There are two laughs: light and dark. They can be distinguished at once by the smile, by the eyes of the laughing man. In oneself it can be distinguished by the accompanying spirit: if there is no light joy, a subtle breeze that softens the heart, then laughter is not bright. If the chest is hard and dry, and the smile is crooked, then the laughter is dirty. It always happens after an anecdote, after some mockery of the harmony of the world. The distorted harmony of the world distorts the human soul, and this is expressed in the contortion of facial features." Woe to you who laugh so much now, for you will weep." ("Lk. 6, 25). You'll cry! Because you will see that you have added joy not to what can be applied, but to what is worthy of torment." Blissful Smile", there is a mirror of the harmony found. The saints smile without laughing. Laughter, as the fullness of pure joy, is the state of the age to come. Blessed are they that mourn now, for ye shall laugh. The ascetic experience of lightening and transforming a person advises even smiling without opening one's teeth (better a little less joy than even the most fleeting impurity in it!)." The anecdotal laughter with which one laughs in the cinemas, theaters, at feasts and parties, with which one easily ridicules one's neighbor, laughs at the weaknesses and dignity of man, at his conscience and at his sins, for amusement and for forgetting sorrow, without sense, and vaingloriously laughing at others, all this is a disease of the spirit. It can be said even more precisely: this is a symptom of a disease of the spirit. they can be seen on the faces of those who "roll" with laughter... Angelic joy lights up the face with a smile.Good laughter can silently dispel the accumulated clouds of malicious contentiousness, hatred, even murder... Good laughter restores friendship, family hearth." "Caustic" laughter is not from God. A sarcastic smile, a sarcasm of witticism, this is a parody of the Gospel salt of wisdom. A parody that twists in a smile." The sharpness of the word always cuts the soul. But the sharpness - being even the same in two knives - surgical and robber - produces quite different effects. One, when cutting, lets in the light of heaven and the warmth of the Spirit, or cuts out festering, circumcises deadness; the other - graceless wit - cuts, shreds the soul and often kills. Dirty spirits, on the other hand, parody witticism, and many people in the world are sophisticated in "expressing themselves" through these witticisms. Such laughter overtakes people not far from abundant meals.He who watches himself, who reveres the mystery of his life, will guard both his whole life and his laughter. Even his smile will be kept before God. Everything will be with him - with the help of his invisible guardians - pure and clear.The saints shone to the world both with their weeping and with their smiles. Like children. For only children – and people who truly believe in Christ – have the purity of life, visible with the bodily eyes, even in the features of the face. Death has not yet manifested itself in the sneer of their mortal nature, they have been given the spring of life, as the beginnings and as the remembrance of paradise; and behold, they look cleanly, laugh cleanly, speak unguilefully, weep easily, easily forget their weeping..."If you do not turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven"... It is clear why.The highest praise for a person is to say: "He has a child's laughter"... Immaculate laughter, close to heavenly harmony.

About the kidnapping

"I have come to bring fire down upon the earth..." Lux. 12,49. The mystery of Prometheus' iniquity is not that he steals fire, but that he steals. The desire to delight and enrich oneself with the raptured is the discovery of the primordial harmony of the world (the possibility of possessing everything), and its destroyed love. This is the Kingdom of God. "We have nothing, and we possess everything" (2 Corinthians 6:10). Only through love are things subordinate to man. Therefore, in the world it is necessary to ask ("Ask and it will be given to you"... Mf. 7,7); therefore in the world it is necessary to give ("Give, and it shall be given to you"... Lux. 6:38). They always steal what is not theirs, for it is impossible to steal one's own. You can only give your own and you can only take your own. This is the law of the New World." Thou shalt not steal" - the continuation of "Thou shalt not kill" - the law of Recreation, the law of Love. He who steals kills his own life, and the life of him from whom he steals..."Such are the ways of everyone who hungers for someone else's goods: it takes away the life of him who possesses him" (Proverbs 1:19). And it will testify (burn!) at the Last Judgment.The peace given to man by God and transmitted by man to man is illumination and the great warmth of life... The world, stolen by man and stolen from man, is the fire of Gehenna.Stealing the small or the great, material or spiritual, by deed or desire, is a sin unto death, for it is against Love, Life. And it is no longer possible to steal one's own.Everyone who steals - steals fire from heaven... Everyone who loves has this fire. For the Lord came to bring him down to earth.

Love and trust

Is it possible to love a person and not trust him? Can. True love for a person does not mean the deification of all his qualities, and worship of all his actions. True love can also notice a person's shortcomings, as acutely as malice. Even more acute. But love, not as malice, but in its own way, in love, relates to the shortcomings of man. Love preserves and saves the human soul for eternity; but anger drowns, kills. Love to love the person himself; not his sins, not his madness, not his blindness... And more keenly than malice sees all the imperfection of this world.The feat of spiritual clairvoyance: - to see all the sins of people and judge all evil, and, at the same time, not to condemn anyone... Only a person enlightened from above is capable of such love. But isn't trust a sign of an open soul, and isn't openness a property of love? No, love is broader than openness. And without the openness of the soul, there can be love in this world... Elder Ambrose of Optina or Venerable Seraphim loved people with ardent love, and, in the Spirit, served them. they guarded their souls from the eyes of men, penetrating with their eyes into the souls of men. At confession, the confessor does not open his soul to the confessor at all. But the soul of a true spiritual father is open, not by discovery, but by love; and through love is revealed in the world.The Elder does not always reveal to everyone everything that he knows from God. A mother who does not say everything that comes to her mind to her child, does not hide it out of love, but does not trust it out of love, but shows her love to the child, hiding from him everything that is not useful to him, to which he has not yet grown up, which he cannot accept into her immature body, and into her immature soul. Neither spontaneity, nor simplicity, nor "distrust" can be good... A doctor does not reveal everything to a patient, a boss to a subordinate, a teacher to a student.Condition and age, capacity and preparedness determine the object and truth manifested in the world.The human soul is like a ship. A ship has an underwater part, and the soul must have its own consciousness, invisible to the world. Not the "subconscious," but the consciousness that is concealed for the good of truth. Evil must be concealed so as not to stain anyone. Good things must be concealed so as not to spill them. It is necessary to conceal for the benefit of all. The concealment of the soul's evil is sometimes a spiritual necessity; hiding one's good is almost always wisdom and righteousness. and not all "distrust" is a betrayal of the ultimate trust.The last trust can only be had in the Triune God, and in all His laws and words. Distrust of oneself is always wisdom, and any genuine, positive distrust, out of love, of others, is a continuing holy distrust of oneself... For sometimes a person is not free in his deeds and words, he is troubled in evil, and he himself is not aware of it." Not to trust oneself in everything"... - this has a deep and salutary meaning. Your experience, your mind, your heart, your thought, your mood... all this is shaky, poor and uncertain; there is no absolute subject for trust... And from distrust of all that is shaky arises an all-perfect and boundless trust in the Triune God. Only to spiritual fathers and leaders, true and tested, in Christ, can one fully trust oneself, more than oneself, and give one's ears and one's soul in the name of God. of which I am a particle). The consequences of original sin, passion, are inherent in both him and me. Of course, to different degrees and in different shades, but both he and I have reason not to trust our still dual nature and untransformed will. We act, almost always, "according to passion", with an admixture of sin, and not "dispassionately"; I am indeed changeable, inconstant; I am shaken by the various "attachments" of the evil one, and the purity of the depths of my soul is now and then clouded by the silt rising from the bottom of it. My neighbor is as changeable as I am, and is just as capable of good as of evil. I must tirelessly check my actions in the world: are they "according to God"? It is not only the evil that needs to be checked, but also the "good" of mine, for the evil is often obvious, while the good only seems to be "good" but in fact is evil. However, even evil needs to be tested; And the evil cannot be "trusted", according to the first sign of "evil". To people who are darkened (such as we are), good things seem bad if they are associated with pain, burden, and insults to our self-esteem.We are not talking here about malicious suspicion, but about a good creative distrust of ourselves and of everything that surrounds us in the world.Sin seems to us, almost always, as something "sweet"; - one should not trust this sweetness, for it is the bitterest bitterness and suffering. Suffering (e.g., in the struggle for purity of body and soul) seems unbearable and disgusting; this conclusion should not be trusted either; good suffering is followed by peace, which is above all joy.People talk a lot, and often for a long time, and as if their ideas should serve the good; but how much unfaithful, seductive and empty pours out of their mouths. People often suffer for the words that they themselves said, and repent of them.Yes, not everything that comes from a person (even with his noblest intentions!) is good. Much is unnecessary, vain, sinful, and such is not only for the one who harasses this uselessness, but also for the one who carelessly accepts it. Only with the former, the latter is fruitful.Of course, it is not necessary to have distrust of the person himself, but of his given state. The degree of trust should always be changed, in proportion to the state of a person's enlightenment in God. If a person whom we love, and whom we have always trusted, suddenly appears before us drunk and begins to give us some advice... Will our love for this person disappear? If we love him deeply, our love will not disappear, and will not even weaken. But trust will disappear, not only in the words, but also in the feelings of this person, while he is in such a state.Intoxication with wine is less common in people than intoxication with any other passion: anger, rancor, lust, love of money, love of glory... Passions, like wine, act on the mind and on the will of a person and pervert his entire soul. Intoxicated with any passion, he does not control himself, ceases to be himself, becomes "the plaything of demons"; even the one who, in his free time from passion, is filled with the true depth and purity of Christ, as far as it is possible within the limits of our earthly, personal and hereditary sinfulness. For example: I want to pronounce the Word, or - to receive the Holy Scripture. Mysteries, but I feel that my soul is full of confusion and passion... In this case, I must act according to the Gospel, i.e. leaving my gift at the altar, go to make peace with my soul, "with my brother"; in other words, to be at peace, to enter into heavenly life. This is an example of righteous and good distrust of oneself, in the name of Christ's love for oneself. My egoistic love, on the contrary, would want to despise and overlook