4. Светская жизнь лишает свободы и преданных ей держит в тяжком рабстве. Лицемерие и эгоизм как постоянные качества светской жизни

Прошлый раз не о всем я поговорил, чего касались вы в своем письме. I'm sending an addendum. You say: “This is also what I see: that everyone is in a hurry, chasing after something to catch, and no one has time to catch anything. Случилось мне пройти людной улицей или местом – какая там суматоха и суета! Но смотрю потом: и в домах то же, то же, вероятно, и в душах у них. И ума не приложу: ужели так можно жить? And here’s what else I see: that here they are crowding each other, binding and tyrannizing, no one has their own will and freedom. Don’t you dare dress the way you want, don’t dare walk the way you want, don’t dare speak the same way – and don’t dare do anything however you want. Everything with them is subject to some kind of law, which they do not know who wrote it; He oppresses everyone, but no one dares to break him. Зато и сами делаются тиранами друг для друга. Dare not to listen to anyone - woe. Я, например, пою, когда хочется петь. Ведь это рай: и самой приятно, и слушающим. А тут хочешь не хочешь – пой. This is offered very politely, but to refuse is considered illegal. And eat. The hardship itself is unbearable - your chest almost cracks, but you puff up - to show that you are eating from the heart. I've noticed this in others too. Here's freedom for you! But to look from the outside - everything is freemen. Freemen, tangled in arms and legs! On this occasion, I began to take a closer look: do they do it from the heart and everything else. So what? Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't see anything that was from the heart. Affected affection, readiness for services - too, mutual respect - too. Everything is feigned. Behind the appearance, smooth and elegant, hides a completely different soul, which, if pulled out, no one would find not only elegant, but also tolerable. And it turns out that when we gather, we are a gathering of actors and actors. Comedy! And what’s amazing to me is that everyone feels cold. How is this so?! After all, everyone seems ready to give their souls to each other, but there’s a cold all around!” Absolutely right. There is nothing to add to your description. All this has long been noticed and indicated as a precaution. Macarius the Great also depicted the turmoil and pursuit of something that you saw: “The children of this age are likened to wheat poured into a sieve of this earth, and are sifted among the fickle thoughts of this world, with the constant excitement of earthly affairs, desires and multi-woven material concepts. Satan shakes souls and sifts through the entire sinful human race with a sieve, that is, earthly affairs. Since the fall, when Adam transgressed the commandment and obeyed the evil prince who took power over him, with his incessant seductive and restless thoughts he sifts all the sons of this age and brings him into conflict in the sieve of the earth. Just as wheat beats in a sifter’s sieve and, constantly being thrown into it, turns over, so the prince of wickedness occupies all people with earthly affairs, shakes them, leads them into confusion and anxiety, makes them cling to vain thoughts, impure desires, earthly and worldly connections, constantly captivating the entire sinful race of Adam. And the Lord predicted to the Apostles the future uprising of the evil one against them: “Satan asks you to sow as wheat: I have prayed to My Father, that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:31-32). For this word and definition, clearly spoken by the Creator to Cain: “groaning and shaking, you will be on the earth in anxiety” (Gen. 4:12), secretly serves as an image and likeness for all sinners, because the race of Adam, having transgressed the commandment and becoming sinful, secretly took on this likeness. People are shaken by fickle thoughts of fear, fear, all kinds of embarrassment, desires, various kinds of pleasures. The prince of this world worries every soul that is not born of God, and, like wheat constantly rotating in a sieve, he agitates human thoughts in various ways, causing everyone to hesitate and entrap them with worldly seductions, carnal pleasures, insurances, and embarrassments” (Conversation 5, § 1–2). Here's an addition to your observation! Have you noticed that there is and does happen. And Saint Macarius indicated both the reason for this and the first outcome. This view of the matter is not accepted in the circle we are talking about, and it is impossible to start talking about it. I ask you to internalize this view and always keep it in mind. It expresses the essence of the matter and, if accepted with conviction, will serve as a shield for you from the charms of social life. To think more about this and become more akin to this way of thinking, take the trouble to read this entire fifth conversation of St. Macarius. I gave this book to your mother, and she wanted to buy it. For my part, I will add that this pursuit of something and dissatisfaction with nothing depend on the same thing that I wrote about last time: namely, on the fact that in this way of life not all of human nature is nourished and not all of its needs are satisfied. The dissatisfied side, like a hungry one, demands food to quench its greed and thirst and drives a person to look for it. A person runs to search, but as he continues to rotate in the same circle that does not satisfy the hungry side, there is no satisfaction, hunger and thirst do not stop, the demand for food does not stop, and the pursuit does not stop. And it will never cease in those who live according to the spirit of the world. The enemy keeps them in blindness, due to which they do not notice the mistake, that they are running the wrong way and aiming in the wrong direction, and in this darkness these poor souls are tormented and strangled. And the enemy has so misled them that no one dares to tell them about their error. They will growl like fierce animals. Isn’t this the roar of that lion who prowls everywhere, “seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8)! As for the other aspects of secular (secular) life that you noticed, I will only say that it cannot be otherwise. For such a life is the life of fallen humanity, whose starting feature is pride, or egoism, which sets itself as an end, and everything and everyone as a means. This is the reason that everyone wants to impose his desires on another or bind him with them, which you very aptly called tyranny. No matter how anyone brightens up their desires, behind everything there is egoism that wants to turn you in its own way or make you a means. This is also the reason for hypocrisy, the essence of which is an intense trick to hide one’s bad sides in every possible way without correcting them, otherwise the influence on others and, consequently, the use of them as means will be stopped. This is also the reason why everyone feels cold - because everyone is closed in on himself and does not spread the rays of warm life around him. True, you probably meet several people with a sympathetic structure of heart: they cling to you and take you right by the heart. This disposition is a remnant of the kindred feeling with which a person was created in relation to others, but here it consists of services to egoism, which uses it as the best means of arranging its affairs. I know one such person. Better a direct egoist or egoist than such sympathizers or sympathizers. In those, although you can notice where things are going, but here rarely anyone manages to achieve this. True, you almost constantly receive favors, but they are done so that later in one thing you can be harnessed to do ten things in your favor. You say: “How can this be? Here everyone stresses honesty, and to show dishonesty in anything means ruining yourself.” It is true that this is so, but this honesty is a mask of selfishness; the whole point here is not to lose face, for which purpose the most dishonorable acts are often allowed, as long as they can be hidden from others. You will even hear or have already heard sentences: this is an egoist, this is an egoist! Do not think that those who say this are themselves devoid of egoism. No, this sentence applies to those who do not allow themselves to be manipulated or used as a means for the selfish ends of those who judge them in this way. And therefore, he directly denounces these latter as selfish and selfish. I have heard that such persons reproach even monks for selfishness: that they live for themselves alone. Poor monks! Neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep, day and night on your feet, in obedience, not having your own will and your own desires - and you have become selfish! By this alone you can judge the merits and general denunciations of selfishness that you encounter or will encounter among secular people. They mean: I found a scythe on a stone. Having reviewed what I wrote, I see that it was I who pronounced a very rude judgment on social life, but I do not take my words back. Maybe I wouldn’t have written what I wrote, but as you yourself noticed the rather dark spots in the light, I was inspired to sing on the same note, and I don’t think that it would have offended you in the least after what you yourself said. But I expect you to ask: “What can we do?” This is what we will decide throughout our entire correspondence. Now I’ll just say: you can’t completely lag behind everyone, of course, but as much as you can, refuse to enter the circle of this social life, and when you are drawn in against your will, behave as if you weren’t there: seeing, don’t see, and hearing, don’t hear. Let what is visible pass past the eyes and what is heard past the ears. Outwardly, act like everyone else, as if wide open, but protect your heart from sympathies and hobbies. This is the main thing: take care of your heart - and you will be there only in body, and not in soul, faithfully fulfilling the commandment of the Apostle: let there be “those who demand peace... as they do not demand” (1 Cor. 7:31). Peace here also means that we have light and social life. You will be “demanding the world,” that is, having the need to come into contact with secular life, but when you keep your heart away from everything, you will be “as if not demanding” such a life, that is, not participating in it out of sympathy and desire, but forced by your present position. I tired you with a lot of writing, but you forced me. Please do not ignore what you have written, especially the last lines. You might be interested in: