St. Nicephorus the Recluse said a very amazing phrase in the Philokalia, "After the Fall, the activity of humans shifted outwards, so, in order to come back to God, we should change our movement vector from an outward to an inward one."
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God is a Perfect Being and in order to love Him, we should approach perfection. However, it presupposes love, both in favourable conditions and in temptations. To acquire it, we should come through the periods of temptations and alienation. We should overcome them.
Those who overcome and those who learned how to overcome will approach the perfect love that loves at all times, no matter if the situation is good or bad.
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Holiness is not in the number of prayers and prostrations but in the change of our heart. If our heart becomes more kind, tender, humble, and yielding, this will mean that we are on the right path. If we make a thousand prostrations but remain mad as a wet hen, then these prostrations mean nothing.
They will not serve as our justification but will be our condemnation.
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Be afraid to commit even a small sin and do not comfort yourselves with the thought that it is merely nothing. If one ties up a huge stone or a bag of sand to someone’s neck, there will be no difference. They will similarly bring the person down.
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All Orthodox asceticism is cross-bearing and burning.
I hear that to refine gold, it is heated to such a high temperature that the impurities fall away.
To come back to God, to approach Him with the quality of our soul, we should burn away everything which is alien to the Lord's nature in it.
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We are the ones who damage our relationship with God.
We sin, commit atrocities, and blame God.
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As far as God created us to have free will, the only thing He needs to bring us back is our determination to come back, the rest He will do Himself. However, the words "to come back" presuppose going, and going presupposes effort.
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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.
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https://youtu.be/ZehyPMYuiIA IF YOU ARE WILLING YOU CAN HEAL ME #archpriestSergiyBaranov

It happens that you argue with some people. You are wrong and your pride aches and rebels. But as soon as you relax and say, "Lord, forgive me, I am wrong," it is immediately like someone switched on the light in a dark room: an instant and God comes in. Your agony and bitterness turn into happiness at once, because you have humbled yourself. You are offended and, perhaps, unfairly, but you have the Jesus prayer remaining with you and joy.
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Photo by Daria Aslanyan

The main thing is a struggle for prayer, for our attention to the heart.
Everyone, even an atheist, is capable of doing good deeds, but only Holy Christians can keep their heart pure.
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Sometimes we see monastic and spiritual life as a life in inspiration, peace and joy. However, I would like to tell you that inspiration is only a half, the other fifty percent is effort and long-suffering.
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The Jesus prayer began with the Gospel.
The Lord said, "In My name they will cast out demons" (Mk. 16:17). That is, He says about His name in a mystical sense, that Christ, Himself, is present in it.
Then the Church developed the practice of hesychasm, the Jesus prayer.
The Holy Fathers, wishing to change themselves, tried different things and, perhaps, through their experience, came to the conclusion that the name of God influences people mystically.
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It is most important to understand correctly what becoming a saint is.
Holiness is not our personal righteousness, nor it is our spiritual talent.
Holiness is when God dwells in us.
There is a very specific prayer, "O Heavenly King..., come and dwell in us..." This is the nature of holiness.
He comes into us and brings this holiness with Him.
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Spiritual joy is of another kind, it belongs to a different nature, this is why we should have discernment which is born from spiritual experience.
There should not be premature, emotional joy.
It should come through sorrow, like Pascha that comes after the Passion Week. The same goes for spiritual life.
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All Orthodox asceticism is a constant, daily trial of faith and putting of yourself at this critical point: life or death. Most often, our faith is inconsistent, unsteady and simply illusive, and we get disappointed in our state. Glory to God, if we come to this. It is not even a simple disappointment, but a sense of danger and death.
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Repentance in Greek is "metanoia," which means "a change of one's way of thinking, mindset, state of mind, and heart."
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The highest ideal is dying for your enemies, which the Archdeacon Stephen had.
Remember, what inner state he had while dying? "Lord, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."
And went to Heaven immediately.

He does not curse or judge the pagan world, the Judaic world that did not understand and accept Christ.
He has pity for this world instead.
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Ask God to give you a sense of time.
We may call it a feeling of death or a sense of time.
When people feel time, they become humble and bear everything peacefully.
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Sometimes we allow ourselves to say thoughtlessly, "Well, I'm not a saint!" It is very sinful to say so. We should say this phrase but with a different intonation. "Unfortunately, I am not a saint but I should be."
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NO TIME FOR MY PRAYER RULE. Is there? #archpriestSergiyBaranov
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