The major and final point of Christian asceticism will always be death as an immutable law of purification. It is not a final nothing, but transfiguration ("metamorphosis" in ancient Greek). If the seed does not die, there will be no sprout coming out of the soil. It resembles how a caterpillar dies in a burial shroud of its cocoon and then a beautiful butterfly comes out of it.
For humans,death has always been the most acute note in their lives, the note of strain, sorrow, pain, and fire.
This is the fact we cannot escape, but we can change something inside of it. Stop fighting with death, get busy with life that is happening both here and beyond death. When a person lives only in the format of earthly being, his or her existence becomes an instant in the infinity of history. But when we begin to live through Divine eternity, entering His limitless nature, death becomes an instant and its significance diminishes up to a point between now and ever, the present and the future. I will fall asleep tonight and wake up tomorrow, and if I will not, everything is pointless. Everything will fall to pieces and become absurd.
The remembrance of death raises the major question for any person, "Why was I born and why do I live?" Do not try to answer it without considering eternal life and God, as, no matter what you call the point of your life, it will break upon death, if death is final, if there is nothing behind it: no family, children, motherland, art, philosophy, anything. This is the most stupid point of of all your efforts and values. This is not a sense but utopia. The point of desperation and black void.
Christians overcome it without escaping from it. They come through it, like our Christ. It is possible to come through without stopping only holding on to Him, keeping your arm in His. Only with Him can we come out on the other side.
The most horrible mistake is to trust in yourself, letting His arm go and getting lost in this black void forever. God is life that gave me birth from nonbeing. Therefore, to not go there, I should stick to Him as the source of life. I am not self-consistent, without Him I will die, fall to pieces, and lose the point.
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For humans,death has always been the most acute note in their lives, the note of strain, sorrow, pain, and fire.
This is the fact we cannot escape, but we can change something inside of it. Stop fighting with death, get busy with life that is happening both here and beyond death. When a person lives only in the format of earthly being, his or her existence becomes an instant in the infinity of history. But when we begin to live through Divine eternity, entering His limitless nature, death becomes an instant and its significance diminishes up to a point between now and ever, the present and the future. I will fall asleep tonight and wake up tomorrow, and if I will not, everything is pointless. Everything will fall to pieces and become absurd.
The remembrance of death raises the major question for any person, "Why was I born and why do I live?" Do not try to answer it without considering eternal life and God, as, no matter what you call the point of your life, it will break upon death, if death is final, if there is nothing behind it: no family, children, motherland, art, philosophy, anything. This is the most stupid point of of all your efforts and values. This is not a sense but utopia. The point of desperation and black void.
Christians overcome it without escaping from it. They come through it, like our Christ. It is possible to come through without stopping only holding on to Him, keeping your arm in His. Only with Him can we come out on the other side.
The most horrible mistake is to trust in yourself, letting His arm go and getting lost in this black void forever. God is life that gave me birth from nonbeing. Therefore, to not go there, I should stick to Him as the source of life. I am not self-consistent, without Him I will die, fall to pieces, and lose the point.
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
Do you remember what happened in the Gospel?
As long as He healed and multiplied loaves, there were thousands of people around Him, after the talk about the cross, only a few.
This is because when Christ proposes Himself to us in full measure, He brings discomfort into our life first, and great pain and sorrow then.
St. Symeon the New Theologian says very beautifully, poetically and truly, "God is like a fire that seeks a matter it is going to inflame. But before He inflames it, all extraneous elements in it begin to burn out.
This is the period of pain and tears, when the fire is especially stinging and even horrible."
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
As long as He healed and multiplied loaves, there were thousands of people around Him, after the talk about the cross, only a few.
This is because when Christ proposes Himself to us in full measure, He brings discomfort into our life first, and great pain and sorrow then.
St. Symeon the New Theologian says very beautifully, poetically and truly, "God is like a fire that seeks a matter it is going to inflame. But before He inflames it, all extraneous elements in it begin to burn out.
This is the period of pain and tears, when the fire is especially stinging and even horrible."
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
The truth of God differs from the truth of humans. The truth of humans always sounds like a fact or event, while the truth of God is always the result. It means that, as a fact, the truth of humans does not often correspond with the truth of God that always has a good result.
There is the fundamental difference between the truth of God and the truth of humans because often they are absolutely opposite.
Let us assume that in despair I will tell someone truth as a fact, "You are a sinner!" After which he will go and kill himself. My truth would become a great untruth. Enmity as a fact can lead to a world war or a quarrel between loving spouses, who used to live in love.
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There is the fundamental difference between the truth of God and the truth of humans because often they are absolutely opposite.
Let us assume that in despair I will tell someone truth as a fact, "You are a sinner!" After which he will go and kill himself. My truth would become a great untruth. Enmity as a fact can lead to a world war or a quarrel between loving spouses, who used to live in love.
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
Why is it so hard for people to accept Christ? When He came to earth, He was not understood, and His disciples were not understood either. When Apostle Paul came to the Areopagus (Supreme Court in Ancient Greece), people told him he was an insane person talking nonsense, and asked him to leave them. Christ was telling mankind such things that it did not just misunderstand but did not even like. However, those who understood Christ, have changed their lives dramatically. They come out of darkness to light and, overcoming burden, plunge into joy.
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#archpriestSergiyBaranov
When we seek justice, we run away from God. When we seek truth, we turn our back on Him and keep feeling bad, and bad, and bad. We elicit man's truth and, it might seem, we should be satisfied, happy, and feel like the winners, but we feel worse, and worse, and worse... This is because we walk away from God further, and further, and further. We should not judge not only at the moment when a person is not right, but also when he is right. We should not judge at all, essentially, as a matter of our nature. Because this brings division and alienates one person from another. The Apostle Paul said he wanted to be humiliated on account of Christ's name. This means he was talking about the result. He wanted to be with Christ and for this reason wanted to be humiliated and defamed too. He was ready to be wrong.
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#archpriestSergiyBaranov
God exists in great simplicity. As long as you are complicated, you will never meet Him. Great simplicity comes through the mystery of prayer. It does not come through the process of thinking or thrashing about for it. On the contrary, it comes through the refusal from everything intellectual and wise, as the Lord says, "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise" (1Cor. 1:27). "Foolishness" is not insanity, but refusal from earthly wisdom, a move through prayer into great simplicity.
This is what the Holy Fathers say about when they use the expression "a pure mind." It is pure like a white sheet of paper. We often misunderstand the meaning of a pure mind and heart. Some people understand dirtiness as a sheet of paper filled up with obscene words. Nevertheless, if you cover a sheet of paper with the most beautiful words, it will not be clean all the same. It will be filled up with writing.
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This is what the Holy Fathers say about when they use the expression "a pure mind." It is pure like a white sheet of paper. We often misunderstand the meaning of a pure mind and heart. Some people understand dirtiness as a sheet of paper filled up with obscene words. Nevertheless, if you cover a sheet of paper with the most beautiful words, it will not be clean all the same. It will be filled up with writing.
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
It happens that you argue with someone and appear wrong. Your pride aches and rebels. But as soon as you relax and say, "Lord, I am not right," in an instant, just like someone turns on the light in a dark room, a moment, and God enters the room. And all your agony and sorrow immediately turn into happiness, because you have humbled yourself. Yes, you are wrong but you dwell in joy and this is your truth. You are offended, perhaps, without any reason, but you still have your Jesus prayer and you are in joy.
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#archpriestSergiyBaranov
If we draw eternity as an endless line, our life will be a small dot on this line. In comparison to Eternity, our life is a dot. Here is an old lady, the dot is almost over, isn't it? It is put, rounded and ended. This is the way everyone's life will end, therefore, we should not plan our earthly life but we should plan our future, eternal life. Earthly life is very short and it will end soon. Whether we want it or not, everyone of us will have face the Last Judgment. When we will stand before the Lord, we will feel scared and insecure, we will tremble in realization of the end of our life. Amen. The end. Eternity begins. All our wisdom, everything we used to say and do during this dot-life, will seem stupid and trifle, when it is gone. What is the value of it if it's all over? What is the value of yesterday, if it will never come back, be forgotten and no one will ever remember it? The present is precious. This moment and this instant. Especially if this moment stops. It stops and Eternity comes. This is precious and fearful. Or, on the contrary, there will be no fear but only joy. This joy will come to those who will have worked sincerely throughout their lives, applied all their effort and diligence, and given all their soul for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Such people will pass the threshold of life and death very easily and come into Eternity with joy.
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#archpriestSergiyBaranov
You can always find someone who is wrong and thus you will have a million enemies. However, when a person has enemies, this is hell. On the contrary, when a you do not have enemies, this is heaven. For this reason, the Lord tells us about love for enemies, that one should not estimate people's deeds or their evil heart, but their result. The result is always important, not the truth.
Justice is a great trouble. Once, my son misbehaved gravely and I scolded him. After that I could not sleep. I punished him justly, but could not sleep, my heart ached. I rose from the bed and went to hug him because my heart ached. What prevents us from reconciliation? This sense of justice. Do you realize this? The sense of justice cramps us, it paralyzes our soul and all our spiritual activity. The sense of our own rightness and wrongness of someone else is a great trouble.
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Justice is a great trouble. Once, my son misbehaved gravely and I scolded him. After that I could not sleep. I punished him justly, but could not sleep, my heart ached. I rose from the bed and went to hug him because my heart ached. What prevents us from reconciliation? This sense of justice. Do you realize this? The sense of justice cramps us, it paralyzes our soul and all our spiritual activity. The sense of our own rightness and wrongness of someone else is a great trouble.
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
Faith is not what you prove for yourself. Faith is a state. This is a real state, and not a conclusion. A conclusion is a philosophic notion, which suggests reasoning, but not your experience. Faith is an occurrence, which you experience really, not abstractly. Occur-rence… You occur in the Being of God, and this is not your imagination, this is real, and you are there. You do not think about This, you experience This.
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#archpriestSergiyBaranov
"Jesus the Sweetest..." What bitterness one should have drunk to experience this "Sweetest..."
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#archpriestSergiyBaranov
One of the leading associates of the Institute of the Human Brain said at the end of his academic career, “My whole life I have studied the brain, but I should have studied the heart…” The mind of a person, and what defines a person is not in one’s head. It is in one’s heart.
The brain analyzes, but the final evaluation is always made by the heart. The heart thinks, sees, hears. Who do we call “an insightful person”? That is what we call one who sees more than just an object or an event. Insight is the ability to evaluate things correctly. This is rather a charismatic state than logic. This is not analysis; this is intuition. This is very subtle; it originates from the heart. It is the heart that can see the elusive. God dwells in this realm. Not in the mind (which is a rough tool for dealing with subtle things) but in one's intuition. Intuition is the mind of the heart. The heart thinks through the way of intuition. And the difference between the power of mind and the power of intuition is comparable to the gap between optical and laser microscopes...
“For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Lk. 17:21). The Lord speaks about the heart, which has the ability to experience the Kingdom of Heaven, i.e., God. It is the organ that sees the spiritual.
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The brain analyzes, but the final evaluation is always made by the heart. The heart thinks, sees, hears. Who do we call “an insightful person”? That is what we call one who sees more than just an object or an event. Insight is the ability to evaluate things correctly. This is rather a charismatic state than logic. This is not analysis; this is intuition. This is very subtle; it originates from the heart. It is the heart that can see the elusive. God dwells in this realm. Not in the mind (which is a rough tool for dealing with subtle things) but in one's intuition. Intuition is the mind of the heart. The heart thinks through the way of intuition. And the difference between the power of mind and the power of intuition is comparable to the gap between optical and laser microscopes...
“For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Lk. 17:21). The Lord speaks about the heart, which has the ability to experience the Kingdom of Heaven, i.e., God. It is the organ that sees the spiritual.
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
I do not believe in prayer without sorrow, burden, and pain. It concerns the prayer of reunion, integration, and deification, but not just a request, gratitude, or repentance. Most often, it feels more comfortable to speak to
God from afar, at a distance, because when we come closer to Him, everything that contradicts Him, our sinful nature, might be burnt.
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God from afar, at a distance, because when we come closer to Him, everything that contradicts Him, our sinful nature, might be burnt.
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A correct inner life brings our mind to Christ. In Christ, the external feat acquires a wise and sober direction. The external feat is imperfect without noetic life. Noetic life is not our inner struggle, it is escaping from struggle. It is running to Christ. Speaking about the struggle, I mean the struggle with thoughts. We do not need it. All our efforts should be applied to keep our mind near Christ. Do not pay your attention to anything sinful. Even in contradiction with a sin, you nonetheless pay attention and give the powers of your soul to it. You should better give this all to Christ. Even in a struggle and disagreement with a sin, it, a sin, will all the same smear your soul and leave a memory of the sin in it, which one day your heart might sympathize with.
May only Christ always be in your heart.
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
May only Christ always be in your heart.
#archpriestSergiyBaranov
We may sigh. I sigh very often myself. But we should not give up. You sigh and go on.
We should not complain about our life and be disappointed.
We should understand that these sighs are salvational, they bring us closer to perfection. Do not despair, groan for a while and go further. No need to say, "Why is this happening to me?"
This is your script. The Lord gave it to you, and you should accept it from the hands of God.
When you realize that it is from the hands of God, you will accept it with joy.
But when you do not see the point, it is unbearable.
You want to cry when you see an open door and the Unfading Light but you cannot enter. And no one is to blame, only yourself. God has opened this door and is standing and waiting behind it. No one is to blame for your inability to enter.
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We should not complain about our life and be disappointed.
We should understand that these sighs are salvational, they bring us closer to perfection. Do not despair, groan for a while and go further. No need to say, "Why is this happening to me?"
This is your script. The Lord gave it to you, and you should accept it from the hands of God.
When you realize that it is from the hands of God, you will accept it with joy.
But when you do not see the point, it is unbearable.
You want to cry when you see an open door and the Unfading Light but you cannot enter. And no one is to blame, only yourself. God has opened this door and is standing and waiting behind it. No one is to blame for your inability to enter.
#archpriestSergiyBaranov