Чин внимания себе для живущего посреди мира

The soul of all exercises about the Lord is “attention.” Without “attention” all these exercises are fruitless, dead. Anyone who wants to be saved must arrange himself in such a way that he can maintain “attention to himself” not only in solitude, but also in the midst of absent-mindedness, into which he is sometimes drawn by circumstances against his will. Let the fear of God overcome all other sensations on the scales of the heart: then it will be convenient to maintain “attention to yourself,” both in the silence of your cell and amid the noise surrounding you on all sides. Prudent moderation in food, reducing heat in the blood, greatly promotes “attention to oneself”; and the heating of the blood - somehow: from excessive consumption of food, from increased body movement, from inflammation with anger, from intoxication with vanity and from other reasons - gives rise to many thoughts and dreams, otherwise, absent-mindedness. The Holy Fathers prescribe to those who wish to “take heed to themselves,” first of all, moderate, uniform, constant abstinence from food 315 . Having woken up - in the image of the awakening from the dead awaiting all people - direct your thoughts to God, sacrifice to God the beginnings of the thoughts of the mind, which has not yet accepted any vain impressions. With silence, very carefully, having completed everything necessary for the body for one who has risen from sleep, read the usual prayer rule, caring not so much about the quantity of prayer as about its quality, that is, that it be done with “attention,” and, because of the “attention,” so that the heart is sanctified and enlivened by prayerful tenderness and consolation. After the prayer rule, again taking care of “attention” with all your might, read the New Testament, mainly the Gospel. During this reading, carefully note all the testaments and commandments of Christ, so that you can direct your activities, visible and invisible, according to them. The amount of reading is determined by a person’s strengths and circumstances. One should not burden the mind with excessive reading of prayers and Scripture, and one should also not miss one’s duties for immoderate exercise in prayer and reading. Just as excessive consumption of food upsets and weakens the stomach, so excessive consumption of spiritual food weakens the mind, produces in it an aversion to pious exercises, and makes it despondent 316 . For the novice, the Holy Fathers offer frequent prayers, but short ones. When the mind grows in spiritual age, becomes stronger and matures, then it will be able to pray unceasingly. For Christians who have reached the age of perfection in the Lord, the words of the Holy Apostle Paul apply: “I would like men to say prayers in every place, lifting up their holy hands, without anger or reflection” (1 Tim. 2:8), that is, dispassionately and without any amusement or hesitation. What is characteristic of a husband is still unusual for a baby. Having been illuminated through prayer and reading by the Sun of Truth, our Lord Jesus Christ, let a person go out to the work of the daily field, heeding that in all his deeds and words, in his entire being, the all-holy will of God, revealed and explained to people in the Gospel commandments, reigns and acts. If you have free minutes during the day, use them to read “with attention” some selected prayers, or some selected passages from Scripture, and with them again strengthen your spiritual strength, exhausted by activity in the midst of a busy world. If you don’t get these golden minutes, you should regret them as if you were losing a treasure. What is lost today does not need to be lost the next day: because our heart conveniently gives in to negligence and forgetfulness, from which is born a gloomy ignorance that is so disastrous in the cause of God, in the cause of human salvation. If you happen to say or do something contrary to the commandments of God, then immediately heal the sin with repentance, and through sincere repentance return to the path of God from which you deviated by violating the will of God. Do not stray outside the path of God! - Confront the sinful thoughts, dreams and sensations that come, with faith and humility, the gospel commandments, saying with the holy Patriarch Joseph: “How can I create this evil verb and sin before God?” (Gen.39:9). He who pays attention to himself must abandon all daydreaming in general, no matter how tempting and plausible it may seem: all daydreaming is a wandering of the mind, outside the truth, in the land of ghosts that do not exist and cannot come true, flattering the mind and deceiving it. Consequences of daydreaming: loss of “attention” to oneself, absent-mindedness and hardness of heart during prayer; hence the mental disorder. In the evening, going to sleep, which in relation to the life of that day is death, consider your actions during the past day. For someone who leads an “attentive life,” such an examination is not difficult: because due to “attention to oneself,” the forgetfulness that is so characteristic of an entertained person is destroyed. So, having remembered all your sins in deed, word, thought, feeling, bring repentance to God for them with disposition and a heartfelt guarantee of correction. Then, after reading the prayer rule, conclude the day begun with the Thought of God with the Thought of God. Where do all the thoughts and feelings of a sleeping person go? What kind of mysterious state is this - a dream in which the soul and body are alive, and do not live together, alien to the consciousness of their life, as if dead? Sleep is as incomprehensible as death. During it, the soul rests, forgetting the most severe sorrows and disasters of the earth, in the image of its eternal peace; and the body!... if it rises from sleep, it will certainly rise from the dead. The great Agathon said: “It is impossible to succeed in virtue without intense “attention to oneself”” 317. Amen. Written out of a desire to lead an attentive life in the midst of the world for some pious worldly person. Dobrotoll., part II, chapters of St. Philotheus of Sinai. You might be interested in: