Is it possible to live without sinning? A sure way not to sin What happens if you don't sin

I don’t know how to live, life is very difficult, unbearable, disgusting, awful! I constantly do bad deeds, every time, deeply repenting, everything starts anew.

What is happening to me, what is the matter I cannot understand, it seems to me that only I have such problems as to atone for my grave sins and not commit them again? How to draw closer to the Lord, what to do to forgive me? I always want to pray, get up for the night prayer, but sleep is stronger than me, I constantly want to sleep, apathy, neuroses, moral oppression ... something inside me destroys ...

Wherever I am, with whom, I always feel the Almighty that He is in front of me, I definitely feel uncertainty that God will forgive me, although Allah forgives sins, but in my case I don’t know what it looks like ...

From the point of view of religion:

The Lord in the Holy Scriptures - the Koran - said: (meaning) « Say (Muhammad): O servants of the Most High, who oppressed themselves (by unbelief, polytheism, adultery), do not lose hope in the mercy of God, truly Allah forgives all sins (those who repented of their sins, and those who from unbelief will come to Islam ), for He is Forgiving and Merciful» (Surah "Az-Zumar", verse 53).

قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَى أَنْفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِنْ رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ

Another verse says: (meaning) « The Lord does not forgive polytheism, but forgives any other sin he wishes» (Surah "An-Nisa", ayat 48).

إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَغْفِرُ أَنْ يُشْرَكَ بِهِ وَيَغْفِرُ مَا دُونَ ذَلِكَ لِمَنْ يَشَاءُ

An authentic hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) says: « Repented of committing sin, as if he had not committed it» ("Sunanu ibni Majah" No. 4240).

التَّائِبُ مِنْ الذَّنْبِ كَمَنْ لَا ذَنْبَ لَهُ

All that I have cited above is just a small fraction of those verses and sayings of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), which tell us that if we sincerely bring repentance to the Almighty, He forgives us.

Naturally, we are simple people and we cannot not sin, only angels are sinless (because they have an innate faith in the Most High) and prophets (because Allah Himself saved them from sinful). But despite this, we are obliged to avoid committing the forbidden. Sins are usually committed out of the weakness of faith (imana). The stronger a person's faith, the more he understands the greatness of the Almighty and fears the consequences for disobeying Him. Study Islam, strengthen your faith. Start small and gradually increase your worship. Read 500 blessings (salavat) daily to the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Make yourself observant friends, in their environment, through communication with them, inshallah, your faith will be strengthened.

In general, there are many methods for atonement for sins, in particular, these are: complete ablution; obligatory prayer performed correctly with observance of all conditions; Friday prayer; fasting in the month of Ramadan; standing in it (in Ramadan) taraweeh prayer and performing morning and night prayers collectively; making a pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca ... there are a lot of them.

Naturally, we are talking only about sins that are between the slave and His Creator. The same sins that are committed between slaves, Allah forgives only if the oppressed forgives his offender. Thus, if you took something from someone and did not return it, offended, spoke behind your back, i.e. you have oppressed human rights in any way, and you want forgiveness, you need to achieve this from the person whose rights you have compromised.

From the point of view of psychology:

The fact that you are asking such questions already characterizes you positively to some extent. You have every opportunity to correct the situation, there is only no inner desire to bring it all to the end. The question arises, what exactly can make you do the same thing over and over again, for which you subsequently have to experience pangs of conscience and experience a feeling of shame for yourself.

If a person is always zealous in something, be it good or bad, you can always say that behind this is hiding internal reasons... The reasons for this are primarily the desire to satisfy any needs, the substitution of concepts and distorted perception.

In general, it must be borne in mind that a person differs from an animal in that by force of will he can control the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of his own needs. It is in our power to deny ourselves anything, the main thing is that for the sake of which we voluntarily renounce what our inner essence strives for. Take fasting as an example. After all, a person denies himself food and water, experiences hunger and thirst, but at the same time restrains himself. What is the main condition under which a person observes all this? Obviously, this is an inner conviction that you are always under the supervision of the Almighty, and that fasting is observed for His pleasure. Otherwise, a person denies himself food and drink only when he is among people, while alone he can drink and eat. And this is from the area of ​​hypocrisy.

I think that you yourself know very well where the way out of this situation is. The only question for you is what prevents you from abandoning the bad. So, the answer lies in you yourself, in the fact that unsatisfied basic needs for belonging to society, personal disorder and fear of inner emptiness. It is the spiritual emptiness that is the basis that determines the entire model of your behavior. It is known that nature does not tolerate emptiness and strives to fill it in every possible way, the only question is how to fill it. Think if what you are doing forbidden is some kind of attempt to find the meaning of existence, to fill your life with some kind of content. Therefore, most likely you cannot give up what you are doing, because if you give up today, tomorrow there will be an emptiness again. It is for this reason that you need to make every effort to fill your inner world with good content.

It is necessary to do something useful not only for you, but also for those around you. You will notice that with the growth of your good deeds, the feeling of community with others will begin to grow noticeably. Take little by little, but good, meaningful, than a lot, but empty and not harmless. It's like in food: it is better to eat a little, but useful, than a lot, but harmful.

In conclusion, I would like to quote the words of Omar Khayyam:

To live life wisely, you need to know a lot,

Remember two important rules to start with:

You'd rather starve than eat anything

And it is better to be alone than together with just anyone ...

Muhammad-Amin Magomedrasulov
theologian

Aliaskhab Anatolyevich Murzaev
consultant psychologist at the Center for Social Assistance to Families and Children

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This is sometimes not so much a crime, not so much the fulfillment of an evil intention, as a mistake ... And sometimes in many ways it is. We do not want to sin, we are tired of sinning, we are tired of sinning, we have a firm intention not to repeat our previous sins. But then circumstances are selected in a certain way, a situation arises that is tempting for us, and we fall ...

From what? Here, probably, we can always talk about a whole complex of reasons. And about sinful skills that are easy to acquire, but difficult to get rid of. And about weakness, lack of determination "even to the point of blood." And about the lack of faith that deprives us of God's help when we need it all. And about the corruption of our nature, the common inclination to sin among people.

But there is one more reason, which is somewhat apart from the others and most of all "responsible" for the mistake. It is so self-evident, so ordinary that it’s even somehow inconvenient to talk about it ... And it’s also impossible not to speak: too often we all stumble not on something, but on this one. The reason for this is the absence of the most necessary habit: think first and only then do... I can say with certainty and with full conviction: if we always before, and only after, had embarked on this or that enterprise, then the lion's share of our sins would not have been committed.

This, of course, concerns, first of all, "sins against one's will".

The other day we spoke with one person, and he told me about such a dramatic episode:

Let's go, - he says, we are on the river in winter, - and under my friend the ice cracked, and she began to fall through. And I think: we need to run to her, but what if we go under the ice with her? Thank God, before I had to do anything, she got out on her own. And if not, what then? And in general, how to be in this case, how to overcome yourself?

How to overcome yourself, - I answer, - a question, of course, is important, but it seems to me that here first you need to ask another question: why did you go for a walk on the ice at all, what kind of need was there? ..

How many tragic, absurd and at the same time terrible "accidents" occur precisely because of this - the lack of the habit of asking myself: what am I doing, why, what can this lead to? One jumped into the water from a steep bank and stuck his head into the rocky bottom, the other with a parachute at a far from young age and broke his back, the third rushed through the city in a car in a race with the same stubborn person as himself, and hit a man, the fourth drank, despite the opened ulcer, and ended up in the hospital. And then everyone repented: "For what, why did I do it! .. If only I had thought before!"

And in quite everyday and less tragic situations, it is similar. You see, for example, that your friend / colleague / boss is literally annoyed, literally not yourself, but you go to him with some kind of conversation that will predictably lead to an explosion. Only you do not predict - you are too lazy to do this. And in the end - a quarrel, a scandal, because just as you could not keep silent: word for word, and they said this to each other that it was definitely better to be silent from the very beginning. And again you repent and lament: "If only ..."

Or I really want to speak out on a topic - slippery, complex, ambiguous. And he spoke, and slipped, and got confused in the complexity, and condemned, and involuntarily deceived, slandered someone. And again there is only one thing left: to go to confession.

But practically all the same can be said about "ordinary", "free" ones. "Free" - this is when you understand well that you are going to commit not some act that is neutral in principle, which could turn into a sin, but sin itself as such.

Already your heart has almost bowed to it, you have already completely decided on it ... Here you should stop at least for a moment and think: “How many times has it happened this way? He sinned, trampled on his conscience for the sake of some momentary, short-term pleasure, some extremely dubious joy. And how then he suffered! How sickening it was in my soul, how much time I experienced, got out of this painful state, tried to return to myself, sought reconciliation with the Lord and people! Was it worth it? .. "

What is useful, what is vital important rule: do not do without thinking! And at the same time it is rational: after all, we very often spend a huge amount of time and effort on correcting what was done out of thoughtlessness and imprudence.

And at the same time, it turns out that there seems to be nothing more difficult than adhering to this rule. Not that it was impossible. I just don't want to ... I really don't want to! All the more so - what if it blows away, all of a sudden everything will be all right?

I wish so! But only experience is inexorable: if he didn’t think about it, he must have sinned. This is so true that not thinking is already a sin in itself. And, perhaps, there is only one way to avoid it, to cope with it: to acquire the appropriate skill. So simple, so ordinary, that, again, it is inconvenient, awkward to talk about it. But it is necessary, necessary all the same: it is so rare these days, as if ... As if we have completely forgotten how to think.

In fact, all those qualities that religion calls sins are instincts that guided us - long before we first looked up into the sky. Try to imagine a living being incapable of anger and fornication. Now ask yourself the question: how long will it live and will it be able to reproduce? We answer: it will not live long, it will not leave offspring. But we are still people, not animals, right? And so that we do not gnaw each other in the competition for a resource, instincts were recognized as sins. And we were ordered to fight them with all our weak forces. Otherwise, in better world we will do a-ta-ta. But at the same time, a loophole for those who stumbled (in fact, for all) was left: if you sinned, repent. And then go and sin no more.

For many millennia, this principle worked fine, but now it has failed. Because the life of the average homo sapiens has become, on the one hand, easier, and on the other, much more complicated. The problems of survival are solved, we no longer need to fight a hostile world for existence every day, we can just live. But instincts have not gone anywhere, so now we direct them inward. And we get big problems. And all it is worth looking at these very instincts (that is, mortal sins) from a different angle.

Envy

We were taught from childhood that it is bad to be jealous. And we did not want to understand this, because the lush bush of stereotypes had not yet bloomed in our children's heads. Then they came up with two envy for us: black and white. “Black” is when you want your neighbor's cow to die, and “white” is when you wish that cow a long life and record yields. Well, you dream of having one yourself.

Actually: Mom has already told you everything before us. True, the point is not whether your envy is "black" or "white." The point is, jealousy is the trigger that makes you better. To strive for something and achieve something, to join the competition. People devoid of envy do not strive for anything. Can you guess where they are all located? You don't want to go there for sure.

Gluttony

It seems to you that this is generally some kind of contrived sin, right? Who will get worse from eating an extra packet of cookies? Cooking is an art and foodies are the sweetest people in the world. What is the problem? That is, except in the fact that gluttony can make you fat. And in our time it is really a mortal sin.

Actually: gluttony is a very correct word, very capacious. It's just that we still perceive it in the same sense as our ancestors. Only in their days was food in short supply, and it really was somehow not good to eat others. And today we please the womb differently: we sit on meaningless diets, swallow useless (at best) nutritional supplements and in general, we are too nervous about food. Let go of this sin and enjoy delicious food. You will definitely become healthier in spirit. And then the body.

Greed

It is sinful to worship the golden calf. Being stingy is also somehow ugly. You agree with that, right? We, too. But in reality, greed is a very convenient sin.

Actually: we have already said that the question of survival for a modern young lady like you is not worth it. But the question is the quality of life. It is very acute. And it cannot be solved in any way if you suddenly decide to become a silvery woman. To provide yourself with a comfortable and pleasant existence, you will have to learn how to earn, and preferably more, and also save wisely. But you cannot improve relations with the world of finance if you consider the love of money a sin. Or or.

Anger

With anger, at first glance, everything is clear: no one likes angry hysterics, and of course you don't need to be like that. But if you change the beautiful, bookish word "anger" to its scientific synonym, the picture will immediately change. Listen: aggression is a sin! Cuts your ears? If not, then you skipped biology classes in high school. And now we will fill this gap.

Actually: aggression is characteristic of all animals, without exception, and in itself is not destructive, but exactly the opposite. Evolution is impossible without aggression - in other words, we would not be here if our ancestors were miles. And the point is not that they would simply be eaten. It was intraspecific aggression that forced us to settle all over the planet. It was intraspecific aggression that allowed us to build a complex hierarchy, and that, in turn, allowed us to become the dominant species. This is a wonderful feeling! Through aggression, you can protect your personal boundaries and prevent others from doing whatever they please with you. How are you even going to live without her?

Despondency

In fact, this does not mean a sad state or even depression, but rather idleness. That's when you walk around the house all Saturday in your pajamas splashed with chocolate and watch TV shows - this is it. A terrible sin! idleness will lead you to hell, mark our words!

Actually: you are not iron. You need to rest and not new impressions from which she will get tired. So despondency is not a sin, but a sine qua non healthy way life. Because it is in “despondency” that we all hide from stress. And we have already told you what chronic stress leads to.

Lust

She is fornication, she is adultery. The most condemned sin, by the way. Anger and gluttony will be forgiven you, but fornication - in no case. So you probably think that this sin is better avoided, right? And then you never know - they will be punished right here, put into a hellish cauldron as a beneficiary, without a queue.

Actually: people are polygamous. Only 3 to 5% of homo sapiens of both sexes are monogamous by themselves (and not under the influence of social order), which allows us to confidently state that monogamy is not the norm for our species. But we still create families and strive to remain faithful to our partner. Why? Because we found someone who suits us. But, you see, finding it is somewhat problematic if you deny lust. Because lust is actually a healthy sex drive. And, if you don't have one, you need a doctor. Seriously.

Pride

"Know your place, do not stick your head out!", "The girl is adorned with modesty!" and "Are you the smartest?" - all this you probably heard more than once in childhood from the very teacher whom the whole school hated. And, be sure, she said it because she wished you well. Simply in her understanding, good is deliverance from the sin of pride. Pride and vanity.

Actually: without vanity you will never achieve what you dream of. And pride is an overestimated self-esteem, and, of course, you need to fight with it. But not in the way that advocates of humility of sin suggest doing: from their point of view, your ideal self-esteem should be somewhere in the area of ​​the baseboard. Do you want this? We think not. Self-esteem must be adequate. However, if we are to choose between sin and virtue, between pride and humility, then perhaps sin is better. Because overestimated self-esteem, of course, will hurt you, but someday later, and that is not a fact. And the underestimated harm already now. And yesterday. And tomorrow. And always.

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Reader question:

Hello, father! Please tell me what to do in order not to be a sinner anymore? I'm 28 years old. And, unfortunately, I had very serious sins. I recently confessed all my sins in Jerusalem. She received the Holy Communion. Was at a very beautiful service. The father ordered a penance. I did everything as expected. And I am grateful to God that He gave me a chance to get rid of these grave sins that did not allow me to live and which I was afraid to confess for a long time. It’s just that at one fine moment something told me that I should be closer to God and this could no longer continue. And I really want to be closer to God. Now I go to church, fasted. I don't want to repeat those sins anymore. And I try, and I see - the soul is cleansed and grows, I feel calm. But I have a problem that I cannot solve. And I continue to sin because of this. The priest, with whom I spoke, said that you need to replace your sins with goodness. For example, fornication-chastity. One of the sins was precisely fornication, an intimate relationship with a man who is 23 years older than me. He is very kind, sincere and good, we are very Good friends, he is my great support and I will always support him. He has no wife, and he treats me with trepidation. I really appreciate him and love him as a friend. I would not like to lose him, we have been friends for about 8 years, and we had a prodigal relationship with him for only a year (more precisely, only 3 times a year, and the rest of the time we just saw each other, talked, he always hugged him like a woman). But this prodigal relationship can no longer continue precisely because it is contrary to God. What should I do if I no longer want to be attached to sin? Don't want him to treat me like a woman? I'm hiding. He calls, writes .. I don’t pick up the phone ... He worries, worries .. And I don’t know how to say everything. It's not right to just disappear, it's a betrayal. He is like a kindred spirit to me. But this is not the love of a man and a woman. Father, please help me to do the right thing in this situation. I am very tormented, tormented and therefore continue to sin.

Archpriest Andrey Efanov answers:

Good day! Thank God that such great changes have taken place in your life! As for fornication, you understand that the problem is not that he is older than you, but that there were intimate relationships outside of marriage. If you really have such a wonderful friendship, then you should openly and honestly tell your friend about what is in your inner life very serious changes have taken place, and from now on, your relationship with God and those commandments that He gave, and the experience of those holy people who built their lives according to His commandments, became decisive. Accordingly, sexual relations are acceptable for you only in the context of marriage, and other communication should not go beyond professional cooperation or friendship. There is no need to run away and hide, it is necessary to voice to the person what is. If your friendship continues as friendship, then thank God. If not, you do not need to deceive yourself or another person, because it means that it was not friendship, but a relationship of a different kind. Having a firm conviction to move away from sin, do not be afraid to lose some temporary earthly benefits. The Lord will rule. Before talking, pray deeply to God and the Mother of God for strengthening you, determination and wisdom.

On the feast days of the Mother of God, the Gospel of Luke (Luke 10: 38-42) is read about how the Lord comes to the house of Martha and Mary - such a familiar and familiar passage that you know it almost by heart. And from this somehow he has not touched his heart for a long time, after all, everything is clear as it is. You hear one line and you already know what the next words will be. And that Mary “the good part of the election” has also been known for a long time.

Some authors, for example the biblical scholar Ilya Yakovlevich Grits, call for reading Scripture with an open gaze, as if for the first time, with surprise and an attempt to hear what is being responded right now. Read slowly, listening attentively to every word, reflecting, perhaps, on some verse or even one word that is heard today as especially important. Vladyka Anthony of Surozh says a lot about this. Eh, it's not an easy task to hear something new in such an old and familiar text.

Jesus in my apartment?

"At that time Jesus entered a village." Has entered. Came Himself. Perhaps they did not know him and did not call him, as it often happened, but He comes Himself. And he comes not only for a beautiful sermon in front of thousands of listeners, but enters into everyday life, into the ordinary daily life of people and just settles(for example, Matthew 4:13) with them - he lives in the same house, eats at the same table.

If I kind of believe that God is always there, can I allow Jesus to come to my area and to my home? If I were a resident of those villages, what would be my reaction to the news that He came to our village? I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that the first thing I would do would be confused and frightened. And then the question is whether everything is in order in my relationship with God, if, as it turns out, I am first of all afraid of Him. Of course, I would be wildly interested, and I would like to run to look at Him, and maybe touch (hello to the Apostle Thomas), otherwise I can't believe my eyes. But what next?

"Martha received Him into her house." Someone did not accept Him. We do not easily invite every person to visit, let us into our intimate space - into our house. Home is a place where you can be yourself, where you don’t have to observe decency, where you can relax, walk in a crumpled robe, cry or swear, laugh until your stomach cramps, or pout and be silent. It is no coincidence that we are often very decent people with colleagues or friends, in society, in public, and completely wild and sometimes difficult to bear for loved ones at home. D O ma can already be without cuts, as it fell on the soul. Of course the house a there are different and all sorts of home traditions, but in general, all the same O ma we are without a corset and makeup.

Martha received Him into her house, let him in. She could not relax, she fusses a lot, tries for guests, but she accepted Him. I wonder if, honestly, would I be ready to let Christ into my house, into my Moscow Khrushchev apartment? Let him get that close? Let me go where I am not very good and not always decent? To be with Him not only when I piously stand in the temple, that is, I come to Him in His house, but when I am angry and tired and I don’t care about anything ... Would I like Him to live with me under the same ceiling every day? How would it be for me?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t seem to be able to say a sure “yes”. And it's scary. And why then be surprised that there is so little God in my life, if I myself am not ready to completely let Him into my life? On the other hand, it seems to me that if it were possible, like this simply live together with Jesus, to ride with Him in a packed subway, go to work, cook food, do the cleaning and much more to do together - all the time with Him - then it would be somehow out of place to sin.

You get angry with the crowd in the subway, and next to Jesus - and somehow everything changes at once. Your colleagues got you, and next to Him - and it became so unimportant. If you want to condemn a neighbor, you look at Him, how He is next to you and also looks at this terrible neighbor with such boundless love for her and for me, oddly enough that it is no longer up to condemnation. And this is not a volitional effort, because, they say, I decided not to judge anyone else, which, as you know, does not lead to anything. This is an essential change, a transformation from within, because He Himself is nearby. Wasn't that what the Holy Fathers wrote about when they spoke of God's unceasing memory?

Unlike me, Martha and Mary let Him in. And Martha is busy, trying to get a big treat - how understandable! Surely one of us would have behaved the same way. But you won't last long. If guests come and you jump around them, then how many days will you last? That's why they are guests ... And if someone came for a long time and now lives with you in the house? Sooner or later he will see you for who you are, when you no longer try to please and appear in your beauty as you are. Jesus lived in some houses, that is, he was not just a guest for a day or two. I ate and slept under the same roof. What was it like for those people? What would it be like for me?

Who am I without fuss?

In the modern Russian translation of the RBO, verse 40 reads like this: "Martha was all in the trouble of a big treat ...". " Was all in"- how can it be important so that we do not be completely in something, not be completely captured by vanity and worries, when I’m already gone, but there are only these worries. It’s hard not to “be in” when you need to do this and that, you have to think about money, about children, about health, about work, and a lot of other things, and all this is terribly important and without me it will disappear and collapse unambiguously. And after all, all this can be taken away from us at some point, in contrast to the good part that will not be taken away from Mary.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t even imagine that something that I fuss about and worry about once disappeared or became unimportant, or went out of my control and began to exist without my influence. After all, this my Affairs, my projects, my friends, etc. And maybe that's why I fuss around them so much that I can't imagine myself without them. Take all this "mine" from me, and what will remain? Who am I then? If I am not a teacher, not a wife, not a mother, not a daughter, not a friend, not a mistress, etc., then who am I? Who am I in my nakedness before God? And do I exist in general in isolation from what is "mine", what I "have"? What's in the bottom line? Difficult questions, and I don’t want to think about them, because it’s difficult ...

Martha behaves, as we would say today, without complexes: she directly addresses the Guest with a complaint about her sister and a request to give her instructions to help her, and not sit idle. He does not turn to Mary, but goes to a third person, which in itself is not very healthy. It is interesting that the Lord does not tell her, they say, that you are complaining about a relative, go figure it out yourself and something else in this spirit, which would be very understandable in such a situation. Well, I would say so, probably in His place. He addresses her personally and speaks about the main thing, that is, he shows her the correct hierarchy of priorities.

And what about Maria? "I sat at the feet of the Lord and listened to His word." And that's all. Nothing more did not do... So strange ... Lazy? Wasteful? Indifferent? Perhaps Martha suspects her of this, and this is also quite understandable. Guests came, and she sat down and that's it. He does not care about his neighbor - about his sister, does not help. She does not worry about what they will think of her, does not try, at least for decency, to behave differently. Not quite normal. And how important it is to us sometimes just To do nothing... Just shut up, sit down and listen, as Vladyka Anthony advised one of his parishioners. Just allow yourself to be, not to act... Be, not fuss. Listen, not jabber. Sit down and shut up, realizing who I am and who You are ...