Separation from the world, pride and love for one's neighbor

No matter how much the representatives of the world despise and insult us for contempt for the world, they will certainly respect us. However, on one condition: in the absence of pride and arrogance in our hearts and in our behavior. Contempt for the world should not be demonstrated. Wherever it begins with a pose and a phrase, it usually ends with them. The rejection of the world should deepen deeper into the heart as the Christian life progresses. And everything deep does not tolerate ostentatious manifestations. Mip is doomed, the humanity attached to it will not see eternal life. To pretend that we do not understand this would be hypocrisy. But when a specific person stands before you, do not consider him as an heir of hell. Despise the world as an abstract whole, but we are commanded to love our concrete neighbor as he already is. Humanists and communists do the opposite. For the good of humanity, they constantly, quietly or loudly, kill a particular person. This is the long-noticed difference between Christ's commandment and the godless "love of humanity," which is the opposite of the true love of God. Be special (not in appearance, but in the general line of behavior) and at the same time do not disdain anyone. In study, in work, in trouble (but not in sin!) help everyone: both the atheist and the ill-wisher. Only do not share your heart with them, lest it grow cold and cling to sin. With the long-term observance of these two conditions, Christian love for one's neighbor will begin to grow and strengthen in the heart. For the time being, only a small part of it is available to us, and even that we often defile with vanity or contempt. This is a difficult path. The conversion of a modern young Christian often meets with family resistance. The word of Christ is fulfilled: "A man's enemies are his own household" (Matt. 10:36). This is the most difficult of all world ties, when the main representatives of the world for us are our closest relatives. If such a situation has already developed in your family, do not dream that there are any common recipes and solutions. Many times you will sin in both directions, and you will succumb to temptations, and you will unjustly offend your neighbors, until you find the golden mean. One consolation here: this is the lot of many modern Christians, you are not alone on this path. Such family and moral problems are solved in a private manner, but still it is necessary to make a general remark. The Savior says: "Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me" (Matt. 10:37). This is not just His will, it is true even by human reflection. The bonds of one's own sin are still overcome. The bonds of sin, strengthened by the bonds of the world, are much more severe. When hypocrites oppose disgust from the world with love for one's neighbor and thus hurt your conscience, remember the example of the Holy Apostle John the Theologian. In his youth, he was so fervent in his devotion to Jesus that Jesus Himself gave him the name Son of Thunders. One day John met a certain man who cast out demons in the name of the Lord Jesus, but did not follow the apostles, and forbade him to do so in the future. Christ Himself did not approve of such an act of the disciple. On another occasion John proposed to bring down fire from heaven on the Samaritans, who did not accept Jesus and his disciples, for which he also received a rebuke from his Teacher (Luke 9:49-55). All this was when John was still a youth. Then, in adulthood, in his epistles, the Apostle teaches in every possible way to avoid communion with vicious people and heretics. And towards the end of his life, it is he, the very old man, who learns that one of his disciples, having fallen away from the faith and become a criminal, who seeks him out and begs him to repent. The sinner runs away in despair and shame, but John catches up with him, forgetting his old age, promising to take upon himself the eternal punishments prepared for this evildoer, if only he repents. And thus he conquers the heart of the hardened youth, returns the lost sheep to the flock of Christ. O Saint John! Wasn't it you who half a century ago was going to bring fire on such people? But you brought it together, only it is not a scorching flame, as in Sodom, but the fire of that purest Divine love that you acquired from your youth through your zeal! There were also other cases when holy ascetics, who had long since died to all that was vain, left their wilderness for a short time and visited some sinful refuge where their fallen disciples had arrived, and with such a movement of their hearts led sinners to repentance and correction. And what can we say about the saints, when Christ Himself allowed the unclean lips of prostitutes to touch His feet (of which we have no similar examples in the lives of the saints), not to mention joint meals with publicans and sinners. Only after these conversations and meals did the publicans and prostitutes abandon their criminal worldly attachments, and it was not the Lord Himself or His disciples who turned to the path of the world. But believe me, you and I are incapable of this, we do not yet know what true Divine love is, which the Savior had from the beginning in all perfection, and some of His faithful disciples and followers reached only at the end of their lives through many sorrows. If St. John had not been the Son of Thunder at the age of twenty, then by the age of eighty he would not have become the Apostle of Love. The thought that is now widespread is cunning and deceptive: well, what is so special if I, a believer, do not become different from others in order to be closer to them, and perhaps lead them to faith; I will not enter into any disputes and conflicts with them, I will live like them. - Such love will end not with the fact that the publicans and prostitutes will follow Christ, but with the fact that Christ's disciples will turn into publicans and harlots. Such is the experience. At first after conversion, we are drawn to the "apostleship", we want to share with everyone our spiritual discovery, which we got so easily. But God does not bless this and almost never gives such undertakings success. Mip and his children will not believe either Christ or your conversion. Your spiritual acquisition will remain an empty sound for them until they experience it themselves, and this happens to a few of them. But we are commanded to be saved from this corrupt generation (Acts 2:40). Then, after many sorrows, it will come: your prayer and conversation may become effective, leading people to the Lord. But first you need the world to die in you. In the meantime, the best thing we can do to serve the children of this age is not to be like them. They will oppose our faith, but with God's help we will outplay some of them. It won't be soon. Ten or twenty years may pass. If only we remain faithful to our Christian calling and election. And they will give up, they will understand that only in appearance they are richer, more prosperous, wiser, and understand life better than we do. But in fact, everything will be the opposite. The words of the Apostle, for whom the world was crucified and he for the world, will come true: We carry this treasure (faith and grace - S.T.) in earthen vessels, so that the abundant power may be attributed to God, and not to us. We are oppressed everywhere, but we are not oppressed; we are in desperate circumstances, but we do not despair; we are persecuted, but not forsaken; we are deposed, but we do not perish. We always carry the death of the Lord Jesus in our bodies,.. that the life of Jesus also may be made manifest in our mortal flesh (2 Corinthians 4:7-11). I am not saying that in this respect we will be like the Apostle: these words of his can be fulfilled literally only through martyrdom or true monasticism. But the meaning of these words for us is as follows: the farther a person is from the world, the more the world's people need him. Love all, flee from all – this is the testament of St. Arsenius the Great to all true ascetics. Mip is suffocating in its limitations, it needs people not from the world. Who knows, maybe someday we will be useful to someone precisely as Christians, as bearers of a different spirit. But there is a time for everything. We still have to suffer a little for our sins, learn to mourn them, only after that will we learn to have compassion for our neighbors - specific people, and for our entire unfortunate, ruined homeland. Entering into your faith more deeply, you often encounter the inexplicable and paradoxical. It starts from the very moment of contact. How can one simultaneously feel the abyss of one's sin and feel God's mercy towards oneself, even boldness before Him? Remember, we have already talked about this. How these two incompatible feelings are combined, only spiritual experience knows. The attitude of the Christian to the world is similar. How can we simultaneously unite in one heart both disgust from it and weeping for those who are perishing in it, bitter weeping to the point of heartache? If you do not quench your zeal for the glory of God, if you yourself are not worldly, if you avoid the hypocrisy of this world, then you will know by experience what we were talking about.

The world passes away, and its lust (1 John 2:17)

The temporal blessings of the transitory world deceive many, at least as long as they are still in the possession of people, and they believe in the permanence of these blessings. But now our Russia has become a clear illustration of the short-lived well-being of life: it has been taken away from the whole country, it has disappeared quickly and hopelessly. Will you find a happy person next to you, satisfied with his life? Unlikely. Except for a Christian, who is not of this world and knows how to be content both in the wilderness and in prison. Look: people have no reason to live, and most simply have nothing to live on. The economy is in ruins, the army is disbanded, science and culture are on their last legs. No work, no earnings and no light ahead. Only the merchant and criminal world lives. But in such a country, you can't envy the destitute. The rich cry no less than the poor. They do not have life, but a continuous struggle to maintain the standard of living and constant fear for it. The life of each of them has already been valued in the gangster market and is an insignificant part of their fortune. How long will their well-being, at least externally, last? And can satiety and comfort be called well-being if its constant hostages are members of one's own family? Thus passes this world and its lust. Everything runs away, everything flows between the fingers. Not only will death (such a cheap thing in today's universal market of life!) take away everything, but long before death you will not be able to keep any of the world's possessions in your hands. Property floats away, career collapses, friends cheat, loved ones die.

And if there is nowhere to run away from it, then there are only two answers: positive - to become a Christian and correspond to the goal of existence, and negative - to commit suicide. In youth, everyone chooses their own path in life. In our youth there were many deceptive paths before us, and now the world cynically offers you only two: to prison or to a brothel. According to the world's judgment, we have nowhere else to go, not one of the hundred million Russian population is needed for the world order that is being built, every Russian corpse is a sigh of relief for its organizers. But this does not mean that our life is completely aimless. There is also the narrow path of Christ, although, as the Lord warned, few find it, but the world is not able to take it away from us. Let us not go down the path of the world, and God will somehow nourish us in its backyard. It is only necessary to believe in our Saviour and Provider, and then it will turn out that the sons of this world, even from their worldly point of view, without even thinking about eternity, will eventually be forced to recognize the correctness of our path, and not their own, crooked and disastrous.