my shortcomings and would consider my soul "worthy", would unjustly entrust it, and would allow its sinful state to be poured out on the world, or to approach God without repentance, to His burning bush. And I would have been scorched by the immutable laws of God's purity.Surely I must be impartial to myself and to others. But wouldn't that mean that I was "judging" someone, contrary to the Word, "judge not, that ye be not judged"? Not at all. Reasoning is a sign of the emergence of the human soul from its bad infancy. This reasoning is "wisdom," of which it is said, "Be ye wise as serpents." Reasoning is the crown of love, and the Holy Spirit. the teachers of the Church even - oh mystery! - consider it higher than "love", higher, of course, than "human", irrational, often even fatal - love. Discernment is the heavenly wisdom in life, the spiritual mind of love, which does not take away its power, but gives it salt." Do not cast your beads... " is not the absence of love (the Word of God teaches only love!), but the wisdom of love, the knowledge of the higher laws of heaven, which is poured out on the whole sinful world, but does not mix with anything sinful." Do not cast your beads... " is a commandment about distrust in love, a commandment that leads to love, protects love." Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done"... I constantly want to realize in myself, and in everything, this love; - to abolish "his kingdom", and to open - God's. Not to trust, not to accept anything "one's own", "human", sinful, and semi-sinful... To open your ears and your heart (all its depth!) only to God, pure, bright... "Thy Kingdom come"! I - to death - do not want to rest in his hunger - in everything. I pray, and this word does not fall coldly from my lips, it pours out of my whole being, and makes me languish as in the wilderness. Sweet is the Coming of Christ to me. I meet the Lord everywhere. The Lord does not appear to me everywhere, but I meet Him, in every word and every breath... In the conversations, intentions, and actions of men, I want only Him. And I want to have hatred for all and not His truth. I want everything only in Him, without Him I need nothing, everything is infinitely difficult and painful for me. He is the light of my heart. I would not have done anything good if I had known that this good was not pleasing to Him. I know always, night and day, that He is near me; but I do not always hear His hot breath, for I myself am not always directed towards Him and desire Him more than anything else. In this experience of mine I feel such weakness, such weakness and poverty, that I cannot rest in anything earthly, nothing can support me. Only He, Who said, "My peace I give unto you"...

On mercy over the world

There was a man who wanted to justify himself, as many do. He asked Christ Jesus: "Who is my neighbor?" and the Savior told him a parable... A stranger was going from Jerusalem to Jericho, and was seized by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, probably his only possession, and, having beaten him, left him on the road.This inhumanity is followed by another, perhaps even worse, one: people walking the same road indifferently pass by this lying man, bleeding. The priest "passed by". The Levite did even worse: he "approached," "looked," inquired how man suffered and died, and went on his way. In the person of these two people, it was as if all uncompassionate humanity passed by the wounded man. One half of this humanity wounded him and left him to die on the road; the other passes by his sufferings indifferently.John Chrysostom rightly said: "The rich and well-fed, who look indifferently at the hungry and the poor and do not help them, are equal to murderers." Of course, equal to criminals are those who, having the opportunity to help at least one victim of the crimes of this world, pass by human suffering, preoccupied only with their own well-being.In simple words, Christ, Who knows the hearts of people, reveals the depth of the darkness that has thickened over mankind, and shows the main sin of all times and peoples: not mercy. And when, delving into this truth, we begin to be horrified by the utter darkness of the moral human consciousness, the quiet heavenly dawn - mercy - rises above the earth. And behind it one can see the Sun of Divine Love itself - Christ.A Samaritan passed by the same way near Jericho and, seeing a bloody man on the road, took pity on him. That's all that happened: I took pity on him. Everything else was only a consequence of this: one person took pity on another person. A miracle has taken place, close to all, through which the most sinful and weak person becomes a partaker of Divine power, truth and glory. "Verily I say unto you, if any man shall say unto this mountain, Be lifted up, and be cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but believe that his words shall come to pass, it shall be done unto him, whatever he shall say" (Mk. XI, 23). These are the words of Christ. Pity in the world is a miracle. No one needs to move stone mountains from their place. A true miracle is pity.God wants this miracle, the pity of one person for another. Here is the power of the higher life. True mercy is always simple and active. It is a will ready for any work, a heart that agrees to endure any sorrow for the sake of love. It unites heaven and earth, and helps not only in feelings and intentions, but right here in this dry, dusty land between Jerusalem and Jericho. His thoughtful solicitude shows the depth of his pity. Approaching the wounded man lying on the road, he immediately "bandaged his wounds", softening them with oil, washing them with wine, and, "putting him on a donkey, brought him to the hotel and took care of him". Thus says the Gospel.After that, the merciful Samaritan could have left with a clear conscience. But no, "the next day, as I was leaving, I took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him.' It would seem that now everything has been done by him, but the conscience of this man continues to be unsatisfied: he turns to the innkeeper and says to him: "If you spend anything more, I will give it to you when I return." What a radiation of true humanity.After all, everyone can do "the same"... Even now there are many people in the world around us, wounded by sin, offended by the evil of this world, lying and suffering on different roads. I see this little stone inn of the Good Samaritan on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. This is a small house, no one lives in it, but all the pilgrims of the Holy Land know it... The desert road winds among the mountains, descending to Jericho. There are dead mountains all around. These are hearts. Whom? Ancient? Modern people? These are our stony human hearts, Lord. And they hunger for the water of Thy Mercy and are ready to respond to Thy water with flowers and herbs. People of all countries and peoples come here and see this parable that they hear from Christ. And the word of the deserted road, the dead stone mountains, and this small house that speaks to the nations of mercy - everything remains as a Divine call in the midst of the world to the humanity of man, to love and pity.

Seek good...

"Brethren, admonish the disorderly, comfort the faint-hearted, support the weak, be long-suffering towards all. See to it that no one repays evil for evil to anyone, but always seek good for one another and for all"... Thus says the Apostle Paul in the last chapter of his Epistle to the Thessalonians. These words are clear, simple, and uncomplicated, but there is so much light in them, so much goodness and truth. Man suffers, first of all, from the evil that lives in himself, and then from the evil that lives in other people. Evil, like a snowball, increases if it is not opposed to good, if it is not melted by the rays of goodness and mercy. Both in other people and in ourselves, we overcome cold, dark evil only with the radiant, warming good of Christ. This good of Christ can sometimes be angry, sacredly indignant, denouncing evil – it should sometimes be so fiery, but it will never bear evil under the mask of good. Such is the characteristic of the spiritual state of which the Apostle speaks. We must, first of all, guard our soul and keep it in a peaceful spirit; And if we have already achieved this, we will help the soul of another person to be in good.In order to heal another human soul, we need to know in our soul the effect of the remedy that we offer. The remedy of Christ's truth, of Christ's goodness, has already been tested for centuries, in two millennia, it has been tested on all the characters and in all the peoples of the world. This wondrous medicine has extraordinary power if it is taken "inside", if it is introduced into your heart and mind... Here is one of the precious drops of this remedy: "Brothers, admonish the disorderly, comfort the faint-hearted, support the weak, be long-suffering towards all. See to it that no one repays evil for evil to anyone, but always seek good for one another and for all." But character is formed and formed from free human reactions to the world around us. He who does good to others: people acquire a beautiful character; And this is his best reward already in this world. And in the world to come he will be of one spirit with God Himself and with the myriads of beings of creation saved in God. He who does evil and indulges in the evil of others acquires a terrible character and becomes a scourge and misfortune for those around him, and for his family, for his people. "A dashing misfortune is the beginning," says a Russian proverb. It is only necessary to begin to justify in oneself the manifestation and outbursts of evil, as the corruption of the soul will go by itself and its death will follow. The soul is the earth. Man is the farmer of his soul. If the word of God is sown in the spiritual land, the word of Truth and the love of Christ, then the fruit is sweet and joyful, for the person himself and those around him. If a person sows the tares of evil in his soul, then weeds, poisonous grasses of the spirit will grow, which will torment both the person himself and other people. The sculptor sculpts a human image from clay. Doing any evil, a person not only injects a deadly poison into his heart, but also sprays this poison on other people, sometimes on those closest to him... But in front of strangers, a person is usually reluctant to show his bad side; Cherishing the opinion of others about him, he wants everyone to always think well of him. In the usual home environment, he shows his true face and torments his loved ones... Hidden evil or overt evil always remains evil, and a person needs to get rid of it as soon as possible. How? First of all, through the realization of the higher meaning of one's earthly life, its great immortality in God and its brevity on earth; through the knowledge of the gospel and Jesus Christ; by turning to His righteousness. Christ reveals the present and eternal Salvation to people... And, by His grace, He leads into this salvation. "I am the light of the world," He says. - Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (Jn. VIII, 12). If we walk in this light, they will become sons of light; dark evil will lose its power over us, and we will pass from the power of darkness in the Kingdom of the beloved Son of God" (Col. 1:13) of Jesus Christ. And let us be lamps that illuminate the night of sorrow in the lives of others. We will be in Christ, comfort to the sorrowful, healing to the wounded by the evil of the world.

Human Weakness and Strength

The Apostle James addressed people who are too self-confident in their human plans: "Now listen to you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and dwell there one year, and trade and make a profit, you who do not know what will happen tomorrow: for what is our life? A vapor that appears for a short time and then disappears. Instead of saying, "If the Lord wills, and we live, let us do this or that," you, in your arrogance, are vain: all such vanity is evil" (Jas. It would seem that this is an absolutely indisputable truth, verified by the experience of every person and every day, that life on earth is "vapor that appears for a short time." Is it possible to build a life on this "couple" too prudently? Steam does not last long, just like earthly life. However, human calculations are usually carried out in this way. In a firm conviction of his strength and steadfastness, a person builds his life, struggles, plans - not seeing all his precariousness in the world, dependence on unforeseen circumstances, and behind them - always and in everything - from God. God is the master of visible and invisible being, present and future (which is already the invisible world for us). We humans are so often "vain" in our plans and intentions! And instead of saying, as the Apostle advises: "If it pleases the Lord, and we are alive, we will do this or that," we immediately, peremptorily and self-confidently say that we will definitely do this, that we will build and accomplish, that we will certainly conquer and overcome... "All such vanity is evil"; for by it we remove the Lord God from the world, and since the Lord God is the true Master of everything, we deprive ourselves of his help and blessing. Yes, too often people express this unfounded idea that their lives, success, and fortune depend only on themselves; And many in the world even boast about it. But such views are constantly crumbling before the eyes of the whole world; "unexpected" diseases attack people; natural disasters, earthquakes, physical and mental - wars from which everyone suffers; the rapid destruction of seemingly well-established families and entire societies, proud ruling parties and powerful states; "premature" (as people say) deaths, come upon humanity, regardless of the age of people, and a stream of people pours through the edge of this world - into eternity. Generation after generation disappears, and the history of past centuries remains like a dream, sometimes like a nightmare for mankind; old and young people go into the unknown distance, leave unexpectedly for others, among their plans and begun affairs... The logic of human calculations is collapsing all the time. And there are no calculations by means of which it would be possible to foresee the future hour and day of each person. The life of all is preserved only in the Providence of the Creator, and the limits of each are determined only by Him.But man still frivolously repeats his old delusion, which was noticed and so well expressed almost 20 centuries ago: "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and live there for one year"... The immutability of everyday logic! The constancy of the physical phenomena of the alternation of day and night, the ebb and flow of the tide, the constant hotness of fire and the coldness of ice, draws man's superficial thought to the conclusion that both his "tomorrow" and "the day after tomorrow" follow with the certainty and logic of physical laws from his "today"... This unfounded thought and false faith in the permanence and durability of earthly values and phenomena must be replaced by the true faith that people always and in everything depend first of all on the decisions of the holy and great will of the Lord. "If it pleases the Lord, and we live, we will do this or that" - this is the infallible formula relating to our future, not only personal, but all mankind. If we repress, even a little, from our consciousness this unnatural attitude to life, which stems only from our self-conceit and self-confidence, we will immediately see all the impossibility and irrationality of building our future only on such sand, or rather as a couple, which is our human will and our physical life: "For what is your life, a vapor that appears for a little time and then disappears... "But here's what is surprising: for all his weakness and mortality, man is, at the same time, an amazing strength. Not physical, not material, spiritual; a huge, spiritually creative, or enormous spiritually destructive force. Man conquers mountains and oceans, rules in the bowels of the earth, asserts his power over the air, builds quickly and just as quickly destroys many things. Being physically weaker, shorter-lived and imperfect, in many respects, animals and even plants, he dominates them... Where does a person get such power over the world, among its insignificance? Where did he get such power over the elements, among all the cobwebs of his life? There is only one answer - from the spirit, from the spiritual essence, invisible to its eyes, the precious seal of the Higher Mind in it. However, the very energy and force of this negation, in the materialists, does not come from their matter, but from their spirit, even if it is blind and sick, but a spirit that bears in itself the seal of the higher world.

The Apocalypse of Petty Sin

But I have this against thee, that thou hast forsaken thy first love. Open. 2.4. Petty sin, like tobacco, has become a habit of human society to such an extent that society provides it with all kinds of comforts. Everywhere you can't find a cigarette! Everywhere you can find an ashtray, everywhere there are special rooms, carriages, compartments - "for smokers". It would not even be an exaggeration to say that the whole world is one huge room, or rather one huge car in the interstellar spheres: "for smokers". "Smoking" - everyone sins pettily and calmly: the old and the young, the sick and the healthy, the learned and the simple... The criminal is allowed to smoke a cigarette before execution. As if there is little air in the earth's atmosphere, or it is too fresh, you need to create some kind of smoky, poisonous air for yourself and breathe, breathe this poison, revel in this smoke. And now everyone gets drunk. To the point that "non-smoker" is almost as rare as "never lying" or "never exalting one"... The tobacco market is one of the most significant in the world trade, and every year millions of people work to give other millions and millions the opportunity to inhale acrid smoke, anesthetize it on their heads and the whole body. The question itself seems strange. Is it in the nature of man to go against nature? Is it in nature to narcotize yourself? Governments forbid the enjoyment of cocaine, but tobacco is encouraged. Minor sins are permitted by human law, they do not lead to prison. Everyone is guilty of them, and no one wants to throw a stone at them. Tobacco, like "little cocaine," is permissible as a small lie, as an imperceptible untruth, as killing a person in the heart or in the womb. But this is not what the Revelation of God says - the will of the Living God. The Lord does not put up with a small lie, not a single murderous word, not a single adulterous look. The small grass of iniquity is as accursed before the Lord as the great tree of crime. A multitude of minor sins is undoubtedly heavier for the human soul than a few great ones, always standing in memory, which can always be removed in repentance. And a saint, of course, is not one who does great deeds, but who refrains from even the smallest crimes. The case of Righteous Anthony of Murom is known. Two women came to him: one lamented over her one great sin, the other smugly testified that she had nothing to do with any great sins [1]. Meeting the women on the road, the elder ordered the first to go and bring him a large stone, and the other to collect smaller stones. A few minutes later, the women returned. Then the elder said to them: "Now take and put these stones exactly in the places from which you took them." The woman with the large stone easily found the place; whence she had taken the stone, while the other circled in vain, looking for the nests of her small stones, and returned to the elder with all the stones. The clairvoyant Anthony explained to them that these stones express... In the second woman, they expressed numerous sins to which she was accustomed, considered them for nothing, and never repented of them. She did not remember her petty sins and outbursts of passions, but they expressed the cheerless state of her soul, incapable even of repentance. And the first woman who remembered her sin was sick with these sins and removed it from her soul.A multitude of small, unworthy habits are a slurry for a person's soul, if a person asserts them in himself or has realized them as an "inevitable" evil, against which it is "not worthwhile" and "impossible" to fight. This is where the soul falls into the trap of the enemy of God. "I am not a saint", "I live in the world", "I must live like all people"... - the aching conscience of a believer calms itself. A man, a man, of course, you are not a saint, of course, you "live in the world", and "must live like all people", and therefore - be born like all people; die like them, look, listen, speak like them, but why should you transgress the Law of God - "like them"? Why don't you smell so morally "like them"? Think about it, man.How difficult it is for the soul to move from a false but habitual thought. The psychology of this atheistic world has become so firmly ingrained in the psychic world of modern man that in relation to sin and crime against God's Laws, almost all people act in the same way - "according to a cliché". The saddest thing is that evil has inspired people to call the requirements of sin "the requirements of nature." The requirement of nature is to breathe, eat moderately, warm up, devote part of the day to sleep, but not to narcotize your body in any way, it is senseless to get attached to a mirage, to smoke. But the fact of the matter is that modern man has no time to think about the only important question concerning not this small 60-70-year life, but the eternity of its immortal existence in new, great conditions. Absorbed in a completely misunderstood "practice," modern man, immersed in his practical earthly life, thinks that he is really "practical." A sad delusion! At the moment of his inevitable (always very close to him) so-called death, he will see with his own eyes how little practical he was, reducing the question of practice to the needs of his stomach and completely forgetting his spirit. And, unfortunate man, he himself suffers inexpressibly from this. Like a child who constantly touches the fire and weeps, mankind constantly touches the fire of sin and lust, and weeps and suffers, but again and again touches... not understanding their state of spiritual childishness, which in the Gospel is called "blindness," and is the real blindness of the heart in the presence of physical eyes. Overwhelmed, agitated by evil, unbridling the lower instincts, mankind prepares a terrible fate for itself, as does every person who follows this path. Those who sow the wind will reap the storm. And this, the only important thing - "no time" to think about... "Live in the moment", "what will be, will be" - the soul brushes aside the very truth that says inside it that it must enter into itself, concentrate, examine the attachments of its heart and think about its eternal fate. The Creator of the world commanded man to take care only of the day; the world commands us to take care only of the "moment", plunging a person into a sea of worries about all life! Here is a reflection of God's apocalyptic reproach to the Christian world that it has "forgotten its first love." How much purer and morally superior is man now even to that shattered nature from which his body is created. How pure is the stone, ready to cry out against people who do not give glory to God, how pure are the flowers and trees in their wondrous circle of life, how magnificently obedient to the Law of the Creator are the beasts in their purity. God's nature does not smoke, does not take drugs, does not debauchery, does not eradicate the God-given fruit. Dumb nature teaches man how to bear the Cross of obedience to God in the midst of all the storms and sufferings of this life. A person needs to think about this.Some people think that everything that happens here on earth will not have any consequences. A person with a bad conscience, of course, is more pleasant to think so. But why deceive yourself? Sooner or later we will have to see the dazzling mystery of the purity of the universe.We feel ourselves as "life." Do we really think of ourselves so little and have such a shallow understanding of the One Who created the worlds to think of this earthly vanity of life as the existence of man? We are much more and higher than what we are accustomed to consider here, in the naked earth, not only our life, but even our ideals. But we are grain put in the ground. And therefore we do not see the surface of the universe now, the true picture of nature that will open to Our eyes at the moment of so-called death, i.e. for everyone very soon. Death is not a coffin at all, not a canopy, not a black bandage on the arm, not a grave of clay. Death is when the sprout of our life will crawl to the surface of the earth and stand under the direct rays of God's sun. The seed of life must die and germinate here in the earth. This is the so-called "birth of the spirit" in the Gospel, the "second birth" of man. The death of the body is the abandonment of the earth by the sprout, the emergence from the earth. Any person who receives even the smallest spiritual leaven, even the smallest pearl of the Gospel "within himself", does not expect death at all, and even far from death. For the dead in spirit, of course, coffins, graves, black bandages are all realities. And their spirit will not be able to come to the surface of true life, for they have not died on earth for themselves, for their sins.Like an egg, we are closed from the other world by the thin shell of the body. And our shells are beating one after another... Blessed is the man who turns out to be a living organism formed for the future life. Worthy of weeping is the state of one who turns out to be a formless liquid... Here on earth we are truly in the darkness of the spirit, in its "womb." And is it not criminal, being in such a state, not to prepare for one's real birth, but to consider one's darkness either an ideal extremely joyful place of life (as optimistic atheism believes), or an incomprehensible place of senseless suffering (as pessimistic atheism believes)? All nature cries out about this meaning; every awakened soul of a person begins to cry out for him.How carefully all of us, "non-germinated" people, need to treat each other... A terrible man is responsible for everything, and it is difficult to theoretically imagine the misfortune of that person who, having lived atheistically on earth "as if nothing exists," suddenly finds himself face to face with a reality that is not only brighter than this land of ours, but even surpasses all our conceptions of reality. Was it not for these souls that the Lord suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane? In any case, he accepted suffering for them in the Cross.If the visible heaven did not separate us from the invisible heaven, we would shudder at the discrepancies of spirit that exist between the angelic triumphant church and our earthly church, almost non-militant, flabby human souls. We would be horrified and would clearly understand the truth that is now incomprehensible to us: what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us and what He is doing for each of us. We imagine his salvation almost theoretically, abstractly.

