When men search for God with their bodily eyes they find Him nowhere, for He is invisible. But for those who ponder in the Spirit He is present everywhere. He is in all, yet beyond all.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that God cannot be perceived through physical senses and can only be understood spiritually.
Symeon The New Theologian emphasizes that the search for God through physical means is futile, as God is fundamentally invisible and can only be experienced through spiritual contemplation. This understanding implies that the divine is omnipresent and exists beyond material existence, accessible to those who seek deeper wisdom and connection with the spiritual essence of life.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the nature of faith and divine presence.
Through repentance the filth of our foul actions is washed away. After this, we participate in the Holy Spirit, not automatically, but according to the faith, humility and inner disposition of the repentance in which our soul is engaged. For this reason it is good to repent each day as the act of repentance is unending.
To take wine into your mouth is to savor a droplet of the river of human history.
It is important that spiritual advancement must keep pace with material advancement.
This civilization is rapidly passing away, however. Let us rejoice or else lament the fact as much as everyone of us likes; but do not let us shut our eyes to it.
The rise and fall of civilizations in the long, broad course of history can be seen to have been largely a function of the integrity and cogency of their supporting canons of myth; for not authority but aspiration is the motivator, builder, and transformer of civilization.
I believe we face the question: if not now, then when? And if we are grasped by this vision, we may also hear the question: If not us, then who? And if the gospel of Jesus is not the key to this task, then what is?
Karma brings us ever back to rebirth, binds us to the wheel of births and deaths. Good Karma drags us back as relentlessly as bad, and the chain which is wrought out of our virtues holds as firmly and as closely as that forged from our vices.
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