Mip and the Church Environment

Another difficult test and disappointment awaits you. Living in a church environment, living in a church life, although necessary, is not at all sufficient to escape from the world. Moreover, you will rarely find as much of the worldly spirit as in the church environment. And, of course, you will have to suffer a lot from such a temptation. It may happen that in the church you will see acquisitiveness, vanity, careerism, hypocrisy, envy, slander, friendship with the powerful of this world for the sake of shameful gain, and more terrible sins. Know that there are not so few Russian Protestants, Catholics, and sectarians who are victims of this grievous spectacle. And yet they turned out to be wrong in rejecting Orthodoxy. Time will pass and you will perhaps see how even those who have survived the conversion to Christ, but are "stuck" in this church system, who have become clerics, seminarians, wardens, superintendents, spiritual children of the official elders, grow cold in heart, begin to philosophize in the earthly, worldly, and forget about the heavenly. Of course, they memorize all sorts of Orthodox phrases, including those about eternity and the renunciation of the world. But at the same time, to be honest, they believe that the church in our real reality still begins with a solid legal roof and with an economic foundation. And the goal of all church activity is seen simply in "embracing" as many people as possible, without delving into their spiritual and moral state: to baptize everyone, to commune, to marry, to consecrate all restaurants, nuclear power plants and personal cars. There is an expression: being determines consciousness. In a deep sense, this is not true. Man is still free, the path following Christ to Heaven or the path on earth to hell he chooses himself. But if he chooses the second path, then earthly existence will really determine for him all the boundaries of consciousness, all concepts and heartfelt attachments. When existence begins to determine a person's consciousness, then in ascetic language this is called sinful slavery. Look, who in Russia lives well now, who is most likely to live in the temple of mammon? Are these not the same persons who stand bodily in the temple of God? Mammon, on the other hand, firmly "sets her consciousness" to all who come to her with faith. On the advice of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, "study the spirit of this age, in order to avoid its influence as much as possible." A characteristic feature of this spirit of the age is hypocrisy, the contrast between form and content, between word and life. Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and prepare yourself in advance for the temptation of the worldly spirit in the very ecclesiastical environment. It was foreseen by the Apostle Paul, who pointed out people of corrupt minds who think that godliness serves for gain, and commanded them to distance themselves from such (1 Tim. 6:5). How many seemingly Orthodox people there are today, in all classes and ages, at any level of education, who understand the goal of Orthodox piety in this way! However, of course, the Orthodox Church, according to the promise of Christ, must remain until the end of time, and remain faithful. Does the "church world" that lives in this way belong to it? Where is she? These are difficult questions that go beyond the boundaries of our topic - moral instruction. To a person whose moral concepts are not too distorted, the Lord Himself will reveal where His Church is. First of all, it is necessary to understand what it is, what Christ founded on earth and to which He gave the name of the Church. By understanding what we are looking for, it will be easier to decide where to look, and whether to search at all. But this is the topic of a separate book, and not just one. For now, enough has been said.

Chapter 5. Abstinence of body, soul and feelings

Another difficult test and disappointment awaits you. Living in a church environment, living in a church life, although necessary, is not at all sufficient to escape from the world. Moreover, you will rarely find as much of the worldly spirit as in the church environment. And, of course, you will have to suffer a lot from such a temptation. It may happen that in the church you will see acquisitiveness, vanity, careerism, hypocrisy, envy, slander, friendship with the powerful of this world for the sake of shameful gain, and more terrible sins. Know that there are not so few Russian Protestants, Catholics, and sectarians who are victims of this grievous spectacle. And yet they turned out to be wrong in rejecting Orthodoxy. Time will pass and you will perhaps see how even those who have survived the conversion to Christ, but are "stuck" in this church system, who have become clerics, seminarians, wardens, superintendents, spiritual children of the official elders, grow cold in heart, begin to philosophize in the earthly, worldly, and forget about the heavenly. Of course, they memorize all sorts of Orthodox phrases, including those about eternity and the renunciation of the world. But at the same time, to be honest, they believe that the church in our real reality still begins with a solid legal roof and with an economic foundation. And the goal of all church activity is seen simply in "embracing" as many people as possible, without delving into their spiritual and moral state: to baptize everyone, to commune, to marry, to consecrate all restaurants, nuclear power plants and personal cars. There is an expression: being determines consciousness. In a deep sense, this is not true. Man is still free, the path following Christ to Heaven or the path on earth to hell he chooses himself. But if he chooses the second path, then earthly existence will really determine for him all the boundaries of consciousness, all concepts and heartfelt attachments. When existence begins to determine a person's consciousness, then in ascetic language this is called sinful slavery. Look, who in Russia lives well now, who is most likely to live in the temple of mammon? Are these not the same persons who stand bodily in the temple of God? Mammon, on the other hand, firmly "sets her consciousness" to all who come to her with faith. On the advice of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, "study the spirit of this age, in order to avoid its influence as much as possible." A characteristic feature of this spirit of the age is hypocrisy, the contrast between form and content, between word and life. Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and prepare yourself in advance for the temptation of the worldly spirit in the very ecclesiastical environment. It was foreseen by the Apostle Paul, who pointed out people of corrupt minds who think that godliness serves for gain, and commanded them to distance themselves from such (1 Tim. 6:5). How many seemingly Orthodox people there are today, in all classes and ages, at any level of education, who understand the goal of Orthodox piety in this way! However, of course, the Orthodox Church, according to the promise of Christ, must remain until the end of time, and remain faithful. Does the "church world" that lives in this way belong to it? Where is she? These are difficult questions that go beyond the boundaries of our topic - moral instruction. To a person whose moral concepts are not too distorted, the Lord Himself will reveal where His Church is. First of all, it is necessary to understand what it is, what Christ founded on earth and to which He gave the name of the Church. By understanding what we are looking for, it will be easier to decide where to look, and whether to search at all. But this is the topic of a separate book, and not just one. For now, enough has been said.

Abstinence. Epicureanism and Manichaeism

We have already said that the basis of our correction and transition from the carnal, worldly life to the Christian, spiritual life is all-round abstinence. Glory to God, if our spirit has turned to Him. Now the spirit must put the soul and body in proper order. The departure from the worldly way of life and the churchification of everyday life makes it possible to establish such an order. Our body, our thoughts, feelings and desires are not a garbage dump where you can throw any impressions in a row. There should be a strict analysis: what can and cannot be allowed to one's body, what needs to satisfy it, and what lusts to refuse. The same applies to the mind, heart and will. To a certain extent, we must decide for ourselves which thoughts, feelings, desires are permissible in the soul and which are not; which impressions can be opened into the soul, and which cannot. All this is called abstinence. A Christian takes away some part of his thoughts, feelings, and desires, not without difficulty and not without a fight, from the world and its passions, dedicating them to God. This is a necessary and commendable cause. Imagine that you have come to a dirty apartment, littered with all sorts of rubbish and garbage, which should become your home. You will put it in order, determine where the kitchen will be, where the table and the bed will be. The best place is reserved for the red corner with icons. And only then will it be possible to recognize all this as the dwelling of a Christian. In the same way, your spirit (or rather, Christ Himself) comes to your soul at the hour of conversion and finds the same disorder in its future abode. Our good will, rolling up its sleeves, gets to work. Abstinence is one of the main means to purify the soul, although, of course, it is not the only one. It is better to say that this is the regimen and diet of the soul, against the background of which it only makes sense to use other drugs to cure it of passions. To let this regime go to the mercy of our fickle desires - passions will immediately captivate and entangle the soul. Such frisky horses as our soul and body need a strong rein and a good whip. On the other hand, our goal is not to completely kill or starve the body, mind, feelings, and will, but to starve, according to the traditional patristic expression, to starve the passions that live in them, in order to build all the bodily and spiritual forces in their natural order, for now they are in an unnatural, sinful order. There are two extremes here. One of them is life according to all the whims of soul and body, for the sake of earthly pleasures, called Epicureanism, after the name of the pagan philosopher who preached such a way of life. We have already understood that this is the path to destruction. But there is another way, less common for modern man, but no less dangerous. This is the Manichaean path (after its founder). The Manichaeans taught that matter is evil in itself and our body is the source of sin. Beginning with a severe attempt to mortify the body by vigil, fasting and self-torture, they ended with the most serious carnal sins. The Holy Fathers teach: we are not flesh-killers, but passion-killers. We do not kill the body (because it is not the source of sin in itself), but by cutting off its sinful passions, we subdue it to the spirit. The same applies to the soul. The modern followers of the Manichaeans from the sects called totalitarian, cruel exhaustion of the body and psychic influences achieve, if not the starvation of the body, then the disconnection of a person's will, and then the heart and mind. In other words, it is not the body that is stained, but some part of the soul. Such fanaticism, of course, has nothing to do with Orthodoxy. We should in no way seek to kill the mind, feelings, and will. Not to cut it off, but to educate it correctly and to direct it to the glory of God – this is what we must do with scientific knowledge, and with aesthetic needs, and with other feelings, and with our desires. And every Christian is obliged to do this. The first step to this is abstinence of the soul, similar to abstinence of the body. It should also be noted that in addition to those obligatory for every Christian, there are certain additional spiritual and bodily self-restrictions relating to the monastic life. Monasticism is the guard of Christ. Many things that are quite permissible for ordinary Christians living in the world (as they say, laymen, but not in the sense of sons of this world, for the laity are children of the Church, and not of the world) are no longer permissible for monastics. Here we are counting on the Christian reader, who has not yet chosen the monastic path. If he chooses this path, then he needs more strict mentors - the Holy Fathers who wrote for monks. Here we will try to reach the point that these Fathers took as the starting point. Whoever implements our advice in his life, they, recognizing him as a Christian, would call him a novice. Modern life shows that there is still a long way to go before this paternal beginning or "zero."

Body Abstinence

First of all, a Christian needs to learn to limit bodily needs. This goal is largely achieved simply by the Christian way of life as opposed to the worldly one. This way of life, or Orthodox way of life, includes fasting; Of course, it excludes the sins of fornication and presupposes virginity before marriage or perfect virginity in monasticism. What is required of the body in addition? - So far, nothing special, except to keep such a regime strictly. Fasting is called the foundation of virtues. This is the first serious limitation to which everyone who embarks on the monastic path submits himself. In the meantime, it is enough simply to observe the fasts and fast days established by the Church, to fast with joy, and not with secret sorrow. It is very desirable not to have an attachment to non-meat and any exquisite, delicious food, so that, if possible (when loved ones do not see), there is a desire to fast for a day or two beyond the calendar, for the sake of greater lightness of spirit, for the sake of a better disposition to prayer. And of course, the love for fasting should not be flaunted, but on the contrary, carefully hidden from prying eyes. At the meal, it would not be bad to remember that someone today has nothing to eat, and that many people do not have even a piece of bread, not to mention exquisite food. Such remembrance is necessary not only for the education of charity, but also for the struggle with one's own gluttony. In other words, to make it embarrassing to overeat. In addition to fasting, any Christian ascetic also needs diligence and intolerance of his own idleness. This is acquired by the daily routine and the constant struggle against laziness. Gluttony and laziness help each other, just as fasting leads friendship with cheerfulness. Without these two closely related and continuous activities - fasting and work - it is almost impossible to humble the body. Even just for health, both are necessary. Both sleep and the body's requirements for heat should be reasonably limited. We will not speak here in detail about such things as flaunting and shamelessness in dress, hoping that those who deviate from the customs of the world no longer need such moralizing. In all these deeds we have examples of holy desert dwellers who ate roots and crackers, slept on the bare ground for 2-3 hours, and wore the same clothes in winter and summer. The goal of monastics in relation to their body is to constrict it to the limit, even to the detriment of health. The goal of every simple Christian is to cut off bodily excesses in order to carry out his service: church, civil and family. All monastic bodily feats are not performed on their own, but always only under the strict supervision of an experienced spiritual mentor and preferably among the same asceticizing brethren. In the world, such a degree of control is unrealizable, and it is not necessary, so here one should not prematurely take up what is characteristic of monks, especially bodily asceticism in isolation from the spiritual and spiritual. But diligence and constancy in bodily self-restraint according to the general rules of the Church are necessary for everyone. This, in brief, is the entire instruction on bodily asceticism. We have yet to return to what has been said when it comes to carnal passions, especially the passion of fornication and the problems associated with it. It should be remembered that most questions concerning the bodily regime of a Christian are of a private nature and should be clarified with a spiritual father. Having put the body in the proper mode, it is necessary to limit the activity of one of its most important members - the tongue. The roots of all the sins of our tongue should be sought not in the body, but in the soul. Various passions take him as their weapons, and it is against them that it is necessary to arm oneself. Here we will only say that the tongue should always bite, limiting it not only in a bad word, but also in a good word. Even through an unreprehensible, but abundant conversation, one can lose all the good that ripens in the soul. Thus, abstinence of the tongue is as much an integral part of the Christian regime as fasting. More complex and diverse is the asceticism of the soul.

Keeping the mind