Письма к монашествующим (продолжение)

Letter 101. To her: about sorrows and repentance What I find useful for myself, I also find useful for you, namely: complacent patience with external and internal sorrows and timely preparation of oneself through repentance for the transition to eternity. Letter 102. To her: about self-reproach It is good for the monk and nun, who have lived for a long time in the monastery and have reached old age, to spend the rest of their days in attention to themselves, in silence, in preparing themselves for the transition to eternity. Anyone who wants to remain silent piously and successfully must base his life on constant self-reproach, as a certain great elder of Mount Nitria told Theophilus the Patriarch of Alexandria. I ask your holy prayers for me to the Lord, so that I too may be granted the work that I indicate to you, and without which it is impossible for the soul to calm down and come out of a state of confusion and entertainment. Letter 103. To her: about entertainment The sea, agitated by the winds, continues to be agitated for a considerable time even after the winds subside. Likewise, the mind that has been influenced by entertainment continues to feel this influence even after moving away from entertainment for a considerable time. One must endure such a situation complacently and try to distract the mind from entertainment to the remembrance of death and the judgment of God. May the merciful Lord overshadow your feat with His mercy! Letter 104. To her: about serving the Church You did well in refusing (the abbess) for the first time out of consciousness of weakness and unworthiness. Next - what God will give. Saint Simeon the New Theologian said that any service in the bosom of the Church, when it is carried out with the goal of pleasing God, is blessed. Act according to the will of God, begging God to grant you to act in a manner pleasing to Him. Letter 105. To her: temporary punishment delivers from eternal My state of health is similar to yours: even on Holy Easter I could not go to Church. We must thank God for the punishment sent during earthly life: it gives hope of deliverance from executions in eternity, which constitute a necessary consequence of sinfulness. Letter 106. To a certain abbot: about mercy Upon my arrival at the monastery of St. Nicholas of Christ, I stopped for some time and wrote to you. I expected the entertainment, which my soul had acquired in such abundance during the long journey, to gradually subside, being gradually weakened by solitude. No! My hopes didn't come true! I continue to have fun, losing precious, irretrievable, fleeting time, while I would like to devote it entirely to repentance. I had to stay, and stay for a long time, in Kostroma, I had to visit Yaroslavl, I had to take care of the arrangement of my cells: all this entertains, brings into the soul care for the earth, takes it away from the care of what is essential, care for Heaven. And any concern for Heaven, if it is not animated by repentance, is dead and untrue. “I will proclaim my iniquity and take care of my sin” (Ps. 37:19), - sang the Inspired David. Due to the fact that I cannot tear myself away from the persistent entertainment that sticks to me, it is unfair to deprive you of my letter, to which you have all the rights, as a tribute, as a duty, placed by you on my heart, having shown me so much love and trust. You and your beautiful verbal flock often appear in the eyes of my soul, appear so comfortingly, so close. The spirit shortens the material distance!.. I look at you and say with heartfelt love: “Lord, save them! God bless them! Lord, direct their paths to truly please You!” During our personal meeting, you told me that many reproach you for your mercy towards your neighbors, finding it unnecessary, excessive. You wanted to hear my opinion on this subject. At that time my soul was darkened by destructive entertainment; the heart became coarse in bitterness and insensibility - inevitable properties of the heart, in the absence of repentance. From repentance tenderness is born: tenderness illuminates the cell of the soul, bringing into it spiritual light from the Light of Christ. This light was not in my soul, and it is not there now. Solitude gives at least the opportunity to remember its existence. One memory of the Light already enlightens! With such a recollection, I will tell you my answer, which during the meeting was in silence, or in a promise to answer in writing from solitude. Now I want to fulfill my promise! And then why was it necessary to move your lips and tongue fruitlessly just for reasons of the mind? – there was no answer in my soul. Guided by the Gospel, I begin to look into the depths and heights of the teachings of Christ. I invite you: let us stand on the top of the holy mountain, that is, let us immerse ourselves in repentance and prayer; from them, from the state they give birth to, let us look at the miracles of God “in the lands of Egypt, in the field of Taneos” (Ps. 77:12), in the land of our exile and captivity. Let us beg the Lord to grant us to see these miracles: He opens the eyes of the soul, and then they see the miracles of His law. I consider the mercy commanded by the Lord: I see an unseen abyss, I see a height that is carried away from my eyes. He commands us: “Be ye therefore merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). To fulfill this commandment, one must become as merciful as the infinitely merciful Lord is merciful. “Broad, O Lord, is Your commandment!” (Ps. 119:96). Who will be able to fulfill it in a completely practical way? Is it possible that the one who, embraced by Your Holy Spirit, has abandoned the walking with difficulty and extreme slowness so characteristic of infants along the path of Your commandments, begins to walk along them with gigantic steps, more to fly than to walk, to fly on the wings of the Spirit? But I, a sinner, a gloomy sinner, no matter how I look into myself, I always see the mixture of good and evil brought to the human race by its forefather, who boldly and sinfully ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I seem to people to be merciful; but having accurately checked myself, examined myself, I find in myself one stupid mask of mercy. Vanity has mercy in me; passion is merciful in me; Selfishness is merciful in me, flesh is merciful in me, blood is merciful in me; but for the pure, holy commandment of Christ to move me to mercy - I do not find this in myself. When I, a gloomy sinner, come to my senses for a brief moment and wish to be merciful in accordance with the commandment of Christ, then I see that I must inflict terrible violence on my heart. My heart illness is exposed by the holy commandment, convinced by it, I recognize myself, by the nature of mercy, as hard-hearted, a man-hater in relation to the Gospel. My heart agrees to be merciful according to the movement of blood; but to be merciful according to the commandment of Christ is crucifixion for him. Seeing myself this way, comparing my state with the one depicted in the Gospel for the disciple of Christ, I find that I, who have a natural disposition towards mercy, should not entrust myself to this natural disposition, but should mortify it. I am obliged to force myself to show mercy in accordance with the commandments of the Gospel, even though this would be associated with the violence of the heart, which carries within itself the infection of sin, common to all people. Natural mercy, as a product of flesh and blood, cannot be a God-pleasing virtue. That's not enough! it is hostile to the commandments of the Gospel! The sword of the Gospel was brought to earth to cut and kill him. Those led by natural mercy remain in darkness under the influence of the fierce, all-evil ruler of the world. The Lord, the Savior of the world, during His sojourn on earth, once announced to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem: there he would suffer a lot, be killed, and rise on the third day. Then the supreme of the Apostles, Saint Peter, moved by natural mercy, began to contradict the Lord. “You are merciful, Lord,” he said, “you should not have these things” (Matthew 16:22). To this expression of compassion and natural mercy, the Lord answered Saint Peter: “Follow me, Satan, you are the temptation of Me: you do not think that the essence of God is human” (Matthew 16:23). Was the word “Satan” really only a reproach in the mouth of the God-man? God forbid that such blasphemy should be allowed! With this word, the Lord depicts that the thoughts and feelings of fallen man are under the power of Satan, although apparently they seem good; The actions of man according to the desire of his heart merge into one with the actions of Satan. Our nature is so damaged by the sad fall! “Then,” the Gospel narrates, “Jesus said to His disciples: “If anyone wants to follow Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and come for Me. If anyone wants to save his soul, he will destroy it, and if anyone will lose his soul for My sake, he will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). The mercy that causes it must be put to death. - blood; it must gain that mercy, the cause and source of which is the bright and holy commandment of Christ; it is the Spirit, it is the eternal life. Here is the answer I promised. I advise you what I recognize as necessary for myself: reject the mercy that acts in you from the blood, otherwise, from the feelings of the heart, go into the pursuit of mercy, proclaimed by the Gospel, which has made man God-like. A vast field of achievement and progress will open before you. Whatever success you may achieve in charity, it will seem insignificant to you in comparison with the example of mercy outlined in the Gospel. Your very success will teach you humility and lead you to it. This is the property of spiritual success! On the contrary, the one who does not deny himself, does not destroy his soul, acts according to the attraction of the feelings of the heart, from the movement of the blood: he certainly realizes his “I”, sees good in his movements, revives himself in his actions, little by little acquires a high opinion of himself. Such a person, thinking, succeeds spiritually, succeeds only in a severe fall. A dark charm takes possession of his soul; alien to spiritual life and reason, he plunges deeper and deeper into the false mind and dark delusion. Prelest is the just reward of the one who loved and revered his fallen self, did not want to piously kill himself, did not want the state that St. Apostle: “For no one do I live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). A few words about the Babaevskaya monastery. I'm very pleased with her. Brethren up to ninety people; among them there are several remarkable ascetics. The monastery is communal. The service is very simple, orderly, and reverent. Singing on Sundays and holidays is court singing, on other days - pillar singing. Two churches: cold and warm, spacious; the other two: above the Holy Gate and the hospital room are small. The building, which forms and ends with towers, also houses the abbot's cells and the refectory with all its accessories. At the hospital church there is a small building that houses several elderly and sick monks. On two corners opposite the main building there are two towers in symmetry with those located at the ends of the building. Outside the monastery there is an extensive hotel for visitors. The entire structure is stone. The monastery stands on the slope of a sloping hill, with its main face facing the west, towards the Volga and the Solonitsa River flowing into it. The air is wonderful; the soil of the earth is sand and “cartilage”, which makes it unusually dry. The local monks say that even in the rainiest autumn there is no mud. It's very natural, judging by the ground. Near the monastery itself there is a magnificent grove with luxurious oak trees. And these giants, these elders, have been standing here, of course, for centuries. The oak grove is intersected half a mile from the monastery by bushes; behind them is a grove of dark green spruce trees. Next to the groves, a lovely clearing stretches from the monastery along the shore of Solonitsa. In spring, the waters of the wide-spread Volga cover it and imbue it with abundant moisture. It produces a lot of excellent hay. When I arrived here, the hay had already been harvested, the monastery herd was grazing in the meadow, which, having had its fill of spring, continues to be decorated with unusually tender greenery. This lovely clearing is my walk. I walk under the shadow, which in the morning the grove spreads far across the clearing; my eyes wander freely and unconsciously everywhere, enjoying nature, which here is especially sweet, gentle, dear to my eyes and heart. I love to look at the water, at the vast expanse of water, and draw inexplicable inspiration from there. I used to stand for a long time on the shore of the angry Lake Ladoga, and an angry wave would monotonously come and break its head on the stone at my feet. I looked at the Volkhov from the windows of the Old Ladoga St. Nicholas Monastery, at the gloomy, ever-restless Volkhov. Now from the windows of my cell I look at the majestic Volga. It is no more than a hundred fathoms from the monastery. As soon as you begin to approach the Volga, the whole neighborhood rejoices and laughs. It is clear that this region is prosperous. The Volga itself is unusually pretty and majestic: it is the queen between the rivers! Its streams are somehow meek, gentle, rolling smoothly, but in a huge mass. The storm itself is nothing terrible; like the short-term anger of the kindest person, capable of only good deeds. But the most decent thing for the Volga is when no wind disturbs its streams. Then they roll with inexpressible pleasantness, tenderness, and at the same time strength and liveliness; then the Volga is especially majestic and beautiful. Its surface becomes like a metal mirror, on which small streams ripple in places, like silver scales. I saw how the moon looked thoughtfully into this mirror in the silence of the night, in the inspired silence of the night. But when the sun looks into this mirror, then it is impossible to look at the Volga: it is all in rays, in light, in a dazzling radiance. If you look at the Volga, you can see that its purpose is to feed and enrich people, to spread contentment, life, and joy. Volkhov is not like that: he looks gloomily from his banks - this imperious scaffold and together the grave of many thousands of Novgorodians, restless, harsh, violent, like their Volkhov. A whole landscape is drawn in front of my windows. Peaceful, beautiful Volga and the mouth of Solonitsa; beyond the river there is a vast meadow, on which there is no number of haystacks. Behind the meadow there are sloping mountains with villages, churches and mansions of landowners. Some villages are visible twenty and thirty miles away. The mountains, the further from the Volga, the higher; one mountain peeks out from behind another; one village peeks out from behind another. There, far, far away, where forests, mountains and villages merge into one blue stripe, bordering the sky, there are still white spots on the blue stripe: these are churches. And the opposite bank of the Solonitsa River is so cute! What a pleasant oval steepness! Every day a shepherd drives his flock out of neighboring villages; he often sits on a secluded, brightly green top of a picturesque, pretty hill at the confluence of Solonitsa with the Volga, from there he watches for a long time how cars and other ships carry the fertility of the blessed countries of Russia along the famous river to its northern capital. Opposite the holy gates of the monastery, thousands of springs boil from the mountain, from coarse sand and gravel. The water in them is clear as crystal, cold as ice, tasty, light, a treasure for the ascetic, who, with such excellent water, can conveniently refuse all other drinks. Saint Gregory the Theologian, describing his solitude, favorably mentions spring water, which was his only chosen drink. If you ever happen to visit the Babaevsky monastery of St. Nicholas and want to recognize my cells, then I will give you a sure sign: look at the front of the monastery, at this long, two-story stone building; above it are two symmetrical mezzanines, each with three windows; I occupy one of these mezzanines... When the monastery did not yet exist, many babaykas were stacked on this site for the occasion. The miraculous image of the Saint of Myra-Lycia appeared above them. Piety built a monastery on the site consecrated by the appearance of the icon; and the appearance of the icon over Babayki gave both the icon and the monastery the nickname Babayevsky... Again I am transported on the wings of thought and love to you, to your sheep, to these earthly angels. All of them - so frank, hospitable, brotherly - are Angels. You taught them to be like this! - Tell everyone my deepest bow from me. - When some of them accompanied me on my departure from your Holy Monastery, the conversation turned among other things about the exhaustion that the winged ones are subjected to from their obedience. I, in turn, said that because of this exhaustion, a sequence for Matins and Vespers was established in our monastery. Half of the wing members stand on the wing during these services, but the other does not. The next day those who rested the day before sing, and those who sang the day before rest. At these same services, those newly admitted who have a voice and the ability to sing are taught to sing. Everyone comes to the Divine Liturgy and Vigils. Your brothers liked the order made in the Sergius Hermitage! They confessed to me that some of them feel severe exhaustion, even a disorder in the chest, which may be followed by loss of the ability to sing and chronic illnesses, quickly and directly leading to the grave. I have seen bitter examples of this. I promised your children to speak up for them in my letter to their child-loving Father, who is also my Father. That’s why I’m so bold before him! Letter 107. On the true service of the brethren Work with patient constancy in the lot of blessed Martha, who was honored to prepare and supply food for the Savior, expect with faith a reward from the Lord. He will say to those who served the brethren at His Last Judgment: “Amen I say to you, since you have made one of these least of my brethren, you have created for Me” (Matthew 25:40). And the Lord leads the brethren who diligently served into eternal peace and pleasure of paradise. Remember that a cup of cold water will not lose its reward in Heaven, and do not miss opportunities to increase your reward. Have the thought that you serve not men, but Angels - and your service will delight you. Show love and service to your neighbors for the sake of God, and not out of heartfelt feeling, attraction, election, much less partiality, and your service will be cleansed of impurity and will be a sacrifice acceptable to God. Based on your disposition and trust in me, a sinner, I tell you: your true obedience especially contributes to your salvation according to your natural properties. Succeed, take courage in this ministry, believe in finding the salvation of your soul through it. Beware of hurting your neighbor! The Monk Anthony the Great said: “Our life and death come from our neighbors: if we give rest to our brother, we give rest to God. And if we offend our brother, then we sin against Christ Himself.” And so be afraid to offend the brethren! Both the service and the insult done to his neighbor are accepted by Christ, as if they were done to Him - the Lord. When you must refuse something to your brother, refuse with quietness and at the same time firmness, explaining the impossibility of fulfilling his desire. If, however, you get carried away and sin in some way due to the weakness inherent in all people, do not give in to despondency. On the contrary, immediately run with repentance to the Lord, pray to Him to forgive you - and He will forgive you. Christ is with you. Pray for me, who loves you a lot in the Lord. Letter 108.. To someone who has re-entered the monastery and has been subjected to temptations The path of our life is like sailing across a vast sea. This sea is sometimes calm, sometimes there is a fair wind; but most often there is a storm on it. Seeing the onset of a storm, seeing the storm itself, one should not be embarrassed, become despondent and despair - one should resist the waves and the opposing wind. Otherwise, the spiritual ship may be crushed, even sunk. If during a storm something happens to break or be damaged in the spiritual ship, you should not be discouraged, you should not be embarrassed. We must look for a reliable pier, enter it, repair and correct what is damaged, then continue sailing in the hope of Almighty God. Almighty God will not abandon those who trust in Him! The very storms will serve in favor of the faithful servant of Christ: they will make him a skilled swimmer. Marinas in which the ship of the soul is repaired: prayer in contrition of spirit, reading the Holy Scriptures and the books of the Fathers, advice from a neighbor, if this neighbor is able to give advice about the Lord. Calm down: “Blessed is the man,” says Scripture, “who endures temptation” (James 1:12). On the contrary, everyone is unskilled and unskilled. Let the past storm serve as a preliminary, experimental teaching for you to endure future storms. Consider in advance what your behavior should be in front of them - prepare in advance, study it. And storms will certainly follow. The Wise Lord has established it so that through many sorrows we must enter the Kingdom of Heaven, which we have lost, we are losing through an untimely and unlawful desire for pleasure. All of us, like our forefather, are inclined to stretch out our bold hand to the forbidden fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, we are inclined to material consolation, we are soon seduced by the deceptive ghost of spiritual reasoning and virtue, under the guise of which the evil that kills us hides. Sorrow acts opposite to pleasure, and therefore counteracts our fall and promotes our uprising. Due to these properties, grief is necessary for our salvation. Because of its necessity, the Savior led His holy flock along the path of sorrows to the land of eternal bliss. To the one who refuses sorrows, He declares decisively: “Whoever does not accept his cross and comes after Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:38). Christ is with you. I hope to see you and tell you what God will give to strengthen your soul, which has come out of the world to seek the Lord. I think that I will meet winter in the Babaevsky Monastery; I would like to see spring there too. However, how God will arrange it. Pray for me. Letter 109. To the Father going to Jerusalem; about repentance So, the news that I heard about you is true! You are going to Jerusalem, to those places where the earthly residence of Christ the Savior was, to those places about which He said to the Samaritan wife: “Woman, I believe in them, because the hour is coming, when, neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem, you will worship the Father... But the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth: for the Father is looking for such as those who worship Him” (John. 4:21, 23). Another thing that comes to my mind is the Jerusalem circumstance about which the weakened man of Bethesda complained to the Lord: “Lord, man is not an imam!” (John 5:7). And I would like to go to Jerusalem! I see it in the Gospel. Christ still lives there, saying to His disciples: “Behold, I am with you to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). There is only one gate to this Jerusalem: repentance! I would like to get into the gate! I would like to get to the holy city! I wouldn't want to be left out. I wouldn’t want night to catch me on the way! At night, wild beasts roam outside the city! The belated traveler conveniently becomes their victim!... There was told a parable about the belated foolish virgins. They were left out; - from inside we just heard a voice: “We don’t know you. Get away! " (Matt. 25:1–13). These are the thoughts that came to me involuntarily at the news of your journey to Jerusalem. This news saddened me. Saint John Climacus said about our monastic path: “Woe to the one; and where two or three are gathered in the Lord, there the Lord is among them.” It's a pity for the good companion who is leaving for a distant country! His good word, good deed, hidden from us by great distance, will no longer have any effect on us! I take comfort in the fact that we are all in God’s power, that God’s Providence protects everyone, invisibly holds the hand of His sincere servants, and guides them on the path of His Holy desires. What should I say to you as a parting word? What I repeat to myself constantly! Let us plunge into repentance, let us abide in it, let us cleanse our garments with it. Let's do our job; and God will certainly do His own: He enlightens those purified by repentance with the grace of His Holy Spirit. I wish you a safe journey. I ask you not to interrupt your love for me, a sinner! I ask for your holy prayers for me, a sinner! Letter 110. To a monk in sorrowful circumstances Having lowered the wing of thoughts and feelings, I stand reverently before you. This reverence is taught to me by the Angels, who reverently look, according to Scripture, at the earthly suffering of Christ’s servants. And indeed, it is a wonderful sight, forcing one to be in awe: flesh and blood are trampled under foot. I ask for your holy prayers: because “the Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and His ears are open to their prayer” (Ps. 33:19, 16). The monk Moses of the monastery once saw the Holy Spirit descending on the young monk Zechariah, and recognizing that Zechariah’s tongue had become the reed of a scribe, a shorthand writer - the Spirit, asked him: “Tell me, how should I behave?” - Zechariah took the kamilavka from his head, put it under his feet, trampled it down, crushed it with his feet and said: “So if a person does not erase himself, he cannot be a monk.” He who has death and eternity before his eyes - the indispensable, inevitable lot of every person - laughs at both the sorrows and sweets of earthly things. Whoever the enemy steals the memory of death and eternity, before his eyes temporary life grows into eternity, sorrows grow into immeasurable, invincible giants. As soon as the monk remembered death, the giants fell to dust; the curtain that closed eternity from him was pulled back: before him were earthly events - like activities, fun, and punishments of children! To eternity! To eternity! - Let's go, rushing along the path of life! Everything, both sweet and bitter, remains with us. The former is as if it had never happened. One eternal thing is not subject to time, is not subject to change, must be recognized as essential, worthy of all attention, all concerns: because it remains forever. The devil tries to entertain our eyes so that eternity slips from our eyes. She slipped away - and the man struggles, suffers in the nets of the catcher. Spiritual intelligence, which is humility, cuts through these networks. “Remember your last and you will never sin” (Sir. 7:39) neither by murmuring against the blessed yoke of Christ, nor by exhaustion in the desired and glorious monastic feat. “Whoever endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). “Whoever hesitates,” says God, “My soul is not pleased with him” (Heb. 10:38). And again I ask for your holy prayers. Unworthy Archimandrite Ignatius. Letter 111. Blessing of a good undertaking May the Lord bless your intention and say, “You will follow the path.” Having torn up the soil of your heart with sorrows, crushing and crushing it with temptations from men, may He sow it with the seeds of His holy Truth and may He comfort you with spiritual fruit. Asking for your holy prayers. Letter 112. To a sick old woman who entered a monastery with her two daughters. About the responsibility of parents for raising their children, thanking God in sorrows Forgive me for not knowing your name, but I dare to call you “Mother”. On my arrival at the holy monastery of Spaso-Borodinskaya, you greeted me with such cordial cordiality, as if you were your own son - remember when Madame Abbess introduced me to you at the monastery. Then you touched me deeply! You told me: “We were waiting for you and were waiting here.” Your words remained in my memory, contrary to my custom: I am - very funny - memoryless. I please you! I see some wonderful hand of God over you! You yourself are under the cross of illness; and your children - the fruit of your womb - have bowed their shoulders to the cross of Christ, rejecting the yoke of the world as indecent! “My mother was very upset when I entered the monastery; but on her deathbed, a few minutes before her death, she said: “Now, at this hour, I have one consolation: my eldest son is in a monastery.” I often think: what inexplicable grief will befall those parents at the Last Judgment of Christ who will be angrily and threateningly denounced and condemned by the impartial Judge for sacrificing their children to the world and the ruler of the world! – What incomparable joy will come over those parents whom this Judge will bless and praise for sacrificing their children to God, for preparing them to become residents of a bright paradise! – This joy awaits you! Two crowns await you: one for your own sorrows, the other for your children. Nice crowns of bliss! Would you like to try them on!... They are given full possession in that life - and you can try them on here too. Do you want it? - by the grace of God, I will teach you how to grab (they are subtle, spiritual: not everyone knows how they are stolen!), and how to try on? – Make it a rule to thank the Lord daily for your cup, that is, for your ailments, for all your sorrows, for the lot of your daughters; In particular, thanks to God, sorrowful thoughts are driven away: when such thoughts invade, “thanksgiving” is pronounced in simple words, with attention and often, until peace is brought to the heart. There is no sense in sorrowful thoughts: they do not relieve sorrow, they do not bring any help, they only upset the soul and body. This means: they are from demons - and you need to drive them away from yourself. Sorrowful thoughts are driven away by “thanksgiving” to God. “Thanksgiving” first calms the heart, then brings it consolation, and subsequently brings heavenly joy - a guarantee, a foretaste of eternal joy. When you thank me, you try on the whisk. I would like to see the crown of Heaven tried on on your soul, the crown of spiritual joy! - “Thanksgiving” is made up of simple and few words, but it will accomplish more deeds than thousands of the smartest books can do. “Thanksgiving” is a weapon bequeathed to Christians by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle. “Thanksgiving” – Apostolic, God’s teaching and tradition, thanksgiving to God performs signs and wonders! And these signs are seen not with the eyes of the body, but with the incomparably superior eyes of the soul - and in the spiritual cage: there, from the Divine touch, a painful fire of sorrow leaves Petrov’s mother-in-law - she begins to serve the Lord. Peter is the image of faith: his mother-in-law is the image of the soul, Peter’s closest relative. Thanksgiving is powerful by God Almighty, to whom it is offered! Thanksgiving is strong through faith, which alone, decisively alone, is capable of perceiving and embracing the unlimited power of God: faith has no boundaries, just as God and everything that relates to God have none. Reason, no matter how reasonable, is limited: it is not suitable for the affairs of God. He meets everything of God, every sign with repulsion: “how? really? Why?" - Be gone - obscene, rejected by God!... Come - holy faith and the violence of Christ's preaching - save us! Letter 113. To a certain monk, spiritual son. About illnesses and mental bitterness Thank you for your letter and for your congratulations on my Angel’s Day. I was already greatly comforted by the fact that I saw your hand. I don’t say: because of my love for you (I have not yet achieved love), because of my habit towards you, just seeing your hand, your handwriting comforted me greatly. I did not grieve you for your silence: I excused it by your illness, occupation of a troublesome position, thoughts that say to the sick and busy: “until the next post!” This next post has arrived; I have your letter. And you forgive me the same way I forgive you. All this time I wrote to almost no one, or wrote incorrectly and not as much as I should have; and I wrote, believe me, to the point of exhaustion, to the point of pain. Anyone who understands how illness twists and binds a person will forgive my silence. And you're still sick! What are you going to do? The patient cannot be fully counted among the living, because he lives a half-life, some kind of shadow of life. His very spiritual faculties become numb and do not act as they should. Nowadays Christians do not suffer from chains and swords; Let us suffer torment from illness and other sorrows. Every time is given its own kind of suffering: our time is given petty suffering. Let's endure them. God's scales and rewards. Why should you be bitter? “Mercy and Truth have met. Truth and the World have been embraced” (Ps. 84:11), says Scripture. This means: where there is no “mercy”, where there is “hardness”, there is no “Truth”; where there is no “peace”, there is no “truth”. And a state of the soul that is alien to Divine Truth and Truth cannot be recognized as a “state from God.” You must rid your soul of such a state, and introduce into it the state bestowed by Divine Truth and Righteousness, the state of “Peace and Alms.” You will succeed in this if you say to yourself: “It is not without the Providence of God that what happens to me happens. May the name of God be blessed from now to eternity!” Don’t look too closely at the circumstances of life: they don’t stand still, they go, they rush quickly, they are replaced by one another. And we ourselves are rushing to the limit of eternity! And whoever looks at the circumstances, to whom they seem motionless, conveniently falls into despondency. Whoever sees that everything is flying, and he himself is flying, his heart is light and cheerful. Christ is with you. Pray for me. Letter 114. To a father beset by sorrowful circumstances. About the fight against thoughts Over the dark, deep abyss of sorrow that has suddenly opened before us, be carried on the wings of faith! Do not test the waves with the distrustful foot of human thought, walk boldly along them with courageous steps of faith - and under your feet the soft, wet waves will turn into solid marble or granite slabs. All the more timidity and doubt do not suit you, when you see the sea of ​​sorrows, when you see the strong wind, that the one who calls you to walk on the sea of ​​sorrows, who separates you from the rest of your brethren for such a walk, is the Lord Himself. This calling is together with the blessed election! Christ marks “His” with the seal of suffering! He found your soul useful to Himself, and therefore seals it with His seal! And the small flock, part of Christ, stands separately from the multitude of other people; Those of Christ hold in their hands the sign of their election by Christ - the cup of Christ; on their shoulders is the banner of the Cross of Christ. Far, far away did the sons of the world recoil from them! In a countless crowd, with noise, in a strange rapture, they chase after cares and temporary pleasures. Time, in their eyes, was transformed into eternity! They lead a sorrowless life, succeed in perishable things, are forgotten by God, do not provoke the devil against themselves: they are pleasing to the devil - they are part of him. The Chalice of Christ opens the entrance to the land of the spiritual mind, the spiritual state; whoever enters there and partakes of the meal of spiritual consolation becomes dead to the world, insensitive to temporary sorrows and hardships, begins to make his earthly pilgrimage, as if rushing through the air above all else - on the wings of faith. The shackles of the mind draw us to the earth - the land of torment; while on earth, we are involuntarily subjected to torment: “he who applies mind will add sickness” (Eccl. 1:18), says Scripture. Faith lifts you from the earth, frees you from shackles, removes you from the midst of torment, lifts you to heaven, and brings you into spiritual peace. Those who have entered this peace rest coolly and delightfully on the luxuriously furnished, precious beds of the Vision of God. Accept these lines, spoken from the heart, which from the first meeting with you was aroused in me by your soul, which carries in its depths some special pledge, a mysterious pledge, God-loving, a pledge of pleasing God. Take these lines from the land of suffering in which I settled a long time ago: God did not want me to follow the common, ordinary path! He put me on a separate path, in a very special country - and I rarely meet a traveler walking along this path, visiting this country, with whom I could exchange a word in the language spoken in that country and which has become somewhat familiar to me - it sounds comforting to the ears of my soul. I hear something familiar in its sounds. What, by the way, is happening in this wonderful country? There is an irreconcilable war, there are constant battles, bloody battles between the Israelites and foreign peoples. Among the foreigners, the giants, the sons of Anak, rise up against the Israelites - sorrows that bring us into fear, into weakening, into despair. The spy of Israel - the mind announces about them to the soul and its powers: “I saw the giants, the sons of Anak, and ran before them like giants, and so I ran before them. We cannot go against this language, for he who is stronger is greater than us” (Numbers 13:34,32). Exactly! Thinking based on the ordinary course of things, thoughts that are actually and uniquely human, bring “the horror of the land, which they saw, to the children of Israel” (Num. 13:33). But a true Israelite, faithful to God, is guided by faith in God; he is fully equipped. “My enemies will marry,” he exclaims, “and I will suffer, and will not return until they die. If I insult, they will not be able to: they will fall under my feet. And I will be like dust before the wind, like the clay of the paths I will stroke” (Ps. 17:38–39, 43). – In this war, many and subtle thoughts are not approved, which the mind, relying on itself, on its strength, on the number and height of its knowledge, strives to oppose to the pressing crowds of foreigners. “The sons of Ephraim, barking and shooting bows,” proclaims the Prophet, “will return on the day of battle” (Ps. 77:9). Human thought cannot resist the dense hordes of foreigners! They will knock him down, argue with him, create indignation in the mind, confusion in thoughts; – then victory is on their side! For sure success in the invisible battle with the princes of the air, with the spirits of evil, the dark rulers of the world, you need to take up weapons supplied by faith, supplied by the violence of the preaching of Christ. “Man is more wise than God. And the weak things of God are stronger than man” (1 Cor. 1:25). The path and teaching of faith seem strange and terrible to the carnal mind; but as soon as a person sees through experience, sees with an inner spiritual sensation the power of faith, he immediately and joyfully surrenders to its guidance, as if he has unexpectedly found a priceless mentor, he contemptuously pushes away from himself human wisdom, rejected by God. These are the weapons that the holy violence of Christ’s preaching hands over to the servant of Christ to fight the sons of Anakim—dark thoughts and feelings of sadness that appear to the soul in the form of terrible giants, ready to erase it and devour it: 1st – words: “Thank God for everything.” 2nd – words: “Lord! I surrender to Your Holy Will! Be Your Will with me." 3rd – words: “Lord! I thank You for everything that You have been pleased to send to me.” 4th – words: “I accept what is worthy according to my deeds; remember me. Lord, in Your Kingdom." These short words, borrowed, as you see, from Scripture, were used by the venerable monks with excellent success against thoughts of sadness. The fathers did not enter into any reasoning with the thoughts that appeared; but as soon as a foreigner appeared before them, they grabbed for a wonderful weapon, and right in the face, in the jaws of the foreigner! That is why they were so strong, they trampled all their enemies, became confidants of faith, and through faith - confidants of grace, with the arm of grace, they accomplished supernatural feats. When a sad thought or melancholy appears in your heart, begin with all your soul, with all your strength, to pronounce one of the above sentences; pronounce it quietly, slowly, without getting excited, with attention, in the hearing of only you - say it until the foreigner leaves completely, until your heart is notified of the coming of God’s gracious help. She appears to the soul in the taste of comforting, sweet peace, peace in the Lord, and not for any other reason. In time, the foreigner will again begin to approach you, but you again take up arms, and, as the brilliant commander Caesar bequeathed to his soldiers, aim straight at the enemy’s face: no part of the body is hit so hard, blows are more unbearable than in the face. Do not marvel at the strangeness, the apparent insignificance, of David’s weapons! put them into action and you will see a sign! These weapons - a club, a stone - will do more work than all the collected, thoughtful judgments and research of theologians-theorists, tellers of letters - German, Spanish, English, American! The use of these weapons will gradually transfer you from the path of reason to the path of faith, and along this path will lead you into the vast, wondrous land of the spiritual. There is a meal of hidden manna; According to the testimony of Scripture, Christ allows only winners to it. You were brought into an invisible war in order to have the opportunity to become a winner, and in the dignity of a winner to inherit spiritual treasures. Yet this is brought to you by Christ, who loved you, clearly distinguishing you among “His.” And so, - already from the very shore, looking at the dark, deep sea of ​​sorrows, at the distance where the blue of the waters merges with the blue of the skies, at this boundless distance, frightening faith - listening to the angry talk of the waves, to their monotonous and insensitive splashing - do not indulge in despondency, do not let a sea of ​​sad thoughts into your soul. There are much more dangers here! It is much more convenient to drown in this sea than in the sea of ​​external sorrows. Rejoice! - and again the river: rejoice! You are on the shore of the sea of ​​sorrows in order to sail to the land of joys: the distance of the sea has the opposite shore, although invisible to the eyes of the human mind. This shore is a mental paradise, full of spiritual pleasures. Those who reach this blissful shore forget, in the rapture of pleasure, all the sorrows they endured at sea. Place your fearless foot in the light boat of faith, rush like a winged one over the wet hillocks! Rather than you imagine, rather than you can imagine, you will be transported across the sea, transported to paradise. – But between the spiritual paradise and the carnal, spiritual, ordinary life, which all people live in general, there are placed as a boundary - like a vast sea - the cross and crucifixion. - There is no other way to heaven! Whoever God wants to elevate to paradise, he first begins to lead him on the path to it - to the cross. “It is a sign of God’s election,” said some holy ascetic writer, “when unceasing sorrows are sent to man.” Let us endure the mortification of the world through sorrows, in order to become capable of receiving into ourselves essential revival for God, by a clear, completely tangible action of the Spirit. Let us sacrifice corruption for the Spirit! - Surrender yourself completely to God! throw yourself into the saving abyss of faith, as if into the sea - from a cliff! Leave people aside as instruments of Providence! “These tools are blind; by themselves they have no power, no movement!” “Have not any power upon Me,” the Lord said to Pilate: “unless it had been given to you from above” (John 19:11), although Pilate, guided by human judgment, recognized and affirmed (and in this, without any doubt, all those guided by such a judgment agreed with him!) that he had the power to crucify the Prisoner set before him, and the power to release Him. – Do not worry about any relations with people, about any excuses before them! Such relationships and excuses will only disturb the peace of the heart and will not bring any benefit. Weak people are flowers that appear for a short time on the surface of the earth! – You dream a lot about yourself, you ascribe a lot to yourself, and you are weak people! You are honored by autocracy, and at the same time you do not cease to be tools, blind tools, completely tools! And even you don’t see and don’t know that you are tools! You are autocratic - yes! you cannot help but accept bribes for your deeds! but in the infinitely wise destinies of God, these autocratic ones are agents without the slightest power, without any independence. “Jesus of Nazareth,” said the holy Apostle Peter to the Jews, “he was delivered up by the counsel and understanding of God, and was nailed to death by the hands of the lawless” (Acts 2:23). “We know that through ignorance you have done these things, even as your princes did: but God, who foreshadowed the mouth of all His prophets to suffer Christ, do this” (Acts 3:17-18). In the affairs of God's Providence, people are blind instruments. That is why the Lord did not vouchsafe to people, apparently invested with full power, any answer! That is why He called the cup prepared by evildoers, demons, incorporeal and in the flesh, the cup given by the Father. Accept these lines as an echo of a soul that sincerely participates in you, sympathizes with your sorrow, and earnestly wishes you consolation from the Lord. Letter 115. About residence by advice I received your letter, and I thank the Lord God, who opened the mouth of your heart to receive the words of the eternal life, which the Holy Spirit gave to us, through the mediation of His chosen vessels - the Holy Fathers. Particularly important is the path of spiritual council that the holy monks followed, and achieved first the purification of passions, and then the grace-filled gifts. “Woe to one,” said St. John Chrysostom, borrowing these words from Ecclesiastes. The weakened man of Bethsaida, although he was lying among many other sick people, nevertheless complained about his loneliness and said to the Savior of the world who came to him: “I am not an imam of man” (John 5:7). Similar is the condition of those monks and nuns who, living in the midst of a crowded brotherhood, have no one to turn to for advice in times of spiritual distress. Advice can only be given by someone who, in spiritual temptations, consulted with a skilled person, and felt relief from mental illness. This is what St. Cassian the Roman says, having learned this from the great Egyptian Fathers. Therefore, it will be good for you if you delve into the instructions of Saint Abba Dorotheos, who excellently describes this path and proves that all the holy monks followed it, and that except for him, salvation is extremely difficult. To this reading, add warm prayers to the Lord God, so that the path of unrighteousness will be put away from you, and he will tell you the way you will go. Having occupied yourself with the book and understood its spirit (and the Lord gives understanding to those who explain and ask), it is not bad for you to come here. When you come, God willing, then what was told to you in small words can be explained in detail. “If the Lord puts it in your heart to obey my sinful advice, then I, trusting in the Lord who makes infants wise, do not refuse to serve you, especially since I have the responsibility of such service. Letter 116. To the same and about the same I received your letter dated April 24; I sincerely thank you for your congratulations on the Feast of Holidays, I mutually congratulate you, I wish you and myself to be worthy of participating in the celebration of the never-ending Easter, in the non-evening day of the Kingdom of Christ, which will be worthy of all those who have labored here to resurrect their souls from sinful mortification by the life-giving commandments of the Gospel. Be according to your faith! In ancient, still Christian Egypt, there were many populous women's monasteries. A robber ataman came to one of these monasteries and, having examined it, brought his entire gang of robbers and robbed it. To make it more convenient to carry out the inspection, he put on a monastic dress. The abbess and sisters, seeing the elder, invited him to the hotel. The abbess washed the feet of the robber, an imaginary monk, with her own hands, and sprinkled the nuns with slop. One of the nuns was blind. They brought her too. When the water that washed the robber’s feet touched the eyes of the blind woman, she immediately received her sight. - This is the power of faith. The foreman of the robbers repented and, having taken monastic vows, pleased God. So may your faith and that of many others, having served you for salvation, serve as an incentive for me to abandon my carelessness and relaxation. Why act as you are now doing, having the testimony of Abba Dorotheus for your action. We learn from the instructions of the great Anthony to allow only those actions into the circle of our activities that have evidence from the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers. For God's sake, I accept your desire to listen to my sinful advice. May the Lord Jesus Christ bless both your intention and mine, who said: “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). These days, monk Hilarion, my spiritual and close disciple, is leaving for our Monastery in Ladoga. I hope by the mercy of God that it will not be unpleasant for you to see in him what fruits of reason and good morals grow from obedience. May God's blessing rest upon you. - May the Lord Himself remove from you the path of unrighteousness, and may He have mercy on you with His Holy Law, may He enlighten your eyes with His commandment, so that you may understand the miracles of His law, as His commandment is eternal life. Letter 117. To her: about prayer in general; about reading books, op. heterodox; about mercy Our merciful Lord Jesus Christ, who accepts the giving of men in the person of His lesser brethren, may he accept your casting at my sinful feet and may he bless you, may he strengthen you, and may he guide you on the path of His Holy Commandments. – If you feel that your body is not being bothered by the appointed number of bows, then add a few, so that the body feels some fatigue, which contributes to contrition of the heart, remembering the following words of Saint Isaac the Syrian: “Be careful that if you want to increase your labors, you will not stop at all and do not stop your entire flow. Do not stretch your legs beyond your strength, lest you become completely idle” (Sk. 10th). And the following words also belong to Isaac: “Every prayer in which the body is not weary and the heart is not oppressed is considered rejected: for such prayer is without a soul” (Sk. 11). Just as these last words are true, so are the first ones important and thorough: they were spoken to the brother, who was especially engaged in bowing. Saint Isaac says in the 40th Word: “Love bowing in prayer rather than practicing poetry,” i.e. in reading psalms and canons. Let the number of bows be determined by the satisfaction of their purpose. Their goal is to warm the body, and the spirit also gets hot. At the same time, it is good to remember the words of St. Demetrius, spoken by him from experience and belonging to his cell stay: “It is better to have a short and frequent prayer than a long one with long intervals.” – Are you asking what bodily prayer means? – This is generally the prayer of beginners, especially choir singing, and especially notated singing, where all attention is paid to the voice. From this prayer, accompanied by strong outward zeal, also carnal, a person moves to heartfelt and mental attention, and zeal acts with quietness and decorum. You can understand this from your heart experience. You write that when you started practicing the Jesus Prayer, you were overcome only by despondency and its products: despair, bewilderment, sleep, etc. This is a good sign: “the benefit of prayer,” said St. John Climacus, “can be seen from the demonic obstacles that arise during the meeting,” i.e. prayerful You, of course, remember that I commanded you to listen with your mind to the language quietly pronouncing the prayer, without at all allowing yourself to delve into the artistry described in the “Philokalia”, and excellently abbreviated by St. Nile of Sora into the following words: during the Jesus Prayer, breathe quietly, and not strongly: this contributes to the collection of the mind, which experience itself will say. – You started reading the book “Spiritual Warfare” and left it. Why did you leave it? – Because you felt doubt in your heart that worried you. – And I bequeath to you to be content with reading the Holy Fathers, whose inspiration is not subject to any doubt, and translations from modern languages ​​should be extremely guarded: they are almost all written in a flattering spirit, as the Apostle Paul said (2 Cor. 11:13-15). – Whoever reads them is reported to Satan; such a mind and heart commit adultery. These include the prophetic word: “Destroy all who commit adultery from You” (Ps. 5:7). The Fathers said: “Whoever wants to reach the Kingdom in a short way, let him introduce mercy into his heart.” By grace our venerable Fathers became like God and bore human infirmities. Letter 118. About the cell rule, about insurance, about practicing the Jesus Prayer May the mercy and blessing of our Lord Jesus Christ, through me, His most unworthy servant, overshadow you and strengthen you in the good work of salvation, the only one needed! – Write that you don’t always follow the rule, sometimes because of weakness, sometimes because you visit your neighbors, and then you feel sorrow. To this I repeat to you that it is not man for the rule, but the rule for man. And therefore, whatever you have sinned through weakness of body, or soul, or reasoning, may the most merciful Lord God, before whom even our righteousnesses are unclean, forgive you all this. And I, a great sinner, forgive you and give you permission in the name of the Lord, and henceforth I bequeath in such cases to adhere to reasoning, i.e. when you notice that the weakness is natural, arising from work with visitors or from an illness manifested by a decrease in appetite, insomnia and the like, then it is useful to ease the body so that it does not become completely exhausted and damaged, being forced beyond its strength. “Then leave the bows, and, depending on your weakness, read the evening prayer in full or not in full, remain peaceful.” Don't be surprised that you heard a knock; This is insurance, and we should not indulge in insurance, knowing that the devil is entirely in the power of God and can only do and does what God allows him to do for our benefit. “Who who is in battle does not hear the trumpets of battle and the clatter of enemy weapons? “Hearing them, the brave warrior rejoices, for he sees and concludes that the battle is near and the end is near.” A certain girl, known to me, was walking along a secluded road not far from our monastery, crossing a bridge; suddenly a robber with a huge mustache jumps out from under the bridge and, putting a pistol to her chest, shouts: “I’ll kill you!” The girl bares her chest and answers, making the sign of the cross: “If it is the will of God, kill.” As soon as she uttered these words, the monster disappeared. I am writing this to you so that you may take courage and overcome the fear of demons with the fear of God. With us, to whom insurance happens, he comes and speaks, and insurance is destroyed by the grace of God, covering the humble, i.e. opening, for the humility of a beginner consists in when he willingly and freely reveals his thoughts. – If you hold your breath according to the art set out in the Philokalia, you are doing well. This art is excellently summarized by the Monk Nilus of Sora into the following words: “Do not breathe on the greyhound, for this helps to collect the mind.” You too should be content with this, i.e. breathe quietly while praying. Tenderness and love for neighbors, which all, without exception, seem like Angels, are the fruits of true and unpretentious prayer. And the temptations we encounter, despondency and sleep serve as proof of how useful prayer is to us. I commend you to the grace of God: may it instruct you, may it strengthen you, and may it guide you, for “without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), says the Lord. And pack! Avoid the art of nostril breathing! When God wills, the time comes, I will say. With this art, which was useful in its time, some have permanently harmed themselves. Effortlessness, lack of daydreaming, tenderness, love for one’s neighbors—these are the true signs of true prayer. Letter 119. About illness, about thoughts, about humility, patience and gratitude The path leading to the Kingdom of Heaven is narrow and sad. Among its sorrows are illnesses by which the body and soul are cleansed from sinful corruption. He, before whose eyes is the cross of Christ, is consoled in his illnesses by the illnesses of the Redeemer. He who, looking at his sins, considers himself worthy of eternal torment, rejoices when illness befalls him in this life. After illnesses of this kind, as now in M.A., one usually feels a special lightness in body and soul. When placing full trust in the Lord God, a strict diet is needed when drinking tea from the Alexandria leaf: if you can get a diluting mixture, then this is even better. What should I tell you, N.D.? – That you should not be surprised by the multitude of thoughts that worry you, from which various painful sensations occur in your soul. Learn humility. Where? - in the Gospel. From whom? - From a robber, from a publican, from a sinful wife. Consider yourself blind, a leper, in complete need of help from the Lord. Then you will feel the calm and consolation of suffering, when from a contrite and humble heart, from the depths of your illnesses, you cry out in prayer to the Lord, then He will invisibly come and help you. If our life on earth has its end, after which those who have spent time in studies for the sake of God will inherit eternal consolation, then you should thank the Lord God, who brought you to His holy Abode, where His Holy Name is glorified, where His servants remain in various sorrows far from all worldly amusements, in the hope of eternal consolation, which they will certainly receive if they remain in faith and humility in patience, what I sincerely wish for you. If your heart does not have gratitude, then force yourself to give thanks; along with it, peace will enter the soul. Do not imitate those who, for the sake of God and for the hope of inheriting the promised land in the desert, wished to return to Egypt, and for this were rejected by God. Death is near, its hour is unknown. The judgment of Christ awaits, so that sinners will repent, the torment is ready, the flames of Gehenna thirst for their victims! Turn your eyes there; for those who often remember it can avoid Gehenna. Inoki and Inokini! Let us thank God, who chose us to serve Himself, despite the fact that we are the rabble of the world. “Behold, brothers, your title!” (1 Cor. 1:26) - God chose the weak, the weak, the buoy! “Our lay brothers are great and exalted in names and wealth and wisdom, but God did not favor them! Blind and unreasonable N.! Thank God, who benefits you! Go ahead, humble the rebellious impulses of your proud heart! “And the peace of God, flowing from humility, will pour into your heart.” – May the merciful Lord strengthen you and have mercy on you according to His ineffable mercy. Letter 120. To a nun: about love for enemies, about leadership, about temptations, about cautious relationships with a spiritual mentor If there were not those who reproached, insulted and persecuted us, then we would never have been able to come to love our enemies, commanded by the Gospel, which constitutes the highest commandment among the commandments given to us in relation to our neighbor. From here we enter into the purity of heart, which is and with which God is loved. But as fruitful as this commandment is, it is difficult to acquire it. Pray to the Lord Jesus, and He will send into your heart a gracious and reasonable feeling with which you will love your enemies and those who offend you as instruments of God’s justice. For He, the Son of God, shed His blood for us, who were His enemies, foreseeing that even after the completion of atonement, few of us would want to follow His all-holy will. I find it useful to calm the Mother Superior by going to her. If he accepts your justification, good, but if he doesn’t, then your conscience will be at peace. Of course, people who judge by appearance consider the Abbess and other earthly acquisitions to be great, but those who have recognized Christ’s teaching consider all earthly acquisitions to be losses, as distracting from what is only needed. I do not wish you Abbess, as it plunges you into earthly cares, filling your heart with logs, bricks, mortar, and what is even worse - pride, quarrels, and other things contrary to the Lord. And I had no desire to be a boss, but I was brought to this by circumstances, and now, as the greatest blessing, I will accept from the hand of God the removal from a leadership position, in order to bring repentance to the Lord God and mourn my sins before the hour of death. Do not pay special attention to your temptation that has come now, and to those that may come in the future, but pay attention to endure the temptation with patience and gratitude, praying for those who have offended and calling on their prayers. We should not be afraid of temptations: for the God who allows them to us is the one who keeps us in them. One must have disposition and ardor for temptations; for with them the Cross of Christ is depicted on our souls, with them we are protected from vices, with them we are preserved in virtue, and with them only grace is given. Do not justify yourself unnecessarily before the sisters: for the Lord, the Most Truth and the Most True, standing before the Jewish Bishops and Pilate, did not hide the truth from them, so as not to give them reasons for error, but having said it in brief words, he did not further justify himself, but with silence endured slander and torment, giving us an image of how to deny ourselves and how to bear the cross of the Lord, i.e. sorrows sent by the Lord. I wish you to have love for the Lord God, the most living love, and for your neighbors the same and equal, as for the image of God. May the Lord grant you to see the image of God in every neighbor. Saint Mark the Ascetic said: “Whenever a man uses words or deeds, let both understand God’s grace” (chapter 74, Kindness). You must observe this too and not allow your heart to enter too much into human love: for many, neglecting this caution, have fallen away from the love of God. His Eminence Philaret Metropolitan of Kiev, a shepherd with the anointing of grace, told me the following remarkable words: “Those mentors are commendable who lead not to themselves, but to God.” - May God's mercy cover you. Letter 121. Irritation and enthusiasm increase among those entering the monastery from the world; a reason recognized as valid for refusing a personal meeting. – Stumbling blocks every day I don’t see what you see in N.D. I see not despair, but irritation caused by domestic troubles. She read many foreign writers, which left her with some enthusiasm... Both enthusiasm and irritability can intensify from living in a monastery. If you take it for a short time, it cannot harm your soul. - Regarding your arrival here, whatever you want, these days we have a noisy time; surrounded by many who look for shortcomings in us, which exist in the thing itself. Therefore, it is better for you to go to your peaceful Abode without visiting us, just as Scripture says: “Where there is a howl, no one will sleep, until they will do evil” (Prov. 4:15–16). Instead of personal vision and conversation, accept my sincere word, in which my soul is revealed. The defeat of one warrior is not the defeat of the entire army. Likewise, your sin in words is no longer a fall of the soul. One should not be immensely sad about such daily and hourly falls: for this is the cunning of the enemy, who wants to introduce relaxation into the soul through immeasurable sadness. Seraphim of Sarov speaks about such and such sins, that we should not condemn ourselves when a stumbling block occurs, without thinking about ourselves, that we are capable of all sins, that our stumbling is not news, and unusual, to walk before God in a contrite spirit, filled with thoughts of repentance. This is something God will not despise, i.e. a contrite and humble heart will put above stumbling blocks, how much a person can be above them. Amen. Letter 122. Sorrow. – Your cross I am responding to your letter late. Perhaps your patience has been tempted by my silence... May the peace of God rest in you, at a time when various winds are breathing fiercely outside. He who does not take up his cross and does not follow the Lord cannot be His disciple. Taking up your cross is recognizing yourself as worthy of the sorrows sent to you. Peace be with you! Amen. Letter 123. Temptations. – Sorrow May the Lord bless you and the sisters cohabiting with you in the new cell; may He overshadow you with His grace and grant you to live, or rather to wander in your bush; It is pleasing to Him, the Lord, and to You, who are soul-saving, to endure the sorrows you find resignedly and without complaints, in the consciousness of your sinfulness, worthy of eternal punishments, replaced by the mercy of God with temporary punishments. “If anyone rejects a right or wrong prohibition, he has rejected his own salvation,” said Saint John Climacus. Moreover, one must believe that God does not allow temptation stronger than force: why, before the temptation sent, one must humble one’s neck. May carnal and spiritual jealousy be expelled from your society, may love alien to passions for the Lord be established in it, and may your prayers be shed before the Lord for those who offend you, for the healing of your souls. Elder Basilisk, one day during a great prayerful consolation, heard a voice: “Have one thing throughout your life - carrying the Lord Jesus in your heart, and meanwhile you will accept dishonor.” The Lord Himself, all the Apostles, all the Saints spent their lives in many different sorrows. Without dishonor, we cannot be saved. Tell Sister E.: “The mind cannot be dispassionate,” according to the Great Maxim, “if many and different visions do not accept it.” – Understanding the goal, we must leave the means without special attention. Letter 124. Concerning the insane sister We must submit to the unknown Fates of God! I feel sorry for poor D. Patients of this kind must be kept away from relatives and from all those to whom they are close during their normal condition. When K. was in a similar state, his rage was most aroused against his wife and relatives, whom he loved especially dearly in his healthy state. You should not grieve over the temptation that has occurred, but surrender to the will of God, which saves all those who are saved through various sorrows. D.'s insanity, which was allowed, was allowed for her benefit, so that her spirit would be saved. Leave it to God. Regarding everything she said and did in her fit, you should not pay any attention, and you should not take any of her words or deeds to heart, because everything was done and done by her without reason. Therefore, it is precisely from such patients that all their relatives and those close to their hearts are separated, because a madman must be controlled by a cold mind and a cold heart, which persons who have a cordial disposition towards the patient cannot bear. When K. lived near us in a state of insanity, and for some time his relatives were still allowed to come to him: after each visit he became worse, because they all wanted to reason with him and soften him. A doctor from a mental hospital who was here told me about the actions of my relatives: “Strange people! They want to reason with the sick man, while his illness lies in the fact that he is devoid of common sense.” K. grabbed the knife, intending to stab his wife and himself with it, expressing the greatest displeasure against her, while in his healthy state he had the greatest affection for her. This is how we should talk about patients of this kind. P.A. I advised not to see my sister until she recovered. – I have a letter from D. dated September 24, from which one can understand the cause of the illness that happened to her. It should also not be embarrassing that some were embarrassed by D.’s words and actions during her madness, and found the reason for them according to their own conclusions, and not according to the experiments of science, which looks at this disease and its actions in a completely different way. If God grants D. to recover, then she will be on even closer terms with you. The fact that she reviled you in madness is a sure sign of her devotion to you. You should not grieve for those who were seduced by D.’s position and uttered some unfavorable word about you. This is out of ignorance and by the permission of God’s Providence, as you can see, seeing that you need humility and purification through human dishonor. Have love and peace with everyone and with those who insult you, without which it is impossible to have spiritual success. Give thanks to God for everything that happened and surrender yourself to the will of God. Letter 126. About temptations; about insurance. – Activities prescribed during temptations The path of Christians, the Holy Fathers said, is the everyday Cross. “They said this, guided by the words of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who commanded those who desire perfection to take up their cross and follow Him, the Lord. The cross is a readiness for the complacent lifting of any sorrow allowed by the Providence of God. “By this it is known that a person is under the special Providence of God, when this person is allowed constant sorrow,” said Saint Isaac. “Drink reproach every hour, like living water,” says Saint John Climacus; and whoever rejected a correct or incorrect reprimand, he rejected his salvation. The Lord remembered you and sent you temptation, for your purification and mortification of the world, and therefore for your prosperity. I, the most damned sinner, am pleased with the temptation that befell you. Your guardian angels are pleased with him, seeing in him the guarantee of your salvation. Remember me, a sinner, in your prayers! Saint Isaac the Syrian says that before entering into temptation, a person prays to God as a stranger to Him, and having been subjected to temptation for His sake, he prays to Him as one of his own, and as if having Him - God - in his debt. Pray to God for me, servants of God! for in my life I have not had the opportunity to endure a single temptation, and what happened that was contrary to my proud heart is a trifle, a trifle, a trifle... not worthy of any attention, and if I had decided to talk about my temptations, I would have fallen into nothing but idle talk. – You shouldn’t let insurance get the better of you. Whoever succumbs to this passion will prevail over him, and he will be frightened by all sorts of trifles. Read the article on insurance in the Holy Ladder. No incantatory prayers are needed: they were read over each of you at Holy Baptism. You need to surrender to the will of God and recognize yourself as worthy of every human and demonic guidance: then the insurance will go away by itself. It is not destroyed by anything so much as by deep heartfelt contrition. Do not abandon the Jesus Prayer: a monk, among his vows at tonsure, promises to practice this prayer day and night. In our country, the Holy Synod was constantly engaged in the development of this work, and published books of the Holy Fathers on this subject: and in 1857, it sent out to the monasteries the book of the Venerable Nil Sorsk in many copies, giving it to the leadership of Russian monastics, and ordering deans to strictly observe that this was carried out in the monasteries. Don’t do something stupid again: don’t even think about coming to St. Petersburg. We must defeat battles in their place, and not by leaving a place, which only makes the battles stronger. Ascend into yourself, try to see the many sins of yours, and the sins of your neighbor are diminished in your eyes. Take advantage of the solitude and comforts of an attentive life, given to you by God's mercy, to cry over your sins. Remember in your prayers those who have offended you, so that you may be healed of the terrible disease of enmity towards your neighbor. Remember in your prayers the sick D., who was betrayed by the destinies of God to Satan, so that her spirit will be saved. She contributed a lot to your peace of mind, and in the last case to humility and prosperity. In spiritual terms, such punishment from God does not at all serve as a bad testimony about man: many great saints of God were subjected to such a tradition to Satan; the Monk Cassian describes about the Monk Moses of Skete, with whom he talked about the reasoning that Moses was subjected to madness and demonic possession for some contradiction with his elder Macarius the Great of Egypt. Another sacred work of the 4th century describes that a certain Egyptian Elder, due to his holy and pure life, was unusually abundant in the gift of miracles, his fame spread far and wide. Noticing the beginnings of pride in himself, the elder began to pray to God to send him a demon, which the Lord fulfilled. The elder spent eight whole months in a terrible situation, even consuming his own eruptions as food. His worldly admirers, seeing him in such a position, as they should be, were tempted, they changed the good reputation about him for bad, and the Elder in his time, having got rid of the demon, worked for the Lord in obscurity and peace and came to much greater prosperity. Being possessed is much less important than accepting any enemy thought that can destroy a soul forever. That D. is sincerely devoted to you is beyond any doubt. One should not pay any attention to her words and actions during insanity, and one cannot in any way compare such patients with drunken people, from whom only prudence, and not reason, is taken away. A drunk person expresses his secret thoughts and feelings, and a crazy or enraged person talks about game that is alien to him. If D. recovers, accept her without hesitation. By this fulfill the commandment of God; and the people of your monastery, who were seduced by the words and actions of the sick woman, will understand that she reviled you beyond reason, and they will be healed and come to their senses. I did not find it necessary to write or speak to Madame Abbess about you, believing that she could understand much more from cohabitation than from my words. If she needs my written review of you, then I will try to fulfill this too. I have more than once warned Sister E. to keep her tongue, which often betrays her and brings trouble, which was the cause of Avvakir’s (Ladder) troubles. These troubles should be taken as precious medicine against our vanity and arrogance. The vine that produces the fruit is also sprinkled with manure by the Vertogradar, so that it will bear abundant fruit. You will not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Letter 127. To the disciple, the monk of the Sergius Hermitage, who in writing denounced Archimandrite Ignatius of the changeability of his disposition towards those around him in general and towards him in particular. Sincere recognition of one's sinfulness, patiently enduring the shortcomings of others In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Relying on the help of God and on His power, which is perfected in the weak, I intended to respond to your written statement in writing. And this is more so that my mind does not get distracted during a personal conversation and does not become exhausted under the noise of words, but maintains a peaceful dispensation in the silence and solitude of the cell, in which the Truth can only be seen. I stand before His face, and illuminated by His light, I look at my soul and compare it with what I see in your reproof. What do I see? I see ulcers on my soul, I see its numerous illnesses, I see infirmities, some of which are natural, others are the consequences of ulcers and illnesses, past and present. I turn to my past life: I see - this is a chain of errors, a chain of falls; At almost every step I was ridiculed and reproached by the devil for my lack of spiritual wisdom, for my excess of pride, not inclined to ask my neighbor for advice. This is the position my soul is in, when the path of my life has already stretched beyond the half of my days. Meanwhile, my body weakened; it is pierced and cut by various ailments. They are messengers; they announce to me the approaching separation of the soul from the body. Soon, soon I will lie on my bed, not in order to give my overworked body temporary rest, but in order to put it from myself into the grave ark, into the bowels of the earth, from where I was taken, until the future general resurrection. Remember me, Lord, in Thy Kingdom: for my soul is in ulcers, and my body is sealed with sin. Due to this state of mine, the most decent thing for me was to leave everything and, outside of everything, indulge in inconsolable crying; when everything is lost, do not lose at least repentance. But to achieve this state, which I recognize as the most decent for myself, I do not use any means except my weak prayer, in which I ask that God’s will be done to me. “This petition for the will of God is inspired by fear, so as not to ask for something that exceeds my strength. This fear is inspired by experience itself: for in all the experiences by which my strength was tested, my weakness was revealed; Where the demons painted before my mind a picture of brilliant successes, there, in fact, there was damage, there a disaster arose, there a disastrous abyss was covered with flowers. I knew deception by committing deception; experienced delusion, being seduced and damaged by it. Now I’m afraid to do anything special on my own, even though I consider it beneficial for my soul. It is better, said the Holy Fathers, to fight with feces, i.e. with fornication and gluttony, rather than with self-thinking, arrogance, pride and contempt. For these latter passions are subtle, imperceptibly creep into the mind, take the form of sound and righteous thoughts, and can only be seen in the light of grace. I stand before the Providence of God with my mind, which has put aside for this moment the wisdom of the world and its truth. God created me without my desire and request: for how could “nothing” desire, much less ask for anything? - God redeemed me who fell and died; the price of redemption was He Himself. Meanwhile, how the Redeemer, clothed in humility, is not known, despite his obviousness, by carnal minds, which have left to wonder at what is akin to the spiritual, and have pursued a corruption alien to themselves, He granted me, the accursed one, to know Himself. When my eyes closed, the clay mixed with spitting coming from His mouth healed them. The Cross of Christ opens the eyes of the mind; The Cross of Christ preserves health and heals the diseases of these eyes. Outside the Cross of Christ there is no truth of Christ. The world and its truth will perish, for they are of the devil. I stand before my Lord and I see His Holy Providence, and I am amazed at His long-suffering, how merciful He is to those errors into which I fell from self-will and self-thinking. I commend my soul into the hand of God; whatever He gives me, I accept. He knows my strength, for He gave it to me. If he gives me one talent according to my strength, I do not seek five, lest I faint under their weight; so that the gift, which should serve for benefit, does not serve to greater condemnation. From my sins I run not into seclusion, not into the desert, but into self-reproach, into confession of my sins, into repentance. I plunge my bewilderment, my reasoning, and my will into the abyss of the bounty and Providence of God. This is the sight my soul presents to me when, in the light of the Gospel teaching, I look at it with my mind. Now I turn to the words of reproof found in your letter. The very nature of the matter shows that you, looking at the appearance of my behavior, saw much fewer shortcomings than there were in the thing itself. By confessing to a greater debt, I cannot help but confess to a smaller one, so that I would have confessed even then, even if I did not want to confess. All that remains for this is to ask with tears your forgiveness and holy prayers for my correction. If, according to Saint Isaac, justification does not belong to Christian living and is not prescribed anywhere in the teaching of Christ; if the Lord Himself, standing before the authorities of the earth and placing before the face of the universe the truth of the Cross, did not deign to pay any attention to the external Truth, not a single word, like dust and corruption, then who, looking into the depths of his heart and seeing not falsely, would dare to oppose the one who accuses? Such a one will say to the sword waved at him: strike, for you were not raised in vain. He will say to disasters: attack me and oppress me, for I am worthy of it. He will say to the body, exhausted by illness and sent into exile: go, for you have sinned. He will say to his brothers, pray for me, the bad one, Angels of God. He will fall at the feet of adulterers and murderers and say to them: pray for me, for you are more righteous than me. - This is my state when the eyes of my mind are open; when they close, my condition becomes incomparably worse: for the ulcers naturally remain the same; but to diseases of the heart comes blindness of mind. From blindness - insensibility, loss of love for one's neighbor, loss of tenderness and comforting crying, the addition of ulcers to ulcers and diseases to diseases. In a word, whether I see or am blinded, my state, precarious, is worthy of the tears and sobs of all who know and love me. This is my answer to everyone who accuses, including you. When I answer otherwise, I make a mistake. I should have been content with this if I had not spoken with my spiritual son, who, while telling me the accusations brought to his heart, does not present them as decisive truth, but brings them to me for judgment. Therefore, I consider myself obliged to continue my conversation, and despite the fact that I am weak, borrowing Light from the True Light - the Word of God, to satisfy, to the best of my ability, the demands of your letter, not so much paying attention to the outward appearance of the thoughts contained in this letter, but rather revealing, in the light of the Gospel teaching, those secret heartfelt motives, of which these thoughts are the fruit. According to the Fathers, those people who demand from their neighbors the complete elimination of shortcomings have a false concept about this subject. We also find this opinion of the Fathers among the Apostles: one of them (John the Theologian) says: “Even if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Another (Apostle Paul): “Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). What can give rise to the reproach of a neighbor's infirmities, this is shown in Scripture over men who are the highest in virtues. Who is more holy than the Apostles? But we read in Acts that between the Apostles Barnabas and Paul there was strife, and because of the strife - separation. Without any doubt, this circumstance is told to us by Scripture for the purpose that we, the weak, should be careful, not be carried away by imaginary jealousy, but bear each other’s burdens. Thus fulfill the law of Christ! Bear my infirmities; and I will try to carry yours, as I tried before. Of course, you cannot say that you are without infirmities. My infirmities are more severe for you than for me; and yours are more perceptible to me than to you. If burdens were without burdens, then wearing them would have no value, there would be no reason to command it. But the price of mutual bearing of infirmities is so great that Scripture concluded in it the fulfillment of the law of Christ, Who bore upon Himself the sins of the whole world. I will say a few words about impermanence. Inconstancy, or changeability, according to the Holy Fathers, is the constant and indispensable weakness of a person as long as he is in the country of his exile on earth. Immutability is a property of the future dispensation. Changeability is not only characteristic of us, the weak, but even the greatest Saints recognized it in themselves. Tolerate inconstancy in me, and I will tolerate it in you. My impermanence is felt by you, and yours by me. Let us bear mutual infirmities and recognize that the yoke of Christ is good: but if we throw off the yoke of Christ, then to what yoke will we submit? Saint Elijah Ekdik said very beautifully: “The house of the soul is patience, for he lives in it; and food is humility, it feeds on that.” Exactly - thoughts of humility keep the soul in patience. If this is so, then the following is necessarily true: nothing else drives the soul out of patience like proud thoughts. I have repeatedly told you and many others to whom I thought I could impart soul-helping knowledge: when I compare my structure and behavior with the writings of the Holy Fathers, I find that in ancient monasticism I should have had a place among the new ones. And in modern monasticism, where the knowledge of the Holy Fathers and the way of thinking, somewhat imprinted by this knowledge, are so rare that the one who teaches the teaching of the Fathers to those who listen to him is the greatest rarity. On this condition, I rule over you and have you as spiritual children, in order to teach you the way of thinking in the Gospel, which is the way of thinking of the Holy Fathers. Truly, truly, I say to you: now, when there are no more works at all, and spiritual wisdom is extremely rare, now the devil hates this wisdom so much that he would like to destroy it from the face of the earth, so that the Gospel remains with us only for our condemnation, and not for edification; for we will be judged according to the Gospel, as the Lord Jesus Christ foretold to us (John 12:48). The devil is ready to give us tenfold common sense and multiply our practical information a thousandfold, just to steal from us the knowledge of the cross, with which we can stand at the right hand of God. He who ascribes to himself information and common sense is likened to the devil, who wanted to recognize himself as a source of light. He is the source of imaginary light - carnal wisdom, which does not submit to the mind of God, bears the stamp of pride and contains the condition of all falls. “Have you seen anyone fallen? convince yourself as if you were your own successor,” says Abba Dorotheos. This Saint said about himself that he would rather sin in some external matter, acting on the advice of his neighbor, than to act on his own. And in my small experiments, in the event of any failure, I have the consolation that flows from the fact that the deed was not done or undertaken on my own. Therefore, even though it is fitting for me, due to my unworthiness, to heed only my own shortcomings, nevertheless, out of the duty of the abbot and spiritual father, I must tell you what my sinful eyes see: it is your proud passion that is attacking you. Recognition of practical information and considerations in oneself is the essence of its justification, with which it covers itself. Coolness towards me, towards those around me, are its fruits: for the humiliation of one’s neighbor is followed by the drying up of love. And the drying up of love is a sign of accepting demonic thoughts, just as a sign of accepting the seeds of grace is an increase in love for one’s neighbor. A proud passion acts differently than a prodigal or angry passion. These two passions operate obviously, and their very justifications and the cunning in the justifications are clearer. And pride creeps in unnoticeably. It is sown by ability, pomp, and most of all, human praise. Although, apparently, we do not accept praise and do not internally agree with those who praise, the secret stamp of praise remains on the mind and heart, and when humiliation occurs, it is painful, and the more painful, the more we have been filled with praise. This proves the existence of seals and the secret instillation of pride. Alas for us! The most blessed gifts were a reason for people to be proud, and its fruits were to fall! The main signs of pride are cooling off towards others and abandoning confession. Therefore, whoever goes out by what doors, let him enter through them, said Saint John Climacus. Make it a rule to confess your thoughts, although twice a week, and as the soul conforms to the body, then show humility by worshiping the body. Say and repeat to your thoughts about the brethren: “These are the sheep of Christ, these are the Angels of God,” and contempt for them, which is pride, will be destroyed. Then, I trust in the mercy of God, peace and love will enter your heart and, through their gracious action, will prove to you that you are in temptation; - your eyes will be opened and you will know your true seduction. This incident will enter the treasury of your spiritual experiences, will provide you with precautions for the future, and nourishment for your brothers. For a man is not tempted, but having been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted, says Scripture. May the Lord vouchsafe you to follow this instruction of Saint John of the Climacus (Step. 4): “When we enter the field of piety and obedience, our good lawmaker will not be in the same place; Even if there is still little and little sin in him, as in a man, we will see. Otherwise, we use nothing less from obedience to him to torture. It is by no means necessary for those who want to be the abbot to maintain undoubted faith, to keep their corrections in the heart indelibly and ever-remembering, and when the devil instills unbelief in us towards those, we will stop our mouths from those we remember. since faith blooms in the heart, the ceiling and the body hurries to serve. But whenever he stumbles over unbelief, he has fallen”, i.e.: “on entering the field of piety and obedience, we should no longer test our good lawmaker (mentor) in anything, even if we noticed small errors in him as a person, otherwise, i.e. by torturing, we will not receive any benefit from obedience. – Those who wish to maintain undoubted faith in their mentors must keep their good deeds indelible and unforgettable in their hearts, so that by remembering them they can stop the mouths of demons when they sow unbelief in us. To the extent that faith blooms in the heart, the body succeeds in service. Whoever stumbles through unbelief falls.” And from caring for your neighbors pride often vegetates, like from a grain of wheat. Therefore, Saint Mark the Ascetic said: “Whenever a man uses words or deeds, let both understand God’s grace.” “We preach not ourselves,” says Saint Paul, “but Christ Jesus the Lord” (2 Cor. 4:5). Whoever cultivates these feelings, his addiction to people will be destroyed, and love will reign in Christ, seeing the image of God in everyone. When the mind is delighted with the consolation of this love, then a person sees himself as a kind of vessel filled with stench and abomination, and marvels at how the rays of Divine teaching pass through him and heal human souls. It is appropriate for me to remember here the words of Saint John Climacus, repeated by the Venerable Nile of Sora: some were mired in a swamp, but others were warned against such a fall, and for their salvation the Lord granted them salvation too. For after severe plagues I learned that the signs of pride are humiliation or contempt for others and negligence about confession, and pride itself is not noticeable to a person, being the subtlest passion that deceived the luminous Angel and caused the fall in Heaven. Another passion rests on this, like buildings on a foundation hidden underground. Finally, I bequeath to you to keep this letter in obscurity until my death. And I commend you and myself to the mercy and grace of God, which can, if we ourselves do not reject it, grant us salvation, although we are completely unworthy of it. Amen. Letter 128. To my brother, after prolonged illness and lack of food, who felt spiritual consolation. Instruction in spiritual life God's blessing and mercy be upon you! Through many sorrows and deaths it behooves us, following the example of all the Saints from the ages, to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven! - This is what it says in one of the prayers for monastic tonsure. Don't be surprised at anything that happened. “Is not man’s life on earth a temptation?” (Job 7:1) - righteous Job said long ago. Blessed is the man who endures temptation, and through temptation and patience enters into the knowledge of the law of God, and through its knowledge into eternal life. Keep your mind in silence and devotion to the will of God, keep it from impulses and daring. “Rejoice in the Lord,” says the Prophet, “with trembling” (Ps. 2:11). May fear and reverence pouring out from the Throne of God pour into your soul and preserve it from the snares of the enemy. Peace to you from God and people! and where there is decisive reconciliation, there is complete forgiveness. Letter 129. Spiritual action and blood action; their difference. Keeping peace of mind. About phenomena and visions and sensations, false and true, and their danger for the inexperienced Whoever is placed in the land of the spirit must double his vigilance over himself, must be especially careful. The door to that land is the world of God, which surpasses every mind, drowning all the thoughts of man in its unspeakable sweetness. This peace of Christ destroys all confusion and fears that have such a strong effect on carnal man; renewed by the Spirit begins to feel the renewal of living faith. God ceases to be dead for him, as He appears to be for those killed by carnal wisdom, who consider their death to be life, and recognize the true and essential life as if it does not exist. The gift of “peace” is followed, as can be seen from the Gospel, by another gift: the mind of the disciple of Christ is opened to understand the Scriptures. The Cross of Christ becomes understandable and bearable, suffering begins to exude sweetness. But everything that happens to you is only a partially spiritual action, and not completely. - Take your precautions. There is an action from the blood, which seems to the inexperienced to be a good, spiritual action, but it is not good, and not spiritual - it is from our fallen nature, and is known because it is impulsive, ardent, and disrupts the peace in ourselves and our neighbors. Spiritual action is born from the world and gives birth to the world. Examine yourself carefully: the actions in you are still mixed: the spiritual action is mixed with the blood action. You did not distinguish them and did not separate them. Watch your waters (feelings of the heart) so that they flow quietly, as the Prophet said about the waters of Siloam: “The waters of Siloam flow flowing” (Is. 8:5). Every heated feeling is bloody! Do not consider it zeal, zeal for piety, love for God and neighbors. No - this is a movement of the soul produced in it by nerves and blood. And the blood is set in motion by spiritual passions, which are the tools and chains of the world ruler, his scepter, the power. Keep yourself in deep peace, and reject everything that disturbs the peace as wrong, even if it has a correct and righteous appearance. Regarding your neighbors, be guided by the following Instruction of the Venerable Isaac of Sirius: “Let it be better for you to be recognized as ignorant, due to the inability of your mind to argue, and not as wise for your shamelessness and insolence. Be poor for humility, but be rich for boldness.” “By the power of your virtues, and not by your argumentation of words, rebuke those who oppose you. With the meekness and quietness of your lips, stop your lips and silence the shamelessness of the disobedient. Reprove those who are incontinent with the nobility of your life, and those who are allowed to feel by the modesty of your eyes,” the Divine word teaches, and Divine silence also teaches. Regarding voices and phenomena, even greater caution is needed: here the demonic charm is closer and more harmful. Many of the holy and skilled Fathers were deceived by demons, cunningly hiding and exposing their lies and darkness with the ghosts of truth and light: the more conveniently they can be deceived now, and the more incomprehensible. It is necessary, over a long period of time and experience, to accustom the mind and heart to distinguish good from evil, no matter under what guise evil may be disguised. Therefore, the Holy Fathers commanded that the novices should not entrust themselves to any voices and manifestations, but rejected them and did not accept them, leaving the matter to the court and the will of God, and for themselves recognizing humility as more necessary than any voice and manifestation. The Voice of Christ is the Gospel; Let us listen to him and obey him. True spiritual visions and sensations belong to that age, are completely immaterial, cannot be explained in the land of feelings, by a material word; This is a sure sign of the truly Spiritual. The Voice of the Spirit is immaterial; it is completely clear and completely immaterial; he is the mental voice. Also, all Spiritual sensations are immaterial, formless, cannot be interpreted, clearly conveyed by human material words, and at the same time, they are tangible, strong, overcome all other sensations, make them inactive, as if non-existent, and whoever has a Spiritual feeling, this feeling explains to him what is inexplicable by a material word. The lowest level of visions consists of those visions of which a person becomes a spectator due to non-eating, vigilance, and other exhaustions of the flesh; These visions are achieved not only by people of ascetic life, but also by many vicious ones who have somehow come to the exhaustion of the flesh. Their bodily senses reach some special subtlety - and they begin to see spirits, hear voices, smell fragrances and stench. This state is dangerous, and many who came to it fell into delusion. In your condition, I recognize the visitation of God’s mercy: the witness of this mercy is the peace of God, which poured out on you and revealed to you the mystery of the Cross of Christ. But at the same time, it must be admitted that in this state there was a lot of blood impurity. You will notice this yourself if you remain silent and curb every hot, impetuous feeling - introduce a quiet and peaceful feeling in its place. I would like you to get out of this state: it is beyond your power. Be safe and be safe! May the merciful Lord grant you to move into another state that is less dangerous, more spiritual and more useful: this state is contrition of the spirit from the sight of the fall of man and the Redemption of us by the Savior. Many Holy Fathers, abounding in humility and spiritual reasoning; when, unexpectedly, some special spiritual gift manifested itself in them, they prayed to God to take away from them this gift, which was beyond their power; “If your deeds,” said the Monk Isaac of Syria, “are pleasing to God, and He will give you a gift, then beg Him to give you understanding on how to humble yourself, or to set a guard over the gift, or to take the gift from you, so that it will not be the cause of your destruction: because not everyone can possess this wealth harmlessly.” In a state in which, with altered or refined bodily senses, the ascetic hears voices, smells fragrances, sees phenomena; - the devil can very easily replace the Truth with something of his own, giving it his guise of Truth - and incurably damage the soul of an inexperienced and young ascetic. It is much more sublime and safer, with refined repentance and thoughts and heartfelt feelings changed by the Spirit, to contemplate the depth of the fall and the high mystery of the Redemption, to plunge, through Spiritual, immaterial action, into the abyss of humility, into the sea of ​​reverence and wonder for God. Again I quote the words of the Venerable Isaac: “He who has felt his sins is better than him who raises the dead through his prayer and dwells with many. He who sighs in his soul is better than he who uses the whole world with his vision. He who is worthy to see himself is better than he who is worthy to see the Angels; because the second’s sensual eyes were opened, and the first’s spiritual ones.” Give your body a moderate amount of food and sleep, keep yourself silent, mindful, and humble. From your present state, try to observe the effect of the “peace of Christ” and the knowledge of the Cross of Christ. And from the state of refined bodily feelings, as from a very dangerous state that exceeds your strength, may the merciful Lord deliver you. – In your monastery library there is a written book by the Monk Isaac of Sirsk. Read the 55th word in it, to the Monk Simeon the Wonderworker. You won’t understand everything here, but what you understand will bring you significant benefit. Christ is with you. Letter 130. Repentance. – The fight against sin. – Relationship to a spiritual mentor Almighty repentance is the Divine haven, the Divine physician. - Every sin is corrected by repentance, every ulcer, every illness is healed by repentance. The embrace of the Heavenly Father is open to the prodigal sons who come running into these embraces. Christ, who descended to earth for sinners, and not for the righteous, still remains invisibly, but quite significantly among people, performing great signs and healings; He will, according to His false promise, remain among us until the end of the age. Until now, His voice can be heard, His actual words can still be heard, once spoken to a sinner condemned by all, who condemned herself with deep silence: “I do not condemn you: go, and from henceforth do not sin to anyone” (John 8:11). With such a warning, remission of grave sins is given. Who can be a judge of God's actions? – It is enough for the human mind if it becomes a spectator of God’s actions, if it becomes immersed in reverent contemplation of God’s works, in amazement at them, in their glorification. One of these wonderful actions of God is His calling to monastic life. Some are called to this holy life from the holy life that preceded it in the midst of the world, others are called to it from the crossroads, from the haluga, from the darkness and abyss of lawlessness. No matter where someone is called from, be obedient to the caller, follow the calling voice! Blessed is everyone who comes in the name of the Lord, called by the Lord! – And if on the way to the Lord he needs to fight with sin, which hinders the blessed procession, let him fight courageously, let him draw blood, may he delight in victory, and may he be numbered with the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors and other Saints who inherited Heaven through many sorrows and deaths. Whoever has violated fidelity to God by falling into sin, restore this fidelity, prove it by fighting sin, by overthrowing from yourself through victory the chains, those chains with which sin fetters its captives, which hold the captives of sin in violent work for it. The feat of the body is weak against sin, the feat of reflection is insignificant: the feat of faith is strong! he is the confidant of victory! When you feel the invasion of sinful power, do not enter into negotiations with your adversaries - immediately open fire on them, strike them with thunder, scorch them with heavenly lightning. This fire, these thunders, this lightning is a prayer. Run to your cell, prostrate yourself before the icons, ask for help against sin, ask for victory over it. Both will be given to you from Above. This image of the struggle against sin was given to the ascetics of Christ by the great ascetic Mary of Egypt. Read her life. “Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ,” said the Apostle (Gal. 6:2). Before those who allowed themselves to condemn, the God-Man Himself seemed imperfect! The Holy Fathers command monks to remember the virtues of their Superiors, to often reflect on their praiseworthy deeds, and not to pay attention to shortcomings as if they were twigs, in comparison with which our infirmities are logs. With true repentance and true humility - they are invisible to people - reconcile your soul with God and your neighbors. Peace be with you! Don't judge yourself too much! Plunge yourself and your past actions, your future into the abyss of God’s mercy. Get ready to fight sin, stock up on courage and patience. And may the Lord be with you! Letter 131. Instruments of Salvation One God is the fault of human existence. He is One - Guilt, after the death of people, their restoration, i.e. salvation. If God, who at one time likened some instrument for your spiritual benefit, at another time, put this instrument aside, then do not be embarrassed by this. God will save them by their own destinies, and not all in the same way. Cling to God by faith, cleave to Him with unceasing repentance: a contrite and humble heart is not despised or rejected by God, who degrades and rejects the understanding of the wise about himself, and the wisdom of the wise before himself and before a world hostile to God. Being distant from you in body, I am as close to you as before, through my love and desire for your salvation. Pray for me. May God's blessing rest upon you. Letter 132. Peace of Christ. Bodily infirmities The Lord Jesus Christ, who nourishes His chosen ones with His holy peace, emanating from His teaching, and lifts them up with this world, above all the sorrows of their earthly journey, may He grant His holy peace, peace that enlightens and strengthens, to His servant D. - This is what I wish for you! “And you will achieve this soon if you surrender yourself entirely to the will of God!” As for your bodily food, you should not worry about it with all your heart: for such care can distract you from God. But at the same time, you need to pay due attention to this bodily weakness of yours. The Monk Cassian the Roman, in the word “On Discourse” says: “Extremes harm both countries equally: excess of fasting, and satiation of the belly, and immensity of vigil and satiety of sleep, and other excesses. For we saw some who were undefeated by gluttony, but who were overthrown by immeasurable fasting,” and so on. According to this reasoning of the Holy Fathers, I advise you to take care of some correction of your stomach by eating fish soup from ruffs, fresh milk and similar benefits, valuing their use as medicine, and not as a delicacy. “Let us learn to be passion-killers, and not body-killers,” said the Great Pimen to a certain brother, who saw that this Pleasant of God was pouring water on his feet. - May God's blessing rest upon you. Letter 133. Temptation and Confusion Enlightened by the Word of God, we confess that temporary sorrows are the great gift of God, which is given to the chosen servants of God, prepared for eternal bliss, therefore we greet ourselves and our beloved in the Lord, when sorrows occur, with the words of the Apostle: “Have all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various temptations” (James 1:2). The Monk Mark the Ascetic advises, when sorrows occur, to look not for where and through whom the sorrow came, but to endure it with thanksgiving. Saint John Climacus said: whoever rejected any prohibition, whether it was right or wrong, rejected his salvation. The Holy Fathers also argue that those who believe in God’s control of the destinies of each person will accept every temptation as their own: for God’s control can be neither erroneous nor unjust. Take a good look at yourself and see what confuses you? You are confused by human excuses, even more so by demonic ones, striving for you to renounce the cross. Say to justification: “Follow me, Satan, for you do not think about what is divine, but what is human” (Matthew 16:23). I follow Christ to the cross and slander, to ridicule, in a word - I accept everything unpleasant and difficult as my own, as a gift from God sent to me by His grace. Amen. March 8, 1853 Letter 134. Sorrow. – Change of the monastery You know that monks of recent times must be saved by sorrows, and therefore do not consider the sorrows with which you are surrounded to be alien to your position and salvation. I do not advise you to seek a change in the monastery until the Providence of God itself shows you such a change, making it possible and convenient. You are wrong to think that I am angry with you; not at all. If I were angry with you, I would not support you with the Word of God. Endure the hardship of time, allowed by the Providence of God and not without its reward in eternity. Now is not the time to start anything. Letter 135. Should not condemn oneself We should not condemn ourselves for our stumbling: not because any sin is unimportant - no! every sin is an ulcer - but because we have been redeemed at an immense price - the blood of the God-man. He who condemns himself falls into despair, but he who trusts in Christ brings repentance and heals himself with it. Repent of your creeping, and approach Christ, His Holy Mysteries, as if bleeding. Letter 136. About obedience. – Alms for beginners May the blessing of God rest upon the servant of God D. I congratulate you on your arrival in a quiet refuge, in which may the merciful Lord grant you to remain with firmness of spirit and constancy, patiently endure the invisible battle with passions and lusts, and learn from the Lord Himself victory over sin. Crucify yourself on the cross of obedience, doing the only thing commanded to you, and not at all being carried away by your own feelings and reasoning, even if they apparently seemed kind and good. Start with the following: Do you ask for my blessing to participate in a donation for the renewal of the Church? - I don’t bless. Here is your answer from the Holy Father: “Do not give, without your father, who is according to God, the alms you brought from the penniless. And not through an intercessor did you receive something from them; It’s better for you to be poor and strange and be called out, than to waste fines and give new beginnings to the poor” (Good Part 1, Sim. New Theologian, Chapter 16). – Read chapter 15 too. I don’t think that you have a good motive in this endeavor. No! here is a vain and arrogant fervor of blood, excited by vanity and man-pleasing. Amen. I rejoice at your joy, and joy must be tempered by the consideration that in earthly life everything is changeable. Letter 137. Concerning Confession The Lord, not wanting the death of the sinner, but his conversion through repentance, may he accept you repenting of your attempts. If you want to gain strength in invisible warfare, especially against the prodigal spirit, which, like all spirits, traps in secret, confess, without shame, your inclinations to your old lady and you will be healed. – Don’t trust your opinions: it is said about true love that it does not think evil. Letter 138. Confession and struggle with sinful thoughts A person’s sin is destroyed by confession of sin, and the very roots of sin are destroyed by fighting sinful thoughts and repeating confession when the thoughts begin to overcome. May God forgive you for the past and strengthen you for the future. Your temptation was meaningless, it was strong because you hid it. Retell it with repentance to Mother A., ​​and when your thoughts begin to act, then repeat the confession with repentance. It is great happiness when during this struggle there is a person to whom you can confess. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” said St. Apostle James (James 4:7), - “resist, disagreeing with the thoughts he puts in, and confess them.” Every face, no matter whose it is, when it appears to the imagination, stirring up unclean thoughts and thoughts, is the face of the devil, i.e. the devil himself, who, during the time of sinful temptation, confronts the soul and deceives it with an assumed guise capable of arousing passion, according to the mood of the soul. Combined with sinful thoughts and dreams, it is combined with Satan himself and submits to him in this age and in the future: why is it necessary to fight thoughts. And the very incentive to jealousy is also a devilish deception, because the one who teaches others to be dead towards all, and therefore equal in love in Christ for all, does not prefer one to the other, since Christ, in all His image, is One. – May the Lord restore peace to you through your true repentance. Your sin is forgiven; sin no more. Letter 139. Confession of thoughts. – Bowing rule Having seen the benefit of confessing your sinful thoughts, hold on to this precious life and daily confess your sins to the Elder. Regarding the rule: after evening prayers, make 10 prostrations with the Jesus Prayer, and then say 30 Jesus Prayers slowly, with attention, in a whisper. Then 5 bows to the ground with the prayer, My Most Holy Lady Theotokos, save me, a sinner. Then 3 classes. belt to the Guardian Angel and All Saints. Peace be with you! Letter 140. Confession before an elder is the guarantee of salvation Both the sight of one’s sins and the heartfelt confession of them are a special gift of God, and are sought through fervent prayer. Beg the merciful Lord to grant you this gift - a guarantee of salvation, and force yourself to frankness: for the enemy of the human race hates this path and tries in every possible way to hinder the servant of God, who wants to gain God's mercy by frequent confession of his sins. And for you this path is necessary. Voluntarily cut off your will before the Old Woman. May the merciful Lord help you in everything. Amen. May God bless you to partake of the Holy Mysteries. The relief you feel after confessing your attempts testifies that your salvation lies in this doing. Force yourself to confess with all possible effort to the Elder: this will help you soon. Because you have lived for a long time in other monasteries without doing this, it is difficult for you to take up it. But get over yourself! Letter 141. About the need to reveal everything to Staritsa Your path is to reveal everything about yourself to the Old Lady. Do not pay attention to your dreams, to various sorrows and temptations, as if they happened to others and not to you; Your job is just to tell the Old Lady about him. Your work will begin to kill your passions little by little. This is how Dosifei, a disciple of Abba Dorotheus, lived. Conquer false shame on earth, and you will not be ashamed in heaven. Letter 142. Envy. - Insanity. – Humility in revealing thoughts No matter what excuse or guise is used to cover up the jealousy that is fighting you, do not accept it. Do not think that comparing yourself with Esau, and your neighbor with Jacob, was born in you from humility. No! This humility covered envy, so that it would be more convenient to overthrow you. Maintain your sanity, i.e. Do not compare yourself with anyone, but seek humility only in the revelation of your thoughts to the Old Lady, and in cutting off your will before her. May God help you to accept true monastic work. Letter 143. On the revelation of thoughts Do not be at all embarrassed by the battles operating within you, associated with burden, darkness and despondency. All those who have come from a long-term self-imposed life to obedience are usually subjected to such abuse. Force yourself to simplicity and frankness before the Elder; Completely hide your abuse from everyone else, because with such criminal frankness you will harm yourself and others, for whom it is not at all useful to hear about your abuse. Force yourself and force yourself again; For your constant urging to openness, the Lord will give you in due time the strength to open up with ease. And your salvation is only from your frankness before the Elder. Without this doing, you will not achieve anything spiritual and grace-filled, but you will remain flesh and blood. If you open up, you will achieve purity, which is overshadowed by the grace of God. Do not accept any enemy condemnation, or judgment, or suspicion of your Elder. Don't look for her love, but look for your salvation. Take heart. May the blessing of God be upon you, and may the grace of God overshadow you. P.S. With a decisive revelation of sins in deeds, words and thoughts, one can succeed more in one year than through other feats, the most difficult ones over ten years. That is why the enemy fights so strongly against this saving work. Letter 144. Self-will and temptation against an elder are disastrous Now you can say with the prophet David: “The Lord, having punished me, did not put me to death” (Ps. 118:18). Through many sorrows and deaths it is fitting for us to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, so that our old man with his passions and lusts may be put to death and may our heart become capable of receiving Divine grace. As can be seen from the lives of the Holy Fathers, those monks who weakly resist the battle of self-will and self-reflection, not confessing their thoughts to the elder, and entrusting themselves to the demon, who shows him such shortcomings in the elder as are not in him at all, are subject to temptations similar to yours. Having learned the reason for the temptation allowed to you, direct all possible efforts to eliminate this reason, and accept the good yoke of Christ’s humility, which appears in obedience and revelation of one’s thoughts. Letter 145. About the rule for the sick “I will sing of mercy and judgment” to the Lord (Ps. 100:1). Mercy for mercy, judgment for the fact that “the Lord punished me with punishment, but did not give me over to death” (Ps. 118:18). - Thank the Lord and stay calm. May the Lord forgive you for the past and strengthen you for the future. The bowing rule is given to the healthy, not the sick. However, if you want, make 12 bows from the waist in the morning, during the day and in the evening with the prayer: God, cleanse me, a sinner. Then say 50 of these prayers every time after bowing. Don't leave the hospital early. Letter 146. About the fight against passions and demons St. John Climacus said in the 4th degree: “The demon sometimes tries to defile novices with bodily defilements, and makes them hard-hearted, teaching them to be - beyond usual - anxious, and sometimes makes them somehow dry and fruitless, lazy in prayer, drowsy and darkened, in order to tear them away from obedience, as if they had not received any benefit from this feat; but also those who felt mental damage. He does not allow them to understand that the careful (which happens in the Providence of God) taking away imaginary goods from us is very often the cause of the deepest humility.” What happens to novice monks also happens to monks in general who live for the sake of God. The enemy fights against them with various attacks in order to lead them into hopelessness and tear them away from monastic life, or plunge them into negligence. Particularly serious is the prodigal warfare caused by him and the stumblings close to falls, as the Monk Isaac of Syria calls them. But the faithful servant and warrior of Christ, in this battle, proves his loyalty to Christ and faith in Him: he remains strong, even if he endures countless battles. Do the same. Say to the enemy: “I have surrendered to God and I decide to generously endure all my failures, no matter how many there are and no matter how long they last.” May God forgive you for the past and strengthen you for the future. Letter 147. About a feat exceeding strength Be peaceful; Deny any feat, both physical and mental, that exceeds your strength. The Lord loves humility, and does not accept insane jealousy for super-strong feats, whatever it may be: because in the desire for super-strong feats there is pride and conceit. A feat beyond strength, according to the teaching of the Holy Fathers, is very harmful and brings either embarrassment, or conceit, or both alternately, which serves as proof that there is no truth in a super-strong feat, but it is a false state of the soul. Your written experiments are very good, but this work must be done with moderation. You should not tire your soul or body. Letter 148. Suspicion, self-conceit, and jealousy are instilled by the enemy I wish that God’s mercy will cover you from all temptations inflicted by the enemy of our salvation and by our own passions. Like mortal poison, beware of jealousy and suspicion of the old woman and sister. The temptation that has befallen you should show you with all clarity how disastrous it is to entrust yourself to self-reflection and suspicions inflicted by the enemy, the incorrectness and evil origin of which is recognized by the confusion they produce. Letter 149. About patience that has found sorrow I am very sorry for the grief that befell you! You know that grief must be endured, in the hope of God’s mercy and God’s help. Placing all his trust in the Lord God, the ascetic of Christ must himself try to destroy the causes of sorrow, if it depends on him. Such effort is appropriate for you too. I sincerely wish you patience and spiritual success. If circumstances were arranged in such a way that I would not have to see you during this earthly life, then the memory of you will remain indelible in my soul, and I earnestly wish to help you with my poor advice in the Lord, when such advice is needed. May the merciful Lord forgive you all your sins and strengthen you against your temptation. Letter 150. About fasting - on the issue of an extremely ill nun The merciful Lord established, through the mediation of His holy Apostles and Holy Fathers, Hierarchs and Church Teachers, various soul-saving feats, and among them holy fasting, by which our flesh is bound and bridled. In relation to all these exploits, we must remember that they are for man, and not man for them, just as the Lord said: “The Sabbath was made for man’s sake, and not man for the sake of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). This should also be understood about fasting. Why, being in extreme weakness and not having the need to depress the body, but on the contrary, having the need to strengthen it, do not hesitate at all to eat fish soup during this Holy Pentecost: for fish soup will give less strength to your weak body than bread and water to another strong one. The Lord, the knower of the heart, who sees your weakness, will not exclude you from among those who fast. This is what many great saints of God did and, by the way, Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus. St. Isaac of Syria says in the 10th word: “Let not you disturb and cut off your life, which is like a spiritual faith, and for the lust of a little labor, let not you remain and cease from all your progress. Eat in moderation, but not always eat. And do not stretch out your legs beyond your strength, so that you will not be at all idle.” This wise advice of the great Teacher of monastics may well be applied to you; because by abstinence that is inconsistent with your strength, you can lead yourself to complete weakness, you will lose church service and your society, to which you are now bringing some service, will serve as a burden. The one asking for your holy prayers and love for the Lord is the unworthy Archimandrite Ignatius. Letter 151. To the same one. Advice to practice the Jesus Prayer I am sending you a short article about the Jesus Prayer. Due to your soreness, you should labor while lying down or sitting on a quiet chair. Say the prayer slowly, with attention, enclosing your mind in the words of the prayer, having your eyes on your lips, or closing them. It is useful for you to read the short articles on prayer available from S.G. They will help you with this activity, which at first seems dry, but later turns out to be the most fruitful. God gives prayer to the one who prays, and may He grant the gift of it to you, so that from now on you can, with frequent prayer, stand up to the Last Judgment of Christ and ask for mercy in advance. Letter 152. To the same one. To console and strengthen the sick Despite the fact that you are sick, you took the trouble to write a whole letter to a sinner. You did this, driven by Christian love. God consoles me with the friendship of Mother Abbess and yours: for the friendship of God’s servants is true consolation for the soul wandering in this short-lived and vain world, hostile to God. - May you be given strength from above, from the Heavenly Father, who punishes everyone loved by Him, and beats everyone acceptable to Him. I often think about you; my heart informs me about you. (I remember you - and I wish that you sail safely through the sea of life, in the Lord. How many pitfalls are there in this sea! What different winds, acting in different directions, it is overwhelmed! And on it, in addition to its natural dangers, robbers are also instilled in it! These robbers are invisible to bodily eyes, and they slander both body and soul; they try to drag both body and soul into the abyss of sin and drown in it forever! Alas, poor human soul! How will you make your way through the sea of life? How will you be saved from the waves, from the winds, from the pitfalls, from the robbers, from captivity, from death? - He will create power only through Christ. He will lift me up. He is my strength and my song and will be my salvation. Peace be with you! Letter 153. About the newly published book: “The Life and Writings of the Moldavian Elder Paisius Velichkovsky.” About the Jesus Prayer I allow myself to send you a newly published book: “The Life and Writings of the Moldavian Elder Paisius Velichkovsky,” that pious and spiritually enlightened man to whom the children of the Orthodox Church are indebted for the translation from Greek into Slavic of the Philokalia, Isaac of Syria and other Fathers. In the newly published book, which I have known in manuscript for a long time, a teaching is set out with particular clarity that is very appropriate for our time, the teaching about the Jesus Prayer, about which today, for the most part, they have the most obscure, confused concept. Others, who consider themselves to be gifted with spiritual discernment and are revered by many as such, are afraid of this prayer, like some kind of infection, citing delusion as the reason - as if an indispensable companion to the exercise of the Jesus Prayer - they themselves move away from it and teach others to move away. The inventor of such a teaching, in my opinion, is the devil, who hates the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, as it crushes all his power: he trembles at this all-powerful Name, and therefore slandered Him before many Christians, so that they would reject the fiery weapon, terrible for their enemy, - saving for themselves. Others, when practicing the Jesus Prayer, want to immediately feel its spiritual effect, they want to enjoy it, not understanding that the pleasure that God alone gives must be preceded by true repentance. One must cry long and bitterly before a spiritual action appears in the soul, which is grace, which, I repeat, God alone will give at a time known to Him. We must first prove our loyalty to God by constancy and patience in the feat of prayer, discretion and cutting off all passions in the most petty actions and their branches. The book I am presenting shows a charming image of practicing the Jesus Prayer, which consists of quietly pronouncing it with your lips or mind, certainly with attention and with a feeling of repentance. – The devil does not tolerate the stench of repentance; from the soul that emits this stench from itself, it runs away with its charms. The Jesus Prayer, practiced in this way, is an excellent weapon against all passions, an excellent occupation for the mind during handicrafts, travel, and in other cases when it is impossible to engage in reading and psalmody. Such exercise of the Jesus Prayer befits all Christians in general, both those living in monasteries and those living in the middle of the world. The desire to discover the spiritual action of the heart is most, almost exclusively, befitting of monks, and even then those who have known in detail the struggle with passions, with the conveniences provided by the place and other circumstances. If anyone, driven, in the words of St. John the Climacus, by proud zeal, seeks to receive prematurely spiritual sweetness or heartfelt prayerful action, or some other spiritual gift befitting a renewed nature, he inevitably falls into delusion, no matter what form of prayer he engages in, whether psalmody or the Jesus Prayer. I was able to see this from experience. The deluded elder mentioned in the life of Pachomius the Great, standing on hot coals with bare feet due to the effects of delusion, said the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father.” The reason for delusion is not prayer, not psalms, not canons and akathists, not the Jesus Prayer - no! God save everyone from such blasphemy! Pride and lies are the causes of delusion! – Pride and lies, the culprit of which is the devil. And he, in order to shift the blame from himself, impudently and blasphemously slandered the Jesus Prayer - he himself stood aside, as if guilty of nothing. Nowadays many are anxious, wary, and warn others against the Jesus Prayer, arguing that they should avoid it as something that causes delusion; but not a word was said about the devil, the real culprit of delusion—they completely forgot. Oh! what an obvious trick of the devil! how skillfully he hides. It saddens me very much that people today have so lost the true spiritual mind, and that various false, completely false thoughts have gained such power! Paisius's book has significant literary shortcomings. What about that? Often humble hermits, emerging from their deserts, only covered with rags, proclaimed the holy and saving Truth to the Christian world in meager and awkward words; On the contrary, how many books we see, arranged with sonorous words, in a harmonious, systematic order - and they contain poison that kills souls! Letter 154. To a certain Superior about the Jesus Prayer Elder Paisios did not repent, as some who did not fully understand his words and did not have a definitive understanding of mental prayer, disclosed, in publishing the book “Philokalia,” which he translated from Greek into Slavic. He, penetrating the spirit of the times, foresaw the harm of many frivolous and arbitrary people who would be harmed by using the great benefit of mental prayer for evil. Moved by spiritual love and compassion for humanity, so damaged by the Fall that it turns the very means to its salvation into means of greater condemnation, to the multiplication of disasters caused by the Fall, Paisius was upset and sick, imitating the most merciful Lord Jesus, Who shed His most holy tears for Jerusalem, which rejected Him, and therefore not only who rejected the salvation He brought, but also brought the cruelest punishments upon himself and his children. – That was Paisius’s thought! Such was his sadness at the publication of the Philokalia, in the translation and printing of which he put so much effort. This thought and these feelings are depicted by him in his letter to Theodosius, Archimandrite of the Sophronius Hermitage. More than one “Philokalia” has been used for evil! The Scriptures of the Holy Apostle Paul were used for evil, as Supreme Peter himself testified. All Holy Scripture has been used for evil by heretics. The Divine Gospel itself has been used and is still being used for evil, for their destruction, by many millions of Protestants, interpreting it incorrectly and dishonestly, allegedly moving away from unity with the Universal Church, forming a separate soul-destroying heretical host, which they dare to call the Church of the Evangelical. The Apostle Paul testifies that they are the Apostles, the fragrance of Christ in those who are being saved and in those who are perishing: “For I have the stench of death unto death: and I have the stench of beasts for the belly” (2 Cor. 2:16). Even about the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy God-Receiver Simeon said: “Behold, this one is destined for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel, and is a sign that can be reproached” (Luke 2:34). Saint Isaac of Syria in the 54th word says: “The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” (1 Cor. 1:18). What follows from this? since this word of the cross seemed foolishness to those who did not feel the power of this word; then should Paul have been silent and stopped preaching? But even to this day, the cross serves as a reason for stumbling and temptation for Jews and Greeks. So, should one remain silent so that these will not be offended? Paul not only did not remain silent, but cried out: “Let me not boast except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14). The praise of the Cross was told here by the holy Apostle not in order to seduce others, but in order to proclaim the great power of the Cross! Divine good should not be rejected if some or many have used it for evil. This should also apply to the Jesus Prayer. Jesus himself was a stumbling block to many; preaching about Him was a stumbling block; His cross was a stumbling block; How can His Holy Name not participate in the same circumstances? From what I can conclude from twenty years of observation of modern monasticism in the Orthodox Fatherland Church, being in the depths of it myself during this time, I give the following review: if there are still in our times, times of poverty, famine and spiritual darkness, monks who have partly true spiritual discernment; then these are the very few who, being enlightened by the noetic Jesus prayer, came to know in detail their passions, the actions of evil spirits, and finally the action of the Spirit of God, which begins with the pouring into the soul of the sacred world of Christ. Who, in the light of mental prayer, did not see his passions, did not know the action of evil spirits and did not taste what the peace of Christ is, uniting mind, soul and body into one; he has no concept of spiritual reasoning, although he thinks he has it, deceived by vanity. This opinion is characteristic of everyone passing through, the so-called St. Simeon the New Theologian, the second image of attention and prayer. With good morals, one can have reasoning, or reason, both natural and active, formed by the sciences and reading, as St. Gregory of Sinai discusses this very thoroughly; but this is still not spiritual reasoning! Spiritual reasoning is as distant from such reason as heaven is from earth, and superior to it, just as the light of the sun is superior to the dim light of the night celestial bodies. Letter 155. To a certain Superior about love for the brethren, about mental prayer and about repentance What will I say in response to your letter? - Alas! I don’t see a trace of imperishable and blessed holiness in myself! Not from the action of grace-filled humility, but by experience itself, by my very falls into sin, I am convinced that I am a sinner. I would like to continually contemplate my sins and cry over them; but my oblivion, distraction, and negligence conceal and darken me! - You deign to write that in my letters to you I did not dare to say any word that would actually edify you. How could I decide on it, having a heavy log in the eye of my soul, blocking the sight of my sins from me and blocking the flow of my tears? I speak only to those who ask, and then when I am sure that they are asking sincerely, at the request of the soul, and not in passing, or out of curiosity. And now, having received your letter, I am touched by my accursed heart and take up the pen to answer you, with the sole hope that the merciful Lord, seeing the true need of your soul and your faith, will grant a useful word, and will forgive me my daring in the cramped times of the present time, in which true spiritual knowledge has become very scarce. Since I am writing to the servant of God and for the sake of God, I leave behind all considerations of the world, so that, being carried away by some human impulse, I do not become a traitor to your soul, which has come running to me for advice about the Lord and has the right to accuse me before the Lord at His terrible judgment, if in this vain age I damage my advice with hypocrisy, flattery and man-pleasing. I believe, according to the tradition of the Church and with the Church, that everyone who Orthodoxy believes in Christ and fulfills His commandments, and the violation of the commandments, cleanses through repentance, will be saved. This is what the Lord Himself said to the young man who asked the Lord how he could be saved. But there is also another goal of Christianity, for which monks are especially appointed, a goal that is achieved and not achieved: Christian perfection. – The path to this perfection is purifying oneself with the commandments of the New Testament, the Gospel, guided by which the son of the Old Adam can be adopted by the New Adam. “Everyone have this hope,” says St. John the Theologian, - purifies himself, as He is pure" (1 John 3:3) But the new "commandment is broad and great"! (Ps. 119:96). The new commandment says: "Whoever wants to gain his life, let him lose it" (Matthew 16:25). What does the destruction of the soul mean? - Rejection of actions according to one’s own feelings and forcing oneself to act according to the commandments Evangelical. The Gospel communicates to the one who acts in this way his mind and his sensations, which belong to the nature of the new man, renewed in the likeness of our Creator and Redeemer. This is the coercion and self-rape prescribed by the Gospel. This means the advice so often repeated by the Holy Fathers: “Give blood and receive the Spirit.” Cut off for yourself the properties of the fallen nature, and instill in yourself the properties of the nature renewed by Christ. Not only flesh, but also blood will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But since “the Kingdom of God is within us” (Luke 17:21), we must conclude from this that as long as the heart sensations are excited and accompanied in us by the movements of the blood, then we are alien to the spiritual action flowing from God. According to the spiritual, Divine action, the blood becomes silent and there is a “great silence.” That holy peace, which is not in our fallen nature, but is given and is bestowed by the Lord, a peace that surpasses all understanding descends into the soul. He pours out sacred peace into the mind, heart and body of the servant of Christ, unites these three together and presents them to Christ, immersed in the abyss of humility, brought to a state of renewing nature - Invited by you to give you soul-helping advice, advice about the Lord, I distract my attention from the stinking ulcers of my soul, and, turning to him. To you, for the sake of God, I tell you the following with heartfelt tears: Your natural fire burns, and your blood is alive. For this reason, there is no place in your heart for that Divine fire that the Lord came to cast into us and with which natural fire is extinguished. “The verb is to have wallpaper,” says St. John Climacus, deceive yourself.” There are movements in you that depend precisely on the blood; they prevent the manifestation of Spiritual movements, keep your soul in the dark, in some unresolved state, felt by you but not understood. Not understood: because such movements can only convey the opinion of knowledge, and not knowledge that is clear, precise, as true. That is why your conscience, when you examine yourself and delve into yourself, answers you with an indistinct, terrible voice of conceit. You need consolation: May the Truth comfort you! Let us consider the subject we are now discussing in two respects: in love for one’s neighbor and in the action of mental prayer. You are alive for people. You love them with natural fire. - That’s why people are alive for you, but Christ is dead. (Do not be confused by my words: above I distinguished salvation from perfection, leaving talking about the first, as true for you by the grace of God, I am talking about the path to the second, about purification). In the 2nd part of the Philokalia, in the book of the monks Callistus and Ignatius, in chapter 37, the following words of the Great Barsanuphius are given: “If you are not counted among men, he will cause you to dwell in the city, and if you die from any man, he will cause you to inherit the city and treasures.” Do not be afraid of this death, new life is born from it. When you come to life with a new life; then you will see that life, the mortification of which God requires of us, is death. This is the death that Adam died immediately after eating from the forbidden tree, coming to life in mixed knowledge and sensations of good and evil. Tell God about all your living and deceased relatives, tell about the brothers of your monastery, about all your loved ones: “Lord! This is all Yours, and who am I?” Exactly, all this is God’s; Let us not steal God's things for ourselves. And it is more accurate for those who are supposedly loved by us to be God’s than ours. Isn't it true? If it is true, then let us accept the truth for salvation. Let us die to natural love for our neighbor, and we will come to life with a new love for him, love in God. Then we will die with natural, mixed love for our neighbor, when “we do not consider ourselves,” according to the advice of the Great Barsanuphius, “to be human,” when we spit on ourselves as some kind of abomination. Let us serve our neighbors in our service, not as fathers to children, but as servants of the Lord, as indecent servants of the Holy Angels. This is what Paul wanted; and he thought so! “We preach not to ourselves,” he told the Corinthians, “but to Christ Jesus the Lord, but to ourselves, your servants Jesus the Lord” (2 Cor. 4:5). Let us give what is Godly to God. Let us not arrogate God’s to ourselves through our opinion: God’s will not become ours through our opinion, but we will only be deceived by an empty self-delusion worthy of laughter and weeping. When we humble ourselves, God can give us His own; then it will surely become ours by grace. Thus, the Saints, having become vessels of the Holy Spirit, also became fathers in the Spirit, and had children in the Spirit. The commandment of Christ: “Do not call yourself a father on earth, nor a teacher on earth” (Matthew 23:8–9), remained unbreakable. When Ananias and Sapphira lied before the Apostle Peter, they fell dead; and the Apostle explained their guilt, that they lied to God, although before them they saw not God, but only a man - the Apostle. But this man was a vessel of the Holy Spirit; what was done to him was done to God. Many of the Saints called those to whom they imparted the life of the Spirit children. And this was true: because the words were accompanied by the deed itself. But we, who do not have the obvious dwelling of the Spirit within ourselves, can we appropriate to ourselves what only God gives? Isn't this terrible sacrilege! Isn’t this self-delusion, worthy of the false state of bitter weeping it produces? – Those of the Holy Fathers, in whom the abundance of grace was not shed as in the Apostles and other greatest Saints of God, did not dare to call themselves teachers and fathers. Of these, the Monk Nil of Sorsky, in the preface to his Skete Rules, says: “I do not call you my disciples: we have one Teacher, Christ,” and so on. And this is according to the will of the Apostle, who says: “If anyone speaks as the words of God, and if anyone serves as mighty, God bestows, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 4:11). The mortified “I” is everywhere! – Everywhere Christ is alive and gives life. Humility kills natural love. And if she dies of humility, then her life is composed of pride. Belonging to the properties of the old Adam, it requires mortification and re-creation by the Spirit. The idol of “I” lives in it, placed on the throne of the tate’s infiltrated conceit and hung with a veil of supposed virtue. The Apostle Paul did not like this love in his disciples for himself; for her he called them carnal. Armed against her, he wrote against himself; He wanted to depose, destroy, destroy himself in the opinion of his disciples. “Paul will be crucified for you” (1 Cor. 1:13), he told them. “Who then is Paul? I planted, Apollos gave to drink. But God will increase: Moreover, neither plant nor water, but God increases” (1 Cor. 3:5-7). You see how zealously the great Apostle seeks, so that those who believe in Christ will be dead to men! for people there is mortification in relation to Christ, and therefore to everything Divine and Spiritual: because Christ is the only intercessor between God and people. The disciples of John the Baptist once became jealous when they learned that everyone was following in the footsteps of Jesus, and the great Forerunner answered them: “If you have a bride, there is a groom; and the friend of the grooms, standing and listening to him, rejoices with joy for the voice of the grooms. This is why my joy is fulfilled. It is fitting for him to grow, but for me to grow small” (John 3:29–30). Great words! Holy words! Exactly. “Then the Mentors fulfill their duty when they seek so that in the souls they lead to Christ, Christ alone may be magnified and grow. They wish to diminish in the opinion of their guides, if only Christ would be magnified for them, then these Mentors feel the fullness of joy, as if they had reached the end of their desires. On the contrary, those who lead the souls entrusted to their leadership to themselves, and not to Christ, I will say without fail, commit adultery. Now, with God’s help, a few words about prayer! When exercised, it can also be actions directly dependent on the blood, and an inexperienced doer can mistake them for grace, as stated in the 4th part of the Philokalia, in the article of His Holiness Callistus, Patriarch of Constantinople, entitled: “The manner of attention of prayer.” One can find a certain sweetness in actions arising from blood and imagine that this is prayerful pleasure. Such a thought is erroneous, it is self-delusion, which the Fathers call “Opinion.” St. speaks about “Opinion.” John of Carpathia at the end of the 49th chapter, that it is the nourishment of the soul (the intoxication of the soul satisfied with itself, with its supposedly sweet states) and the vain opinion of the mind, which comes from such contentment or nourishment. In this state of