Septextura
Well-known member
Why this? Is it to self-induce trance and hypnosis? To catch divine sparks, absorb God's radiant energy like eastern mystics do in Islam, Hinduism, Shamanism, Buddhism and Kabbalah?
Someone sits in a monastery and repeats a short sentence all day for 80 years. Why? How does this serve God? What does it do for Christ's Kingdom?
Matthew 6:7
As long as it's vetted by a council of few men then it's OK I guess.
100 years later God gave His own council by the fall of Constantinople. Now you can hear the muezzin call to prayer at Hagia Sophia.
If you want to navel gaze in Asia Minor, now you have to see a Turkish belly dance instead of a Hesychast prayer.
Navel-gazing or omphaloskepsis is the contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation.
If anyone is interested on the topic of Hindu religious syncretism in Eastern Orthodoxy, give this a read.
Someone sits in a monastery and repeats a short sentence all day for 80 years. Why? How does this serve God? What does it do for Christ's Kingdom?
Matthew 6:7
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
As long as it's vetted by a council of few men then it's OK I guess.
When Gregorios Palamas defended Hesychasm (the Eastern Orthodox Church's mystical teaching on prayer), Barlaam accused him of heresy. Three Orthodox synods ruled against him and in Palamas's favor (two "Councils of Sophia" in June and August 1341, and a "Council of Blachernae" in 1351).
100 years later God gave His own council by the fall of Constantinople. Now you can hear the muezzin call to prayer at Hagia Sophia.
If you want to navel gaze in Asia Minor, now you have to see a Turkish belly dance instead of a Hesychast prayer.
Navel-gazing or omphaloskepsis is the contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation.
Actual use of the practice as an aid to contemplation of basic principles of the cosmos and human nature is found in the practice of yoga or Hinduism and sometimes in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In yoga, the navel is the site of the manipura (also called nabhi) chakra, which yogis consider "a powerful chakra of the body".[3][4] The monks of Mount Athos, Greece, were described as Omphalopsychians by J.G. Minningen, writing in the 1830s, who says they "...pretended or fancied that they experienced celestial joys when gazing on their umbilical region, in converse with the Deity".
If anyone is interested on the topic of Hindu religious syncretism in Eastern Orthodoxy, give this a read.
The present article will try to show differences and similarities in description about the ascetic teaching and mystical experience of two totally different spiritual traditions, i.e. in regard to the “Jesus Prayer” in the late Byzantine era and “yoga” in ancient India. A prayer made much use of by Christians in the Eastern Orthodox Church is the so-called “Jesus Prayer” or “Prayer of the heart,” including a short phrase, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me” that is repeatedly and continuously recited.
The Jesus Prayer began to spread generally in the Eastern Church with the birth of “hesychasm,” a spiritual movement of Orthodox monasticism in the 14th century Byzantine empire. But a significant part of this movement was not so much the establishment of the Jesus Prayer itself but a special psycho-physical technique which began to be practiced with this prayer by monks on the Holy Mountain of Athos. What interests us in this regard is that this psycho-physical method, including a special bodily posture and a breath control technique, appears to be quite similar to the methods set out in another religious tradition, namely that of yoga that developed from ancient times in India.
Because of its impressive similarity, a Byzantinologist, Endre von Ivánka, called the practitioners of hesychasm “byzantinische Yogis.”2 For this present article we take up the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali with its comprehensive method of yoga, and clarify similarities and differences in the conceptual and methodological frameworks of the two systems.
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