The spiritual work (the “work of the people”) that we do during the liturgy can of course also be “taken out into the streets” in everyday life. This is very difficult to do in Western “every person for themself” societies because it generally requires that one “swim upstream” in the society. But because of “sobornost,” it is possible to do “the work of the people” while “swimming with the stream” of Russian society. This is, needless to say, much easier to do.
I have been working on this for 20 years now, regularly attending the liturgy, which was my “school,” all the while living as a de facto “urban monk” (i.e. fighting on the “front lines,” living alone, not living in seclusion from the “world” in a monastery).
Now that I am back in St. Petersburg, I have recently had a profound experience of bringing the “work of the people” to the streets. In combination with my having found a new spiritual home in “The Church of All Saints Who Shone Forth in the Russian Land” in Victory Park, through this ongoing work, I am now able to live a spiritually satisfying life in peace and repentance, “loving thy neighbor as thyself” – the goal of the Orthodox way of life, which I was never really successful in establishing in any Western country where I lived as an “urban monk”, including Orthodox Greece.
To explain this, I need to explain the stages of my growth in understanding:
When I lived in St. Petersburg in 2013, I developed a “method of prayer” that I call the “Moscow Station practice.” I would intentionally go to the Moscow Station, where there was likely a sea of bodies, and simply work to be present as my “prayer.” Many people passing by, of course, conveyed to me the feeling of their “weight” pressing on me or pulling me down, and I overcame this feeling with active “prayer,” finding the source of my reaction within and transforming it into active love—usually toward the “heavy” person, which I had toward myself. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” so that I could remain myself.
I became accustomed to experiencing a certain sense of “arrival” within the contextual “weight of flesh” of passersby into the “perceptual volume” and “vibrational density” that I am accustomed to achieving as a unified presence in the “trinitarian communion” of the liturgy. I like to say that I “arrive” into this “perceptual volume” through my practice of “the work of the people” with an approach that is “at right angles” to what I call the “plane of bodies.” (45)
This is, of course, an abstract concept, which I will try to clarify: in the liturgy we rise from the “plane of bodies” into “liturgical time.” Each of us “arrives” in our one presence, in a trinitarian communion where the distinction between the two worlds of “male” and “female” no longer exists. In the practice of “Moscow Station” I was actually doing the opposite of what we do in the liturgy. That is, being collected, united, prayerful and fully aware of the “love of the Creator” descending upon us, “arriving” in the flow of bodies in the “plane of bodies.” I say that this “arrival” occurs “at a right angle” because, of course, the people we encounter always want to see us from the point of view of their sense of their presence within their “perceptual volume” and from within the “vibrational density of their perceptual volume.” As a rule, the “vibrational density of the perceptual volume” of passersby will not be in “trinitarian communion” with us. (Although this can happen too. I once had a priest come up to me when I was using the “Moscow Station” method and basically tell me “keep up the good work.”) So entering into “trinitarian communion” with passersby requires conscious WORK — i.e., “the work of the people.” And so the task is to “make room” for oneself in this context without disturbing others, i.e., loving them as oneself.
Through the practice of “Moscow Station,” I regularly experienced what I call “liturgical time” in the everyday world. (46)
This “Moscow Station” practice has also been somewhat effective in Denmark, which, like Russia, is a collectivist, albeit atheistic, society. However, it does not work in the context of American society. I discovered this when I briefly returned to the US after Denmark. Although I could usually “arrive at right angles” to the “plane of bodies” in any circumstance, this never resulted in more than a very brief experience of “liturgical time.” The difference between the two social contexts is that in Russia “sobornost” is still manifest, i.e., a “superorganismic” “connectedness” within the collective “love of the Russian people.” In contrast, in the “cult of individualism out of control” that is American society, there is also a kind of “superorganismic” “connectedness,” but it has nothing to do with love. It is actually quite scary – a terrifying feeling of being a narcissistic, self-satisfied ego-locus inside a spiritless machine. To be in “prayer” in that context, it is absolutely necessary to “swim against the current,” that is, to avoid falling into this “connectedness” at all costs. (47)
Now having fled the USA as a “spiritual refugee” and moved back to St. Petersburg, I discovered to my great satisfaction that I could expand the practice of “Moscow Station” so as not just to move “at right angles” to the more general “flow” in the “plane of bodies,” and thereby briefly experience “liturgical time,” but also to actively, consciously abide in prayer in this “flow” in “liturgical time” (at least for a while).
I called this extended “method of prayer” the practice of “Nevsky Prayer Walking.” I did this “prayer walk” every day in the flow of pedestrian traffic in the center of St. Petersburg (usually about 8 km) for several months. (48)
It invariably began with a feeling of “heaviness.” Everyone seemed very, very “heavy” to me. “Men”, “women” – all the same. I tried to be in “prayer” at the same time, which means simultaneously striving to relate myself to the “love of the Creator” and “remember myself”, and also “love my neighbors (others) as myself.” The goal was to transmit everything that came to me from the “love of the Creator” back to the people around me. It does not “belong” to me. I do not “own” it. The “Creator” loves everyone.
At first there arises the same definite feeling of “arrival” within the contextual “weight of flesh” of passers-by in the “perceptual volume” and “vibrational density” that I am accustomed to achieving as a unified presence in the “trinitarian communion” in the liturgy. Trying to become part of the “flow,” I did the same thing as in the liturgy – projecting “spiritual love” as a “spiritual substitute tension,” “pushing off” the feeling of “weight” in others (while holding the concept of “I love you” in my heart and fighting negative reactions or thoughts about the “heavy” person). Sometimes I had to stop and “arrive at right angles” for a few moments. Eventually I would get to the point where the “flow” did not feel so “heavy,” and I could begin to treat men and women differently. There are some nuances to this, but overall it was a process of “using blue as black.” By this I mean that with women I project “spiritual love” in a way that mimics the habitual action of male “black” carnal energy, and with men I project “spiritual love” in the chest, that is, “love” but in a way that mimics the tension of the habitual “chest-butting” male posturing. The goal is for each to become your lover in “blue” but have no attraction (or burden) in “black.” This means BEING the “yeast measure” that “raises the whole.” (49)
On a good day, I would eventually reach a “middle” where the “heaviness of the flesh” in general and the “fundamental tension” in particular no longer affected me. When I reached the “middle,” I often became acutely aware of the “love of the Creator” pouring out upon the Russian people. It is awe-inspiring, like one gigantic liturgy. And I cannot overstate the importance of the fact that this experience cannot, in fact, be had in the U.S.—the very existence of a “middle” from which to make this observation depends on “sobornost” – the “superorganismic” love of the Russian people, in which the “fundamental tension” between the separate worlds of “masculine” and “feminine” is resolved collectively (and probably also on the significant demographic prevalence of believers).
There is no “middle” in the U.S. such that the demographic prevalence of “believers” there is more or less irrelevant.
Notes:
(45) As explained earlier, by the “plane of bodies” I mean the “perceptual” “plane” in which the influence of the “weight of flesh” is evident.
(46) As explained earlier, by “liturgical time” I mean the “level” we reach in the “place” in “space” and “time” where the liturgy is celebrated, when we pass from the “plane of bodies” into unity in the “Mystical Body of Christ.”
(47) The sense of “peace” that comes from “going with the flow” in the “mechanical capitalist” USA has nothing to do with the “peace of Christ” and is, in my opinion, a completely false construct.
(48) I moved away from downtown, but now continue this practice every day, beginning with a ride on the metro that is, itself, an exercise in doing the “work of the people” en route to the “prayer walk” itself.
(49) It is indeed true that “blue” always “lifts” while “black” always “weighs down.”
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