III. "Ye Are Not of the World" John 15:19

Our calling is not here on earth, our homeland and our goal is there, in the world to which the Lord has called us. With this thought, we are sometimes inclined to justify our inattentive attitude to what surrounds us, and our coldness towards those people with whom we live. By it we cultivate in ourselves that dreamy and objectless mood in which we place our heaven somewhere in a vastly unattainable distance and completely detached in all respects from our earthly life. We are ready, almost with a telescope in our hands, to find the world where we will suddenly be transported by a mysterious wave from above. From the height of distant celestial perspectives, in the imaginary grandeur of an inhabitant of a distant planet that is about to appear in the future, we at best only look condescendingly at that small sphere of activity and at that corner of nature that awaits us in our present life. People who do not sympathize with the Church use this to point out the Church's teaching about that life as some kind of dark and objectless mysticism.

Is this true? And are we right?

We, Christians, are not of this world. But this does not mean that our world is somewhere from here billions of miles away, somewhere beyond the endless starry worlds. Not at all. It is within ourselves, in the nature around us, in every place, in every soul. It is separated from us not by external distant spaces, but only by the surface of the same life that on this same earth envelops us on all sides. His light and breath are immediately close to us; they are blowing around me from the inner depths of the spirit at this moment, right here, in this place where I am writing, in my own soul, which I feel now, because of the same nature and environment that surrounds me at the moment.

To strive from this world to the next does not mean to rush and rush somewhere into the boundless starry distance, into the unknown spaces of suns and constellations. No, it means simply to enter into what is in ourselves and around us. In my soul, whatever it may be now, there still shines through something higher, noblest and holier, good thoughts, feelings and desires, the same soul, only in a more perfect and beautiful form of being. To go there, to that light, to become familiar with what is revealed through it, to get used to its atmosphere, to weave our own life threads from it – this means to go to that heavenly world to which we have been called by the Lord. There is much evil in my body, but in it, in its form created by God, in the waves of its vital energy, one feels the highest beauty, the highest good of existence, a reflection of the pure happiness of life. To bring our spirit and our heart down into this noblest element of our own body, into this perfection of its ideal forms contained in ourselves, to breathe into ourselves only the purest fragrance of life, which blows in its harmonious manifestations; To strain and concentrate one's vital attention only in this refined luminous area of one's own bodily self-perception, without letting oneself loose and not allowing coarse waves of lust to spill over, without succumbing to external and internal disharmonious influences, spiritualizing and enlightening one's every movement of life – all this means to go into the kingdom not of this world.

Nature is all around me, on this piece of space that embraces my eye. If I run carelessly over it with my consciousness, or treat it rudely outwardly, then it is nothing special for me: I either pass by it, or outwardly use it, or destroy it. But it is enough for me to look at it with love, with integral feeling and consciousness, in a childish way, in God's way, not scattering in all directions, but completely surrendering to it, and every leaf of a tree, every tiny flower, every blade of grass, every grass will suddenly shine for me with such radiant heavenly beauty, shower me with such warmth and light of life, such grace of every curve and every tone, that paradise will open to me with my own eyes... What does that mean? Where does such a wonderful transformation come from? Very simply: we have penetrated into what we have seen daily from the outside; with our integral feeling we have felt that integral life of nature, which we constantly fragment with our scattered external consciousness; In the contemplation of love, we gave ourselves for a moment wholeheartedly to this tree, to this flower, instead of selfishly thinking whether it was not possible to cut down one and pluck the other. In a word, at that wonderful moment nature remained the same, but we entered into that enlightened divine world of its being and its forms, which is contained in it, but which, due to absent-mindedness and coarseness, we had not noticed until now... To try to give our deep and integral attention to everything that surrounds us, to everything that exists around us, to every blade of grass and thing, to enter with our peaceful heart into that bright and beautiful being that penetrates into everything and is reflected in everything — to contemplate everything in God, renouncing oneself — means to go into a kingdom not of this world.

We are not of this world; But this does not mean that we have turned away from this nature, that we are looking into some kind of emptiness, into something dark and completely unknown. No, that world is only the enlightenment, the refinement, and the spiritualized flowering of it. We look at the same things that others look at, but we see in it the world that remains hidden for others. Apparently, in the dead, the inner spiritual life trembles for us; in the silent, heavenly words sound to us; in the accidental and the mechanical, a wonderful meaning and a higher rational beauty are revealed to us. Can we imagine what the inconspicuous flower, the lily, said to the heart and eyes of the Lord, when He prostrated all the glory of Solomon before it?

