tradition breathing exercises become much more elaborate taking life
of their own, not necessarily related to contemplative practice in narrow sense, but
in conjunction with further development of the posture practice (haţha-yoga). In
Eastern Church, however, breath control has been primarily associated with the he-
sychast practice and almost exclusively confined to select monastic circles. (5) The
yogic practice of the withdrawal of senses, “when each sense organ severs contact
with its objects”23 is almost identical to the hesychast understanding of the same
phenomenon and is variously expressed by different church fathers: “put away your

21
It is not clear who “Lord of yoga” is; the term īśvara refers to “lord” but here it seems to be
more in the sense of an archetypal yogi, who is a model, so to say, to the aspirant. Certainly,
dedication to the Lord of Yoga implies yogi’s commitment to the liberating discipline. See Miller,
Yoga, 55-56.
22
Miller, Yoga, 58.
23
Ibid, 59.

177
 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA LVI (2)

physical senses (hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch),” or “enclose yourself in
your body”, or “shut the doors of your perception,” etc.
Now, when it comes to the last, and most important, three limbs of Patan-
jali’s Yoga-sūtra (6,7, and 8), concentration, meditation and pure contemplation,
the definitions are in characteristically sūtra style, brief and simple and yet right on
target. Thus, “concentration is binding thought in one place. Meditation is focusing
on a single conceptual flow. Pure contemplation is meditation that illumines the ob-
ject alone, as if the subject were devoid of intrinsic form.”24 These are the internal
limbs of yoga, and yet, compared to what Patañjali calls seedless contemplation
(nirbīja samādhi), they too are external. Namely, seedless contemplation is the
culmination of the transformative practice of the whole yogic endeavor resulting in
the liberation of the spirit (puruşa) from its entanglement with the material nature.
This is described in the concluding aphorisms of the Yoga-sūtra: “Freedom is a re-
versal of the evolutionary course of material things, which are empty of meaning
for the spirit; it is also the power of consciousness in a state of true identity.”25
These last limbs of yoga and their culmination in a state of true identity,
correspond in many ways to the Orthodox ideas of illumination and union. Illumi-
nation is contemplation of the inner meanings (logoi) of the created world, based on
watchfulness (nepsis) and discrimination (diakrisis). Practice of watchfulness is for
the Eastern monks grounded on the Biblical calls to “Be attentive to yourself, lest
there arise in your hearts a secret thing which is an iniquity” (Deut. 15:9) or “Watch
and pray, that you enter not into temptation” (Matt. 26:41). Watchfulness as a con-
certed effort of attention necessary for mastering not only the art of prayer of the
heart, but any skill, is closely related to concentration, being focused on presence in
the present – here and now – the assumption being that only in the present can His
Presence be experienced. Close attention to or following of one’s inner and outer
‘movements’ results in their more nuanced perception, which further stimulates a
finer discrimination between things. The goal of this spiritual alertness in the con-
text of contemplative practice is noetic prayer, in which the nous is liberated from
its enslavement to reason, to the passions and the surrounding world and returns
from its distraction within the heart.”26
If we were to translate this into Patañjali’s terminology, the observing sub-
ject, or neptic person (the one who is watchful) is draşţŗ, or the “observer” (the
spirit, puruşa, in its conscious aspect), who is a detached witness of the world ex-
trinsic to itself – including thoughts. This is now where discrimination comes into
play for a yogi, since no matter how subtle and noble, human thought may be, in
yogic understanding it still belongs to the realm of (invisible) material nature, prak-

24
Miller, Yoga, 60.
25
Ibid, 83.
26
Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos, A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain, Effie Mav-
romichali, transl. (Birth of theotokos Monastery, 1991), 189.

178
 M. Bakić-Hayden, Two Methods of Contemplation...

ŗti.27 “Through discrimination (viveka)” Patañjali says, “one comprehends differ-

ences of origin, characteristic, or position that distinguishes two seemingly similar
things.”28 This means that the aspirant on his/her path of yogic self-realization in
the end has to be able to distinguish between the true self, the spirit (purusa) and the
matter in its finest thought-form (sattva prakŗti). Namely, when the “turnings” even
of the subtlest thought, which resembles the spirit the most, have ceased (thought
always being bound in time), the stage is set for the realization of the absolute free-
dom, in which there is nothing, no-thing, to prompt further “turnings of thought”
and is for that reason called “seedless contemplation” (nirbīja samādhi, kavalya).
The common ascetic strategy to “stop the turning of thought” in yoga by repetition
of the sacred syllable AUM or OM, the primordial sound from which all speech and
thought are said to derive, parallels (again only as a strategy!) the hesychast invoca-
tion of the holy name in Jesus Prayer to assist in combating thoughts or trivial imag-
ining, “the ceaseless chattering of our logismoi.”29 The difference is that unlike
yogi who seeks no help outside of himself, the hesychast takes “refuge in the power
and grace that act in the Divine name.”30 The point, however, is that this method is
used in both cases to aid concentration, by blocking the formation of new impres-
sions or thought-forms, so that monk’s mind/thought could be “fixed” in prayer, or
that the one of yogi ceases to “turn” or oscillates. As one monk describes what the
hesychasts do: “they breath in the words ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ and exhale the words
“have mercy on me; or “we breath in all the words of Jesus prayer and we breath
out saying them again.”31 Repetition of the syllable AUM “reveals its meaning”
says Patañjali, and the practice of “focusing on the single truth” (AUM as an ex-
pression of the ultimate reality) enables yogi to prevent “distractions” caused by os-
cillation of thought.32
Finally, the last, eighth limb of yoga, contemplation, as we have already
noted, is twofold: pure contemplation in which the meditative subject is so absorbed
in the object of meditation that the distinction between the two is completely lost.
The thought becomes pure, crystal-clear, and in that sense “colorless.” Capable of
reflecting everything around it but without identifying with any ‘color’ (thought-

27
Prakŗti i.e. material nature in its visible and invisible forms manifests in three qualities
(triguna): sattva, relate to lucid, subtle, cohesive quality (associated with god Vişŗu); rajas, “pas-
sion”, refers to revolving element from which arise the breath of life and action (associated with
god Brahma), and tamas or dark, inert, disintegrating quality (associated with god Siva); these
three gunas, like energy existing in potential form and in varying proportions, mark stages of ex-
istence, from inanimate to pure consciousness.
28
Miller, Yoga, 72.
29
Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Inner Kingdom (Crestwood, NY: St.Vladimir’s Seminary Press,
2000), 100. Logismos, logismoi (pl.) in Orthodox spiritual writings refer to thought-form(s), that
can be positive (sent by God) or negative, “the equivalent of conventional devils;” “It is from
spiritual guidance and discernment that we will be able to differentiate one type from the other.”
Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Scilence (New York: Image, 2002), 118-119.
30
Ware, The Inner Kingdom, 100.
31
Markides, The Mountain of Scilence, 58.
32
See Miller, Yoga, 36-38.

179
 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA LVI (2)

modification) this state of pure contemplation brings yogi direct knowledge of the
world and realization that the spirit is radically different from it. He is now free
from any selfish (egoistic) attachment to the world, his body included, which gives
him “mastery” over the realm of material and extraordinary powers (siddhis) that
come with it. However, Patañjali warns that “one should avoid enthusiasm or pride”
because of that “lest harmful attachments recur.”33 Also, the practice should not
culminate in the superior material condition, but in ultimate spiritual attainment,
which brings us to the notion of seedless contemplation in which that final goal is
realized. Patañjali notes by way of conclusion that since thought as an object of per-
ception cannot illumine itself it depends on the spirit, who is self-luminous, for
knowledge of its own processes. So long, he says, as “a thought is the object of an-
other thought, there is an infinite regression from intelligence to intelligence, and a
confusion of memory.”34 “Awareness of its own intelligence occurs,” according to
Patañjali, “when thought assumes the form of the spirit through consciousness that
leaves no trace.”35 This consciousness is really a supra-consciousness in which
“even wisdom ceases, and contemplation bears no seeds.”36 It ends in freedom,
which Patañjali defines as “a reversal of the evolutionary course of material things,
which are empty of meaning for the spirit; it is also the power of consciousness in a
state of true identity.”37
In the third and final stage of Orthodox contemplative way, that of union,
the realization of the secret of divine Love in human heart takes place. “God is love;
and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (I John 4:16). The
goal of practice is not “to guide the nous (noetic faculty) to absolute nothingness
through the ‘Jesus prayer’, but to turn it to the heart and bring the grace of God into
the soul, from where it will spread to the body also.”38 This union with God
through Christ in the Holy Spirit is conceived and realized as a personal loving rela-
tionship, communion, between the Creator and creature. In other words, it is not a
divorce from the material world, but rather an attempt at its transfiguration, or as an
Antonite monk of our time put it: “we must not try to get rid of the garment of the
soul, as the philosophical systems claim, but we must try to save it. We don not
want to reach the point where we do not desire life so that suffering ceases. We
practice the Jesus Prayer because we thirst for life and we want to live with God
eternally.”39 That thirst is quenched only when the nous descends into the heart,
when the oral prayer “of the lips” has been interiorized into mental prayer and,
which further matures into prayer of the heart, in which the whole person is con-
sumed. It is no longer “a series of specific acts of prayer” but “a state of prayer that

33
Miller, Yoga, 72.
34
Ibid, 79.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid, 42-43.
37
Ibid, 83.
38
Hierotheos, A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain, 49-50.
39
Ibid, 50.

180
 M. Bakić-Hayden, Two Methods of Contemplation...

is unceasing.”40 Having reached this stage, hesychast’s prayer becomes effortless –

just as a cloud pours rain (to illumine this state with Patañjali’s words). It is also a
natural state, in a very specific meaning of the word, since nous in the state of re-
integration is reflective of its true nature. The prayer itself becomes self-acting, and
its only language is silence of “Christ in me;” of witnessing the uncreated light of
God. Interestingly, even though Patañjali’s concern is primarily with the technique
– for he does not engage in speculation on what happens in that state of mind which
he apophatically refers to as “seedless contemplation” – he does say that the
achieved freedom represents “a reversal of the evolutionary course of material
things” reflecting “the power of consciousness in a state of true identity”. One won-
ders if the achieved (comm)union with God can be viewed as anything less than “a
reversal of evolutionary course of material things.”
By way of conclusion, if we were to define the ultimate goals of both con-
templative traditions in terms of spiritual freedom, we would say that in the yogic
tradition of Patañjali the freedom that is set as a goal is freedom from – from the
metaphysical ignorance of the knowing subject, the true Self, the spirit vis-à-vis the
lucid quality of nature (expressed in human thought that can take everything as its
object, including the divine). The language in which Patañjali expresses the yogic
discipline of freedom is elegant, concise, direct and brilliantly psychologically nu-
anced, exposing the mechanisms whereby humans construct false identifications
and identities. But it is at the same time a very impersonal, “technical” language
addressing a mode of being to which the yogin aspires through his practice. Even
Patañjali’s introduction of Īśvara (Lord) in the Yoga-sūtra, as a possible object of
yogic concentration, and in a special sense of devotion, seems to correspond pri-
marily to an impersonal experiential reality of an archetype of the yogin, rather than
to a divinity of the kind represented in the Christian God.41 This is why the lan-
guage of the hesychast writers stands in sharp contrast to the one of the Yoga-sūtra,
in that it is directed to the disciple as a person--a fallen, fragmented human being,
who needs to be healed – and who’s Lord has instrumental role in it. The language
here reflects the theological reality of Christ the Savior in which salvation is not at-
tained through one’s effort alone, and does not emanate from oneself, but is attained
in synergy with Christ, as a personal relationship “in God”. In that sense we would
say that the goal of Christian freedom is not a freedom from, but rather freedom for
– for communion with God in Love.

40
Ware, The Orthodox Way, 123.
41
Cf. Eliade, Yoga, 73-76.

181
 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA LVI (2)

Милица Бакић-Хејден

Два метода контемплације: јога и исихастичка

молитва
Оглед из упоредне религије

Кључне речи:
компаративна религија,
контемплација, хиндуизам,
Yoga-sūtra, источно
хришћанство, исхаизам,
Исусова молитва

Полазећи од компаративнг модела који Арвинд Шарма зове

реципрочна илуминација, овај оглед разматра два контемплативна метода која
су се развила у склопу двеју врло различитих религијских традиција, какве су
хиндуизам и источно хришћанство. Циљ поређења није валоризовање
елемената који се доводе у узајамни однос, већ њихово евентуално
појашњење у светлу другог. Будући да је у оба случаја у питању пракса
заснована на искуству и знање које из ње произилази, академски истраживач
овакве религијске феноменологије мора бити свестан да истражује, пре свега,
о чему је ту реч, а не у чему је ствар.
У тексту се разматрају контемплативни метод развијен у Патањђа-
лијевоj Yoga-sūtri, једном од најпознатијих дела класичне индијске филозо-
фије, и исихастичка пракса Исусове молитве (умно-срдачне молитве или
молитве срца), која се превасходно разви(ја)ла у окриљу источнохришћанског
монаштва. Иако су већ на први поглед уочљиве паралеле између појединих
елемената осмочланог Патањђалијевог пута и православног концепта praktiki-
physiki-theologia (очишћење, просветљење, сједињење), као на пример –
упознавање и руковођење моралним правилима, пажњу привлаче психосо-
матски аспекти који се везују за положај тела, дисање и окретање чулне
перцепције од споља ка унутра, а све у циљу припреме ума, његовог сабирања
(концентрација), што је предуслов за јога медитацију и контемплацију,
односно за исихастичко тиховање, у коме се молитвено-сабран ум уздиже ка
Богу, спуштајући се у сопствено срце, као средиште сусрета с Њим.
Занимљиво је да (насупрот популарној перцепцији јоге данас) Патањђали не
поклања велику пажњу физичком положају тела, барем не више него
исихастички духовници. Као и дисање, Патанђали āsanu тј. положај тела
сагледава, пре свега у функцији заустављања непрестаних ‘осцилација ума’,

182
 M. Bakić-Hayden, Two Methods of Contemplation...

које су препрека његовом усредсређивању, и у том смислу је он и за њега

‘техничке’ природе. Код исихаста се такође уочава корисност одговарајућег
физичког положаја тела при срдачној молитви, као и ‘везивање’ даха за име
Исусово (зарад лакшег преласка пажње са линеарно-церебралног на ритмични
систем даха, односно срца), али се инсистира на њиховом необавезном и
искључиво инструменталном карактеру. Наиме, пракса се не препоручује без
надзора искусног духовника, и то само као помоћно средство у разгоревању
срца, тј. љубави према Богу.
Суштинско усмерење духовне праксе коју описује Патањђали јесте у
ослобађању свести, тј. духа (puruşa), од метафизичког незнања (avidya), које
је довело до погрешне идентификације духа са материјалном природом (prak-
ŗti), укључујуци и менталне процесе који су њена најсуптилнија манифеста-
ција. Јога је у том смислу дисциплина духовног ослобађања свести, која води
до пре-познавања њеног правог идентитета, који пак није условљен матери-
јалним природом нити заваран њеним најсуптилнијим облицима испољавања.
Овим остварењем апсолутне слободе прави се, по Патањђалију, ‘еволутивни
заокрет’. Његов контемплативни метод, међутим, будући неличан, представља
јасан контраст наведеном хришћанском моделу исихаста, који је сав утемељен
на личном односу човека и Бога. Хришћански теолошки оквир одређује у
сваком сегменту молитвену праксу исихаста, и у том смислу је она
неприменљива ван хришћанског контекста, док је Патањђалијев модел лакше
‘уклопив’ у друге духовне и религијске системе, а у неким, касније
изведеним, редуцираним формама, и у разне облике секуларне праксе.
Ако бисмо кроз појам слободе дефинисали и једну и другу
контемплативну праксу, рекли бисмо да се у случају Патањђалијеве јоге може
говорити о слободи од – од незнања о правој природи суштинске
неусловљености духа материјалном природом, док се у случају исихастичке
праксе ради о остварењу слободе за – за заједништво с Богом у Љубави. Но,
управо са становишта религијске феноменологије и у духу поменуте
реципрочне илуминације, можемо се даље питати да ли то блажено стање
духа (односно свести), у коме је остварена потпуна духовна слобода, није
управо оно што чини ‘слика Божја’ по којој је човек створен, а која у крајњој
анализи заиста представља ‘еволутивни заокрет’. Ма како се одређивали у
односу на ове ‘духовне чињенице’, из ових двеју традиција, неспорно је да
удубљивањем у методологију контемплативног процеса у оба случаја, иако са
различитим нагласком, открива импресивну слику разумевања унутрашњег
света човековог у свој његовој изнијансираности.

183