Lessons of Salvation - Life Equals Eternity

From the author

Dear brothers and sisters! A few words before you turn this page. There is a long-standing tradition in our church: in the evenings after the service, the priest reads the works of the Holy Fathers and ascetics of piety to the parishioners from the ambo, simultaneously explaining the meaning of the spiritual advice contained in them. He comments on the most difficult passages in detail, trying to make them more accessible to the understanding of a modern person seeking salvation. My friends Galina Vasilievna and Nikolai Mikhailovich Novikov took the trouble to make a literary record of my comments on the readings of the instructions of Archimandrite Theophan of Novoyezersky, an outstanding ascetic of the 18th century (In the text, the words of Father Theophan are highlighted in bold italics. (published by the Moscow Patriarchate, Moscow, 1994)). This is how this book came about. Priest Konstantin Ostrovsky, rector of the Dormition Church in Krasnogorsk

Eternity

Why we don't believe in the afterlife * What to ask God for * The unbeliever is the most unhappy of all the unfortunate * Everything we are proud of is perishable * We want to go to the Kingdom, but we don't want to obey * The Church is not an authority for the "wise" * The fame of the family does not save * Have been discouraged in order to rise up * We rise up against our neighbor - we rise up against God * The door to the Kingdom of Heaven is open * Fleeing from work - we run away from bliss * After death you will not be bored * Remember death and you will never sin * Toll-houses are a product of our passions * We are afraid of what we should not be afraid of * God loves our loved ones more than we do * 1. All the treasures of this world are nothing before the eternal bliss which is promised to those who love God, the bliss which the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and which has not entered into the heart of man. (6) This idea can be found both in the Bible and in the Holy Fathers. Why don't we live by this precept? The answer is obvious - we do not believe in it, we have mental knowledge, but we do not have heartfelt faith, so we confess one thing and do another. If we had a living heartfelt faith in the fact that either eternal torment or eternal bliss awaits us, then our life would be completely different. St. Seraphim of Sarov said that if a person knew what awaited him beyond the grave, then he would be ready to spend his whole life in a pit filled with worms that eat his body, and to be there with joy, if only to avoid eternal torment and enter the Kingdom of Heaven. First of all, we need to ask God to give us living faith. We must understand that we do not yet have it, humble ourselves from this and endure the difficulties that God sends us, because only sorrows, which come from God and are endured without murmuring, crush our heart and open it to spiritual gifts, the most important of which is faith. 2. And how long, how long is it to live? And there will be no end! If a mountain of sand were poured from the earth to the sky and a grain of sand was set aside every year, there would be an end, and there would be no end. (25) And so it is. Our temporal life is almost nothing in its duration compared to eternity. In its meaning, it can be said to be equal to eternity: as we manifest ourselves in this temporal life, so will eternity. But all the sorrows, all that we have to endure here, all this is absolutely nothing compared to the blessings or torments that await us in eternity. The Apostle Paul wrote that temporal sufferings have no meaning in comparison with the glory that is to be manifested in us. Whether life is long, short, easy or difficult, it will still end. Therefore, all our desires should be directed towards eternity, and we should prepare for eternity, not regretting that our life is shortening, and not being discouraged when our sufferings are prolonged. Everything must be endured with gratitude and entrust oneself to the will of God. 3. And that there is a better and endless future life, of this you must undoubtedly and firmly be sure. (396) This is the subject of our Orthodox faith. A big mistake is made by people who think that it is possible to believe in God and doubt the existence of eternal life. At the same time, they often consider themselves Christians. If a person does not believe in eternal life, does not believe in the Kingdom of Heaven, all his other faith is in vain. The Apostle Paul wrote that if Christ is not risen, then your faith is in vain, and you are more miserable than the unfortunate. This is a diabolical deception that there is no eternal life. If such doubts are not driven away decisively, then spiritual life can be completely destroyed. 4. Our flesh is subject to corruption, dust is food for worms, so why should we feed it and be proud of it? What to be proud of? Are they worms? (502) This sounds naïve, to our perverted intellectual view. But these are words of truth. If we look at our life from the point of view of eternity, we will see: everything that we are proud of, that we are occupied with, that we pay attention to - all this is perishable. It happens that children fight over a shortbread pie, push, suddenly someone steps on it - and there is nothing. In the same way, all our temporary cares and attachments - eternity will run over them like a sea wave, and nothing will remain of them. We must conscientiously do all the earthly deeds entrusted to us by God, but remember that our activity acquires meaning when it is subordinated to the spiritual task of being obedient children of God and fulfilling His will. 5. While there is time, we must try not to spend our lives in vain, so that, after departing from here, we may inherit the Heavenly Kingdom, which we will not be worthy of if we are not like gentle children. (7) Here, of course, we do not mean childish foolishness or childish physical weakness, but childish kindness and childish simplicity. We must treat God as children treat their parents: trust Him completely, obey and endure with good humor when He educates and teaches us. We want to go to the Kingdom of Heaven, but we do not want to obey God. This is a reproach to all of us. What do we expect from the kingdom of heaven? Consolations and eternal pleasures. And the Kingdom of Heaven is complete unity with God. If we do not want to reconcile our will with the will of God now, then where will this agreement come from in eternity? We don't live like children. If we behaved like children, we would run to our Heavenly Father and would not run away from our mother, the Church. And we are all so grown-up, wise, and therefore we do not need God and the Church is not an authority for us. 6. Rejoice in righteousness in the Lord; We must rejoice in that which has been promised to us, which the human mind cannot comprehend. (55) I often draw my attention and yours to words that the people of the Church are tired of. For non-church people, they are usually completely incomprehensible and uninteresting. Rejoice and rejoice. The Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Heaven. And yet this is indeed the Kingdom, of which it is said that the mind cannot comprehend, not because it is unreal, but because the bliss that awaits those who enter it is far beyond anything we can imagine. Not alien to us, not incomprehensible in this sense, but surpassing all human experience. Just as a two-month-old infant is completely alien to the knowledge of higher mathematics, but not because higher mathematics is generally alien to the human mind, but because the child has not yet grown up to it, so we have not grown up to the Kingdom of Heaven. And if, with God's help, we grow up, then we will have eternal and greatest bliss. We have something to be happy about. Archbishop Anthony of Voronezh wrote: "The celebrity of the family does not save us... True nobility is acquired by doing the will of God." It's about making us aware of what kind of people we are. After all, we belong to the race of Christ, but do we remember this? By partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, we become one body with Him, one Church of God, we are one people with Him. We are all related in flesh and blood to Christ, we are in close kinship with God. This is the true, incomparable nobility. We are of royal lineage and are called to live as kings in the Kingdom of Heaven. Are we living worthy of our calling? 7. Access to the King of Heaven depends on us; in any confusion one can have recourse. (55) Orthodox teaching says: every person can enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the entrance to it depends only on us. This is the opposite of what is offered by occult teachings, where the attainment of perfection (in fact, false) is promised only to the elect, where a person who has abilities can develop them to the degree of a "superman", and a person without talent is hopeless. Indeed, people's abilities are different. Not every Christian can attain high spiritual states in temporal life. But this is not important for eternal life - in eternity, the height of a person is determined by how much he has humbled himself here, that is, how much he has humbled himself in this temporal life. And to see our sins, to reproach ourselves for them, to humble ourselves before God - this depends only on us, it is available to everyone. We can boast and boast of our imaginary virtues, or, on the contrary, we can honestly confess to ourselves, and to God, and to people, who we really are, and then there is hope that at the Last Judgment we will be pardoned by the merciful God. 8. One must imagine how one lives in heaven: there is no envy, suspicion, or anything like that! There are no contradictions, no contradictions, there everything obeys the mania of the Creator! (69) If our souls remain as they are now, if they are not changed with God's help, they will not be able to enter the kingdom of heaven, because they are alien to it in their qualities. I remember when I was still an altar boy, I complained to my spiritual father about a friend of mine who had upset me in some way, and my spiritual father sobered me up: "We must all enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but how are we going to enter it with our reproaches?" We must know that when we inwardly rebel against our neighbor, we rebel against God Himself. 9. "If the Lord does not build a house, they labor in vain to build it" (Psalm 126:1): we must ask the Lord to be the cornerstone in our spiritual structure. (407) Even if we build a magnificent spiritual edifice, but Christ will not be its foundation, we will perish. The pseudo-spiritual achievements of occultists may seem attractive to some. But it is enough to reject them, that Christ is not at their foundation. All the false spiritual occult-pagan religious knowledge, all the vain teachings of the world - all this at the moment of transition to eternity will crumble and disappear, dragging its followers into eternal perdition. Christ came to earth not as a king or a hero. He did not bring with Him any new technologies - He came in the form of a humble and physically weak man, suffered and died for us. But it was precisely this that opened the door to the Kingdom of Heaven for us, and not some inventions of the human mind. 10. Since we have no idea of the Kingdom of Heaven and do not understand its sweetness, we also do not know what torment is. (239) A person born blind does not suffer as much as a person born sighted and subsequently blinded. He who had sight is tormented by the memory of the lost joy of contemplating the world of God. In the same way, a person who has not known the joy of grace-filled union with Christ cannot understand that he is in a terrible state of distance from God and that after the Last Judgment he will face the eternal horror of complete abandonment by God. 11. In this life it is to endure and to work. (421) Earthly life is given to man in preparation for eternity. If we avoid working on our souls (obedience, enduring sorrows), we run away from eternal bliss. When a person has time to prepare for exams, and instead of reading books and making notes, he has fun, he will fail. The choice of how to spend our time is ours. Christ does not force anyone to be saved. Therefore, those who believe in the seriousness of the exam that awaits all of us at the Last Judgment will engage in the practice of God's commandments. Some prefer to slack, do not want to believe that the unprepared will fall, and not anywhere, but into hell. 12. It's a pity that we don't think much about death. When it becomes boring, think so about death, about the coming of Christ. Think how you will be restrained in the air, and what you will answer at the toll-houses. (20) These words seem paradoxical, because all of us, even church people, are accustomed to the fact that if we are bored, we need to somehow unwind, to tune ourselves in to a cheerful mood. But in fact, if we remember that we will die, that our soul will not disappear, as unbelievers think, but will pass into another state and the entire past life will fall upon it, and torments will begin for those who have not had time to repent, if we remember that every soul, as soon as it leaves the body, awaits the toll-houses (posthumous trials and tortures), and then the Last Judgment, then, of course, we will not be bored, and we will use the little time that God has given us for soul-saving deeds. "Soul-saving deeds" - these words have become almost ridiculous for a modern person, because we are all brought up in an atheistic country and do not believe that earthly time is given to us in order to "earn" eternal blissful life, and we spend it on anything, but not on the salvation of the soul. 13. Nothing is so useful for those who live in a monastery as the remembrance of death, the dreadful judgment of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal torments. It will accustom you to good-natured endurance of sorrows of all kinds. (82) We need to think more often about what will happen to our soul when it leaves the body. For then it will turn out that everything that grieved us, everything that seemed bad to us, from which we tried to escape, was useful to us, was what God in His mercy sent us. And the earthly things that we strove for, what we desired, what we rejoiced at, were to our detriment, were temptations. If we begin to look at everything from the point of view of the Last Judgment, we will be able to endure sorrows complacently, since they are extremely useful to us. The Holy Fathers write that if a person remembered death, he would never sin. And indeed, if we are afraid of death not because of a vain attachment to pleasures: if I die, I will be gone, I will no longer be able to drink coffee in the morning (such fear is harmful and sinful), but because our soul will leave the body and go to judgment, and the judgment will be according to the commandments of God, and not according to the laws of worldly morality, then such fear will protect us from sin. The devil tries with all his might to prevent us from remembering death. His concern is to put empty thoughts into our minds, to distract us from the main thing, so that we completely forget that we are mortal and live like immortals. But he can also remind us of death, but he will whisper a lie - he will instill an animal fear of death, and then from fright we again fall into vanity, begin to take excessive care of our physical health. When the soul leaves the body, it will be necessary to finally part with everything earthly to which it has clung here. The sweeter we are here on earth, the better, more pleasant and calmer, the more terrible, the more unbearable it will be after death. Posthumous toll-houses are the product of our attachments, our passions. The toll-houses consist in the fact that we part with what we have loved. It is impossible to enumerate the significant and insignificant, crudely sinful and decent-looking things to which we are attached in our hearts, which separate us from God. Without this, there would be no toll-houses. If a person has not lived according to the commandments of God, and has not repented, and has not tried to reform, then it will happen as promised: Let the wicked be taken, that he may not see the glory of the Lord. And it will be said to the righteous: Come, by the blessing of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. That this is exactly how it will be, that each of us will hear one or another word - this must be remembered, it must be believed, it must be lived. 14. Your letter is filled with embarrassment and fear; according to the words of St. David: "Where fear is afraid, where there is no fear." (143) This applies to all of us, because we are constantly preoccupied with something, trying to avoid some trouble, afraid of something. If we look at our life "from eternity", we will find that we are always afraid of what we should not be afraid of, and we strive for what we need to avoid. Therefore, we should remember death more often and that it is the beginning of eternal life. There is no need to be afraid of death. It is inevitable and not so terrible, because, as we know, the resurrection awaits us all. We must fear the Last Judgment, where it will become clear whether we will be resurrected to eternal bliss or to eternal torment. When God takes our loved ones to Himself, we must understand that by doing so God's good providence is accomplished. God loves our loved ones more than we do. It is we who care for their health and well-being in temporal life, and the Lord cares for their eternal salvation. If eternal salvation were possible without sorrows, then God would not send them. We should pray for the health of our loved ones (this is natural, this is a manifestation of love), but not forgetting to add: "God's will be done." St. Isaac the Syrian writes: "The humble dare no longer ask of God, only: Thy will be done, O Lord." It is not temporal death that is to be feared, but eternal death, which awaits us if we fall away from God.

Exploit

Fasting is the spiritual education of the body * The more severe the illness, the more useful it is * When jealousy becomes foolishness * What is a sin for one, is a feat for another * Fasting, we recognize our weakness * The pleasure of the flesh chains to the earth * Do not be offended by God * We are ashamed of the external, not the internal * The cause of all troubles is our passionate heart * Idleness intensifies the strife * God destroys the proud, exalts the humble * Murmuring means we do not repent * "Pray for me - I am possessed" * Hope only in the mercy of God * Rites are an external means for internal benefit * Our values are the opposite of true ones * 15. Neither chains, nor sackcloth, nor fasting, even if one eats once a week, nor long vigils and standings, nor many prostrations, nor all bodily exhaustion will be of any use... if there are no spiritual virtues. (9) If a person gets into a car and goes very fast in the opposite direction to the destination, the faster he goes, the worse it gets. Bodily feats are good when they are used correctly. They are just a means to make our spiritual life more intense. When we concentrate our efforts on them alone or are proud of them, then our movement is accelerated, but not into the Kingdom of Heaven. Fasting is the spiritual education of our body, so that the flesh does not rage under the influence of passions. For those who want to succeed in the struggle against sin, fasting is absolutely necessary. But sick people often cannot fast. One should not be upset, because illness has an advantage over fasting. It has the same effect on the body, but the suffering caused by it protects a person from pride, and besides, everyone gets sick, both the righteous and the sinners, and the majority of people die from illnesses. What is there to be proud of? Fasting, on the other hand, is dangerous because it induces vanity. The more severe the illness, the more it crushes the body, the more useful it is for the soul of a person, if he endures the illness with patience, thanking the Lord. And this benefit is greater than from any abstinence undertaken of one's own free will. 16. Everyone should not be kept in the monastery equally, for others coarse food is harmful and can lead to exhaustion; some came from poverty, from labor to rest, and others from wealth and from tender education. (362) Fasting was established by God in the Church so that we might succeed in abstinence, recognize our weakness and therefore remain in humility, so that, enduring these voluntary sufferings, we would be crushed in our souls, and more often remember eternity. And not at all so that people die prematurely, not coming to the measure in which God blessed them to come. In the writings of Elder Silouan, we read how a young monk, a zealous Athonite ascetic, fasted himself to death. He fasted so much (not seriously, but heavily) that he undermined his health and died. If a person with a stomach ulcer observes the fast according to the Typicon, he will go to the hospital and there he will eat everything that is given to him, and watch TV in the ward, but he will not be able to go to church during the entire Great Lent. This is, excuse me, not jealousy, but stupidity. We should not compare ourselves with John of Kronstadt. When doctors advised him to relax his fast, he refused. He was in such a great spiritual measure that for the sake of God's love, for the sake of grace not weakening in him, despite his ill health and the persistent requests of doctors, he continued to fast. And it was right. We, sinful and weak people, are very far from the state of mind that Righteous John of Kronstadt preserved within himself. We must hold on to prudence. When the need arises, a person should relax the fast. But if at the same time his belly is comforted, he must reproach himself for gluttony and humble himself from it. Father Theophan explains why the living conditions in the monastery should be different for different people. Some people are accustomed to a poor, austere life, in comparison with which monastic life seems to them more nourishing and easier. Another person was driven yesterday on the "Seagull", and today he is driving a wheelbarrow with manure. There is a story on this topic in the Otechnik. One monk came to a famous elder in the desert and saw that he was sitting in slippers, drinking tea and someone else was serving him. He was embarrassed: he seemed to be a great old man, but he lived in such luxury. He told another elder about his embarrassment. He asked: "Who were you before you came to the monastery?" - "A shepherd." - "What bed did you sleep on?" - "I slept on the ground." - "What did you hide yourself with?" - "Matting." - "So you came to rest from your labors, and this man was a nobleman at the royal court and came to this need. He will also be credited with leaving everything behind." We also often look at each other here in church, and it seems to us that here I am performing feats, and a person next to me is doing nothing. But we do not know the inner structure of each other. One and the same thing is a great indulgence and sin for some, and for others it is a feat. One ate a piece of fish during Great Lent and thus defiled his entire fast, and the other ate fish throughout Lent - for him this is severe abstinence. So we must leave all judgment to God. External feats, including fasting, should in no case be accompanied by condemnation, irritation and enmity. If this happens, it means that we are fasting to our own detriment. 17. However, if I eat dry food, let me grumble, let me condemn, dry eating is not good for me. (501) It is as if you read common passages. But such commonplaces are not theoretical considerations, but practical advice to be followed. Thanks to them, some people have gone from earth to Heaven. In studying the Holy Fathers, we must pay special attention to those counsels that concern the spiritual virtues, since it is impossible for us to imitate the outward deeds of the great ascetics. One and the same feat can serve different purposes. For true ascetics, people who possess humility, endowed with the grace of God, fasting, for example, serves to increase grace, reduces carnal activity that hinders the manifestations of grace-filled powers. And for people like us, the whole meaning of any podvig is to know ourselves, to know our weakness, to make sure that we have passions. We need the same fast in order to learn that we are gluttons. Fasting in itself, without spiritual activity, can be harmful, since it strengthens pride in a person. The right path is when a person pays all his attention to the struggle with his passions in order to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit, and as an auxiliary means on this spiritual path he uses all possible bodily work. 18. Food does not defile a person, but gives birth to bad thoughts and nails the mind to earthly desires, thickens the flesh and transforms a spiritual man into a carnal one. (500) This is the true harm of overnourishment, and of all carnal consolations in general. But we are, as it were, between two fires. If we please our flesh, then this does not allow us to tear ourselves away from the earth, we fall into the captivity of sinful thoughts. If we begin an intensified fast, then the onslaught of thoughts weakens, but one begins to prevail: "I am an ascetic." And this thought alone nullifies all the benefits of abstinence. That is why God does not give us the strength to fast. You don't need to be offended by God for this, you need to thank Him for it. If we follow the path of humility, God in due time, when it will be useful to us, will give us strength for external feats as well. 19. "Woe to you, Pharisees, for you love to preside in the synagogues and to greet in the assemblies of the people" (Luke 11:43). The Pharisees strictly observed the outward decrees of the Law, and forgot the commandments of God. Unfortunately, this applies to us to a large extent, because we very often perform external rites with enviable zeal, and neglect God's commandments. I read the memoirs of a priest of the last century, how a woman came to him. He dies, cries, falls at his feet: "Father, I have sinned, I accidentally ate a spoonful of sour cream during Great Lent." He calms her down, asks: "Were there any fornication sins?" - "Yes, there was," she says quite calmly. There is nothing funny here. And now we confess in this way. Such a confession as "fornication during Lent" is the most ordinary thing. A person does not go to church, does not pray to God, almost does not believe in anything, but the only thing he repents of is: "I washed on a holiday." There is a lot of evil hidden in our souls. We do not see it in its entirety because of our spiritual blindness. We are very concerned about external decency. If we accidentally do something for which people will condemn us, we are killed, ashamed, tormented, even ready to run to confession, and when we do evil in secret, we remain completely calm. And we do not pay any attention to our inner sins, thoughts, and heartfelt experiences. Even when in thoughts we reach the point of murder, to the extreme degrees of fornication, this does not bother us, we do not consider it necessary to confess such thoughts. When we are rebuked, we are offended. Not only do we want to sin, we also want to be praised by everyone. 20. If you think that it is bad here, and it is better in another monastery, do not believe these thoughts, the enemy flatters. (265) This is the general teaching of the Holy Fathers. But it does not reach us well. It seems to us that if we change our external circumstances, we will be better. The usual temptation is to change your job, apartment, wife... Especially cowardly dissatisfaction with the circumstances of life leads to a logical, in their opinion, way out - suicide. But at least we Christians must understand that the thirst for a "change of places" is also a kind of passion. The main cause of all our troubles and problems is our passionate heart. We are tormented by our passions, they will torment us everywhere and always. Even when we die, they will not leave us. If we depart from life of our own accord, our godless self-will will go away with us. It is not going anywhere. It is another thing when there is God's blessing to change the way of life. Then the Lord helps a person. And when we try to change circumstances through our passions, it only gets worse. This is an immutable law of spiritual life. And the enemy is pushing us to violate it. 21. If you do needlework in a cell, then you must fight with one demon, and if you are idle, then you will struggle with a hundred demons. (337) This does not apply only to monks. For every Christian who tries to fight the passions, it is the most important task to organize his time. As soon as we find ourselves in idleness, the abuse immediately intensifies. Idleness is contraindicated for those who struggle. Rest, of course, is necessary, but as a change of occupation. The state of "doing nothing" is extremely dangerous. 22. "Bring down the mighty from the Throne, and lift up the humble" (Luke 1:52). Christ the Son of God did not say: "Learn from Me to wear a hairshirt, or in what abysses and caves to live; but "for I am meek and humble in heart." (276) These words should not be understood to mean that external exploits are harmful. External podvigs are good and useful, and even necessary, but they must follow the inner purification of the heart and serve it. If a person succeeds in humility, then with God's blessing he can proceed to external feats. If one is afflicted with pride, then one must be very careful with external feats - they can inflame this pride even more. Of course, we are not talking about the generally accepted rules of Christian life, but about special deeds. We only seem important and significant to ourselves. But it is precisely such that God destroys, and exalts the humble. 23. If outwardly humble, quiet, patient, this is not enough; internal, spiritual self-abasement is needed. (470) It is clearly stated that outward gestures are not enough. But it should be noted that the internal also has its own levels. If you mentally call yourself bad, even have some feelings about it - this is far from what you need. It is important to acquire a heartfelt experience of one's insignificance, conscious and unquestionable. As long as we do not have this living sense of our unworthiness before God, we do not have humility. As Mark the Ascetic writes, if we accept the sorrows sent by God with good humor, it means that our repentance is true and we sincerely consider ourselves sinners. If we murmur, then we have no real repentance. The way of obedience to the will of God, according to the words of Barsanuphius the Great, is to "accept the one who strikes as one who warms." Of course, we are not able to immediately acquire such a dispensation. Therefore, we must begin with the external – not to grumble about the troubles that God sends us, to restrain our sinful manifestations and force ourselves not to be enmity, not to be angry, not to be offended by those people who cause us harm and anxiety, by those through whom God acts. Here it is appropriate to recall the life of the Monk Isidore, described by John of the Ladder, who, having given himself over to complete obedience to the abba, was placed at the monastery gates in order to fall at the feet of each one with the words: "Pray for me, I am possessed." Having come to a great measure of holiness, the monk shortly before his death told us that for the first few years he had fulfilled his obedience with great difficulty, and then he really felt that he needed the prayers of his neighbors, and already sincerely asked to pray for him. 24. Non-acquisitiveness, almsgiving, fasting and prayer are nothing without humility! (472) All outward and even internal good deeds are worthless in themselves if a person does not experience himself in the depths of his heart as a sinner before God. But you still need to do good deeds. Although there is no love for God, there is no true humility, it is necessary, as far as one has enough intelligence, as much as one has enough strength, to act outwardly virtuous and try to inwardly correctly tune oneself and pray. And at the same time, it is necessary to rely only on God's mercy, but not on one's own virtues and feats. 25. Humble prostrations do not constitute anything: it is necessary to have inner humility, to have humble thoughts with a humble bow. (475) It is important to emphasize that in practice both are needed. Many, however, are mistaken, believing that humility is expressed in bodily movements: humbly bow, cross yourself, kiss an icon - and this is enough. Others believe that only the internal is important, and externally you can behave as you like. Both are wrong. The external is inextricably linked with the internal. The exception is the holy fools for Christ's sake, whose outward actions were often ugly, but inwardly they preserved purity before God. But those are saints. We need to remember the words of St. John of the Ladder that the position of the body largely determines our state of mind. That is why the performance of church rites is useful - these are external means that influence the soul and help to find the right inner order. 26. The Lord has taken away from us this external beauty, beautiful clothing: it does not use, it only nourishes vanity. He gives us inner beauty, for He looks at the hearts. (504) If it seems to us that we are deprived of something, and we want to dress more fashionably, if we want to have four sweaters instead of two, if we want to eat sweeter, we should remember that all these desires are vanity, that the external pleasure that we miss so much is an obsession with the passion of vanity. Inner beauty is acquired to the extent that God's commandments are fulfilled, when we gratefully accept what God sends us. 27. Even if one has acquired all the treasures of the world, he will be poor if he does not have the treasure of the soul. (505) The phrase seems hackneyed. But do we realize that in fact everything will be like this? If we come to the Last Judgment, it will turn out that everything that we have been grieving about, about which we have bothered, that we have cherished, was superfluous, even useless. It will turn out that it was necessary to gather treasures for eternity: to learn obedience, patience, humility. We live with the earth, with our body, with our soul, not with our spirit - we live in vanity. And everything that goes beyond our vanity seems to us empty and insignificant. But it would be necessary to understand, before it is too late, that our values are directly opposite to the true ones.

Patience

Part 1

You can't settle down in this life in a good way * Well-being is harmful to us * "Thank God" has become an empty saying * God endured and commanded us * God sends sorrows because He loves us * The happy forget about God * You must endure skillfully * Murmuring is blasphemy against God * There is a way out of any situation to the Kingdom of Heaven * The strong endure the weaknesses of the weak * Grace is given to the humble * The cause of sorrows is ourselves * To be offended by God is madness * Do not justify yourself, but reproach * No one would have offended us if God had not wanted it * "Patience is constant complacency" * Seek not justice, but God's mercy * As long as we endure here, so much in eternity we will be comforted * For every infirmity, thank the Lord * 28. We know that temporal life is a temptation. Christ Himself, the Son of God, left us an example; why did He not suffer in this life? and then the Apostles and Holy Martyrs? (143) We all delude ourselves when we think that it is possible to settle down in this life in some good way. You can't get a good job. Temporal life is given so that we may be tempted, purified, and prepared for eternal blissful life. It is possible to settle down in a good way only in eternity, and here to live well means to live according to God's commandments. But this in no way implies earthly goods and comfort. To hope that everything will be painless and prosperous here is even worldly naïve - this does not happen. Therefore, by the way, all kinds of communist utopias are outright deception. Promises of heaven on earth are a real deception. Why are people deceived? Because they do not want to seek the spiritual, the eternal, a person does not love God, does not want to know Him, wants to settle down here more comfortably and thoroughly, and therefore he is deceived by sweet but false fairy tales. If we want to be with Christ in eternity, we must follow the path of Christ here as well. He paved it for us, including through his sufferings. And we, under the influence of demons, perceive them as something illusory. But these were the most real sufferings, He endured them for our sake, so that we could enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We do not like and do not want to endure. Almost because of every trifle we fall into despair. I whimper because of everything: someone looked askance, something didn't work out at work, the apartment was cramped. And imagine that you are in a concentration camp, your children are on the street, your husband or wife is shot (not so long ago this happened). And from this position "on a bunk" look at your current sufferings - they will seem to you paradise. Or the modern situation: you are a refugee, you spend the night with your children on the concrete floor at the train station... In general, everything is fine with us, but we all get angry and constantly grumble, which, in fact, confirms that well-being has never brought any spiritual benefit to anyone. So God sometimes takes away our comfort so that we are purified by suffering. We need to thank God for suffering, and not ask for a warm life. It is harmful to us. 29. We say that we love, but we do not want to accept and endure anything for Him. And what did He endure for us? They vexed Him, reproached Him, beat Him, spat on Him, crucified Him on the cross - He endured everything for our salvation. (21) We read about this very often in the Holy Fathers, but these words slip past our consciousness. It is clear why they slip in, because we do not imitate Christ, we do not want to take upon ourselves the cross, we murmur when God lays the cross on us, we do not thank Him for this. If we strove to unite with Christ, then we would accept any suffering sent by God with love and joy, understanding that this is God's mercy to us, God's trust. If nothing unpleasant happens to us, then we, because of our laziness, because of our indifference, will not even pray to God. Our words of gratitude to God are especially cold. "Thank God" became an empty saying. And the sighs "Everything is not thank God" are insane blasphemy. When sorrow, illness, misfortune come, the heart opens up to God more easily. He, knowing our nature, sends us what we need. If everything is fine with us, we fall asleep spiritually, fall into pride, and cease to care about our salvation. And therefore the Lord, as St. Macarius of Optina writes, allows a person to taste the sorrows of sorrows, so that he would have humble wisdom and not hope for the strength and immutability of temporal good. We would do well to get used to the idea that everything pleasant in this life is temporary. And we console ourselves with dreams that today is good and now it will always be so. It can be eternally good only in the Kingdom of Heaven. Accepting sorrows from God, we must remember that He sends them to us out of His love. God turns everything for good. But if we do evil, if we ourselves want evil, then we will be responsible for it. If one person killed another, then the murdered person died by the will of God, then the time has come for him to die. But the killer is guilty, because he acted out of malice. We should not think that if we sin, it is God's will to do so. There is no will of God for sin. 30. About your lack of patience. I advise you to exhort yourself and say: "Theophania! Why are you faint-hearted and do not tolerate unpleasant words? Christ Himself, the Son of God, did not endure, and gave us an image of patience, so that we might follow in His footsteps. (161) When we are insulted by someone, it is very useful to remember how Christ responded to insults and torments. He did not protest, did not grumble against the offenders, and did not even condemn his murderers, but prayed for them. There is a good folk proverb: "God endured and commanded us." If we begin to imitate Christ in patience, then we will become like Him in glory, we will reign with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven, for which God created us. The only way to find peace of mind is to endure everything that God sends, including insults from people. And any attempt to find peace in an external way will only lead from anxiety to anxiety, and all the time given to us by God we will live in vain. 31. [Christ] has loved us so much, perishable and unworthy; And should we not endure something, moreover, for our sins? Because of our arrogance, we do not feel God's mercies, we have not completely clung to the Lord God, that is why everything is hard for us, everything is boring, that is why we are all in displeasure, in sorrow. (21) It is hard for us because in our hearts we do not agree to accept everything that happens in life as sent down from God. If we truly believed that everything that the Lord sends us, He sends out of love for us, then we would endure. Here is an athlete who endures. The coach tells him: "Lift the barbell a hundred times" - and he lifts. - "Do fifty push-ups" - and he does push-ups... If we believed that God wants our salvation (as a coach wants victory for an athlete) and sends us only what is useful for this, then we would endure everything complacently, would not evade and would not be lazy. With our limited minds, we cannot fully understand the reasons why God sends us sorrows, so we must accept them with humility without much reasoning. And it should not be accepted with slavish obedience (as it happens, a slave is punished, and he is forced to endure, but he is angry with his master), but with good obedience, that is, with a filial attitude, with gratitude. 32. When someone is grieving, one should console oneself with the thought that God is merciful, and the sorrow will pass. (32) The advice is very good, but it is good for those people who aspire to the kingdom of heaven. For them, the thought that God is merciful, that He forgives those who repent their infirmities and sins, is indeed encouraging and strengthening. 33. If someone offends me, I must think that it is the Lord who wants to bring me to my senses, to remind me that I am bad. (455) God sends all troubles, sorrows, and illnesses so that we may remember Him and His commandments and begin to live according to them, and not so that we may destroy our souls by condemning offenders. Abba Dorotheus, when he saw a certain monk patiently, without any external irritation, enduring insults from the brethren, wanted to know what he was thinking at the same time. (This story is described in the book of Abba Dorotheus, one of the best for beginners in the spiritual life.) The abba was amazed that the young monk had come to such a measure of success. He asked him: "How do you manage to do this?" and he answered: "I think of these people that they are not people, but barking dogs." This, of course, is the worst thing that can happen. Because it is better to be irritated in a human way, and then repent of it, than to have such a false peace, which comes from great pride. The elder crossed himself and said: "Deliver me, O God, from such outward patience." But true patience is the most precious gift that is given to the one who accepts sorrows without murmuring, with gratitude. If we were true Christians, we should not pray that God would deliver us from suffering, but that He would grant us the patience to endure it. "Thou art not wiser than God," said St. Isaac the Syrian, exhorting him to submit to the Lord in everything. The subject of our Orthodox faith is that God loves us and does everything exclusively for our salvation, and we are required to accept this with love. 34. We flee from sorrows; And the saints grieved that there were no sorrows: was it possible, they said, to be saved without them? (393) The Monk Abba Dorotheus, when he was still a novice, asked: "Can I be saved if I do not feel any sorrow?" We are weak people and are not able to cut off our will so directly and decisively. We are not called by God to such a great feat, so we must endure sorrows with good humor and know that we are saved only when we endure them. If we feel light for a while, it means that God is sending us comfort. If our life proceeds smoothly, serenely, it is worth thinking about whether we live a godly life. Patience with sorrows is the way to Heaven. But patience must be right. "This life is for endure, and everyone endures something. But one must endure skillfully, otherwise one can endure, but receive no benefit," writes St. Theophan the Recluse, and adds: "Patience does not go for the future, if it is not for the sake of the Lord. We work, endure, exhaust, and all for the sake of the enemy, to our own destruction." What does it mean to "be able to endure"? When something unpleasant happens to us, demons and sinful habits push us to condemn people, to condemn circumstances, to condemn even God Himself. Meanwhile, the basic rule of spiritual life is very simple and well known to us: do not grumble and accept everything that happens as from the hand of God. Such a feat is accessible to everyone, for this you do not need to be a theologian, a monk, or a priest. To do this, you need to be just a Christian and want to save your soul. Everything that happens to us either comes from outside or comes from within ourselves. We are responsible for what comes from us, here is the area of manifestation of our freedom, and everything sinful requires self-reproach and repentance. And what appears to us from outside, which does not depend on us, is sent by the almighty, loving God and must be received without murmuring, with thanksgiving. Murmuring is blasphemy against God. When we murmur, we put our desires above the will of God and thereby actually rebel against God. This is a sin close to Satan's, which is why the Holy Fathers so strictly warn against murmuring. St. Isaac the Syrian writes that God is lenient to our infirmities, but is angry with a person who murmurs, and punishes him. Sorrows should be accepted not only with gratitude, but also with joy, because we are saved by them. If we were to aspire with our minds to eternity, to the Last Judgment, to the toll-houses that await us all without exception, we would rejoice in sorrows. We, on the contrary, try to push away sorrows from ourselves and murmur, because all our attention, all our desires are directed to the temporary, and at the same time, of course, any sorrow is hateful to us, since it interferes with our peace, our enjoyment of life. You need to humble yourself before God. If sorrow has already come (illness, death of a loved one, failure in everyday affairs), you need to bow your head and courageously endure. But we, carnal people, tend to fuss and twitch. From childhood, we are brought up with the idea that there must be a way out of any situation and we must find it at any cost. But in reality, there is only a way out of any situation in the sense of eternal salvation in the Kingdom of Heaven, because in each situation a free choice is possible: to act according to God's commandment or according to one's passionate desire. As for temporal life, nothing pleasant is promised to us here - Christ Himself was crucified and died on the cross. But on the other hand, we are promised: if we endure, as befits all that God sends us in temporal life, then we will be saved in eternal life. 35. The Lord will also correct everyone. (32) When someone does the right thing, he saves himself and helps others. It is known that in monasteries, along with great ascetics, weak brothers always lived. For example, in one monastery St. Barsanuphius the Great, his disciple and the equally great elder John the Prophet, their disciples the Monks Seris and Abba Dorotheus were tied together. And in the same monastery there were brothers who, as Abba Dorotheus recalled, hated him so much that they shook out their rugs with bedbugs in front of his door in order to annoy him. The strong endured the infirmities of the weak, prayed for them, and God called them to repentance, correction, and so they were saved. If we endure the weaknesses of our neighbors, pray for them, then we ourselves will receive salvation and attract God's mercy to our neighbor. So the Lord will correct everyone. 36. Do not be bored with the sorrows that have befallen you; "tribulation worketh patience" (Rom. 5:3). (112) These are the words of the Apostle Paul. Indeed, sorrow gives rise to patience, that is, it changes the quality of our soul. Patience should not be a temporary state (today I endure, tomorrow I do not endure), it is necessary that the soul acquires a new property - it becomes patient. When the soul is patient, it also becomes humble. And already a humble soul is ready to receive grace. God sends sorrows in order to make our soul capable of receiving grace. In the letters of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov we read: "Entrust your external circumstances to the providence of God, and as they are arranged, so let them be arranged. And be peaceful and calm, worrying only about your soul, which you promised to present to Christ cleansed by repentance." The words are very simple and can be considered a common place in spiritual literature. But they make more sense than we usually think. It seems to us that this means "Come what may!" and the fact is that they must be understood literally, then the spiritual meaning of what is said is revealed: we will not be responsible for external circumstances, we will not be held accountable for them. The conditions of life - pleasant, unpleasant and most terrible - are created by Divine Providence and serve our salvation. We will have to answer for how we received them: with a murmur or humbly, preserving the peace of the heart. In general, it must be said that many of the formulations familiar to our ears, which are found in the Holy Scriptures and in the Holy Fathers, are often poorly thought out by us and not understood in a Christian way. The Christian understanding assumes that absolutely all external circumstances are sent by God and as such deserve only thanks from us.

Part 2

37. We think that sorrows just come. No! The Lord God sends us to know that we have not yet attained humility and patience. (393) Nothing ever happens without God's will, including troubles and misfortunes. Therefore, it is ridiculous to be offended by people. To be offended by God is already complete madness. Although, strange as it may seem, this kind of insanity seems to occur more often than ordinary mental disorders. Obviously, it is a consequence of our excessive pride. We imagine ourselves to be judges not only over people, but also over God Himself, because He did not please us in some way, did not arrange something, did not deliver us from our sins. We murmur: why doesn't God correct me? It would be more logical to wonder why He still tolerates us at all. In justice, the Lord should have destroyed us long ago for our sins, but He still spares us, everything awaits our repentance. "Through pride and our sins we ourselves are the cause of our sorrows" - this is the statement of the great Elder Hilarion Troekurovsky. And St. Ambrose of Optina said: "The tree of our sorrows has grown on the soil of our hearts." There are no sorrows that would not be generated by our passions, and there cannot be. 38. "For our life is in heaven" (Phil. 3:20). Do not despair of God's mercy. (112) We often become faint-hearted and complain about the sorrows of our temporal life, but the temporal is temporary, and is absolutely insignificant in comparison with the eternal. We must remember that our true life is still in heaven. All temporal sorrows are only exercises, love punishments, instructions from God to prepare us for eternity. It is not always pleasant for the patient to tolerate the procedures, but if he is in a good clinic and knows that he is being treated by good doctors, then he is happy with any procedures and is grateful for them. Our heavenly Physician is omnipotent, loving, omniscient, and therefore everything He does to us is for our benefit, so we should always thank Him and not despair of His mercy. Any illness is a gift of God, God's admonition. And this gift serves our success, if we give thanks for it. Great torments were endured by Job the Long-suffering. Mental anguish: all his children, all his property perished, only one mad wife remained, who seduced him to blasphemy. Bodily torments: he was stricken with a terrible illness. But he endured, thanking and glorifying God. Such patience led him to great glory both on earth and in heaven. We too must be patient a little, accepting illnesses from God with good humor, and we too will see the glory of God. 39. You write that you are very sad, but although you do not mention the reasons why it happened, it is known that the sorrow is not from God, but from the enemy of our souls; the yoke of Christ is not heavy, according to His holy word: My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. This He deigned to say with His most pure lips, but the enemy has imposed a heavy yoke on you. (163) Good and salvific sorrow is when we grieve over our sins, but hope for God's mercy, thus gaining strength to fight our passions. And any sorrow about worldly affairs is a sorrow that must be overcome. The reason that we experience our life's cross as a kind of heaviness is not in God, but in our passions and demonic delusions, because we have not loved what we should, and when we are deprived of what we love, it is certainly difficult for us. Just like a drug addict begins to "withdraw" when he is deprived of a drug. The cause of his suffering is not a certain substance, but addiction to it. 40. If you want to be saved and destroy the burden of sin, then you must reproach yourself, reproach yourself, and weep for your impatience; to honor everyone, as they are your own sisters, to love everyone - and so you will be saved. (180) If we want to destroy the burden of sin, we must always reproach ourselves, asking God to cleanse the heart of passions. Whether a sinful thought has come, someone has offended us - no matter what happens, we must always sincerely reproach ourselves, and then the passions will recede. When a person does not do to us what we expect from him, it means that God does not notify him. And it doesn't matter if the person is good or not. Everything is in God's hands. When He pleases, He will put a good attitude into an evil person, and He will help us. And if God does not please, then all those closest to him will turn away. And if God wants to punish us and humble us, then all creation will rise up against us. It is better to humble oneself before God and suffer a small punishment than to grumble, rebel, and raise up all creation against oneself. 41. If you are offended or endure passion, resist your evil thoughts. This torment is enough. (205) This is an answer to the nun, who evidently dreamed of the feat of martyrdom. True podvig is the struggle with one's passions. It is imputed to martyrdom. In Greek, martyrs are called "martiros", which translates as "witness". The martyr bears witness to the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven by his life. We are small and weak people, so God does not send us great sorrows, but we must gratefully endure the small things that He sends (sorrows, illnesses, suffering from our own passions) and thus also testify to the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven. 42. The Lord God knows what you need. (394) Good children believe that mom and dad know how to treat them and what's best for them. Children do not like it, but they still drink bitter medicines that their parents give them. In the same way, although it is not easy for us to endure sorrows (they would not be sorrows if we did not grieve from them), we should trust God without murmuring, for He knows best what is good for us. In addition, one must sincerely thank God for sorrows, not hypocritically, not just in words, but from the bottom of one's heart. Just as we thank the doctor who performed the operation on us. It was painful, we lost important organs, but we are sure that without medical intervention we would have died. The Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews says that when we endure punishments, we, as children, find the Father in God, and can there be a son who is not punished by the father? Unfortunately, there are children who are not punished by their fathers, especially in our time. These are unfortunate children, they grow up mentally crippled. A person cannot grow up normal, even in the most ordinary everyday sense, if he is not punished, that is, taught, corrected. 43. If you see any deficiency in the meal, you will meet in need other than need, be patient. We are not worthy of what we use here. (496) This is a very important ascetic instruction. If we show impatience, reproach our loved ones (often because of insignificant trifles: looking the wrong way, putting the cup in the wrong place, etc.), we thereby lose salvation. "Patience is uninterrupted complacency," said St. Nikon of Optina. They would have endured, resigned themselves - and they would have received great benefits. And we inflict mortal harm on ourselves with petty impatience. And if we dare to blame God for not giving us something, then we must reason honestly: admit that we do not really deserve anything, that if we are to be judged according to our merits before God, we must simply be exterminated - already now given over to eternal torment. Therefore, it is better for us not to sue God, not to seek our own truth, but to seek God's mercy. 44. There is no need to reproach one another. If there are those who are weak, let those who are stronger bear the weakness of the weak. After all, they did not come to the monastery to point out to each other, who works more and who works less. The more we work, the more we will receive rewards from God. (444) Mutual reproaches, which are habitual to all of us. We all bargain, we consider it normal and natural for ourselves to be offended. I often hear Christians complain: why did he tell me this, why did they do this to me, why was I not praised, why was I scolded for nothing? All this is completely out of place in the Church. It is natural for non-believers to demand respect for themselves, to expect praise. They do not suspect about eternal life, about the Last Judgment. All their values are carnal. For them, everything should take place here on earth. Therefore, they ruthlessly fight for a "place in the sun". And for Christians who are preparing for the Last Judgment, fearing eternal torment and thirsting for eternal bliss, such an attitude to life is absurd. "If you do not endure bitter, you will not wait for sweets," said Elder Hilarion of Troekurovsky. As long as we endure here, so much will we be comforted in eternity. Therefore, when we flee from the labors, sorrows, illnesses, and troubles that God sends us, we flee from eternal blissful life. 45. We see in the common people what need they endure, and they do not understand what it is for, and if we endure it with feelings and attribute all this to my shortcomings that I am not worthy of the best, then, of course, there will be a sacrifice acceptable to God. And if you grumble, then there is no benefit. (42) Of course, it cannot be said that we are now in need, it is only an outrage on our part, that we are grumbling. None of us are starving. None of us is deprived of clothing or housing, but we have some, let's say, small drawback. Thus, we must accept this small shortcoming with gratitude, with the understanding that God protects us from many sins by the absence of luxury, the absence of superabundance, which exists in developed countries. And if this is a punishment, then it punishes us, so that our souls may be cleansed for the Kingdom of Heaven. If we thought so, then everything would be fine with us. God especially punishes our people for continuing to grumble. We didn't like everything under the tsar. The tsar was driven away, they arranged a paradise life for themselves in a concentration camp. The concentration camp is over - again we murmur, again dissatisfied. The Lord has already given us everything, the churches are open, services are going on everywhere, and everyone is full, and the misfortunes that we expected are gone. At one time, everyone was afraid that there would be hunger, there would be some passions - there was none of this. Everything bad that exists is only from our malice. And we continue to grumble. I'm talking about Christians. That it is not Christians who murmur is out of the question. We, Christians, murmur flies from our lips, and all the time we are dissatisfied, and we should only thank God. 46. When there is any deficiency or sorrow at the table, then remember what needs and sorrows the saints endured, but they thanked God for everything! (266) We are always complaining about material circumstances. When this is done by people who do not believe in God, who are completely immersed in their earthly interests, there is nothing to say. When a Christian begins to lament that everything is precious, that we are starving, that we cannot breathe from difficulties, this is already a slander against God, because, thank God, we are all still fed, clothed, and our difficulties are endured. But if we continue to sin, then, no matter the hour, the Lord will punish us for our faint-hearted murmuring. We should be aware that we are not worthy of anything good, and at the same time thank God for everything, then we can hope that the Lord will increase our spiritual, and possibly material possessions. If a person gratefully accepts God's gifts, then this as if prompts God to multiply them. But it's not just a matter of saying, "Lord, thank you." For the most part, we consider ourselves worthy of God's gifts, and often we feel worthy of even more. Therefore, we thank God formally, as if by the way. But by doing so, we add hypocrisy to our sins. And therefore God, in His mercy, so that our sins do not multiply, does not send us spiritual gifts. He restrains his generosity, waiting for our repentance. 47. Do not think that the Lord God does not look upon your labors, on your patience: He looks upon all that is good, and if you live like this, He will not leave you. (395) If we endure, if we bear our cross, we should not be faint-hearted and think that God does not see us, as if He has forgotten us. If we live without murmuring, then, of course, God looks at us with love, and, of course, we will receive a good reward even for our small labors, and an undeservedly large one, far exceeding our labors and sacrifices. 48. There is no need to desire or ask for death, but to pray: Thy holy will be done. (25) Some people, especially those who are sick or very old, ask for death. In vain, because God knows when to take the soul. We must accept all the sufferings that God sends and endure with gratitude, since they serve to purify our souls and prepare us for the Kingdom of Heaven. Christian prudence is also required in relation to illnesses. "He to whom illness will be sent must spend his time in thanksgiving to God," writes St. Ignatius Brianchaninov. Mind you, not in murmuring and not in the search for any urgent healing. Of course, due to infirmity, we are all blessed with medical treatment, there are very few people who could, with benefit for themselves, firmly endure the disease, without resorting to any means to alleviate it. Our spirit is weak, therefore we are forced to turn to doctors for help, but at the same time we must remember that any ailment is a mercy sent to us, for which it is necessary to thank and glorify God. Let us not forget to thank the Lord even after we have received healing through pills, procedures and operations, for God also acts through doctors, through devices and drugs. Forgetting about gratitude, a person risks falling under the wrath of God, when the Lord begins to admonish with stronger illnesses, making it clear that healing in any case comes from Him. Sincerely thanking God, a person receives peace and comfort. This is a real experience of the spiritual life not only of the saints, but also of every Christian. Everyone, having tried, will be convinced that if, without bargaining with God, you thank and praise Him from the heart, then peace and silence reign in the heart, which are the pledge of eternal consolation. 49. In this life it is not long to endure. (396) In the Otechnik there is a story about how the demons tried to bring the ascetic into despondency, predicting how difficult it would be for him to live in the wilderness for a long seventy years. And he replied that he was ready to endure at least two hundred years. Of all the sorrows that we have to endure, it can be said that they are temporary and even short-lived. Always, when something unpleasant happens, one must console oneself with the fact that all this is only for a while, that infinite bliss awaits the sufferer. It should always be remembered that illness is temporary, but life is eternal.

Temptation

Man is known in temptation * We sin because we are sinners * Expect blows to weak points * Give thanks for sorrow * Demonic intrigues for our education * In anger - be silent * Boredom - captivity by the demon of despondency * With two feet in the coffin, but at the TV * Demons lure us from the depths of our hearts * What drives us out of the temple * Offenses and insults are necessary and useful * Endure temptation with gratitude * Destroy the old man * The temptation of the magical path * Search for the culprits kindles anger * 50. It is impossible without temptations. "Child, if thou wilt begin to work for the Lord God, prepare thy soul for temptation" (Sir. 2:1). (390) If we want to be God's servants and enter the path of repentance, we must prepare ourselves for temptations. And temptations are not toys, they are not some kind of exercises and training. These are real troubles and sorrows, this is what is hard. This is both the meaning and the value of fighting temptations. That which is easy to cope with, which can be overcome without effort and pain, does not bring spiritual benefit. If we want to cleanse ourselves, if we want to change for the better, then we must expect blows precisely to the sore and weak spots. And in order to win this struggle, we need not to be offended by those who strike and insult, not to be offended by people, and even more so by God. Sometimes, a person falls into some serious mental temptation and is so upset by it that he even falls ill. Here the advice is not to be faint-hearted, but to repent and humble yourself before the Lord, recognizing your weakness. We must try to ensure that spiritual warfare does not pass into the sphere of emotions, into spiritual experiences, and does not lead us to nervous illnesses. It is impossible without temptations. He who flees from temptation flees from his salvation. The Holy Fathers write that the podvig that is accomplished without struggle, without heartache, is fruitless. There are, for example, people who find fasting easy, they naturally eat little, and they are not attracted to sweets. But there is little spiritual benefit from such fasting, there is no struggle here and there are no fruits of struggle. When fasting is difficult, when the fast is broken, a person suffers and repents, humbles himself from this, then there is a real benefit. 51. And what a reward when you endure temptation! "Thou shalt punish them a little, and they shall be greatly beneficial, for God shall tempt them, and find them worthy of Himself: as gold in the furnace thou hast tempted them, and as the all-fruitfulness of sacrifice I have received" (Wis. 3:5-6). (390) If we are not tested, our worthiness will not be revealed. In temptations, a person is recognized: whether he seeks the Kingdom of Heaven or something else. Without temptations, we could not know our weakness and sinfulness. Trials are allowed by God. When we murmur in temptation, it shows that we do not want to enter His Kingdom. Murmuring is the worst. Various human infirmities, even grave falls, are corrected by repentance. But if a person murmurs, it means that he refuses to repent. 52. Annoying and hostile people are sent from God for our correction and temptation, in order to bring our morals to those of infancy. Say: I have sinned, forgive me for God's sake. (209) It is not Satan who sends people to grieve, insult, and tempt us, but God. Everything that comes at us from the outside is given to us by God. No one can do anything without God's will, including harm to us. However, God is not the source of evil, but He allows the evil will of people and demons to manifest itself. Only it is necessary to accept this evil with gratitude and love, and it will turn out to be good for us. That is why you need to sincerely thank God for everything. And in no case should we condemn those people through whom God sends us saving troubles. 53. The enemy makes his own mistakes; there is no need to be embarrassed, but to ask the Lord God, and so all this will pass. (11) Even if we sincerely desire to live according to the commandments, God still allows demons to work against us, and they tempt us. All this is necessary for our learning, for our humility. There is no need to be perplexed about this, but we need to turn to God with a prayer of repentance, with a request for help, then temptations will be overcome and we will receive real benefit from this. 54. In times of contradiction it is better not to say anything: be dumb and humble and keep silent, according to the words of St. David. (139) Sometimes you should reprimand someone, but not before the anger against that person has passed. As long as we ourselves are in temptation, there is nothing to be said or done. It happens that you need to reprimand, the elders are even obliged to reprimand the younger ones, and they must punish. Both severity and severity are appropriate here, but not anger. There is no need to justify yourself by saying that the subordinate did wrong. Anger is a passion, it is our sin, regardless of how someone behaves towards us. There is a well-known saying: "A monk who does not restrain his tongue during anger will never conquer his passions." The first step in dealing with anger is to refrain from expressing anger in words. But if it has come to the point that you have poured out your anger on someone, you should not despair, but repent. The real struggle with this passion begins when a person outwardly refrains from anger, but inwardly reproaches himself for it. By continuing to pour out anger and justify ourselves, we root this passion even deeper in the soul. 55. Boredom comes from the fact that you do not have the perfect love of God in you. (347) Indeed, this is the cause of boredom. But do not be naïve to believe that we will suddenly be able to love God and our boredom will pass. Through the transgression of Adam and Eve, we fell away from God's love, and now we must constantly repent and ask God for the gift of love. Until we receive this great gift of the Holy Ghost, boredom will not recede from us. Boredom is not a harmless state, it is captivity by the spirit of despondency, the main temptation for all people. For monastics, this temptation is the most difficult, it is not experienced only by those monks who do not asceticize. We, worldly people, have many natural worries and troubles, so the spirit of despondency does not take possession of us so easily. But it takes possession of us imperceptibly. But it is very bad when we are treated for boredom with entertainment. In contrast to work, they distract us from God. At confession, the confessor often hears from old women who are already standing with both feet in the coffin, only they have to lie down, that they are saving themselves from boredom with the TV. Human weakness, of course, remains weakness. But, nevertheless, we must well imagine that with death everything will end and the judgment will begin, at which we will have to answer for all our indulgences, for our laziness and idleness. How to counteract boredom? By prudent action, bodily and mental. It is unlikely that most of us will be suitable for unceasing prayer as a remedy for despondency. This is a lofty feat, not feasible for everyone. Therefore, it is best to consult with experienced spiritual people: how to build your life, how to spend time, how to pray. 56. What the enemy offers, we obey; what God says, we reject. (425) This is the usual state of our soul. The enemy tries to seduce us, he plays on our passions and prompts us that which is pleasant, but destructive. And God, as a loving Father, points out to us what is useful, and it is often unpleasant. How does it happen in life? One boy shouts to another: "Vitka, go out into the yard" - Vitka wants to go out, you can run, shout, play in the street, but the "evil" parents force him to do his homework. So it is in the spiritual life. For the salvation of the soul, for eternal bliss, it is useful for a person to obey God, and the demons, like these boys, lure a person out of the depths of his heart and turn him to external vanity. 57. The Lord God has called you to the threshold of heaven, to the holy abode; but small sorrows lead you to despair, and you say or think: why did you enter the monastery? and so resist the will of God. (143) This is written to a nun, and it applies to all people, especially those who have come to work in the church. A person came to church to work and thinks that now he is almost a saint, deserves to be bowed to, but suddenly he is not honored, called the wrong way, looked at the wrong way - the devil, of course, does not sleep, immediately prompts the idea that he needs to leave the church, go to work at a factory, where they pay more money. But this is a typical temptation that must be overcome. If someone does not pay attention to us and treats us unkindly, as we think, we must agree that we are not worthy of attention. And if someone does us some kind of evil, according to human reasoning, we need to see God's providence in this and thank the people through whom it is accomplished. From a spiritual point of view, offenses and insults are good for us. God sends us sorrows and needs out of His mercy. Great is our error, when we turn away from everything useful, and are drawn to everything harmful. 58. Grant, O God, that you may put off the old man and put on the new! The old man is in temptation, in disorder, and the new man is in patience and in generous hope in the grace of God. (143) In each of us, unfortunately, there is an old man, but there is also a new one. When sin takes possession of us, then we act like the old man, and when we good-naturedly endure what God sends, trusting in God's help, then we act like a new man. Our task is to exterminate the old man, and to allow the new to grow and strengthen. If some passion takes possession of us, it is a matter for repentance, and not for investigation: who led me into temptation, why did I succumb to temptation, and why did I sin... I sinned because it is characteristic of the old man to sin. St. Mark the Ascetic said: "When temptation comes, do not seek how and from whom it came, but seek to endure it with thanksgiving." This is an almost universal and constant misconception - when something happens, we try to figure it out, find out the reasons, find the culprits, and so on. By doing so, we are actually on the path of magic. That is, we try to penetrate into the spiritual world with our carnal reason and, as it were, take possession of it. And God expects something completely different from us - He wants to prepare us for the Kingdom of Heaven, He sends us temptations and teaches us patience, humility, and thanksgiving. It is a different matter with the conviction of conscience, when temptation engenders in the soul a clear feeling that God has punished us for some sin. If such an instruction is given, then it is necessary to use it and repent of what conscience convicts. But to dig into the mind, guess and calculate why and what happened is sinful and harmful to the soul. This is also harmful in terms of human relations. The trial, forbidden by St. Mark, leads the soul into confusion and is capable of sowing the seeds of rancor and hatred of one's neighbors. There is no need to find the culprits of our troubles. The culprits, of course, are ourselves, our sin, which prompts God to arrange our circumstances, to direct the actions of people or demons in such a way that they humble us. And the search for "external" culprits only inflames our own anger.