And this spiritually opening world of beauty and higher life is not an illusion, not a fantasy of the poet. It exists, it really exists behind the same forms, behind the same nature that surrounds us. That which for the poets of this world is only an idea, a dream, then, in an even more enlightened form, for the Christian who is not of this world, is the highest real reality in which he lives, which is hidden from the eyes of the body and impure hearts, which is inexpressible in coarse human language and inconceivable in pale earthly colors.

We are not of this world. This does not mean, however, that we should inwardly alienate those people with whom real life brings us together, and dream of other beings who would be more suitable for our ideal. Yes, we must be as far away as possible from all that is evil, both in ourselves and in others; It is our duty to fight this tirelessly and mercilessly. But this evil is that which alienates people from one another and produces enmity and discord among them. By withdrawing from this, the Christian leaves this elemental world, where people are mutual enemies, into the world where they can be friends and brothers. But this world is not in the dreamy heights of fantasy, but in the same environment and in the same people among whom we live. No matter how much they are at enmity with each other, they still feel that there is in them some higher world of good feelings: love, truth, benevolence, and self-sacrifice. From outside and by the inertia of passions they are waging a fierce mutual struggle, but inside they cannot but revere the common one holiness of all, which invisibly and inaudibly penetrates the very depths of their sinful souls. It is in this real shrine of the real people around us that there is "that" world in which we must live as Christians.

People of this world think that this sacred thing is only one dream, only a non-existent ideal: that it is only in the personal fantasy and in the good impulses of each one, and that it does not represent anything really powerful and existent. She brightens up this hard and prosaic life with her dreams, but she herself is only a dream and nothing more. A man dies, the body dissolves, and the dream disappears like a mist.

The Christian directly experiences the reality of this shrine in his spirit. He feels that this world of love and harmony already exists, already exists in the depths of the spirit in each of those around him, you just need to want and be able to enter it. He realizes that this is not only his creation, not only his good impulse, but a more, much more objective and eternal reality than everything else that is visibly before us. He penetrates to that inner depth, where the people who are at war around him have converged with the unknown roots of their spiritual existence and are immersed in the grace-filled world of the heavenly kingdom. This world is within them, but only so deeply and behind so many veils and masks, often woven by themselves, that they do not know it well and do not feel all the beauty and power of its very real life. A Christian sees him and goes to him.

A Christian must fully thirst for this inner kingdom, but this does not mean that he must therefore be inertly inactive or idle and dreaming in this world. The grace-filled life of heaven is revealed to us to the extent of the free enlightenment of the earth. To make our soul and body pure and holy, to raise the nature around us to its most perfect forms; to enlighten the entire sphere of the concrete life given to us, to give life to our neighbors with the breath that we ourselves receive from above; to pass on to them the joy, the grace that embraces us; to discover in them the heaven that has opened in us; to give them your life so that it may be reborn and blossom in them; in short: to imitate Christ, the Apostles, the Hierarchs and the Martyrs — this is the surest and proper path to the kingdom "not of this world."

In this way, the believer in "that" kingdom enters into the innermost communion with the people around him, although often unknown to them. It is not apart from them that he seeks the heaven to which he is called, but in them and through them. He goes to that world through active communion with the neighbors of this world, whether it is in the sphere of thought, deed, or invisible prayer and love. What may seem to be the solitude of a Christian is only an appearance. He is closer to his neighbors than the neighbors themselves are to each other and to themselves. He does not dream, but really lives in that real world which earthly dreams hide from our spirit of the Pasha. His kingdom is "not of this world" — not in the foggy distance of time and space, not in the abstract emptiness of inventions and phantoms, as in the case of earthly poets and thinkers, but now, at this moment, in this small space, in this environment, between these neighbors. Through them, in their own depths, he sees the enlightened wondrous world of that kingdom of all beauty, life and harmony which always embraces them, but which they cannot enter, gliding irresistibly over the brilliant surface of this world into the series of grandiose external perspectives unfolding before them. The Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21)

IV. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" Matt. 5:5