The Way of a Pilgrim

panca kanga

Padawan Learner
I was going to post this to a thread on the role of Russia, but I cannot find that any more. Anyway, as this post is about a book it is probably better to send it to this book board.

There has been some recent discussion in various places in the forum about about the role and civilisation of Russia, about the nature of the Russian soul, about what Russia, in her uniqueness has offered to the world in the past and what it may be able to offer in the future. So when reading through the forward to a small book and coming to these words:

One incorrigibly secular friend of mine, a Russian-born philosopher, once surprised me by saying, "The three greatest books in Russian are War and Peace, The Idiot and The Way of a Pilgrim. When I asked him why he had included the latter he replied, "Because it breathes the rich leather-and-incense perfume of old Russia with unique force."

The book I held was indeed The Way of a Pilgrim and I immediately thought it may have an interest to some here.

The Way of a Pilgrim is translated from a 19C Russian book called 'Откровенные рассказы странника духовному своему отцу' - literally, Candid tales of a pilgrim to his spiritual father. I have bought it at least four times over the years, either to give away again or to loose in one of my peripatetic homeless episodes. I have read and re-read it many more times and always found it inspiring. However it is not entirely for your inspiration that I mention it here but as an opportunity to breath the perfume of old Russia.

The Way of a Pilgrim is a short book simply written that purports to be the autobiography of a Russian pilgrim as related to and written down by a friend. Whether this is strictly a true account of its genesis does not really effect the current purpose if the book is able to reliably pass on something of the context of a holy life and its vivifying truths lived within a genuine Russian milieu. For me it does succeed in this and perhaps that success has even had something to do with my current lifestyle.

As a book to study within a Forth Way School I do not expect that you will find its contents to be so congruent. The pilgrim's life style and specific practices are hardly apposite to the 4th Way approach. I just mention this to you. But then, as I have already written, I am not suggesting that you read the book as a manual or as an guide to The Work. In terms of a religious practice the book is concerned with Hesychasm, the practice of ceaseless prayer - the Prayer of the Heart. The book itself is informed through and through by the influence of The Philokalia, an 18th Century compendium of the works of various Farthers of the Orthodox churches.

I hope these comments do not put you off. It is a short book that takes no effort, indeed is easy to read. It is permeated with a practical spirituality a simplicity and a humility which when acting in concert are so hard to counterfeit (in my experience at least) that they are an assay of genuineness. Surely it does have something of the lingering scent of old Russia about it?

The translation with which I am most familiar is in English by R.M.French. First done I think in the 1930s. There are several more translations available in English, including this online version: _http://desertfathers.webs.com/thewayofthepilgrim.htm . I am not sure if this web version is the full text, but a fairly quick scroll down through it seems to suggest that it is all there. This site is also offering a version of The Philokalia though I don't know how they get around the copyright. (Don't worry, I am successfully combating the urge to segue into a review of those tomes.)

The copy I have in front of me is a 2001 translation by Gleb Pokrovsky.The forward I quoted from is by Andrew Harvey. In his introduction Pokrovsky explains: "This edition provides an abridged version of the text of The Way of a Pilgrim with a facing page commentary to explain the names, references and other details found in the text." The commentary is a useful help with the foreign context but Pokrovsky does not explain and I do not understand the need for abridgement.

Enjoy.
 
Greetings Panca Kanga:

I want to chime in and join you in your interest in The Way of the Pilgrim.

I was moved to read it after Jacob Needleman’s Lost Christianity opened up some revelations to me, about what the earliest Christians were trying to pass on to us.

I found The Way of the Pilgrim extremely interesting, too. After deep consideration, I decided that the pilgrim’s way is not my way, just now. But that doesn’t mean I might not take it up at some future point. Right now I think my way involves being fully in the world.

Since reading the” Way”, I have been buried alive in Stephan Huller’s website (that provides more information than you every wanted to know) about the form of early Christianity that arose in Alexandria Egypt. This branch of Christianity was severely repressed by the Roman Church, starting about 170 AD. But Eastern Orthodox Christianity retains a lot from this very early tradition, and the little Pilgrim is obviously a direct heir to it.

I begin to think that Alexandrian (Marcosian) Christianity is indeed the “Lost Christianity” that so many of us are looking for. I begin to think that this Alexandrian tradition is also what Gurdjieff was looking for when he started his many travels.

I smelled genuine spiritual wisdom in the first part of The Way of the Pilgrim, but the second part began to stink of priestly righteousness. I smell the perfume of Wisdom in the words of Clement of Alexandria that are quoted by Stephan Huller; but the words of the fathers of the Roman Catholic Church--Irenaeus and his ilk--smell like the neo-con political spew that gave us the W Bush administration and the world we live in at the present.