And we would have a clear picture of the absolute impossibility of salvation by "natural" ways. The reasoning of the occultists about the evolutionary movement of reincarnating humanity would seem to us, at best, insane. We would see that the darkness over humanity is not thinning, but is thickening... And we would understand what the Creator Incarnated on their earth did for people. We would see how ears of corn with even one seed are taken by heavenly reapers to heaven, that the slightest spark of Christ in a person - like a single seed in an ear - already saves this person. Everything dark is crossed out, cut off, only one spark is taken, and it becomes the eternal life of man. Glory to the salvation of Christ! Truly, we have nothing in us except our human dignity lying in the dust. And from this dust we arise by the grace of Christ and are carried away into heaven like a spark. But we are carried away if this spark of love for God has been kindled in us, if we are able to push our souls away from all mortal things in the world, if we are able to notice this mortal in the slightest, and in the same way push it away from us. Sensitivity to the smallest in ourselves will be for us an indicator of the health of our soul. If atoms really contain precise solar systems, then this is a perfect example of the organic homogeneity of all sin, small and great. The discussion of the need to reject even the smallest sin brings us to the most important question of human life: the question of life after death. where, due to the absence of a body (before the resurrection), it will be impossible to satisfy this passion, so that the soul will remain in the incessant languor of self-combustion, an incessant thirst for sin and lust without the possibility of satisfying it. A drunkard will be incredibly tormented, not having a body that can be satisfied by pouring alcohol on him, and thus calming the tormented soul a little for a while. The fornicator will experience the same feeling. A money-lover too... Smoker - too. Let the smoker not smoke for two or three days. What will he experience? A certain torment, mitigated by all the relationships and amusements of life. But take away life with its entertainments... Suffering will escalate. It is not the body that suffers, but the soul that lives in the body, accustomed to satisfy its lust and its passion through the body. Deprived of satisfaction, the soul suffers. Of course, the soul of a rich sinner suffers in the same way, suddenly deprived of wealth, of a lover of peace, deprived of peace, the soul of a lover of self-love, which has received a blow to his self-love... How many suicides there were on this ground! All this is an experience, a bare experience of our earthly life. Already here, on earth, we can perform experiments on our souls. Everyone should be far-sighted. One must protect one's house from undermining (Matt. 24:43).Feeling this, is it really possible to calmly indulge in passions or even divide them into serious and "innocent"? After all, fire is still fire - both blast furnace and burning match. Both are painful for the person who touches it, and can be fatal. It is necessary to understand this indubitable truth, that every passion, every malice, every lust is fire.God's Law has enclosed the instincts of the human body within limits, and gives the volitional and irritable energies of the soul a true direction, so that man may go comfortably and easily towards spiritualization. What is the name of a person who, understanding all this, calmly and frivolously treats his passions, excuses them, putting to sleep all the signs of salvific sensitivity in his soul? We must pray for deliverance, for salvation. The Lord is called a savior not abstractly, but really. The Savior saves from all weaknesses and passions. It delivers. He heals. Quite evidently, perceptibly. Healing, forgiving. Forgiveness is the healing of what needs to be forgiven. It is given only to those who hunger and thirst for this truth. Those who simply desire, who smoulder in their desire, are not given healing. But to those who burn, flam, implore, strive with a heart, it is given. For only such people are able to appreciate the gift of God's healing, not to trample and give thanks for it, to sensitively protect in the Name of the Savior from new temptations of evil. But even this lust is disgusting to the spirit, and it is impossible even to imagine any of the Lord's closest disciples smoking cigarettes." Destroy the little lust," say the saints. There is no acorn that does not contain an oak. So it is in sins. Small plants are easily weeded. The spiritual meaning of smoking and all the petty "justifiable" illegalities of the spirit is licentiousness. Not only of the body, but also of the soul. This is a false calming of oneself (one's "nerves", as they sometimes say, not fully realizing that the nerves are the bodily mirror of the soul). This "calming" leads to greater and greater distance from true peace, from the true consolation of the Spirit. This calming is a mirage. Now, as long as there is a body, it must be constantly renewed. After that, this narcotic calming will be a source of painful captivity of the soul.It is necessary to understand that the one who "tears off", for example, his anger, also "calms down". But, of course, only - until a new fit of anger. It is impossible to calm oneself with the satisfaction of passion. You can calm yourself down only by confronting passion, refraining from it. One can calm oneself only by bearing the Cross of struggle against any passion, even the smallest one, the Cross of its rejection into one's heart. This is the path of true, firm, true and - most importantly - eternal happiness. The one who rises above the fog sees the sun and the eternally blue sky. He who rises above the passions enters the sphere of the peace of Christ, indescribable bliss, which begins here on earth and is accessible to every person. The same as getting angry with someone, being proud of someone, painting your cheeks or your lips for people, stealing a small piece of sweetness - a small penny from the church dish of God's nature. There is no need to look for such happiness. Their direct, logical continuation: cocaine, a blow to a person's face or a shot at him, counterfeiting of value. Blessed is the man who, having found such happiness, pushes it away with righteous and holy wrath. This demonic happiness reigning in the world is a harlot who has invaded the marriage of the human soul with Christ, the God of Truth and pure blissful joy. The Comforter ~ only the Creative Spirit of the Truth of Christ.It is impossible to pray in the spirit while smoking a cigarette. It is impossible to preach while smoking a cigarette. In front of the entrance to the temple of God, the papyrosa leans back... Whoever wants to be the temple of God at any moment will throw away a cigarette, like every false thought, every impure feeling. One can imagine the following example of life: tobacco, like a plant, has no evil in it (just like golden sand, like cotton, from which a monetary banknote is made). Apricot is God's plant. Alcohol can be very useful to the human body at certain moments and in certain doses, in no way contradicting the spirit, like moderate tea or coffee. Wood, the matter from which furniture is made, everything is God's... But now let's take these components in the following combination: a man is lounging in an upholstered armchair and smoking a Havana cigar, sipping every minute from a glass of apricotine standing next to him... Can this person in such a state have a conversation about the Living God - pray to the Living God? Physically - yes, spiritually - no. Why? Because this man is now dissolute, his soul is drowned in an armchair, and in a Havana cigar, and in a glass of apricotin. At this moment he has almost no soul. He, like the prodigal son of the Gospel, wanders "in distant lands." This is how a person can lose his soul. A person loses it all the time. And it is good if he finds it again all the time, struggles not to lose it, trembles over his soul as over his beloved child. The soul is the infant of immortality, defenseless and pitiful in the conditions of the world around us. How one should press one's soul to one's breast, to one's heart, how one should love it, destined for eternal life. Oh, how it is necessary to clean even the slightest stain from it! An example of the impossibility of preserving one's soul by voluptuously distributing it among the surrounding objects: armchairs, cigars, liquor. The example taken is especially colorful, although there are even more colorful ones in life. But if we take not the colorful, but the gray, but of the same dissolute spirit, everything will remain the same atmosphere, in which it will be less of a sin to be silent about Christ than to speak about Him. This is the key to why the world is silent about Christ, why people do not talk about the Savior of the Universe, about the One Father of the world, despite the multitude of people who believe in Him, neither in the streets, nor in salons, nor in friendly conversations. sometimes it is shameful before God to speak about Him to people. The world instinctively understands that in the situation in which it finds itself all the time, it is less of a sin to be silent about Christ than to talk about Him. A terrible symptom. The world is flooded with legions of words, man's tongue is obsessed with these empty legions, and not a word, almost not a word about God, about the Beginning, the End, and the Center of everything. And if a word about God is nevertheless spoken, it is difficult to finish it - both before oneself and before the world.If a person does not have an aversion to his small sins, he is spiritually unhealthy. If there is disgust, but "there is no strength" to overcome a weakness, it means that it is abandoned until the time when a person shows his faith in the struggle with something more dangerous for him than this weakness, and it is left to him for humility. For there are not a few people who appear blameless, who do not drink or smoke, but who are like, in the words of Climacus, "a rotten apple," that is, filled with open or secret pride. And there is no way to humble their pride except by some kind of fall. But he will remain outside the Kingdom of God and His laws who, for one reason or another, "absolves" himself of minor sins. Such a person, who "lulls" his conscience, becomes incapable of transgressing the boundary of the true life of the spirit. He always remains like a young man who approaches Christ and immediately departs from Him with sorrow, or even sometimes without sorrow, but just to... Rigorism and puritanism are alien to the spirit of the Gospel. Pharisaic righteousness without love is darker in the eyes of God than any sin. But the lukewarmness of Christians in the fulfillment of the commandments is just as dark. Both the Pharisees and those who trade and smoke in the temple of God are equally expelled from the temple, for the will of God is "our sanctification" (1 Thessalonians 4:3). The Son of God and the Son of Man gave us one commandment for thirst: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." In it, the Lord seems to say: People, I do not give you a measure - determine it yourself. Determine for yourselves the measure of your love for My purity and your obedience to that love." At confession, people often unwisely testify to the same thing, not understanding that they came not for self-justification, but for self-condemnation." ^