Joshua Schooping > Quotes

“Orthodoxy affirms the sacred and positive role of the human body as essential to the totality of human nature.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“By systematic is meant the orderly, symmetrical progression of attention through the body. By inclusiveness is meant from the surface of the body to the inside.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“Because the mind is prepossessed by sense perception, we have the duality of desire and anger. These are irrational tendencies and under the influence of nature and not of reason, becoming a habit in the soul that penetrates all the parts of our being and is difficult to uproot.[23]”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“St. Maximus continues the theme of foolishness by referring to sensorial pleasure as “irrational.” Regarding this aspect he again contrasts the sensorial, and therefore sub-rational, bodily, or corporeal orientation of pleasure, which is to say the pleasure of the senses, with the “divine pleasure of the mind.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“Whereas in his ontological composition he is made to find his fulfillment in God as his ultimate referent, constant pleasure, and total purpose, since fallen man is sensorial in his mode of being then in his basic and rightful urge towards this infinite fulfillment he is tragically and constantly attaching it to the unreliable fluctuations of material”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“repentance really means a transformation of mind (metanoia) by the taking up of an entirely new object of faith, which is to say one takes up a mode of seeing and framing self and reality in terms of God.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“Watchfulness therefore necessarily includes attention to this pre-rational psychosomatic activity, usually discernable as some kind of fleeting or chronic tension, either subtle or conspicuous. Together with the soul, the body is thus bound up with the fallenness of man,”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“It is a supreme form of attention by which one is aware of thoughts as thoughts, emotions as emotions, images as images, etc. Also called attentiveness,”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“Egocentric perception controls and renders any consequent conception correspondingly egocentric. Sensoriality in this way makes fallen man’s transcendence of circumstances impossible, and so circumstances always act as a controlling mechanism for all of his relationships and all of his responses.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“watchfulness is a continual process that attends to the presence and activity of thoughts, with the aim of their dissolution.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“​God is the cause of one’s being saved. Self-will is not casual of salvation;”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“​In order to watch the mind, all that one need do is simply note the presence of any thought, concept, image, or idea. These phenomena arise and pass away, arise and pass away, arise and pass away,”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“Subtler and subtler thoughts are then noticed, and as one maintains watchfulness, refusing to enter into thought’s narrative, then freedom from thought increases. This freedom brings stillness into the mind.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“God reveals in His Word that we are made in His image, and that we are fundamentally spiritual, immortal, and intelligent, and that we are born into a world of cosmic meaning and purpose that transcends the empirical cycle of creation but extends rather into eternity. St.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“The basic elements of praxis that will be dealt with are three: watchfulness, stillness, and prayer. The basic objects of praxis are body, breath, and mind.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“faith is the principle factor determining one’s mode of viewing reality, which in turn determines his mode of action. In short, faith frames reality.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“conversion is, therefore, not the production of faith where there was none, but the turning of faith from one object to another, from the world to heaven, from changing phenomena to eternity, from fact to truth, from creation to Creator.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“theological fact of the body’s very purpose to be the dwelling place of God.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“Oftentimes an inflamed imagination is mistaken for spiritual warmth of heart. Therefore, if one notices such warmth, simply return to the body, the breath, and the mind, and give it no undue significance.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“By interrupting the activity of thought, one keeps thoughts from entering into the heart. The essence of watchfulness is thus an increasingly clear and continuous attention that is sensitive towards the internal motions of passions and thoughts, sensations and emotions.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“Man’s soul eventually loses its ability to move in any direction but towards matter. Since there is no life in matter, man functionally weds himself to that which is dead.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“subtle process of judgment is not rooted in truth but in pre-rational sensoriality,”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“St. Gregory Palamas asks: Why should anybody who is endowed with a nous think it improper to bring their nous into a body whose very nature it is to be the dwelling place of God?[78]”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“Christ calls us to entrust ourselves to Him so that we can have His mind (1 Corinthians 2:16) and therefore think with His mind and choose with His will. God wants to put His Law in our minds, write it on our hearts, abide in our hearts through His Spirit, and share His Kingdom”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“The fleeting tensions and movements within the body thus have a deep relationship with one’s thought life, and so by attending to sensations, which are the only things the body “knows” prior to their being conceptualized and interpreted by the mind, one can also calm both body and mind. ​As stated”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“the question: “Who am I?” Or, “To whom do these thoughts occur?”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“one's faith liberates their mind and heart from the tyranny of circumstances, for where the Spirit is there is freedom. Therefore, instead of seeking restlessly and relentlessly for unmitigated and constant sensory fulfillment in sensorial phenomena, the center of pleasure is restored to God-centeredness.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“other words, the “working out” of this salvation is from theosis, in theosis, and to theosis. The working out of salvation is thus the thorough transformation of perspective from the fallen mode to the Christian mode.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer

“there is more to the spiritual life than what the intellect alone can provide, and sanctification more than correcting one’s moral math.”
― Joshua Schooping, A MANUAL OF THEOSIS: Orthodox Christian Instruction on the Theory and Practice of Stillness, Watchfulness, and Ceaseless Prayer