Temptation in our Life ( St. Paisios )

God allows temptations that are in proportion to our spiritual condition.For example,sometimes He may allow us to make a mistake,some small indiscretion,so that we may be more careful next time;or be able to completely avoid a greater evil brought on by the cunning devil.Other times,God allows the devil to tempt us,to put us to the test.In such cases,we are given an examination and,instead of harming us,the devil does us good.Remember Elder Philaretos,who used to say,"Son,to have no temptations today is to be abandoned by God."He preferred to battle every day against temptations,so that he might be crowned by Christ.
A strong person like Elder Philaretos does not avoid temptations,but rather, says to Christ,"O my Lord,send me more temptations and give me the strength to battle against them."A weak person,however,will say,"Do not permit me to be tempted,O Lord."And lead us not into temptation...But when we actually are tempted,we tend to say,"Well,I am only human and I cannot resist these temptations!"Instead,what we should say in these circumstances is this:"O my God,I am not at all a worthy being,I;m a rascal;help me become a worthy human being."I'm not,of course,suggesting that we should pursue temptations,but rather that we should confront them with patience and prayer when they do come.
In every spiritual winter,we should anticipate the spiritual spring with patience and hope.The greater temptations are usually momentary,and if we can manage to escape the lure of the moment,the phalanx of demons will go away and we will be saved.When man is united with God,temptations disappear.Can the devil do any harm to an Angel?No,for he will be burnt by the Angel's presence.

Spiritual life is very simple and easy;we make it difficult by not struggling properly.With a little effort,a great degree of humility,and trust in God,one can achieve great progress in the spiritual life.For the devil cannot find a foothold where there is humility,and where there is no devil,it follows that there will be no temptations.

-Can one fall into some sin by divine concession?

-No,for it is very grave to say that God would concede for us to sin in some way.God ever concedes for us to sin.It is we who make concessions,and the devil comes and tempts us.For example,when i'm proud,I expel divine Grace,the Guardian Angel flees,the other "angel",the devil,comes,and I smash my face on the rocks of temptation.This is our concession,and not God's.

-Elder,when we have fallen into sin,is it right to say,"The tempter caused me to fall"?

-I,too, often hear some people saying that the tempter,the devil,is the cause of their spiritual tribulations,when in fact it is their own fault for not confronting the situation appropriately.After all,the tempter tempts us.Can it avert us from doing evil?It's just doing its job.Let's not blame everything on the devil.There was once a novice who lived with his Spiritual Father ,and when left alone for a while,he took an egg and placed it on one of those large old-fashioned keys.Suddenly the Elder entered the room."What are you doing there?"he asked."Well, Elder,the tempter led me to cook this egg here,"the novice replied.And then a fierce voice was heard,"I knew nothing about such cunning art;I just learned it from this novice!"Some times the devil is actually sleeping.but we rouse him into action!

Until a man’s earthly life finishes its course, up to the very departure of the soul from the body . . . ( St. John Maximovitch )

Until a man’s earthly life finishes its course, up to the very departure of the soul from the body, the struggle between sin and righteousness continues within him. However, high a spiritual and moral state one might achieve, a gradual or even headlong and deep fall into the abyss of sin is always possible. Therefore, communion of the holy Body and Blood of Christ, which strengthens our contact with Him and refreshes us with the living streams of the grace of the Holy Spirit flowing through the Body of the Church, is necessary for everyone.

St. John the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco, “The Church as the Body of Christ,” Man of God: Saint John of Shanghai & San Francisco

Buddhism and Eastern Asceticism Compared to Orthodox Christian Asceticism ( Archimandrite Zacharias of Essex )

(Archimandrite Zacharias of Essex)


It is unfortunate that there is widespread confusion, not to mention delusion, in the inexperienced, whereby the Jesus Prayer is thought to be equivalent to yoga in Buddhism, or 'transcendental meditation', and other such Eastern exotica. Any similarity, however, is mostly external, and any inner convergence does not rise beyond the natural 'anatomy' of the human soul. The fundamental difference between Christianity and other beliefs and practices lies in the fact that the Jesus Prayer is based on the revelation of the One true living and personal God as Holy Trinity No other path admits any possibility of a living relationship between God and the person who prays.

Eastern asceticism aims at divesting the mind of all that is relative and transitory, so that man may identify with the impersonal Absolute. This Absolute is believed to be man's original 'nature', which suffered degradation and degeneration by entering a multiform and ever-changing earth-bound life. Ascetic practice like this is, above all, centered upon the self, and is totally dependent on man's will. Its intellectual character betrays the fullness of human nature, in that it takes no account of the heart. Man's main struggle is to return to the anonymous Supra-personal Absolute and to be dissolved in it. He must therefore aspire to efface the soul (Atman) in order to be one with this anonymous ocean of the Suprapersonal Absolute, and in this lies its basically negative purpose.



In his struggle to divest himself of all suffering and instability connected with transient life, the eastern ascetic immerses himself in the abstract and intellectual sphere of so-called pure Existence, a negative and impersonal sphere in which no vision of God is possible, only man's vision of himself. There is no place for the heart in this practice. Progress in this form of asceticism depends only on one's individual will to succeed. The Upanishads do not say anywhere that pride is an obstacle to spiritual progress, or that humility is a virtue. The positive dimension of Christian asceticism, in which self-denial leads to one's clothing with the heavenly man, to the assumption of a supernatural form of life, the Source of which is the One True, Self-revealing God, is obviously and totally absent. Even in its more noble expressions, the self-denial in Buddhism is only the insignificant half of the picture. In the mind's desire to return to its merely 'natural' self, it beholds its own nakedness in a 'cloud of divestiture'. But at this point there is a grave risk of obsession with itself, of its marvelling at its own luminous but created beauty, and worshipping the creature more than the Creator (Rom. 1:25). The mind has by now begun to deify or idolize its self and then, according to the words of the Lord, 'the last state of that man is worse than the first' (Matt. 12:45).

Such are the limits of Eastern styles of contemplation, which do not claim to be the contemplation of God, and are in fact man's contemplation of himself. This does not go beyond the boundaries of created being, nor does it draw anywhere near to the Truth of primordial Being, to the uncreated living God Who has revealed Himself to man. This kind of practice may well afford some relaxation or sharpen man's psychological and intellectual functions, yet 'that which is born of the flesh is flesh' (John 3:6) and 'they that are in the flesh cannot please God' (Rom. 8:8).

In order to be authentic, any divestiture of the mind from its passionate attachments to the visible and transitory elements of this life must be linked to the truth about man. When man sees himself as he is in the sight of God, his only response is one of repentance. Such repentance is itself a gift of God, and it generates a certain pain of the heart which not only detaches the mind from corruptible things, but also unites it to the unseen and eternal things of God. In other words, divestiture as an end in itself is only half the matter, and it consists of human effort operating on the level of Created being. Christianity on the other hand, enjoins the ascetic to strive in the hope and expectation that his soul will be clothed, invested, with the grace of God, which leads him into the fullness of the immortal life for which he knows he has been created.

Many admire Buddha and compare him to Christ. Buddha is particularly attractive because of his compassionate understanding of man's condition and his eloquent teaching on freedom from suffering. But the Christian knows that Christ, the Only begotten Son of God, by His Passion, Cross, Death and Resurrection, willingly and sinlessly entered into the totality of human pain, transforming it into an expression of His perfect love. He thereby healed His creature from the mortal wound inflicted by the ancestral sin, and made it 'a new creation' unto eternal life. Pain of heart is therefore of great value in the practice of prayer, for its presence is a sign that the ascetic is not far from the true and holy path of love for God. If God, through suffering, showed His perfect love for us, similarly, man has the possibility, through suffering, to return his love to God.

Consequently, prayer is a matter of love. Man expresses love through prayer, and if we pray, it is an indication that we love God. If we do not pray, this indicates that we do not love God, for the measure of our prayer is the measure of our love for God. St. Silouan identifies love for God with prayer, and the Holy Fathers say that forgetfulness of God is the greatest of all passions, for it is the only passion that will not be fought by prayer through the Name of God. If we humble ourselves and invoke God's help, trusting in His love, we are given the strength to conquer any passion; but when we are unmindful of God, the enemy is free to slay us.




The title was added for publication on this site. The untitled excerpt is from Chapter 5, "The Building Up of the Heart by Vigilance and Prayer".

From The Hidden Man of the Heart: The Cultivation of the Heart in Orthodox Christian Anthropology, by Archimandrite Zacharias (Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2008), pp. 66-68. Copyright 2008, The Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex, UK. Posted on 8/9/2008 with the permission of the publisher.

Archimandrite Zacharias


Source-www.pravoslavie.ru/english

Leave all things in the hands of God ( Elder Joseph the Hesychast )

 

Question yourself as to whether this faith is within you, or perhaps you are led by worldly wisdom. And if you leave all things in the hands of God, behold! You have acquired faith and undoubtedly, without any question, you will find God to be your helper. And so, even should you be tried a myriad of times and should satan tempt you to abandon faith, prefer death a thousand times more and don’t obey worldly wisdom. 

 

In this way the door of the mysteries will be opened to you and you will be amazed how the chains of worldly wisdom previously bound you. Now you will fly with divine wings above the earth and breathe the new air of freedom, which, of course, others are deprived of. If, however, you see that within you, you are governed by worldly wisdom, and in the smallest danger you lose hope and despair, know that you have not yet acquired faith, and consequently also hope, in God.

Elder Joseph the Hesychast

Excerpt taken from the book- Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit.

On the Beginners’ Spiritual Shortcomings ( Father Arsenie Boca )

Propensity for Haughtiness 

 
They are more readily inclined to give lessons, rather than to receive them. They condemn within their heart those who do not understand faith as they do and they manifest that condemnation – at first, secretly held in their hearts – through their words – and that is when you feel like you hear the Pharisee who thought he was worshipping God when he was vaunting himself for his own deeds, while despising the tax-payer. That sort of attitude is to please the devil. All of these things drive one’s soul to pride and haughtiness. They are of no use whatsoever to the beginners (on the contrary, they change whatever else they have good in them, into sins), as they cease bearing with one another and if anyone comes up to belittle their fellowman, that pleases them. They will see the straw in their brother’s eye yet will fail to notice the beam in their own eye; they will make a big deal out of the other’s minor deeds and will efface their own – greater – faults.
They don’t like confessor Fathers who do not praise them for their actions and don’t appreciate their good behaviour – because such spiritual sons’ sole pursuit is to be praised and commended in everything they do.
They even try to convince others that they have an accomplished spirit and harbor true piety.
They even go as far as not confess their sins anymore, lest they should downplay themselves in the process and they avoid mentioning their mistakes in order to render them lighter. They will avoid by all means praising others, but they do not like not being praised by others. Sometimes they will go as far as to ask others to praise them. Beginners very seldom escape such weaknesses.


Propensity for Spiritual Stinginess 

They complain whenever they don’t receive the comfort they expected from their spiritual Fathers or their fellowman. They always look to filling up their minds with spiritual advice and teachings. They dedicate all their time to reading and have no more of it left for the spiritual work, which should be their first and foremost duty.


Propensity for Anger

 
They are always in a bad mood.
They do their duty sloppily.
They get upset for the slightest thing and end up being unbearable to the ones around them.
They blame others.
They badmouth others.
They give moral lectures in a bitter and high voice, as if they were the only ones who would have access to being virtuous.


Propensity for Spiritual Greed 

They exhaust themselves carrying out prayer rules.
They apply themselves to fasting without limits.
They keep away from people who would invite them to take bodily food.
They lack discernment.
They work against the commandments.
They want bodily canons (rules) rather than mind-based canons.
They don’t listen to their spiritual Fathers.
They take pride in making various efforts without discernment.
Such spiritual “sons” are encouraged by the devil to behave this way.
They always look for pulling out counsels that suit them, from their spiritual Fathers.
In case one rejects their ideas, they sulk like children.
Whatever they do, they do superficially, because they are convinced that they do nothing good before God, whenever He doesn’t work [in their life] as they would like Him to.
They take the Eucharist many times, without their spiritual Father’s approval.


Propensity for Envy and Worldliness

 
Their fellowman’s spiritual wellness always gets into their eyes.
They suffer when they hear someone else being praised.
Another person’s virtue makes them sad and if given the chance, they will belittle and persecute it, in order to break off all praise for that person.
They want to be the first in everything.


Excerpt from CĂRAREA ÎMPĂRĂTIEI – ”The Way to the Kingdom” – by Fr. Arsenie BOCA