The prophet is interesting, in that when he is a ‘herald’ and a ‘mentor’ to the king, he is caught up in worldly drama. But what went wrong with the monks, in Buddhism no less than Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is that they cut their link to the king—warrior, and so ceased to serve the drama of ‘change’ [changing the world] in which the king—warrior is the lynch pin. In short, when the desert serves the city, when the desert monastic goes into the desert to receive from God a revelation to help the city to which he must return – like Christ’s 40 days in the wilderness – then the derivation of the monastic from the prophetic is obvious= the monastic continues the prophetic.
Deuteronomy, 8, 2; 5; 12-16=
“You will remember how Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your inmost heart, whether you would keep his ways or not.. Learn from this that Yahweh was training you as a man trains his child.. [When things go well for you, and you taste the abundance of Eros given to you by God], do not become proud of heart. Do not then forget Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, ..who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground.. that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.”
The ‘ordeal in the wilderness’ is the furnace where the Daemonic Fire burns the heart to ‘give it strength’ and to ‘win for it power’ [Deuteronomy, 8, 17-18], so that in its future, it can follow all Yahweh’s ways, to love him, to serve him “with all your heart and soul” [Deuteronomy, 10, 12-13].
The Daemonic God subjects the heart to this ordeal, and by forcing us to remain in it and go through all its challenges, is responsible for the existential strengthening and empowering of our heart muscle that is the result. Never the less, Yahweh warns= “beware of saying in your heart, ‘the might of my own hand won.. [such an outcome] for me.’ Remember Yahweh your God: it was he [who made this possible, by pushing you farther than you would ever choose], thus keeping the covenant.. that he swore to your fathers” [Deuteronomy, 8, 17-18].
However, when the monastic goes into the desert to escape the city, and aims for some kind of ‘return’ to God that excludes the drama of the world, then whether the monk seeks Paradise at the beginning of time, Heaven above all worlds, Enlightenment [Void is Form, Form is Void] Now, the Kingdom Within, and similar mystical and ontological panaceas, makes no difference, because in this case the monk is excluding himself from what the prophet serves– the redeeming of the world process through its very tumult and trials, its ‘drama.’