self-delusion, called opinion, were those to whom the holy Apostle Paul wrote: “Behold, you are full, behold, you are rich, behold, you are satisfied” (1 Cor. 4:8). If they were definitely enriched, why would there be reproach? If the Apostle denounces them, it means that they only had the opinion of wealth. “Opinion does not allow something to be imaginary,” says Saint Simeon the New Theologian. So there may be an opinion of prayer that prevents one from cognizing and tasting the true action of prayer. Our Most Holy Lady, the Mother of God, the Ever-Virgin Mary, said about such self-important people: “Fill those who hunger with good things, and those who are rich let go of their vanities” (Luke 1:53). “The essence is rich in itself,” says the Scripture, “and has nothing: and the essence is humbled in many riches” (Proverbs 13:7). - How can you be rich with little? - Obviously - an opinion. But their fate is pitiable: while those who are hungry are filled with good things, they leave empty-handed. And in the next century, “whatever he thinks he has, it will be taken from him” (the thinker) (Matthew 25:29). Can imaginary wealth be significant? When exposed, when the very opinion itself is rejected at the court of God, what will those who had only one opinion be left with? - Empty-handed. What can you say about the actions you feel during prayer? - They are definitely bloody; You cannot help but admit that opinion also works. Your conscience, suspecting the justice and correctness of these actions, doubting them, can already serve as sufficient exposure. In addition, you are dark: Divine action would enlighten and satisfy you, satisfy you not with a feeling of sweetness, but with the knowledge of the Truth, from which a wonderful calmness and notification appears in your conscience. Warmth acts on the outside of your body; but you are completely unknown (this can only be comprehended by experience) in what way the soul moves into union with the mind; entails the body; how, in subtle cold and deep peace, a person, united with himself, above all struggle, alien to all sin, clothed in repentance, stands before the face of the Lord with pure prayer, embracing his entire being - and his very rot. Then the blood stops, the imaginary sweetness runs away, the person sees that he is a fallen being, is instructed in repentance, which should embrace him, make it possible for him to purify, through purification - union with God. Repentance should be the soul of prayer; without it it is dead, reeking of the stench of proud and seductive opinions! Repentance is the only door through which one can find saving pasture in the Lord. He who neglects repentance is alien to all good. Your blood is alive, but your soul is dead. The Spirit is needed to revive the soul. Adam was created with a living soul, i.e. the Spirit of God was present in his soul and set it in motion; why this movement was a spiritual movement, in God. When Adam sinned, the Spirit of God departed from him: Adam’s soul immediately died, and flesh and blood came to life. Through them, the devil began to act on the soul, to keep it in darkness, death, and captivity. This is why it is necessary to mortify not only the flesh, but also the blood: if the blood is not mortified, then despite the silence of the carnal passions, it is enough for the devil to hold the soul captive through the blood through the action of spiritual passions. If the soul does not pre-purify itself and does not appease God with repentance, then it is in no way possible for it to feel the actions of the spiritual. If he does not come to life in this way (movement is a sure sign of life), then he will not be able to know and see spiritual passions. And without seeing his bonds, will he be able to free himself from them? Being in these bonds, she is in the realm of the devil, who keeps her in his darkness and deadness. “What movement of the soul,” you ask, “does not come to the carnal mind and the carnal heart?” I answer: So that the soul could be capable of such a movement, so that such a movement of the soul exists. Ask repentance: let it give you an experienced knowledge of this blessed movement. There is no other way to know it than by experience; words are weak to depict it: it does not belong to the perishable world. Believe, enter into repentance with simplicity, and “the things of God will come of themselves” to you, as St. Isaac of Syria. God is faithful: He opens to those who interpret; He comforts those who cry, and bestows the Kingdom of Heaven on the poor in spirit. Do not think about repentance lightly: this is the soul of all deeds, this is a common activity that should animate all other activities. Some who are in true repentance have achieved true prosperity. It is that essential work that prepares us for the manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven in us. The Savior Himself announced this! “Repent,” He said, “the Kingdom of Heaven is drawing near” (Matthew 4:17). The merciful Lord has prepared for us a wondrous, heavenly, eternal Kingdom, showing us the Door by which we can enter the saving pasture of the Spirit and Truth, the door of repentance. If we neglect repentance, we will, without any doubt, remain outside. Natural good deeds, according to feelings, cannot in any way replace repentance. St. Simeon the New Theologian, calculating the benefits he received from his Mentor, Simeon the Blagogovinego, says: “he taught me repentance!” And how can one not consider it a blessing to indicate the means by which eternal, ineffable treasures are acquired? Repentance is the whole secret of salvation. How simple, how clear! – But what do we do? – We abandon the saving repentance indicated to us by God and strive to practice imaginary virtues, because they are pleasant to our feelings, then little by little, in an inconspicuous way, we become infected with an opinion and, as grace does not rush to overshadow and crown us, we ourselves create sweet sensations within ourselves; we reward ourselves and console ourselves! Isn't this funny? Isn't this stupid? Isn't it proud and insolent? Let's stop joking with God (forgive the indecent expression, which I did not stop using because it accurately describes our behavior!), Let's live before Him in constant repentance. The time has approached, a terrible judgment is being prepared for us, at which we will be judged not according to our opinions with which we flattered ourselves, but according to the Truth. Let us prevent a terrible disaster by repentance, and avert eternal weeping with temporary weeping. Let us come to our senses, sinners! The eleventh hour has already struck and the field of work will soon, soon end. But there is still time to condemn yourself so as not to be condemned by God. Until now we have justified ourselves. The beautiful style of your letters always reminds me of the letters of the Great Barsanuphius. Your expressions are lively, fiery, strong. This is the external side, but if we judge from a spiritual perspective, then something else must be said. The letters of Great Barsanuphius are animated by the Spirit; in them the human is dead, only the Holy Spirit lives. Your letters are animated by blood and natural fire; in them you are alive, people are alive - there is no God! You deigned to write: “I did not find brotherly, friendly, reverent care for those in need of help” (i.e. you in my letters) and so on. – Here is a direct image of the action in you with the revival of a person. What does the thrill you mention in your letters come from, if not from the blood brought into special motion? You would also like to write: “Wasn’t it pleasant for you to see your good child of the Holy Spirit, our brother,” and so on. - Here is the revival of a man with a charming and pompous opinion. I brought these articles to you as examples; but the whole whole is fermented with the same kvass, the kvass of Adam’s old age. Understand that in us, fallen people, there is a mixed knowledge and sense of good and evil, acquired by the Fall of Adam. Christ destroys this confusion with the Gospel, replacing complex knowledge and sensations with simple ones. But just as the fallen and perished are not characterized by pleasure, even natural, due to damage to nature (the consumption of a wonderful drink, in which even a little poison is dipped, is prohibited!); This was given to us by the Savior for common and unceasing work - precious repentance. The merciful Lord invested in it a brief and humble consolation, consisting in the relief of conscience, in the manifestation of the hope of salvation, which the Holy Fathers call “notice.” What a fitting delight for sinners! How great and wise is the mercy of the Lord! For those who faithfully and constancy remain on the path of repentance, the ineffably good Lord increases consolation, increasing tenderness and the feeling of human insignificance. He seals His chosen and most faithful servants from now on with the Holy Spirit and introduces them from time to time into a taste of the future age. From time to time they become partakers of unspeakable spiritual consolation. Who creates his own pleasure? he is in obvious demonic seduction! I think that I have completed the obedience you entrusted to me. Do something for me too. Pray to the Lord to forgive me, who in this letter dared to expose the secret shortcomings of my neighbor, for cleansing from which St. David, however, calling them a great sin, as one that decisively stops spiritual progress. “Cleanse me from my secrets,” he says, “and from strangers spare your servant: then I will be blameless and cleansed from great sin” (Ps. 19:13–14). My sins, not only secret, but also obvious, my falls are actually committed, imprinted by insensibility! I should have remained silent: silence is characteristic of a criminal who has no justification and is sentenced to death. It is only because of the poverty of our times that I decided to write to you, seeing your exact need and realizing that, due to the sincerity of your character, you are capable of success. Letter 156. To a brother engaged in mental prayer. Instruction in spiritual life My heart speaks more than words can express. And strange! As soon as my heart wants to start a conversation with you, the feeling of prayer flows into it and carries me away into that darkness that serves as a veil for God, a light for His rational creatures. Get there too! It’s good to forget a person in God, because God remembers him. It is good to be dead for man in God; this is true life, life by the Spirit. The spirit both deadens and gives life. Let the one who understands understand, but from the unworthy, let the spiritual word be hidden in its light, unapproachable to the carnal mind. From here, from the darkness or from the sky - call it what you want - I look at you. I take comfort in the fact that you wanted to bring your vessel to the service of God - not to another service, temporary, empty, perishable. “I bless God for this, I will glorify Him!” Look: a man, a limited man from everywhere, has invented and made so many things to satisfy his many different needs and whims! – Incomparably more amazing is the Wisdom of the All-Wise and Almighty God in the countless, varied intelligent vessels prepared by Her. Each vessel has a separate ability that actually belongs to it! Every vessel is a container for some special spiritual gift. Another is capable of services performed by the body; another - to works of mercy: another - to prayer and silence; another - with the ability to create souls with the word of Truth and Spirit, - another with the ability to control people, arrange them; another - with the ability to provide human society with what is necessary for their temporary existence - food, clothing, houses and the like. Your vessel is for the mysteries of the Spirit. The Spirit of God - Holy - rests only in the pure, the holy. Cleanse yourself with the Truth, not human, stupid truth, but with the Divine Truth, which came down to men from heaven, preserved for men in the Holy Gospel. She says: “Learn from Me that I am meek and lowly in heart: and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29). This Peace is the place of the Holy Spirit: “in peace,” says Scripture, “His place” (Ps. 75:3). – The property of Divine Truth is to purify, to liberate. The Lord said: “If you continue in My word, you will truly be My disciples. And you will understand the Truth, and the Truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). He prayed to the Father for His disciples: “Sanctify them (that is, seal them with the Holy Spirit) in Thy Truth, Thy Word is Truth” (John 17:17). And He said to His disciples: “Already you have purified the word that was spoken to you” (John 15:3). Therefore, whoever wants to understand the truth - to be purified, liberated by It - must study the Gospel commandments with reason and action, even if this is associated with the violence of the heart, which through the Fall acquired God-opposing inclinations and attractions. There is Truth in the commandments; in the commandments - humility; in the commandments - love; in the commandments - the Holy Spirit. All this is attested to in Scripture. “All Your commandments are Truth” (Ps. 118:86), - sang the God-inspired David; “If you have My commandments,” said the Lord, “and keep them, that is you who love Me” (John 14:21). “Be ye in My love: if ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love” (John 15:9–10). “The verbs that I spoke to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). To someone who has been corrected and purified by the Truth, the Holy Spirit comes, as the Spirit of Truth, unexpectedly, incomprehensibly penetrating the mind, soul and body, renewing, reviving a person into spiritual life. “I was drawn to the Spirit because I desired Your commandments” (Ps. 119:131). Let the Gospel commandments be the subject of your teaching, reflection, and activity throughout your life. “Whoever is in Me, and I in him, through keeping the Gospel commandments,” said the Lord, “he will produce much fruit.” On the contrary: “without Me you cannot do anything,” that is, no spiritual virtue. The virtues characteristic of all fallen human nature, as if nothing, have no value before God, are subject to the fire of Gehenna. “If anyone does not abide in Me,” by observing the Gospel commandments, “he will be cast out like a rod and dry up: and they gather it up and put it into fire, and it is burned” (John 15:5–6), despite any virtues of the fallen nature. In your prayers, immerse yourself entirely in repentance. There is a renewed state - you know this, but you are in a state of disrepair! and therefore remain in constant lamentation, in saving sorrow. Deny yourself! “Do not keep your soul honest to yourself” (Acts 20:24), following the example of the holy Apostle. Evaluate yourself only by judging yourself. Be selfless before God. Do not allow yourself to expect grace: this is the state and teaching of those who are in self-deception and have fallen away from the Truth. Strive to see your sin and weep over it: this is your business. And God will do His work, because He is faithful, He made a promise and His Grace will fulfill it! It is His business to give it. Do not consider your garments clean, worthy of the spiritual bridal chamber, no matter how much you wash them: your judge is God. I liked your service to your parent. Let the reason for this service not be a union of blood, but the commandment of the great God, who says: “Honor your father and your mother, and it will be good for you” (Ex. 20:12). Replace flesh and blood with Christ everywhere. He will separate you from the earth and lift you up to Himself in Heaven. I am writing down for you some sayings of the Holy Fathers: “The brother asked the great Sisoy: How can I be saved, how can I please God? “And the Elder answered him: If you want to please God, retreat from the world, retreat from the earth, leave creation, come to the Creator, unite with God through prayer and crying, and you will find peace in this and the next century.” “The great Barsanuphius said: “If you leave the care of every thing, then this will bring you closer to the city. If you don’t count yourself among people, you will be thrown into the city. And if you die from any man, you will inherit the city and its treasures.” “My brother asked Avva Pimen: what should I do with the passions that confuse me? “The elder answered: we will weep before the goodness of God until God shows His mercy to us.” “Another brother asked the same great Pimen: “What should I do with my sins?” - The elder answered: he who wants to be cleansed of the sins he has committed is cleansed from them by crying, and he who wants to be saved from falling into new sins is saved from them by crying. This is the path of repentance, handed down to us by Scripture and the Fathers, who said: weep, because there is no other way but weeping.” “The great Pimen used to say: The beginning of evil is absent-mindedness.” “He used to say: If a person blames himself for every circumstance, then he will survive everywhere.” “He also said: If you remain silent, you will find peace wherever you live.” “Saint John Climacus wrote: He who comes forth in body, but does not come out in word, is meek, and is entirely a house of love.” “He wrote: Shut the door of the cell against the body, the door of the tongue against speaking, and the inner door against the evil spirits.” The following, borrowed from the 41st word of St. Isaac Sirskago, abbreviating: “Love silence most of all, because it will bring you closer to the fruit. Words are not enough to tell about him. First let us force ourselves to be silent; then from silence something will be born in us that will instruct us in silence. May God give you to feel something born from silence. If you begin to live this life, I don’t know how much light will shine for you from here. Do not think that the observed silence of the wondrous Arseny was a consequence of his natural properties. No! At first he forced himself to remain silent. During this life, many tears and a wonderful vision are born in us. Great is the man who has the custom of silence in his soul. Silence will promote silence. It is impossible for us, who live among many, to avoid meeting people: even the equally angelic Arseny, who loved silence more than anyone else, could not avoid meeting people. It is impossible not to meet with the Fathers and brothers who cohabit with us - both accidentally, when going to Church, and on other occasions. Seeing this, the blessed man accustomed himself, guided by grace, to constant silence.” In the 20th word of St. Isaac teaches the monk to speak, addressing his soul, like this: You lived your life in madness, a most shameful person, worthy of all punishment. At least preserve yourself in this day, the remainder of your days wasted in vain, meager in good deeds, rich in evil deeds. You left the world mysteriously and were counted as dead for Christ’s sake; do not live again for the world and for everything that belongs to the world - peace will precede you, you will be alive in Christ. Prepare yourself and prepare yourself for all reproach, all annoyance, reproach and reproach from everyone. Accept all this with joy, as definitely worthy of it. Endure with thanksgiving to God every illness, sorrow and misfortune from demons whose will you did. Endure every need and natural sorrow! With trust in God, endure the deprivation of bodily needs, which must turn into pus in a short time. Bow your neck to all this in hope of God, not expecting deliverance or consolation from anyone else, but cast your care upon the Lord and in all temptations judge yourself as the cause of them. Do not be tempted by anything, do not reproach any of those who insult you: because you have eaten from the forbidden tree and have acquired various passions. Receive these bitter medicines with joy: let them shake you a little - and you will subsequently enjoy them. Alas for you! alas for your stinking vanity! You left your soul, full of all sorts of sins, without attention, as if it were not subject to any condemnation, but you were busy judging others, condemning them both in words and thoughts.” Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, having visited the silent people of Mount Nitria, asked them Abba, the great saint of God: “What did you find especially important on the path of monastic life?” The Spirit-Bearing Elder answered: “That is to blame yourself for everything and constantly reproach yourself.” “The Venerable Pimen the Great called self-reproach that pile (a log driven into the ground) to which the soul’s boat is tied during a storm.” Here are examples and evidence of exploits that are characteristic of you, which can bring abundant benefit to your soul and provide you with lasting spiritual education. Do not think that to teach silence a seclusion or a deep desert is necessary. No! It is much better to learn it between people through spiritual achievement. The very falls, invisible to your neighbors, visible and known to God and conscience, falls of the mind and heart, will serve to your advantage, making you skilled in the fight against sin, revealing to you all the weaknesses of man. An ascetic, brought up among people by the power of invisible inner feat, is strong, rich in knowledge and spiritual experience, filled with humility, and a refuge and treasure for his neighbor. He is like a tree grown on an open hill, exposed to gusty winds and all other weathers; Such trees take deep roots into the ground, are especially juicy, full of life and strength. On the contrary, the pet of the seclusion and the solitary desert is like a flower and a tree, nurtured and cherished in a greenhouse. He is characterized by destructive effeminacy: at the slightest bad weather he already suffers; bad weather - a little stronger - he dies. Complete solitude, according to the rules of the spiritual law, is allowed only to those whose feat, as St. John Climacus, the gracious dew of the Holy Spirit descended. For such people, it is definitely useful; strict solitude is needed, so that with its help they can freely indulge in the teaching and guidance of the Spirit, which is not the time to talk about now. We don’t know each other very well yet... I say this so as not to say: you don’t know me very well yet. Therefore, we need to agree. If I am unworthy to be called a man, having in me a lot of bestial and demonic things, then you, out of your love for me, attribute to me the dignity of a person, or at least the dignity of a rational creature, although sealed by the sorrowful fall. The Son of God calls Himself in the Gospel the Son of Man; God, having appeared among men, did not take upon Himself any title invented by fallen men - He calls Himself by the name given to us by God, Who before our creation conferred with Himself mysteriously: “Let us make man” (Gen. 1:26). Son of Man!... How I like this name! What a wonderful name! A humble and sublime name! How instructive and comforting it sounds in my ears!... People didn’t want this title, they needed: High Reverence, High Nobility... What nonsense! And their behavior, like their names, became nonsense, an ugly caricature, in which the proud is combined with the stupid. I allow you to write whatever nonsense you want on the envelope, but in the letter be like man to man, like heart to heart, before the eyes of the All-Holy God. Let your heart talk to me simply, sincerely; Let every word of yours be for the truth. And God! - will be, as he is, a witness to our conversations, the reason and goal of which is He, and our salvation in Him. The purpose of this letter is to satisfy not a general need, but a private need, your need; it was written under the influence of your state of mind. This is not a universal medicine - it is private, yours! You read this letter and re-read it, transfer its words from paper to your heart; drink from this cup your spiritual health; and for others it can only bring illness, serve as a reason for empty judgments, gossip, envy, and the formation of false guesses and opinions. Hide the letter, the lines, the letter from everyone; let those who are able to read with their hearts and minds read it in your behavior and glorify God, who wants all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth. September 5, 1847 Babaevsky Monastery Letter 157. To a brother engaged in mental prayer. Instruction in spiritual life I received your first letter dated September 7th. Much has already been written in response to him in my letter dated the 5th, and so I decided to wait for an answer, and then answer your two letters together - whatever God puts into my unworthy heart, which has at its disposal a hand that can barely write from weakness. – I am constantly sick and frail, especially in winter; Now, in addition, I take medicine that cures pain but weakens strength. – I thought I would write some details about the spiritual work that is going on for you. I stop to do this until another time; I hasten, having received your second letter, to contribute in any way, with God’s help, to the restoration of the disturbed peace of mind in you. And you ask me to hurry with my answer. “Go quickly,” the Lord said to Moses, who listened to His Mysterious teachings in solitude, on the top of Mount Sinai, in the solitude of the darkness caused by the heavenly clouds descending on the mountain: “come down from here, for your lawless people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt: you have trespassed quickly from the path which you commanded them: you will make for yourself a calf, and bowed down to him and devoured him” (Ex. 32:7-8). Know that a person, when he is outside the state of the world, is in a state that is incorrect in relation to the law of Christ, in a state of self-delusion and delusion, in idolatry. I look at the waves boiling in you - and there is no sadness in my heart from them; they do not frighten my heart, they do not lead it into doubt. My heart is calm; - not only that: it feels spiritual consolation. What would this be from? My heart is sensitive by nature; it cannot be cold and indifferent. I’ll tell you why: it conveys a convincing message that there is God’s mercy for you. This definition came about you from the high Throne of the King of Kings. Do not be afraid of storms, do not weaken from them: they are a good sign. God's help will soon dawn on you; a heavy spiritual treasure will be placed on the scales of your heart, from which the opposite cup of earthly sorrows and consolations will become weightless. Trust my heart!.. I don’t know if it’s worthy of trust, but it assures me so strongly that I, abandoning all consideration and speculation, write - whatever my heart tells me to write. I see a spiritual haven, prepared for you by the All-Good God, waiting for you. But He, the Most Merciful and All-Wise, allows you to first work in the waves, so that you become tired and exhausted in the struggle with them - He gives the price of the pier. A person does not give the proper price to what he gets at too low a price. Wasn't the pier a paradise? And the man did not give a price for this pier, he was dissatisfied with it - he wanted something big, something unrealizable!.. Having received your letter, I read it; A few hours later I read it again, and when my heart separated the noise of words and expressions from the voice of the soul, I took the pen, dipped it, more, it seems, in my heart than in ink, I answer you. Forgive my immodesty, which I allow myself for your encouragement: I am enveloped by an inexpressible spiritual, enlightening consolation, absorbing my mind in its sweetness, making my heart inspired. From the midst of this consolation I am writing to you!.. “And now, O Israel, listen to the justifications and judgments that I teach you to do this day, that you may live and multiply, and go and inherit the land which the Lord God your father is giving you as an inheritance,” said the Lawgiver, the God-Seer, to Israel (Deut. 4:1). He writes to you, tempted by many waves, many storms, many abysses and pitfalls, although hitherto inexperienced, tempted by many sorrows from the very time I can remember. I suffered a lot! - suffered most because of his fiery blood, - because of his fiery love for his neighbor, love, combined, it seemed to me, with pure, complete selflessness, - because of his disposition towards justice, honor, - because of his carnal mind. And now I must watch and watch for my blood; Without this, she will just steal the holy world from my heart, take me away from the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and deliver me over to the leadership of Satan. Know: God rules the world; With Him there is no unrighteousness. But His truth differs from human truth. God rejected human truth, and it is sin, lawlessness, and fall. God established His all-holy truth, the truth of the Cross, through which heaven opens to us. It pleases Him that we enter the Kingdom of Heaven through many sorrows. God gave Himself an image of the fulfillment of this Truth: He, having become human as one of His worshiped Hypostases, subjected Himself to all heterogeneous humiliations and insults. His Most Holy Face was subjected to strangulation and spitting. He did not turn His Face away from them. He reckoned with the wicked; among them, together with them he was condemned to the blasphemous, trade execution, and was handed over to it; – what kind of people? - the most vile villains and hypocrites. – We are all irresponsible before this supreme Truth; - either we must follow it, or the words will apply to us: “Whoever does not accept his cross and comes after Me is not worthy of Me.” “Whatever is not with Me is on Me” (Matthew 10:38, 12:30). The truth of our corrupt nature is armed against the truth of Christ, which is His Cross. Our flesh and blood rebel against the Cross. The cross calls the flesh to crucifixion, requires the shedding of blood; and they need to survive, strengthen, dominate, and enjoy. The path to the cross is all troubles, reproaches, deprivations; they don't want to go down this path; they are proud, they want to prosper and be proud. Do you understand that flesh and blood are proud? Look at the decorated flesh, at the abundant blood - how pompous and arrogant they are! “It is not without reason that poverty and fasting are commanded to us!” Do not be afraid of my words: at first glance, they are scary and cruel. If you follow my saving advice, you will find peace and healing in your heart. Your disposition towards N. is painful. I smelled the stench of your heart when I was in your monastery: - then, when I received your first letter; in the second letter, your soul itself is aware of it: it hurts, suffers, rushes about, groans. I wrote to you, testified by the work and teaching of the Holy Fathers, that whoever wants to move from the carnal class to the spiritual must die for all people. – What death without disease! - When we met, I told you: “You should be alone.” Your heart and mind recognized the justice of what was said; but the blood heard your death sentence on her - and was horrified. I understood this; - I did not stop, I will not stop telling the truth necessary for your salvation and prosperity. Hear, hear the voice of the sinner, the word of the sinner, the voice and word chosen by God as an instrument of your revival in the Spirit - and, even if it was with the shedding of bloody sweat, fulfill them. With your sword and bow, take away the land from the Amorites, give it to the Father’s beloved Son, the mysterious Joseph - Christ. This is what the holy Patriarch Jacob did in a transformative manner (Gen. 48:22). I call your heart Earth; Ammorites - blood, flesh, evil spirits who took possession of this land. It must be taken away from them by spiritual deed, i.e. doing with intelligence and heart. How and with what to heal your painful disposition? Do you believe the Savior? - Do you believe His words? - He said: “For you, too, have written down all the main points” (Matthew 10:30); So vigilant, caring down to the smallest details is the Providence of our All-Good God for us! God, who cares so much about us, who has all our hair in his account, looks at the first martyr Stephen being stoned, and does not prevent the murder. – Sees: The apostles die daily, suffer incessantly, and end their earthly course with a violent death. - He looks: and thousands of thousands of martyrs undergo cutting off, planing, breaking limbs, long imprisonment in stinking and stuffy dungeons, murderous work in ore copies, burning at the stake, freezing in a lake, drowning in waters.. - He looks: monks commit invisible martyrdom in the struggle with flesh and blood, with unclean spirits, with people who love peace, with countless bodily deprivations and sincere. He, the Lover of Mankind and the Almighty, looks at all this. He could have delivered His chosen ones from all sorrows, but He does not do this; - He proclaims to His servants: “In your patience you will win your souls” (Luke 21:19). “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13). “Whoever hesitates, My soul does not take pleasure in him” (Heb. 10:38). The sons of Zebedee asked the Lord for thrones of glory; “The Lord gave them “His cup.” The cup of Christ is a gift from Christ, given by Him to His loved ones, His chosen ones. The cup of Christ is a condition, a guarantee of eternal bliss. The cup of Christ is suffering. “Therefore it is known,” says St. Isaac of Syria, is God’s special providence over a person, when incessant sorrows are sent to that person.” In conclusion, I will use the words of St. Apostle Peter: “Likewise those who suffer according to the will of God, so that they may give up their souls to the Creator to do good” (1 Pet. 4:19). Based on the above, I affirm: N. under the special Providence of God; everything that happens over Him is before the eyes of God, with the permission of God, his Creator, Redeemer and Master... Have you not yet seen God in His Providence and His management?.. Retreat reverently, insignificant speck of dust!.. stop the hand that boldly extends with the hand of God to the reins of control over the destinies of man! - Stop!.. sober up your mind, intoxicated by impulses, excitement of the blood: your sick heart presented you with God, having abandoned the reins that belong to Him alone, - having forgotten His most holy promise... So begin to heal your leper and your weakened, raging soul. Relying on faith, on living faith, get up every day - first several times a day, three or four times - on your knees for a short minute, say to the Lord: “Lord! N., whom I thought to love so much, thought to respect so much, I called, deceivingly, mine, Yours, Your creation, Your property. He is Yours - the All-Blessed Creator and Lord! You are All-Good: you want to arrange everything good for him. You are Omnipotent: you can arrange everything for him, whatever you want. You are All-Wise: it is impossible for man to explore or comprehend Your spiritual paths, Your destinies... And who am I? - A speck of dust, a handful of earth, existing today, disappearing tomorrow. How can I benefit him? “I can only harm him and myself more with my impulses, which are blood, which are sins.” I submit him to Your will and power! He already is, has always been in Your complete will and power; but my blind mind has not seen this before. I return to You Your property, which I madly stole from You with my deluded opinion and dreams. Heal my heart, which thought to love, but which only hurts: because it loves outside of Your holy commandments, in violation of the holy peace, in violation of love for You and your neighbors.” – And we are commanded to love our enemies; and violation of love for them is a violation of the commandment, a violation of love for one’s neighbor. Rising from your knees, repeat slowly several times: “Lord! I surrender him, myself, everyone to Your holy will; May Your will be in everything! For everything – glory to You!” When you are with people and you see an invisible temptation approaching the soul, then repeat in your mind the above words. When you see the disorder of the world and your little world - the monastery, repeat the words: “Lord! You, Omnipotent, see all this; may Your will be done, may Your unthinkable destinies be accomplished. And who am I, a speck of dust, that I should interfere with Your incomprehensible control!” The Son of God said about Himself: “The Son of Man is given into the hands of sinners” (Matthew 26:45). If He, the All-Holy One, surrenders into these hands, what is strange when a sinner surrenders into the hands of sinners like him? Let us learn to say like the sinner crucified near Christ: “I will accept what is worthy according to my deeds; remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom.” And N. must do the same in relation to you - betray you to God, His will, His Providence. He is weak for spiritual guidance; he is drawn by your weakness. And in your weakness there is great power of blood, eloquent blood, rebelling against the spiritual law: - whoever has not felt in himself a clear spiritual action that grants freedom, independence, will not be able to withstand the pressure of your blood. "You should be alone." I said this for you; - I said and repeat: Those to whom you entrust your battles will be damaged - and, perhaps, beyond healing. My lot was constant loneliness; – was and is. What to do? Let us endure the burden of solitude. Having seen him, having seen our orphanhood on earth, the Holy Spirit, at His time known to Him, will come to us. Then you will not be alone and you will be glad that you were alone. Mortify mutual partiality with true humility, which is suggested in the above-written prayers of God's vision. You should not untimely, due to the attraction of a tender feeling, i.e. stupid blood, become more frequent towards each other. Don't be gentle! Don't let yourself get soft! Be a true husband! Otherwise, so that our wives do not shame us and classify us as wives because of our weakness! So a certain reverend nun said to the careless, weak monks: “You are wives!” I have reason to seek this from you. Give it! - because you can give. When thoughts of jealousy and tenderness come to you towards N., and to him towards you, say to yourself: “Lord, he is Yours! what about me? - When the fighting intensifies, go to your cell and on your knees!.. By struggling in this way, you will feel, by the grace of God, healing from addiction to each other, by which your hearts are deprived of freedom; they are in captivity and therefore in torment. Your time and health are lost in empty confusion and fruitless torment. When God grants you healing from addiction and you feel freedom and lightness, then you will know that your present state was “temptation”, it was a false state, not a spiritual one, and therefore sinful, opposed to God. Small things that are unnoticeable in worldly life, in a monastic life become not small things, but very important shortcomings that can cause incurable harm - not only stop, stop all spiritual progress, but also make living in a monastery completely fruitless. This especially applies to monastics, who in the field of Christ were given an inheritance for cultivation - mental prayer and other internal deeds associated with it. The short words of the above-written prayers and words of humility, which should be rotated more often before the face of the soul, so that various insects do not have time to settle on it and ulcerate it, are among the powerful and effective tools of spiritual invisible feat. The use of these and similar tools is called work, with which the walls of the spiritual Jerusalem are built - the walls of the cities of foreigners, built by them in our hearts, crumble. “You must be alone!..” “Die for men”... May the Levites, faithful to God, their brothers and neighbors, worshipers of the idol, fall under the edge of the sword. May thoughts and feelings, servants of sin, be eradicated from the soul by thoughts and feelings, servants of God. Their parents are the same: mind and heart; that's why they are brothers. They are neighbors and neighbours: because they look close to goodness and the heart is very attached to them. When, at the command of Moses, the sons of Levi girded each sword on their thigh and went through the entire camp of Israel from gate to gate, each killing his neighbor and his neighbor, Moses said to them: “Fill your hands this day with the Lord, each one in his son and in his brother, so that a blessing may be given to you” (Ex. 32:29). And you do this, and may a blessing be given to you. If you do not die for people, if you allow your heart to be carried away, to be captivated by empty attachments, then all your life you will crawl on the earth, you will not be rewarded with anything spiritual: your bones will fall outside the promised land. Do not be afraid of any feat, or battle, or giants! Do not spare, like a true Israelite, like a true Levite, neither brothers, nor sons, nor daughters, nor neighbors and neighbors! Do not be touched by regret for the blood that kills with eternal death those who are indulgent towards it! - For the sword, Leonid, for the sword! - To fight, to fight desperately! Persistent, constant battle, until it is crowned with a decisive victory! “Better is death in feat,” said St. Isaac, rather than life in the fall." – And what kind of life is life in sin? It is not worth the name - life; Scripture called it death; she is the firstfruits of eternal death, perhaps even eternal death, if she is not killed by the life of Christ. – How many decrepit old men, tender maidens, weak children remained victorious? “Will you really allow double-mindedness to shake you, let go of victory and the crown of eternal triumph for the price of an instant, painful hesitation, which seductively, mockingly, abusively tries to present itself to us as the pleasure of virtue?” Do not be afraid of the strongholds of the sinful city: with constancy, “strengthen your battle against the city,” says Scripture, “and dig up and...” (2 Samuel 11:25). May I see on you the crown of victory, the crown of the Spirit, crowning first your head, and then your heart! May springs of living water flow from them! From these sources, let you drink, firstly, until you are full and satiated; May all who are drawn to you by the thirst for the Word of God may drink from them and be satisfied, and may they all praise the Lord. May the spiritual love of your neighbors reward you a hundredfold for the mortification of blood love. Until the renewal - be alone; before it, a union of special love with someone - I say in a spiritual sense - fornication. After renewal, true love for neighbors appears, holy, spiritual: it is all in God; she is a spiritual vision. It is worth shedding blood when an immeasurable treasure is given for it - the Spirit. Upon receiving the Spirit, a person will see clearly that blood is a God-hating, stinking abomination. And therefore the Scripture says: “Cursed is he who forbids his sword from the blood” (Jer. 48:10). Die, die! - and be buried... in order to inherit the holy resurrection of the soul by the Spirit of God. How you should not tell others your battles and spiritual temptations; So one should not listen to the scoldings and temptations of others. Partial reason for this: your strong, hot blood. You transmit strongly and perceive strongly. Because of this, you greatly shock others with your indignations, and you yourself are greatly shocked by their sorrows reported by others. – The second reason lies in the general rule for all ascetics: spiritual warfare cannot be comprehended and explained by natural reason: because our entire nature is in decline. For this you need spiritual intelligence, i.e. appeared in man through the action of the Spirit. And therefore only a spiritual person is able to listen to the scolding of his neighbor and give him saving advice; and one kept in the darkness of passions is not yet capable of this. Shut up, shut up! First, we must remain silent, on the advice of the holy Psalmist, about the very blessings; - then one should no longer forbid one’s mouth when in teaching the mind, i.e. in the thoughts constantly born in the mind, the Divine fire will kindle. You write: “To abandon N. is to abandon Christ Himself in his person, naked, ulcerated, tied to a prison post? Won’t He also abandon me then? and so on. “You see how eloquent your blood is.” Who wouldn't be carried away by her! You, like Cicero, can beg mercy from Caesar for the most hated Appius Milo - like Demosthenes you can raise all of Greece against Philip!... Spare the weak! Do not direct your strong words at them!... Spare the weak, who so vividly feel and express the suffering of others - more vividly than they themselves! – The so-called monastic Holy Fathers have clothed themselves in your beautiful expressions – justifications. Justification is the mask of virtue with which the catcher of our souls covers the nets he lays for our mind and heart. We pray with genuflection for deliverance from excuses: “Do not turn my heart into words of wickedness, do not bear the guilt of sins” (Ps. 141:4). St. spoke Pimen the Great about our natural, fallen will and about justifications: “Man’s own will is a copper wall between him and God, a stone that resists striking. If a person abandons his will, then he too will say: “For my God I will cross the wall. My God, His way is blameless” (Ps. 17:30–31). If justification is added to the will, then the person perishes.” Your “own will”: the inclination of the heart towards N.; making excuses helps your addiction; - you think and speak in the invisible Divine, but you suffer terribly - if you do not take measures, you can be very damaged, damaged beyond repair. For the simplicity and sincerity of your heart, God sends you a helping hand!... Do you understand that your heart is the simplest? There is nothing complicated about it. You are not fit for the world: they need cunning ones. You can only be cunning and secretive when you are silent. Get used to silence: you need it both for spiritual achievement and for removing external, fruitless sorrows. Your heart is for God! Your heart is for the Holy Spirit: He loves to rest in simple and kind hearts. You are also kind; - only your blood is knocking you down. Calm her down with humility and silence. Look more often at Christ: “Behold, My Servant,” the Father testifies of Him: Whom I have willed, My Beloved, Whom My soul has pleased: I will put My Spirit on Him, and He will proclaim judgment with His tongue: He will not contradict, nor cry; Below, anyone at the crossroads will hear His voice. He will not break broken reeds, and he will not quench the flax that heeds: until the end he will lead to victory in judgment. And in His name the nations put their trust” (Matthew 12:18-21). One should never reason with thoughts. The enemy can present a lot of logical, irrefutable things, incline our mind to accept evil, murderous thoughts, disguised in the guise of virtues and piety. Let your heart be the touchstone of your thoughts. No matter how good the thought may be, if it takes away peace from the heart and subtly leads to a violation of love with neighbors, it is enemy. Don't argue with him, don't reason; - otherwise he will catch you and force you to eat from the forbidden tree; - arm yourself quickly against it, drive it away from you with spiritual weapons: “Praising God”, - “Thanking God”, - “Surrendering yourself to His will”, - “reproaching and condemning yourself”, - “prayer”. An excellent weapon during a strong battle: come to your cell, prostrate yourself for a moment before God, asking for His help and surrendering yourself to His will. In case of strong abuse, this is repeated several times a day and it helps a lot. Have you observed your mind? Have you studied what its properties are? – You don’t have an analytical mind, which takes everything apart, anatomizes; and, after this work, draws his conclusion. Most human minds have the properties of analysis, and due to this property they are capable of cunning, cleverly arranging their affairs, and plotting intrigues. Your mind without work sees, embraces objects. This mind is for spiritual vision. – Here’s another thing to notice about him: with freedom and pleasure he can fall into the dust before the greatness of the Divine; but in order to humble himself before his neighbor he needs to work on himself. Why? - Because by his nature he has contempt for everything vile, vulgar, petty, - he is incapable of bends and twists. Seeing these shortcomings in his neighbor, he despises his neighbor along with his shortcomings. Your mind, instructed by the Gospel, will then humble itself before every neighbor when it sees Christ in every neighbor. All who are baptized into Christ are clothed with Christ. No matter how or how they defile themselves, the robe of Christ, until the judgment of Christ, is on them. It is necessary to recognize oneself as worse than all people: this is required by holy humility. The Apostle did not simply say that he was the chief of sinners; was convinced of this. And we need to convince ourselves: there is work and labor to be done here. May God grant both to you and me to accomplish it. - Because of your mind, because of its separate structure, from most other minds, you will have to bear, and probably are already bearing, some sorrows. Rarely will your mind understand. Seeing his sharpness and agility, who will understand, who will believe that he is simple! Most will recognize you as cunning, with plans, and suspect you; invent for you and for you. This is inevitable: analytical minds cannot even assume the existence of a mind without analysis, looking simply and clearly. Seeing the power of the mind, they attribute it to the highest degree of analysis - they recognize deep, subtle, deliberate cunning in someone who never thinks - looks with penetrating simplicity at everything that is subject to human gaze... Forgive your neighbors. We are all weak. Fulfilling the law of Christ consists in bearing each other’s burdens generously, lovingly and humbly. I am pleased that you have read few religious books: it is better to have tablets that are not written down than those that are written stupidly. Do I really have to write on yours? - If so, let not the dead words of man be inscribed on them, but the living words of the Spirit. Seeing your trust in me, I arrogate to myself the right to send you, if possible, books of the Holy Fathers that I consider useful for you. This is mine, I give you mine: this was my behavior: I nourished myself and still nourish myself exclusively by reading St. Fathers of the Eastern Church, carefully guarding, according to their holy advice, from books containing false teaching, which contain all books written outside the saving bosom of the one true Church. Accept mine when God has told you to desire it. Do not read any heterodox writers: in them the Holy Spirit is replaced by unbridled, fiery blood; they can lure people into the abyss - and they lure many people there. They do not have the Holy Spirit; They have their own spirit - the gloomy, flattering spirit of the dark and proud heresy. The effect you mention, produced in you by reading Scripture - what impression the distant sounds of hammers striking nails during the crucifixion of the Savior had on John the Theologian and the Myrrh-Bearers was bloody. Understand: my nerves were shaken. Such actions are rejected in spiritual feat and are called charming, i.e. originating from self-delusion and leading to it: because they are not from the grace of God, but their own human condition, characteristic of our fallen nature, which is reached by the strain of imagination and sensitivity. Those inexperienced in spiritual life attribute such states to the action of grace; from this comes an opinion about oneself; an internalized opinion is self-delusion or prelest. Therefore, one must keep oneself in a state of equanimity, silence, calmness, and poverty of spirit, carefully moving away from all conditions produced by heated blood and nerves. - Do not hit yourself on the chest or on the head to bring out tears: such tears are from shock of the nerves, bloody, do not enlighten the mind, do not soften the heart. Wait with humility for tears from God. Some holy, invisible finger, some subtle thought of humility, will touch the heart - and a quiet tear will come, a pure tear, will change the soul, will not change the face; it will not make your eyes redden, - a gentle calm will pour into your facial expression, making it Angel-like. When I read the following in your letter: “I don’t find the slightest ray of grace or sign of goodness in the one about whom people spoke so loudly and a lot... And your kind heart believed the rumor and rightly condemned my irritability as untruths”... - I laughed heartily... I need your written answer so that I can justify myself to myself. I trust no one as little as myself; I fear no one more than myself. Who am I to lead the human soul, created in His image and likeness, to God? My soul got lost in the desert, stuck in a time of darkness. I need to use the short time of my earthly wandering to take care of her. This is how I am before my eyes... Christ is with you. Letter 158. To a brother engaged in mental prayer. Instruction in spiritual life How do you think? - What is the shortcoming that I could particularly complain about when I am not leaving my cell in solitude? - Due to lack of time. Soreness and treatment consume my time all the time. I lie, lie, lie in inaction, in numbness: a strong medicine draws out an old cold from the veins and bones, like a barber squeezes blood out of a simmered drinker. If, God willing, I become stronger, the classes that are now patiently waiting for me will come and begin to take up my time. If I return to St. Petersburg and the Sergius Hermitage, my brothers, friends, acquaintances, curious people, the affairs of the monastery and monasteries will attack me there, they will steal all my time. I thought: now, in my free moments, I will little by little compose for Leonid the description and explanation of some monastic deeds that I promised him, and together I will give answers to some articles of his letters. We do not agree with you in terms of some of the expressions we use; By the same word you mean one thing, and I mean something else. For example, by the word: “spiritual, spirituality,” you mean what everyone has now accepted to understand - with such an understanding you move away from the meaning associated with this word in the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Holy Fathers. Nowadays the book is only about a religious subject; it already bears the name “spiritual”. Nowadays, he who wears a cassock is undeniably “spiritual”; he who behaves with restraint and reverence is “spiritual” to the highest degree! This is not how Holy Scripture teaches us, this is not how the Holy Fathers teach us. They say that a person can be in three states: natural, subnatural or supernatural and supranatural. These states are otherwise called: mental, carnal, spiritual. Another way: biased, passionate, dispassionate. Unnatural, carnal, passionate, he serves a completely temporary world, even if he does not indulge in gross vices. Natural, soulful, partial is someone who lives for eternity, practices virtues, struggles with passions, but has not yet received freedom, who does not clearly see either himself or his neighbors, but only guesses like a blind man, by groping. The superior, spiritual, passionless one is the one who has been overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, who, being filled with Him, acts, speaks under His influence, rises above the passions, above his nature. Such people, indeed: the light of the world and the salt of the earth, see themselves, they see their neighbors, and they can only be seen by someone who is spiritually similar to them. “The spiritual one strives for everything, but he himself does not contend for one” (1 Cor. 2:15), says Scripture. These are extremely rare these days. In my life I had the good fortune to meet one - and until now wandering on earth - an old man, about 70 years old, from the peasants, illiterate: he lived in many places in Russia, in Mount Athos - he told me that he, too, met only one. Hold, both in this case and in others, to the terminology of the Holy Fathers, which will correspond to your practical life, which often disagrees with the terminology of the latest theorists. Forgive me for calling theorists dead! Let these dead people fiddle with their dead people, that is. with those who want to hear the word of God with the goal of enjoying eloquence, bloody outbursts, and play of the mind, but not in order to create the Word. – The latter need to be told: “with what pleasure we listened and spent our time,” and the first need the world to say about them: “Ah! How cleverly and beautifully they speak.” Do not be seduced by natural intelligence or eloquence! It's all dust. To this eloquence and this mind it is said: “Thou art the earth”! However, I understand that you, having tasted life, cannot be satisfied with the dead! Well said St. Simeon the New Theologian: “Those who pretend to be virtuous and sheepskin, showing one thing outwardly and being another in the inner man, all sorts of untruths, full of envy and zeal and the sweets of evil, very many honor them as passionless and Saints, having an uncleaned spiritual eye, less able to know them from their fruits; in the good will and virtue and simplicity of heart of those who abid and are truly holy, as they despise others from people, and, despising them, come and count them for nothing. Those who are verbal and vain, rather than teachers and spiritualists, are charged with being such. Those who are afflicted with the devil, speaking by the Holy Spirit, who are arrogant and proud, because they turn away from the arrogant and proud, are horrified by his words, rather than moved. From the womb and the teachings of those who speak thinly, and those who lie against their salvation, the great ones praise and accept.” Likewise, only those books in the precise sense can be called spiritual which are written under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Do not get carried away by the general flow, but follow the narrow path after the Holy Fathers. You fell in love with mine: I tell you how I tried to behave. You wrote to me in your letter: “Run people and you will be saved”! – there was a prophetic voice to Arseny. How can one who loves silence willingly endure the cramped conditions of a hostel on the same basis as newcomers and those still restless?” - When Saint Arseny was in the capital, at the Royal Court, and prayed to God, with the temptation he encountered, not knowing what to do, a voice came to him: “Run, man, and you will be saved!” – And you had this voice, it resounded in your soul when you lived among the many-witted world; you obeyed him, retiring to a secluded monastery. You did this with simplicity of heart, sincerity, simplicity of intention, with a small, preparatory knowledge of monastic life. You were met with unexpected sorrows and bewilderment! What about that? “God loves you, He wants to give you His mercy, to make you wise,” this is what the holy elder monk said to the holy young monk who complained about his sorrows. - God sent sorrows; He will also send consolation. When Saint Arseny was already in the monastery, he again prayed to God: “Lord! teach me how to be saved!” He was given a more complete answer: “Arseny, avoid people, be silent, remain silent: these are the roots of sinlessness.” “And you already heard in the monastery: “Get used to silence,” which greatly contributes to silence. Already in the monastery you heard: “die for people” - the same as “flee people.” You heard: “learn silence between people through spiritual achievement.” Arseny the Great used to admonish the brethren from his experiences: “strive as much as you have, so that through your inner work, which for the sake of God, everything external will be defeated.” Macarius the Great, the founder and chief mentor of the Skete of Egypt, famous for asceticism, in which Arsenius the Great also lived, used to say to the brethren, at the end of the Divine Liturgy: “flee, brethren.” One day the elders objected to him: “Where should we run beyond this lonely desert?” The great saint of God pointed his finger at their lips and repeated: “flee, brothers.” I beg you: give a price, give due weight to the work of the Holy Fathers, which they learned from Divine revelations: give a price to the work that will make salvation and prosperity convenient for you; give, though you, the value of doing, - I say with tears and tears, - doing, which is now rejected by the monks, trampled upon by them, buried in deep oblivion, into obscurity, replaced - I don’t know what - by some kind of games. “We pray according to Christ, as we pray to God, we pray according to Christ!” (2 Cor. 5:20) - said the Apostle. Alas! I am looking for self-sacrifice in myself and do not find it! I am looking for a person who would decide to reject his own will and, stripped of all will, wholly wanted to follow Christ, to fulfill His will - and I do not meet such a person! My eyes yearn between the multitude, as if in a deserted desert, - they do not find a sight on which they would stop with consolation!.. We have all loved our empty and stupid desires, we have loved the corruptible, temporary, the flesh and blood that lives in them - eternal death!.. The narrow path is the path of self-sacrifice; cramped and on the wide path - self-indulgence! We are crowded, we are in a hurry, we are pushing each other into the already full, already satiated abyss of hell! “There are still ascetics today, but they do not have the crowns of saints, the crowns of Christ.” The crown of Christ is the Holy Spirit. Christ crowns His conquering warriors with the Holy Spirit. Now the Spirit does not descend: because the ascetics labor unlawfully. “Even if someone strives,” said the Apostle, “he will not get married unless he strives lawfully. “No one who has been a warrior,” he proclaims, “is obligated to make purchases of life, so that he may be pleasing to the governor” (2 Tim. 2:5,4). Everything that hinders self-sacrifice and introduces rumors into the heart is a worldly purchase. God looks at her angrily - he turns away from the warrior who has pledged himself to the purchase of life! Therefore, the holy Apostle convinces his disciple to true spiritual feat: “Suffer evil, for you are a good warrior Jesus Christ” (2 Tim. 2:3). The Monk Isaac of Syria says about ascetics who do not care about eradicating spiritual passions: “They will not reap anything. Just as those who sow among thorns cannot expect any fruit, so also those who consume themselves with resentment and affections; they will not be able to accomplish anything - they will only groan in vain on their beds from vigils and other oppressions. And the Scripture testifies about them: “They seek Me day by day and desire to understand My ways, because men have done righteousness, and have not forsaken the judgment of their God; Now they ask Me for righteous judgment, and they want to draw closer to the Lord, saying: Why did we suffer and did not see? Our souls were humbled, and you did not see? In the days of your fastings you will obtain your wills” (Is. 58:2–3), i.e. “If you fulfill your thoughts, offer them as burnt offerings to idols; you have recognized your fierce thoughts as if they were gods, you are sacrificing to them your autocracy, more honorable than all sacrifices, which you should have sanctified to Me with good deeds and a clear conscience” (Isaac the Syrian ff. 58). – Saint Simeon says: “If someone exchanges love for the Bridegroom Christ for love for something else, secretly or openly, and his heart is held by this love; he becomes hateful, abominable to the Bridegroom, unworthy of union with Him. He said: “I love those who love me” (Prov. 8:17) (Philokalia, part 1, chapter 81.). Listen to how the ancient monks deeply respected the works of the saint, what priceless value they gave them! We, the darkened ones, are unable to even understand this: because we have not lived a significant, attentive life; - they lived somehow lightly, windily, as if joking, as if believing and not believing eternity, the double reward in it. “Once upon a time, the Great Saint of God, Elder Daniel, went with his disciple from Skete to the monastery of the mountain Thebaid, where Abba Apollos lived. The fathers, hearing about his coming, went out to meet him seven miles from the monastery. There were more than five thousand men, including five hundred standard-bearers. It was a wonderful sight! They all lay prostrate on the sand, waiting to receive the Elder, as if the Angels were waiting to receive Christ. Some of them spread their clothes under his feet, others their hoods, and fountains of tears flowed from their eyes. Father Apollos came and, approaching the Elder, fell on his face seven times before him, bowing to him. Then they greeted each other with love. The brothers began to beg the Elder to grant them permission to hear the word of salvation from his lips. The elder did not soon begin to talk to anyone. They sat down on the sand outside the monastery. The church could not accommodate them all... Father Daniel ordered the following to be written to his disciple: “if you want to be saved, keep non-acquisitiveness and silence: because in these two works lies the whole of monastic life.” – The student wrote what the elder said to him and gave it to one of the brethren, who read it to the Egyptian brethren. Everyone became moved and began to cry (Paterik of Skitsky). What was the life of the Elder that he was able to condense his entire monastic life into two words! - and in two words set decisive boundaries for the mind and heart, defining the work of salvation! What was the life of the brethren, how rich their souls were in the experiences of paying attention to themselves, examining themselves, that they understood the full depth of the elder’s words and responded to him with a common sob! Non-covetousness is the same as mortification towards everything - to keep the mind free from everything earthly; and silence, turned into a habit, gives him all the freedom to constantly look into the heart. Here is a living image of a true silent person, a true monk, dead to the world, a mysterious priest and bishop, offering to God an unceasing sacrifice of deep, holy thoughts and feelings, and a sacrifice of heartfelt and mental silence that exceeds them - this mysterious darkness, behind which is directly God. Listen to what the Lord said. Give price and weight to the words of the Lord!.. everything for us without price and without weight!.. With price and weight only our wishes!.. “The kingdom of heaven is like a hidden treasure in a village, which a man found hidden: and for joy he goes, and sells everything he has, and buys that village” (Matthew 13:44). -What kind of treasure? – The Holy Spirit, bringing the Father and the Son into the soul. – Which village is this treasure hidden in? - Repentance. - How did this village come to be? - By living faith. – What does joy mean? – Kindled zeal for the cause of God, born from living faith. – What does “hidden” mean? - Silence and stillness. – What does it mean: “the village sells all the trees and buys it?” - Non-covetousness. Everything, everything must be sold, every addiction, every inclination of the heart, in order to buy repentance. Otherwise it won't sell. If a trifle is retained in the heart, the heart cannot inherit repentance: this trifle entertains it. You need to hide in silence. Hide not only from people, but, if possible, from yourself. Whoever does this will experience repentance; whoever acquired this village has a treasure - the All-Holy Trinity. ABOUT! when She would look upon us in need in the waves of the invisible sea, would grant us, me and you, through selflessness, to inherit the land of repentance, would become our treasure, immeasurable and incalculable wealth. - Let me make you an offer: agree that for silence, when you little by little introduce yourself into the habit of silence, they will consider you a little strange, and they will say both about your strangeness. Agree to this with generosity: it will not be contrary to the will of God and will more seclude your heart. “If anyone thinks that he will be wise in you in this world,” God commanded His Apostles, “let him be, for he will be wise” (1 Cor. 3:18). You write: “I have no privacy at home, in church it is often violated... the connection of thoughts is hindered by a restless thought: they are spying on me.” The Gospel says: “to the nazirah... let the speech of Nan be found” (Luke 6:7). Who is the “nazirah” for? For the Lord. Let them watch you too, come to terms with it. Do not refuse the cup of Christ, both in this case and in all. Say to yourself: “They did this to Christ, why not do this to me?” Our earthly life is short - like a deception: its sorrows, by the very thing, mean nothing; – have as much meaning as we give it to them. Humility will bring peace, prayer, silence into your heart. – When you are at home, think that you are with the Angels; Having performed the service, when dealing with them, say mentally: “Angels of God! accept service from a sinner.” Whether you sit at a meal, at tea, at handicrafts, say to yourself: “I am worthy to be with the Angels of God.” Love for one's neighbor in God brings consolation from God to the heart, and this consolation secludes a person in himself. He loves his neighbor and is at the same time dead to him; his heart sinks into silence, which is the beginning of God’s love. You write: “Without freeing myself from the anxious sensations of the heart and the worries of the mind and forcing myself to engage in mental activity, I only feel a severe headache and nervous disorder.” – I repeat to you that all external worries and anxieties must be overcome by internal activity. Renewal must begin from the heart; heart is the root. “If the root is holy, so are the branches” (Rom. 11:16). This image of heroism was established by the Savior Himself. “First clean the inside of the glass and the dish,” He said, “so that the outside also may be clean” (Matthew 23:26). When anxiety comes, reject the thoughts that bring it, calm down the excitement of the blood, accepting as true that every thought that brings anxiety is ungodly, and again continue the prayer activity. In all deeds, especially in prayer, constancy and patience are required. Impatience knocks down its delicate color, just as frost and winds knock down the flowers of fruitful trees. “Be patient in prayer” (Colossians 4:2), said the Apostle: this is a distinctive property of practicing prayer. First, introducing the mind into prayer, accustoming it to it, do not keep it in it for a long time, so that it does not become unnecessarily tired, but introduce it more often to the activity of prayer. Oh! This activity requires compulsion! The criminal - our mind - does not like the prison of prayer; he needs crazy freedom; with violence it is necessary to drag him into prison, into chains; without this, the raging one will not be tamed, nor will he return to common sense. In due time, when he has tamed himself, become as quiet as an Angel, his heart will come out to meet him with all his spiritual strength, as with a child, with all his bodily abilities, as with slaves, and there will be peace in that house, holy peace from the Most Holy Lord, a great feast of renewal and resurrection. – Headache is a common initial accompaniment of deep attention to the word of God and prayer. “For the word of God is living,” says the Apostle, “and is active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, members and marrow, and judging by the mind and thought of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). Not only does it hurt with you, not only did it hurt with me: it hurt with the Holy Fathers, - and they put it in their Scriptures, says St. Gregory of Sinai: “And having suffered from pain and headaches many times, you endured it more laboriously and diligently, seeking the Lord in your heart.” At times, from exercising in prayer, there is relaxation of the whole body, sweat, fever; all this for beginners; – among the successful, prayer strengthens and nourishes the soul and body. But even they sweat. However, you have been taught the easiest way of attention and prayerful feat, alien to any difficult mechanical bodily exercise, for which good health is necessary. Pay as little attention as possible to the little things, to all the sensations in your body, make sure that your mind remains in repentance and moves away from entertainment. I hope your headaches won't last long. And it didn’t last long for me. After they passed, the activity of prayer became, as it were, more natural to the mind and easier for it. When praying, do not demand from your mind anything that exceeds its strength, for example, indestructible complete undistractedness. Mentally show your weakness and old age to God, saying: “Lord! You see all my dilapidation!” - and, enduring, generously endure the weakness of your mind. It is not in vain and not without purpose that it is said: “I have endured the Lord, and have heeded and heard my prayer: and brought me up from the pit of passions and from the clay of the mire, and set my feet on stones and straightened my steps: and put a new song in my mouth” (Psalm 39:1-4). In the second letter you write: “Remove me, O Lord, from the wicked man, deliver me from the unrighteous man, who conceived unrighteousness in my heart, I will fight with the army all day long. They have sharpened their tongue like a serpent, the poison of asps is under their lips. Save me, O Lord, from the hand of sinners; take me away from the unrighteous people, who thought the heels of my feet” (Ps. 139:2-5). Who do you think is the wicked man, the unrighteous man, the sinner who fights all day long, with the venom of an asp under his lips? - This is the devil. – When Saint David curses his enemies, or more correctly, through his mouth the Holy Spirit, then in these cases one must always understand the unclean spirits, the enemies of the human race, who have taken away paradise from us, who want to take away the redemption and salvation given to us by God. In Scripture the devil is sometimes called a man. So the Savior called the one who sowed the tares among the wheat “the enemy - man.” The book of Psalms is the most sublime spiritual book. It describes in depth and detail the inner feat of a warrior of Christ. Demonstrative shadows and allegories are often used, giving the book mystery and darkness - (it is not without a reason that there is a veil on it!). There is no need to take it literally: the literal understanding of Scripture kills the soul. Spiritual understanding is necessary: ​​it revives, puts on the right, holy path. The Spirit of God, commanding through the mouth of David complete hatred of invisible spiritual enemies, teaching us to resort to prayer to God for their contrition and destruction, at the same time demands from us love for our enemies - men, demands forgiveness of the insults inflicted on us from our neighbors, demands this with the invocation: “O Lord my God,” the Psalmist prays, “if I have done this, if there is unrighteousness in my hand, If I reward those who repay me with evil: let me fall away from my enemies; let the enemy marry my soul, and let him overwhelm and trample my belly into the ground, and let my glory settle in the dust” (Ps. 7:4-6). Here are two sides that do evil: neighbors, people - and devils. The Holy Spirit teaches us that by taking vengeance, repaying one's neighbor evil for evil - with words, or deeds, or thoughts - a person calls upon himself the battle of an invisible enemy, victory, overthrow by him, loss of grace. “Glory” is the grace of the Spirit. “He who prays for people who cause offense,” said St. Mark the Ascetic, “crushes demons; but he who disputes with the first is crushed by the second.” You have experienced all this yourself. Therefore, reject all excuses, which are all wrong, because they oppose the commandment of God; try without fail to acquire love for your enemies, and until you are able to take this stronghold, strengthen your warfare, constant warfare, repeat attack after attack. That is, pray for those from whom you are suffering, and fulfill what the Lord commanded regarding your enemies at the end of the 5th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew - you will certainly receive healing! In due time, the banner of victory, the banner of the Cross of Christ, will begin to flutter on the walls of your Jerusalem. – Know: Divine Scripture, misunderstood and interpreted, can destroy the soul. This is what the Holy Apostle Peter said about the Epistles of the Holy Apostle Paul, extending this remark to other books of Holy Scripture (2 Peter 3:16), which should especially apply to the Old Testament, full of prototypes, shadows, and therefore sacred gloom. Be careful with the two-edged sword of Scripture. The Holy Fathers advise novice monks, more than just reading the Holy Scriptures, to practice reading the active works of the Fathers, in which the monastic exploits are explained in detail and the path to the correct understanding of the Holy Scriptures is indicated. And you follow this holy and saving advice of the Fathers. For the same reason, it is more useful for beginners to read akathists and canons for prayers than the Psalter. But it is most excellent when the mind reaches the point where it is completely satisfied with the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” You write in the second letter: “I thirst, but do not expect anything good from myself, below the perfect feeling of repentance or humility.” – Repentance is the wondrous grace of God, the priceless gift of God, the totality of all monastic deeds. A monk, educated by all his private endeavors, having reached considerable maturity, leaves his many weapons, puts on the clothes of repentance and in it enters his inner spiritual cell. When he enters there and the fragrance of the sacred censer of contrite and humble prayers is heard in it, then the Spirit descends to the weeping soul and preaches peace from God to it. There is a time for everything: “The Heavenly Father has appointed seasons and seasons in His power” (Acts 1:7). Do not demand too much from your soul; sit at the door of repentance with selflessness, like a widow in all respects, thereby proving that you truly desire humility, from which comes repentance; the giver of both is one God. In my last letter I wrote to you how to deal with thoughts and indignations. I repeat again: gird yourself with the sword, put on your armor. Do not honor your enemies with anything more than conversation, below words, below views. As soon as you hear the voice of war, get up for battle, shouting to your thoughts and feelings: “Let us take courage and be strong for our people and for the cities of our God!” (2 Kings 10, 12). The voice of war is a violation of the peace of the heart. As soon as the peace of the heart begins to be disturbed, to waver, know: foreigners are coming. And here is a covenant from God for you regarding your behavior with foreigners: “If I have beaten you, I will destroy you with destruction: do not make a covenant with them, but have mercy on them: do not make matchmaking with them: do not give your daughter to his son, and do not understand his daughter to your son: for he will turn your son away from Me, and serve as another god: and The Lord will be angry with you and will quickly consume you. But do great things to them: you will scatter their towers, and you will crush their pillars, and you will cut down their oak groves, and you will burn the statues of their gods with fire; For a people are naturally holy to the Lord your God: and the Lord your God has chosen you” (Deut. 7:2-6). Matchmaking and marriage are depicted here as a conversation with sinful thoughts, acceptance, assimilation of sinful thoughts and feelings. Idols are objects of passion, passion, special affection; they must be burned with the fire of prayer, the fire of love according to God. The treasury is its own will, the will of flesh and blood; the pillars are justifications; shady oak groves are the carnal mind, which blocks the Divine Light from us. The true servants of God fulfilled this command of God. When David took possession of the capital of the Ammonites, Rabbathon - “Took,” says the Scripture, “the crown of Malchom their king from his head, the weight of the talent of gold, and the dredges of the stone, and on the head of David, and he carried out much wealth from the city. iron, and the Plinthian cave passed through them. And thus created Ammonim for the whole city, and David and all Israel returned to Jerusalem” (2 Sam. 12:30, 31). - Exactly: glorification of God, thanksgiving to God for all the sorrowful things that happen, surrendering oneself entirely to the will of God, with the rejection of one’s will, prayer for enemies, blessing of enemies as instruments of God’s Providence, - and other holy works: - saws, and tridents, and axes, and a plinth furnace for sinful thoughts and feelings. Our mind - the mysterious David - is the king and leader of the army of Israel, - the thoughts and feelings of the Divine service, when it takes the city and cities of foreigners, then it returns to Jerusalem with all its Israelites - to the city of peace (Jerusalem means “city of peace”), from where the war with foreigners led it. On his head is the crown of Malchom - the active mind he acquired during the battle with sinful endeavors - in its exploits, difficulties, misfortunes and triumphs; with him - “there is much self-interest” - precious experiences that can permeate, support him for the future, support and impregnate those who consult with him. Talent is weighty in the golden crown acquired by David: the precious active mind is heavy; rich in experience, he does not hesitate, is not carried away by every thought that appears to the mind, but examines it with distrust and tests it, even if it seems good. So Joshua, the military leader of Israel, asked an unknown knight who suddenly appeared before him, although it was an Angel: “Are you ours, or from our adversary” (Joshua 5:13). The end of the word contained within the advice: if you happen to fall, be overcome, get carried away, be deceived, sin before God - do not give in to despondency and cowardice. The same transformative Old Testament says: “Speak to Joab (the leader of the Israelites), so that this word will not be evil before your eyes, just as the sword devours you in another way; strengthen the war” (2 Samuel 11:25). Be gentle with yourself, don't judge yourself. When you are defeated, run to God with repentance, and your victory will be forgiven: and you again take up the sword and cut: “Strengthen the battle!” Take the city with stubborn, constant war! – The Lord came to call sinners to repentance, not the righteous! – You liken yourself to the blind man of the Gospel, crying out after the Savior and being rebuked: “Arise, be bold, the Divine Teacher is calling you... Your faith will save you” (Mark 10:49, 52). Letter 159. To a brother engaged in mental prayer To the words of your letter: “Take me, good shepherd, and join me with the sheep of your flock,” my answer is: “Take me, my neighbor, to serve you on your path to Christ.” This is how the Holy Apostle Paul teaches me to answer. He wrote to the Corinthians: “We do not preach to ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and for your own sake Jesus the Lord, your servants” (2 Cor. 4:5). – I’m not preaching to myself! No!.. God forbid!.. Let me stand aside! To stand like this, my heart knows, is pleasant to it. It is enough if, pointing you to the Messiah, I am worthy to say: “Behold, the Lamb of God, take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29), “the second man is the Lord from heaven.” “Let us put on the image of heaven” (1 Cor. 15, 47, 49), unknown, in infancy, clothed in this image by baptism, exposed by careless living, we will again be clothed with repentance and living according to the Gospel commandments. Let us fulfill the words of the Lord, Who commanded His disciples: “Do not reproach the teacher, do not call your father to earth, do not reproach the teacher; But you are all brethren” (Matthew 23:8-10). Let us maintain mutual deadness, saying about each other to God: “What is thine is thine, and may it remain thine”! People, coming to life madly for each other, coming to life with stupid spiritual affection, die for God, and from the ashes of blissful death, which - for the sake of God, spiritual love arises, like a golden-winged phoenix. True obedience is obedience to God, the only God. He who cannot submit to this obedience alone, by himself, takes as an assistant a person to whom obedience to God is more familiar. But people with strong impulses cannot: because impulses carry them away. St. John Climacus said: “The Fathers determined that psalmody is a weapon, prayer is a wall, an immaculate tear is a laver, and blessed obedience is confession, without which none of the passionate will see the Lord” (Step. 4). If a leader begins to seek obedience to himself, and not to God, he is not worthy to be a leader of his neighbor! - He is not a servant of God! – The servant of the devil, his tool, is a network! “Do not become human servants” (1 Cor. 7:23), bequeaths the Apostle. Your stay with your parent according to the flesh, serving him, of course, must remain as it is now. Monks are commanded to withdraw from their parents, when parents attract us into the world, distract us from Christ, but when they contribute to our good intentions, when they are sick, helpless, and need our hand, then should we take this hand away? Then helping and serving them are counted among the monastic virtues, approved and praised by the Holy Fathers. (Venerable Cassian the Roman). – All spiritual success lies in the fact that the heart, having renounced the fickle, senseless laws, or rather, the lawlessness of its will, accepts the laws of the Gospel and submits to them everywhere. True obedience is in the mind and heart. There's selflessness there! There is also a knife, about which the Gospel commanded his disciple: “let him sell his robe and buy a knife” (Luke 22:36). Riza - tenderness, satisfaction of pleasant feelings of the heart in flesh and blood. This concept of obedience, self-sacrifice, and spiritual success leaves outward behavior in complete freedom. May God bless your stay wherever you are, when you maintain your goal - pleasing God. May God bless all your entrances and exits if you enter and exit with this purpose! “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulfillment thereof” (Ps. 23:1) “in every place of His dominion” (Ps. 103:22). “For those who strive, whether they come in or go out, He is well-pleasing” (2 Cor. 5:9). No place is of particular importance in my eyes, but life for the sake of God in every place is priceless. “I’ll begin to say what was unsaid in previous letters... You didn’t quite guess what was left unsaid by me!.. Having arrived at your monastery, seeing you, I immediately felt that this was not your place; my heart was unhappy that you were here. But I had no right to tell you this until this minute, when you gave me the right to frankness, having won it with your selflessness. – The wanderer is obliged to bring peace wherever he enters, and to leave peace. “You need a place and an abbot who would provide, not intentionally, by agreement, but according to a natural general course, freedom for your mind to follow the path that God is pleased to show it. May God bless your intention and grant it to be fulfilled for your spiritual benefit and for the reassurance of your suffering parent. Just act thoroughly, calmly, unhurriedly, often pray to God to lead you where He pleases. You have already experienced what it is like to rush into the water without measuring the ford in advance. And do not allow yourself, during your departure, any actions or words that offended or violated holy humility. Silence is better than the best words. Come out as obscene and sinful from the honest and saints. Then the hand of God will be with you, the hand that leads and supports the humble - punishes and crushes the proud. I wish that the Gospel would be preached everywhere by your behavior! - I definitely wish this! Here I show authority for the sake of God: show obedience for the sake of God. I think: when choosing a new place, you should keep in mind that once a year, or at least every two years, you can have a personal meeting and conversation with me. This is what some monks do, who due to circumstances live in other monasteries, but who, by heartfelt advice, are guided by my advice. The poverty of spiritual information that I saw in your monastery amazed me! But where, in what monastery, and did it not strike? Secular people, who receive spiritual nourishment from the Sergius Desert, have incomparably greater and defining concepts than these inhabitants of monasteries. You will see this with your own eyes. We live in difficult times! “The venerable one has become poor from the earth, righteousness has fallen away from the sons of men” (Ps. 11:2). The famine of the word of God has come! The scribes and Pharisees have the keys of understanding! – They don’t enter themselves and prohibit others from entering! Christianity and monasticism are on their last legs! The image of piety is somehow, most hypocritically, maintained; people have renounced the power of piety, they have rejected it! You have to cry and be silent. I don’t bind you to anything external. Do what you recognize as the best for your circumstances: whatever you undertake with a good purpose, receive God’s blessing. I do not have my own blessing: I bless by invoking the blessing of God. For consideration, you need to have an idea of ​​​​my circumstances. I nodded my head at them and waved my hand! May it be with me as God pleases! Considering the state and needs of my soul, I recognized that I needed silence, deep silence, outside of any external earthly position, serving my neighbor in the ministry of the word. Last winter I thought I could see an indication of God’s will for solitude in my extreme illness and other circumstances. With the prayer: “not my will, but Your will be done,” I submitted a request for my dismissal to My superiors and a letter about the same to the Sovereign Emperor. At first things were leaning towards dismissing me; but suddenly it turned out differently. The Emperor personally expressed to me his desire for me to return to Sergius Hermitage, and I believe that I should return there. This is my heartfelt feeling. Not human judgment, not God's. Thank you for stopping to pour out your regret about my illness: this pleased me! I see that you will be useful! I don’t like a hard heart from rudeness, from a lack of love for one’s neighbor; but I also don’t love someone who is carnally sensitive, melting in tenderness... Do you know that tenderness is deceitful?.. I am by nature with a strong and sensitive heart, just like you; therefore I am not willing to allow my heart to be relaxed by tenderness. The Gospel taught me that a weak heart is incapable of Christian virtues, that it needs to be strengthened by faith, self-sacrifice, to be made a hero through internal struggles and victories... Victories make the heart a hero!.. For victories, holy faith, living faith, strong faith descends into it!.. Plant and cultivate in yourself deadness towards me. Whatever unpleasant things you hear about me, say: “Once and forever I gave him to God - and I give him: may God’s will be done on him.” In the last article of your letter you say: “Oh, if only I could serve you in the form of a domestic animal with every kind of service that is available to me.” – With a pleasant smile on my lips and in my heart I answer: it seems God will fulfill your desire. He arranged it this way so that you could be in the same business with me... I don’t remember since when, but a very, very long time ago, I especially liked the words of the Apostles; “We who have forsaken the Word of God do not want to eat or serve meals... We will continue in prayer and in the service of the Word” (Acts 6:2,4). Serving the brethren with the Word of God!.. What a delightful, delightful picture this service seemed to the eyes of my soul!..” “Not a single gift of ours,” said Saint John Climacus, “is so favorable to God as offering Him a verbal soul through repentance. The entire visible world is not equal to one soul; he passes away, but she is imperishable and abides forever.” So what? “The merciful God has placed infinitely many things in my hands, but also informs many souls to seek this service from me!” Now all my time is taken up by this ministry. How comfortingly many souls call to me in the midst of the mysterious night of this world from their various countries! - one from a sick bed, another from exile, another from the bank of the Volkhov, another from the bank of the Dvina, another from the Borodino field, another from a hut, another from the Tsar’s Palace. The soul, wherever it is placed, if it is not killed by insensibility, everywhere feels the need for the word of God, everywhere the fall oppresses it, crushes it. I pronounce the Word of God in personal conversations, I write it in correspondence conversations, I am compiling some books that could satisfy the needs of modern Christianity, and serve as some kind of consolation and instruction during the current famine. From serving the Word, some indescribably joyful voice of confirmation of salvation is heard in my soul... Your lot: to take part in my service, and to share with me the reward of the Spirit that will be given by the inexpressible mercy of God for this service. -Are you satisfied?.. For some time, the thought began to occur to me: the Lenten service contains so much deep poetry in its hymns, spoken by a soul imbued with holy repentance, that a special book of Lenten inspirations could be compiled in a poetic order, with a poetic structure. The subjects of these chants are precisely those that your soul in its present dispensation is capable of correctly, fully feeling, and therefore satisfactorily and definitively expressing. But the solution to this matter is until a personal meeting. We need to talk a lot about it, thoroughly. You write that a subtle thought inspires you to seek my actual teaching. I see this is your calling. According to your faith, it will be done for you. And I wish this for you: may God grant you to inherit spiritual treasure through faith. Finally, accept my congratulations: I greet you on your entry into the correct kind of monastic life, from which you will receive systematic spiritual education. Such upbringing is an invaluable benefit; The spiritual dispensation it provides is far removed from the dispensation, although laudable, acquired through self-taught, self-made living. Feel your heart! Isn't there a feeling of lightness, freedom, joy, notification in him? These are the sensations in the soul when it receives a gift from above. You received it, you accepted it with the hand of faith. Begin, Israel, to inherit the Promised Land! (Deut. 2:31). Letter 160. To a brother engaged in mental prayer. Instruction in spiritual life I invoke God’s blessing on you and your endeavors! May God's mercy and help assist you! I am amazed at the simplicity of your heart and comforted by it! I repeat what was said in my 4th letter: “I do not bind you to anything external. Do what you recognize as the best for your circumstances: whatever you undertake for a good purpose, receive God’s blessing.” Of course: this includes your relationships with your neighbors, and among them with Father N. The work that actually belongs to me and you is to observe that the procession of your mind and heart is along the path of the holy Gospel commandments, so that along this path you ascend into the mind of Truth, into spiritual vision. In the land of vision, ineffable, wonderful simplicity is blocked, obscured by the rulers of the world from the person who has submitted to them through the Fall - by countless seductive false images of the Truth. And here I am especially needed to serve you by the grace and election of God, who predestined for you an experimental knowledge of these subjects for the glory of God, for the benefit of many people. If it were not for this predestination, you would need and be useful to me incomparably less, you would be satisfied with very little, to my poor word, you would not have such a notice, from the bottom of your soul, of this insatiable thirst. Such foreigners have been allowed to stand against you who cannot otherwise be overthrown except by vision. All your natural properties are directed towards this same vision. God willing: you will know all this and see it clearly. Little man! your purpose is not to belong to yourself, but to your neighbors! Try to bring them pure, holy wealth! Having received your letter dated November 25–29, I was in no hurry to answer it: the answer to the question that interests you most was given by me in the last letter I sent to you. And at that time I lay and lay: the medicine heals me, but at times it twists me, depriving me of strength and ability to do any activity. Do you want to have from me the most detailed, most accurate review of your relationship with Elder N.? Here it is - not the consequence of your words, but, as befits, the notification of my unworthy heart, informed and enlightened by the holy world. I fully approve of your election. It is not a fickle election, the election not of a young man of the same age, but of a man already at some age, who has in the depths of his heart the feeling of preserving himself. This person is structured in such a way by his natural disposition that he can serve for you, by your ardent nature, as a very useful limitation in your outward behavior. Do you want me to confirm your disposition in the Lord with my poor blessing? And I call upon you the blessing of God, I call on the grace of God, healing the weak, replenishing the insufficient, promoting all holy undertakings, without which no true work can be accomplished. May the Lord do His holy will over you, may He pour out His holy goodness on you! “The only bad thing about this whole circumstance is that you, in a fit of ardor, gave your word before the Cross. Why not give this word with the fear of God and humility, as the holy Apostle James commands to do in such cases; he commands to speak like this: “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15). Don't you think that a promise from an oath and an impulse turns out to be firm? No! It is from them that it becomes frail. The holy Apostle Peter gave at the Last Supper a sworn promise to die with Christ, and what was the consequence of this oath?.. The Lord met the sworn promises - he said that they were out of hostility. Exactly, they are out of hostility! they contain arrogance, the elimination of God, the revival of selfhood, carnal wisdom! in them, as St. notes. Apostle James, pride, praise, i.e. self-praise! - May our words gain strength from the mighty Lord! may they be firm, as if they were founded on the rock of the commandments of the Gospel. This is how I want you to behave in such cases, and may God forgive you for the past! Consider: there is nothing wonderful, extraordinary, that we fall into errors, that sin operates in us! Only the inexperienced are surprised by this, and only the inexperienced are embarrassed by this. We are all in decline; We are already conceived in lawlessness, we are already born in sins. One must bear the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar with patience and longsuffering, i.e. the action of sin in oneself - and with mercy towards oneself, purify oneself through repentance, presenting one’s weakness before God, constantly showing it to Him. Every violation of the law is cleansed by repentance; a wrong deed receives rightness when it is straightened out according to the Gospel commandments. This is how oath promises, given in clear contradiction to the law of God, are cleared and corrected. Again, an excellent example for us is St. ap. Peter. Having broken his oath promise, out of a fit of temper, the promise to die for Christ, he mourned his oaths with bitter weeping; subsequently, already led by the Spirit and mind of Truth, he tasted death for Christ - and with what humility! – he tasted it not as one bringing a gift to God, but as one receiving an invaluable gift from the hand of God, as completely unworthy of such a gift. I wish you to improve in love for your neighbor, cleansing yourself from two extremes, from two opposing ailments with which the fall has infected human love: from enmity and from addictions. This the heart will achieve when it rests in God. Christ is with you! May He count you among His people, may He grant you that strength that people accept from Him - as if He were His own. (Dec. 14:1847). P.S. Read my unworthy letters with attention, without haste. Pray to God to grant me the true, spiritual word, and for you the understanding of this word. The spiritual word, as if immaterial, is inconvenient and eludes the old mind. That’s why it happens that someone re-reading it encounters a lot of new things in it that escaped during the first reading and readings. Although you are a human being, your mind, as if it was only focused on the material, is still somehow thick, transforming the spiritual into the material. And he has a concern like Nicodemus: “How can a person be born old; can the second food enter its mother’s womb and be born?” (John 3:4). I feel sorry for you, martyr, you have so many different types of suffering! Do not be tormented by the worries of Nicodemus! - My soul! I would only like to console you! What should I do when the cup of abundant consolation, served from the spiritual land to the material land, requires crucifixion in order to partake of it: He who is accustomed to old wine does not “want anything new,” said the Savior (Luke 5:39). Letter 161. To a brother who was engaged in mental prayer. About the writings of his spiritual son Having placed your mind and heart in my unworthy hand, as a sacred hand, to offer them through this hand as a sacrifice to God; Having actually desired my teaching, which I already wish for you, you have acquired the right to receive, and I charge myself with the duty of delivering to you a brief account of my life, the life of my mind and heart. Look at what, without seeing, you believed - what, without seeing or knowing, you wished, guided by an incomprehensible feeling of your heart, a calling! I am sending a thought, which I called my lament, and wrote last winter, believing that my departure from the Sergius Hermitage was being indicated and priceless silence was being granted... Maybe this is what this is all about! I received a notebook of your poems from your Superior. Why did they send it to me?.. Am I really going to say it out of the blue, tell someone other than the author, other than someone who is able and in need to understand the matter, my opinion about any work?.. However, I read it; - I saw no more, no less, than the same thing that I saw when I first met you, with your soul. My first acquaintance with your soul was in St. Petersburg, in the Sergius Hermitage, in my office, when I read some of your poems. The first impression made on me by your soul remains unchanged, the most vivid, - it was more explained, confirmed. The impression was true, just like you are true. “Where is this little man? – (this name gave you my impression)! He is certainly a resident or will be a resident of the holy monastery!” In his soul I heard a deep, true calling to God. There was something familiar about this calling. - I come to your monastery; they unexpectedly call you, point you out to me, I look: “Yes - this is the same little man!”... I looked at the soul; for the face and for the entire material self - just without eyes. I just forget the facial features; the features of the soul, even the most subtle ones, remain imprinted in memory. You will see from the attached article that your long-standing calling (this is how the Creator - God arranged us!): to follow and inherit me, that which is mine that is not actually mine, was learned by me by the great mercy of the Lord, although I am completely unworthy of such mercy. I like your writings, which I see in the comforting distance of your future. I guess your future works from the present ones: the soul, as expressing itself in its own light and inspiration, from which it still carries a carnal mind and feeling, will satisfy me when, after cleansing from this rubbish and stench, it speaks out under the inspiration and light of Christ. You did well—continue to do so—to clearly describe to me the action that took place in you when you read the “unmerciful words.” - Exactly: it was a nervous state (you already realized it!) - it was the feeling of the flesh that saw that crucifixion was being prepared for it; this is the action of the carnal mind, when this mind sees impending death on the cross of faith. Letter 162. In addition: Description of one dream, about the voice of your heart, the need for solitude, physical and mental feats On December 2nd I received your letter; and on November 30th I saw you in a dream. And so - what was my dream: I see - in my hands some kind of newly published book, similar in format to the “poems of St. Gregory the Theologian” I sent you, only its print is larger, like the print of the brochure “Valaam Monastery”. Coldly, without paying attention, I sort through the pages of the book - I stop at some article, I find out: what are your new works, which exist in my presentiment! – there are a lot of thoughts here, whole tirades from our correspondence. With heartfelt interest and consolation, I begin to look at and read the book; I like everything about it so much! Suddenly there was a picture in front of me, a very nice, very clean picture, as if alive, with movement! I look: - Your monastery; in front of him is a quiet, calm, secluded field. You are walking across the field in a novice cassock, with a cap on your head. The Mother of God is riding towards you from the monastery on a horse, just as the Lord, Her Son, rode into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey. Having caught up with you, She stopped, turned to you favorably, blessed you, and said so mercifully, holyly, peacefully: “You will live in...; You won’t find any comfort here.” “At the same time, an extraordinary joy filled my heart; I woke up from its powerful effect, and I felt: the same pleasantness that I felt in a dream will sweeten my soul in reality. Where you should live has escaped my hearing... in faith!! - but that you are under the shelter and care of the Mother of God makes me incredibly happy. “Bless the Lord, my soul, and all that is within me, His holy name” (Ps. 103:1). In this dream, everything is according to my thoughts. Its essence: the words of the meekest and most merciful Mother of God. The monastery is not condemned by them, and neither are you: everything is covered by Divine condescension. Wonderfully and wisely, the name of the place designated for your residence escaped your hearing. This silence leaves the heart free. The whole dream is just comforting. God's mercy visited you on the day of the communion of St. Christ's Mysteries. This was true consolation, initial consolation that embraces the surface of the mind; further consolations that await you through the goodness of God will be much deeper. Have you understood how it calmed the blood, what is the distance between it and the bloody delight with which the self-deluded people pathetically indulge themselves? The taste of consolation will begin little by little to enlighten your mind with the knowledge of the Divine. From eating comes enlightenment and spiritual understanding: “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 33:9), says Scripture. - You keep my secret, and keep it: by this you will give freedom to my heart to be frank with you, completely free; – with others it opens in proportion to them. Kinship according to the flesh has no rights to spiritual connections and relationships unless it becomes worthy by becoming related in the Lord in spirit. Leave me as my heart tells me to be. In my frankness before you there is nothing wise and reasonable - only, - I dare to say - innocent, comforting in God. With this frankness I say the following: although I was completely immersed in passions, I prayed to God, recognizing this prayer as being in accordance with the will of God: “Lord! grant Leonid to feel spiritual consolation, so that his faith becomes a living faith - faith from a heartfelt message, not just from hearing.” “Like you, I am weak with my tongue, I constantly fall into it, although I am constantly becoming more and more convinced of the virtue of silence.” Due to this weakness, about two weeks ago S. repeated: “I hear with my heart how consolation works in Leonid.” Having received your letter, I showed him those lines of yours in which it is written about consolation, so that he would add this incident to his other experiences that were useful for his soul. Keep consolation, and do not let your mind go into daydreams. Consolation first acts on the mind, renewing thoughts; and he, feeling the revival, willingly, due to his inexperience, indulges in daydreaming - and in it fruitlessly and recklessly exhausts the sweetness given to him. Does your heart tell you this? After all, it speaks, but we do not suddenly learn to listen to its voice. When consoling, devote yourself more to thanksgiving, prayer and self-reproach; the consolation will increase and increase. I wished for you that you would be a partaker of the blessed meal of spiritual consolation: whoever tastes it becomes dead to the world and acquires special strength to complete the spiritual path. Thus, the holy prophet Elijah, after eating the food brought to him by the Angel of the Lord, “went in that stronghold fourty days and fourty nights to the mountain of God Horeb” (1 Kings 19:8), there he was first honored with a most clear conversation with the Lord, and then with the most perfect vision of God “in a thin voice of coldness” (ibid., Art. 12). These consolations are the mysterious manna, called in Scripture “the bread of heaven” (Ps. 77:24), permeating the new Israelites - Christians - during their journey through the desert - during their earthly wanderings. These consolations are the “hidden manna” (Apocalypse 2:17) of the Apocalypse, about which the Son of God, who appeared to John the Theologian, said: “To him who overcomes I will give food from the hidden manna.” – She is definitely “hidden”: invisible to people; God, who gives, sees it, sees it invisibly, sees it through sensation, and is seen by the receiving servant of God. Such a servant of God, being in a multitude of people, remains alone with the one God, visible and invisible, known and unknown to anyone. Now tell me: is it good to be alone? Now tell me: what is the sentence with which I struck you: “you must be alone”? Sentence of death and life! Only the moments of transition are difficult; When you taste life, you don’t care about death! Is it so, hero?... A meal of spiritual consolation is like food and at the same time like poison! Whoever tastes it loses a living feeling for everything coveted in the world. Everything that is highly respected by the world begins to seem to him empty, disgusting dust, stinking carrion. I am very pleased that N. has to be your companion. - This elder’s disposition towards you is a gift from God. The gifts of God must be kept pure. Understand: Christ, the Lawgiver of love, commanded renunciation not of love, but of addiction, this illness, the distortion of love. Have love for everyone, especially for the servants of God; and heal addiction, protect yourself from it, by renouncing the creature - from me and from everyone else - by surrendering the creature to the Creator. Do not internalize the creature; sacrifice your freedom to the one God. With such self-sacrifice and renunciation of everything, or in everything of self, you will be able to have spiritual love for every neighbor, you will be able to have many and many - by God, in God - and together remain in non-covetousness and dispassion, in sacred silence and solitude in the Lord. Be free in the feat of prayer. Do as you are accustomed to do; eat what you like, what nourishes you, what satisfies you. Do not chase the quantity of prayers, but their quality, i.e. so that they are pronounced with attention and fear of God. Time and the state of your soul will show what follows... Leonid! you are happier than me! I envy you! When I entered the monastery, I didn’t hear anything definitive from anyone. I’ve been fighting for twenty years like a fish on ice! Now I see somewhat monastic work; but from all sides they are holding me back, not letting me into it... We live in a terrible time: on the eve of the denouement of everything. Read the book "Flower Garden". There is a lot said about bodily exploits; they show self-sacrifice, which is quite fair and true. This book is for already successful monks; you will see this, the writer himself says this. Every book, even if filled with the grace of the Spirit, but written on paper and not on living tablets has a lot of deadness: it does not apply to the person reading it! That’s why a living book is priceless! You need to maintain your body in balance and health through a moderate outward life, and show self-sacrifice in the rejection of all thoughts and feelings that are contrary to the Gospel. Violation of evenness will disrupt all order and all monotony in activities, which are necessary for an ascetic. Flesh and blood are not in flesh and blood actually, but in carnal wisdom. It places the soul under the influence, the power of flesh and blood, and the flesh and blood under the complete power and control of sin. And the bodies of the Saints had flesh and blood, but having overthrown the yoke of sin through spiritual wisdom, they came under the control and influence of the Holy Spirit. Others are so designed by the Creator that they must stop the action of their strong flesh and blood through severe fasting and other deeds, thereby giving the soul the opportunity to act. Others are not at all capable of bodily feats: everything must be worked out with the mind; their soul by itself, without any preparation, is in constant activity. She should only take up spiritual weapons. God appears to a person in mental purity, whether a person has achieved it through physical and mental feats, or through spiritual ones alone. A spiritual feat can, alone, without a physical one, accomplish cleansing; the physical, if it does not turn into the spiritual, is completely barren, more harmful than useful: satisfying a person, it does not allow him to humble himself, on the contrary, it leads to heights of opinion about himself as an ascetic, not like other weak people. However, physical feat, performed with true spiritual discernment, is necessary for all those gifted with a healthy and strong physique; the general monastic rule must begin with it. Most of Christ’s workers, already after long-term practice and hardening in it, begin to understand mental achievement, which must certainly crown the one who strives physically, without which a physical ascetic is like a tree without fruit, with only leaves. You and I need a different way: regarding the body, we need to maintain and preserve prudent evenness, not to exhaust our bodily strength, which is insufficient to carry out the common feats of monasticism. All our attention must be paid to the mind and heart: the mind and heart must be corrected according to the Gospel. If we exhaust our bodily strength through empty, bloody zeal for bodily exploits, then the mind will weaken in battle with the spirits of the air, the rulers of the darkness of this age, the heavenly forces, the fallen forces, the angels cast out from heaven. For the sake of the weakness of the body, the mind will have to abandon many, strong, essential weapons - and suffer immeasurable damage. I’m telling you what has actually been tested, learned through bitter experiences. When I was a youth, my heart told me all this, not so clearly, not definitively, but it spoke. There was no other voice, no other witness who would confirm, explain the testimony of the heart. And the word of my heart did not stand, unsupported by anyone, before my mind! I didn't know how to listen to my heart! It seemed scary and dangerous to me to listen to him! Subtle, mysterious is his voice!... The elders, glorified by general rumor as gifted with spiritual reasoning, spoke differently, issued a different opinion about these subjects, not the way I understood and saw them. I always didn’t believe myself: a weak thought, a evasion of the mind into something else, seemed to me preferable to my direct and strong thought. A lot of time passed in this state; Not many years ago I found myself freed from following the opinions of others; - I meet the opinion of a person and a book that comes to my mind not as a hospitable and affable stranger; but as a strict judge, as a gatekeeper, guardian of the palace, invested in this dignity by the grace of my All-Merciful God, after countless, mortal, long-term plagues and suffering. In this rank of gatekeeper I stand at the gate of your soul. What's mine is yours. The tune given to me after fierce blows, you took the tune by faith. Christ is the giver. Glory to Him alone! Amen! Letter 163. To a brother engaged in mental prayer: about the mixing of good and evil in people, “determination”, essays written from “opinion” Peace be with you! May the grace of God accompany you, may it protect you, may it satisfy your external position. Be calm: everything that happens to you happens as if to a servant of Christ, who must “be brought into the Kingdom of God through many tribulations” (Acts 14:22), who must “pass through fire and water and be brought into rest” (Ps. 65:12), whose heart is destined to “rejoice in the consolations of God because of the multitude of his illnesses.” When receiving consolations - for the true, for the unpretentious, for God, take one completely immaterial spiritual action, which appears in the peace of the heart, its extraordinary silence, in some kind of cold and at the same time fiery love for your neighbor and all creatures, love, alien to heat and impulses, love in God and by God. This spiritual fiery coolness, this always uniform, subtle flame is the constant character of the Savior, constantly and equally shining from all the actions of the Savior, from all the words of the Savior, preserved and transmitted to us by the Gospel. The Holy Spirit, with the consolations He produces, clothes the servant of Christ in this character, removing from his soul the clothes of the Old Adam, clothing his soul in the clothes of the New Adam, and thus delivering essential knowledge of Christ, knowledge that is completely mysterious and completely clear. Turn away from everything material - whether it appears to your physical eyes or to your imagination. Westerners tried to revive feelings, blood and imagination; They quickly succeeded in this, soon reaching a state of delusion and exasperation, which they called holiness. This country has all their visions. Anyone who reads them will certainly become infected with the spirit of delusion, commit adultery in relation to the Holy Truth - Christ, and expose himself to the fatal definition of Divine Scripture; it says: “Behold, those who separate themselves from You will perish: You have consumed everyone who commits adultery from You” (Ps. 72:27). The Eastern and all children of the Universal Church go to holiness and purity in a way completely opposite to the above: by mortifying the feelings, blood, imagination and even their opinions. Between the mind and purity - the land of the Spirit - there are first images, that is, impressions of the visible world, and then opinions, i.e., abstract impressions. This is a double wall between the human mind and God. The life of images in the mind is made up of the carnal, and from opinions, the spiritual mind is incapable of living faith, which is manifested by deeds, in general by all behavior, and which gives rise to spiritual reason, or the mind of Truth. Do you understand that opinion is a delusion? Scripture calls delusion “a false understanding” (1 Tim. 6:20), i.e. arbitrary false reasoning that has appropriated the name of reason. An accurate and correct concept of Truth is knowledge, knowledge from vision, vision is the action of the Holy Spirit. When there is no true knowledge in the mind, it is replaced by invented knowledge. People often admit this involuntarily, without themselves understanding the deep significance of their consciousness; they say: “we have accepted to understand this,” i.e. They formed, in the absence of precise knowledge, an opinion alien to any accuracy. And so the opinion is wonderful! We get rid of delusion by the self-sacrifice commanded in the Gospel, by the destruction of our soul. The destruction of the soul is the renunciation of one's opinions, one's will, acquisitiveness, blood movements, feelings - in a word, all the charm taken together that has embraced the whole person, all his parts, his entire being. Charm has become so internalized to us that it has become, as it were, life, as if it were our soul, and has completely drowned out our nature, just as weeds choke out bread in a field that is over-fertilized. The elimination of delusion in oneself is called by God-wise Scripture with extreme correctness: self-sacrifice; hatred, destruction of one’s soul, etc. Listen to the following: human damage consists in mixing good with evil: healing consists in the gradual removal of evil, when more good begins to act in us. The perfect separation of good from evil, the pure action of good alone, occurs in those who are perfect, and then only for a time and from time to time. The place where one pure good operates is Heaven, on earth there is confusion. With our spiritual consolations, this confusion continues to operate: only the amount of good overcomes the amount of evil, and that is why there is consolation. Therefore, when consoling, we must observe extreme caution, knowing that sin, fall, delusion are near us. “Work for the Lord,” the Prophet commands, “with fear, and rejoice in Him with trembling” (Ps. 2:11). Reject with quietness, as if refusing, as unworthy, every image that appears to the mind or bodily eyes, whether of light or of some Saint and Angel, Christ Himself and the Mother of God, everything, everything. Try to keep your mind solely attentive to the words of prayer, formless, not imprinted in any way (no matter how subtle this image may be!), unoccupied by any opinion, in complete selflessness. We fell by rejecting God, by reviving our own: but we have our own insignificance, non-existence; after all, everything that we had before existence, starting from which, including which, we received everything from God. Having eliminated God from ourselves, having revived our own within ourselves, we gave birth to “death.” We are not able to lead ourselves into oblivion; but we could distort our existence, make it worse than non-existence, give birth to death - we could (of course, spiritual death! Physical death is insignificant compared to mental death, its result. It would be even more joyful if it did not give greater development to the eternally existing spiritual death). In order to mortify death, one must eliminate from oneself everything that has brought and preserved death: the Spirit penetrates into the self-mortified one, and, as the Creator, grants him rebirth. – When purely spiritual actions multiply in your soul, then every sensory phenomenon will lose value on the scales of your mind and heart. You do well that you ask those who come to the doors of your spiritual cell to wait until you meet with your gatekeeper. For the same purpose I keep your letters; I destroy most of the letters I receive after reading and replying. – Several times you have heard the word “determination” from me, and it is not entirely clear to you what I want to express with this word. Definitivity comes from knowledge; indeterminacy is certainly a child of opinion. Determination is the expression of knowledge in oneself by thoughts, for others by words. The heart bears witness to it with a feeling of peace. The world is a witness to the truth, its fruit. – I really don’t like the works: the ode “God”, Arrangements of Psalms, everything, starting with the adaptations of Simeon of Polotsk, Arrangements from Job Lomonosov, athale de Raine everything, all poetic works borrowed from the Holy Scriptures and Religion, written by secular writers. By the name secular I do not mean one who is dressed in a tailcoat, but who is guided by wisdom and the spirit of the world. All these works are written from opinion, animated by blood movement. And about spiritual subjects one must write from knowledge promoted by spiritual action, i.e. by the action of the Spirit. Here! This is what I want to expect from you! I heard an ode to “God” read with delight by a stalwart gentleman after dinner, during which he ate well and got drunk. Sometimes he reads, and saliva splashes abundantly on everyone and everything, like buckshot from a large-caliber unicorn... Decent reading after a full lunch! True, great is the delight produced by the abundance of roast beef and champagne placed in the belly! The ode was written from the movement of blood - and the dead are busy decorating their dead! My soul cannot tolerate the stench of these works! For me, it’s better to read, for literary purposes, “Vadim”, “Prisoner of the Caucasus”, “Crossing the Rhine”: there secular poets talk about their own things - and in their own way, beautifully, satisfactorily. May these dead forsake the gospel of God! It's none of their business! They don’t know what a crime: to disguise the spiritual, to distort it, giving it a material meaning! They would have obeyed God’s command “not to sing the song of the Lord on the rivers of Babylon” (Ps. 136). Whoever is on the rivers of Babylon is not an apostate from the Living God, he will cry at them. Don't be discouraged! Be peaceful, and with calmness, with spiritual carelessness, surrender to the guidance of faith. Circumstances themselves will show what should be done. May difficulties teach you faith, which may the Giver of all blessings, visible and invisible, Christ, give you! Letter 164. Moreover, who wrote, on the orders of his abbot, a letter of gratitude to Arch. Ignatius (Description of one of his poetic experiences) When, reading letters from the N. monastery, I reached your nine-line line, I look at it, I want to read it... I don’t read it!.. I can’t!.. An irresistible force doesn’t let me, it takes me somewhere!.. You know; imagination, inspiration - the sons of freedom are willful, whimsical, indomitable... And so! - I am placed far away and forty centuries away... I stand in a vast, magnificent palace - in times that seem to be Biblical. I don’t have time to examine the architecture of the palace in detail, I will only say: it is massive, majestic, luxurious. - All my attention is drawn to the action taking place in the palace. The powerful, beautiful Lord is depicted on a hill. His long, shining cloak spread out carelessly and picturesquely; Some ends of the cloak lie on a raised platform, others hang down the steps. In vain, in the black, clear eyes of the ruler, severity and anger intensify to close kindness, sympathy, love!.. Before him, in silence, in chains, a stranger - a young man with his eyes drooping to the ground, murdered... At them, at the ruler and the young man, the eyes of all those present are bulging ridiculously, burning with curiosity, but unable to understand what was the matter... I looked at these curious, searching, not finding any sense, - I smiled... and just began to guess that I was in Egypt - that I saw Joseph, sold there as a slave, who became a ruler - that before him was Benjamin, returned from the road as the thief of a precious magic cup; - the charming picture soared - disappeared!.. Again I look at your nine-line line; – read it; - put it on the table. - I say: “You, who count the stars, who wander in the boundless abyss, who from time immemorial have outlined their paths for them! Look at this soul, - a soul that has directed its flight into the immeasurable spaces of Heavenly desires... Tell it its way!..” Pray for me... And my vague, capricious dream, may the generous poet forgive me!.. Letter 165. In response to a certain brother. Love for Christ's sake It was an unexpected, pleasant consolation for me to receive your lines. My angel!.. Who taught you to be such a sweet, kind Angel? - This is the second time you treat me like an Angel. The first time he did this was when he met me on the road and came on purpose to look at me, to get to know me, the second time - now. My heart is sensitive, noticeable, and mindful. You recorded memories of you on it twice. It was not I who preceded you with my greeting; You prefaced this in my eyes with your price, with the full price. Remember me, Angel!.. Remember me, Angels!.. I don’t know how to be friendly superficially for the sake of secular decency, but I am friendly for the sake of Christ. Christ is eternal and most holy: He keeps the love that is for His sake in holiness, in immutability, in evenness, in peace, in constancy. Letter 166. To a brother who has suffered mental confusion from the accusations of his neighbors. About blaming yourself, the harm of untimely rest, proper attitude towards your neighbors “Thou shalt love thy sincerity as thyself” (Matthew 22:39), the Word of God commands us. In fulfillment of this commandment of the Gospel, I offer you medicine, which has always brought benefit to my soul when my soul has resorted to it. When my soul forgot about this medicine, sought to alleviate its illness with human excuses, thought to solve the problem of human suffering on earth otherwise than by the cross of Christ; Then she just worked in vain! Then her torment only multiplied and intensified! The medicine I'm talking about is blaming yourself. Saint Pimen the Great said many beautiful sayings about blaming oneself. Read them in the book that you have: “The Memorable Legend of the Ascetic Asceticism of the Holy and Blessed Fathers.” A monk who blames himself will survive all adversities! What sorrow can crush one who has recognized himself as worthy of all sorrow? - the one who meets every coming sorrow with the words of the blessed thief: “I accept what is worthy according to my deeds; remember me, Lord, in Your Kingdom!” (Luke 23:41–42). What sorrow will he be afraid of who believes that the eye of God is steadily looking at him, that no sorrow can touch him without the permission or wave of God? - Protect your soul with the sign of the cross, and with faith plunge into the sea of ​​monastic sorrows! Let a prosperous fair wind inflate your sails, and quickly carry the boat of your soul to the haven of dispassion and holiness. This wind, always blowing beneficially, always constantly, in the same direction of God's Spirit and Truth: the teaching of the Gospel, the teaching of St. Fathers of the Orthodox Church. One of these Fathers, St. John Climacus, said: “whoever rejects reproof, rightly or wrongly, has rejected his own salvation.” Learn to bear the infirmities of your neighbors, please them for the sake of God, and not yourself, learn to lay down your soul for your neighbors! learn to endure reprimands and spitting! hold on to blaming yourself, just as someone who has fallen into the water holds on to a rope thrown towards him, and you will be saved from drowning in confusion and sadness! A certain great monk, the mentor of a large congregation of monastics in Mount Nitria, said: “The most necessary spiritual activity of a monk is to constantly blame yourself.” – The new man described, depicted in the Gospel, may little by little descend from the Gospel into your soul, may he be depicted in your soul. May the features of the old man be erased from her, the features that we receive hereditarily at birth, which suddenly appeared on the soul of our Forefather, who sinned, and disfigured this soul - the hitherto perfect image of the Perfect God. From this disorder come all our confusion and torment, temporary and eternal! - How ugly is the soul when it is confused! How beautiful she is when she is calm! - even more beautiful when the blessed peace from the Lord is instilled in her. This calmness, this very holy peace, comes into the soul that blames itself, and here is the reason for this: “the soul that will blame itself,” said the great Pimen, “the Lord will love.” Only one who dies for people can blame himself. Whoever allows himself the slightest attachment to a person will not be able to remain in self-condemnation, and therefore in the world. We must give all people to God. The Church teaches us this too; she says: “let us give ourselves, each other and our whole life to Christ our God.” He who surrenders himself and everyone to God can remain dead to everyone; Without this deadness, spiritual revival cannot shine in the soul. If you remain faithful to God and maintain mortification towards people, then in due time an incorruptible spiritual treasure will appear in your soul, you will see the resurrection of your soul through the action of the Spirit. Carnal people cannot form any idea about this. When, in due time, a person sees himself changed, recreated, he is surprised, as if he had been created again, considers the land of the Spirit into which God unexpectedly introduced him, and wonders why such God’s mercy would be poured out on an insignificant creature - man. Don't be discouraged by the changes that have happened. It is not typical for any person to constantly, without any humiliation, remain in goodness: this is even less typical for a beginner! Give back to your passions! - said a certain Holy Mentor of the monastics. Heal victories with repentance! The struggle of the new man with the old will make you skilled in invisible battles, firm, and courageous. Do not wish for a state of calm prematurely! During war, a warrior enriches himself with self-interest. May the Lord give you complete and glorious victory over sin, may He give you the state of indestructible peace in its rightful time. There is a time for everything! The untimely plucked fruit, albeit from an excellent tree, is sour, bitter, thin. Timeless peace is a loss, not a gain! – deprives you of precious experiences, spiritual prosperity and enlightenment. Give your grieving brother over to God. God will work for his good and remove his soul from sorrow. – He maintains holy love for his neighbor who has fellowship with him for the sake of God; This holy love is also preserved by those who, for the sake of God, withdraw from such communication. Our nature is damaged by the fall: our natural love is also damaged by it. Therefore, in order to fulfill the conditions of holy love, one must be guided not by heartfelt feelings and desires, but by the dictates of the Gospel, the all-holy commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of these commandments says: “If your right hand causes you to stumble, fathers, turn away from you” (Matthew 5:30), i.e. If some person, so necessary and close to you as your right hand, brings you spiritual harm, break off communication with him. This is what the Lawgiver’s commandment of perfect love tells us to do. And the dreams and feelings of our fallen heart can easily drag us into the abyss!.. Letter 167. About the three kinds of feat There is a physical feat, there is a mental and spiritual feat, there is a feat of faith. Physical feat and mental feat alone are not only not useful in themselves, they are harmful: they grow the “I” in a person. It is in vain that we use them to resist sin: we only become more and more entangled in its nets, plunging into its abysses. Acquire the feat of faith! - with it you will crush all your enemies. The feat of faith mortifies the human “I”, revives God for man, and the living God performs signs in the land of Egypt, leads Israel into the Promised Land, beats the foreigners from their presence with stone rain and heavenly thunder, and builds the walls of Jerusalem. Acquire the feat of faith - and you will be omnipotent, you will always be a winner. Then whether you want to use a physical feat, or a spiritual feat, you will see them come to life, able to do so in the Lord. If you want to do without them, I will shave my jaw with humility and amaze the foreigners. By faith, magnify God in yourself and He will magnify you with dispassion and spiritual intelligence. Letter 168. Consolation in grief due to insanity May God comfort you in the sorrow that has befallen you. The hair of our head does not fall without His will! The world views adventures with people differently, and God looks differently. We see that St. Niphon Bishop suffered from mental disorder for four years, St. Isaac and Nikita (who was later the Saint of Novgorod) suffered from mental damage for a long time. Some St. The desert dweller - Sulnicius, a writer of the 4th century, mentions this event in the story of Pustominian, who traveled through the monasteries of the East - who performed many signs and noticed the pride that arose in himself from this, prayed to God that, in order to destroy the glory of man, he would be allowed mental damage and obvious demonic possession, which the Lord allowed to His humble servant. We believe that without the will of God no sorrow can approach us; We accept all sorrow, as coming from the hand of God, with reverent submission to the will of God, with thanksgiving and glorification of the all-good God, incomprehensible in His ways, wondrous in all His deeds. Letter 169. Advice for those wishing to join a monastery “Beware how dangerously you walk, for the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15–16), said the Apostle. If in his time this instruction was needed for those who were being saved, the more necessary it is in our time. Exactly! We need more caution, more prudence, more prudence: examples of holiness, the means to achieve holiness have decreased, - tempting examples, the means to destroy oneself through sin have increased. Trouble is in the deserts, trouble is also in the cities! but there are still those who are being saved, and it is still possible to be saved by the ineffable grace of God. Guided by the advice of the Gospel (Luke 14:28), consider your strengths, both mental and physical, and choose your place of residence accordingly. The same God who saves in the desert also saves in the city. The same sin that destroys in the city also destroys in the desert. Whether you choose a city or a desert monastery as a place of residence according to your strengths, remember God, stay close to Him, move away from sin, from all reasons for sin - and God will be with you. Take up reading the Holy Fathers of the Eastern Church: they will teach you to follow the path of monastic life without sin. Avoid unnecessary acquaintances outside and inside the monastery, and from everything that leads to entertainment; entertainment, like frost, destroys all the youthful vegetation of monastic virtues. Entertainment is the beginning of all evil for a monk: that’s what the Holy Fathers called him. Limit yourself to the acquaintance necessary for your needs, mental and physical. Do not tire yourself in vain by searching for mentors: our time, rich in false teachers, is extremely poor in spiritual mentors. They are replaced for the ascetic by the Scriptures of the Fathers. These are: The Ladder, the works of Ephraim Sirsky and Abba Dorotheus, the letters of the Great Barsanuphius, the Patericon of Scete, the Philokalia, and others. Train yourself by reading them and praying in contrition of spirit. Try to find a good, conscientious confessor. If you find him, be pleased; conscientious confessors are a great rarity these days. Many place heavy burdens on their neighbors, but there are few who have taught and helped bear the burdens. - Beware of the snare of the devil, who certainly inspires a person to take up life and deeds that exceed his strength: the devil does this with the intention of prematurely depleting a person’s strength and making him incapable of any spiritually beneficial activity. Christ is with you. I entrust myself to your holy prayers. Letter 170. Advice to the abbess of the monastery In your patience, gain your soul and the souls of your verbal sheep, committing them mentally to the will and Providence of God: we, the abbots, are nothing more than instruments of the Providence of God. We, on our own, mean nothing, and, without the special help of God, we cannot care not only for our neighbors, but also for ourselves. Such reflection will bring peace to your heart. I am talking to you as if to myself. There is no need to be very sad about those who disobey and do not heed the word of salvation; but having told them what is appropriate, surrender them to the will of God, which can turn them to the right path through other weapons and means, of which there are countless numbers at His right hand. Unfortunately for our time, just as you are pleased to say, many, entering a monastery, are concerned only with earthly things and remain alien to the monastic goal and monastic direction; Moreover, with their example and influence they shake other unestablished ones. What to do? This situation is very disastrous; but this plight must also be attributed to the will of God, and we must admit from the heart that we do not deserve another position, and if we deserved it, then a just and merciful God would certainly grant it. Such reflections bring peace and tranquility to the soul that truly seeks God: because the Word of God has determined for us to find peace of mind in a single humility and self-reproach. Prayer for them has a stronger effect on neighbors than a word to them: because prayer brings the omnipotent God Himself into action, and God does with His creation everything that is pleasing to Him. He opened the ears of his heart to listen to the words of Paul; and in those cases when the finger of God did not act on the listeners, the words of the great Paul himself remained fruitless. Let us, most venerable mother, shepherd the sheep entrusted to us diligently and with many prayers for them, faith, humility, patience, soul-edifying, feasible and moderate words, so that the frequent word does not produce, as a certain great Father noted, an aversion to the word in the listeners. And may God cover us. Letter 171. Instructions on how to give advice to others Most Reverend Mother Virasavia! Forgive me for inattentively reading your letter, which you wrote to me in December. I am destroyed by soreness, and by the treatment that began in mid-September, I am completely destroyed - this treatment relaxes me. Receive those who come to you for advice with the fear of God and, whenever they come, pray to God that He will allow you to say a useful word to your neighbor. By turning to God in prayer before every conversation with your neighbor, you will cleanse your conversations of vanity. Speak with caution, without going into verbosity. Do not ask empty, curious questions to those who come, and try to avoid talking about the affairs of the monastery and all the affairs of this world. If you get carried away and say something not according to your conscience, i.e. in violation of the rules written here: then mentally reproach yourself and repent before God. Thus, the coming of your neighbors will bring you significant benefit, revealing to you your weakness, which without this could remain closed, which is very harmful to your soul. Although you are insufficient to teach advice, just as I am insufficient, but, due to the poverty of our time, we must share our meager knowledge with our neighbors. If you do this work with humility, not allowing your “I” to act for this work, no matter how insufficient it may be, God’s mercy will overshadow you. Asking for your holy prayers and calling upon you God's blessing Unworthy Bishop Ignatius. Letter 172. Congratulations on the holiday and commending yourself and M. Bathsheba to the Providence of God Most Reverend Mother Bathsheba! I bring you my sincere gratitude for your remembrance of me and your congratulations on the holidays, on which, while congratulating you evenly, I most earnestly wish you all the blessings with which the Lord is pleased to bestow upon you. I greatly rejoice in the fact that you have nothing to boast about except your weaknesses: this means that you have approached the experimental knowledge of the Redeemer. My health is in its usual state; Changes happen for the better and for the worse, which in relation to the general have no meaning. Glory to God, who guides us with His incomprehensible Providence. Handing over both myself and you to this almighty and all-good Providence, I have the honor to be Your Reverence, my most humble servant. Bishop Ignatius. Letter 173. Concerning the condemnation of well-meaning people Please accept my deepest gratitude for your remembrance of me and congratulations on the Feast of Holidays, on which, evenly congratulating you, I wish you all true blessings and greet you with an all-joyful greeting: Christ is Risen! Nowadays the spirit of the times lies with an enormous weight on all Christianity and monasticism; everyone groans under its burden. They notice that now very, very few well-intentioned, unspoiled people have begun to enter monasteries from the world. We must understand the time, and take special vigilance to take care of our salvation, moving away, if possible, from communication with people, in order to avoid both the infection of the sins of our neighbor and the condemnation of sin in our neighbor. Asking for your holy prayers and calling upon you the blessing of God, unworthy Bishop Ignatius. Letter 174. On the need for repentance Exactly, as you say, moving into eternity is close to each of us and it is necessary to wash away our past with repentance and through repentance to attract the mercy of God to ourselves in order to move into eternity in hope and joy.[...] Letter 175. Advice not to renounce the abbot position in the Vologda monastery, about renewal by repentance I received your letter dated March 22nd on the 30th, and I answer immediately; but I don’t know whether my answer will soon reach the post office, because we are already experiencing a muddy season, during which communication with the cities stops. I am at peace with the proposal made to you and believe that this proposal was arranged according to the providence of God for you. Don't give up on it. Vologda is a peaceful city; there is a lot of piety there. This is my homeland. I was in the monastery and in the abbot's cells in 1832. The cells are stone, comfortable, two-story. The air in the city is soft, the water in the river is healthy; There is a lot of fish and excellent quality. When a person is renewed by repentance, then the sins of his youth do not prevent him from caring for the souls of his neighbors. This is how the Church understood it from ancient times, and Saint Niphon, Bishop of Caesarea of ​​Cyprus, by the revelation of God, took upon himself the duties of a shepherd, although in his youth he was subjected to serious stumbling. His life on December 23rd. Your most humble servant, Bishop Ignatius. You might be interested in: