Совещание души с умом

Soul . “I grieve unbearably, I can’t find consolation anywhere.” I find no joy and consolation either outside or inside me. I cannot look at a world filled with continuous seduction, deception, and murder. A careless contemplation of the world, a few careless glances at its temptations, ignorance of the poisonousness of its impressions, a childish, inexperienced trust in it attracted its arrows into me and filled me with deadly wounds. Why should I look at the world? Why be curious about him, study him in detail, or become attached to him, when I am only a short-term wanderer in the world. I will definitely leave him, and I don’t know when I will leave him. Every day, every hour, I must be ready to be called into eternity. No matter how long my wandering through the desert of the world may be, it is insignificant before immeasurable eternity, before which hours, and days, and years, and centuries are equal. The world itself with all its enormous pandemonium is passing by: “the earth and the works in it will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10). These deeds will be burned - the fruits of the fall and rejection of people. The wounds inflicted on me by the world made the world disgusting to me, but did not protect me from new wounds. I don't want to be in the middle of the world! I don't want to obey him! I don’t want to take any part in serving him! I don't even want to see him! But he follows me everywhere: he forcibly invades, he presents himself to my eyes in enchanting beauty, he relaxes, he wounds, he amazes, he destroys me. I myself, constantly carrying and containing within myself the beginning of self-delusion and deception plunged into me by sin, continue to be seduced by the world: hating it, I am involuntarily drawn to it and greedily drink its poison, piercing myself deeply with the arrows it shoots at me. I turn my longing and inquisitive gaze from the world to myself. I don’t find anything comforting in myself. Countless sinful passions are boiling inside me! I am constantly defiled by various sins, then anger and memory of malice torment me; then I feel that I am burning with the flame of fornication. My blood is agitated, my imagination is heated by some action that is alien and hostile to me, and I see tempting images ahead of me, enticing me to dream of sin, to enjoy the destructive temptation. I don’t have the strength to run away from seductive images: my painful eyes are involuntarily, forcibly drawn to them. And there is nowhere to run! I fled into the desert: pictures of sin came with me to the desert, or preceded me in it - I don’t know; in the desert they appeared to me with special, murderous vividness. These images do not exist: both images, and their existence, and beauty are deception and seduction; but together they are alive, and nothing, neither time itself, nor decrepit old age, can kill them. They are washed away from the imagination by a tear of repentance: I have no tears of repentance. They are smoothed out of the imagination by humble prayer, combined with the cry of the heart: I have no such prayer. My heart is devoid of tenderness, devoid of saving crying: it is motionless within me, like a fragment of an insensitive stone. Despite my terrible sinfulness, I rarely see my sinfulness. Despite the fact that in me good is mixed with evil, and has become evil, just as fine food mixed with poison becomes poison, I forget the plight of the good that was given to me at creation, damaged, distorted during the fall. I begin to see my goodness in myself as whole, immaculate and to admire it: my vanity takes me from the fruitful and fat pasture of repentance to a distant country! To a rocky and barren land, to a land of thorns and weeds, to a land of lies, self-delusion, and destruction. I leave the fulfillment of the commandments of Christ, and begin to fulfill the suggestions of my heart, to follow its feelings, its will; I boldly call the feelings of fallen nature good, its actions virtue - this goodness and this virtue are worthy of earthly and heavenly, human and Divine rewards. When I tried to fulfill the commandments of Christ, not listening to the will of my heart and forcing it, I recognized myself as a debtor to God and people, an unfaithful and indecent slave! Following self-delusion, sadness, despondency and some kind of terrible darkness appear in me. Sadness deprives me of moral activity, despondency takes away the strength to fight sin, and darkness is a consequence of sadness and despondency - thick darkness hides God from me, His impartial and threatening judgment, the promised rewards for Christian virtue, the promised executions for the rejection of Christianity and its all-holy statutes. I begin to sin fearlessly, with a silent conscience, as if killed or sleeping for that time. Rarely, very rarely, does a moment of tenderness, light and hope occur. Then I feel different. But the moment of light is short. My sky is not often clear. Like black clouds, passions fly over me again, and again plunge me into darkness, confusion, bewilderment, and destruction. My mind! You are the leader of the soul. Instruct me! Bring into me blissful calm! Teach me how I can close the entrance to the impressions of the world, how I can curb and suppress the passions that arise within me. The world and passions have tormented and tormented me. Mind . – My answer will be disappointing. And I, along with you, soul, am stricken with sin. I am quite aware of what you were talking about. How can I help you when I myself have been dealt deadly blows, when I am deprived of the power to act autocratically? In my continuous activity, given to me by the Creator and constituting my property 54, I am continuously subject to outside influence. This influence is the influence of sin, by which I am damaged and upset. This influence constantly distracts me from God, from eternity, draws me into the seduction of the vain and transitory world, into the seduction of myself, into the seduction of you, soul, into the seduction of sin, into the seduction of fallen angels. My major flaw lies in the incessant entertainment that rapes me. Struck by entertainment, I soar and wander around the universe without need and without benefit, like other outcast spirits. I would like to stop, but I cannot: the entertainment plunders me, carries me away. Plundered by entertainment, I cannot look, as I should, either at you, soul, or at myself. Because of entertainment, I cannot listen, as I should, to the Word of God: outwardly I seem to be attentive, but while I try to listen, I involuntarily deviate in all directions, carried away very far, to completely foreign objects, the consideration of which is not only unnecessary for me, but is also extremely harmful. Due to murderous entertainment, I cannot bring a strong, real prayer to God and be imprinted with the fear of God, with which my absent-mindedness would be destroyed, and my thoughts would become obedient to me, through which I would communicate to you, my soul, heartfelt contrition and tenderness. My entertainment makes you bitter; with your bitterness and insensitivity, I am having fun even more. Entertainment is the reason for my weakness in the fight against sinful thoughts. From entertainment I feel darkness and heaviness: when a sinful thought appears, I will not suddenly or quickly recognize it if it is covered with an excuse. If he is obvious, then I, arming myself against him, do not reveal decisive and irreconcilable hatred towards him, I enter into a conversation with my killer, and enjoy the deadly poison that he slyly puts into me. I am rarely a winner, often a loser. Because of my amusement, forgetfulness overwhelms me: I forget God, I forget eternity, I forget the vicissitudes and deceitfulness of the world, I am drawn to it, I carry you, my soul, with me. I forget my sins. I forget my fall, I forget my plight: in my darkness and self-delusion, I begin to find merit in myself and in you. I begin to seek and demand recognition of these virtues from a deceitful world, ready to agree for a minute in order to laugh even more angrily later. There are no virtues in us: the dignity of man is completely defiled by the fall, and he will rightly think about himself if, as some great ascetic advises, he considers himself an abomination 55. How is it not an abomination, a weak, smallest creature, called by the Almighty Creator of everything visible and invisible into existence from nothingness and armed against its Creator? How is it not an abomination to be a creature that has nothing of its own, received everything from God, and rebelled against God? What an abomination is a being who is not ashamed of paradise, who, in the midst of heavenly bliss, allowed himself to willingly listen to terrible slander and blasphemy against God, who proved his immediate consent to slander and blasphemy by actively trampling on the commandments of God? Isn’t the mind an abomination—the receptacle and constant parent of nasty and evil thoughts, thoughts that are constantly hostile to God? What if the soul is not an abomination, in which violent and monstrous passions constantly revolve, like poisonous snakes, basilisks and scorpions in a deep ditch? Isn’t the body an abomination, conceived in iniquities, born in sins, an instrument of sin during a short earthly life, a source of a deadly stench at the end of earthly life? We, the soul, constitute one spiritual being: I think, you feel. But we are not only damaged by sin, we are cut by it, as it were, into two separate beings, almost always acting opposite to one another. We are separated, opposed to each other, we are separated from God! By the sin that lives in us, we are opposed to the All-Holy and All-Perfect God Himself! Soul . - Your answer is regrettable, but it is fair. This serves as some consolation that our distressed state is in mutual relation, and we can share our grief, we can help each other. Give us some advice on how to get out of our general disorder? I noticed that my feelings always correspond to your thoughts. The heart cannot fight a thought for long: it always submits to it, and when it resists, it resists only for a short time. My mind! Be a guide to our common salvation. Mind . – I agree that the heart does not resist thought for long. But it, having shown submission for a minute, again rebels against the most correct, against the most God-pleasing thought, rebels with such strength and bitterness that it almost always overthrows and carries me away. Having brought me down, it begins to breed in me the most absurd thoughts, serving as an expression and revelation of my innermost passions. What should I say about my thoughts? Due to my disorder and damage from sin, my thoughts are extremely fickle. In the morning, for example, well-known thoughts were born in me about our spiritual life, about the invisible, difficult feat, about our earthly situation, relationships, circumstances, about our fate in eternity; these thoughts seemed solid. Suddenly, by noon, or earlier, they disappear by themselves from some unexpected meeting, replaced by others, which, in turn, are recognized as worthy of attention. In the evening new thoughts appear with new justifications. At night I am troubled by other thoughts, which during the day were hiding somewhere, as if in ambush, in order to suddenly appear to me during the silence of the night, to outrage me with the charming and murderous picture of sin. In vain, taught by the Word of God, I recognize as correct only those thoughts to which you, soul, respond with a state of deep calm, humility, love for your neighbors; In vain I am convinced that all thoughts that not only produce torment and disorder in you, but are also combined with the slightest confusion, with the slightest bitterness in you, are alien to the truth, completely false, deceptive, disastrous, no matter what mask of righteousness they are covered. This knowledge is in vain! This sure sign, which decisively separates the spirits of good from evil in the world, is in vain! Due to an incomprehensible illness that lives within me, comprehended only by experience, I cannot tear myself away from the murderous thoughts generated in me by sin. I can neither suppress them nor expel them when they begin to boil inside me like worms; I can neither drive them away nor push them away from me when they attack me from the outside, like robbers, like fierce, bloodthirsty animals. They hold me captive, in hard work, torment me, torment me, every hour they are ready to tear me to pieces, to strike me with eternal death. I involuntarily communicate the torment they produce to you, soul, I communicate it to our very body, which is painful and weak because it is ulcerated with countless ulcers, pierced by both arrows and sinful swords. Poisoned by the poison of eternal death, you, soul, grieve unbearably, looking for consolation, but cannot find it anywhere. In vain do you think to find this joy in me: I was killed along with you; together with you I am buried in a cramped and gloomy tomb of invisibility and ignorance of God. Our attitude towards the living God, as if towards a non-existent and dead one, is true evidence of our own mortification. Soul . - My leader! My eye! My highest spiritual power! My mind! You make me feel hopeless. If you, being my light, recognize yourself as darkness, then what can I expect from my other powers, which I share with dumb animals? What can I expect from my will or the strength of desire, from jealousy or natural anger, which then can only act differently than they act in cattle, beasts and demons when they are under your leadership. You told me that, with all your weakness, with all your darkness, with all your deadness, the Word of God still acts on you and has given you at least a sign of distinguishing good from evil, which is the greatest difficulty. And I became a partaker of this knowledge! Already, when I begin to feel embarrassment and frustration, at the same time I feel the incorrectness of my state, I feel distrust and hatred towards this state, I try to overthrow myself from a state that is unnatural and hostile to me. On the contrary, when you stop, even for a short time, as if in a familiar embrace, in thoughts drawn from the Word of God - what consolation I feel! How it begins from the depths of my heart, from the very treasures of my heart, to send forth praise to God! What awe I am overwhelmed by before the greatness of God, then revealed to me! What an insignificant speck of dust I seem to myself in the midst of a huge and diverse universe! What a blessed silence, as if brought by the breath of a heavenly wind, begins to blow through me and cool me, exhausted by the heat and lack of rain! What a sweet and healing tear, originating in the heart, ascends to the head, and flows onto the heated cheek from a humble and meek eye, looking at everyone and everything so peacefully, so lovingly! Then I feel the healing of my nature! Then the internal struggle is destroyed! Then my strengths, cut and fragmented by sin, are united into one. Having become one with you and with my other powers, having attracted my body itself to this unity, I feel the mercy of the Creator towards His fallen creation, I actively recognize the meaning and power of the Redeemer, healing me with his omnipotent and life-giving commandment. I confess Him! I see the action of the worshiped All-Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and sent by the Son! I see the action of God the Spirit, introduced by God the Word, revealing His Divinity with His creative power, through which the broken vessel appears as if it had never been broken, in primeval integrity and beauty. My mind! turn to the Word of God, from which we have already borrowed countless benefits, but have lost them through our negligence, our coldness towards the gifts of God. We exchanged priceless, spiritual gifts for the deceptive ghost of gifts, under the guise of which sin and the world offered us their poison. My mind! Turn to the Word of God! Look there for consolation for me: at the present moment my grief is unbearable, and I am afraid lest I fall into final destruction - into despair. Mind . – The Word of God, the soul, solves our bewilderment with the most satisfactory definition. But many people, having heard the Word of the Spirit and interpreted it for themselves with their carnal understanding, said about the life-giving Word of God: “This Word is cruel, and who can listen to it”? (John 6:60). Hear, O soul, what the Lord said: “Whoever finds his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). “He who loves his life will destroy it; and he who hates his soul in this world will preserve it for eternity” (John 12:25). Soul . – I am ready to die if God commands. But how can I die, immortal? I don’t know of a weapon that could take my life. Mind . “Do not believe, soul, that the commandment of Christ commands you to die alone, that I am excluded from the sentence.” No! I must share the cup of death with you and be the first to drink it, as the main culprit of our common fall, rejection, disaster, temporary and eternal death. Death and destruction, which God requires of us, do not consist in the destruction of our existence: they consist in the destruction of self-love, which has become, as it were, our life. Self-love is the distorted love of a fallen person for himself. Self-love idolizes its fallen, falsely named mind, tries in everything and constantly to satisfy its fallen, falsely directed will. Self-love is expressed in relation to neighbors either through hatred, or through man-pleasing, that is, pleasing human passions, and towards the objects of the world, which he always abuses, through addiction. Just as holy Love is “the soul of perfection” (Col. 3:14), and is made up of the fullness of all virtues: so self-love is that sinful passion that is made up of the fullness of all other various sinful passions. To destroy self-love in us, I must reject all my understandings, even if I were very rich in understandings provided by the teachings of the world and according to the elements of the world (Col. 2:8). I must plunge into the poverty of spirit and, naked by this poverty, washed by weeping, cornered, softened by meekness, purity and mercy, accept the understanding that the right hand of my Redeemer is pleased to inscribe on me. This right hand is the Gospel. And you, soul, must renounce your will, no matter how painful it may be for your heart, even if the feelings and desires of your heart seem to you the most righteous and the most graceful. Instead of your own will, you must fulfill the will of Christ our God and Savior, no matter how disgusting and cruel it may be for a self-loving heart. This is the death that God requires of us, so that by voluntary death we destroy the death that lives violently in us, and receive as a gift the resurrection and life flowing from the Lord Jesus. Soul . – I decide to self-sacrifice: just from the words you uttered about self-sacrifice, I already began to feel joy and hope. Let us leave life, which gives rise to hopelessness, and accept death, the guarantee of salvation. Lead me, my mind, in following the commands of God, and remain unswervingly in that Word, which announced itself: “Whoever abides in Me, and I in him, will produce much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Amen. Callista Katafigiota, Dobrot., part 4, ch. 3. The brother asked the Monk Sisoes the Great to say a word for his benefit. The elder answered him that a monk should be lower than idols. When asked by his brother what it would mean to be lower than idols, the elder said: “The Scripture says about idols that they “have lips and do not speak, have eyes and do not see, have ears and do not hear” (Ps. 113:13-14): a monk should be like that. And just as idols are an abomination, so let a monk think of himself that he is an abomination.” Patericon of Skitsky, letter S. You might be interested in: