Часть II. Основные страсти. Советы по их искоренению

We have a body. The life of the body is supported by the harmonious action of its various parts and functions. Satisfying the needs of the body is the law of nature, but passion approaches them, it loses its measure and proper form and becomes sin. Our body must be nourished. The nutritional organs are taste with the larynx and stomach. The passions that attack this part are: polyeating, sweet eating - luxury in the table and its seasonings, gluttony and drunkenness. The weapon with which to reflect this part is: abstinence and fasting. (24, p. 171) With his worship begins destruction Every passion is an idol. And every addiction to something, although not sinful, is also on the idolatrous side... Look closely and do not spare. Gluttony is the ugliest idol. With the worship of him, destruction begins. (14, p. 125) It takes away all spiritual movement From the instinct of nutrition develop voluptuousness, bliss, gluttony, laziness, and idleness. This takes away any movement of spiritual activity. (2, p. 327) Carnivory is the most crafty enemy The most cunning enemy is carnivory... This frog pretends to be hardened, but just indulge her... there’s no stopping her... give one thing, give another. And flatly order her: don’t you dare... and she’ll quiet down (13, p. 219) The most evil thing is satiety The most evil thing is satiety. He's full, he's collapsed, and he's puffing. Spiritually it happens. (12, p. 103) Satiety leads to forgetfulness of God Run away from satiety - a state in which the evil heart says to itself: enough, I don’t demand anything more; If you’ve worked hard, established order, you can give yourself a benefit. About Israel it is said: fatter, thicker, wider (Deut. 32:15). What's more satisfying? - But what fruit? And leave God. This referred to bodily satiety and satisfaction with one’s external state. But this is quite applicable to spiritual satiety and contentment with one’s inner state. And the consequence is also oblivion of God. When there is enough of everything, why should we pray to God and think about Him? Although the self-satisfied do not suddenly reach this point, this is exactly what they have in the embryo. The immediate effect of satiety is a weakening of attention and the admission of benefits. Whoever allows this will go downhill, like people rolling down the slope of a slippery mountain. (14, p. 182) Satiety among monks is the same as satiety among laity Kindly choose a measured rule in food and drink, as all the saints did. Let you have a brew, an egg, a piece of caviar and something else that is lighter. Nothing for the sake of carnality, but only for health and never eat enough: satiety among monks is the same as satiety among the laity. (13, p. 209) Anyone who overeats looks like a drunk And the one who overeats looks like a drunk, and the one who gets very angry. (11, p. 161) From satiety, excess juices and fornication You are overcome by anger and satiety. Anger suits your honor and doesn’t suit a blueberry at all. And what about satiety? This is not a master's business at all... Hence the extra juices... and so on... the road is straight. (14, p. 100) Eating with abstinence and distress Eat everything offered in the meal, without hesitation, but with abstinence and effort. Our oil is five times weaker than eastern wood oil. On the contrary, the wine prescribed in the statute is grape wine - weaker. Our vodka is ten times stronger. The charter must be read carefully. (13, p. 181) It’s better not to eat or drink before mass...unless it’s an extreme thing. (13, p. 158) Immense strictness leads to overeating All excesses do not lead to good. Before the enemy has time to make you indulge yourself in anything, then he instills immeasurable severity and then forces you to do the same. You cannot do without food and sleep. Having become exhausted to the point of impotence, it is necessary to do the necessary things, and it is necessary to return to food and sleep. And this is where it suddenly takes its toll, introducing both eating and sleeping a lot. (13, p. 209) Measure of food consumption: leave the table a little hungry Make it a law to leave the table a little hungry. The evil slave - the flesh - will feel that there is a powerful hand over it... And that wine drinking has been stopped, wonderful. This is the best way to ensure that your body is always cheerful, sober and fresh. This is a great thing! (11, p. 220) Variable measure: so that food does not burden Sleep a lot and eat a lot. How can one measure this much? not by hours and weight, but so that food does not burden you and sleep does not relax you. Yes, not to have an addiction to them, but not to please the flesh, but to satisfy its needs... The flesh is this slave, you need to beat with something, at least a little, but beat everything. (12, pp. 147–148) Don’t regret the fact that you had to add something from your food. One should not become attached even to holy rules, but behave in relation to them with complete freedom, using them wisely. It doesn’t matter if you add something else, just not to please the flesh, but out of need. (14, p. 234) Do not bind yourself as a permanent measure, but act freely When it comes to eating, reduce your nutrition a little, and also take away something from sleep. How, what - see for yourself. There is no need to bind yourself, but to act freely, sometimes this way, sometimes that way; keeping one thing in mind - not to please the flesh, and not to be self-pleasing in anything. And you can also sleep or stay awake in different ways, having one measure: do not fall asleep deeply. (18, p. 197) If you drink a cup of tea and at the same time eat a piece of bread, what sin is it when you are weak? If only this were not done to please the flesh. (18, p. 224) What supplies do you have, what’s here? Prepare everything you need and your worries will be over. As we bear flesh, we work in the flesh. What to do? - We need to eat and drink: let the materials for that be ready. If the Lord grants patience, you can abstain from certain foods; but if you do not endure it, eat and give thanks to the Lord. It is good to give away the surplus to those in need and those who ask, only on the sly, so as not to boast of generosity. If you happen to break your rule of abstinence in front of others, do not be embarrassed, not doing it to please yourself, but submitting to the duty of love. That they drank tea at NN’s and dined when your sister was with you, that’s how it should be. If they had done it differently, it would have been worse: they would have been insulted and they themselves would have had no peace. It's good to have jam just in case. Use sometimes with water as a medicine, and not for sweetness. And the holiday must be at least somehow distinguished from everyday life. Let the flesh celebrate, and not just the spirit. (14, pp. 188–189) It is not food alone that gives life to the belly... or health, but God’s blessing, which always overshadows the one who surrenders himself to the will of God when he encounters hardships on the path of fulfilling God’s commandments. (13, p. 125) Pleasure naturally accompanies the eating of pleasant food; but for those who accept it with feelings of gratitude to God, pleasure loses the character of sensuality, becomes spiritualized and sanctified. When they eat food in order to enjoy, creating pleasure for the flesh in lust, then they are immersed in sensuality; and when they take food to satisfy an inevitable need, with thanksgiving, then they feel the sweetness without becoming sensual. At the same time, raising the mind and heart to God makes sweetness itself seem detached and dematerialized. (27, p. 347) Drinking is a slow suicide Without drinking anything, you will always be fresh and live longer. Drinking and eating little food eats away at your life, and it’s a bit like slow suicide. (18, p. 34) What your guys are sipping on can be very alarming. But perhaps they will understand that drinking to the bottom means not seeing good. And health is stronger and more reliable when you don’t drink at all. A non-drinker is always fresh and quick in action. (18, p. 106) It’s good to quit smoking, it bothers your conscience, it’s a stupid thing What they wrote about - it’s good to quit smoking. It is not only empty, but also gradually undermines health, spoiling the blood and clogging the lungs. This is a gradual poisoning of oneself. But there is no advice for this and there is no advice, except to make a stronger decision. There is no other way. What happened to you is the enemy's mockery. To smoke or not to smoke is a matter of indifference, at least our and common conscience considers it so. But when non-smoking is bound by a promise, then it enters into the moral order and becomes a matter of conscience, the failure of which cannot but trouble it. So the enemy has spoiled you. It's true you had a good talk. The enemy advised you to make a decision, and then led you to break your word. That's the whole story! Please learn and continue to keep your eyes open. Why commit yourself to a vow? You need to say: “Wait, let me try to quit. God willing." Did you meet at St. The elders' advice: don't commit yourself to a vow? This is exactly the kind of thing it concerns. (12, p. 210) Smoking is a stupid thing; there is as much moral here as there is empty bias and perceived harm. The last two features are difficult for smokers to recognize and difficult to explain to non-smokers. Strongly indecent; but decency and indecency, just like people, change. Tolerate a bad habit, but don’t turn it into a sin. Praying for your daughter to lose the habit is a good thing. But there is no need to put this in a special form. Whenever you pray, cry out to God. And He will arrange it as His holy will pleases. (18, p. 12) It is a sin to tempt others to break the fast. You sinned a lot by tempting NN on the way to eat milk on Wednesday. After all, they didn’t die of hunger! It would be a different matter if you encountered such a need as death, and there was nothing to get except milk. Then nothing: eat to your health. And the way you did it was a sin. This sin increases because NN went to St. Petersburg, where there is an abyss of temptations. Now you have shaken their rules on the road and dispelled the fear of breaking them under some pretext. From this small thing they can transfer the indulgence to another, from another to a third, and so on, all in increasing order. The answer for everything is entirely yours. This is not a stretch of the court, but the real thing. And aren’t you yourself of the Tatar faith, that you didn’t eat meat at the right time? You won’t understand what this is!.. Did the law about food come from you, that you can dispose of it as you want, but others don’t dare? Wonder! And it’s even more surprising that this seems like an extraneous matter to you... But I think differently - that in this matter you should grieve more for yourself. After all, those NNs were not entrusted to you so that you could teach them to break the fast. They look at you as a good Christian who should be imitated, and, perhaps, they decided to taste it for your sake, so that you would not be ashamed to be the only one so mercilessly hitting your mother, the Church, in the face. Hit the mother in the face! Do you see how things are? And you talked about this very easily, you want permission. I forgive and absolve you and everyone from this sin by the power given to me, although I myself am a great sinner. Just what good will this do you? Is absentee permission strong? Go to your confessor, and judge yourself before him, and ask for penance. For God's sake, do not disdain this matter... A millstone around the neck, and even in the water - who cares? To the one who leads into temptation. And so grieve, hurt and beat the fans, and appease the all-merciful Lord. There is mercy, especially to those who repent. (10, pp. 84–85) Carnal pleasure suppresses spiritual life The Lord took our flesh from virgin blood. Since we, by virtue of the incarnate economy, are one with the Lord, virginity has become a distinctive feature of our Christian character - virginity in thoughts, feelings, and in the state of the flesh. Carnal pleasure has become a denial of Christianity within us. And nothing suppresses spiritual joy now... like this sweetness. And the enemy whispers as if it’s nothing. (14, p. 106) Carnal lust kills all that is good in the soul It is necessary to distinguish between manifestations of illegality in lustful passion. Carnal movements are natural in the body and there is no sin in them. The sin is how a person treats them with his freedom and conscience. He who delights in these movements, arbitrarily excites them and is ready to satisfy them, lusts. Whoever, by frequent satisfaction of this lust, forms in himself an inclination to enjoy it, he suffers from lustful passion, which burdens, torments and torments him tyrannically. In this state, it takes possession of the whole person, and he begins to spend his life only among such orders that can nourish and delight her. For the sake of the sweetness delivered by the satisfaction of this passion, it is called voluptuousness. Because of its destructive effects on the soul and body, the Apostle calls this passion evil flesh (Col. 3:5), and because of its humiliation of a rational being, the passion of dishonor (Rom. 1:26). (9, pp. 342–343) Prodigal passion makes the body gloomy and stinking When carnal lust takes possession of the soul, it kills all its good aspirations and makes it a slave of base vices and shameful deeds - which, however, it does not realize until it comes to its senses (5, p. 91). Fornication passion, and then as soon as it arises and carries away the soul, it already makes the body gloomy and stinking, but when fornication is committed, the gloominess becomes impenetrable and stinking unapproachable. But the carnal do not see or feel this: spiritual people and Angels see and feel this. (22, p. 239) Prodigal passion soon leads to the grave A devotee of this passion soon exhausts the strength of body and soul and goes to the grave. He is much like a drunkard in this respect: what can go to both of them, the Apostle attributed to one fornicator, because he is being discussed. The wanderer thinks that he is pleasing himself, but in reality it turns out that he is preparing a coffin for himself. (22, p. 243) Stop the matter by keeping the body in strictness Be strong... and stand guard... The enemy does not hesitate to outrage; and we must not bother to resist him. Raise the fear of God; let him not leave. For the Lord is everywhere and sees everything... The body must be given strict soldierly discipline... I wrote about this to you at the beginning.... Do not stop not only not sparing the body, but also tyrannizing it... not giving it food - always stopping eating when hunger is still felt... and diminishing sleep... Some kind of bodily labor until fatigue would be good... As soon as the body gets a little dry and cools down... then those worries will completely stop... Anxiety from juices, and juices from food... When this source stops... there will be no business. (14, pp. 105–106) Prevent a prodigal attack by keeping your body in line You have made me incredibly happy that you have finally found a foothold in your war. Always stick to this technique... pursue the first occurrence. To prevent the occurrence itself, keep your body in line, standing, sitting, and lying down... do not loosen your limbs... In your soul, keep the memory of God... with fear. How can we allow this to happen in the presence of God?.. This will envelop the entire body with cold. (14, p. 108) The main thing is to avoid sympathy and accompaniment The main thing is not to allow sympathy and not to allow even one iota of co-indulgence in sweetness... Then, hostility to this sweetness must follow... When this is there, purity is not violated and there is no shadow of impurity... May God grant us to always be at this level. You must always end with a prayer to the Lord. Review volume 2 of the Philokalia... all the articles about this passion. There, applying everything to yourself, you will more easily understand yourself, this passion, and how to manage it. (14, p. 104) Pursue hostility from the first move As for your inner self, I am very glad that you are fighting... Don’t allow yourself to feel sympathy; and even more so until consent... Always pursue complete hostility from the first movement... just as you meet a snake. If you now deepen your hostility towards this, you will soon calm down... and you will be safe all your life. Look up to the Lord every time... saying: Lord! You see what’s in me, and that I don’t want this... Help me and calm me down. (14, p. 107) Quickly raise anger to passion You noted well that there should be no permission or complacency and that anger must be raised as quickly as possible... We must pray to the Lord for this! What you are trying to hide, what you are doing in the struggle, is very good... And here is part of the success and the power of work... You yourself have decided to watch and pray... And do this more than anything else (14, pp. 108–109) Reduce the flesh to submission and replace sympathy with disgust Keep your muscles and your whole body tense - in tension, without letting any member loosen sybaritically. If you are alone, use a tourniquet or rosary to blow your shoulders until it hurts. This is what most successfully turns the evil slave’s flesh to submission and humbles. From food - everything fatty and highly nutritious should be eliminated during this time and eat less. You can choose food that is not hot, but cold. Instead of a soft chair for a seat, take a hard stool. To sleep - take off the mattress... and lay down one blanket... and cover yourself with something cool... There is less heat in the room... It’s good to cool off in the air... but also guard your feelings. Nevertheless, place your trust in the Lord. Stay in prayer. In “Philokalia” volume 2 there are many instructions about this. Re-read and remember or write down what comes to you. But never be timid... And no matter how strong the attack is, try hard to repel it. The main thing is not to allow sympathy, much less condonation or complacency... Sympathy breaks out involuntarily: you need to fight it off... and replace it with disgust. Do not stop seeing the evil enemy in these uprisings and provoke anger against them. Don’t give up, but keep fighting... Anyone caught in the water dangles with both arms and legs and thus prevents himself from plunging into the water. The Lord be your help! No one can cope with this without fighting. And one should have expected... But it can pass if you courageously arm yourself. For every victory over this gives a crown. It is not profitable for the enemy to deliver crowns; then he moves away and does not attack. - Only natural movements will remain: - but they are then sluggish and powerless and are soon stopped by harsh treatment of the body. (14, pp. 96–97) Keep a whip under your pillow Now I remembered that there was one of the nobles here in the monastery... He was struggling with lustful passion. He kept a whip under his pillow... and as the flesh began to worry, he beat himself without pity with the whip... and pacified the flesh. Give it a try. (15, p. 105) To drive away lust with the Jesus Prayer Try to overcome lustful passion in every possible way and never enjoy it... but drive away as soon as it appears. Drive away with the Jesus Prayer... When passion is fighting, eat less, sleep little and crisply... Make more bows... and sometimes beat yourself with a whip or rope on your shoulders. (12, p. 236) You'll have to fight your way through your whole life if you don't immediately drive away the shameful sweetness The fact that you pursue shameful movements against hostility is real protection on your part. Beware of sympathy and desire for sweetness. This desire is sinful, and should confuse the conscience... and then take away boldness before God. The engine of everything here is shameful sweetness. In itself, it is not sinful... but sympathy for it, allowing it, agreeing to prolong it is sinful - not a complete sin, but as uncleanness... internal. The memory of sweetness never immediately sets sweetness in motion. If you unscrew it immediately, everything will end... the enemy is defeated... and for this a crown. But if a desire to prolong the sweetness flashes through, and then an extension is allowed... then there was an evil will... and the sedentary state of the sweetness is given, and the longer and more often this is allowed, the more difficult it is to drive away. And the whole life will have to break through. So there is an urgent law: as soon as sweetness appears, beat it and drive it away. And so that she doesn’t show up, keep your thoughts away from everything that might remind you of her. Fight! The Lord be your help! (14, pp. 109–110) If there was an indulgence, then confession and punishment are required Sympathy left unrewarded means consent to impurity. Consent is an internal sin, cleansed by confession. And please do so. Then watch. – You know what is required. Fight back with anger and prayer. – Tie a thick rosary... and around the shoulders – quite painfully. Your indulgence is the same as if the bride, after getting engaged, kissed a guy, not the groom. The Lord promises himself to the Lord for such an indulgence. Conscience expresses his feelings towards you. Beware! – One of the shortcomings of the 5 holy fools was this indulgence. You can’t joke with this indulgence... It seems light and insignificant, but all the destruction is in it... Kindly wean yourself completely from this... And at the first appearance of a thought, drive away mercilessly... to the point of poisoning. Thank you for the rosary... I am enclosing the punishment rosary. Now make use of them. (14, pp. 125–126) Carnal sins to reap without details Carnal movements and passions, as those that have already passed, remember lightly, in general, without details... only in order to humble your thoughts... otherwise they will immediately come to life, like worms dried up under a stone from being sprinkled with water. We must work hard to mortify these movements: for they have their basis in nature, therefore those who live very... strong, constant fasting, little sleep, exhaustion of the body... especially prayerful sobriety... finally achieve that they subside. Never stop worrying about this part of the feat (13, p. 175) The fight against lustful thoughts Here I will tell you just a little about your thoughts. When sinful deeds are stopped, the struggle moves inwards, into the heart... The main thing here is thoughts; Behind the thoughts are sympathies, behind these are wishes; behind these are inclinations to action, agreements, decisions... These are the last to commit internal sin. Not all of these internal movements are sinners. Sin begins where willfulness is visible. Thoughts are not sinful when a person himself does not arouse them and does not restrain those aroused against his will. There is sinful impurity here. But when sympathy and pleasure are attached to this, lustful sweetness, not driven away, but retained, then there is half an internal sin; if someone himself holds back this sweetness and kindles it, then the whole soul is already in a prodigal state. Real internal sin is inclination, consent and decision. Thoughts must be driven away, not retained arbitrarily. Sympathy, or sweetness, as soon as it appears, must be suppressed with all your might... This is the main point of internal warfare. (13, pp. 119–120) Fighting the evil movements of the flesh The main thing is to suppress thoughts. When the thoughts have subsided... everything else loses its power. As soon as an evil movement appears, now set your thoughts on some sacred subject from the Gospel events - the transfiguration, the suffering of the Lord, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension, and others. This will throw all the bad things back. Or... bring to mind... death, judgment and the consequences of that. Following this, fixing your thoughts on the presence of the Lord, appeal to Him - as you speak to someone face to face - and trust Him for healing, saying: you see, Lord, that I have... I don’t want anything like that... help and drive away these attacks - and like... and begin to say the Jesus Prayer... repeating it with faith... And limiting the entire content of your head and heart to it alone. (14, p. 96) This is what you do when internal bad movements that confuse you come: immediately pay attention to your heart and stand there, pushing away the attacking bad movements both by exerting your will, and especially by prayer to the Lord. That there are attacks is not our fault; but when you don’t push them away, and take care of them, and allow sympathy, then it’s your fault. This makes the heart unclean and loses boldness before the Lord. Watch your heart. Your spiritual father told you that everything will pass. This is true. Therefore, do not despair when you encounter such strong attacks. However, don’t cut yourself any slack. Treat yourself like an evil stepmother treats her stepdaughter. - Subdue your slave - the flesh that climbs into the mistress - in food, in sleep, in physical labor and corporal punishment. (16, p. 90) Fighting lustful passion Against lustful passion - fasting and prayer, and the persistent memory of God with the fear that the arrow of God's truth may strike in an actually sinful act, and the like. – It’s good to work physically until you get tired... But the main thing is a firm determination to resist sinful urges. (15, pp. 186–187) Another thing is yours, which, in your consciousness, makes you guilty before God, you seem to consider easy. Find and read the following passage in the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians: ch. VI, Art. 9. What is called here: malakia, that is, your business. It takes away the Kingdom. Therefore, there is a mortal sin. Prodigal passion is here in full force - and is being satisfied... Think about this... And put an end to this matter. It dries up... and causes premature death. For others, it relaxes their abilities, suppresses sanity and energy, and sometimes causes insanity. Take care of yourself! If you have decided to live properly, take care not to give way to lust! (15, pp. 101–102) Passionate dreams in sleep and menstruation What are you talking about monthly bleeding... why don’t you ask your spiritual father? I am not familiar with this matter: but in general I judge this: these bleedings are not spiritual uncleanliness - spiritual, but material - bodily uncleanness... It is enough after them to wash yourself completely so that no trace remains, and change your linen, and wash your hands... And then do with a clear conscience everything that you prescribed, asking, is it possible? – Passionate dreams in a dream before bleeding are not considered a sin, because these dreams are involuntary... But one must lament and grieve over them... Why do they come from the soul? If consent is given in a dream... and this is not a problem, but the conscience is more burdened... therefore, if possible, it is good to reveal this to the confessor... The conscience will be calmer. That you repented in a dream, why... this is good. Sim cleanses what is unclean here. Pray to God for everything, may he save you from these cases. (13, p. 178) Regarding night desecrations, one cannot adhere to one rule, because there are different circumstances here. There is an outflow of moisture that is completely unconscious... and other times it happens with consciousness, but without any lust, both bodily and mental, and even with resistance to it in a dream. These two cases do not pose an obstacle to anything... not even to the reception of the Sacraments and the service of the liturgy. It’s enough to be heartily contrite and tell your confessor. But when there are shameful dreams with lust, consent and desire, then, having confessed this to the confessor, it is better to abstain from what you said, and from everything else that requires special purity, until all the bad things evaporate from the soul and body. - However, the confessor, looking at his face, can resolve everything... for there are extreme needs. – Look in the book of Barsanuphius and John... it seems there is; St. also has it, it seems. Climacus and especially Cassian. (15, pp. 209–210) The cure for fornication is laughter! – After all, sexual movement depends on the formation of the seed. As long as the educational organs are intact, the seed will be collected; and while it is gathering, there will be that movement. But it is not a sin in itself. – Sin is in theft, and it is either from the will or from Satan. What does your prescription do? Of course, not to the will, much less to Satan. Consequently, the producers of prodigal sin are intact... And if they are intact... what is the medicine for? – If it acts to stop the formation of the seed; then it draws closer to the crowd; for this is the essence of the skopchestvo. – In the lives we see that they acted to reduce the formation of semen - by fasting, cold, lying down, thirst, little sleep and any kind of overexertion... but they did not use any mechanical method. Therefore, I think that the medicine is not without sin. - I think it’s better not to touch him, but to ask the Lord for help. Of course, it’s a little difficult; but what to do? I picked up the tug, don’t say it’s not strong. (17, pp. 47–48) How to look at a woman without lust Anyone who looks at a woman... has already committed adultery with her... (Matthew 5:28). What can you do if, living in society, you can’t help but look at your wives? but it is not just the one who looks at his wife who commits adultery, but the one who looks at him with lust. Look - look, but keep your heart on a leash. See through the eyes of children who look at women purely, without any bad thoughts. Women must also be loved, for the commandments about loving one’s neighbors are not excluded either, but with pure love, in which there is a soul and a spiritual means in thought, among other things... In Christianity, as before God, there is no male or female, and in the mutual relations of Christians. In every possible way, you might say, it’s difficult. Yes, there is no such thing as struggle, but struggle presupposes the unwillingness of harm; reluctance is counted as purity by the merciful Lord. (4, p. 79) Temptations from seeing and hearing... especially wives, have an end, I don’t know. Sympathy for wives is in our nature. Therefore, it seems that when you don’t feel sick at the sight of your wives, but something disgusting happens, then there is nothing sinful here... Sin begins with lust. And this thing can always be avoided. Of course, it would be better not to see or talk, but there is no possibility. Therefore, patience is required, self-care, guarding the heart and struggling with oneself. The Lord is near!.. Rev. John Kolov says: “When a beast approaches, I climb a tree”... We must resort to the Lord. (11, pp. 21–22) Instruction to a penitent about the fall What a great misfortune happened to you!.. And how did the enemy manage to darken your heart so that it rushed so quickly into the pool from which God’s mercy plucked you and brought you into the light of God?! This is bad and disgusting... and, most importantly, destructive for the moral system... You will experience it yourself. Now this is not visible. But take heart. The mercy of God did not withdraw from you and gave you the desire and strength to repent and confess... due to which it accepted you into communion with itself in holy communion. The feeling of inner peace confirms this. Rise up, stand strong, look cheerfully and strictly adhere to everything that is required in the matter of pleasing God and salvation. And don't relax. The enemy is not strong - there is a greater one like you - ... but he is crafty and overcomes with flattery and takes captive... Watch and pray. Look at the internal structure... For without the proper structure here, everything saving that you have accomplished (confession and communion) may remain just an external rite of reconciliation without internal living communication. Evidence of being inside the proper order is represented by heartfelt contrition, and a determination, firm as death, not to indulge oneself, and zeal, strong to do everything required without self-pity... The flesh must be tormented by hunger, little sleep, prayerful work, and avoidance of temptations and wine drinking. God has made peace with you... imagine the documents of the world - this willingness to do everything that should be done without self-pity. May the Lord enlighten you and strengthen you. Your questions... Internal self-correction is accomplished by the grace of God, in a heart devoted to it. The external situation helps or does not help, but it is neither an urgent condition nor an insurmountable obstacle... Pull yourself together, and the academy will not be a hindrance, but a facilitator... If you don’t pull yourself together, then no monastery will deliver you. Build a strict monastery within yourself: pay attention to yourself and immediately suppress everything bad that arises inside, whether thoughts, or sympathy and desires, without the slightest concession, and restore and support everything good. You can do this if you want to be saved: for this desire is the driving away of all that is bad and the acceptance of all that is good. You are like a house shaken by an earthquake. Owner - when you saw this, you didn’t give up, you didn’t say, let it all go to waste... but you decided to restore it... The main thing is done; Now we need to finish finishing off our house... The Academy won’t hurt, just keep your eyes open. Second question... about the priesthood. The ancient cathedral canons locked the door to the priesthood for those who did not maintain chastity. But since repentance, strictly completed and returning the first purity, places those who have completed this course among those capable of carrying out the work of this service in perfection, the hierarchy, taking this into account, opened the door of entry. This is how it is done now... But often without confidence in suitability, but on the assumption of it. What should you do? It was in vain that you did not propose this question to the elders in the Glinsk desert. Those elders - oh. The abbot and confessor, as I hear, are experienced, and would decide this for you in God’s way. You entrust this decision to me. Here is my decision: until you become as you should inside and are strengthened, do not accept monasticism, much less the priesthood. Tell me, when they offer monasticism... I’ll wait and serve a little... and then. In this way you will also alienate the priesthood. Now take on the harsh rigors. For now, drive out everything lustful. Look how they wash the clothes... between other methods - they fry them in the oven, sprinkled with ashes... then they rinse them on the river, and beat them without pity with rollers, and survive with their hands. You must do all this with yourself. During your previous rise from the sleep of sin, grace tangibly acted in you and did not allow you to notice the labors of restoration. Now it will be different... Your own labor must precede - without sympathy, despotically - and grace will manifest its action when you are tired of labor and do not know what to do... You have penance. Execute it exactly without omission. And adjust everything else to it. I can't tell you the details. I say one thing... take uncontrollable zeal, and let it flow from the hatred of carnal pleasures as merciless enemies. When this hatred comes into force, then even a slight thought will appear, and the soul will roar at him like a lion... and he will instantly run away... St. apostle. James writes: resist the devil, and he will flee from you... resist lustful rebellions, and they will not prevail. These resistances and rebuffs of lustful uprisings seem to be invisible, but they are noticed in heaven and immediately attract crowns... Not a single rebuff is left without a crown... Take courage and stand up for yourself. (12, pp. 221–224) It is the most common thing in our speeches When people say bad things about someone, close your ears. Through this, poison is poured into the soul, corrupting loving mutual communication - the first condition for living peacefully with people. (5, p. 19) The sin of condemnation is the fruit of an unmerciful, malicious heart that finds pleasure in humiliating one’s neighbor, in denigrating his name, in trampling on his honor. This deed is a murderous deed and is being done in the spirit of one who is a murderer from time immemorial. There is also a lot of slander there, which comes from the same source. (4, p. 88) Judge not, lest ye be judged (Matthew 7:1). What a disease - gossip and condemnation! Everyone knows that this is a sin, and yet there is nothing more common in our speeches than condemnation. Another will say: “Lord, do not place me in condemnation,” and yet he will bring his condemnation to the end. Another justifies himself by saying that a reasonable person must have his own view of the current situation, and in gossip he tries to be a cool-headed reasoner; but even a simple ear cannot help but discern in his speeches a lofty and gloating condemnation. Meanwhile, the Lord’s sentence for this sin is strict and decisive. He who condemns others has no excuse. How can this be? How to overcome troubles? The decisive remedy against condemnation is this: consider yourself condemned. Whoever feels like this will have no time to judge others. All he will say is: “Lord, have mercy! Lord, forgive my sins!” (4, p. 82) Almost no one thinks about whether he will or will not seduce others with his deeds and speeches. Two sins, very great in the eyes of God, are imputed to nothing by people: temptation and condemnation. The seducer, according to the word of the Lord, is better off not living; he who condemns is already condemned. But neither one nor the other thinks about it and cannot even say whether they are sinful in anything like that. What blindness indeed surrounds us and how carelessly we walk in the midst of death! (4, p. 164) It is different from condemnation It is necessary, however, to distinguish between condemnation and judgment. sin begins when contempt for someone arises in the heart, for the sake of some kind of thinness. You can simply convict without any sentence to the convicted person. If, at the same time, there is regret in the heart for the person who has made a mistake, a desire for his correction and a prayer for that, then there will be no sin of condemnation, but the act of love that is possible at such a meeting will be accomplished. The sin of condemnation is greater in the heart than in the tongue... But it is better to abstain in every possible way from judgment, so as not to fall into condemnation... Rather, one must move on to condemnation and reproach of oneself. (14, pp. 218–219) It comes from conceit and complacency It seems to me that judgment and decisions over others are constantly taking place in your soul. Take a good look. If this is not every minute, but occasionally, then this is a considerable problem. Two things come out of self-conceit: blowing a trumpet before oneself and judging others. Here is an evil trio that is rushing into destruction. We need to unharness and sell these fierce horses. Then it will turn out: if you drive more quietly, you will go further. Please take better care of yourself. (14, pp. 184–185) Condemnation is born from self-satisfaction and self-satisfaction feeds. Both show that the self is alive and vibrant... When you sin with condemnation and your conscience torments you, look at how you got to this point, and try not to walk down that path. If this sin breaks out again, do the same thing again and always, determining for yourself to behave this way and that way, so as not to end up in gossip. Once you hold on once or twice, then it will be easy. This usually happens when you visit a taratorok. Once you get to them, you yourself become a chatterbox. But as soon as you approach them, prepare not to be influenced by their slander, and for this, revive the fear of God in yourself and the memory of the presence of the Lord, Whom you are jealous to please. During the flow of the river of slander, notice the speaker’s convenient word and quickly change the speech to something else. But how do you know that jealousy is alive... and condemnation is on the side?! Be careful that sour piety does not overwhelm you. The fruit of your gossip is depicted as follows: “I stopped watching myself, fighting my thoughts, in a word, I lost all composure. What about prayer? In the church it stood like a poker, at home like a piece of wood!” But outwardly you were still the most pious. This is sour piety. You may have it in the beginning, but if you are not careful, it will take root and become your character. Please be in danger! What to do? nothing special: plant the fear of God in your heart... And it will change everything. Oh, be careful. (14, pp. 11–12) Condemnation is not only accomplished by word, but also by the inner movement of the heart. it already exists, as soon as the soul thinks unfavorably about someone. (14, p. 217) There is malice and malice in it. Do not refrain from condemning... Try to get used to it, and you will get used to it so that you will see the funny and laugh... After all, there are those who do not do this... secular people. But here it is necessary to distinguish idle talk or idle talk from the sin of condemnation, in which lies gloating and malice... This latter is actually condemnation... "It's hard to break bad habits." Difficulty is not impossibility... Start struggling and fight... it will break through, judge yourself and decide not to give in... Little by little you will lose the habit. Just take it seriously. (16, pp. 13–14) It is a poison that corrupts mutual communication. When people say bad things about someone, close your ears. Through this, poison is poured into the soul, corrupting loving mutual communication - the first condition for living peacefully with people. (5, p. 19) You are embarrassed that the sisters in the choir sometimes talk and grin. They sometimes need to speak for the sake of singing and reading; and here he is so wrong, that’s why he smiles involuntarily. If they deliberately start talking and laughing, it’s bad; but you cannot say that. In addition, they are in such a position that the enemy can more easily induce them to talk and laugh. Judge. It is for your sake that they sing and read; It became because of you that they receive wounds from the enemy. Pray for them, and don’t be annoyed. Every time something like this happens, rush to arouse pity for them in yourself, and from pity move on to prayer. Don't judge. You're still annoyed. It is impossible to be annoyed without condemnation. Now you yourself are in a different mood. Hurry to correct yourself; and leave the others. They stand and fall to their Lord (Rom. 14:4). After all, they chat and remain silent, and their conscience torments them; and you stand there and judge. Who is better before God—those who repent, or you who condemn? Not in church, but at home, they will sigh and