The Desert Tradition

The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.           -Karl Rahner

Inspired by the Mothers and Fathers of the desert tradition, Science of the Heart is a contemplative community offering opportunities to experience God in silence and stillness where intuitive insight and heart centered spiritual awareness develops.  The desert as a symbolic reality lived from within is realized through the discipline of vacare Deo, or creating space in one’s heart for God as stated in John’s letter, “God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him “ (1 John 4.16). 

The desert mothers and fathers sought to rediscover the passion of Christ’s teachings found in the radical call to ‘sell everything’ and follow after him (Luke 18.22).  By the fourth century, Christians fled the distractions of the Roman Empire seeking refuge in the rugged landscape of the Egyptian desert to be alone with God keeping careful watch over the movements of their hearts. The simplicity and vast emptiness of the desert welcomed an experience to abide with God in loving attention and receptivity in unceasing prayer (1 Thessalonians 5. 17). 

Christian Meditation 

We know the truth not only by the reason, but also by the heart.                       -Blaise Pascal

The goal of prayer and of the monastic life is union with God and the Jesus Prayer, also known as the Prayer of the Heart, has been widely used in Eastern Christianity to assist in achieving this purpose.   Jesus says, "For the eye is the lamp of the body and if healthy will fill the body with light" (Matthew 6.22). Undergoing the discipline involved in prayer is for the simple reason to see God and receiving the light of Christ is necessary to achieve purity of the eyes of the heart. “Blessed are the pure of heart,”... is the requisite to see God as God is in reality and not as an object of one's perception, an abstract theological concept, projection of fantasy or wish fulfillment.  Seeing or contemplating God rightly is the purpose of human life and the source of happiness. 

Sitting in one’s cell is central to the spirituality of the Eastern monastics.  Found in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Abba Moses reveals, “The cell teaches us everything.”  The tradition of sitting in silence not only calms the neurological response system which can be overstimulated with exterior distractions, sitting in silence creates space to meditate on the Word of God and to participate in the daily struggle to integrate the mind and heart in an attitude of watchfulness over one’s thoughts, intentions and emotions.   Mindfulness or examination of one's conscience, equips the meditator with self knowledge enabling one to resist temptation and to guard the heart from vain egoistic thoughts and illusions.  Resting the mind in God purifies the intellect and the fragmented psyche is made whole.  

In an ancient collection of texts on the school of mystical prayer known as the Philokalia,  the spiritual practice of hesychasm enjoins the use of silence and stillness while repeating the words of the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.” Prayed in unison with the breath, the Spirit leads one into the deeper places of the heart until the word is no longer prayed with deliberate effort, but is prayed spontaneously as St. Paul states, “We do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” (Romans 8.26).  Surrendering one’s entire being in renunciation of attachment to thoughts, emotions and even one's will, the residue of the false self is emptied and is revealed as a defensive facade, a fraudulent thief and lifeless imitator of the hidden true self. Prayer leads one to higher knowledge of the true self in God.  If one who prays is truly a theologian, then it is true to say that the hesychastic tradition is the royal road that leads to God as Kallistos Ware says, “it is the art of arts and the science of sciences, a learning which is not a matter of information or agility of mind but of a radical change of will and heart leading one towards the highest possibilities, opening, shaping and nourishing the unseen part of one’s being, and helping one to spiritual fulfillment and union with God.” Christ incarnate is for the purpose of the deification of humankind and the transformation of the world.  Responding to the Spirit's urgent desire, the practitioner undergoes a substantive change becoming a pneumato phoros or Spirit bearer, giving witness to the abiding presence of the Divine.

Transformation is achieved only through a synergy or participation between one’s own mental and moral activities and God’s uncreated energies.  By sharing in new life with Christ, theosis, or divinization is a process which occurs through metanoia, or a radical change of heart.  Like the Prodigal Son who realizes the futility of a life of sin and squander and returns home to his loving father, Christian meditation returns one to the ground of one’s being made in the image of God as explicated in the words of St. Athanasius “Christ was made man that we might be made God," and affirmed in the words of the existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard who says, "to be what one truly is, is the opposite of despair."

Health Benefits of Meditation 

Recent studies prove there are both physical and psychological health benefits gained from the practice of mediation, such as added resiliency to the immune system and lowered blood pressure. Other advantages include greater concentration and improved cognitive skills, greater capacity for emotional intelligence and interpersonal relations, insight and awareness, and an improved positive self-regard.  

Neuroscientists have found that sustained meditation leads to neuroplasticity which is the brain’s ability to structurally and functionally change. One study showed that those who meditated have thicker cortical walls causing a slower rate which the brain ages as well as overall improved functioning of memory, decision making and sustained attention. 

The brain activity of those who meditate shifts to different areas of the cortex resulting in reduced anxiety and depression due to less activity in the amygdala where fear is processed.  According to Dr. Stephen C. Hayes, "Mindful awareness facilitates greater awareness of bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions and leads to greater capacity for self-regulation and self-control." Advances in brain research tell us that our brains, our emotional habits and responses are all malleable, that we are not stuck with our current self-limiting patterns, but that surprisingly simple techniques can actually change our brain and our lives. As the desert fathers understood, the possibility for change is great if we put our mind and heart into the right effort led by God’s grace.  We are plastic. Like clay, we can reshape our brain, thoughts, emotions, and ultimately, our spiritual destiny (Isaiah 64.8).  

Applied Science and Relevant Spirituality 

Why should Christians meditate?  There is a long tradition of contemplative desert spirituality found in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.  Jesus endured fasting, prayer and temptations in solitude and silence and by the fourth century, avid Christian seekers brought this spiritual practice to the deserts of Egypt and Palestine. John Cassian imported the Desert Wisdom to the West in the early fifth century through the notable rule and monastic way of life of prayer and work established by St. Benedict and similarly is found in the East through the work of St. Antony the Great in Egypt.  

Since Vatican Council II, the Church has stressed the importance of recovering lost or neglected traditions of Christian contemplation leading many to find shelter in this ancient practice or 'science' which leads one to descend into the deserts of the heart and find intimacy with God.

The benefits can be found in the evidence of the Spirit, as Jesus says, “you will know the tree by the fruits they bear” (Matthew 7.16).  Those who have practiced meditation or prayer of the heart have observed the following:

• Receptivity to God’s indwelling presence 

• Growth in self-knowledge and humility 

• Detachment from compulsions, addictions, attachments and self-defeating behavior 

• Less emotional turmoil and greater forgiveness and peace 

• Growth in areas of discernment, wisdom and understanding 

• Transition from ego centered to a God centered and ego transcendent identity 

• Growth in inner freedom, creativity and joyfulness  

• Deeper sense of meaning, purpose and insight to the spiritual life

• Awareness of the interconnectivity of all beings, increased ability for interpersonal relatedness and intimacy 

• Personal values reflecting the teachings found in the Beatitudes 

• Greater Faith, Hope and Love 

• Increased energy to do God’s will in acts of mercy and justice