Letters on Prayer

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 Pray without ceasing, the holy Apostle Paul commanded all Christians. We, trying to fulfill this commandment of the supreme apostle, go to church, perform the prayer rule at home - and believe that we are living a real spiritual life. But how many of us have thought about whether this is really so? Do we really have at least a germ of spiritual life in us, do we pray as we should? What is true spiritual life, how does it arise and develop in the soul, what is its ultimate goal. How the Kingdom of God is revealed in the soul, which, according to the word of the Lord, is within you. The answers to all these questions are in this book. The collection “Letters on Prayer and Spiritual Life” includes letters from St. Theophan the Recluse dedicated to prayer and “Letters on Spiritual Life.” The first part of the collection is compiled from the “Collected Letters of St. Theophan” in eight editions and the “Collected Letters. From the unpublished." For ease of orientation in the creative heritage of the saint, in the title, along with the serial number of the letter in this collection, the number of the letter in the “Collected Letters” is indicated in brackets. In his letters, Saint Theophan speaks about subjects that are important for everyone: what is important in prayer, about cultivating a prayerful spirit in oneself, about mental prayer, about acquiring the memory of God, and about much more. The letters describe in detail, step by step, how to learn mental prayer, how to make sure that the thought is with God everywhere, how to maintain a state of fear of God in the heart; methods are given that introduce the spirit of prayer and teach the soul to frequently turn to God; a general rule for life is given. The special value of the letters of St. Theophan lies in the fact that they are practical guidance in the main work of a person’s entire life - the work of creating one’s salvation through a lifetime of prayer. Letters on Prayer 1 (12) 1 About the Jesus Prayer. The fruits of prayer are natural and grace-filled. The Jesus Prayer is a good means of inner prayer. Are you asking about the Jesus Prayer? Read in books. Everything is written. My thought about it is this: – The prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” is a verbal prayer, like any other. It has nothing special in itself, but takes all its power from the mood with which it is created. All the techniques that are written about (sit down, bend over) 2 ... or the artistic creation of this prayer are not useful to everyone, and without a mentor available it is dangerous. It’s better not to take on all that. One technique is generally obligatory: pay attention to the heart. The other addition is all extraneous and not relevant to the matter. They say so much about the fruits of this prayer that there is nothing higher than this in the world. Illegal. The talisman has been found! Of the fruits, nothing belongs to the verbal composition of prayer and its speaking. All fruits can be obtained without this prayer, and even without any verbal prayer - through one aspiration of the mind and heart towards God. The essence of the matter is to establish ourselves in the memory of God, or to walk in the presence of God. You can say to everyone: whatever you want, just achieve it... Whether to say the Jesus Prayer... or bow down, or go to church... do whatever you want, just achieve it to the point of always being in the memory of God. I remember in Kyiv I met a man who said: I didn’t use any techniques, and I didn’t know the Jesus Prayer, but everything that is written here was and is. But how, I don’t know myself. God gave!.. This - what God has given or will give - must be kept in mind so as not to confuse self-made work with the gift of grace. Artistically doing the Jesus Prayer... creating it simply with attention in the heart or walking in the memory of God is our work, and in itself has its own natural - not grace-filled - fruit. This fruit is: a collection of thoughts, reverence and fear of God, mortal memory, pacification of thoughts and some warmth of heart. All this is the natural fruit of inner prayer. You need to solidify this well so that you don’t blow your trumpet in front of yourself and don’t exalt yourself in front of others. As long as we have only natural fruits, until then we are not worth a penny both in the essence of the matter and in the judgment of God. Price for us when grace comes. For when she comes, it will mean that God has looked upon us with a merciful eye. Until he comes, no matter what we do, no matter what feats we perform, it means that we are worthless individuals that God doesn’t even want to look at. – In what exactly this action of grace is revealed, I cannot tell you; but it is certain that it cannot come before all the above-mentioned fruits of inner prayer appear. The word – inner prayer – came to me by chance... But it expresses the matter very well. And it must be placed where they began to say - “The Jesus Prayer.” They say: acquire the Jesus Prayer, that is, the internal prayer. The Jesus Prayer is a good means of internal prayer, but in itself it is not internal, but external prayer. Those who get used to it do it very well. But if they stop at one and don’t go further, then they stop halfway. I read in the rules of St. Anthony and in many others: memorize the psalms... and whether you go somewhere or sit at work, read them. This means that back then they read psalms, reflected and developed inner prayer. Nowadays they say: whatever you do, say the Jesus Prayer - and you will achieve the same thing. When praying for Jesus, thinking about God is still necessary: ​​otherwise it is dry food. It’s good for those who have the name of Jesus stuck on their tongue. But at the same time, you can not remember the Lord at all and even hold thoughts that are contrary to Him. Consequently, everything depends on a conscious and free turn to God and the work of maintaining oneself in this with reasoning. Here are my thoughts!.. You can read them Messrs. Sh...vym, so that they know where the power lies. Save yourself, and pray to God for us. Your pilgrim Bishop Feofan. About the prayer rule. The main thing in the prayer rule is to lift up the mind and heart to God. When praying, one must enclose the mind in the words of prayer. Train yourself in the memory of God and the memory of mortals. Our goal is life in God. God's mercy be with you! Your prayer rule is very good. And continue to perform it as usual. But remember that it is not a matter of words and bows, but of raising the mind and heart to God. You can say everything that you have written and put down all the indicated bows, but not remember about God at all, or somehow, with absent-minded thoughts and wandering of the mind. And, therefore, without praying, fulfill the prayer rule. It turns out that prayer is a sin before God. God forbid! We must do God’s work with fear and trembling; keep this in mind. Try in every possible way so that where there is a word, there is a mind, or, as Saint Climacus says, enclose the mind in the words of prayer. When starting to pray, one must establish one’s attention before God and not depart from Him. Reading prayers from a book dispels a lot. It's better to memorize them. Equally, turning the pages to find one or another ikos and kontakion 3 should also distract attention. Try to do this: memorize the morning and evening prayers, understanding them and feeling what they say. Then read them as if they came from the heart. From the Psalter, also choose which psalms are understandable and closer to the heart, and memorize them... And read them in order in prayer as a memory. Read them this way – going where and doing what... Read the day’s Gospel after prayer, with reflection and drawing conclusions for yourself. Compose the memorial according to the printed model (in the Followed Psalter) according to your needs and circumstances and say it from memory. Akathists turn everything into bows... don’t read from a book, but mentally address those to whom you are supposed to... and bow... If you don’t read the words, add a bow. Everything else is fine. The less you need a prayer book, the better. Learn, above all, to be in the memory of God and the memory of death. Sacrifice to God - the spirit is crushed 4. Then consider that you have prayed well when you leave prayer with contrition and complete self-abasement. And during the day, instead of fingering the rosary, try to be smart before God, the Jesus Prayer. Just as Angels are always before the face of God, so we must try. They offer the sacrifice of praise, and we offer the sacrifice of contrition. The fact that you had to marry above your fortune is not pride. God gave. But this is something to be proud of. So if you are proud, stop being proud. No one else can see this except you and God. Pray to God to give you a spirit of contrition and humility, and He will give. Meanwhile, collect humbling thoughts yourself and keep them in your soul. Pride is the most destructive passion, and all the more destructive because it is pure from the outside. What the elders told you about pride as a child means that God wants you to humble yourself, and is ready to give you humility if you ask for it. But the fact that you are now in a higher position and richer is not a violation of the old man’s words. Pride is in feelings, not in external position. And there are great kings - the most humble... Saint David is a king of shepherds, but he said: I am a worm, and not a man, a reproach of men and a humiliation of people... 5. Fasting on Wednesday and Friday is enough. There is no need to add anything else to this. Put more effort into organizing your thoughts and feelings. It is enough to keep the body in abstinence. Fasting children, if health does not allow it, is not necessary. But it’s a pity that, having gotten used to it from childhood, they won’t establish fasting later. The salvation of the soul is the main thing. But it is the Savior who saves souls, not us. We only testify to our faith, our devotion to Him, and He, as we cleave to Him, gives us everything we need for salvation. Don’t think about what you earn by working; You deserve it through faith, contrition and devotion to God. Do more good, help those in need. I also owe an answer to your husband. I’ll write to him here right away, believing that you have no division. Christ is in our midst, servant of God! That the Lord turned you to faith is a great mercy. Therefore, He expects that you, having received the gift of faith, will continue and be faithful to the faith. Fidelity to faith is life in the spirit of faith. Faith in God!.. But deists also believe in God and in Providence... but they don’t go further... they stopped halfway. God created us and honored us in His image, so that we could live in God—we would be in living union with Him. That's how it was in heaven. The fall of the ancestors dissolved this union. But God took pity on us and did not want us to be outside of Him, to remain in falling away, but was pleased to invent a way of reunification, which consists in the fact that the Son of God and God came to earth and became incarnate, and in His person united humanity with the Divine, and through this gave us all the opportunity to unite through Him with God. Those who believe, are baptized and others accept the sacraments are united alive with the Savior, and through Him with God. And this is salvation! Our goal is life in God, but there is no other way to God than the Lord Jesus Christ. There is One God and One Advocate for God and men, the Man Christ Jesus 6. So one must believe in Christ the Savior, accept the sacraments, fulfill the commandments and everything that the Holy Church contains and prescribes. He who is with the Church is with the Lord. Be so mindful, and you will be on the saved path. Because the Lord has called you to faith, nothing special is required except to be sincerely faithful to the faith. And be grateful that the Lord has called you from darkness into light. Help those in need most of all. Whoever comes to you with tears, do not let him go without drying that tear. Blessedness of mercy: for they will receive mercy... 7. From behind the hand of the needy, always behold the hand of the Lord Himself, who converted you, stretched out to you. He Himself said: “Whatever you do to them, the poor, you will do to Me”... 8 . Those who have wealth should not think that they are masters and that they are God’s servants. What is the law for the clerks? Measure out what everyone needs... See the inscription above you: “A beggar has been left for you, be your helper.” 9 To understand religious concepts, read St. Tikhon, St. Demetrius of Rostov, St. Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, and so on. I can’t tell you the rules of prayer, not knowing how you pray now. I will say one thing: stand and pray to the Lord as your soul demands, telling Him what is on your soul. God is everywhere and hears everything... You just need to say it clearly. Speech to God is not pronounced with the tongue, but with the feelings of the heart. If you do this, it will be true prayer. Taking care of the estate? - How can that be? - The children need to be placed. There is no one without worries. But there is a measure for worries, and, moreover, care with complete trust in God. Keep this concern as an obedience imposed on everyone in monasteries. Saint Simeon the New Theologian has a rule: keep your conscience clear before God, people and before things... So there is a price for conscience towards them... Moscow!.. Pray, and God will preserve. Don’t meet the gay ones, but the God-fearing ones, of whom there are plenty in Moscow. There are many spiritual life people there. They will support. And most importantly, may the Lord be your support. May you both be healthy and cheerful. Lastly, Solomon concluded his Ecclesiastes: Fear God and keep His commandments, as every man does 10. Pray to God for me, a sinner. Your good friend, Bishop Feofan. The door to the Kingdom of God is purity of heart. A means of combating “dull insensibility.” Divine exercises. About reviving and creating a prayerful spirit within yourself. About reading. About the impoverishment of jealousy. About food. I undertake to answer your rich letter... - I am very glad that you are practicing what has already been prescribed to you. May God grant you not to retreat and not to go back. If you have taken the yoke, pull on, inspired by sure hope. The Kingdom is ahead; the door to the Kingdom is purity; All prescribed works and deeds are means to purify the heart. And it turns out that our immediate goal is the purification of the heart, and behind it is the Kingdom of God: for nothing unclean will enter there. This must certainly be kept in mind so as not to ruin your works by mixing something unclean into them. For example - to fast and be angry, to pray and to be highly intelligent; to do good to show humanity, and the like. You take up work - “not always out of desire, but more out of compulsion.” This is the law - to resist yourself in the bad and force yourself to do the good. This is what the Lord’s words mean, that the Kingdom of God is in need, and women in need delight it 11. Because of this, following the Lord is a yoke. If everything were done according to desire, what kind of yoke would there be in this? – In the end, however, it comes that everything is done willingly and easily. “A dull insensibility attacks you - you become like an automaton - no thoughts, no feelings.” Such states occur, sometimes as punishment for attempting something unkind with thoughts and sympathy, and sometimes as training, mainly as teaching humility, so that a person learns not to expect anything from his own strength, but everything from God alone. Several such experiences undermine self-confidence, but getting rid of burdens shows where help comes from and who to rely on in everything. This condition is difficult, but we must endure it with the thought that we are not worth better, that it is deserved. There are no remedies against it; its passing is in the will of God. We must, however, stand and cry out to the Lord: Thy will be done! Have mercy! Make it easy! But do not succumb to any indulgences: for this is ruinous and destructive. You are doing good by grieving about this and straining in every possible way to free yourself from it. But your fortune-telling that this will be eternal torment is incorrect. – Eternal things – both bliss and torment – ​​are unimaginable and cannot be compared with anything that happens in this life. Both are immeasurably higher than everything else here. – Among the holy fathers, such states are called cooling, dryness; and everyone considers them inevitable in life according to God: for without them we will soon become arrogant. The example of God-thought exercise 12 that you presented is the real deal. So go through all the truths of our holy faith and firmly establish them in your thoughts and feelings. But this is only an initial preparatory lesson. The real use of thought of God in life is the presentation of any truth of faith with corresponding feelings and intentions without the movement of reasoning, as if it had already been completed once. – The holy fathers call it contemplation, which is the mind’s vision of truth with feelings. Take the trouble to review all the truths, just as you reviewed one... And then contemplate each one revised more often, so that you do not forget it. When you have reviewed all the truths, then all you have to do is contemplate them. The use of contemplation is as follows: in the morning, immediately after restoring full consciousness, after sleep, make a general overview of them, beginning with the eternal existence of the Trinitarian God and ending with the Last Judgment and the eternal participation of all, not quickly and not for a long time, but with attention. This can be done according to the Creed. The entire totality of these truths is the structure of the mental, spiritual, Divine world. By revising their consciousness, their consciousness is inserted into their structure and enters the spiritual world. This is in accordance with how, upon waking up, we enter into the structure of the external world around us and consciously keep ourselves in it: the sun and sky above us, the elements and all the creatures on earth around us, as well as family, neighbors, the state with everything that happens in them. The latter happens involuntarily by itself, but you have to work hard on the former, although it is not too difficult. These two worlds, the one contemplated mentally and the externally visible, being aware, in the mental one receive guidance on how to rotate in the visible. This is a general rule of contemplation! Particular: having finished the mental review, in the morning, you need to dwell on the subject that most influenced the feeling, and with it revive the spirit of prayer. When this is not the case, then let the revival of the spirit of prayer be a general reverent feeling for the entire structure of the spiritual Divine world. Try not to leave a single morning without refreshing your inner being with such God-thought contemplation as you are in the habit of refreshing your chambers by letting in the fresh morning air; and then spend the whole day feeling that, in addition to the visible, the invisible also overshadows and surrounds you, not without influence. Your prayer routines are good. May God grant you to keep them patiently and fruitfully. And that the children are right there, I think, is very good. And I don’t think it bothers them; on the contrary, I generally admit that children enjoy participating in common prayer. It occurs to me to say that it would be good to hold a common prayer at night, setting an hour for this that would be earlier than anyone else in the family goes to bed. However, do what is most convenient for you. We have a lot of prayers ready. They were not composed, but poured out from the hearts of the saints, under the influence of some contemplation or event and incident in life. He who reads them with attention enters into the same feelings that breathe in them, and thereby revives and creates a prayerful spirit in himself. To make this more convenient, it is good to think through the prayers chosen in advance with the perception of the feelings hidden in them. It’s even better to memorize prayers so that you don’t need a prayer book, but always carry it in your soul, ready to be revealed as soon as you need it. But, having learned to pray according to ready-made prayers, you must begin to pray little by little in your own word, according to your needs - spiritual or external. Spiritual needs, as soon as they awaken, immediately direct to God. The urge to turn to God sometimes happens without a specific need, but simply because of a thirst for God. To whatever extent and in whatever form this urge manifests itself, one should never leave it unsatisfied, but immediately turn to prayer and pray in the position in which the urge is found: if while doing something, then pray after it, if while reading, in the middle of it and pray, if while walking, walk and pray. But, of course, it is better and more fruitful to stand in a prayer place and take a prayer position, if possible. – The more diligently these appeals to God are fulfilled, the more often they will appear, and the longer they will last, and the deeper they will take root. Don't forget this point. This technique is the best for improving prayer. Prayer is the main thing in our work. Spare no effort mainly on this. If during prayer this urge arises, stop reading the prayer and pray according to this urge, with or without your word. God will see how earnestly you desire and seek prayer, and will give you prayer that will not be stopped. God bless you for this work! Regarding reading. Reading for knowledge is one thing, but reading for edification is another. With the first, you read a lot, but with the second, you don’t need to read a lot, but as soon as something from what you read falls on your heart, stop and think, trying to clarify, and even more so, to deepen this thought into your heart. This is the same as turning this into an object of thought about God. This is how you will feed your soul and grow it, and not fill it up like a sack. There are no books... I will send them to you. I have a few to give away. – Are you reading St. Tikhon? Good? No book can compare with his books. “Jealousy comes and goes.” This happens to everyone. When it becomes impoverished, preserve the intention and decision - to serve the Lord, remaining in pious order without concession, without corruption, without indulgence of the flesh. And it will pass. Godly thinking effectively restores jealousy - especially the memory of death and judgment... death is about to happen. As soon as this thought falls completely on the heart, the heart cannot help but perk up. About food... Make it a law to leave the table a little hungry. The evil slave - the flesh - will feel that there is a powerful hand over it... And that wine drinking has been stopped, wonderful. This is the best way to ensure that your body is always cheerful, sober and fresh. This is a great thing! Do you think that in order to destroy the evil caused by forty-seven years of debauchery, you need to work just as hard in the good order of life... No: this is not at all true. Everything stained by disgust from him and merciless opposition to him is cleansed, with faith, hope and love for the Lord. There are these dispositions in such strength that in an instant everything is cleaned out. So it was with the thief on the cross. Today you will be with Me in Paradise, the Lord promised him 13. And nothing unclean will enter heaven. – For others, however, this cleansing takes a long time, most of all from self-indulgence and concessions to one’s desires. It is a great mercy for you that you are happy with your wife and children. May they remain like this forever and always. Whatever else you desire for your family life, commit it to the will of God, praying fervently, but expressing every readiness to accept everything that God deigns to send, even if it is not smooth. I can't say anything about what you are looking for. See for yourself what you're up to. But there is nothing to look at the feeling. The main thing is duty. – External debt – good service. But any service can be turned into a way of pleasing God, or the external can be performed in connection with the internal, sanctifying the former with the latter. May God grant your Leo 14 the good fortune to pass the exam... God bless you all too. About spiritual guidance. On the attitude towards non-believers. Doing the Jesus Prayer is simple. I sent you books, but didn’t have time to write a letter. I’ll sit down to write and tell you what will be needed in the course of your letter. Stop calling me your leader and mentor and shepherd. I don’t undertake to be such a person for anyone; and when someone asks, I say what seems appropriate to me. Your plan to do something on the occasion of sending books is not suitable. I do not publish or sell my books; and publishers send me a certain number of published books to distribute. I distribute it to whomever I think is necessary. “If you do what you consider suitable for you, and then bow to the great sinner, that’s all you can do.” Have you read “The Path to Salvation”? - Good... And read it again someday. Here everything that I have written is being written and will be written. These are my lessons to students of the St. Petersburg Academy. The abstract has been revised from Fr. Archimandrite Ignatius - after the former bishop, Brianchaninov, and approved by him. This was in 46-47. “You can’t do it without a leader,” you wrote. The leader is a pillar on the road, and everyone must walk the road themselves, and also look at their feet and on the sides. Elder Paisiy Velichkovsky ... looked for a leader all his life and did not find one. But there were two or three of us living together, and they were guided by mutual advice. I ask you to exclude me from this leadership... And see for yourself what to do with prayer and fatherly lessons. Cases of explosion of your self are not important in themselves, but the spirit with which you did what you did is important. You yourself have already condemned him. And so it should be. Your action with the Molokan is more reproachful than others. The communication you are afraid of is not everyday, of course, and not friendly, but religious: not communicating in faith and sacraments and prayers. What he came to you for, you had to help him. In the other two cases, you could have made a serious suggestion - and not create dust. There is a lot of excuse for the fact that no matter how reasonably you interpret it to a Russian, he will not listen, but he will listen to threats and pins. But this goes more to those in power than to private individuals. I think that you will do well if, when you meet those people, you speak kindly to them, as if nothing had happened. You can say: “I got a little angry then, I apologize. But this does not mean that I approve of your action: what you did was bad. Your sin is equal to murder.”.; Is there any work for the girl in your rooms - sweeping the room, wiping something, bringing water and similar little things around the house... She would be under your wing. Penance... 15 When, while correcting the Jesus Prayer, the desire comes to pray in your own word... remember at the same time about these exploits and pray with contrition, making three bows. So for several days, about a dozen. But it would be stronger if you confessed to your spiritual father, and he would prescribe something for you. Show some kindness to the Molokans... and stop shunning the Molokans. There is nothing to look for their friendship, and when you happen to be together, you should not frown at them. Otherwise, to act on them is to throw yourself in the mud. A word to the Guardian Angel: rejoice for... you have forbidden fellowship 16 - of course: in the sacraments, and in faith, and in prayers. Saint Paul did not forbid the faithful to go to dinner with the pagans... and eat everything offered, even sacrificed to idols, commanding them to abstain from this latter only when they say: this is sacrificed to idols. But the Molokans are far removed from the pagans in the matter of faith. Your disgust towards them is not good. You need to feel sorry for them and pray for them, and, on occasion, throw in a word or phrase into a normal conversation for the sake of understanding. “I forgot to enclose the books for you to enlighten the Molokans.” I'll send it later. There is no sin in accepting tenants who are celibately cohabiting... But since this gives rise to some kind of temptation in one’s family, then one must somehow free oneself from them. - Some people are very kind and pious... It’s a pity for such people: look, we have different anti-marital teachings and they confuse us... They commit fornication and do not lead with their ears. “You need a good mother-in-law... without grace this is impossible... grace is the share of the elect.”... There is misinterpretation here. – No one is blessed with grace; it is given to all who come to the Lord; and the Savior says that He came to save sinners, and not the righteous... Grace is common to all, just take it... and access to it is open to everyone - and everyone can be saved if they want... The fault of non-salvation is not due to grace, but to our reluctance. Doing the Jesus Prayer is simple: become attentive in your heart before the face of the Lord and cry out to Him: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!” It’s not a matter of words, but of faith, contrition and surrender to the Lord. With these feelings you can stand before the Lord without words... and this will be prayer... You will find complete instructions about prayer in general, and about the Jesus Prayer, in the book “Invisible Warfare”... Read there. – The fact that, having received the prayerful spirit under the influence of the Jesus Prayer, you begin to pray in your own word according to the urgent needs of a contrite heart, is very good and very fruitful for the creation of the spiritual. Please bring yourself to this point every time... however, do not strain yourself to compose a prayer for this... but let it pour out from your heart itself... This latter is the best way to unceasing prayer. God bless you and your whole family. About the prayer rule. The spirit of prayer is most revealed in church. I am writing to you only to say that I have no time to write properly. Lots of things to do... and my head can be heavy. A good remedy for the illness that you wrote about in your last letter is to push yourself out of bed. You want rules. I wrote to you - take the small prayers of St. Chrysostom - twenty-four. – If it’s not enough, attach from – “Have mercy on me, O God...” – verses from the beginning to – “... Reward me with the joy of salvation...” That’s another twelve to thirteen. From the litany of petition, compose prayers - six... “The day is perfect... The angel is peaceful...” - You can compose it yourself... - Publican’s voice: God, be merciful to me a sinner 17. - Exclamation on the ship: Lord, save us, we are perishing! 18 Collect ten of them, three, four, five... Repeat them ten times... and this will be your rule - morning and evening. When saying prayers, delve deeper into the meaning, applying to yourself... The first fruit... you won’t notice how time passes. And you will see other fruits later. Your prayers that you prescribed are very good, but long. They can be inserted between the small ones... but not necessarily, and when they arrive. But most importantly, turn to the Savior with every spiritual need. Restore faith that He is nearby and hears... And express your need to Him... Do this more often... do it... and He will come. If you find it convenient, visit the church of God more often. Nowhere is the spirit of prayer revealed so much as in churches, with an attentive and reverent stay in them. If you do this, you will soon see the fruit... however, not after the first and second visit to the church... You must spend months... and show constancy and patience in this work. But I’ll add here too - don’t tie yourself down. - If you bind with anything, hold on to it: for this determines the fruitfulness of such a seed. When you decide to get into the monastery, go there, in the inn there is an old woman who is very learned, but most importantly, she is familiar with the science of God... With her you can talk about everything... better than with anyone else. Pray, and the Lord will not leave you. Real prayer comes from the heart and ascends to God. Rule for life. The protection of the Mother of God be upon you! We started praying short prayers and gave up. If they had not abandoned it, the matter would have gone far; and now it’s time to start again. Real prayer is that which comes straight from the heart and ascends to God. And no other prayer is a prayer if it is not like that. This is what our entire concern should be in the matter of prayer. But usually our mind is cluttered with many undivine thoughts, our will with many worldly worries, our heart with sympathies and earthly pleasures; why is it that immediately ascending to God is the same for us as climbing out of a quagmire? Small prayers are a very suitable means or aid for this. They train the mind to stick to one thing; Little by little they win sympathy over to their side and distract them from their worries. This effect is stronger and more likely to manifest itself, if not only on the rule, but also at other times, watch them with attention. The final fruit is the formation of a feeling for God, which is inseparable from unceasing prayer or is one and the same with it. – Here there is a living union with God - the goal of spiritual life. “Right from sleep there is a rapid influx of thoughts, and deeds, and sympathies.” We must destroy this and acquire the skill of dedicating our first thoughts to God... This is done by thinking about God. This, it seems, was what we were talking about... It is precisely - according to the Creed that we must go through - all the holy truths... until the universal judgment and the decision of the fate of all. If you please follow these two techniques, you will be fine. Add only to this - to evade evil and do good... in word, deed and thought - And the whole program is here... Write on a piece of paper... and read it more often: when you wake up - thoughts of God; then short prayers with attention and feeling... and throughout the day: turn away from evil and do good... do every task - even the smallest - in the best way, as before the eye of God. Hand pain is muscular rheumatism. I had it... Cured with an electromagnetic machine. Probably there is one in the city hospital... Try it. – My treatment lasted a month and a half... morning and evening. Electromagnetism was carried out to the place where the pain was. You can buy a car... – May the Lord arrange your family and work affairs in the best possible way. – I’ll send the 33rd Psalm when it comes out. – I did not think about the suffering of the Lord. This is not my work. – Writing notes and placing them on the relics of the Saint, it seems to me, means great pretentiousness. Doesn’t Saint Tikhon have the ear to hear prayers to him? The work of prayer is the first task in the Christian life. Techniques for arousing and cultivating a prayerful spirit. Ways to teach the soul to turn to God frequently. Ways to introduce the spirit of prayer. The work of prayer is the first task in Christian life. Prayer is the breath of the spirit. There is prayer - the spirit lives; no prayer - no life in the spirit. Standing in front of an icon and bowing down is not yet prayer, but only an accessory to prayer; reading prayers - from memory or from a book, or listening to them - is not yet prayer, but only an instrument of prayer or a way of discovering and inciting it. Prayer itself is the emergence in our hearts of one after another reverent feelings towards God - feelings of self-abasement, devotion, thanksgiving, glorification, petition, contrition, submission to the will of God, diligent prostration, and so on. All our concern here should be that during our prayer these and similar feelings fill our soul - so that our heart is not empty. When he has all these feelings or any one of them directed towards God, then our prayer is prayer, and when not, it is not yet prayer. Prayer, or the aspiration of the heart to God, needs to be aroused and the excited one strengthened, or - what is the same thing - you need to cultivate a prayerful spirit in yourself. The first way to do this is by reading or listening to our prayers. Read or listen to the prayer book properly, and you will certainly arouse and strengthen the ascent in your heart to God, that is, you will enter the spirit of prayer. Great prayer power moves in the prayers of the holy fathers, and whoever penetrates them with all attention and zeal will, by virtue of the law of interaction, certainly taste the power of prayer as his mood approaches the content of the prayer. – In order for our prayer book to become a real means of cultivating prayer, it is necessary to perform it in such a way that both the thought and the heart perceive the content of the prayers that make up the prayer book. Here are the three simplest techniques for this: do not start praying without proper preparation - do not do it haphazardly - but with attention and feeling, and do not immediately after finishing your prayers proceed to ordinary activities. a) Preparation for prayer. Whenever you begin to pray, wait a little, or sit, or walk, and at this time try to sober your thoughts, distracting them from all earthly affairs and objects. Then think about who is the One to whom you turn in prayer, and who you are who now has to begin this prayerful appeal to Him - and arouse in your soul the corresponding mood of self-abasement and reverent fear of standing before God in your heart. This is all a small, but significant, preparation - to stand reverently before God in the heart. Here is the beginning of prayer, and a good beginning is half the battle. b) The very performance of prayer. Having established yourself in this way internally, stand in front of the icons, cross yourself, bow and begin the usual prayer. Read slowly, delve into every word - bring the thought of every word to your heart, accompanying this with bows - with a cross. This is the whole point of pleasing to God and fruitful reading of prayer. - Delve into every word and bring the thought of the word to your heart, otherwise: understand what you read, and feel what you understand. You read: “Cleanse me from all filth,” feel your filth, desire purity and, with full hope, ask the Lord for it. You read: “Thy will be done,” and in your heart you completely commit your fate to the Lord, with full readiness to graciously meet everything that the Lord sends you. You read: “And forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors,” and in your soul forgive everyone everything and, thus, ask yourself for forgiveness from the Lord. If you act this way with every verse of your prayer, then you will have proper prayer. And in order for you to perform it more successfully in this way, here’s what you need to do: 1) have a well-known prayer rule - a small one, so that during your ordinary affairs you can fulfill it slowly; 2) in your free time, read the prayers of your rule, understand every word of the prayer and feel it, so that you know in advance what should be in your soul and heart at what word, so that - during prayer - it will be easy for you to understand and feel; 3) if your flying thought during prayer runs off to other objects, strain to maintain attention and return your thought to the subject of prayer; runs away again, return again: repeat the reading until you read every word of the prayer with understanding and feeling. By this you will wean your thoughts from distraction in prayer; 4) if any word of prayer has a strong effect on the soul, stop there and do not read further, stand in this place with attention and feeling, saturate your soul with it, or with the thoughts that it will produce, do not ruin this state until it passes by itself: this is a sign that the spirit of prayer is beginning to take root in you, and this state is the most reliable means of nurturing and strengthening the spirit of prayer in us. c) What to do after prayer? When you finish your prayer, do not immediately move on to any activities; but also wait at least a little and think that you have done this and what it obliges you to, preserving after prayer especially what had a strong effect on you. The very property of prayer is such that if you pray well, as you should, you will not want to quickly worry about business: whoever tastes sweet will not want bitter; and tasting this sweetness of prayer is the goal of prayer, and through this tasting the sweetness of prayer, a prayerful spirit is cultivated in prayer. By following these few rules, you will soon see the fruits of your prayer work. Any prayer will leave a trace of prayer in the soul - its continuous continuation in the same order will root it, and patience in this work will instill a spirit of prayer. Here is the first - initial - way to cultivate the spirit of prayer in us! This is the performance of our prayers in accordance with their purpose. But that's not all; Here lies only the beginning of the science of prayer. We need to go further. Having become accustomed with your mind and heart to turn to God with outside help - according to prayer books - you must then make experiments and your own ascension to God - to reach the point where the soul itself, so to speak, with its own speech, enters into a prayerful conversation with God, itself ascends to Him and reveals itself to Him and confesses what is in it and what it desires. And the soul must be taught this. What should one do to succeed in this science? And the skill of praying according to prayer books with reverence, attention and feeling leads to the same thing; for from a heart filled with holy feelings through prayer, its own prayer to God will begin to flow out of itself. But there are also special rules for this that lead to proper success in prayer. The first way to train the soul to frequently turn to God is thought of God, or reverent reflection on the Divine properties and actions - reflection on the goodness of God, justice, wisdom, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience; about creation and providence, about the arrangement of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ; about grace and the word of God, about the holy sacraments, about the Kingdom of Heaven. Whichever of these objects you begin to reflect on, this reflection will certainly fill the soul with a reverent feeling for God: it directly directs the whole being of a person to God and therefore is the most direct means of accustoming the soul to ascend to God. Having finished your prayer, especially in the morning, sit down and begin to think - now about one thing, tomorrow about another of God's properties and actions - and create a disposition in your soul corresponding to this. Speak to Saint Demetrius of Rostov: “Go, holy thought of God, and let us immerse ourselves in meditation on the great deeds of God,” - thereby touch your heart, and you will begin to pour out your soul in prayer. There is little labor, but much fruit. All you need is desire and determination. For example, begin to reflect on the goodness of God - you will see that you are surrounded by God’s mercies both physically and spiritually - and you will fall before God in an outpouring of feelings of gratitude; begin to reflect on the omnipresence of God - you will understand that you are everywhere before God and God is before you - and you cannot help but be filled with reverent fear; begin to reason about the truth of God - you will be sure that not a single bad deed will go unpunished - and you will certainly decide: to cleanse all your sins with heartfelt contrition before God and repentance; begin to reflect on the omniscience of God - you will realize that nothing in you is hidden from the eye of God - and you will certainly decide to be strict with yourself and attentive in everything, so as not to somehow offend the all-seeing God. The second way to train the soul to frequently turn to God is to turn every matter - big and small - to the glory of God. For if we make it a rule, according to the commandment of the Apostle, to do everything, even eat and drink, for the glory of God, 19 then we will certainly remember God in every action - and let us remember not simply, but with fear - lest in any case we act wrongly and offend God in some way. This will force you to turn to God with fear and prayerfully ask for help and admonition. And since we are almost constantly doing something, we will almost constantly turn to God in prayer and, therefore, we will almost constantly go through the science of lifting up to God in prayer in our souls. In this way we will teach the soul to turn to God as often as possible throughout the day. The third way of training the soul to turn to God frequently is to frequently, throughout the day, cry out from the heart to God in short words, judging by the needs of the soul and current affairs. When you start, say: “Lord, bless!” When you finish the job, not only with your tongue, but also with the feeling of your heart, say: “Glory to Thee, Lord!” What passion rises, say: “Save me, Lord, I am perishing!” The darkness of confusing thoughts finds itself - cry out: “Bring my soul out of prison!” If there are wrong deeds ahead and sin leads to them, pray: “Guide me, Lord, on the path” or: “Do not let my feet become troubled.” Sins suppress and lead to despair - cry out in the publican’s voice: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” So anyway. Or just say more often: “Lord, have mercy! Lady Theotokos, save me! Angel of God, my holy Guardian, protect me!” Or in some other word, cry out. Just - as often as possible - make these appeals more often, trying in every possible way so that they come out of the heart, as if squeezed out of it. When we do this, we will experience frequent, intelligent ascents from the heart to God, frequent appeals to God, frequent prayer; and this practice will give us the skill of intelligent conversation with God. So, in addition to the prayer rule - to teach the soul to ascend to God in prayer - there are three more ways to introduce one into the spirit of prayer. This means devoting some time in the morning to contemplation of God, turning every matter to the glory of God, and often turning to God with short appeals. When the thought of God is well accomplished in the morning, it will leave a deep mood for thinking about God. Thinking about God will force the soul to carefully carry out all its actions - both internal and external - and turn them into the glory of God; and both will put the soul in such a position that short prayerful appeals to God will often come out of it. These three thoughts of God, the creation of everything for the glory of God and frequent appeals are the most effective tools of mental and heartfelt prayer. Each of them lifts the soul to God. Whoever sets out to practice them will soon acquire the skill of establishing ascension in his heart to God. Having been torn away from the earth, the soul will enter its own region and will sweetly dwell in the mountain 20 - here heartily and mentally, and there - and will essentially be honored to dwell before the face of God. About the penetration of inner life into external, active life. How to keep your heart in a state of fear of God. How to make sure that your thoughts are with God everywhere. About mental prayer. Be a sincere child of the Church, and support all its contents. Be pure and blameless in life, and do not allow your conscience to convict you of anything, big or small; If you sin in any way, cleanse yourself with repentance. Carry out all monastic orders conscientiously, honoring every work that you are supposed to do according to these orders, as if sent to you personally from God Himself, and dedicate the work of monastic affairs to the Lord, as if He Himself stood before you and looked at you. All this will make up your active life. If you do everything indicated as you should, then your life cannot remain only external, but will always be internal; the inner will penetrate the outer; but it is possible that there will be no internal things, and your life will remain soulless. How to avoid this? We must put our heart into every undertaking, and a God-fearing heart. For the heart to be in a state of fear of God, it must be constantly overshadowed by the thought of God. Thinking about God will be the door through which the soul will enter active life. All work must now be directed towards constantly thinking about God, or in the presence of God. (Seek God...Seek His face, take away 21). This is where sobriety and mental prayer come into play. God is everywhere: make sure that your thoughts are always with God. How to do it? Thoughts hustle like mosquitoes in their columns, and above the thoughts are the feelings of the heart. In order to stick a thought to a single thing, the elders had the custom of habituating the continuous pronunciation of a short prayer; from practice and frequent repetition, this prayer was so imposed on the tongue that it repeated it on its own. Through this, thought also clung to prayer, and through it to incessant thinking about God. After the skill, prayer connected the memory of God, and the memory of God linked prayer; and they mutually supported themselves. This is walking with God. Short prayers were used by different people: “God, be merciful”; who: “God, come to my help”; who: “I am like a man who has sinned, but You, like God, have mercy on me.” But then everyone began to prefer one prayer to the Jesus: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner!” They learned to repeat it, and with it to cherish the memory of God. You see now where the Jesus Prayer stands and what its meaning is. In itself, it is not mental, but verbal, external, like all other written prayers, but is a means to mental prayer, when someone, standing with it before the Lord, prays to Him. Likewise, it is not mental work, but the same kind of work as church or home prayer from a prayer book. Mental prayer is when someone, having established attention in the heart, from there lifts up a prayer to God. Smart doing is when someone, standing with attention in the heart with the memory of the Lord, cuts off every other thought that tries to penetrate the heart. Now, I think, you yourself will resolve many of your misunderstandings. By mental prayer you mean the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” But after these explanations, you see that this is not a mental prayer, but a verbal one, and you can learn it without fear, just as you memorized any other prayer. Whether you sit, walk, or do anything else, repeat this prayer, and that’s it... and you’ll get used to it, and it will begin to repeat itself with your tongue. No troubles are expected here. Mental prayer is when you, standing in your heart with attention, cry out to the Lord and ask, or repent, or thank, or glorify Him. There is also no danger in this action; such a prayer serves as its own protection. For the Lord is here if you turn to Him with faith. Now you can actually try this. Create, create, and not only when you are sitting alone in your cell, but everywhere: in church, at meals, and when you walk. Just make sure that there is also a memory of the Lord here, and not just words. What Schemamonk Vasily said about putting aside singing for mental prayer applies to hermits and those individuals for whom mental prayer has developed and become unceasing. These can do everything, instead of church services and cell rules. But what is meant here is not the repetition of the Jesus Prayer, but the constant ascent of prayerful appeals from the heart. I read how it is said about one elder that he could continue his prayer only until the first glory (from the Psalter), and then he entered into heartfelt prayer and prayed without words. The reading of the prayer then stops by itself. Thus, the postponement of singing does not apply to you and me; we need to stand up for church services and fulfill what is prescribed for cell prayer. When unceasing heartfelt prayer is formed, then you will see what to do. If you ask to bless your inner work, God will bless you! But understand for yourself what the matter is here, get used to saying the Jesus Prayer so that it is imposed on your tongue, but always with the thought of the Lord. If at the same time you sigh from your heart to the Lord, it will be mental prayer, and not the words of the Jesus Prayer. If, having become attentive to the Lord in your heart and saying the Jesus Prayer, you drive away every other thought and feeling from your heart, this will be a smart act. The best way to discover smart-heart prayer. About bowing during the Jesus Prayer. Please read everything written by Fr. Alexander and understand everything according to what is written. I think that all your confusion will be resolved. All church services must be maintained. And I’ll tell you that there is no better way to discover mental-heart prayer than to be in church, at church services. In church services the spirit is prayerful. Anyone who sits through the service with attention to everything read and sung cannot help but warm up in a prayerful mood. If this is the case today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, etc., then the prayer fire will finally light up in the heart. But when God gives it, then you will run to church as to a royal feast and nothing will stop you; just try to listen to church singing and readings, and without attention nothing will happen. Bowing must be done immediately during the Jesus Prayer, and the more, the better. If you are alone in your cell, then bow down more often and do them as much as you want with the Jesus Prayer. Put more of them in the morning and evening. Prayer should be an uplifting of the mind and heart to God. The highest degree of prayer is heartfelt prayer. Degrees of prayer. The main condition for success in prayer. Prayer should always be an uplifting of the mind and heart to God. When, ascending to God, we praise God, thank Him and pray to Him to grant us spiritual blessings, with the consciousness and feeling of His greatness and His benefits and His generous mercy - then we pray, or are in a state of prayer. All our prayers, which are part of prayer books and church books, contain everything that has been said; and if, when reading these prayers, we not only utter words, but also have the same thoughts and feelings, then this is real prayer. If you pray like that, then it’s good. If, praying in this way both in church and at home, after a long period of practicing your prayer in this way, you reach the point where your prayerful thoughts and feelings become akin to your mind and heart, so that whether you stand in prayer or not, those feelings and thoughts do not leave your attention and always keep it attached to God, then you have ascended to the highest level of prayer, which can rightly be called mental-heartfelt. It happens in the soul and without words, when talking with others and when doing something. This continuous attention to God, or walking before God, is unceasing prayer... The Jesus Prayer is a great aid to this; it focuses the attention very strongly on God and makes it strong. From this you can see where the place of this prayer is and what is required for success in it. These are the degrees of prayer. 1. Getting used to regular prayers in church and at home. 2. The affinity of prayerful thoughts and feelings with the mind and heart. 3. Continuous prayer; The Jesus Prayer can go towards all of these, but its real place is in unceasing prayer. The main condition for success in prayer is cleansing the heart from passions and any attachment to anything sensual. Without this, prayer will remain at the first level, or reading. As the heart is cleansed, reading prayer will turn into mental-heart prayer, and when it is completely cleansed, then unceasing prayer will begin. How should you proceed? In church, follow the service and keep those thoughts and feelings that are suggested by the service. At home, arouse prayerful thoughts and feelings in yourself and keep them in your soul with the help of the Jesus Prayer. God bless you! The prayers of the saints are an outpouring of their full prayerful mood. Education of prayer skills. What is the Jesus Prayer? The law of spiritual life: keep your heart in feeling towards God - you will always be in the memory of God. About grace-filled spiritual warmth. Some special movements in the body and spirit come from prayer, but not all prayer books are the same, and some have such movements, while others have different ones; therefore, there is no need to dwell on them. Others have no peculiarities at all, but pray quietly, even with all their might. And this is the best and safest destiny! What is prayer? Mentally standing before God in the heart with praise, thanksgiving, petition and contrite repentance. Everything here is spiritual. The root of everything is the reverent fear of God, from which faith in God and in God, surrender of oneself to God, hope, clinging to God in a feeling of love with oblivion of all created things... When prayer is in power, all these feelings and spiritual movements are inherent in the heart in corresponding strength. Read the prayers of the saints that have come down to us, delve deeply - and you will see that all this in them is an outpouring of their complete prayerful mood. I repeat again: everything here is spiritual, it comes from God and ascends to God... How does this happen? The holy father enters the heart, deepens into the contemplation of the mysteries of faith, or all of them in general, or one particular delight, sets in motion the above-mentioned feelings and pours them out in prayer... We read these prayers, we come into a mood similar to them, either partially or completely, and we are in the proper mood. Through frequent repetition of this, constant spiritual prayer is cultivated in us and a constant prayerful mood is established, which is unceasing prayer. Everything here is spiritual, intelligent and comes down from top to bottom. How does the Jesus Prayer, which is a verbal prayer, relate to this? Just like the warmth that develops inside and around the heart from the action of this prayer... The skill of prayer is not formed suddenly... but requires long work and dedication. It is in this work of developing the skill of prayer that the Jesus Prayer and the warmth that accompanies it help best. Notice, father, that they are means, and not the thing itself. Perhaps there is the Jesus Prayer, and there is warmth, but there is no real prayer. Strange as it may seem, but it happens!.. When we pray, we must stand with our minds before God and think about Him alone. Meanwhile, various thoughts are constantly buzzing around in the head and distracting the mind from God. In order to teach the mind to stand on one thing, the holy fathers used prayers and learned to pronounce them incessantly... This constant repetition of prayer kept the mind thinking about God and dispersed all extraneous thoughts. These short prayers were different. Saint Cassian said that in Egypt everyone had this sentiment: “God, seek my help, Lord, strive for my help.” Saint Ioannikios continually wrote: “My hope is the Father, my refuge is the Son, my protection is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity, glory to Thee.” Someone else: “I, as a man who has sinned, You, as a generous God, have mercy on me.” There is no doubt that other prayers were also used... among us, the Jesus Prayer was especially established and became a common custom: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” So this is what the Jesus Prayer is. It is one of the short verbal prayers, like all other short prayers. It is prescribed to keep the mind on one thought about God. One who has become accustomed to this prayer and acts by it properly, indeed, is constantly in the memory of God. Since the memory of God in a sincerely believing heart is naturally accompanied by religious feelings of reverence, hope, thanksgiving, devotion to the will of God and others, all of which are spiritual, we call the Jesus Prayer, which produces and preserves the memory of God, spiritual prayer. And this is true when she is surrounded by those spiritual feelings. But when it is not accompanied by such actions, it remains verbal, like any other similar one. This is how you should think about the Jesus Prayer. Now, what does the warmth that accompanies the use of this prayer mean? In order for the mind to stay on one thing when using a short prayer, it is necessary to bring it together with attention in the heart; because, remaining in the head, where the crush of thoughts takes place, he will not have time to concentrate on one thing... When attention descends into the heart, it will attract all the forces of soul and body to one point... This concentration of all human life in one place immediately responds there with a special sensation; this feeling is the beginning of future warmth... This feeling, at first light, intensifies, becomes stronger, deepens, and from the cold it is at the beginning, turns into a warm feeling and holds attention to itself. And it happens in such a way that at first attention is held in the heart by tension of the will; by its force, attention generates warmth in the heart. This warmth then holds attention without much strain. They then support each other and must remain inseparable, because distraction of attention cools warmth, and diminishing warmth weakens attention. Hence the law of spiritual life: keep your heart in feeling towards God, you will always be in the memory of God. It was expressed somewhere by Saint John Climacus. Now the question is: is this warmth spiritual? No - not spiritual! And ordinary, blood. But since it keeps the attention of the mind in the heart and through this contributes to the development there of the spiritual movements indicated earlier, it is called spiritual - however, in the case if it is not accompanied by lustful pleasure, even if it is slight, but keeps the soul and body in a sober mood. It follows from this: as soon as the warmth that accompanies the Jesus Prayer is not accompanied by spiritual feelings, then it should not be called spiritual, but simply blood warmth; and, being such, it is not bad if it is not in connection with lustful pleasure, although light; and if it is, then it is bad and must be expelled. This wrongness happens when warmth goes below the heart. The second wrong is when, having fallen in love with this warmth, you limit everything to it alone, not caring about spiritual feelings and even about the memory of God, but only about the existence of this warmth; this wrongness is possible, although not for everyone and not always, but from time to time. This must be noticed and corrected, because in this case only blood warmth, animal, will remain... This warmth should not be considered spiritual or grace-filled... This warmth can be called spiritual only when it is accompanied by spiritual, prayerful movements... Whoever calls it spiritual without them is committing a mistake. Whoever calls her grace-filled is even more wrong... There is a special warmth of grace, and it is actually spiritual... It is detached from the flesh, and does not produce noticeable changes in the body, and is evidenced by a subtle sweet feeling. By these feelings, anyone can easily identify and distinguish warmth... Everyone should do this; there is no business or place for an outsider here. If sometimes there are bodily movements or sensations of any kind during prayer and warmth, do not pay attention to them; they do not relate to the essence of the matter and vary from person to person. Still, pay attention to spiritual actions and feelings. They will pass through your soul and body, like a pleasant morning coolness. Bishop Feofan Vyshensky. Don't bind yourself to a rule. We must avoid formality or mechanism in prayer. God bless and continue praying according to your rule. But never bind yourself to a rule and do not think that there is anything valuable in having such a rule or always following it. The whole price is in heartfelt surrender before God. The saints write that if someone does not leave prayer as a condemned man, worthy of all punishment from the Lord, then he leaves it as a Pharisee. Another said: “When standing in prayer, stand as if at the Last Judgment, when God’s decisive decree about you is ready to come: go away, or come.” Formality and mechanism in prayer must be avoided in every possible way. Let this always be a matter of a deliberate, free decision, and make it with consciousness and feeling, and not somehow. In case you need to be able to shorten the rule. Are there many accidents in family life?.. You can, for example, in the morning and evening, when there is no time, read only the morning prayers and those for bedtime as a memory. You can not even read them all, but several at a time. You can not read anything at all, but make a few bows, but with true heartfelt prayer. The rule must be handled with complete freedom. Be the mistress of the rule, not the slave. She is only a servant of God, obligated to devote all the minutes of her life to pleasing Him. I will accept your work with pleasure. But something small. Your labors should belong to the poor, except those in the family. All everyday affairs must be adjusted to a single need. Never approach God haphazardly, but always with great reverence. How to pray unceasingly. I can’t resolve the issue about the plant. For all everyday affairs there is one solution, to adapt them to a single need, and not to conduct them to the detriment of it. It seems to me that it would be better to sell the distillery out of hand. Vodka does a lot of evil. How would some of the responsibility not fall on its manufacturers?! And come on! What instead of it? Starchy will be better in every possible way. It occurs to me that if you can, by turning everything you have into capital, live comfortably and raise and house your children, then that would be best. I think so because of your desire to be more with the Lord. But after all, you are the head of the family. See how convenient it is! When things do not allow you to fully complete the prayer rule, then perform it abbreviated. And you should never rush. God is everywhere. Say thanks to Him in the morning and ask for a blessing in your own words, a few bows - and that’s enough! Never approach God haphazardly. And always with great reverence. He does not need our bows, nor our verbose prayers... A cry from the heart is short and strong, that’s what is profitable!.. And this can be done casually... And therefore, pray unceasingly. Take care of this and direct everything here. They asked Saint Epiphanius: how should we set the clock? Watch?! There are no special hours for prayer: it must be all-hourly and all-minute. They asked St. Basil the Great: how to pray unceasingly? He answered: have a prayerful disposition in your heart, and you will pray unceasingly. Work with your hands, and lift your mind to God. The apostles walked around the whole earth, how much work?! Meanwhile, they prayed incessantly. And they wrote this commandment. The spirit of faith, trust and devotion to the will of God - this is what needs to be warmed in the heart. You can figure out the prayer rule yourself, judging by what I wrote to your wife. Memorize the prayers you read and read them from memory with understanding and feeling. Insert your own prayer here and there; The less you depend on the book, the better. Memorize a few psalms and, when you go somewhere or do something else, but your head is not busy, read them... This is a conversation with God. The rule must be in your free will. Don't be his slave. The path of those who, having been called, follow the voice of the calling unswervingly. How a heart plugged by selfishness is corrected. The work of prayer is the work of all Christians. As the heart is to God, so is God to the heart. How to maintain prayer in many secular relationships. Attention should never leave the heart. Without repentant feelings, prayer is not prayer. Books recommended for teaching prayer. Last time, it seems, I decreed for you that He who began His work in you will complete it... To great consolation, I conclude from your words that He is doing it. Glory to You, God! Glory to You, God! Glory to You, God! What happens in you is good. And this is the usual path of those who, having been called and having heeded the calling, follow the voice of the calling unswervingly, not allowing themselves anything that would be contrary to the demands of God, inspired and confirmed by their conscience. God is everywhere and as soon as He finds a heart that does not resist Him, He enters into it and makes it glad. It rejoices and, clinging to Him, does not want to leave Him. Imagine an empty ball. The air there is stale and foul. If you drill a small hole, then the fresh air from the outside, gradually being forced inside, will displace the old - spoiled. If you gave the ball a feeling, it would certainly respond: oh, how good I feel now! It's the same with us. A heart plugged up by selfishness spoils inside, and everything goes wrong. We turn to the Lord - a hole is drilled in it by the labors of a new life, the unclean inner comes out, and something else - clean - comes in its place. This is the Divine spiritual element - the Lord Himself. Feeling this, the heart rejoices in the joy of life drawn from the Lord. The Lord is called the Visitor of souls... When he visits, the soul plays. This is the meaning of what happens in you! But this is not an exclusive benefit for you alone. This is the common road for everyone. And this is not from us, it is God’s gift! If it is a gift, you need to thank the Giver and humble yourself... Humility is the basis of everything! As soon as humility leaves, the heart will close and all the good in it will suffocate. May your heart always be contrite and humble 22 . You have it. Don’t lose, but even more and more develop this feeling... Our normal attitude towards God is a painful falling into His heart with contrition, with appeals: “In the image of fate, save me!” We must place ourselves in the hands of the Lord, so that He can do in us and with us whatever His holy will pleases, just to save us... Now it comes to mind whether you did the right thing by getting away with the troubles of the estate. How to manage estates is a matter of indifference, as long as it does not go by hiniya 23, but everything is turned to the glory of God. The Lord inspired: let them not burden their hearts, not only with gluttony and drunkenness, but also with the sorrows of life 24 . That you did the right thing, you have evidence of this in yourself: it’s as if your soul has received wings... And thank God! The work of prayer is not only the work of the silent, but of all Christians - and this is to its highest degrees. All degrees of God's prayer are the essence of the matter. With God, everyone is equal... and He looks only at the heart. As the heart is to Him, so He is to the heart, no matter whose heart it is. The Lord said: For You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us... 25 This is about all Christians. The Apostle says: your life is hidden with Christ in God 26. Infancy in prayer, as in the whole spiritual structure in general, is the best mood; and take care of it... and ask the Lord not to let you lose this feeling. Children come up to their father or mother and don’t say anything, they just hover around them, because it is sweet for them to be with them... Behave in such a way that in the simplicity of your heart you always hover around the Lord. Question: “Should I, in many secular relationships, support prayer or should I use it only during cell rule and in church, and the rest of the time, if not suppress it, then not support it?” – We must always keep up prayer... God is everywhere, and He sees everything, and His brightest eyes are more than the sun. The memory of this must be implanted in the heart or merged with consciousness. When the soul keeps consciousness of this, it cannot help but have the fear of God and reverence for Him, with care to please Him with everything - in word, in thought, in movement, and in deed. With this mood, meet others, see them off, and do every business - whether you are alone or in front of people. Convince yourself that God is testing you with every chance and, having established His eye on you, is waiting for you to act somehow. And act as the student answers in the exam, and, moreover, both externally and internally. This mood is prayerful, and can only be achieved through prayer. Prayer is a turning of the mind and heart to God. When this is there, that’s prayer... Work. God will grant that you will accept everyone, and you will not retreat from Him with your mind. This is work... and there is no division. Only perhaps at the beginning of the experiments. Don’t forget that this is the main thing... the host’s cordiality towards the visitor, and full attention, and cheerfulness, and at the same time the memory of God with fear and reverence. If you became incapable of continuing life in the light, the damage would be small... But prayer that follows the true path should not lead to this. She will only lead to glorifying God with her whole life, eliminating from her everything that is unnecessary, vain and feeding passions, and making her a silent preaching of what is worthy, however, without repelling anyone or cutting to the heart, but attracting everyone, and with the aroma of her life, disposing everyone to imitate her. Take the trouble to think it over according to your circumstances and get better. A sullen, repulsive, or grouchy life is not God's life. I hope that your prayer will not allow you to distort yourself in this way. However, reflection, experimentation... and asking for God's help are necessary. The root of everything is humility and warmth of heart towards everyone. God will give you a burning heart. Then whoever meets you will feel this warmth, and it will bind everyone to you and conquer everyone. Bless, Lord!.. “I became worse at praying in prayer books.” - This is not damage. At least never pick up a prayer book. Prayer books are the same as conversations, for example, French ones. Until someone learns to express himself freely, he memorizes conversations, and when he learns to speak, conversations are forgotten. So are prayer books. They are needed until the soul begins to pray on its own, and when it is already praying, you can leave them. Only when your own prayer does not come, then, in order to stir it up, you need to start praying with printed prayers. And when your prayer begins to stir, leave them... This is what the great prayer books did... Some read one psalm, some read one glory... and then, having entered into the spirit of prayer, they left the psalms. You need to know several prayers for memory, as well as several psalms. But always, just as prayer is in your heart, you can pray without a prayer book - by turning to God, with bows. If only there was no laziness or indulgence. For the enemy will immediately come up and, as if by the hand, begin to pull from prayer... Be aware of his deceptions... The manifestation of an attack of prayer is not the same for everyone. You say: “Some kind of pulse began to beat in my heart... there is a urge in the mind to say a prayer... a tightness is felt in the throat... the mind soon runs away, but in the heart the matter continues. "... Look: what is essential here and what is accidental? This pulse in the heart and tightness in the throat are nervous accidents, which in others manifest themselves differently, for example, by shaking, while in others they do not happen at all. And I think that those who have it may not give it a go, just as they can develop it to the extreme - as, for example, in Siberia someone fell in convulsions. All this is nervous, and can and should be stopped. For: “God’s present life expands and elevates our life,” without producing any discordance or unevenness. Follow this with attention. The essential thing here is: “The heart feels the call to pray”... There should be warmth here, and attention associated with warmth... That the mind runs away is wrong. It should be held and agreed with the heart or enclosed in the heart. Pay attention to this in your heart and, without starting from there, pray to the Lord there, in whatever word you want, albeit without words, with one appeal to God - contrite and humble. So stay there without proceeding. When there is this movement in your heart and you are alone, leave everything and pray, sitting or standing, just pray intensely there in your heart. So, until the feeling evaporates. So it is written by someone... it seems, by Climacus. And if this happens in front of others, then you still need to pray, but you shouldn’t show prayer. Know that attention should never leave the heart. But sometimes a matter in the heart is only intellectual, done with the mind, and sometimes also heartfelt, that is, both begun and continued with a warm feeling. This is the law not of hermits alone, but of all who must stand before God with a pure heart and work before Him, that is, all Christians. The mind gets tired of saying the word of prayer. Then pray without words, - thus throwing yourself before the Lord mentally in your heart and surrendering yourself to Him... This will actually be prayer, the word is only its expression... and it is always weaker than prayer itself before God. In church, pray well and don’t notice how the service is going on. Be good! If you can, go to church as often as possible. She is the true house of God... even if she is built of bricks and mortar. The heart feels that it is in the Father’s house, and it is sweet to it... To cultivate prayer, it is best to go to church. At home laziness overwhelms, but there is no place for laziness: for what else can one do but pray. You rightly do not give much weight to what happens to you... The beginnings... what else is there to do!.. And in general there is no point in being too concerned with yourself. The holy fathers say: “Do not measure yourself”... The best measure for yourself is: “there is nothing”... Lord, let me make a good beginning!.. Lord, weigh your destinies in your image, save me! And drive away every thought about measuring yourself, and, forgetting the back, just as if it didn’t exist, stretch into the front. The enemy forces you to measure yourself in order to arouse your conceit and ruin the whole thing. Always tell yourself: “There is nothing, there is nothing to measure.” The fear of seduction is also true... There is mental delusion, this is conceit... sometimes it is external, these are lights, sounds, some figures... Spit on all this... There is the enemy. The demon appeared to one, and well, shout: “Christ is coming, Christ is coming!” He told him: “Get out, you evil bastard! Christ will not come to me: for I am an extreme sinner,” and the demon disappeared. “It seems like everyone would have given up.” “Everything will come in due time, if God wills it.” Wait. But don’t desire this either, but like the Lord. For your present is not contrary to the way of God. Prayer from the heart is never premature. She is the beginning of the matter. By establishing it in the heart, God’s work will be accomplished. It must be developed without sparing labor. God, seeing the work, gives what is sought. Real prayer does not happen on your own: it is a gift from God. Seek and you will find... 27 That you did not use an artistic way of instilling prayer is no harm. That way is not inevitable; It’s possible without it. It is not the position of the body that is important, but the internal structure. The whole point is: “stand with attention in your heart and look or cry out to God.” “I have never met anyone who would approve of that artistic technique.” Eminence Ignatius and Fr. Macarius of Optina also does not approve of him. That you have repentant feelings in prayer and tears is a real thing. Without repentant feelings, prayer is not prayer. So write her as if she were not an ex. Prayer without these feelings is the same as a dead miscarriage. So do the holy fathers. And blow away your tears... Get used to howling over yourself as if over a dead person - and with lamentations... For the main thought or place where you should keep yourself mentally is the hour of judgment, or the moment when God is ready to say: come, or: go away! Oh, Lord, save me! And how not to cry, unable to say affirmatively that He will not say: go away!? I went through your letter, line by line, and it seemed that I didn’t leave anything behind; the thought came to tell you about anything. Didn't you understand something? According to the letter, you and I are brothers, but you are the eldest. I write illegibly, and you are even more illegible. Would you like to repent of this - and with the fruit of repentance? Do you have Isaac the Syrian? If not, hurry up and buy the Ladder. These two books will explain everything to you. And there are many other books. Ephraim the Syrian, Abba Dorotheus, Barsanuphius and John - answers, “Memorable Tales.” I think you have them. And if not, get it. Ferapontov will deliver if you agree. Look for St. Hesychius about sobriety and prayer. The people of Athos published it in a Russian translation from the “Philokalia” in a special book. You would need her most now. Read it. Does Fr. not have it? T...na, - I am very grateful to the Eminence Eusebius for the memory. If you write, convey to him my deep respect and request of his holy prayers. God bless you, your wife and children. That the children are in poor health is nothing. There will be less haste, and they will be closer to the Lord. We must accept everything that God has given us... And give thanks for everything. Pray for my unworthiness. Your mantis Bishop Feofan. The best thing is to surrender everything to the Lord. Self-indulgence and self-indulgent entertainment drive away the grace of God. Thank you for your congratulations and well wishes. Please accept my wishes for all good things for you this year and every year. It has become easier for you to do housework. God bless! The best thing is to surrender everything to the Lord, and He will arrange it, and we cannot guess how well. Watch your prayer. If he gets away, you won't catch him. What you wrote about your faults will be a lesson to you on how to be in good working order. Look every time what is piled up; think about what to do in advance so as not to fall into the same malfunction again... Just you shouldn’t indulge yourself and self-willingly indulge in entertainment: for this kind of behavior is driven away by the grace of God. Why won't he come back?! It’s terrible how everything will go upside down... Lord save you from this trouble! I send you Psalm 119. Published in Home Conversation. The editor made several copies and sent them to me. This editor had a blow to the head and lost his memory. He's in a mental hospital. The wife and children are left with nothing and are in poverty. If you feel like helping, help her. It will be very useful. The address seems to be the same: Tatyana Vl... A... at the Izmailovsky Bridge, Weber's house. I don’t know if this letter will find you in the village? Sorry for being too lazy to respond quickly. May you, Lord, stay in Moscow for the good of your soul. There’s a lot of everything there: you can get some good, but you can’t get any bad. It seems that the war is over, but if the Turks are pliable. I'm afraid that our people will complain. It is necessary to completely alienate Bulgaria from the Turks... and only with greater need would it be necessary to cede the tax payment, as Serbia is now... If this is not achieved, it is necessary to drag out the war; otherwise it will be needed again in a year or two... I wish you all the best from the Lord. God's blessing to your wife and children. About spiritual cooling in the matter of prayer. Feeling for God in the heart is unceasing prayer without words and without standing in prayer. Sorry, late reply. And I had to congratulate you not on the bright holidays, but on fasting. May the Lord grant you to conform to the rules of the Holy Church, not only in food and drink, but also in your spiritual structure. You remind us of spiritual cooling in the matter of prayer... This is great damage. Try to wake up. Household affairs can only excuse short standing in prayer, but they cannot excuse the impoverishment of inner prayer. The Lord desires little, but at least a little from the heart. Raise your mind to Him and say with contrition: “Lord, have mercy! God bless! Lord, help! - there is a prayer cry. And if the feeling for God is reborn and there is in the heart, then it will be unceasing prayer without words and without standing in prayer. You, of course, have a book: “On Sobriety and Prayer.” Collection... Start reading it little by little... Prayer will begin to move. In your prayer rule, insert short prayers from St. Chrysostom: “Lord, do not deprive me of Your heavenly blessings!” and so on. You can skip any of the prescribed prayers, and say these three, five and ten times... As the soul lies. Sometimes they can replace the entire rule. It’s good to read them during the day between times. You need to think about them and feel them. And then they will be like levers. I am sending you the third volume of the Philokalia. And here you will find something to read to warm up your prayer... God bless you! God's blessing to your husband and children. How to learn mental prayer. I think that you have now become accustomed to the works of your obedience... Lord grant that everything goes better and better. Wisdom is small! Don’t get too dusty, be patient, and little by little move everything forward. The Lord wants this and there is always an all-powerful Helper in these matters. Just you should never admit: “I want”, but: “the order requires it; I am your servant." They wanted to learn mental prayer. Good! What kind of prayer did you have before?! Prayer is essentially a mental action, and if you didn’t pray smartly, then you didn’t pray at all. And I will tell you that there is no one who does not pray intelligently. Everyone is praying smartly. When everyone prays, they mentally imagine God as present and express their needs to Him. Even though they read prayers, everyone tries to mentally ascend to God. If anything should be said, it is that they do this not perfectly, not continuously, even during prayer, and, most importantly, without feelings. Thus, your desire will be: how to achieve perfection in prayer, raised intelligently to God? The answer to this is: seek and you will find... How did you learn to write? The labor of writing, with the desire to write correctly according to samples. Do this in prayer and you will learn. She won’t come on her own, she needs to study. 