Why Exile Is Essential – Excerpted from Chapter 1 of The Way of the Spirit – Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra

When is it, then, that a soul says: “I must live a Christian life, I must live differently?

When it acquires the sense that it is a soul in exile; when it realizes that it is something that has been cast away, and now exists outside of its proper place, outside of paradise, in a foreign land, beyond the borders within which it was made to dwell. That’s what “exiled” means. And when the soul becomes conscious of this, and remembers its place of origin, then it can say: “I must return to my home.”

It follows, then, that when the soul realizes it doesn’t have God; when it feels itself to be in a state of exile without a home, without a father, estranged from its creator—that it has become like an object long since discarded and having no real contact with God—then it can say, in its exile: I feed with swine and eat husks. I shall go back to my Father (Lk 15.16-18). 

This is when the soul begins to make progress: when it feels what Scripture calls the dividing wall of hostility (cf. Eph 2.14), the barrier that has risen up between us and God, and which separates us from Him. But if we don’t feel such a wall between us and God, if we don’t feel that we are exiles, then we haven’t even begun to think about the spiritual life.

The spiritual life, you see, begins with a kind of vision, with the feeling or perception of banishment, and this is not arrived at by means of any intellectual analysis or evaluation. I simply feel within myself the presence of a wall, a barrier, and I don’t know what’s beyond it. 

Thus when the soul realizes the distance between itself and God—a distance so great that no matter how loudly it cries out it will never be heard by God—then it will understand how utterly devastating it is not to be able to talk to God. At that point it will seek to approach Him, to bring Him close to itself, and itself close to Him. 

When the soul feels this condition of rejection and exile, that it’s been cast off and thrown aside—and this includes a soul that men may praise or flatter, and even one with a degree of purity, chastity, spiritual qualities, lofty aspirations, and inclinations for the divine—when such a soul, I say, finally understands that it’s been discarded, that it needs to find its place in history and in the common body of the Church, then it can say: “I’ll go and seek my true home.” It follows then that the spiritual life begins with the feeling of exile, of banishment, of an obstacle in our path, and with the desire to cease being an object that has been discarded and cast aside. And such a desire is perfectly natural: when you see something that’s fallen or been dropped, it’s natural to want to pick it up and put it back in its place. But if the soul doesn’t have this feeling, it can’t even begin to embark upon a spiritual life. It may live a Christian life, but only in a manner of speaking, only in appearance, only on an intellectual level, only within the limits of its own conceptions. But to the extent that this strong feeling is absent from our soul, we haven’t even begun to make a beginning. To use the language of the liturgy, we haven’t yet made the words “Blessed is our God” a real part of our life. 2 We’re still too far away to reach the beginning of the Midnight Service—never mind Matins—and from there to proceed to the Divine Liturgy, which will unite us to God, to the extent that this is possible for us. 

Thus the first element we need in order to embark on our path is the feeling of exile. Before us now is the shaken soul, the cast-away soul, closed in by four walls and unable to see a thing. This same soul, however, is thinking about breaching the barrier, about breaking down the walls within which it has come to live, and to live instead with God.  How must it proceed?

Here we need to know that, contrary to our expectations, there is no “must.” Such a word does not exist within the Christian life. The idea that something “must” be, or “must” take place, is a product of the intellect; it is something that I arrive at as a logical conclusion, a deduction based on something in the Gospels, or which Christ taught in his parables, or with respect to His ethical teachings to do this or that. But the word “must” has never moved anyone to do anything. On the contrary, it makes you feel like a slave and discourages you from moving forward. The force of “must” moves neither God, nor the heart. It pertains only to the logic of human deliberation, to the endurance of human determination, which as we all know is something that unravels and comes apart very easily.

The most fragile thing in the world is the human heart, along with all of its deliberations and determinations. The things about you that I love, I may later come to hate. And the things about you that I now hate may later cause me to fall in love with you. I may condemn you, and on the same grounds proclaim that you’re the best person in the world. I can exalt you to the skies, and at the same time wish you were in hell. I may decide to become a saint, and at that very moment become a devil.

You can see, then, that the expression “must” does not exist here. I can’t say: “What must I do now?” On its own, and prior to all intellectual deliberations, the soul has to act and move forward on the basis of what a moment ago we called a kind of vision, that is, on the basis of its inner perception and feeling for things. 

Let us enter more deeply into the main image that we have before us. Man is now cast out of paradise. His soul has been exiled. Outside the gates of Eden, he comprehends nothing but his own pain. And thus Scripture says: in pain you shall bring forth children (Gen 3.16), and in pain you shall sow and harvest the fruits of the earth (cf. Gen 3.18-19). Whatever you do will be accomplished in pain. 

When do we begin to feel this pain? From the moment we experience pleasure. Pain has its roots in pleasure. 3 And when did we begin to experience pleasure? When we realized we were naked. Remember what happened to Adam in paradise: he ate of the fruit and became naked (Gen 3.7). Moreover, we can say that, from the moment Adam began to think about tasting the forbidden fruit, he had already fallen and been reduced to nakedness. In this sense, Eve too, having entered into conversation with the serpent, was likewise already naked, but neither of them could see this until they had both eaten of the tree. But both of them were inwardly already naked, otherwise they would not have eaten of the fruit in the first place. Food, and the subsequent sensation of pleasure, merely revealed to them what had already become a fact.

Now note this very carefully, because the soul’s progress is of the greatest importance: we begin with pain, which is directly related to nakedness. The soul has to realize that it is naked—not simply something discarded—but something naked. It has to realize, in other words, that it is nothing. Who were Adam and Eve? 

In simple terms, they were people who walked with God, who dwelt with God.  They were God’s companions, God’s fellow travelers, and as such they were gods themselves! (cf. Jn 10.34; Ps 81.6). And yet in one single moment they became nothing at all, so utterly wretched that a mere snake was able to deceive them. And in this way, the brute beasts, over which Adam and Eve had been given authority (cf. Gen 1.28), were now able to rise up against them. That is how man became the most cowardly creature in history! 

Naked man is something tragically diminished in his being. He is nothing and has only the consciousness of his nakedness, only the awareness of his sin, only the knowledge that he is a sinner. And this does not mean that I say things like “I am a sinner,” or “I must go to confession,” but it is rather an existential situation in which the soul is much more profoundly aware of its sin. 

As we said a moment ago, Adam and Eve were in a sense already naked, although they were not conscious of their nakedness. It was only when they sinned that they saw that they were naked and subsequently clothed themselves. Like them, the soul must also feel that it is stripped of every virtue, devoid of all holiness, bereft of divinity. It must realize that it is submerged in sin, clothed in nothing but the leaves of its own iniquities. 

Will the soul, then, be able to feel this sin? Yes, but not in the same way one feels an object in the physical world. I can’t say to you: “Feel sin!” It’s not something that can be produced on demand. It’s an action, an activity, a response, a step taken by the soul itself. And it is something the soul must do on its own, figure out for itself, because no power on earth, not even God Himself, can make the soul sense its own sinfulness. Any soul can go to confession, read spiritual books, pray much, and shed copious tears. But all of that can take place without the sense of sin that we are describing here.

When the soul acquires this feeling of nakedness and says, “I am naked, I must clothe myself,” then it has the possibility to feel the need for repentance, the need to be properly clothed. But arriving at the place of repentance is another matter entirely. It’s one thing to be naked and another thing to manufacture clothing. The two things are miles apart. 

The feeling of spiritual nakedness—which might last for years or only an instant—is the most critical moment in my life, because at that point one of two things will happen: either I’ll get up and get dressed or I’ll remain naked. 4 In other words, I’ll either present myself to God in my nakedness and say, “I have sinned,” or I’ll try to hide from God, like Adam and Eve. And when God says: “Adam, where are you?”, I’ll say: “Hiding, because I’m naked” (cf. Gen 3. 9-10). And when I emerge from my hiding place, He’ll see my fig leaves. 

Why do we so often choose to conceal ourselves and cover things up? For the simple reason that it is a terrible thing for us to realize that we are nothing. Do you know what it means to go from thinking that you’re special and important, from being respected publicly, from thinking that you’ve done great things, from being talented, wonderful, good-looking, charming, and I don’t know what else besides, to recognizing that, on the contrary, you’re naked and of no consequence whatsoever? It requires strength to accept that, a lot of strength. And yet we can’t even accept the slightest blemish that we might have, or any fault, failure, error or sin that we may have committed, without covering it up with a lie, and then covering up that lie with a second one, and then the second with a third. 

A person may conceal his or her nakedness by means of an inferiority complex, by acts of aggression, by self-justification, by donning various masks, and by many other means. Let me give you an example. It will be one taken from external experience, because I can’t tell you anything else: that would be too deep. 

Your professor asks you a question in class, and all the other students make fun of you because you don’t know the answer. You get up, leave school, and go straight home. You stand in front of the mirror, fix yourself up, and put on your make-up, even though there’s no one there to see you. But there, in front of the mirror, all by yourself—with that “self” which is everything to you—you can assure yourself that: “I, who they made fun of, am beautiful.” 

In this way, I seek to regain my balance, to compensate for the weakness exposed by my teacher and my classmates. At such a moment, when I’m in front of the mirror, I’m not standing there in my nakedness, in my inability to answer questions, but instead I’m standing on what I believe are my good qualities, such as my beauty, be it genuine or the artificial effect of make-up. And such “beauty” maybe physical, emotional, intellectual, or even “spiritual,” as we are now in the habit of saying. But it makes no difference. Whatever it is, it’s a substitute for my nakedness.

Such strategies of denial also involve concealment from myself. What does that mean? It means that, even though I’m naked, I’ll live as though I were not, and thus live a double life. Or I may refuse to grow and progress, as though I weren’t naked at all. And this is something much more terrible, for it is the rejection of reality, and such a rejection can only have tragic consequences for me. 

Life is full of people like that. They know they’re sinners, they know they’re naked, and yet they go through life doing the very things which they hate, which disgust them, which they know are beneath them. And they know that they must somehow silence the terrible cry of their conscience, which torments them (cf. Rom 7.15-20). 

The soul’s other alternative is to accept its situation and say: “I’ll do something about my nakedness. I will declare my sin. I will confess my sin and my nakedness” (cf. Ps 31.5; 37.18). And naked though I be, I will nevertheless present myself to God. I’ll tell Him: “You clothe me.” And that takes great strength. To turn to God as if nothing else in the world exists requires tremendous honesty and authenticity. And what are the means by which I will either accept my nakedness or pursue a life of concealment? That which we call the ego, the self. Not the ego in the sense of boasting and selfishness, but rather in the sense of an inner balance, a proper self-knowledge and equilibrium. 

Here we are reminded of Saint Augustine.  For many years he suffered and wanted to repent. Why did he suffer so? Because he was in conflict with his ego. During one period of his life, he subjected his ego to philosophy, which barred his way to the path of salvation. Before that, the heresy of Manichaeism stood in his way, and its system of false knowledge served as a covering for his nakedness. 7 But afterwards he humbled himself, and, together with his young child, was baptized and entered the Church. It was then that he discovered his nakedness, and clothed himself in the garments of righteousness that God had prepared for him. And afterwards he even became a bishop. 

This balance, this well-regulated scale upon which so much depends, is our inner disposition, our inner character and attitude of will. And this disposition, this internal lever, is the ego. It is that upon which we lean and rely. What does the ego desire? One thing only: either to affirm or deny itself, according to the words of Christ: If anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself (Mt 16.24; cf. Mk 8.34). This, then, is the crucial moment in my life when I’ll either deny or accept myself, that is, my fallen, lower self. This is the point at which I will either acknowledge my nakedness or cover myself with fig leaves. But if I remain naked—note this carefully—if I present myself naked before God, I embark upon the third stage of the soul’s progression.

Now we are at the beginning of the journey, the point of departure. The progression that unfolds before us is an ascent, a power conveying us upwards. More precisely, it is a movement of return, a holy tremor of the soul, which the soul generates on its own. Think, for a moment, about the sharp, spontaneous, inner reaction I may have if you say something offensive or hurtful to me. This is similar to what we mean when we speak of a “tremor” in the soul, namely: a strong, spontaneous, inner reaction. 

The soul, therefore, must enact this moment of conversion. It must return to the place from which it came forth, it must return to the hands of God. Moreover the soul must return in its poverty. Does this mean that man was poor in paradise? Remember Adam. He was rich. He had the whole universe for his own. But then the serpent said to him: “What did God tell you? Not to eat of the fruit of the tree? But if you want to become god, if you want to rule over the whole world, eat this fruit” (cf. Gen 3.1-5). 

In response to the serpent’s subtle wisdom (cf. Gen 3.1), Adam acknowledged his spiritual poverty, and so he ate, in order to become rich, to become a god! Our own soul is now in that same position. It has just eaten of the fruit. Indeed it has just realized that all along it has been eating of that fruit, and must now return to its former poverty, that is, to what it once thought was its poverty, realizing now that such poverty was in fact its beauty, its glory, its divinity, the very threshold of heaven itself. As we have said, the soul must make this movement of return. Let me put it somewhat differently: it must make a circular movement. What does “circular” mean in this context? Why do I use this word? A movement from one place to another may be linear and direct. Thus we say that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and this may be true, but it also distances you from your place of origin. Other forms of movement may be broken, haphazard, and circuitous. Still other forms are circular, bringing you back to yourself. A movement like that encircles you. The soul’s “circular” movement, therefore, describes the soul’s propensity to unfold and extend outward, as well as its movement of return and reinstatement within itself. 

It follows, then, that we possess the power of return in order to retrace our steps back to the place from which we were cast out. This is why such a return is always a movement toward our own self. Of course, no matter what we do we can never actually escape ourselves. All of our outward movements—our desire for knowledge and power, our alleged virtues and various aspirations—are simply specious substitutes; so much shabby clothing behind which we seek to conceal our nakedness. The perfection of the circle, however, keeps us within the sphere of God, and, at the same time, at home in our own lives. This is why I called it a movement of return, because it brings us back. And it is circular because we abide within our true selves, we remain within our own being. 

Now this propensity to return to myself, this circulation of the self, this progression toward the recognition of my nakedness, creates within us another impulse: the desire for flight. In other words, now that I’ve finally returned to myself, I find that I want to take care of myself, to work on myself. 9 And where do we work best: in the midst of noise and turmoil, or in a state of tranquility? In the midst of an unruly crowd or when you’re by yourself? Clearly, in solitude. The soul, then, when it has reached this stage and wants to return to itself and to God, has a strong impulse to flee. It experiences a powerful attraction from another pole. 

The impulse to flee brings us in turn to the question of voluntary exile. What I mean is this: if I want to flee from here, I have to forget about you, I have to become a stranger to you. As a result, the feeling, the attraction, the disposition, the inclination, and the propensity towards flight, create within me the desire for exile, because, as you know, there can be no flight without exile. Finally, the inclination, the feeling, and the need for exile will lead me into isolation. Not psychological isolation, which is artificial, but real isolation, that of the spirit. 

When I’m psychologically isolated, I say things like “nobody loves me,” or “nobody cares about me,” or “nobody wants me,” and so on. Here we are, for example, all gathered together, and you say to yourself: “The Elder hasn’t looked at me once! But he’s looked at all the others.” That’s psychological isolation. It’s a false state of mind, a lie, an illusion. And the soul can’t be nourished with illusions, because anything false is a concealment of our real selves. It’s a fig leaf. 

