Intellect. - The Word of God, the soul, solves our perplexity with the most satisfactory definition. But many of the people, having heard the Word of the Spirit and interpreted it to themselves with their carnal understanding, said of the life-giving Word of God: "This Word is cruel, and who can hear it!" [255] Hear, O soul, what the Lord has said: He who has found his life will destroy it: and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it [256]. He who loves his soul will destroy it, and he who hates his soul in this world will preserve it into eternal life [257].

Soul. "I am ready to die if God commands. But how can I, an immortal, die? I don't know the weapon that could take my life.

Intellect. "Do not think, soul, that the commandment of Christ commands you to die alone, that I am excluded from the sentence. No! I must share the cup of death with you and be the first to drink it, as the main culprit of our common fall, rejection, calamity, temporal and eternal death. Death and destruction, which God demands of us, do not consist in the destruction of our existence: they consist in the destruction of self-love, which has become, as it were, our life. Self-love is the distorted love of fallen man for himself. Self-love idolizes its fallen, falsely named mind, tries in everything and constantly to satisfy its fallen, falsely directed will. Self-love is expressed in relation to one's neighbors either through hatred, or through man-pleasing, that is, by pleasing human passions, and towards the objects of the world, which it always abuses, through partiality. Just as holy Love is the bond of perfection and is composed of the fullness of all the virtues, so self-love is that sinful passion which is composed of the fullness of all the other various sinful passions. In order to destroy self-love in us, I must reject all my understandings, even though I be very rich in the understandings provided by the teaching of the world and according to the elements of the world. I must sink into poverty of spirit, and, stripped naked by this poverty, washed by weeping, moistened, softened by meekness, purity, and mercy, receive the mind which the right hand of my Redeemer deigns to inscribe upon me. That right hand is the Gospel. And you, the soul, must renounce your will, no matter how painful it may be for the heart, even though the feelings and inclinations of your heart seem to you the most righteous and the most elegant. Instead of your own will, you must fulfill the will of Christ our God and Savior, no matter how disgusting and cruel it may be for a self-loving heart. This is the death which God requires of us, that by voluntary death we may destroy the death that lives in us violently, and receive as a gift the resurrection and life that flow from the Lord Jesus.

Soul. "I make up my mind to deny myself: from the words you said about self-denial, I have already begun to feel joy and hope. Let us abandon life, which gives birth to hopelessness, and let us accept death as the pledge of salvation. Lead me, my mind, following the commandments of God, and yourself abide unswervingly in that Word Which has proclaimed Himself: Whosoever shall be in Me, and I in him, the same shall bring forth much fruit, for without Me ye can do nothing." Amen.

Seeing Your Sin

That terrible time will come, that terrible hour will come, in which all my sins will appear naked before God the Judge, before His Angels, before all mankind. Sensing the state of my soul in this terrible hour, I am filled with horror. Under the influence of a vivid and strong premonition, with trembling I hasten to immerse myself in the examination of myself, I hasten to believe in the book of my conscience the sins noted by deed, word, and thought.

Books that have not been read for a long time, stagnant in the cabinets, are soaked in dust, moth-eaten. Whoever takes such a book encounters great difficulty in reading it. Such is my conscience. Not reviewed for a long time, it could hardly be opened. When I open it, I do not find the expected satisfaction. Only major sins are listed quite clearly; the small writings, of which there are many, have almost been erased, and now it is impossible to make out what was depicted by them. God, God alone, can restore brightness to pale writings and deliver man from an evil conscience [261]. God alone can grant man the sight of his sins and the sight of his sin – his fall, in which is the root, the seed, the germ, the sum total of all human transgressions.

Calling upon the mercy and power of God for help, calling upon them for help with the most fervent prayer, combined with prudent fasting, combined with weeping and sobbing of the heart, I again open the book of conscience, once again peer into the quantity and quality of my sins, I peer into what the sins I have committed have engendered for me.

I see that my iniquities have surpassed my head, for a heavy burden has weighed upon me. The hair of my head is multiplied more [262]. What is the consequence of such sinfulness? My iniquities have come upon me, and I am not able to see; my heart, forsake me [263]. The consequence of a sinful life is blindness of mind, hardening, and insensibility of the heart. The mind of an inveterate sinner sees neither good nor evil; his heart loses the ability to feel spiritually. If, having left a sinful life, this person turns to pious feats, then his heart, as if it were someone else's, does not sympathize with his striving for God.

When, through the action of Divine grace, a multitude of his sins is revealed to the ascetic, then it is impossible that he does not fall into extreme bewilderment, does not sink into deep sorrow.

By acknowledging my sins, repenting of them, confessing them, and regretting them, I plunge all their innumerable multitudes into the abyss of God's mercy. In order to guard against sin in the future, I will take a closer look, secluded in myself, how sin acts against me, how it approaches me, what it says to me.

He approaches me like a thief: his face is covered; His words were softened more than oil[265]; He tells me lies, offers iniquity. Poison is in his mouth; his tongue is a deadly sting.

"Enjoy! - he whispers quietly and flatteringly, - why are you forbidden to enjoy? Enjoy! What sin is in this?" - and proposes, evildoer, a violation of the commandment of the All-Holy Lord.

I should not have paid any attention to his words: I know that he is a thief and a murderer. But some incomprehensible weakness, weakness of will, defeats me! I heed the words of sin, I look at the forbidden fruit. In vain my conscience reminds me that eating this fruit is also tasting death.