Nyuta Federmesser is about to become a butterfly. Nyuta Federmesser: For life for the rest of my life
On prayer in which God the Truth is revealed
Every person, no matter who he is, no matter where he lives, no matter what place he occupies, learned or ignorant, rich or poor, famous or unknown to anyone, in his youth, in mature age or old age, in days of joy or sorrow, “from the depths” and with force or barely touching, but will think about the meaning of life and pose the question: what is truth? (John 18:38).
Nineteen centuries ago, Pilate casually asked this question to Christ. The content and spirit of the question, given the same verbal formula, can be radically different. In the case of Pilate, the criticism of a mediocre Roman philosopher was reflected: having asked a question, he went to the Jews, without waiting for an answer from Christ: he was convinced that there was no satisfactory answer at all. I believe that in our time the overwhelming majority of people are no higher than the level of Pilate’s thought and build their earthly existence not on the rock of faith, but on the denial of the possibility of posthumous existence.
What is Truth? Does it even exist? Even before we recognize it, there is a positive response within us, like the consciousness that without it, Being itself would be impossible. Truth cannot be proven by logical demonstrations coming from below, but its existence is undeniable for us, for it is given as direct knowledge: it precedes every thought of ours: without this consciousness, thinking would be impossible in general, the goal of which is always to find a true solution.
At what level is this question posed? Here we will encounter countless differences. Leaving all others behind, let us take the level that corresponds to our idea of Man. Man by nature cannot stop in the middle, he must go to the end: he means the First Truth, which lies at the basis of everything that exists.
What is the First and Last Truth, eternally unchanging, all-encompassing? This is the only pressing question (cf. Luke 10:42). As in our earthly existence we undergo failures, breakdowns, defeats, the loss of persons dear to us, carried away by death into “nothing” unknown to us; after we experience the fall of many idols of the earth: science, philosophy, art, humanism, politics, nothing grows inside expressed in words the aspiration of that which remains immutable.
Convinced of the insufficiency of all human efforts to achieve this eternal Truth we seek, so as to merge with It, to have It as my personal property, I turned to prayer, at first non-Christian, but like Far Eastern meditations. A lot of time has passed, approximately 7-8 years, when I great strength I saw myself on the wrong path: the One who said: “I am the Truth” appeared to me in spirit (John 14:6). Oh, this luminous moment that brought me out of the hell of mortal darkness: with my whole being I felt that I had entered the right path. But no matter how magnificent the path may be, it is at the same time filled with many sorrows before we reach the One we are looking for (John 16:33).
When the fire of faith in Him pierced my heart like the edge of a sword, then I was filled with cheerful inspiration. I had not yet achieved the Living Truth, but that very inspiration turned into a feeling of It, became Its presence within me (cf. Heb. 11: 1). I tried to find the closest possible accommodation of my mental vision in order to more clearly, as if in focus, grasp the outlines of the Holy Truth that appeared to me, but I soon realized that this was madness on my part: the more I peered, the more boundless it became.
I am not going to write about some Truth that I have discovered hitherto unknown to the world. I am writing about how I was given the opportunity to live out my repentance. Our spirit hungers and thirsts to know the Truth, i.e. that First Being, which is not conditioned by anyone or anything: the absolute Self-Being, about which the Prophets of the Old Testament spoke, about which the Apostles of the New Testament testified (cf. Ex. 3, 14; Isa. 44, 6; John 1: 1 -4; Rev. 2, 13).
We do not imagine, and we cannot imagine Him, starting from ourselves. We do not create God “in our image and likeness.” In reverent prayer we wait for Him to hear our cry and give us a “sign” of Himself. In our illness we open ourselves to perceive the answer-revelation that comes from Him. We want to “know” Him, the Author of our existence, “as He is.” He appeared to our fathers and great-grandfathers, and we sacredly treasure the testimony we received from them as a treasure. By trusting them, we believe what they have told us, but at the same time, like Moses, we cry out to Him: “Let me know You as You are in Your eternity.” For “faith comes from hearing” is another thing (Rom. 10:17), and quite another is “knowing You.”
As soon as we decide to surrender ourselves into the “hands of the Living God,” these hands throw us into such open spaces that we never suspected. We are horrified by the abysses that open to us. God seems “cruel” to us. And yet, through the “pains” inflicted on us, by an inexplicable process, the ability to contemplate super-figuratively is revealed within us - “as He is”... albeit only “in part” (cf. 1 Cor. 13:12).
He is Light and Truth. And when this True Light (John 1:9) embraces us, then we live His love and Wisdom. We are in joy, and deep knowledge descends on us, not as a thought, but as a state of our spirit.
He is Jehovah. In Him there is neither beginning nor end. He Himself is the Beginning - the Principle of everything that exists and the endless end of all our aspirations. We recognize in our hearts that He wants to see us perfect, no less than He Himself (cf. Matt. 5:48).
Exhausted by the tyranny of base passions, we naturally pray to the Good Lord that His Spirit may rest upon us: the Spirit of understanding the ways of His salvation. And strengthened by this Spirit, we see that in tragic trials we are freed from the consequences of the fall; that in our suffering our being expands, and we become open to other great worlds. We overcome the isolation-egoism of the bestial individual, we emerge from the semi-animal state of not knowing our Creator. Realizing that for me, from “nothing” created, it is necessary to go through fiery pain in order to know more deeply the “Man of Sorrows” (Is. 53: 1-12), I accept this holy pain with grateful love. It is full of meaning; she initiates me into the secrets of existence, not only created, but also uncreated. Thanks to Her, I become compassionate, through Her (pain) I see in spirit all others who suffer: the love of God descends within me, first as the compassion of all creation, and in the coming century as the bliss of seeing those saved in the Imperishable Glory.
A small digression. The above does not mean at all that we cultivate “dolorism” of a mental order. Not at all. But whoever has gone through the metaphysical suffering of the spirit, it becomes clear that this “pain” is something qualitatively different: a necessary “stage” in our growth from earthly dimensions to cosmic and even more than that: eternal. Isn’t this just what the Good News of Christ is about: the Gospel?
After a person begins to understand the place of the Cross in our being according to God - otherwise he “goes to the cross” (cf. Luke 14:27). Otherwise, he understands the “cross”. This latter is perceived as a call from Above from the Heavenly Father (cf. John 6:44; John 18:11). In it, the cross, as well as in the cup of the Lord, the conjugation of my created with the Divine uncreated Being is realized. As a sign of this, we kiss the cross with which the priest blesses the believers in the temple.
We do not deny the reality of what is happening: Christians tend to simultaneously be in two planes: temporary and eternal. We perceive time itself as a kind of wondrous process of God creating gods like Him out of nothing. When created things reach their perfection-completion, then we will hear “the oath of the Angel, swearing by Him who lives forever... that there will be no more time” (cf. Rev. 10: 5-6).
The Lord said about Himself: “I am the Truth” (cf. John 14:6). He called His Father and the Holy Spirit as witnesses. Not without effort, over a number of years of repentant prayer, comes the understanding of this side of Divine Being. The more we follow the Lord in keeping His commandments, the wider and deeper our personality becomes. So, when we ourselves approach the realization in us of the principle of Persona, in which, first of all, the image of God is expressed in us, then from our experience we see that our personality, for its fulfillment, needs a meeting with another and even other persons. In a genuine “meeting,” we will reflect not only the similarity to the principle of the Person in the Divine, but also the image of the intra-Trinitarian life: we are given the gift of loving people of the same essence to us in prayer for the whole world: living all of humanity as One Man. Through this experience we gain new knowledge, existential: A person by his nature, structure and character does not live alone, alone, but certainly in love for another, others, his own kind. In an act of love, a person bears within himself a response to another person and thereby bears witness to it.
Not only in the Divinity, the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit testify to each other, but they also testify to us, people, about each other. Moreover: The Lord instructed the Apostles to testify about Him: “When the Comforter comes... the Spirit of Truth, which proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me; and you also will testify, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”
Such is the relationship between people and between God and people: testimony as true life in love, moves forever in all directions (cf. John 1: 7-8; 1: 15, 32, 34; 5: 31-39; 8: 13 and 18; 12, 28; 15: 36-37; Acts . 1, 8; 10: 39-43).
Sighing, my spirit reached out to the Living Truth. And “my groaning did not hide from Him” (Ps. 37:10). “From a deep pit I called on His Name, and He heard my cry” (cf. Lamentations 3:55-56): His love touched my Heart. It seemed indescribable to me beautiful world Christian prayer. Through her I was given communication with the True and Living God. I'm talking about the prayer of my repentance. She took various shapes. Sometimes my being, gathering inward, became contracted in an immeasurably small spatial center. At other times, it was as if the opposite happened: my spirit was introduced into some intellectual sphere, without knowing the boundaries, and my repentant cry strangely merged with the contemplated abyss. It also happened that in prayer I embraced, as I felt, the whole world. The Lord gave me moments of pure prayer face to face, and eternity quietly but powerfully penetrated my heart; and the mind was given the bliss of being melted in the flame of love emanating from the heart. This fusion of the whole being: mind, heart and body gave a feeling of integrity of being, so different from the usual discord between our spirit, soul and body.
Now I testify to the Truth that our fathers and forefathers knew. I testify to how she deigned to appear to me in response to the long, devouring cry of repentance. I have lived this Truth as truly eternal, and I speak and write to the extent of my faith. Paul also wrote about her: “...having the same spirit of faith, as it is written: I believed, and therefore I spoke, and we believe, therefore we speak...” (2 Cor. 4:13).
I know that my knowledge is not absolute, but this does not mean that there is some other truth. I believe that the beginningless Truth touched me, but I also know that I did not realize in the act of my life what I learned in the experience of prayer... But where is the criterion that would confirm us in trusting the experiences of God the Truth given to us?
The desire for Him who exists before all ages is inseparable from us; Who permeates everything that exists and holds it in existence with His power. It is difficult for us, insignificant ones, to believe that this Infinite Master does not despise us (Matthew 18:10). Strange as it may seem, but when we turn to Him in true prayer, i.e. prayer of repentance, then He runs out to meet us (Luke 15:20) and lovingly embraces us with Himself. This event cannot be a figment of the imagination, because it exceeds the capabilities of our ability to imagine (cf. 1 Cor. 2:9).
I proceed from Revelation: Man was created “in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:36). It follows that man is endowed with the potential to achieve likeness to his Creator; that in the very nature of man lies the idea of the Absolute Being, so that when God Almighty enters into communication with the spirit of man, then this latter can “recognize” Him, for He is related to him. Introduced into the sphere of the Mind of God the Creator, the created spirit of man begins to see God “as He is” in Himself (cf. 1 John 3:2). I avoid saying our mind, so as not to create misunderstandings, mistaking it for mind - reason.
Our first movement is to the One who is “in the beginning.” Our attitude is to accept Him as the fundamental Truth, regardless of whether such ontological Truth coincides or does not coincide with our ideas about It. And great is our joy when the given Revelation (1 John 1:5; 4:13; 4:16) is confirmed by the vision sent down to us, namely, that we are created “in the image” of God: He appears to us as the God of love, and we live Him within us as absolute harmony, and begin to “worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4: 23-24).
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Hence: only repentant prayer corresponds to the truth about us. I never cease to emphasize this point: by standing before the Heavenly Father in the consciousness of ourselves as a sinner, we become part of the plane of God’s Truth. The more deeply we live our sin, like death that has struck us, the more fully we surrender to God in prayer, and by His life-giving power we break free from the clutches of time and space. May the Lord forgive me, and may my brothers not judge me harshly: this is what happened to me. And therefore, reading the letters of the Apostle Paul, I assume, I will not hide - with confidence, that he was also given “visions and revelations of the Lord” (2 Cor. 12: 1-6) in his repentance before Christ “with a strong cry and with tears ”: then he was “heard for his reverence” (cf. Heb. 5:7).
In such a prayer, our mind-spirit is included in the Mind of God and receives an understanding of things, which, understanding, cannot be adequately expressed in our everyday language. For example. Everything was created by His will, His thought. He thinks the world, and His creative thinking becomes created being. It is not matter, but the thinking of God the Creator that is primary. Thus, we live this world not only through the prism of experimental knowledge, but also in the Spirit we contemplate it in a different way (cf. Heb. 11: 1-3).
“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He abides with you, and will be in you”... “you will see Me, for I live, and you will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, he loves Me: and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father; and I will love Him, and I will appear to him Myself... whoever loves Me will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our abode with him... the word that you hear is not Mine, but the Father who sent Me... But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you everything and remind you of everything that I said to you” (John 14: 15-26).
“The Comforter, the Holy Spirit... will teach you everything.” He will “teach” us to think as God Himself thinks; will teach us to love as God loves. Do not be surprised at this: this is the meaning of the Gospel call; all the letters of the Apostles - John, Paul, Peter and others - speak of the same thing; Our Fathers testify to the same thing throughout the centuries.
The question arises: how can we achieve this blessing? The answer is given by Christ: “Keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.” So, we “know” the Holy Spirit through the holy tradition of the Fathers of the Church and also through our own experience His, the Spirit, actions within us. He “reminds us of everything.”
More than this: “Whoever loves Me will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an (eternal) abode with him.” What could this mean? Yes, that we are promised to inherit the fullness of Divine life, the fullness of knowledge and the power of love, which is revealed to us by the Uncreated Light, which has no darkness in itself (1 John 1:5).
Here is Paul's testimony: “we have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God.” And again: “Who has known the mind of the Lord so that he can judge him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:12-16). Through our school science we entered into world thinking and became partners in experimental knowledge. Something similar happens to us in the realm of the Spirit: through life according to the commandments of the Gospel, we enter into the closest kinship with the Divine Mind. These commandments are nothing more than the self-revelation of God “as He is.” Becoming the only law of our existence, they (the commandments) tell us the “image” of the Divine Being we seek. “We know... that the Son of God has come and given us light and understanding, that we might know the true God” (cf. 1 John 5:20).
God the Truth did not create anything false, contrary to the Truth. And every act-energy emanating from Him is true. Christ revealed to us the true Man, as he was intended by the Creator: the Truth of God Himself is embedded in us, for we are “the image and likeness” of Him. Eternal truth is communicated to the hypostatic principle in us. And just as the Person in a person is born at first only as a potential, so the seed of Truth in us is also subject to actualization from a potential state. In the fall of Adam, the Truth in us was distorted. Through the grace of repentance and obedience to love for the Father, the Truth, in its original holiness, is communicated to us as the life of God Himself.
But what happens to a person who repents by crying? He lives the Truth not as a result of his thoughts, but as a state of his spirit given to him by the Spirit of God. “State is a fact of being, from which our very thought grasps the understanding of Truth in its own way. Again, not in the process of demonstrative thinking, but as an intuitive penetration or statement of fact, as the knowledge of the Divine Being, descending to us from God.
Understanding the ways of the Lord does not come quickly. My longing was deep to feel the brevity of our days. The soul was full of fear - to go into the grave before an answer came from God to her cry to Him. But I was not completely abandoned: through the prayer of undoubted faith in Christ God, His compassion for perishing humanity was gradually transferred to me. Before great pain I lived my personal death, and this pain pushed aside the walls of my petrified heart. In general, I was used to transferring my experiences to all of humanity, and had compassion for all people who were in a state of remoteness from God similar to mine. Thus, the suffering of everyone became “mine,” and in the loneliness of the desert sometimes a prayer came for the whole world with the same cry as for oneself. And in that prayer I felt the eternal God as our Father. And this feeling was convincing evidence of the beginningless Truth communicated to us by Christ.