I share your perception that the little Pilgrim was on to something really BIG.
 
ka said:
Greetings Panca Kanga:

I want to chime in and join you in your interest in The Way of the Pilgrim.

I was moved to read it after Jacob Needleman’s Lost Christianity opened up some revelations to me, about what the earliest Christians were trying to pass on to us.

I found The Way of the Pilgrim extremely interesting, too. After deep consideration, I decided that the pilgrim’s way is not my way, just now. But that doesn’t mean I might not take it up at some future point. Right now I think my way involves being fully in the world.

Since reading the” Way”, I have been buried alive in Stephan Huller’s website (that provides more information than you every wanted to know) about the form of early Christianity that arose in Alexandria Egypt. This branch of Christianity was severely repressed by the Roman Church, starting about 170 AD. But Eastern Orthodox Christianity retains a lot from this very early tradition, and the little Pilgrim is obviously a direct heir to it.

I begin to think that Alexandrian (Marcosian) Christianity is indeed the “Lost Christianity” that so many of us are looking for. I begin to think that this Alexandrian tradition is also what Gurdjieff was looking for when he started his many travels.

I smelled genuine spiritual wisdom in the first part of The Way of the Pilgrim, but the second part began to stink of priestly righteousness. I smell the perfume of Wisdom in the words of Clement of Alexandria that are quoted by Stephan Huller; but the words of the fathers of the Roman Catholic Church--Irenaeus and his ilk--smell like the neo-con political spew that gave us the W Bush administration and the world we live in at the present.

I share your perception that the little Pilgrim was on to something really BIG.

ka,

Have you checked out PaleoChristianity ?

It gave me much food for thought even though I was about "fed up" with "Religion". :)
 
Hi, Goyacobol:
Good suggestion! I took it! I’d like to believe what they say about great minds: that they move in the same directions.

The more I learn about the history of religion, the more it looks like a never-ending effort on the part of the Powers that Be to hijack real understanding of Reality, and make it into some ideology that will serve pathological purposes.

Mercifully, the Divine Cosmic Mind has always opened ways for those who want to understand reality.

At TBP continues to find ways to divert those ways, ways and to twist the understandings.

This Forum has certainly been a god-send to me, with lots of food for growing wisdom,
And--very important--warnings about how to avoid being diverted, used as a tool of pathology, and generally munched by lizzies.
 
ka said:
Hi, Goyacobol:
Good suggestion! I took it! I’d like to believe what they say about great minds: that they move in the same directions.

The more I learn about the history of religion, the more it looks like a never-ending effort on the part of the Powers that Be to hijack real understanding of Reality, and make it into some ideology that will serve pathological purposes.

Mercifully, the Divine Cosmic Mind has always opened ways for those who want to understand reality.

At TBP continues to find ways to divert those ways, ways and to twist the understandings.

This Forum has certainly been a god-send to me, with lots of food for growing wisdom,
And--very important--warnings about how to avoid being diverted, used as a tool of pathology, and generally munched by lizzies.

ka,

What is "At TBP continues to find ways to divert those ways, ways and to twist the understandings." Is the TBP "TATA-binding protein" ?

I am just guessing. :huh: :cool2:
 
What is "At TBP continues to find ways to divert those ways, ways and to twist the understandings." Is the TBP "TATA-binding protein" ?

Sorry for the typographical error: I meant to write "AND" TPB (The Powers That Be) continues to find ways . . .

Those acronyms can be a real nuisance.
 
ka said:
What is "At TBP continues to find ways to divert those ways, ways and to twist the understandings." Is the TBP "TATA-binding protein" ?

Sorry for the typographical error: I meant to write "AND" TPB (The Powers That Be) continues to find ways . . .

Those acronyms can be a real nuisance.

Agreed. I have trouble with them mysef FWIW (For what it's worth). :lol:
 
ka said:
What is "At TBP continues to find ways to divert those ways, ways and to twist the understandings." Is the TBP "TATA-binding protein" ?

Sorry for the typographical error: I meant to write "AND" TPB (The Powers That Be) continues to find ways . . .

Those acronyms can be a real nuisance.

This may look a bit nit-picky, but for clarity on the forum, most people abbreviate the powers that be as "TPTB", or "the PTB". Looking at TPB, I'd still not know what you are indicating with that abbreviation. Maybe others would "get it", but I'm a bit dense at times. :)
 
Back
Top Bottom