Real isolation is spiritual: me and God alone. You cease to be of any importance to me. I’m not interested in whether you love me or think about me. I’m not even interested in whether you’re here with me at all. I’m interested only in myself, not in the way we said at the beginning, but in the real sense: in order to discover my nakedness. Just me before God. Me and You, who are my God.

Real isolation of this sort is a basic requirement of the spiritual life: I can’t become a saint unless I am alone, isolated. But in order to be isolated I must flee. I must attain the status of a stranger, an exile. Our aim is to know God and remain exclusively with Him. But this is extremely difficult because we’ve grown accustomed to perceiving things by means of our bodily senses, and now we have to learn to live and feel with our spiritual senses. The shift from the bodily to the spiritual requires nothing less than a conversion, because the awakening of our spiritual senses is the fruit of repentance (metanoia), which literally means a “change of mind” or “mentality.” And in order for me to become a new creation, in order for me to undergo spiritual renewal and experience a complete and total change in my soul, I must experience and feel God as a living reality. 

When we speak of “flight”—and mark this well—we are speaking primarily about an inner state of the soul, and not necessarily about physical withdrawal to a particular place. 10 Nevertheless, the tendency to enact a physical flight remains strong, because we are embodied creatures and experience the world in very palpable and physical ways. And it is difficult to feel alone, to experience isolation, when we are in the midst of a busy crowd, surrounded by noise, or otherwise entangled within the world. Thus we feel the impulse to retreat physically into a place of solitude and tranquility….

What is important is to know the best way for me to hasten towards God. What is essential is that I exist in a state of voluntary exile, physical or otherwise, so that I am a stranger to the world and thus to a certain extent able to sense the presence of God.  

With the necessity for separation—with this initial feeling of estrangement, this initial exile and isolation from others—comes yet another feeling: the realization that such conditions are not enough for me. I need God. I still don’t have Him. And thus I am brought to the point where I need to seek Him. Do you remember the previous stage, the feeling of nakedness that leads to repentance? At that stage I was led to the desire for repentance, although I hadn’t yet actually repented. Now I have simply advanced along the way of the cyclical path, drawing ever closer to myself.  And it is that movement that brings me to the point where I need to seek God.  

The soul now confronts a question: How shall I seek God? And this, you see, constitutes the soul’s combat, its titanic struggle to regain entry into paradise. I desire God. I proceed toward Him. I overcome the great difficulty of deciding between clothing myself with fig-leaves or saying: “My God, I’m naked. I’ve sinned against You. I want You.” I’ve passed that stage, now I’m moving forward. Now I have conceived and bear within myself the idea of searching for God. How should I proceed?

The first thing we need to realize is that now there are two of us: me and God. Even so, God and I are still far apart. I have sinned, I have been separated from God, but now I am seeking Him. And He, too, is seeking me, because He loves me. Thus we have have two movements: of God towards me, and of me towards God.  

Beginning, therefore, from the pain into which I have fallen, my aim is to find what I was seeking, to arrive at the place of true pleasure, to regain the enjoyment of the delights of paradise. This means that I will make my own the very pain into which I unwittingly fell. And I will do this precisely because this is what I am capable of doing. I have neither God nor the strength for anything else. I am something that is broken. All I can do is feel pain. Thus I will take upon myself a life of asceticism, of spiritual struggle and exercise.  

In a manner of speaking, then, asceticism is like putting on my best clothes. It’s my preparation in order to seek, want, actively desire, love, and, finally, receive God. Even so, He and I are still separated by a great distance. What we’re attending to now are the preparations, just as we would sweep the house in preparation for a visit by our spiritual father. Thus I give expression to my inner disposition by enduring the coldness and filth that is within me, by accepting my nakedness and acknowledging it before God. In doing this I express my desire for God.  Asceticism is the way I cry out to him.