1. Learn to walk (live) in the presence of God, before the eyes of God with the corresponding feelings. 2. As soon as you are free, bow down in feelings of contrition and humility. 3. Read books all about prayer and meditate on it. 4. Above all, try with all your might to conduct church services in the memory of God, and then do the home rule. You need to rub your soul and it will warm you up. When the warmth comes, then your thoughts will subside and your prayer will become pure. Still by the grace of God. That’s why we need to pray to the Lord to grant us prayer. Self-pity is dangerous and destructive. Deceit in front of oneself is the most evil of all deceits. It is better to have one general rule: act contrary to the demands of self-indulgence every time. There will be no success in prayer as long as there is self-indulgence and self-pity. The self-pity you complain about is dangerous and destructive. If you have to indulge yourself due to illness, then that’s okay. And if under the pretext of illness, then this is bad. Here you can see deceit in front of yourself - the most evil of all deceits. You seem to look at self-pity very lightly, considering cases of yielding to it as unimportant actions. You have a big mistake here. Cases of self-pity are definitely insignificant; but the presence of this self-pity in the soul is not insignificant. Because what does it mean? - This means that self-indulgence in you and I is stronger than pleasing God. We decided to do this and that, realizing that it was necessary in the matter of establishing a saving life and, therefore, pleasing to God; and then we refuse this for no other reason than because this refusal is more pleasant for us, body or soul. This means that this time we are moving from pleasing God to self-pleasing. Conscience sees our wrongness and worries. She's right. I shouldn’t have tied myself down: I’ll do this and that in forms of asceticism, when I didn’t have the confidence to overcome myself every time. For example: they decided not to drink tea, and then drank a cup. And you worry. It’s not a big deal to drink a cup, but the big thing is that your conscience is offended and that things are allowed to happen that violate your previous decisions. This destroys the internal structure and develops the habit of not listening to conscience when it indicates what is due. And here... and fearlessness will come, and complete indifference to pleasing God! It is better not to bind yourself to the smallest detail with rules, but to have one thing in common: to act contrary to the demands of self-indulgence every time. And if we allow some kind of benefit to the body, then it is not out of indulgence, but out of awareness of the need for health. Not drinking tea is good and healthy. But as in other cases it gives vigor to the body, you can sometimes drink a cup. So it should be put: I will abstain from tea from time to time. Because sometimes it's very easy to get around. Otherwise, it’s best not to bog yourself down with such details. And keep the general thing: do not please the flesh; and act in this spirit, making decisions each time. I used tea as an example; but you need to act this way in relation to everything: food, sleep, walking and rest, and so on. Anything that interferes with the internal order should not be allowed under any circumstances. This is why you need to have an old man nearby. The best person for this is a confessor. Whenever you come across something, ask immediately. Your conscience will be calm. Otherwise she will legally demand it. “Success,” you say, “no.” And it won’t happen as long as there is self-indulgence and self-pity. Self-pity and self-indulgence directly indicate that “I” predominates in the heart, not the Lord. Self-love is the sin living in us, from which all sinfulness comes and which makes the whole person sinful, from head to toe, as long as it takes place in the soul. And when the whole person is sinful, how will grace come to him? It will not come, just as a bee will not go to where there is smoke. The presence of self-love is a sign that the first decision to work for the Lord was formed incompletely and unsuccessfully. This decision has two ends: one - let him deny himself, the second - let him come for Me... The first requires the complete suppression of egoism, or self-love, and, therefore, the prevention of self-indulgence and self-pity - neither great nor small. Consequently, in whomever they are, the solution was incomplete. Such a decision makes a person similar to those persons about whom the Apocalypse says: neither warm nor cold... 29 neither this nor that... - You want to be saved, but self-resistance is not allowed. God and mammon cannot work. I bring all this to your mind, so that you censor yourself and carefully determine what is in your heart: “I” or the Lord. Then sit down and judge - what to do? Ask me to pray to deliver you from self-indulgence. What should we pray about? God won't hear. He hears prayer only for those who are not self-pleasing. And God hears every man himself only when he does not suffer from these firstborn daughters of sin. For lack of self-pity and self-indulgence, the Lord will only give grace and prosperity. He does not give them himself, but demands that the person himself take them, as a deposit, for which he should be shown mercy. About getting used to the Jesus Prayer. The fruit of prayer. You must always have the fear of God. Do you want to learn the Jesus Prayer according to the model prescribed in this book? (Athos manuscript: “Seeker of Unceasing Prayer.” There is also a printed book.) Good! God bless! The prayer lesson must be done immediately. Start with a smaller measure. For example: two or three days, a thousand each, then two or three days, two thousand each; then for a week or more, three thousand... You can stay at three thousand for a longer time. Afterwards, add a thousand if the time is convenient and other services allow it. The wanderer (this is a pilgrim - a seeker of unceasing prayer, indicated in that manuscript) was not busy with anything, and did not go to services (he reached from six to twelve thousand Jesus prayers per day). It is better to say prayer while standing, as is the rule. If your legs get tired, you can kneel down... You can lie down like that in order to perform the prescribed number of prayers, either standing or on your knees. Say a prayer: now the whole time, then the first half, then the second. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!” “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner!” “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!” Just don’t change it quickly, but determine either a hundred for each, or something else, but not less than ten. Keep your attention in the chest, slightly below the hollow under the throat. Because your heart aches. But it won't happen like that. Then the warmth will respond in the heart without pinching. Speak the prayer words slowly, as if in a chant. Bows should be made arbitrarily. If things go better without them, it’s better not to put them in or only put them in occasionally. When making this prayer addressed to the Lord the Savior, one should not lose sight of the fact that He is One of the Most Holy Trinity, inseparable from the Father and the Holy Spirit. Why is it impossible to bring into consciousness with those words: the favor of the Father and the grace of the Spirit. This can be done on a large rosary... There is no need to limit yourself to just words, but at the same time refresh the contemplation of God as omnipresent, all-containing, providing for everything, and so on. It's best to do this lesson at night... The fruit of prayer is concentration in the heart and warmth. This is a natural action. Anyone can achieve this. And this prayer should be performed by everyone, not only by monks, but also by laymen. This is not some kind of lofty matter, but a simple one. And the Jesus Prayer (alone in itself) is not miraculous, but, like any other short prayer, verbal and, therefore, external. But she can turn into smart and warm... all naturally. What is from grace must be expected, but it cannot be taken in any such way. What they wrote to you, that you must first purify passions, refers to high contemplative prayer; and this is a simple prayer... which can, however, lead to high prayer. In order for this activity to proceed successfully, each time you begin it, you must leave everything behind, so that your heart is completely free from everything, so that your attention does not stick out: not a person, not a deed, not a thing. Everything needs to be cleared out at this time. Having served this rule, you should not give up all prayer at any time, but as soon as you have freedom, do it now. During the service, one must listen to the service... standing with attention in the same place where the Jesus Prayer is being said. And when they read and sing something inaudibly, then do this prayer. External techniques (described in the fifth volume of the Philokalia): sitting on a chair, bowing your head, constricting your breathing - you can leave it. Stop all effort on concentrating your attention in the said place. You must always have the fear of God. Just as those closest to us are not so bold before the king, so much less are we, sinners, before the Lord. If you are friendly with God, then bad... out of hands. You need to pray about fear, and God will give it. It should not be limited to the mechanical repetition of the words of the prayer. The essence of doing the Jesus Prayer. Work hard. Good, good! Work hard and with humility. And the Lord will not abandon your labor. Do not forget that you should not limit yourself to mechanical repetition of the words of the Jesus Prayer. This will lead to nothing except the mechanical skill of repeating this prayer with your tongue, without even thinking about it. And this, of course, is not bad. But it constitutes the farthest outer outskirts of this matter. The essence of the matter is conscious standing in the presence of the Lord with fear, faith and love. This mood is possible without words. It is necessary to restore it in the heart first of all. Words will then come in order to keep attention on this one thing and deepen those feelings and dispositions. The fact that there was lustful irritation is very bad. It could be an accident; but this should not be allowed, but must be stopped immediately... Otherwise, instead of a spiritual matter, it will turn out to be sensual and instead of good it will bring evil fruit. Read about this in the Philokalia, especially about how to keep your attention. Congratulations on your new rank. Do the work with humility and do not spoil it with pride, or vanity, or arrogance. Feelings during prayer. There is nothing to be afraid of. What you wrote about prayer is all good. And the fact that sometimes there are blood movements during prayer, this will pass. There is no need to strain your hearts too much, but act in simplicity. Then whatever feelings God sends will not produce anything like that. When this happens, pray to the Lord and Guardian Angel for this movement, to calm it down and, if the enemy is instigating, to drive it away. There is nothing to be afraid of. It happens to those who are proud, who begin to think that since the warmth has gone into the heart, this is already the end of perfection. But this is only the beginning, and perhaps a fragile one. For warmth and tranquility of the heart are also natural - the fruit of concentration of attention, but one must work and work, wait and wait until the natural is replaced by grace. Anyway, it’s best to never consider yourself to have achieved anything, but to always see yourself: poor, naked, blind and worthless. If you can, remember the Holy Trinity together without division: for there is One God. When you pray the rosary, on large knots, say: “Most Holy Trinity, our God, glory to Thee” or “have mercy on us!” And that's not always the case. Act freely, without binding yourself, just to always be in feeling towards the Lord and with the Lord. Pray to Him, and He Himself will teach you. Warmth of the heart during prayer. Pay close attention to yourself and consider your thoughts. It is comforting to hear about your internal affairs. Warmth of heart during prayer is a very good sign. Watch out. Try to go through in your thoughts more often all our truths, according to the Symbol or so, along their flow, starting from the Divine properties and creation... to the universal judgment and the decision of the fate of all... This is especially good in the morning and evening before prayer... It will be like fuel. Of course, you must listen to yourself relentlessly and consider the thoughts that appear: where do they come from and why? Corruption and self-justification are the destroyers of everything spiritual. Read more of the Gospel. I can’t answer your question boldly. It’s about accepting money and things... There are rules for this. In your inner structure, keep what the Lord has given. Keeping this diligently will dispose the Lord to strengthen His gifts. Run away from anything that distracts attention and detracts from warmth. Corruption and appropriation of rights to benefits are the primary enemies, the destroyers of everything spiritual. Read more Holy Scripture, especially the Gospel... There the Spirit of God moves and drives away spirits that are against God and who fight against God. P.S. You don’t need to restrict your breathing and don’t put pressure on your heart, but say a prayer with a free thought. Know that truly spiritual prayer is instilled with grace. Read in the Philokalia the legend about St. Maximus Kapsokalivite (Athos) and imitate him. For two years he prayed from the heart (to the Mother of God), without using anything special, and received what he was looking for in an instant. (A gracious warmth fell into my heart when I venerated the Mother of God icon). The coldness of the soul is overcome by constant work. When making a prayer, you should be attentive in your heart. Congratulations on performing the prayer service. May it be for salvation! We commemorated the departed saints: follow in the footsteps of their Christian life. A prayer that is not collected and the soul is cold should have no limit or end. Like the fallen, we have grown cold, and we need to endure ourselves for a long time in order to warm ourselves up. Labor is therefore inevitable. And if it continues constantly and wisely, then it is always crowned with success - not from us, but from the mercy of God, of which there is no end. Whether the Jesus Prayer or some other short prayer is a good thing if it sticks on the tongue. Just take care not to pay attention in your head, but in your heart and be there, not only while standing in prayer, but at all times. Try to create some sort of sore in your heart... Constant work will soon do this. There's nothing special here. This is a natural thing (the fact that a sore will seem painful). But this will also make you more focused. And the main thing is that the Lord, seeing the work, grants help and His grace-filled prayer. Then things will come to their own hearts. Warm up your heart's warmth towards God. The spiritual burning of the heart towards the Lord is love for Him. It is good that you have received the Holy Mysteries of Christ. May this be your salvation! If your heart warms up when reading ordinary prayers, then in this way kindle the warmth of your heart towards God. The Jesus Prayer, if done mechanically, gives nothing, like any other prayer that is only spoken with the tongue. During the Jesus Prayer, try to think more vividly that the Lord Himself is nearby, standing before your soul, and listening to what is happening in it. At the same time, awaken in your soul a thirst for salvation and the confidence that apart from the Lord we have nowhere to expect salvation from. Therefore, cry out to Him, mentally visible before you: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!” Or: “Merciful Lord, save me, in the image of fate!” It’s not a matter of words at all, but of feelings for the Lord. The spiritual burning of the heart towards the Lord is love for Him. It lights up at the touch of the Lord on the heart. Since He is all love, His touch on the heart immediately kindles love for Him. And from love - the burning of the heart towards Him. This is what you should be looking for. The creation of the Jesus Prayer is only a tool for this, or, better, only a work that shows the strong desire of the soul to find the Lord. Let there be the Jesus Prayer on your tongue, in your mind - contemplation of the Lord before you, in your heart - a thirst for God or communication with the Lord. When all this happens, and it happens constantly, then the Lord, seeing how you force yourself, gives what you ask for. Please understand all this and take it as a guide, and read it often in order to refresh your memory of how you should act. And N... explain all this... My soul aches for her, in the desire for her to be more firmly established in the inner man. For then no waves can shake it like a solid rock! Prayer rule. Never say your prayers hastily. What should we try to achieve through prayer? What is needed for success in prayer. So, your position is completely established. May the Merciful Lord bless him! Get ready to carry out your service (as a teacher in a monastery school) with all attention, diligence and fear as a task personally imposed on you by the Lord Himself. Let it be the first object of your prayers and your desires. Put everything behind him, because in his fulfillment your salvation lies. This work is a part of the apostolic ministry and a continuation of their work of preaching to children. Would you like to have a prayer rule? - Good wish. And your previous rule is good; but once you’ve gotten out of the habit of it, here’s something new. In the evening and in the morning, perform morning prayers and prayers for sleep... Attach short prayers to them - twenty-four of St. John Chrysostom, which are among the prayers for sleep, repeating each five times. Then call on all the saints: apostles, prophets, saints, martyrs and martyrs, reverend fathers and reverend mothers, and all those who have pleased God in every way. This is in general, but by name: the Lord Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, the Guardian Angel, the saint whose name you bear, the saints of whom there are thrones in the monastery; saints who, according to your circumstances, are revered by you - like, for example, St. Tikhon... and others. Conclude by remembering the living and the dead for whom you pray... Mother Abbess and sisters. Never pronounce prayers hastily, but not in a hurry, with thoughts and feelings that are expressed in the prayers being read. Before starting prayer, always prepare a little, collecting your thoughts and trying to place your attention before the Lord, to whom you are beginning to pray. Let the main attitude of prayer be one of repentance, for we all sin a lot... The spirit is contrite, God will not despise a contrite and humble heart... 30 Following every rule, pray for your sins in which you sin... What should you try to achieve through prayer? - So that the heart is warmed with love for God and the feeling for God does not leave... For this purpose the Jesus Prayer is prescribed: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”... Repeat this prayer more often and get to the point of getting used to it so that your tongue repeats it by itself. Please know that to succeed in prayer, you must try to decorate your heart with all the virtues... especially: humility, contrition, obedience and rejection of your own will. We must establish faith that God sees and hears everything, and knows all our secrets. Why do you need to pay attention to yourself and tear away all the bad things, and as soon as it appears in your thoughts or feelings, immediately spew it out, and immediately repent and ask for forgiveness. Do you have any of my books? Tell me... I'll send you what you need. Everything is from God - both pleasant and unpleasant. And the unpleasant is sent for good. How to read the prayers of St. Chrysostom? Prayer is a source of consolation and enlightenment of thoughts. You have a lot of sorrows. I regret that this is the case. But there is nothing to help this except patience, with trust in the mercy of God. Everything is from God - both pleasant and unpleasant. We must give thanks for everything. For even unpleasant things are sent for good: for purification, for humility, for strengthening good character and trust in God. There is no need to grumble. Endure this time, brighter days will come. Be grateful... How to read the prayers of St. Chrysostom? (twenty-four in evening prayers at bedtime). Read them before the prayer so that your attention is concentrated... But also repeat it mentally at all times. This is the best way to train yourself to remember God; and this remembrance is the basis of spiritual life. Bow down from the waist, and sometimes even to the ground. Say the Jesus Prayer every time and completely: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!” and half: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!” - “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me!” – This great prayer, the most important of the short ones, must be repeated more often, sometimes in full, sometimes in parts. Should the Guardian Angel read the canon? Read. And when there is weakness or a lot of work, instead of reading the canon, offer a short prayer to it: “To the Angel of God, my holy Guardian, pray to God for me, a sinner” - fifty, with bows as desired (that is, make bows to the ground or from the waist). With this (that is, short prayers) all the canons can be replaced. But attention must be kept not on words alone, but with corresponding thoughts and feelings. Work in prayer. She is a source of consolation, enlightened thoughts and affirmation of good character. I am sending you books: one copy of “The Invisible Warfare”, I am enclosing for Mrs. N. - I suppose there are several small brochures. You can distribute it to whoever you want. Books: “The Path to Salvation” – one, “Letters on Christian Life” – one, “Invisible Warfare” – two, “On Repentance, Confession...” – one, a collection of ascetic writings – one, lessons of St. Simeon the Reverent – ​​two; brochures: “Five teachings on the path to salvation”, “Two words about baptism”, “Seven words about perfect conversion...”, “Three words about bearing the cross”, “Four words about prayer”, inspiration for patience, driving away rebellion, about the eternity of torment, examples of writing down thoughts. God's blessing to Mrs. N., Fr. Protodeacon and Mother Abbess. Prayer rule. About short prayers. Most Honorable O. N!.. Due to weak eyesight, you can limit your prayer rule to time, and an hour, as you do, is enough for it. Instead of reading prayers in prayer books, you can pray with short prayers. This thing is as follows: choose for yourself short prayers, according to your spiritual needs, three, four or five dozen, memorize them and repeat them on the rule five and ten times each, as they do with the Jesus Prayer, trying in every possible way so that the thoughts and feelings expressed by the prayers go inseparably with the words of the prayer. Work like this for an hour, and that’s enough. The main thing is that every prayer spoken comes from the heart. To do this, when memorizing, you need to think deeply about them. The content of prayers should be: doxology, thanksgiving, petition and especially repentance. Such prayers need to be selected. Sit down, read the psalms... and whatever verse is on your heart, write it down. Then take Octoechos 31, which all consists of tender appeals to God, choose the appeals that suit you and write them down. You can also learn from prayer books. There will be a lot... Choose from this the one that is most suitable for you, and pray with these prayers. An example of short prayers can be seen in the twenty-four prayers of St. Chrysostom, which are placed in a series of prayers for the coming sleep. You can now memorize them, think about them, feel them, and use them. It is clear that Chrysostom prayed with them. Remake the petitionary litany into short prayers, like this: “Give me a perfect day (or night, evening), holy, peaceful and sinless,” and the other six prayers. Take from: “Have mercy on me, O God” verses – to “...Give me the joy of salvation”... All these verses are deeply repentant. Here's the rule for the first time. Then you can select more prayers that suit your needs. Remember that it is not words that pray to God, but the mind and heart. Therefore, never pray with words alone. The book “Invisible Warfare” mentions short prayers. See the chapters on prayer. For God, every prayer from the heart is valuable. I thank the holy saints of God for the prayerful memory. God bless your solitude. If you don't go to church, don't worry. For God, every prayer from the heart is equally valuable, no matter where it is offered. Only one habit makes a difference here. And you can get used to churchless prayer. Read less from prayer books. Pray more like this, on your own... and you can get by with just “Lord, have mercy”... Switch the services to bows and be satisfied through them. All hermits and solitaries did this. And it's much better than reading. If you don't read at all, you won't get by. But something for memory, without a book. God bless! Thank you for the bow of His Eminence Joseph. May he pray for me. Laziness completely overwhelmed me. What could I have done if it weren’t for her, the damned one? Now it has become a little easier, as I told Vladyka Plato about it. That's right, he prayed. Oh, when will I get rid of her?! God's blessing to all of you. Pray to God for me, a great sinner. About the prayer rule. Continuous prayer is to stand reverently before God. Most Honorable Fr. archimandrite! Yes, everything is going well for you. And I’m perplexed as to what to fix. I’m even perplexed where you got the idea from. Pull as you are accustomed to. If sometimes you are unable to achieve something due to the infirmity of old age, scold yourself a little, have pity before the Lord and calm down. If you do the same thing again and don’t make it, you’ll do the same thing again—and so it always is. It seems to me that you are not giving yourself enough sleep. You could fulfill the night rule in the evening, and then sleep until morning. But as you write that you are used to it, it is difficult for you to break the rules. As for the rule, I think this way: whatever rule anyone chooses for himself, everything is good, as long as it keeps the soul in reverence before God. Also: read prayers and psalms until your soul stirs, and then pray yourself, setting out your needs, or without everything: “God, be merciful...” Also: sometimes all the time assigned for the rule can be spent reading one psalm for memory, making up your own prayer from each verse. Also: sometimes you can spend the entire rule in the Jesus Prayer with bows. And then take a little from this, the other and the third... God needs a heart, and as long as it stands in reverence before Him, then that’s enough. This is what unceasing prayer consists of: always standing reverently before God. And in this case, the rule is only heating, or adding firewood to the stove. I am writing all this to you in a bookish way. How many experiences do you have?! From them choose what you find useful. I ask for your holy prayers for my many sins. The main thing is the prayer of the mind and heart to God. Most Reverend Mother, as far as I could make out, it is advisable for you to shorten your cell rule of four hours, replacing it with a shorter personal prayer. And you ask: how should you position yourself? I can’t answer this question directly for you, not knowing how your life went, and where you got your rule, and what your inner prayer is, about which you are so jealous. If you have determined your cell rule for yourself, then it is in your power to change it in every possible way. But if it was given to those with whom you previously consulted in your affairs, then you need to talk to him about changing this rule. It is possible to change, but the order requires asking. The rule is not an essential part of prayer, but is only its external side. The main thing is the prayer of the mind and heart to God, offered with praise, thanksgiving and petition... and finally with surrendering oneself to the Lord entirely. When there are such movements in the heart, there is prayer there, and when not, there are no prayers, even if you stood on the rule for whole days. This is exactly what you are paying due attention to. So keep trying to get there. Seek and you will find 32. The Lord is near 33. You love the Lord, as you wrote, to Him and turn with all your needs, like a child to the Father. If you introduce me to your life, your internal structure and write what your rule is, then perhaps I could tell you something. The main thing in prayer is a feeling for God from the heart. Continuous prayer is a gift of grace. The prayer that you perform - internally, from the soul, from yourself, according to your sense of your spiritual needs and others - is real prayer. And please continue to work in this kind of prayer more than any other. The main thing in prayer is feeling towards God from the heart. Prayer words for this, whatever ones you choose. Feeling towards God even without words is prayer. The word supports and sometimes deepens the feeling. The prayer rules for church services must be followed as they are. As for the prayer rule at home, it is not immutable, but can be changed in time, in duration, and in composition - one thing to keep in mind is that everything is not done for the sake of laziness and that the prayer comes from the soul. Whatever rule of prayer you have is good. You can add and change. The short prayers of St. Chrysostom are good - twelve for the night and twelve for the day. You can choose more impressionable verses from the psalms. Do everything with complete freedom. Sometimes and all the time of prayer, pray with your own prayers according to real needs; or insert such a prayer into your rule, at the beginning, middle and end, or without words, only holding a feeling for God... with the cry: “God, be merciful,” or: “In the image of destinies, save.” But there is, mother, unceasing prayer, which incessantly comes to God from the heart. This is a gift of grace. Saint Macarius the Great says: pray and bother yourself in prayer, and God, seeing how earnestly you want to pray, will give prayer. In the Slavic Philokalia, Elder Maxim Kapsokalivit says about himself that for two years he prayed to the Mother of God that She would give or ask for prayer. One day, he says, as I, having prayed, venerated the icon of the Mother of God, a sweet light instantly sank into my heart and has been glowing there ever since; this is the gift of prayer! Seek it, too, and express it in words in prayer, keeping in mind the prayer that Maximus speaks of. Sometimes it happens that this light falls during the permission of the priest during confession, sometimes during communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. Look everywhere. Keep your prayer work as it is... trying in every possible way to warm up your feelings towards God. It's like you're not reading anything; if you have anything, read all about prayer. I have some books to give away. I am sending them, read them little by little. I wish you every success in drawing closer to God. You can stop visiting altogether, citing being too busy... About the prayer rule. You need to overwork yourself, not invent benefits. Most Reverend Mother! Three of your letters lie before me unanswered. But it’s not me who is to blame for this, but my illness. About four weeks before the holiday I caught a cold and am still very weak. I prepared the books you asked for after receiving your letter; but illness prevented me from sending him away. I'm sending now. I do it with pleasure. I still have one question left... about your prayer rule. Before you asked an hour earlier to finish the rule. Not seeing through the enemy's cunning, I agreed to this. Now the enemy sat down with you and explained that you can shorten the prayer rule further by introducing handicrafts into it. So your usual prayers have completely collapsed. It's not good. Try to restore it as it was in the beginning. If it is more convenient for you to finish the rule an hour earlier, then start it earlier. Throw away all the handicrafts... Where did you find such permission?..., no, no... You need to overwork yourself, not invent benefits. This is a wide path... not kind... I am sending you a book: “The Outline of Christian Moral Teaching.” The end of this outline is the book: “The Way to Salvation,” which you have. We must avoid becoming lazy in prayer. About teaching mental prayer. In your letter on January 23, you wrote down what you read on your nightly rule. It seemed to me then that there was too much reading, and I intended to write to you so that you would shorten the reading and, in the intervals, insert a mental prayer, mentally raised from the heart to the Lord with petitions for your spiritual needs. But in your letter of January 26, you say that you refuse to read in the evening due to eye disease. And you decide to study mental prayer and, in order not to doze off, knit a stocking. It seems that the reading of prayers is completely abandoned. This is possible, but you need to eliminate the knitting of the stocking, and instead, when you feel drowsy, walk around the room, or lift something heavy, or, what is much better, take a thicker rosary and blow yourself on the shoulders. When I wrote to you not to shorten your prayer time, I wrote because, as I thought, you were becoming lazy in your prayers. This is what we mainly need to avoid. Corruption means weakening or suppression of spiritual movements: which is very regrettable. But as I see that your zeal for the work of prayer is alive, I believe that you will leave both the time and the rule of prayer to your discretion; arrange both as you find best and most convenient for yourself. Have only one thing urgent, so that when you stand in prayer, the prayer comes from the heart and with feelings towards God, praise, gratitude and supplication with hope, and that no extraneous matter is mixed in with this. Do you want to learn mental prayer? You mean, of course, the Jesus Prayer. Good and great deed! But without the skill of concentrating in prayer, it is difficult to keep up with the Jesus Prayer. To get used to such concentration, do this - collect short prayer appeals from psalms and other prayers, which are closer to your inner structure, memorize them, feel them and pray with them, repeating each of them three, five and ten times to take up the allotted time, and in the middle of them insert the Jesus Prayer, and after all add invocations to the Mother of God, saints, etc. and remembering our living and dead. You can also include reading printed prayers, for example: “Bless the Lord, my soul, and all that is within me...”, “Praise the Lord, my soul,” “And at all times...” and so on. For an example, take this: twenty-four prayers of St. Chrysostom, which are included in prayers for the future to sleep. Turn it into prayers and a petitionary litany... like this: “Give me a whole holy, peaceful and sinless day, O Lord...” and so on. Take Psalm 50 from the beginning to: “...Give me the joy of salvation...” These verses combine all the repentant feelings. Memorize and pray them. This is how the entire prayer rule can be drawn up, in which neither books nor candles will be needed. Each prayer will give you more than one spiritual contemplation, and these contemplations will produce or support spiritual feelings. So search and you will find prayer, which will then flow from your heart like a river. God bless! You should stand in the presence of God and in feeling for God, no matter what you do. I am guilty before you much and greatly. I apologize. However, do not think that I have forgotten you! No, I always remembered and was going to write everything. Thank you for your Easter and birthday greetings and wishes. May the Lord hear your prayers! I wish you all the best too. May the Lord make you wise and strengthen you! You did well to refuse G.'s place. Improve your community, then make it a monastery... Here are the abbess... And it will be more fun for you to hear: Mother Abbess! when everything around will be the work of your hands. Don't be angry with the one who envies you. Her enemy confuses her, but she does not see; pray for her. And what lures sisters away should be joyful, because it means your sisters are so good that they want to have them. Let them go. God will send you the best. You liked Simeon the New Theologian. Read it more often. It will refresh and enliven your inner being. You ask: should the mind be forced to say the Jesus Prayer in church, when the soul is peaceful, serene, and when the mind, in this silence, listens to what is being read and sung? You should stand in the presence of God and in feeling for God, no matter what you do... So it is in the church. In another letter you wrote: “In church, while listening to prayers, the Jesus Prayer works better for me.” This prayer revives and maintains attention to God with appropriate feelings. I am sending you three more books published after the one you received. I am also enclosing the small brochures that I have on hand, five copies of each... May the Lord give wisdom to the sisters. About short prayers. Do not fall into self-conceit and self-worth. Preparing for Holy Communion, you all repeated one good verse and asked, is it possible to continue like this? Can. Short prayers, as soon as one falls on your heart, memorize and repeat more often... No matter how many of them are collected. From them a multi-stringed psalter will be composed... and jingle it, delighting spiritual ears. That you are trying not to give yourself any indulgence is a good thing. You have to keep yourself in line, like a soldier in the ranks... Don’t give in to conceit and self-worth! God forbid! Hearing sometimes admonitions from above, you may naturally think that you are an outstanding person, but meanwhile this is rather evidence of your weakness, rather than strength. Humble yourself with this thought... and often remind yourself of your mistakes, of which we all have many. May the Lord keep you in humility! You do well that you often go to a common meal, which is so good! The sisters will not grumble, and they will learn to order. And it will be useful for you yourself; you will expand less. Taking notes is beneficial, but remembering is better... and doing accordingly is even better. But don’t they come to their own good thoughts?.. They come to everyone... They are suggested by the Guardian Angel, and they must be written down... Do you know the legend about a certain old man... that all the walls of his cell were covered with writing? When they asked him what it was? He answered: these are the thoughts that the Angel of God inspires in me... In the Yeletsky monastery (Oryol province), not so long ago a nun, Magdalene, labored... who wrote down the thoughts that came to her on small pieces of paper and pasted them in places visible on the walls... And you get a notebook and write it in as you please. And handicrafts are good for you; they are a great protection against idleness. I owe you a lot of guilt. Please excuse me and forgive me. I kept thinking that I would have time to write in the next post... that is, in a week... And the weeks kept flying - and that’s how many of them flew by. I will read your letters again and write about them, whatever God puts on my heart. The first one not answered was dated October 4th... Mine was sent to you on October 11th. But this is not a response to yours, but a counter-intuitive one... In this letter you congratulate me on my birthday, but on October 11 I am not the birthday boy on this day. My name day is March 12, Theophan of Sigrian Confessor. Then you remember that prayer is always with you and does not allow you to think and talk much about vanity, but you still struggle with laziness and fatigue. God bless! Thank Him for your prayer, for everything is from Him... and ask for strength to fight against those who are opposed to good. The second letter is dated October 25. This is probably a response to mine dated October 11, because your first lines contain thanks for the letter. Then say about yourself: “Thank God that it has not yet occurred to me to value myself,” that is, that you have no self-worth... This is very good... And take care of yourself in this state. But look... Samotsen is as cunning as a demon... May the Lord enlighten you! You write that you have no self-worth because your whole soul strives to praise the Lord, and you feel how it is drawn to Him with your whole being. This is a very good, normal state... The feeling that the soul is drawn to the Lord is secret prayer, and it alone can replace prayers... For this is unceasing prayer! This is the conclusion for you from the entire Philokalia. Dedicate every breath to pure prayer and vigilantly watch where the enemy is directing his arrows, and act accordingly... This conclusion is real... Let it be so. For Anastasius of Sinai, this constitutes the first point of his ascetic instructions. You still remind the sisters about spiritual matters, despite their coldness towards this. So it follows: some do not listen, but some listen with zeal and have good intentions in their hearts. Handicrafts and prayer vigils should not be interfered with. There is a time for everything... When you are doing handicrafts in due time, then let your hands work and your soul pray... But when you are at prayer... all members must participate in this... Do you want to remember my parents! Thank you! My parent is Priest Vasily, and my mother is Tatyana. Your last letter is dated December 13th. Thank you for the holiday greetings, which are now flowing and not expected. I congratulate you and your entire monastery... May the Lord grant you all to taste the blessings brought to earth by the Son of God who became incarnate for our salvation. Even though you were strict with your sisters, you were fair! When you are already very tired, then lie down and pray... keeping your spirit calm... Whatever happens to you that draws you to the Lord... watch... You can live with this alone and be saved. P.S. I am sending you a book: ancient monastic rules! About prayer in short prayers. Sobriety must be in the heart continuously, just as prayer is unceasing. Your two letters are before me - expose my laziness - I'm sorry. Please excuse me and forgive me. In the first letter you tell how you are fasting. Fasting is sufficient, and spirituality is in order. Decoration for both is your concern for the adopted girl and the unfortunate pious lady. Lord grant strength to your word! It is very pious that you take the plan of the church and the bell tower from Moscow... From Moscow - light to us. As you stated regarding reading akathists, do this... Short prayers are always better. And besides those that I indicated to you, you can type a lot yourself and choose from them which are more suitable for you. You will have a long series of prayers. Memorize them and perform your prayers with them. You can divide them into groups like this: doxological, grateful, petitionary, repentant and whatnot. It’s even better to pray this way... You don’t know if you have self-worth. But is there anyone who does not have self-worth? It is good that you always present yourself to God as a repentant person. And pray to God to let you tangibly see what evils there are in the heart... and what you see, find a prayer against it... and always insert it into your prayers. – It’s good that you find out the price and necessity of sobriety. And pray for him. Sobriety must be continuous, just as prayer is incessant. Both will take root in the soul when a feeling for God is established in the heart - warm and sweet and reverent, imbued with the fear of God. Body love, carnal pleasure, indulgence, self-pity are different names for the same thing... They are disgusted by self-mortification, which begins with some kind of hostility towards the body... the desire to torment it and doing this with some pleasure. It’s good that you read “Reminder to Nuns” for the sisters. Your food regulations are very good, if you please do so; and what you stated regarding cell night prayer is approving. God bless your work. Stay sober and stay awake. Prayer is evidence of our spiritual existence and its measure. I’m very glad that everything is going well for you, not in the monastery, but in your soul! For here, since there is prayer, then nothing better is required. Therefore, it was noted somewhere that the ancient monks, when meeting with others - during mutual visits or whatever - first of all inquired how the prayer was going. In real prayer, all our relationships with God, the highest ones, are in action and make sure that at that time our spiritual life stands in its order... Prayer is evidence of our spiritual existence and the measure of it! What wonder is there when we read that one of the saints began to pray and sometimes did not retreat all night, with an increase in the day. The prayer took him to his home, where the Father, Mother, brothers and sisters embraced him with complete love, and consoled him, and delighted him. May God grant you never to lose your prayer structure within! You have so many worries about your sisters; it is impossible that none of them are included in what you offer. Others, in their own measure, assimilate this. But you still do not stop acting on them, to the extent possible, praying unceasingly that the Lord, Whose daughters they are, will visit them and enlighten their thoughts and hearts. The fourth volume of the Philokalia contains the teachings of St. Theodore the Studite, where a great deal of instruction is offered to the monasteries for all cases that seem inevitable in this kind of asceticism. There are also ones for those working in the field. They would look through it and read it to the sisters... or they would be forced to read it themselves. This will be a handy means for the edification and guidance of the sisters. The Lord will enlighten you and help you arrange everything; pray to Him more earnestly. Your prayer should not be limited to yourself... but more than about yourself, you should pester God about the progress of the sisters. Expect nothing from your wisdom, efforts, but everything from the Lord. All essential spiritual needs are outlined in the prayers of St. Chrysostom. Patience and humility are the rulers of spiritual life. The Lord delivered you from NN. Thank the Lord! Restore and maintain the usual course of your personal and monastic affairs. May the Lord help you to manage well in all troublesome situations. It is a great blessing for you that, as you say, your prayer is intact... And I can’t wish you anything better than: keep your prayer, and for this do not expect anything from yourself, from your wisdom and efforts, but everything from the Lord, who is nearby and listens to the movements of hearts. You write that you have collected prayers. I believe that they are all applied to you and your circumstances, and even more so to your internal structure. Let the prayers of St. John Chrysostom, in which all essential spiritual needs are outlined, be a model for them. But may the Lord grant you unceasing heartfelt prayer, which has no need for words, but stands on its own and is pleasing to God and fruitful for the soul. Patience and humility are the rulers of spiritual life. The first holds the earthly order, the second rules over the heavenly... and holds them, or they themselves keep in it, out of their love for it... Run for yourself. Contact your Guardian Angel and he will admonish you. Not uttering an angry word is a great perfection. A means to bear troubles without anger. The Lord delivered you from NN., but the troubles did not stop; for others also know how to annoy. But God's protection is over you. That prayer that acts by itself is a gift from God and a safe haven for you, where you can hide in case of any anxiety from outside. Watch this gift! And above all, flee from self-worth, this most poisonous serpent, but more sweet-tongued than others! Your Guardian Angel, watching over you, reminds you through your conscience of fervent prayer and the wrath of your invisible enemy. Have an appeal to your holy Guardian Angel, and he will admonish you in any case. This is the most reliable leader. You righteously decided that there is nothing to expect from N., therefore, fulfilling in relation to them what is prescribed by the commandments of God, among other things, regarding the orders and requirements of spiritual life, to shut yourself up and decide everything under the influence of mental prayer according to the suggestions that come from this. These are your thoughts, and I believe that it will be good to act this way! Not uttering an angry word is a great perfection. May Elder Hilarion help you! The basis of this is the absence of irritability of the heart, and it, like a spark, is filled with surrendering oneself to the will of God, with the consciousness that God allows troubles to test us and show us how strong our good inner direction is... which obliges us to behave in such cases complacently, believing that God Himself is looking at us at this moment. And your idea that those who cause us trouble are tools of the enemy is correct. Why, when someone causes you trouble, always believe that there is an enemy behind them, inciting them and instilling offensive phrases and deeds in them. In the book “Invisible Warfare” there are good instructions this time. There are many of them in Barsanuphius and John and Saint Climacus. Look through these books often. Avoid hostile and judgmental thoughts regarding NN. with her minions, be kind to them and pray to the Lord not to reduce His mercies to them because of you, but to strengthen you in patience and a reasonable attitude towards them. You also care about the church that has been started. But you do good, covering these worries with trust in the mercy of God. When there is God's favor and blessing, then everything will work out in the best possible way, for then the omnipotent beckons of God will be inherent, by virtue of which - where will everything come from! Destroy laziness towards prayer. Because of indulgences, prayer will weaken and spiritual life will freeze. Dedicate every business to God. I have deeply offended you, and since my guilt is greater, I do not ask for an apology, but only say: I am guilty. You were relaxing at the dacha. I really wanted you to be strengthened and refreshed. Whenever my wish comes true! Your companions or hangers-on (little patience and resignation, pride, irritability, vanity, idle talk, slander, intemperance in words and in food, and above all laziness in prayer), of course, cannot be praised, but the good thing is that they are noticed, and not only noticed, but also put on display - which these ladies cannot tolerate. Every evening you report them to the Lord, when, having reviewed everything that has broken through during the day, you say: “Lord! You see everything! Forgive me, and give me the ability not to slip in this.” If you do this, then one by one they will forget your doors. Just prick one of them right away, burn it and scatter the ashes to the wind... This is laziness towards prayer. Get angry with her and destroy her right now so that her spirit does not smell. If it breaks through, but is driven away every time, then this is nothing, and there is no need to talk about it. And if an indulgence is made to her, then the hostess is all to blame... for not sparing her goods... From frequent indulgences, prayer will completely weaken, and the prayer rule will turn into a lifeless form, and spiritual life will freeze. But I think that you are talking a little too much about yourself here. God gave you a willing heart, which happens and you have a source of active life according to the commandments regarding your neighbors. Please have it as a law: to dedicate every work to God in its very embryo, to turn it to God during its production, and to ask God for strength to complete it; then, having finished, give thanks to Him for... repenting, if something has gone wrong that has been crooked, or represents him in the eyes of God as insufficient in some way. By acting in this way, you will finally, through this laborious process, achieve what the hermits who renounce everything achieve. And if you don’t, then you will remain on the same level with the Jews, not today, but the ancient ones, who lived according to the norm prescribed to them. Please keep this in mind. I am fulfilling the obedience you imposed on me to pray for N.N. I just don’t pray: take this and give that, but rather: do with him, Lord, what is saving for him. Otherwise, prayer will look like a decree to God... which is not at all nice. The apostles prayed unceasingly, thinking about God in all their deeds and living in unceasing devotion to the Lord. Dedicating all matters to God will turn them into prayer. Deeds dedicated to God cry out to Him. Why there are sorrows in life. I am guilty before you, I did not answer your letter for a long time. But the time has come to write, and recently, writing to N.N., I asked her to convey my regards to you and say that next time (we are sending to the city in a week) I will write. And then your parcel arrived. Thank you. I see, I see that you want to bribe my laziness. Well, no, not like that, my missus. Incorruptible, even if you don’t come near me. N.N. wrote that it was hard for you to the point of exhaustion. But then she informed me that you were feeling better and were in good spirits. I'm very glad. God help you not to step out of this comforting atmosphere. You're all complaining about yourself. This is completely in the order of things - who can boast?! Who doesn't see themselves? Thank God that you see and recognize yourself as such. You complain about the poverty of prayer. But you can pray without standing in prayer. Every lifting of the mind and heart to God is real prayer. If you do this between tasks, then pray. I remember that Basil the Great solves the question of how the apostles could pray unceasingly: in all their deeds they thought about God and lived in unceasing devotion to God. This mood of spirit was their unceasing prayer. Here's an example for you. I, it seems, have already written to you that you cannot demand the same from active people, to whom you belong, as from sedentary people. Their main concern should be not to allow wrong feelings when doing things and to try in every possible way to dedicate them all to God. This dedication will turn deeds into prayer. It is written that the blood of Abel cries out to God. Likewise, deeds dedicated to God cry out to Him. One old man, when something edible was brought to him from someone... said: how bad it smells... but what was brought was very good in content. When they asked him: how is this possible? He explained that it was not sent with good feelings and from bad things. Thus, every deed is anointed with the feelings with which it is done. And those who have purified feelings feel it. It turns out that just as good flowers give off a good smell, so things done with good disposition give off their fragrance, and grief rises like incense from a censer. Here's another prayer. Sorrows do not leave you. Does God arrange this for nothing? For what? Because he loves you... He loves you and cleans you, so that you are clean and shine like a diamond in the sun. And the path to the Kingdom is right for you, for the chariot on which one reaches there is patience. How can you endure when there are no sorrows? So they are sent. God bless you with every blessing. All consolation to you and health to your spouse. The peculiarity of my sermons is that they are not composed. Get used to the Jesus Prayer. The feeling of trusting in God is a great thing. I am very glad that my “Reminders to Nuns” left a good impression on you. I myself read them with pleasure, and for me they seem so new that it’s as if they weren’t written by me and that if I decided to write sermons now, I wouldn’t be able to write like that. The peculiarity of my sermons - both these and all others - is that they are not composed. Usually, it used to be that in the evening after the all-night vigil I would drink a glass of tea, read tomorrow’s Gospel, then the Apostle... and whatever thought comes in and occupies my attention and heart, I take that into the topic... and the sermon builds itself within itself. An hour, an hour and a half, a lot of two... and the sermon is ready... Read it in the morning, tweak it a little. Sometimes the theme is given by external circumstances, as happened when visiting monasteries... but the production is still the same. These are written improvisations; Since they didn’t come out of my head, they represent something sweetened. Let's see if other similar brochures appear to you. There will be six, seven of them; two or three twice as much as this. I am following your letter. You portrayed your new stay perfectly, what’s especially good is that you know how to find advantageous aspects. You can hope that the disadvantage will completely evaporate before attention, and the remaining advantage will turn your life into paradise. God grant! That there is sadness is due to lack of habit. Schedule your hours so that not a minute goes by without something urgent to do. Let reading with meditation, prayer with bows and some simple handicraft absorb all the time - and there will be no time to be bored and despondent. The fact that church services are rare is a great deprivation. But, God willing, home prayer will be established... Get used to doing this so that, if there is no activity, you can immediately take up the Jesus Prayer and begin to do it with attention, walking, sitting and - best of all - standing in front of the icons. You can designate special times for this. It will be better, and the habit of this prayer will take root more firmly. The thought of moving into eternity adapts well to your circumstances; but he always has his place in everything. Stick it to your mind and heart and look at everything else through it. Your story about the case with Aksakov is very instructive. I have heard before about the erroneousness of NN’s verdicts. It is advisable for you to combine your mind with the thought of the Lord. The best way to do this is to practice the Jesus Prayer, as it is written ahead. Assign yourself three or four times a day to stand in front of the icons to perform this prayer with reverence and contemplation of the Lord before you, and do it every time a hundred, two hundred, three hundred times, as you can. Having set a deadline for this, do not cancel it. The thought will see ahead all day long... so, now you have to become. And the Lord will be near. The thought of our own is also close. Beauty NN wrote. May the Lord show His mercy to them! He who trusts in the Lord will receive mercy 35. Do they have hope? The feeling of trusting in God is a great thing. It is the result of all our feelings towards God, especially deep faith in God’s providence for us. Thank you for the news about Your Eminence Leonty. I can barely restrain myself from writing to Vladyka. But I’ll still wait to hear what you say. Do they write to him and does he answer? But I will pray more diligently several times a day. Work on the Jesus Prayer. The main thing is to walk before God with the consciousness that God looks at your soul and sees everything there. May God bless you to receive Holy Communion. Good job! About the work of caring for the baby, you rightly argue that it has been entrusted to you by God. And the Lord will reward you! And the little one herself can pay back. When she grows up, she will be attached to you as to her mother... and then she will be your novice... and you will be an elder. Here is the canopy of the future monastery! Work on the Jesus Prayer. God bless. But with the skill of verbally pronouncing this prayer, combine the memory of the Lord with fear and reverence. The main thing is to walk before God, or under the eye of God, with the consciousness that God looks at you, at your soul - into your heart, and sees everything there... This consciousness is the most powerful lever in the movement of inner spiritual life. Of course, you have “Letters on Spiritual Life” there, regarding Speransky’s letters. Look often at what is written there about the Jesus Prayer. This is not from the beginning, but, it seems, from the fifteenth or twentieth letter. Do not forget to thank God, who humbles the soul with bodily infirmities. Pray warm prayer. Why does cooling occur? Health, God willing, will return in full force... Be patient. And do not forget to thank God, who humbles your soul with infirmities. If you feel like you're tired of it, drive it away. It is not pleasing to God. Because it means that you are dissatisfied with God’s orders about you... and you want to tell Him. Take care to receive Holy Communion this Lent. May the Lord visit your soul and abide in it! That when you pray, you try to delve into every word and say the prayer with feeling - this is the essence of prayer, and force yourself to always do this. But when you pray with feeling, where is your attention if not in your heart? A feeling always attracts attention. There is a busy market in my head. You can't pray to God there. That sometimes prayer goes well... and by itself... This is a good sign. This means that she has begun to graft herself onto the heart. Keep your heart from attachments, try to remember God, act in vain before you and before His face, help the poor and needy... and your prayer will soon take wing. That it disappears and leaves a cold... regret this... Contrite and pray to God and the Lady Theotokos, that they will not allow the warm prayer to go away. Real prayer is a gift from God! And pray about this. The cooling of the heart is preceded by clinging to something, preoccupation with something, anger and condemnation... discontent and some kind of indulgence of the flesh, sybaritism... and distraction of thoughts! Take care of this, and there will be less cooling... God bless your labors on yourself! Heart! Where is life if not in the heart? Prayer ceases to be prayer when attention moves away from the words of the prayer. What to do to warm your heart. Penance?!! You should have done this yourself... Now that the problem has been corrected, it is no longer timely... The order of your affairs throughout the day is good... Stick to it... and go deeper and deeper into the spiritual. To pray with the thought of what the words of the prayer say is still prayer, only while limping on one leg. Prayer ceases to be prayer when attention moves away from the words of the prayer... When consciousness during prayer... it is prayer, even if it is unsatisfactory. The feeling will come... but you also have to strain yourself for it. It is better to do this by thinking about the content of prayers not during prayer, then during prayer to stir the heart... Moreover, pray to God Himself for this, so that he always warms the heart. Also do this: when the whole series of truths has passed, stop at the last point - the trial and the decision of the court... waiting for the saying: come, or: go away... And in this situation cry out: Lord, have mercy! For as the Lord decides, there is no one to change him. About sleep and food... If you want to diminish, diminish little by little... piece by piece and spoon by piece... and minute by minute... Work hard! God will give strength! Consciousness of powerlessness is the real threshold to receiving God's help! The Jesus Prayer strengthens good dispositions, and disperses and suppresses bad ones. God bless you, and grant that holy communion may be yours for the communion of all spiritual blessings! - As you, in preparation, replaced church services with bows with the Jesus Prayer, good... You can do this - and not as preparation for Holy Communion, but as a feasible fulfillment of God’s commandment about unceasing prayer - every day, with zeal and a warm disposition for this work. The Jesus Prayer strengthens good dispositions, and disperses and suppresses bad inspirations of bad thoughts and passionate movements. May the Lord bless you to practice this... This is truly a spiritual work when done properly. Work hard, don't be lazy. Lessons learned from illness. The main thing in restoring strength is peace of mind. It is better that the spirit of deep humility always reigns. The Philokalia is the main store of spiritual teachings. Ruthlessly cut off self-worth with the sword of humility and humiliation. Are you sick? – But thank God that you are recovering or have already recovered. Thank God for the fact that the illness was not without benefit. The lessons that you have learned from these circumstances are very significant in life and in general, especially in the spiritual. Expect nothing from people, and place all your care on the Lord, and also constantly wait for death... and, believing that the Lord has left you to live for the cleansing of sins, turn all your concern to that. These points are the levers of spiritual life and guides. Do not judge your spiritual father strictly, without knowing for sure why he behaved so inattentively towards you. - Athonite fathers - God save! They did well. - Your brother and son... sophisticated judges... how does everything work out for them? The illness was not due to lifestyle; therefore, it should not be changed due to illness. The type of food in restoring strength is a secondary matter... The main thing is fresh (unspoiled) food, clean air... and most of all - peace of mind. Restlessness of spirit and passions spoil the blood - and significantly harm health. Fasting and a fasting life in general is the best way to maintain health and prosper. The German Hufeland wrote a science for long life, where he extols the fasting life. Scientists must listen to him, but we have other teachers more important than this German. Prayer introduces the spirit into the realm of God, in which is the root of life, - and from the spirit the body partakes of the same life... - The spirit is crushed, repentant feelings and tears do not reduce strength, but add it: for they put the soul in a joyful state. You did well not to give in to their suggestions. However, in order to quickly restore health, in order to work more extensively for the Lord, you can, without sin, indulge a little in the infirmities of the body - in sleep, work, standing, and in food. This is already after the passionate 36. It’s summer... you can sometimes drink milk, and even broth, or eggs... go out of town, because there is no clean air in the city. There is always an admixture in it... The ancient elders wrote that they treated the body harshly: not to kill it, but to mortify passions through the mortification of the flesh. You want the contrition and tears to never go away. It is better to wish that the spirit of deep humility always reigns in you. From him are tears and contrition... from him is the fact that they do not infuse... 37 for even from them the enemy manages to give birth to these harmful potions. There are also spiritual joys interspersed with contrition... Real contrition knows how not to interfere with pure spiritual joy and to get along with it in a friendly manner, hiding somehow underneath it. – Your present tenderness and contrition are partly the fruit of a past or passing illness. It is the grace of God to give birth to prayer during needlework, and pray immediately while working. – If you regret that the Jesus Prayer is not continuous, that you don’t say it incessantly - this is not required... what is required is a constant feeling for God, which can take place during conversation, and when reading, and when observing and examining something... But just as the Jesus Prayer, when you pray it, happens in its present form, then continue to act this way, and this prayer... will expand its area. If you like my books, then read them... There are books out there, entitled “My Life in Christ”, Fr. John of Kronstadt... the same type as mine. But they have much better written than mine. Therefore, it is not superfluous if you come across them and read them... But the main store of spiritual teachings is in the Philokalia. Ask the Athonite fathers to give you the second volume of the Philokalia to read. It says everything about the fight against passions, which is extremely important for the ascetic to know well. Read and notice the signs of passion... Then, according to these instructions, discuss and correct yourself. How is your self-worth? Take the sword, or always hold it, of humility and humiliation and mercilessly cut off, and constantly cut off the head of our first villain. Thank you for praying for me - and please continue. There should be no image in the action of the Jesus Prayer. The essence of mental prayer is walking before God. In your last letter you mentioned the effect of the Jesus Prayer in everything. May the Lord bless this good beginning! In the action of this prayer there should be no image intervening between the mind and the Lord, and the words spoken are not the main thing, but the mediating one. The main thing is to stand intelligently before the Lord in the heart. This is mental prayer, not words. The words here are the same as the words of any other prayer. The essence of mental prayer is walking before God; and walking before God is the conviction that does not depart from consciousness that God, just as he is everywhere, is also in you, and sees everything inside of you - sees even more than you yourself. This consciousness of the eye of God looking inside you should also not have an image, but everything should consist of one simple belief or feeling. Anyone in a warm room feels how the warmth embraces and penetrates him. The same must happen in our spiritual man from the omnipresent and all-encompassing God, Who is fire. The words: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” although they are a tool, and not the essence of the matter, they are a very powerful and multi-effective tool; for the name of the Lord Jesus is a terror to the enemies of our salvation and a blessing to those who seek Him. Do not forget that this matter is simple and does not have any fancy features, and should not have them. Pray to the Lord, the Most Pure Lady and the Guardian Angel for everything, and they will teach you everything - either themselves or through others. With fear and trembling, pray to the Lord to help you cross the sea of ​​life. General rule for warming up internal heat. To become accustomed to the Jesus Prayer, you need to work hard. In what internal structure does smart doing begin? About the prayer rule. In prayer one must free oneself from all images. The soul must be nourished with the truths of Holy Scripture. Great is God's mercy towards us sinners! The Lord has called you. It's good that you listened and went. Went; So don’t look back, and don’t be lazy about working. Your first obedience has made a beginning, and the end is yet to come. You got on the boat and sailed away. With fear and trembling, pray to the Lord to help you cross your sea and reach the pier. The abyss is below us. How long until trouble? If the boat capsizes, then let's go down! And who knows if the shore is close? The shore is a coffin. Until your last breath you cannot remain wary of expecting disasters. Keeping this in your thoughts, never succumb to carelessness or any kind of relaxation, in the thought that you are out of danger. Know that no matter what you do and no matter what is shown to you, everything is nothing until you are in the harbour. I am writing this not to discourage you, but so that you keep your ears open. The Lord is your Helper, the Lord is all-powerful and abundantly merciful. Therefore, one should not give in to despair: but walk cheerfully in hope, although with fear. But the Lord is a Helper to the zealous and toiling. You have now entered the monastery - the most convenient place for ascetics. Do not think that now you can reduce your vigilance over yourself and reduce your work. No. This is where you have to pay even more attention and look after yourself. The world has its own temptations, the monastery has its own, and the latter will probably be worse. Be ready to meet. Say that where you lived, children and servants often angered you. How are you living alone now? It’s safe on this side. But the enemy will find a way to raise the subsiding passion. Watch and teach not only to overcome, but also to prevent uprisings. What happened to you during prayer is God’s mercy towards you. The Lord let you know by this feeling of His closeness to you that He is not averse to accepting your labors, if only you keep your covenant to Him. Thank the Lord! But don't think that this is the end or the end. This is just the beginning, and a weak one at that. We must now, according to this instruction, go inside more and more, and establish ourselves there so that we can be there day and night without fail. And the state that was then - warm, peaceful, motionless - must be taken care of to make it a permanent state. And now you firmly hold this one goal for yourself and pursue it, with strict adherence to all legality and all proper orders of external life. From the first time you wake up in the morning, take care to gather yourself inside and warm up. Consider this your normal condition. If you don’t have this, know that there is something wrong with you inside. Having put yourself in such a collected and warmed state in the morning, then - everything that is obligatory must be corrected so as not to ruin your inner mood, and from the voluntary - do what supports this state; what upsets him, do not do it under any circumstances: for this would mean being hostile to oneself. This is your general rule. How it can then be performed in different cases, the work itself will teach you. See for yourself and find out. There is no way for a third party to determine that. Just make it a law to keep composure and warmth, standing with your mind and heart before the Lord. Then this itself will indicate what should be done, or what should be allowed and what should not be done. The all-powerful aid to this is the Jesus Prayer. You need to get used to it so that it is constantly read where the heart belongs. And to get used to it, you have to work hard. Now take up this matter. Or are you already familiar with him? - It seemed to me that you are doing this prayer only according to the rule. Take your own course, otherwise you must constantly create it, sitting, walking, eating food, working. If it doesn’t hold tightly in your heart, you can leave everything behind and take care of it alone until it takes root. This matter is simple. Stand in front of the icons in a prayer position (you can sit down), and, descending your attention to where the place of the heart is, slowly say the Jesus Prayer there, while remembering the presence of God. So half an hour, an hour or more. At first it’s a little difficult, but when the skill is acquired, it will happen as naturally as breathing. With this arrangement of your inner self, a smart life will begin in you, or, as they say, smart deeds. The first thing here is the requirement of purity of conscience, its impeccability not only before God, but also before people and oneself, even before things. Why, little by little something will slip into a thought or word that troubles the conscience - now we must repent inwardly before the Lord, Who sees everything and will pacify the conscience. It helps to establish an order of life and activities, so as not to think every time what to do, but so that it is already decided and known in advance. You have done this now, all that remains is the struggle with thoughts that will constantly buzz like incessant mosquitoes. Learn for yourself how to deal with them. Experience is science. I'll tell you one thing. Usually thoughts are spinning in your head. These are empty. But you look for those who pierce the heart like an arrow and leave a mark there, like a scratch. Immediately take up and erase the trace with this prayer, replacing its opposite feeling. When heat is stored, these cases are rare and weak. Follow your prayer rule as it is, until things indicate that you need to cancel something. I believe that after what you have experienced, bowing will be more useful to you than reading prayers. And pay more attention to this part, taking care not only to make a certain number of bows and say the Jesus prayers as much as you have set, but even more so that sighs to God come from the heart. Regarding prayer, or reading prayers, take one note into law: when, while reading prayers, your attention stops on something, so that it does not follow further reading, stop reading and pray without words, under the influence of feelings induced by the object that connected attention. If through this the rule may continue too much, you can shorten it, but do not miss that opportunity and do not sin against yourself by allowing yourself to dissipate the good impression from the prayers by mechanically finishing the prescribed prayers. However, the very act of prayer will teach you everything if you do it as you should - not that is, in order to pray, but in order to pray truly. In prayer one must free oneself from all images, strengthening oneself most in contemplation, or the consciousness of the presence of God in the heart, the formless. When thinking about the works of God, images do not interfere; Only the being of God should not be clothed in an image and pray to Him under this image. Imagining Christ the Savior crucified - or how you go through His whole life and pray to Him according to the memories - nothing. It’s good to do this and warm up your soul. This is saving thought of God - the most natural food of the soul. It is necessary to feed the soul with truths, setting aside time every day for prayerful deepening into the Christian sacraments. It's good to do this in the morning. Unfold the Gospel, read a little, just the daily reading, and delve into it until what you read is accepted by your heart and fulfills it - it will occupy it. You can read from both the Apostle and the Psalter, but always a little. The point is that the truth should be perceived by the heart, fulfill it and warm it up. This means that the soul has tasted the truth; if she tasted it, she ate it. Reading saving books is as usual. God bless you! Pray to the Lord, and the Lady, and all the saints, that they themselves will teach you how to do what for you. Still, we must return to working out our salvation with fear and trembling. My rule is to have moderation in everything, especially in physical exploits. The most evil of all things is exaltation, vanity and condemnation. A reliable path to humility. You are afraid of my condescension - It seems that I am not very lenient. My rule is to have moderation in everything. Especially in bodily exploits, moderation is needed so that the flesh can endure it. The Holy Fathers were very strict regarding the body, or, as they said, they lived a cruel life. But they got to this point gradually. They started out not too strictly, but then they treated themselves more and more strictly. Remember how Saint Abba Dorotheos dealt with Saint Dositheus. We must live by this rule. And the holy fathers also had wisdom - not to invent strictness, but to take it upon themselves for any occasion, more according to the needs of inner life. You should too. But as everything has begun now, God bless your labors. Hold on! Love and honor Mother Abbess, and the treasurer, and all monastic authorities. They were established by God, even through people. You need to listen to everyone and thank everyone for everything. And not just them, but all the sisters must be honored, and placed far above oneself. You look at them in such a way that it’s as if they are walking on a mountain or a roof, and you are below, low, low. And if the soul begins to see some sister as inferior to itself, then one must strongly reproach oneself and hasten to ask the Lord for forgiveness. The most evil of all things is exaltation, vanity, condemnation. This is hellish smoke and stench! Accustom yourself in every possible way to rejoice more when you are treated with contempt, reproached, or even offended, than when you are caressed and greeted. This is the most reliable path to humility! You have a urge to replace the reading of prayers with the Jesus Prayer. You can do it as you suggested. Shorten the reading of prayers and bow more. Get tired of bowing down, so stand and say the Jesus Prayer. The more you delve into this prayer, the more you will not want to read the prayers. You can even shorten your reading more than what you assumed. You can stop reading altogether; just not to laziness and lying down, but to converse with the Lord not in someone else’s, but in your own speech and intelligently abide with Him, like Mary, who sat at the feet of the Savior. What supplies do you have, what’s here? Prepare everything you need and your worries will be over! As those who wear flesh, we work in the flesh. What to do? – We need to eat and drink: let the materials for that be ready. If the Lord grants patience, you can abstain from certain foods; but if you do not endure it, eat, thanking the Lord. It is good to give away the surplus to those in need and those who ask, only on the sly, so as not to boast of generosity. If you happen to break your rule of abstinence in front of others, do not be embarrassed, not doing it to please yourself, but submitting to the duty of love. That you drank tea at NN’s and dined when your sister was with you, that’s how it should be. If they had done it differently, it would have been worse: they would have been insulted, and they themselves would have had no peace. It's good to have jam just in case. Use sometimes with water as a medicine, and not for sweetness. And the holiday must be at least somehow distinguished from everyday life. Let the flesh celebrate, and not just the spirit. The memory of death must be managed to instill and root in the soul. The dispersion of thoughts comes from diminishing fear and cooling the heart. You are about to set off on a journey of no return. And he is closer to me. Just look, you'll fall down. Cholera is around us. But you can die without it. And if you can, you need to prepare. And you always need to prepare, and not only prepare, but also be completely ready. But our great misfortune is that the living thing tells fortunes, and the living thing drives away the memory of impending death. And you forget that death is behind you. That’s why some people made the coffin and placed it before our eyes; but I think you can get used to it. Others were forced to ask themselves whether they would order the coffin to be completed or the grave to be dug. One elder had the custom of often looking outside the door to see if (that is, the Angel of Death) was coming. All this shows that, no matter how certain it is that we will die, the memory of death must be managed to instill and root in the soul. Take care of this saving thought so that it does not go away. In the morning, as soon as you wake up, turn your thoughts to the last minute and to what immediately follows it - God’s decision. Stand in this mindset and walk like this all day. Look what your soul promises: enter into joy 38 or, bound, plunge into darkness 39. There must still be some foreknowledge of what will happen then. But it’s better to cry out: “Spare Your creation, Master!” You are reading the Philokalia; Fine. Do not get confused in the articles of Ignatius and Callistus, Gregory of Sinai and Nikephoros. Look to see if anyone has the life of Elder Paisius Nyametsky. There are prefaces to some articles of the Philokalia, compiled by Elder Vasily. These articles explain a lot about the meaning of the mechanism in the production of the Jesus Prayer. They will help you understand everything properly. I already mentioned that you don’t need that mechanism. What he will give you already have from the moment you are called. Do not come to the wrong thought that the work of your prayer is already finished. The growth of prayer has no end. If this growth stops, it means life has stopped. God bless you and have mercy! You can leave the proper state and take the memory of it for the state itself. God forbid! If you feel your thoughts wandering: watch out! This is very dangerous. The enemy wants to drive you into some slum and kill you there. Thoughts begin to wander as fear diminishes and the heart cools. The cooling of the heart has many reasons. The main one is complacency and conceit. These are very similar to you. Be careful and hasten to awaken the fear of God and warm your soul. Otherwise, dissipation and cooling will increase. The enemy is here, and he will start throwing stones and attacking you. An absent-minded person is like a house with open windows without an owner. Anyone who wants to throws stones and all sorts of rubbish there. The owner returns and is amazed at the multitude of all sorts of rubbish thrown in; so you can’t live without clearing everything. So the soul, having returned to itself from distraction, sometimes finds a lot of rubbish in itself - from thoughts that have become infected, leaving traces on the heart. Sit down and clean yourself. But it’s good as the hunt takes it; otherwise everything will remain the same. That's the problem! God bless you and have mercy! Thank God for everything, including ill health. There is only one road to the Kingdom of God - the cross, voluntary or involuntary. There is a prayer that a person himself makes, and there is a prayer that God gives to the one praying. Give thanks to God for everything; and give thanks for ill health. It’s easy for me to say this from the outside; It may not be easy for you to feel this way. Every time you hear a word about patience, I pray that the Lord will grant you to endure your illness graciously and learn something from it. Why did the Lord bind you, who can guess? But there is no doubt that this, too, was allowed to you in order to further the goals of the life that you have chosen and in which you are trying to somehow maintain yourself. From this point of view, you don’t have to torture your illness anymore. In addition to what has been said, seek courage for complacent patience in moments of heaviness of suffering, in remembrance of the patience of all the saints, and especially the martyrs. How long and how did they endure?! And it's hard to imagine. And it is fitting for everyone to enter into the Kingdom of God through many sorrows 40 . And what is promised by the Lord is called the crown. For what? Because it is impossible to climb there without suffering. There is only one road there - a cross - voluntary or involuntary. May the Guardian Angel bring you comfort and complacency! Don’t complain that the noise in your head doesn’t allow you to keep your thoughts. God judges the soul by what depends on it, and not by what it has no control over. Keep the intention in your heart not to depart from the Lord, and He will take this into account. Now you need to leave your fasting rule. Afterward, fast if it pleases God to raise you up; and now, in illness, in the form of medicine, you can eat everything, on the advice of a doctor. Would you like to hear anything about prayer? What can I tell you that you don't know? There is a prayer that a person himself says; and there is a prayer that God gives to the one who prays 41. The first one who didn't know? You should also know the latter, at least in rudiments. First, when someone approaches the Lord, the first thing is prayer. He begins to go to church and pray at home, with or without prayer books. But my thoughts are all running away. There's no way to deal with them. However, the more you work in prayer, the more your thoughts calm down and calm down, and your prayer becomes purer. However, the atmosphere of the soul is not purified until the spiritual flame in the soul is lit. This light is a work of God’s grace, but not special, but common to all. It appears due to a certain measure of purity in the entire moral structure of the person seeking. When this flame warms up or a constant warmth forms in the heart, then the seething of thoughts stops. What happens to a soul is what happens to a bleeding soul: a flow of blood flows out of it 42 . In this state, prayer, more or less, approaches incessant prayer. Its mediator is the Jesus Prayer. And this is the limit to which a prayer performed by a person himself can reach! I think that all this is very clear to you. Further, in this state, prayer is given that is found, and not done by the person himself. The spirit of prayer finds itself and draws it inside the heart - it’s all the same, as if someone took another by the hand and dragged him by force from one room to another. The soul here is bound by an outside force and willingly stays inside as long as there is a spirit that finds it above it. I know two degrees of this finding. In the first, the soul sees everything, is aware of itself and its external position, and can reason and govern itself, can even ruin this state of its own, if it wants. And this should be clear to you. The holy fathers, and especially Saint Isaac the Syrian, indicate another degree of given, or found, prayer. Above the one shown is his prayer, which he called ecstasy, or admiration. And here, too, the spirit of prayer finds itself; but the soul carried away by it enters into such contemplation that it forgets its external position, does not reason, but only contemplates, and does not have the power to rule itself or ruin its fortune. Remember, in “Fatherland” it is written that someone began to pray before his evening meal, but came to his senses in the morning. This is prayer in admiration, or contemplative. In others, it was accompanied by a clearing of the face, light around; in others by lifting from the ground. The Holy Apostle Paul in this state was raptured into heaven. And the holy prophets were in it when the spirit took them. Marvel at the great mercy of God towards us sinners. Few people work hard, and what are they rewarded with? We can confidently say to all working people: work; there is a reason! Get healthy as soon as possible, and strive to reach further! Through patience the soul gains strength, sorrows open the entrance to the Kingdom. I wish you all the best from the Lord. Then I write just to say this. The first benefit to a sick person is recovery. God grant! Get well as soon as possible, so that you can live longer, not to sin, according to the usual saying, but so that, being comforted by the common comfort of all those who love the Lord with faith and love, you can be nourished by this and grow. Whether here or there, everything must grow, into the appointed measure of the age of the fulfillment of Christ, known to everyone 43 . What is prayer? I am turning to you with a question from Abba Dorotheus to Dosifei. Have you read this life? It's similar to yours. God grant that the end be the same. May the Lord grant you peace of mind, patience, generosity, so that the joy given to us in the Lord does not cease. Through sorrow, see clearly into what will bring you great joy. Embrace stronger faith that the soul is gained through patience 44 and that sorrows open the entrance to the Kingdom. Remember the Lord as He was in the Garden of Gethsemane. He languished in relief of our dying sufferings. Let us also take from Him the spirit of devotion to God: not as I want, but as You want 45 . May the will of God be over you and about you! A warning against hasty prayers. One prayer nourishes the soul. The answer was mine. I didn’t answer - there was a reason that I won’t tell you about. You are well, and your soul is so alive, as your letter testifies. God bless! - I cry with you. May the Lord bless you! God bless your ninetieth birthday, you are old enough to be my grandmother, because I still have one and a half to two years to go until my eighth decade... You have already crossed the boundaries of the feasible years of life (even eighty) 46 . Now you live by the mercy and gift of the Lord, for which there are no measures. So, God grant you to live and live! And everyday worries are like a mountain on your shoulders. There is nothing to do when there is no one to entrust them with. And work, trusting in God’s help to successfully complete the work. Your conscience is disturbed by hasty prayers... And righteously. Why are you listening to the enemy? It is the enemy who is driving you away... quickly, quickly... As a result, you don’t feel any fruit from prayer... But make it a law for yourself not to rush... But say your prayers in such a way that not a single word is pronounced without awareness of the meaning and, if possible, feeling... Put this work on yourself with the determination of a commander-in-chief, so that no objections to this are generated at all... The enemy inspires - this is necessary and other things are necessary, and you answer: without I know you, go away... Look how the prayer goes... Otherwise, you only have a prayer book, but no prayer. One prayer nourishes the soul... So you feel unsatisfied... Check the clock to see how much time will pass if you don’t rush... and you will see that it’s a few minutes. And the damage from haste... what?! And I forgot it was! Thank you for the air 47. Very good. God bless you! It is disastrous when someone says about himself that he is right in everything and has nothing to repent of. An image of a soul truly saved in the Lord. In the Jesus Prayer, go as deep as you can. And great! That's how it should be. You scold yourself well and honor yourself with the most unattractive names. That's how it should be. It is really disastrous when someone says about himself that he is right in everything and has nothing to repent of. Wonderful, wonderful! Please continue like this and go deeper and deeper into self-condemnation. Just look strictly, first: do not only be self-condemning with your words (but your heart is self-righteous), and second: with all the awareness of your lewdness, do not lose the hope of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. This last is more significant than the first. You need to feel like a drowning man at sea who grabs hold of and lies down on a board that is strong enough to lift him and carry him over the abyss. He constantly feels that he is ready to die, but at the same time he feels a saving plank underneath him. This is a real image of every soul truly saved in the Lord. She feels that she is dying on her own; but at the same time he feels that there is salvation by the Lord - for the sake of faith in Him. Please restore this feeling in yourself, if it is weak. For this is the essence of personal Christianity, that is, in every living soul. In the Jesus Prayer, go as deep as you can. She will gather you, let you feel the strength in the Lord and make sure that you will be relentlessly with Him - both when you are alone, and when in public, and when you are running the house, and when you are reading or praying. Just place the power of this prayer not in repeating well-known words, but in turning your mind and heart to the Lord with these words. Both together. You are not allowed to be alone. Please live as you lived, only in everything with the fear of God, for the glory of the Lord, in simplicity of heart. Conversations started in the evenings are a good thing. I'll give you an example. One beautiful woman (seventy-two years old) (they talked about her) had the custom, when one of the monks or priests came to her, to open the book and say: well, read it and tell me what it is - I somehow won’t understand it. And I listened to what he said. And she wouldn’t blink, even if he was lying, because she understood the whole matter clearly. Please preserve the spirit of humility in this regard. And command less... More requests for admonition; The Egyptian elders, when conducting conversations, always turned first of all for permission to those who were weaker, in order to inspire them and encourage them to do more work. Sorry for not answering soon. All laziness! You don't know how lazy I am... Oh! Ouch! I call her my missus, who took me in her arms and doesn’t let me say a word. I wish you all the best from the Lord. Pray to God for me. And I ask all of you to pray for my sinfulness. I wish you a soul-saving experience. Look inside, because that's where the main thing is. The Jesus Prayer can ensure that proper order is maintained within. I am very glad that you are alive, healthy and flowing in the good old way 48, not like the Galatians, about whom it is written: flowing 49. God bless! We cannot free ourselves from the fluctuations of our life during its normal course. Immutability is a gift of God, but it is and is a property of the One God, which (property) by His mercy He sometimes temporarily shares with us. You can’t trust us with anything forever, we’ll eat it out of hunger, that is, we’ll become vain and thereby ruin ourselves and the gift. God reveals His goodness in us so that we do not despair, and again hides it so that we do not become vain and arrogant. What they praise, there is no problem here. It is clear that the taste for goodness in those around him has not completely deteriorated. This is their praise. What do we need? We have a lesson about humility, which we will take care to fulfill. This news 50; I think you are doing it. Keep things in the old, good, Christian way. Look inside so that what you owe there does not weaken; because that's the main thing. There, admit it, sometimes not everything is in order, or not everything happens as it should. What should you do if you ask how to help yourself? – We have the Lord - the only Teacher, the only Helper, without Whom we cannot do anything as we should. He is always nearby. Turn to Him. Have you read about the Jesus Prayer?.. And you know it in action. She is the only one who can make sure that the proper order is strong inside, and she will not allow external mischief to upset this order. It will only provide an opportunity to fulfill the instructions of the fathers: hands at work, mind and heart with God. When it is grafted into the heart, then there are no breaks inside, but everything is one and the same... It is hardly possible to create something systematic inside, but one or the same thing, given the diversity of inevitable affairs, can be retained - and this will be given by the Jesus Prayer when it is grafted into the heart. How will it get vaccinated?! Who knows how? but is vaccinated. The worker is aware of this, without knowing how it happened. Work...walking in the presence of God with frequent, as much as possible, repetition of this prayer. As soon as freedom, now for it... And it will be given... Reading is one of the ways to renew and revive the Jesus Prayer. But it is advisable to read more about prayer. And thinking is the same kind of activity. The merciful Lord meets all those who seek Him in any way with His mercy and does not skimp on gifts when He sees the vaginas ready for them. Whatever troubles your conscience, you must immediately leave it all behind. Having been under the guidance of the elder for so long, you, of course, heard everything that was required. – Remember and implement without delaying until tomorrow. The Athos people have books: “The Path to Salvation” (essay on an ascetic); “What is spiritual life?..”; "Letters on Spiritual Life"; “Invisible Warfare”... Acquire them and learn from them... not to know, but to do. Also: whatever troubles your conscience, you must immediately leave it all behind. I think everything that you imposed on yourself after the death of the elder belongs to this category. What is considered necessary in the matter of salvation and prosperity cannot be avoided in any way - no matter how you cover it up, it must be fulfilled. The Jesus Prayer, in its power, appears not at the beginning, but at the end of prosperity, like flower and fruit. It is preceded by an inward gravitational pull. Please pray for my many sins. The main thing you need to practice is the memory of God, or walking in the presence of God. The root of a good inner order is the fear of God. Prayer is an internal matter. Everything that is done externally does not belong to the essence of the matter, but is an external situation. Everything that appears to be good from this appearance only seems good, but is not. Therefore, no attention should be paid to this. It's better to stop what you're doing. The main thing you need to practice is the memory of God, or walking in the presence of God. Try to acquire the skill of always being aware and feeling that you are under the eye of God, penetrating the entire depth of your heart and seeing all your inner movements. The Jesus Prayer is among the means to success in the skill of walking with God. Everything you need to know about the production of this prayer is in the book about the “Invisible War.” Look there. The main thing here is to pay attention in your heart and cry out to the Lord, who exists everywhere. It's better to stand than sit. It’s better not to think at all about breathing, head position, etc. And pay all your attention to your inner structure. The root of a good inner order is the fear of God. It must be made non-waste... It will keep everything in tension and will not allow either members or thoughts to dissolve, creating a cheerful heart and a sober thought. But we must always remember and feel that success in spiritual life and in all its manifestations is the fruit of God’s grace. Spiritual life is all from the Most Holy Spirit of God. We have our own spirit, but it is powerless. It comes into force when grace overshadows it. We must seek living, tangible communication with the Lord. Mental prayer is standing with the mind before the Lord with sighs to Him. The soul is warmed by the memory of the Lord. Idle talk is the most ruinous thing. Seek and you will find, the Lord promised 52. You are looking, and be sure that you will find. What should you look for? Living tangible communication with the Lord. The grace of God gives this, but we need to work for it ourselves. Where should the labor be directed? - To always remember the Lord, as if he is near and even in the heart. In order to succeed in this, it is advised to become accustomed to the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” repeating it constantly with the thought of the Lord, as existing in the heart or near the heart. Become attentive in your heart before the face of the Lord and say: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” “That’s the whole point, and essentially nothing more is required.” Everything that is invented besides this is invented as an aid to this, the main thing. The elders 53 say: keep your attention in your heart or at the end of your tongue and keep your hand at your chest; the old woman says: imagine the crucified Lord and, as to a living one, say your prayer to Him. If it helps them, let them do it for themselves, just don’t consider it the main thing. Others did this: he sits on a small chair that is placed under his feet, presses his head to his chest, bends down to his knees and breathes: he says one half of the prayer, inhaling the air, and the other - exhaling... Working like this, they get used to prayer, and then they advise others to do the same... And let them not think that this is the whole point. - But all this and the like is not business, but an addition. The point: to stand with your mind in your heart before the face of the Lord and say a prayer to Him. At the same time, knowing that mental prayer is standing with the mind before the Lord with sighs to Him, and the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me...” is a verbal, external prayer. In this way, the memory of God will be established in the mind, and the face of God will be in the soul, like the sun. Put a cold thing in the sun and it will warm up. Thus the soul will also be warmed by the memory of the Lord, Who is the intelligent sun. And you will see what happens later. The first work is the skill of constantly repeating the Jesus Prayer... And begin, repeat and repeat, but always with the thought of the Lord. Where is the heart? – Where sadness, joy, anger, etc. responds and is felt, that’s where the heart is. Stand there and pay attention... The bodily heart is a muscular serchak - meat... but it is not the meat that feels, but the soul, for the feeling of which the meat heart serves only as a tool, just as the brain serves as a tool for the mind. Don't judge the elders. – It’s true that they start by keeping attention at the end of the tongue, and then move to the heart. But let them be; If only they would not consider this a smart activity, just like saying the Jesus Prayer. Both are external, bodily matters... The mental matter is one thing: to ascend to the Lord with the mind and heart. Is the imagination of the crucified Lord an essential matter? – No, and it is also helpful, not the main thing. The old woman says the truth that in order to keep the mind from wandering, it is good to imagine an object figuratively... This is possible... But there is no reason to become attached to one image. The Lord is now in glory, sitting at the right hand, and all the saints are around Him. - And so you can imagine. But it’s better to do without images, because imagination is brute force. It is better to stand in faith alone, that the Lord is near, than to imagine. “The old woman got used to it, and the image of the crucified Lord merged with her heartfelt prayer, which is what it’s all about.” - That the old woman goes deep into prayer until she forgets everything, this, truly, is the mercy of God, for the sake of her humility, without which this would not have been possible... It is not in delusion, but in truth. You can't stop talking idle talk. - Idle talk is the most ruinous thing. Equally evil is when they walk without respecting their feelings... Both of these greatly hinder success in prayer... When the Jesus Prayer begins to take root in the heart, then the tongue will be tied... He will be bound by reverence for the inherent Lord. Know also that you must conduct your affairs in such a way that your conscience does not condemn you in anything, and if it does, you must immediately pacify it with repentance. And the body must be lightened with little food, and little sleep, and overexertion... P.S. Do you have the book “Invisible Warfare”? The matter of prayer is described in detail there... Please read and delve into it. Put more effort into presenting yourself mentally to the Lord. I am very glad that your confusion has been clarified. Place more emphasis on presenting yourself mentally to the Lord than on your physical activities and positions. We must think of God as the purest Spirit, without any form or image. Why does the mind run away from the heart and from the memory of God. Without attention, prayer is not prayer. What the old woman said about visible objects being necessary during prayer, I think you misunderstood. When thinking about God, we must try in every possible way to think about Him as the purest Spirit, having no form or image. But having such a thought gives only grace when a feeling for God is formed in the heart. Until then, our thoughts about God are imperfect, mixed with some form. For example, the prophet says: I have seen the Lord before me, as he is at my right hand 54 . This is an image. Another similar one: I will walk from Your Spirit; and will I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I descend to hell, there you are. If I take my wings early and dwell in the last of the seas, then Thy hand will guide me and Thy right hand will hold me 55. And this is the image of the omnipresence of God... So with any other thought about God and Divine things... The thought of the old woman is that it is difficult for us to free ourselves from images when thinking about God; but you understood that you must always have an image and that without such an image you cannot pray. It's your fault, not the old woman's. Please try in every possible way to pray without images of God... Stand in your heart with faith that God is right there, but don’t imagine how He is. Pray and seek so that the grace of God will finally give you a feeling for God. Who came up with this: keep attention on the lips or on the end of the tongue?! Bad idea: give it up. Try to be attentive in your heart, and nowhere else. – That the mind, after several prayers, runs away from the heart and lags behind the memory of God is due to weakness of attention and indifference to prayer. The soul does not value prayer and is in a hurry to get rid of it as quickly as possible, muttering it somehow. - Seek the fear of God and with it begin to pray and pray, keeping attention on the meaning of the prayer words. - Then short prayers and the Jesus Prayer are used to instill in the heart a feeling for God and thereby attract attention. But if we are careless about prayer, we will never succeed in it. Remember also that prayer alone is not perfect, but together with all the virtues. As virtues improve, prayer also improves. The most important ones are: fear of God, chastity, humility, contrition, mortification of the flesh, patience, love... When they are there, all the others will appear, and with them prayer. “Should I define myself by the number of prayers and bows or should I be more concerned about attention?” – Without attention, prayer is not prayer. Therefore, this is the main thing. But at the same time, it is necessary to determine the number of prayers and bows as a rule. This is for home prayer. The best way to succeed in prayer is to go to church for all services and try to be in reverent prayer there. Look in the Slavic “Philokalia” at the legend about Maxim Kapsokalivite and imitate him. When you receive what he received, then you will have a real prayer. Lying on your side won't gain anything... You are asking about a certain brother. Tell him everything that is written here, and that’s enough... Let him leave his lips and tongue, but do as the fathers wrote, that is, stand with attention in the heart. We can advise him: leave all these extras, just be in your heart and with feeling, falling to the ground, crying out: “Lord, have mercy!” This is how Maxim Kapsokalivit. - And let everyone work like that. Let him go to church without hesitation, make as many bows as possible at home, and let him constantly repeat some prayer verse with attention and reverence, especially the Jesus Prayer. The limit of labor is a never-wasting feeling for God, or what Maxim Kapsokalivit received. – It is especially necessary to refine the flesh through fasting, vigil and physical labor, and constantly keep it in tension, like a soldier on guard. Yes, distraction, running around, idle talk and laughter, and empty reading. And everything will go well. You need to work hard and overwork yourself without pity. The essence of prayer is to mentally stand before the Lord with feeling. The most fitting feeling for us is contrition. The fear of God comes to life from the memory of death and the judgment of God. The essence of prayer is in the mental presence of the Lord with an appeal to Him in feelings of either thanksgiving, or praise, or petition, or contrition, or fear, or hope, or some other feeling related to the Lord - so if there is no feeling for the Lord, then prayer is not prayer. When someone is feeling, he has no time to pay attention to the external position of both the whole body and its different parts - lips, tongue, fingers. In the heart one must pay attention, but not before the heart, but before the Lord. If the Lord is not in your attention, then there is no prayer. You bow a lot. This is good; but try to have both attention to the Lord and feeling. The most fitting feeling for us is contrition: the spirit is contrite; God will not despise a contrite and humble heart 56 . This happens from the fear of God, and the fear of God comes to life from the memory of death and the judgment of God. Every time you begin to pray, restore the fear of God and contrition in yourself and then pray, not allowing these feelings to weaken. The most comfortable place to be in the fear of God and contrition is in the church. Take care to always be in church with these feelings. - And then you’ll wear them at home too... And good for you! I reviewed the letter of the elders and their answer to your question. – There are good thoughts in the letter, you can take them into account. What you shouldn’t agree with, I crossed out. Did you respond to their response? - If not, answer this way: since you could not justify your prayerful approach with fatherly instructions, then I refuse to follow you, fearing to fall on the wrong path: innovations are harmful. With them the enemy is digging a hole for us. Tell that young brother to whom you passed on the old man's treatment to leave him. Let him arouse in himself a spirit of contrition and humility and with these feelings pray to the Lord, standing with attention in the heart and always walking in the presence of God and the memory of death. Let him search and pray for what Maxim Kapsokalivit was looking for and what he found. This is the direct path. He did not seem to have any special techniques, but only a thirst for the good that he finally received. Fortunately, that is, a spiritual spark and warmth... But completely different from those that are generated by senility or other methods. – When the Lord gives that gift, then everything will go differently, and the Jesus Prayer will sound differently. God bless you! (Question: “Do I understand this about prayer: if I ask you for something, will you require me to keep my mind on my lips or at the end of my tongue, or to take a breath and so on, or perhaps just pay attention to your person? - So is my Lord.”) A guide to establishing feelings for God and prayer. Internal affairs program. What books to read. I see that you understand what prayer is about. If you please, act like this now. – In the morning, when you wake up, go through mentally all the Divine truths, according to the Creed, about the Consubstantial Trinity and the limitless properties and perfections of the Divine, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, etc., about creation, providence, the incarnation of God the Word for our salvation and redemption, about His suffering, death, resurrection and ascension... about the descent of the Holy Spirit, about the foundation of the Holy Church of God through Holy Apostles, about the end of the world and the judgment of God, and about the eternal fate of everyone according to his deeds, about God’s mercy towards us, that we belong to the one true Church and through it we have hope to be worthy of the promises of God both here, and in death, and after death. – This revision will give rise to a feeling for God and corresponding appeals to God. Here is the prayer. Then, throughout the day, try to be in this feeling, whether you are at home or in church, constantly standing in your heart before the Lord. – More effective than all other thoughts is the thought of death, of judgment and the final decision of our eternal fate. - Hold on to this thought. - From this a contrite spirit will be born, and the heart will be contrite and humble, which God will never humiliate. - Here is the whole program of internal affairs. - Be like that. What books should I read? – Buy from the Athonite people the collection “On Sobriety and Prayer”... There are a lot of paternal teachings on prayer collected here, and read a little every day in order to maintain a prayerful mood through it. Take from them also the psalter of St. Ephraim, where his cries of prayer to God are collected. Re-read the book more often: “What is spiritual life?..” - and the chapters on prayer in the book: “Invisible Warfare”... The Russian Philokalia. “These are books compiled by me, but there is nothing of mine in them: everything is fatherly.” Only the book: “What is spiritual life?..” is all mine, but the teaching in it is not mine, only my words, and in the other books named here the words are not mine: everything is fatherly. Anyone who wants to become proficient in prayer should only read about prayer. About the midnight office after the all-night vigil, you need to look at the rules. - I think it’s better to read it with heartfelt attention... Instead of kathisma, you can bow with the Jesus Prayer - a hundred. Why is the conscience restless and dissatisfied? Without the memory of God it is impossible to make the soul content. Everyone should pray with both heart and mind. Your humble feelings that, having lived so much in the world and in the monastery, you do not see any success, as if you never started, are blessed, and always be in them, and when you wake up, your first word to God will be: let me, Lord, make a good beginning! This is what they say, however, in general about everything, but you need to take a closer look at what exactly is missing, and try to acquire it. You are not a thief, not a robber, not a drunkard, not a fornicator, not a fighter... and in general - your behavior is good. What is missing? And why is the conscience restless and dissatisfied? You answer right away: because I don’t remember God. – It’s true: without the memory of God, without the fear of God, without feeling for God, it is impossible to make the soul content. - If so, then now we need to take all care of it. Prayer, which we talk about all the time, is the direct path to this. You work in this. May the Lord bless your work! The idea that it is not yet time for you to engage in prayer is incorrect. Everyone should pray with heart and mind. Any other prayer is not prayer. Please work hard and don't be lazy. Do you have Simeon the New Theologian? – Take it and read it again, if you have read it. If not, buy it from the people of Athos and read at least the first volume. “He really teaches the fear of God.” Send letters from the elders. I would like to know how they think about prayer. Are you asking whether to pray for people of other faiths? For suicides?.. - Do as the Church orders. So answer those who ask about this. (Question. Tell me, for the Lord’s sake, do I continue to pray this way: being in a church, cell, or wherever it happens, I try to collect my feelings and imagine the Lord before me in an unimaginable way, while my lips close, my tongue remains motionless, and I say the prayer only with my mind and heart; then all my bodily members come into order, a feeling of reverence for the Lord takes possession of me, and I clearly see my insignificance?!) How to become established in mental prayer. Fighting scattered thoughts. The main fruit of prayer is the fear of God and contrition. I owe you answers. I apologize. I undertake to correct this omission. I don’t remember whether I answered your letter where you remember the elder of the monastery P... - But I will write an answer to it. Let there be repetition. Letter dated August 9. Сначала вы изображаете, как умно молитесь и с какими чувствами, и спрашиваете, можно ли так? – I answer: it’s possible. God bless you to always pray like this, if you remember what you wrote. – Потом прибавляете: «Скорблю, что редко молюсь такою молитвою... молитва отходит, и опять рассеиваюсь...» Скорбеть об этом очень надо. But you shouldn’t blame anyone else: it’s your own fault. Чтоб утвердиться в такой молитве, во-первых, молите Господа, всякого добра Дарователя, да даст вам так молиться, и, во-вторых, чаще приступайте к такой молитве. The skill will come, by the grace of God. “I’m scattered”... Who is to blame? - Don't get distracted. And as soon as you notice that your thoughts have begun to wander, immediately turn them around again. Learn to be in the memory of God and the memory of death. There will be contrition and will not allow thoughts to dissipate. Вслед за сим спрашиваете: «Продолжать ли такую молитву или умом сходить в сердце?» - And this is what you said, where does it happen? There is nowhere for this to be but inside. Стоите пред Господом, без образов, в присутствии Господа... и испытываете добрые чувства. What else? Everything is here. Разве только вы в голове производите сие?! – Нет, в сердце надо стоять. Но сердца не помнить, а только Господа зреть. – Все так выразить можно: «Стоять в сердце умом пред Господом и молиться». Question: “When I stand in the heart, is it necessary to depict any images there: the Trinity or something else?” - decides on its own. Если стоите пред Господом без образа Его, то какие еще образы тут уместны? – Им и появиться нельзя: Бог Троица не имеет образа. Представлять Ее образно нельзя и не следует. The Lord Savior, according to the incarnate economy, has a human image; но Ему надо предстоять без образа, в одном сознании Его присутствия. Монах из обители П... хорошо делает, что трудится в молитве Иисусовой. But doesn’t he forget that the point is not in words or the number of Jesus prayers, but in the skill of always being in memory of the Lord. It’s good to maintain the quantity so as not to become lazy, but the main thing is that your thoughts and feelings should be holy. Плод молитвы – главный – не теплота и сладость, а страх Божий и сокрушение . Их постоянно надо возгревать и с ними жить, и ими дышать. This monk sees the Holy Trinity figuratively in the heart. – The Holy Trinity God is invisible, hidden and has no image. We must stand in the consciousness of the omnipresence of God, but we must not build images. He says that he found the idea of ​​this from the fathers. Ask him which ones? I don’t remember any of them mentioning this. - Those who construct their thoughts about spiritual matters in order to give them weight refer to the fathers. Without verification, one cannot accept such words as truth. This brother said that he did not even understand what kind of reverence and fear of God this was. This is very bad. Who can stand before the king without fear?! Isn’t it even more so before God?! - In Kyiv, in the Lavra, there was a brother who used to say: “Look, don’t become friendly with God.” Is this not the problem with that brother? – It’s no wonder when the fruit of his prayer is determined only by warmth and sweetness. This is spiritual voluptuousness. The main thing is the fear of God and a broken spirit... Warmth and sweetness are good in spiritual matters; but it is not by them that the price of spiritual works should be determined. You say that you sometimes forget the count of your rosary prayers. The trouble is small. When one falls to the Lord, as if present, with fear and hope, this is better than any number of prayers. Is it possible for you to sometimes fulfill the prayer rule of St. Pachomius? - And it’s very possible. I don’t have anything else useful to tell you, as you ask. “Seek always to be with the Lord, and you will find.” The letter of September 9 again speaks of P... brother, who figuratively sees the Holy Trinity in his heart. - Evidence from his fathers has been given. The first from Abba Dorotheus of Russia. This is not the father, and his book is banned. It contains a lot of edifying things, but it also has disapproving thoughts, including the fact that the Holy Trinity does not suddenly enter into a person, but over the years: in the first year the Holy Spirit enters, in the second the Son of God, in the third God the Father. There is something else too. At the end of the book he lists the dark days, which is empty superstition... But he does not talk about the image of the Holy Trinity, but only that the faces of the Holy Trinity inhabit one after another, every other year. His sin is that he separates the persons of the Holy Trinity, and they are confessed to be inseparable. - The same thing in Barsanuphius, answer one hundred and twenty-one, does not talk about the image, but only that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit dwell in a pure heart - inseparably. - It turns out that your brother does not prove his wisdom in any way, but arbitrarily imagines it this way. Remind him that he angers God. About prayer, read the collection “On Sobriety and Prayer”: everything that the fathers said about this is collected there. It is not bad to look through those chapters in the book about spiritual warfare that talk about prayer... And this is quite a lot. – It is better to work in doing prayer than to philosophize about it and read wisdom. It's very simple... (Question. “Until now, I understood the expression of the fathers that the mind must stand in the heart in the sense that when praying one must remember only the heart, and I was perplexed as to what kind of external object should be given to the mind. Now I explain it to myself this way: when I stand with the mind before the Lord, outside of any images, but only in the consciousness of His presence, then my mind is in the heart. - And so, when I pay all my attention to being in the feeling the omnipresence of God and, having delved into the thought of the sayings of David: Where will I go from Your Spirit; and from Your presence will I flee 58 ... and: I will foresee the Lord before me 59 - to stand wisely before Him, I feel some kind of special liveliness of spirit, in contrast to the deadness that possessed me when I tried to remember one heart and bring the mind into such a position that it was, according to the expression. fathers, above or above the heart, thinking that this is the only real prayer. I ask you, explain to me whether my concepts are correct and whether this is how I pray?”) By preserving the memory of God and the memory of death, the fear of God will be in force. About bowing during prayer. On the commemoration of Gentiles. Congratulations on the holiday. May the Lord fill your soul with all kinds of spiritual consolations! Everything you wrote about the image with which you are trying to pray is good. Keep working hard and moving forward. Keep the memory of God and the memory of death. From them the fear of God will be in force. From fear - attention to yourself and all your affairs, thoughts and feelings. From this comes a sober, reverent life. This causes suppression of passions. This is where purity comes from. From purity - being with God, not only with thoughts, but also with feelings. Work hard. Labor overcomes everything with God's help. When you follow the rule of St. Pachomius, then only do this at home, but in church the rule begins, that is, the service. And there’s no reason to mix it with your own. In church, pay attention to what is read and sung, and keep your thoughts and feelings in accordance with this. When they read it illegibly, say your prayer to the Lord or just mentally ascend to Him with reverence, with bows. Try to warm up your heart during every service and guard it after leaving church. You are already doing all this. I'm just reminding you, saying that this is how it should be. You mention bows. Bows must be made. They need to warm up the heart when it begins to cool. Bowing is bodily work. With them we must combine the thought of God and the feeling for Him. The image of abstinence that you have when preparing for service is not bad. But do not forget to prepare your soul in this regard: faith, fear of God, a contrite spirit, surrender to the Lord, and the expectation of help from Him for this matter... it is fitting to be adorned with this. You mention laziness. Where there is zeal for salvation and fear of God, there cannot be laziness: there is no place for it. Tell me, whoever sees that there is a fire in the house will lie sprawled on the stove?! Likewise, one who has the fear of God and the fear of death cannot be lazy and careless. - This is how you drive away laziness. The Holy Church does not know people of other faiths and does not remember them, but while they are alive, it prays in general for their conversion. Gentiles have their own memorials. Let anyone who wants to remember them go there. Private individuals - relatives, friends - can pray for them at home, doing this as a work of love, and relying on anything worthy in those being remembered. May the Lord direct your path! Apologies for the delay in response. I didn’t have time to answer the first letter, this and the second... Thank you for the memory, and I would be ready to answer, but I don’t have time. There is so much to do! Meanwhile, I need to write to you about all the important discussions... Wait a little while I clean up. Then we will begin our reasoning. I can only work in the morning. In the evening, my head is only fit for cockroaching about simple things. I did not write to you because I was in a hurry to finish the Philokalia; and at the end of it I rest. Please repeat your questions that were left unresolved. And I solve the newly proposed one like this. Nothing prevents you from having a brother and keeping your thoughts open with him. Confession must be kept according to monastic order. From time to time, however, you can confess to anyone. How to start spiritual prayer. The best manifestation of spiritual work is in a contrite spirit. Spiritual prayer does not depend on any physical tension, such as pressure on the heart or tightness of breathing and the like. It is created in a smart way. You must begin by placing yourself in the presence of the Lord and then, having devoted yourself entirely to the Lord and being inspired by faith and hope, turn your prayer to Him, simply, like a child. Whatever feelings God sends, be content with those. The spiritual matter is not about ecstasy: its best manifestation is a contrite spirit, a contrite and humble heart. As you wrote that when you imagine the Lord as present, things get better—always do that. That you confessed to the novices, there is nothing sinful in that. In the letter to the priest, upon their dedication, it is written that he is given the power to confess and absolve the repentant, as well as to perform all other church functions. This power was given to you in initiation itself. But its use in a monastery is subject to monastic regulations. In our monastery, anyone can confess to anyone, although there is a specific confessor. Isn't it better to quietly ask the abbot? (Question: “When I mentally go through the Creed, images are reluctantly drawn in my mind, and since, despite all my efforts, I cannot free myself from them, I am embarrassed and afraid that in this way I will end up in delusion? How can I understand everything that is written about prayer by Simeon the New Theologian in Words eight and nine?”) One should not be afraid of all images, but only dreamy ones. There is no need to indulge laziness. We must pray regularly, driving away inattention, indifference and carelessness. I had been planning to write for a whole month, and I had to force myself to do it. Are you afraid of images? One should not be afraid of all images, but only dreamy ones, and, moreover, those that relate to the Divine being, which is invisible and alien to all imagery. Everything related to creatures is figurative and can be imagined. And the Lord Savior, according to His human economy, can be imagined. It is also necessary during prayer not to keep images in the mind, but, mentally presenting ourselves to the invisible God, uttering a reverent word to Him. This must be sought, and it will be found. According to the Psalter Following, you can rule the service, and when it is required to serve. And you can shorten it by putting, for example, instead of kathismas, putting bows, as indicated in the same Psalter. You can also bow all services, as again indicated in the same Psalter... There are two measures indicated there: for laity and lazy monks, and for zealous monks. If the last measure seems too great, you can take the middle between it and the first. There is no need to indulge laziness. Fervent prayer is never long, that is, it does not seem long. It is possible to go through the Jesus Prayer with your mind in your heart, without moving your tongue. This is better than pagan prayer. Let pagan prayer be a help to the intelligent... Sometimes pagan prayer is required for mental firmness. When, after praying with attention and feeling, the mind moves away from prayer and is entertained, one must return it to its place, scold oneself, lament before the Lord, and pray again with attention and feeling. Good prayer is always the mercy of God and the gift of grace... You must not blow the trumpet and thank the Lord. What is written by Saint Simeon the New Theologian about faulty prayer is absolutely true... What to do? – We must pray regularly, driving away inattention, indifference and carelessness: for it is in our hands. About bows. About reading psalms. It is not just prayer that is needed, but also strong zeal for salvation. I loved your bows... And kindness. But do not forget that under bows there must be prayer from the heart - to praise God from the heart, to thank God from the heart, to ask from the heart, whether in your own word - which is better - or memorized, just so that the heart is everywhere... If you want the psalms not to entertain, read their interpretation and understand their meaning... Then, never read too much... and read slowly, pondering every word. When your heart warms up from this, you can leave the psalms... Remember the legend about a certain old man, that he read only one “glory” 60, and then went into his heart and contemplation... and so he prayed. About bows - whether to bow from the waist or to the ground - what is to be interpreted? But as well as you do: ten waist and one ground... You can freely put it, sometimes in the belt, sometimes to the ground. Bows with bows, and most importantly - life is good. A good life comes with fear and trembling, from the memory of God, which does not depart and accompanies every step. Hence the sobriety. But above all is zeal for salvation, strong and merciless. The fourth volume of the Philokalia is entirely addressed to the Cenobites, 61 and there is no discussion of prayer. Volume five is more about the silent, and there is about prayer. But in the entire “Philokalia” there are no explanations of mine: all are paternal writings. I think that you should not alienate your brother who is a scientist. But what you know, tell him simply, and what you don’t know, say: I don’t know. Whether any of this will happen or not, this can be ignored. Fasting is a saving work, and the service of liturgies is beneficial. - What will they say about N, if nothing comes of it or something bad comes out... N is not responsible for this. How God bless. God loves workers, as long as they are humble and don’t think too much about themselves. We cannot do anything truly good without the Lord and His grace. The nun’s question about N. 62 is resolved with the first words: “Pray sometimes with words, sometimes with the mind.” - It is only necessary to explain that one cannot pray with the mind without words, only these words are not heard, but there, inside, in the heart, they are spoken mentally. It’s better to say it this way: sometimes pray with sonorous words, and sometimes with silent, inaudible words. You only need to take care that both sonorous and silent prayer come from the heart. Other things added here are jokes, namely: “Closing your eyes, clenching your lips and teeth, pronounce the words of prayer without touching your tongue to your teeth... hold your breath... through nostril breathing this is even better...” These and similar applications are of no use... When prayer comes from the heart, then everything is forgotten. And the inexperienced will read this and begin to do so and believe that this is real prayer. The question, rightly, related to the Jesus Prayer: How many jokes have they made about this holy prayer?!! – But the point is simple: do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is your only Savior? - If you believe, cry out to Him: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” But the wise men forgot about faith, and focused all their attention on words; here they started telling tales about the tongue, and about the lips, and about breathing, and about the head with a beard, and about sitting. It’s not just prayer that is needed, but also a strong zeal for salvation... When this zeal is there, it will teach you what to do. And you must maintain a clear conscience: this is the main thing... God bless you! Save yourself! How to receive confessors. A remedy against lustful passion. About reading the writings of St. Ignatius. Your brother came to you for advice, and something bad happened to him. You sent him to Fr. N., and from that he benefited. If he is more useful, let him go to him. Another brother like that still comes to you and doesn’t leave, - And let him go. And always tell him useful things with humility and love. And then, when he leaves, stand and pray for him warmly. Remember the word of the Apostle: even if a person falls into any sin, you who are spiritual correct him in the spirit of meekness 63 . You are planning to leave your eldership. Father N. told you well - do not send anyone away from you. It’s good that they come and repent. “And don’t send away anyone, even if someone came seventy times seven times and repented of the same sin.” Receive everyone with a warm, fatherly welcome, like the father in the parable. – Don’t frown, don’t accept stern speech, feel sorry and lament with them. Do not reproach or condemn, but consider them sick and violated by the enemy. Inspire them to fight with the promise of pardon and deliverance from passion if they strictly behave themselves and use the means that you offer. Against lustful passion - fasting and prayer, and the persistent memory of God with the fear that the arrow of God's truth may strike in an actually sinful act, and the like. – Physical labor is good until you get tired... But the main thing is a firm determination to resist sinful urges. There is a proverb: if you take up the tug, don’t say it’s not strong. – And bear this, brotherly burden, without backing away. Should we read the writings of the Right Reverend Ignatius? - Read... Just don’t read the article on death, and not the whole thing, but only a few pages, it seems, at the beginning, where he says that the soul and the Angel are corporeal, and proves it. It is better to tear these sheets out of the book. The whole article is very edifying, but these sheets spoil it. The enemy egged him on. One can think (and I think so) that the soul and the Angel are spiritual by nature, but are clothed with a subtle etheric body, and for them to be a body by nature, one cannot think like that. About the lessons of Fr. N., - what I called jokes - they appear in your scrap - here: close your eyes, press your lips and lips, pronounce the words of prayer without touching your teeth, hold your breath, the nostril breath is higher; whoever is stronger, let him pronounce the words of the prayer more powerfully, so that the heart can feel it. Wrongness in the creation of the Jesus Prayer. What is the purpose of the Jesus Prayer? Please accept my congratulations on the holidays and the new year. May everything be to your salvation! What was written about Fr. N from the words of strangers, then, I think, it is better to consign it to oblivion. The transmitter inserted something of her own here, and it is difficult to separate it from the words o. N is impossible. Nowadays we don’t know how to handle the Jesus Prayer. How many jokes they came up with! “But they completely forget about the essence of the matter.” That is why it turns out that they stop at words alone, repeating: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” but without any thought or feeling. I call them whisperers, or whisperers. Others stop breathing through their nostrils and sniffle. These are sniffers. Others appeared who, as if unable to stop the internal movement, began to shout: “Jesus... Jesus... Ee... Ee...”. These are cliques. But the point of this prayer is simple: stand with your mind in your heart before the face of the Lord and cry out: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” or only: “Lord, have mercy, merciful Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner...”, or in other words. Strength is not at all in words, but in thoughts and feelings... Stand on this, and reject all jokes, teach yourself and others this. That you have freed yourself, at least not completely, from worries is the grace of God. Use it and take care to improve your inner life, to walk unceasingly in the memory of God and the memory of death, and thereby arouse a cheerful and jealous thought about salvation. I ask you to pray to the Lord for this good thing for me too. I said what I said about prayer because from the Jesus Prayer you don’t know what you did. They think that as soon as someone began to say this prayer, then by this alone they had already done everything. This prayer became like some kind of conspiracy among them: do it, adding to this those bodily positions that are spoken about elsewhere, and you will receive everything. So they purr, but the heart remains empty, and thoughts wander, even shameful movements come, but they don’t care, as if everything is in the order of things. - For others, a little warmth comes at this, and they shout: here is grace, here is grace! “And they won’t remember what the experienced say: look, a slight warmth will come, don’t be surprised, it’s from nature, and not from grace.” What are they looking for through the Jesus Prayer? - So that the fire of grace sank into the heart and unceasing prayer began, which determines the state of grace. It is fitting to know that the Jesus Prayer, when a spark of God falls into the heart, fans it into flame; but she herself does not give this spark, but only contributes to its acceptance. – What does it contribute to? By gathering thoughts together and giving the soul the opportunity to stand before the Lord and walk in His presence. The main thing is standing and walking before God, crying out to Him from the heart. This is what Maxim Kapsokalivit did... So let everyone who seeks the Holy Fire do this, and do not worry about words and body positions. God looks at the heart. I say against this that others completely forget about crying out from the heart... Their whole concern is about the words and the position of the body, and, having read a certain number of Jesus prayers in this position, with bows, they rest on this, with a certain conceit and condemnation of those who go to church for the general statutory prayer. Others live like this all their lives, and are empty of grace. If someone asked me how I should carry out my prayer work? - I would tell him: learn to walk in the presence of God, or keep the memory of God and be reverent; To maintain this memory, choose several short prayers or directly take the twenty-four prayers of Chrysostom and repeat them often with appropriate thoughts and feelings. As you become more proficient, your head will be enlightened by the memory of God and your heart will be warmed. In this situation, the spark of God will finally sink into the heart - a ray of grace. You can’t produce it with anything, it comes straight from God... Then you can stay with the Jesus Prayer alone and use it to fan the prayer spark into a flame. As for Fr. N, I can’t tell you anything. Handle it as God instructs you. We must beware of art that is combined with the Jesus Prayer. The main thing is what is sought through prayer. Everything you wrote in your last letter (February 18) was well written. The Jesus Prayer, done with faith in the simplicity of the heart, is always soul-saving. “The art that is associated with it can be harmful.” We must guard against this... You can’t suddenly lean into this prayer, but first let everyone get used to praying from the heart with the prescribed prayers and prayers in church. Then, when you notice that someone begins to go deeper into prayer, you can invite him to say the Jesus Prayer unceasingly, and at the same time guard the memory of God with fear and reverence. Prayer is the first thing. The main thing that is sought through prayer is the receipt of that light that was given to Maxim Kapsokalivit... This light is not attracted by any art, but is given freely by the grace of God. Why is prayer work required, as Saint Macarius writes... If you want to acquire prayer, he says, work in prayer... God, seeing how diligently you seek prayer, will give prayer (Homily 1, chapter 13). This is the path of Maxim... For two years he beat with his heart, seeking prayer, and received the gift of prayer... Teach this to everyone... But add that the house of prayer is a pure heart, and a calm conscience, and zeal for all virtues, and seeding them in the heart... Don't be embarrassed when you are reproached. For this, God will give strength to your lessons. Just humble yourself and do everything in the simplicity of your heart. An elder or brother who told you: “Morning and evening prayers are enough.” Of course, this is for a cell rule, with attendance at all services - Of course, that’s enough. It is only necessary that both church and home prayers be performed with attention and from the heart. Everything in between must be filled with the memory of God - with fear and contrition of heart. - But with all this, one should remember, or keep in mind, the last goal - to receive that light that was given to Maxim Kapsokalivit... Opening your thoughts, as you know from experience, is very beneficial. Reading books is also good; and this can, on occasion, bring admonition. But general instructions are written there; and in special cases it is better to seek clarification from a living expert on the matter... It is bad to be addicted to reading. This does not lead to good, and it restores a certain wall between the heart and God. At the same time, curiosity and destructive questioning develops. Madness from the Jesus Prayer can occur when, while doing this prayer, one does not lag behind any sins and habits of sinners, which the conscience condemns. At the same time, a deep discord occurs inside, driving away all peacefulness of the heart... From here the head can become clouded and concepts can become confused and confused. Take courage - and conduct your business with fear and strong trust in God’s help, which is always ready. “When they come to you, you can’t kick them out with a stick.” They come for no harm and no harm. To refuse them a word when you know what to say is just as bad as not to give alms when you have something to give. I forgot to congratulate you on your soul-saving post. Congratulations and I wish you to spend it all as it should, so that you can celebrate Easter Sunday more joyfully! How to stand before the Lord with your mind and heart? About money. Prayer work leads to receiving the gift of prayer. I am late in answering you: I apologize. Your first word about the light... what is it? – Answer: when God gives, then you will know. Without tasting the sweetness of honey, you cannot know what kind of sweetness it is. So it is here! – This is revealed by a constant feeling for God. With a burning glass, you explained well how the inner fire is ignited. So do it. – How to stand before the Lord with your mind and heart? - How to stand before the sovereign: so here it is necessary. The prophet says: I have seen the Lord before me, as he is at my right hand, and so on. 65. This vision appears in its present form after receiving the fire. “It is not contrary to God to ask for this gift.” That for some this matter ended badly, it is not grace that is to blame, but the one who received and did not keep. About money. As you have your needs, satisfy them, and distribute the rest to the poor, and be left with nothing. The main thing is not to rely on money. The monasteries will survive, but it’s hard for the poor. You ask: “Isn’t it like a light when you stand in prayer with reverence and a feeling of your insignificance?” – It is connected with the light; but with him it does not waste. The light comes without discretion. And almost always through the sacraments of confession and holy communion. The artistic image of doing prayer is depicted by the fathers as an external aid, and is subordinated to internal work. But now, for the most part, they assimilate only the external side, without worrying about the internal. – As soon as some warm movement appears in the heart, they decide: God gave it... and indulge in daydreaming about themselves. Then they condemn everyone who does not adhere to the artistic image of prayer, and not only this, but also church prayers and those who strictly adhere to it, trying not to omit it. - Because of this, their progress in internal prayer ceases, and they are left with only external work - and spiritual life ceases. Please pay more attention to internal prayer, diverting attention from external... Prayer work leads to receiving the gift of prayer. On the revelation of thoughts. What books are needed for guidance. Everything you have said and done regarding those who come to you for advice is absolutely correct. “And there’s nothing to add to that.” It is written: He who does good shall do good, and he who does not commit sin shall eat 66. – Is it good to give necessary advice when you know what is required? Of course - good. Therefore, we must act this way. When taking tonsure, there are guarantors. These are the elders for those being tonsured. It is a pity that in our monasteries we have not introduced, as a matter of law, such leadership so that there is eldership and the opening of thoughts with questioning. - It is the enemy who is evil: for questioning, and advice, and revealing thoughts to the enemy are terrible. However, although this has not been formally introduced, in reality it exists and is being carried out everywhere. Little by little there is need, now those in need go to those from whom they hope to receive satisfaction. N. novice, let him endure, otherwise he will get used to staggering, and nothing will come of it. I don’t interfere in monastic affairs. Father Archimandrite conducts affairs according to his own understanding. He is a wise steward. God bless you with every blessing! For guidance, always keep at hand the book of Barsanuphius and John, “The Ladder,” and the writings of Abba Dorotheus. Many cases are resolved there... Others can be resolved based on them. The main concern is that prayer comes from the heart. What you need to know about prayer. I didn’t answer two letters to you out of laziness. Please excuse me, and don’t scold me. In your first letter, you write well about prayer, namely, that techniques during prayer, how to maintain attention and what position to give to the body and some of its members are not an essential matter in prayer... but as for someone who is better, let him control himself. The main concern about prayer is that it comes from the heart. True heartfelt prayer is a gift of grace given through the sacraments of confession or communion. And after sending such a gift, it is fueled by the same sacraments. A distinctive feature of this gift is the continuity of prayer, which is expressed by feelings towards God, sometimes with words of prayer, and sometimes without words. What grace gives, labor cannot give. He only prepares for the acceptance of the gift - and upon receiving it, he warms it up - along with the sacraments. It was a law among the holy fathers: to force yourself to pray - at home, in church, and while doing business, and on walks, and during times free from everything. - That's all you need to know about prayer. Should young people – beginners – be prescribed smart prayer? Prayer without an intelligent and heartfelt appeal to God is not prayer. This needs to be explained to the beginner. Let him perform the prayer according to the prayer book, trying in every possible way so that thoughts and feelings go with the words. With this difficulty, the beginner will become accustomed to prayerful turns of speech... and then he himself will begin to pray with his own speech when it moves from the heart. And a new leader should not be left without a prayer book... except in the case where, before he became a new leader, he became familiar with the mental prayer to God. The second letter is more about a certain young brother... and falling. Do as the Lord directs: forgiving and resolving seventy times seven. Doesn’t the Lord say: He who comes to Me I will not marry? 67 Therefore, accept everyone who comes with repentance... comfort, inspire... and impose penance - small, within your strength... frequent, even if not numerous, bows... with the publican’s prayer: “God, be merciful to me, the fallen one! Merciful Lord, have mercy on me, the fallen one!” If you are better off that it has passed you by, then there is no need to think about it. The Lord knows what he is doing. What is the work of salvation? Through the short prayers of St. Chrysostom, it is more convenient to move on to unceasing prayer with the Jesus Prayer. God bless you to guide such a son as O. N.... The matter of salvation is the same for everyone - sincere repentance and determination, strong as death - to walk the other right, both in thoughts, and in feelings, and in deeds... May the Lord direct his path! Let him read the book “The Path to Salvation” and “What is Spiritual Life?..”. How you decide to prepare for prayer is the real deal. There are “Three words about prayer” among the Athonite people. There, by the way, there is talk about what you have come up with for yourself. Memorize the twenty-four prayers of St. Chrysostom... And with them you can begin your prayers. And so - repeat them often throughout the day. They contain everything they should. Through them it is more convenient to move on to unceasing prayer with the Jesus Prayer. This is especially useful for beginners. The whole point is to learn to keep your attention always on the Lord, who is omnipresent and sees everything, and who wants everyone to be saved, and is ready to contribute to this. This skill will not allow you to grieve, whether internal or external sorrow bothers you: for it gives the soul complete satisfaction, which, satiating the soul, will not give room to any feeling of poverty and insufficiency, plunging oneself and everything one’s own into the hands of the Lord and generating a feeling of His constant intercession and help. You are a confessor. Buy a knife - a sharp, sharp one, put it before your eyes - and look at it often, always bringing to mind the law according to which a confessor is supposed to cut off his tongue if he reveals to anyone the sins he is confessing or gives any hint to guess about them. I have reason to think that confessors are doing this... They don’t remember what evil comes from this, that is, if the idea spreads that confessors are immodest: confessions will be incomplete, and then they will stop completely. How to teach beginners to pray. All prayers must come from the heart to the Lord. I don’t remember on what occasion I wrote to you about prayer for beginners. It’s true that some words in your letter gave rise to this. My idea is that beginners must first be taught to pray properly with ready-made prayers, so that they internalize the thoughts and feelings and words of prayer. For the divine word must also be addressed to God. When the teacher notices that they have done enough in this, then let him tell them how to pray not in other people’s words, but in their own words, prayerfully lifting up their personal spiritual needs to God and asking Him to be merciful to him and help him. At the same time, you can invite them to pray with short prayers, indicating a sample of them in the twenty-four prayers of St. Chrysostom and allowing him to collect other similar prayers from the psalms, from church prayers, and compose them himself. With these short prayers, they will become well accustomed to keeping their attention not distracted during prayer. Here, finally, we can teach them lessons about the Jesus Prayer, without surrounding it with any external techniques and only instilling one thing - to say this prayer from the heart. Every prayer must come from the heart, and any other prayer is not a prayer. And prayers according to the prayer book, and your own prayers, and all short prayers must come from the heart to the Lord, visible before you. Moreover, this should be the Jesus Prayer. I mean the exercise in prayer in private. – Let church prayer flow according to what is read and sung in church. In this environment, you can insert your own prayer and short prayers, especially during litanies or when what is being read and sung is not heard or understood. For this reason, solve all your questions about prayer as you wish. Just ask that you not be lazy and that prayer always come from the heart. Never allow anyone to sit in prayer. Let them stand reverently. Sitting with the Jesus Prayer is a bad custom. With a brother who falls and falls, and meanwhile sometimes experiences spiritual movements, manage as you know. Pray for him and force him to pray for himself, sometimes showing him mercy, sometimes severity. The book of Barsanuphius and John is very necessary for confessors and leaders. Read and learn. N is telling the truth that today there are no real leaders. – However, one should not remain with Scripture and fatherly lessons alone. – Questioning is necessary. Paisius Nyametsky decided this: let two or three like-minded people form an alliance and guide each other or question each other, leading a life of mutual obedience, with the fear of God and prayer, in moderate ascetic severity. About the works of Saint Ignatius. About the heating of the blood during artificial prayer. Oh the delights. You write that you purchased the book: “The soul and the angel are not the body, but the spirit.” - Good! Read it and give it to others or advise them to buy it. The plain truth is stated here; but there are people who adhere to the opposite of this lie - not safe: for if the soul is a body, then why should we abstain from bodily things? Eat, drink and be merry 68. But you will be wrong if you think badly about all the writings of the Right Reverend Ignatius. They set forth the direct truth about spiritual life, and all in the words of the fathers, although it is not indicated where the thoughts were taken. Therefore, it should be read without wincing. Place a wet towel on the chest...someone makes it out of those currently struggling. And he wrote to me. This does not apply to the matter of prayer, but to those cases when the blood of the heart heats up during artificial prayer in order to diminish the heat of the blood. This heat is not a spiritual phenomenon, but a blood one and comes from the excessive use of artificial techniques during the Jesus Prayer. It also lies in the fact that they consider the artificial performance of the Jesus Prayer to be the main thing and the bloody warmth of the heart with this real spiritual Jesus Prayer. Anyone who thinks so is delusional. The fact that you were fired from the series of 69 means that you are counted among the elders. However, this is not done to indulge laziness, but so that you more diligently indulge in spiritual works and sacred acts in your heart that are intelligent before God. Your regret that you rarely serve is in vain, for it was not chosen by you, and the brethren are in vain piercing your eyes because you do not correct the line. Tell them: my friends, it is not my will; for the fact that I humbly submit to the orders of our fathers, I should not be reproached. It’s better not to think about privacy. If you need it, God will arrange it for you when the time comes. – It must be preceded by a strong inward pull. Explanation of the matter of prayer. May God help you in your clergy! As you act when confessing and giving communion to the sick and elderly alms-goers, do so. Advise alms-goers and the sick to pray to the Lord mentally from the heart. What you wrote about certain performers of the Jesus Prayer, who place their hand on the table and gather attention under their fingers, these are inappropriate quirks. Another quirk is that a certain person struck the palm of his left hand with the fingers of his right hand, and thus collected his mind and prayed. “You are asking me to explain the matter of prayer... But there is nothing to explain here.” Become your mind in your heart before the face of the Lord and cry out to Him: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!” – This will be a prayerful work. Depending on how hard someone works, the Lord, seeing the work, will give him spiritual prayer, which is the fruit of the grace of the Holy Spirit. That's all that needs to be said and understood about the Jesus Prayer. Still, everything else that is invented is not relevant to the matter. It is the enemy that distracts from real prayer. The old man who hears the noise and feels the touch... has nothing more to say except what you said: not to pay attention. Let him add the prayer every time: “Our Father...”; can with faith pronounce a prohibition on behalf of the Lord over his enemies! That his forehead was red was probably because he was slamming it on the floor. Let him stop doing this... It’s good to bow down... All prayer books advise doing this, but there is no need to hit the floor. The Jesus Prayer should not be imposed on beginners. The main thing in teaching the Jesus Prayer. What should we seek through prayer? I haven't answered you for a long time. Guilty! – Meanwhile, you asked very important questions. – The first one is about the Jesus Prayer. “I think that the elders are doing a good job not imposing this rule of prayer on the beginners.” We must wait until the one who started the work labors in church and home prayer; and just instill in him to always pray from the heart, remembering the omnipresent God to whom he prays, and with an understanding of the prayer words, believing that the Lord is near, listens to his prayer and is ready to fulfill his request if he prays properly... Keep him in this order for a longer time. Then, when he gets used to praying attentively in this way, pass on to him the rule of the Jesus Prayer. In creating this prayer, teach students not to limit themselves to memorizing words alone, but to always have the Lord before their mental eyes and, turning the words of the prayer to Him, behave as they would behave if they stood before the sovereign and asked him for something. – May your spirit be contrite and your heart contrite and humble. The novice who wrote the Jesus Prayer on his heart apparently placed all the power of the prayer in the words. – Let him get used to walking in the presence of God and do every work of obedience in the best possible way, knowing that the Lord is looking at him... and for good performance of obedience prepares a reward for him, and for careless performance (as long as it gets out of hand) - either nothing or something punitive... In this way he will get used to praying intelligently and collectedly. What one should seek through prayer is the planting in the heart of a quiet, but warm, feeling for God that does not go away; not to seek enthusiasm and special movements, and when God sends special prayerful feelings, to thank for them, and not to appropriate them to oneself, and not to regret when they leave, as if about some great loss, but always humbly descend from them to a quiet feeling for the Lord. The second is about resolution 70. You do well that you allow the lamenting person directly, without imposing penance; but say to him: brother, preserve this broken spirit and renew it when it weakens. - And to the one who coldly confesses, to him, having allowed him, say: brother, take care to acquire and strengthen the contrite spirit in yourself, and for this - make three prostrations to the ground in church or at home, with the prayer: grant me a contrite spirit, a contrite and humble heart, Lord! What books should beginners read? Appointment of short prayers. What is mental prayer? You congratulated me on the beginning of Lent 71, and I congratulate you on its end. - So passionate! – May the passions of the Lord be imprinted on your heart, causing corresponding feelings of contrition and humility! In your previous letter, from Genvar, you wrote that you allow everyone to begin the Holy Mysteries... This is very merciful and, I think, is not disgusting to the all-merciful Lord. But, I also think, it wouldn’t help to relax those who come. Sincere repentance is always worthy of leniency; but those who come to confession indifferently can somehow be stirred up... Ask someone else, is it possible to postpone the resolution for some time?.. Will this not make it difficult for him in any way?.. If possible, then postpone it, imposing penance for this time - with bows, abstinence in food and sleep... and even more so with contrition. When he sincerely fulfills it, then allow it. – And exhort them to abstain from sins. You also wrote about certain voices being heard. – The idea of ​​the ancient fathers was not to pay attention to this, without delving into the reasons. Think this way yourself and teach others... Inattention will shame your enemies, and they will stop performing such miracles. What books are recommended for beginners to read? – Which ones are more publicly available? What are: Saint Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian, Abba Dorotheos, Saint Tikhon. – Can I be allowed to read any stories? Can. Let them read the Chet-Minea. Stories and novels are also stories. But everything is of an everyday nature. It's better not to touch them. – You can attack the tempting ones. When you are tired of conversations with those who come, then after they leave, do not suddenly stand up for prayer, but calm down in spirit in advance... then fulfill your prayers... and drive away laziness... This is a bad guest... and one does not come. From the fact that the Jesus Prayer is not mentioned, one cannot conclude that it was not in use. It's not a matter of words, but a short prayer. This was not the only one in use. Saint Cassian writes that in Egypt they used the following prayer: “O God, come to my help, Lord, strive for my help.” In other places, other prayers were in progress, such as: “My hope is the Father, my refuge is the Son, my protection is the Holy Spirit...” Also: “As a man who has sinned, You, as a generous God, have mercy on me, seeing the weakness of my soul.” – Among them is the Jesus Prayer. – But then – priority is given to the Jesus Prayer. The purpose of short prayers is to promote the collection of thoughts and sobriety. Strength is not in words, but in feeling for God. It will soon be formed among those who work on prayer. This is mental prayer. The mind, standing in the heart, sees God and intelligently confesses to Him by calling upon Him... Feeling for God is unceasing prayer without words. It is unfair to impose the same image of performing the prayer rule on people with different dispensations. Congratulations on the successful completion of your holy venerable journey, and on the good fruits collected from the elders who have matured in the spirit of life. * * * the old man, praying until he sweats, seems to be asking you: is it possible, is it good, is it permissible to do this. If he receives a tangible benefit from this, then it is good for him to act this way. But that he attempts to impose on everyone the same way of correcting his prayer rule is unfair and unsafe. Because not everyone has the same warehouse, but everyone has their own. Also: if he thinks that everyone should be obliged to pray like this, then he considers the image of his prayer to be essential, but it cannot be such, as it is external and bodily. If the elder receives benefit from his bows until he sweats... then it is not because of this, but because internally - with his mind and heart - he ascends to God in the proper way, and not because he gets tired and sweats. – Among other elders, prayer is high and strong not from such bowing, but from internal prayerful dispositions. For others, it was inimitably high even without bowing... There was an old man - and, probably, he was not the only one - who, raising his hands to the sky, before eating... at three o'clock - he began to pray and prayed like this, standing, until the morning, when the sun rose and, with its action, awakened him. That the elder reproached N for something, this is healing medicine for N... And let him use it. About the Jesus Prayer, performed verbally, mentally and heartily. 1. About oral. In the abbreviated word it says: “Lord, have mercy”; “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner,” and in full – like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” At first, it is pronounced mostly forced and reluctantly, and as you practice and force yourself to it (if only there is a decisive intention through prayer with the help of God's grace to diminish all-round passions), from frequent practice in it, as the passions diminish, from time to time it will become easier, more pleasant and more desirable. When praying verbally, you should try your best to keep your mind in the words of the prayer, speak slowly, concentrating all your attention on the thoughts expressed in words, and when the mind gets carried away into extraneous thoughts, without embarrassment bring it back into the words of the prayer 72 . Distraction of the mind is not given quickly and not when we want, but when we humble ourselves and when God is favorable. This gift of God is not determined by time, not least by the number of prayers, but by heartfelt humility and Christ’s grace and by always compelling oneself to it. From oral, attentive prayer there is a transition to mental prayer, which is so called when we rush to God with one mind or see God... 2. About mental prayer. When praying mentally, you must keep your attention in your heart before the Lord. To the extent of our zeal and humble diligence in prayer, God grants the first gift to our mind - composure and concentration in prayer. When attention to the Lord becomes persistent, then it is grace-filled attention; and our own attention is always forced. From such mental prayer there is a transition to heartfelt inner prayer, if only there is an experienced teacher, very convenient and free. When we are with God through the feelings of the heart, and the heart fills with love for God, then such prayer is called heartfelt prayer. 