The Apocalypse of Petty Sin

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.

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." ^

The Agony of Loneliness (Pneumatology of Fear)

Fear is the agony of mankind... It is difficult to fully understand it and cannot be cured at all. It can only be healed by heaven or choked by earth, inhibited by vanity, covered with cares; only one can distract oneself from this torment by various aspirations, plans, hopes, brief joys of the earth or its other pain. What are people in the world not afraid of! Having departed from their trust in the Creator, they build their earthly life surrounded by anxiety, apprehension, fear and horror.Having ceased to dwell in the paradise of God's sweet trust and their trust in God, people began to be painfully afraid of everything and frighten the whole world with themselves. People have filled the earth with instability and misery, in which they live, constantly called to another, higher life, but almost not responding to it. A person who has drowned in the earth now sees only the blackness of the earth. And all nature feels this separation of man from the higher life and freedom, and torments him, and fears him... Thorns surrounded human life, and thistles grew up on its roads. Evil and fear began to sting man. They can only sting him "in the heel" (Gen. 2:10). III, 15), but in the heel, i.e. in the external, peripheral senses and thoughts, all earthly life was now concentrated, which had fallen from the height of the bright Mind. And, struck in his pitiful heel, man began to faint with all the depth of his being - so weak is he, deprived of Grace. Like a beast, he trembles and fears everything, "Fear and trembling have come upon me, and darkness has covered me." Thus began his history, which has not been outlived by mankind to this day. His eyes began to faint from danger, from the infidelity of his life and the life of another person. Evil forces began to torment him, attract him to themselves, give him their illusory pleasures, and then beat him, enjoying his defenselessness and delusion. And man has become accustomed to the power of dark forces over himself. And a new feeling began to visit him: the joy of being evil and terrible for others. And the more he lives in his malicious delight of hatred for another person, power and pride, the more he fears and fears another person. Terrible for man is the transition from the dark womb of the world to the mysterious eternity. Every minute of this life is terrible in its novelty and responsibility. But man has learned to deceive his fear, to hide it, even to laugh at it; to deceive him, even by submitting to him and making sacrifices to him, in order to obtain greater ease of existence under his power. Such is the essence of ancient and modern idolatry, the cultivation of an artificial garden of life and thought outside of God... The modern race of mankind, its interests, its imagination and civilization, the ever-accelerating rotation of people in space and time, grows not only from the social and cultural connection of people, but also from the terrible loneliness of man in the world, from the loneliness that man wants to hide from himself and from others. Striving to hide from himself and from others his insignificance and his metaphysical nakedness without God, man has built and is building the world. But even in this dark striving of man to hide from himself his weakness and smallness, there is a spark of his freedom in choosing his path.Who has not appreciated and does not value his high dignity and his freedom to be a son of God, man must now learn this freedom of faith in God, love for God and obedience to Him through all the pain of his dislike. his unbelief and disobedience. Remaining God's, to its last speck of dust and blade of grass, the earth became a harsh school for man. Fragrant with its proximity to the heavenly world, the earth became for man a harsh school of God's truth. The inner evil of man's dislike of God has become and everything is becoming the external, physical and historical situation of man. Arising in the abyss of the soul and not washed away by repentance, evil goes like wounds, ulcers and diseases through the body of the earth. The "thorns and thistles" of the Bible that surround our lives are our sicknesses, our fears, our confusions and horrors; they crawled in, ran in, flew into the outer world through the inner world of the human soul, which shuddered and shook from its betrayal of God.Historians of the ancient world (like Fustel de Coulange - "La Cite antique") testify to the inhuman, "totalitarian", dark fear by which the history of the ancient world moved and directed. The Creator heals people from the fears of the earth through the fear of His Law. Everything that is darkened and constantly feared at every step can be cured of dark fear only by a new fear, a higher, luminous one; no longer senseless trembling before the horror of life and fate, but fear of reverence for the law of the Creator and His Spirit, fear of moral responsibility for the given talents of truth and love. After the incarnation of the Logos and the coming of the fire of the Spirit into the world, the whole earth (for the higher consciousness of man) became holy, and human sin in the midst of the earth has become even more abominable, is even greater madness than in the times of the Law alone. The bright fear of the burning bush of God's great perfection is the beginning of man's final wisdom: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." With the Word of His Truth, the Creator tore out the deadly arrow from the life of mankind and struck evil with the same arrow. Having freed fear from its demonic poison, the Spirit of God began to strengthen and elevate the hearts of people with this fear. And, accustomed to fear as to their own life, people began to feed on a new, higher fear, and return to God, to the meaning of their lives, freeing themselves from their old fears. Fear turned out to be neutralized, transformed, raised to the sky... This fear of God is capable of infinite exaltation and refinement, and goes beyond the sphere of all fearfulness. That is why it was not abolished by the coming to earth of the God-Man, who brought the New Testament to the world, no longer fear, but fearlessness of love. Fear remained in the world, like a bright halo over the fiery human striving for God's Purity.Humanity began to live between two fears: pure, holy and dark, sinful, lit up with one or the other fear. Man is still capable, side by side with the sublime feelings of angelic reverence before the Name of the Lord of Hosts, of concealing within himself and revealing the dark demonic fear of superstition, selfishness, and egoism. It is impossible to destroy in one's experiences any sign of any fear. But you can raise your fear. In this the religious flowering of the human personality takes place.The first dark fear of man is the fear of seeing God. This is the worldwide constant hiding of Adam of humanity from the nearness of God. "I am naked and hidden." To this day, mankind hides itself from God in its deeds, feelings, and desires.The second dark fear of man is the fear of seeing man. The depth of anthropological truth is revealed already on the first pages of the Bible: "Behold... I will hide myself, and be an exile and a wanderer on the earth, and whosoever meets me shall slay me" (Gen. 2:10). V, 14). These are the words of Cain after the murder of his brother.Just as a person is afraid of not finding God, so he is afraid of finding God, of seeing his Savior within himself and inside another person. Sometimes a person is afraid to find the highest humanity in himself and in his brother." Where are you, man?" - the Spirit of God calls the same ancient biblical Adam, humanity. And every person, with a conscious or unconscious movement of his soul, answers God: "I heard Thy voice in Paradise, and I was afraid, because I am naked, and I hid myself" (Gen. 2:10). III, 10). Running away from man is only the second stage of leaving God. Those who have left God, but have not yet left man, are close to returning to God. Metaphysically, the departure of a person who does not believe in God from another person is the last form of moral solipsism, a malignant tumor of humanity, which develops not in the direction of Divine truth, but in the direction of its own egoistic being. Man is afraid to recognize himself as poor and naked in spirit. Realizing that he is naked, he is afraid to turn his brow and his eternity (humanity) to God. And, fearing this, he is afraid to find God anywhere, in the world or in his life. Thus man expels himself from the presence of God into the "outer darkness," where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth," the hopeless suffering of humanity, which does not want to die for itself and be resurrected in God. "There is no God!" ... "There can be no God in a world where there is so much evil and suffering!" In unbelief there is a horror of the possibility of meeting God. Fear is pushed aside, the soul is calmed by unbelief... Thus, only the bird of the desert, the ostrich, running on the ground, hides its head in the sand, fleeing from pursuit. But we see in the fear of fallen man the heavenly answer of the first bashful chastity of creation: "Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man!" Here is revealed not the dark desire to flee from the Holy of Holies, but the angelic hiding of oneself from Him, out of love for Him, from shame for oneself, for one's weakness and unpreparedness for this meeting. which shows the paradisiacal nature of human repentance as finding the place of one's spiritual correspondence to God. The bright trembling of the prodigal son before the love of the Father, who realizes that he "has no right to be called a son" is the same fear as the fear of the Apostle Peter after the miraculous catch of fish on the Lake of Galilee. But we, people, are either insensitive and impudent to everything - to life and death, to good and to evil, or extremely fearful and timid, distrustful of life, of the elements, of animals and people. And even our fearlessness itself is often not a sign of Eternal Life, which has begun in us, but only one of the expressions of our insensitivity to the mysteries of life and its sacredness. Brave warriors turn pale at the word or look of a weak woman. Dark fear is always caused by passion. This fear is always a consequence of unfaithful love either for the world, or for another person, or for oneself. But there is also fear from spiritual emptiness, from a person's loss of himself. The Apostle Peter was frightened by this last fear in the courtyard of Caiaphas, in the presence of Christ the Savior Himself. Ready to give his life for Christ, he (such is the consequence of presumption) suddenly lost and frightened.In the midst of his dark fear, modern man resembles the most primitive. What are people not afraid of! The life of a modern person, like the life of an ancient one, is woven from fears that fly through his soul like birds, not always reflected on the screen of his consciousness. Modern man is not aware of all his fears. But if there is no complete peace in his heart, it can be said that fears, these children of his human passions, live in his spiritual home. Those who are not insensitive, let them be afraid of something, sometimes a lot. Rulers and subjects, bosses and subordinates, rich and poor, healthy and sick. Everyone is afraid in their own way... There is no doubt that, frightened on all sides by all kinds of personal, social and world apparitions, modern man is an even greater slave of demonic fears