Navel gazing

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The term navel gazing is a loan translation of the Greek expression omphaloskepsis . In a modern, figurative sense, it denotes an exaggerated preoccupation with oneself. The Greek term originally referred to a minor aspect of a contemplative prayer practice of hesychasm , a movement in the Orthodox Byzantine Church. Today, the term “navel gazing” in German is often used in a casual, joking way. It is usually associated with a negative evaluation, because it conveys the idea of ​​an exaggerated, sterile preoccupation with oneself or group that distracts from more important tasks and prevents the necessary attention to the environment.

Religious origin

Theory of hesychasm

From 12./13. In the 19th century, a prayer practice spread in Byzantine monasticism in which complete external and internal calm (Greek hesychia ) is sought and which is therefore called hesychasm. The center of the late medieval hesychasm was Mount Athos . One of the characteristics of hesychastic spirituality, which is still cultivated in the Orthodox churches today, is a certain sitting posture when praying individually. Critics who single out a single aspect use the derogatory term “navel gazing” for it.

Visions of light are an essential part of the hesychastic experience . The praying hesychasts believe they perceive a supernatural light that they equate with the light in which, according to the Gospels, Christ was transfigured on a mountain . This light is called Tabor light because, according to extra-biblical tradition, the mountain is Mount Tabor . Opponents of hesychasm dispute the admissibility of the theological presuppositions of this assumption.

Hesychasm dispute

In the early 14th century, hesychasm became the subject of a bitter theological conflict ("hesychasm controversy") between hesychasts and antihesychasts. The spokesman for the hesychasts was the Athos monk Gregorios Palamas. His theology gave hesychastic practice its theoretical foundation and justification. At several councils in Constantinople between 1341 and 1351, the Byzantine Church decided to first condemn the opponents of hesychasm and then to elevate hesychasm and its theoretical justification through the doctrine of palamas ("palamism") to binding church doctrine. This is still the official theological position of the Greek Orthodox Church today.

Prayer practice

The hesychastic literature contains various pieces of advice on posture, and especially breathing, aimed at promoting concentration. The posture of the body should support the spiritual alignment with the heart as the center of the person and seat of the soul . This can be done, for example, when the person praying is physically aligned with the center of his body, the belly button . But this is not a necessary part of hesychastic prayer. In a considerable part of the hesychastic literature, navel gazing does not appear or is rejected because the navel is the seat of passions.

Gregorios Palamas emphasizes that technical instructions are only aids that should make the difficult task of continuous concentration easier for the beginner. For the hesychasts, the desired rest is not an end in itself, but only a prerequisite for achieving the spiritual goal.

Already at the time of the hesychasm dispute in the 14th century, the navel gazing was made a point of criticism from the opposing side. Marked Barlaam of Calabria which he criticized hesychastic monks as "navel souls" or "people with the soul in the navel" ( omphalopsychoi ).

Web links

Wiktionary: navel gazing  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Remarks

  1. ↑ Duden. The large dictionary of the German language in ten volumes , 3rd edition, Vol. 6, Mannheim 1999, p. 2673 (with examples from politics).
  2. ↑ Susanne Hausammann offers a historical overview: On the hesychastic prayer practice in the Orthodox churches since the middle of the 14th century . In: Susanne Hausammann: Paths and wrong ways to church unity in the light of the Orthodox tradition , Göttingen 2005, pp. 67-131.
  3. ^ Albert Maria Ammann: The God Show in Palamitic Hesychasmus , 2nd edition, Würzburg 1948, p. 44.
  4. ↑ Albert Maria Ammann: The God Show in Palamitic Hesychasmus , 2nd edition, Würzburg 1948, p. 44; Susanne Hausammann: On the hesychastic prayer practice in the Orthodox churches since the middle of the 14th century . In: Susanne Hausammann: Paths and wrong ways to church unity in the light of the orthodox tradition , Göttingen 2005, pp. 67–131, here: 94.
  5. ↑ Georg Wunderle: On the psychology of hesychastic prayer , 2nd edition, reprint Würzburg 2007, p. 30f .; Pierre Adnès: Hésychasme . In: Dictionnaire de spiritualité , Vol. 7/2, Paris 1971, Col. 381-399, here: 384; Georg Günter Blum: Byzantine Mystik , Berlin 2009, p. 468; Callistus Ware : Wise Men of Prayer and Contemplation. 1. In the Eastern Church . In: Bernard McGinn et al. (Ed.): History of Christian Spirituality , Vol. 1, Würzburg 1993, pp. 394–412, here: 407; Susanne Hausammann: Paths and wrong ways to ecclesiastical unity in the light of the orthodox tradition , Göttingen 2005, pp. 73–75.
  6. ^ Georg Günter Blum: Byzantine Mystik , Berlin 2009, p. 356.