Human Nature
“Pleasure and distress, desire and fear, and what follows from them, were not originally created as elements of human nature, for in that case they would form part of the definition of that nature. I follow in this matter St. Gregory of Nyssa, who states that these things were introduced as a result of our fall from perfection, being infiltrated into that part of our nature least endowed with intelligence. Through them the blessed and Divine Image in man was at the time of our transgression immediately replaced by a clear and obvious likeness to animals. Once the true dignity of the intelligence had been obscured, it was inevitable and just that human nature should be chastised by those witless elements which it had introduced into itself. In this way God in His providence wisely made man conscious of the nobility of his intellect.” ~The Philokalia
Elements of Human Nature
The Philokalia says that fear, pleasure, desire and distress were not originally part of human nature. This, of course, refers to material pleasures and desires, not spiritual ones. Material pleasures, desires, and fears were not part of our nature when we were spirits only. It is only when the Great Fall into matter happened that we developed such emotions and thoughts. The author of this section of the Philokalia (the book has many authors) is correct in relating these thoughts and emotions to those of animals. It is our animal self that has those thoughts and emotions. We must learn to overcome this weakness by emphasizing the spiritual and not giving in to readily to that animal thinking.
Least Endowed with Intelligence
In the quote from “The Philokalia”, this sentence makes sense only if you replace the word “intelligence” with “consciousness”. Perhaps the word was used differently when the quote was written, but today, especially in Cosolargy, we equate intelligence to the physical body and mind while consciousness is a more universal and spiritual kind of thinking. So it would be better to say that this lower part of nature is least endowed with spiritual consciousness.
True Dignity Obscured
The part of our “true dignity” that is obscured is the spirit and the spiritual consciousness, not the intellect. The intellect is in fact doing much of the obscuring rather than itself being obscured. We can also blame the materialistic societies we live in for teaching us from an early age to emphasize the physical and mental and ignore the spiritual, or at least push it to the background. But if humanity is to be saved, we must reverse that thinking. We must put the spiritual before the physical, God before Man, and let the awakened Soul rule the intellect (or ego), not the other way around. It is not that the physical is evil, but that it is limited and doomed to end, while the spiritual is permanent. The problem, however, is that most people don’t want to bother awakening their spiritual faculties, or don’t think it is necessary. As a result, the spiritual self stays dormant and can’t take control.
Human Nature Chastised
Part of what the quote means when it says that the human nature is “chastised” is that there are consequences for doing the stupid things our mind tells us to do, often in the form of Karma. What we give out is what is sent back to us. If we are indifferent to the needs of others, they will be indifferent to us. If we are greedy, Nature will be greedy with us. If we are killers, we are doomed to die.
Another way that our “human nature” (spiritual nature) is chastised, is that even when our spiritual faculties are dormant, they somehow “whisper” to us when we do things against that true nature. Most of us can feel these pings of guilt we call a conscious. Some people have unfortunately become so materialistic that those spiritual pings either don’t happen, or are not noticed. Such people never feel there is anything wrong with anything they do. Such people are unlikely to ever be convinced to awaken and develop their spiritual Self. For everyone else, don’t wait for those nudges from your conscious, start the process of awakening and developing your spiritual faculties now.
From the SOLAR WIND collection by Harold Boulette.