I remember with trepidation those hours when the Lord allowed me to live this spiritual event. And now - woe is me: I don’t see that holy power in me.
The subject about which I helplessly try to babble is Living Truth; it does not resemble either scientific or philosophical truths. The Truth revealed to us goes immeasurably beyond rational speculation. It is not some abstract formula of our logical thinking; not some mathematical equation, but a Person. First of all, it is He who is “from the beginning,” i.e. beginningless God - the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But our logical mind is unable to follow the real Being of God with its concepts. For example: we live the Father as absolute Truth. And the Son is also absolute Truth. The Holy Spirit is the same - absolute Truth. But the Truth is One, and not three absolute truths. How there is One God and He is also Trinity of Persons. In his final fulfillment, Man must become One Man in many forms.
Here is another antinomic point: We live the Person in God as the bearer of the absolute fullness of Being; and together - the Person does not exist alone. For formal logic this is an indicator of the insufficiency of one Person, therefore - the denial of absoluteness. But this is precisely the Holy Trinity, the God of perfect love. Perfect love does not live closed in Itself, but in another, in other Persons. The entire totality of Being is the inalienable possession of each of the Three Hypostases. But such She - the Hypostasis - appears in the act of perfect love, which is characterized by the same complete exhaustion, belittlement of Herself.
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.”... “Jesus... having loved His own who are in the world, He loved them to the end.”... “Let the greatest of you be your servant: for whoever exalts himself will be humiliated; and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (John 15: 13-15; Matt. 23: 11). From the above words of Christ we see that the same kind of self-exhausting love that was revealed to us in the Holy Trinity is commanded to humanity: through the exhaustion that is extremely accessible to us in the act of our repentance, we become able to perceive the fullness of both Divine love and love for our neighbor (cf. Matt. 22: 37-40). “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” and in their spirit is contained holy eternity.
In a nutshell: Eternity and Truth are the theme of these pages. And so, when the power of God’s love touches us, then without any doubt we live, abide in Truth and in Eternity.
Our dogmatic consciousness can be summarized as follows: “I am the Self”, “I am the Being”, “I am the Truth”. The Personal Origin in Divine Being is its ontological core. This is the One who truly lives. The First and the Last, Alpha and Omega, the beginningless Beginning and the endless End of everything. This is how we understand the Sinai Revelation, which was then completed by the incarnation of the Logos of the Father and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost on the Church.
This God - in His eternal Being there is the absolute Truth we seek. Cognition of this Truth is possible only through the coming of Her power within us, as through existential union with Her. Personal Truth is recognized by the same personal principle that is inherent in us by the act of creation “in the image and likeness” of God. Since this free principle in us is not subject to any external violence, our union with the Truth depends not only on God who gives (cf. Matt. 11:27), but also on man who receives (cf. John 1:9-12; Acts 13:46).
By itself, the created spirit (man) cannot achieve this Truth, however, as the image of God, it is capable of guessing (postulating) about the Truth, but no further than that. Existential knowledge of the Truth is given to us as a gift of the Creator’s love for rational creatures. In our personal relationship with our Personal God, nothing happens according to the will of only one side, but there is always agreement, assistance, synergy, the union of two wills: God's and human - this is our life.
“Every man is a lie” (Ps. 115:2) in himself, as if taken from “nothing.” Only through the infusion of God the Truth in us do we become true. The Living Truth transforms us by His coming within us. Absolute, it is also comprehensive, containing everything. “Those who know” this Truth (cf. John 8:32), according to the word of the Truth Itself, are freed from the power of sin over them, in which is death. Eternal, She also creates us immortal. God the Truth makes us truly gods. “Gods” not for other rational creatures, but according to the way of being communicated to us and according to the content of this life.
Divinely universal - none of the creatures within the Earth can fit into Its fullness. We know the Truth, like the Apostle Paul, only “in part” (1 Cor. 13:12). But this does not mean that the Truth in Itself is completely different from what we understand It to be. It is one thing to know the Truth, it is another thing not to contain Its absolute fullness; to be insufficient to reveal Her in all perfection in the act of earthly life. Together with Apostle Philip we say without hesitation: we have found the Truth; we know Her: this is Christ (cf. John 1:45).
Multi-hypostatic humanity is the image of the Holy Trinity: one nature with many persons. But each of us individually bears within us, first of all, the image of the Only Begotten Son, and our salvation is through our adoption as sons to the Father (cf. Gal. 4:5).
So, if we confess Christ as equal to the Father, God and Truth, then naturally, in order to comprehend the Truth, we must follow Him. And here comes the tragic moment. Behold, He says: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and indeed his own life, he cannot be My disciple.” Also, “whoever does not bear his cross and follow Me... whoever does not renounce all that he has cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14: 26-27, 33).
In my case, the following happened: having seen the spirit of Christ, Who loved us to the end (cf. John 13:1), praying in Gethsemane and then on Calvary, “not resisting evil” (Matthew 5:39), I began to hate myself, as I am, and in prayer generated by this holy hatred, I perceived Him as absolute Truth, as truly Almighty and God. In this prayer it was given to me to transcend the “seen things that are temporary” and enter into the “unseen things that are eternal” (cf. 2 Cor. 4:18).
“In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart: I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And we see from experience that “those who want to live godly... will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12), will come into conflict with the rest of the world (cf. Matt. 5: 10-12). And again: “When a woman gives birth, she endures sorrow... but when she gives birth... she no longer remembers the sorrow for joy, because a man has been born into the world. So now you also have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. And on that day you will not ask Me anything” (John 16:20-23). Why don't we ask Him anything?
When the Holy Spirit allows us to see Christ as He is, through love emanating from the Holy Spirit, then it becomes obvious to us that He, Christ, is everything: in Him is the fullness of the Divinity and the fullness of man; He is Truth in its two aspects: 1) He is the original fact of Existence; 2) He is True by His “ethical” character. True, i.e. Holy; Holy, i.e. Good; Good, i.e. “Light in which there is no darkness.”
We become faint-hearted when we are given the opportunity to see the transcendental character of the Gospel. We would like to somehow narrow His true dimensions, to bring him closer to our weakness in our fragile body, but He does not agree to diminish His commandments. In the utmost tension of our repentance, we begin to see: this Revelation is finite, being all-perfect. It is given for all ages for all tribes and peoples until the end of earthly history.
Blessed Elder Silouan said: “He who does not love his enemies has not yet come to know God as he should know Him.”
“But I say to you: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who use you and persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven... be perfect, just as your Father is perfect...” (cf. Matt. 5: 44-48). And again: When the Holy Spirit communicates to us the love of Christ - “love your enemies” - then the mind-spirit delights in the Truth of this love. Just as we physically feel either strength within ourselves or warmth from outside sun rays, so directly with our whole being we know that this love is eternal Truth. Then a person knows that he has “passed from death into life” (John 5:24).
The wonderful feeling of God coming inside us is accompanied by complete agreement between the mind and the heart. The divine harmony of this spiritual state is joy for the heart and light for the mind. The whole person: mind-spirit, heart and even body experience “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:7). The soul recognizes both Love, Light, and Peace as coming from the Most High (cf. James 1:17).
It is a great good to know the True God and to know Him with inalienable knowledge (Luke 10:42). All this has been given to the world through the Incarnate Son of the Father, Christ Jesus, and the grateful soul is drawn to Him (who anciently revealed Himself at Sinai with the Name “I Am,” and who repeated this more than once in His appearance in our flesh). He told us this “abundance of life” (John 10:10). And the soul knows what is happening to it and says:
“Now, my Christ, in You and by You, I am.”
To whom, for faith in Christ God, it was given to at least partially enter into the eternal flow of His Gethsemane prayer and then, also only partially, to ascend to the immortal Calvary, the “great mystery of piety” is unquestioningly revealed: God appeared in the flesh, justified Himself in the Spirit , showed himself to the angels...” (1 Tim. 3:16). From that time on, he, the believer, “does not know” Him according to the flesh, i.e. How natural man, but as the omnipresent Almighty, who came into the world to save sinners (cf. 2 Cor. 5:16; 1 Tim. 1:15).
Thus, truly “he who believes in the Son of God has testimony in himself” (1 John 5:10).
Greetings to all practicing and self-improving readers! In this purely practical article we will look at effective technique working on myself, a spiritual and energetic technique, which I myself have used more than once with very good results.
The main tasks of this work on oneself and the use of technology:
- Effectively remove the clamps of your subconscious, which are the result of subconscious fears, accumulated grievances, negative emotions, and deep attachments.
- So that the subconscious mind relaxes and opens up to streams of Light from above, and begins to accept positive programs, changes, transformations coming from the Higher Powers.
- Remove the fear of God, of the Light, remove selfish closeness and begin to let go of attachments, the basis of which is always the fear of losing.
- To form, sincerity in front of him, which reveals and strengthens the energy of Kundalini and fills the entire energy column (sushumna) from the crown () to the tailbone () with fire and light.
- So that forgotten and closed in the subconscious (in the lower chakras) vices and sins, which a person was afraid to admit to himself, begin to emerge. So that liberation from them can begin.
- So that fearlessness and connection with oneself and God begin to unfold. So that a set of light energy comes from above.
- To re-open those areas of life that were not possible to begin to change, that were closed from the Light and Changes from Above by human fears and attachments. When a person himself covers something with his egoism, disbelief or fears, blocking any positive changes.
- Much more.
Work on yourself. A technique that enhances openness, sincerity and connection with God
It is advisable to perform this technique in writing, especially at the beginning, until you get a feel for how it works and remember the sequence.
For example: The sphere is relationships with a loved one.
I do not hide anything from God in my relationship with my loved one; I have nothing to hide from God in my family relationships. I open everything in our relationship to God and Light, for purification and positive change. For God and the Light, I open our feelings, pain and unforgiven grievances against each other, our intimate relationships, our unspoken complaints (everything that can be listed and brought light there). I open everything for cleansing and change. Where I am wrong, I repent and change. Light and God enter our relationship. He teaches us. Etc.
In this way, with details, we go through all areas, especially the most painful and problematic ones:
- Relationships with a man (with a woman).
- Relationships with children and parents.
- Work, self-realization, business.
- Sphere of Money.
- Health and attitude towards your body.
- Creativity and art (if any).
- The whole fate in general.
- Other goals.
Peculiarities: when you write and then read what you have written, it is important to imagine how Light enters this sphere, how bottom part energy and light enter your body along the spine. How the locks of the subconscious open and fall, fear, tightness and pain go away, and filling with Light and healing occurs.
Successful work on yourself!
Also read and work through:
Best regards, Vasily Vasilenko
There is a widespread belief that for a believer, the question of the meaning of life is a kind of passed stage. This is for people, not those who know God, the true meaning is unknown, but for a person already in the Church, everything is self-evident. But is it really that simple? Abbot Nektary (Morozov) reflects on how the life of a Christian becomes truly meaningful and what interferes with this.
What is it like to live “well”?
As a priest, I can testify that quite often believers - those people with whom I happen to communicate in church - find the question of the meaning of life unresolved for themselves. They may not ask anything about this, but from what a person says, what he talks about himself, it becomes absolutely clear that he has not found this meaning in life for himself. It seems that the speaker understands that someday this temporary life will end and there will be eternal life, but this understanding does not give rise to something in him that would permeate and organize his entire existence here.
Why does this happen? Not in last resort because the very presence of meaning in our lives today seems optional. People who grew up in Soviet era, wrote essays about the meaning of life at school, thought about why a person lives in literature lessons. Another thing is that the answer to this question was offered far from perfect, not true, limited by non-church consciousness, but, nevertheless, the main thing was learned: since there is life, it means it must have meaning, and everyone must find it, otherwise all of it existence in the world will be in vain.
Probably, children who study today write essays on similar topics somewhere from some teachers, but most often their ideas boil down to the fact that life should be lived as well as possible. What is this “good”? And it turns out that there are problems with understanding this. For one person, “good” is when there is nothing to be ashamed of, for another it is a certain set of positive emotions, for the third - the opportunity to certainly realize what he strives for... In a word, today there are an order of magnitude fewer people trying to comprehend their existence than even two or three decades ago. And since society and the Church are communicating vessels, then among church people many follow the same already established inertia and cannot truly comprehend their existence in the Church, their existence in this world as Christians.
Of course, there are people who have some specific earthly idea of why they live. They say that the meaning of life for them is to be as decent as possible more good do to other people, raise children with dignity, leave about yourself good memory. But we all know well how it happens: very often a person tries to do good, but little comes of it. Someone dreams of a family and sees it as a justification for their existence, but the Lord either does not give him children or does not give him marriage as such. Someone fails to realize himself in a profession, make a discovery, or do something else that he considers his mission on earth. All these meanings that people focus on turn out to be imperfect and do not stand the test of life. In this case, a person either becomes completely disappointed and believes that there is no meaning at all, or he turns to God.
Dazed from birth
As for believers, most of them answer the question: what is the meaning of life? - they will answer: of course, in salvation. It seems that formally this is the case, but is every person who says that the meaning of life lies in achieving salvation really satisfied in his life only with what leads him to salvation? After all, it often happens that a person believes that his life is built in accordance with a certain meaning, but reality refutes this. I remember Archimandrite Cherubim (Karambelas) in his “Nostalgic Notes from the Destiny Mother of God"talked about an elder who, every time he met one of the brethren, asked with pain and hope: “What do you think: will we be saved?” And nothing else interested him. Yes, for him the meaning of life was definitely salvation, but can the same be said about each of us?..
Why does this happen? Personally, it seems to me that most people are in some kind of dazed state from the moment they are born. It seems that a person, as soon as he was born, was put on an unbroken horse, and now it gallops somewhere, carries it somewhere, and the person clung to it with a death grip and, as he grows up, realizes only one task - not to fall off. And he believes that this is the full fulfillment of his life.
You cannot give in to the “leap of life” - the processes occurring in it can and should be taken under control
In fact, we cannot give ourselves up to this leap - the processes occurring in life can and should be taken, as far as is in our power, under control. Of course, a person’s life cannot be completely controlled by him, since he received it as a gift, it was given to him for a while. But at the same time, it is very important for a person to understand: in addition to the general meaning - being with God here on earth and in eternity - there is God’s plan for him specifically, and in accordance with this, his life should take one direction or another.
Our common cause with God
Why does our heart sometimes not feel this private meaning of our own life? Mainly for one reason: in order to begin to understand what God's will is specifically for us, we need to truly devote our lives to God. Moreover, a person will receive the final answer to the question about his purpose only when earthly life it will end: all of it will, in fact, be a search for an answer. But this search can be interesting, creative, and it by and large, and fills life with meaning, because in such a search a person turns out to be inseparably connected with God, and, thus, the most important and general meaning is already being realized in his life. And the private meaning is embodied when we understand that O The Lord wants from us in certain circumstances, and we follow it.
