The Acosmic: Human Quest for Liberation and Deification: Revisiting Christian Spirituality of Its Source

Abstract

The Acosmic: Human Quest for Liberation and Deification (Revisiting Christian Spirituality at Its Source) by Devadat is a monumental work on monastic spirituality of the Desert Fathers. The acosmic is that which is not of this cosmos, but having no roots here in the world, whose mind and heart are focused on the beyond and whose dreams and destiny are the master of cosmos. To be liberated from this contaminated and perishing world and to be united with the divine through a process of deification are the age-old aim and ambition of the religionists everywhere.  A research into these aspects of Christian religion is, as Devadat states, a revisiting of Christian spirituality at its source namely the Bible and the early Christian tradition. The aim of the book is, therefore, neither mere academic inquisitiveness nor reviving of the dead past, but to return to the early sources of Christian spirituality and tap its acosmic vision in order to effect a conscientisation on the destiny and transcendental dimensions of human existence. At a stroke, therefore, the author brings out the early Christian spirituality in its anchoretic and coenobitic forms, exposing its clear and pronounced biblical basis. The gospels, the source of Christian spirituality, demand a spirit of acosmism, namely the spirit of Fuga Mundi and self-renunciation from every follower of Christ. This, in fact, is the Kenosis of Jesus Christ.