CONTEMPLATION AND COMMUNION: TWO PARADIGMS OF SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
Comparative analysis of the relation of contemplation and communion as two fundamental activities in the field of religious experience is performed in ontological, theological and historico-philosophical aspects. It is shown that the dominance of one or the other of these activities is the key structural characteristics of spiritual practices and traditions. In the prism of this relation, the relation of hesychasm (including hesychast theology of Divine energies by Palamas) and neoplatonism is reconsidered and new arguments demonstrating the radical divergence of these two spiritual schools are brought forth. The phenomenon of contemplation of the Light of Tabor in the higher stages of hesychast practice is interpreted on the basis of its connection with the event of Transfiguration of Christ as presented in the New Testament. This connection stated by hesychasts and recognized by Councils of Orthodox Church makes it possible to characterize hesychast experience as a special kind of contemplation unknown to Hellenic and other traditions of contemplative mysticism: it is not so much contemplation as communion, which represents here a specific modality of personal being, Personality discovered in Christian experience. I call this contemplation the “contemplation in the image and likeness of Transfiguration” and describe it briefly.
Keywords: hesychasm, neoplatonism, communion, contemplation, personality, Transfiguration, Light of Tabor
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Issue: 3, 2015
Series of issue: Issue 5
Rubric: RESEARCH REPORTS
Pages: 11 — 27
Downloads: 1179