Ascetic Experiments

BLESSED IS THE MAN (Psalm 1)

The inspired Divine singer sings, beats the sonorous strings.

When the noise of the world deafened me, I could not listen to it. Now, in the silence of solitude, I begin to listen to the mysterious singer. Both his sounds and his song become more intelligible to me, as it were. It is as if a new ability opens up in me, the ability to listen to it and the ability to understand it. I listen to a new feeling in his sounds, a new meaning in his words, wondrous, wondrous, like God's wisdom.

Saul! Cease to rage: let the evil spirit depart from you... St. David sings, rattling into the slender harp.

Saul I call my mind, troubled, indignant at the thoughts that come from the ruler of the world. He, my mind, was placed by God at the establishment of the kingdom of Israel, at creation, and then at the redemption of man, into king, lord of soul and body; by disobedience to God, by violating God's commandments, by violating unity with God, he deprived himself of dignity and grace. Spiritual and bodily forces are disobedient to him; he himself is under the influence of an evil spirit.

St. David sings, proclaims the words of heaven. And the sounds of his psalter are the sounds of heaven! The subject of the hymn is the bliss of man.

Brethren, let us listen to the Divine teaching, set forth in the Divine hymn. Let us listen to the verbs, let us listen to the sounds with which the sky speaks, with which the sky thunders to us. O you who seek happiness, who pursue pleasure, who thirst for pleasure! Come: listen to the sacred song, listen to the teachings of salvation. How long will you wander, prowl through valleys and mountains, through impassable deserts and wilds? How long do you torment yourself with unceasing and vain labor, uncrowned with any fruits, no lasting gains? Incline your humble ear: listen to what the Holy Spirit says through the mouth of David about human blessedness, which all people strive for, which all people hunger for.

May everything around me be silent! And let my very thoughts be silent within me! Let the heart be silent! Let only reverent attention live, act! Let holy impressions and thoughts enter into the soul, through its intermediary!

David was a king and did not say that the throne of kings is the throne of human bliss.

David was a general and a hero; from youth to old age he quarreled with foreigners in bloody battles; the number of battles he fought, the number of victories he won; to the banks of the Euphrates from the banks of the Jordan he moved the borders of his kingdom and did not say that in the glory of the victorious and conqueror is the blessedness of man.

David gathered up innumerable riches, gathered them up with his sword. The gold lay in his storerooms like honey, and the silver was thrown into them like cast iron. But David did not say that in riches is the blessedness of man.

David had all earthly consolations; in none of them did he recognize human blessedness.

When David was a youth, when his occupation was to feed the sheep of his father Jesse: suddenly, by the command of God, the prophet Samuel came and anointed the poor shepherd with holy oil as king of the people of Israel. David did not call the hour of his anointing as king the hour of blessedness.