The key to correctly living our earthly life is to feel it as our common cause with God
The key to living our earthly life correctly is to feel it as our common cause with God. This path - to be a co-worker of God - is open to every person, and first of all, this cooperation with God must manifest itself in us in relation to ourselves. The Lord is ready to work to perfect a person, to bring him to the highest spiritual state, and therefore we can say that the meaning of our life, its goal is to do the maximum in our power so that the Lord can do with us everything that He does with us. he decided to do it to us, and we could accept it without any restrictions. And all our work consists in preparing ourselves for this acceptance and at the right moment being capable of it.
And how does this happen... You know, many holy fathers have the idea that the hand of a person accepting gifts from God is humility. And the less humility, the smaller the handful into which a person can contain the gifts of God. Why am I saying this? Moreover, almost no one escapes situations in their spiritual life when it seems: that’s it, you’ve reached some kind of dead end, you can’t move anywhere further, and your whole Christian life has become meaningless. You need to understand that such “meaninglessness” happens precisely from pride, from a lack of humility. The Lord is gradually narrowing the gates through which we pass, and in order to squeeze further, we need to cut off some growths that we mistakenly consider part of ourselves. And if a person feels that he is “stuck,” this means that the time has come to give up something. Perhaps in present moment This refusal is very painful for us, but later, looking back at what we left behind, we will see that it made our life harder, only made it worse, and there is nothing good about it. You should not deceive yourself that you can take some other path: every person has only one road - the one along which the Lord leads him. And if a person at some point refuses to go, he will not be able to move anywhere until he overcomes this obstacle within himself. This is not actually a dead end - it is a stop on the way, by prolonging which a person can no longer realize the main meaning of his life.
What to do in this situation? It seems to me that you need to think something like this: “What is happening to me now is not just an obstacle that I have stopped at, it is not just my personal drama, but this is my common cause with God. And if I can’t do something now, if I got up here or even lay down and continue to lie down, then the Lord still wants to continue my movement. And if I have at least the minimum readiness for this, even the smallest ability to ask God for this, then the Lord will definitely drag me through this narrow door. Maybe it will be very painful for me, maybe it will be very difficult for me - if I walked on my own, it would be less painful - but I have only one road, and I am ready to endure this pain.” And if we really have the readiness, if we say this sincerely, the Lord will really pull us and we will get out of this state and continue our path.
This holiday, familiar to everyone as the day of the Epiphany, Orthodox Church It also has another name - Epiphany. According to the Gospel, at the moment when Jesus Christ emerged from the water, the Father and the Holy Spirit appeared - the One and Consubstantial Trinity. In the entire history of mankind, God appeared for the first time in Three Persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), which is why the holiday is called Epiphany.
In the 1990s, when churches were opened en masse, people turned towards the Church; on holidays, many worshipers came to worship. But this happened only on holidays - on an ordinary Sunday, no one needed God. This situation has continued to this day. The day of Epiphany is especially revered among people, when water is blessed after the Liturgy. Some, not bothering themselves with prayer, come to churches solely to perform consecration. It's sad to see this. Maybe everything happens because no one cares about this holiday, about God, and the most important thing is to get blessed water? I would like to believe that this is not so, but I am convinced of the opposite.
If you still try to talk about God and the holiday of Epiphany, then you can’t retell news every time that is 2000 years old! Really, what's the news? It lies in the fact that God became Man and revealed to the world the secret of the Trinity. But what is the reason for the appearance of God in the world of people? And what is the goal? Here are two main questions.
Speaking about the appearance of God in the world of people, it is impossible to do without the story of the Fall. Yes, about Adam and Eve, violation of God’s rule, expulsion from the Garden of Eden... This story is not about how the first people ate a fruit forbidden by God and heavenly punishment fell on them. No. This story is about a universal catastrophe that destroyed the relationship between the Creator and man. The Fall fundamentally changed man. The crown of creation, created by God to remain in communion with Him, man rejected the life offered to him in the Garden of Eden, exchanging it for the illusory promise to “be like the gods.”
It would be strange to think that after the Fall the miracle that the devil promised to Adam would happen. On the contrary, disobedience distorted what God created in His image and likeness. human nature: body, soul and mind. And now Adam and his wife are hiding from the Creator... behind the trees! Thus, mischievous children crawl under the bed, naively believing that their parents will not guess where they are. But God, as a merciful Father, gives Adam another chance, asking him first where he is, and then whether he has eaten from the fruit of a tree from which he should not have eaten? Of course, God asks this question not because he does not know what really happened, but by giving Adam the opportunity to confess. But what does God hear in response? “The wife you gave me, she ate and seduced me,” Adam replies. Instead of repentance, he tries to blame his wife, and then God, who gave her...
The awareness of his fall burned like fire in Adam's soul, people left paradise. But the longing for life with God, for paradise, remains forever. Man desperately strives to restore this lost connection with God, but, alas, he cannot do this himself. After all, in reality, each of us is far from Baron Munchausen - we just can’t pull ourselves out of the swamp by our hair. A person suffers, like a blind kitten trying to find the way to God, but instead of Him, in the end, he depicts himself either an idol, or a golden calf, or someone else and worships him.