than the ancient pagan or naïve African of our days. Wasn't it a ghost fear? These childish-scientific conclusions of the last century have now disappeared before the light of new human knowledge, before the new word of science, which no longer opposes itself to God, but modestly realizes its limits. The human body has its own understanding of happiness and sorrow, joy and sorrow. Bodily emotions are a new source of suffering and fears for a person - fears of the body and fears of yielding to the body. The body is rigid, insistent, and coarse in relation to the spirit, it has its own psychology and will. It encroaches on the human spirit like a lion; bound in spirit, turns into a pitiful dog. It is "of this world," and does not recognize the higher demands of the human spirit; it has to be forced to good deeds, to prayer, to self-denial.The "natural" body (1 Cor. 15:44) fears many things. It often trembles, while the spirit of man remains peaceful and delivered into the hands of God (the experience of many believers during aerial bombardments). And man does not want to meet God. That is why a person is afraid of his great depth and runs away all his life from the slightest deepening into himself. The whole run of his life, all the hustle and bustle of the world, all the dynamics of his civilization, with its leveling and standardization of life, its amusements and hobbies, worries, plans and enthusiasm, seem to expel man from the Face of God and deprive him of a human face. But - "Where shall I go from Thy Spirit, O Lord, and from Thy presence shall I flee?" The impulse of unbelieving or little believing humanity is directed towards fleeing from its depths, from its silence, where paradise bliss is hidden, where God meets man. A person runs away from the spiritual world - where? In a vicious circle of external creativity, external tasks, external relations with people, transient successes, instantly arising joys that never satiate them. And man is more and more afraid to be left alone with himself. He no longer looks at the stars, no longer thinks about life in silence. The depth of his soul, which can contain the great love of the Creator Himself, is not a joyful vision for him, but a terrible vision.Man is afraid of the depth of his immortal self, of his absoluteness, of his "ability to do anything": the possible abyss of his crime and his ultimate self-surrender to God. He is afraid of his own fear itself, for fear is pain; and sometimes a man is even afraid of joy, for joy is unfaithful, and when it goes away, it brings pain; A person may be afraid of his joyful hopes. As deep as man is, so mysteriously boundless is the world of his spirit; it can truly be said that such a spirit as the human spirit could only be given to an immortal man.Scientific psychopathology and psychotherapy investigate the realm of the unconscious too abstractly (and therefore incorrectly, outside the criteria of good and evil); therefore, even in their most subtle analyses, they cannot touch upon the real mysteries of human life.

Bright fears are born from the fear of God. Reverence, trembling of faith and hope enter the heart of a person with acute pain and the bliss of bright fear.He who loves the will of God fears more than his life to do anything in the world "of himself" and not "according to God", to do anything in this way means for him to inflict torment on himself. And man walks cautiously and fills the world only with the fragrant honey of life. Man is afraid of sin, but not as an external, fatal force, but as something consonant with his weakness... "Do not lead us (our weakness!) for temptation" (for testing), "do not subject it to an examination", a humble person asks God... "Tread on the adder and the basilisk, and cross the lion and the serpent," God answers man. This truth of the 90th Psalm is known to a soul faithful to God and is not afraid of the darkness of the surrounding world, nor of its own. She is afraid of only one thing: it is terrible to upset her Beloved! This is the fear of Christ's disciples. A person then no longer fears the torment of his unfaithfulness to God, but the loss of these torments; fears peaceful and painless violations of the Divine will. This is the highest circle of fear, which leads into the heavenly harmony of the spirit and guards this harmony in man. Inspired by this fear of divine love, man gains freedom from sin and is freed from the lower torments of fear. Fear is always inspired by some spirit. Dark fears oppress, weaken, kill. Light fears gather the soul, purify, and bring the Holy Spirit into the world.Dark fear is a lack of love for God and for one's neighbor. The lover ceases to be afraid. ... Love conquers fear (1, John 4:18). As freedom of movement conquers constraints, so love conquers fear. A person's pure, filial devotion to God, or brotherly devotion of the heart to another person, conquers the fear of self-love, which chills the heart. But this applies only to true love. Unfaithful love, moved by passion or lust, knows no fearlessness; it does not conquer fear, but strengthens it, because it strengthens the self of a person. Complete liberation from natural and unnatural fears is achieved only through the "liberation of the son" - when the son, i.e. the man of God, is liberated in the very human soul, and this liberation is accomplished by the Son of God, the "liberation of the son" is accomplished through repression from; human soul of any passion and thus the fear associated with it. Sometimes all passions and all fears. Then all shadows leave the soul; and even the shadows of her shadows leave her. St. John Chrysostom said that it would be more terrible for him than eternal torment to see the meek face of the Lord Jesus Christ, turning away from him with sorrow... This is the psychology of true faith: the fear of grieving