Spiritual vision. Have a spiritual vision. Deacon Andrei Kuraev as a church critic of esotericism

Tuesday, 13 Jan 2015

One who always looks at living entities as spiritual sparks, qualitatively equal to the Lord, understands the true nature of things. What can mislead or disturb such a person?

Ultimately, our anxiety is caused by the fact that we are not seeing a living entity, but only his body. If you look at me, you will see my body. Our eyes are composed of water, earth, air ... These eyes are able to perceive material energy, so I can see what kind of body you have: male or female, young or old, and so on. But to actually see you, a different type of vision is needed.

V Sri Isopanisad, It is said that a wise person sees that living entities are part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, qualitatively equal to Him, and that such a person has no cause for concern. In the material world, everyone is in anxiety due to lack of spiritual vision. When we talk about vision, we understand that it happens. material and spiritual .

Material vision is of two types.

First type Is a vision through gross feelings: vision, hearing etc.

But there is also another material feeling second type material vision - speculative reasoning. It is based on gross sensory perception. Through gross feelings, information enters the mind, and then, on its basis, a person discusses what is true and what is not. But the results of mental constructions cannot be spiritual, since they are based on the perception of material senses. This process of acquiring knowledge is called “bottom-up”. Following this process, a person who wants to understand something (for example, a scientist) examines this phenomenon very carefully with the help of his eyes, perhaps armed with some kind of extension in the form of a microscope or a telescope, and then begins to think about what all this means.

Thus, our speculative constructions are based on material sensory perception, and the conclusions we arrive at ultimately depend on the capabilities of our senses. But since our material senses are limited, our conclusions will always be imperfect... In other words, our senses are imperfect, so all our knowledge gained through sensory perception will also be imperfect. Nevertheless, relying on the strength of our gross senses and subtle feelings - speculative reasoning - we try to ascend to the Absolute Truth, to enter the spiritual dimension. This is what people usually try to do. They receive some information with the help of their senses and on its basis make some conclusions, trying to climb to the Absolute Truth, and the conclusions they arrived at are called "truth."

Spiritual vision- other. It is not obtained as a result of research with the help of material senses and subsequent speculative reasoning. Spiritual vision described in this mantra Sri Isopanisad, receives the one who wants to see the Truth. Since there is a desire in his heart to see the Truth, The Absolute Truth reveals itself to this person.

This is the essence of the fundamental difference between the ascending and descending paths of acquiring knowledge.

One who wants to be master himself is unwilling to acknowledge the existence of a conscious, active, decision-making, compassionate and loving Supreme Being. If they do recognize the "Supreme", then they do not agree that He is a person. They do not recognize that Hashem can decide to reveal something to me and really reveal it to me. They think it is the result of their own efforts.

In other words, usually people think that God, or the Absolute Truth, is impersonal or inactive, that the Absolute Truth cannot decide to reveal Himself to me - that everything depends on me, I must climb up to Her. If God exists, he is like the sky. God is an ocean of light, that's all. He has no consciousness, He cannot make a decision. When you say make a decision, you are talking about a person.

Thus, most people are not ready to accept the existence of the Supreme Personality. To recognize the Supreme Personality for them means to put themselves in a subordinate position, and we all want to be masters. As soon as I accept the existence of the Supreme Personality, I will put myself in a position where I am no longer the master, and this will jeopardize my present position. All my life I have tried to be a master, and now I have to accept this nonsense about what is the Supreme Master? I can accept God and all that, but only if God is inactive and impersonal. As soon as I accept that the Absolute Truth is a person, as soon as I accept the Personality of Godhead, I will have problems with my dominion, because if there is the Supreme Personality, the Supreme Lord, then I am no longer the supreme person, and therefore I must start thinking about whether my actions and my whole way of life are pleasant to someone else - the Supreme Personality, since my task is to coordinate my will with His will. In other words, as soon as I accept the Supreme Personality, I cannot be happy if I do not reconcile my will with His will. And if I don’t want to give up my domination, if I don’t want to reconcile my will with the will of God, if I still want to be God myself, to be in the center of everything, a person around whom everyone and everything revolves, the most important person in my life, and everyone else and the whole world should serve my pleasure, then there is no question that I can accept the existence of the Supreme Personality, because I do not want to.

People once said about Jesus Christ: "How does he know the Scriptures without learning?"

And he answered: “My teaching is not mine, but of Him who sent me; whoever wants to do His will, he will learn about this teaching, whether it is from God, or I speak from myself. "

And then he said: “Didn't Moses give you the law? and none of you is acting according to the law "(John, 7.15-17, 19).

Obviously, they did not want to "do the will of God," and therefore did not recognize Jesus as His representative.

Thus, one who accepts the Supreme Personality of Godhead accepts, “The Supreme Personality of Godhead can reveal to me whatever He wants - whatever He thinks I need to know - and do it much faster than I could figure it out myself. something about God. The Absolute Truth can reveal itself to me in its entirety in less than a second. " One who understands the Personality of Godhead thinks like this. He stops trying to climb into the kingdom of God, investigate and reason on the basis of the results of his research, and tunes in to receive information that descends to him.

Usually one is trying to find the truth, or he is trying to realize the Absolute Truth. He is busy looking - looking, looking ... But the Absolute Truth is not a piece of gold hidden somewhere, which simply lies and waits for it to be found. The Absolute Truth is active and personal. If She doesn't want you to find Her, She will become invisible and you will not find Her. In other words, you can never find It that way. As soon as you accept the existence of the Supreme Personality, you agree that there is another being with a will of his own. I may think that I want to find Him, but He may not want to show Himself to me. I may not have the qualities necessary to see Him.

In other words, here the will of another person comes into play, and this always complicates things somewhat. If I alone decide everything, it is easy - I am dealing with myself - but as soon as another person appears in your life, everything becomes much more complicated. It's like if a woman has a child, or someone gets married or gets married, life becomes much more difficult. You are allowing another person to come into your life. For example, your child says, "I want this, I want that." You have never had anything like this before - you didn’t have a child and you didn’t have such problems. But he is a different person. As soon as another person appears, you have to deal with her will, her desires.

In the case of a child, you can gradually force him to reconcile his will with yours, because you are more. You can say "shut up" or close him in his room and be alone with yourself again. But the Supreme Personality possesses everything, and you cannot even open your mouth to Him. You are small. You will need to coordinate your will with His.

That is why most people do not want to accept the Supreme Personality - they themselves want to be the supreme person. They want to be main enjoyer... They want, to be served want to be lord... In fact, many people believe that one who has achieved spiritual realization becomes a master - realizes that he is something like God, and everyone else is doing his will.

But in reality this is not the case. Spiritual teacher means heavy. Guru, the literal translation of the word "guru" is "heavy." Why is it heavy? This comparison - he is like a tree with a huge amount of fruit. But its fruits are the fruits of love for God. When a person truly attains spiritual realization, he has many fruits of love for God, he becomes one who loves God with pure love when he no longer has his own will and he just fulfills the will of the Supreme Person when his will is fully aligned with the will of the Supreme Person. Such a person is called a "guru" or "spiritual master" and is respected as the representative of God.

One who thinks, "The guru is one who has attained the position of the supreme personality," is wrong. Sometimes people begin to lead the so-called spiritual life, but they do not give up the desire to be the supreme personality. They still want to be. They bring this desire with them, so when they hear about the Supreme Personality, they immediately feel uncomfortable. Why? Because “Supreme Personality” means you are not the supreme person, and you immediately become jealous, take God as your competitor. You are not against the idea of God, but only if He is not a conscious being who is able to make decisions, to love you and whom you can love, who has his will, possibly different from yours. They don't like this idea of God.

Maya has two pitfalls.

The first is to think that I am the material body or the material mind. And often people understand that they are not body or mind, but spirit - vitality, not matter.

But unfortunately they fall into Maya's last trap - n they begin to think that they are the Supreme Lord. They begin to meditate: “All living beings emanate from me, I am everywhere, I am everything, I am the Cosmos, I control the Cosmos, I send fog and I dissipate it. Of course, I didn’t know that I was going to send the fog now, in fact, I thought I’d send something else, but I must have wanted it to be as it is now, because it is. " like that.

Therefore, it is said very specifically:

One who always looks at living entities as spiritual sparks, qualitatively equal to the Lord, understands the true nature of things.

Although we have the same quality, in quantitative terms we are much smaller and we have much less strength.

And how is this manifested? The fact that we, a living creature, fell under the influence of ignorance, and therefore we seek knowledge... Living entities are imprisoned in a material body. The Supreme Being is never trapped in the material body. The Supreme Personality is the one who rules, and we, the living entities, part and parcels of the Supreme, are those who are governed by. We are all under control. None of us can claim to be the one who rules.

Thinking of yourself that you are the Supreme Lord is the last trap of illusion. Our essence is spiritual, but we are not the Supreme Spirit. We are not omnipotent. Twenty minutes ago, I was meditating: "I am God, I am God," and now I am standing at an intersection because a red light is on and cars are rushing by at a frantic speed. What kind of God am I? It is ludicrous to meditate "I am God" and then stand at the crossroads because the red light is on.

These people do not ask the question: "If I am God, why am I not omnipotent?" But if you ask them, they will answer, "It is because you are in an illusion."

- But if I am God, how can I be in an illusion?

- Because you forgot that you are God.

- If I am God, how could I forget? Doesn't “God” mean “almighty”? If I am God, how could I forget that I am God?

- You wanted to forget.

- If I wanted to forget, now I want to remember. Why am I still in the illusion?

“Well, you probably don't really want to remember.

- Who are you?

- I am also God.

- Are we equally gods?

- Yes. Equally.

- But then there is no God. Equally ... is there a Supreme God?

- No. We are all Gods equally. But in reality it is all one God. We are not really individuals. We just pretend that we are individuals. It's all one, and we just pretend that we are separate from each other.

- Oh, we pretend that we are separate from each other. Why are you a teacher? Why are you a guru?

- Because I realized that I am God, and you are not.

One person in India was asked, "What is the difference between a guru and a disciple?" He replied, “The Guru has realized that he is God, but the disciple has not yet realized this. I realized that I am God, and you are not yet. " “Yes, but I think you just said that I am you, and you are me, there is no difference, there is no individuality. Therefore, if you realized that you are God, then why did I not realize it at the same time? " They have no answer to this question.

This is the wrong idea - "I am God." We are all little gods. We are all spirit souls, not a material body. I am not a body - not white, not black, not a woman, not a man, not a man, not an animal ... All living beings are integral parts of God.

Here, in Sri Isopanisad, a devotee of God remembers this mantra, and thus becomes purified, realizing that all living entities are part and parcel of God, children of the Supreme Being. And nothing can disturb such a person. He doesn't envy anyone. The impersonalist, for example, thinks, "I am God," and is constantly in anxiety because he is constantly losing control of "his creation." All he can do is explain to himself: "It turned out this way because I must have wanted it." But this does not help to get rid of anxiety.

And the one who identifies himself with the body is all the more in anxiety. He is constantly afraid of death, is attached to the material world and is afraid of losing something or not gaining something. This is the life of a materialist.

Thus, in Sri Isopanisad contains information descending from the spiritual dimension. "Mantra" means "information in the form of sound, descending from the spiritual dimension," descending knowledge. In this way, we receive information about the Absolute Truth from the Absolute Truth, which descends and reveals itself to us. This means that she is not “it,” but He: God is a person making a conscious effort to reveal Himself. This clearly indicates that He is a person. And "He" also means that He is the sovereign, that in reality there is only one man, in the sense of "sovereign." All others are subservient. All living beings are actually subordinate, whether we are temporarily in female or male bodies, we are actually in a subordinate position. In this sense, no one is a man except the Supreme Personality. We are all meant to be subservient servants, not masters. Our natural position is to serve. The idea that our natural position is to exploit, that we should try to be the master of material nature or other living entities, is wrong. God owns everything and everyone - all living beings - as stated in the First Mantra Sri Isopanisad:

All living and nonliving in the universe is in the power of the Lord and belongs to Him.

Alive and inanimate. I'm alive. I am an active living being, and now I am in the sphere of temporary inanimate energy - matter. All material things belong to God. All this stuff was here before I came here, and it will all remain here after I leave. And all living entities are animate energy, living entities are children, or part and parcels, of God. They belong to Him. Therefore, if I believe that some living entity belongs to me, be it my wife, husband, children, dog or whatever, if I think "he is mine" or "she is mine" - that is actually an illusion. Because this person belongs to God. I do not belong to you and you do not belong to me, and we all belong to God. And all inanimate energy belongs to God.

Thus, a wise person sees everything in unity in the sense that all energy belongs to God, therefore he sees God everywhere because God energy is everywhere... Everything belongs to Him.

And he uses all energies to serve Him. This is called devotional service, or bhakti yoga, or karma yoga. When a person realizes that the Supreme Being owns everything, he begins to realize that everything that he has belongs to God, and therefore he uses it all to glorify God or in the service of God. It is called karma yoga.

Karma means action, yoga means union with God. Therefore, actions in connection with God, based on a connection with God in love, the purpose of which is to please God, to fulfill His will, are called karma yoga.

Karma yoga based on the following information or knowledge:

I am spirit soul, not material body.

All living entities are part and parcel of the Supreme Living Being. We all belong to Him. And,

All inanimate energy, material energy, belongs to the Supreme.

Understanding this, I am engaged in devotional service. In other words, I have jnana, knowledge. And then I act on that basis.

Thus, I should have the following knowledge:

I exist. I am spirit soul, I am eternal, I am not matter.

I am an integral part of the Supreme Soul.

All living entities occupy the same position as me - they are also part and parcel of the Supreme. They do not belong to me, but to him. And all material energy also belongs to Him.

I am like a person who found a wallet with money. If I am ignorant, I think, "Now this is my wallet, I will enjoy." Even if there is a card with the owner's last name and phone number, I still think: "This is mine." This is the influence of ignorance. But the one who is intelligent understands: “This belongs to someone else” - and returns the wallet to the owner.

There is a comparison that characterizes three types of people. Let's say three people are walking down the street, and each of them finds a hundred dollar bill.

The first one will immediately think: "Oh, I will enjoy!" - and immediately begins to think about what he will buy with this money for his pleasure. Such a person can be compared with an ordinary materialist.

The second is compared with yogi, which the does not want to disturb his peace... Passing a hundred dollar bill, he thinks: “I don’t even want to look, I don’t want to get involved, this is karma” - something like that.

And the third person picks up the money, finds the owner and returns it to him. It can be compared to bhakta, or devotees of God. He is not interested in his own peace, his own salvation, deliverance from pain or possible trouble; he understands: "This belongs to God, let me return them to Him - I will use them in His service." He does not look at money as a source of pleasure, and he also does not try to stay away from it, thus displaying false renunciation. Instead, he uses everything he can - be it a million dollars, or some of his abilities, or intelligence, or professional skills (writing articles, working on a computer - whatever), - oh he understands that all this belongs to God, and uses, redirects it to serve God.

Most people use material energy, including their strengths, abilities, gifts, etc., for your own material pleasure; the main thing in their life is themselves, their pleasure.

Then, there is another type of people - there are much fewer of them - who, having failed in their attempts to enjoy the material world and are tired of such a life, trying to get away from him. They don't want to participate in anything. And they are making tremendous efforts in this direction. They try to give up everything, but everything continues to cling to them. They try to give it up, and it comes back, and they try again to give it up, but gradually they get sucked into all this activity again, and they don't like it, and they try to give it up again. For example, they fast, and then they break through and they eat, eat, eat for a whole week, and then feel guilty: “I have to renounce the world. I was sucked in again ”- and they start all over again. They bounce on their buttocks trying to awaken kundalini. Do pranayama very diligently - they really make great efforts to renounce everything and rise above it, and they begin to feel peace and some kind of bliss again, but before they have time to look back, life again sucks them in and they have to start all over again. And mostly people fall into one of these two categories.

But a devotee, one who really works on a spiritual level, understands: “Firstly, I do not own anything, so I cannot use it for my own pleasure. I just take what is necessary to keep this body in good condition, to be able to serve, and everything else that I have, I use in the service of God. " And he also understands: "Since I do not own anything, I cannot renounce anything." Someone might say, “I gave up on this, on this. I had a yacht and a big house, and I gave up on them and now I live simply. I gave up everything ”- and he may very much like that he“ gave up everything, ”and he may want to give up something else, believing that he still has some kind of property. But really, how can you give up what is not yours? The cashier in the bank constantly deals with money, money, money, but for him there is no question of giving up them - because they are not his. It is an illusion to think that you once owned something. How can you refuse this?

In fact, the living entity's natural constitutional position is lovingly serve the Supreme Lord. When one returns to this state of devotional service, or bhakti yoga, he regains the previously lost qualities necessary to enter the kingdom of God; in other words, no longer receive material bodies. This is no longer necessary, because reincarnation, the transmigration of the soul, is caused by the desire of the individual to be the master of the material world. It is arranged in nature that a living entity who desires material enjoyment, giving up his gross physical body, receives another and has the opportunity to continue his attempts to enjoy. But they are full of suffering - birth, disease, old age and death cause immense suffering. It is unnatural for an eternal living entity to be in the temporary material world. This is not where we should be. Our natural dimension is the intangible, intangible world.

In this way, when we are freed from the desire to be master, when we no longer envy the Supreme Person and we no longer have material desires, and our only desire is to serve the Supreme Person, we we return to ourselves the right to be in the kingdom of God again. Then we no longer need to get a material body. And this is actually the natural state of the living entity, and it is called religion. Religion is not something that you join or that you can change. Religion is the natural primordial state of the living entity. In this state, the living entity lovingly serves the Supreme Living Being.

Dear Readers! Brothers and sisters! I ask you to express your views on the book "Good News", is it useful for a modern Orthodox Christian? Leave questions or feedback on the site, you can write by email address: d [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 "spirit vision" and "discerning of spirits."

4. True knowledge and false demonic mysticism.

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

6. The process of spiritual enlightenment.

7. Graceful Orthodox mysticism.

8. The main reason for "spiritual blindness" and "mystical delusion."

9. The essence of Christian knowledge of God.

10. The Orthodox concept of "miracle".

11. Divine-human knowledge of 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 "abiding 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 possess absolute knowledge of being and creative power for the creation of the universe.

Having created man in His "image and likeness," the Lord gave us eternal life. An immortal human personality gains the ability to freely cognize and creatively transform the material world created by God. But the world is very complex, and the earthly man is at the initial stage of his development. In order to truly perceive the undistorted and useful divinely revealed knowledge, a person must first learn the right way receiving Divine knowledge with the help of the Creator.

God's help never humiliates a person. A Christian's fellowship with God is not in the least like a master-slave relationship. It is a sincere relationship between a loving Heavenly Father and a loving son who joyfully responds to God's Love and patiently learns Divine wisdom. The blessed knowledge and power of God are always given to us unlimitedly and free. But first, we must learn to perceive them, properly preparing the body and soul through a righteous life. First, there is a kind of "safety technique" that does not give Divine knowledge to "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 by the human soul, an earthly person is not able to rise to the level of divine-human knowledge due to sinful imperfection and spiritual weakness. In addition, a person is constantly interfered with by the 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, 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 bodily and mental nature of the Christian. It is as a result of the fulfillment of the Divine commandments, which enlightens us with the grace of the Holy Spirit, that the earthly man, of course, to the extent of human strength, reveals the ability of a spiritual vision of the universe, acquires the qualities of Divine omniscience and omnipotence.

Only with the help of Divine energy-the grace of the Holy Spirit and in direct dependence on real spiritual-religious, moral and moral development, a person becomes able to perceive Divine power and cognize 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 in small measure connected with the gift of mystical vision of the visible material and invisible "spiritual" world. This gift, as well as the ability 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 is not at all that God allegedly "deliberately 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 spiritual worlds, and the creatures inhabiting them are immeasurably superior to humans in all respects. They have their own rules and their masters, not taking into account their will is not only frivolous, but also very dangerous.

We have access to only the lowest and simplest manifestations of the existence of the spiritual worlds. A typical form of human ghost vision is contact with fallen angels- demons, often among alcoholics and drug addicts with "altered" or rather poisoned consciousness. Some people clearly feel the spiritual essence of the natural elements, behind which stand the God-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 witchcraft ghost vision, when a person deliberately summons unclean spirits to receive demonic help. Naturally, all of 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 on earth communicate with God and the Angels are approaching a divine-human level similar to the state of the incarnate Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Considering the sinful imperfection of our bodily and mental 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, in 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 Orthodox teaching strictly warns believers about the destructive danger of “spiritual delusion”. It's another matter if the Lord Himself sends a righteous person mystical gifts to help people. In this case, a Christian with the utmost humility accepts Divine revelation, not in the least deceived about "his merits and abilities" and really applying it for the benefit of himself and humanity.

The mystical Christian knowledge that comes to a person as a result of the blessed communion with God and the knowledge of God will be more correctly called the gift of "discerning spirits", in the sense of distinguishing the influence of the spirits of Light or the spirits of darkness on a person, as well as their activity on the principle of "what is good and what is evil" ...

A true believer “sees-knows” God with an enlightened mind-consciousness and “feels” the Creator with a “pure heart”. Christian "formless ghost vision", in most cases dispensing with obvious "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 the grace-filled practice of the 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. The blessed spirit vision correctly builds a "hierarchy of values", forming an undistorted divinely revealed worldview aimed at the good of man himself and our entire world. Distorted demonic mysticism, on the contrary, serves to satisfy proud curiosity and purposefully brings evil to people.

The Christian grace-filled "discernment of good and evil" is the most useful, accessible and safe manifestation of mystical life for an earthly person. But 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 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 question of mystical life, a Christian must immediately understand that God-revealed wisdom cannot be acquired by purely human efforts, with the help of a logical study of theology and philosophy, through special magic rituals and psychophysical exercises.

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

In our time, there are especially many false "spiritual teachers" who speak of the possibility of unlimited access to sources of "cosmic universal information" using various methods of meditation and psychophysical exercises. Such "teachers" can recognize the experience of world religions, which speaks of the salvation of the soul, the cleansing of a person from the power of sin and evil. At the same time, they interpret traditional religious knowledge as "inferior and outdated methods" that only to a small extent help the acquisition of "cosmic knowledge."

The statements made by the teachers of modern "humanity" 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-godhood actually has nothing to do with the Divine commandments. This is primarily a logical and magical mastery of the laws of the universe, which gives a person omnipotence and omnipotence, regardless of the degree of cleansing of his soul from the power of sin and evil, regardless of his enlightenment with the spirit of selfless good and selfless love. Such conclusions immediately push a spiritually sober person to a completely natural conclusion about what "spiritual forces" stand behind the proud supporters of "cosmic" knowledge.

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

In most cases, the teachings of magical man-godhood are created by the distorted, "spiritually blind" reason of a proud and proud person, inspired by demonic forces. It is not surprising that they resolutely deny the spiritual and religious creativity of conscious holiness and disinterested goodness.

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

Despite the godlike abilities, the earthly man, distorted by the Fall, is not able to develop them correctly by purely human efforts without the help of the Creator. However, Divine knowledge and power easily become available to every righteous and kind person to the extent of his blessed enlightenment. 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 primarily at the destruction of our planet and the literal suicide of mankind.

Knowledge about the universe is interesting, but not always useful. Because besides the "light", really useful knowledge given to people by God for material and spiritual creation, there is a distorted "dark" demonic knowledge, which is revealed by the forces of evil for our destruction.

Divine Providence basically reveals to us the knowledge necessary for the salvation and correct development of the Earth and mankind, and dangerous spiritual or material knowledge makes it inaccessible or restrains its application. This is not humiliation of a person at all, but the Creator's fatherly concern for our preservation, because ethical and spiritual-religious development is still in last place for most people. If we give us 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.

Higher 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 him is meaningless. Moreover, after the death of the physical body, the soul of a person acquires divine-human perfection in a natural way without any effort.

For an individual and humanity as a whole, the most important thing is correct Christian spiritual and religious knowledge, which gives us the opportunity to transform our earthly nature and the world with the help of Divine energy, the 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 him, 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.

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

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

Fallen angels, striving to enslave man and subjugate 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, belongs to "spiritual" knowledge such as magic and witchcraft or to scientific knowledge, it is always harmful and dangerous, because it necessarily forces a person to do evil to destroy himself and the world around him. It is not surprising that, in contrast to the creative Divine knowledge, the natural result of demonic knowledge is the self-destruction of its bearer.

"Spiritually negative" knowledge, commonly known as "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 instruments of death, serving to increase material wealth and satisfy base passions. Even the knowledge of the material world that is really useful for us is distorted by the mind of a proud and angry person beyond recognition. For example, medicine, which should serve to save a person's life and maintain his health in accordance with moral, moral and religious principles, turns into an attempt to achieve earthly immortality and animal pleasures at any cost. What is genetic engineering alone or experiments to control the human psyche, with the help of which scientists and wealthy 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, anxiety and social injustice.

The danger of spiritual and physical destruction of mankind comes not only from scientific knowledge. In our time, when it became 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 in the “name of God”, understanding by God anything - the Cosmos and the Universe, “intelligent” matter and beings of the “spiritual” world, but not the Personality of the One God and the Creator of the universe, revealing Himself to traditionally believing people.

Like proud magic and godless science, the "cosmic" teachings have one thing in 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 is "afraid" for His power and therefore hides from us the 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 management of nature with the help of scientific and magical knowledge, psychic energy and technotronic machine civilization.

The earthly man, insignificant in his spiritual strength, distorted by original sin, wants to establish “paradise order” on earth without the help of God. The times of primitive atheism are long gone, and now, submitting to the suggestion and the explicit guidance of demonic forces, a sinful person seeks to become a man-god. In contrast to traditional atheists, worshipers of humanity 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 bait of "absolute knowledge", repeating the original fall.

Unlike traditional religious teachings, which require a person to do practical work on themselves in obedience to the will of God, “cosmic” false teachings entice people with “tricky” sayings consisting of meaningless “general” phrases about good and love. Correct moral and moral precepts, partly found in such teachings, are immediately crossed out by "our right" to put above all the "dignity" of man, implying human pride and primitive sinful pride.

Thus, the forces of evil most effectively distract humanity from true knowledge, confusing people and directing them to the path of destructive 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 mental passions. Any adherent of "humanity" thinks only of his own omnipotence. If his conscience worries him, he reassures himself that “some excesses” and violent decisions in relation to “unenlightened” people are necessary for their “good”. That is why such teachings are liked by proud and proud people who are extremely contemptuous of the Christian creativity of conscious holiness, disinterested goodness and humble love.

Any sober and cautious person understands how dangerous any spiritual and material knowledge that can be equally directed to good and evil, to help people and to their slavish submission. In the case of an unbeliever, this caution concerns primarily 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 a distorted or dangerous knowledge dooms himself to spiritual destruction.

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

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

The Lord guides humanity 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 pride, which does not allow a person to selflessly work for the good of his neighbors. However, with the help of grace, any believer is able to walk 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 person, purified 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 "sore" social, national, cultural and moral problems. This is a senseless attempt to solve the "internal" problem by external influences, without removing its real cause, which is contained in the person himself.

The 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 Divine energy, the 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 will we be able to resolve all other issues.

The grace-filled deification of the person, vital for a person himself for personal salvation, simultaneously has a positive effect on the world around him, cleansing it from the power of sin and evil by deeds of a righteous life, good and love.

Magical and scientific knowledge, achieved without the help of God through the efforts of a proud human mind, represents a false lure of demonic forces, drawing a person into the abyss of spiritual and material destruction. Despite the zealous proclamation of the "triumph of universal theories of" freedom, equality and brotherhood ", the" rulers " modern world as before, they use godless scientific and magical knowledge to seize power and enslave the common people. Scientific knowledge and material benefits are becoming more and more, but because of our sinfulness, they actually do not bring real benefit to humanity. Figuratively speaking - "one percent of the population overeats, and ninety-nine go hungry."

A believer who has acquired the blessed divinely revealed Christian knowledge directs him to one single goal - to teach people to do good, deliberately renouncing the creation of evil. Overcoming selfish pride, Christian saints receive from God "miraculous" superhuman abilities, but they never use them for self-affirmation, enslaving influence on people and selfish enrichment. To see the difference between this Knowledge and its "deceptive 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 spell casting and love spells.

Superhuman abilities that are sleeping in our souls, by themselves, begin to act in righteous and holy people, as a "natural application" to the knowledge of the true Christian faith. The righteous man does not seek to amaze others 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 awaken the souls of people from slumber 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 reason and superhuman psycho-energetic abilities. It is pride that creates a kind of anti-divine revelation inspired by devilish forces. Just try to doubt the wrongness of the proud “teacher”, in the sources of his abilities, as a person zealously caring for the “good of the whole world”, in a moment is filled with “frenzied” 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 a "bearer of information and power." Improving in the creativity of selfless love for God and people, the believer gracefully unites 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 creativity of 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 God-revealed knowledge. Through the Christian creativity of a righteous life, good deeds and selfless 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 at all mean that the believer constantly communicates with the spiritual world and spiritual beings at his will in the style of “video communication”. Christian mystical spirit vision is mainly manifested through the undistorted hearing of conscience, which is the expression of the will of our God-created spirit. Perceiving Divine revelation through the voice of a "clear" conscience, the soul of a righteous person acquires the ability to govern our bodily and mental nature, without mistakes fulfilling the saving will of God.

It is equally important to learn to humbly hear God and the spiritual world through the actions of the people around you. The Lord specifically reveals to us through "near and far" so that we are under external control. It is very difficult to control oneself soberly, but from the outside our mistakes and sins are most noticeable. It is especially important to hear the spiritual leaders of the Church, who use all the riches of the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Tradition of Christianity for our upbringing and admonition.

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

A righteous person, illuminated with sincere love for God and people, unlimitedly perceives the God-given spiritual knowledge and grace-filled power that serve the salvation of the Christian himself and the world around him. This is the knowledge of real spiritual wisdom aimed at the personal good of man and all mankind. God-given wisdom clearly distinguishes between 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, the Orthodox Christian strives for an inner, grace-filled illumination, which reveals the sight and hearing of the human soul, giving us the opportunity of correct communication with God and the spiritual world. Christian communion with God humbly refuses to search for obvious mystical phenomena, realizing that the real vision of the spiritual world is accomplished by the will of God and happens very rarely. To the majority of believers, the Lord reveals himself 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 cognized by a Christian through the teachings of the Christian Church and obedience to spiritual mentors, through simple communication with believers and unbelievers.

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

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

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

Fallen angel-demons, who are the focus of cunning, 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” for man. In fact, 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 in destructive self-will with demonic help, a sinner can really do evil without limit in a short earthly life, but then inevitably comes the terrible reckoning of eternity.

The “highest” falsity of godless and anti-spiritual teachings that 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 seeks 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 is vaguely aware of the spiritual meaning and purpose of our earthly existence. Undoubtedly, 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 self-loving 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 mental passions, preventing him from understanding 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 do the will of God, that for spiritual development we vitally need divinely revealed knowledge and grace-filled power, 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 “simple” righteous living.

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

Often, when "charm" is clearly manifested in the form of 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 mentors, although such obedience greatly restricts his will and desires. And then the difficult path of traditional Christian upbringing necessarily leads the believer to acquire the God-given ability to independently understand and do the will of God, correctly distinguishing between good and evil.

Christian "spirit vision" is directly related to the growth of conscious faith through the practice of righteous living, selfless goodness and selfless love towards God and people. If a Christian smugly hopes to achieve salvation of the soul and grace-filled enlightenment through the study of theological knowledge and careful observance of the ritual law, he will inevitably get lost in the labyrinths of “dead” logical knowledge and magical rituals.

In fact, a proud believer is no different from a proud atheist-atheist or a conscious atheist, because they all do the same "deeds of darkness." The prideful striving 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 subordinates him to the fallen angels. A proud man who forgets the humble foundation of the true Orthodox faith, is certainly deprived of grace-filled help and becomes unable to serve God and people.

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

The hypocritical believers, purposefully canceling the Divine commandments for the sake of observing meaningless, non-binding "human regulations", hope "for something incomprehensible." This is not even a belief, but some "national-cultural" traditions. Only an extremely stupid person who has spiritually blinded himself with 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, to stand and bow correctly, to kiss the icon correctly and to withstand the service. And then you can calmly consider yourself a pious righteous person, "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 when they saw some of His disciples eating bread with unclean hands, that is, unwashed hands, they rebuked. 3 For the Pharisees and all the Jews, adhering to the tradition of the elders, do not eat without thoroughly washing their hands; 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash themselves. There are many other things that they accepted to hold on: to observe the washing of bowls, mugs, cauldrons and benches. 5 Then the Pharisees and scribes ask Him: Why do Thy disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? 6 He answered and said to them: Isaiah prophesied well about you hypocrites, as it is written: These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. 7 but they honor Me in vain, teaching the doctrines, the commandments of men. 8 For you, leaving the commandment of God, adhere to human tradition, the washing of mugs and cups, and do many other things like this. 9 And he said to them, Is it good that you abolish the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition? 10 For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and: he who curses his father or mother, let him die. 11 And you say: who will say to your father or mother: korvan, that is, a gift to God that you would use from me, 12 to that you already allow not to do anything for your father or your mother, 13 eliminating the word of God with your tradition, which you have established; and you do many of these things. 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 the outside can defile him; but that which proceeds from it defiles the 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 also so incomprehensible? Do you not understand that nothing entering a person from without can defile him? 19 Because it enters not into his heart, but into the womb, and goes out, by which all food is purified. 0 Then he said: that which proceeds from a person defiles a person. 21 For from within, from the heart of man, come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, 22 theft, covetousness, anger, deceit, lewdness, an envious eye, blasphemy, pride, madness, - 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 desecration 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 enlightenment. But in most cases, the difficult path of asceticism and prayer creativity is replaced by meaningless ritual trifles, which actually 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 aspect 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.

Real evil, which is initiated by the forces of darkness, desecrating the sinner himself and the world around him, comes from the heart of a proud and proud person. On the contrary, from the heart of a humble righteous man radiates the blessed light of Divine holiness, goodness and love, enlightening the Christian himself and all of humanity. This is the most important law of Christian spiritual development. Outside of her knowledge, the path of the true Orthodox faith turns into a caricature - the “blind mentor” leads the “blind disciple”, and as a result, both fall into the “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 stops living in the darkness of sin and receives the Divine“ light of life ” , giving us an undistorted, salutary vision of the world through the eyes of the All-good and loving Creator.

To reveal the 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 as much as possible. Prayer, ascetic and ritual piety helps to correct our imperfect, purely human knowledge of the world, but it cannot teach us to fully “see good and evil”. If a Christian wants to find 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 God's good will towards people. It is in this way that an earthly person perceives the grace of the Holy Spirit and becomes a god-like son of God, receiving Divine knowledge and power from above.

A believer, 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 rituals. The Pharisees assessed 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 this misunderstanding of Divine revelation is the simplest - “you know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would also know My Father. " In fact, the Pharisees found themselves fulfilling the Divine commandments, although outwardly they looked quite "churchly" and pious. Not surprisingly, they consciously or unconsciously denied the long-awaited Savior of the world. For the incarnate Son of God, who came to save humanity, the last, most powerful means remained - to show by his own death how God loves man and for the sake of this love is ready to sacrifice His Only Begotten Son.

It is quite simple to believe in the Son of God the Lord Jesus Christ in the sense of recognizing the dogmatic teaching of Christianity. 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 the believer becomes a disciple and follower of the Son of God, who learns the saving Truth of a righteous life, gaining freedom from the power of sin and evil. “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to 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 have done “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, who impartially and uncompromisingly exposed the "mystery of sin" - you can look "one hundred percent" believer, but not be one in practice. “Your father is the devil; and you want to do the lusts 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 of his own, for he is a liar and the father of lies. "

Fallen angel-demons, teaching a person to live a sinful and evil life through the satisfaction of sinful passions, always lie and deceive. For some, they promise absolute "freedom" of "unbridled" passions, while others are tempted by the tempting opportunity to gain soul salvation through formal rituals.

When the saints sent by God tell 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" Pharisee argument against the saints is the following statement: "Are we not really saying that You are a Samaritan and that the demon is in You?"

The Christian is called to cognize the highest Divine Truth that makes man a truly free and rational being. Genuine freedom, inseparable from undistorted knowledge of being, from the ability to change the world in better side, 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 cleared of bodily and mental sins, as we sincerely strive for a righteous life, as we drive out selfish pride, as our minds and hearts are enlightened with the spirit of selfless 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 bodily and mental nature. But the main task of the Christian life is the liberation of man from the bondage of selfish pride and the further enlightenment of the believer with the spirit of sincere love for God and people.

Otherwise, the believer will inevitably turn into a Pharisee who, with all his outward piety, does sin and evil, in one way or another, serving demons who have fallen because of pride and disobedience to God. It is pride in most cases that leads a 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 God's chosen Jewish people. But when the Savior of the world, Lord Jesus Christ, began to denounce their pride and pride, they rejected the Son of God in devilish rage and malice, calling Him a messenger dark forces... Due to “religious” pride in the church environment, absolutely unacceptable absurd situations still arise when believers refuse to accept the salvific 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 a beautiful mask of ritual piety, easily blinds the believer, as soon as he begins to take pride in his "churchliness", asceticism and theological knowledge. Despite the church life and knowledge of Christian teachings, pride does not allow a person to see God with his heart, correctly understanding and doing His will.

Lack of humble love and indulging in religious vanity inevitably leads to opposition to God. And the further the proud resistance of God goes, the closer the cooperation of the sinner with the forces of evil becomes, when a person more and more cares about the satisfaction of lust for power and the receipt of material benefits, not wanting to humble himself and repent, to live righteously and selflessly to 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 self-loving 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 Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they do not wash their hands when they eat bread. 3 But he answered them: Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God has commanded: Honor your father and mother; and: he who curses his father or mother, let him die. 5 And 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 removed the commandment of God by your tradition. 7 Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied well about you, saying: 8 These people draw near to Me with their lips, and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. 9 but they honor Me in vain, teaching the doctrines, the commandments of men. ten And calling the people, he said to them: Hear and understand! 11 not what enters the mouth defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth defiles a person. 12 Then His disciples, approaching, said to Him, Do you know that the Pharisees, hearing this word, 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; but if a blind man leads a blind man, then both will fall into the pit. 15 And Peter, answering, said to him: Explain this parable to us. 16 Jesus said: Do you not understand yet? 17 Do you not yet understand that everything that enters the mouth passes into the womb and is vomited out? 18 but that which proceeds from the mouth - proceeds from the heart - this defiles a person, 19 for evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, blasphemy come from the heart - 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 myself bear witness to myself, my testimony is true; because I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I am from and where I am going. 5 You judge by the flesh; I am not judging anyone. 16 And even if I judge, then My judgment is true, because I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent Me. 17 And it is written in your law that the testimony of two people is true. 18 I myself bear witness 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 knew me, you would also know my Father. 20 These words were spoken by Jesus 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 am going, there you cannot come. 22 Here the Jews said: will He really kill Himself, that He says: "Where I am going, 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 Therefore I told you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that it is I, you will die in your sins. 25 Then they said to Him: Who are You? Jesus said to them, Jehovah from the beginning, as I say to you. 26 I have a lot to say and judge about you; but he who sent me is true, and what I have heard from him, I speak to the world. 27 They did not understand that He was telling 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 did not leave Me alone, for I always do what pleases Him.

30 When He said this, many believed in Him. 31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who believed in Him: If you abide 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 do you say: be made free? 34 Jesus answered them: Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 But a slave does not dwell in the house forever; the son abides forever. 36 So, if the Son sets you free, you will truly be 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 have seen with My Father; but you do what you have seen with your father. 39 They answered and said to 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 are looking to kill Me, the Man who told you the truth that you heard from God: Abraham did not do this. 41 You are doing the works of your father. To this they said to Him: We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, God. 42 Jesus said to them: If God were your Father, you would love Me, because I came and came from God; for I did not come from myself, but he sent me. 43 Why don't you understand My speech? Because you cannot hear My word. 44 Your father is the devil; and you want to do the lusts 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 of his own, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 But since I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. 46 Which one of you convicts Me of unrighteousness? If I speak the truth, why don't you believe Me? 47 He who is from God hears the words of God. You do not listen because you are not from God. 48 To this the Jews answered and said to Him: Is it not true that we say that You are a Samaritan and that the demon is in You? 49 Jesus answered: in me there is 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 devil 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 died: what do you do 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 have not known Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be like a liar like you. But I know Him and keep His word. 56 Your father Abraham 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 up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid himself and left the temple, passing through the midst of them, and went on Jn 8 (12-59)

The healings made by the Lord Jesus Christ clearly indicate the inextricable link between holiness, good deeds, love for people and the "miraculous" or, rather, gracious spiritual power bestowed on the righteous from God. The Savior specifically speaks of His Divine authority, placing in the first place not the fact of miraculous healing, but the forgiveness of the sins of the 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 "miraculous" manifestations of special psychophysical abilities, characteristic of Eastern religions, do not represent anything particularly significant for a Christian. It is not so much a miracle that is important as its consequences for a person. Especially the consequences of spiritual healing, although we usually value bodily health due to our bodily weakness.

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

As a result of the Fall, man was incredibly distorted, and therefore the Christian understands the primary importance of personal healing of man 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 strength is always insufficient for a full understanding of the meaning and realization of the goal 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 good and love without the 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 intensive training in their mind, body and psyche. Unlike a scientist who extols a "proud mind", a yogi or a martial artist, a Christian moves in a different way of "primitive" traditional righteousness, firmly knowing that the Lord sends gracious power and knowledge only to those who sincerely renounce sin and evil, striving to consciously fulfill Divine commandments.

The Christian moves towards the highest knowledge of God "by the simple path" 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 true spiritual wisdom, health and strength, is inextricably linked with the fulfillment of the Divine commandments.

Likewise, all our misery, suffering and sickness is associated 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 will inevitably expect a spiritual collapse and devaluation 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 there was no more room at the door; and He spoke the 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 because of the multitude, they opened the roof of the house where He was, and, digging through it, they lowered the bed on which the relaxed lay. 5 Jesus, seeing their faith, says to the paralytic: child! your sins are forgiven you. 6 Here sat some of the scribes and thought in their hearts: 7 why is He so blasphemous? who can forgive sins but God alone? 8 Jesus, immediately knowing in His spirit that they were thinking in this way in themselves, said to them: Why are you thinking in this way in your hearts? 9 Which is easier? Should I say to the paralytic: your sins are forgiven? or say: get up, take your bed and walk? 10 But so that you know that the Son of Man has the power on earth to forgive sins, he says to the paralytic: 11 I say to you, get up, take your bed and go into 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 this. Mk 2 (1-12)

17 One day, when He taught, and the Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting here, who came 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 a man who was relaxed on the bed and tried to bring him into the house and put him before Jesus; 19 and, not finding where to carry him for the multitude, they climbed to the top of the house and through the roof they lowered him with a bed into the middle in front of 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 but God alone? 22 Jesus, knowing their thoughts, answered them: What are you thinking in your hearts? 23 Which is easier to say: your sins are forgiven you, or to say: get up 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 your bed and go to your house. 25 And he immediately stood before them, took what he was lying on, and went to his house, glorifying God. 26 And terror seized everyone, and they glorified God and, being filled with fear, said: We have seen wonderful things today. Luke 5 (17-26)

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus came to Jerusalem. 2 There is also a pool in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate, called in Hebrew Bethesda, at which there were five covered passages. 3 In them lay a great multitude of sick, blind, lame, withered, waiting for the movement of the water, 4 for the Angel of the Lord from time to time went into the pool and disturbed the water, and whoever first entered it after the disturbance of the water, he recovered, no matter what kind of sickness was possessed. 5 There was a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 Jesus, seeing him lying and knowing that he had been lying for a long time, said to him: do you want to be healthy? 7 The sick man answered him: so, Lord; but I don’t have a man who would put me in the pool when the water is disturbed; when I come, the other one descends before me. 8 Jesus says to him: 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 him who was healed: Today is Saturday; you shouldn't take a bed. 11 He answered them: He who healed me, He said to me: Take your bed and walk. 12 They asked him: Who is the Man who said to you: Take your bed and walk? 13 He who was healed did not know who He was, for Jesus hid himself among the people that 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 he who healed him was Jesus. 16 And the Jews began to persecute Jesus and sought to kill Him because He did such things on the Sabbath.

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

Until a believer is freed from the power of bodily and mental passions, especially from the influence of pride and pride, an undistorted spiritual vision of the world and a divinely revealed knowledge of the true Orthodox faith remains impossible for him. Despite any external piety and theological knowledge, a sinner - a proud and proud person cannot fully unite with the Lord in the spirit of mutual love, cannot enter into personal communication 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 an unbeliever, 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, taking good for evil, and vice versa. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ speaks about, addressing God the Father - “You hid this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babies ... Everything is given 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, prayer and fasting self-restraint or the conscious creation of humble love. The real embodiment of the saving will of God requires from us the creativity of voluntary repentance and 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 righteousness both in the guise of a strict preacher of repentance, requiring a merciless struggle with sin, and in the guise of merciful and all-forgiving love, teaching us to freely do the will Of God.

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

1 And when Jesus finished instructing his twelve disciples, he passed over from there to teach and preach in their cities. 2 John, hearing in prison about the deeds of Christ, sent two of his disciples 3 tell Him: Are you the one who is to come, or are we expecting something else? 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 will not be offended about Me.
7 When they left, Jesus began to tell the people about John: Why did you go out into the wilderness to see? Is it 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 king's palaces. 9 What did you go to see? prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 For he is the one about whom it is written: behold, I send my angel before you, who will prepare your way before you. 11 Truly I say to you, of those born of wives, the greatest John the Baptist did not arise; but the lesser in the kingdom of heaven is greater than him. 12 From the days of John the Baptist to this day, the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use force delight it, 13 for all the prophets and the law have prophesied before John. 14 And if you want to accept, 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 on the street and, addressing their comrades, 17 they say: we played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang sad songs for you, and you did not cry. 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking; and they say: there is a demon in him. 19 The Son of Man came, eating and drinking; and they say: Here is a man who loves to eat and drink wine, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. And wisdom is justified by her children.

20 Then He began to rebuke the cities in which His might was most manifest, because they did not repent: 21 woe to you, Chorazin! woe to you, Bethsaida! for if in Tire and Sidon the powers were manifested in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes, 22 but I say to you, Tire and Sidon will be happier on the day of judgment than you. 23 And you, Capernaum, who have ascended to heaven, you will be overthrown to hell, for if the powers that were manifested in you had been manifested in Sodom, it would have remained to this day; 24 but I tell you that the land of Sodom will be more joyful in the day of judgment than it is for you. 25 At that time, continuing his speech, Jesus said: I praise Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You hid this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babies; 26 her, Father! for such was Thy good pleasure. 27 All things have been 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. Mt 11 (1-27)

for him who humbles to do the will of God and live according to the commandment

A righteous person who lives by the dictates of humble love naturally begins to correctly understand and do the will of God, gaining the 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 it can be a believer, and even more so a Christian. If a person really wants to do the will of God, he will certainly cognize 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, revealing to man the possibility of unlimited perception of real spiritual wisdom. The path of divine-human Christian holiness is the only way to gain undistorted spiritual knowledge that allows the believer to fully apply the principle: "do not judge by appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." Otherwise, any spiritual and religious creativity becomes a senseless and dangerous "idol" of religious pride.

The meaning of the fulfillment of the religious law lies in the spiritual and mental healing of a person, and not in a formal ritual, divorced from the real righteous life. That is why the faithful Jews, leading a pious church life, constantly wondered about the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, not recognizing either the words or deeds of the incarnate Son of God. The reason for not understanding the Savior was the simplest - religious pride prevented the Jews from doing 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 banishment of proud self-aggrandizement. Often a similar situation is repeated with “nominal” Orthodox Christians who only pretend to be believers, deliberately 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 righteous judgment,” who sees the essence of phenomena. For him, the main thing is appearance, and therefore often without hesitation, condemns the Divine revelation of holiness and love, coming down from above. As a result, holiness is taken by the Pharisee for blasphemy, and feigned hypocritical ritual becomes for him a "confession" of true faith.

The Highest Divine Truth is naturally hidden from a proud person, no matter how much he tries to cognize it, and it is easily revealed to those who, like God, sincerely do good to people, humbly fulfilling the will of God in a righteous life. No amount of proof 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 men sent by God expose ritual false beliefs, the proud “believers” clearly show their true Pharisaic nature and instead of humble repentance seek to kill the righteous. It is significant how at all times the Pharisees, overwhelmed by devilish pride, accuse the righteous sent by God for the sin of religious pride. At the same time, the Pharisees are again and again primitively guided by the outward signs of 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 lies not in slavish admiration for God, but in conscious God-creation 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 the Christian's striving for divine-human perfection, because in order to achieve god-like holiness and love, the believer has to mercilessly renounce self-will and pride for the sake of selfless service to God and people.

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 self-love. The path of perceiving godlike knowledge and power, the path to achieving the highest dignity of the human person, the path of transforming 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 And the Jews looked for Him at the feast and said: Where is He? 12 And there was a lot of talk about Him among the people: some said that He was good; and others said, no, but he deceives the people. 13 However, no one spoke about Him explicitly, fearing the Jews. 14 But at half-time of the feast, Jesus entered the temple and taught. 15 And the Jews wondered, saying: How does He know the Scriptures without learning? 16 Jesus, answering them, said: My teaching is not Mine, but of Him who sent Me; 17 whoever wants to do His will, he learns about this teaching, whether it is from God, or I am speaking from myself. 18 He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him. 19 Didn't Moses give you the law? and none of you is acting according to the law. Why are you seeking to kill Me? 20 The people answered and said, Is it not a devil 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 person. 23 If a person receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses would not be broken, are you angry with Me because I healed the whole person on the Sabbath? 24 Do not judge by outward appearance, but judge with 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 bewilderment? if you are the Christ, tell us straight. 25 Jesus answered them: I told you, and you 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 will 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 Then the Jews again took up stones to stone Him. 32 Jesus answered them: I have shown you many good deeds from my Father; for which of them do you want to stone me? 33 The Jews answered Him: We do not want to 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, You are gods? 35 If He called those to whom the word of God was gods, and the Scripture cannot be broken, - 36 To him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, you say: you blaspheme, because I said: I am the Son of God? 37 If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38 but if I do, when you do not believe Me, believe My works, so 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 salvation and spiritual development of man. The Christian teaching, subject to its sincere fulfillment, gives us the opportunity to achieve a complete transformation of human nature in one earthly life. Throughout the history of mankind, Christianity for the first time and finally manifested the fullness of divinely revealed knowledge, affirming the dominant 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 inextricably interconnected in the sense that the creativity of personal salvation and the actions of a Christian in relation to others should equally carry the world an example of fulfilling the Divine commandments in the spirit of humble love. Until a believer drives out the spirit of proud self-love, does not learn full-fledged love for God and people, he will constantly distort faith, wrongfully calling ritual piety "true" spiritual perfection and attributing absolute value to it.

The spirit of religious pride deprives meaning and value of any deeds of a godly life performed in the name of personal salvation. Because of pride, ascetic and prayer work, the fulfillment of canons and ritual piety degenerate into “spiritually dead” and meaningless ritualism. A proud supporter of ritualism cannot perceive grace and is unable to understand what the Lord expects of us and how we are obliged to do God's will in relation to God and people. Despite any theological knowledge and visible pious behavior, a 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 to approach 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 personal salvation of the soul, but also spiritual help to perishing people, imitating the absolutely disinterested Love of the Creator.

In complete contradiction with the Divine commandments, the Pharisees considered the manifestation of humble love for sinners to be the greatest desecration 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 smug 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 mental 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. So the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us, so all Orthodox believers who really want to become disciples of Christ are called to act.

The parable about "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 with the help of ritual law and theological knowledge.

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

Even Orthodox believers often try to replace the Christian teaching of holiness and love with a distorted Old Testament ritual, provoking an acute 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 with bodily and mental 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 from the world, running away from communication with people, in fact refusing to help the salvation of others, forgetting about the fulfillment of the main Divine commandment, such a believer in vain thinks of achieving 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 practice. Religious pride leads the believer to the loss of the blessed world and to "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 perceive the meaning of true faith, contained in the creation of love in relation to God and people.

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

The Savior of mankind, Lord Jesus Christ, brought 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 creativity 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 selfless love. Naturally, in this case 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 mental and physical passions. Under the cover of grace, the apostles did not have a strict 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 world around them, consciously making personal volitional efforts.

"Going on an independent voyage" the apostles did not completely rely on their own strength and ritual piety. A real Christian in any situation humbly realizes his personal sinful imperfection, relying mainly on the 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 selfless love, requiring the sincere participation of a person.

The Christian fulfills the ritual 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 enables us to stop sinning and do evil.

Graceful humility 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 adheres firmly to the visible traditional forms of faith, but the "mechanical" formalism and magical pharisaic rituals are alien to him. Christian wisdom shapes the behavior of the believer in accordance with the immutable requirements of a righteous life, clearly prohibiting a person from sinning and causing harm to people, teaching him to do good without compromise. This is the only version of the true Orthodox faith that gives us the opportunity to fully realize and do the will of God.

"Shabby wineskins and old wine" symbolize the "aged", 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 cognition of the Creator.

It should be specially 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 cognition and implementation of Christian teachings depends on the degree of our righteousness, on the measure of purity of the believer in relation to bodily and mental passions, on the enlightenment of a Christian in 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, avoiding the false "renovationism" of traditional Orthodoxy, should be promoted.

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 become obsolete over time, taking on a certain “purely human” element, turning into an “old”, fragile and defective form of service to God. The “old wine” of the previous experience of the Church is good, but it fizzles out in “old skins,” requiring replenishment at the expense of “new wine,” which ripens in the “new skins” of modern communion with God.

At all times, conscientious Christians acquire their own experience of knowing God, which should benefit the Church and the world. Regardless of the historical era, the blessed influence of the Holy Spirit directs Orthodox believers to full-fledged communion with God and the knowledge of God of humble love. The dogmas and canons, theological knowledge and the means of spiritual salvation should be more and more fully realized by Christians in practice, if necessary, reasonably changing and improving according to revelation from above.

9 Passing from there, Jesus saw a man sitting at the toll collection named Matthew, and he said to him: follow me. And he got up and followed Him. 10 And when Jesus was reclining in the house, many publicans and sinners came and lay down with Him and His disciples. 11 Seeing this, the Pharisees said to his disciples: Why does your Master eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? 12 But Jesus, hearing this, said to them: It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 go and learn what it means: I want mercy, not sacrifice? For I did not come 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 much, but your disciples do not fast? 15 And Jesus said to them, Can the sons of the bridechamber grieve 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 puts patches made of unbleached fabric to old clothes, for the newly sewn will take away from the old, and the hole will be even worse. 17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the skins are burst, and the wine flows out, and the skins are lost, but the new wine is poured into new skins, and both are preserved.Mt 9 (9-17)

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

The point here 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 any time. 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 saying that "nothing can be changed."

In most cases, the advocates of “preserving the purity of faith” in a primitive way hide unrequited sins under the guise of formal ritualism, 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 the conscious righteousness of the believers themselves. In response, the scribes and Pharisees, who were afraid to be "defiled" from communion with repentant sinners, stubbornly clung to primitive rituals and banal religious pride. And until now, many Orthodox Christians who do not want to overcome the mistakes of the Old Testament are perplexed by the behavior of the Christian righteous and saints.

The protection 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 faith" become a primitive pretense. The Pharisees absolutize the external religious law, and its simplest 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, is not useful and fizzles out in the “old wineskins” of outdated concepts, unsuitable for both preserving and embodying the teachings of the true Orthodox faith.

The Savior's parable "furs 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 Pharisee ritual, transforming 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, voluntarily or involuntarily denying it in a proud desire to achieve personal salvation through primitive rituals.

The Orthodox faith represents the process of a person'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 on their own experience. But at the same time Christ Himself tells us: "Behold, I create everything new." The Creator of the world never stops in spiritual creativity, thereby calling on an imperfect earthly person to a continuous 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 teaching of the Church on the basis of modern spiritual experience, lies not at all in the fact that any renewal inevitably 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 Divine commandments.

Correct 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 observance 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 guise of ritual piety a sinful and evil life that does not tolerate grace-filled enlightenment.

The real reason for denying the new divinely revealed knowledge is hidden 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 from the spiritual treasury of Divine revelation "new and old" religious knowledge - what was revealed earlier and what the Lord is revealing to us at the present time.

Renewal of church experience irreconcilably denies heretical teachings that distort the traditional teaching of Christianity-Orthodoxy. But if modern righteous men and prophets come to the Church who, on behalf of God, preach the struggle against sin and the need for the grace-filled transformation of church life, we must take the new revelation extremely seriously so as not to reject the will of God for our destruction.

27 After this Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the toll collection, and said to him: follow me. 28 And he, leaving everything, got up and followed Him. 29 And Levi made a great feast for him in his house; and there were many tax collectors and others who were reclining 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 But they said to him: Why do the disciples of John fast often and do prayers, also the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink? 34 He said to them: Can you force the sons of the bridechamber 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 this he told them a parable: No one puts a patch on old clothes, having torn them off from new clothes; otherwise he will tear the new one apart, and the patch from the new will not fit the old one. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the wineskins, and it will run out of its own accord, and the wineskins will be lost; 38 but new wine must be put into new wineskins; then both will be saved. 39 And no one who drinks old wine will immediately want a young one, for he says: the old is better. Luke 5 (27-39)

47 The Kingdom of Heaven is also like a net cast into the sea and capturing all kinds of fish, 48 which, when it was full, they dragged ashore and sat down, gathered the good in vessels, but threw the bad away. 49 So it will be at the end of the age: angels will go forth, and will separate the wicked from the righteous, 50 and they will cast them into a fiery furnace: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51 And Jesus asked them: have you understood all this? They say to him: so, Lord! 52 He said to them: therefore, every scribe who has been taught the Kingdom of Heaven is like a master who brings out the new and the old from his treasury. Mt 13 (47-52)

We see how religious pride and blind fanaticism forced Old Testament believers to vehemently deny the saving revelation of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, when meeting 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 God forgives on the condition of a sincere delusion of a person who does not understand due to excessive fanatical jealousy, which he denies.

Taking into account our spiritual imperfection, the Lord in most cases forgives such a “word on the Son of Man,” created in relation to Christian teaching out of ignorance or thoughtlessness. A sincere believer, who did not know the highest Truth of the Son of God before, quickly passes such temptations. If he really wants to understand the essence of Christianity, the Lord necessarily reveals to him the spiritual vision of the soul and leads to the knowledge of the Orthodox teaching of the true faith.

The whole trouble lies in the fact that the Pharisees purposefully denied Divine Holiness and Love, covering up their conscious resistance to God by "preserving the purity of faith." When Christ healed the sick and cast out demons, while 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 “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,” when a person who calls himself a believer, contrary to all common sense, willingly or unwillingly 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 conscientious Pharisees, who purposefully refuse to do the will of God, repenting of pride.

Unconscious fanatical Pharisees, thoughtlessly and madly 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 was the case with the Apostle Paul, but a complete spiritual blinding of religious pride, clearly serving the forces of evil.

Often, Orthodox believers clearly do not understand what they mean when they talk about the preservation of the "purity" of faith, which depends not so much on external ritual forms as on a righteous life performed in a spirit of selfless love for God and people. If the newly discovered knowledge, as it was 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 perfectly knew the Holy Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church, but out of pride they 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 recognize the tree as good and its fruit as good; or acknowledge the tree as bad and its fruit as bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. Brood 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 person takes out good from a good treasure, and an evil person takes out evil 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 version of the unforgivable sin of “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” is the distortion of Orthodox dogmas and canons by a person within the church organization. And also 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 “blasphemy against 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 moved by the same "spirit" as the Pharisaism. The basis of heresy is the manifestation of human pride, madly trying to explain the unknowable Essence of God and the existence of the spiritual world with an imperfect and limited human mind. The self-willed and arrogant attempts of heretics to invent some kind of "new and pure Christianity" or to 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 with any "good intentions" about the cleansing of the Church or the development of correct church teaching.

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 teaching of the Church and her earthly organization. The teaching of the Orthodox Church does not actually require additions and even less 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 occurs not through reforms, but through the grace-filled transformation of the believers themselves.

It is often possible to hear that all heterodox 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 hereticalness" are the believers of two religions of monotheism-monotheism - Jews and Muslims. And the “last apostates” from the true faith are “pagans” - believers of non-Christian religions. All of the above categories of believers allegedly completely fall away from God, are initially doomed to perdition and worship fallen angels instead of God.

Such statements are only partially true. A believer who does not confess in his life the correct Orthodox commandments, dogmas and canons loses the ability to do the will of God in a salutary manner. Hence comes his destructive falling away from God and true faith. Roughly the same can be answered to the question: "Can an unbeliever save his soul?" Theoretically, it can, given that the Lord takes into account the real essence of man and his specific deeds. But in practice, the unbeliever simply denies God, does not recognize His saving commandments, and loses the opportunity to do the will of God in a salutary manner.

At first glance, everything proves that unbelievers and non-Orthodox people actually cannot be saved. In theory, everything turns out "smoothly", but in relation to real earthly history, conclusions have to be drawn very carefully. Why was Christianity-Orthodoxy not preached and established in the whole world? Why did the originally united Christianity undergo a split? Why were various “churches” separated from Orthodoxy?

There are no “simple” unambiguous answers to these questions. We can only say that the main reason for the distortions of Orthodox teaching and the appearance of heresies is our proud sinfulness. And everyone is guilty here - Orthodox and non-Orthodox believers. The Orthodox believe 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 the 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 the mercy of God. The Lord, out of His boundless Love, accepts every smallest particle of true faith and righteous life, trying to save everyone who is possible.

In the existence of non-Orthodox peoples, we can see only the incomprehensible mystery of the saving Divine Providence. Orthodoxy contains the highest Truth, the practical confession of which will fully save the 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 a 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 flaw in their faith. Such "moderate ecumenism" does not at all mean the salutary equivalence of all religions. Orthodoxy really saves, and all other religions can lead to a variety of results, including negative ones.

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

It is significant that Christ speaks of unforgivable sin, referring not to pagans, but to devout Jews. First of all, the Gospel tells us about the unforgivable heresy of the sin of Pharisaical falsehood among the Orthodox themselves, when believers consciously deny the Spirit of Divine Holiness and Love, teaching us to live righteously and selflessly to do good. “Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” means that a proud and proud “believer” hides his bodily and mental 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 gain.

Despite his “churchliness”, the proud “believer” 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 powers of darkness with all the ensuing consequences. This is the most dangerous heresy and “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit”, imperceptibly destroying the Church and destroying the souls of believers.

The fanatic who does not understand what he is doing has some excuse. But this is a weak consolation, since all people hear the voice of conscience, understand the value of a righteous life, disinterested goodness 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” refers 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 destruction, 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, in 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 mainly in the fact that a Christian consciously chooses the saving practice of a righteous life and humble love. This is the only way to gain the enlightening grace of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual blindness of a sinful and wicked person is the result of our proud pride. We can create any, to the limit pious and "church" appearance, but it does not matter if a person chooses the path of sin, leading him to denying God and serving the forces of evil.

The creativeness of a righteous life, based on selfless love for God and people, leads the believer to true 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 grace-filled effectiveness. A proud believer can go to church as much as he wants, but in any case he loses the ability to perceive the saving energy - the grace of the Holy Spirit. And without the grace-filled communion with God, a person is simply not able to cognize, and even more so to do the will of God.

Under the influence of black demonic energy, a proud “believer”, willingly or unwillingly, ceases to distinguish between 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 better than anyone else. And then the Pharisaical denial of God completely displaces 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 blessed actions of Divine Providence to the intrigues of demonic forces. It is through the Pharisees, and not through heretics, heterodox and non-believers, that the fallen angels most successfully and purposefully overturn, change places the concepts of good and evil, righteousness and sinfulness in the minds and hearts of believers.

The main type of unforgivable sin of "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" means the conscious fulfillment of the will of demonic forces under the guise of zealous ritual faith, the conscious denial of the will of God under the guise of a pious life. Such a sin is not forgiven at all through the 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 a messenger of 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 fanatic Pharisees could not understand the revelation of true faith. Others, internally reborn into conscious devil worshipers, did not want this. Pharisaical denial of God of any kind is due to the fact that the Divine energy of the Holy Spirit cannot be present in the soul of a proud person, due to the absence of the grace-filled spirit of righteous life and humble love. But without graceful communion and union with the Creator, not a single person is able to fully serve God and people. And the worst thing is that the Pharisee inevitably replaces the saving creativity of true faith with destructive service to the powers of darkness.

The proud Pharisee teaching believers to "live by the true faith" means by this a formal fulfillment of the ritual law, which has no real spiritual value. Such "piety" does not frighten the fallen angels at all, since it does not give a person saving grace - the power and knowledge of the Holy Spirit. When real 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 endure this. That is why the real followers of Christ, despite their obvious belonging to the Orthodox Church and the manifestation of Divine power and knowledge, are often declared heretics who are allegedly in "delusion" and "distort" the truth of Orthodoxy.

Every Christian in one way or another needs to go through the temptation of pharisaism, 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, who has recognized the dogmas of Christianity-Orthodoxy and leads a pious church life, must ultimately make a decisive choice in serving God, recognizing the highest value of conscious righteousness, selfless good deeds and selfless love for people.

Anything that serves the above purpose must be humbly acknowledged as a manifestation of the will of God. Recognize and apply despite new and unusual shapes expressions that, due to their "spiritual practicality", are often disliked by our sinful and proud natures. Only God's messengers 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 good of Divine Providence and deny the saving will of God to our own destruction.

"Infection" of a believer with a proud Pharisaic falsehood, inevitably drives out Divine grace, filling the soul of a person with the destructive energy of evil. The Lord can temporarily purify the nature of a proud and self-loving person by His own efforts. 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 the salvation of the world, the Divine energy of the Holy Spirit heals and enlightens the nature of a sinner person. We are often very careless about our inner state, proudly considering ourselves "real" Orthodox Christians and not thinking that such behavior imperceptibly leads us to falling 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 irreversible fall, which is often impossible to fix.

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, these include all unbelievers and low-believing "non-church" sinners, heterodox Christians - Catholics and Protestants, as well as believers of non-Christian religions.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, only the Omniscient Creator knows the reasons why a person is in one degree or another of unbelief, why he did not accept Christianity-Orthodoxy, why other peoples profess non-Christian religions. Answers of the following type: “they themselves are to blame for their unwillingness” or “God knows that they cannot be saved and therefore the preaching of Orthodoxy has not reached 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 low-believing worldly sinners living next to us in Orthodox Russia, they undoubtedly bear personal responsibility for their rejection of Orthodoxy. Moreover, most of the Russian people are baptized and sometimes go to church on big holidays. But they will be responsible for this themselves, and we simply do not have the right to condemn someone to destruction, arrogating to ourselves the right of Divine Judgment.

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 absence 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 unbelieving people instead of God, but we very rarely want to show a truly Christian attitude towards them, showing the way to God by our own example. The righteous man 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 man and the real motives of his behavior. Orthodox Christian it is necessary 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.

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

The Christian must be very clear about the destructiveness of religious pride. The meaning and purpose of the Christian life is constantly being revealed to people through the example of the righteous and saints sent by God, teaching us to do the will of God in the spirit of selfless love. If a person decisively 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 small desire to do the will of God, the Lord will certainly help him, set an example of true Christianity and lead him to the right path leading to the salvation of the soul.

22 And the scribes who came from Jerusalem said that He has Beelzebub in Him and that He casts out demons by the power of a demonic prince. 23 And calling them, he spoke to them in parables: How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If the kingdom is divided in itself, that kingdom cannot stand; 25 and if a house is divided within itself, that house cannot stand; 26 and if Satan rose up against himself and was divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. 27 No one, having entered the house of a strong man, can plunder his things, unless he first binds the strong one, and then he will plunder his house. 28 Truly I say to you, all sins and blasphemy will be forgiven to the sons of men, no matter what blasphemy 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

what they said, An unclean spirit is in him. Mk 3 (22-30)

22 Then they brought to Him a demon-possessed blind and dumb man; and he healed him, so that the blind and the dumb began to speak and see. 23 And all the people marveled and said: Is not this Christ, the son of David? 24 But the Pharisees, hearing this, said: He casts out demons only by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. 25 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them: Every kingdom divided in itself will be desolate; and any city or house divided within itself will not stand. 26 And if Satan casts out Satan, then he is divided against himself: how then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by the power of Beelzebub, then by whose power do your sons drive them out? Therefore, they will be your judges. 28 If by the Spirit of God I cast out demons, then of course the Kingdom of God has reached you. 29 Or, how can anyone enter the house of a strong man and plunder his belongings, if he does not first bind the strong one? and then he will plunder his house. 30 He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters. 31 Therefore I say to you: every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men; 32 if anyone speaks a word against the Son of Man, he will be forgiven; if anyone speaks to the Holy Spirit, he will not be forgiven either in this century or in the future. 33 Or recognize the tree as good and its fruit as good; or acknowledge the tree as bad and its fruit as bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 Brood 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 person takes out good from a good treasure, and an evil person takes out evil 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: 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 is looking for 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 for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. 41 The Ninevites will rise up for judgment with this generation and will condemn him, for they repented from Jonah's preaching; and behold, there is more Jonah here. 42 The Queen of the South will rise up for judgment with this generation and will condemn him, for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, there is more than Solomon here. 43 When the unclean spirit leaves a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none; 44 Then he says, I will return to my house from whence I left. And, having come, he finds him unoccupied, swept out and tucked away; 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and entering in, they dwell there; and for that man, the last is worse than the first. So it will be with this evil race. Mt 12 (22-45)

The following fact of spiritual existence is amazing and worthy of amazement - the Almighty Creator of the Universe never leaves lost humanity with His concern. Heavenly Father specially sends for the salvation of our world His Son, the incarnate God-man and the Lord Jesus Christ. God selflessly descends to earth for the material and spiritual salvation of fallen people, disinterestedly with great love goes to sinners, showing us the way of salvation and giving us strength to overcome it, connecting humanity to Divine power and higher knowledge.

The authority and power of the Creator are 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, rejection of the creation of evil and disinterested 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 level of spiritual development, to the full-fledged grace-filled enlightenment of the body and soul. To achieve divine-human perfection, you do not need to invent anything, it is enough to accept and fulfill the Christian teaching of a righteous life, good deeds and selfless love. This is true Christian divine creation, "being born in the Spirit" and "worshiping God in spirit and truth," meaning the grace-filled deification and union of man with God.

The blessed birth of a person from above occurs with a 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 satisfying spiritual and bodily passions and at the same time to do the salutary Divine commandments.

The Lord does not expect from the majority of believers the ultimate ascetic deeds and special prayer work, careful ritual piety and special theological knowledge. The Omniscient Creator pays no attention to a person's literacy, to his theological and scientific education, because they are insignificant in comparison with the grace-filled illumination that awaits the believer as a result of the practice of Christian life. The highest enlightenment of the human person through "abiding in the Holy Spirit" becomes possible for any believer who accepts the path of conscious holiness and selfless love.

The idea of a completely independent development of man in "freedom" from God and "external" spiritual influence is the most destructive self-deception inspired by the fallen angels. This is how demons enslave a person, subjecting him to the power of bodily and mental passions. A person who proudly refuses the Creator's help will inevitably fall under the power of the spirits of darkness, which give a person “complete freedom” to commit sin and evil for the duration of his 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 from a person blind slavish obedience and does not deprive us of true freedom. It only seems to a sinful earthly man that the slightest restriction of destructive bodily and mental passions is an encroachment on his "freedom", from which man himself and all mankind allegedly "suffer mercilessly". In fact, selfless worship of God "in spirit and in truth" of unselfish love is necessary for man himself for his own earthly and eternal good. Acceptance and knowledge of Christian teaching is our "natural duty", which would be more correctly called the "saving gift" of the Creator.

The apparent 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 disinterested goodness and selfless love, which are least of all similar to the “slavish” submission of man to the will of the Almighty Creator. In fact, this is the only path of true spiritual development for every normal and reasonable person.

Voluntarily fulfilling the will of the All-good Creator, we are essentially trying for ourselves, affirming 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 “out of duty rewards” believers with 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 a son of God, similar to the All-Knowing and Almighty Creator of the Universe.

Christian deification of the human person is carried out through the "ordinary" righteous life, which introduces a person into Orthodox Church Of the New Testament. The Church is not just a religious organization, but a gathering 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, which sacrifices itself for the salvation of the world. The perfect joy of the grace-filled union with God and humanity in the spirit of mutual love, reveals the highest degree of spiritual knowledge to the Christian. Developing in himself the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love, a person naturally attains Divine omniscience, which reveals an undistorted vision of the world through the eyes of his Creator.

When a Christian speaks of the gracious knowledge of material and spiritual life, he means not so much the laws of control over matter, time and space, as knowledge of the true Orthodox faith. At this stage of being, the main thing for us is the teaching of the salutary creation of the will of God, which saves the human soul from the power of sin and evil, helps to avoid eternal destruction and direct the people around them to the path of salvation.

Sinners - evil, proud and self-loving people, blinded by earthly passions, often laugh at the conscientious disciples of Christ who sacrifice themselves to help the perishing world. But no matter how proud a person is and enjoying earthly blessings, earthly life passes very quickly. For some reason, sinners are terribly afraid to die, 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 consists in a 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 faster a person understands this by doing right choice, the more benefit he will bring to himself.

1 Among the Pharisees there was someone named Nicodemus, one of the rulers 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 him: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone 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 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be surprised that I told you: you must be born again. 8 The Spirit breathes where it wants, and you hear its voice, but you don't 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 the earthly, and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about the heavenly? 13 No one ascended into heaven except the Son of Man who came down from heaven, which 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, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 He who believes in Him is not condemned, but the unbeliever is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God. 9 The judgment is that the light came into the world; but people loved darkness more than light, because their deeds were evil; 20 for everyone who does evil hates the light and does not go to the light, lest his deeds be exposed, because they are evil, 21 but he who does righteousness goes to the light, so that his deeds may be made manifest, because they are done in God. John 3 (1-21)

4 And He had to go through Samaria. 5 So He comes to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there. Jesus, exhausted from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about six o'clock. 7 A woman comes from Samaria to draw water. Jesus says to her: give me a drink. 8 For His disciples had gone to the city to buy food. 9 The Samaritan woman says to Him: How do you, being a Jew, ask me, Samaritan women, to drink? for the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered her: if you knew the gift of God and who says to you: give me a drink, you yourself would ask Him, and He would give you living water. 11 The woman says to him: Master! you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; Where did 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 drinking water this very thing, it will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water flowing into eternal life. 15 The woman says to him: Master! give me this water so that I do not have thirst and do not come here to draw. 16 Jesus says to her: go, call your husband and come here. 17 The woman answered and said: I have no husband. Jesus says to her: it is true that you said that you have no husband, 18 for you had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; you said it rightly. 19 The woman says to him: Lord! I see that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you say that the place to be worshiped is in Jerusalem. 21 Jesus says to her: believe me that the time is coming when you will not worship the Father either on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You do not know what we 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 truth, for the Father is looking for such worshipers. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. 25 The woman says to him: I know that the Messiah, that is, Christ, is coming; when He comes, He will tell us everything. 26 Jesus says to her: It is I who speak to you. John 4 (4-26)

1 I am the true vine, and My Father is the grower. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away; 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 preached to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it is on the vine, so neither can you, unless you are in Me. 5 I am the vine and you are the branches; He who abides in Me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6 He who does not abide in Me will be cast out like a branch and wither; but such branches are gathered and thrown into the fire, and they are consumed. 7 If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this My Father will be glorified, if you bear much fruit and become My disciples. nine As the Father loved Me, I also loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. 11 I have said these things to you, that my joy may abide in you and your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 There is no more such love as if a man lay 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 a slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have told you everything that I have heard from My Father. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you. 17 I command you this, 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 godlike 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 accomplished 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 divinely revealed knowledge begins with humble repentance. A person must humbly admit that the Creator of the world does not need anything from a person. The Almighty and All-Knowing Creator is self-sufficient and can easily 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 disinterestedly 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 taking the path of spiritual purification and transformation, will not allow him to cognize the true laws of being and ascend to the level of enlightened God-manhood.

If we evaluate the life of a Christian from a worldly point of view, then unbelievers usually “think” that God does everything for believers, and a Christian is supposedly a weak-willed “toy” in the hands of the Almighty Creator. It turns out that without help from above, a believer does not represent "anything meaningful", even if he has godlike power and works miracles. And any unbeliever “independent” of God, who claims “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 a demonic distortion of the consciousness of a proud atheist, who puts fallen angels in God's place.

Demons really help their supporters to do evil unrestrictedly for the duration of their earthly life, but for this they demand eternal power over the human soul. On the contrary, the Lord teaches us to renounce evil for a short time on earth, granting divine eternity to a righteous and good person. It is the Creator who disinterestedly gives us life, opening before us the eternal path of divine-human creativity, leading to immortality and real freedom from the power of evil.

All earthly history refutes the teachings of proud humanity, 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 innumerable troubles to mankind. The false opinion about the "weakness and weakness" of believers is easily exposed by the practical demands of Christian life. 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 self-love in the name of love for God and people.

The greatest godlike abilities that bring us closer to the Creator are inherent in man. But we can correctly disclose and apply them only if we live according to the Christian commandments. The Christian does not value much the "miraculous" psychophysical abilities of the human person 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 propels 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 the highest exertion of strength and complete dedication from a Christian. But on the other hand, he leads a person to the attainment of god-like immortality, likening it 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 serving the forces of evil and the destruction of the soul. Like the servants of God, the slave of demonic forces can receive special "miraculous" gifts from them. But this does not mean anything if a person brings evil to himself and to those around him, seducing people with false greatness and meaningless knowledge, selling an 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 was made 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 believe in His name, He gave the authority to be children of God, 13 who were neither of the blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the desire of a husband, but of God were born. John 1 (9-13)

37 On the last great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, come to Me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow out of his belly. 39 He said this about the Spirit, which those who believed in Him had 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 authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and heal every disease and every infirmity. 2 The names of the twelve apostles are these: the first Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, James of Zebedee, and John, his brother, 3 Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, Jacob Alpheus and Levvey, nicknamed Thaddeus, 4 Simon the Canaanite and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him. 5 These twelve Jesus sent, and commanded them, saying: Do not go on the way to the Gentiles, and do not enter the city of Samaritan; 6 but go first and foremost to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; 7 As you walk, preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand; 8 heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons; You have received free of charge, give free of charge. 9 Take with you neither gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts, 10 no bag for the road, no two clothes, no shoes, no staff, for the laborer is worthy of food. 11 Whichever city or village you enter, visit whoever is worthy in it, and stay there until you leave; 12 but as you enter a house, greet him, saying: Peace be to this house; 13 and if the house is worthy, your peace will come on it; if you are not worthy, then your peace will return to you. 14 And if someone 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 joyful for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that city. 16 Behold, I am sending you like sheep among wolves: so be wise as serpents, and simple as doves. 17 Beware of the people, for they will give you up to the courts, and in their synagogues they will beat you. 18 and they will lead you to rulers and kings for Me, for a testimony before them and the Gentiles. 19 When they betray you, do not worry 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 yourself, for they will deliver you up to the courts and beat you in the synagogues, and before the rulers and kings they will set you up for Me, for a testimony before them. 10 And in all nations the Gospel must first be preached. 11 When they lead you to betray you, do not worry in advance what to say to you, and do not ponder; but what will be given to you at that hour, speak also, for you will not speak, but the Holy Spirit. Mk 13 (9-11)

1 After this the Lord chose the other seventy disciples, and sent them two by two before His face to every city and place where He 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 as lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a bag, or a bag, or shoes, and do not greet anyone on the road. 5 Whichever house you enter, first say: Peace be to this house; 6 and if the son of peace is there, 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 laborer is worthy of the reward for his labors; do not go from house to house. 8 And if you come to what city and they accept you, eat what they offer you, 9 and heal the sick who are in him, and say to them: The kingdom of God has drawn near to you. 10 If you come to any city and will not accept you, then go out into the street and say: 11 and the dust that has adhered to us from your city we shake off for you; but know that the kingdom of God has drawn near to you. 12 I tell you that on that day it will be more joyful for Sodom than for that city. 13 Woe to you, Chorazin! woe to you, Bethsaida! for if in Tire and Sidon the powers were manifested in you, they would long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes, repent; 14 but it will be more delightful for Tire and Sidon at the judgment than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum, who have ascended to heaven, will be cast down to hell. 16 He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.

17 Seventy disciples returned with joy and said: Lord! and demons obey us about your name. 18 He said to them: I saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning; 19 behold, I give you the power to tread on snakes 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 you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babies. Hey, Father! For such was Thy good pleasure. 22 And turning to the disciples, he said: All things have been delivered to Me by My Father; and who the Son is, no one knows except the Father, and who the Father is, no one knows except 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.
Luke 10 (1-24)

12 First of all, they will lay hands on you and persecute you, delivering you to synagogues and prison, and lead you before kings and rulers for my name; 13 it will be for you as a 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, which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist. Luke 21 (12-14)

The Seventh Mantra of Sri Isopanisad says:

One who always looks at living entities as spiritual sparks, qualitatively equal to the Lord, understands the true nature of things. What can mislead or disturb such a person?

Ultimately, our anxiety is caused by the fact that we are not seeing a living entity, but only his body. If you look at me, you will see my body. Our eyes are composed of water, earth, air ... These eyes are able to perceive material energy, so I can see what kind of body you have: male or female, young or old, and so on. But to actually see you, a different type of vision is needed.

And here in Sri Isopanisad it is said that a wise person sees that living entities are part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, qualitatively equal to Him, and that such a person has no cause for concern. In the material world, everyone is in anxiety due to lack of spiritual vision. When we talk about vision, we understand that it can be material and spiritual.

Material vision is of two types. The first type is seeing through gross senses: sight, hearing, etc. But there is also another material sense, the second type of material vision, speculative reasoning. It is based on gross sensory perception. Through gross feelings, information enters the mind, and then, on its basis, a person discusses what is true and what is not. But the results of mental constructions cannot be spiritual, since they are based on the perception of material senses. This process of acquiring knowledge is called “bottom-up”. Following this process, a person who wants to understand something (for example, a scientist) examines this phenomenon very carefully with the help of his eyes, perhaps armed with some kind of extension in the form of a microscope or a telescope, and then begins to think about what all this means.

Thus, our speculative constructions are based on material sensory perception, and the conclusions we arrive at ultimately depend on the capabilities of our senses. But since our material senses are limited, our conclusions will always be imperfect. In other words, our senses are imperfect, so all our knowledge gained through sensory perception will also be imperfect. Nevertheless, relying on the strength of our gross senses and subtle feelings - speculative reasoning - we try to ascend to the Absolute Truth, enter the spiritual dimension. This is what people usually try to do. They receive some information with the help of their senses and on its basis make some conclusions, trying to climb to the Absolute Truth, and the conclusions they arrived at are called "truth."

Spiritual vision is different. It is not obtained as a result of research with the help of material senses and subsequent speculative reasoning. The spiritual vision described in this mantra of Sri Isopanisad is received by one who wants to see the Truth. Since there is a desire in his heart to see the Truth, the Absolute Truth reveals itself to this person. This is the essence of the fundamental difference between the ascending and descending paths of acquiring knowledge. One who wants to be master himself is unwilling to acknowledge the existence of a conscious, active, decision-making, compassionate and loving Supreme Being. If they do recognize the "Supreme", then they do not agree that He is a person. They do not recognize that Hashem can decide to reveal something to me and really reveal it to me. They think it is the result of their own efforts. In other words, usually people think that God, or the Absolute Truth, is impersonal or inactive, that the Absolute Truth cannot decide to reveal Himself to me - that everything depends on me, I must climb up to Her. If God exists, he is like the sky. God is an ocean of light, that's all. He has no consciousness, He cannot make a decision. When you say make a decision, you are talking about a person.

Thus, most people are not ready to accept the existence of the Supreme Personality. To recognize the Supreme Personality for them means to put themselves in a subordinate position, and we all want to be masters. As soon as I accept the existence of the Supreme Personality, I will put myself in a position where I am no longer the master, and this will jeopardize my present position. All my life I have tried to be a master, and now I have to accept this nonsense about what is the Supreme Master? I can accept God and all that, but only if God is inactive and impersonal. As soon as I accept that the Absolute Truth is a person, as soon as I accept the Personality of Godhead, I will have problems with my dominion, because if there is the Supreme Personality, the Supreme Lord, then I am no longer the supreme person, and therefore I must start thinking about whether my actions and my whole way of life are pleasant to someone else - the Supreme Personality, since my task is to coordinate my will with His will. In other words, as soon as I accept the Supreme Personality, I cannot be happy if I do not reconcile my will with His will. And if I don’t want to give up my domination, if I don’t want to reconcile my will with the will of God, if I still want to be God myself, to be in the center of everything, a person around whom everyone and everything revolves, the most important person in my life, and everyone else and the whole world should serve my pleasure, then there is no question that I can accept the existence of the Supreme Personality, because I do not want to.

One day people said about Jesus Christ: "How does he know the Scriptures without learning?" And he answered: “My teaching is not mine, but of Him who sent me; whoever wants to do His will, he will learn about this teaching, whether it is from God, or I speak from myself. " And then he said, “Didn't Moses give you the law? and none of you is acting according to the law " (John, 7.15-17, 19). Obviously, they did not want to "do the will of God," and therefore did not recognize Jesus as His representative.

Usually one is trying to find the truth, or he is trying to realize the Absolute Truth. He is busy looking - looking, looking ... But the Absolute Truth is not a piece of gold hidden somewhere, which just lies and waits for it to be found. The Absolute Truth is active and personal. If She doesn't want you to find Her, She will become invisible and you will not find Her. In other words, you can never find It that way. As soon as you accept the existence of the Supreme Personality, you agree that there is another being with a will of his own. I may think that I want to find Him, but He may not want to show Himself to me. I may not have the qualities necessary to see Him.

In other words, the will of another person comes into play here, and this always somewhat complicates matters. If I alone decide everything, it is easy - I am dealing with myself - but as soon as another person appears in your life, everything becomes much more complicated. It's like if a woman has a child, or someone gets married or gets married, life becomes much more difficult. You are allowing another person to come into your life. For example, your child says, "I want this, I want that." You have never had anything like this before - you didn’t have a child and you didn’t have such problems. But he is a different person. As soon as another person appears, you have to deal with her will, her desires.

That is why most people do not want to accept the Supreme Personality - they themselves want to be the Supreme Personality. They want to be the main enjoyer. They want to be served, they want to be the master. In fact, many people believe that one who has achieved spiritual realization becomes a master - realizes that he is something like God, and everyone else is doing his will.

But in reality this is not the case. Spiritual teacher means heavy. Guru, the literal translation of the word "guru" is "heavy." Why is it heavy? This comparison - he is like a tree with a huge amount of fruit. But its fruits are the fruits of love for God. When one actually attains spiritual realization, he has many fruits of love for God, he becomes one who loves God with pure love when he no longer has his own will and he simply fulfills the will of the Supreme Personality, when his will is completely aligned with the will of the Supreme Personality. ... Such a person is called a "guru" or "spiritual master" and is respected as the representative of God.

Now the idea is popular that I am God, the Supreme Personality, and I just need to realize this through meditation. If I meditate long enough and persistently, I will break through this illusion and realize that I am the Supreme God. But this is the last trap of Maya (illusion). Maya has two pitfalls. The first is to think that I am a material body or a material mind. And often people understand that they are not body or mind, but spirit - life force, not matter. But, unfortunately, they fall into the last trap of Maya - they begin to think that they are the Supreme Lord. They begin to meditate: “All living beings emanate from me, I am everywhere, I am everything, I am the Cosmos, I control the Cosmos, I send fog and I dissipate it. Of course, I didn't know that I was going to send the fog now, in fact, I thought I would send something else, but I must have wanted it to be as it is now, because it is. " like that.

Therefore, it is said very specifically:

One who always looks at living entities as spiritual sparks, qualitatively equal to the Lord, understands the true nature of things.

Qualitatively equal. An example is a drop of water from the ocean. A drop of ocean water has the same quality as the entire ocean - the same percentage of salt. But a drop of water cannot be compared to the ocean. The tiny living entity cannot be compared with the Supreme Living Being. Although we have the same quality, in quantitative terms we are much smaller and we have much less strength. And how is this manifested? In the fact that we, a living being, have fallen under the influence of ignorance, and therefore we are looking for knowledge. Living entities are imprisoned in a material body. The Supreme Being is never trapped in the material body. The Supreme Personality is the ruler, and we, the living entities, part and parcel of the Supreme, are the rulers. We are all under control. None of us can claim to be the one who rules.

These people do not ask the question: "If I am God, why am I not omnipotent?" But if you ask them, they will answer, "It is because you are in an illusion."

But if I am God, how can I be in illusion?

Because you forgot that you are God.

If I am God, how could I forget? Doesn't “God” mean “almighty”? If I am God, how could I forget that I am God?

You wanted to forget.

If I wanted to forget, now I want to remember. Why am I still in the illusion?

Well, you probably don't really want to remember.

Who are you?

I am also God.

Are we equally gods?

Yes. Equally.

But then there is no God. Equally ... is there a Supreme God?

No. We are all Gods equally. But in reality it is all one God. We are not really individuals. We just pretend that we are individuals. It's all one, and we just pretend that we are separate from each other.

Oh, we pretend that we are separate from each other. Why are you a teacher? Why are you a guru?

Because I realized that I am God and you are not.

This is the wrong idea - "I am God." We are all little gods. We are all spirit souls, not a material body. I am not a body - not white, not black, not a woman, not a man, not a person, not an animal ... All living beings are integral parts of God.

Here in Sri Isopanisad, a devotee of God remembers this mantra, and thus becomes purified, realizing that all living entities are part and parcel of God, children of the Supreme Being. And nothing can disturb such a person. He doesn't envy anyone. The impersonalist, for example, thinks, "I am God," and is constantly in anxiety because he is constantly losing control of "his creation." All he can do is explain to himself: "It turned out this way because I must have wanted it." But this does not help to get rid of anxiety.

Thus, Sri Isopanisad contains information that comes from the spiritual dimension. "Mantra" means "information in the form of sound, descending from the spiritual dimension," descending knowledge. In this way, we receive information about the Absolute Truth from the Absolute Truth, which descends and reveals itself to us. This means that she is not “it,” but He: God is a person making a conscious effort to reveal Himself. This clearly indicates that He is a person. And "He" also means that He is the sovereign, that in reality there is only one man, in the sense of "sovereign." All others are subservient. All living beings are actually subordinate, whether we are temporarily in female or male bodies, we are actually in a subordinate position. In this sense, no one is a man except the Supreme Personality. We are all meant to be subservient servants, not masters. Our natural position is to serve. The idea that our natural position is to exploit, that we should try to be the master of material nature or other living entities, is wrong. God owns everything and everyone - all living beings - as stated in the First Mantra of Sri Isopanisad:

All living and nonliving in the universe is in the power of the Lord and belongs to Him.

Alive and inanimate. I'm alive. I am an active living being, and now I am in the sphere of temporary inanimate energy - matter. All material things belong to God. All this stuff was here before I came here, and it will all remain here after I leave. And all living entities are animate energy, living entities are children, or integral particles, of God. They belong to Him. Therefore, if I believe that some living entity belongs to me, be it my wife, husband, children, dog or whatever, if I think "he is mine" or "she is mine" - that is actually an illusion. Because this person belongs to God. I do not belong to you and you do not belong to me, and we all belong to God. And all inanimate energy belongs to God.

Thus, a wise person sees everything in unity in the sense that all energy belongs to God, therefore he sees God everywhere, because the energy of God is everywhere. Everything belongs to Him. And He uses all energies to serve Him. This is called devotional service, or bhakti yoga, or karma yoga. When a person realizes that the Supreme Being owns everything, he begins to realize that everything that he has belongs to God, and therefore he uses it all to glorify God or in the service of God. This is called karma yoga.

I am spirit soul, not material body.

All living entities are part and parcel of the Supreme Living Being. We all belong to Him. And,

All inanimate energy, material energy, belongs to the Supreme.

Understanding this, I am engaged in devotional service. In other words, I have got jnana, knowledge. And then I act on that basis.

Thus, I should have the following knowledge:

I exist. I am spirit soul, I am eternal, I am not matter.

I am an integral part of the Supreme Soul.

All living entities occupy the same position as me - they are also part and parcel of the Supreme. They do not belong to me, but to him. And all material energy also belongs to Him.

There is a comparison that characterizes three types of people. Let's say three people are walking down the street, and each of them finds a hundred dollar bill. The first one will immediately think: "Oh, I will enjoy!" - and immediately begins to think about what he will buy with this money for his pleasure. Such a person can be compared to an ordinary materialist. The second is compared to a yogi who does not want to disturb his peace. Passing a hundred dollar bill, he thinks: “I don’t even want to look, I don’t want to get involved, this is karma” - something like that. And the third person picks up the money, finds the owner and returns it to him. He can be compared to a bhakta or devotee of God. He is not interested in his own peace, his own salvation, deliverance from pain or possible trouble; he understands: "This belongs to God, let me return them to Him - I will use them in His service." He does not look at money as a source of pleasure, and he also does not try to stay away from it, thus displaying false renunciation. Instead, he uses everything he can - be it a million dollars, or some of his abilities, or reason, or professional skills (write articles, work on a computer - whatever) - he understands that it all belongs to God, and uses, redirects it to serve God.

Most people use material energy, including their powers, abilities, gifts, etc., for their own material pleasure; the main thing in their life is themselves, their pleasure. Then, there is another type of people - there are much fewer of them - who, having failed in their attempts to enjoy the material world and are tired of such a life, try to get away from it. They don't want to participate in anything. And they are making tremendous efforts in this direction. They try to give up everything, but everything continues to cling to them. They try to give it up, and it comes back, and they try again to give it up, but gradually they get sucked into all this activity again, and they don't like it, and they try to give it up again. For example, they fast, and then they break through and they eat, eat, eat for a whole week, and then feel guilty: “I have to renounce the world. I was sucked in again ”- and they start all over again. They bounce on their buttocks trying to awaken the kundalini. They do pranayama very diligently - they really make great efforts to renounce everything and rise above it, and they begin to feel peace and some kind of bliss again, but before they have time to look back, life again sucks them in and they have to start all over again. And mostly people fall into one of these two categories.

But a devotee, one who is actually acting on the spiritual platform, understands, “First, I do not own anything, so I cannot use it for my enjoyment. I just take what is necessary to keep this body in good condition, to be able to serve, and everything else that I have, I use in the service of God. " And he also understands: "Since I do not own anything, I cannot renounce anything." Someone might say, “I gave up on this, on this. I had a yacht and a big house, and I gave up on them and now I live simply. I gave up everything ”- and he may really like that he“ gave up everything ”, and he may want to give up something else, believing that he still has some kind of property. But really, how can you give up what is not yours? A bank teller constantly deals with money, money, money, but for him there is no question of giving up them - because they are not his. It is an illusion to think that you once owned something. How can you refuse this?

The saints of all times advise us not to make false attempts to be "renounced" and "spiritual" and not to try to be the master of the material dimension, to enjoy the material world, but to combine our will with the will of the Supreme Personality, and therefore, to use all our abilities, possibilities, all of our property, large or small, in service to Him. We have a lot or a little - God doesn't care, because we offer all this to Him. What matters is that we offer it. It is not the quantity that matters, but the quality - the consciousness with which this is done. Actually, the living entity's natural constitutional position is to lovingly serve the Supreme Lord. When one returns to this state of devotional service, or bhakti yoga, he regains the previously lost qualities necessary to enter the kingdom of God; in other words, no longer receive material bodies. This is no longer necessary, because reincarnation, the transmigration of the soul, is caused by the desire of the individual to be the master of the material world. It is arranged in nature that a living entity who desires material enjoyment, giving up his gross physical body, receives another and has the opportunity to continue his attempts to enjoy. But they are full of suffering - birth, disease, old age and death cause immense suffering. It is unnatural for an eternal living entity to be in the temporary material world. This is not where we should be. Our natural dimension is the intangible, intangible world.

In this way, when we free ourselves from the desire to be master, when we no longer envy the Supreme Personality and we no longer have material desires, and our only desire is to serve the Supreme Personality, we regain our right to be again in the kingdom of God. Then we no longer need to get a material body. And this is actually the natural state of the living entity, and it is called religion. Religion is not something that you join or that you can change. Religion is the natural primordial state of the living entity. In this state, the living entity lovingly serves the Supreme Living Being.

We advise you to read (listen, watch) in connection with this article:
Who you are? Discovering your true self,
What is meditation,
Explaining Karma

The basics of daily practice of meditation and purification of consciousness according to the system of bhakti yoga are given in the article Lesson in Meditation

Based on a lecture by the Spiritual Master

In addition to the well-known sensory vision with the eyes, definitely a person possesses the so-called "mental vision". According to the teachings of St. Fathers, our mind and heart are peculiar organs of perception, but they do not perceive signals coming from the material, material world, but react to thoughts and feelings (thoughts and feelings, spiritual and mental, in the terminology of the Holy Fathers). At the same time (which is very important to keep in mind), thoughts and experiences related to the mind and heart, respectively, seem to be some kind of independently existing formations, which from the outside are able to precisely provide impact on our mind and heart, "enter" them. This is evident at least from the following quotation: “Our mind has the ability to think and the ability to imagine; through the first, it assimilates concepts of objects, through the second assimilates images of objects. second way ness, tries to capture seductive images "(5, v.3, p.58-59).

1. THREE KINDS OF POSSIBLE IMPACT ON US

FROM THE SIDE OF THE FALLEN SPIRITS

Elsewhere, Saint Ignatius speaks of three types of possible influence of fallen spirits on us during the period of our most likely earthly existence(see source). It:

1. exposure to thoughts;

2. exposure to dreams;

3. exposure to touch (5, v. 3, p. 58-59).

Here is how Ignatius writes about it:

a). About the influence of thoughts

"The Holy Gospel depicts the devil who first put into the heart of Judas Iscariot the idea of the tradition of the God-man (John 13, 2), and then ascended into Judas (John 13, 27)" (ibid., P. 58).

b). About the impact of dreams

"That the devil tempts man with dreams is evident from the devil's temptation of the God-man: the devil showed the Lord all earthly kingdoms and their glory" in an hour temporarily "(Luke 4, 5), that is, in dreaming" (ibid., P. 58 ). (By dreaming here, apparently, it is understood that something akin to imagination, illusion, or hallucination.)

"Dreaming demonic affects the soul very harmful, arousing in it a special sympathy for sin. When it appears often, it can make an indelible, most pernicious impression" (ibid., P. 59).

v). About exposure to touch

"About how the devil acts on a person through touch, we read in the book of Job (Job, chap. 1 and 2) and in the Gospel story about a woman who was bound by Satan with a special strange affliction (Luke 13, 10-16)" (5 , v.3, p.59). (From Job we learn that Satan can touch as (1) of course external circumstances(the source is unknown) life, - to change them, to destroy property and relatives - and (2) bodies - to bring disease.)

"From the touch of demons, carnal passions are aroused and diseases are generated that are not affected by ordinary human healing" (5, v.3, p.59).

Thus, if our existence is shielded from perhaps the sensible perception invisible world, then the mind, heart and even the body are open to influence from it.

2. WHAT IS SPIRITUAL VISION

The mind and heart belong to the realm of the spirit. That is why the perception by the mind and heart of thoughts and feelings coming from outside is called spiritual vision. But even these spiritual eyes of ours are blind. This kind of blindness doesn't mean we can't be able to perceive thoughts and experiences coming from outside, or thinking and experiencing. Our spiritual vision(that is exactly what happened!) can be defined as the ability to evaluate and correctly interpret thoughts, experiences and sensations. It is this ability that we do not possess. By analogy with ordinary vision, we seem to see some spots, but we are not able to catch their outlines and find out what they are. Saint Ignatius writes: “Our mind and heart are struck with blindness. Due to this blindness, the mind cannot distinguish between true thoughts and false ones, and the heart cannot distinguish between spiritual sensations from spiritual and sinful sensations, especially when the latter are not very coarse. Due to the blindness of the spirit. all our activities are made false, as the Lord called the scribes (scientists) and Pharisees "buimi and blind" (Matt. 23, 17), "blind leaders" who surely do not enter the kingdom heavenly and not allowing people to enter it "(5, v.3, p.54).

3. CONDITIONS OF RELEASE FROM SPIRITUAL BLIND

The condition for enlightenment, deliverance from spiritual blindness, gaining spiritual vision is the overshadowing of a person with Divine grace. "It appears not by the will of man, but from the touch of the Spirit of God to our spirit, therefore, by the all-holy will of the All-Holy Spirit," Ignatius writes (5, v. 3, p. 55). This means, first of all, that if the Savior had not ascended to God the Father after his crucifixion, then the Holy Spirit would not have come to us, just as Jesus Christ himself says about this: "it is better for you that I go; for if I will not go. The Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you, ... When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth; " (John 16: 7-13). Therefore, it is natural that the one who does not accept Christ (the Christ of the Gospel, and not invented, as in the occult), will not receive the Holy Spirit, and any other non-Christian cannot have the gifts brought only by the Holy Spirit. Among these gifts is deliverance from spiritual blindness. The above also means that none of our own efforts are a way, means or method of inevitable, "guaranteed" spiritual insight, that they do not inevitably cause the development of this vision by themselves. No matter how much we loosen, fertilize the soil, if grain is not put in it, the sprout will not appear. So in this case: all our efforts, methods, tricks aimed at self-improvement and improvement are only loosening the soil; the grain must be put by someone else. And this is very important to remember in the light of surely our the future consideration of various methods of "self-realization", "self-cultivation", "self-development", which are now offered to us in such abundance at every corner.

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