The Spiritual World | Photios Kontoglou
The Spiritual World
by Photios Kontoglou.
Contemporary man has altogether forgotten the world that is within himself and has occupied himself only with the world that is outside himself, the material world. He investigates by means of science, “the outside of the cup and of the platter” (Matt. 23:25).
One world is material, the other, spiritual:
One is for the transitory life; the other for the eternal.
One is in space and time, while the other is beyond space and time.
Today's man lives materialistically, busying himself with spiritually false things:
Only matter interests him, the rather coarse, more tangible aspect of the universe. He cannot experience spiritual reality by means of his bodily senses and does not concern himself with it.
He who projects machines made of aluminium into space, he whose brain is full of numbers, screws, springs, and other such things,
cannot understand what is hidden behind the material world perceived by means of his physical senses.
How can he taste the fruit that is hidden inside the husk of the universe?
He can only nourish himself with a husk, for it is the husk that his materialistic science is constantly studying.
How can he understand the words of Christ, who says, “The kingdom of God is with us”?
Or those of the Apostle Paul, who says: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16).
How can this barbaric and hard-hearted people, who are attached to the mud of matter, understand the words of the divinely inspired Paul, who says that carnal men,
“worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator?” (Rom. 1:25).
For those who are engrossed with the knowledge of material things, “the mystical gate is closed,” and they are not given even a small way into the concept “the holy of holies.”
Their materialistic minds do not experience any other life besides that of the flesh.
They have placed all their hopes in it and are incapable of hearkening to the words of Paul, who says:
“if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable”
(1 Cor. 15:19).
That is, if we believe only in this life, we are the most miserable of all human beings. And elsewhere he calls such materialistic individuals those “who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13).
Indeed, we see that such people are full of anguish, fear, and agitation, because “the wages of sin is death.”
“For whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap,
for he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption;
but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Gal. 6:7-8).
And elsewhere it is written that
“to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6).
In saying “peace,” Saint Paul means true peace, whereas only a false peace is found in the external, material world in which the materialists believe.
“What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” asks Christ (Matt. 16:26). But who listens to Him?
All of us are striving to gain this unreal world. We do not want to understand those words which used to be sung by a beggar with the wisdom that is possessed by simple men:
I entered into the world naked
And will go out of it naked.
The world is alien,
It belongs to no one.
Therefore, listen again my brother to what Saint Paul says, and try to understand something of the hidden world of mystery that is behind the external world.
We investigate with the aid of machines, believing in our learned ignorance that we possess knowledge of the roots of the totality of things.
St. Paul says:
“The creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption” (Rom. 8:21):
The “bondage of corruption” is the slavery of those who live and labour for the corruptible world of matter; those whose thoughts are bad and foolish.
Those who are without faith and without love are full of death, since they are preoccupied with the world of corruption which has no hope, but is full of darkness and despair.
These individuals are the faithful followers of Satan, who serve him obediently without knowing why.
On the other hand, the faithful ones of God, “the children of God,” possess freedom, true freedom, which consists in knowledge of the Truth, that is, of Christ.
Only through this knowledge do the nuptial doors open, from which the soul beholds the wondrous light of the incorruptible essence of the cosmos.
The thoughts of these children of God are good, peaceful, and gladdening:
“Become peaceful within yourself,” says a certain saint, “and heaven and earth will become peaceful. Enter into the chamber that is within you, and from there you will behold the palace of heaven.”
Christ has revealed the things that exist in incorruptible heaven. The true things which the soul looks at from the mystical chamber are inside us:
They are blessed, peaceful isles in the ocean that extends beyond every material constellation, and are outside the slavery of space and time.