Translated from:
Dautais, Philippe. Éros et liberté: Clés pour une mutation spirituelle. Bruyères-le-Châtel: Nouvelle Cité, 2016, pp 7-18
If we look closely, these two words — eros and freedom — touch the heart of the matter, personally and collectively. They lie at the root of humanity’s dynamism and weave the fabric of history. Here we will consider eros in its full dimension, in its primordial depth, which Jean-Pierre Vernant calls “primordial eros,” “present since time immemorial,” and which shares in the upsurge of life at every instant.1 It is from within this dynamic that we will look at the different expressions of eros, notably the one Plato calls “popular eros.” What will particularly hold our attention is the relation between eros and freedom as the possibility of giving meaning, of orienting history positively, or of letting oneself slip toward chaos. Eros can blossom into love, as the fullness of relationship, or on the contrary be a factor of destruction.
At what is original in ourselves, eros is power and the engine of life. Nothing is accomplished without eros, without the vital impetus. Through it, the forces of life are set in motion, interact, and become fruitful. Each person carries within himself qualities, aptitudes, competencies that will expand and bear fruit if they are energized by eros. The function of eros is to make life truly alive, provided it is embraced from this perspective. Human beings often have great difficulty establishing a right relation with this life-power, channeling it, and finding the paths of its flourishing. Recognized and integrated, it can lead a person toward the fullness of life; but if he allows himself to be overwhelmed by those inner forces, they can become destructive. Eros proves to be a devouring fire that must be tamed so as not to suffer the backdraft. This is a permanent challenge laid upon the human being, a challenge that impels him or her to acquire an inner maturity which we will define here as a capacity for integration and an awakening of consciousness. The management of fire has been a constant human concern. It stands at the heart of Greek myths and of the founding texts of humanity. It remains a central axis from which the questions of good and evil, of life and death, emerge. To detach these notions from their bond with eros leads us toward a moralism without roots and of little help in facing existential challenges. By contrast, recovering this bond places us before our responsibility and our freedom, both personally and collectively.
We are passing through a period marked by the surge of eros in the continual assertion of freedom. This tone is inscribed in every domain: cultural, sociological, economic. We want to be able to enjoy everything, right away, without hindrance to our freedom. Limits are then experienced as constraints we will try to push back, even to erase. The general tendency today is to make borders disappear, both cultural and natural. Yet limits and borders define the separation between outside and inside for the sound management of flows. Skin is a good example. It envelops the whole organism; in so doing, it defines the distinction between outside and inside and, at the same time, it is porous and thereby allows adaptation to the environment for a proper regulation of internal balance. Erasing borders weakens the safeguarding of the organism’s integrity and thus diminishes its capacity to sustain exchanges. The more porous the borders, the harder it is to manage flows. This reality is characteristic of a pathological state. In such a state, the dynamism of eros is transformed into malaise, into illness, into a devouring fire that consumes and destroys. At every level, the right relation to eros makes structures and boundaries necessary.
Early in my life, I was confronted with the necessity of this right relation. My inner balance depended on it. Outwardly, I had to bear the pressure of conditionings — physical, cultural, and social. I perceived the outer world as strange and alien, yet I had to accept it on pain of being rejected. I was afraid of losing myself in it, or more precisely, of losing my soul there. Inwardly, I stood before an immensity, an infinite, which had surged up in bursts during experiences of the numinous.2 To safeguard my inner balance, I had to assimilate the codes of the outer world and enter into the deciphering of the inner world in order to make it an ally, even though it presented itself as a threat.
This, I did not put into words at the time, but I was inhabited by a quest for understanding and by a thirst for meaning that proved insatiable. These challenges were stimulating. Through them, life posed questions to me that I had to answer. First there was the dusk — indeed the night with its dangers — then, thanks to providential encounters, the lifting of the veils. This path led through the body — through anchoring in the body, through physical and psychic structuring — as though one first had to plant roots in the earth and secure the foundations. Then came the almost simultaneous encounter with Annick de Souzenelle3 and with the Desert Fathers of Egypt.4
With Annick, I discovered the biblical meaning of Man,5 of Adam. Adam, a being of desire, seized within the movement from image to likeness; called to name the Hayoth (Gen 2:19), the “energies of life,” in order to integrate them and thereby to associate them with the process of spiritual growth. Adam, a being-in-becoming, whose vocation is to attain the “I Am” by disposing his inner soil for the growth of the Yod, the divine Son whom he is potentially. A path of fulfillment presented in the Gospels in three stages or three baptisms: of water, of fire, and of the skull.6
Her perceptive reading of Genesis opens onto the dialogical universe of symbol. Heaven and earth, light and darkness, the Waters above and the Waters below — though distinguished, are not separated. A cord binds them; information circulates. The whole visible universe takes root in the Word that founds its reality of being. Nothing is separate; everything is bound to everything; all communicates, all is in interrelation and interdependence — that is to say, everything is alive and participates in an immense weaving, a weaving that articulates unity and diversity. For an organism to develop, it must be in relation with its environment; it is coded by a specific information that configures it and makes it to be what it is. An acorn bears within itself the “oak” information. Every seed carries the information of the plant it will become. Is this information the result of random combinations, or did it preside over the arrangements that led to the formation of DNA and RNA molecules? A human DNA molecule contains three billion nucleotides, and the order of their arrangement on the DNA is known. By what law were these nucleotides arrayed? Is it a matter of chance, or did precise information preside over their ordering? In other words, does language precede the arrangement of letters, or did the letters combine by chance to form a coherent language? Is the universe of the living intelligible? If it is, as Einstein thought, might it not be an immense library available to potential readers? Or is it empty of meaning, the result of random combinations that by good fortune led to the advent of life and of the human being?
We will take the side of the first option and consider that the human being, endowed with intelligence, is capable of deciphering the language of nature and of gathering the information contained in the depths of the living universe. From all time, he has listened to nature and has progressively elaborated a true medicinal science — proof of the close bond between nature and the human being. Plant essences do not heal solely by the supply of substances; they also deliver information capable of re-balancing the human organism.
In human experience, language is inherent to dialogue; it is built within the relational universe. Is it the same for the cosmos? Is its structure dialogical? Is it the place of an immense dialogue? This is what the Bible, and then the Fathers of the Church, affirm. The book of Genesis expresses it clearly: the cosmos springs from spoken words. At the root of each created element is a word — a word given, awaiting a response. It falls to the human being to decipher this language by a vertical, symbolic, poetic reading, in order to enter into a constructive dialogue with the Author of the words.
Annick de Souzenelle devoted herself particularly to this reading. With her, everything took on meaning. In every Hebrew letter, every word, every narrative, the biblical message became coherent. It revealed itself as the unfolding of the first word: Bereshit, which she translates as “in the principle is the Son.” I then perceived that her entire teaching is founded on Bereshit, the axis of all biblical revelation. “Son” is the one who, conscious of bearing the Source within, has the vocation to reveal it and to translate it, in a singular way, in words and deeds. Becoming a son and coming to oneself — to the “I” — proved to be the same thing. This is what gave meaning to the trajectory of my existence.
To embark on such an adventure, it was necessary to be guided and to find a marked path. Extraordinarily, that path was proposed to me at the same time by an Orthodox priest who was present at the session led by Annick de Souzenelle. In response to my questions, he spoke to me for the first time about the Desert Fathers of Egypt. My enthusiasm was such that every year, for about twenty years, I went to Wadi Natrun, between Cairo and Alexandria, to meet those who stand in that lineage.
In the fourth century, after the recognition of the Christian religion in the year 313 by the Roman emperor Constantine, thousands of men withdrew into the Egyptian desert, to preserve the oral testimony they had received from the apostles and to live evangelical maximalism far from the world’s agitation. In response to an inner call, they sought to live an intense relationship with “the One who is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves.” They understood well that the question of God is bound up with what is original in the human being. They identified this origin with what the Bible calls the “image of God,” the reflection of the divine Presence in the heart of the Human. By turning toward the origin, toward the Source from which transcendence springs, they believed they could approach the mystery of life and of being.
Thus the quest for the origin corresponded to a thirst for life, to an aspiration to be, and to the recognition of inner beauty. For these elders, this innate desire, this mysterious aspiration, is interior prayer.
In this sense, to pray is to be one with life; it is to enter the dynamism of life and of the living, through relationship with the One who makes all things to be. In this spirit, these thirsting souls, drunk with God, plunged into a spiritual adventure called philokalia, which in Greek means “love of beauty.” The Philokalic tradition7 — whose foundational texts were first published in Venice in 1782 — is today a living tradition and a point of reference, a support for those who aspire to live what is essential at the heart of the existential, the one thing needful.
The Philokalic approach was luminous for me. It brought to light key points of the spiritual life: the importance of desire, the therapeutic dynamic, spiritual combat, and the necessary acquisition of discernment of spirits for the right fulfillment of the potentialities inscribed in every human being. If, as the Bible affirms, Adam is created in the image of God, then Adam’s vocation is to become fully and consciously what he is in potency — this in his two dimensions, heavenly and earthly, spiritual and cosmic. To say that Man is created in God’s image is to name a constitutive aspect of himself that escapes any cosmic hold and any genetic determinism; it is to name a capacity for transcendence and for freedom. By this fact, he has the possibility of differentiating himself from the cosmic elements — recognizing them in order to integrate them, rather than being under their sway. At every instant life solicits Man and gives him occasions to discover the riches he bears within, at his own origin, to set them in motion, to make them live in a right relation to that origin. If he does not bring into operation the powers of life that are being called upon — if they are repressed — they will act in him despite himself and thus take on a death-dealing character. This articulation demands particular attention, so characteristic is it of human processes. Hence the necessity of discernment, lest one go astray, miss the mark, or fail of the goal — so as to fight the good fight and thus arrive safely at harbor. The maximalist experience of these “fools for God” opened a new, well-marked path, still alive today. This way inscribes itself within a tradition (a transmission) of spiritual experience that gives pride of place to the therapeutic dynamic, far from any moralism. Every therapy is founded on a process that passes through the gaining of awareness — through naming, accepting reality, and then dis-identifying oneself,8 so as no longer to be under the sway of the wounds and mechanisms that act in us in spite of ourselves. It is a process of liberation, of purification, to come to be as a person. Where moralism imprisons within a judgment, categorizes, and condemns, the therapeutic dynamic opens onto a possibility of liberation and transformation. We know it well: moralism engenders guilt and introduces an inner division, whereas the therapeutic process, by analyzing the psyche, tends toward knowledge of the inner movements and toward the re-appropriation of oneself, toward inner unity.
The novice who arrived in the desert had to entrust himself to an elder, to reveal to him his thoughts and states of soul, so as to be led toward discernment of spirits — the science of sciences. Discernment which, in the Breath of the Spirit, is acquired in humility through a long labor uniting maturity in prayer with purification of the heart.
The first stage is called praxis — practice. It takes root in a Philokalic vision, a quest for inner beauty. To attain it, the spring must be cleared of sand; the deep heart must be uncluttered so that, like a mirror, it may clearly reflect the divine presence. Praxis is the necessary work of purifying the heart-mind in a divine-human cooperation. It consists in a true psycho-analysis in the primary sense — an analysis of the movements of the psyche — in order better to differentiate oneself from them and acquire “authority over,” rather than being “under the sway of,” these movements. According to the Fathers, this dynamic is insufficient by itself; it must be completed by a cultivation of attention and by the necessary interior combat. This is what we will consider in the chapters that follow:
“The spring, which ceaselessly bursts forth, thirsts to be drunk.” This saying of Saint Augustine explains by itself why the Fathers of the Philokalia, in the spirit of the Gospels, insisted on receptivity. Just as “the sun shines on the good and on the evil,” so too “the light enlightens everyone coming into the world” (Mt 5:45); grace is poured out upon all, but not all welcome it (the parable of the sower is explicit in this regard). The light shines, but it appears — becomes manifest — only where there is receptivity. Hence the emphasis on the purification of the heart together with the purification of the gaze. The real is the Real; to perceive it, one needs “eyes to see and ears to hear.” How many times in the Gospels does Jesus exclaim: “They have eyes and do not see; they have ears and do not hear.” The Real is veiled by appearances, by what falls under the senses. What offers itself to sight is only one aspect of reality, and it is further altered by our subjective perception, which is tinted by our projections, our representations, and the idea we form of things. One then understands the link between praxis and the acquisition of discernment.
To want to follow these athletes of the desert is certainly not within everyone’s reach. Nevertheless, they have been beacons for generations of Christians. I propose that we listen to them and let ourselves be inspired by their wisdom, to apply it in our daily lives and to shed light on the processes unfolding within our societies.
Following the broad lines of the Philokalic teaching — handed down notably by Evagrius Ponticus,9 St Isaac the Syrian,10 St Maximus the Confessor,11 and many other great figures of Christian mysticism — we will highlight the relationship between eros and freedom, between nature and person, so as better to situate the spiritual path of the human being. Let us note that, for these elders, the notions of good and evil cannot qualify realities in themselves, but only their use. These notions have meaning only in relation to freedom. This vision orients us toward the future and the possibility of transformation. At every moment, we have the possibility of letting our relationship evolve positively and constructively — to the cosmos, to the other, to matter and to money, to ourselves — within the opening to One greater than ourselves within ourselves. It is always possible to readjust, to open our eyes to the depth of reality, to emerge from distorted or perverted relations, and to place ourselves within a dynamic of growth. This leads us to take the measure of our personal responsibility with regard to our own becoming and to that of humanity.
See Jean-Pierre Vernant, L’Univers, les dieux, les hommes (Paris: Seuil, 1999).
Term first used by Rudolf Otto (1869–1937) to describe an experience of being — the emergence of an inner light that bears a power of transformation.
Annick de Souzenelle probed the biblical text in the original Hebrew with passion and acuity for sixty years. Grounded in the original Christian spirituality, rich in a great knowledge of Hebrew and in a deep interior experience, she opens illuminating and stimulating avenues of reading that speak to the heart. She has notably brought to light ontological laws that are the fundamental keys to the world’s transformation and has developed an anthropology that situates each human being within the dynamic of his or her spiritual fulfillment. With my wife Élianthe, we had the immense privilege of cooperating with her for thirty-five years, notably at the Sainte-Croix Center where, over five sessions per year, she came to give her teaching. She is the author of numerous reference works, the best known of which are: Le Symbolisme du corps humain; Alliance de feu (vols. 1 & 2); La Lettre, chemin de vie; Va vers toi; works published by Albin Michel.
Hermits of the fourth century. Standing within the original breath of the evangelical way, they exerted a major influence throughout Christendom and inspired Christian monasticism, both Eastern and Western. They allow us today to rediscover the freshness of the evangelical spirit of the first Christians.
We have chosen to use a capital H when speaking of the Human Being (Homme) and a lowercase h when speaking of “man” in relation to “woman” (homme).
Translator’s note: i.e., the baptism of Golgotha.
The French translation of the foundational Philokalic texts was published in eleven fascicles by the Abbey of Bellefontaine under the title Philocalie des Pères neptiques, and also by Desclée de Brouwer and JC Lattès in two volumes under the title La Philocalie.
See my book Si tu veux entrer dans la vie. Thérapie et croissance spirituelle (Bruyères-le-Châtel: Nouvelle Cité, 2013), 121.
Evagrius Ponticus, a fourth-century monk, collected the testimonies of the Desert Fathers of Egypt and was the first editor of the Philokalia.
St Isaac the Syrian, a seventh-century monk, remains a very influential spiritual master today. Continuing from Evagrius, he is the great singer of the love of God.
St Maximus the Confessor, a great Byzantine theologian of the seventh century, achieved a synthesis of the Philokalia.