The Old Rectory
7th July
1968
“As Jesus passed by, He saw a man which
was blind from his birth” (Jn. 9:1)
Yes, I too have come to the conclusion that the mystery
of man's inter-relationships will
remain unsolved for me to the end of my days - an end which is already near. The
consciousness that all of us, all people, are to one degree or another
blind, has grown stronger in me. We see a certain part of the world's life and
we base our judgment on this partial vision. This partial, individual vision so
strongly controls man that he cannot judge anything otherwise than according to
his perception of things, or as I said before, his vision. As a consequence of
the blindness characteristic of all of us, we all, without exception,
are not aware when we wound others, when we wreck their lives, when we judge
them by the very reactions which are perhaps consequences of certain actions of
ours. We know that at the basis of our personal consciousness lies the wish
for what is good, the quest for perfection, and by virtue of our confidence in
the rightness of our quest we have an incurable tendency to JUSTIFY ourselves.
And this is a common sickness of all of us. Hence the insoluble conflicts all
over the world, insoluble because each one justifies himself, repudiating the
rightness of the other, who stands opposed to him.
I am not writing this to accuse you yet again of
anything.
I do not know which one of us it was who by some
visible or invisible movement of the soul first caused a wound to the other's
soul. I only know that it is possible to save the world in no other way
than this: 'and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass
against us'. And this power of forgiveness for the wounds inflicted on
us comes down from the Holy Spirit. It was natural to man before his Fall, but
now it is supra-natural for us. We cannot by our own power forgive the pain we
have experienced.
I think I have already written to you that ages and
ages ago I began to look upon everything that 'comes upon' me not merely as my
personal drama or tragedy, but as a revelation of what is happening in the
ocean of humanity, in the boundless life of the cosmos which passes through
me, like the sea through some strait. This strait is not the sea itself, but
the water in it is the same water as in the sea. And this is the way towards a
deepened understanding of Christ's words: 'Do not do unto others what you would
not have them do unto you' . This, then, is our academy, our school; this is
the way towards knowledge of universal life, the way towards the assimilation
of Christ's teaching, uncomprehended until now, deformed by our passions, our
blindness.
So, my dear Maria, may peace be with you and grace
from on High. And don't be afraid, I will not be troubling you any further
about anything like this, which could remind you of your wound. I myself am
blind, and I have no recollection whatsoever of that first gesture of mine,
which you took in the way you wrote about. Forgive me, and give me your love. [
... ]
Reference:Letters to his family. Archimandrite
Sophrony(Sakharov).2015.