the beloved Lord, of not accepting His immeasurable love with immensity of spirit.Neither John Chrysostom nor other righteous men were, of course, free on earth from the fears of man, "who lives in the world and wears flesh." Paul's companion, Luke, says that the angel who appeared to Ap. To Paul on the ship, during a terrible storm, he said: "Do not be afraid, Paul, you must stand before Caesar"... Undoubtedly, the angel from his spiritual world saw that the apostle had a certain carnal fear at that time. We see further how, walking as a prisoner along the Appian Way to Rome, the aged Apostle was "cheered up" when he saw the brothers there. So humane is the description of this weakness of the Apostle. And more than once he felt anxious. "When we came into Macedonia," "our flesh had no rest, but we were pressed on every side: from without, attacks, and fears within" (11 Cor. VII, 5). The wind of the world rippled the surface of this God-given soul with fear. But he did not interfere with her apostolic work. In this is revealed the power of God, which acts in human weakness given over to God. The beauty of man is that nothing can keep him from the work of God in the world. The world is looking for the "strong" and scatters them like dust. The Creator brings the "weak" (in their own consciousness) closer to Him, because only a person who has truthfully recognized himself as weak, in need of God's power, can receive the power of God. But he should not be frightened by the imaginary greatness of his efforts and sacrifices on the paths to God, nor by his weaknesses or fears on these paths. Through all these abysses man is carried by the power of God, when it is necessary for the cause of God and man in the world. And if not, man again stands at his abyss, powerless and blissful in his fearless insignificance.A faithful soul that abides in the desire for faithfulness always remains in a bright alert, it is afraid not to know the will of God or, knowing it, to betray it in some way. "Lead us not into temptation" is the prayer of all who are truthfully aware of the possibility of their inattention, their absent-mindedness, their infatuation with the secondary, and their fall. But a Christian's sense of weakness never turns into an inferiority complex. On the contrary, this feeling is a wing of faith, courage and affirmation in God. Given his weakness, the weakness of all people in general, and the cobwebs of the whole world, man does not rely on himself or on anything "of the world"; In nothing earthly does it affirm its last hope, And in this it is never deceived.The power of the "fear of God" gives rise to repulsion from evil and an attraction to truth in the soul. He who lives in the light of the fear of God sees all the shadows in his heart. And the more the light of Christ contains within himself, the more clearly he sees his slightest unfaithfulness to God and ardently hates every approach of sin to his heart, rightly seeing even in the slightest sin the mediastinum between God and himself. This is constant attention to oneself, and the bright self-hatred born from the knowledge of the movements of one's will is not at all like the self-hatred that a person who loves only himself is capable of in relation to himself. There is evangelical self-hatred, and there is demonic hatred. A person who lives in evil is also sometimes capable of sincerely hating himself, despising and fearing himself for his insufficient perfection in evil. A murderer who is frightened, in his conscience, to kill the witnesses of his crime, is able to despise himself for such "cowardice" and even "repent" of it. Such morally inverted people, who walk morally "upside down", are bitten by the serpent of evil, of course, not "in the heel", but in the very head. We see people in the world who consciously accustom and even force themselves to be unfriendly, rude, stony and proud with other people (even sometimes especially with their own family); then a person is afraid to have, or even only to show, any sympathy for another person. The development of this feeling and its technical organization: the modern concentration camp.The moral state of man becomes especially difficult when his soul, as if infected with an apocalyptic "trichinae," is included in some collective evil of the world. Then people begin to hate each other and exterminate each other because of the outward signs of blood, race, class, origin, or because of various ideas that change in the world. In collective evil, moral perversity has more reasons for self-justification, although self-justification, psychologically, usually does not require any reasons. Life is hidden under the crust of hypocrisy, conventionality. Everything is made double and half-truthful. Infernal light spreads over the souls not from the Sun - Christ, but from the phosphorus of human brains and bones. A huge phosphoric desert of dead light, inhuman fires of hellish sounds, and at the same time some kind of silence, moonlit desolation... Whoever has seen something like this at least once will not forget this inanimate light from the "Christmas trees of death" shining over the doomed place of the earth, the glitter of cannon lightning in the glow of explosions and fires. Such is the light of the world that opposes Christ; it is at the same time a judgment over the world, an exteriorization of its untrue thoughts, desires, all the half-truths of its life.From many souls in the world, dark streams of soot of passions stretch to heaven - pride, greed, malice, envy, lust. This soot of daily existence merges above the ground into a huge black cloud. It extends over human life and history. From him comes the shadow of fear on the earth. This shadow is not seen only by insensitive people intoxicated by themselves, or by people embraced by divine love... Inferiority complex (Ed.). ^