repent, and God will forgive them; condemnation is difficult to forgive, because its sinfulness is difficult to feel. (14, pp. 192–193) Condemnation is definitely a difficult habit to break. Having realized your guilt, condemn yourself every time and repent before the Lord; Learn to feel sorry for those who sin and pray to God for them; God willing, you will get used to not judging. (12, p. 147) In order not to judge others, you must deeply feel your sinfulness and grieve for it, mourning your soul as if it were dead. Someone said: when your dead are at home, you won’t take care of the dead in your neighborhood. (15, p. 86) The mercy of God departs from the condemner. The condemner, it turns out, is his own enemy. (18, p. 224) It is driven away by pity for one's neighbor To get rid of the sin of condemnation, you must have a merciful heart. A merciful heart will not only not condemn an ​​apparent violation of the law, but also one that is obvious to everyone. Instead of judgment, it perceives regret and would rather cry than reproach. Indeed, the sin of condemnation is the fruit of an unmerciful, malicious heart that finds pleasure in humiliating one’s neighbor, in denigrating his name, in trampling on his honor. This deed is a murderous deed and is being done in the spirit of one who is a murderer from time immemorial. There is also a lot of slander, which comes from the same source, for the devil is the devil because he slander and spreads slander everywhere. Hurry to arouse pity in yourself every time an evil urge to condemn comes. With a compassionate heart, then turn with a prayer to the Lord, so that He will have mercy on all of us, not only the one whom we wanted to condemn, but also us, and, perhaps, more of us than that one - and the evil urge will die away. (4, p. 88) He must be persecuted in the name of the Lord I mean condemnation. It’s just not enough to say, you have to feel sorry, contrite, and with fear, as in a court case, confess your sinful thoughts to the Lord. So anyway. For this there is constant repentance, which is the main task of those who pay attention to themselves. When evil thoughts attack, one must turn the eye of the mind away from them and, turning to the Lord, drive them away in His name. But when a thought moves the heart and this evil one is more or less pleased with it, then one must scold oneself and beg the Lord for mercy, and beat oneself until the opposite feeling is born in the heart; for example, instead of condemnation, exaltation of another, or at least a heartfelt feeling of respect for him. Self-praise and condemnation are two of the most common things among us. The wicked heart itself is rubbish, but everything trumpets: I am not like the others. And there are so many shades of this that it is impossible to list. (10, p. 43) When speaking about condemners, the rule is: do not believe Particulars cannot be generalized, i.e. from one case to infer the character of a person and from one person to a whole class of people. It's time to stop believing her, covering everything with a joke. And always, in the face of condemning speeches, keep the rule: do not believe. One elder, when someone came to him and began to speak badly about another, asked him: how do you know about this? He said: one good man told. Well, no, not kind, the elder answered him. If he were kind, he would not speak ill of another. That's what we need too. May the Lord deliver you from seeing deeds, and not believing hearing, and your soul will be pure. But what about the sin of condemnation? After all, as soon as judgment about the actions of others is combined with contempt for them, and not with brotherly sorrow for them and with preserving the honor of their face, this will be condemnation - a great sin! Pay attention to yourself! (10, p. 83) You wrote that your conscience often bothers you after conversations with visitors. This seems to be the source of your irritability. It’s not surprising that this is so... But there is an urgent law - do not allow anything that your conscience rebels against, and if you please, do so. God Himself speaks in conscience. Therefore, you need to listen to it above all else. Does she scold you for idle talk and gossip? And don't let them in anymore. Let others chatter, but you remain silent and confess your sins to the Lord... No one pulls your tongue. You start talking yourself, but you don’t have to say it yourself... Otherwise you’ll babble and go, half-heartedly say whatever comes to your heart... It’s true, the saying “what will they say” entices you to take part? – You don’t know what they will say. And what God says is known from the reproach of conscience. So we must follow what is true, and not what is completely unknown: please pay attention to this point. (21, p. 98) Language?! There is no more evil thing under heaven... It would be advisable to arrange it in such a way that for every impermissibility on his part something would prick him (even a pin); Then he would have been more subdued, otherwise he was like a car: they started it up and let it go, and then it started screaming. (21, p. 98) Self-condemnation should not be just words It is really disastrous when someone says about himself that he is right in everything, and there is nothing to repent of... You scold yourself and honor yourself with the most unattractive names. And great! Please continue like this, and go deeper and deeper into self-condemnation. Just look strictly: first, not in words only... and, second, with all the consciousness of your lewdness, do not lose the hope of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. (21, p. 114) He is the corruption of our nature Lust and anger are not attributes of nature, but consequences of its depravity. He who conquers them does not conquer nature, but destroys the corruption of nature and elevates it to his natural rank. In fact, this corruption appears in different degrees: for others, there is almost no lust and anger at all, the mercy of God; while others have them more ferocious than all animals. The latter, if they defeat them, receive the crown of martyrdom, but the former will receive nothing for lack of anger and reluctance. So, if you please, overcome your anger, seeing the crown of martyrdom ahead. (14, p. 30) It is from self-worth, pride, selfishness, conceit and well-being Anger and resentment from self-worth, by which we recognize and feel that we are worth a lot; Therefore, when someone dares not to give us what we deserve, we get angry and plot revenge. You do well that you don’t let these feelings pass by, but it’s not good that you leave them sometimes to slow them down. For several days the enemy unleashes a storm of vengeance on you. Try to do so that, without missing a minute, you take charge of yourself and ruin your self-worth. (21, p. 94) If your anger is a consequence of temperament, then guilt here only embraces that part in which the consciousness is indifferent to these impulses. Sigh and repent every time. This is one of the daily sins. Detachment from the whole heart is possible for everyone and, as can be seen from the Savior’s Discourse on the Mount, is obligatory for everyone. (21, p. 97) But you still get angry. I see that the reason for this is that you don’t want to sacrifice anything from your established neatness... This is your sore. Drive her worthless one away and you will be calmer. Show self-sacrifice here: for here is all selfhood, with arms and legs. (14, pp. 41–42) Annoyance and anger when someone violates your privacy are worthless... This is the fruit of conceit: don’t you dare disturb me. Here the enemy develops around you. Try not to give in to this feeling. Hostility and anger are permissible only when their subject is bad thoughts and feelings. (13, p. 121) Irritability, anger, impatience, fussiness - of course, all these are unkind children. But the good thing is that you are aware of their bad quality. Find their parents and strangle them. Then the children will disappear on their own. See if you are feeling well, i.e. feelings of your importance, or negatively, the lack of feeling that you are nothing. This is the most intimate feeling, but it turns everything around in life. The first requirement from him is that everything be our way, and if this does not happen, then we murmur at God and are angry with people. From him is the confidence that we can do and arrange everything ourselves, using invented means, we expect that everything will be as we came up with. Because you start a task without diligent prayer, and continue the same, and end again with grumbling, if something is not our way, and a feeling of complacency, if it is our way. In all this you think of God as a third party, and not as an active person. So take a closer look to see if this is there, and if it is, at least to a small extent, take care to restore the feeling of your insignificance in all respects. And always pray to the Lord for this. (11, pp. 127–128) Its distinctive feature is hurting others In anger and hearts, as a distinctive feature, everyone has the desire to hurt another, to make him feel not in word, but in deed. And then a small desire to shed blood flashes. (19, p. 212) It begins with mild grief and ends with revenge Let all sorrow, and anger, and wrath, and crying, and blasphemy be taken away from you, along with all malice (Eph. 4:31) Settles here St. The Apostle constantly encounters everyday conflicts, from which, if we do not make it a law to give in to each other and excuse mutual troubles, harmony and peace are impossible in the community. Usually, things begin with little things, with slight grief—bitterness—which, if not immediately destroyed, soon turns into anger; If you don’t hold back your anger, it will flare up into a flash of anger, into rage; after this, large words, abuse, and along with this blasphemy immediately begin - reproaches and reproaches of each other. They fought, they shouted, they separated without making peace, and they get angry at each other, even inventing and saying: I’ll do this to you, I’ll prove it to you. This is revenge in greater or lesser proportions. All this has no place among Christians. Let it be taken care of, he says, from you, so that the spirit of this quarrelsomeness does not exist. He does not indicate any, even the slightest, measure in which this could be tolerated among Christians, but resolutely expels all this from Christian society. There are two evil emotions that confuse us - lust and irritation. Just as in lust it begins with a thought, so in irritation it begins with grief. The first thought, not driven away through attention, sympathy and determination, leads to lustful deeds. Chagrin, not driven away, also goes its own way, through bitterness, anger and rage, shouting, abuse and mutual insults, and finally - anger reaches discord, irreconcilable hatred, friend and murder. Just as the one who drives away a thought thereby stops its further movement towards maturation towards action, so the one who drives away the first grief puts an end to its further movement - to discord, fights and murders. So let grief be removed from the environment, being driven away by mutual compliance, and peaceful agreement will never be violated. St. discusses this at length. Chrysostom “Just as a swarm of bees never settles in an unclean vessel, and therefore people experienced in this prepare a place for them, fumigating it with incense, mastics and all kinds of incense; they sprinkle with aromatic wines and all sorts of other compounds the baskets in which they must sit after emerging from the hives - and they do all this so that the unpleasant smell, disgusting to the bees, does not force them to fly away; so all this applies to the Holy Spirit. Our soul is like a vessel or basket in which swarms of spiritual gifts can be placed; but if she is filled with bile, bitterness and anger, then these swarms fly away from her. That is why this blessed and wise householder (St. Paul) carefully cleanses our vessels, without using a knife or any other iron instrument for this. Look how he cleanses our heart: drive away, he says, lies, drive away anger; and at the same time shows how you can destroy evil from the roots: let us not, he says, be angry in spirit.” Then St. Chrysostom depicts the harmful effects of bile when it spreads throughout the body. Then he says: “But why are we talking about all this in such detail? In order for us, through comparison with sensual bile, to better understand all the unbearable harm of spiritual bile - how it, producing complete disorder in our soul, causes it complete destruction - and so that, knowing this, we take care not to experience its harmful effect on ourselves. Just as material bile produces inflammation in the body, so spiritual bile inflames our thoughts and brings the one it possesses into the abyss of Gehenna. So, let us listen to the words of Paul: let all sorrow be taken away, - he did not say: let it be cleansed - from you. Really, what need do I have for her and why should I keep her with me? Why should I keep a beast that can be removed from my soul and driven away in a foreign direction?.. All sorrow, he says, may be taken away from you, so that it no longer remains in the soul. Otherwise, if this residue is excited, then, like a spark, it will produce a whole flame inside. And the cry: why does the Apostle prohibit this too? Because this is how a meek person should be (i.e., not a loudmouth). The cry is a horse with anger as its rider. Humble the horse and defeat the rider. Let the women listen to this with special attention; because they especially love to shout and make noise in everything they do. In only one case is it useful to speak loudly - this is in preaching and teaching, and nowhere else, not even in prayer. If you want to believe our words in practice, then always refrain from shouting, and you will never become angry. This is the way to tame anger! Because just as it is impossible for someone who shouts not to become angry, so it is impossible for someone who refrains from shouting to become angry. So, if we accustom ourselves to refrain from shouting and scolding, then this will help us a lot in taming our anger. Suppress the cry, and you will thereby take away the wings of your anger, suppress the excitement of your heart. For just as it is impossible to engage in a fist fight without raising your hands, so it is impossible to indulge in anger without raising a cry. Tie a fighter’s hands and tell him to fight, he will not be able to do this: exactly the same can be said about anger. A scream can arouse anger even when there is none. “And blasphemy,” says the Apostle, may be taken away from you. Notice how evil occurs: grief gives rise to anger, anger - rage, rage - a cry, a cry - blasphemy, i.e. swear words, then blasphemy - blows, blows - wounds, wounds - death. But St. did not want to say anything like that. Paul, but only said: Let all malice be taken away from you. What is it with all malice? All malice leads to this end. There are people who are like those cunning dogs who do not bark or attack directly at those passing by, but, pretending to be humble and meek, grab the unwary and sink their teeth into them. These are much worse than direct attackers. Just as among people there are dogs like those who, without resorting to shouting, anger, insults and threats, build secret feats and prepare thousands of evils for others, taking revenge on them with deeds; then the Apostle pointed to such people. Let him, he says, be taken away from you with all malice. Do not take revenge with deeds if you spare words. For this reason, I held your tongue, stopped your cry, so that a strong flame would not ignite within you. If you do the same thing without shouting, if you conceal fire and coals within yourself, then what is the use of your silence? Don't you know that the worst fires are those that lurk inside and are not visible from the outside? Isn't it the same with wounds that produce inflammation inside? Likewise, hidden anger is worse and more harmful to the soul. But let him, says the Apostle, be taken away from you with all evil, both small and great. Let us obey him and drive out from ourselves all bitterness, all malice, so that we do not offend the Holy Spirit. Let us destroy bitterness by the roots, cut it off. Nothing good can come to a soul filled with bitterness, nothing useful, but from it all the misfortunes, all the tears, all the screams and lamentations.” (20, pp. 359–363) He is a great evil, harming the soul and body And if you pay attention to yourself and discuss in advance how great an evil is angry temper and how much harm it does to the soul, body, and external relationships, so that a dislike for temper is formed; then in both you will always have a means at hand to avoid temper. (7, p. 25) Movements of rage in the event of troubles must be driven away by prayer and meditation every time, until they completely disappear. And there will be no harm, otherwise there will be. (12, p. 172) He has counter-beliefs: “it’s his own fault,” mortal memory To tame anger and insults, it is necessary to revive the conviction: you yourself are guilty of everything, you are worth all contempt and reproach; against vanity: no one is looking at you; against pride: there is no creature more despicable than you, etc. (10, p. 218) Judging directly, there is no thing in the world for which one should be angry. What is more valuable than the soul and its peace? And anger takes away this peace. Here a person can be his own accuser. And he himself inflates, increasing the untruths of another in the soul. All because there is no attention to oneself; it will break through. Deep in the heart lies the assumption of the right to judge and punish the sins of others, instead of oneself. That's all... If a person saw himself as a sinner, with a feeling of all the consequences of sin, he would not become angry. It’s good that you moved from anger to thinking about death. This is the case. And do not leave your thoughts from the grave. Stand there and beg the Lord for mercy. (10, pp. 132–133) Outbreaks overwhelm you... Learn not to give them permission, but, as soon as they appear, suppress them. It’s like it’s nothing to flare up, but it’s all selfishness, or a sinful person. Pray and gather thoughts yourself that would be like water against this fire. Keep the memory of God and the memory of death. These two thoughts are the power of all that is good and the banishment of all that is bad... Please always limit yourself to meek and submissive explanations, and erase quarrels from your vocabulary. There is nothing in the world about which one could seriously quarrel, except the salvation of the soul. Repeat the words of the Lord often, if the whole world gains... (Matthew 16:26). (13, p. 158) His counterfeelings are: respectfulness, friendliness, complacency and peaceful peevishness In unpleasant cases that give rise to unpleasant feelings against others, one should neither speak nor act. “We must first calm down, and completely remove the trouble from our hearts, so that there is no trace of it.” Nothing more is required. Then both speech and business will go well. Then you can speak sternly and strictly, even scoldingly, and the speech will not produce a bad effect: for the spirit in it will not be irritable, but peaceful and loving... You think badly about those... This is the source of unpleasant feelings towards them. Learn to think well of them, and arouse in yourself respectful feelings towards them. Be sure to do this - bring yourself to the level of feeling for them that you have for any respected person - and keep this feeling... and walk with it. “Then there won’t be any trouble.” That’s how you should be disposed. What do you care about their behavior?! The authorities are there, and read them. (18, pp. 198–199) Lord help that old woman or beauty to overcome hostile dispositions towards her brothers. She would do something for them, she would always be the first to say hello to them. And most importantly, let her ask the Lord to take this feeling from her. (15, p. 31) Not uttering an angry word is a great perfection... This is based on the absence of irritability of the heart, and it, like sparks, is filled with surrendering oneself to the will of God, with the consciousness that God allows troubles to test us and show us how strong our good inner direction is... which obliges us to behave in such cases complacently, believing that God Himself is looking at us at this moment. (13, p. 245) The wrath of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of God (James 1:20). Everything of God is peaceful, quiet, sweet, and leaves this sweetness in the soul, and spreads it abundantly around, despite the fact that sometimes he seems to scold. And in this case there is warmth and even heat, only of a completely different kind: tender, non-crackling. (10, p. 92) Countermeasures: suppression of temper and irritability The Apostle prescribes medicine against anger, scolding and malice. Instead of these bad dispositions, have good ones. Instead of all bitterness, for which you grieve yourself and upset others, be blasi - crhstoὶ - sweet (Blessed Jerome), pleasant, hospitable; instead of all malice, be merciful eὔplagcnoi - merciful. This kind of disposition will not allow someone to become upset or angry with someone, and not just to upset and anger someone else. Cordiality and compassion absorb all troubles and spread a sweet, warm peace around. But who will say: what to do when someone has a bilious character! And I would be glad to cover everything with mercy and meekness, but you won’t be able to control yourself. It is good for those who have a predominance of sympathetic dispositions, but those who have a predominance of egoistic feelings cannot do without anger, discord and vindictiveness. - To this it must be said that in Christianity, under the influence of grace, every bad natural disposition is transformed into a good one, when someone takes up this diligently and, for his part, uses every effort on himself. He will not remake himself by himself, but his grace will remake him, acting secretly under his own labor on himself. What is this effort? Forgiving everything to others in spite of your unyielding disposition. Repeated experiences of compliance and forgiveness against one's will, reluctantly, will lead to willing forgiveness of everything, and then to innocence - to not being upset by anything. What inspires such self-resistance? – The living consciousness that you yourself were unrequitedly guilty before God, and yet He forgave you everything freely, for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Tolerate, says the Apostle, each other’s shortcomings and become like the God of all, Who through the Lord Christ granted us forgiveness of the entire multitude of our sins” (Blessed Theodoret). The driving force here is a feeling of gratitude; but if we recall to this the Savior’s parable about the unmerciful creditor and at the same time the debtor, who, because after he himself had received the remission of a large debt, did not want to forgive his debtor a relatively very small one, was deprived of all mercy and thrown into prison, then the feeling of gratitude will be joined by fear, which together are strong enough to arouse each time enough energy to not succumb to unmercifulness towards those who cause us any harm. grief, or find themselves in some way not in the proper relationship with us. And the Lord, outlining a sample of the everlasting prayer, put into it: leave, just as we leave, so that the ever-present consciousness of the need to receive something left for ourselves would always dispose us to leave ourselves to others. For whoever does not leave himself, against his will, inserts into the prayer: do not leave, just as I do not leave, even if you read it differently. And so, in memory of the forgiveness of our unpaid debts in Christ Jesus - in baptism or repentance, with appropriate reflection, force yourself to forgive, and the grace of God will help you rise to the state of not being irritated by anything from those who oppose you and covering everything with mercy and meekness. (20, pp. 363–365) Who can help you deal with your temper? Manage it yourself. An outburst happens when someone allows themselves to do something against your will...desire...or command. As long as your lady is alive, you will not be able to control your temper... She is the one who commands everything. Throw her out the door and gates and punish her so that she does not dare show herself to you. (13, p. 162) Irritability must be fought. The first step is not to give in... to grit your teeth and move away... Every time you pray until you cry... You can use a tourniquet on your shoulders. God will have mercy and heal. Such irritability belongs to temperament, and can only be destroyed through transformation, and this is God’s work. But God will not do it until he sees our own painful labor. Save yourself! (14, pp. 249–250) I really regret that you lost your temper early in the morning once or twice... Then you had no peace for both days. But it’s good that they cried afterwards... And always cry... There is repentance, contrition, a desire to improve, and sorrowful regret for failures in the matter of self-correction. Perhaps the Lord is still leaving this natural weakness in you in order to give you a reason to humble yourself and lament... Try, when you go out the door, to put a shell on your heart... the determination, no matter what is wrong, not to succumb to anger. And cry, cry more often; it really softens the heart. (14, p. 54) Systematic fight against it If you complain about pride, anger, condemnation, the last two - from the first, seek humility - anger and condemnation will go away by themselves. But we must fight directly against them. Against anger - clench your teeth and remain silent. This is the first, initial reception. The second one, when he picks him up, moves away a little so as not to see the one who arouses anger. When this doesn’t make your anger go away, and you have to say stupid things and wrongs, find a rope - a thick one - and go to your sister. Having bowed to her, say: good sister, do me a service, with this rope give me a good blow. You can prescribe a measure - five, ten blows, as long as it’s sensitive. Do this after every angry outburst. (15, p. 117) Make it a law: 1) Expect trouble every minute, and when it comes, greet it as an expected guest. 2) When something is given that is ready to upset or irritate you, quickly run your attention to your heart and, as much as you can, strain not to allow those feelings to be reborn. Tense yourself and pray. If you don’t allow those feelings to arise, it’s all over; for everything comes from feelings. 3) Do not look at the offender and the offense; here you will find only great support for resentment and revenge; but put it out of your head. This is very important. If this does not happen, the feeling of anger cannot subside. 4) Apply to all these hammers: keep a loving gaze, a loving tone of speech, a loving address and, most importantly, avoid doing anything to remind those who have offended you of their injustice. Act as if they were nothing. Take the trouble to think carefully about all these points - and weigh all the cases when and how they are applicable in your life. (21, pp. 94–95) Anger is a big enemy. In him the self, the root of all sinfulness, is seen and revealed in all its strength. You need to watch yourself - and pray. (11, p. 228) Get along with the anger little by little. Fight as much as you have the strength... Perhaps the Lord will have mercy and take away these weaknesses. And he will leave it behind you, and give thanks for it: it leads to humility. It’s not good, of course, to be angry; but when this is a consequence of temperament, then guilt here only embraces that part in which the consciousness is indifferent to these impulses. Sigh and repent every time. This is one of the daily sins. (12, pp. 81–82) But the anger still comes. This means that you consider yourself a commander... She said, - and so be it!.. People are free, and a command is not a suitable thing. Getting angry at something wrong is pleasing one’s will: how dare you!.. because I said it!.. If you do this, you will make yourself (sorry) hard to touch - a boil, the most sensitive even to air movement, and not just to contradiction. (21, pp. 95–96) Anger, condemnation, lack of leniency, exactingness towards servants... all of these, of course, are non-virtues and detract from the overall goodness of your character. Therefore, they are subject to exclusion from the list of your qualities. How to do this? “Seek and you will find, ask and it will be given to you.” First: do not give way to these movements, but as soon as they appear, cut and suppress them, so that where they originate, they remain there, without coming out. Second: after any discovery of these movements, repent before the Lord and cleanse your heart. Third: discuss every such case and draw a lesson for yourself on how to avoid getting angry the next time like this. And most of all, while working like this, pray; for without the Lord nothing can be done here. (11, pp. 115–116) God's Wrath for Disliking Other People There are two things that bring upon us the wrath of God, oppressive and oppressive: hostility towards others and lust, and the first is great space. Please take the trouble to find out everything that she revealed herself to be in you and put a stop to it without hesitation, no matter how plausible it may seem. Hostility, instead of people, now turn to what it was revealed in you and throw it out. Have you ever read or heard the words of the Apostle: “My heart has expanded toward you”? So spread your heart, and in return you will receive what you seek and desire. (13, pp. 150–151) Self-interest is an insatiable desire to have, or the search and acquisition of things under the guise of benefit, then only to say about them: mine. There are many objects of this passion: a house with all its parts, fields, servants, and most importantly - money, because you can get everything with it. Others, however, are exclusively addicted to silver and gold. Because of this, this passion can be seen primarily in two forms: love of money and covetousness, or acquisitiveness. Judging by its usage, under the influence of vanity it is pomp, from pride and lust for power - worldwide resourcefulness, seeking to seize all trade into its own hands, and from madness - stinginess. This passion is constantly accompanied by tormenting care, envy, fears, sadness and sorrow. The title is appropriate for the person who possesses it - interesting; for he will not take a step without it bringing him benefit, and everything that his hand, word, thought touches, all bears its tribute to him. Then, when the thing arrived in his area, he says: mine forever... This exclusivity of ownership is decisive, heartfelt, like a fence around his things and cuts off all others. In relation to religion. He has no time to know God: therefore, he contains faith as he heard and accepted and as he can imagine with a soul cluttered with sensory things. He is most prone to superstition, anthropomorphism, and idolatry. A strong and exclusive love for things makes his internal worship of God suspicious; for, as the Lord says, you cannot serve God and Mammon (Matthew 6:24). Therefore, he is directly called an idolater (Eph.5:5; Col.3:5; Matt.19:22; Job 31:24; Ps.119:36). He seems to honor God, but not with his heart, but with something external, and, moreover, not otherwise than in anticipation of increased profits or out of fear of losing and the desire to preserve what he has. Therefore, he is inclined to external reverence for God and loves wealth and splendor in it. The passion for acquisition, with a lack of direct paths, sometimes leads him to magic and other absurdities (1 Tim. 6:9). In relation to yourself. For the covetous, the appearance of certain virtues is striking. He seems to be thrifty, and yet stingy; his labor and vigilance are only for self-interest; abstaining from pleasures and pleasures only so as not to waste yourself. He, in fact, has no concern for either soul or body: he sacrifices himself to things. Care does not give him time to enjoy his acquisitions, and therefore there is no peace in his soul. If a misfortune occurs, he is ready to fall into despair, easily loses his mind and becomes crazy, and sometimes commits suicide. Von Carolsfeld. Death of Judas In relation to others, he is inhuman, envious, treacherous, treacherous, and a litigator; he does not like to do good for nothing, unless his vanity overcomes him; does not know short friendships. There is no untruth that the selfish would not decide to commit, as Judas showed himself (Matthew 26:15). From him comes theft, sacrilege (Joshua 7:1; Acts 5:1), murder, betrayal. A self-seeking person is an unworthy member of the home, society and the Church (Prov. 15:27; 29: 2 Kings 5: 1 Tim. 3, Phil. 2:20–21; 1 Pet. 5:2). The lowest of them are usually submissive, thrifty and work to somehow save a penny, but they are inclined to deceive the master or boss - somehow steal for themselves and hide the ends - and immediately leave them if they are in some kind of trouble. Higher ones or those in charge in some form - there is nothing worse in terms of negligence and carelessness about others. They have no need for anyone, neither for the truth, nor for people. They don’t like a boss like that, because he always wants to grab a penny; Therefore, they are unfaithful to him and are trying in every possible way to outwit him. In the house he poorly supports everyone, as well as himself, neglects the children and the whole family. This is how rudeness and ignorance are established. (2, vol. 1, pp. 284–286) Wealth leads to arrogance Wealth is a very slippery path, and in itself represents many obstacles to retaining the spirit of Christ, as the Savior determined: it is difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom (Matthew 19:23). It’s inconvenient, – and not – it can’t. “The Apostle guides him towards this, clears the way for him to the Kingdom.” First, don’t be arrogant. Wealth is not yours; it is fluid, today it exists, but tomorrow it will no longer be there; it is outside of you and is not your personal dignity. Why is it extreme foolishness to become arrogant about wealth when it is nothing? (25, pp. 458–459) It is not wealth that is destructive, but covetousness Covetousness is an incessant desire to have more and more, an insatiable passion for wealth. The Apostle does not arm us against possessions, but against covetousness. We need food, clothing and shelter, and we cannot help but have something with which to satisfy it. But the measure of possessions should be the satisfaction of need, which should also indicate the boundaries of acquisition and efforts for it. Whoever, bypassing the need, falls in love with the very acquisition or possessions, he suffers from the passion of covetousness, which, having taken possession of his heart, becomes the mistress of all his affairs, thoughts, plans and enterprises. Then everything is forgotten both in oneself and in others, both earth and heaven; There is only one goal - to have and to have. In such a mood, possessions become gods simply because they take possession of the whole person. But it is especially a god for the covetous because he places all his trust in it. And his life, and his position, and the course of affairs - everything is stable for him, because he has a lot of everything. He rests his trust in mammon, and what he should expect from the only God, he expects from wealth. For him it is an idol, whom he serves and works, and on whom he hopes. Why did St. call it covetousness? Paul by idolatry. Bl. Theodoret writes: “He called covetousness idolatry, because the Savior called mammon master (Matthew 6:24), teaching that he who is enslaved to the passion of covetousness honors wealth as God.” Captivated by this passion, “he serves and worships silver and gold. And make the tongue silver and gold (Ps. 113:12)” (Blessed Theophylact). We must keep in mind that the Apostle does not mean the amount of property, but the passion to have and acquire. Job, Abraham, David and many others were very rich, but did not suffer from covetousness or covetousness. What the Apostle commands to mortify in oneself in this regard is addiction to possessions and placing trust in them - to which one can be subject even with a small acquisition, just as one can be free from it with a large one. (26, pp. 172–173) Wealth leads to the destruction of trust in it and not in God The second product of an unreasonable attitude towards wealth is reliance on it. Wealth gives strength to the rich and in general among people and before the authorities not by its essence, but by the same weakness of covetousness; and the rich man, having managed to do one or two things with the help of wealth, begins to feel that wealth is power, that with it you can do everything and achieve everything; repeated success encourages him to rely on wealth, and then to fully rely on it. And wealth became God for him. This is the ruin. For with such an attitude towards wealth, the internal order required and determined by human nature is perverted: it becomes at the head of what should have been at the feet. By nature, man must live in God and, having surrendered himself to Him, trust entirely in Him; nevertheless, to have created things under oneself or near oneself, sometimes as completely unnecessary, sometimes as a by-product, a help. But for the rich, this unnecessary, insignificant, waste has become where it is appropriate to have one God. - And he began to look like someone walking on his head upside down. (25, pp. 459–460) The lover of money torments himself with deprivation, like an enemy A stingy person is the strangest person. Other passionate people seek some kind of pleasure for themselves through the satisfaction of passions, but this one, satisfying passions, torments himself with deprivation, as if he were an enemy. (5, p. 36) Whoever, bypassing the need, falls in love with acquisitions or possessions itself, suffers from the passion of covetousness, which, having taken possession of his heart, becomes the mistress of all his affairs, thoughts, plans and enterprises. Then everything is forgotten both in oneself and in others, both earth and heaven; There is only one goal - to have and to have. (26, p. 172) Faith fades from it, but wealth is not a hindrance to the faithful As care grows, so does love. When simple care becomes much care, then at its basis there is already complete covetousness. With much care and covetousness, faith fades. In their final stages, not a trace of it remains. (25, p. 439) The problem is not wealth, but the addiction to it It is difficult for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 19:23). Here, of course, is the rich man, who sees in himself many ways and many strengths for his well-being. But as soon as a person who has a lot cuts off all attachment to property, extinguishes all hope in it and ceases to see in it his essential support, then in his heart he becomes the same as someone who has nothing; For such a person the road to the Kingdom is open. Wealth then not only does not hinder, but helps, because it provides a way to do good. It is not wealth that is the problem, but the trust in it and the addiction to it. (4, p. 114) Counter-conviction: we are not masters, but God’s agents Help those in need most of all. Whoever comes to you with tears, do not let him go without drying that tear. Merciful blessings, for there will be mercy... Because of the hand of the needy, always behold the hand of the Lord Himself, who converted you, stretched out to you. He Himself said: “Whatever you do to them, the poor, you will do to Me.”... Those who have wealth should not think that they are masters and that they are God’s servants. What is the law for the clerks? Measure out what everyone needs... See the inscription above you: “A beggar has been left for you, be your helper.” (11, p. 75) Counter-feeling to him: let us be calm if God wants to take everything away What are your luxurious furnishings? What to do? Already such everyday orders. And so be it. - Just don’t put your heart into it; try to position him in such a way that if God were willing to take everything away, then you will calmly agree to walk in a coat and bast shoes and live in a wretched hut. So you will be a hermit among luxury and wealth. The Apostle wrote for Christians that those who demand peace should live as those who do not demand it. Body in the world, and ear in God. (12, p. 148) Counteraction to it: not fasting, but almsgiving Find your main passion. Convict her, throw her out. “The Lord does not require you,” says another elder, “to fast when you suffer from selfishness. Give him the simplicity of almsgiving... (24, p. 297) Using money for things other than yourself The main thing in money matters is not to rely on them with hope, and then not to attach your heart to them and, finally, to use them not only for yourself, but to share them with those in need - for the glory of God. (16, p. 113) About money. When you have a need, satisfy it, and give the rest to the poor, and be left with nothing. – The main thing is not to rely on money. The monasteries will survive, but it’s hard for the poor. (15, p. 193) Money loaned, prepare to lose About money lent... Although your benefactors will not agree to offend you; but circumstances may intertwine that they will not be able to fulfill their obligations... Therefore, prepare in advance not only for interest, but also for all capital - to lose, without groaning, without wincing and without gnashing your teeth at the borrowers and their intermediary. (16, p. 113) A lover of money is an idolater, and you so easily pronounce such judgment on yourself. If when you distribute, you don’t feel sorry for the money; then there is no passion of love of money, but only love of love. The desire to have money so that it is at hand just in case - your own need or the need of your neighbor. Although in this case there is a tying thread, it is a cobweb. Having nothing is the goal. And blessed are those who managed to arrange their life according to this principle. But the demand of this beginning is so broad that there is no litter in the cell. What should we do with you?.. It’s better not to accumulate money, but like this: one hand takes, and the other gives. Let the money sit until the opportunity to give it away. - That's enough. (15, p. 214) She is the most unfair and most poisonous passion Every passion is contrary to truth and goodness, but envy is the greatest of all, for its essence consists of lies and malice; this passion is the most unjust and the most poisonous both for the one who bears it and for the one to whom it is directed. It happens to everyone on a small scale, as soon as an equal, and especially a worse one, gains the upper hand. Selfishness gets irritated, and envy begins to sharpen the heart. It’s not so painful when the road is open for yourself; but when it is blocked, and blocked by those towards whom envy has already begun, then I cannot restrain its aspirations: peace is impossible here. Envy demands the overthrow of its enemy from the mountain and will not rest until it somehow achieves this or destroys the envier himself. (4, p. 134) Her opposition is goodwill Well-wishers, whose sympathetic feelings prevail over selfish ones, do not suffer from envy. This shows the way to extinguish envy and everyone tormented by it. You must hasten to arouse goodwill, especially towards the one you envy, and show it in action - the envy will immediately subside. A few repetitions of the same kind, and, with God’s help, it will completely subside. But leaving it like that will exhaust it, dry it out and drive it into the grave, when you cannot overcome yourself and force it to do good to the envied. (4, pp. 134–135) The envious person punishes himself The envious person should not be punished. He tyrannizes himself incessantly. (5, p. 91) Spiritual envy is less common than worldly envy And envy!!! How can she be in a spiritual kind of action?! – Because in the spiritual order everything is accessible to everyone... Did you see anyone who is spiritually superior to you? Put in the work and you can get it too. But in everyday life, not everything is accessible to everyone. This is where envy comes in. (13, p. 176) One should not envy the natural gifts of others, nor their virtue, merit and happiness. There is no envy that can be called praiseworthy or permissible. (5, pp. 64–65) It is diverse, there is no number of its shades You repent that, while talking with one nun, you were carried away by the desire to show off your understanding of spiritual life. It’s bad that you got carried away; but it’s good that you noticed and regret it. Make a firm intention forward not to succumb to this empty passion. This is vanity or a desire to show off: know ours. It belongs to the area of ​​pride, but is very different from it, and in its manifestations it is softer, but more inconspicuous. Pride goes hand in hand with lust for power, command and contempt for others, and vanity is the sister of man-pleasing; both give rise to flattery and deceit towards each other, but not maliciously. Vanity is vast, and its shades are countless. It happens before the deed, when it encourages you to do something with the goal of perplexing, and during the continuation of the deed it attaches itself, and after the deed it chases after you in order to take away its price. I am writing this into the manual for the future. Learn to do everything, big and small, for the glory of God, always keeping God in your thoughts. (7, pp. 408–409) It is subtle, but it always coarsens the soul with deprivation of grace You say that the spirit of vanity attacks. Beware. This is a multi-headed snake. Sometimes it turns into humility itself. Read more carefully from Climacus about humility and vanity, and therefore sort everything out for yourself, and from the means indicated there, choose those that are suitable for yourself and implement them. Vanity is subtle, but it always coarsens the soul. And the Lord soon takes away grace from those who indulge vain thoughts and allows them to fall. How long until trouble? Pay attention to yourself. (14, p. 184) It is in good external behavior Beware; I would not stray onto the path of those who walk coldly in correct external behavior, without internal feelings that sanctify a person and attract the grace of God. And this will happen immediately as soon as you fall into conceit and complacency, the sign of which is vanity. (14, p. 186) You can't escape from him anywhere I also remember that you complained about vanity. This, of course, is an evil thing, but you can’t run away from it. Run away from... vanity will teach you to be vain about the fact that you ran away. You need to fight it off in the things you do; and nothing more, but not to run away from these affairs. (15, pp. 80–81) Are you asking how to uproot vanity with this type of action? Vanity must be torn out internally, not externally. Without this, dig a hole deep to the very center of the earth and hide, vanity will find food for itself there. We must strengthen the fear of God and confirm our walk before God. The fire of God's presence will burn away vanity. (14, p. 16) Vanity, you think, has passed. No, it didn’t pass, it just hid for a while. Don't think about getting rid of this lady so quickly. It will follow you everywhere and buzz in your ears. Listen and be edified. (14, p. 180) But you shouldn’t take too much either. To take too much means to take on a lot, to rely on oneself a lot, wanting to ask, to get out of the general rut, for show. God save you from such aspirations and thoughts. To the best of your ability, avoid this enemy of all good success. So as not to forget, write it on paper and nail it somewhere to the wall, so that your eyes will meet it more often and reluctantly read it. We need to take care of humility most of all. And you won’t notice how pride creeps in. Why, it is so diverse and so gossipy! That is why all the saints have so many warnings against it. – Don’t sit down in the church, okay. And when vanity comes, sit down on purpose so that you can tell your thoughts when you start to feel vanity: after all, you sat down yourself. One father, when the thought of vanity came that he was fasting a lot, went out early to where there were a lot of people, sat down and began to eat bread. In Kyiv, someone fasted a lot and kept himself alone. The thought of vanity came, followed by other temptations. He told the late elder Parthenius about this. He gave him money and sent him to the market. Buy, he says, liver and eat it there in front of everyone. He did this, and all temptations passed away. This is how the fathers feared and ran away from vanity. Often you criticize yourself from this side. The trouble is considerable! This, they say, is a domestic thief who is in conspiracy with outdoor thieves. He opens windows and doors for them; they enter and create great devastation within. Who knows? Perhaps that darkness that happened to you and passed away immediately after you prayed is an enemy’s trick to give rise to proud thoughts: what a prayer book! As I prayed, all the demons fled. Remember: if you had thoughts of vanity after that, then know that it is the enemy who wants to piss you off... Well, be careful, don’t get caught in the net. Who should look after your soul other than yourself? Review your daily heart movements in the evening and judge yourself strictly. For malfunctions, impose a fine on yourself and comply with it. (14, pp. 195–196) It always stabs, no matter how you turn it As if vanity over prayer doesn’t bother you?! God bless! But do you see yourself correctly? Look, Climacus says that vanity is like a thorn, no matter how you turn it, it always sticks up and pricks. You need to be smart in reasoning thoughts. Strict attention to yourself, with the fear of God, will teach you everything. (14, p. 198) It is the most harmful and flattering enemy “What should I do with vanity? It seems to me that I do nothing for show; but after the job I can’t resist blowing the trumpet in front of myself. Of course, I don’t tell anyone that this is how well I did this or that. But inside I hear that I am better than others and do better than others. And I know that this is bad; but it is always done in me.” It’s good at least that you notice this thinness and want to improve. Put in the work to correct and pray about it, and the Lord will help; you will have time to drive out this enemy. This is the most malicious and at the same time the most flattering enemy. It makes a person look like a worker who, whatever he earns, eats it all at once, leaving nothing for tomorrow. He who became vain has already accepted his reward; and in the future there is nothing to reward him for. He is always naked, like someone who squanders everything he has. He will appear naked in the next world. Only his sins will pass with him, and good deeds that could serve as a counterbalance to them will have no value. This is the extreme destruction of vanity! Meanwhile, whether you blow the trumpet in front of you or listen to the trumpet sound from outside, it’s so sweet, as if you’re swallowing candy. (7, pp. 85–86) It can be generated not only by praise, but also by tears Praise creates self-praise and well-being; Evil feelings are the leading conduits to vanity and pride. God forbid! (15, p. 79) You are being praised. What's so wonderful about this? In the absence of fish and cancer, fish, as Father Fr. Parthenius. This, however, is highly recommended by our society, that it has compassion even for the shadow of good... Meanwhile, this is very disadvantageous for you. A drop pierces a stone with frequent falls. A particle from each praise falls on the worm of pride and vanity and feeds it; it grows unnoticed by you, allowing you to have humble feelings until it has become stronger. And when it’s ripe, everything will eat up at once. Dangerous! And what else? Praise tickles the heart, stops jealousy and relaxes. This is the same as tripping someone running. A stop in spiritual life is already a backward movement. And this is bad! What to do? Humble yourself and suppress the elevation of your thoughts and hearts with all sorts of humble feelings about yourself. Then, as stones of sweet speech are struck in your ears, go into your heart and humiliate yourself in every possible way before the Lord and His saints. What great feats they performed to please the Lord! What do we have? Let's go to church one day, make five bows at home, read a page of the book of salvation - and we will become saints. How true! Humble physical labor helps a lot. Servants are also good teachers of humility. Desire insults and, moreover, wrongdoers; at least, greet them as a saving plaster applied by the Lord to the wound of vanity. But don’t think about doing anything on your own. Run to the Lord, who humbled Himself to the point of being a servant. He will teach. Just don’t be careless about this condition. Praise will freeze you, and you will emerge as a marble statue, not ugly in appearance, but lifeless. Deliver you, Mother of God, from this! It is better to wallow in the mud and be trampled upon by everyone than to be like this. (10, pp. 72–73) May the Lord preserve your tears in you forever, if this is possible. They add softness and tenderness. But you have to hide it. For vanity hovers around them like a dog around well-fed food. You need to have meaning in order to manage them properly. (14, p. 219) God gave you tears. This is good! But temporary tears are not everything. There needs to be permanent ones. There are tears in the heart that are better than those flowing from the eyes... Flowing from the eyes feed the worm of vanity - and those from the heart are known to the One God. In public, it is better to hold back tears, remaining with heartfelt contrition. (18, p. 197) What should you do with your tears? Is it not possible for you to do this so that you can cry at home and cry to your heart’s content, but in church hold back your tears, leaving only heartfelt contrition? - Pray that it will be so, and force yourself to do this. Otherwise trouble is not far away. A boil of vanity forms in the heart; and you won’t notice how it will arise and disintegrate. So isn’t it better to evade the path ahead of time on which such an ulcer can be encountered? One old fasting man lived near the village. They began to praise him. He went around the village and ate. Another elder, when they praised someone who lived near the village and did not enter it, said: I would sometimes purposely walk through the village so that this empty rumor would not arise. This is how they tried to hide everything from others. So you also need everyone to see that you, like everyone else, have nothing special. We have to hide everything. Manage it. And in speech, and in gait, and in techniques - everything should be as usual for everyone. (14, p. 173) Now you are already vainglorious, as you wrote. This is on the enemy side. Vanity is the fruit of his field. And it is such that grace departs for it. Watch out! And what did you decide to be proud of?! With tears! Tears are crying about sins. When vanity comes due to tears, you turn your gaze to your sins... and say to your soul: see what you have piled up! Is there anything to be proud of here?! – If you do this sincerely, then instead of vanity you will perceive bitter contrition, which you always try to have under your tears. (13, pp. 170–171) Its basis is the idea that everyone is busy with us The basis of anger is always the thought that the other is deliberately annoying us; the basis of vanity is that everyone is busy with us; pride - that we are better than everyone else, etc. (10, p. 217) The counter-conviction is that no one is looking at you. It is necessary to wage a constant struggle against it without concessions. So you are doing well that you have the desire to get rid of this flattering enemy. But how to manage this? Fight and you will overcome. Just don’t stop and don’t give yourself any favors in this. The first thing you need is to recognize and feel that this kind of thought is an enemy. Then, as soon as it appears, hasten to restore such consciousness and feeling. It will certainly respond to hostility towards this thought, which will push it away. To have hostility towards a thought is the same as punching someone in the chest. Anyone hit in the chest falls to the ground; and the thought, struck by hostility, flees from the soul. Do this several times more diligently, and that thought will stop appearing, or you will get used to dealing with it so easily and quickly that before it has time to appear, it will be driven away. Meanwhile, do not forget to fuel the feeling of hostility towards him. For this purpose, read more often the Savior’s instructions on almsgiving, fasting and prayer (Matthew 6) and the parable from which the Lord drew the following lesson: Say, as we are unworthy servants: for whatever we ought to create, we have created (Luke 17:10). Also remember the apostolic lesson: why do you boast? (1 Cor. 4:7). Also take into account who you compare yourself with, trumpeting that you and your deeds are better than them. If they are younger than you in age and ability, then there is nothing to brag about. It happens naturally that the older ones do everything better than the younger ones. They will grow up, and they will work as well as you, and maybe even better. So, do not compare yourself with these, but with those who are higher than you. Then, perhaps, you won’t have to trumpet: my deeds are the best, but rather accept that you still have a long way to go, and so that you can boast about something. I would also ask you: does what you do correspond to the extent of your abilities? Take a closer look, and perhaps it will turn out that although what you do is good, it is far from meeting the extent of your strength: you should do it better five or ten times. If you really see this - and for the most part, if not always, this is exactly what you have to see when you look at your affairs from this point of view - then instead of blowing the trumpet, you will rather have to lament that you do not meet the intentions of the One who gave you the strength of body and soul. Take the trouble to practice on yourself, and you can probably assume that you will soon achieve success. But prayer to the Lord must naturally go hand in hand with one’s work on oneself, as well as diligent zeal to achieve the desired goal without any indulgence. (7, pp. 86–87) Learn to rejoice when we are despised and reproached The most evil of all things is exaltation, vanity, condemnation. This is hellish smoke and stench! Accustom yourself in every possible way to rejoice more when you are treated with contempt, reproached, or even offended, than when you are caressed and greeted. This is the most reliable path to humility! (14, p. 188) Show off your sins against him “After a good deed there is vanity, after a bad one there is hopelessness of salvation”... These are the usual attacks of the enemy. Against the first, you expose your sins and mistakes. Against the second is the certainty that there is no sin that overcomes God’s mercy. The death of the Lord was the price for all sins, no exceptions. (13, p. 175) Past good is worth nothing You must value past goodness as nothing, no matter how it happened, and always keep in mind that you are just beginning to live on the path of goodness. This way you will avoid vanity and prevent jealousy from cooling down. (5, p. 69) What is hypocrisy and how to defeat it Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy (Luke 12:1). A distinctive feature of hypocrisy is to do everything for show. Acting in front of others is not hypocrisy, because most of the things that are obligatory for us must be done for people, therefore, among them and in their sight. Although those who manage to do everything secretly do better, this is not always possible; That is why those who act in plain sight cannot immediately be reproached for wanting only to be ostentatious or to act for show. They may have a sincere desire to do good, and showing off is a necessary accompaniment of deeds performed externally. Hypocrisy begins from the moment when the intention is not to do good, but to show only oneself doing good. And this again is not always criminal, because it can be a momentary onslaught of thoughts that are immediately noticed and driven away. But when one sets out to establish a reputation for doing good, then there is hypocrisy that goes deep into the heart. When all this is added to the hidden goal of taking advantage of the benefits of such a reputation, then there is hypocrisy in all its strength. Look, everyone, what the Lord requires when he commands to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” Do good according to the desire for good for others, according to the consciousness of God’s will, for the glory of God, and do not worry about how people look at it - and you will avoid hypocrisy. (4, pp. 155–156) Its definition and its main products Pride is an insatiable desire for elevation, or an intense search for objects through which one can become higher than all others. Self-love is most obvious here. It’s here, as it were, with its own face, because here all the concern is about one’s self. The first product of internal pride is conceit, according to which all others are considered inferior to us; even those who are highly superior to us are not very important in comparison with us. Making its way out, it is already looking for uplifting objects and, judging by them, it itself is changing. Dwelling on insignificant objects, for example, on the strength of the body, beauty, clothing, kinship and other things, it is vanity; referring to the degrees of honor and glory, it is love of power and ambition; enjoying the rumors, talk and attention of people, it is love of popularity. In all of these forms, however, except perhaps conceit, pride is also accompanied by self-will, disobedience, self-confidence, arrogance, pretentiousness, contempt for others, ingratitude, envy, anger to the point of revenge and rancor. However, its main branches can be considered envy with hatred and anger with rancor. (2, vol. 1, pp. 286–287) Her first steps are self-worth and conceit Please, above all, be careful not to get on the road to pride and get stuck there. The first step on this road is self-worth, a secret feeling that I am something and not nothing; second – conceit or well-being the feeling that I am not only something, but also something important both before people and before God. From these two, a whole heap of proud thoughts and feelings are then born, which are the most disgusting to God. Therefore, try in every possible way to be in a sincere feeling of complete self-abasement. To do this, bring to your mind more often what sins or mistakes you made in your previous life, and condemn yourself for them. (13, p. 209) Praise develops pride... Isn't it said too much? Pride is a terrible thing. Rather, self-esteem, well-being, and self-consciousness attack. - What should I do?! How to avoid self-praise? “We need to transfer the praise to another person... “Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to Your name, give glory,” everyone said and did not allow pride to grow. – Try to set yourself up in this way and pray that God will give you such a feeling. (16, pp. 101–102) You write: “Why not sometimes praise someone else?” - It happens that they praise. Good involuntarily evokes praise; praise revives the praised and gives him wings. But this is not a safe matter. It can seed conceit and further lead to arrogance and pride. That's the trouble: for pride is cursed by the Lord. You expect that praise will give birth to humility, when you think that you are not worth it. - It happens, maybe this too; but this kind of birth, due to its rarity and unnaturalness, must be called a miracle. One of the fathers said that praising is the same as tripping someone walking in a hurry. This one falls and breaks his nose until it bleeds. Something similar, one must assume, is produced by praise in the soul of someone who is good on the spiritual path. Therefore, you better recognize that the idea that praise leads to humility is not of heavenly origin. This is the suggestion of one who has the custom of putting on the Angel of Light without being one. (7, p. 362) G. Dore. Tower of Babel Pride is a terrible thing. Rather, self-esteem, well-being, and self-consciousness attack. - What should I do?! How to avoid self-praise? - We must transfer the praise to another person... “Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory.” (16, pp. 101–102) She is the most destructive passion If you are proud, stop being proud. No one else can see this except you and God. Pray to God to give you a spirit of contrition and humility, and He will. Meanwhile, collect humbling thoughts yourself and keep them in your soul. Pride is the most destructive passion, and all the more destructive because it is pure from the outside... Pride is in feelings, and not in external position. And there are great kings - the most humble... St. David is a king of shepherds, but he said: I am a worm, and not a man, a reproach of men and a humiliation of people. (11, p. 73) She is the most malicious and displeasing to God We need more humility. Speeches or impulses, words that are upsetting for others - are they not from the nobility? The consciousness of lordship is pride, a thing very displeasing to God and the most harmful in moral life. Delve into it and pull out this root of grief and vegetate if it appears. (18, p. 10) What is the most important way to retain grace in the soul? Humility. What is the main reason for dismissal? From some movement of pride, conceit and arrogance. As soon as she feels this bad smell of pride inside, she immediately leaves. It’s true, something similar happened to you too. You don't realize it. But for now, accept this as an intellectual truth, and then, God willing, you will feel with your feeling that there are movements of pride that the soul is not aware of, and you will begin to pray more earnestly: grant me, Lord, to see my sins. In some letter you proved that you are humble. But from the very thing that was proven, it follows that you are not humble. Humility does not see itself. (7, pp. 350–351) He who grieves over his misdeeds, without thinking of correcting himself, has this grief not for God, but out of pride and vanity. (5, p. 16) Her counter-belief: everything is not ours We can only boast about what is ours. But it is explained that in our affairs - nothing remains ours... neither strength, nor means, nor objects - everything is not ours... Desire most likely should have been ours... but even what we want is not ours... - If you internalize this view; then every time mistress pride comes, you, having brought these explanations to mind, will grab her in the head like a butt... and she - God forbid, legs. (16, p. 102) Her counterfeeling: there is no creature more despicable than you Against pride: there is no creature more despicable than you, and so on. Such beliefs and feelings are truly the strongest shield, which only needs to be opposed to the emerging passion, and it will subside: for it will lose support in the heart. (10, p. 218) The panegyric that you have woven for yourself: bad, crafty, fickle, ungrateful, proud, angry, unable to pray to God... very good. We must add worthlessness and costlessness of nothing. Repeat it often - and so that the soul speaks, and not the mind collects from memory. After all, we have or sometimes have a very deep-lying self-value. (11, p. 125) Its opposite virtue is humility. Господь гордым противится, смиренным же дает благодать ( Притч.3:34 ). Припомни особенно слова эти, когда идешь на исповедь. Ничто так, как гордость, не вяжет языка сказать: грешен. Смирись же пред Господом, не пощади себя, не убойся лица человека. Раскрой срамоту свою, да омоешься; покажи раны свои, да исцелеешь; расскажи все неправды твои, да оправдишься. The more merciless you are towards yourself, the more pity the Lord will show you, and you will leave with a sweet feeling of mercy. This is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, given from Him to those who humble themselves by sincere confession of their sins. (4, p. 41) Ее врачуют, когда нас чернят Когда видите, что вас чернят, принимайте то как целительные грязи. You do well that you do not lose your brotherly disposition towards those who apply this healing to you. (15, pp. 201–202) Борьба с самоценом и самомнением Resentment from self-worth, by which they recognize and feel that they are worth a lot; why, when someone dares not to give us our due, we get angry and plot revenge. You do a good thing that you don’t let these feelings go to waste, but it’s not a good thing that you sometimes let them linger in you for a long time. For several days the enemy unleashes a storm of revenge on you. Try to do this so that without missing a minute you can take charge of yourself and ruin your self-worth. Do not look at the offender and the offense; here you will find more support for resentment and revenge; but throw it out of your head and clothe yourself in the sackcloth of insignificance. The apostle says that he flatters himself, whoever thinks that he is something... This is something that needs to be ruined and thrown out the window. A feeling of insignificance will come, consider yourself worthy of all humiliation and insult, and then resentment and vengeance will evaporate by themselves. You only need to work hard to destroy the self-tsen once... and then it will be easy to deal with it, and it will soon die out completely. “Then some kind of support for the inner world is formed in the soul!” – When there is self-worth, it is not the attitude only towards people that outrages, but also the attitude towards God, - and he is cunning, like demons, - and cleverly hides behind humble words, sitting in the heart... Take care of this. – You are doing well to lament these feelings and open them to your spiritual father. But it seems that you do this when you tear someone’s heart out with something; but even some feelings, even if they don’t break through, need to be opened. This is among the means of ruining self-worth. – And self-worth ruins your whole life; therefore it is worth working hard to destroy it. Then I write so much about him. For this reason, you complain about conceit and self-exaltation... These are the first-born children of self-price, his pink rains, or not pink, but seven-colored, rainbow ones. Wonder why such thoughts come. But how can they not go when there is self-price? “You pray to the Lord to deliver you from them.” Pray to get rid of self-worth and work to destroy it yourself. Then this article will be solved for you. (11, pp. 140–142) That they shame you is a good sign. So, you have annoyed a certain artist... Be grateful. This is healing mud! But are you sure that without this you would not have flown away on the wings of self-conceit?!! This is how the Lord, who loves you, arranges it. (16, p. 154) To suppress conceit, learn, most importantly, to attribute all good things to the Lord as the reason... and thank Him... This is the beginning of humility! Increase it by indicating to yourself... Do we have as much goodness as the Lord wants from us and how much strength has he given us? If you decide in good conscience, you will see... that our very goodness will expose us to a fault... Is everything in order with us? Of course not. So remember these faults... they will hide the serviceability from your eyes... and there will be nothing to boast about... Don’t let self-worth creep in on you. This demon is more cunning than all demons and manages to crawl into the soul through the most inconspicuous hole. He'll sit there and ruin everything. Pray to God to let you tangibly see what evils there are in the heart, and whatever you see, find a prayer against it... and insert it all into your prayers. (21, pp. 113–114) Self-worth, conceit, and falling away from grace Beware of conceit. It is the first enemy. Our goodness before God, while still only intentional, already gives rise to the thought of some specialness of ours before others and even before ourselves - the past, especially when we manage to do something along this path. As soon as we stand in this order for a little while, it seems like something wondrous - and we begin to dream of ourselves as perfect persons, performing wondrous deeds. And the enemy is inciting this in order to arouse self-esteem. Whoever gives in and falls into this conceit, grace immediately departs from him and leaves him alone. Then the enemy seizes him like a helpless prey. (3, p. 168) Self-worth and the retreat of grace are always inseparable. The Lord turns His eyes away from the arrogant... And the retreat of grace does not always follow a fall. What follows is only cooling, bad movements and a penalty against passions, not in the sense of falling into passionate affairs, but in the sense of heart confusion: for example, someone will say an unpleasant word... and the heart will burn with anger and the like. (16, p. 84) Self-worth - drive before trouble happens Your inner self is self-valued, well-being and trumpeting itself. Be careful. We must drive, otherwise grace will depart, and all our sinfulness will raise its head... and disaster will follow. Pray to the Lord to humble you internally. Read in the book “Invisible Warfare” (chapter 34, par. 7),... That you are angry and condemn yourself for having uplifting thoughts is good. This is the beginning of the struggle. For this, pray to the Lord, that these evil potions may be burned away. (16, p. 79) I think that tears keep you from feeling better or feeling better about yourself. This feeling is the most dangerous. Work hard to deepen the feeling that you are nothing. The Apostle threatens you: if anyone thinks that he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself, and the truth is not in him. (13, p. 171) How is your self-worth? Take the sword or always hold it - humility and humiliation and mercilessly cut off, and constantly cut off the head of our first villain. (14, p. 155) The deep-lying samocene is almost impossible to notice The panegyric that you have woven for yourself: bad, crafty, fickle, ungrateful, proud, angry, unable to pray to God... very good. We must add worthlessness and costlessness of nothing. Repeat it often - and so that the soul speaks, and not the mind collects from memory. After all, we have or sometimes have a very deep-lying self-value. Then the tongue or memory reads the words indicated, or similar ones... and holds in the soul: “not like the others.” And it’s amazing that this cunning of our soul is almost impossible to notice. So it hides until the Lord somehow calls it out and shows it in all its ugliness. We ourselves need to guess his presence only from the fact that the reproachful speeches of others, in front of or behind the eyes, respond with unpleasantness and annoyance to the speakers. Kindly make some inquiries about yourself, what kind of soul it is in such cases. At the same time, self-justification is a big hindrance. (11, p. 125) False humility from proud conceit There is a spirit of delusion that, one does not know how, bypasses the soul with its cunning and confuses its thoughts so that it thinks that it is humble, but inside it hides proud conceit. So you need to look closely at the heart. The best thing to do here is to have a restrained external relationship. But how they are not there; then work on yourself, learning to look at everyone as if from under a mountain to a mountain, and not as from a mountain down a hill. (14, p. 215) And all sisters must be honored, and placed far above oneself. You look at them so much that it’s as if they are walking on a mountain or a roof, and you are below, low, low. And if the soul begins to see some sister as inferior to itself, then one must strongly reproach oneself and hasten to ask the Lord for forgiveness. The most evil of all things are exaltation, vanity, and condemnation. This is hellish smoke and stench! Accustom yourself in every possible way to rejoice more when you are treated with contempt, reproached, or even offended, than when you are caressed and greeted. This is the most reliable path to humility! (14, pp. 187–188) You write: “I spoke with my spiritual father and told him different things about myself. He told me straight out that I was proud and vain. I told him that I am not proud at all, but I can’t stand humiliation and servility.” Finish the song, great. Don’t let them offend you, so they know that they can’t grab you with their bare hands. You thought of calling it what, and to your face? - Now I will sentence you: what better proof that you are proud than your rebuke? She is not the fruit of humility. And why would you oppose such a verdict? If he doesn’t come to you, there’s no harm in it; and if it goes, you reject it, then this will cause a lot of trouble, because without recognizing the badness in yourself, you will not try to correct it, and it will stay with you forever. It’s better for you, no matter what, to take a good look at yourself to see if there really is this extremely evil potion in you. Last time you were going to pray to the Lord to let you know what you are. So the Lord sent you an instruction, but you turn away. That's right, you expected the Lord to show you how beautiful you are. No, don't expect that. This case is the Lord’s direct response to your desire and prayer. If you please, it’s better to apply your own labor to this beck of the Lord. Start looking into yourself more strictly. Stand at the heart and notice what comes out of it; then discuss what properties this came out with. If it turns out to be even a little proud, it means that pride sits in the heart and releases such bubbles from there. “Daily circle” of the fight against passions, extracted from the works and letters of Theophan the Recluse To make it more convenient for you to conduct this unusual business for you, review what manifestations of pride there are, and use them to catch yourself. What kind of manifestations of pride there are, you can learn this from the Climacus, precisely from his words about pride and vanity, from Cassian, from the Venerable Nile, from the Orthodox Confession - where the origins of the seven deadly sins are listed. You will find all these books in the monastery; in the meantime, you will have time to stock up on them yourself. Notice better all the signs of pride and then see if you have them. If even a few appear sometimes, it means there is pride - and it must be eradicated. You wrote that you once desired insults and humiliation. This was direct evidence of humility. And then they told you: you are proud, - you are offended, cross and turn away from the one who spoke. Aren’t such actions a sign that there is no humility: there was, but it evaporated, at least in this case. Whoever wants insults, no matter how much you do, it’s not enough. So the humble man thinks that humiliation is not enough for him. You say: you would say what pride is. “But it can be very thin, so you feel like it’s there, but it’s tricky to definitely grab it.” Please find out for yourself what your pride is. Be grateful to the one who told you about this, which leads you to self-knowledge. (7, pp. 301–303) It is boredom at work Dejection is boredom at work. When it attacks, things are sluggish. Until then, everything is done willingly, the job gets done, and the time behind the deed is not noticed. But when despondency sets in, the doer begins to look around and then does it, then stops, and so you want to quit the job as soon as possible. This happens in everyday life, and it also happens in spiritual life. There is no desire to stand in church, or to pray to God at home, or to read, or to correct ordinary good deeds. The worker begins to get bored with all this; That’s why he does it as if he’s not doing it, and there’s no use in doing it. He looks exactly like a half-asleep person whose work is falling out of his hands. This state is depicted by the prophet in the words: my soul slumbers from despondency. (23, p. 107) Dejection, boredom, burdens of spirit and body will sometimes come, perhaps not for long, you must not be timid and stand firmly on your ground, diligently following the accepted rules, and do not expect your soul to always be equally warm and sweet, it does not happen. Instead, constantly expect unexpected changes. When lethargy and heaviness come, think that it is you - the real one - as you are; Accept spiritual sweetness as undeserved mercy. (14, p. 186) What to do in it: pray, don’t give up, deepen your thoughts of God How to be in this bad state? First, pray; secondly, to remain firmly in established routines and started affairs, even though the taste for them has disappeared; thirdly, to meditate on the wondrous ways of God revealed in the word (of God). All these methods are contained in the prayer of the prophet: confirm me in Your words. So, first of all, pray. The despondent prophet turns to God. Together with him, you too, weak, ascend there and ask that the same heat be kindled in you again, in which before this any work was not difficult for you, so that the fire of grace returns to you, and you, being aroused by it, do not cease to diligently walk along the path of the commandments of the Lord. When you pray, do not lag behind anything you have done before. Let there be no taste - force yourself, by force of will, bend your neck and your entire body under the accepted yoke... In both cases, deepen your God-minded reflection on the wondrous ways of God. In another psalm, the prophet directly says that when his spirit became depressed, in order to drive it away, he remembered the days of old and began to learn from the wondrous deeds of God. What came of this? The soul became like dry land, that is, thirsty; Spiritual tastes and needs awakened, and the soul, killed by despondency, came to life. It's the same here. According to St. Athanasius, the prophet teaches that it is impossible to drive out the spirit of despondency except by teaching in Divine words. Therefore, we must be sober and watchful according to the word of the Lord: watch and pray (Mark 14:38)... St. writes about this at greater length. Ambrose: “The perfect one, directing his mind to the Divine mysteries, does not sleep, but is always awake: and although he sometimes sleeps with his body, he is vigilant with his heart. In another place the prophet says: if I give sleep to my eyes and slumber everywhere (until I build a church for God. Ps. 132:4). So, the one who decided to create a church for the Lord not from stones, but from good thoughts, feelings and dispositions, excited and formed by heavenly words, does not sleep. The Word of God disperses despondency - sleep of the soul and despondency of the mind. Sleep comes from the sadness and worries of the age. But he who cleaves to God avoids such worries; He finds pleasure in the knowledge of the eternal order of things, without being embarrassed by any change in earthly things.” (23, pp. 109–110) If it is due to bodily weakness, then it will pass or be calmed down by surrendering oneself to the will of God That there is despondency now is due to bodily weakness. Incessant infirmity sometimes produces a feeling of abandonment by everyone: hence self-pity and this pitiful feeling that seems to be despondency or accompanies it. God leaves no one. He has all the children. No stepchildren. And difficult accidents and conditions - everything is directed to our good. If we could see this, there would be no difficulty in anything. But you, it seems, “saw this” - you decided to surrender all of yourself and everything to the will of God. Help you, Lord, to remain like this. And when the burden begins to overcome, evoke this feeling and establish it in the middle between you and the burden - and the feeling of this latter will either calm down or completely disappear. He who trusts in God will receive mercy. Hope will not put you to shame... Sing - Zealous Intercessor... We bless you all... Give you an insurmountable wall. (11, pp. 30–31) If it doesn’t go away, endure it complacently Complain to the Lord and Guardian Angel about the spirit of despondency, and he will run away. But endure everything with good grace. This condition is one of the crosses that we inevitably have to bear throughout our lives. The Lord will either drive him away or give you the complacency to endure such conditions. (15, p. 139) It is the main enemy of spiritual life The first step for anyone entering God’s path should be to support and fuel this readiness, zeal and zeal in every possible way. You can limit all subsequent rules to this one, i.e., take care only of this jealousy and readiness, it itself will teach and will constantly teach what to do and how to act when. Notice this! This, together with the previous painful fall to the Lord, is the root of spiritual life, its protection and fencing. The enemy of this fundamental disposition, and, therefore, the main enemy, you have well defined - cooling. Oh, bitter and most bitter thing! (3, pp. 148–149) You have to run in every possible way to cool down. Cooling happens like this: it begins with oblivion... The blessings of God are forgotten, and God Himself, and one’s salvation in Him, the danger of being without God, and mortal memory passes away in a word, the entire spiritual realm is closed. This happens both from the enemy and from distraction of thoughts with affairs, worries, and many ways of dealing with people. When all this is forgotten, the heart becomes cold and its sympathy for the spiritual is cut off... and that is insensibility. And when it happens, along with it comes a movement of negligence and carelessness... As a result of this, spiritual pursuits are postponed for a while, and then abandoned completely. And the old life, both careless and careless, went on in oblivion of God, to please only its own. Although nothing will happen carelessly, don’t look for God’s things either. Empty life! (12, p. 85) It happens for many reasons The cooling of the heart has many reasons. The main one is complacency and conceit. These are very similar to you. Beware and hasten to awaken the fear of God and warm your soul. (14, p. 221) The cooling off that you are talking about comes either from spiritual fatigue, or because the soul has been fed too much of what is spiritual (see the book: What is spiritual life about this), or because too much peace and all contentment has been given to the body, or from conceit and other passions that agitate and occupy the soul. All this is contrary to spiritual life, in which prayer is the queen, littering and blocking the prayer key. But it happens both by God’s permission and by the withdrawal of grace. When your soul burns with zeal, this is the action of grace, God’s touch on the soul. It happens that when it lasts for a long time, the soul begins to think what a master of prayer she is, forgetting that the liveliness of the prayer movement is not her business, but the work of God’s grace inherent in us. For such thinking, grace withdraws and leaves the soul alone... and it itself is motionless towards the spiritual... and so there is cooling and laziness... What can be done? The main thing is to try to eliminate the causes of this condition. And then act as you act - fulfill the rule, despite the disintegration, trying to collect thoughts and reproduce feelings for God. For patience and humility, grace will return... and will immediately disperse laziness, just as the wind disperses darkness. (16, pp. 22–23) In my words: cooling – is it clear what it is? – It happens involuntarily... but it also happens from arbitrary actions... from external entertainment, disordered conversations, satiety, excessive sleep... and much more... There is guilt here. (16, p. 86) The cooling of the heart is preceded by clinging to something, preoccupation with something, anger and condemnation... discontent and some kind of indulgence of the flesh, sybaritism... and scattering of thoughts! Take care of this, and there will be less cooling. (14, p. 79) It's like a punishment This is a bitter and dangerous state. With the Lord it is among the guiding, intelligible and corrective means. But sometimes it can also be a kind of punishment. The reason for this is obvious sin, but since you don’t see it, the reasons must be sought in inner feelings and dispositions. Has the conceit crept in that you are not like others? Don't you think that you yourself will walk along the path of salvation and ascend the mountain using your own means? Are you not complacent in the order of life that has been established... and settled down to sleep in the thought that there is nothing more to worry about?.. Such and similar thoughts lead to carelessness, and carelessness is the first step towards cooling down. Therefore, take the trouble to collect more thoughts, since you have not yet started business; what previously seemed spiritual only mattered as a calling to work, and not as a fruit. Apply the conviction that even though you have reached high levels, everyone is not safe from falls... the path to which the enemy is paved by carelessness and negligence - the companions of cooling. When collecting such stimulating thoughts, do not think that you will warm yourself... The Lord will warm you when the time comes. Your job is work and labor. In addition to this mental work, add a prayer to the Lord specifically for deliverance from this ulcer. Leave all other items, keep this one prayer against cooling. Whether you stand at prayer, whether you read, whether you stand in church, or whether you are doing some work, keep one thing in mind: Lord, deliver me from this coldness. And don't give yourself any rest until you get warm. Warmth is the Lord's touch to the heart, and constant warmth is the Lord's indwelling in the heart... May the Lord grant you this blessing! Don't be lazy and don't give up! (11, pp. 110–111) That we fell into insensibility and coldness is a direct consequence of self-aggrandizement and complacency. This consequence is like a punishment, like a drunkard having a headache in the morning. Now you're getting better. May God help you get better. – And do according to the proverb: The whip is not torment, but forward is science. (11, p. 252) It comes from benefits and concessions The desire for benefits is the first enemy of working for salvation: it affects both soul and body. Just lean towards him, and thousands of voices will rise from the soul and body, presenting rights to benefits and indulgences: which puts the working man in a state of temptation, from which he will not escape without a fight. – And we must fight and overcome: otherwise all the established orders in achieving salvation will be upset, confusion will be introduced into thoughts and feelings, cooling will come, and the flow of spiritual life will stop. Then there will be passionate urges, from which it is not far from action. (7, p. 105) This did not happen for the sake of some sin that drives away grace, but perhaps it happened that the heart clung to something, and in general a privilege was given to oneself, it is said: freely... like soldiers... and attention, and alertness, and tension of the members of the body. All this put the soul in such a state as: fatter, thicker, wider... and forgetting God. For this - yay! - as the Lord strictly punishes... precisely by leaving the soul to itself - in the disorder into which it gave itself up, allowing itself benefits... I am writing this way, but it is desirable that this does not happen... May the Lord make you wise! (16, p. 168) You write that you have gone wild and the state of cooling continues. Pray more diligently and patiently lead the established rules of pious life. The Lord will have mercy and restore your previous good mood. But remember more often how everything happened, and surround everything with feelings of repentance. Why did they go wild? - Because the warmth is gone. How did the heat go? - By scattering. Where does the scattering come from? – From losing attention to the Lord. Why is this? – And this comes from allowing benefits and concessions. For what reasons and in what hopes are benefits and concessions allowed? “Because of the feeling that you and I have already worked quite hard, why is it permissible for us to rest, and because of that highly intelligent confidence that if some kind of disorder occurs, how long will it take for us to restore everything to its proper order?” We already know all the rules of spiritual life. Remember all this and shed tears all over it. For the latest appropriation of rights that do not belong to us and arrogance, God’s grace especially retreated. Alas and ah! It's good that they missed it soon. But you still have to work until you sweat: for the Lord does not like to bless. With your mind, you have not learned to value your inner well-being as it should and carefully guard it as your first treasure. Now the Lord himself will teach you this and that – through experience. Since this is the first experience of your oversight, or your self-will, it is very possible that the Lord will soon return your loss to you. - But everything will be returned; just resort to Him more diligently with contrition and faith. Work hard. Bless, Lord! (7, pp. 417–418) It happens from careless indulgences You experience cooling... And you see the reasons for it. These reasons are indeed such that they can cool. They all depend on your will - and you can reject them as soon as you want. You favor them for no reason at all - out of inattention, fearlessness and fanfare... What is this for?! Is cooling a minor problem? - Not easy. The enemy will jump up and stir things up, and before you know it, he’ll wring your head... So, if you please, wake up and cheerfully look after yourself: you’ve already seen enough, you were amused at that time. “Now it’s time to be stricter with yourself.” You have forgotten the words of the Apostle: work out your salvation with fear and trembling, but you have lost even simple caution. (13, p. 171) You regret that the good mood acquired by fasting, confession and communion soon weakens. This is worthy of regret, and all the more worthy because it is in our power to avoid it... There is no need to surrender oneself to the victim of external impressions: they take attention away from the heart and make it wander to the side, far from oneself. You should not allow yourself to eat mental and physical sweets. We have two tastes: one is spiritual, the other is mental and physical. They chase each other away. When there is a taste of the spiritual, everything else is grass; and when you have to taste the soul-body, then the taste for the spiritual diminishes. From this you see for yourself what should be done in order to preserve the enjoyment of spiritual blessings. What should you do to avoid getting cold? What was said before this. As soon as you notice cooling, tug at your soul until you warm it up. The Lord is near, call and he will help. Add to this the thought of God... that is, the contemplation of the sacraments of St. our faith. Each of them will pour out a lot of light and warmth... and you will warm up. Just don’t leave the coldness in your soul, but keep fiddling with it until you warm it up. You can punish yourself with something - force yourself to fast a little... sit in solitude a little, not get enough sleep... bow more... In general, more awareness of your poverty... and a tearful resort to God's help. God Himself instills the memory of God into the soul. But for this, the soul must sweat and work for itself. Work hard, forcing yourself to constantly remember God. And God, seeing how earnestly you desire this, will give you a memory of Himself. Short prayers are very useful in our own work on remembering God. Prayers... whatever you want... Lord, have mercy! - Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me! – Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me!.. and others... Everyone is coming. Whichever one you like best, use it. (16, pp. 48–49) Your soul has frozen... How dangerous this is, you know from what was written on the occasion of previous freezes... Therefore, try to perk up. By some features one can believe that life is alive; but does not feel satisfied. Why? – Because you have abandoned your previous positions of prayer... And you don’t return to them... I think that you need to replace this digression with something... and this is what I propose... Shift all of our 7 daily services to the Jesus Prayer with bows. Take an example for this - in the Followed Psalter - at the end of the outline of the rules for each day - cell... There for each service it is determined - the number of Jesus prayers and the number of bows; there are two rows of them... one for the lazy, the other for the diligent. You should take the last one... But since you are weak, you can choose the average one or a little more than the average one... and if you please write to yourself... how many prayers - 1) for the Midnight Office; 2) for Matins; 3) for the first hour... and other hours - 3, 6, 9; 4) for lunch; 5) for Vespers; 6) for Compline; 7) for the rule on him. The main thing is the number of prayers... bows... can be left at will - waist and ground... Do the prayer... standing... on your knees - and sitting, if you are exhausted... Having determined this, and set the time when to fulfill what is required... And then - do it urgently... Stand in your heart before the Lord and do it. Some troparia can be read from memory. At all services there are such... as, for example... Se the groom... and the like. It is necessary that the performance of every service be reflected in labor... Throughout the day, you will often... perform labor for the Lord... and satisfaction, I think, will come. (16, pp. 169–170) It happens like dryness - from excessive stress. But know that not every diminishing of the heat of jealousy is a harmful cooling. It also happens due to excessive tension of mental strength, and it also happens due to loss of bodily strength or ill health. Both are fine, they will pass. It is disastrous to cool down as a result of arbitrary deviation from the will of God, with consciousness and in defiance of conscience, which admonished and stopped, with an addiction to something that is not divine. This kills the spirit and stops spiritual life. And this is what you should fear most of all, fear it like fire, like death. It happens due to loss of attention to oneself and fear of God. Watch them in order to avoid that terrible evil. As for involuntary accidental coldness due to exhaustion and ill health, there is only one law for them: to endure, without violating the established pious orders in any way, although they will be carried out without any taste. Whoever endures this patiently, soon loses his coolness and returns to normal, warm, heartfelt jealousy. If you please, take this into account and put it in order, firstly, not to allow jealousy to cool down arbitrarily, and secondly, in the case of accidental cooling, to push and pull the established routine, in the confidence that this dry execution of affairs will soon return the liveliness and warmth of zeal. (3, p. 149) Do you see what strong determination... selfless will do?.. Labor is not effortless. And at the end there is an unusually comforting state of the heart. At the core was self-compassion. Deign to love her... and do not let her go... Ruthlessness builds the inner cross, and it gives co-crucifixion to Christ the Lord, for which the Lord will immediately reward with spiritual good... consolation, and cheerful strength, ready for any work. This is the means to prevent and drive away lethargy of spirit, dryness and lifelessness... Always go against yourself and do not give yourself rest, especially through any kind of bodily pleasure... Besides this ruthlessness towards oneself, the most powerful spiritual stimulants are standing with attention in the presence of God and incessant aspiration - about death. If God would allow these three points to be planted in your heart, then you would not need any lessons or reminders from outside. Also find some task from the ascetic order, which would, however, be difficult and associated with difficulties in fulfillment... and impose it on yourself as an urgent law... even if you die, do it. How beneficial that would be for invigorating the spirit! You wrote: “You stand for an hour or two in prayer... but everything is lifeless in your soul.” - Why is that so? I think it’s because your attention at this time is focused only on standing still - and re-reading, and speaking over what is required... You must have this attention, but not keep it in front, but in 3rd and 5th place... You must put the feeling of sinfulness in front... Then - death, judgment and condemnation are about to happen. -Where should I hide? There is nowhere... in the bosom of only mercy: God, be merciful... Under the shadow of the cross... tear away, O Lord, the handwriting of my sins on it. Before prayer, every time, if you conduct these feelings through your heart, then it cannot remain sluggish. – One elder used to say that the most suitable place for prayer is to stand with attention at the judgment of God, in anticipation that the decision is about to be heard!.. We pray without such preparation - and prayer is worthless... Another reason it is like this... is that we remember how good our prayer was a little before, and we think that now it will be the same - we just have to become... and everything will go well, but it will not... Now we need to direct the matter... This nonsense, when they say that we can’t fix it... we don’t take it, and it doesn’t get better. The Lord is near! And He never leaves those who sincerely seek Him. (11, pp. 241–243) It occurs as “ignorance, oblivion and petrified insensibility” I thought you were constantly cold... or dry and numb. But you don’t have this, but there is something that happens to everyone from time to time. Almost everyone who has written about spiritual life remembers this. St. Mark, the ascetic, exposes three enemies of this kind: ignorance with oblivion, laziness with negligence, and petrified insensibility. “Some kind of paralysis of all mental strength.” St. did not forget them in his short prayers. Chrysostom: “Deliver me from ignorance, oblivion, despondency (this is laziness with negligence) and petrified insensibility.” – The remedies indicated are not complex: endure and pray. Tolerate . It is possible that God Himself sends this to teach us not to rely on ourselves. – Sometimes we take on a lot and expect a lot from our efforts, techniques and works. So the Lord takes grace and leaves one, as if saying: “Here, try to the best of your ability.” The more natural talents there are, the more necessary such training is. – Having realized this, we will endure. This is also sent as punishment - for outbursts of passions allowed, and not condemned, and not covered with repentance. These outbursts are the same for the soul as for the body - bad food... which aggravates, or weakens, or dulls... It turns out that, when there is dryness, one must look around to see if there was anything like that in the soul... and repent before the Lord, and put forward to beware. Most of all this happens for anger, untruth, annoyance, condemnation, pride, and the like. – Healing is the return of a state of grace again. As grace in the will of God, we can only pray... for deliverance from this very dryness... and from petrified insensibility. There are such lessons: do not abandon the usual prayer rule, but follow it exactly, trying in every possible way so that the thought accompanies the words of the prayer, straining and stirring the feeling... Let the feeling be a stone, but the thought will be: even if it is half, it will still be a prayer: for there must be a complete prayer with thought and feeling. If you are cold and insensitive, it will be difficult to hold the thought while saying the words of prayer, but it is still possible. You must do it in defiance of yourself... This overexertion of yourself will be the means to bend the Lord to mercy and return grace. But you shouldn’t give up prayer. St. Macarius says: the Lord will see how sincerely we wish for the good of this... and he will send it. Send a prayer against cooling in your word before the rule and after the rule... and in continuation of it, cry out to the Lord, as if presenting a dead soul before His face: see, Lord, what it is like! But say the word and he will be healed. With the same word, throughout the day, often turn to the Lord. Someone says: “Put yourself in the state of a dying person”... Another adds: “Even better, put yourself at the moment of judgment over you, when the last decision about you is ready to come from the mouth of God”... One cannot but agree that such techniques are really powerful in softening a stony heart. I know one who keeps the prayer rule in a special way... namely: he left reading the prayers that are in the prayer books, and chose for himself several short prayers from psalm verses and appeals on litanies, which are more suitable for his condition, arranged them in his own way... and then, standing in prayer, repeats each verse several times with attention and feeling. When everything is spoken to the Lord, the rule is over. - He assures that once he began to do this, attention does not wander throughout the continuation of the rule, and the feeling lasts. But, of course, it is not mechanical repetition that produces this, but the power of thoughts in verse. “He says: “I begin the rule by laying before me all my sins, the judgment, shame and condemnation that are ready for them, and I cry out for mercy.” - Apart from these poems, he no longer reads anything prayerful. You have a home prayer rule for the whole family. This holy work does not need to be changed or cancelled. But then you can keep a special one - just a rule for yourself... if you want, according to the specified pattern. And that's what I wanted to show you how it's going. If you decide, type some rhymes... and the rule is ready. Going to church is the best way to open the spirit of prayer, in which the heart does not dare to harden. But you can hardly always use it. There are prayer books who pray the Jesus Prayer alone... But this is for the perfect; but for us beginners this unity of thought soon becomes boring. Therefore, the indicated method is better, diversifying the content of the prayer by indicating different spiritual needs. Meanwhile, the prayers are all addressed to the Lord. Therefore, the Jesus Prayer is in the spirit here too. Here is the word for you from St. Isaac the Syrian - in case of coldness and insensibility! “Do not be troubled by thoughts and do not give in to mental relaxation, but be patient, read the books of teachers, force yourself to pray and wait for help. She will come soon, and you won’t know it.” (11, pp. 230–233) Insensibility confuses you. I think this is the aftereffect of painful exhaustion. Recover completely, and all your strength, and therefore your feelings, will enter into their next action. You already felt something when you heard “on the rivers of Babylon.” Go to church, rub yourself with spiritual friction, and the numbness of your heart will go away. Add to this a reflection on the comforting properties and actions of God, which show us in Him the most protective Father. Otherwise, take the trouble to intimidate yourself. For behold, here is death, and there is a report. Lord, have mercy and mercy, most merciful! (15, p. 46) "Hungry and cold." And I am winter and the bare desert. The Lord is bread and fire. And He is nearby. Turn to Him. Open your mouth, He will feed you; make yourself a heat conductor, and He will fill you with His warmth. That's it. My words are like pawns... What nutrition they provide! Weaving them together like a sieve or a harrow... does not provide a warming cover. So warm yourself and be satisfied as you know. You have so much to do around you! Turn them all face to the Lord and, despite the fact that they are all of an everyday order, they will serve as an instrument for a life detached from everything worldly. If possible, then you should not dismiss yourself from them. God sends as He gives a lesson that must be fulfilled. (15, p. 47) “What to do with insensibility?” To endure, relentlessly observing all the established rules of a grace-filled life. I remember: at St. Macarius, Diodochos, and others, it is written that God first gives the soul, turning from sin to the path of pleasing God, to taste all the sweetness of this new life. But then he leaves the person alone, with his own strength. Grace either hides its effect or retreats. This is done in order to give a person a deeper conviction that he is alone without grace, and the ability to deeply humble himself before himself, and before God, and before people. This is the meaning of your coldness and insensibility. – Therefore, as soon as it appears, resort to humility, saying: according to deeds; I am not worth grace, but mercy. - Observe, maybe you will find that before the onset of such a state there are proud thoughts and feelings; and repent of them quickly. Do not abandon ordinary affairs - neither prayers, nor readings, nor anything else that is... Cooling is God's penance. Question: “What to do if such a state comes when you need to take communion?” – still too much for you; because this doesn't happen to you. – And pray that it doesn’t happen. The merciful Lord will not allow it; but if he pleases... But if it happens, we must surrender ourselves with faith into the hands of the merciful Lord. Holy Communion reveals its power not from our dignity, but from the goodness of God. Readiness for worthy communion is confession of sins with a strong determination not to give in to sin and not to omit anything good that should be done. This determination and zeal is the root of life and the foundation. When this is present, the house for the Lord is ready. (11, pp. 226–227) 11. Self-pity and self-indulgence Their danger and detrimental nature to salvation And self-pity - which you complain about - is already dangerous and harmful. – If you have to indulge yourself due to illness, then that’s okay. And if under the pretext of illness, then this is bad. Here you can see deceit in front of yourself - the most evil of all deceits. You seem to look at self-pity very lightly... considering cases of yielding to it as unimportant actions. You have a big mistake here. Cases of self-pity are definitely insignificant; but the presence of this self-pity in the soul is not insignificant. Because what does it mean? - This means that self-pleasure in you and I is stronger than pleasing God. We decided to do this and that, realizing that it was necessary in the matter of arranging a saving life, and therefore pleasing to God; and then we refuse this for no other reason than because this refusal is more pleasant for us, body or soul. This means that this time we are moving from pleasing God to self-pleasing. Conscience sees our wrongness - and worries. - She's right. I shouldn’t have tied myself down: I would do this and that in forms of asceticism when I didn’t have the confidence to overcome myself every time. For example, they decided not to drink tea, and then drank a cup. - And you worry. It’s not a big deal to drink a cup, but the big thing is that your conscience is offended, and that things are allowed to happen that violate your previous decisions and consciousness. This destroys the internal structure, and the habit of not listening to conscience when it indicates what is due is formed. - And then fearlessness will come... and complete indifference to To please God: it is better not to bind yourself to the smallest detail with rules, but to have one thing in common: to act contrary to the demands of self-pleasure every time. And if we allow some kind of benefit to the body, then it is not out of indulgence, but out of awareness of the need for health. – Not drinking tea is good and healthy. But as in other cases it gives vigor to the body, you can then drink a cup. So it should be put: I will abstain from tea from time to time. Because sometimes it's very easy to get around. – Otherwise, it’s best not to tie yourself down with such details. And keep the general thing: not to please the flesh, and act in this spirit, making decisions every time. I used tea as an example; but you need to act this way in relation to everything - food, sleep, walks, rest, etc. Anything that interferes with the internal order should not be allowed under any circumstances. This is why you need to have an old man nearby. The best person for this is a confessor. Whenever you come across something, ask immediately. Your conscience will be calm. “Otherwise she’ll be legally teasing.” No success, you say. – And it won’t happen as long as there is self-indulgence and self-pity. – Self-pity and self-indulgence directly indicate that I, and not the Lord, predominates in the heart. Self-love is the sin living in us, from which all sinfulness comes and which makes the whole person sinful, from head to toe, as long as it takes place in the soul. And when the whole person is sinful, how will grace come to him? It will not come, just as a bee will not go to where there is smoke. The presence of self-love is a sign that the first decision to work for the Lord was formed incompletely and unsuccessfully. - This decision has two ends: one - let him deny himself... and the second: let him come after Me. – The first requires the complete suppression of egoism or pride and, therefore, the prevention of self-indulgence and self-pity, neither great nor small. Consequently, in whomever they are, the solution was not complete. Such a decision makes a person similar to those persons about whom the Apocalypse says: neither warm, nor cold... neither this nor that. – I want to be saved, but self-resistance is not allowed. God and mammon cannot work. I bring all this to your mind, so that you censor yourself and carefully determine what is in your heart - me or the Lord. Then sit down and decide what to do. You write to ask me to pray to deliver you from self-indulgence. What should we pray about? God won't hear. He hears prayer only for those who are not self-pleasing. - And God hears the person himself - everyone only when he does not suffer from these firstborn daughters of sin. For lack of self-pity and self-indulgence, the Lord only gives grace and prosperity. He does not give them himself, but demands that the person himself take them, as a deposit that he should be shown mercy. (18, pp. 188–191) They make your whole life barren Have you ever seen an electric car?! If you have seen it, then, of course, you know that electricity, excited by friction, is collected in a copper cylinder; and it can accumulate so much that it will kill you if you carelessly touch the cylinder. But if you lower a copper chain from the cylinder to the ground, then no electricity will be collected, even if you spin the wheel until you sweat. This is what this chain is, lowered to the ground, that is, self-indulgence and self-pity. No matter how much you work, they will not allow anything spiritual to form in the soul. They will eat and destroy all the fruit of their labors. It is true that self-pity and self-indulgence do not lead everyone directly to an apparently bad life; but nevertheless, they make their whole life barren. Whoever suffers from them is neither warm nor cold, neither this nor that. And in the Apocalypse such people are threatened with complete rejection, with disgust from them and disgust with them (Apocalypse 3:15–16). Therefore, please think about your self-pity and hasten to deal with it as it rightly deserves. You ask to pray for deliverance from him. No one's prayer will help here. Self-sacrifice, which destroys self-pity, is the starting point from which both God’s help and the help of mutual fraternal prayer begin. And you must deny yourself. For this action, then the gifts of God will go. If you do not imagine this sacrifice, then do not expect help, neither from above nor from around you. Remember the example that happened in the Egyptian desert. (7, p. 287) Self-pity leads to insensitivity, negligence and oblivion Without resistance to self-pity there can be no good self-government. The harm from indulging them is especially that the enemy squeezes into the crowd of these thoughts and images and, in the confusion, seeds bad sympathies, desires and even intentions. Several repetitions of this form an unkind, self-indulgent system within, which then initiates corresponding activity outside, which will little by little displace the disposition towards the former pure, brotherly and God-loving deeds. This is the source of insensitivity, negligence and oblivion of these giants of the enemy camp - the Goliaths. (16, p. 88) You have portrayed yourself as such a lazy person that it is out of your hands. Of course, you are lazy only for spiritual things, to pray, to listen to yourself, to remember God, death, and so on... You once wrote that you were reading a book “what is spiritual life...” It depicts that we have three tiers of life: spiritual life, mental and carnal... The last two are selfish. The first requires self-sacrifice both at the beginning and in the continuation, and in every task. Why does mental and physical life go on without much sacrifice? – Because their needs, their desires and objects of satisfaction are visual, tactile... Having become accustomed to this tactility, we become motionless towards detached objects. The soul is cold towards them, and even more so the flesh... (the soul is ψυχή ... from ψυχος cold); and they are passionate about their objects, burning with lust. However, the procedure of desire is the same, and in the spirit as with them... The soul knows that this or that object will bring it, and reaches out to it, wanting to taste the sweetness from it... Transfer this to the spiritual. One must see and at least presumably be convinced that from this or that spiritual object or deed there will be such and such good, consolation, pleasure. If this blessing has already been experienced at least once, then the confidence here will not be speculative, but real, true, based on experience. I believe you have this last one. If you please, now stand firmly on this every time laziness overcomes you, and this is the same as wanting the spiritual and the carnal, but not the spiritual, and try a little to restore the feeling of the already experienced benefit from the spiritual matter, from which laziness is now distracting. As soon as you manage to do this, the soul will give in; for she is powerless to stand against the spirit. If you remember spiritual sensations, you cannot help but realize that these sensations, like heaven from earth, stand above mental and physical sensations. Because of this superiority, already experienced, the weak trace of spiritual sensation repels everything spiritual and is strong to attract our consciousness and will... You portray in this way that your lower side takes over the higher, as if by some kind of necessity... If it takes, you are to blame... because you don’t do what you should, or do nothing so that it doesn’t take over, but leave the mother-in-law to your dispositions, as if they flow without control (remember Krylov’s fable: Vaska listens and eats), and even more than that, remaining on their side with his wills. So make it a law, as soon as laziness attacks the spiritual, to restore the feeling of good from it and go over to its side with a decisive will, merciless towards yourself, in the conviction that otherwise you will not get into the kingdom. – A small struggle is required, but everyone is capable of it, and you are more than many... So don’t be so kind as to wag: the spirit is vigorous, the flesh is weak... Give up the flesh and go to the vigorous spirit... And everything will go well... (16, pp. 41–43) So: as soon as the urge to indulge and be lazy comes, quickly remember these promises, and you will overcome laziness. For at the same time you will have to think about the fact that the more relentlessly and urgently you do everything, the sooner you will receive what you are looking for. And if you are lazy, it may happen that you won’t get anything at all. For the benefit you give yourself after your work will be considered a reward for it, and there is nothing to give you for it. (7, p. 459) Drive away laziness by exciting yourself to jealousy Laziness attacks you, a desire for benefits, indulgences, and peace of the flesh comes. You do well not to give in; however, your intransigence is incomplete. What I mean is that, despite these tempting attacks, you still do what you think should be done, but you do it reluctantly. “Even though you say it reluctantly, I do everything.” And that's good, as I said; there is struggle and victory here. But it would be necessary to carry this struggle to the end so that the victory would be complete, that is, to reach the point of doing although, driving away mercilessly reluctantly. For this is a reluctant concession to laziness and feeds it, even if it is not fat. If you please, when you drive away laziness, excite yourself to the point of zeal, so that you can quickly and energetically do what laziness has delayed you from doing. And this will only be a real victory and the overcoming of laziness, and not what you do. Liveliness is a real feature of real spiritual life. But you, it seems, really want to become completely lazy, because you ask: “Can I really pull this yoke of labor until my death?!” – So, are you tired of it and want to get rid of it as soon as possible? - No, you can’t reset it; and the time will come when it will not become a burden, because life will get used to it, and what now seems to you labor and deprivation, then will cease to be labor and deprivation, but the usual, as if natural order of life. The burden associated with it, which makes this order of labor a yoke, will evaporate from internal heat. The heat of energy will burn this yoke, and you, without throwing away the yoke, will cease to be under the yoke. The condition for achieving this as quickly as possible is to never, in big or small things, allow yourself to act as if reluctantly, but always elevate yourself to living action. (7, pp. 355–356) You mention laziness. Where there is zeal for salvation and fear of God, there cannot be laziness: there is no place for it. Tell me, whoever sees that there is a fire in the house will lie sprawled on the stove?! Likewise, one who has the fear of God and the fear of death cannot be lazy and careless. - This is how you drive away laziness. (15, p. 179) You write that laziness overcomes. How can this be? Manage to cheer yourself up. This weakness does not happen to anyone! You have to break yourself, and then, seeing that nothing will take you, endure this state. The Lord will give you consolation and movement, and your soul will come to life. Try to do a good deed that would require work and sacrifice... and maybe your soul will begin to play. Otherwise, endure it, there’s nothing to do. This is temporary. Sometimes because of bodily weakness, sometimes because you’re tired of waiting. (13, pp. 36–37) Not feeling sorry for yourself does not mean heaping mountains on yourself, but dragging on the same ordinary monastic life, not allowing any weakening in anything. They call in the morning. Self-pity says: lie down for a minute... Don’t listen, and that’s a blow to self-pity. Standing in church, you feel the urge to open your legs and lean against the wall. Refuse and stand in line, behold another blow. The thought came to me: let me go out and get some air; refuse - and another blow. I came home from matins: let me go to bed, don’t let me. Give me a book while I lie down and read it... don’t let me sit down and read. That's all, and every step will be a blow to self-pity. And any excessive feats are not our business. (12, p. 189) How to overcome self-indulgence and decide to take the path of self-sacrifice? If you do not deny yourself and continue to follow the broad path, then, as the Savior said, you will fall through the wide gates into hell... This is inevitable. -Then put yourself in the moment of dying... when all that remains for you is death and then judgment on your life. Imagine more vividly what word you will hear (from the Judge God): come or go. If you truly feel this, then you will rise up as if scorched by fire, and there will be no room for self-indulgence. But you have to keep yourself in such fear constantly. (13, pp. 4–5) “As you are the earth and you will go back to the earth” Please write down in your memory that from the minute you wake up to the minute you close your eyes to sleep, you must conduct business in such a way all the time that the whole day represents a continuous chain of acts of self-sacrifice, and all for the sake of the Lord, before His face for His glory. Acts of self-sacrifice are not a huge thing, but go among the ordinary affairs of everyday life and consist of internal decisions and turns of will. They can be under every word, look, movement and under every little thing. Their distinctive feature is not to allow self-indulgence in either big or small things, but to go against themselves in everything. I don’t know how to explain this to you from your everyday life with examples. If you please, arrange this yourself. Sit down, for example, on the sofa; there comes a desire to fall apart and get sloppy; refuse and bring your limbs into tension, into line. It’s like this in everything. This is a small thing, but a ruble is made up of half rubles. By the end of the day, you will see how your conscience will tell you that you stood guard well. And consolation. And most importantly, once you get used to this on small things, you will be more willing to do the same on big things. (11, p. 121) Do not allow yourself benefits under any circumstances. A day or two will pass in the labors of self-observation and self-compulsion, the enemy will come up and start buzzing in your ears: well, it will be, you worked hard, now give yourself a little break. 2 such a flattering suggestion that you won’t even think that you need to resist it, and yet it is so villainous that just give in to it a little, and everything inside will be agitated. Easing yourself is the same as a small hole in a dam. Once this hole appears, you won’t be able to hold the dam, the water will certainly blow it apart. Relaxation does the same thing inside us: everything will be marked out, so that the restoration of oneself will have to begin again all over again. Fear this as the most evil, albeit sweet-talking, enemy. There are two particular cases when you should be wary of this. It's Easter time and spring. After all, with fasting we all more or less settle down. Why then doesn’t everyone survive? Because they give themselves benefits - some on Easter, some after it - in the spring. On Easter you think: it’s a festive time, you can give yourself some freedom. Anyone who listens will go broke in good spirits. For, having given himself freedom, he no longer returns to self-restraint and begins to do the will of his flesh and thoughts in the old way. Spring is a pleasant time, but how much evil it does in moral terms! Have you seen how the lambs, when they are driven out onto the grass, jump, bleat, and frolic? Why is this? Life plays. Everyone feels this leap of life, not only the young, but also the old. There is nothing wrong here. This is an innocent feeling, but how people use it, it is not entirely sinless. Joy of life! Having felt it, we must thank the Lord that on earth, full of grief for our sins, He also left a place for joys, so that we would not fall into despair. What happens? They will not thank God, but will set out to prolong this joy, dissipate and return to their old ways. This joy, or this leap of life, is pleasant, but it is completely sensual, bodily - and the same urges appear from it - sensual, bodily. You will want to look at what is pleasing to the eye, to hear what is pleasing to the ear, to smell what is pleasing to the sense of smell, to breathe the air, to be blown by a pleasant breeze - in general, to multiply pleasant sensory impressions. Whoever follows these urges will not sit within himself, but will certainly come out; then attention to oneself stops; thoughts, feelings and desires will again begin to seethe and enter into the same disarray. The thought of God will go away, and inner peace will disappear. The soul tormented by conscience will say: tomorrow I will not do this; but tomorrow it’s the same again, and the day after tomorrow; and then their hands gave up. Life will go on again, “as life is.” All the fruit of Lenten labors in ordering the soul will be lost. And this is for the sole reason that they were not careful and were not able to deny their feelings some pleasures, and while allowing others, they did not take care to keep their inner in due fear and, carried away by the external, left it (the inner) without attention. May the Lord protect you from this! A cautious thought has already occurred to you: well, you won’t be able to resist! If you definitely don’t resist, then God knows whether you will return to such decisive intentions. But know that, turning back, you will be much worse than you were when you did not start such a new life. The Savior compares such recurrent descents into disorder with the return of an old demon to an abandoned house again, but not just one, but with seven others. And, He concluded His parable, the last pot of the first will be for that man. May the Lord deliver you from this! (3, pp. 162–164)