In order for man to rise from his knees, free himself from the bondage of sin and freely appear before God, the Creator Himself had to come to creation on earth and heal human nature. In order for a person to enter heaven, heaven must first descend to earth. Because he himself is unable to return what he once lost. This is the answer to the first question: why God comes into the world.
Now it becomes clear why God descends to earth and becomes a Man. This action is a manifestation of God’s endless love for His creation, man, whom He does not abandon even after man himself has abandoned the Creator. Having become incarnate from the only pure woman on earth, Mary, daughter of Joachim and Anna, God, at the appointed time according to the laws of people, comes to the Jordan to be baptized by the famous teacher John. The preaching of the great Mediator, Jesus, and His baptism were main goal life of John. Note that after Christ goes out to preach, John does not live long - after a while he denounces Herod for dishonest cohabitation and he kills him. Isn't it surprising? That’s it, John fulfilled the ancient prophecy and saw the appearance of God on earth - he didn’t need anything else in this life. So God took him to eternal life with yourself.
Why is this holiday so especially revered in the Church and considered one of the special ones? For the first time in history, the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity appeared on earth simultaneously: the Father spoke from heaven about the Son, the Son was baptized in sacred waters Jordan from the prophet and forerunner John, and the Spirit descended on the Son in the form of a dove. was opened to the world great secret, true worship of God, which no one knew before. As Saint Nicholas of Serbia said: “ Previously people knew that God was one, but they were very far from Him, so they saw only some distant flame vitality, but now we are placed by the Incarnation of Jesus Christ very close to the burning hearth of God.” And now we see that God is three Lights that are connected together.
Why did God need to hide Himself from people for so long? Because the Jewish people, accustomed by the law of Moses and religious rules to the veneration of the One God, could not understand the Trinity, turning the veneration of the Three Persons into the worship of three gods, i.e. into idolatry. Therefore, only by becoming incarnate does God reveal the Trinity to humanity; after Christ comes out to preach, this will happen several times.
This holiday reveals the deep dogmatic meaning of the doctrine of God the Trinity, telling about His Three Persons. Every person who considers himself Orthodox Christian, must firmly know in whom he believes - not in the abstract God-grandfather in heaven, but in God the Trinity, the Creator of the entire visible and invisible world, the Creator in Three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is no hierarchy within the Holy Trinity; the Persons are not subordinate to each other, but, on the contrary, are in the closest unity. God is a Person, every Person is a Person.
A fair question would be: how do three Persons remain one? God, due to the limited measure of intellectual knowledge of people, revealed only in an accessible small form the answer to this question. All Three Persons (in Greek: Hypostasis) are interconnected with each other and are in a communion of love: the source of Divinity is the Father, Who is absolutely good, in Him there is no place for any darkness. God is both good and good. We believe that God has own Word. From eternity He bears and gives birth to the imprint of His essence - the Son, who shines from Him, like Light from Light, Life from Life. The Word is equal to the Great Mind that gave birth to It. The Word has an independent existence, It is Living and is the exact expression of God the Father, His Wisdom. This Word is not soulless, It has an inner life emanating from the original Great Mind - God the Father. This Life, which also exists independently, this independent Divine breath is called the Holy Spirit. God is outside of time, but within Him there is a certain timeless movement. God the Father gives birth to the Son and the Holy Spirit in eternity, but both the Son and the Spirit are turned back to the Father. The Son of Eternity abides with God and is directed towards God, eternally moves towards God, returns to God in the love of the Holy Spirit. Theologians of the Church often encounter the image of fire as a kind of analogy of the Trinity of the Divine. Fire gives both light and heat, which are different from each other, but at the same time have the same source. Bishop Hilary of Pictavia, discussing this image, noted that earthly things cannot to the fullest reflect the divine. No matter how hard we try to find an example, it will not be possible to explain the image of the Holy Trinity exactly.
It is very important to know the doctrine of the Trinity and understand it correctly. Why does the Church so strictly require a person to believe in the Trinity before baptism? Because if we know God incorrectly, believe incorrectly, then we will not be involved in His life. The highest task man - to open up to God when His life becomes our life, His thoughts become ours, His will becomes our will. The Apostle Paul in the 1st century AD said: “I’m ashamed to say that some of you don’t know God.”(1 Cor. 15:34), but our people are not ashamed of this, although it is a shame to not know God. It is vital for each of us to know exactly all the revelations of God and to confess Him correctly. All this is expressed in the Creed (I Believe in One God the Father...), which every Christian should know by heart. Each unknown word, the phrase should definitely be clarified with the priest in order to correctly glorify the Holy Trinity. How terribly those who come to be baptized and bring their children to baptism act, ignoring all the words of the priest about God, disdaining their duties as godparents. But each of them will give an answer to God after death about what he did for the sake of raising his godson as a Christian!
Today, everyone has access to knowledge about God the Trinity: a lot of literature, Orthodox media, online publications. Another thing is whether a person needs it? On the day of Baptism, God revealed the secret of His inner existence to people so that we could draw closer to Him by entering into His life. This is the main meaning of Epiphany. This is what we celebrate on Epiphany days, witnessing during the divine service with one heart and one mouth, all as one, in the Creed of the Almighty Trinity and entering through participation through the Eucharist (Communion) into the eternal life of God.