Слово 38. О том, как по возбуждающимся в человеке помыслам узнавать, на какой степени стоит он

A person, while in negligence, fears the hour of death; and when he approaches God, he is afraid of facing judgment; when he moves forward completely 218, then both fears are absorbed by love. Why is this? Because when someone remains in the knowledge and life of the body 219, he is horrified by death; when he is in spiritual knowledge and good life, his mind is occupied every hour with the remembrance of the future judgment, since he stands right by nature, moves in spiritual order, remains in his knowledge and life 220, and is arranged well in order to draw closer to God. But when he reaches this knowledge of the truth, as a result of the movement in him of the understanding of the mysteries of God and as a result of the affirmation of the hope of the future, then both this bodily man, like an animal who fears the slaughter, and the rational man, who fears the judgment of God, are absorbed in love; he who has become a son is adorned with love, and is not admonished by a scepter. “And I and the house” of my father “will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). Whoever has achieved the love of God does not want to stay here again, because this love destroys fear 221. And I, beloved, because I have fallen into foolishness, I cannot keep a secret in silence, but I become mad 222 for the benefit of the brethren, because such is true love: it cannot keep anything secret from its beloved. When I wrote this, my fingers repeatedly stopped at the charter and I could not stand the sweetness that invaded my heart and silenced my feelings. However, blessed is he who always has his thoughts on God, who has refrained from everything worldly and has remained in conversation with Him alone in his knowledge. And if he does not lack patience, he will not be long delayed in seeing the fruit. The joy of God is stronger than this life, and whoever has found it will not only not look at suffering, but will not even look at his life, and there will be no other feeling there, if this joy really existed. Love is sweeter than life, and the understanding of God, from which love is born, is sweeter than honey and honeycomb. It is not sadness for love to accept a hard death for those who love. Love is a product of knowledge, and knowledge is a product of mental health, and mental health is strength that comes from prolonged patience. Question. What is maintaining 223? Answer. Feeling of immortal life. Question. What is immortal life? Answer. Feeling God; because love comes from knowledge, and the knowledge of God is the king of all desires, and for a heart that accepts it, all sweetness on earth is superfluous. For there is nothing like the sweetness of the knowledge of God. Fill my heart, O Lord, with eternal life! Eternal life is consolation in God; and whoever has found consolation in God considers worldly consolation unnecessary. Question. How does a person know that he has received wisdom from the Spirit? Answer. From wisdom itself, which in his innermost being and in his feelings teaches him humble morals; and in his mind it is revealed to him how humility will be accepted. Question. How does a person know that he has achieved humility? Answer. From the fact that he finds it disgusting to please the world with his communication with him or his word; and in his eyes the glory of this world is hateful. Question. What are passions? Answer. The impulses that are produced by the things of this world, prompting the body to satisfy its unnecessary needs; and these battles do not cease as long as this world stands. But a person who has been honored with Divine grace, has tasted and felt something higher than this, 224 does not allow these temptations to enter his heart; because in their place another, better, lust has established itself in him, and neither these struggles nor what they generate come close to his heart, but they remain ineffective - not because there are no longer passionate battles, but because the heart that receives them is dead to them and lives by something else - not because the person has stopped preserving his thoughts and deeds, but because there is no anxiety in his mind from anything, for his consciousness is saturated, enjoying something else 225 . A heart that has received into itself a sense of the spiritual and a clear contemplation of the future age is in the same way in its consciousness towards the remembrance of passions as a person who is satiated with expensive food, with other food that is not similar to the one offered to him, that is, he does not pay attention to it at all, does not desire it, and even more so abhors it and turns away from it, not only because it is vile in itself and disgusting, but also because the man was satisfied with the first, best food that he ate, not in the same way as he who squandered his share and then coveted the births, since he had already squandered his father’s wealth that he had 226 in advance. And besides, the one who is entrusted with the treasure does not sleep. If we preserve the law of sobriety and the work of reasoning with knowledge, the fruit of which is life, 227 then the struggle with the attacks of passions will not come any closer to the mind. What prevents them from entering the heart is not struggle, but the saturation of consciousness and the knowledge with which the heart is filled, and the desire to contemplate the miracles found in the soul. This is what prevented the attacks from approaching the heart: not because, as I said, the heart has withdrawn from the storage and affairs of reasoning, which protect the knowledge of truth and the light of the soul, but because the mind, for the reasons stated above, has no struggle. For the food of the poor is vile to the rich, and likewise the food of the sick is vile to the healthy; wealth and health come from sobriety and care. While a person lives, he needs sobriety, guardianship and vigilance in order to preserve his treasure. If he leaves the limit assigned to him 228, he will become sick and will be robbed. You should not work until you see the fruit; but we must strive until the very end. For often a ripe fruit is suddenly killed by hail. Whoever interferes in everyday affairs and indulges in conversations, it is still impossible to be sure that his health will remain in him. When you pray, say this prayer: “Grant me, O Lord, to truly be dead to converse with this world.” And know that you have combined all the petitions in this; try to fulfill this task in yourself. For if prayer is followed by action, then you truly stand in the freedom of Christ. And mortification of oneself for the world consists not only in removing a person from communication in conversation with what is in the world, but also in not lusting after worldly goods in the conversation of one’s mind. If we train ourselves to think well, we will be ashamed of passions as soon as we encounter them. And those who have experienced it themselves know this. But we will also be ashamed of approaching passions due to the reasons that cause them. When, out of love for God, you wish to accomplish some deed, set death as the limit of your desire; and thus, in fact, you will be worthy to ascend to the level of martyrdom in the struggle with every passion, and you will not suffer any harm from what meets you within this limit, if you endure to the end and do not relax. The thinking of a weak mind makes the power of patience weak; and a strong mind even imparts strength to the one who follows his thoughts, which nature does not have. Grant me, Lord, to hate my life for the sake of life in You! The life of this world is like drawing some only letters from those inscribed on a table; and when anyone wants and wishes, he adds and subtracts to them, and makes a change in the letters. And the future life is like manuscripts inscribed on blank scrolls, sealed with the royal seal, in which nothing can be added or subtracted. Therefore, while we are in the midst of changes 229, we will be attentive to ourselves, and while we have power over the handwriting of our life, which we write with our own hands, we will try to make additions to it with a good life, we will begin to erase in it the shortcomings of the previous life 230. For while we are in this world, God does not put a seal on either good or bad, until the very hour of our departure, in which the work in our fatherland ends 231 and we depart for a foreign country. And, as Saint Ephraim said: “It is fitting for us to reflect that our soul is like a ready ship that does not know when the wind will blow on it, and an army that does not know when the trumpet will sound. And if,” he says, “this happens for a small gain, in such cases that, perhaps, will return again, then how should we prepare and equip ourselves before that terrible day, before this bridge and before this door of the new century?” May the Mediator of our life, Christ, grant us the readiness to be confirmed in this confession of our aspirations. To him be glory, worship and thanksgiving forever and ever! Amen. That is, he will become completely close to God. That is, he philosophizes and lives according to the flesh. Higher than pleasure in the things of this world. That is, sobriety and guardianship. You might be interested in: