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Our solitude is in God. In our God our mind and heart can find that reliable and quiet refuge, which is not affected by either the waves or the winds of the sea of ​​life. Without this, the world, hostile to God, will accompany us into the depths of forests, into mountain gorges and caves: there it will make us its servants. 5.366 Abundant fruit, gathered in solitude, is the consequence of a arduous stay among people. The second is the basis for the first, and the first cannot take place unless the second precedes it. 6.705 The mind of an ascetic, not secluded and not enclosed in himself, is of necessity in the midst of rumors and rebellion produced by countless thoughts that always have free access to him, and he himself wanders painfully, without any need or benefit, harmfully for himself, throughout the universe. A person’s solitude within himself cannot be accomplished otherwise than through attentive prayer, and primarily through the attentive Jesus Prayer. 1.204 If you want not to meet people, then this desire is wrong. When the Monk Dorotheos asked his elder Abba John the Prophet about this, John replied that withdrawal from meetings with people is very harmful for someone who has not achieved perfection, because it hides from him his weaknesses, revealed by people, and for this reason makes him infertile. 6.161 Solitude was always useful when, according to the spirit of the times, there were many pious people in society; and now, with the general spread of debauchery, solitude and removal from acquaintances and acquaintances is a necessary condition for salvation. 6.519 The downside to privacy is don't get bored. Circumstances, or more correctly, God's Providence, leads you to practice serving and comforting your neighbors. And work in this field in which you are assigned, without indulging, on the one hand, in entertainment, and on the other, in reckless zeal, in which the thought certainly creeps in that you are providing consolation, that it is not God who provides you with consolation to others, but for you to be a consolation for others. The sweetness of solitude stems from the fulfillment of Christ's commandments, perfected in community. 6.585 “If someone reproaches you for something, whether you have done or not done, and you remain silent, then you become like Jesus; if you answer, objecting: what did I do? - then you are no longer like Him; if you repay equals for equals, then you are completely dissimilar” (St. Isaiah the Hermit). 6.490 We must behave cautiously and reverently before people, but simply, responding with silence to praise, and to reproach, except in those cases when asking for forgiveness and, if necessary, a moderate explanation can calm and reconcile the one who blames us. 1.313 (See Disgrace, Acquittal, Accusation). (See Clothes, Simplicity, Passions, Flesh and Blood). He who does not heed the guarding of his mind cannot be pure in heart, he will not be worthy to see God. He who does not listen cannot be poor in spirit, cannot cry and weep, nor be meek and humble, nor hunger and thirst for truth, nor be merciful and a peacemaker, nor exiled for the sake of truth. In general, I will say: it is impossible to acquire any other virtue in any other way than through attention. And therefore you must take care of him, more than anything else, in order to actually acquire what I am telling you about. 2.152 (See Temperance, Jesus Prayer, Vowel Prayer). What calms you down in severe times of mental distress, when all human help is either powerless or impossible? One thing that calms one is the consciousness of oneself as a slave and a creation of God; This consciousness alone has such power. As soon as a person says prayerfully to God with all his heart, may Thy will be done to me, my Lord, then the excitement of the heart subsides. From these words, spoken sincerely, the most severe sorrows are deprived of their dominance over a person. What does this mean? This means that a person, having confessed himself to be a slave and a creation of God, having surrendered entirely to the will of God, immediately enters with his whole being into the realm of holy Truth. Truth brings the right mood to the spirit and life. He who has ascended to the realm of Truth, who has submitted to the Truth, receives moral and spiritual freedom, receives moral and spiritual happiness. This freedom and this happiness do not depend on people and circumstances. 2.96 What could be more difficult than the state of a soul tormented by temptations? This is being in hell, in eternal torment. Remembering them eases the temptations here. “My enemy,” says despondency (in the Ladder), “is mortal memory.” Remember the society of demons in hell - and people will seem kind to you; remember the torment in hell - and temptations will become easier for you. 6.157 Boredom, called despondency in monastic life, always attacks those who lead a solitary life from time to time. During it, it is very useful to do handicrafts and at the same time remember the dead, who died how, and that we will certainly die. 6.685 (See Sorrow, Obedience, Passion, Rule, Jesus Prayer). (See obedience to the will, all-goodness of Providence, Temptations, Monastic vows). A meal of spiritual consolation is like food and at the same time like poison! Whoever tastes it loses a living feeling for everything coveted in the world. Everything that is highly respected by the world begins to seem to him empty, disgusting dust, stinking carrion. 6.317 When a person is worthy to feel something spiritual, i.e. sensation from God, then he will understand that all his own sensations are insignificant and are associated with self-delusion. To get to the promised land you have to go through the desert. Walking through this desert, you need to know that it is a desert, and not a promised land, so as not to mistake any desert oasis with luxurious and rich nature for the promised land and for this reason not to lose the promised land. Oases are those consolations and especially clear self-views that are given from time to time to a beginner in the feat of prayer. You shouldn't pay special attention to them. The first spiritual gift is grace-filled attention during prayer, which is impossible to have with one’s own effort. 6.738 Keep consolation, and do not let your mind go into daydreams. Consolation first acts on the mind, renewing thoughts; and he, feeling the revival, willingly, due to his inexperience, indulges in daydreaming - and in it fruitlessly and recklessly exhausts the sweetness given to him... When consoled, indulge more in thanksgiving, prayer and self-reproach; consolation will increase and increase... These consolations are the mysterious manna, called in Scripture the bread of heaven (Ps. 77:24), permeating the new Israelites - Christians - during their journey through the desert - during their earthly wanderings. These consolations are the hidden manna (Rev. 2:17) of the Apocalypse, about which the Son of God, who appeared to John the Theologian, said: to the one who overcomes I will give food from the hidden manna. She is truly hidden: invisible to people; God, who gives, sees it, sees it invisibly, sees it through sensation, and is seen by the receiving servant of God. Such a servant of God, being in a multitude of people, remains alone with the One God, visible and invisible, known and unknown to anyone. 6. 316–317 When consoling yourself as true, as unpretentious, as God, take one completely immaterial spiritual action, which appears in the peace of the heart, in its extraordinary silence, in some kind of cold and at the same time fiery love for your neighbor and all creatures, love, alien to heat and impulses, love in God and by God. This spiritual fiery coolness, this always uniform, subtle flame is the constant character of the Savior, constantly and equally shining from all the actions of the Savior, from all the words of the Savior, preserved and transmitted to us by the Gospel. The Holy Spirit puts on this character during the consolations of the servant of Christ, removing from the soul the clothes of the old Adam, clothing the soul in the clothes of the New Adam and thus delivering essential knowledge of Christ, knowledge that is completely mysterious and completely clear. Turn away from everything material - whether it appears to your physical eyes or to your imagination. 6.321 Human corruption consists in mixing good with evil; healing consists in the gradual removal of evil, when more good begins to act in us. The perfect separation of good from evil, the pure action of good alone, occurs in those who are perfect, and then only for a time and from time to time. The place where one pure good operates is Heaven; on earth - confusion. With our spiritual consolations, this confusion continues to operate, only the amount of good overcomes the amount of evil - hence the consolation. Therefore, when consoling, we must be extremely careful, knowing that sin, fall, and delusion are near us. Work for the Lord, the prophet bequeaths, with fear and rejoice in Him with trembling. 6.323 The Lord, who wants to transfer someone from a blood or mental sensation to a spiritual sensation, sends him from time to time, as Saint Maximus the Confessor says, to taste this sensation experimentally. Such a taste is like a spy on the promised land. 6.836 (See Communion with God, Tears, Jesus Prayer, Consolation). The world loves its own, said the Savior. When the world hears the word of God proclaimed in the elements and in the spirit of the world, i.e. when he hears his teaching, covered with the guise of God’s teaching, then he extols it with praise. When he senses in the word the presence of another Spirit, acting destructively on the dominion of the world, then he becomes infected with hatred of the word and initiates persecution against the one who uttered the word. It is very dangerous to acquire knowledge not in Christ, but by developing your own fallen nature, being in spirit in communion with the world. Acting in the area of ​​the latter method, people will certainly become infected with enmity towards the Holy Spirit, just as the Jewish clergy was infected with this deadly enmity, for which they were convicted by the first martyr Stephen (Acts 7:51). These literal scholars did not find words to contrast with the words of the Spirit that Stephen spoke, and therefore they were kindled with envy and hatred towards the vessel of the Spirit. They responded to words with stones; They responded to the teaching of truth with murder. The Word of God has always been persecuted by the world; persecution from the world has always been evidence of the teaching coming from God. 6.545–546 The teaching of the Holy Fathers of the Eastern Church is correct: it is the teaching of the Holy Spirit. I beg you, hold on to this teaching! It will guide you to a blissful eternity. A brilliant lamp has been lit in the Holy Church of Christ - the radiance of the Holy Spirit: do not direct your gaze to other lamps shining on different paths. One path of holy truth leads to salvation; other paths all lead to destruction. Many work, many suffer, many strive, only those who struggle legally will be saved. The true legal feat is in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in the fence of the Eastern Church. 6.421 In the study of any science, it is required that the study be correct: without this we come to empty and false results; In the same way, in the study of Christianity, correctness is necessary - without it, a person will certainly deviate into a variety of errors. 6.606 How well our ancient fathers of the Orthodox Church acted! Having learned human sciences, they accepted the yoke of Christ and in the field of self-denial under the guidance of the Cross of Christ they learned Divine Wisdom, and for them human learning became a humble slave, which they used in the service of Divine Wisdom to teach this Wisdom to their neighbors. A scribe who has learned the Kingdom of Heaven can wear out both the old and the new, subduing the old to the new and adapting it to it; and the one who has not learned, obviously, can wear out only one old thing, which is death and enmity towards God, which produces its own impression on others, even if they talk to them about God, even if it scratches the ears of the soul, arousing in it the subtlest adulterous movement of passions, recognized by many as the effect of grace. Save us, Lord! We perish from ourselves, having loved our own teachings and rejecting or valuing little the teachings sent to us by God. 6. 64–65 St. Isaac of Syria likened the first kind of knowledge (theoretical) to sources of water and fruits depicted in paintings on the wall; they can be looked at with pleasure if they are well painted, and that’s all. This saint likened knowledge of the second kind (from experience) to the very sources of water, the very fruits that can serve to nourish a person. 6.570 (See Sciences, Wisdom, Heretics). What is the use of building up your neighbor’s church and simultaneously destroying your own? Novices should not get carried away in the edification of their neighbors, due to the ardor of their temperament, due to their new beginnings, due to their bloody action. The blood, sometimes very exciting, sometimes tired and tired from the excitement itself, transmits the soul alternately into two opposite states: into excitement and despondency. 6.833 And from caring for your neighbors pride often vegetates, like from a grain of wheat. Therefore, Saint Mark the Ascetic said: “When a man uses words or deeds to make use of man, let both understand God’s grace.” “We do not preach ourselves,” says Saint Paul, “but Christ Jesus the Lord” (2 Cor. 4:5). Whoever cultivates these feelings, his addiction to people will be destroyed, and love will reign in Christ, seeing the image of God in everyone. When the mind is delighted with the consolation of this love, then a person sees himself as a kind of vessel full of stench and abomination, and marvels at how the rays of Divine teaching pass through him and heal human souls. It is appropriate for me to remember here the words of St. John Climacus, repeated by the Venerable Nile of Sora: “Some fell into the swamp, but others were warned against such a fall, and for their salvation the Lord granted them salvation too.” 6.227 You might be interested in: