Spiritual vision. Have spiritual vision

Parables of Jesus

Now that the tension had subsided, Peter and Nathanael congratulated each other on their interpretations and, with the exception of the twins...

Deacon Andrei Kuraev as a church critic of esotericism

This article, as it were, represents (and that is exactly what it was!) a resolutely fragment of a text from a fundamental three-volume ...

Latrun - Monastery of Trapists (Silents)

This majestic building, built in 1927, excites the imagination of a wanderer who turned off the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway...

The original form of Christianity

The Change of Christianity If we study the history of Christianity, we will notice that for two thousand years constant...

Humility

LN Tolstoy, Reading circle Without humility, improvement is impossible. "Why should I cultivate when I'm already good?"1 Why...

Gospel of Judas

And I went to the centurion Cassius Longinus and asked him if you would help the Lord, could you release and hide him secretly [somewhere]? ...

Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles)

This is the way of life! Chapter V. And here is the way of death: first of all, it is evil and full of curses. (Here) murders, adulteries, passions, ...

Protevangelium of James

XII. And she finished spinning scarlet and purple, and took it to the high priest. The high priest blessed her and said: God has exalted...

To the question of why women are closer to salvation?

When a Christian begins not just to mentally analyze the Holy Scriptures, but with his heart, in simplicity, to empathize with what ...

Dear readers! Brothers and sisters! I ask you to express your opinions about the book "Good News", is it useful for the modern Orthodox Christian? Leave questions or feedback on the site, you can write to the email address: [email protected]

Spiritual vision of the world.

1. Perception of Divine power and knowledge.

2. Mystical vision of the "spiritual" and material world.

3. Christian "spiritual vision" and "discernment of spirits".

4. True knowledge and false demonic mysticism.

5. "White and black", "useful and harmful" knowledge.

6. The process of spiritual enlightenment.

7. Gracious Orthodox mysticism.

8. The main cause of "spiritual blindness" and "mystical charm."

9. The essence of Christian knowledge of God.

10. The Orthodox concept of "miracle".

11. Divine-human knowledge of the true faith.

12. "New wine and new wineskins" of Christian knowledge.

13. The sin of "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" is a conscious denial of God and heretical distortions of Christian dogmas.

14. Higher knowledge as "being in the Holy Spirit".

The qualities of the One God that we understand naturally imply the Omnipotence and Omniscience of the Creator of the Universe, that is, the presence of absolute Power and Knowledge. It cannot be otherwise. Only the eternal and uncreated God-Spirit, who created and continues to create everything that exists, can have absolute knowledge of being and creative power for the creation of the universe.

By creating man in His “image and likeness,” the Lord gave us eternal life. The immortal human personality acquires the ability to freely cognize and creatively transform the material world created by God. But the world is very complicated, and earthly man is at the initial stage of his development. In order to truly perceive undistorted and useful revealed knowledge, a person must first learn the correct way to receive Divine knowledge with the help of the Creator.

God's help never humiliates a person. A Christian's relationship with God is not in the least like a "master and slave" relationship. It is a sincere relationship between a loving Heavenly Father and a loving son who happily responds to God's Love and patiently learns Divine wisdom. The grace-filled knowledge and power of God are always given to us unlimitedly and free of charge. But first we must learn to perceive them, having appropriately prepared the body and soul through a righteous life. Firstly, a kind of "safety technique" operates here, which does not give Divine knowledge into "inept and evil hands." Secondly, the “pure energy” of the power of God can only enter a righteous person cleansed of evil.

Despite the presence of God-given creative abilities inherent in our spirit and manifested human soul, earthly man is not able to rise to the level of divine-human knowledge because of sinful imperfection and spiritual weakness. In addition, a person is constantly interfered with by fallen angels-demons who are trying to pervert the idea of ​​correct knowledge of the world and its practical results, directing them to the creation of sin and evil.

The organic, natural development of thinking and feelings, the mind and heart, the disclosure of the psycho-physical abilities of the body and the "spiritual" organs of the soul, occurs as the grace-filled purification and transformation of the Christian's bodily and spiritual nature. It is as a result of the fulfillment of the Divine commandments, which enlightens us with the grace of the Holy Spirit, that an earthly person, of course, to the extent of human strength, reveals the ability of spiritual vision of the universe, acquires the qualities of Divine omniscience and omnipotence.

Only with the help of the Divine energy-grace of the Holy Spirit and in direct dependence on the real spiritual and religious, moral and moral development, a person becomes able to perceive the Divine power and cognize the true knowledge descending from above, which reveals to us the essence of human existence, embracing the structure of the visible and invisible universe. .

God-given Christian wisdom is only to a small extent connected with the gift of mystical vision of the visible material and invisible "spiritual" world. This gift, as well as the opportunity to communicate with non-material "spiritual" beings like Angels and human souls, is given to very few saints, and depends solely on the action of Divine Providence.

The reason for the difficulty of mystical vision does not lie at all in the fact that God allegedly “specially does not allow us to cognize matter and closes the entrance to the spiritual worlds, jealously guarding His power.” An earthly person is simply not capable of a full-fledged vision of the spiritual and material universe because of his sinful imperfection. It is also necessary to take into account the fact that human nature is not adapted to the structure of the spiritual worlds, and the creatures inhabiting them are immeasurably superior to man in all respects. They have their own rules and their own masters, and it is not only frivolous, but also very dangerous not to take into account the will of them.

Only the lowest and simplest manifestations of the existence of the spiritual worlds are accessible to us. A typical type of human spiritual vision is contacts with fallen angels-demons, which are not uncommon for alcoholics and drug addicts with an "altered" or rather poisoned consciousness. Some people clearly feel the spiritual essence of the natural elements, behind which are the divinely created "spirits of nature", and many of them are greatly distorted by the impact of the original fall and demonic intervention. There is also a magical magical spirit vision, when a person consciously summons unclean spirits to receive demonic help. Naturally, all the above types of mystical vision of the world can hardly be called normal, useful, and even more so safe.

For real mystical communication with the higher Divine worlds and enlightened beings of Light, a person must prepare the body and soul with a righteous life to the state of divine-human deification. Few saints, who already commune with God and Angels on earth, approach the divine-human level, similar to the state of the incarnated Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Given the sinful imperfection of our bodily and spiritual nature, the task is extremely difficult, occupying almost the entire earthly life and still accessible to a few only by the will of God.

In eternity, for an enlightened soul, all of its God-given abilities of cognition and creativity are revealed in a natural way without effort. On earth, one should not rush, willfully “forcing” this area of ​​spiritual and religious knowledge. It is not for nothing that the Orthodox teaching sternly warns believers about the pernicious danger of "spiritual delusion". Another thing is if the Lord Himself sends mystical gifts to a righteous person to help people. In this case, the Christian accepts Divine revelation with the utmost humility, not being deceived in the least about “his merits and abilities” and really applying it for the benefit of himself and humanity.

Mystical Christian knowledge, which comes to a person as a result of grace-filled communion with God and knowledge of God, would rather be called the gift of “discernment of spirits”, in the sense of distinguishing between the impact on a person of the spirits of Light or the spirits of darkness, as well as their activities on the principle of “what is good and what is evil” .

A true believer “sees and knows” God with an enlightened mind-consciousness and “feels” the Creator with a “pure heart”. Christian "formless spiritual vision", which in most cases does without explicit "mystical contacts", means a clear understanding of the essence of phenomena and things created by God or sent to man by dark forces.

As a result of blessed practice Christian life, the believer learns to clearly distinguish the Divine Truth from the action of the forces of evil and the activity of human consciousness. Gracious spiritual vision correctly builds a "hierarchy of values", forming an undistorted divinely revealed worldview, aimed at the benefit of the person himself and our entire world. Distorted demonic mysticism, on the contrary, serves to satisfy proud curiosity and purposefully brings evil to people.

The Christian gracious "distinguishing between good and evil" is the most useful, accessible and safe manifestation of mystical life for earthly man. But in order to achieve it, a person must sincerely do the will of God in the name of personal salvation of the soul and the transformation of our world. Full-fledged spiritual wisdom, revealed from above, comes to the believer in the process of internal transformation - the birth of a Christian "from water and the Spirit", as a result of the practical fulfillment of the commandments of Christ.

For a normal solution to the issue of mystical life, a Christian must immediately understand that divinely revealed wisdom cannot be acquired by purely human efforts, with the help of a logical study of theology and philosophy, through special magical rituals and psychophysical exercises.

There are many philosophical and mystical-religious teachings that assert that, under certain conditions, absolute knowledge about the universe, inherent in the Creator of the Universe, becomes available to the consciousness of an earthly person. Usually, such "spiritually drunk" and "charming" teachings have a very distant relation to the experience of traditional world religions, which are well aware of the difference between creation and the Creator.

In our time, especially many false "spiritual teachers" have appeared, talking about the possibility of unlimited access to sources of "cosmic universal information" using various meditation techniques and psychophysical exercises. Such "teachers" can recognize the experience of world religions, speaking about the salvation of the soul, about the purification of man from the power of sin and evil. At the same time, they interpret traditional religious knowledge as "incomplete and outdated methods" that only to a small extent help to acquire "cosmic knowledge".

The statements of the teachers of modern "man-godism" clearly imply that knowledge and experience of traditional religions can be dispensed with. It is enough to use the superhuman abilities of our consciousness. It is significant that the achievement of "cosmic knowledge" does not actually depend on the ethical and moral, moral and spiritual-religious state of a person. And "knowledge" itself can equally serve good and evil, which supposedly are "two equivalent forces of the universe."

The "universal knowledge" of magical man-godness has in fact nothing to do with the Divine commandments. This is predominantly a logical and magical mastery of the laws of the universe, giving a person omnipotence and omnipotence, regardless of the degree of purification of his soul from the power of sin and evil, regardless of his enlightenment by the spirit of selfless goodness and selfless love. Such conclusions immediately prompt a spiritually sober person to a completely natural conclusion about what "spiritual forces" are behind the proud supporters of "cosmic" knowledge.

Christian wisdom humbly and at the same time uncompromisingly affirms that any proud teaching that denies or considers unimportant the path of a righteous life, the path of purifying a person from the power of sin and evil, the path of developing love for God and people, to one degree or another comes from the forces of evil and is controlled by spirits. darkness.

In most cases, the teachings of magical human godhood are created by the distorted, “spiritually blind” mind of a proud and selfish person, inspired by demonic forces. It is not surprising that they resolutely reject the spiritual-religious creativity of conscious holiness and selfless goodness.

"Neutral" knowledge, independent of the spiritual state of an Angel, a person or any other intelligent being created by God, simply does not exist in the Universe. Or the creatures created by God choose the path of holiness, kindness and love, receiving from God access to the full knowledge of the universe for the benefit of all divine creation. Or they, like fallen angels, choose the path of selfish, proud evil, limiting themselves to the “lowest levels of being” that serve the primitive destruction of the God-created world.

Despite the god-like abilities, the earthly man, distorted by the Fall, is not able to properly develop them by purely human efforts without the help of the Creator. Nevertheless, Divine knowledge and power easily become available to every righteous and kind person as he becomes graciously enlightened. Without the help of Divine Love, a person cannot correctly perceive and apply even the simplest knowledge about the structure of the material world, which is very clearly confirmed by the “successes” of modern science and technology, aimed mainly at the destruction of our planet and the literal suicide of mankind.

Knowledge about the universe is interesting, but not always useful. Because in addition to the “bright”, really useful knowledge given to people by God for material and spiritual creation, there is a distorted “dark” demonic knowledge, revealed by the forces of evil for our death.

Divine Providence basically reveals to us the knowledge necessary for the salvation and proper development of the Earth and humanity, and dangerous spiritual or material knowledge makes it inaccessible or hinders its application. This is not a humiliation of a person at all, but the Creator's paternal concern for our preservation, because ethical and spiritual-religious development is still in last place for most people. If we are given the opportunity to “control nature” like God, we will inevitably destroy ourselves, which is shown in the most accessible way, for example, by the use of atomic energy.

The highest knowledge about the true structure of the universe is practically inaccessible to a sinful earthly person with a distorted consciousness and an imperfect body. In fact, even talking about it does not make sense. Moreover, after death physical body the human soul acquires divine-human perfection in a natural way without any effort.

For an individual and humanity as a whole, the most important is the correct Christian spiritual and religious knowledge, which gives us the opportunity to transform our earthly nature and the world around us with the help of the Divine energy-grace of the Holy Spirit. At all times, Christian knowledge about the blessed knowledge of God and communion with God is the most vital and necessary for the existence and development of mankind. Without it, the world would have "ceased to be" long ago. Naturally, God-given knowledge, revealed through the practice of traditional Orthodox life, cannot serve the purpose of gaining proud omnipotence and evil omnipotence.

Gracious divine-human knowledge is revealed by God only to righteous people, who direct God-given abilities towards the creation of goodness and love. Reasonably limiting the sinful human self-will, destructive for us, the Creator gives us only what is really necessary - useful and saving knowledge.

Christian spiritual and religious knowledge has only little to do with controlling the forces of the material world, and mainly concerns the liberation of a person from the power of sin and evil for the sake of the grace-filled transformation of a Christian by the spirit of holiness, goodness and love.

Fallen angels, seeking to enslave man and subdue him to their evil will, purposefully reveal to people knowledge aimed at subjugating the material universe for the sake of creating an artificial world that rejects the natural creation of the One God. Regardless of whether the “dark revelation”, beneficial only to demons, refers to “spiritual” knowledge such as magic and witchcraft or scientific knowledge, it is always harmful and dangerous, because it necessarily makes a person do evil to the death of himself and the world around him. It is not surprising that, unlike the creative Divine knowledge, the logical outcome of demonic knowledge is the self-destruction of its bearer.

"Spiritually negative" knowledge, usually known under the guise of "white" or "black" magic, is always aimed at gaining proud omnipotence. Modern science is not far behind the demonic essence of magic, working mainly for the military industry, creating new tools of death, serving to increase material wealth and satisfy base passions. Even that knowledge of the material world, which is really useful to us, is distorted beyond recognition by the mind of a proud and evil person. For example, medicine, which should serve to save a person’s life and maintain his health in accordance with moral, ethical and religious principles, turns into an attempt to achieve earthly immortality and animal pleasures at any cost. What is worth one genetic engineering or experiments to control the human psyche, with the help of which scientists and rich people strive to become "gods" who control the people like a "herd of slaves."

The further humanity exists, the clearer it becomes that any knowledge that is not based on Divine commandments brings people mostly harm. Despite the technical and scientific power of modern civilization, people continue to suffer from disease and hunger, war and crime, mental unrest and social injustice.

The danger of spiritual and physical destruction of mankind comes not only from scientific knowledge. In our time, when it has become clear that science and social measures are not a universal way to correct the situation on Earth, various “cosmic” teachings are becoming more and more popular. Their representatives allegedly speak on the “name of God”, understanding by God anything they like - the Cosmos and the Universe, “reasonable” matter and beings of the “spiritual” world, but not the Personality of the One God and the Creator of the universe, who reveals Himself to traditionally believing people.

Like proud magic and godless science, "cosmic" teachings have one common characteristic feature - they are aimed at developing superhuman abilities while completely denying our sinfulness and the need for repentance through a righteous life. Some "cosmic" teachings quite seriously assert that God "fears" for His power and therefore hides from us knowledge about the structure of the universe. Some consider God to be a faceless "cosmic energy", the power of which becomes available to everyone under certain conditions. In any case, it turns out that Divine Omnipotence and Omniscience can be achieved by man himself through the control of nature with the help of scientific and magical knowledge, psychic energy and technotronic machine civilization.

Insignificant in his spiritual powers, earthly man distorted by original sin wants to establish a “heavenly order” on earth without the help of God. The times of primitive atheism are long gone, and now, obeying the suggestion and clear guidance of demonic forces, a sinful person strives to become a man-god. Unlike traditional atheists, worshipers of man-god even recognize the existence of God, declaring that we no longer need the Creator, because we ourselves can easily “become like gods.” In fact, we see a modern version of the temptation of mankind by Satan with the help of the lure of "absolute knowledge", repeating the original fall.

Unlike traditional religious teachings, which require a person to practice practical work on himself in obedience to the will of God, “cosmic” false teachings lure people with “tricky” sayings, consisting of meaningless “general” phrases about goodness and love. Correct moral and moral instructions, partially found in such teachings, are immediately crossed out by “our right” to put above all the “dignity” of a person, which implies human pride and primitive sinful self-love.

Thus, the forces of evil most effectively distract humanity from true knowledge, confusing people and directing them to the path of pernicious false wisdom. The affirmation of the “dignity” and the highest value of a sinful earthly person, “having no need” for repentance and correction, inevitably serves to satisfy the most primitive bodily and spiritual passions. Any adherent of "man-god" thinks only about his own omnipotence. If his conscience worries him, he reassures himself that "some excesses" and violent decisions against "unenlightened" people are necessary for their own "good". That is why such teachings appeal to proud and conceited people who are extremely contemptuous of Christian creativity of conscious holiness, selfless goodness and humble love.

Any sober-minded and cautious person understands how dangerous any spiritual and material knowledge is, which can be equally directed to good and evil, to help people and to their slavish submission. For an unbeliever, this caution concerns mainly the material world and its social arrangement. A believer understands that in addition to the material, there is also a spiritual world, that in addition to the body we have an immortal soul, which, as a result of the use of distorted or dangerous knowledge, dooms itself to spiritual death.

The material world is the initial, simplest stage of creation, subject to the destructive influence of time, while the spiritual world exists forever. The believer most of all appreciates spiritual and religious knowledge, which teaches a person salvation from the power of evil and brings universal benefit through the creation of a righteous life and good deeds. Moreover, only this knowledge really solves our material and social problems.

Soberly realizing his sinful imperfection, a believing person wisely and humbly accepts only the knowledge that is given to us from above for the spiritual benefit of mankind. The whole history of the world shows that without Divine help, humanity cannot cope with its sins and, moreover, defeat the forces of evil, establishing true peace and justice on earth. First of all, God-given knowledge teaches us the practice of grace-filled divine-human enlightenment, which is the primary, most important and valuable task for mankind.

The Lord instructs mankind on the path of spiritual purification and development in the simplest and at the same time effective ways. Their difficulty in practical application is explained mainly by the demonic influence of sinful self-love, which does not allow a person to work selflessly for the good of others. However, with the help of grace, any believer is able to go through the Christian path of spiritual birth "from water and the Spirit", leading to real communion with God and knowledge of God. If desired, each person can acquire the highest divine-human wisdom inherent in a free human personality, cleansed from the power of evil and enlightened by the spirit of selfless love.

Along with the godless admirers of science and technology, proud "cosmic" teachers and magicians teach about the possibility of gaining omnipotence through the knowledge of "secret knowledge about the structure of the world and man." It turns out that if we know everything about the universe, we will be able to solve the main "painful" social, national, cultural and moral problems. This is a senseless attempt to solve the "internal" problem by external influences, without removing its real cause, contained in the person himself.

A Christian does not deny the importance of useful scientific knowledge, but first of all he seeks to acquire spiritual and religious knowledge that teaches us not to do evil and freely do good with the assistance of the Divine energy-grace of the Holy Spirit, which internally changes the human essence, radically transforming our body and soul , mind and heart. Only by learning to live righteously and do good, we can solve all other issues.

The grace-filled deification of the individual, which is vital for the person himself for personal salvation, at the same time has a positive effect on the world around him, purifying it from the power of sin and evil by the deeds of a righteous life, goodness and love.

Magical and scientific knowledge achieved without the help of God by the efforts of the proud human mind, represents the false bait of demonic forces, drawing a person into the abyss of spiritual and material death. Despite the zealous proclamation of the "triumph of the universal theories of" freedom, equality and brotherhood "," rulers " modern world still use godless scientific and magical knowledge to seize power and enslave common people. There is more and more scientific knowledge and material wealth, but because of our sinfulness, they actually do not bring real benefit to humanity. Figuratively speaking - "one percent of the population is overeating, and ninety-nine are starving."

A believing person, who has acquired the grace-filled God-revealed Christian knowledge, directs it to one single goal - to teach people to do good, consciously renouncing the creation of evil. Overcoming selfish pride, Christian saints receive from God "wonderful" superhuman abilities, but they never use them for self-affirmation, enslaving influence on people and selfish enrichment. To see the difference between real Knowledge and its “deceitful double”, it is enough to analyze the activities of numerous “magicians and healers” who treat diseases with one hand and offer any services with the other, such as inducing damage and love spells.

Superhuman abilities dormant in our souls begin to act in righteous and holy people by themselves, as a "natural application" to the knowledge of the true Christian faith. The righteous does not seek to amaze those around him with miracles to satisfy pride and lust for power. A Christian who humbly dedicates his deeds to God and people does not value superhuman abilities much, understanding them as an auxiliary, not the most necessary means of saving the world. First of all, a Christian wants to wake up the souls of people from hibernation and delusions of a sinful life, directing them to the path of spiritual enlightenment by his own example of fulfilling the saving will of God.

Pride and selfishness are always the most dangerous sins. Especially if they are based on the logical power of the mind and superhuman psycho-energetic abilities. It is pride that creates a kind of anti-divine revelation inspired by diabolical forces. Just try to doubt the wrongness of the proud “teacher”, the sources of his abilities, as a person who zealously cares for the “good of the whole world”, in an instant is filled with “rabid” hostility and anger towards Christianity, clearly showing where his knowledge comes from and "talents".

For a Christian, the Lord is, first of all, the Source of Holiness and Love, and not "the bearer of information and power." Perfecting in the creativity of selfless love for God and people, the believer unites gracefully with God in the Spirit, returning to an undistorted, sinless state. Only a person, free from the power of evil, receives from above the ability to correctly cognize the world, realizing the creativeness of the salvation and development of mankind.

Christian teaching, serving the practical realization of the Divine Truth, at the same time shows us the only way to gain undistorted divinely revealed knowledge. Through the Christian creativity of a righteous life, good deeds and self-sacrificing love, the Orthodox believer naturally acquires correct knowledge about God, the world and man.

Orthodox communion with God and the knowledge of God does not mean at all that the believer, at will, constantly communicates with the spiritual world and spiritual beings in the style of “video communication”. Christian mystical spiritual vision is mainly manifested through the undistorted hearing of conscience, which is the expression of the will of our divinely created spirit. Perceiving Divine revelation through the voice of a “pure” conscience, the soul of a righteous person receives the ability to control our bodily and spiritual nature, fulfilling the saving will of God without error.

It is equally important to learn to humbly hear God and the spiritual world through the actions of those around you. The Lord specifically reveals himself to us through "near and far" so that we are under external control. It is very difficult to soberly control oneself, and from the outside our mistakes and sins are best seen. It is especially important to hear the spiritual mentors of the Church, who use for our upbringing and admonition all the wealth of Holy Scripture and the Holy Tradition of Christianity.

What people usually take for "real" mysticism, in the sense of various "prophetic dreams" and direct visions spiritual world, plays the last role in the life of a Christian. A Christian specifically refuses to receive such abilities of his own free will, so as not to fall into a proud "charm". This is precisely an “addition” to the grace-filled mysticism of a righteous life, which is understood by a Christian exclusively as a gift from above, sent to a few people in rare situations.

A righteous person, illumined by sincere love for God and people, unlimitedly perceives God-given spiritual knowledge and grace-filled power that serve to save the Christian himself and the world around him. This is the knowledge of true spiritual wisdom, aimed at the personal benefit of man and all mankind. God-given wisdom clearly distinguishes deeds according to their "inner essence", clearly dividing knowledge into true and false, depending on what it serves - good or evil, righteous or sinful life.

Through visible religious creativity, an Orthodox Christian strives for inner blessed illumination, which reveals the sight and hearing of the human soul, giving us the opportunity for proper communication with God and the spiritual world. Christian communion with God humbly refuses to search for obvious mystical phenomena, realizing that a real vision of the spiritual world is accomplished by the will of God and happens very rarely. The Lord is revealed to the majority of believers in personal communion with God through the voice of conscience, when a person clearly hears the will of God in his soul. Also, the will of God is known to a Christian through the teaching Christian Church and obedience to spiritual guides, through simple communication with believers and non-believers.

It is significant that the process of "internal" knowledge of God does not exist on its own without the participation of "outer" knowledge of God, based on humble attention to the revelation of the will of God in the surrounding people and the teachings of the Church. The Lord expects from us a personal, extremely conscious creation of His will, but at the same time a Christian is obliged to remember the destructive influence of religious pride. For the correct individual education of the Christian personality, humility teaches us to distinguish false revelation from the Truth, using the conciliar experience of the Church and the opinions of others. This is the basic principle of the reception of Divine revelation, equally obligatory for great saints and ordinary believers.

At all levels spiritual development the Christian humbly recognizes "personal" power and knowledge as an undeserved gift of God's mercy. Christian knowledge of the will of God is inseparable from constant control over proud self-will. To ensure the "safety" of spiritual and religious life, a Christian prefers to check his personal spiritual state and his feelings with the help of the conciliar teachings of the Church, the people around him and spiritual mentors, purposefully refusing the path of "mystical phenomena and revelations."

This principle concerns the use of all means of spiritual development - theological knowledge and church life, asceticism and prayer. Only humility of mind saves a person from the delusions of pride and the creation of evil in relation to people, gracefully and mystically revealing to him an undistorted perception of the saving will of God.

If a person really strives to know the structure of the universe and the spiritual laws of being through the perception of power and knowledge of the "light direction", he voluntarily chooses to serve good, calling for help from God and the forces of Light. The only opposite option involves serving the forces of darkness. There is simply no other way. When the Lord shows a person the saving way of self-renunciation from a sinful and evil life, which is necessary for our own good, we usually do not like it. However, this is the only way to know the real Truth.

Fallen angels-demons, who are the focus of crafty, deceitful pride, in any case deceive the proud and therefore stupid sinner. At first glance, it seems that it is the Almighty Creator who “subdues and enslaves” a person, “demanding” from us the service of a righteous life and humble love. It is natural for a sinner who does not want to infringe on his primitive desires to "imagine" that demons open the way for "unlimited freedom" to a person. In fact, the fallen angels send evil power and destructive knowledge to the sinner for their own self-interest in order to get the soul of a person. Indulging destructive self-will with demonic help, a sinner can indeed do evil indefinitely in a short earthly life, but then the terrifying retribution of eternity inevitably comes.

The “higher” falsity of godless and anti-spiritual teachings, which affirm the primary value of “human freedom from God”, is clearly manifested when comparing the life of a good righteous man with the life of an evil sinner, when comparing their specific deeds in relation to people. Mystical experience and theological knowledge, religious creativity and its sources are also easily verified by a person’s behavior, whether he strives to live righteously and selflessly do good, or seeks proud power over people, destroying himself and bringing evil to people in pursuit of sinful pleasures.

There are always few great saints and righteous people on earth. There are also few conscious executors of the will of demonic forces in the world. Most of humanity vaguely represents the spiritual meaning and purpose of our earthly existence. There is no doubt that the external - social, political, economic and educational reasons for the "spiritual and religious blindness" of earthly humanity play an important role. And at the same time, in most cases, only the person himself is to blame, indulging his sinful conceited pride.

Even in the case when a proud person is a member of the Church, his consciousness is constantly distorted by the influence of bodily and spiritual passions, not allowing him to understand when he sins and when he serves God. Full spiritual knowledge is given only to a humble person who clearly sees that we sin more often than we do the will of God, that God-revealed knowledge and grace-filled power are vital for spiritual development, that it is always difficult to live according to the commandments, but we must strive to fulfill the will of God in the process of a "simple" righteous life.

The "spiritual" disease of religious pride is deadly for any believer in any "proportion". Pride quickly leads to thoughtless and insane "charm", which unconditionally requires a person to listen only to himself, recognizing only personal "spiritual experience", not paying any attention to the advice and help of others. As a result, dark forces begin to completely control the proud and proud person.

Often, when the "charm" is clearly manifested in the form of a mental illness, it is already too late - a person loses his mind under the influence of demonic energy and may even commit suicide. In order to avoid such terrible falls, the believer must strictly follow the path of humble obedience to the conciliar teaching of the Church, the experience of her teachers and spiritual guides, although such obedience severely limits his will and desires. And then the difficult path of traditional Christian education necessarily leads the believer to gaining the God-given ability to independently understand and do the will of God, correctly distinguishing between good and evil.

Christian "spiritual vision" is directly related to the growth of conscious faith through the practice of a righteous life, selfless kindness and selfless love towards God and people. If a Christian self-satisfiedly hopes to achieve the salvation of the soul and grace-filled enlightenment through the study of theological knowledge and the careful execution of the ritual law, he will inevitably get lost in the labyrinths of "dead" logical knowledge and magical ritual belief.

In fact, a proud believer is no different from a proud godless atheist or a conscious atheist, because they all do the same "deeds of darkness." The proud aspiration of the believer to gain the salvation of the soul and the knowledge of the spiritual world by his "own" forces, one way or another, takes him away from God and subjugates the fallen angels. The proud man who forgets the humble basis of the true Orthodox faith, will certainly be deprived of grace-filled help and become unable to serve God and people.

It is not surprising that the proud often ceases to fulfill even the ritual law, replacing it with ugly, false fakes. Church "activists" - Pharisees and self-satisfied scribes - "theologians" quite seriously accused the Savior, who healed lepers and raised the dead, that He and the apostles eat bread without washing their hands. The most "terrible" in this "violation" is a slight deviation from physical hygiene. Indeed, it is not known at all whether this case the need to wash your hands. Such "traditions of the elders" well show that the visible verbal veneration of God can be incredibly far removed from the confession of the true faith. And not only from the confession of dogmas and canons, but even from the simplest ritual piety.

Hypocritical believers, purposefully abolishing the Divine commandments for the sake of observing meaningless, non-binding "human institutions", hope for "it is not clear what." This is not even a faith, but some “national-cultural” traditions. Only an extremely stupid person, spiritually blinded by excessive pride, can try to gain God-given knowledge through such “piety”.

Despite the Old Testament examples, the same mistakes are often repeated by Orthodox believers, who madly hope not for the fulfillment of the commandments, fasting and prayer, but for the simplest rules of temple discipline. The main thing is to enter the temple correctly, stand and bow correctly, kiss the icon correctly and endure the service. And then you can calmly consider yourself a pious righteous man, “worthy” of the salvation of the soul and having the right to arrogantly teach, judge and reproach the surrounding “sinners”.

1 The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered to him, 2 and, seeing some of His disciples eating bread with unclean, that is, unwashed hands, they reproached. 3 For the Pharisees and all the Jews, holding fast to the tradition of the elders, do not eat without thoroughly washing their hands; four and when they come from the market, they do not eat without having washed themselves. There are many other things that they took to hold on to: watch the washing of bowls, mugs, cauldrons and benches. 5 Then the Pharisees and scribes ask Him: why do not Your disciples act according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? 6 He answered and said to them: Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, 7 but in vain they worship Me, teaching doctrines, the commandments of men. 8 For you, having left the commandment of God, hold fast to the tradition of men, to the washing of mugs and bowls, and do many other things like this. 9 And he said to them: Is it good that you revoke the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition? 10 For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and: whoever speaks evil of his father or mother, let him die by death. 11 And you say: whoever says to a father or mother: Korvan, that is, a gift to God, what would you use from me, 12 you already allow him to do nothing for your father or your mother, 13 putting aside the word of God by your tradition, which you established; and do a lot of things like that. 14 And calling all the people, he said to them: Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: 15 nothing that enters a person from outside can defile him; but what comes out of it defiles a person. 16 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear! 17 And when He entered the house from the people, His disciples asked Him about the parable. 18 He said to them: Are you really so dull-witted? Do you not understand that nothing that enters a person from without can defile him? 19 Because it does not enter into his heart, but into his belly, and goes out, by which all food is cleansed. 0 Then he said: What comes out of a person defiles a person. 21 For from within, out of the human heart, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 theft, covetousness, malice, deceit, lasciviousness, an envious eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness, - 23 all this evil comes from within and defiles a person Mk 7 (1-23)

A person who does not clearly understand the essence of spiritual and religious creativity often believes that sinful defilement comes from an insufficiently “church” life, in the sense of a rare visit to the temple, from a small amount of prayer and fasting, and so on. If a believer strictly and carefully applies the means of salvation, the Lord will eventually lead him to spiritual insight. But in most cases, the hard path of asceticism and prayer creativity is replaced by meaningless ritual trifles, which in fact have nothing to do with spiritual development.

The conscientious Christian recognizes the importance of the means of spiritual development and the vital necessity of ritual piety. At the same time, he clearly sees the “spiritual relativity” of this side of faith, in the sense that real sin and real evil come from a lack of a righteous life, good deeds and humble love towards God and people.

The real evil, which is initiated by the forces of darkness, defiling the sinner himself and the world around him, comes from the heart of a proud and proud person. From the heart of a humble righteous man, on the contrary, the grace-filled light of Divine holiness, goodness and love radiates, enlightening the Christian himself and all mankind. This is the most important pattern of Christian spiritual development. Outside of her knowledge, the path of the true Orthodox faith turns into a caricature - a “blind mentor” leads a “blind student”, and as a result, both fall into a “pit” of sin and evil.

“I am the light of the world; whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,” says the Lord Jesus Christ, implying that a righteous person who sincerely strives for a grace-filled union with God ceases to live in the darkness of sin and acquires the Divine “light of life” which gives us an undistorted, saving vision of the world through the eyes of the All-good and loving Creator.

In order to reveal God-given spiritual vision, which carries an undistorted vision of God, the world and man, a Christian is called to imitate the Holiness and Love of the Creator to the best of his ability. Prayerful, ascetic and ritual piety helps to correct our imperfect, purely human knowledge of the world, but cannot teach us to fully “see good and evil”. If a Christian wishes to gain true spiritual enlightenment, he is called to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, developing in himself the holiness of humble love, renouncing pride and selfishness, selflessly doing the good will of God in relation to people. It is in this way that an earthly person receives the grace of the Holy Spirit and becomes a god-like son of God, receiving divine knowledge and power from above.

A believing person, not enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, continues to “judge according to the flesh”, not noticing the essence of faith and focusing on visible ritual belief. The Pharisees judged the actions of the Son of God by a purely human judgment, without divine knowledge of what was happening. In a strange way, the Pharisees, who believed that they were fully fulfilling the will of the One God, categorically did not accept the Son of God.

The reason for such a misunderstanding of Divine revelation is the simplest - “you do not know either Me or My Father; if you had known me, you would have known my Father also.” In fact, the Pharisees turned out to fulfill the Divine commandments, although outwardly they looked quite "churchly" and pious. No wonder they consciously or unconsciously denied the long-awaited Savior of the world. For the incarnate Son of God, who came to save mankind, the last, most powerful means remained - to show own death how God loves man and is ready to sacrifice His Only Begotten Son for this love.

To believe in the Son of God the Lord Jesus Christ in the sense of recognizing the dogmatic teachings of Christianity is quite simple. But in order to become a real Christian, this is clearly not enough. True faith requires us to constantly "abide in the word" of God, in practice fulfilling the Divine commandments. Only in this way does a believer become a disciple and follower of the Son of God, who will know the saving Truth of a righteous life, gaining freedom from the power of sin and evil. “Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin,” even if he belongs to the earthly Church and God's chosen people. If the Pharisees were "children of Abraham" not only in the flesh, but also in the spirit of a righteous life, they would do "the works of Abraham", imitating the sincere faith of the prophet.

It is not surprising that the proud Pharisees, despite their "churchness", were constantly looking for an opportunity to eliminate or even kill the Son of God, impartially and uncompromisingly exposing the "mystery of sin" - you can look like a "one hundred percent" believer, but not be one in fact. “Your father is the devil; and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks his own, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Fallen angels-demons, teaching a person a sinful and evil life through the satisfaction of sinful passions, always lie and deceive. To some they promise absolute "freedom" of "unbridled" passions, to others they tempt with the tempting opportunity to gain the salvation of the soul with the help of formal ritual beliefs.

When the saints sent by God speak the truth about the meaning and purpose of the Christian life, the Pharisees do not believe them, or rather do not want to believe, because the truth requires sincere repentance. It is significant that the “best” Phariseal argument against the saints is the following statement: “Do we not say the truth that You are a Samaritan and that a demon is in You?” That is, an accusation of heresy and spiritual “deception” that the Pharisees themselves suffer from.

A Christian is called to know the highest Divine Truth, which makes a person a truly free and rational being. Genuine freedom, inseparable from undistorted knowledge of being, from the ability to change the world for the better, is determined by the voluntary consent of a person to do the will of God. Divine knowledge and power come to us as we are cleansed of bodily and spiritual sins, as we sincerely strive for a righteous life, as we all-round expel self-loving pride, as our mind and heart are enlightened by the spirit of self-sacrificing love for God and people.

For the grace-filled illumination of the Holy Spirit, it is not enough to recognize the dogmas of Christianity-Orthodoxy and go to church, fulfill the ritual law, and even participate in the grace-filled Sacraments of the Church. These funds help to cleanse and transform our body and soul nature. But the main task of the Christian life is the liberation of a person from the slavery of selfish pride and the further enlightenment of the believer with the spirit of sincere love for God and people.

Otherwise, the believer inevitably turns into a Pharisee who, with all outward piety, creates sin and evil, one way or another, serving the demons who fell because of pride and disobedience to God. It is pride that in most cases leads the believer to the ultimate spiritual fall, when a person can no longer, or rather does not want to do the will of God.

The Old Testament Pharisees were the spiritual teachers and mentors of the God-chosen Jewish people. But when the Savior of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, began to denounce their self-love and pride, they, in devilish fury and malice, rejected the Son of God, calling Him a messenger. dark forces. Because of “religious” pride in the church environment, absolutely unacceptable absurd situations still arise when believers refuse to accept the saving and miraculous revelation of Divine Providence, not wanting to recognize Divine Truth for the sake of primitive pride.

The lie of a sinful life, hidden under the beautiful mask of ritual piety, easily blinds the believer as soon as he begins to be proud of his “churchness”, asceticism and theological knowledge. Despite church life and knowledge of Christian teaching, pride does not allow a person to see God with his heart, correctly understanding and doing His will.

The absence of humble love and the indulgence of religious vanity inevitably leads to opposition to God. And the further the proud resistance to God goes, the closer becomes the cooperation of the sinner with the forces of evil, when a person is more and more concerned about satisfying the love of power and obtaining material benefits, not wanting to humble himself and repent, to live righteously and unselfishly do good.

If a Christian really wants to learn to distinguish between good and evil, in order to fully live according to the commandments of Christ, he must understand and accept the highest value of voluntary humility, completely destroying selfish pride in himself through the development of selfless love for God and people.

1 Then the Jerusalem scribes and Pharisees come to Jesus and say: 2 why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they do not wash their hands when they eat bread. 3 He answered and said to them: Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded: Honor your father and mother; and: whoever speaks evil of his father or mother, let him die by death. 5 But you say: if someone says to a father or mother: a gift to God is what you would use from me, 6 he may not honor his father or his mother; thus you have made void the commandment of God by your tradition. 7 Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied well of you, saying: 8 These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 but in vain they worship Me, teaching doctrines, the commandments of men. ten And calling the people, he said to them: Listen and understand! 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth defiles a person. 12 Then His disciples came and said to Him, Do you know that when the Pharisees heard this word, they were offended? 13 He answered and said, Every plant that my Heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted; 14 leave them: they are the blind leaders of the blind; and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit. 15 And Peter, answering, said to Him, Explain to us this parable. 16 Jesus said, Do you still not understand? 17 Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the belly and is thrown out? 18 but what comes out of the mouth comes out of the heart - this defiles a person, 19 for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies - 20 it defiles a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile a person. Mt 15 (1-20)

12 Again Jesus spoke to the people and said to them: I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. 13 Then the Pharisees said to Him: You testify of Yourself; Your testimony is not true. 14 Jesus answered and said to them: If I testify of myself, then my testimony is true; because I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. 5 You judge according to the flesh; I don't judge anyone. 16 And even if I judge, then My judgment is true, because I am not alone, but I am the Father who sent Me. 17 And it is written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. 18 I testify of myself, and the Father who sent me testifies of me. 19 Then they said to Him, Where is Your Father? Jesus answered: You know neither Me nor My Father; if you had known me, you would have known my Father also. 20 These were the words Jesus spoke at the treasury when he taught in the temple; and no one took him, because his hour had not yet come. 21 Again Jesus said to them: I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come. 22 Then the Jews said: Will He kill Himself, that He says: "Where I go, you cannot come"? 23 He said to them: you are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. 24 That is why I told you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that it is I, you will die in your sins. 25 Then they said to him, Who are you? Jesus said to them, He has been from the beginning, just as I say to you. 26 I have much to say and judge about you; but He who sent Me is true, and what I have heard from Him, I say to the world. 27 They did not understand what He was saying to them about the Father. 28 So Jesus said to them: When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that it is I, and that I do nothing of Myself, but as My Father taught Me, so I say. 29 He who sent me is with me; The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do what pleases Him.

30 When He spoke this, many believed in Him. 31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him: If you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. 33 They answered him: we are the seed of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone; how then do you say, you will be made free? 34 Jesus answered them: Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. 35 But the slave does not stay in the house forever; the son abides forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be truly free. 37 I know that you are Abraham's seed; yet you seek to kill me, because my word does not fit in you. 38 I say what I saw with my Father; but you do what you saw with your father. 39 They answered Him, “Our father is Abraham.” Jesus said to them: If you were the children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham. 40 And now you seek to kill Me, the Man who told you the truth that I heard from God: Abraham did not do this. 41 You are doing the work of your father. To this they said to Him: We are not born of fornication; We have one Father, God. 42 Jesus said to them: If God were your Father, then you would love Me, because I came and came from God; for I did not come of myself, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand My speech? Because you cannot hear My words. 44 Your father is the devil; and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks his own, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 But when I speak the truth, do not believe Me. 46 Which of you will convict Me of iniquity? If I speak the truth, why don't you believe Me? 47 Who is from God, he listens to the words of God. The reason you don't listen is because you are not from God. 48 To this the Jews answered and said to Him: Do we not say the truth that You are a Samaritan and that a demon is in You? 49 Jesus answered: I have no demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. 50 However, I do not seek My glory: there is a Seeker and a Judge. 51 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death. 52 The Jews said to Him: Now we know that the demon is in You. Abraham died and the prophets, but You say: Whoever keeps My word will never taste death. 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? and the prophets have died: what do you make yourself? 54 Jesus answered: If I glorify Myself, then My glory is nothing. My Father glorifies me, of whom you say that He is your God. 55 And you did not know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you. But I know Him and keep His word. 56 Abraham your father was glad to see my day; and saw and rejoiced. 57 To this the Jews said to him: You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? 58 Jesus said to them: Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. 59 Then they took stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, passing through the midst of them, and went further Jn 8 (12-59)

The healings performed by the Lord Jesus Christ clearly indicate the inseparable connection between holiness, good deeds, love for people and "wonderful" or rather grace-filled spiritual power given to the righteous from God. The Savior specifically speaks of His divine authority, putting in the first place not a fact miraculous healing and the forgiveness of sins healed. Naturally, with a truly Divine influence, a full-fledged healing of the body and soul usually takes place.

For God, in contrast to people who value the miracle itself, the spiritual transformation of a person is incomparably more important. The "wonderful" manifestations of special psychophysical abilities, characteristic of Eastern religions, do not represent anything particularly significant for a Christian. What is important is not so much the miracle as its consequences for a person. Especially the consequences of spiritual healing, although we usually, according to our bodily weakness, value, first of all, bodily health.

Another difference of the God-given "Christian miracle" is that the gracious power, knowledge and power sent to the righteous from God are naturally confirmed by the creativity of selfless goodness and selfless love towards people. A Christian who voluntarily imitates Christ in the creation of Holiness and Love organically acquires Divine power and knowledge of the Holy Spirit. In non-Christian religions, on the contrary, the “miraculous ability” itself is valued, such as levitation and other psychophysical abilities, regardless of the righteousness of the “miracle worker”. Where does the abundance of demonic "miracles" created by black magic and the spirits of darkness come from.

As a result of the fall, man was incredibly distorted, and therefore a Christian understands the primary importance of the personal healing of a person from the power of sin and evil. The main thing is our spiritual condition in the sense of righteousness and sinfulness, and not mental, physical and mental abilities. Secondly, purely human forces are always insufficient for a full understanding of the meaning and realization of the purpose of human existence. A person can amaze others with mental and psychophysical development, but this does not mean anything, because he is little capable of creating goodness and love without grace-filled strengthening from above.

The decisive step towards divine-human knowledge and power depends on ourselves. Non-Christians understand this rule as the need for increased occupation of their mind, body and psyche. Unlike a scientist who extols the “proud mind”, a yogi or a martial artist, a Christian moves along a different path of “primitive” traditional righteousness, firmly knowing that the Lord sends grace-filled power and knowledge only to those who sincerely renounce sin and evil, striving to consciously fulfill Divine commandments.

The Christian moves towards the higher knowledge of God by the “simple way” of a righteous life and good deeds. This is how a person saves his soul and has a beneficial effect on the people around him, healing their bodies and souls with the Divine energy of holiness and love. The communion with God of the true Orthodox faith, which gives us genuine spiritual wisdom, health and strength, is inextricably linked with the fulfillment of the Divine commandments.

Similarly, all our misfortunes, sufferings and diseases are connected with our sins. What is the use of the “miraculous abilities” of the mind, body and soul, if a person does evil and in eternity he will inevitably face spiritual collapse and depreciation of everything that so amazes people who do not understand the meaning of a real miracle.

1 A few days later He came again to Capernaum; and it was heard that he was in the house. 2 Immediately many gathered, so that even at the door there was no room; and He spoke a word to them. 3 And they came to Him with a paralytic, who was carried by four; 4 and, not being able to approach Him for the crowd, they opened the roof of the house where He was, and, having dug through it, lowered the bed on which the paralytic lay. 5 Jesus, seeing their faith, says to the paralytic: child! your sins are forgiven you. 6 Here sat some of the scribes, thinking in their hearts: 7 why is he so blasphemous? Who can forgive sins except God alone? 8 Jesus immediately knowing by his spirit that they were thinking this way in themselves, said to them, Why are you thinking this way in your hearts? 9 What is easier? Shall I say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven? or say: get up, take your bed and walk? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, he says to the paralytic: 11 I say to you, get up, take up your bed and go to your house. 12 He immediately got up and, taking the bed, went out in front of everyone, so that everyone was amazed and glorified God, saying: we have never seen anything like it. Mk 2 (1-12)

17 One day, when He was teaching, and the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from all the places of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord appeared in healing the sick, - 18 behold, some brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and tried to bring him into the house and put him before Jesus; 19 and, not finding where to carry him for the crowd, they climbed on top of the house and lowered him through the roof with his bed into the middle before Jesus. 20 And He, seeing their faith, said to that man, Your sins are forgiven you. 21 The scribes and Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this that blasphemes? Who can forgive sins except God alone? 22 Jesus, understanding their thoughts, said to them in answer, What are you thinking in your hearts? 23 Which is easier to say, Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Arise and walk? 24 But so that you know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, He said to the paralytic: I say to you: get up, take up your bed and go to your house. 25 And he immediately stood up before them, took what he was lying on, and went to his house, glorifying God. 26 And terror seized them all, and they glorified God, and being filled with fear, they said: We have seen marvelous things today. Lk 5 (17-26)

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus came to Jerusalem. 2 There is a pool in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate, called in Hebrew Bethesda, in which there were five covered passages. 3 In them lay a great multitude of the sick, the blind, the lame, the withered, waiting for the movement of the water, 4 for the angel of the Lord went down from time to time into the pool and disturbed the water, and whoever first entered it after the disturbance of the water, he recovered, no matter what disease he was possessed. 5 There was a man here who had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 Jesus, seeing him lying down and learning that he had been lying for a long time, said to him: Do you want to be well? 7 The sick man answered Him: so, Lord; but I have no man to lower me into the pool when the waters are troubled; but when I arrive, another is already descending before me. 8 Jesus tells him to get up, take up your bed and walk. 9 And he immediately recovered, and took his bed and went. It was on the Sabbath day. 10 Therefore the Jews said to the healed man, Today is the Sabbath; you shouldn't take beds. 11 He answered them: Who healed me, He said to me: take up your bed and walk. 12 He was asked: Who is the Man Who said to you, Take up your bed and walk? 13 The healed man did not know who he was, for Jesus hid himself among the people who were in that place. 14 Then Jesus met him in the temple and said to him: Behold, you have recovered; sin no more, lest something worse happen to you. 15 This man went and announced to the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And the Jews began to persecute Jesus and sought to kill Him because He did such things on the Sabbath.

7 Jesus said to them: My Father is still working, and I am working. 18 And the Jews sought even more to kill Him because He not only violated the Sabbath, but also called God His Father, making Himself equal with God. 19 To this Jesus said: Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing it: for whatever He does, the Son does also. John 5 (1-19)

Until a believing person is freed from the power of bodily and spiritual passions, especially from the influence of self-love and pride, an undistorted spiritual vision of the world and God-revealed knowledge of the true Orthodox faith remains impossible for him. Despite any external piety and theological knowledge, a sinful, proud and proud person cannot fully unite with the Lord in the spirit of mutual love, cannot enter into personal communion with God, cannot gain knowledge of the Divine will and power.

It is not surprising that in his judgments about the spiritual meaning of things and phenomena, a proud person, a believer and a non-believer, is equally guided by visible changeable signs, not distinguishing the inner content behind the outer shell, and under the influence of the forces of evil, mistaking good for evil, and vice versa. This is exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ is talking about, addressing God the Father - “You hid this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babies ... Everything is delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to whom the Son wants to reveal.

A proud person does not accept the will of God in any form - be it strict ritual, prayerful and fasting self-restraint or conscious creativity of humble love. The real embodiment of the saving will of God requires from us the creativity of voluntary repentance and a righteous life, unfeigned humility and selfless love for God and people. Only a truly righteous and kind person, sincerely striving to serve God and people, sees, recognizes and accepts the action of Divine truth both in the guise of a strict preacher of repentance, requiring a merciless struggle against sin, and in the guise of merciful and all-forgiving love, teaching us to freely do will God's.

The divine-human knowledge of the true Christian and Orthodox faith is inaccessible to weak human powers and is given to us with a blessing from above. And at the same time, it depends on our humble appeal to God, on our sincere consent to do His will, renouncing self-will and self-love. The Lord endlessly and unlimitedly “gives” Himself to people, but only a righteous, humble and kind person who really wants it can perceive His power and knowledge.

1 And when Jesus finished teaching his twelve disciples, he went from there to teach and preach in their cities. 2 John, having heard in prison about the works of Christ, sent two of his disciples 3 say to him: Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another? 4 And Jesus answered and said to them, Go, tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor preach the gospel; 6 and blessed is he who is not offended by me.
7 When they went, Jesus began to speak to the people about John: what did you go to see in the wilderness? a reed shaken by the wind? 8 What did you go to see? a man dressed in soft clothes? Those who wear soft clothes are in the palaces of the kings. 9 What did you go to see? a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 For he is the one of whom it is written: Behold, I am sending My angel before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You. 11 Truly I say to you, of those born of women, I did not rise greater John Baptist; but the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than him. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it by force, 13 for all the prophets and the law had prophesied before John. 14 And if you want to receive, he is Elijah, who must come. 15 Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear! 16 But to whom shall I liken this generation? He is like children who sit in the street and, addressing their comrades, 17 they say: we played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang sad songs to you, and you did not weep. 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking; and they say: there is a demon in him. 19 The Son of Man has come, eating and drinking; and they say: here is a man who loves to eat and drink wine, a friend to tax collectors and sinners. And wisdom is justified by her children.

20 Then He began to reproach the cities, in which His might was most manifested, because they did not repent: 21 woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! for if in Tire and Sidon the powers manifested in you were manifested, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes, 22 but I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tire and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, who ascended to heaven, you will fall down to hell, for if the powers manifested in you had been manifested in Sodom, then it would have remained until this day; 24 but I tell you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you. 25 At that time, continuing his speech, Jesus said: I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babies; 26 hey, Father! for such was thy good pleasure. 27 All is given to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son but the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to whom the Son wants to reveal. Mt 11 (1-27)

of his humility to do the will of God and live according to the commandment

A righteous person, living according to the dictates of humble love, naturally begins to correctly understand and do the will of God, gaining God-given insight into the meaning and purpose of true faith through the perception of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Only those who sincerely want to be a believer, and even more so a Christian, can be. If a person really wants to do the will of God, he will surely come to know the divinely revealed essence of Christianity.

In the soul of a conscious, righteous, kind and loving servant of God, the Lord Himself is invisibly present, opening to man the possibility of unlimited perception of true spiritual wisdom. The path of the divine-human Christian holiness is the only way to acquire undistorted spiritual knowledge, which allows the believer to fully apply the principle: “do not judge by appearance, but judge by righteous judgment.” Otherwise, any spiritual and religious creativity becomes a meaningless and dangerous "idol" of religious pride.

The meaning of the fulfillment of religious law lies in the spiritual and spiritual healing of a person, and not in formal ritualism, divorced from real righteous life. That is why the faithful Jews, leading a pious church life, were constantly perplexed about the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, not recognizing either the words or deeds of the incarnate Son of God. The reason for the misunderstanding of the Savior was the simplest - religious pride did not allow the Jews to do the will of God the Father.

It is significant that many of the Jews, despite belonging to the Church, were in fact unbelievers. Therefore, they did not understand and did not accept the divine-human essence of the teachings of Christ, because the acceptance of the teachings of the Son of God requires a decisive expulsion of proud self-aggrandizement. Often a similar situation is repeated with "nominal" Orthodox, who only pretend to be believers, consciously rejecting the will of God, revealed to the world through the humble righteous and saints of the New Testament.

Due to the lack of grace-filled insight, a proud person loses the God-given ability to “judge with a righteous judgment”, which sees the essence of phenomena. For him, appearance is the main thing, and therefore often without hesitation, he condemns the Divine revelation of holiness and love that comes down from above. As a result, holiness is taken by the Pharisee for blasphemy, and feigned hypocritical ritualism becomes for him a “confession” of the true faith.

The Highest Divine Truth naturally hides from a proud person, no matter how much he tries to cognize it, and is easily revealed to those who, like God, sincerely do good to people, humbly fulfilling the will of God in a righteous life. No evidence in the form of obvious miracles, verbal instructions and good deeds will help a proud person to know the essence of Christianity, because he himself does not want it.

When the righteous sent by God denounce ritual false belief, the proud "believers" clearly show their true pharisaic nature and, instead of humble repentance, seek to kill the righteous. It is significant how at any time the Pharisees, overwhelmed by devilish pride, accuse the righteous sent by God of the sin of religious pride. At the same time, the Pharisees again and again are primitively guided by outward signs ritual piety, not paying attention to the true content and motives of the deeds of the righteous.

The real, humble and repentant fulfillment of the will of God does not consist in slavish worship before God, but in conscious creation of God through imitation of the Spirit of Divine Holiness and Love. Divine Love, striving to raise us to the “heights of the Spirit”, never humiliates a person. There is not a drop of pride in a Christian's striving for divine-human perfection, because in order to achieve god-like holiness and love, a believer has to mercilessly renounce self-will and self-love for the sake of disinterested service to God and people.

The true Christian faith is confirmed, first of all, by a righteous life and good deeds, for the sake of which a Christian must completely forget about selfishness. The path of perception of god-like knowledge and power, the path to achieving the highest dignity of the human personality, the path of turning a sinful person into an enlightened God-man, in any case, is the path of ultimate humility.

10 But when His brothers came, then He also came to the feast not openly, but as if secretly. 11 The Jews were looking for him at the feast and said: where is he? 12 And there were many rumors about Him among the people: some said that He was good; but others said, No, but he deceives the people. 13 However, no one spoke about Him clearly, fearing the Jews. 14 But in the middle of the feast, Jesus entered the temple and taught. 15 And the Jews marveled, saying, How does he know the Scriptures without learning? 16 Jesus, answering them, said: My teaching is not mine, but that of him who sent me; 17 Whoever wants to do His will will know about this teaching, whether it is from God, or whether I speak from Myself. 18 He who speaks from himself seeks glory for himself; but He who seeks the glory of Him who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. 19 Didn't Moses give you the law? and none of you walks according to the law. Why are you seeking to kill me? 20 The people answered and said, Is there not a demon in You? who seeks to kill you? 21 Jesus, continuing his speech, said to them: I have done one thing, and you all marvel. 22 Moses gave you circumcision [although it is not from Moses, but from the fathers], and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man. 23 If a man is circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses is not violated, are you angry with me because I healed the whole man on the Sabbath? 24 Do not judge by outward appearance, but judge by righteous judgment. John 7 (10-24)

22 Then came the feast of renewal in Jerusalem, and it was winter. 23 And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch. 24 Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him: How long will You keep us in perplexity? if You are the Christ, tell us directly. 25 Jesus answered them: I told you, and do not believe; the works that I do in the name of my Father, they testify of me. 26 But you do not believe, for you are not of My sheep, as I told you. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them; and they follow me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who gave them to Me, is greater than all; and no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one. 31 Here again the Jews seized stones to beat Him. 32 Jesus answered them: I have shown you many good works from my Father; for which of them do you want to stone me? 33 The Jews answered Him, “We do not stone You for a good deed, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a man, make Yourself God.” 34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law: I said, Are you gods? 35 If He called those gods to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, 36 Do you say to him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, You blaspheme, because I said, I am the Son of God? 37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; 38 but if I create, then when you do not believe Me, believe My works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me and I in Him. John 10 (22-38)

The Lord Jesus Christ brought to humanity a truly Divine teaching about the salvation and spiritual development of man. The Christian teaching, provided it is sincerely fulfilled, gives us the opportunity in one earthly life to achieve a complete transformation of human nature. In the entire history of mankind in Christianity, for the first time and finally, the fullness of God-revealed knowledge was manifested, affirming the leading role of conscious holiness and selfless love for God and people, without which there is no true faith.

To cognize the Christian Truth, it is necessary to realize the external visible and internal invisible sides of spiritual and religious creativity. The visible manifestations of faith and its invisible spiritual essence are inseparably interconnected in the sense that the work of personal salvation and the actions of a Christian in relation to those around him should equally bring to the world an example of the fulfillment of Divine commandments in the spirit of humble love. Until a believer casts out the spirit of proud self-love, does not learn full-fledged love for God and people, he will constantly distort faith, unjustifiably calling ritual piety “true” spiritual perfection and attributing absolute value to it.

The spirit of religious pride deprives of meaning and value any exploits of a pious life performed in the name of personal salvation. Because of pride, ascetic and prayerful work, the fulfillment of the canons and ritual piety degenerate into "spiritually dead" and meaningless ritualism. A proud supporter of ritual belief cannot perceive grace and is not able to understand what the Lord expects from us and how we are obliged to do the will of God in relation to God and people. Despite any theological knowledge and apparent pious behavior, the proud "believer" is deprived of the opportunity to "assimilate" Divine revelation and, therefore, does not have the power and knowledge to fulfill the Christian commandments.

The pious Pharisees disdained even approaching worldly sinners, while the Savior communicated with such people without hesitation, using the slightest hope to save a person’s soul. The meaning of Christian religious creativity is not only the personal salvation of the soul, but also spiritual help to perishing people, imitating the absolutely disinterested Love of the Creator.

In complete contradiction to the Divine commandments, the Pharisees considered the manifestation of humble love for sinners to be the greatest defilement and a direct violation of the will of the Creator. Pride did not allow the Pharisees to understand the will of God, and the dark forces put their demonic revelation into their self-satisfied minds, replacing the real meaning of faith with meaningless formal piety, which does not always free the believer from even the simplest bodily sins.

Only the creativity of conscious holiness and humble love truly cleanses a person from the power of bodily and spiritual passions, saving the believer and the world around him, freeing them from the power of evil and leading to the knowledge of the will of God. This is how the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us, and this is how all Orthodox believers who truly desire to become disciples of Christ are called to act.

The parable of "new wine and new wineskins" shows the "spiritual incompatibility" of the Christian teaching about the primacy of conscious holiness and humble love with flawed ideas about salvation through ritual law and theological knowledge.

Under the suggestion of dark forces, proud, arrogant and self-satisfied "believers" at all times purposefully create and forcibly affirm the image of a false pharisaic faith. Pharisaic false belief puts “at the forefront” “personal salvation”, indifferent to people, which is allegedly achieved through “pleasing” God with the help of asceticism, theological knowledge and magical ritual belief. It turns out that it is worth fasting more, praying and going to the temple, carefully performing church rites to the smallest detail, as God is simply “obliged” to provide the believer with earthly blessings and the salvation of the soul, regardless of his true spiritual state.

Even Orthodox believers often try to replace the Christian teaching of holiness and love with distorted Old Testament ritual beliefs, provoking a sharp conflict between Pharisaism and the true Orthodox faith. A righteous personal and church life, a conscious non-participation in the sins and evil deeds of unbelievers, an extremely tough struggle against bodily and spiritual passions are vital for every Orthodox Christian. But when an Orthodox believer, in an excessive concern for personal salvation, begins to despise sinners, he immediately loses the ability to show Christian love for people. Fearing to be defiled by the world, running away from communication with people, actually refusing to help save others, forgetting about the fulfillment of the main Divine commandment, such a believer thinks in vain to achieve personal perfection through the impeccable fulfillment of the ritual law.

The spirit of selfish pride deprives the believer of the knowledge of the meaning and purpose of the Christian commandments, preventing a person from selflessly and disinterestedly fulfilling the will of God in deed. Religious pride leads the believer to the loss of the grace-filled world and "disorder of the soul", from which there are only two ways out.

Some Christians overcome themselves and strive for liberation from the power of selfishness and pride, approaching true righteousness, gaining humble wisdom and actually doing good. Perceiving the grace of the Holy Spirit, such believers see the meaning of true faith, contained in the creativity of love towards God and people.

The second is a false and destructive path of growing religious pride, leads the believer to a complete loss of faith and enslaves him to the will of the dark forces that “spiritually” blind a person, purposefully teaching him to distort and deny the will of God through formal ritual belief.

The Savior of mankind, the Lord Jesus Christ, brought to the world "new wine and new wineskins" of the true Orthodox faith. Christ reveals to us the content and form, power and knowledge of the divinely revealed teaching about the primary importance of the grace-filled creation of holiness, goodness and love, without which the fulfillment of the Divine commandments is impossible.

All other manifestations of spiritual and religious life must unconditionally obey the Christian law of humble - selfless and disinterested love. Naturally, one should not forget about the need to apply the ritual law and traditional means of saving the soul. Church discipline and obedience to the teachings of the Church, fasting and prayer, theological knowledge and firm confession of dogmas, the performance of rituals and participation in the Sacraments continue to retain their undoubted value and importance in Christianity.

As long as the apostles were close to Christ, the grace-filled power of the Son of God protected them from the destructive influence of spiritual and bodily passions. Under the grace-filled cover, the apostles did not have a rigid need for ascetic, prayerful and canonical discipline, naturally fulfilling the will of God. After the ascension of the Savior, the apostles had to directly deal with the sinful influence of the surrounding world, consciously making personal volitional efforts.

“Leaving on an independent voyage,” the apostles did not at all begin to fully rely on their own strength and ritual piety. A real Christian in any situation is humbly aware of personal sinful imperfection, relying mainly on grace-filled help from above. And at the same time, he does not forget, to the best of his ability, to manifest himself in the creativity of conscious holiness and self-sacrificing love, which requires the sincere participation of a person.

The Christian fulfills the ceremonial law without exaggerating its salvific value, remembering that the true transformation of the believer is impossible without the grace-filled assistance of the Holy Spirit. And then a full-fledged union of a righteous life and selfless love leads a Christian to real communion with God, contributing to the perception of Divine energy, which gives us the opportunity to stop sinning and doing evil.

Graceful humility of mind gives rise to the ability to correctly comprehend the external and internal manifestations of faith, when the believer "flexibly" combines the visible forms of faith with its inner meaning. The Christian firmly clings to the visible traditional forms of faith, but he is alien to the "mechanical" formalism and magical pharisaic ritualism. Christian wisdom shapes the believer's behavior in accordance with the immutable requirements of a righteous life, clearly forbidding a person to sin and do evil to people, teaching him to uncompromisingly do good. This is the only version of the true Orthodox faith, which gives us the opportunity to fully understand and do the will of God.

"Shabby wineskins and old wine" symbolize the "seasoned", time-tested traditional, conservative church teaching, the importance, usefulness and value of which are undeniable. At the same time, one should not absolutize the “forms” of faith in the form of rituals, canons, and even dogmatic knowledge, because true faith is inseparable from constant improvement in the creation of the will of God and the knowledge of the Creator.

It should be specifically noted that the grace-filled renewal of church life and church teaching does not at all mean a radical change in dogmatic and canonical knowledge. The teaching of Christianity-Orthodoxy needs not so much to be changed as to be put into practice.

Effective knowledge and implementation of Christian teaching depends on the degree of our righteousness, on the degree of purity of the believer in relation to bodily and spiritual passions, on the enlightenment of the Christian by the spirit of humble love for God and people. It is in this direction that the correct renewal of the teaching of the Christian Church and the development of individual Christians must proceed, avoiding the false “renovationism” of traditional Orthodoxy.

Visible forms of faith are created by revelation from above, but imperfect earthly people take part in their creation. Therefore, despite their importance and usefulness, the visible forms of faith eventually become obsolete, taking on a certain “purely human” element, turning into an “old”, fragile and inferior form of serving God. The "old wine" of the previous experience of the Church is good, but it is exhaled in "old wineskins", requiring replenishment from the "new wine" ripening in the "new wineskins" of contemporary communion with God.

At all times, conscious Christians acquire their own experience of knowing God, which should benefit the Church and the world. Regardless historical era the grace-filled influence of the Holy Spirit guides Orthodox believers to full communion with God and the knowledge of God of humble love. Dogmas and canons, theological knowledge and means of spiritual salvation must be more and more fully realized by Christians in practice, if necessary, reasonably changed and improved according to revelation from above.

9 Passing from there, Jesus saw a man sitting at the toll booth named Matthew, and he said to him, Follow me. And he got up and followed Him. 10 And while Jesus was reclining in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and reclined with Him and His disciples. 11 Seeing this, the Pharisees said to His disciples: Why does your Teacher eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? 12 But when Jesus heard this, he said to them, “The healthy do not need a doctor, but the sick, 13 go and learn what it means: I want mercy, and not sacrifice? For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

14 Then the disciples of John come to Him and say: Why do we and the Pharisees fast a lot, but Your disciples do not fast? 15 And Jesus said to them, Can the sons of the bridal chamber mourn while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 And no one attaches a patch of unbleached fabric to shabby clothes, because the newly sewn will be torn off from the old, and the hole will be even worse. 17 Nor do young wines be poured into old wineskins; otherwise, the wineskins break, and the wine flows out, and the wineskins are lost, but young wine is poured into new wineskins, and both are saved.Mt 9 (9-17)

The "old wine" of traditional church experience means well-tested dogmatic and canonical knowledge that really serves to save the soul of man and create the will of God. However, this divinely revealed knowledge is often hidden in the “old furs” of obsolete ritual forms that do not give people the opportunity to fully do the will of God at the present time. Often, spiritually "ossified" forms of ritual belief, divorced from the reality of modern religious life, cannot ensure the perception of Divine grace and lead believers to the development of religious pride.

This is not at all about a change in the traditional way of church life, about a complete revision of all previously created dogmas, canons and rituals. In fact, the conciliar experience of the Orthodox Church remains unchanged at all times. The problem is that people do not want to confess the dogmas and fulfill the canons of the true Orthodox faith in practice, justifying themselves by the fact that "nothing can be changed."

In most cases, the advocates of "preservation of the purity of faith" primitively hide unexpired sins under the guise of formal ritual belief, on which the salvation of the soul supposedly depends. That is why the Old Testament believers could not or rather did not want to understand the words and deeds of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Savior again and again spoke to the Jews about the need to save the souls of sinners by the example of sincere repentance and conscious righteousness of the believers themselves. In response, the scribes and Pharisees, who were afraid of being “defiled” by communion with penitent sinners, stubbornly clung to primitive ritualism and banal religious pride. And until now, many Orthodox who do not want to overcome mistakes Old Testament, are perplexed by the behavior of the Christian righteous and saints.

The defense of traditional, conservative church values ​​is fully justified. But if a believer ceases to apply the previous church experience in practice, all his assurances and slogans about “keeping the purity of the faith” become a primitive pretense. The Pharisees absolutize the external religious law, and its most simple part, which has almost no effect on the effectiveness of spiritual life.

At the same time, they begin to rapidly “forget” about the inner law of a righteous life and good deeds. And then the “old wine” of the previous experience of the Church ceases to be understood by believers, does not bring any benefit and is exhaled in the “old wineskins” of outdated concepts, unsuitable both for storage and for the embodiment of the teachings of the true Orthodox faith.

The parable of the Savior "skins and wine" is still relevant today. It is no secret to anyone that among Orthodox believers there are purely nominal Christians who stubbornly cling to the image of the Old Testament Pharisaic ritual belief, turning the “new wine and new wineskins” of the New Testament into something very far from true Christianity. Despite the extremely clear revelation of the Gospel, such “Christians” do not understand or rather do not want to understand the teaching of the Son of God about the primary value of the spirit of conscious holiness and selfless love, wittingly or unwittingly denying it in a proud striving to achieve personal salvation through primitive ritual belief.

The Orthodox faith represents the process of man's continuous spiritual ascent to God. During his short earthly life, the believer manages to take only the initial steps towards the knowledge of God and His holy will. In fact, any references to the fact that “old wine is better”, that everything is already open and clear to us, are completely ridiculous. No one denies the saving value of the traditional teaching of the Christian Church, tested by millions of believers in their own experience. But at the same time, Christ Himself tells us: "Behold, I am making all things new." The Creator of the world never stops in spiritual creativity, thereby calling an imperfect earthly person to an uninterrupted spiritual ascent.

The real reason for the conflict between the adherents of the immutability of the traditional Church teaching and the supporters of the development of the Church's teaching on the basis of contemporary spiritual experience is not at all that any renewal necessarily turns into "renovationism" threatening heresy and distortion of the will of God. Simply, a sinful earthly person is characterized by spiritual laziness, unwilling to improve in the creation of the Divine commandments.

Proper renewal implies a more complete implementation of the commandments of Christ, and not at all the abolition of dogmas and canons. A person relatively easily agrees to the fulfillment of the ritual law, but when it comes to the embodiment of the Divine commandments, many begin to look for "workarounds". When believers say that everything new is wrong and unnecessary, they simply do not want to work on themselves. Or, even worse, like the Old Testament Pharisees, they hide under the mask of ritual piety a sinful and evil life that does not tolerate blessed enlightenment.

The real reason for the denial of the new divinely revealed knowledge lies in the irreconcilable struggle between humility and pride, between righteous and sinful life, between the creation of good and evil. If a believer humbly chooses a righteous life and creativity of love, he naturally brings out of the spiritual treasury of Divine revelation "new and old" religious knowledge - that which was revealed earlier and that which the Lord reveals to us at the present time.

The renewal of church experience irreconcilably denies heretical teachings that distort the traditional teaching of Christianity-Orthodoxy. But if modern righteous people and prophets come to the Church, who, on behalf of God, preach the fight against sin and the need for a grace-filled transformation of church life, we must take the new revelation with the utmost seriousness so as not to reject the will of God to our own destruction.

27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, Follow me. 28 And he left everything, got up and followed Him. 29 And Levi made a great feast for him in his house; and there were multitudes of publicans and others who reclined with them. 30 But the scribes and Pharisees murmured and said to His disciples: Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? 31 Jesus answered and said to them: It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick; 32 I came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. 33 They said to Him: why do the disciples of John fast often and pray, also the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink? 34 He said to them, Can you force the sons of the bridal chamber to fast when the bridegroom is with them? 35 But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. 36 At the same time, he told them a parable: no one puts a patch on old clothes, having torn them off new clothes; otherwise, the new one will be torn apart, and the patch from the new one will not fit the old one. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the new wine will break through the wineskins and flow out by itself, and the wineskins will be lost; 38 but new wine must be poured into new wineskins; then both will be saved. 39 And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately wants new, for he says: the old is better. Lk 5 (27-39)

47 Still the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea and seizing every kind of fish, 48 which, when it was full, they dragged it ashore, and sat down, and gathered the good things into vessels, and threw the bad things out. 49 So it will be at the end of the age: angels will come out and separate the wicked from the midst of the righteous, 50 and cast them into the fiery furnace: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51 And Jesus asked them: Have you understood all this? They say to Him: Yes, Lord! 52 He said to them: Therefore, every scribe who has been taught the Kingdom of Heaven is like a master who brings out of his treasury both new and old. Mt 13 (47-52)

We see how religious pride and blind fanaticism led Old Testament believers to vehemently deny the saving revelation of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, when meeting with new spiritual and religious concepts and phenomena in the Orthodox and non-Church environment, a humble Christian is in no hurry to draw hasty conclusions.

The behavior of the proud Pharisees cannot be attributed to simple dogmatic ignorance, which, if desired, can be easily corrected. It also cannot be attributed to a lack of spiritual enlightenment and prudence, which is forgiven by God on the condition of a sincere delusion of a person who does not understand due to excessive fanatical jealousy, which he denies.

Considering our spiritual imperfection, the Lord in most cases forgives such a “word against the Son of Man”, created in relation to the Christian teaching out of ignorance or thoughtlessness. A sincerely believing person, who did not previously know the highest Truth of the Son of God, quickly passes through such temptations. If he really wants to understand the essence of Christianity, the Lord will surely open to him the spiritual vision of the soul and lead to the knowledge of the Orthodox teaching of the true faith.

The whole trouble lies in the fact that the Pharisees deliberately denied Divine Holiness and Love, covering up conscious resistance to God by "preserving the purity of faith." When Christ healed the sick and cast out demons, at the same time teaching the people to fully fulfill the Divine commandments, the Pharisees, out of envy and pride, attributed the saving effect of Divine Providence to demonic forces.

This is the unforgivable sin of “blaspheming the Holy Spirit”, when a person who calls himself a believer, contrary to all common sense, voluntarily or involuntarily denies the will of God, calling good evil and evil good. This sin is not forgiven in any case, because it is inherent in the conscious Pharisees, who purposefully refuse to do the will of God, having repented in pride.

Irresponsible Pharisees-fanatics, thoughtlessly and insanely condemning the saving action of Divine Providence, are less common. Extremely angry and proud fanaticism also cannot serve as an excuse for the unforgivable sin of "blaspheming the Holy Spirit." This is not just a "mistake of sincere ignorance", as, for example, was the case with the Apostle Paul, but a complete spiritual blindness of religious pride, clearly serving the forces of evil.

Often, Orthodox believers clearly do not understand what they mean when they speak of the preservation of the “purity” of faith, which depends not so much on external ritual forms, but on a righteous life performed in the spirit of selfless love for God and people. If newly discovered knowledge, as was the case with the revelation of Christ, teaches us to do the will of God in a more complete form, it can and should be accepted, studied and used. Otherwise, we run the risk of finding ourselves in the position of the Old Testament Pharisees, who were undoubtedly church people who knew the Holy Scripture and Tradition of the Church perfectly, but because of pride deliberately rejected the Savior of the world, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Or make the tree good and its fruit good; or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. Creatures of vipers! how can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 A good man brings forth good things from a good treasure, and an evil man brings forth evil things from an evil treasure. 36 I tell you that for every idle word that people say, they will give an answer on the day of judgment: 7 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. Mt 12 (22-37)

Another variant of the unforgivable sin of “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” is the distortion of Orthodox dogmas and canons by a person inside a church organization. As well as the creation of heresies that produce church schism and the falling away of heretics from the original Christian Orthodox Church. First of all, the sin of "blaspheming the Holy Spirit" implies a distortion of the Orthodox dogma about the Third Person of the Trinity - the Holy Spirit.

The creation of any heresy is driven by the same "spirit" as Pharisaism. Heresy is based on the manifestation of human pride, madly trying to explain the unknowable Essence of God and the existence of the spiritual world by the imperfect and limited human mind. The self-willed and arrogant attempts of heretics to invent some kind of "new and pure Christianity" or create a "new and pure church" have no justification. Because of them, schisms and religious wars begin, when believers hate and kill each other. Such evil cannot be covered up by any "good intentions" about the purification of the Church or the development of the correct church doctrine.

It is impossible to radically change the Orthodox teaching of the Christian Church for the simple reason that it expresses the only correct knowledge about God, the world and man. And it is pointless to destroy and re-create the earthly Church, since exactly the same sinful people will enter it. First of all, a Christian is called to transform and change himself, and not the teachings of the Church and its earthly organization. The teaching of the Orthodox Church actually does not require additions, and even more so changes, because we do not even fulfill what it requires of us in its present form. As for the church organization, its main change for the better is not through reforms, but through the grace-filled transformation of the believers themselves.

You can often hear that all non-Orthodox Christians are Catholics and Protestants, who, from the point of view of Orthodoxy, are obvious heretics, "without exception" guilty of this sin. Next, "according to the degree of heresy" are the believers of the two religions of monotheism-monotheism - Jews and Muslims. And the "last apostates" from the true faith are the "pagans" - believers of non-Christian religions. All of the above categories of believers allegedly completely fall away from God, are initially doomed to perish and worship fallen angels instead of God.

Such statements are only partly true. A believer who does not profess with his life the correct Orthodox commandments, dogmas and canons loses the ability to salvificly do the will of God. From this comes his disastrous falling away from God and the true faith. Approximately also it is possible to answer the question: “Can an unbelieving person save his soul”? Theoretically, it can, given that the Lord takes into account the real essence of a person and his specific deeds. But in practice, the unbeliever simply renounces God, does not recognize His saving commandments, and loses the opportunity to do the will of God in a saving way.

At first glance, everything proves that unbelievers and non-Orthodox people cannot actually be saved. In theory, everything turns out "smoothly", but in relation to the real earth's history, one has to be very careful in drawing conclusions. Why was Christianity-Orthodoxy not preached and established throughout the world? Why did the originally united Christianity undergo a split? Why did various “churches” separate from Orthodoxy?

There are no “simple” unambiguous answers to these questions. We can only say that the main reason for the distortion of Orthodox teaching and the appearance of heresies is our proud sinfulness. And everyone is to blame here - Orthodox and non-Orthodox believers. The Orthodox are that, knowing the true faith, they still sin and thereby oppose God. In this we are no better than the Old Testament Pharisees, who had correct dogmas and denied God.

The non-Orthodox are guilty of denying the correct salvific fulfillment of the Divine commandments for the sake of distorted and "spiritually negative" teachings. Nevertheless, we all have one hope in God's mercy. The Lord, in His boundless Love, accepts every smallest particle of true faith and righteous life, trying to save everyone who is possible.

In the life of non-Orthodox peoples, we can only see the incomprehensible mystery of the saving Divine Providence. Orthodoxy contains the highest Truth, the practical confession of which will fully save a Christian. According to God's plan, all people on Earth are called to accept Christianity-Orthodoxy. But this has not yet happened - the preaching of the Orthodox faith has affected only part of the globe. Therefore, of those people who more or less do the will of God and fulfill the Divine commandments, the Lord mercifully saves everyone who is possible, despite the defectiveness of their faith. Such "moderate ecumenism" does not at all mean the saving equivalence of all religions. Orthodoxy really saves, and all other religions can lead to very different results, including negative ones.

With regard to unforgivable heresy, only general spiritual patterns can be identified. If an Orthodox believer falls away from Orthodoxy into heresy, a heterodox confession or another religion, he has no excuse. This is a clear path to destruction, especially if a person begins to violently oppose Orthodox teaching. The same applies to all non-Orthodox believers who purposefully deny the highest Truth of Christianity-Orthodoxy, despite its saving essence.

It is significant that Christ speaks of the unforgivable sin, addressing not the pagans, but the orthodox Jews. First of all, the Gospel tells us about the unforgivable heresy of the Pharisees’ false faith among the Orthodox themselves, when believers consciously deny the Spirit of Divine Holiness and Love, which teaches us to live righteously and selflessly do good. “Holy Spirit blasphemy” means that a proud and proud “believer” hides his bodily and spiritual sins under the guise of ritual piety, purposefully humiliating and expelling genuine Christians from the earthly Church in the name of satisfying proud lust for power and material self-interest.

Despite his "church" attitude, the "believing" proud man clearly opposes the will of the Creator, denying Divine revelation and not recognizing the true servants of God. In this situation, it does not matter whether a person consciously denies the will of God or is a blind fanatic. In any case, such people themselves turn away from God, cease to be believers and begin to serve the forces of darkness with all the ensuing consequences. This is the most dangerous heresy and "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit", imperceptibly destroying the Church and ruining the souls of believers.

The fanatic who does not understand what he is doing has some justification. But this is little consolation, since all people hear the voice of conscience, understand the value of a righteous life, selfless kindness and selfless love. Not every believer can be a monk, ascetic, clergyman, preacher and theologian, but the commandment to love God and people is understandable and accessible to all Orthodox Christians without exception.

A Christian has no right to deceive himself, believing that the sin of "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" applies only to the Old Testament Pharisees or "external" heretics, who clearly distort the dogmas of Christian teaching. Christians can commit this sin no less "successfully" for their spiritual death, choosing an evil and proud life, covered with a mask of "church" piety. A person who only pretends to be a believer, actually denying the practical confession of the commandments of Christ, one way or another, commits an unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit.

True spiritual wisdom, inextricably linked with an undistorted God-revealed vision of the world, is expressed primarily in the fact that a Christian consciously chooses the saving practice of a righteous life and humble love. This is the only way to receive the enlightening grace of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual blindness of a sinful and evil person is the result of our proud pride. We can create any, to the extreme pious and "church" appearance, but it does not matter if a person chooses the path of sin, leading him to deny God and serve the forces of evil.

Creativity of a righteous life, based on selfless love for God and people, leads a believer to genuine knowledge and fulfillment of the will of God. The slightest admixture of religious pride deprives any ascetic deeds and the most correct dogmatic knowledge of the grace-filled effectiveness. A proud believer can go to church as much as he likes, but in any case he loses the ability to perceive the saving energy-grace of the Holy Spirit. And without the grace-filled communion with God, a person is simply not able to know, let alone do the will of God.

Under the influence of black demonic energy, a proud "believer" voluntarily or involuntarily ceases to distinguish the true meaning and purpose of faith, inexorably moving towards spiritual death. At first, he unconsciously - fanatically and blindly denies the will of God, imagining that he serves Him best of all. And then the Pharisaic denial of God completely ousts the Divine influence from the soul of a proud person, forcing him to actively devote himself to the service of the forces of evil.

It is not surprising that the proud Pharisees at any time attribute the graceful actions of Divine Providence to the intrigues of demonic forces. It is through the Pharisees, and not through heretics, non-Orthodox and other believers, that the fallen angels most successfully and purposefully turn over, swap the concepts of good and evil, righteousness and sinfulness in the minds and hearts of believers.

The main type of unforgivable sin "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" means the conscious fulfillment of the will of demonic forces under the guise of a zealous ritual faith, the conscious denial of the will of God under the guise of a pious life. Such sin is unforgivable through no fault of God. The proud Pharisee himself does not want to repent, refusing to accept forgiveness and help from above, purposefully choosing the creation of evil in the name of satisfying self-love and pride.

The Old Testament Pharisees declared the Lord Jesus Christ the messenger of the dark forces, despite His grace-filled preaching, uncompromising fulfillment of the will of God, good deeds and the greatest miracles that save people through the healing of soul and body. Some limited fanatical Pharisees could not understand the revelation of the true faith. Others, who were internally reborn as conscious devil-worshippers, did not want this. The Pharisaic denial of God of any kind is due to the fact that in the soul of a proud person, due to the absence of the grace-filled spirit of a righteous life and humble love, the Divine energy of the Holy Spirit cannot be present. But without grace-filled fellowship and union with the Creator, not a single person is able to fully serve God and people. And the most terrible thing is that the Pharisee inevitably replaces the saving creativity of the true faith with destructive service to the forces of darkness.

The proud Pharisee, teaching believers to "live according to the true faith", means by this the formal fulfillment of the ritual law, which has no real spiritual value. Such "piety" does not at all frighten the fallen angels, since it does not give a person saving grace - the power and knowledge of the Holy Spirit. When true Christians teach people to serve God with the creativity of a righteous life and selfless love, the Pharisees, incited by the forces of evil, cannot bear it. That is why the real followers of Christ, despite their obvious belonging to the Orthodox Church and manifestations of Divine power and knowledge, are often declared heretics who are allegedly in “charm” and “distort” the truth of Orthodoxy.

Every Christian, in one way or another, needs to go through the temptation of hypocrisy, through the test of religious pride and selfish striving for personal salvation. This is the most terrible and difficult, but at the same time necessary verification of the authenticity of our faith. An Orthodox believer who has accepted the Sacrament of Baptism, recognized the dogmas of Christianity-Orthodoxy and leads a pious church life, must eventually make a decisive choice in serving God, recognizing the highest value of conscious righteousness, selfless good deeds and selfless love for people.

Everything that serves the above purpose must be humbly and wisely recognized as a manifestation of the will of God. Recognize and apply, despite new and unusual forms of expression, which, due to their “spiritual practicality”, often do not like our sinful and proud nature. Only the messengers of God can live righteously and selflessly do good in a spirit of humble love. Denying such people and their deeds, we thereby do not recognize the goodness of Divine Providence and we deny God's saving will to our own peril.

The “infection” of a believer with proud Pharisees’ false faith inevitably drives out Divine grace, filling the human soul with the destructive energy of evil. The Lord can temporarily purify the nature of a proud and selfish person with His powers. However, such a Divine action does not bring real benefit, since a proud person himself does not want to do the will of God, again and again opening his mind and heart for even greater submission to the forces of evil.

Only in combination with our sincere desire and humble consent to serve God and save the world, the Divine energy of the Holy Spirit heals and enlightens the nature of a sinner. We are often very careless about our inner state, proudly considering ourselves "real" Orthodox Christians and not thinking about the fact that such behavior imperceptibly leads us to fall away from God. Religious pride is destructive in any case and on any scale. It is she who most effectively, quickly and imperceptibly leads a person to an irrevocable fall, which often cannot be corrected.

A sinful person who proudly refuses to do the will of God can only destroy and do evil. Which of the people should be attributed to such opponents of God, goodness and the true Orthodox faith? At first glance, they include all unbelieving and unbelieving "non-church" sinners, heterodox Christians - Catholics and Protestants, as well as believers of non-Christian religions.

In the vast majority of cases, only the All-Knowing Creator knows the reasons why a person is in varying degrees of disbelief, why he did not accept Christianity-Orthodoxy, why other peoples profess non-Christian religions. Answers of the following type: “they themselves are to blame due to their unwillingness” or “God knows that they cannot be saved and therefore the preaching of Orthodoxy did not reach them”, show only the spiritual limitations of the speaker, who simply does not understand that these issues have the right to decide only the Lord Himself.

As for the unbelieving and unbelieving worldly sinners living next to us in Orthodox Russia, they undoubtedly bear personal responsibility for the rejection of Orthodoxy. Moreover, the majority of Russian people are baptized and sometimes go to the temple for big holidays. But they will be responsible for this themselves, and we simply do not have the right to condemn someone to death, arrogating to ourselves the right of the Divine Court.

An Orthodox Christian, at any opportunity, is obliged to zealously and uncompromisingly defend the highest truth of Orthodoxy and, to put it mildly, the “spiritual insufficiency” of other beliefs. And here, first of all, it is appropriate to ask the question: “how can a person gain faith if he does not feel the Lord in his heart, and, in addition, is an unbeliever, rather out of ignorance, due to the lack of active examples of Christian righteousness in the people around him”?

A Christian has no right to judge such people who, under the saving influence of grace, can repent, turn to God, and decisively change their lives. We really like to condemn sinners and decide the fate of unbelievers instead of God, but we rarely want to show them a truly Christian attitude, showing the way to God by our own example. The righteous does not judge the sinner, but his sin, and judge not so much by verbal reproof as by a personal example of the expulsion of this sin.

Moreover, the majority of non-Orthodox believers and unbelieving worldly sinners do not deny the existence of God and the need to fulfill the Divine commandments. They will be judged by the Lord Himself, who knows the true essence of a person and the real motives of his behavior. An Orthodox Christian needs to firmly understand that the accusatory and terrible words of the Gospel are addressed, first of all, to Orthodox church people, to whom the knowledge of Divine Truth is fully open, associated with the great responsibility of free choice between false and true faith.

There are always few conscious servants of evil on earth. In most cases, fallen angels choose fanatically limited, spiritually blind people who do not know what they are doing for the pharisaic distortion of faith. When such a “sincere” fanatic Pharisee understands what his hypocritical ritualism will lead to, he can repent from the mere fear of punishment, in the name of personal salvation. Therefore, the forces of evil usually seek to bring such a person into a state of mental and “spiritual-demonic” disorder, called “charm” in the ascetic tradition, which distorts the consciousness of a person beyond recognition by proud self-will and the corrupting influence of spiritual and bodily passions.

A Christian must be very clear about the destructiveness of religious pride. The meaning and purpose of the Christian life are constantly being revealed to people through the example of the righteous and saints sent by God, who teach us to do the will of God in the spirit of self-sacrificing love. If a person resolutely chooses the path of holiness and love, no temptations of dark forces can prevent him from coming to the saving knowledge of the true Orthodox faith. If a Christian has even a slight desire to do the will of God, the Lord will surely help him, show him an example of true Christianity and lead him on the right path leading to the salvation of his soul.

22 And the scribes who came from Jerusalem said that He had Beelzebub in Himself and that He cast out demons by the power of the prince of demons. 23 And calling them, he spoke to them in parables: How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand; 25 and if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand; 26 and if Satan has risen up against himself and divided himself, he cannot stand, but his end has come. 27 No one entering the house of a strong man can plunder his things, unless he first binds the strong man, and then he plunders his house. 28 Truly I say to you: all sins and blasphemies will be forgiven the sons of men, no matter how they blaspheme; 29 but whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit, there will be no forgiveness forever, but he is subject to eternal condemnation. 30 Thishe said because

that they said, He has an unclean spirit. Mk 3 (22-30)

22 Then they brought to Him a demon-possessed, blind and dumb; and healed him, so that the blind and dumb man both spoke and saw. 23 And all the people marveled, and said, Is this not Christ, the son of David? 24 The Pharisees, hearing this, said: He does not cast out demons except by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. 25 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself will be desolate; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. 26 And if Satan casts out Satan, then he is divided with himself: how will his kingdom stand? 27 And if I cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 28 But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then surely the Kingdom of God has reached you. 29 Or, how can anyone enter the house of a strong man and plunder his things, unless he first binds the strong man? and then he will plunder his house. 30 He who is not with Me is against Me; and whoever does not gather with me, he squanders. 31 Therefore, I say to you: every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven people; 32 if anyone speaks a word against the Son of Man, he will be forgiven; but if anyone speaks against the Holy Spirit, he will not be forgiven either in this age or in the future. 33 Or make the tree good and its fruit good; or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 Creatures of vipers! how can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 A good man brings forth good things from a good treasure, and an evil man brings forth evil things from an evil treasure. 36 I tell you that for every idle word that people say, they will answer on the day of judgment: 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said: Master! we would like to see a sign from you. 39 But He answered and said to them: An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign; and no sign will be given to him except the sign of Jonah the prophet; 40 for as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. 41 The Ninevites will rise to judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented from the preaching of Jonah; and behold, there is more Jonah here. 42 The queen of the south will rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, here is more than Solomon. 43 When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it walks through waterless places, seeking rest, and does not find it; 44 then he said, I will return to my house from whence I came out. And when he comes, he finds him unoccupied, swept and cleaned; 45 then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits worse than himself, and having entered, dwell there; and for that person the last is worse than the first. So it will be with this evil race. Mt 12 (22-45)

Surprising and worthy of amazement is the following fact of spiritual existence - the Almighty Creator of the Universe never leaves erring mankind in His care. The Heavenly Father specially sends His Son, the incarnate God-Man and the Lord Jesus Christ, to save our world. God selflessly descends to earth for the material and spiritual salvation of fallen people, unselfishly with great love goes to sinners, showing us the path of salvation and giving strength to overcome it, introducing humanity to Divine power and higher knowledge.

The power and strength of the Creator is completely different from what proud and sinful people imagine. If a person sincerely accepts the Love of the One God, responding to it with a righteous life, refusing to create evil and selfless love for people, he becomes a being of one Spirit with God. Thus, a Christian is transformed into an enlightened God-man, who is inexplicably born again with the assistance of the Divine energy of the Holy Spirit.

Each member of the Christian Church is called to strive to achieve the highest stage of spiritual development, to full-fledged grace-filled enlightenment of the body and soul. To achieve divine-human perfection, one does not need to invent anything, it is enough to accept and fulfill the Christian teaching of a righteous life, good deeds and self-sacrificing love. Such is the true Christian creation of God, "birth in the Spirit" and "worship of God in spirit and in truth", meaning the grace-filled deification and union of man with God.

The blessed birth of a person from above occurs with the free choice of the path of the true Orthodox faith. When a Christian voluntarily serves God and does the will of God in relation to people, he thereby communicates with the Lord in the flow of the grace of the Holy Spirit and becomes a son of God who sees and cognizes the world through the eyes of his Creator.

For a grace-filled transformation, a person needs to go towards God, consciously renouncing selfishness and pride. A proud egoist destroys not only his soul, inevitably bringing evil to the people around him. It is impossible to love oneself in the name of satisfaction of spiritual and bodily passions and at the same time to create saving Divine commandments.

The Lord does not expect from the majority of believers extreme ascetic deeds and special prayerful work, careful ritual piety and special theological knowledge. The omniscient Creator does not pay attention to the literacy of a person, to his theological and science education because they are insignificant in comparison with the grace-filled illumination that awaits the believer as a result of the practice of the Christian life. The highest enlightenment of the human personality through "staying in the Holy Spirit" becomes possible for any believer who takes the path of conscious holiness and self-sacrificing love.

The idea of ​​a completely independent development of a person in “freedom” from God and “external” spiritual influence is the most destructive self-deception inspired by fallen angels in people. This is how demons enslave a person, subordinating him to the power of bodily and spiritual passions. A person who proudly refuses the help of the Creator inevitably falls under the power of the spirits of darkness, which give a person “complete freedom” to do sin and evil for the duration of earthly life. But the demons do not reveal how the “freedom” of a sinful soul, passing into eternity, ends. However, many sinners do not have time to “enjoy” even earthly sinful “freedom”, since sin always acts extremely destructively for the person himself.

The Creator never demands blind slavish obedience from man and does not deprive us of true freedom. It only seems to a sinful earthly person that slightest restriction pernicious bodily and spiritual passions is an encroachment on his “freedom”, from which the person himself and all of humanity allegedly “mercilessly suffer”. In essence, selfless worship of God “in spirit and in truth” of disinterested love is necessary for man himself for his own earthly and eternal good. Acceptance and cognition of the Christian teaching is our “natural duty”, which would be more accurately called the “saving gift” of the Creator.

The visible acceptance of the Christian faith is only the beginning of the path of grace-filled enlightenment. Basically, the Lord expects from us a practical righteous life, filled with selfless goodness and self-sacrificing love, which are least of all similar to the “slavish” submission of a person to the will of the Almighty Creator. In fact, this is the only way of real spiritual development for every normal and reasonable person.

By voluntarily fulfilling the will of the All-good Creator, we are essentially trying for ourselves, establishing true justice and the highest truth on earth, achieving the salvation of the soul and helping the salvation of those around us. It is foolish to say that God "obliges to reward" believers eternal life and salvation of the soul. The Lord does this out of love, for which the believer sincerely thanks and praises the All-good Creator, Who undeservedly gives us Divine power and knowledge, creating from a Christian a God-man and son of God, similar to the Omniscient and Almighty Creator of the Universe.

The Christian deification of the human person is carried out through an “ordinary” righteous life, which introduces a person into the Orthodox Church of the New Testament. The Church is not just a religious organization, but a collection of the righteous and saints who make up the Mystical Body of Christ.

There is no more “simple” and at the same time higher spiritual and religious path than the path of humble Christian righteousness, sacrificing itself in the name of saving the world. The perfect joy of grace-filled union with God and humanity in the spirit of mutual love opens before the Christian the highest degree of spiritual knowledge. Developing in yourself Christian virtues faith, hope and love, a person naturally reaches the Divine omniscience, which reveals an undistorted vision of the world through the eyes of its Creator.

When a Christian speaks of the grace-filled knowledge of material and spiritual being, he means not so much the laws governing matter, time and space, but knowledge of the true Orthodox faith. On the this stage Being the main thing for us is the doctrine of the saving creation of the will of God, which saves the soul of a person from the power of sin and evil, helps to avoid eternal death and directs the people around to the path of salvation.

Sinful - evil, proud and selfish people, blinded by earthly passions, often laugh at the conscious disciples of Christ, who sacrifice themselves for the sake of helping a perishing world. But no matter how proud a person is and enjoys earthly blessings, earthly life passes very quickly. For some reason, sinners are terribly afraid of dying, although they constantly assure themselves of the non-existence of eternal life.

In fact, in the depths of his soul, every person knows that he is immortal and understands that the meaning of life lies in the free choice between good and evil, and the true goal of human existence is the voluntary creation of love and good deeds. The choice between good and evil is extremely unpleasant and difficult for the distorted sinful nature of earthly man. However, whether we like it or not, this choice is justified by the only fair and correct laws of the universe, established by the All-Good Creator. And the sooner a person understands this, making the right choice, the more benefit he will bring to himself.

1 Among the Pharisees was someone named Nicodemus, one of the leaders of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said to Him: Rabbi! we know that you are a teacher who came from God; for such miracles as you do, no one can do unless God is with him. 3 Jesus answered and said to him: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4 Nicodemus says to Him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? 5 Jesus answered: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Don't be surprised at what I said to you: You must be born again. 8 The Spirit breathes where it wants to, and you hear its voice, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes: this is the case with everyone who is born of the Spirit. 9 Nicodemus answered Him, “How can this be? 10 Jesus answered and said to him, You are the teacher of Israel, and do you not know this? 11 Truly, truly, I say to you, We speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, but you do not accept Our testimony. 12 If I told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but the Son of Man who descended from heaven, who is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. 18 He who believes in Him is not judged, but the unbeliever is already condemned, because he did not believe in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God. 9 The judgment is that light has come into the world; but people loved the darkness more than the light, because their deeds were evil; 20 for everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works be convicted, because they are evil, 21 but he who does what is right goes to the light, that his works may be manifest, because they are done in God. John 3 (1-21)

4 He had to pass through Samaria. 5 So He comes to the city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the plot of land given by Jacob to his son Joseph. 6 There was the well of Jacob. Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about six o'clock. 7 A woman from Samaria comes to draw water. Jesus says to her: Give Me a drink. 8 For His disciples went to the city to buy food. 9 The Samaritan woman says to Him: how do you, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, to drink? for the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans. 10 Jesus said to her in response: if you knew the gift of God and who says to you: Give Me a drink, then you yourself would ask Him, and He would give you living water. 11 The woman says to him: sir! you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, and his children, and his cattle? 13 Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. 14 but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty; but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water springing up into eternal life. 15 The woman says to him: sir! give me this water so that I don't get thirsty and don't come here to draw. 16 Jesus says to her: go, call your husband and come here. 17 The woman said in response: I have no husband. Jesus says to her: You said the truth that you have no husband, 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; it's fair what you said. 19 The woman says to Him: Lord! I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where worship should be is in Jerusalem. 21 Jesus says to her: Believe Me, the time is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You do not know what you bow to, but we know what we bow to, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the time will come, and has already come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for such worshipers the Father seeks for Himself. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. 25 The woman says to Him: I know that the Messiah, that is, Christ, will come; when He comes, He will announce everything to us. 26 Jesus says to her, It is I who am talking to you. John 4 (4-26)

1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch I have that does not bear fruit, He cuts off; and every one that bears fruit he cleanses, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already cleansed through the word that I have spoken to you. four Abide in Me and I in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit of its own accord unless it is in the vine, so neither can you unless you are in Me. 5 I am the vine and you are the branches; whoever abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 Whoever does not abide in Me will be cast out like a branch and wither; and such branches are collected and thrown into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in me and my words abide in you, then ask whatever you want, and it will be yours. 8 My Father will be glorified by this, if you bear much fruit and become My disciples. 9 As the Father has loved Me, and I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will continue in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and continue in His love. 11 I have said this to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than if a man lays down his life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15 I no longer call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends because I have told you all that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. 17 This I command you, that you love one another. John 15 (1-17)

For each and every person, regardless of faith and nationality, there are only two opposite spiritual and religious paths. This is the path of god-like insight through the practice of a real righteous life, inseparable from a conscious faith built on love for God and people. That is the path of true goodness. The second path is naturally the path of unbelief and denial of God, which is done in the name of satisfying selfish pride in relation to people. This is the path of true evil.

If a person really seeks spiritual good for himself, he chooses the path of Christian spiritual and religious knowledge. The choice of the saving path of the highest God-revealed knowledge begins with humble repentance. Man must humbly acknowledge that the Creator of the world does not need anything that comes from man. The Almighty and Omniscient Creator is self-sufficient and can do without our ritual “offerings”. It becomes simply ridiculous when an imperfect and sinful earthly person who needs to work hard on himself until the end of his life tries to prove that his fasts and prayers can “please” God.

The Lord selflessly gives us inexhaustible grace-filled power and knowledge necessary for a full-fledged grace-filled transformation, but we must humbly want to accept them. Otherwise, pride will prevent a person from embarking on the path of spiritual purification and transformation, will not allow him to know the true laws of life and ascend to the level of enlightened God-manhood.

If we evaluate the life of a Christian from a worldly point of view, then it usually “seems” to unbelievers that God does everything for believers, and a Christian is allegedly a weak-willed “toy” in the hands of the Almighty Creator. It turns out that without help from above, a believing person is not “meaningful,” even if he has god-like power and works miracles. And any unbelieving person “independent” of God, who affirms “the highest value and freedom of the human person from the influence of the spiritual world”, is an example of “a true person who creates his own destiny”. Such an "inverted" vision of the world is formed as a result of the demonic distortion of the consciousness of a proud atheist who puts fallen angels in the place of God.

Demons really help their supporters to do evil indefinitely for the duration of earthly life, but in return they demand eternal power over the human soul. The Lord, on the contrary, teaches us to renounce evil for the time of a short earthly life, granting a righteous and kind person Divine eternity. It is the Creator who unselfishly gives us life, opening before us eternal way divine-human creativity, leading to immortality and real freedom from the power of evil.

All earth history refutes the doctrine of proud human-godliness, showing very convincing examples of how "great" politicians and conquerors, scientists and financiers, artists and philosophers, flood the world with rivers of blood and bring untold misfortunes to humanity. The false notion of the “weakness and weakness” of believers is easily exposed by the practical demands of the Christian life. By accepting the gifts of grace sent from above for personal salvation and spiritual help to sinful humanity, a Christian agrees to the most difficult spiritual feat of renouncing pride and selfishness in the name of love for God and people.

The greatest god-like abilities that bring us closer to the Creator are inherent in man. But we can correctly reveal and apply them only if we live according to Christian commandments. The Christian does not appreciate the "wonderful" psycho-physical abilities of the human personality, and he is not attracted by the most "secret" knowledge about the universe. For a disciple of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the greatest joy is the acquisition of the highest Truth of the Orthodox faith, which in the best way advances us along the path of divine-human development, most effectively helping the spiritual liberation of mankind.

The path of voluntary service to God and people requires from a Christian the highest exertion of strength and complete self-giving. But on the other hand, he leads a person to gaining god-like immortality, likening him to God and giving strength to save our world from the power of evil. Denying the highest Truth of Christian teaching and the highest power of Christian life, a person inevitably takes the path of spiritual error, leading to the service of the forces of evil and the death of the soul. Like servants of God, a slave of demonic forces can receive special "wonderful" gifts from them. But this does not mean anything if a person brings evil to himself and those around him, seducing people with false grandeur and meaningless knowledge, selling his immortal soul and god-like freedom for a short moment of base earthly passions and pleasures.

9 There was a true Light that enlightens every person who comes into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. 12 And to those who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the power to become children of God, 13 who were born neither of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Jn 1 (9-13)

37 On the last great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying: Whoever is thirsty, come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in Me, as it is said in the Scripture, rivers of living water will flow from the womb. 39 This He said concerning the Spirit, which those who believed in Him were to receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet upon them, because Jesus was not yet glorified.. John 7 (37-39)

1 And calling His twelve disciples, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out and heal every sickness and every infirmity. 2 And the names of the Twelve Apostles are these: the first Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, James Zebedee, and John, his brother, 3 Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the publican, Jacob Alpheus and Leove, nicknamed Thaddeus, 4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him. 5 Jesus sent these twelve, and commanded them, saying: Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter into the city of the Samaritans; 6 but go especially to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; 7 as you go, preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand; 8 heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons; Received as a gift, give as a gift. 9 Do not take with you gold or silver or copper in your belts, 10 no bag for the journey, no two clothes, no shoes, no staff, for the worker is worthy of food. 11 Whatever city or village you enter, go and see who is worthy in it, and stay there until you leave; 12 but when you enter a house, greet it, saying: Peace be to this house; 13 and if the house is worthy, then your peace will come upon it; but if it is not worthy, then your peace will return to you. 14 And if anyone does not receive you and does not listen to your words, then when you leave that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet; 15 Truly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city. 16 Behold, I am sending you as sheep among wolves: therefore be wise as serpents, and simple as doves. 17 Beware of people, for they will hand you over to courts and beat you in their synagogues, 18 and they will bring you before rulers and kings for me, to be a witness before them and the Gentiles. 19 When they betray you, do not worry about how or what to say; for in that hour you will be given something to say, 20 for you will not speak, but the Spirit of your Father will speak in you. Mt 10 (1-20)

9 But you look after yourselves, for you will be handed over to courts and beaten in synagogues, and before rulers and kings they will set you up for Me, to testify before them. 10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. 11 When they are led to betray you, do not worry in advance what to say to you, and do not ponder; but whatever is given to you in that hour, that is what you will say, for it will not be you who will speak, but the Holy Spirit. Mk 13 (9-11)

1 After this, the Lord also chose seventy other disciples, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself wanted to go, 2 And he said to them, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; Therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. 3 Go! I send you like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a bag or bag or shoes, and do not greet anyone on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say: peace to this house; 6 and if there be a son of peace, then your peace will rest on him, and if not, then it will return to you. 7 Stay in that house, eat and drink what they have, for the worker is worthy of his reward for his labors; do not move from house to house. 8 And if you come to any city and receive you, eat what is offered to you, 9 and heal the sick who are in it, and say to them, The kingdom of God has come near to you. 10 But if you come to any city and they do not receive you, then, going out into the street, say: 11 and the dust that has adhered to us from your city, we shake it off for you; yet know that the Kingdom of God has drawn near to you. 12 I tell you that it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that city. 13 Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! for if in Tire and Sidon the powers manifested in you had been manifested, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes; 14 but it will be more tolerable for Tire and Sidon in judgment than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum, ascended to heaven, you will fall down to hell. 16 He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me; but whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.

17 The seventy disciples returned with joy and said: Lord! and demons obey us in your name. 18 He said to them: I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning; 19 Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and on all the power of the enemy, and nothing will harm you; 20 however, do not rejoice that the spirits obey you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. 21 At that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said: I praise Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Hey Father! For such was Your good pleasure. 22 And turning to the disciples, he said: everything is delivered to me by my Father; and who the Son is, no one knows but the Father, and who the Father is, no one knows but the Son, and to whom the Son wants to reveal. 23 And, turning to the disciples, he said to them especially: blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 for I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see and did not see, and to hear what you hear and did not hear.
Lk 10 (1-24)

12 First of all, they will lay hands on you and persecute you, handing you over to synagogues and prisons, and will lead you before kings and rulers for My name's sake. 13 and this shall be for your testimony. 14 So make it your heart not to think in advance what to answer, 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom that all who oppose you will not be able to contradict or resist. Lk 21(12-14)

Introduction

Starting to explain, to the extent of my poorest understanding, the peculiar vision of the created spirits, which is characteristic of man, I find it necessary to expound the teaching about the extreme blindness of man, assimilated to him through the fall. Most people are alien to any concept of this blindness, do not even suspect its existence! Most people are alien to any concept of spirits, or have one theoretical, most superficial, most obscure and indefinite concept about them, almost equal to complete ignorance.

In modern human society, especially in educated society, many doubt the existence of spirits, many reject it. Even those who recognize the existence of their soul, recognize its immortality or its existence after death, recognize it as a spirit [It happened to hear the rejection of the existence of the soul! Thus those who think say that there is in us an incomprehensible life force, not yet unraveled by science, like in all animals, acting only during the life of the body and dying with it - that we are not at all higher than other animals; that we recognize ourselves as superior to them only by our pride. This judgment belongs to those who, according to the proverb, do not hear the soul in themselves! of course, because of the prevailing carnal state, and the whole person becomes flesh (Gen. 6, 3)]. A strange combination of mutually contradictory concepts! If souls exist after their separation from bodies, then this already means that spirits exist. If the souls of villains do not die along with the souls of virtuous people, this already means that there are both good spirits and evil spirits. They exist! Their existence is made quite clear and obvious to those who have engaged in a correct and detailed study of Christianity. Those who reject the existence of spirits certainly reject Christianity at the same time. For this sake, the Son of God appeared, says the Holy Scripture, let him destroy the deeds of the devil, let him abolish by death the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil (1 Jn. 3, 8; Heb. 2, 14). If there are no fallen spirits, then the incarnation of God has neither cause nor purpose.

The existence of spirits remains a dark subject for those who have not studied Christianity, or have studied it superficially, by letter, while the Lord Jesus Christ commanded and established the teaching of Christianity and its preaching and the observance of Christian commandments (Matt. 28, 19-20). The Lord commanded the study of Christianity, both theoretical and practical, connected these two studies with an inseparable connection, commanded that practical knowledge should certainly follow theoretical knowledge. Without the second, the first has no purpose before God! Without the second, the first cannot be of any use to us! (Matthew 7, 21-23) - The second serves as proof of the sincerity of the first, and is crowned with the overshadowing of Divine grace (John 14, 21-24). The first can be likened to a foundation, the second to a building erected on that foundation. A building cannot be erected unless a foundation is first made, and the building of a foundation remains useless labor unless a building is raised on the foundation. - The results of the human sciences and the method for achieving these results remain inaccessible to the concept of people who did not study the sciences: the results and the method of achieving them in science from sciences, in science descended from heaven, bestowed on humanity by God, in science that completely changes a person, transforms him from carnal and spiritual in the spiritual, in Christianity, remain all the more inaccessible to those who did not study it legally, according to the method established by God. But it is foolish to demand that the results of the study of Christianity, its lofty and profound mysteries, be completely clear to them without any study of Christianity! Do you want to know the secrets of Christianity? - Study it.

School teaching, by the letter, is not only very useful, but also necessary, as it provides accurate and detailed knowledge of Christianity according to the teachings of the Orthodox Church. In the course of eighteen centuries, they have rushed against Christianity with the aim of overthrowing it, especially now countless false teachings are rushing: now, more than ever, there is an urgent need for a thorough preaching and study of Christianity. But theoretical study demands that it must be accompanied and followed by active teaching. "The law of freedom is honored by doing the commandments" (St. Mark the Ascetic on the Spiritual Law, chapter 32, Philokalia, part 1). The Christian scribe must learn the Kingdom of Heaven not only from hearing a sermon about it, but also from experience (Matthew 13:52). Without this, the teaching according to the letter will become exclusively human teaching, will serve only for the development of the fallen nature. We see a sad proof of this in the Jewish clergy, contemporary with Christ. The teaching of the letter, being left to itself, immediately gives rise to conceit and pride, alienates them from God through them. Appearing on the outside as the knowledge of God, in essence it can be a complete ignorance, a rejection of Him. Preaching Faith, you can drown in unbelief! The secrets open to non-literate Christians very often remain closed to the most learned men, who are satisfied with one school study of Theology, as if the science is one of the human sciences ("Those who have renounced the world, although they do not know the alphabet (alphabet), but they are the wisest, God's enlightened light more than those who know all Scripture, but seek to be glorified in this world. For the Holy Scripture is given to us from God for the sake of our salvation and the glorification of the name of God: for this we must read it, and learn and listen. And when for the sake of our glorification we read and strive know: it will not only not be in our favor, but it will also be harmful to us. "Saint Tikhon of Voronezh, volume 15, letter 32). And this is precisely the character given to Theology in the entire non-Orthodox West, both papal and Protestant. Due to the lack of experimental knowledge of Christianity, in our time it is very difficult to hear the correct, thorough teaching on the vision of spirits, which is so necessary for every monk who wants to engage in spiritual feat in the field of spirits, to which we belong with our soul, with whom we must share eternal bliss. and eternal torment (Mt. 22:30; 25:41).

Vision of spirits - purely. There is a sensual vision of spirits, when we see them with sensual, bodily eyes, and there is a spiritual vision of spirits, when we see them with spiritual eyes, mind and heart, purified by God's grace. In the ordinary state of fall, in which all mankind is, we do not see spirits either sensually or spiritually; we are afflicted with pure blindness. For the blind, different colors and objects of the sensory world seem to not exist: so for those blinded by the fall, the spiritual world and spirits, as it were, do not exist. Not seeing something by us does not serve as a sign of its non-existence.

Alas! Alas! I interrupt the Word with weeping. The land of Israel has been corrupted by the sword; be empty! the tongue, gathered from many Gentiles, was diminished and utterly exhausted (Ezekiel 38:8, 12). “How not to weep,” said the Monk Isaac the Great, the hermit-dweller of Egypt: “where shall we go now? Our fathers have died. Previously, we lacked needlework to hire boats in which we traveled (on the Nile River) to the elders. Now we are orphans, because- then I cry." (Alphabetical Patericon and memorable stories about Isaac the Great, presbyter Kellii. - Kellii was a separate desert adjacent to Mount Nitria). Save me, O Lord, as if you were a poor reverend, as if you had diminished the truth from the sons of men. A vain verb every one to his sincere: flattering mouth in the heart (Ps. 11, 1-3). If Isaac the Great, in his current high state of monasticism, bewailed the belittling of the elders-pupils, then what kind of work does it take for a monk of our time, who truly wants to be saved, to find advice, so much needed in his laborious feat? Evil people and sorcerers (that is, all deceivers in general who have entered into explicit and implicit communication with Satan) succeed in bitterness, deceiving and deceiving (2 Tit. 3, 13), the Apostle predicts, speaking of the last days of the world. This prediction is being made before us. I often said to the unanimous brethren, during private conversations, what I now consider myself obliged to draw with a pen on paper. It would not be for me, who is in bondage to sin, to instruct the brethren! in deep silence and solitude I should have lamented my sad state of mind. But I am compelled to speak and write for edification, so as not to leave my neighbors and those who love me in the Lord without any edification. “It is better,” said Pimen the Great, “to eat unclean bread and have food than to remain without bread at all” (Alphabetical Paterik, sayings of St. Pimen the Great). With such an outlook on myself and on the surrounding circumstances, I am writing a Word on the vision of spirits, recognizing the correct knowledge of the vision of spirits as essential and necessary for the ascetics, who will have to fight not with blood and flesh, but with the principles, and with the authorities, and with the world ruler of the darkness of the age this, to spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12). This knowledge is necessary. Spirits of malice with such cunning wage war against a person that the thoughts and dreams they bring to the soul seem to be born in itself, and not from an evil spirit alien to it, acting and at the same time trying to hide (St. Macarius the Great, Word 7, chapter 31). To fight the enemy, you must certainly see him. Without a vision of spirits, there is no struggle with them: there can only be infatuation with them and slavish obedience to them. Having invoked Divine grace to help my stupidity, I will first speak about the sensual vision of spirits, about the needlessness and danger of it, then about the spiritual vision of spirits, about its necessity and benefit.

1. About the sensual vision of spirits

Before the fall of man, his body was immortal, alien to ailments, alien to his real fatness and heaviness, alien to the sinful and carnal sensations that are now characteristic of him (St. Macarius the Great, Word 4). His feelings were incomparably more subtle, their action was incomparably more extensive, completely free. Clothed in such a body, with such sense organs, a person was capable of sensual vision of spirits, to the category of which he belongs in soul, was capable of communion with them, that vision of God and communion with God, which are akin to holy spirits (Gen. Ch. 2 and 3). The holy body of a person did not serve as an obstacle for him, did not separate a person from the world of spirits. A person clothed in a body was able to live in paradise, in which only the Saints are now able to stay and with their own souls, into which the bodies of the Saints will ascend after the resurrection. Then these bodies will leave in the tombs the stoutness that they assimilated when they fell; then they will become spiritual, even spirits, according to the expression of St. Macarius the Great (Word 6, 13), they will reveal in themselves those properties that were given to them at creation. Then people will again enter the category of holy spirits and open communication with them. The model of the body, which together was both body and spirit, we see in the body of our Lord Jesus Christ after His resurrection.

The fall changed both the soul and the human body. In a proper sense, the fall was for them at the same time death. The death we see and call, in essence, is only the separation of the soul from the body, previously already mortified by the retreat from them of the true life, God. We are born already killed by eternal death! we do not feel that we have been killed, by the common property of the dead not to feel that we are being killed! The ailments of our body, its subjugation to the hostile influence of various substances from the material world, its stoutness are the consequences of the fall. Because of the fall, our body has entered into the same category with the bodies of animals; it exists by the life of animals, the life of its fallen nature. It serves as a prison and a coffin for the soul. The expressions we use are powerful! but they still do not sufficiently express the fall of our body from the height of the spiritual state into the carnal state. It is necessary to purify oneself by thorough repentance, one must feel at least to some extent the freedom and loftiness of the spiritual state in order to acquire an understanding of the disastrous state of our body, of the state of its deadness, caused by alienation from God. In this state of deadness, due to extreme stoutness and coarseness, the bodily senses are incapable of communicating with spirits, they do not see them, they do not hear them, they do not feel them. So a blunted ax is no longer capable of using it for its intended purpose. The holy spirits shied away from communication with people, as unworthy of such communication; The fallen spirits, who have dragged us into their fall, have mixed with us, and in order to more conveniently keep us in captivity, they try to make themselves and their chains invisible to us. If they open themselves, they open them in order to strengthen their dominion over us. All of us, who are in bondage to sin, need to know that communion with the holy angels is not characteristic of us because of our alienation from them by the fall, which is characteristic of us, for the same reason, communion with outcast spirits, to whose category we belong in soul - which is sensual the spirits that appear to people who are in sinfulness and fall are demons, and not holy angels. "A defiled soul," said St. Isaac of Syria, "does not enter the pure kingdom, and does not combine with the spirits of the saints" (Word 74). Holy angels appear only to holy people who have restored communion with God and with them through a holy life. Although the demons, appearing to humans, most take the form of bright Angels for the most convenient deception; although they sometimes try to assure that they are human souls, and not demons (this image of seduction is currently in a special fashion among demons, due to the special disposition of people to trust him); although they sometimes predict the future; although they reveal secrets, they should never be entrusted to them. With them, truth is mixed with falsehood, truth is used at times only for the most convenient seduction. Satan is transformed into an angel of light, and his servants are transformed as servants of righteousness (2 Cor. 11; 14:15), said the holy Apostle Paul.

St. John Chrysostom, in the second conversation about the poor Lazarus and the rich man, narrates what happened in his time: “The demons say: I am the soul of such and such a monk. Of course: I don’t believe this precisely because the demons say it. They deceive those who listen to them. For this reason, Paul also commanded the demon to be silent, although he spoke the truth, so that he would not turn this truth into a reason, would not later mix lies with it, and would not draw power of attorney to himself. us the way of salvation (Acts 14:17): The apostle, grieved at this, commanded the inquisitive spirit to come out of the maiden. what the demons say, the Apostle resolutely rejected any power of attorney to them. You belong to the number of the outcasts, says the Apostle to the demon: you do not have the right to speak freely; be silent, dumb. It is not your business to preach: this is left to the Apostles. Why are you stealing what's not yours? shut up, outcast. So also Christ, when the demons said to Him: “We know Thee who art” (Mk. 1:24), very strictly forbade them, prescribing the law to us, so that under no pretext we should not trust the demon, even if he said that fair. Knowing this, we must resolutely not believe the demon in anything. If he says what is just, we will flee, we will turn away from him. We must learn healthy and saving knowledge not from demons, but from Divine Scripture. "Further in this conversation, Chrysostom says that the souls of both the righteous and sinners, immediately after death, are taken away from this world to another, one for receiving crowns, the other for The soul of the poor Lazarus immediately after death was taken up by the Angels to the bosom of Abraham, and the soul of the rich man was thrown into the flames of hell. and the deceit of the devil, adds great saint. It is not the soul of the deceased who cries this out, but the demon who pretends to deceive the hearers."

Demons do not know the future, known to the One God and those intelligent His creatures, to whom God was pleased to open the future; but just as intelligent and experienced people foresee and predict events that are about to happen from events that have happened or are happening, so cunning, crafty spirits of great experience can sometimes guess with certainty and predict the future (Vita sanct. Pachomii, cap. 49, Patrologiae, Tom 73). Often they are wrong; very often they lie and by vague pronouncements lead to bewilderment and doubt. Sometimes, however, they can foretell an event that has already been foreseen in the world of spirits, but has not yet been brought to fruition among men: so before the righteous Job was tempted, and the allowance of these temptations was already decided in the council of God and was known to the fallen spirits (Job. one); so it was decided at the judgment of God, known to the saints heavenly powers and to the outcast angels, the death in the battle of the king of Israel, Ahab, was handed over to the fulfillment of the spirit, the evil one, before the king set out on a campaign (1 Kings 22, 19-23); so the devil predicted to St. John, Archbishop of Novgorod, the temptation that he later brought upon him (Fourth Menaion of September 7th). There were cases when holy angels appeared to sinners, but this happened by the special care of God and extremely rarely: so to the false prophet and sorcerer, i.e. a holy angel appeared to a person who was in special close communion with demons (Num. 22). Exceptional cases, according to the special care of God, should not have any influence on the general rule for all (St. Isaac of Syria, Word 1). The general rule for all people is not to trust spirits when they appear in a sensual way, not to enter into conversation with them, not to pay any attention to them, to recognize their appearance as the greatest and most dangerous temptation. During this temptation, the mind and heart should be directed to God with a prayer for mercy and deliverance from temptation. Those who want to see spirits, curiosity to learn something about them and from them, is a sign of the greatest recklessness and complete ignorance of the moral and active traditions of the Orthodox Church. The knowledge of spirits is acquired in a completely different way than the inexperienced and careless tester assumes. Open communion with spirits for the inexperienced is the greatest calamity, or serves as the source of the greatest calamities.

The divinely inspired writer of the Book of Genesis says that after the fall of the first people, God, having pronounced a sentence on them, even before expelling them from paradise, created for them garments of leather and clothed them (Gen. 3, 21). The robes of leather, according to the explanation of the Holy Fathers (St. John of Damascus. An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 3, Chapter 1), mean our rough flesh, which, during the fall, changed: it lost its subtlety and spirituality, received its real fatness. Although the initial cause of the change was the fall; but the change has taken place under the influence of the Almighty Creator, by His unspeakable mercy towards them, for our greatest good. Among other useful consequences for us, flowing from the state in which our body now finds itself, we must point out that, through the assumption of a corpulent body, we have become incapable of sensual vision of the spirits into whose region we have fallen. Let's explain it. We have acquired, as it were, a natural attraction to evil. This inclination is natural to a fallen nature: it is an inclination, like the attraction of demons to evil: the mind of a man is diligently intent on evil from his youth. But good and evil are mixed in us: sometimes we are attracted to evil, then, leaving this desire, we are directed towards good. Demons, on the contrary, are always and completely directed towards evil. If we were in sensual communication with demons, then in the shortest possible time they would completely corrupt people, incessantly inspiring evil, clearly and incessantly promoting evil, infecting with examples of their constantly criminal and hostile to God activity. It would be all the more convenient for them to do this, since fallen man is naturally attracted to evil, that fallen man is in subjection to demons, submitting to them voluntarily. In the shortest time, men, by success in evil, would become demons; repentance and rising from the fall would be impossible for us. The wisdom and goodness of God put a barrier between people cast down to earth from paradise, and spirits cast down to earth from heaven - the gross materiality of the human body. Thus, earthly governments separate the villains from human society with a prison wall, so that they do not arbitrarily harm society and do not corrupt other people (St. Cassian Conversation 8, chapter 12). Fallen spirits act on people, bringing them sinful thoughts and feelings; very few people reach the sensual vision of spirits.

In the reproduction of humanity in its present state of fall, the body brings to the soul a service very similar to that which is performed by the swaddling clothes for the newborn body. Wrapped in swaddling clothes, the body of an infant receives correctness; without swaddling clothes, its members, due to their softness, could receive ugly forms: so the soul, clothed in a body, closed and separated by it from the world of spirits, gradually forms itself by studying the law of God, or, what is the same , the study of Christianity, and acquires the ability to distinguish good from evil (Heb. 5, 14). Then spiritual vision of spirits is granted to her and, if it turns out to be consistent with the goals of God who guides her, sensual, since deceit and seduction are already much less dangerous for her, and experience and knowledge are useful. When the soul is separated from the body by visible death, we again enter the rank and society of spirits. From this it can be seen that for a successful entry into the world of spirits, it is necessary to educate yourself in time by the law of God, that it is for this education that we have been given some time, determined by God for each person to wander the earth. This wandering is called earthly life.

Human beings become capable of seeing spirits with a certain change in feelings, which takes place in an inconspicuous and inexplicable way for a person. He only notices in himself that he suddenly began to see what he had not seen before and what others did not see - to hear what he had not heard before. For those who have experienced such a change of feelings, it is very simple and natural, although inexplicable for themselves and for others; for the unexperienced - it is strange and incomprehensible. So everyone knows that people are able to sink into sleep; but what kind of phenomenon - a dream, how, imperceptibly for ourselves, we pass from a state of cheerfulness into a state of sleep and self-forgetfulness - this remains a mystery to us. The change of feelings, in which people enter into sensual communication with the beings of the invisible world, is called in the Holy Scripture the rejection of the senses. God opened, says the Scripture, the eyes of Balaam, and the sight of the Angel of God was opposed on the way, and the sword was pulled out in his hand (Num. 22, 31). Surrounded by enemies, the prophet Elisha, in order to calm his terrified servant, pray and say: Lord, now open the eyes of the child, let him see. And the Lord opened his eyes, and saw: and behold, a mountain full of horses, and a chariot of fire around Elisha: and descended to him: And Elisha prayed to the Lord, and said: Strike this tongue with invisibility. And strike them with blindness according to the verb of Eliseev... and take them to Samaria. And it came to pass when they entered into Samaria, and Elisha said, “O Lord, open their eyes, and let them see.” And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw (2 Kings 6:17-20). When two disciples were walking with the Lord along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus: then holding her eyes, the Evangelist narrates, but they did not know Him, the Lord. When they came to spend the night: then, at the breaking of bread, the eyes of the dumb man were opened, and they identified Him (Luke 24: 16-31). From the passages of Holy Scripture cited above, it is clear that the bodily senses serve, as it were, as doors and gates to the inner cell where the soul resides, that these gates are opened and closed at the command of God. Wisely and mercifully these gates remain constantly closed in fallen people, so that our accursed enemies, fallen spirits, do not invade us and destroy us. This measure is all the more necessary because, after our fall, we are in the realm of fallen spirits, surrounded by them, enslaved by them. Not being able to break into us, they let us know about themselves from the outside, bringing various sinful thoughts and dreams, by them attracting a gullible soul into communion with them. It is impermissible for a person to remove the supervision of God, and by his own means, by the permission of God, and not by the will of God, to open his feelings and enter into open communion with spirits. But that happens too. It is obvious that by one's own means one can achieve communion only with fallen spirits. It is unusual for the Holy Angels to take part in a matter that is not in accordance with the will of God, in a matter not pleasing to God. What attracts people to enter into open communion with spirits? The frivolous and those who do not know active Christianity are carried away by curiosity, ignorance, unbelief, not realizing that by entering into such fellowship, they can do themselves the greatest harm; people who have fallen into sin and apostatized from God enter into this fellowship for the most vicious motives and for the most vicious purposes.

What happens to us according to God's providence is always full of the greatest wisdom and goodness, is done according to an essential need for our essential benefit, by no means to satisfy our curiosity, or any other petty, unworthy of God, our impulses. For this reason, the ordinary order and course are violated very rarely; very rarely is a person introduced into the sensual vision of spirits. It is pleasing to God that His servant abide constantly in the greatest reverence for Him, in unconditional obedience to Him, in unconditional devotion to His most holy will. Any violation of these relations is unfavorable to God, and imposes on us the seal of God's wrath (St. Isaac of Syria, Word 36). Those who frivolously attempt to violate the order established by God and arbitrarily invade what God has hidden from us, are recognized as tempters of God, and are expelled from His face into outer darkness, in which the Light of God does not shine. Let us give a few examples that will explain to us with what saving precaution for us, for the purpose of our greatest spiritual benefit, God allows us the sensual vision of spirits. In Africa (the Carthaginian region was called Africa in the Roman Empire. See Cheti-Minei, the life of the holy martyr Artemy, on October 20) there was a publican, named Peter, a most hard-hearted man who gave alms to a beggar once throughout his life, and then not on the move sympathy, but by being carried away by anger. When Peter was carrying a large amount of bread, the beggar began to relentlessly beg him for alms: Peter, angry and not being able to hit the beggar with anything else, threw bread at him. Two days after this incident, Peter fell ill; the disease intensified; the patient was very exhausted and seemed to be approaching death. In this position, his eyes were opened: he saw the scales before him; on one side of them stood gloomy demons, on the other - bright angels. The demons, having collected all the evil deeds done by Peter during his life, put them on the scales. The light-bearers, not finding any good deeds to oppose their evil deeds of Peter, stood in despondency, and in bewilderment said to each other: “We have nothing here except one bread, which Peter gave to Christ two days ago, and that willy-nilly." They put the bread on the other side of the scale, and it immediately began to pull the first one. Then the light-like men said to the publican: "Go, wretched Peter, put it on this bread, so that the dark-looking murins do not kidnap you and plunge you into eternal torment." Peter recovered, became extraordinarily merciful to the poor brethren, exhausted all his very considerable possessions on them, gave freedom to the slaves, and, having moved to Jerusalem, sold himself as a slave to one of the pious inhabitants of the Holy City, so that by humility he would become even closer to God, to whom he already received charity. Peter was honored with great spiritual gifts (Cheti-Minei, September 22).

In the Kiev-Pechersk monastery there was a monk Aref; he had considerable wealth, and kept the treasure in his cell, being extremely stingy not only with the poor, but also with himself. Thieves robbed him at night. Arefa fell into anguish, almost laid hands on himself; began to search for the stolen estate and expose many innocent people to trouble. The brethren begged him to stop such searches and cast their grief on the Lord (Ps. 54:23); but he did not want to hear admonitions, he answered them cruelly and rudely. A few days later, Arefa fell into a serious illness, and approached death. The brethren gathered to him; he lay as if dead, saying nothing; then suddenly, aloud to everyone, he began to cry out in a loud voice: "Lord, have mercy! Lord, forgive! Lord, I have sinned! the property is Yours! I do not regret it!" He immediately recovered, and so he told the brethren about the reason for his exclamations: “I saw,” he said, “that angels and an army of demons came to me. They began to quarrel about me about my stolen wealth. did not give praise to God, but murmured, and therefore he is ours, and must be devoted to us." The angels said to me: "Unfortunate man! if you, in the event of a kidnapping from you, brought thanks to God, then the theft of the estate was imputed to you as alms, like Job. When someone gives alms, it is great before God, because the giver does so out of his own good will; to the one who endures with thanksgiving the forcible abduction, the temptation inflicted by the devil is imputed to a good will. The devil, although to plunge a person into blasphemy, arranges the theft of his estate; but the man who gives thanks to God, surrendering everything to God, acts in the same way with a merciful dispenser.” When the angels told me this, I exclaimed: “Lord, forgive me! Lord, I have sinned! the estate belongs to you; I do not regret him!" - then the demons disappeared, and the holy angels rejoiced and, imputing the stolen money to me as alms, departed. After this vision, Aref changed both in his way of thinking and in his disposition, leading the most virtuous, ascetic life, growing rich in God: he was honored with a blissful death, and testified to his blessedness by the incorruption of his relics: they rest in caves with the relics of other venerable Fathers, to whose rank Aretha is rightly numbered by the Holy Church (Fourth Menaion of October on the 24th day).

In the same Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra lived the blind elder Theophilus, who ceaselessly immersed himself in repentance and, because of his continual compunction, incessantly shed copious tears, which is recognized as a sure sign of a holy soul, who moved into eternity with his thoughts even during his stay on earth (Reverend Isaac of Syria, Word 65). Theophilus wept over the vessel, and collected a significant amount of tears into it. This was the result of a subtle conceit he did not understand, so soul-damaging for an ascetic who should not give any price to his exploits, completely leaving their assessment to God. (Phil. 3, 12-14). Three days before his death, Theophilus received his sight, as it was predicted to him by his mentor, the Monk Mark. Realizing that the time had come for relocation to eternity, Theophilus redoubled his lamentation and, bearing in mind the tears he had accumulated in the vessel, begged God to accept his tears. Suddenly an angel appeared before him with a fragrant vessel, and said to him: “Theophilus, it’s good that you prayed and wept; but in vain do you boast of the tears you collected in a vessel. Here is a vessel much larger than the one filled with your own tears, which you poured out with fervent prayer, and wiped it either with a hand or a handkerchief, or left your garments to fall on the ground.I gathered at the command of my Lord and Creator, and now I have been sent to proclaim to you the joy of moving to Him Who said: Blessed are you who mourn, for they will be comforted 5, 4. Cheti-Minei of December on the 29th day).

From the events cited here, the general nature of the manifestation of spirits, arranged by the providence of God, is clearly seen. According to God's care, spirits appear only in times of extreme need, with the aim of saving and correcting people; are in such a way that their occurrence cannot have harmful consequences. Peter and Aretha were pulled out of the abyss by sinful fear from the contest between angels and demons that they saw, and Fefil, whose lack was not in the way of life, but in the way of thinking, was instructed in humility and together was informed of the bliss awaiting him. He could not exalt himself with the appearance of an angel to him and the promise of bliss, because at the same time his deficiency was revealed to him and salvation was announced before death itself, as a gift bestowed solely by the grace of God. Only the most perfect Christians, mainly from the monks, who were able to see with the eyes of their souls, were the world of spirits revealed; but there were very few such Christians even in the most flourishing times of monasticism, according to the testimony of Macarius the Great (Conversation 8, chapter 6). The property of all visions sent by God, St. John of the Ladder notes, is that they bring humility and compunction to the soul, fill it with the fear of God, the consciousness of their sinfulness and insignificance. On the contrary, visions into which we invade arbitrarily, contrary to the will of God, lead us into arrogance, into self-conceit, give us joy, which is nothing else than the satisfaction of our vanity and self-conceit, which we do not understand (Ladder Word 3, about dreams). Demons, appearing most in the form of Angels, try to flatter a person with praise, to amuse his curiosity and vanity; then they conveniently plunge him into self-delusion and inflict on him the strongest, more or less obvious, mental harm.

The idea that anything particularly important lies in the sensual vision of spirits is erroneous. Perceptual vision, without spiritual vision, does not provide a proper concept of spirits, it provides only a superficial concept of them, it can very conveniently provide the most erroneous concepts, and it is these that it most delivers to the inexperienced and infected with vanity and conceit. Spiritual vision of spirits is attained only by true Christians, and the most capable of sensual vision are the people themselves. vicious life. Who sees spirits and is in sensual communion with them? Magi who renounced God and recognized Satan as God (The Holy Apostle Paul defined the meaning of the sorcerer in this way; full of all deceit and all evil deeds, the son of the devil, the enemy of all righteousness (Acts 13, 10). When reading Cheti-Minei, you can get a sufficient understanding of the Magi ); people who indulged in passions and, to satisfy them, ran to the Magi, through them entered into explicit communion with fallen spirits, which is done under the indispensable condition of renunciation of Christ (Father Menaion, see the life of Basil the Great on January 1, The Tale of Theophilus, the fallen and repentant, on June 23rd); people exhausted by drunkenness and depraved life; ascetics who have fallen into conceit and pride; very few are naturally capable of it; very few are spirits about any special circumstance in life. In the last two cases, a person is not subject to censure, but must make every effort to get out of this situation, as a very dangerous one. In our time, many allow themselves to enter into communication with fallen spirits through magnetism, and the fallen spirits usually appear in the form of bright angels, seduce and deceive with various interesting tales, mixing truth with lies - they always cause extreme spiritual and even mental disorder. The use of magnetism is a branch of sorcery. With him there is no obvious renunciation of God, but undoubtedly there is a veiled renunciation, since at present the devil generally covers his nets very much, caring more about the destruction of the essential than the external. Leaving no attention to the decrees of God, not carefully examining whether it is pleasing to God, whether it is in accordance with the will of God, the frivolous tester of the mysterious, blindly entrusts himself to the action of magnetism, without any precaution enters into communion with spirits, believes in them and entrusts himself, acts under their instruction. What is this if not a departure from God?

It happened that, according to the special care of God, holy spirits appeared to people of a vicious life, and even to idolaters. These people did not benefit from the appearance of holy angels to them; indeed, it was not arranged for their personalities, and therefore did not serve as a sign of their dignity. The Holy Scripture tells that at the time when the patriarch Jacob secretly left Mesopotamia from his father-in-law Laban, an idolater, and Laban set off in pursuit of his son-in-law, God came (here we must understand the Angel of God: the sent one is called the name of the Sender) to Laban the Sirin on the night of dream, and said to him, watch yourselves, lest you speak evil to Jacob (Gen. 31:24). God appeared to the idolater Laban not for Laban, but in order to bring salvation to Jacob. The idolater remained an idolater despite seeing God face to face and conversing with Him. Sense-seeing was of no use, because it was not preceded by knowledge. Having seen the true God, the idolater does not cease to recognize his idols as gods; he says of them: Thou hast stolen my gods? (Gen. 31, 30).

The idolater, false prophet and sorcerer Balaam clearly saw the holy angel on the way, and talked with him; at the suggestion of this Angel, he uttered a true prophecy, a God-inspired prophecy about the people of Israel, but this did not bring him any benefit: he remained in his ungodliness, dared to act hostile to the determination of God, and was executed with the enemies of God (Numbers 22; 23, 24, 31 ).

Saul, the king of Israel, who obviously did not depart from God, but often violated the commands of God, which is imputed to him as apostasy (1 Sam. 15; 22, 23), completed his iniquities by communicating with the sorceress. He knew that magic is a grave sin, for he put to death all magicians in the land of Israel; but, carried away by his behavior, he decided on an act that was clearly ungodly. Wanting to know what outcome the battle he intended to enter with the Philistines would have, Saul asked the sorceress to summon the soul of the deceased prophet Samuel from hell to consult with him. The sorceress did it. Appearing at her call from underground dungeons, the prophet predicted the king's defeat and death in battle. Saul, instead of sinking into repentance, fell into despair; the appearance of the prophet and the foreknowledge of the future, instead of benefit, brought him the greatest harm (1 Sam. 28. - See various opinions about this in the Fourth - Menaion, March 11, in the life of the holy martyr Pionius, presbyter of Smyrna, and in the notes to this life. Could appear to Saul a demon in the form of a prophet, and at random utter a prophecy based on the previous true prophecies and on the course of things; Samuel himself could appear, by the permission of God, for the Old Testament righteous before the coming of Christ were kept in hell and were under the power of the devil, although not as much as the sinners and the wicked). The army of the pagan Syrians, having entered the land of Israel, suddenly saw a regiment of holy angels and fled (Kings 7:6). The holy angels and the reposed righteous by such phenomena often stopped barbarians and robbers from attacking the dwellings of the saints of God (See the life of St. Let those who see sensual spirits, even holy angels, not imagine anything about themselves: this vision, in itself, does not at all serve as evidence of the dignity of those who saw it: not only vicious people are capable of it, but even the most dumb animals (Num. 22, 23 ).

The Holy Fathers preferred any spiritual vision to sensory vision. The great mentor of the monks, Saint Isaac of Syria, said: "He who was worthy to see himself, who was more worthy to see angels, for the latter enters with bodily eyes, and the first with spiritual eyes" (Word 41). Those venerable monks who were vouchsafed an abundant spiritual vision abounded in spiritual reasoning and other sublime gifts of the Holy Spirit; they were scarce Reverend Fathers who, for their simplicity and purity, were awarded one sensual vision of spirits. The Monk Daniel of Skit tells of a certain elder of a very strict life, who lived in Lower Egypt, that he spoke out of ignorance: "Melchizedek, the king of Salem, mentioned in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 14:18), is the Son of God." This was given to Blessed Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria. Cyril invited an elder to him, who performed signs, to whom God revealed what the elder asked for. The archbishop acted very prudently. He said to the elder: "Abba! Pray for me. One thought tells me that Melchizedek is the Son of God, and another thought says: no! He is a man and a bishop of God. I hesitate which of these thoughts to believe. For this reason I invited you Pray to God that God will proclaim this to you by revelation. The elder, relying on his residence, answered with determination: "Give me a period of three days: I will ask God about this, and I will tell you who Melchizedek is." After three days, the elder came to the archbishop and said to him: "Melchizedek is a man." The archbishop answered: "How did you know that, father?" Elder: "God showed me all the patriarchs, from Adam to Melchizedek. At the same time, the Angel said to me: here is Melchizedek. Be sure that this is so." Returning to the cell, the elder himself preached to everyone that Melchizedek was a man, and not the Son of God. Saint Cyril rejoiced at the salvation of his brother, who, despite the fact that he performed signs and received revelations from God, was in communion with the holy angels and the souls of departed Saints, was perishing from the assimilation of a blasphemous thought, not understanding his spiritual distress (Prologue, February 23). A similar thing happened to a certain holy presbyter of the first centuries of Christianity. Because of his purity and gentleness, during the service of the Divine Liturgy, he was constantly vouchsafed to see the Angel who stood near him. A wanderer-deacon visited the presbyter. The presbyter invited the deacon to perform a bloodless sacrifice. When they began to serve as priests, the deacon noticed to the presbyter that during his prayers he uttered words that contained heretical blasphemy. The presbyter was struck by the remark. He turned to the Angel, who was present there, and asked him: "Are the deacon's words fair?" The angel answered: "fair." - "Why," objected the presbyter, "you, being with me for so long, did not tell me this?" - "It is pleasing to God," replied the Angel, "that men be instructed by men." Constant communion with the Angel did not prevent the saint from stagnating in fatal error.

Seeing spirits with sensual eyes always brings more or less harm to those people who do not have spiritual vision. Here, on earth, images of truth are mixed with images of lies (St. Isaac of Syria, Word 2), as in a country in which good and evil are mixed, as in a country of exile of fallen angels and fallen people. The God-man descended into this country for the salvation of men; to this country, before the incarnation of God the Word, holy angels descended to humans, as to fallen beings, but having received the promise of salvation; in this country, after the incarnation of God the Word, holy angels descend to help people who are working out their salvation: but in the same country both people who arbitrarily remain in their fall, and fallen angels, hardened and established in their fall, in enmity to God. Just as people who have loved their fall, their sinfulness, use all measures to attract all people to their direction: so the fallen spirits take special care of this. They accomplish the work of destroying people with incomparably greater success than the most malicious people. The damage to people consists in mixing good with evil in them; the damage of fallen spirits consists in the complete predominance of evil, with the complete absence of good. The abilities of fallen spirits are far superior to those of fallen people, who are bound in their undertakings by the very heaviness and stoutness of their body. Demons freely and quickly flow around the universe, and freely perform such deeds that are completely impossible for humans (Job 1:7). Humans must, involuntarily, be satisfied with that experience in evil, which they acquire during a short earthly life; their evil intentions are destroyed by themselves at the hour when they involuntarily leave the field of earthly life, being claimed for the judgment of God and into eternity. Demons, on the contrary, are allowed to remain on earth from the time of their final fall (Gen. 3, 14) until the end of the world: everyone can easily imagine what experience in creating evil they have acquired in such a long time, with their abilities and constant malice, not at all dissolved by any good aspiration or passion. If they pretend to be well-intentioned, then this is solely for the purpose of more accurately succeeding in evil intentions. For good intentions, they are generally incapable. He who sees sensually spirits can easily be deceived into his injury and death. If, however, when he sees spirits, he shows confidence in them, or gullibility, then he will certainly be deceived, will certainly be carried away, will certainly be sealed with a seal of seduction incomprehensible to inexperienced, a seal of terrible damage in his spirit, and the possibility of correction and salvation is often lost. It has happened to many, many people. This happened not only to the pagans, whose priests were for the most part in open communion with demons; this happened not only to many Christians who did not know the mysteries of Christianity, and who, for some reason, entered into communion with spirits: it happened to many ascetics and monks who did not acquire the spiritual vision of spirits and saw them sensually.

Christian asceticism alone provides a correct, lawful entry into the world of spirits. All other means are illegal and must be rejected as obscene and pernicious. The true ascetic of Christ is led into vision by God Himself. When God leads, then the phantoms of truth are separated, in which lies are clothed from truth; then the ascetic is granted, firstly, a spiritual vision of the spirits, revealing in detail and with accuracy the properties of these spirits before them. After this, some ascetics are granted a sensual vision of spirits, which replenishes knowledge about them, delivered by spiritual vision. Evil spirits are bound in their actions in relation to the ascetic of Christ by the power and wisdom of God who guides him, and, despite the fact that they breathe the most special malice against the servant of God, they cannot inflict on him the evil that they would like. The misfortunes they inflict contribute to his success (St. Macarius the Great, word 4, chapter 6.7).

A detailed, essential doctrine of the spirits of evil is expounded by Reverend Anthony Great in the teaching he delivered to his disciples. The Great One borrowed this Teaching from his own holy experiences, from his abundantly gracious state; it is evidenced by the Holy Scriptures. Anthony had a vision of spirits, both sensual and spiritual. According to self-mortification, according to a deeply silent life, according to life in heaven (Phil. 3, 20), where the Holy Spirit who dwelled in him raised him, Anthony, while still in the body, already somehow belonged to the spirits (Maronite Menologion. Sancti Antonii magni opera, Patrologiae Graecae, Volume 40, pag. 960). He was constantly in communion with the holy angels, then in the struggle with demons (Cheti-Minei, the life of St. Anthony the Great, the story of Zerefer. their deceit is imputed: and many times seeing sensual hair and angels and demons. The instruction was delivered to hermits - monks who were very successful, what were the disciples of the Great. Sensual vision of spirits is an attribute of hermit life; demons fight with cenobitic monks most invisibly, bringing them sinful thoughts, dreams, sensations, very rarely appearing sensually. Anthony the Great, having sufficiently taught Paul the Simplest monastic life, arranged for him a hermit’s cell at a considerable distance from himself, and led his holy disciple into it, saying to him: “Behold! alone, to gain experience in the fight against demons" (Historia Lavsaika cap 28. Patrologiae Graecae, Volume 34.)

"Scripture commands," said Anthony the Great (Patrologiae Graecae. Tom 26. Vita S. Antonii pag. 873, 874-907, 908), "that we guard our hearts with all things (Prov. 4, 23). We have terrible and cunning, that is, crafty demons, we have a battle with them, as the Apostle says: our battle is not against blood and flesh, but against the beginning and the authorities, and against the ruler of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6, 12). many of them are in the air that surrounds us, they are not far from us, there is a great disagreement between them. Others who surpass us in spiritual progress can say a lot about their nature and diversity, and we have a special need to know the intrigues they use against us.

“Firstly, we must be convinced that demons are not called demons because they were created in the present dispensation. God did not create anything that in itself would be evil. Demons were created good. wisdom, cast down to earth, they deceived the pagans with ghosts. Flaming with hatred for us Christians, they use all means to deny us access to heaven, so that we do not ascend to where they fell. which they are, having received the grace of reasoning by the action of the Spirit, they could recognize them. Some of them are less malicious, others more malicious; but they all have one desire: in different ways to arrange for us a fall and destruction. Their cunning is manifold; see other reading.) Of course, the blessed Apostle and his followers knew this with accuracy. borrowing knowledge from those temptations that were subjected to from demons; why I, as having acquired some experimental knowledge about spirits, inform you, my children.

“If the demons see that any of the Christians, especially monks, begins to strive and succeed: then they approach him, and immediately begin to place obstacles in his path. These obstacles are sinful thoughts. One should not be confused and perplexed by suggestions brought to them: they are immediately destroyed by prayers, fasting and faith in the Lord. But being repelled, the demons do not stop from the battle: maliciously and treacherously they approach again. Not having time to seduce the heart with a secret action through lust, they approach in a different way, and attempt to bring frightened by empty ghosts, taking on various forms, now women, then beasts, then reptiles, then the greatest giants, then many warriors... But even these ghosts shown by them should not be feared: having no meaning, they instantly disappear if someone tries protect themselves by faith and by the sign of the cross. However, they are bold and extremely shameless: defeated by one method of struggle, they resort to another. gifted with prophecy, able to predict the future. They are stretched out by a ghost to such a height of growth, with a great volume in width, that they appear to be touching the roofs of houses. So they act with the aim of seducing with divas those whom they could not seduce with thoughts. If, even during this attempt, they find a soul strengthened by faith and hope: then finally they bring their leader with them "(see another reading).

Anthony said that he often saw the devil as the Lord revealed him to Job in the following words: His eyes are the vision of a morning-staff. From his mouth come like burning candles, and they will be placed like sparks of fire. From his nostrils comes the smoke of a furnace burning with coal fire. His soul is like coal, and like flames come out of his mouth (Job 41:9-13). “Being like this, the prince of demons, eloquent and aged in evil, tries, as I said, to instill horror, in which the Lord rebukes him, saying again to Job: he counts iron, like chaff, copper is rotten like a tree, crumples the sea, like a world-bringer, and Tartarus of the abyss, like a captive, imputed the abyss to the passage (into a place of walking) (Job. 41; 18, 22, 23); through the prophet: having persecuted, I will comprehend (Ex. 15, 9); through another prophet: the whole universe with my hand, like a nest, and like a left egg I will take (Is. 10, 14). Thus, the demons boast and promise to do both in order to deceive the ascetics of piety. We, the believers, should not be afraid of their ghosts, we should not listen to them They always tell lies, they never say anything just, although the devil boldly spoke so much about himself, yet the Lord pulled him out like a snake on a hook, put a bridle on him like draft animals, chained him in an iron hoop, like a runaway slave, a ring in his nostrils and lips, he is bound by the Lord like a sparrow, and am in the toy. Together with him, his accomplices, demons, like scorpions and snakes, were cast down, trampling us Christians. The proof of this is that we are struggling with the devil in the very way we live, and the one who boasted of drying up the sea and embracing the world can no longer resist our asceticism, can not forbid me speaking against him. Let us not pay any attention to his words, because he is constantly lying! let us not be afraid of his ghosts, which, of course, have no meaning! The light shown by the demons is not true: rather, it is an omen and a prefiguration of the fire they have prepared: they intensify to appear to people in the flame in which they will burn. Exactly - they appear, but they will disappear immediately, without harming any of the believers, in the very same thing revealing only the image of the fire into which they will be plunged. We should not be afraid of them for any reason: the grace of Christ has made all their attempts against us in vain.

The great Egyptian hermit describes eloquence, extraordinary promises proclaimed by demons with the aim of seducing and deceiving people, also monstrous ghosts presented by demons, their incredible and futile threats. By various means, demons are intensified to captivate people into obedience to themselves, appearing to them sensually. An attentive doer of Christ's commandments can see exactly the same action of demons when they invisibly approach the soul, trying to influence it with thoughts and dreams. Desiring to incline a person to voluptuousness, they present to him in his imagination animal seductive images and numerous means to satisfy carnal lust. Wishing to seduce with vanity, they represent earthly prosperity in a seductive picture. Wanting to shackle with the love of money, they represent a long and painful old age, also the pretexts on which this vice is based. In a word, they deceive and threaten, by all means they try to stain faith in God, to divert it under their guidance. With those who submit to demons, they act cruelly, act like worst enemies who offered everything with the same intention, with the intention of doing all sorts of harm. Those inclined to the search for glory are sometimes struck with impotence in a row after the said obedience to flattery - sometimes they seem to be satisfied for a long time in order to plunge into a difficult situation, into a disastrous abyss. When the right hand of God leaves a man for his constant and deliberate enslavement of passion: then the demons plunge him into all kinds of humiliation. This is what they do with the money-lover and the voluptuary. They seduce with sinful pleasure in order to pour out their mortal bitterness into the one who obeys them; they deceive with an abundance of blessings, so that a person, having renounced hope in God, who keeps a person from the invasion of disasters and in the invasion of disasters, deviates from the measures for preserving himself, offered by demons, and falls into disasters, the most confusing, non-original ones.

"Demons are cunning; they are able to take on different images and forms. They often appear to be singing psalms, while being invisible, and remember the words of Scripture. Very often, when we read, they immediately repeat what they read, like an echo. When we sleep, they excite us to prayer, so as not to let us rest at all in sleep. Sometimes, assuming the appearance of monks, as if the most pious, they enter into a conversation in order to deceive the ghost of clothes and images, and to captivate those who have been deceived when they wish. They should not be listened to, whether they excite to prayer, whether they exhort us not to eat anything at all, whether they accuse and reprove us of the sins that they know for us. They do this not for the purpose of piety or virtue, but in order to bring the simplest to despair. He represents the ascetic life useless, instilling disgust for the monastic life, as unbearably burdensome; they act with the aim of putting up all sorts of obstacles to this life. (see other reading)

"The prophet, sent by God, announces the plight of the demons, saying: Woe to the friend who makes his friend drunk with muddy corruption (Habak. 2, 15). Such suggestions and thoughts evoke the path leading to salvation. When the demons spoke the truth, they spoke the truth, when they spoke : Thou art the Holy One of God (Luke 4:41) - The Lord closed their mouths and commanded them to be silent, so that they would not mix their craftiness with the truth, and in order to teach us a decisive distrust of the demons, even if they spoke the truth. It is indecent for us those who have Holy Scripture and the freedom granted by the Savior to learn from the devil, who did not retain his own rank and changed in mind, falling from the spiritual to the carnal.For this reason, when the devil attempts to speak, Scripture forbids him with the following words: God speaks to a sinner: 49, 16. To deceive the simplest, they resort to all sorts of means, to all sorts of pretense, verbose, noisy , confuse, make a knock, laugh unreasonably, whistle. If there is no attention to them, then they will finally begin to cry and sob, as if defeated.

"The Lord, as God, shut up the mouths of demons; but we, taught by the saints, should imitate them, imitate them in courage. When they saw something like this, they exclaimed: Always arise for a sinner before me, dumb and humble, and kept silent from the blessings (Ps 38:2). us, do not listen to them in anything, even if they excite them to prayer, even if they teach fasting. On the contrary, let us firmly adhere to the decrees of our residence, so as not to be deceived by their actions, which are all full of malice and malice. There is nothing to be afraid of them, so that they presented themselves as attackers, at least threatened with death: they are weak, they can only threaten, they can do nothing more.

The prudent and cautious behavior prescribed in relation to demons during their sensual appearance should be strictly observed even when they act with thoughts alone. Acting with thoughts, they try, as in the case of a sensual phenomenon, to defile and pervert every virtue with their impurity, in order to shake and overthrow the ascetic, in order to shake and overthrow moral concepts in him, concepts on which a truly pious life is based. The demons inspire the monk to impose immoderate fasting, immoderate vigil, a burdensome prayer rule, excessive scarcity in clothing, excessive zeal for bodily labors, in order to lead them into arrogance, or, having exhausted their strength and health, make them incapable of pious deeds. They try to strengthen the God-pleasing sadness of the one who weeps about sins, and turn it into fatal sadness, mixing hopelessness in receiving forgiveness into repentance for sins; from hopelessness to despair. Exposing love for one's neighbor as a plausible pretext, they teach to leave the cell often to visit the brethren, and incessantly receive and invite visitors to their cell. By this they are torn away from weeping and other soul-beneficial activities, which are possible only in the bosom of solitude and silence; by this they are drawn into distraction, from which the mind is clouded, and the conquest by temptations becomes very convenient. In the confession of the true faith, in this foundation of the salvation of people, the demons are trying to plunge their admixture and turn the holy Faith into evil faith or heresy - thereby destroying the entire meaning of the Faith. What is heresy? Heresy is an admixture with frank knowledge of God of the doctrine borrowed from carnal wisdom, common to apostate spirits and apostate men. Revealed knowledge of God is taught by God Himself; it does not tolerate any admixture; it is completely rejected both by direct negation and by admixture. Such an admixture is a disguised negation.

“Having spoken briefly about this subject so far, I will not stop to say in more detail: such a story will lead you to the strictest vigilance over yourself. With the coming of the Lord to earth, the enemy fell, his strength was crushed. calm, and at least threatening with words. Each of you should know this; each of you, on the basis of this knowledge, can despise the demons. If they were bound by such bodies as we are bound, they would no doubt say: " we don't find people because they hide; if we found them, we would harm them; we could also, having closed the doors, hide from them, just as they hide from us. "But their situation is not at all like this: they can enter with the doors locked, they can, as well as their chief the devil, freely act in air space, - ready to inflict evil and harm; the devil, as the Lord said, was a murderer from the beginning (John 8, 44). Despite this, we live, even in opposition to him we established our residence: from this it is clear that the demons they have lost all strength. The place does not serve as an obstacle to their scheming; they have no guarantee that they will spare us because of their love for us, to take care of our correction. On the contrary, they are malicious, and do not try so much in anything as to to harm the ascetics of virtue and piety. They do nothing only for the reason that they can do nothing, they can only threaten; they cannot refrain from evil, they long to do us any harm, having an entirely directed will to this. Here! we have gathered and speak against them; they know that, in proportion to our progress, they become exhausted. Probably they would not allow any of the Christians to live if they had the power to do so: a pious life according to God is abominable for a sinner. Having no power, they are tormented at the sight that they cannot fulfill any plan of their own. Let us affirm ourselves in the thought that we should by no means be afraid of them. If only they had any power; they would not have approached with noise, in various ghosts, they would not have arranged covens, changing images: it would have been enough for one of them to fulfill what he desired and what was possible for him. He who has the power to kill does not approach in an empty ghost, does not terrify with noise and rebellion, but acts freely according to his power. On the contrary, demons, having no power, act out as if a theatrical performance, changing their appearance and terrifying children with their noise and ugly disguises: for this very reason they deserve contempt, as weak. The true Angel, sent by the Lord against the Assyrians, did not need any noise, or amazing atmosphere, or knocking, or clapping his hands: calmly acting on this authority, he killed one hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiers in the very shortest time (2 Kings. 19, 35). Those who do not have any power - what demons - they only try to terrify with vain ghosts.

“Perhaps someone, on the basis of the story of Job, will ask in refutation of what was said: why was the devil, armed against this righteous man, able to do everything: and took away property, and killed children, struck himself with foul leprosy? (Job 1, 15-22; 2, 1-17).Let the questioner know that this was not done by the power of the devil, but by the power of God, who delivered Job to the devil for temptation. The devil, and precisely because he himself could do nothing, asked permission to do what was done them. This event serves as the basis for great contempt for the enemy, who, although he wanted, does not have the opportunity to act against one righteous person: if he had, he would not have asked. But he asked, asked more than once, asked twice: this exposes his weakness and powerlessness. It is not surprising that he could not do anything to Job when he could not harm his flocks, without the permission of God. Even over pigs he had no power: because the demons asked the Lord, as it is written in the Gospel, saying: led us to go to the herd with wine (Matt. eight; 8, 31). If they have no power over swine, how much less over men, who are made in the likeness of God."

“One should be afraid of God alone: ​​demons should be despised and not at all afraid. The more persistently they act against us, the more zealously we should belong to asceticism. A great weapon against them is pure life and faith in God. Undoubtedly, they are afraid of fasts, vigils, prayers, meekness, heartfelt silence, contempt for money and vain glory, humility, love for the poor, mercy, goodness, above all piety in Christ (piety in Christ means strict Orthodoxy, united by strict living according to the commandments of the Gospel), when they see these virtues in ascetics. For this reason, they use every effort so that no one tramples them: they know the grace that the Savior gave against them to believers. Behold, I give you power to tread on the serpent and on the scorpion, and on all the power of the enemy "(Lk. 10, 19 ).

“So, if the demons predict the future, let no one listen to them. Often they foretell the coming of the brethren several days in advance, and in fact the brethren come. The demons do this for nothing more than to inspire confidence in themselves to those who listen to them, in order to gradually subject them to their influence, and destroy them.For this reason, we should not listen to them, we should reject their words when they speak, because we do not need them at all. having bodies lighter than human bodies (Patrologsiae Graecae T.24. S.Athanasii. T.2.Vita S. Antonii. pag. 889-890. - Ei Ceptoteroiz kromenoi pomati mallon twn anqropwn, etc.), and when they see someone setting out on the road, do they come first and announce him? In this way, riders on horseback can warn pedestrians: in this respect they are not at all worthy of surprise. They know nothing that has not yet happened. But they, seeing something or, notify about it, running across the village on foot. So to many do they proclaim what is happening between us, that is, that we have agreed that we are conspiring against them, before any of us, having gone out from here, could tell about it. Of course - any nimble boy could do this by warning the slow one. What I have said is to be understood. If someone is going on the road from Thebaid or from any other country: then they do not know whether he will go or not. When they see that he has gone, they run ahead and announce his coming, and after a few days he will definitely come. It happens that those who set off on a journey return back: then the demons turn out to have lied "(see another reading).

“In the same way, they often talk about the profit of the water in the river: seeing that great rains have come in Ethiopia, and concluding from this that the river will overflow its banks, they hastily come running and announce the coming flood before the water reaches Egypt. This could also be proclaimed by men, if they had that ability for rapid movement, which demons have.How the bodyguard of David (2 Sam. 18, 24), ascending to a high place, saw the coming person rather than the one who was standing below; also how that of the messengers who warned the others by his coming did not first announce to them about what had not yet happened, but about what had begun to happen: so also the demons warn by announcing, solely for the purpose of deception. God's circumstances will be different, the water will not come, or the travelers will not come, then the demons will be lied, and those who believed them deceived "(see other reading).

"Thus began in ancient times the oracles (soothsayers) of the pagans; so the pagans from ancient times were deceived by demons. But the deceit is put to an end. The Lord came, overthrowing the demons and their tricks. They know nothing by themselves, but, like tatis, they say what they see others. It is more correct to say that they do not so much predict as they foresee. For this reason, if they had ever told the truth, they would not deserve surprise even then. Experienced and skillful doctors, having studied any disease in many patients, very often predict the consequences her; and also the helmsmen and farmers, constantly observing the state of the air, predict clear and cloudy weather: but they attribute these predictions by no means to Divine revelation, but to experience and clarity. For this reason, let no one be surprised if the demons, perhaps, on the basis of such intelligence, say something just, let no one be influenced by their attention to them. whats to happen? or what is the need to know this, if it can be known rightly? such knowledge does not bring any progress in virtue, does not serve as evidence of holiness. None of us is called to judgment for not knowing the future; none of those who have received this knowledge is recognized as blessed, each will give an answer at the court whether he kept the faith, whether he fulfilled the commandments exactly.

“It is not for this that we raise many labors, not for this that we spend our lives in ascetic struggles in order to foresee the future, but in order to please God with virtues. so that He will help us to win the victory over the devil. If, however, we want to certainly acquire foreknowledge of the future, then we will acquire purity of mind for this. I am convinced that the soul, having been cleansed and ascended into a natural state (the holy Fathers call the state in which people created, the state of fall they call inferior), becomes clairvoyant, and, by the action of Divine revelation, can see farther and more hidden than the devil sees. Such was the mind of Elisha, who saw the deeds of Gehazi (2 Kings 5, 26) far away, he also saw the heavenly army sent to protect him "(Elisha) (2 Kings 6, 17).

"So, if demons come to you at night and start talking about the future, telling about themselves: we are angels, then don't believe them. They lie. If they praise your life and call you blessed, then don't listen to them, even do not look at them, but immediately mark yourself and your dwelling with the sign of the cross, turn to prayer, and you will see that they will disappear. They are timid, and are extremely afraid of the sign of the cross: because the Savior deprived them of their strength with the cross, and betrayed them to shame. If they are to act persistently and shamelessly, jumping and changing the images of your vile disguises - do not be frightened, do not be horrified, do not trust them, as if good. Very soon, by the grace of God, you can distinguish, by the grace of God, the presence of good spirits from the presence of evil. The manifestation of holy spirits does not produce An angel will not cry out, lower will weaken, lower will hear his voice outside (Is. 42, 2): he is so pleasant, so good, that from his sight there is joy, joy, delight in the soul. This is because the Lord is present with the holy angels, which is our joy and the strength of God the Father. The thoughts of the soul are in peace, alien to embarrassment; embraces her desire for Divine, future blessings; she would like to remain forever in them, and depart from here with the holy angels. But if anyone, like a man, is afraid of the appearance of the holy angels, then they will immediately take away this fear with their goodness. This is what Gabriel did about Zechariah (Luke 1:13); so did the Angel who appeared to the women in the tomb of the Lord (Matt. 28:5), and the one who said to the shepherds mentioned in the Gospel: do not be afraid (Luke 2:10). Fear in those who have seen is born not from the indignation of the soul, but from the presence and contemplation of the excellent dignity of beings. These are the signs of the vision of the holy angels."

"On the contrary, the invasion and ghost of evil spirits is accompanied by noise, rattling, sounds and screams, similar to the disorder that ill-bred youths and robbers produce. From their presence, fear appears in the soul, confusion and bewilderment in thoughts, longing, disgust from achievement, laziness, despondency, remembrance of relatives, fear of death, then sinful desires, cooling of zeal for virtues, moral disorder... And so, if you see someone appearing, and fear will seize you, but this fear will immediately be taken away, and inexpressible joy, joy will replace him , notification, renewal of the soul, peace of thoughts and the other things mentioned above, strength of the soul and love for God, then be calm and pray, joy and such a state of mind is a sign of the presence of holy spirits So Abraham, seeing the Lord, rejoiced (Deut. 13, 4) So John, jumping for joy when the Mother of God Mary uttered a greeting.If you see any phenomenon accompanied by noise, knock from here and the situation according to the custom of the world, with the fear of death and with the above signs - know that evil spirits have come.

“And the following will serve as a sign for you. If fear does not recede from the soul: then this is a sign of the presence of enemies. Demons do not take away fear in any way, as the Archangel Gabriel took away the fear, appearing to Mary and Zacharias, and the Angel, who appeared to the women in the tomb of the Lord "On the contrary, the demons, seeing that a man is afraid of them, strengthen the ghost in order to strike with great fear, and to scold, having drawn worship to themselves. Having approached, they say to the frightened: prostrate, and render worship. Thus they deceived the pagans, and are recognized by them as gods "The Lord does not allow us to be deceived by demons. When the devil approached the Lord with such apparitions, the Lord forbade him with the following words: Follow Me, Satan, for it is written: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and serve Him alone. Therefore, we must more and more to despise this evil one, who assumes various forms.The Lord said to the devil, it was said for our sake, so that the demons, hearing these words from us, would be afflicted by the power of the Lord, who rebuked them with these words."

“One should not be conceited by the grace-filled power of casting out demons, should not be extolled by the grace-filled gift of healing diseases. The one who casts out demons does not deserve surprise, nor the one who does not cast out contempt. Savior, and not ours: why did He say to His disciples: Do not rejoice in this, for spirits obey you, but rejoice, for your names are written in heaven (Lk. 10, 20). The fact that our names are written in heaven serves evidence of our virtue and God-pleasing life, and the power of casting out demons is the gift of the Savior. For this reason, famous for miracles, and not for virtue, and saying: Lord, Lord, did not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name I cast out demons, and in Your name many powers He answered: Amen, I say to you: we do not know you (Matthew 7:22-23). ​​The Lord does not know the ways in which the wicked go. We must pray unceasingly, as I have already said, for receiving the gift of discernment. ears, so as not to trust every spirit (1 Jn. 4:1), as Scripture teaches us."

“Now I wanted to be silent, and no longer continue the conversation; but lest you think that what I said was said at random, and be convinced that I told from the knowledge acquired by experiments, I become as if senseless (2 Cor. 12, 11 ), continuing the word. The Lord, who hears what I say, knows the purity of my heart's intention that I, not for my own sake, but for the sake of your love and your edification, begin the story of the demonic actions known to me from experience. How many times the demons called me blessed, and I cursed them in the name of the Lord! How many times have they announced to me the profit of the water in the river, and I answered them: what do you care about this? Once they approached me menacingly, in the likeness of soldiers armed with various weapons, intending to cut me. They filled my house in the form of horses, beasts, and snakes, and I repeated the saying of the Psalm: These are in chariots, and these are on horseback; so the Lord drove them away . Once, at night, they came to me, making a ghost of light and saying: Antony! we came to you and brought light; I closed my eyes and began to pray, and immediately the light of the wicked was extinguished. A few months later they came, singing psalms and saying sayings from the Holy Scriptures; but I am deaf, not hearing (Ps. 37:14). It happened that they shook my dwelling; I, undisturbed, remained in prayer. After that they came again, rattling, whistling and dancing; but when they saw that I was praying and lying down singing psalmody with my mind, they immediately began to weep and sob, as if they had lost their strength, and I sent up praise to the Lord, who curbed and perverted their insolence and ferocity.

"Once a demon appeared to me in a ghost of extraordinary size and dared to say: I am God's strength, I am God's providence: I can bestow good on you; what do you want? But I, calling on the name of Christ, breathed on him, and attempted to beat him; on in fact, it seemed to me that I had beaten him! (a person, when seeing spirits - since this state is outside the usual order - cannot immediately give himself a true account of whether what he sees is actually happening, or is it just a vision. Acts. 12, 9) Immediately this giant, with all his demons, disappeared.- Once, while I was fasting, the devil came to me, taking on the form of a monk; he seemed to be holding bread in his hands, and made me the following proposal: Stop your great fast and taste food: because you are a man, and you are in danger of falling into illness. Realizing his craftiness, I stood up to pray: unable to endure this, he disappeared, and in the likeness of smoke entered through the door. How many times the devil presented to me in the desert a ghost of gold with those m, so that I even touch him, or look at him! But I resorted to the weapon of psalmody, and the apparition disappeared. Many times they severely beat me and covered me with wounds; but I exclaimed: Nothing will separate me from the love of Christ! (Rom. 8:35). Then they rushed at each other and struck each other. But I tamed and drove them away: the Lord did this, saying: He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven (Lk. 10, 18). My children! remembering the saying of the Apostle, transforming this on yourself (1 Cor. 4:6), so that you learn not to lose heart, flowing through the field of asceticism, and not be afraid of the ghosts of the devil and his demons.

"I told this as foolish, listen to the following, in order to lead you through your life without fear and stumbling. Believe my false story. Once someone knocked on the door of my solitary dwelling. I went out: before me stood a giant of the highest growth. I asked him: who are you? I am Satan, he answered. Again I asked: why did you come here? He answered: In vain the monks and all Christians accuse me! in vain they do not stop cursing me for an hour. I said to him: they do this because you pursue them, and do not give them peace. Not I, he objected to this, but they themselves embarrass themselves, and I finally lost all my strength. Do they not read: The enemy has run out of weapons to the end, and you have destroyed the cities ( Ps. 9, 7). There is no place left in my possession, no country, no city. Christianity is accepted everywhere, and now the deserts are filled with monks. Let them watch themselves, and do not accuse me in vain. Then, marveling at the grace of the Lord, I said to the demon: You are a lie, you always remain lies and never tell the truth. But now you involuntarily told the truth: because Christ, by His coming, weakened you, cast you down and exposed you. The demon, having heard the name of the Savior, and not enduring the fire emanating from this name, disappeared.

“If the devil himself admits that he has no power; then, of course, he is worthy of our contempt, his demons are worthy of contempt. let us not consider the causes of fear, let us not allow ourselves to assimilate the thoughts of fear, saying: Lest a demon, having attacked me, overthrow! let us not frighten me! Let us in no way allow ourselves such thoughts; let us not allow ourselves anguish, as if those who must perish. On the contrary, let us be more and more strengthened by faith, filled with joy, as those who must inherit salvation, keeping in mind that the Lord is with us, who turned into flight and crushing the demons. Let us also think and keep in mind that as long as the Lord is with us, until then the enemies can do us no harm. When they come to us, they will deal with us with responsibly to what they find us, and adjust their ghosts to the thoughts with which we will then be embraced. If they find us in fear and embarrassment, then they invade this state of ours, like thieves who have found some place that is not guarded by anyone. What we ourselves think: they try to present in an exaggerated form. If they see that we are frightened and trembling, then they, according to our state of fright, represent ghosts and fears, and the unfortunate soul is actually punished for its inner state. If, however, they find us rejoicing in the Lord, contemplating future blessings, established in the thought that everything is in the right hand of God, that demons are completely weak in relation to Christians, that they have not the slightest authority in anything; if, I say, they find a soul protected by such weapons, they turn away from it in shame. The enemy found Job so armed, and retreated from him; He found Judas without this weapon, and dragged him into enslavement. If we want to despise the enemy: then let us carefully dwell in Divine thoughts, let the soul abide constantly in joy, produced by hope in God. Then we will impute the shameful performances of demons for smoke; we will see that they rather flee from us than pursue us: because, as I said above, they are extremely cowardly; they are constantly kept in awe by the fire of Gehenna, which they are waiting for, prepared for them.

"And the following you need to know for your safety. When any vision presents itself, do not allow yourself to be frightened, but whatever this vision may be, courageously ask him first: Who are you and where from? If there is an appearance of the saints: then they will calm you, and turn your fear into joy. If the manifestation is devilish, then, having met firmness in the soul, it will immediately begin to waver: because the question: Who are you and where from? is a sign of a fearless soul. Having made such a question, Joshua convinced of the truth (Joshua 5:13), but the angel did not hide from Daniel" (Dan. 10:20).

Those of the ascetics who did not acquire the gift of reasoning spirits, did not examine their fall in themselves, did not understand that Christ for a Christian is everything that must reject the very goodness of the fallen nature and renounce his soul, who, for this reason, are capable of self-conceit in a greater or lesser degree. to a lesser extent, they were subjected to great disasters and death itself from the sensual manifestation of spirits, which followed due to the exhaustion of the flesh by bodily exploits and self-conceit that crept into the soul. When the spirits captivate or entrap a person in the secret of his heart and mind: then they conveniently act outside. Man commits himself to lies, thinking that he trusts the purest truth. The Monk Isaac of Syria narrates: “Someone Asinas, a native of the city of Edessa, the composer of many trilogies that are still sung to this day, spent a lofty (apparently) life. from his cell, placed him on the top of a mountain called Storius, and, having previously received his consent, showed him the image of a chariot and horses, and said: God sent me to take you to paradise, like Elijah. on the chariot: then this whole dream was destroyed, he fell from a great height, fell to the ground, and died a death worthy of weeping and laughter at the same time" (Word 55).

It is obvious: Asinas perished due to a lack of spiritual knowledge about fallen spirits, about the mystery of the redemption of mankind by the God-Man. With this knowledge, there is no place in a person for self-conceit, on which execution and seduction were based. A terrible disaster and for the same reason were subjected to two Kiev-Pechersk hermits, Saints Isaac and Nikita: the first appeared a demon in the form of Christ, the second - in the form of an Angel (Cheti-Minei, the life of St. . The words of the holy Apostle Peter are quite true: your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). He devours the weak and infants according to the spiritual mind; he is not ashamed to attack the great saints of God, hoping to deceive and bring them down in moments of spiritual slumber or insufficient vigilance over himself. The means that the devil used so successfully against Asinas, he wanted to use to crush the Monk Simeon the Stylite. From Asinas he extracted prior consent; He wanted to catch the Stylite by surprise - to destroy it, taking away both the time and the opportunity to consider the prepared deception. He was transformed into a bright Angel, - he appeared with a chariot and fiery horses to Simeon, who stood on an elevated pillar. “Listen, Simeon!” he said. The God of heaven and earth sent me to you, as you see, with a chariot and horses, to take you to heaven like Elijah: you are worthy of such an honor for the holiness of your life. Your hour has already come, in which you must reap the fruits of your labors, and accept the crown of kindness from the hand of the Lord. Go forth without delay, servant of the Lord, that you may see your Creator, that you worship your Creator, who created you in His own image. May the angels and archangels, the prophets, the apostles, see you, martyrs who want to see you." When the tempter said this and the like - the demons are verbose and eloquent - the monk did not understand that he was dealing with a deceiver. In the character of the Saint there was a special simplicity and a tendency to unquestioning obedience, as can be easily seen from a careful reading of his biography. Simeon said in response, turning to God: "Lord, do you want to take me a sinner to heaven?" With these words, he raised his leg to enter the chariot, and with his hand he made the sign of the cross on himself, from which the devil, and the chariot with horses, instantly disappeared (Cheti-Minei on September 1). It goes without saying that, because of this temptation, Simeon was even more immersed in humility, even more afraid of self-conceit, which, hiding in the smallest degree, almost destroyed him. If the saints were in such danger of being deceived by evil spirits, then for us this danger is even more terrible. If the saints did not always recognize the demons who appeared to them in the form of the saints and Christ Himself, then how can we think of ourselves that we unmistakably recognize them? One means of salvation from spirits is to resolutely renounce their visions and communion with them, recognizing oneself as incapable of such vision and communion.

The holy mentors of Christian asceticism, enlightened and taught by the Holy Spirit, comprehending the beneficent and God-wise reason why human souls during their stay on earth are covered with bodies, as if with veils and covers, command pious ascetics not to entrust themselves to any image or vision if they suddenly present themselves , do not enter into a conversation with them, do not pay attention to them. In such manifestations, they command to protect themselves with the sign of the cross, to close their eyes and, in a resolute consciousness of their unworthiness and inability to see holy spirits, pray to God to cover us from all intrigues and seductions, maliciously placed on people by spirits of malice, infected with incurable hatred for people. . Fallen spirits hate the human race so much that if they were allowed to invisibly hold them by the right hand of God, they would destroy us instantly (St. Macarius the Great, conversation 25, chapter 3). The doctrine of the foregoing caution and of saving distrust of the manifestations of spirits is accepted by the entire Church: it is one of her moral traditions, which her children must guard carefully and without fail. The holy Xanthopoules say: “Never accept if you saw something sensually or with the mind inside or outside of you, even if it was the appearance of Christ, or an Angel, or some kind of Saint, or a dream of light; but abide not believing this and being indignant about it" (Ch. 73. Kindness, part 2). In the Prologue we read the following instruction about this: "The devil appeared to a certain monk, transformed into a bright Angel, and said to him: I am Gabriel; sent by God to you." The monk answered: "Look: to whom you have not been sent: because I, living in sins, am not worthy to see an Angel." Ashamed by this answer, the demon immediately disappeared. For this reason, the elders say: if an angel really appears to someone, do not accept him, but humble yourself, saying: I, living in sins, am not worthy to see an angel. Some elder said about himself: Staying and ascetic in my cell, I saw demons in reality, but did not pay any attention to them. The devil, seeing that he was defeated, came one day to the elder (transformed and in great light), saying: I am Christ. The elder saw him, closed his eyes and said: I am not worthy to see Christ, Who Himself said: Many will come in My name, saying, I am the Christ: and they will deceive many (Matt. 24:4). The devil, hearing this, disappeared; the elder glorified God. The elders said: do not desire to see sensually Christ or an Angel, so that you do not completely go crazy, accepting a wolf instead of a shepherd and paying homage to your enemies, demons (the Monk Isaac of the Caves paid such worship to the devil, who appeared in the form of Christ, and suffered terribly). The beginning of the delusion of the mind is vanity: the ascetic carried away by it tries to imagine the Divine in images and likenesses. And you should know that sometimes demons are divided into parts: first some come in their own form, then others - in the form of angels, as if to help you "(April 22).

The Monk Gregory of Sinai, in his admonitions to the silent one, says: “I want you to have an exact concept of delusion, so that you guard yourself from it, so that you, in ignorance, rushing (to a lie, covered with a guise of goodness), do not receive the greatest harm, and do not destroy of your soul. The autocracy of a person (free will) conveniently inclines to communion with the resisting (with fallen spirits), especially the autocracy of those who do not have spiritual knowledge (reason), as being under the constant influence of them (spirits). , spreading nets of thoughts, ditches of falls and dreams of destruction: for their city (the mind and heart of the novice and self-made) is in the possession of the barbarians. truth, or speaks unseemly out of inexperience and foolishness.It is not surprising if someone new to the beginning is deceived by deceit and through many labors: for this happened to many ancient and modern ascetics kami... You won’t accept in any way if you see what is sensual or by the mind, outside or inside yourself, whether it will be the image of Christ or an angel, or some Saint, or if light is dreamed and depicted by the imagination in the mind: for the mind itself is also inherent in daydreaming, and he conveniently composes the images he wants, which are usually inattentive to themselves strictly, and in what way they harm themselves. Often allowed by God to deliver a crown, it hurt many: for it is pleasing to God that our autocracy be tested, where it bows. If someone accepts, without asking those who know, what he sees with the mind or sensuality, he is conveniently deceived, or inclined to deception as a credulous one. Not a small amount of labor is required in order to reach exactly the truth and become pure from everything that is contrary to grace: for the devil usually shows his charms to the new beginnings in the image of truth, transforming his evil cunning, as it were, into something spiritual. Why, who wants to achieve pure prayer in silence, must march in much trembling and weeping, always weeping over his sins, grieving and fearing lest he fall away from God, not be excommunicated in this or the next age. The devil, when he sees someone living mournfully, does not stay there, fearing the humility brought by weeping. But if someone, driven by self-conceit, dreams of reaching something high, and has acquired jealousy that comes from Satan, and not true: Satan conveniently entangles him with his nets, as his servant. For this reason, a great weapon is to copulate with prayer and weeping. .. Those who live arrogantly and are led by their own understanding are conveniently damaged... A person needs a lot of reasoning (ie, in the spiritual mind) in order to acquire the distinction between good and evil. Do not go into phenomena quickly and lightly, but, being difficult, hold back the good in many trials, and reject the evil: for you are obliged to test and reason, and then already believe (that which turns out to be worthy of faith). Know that the effects of grace are clear. The devil, although he is transformed, cannot submit them; cannot give meekness, nor quietness, nor humility, nor hatred of the world, does not quench sweetness and passions, which is all the action of grace. The actions that flow from the devil are arrogance, arrogance, insurance, and all kinds of malice. From the action (produced on your soul) you can know the light that has shone in your soul, whether it is from God or from Satan "(the last of the chapters of the very useful St. Gregory of Sinai. Philokalia, part 1).

In general, thoughts, sensations of the heart, and sensory manifestations of demons are known by their fruits, by the action they produce in the soul, just as the Savior said: From their fruit you will know them (Matt. 7; 16, 20). Confusion, bewilderment sure signs thoughts, sensations and manifestations of demons. But even by these signs the tempter can be recognized only by those who have trained for a long time the feelings of their spirit to discern good from evil (Heb. 5:14). The Monk Elezar of Anzor was once visited (as it were) by the holy Apostle Paul and imparted to him some mysterious teaching. On the next day, exactly the same phenomenon appeared to the monk. “I spat in his face,” writes Elezar in his notes, “and said to him: go away, seducer, with your seductions! because I felt him with my heart.” Here is an example of the action of the senses trained to distinguish between good and evil! Similarly, St. Pachomius the Great denounced the devil, who appeared to him in the form of Christ (the life of St. Pachomius the Great, May 15). But for the inexperienced and beginners, the only way to avoid deception, damage and destruction lies in the resolute renunciation of all vision, due to a complete incapacity for a correct judgment about it.

What is the cause of the terrible hypocrisy of spirits, terrible hypocrisy both in the beginning and in the consequences? The reason is obvious. We can most clearly consider it in ourselves: because a person participates in the fall of the rejected angels, and if he follows the evil suggestions that they bring, arising from the fallen nature, then they become like a demon. Among the characteristics of our fall, we notice the desire to hide the crime and justify ourselves that accompanies all human iniquities. This is what Adam and Eve did in violation of the commandment of God (Gen. 3); so did their firstborn Cain after the murder of his brother Abel (Genesis 4). The farther a person is from correction and virtue, the stronger and more refined in him is the desire to cover himself up with hypocrisy. Intentional, desperate villains are usually together with the most shameless hypocrites. Covered with the guise of hypocrisy, covered with the guise of virtue and holiness, they prepare and commit the greatest atrocities. The more skillfully the mask is composed, the more successfully the crime is carried out. The fallen angels also hide behind the guise of hypocrisy. They are desperate, constant, incorrigible villains, acting evil, most taking the form of bright angels, prophets, martyrs, apostles, Christ Himself. They try to conform to the circumstances, to the person's way of thinking, to the inclinations, to the impressions they receive. To some ascetics they present heaps of gold and silver, as well as other items of luxury and earthly splendor, in order to find an echo of a dream in the spiritual passion of greed and love, if it is hidden in the soul; other ascetics with a similar purpose are presented meals with plentiful dishes and drinks; otherwise vast halls resounding with music, with crowds of people playing and dancing; to others they appear in the form of women, arousing lust with their own beauty and artificial adornments. When the fallen angels want to overthrow someone with fear: then they appear in the form of beasts, in the form of executioners, in the form of prison and city guards, in the form of warriors with sparkling weapons, with flaming torches - mainly in the form of faces that have ever aroused there is fear in the ascetics. They tried to seduce others with singing, as if angelic, with harmonic music, as if heavenly. Others tried to mislead with voices and prophecies, as if divine. They appeared to others in the form of absent relatives and acquaintances; they appeared to others in some form characteristic of humans, persuading those who see them not to doubt them, not to think that they are outcast spirits, trying to assure that they are human souls, whose fate has not yet been decided, and which for this reason wander on the ground, finding no shelter; at the same time, they compose some interesting tale, capable of arousing curiosity in the frivolous and attracting their power of attorney to a lie, presenting it as the purest and most holy truth. The latter method of seduction is especially used by spirits in our time. Wandering souls are also trusted by those who do not believe in the existence of evil spirits. This is exactly what evil spirits need: thieves and murderers can then commit and undertake all atrocities when those against whom their anger is directed do not even believe their existence. “From everywhere,” says St. Macarius the Great, “one should be very careful to notice the intrigues of the enemy, deceptions and malicious actions. He tries to be evil to everyone, so that he will bring everyone down to destruction "(word 7, ch. 7).

Man arbitrarily rejected communion with God and the holy angels, voluntarily entered into communion with evil spirits, in the same category with them, in the category of beings rejected by God, hostile to God, submitted to evil spirits. Salvation for fallen man is granted to the tun by God; but it is left to the will to accept or reject this salvation. He was given the opportunity, given the grace-filled power to break free from the category of fallen spirits, to overthrow their yoke; but left to the will and remain in the same state of communication with them, enslavement to them. For people, either captivity or struggle is inevitable. A pious feat is nothing else than the active acceptance of salvation, as a manifestation of our will, shown and proved by experience itself, by life itself. It is quite natural that the fallen spirits try to keep us in their captivity and communion when we want to terminate the communion, free ourselves from captivity; and we need to prove our sincere desire to overthrow their yoke by setting in motion every means in our power to do so. Entering asceticism into the world of spirits in order to acquire freedom, we meet, firstly, with fallen spirits. Although Divine Grace, given to us at Holy Baptism, secretly guides us, helps us and fights for us, without which the struggle with spirits and liberation from their captivity is impossible; however, at first we are surrounded by them, and, due to the fall, in communion with them, we must forcibly extricate ourselves and for them from this communion. Due to the fall of our nature, good and right thoughts and feelings are mixed in us with evil and false thoughts. Due to confusion with the second, the first is also indecent. Fallen spirits try to keep us in the state of our fall, in which we are of necessity in their enslavement, and therefore bring us sinful thoughts and dreams such as our fallen nature sympathizes with and enjoys, or such, in which evil, rejected even by the fallen nature, covered by the guise of goodness and truth. Acting in this way, through thoughts and dreams, spirits act in exactly the same way when they begin to appear sensually. The general order of monastic Christian asceticism is that the monk, upon entering into a feat, is met and surrounded by fallen spirits, first they act against him with thoughts and dreams, and then in a sensual way. This is clearly seen from the biographies of Anthony, Macarius, Pachomius the Great, Mark Fraceskago, Mary of Egypt, Andrew Christ for the sake of the holy fool, John the Long-suffering, and all other holy ascetics. First they had to struggle with thoughts, dreams and feelings that were clearly sinful and covered up sinful; already after a long time, after many and constant efforts, thoughts and feelings of the saint were sent down to them. When they reached the sensual vision of the spirits, they first met them with hordes of outcast angels, and then, after a fierce struggle, the holy angels approached them and entered into communion with them, as if they had actively rejected the first communion and actively demonstrated the ability for the second communion. This order in asceticism was manifested over Himself by the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, who assumed all our weaknesses, except for sin: first, the tempter devil appeared to Him in the wilderness, then, already after the Lord defeated the devil, the holy angels approached the Lord and served Him (Matt. 4 11), says the Gospel.

For young monks who did not acquire sufficient knowledge of spirits from invisible warfare with them in thoughts and feelings, experienced monastic mentors forbade the intensified feat of fasting, vigils, seclusion, during which feats the spirits soon begin to appear sensually, and can conveniently deceive the ascetic to his injury and death ( Ladder, word 27; St. Nil of Sorsk, word 11; Prologue, January 9th, about a monk deceived by demons; Life of St. Nikita of the Caves, Chet'i-Minei, January 31). Very few are capable of an open struggle with demons, even among the monks, those who have acquired a detailed knowledge of spirits in invisible war with them, have taught their heart feelings to distinguish good from evil through spiritual sensation, whose feat is overshadowed by Divine grace (Reverend Nilus Sorsky, Word 11; other mentors of Christian asceticism also reason). The only correct entrance to the sensual vision of spirits is Christian progress and perfection. It is God Himself who brings into this vision those who are to enter it. He who invades the sensual vision of spirits spontaneously, does wrong, illegally, contrary to the will of God: it is impossible for such a person to avoid deception and self-delusion and damage that follow deception. Its very intention has its origin in deceit and self-delusion.

2. About the spiritual vision of spirits

Much less embarrassing for a person is the limitedness of his sensual vision, the blindness in relation to primitive vision, produced by a fall, than the blindness of the spirit produced by the same fall (St. Tikhon of Voronezh speaks a lot about the blindness of the spirit in his cell letters, volumes 14 and 15). What kind of blindness is this? what kind of blindness of the spirit? especially the sages of the world will ask, and, without waiting for an answer, they will immediately call the announcement of the blindness of the human spirit, of its mortality, idle talk and absurdity. Such is this blindness! it can unmistakably be called death. Food and we are blind esma? (John 9:41) - the blind and arrogant Pharisees spoke to the Lord. Not feeling blindness is not a sign of sight. Fallen people, who did not want to recognize their blindness, remained blind, but those born blind, who recognized their blindness, received their sight of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 9; 39, 41). Let us try in the light of the Holy Spirit to discern the blindness of our spirit.

Blindness has struck our mind and heart. Because of this blindness, the mind cannot distinguish true thoughts from false ones, and the heart cannot distinguish spiritual sensations from spiritual and sinful sensations, especially when the latter are not very rude. Because of the blindness of the spirit, all our activity becomes false, just as the Lord called the scribes (scientists) and Pharisees foolish and blind (Matt. 23), blind leaders who do not enter the kingdom of heaven and do not allow people to enter it.

With true spiritual achievement, the grace of God, planted in us by holy Baptism, begins to heal us little by little from the blindness of the spirit through compunction. In contrast to the state of blindness, we begin to enter the state of seeing. Just as in the state of vision the spectator is the mind, so the Holy Fathers also called vision intellectual vision, that is, mental. As the state of vision is delivered by the Holy Spirit, so the vision is also called spiritual, being the fruit of the Holy Spirit. In this it differs from contemplation. Contemplation is characteristic of all people; each person contemplates whenever he wants. Vision is characteristic of those who purify themselves through repentance; it does not appear to the arbitrariness of man, but from the touch of the Spirit of God on our spirit, therefore, according to the all-holy will of the All-Holy Spirit. The doctrine of spiritual or mental visions is expounded with particular clarity and detail by Hieromartyr Peter, Metropolitan of Damascus. (Philokalia, part 3).

Tenderness is the first spiritual sensation delivered to the heart by the Divine Grace that has overshadowed it. It consists of tasting God-pleasing sadness, dissolved by grace-filled consolation, and opens before the mind a spectacle never seen before. From spiritual sensation comes spiritual vision, as Holy Scripture says: Taste and see (Ps. 33:9). Seeing exacerbates sensation. “From doing with compulsion, immeasurable warmth is born, kindling in the heart from warm thoughts that newly come to the mind. Such doing and keeping refine the mind with its warmth and give it the ability to see. Warm thoughts are born from this, as we said, in the depths of the soul, which is called Vision. These visions give birth to (that gave birth to) warmth. From this warmth, growing from the grace of the Vision, an abundant flow of tears is born "(St. Isaac of Syria, beginning of the 59th word). As long as sensation operates, vision also operates. With the cessation of sensation, vision ceases. Unknowingly it comes, unknownly departs, not depending on our arbitrariness, depending on dispensation. The gate to spiritual vision is humility (saying of St. John Kolov, Alphabetical Paterik). The constant presence of tenderness is accompanied by a constant vision. Vision is the reading and acceptance by the spirit of the New Testament. With the cessation of compunction, communion with the New Testament ceases, communion with the Old Testament begins; instead of the predominance in the soul of humility, not resisting evil (Matt. 5:39), there is justice, intensifying to pull out an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth (Matt. 5, 38). For this reason, the Monk Sisoy the Great said with groaning: "I am reading New Testament but I return to the Old One" (Alphabetic Patericon). Whoever wants to constantly abide in tenderness and spiritual vision, should take care of constantly being in humility, banishing self-justification and condemnation of neighbors from himself, introducing humility by self-reproach and consciousness of one's sinfulness before God and people.

The first spiritual vision is the vision of one's sins, hitherto hidden behind oblivion and ignorance. Seeing them through tenderness, the ascetic immediately gains experiential knowledge of the previous blindness of his spirit, in which what existed and existed seemed completely non-existent and non-existent. This existing, when compunction retreats, again disappears into non-existence, and again appears non-existent. When tenderness appears, it appears again. The ascetic passes experimentally from the consciousness of his sins to the knowledge of his sinfulness, which infects his nature, to the knowledge of the passions or various ailments of the nature. From the vision of his fall, he passes on to the vision of the fall, which encompasses all human nature. Then the world of fallen spirits gradually opens up to him; he studies them in his passions, in the struggle with them, in the thoughts, dreams and sensations brought by the spirits. The seductive and deceptive view of earthly life, which hitherto seemed to him infinite, is taken away from him: he begins to see its facet - death; he begins to admire, that is, to be transported in spirit, feeling to the very hour of death, to the hour of God's impartial judgment. From his fall, he sees the need for a Redeemer, and applying the commandments of the Lord to his ailments and seeing the healing and life-giving effect of these commandments on ailments and on a suffering soul, he acquires a living faith in the Gospel, as if in a mirror, he sees his fallen nature even more clearly, and the fall of mankind, and evil spirits. Limiting ourselves to the calculation of these visions, as essential and soon made available to the diligent monk; Let us conclude the calculus with the words of St. Maximus the Confessor: “It is impossible for the mind (i.e., the spirit) to achieve passionlessness from one deed (i.e., from some bodily exploits), if many and various visions do not accept it” (monks Callistus and Ignatius about silence and prayer, chapter 68, Philokalia, part 2). The word "accept" shows that these visions are not, like contemplation, arbitrary states or compositions of the mind; the word "accept" can be translated by the word "visit".

It is quite natural for our spirit to acquire dispassion, when sensations of a fallen nature are replaced by spiritual sensations, subsequent and accompanying tenderness, and the reason of the fallen nature is replaced by spiritual reason, formed from concepts delivered by spiritual visions. To distract from living according to the gospel commandments, from Christ-imitative humility, from compunction, from spiritual vision, from liberation from the slavery of passions or from passionlessness, from the Resurrection of the soul, in order to keep fallen spirits in blindness, in death, in captivity conduct fierce abuse with the ascetics. In this battle, they exhaust all their inherent malice, all their inherent cunning. Deceit and malice are called here characteristic of fallen spirits, not because they were given to them at creation - no! fallen spirits were created good, alien to evil, as we already know from the teachings of Anthony the Great - because by their arbitrary fall they acquired evil for themselves, became alien to good. We repeat what was said above: the fall of men consists in the confusion of good with evil; the fall of demons is in the complete rejection of good, in the complete assimilation of evil (Ladder, word 4, chapter 35; all the Holy Fathers are of the same opinion). I have turned to all your commandments, I have hated every path of unrighteousness (Ps. 119:128), the Holy Spirit speaks about His guidance of man to salvation: thus, in contrast, the spirit of malice opposes every commandment of the New Testament, hates every image of God-pleasing living. But in this opposition to the gospel commandments, in assisting all sinful inclinations, fallen spirits are studied by the ascetic of piety, are seen by him, are known through the knowledge of spirits acquired by this means; sensual vision of spirits, if it is allowed, only completes the knowledge. Knowledge of man is acquired in exactly this way: essential knowledge of man is acquired by studying his way of thinking and feeling, his way of acting; the more detailed such a study is, the more definite the knowledge becomes. Acquaintance face to face completes this knowledge; one personal acquaintance has almost no significance in relation to the essential knowledge of a person.

Fallen spirits act on us with various thoughts, various dreams, various touches. In these actions they are seen and studied. All these actions are mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Gospel depicts the devil, first putting into the heart of Judas Iscariot the idea of ​​the betrayal of the God-man (John 13:2), then ascending into Judas (John 13:27). It is clear from the Gospel that Judas had an inclination towards the love of money (John 12:6) and, contrary to the commandments of the Lord, began to satisfy the inclinations of this passion, hiding behind a plausible, but in essence crafty care for the poor. Based on this passion, the devil began to inspire him with the idea of ​​betrayal; when Judas adopted the devil's thought for himself, and decided to put it into practice, then the devil completely prevailed over him. "Look," says blessed Theophylact - Satan ascended into him, that is, he ascended to the very heart, embraced the soul. Before, he stung him from the outside with the passion of the love of money: now he has finally taken possession of him. "It is terrible to agree with the devil's thought: for such consent, God departs from man, and man perishes. This happened to Ananias and Sapphira, mentioned in the Apostolic Acts, which, according to the suggestion they received devil, agreed to lie before the Holy Spirit, and immediately after the crime they were smitten with death. Ananias, - said the holy Apostle Peter, - why fill your heart, Satan, lie to the Holy Spirit, and hide from the price of the village? (Acts 5, 3). the devil tempts man, this is evident from the temptation of the God-man by the devil: the devil showed the Lord all the earthly kingdoms and their glory at the hour of time (Luke 4:5), that is, in dreaming.Our mind has the ability to think and the ability to imagine; concepts of objects, by means of the second he assimilates the images of objects.The devil, based on the first ability, tries to communicate sinful thoughts to us, and based on the second ability ty, tries to capture seductive images. “Like a small and gentle child,” says St. Hesychius, “seeing some magician, it rejoices and follows the magician in mildness: so our soul, simple and kind, being so created by the All-good Lord, amuses itself with the dreamy pretexts of the devil, being seduced, clings to to evil, as if to good, and mixes (combines) his thoughts with the dream of a demonic appendage "(Sermon on sobriety, chapter 43, Philokalia, part 2). Dreaming of demons has a very harmful effect on the soul, arousing in it a special sympathy for sin. Appearing often, it can make an indelible, pernicious impression. We read about how the devil acts on a person through touch in the book of Job (Job, chapters 1 and 2) and in the gospel story about a woman who was bound by Satan with a special strange illness (Luke 13; 10, 16). From the touches of demons, carnal passions are aroused and diseases are born that are not affected by ordinary human healing. - All these images of demonic aspirations on a person can be studied by reading the biographies of the Saints and the writings of the Fathers, mainly compiled for the edification of the monks. But learning from reading is very insufficient: for satisfactory knowledge, study by experience is necessary. When the human spirit begins to be purified by Divine grace, then it gradually passes from the knowledge of spirits to their spiritual vision. This vision is accomplished with the mind and heart, bestowed by the Holy Spirit. It is natural to a renewed mind and heart: so sensory vision is natural to the sensory eye, which sees not because of learning, but because of a natural property, and does not see only due to an illness that prevents natural action or its cessation.

Spiritual vision of spirits is accomplished with the mind and heart. Convicts the evil spirits of the heart; the mind is not sufficient for this: it cannot distinguish by its own forces the images of truth from the images of lies, covered with images of truth. Spiritual reasoning is based on spiritual feeling, just as Saint Isaac of Syria said: "The spiritual mind is the feeling of the eternal life" (Word 38), or as two disciples testified about their feeling and the meaning of this feeling when talking with the Lord, which they did not recognize either sensual eyes, nor by reason of the mind: is not our heart woe to us, when He (the Lord) speaks to us on the way, and when He speaks to us of the scriptures (Lk. 24, 32). It is this heart that testified with fidelity about the Lord, testifies with fidelity also about spirits, and tempts them, if they are from God (1 John 4:1), or from the kingdom of darkness and hostility. A heart that is cleansed by repentance, renewed by the Holy Spirit, is capable of such a witness; but the heart, held captive by passions and demons, is only capable of false and erroneous testimony. For this reason, the Monk Barsanuphius the Great said to the monk who asked him how to distinguish thoughts that come from God, from nature, and from demons: “What you are asking about refers to people who have reached a great measure (spiritual age). the eye is not cleansed by many medicines, then it cannot get rid of thorns and thistles, and gather a bunch of grapes that strengthen and rejoice the heart If a person does not reach this measure, then he cannot distinguish (these thoughts), but will be mocked by demons and fall into deception, believing them: because they change things as they please, especially for those who do not know their wiles" (answer to question 59). Further in this epistle, the Great Father says: “The thoughts that come from demons are first of all filled with embarrassment and sadness, and they follow themselves hidden and subtle: for enemies dress in sheep’s clothes, that is, they inspire thoughts that are apparently right, but inwardly they are wolves. predators (Matt. 7:15), that is, they delight and deceive the hearts of the mild-tempered (Rom. 16:18) by what seems good, but is actually harmful. , or you think, or you see, and at the same time, although you are embarrassed by the hair your heart- all this is from demons." In another message, the Great One said: "Know, brother, that every thought that is not preceded by the silence of humility does not come from God, but clearly from the left side. Our Lord passes with quietness; yet the enemy happens with confusion and rebellion. Although (demons) are shown clothed in sheep's clothing, but being internally ravenous wolves, they are revealed through the confusion they induce, for it is said: from their fruit you will know them (Matt. 7, 15-16). May the Lord enlighten us all, so as not to be carried away by their (imaginary) truth" (answer to question 21).

Let us conclude our Word with the spiritually wise instruction of St. Macarius the Great: “A lover of virtue should be very concerned about acquiring reasoning, so that he can fully distinguish between good and evil, so that he can investigate and understand the various demonic intrigues with which the devil has a habit of corrupting under the guise of good ideas to the mind. be always careful in order to avoid dangerous consequences. Out of frivolity, do not quickly succumb to the promptings of spirits, even if there are heavenly angels, but remain unshakable, subjecting everything to the most careful scrutiny, and then accept what you see as truly good, and reject what turns out to be evil The actions of the grace of God are not implicit, which sin, even though it has taken on the appearance of goodness, cannot in any way deliver.Although, according to the Apostle, Satan is transformed into an Angel of Light (2 Cor. and presented bright visions, then, as it was said, he cannot at all give a good action, which serves as a clear sign of him. neither love for God and neighbor, nor meekness, nor humility, nor joy, nor peace, nor restraint of thoughts, nor hatred of the world, nor spiritual tranquility, nor lust for heavenly gifts, can tame passions and lusts, which is a clear action of grace for it is said: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, and so on. (Gal. 5:22). On the contrary, he can conveniently communicate pride and arrogance to a person, as he is very capable of this. So, you can recognize the intelligent light that has shone in your soul by its action, whether it is from God or from Satan. However, the soul itself, if it has sound reasoning and can distinguish between good and evil, immediately becomes clear both by a reasonable feeling (spiritual sensation). Just as vinegar and wine are the same in appearance, but by taste the tongue immediately recognizes the difference between them, revealing what is vinegar and what is wine: so the soul, by its own strength, by its spiritual feeling, can really distinguish the gifts of the Good Spirit from the dreams of the evil one. (Word 4, Ch. 13) The heart, overshadowed by Divine grace, resurrects into spiritual life, acquires a spiritual sensation, unknown to it in a state of fall, in which the verbal sensations of the human heart are mortified by mixing with bestial sensations.Spiritual sensation or feeling with all justice is called reasonable: because its giver is the Holy Spirit, the Light and the Life, and the Living Smart Source, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Reason, God and Worship (the third verse is self-voiced at Vespers on Pentecost). Taste and see (Ps. 33, 9), we repeat the saying of Holy Scripture we have already quoted. Spiritual vision, from which spiritual reasoning, comes from spiritual sensation (On spiritual sensation, see conversation 8, of St. Macarius the Great and 1 Word of St. Simeon the New Theologian). Those who are perfect, says the Apostle, eat solid food, those who have feelings have been trained by a long study in the judgment of good and evil (Heb. 5:14). So spiritual reasoning is the property of perfect Christians; those who have significantly succeeded in pious deeds participate in this blessing; it is alien to the novice and inexperienced, even if they were in bodily age and old men.

What should newcomers do? - Entering monasticism, they at the same time enter into a struggle with the spirits; what rules should they be guided by so as not to become a victim of their ignorance, a victim of the malice and cunning of the spirits? - The Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church answer this question in the following way: “We achieve true reasoning only through true humility, which consists in revealing to the Fathers not only what we do, but also what we think, so that we what they did not believe in their own thought, but in everything they followed the words of the elders and recognized as good what they approve.This doing not only keeps the monk in true reasoning and on the right path, but also protects him from all the networks of the devil. and the council of those who have succeeded in falling from the deception of demons, for before anyone is worthy of the gift of reasoning, the very fact that he reveals and reveals his thoughts to the fathers, withers them and takes away their strength. dark hole into the light, tries to escape and hide: so also evil thoughts, being discovered by sincere confession and their announcement, try to escape from a person "(St. Cassian the Roman, Sermon on Reasoning, Philokalia, part 4). It was the tradition of the Apostles: confess one to another, says the Apostle James, “sinnings, and pray for one another that you may be healed” (James 5:16); in a way he engaged in the edification of every Christian, tried to elevate each to Christian perfection, so that the grace of the Holy Spirit acted in him (Col. 1, 28-29). Similarly, the holy teachers of ancient monasticism acted: being vessels of the Holy Spirit, they quickly raised their disciples to perfection, making them temples of God.This can be verified with all satisfaction from their writings left to us. no, not earthly learning, but the communion of the Holy Spirit was raised to the level of a mentor and attracted the hearers of the word to the speaker of the Word of God, and not his own, human word . “It’s good,” says the Monk Cassian in the above word, “not to hide your thoughts from the fathers, as I have already said; however, it should not be revealed to anyone, but to spiritual elders, who have the gift of reasoning, beyond their years and gray hairs. Many, trusting in old age and having confessed their thoughts, they did not receive healing, but fell into despair from the lack of art of those who accepted confession. The Monk Abba Moses of Skete asked for advice from the young Zechariah, who lived in Skete. Zechariah fell at the feet of the elder and said to him: "Father, are you asking me?" The elder answered him: "Believe me, my son, Zechariah, that I saw the descent of the Holy Spirit upon you, and therefore I find it necessary to question you" (Alphabetic Paterik). The revelation of thoughts and living under the guidance of spirit-bearing fathers was recognized by the ancient monks as so necessary that the monks who rejected this doing were considered to be outside the saving path (Abba Dorotheus, teaching about the hedgehog not to leave your mind). With the gradual weakening of Christianity, monasticism also began to gradually weaken; the living vessels of the Holy Spirit began to diminish; many hypocrites, in the form of greed and the acquisition of human glory, began to pretend to be saints and spiritual, to attract the inexperienced with a skillfully composed mask, to damage and destroy them. Already Simeon the New theologian, who lived in the 10th century after the Nativity of Christ, said: “Study the Divine Scriptures and the writings of the Holy Fathers, especially active, so that with their teaching, comparing the teaching and behavior of your teacher and elder, you could see them (these teachings and behavior) as in a mirror and understand; according to the Scriptures to assimilate and contain in thought; but the false and evil to recognize and reject, so as not to be deceived. Know that in our days many deceivers and false teachers have appeared "(Chapter 33. Philokalia, part 1) . In the course of time, the spirit-bearing teachers diminished more and more, as the later Holy Fathers narrate about this with pain. “Now such mentors have become extremely impoverished,” said the Monk Nilus of Sora, who lived in the 15th century (Preface to the charter). With the impoverishment of mentors, the holy fathers, at the suggestion of the Holy Spirit, who thought in good time and insightfully about the spiritual needs of the monks of the last time, compiled many edifying works, the totality of which satisfactorily determines the monastic feat (This thought is found in the life of the elder Paisius Velichkovsky, the most skillful mentor of the monks, who died at the end 18th century. His life and writings were published by Optina Pustynia in 1847). These holy scriptures fulfill to some extent the deficiency of the living organs of the spirit. The later Fathers already offer more guidance to the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers, as suggested by them. New Theologian, not rejecting the very cautious advice with contemporary fathers and brothers, with all possible distance from wandering and from acquaintance outside and inside the monastery, while carefully keeping the spirit in thoughts and feelings of humility and repentance. It is very difficult and very inertly monastic prosperity delivered by this work; but this is a work given by God to our time, and we are obliged to reverently use the gift of God given to us for salvation. The inertia of progress, the multitude of stumbling blocks involuntarily humble our spirit, so prone to vanity and arrogance, deliver precious knowledge of our infirmities, lead to hope in the only mercy of God. Such hope will not put you to shame (Rom. 5:5). Why have we not been given the fiery wings of ancient monasticism, with which it flew with speed and strength over the sea of ​​passions, as was revealed to one of the great ancient fathers? (Alphabetic Patericon, in the life of St. John Kolov) - these are the fates of God, exceeding our concept; studying them is forbidden to us: it would be a vain labor, an arrogant and criminal undertaking (as in the life of Anthony the Great), as if not testing His judgment, and not examining His path. Who knows the mind of the Lord? or who is his counselor? To Him be glory forever. Amen. (Rom. 11:33-36).

Conclusion

Called by the mercy of God to monastic life, let us use all diligence to acquire the knowledge and spiritual states that are essential for our salvation. Let us not be satisfied with empty curiosity, vain and useless curiosity. It is terrible to allow oneself to be light-minded in a saint's feat: the fruit of such light-mindedness can be heavy, incurable injuries, often even death itself. Let us try to earn poverty of spirit, weeping, meekness, hunger for heavenly truth. Let us beseech God to reveal our sins to us and make us worthy to bring true repentance to them! Let us pray to God to reveal our passions to us and grant healing from them! Let us beseech God to reveal to us the fall of humanity, its redemption by the God-man, the purpose of our earthly wandering and the eternity awaiting us either in endless pleasures or in endless torments, so that He prepares us and makes us capable of heavenly bliss, so that He removes those seals from us and destroys those handwritings by which we must be thrown into the dungeons of hell! Let us beseech God to grant us purity and humility of mind, the fruit of which is spiritual reasoning, faithfully distinguishing good from evil! Spiritual reasoning unmasks the action of our passions, which often appears to the inexperienced and passionate as an action of the highest good, and even an action of Divine grace; spiritual reasoning tears off the mask from the fallen spirits, with which they try to cover themselves and their intrigues. Let us beseech God to grant us a spiritual vision of spirits, through which we could see them in the thoughts and dreams they bring, break off communion with them in our spirit, overthrow their yoke, get rid of captivity! In communion with fallen spirits and in their enslavement lies our ruin. Let us refrain from ignorant, pernicious desire and striving for sensual visions, outside the order established by God! With humility and reverence, let us follow the teaching of the Holy Fathers, the tradition of the Orthodox Church! With reverence, let us obey the decree of God, who covered our souls with thick curtains and shrouds of bodies during our earthly wandering, separated us from the created spirits with them, screened and protected us from the fallen spirits. We do not need a sensual vision of spirits to complete our earthly, laborious wandering. For this, another lamp is needed, and it is given to us: The lamp of my feet is Your Law, and the light of my paths (Psalm 119, 105). Those who travel with the constant radiance of the lamp - the Law of God - will not be deceived either by their passions or fallen spirits, as the Scripture testifies: Peace to many who love Your law, and there is no temptation for them (Psalm 119, 165). This lamp reveals all the secret and obvious dangers on our way; reveals not only our fall, not only fallen spirits, but also the very miracles of God: more than my enemy has made me wiser by Thy commandment, says the Prophet. Deviate from me, you wicked ones! there is no place for you because I am constantly exercising in the study of the law of my God. His law is my teaching throughout the whole day and all night, throughout my whole life, which I can rightly call day, as illuminated by the law of God, and rightly I can call night, according to the predominance of human darkness emanating from the ruler of the world (Psalm 118; 98.115.97). The commandment of the Lord is bright: it enlightens the mental eyes (Psalm 18:9): sin, pretending to be virtue, and a dark demon, taking on the guise of a bright Angel, cannot hide from them.

In due time, appointed by the one God and known to the one God, we will certainly enter the world of spirits. This time is not far from each of us! May the all-good God grant us to spend our earthly life in such a way that even during it we break off communion with fallen spirits, enter into communion with holy spirits, so that, on this basis, having put off our bodies, we are numbered among the holy spirits, and not among the rejected spirits. . Then, in indescribable joy, we will see both the orders of holy angels and the orders of holy people in their wonderful abodes not made by hands, at their eternal spiritual feast. Then we will know and see the fallen cherubim with his dark hordes: then God will grant the sight of demons - these unfortunate creatures, will fully satisfy our curiosity about the Lord, without any danger to us, as sealed by the finger of God in immutability and inability to be seduced and damaged by evil. Amen.

Modern humanity at this point in time has quite a lot of different types of confirmation of the existence of worlds that are different from the visible world of forms - the material plane of the planet Earth. The existence of other worlds gradually becomes a stable picture of the world. Interest in "other" worlds, as well as in issues of interaction with such worlds, as a rule, comes down to thinking about what qualities or paranormal abilities a person must have in order to "see", feel, interact with such a different world, as well as with its representatives, there are also plenty of opinions and points of view on this subject on how to develop the ability to “see, hear, feel”. There has been a strong public opinion of "knowing" people that in order to possess the paranormal, psychic abilities at the first stage, it is necessary to develop, develop, etc. Sensitivity to the perception of the subtle world.

Many practitioners of energy, spiritual, yogic, etc. practice it succeeds, but many do not. But even those who manage to develop some extraordinary abilities in themselves, that is, those that far from all living people have, sooner or later hit the ceiling, they suddenly realize that there is a limit to the development of these abilities, and beyond a certain level of development human, practices with an emphasis on ability are doomed to failure. A reasonable question arises: what to do next and what about those who really want to “open their third eye”, but they don’t want to open it for anything?
Let's start with the fact that many people still have a persistent delusion about the purpose of a person, his essential definition, his abilities and capabilities, and, accordingly, about the need for their development, disclosure, etc.
One of the basic statements of the Esoteric teaching says:
“Man is, first of all, a Soul that exists “forever”, and also follows the path of evolution and can periodically reincarnate in new physical bodies, which it organizes for itself according to a certain order and template, from the cells of genetic parents, taking into account all previous accumulated experience and previous existence.
The esoteric model defines the interaction of the planet Earth and man:
1. Planet Earth has its own consciousness and is a single living organism.
2. Everything that exists inside the consciousness of the Earth - exists on the planet.
3. Any object on Earth has its own consciousness and, including a person, is a multidimensional energy-information object.
Let's consider such a multidimensional interaction on the example of the Simplified model of interaction between the Human Mental Bodies and Consciousnesses.

Simplified Model of Consciousness and Mental Bodies:

The External Signal goes to the "Antenna" and further to the Mental Body of the Sahasrara. Under the condition that a person has an Active Consciousness "Super-I" (Higher Self) - this Signal is processed by this Consciousness.
The unprocessed part of the "Signal" that passed through the Mental Body of Sahasrara enters the Worldview "filter" - the Subconsciousness, located on the Mental Body of Ajna.
If a person has an active Consciousness "not-I", then this "Signal" is processed by him and launches the 3rd Eye - the second System of World Perception. raw, not accepted part The "Signal" from the Mental Body of Ajna enters the Mental Body of Vishudha, which includes the Consciousness - the Signal translator, which turns the incoming Signal into our 3-dimensional world, and the Mind - which analyzes the received images.
If a person has an Active Consciousness "I" - then it processes the part of the "Signal" that has arrived at him with the help of the 1st Perception System and builds a Conscious Behavior.
If the Consciousness "I" is not active, then part of the Signal enters the Mental Body of Anahata - "Animal Consciousness" and builds Emotional Behavior.
It can be seen from this diagram that each Active "upper" - higher-frequency Consciousness "intercepts" the Signal and takes control.
Therefore, by developing our higher-frequency states of Consciousness, we fundamentally change ourselves, our perception of ourselves and the world, our behavior, our capabilities, etc.
The esoteric model of the Universe tells us about the principle of nested consciousnesses - the principle of Matryoshka. Such a matryoshka shows that the human consciousness is embedded (absorbed) into another similar consciousness, which subsequently enters the next more expanded similar consciousness, and so on ad infinitum.
Man is, first of all, consciousness, and he is inside the consciousness of the planet Earth. The planet is also, first of all, consciousness, and it is inside the consciousness of the solar system, which is inside the consciousness of the Galaxy, and so on.
A person is a multidimensional energy-information structure of a living consciousness, in every person God “laid” 7 basic abilities:
1. clairsentience (tactile sensations)
2. spiritual clairvoyance
3. clairvoyance
4. Clairaudience
5. clear sense of smell
6. clear vision physical
7. clear recognition of taste sensations
At modern man basically 5 main abilities are clearly manifested through the senses and therefore another misconception lies in the definition of his abilities. Many people confuse the concepts of “Sensibility” and “Sensitivity”.

Spiritual vision and sensitivity

Sensuality is the ability human psyche respond to external influences and experience the impact of external objects that are realized with the help of the senses, the ability to experience emotional states, tendency to carnal pleasures.
Ability human spirit(sensuality) to perceive the surrounding reality with the help of the senses is a condition for obtaining cognitive experience and a practical relationship of a person to the world.
The presence of sensory abilities in a person determines for him, as for any other living organism, a landmark and successful actions in the world around him.
Sensitivity is a property of humans and animals to feel stimulus signals from the external environment and from one's own tissues and organs: tactile (touch), pain, temperature, musculoskeletal, etc.
We hope the difference is clear! This is where all the answers to questions related to paranormal, extrasensory and other "other" abilities in humans lie.

Man is a “system” and his self-development, transformation of consciousness, transmutation of the physical body must take place in a complex manner, in a system of multidimensional spiritual development and harmonious entry of the Spirit, Soul and transformation of the Personality into individuality. We invite you to start not only receiving, studying, memorizing knowledge, but also applying it, practically developing your abilities of Sense-Knowledge in the World of New Energies ***

Conscious control of attention gives a person the opportunity to more effectively identify, compare and, if necessary, eliminate external and internal factors that lead out of balance, which is important for a qualitative increase in the level of development of a person’s personality. You can learn about the mechanisms of attention and the ability to consciously control it in practice “Development of the Soul: Attention of a person. The role of attention in life.

The most interesting:

What is the symbolic meaning of the color of the trinity icon

Vanga's predictions over the years about Russia and the world, determining fate by the date of birth of Edgar Cayce about the financial well-being and integrity of Russia

Online fortune-telling "Yes - No", free virtual fortune-telling