3. About inner heart prayer. The Gospel says: if anyone wants to follow Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross 74 . If we apply these words to the work of prayer, they will mean the following: whoever wants to legitimately strive in the feat of prayer, let him first renounce his will and his own understandings, and then bear the cross, that is, the mental and physical labor that is inevitable in this feat. Having devoted ourselves entirely to the vigilant care of God, we must humbly and complacently endure this work for the sake of true good, which is given to the zealous prayer book from God in his own time, when God, by His grace, sets limits to our mind and sets it motionless with the memory of God in the heart. When such a state of mind becomes something natural and permanent, it is called by the fathers the union of the mind with the heart; with such a structure, the mind no longer has a desire to be outside the heart; on the contrary, if due to some circumstances or a lot of conversation it is kept out of the heart’s attention, then it has an uncontrollable desire to return inside itself again with some kind of spiritual thirst and with new zeal to begin again to create its inner home. With such a heart structure in a person, everything passes from the head into the heart, and then, as if some intelligent light illuminates his entire inside, and whatever he does, says, or thinks, everything is done with full consciousness and attention. He can then clearly see what thoughts, intentions and desires come to him, and willingly compels his mind, heart and will to obey Christ, to fulfill every God’s and father’s commandment; any deviation from them is smoothed over by a feeling of heartfelt repentance and contrition with unfeigned pity and with a painful, humble fall to God, asking and expecting help from above for one’s weakness. And God, looking at his humility, does not deprive him of His grace. Let you know that mental-heart prayer comes to the heart of some soon, and not soon for others. I know three people: one came as soon as it was said, at that very hour; another one arrived in six months; the third - after ten months; and to one great elder - in two years. And why this happens - only God knows. Also know that before the destruction of passions there is a different prayer, and another after the heart is cleansed from passions: the first is an assistant in cleansing the heart from passions; and the second is, as it were, a kind of spiritual guarantee of future bliss. Do this: when you feel the entry of the mind into the heart and the impact of prayer, then give complete freedom to such prayer, removing everything unfavorable to it; and while it is there, don’t do anything else. When you do not feel such an attraction, then pray verbally with bows, trying in every possible way to keep your attention in your heart before the face of the Lord. This way of praying will also warm your heart. Be sober and vigilant, especially during mental-heart prayer. No one is more pleasing to God than the one who engages in correct prayer with the mind and heart. When it is inconvenient for you or there is no time to practice prayer, then do your best to keep the spirit of prayer within yourself in all your activities, that is, keep God in mind and strain in every possible way with your intelligent eyes to see Him before you with fear and love and, feeling Him existing before you, with reverent submission in all your affairs, surrender yourself to His omnipotence, omnipotence, all-vision and omniscience so that in all your God and His holy will were remembered in deed, word and thought. This is what the spirit of prayer consists of in short! It is necessary for a lover of prayer to have this spirit, and, as far as possible, with constant heartfelt attention, bring his understanding under God’s understanding and humbly and reverently submit to Him; also bring your wants and desires under God’s will and completely surrender yourself to God’s mind and God’s will. – In every possible way we must stand against the spirit of arbitrariness, or the desire and urge to act without being embarrassed by anything. This spirit whispers: I can’t do this, I don’t have enough time for this; or: it’s not time for me to take on this yet, I have to wait; or: duties of obedience hinder, and much like that. Whoever listens to him will never learn to pray. – In collaboration with this spirit is the spirit of self-justification, which begins and begins to act after someone, carried away by the spirit of arbitrary self-indulgence, does something for which his conscience bothers him. Then the spirit of self-justification uses various twists and turns to deceive the conscience and make its wrong appear to be right. – May God save you from these evil spirits! What is the essence of the creation of the Jesus Prayer. Strength is not in the words of the Jesus Prayer, but in the spiritual mood, the fear of God and devotion to God and in constant attention to God and His mental standing. The Jesus Prayer is only a guide, and not the very essence of the matter. Commit yourself to live in the memory of God and walk in the presence of God, and this alone will lead you to a good end. All this is from the grace of God. Without the grace of God, nothing spiritual can be acquired in any other way. As soon as grace settles in the heart, then everything will go as it should. We have the Lord Savior, who wants to save everyone; You need to bother Him - and He will. Accept a humble non-attribution to yourself, an awareness of only your shortcomings, sins and omissions, and painful cries from the heart: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And the grace of God will never remove its shadow and cover from you. The most reasonable way to behave in relation to others. About the prayer rule. What does it mean to pray without ceasing. Why are there coolings? Memorizing the Psalter is a good deed. You can serve the Lord with whatever you happen to do. What is “the mercy of the world.” So I have offended you by not answering quickly. What you wrote about yourself regarding the charming image of selflessness is good. The most reasonable way of behavior in relation to others is not to creak, so that everything goes smoothly. It’s impossible without a struggle, because our self intervenes here and, like a hedgehog, exposes its thorns. These thorns have to be trimmed or pulled out. How you decided to act regarding prayer, good. Take care to get comfortable and get used to it. The rule of prayer is a safe fence of prayer... Prayer is an internal matter, and the rule of prayer is an external matter. But just as without a body a person is not a complete person, so without a rule of prayer, prayer is not complete. You must have both and perform them according to your strength. The urgent law is to pray internally, and to pray always and everywhere. Prayer cannot be without a certain time, place and measure. The definition of these three constitutes the prayer rule. And here the leader is prudence: when, where, how long to stand in prayer and what prayers to use... everyone can determine according to their own circumstances - increase, decrease, move the time and place... everything can be directed so that internal prayer is performed properly. Regarding internal prayer, there is one rule: pray unceasingly 75 . What does it mean to pray without ceasing? – Be constantly in a prayerful mood. A prayerful mood is a thought about God and a feeling for God together. The thought of God is the thought of His omnipresence, that He is everywhere, sees everything and contains everything. Feelings for God - fear of God, love for God, a zealous desire to please Him alone by everyone, with the same desire to avoid everything that is displeasing to Him and, most importantly, surrendering oneself to His holy will unquestioningly and accepting everything that happens as if from His hands directly. A feeling for God can occur in all our deeds, activities and circumstances, if it is not only sought, but is already planted in the heart. The thought may be distracted by various objects; but even here it is possible to learn not to deviate from God, but to do everything in the light of remembrance of God. It’s about these two – thoughts and feelings towards God – that you need to take all care of. When they are there, there is prayer, although there are no prayer words. Morning prayer is intended for this purpose, in order to install these two things in the mind and heart... And then with them you can go out to do your work and do it. If you bring this up in your soul in the morning, then you have prayed properly, although you may not have read all the prayers... Let’s assume that you set yourself up this morning and went to work. From the first step, impressions of deeds and things and persons will begin, knocking the soul away from God... What to do? We must renew our thoughts and feelings... by turning our minds and hearts internally to God. And to make this more convenient, you need to get used to some short prayer and repeat it as often as possible. Every short prayer goes towards this. But the most beautiful prayer of all is to the Lord Savior: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!” Work hard to get used to it, and don’t lag behind until you get used to it... It, having taken root, will be a constant engine of standing before God in thought and feeling towards Him. Here is the whole prayer program for you! In the book “What is spiritual life?..” all this is described. You are doing well to read it. Everything written there is written to the beauty, and depicts the matter of spiritual life in its present form. Take a closer look at what is spiritual, mental and physical, or animal. What did you do to drive away morning drowsiness, good... By giving yourself cheerfulness at this time, it will be easier for you to keep yourself cheerful all day. In case it is not possible to read all the prayers in the morning or evening, choose from the prayers which are more meaningful... and read... and most importantly, take more care to plant in your mind and heart the thought of God with the corresponding feeling. The cooling off that you are talking about occurs either from mental fatigue, or from the fact that the soul has been fed too much of what is spiritual (see the book “What is Spiritual Life?..” about this), or because too much peace and all sorts of contentment has been given to the body, or from conceit and other passions that agitate and occupy the soul. All this is contrary to spiritual life, in which the queen, prayer, litters and blocks the key of prayer. But it happens both by God’s permission and by the withdrawal of grace. When your soul burns with zeal, this is the action of grace, God’s touch on the soul. It happens that when it lasts for a long time, the soul begins to think what a master of prayer she is, forgetting that the liveliness of the prayer movement is not her business, but the work of God’s grace inherent in us. For such thinking, grace withdraws and leaves the soul alone... and it itself is motionless towards the spiritual... and so there is cooling and laziness... What can be done? The main thing is to try to eliminate the causes of this condition. And then act as you act - fulfill the rule, despite the disintegration, trying to collect thoughts and reproduce feelings for God. For patience and humility, grace will return... and will immediately disperse laziness, just as the wind disperses darkness. Memorizing the Psalter is a good deed. Be filled with prayerful thoughts and feelings... The Holy Fathers instilled this in everyone. And they advised reading the psalms not only during prayer, but also in addition. And you can read it while you’re doing it, and especially when you’re on the move from one place to another. But in order to maintain thoughts about God and feelings for Him between activities, it is best to learn a short prayer. You can serve the Lord with everything you happen to do, think and experience from waking up from sleep until your eyes close to sleep again... This happens by doing everything in accordance with the commandments and for the glory of God, in obedience to God, and by holding back your thoughts and feelings so that nothing displeasing to God breaks through in them. That you love to listen to singing in church is nothing to blame for, unless you limit yourself to pleasure alone, forgetting about God and everything Divine. It is not the pleasure that is reproachful, but the fact that God and the things of God are forgotten. If you mentally go through everything that is sung and read in church, you will not get tired, but, on the contrary, you will feel when mass ends... how quickly the service has ended. Reading the Gospel, etc. - good and kind... At the same time, whatever poem or thought sinks into your soul, dwell on this more, and remember more often during the day... and expand those thoughts. What is “the mercy of the world”? Hear what the deacon proclaims! - “Let us become kind... Bring holy offerings to the world...” This is an invitation to make a bloodless sacrifice. The priest performs the sacrifice. Those present must have feelings corresponding to this... fear of God, undistracted thought, peace with God and with everyone, praise and thanksgiving to God... These are spiritual sacrifices... this is what the words mean: “mercy of peace”... The deacon invites to offer sacrifices... Those present answer: yes, we are ready... and offer “mercy of peace, a sacrifice of praise.” When they sing: “Worthy and righteous...”, the priest remembers all God’s good deeds - in creation, providence, especially in atonement and in the very permission to make sacrifices... This is appropriate for all those who are present to remember this. Phrase: “mercy of peace” in Greek: “oil of peace.” Peace is definitely the oil for souls and the best mercy that we mutually show to each other and that God gives to us. I also received your October letter and kept meaning to write... It’s good that you wrote again. I am writing to you with pleasure, but now I have several things to do... Your description of the order of your life is pleasant to read... The best cure for our infirmities is not to have idle time. We were dancing... The sky didn't fall on you?! Therefore, this is tolerable in some sense... But what you added to this regarding the rights of youth, I don’t know whether it can stand firmly. Can youth say to death: don’t come near! - And she can come during the dances... and decide everything... for she decides everything... The soul will appear from the dances to the next world. – Who’s there, they’ll ask? - Dancer! Well, throw it over there. You measure youth by youth... You can’t do that. We must measure everything by the ultimate goal. Why do we live? To prepare for eternal life... How can you fit dancing into this?! and much more. It's good to be in society. Here is the science of self-knowledge... But still, a choice must be made... The society you visit is good, as you write... And thank God. If you don’t know how to cope with a short prayer, that’s okay. It will come with time. Your frequent appeals to God during the day, during every task and after work, are a very good thing. - This is part of the general rule - to walk with God. Short prayers have the same purpose... In them, the sacred word expresses what you express with yours. – Another highest purpose of a short prayer is to deepen thoughts and feelings towards God. What you have - these appeals - falls apart at the first impression; in addition, despite the appeals... thoughts crowd in the head... like mosquitoes... To stop this crush, you need to bind the mind with one thought, or the thought of the One... An aid to this is a short prayer. With its help, the mind is simplified, united and instills or develops a feeling for God... When this feeling comes, the soul will be confirmed in consciousness in God... and will begin to do everything in God's way. With a short prayer one must keep the thought of God and attention to Him... And limit oneself to just words... ringing brass 76. A diary is a good thing... But one side of you is good. You should be more aware of your weaknesses... Otherwise you will come out in a fanfare. “I don’t know how to pray for a long time,” - But what about the apostle’s commandment: pray without ceasing!? 77 The memory of God with the fear of God, the love of God with hope and devotion to the will of God constitute the inner religious life... Whoever has it in motion... is always with God... And he is not bored by praying for a long, long time. “You have the germ of this in the way you turn to God for help in every case, and then give thanks. Develop this... wider and wider. Your bewilderment about the thoughts of “The Invisible Warfare” depends on the fact that you are looking at the lessons there from the wrong point of view... In “The Invisible Warfare” we mean a person who is struggling with passions and straining to expel all that is bad from himself and strengthen all that is good... When he is established in goodness and becomes strong, then many of the rules will either take on a different form or be put aside. During the period of struggle, the law: everything that can set in motion the evil hidden in us, whether small or great, must be removed from attention, and even more so from feeling... the same must be done with that which weakens actions that contribute to the strengthening of good. Look through your notes with this thought, and you will see for yourself in what respect they are untenable... What is written in this book is not for monks alone, but applies to everyone who wants to cleanse their hearts. What is meant is not the external position, but the soul. You noticed something about self-activity... Everything good is created in us by the interaction of freedom and grace... In general it is expressed this way: start working on something and work... God will see that you sincerely desire what you are looking for, and will give it... If you want to acquire prayer, work in prayer, and the Lord will give prayer... If you want to get rid of anger, work on this, and God, seeing your zeal, will give you lack of anger... Man by himself will not create anything good in himself if grace does not come; and grace does not give anything to a person if the person himself does not work... Memorize this point. I won’t write anymore now. I am sending you books about renouncing the world. Instructions on the Jesus Prayer. How nice it was to read that the emptiness of your soul pulled you to prayer, and you turned to the best one - the Jesus Prayer, and began to do it with such success. May God bless you to succeed in it, and in such a way that nothing can distract you from it. You ask what is needed... - The way you create it is so good. Remember and do so. Let me remind you one thing: you need to pay attention to descend into your heart and stand there before the face of the Lord, who is omnipresent - both in you, and all-seeing - and in you... This is how you thought - woe - to the throne of God, and down - to yourself, a sinner. Standing before the face of the Lord, do not allow other thoughts... but only contemplate the Lord with the feelings due to Him, what He sees, hears, is ready to heed and fulfill - Do not leave the word without thoughts about the Lord and about what He is for us, but have simple thoughts: that He is near, keeps, holds, teaches, leads... When you start, then certain needs regarding this prayer will open up... and ask. Look at the end of the matter... Thought and feeling will become so close to the Lord that they will become inseparable - there will be an inseparable feeling for the Lord - warm and sweet... Everything else will become outside, like someone else's. When you are humble, the grace of God will soon bring this prayer into force. In the book “What is spiritual life?..”, it seems there is something about this prayer... Make sure everything comes from the heart. Don't think about external situations. What did you think at first: it seems to you that it was established... and then everything fell apart... this will happen often... So, as soon as such a thought is born, know in advance that it is lying - and do not dwell on it. Strength will begin when a fire is formed in the heart. God bless you and all your relatives who are with you! Didn’t you stop by Kozelshchino on the way?! It's a sin if not. There now lives an old woman of high life... almost motionless from illness, but abiding in the Lord! The Latins do not understand mental prayer the way we do. I wrote to you with answers to your questions. Now, that's right, we got it. And they must repent of premature sorrow. Congratulations on your safe trip and settling your affairs. That’s right, you’ve already had a rest... and with a calm spirit you’re preparing for the task that is so decisive for you. I’m very glad that you are in your old rut. This means that you can be considered ready... It's Thursday. You have been living with Fr. for two days now. Cassian in the monastery. If you are healthy, then this is very good. What do you need, oh. Cassian says it best. And you yourself understand a little. I can only pray that the Lord will arrange everything for you in the most salutary way. Answer Mother Nadezhda Kronberg that there is no cure for my eyes. And surgery is not allowed. And even if it were allowed, I would not agree to it; for it is very painful, and life is short. I thank her for her diligence. But I won’t write to her. Say - out of laziness. Mother Cleopatra, writing a letter to Barsanuphia on the occasion... mentioned your presence with her... and that together we read the “Philokalia”, which she delights in... and delights even little Cleopatra. I really got lazy. I wrote to you that I had undertaken to translate something... It came to articles about prayer... Some kind of dark confusion! And he stopped... The Latins do not understand mental prayer the way we do. For them it is the thought of God, concluded by prayer... And although this is a very fruitful exercise, it is not prayer... Prayer is a special exercise from the thought of God. The twenty-second chapter is also all about this. I don’t know if there will be a desire to redo it. In “The Invisible Warfare” (which is also a translation of a Catholic book) I changed it. God bless you with every blessing. Bow to Father Cassian and Fr. Mitrofan. I ask for prayers. Why did my soul freeze? On the transfer of the prayer rule to the Jesus Prayer with bows. I don't have time for everything. I'll write a few lines, but... Your soul has frozen... How dangerous this is, you know from what was written on the occasion of previous freezes... Therefore, try to perk up. By some features one can believe that life is alive; but does not feel satisfied. Why? – Because you have abandoned your previous positions of prayer... And you don’t return to them... I think that you need to replace this digression with something... and this is what I propose... Shift all of our seven daily services to the Jesus Prayer with bows. Take an example for this - in the Followed Psalter, at the end of the outline of the rules for each day - cell... There for each service it is determined - the number of Jesus prayers and the number of bows; there are two rows of them... one for the lazy, the other for the diligent. You should take the last one... But since you are weak, you can choose the average one or a little more than the average one... and if you please, write down... how many prayers - 1) for the Midnight Office; 2) for Matins; 3) for the first hour... and other hours - the third, sixth, ninth; 4) for lunch; 5) for Vespers; 6) for Compline; 7) for the rule on him. The main thing is the number of prayers... bows... can be left to your discretion - waist and ground... Make a prayer... standing... on your knees - and sitting, if you are exhausted... Having determined this, set a time when to do what is required... And then - do it urgently... Stand in your heart before the Lord and do it. Some troparikas 78 can be read from memory. At all services there are such... as, for example, “Behold the Groom...” and the like. It is necessary that the performance of every service be reflected in labor... Throughout the day, you will often... perform labor for the Lord... and satisfaction, I think, will come. God bless this work for you! I'm in a hurry with the translation... and I'm working until I'm tired. The need must end... It will still take two or three weeks! Apply God-thinking to prayer. The Lord is close to all who call on Him. You have all the infirmities. As it turns out, one thing or another makes itself felt. It seems that you too have become an old woman. Congratulations. This is an honorary title. But also carry the belongings of old age. My eyes refuse to work, my legs are twitching (always from midnight - about two hours), but recently I started to have an intermittent pulse. This, I think, is not scary. The whole point here is that the heart misses one beat (like this: . . ● . . . ● . ● .). That you remain with the Jesus Prayer alone must be considered a good situation. But the fact that the action from it is not the same as before, I think, depends on the fact that you remain with this one doing. Apply contemplation of God - at the beginning, and in the middle, and at the end - or... as you do it continuously... often, as you please. Thought on God is in-depth reflection on the economy of salvation, either in general, or on any one subject that is part of it. As soon as you wake up, immediately review everything: from creation to the second coming, judgment and the decision of the fate of all, - This is soon... And keep praying until you get out. – Then take one object and delve into it until it embraces your heart... And in this embrace, then say a prayer... And so all day... mix thoughts of God with prayer. The Lord is close to all who call on Him. Dunya, maybe, when she’s left alone after you, she’ll manage herself the way you’re leading her now. Who wants harm for themselves?! So she will understand that it is bad... and will avoid it. Then life will teach you. You have something like a general disease there. God bless you! “It’s always been frosty here, and it’s been for a long time.” Anything rotten comes to us and is afraid to show his nose. God bless you, and Dunya, and your entire monastery. How I pray. When you pray, drive away all images. May the Lord send joy to your spirit and place it in you forever! Our father, Archimandrite, is going again to Moscow and St. Petersburg. I am writing with him, not knowing whether he will find you at home? You are asking about the prayer of the worst prayer book. How do I pray?! I try in every possible way during the hour of prayer to be in the conviction that God is omnipresent even here, where my consciousness is, and that He sees and hears not only the word, spoken or not, but also every movement of thought, and especially feeling. I avoid any image, no matter how difficult it is. When prayer comes with feeling, then there is no difficulty in keeping the ugliness in prayer - this makes it clear that the ugliness in prayer is a real thing - and that in order to achieve this one must strive to pray from the heart - and it has become, from the head into the heart. How to achieve this is written in the letters regarding Speransky’s letters... (I asked Askochensky 79 to deliver to you. Did he deliver?) Also, you don’t need to imagine with your soul either the Mother of God, or saints, or Angels. And they should pray in the same conviction that they hear. How do they hear? - Why talk about this? They hear, and that’s all. Suppose there is such a difference... that mental work requires images; they are in Scripture about God Himself and all Divine things. And imagination is a mental ability—a knowledgeable one. Imagination - the ability to form and retain images - is a laboring ability... the lowest! Therefore, there is no point in allowing him to appear with his images in the highest region, which is prayer... Contemplative activity is high... and spiritual activity, manifested in prayer, is even higher... Where should the imagination go there... That’s where it’s decent: friend, how did you enter this?!! 80 So, when you get angry, imagine, and when you pray, drive away all images. If you allow images, then there is a danger of starting to pray to a dream. Can you say that the image you hold in your mind expresses the truth? So you can’t... therefore, you have to get used to ugliness... but there is only one way - heartfelt prayer... The mind can hardly exist without images. It’s not bad for the people to compile a book about prayer... but this subject needs to be published. I think that when one of the people prays with feeling, he has no images... It’s better not to talk about it. God enlightens minds, and when someone approaches Him in prayer, He Himself will teach him how to keep his mind in prayer. I remember one thing said about the elder, who always figuratively represented God. When it was explained to him that this should not be the case, he said: you took God away from me... And it was not God that was taken away from him, but his dream. By the way, “Fatherland” is published in “Soulful Reading,” and it seems similar to ours... Check... Also: Trinity 81 wrote a good article about the sources of the history of Eastern monasticism. But it seems he hasn’t seen the “Paterik” you have. Would you show it to him? I hasten to tell you what you need. In those articles that will be included in the first issue, there is nothing about smart doing 82. The conversation about the artistic making of the Jesus Prayer began with Gregory of Sinaite in the 13th century and after - until then. Then we’ll decide whether to publish about this! - However, I’ll say in advance that the thought had already occurred to me - to skip those articles that talk about this... and finish the collection with Simeon the Theologian... Saying the Jesus Prayer, as we all learn to do, is a good deed. In monasteries this is assigned as a duty. Would they really lay it on if it were dangerous?! The art that was invented and adapted to this prayer is dangerous. It plunges some into dreamy delusion, and others, it’s amazing to say, into a constant lustful state. “That’s why he needs to be advised against and banned.” – And the sweetest name of the Lord in simplicity of heart must be instilled in everyone, and everyone must be disposed to do so... I'm very glad that printing is underway. The second issue can also be published... without Cassian, who is in charge - and who, meanwhile, alone will make up a large book. In addition, the statutes of Pachomius, Basil the Great and Benedict in my manuscripts take about two hundred sheets. Therefore, almost the same as the first issue. Happy Holidays. Bow to the elders on Mount Athos. Mental prayer, when the mind talks with God in the heart. I am sending you reprints of the article in “Soulful Reading.” Give Stepan Onisimovich 5 or 10 for distribution... and distribute it yourself... to whomever you know. – I also wrote more broadly about the same thing in the Church Bulletin. – When would they publish it! How has mental prayer been since the 9th century? - mental prayer from time immemorial. There is no other prayer than smart prayer. – We were not talking about mental prayer, but about the artistic production of the Jesus Prayer, which is unjustly called mental prayer. – When the mind talks with God in the heart, that’s mental prayer! “You shouldn’t mix any kind of art into this matter.” – And this article should be completely abandoned. Don't argue or mention her. “Philokalia” proceeds very lazily... And this should shame St. Petersburg. – For me, however, it’s all the same. “It’s hot here, and I’m lazy,” I wrote, however, for the sake of conversation, something from Psalm 119, and now I’m scribbling a little to the Romans 83. "Citizen" is sent. Yes, this is a good person. God bless him... He would say something - about the Bible... Or you take out what comes to mind from the article in “Soulful Reading” and pass it on to him. “He mentioned something about it.” But neither this nor that. - He needs to speak Orthodox. About schismatics - or benefits for them! - Maybe for the better. There will be someone to act on them through. – We must allow them to start their own seminary and academy; drops will come from these, and everything will be turned upside down... schismatic, I mean. The split is maintained by extreme ignorance. When the conditions of salvation become clear, it will also become clear that all schismatic dogmas are not dogmas, but wasteland! - And the end of the split. It is in vain that the Molokans and Stundists are included in the schism. - These are our Protestants! The inconveniences you encounter serve as proof that your deeds are not bad and salty for the enemy. He raises mountains of obstacles. Take heart and be strong! Be healthy and cheerful! - Why didn’t you tell me anything about the Greek Bible - the Alexandrian 84, published here by the Lazarids - in the 20s! Where can I get it? - And how! She was, it seems, in the Synod shops. Look. May the Lord bless you with His all-generous blessing! About work in practicing the Jesus Prayer. You have a good idea of ​​doing the Jesus Prayer properly. – Diligence and work will overcome everything. – Pray to the Lord to help you with this. “You yourself, through your own efforts, can only learn to constantly repeat this prayer.” And the Lord will introduce it into the very heart. This last is the main point; and the first is only a vestibule. Blueberry - God's blessing. Give her a commandment - to immediately engage in the Jesus Prayer. Let him work, and let him rotate the name of the Lord, keep it on his tongue, in his mind and in his heart. I received the books. Here is August’s “Soulful Reading.” Make a wish for Vysha 85. It won't be bad if God wills it. Be your heart on high... and you will always be on High. With the Lord, how can you be bored and want entertainment? The fact that you had to stay at home all the time could be turned into something beneficial for your soul. If you didn’t pay attention, it’s your own fault that the time passed was boring. With the Lord - how can you be bored?! And how can one even desire any entertainment?! And don't pray. It means they were angry with the Lord... or self-satisfaction took over. Full! - And you don’t want to ask. When you get tired in the evening... start praying on your knees or even sitting, then standing. And everyone needs to pray. Thank the Lord for the day, ask for good night, repent of the bad. The parable is clear. The King is the Lord, His kingdom is the Church of those who are being saved. The callers are the apostles, and now all those who take their place. Evil and good are all kinds of people - both in external and internal state. Whatever they were before the calling, this does not prevent them from being called: for, having followed the calling, they do not remain as they were before, but are remade by grace in the baptismal font. That Blueberry became Squirrel means that the previous decision was shallow, feigned... and did not enter the heart. She only provoked the enemy, and for this he will come down on her more severely as a traitor. But if there was something of God in the previous decision, then the enemy cannot defeat the Lord. He will still snatch His chosen one from him. About bows. Prayer is what the mind and heart have towards God. You are grateful. It is very pleasant to meet in you, often, if not always, feeling yourself in the burden of beings. May God grant you to constantly have a joyful heart! I am very glad that Belichka is finally consoled. I expected that they accidentally got something stuck there. God bless! That your husband is worried, afraid of leaving you in a difficult situation, is doing good. It is his duty to arrange that, having lost the head of your family, you at least sit quietly in your corner. But why mope?! You need to arrange it by getting down to business well... and the end. “And then it’s enough for you to calm him down: you see, everything is in order... And I won’t be in trouble!” Who is this little guy?! I completely forgot. “I thank him for his prayer.” - God bless him and teach him everything good! If your head prevents you from bowing, pray without bowing: bowing is an accessory to prayer that helps, and not the prayer itself. Prayer is what the mind and heart have towards God. Bow occasionally. When praying, stand on your feet, then on your knees. If you say the Jesus Prayer, then start not with three thousand, but with a thousand, and even five hundred, and then add. Don't go beyond three thousand. Will there be a need? But it’s better to do everything at once, and at night. During the day, intermittently... it doesn’t count to often do the same prayer. God bless the blueberry to prosper. I am sending you the October book “Soulful Reading.” Thank you for taking care of warming my feet. About warming the heart. The point of prayer is not in words, but in feelings towards the Lord. What should be the subject of search in prayer. It's good that you took communion. May this be your salvation! May God rest in peace and Elder Alexandra! If your heart warms up when reading ordinary prayers, then in this way kindle the warmth of your heart towards God. The Jesus Prayer, if done mechanically, gives nothing, like any other prayer that is only spoken with the tongue. During the Jesus Prayer, try to think more vividly that the Lord Himself is near and present to your soul and is listening to what is happening in it. At the same time, awaken in your soul a thirst for salvation and the confidence that apart from the Lord we have nowhere to expect salvation from. Then cry out to Him, mentally visible before you: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us!”, or: “Merciful Lord, save me, in the image of fate!” It’s not a matter of words at all, but of feelings for the Lord. The spiritual burning of the heart towards the Lord is love for Him. It lights up at the touch of the Lord on the heart. Since He is all love, His touch on the heart immediately kindles love for Him. And from love the burning of the heart for Him. This is what you should be looking for. The creation of the Jesus Prayer is only a tool for this, or, better, only a work that shows the strong desire of the soul to find the Lord. Let there be the Jesus Prayer on your tongue, in your mind - contemplation of the Lord before you, in your heart - a thirst for God or communication with the Lord. When all this is constant, then the Lord, seeing how you force yourself, will give you what you ask for. Please understand all this and take it as a guide and read it often in order to refresh your memory of how you should act. And explain all this to Blueberry. My soul aches for her, in the desire for her to be more firmly established in the inner man... For then no waves can shake her like a solid rock. About prayer before bed and at night. May your visit to our monastery be for your benefit! And Blueberry! If you force yourself a little, you will not encounter insurmountable obstacles, even from your laziness, to partaking of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. What I wish for you with all my heart. When I wrote to you to pray more at night, I meant prayer before going to bed; and when you wake up, and pray while lying down, this is not a bad thing, but a good replacement for empty dreams, in the intervals of sleep. It is good to know a few psalms by heart so that you can read them at this time. The weather is definitely good. May it be as light in your soul as it is light in the yard! And let your sun - Christ the Lord - shine brightly in your soul, like this sun in the sky! I wish all this for Blueberry too. Why, when praying, do they not receive what they ask for? How to tune in when praying. You did well to come on foot, and with so many companions! Both the Lord and the Mother of God will graciously accept the sacrifice of your labor - and will reward you with the gift of what is necessary for you - for your salvation, and not what your will seeks... May the Lord bless your desire to confess and partake of the Holy Mysteries with success in fulfilling this desire! Confess to the monastery confessor, Fr. Hilarion, or someone else. – The Lord Himself accepts confession, and the confessor is only a witness... his ears, tongue and hands are blessing, but the Lord acts and allows; just as the Lord gives communion. How good your companions are – in your soul. But behind all of them there is one sin... they will make a bow or two... and give them what you want... take it out and put it in. If it is not given according to their desire, they raise a murmur and blaspheme God’s providence. - So they don’t get anything. - This - take it out and put it down - means commanding God. It doesn’t need to be like this, but like this: “Lord, You see that I need this and that, that this and that weighs on me. Help me and arrange me as Your holy will pleases, and not as my will desires!..” Having set yourself up in this way, you need to pray for a long time - not for a long time at a time - but for a long time... now, tomorrow... a week, a month, a year. Everyone screams and shouts: “Lord, deliver me! Lord help me! However, not mine, but Your will be done!..” So the Lord spoke in the garden of Gethsemane, and the widow in the parable... bored the judge, and she received what she asked for 86. The saints have this word: we must bother the Lord and His saints. Olga herself assigned these books... to you, Lydia and Elisaveta - three - 1) “Collection...”; 2) “Soul and Angel”; 3) “Miterikon...” divide by lot... Small books... which one you like... To three more “Miterikon”: N.I. - Chernichka... and mother Leonida. How to learn mental prayer. We must pray to the Lord to give us prayer. That's how long I haven't answered you. Guilty! I got lazy, and there was a little business. I think that you have now become accustomed to the deeds of your obedience, and the deeds themselves are going tolerably well for you. God grant that everything goes better and better. Wisdom is small! Don’t get too dusty, be patient, and little by little move everything forward. The Lord wants this and there is always an all-powerful Helper in these matters. Just you should never admit: “I want”, but: “the order requires it; I am your servant." They wanted to learn mental prayer. Good! What kind of prayer did you have before?! Prayer is essentially a mental action, and if you didn’t pray smartly, then you didn’t pray at all. “And I’ll tell you that there is no one who doesn’t pray intelligently.” Everyone is praying smartly. When everyone prays, they mentally imagine God as present and express their needs to Him. Even though they read prayers, everyone tries to mentally ascend to God. If anything should be said, it is that they do this not perfectly, not continuously, even during prayer, and, most importantly, without feelings. Thus, your desire will be: how to achieve perfection in prayer - raised intelligently to God? The answer to this is: seek and you will find. How did you learn to write?! The labor of writing, with the desire to write correctly according to samples. Do the same in prayer, and you will learn. She won’t come on her own; need to study. 1. Get used to walking in the presence of God, before the eyes of God, with the corresponding feelings. 2. As soon as there is freedom, bow down in feelings of contrition and humility. 3. Read books all about prayer - and think about it. 4. Above all, try with all your might to conduct church services in the memory of God, and then do the home rule. You need to rub your soul and it will warm you up. When the warmth comes, then the thoughts will subside, and the prayer will become pure. Still by the grace of God. That’s why we need to pray to the Lord to give us prayer. The power is not in the words of prayer, but in the spiritual mood. We need to bother the Lord, and he will give it to us. 87 God's mercy be with you, most venerable Fr. Agapius! Besides what you see in the book you mentioned about the Jesus Prayer, I can’t add anything to you. If this is not enough for you, then take the trouble to look it up yourself in the book to which that book points. And what will seem insufficient even later - ask your God-given leaders: the abbot of the monastery, your spiritual father, your adopted father and like-minded brethren. I will only say that strength is not in the words of prayer, but in the spiritual mood - the fear of God and devotion to God, and in constant attention to God, and mental standing before Him. The Jesus Prayer is only a guide, and not the very essence of the matter. Commit yourself to live in the memory of God and walk in the presence of God - and this will lead you to a good end. Nevertheless, from the grace of God, without the grace of God, nothing spiritual can be acquired in any other way. As soon as grace settles in the heart, then everything will go as it should. We have the Lord Savior, who wants to save everyone; You need to bother Him, and he will. We read in the Philokalia how one person struggled for two years and achieved that the fire in his heart was lit. I don't solve your questions. This must be decided for you by your God-given leaders. About attention during prayer. What constitutes the spirit of prayer. About confession and revelation of thoughts. I am very glad to start a conversation with you again - God bless your brotherly love in the Lord! It is very comforting to see that your zeal for internal things remains strong within you and occupies your attention. According to my strength, I will resolve your confusion and questions. “Is it possible for the Mother of God and the saints to pay attention to the heart when praying?” - Can. Where should we stand if not there? Every prayer must come from the heart. Therefore, there should be attention there. The difference in prayer lies only in the meaning and faith with which we pray. Everything is the same, like a bow: we bow before the icon of the Savior - the Savior; before the icon of the Mother of God - the Mother of God. A bow, like a bow, makes no difference: the difference is all in the spirit and meaning of the bow. “Is there any difference between praying with attention inside the heart or listening to the words of the prayer with the lips, with a humble and repentant feeling. with constant remembrance of God, who is omnipresent and all-seeing with fear and reverence?” – The last words (which I emphasized) constitute the spirit of prayer. And whoever has it, it stands in his heart: he has no time to think about words or lips, and it does not come to mind. These words: “hearing with lips” are a new invention, not found anywhere in the holy fathers. Someone else comes up with this idea: stand with your attention at the end of your tongue. Previously, there were once wise men who kept their attention on the navel - and they were called navel-makers, and these of our fashionistas should be called pagans and lip-seekers... your underlined words form the essence of prayer; everything else - bowing the head, tightness of breathing, sitting on a chair, introducing the words of prayer through nostril breathing - and these - the end of the tongue and lips - be it or not, this is a simple situation that has nothing significant. A model for prayer work was given by Maxim Kapsokalivit (in the Philokalia). I prayed for two years until the fire sank into my heart. This was a gift of grace: and henceforth he began to pray unceasingly, truly spiritual. Until now he had had a warm and earnest prayer, but real prayer began after the light. – This, fathers and brothers, should be kept in mind, care and concern. The atmosphere of prayer work is an unimportant matter. And in this situation, a certain warmth comes to the heart; but this is our labor, not grace. Considering this grace too is a delusion. So says Nikephoros, so does Ignatius and Callistus... and others. I don't understand the second question. Say something about the help of lips and tongue, but meanwhile the words are spoken in the heart... If in the heart, then why is there a thought about lips and tongue? You need to throw away everything external... Have what is emphasized above, and that’s it. Stand like this and bow down, crying out: “Lord, have mercy!” and more... “Is it possible to say: Lord Jesus Christ, through the Mother of God, have mercy on us.” - Can. But where did the question come from? Do we not cry out in church: “Holy, Holy, Holy art thou, O God, have mercy on us through the Mother of God!” – Is it possible to say “us” instead of the word “me”? Can. When the prayer is about yourself: “me”, when about everyone or many: “us”. The thought of silence and solitude is a good thought. But you’re already sitting alone, and when you’re alone, who do you talk to? Sometimes it’s so good to talk to a like-minded brother. Besides, you go to church... If at this time, when leaving, your brother asks you about something, should you roar at him like a lion? So, I think, this is how you can do it: the church and the cell are an urgent law; do not go anywhere unless absolutely necessary; You don’t have to walk through the fraternal cells, but you can walk through the forest so that you can praise the Lord with every breath; especially to test whether the soul is firmly focused on the heart. And it's not bad for your health. – Don’t force yourself into a conversation, but when someone in spiritual need starts talking, you need to talk to him kindly. This is the same as putting capital into circulation; and remaining silent, even when asked, is the same as hiding money in a chest and saving it without any profit from it. When tears come naturally during tenderness, let them come; and when they don’t come, heartfelt tenderness alone is enough. You can tease yourself into tears and cry; but this should not be considered anything, although tears always soften the heart. O. A-lu. – Revelation of thoughts is one thing, and confession is another. The first is the ascetic rule of old age; the second is the sacrament of the Church. In what sense are the disciples assigned to you - is it so that you confess them, resolve them and impose penances on them, or so that, only after listening to their revelation, you give them guidance, dispel confusion, clarify perplexities, console them? - Only in the last sense. According to the legends of the fathers, revelation itself is soul-saving, without any additions. The one who receives the revelation can say: “Well, nothing, God will forgive,” and adds: “Put a few bows”... But this is not what happens in the sacrament of confession - this is paternal benevolence. Such proceedings concern venial sins; here revelation itself gives forgiveness. An obvious violation of the commandment is resolved through the sacrament of confession. Which sins can be limited to one revelation, and which require confession - let the elders resolve this among themselves, by common council. You, as a hieromonk, can perform the sacrament of confession for your students, and this will be a real permission, and penance, if imposed, will be cleansing. Но делать ли это самому по себе или спросить настоятеля? – В монастыре есть общий духовник – исповедник. Исповедание, кроме его, есть новость в монастыре. Но ничего нового в монастыре никто вводить не может без воли настоятеля. Потому вам следует спросить настоятеля. But, if you sometimes find it convenient to perform the sacrament of confession, then there will be no sin: for you have the power to do so, but it will only be a violation of the monastic order. What you should do is up to you to decide. I would say: if there is no disorder in the monastery, perform the sacrament of confession over your students when necessary... according to the Breviary, - But it is better to ask the abbot for permission. Save yourself! I ask for prayers. What is the main thing in prayer? What to look for in prayer. The feeling of repentance is the door to the Kingdom. What is prayer without words? That's good! – God bless you to be as you wrote. And completely forget the tip of your nose and your holy lips. And be executors of the rule, spoken by Philotheus of Sinai: “In the morning, stand near the heart and beat the warriors in the name of Jesus.” In prayer, do you care a lot about words and their pronunciation? Everything should be absorbed by feeling towards God - either contrition, or thanksgiving, or glorification, or asking for what is needed for the soul and for the body and for the external situation with faith and hope. Such feelings and similar ones give rise to a cry to God, and this cry will be real prayer - and, I will say, the only true one. – Before starting prayer, one must revive these feelings by reflection, internal tension on them and prayer for them; and then stay with them all day. And this will be unceasing prayer. Seeking the Lord with faith and hope and contrition snatches every spiritual good from the hands of God and asks for the worthy prayer. Keep Maxim Kapsokalivit in your thoughts. He cried out with all his soul and with all his thoughts, and the Lord gave him... And this gift became for him a source of spiritual life. Seek this and cry out for this. Do not seek spiritual sweetness, but rather to stand before the Lord with fear and trembling, rendering Divine worship to Him. May this be according to the riches of the Lord's mercy! Speaking about the state of your prayer, in third place you put an unkind state, which you depict as follows: “It happens so shyly that neither the mind nor the heart can utter prayer words, but, as if tortured and killed, stand motionless inside, in a feeling of their insignificance and repentance.” I don’t know how to understand why you call such a state unkind? To stand motionless inside and, of course, before the Lord is a good state. If at the same time there is still a feeling of one’s insignificance and repentance, then one cannot wish for anything better. A broken spirit, a contrite and humble heart, God will not despise. The feeling of insignificance is the publican’s saving voice; the feeling of repentance is the door to the Kingdom. If this is exactly your condition, then they have nothing to be burdened with; but it is necessary to develop a feeling of insignificance and repentance and warm it up to ardor. Maybe you didn't describe him accurately, and based on what you said, he shouldn't be considered thin. In any case, there is no need to turn to the lips and the end of the tongue for help. The spiritual cannot be obtained by anything material or corporeal. Rather, one should turn to the thought of God and reflect on God’s properties, deeds and sacraments. If this is difficult, read some prayers for memory, or some psalm, or compose your own prayer according to your condition: for the Lord is near. And this will more accurately direct your condition if it is really not good. Further you write: “I had some doubt, thinking that mental prayer is higher than oral prayer before God,” but my previous letter assured you otherwise. You can't say that without any reason. I don’t remember what train of thoughts led me to say that. I repeat to you the position of prayer. Prayer is an uplifting of the mind and heart to God, or a cry from the heart to God. This uplifting and this cry can take place in the soul and be ejected from the heart without words, that is, without being clothed in words - or, as is more usual, they are clothed in words and expressed by them. In the first case, prayer is wordless, and in the second, verbal. Such a word, expressing prayer, is either internal, formed there in the heart, or not only internal, but also external, pronounced with the tongue and larynx. The first is smart, mental, and the second is oral. – Verbal prayer can also be your own, spoken in your own word, or someone else’s, memorized, or read from a prayer book. Any verbal prayer, internal or oral, expressed in one’s own or someone else’s word, has the same value before God, as long as it expresses prayerful feelings and thoughts towards God or is accompanied by them. One’s inner word always comes from the heart and mind, therefore prayer with one’s inner word is always real prayer. Prayer in a memorized word may not be accompanied by corresponding thoughts and feelings and therefore may not be a prayer, but only a prayerful sound. – According to these definitions, please distinguish when mental prayer can be lower than oral prayer. Firstly, this can only happen with verbal prayer, not one’s own, but someone else’s, a memorized word spoken mentally, and, secondly, when there are no corresponding prayerful feelings in the soul. Attached are the answers to your questions: 1. During the liturgy, being alone in church is enough, and it, like the evening rule, can be replaced with private prayer. Regarding the latter, it seems that you need to ask permission from the abbot. Yes, and about the first one, if it is customary for you to have people like you present at every church meeting. 2. Is it better to say prayers soon or not soon? This question has been resolved for you. You say: “I try to bring every word of prayer to the senses and I feel great benefit from this.” – Try and always do this – and the question – soon or slowly – will not arise at all. 3. “I love to read, but I doubt giving up prayer for the sake of reading.” – Prayer is higher than reading; therefore, leaving prayer for the sake of reading is illegal. – So that these spiritual works do not interfere with one another, it is necessary to accurately determine the prayer cell rule in measure and number and always fulfill it in a real prayerful spirit, without abandoning, without belittling or accelerating its fulfillment for the sake of anything... Also: whether while reading or doing something else the prayerful spirit finds itself, one must leave every task and pray. You can do this while sitting or walking, but it is better to stand in your usual place and bow until your soul is satisfied. Our main task is to draw closer to God, which happens mainly in prayer. Therefore, everything must yield to prayer. 4. “What is prayer without words?” – There is a motionless stay in prayerful feelings to God, without uttering any words either in the mind or with the lips. This is the highest level of prayer. Only such prayer can be unceasing prayer. What you called the unkind state of prayer comes close to this. Let the spirit be contrite, the heart contrite and humble... and let there be prayer in the soul... O. A-lu. That you, after the hassle of looking after the buildings, take up reading, is good when your thoughts are scattered and your soul is empty. Reading collects them and occupies the soul with Divine objects. But then we must repay our debt to prayer. – Pray harder and more concentratedly in church. Having strengthened yourself by this, be mindful of God and His presence with appropriate feelings at all times while supervising buildings. Prayer, thus, will not be suppressed, but perhaps only slightly suppressed... and it will be good... Determine the time for prayer in your cell and correct it urgently. Then distribute other cell affairs as you know, including reading in this order. About those elected to the rectorship. Who can safely say that he is fit to be an abbot? Therefore, it is better not to look at the matter of election to the rector from this angle. But one should look at it as the purpose of obedience - let them accept this as an appointment in the monastery for gatekeeping, water-carrying, bread-baking and any monastic obedience in general. And they fulfill it diligently, with all consideration and attention. There is no sin in saying that you are worthless and asking to be fired from this. But you shouldn’t persist. That's all that needed to be explained to you. Please fulfill my most humble request: rewrite this letter and send all previous letters and copies so that I know what was written to you. - My memory is weak. About sobriety and mental prayer. What to do when the mind starts to wander. How to acquire patience. God's mercy be with you, Honorable Fr. Agapius! I received both your letters at the same time, I express gratitude for the memory and well-wishes. I ask you not to forget me in your prayers. You said so much about yourself in the letter that, not being able to believe it, I found it best to understand it in the opposite sense - exactly this way: when you say that you don’t have something, I mean it myself that you have it, and I say: “Glory to God”... I have all the infirmities that you wrote... I see and try to overcome them and heal them. Sometimes there is success, and then the same old thing happens again. I will tell you, however, how I act. My main concern with you is about sobriety and mental prayer, they go together, and one cannot happen without the other. Mental prayer is very simple in form and seems to be very accessible. Here: descending with your mind into your heart and staring there before the face of the Lord, cry out for what you are looking for, cry out: “Lord, grant me prayer!” Are you looking for sobriety, cry out: “Lord, grant me sobriety!” Are you looking for patience, cry out: “Lord, grant me patience”... and so on, and so on... The best cry is: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!” Do this and you will have mental prayer. But our trouble is that our thoughts scatter, attention goes with them, and the mind begins to wander outside and not know where it goes. Prayer is stopped, even though we stand in prayer. How can this be? I don't see any instructions anywhere; Everyone says one thing: when you come to your senses, return to your heart again and begin to cry out from the heart again, cry out so that your mind does not run away outside. Again the mind will run away, turn it back again and again begin to cry out - and that’s all... What will happen? Will there be an end to this runaway? He should be, but things aren’t going well for you and me. It seems to me that if we add self-reproach to ourselves and asking the Lord for sobriety to this struggle, then the Lord, seeing our patient search and sincere desire for sobriety, will give us His mercy. Sobriety is a gift of grace, and it is impossible to achieve it on your own, but you just have to work to find it and pray to the Lord for it in the hope of God’s presence. How to search? Do you notice that when there is a feeling in the heart, then attention does not leave the heart: therefore I conclude that if you do so in order to begin mental prayer only by first arousing some feeling in the heart, then attention will not leave the heart, with attention the mind will be there and - mental prayer. Try this, maybe things will work out. What feeling? Anything sacred. Doxology, thanksgiving, contrition, fear of God, self-abasement, and so on... Having prayed like this, sit down and read what is spiritual - best of all about sobriety and prayer. Then walk around and think, otherwise you’ll talk to someone about the same thing... What about mind wandering? When there is a feeling in the heart, they will not wander. When the tap in the samovar is turned off, the water flows uncontrollably, and when you turn the tap on, the water stops; It’s the same with thoughts: everything flows and flows, you turn off the tap and it stops. This turning on of the tap is the awakening of a holy feeling in the heart and maintaining it. This will be all a search; the Lord will see and give what is sought. You must put on the clothes of humility and maintain a deep feeling of your insignificance and poverty in everything... When there is no such feeling, the Lord will not give the gift of sobriety. I don't know what else to say about this. If you still complain about a lack of patience, patience will never settle in you; if you do not maintain a deep feeling that everything that happens to you happens according to the will of God. Therefore, meet it with complete submission to the will of God, as if God were standing before you and commanding you to endure. Humility and spiritual poverty will immediately come... and all your worries will cease. Reading memorized prayers quickly, of course, is not good, but this is in your own power. When you notice this, stop and start reading slowly. Measure for reading prayers from a prayer book or from memory: have an understanding and awareness of what is being read; so read so that everything you read is conscious. This determines the speed. Do you remember the twenty-four prayers of St. Chrysostom? Read them more often, add to them other psalms or church hymns and also solidify them - and read with appropriate thoughts and feelings. You can replace the entire prayer rule with them, but for you there is no need for this. You mentioned something about your relationship to the monastery. You don’t care about him, there is a rector there, there are enough other officials; as God instructs them, so they do. You just pray: “Help them, Lord! Enlighten, strengthen! The Jesus Prayer is the best technique for establishing and maintaining attention before the Lord. My letter will not reach you in time; Therefore, regarding your pet, decide what you think is best. I pronounce God’s blessing on you after, and not at the beginning of your action. As for the Jesus Prayer, it is good the way you use it. It is the best technique for establishing attention and maintaining it before the Lord. This is a precious action. But it can be diminished in value due to lack of reverence in the presence of the so-called Lord. And while walking, sitting, and standing, you can say this prayer, but all with a movement of reverence to some extent. “It keeps your soul in order and your body cheerful, like a soldier in the ranks.” I then asked about it in order to direct you to do what you are doing... There is only one thing you lack. “Our misfortune often comes from the fact that when we finish one thing, but there is no other or there is no desire for it, we leave the soul to take a walk and rest, without strictly keeping it on one thing... From here the walking soul often stumbles upon bad objects, to which an echo is given within. – And here is a struggle, brought on involuntarily by inattention. - So, to avoid this struggle, the best way is to immediately take up the Jesus Prayer... Which is what I suggest you do. But pay attention to yourself. It seemed to me that there was some kind of fanfare in your speech... Look, the enemy will notice... he will jump on his shoulders and, well, drive you away... and it wouldn’t be surprising if he drives you somewhere where you don’t want to be, but at the same time it’s tempting. May the Lord guide your path and admonish you in deeds, words and thoughts! All life circumstances must be surrendered to God. Most of all, avoid turning prayer into one form. Exercise for the formation of unceasing prayer. Explanation of Psalm 101. You have the old problem again: what to do and how to get settled? Not unreasonable anxiety; but what will you do? Surrender everything to God. - His holy will be done. That’s right, this is the best fate for you! And accept it with gratitude. One soul is not poor. Get rid of this estate quickly, and then you’ll see what to do. Maybe everything will work out so that a comfortable existence will fall to your lot... Then give up. Somewhere there is a corner and work and work about saving the soul - and that’s all here. The time of fasting has come - and here is a wide application of prayer works. Work hard; but still with reason. Most of all, avoid turning your prayer into one form, or into a custom of prayer. Every time you begin to pray, force your soul to pray itself, to pray, that is, with your word and your feeling and thought. And this every time - so that the reading prayer comes as an appendage, as help, and not as the main thing. – Put all your work, or focus it, on constantly walking before God, with the thought of God, His omnipresence and omniscience. And often turn to Him from your heart. This kind of exercise finally forms an unceasing prayer, perfected in the heart and mind. Set it as a goal to achieve. Others also use a mechanical method of doing the Jesus Prayer for this purpose. You can do this too. Do this. Bring your mind out of your head into your heart and become your attention there, and say: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” - as if pouring it straight into your heart. At the same time, slightly restrict breathing and keep everything in tension in the body. You can do this while sitting, but it is better to stand. Say the prayer slowly, as if chewing every word. You need to place your attention above the left nipple - inside. Saying a prayer is usually prayerful. - And even during the day you can still say it, standing with attention in the same way. Then, your attention does not come from the heart, no matter what you do. Whether you read, go, or work, be there. - That's the law! When the burning of the heart begins to show, then the inner life will begin! And that's it! Psalm 101, about which you ask, how is it going to suit your circumstances! Beggar's Prayer. This is everyone who is sorrowful, and oppressed, and in need! Up to verse 12, the feelings of the mourner are depicted. Then - the thought moves on - to the restoration of Jerusalem, as it were, after the Babylonian captivity. - The interpreters understand that the thoughts of the psalm can be applied to anyone who grieves - to a sinful soul turning to God, to the Jewish people, hoping for deliverance from Babylonian captivity, and to the creation of the Church of Christ. Interpret private places as you wish. And verse 6... because of the voice of groaning my bone came close to my flesh. – The grief and sighs from it are so strong that the skin has dried to the bones from exhaustion. Verse 13 - But You, Lord ... - is understandable in itself. Here we turn to other encouraging thoughts. Everything flows, only God is unchangeable and His word - the Jews, who were in captivity, were comforted by this. Everything is lost, as it were said, and we are exhausted - but You, our Lord, remain forever... and Your word will be fulfilled... - the promise of the restoration of Jerusalem and the return from captivity. - The sinful soul - with this word, repenting, can also inspire itself with the hope that the Lord will reward and build it, ruined by sin... Pagan humanity could also turn to the Lord with hope that finally it too will be called to the knowledge of God... and all nations with kings will glorify the Lord Jesus Christ (verse 23). “Incentive” means to overwhelm with generosity, or generous gifts. Generosity and out of love, the word “to be generous” can mean - therefore, the verse will be generous with dust - it means they love dust. The prophet says: both the stones and the very dust of Zion - or Jerusalem - are dear to the Israelites. - You have risen - having risen, that is, having risen, awakened, paid attention - as in the 19th and 20th verses. – You apply everything to yourself, either to your external state or more to your soul. Take each verse separately and, after thinking, determine what it might mean to you. – If you don’t understand, ask, I will answer. To interpret it yourself, you won’t guess what exactly is needed - but everything in a row and all thoughts. God bless you and have mercy. May the Lord grant you to spend this saving fast in a soul-saving way. Get into the habit of praying as I prescribed. When you wake up and it’s time to get up, get up immediately without lounging on the bed. Having gotten up, sit for a while, making the sign of the cross and say: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!” - Then put on your shoes, get dressed, wash your face; but all this time keep God in your thoughts, saying: “Lord, have mercy...” or: “Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee!” Don’t turn around, don’t be distracted... Then stand up for prayer... First make three prostrations to the ground, saying: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” Then read the prescribed prayers... “Heavenly King... Holy God... (trisagion) Our Father... Rising from sleep... From bed and sleep... In vain Judge... Rising from sleep, I thank Thee, Holy Trinity... Have mercy on me, God... I believe... Virgin Mary, rejoice... Guardian Angel..." and end... make three prostrations to the ground... venerate icon or cross... and also - sitting or standing, say twenty Jesus prayers. And if there is a hunt, even more. – Read prayers slowly, delving into the words, read with your mind, not with your tongue. During the day, often read: “Our Father...” and “Virgin Mother of God...” and try to remember God all the time. And in front of the images you can bow, two or three times, so that no one can see. In the evening, when going to bed, pray like this. - Sit down before prayer, and, having made the sign of the cross, say the Jesus Prayer up to ten times, until your thoughts gather. Stand up and make three bows, saying: “God! be merciful to me, a sinner.” Next are the initial prayers - from “The Heavenly King” and “Our Father”. Then - prayers for sleep: “Have mercy on us, Lord... Lord, have mercy on us... The door of mercy... Eternal God...” and again: “Have mercy on me, O God... I believe... The Virgin Mary... Guardian Angel...” Remember what you did wrong, and repent... and thank God for good. And the end... Three bows. Then venerate the icons... also, sitting or standing, say twenty Jesus prayers or more... Undress modestly and lie down... After lying down, do not wander in your thoughts, but remember God and say the Jesus prayer until you fall asleep. Is mental prayer possible for the laity? If there is no mental prayer, then there is no prayer. What is prayer? What hinders mental standing before God. Is solitude possible for lay people? On the need for spiritual guidance. How to find your spiritual father... In the article published in the 33rd issue of “Home Conversation”, there were some thoughts that gave rise to bewilderment in you. I consider it my duty to explain them to both you and your readers. You say that mental prayer is hardly possible for the laity. “What difference do we have to mental prayer!” - you write. But if you don’t have mental prayer, then you don’t have any: for only mental prayer is real prayer, pleasing and pleasing to God. It should constitute the soul of home and church prayer, so if it is not in them, then prayer books have only the name of prayer, but not the essence of prayer. What is prayer? Lifting the mind and heart to God in praise, thanksgiving and asking for the necessary benefits. Therefore, the essence of prayer is the mental ascent to God in the heart. The mind will become conscious before the face of God and, filled with reverent fear, will begin to pour out its heart before Him - this is mental prayer! External prayer, whether at home or in church, gives it only the word, or the form; Everyone carries the soul, or being, of prayer within himself, in his mind and heart. Our entire church rite, all the prayers compiled for home use, are filled with intelligent appeals to God. The one who performs them should not stop at one external form, but go inside through it, and according to what is hidden in them, adjust his internal one. No one can be without mental prayer. The only difference that can be put into it is this: there is mental prayer, verbal or external, whether at home or in church; and there is mental prayer, in itself, without any external form of words or bodily position. And the latter is also obligatory for worldly people. The Savior commanded: go into your cage and pray in secret 88. This cage, as St. Demetrius of Rostov says and as the essence of the matter shows, is the heart. Who did the apostle command to pray without ceasing? 89 To all Christians. Therefore, also to the laity. But it is impossible to pray unceasingly except by mental prayer in the heart. What kind of person is this hidden person in the heart that the other apostle is talking about? About our spirit, standing before God, receiving power from Him and doing everything before Him, which is of great value before Him 90. Consequently, mental presence of God is obligatory; and if it is necessary, then no one has the right to say that it is hardly possible. God does not oblige you to do the impossible. It’s difficult, that’s true, but to make it impossible is unfair. But everything good in general is difficult, and even more so prayer, the source of all good things for us and a sure support. Someone will ask: how to do this? It’s very simple: take on the fear of God. The fear of God, as a feeling, will attract attention and consciousness to the heart, and as fear, it will force attention and consciousness to stand in the heart before God. Here is mental approach to God, and prayer! As long as there is fear of God in the heart, the mental standing before God will not leave the heart. Thus, here is one, all-effective means for mental prayer! - But what, you say, - things are fun! “They won’t entertain you, just take the fear of God.” It is not works that hinder intelligent standing before God, but idleness and wickedness. Put aside the bad and empty, leave the one obligatory, not because of secular, but because of evangelical obligatoryness, and you will see that the fulfillment of duties not only does not deflect, but attracts the mind and heart to God. Both are of the same kind and require the same mental structure. Whatever you do from this circle, you will always turn to God to ask for help and dedicate your work to the glory of God. When you get up in the morning, establish yourself more firmly before God in your heart, in your morning prayer, and then go about your work, entrusted to you by God, without separating your feelings and consciousness from Him. And it will be what is written in the second paragraph: “Abiding in God with your mind and heart, with the strength of your soul and body, fulfill your duties.” Mental prayer is misunderstood by those who think that its essence consists in sitting somewhere secretly and thus contemplating God. Its essence was expressed by the prophet David: I will foresee the Lord before me, as if he is on my right hand, so that I will not move 91 . Therefore, secrecy does not constitute the essence of intelligent standing before God, and a multitude of deeds does not interfere with this. You write that solitude is hardly possible for the laity. There are two types of solitude: one wholly, always present, when someone goes into the desert and lives alone; the other is private, happening from time to time. The first is, indeed, not the business of the laity; and the second is possible for them, and they even have it. Everyone has some time when he is alone, even if he did not even deliberately bother to arrange hours of solitude for himself. Turn this hour or hours to the benefit of your spiritual creation. Instead of empty dreams, go inside yourself and check your deeds - whether they are well done and whether they can be pleasing to God if you foresee Him before you. Every busy person can set aside such hours for himself every day, as long as he cares about the salvation of his soul. If they do not pay it, it is precisely because this concern does not exist or is not so strong that it exceeds all other concerns. But for those who do not care, no means are written to create a saving way of life. Thus, you need to have private hours every day; and when you have to fast, you must stop doing things for the entire time of fasting, so that fasting can be completely soul-saving. This is what was meant in relation to the laity, when pointing to solitude as a means to a godly life leading to salvation. But one more thing should be supported in the idea that there is, in addition to external, internal solitude. Outside there is noise and confusion, but in the heart a person is alone with himself. When someone’s heart aches about something, even if he is in the most cheerful and talkative society, he hears and sees nothing. There, near his heart, he sits with his illness. Everyone knows this from their own experience. If this happens in everyday affairs, then why shouldn’t it be the same in spiritual matters? There are illnesses here too, and they are even stronger and deeper than all those in life. When illness sets in on the heart in this order of life, then what will a person’s consciousness be able to extract from his solitary stay in his heart? This is a different kind of solitude, which also occurs among the laity, as soon as the concern for the salvation of their souls comes to them! The fear of God then penetrates the soul and sincerely assures it that even though it has acquired the whole world, it will not be able to pay off anything when it has to pay for the order of its past life. This sincere conviction penetrates the whole soul and produces in it such a painful concern for the one thing that is needed that it no longer wants to look at anything. She is all one with this one thing of hers, even though outwardly and externally she is busy a lot. This kind of solitude is possible for the laity too! You say that having a spiritual father with whom one could consult every time about all matters of one’s external and internal life is not feasible for worldly people. True, people to whom one could turn with complete trustworthiness for advice on spiritual life are becoming increasingly rare: somehow everyone is limited to correct behavior and the private fulfillment of duty, and they do not consider it necessary to pay attention to what is happening in the heart. External life takes precedence over internal life. But it cannot be said that the reverend is completely poor. Zealots for the inner life have at all times been rare among spiritual people living in the world: but they have always been, and now they are, and they will be in the future. Those who begin to worry about salvation develop an instinct by which they search for a beneficial spiritual father. To this we must add that for the first time we have a leadership in the order of the church, which every spiritual father can indicate, and does. It was God's way that no one would be left without proper guidance. Further guidance can be supplemented by reading the holy fathers, interviews with like-minded people, or even your own experience. From all this, that guidance is compiled, without which it is impossible to do in spiritual life. And a little bit can upset the soul. The God-fearing soul becomes confused and, praying to God for admonition, hurries to the spiritual father - and it happens that, out of nowhere, the most reassuring interpretation of the matter is obtained. Spiritual life is God's life; God watches over her. Of course, you cannot rush at everyone without caution; you must have your own reasoning; but if it hesitates, then there is nowhere else to go but to the spiritual father. And in external life there are such intricate interweavings that it is difficult to figure out how to act legally in a certain case; the more natural it is to be one in inner life. Go to your spiritual father, one, another, third - you will attack the one who will calm you down. Others, if they haven’t managed to get to something with their own experience, then science will tell the truth. Reprinted from: Works like the saints of our father Theophan the Recluse. Collection of letters. M.: Rule of Faith, 2000. Here and below, the serial number of the letter in the publication in which the text is published is indicated in parentheses. This refers to the special body positions recommended when saying the Jesus Prayer. – Ed. Ikos, kontakion - liturgical songs outlining the dogmatic or historical significance of the holiday or glorifying the saint whose memory is being celebrated. – Ed. I presented to the deceased saint a discussion about the all-goodness and mercy of God. (Explanations to the text, not signed: Ed., belong to the correspondent of St. Theophan). Lev, my eldest son, was brought up at that time in the Voronezh Mikhailovsky Cadet Corps and took the final exam, which he passed successfully. Afterwards he completed a course at the Pavlovsk Military School, and is currently serving as an officer in Warsaw. Penance – “spiritual healing”; means the voluntary performance by the believer, as prescribed by the confessor, of certain works of piety - deep prayer, alms, intense fasting, etc. - Ed. Wed. Akathist to the Holy Guardian Angel, Ikos 3: “Rejoice, for you are forbidden to communicate with a heretic and apostate to the true Church,” – Ed. In the highest abodes. – Ed. Always, unceasingly; Ps.104:4. – Ed. For nothing, without benefit or use. – Ed. Wed: John 10:38, 17:11. – Ed. “Octoichus”, or “Octophonic”, is a liturgical book of the Orthodox Church, which contains sequences with prayers for the moving days of worship of the weekly circle. – Ed. Passionate, or Great, Week is the last week preceding Easter and dedicated to the memory of the suffering (passion) of the Savior. – Ed. Covers for sacred vessels used during the liturgy. – Ed. You're going well (church glory). – Ed. They walked (church glory); Gal.5:7. – Ed. You know (church glory). – Ed. Meets (church-slav.). – Ed. Of course, not the ancient elders, but the new ones, who wrote instructions to the same monk from their own understanding. Besides, besides (church glory) - Ed. The psalms of each kathisma are divided into three parts - “glories”: the reader proclaims: “Glory to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” after which the choir sings: “And now, and ever, and unto ages of ages,” and so on. – Ed. That is, to the monks living in the cenobium - a communal monastery. – Ed. We are talking about a postscript in which it was reported that a certain elder answered the nun’s question: “Which is better to pray - with the lips or with the mind?” That is, about the remission of sins to the repentant. – Ed. That is, Lent, which lasts forty days. – Ed. Ladder. Word 28, ch. 17. Troparion is a church chant that expresses the essence of the sacred event being celebrated or narrating the events of the life of the glorified saint. – Ed. V. I. Askochensky (1813–1879) – journalist and publisher of the weekly newspaper “Home Conversation”. – Ed. I. E. Troitsky (1834–1901) – Church historian, professor, author of many works on the history of the Christian East. – Ed. I wrote to Eminence Theophan that others do not advise writing a lot about smart work, so that those who have no leaders will not fall into delusion; The bishop was pleased to send the answer. This refers to Saint Theophan’s interpretation of the 118th Psalm and the Epistle of the Holy Apostle Paul to the Romans. – Ed. This refers to the publication of the Greek translation of the Bible, completed in Alexandria by seventy interpreters (translators). – Ed. Vyshenskaya Hermitage, where St. Theophan retired in 1866. – Ed. Reprinted from: Works like the saints of our father Theophan the Recluse. Collection of letters. From unpublished. M.: Rule of Faith, 2001.