THE PRACTICAL HRYHORIY SKOVORODA’S TRANSFIGURATION UNDER PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF THE MOMENT (OJEBLIKKET OR AUGENBLICK)

Abstract

In 1770, in the garden of the Okhtyrka Trinity Monastery near Kharkiv, Skovoroda experienced a stunning shock. He suddenly felt free and invigorated, and a strange movement took place inside him, which filled him with strange power. Some kind of inner fire engulfed him, he lost the feeling of his own body, the whole world disappeared for him and he began to circle in the space of Being. After that, his soul was filled with love for Holy Spirit. These feelings were so strong, but he burst into tears. That is, he had a certain breakthrough in his vision of God. Skovoroda himself points out such an important detail – all this happened to him in one moment. suddenly, instantly, in the blink of an eye. Exaíphnes (Plato), rhope (Bible), moment (Latin authors), ojeblikket (Kierkegaard), Аugenblick (Heidegger) or in English “in the blink of an eye“, “moment of vision“, “glance of an eye“, “instance“, “suddenness“, “decisive moment“, or, in Ukrainian, ‘за миг ока’, ‘на млі ока’, ‘миттєво’, ‘за мить’, or in Russian, ‘моментально’,  ‘в мновение ока’, etc. – all these words and terms are different titular names of the same concept “moment”, which expresses the any thing’s transition from the one state to a different another condition. The peculiarity of this instant transition is that it is timeless, atemporal. Look, if it had temporal dimensions, then the transition from one state to another should lead to such a situation6 when the thing would combine both states, past and future. For example, a thing that started to move had to move and be at rest at the same time. The same applies to the transition from our world to the divine world or from a sinful man to a saint. So, the “moment” is atemporal and timeless. Entering the moment and staying in it means falling out of time and joining eternity. Unlike all theoretical researchers of the “moment”, Hryhoriy Skovoroda was the only one who actually experienced this “moment” (Ojeblikket, Augenblick) as a miracle of transition from fallen temporality to divine eternity. In addition, Skovoroda experienced a stunning epiphany (this is the another meaning of Heidegger’s Augenblick) and underwent something similar to a bodily and spiritual transfiguration.