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Story one

The beginning of the pilgrimage and the search for uninterrupted prayer

By the grace of God I am a Christian, a great sinner in my affairs, a vagabond in a low state, wandering from place to place. My dwelling place is as follows: a bag of breadcrumbs on my back, and a Bible under my arm; that’s all. On the twenty-fourth week after the Day of the Trinity, I came to church for lunch to pray; the Apostle was reading from his letter to the Thessalonians, the beginning of 273, in which it is written: Pray ceaselessly. This phrase particularly struck me in my mind, and I began to think how one can pray uninterruptedly, when every person needs to deal with other things in order to support their lives? I managed to find the Bible, and there, to my own eyes, I saw what I had heard – and precisely what to pray constantly, to pray at all times in spirit, and to put on prayerful hands in every place. I thought, I thought, and did not know how to solve it.

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            I asked myself, “What should I do?,” and thought, “Where can I find someone wise who can explain to me what it means to pray unceasingly, how to pray unceasingly, and how to achieve success in prayer? ” I went wandering from place to place, studied the Bible, asked if there was a spiritual mentor, a competent guide, somewhere who would explain this knowledge to me.

            After reading all kinds of literature, I became discouraged. So I asked a priest, “Is there not a godly, experienced teacher, somewhere, who can teach unceasing prayer, following the divine call within me?”

There is speech within: “Fatherly Precept! ”, said I.

So, Father, a little over a year ago, when I was at the table, I heard the following command in the Apostol: “Always pray.” not understanding this, I began to read the Bible. And there, in many places, I found the command of God that we must pray constantly, always, at any time, in any place, not only in secular occupation, but even in sleep. “I sleep, and my heart is watching.” This amazes me, and I cannot understand how to carry it out and what methods to use; a strong desire and curiosity arose in me, and day and night it did not come to my mind. That is why I began to go to churches, listen to sermons on prayer; but whatever I heard, I did not receive instructions on how to pray constantly; everything was only about preparing for prayer or its fruits, and the like, without teaching how to pray constantly and what such prayer means. I often read the Bible and verified what I heard with it; but at the same time I did not find the desired knowledge. And so I remained confused and worried.

The starets crossed himself and began to speak: Praise God, dear brother, for this discovery! In you there is an irresistible attraction to the knowledge of constant interior prayer. Learn in this the name of God and be calm, assuring yourself that until now you have been tested to see if your will agrees with the voice of God, and it has been given to understand that it is not by the wisdom of this world, nor by outward curiosity that heavenly light, constant interior prayer, can be attained, but on the contrary: simplicity of heart. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that you were not able to hear about the essential matter of prayer and learn the science of how to attain its constant effect. And the truth is, although many preach about prayer, and there are many discourses about it by various writers, but since all their reasoning is based primarily on reason, on the thinking of natural reason, and not on active experience, they teach more about the necessity of prayer than about its essence. One wonderfully reflects on the necessity of prayer; another on its power and benefits; another on the means to the perfection of prayer, that is, on the fact that for prayer special diligence, attention, warmth of heart, purity of thought, reconciliation with enemies, humility, sorrow, and so on, are required. And what is prayer? and how can one learn to pray? – on these, although they are the most important and necessary questions, very rarely can one find detailed explanations from preachers of our time; therefore, their reasoning, though useful and essential, is more complex to understand than mere school science. What a pity that mere mundane intelligency forces us to measure God by human standards. Many people consider the matter of prayer quite differently, thinking that preparatory measures and heroic deeds create prayer, and not prayer that generates virtuous actions and all the virtues. In this case, they incorrectly consider the fruits or consequences of prayer as the means and methods for achieving it, and thus they belittle the power of prayer. And this is quite unreasonable for sacred Scripture: for the Apostle Paul gives instruction on prayer in these words: I pray, then, first of all, to form prayers. Here, the first teaching in the Apostle’s discourse on prayer is that he places the matter of prayer foremost: I pray, then, first of all, to form prayers. Many good works are required of a Christian, but the matter of prayer must be foremost, because without it no other good can be realized. It is not possible to find the way to the Lord without prayer, to understand the truth, to purify the flesh from passions and desires, to be enlightened in the heart by the light of Christ, and to be spiritually united with Him without a previous, frequent prayer. I speak of frequent prayer, because both the perfection and the correctness of prayer are beyond our reach, as the Apostle Paul says: “we pray at mealtimes as we ought, without knowing,”. Therefore, only frequency, constancy is left to our ability as a means of achieving the purity of prayer, which is the mother of any spiritual good. Seize the mother, and you will have children, says St. Isaac the Syrian, learn to acquire the first prayer and you will easily perform all the virtues. And this is unclear to those who are not familiar with practice and the mysterious teachings of the holy fathers.

            In this conversation, we have been gently approaching almost the very desert. In order not to miss this wise elder, but rather to obtain permission for my desire, I hastened to say to him: please, honest father, explain to me what continuous inner prayer means, and how to learn it: I see that you know this in detail and with experience.

            The elder accepted this request with love and called me to himself: come now, I will give you the book of the Holy Fathers, from which you can clearly and comprehensively understand and learn prayer through the help of God. We entered his cell, and the elder began to say the following: continuous inner Jesus prayer consists of continuous, never-ending invocation of the Divine Name of Jesus Christ in words, mind, and heart, with a constant awareness of His presence, and a request for His mercy, at every activity one engages in. It is expressed in the following words: “Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!” And if anyone practices this invocation, he will experience great joy, and will feel an urge to always perform this prayer so that it becomes not just a prayer, but a way of life for him.

Now, do you understand what a continuing prayer is? – Yes, very well, my father! For God’s sake, teach me how to attain this! – I exclaimed with joy.

Reading Dobrotolyubiye and spiritual progress

We will read about how to learn prayer in Dobrotolyubiye. This book contains a complete and detailed teaching on continuous inner prayer, set out by twenty-nine Holy Fathers, and is such a high and useful one that it is considered the main and first teacher of contemplative spiritual life, and, as the Saint Nikon shows, “it guides without labor and toil to salvation.”

            – Is it higher and holier than the Bible? – I asked.

– No, it is not higher and holier than the Bible, but it contains a clear explanation of what is mysterious in the Bible, and cannot be easily understood by our short-sighted minds. I can give you an example: the sun is the greatest, most shining, and wonderful light; but you cannot look at it with a plain, unactioned eye. There is a special glass, however, which is millions of times smaller and dimmer than the sun, through which you could look at this wonderful king of lights, be fascinated by its flaming beams, and take its rays to heart. In the same way, the Holy Scriptures are the shining sun, and Dobrotolyubiye – is the necessary glass.

Now listen – I will read how to learn continuous inner prayer. – The Elder opened the The Glory of Charity , found the instructions of St. Simeon the New Theologian and began: “Sit silently and alone, bend your head, close your eyes; breathe quietly, look internally with your imagination, bring your mind, that is, your thoughts from your head to your heart. While breathing, say: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Expel thoughts, have a peaceful patience, and repeat this exercise more often.”Here I will read to you about this case of instruction from The Loving Kindness of St. Matia Shishmas. The Elder found the teaching of St. Nikon the Monk and started reading: “If, after working hard, you cannot enter the country of the heart as you were instructed, then do what I tell you, and with the help of God you will find what you are seeking. You know that the ability to speak is in every person’s throat. If you wish) and let it be that you constantly say this: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.’”(p. 220) On the tenth day, without seeing me, the old man came to visit me himself; I explained my condition to him. He listened and said: “Now that you have got used to prayer, see that you maintain and strengthen this habit, do not waste time dancing, and with God’s help resolve to do the twelve thousand prayers without neglect on a daily basis; keep yourself in seclusion, arise early and go to bed late, and visit me every two weeks for advice.”

Then he went to the elder for a confessional and told him in detail. He, after listening, began to speak: praise be to God for the passion and ease of prayer that has been revealed to you. It is natural that this comes from frequent exercise and discipline, similar to a machine that is given a boost or a force to the main wheel, which has been operating on its own for a long time; and to continue its movement, this wheel needs to be lubricated and encouraged. Do you see what wonderful abilities the merciful God has provided even for the sensual nature of man, which can be experienced even outside of grace and in an uncleansed sensibility and in a sinful soul, as you yourself have experienced? And how wonderfully, wonderfully, and delightfully it is when the Lord graciously opens the gift of spontaneous spiritual prayer and cleanses the soul from passions! This state cannot be imagined, and the revelation of this prayerful secret is a foretaste of the sweetness of the earthly heavenly realm. This state will please those in the simplicity of a loving heart who are searching for the Lord! Now I allow you to do prayer as much as you wish, as much as possible; during your waking hours, try to devote yourself entirely to prayer, and without the burden of labour, call upon the name of Jesus Christ, humbly surrendering yourself to the will of God and expecting help from Him: I believe that He will not abandon you and will prepare your path.

            Having accepted this instruction, I spent the entire summer in constant silent prayer to Jesus, and I was very calm. In my dreams, I often dreamed that I was making a prayer. And on a day when I happened to meet someone, I found them to be as affectionate as family members, even though I had no dealings with them. All thinking was completely stilled, and I thought of nothing except prayer, and my mind began to incline to hearing it, while my heart opened itself to a warmth and pleasantness which was impossible to describe. When it came to going to church, the long, empty service seemed short, and did not exhaust my forces as before. My solitary cell seemed to me like a magnificent temple, and I could not find words to thank God for having sent me such a merciful, virtuous elder and teacher.

The death of the elder and the beginning of my independent path

            But I did not long enjoy the advice of my dear and wise elder; toward the end of the summer he died. I, with tears, bade him farewell, thanked him for teaching me, the wretched sinner, as a father, and asked him for his blessing, taking with me the crosses with which he always prayed. Thus, I was left alone. Finally, the summer was over, and the city was cleared. I had nowhere to live. The man quarreled with me, gave me two tselkovy for guarding the land, and filled a sack with bread for the journey, and I went wandering again to various places; but I no longer walked as before, with need; the calling on the name of Jesus Christ cheered me in my travels, and all people became kinder to me, and it seemed as though everyone loved me.

One day I began to think about what to do with the money obtained from the city’s treasury and what to do with it. I bought Dobrotolubye and now, having it, I can learn internal prayer. I prayed the gospel and started walking. I arrived at a provincial town and began asking for Dobrotolubye; I found one one place, but they wanted three zloty for it, whereas I only had two. I haggled and haggled, but the merchant did not give in at all. In the end he told me: Go to this church and ask the parish elder; he has an old book that might be for sale. So I went and indeed bought Dobrotolubye for two zloty, all worn and old. I was disappointed. I mended it and covered it with a rag and put it in my Bible bag.

Now I walk like this, constantly praying the Jesus Prayer, which I find dear and sweeter than anything else in the world. Sometimes I walk seventy versts a day and more and do not feel that I am walking. I just feel that I am praying. When the cold comes, and hits me with its severity, I begin frantically to recite the Jesus Prayer, and I soon warm up. When hunger hits me, I more often call upon the name of Jesus Christ and forget about wanting to eat. When I get sick, there is a limp in my back and legs, and I begin to listen to the prayer, and I do not feel the pain. When someone offends me, I simply remember the Jesus Prayer, which I loved to recite, and at once the offence and anger go away, and I forget everything. When I have gone mad, I do not have any worries, and I do not look at anything at all. I do nothing but recite the Jesus Prayer as a habit. If I am alone, I want to pray constantly, and when I do this, I have a great time. God knows what befalls me. Of course, all this is sensual, or, as the late elder used to say, it is natural and classically learned. But I dare not start studying and getting to grips with inner, spontaneous spiritual prayer just yet, with my worthlessness and stupidity. I am waiting for the hour of God’s will, hoping to be guided by the prayer of my late elder. In any case, although I have not yet achieved uninterrupted spontaneous spiritual prayer in my heart, to me, at least, it is clearly understood what the saying in the Apocalypse means:
  “Pray continually”

An Account by a John Doe

Travels through Siberia and an Account of the Captain

I wandered to many places with the prayer life that accompanied me, which encouraged and comforted me in all directions, in all meetings and instances. Finally, I felt that it would be better to stop somewhere, both for convenient isolation and for studying The Book of Love of God, which I had been reading a little at a time, during my overnight stays or during rest, but there was a strong desire to dwell more deeply in it, and to draw from it true comfort for the salvation of the soul through heart prayer. But since, according to this desire, I could not get employed anywhere, in any work, because of my inability to use my left hand from my childhood; and since I was unable to have a permanent dwelling place, I went to the regions of Siberia, to the holy monk Ignatius of Irkutsk, with the intention that I would walk through the forests and steppes of Siberia without speaking, and so it would be more convenient for me to pray and read. So I went, and incessantly I offered vocal prayers. Finally, after a short time, I felt that the prayer itself had somehow begun to enter my heart; that is, the heart, with its usual beat, began to speak as if in itself the prayer words for every stroke, for example: 1) Lord, 2) Jesus, 3) Christ, and so on. I stopped saying the prayer with my mouth, and began to listen with diligence as the heart speaks; remembering, as the late elder had explained to me, how pleasant it was. Then I began to feel a subtle pain in my heart, and in my thoughts I felt such love for Jesus Christ that it seemed as if I would run to his feet, and not let them out of my hands, kissing them sweetly until tears came, but thanks to the fact that he gives such joy about his name, he is gracious.

Next, a kind of beneficial softening began to appear in my heart, and this warmth spread throughout my chest. This moved me especially to diligently read The Book of Love of God, so that I could both trust my feelings and study further participation in interior heart prayer, because without this trust I was afraid of not falling into the trap or accepting natural actions as graces, and not making a rapid acquisition of prayer, as I heard from the deceased elder. Therefore, I began to walk more at night, and spent most of the day reading the Book of Love of God, sitting in the woods under the trees. Ah, how much new, how much wise and yet unknown has been revealed to me by reading! In practicing it, I enjoyed such a pleasure, which I could not even imagine. True, although some places were incomprehensible when reading with my stupid mind, but the consequences that arise from heart prayer made my misunderstanding clear; moreover, I occasionally saw in my sleep the deceased elder of mine, who interpreted many things for me, and increasingly inclined my mindless soul to humility. For two summer months I enjoyed this so. I travelled more through the forests and paths: if I came to a village, I would ask for a bag of breadcrumbs, a lump of salt, and a jar of water, and then I would walk another hundred versts.There began to appear temptations towards the end of the summer, either by my sins, or by need in my spiritual life, or by better instruction and experience. I went out on a great road, and in the twilight two men who looked like soldiers’ heads approached me; they began to demand money. When I said I had no coin, they did not believe me and insolently shouted, ‘You are cheating! Travellers collect a lot of money!’ One of them said, ‘Let’s not talk so much about it,’ and struck me on the head with a club so that I fell unconscious. I do not know how long I lay unconscious; but when I woke up, I saw that I was lying near the road by the forest, completely commotioned, and my bag was missing; only the ropes it was tied to were cut. Thank God they did not take my passport, which was in my old hat, just in case the situation required it. When I got up, I cried bitterly, not so much because of the headache, as because I had lost my books, the Bible and the Diary of a Priest, which were in the bag. It was day and night, and I kept on crying and weeping. Where is now my Bible, which I had read since my childhood and always carried with me? Where is my diary, from which I have drawn both instruction and comfort. And now I have lost, the unfortunate, both the first and the last treasure of my life, without having enjoyed it. It would be better for me if I were killed than to live without this spiritual food! I can no longer buy them again!  On the second day, I could hardly move my legs, consumed with grief; and on the third, utterly exhausted, I fell under some bushes and fell asleep. Through a dream, it seemed to me that I was in a cave lamenting my trouble. The old man, comforting me, began to say: this was your lesson of dispassion towards earthly things for an easier journey to heaven. It was allowed to you for the sake of not falling and for the sake of spiritual pampering. God wants a Christian to absolutely reject his will, desires and any passion to them, and to totally surrender to His Divine will. He arranges all the circumstances for the benefit and salvation of man.Suddenly, I caught up with a column of wagons led by an escort. Comparing myself to them, I saw two people who had robbed me, and since they were walking on the edge of the others, I fell at their feet and pleaded with them to tell me where my books were? At first, they paid no attention to me, but then one of them began to say: if you give us something, we will tell you where your books are. Give us the whole thing. I promised that I would give them, no matter what, for the sake of Christ; here, if you want, take my passport as a pledge. They said that my books were being transported in the convoy, along with other stolen goods seized from them. How can I get them? Ask the captain who is escorting us. I ran to the captain and explained everything. By the way, he asked me: do you know how to read the Bible? Not only can I read everything, I replied, but I can also write: you will see that the Bible carries my name, and in my passport it is the same name and surname. The captain began to say: These are criminal deserters. They lived in a dugout and robbed many people. They were captured the day before yesterday by a clever laborer, whom they wanted to trick with a troika. Apparently, I will give you your books when they are here; but go with us to bed; there is a stage house nearby, four versts away, and you won’t stop the column and convoy. I happily walked next to the captain’s horse and talked to him. I saw that he was a good and honest man, and not exactly young. He asked me who I was, where I came from and where I was going. I answered all this truthfully; and so we reached the stage house where we were supposed to spend the night. Founding my books, he gave them to me, and said: ‘Where do you have to go at night? Stay with me in the vestibule.’ I stayed there.The captain began to tell us: I have served in the army since my youth, not in a garrison; I had a good reputation with my superiors as an officer. But my years were young, my friends were young too; I have been addicted to drinking, and by the end I had a disease; when I do not drink, I am a proper officer, but when I smoke, I lie in bed for six weeks. They tolerated me for a long time, but, because of the chief’s rudeness, they finally expelled me as a soldier for three years, and transferred me to a garrison; if I do not reform and stop drinking, they threaten me with the most severe punishment. In this miserable state, no matter how hard I tried to abstain and no matter how much I tried to cure myself, I was unable to get rid of my addiction, and that is why they wanted to transfer me to the prison companies. On hearing this, I did not know what to do.After hearing this, I said to him: ‘How can I help your Gospel, when not a single effort on my part, not a single medical textbook, could keep me there? I said this because I had never read the Gospels. Don’t tell me that, the monk objected, I assure you there will be a benefit. The next day the monk brought me this Gospel. I opened it, looked at it, read it, and said: ‘I’m not going to take it; here there’s nothing to understand; and I’m not used to reading church seals, either.’ The monk kept convincing me that there was a beneficial power in the words of the Gospel; for it contains what God Himself spoke. It’s irrelevant that you don’t understand; you just have to read it carefully. One saint said: ‘Even if you don’t understand the Words of God, the demons understand what you’re reading and are terrified; for the passion for drinking inevitably arouses the demons.’ Well, here’s something else I’ll tell you: John the Golden-Mouthed says that even the very building in which the Gospel is kept scares the devils of filth, and can be a source of their plots. I can’t remember, I gave something to that monk, took the Gospel from him, and put it into a chest with my other belongings, then forgot about it. After some time, the moment came when I had to ask for forgiveness, death beckoned, and I hurried to open the chest to get some money and go to the tavern. The first thing I saw was the Gospel, and I quickly remembered what the monk had told me, opened it, and began reading the first chapter of Matthew. After reading it to the end, I understood nothing; then I recalled that the monk had said: ‘It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand, you just have to read it carefully.’ Let’s see … I started reading the second chapter; as soon as I had reached it, the bell in the barracks rang: ‘To the barracks.’ So I couldn’t leave the building any more; so I stayed.Listen, ever since I was healed from drunkenness, I made a vow to read the Gospels every day, for the rest of my life, for an entire Gospel a day, despite any obstacles. And now I am doing this. If I have too much work to do and get very tired, I lie down in the evening and force my wife or son to read me a whole Gospel. And in this way, I persistently respect this rule of mine. In gratitude to God, I made this gospel out of pure silver and I always wear it on my chest.After walking a distance of 50 versts along the main road, I was walking in the forest, and I thought it would be more secluded and easier to read here. I walked through the forest for a long time, occasionally passing through small villages. Sometimes I spent the entire day in the forest, carefully reading The Practice of Piety. I gained a great and wonderful knowledge from it. My heart was inflamed with a desire to unite with God, through the help of interior prayer, which I strived to study, under the guidance and verification of The Practice of Piety; and at the same time I grieved that I could not find a place of rest where I could constantly read.

For a long time I wandered like this. Finally I entered such a secluded place that for three days no village was visible. All my biscuits ran out, and I was very worried about starving to death. When I began to pray with my heart, despair disappeared, I put myself entirely into God’s hands, and I became cheerful and calm. As we walked along the road that lay near the vast forest, I saw a watchdog running out of the forest; I called to it and it came to me and began to lick me; I was overjoyed and thought, ‘Look, this is God’s grace! One way or another, a herd of sheep must be grazing in this forest, and certainly there is a shepherd’s hand to guard them, or else, maybe, a hunter is going hunting; either way, I can ask for some bread, because I have not eaten for a day or two, or else I could ask where the nearest village is.’

Turning around to me, and seeing that I had nothing to offer her, the dog again ran back into the forest along the narrow path by which she had come out onto the road. I followed her; after walking two hundred steps, among the trees I saw that the dog had entered a hole from which it began to bark.

Suddenly, a man came out through a thick tree, skinny, pale, of middle age. He asked me how I had come here? I asked him what was he doing there? And we began to talk politely. The man invited me into his hut and told me that he was a forester and guarded this forest, which had been put up for sale for logging. He offered me bread and salt, and an interesting conversation began between us. I am surprised to hear you say that you can live so conveniently alone from people, not as I do, wandering from place to place and scraping by among all kinds of people. If there is hunting, he said, then it is possible that you, too, will live here, for not far away is an old hut that was the guard’s, even though it is ruined, but it is still possible to live in it during the summer. You have a passport. We will have bread, they bring it to us every week from our village; there is also a stream that never dries up. I myself, brother, have been living here for ten years with only one loaf of bread and a little water, and more I have never had. That is the point. In the autumn, when the workers are gone, two hundred workers come here, and then this forest will be cleared, and then there will be nowhere for me to live here, and for you, too.

Having listened to all this, I was so overjoyed that I almost fell at his feet. I did not know how to thank God for this favor. For everything I longed for and desired, I received it in this way. There are only four months until deep autumn, and so I can use this time to study Dobrotolyubye, to achieve a single-minded prayer in my heart. So I gladly stayed to live in the hut indicated to me.

“I was, he said, the last man in my village, I had a skill, I painted kumach, and I blue-painted its colour, and I lived in abundance, though not without sin: I cheated a lot in business, I promised in vain; I cursed, drank, and fought. There was an old clergyman in our village who had an ancient, ancient book about the fearful judgment. He used to go around orthodox and read, and people gave him money for it; he also came to me. Sometimes, if one gave him ten kopecks, it was up to a half-kopias. That is how I used to listen, sitting at work, and he would read about the torments of hell, how the living change, the dead will rise, how the King will come to judge, how the Angels will sound the horns, and what kind of fire, wax, and how sinners will eat. One time, when I was listening to this, I became scared, I thought: I cannot avoid torments! I will try to save my soul, perhaps I will redeem my sins. I thought about it, and I abandoned my crafts, sold the house and, being lonely, joined the hermits, so that the world would give me bread, clothes and wax candles for my penance. “I listened to this and I regretted him, and thought to myself: some scientists and wise men have been called freethinkers and do not believe in anything, and so our brethren are simple people who plot to become despondent! It seems that a dark world has been given access to all, and it may attack the simple, and it is somehow more convenient. As much as possible, let us try and strengthen ourselves against the enemy of the soul with the Word of God. Therefore, in order to help and support the faith of these brethren as much as possible, I took from my bag The Book of Prudent Love, and found a chapter by the holy Abba Isaac, read it, and began to explain to him that abstaining from sins, fearing for suffering, is unsuccessful and unproductive, and it is not possible for the soul to be free from imaginary sins, nor to be saved from mental sins. Therefore, all this is gained by inner prayer, and not only by fearing for hellish suffering, but even by loving for the kingdom of heaven. If someone begins to perform saving deeds, the holy fathers call this a mercenary work. They say that fear of suffering is the path of a slave, and the desire for rewards in the kingdom is the path of a mercenary. God wants us to walk the path of sonship, that is, to conduct ourselves with love and diligence toward Him honestly and to enjoy a saving union with Him in our soul and heart.

My God! what joy, peace and delight I felt as soon as I crossed the threshold of this cave, or rather, the tomb; it seemed to me a wonderful royal palace, full of all kinds of pleasures and entertainment. With joyful tears I thanked God, and reflected: ‘Now in such peace and quietness, it is necessary to attentively take up my business and ask the Lord for enlightenment. Therefore, I began, firstly, to read the Brotherly Love, in order, from beginning to end, with great attention. I soon read everything, and saw what wisdom, holiness and depth are contained in it. But since it contains many different subjects, and various precepts of the holy fathers, I could not understand everything and bring it all together, especially about internal prayer, so as to learn how to study continuous automatic prayer in the heart. This was very necessary, following the command of God through the Apostle: Long for the great gifts   and also: Do not be roused by the Spirit . My mind is not enough, my ideas are also inadequate, there is no one to interpret. I start to bother God with prayer; Perhaps the Lord will somehow enlighten me. After that, I did nothing for the whole day but remained in constant prayer without stopping for a moment; my thoughts calmed down and I fell asleep: and I see in a dream that I am in the cell of my deceased elder, and he is interpreting Brotherly Love, and says: “This holy book is full of great wisdom. It is a mysterious treasure of understanding deep secrets of God. It is not accessible to everyone and to everyone in all places; nevertheless, to the extent of every beliver it contains such precepts for the wise – wise, for the simple – simple. And thus, for you, the readers, you should read it not in the order in which the books of the holy fathers are located one after the other. There, this order is theological, but for an uneducated person who wants to learn inner prayer from the Brotherly Love, it is necessary to read it in the following order:1) First, read the book of Nikephoros of the monastic life (in 2 parts); then 2) the book of Gregory Sinai, except for the short chapters; 3) Simeon the New Theologian on the three images of prayer and the words on faith; and 4) the book of Kalistos and Ignatius. These fathers contain a complete teaching and doctrine on the inner prayer of the heart, which is understandable for everyone.So, first of all, I began by finding the heart’s place, according to St. Symeon the New Theologian. By closing my eyes and looking with my mind, that is, with my imagination, in the heart, I wished to imagine what it is like on the left half of my chest, and I listened attentively to its beat. First I engaged in this for half an hour, a few times a day; at first I noticed nothing except darkness; then, soon, the heart began to appear and to mean a movement in it; then I began to recite the “Jesus Prayer” along with my breathing into the heart, according to Saint Gregory of Sinai, Kallistos, and Ignatius, that is, by drawing in air and exhaling it while meditating in the heart, I imagined and said: “Lord Jesus Christ”, and when I exhaled the air, I prayed: “Have mercy.” At first I engaged in this for an hour, and then two, and then the more time passed, the more frequently I practiced this and, in the end, spent almost the whole day engaged in this occupation. When some fatigue, laziness, or doubt attacked me, I immediately began to read the passages in the Dogmatic Homilies that direct us toward heartly deeds, and again I found the drive and effort to pray. After three weeks, I began to feel pain in the heart, then some pleasant warmth in it, relief, and peace. This encouraged and cheered me on even more and with greater zeal to practice prayer, so that all my thoughts were occupied by it, and I felt great joy. From this time on, I began to feel different feelings in the heart and in the mind. Sometimes the heart seemed to be burning with the fire of love for Jesus Christ and for all of God’s creation. Sometimes sweet tears of thankfulness for the Lord who had blessed me, a sinner, welled up by themselves. Sometimes my old foolish notion became so clear to me that I was easily able to understand and to reflect upon what I had not previously been able to imagine. Sometimes the heart’s sweet warmth spilled out throughout my whole being, and I felt the presence of God everywhere with a touching joy. Sometimes I felt the greatest joy from the calling of the name of Jesus Christ, and I recognized the meaning of His saying: God’s Kingdom is within you.”

For months I spent alone in this prayer activity and enjoyed these feelings. I was so accustomed to the heart prayer that I practiced it continuously, and finally I felt that the prayer itself, without any encouragement from me, was being produced and spoken in my mind and heart, not in my mind; but even in my sleep, it functioned just the same, and was not interrupted by anything. My soul thanked God and my heart was in constant joy.    Hours passed, the forest was being cleared, the people began to leave, and I had to leave the silent abode. After thanking the headman, I prayed, kissed the piece of ground where God had honored me with His grace, put my bag with the books on my shoulders, and went. I wandered around for a long time until I reached Irkutsk. Heartfelt, spontaneous prayer was both a consolation and a joy along the way, at every meeting, it never stopped giving me enjoyment, even if in different degrees, wherever I found myself, whatever I was doing, whatever I was doing, it did not interfere with anything and was not diminished by anything. If I work, and the prayer is itself in my heart and the work goes faster; if I am listening attentively or reading, and the prayer never stops, and I feel both that and this at the same time, as if I were split in two, or with two souls in one body. My God! How mysterious a person!

      They say: “Praise be to You, Lord my God, and bless the name of Your holiness; may all Your works be praised. May everyone who fears You rejoice, and may all Your adversaries be ashamed. May they be confounded and overwhelmed because they are defending You, and rebuked because they put their hope in You. ”

Leaving, I thanked God for the conversation with the teacher, and prayed for the scribe to enlighten him to read the Book of Prayer for Perfect Love at least once, and teach him how to be saved.

A Meeting with a Devout Priest

One spring, when I arrived in a village, I had to stay with a priest. He was a good and lonely man: I spent three days with him. After having seen me, he began to tell me: Stay with me, I will pay you; I need a conscientious person; you have seen that a new stone church is being built here instead of the old wooden one. I cannot find a trustworthy person to look after the workers and sit in the chapel to collect funds for the building; and I see that you would be able to do this, and you could live well on the way; you would sit alone in the chapel, praying to God, there is a room set aside for a guard; please stay, even if only for now, until the church is finished. Although I refused to agree at first, I had to agree to his persuasive request. So I stayed for the summer until the autumn. Thus I began to live in the chapel. At first, it was quiet and comfortable for me to practice prayer, even though many people came into the chapel, especially on festive days, to pray, to sigh, and to take something from the collection plate. And as I sometimes read the Bible and then the Book of Prayer for Perfect Love, some of those who came saw this, and began to talk with me, others asked me to read something to them.

            After a while, I noticed that a peasant girl often went to the chapel and prayed to God for a long time. Listening to her muttering, I learned that she was reading strange prayers and others totally incorrect. I asked who had taught her this? She said that it was her mother, who was a churchgoer, and her father used to be a gullible man. Pitying her for all this, I advised her to read the prayers correctly, in accordance with the Orthodox Church’s traditions, and therefore I interpreted to her: ‘Our Father,’ ‘Holy Virgin, rejoice,’ and finally said: ‘Then make it more often and more often the prayer of Jesus. It is more profitable than all prayers to God, and you will be saved through it.’ The girl really listened to my advice, and began to do this easily. So what happened? After a short time she told me that she had become used to praying to Jesus, that she felt an irresistible urge, that if she could, she would continue to pray, and that while she prayed she felt pleasure and, after finishing, she felt joy and a desire to pray again. I rejoiced at this, and advised her to continue praying the prayer of Jesus Christ.

Time was coming to an end of summer; many of those who came to the chapel began to come to me, not only for reading and advice, but also with various life sorrows, and even for the recognition of locating losses and disappearances; apparently, others considered me a fortune teller. Finally, the girl in question, feeling embarrassed, came for advice on what to do. Her father intended to give her in marriage to a self-taught peasant, also a bachelor, and he would marry a peasant. What kind of a legitimate marriage is this, she exclaimed, it is unimportant! I want to run away, wherever my eyes look. I told her: where will you escape? After all, they will find you again. Nowhere can you hide undetected, everywhere they are tracked; and it is better to pray harder to God to have His providence destroy your father’s plan and protect your soul from sin and heresy. This will be more reliable than your escape.

        And they were holy, the priest said. If the saints were careful not to harm themselves by associating with people, then what should a powerless sinner do? Finally, I said goodbye to this kind priest and he led me on my way with love.

A Story about a Saved Girl

            Ten versts passed, I stopped to spend the night in the village. On this night, I saw a desperately sick man, and advised the former to anoint him with the holy Mysteries of Christ. They agreed, and in the morning they sent for a priest to their parish village. I stayed behind to pay homage to the holy gifts and to pray for this great sacrament. I went out into the street, sat on the plank, and waited to meet the priest. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a girl ran out from behind and ran toward me, as she had been kneeling in the chapel.

            How did you get here? I asked.

            We were supposed to be an escort to hand me over to the police, and I went. While bowing to me on her knees, she began to speak: do us a favor, take me with you and take me to a female monastery; I don’t want to get married, I’d rather live in a monastery to say the “Jesus Prayer.” They will listen to you there and accept me.

            Be merciful, I said, where should I take you? I don’t know any female monasteries in this part, and how can I go with you when you don’t have a passport? Unless you are not welcome anywhere; and, right now, when there’s a racket going on, they’ll send me to return to my place, and they’ll even punish me for vagrancy. Go home and pray to God instead, and if you don’t want to get married, think of some disability. This is called a saving expedient; this is how St. Clement and St. Marina did it, who took refuge in a male monastery, and many others.

            At the time we were sitting and thinking, we saw four men driving on a cart on the road, and they immediately jumped on us. They grabbed the girl, put her in the cart, and took her off with one man; the other three tied my hands and dragged me back to the village where I lived in the summer. On all my excuses, they only shouted: We’ll teach you, holy man, how to seduce young girls! Toward evening, they brought me to the village council, chained my feet in iron, and put me in jail for the night until the trial began. The priest, learning that I was in jail, came to visit me, brought me some dinner, comforted me, and told me that the confessor will intercede for me and say how the father confessor thought that I was not as depraved as they say about me. After talking to me, he left.

Later in the evening, the steward, passing through the village, stopped at the polling station; and he was told about what had happened. He ordered a meeting to be held, and for me to be brought to the judge’s house. We entered, stood, and waited. Here came the steward in a bold mood, sat down at the table in his official garb, and shouted: “Hey, Epiphane! Did the girl, your daughter, do nothing wrong in the yard?” Nothing, Father! Nothing has been proven against this idiot in any bad deeds? No, Father! Thus, when we have judged the matter and decided it, you, with your daughter, will take care of it yourself; and we will try and punish this young man the next day, putting a firm ban so that he will not show up here again. That is all! Having said this, the steward got up from the table and went to bed; and I was put back in custody. Early the next morning, two men, a hundredth officer and a foreman, came and released me; and I went, thanking God for having honored me with suffering for His name. This consoled me and warmed my heart even more with constant prayer.Then he began to say: vigil in spirit and be not afraid! Remember what the Apostle said: Greater is that which is within you than that which is in the world. Here you have learned by experience that no temptation is allowed beyond the strength of the human spirit; but with trials God makes and hastens providence. Hope in this help from God strengthened and guided the piety and zeal of the holy prayer-writers, who not only lived their lives in unceasing prayer, but – out of love – taught and opened it up to others when and where they could. Saint Gregory of Nyssos writes so: not only do we ourselves, by God’s command, do well to pray unceasingly in the name of Christ, but we must teach and reveal this to fellow-monks, to the laity as a whole, to the intelligent and the less intelligent, to men and women and children, and to promote zeal among all. Similarly, Saint Callistus of Antılıkyda says: Both conscious, inward prayer and intuitive knowledge, and methods for the purification of the soul, should not be kept to oneself but written down and shared in mutual benefit. The Word of God also tells us that each should help the other, for a fortified city stays standing.

            In order to spend the day quietly, free of the obstacles of spiritual joy, I asked the church guard to stay in the cloister till the next day. All that day I was in indescribable joy and a sweetness of heart; I lay on the benches in this unheated guard house, as though resting on Abraham’s bosom: prayer was working in me mightily. The love of Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin was like sweet waves enveloping my heart and as though plunging my soul into an intense delight. In the evening, suddenly, I felt a strong pain in my legs, and I remembered that they were wet. Ignoring this, I began to listen to my heart with prayer more intently and ceased to feel pain. In the morning, I wanted to get up, but I saw that I could not move my legs; they had completely relaxed, as if they were stiff. The guardian hardly dragged me off the benches. So I sat there like this for two days. On the third day, the guardian began to drive me from the cloister, saying: “If you die here, then come with you.” As soon as I somehow crawled out on my hands, I lay down on the church porch.

            I lay there for two days. People who passed me by did not pay any attention to me, nor to my requests.

            Finally, a certain fellow approached me, sat down, and started talking. Incidentally, he said: “What are you going to give me? I will cure you.” It was exactly the same with me; I know about this medicine. I have nothing to give you. And what do you have in your bag? Just some bread and books. Well, would you let me spend at least one summer, if I cure you? And I can’t work; you see, I only have one hand, and the other is almost dry. So what can you do? Nothing, except that I can read and write. And writing! Well, teach a boy to write, my child, he doesn’t know much about reading, but I would like him to write. But the masters charge a lot, 20 rubles for the training. I agreed, and they took me and put me in this man’s backyard in an old empty cellar.

Thus, having recovered, I began to teach the lad, I wrote the Our Father instead of the lessons; I made him write by showing him how to write the words correctly. It was easy for me to teach him because he worked as a servant for the master during the day and came to me for lessons only when the master was asleep, that is, from dawn until late in the afternoon. The lad was smart and began to write something soon. When the master, a Pole, saw that he was writing, he asked him: Who is teaching you? The lad said that a homeless wanderer living in our old oven taught him. The curious master from the Poles came to see me while I was reading The Heart of Charity. After talking with me, he asked: What are you reading? I showed him the book. – Ah, it was The Heart of Charity, he said. I had seen this book in the monastery of our chancellor when I lived in Vilia; however, I had heard that it contained some strange tricks and arts for prayer, written by Greek monks, similar to the way the fanatics in India and Bukhara sit and inflate themselves, worshipping this natural feeling for nothing. We should pray simply for the sake of fulfilling our duty before God; let us get up and read the Our Father as Christ taught; that would be enough for the whole day, and it makes sense, rather than repeating the same thing endlessly; that way, you may go crazy and damage your heart.Don’t think, Father, that this is a holy book. It wasn’t written by common Greek monks, but by great and holy people whom your church venerates, such as Anthony the Great, Makariy the Great, Marcus the Monk, John Chrysostom, and others. And Indian and Bukharian monks learned from them the heartfelt way of interior prayer, but they distorted and corrupted it, as my elder told me. In the Doperotoluby, all the instructions on heartfelt prayer are drawn from the Word of God, from the Holy Bible, in which the same Jesus Christ, who commanded us to read: “Our Father,” commanded unceasing heartfelt prayer, saying: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind. Watch and pray. Be in Me and I in you.” And the Holy Fathers, quoting Holy King David from the Psalter, “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” interpret it in a way that Christians must seek the sweetness of prayer by all possible methods and constantly seek comfort in it, and not simply read “Our Father” just once a day. Here I will read to you how the Holy Fathers condemn those who do not seek to attain and learn the sweetness of heart prayer. They say that such people sin in the following ways:First, they say that the Holy Writings are contradictory, and secondly, they don’t assume the highest and most perfect state for the soul, but content themselves with external virtues, and since they lack the thirst for truth, they cannot have the joy and pleasure of God’s virtues, and they often indulge in vanity and pride, and are thus alienated. You’re reading something high, the headmaster said. What should we worldly people be striving for! Here I will read something simpler and about how good men were taught to pray continuously. I found a word by St. Simeon the New Theologian in the Doperotoluby on Saint George the Youth, and I began to read.

                    In the middle of the night, in the thin snow, I heard the voice of my elder, but I could not see anyone; the voice told me: Behold, your master has healed you, and you have not helped the housekeeper? God commanded us to sympathize with our neighbors. With what could I help? I do not know of any means. But here is what you should do: she has had a aversion to tree oil from the very beginning of her life, and not only does she not like to eat it, but she cannot stand the smell of it without feeling queasy; therefore, give her a spoonful of tree oil to drink, it will break her up, the bone will come out, and the wound in her throat that was scratched by the bone will be smeared with oil, and she will recover. How can I give it when she has an aversion to it – she will not drink? You told the housekeeper to hold her by the head, and suddenly, even if forcibly, pour it into her mouth. I woke up immediately and went to the housekeeper, and told him this in detail. He said that now he would make your oil? Look, she is already gasping and hallucinating, and her whole neck is swollen. However, we will probably try out the oil – it is harmless medicines, though they will not help. He poured an olive oil in a cup and we gave it to her to swallow somewhat. Immediately, a strong vomiting began and soon the bone came out with blood; she felt better and fell asleep soundly.

            So once again I went on my separate path, and I felt such relief as if a mountain had rolled off my shoulders. Prayer comforted me more and more, so that sometimes my heart boiled with boundless love for Jesus Christ, and from this sweet boiling I felt as if refreshing streams were flowing through all my joints. Thinking about Jesus Christ was imprinted so strongly in my mind that when I contemplated the Gospel events, I seemed to see them before me, I was moved to tears, and sometimes I felt joy in my heart that I could not express. It happened that sometimes I would spend three days in a row without entering human settlements and I felt as if I was the only one on earth, the only poor sinner before the merciful and compassionate God. Being alone comforted me, and the prayer experience was much more enjoyable for me than for the layman.

            Finally, I arrived in Irkutsk. Prostrating myself before the holy relics of Saint Innokenty, I began to think to myself: where should I go now? And I did not want to live here any longer, because the town was very crowded. I walked thoughtfully down the street; and there I met a merchant from here, who stopped me and said: are you a wanderer? Would you like to come to my house? We went into his rich house. He asked me who I was, and I told him about my origin. After listening to me, he began to say: why don’t you travel to old Jerusalem. There is a shrine that has no equal anywhere! I would be happy to go, I replied, but I don’t have the necessary means. I could walk to the sea, and I would have to pay a lot of money to cross it, which I don’t have. Do you want, said the merchant, I will give you a letter to my son at Odessa. He lives there and has trade relations with Constantinople; there are ships under his command, and he will be happy to take you to Constantinople, and there he will instruct his stewards to hire you on a ship to Jerusalem and pay the money. After all, it is not very expensive. Hearing this, I rejoiced, thanked this benefactor of mine for his kindness, and thanked God more for his fatherly love and care for me, the sinful sinner who does not do any good, either for himself or for others; and in the meantime, he is eating someone else’s bread in idleness. And so I spent three days with this benefactor of mine. He wrote me a letter to his son about me, promising; and here I am now going to Odessa, intending to reach the holy city of Jerusalem: but I do not know if the Lord will allow me to worship His Life-Giving Throne.

Story Three

            Before I left Irkutsk, I went to see the spiritual father with whom I had been talking, and said to him: “Here I am on my way to Jerusalem; I came to say goodbye and thank him for his Christian love for me, a deserving traveler.” He said to me: “God bless your path.” But you didn’t tell me anything about yourself, who you are and where you come from? I’ve heard a lot about your travels from you; it would be interesting to know about your origins and life before your travels.

            Well, I said, I’ll be happy to tell you about that too. It’s not a long story.

Biography of a pilgrim and his former worldly life

            I was born in a village in the Orlov region. After my father and mother, there were only two of us, me and my elder brother. He was ten years old, and I was two – the third. And so grandpa took us in for feeding; he was an old wealthy and honest man, who kept a traveling inn on a great road, and because of his kindness many travelers stayed there. And we began to live with him; my brother was lively, and he was constantly running around the village, while I was mostly running around the house. On holidays, we went to church with him, and at home he often read the Bible, the same one I had. My brother grew up and went astray – he got used to drinking. I was already seven years old; once I was lying with my brother on the stove, and he threw me off it, and injured my left arm. Since then, I have not been able to use it, it is all dry.

My grandfather, seeing that I would not be able to do the farm work, began to teach me to read, and since we had no alphabet, he taught me according to the Bible, as he would say: by pointing out the letters, he would force me to write words and recognize letters. I still do not know how I learned to read by following him. Finally, when my grandfather began to have poor eyesight, he often forced me to read the Bible, while he listened and corrected me. We often had a local clerk in the house, who could write perfectly, and I would watch him and enjoyed how he wrote. That is how I learned to write as well. My grandfather was happy about that, and he would teach me: “Now God has given you letters; you will be a man, and therefore thank the Lord for it and pray more often.” Thus, we used to go to church for all the services, and we often prayed at home as well; they would force me to read: “Have mercy on me, O God”; and my grandfather and grandmother would bow down or kneel. Finally, I was seventeen years old, and my grandmother died. My grandfather began to say to me: “We have no hostess in the house, and what about without grandmother? Your elder brother is a hopeless case, I want to marry you off.” I used to be embarrassed, thinking about my handicap, but my grandfather insisted, and I was married. They chose a proper and healthy woman, twenty years old. A year later, my grandfather became ill at death. He called me and said: “Here is your house and all your inheritance; live according to your conscience, do not deceive anyone, and above all pray to God. Do not rely on anything but God; go to church, read the Bible, and pray for us with your grandmother. Here is one thousand rubles for you; take care of them, do not spend them carelessly, but do not hoard them either, give to the beggars and the churches of God.”I am left naked and barefoot, made poor, and have put my tiny house on the loan, and have begun to live hermit-like. My wife was a craftswoman: she wove, wove, sewed, took employment from people, worked day and night, and fed me. I could not even make a pad with my one hand. She used to spin or weave, and I would sit by her, reading the Bible, and she would listen, and sometimes she would cry. When I asked her, ‘Why do you cry? Thank God, we are alive.’ She would reply, ‘Oh, it’s so touching for me that the Bible is so well written.’ Also, we followed our grandfather’s order, kept often, prayed the Akathist to the Mother of God in the morning, and fell down a thousand bows at night, so as not to be tempted. Thus, we lived quietly for two years. But what is strange is that we had no knowledge of inner prayer, which takes place in the heart, and we never heard of it, yet we prayed simply in words, and with no understanding, went through the motions like idiots, and the desire for prayer was there, and the long outer prayer, without understanding, did not seem difficult. Perhaps the teacher was right when he told me the truth that there is a secret prayer that takes place within a person, which he himself does not know how it takes place, and that it awakens him to prayer, for who knows how and how to do it?A fair Russian proverb says: people plan, but God appoints. I replied, “I thought I was to travel to the holy steps of Jerusalem today, and now it turned out differently; an unexpected event left me here for another three days. And I could not bear not to come to you to report on this and seek your counsel on how to deal with this case, which had come about unexpectedly in this way.”Here are some of the random incidents that happen in the course of life! And God and His holy providence work out our actions and intentions, as it is written: “And what God wants and what children of God are.” After hearing this, my spiritual father said: “I am delighted, dear brother, that the Lord has so suddenly arranged for me to see you shortly. And since you are now free, I will gladly keep you longer, and you will tell me more about your instructive encounters that occurred during your long journey. I have listened to all your past accounts with pleasure and attention. I am happy to do so, I replied, and began to speak.While traveling in my Tobolsk province, I had to pass through a village. I had very little suhar left, so I entered a house to ask for bread for the road. The owner said to me: thank God, you have come at the right time, just now my wife has taken the bread out of the oven; here is a warm blanket; pray to God for us. I thanked them and began to put the bread into my bag, and the hostess, seeing this, said: what a skinny sack, all faded; I will change it for you, and gave me a nice, solid sack. Feeling my gratitude to them with all my soul, I went on. On the street, in a small grocery store, I asked for some salt, and the shopkeeper poured a small bag of it. I blessed my soul with God, who shows me such good people, unworthy of such kindness. Well, I thought, now for a week I will be without any care about food and will sleep comfortably. Bless my soul, Lord!

Walking away from this town by a distance of 9 versts, I saw a small, poor village and a poorly decorated church. Still, it was well decorated outside and painted. Passing by, I wanted to pay homage to the temple of God, and entering the church yard, I prayed. By the side of the church, on the playing field, two children, about 5 or 6 years old, were playing. I thought that they were the priest’s children, although they were very well dressed. So, after praying, I went on. Before I could take ten steps away from the church, I heard a cry: beggar! beggar! stop! This was the cry of the little boys who came running after me; I stopped and they grabbed my arm: let’s go to mom; she loves beggars. I am not a beggar, I told them, but a passing stranger. And where is your bag? Come with us, mother will give you money for the road. Well, where is your mother? Behind the church, by that gate.

They led me to a beautiful garden, in the middle of which I saw a large mansion; we entered the halls, what cleanliness and decoration there was! And my mother came out to us. Breakfast! breakfast! where did God send you? sit down, sit down, you dear! She took my bag off me, placed it on the table, and sat me down on a comfortable stool; would you like to have some food? would you like tea? and are you not in need of anything? Thank you very much, I answered, I have a whole bag of provisions, I do not like tea although I drink it, but according to our peasant tradition, I am not used to it, your diligence and gracious hospitality are worth more to me than a meal; I will ask God to bless you for such evangelical hospitality.

Saying this, I felt a strong arousal to return inside. Prayer boiled up in my heart and I needed peace and silence to give space to this spontaneous flame of prayer, to hide from people the outward signs of prayer, such as tears, sighs and unusual movements of the face and lips.

The old woman explained: “So, I got up and said to her: I apologize, mother, it’s time for me to go. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you and with your dear children. Oh, no! I need to be saved and you won’t let me leave. Here comes my husband in the evening from the city. He will be so happy to see you. He considers every traveling man to be an envoy of God. And if you leave, he will be very upset, not having seen you: besides, tomorrow is Sunday; you will pray with us for lunch, and you will have what God sent to you together with us. At every feast we have up to thirty beggar brothers of Christ. But you didn’t say anything to me about yourself, where you are coming from and where you are going? Talk to me, I love listening to spiritual conversations of pious people. Children, children! Take a traveler’s bag and take it to the prayer room, he will sleep there. Listening to these words of her, I was amazed, and I thought: am I talking to a person, or is it a ghost for me? In response to this, I stayed there to wait for the gentleman. I told him briefly my journey and that I was going to Irkutsk. By the way, said the lady, you will definitely go through Tobolsk, and my mother is a nun in a women’s monastery there, and now she is a benedictine; we will give you a letter, she will receive you. Many people come to her for spiritual advice; and by the way, you will bring her the book of John Chrysostom, which we copied for her from Moscow, on her orders. All this will work out well! Finally, the time came for lunch, and we sat down at the table. Four ladies arrived and began to eat with us. After finishing the first dish, one of the maids who arrived stood up, bowed to the icon, and then bowed to us; then another lady went to bring the third dish and sat down again; then another lady did the same thing for the fourth dish. Seeing this, I began to tell the mistress: I dare to ask, dear mother, are these ladies your relatives, or what? “Yes,” she said, “they are my sisters: this is the cook, this is the cook’s wife, this is the doorkeeper, and this is my maidservant, and they are all married; I have no girls in the whole house. Hearing and seeing this, I was even more amazed, I thanked God for having shown me such pious people, and I felt a strong effect of prayer in my heart; and in order to be able to retire and not disturb my prayer, I got up from the table and said to the mistress: you need to rest after lunch, and I, in my habit of walking, will go for a walk in the garden. “No, I won’t rest,” said the mistress; and I will go with you into the garden, and you will tell me something instructive. If you go alone, the children won’t leave you for a moment; they love beggars, the brothers of Christ and travelers very much.”After these were said, I asked where is the book On Prayer by John the Lesser, which you wish to send to the mother of your heart? Let’s go into the room, you’ll find it for me. When we sat to read, the master arrived. Seeing me, he kindly embraced me and we brotherly and Christ-like kissed each other. Then he said: ‘Come, dear brother, into my study, bless my cell. I think she fell tired of you. Whenever she sees a traveller or a traveless, or a sick man, she is pleased and does not take her eyes off them day and night; it’s the custom in her family. We went into the study. There were many books, beautiful icons, a living cross as tall as a man and the Gospel was placed beside it. I prayed, and then I said: ‘Oh, my dear, here is Heaven itself. It is Christ himself, His Blessed Mother and His holy saints here; and these books (pointing) are their divine, living and endless words and instructions. I think you often enjoy your heavenly conversation with them.’ ‘Yes,’ the master replied, ‘I love to read. What books do you have here?’ ‘I have many spiritual and philosophic books,’ he answered; ‘here is a fine selection of homilies, the works of John Chrysostom and Basil the Great, many theological and philosophical books, as well as many homilies by new prominent preachers. My library costs me thirty rubles.’”There is no book on prayer,” I asked. “I like to read about prayer very much. There is a book by a priest from Petersburg on prayer. The author has made a new interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer, and we began reading it with pleasure. Shortly afterwards, a lady came and brought us tea, and the children had brought a whole basket of cookies—all of silver, like biscuits that I had never eaten before. The man took the book from me, gave it to the lady, and said, ‘Here, we will have her read it, she reads beautifully; and we will have our fill at this other table.’ The lady began to read, and we began to listen. While listening to the reading, I listened to the prayer that was being said, in my heart deep down. As the reading went on, the prayer grew stronger and was a great pleasure to me. Suddenly, I saw someone go flashing past my eyes, like in the air, like my late old father. I jumped, but to hide it, I said, ‘Sorry, but I was half-asleep.” Suddenly, it felt as if the spirit of my late father was inside my spirit, as if he had turned on a light inside my brain, and I felt a certain lightness in my mind and a whole host of thoughts about prayer. As soon as I performed the sign of the cross and tried to dismiss these thoughts, the lady read the whole book through. The man asked: ‘Did you like this book?’In which book did you read this? For example, in Maximus the Confessor, and in Dobrotolubie by Peter Damascene. Please, can you remember anything, tell us! Please do. The beginning of the prayer: “Our Father in heaven…” In the book that was read, it is explained that under these words one should understand the cultivation of fraternal love towards one’s neighbour, as children of one father. This is very fair, but the Holy Fathers explain it even more precisely and spiritually, that in this expression one is to turn one’s mind to heaven, towards the heavenly Father, and to remember that at any moment we must offer ourselves in God’s presence and walk before God. The words: “let your name be hallowed” are explained by the book with great care, to ensure that the holy name of God should not be uttered without reverence, or in an unjust oath, in other words, to pronounce the holy name of God in a sacred way and not to use it unnecessarily; and the mystical interpreters see here a direct prayer for an inner heart prayer, that is, for the holiest name of God to be inscribed within the heart and to be sanctified and consecrated by self-prayer. The words, “let your kingdom come” are explained in this way by the mystical interpreters: let your inner world, peace and spiritual joy come into our hearts. In the book, it is explained that under the words, “our daily bread” one is to understand the request for necessary needs of physical life, not superfluous ones, but only those that are necessary and sufficient to help those in need. For Maximus the Confessor, by the name of daily bread, he means nourishing the soul with heavenly bread, that is, with the Word of God, and uniting the soul with God, through contemplation and incessant inner prayer of the heart.Oh, what a great endeavor it is and almost impossible for inhabitants of the world to achieve inner prayer, exclaimed the lord; though, with God’s help, outward prayer may be easy to perform. Don’t think that, father, as if it were impossible and unbearably difficult; God has commanded it to everyone. His power is also in weakness; and the experienced holy fathers offer means to facilitate the path of reaching the heart of prayer. Of course, for the hermits of the world they suggest special and superior means, but also for laity they prescribe easy and guiding means to attain inner prayer. I have never read about this in detail, said the lord. Please, please, let me read you from the book The Joyful Laughter of Brotherly Love. I brought my Joyful Laughter, found the article by the Holy Father Damascene in Part 3 on page 48, and began reading the following: “one must learn to invoke the name of God more than breathing, at all times and in every place and in every deed. The Apostle says: Meditate always in prayer, that is, he teaches to have as a reminder to the Creator of things, and so you have the cause to remember and glorify God, and so you are constantly praying, from this your soul will always be joyful.”

They liked it very much. The lord hugged me with enthusiasm, thanked me, looked at my Joyful Laughter of Brotherly Love, and said: I will definitely buy myself such a book; I will get it soon from St. Petersburg; and for now, for memory, I will write down this article that you read, tell me. And here, he soon, absorbedly wrote it. Then he exclaims: My God! after all, I have an icon of Saint Damascene (It is probably an icon of St. John Damascene). He took the frame, put a written sheet under the glass, and hung it under the icon, saying: Here, the word of a God’s Holy One will live under his image to remind me often to carry out this life-salvational counsel in his lifestyle.

            After this, we went to dinner. At the table, as usual, the people, both men and women, sat with us. What a pious silence and peace there was at the table! After dinner, we all, people and children, prayed for a long time. I was made to read the Akathist to the Most Sweet Jesus.

“After the priests had gone, the three of us stayed in the room. My mistress brought me a white shirt and stockings – I bowed down and said: I will not take my mistress’s stockings, I do not know how to sew them, we have always been used to wearing linen. She ran off again and brought her old smock, a thin yellow fabric, and cut it in two scroves, and the gentleman said: this poor man’s scroves are almost falling apart, so he brought his new boots, the big ones he wears over his boots, and then he said to me: go into that other room. I went, changed my clothes and came out again to them. They sat me down on a chair, and began to put on my boots, the gentleman began to wrap my feet in the scroves, and my mistress began to put on the boots. At first I did not want to, but they ordered me to sit still and said: sit and be silent, Christ washed the feet of his disciples. I had no choice, and I began to cry, and they cried too.

But forgive me, dear brother. I asked you not out of mere curiosity, but out of kindness and Christian compassion, and also because about two years ago I saw the example that raised my question and that I was going to ask you about. Now you see, a beggar arrived here with a military record, he was very old and so poor that he was almost naked and barefoot, he spoke little and simply, as if he were a steppe man. We took him in, bedridden; after a few days he became ill, so we moved him to this gazebo, comforted him, and we began to visit him with my wife. Finally, he was probably dying; we prepared him, and summoned our priest to confess him, anoint him and administer the sacraments. On the eve of his death, he got up, asked for a piece of paper and a pen from me, asked that the door be closed and no one be allowed in until he had written a will for his son, whom he requested be sent to St. Petersburg after his death. I was surprised to see how he wrote not only with a beautiful, well-educated handwriting, but also how his will was beautiful, correct, and very tender. I will read it to you tomorrow; I have a copy of it.

Dear son! For fifteen years now you have not seen your father, but he is in a state of uncertainty, occasionally informing you about him, pouring out his fatherly love to you, and leading you to send this premonition to you, so that they will be a lesson in your life.

You know how I suffered for my carelessness and careless life; but you do not know how I blessed in my unknown wanderings, enjoying the fruits of repentance.

I die peacefully in the good hand of my benefactor and yours too, for the charity bestowed on the father must be extended to the compassionate son. Give to him thanks from me, as much as you can.

Leaving you my paternal blessing, I beg you to remember God, keep your conscience, be careful, kind and prudent, treat subordinates with as much kindness and love as possible, do not despise beggars and strangers, remembering that even a dying father is tormenting his poor and miserable soul.

            Calling upon you to receive God’s grace, I quietly shut my eyes in the hope of eternal life, out of the mercy of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Your father.

After the end of the Lord’s Service, the priest, the servants, and all the beggars went together to the dinner table, and there were about forty beggars: here were the lame, the sick, and the boys. Everyone sat down to table. What a silence and an awed atmosphere! Taking up courage, I said softly to the gentleman: in the monasteries, the lives of the saints are read during the meal, and you have a good number of servants. ‘Indeed, Masha,’ said the gentleman, turning to his wife, ‘we should introduce such a system.’ This would be insulting. At the first meal I would read, and then you, and then the priest, and the brothers in turn, whoever’s able. The priest, while eating, began to speak: ‘I like to listen, but I don’t have the time to read because everything is so busy at home – chores, worries; there are so many boys and so much cattle that we’re constantly in a rush, with no time to read or to preach. I learned what I learned at seminary a long time ago, and I have forgotten it all.’ Listening to this, I shuddered, and my wife, sitting beside me, took my hand and began to speak: ‘The priest is speaking with his own humility. He always humiliates himself like this, but he is kinder than anyone and lives a more godly life. He has been a widower for 20 years and has brought up a whole family of grandchildren, and he often says Mass. With these words, the Holy Father’s words from ‘Dobrotolubie’ (The Tale of Prince Igor’ by Cyril and Methodius) flashed into my memory: ‘By the state of the soul, one measures the nature of things; that is to say, whoever he is, he judges the nature of others accordingly. And Saint Methodius of Ohrid continues: “Anyone who has attained true prayer and love has no measure for things, he does not distinguish between the righteous and the sinner, but he loves everyone equally and does not condemn, as God does; the sun shines and rains on both the righteous and the sinner.” ‘ Again silence fell. Opposite me sat a blind beggar. The gentleman ate him, cut the fish, handed him the spoon and poured the soup. Watching him closely, I noticed how this beggar had his mouth wide open and his tongue jiggled continuously; I wondered if he was a prayer-doer, and I began to notice more. Near the end of the dinner, one old woman came to a bad ailment, fainted. The gentleman and his wife carried her into their bedroom, where they put her on the bed; the wife went to look after her; the priest went to the other part of the house to get reserves of Holy Communion; and the gentleman ordered the carriage to be hitched up and ran off to the city to fetch a doctor. Everybody left.

            I felt a prayer-like hunger, there was a strong need for prayerful impulses, and solitude and silence were no longer there for another day. I felt in my heart like a flood that wanted to break through and pour out in all its parts, but as I restrained it, a painful pain arose in my heart, — however, it was a comforting feeling that required a silent calming and filling of prayer. Here I became aware of why true creators of prayer, who spontaneously did it in them, avoided people and hid themselves in obscurity, and also I understood why St Isaac the Syrian and the spiritual and useful conversation, though hardly measured, called it talk filled with evil, just as St Ephraim the Syrian says:“ Good speech is silver, and silence is pure gold.” In considering all this, I went to see the poor man; there everyone took a break at lunchtime. I went up to the attic, calmed down, took a rest, and prayed. When the beggars rose, I found the blind man and took him out into the yard; we sat alone, and began to converse.

Conversation with a blind man and his path to prayer

After reading this, I began to think that this was very convenient for me, and I began to pray quietly for my sewing work, and I liked it. Those who lived with me in the hut noticed this and began to laugh at me; are you a magician or something, constantly muttering or whispering something? I stopped moving my lips to conceal it, and I began to pray in one language only. Finally, I got so used to praying that language itself uttered the prayer day and night, and I liked that.

            I walked around like this for a long time, and then I suddenly went completely blind. In our family, most of us have dark water in our eyes. That’s why our society, out of my poverty, made me stay in a mental institution, which is located in our provincial city, Tobolsk. I’m now going there and the gentlemen stopped me in order to give me a ride to Tobolsk. 

What was the name of the book you were reading, wasn’t it Dobrotolyubiye? I didn’t know, I didn’t even look at the big leaf. I brought my Dobrotolyubiye and found in Volume Four in Kalista, the patriarch’s words which he said to me in memory, and began to read them to him. Here it is, shouted the blind man. Read, brother, as it is very good. When I reached the line where it says: one must pray with the heart, he began to address me: what does this mean? And how is it done? I told him that the whole teaching about heart prayer is explained in detail in the same book, in Dobrotolyubiye, and he with zeal asked me to read it to him.

            We’ll do that, I said. Do you plan to go to Tobolsk? Yes, right now, he answered. Well, here’s what, I think we’ll go on a journey tomorrow, and we’ll go with you, and I’ll read everything to you that concerns heart prayer, and I’ll show you how to search for the heart place and enter it. But how about the ride? he asked. Well, what do you need a ride for, it’s as far as a hundred and twenty yards to Tobolsk; we’ll walk slowly, and two people know how well to walk; and talking and reading about prayer while walking is more convenient.

So we agreed. In the evening, the master himself came to call all of us for dinner, and after dinner we announced that we were leaving on a journey with the blind man and that we didn’t need a ride; it was more convenient to read Dobrotolyubiye. At this point, the master began to say: I liked Dobrotolyubiye very much; I have already written a letter and prepared the money to send to St. Petersburg, so that I could be sent Dobrotolyubiye by the first mail, as soon as I go to court. So, in the morning, we set out on our journey, thanked both these gentlemen for their exemplary love and mercy; and they both waved goodbye to us from their homes. That’s how we said goodbye to each other

We went out with the blind man, and we walked bit by bit, ten to fifteen versts a day, and spent the rest of the time in secluded places, reading Dobrotolyubye. I read everything to him about heart prayer according to the order that the late Elder of mine had instructed me, that is, beginning with the book Nikhifor, a monk, Gregory Sinait. With what thirst and attention he listened to everything, and how much he enjoyed it! Then he began to ask me such questions about prayer that my mind could not answer them.The blind man, having listened to all this with attention, began to diligently act according to the method shown, and during the nights when we stopped at the inns, he mostly spent a long time doing this. After about five days, he began to feel a strong warmth and an indescribable pleasure in his heart, and moreover, he had an irresistible desire to constantly practice this prayer, which opened his love for Jesus Christ. At times he began to see light, although he could not see any objects or things in it; sometimes it seemed to him, as he entered his heart, that a strong flame of a burning candle burned sweetly inside his heart and, bursting through his throat, illuminated it; and he could see even distant things through this flame, as happened once.

                I said to him: “Love Jesus Christ and be thankful; but be careful to accept different visions as immediate revelations of grace”; for this can often happen and, of course, it is in order. The human soul is not so much bound by place and matter. It can see in darkness and at a very distant place, as well as what is happening near. Only we do not give strength and direction to this spiritual ability and we underestimate it, or we are burdened with the clumsiness of our bodies or the confusion of our thoughts and scattered reflections. But when we concentrate on ourselves, distract ourselves from everything around us and perfect ourselves in our abilities, then the soul enters its purpose and acts to the utmost, this is a natural matter. I heard from my late elder that not even devout people, but those capable of it, or those who suffer, in a dark room can see light as it comes from all things, can distinguish objects, feel their double and penetrate other people’s thoughts. And when this comes directly from the grace of God in heartfelt prayer, it is so enjoyable that no language can speak, and no material thing can be applied to it and nothing can be likened to it; all sensual things are low in comparison with the sweet sensations of grace in the heart. My blind servant listened to this with diligence, and even became more humble; his heart’s prayer developed more and more, and it gave him increasing delight. I was sincerely glad at this and thanked God, that he had given me the opportunity to see such a blessed servant of his.

       I finally reached Tobolsk, I brought him to the almshouse, left him there, and, after a cordial farewell, went on further.

For a month I walked slowly and felt deeply how instructive and encouraging good living examples are; I often read “Charity” and believed everything that I told the blind prayer-maker. His instructive example inflamed my zeal, gratitude and love for God, the prayer of the heart so delighted me that I did not consider whether there was anyone happier on earth than me, and marveled at what could be a greater and better pleasure in the heavenly kingdom. Not only did I feel all this within my soul, but everything outside also seemed to me in a wonderful state, and everything attracted me to love and give thanks to God; people, trees, plants, animals, everything seemed to me familiar, I found in everything a picture of the name of Jesus Christ. Sometimes I felt such ease as if I had no body, and I was not walking, but rather joyfully floating in the air; sometimes I entered into myself completely and clearly saw all my inclinations, marveling at the wise structure of the human body; sometimes I felt such joy as if I were made king and for everyone’s happiness I wished, as if God would soon take away life and pour out praise at the feet of Him in the world of spirits.

Trial on the way and the story of the old soldier

Apparently, I enjoyed these sensations excessively, or was I indulging in the divine will, but after a while I felt a trembling and fear in my heart.  Had I not thought, as I said, that some new misfortune or calamity would befall me, like what happened to that girl whom I taught the Jesus Prayer in the chapel. Thoughts gathered upon me like clouds, and I remembered the words of John the Cappadocian, who says that he who often teaches gives himself to disgrace and endures all misfortunes and temptations for the benefit of those who have received spiritual help from him. Facing these thoughts, I intensified my prayer, which banished them completely, and I felt encouraged and said to myself: Let it be the will of God! I am ready to endure all things except those that Jesus Christ will send on account of my wretchedness and pride. Moreover, those to whom I had recently revealed the secret of the gateway of the heart and of inner prayer were prepared above all by direct divine instruction. Mak-ing that peace with myself, I continued sizing my way with joy and prayer, fully satisfied with the condition of things.

            Approaching the road, I saw an old man in a soldier’s outfit on a porch near the road, sitting there, drunk. Touching his cap, I greeted him and asked, “Is it possible to stay here, at someone’s place, to spend the night?” Who on earth could receive me except you, old man?” cried the old man. “This place is a postal station, and I am the keeper.” Allow me to stay here with you. Do you have a passport? Give it to me.” I handed him my passport, and he took it in his hand, and then asked, again, “Where is the passport?” In your hands, I replied. “Well, come on in the house.” The old man put on his glasses, read it, and said, “It looks like a valid passport. Stay with us here. I am a good man; therefore, I will bring you a glass of wine.” I don’t drink, I replied. “Well, then, never mind; but at least have a meal with us.” We sat at the table, he and the cook, and the young woman as well, after she had drunk enough, and they began to fight and reproach one another. The old man left for the barn to sleep in the loft, and the cook began to clean off the dishes and utensils and scold her old man.I sat and thought that she would not calm down soon, so I said to her: Where, mother, shall I lie down to sleep? I am tired from the journey. Here is a bed for you, mother, and placing a bench next to the front window, I spread the straw and put the pillow on it. I lay down and closed my eyes as if I were sleeping. The cook was still disturbing; finally, she went away, blew out the fire, and came to me. Suddenly, the entire window, including the frame, the panes, and the broken parts of the frame, exploded with a terrible crash, the whole house shook, and there was a painful wailing, screaming, and shouting outside the window. The old woman was frightened and jumped to the middle of the room, then fell to the floor. I jumped up, thinking that the earth had opened under me. There I saw two butchers brought a man into the house, covered with blood so that his face could not be seen. This only terrified me even more. It was a militia who had hurried to change horses here. The butcher had not turned properly into the gate, and he smashed the window with a pitchfork, and as there was a trench in front of the house, the cart tipped over, and the militia, falling, hit his head deeply against the sharp spike fixed on the step. The militia requested water and wine to wash his wound, smeared it with wine, and drank a glass himself, and shouted: Horses! I stood by him, saying: How are you doing, father, riding with such pain? The militia had been sick once, he answered, and he rode on. The butchers carried the old woman to the corner of the stove without feeling anything, covered her with a tarpaulin, and said: This is the nightmare she had from fright; she will recover. And the caretaker sobered up and went back to sift the fire again. I was left alone.

            Six years passed after that event, and as I was passing by a women’s monastery, I went into the church to pray. A strange abbess took me in after lunch and ordered tea. Suddenly, unexpected guests arrived; she went to them, leaving me with the nuns, her cellmates. A humble nun, who was serving the tea, aroused my curiosity by asking: how long have you been in this convent, mother? Eight years, she replied; I was brought here in a fit of madness, and God has shown me mercy here. The abbess left me in the cell and gave me a novitiate. What did the madness come from? I asked. It was fright. I worked at a station like that; horses banged the window during the night when I was asleep, and I fell into a state of madness from the fright. For a whole year, my family took me to holy places, and now I’ve been cured here. I was so glad for that, and I praised God for His grace, and for His servants, and for everyone who makes use of their talents. 

            There were plenty of such instances, I said to my father, but if I should tell a story starting at the beginning I would not be able to finish it in three days. Let me tell you another story. 

Meeting with a country priest and a pious girl

            On a clear summer day, I saw a cemetery along the road, or what they call a cemetery, namely, a church and a few priestly houses. There was a mass in the afternoon at the time of the meal prayer. So I went there. There were also people from the neighborhood passing by, but they stopped short of the church doors, sat on the grass, and, seeing me hurrying along, said to me: “don’t hasten, you fool; you can sit it out until the service begins, for it is very long here; you have a sick priest who is too chubby, who serves very slowly; he is a young man, but look at the very white, shrivelled face, the poor man. The service did last a great deal; the priest was young, but pale-looking, and he acted very slowly, though with great zeal and devotion. When the afternoon mass was finishing, he gave a wonderful, easy-to-understand sermon as to how to love God. 

The priest called me to himself and invited me to lunch. At the table I said to him: You serve the Lord so reverently and for so long! Yes, he answered, although the parishioners do not like it and complain, but there is nothing to do; for I love every prayerful word first of all to reflect on it and enjoy it, and then only to speak it out loud; otherwise, without inner feeling and compassion, every word uttered will be useless for myself and for others. The whole point is in inner work and attentive prayer! But how little, the priest said, people take up inner action! This is because they do not want to, do not have a concern for spiritual, inner education, the priest said. I asked again: And how can we achieve it? It seems very difficult. A lot of doing to become a spiritual and inner person is to take one text from the Holy Scriptures and, as long as possible, pay attention and give thought to it alone and light will be revealed in the understanding. It is also necessary to do when prayer: if you want it to be pure, correct and fruitful, then you should choose a short, few words, but strong, prayer that consists of a few words, and repeat it many times and for a long time, and then you will experience the taste of prayer. I mentally thanked God that He showed me such a true shepherd of His church.I was a young and beautiful girl; my parents arranged for me to be married: so that tomorrow there would be a wedding, the fiancé came to us, and suddenly, without having taken ten steps, he fell and died, never breathing! I was so frightened by this that I completely gave up on marriage and decided to live in virginity and go to holy places to pray to God. But I was afraid to set off on the road, in case the evil people would laugh at me because of my youth. That is why an acquaintance of mine, an old woman, taught me that, wherever I went, I should constantly say the Jesus prayer, and she strongly assured me that with this prayer no misfortune could happen on the road. I believed this and walked safely, even to distant holy places; my parents gave me money for it.So I lived alone for three years. The boy who served me was quick-witted and took care of all my household duties, cleaned the room, stoked the stove, cooked porridge for me, brewed the teapot. But at the same time he was an extraordinarily restless and restless person, constantly running around, knocking, screaming, making noise, and so he disturbed me very much; and I, because of my illness and boredom, always loved to read spiritual books. I had a wonderful book by Gregory Palami about the Jesus Prayer: I almost constantly read it, and gradually began to make the prayer as well. My boy bothered me, and no threats or punishments kept him from pranks. That’s how I came up with this method: I put him in the room on a chair, ordering him to constantly say the Jesus Prayer. At first it didn’t appeal to him at all, and he tried to avoid it in every way, often choosing to stop.[p=”justify”]After this, I started to say to the man: “Bah, Father, I know the book by St. Gregory Palamas that you wanted to read. But it is mainly about the Jesus Prayer in the mind and heart. Read the book named Filmostyvytsya Mollybuvannia. There you will find a complete and perfect doctrine of how to reach the spiritual Jesus Prayer in mind and heart and taste its sweetest fruit. At the same time I handed him my “Filmostyvytsya Mollybuvannia”. He took my advice with pleasure and promised to obtain such a book.After finishing these stories, I said to my spiritual father: “Forgive me, for the sake of God, I have already said much, and the holy fathers called this sort of conversation, even if it was spiritual, but gratuitous, ‘heavy talk’ (marnoslóvia). I want to go and visit my Jerusalem companion. Pray for me, wretched sinner, so that the Lord might, by his great mercy, arrange my path for good.”

         One of these ways is common to both success in prayer and to success in Christian life, as it goes:                       unconditional obedience, as St. Simeon the New Theologian says;                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

        If quantity leads to quality, then frequent, almost continuous invocation of the name of Jesus Christ, even if at the beginning it is sporadic, can lead to attention and warmth of the heart; for the human nature is capable of absorbing a certain mood through frequent use and habit.  To learn to do something well, one must do it much more often, an experienced spiritual writer said; and St. Isaac says that frequency leads to habit and attraction to the nature (chapter 7).  This is, as can be seen from the observations of experienced men, the following as far as interior prayer is concerned: those who want to achieve interior prayer decide to call the Divine name frequently, almost continuously, that is, to utter the Lord’s Prayer orally: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner; sometimes it is shortened, that is, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, as St. Gregory Sinaiticus teaches.  He adds that a shortened invocation is more convenient for a beginner, but does not oppose either one or the other, advising only not to frequently change the verbs of prayer in order to more easily get accustomed to calling.  And in order to become even more devoted to the constant creation of prayer, the student considers it a rule to look at the number of times known in time to call, that is, to say so many hundreds or thousands of prayers with bretches during the day and night, not quickly, but speaking, straining the tongue and lips.  After some time, the mouth and tongue of a proficient acquire such an habit and a self-mobility such that they already move spontaneously with the name of God, even without a voice.  Then, the mind listens to this movement of the tongue and gradually becomes free from dispersion and comes to attention to prayer.  Finally, it may follow the weakness of the mind in the heart, as the Popes express it, that is, the mind turns to the heart, warms it with the warmth of divine love, and already the heart itself moves freely, without compulsion, with indescribable enjoyment, invokes the name of Jesus Christ, and pours out with the cry, “my heart watches.”  St. Isaac spoke wonderfully about the fruitfulness of frequent intellectual invocation of the name of Jesus Christ: “Like the rain that enriches the earth, it also moistens it, and the earth of our heart is joyfully worked by the name of Christ, when it is frequently invoked.” 

            Although the method described, based on the experiences and observations of the Fathers, is sufficient to provide a convenient guide for achieving the desired goal of interior prayer, there are still higher methods: attention and the introduction of reason into the heart. This first method is mainly suitable for those who have not yet become accustomed to attention and are not yet able to work successfully on the heart, or it can be an introduction and assumption to the following methods. However, according to the differences in properties and abilities, one can choose whichever is more convenient for him or her, as St. Nikon of Chernigov says.

Key Two: Focus of Reason on the Heart

Attention is the maintenance (preservation) of reason, as St. Niphon the Monk expressed it, or attention is the gathering of reason to itself, and the deepening of it in some object, leaving all foreign thoughts and images behind. As it is necessary, when engaged in prayer, this is assured by Sts. Callist and Ignatius, citing the words of St. Nil the Younger, that attention, which seeks prayer, necessarily draws it to itself; for prayer follows attention more than any other, and it is worth striving for it (The Desires of the Heart, Part 2, Chapter 24). Something similar is written by St. Symeon the New Theologian: as thoughts are put to the utmost test, the soul eagerly longs to pray (Chapter 90); and again: the atmosphere of heartfelt joy and silence is filled by keen attention (Chapter 91), which “is as necessary for prayer as a lamp to the flame of the lamp” (Chapter 102). Similarly, Niphon the Monk, after explaining the teaching on inner prayer, finally concludes that if it is not convenient, according to his example, to enter the heart, then one should use all kinds of attention in prayer which, beyond any doubt, will open the heart’s entrance and develop inner prayer, as the first book of Sacred Scripture confirms this truth that without attention one cannot become united with God, saying: “Pay attention and understand that I am God” (Exodus 3:14).

1) Saint Simeon the New Theologian, 2) Philoephos of Sinai, 3) Feolypte, Metropolitan, and 4) Варсонофій and John.

            In third place we would put the saving story of Abba Filimon. He puts the whole path of asceticism on record.

Instructions of the Holy Fathers on interior heart prayer

First group of instructions

1) Instructions of Saint Simeon the New Theologian

By acting in this way, you will align yourself on a true and unerring path to the third form of prayer, which is as follows: let your mind keep your heart while you pray, and let it revolve unceasingly inside, sending prayers to God from the depths of your heart. This is everything: work in this way until you taste the Lord. When, at last, the mind is there, inside the heart, and you taste and sense with your heart that the good Lord is there, it will no longer wish to move away from that heart-place; then it will say, like St. Peter: It is good for us to be here, and it will always look inwards to the heart and keep turning there, driving away all the thoughts that the devil spreads.

            Three things should be observed first of all: caring for everything, even the blessed, and not only the unblessed and mundane, or else a deadening of all consciousness, a pure conscience in everything, so that it does not condemn you in anything, and perfect impartiality, so that your thought does not tend to any one thing. Then sit down in a special and silent place alone, close the door, turn your mind away from every temporal and mundane thing, kneel at your bosom, and thus focus your attention inside yourself (not in your head, but in your heart), turning your mind and your sensual eyes there, and holding on. There, having your mind, seek it all the way, where your heart is, and when it finds it, then your mind is already completely there. At first you will find there some darkness and harshness; but then, if you continue this practice of attention without ceasing day and night, you will achieve some constant joy. The mind, practicing in this way, will reach the place of the heart, and then immediately sees things there that it never saw or knew before. From this moment, from whichever side any thought arises and appears, before it enters inside and thinks, or imagines, the mind immediately drives it out and destroys it in the name of Jesus, the Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. From this time, the mind will begin to have anger at demons and to drive them away and vanquish them. The rest, which usually follows this practice, you will learn from experience yourself, by keeping attention and holding Jesus, that is, his prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!

Meanwhile, the faith we received in Holy Baptism concerning Christ Jesus is not obliterated, but rather hidden away, like a treasure in the earth. And prudence and gratitude demand that we take care to uncover it and bring it to light. How can this be done?

         When working on this spiritual practice, you should read only such books that present teachings on interior life, sobriety, and prayer, especially The Ladder of Descent by Isaac the Syrian, the ascetic writings of Maxim the Confessor, Simeon the New Theologian, Ezechiel, Philo of Sinai, and others. Leave out other books for the time being, not because they are bad, but because it is inappropriate to engage with them at this time, with your true mood and concern: they may distract your mind from prayer. Read little, but with introspection and absorption.

            Do not leave out prayer. Some people keep a strict prayer rule, while others completely abandon prayer, praying to the Lord with one intelligent prayer. Instead, choose the middle ground: do not chant many prayers, because this causes embarrassment, but do not dismiss them either, in case of weakness and relaxation. If you find that prayer is active within you and does not cease to move in your heart, do not abandon it or start reciting the prayer book. This would mean leaving God inside, leaving Him and speaking to Him from the outside. For those who do not yet have the action of prayer, it is necessary to pray much, and even excessively, in order to constantly remain in this many- and varied-prayer until the pain of prayer’s labor heats up in the heart and the operation of prayer commences in it. Once someone has tasted this grace, he should pray in moderation and spend more time in a reasonable prayer, as the fathers instructed. In the event of a relaxation of the interior, one should pray or read the writings of the fathers. The use of a sail is superfluous when the wind is blowing, and it is needed when the wind subsides and the boat stops.

            A great weapon has an enemy who keeps a broken prayer in his heart, so as not to allow himself to become arrogant because of the joys that prayer presents. He who keeps such a joy-laden prayer will avoid any harm. A true, not magical, inner prayer is one in which the warmth that comes from the prayer of Jesus ignites the fire in the earth of the heart and kindles the passions, like tinder. It enriches the soul with joy and light, and comes not from the clear air or the sky above, but penetrates the heart like a spring of water, from the life-giving Spirit. Adore this one and return to obtain it in your heart, keeping your mind always unquenchable. Do not fear anything with it; for he who said: “Rejoice, are not afraid; He is with us” (Matthew 28:20) also said: “Do not fear, be strong and courageous!”

3) Advice from Newman the Monk

            Nikhifor the monk expounds his teaching about entering into the heart in his article on sobriety and the preservation of the heart (Part 2, p. 36-43).

            You who wish to perceive the fire of the heavenly heart in your feelings and to experience this heaven, come, I will tell you the science of a heavenly life, or rather the art that effortlessly and painlessly introduces the maker into the shelter of impartiality. Through our fall we have gone outside; let us return to ourselves, turning away from the external. Reconciliation with God and spiritual kinship is impossible for us unless we return to ourselves and enter within. Only an inner life is truly Christian life. All the fathers speak about this.

            So the brother asked Avva Agathon: what is more important, physical labor or the preservation of the heart? The elder replied: a person is like a tree; physical labor is like leaves, and the preservation of the heart is like fruit. Since, according to Scripture, every tree that does not bear good fruit is uprooted and thrown into the fire, it is obvious that you should focus all your attention on the fruit, that is, on the preservation of the heart. However, for us, physical labor is also necessary.

            St. Lavrentius says: seal the doors of your cell for the body, the doors of your mouth for your tongue, and the internal doors for the evil spirits. Sit on a height (that is, establish your attention above the heart) and watch, if you are skilful, which and in what number of ways the Father approaches you to enter the vineyard of your heart and to enrich its vines. Having worked, the guardian (that is, listens to the heart), standing up, prays, then sits down again and bravely takes up the same task (that is, attention to the heart and prayer).

            St. Makarios the Great teaches: the main task of a struggler is to enter his heart, to create a struggle with Satan and to resist his thoughts, to fight against him.

            St. Isaac of the Syrian writes: Arise, enter your inner treasure, and you shall behold the treasures of heaven. The hiding-place of the kingdom of heaven is within you, that is, in your heart. Therefore, wash yourself of sin, and find rest in your heart: there you will acquire the degrees by which you may ascend to the heights.

            This is what the saying of Carpathia teaches: much effort and labor is needed in prayers to find the immobile state of thoughts, this is the inner heavenly heaven where Christ dwells, as the Apostle says:  do you not know that Christ lives in you.

Here are the words of St. Symeon the New Theologian: From the time when man was expelled from paradise and became distant from God, the devil and the demons have gained freedom day and night to move the imaginary power of every human being invisibly. There is no other way to protect oneself from this spirit than to constantly remember God. Whoever remembers God can restrain himself from wandering and control his mental power. This is what all the holy fathers teach. This is the greatest of all works, and almost everyone acquires it by instruction. Very rarely do people receive it directly from God, by virtue of their faith. Therefore, one should seek out a teacher who knows the matter. If there is no such teacher, then, after calling upon God for help in the chastening of the heart and in tears, one should do as I am telling you.

 The following are the instructions of Kallist the Elder and Ignatius the Xanthopuli, who describe their lessons on the inner formation of the heart in a total of one hundred sections contained in the Доблотолюбії (Part 2, pp. 56-131). The main points for us are as follows:

 The beginning of life with God is zeal and every diligent effort to live according to the saving commandments of Christ; the end is the perfect fulfillment of what was given to us by divine grace at baptism, or what is the same, to put on the new spiritual nature, as the divine Paul says: “My child, grow up in the Lord Jesus Christ, as long as Christ is present in you.”

 When we are baptized, St. Zlatousta says, our soul shines more than the sun, is cleansed by the Holy Spirit. Like pure silver lying in the sunlight, and it is the sunlight that emits, not by its nature, but because it is illuminated by the sun; so too is the soul that is purified in baptism, receiving the rays of glory from the Spirit, and itself is glorious within. But, alas! That glory, beyond description and terrific, stays with us only for a day or two, and then we banish it, bringing on a storm of life’s cares and passion.

 In the divine lying, that is, in the holy baptism, in the chalice, we receive the perfect divine grace. If we then hide it under the veil of life’s worries and passions, we can re-erect it again through repentance and the fulfillment of God’s commandments, and see its inherent light. This is in proportion to each person’s faith and the heat of his zeal to live the faith, especially with the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ. St. Mark says: Christ, the perfect God, granted to those who were baptized the grace of the Holy Spirit, which requires no program from us; it opens itself to us and is clearly manifested in us according to the fulfillment of commandments, until we reach the fulfillment of Christ’s commands as we grow older.

Therefore, since the beginning and the root of salvific action is to live according to the Lord’s commandments, and the end and the fruit are to restore the perfect grace of the Spirit given to us at first by baptism, which is hidden by passions and revealed again by the fulfillment of God’s commandments, it is fitting for us to confess this gift. Purify and see more clearly. The Servant of the Lord, John, says that he who keeps the Lord’s commandments with the Lord is with him. The Lord Himself explains this even more fully, saying: “Having My commandments and keeping them, you love Me; and if you love Me, you will be My Father, and I will love him, and I will appear to him Myself. When one loves Me, My word is kept, and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and build an abode for him”. . . .Let it be known that if we teach our mind to descend into the heart with the breath, we will also notice that when it descends there, it becomes one and naked, holding only one thought and the invocation of our Lord Jesus Christ; on the other hand, when it descends from there and stretches to external objects, it divides itself into many impressions and memories. For the sake of preserving the simplicity and solitude of the mind, the experienced fathers have prescribed that whoever eagerly sought to acquire the habit of keeping the mind in the heart should sit in a silent and dark place, especially in the beginning of this good act. For the sight of external objects naturally causes the dispersion of thoughts. When the silent and dark cell hides from us the external world, the thought ceases to be distracted and is more easily gathered into itself, as St. Basil the Great says: “The mind, which is not occupied with the senses in the world, turns towards itself.”

            Know further that all such adjustments of the body are prescribed, governed by detailed rules, and are considered necessary, as long as a pure and uncontaminated prayer does not take hold in the heart. When, however, by the favor and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we have arrived at this, by leaving many and various actions, we shall more and more be united in soul by the word to the one Lord, in pure and uncontaminated heart prayer, needing no such adjustments.

            Therefore, if you wish to attain a life of Christ Jesus by deeds, strive to reach a state in which at any time and in any hour, in any deed, you may earnestly and sincerely pray to the Lord in your heart, so that even in infancy you may be capable of attaining, with age, fullness of the performance of Christ Jesus. Do not forget at the same time that when, now and then, a spontaneous and pure prayer comes to you, you must in no case break it by your rules of prayer. This is what Philo teaches: “Whether night or day, the Lord will give you a pure and untainted prayer, so that you may leave your rules and, as far as you can, seek to linger with the Lord God, and He will enlighten your heart in spiritual works.”

            When, however, you come to a state of constant residence of prayer in the heart, then, as Isaac of Syria teaches, you have attained the end of all virtues and have become a dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit; then prayer does not cease, whether you sit or stand, eat or drink, or do anything else; even in deep sleep, the aroma of prayer will flow freely from the heart; if it should cease in sleep, however, it will still secretly and continually be sanctified, without ceasing.

A second group of instructions

1) Words of Isaih of The Assessor

            1) Attention is the uninterrupted absence of thoughts, a silence of the soul in which it breaths always and uninterruptedly [Christ Jesus] the Son of God and God, and by Him alone, constantly and uninterruptedly appeals, fights against His enemies with a steadfast heart, and has power to leave and confess sins (repent).

            2) Temperance is the firm determination and remaining of the soul at the gates of the heart; so that it sees the wanting to come of alien thoughts, these thieves, hears what they say and do, these spoilers, and perceives the demons they arrange and encircle in the likeness, seeking through the likeness to deprive the mind of sleep and to seduce it. If we will be hard to pass such an action, it will clearly show us the art of mental resistance (c 6).

3) Pictures of sobriety: the first is to look unremittingly towards prayer, or to take an example; the second – to always have a heart that is deeply silent and unutterably silent and unutterable by any thought; the third – to constantly call upon the help of the Lord Jesus Christ in humility; the fourth – to always have an unceasing remembrance of death in the soul; the fifth, the most effective of all, is to always look towards heaven, without blaming anything on earth (chapters 14-18).8) The devil roars like a lion, walking his troops, calling out for whom to swallow. Let us never stop paying attention to our hearts, be sober, control our thoughts and pray to our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of our life. For there is no better help than Jesus’s, and He alone is the Lord, as God, knows the demons, tricks and deceptions (chapter 39).13) The experienced and great David speaks to the Lord: “I will preserve my kingdom to you.” And our keeping of the heart’s and external peace, from which all virtues are born, depends on the help of the Lord who gave us commandments and repels us, when we fervently call upon Him, from the useless preoccupation which more often burns up the inner peace as fire burns water. Therefore, do not fall asleep from negligence to your own destruction, but on the name of Jesus beat down your opponents. That is the most delightful name and a nourishing breathing for you; and then you will discover the fruitfulness of peace (Chapter 100).17) What an amazing fruit for the mind from silence, where sins first strike the mind only with thoughts, in order that if they are accepted by the heart, they may become crude sins of the senses, all of which are cut off by the inner virtue of sobriety in our inner being, which does not allow them to enter and dwell within and within, and within Jesus Christ (chapter 111).21) In the matter of constant sobriety of mind, it is immediately discernable to see the dreams formed in the mind. In the matter of conversation – to detect and expose the thought that has made an attempt to enter the air of our mind by means of the apparition of some sensual object. The same thing that immediately extinguishes and disperses every intention of the opposers, every dream, every idol, and every pillar of wickedness, is the call of the Lord. And we ourselves see how strongly Jesus, our great God, strikes them down and how He protects us, the humble, the poor, and the unworthy (chapter 153).

22) A ship does not sail many miles without water; neither does one’s mind achieve success and preservation without sobriety, with humility, and with constant prayer to Jesus Christ (chapter 168).

23) From the constant prayer and thought of Jesus in our heart, the air is purified of the dark clouds and the winds of evil spirits. When the air of the heart is pure, nothing prevents the divine light of Jesus from shining in it, unless we rise to insolence and doubt, unless we are carried away to the unreachable, and unless we are deprived of Jesus’ help; because Christ hates such a thing, being the model of humility (chapter 175).

24) Just as letters should not be written in the air but rather carved on a solid body so that they can last a long time, so with our heavy sobriety we should combine the prayer of Jesus, so that the beautiful virtue of sobriety, together with Him, may remain whole in us, and through Him, in Him, among Him (chapter 183).

25) The preservation of the mind with the help of God and for the sake of the one God who works, being established in the soul, provides the mind with wisdom to lead the ascetic struggles for God; it also ensures the beneficiary’s ability to arrange external affairs and words with impeccable reasoning (chapter 194).

26) Blessed indeed is he who has so fixed his mind on the prayer of Jesus, that he calls out to Him constantly in his heart, just as the air attaches itself to our bodies, or the fire to the candle. The sun, passing over the earth, causes day to break, and the holy and honoured Lord Jesus, always shining in the heart, gives rise to myriads of sun-like thoughts (chapter 196).

27) When the clouds clear, the air is pure; when the truthful sun of Jesus Christ disperses the sensual dreams, the heart is usually filled with luminous and starry thoughts through the sanctification of the air of the heart by Jesus (chapter 197).3) Quotes by Theofya of Sinai

          7) In every hour and in every moment, let us constantly observe the keeping of our hearts from thoughts that darken the spiritual mirror in which we must be ennobled and inscribed the one Jesus Christ, who is the wisdom and power of God the Father. Let us constantly seek the kingdom of heaven within our hearts; and, certainly, we will find there within ourselves the seed, the bead, the leaven, and everything else if we cleanse the eye of our mind. For this reason, our Lord Jesus Christ said: “The kingdom of God is within you” (chap. 23), referring to the Divinity that resides within the heart.

          8) In the conduct of the inner struggle, do this: unite prayer with sobriety, and sobriety will strengthen prayer, and prayer will strengthen sobriety. Sobriety, constantly observing all that takes place within, discovers how the enemies are attempting to enter, and, by fortifying their entrance with its own strength, at the same time it calls upon the Lord Jesus Christ to drive out these wicked warriors. In this watchfulness, entrance is threatened in the form of contradiction; and the one being called forth by Jesus drives out those evil spirits with their dreams (chap. 25).

          9) Keep your mind under the most extreme vigilance. As soon as you notice an enemy’s thought, firmly refute it, but at the same time hasten to call upon the Lord Jesus Christ for help. The sweetest Jesus, when you speak, will say: “I am with you to give you help.” But after your prayer, when all these enemies have been subdued, continue to listen attentively to your mind. Here, once again, the waves of thoughts, which multiplied in the past, will suddenly come against you one after the other, so that the soul seems to sink into an abyss and is ready to perish. But the offended Jesus, as God, forbids the evil wind of thoughts, and they subside. You, having gained freedom from the attacks of the enemies, for an hour or a moment, glorify him who saved you and delve into thoughts of death (chap. 26).

          10) With every heartfelt attention in a spiritual sense, you will carry out your way of attention and prayer, being combined together daily, do something similar to the fiery chariot of Elijah, lifting up to the heavenly heights the one who is connected to them. And what am I saying? In the one who has established himself in sobriety, the pure heart becomes an imaginary heaven, with its own sun, moon and stars, becoming the abode of the inconceivable God through secret vision and ascension (imagination of the mind) (chap. 27).

3) Sayings of Feolypte, Metropolitan of Filadelfia

1) The setting of the sun makes night; and when Christ departs from the soul, darkness of passions takes her, and the wild beasts begin to torment her. The light of the sensual sun sets, and the beasts hide in their caves. Christ illuminates the mind that prays; and each world of sense departs, and the mind goes to its proper business, that is, to divine instruction until evening (letter 45).

            8) Believe me, I tell you the truth, that if you constantly have the mother of all goodness in mind in every work you do–the prayer–then it never goes out until it shows you the way to it, takes you inside, and brings about an ineffable beauty and joy. It overcomes all obstacles, smooths the path of chastity, and makes it suitable for those seeking (letter 48).

            9) While thinking, read the verbs of prayer, and converse with the Lord, crying continually and without weeping; constantly praying, following the ceaselessness of this widow who begged the unrestrained judge. Then (this shall mean) you will walk by spirit, not listen to carnal desires, and not cease the unceasingness of prayer by worldly thoughts, but be a temple of God, in which God is silently praised. Thus by thought, praying, you will finally achieve constant yearning for God, penetrate the inaccessible mysteries of the mind, see the invisible in the secret contemplations, alone serving God alone, into whom love is poured out in wisdom. (letter 48, ed.).

4) Words of Saint Barsonofius the Great and John the Prophet

            1) By the invocation of the name of God, enemies are weakened. Knowing this, we shall not cease to call on God’s name for help. This is a prayer, and the scripture says: “Always pray” (Response 422).

            2) Remember that God is a hearer of hearts; He looks into the heart, and call Him into your heart. This is what is said in the Scriptures: “Close your doors and pray to your Father who is in secret.” Let us close our mouths and pray to Him in our hearts; for whoever closes his mouth and calls on God, or prays to Him in his heart, fulfills the commandment in question (Response 427).

            3) The work of your heart must consist in constantly praying to God. If you wish to succeed in this, start from the beginning, and search diligently, hoping, and God will bless you with success (Response 26).

            4) Constant invocation of the name of God is a medicine that not only kills passions, but the very action of them. Just as a physician seeks a suitable remedy or plaster for a wounded person, and they take effect, and the patient does not even know how it is done: so indeed the name of God, when it is called, kills all passions, though we do not know how it is done (Response 421).

5) The Lord said: “Ask and it will be given to you.” Pray to the Almighty God, and He shall send you the Holy Spirit of Comforter, and He who has come shall teach you everything and reveal all the sacraments to you. Find Him in your guide; He will not allow anything to distract you, nor will He allow thoughts of carelessness, disarray or laziness. He will enlighten your eyes, strengthen your heart, and raise your mind. Accept Him, believe in Him, and love Him (see Pt. 136).2) When the lie spread in Alexandria and its neighborhood, he left and went to Lavra Nikanorov. Blessed Sophia, when she received him, gave him her separate lodging and set him apart to live in silence. During the entire year, no one was permitted to see him, and he himself hardly bothered him except when he brought him bread when he needed it. Holy Christmas came. When they saw each other and began discussing his monastic life, Filimon realized that the pious brother Sophia too nourished a high-minded ambition (to live as a hermit), and showed him many pious sayings, both written and unwritten, thus proving that without a perfect solitude one cannot please God. As expressed in the trial of Moses, it is impossible to fail to practice any form of asceticism. Asceticism engenders grief, grief engenders fear, fear engenders humility, humility engenders discernment, discernment engenders love, and love makes the soul healthy and free from any impurity, so that one knows that he is near to God.3) He (Philimon) said to him: it is necessary by means of silence to completely purify the mind and give it continuous spiritual activity. Just as an eye, by looking at the sensible, is amazed by the visible, so that the pure mind, by looking at reasoning, becomes bewitched by the spiritually contemplated, so that it cannot be taken away from it. And the more it is revealed through silence from passions and purified, the more it becomes acceptable and the more it is acted upon by the spirit of spiritual things. The perfected mind is when it tastes the essence of the activity and becomes united with God. Then it, having the dignity of a king, no longer feels poverty and is not enamored of worldly desires, even if you offer it all the kingdoms. Therefore, if you want to attain such virtues, run away from the world and with diligence follow the path of the holy, leave the concern for your outward appearance, wear poor clothing and modest adornment. Keep your actions simple, your speech unpretentious, your speech immoral, your voice unskillful. Love to live in poverty and be despised by all. Most of all, be careful about preserving your mind and sobriety, be patient in every hardship and preserve the spiritual blessings you have already received intact and immovable. Carefully consider yourself and do not accept any of the passions that sneak in secretly. For although silence restrains the passions of the soul, if they are given time to flare up and intensify, they usually become even more inflamed, and those who allow this, with even greater force, lead them into sin. Likewise, bodily wounds that are rubbed and torn apart are incurable. Perhaps one word can distract the mind from the remembrance of God, when demons are hungry for it, and the senses agree with them. The great feat and fear is to preserve the soul. Therefore, it is necessary to completely withdraw from the world and, having torn the soul from all sensuality, to become homeless, homeless, ownerless, silverless, selfless, carefree, alone, ignorant of worldly affairs, humble, compassionate, charitable, gentle, gentle, quiet, quiet, and laid up in one’s heart. For it is not possible to write on wax without first erasing the letters marked there, as the Great Basil teaches us. Such was the image of the saints, who, having completely withdrawn from all worldly customs and preserving their hearts untroubled by heavenly wisdom, were enlightened by divine laws and radiated with godly deeds and words, “dying the worldly’s care with sobriety, the fear of God, and love” (Philippians 4:4). For incessant prayer and study of divine writings open the discerning eyes of the heart and see the King of power, and there is great joy, and the divine desire, full of passion, bursts forth in the heart, while the body is preserved at the same time, by the action of the Spirit, and the whole person becomes spiritual. This is what is loved by the creators of blissful silence and the most rigorous ascetic way of life, who, having set themselves apart from all human pleasure, speak incessantly to the only King in heaven.4) Listening to this, that pious brother, being overwhelmed by divine love in his soul, left his place and, together with this Filimon, reached the hermitage where the greatest monks had made the way of virtue. They settled there, entrusting their care to the economy of the Lavra, since they wanted to live in silence. And they remained there by the grace of God in complete silence, celebrating liturgical gatherings on Saturdays and on Sundays, while on other days they remained in seclusion; each one performed prayer and service in a special way.9) A certain brother named Yovan, having rushed out of the crowd, came to the holy and great father Philip; and, embracing his feet, said to him: What shall I do, father? For my mind goes and soars here and there, where it should not go. And he, after a little silence, said: this disease (of the soul) is a prerogative of those who are external, and it is in them. And it is in you, because you have not yet received love for God, and the heat of love and knowledge of Him has not yet come to you. The brother says to the elder: What shall I do, father? He said to him: Go, take the hidden teaching into your heart, and it shall purify your mind from this. The brother, not having been initiated into the things that were shown him, says to the elder: What is this hidden teaching, father? And he said to him: Go, be sober in your heart, and in your mind, speaking with temperance and fear and trembling, say: Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me! Thus gives instruction the beginning and the blessed Diadochos.11) The brother asked him again: I see many vain dreams while I sleep. The old man said to him: Do not be lazy or cowardly; before you fall asleep, do a great deal of prayer in your heart and resist the thoughts and movements of the devil to lead you by his will. Let God accept you. As far as you can, pay attention to the fact that you fall asleep with Psalms on your lips and with wise instruction, and do not let your mind be carried away by the thoughts of others, but with what thoughts you pray, so you will incline towards sleep and on your bed, so that when you sleep, they may be in you and when you are in them. Speak the holy symbol of the Orthodox faith before you fall asleep, for the right faith in God is the source and protection of all good things.“Here is what he was saying to him: Think about the things that are fleeting, which are in the soul, they are the sickness of a perfect soul that has given over to carelessness; this is why, according to the Scriptures, we are obliged to hold on to our reason, to sing with discretion, and to pray with a pure mind. So, brother, God wants us to show a diligence towards Him, first by works, then by love, and by incessant prayer, and He will give us the way of salvation. It is clear that there is no other path that leads to heaven, except for the complete removal of all evil, the acquisition of all good, the perfect love of God, and a life with Him in a state of virtue and truth, so that when one’s soul is in this state, it will soon be drawn to the heavenly glory. But while doing so, anyone who wishes to ascend must immediately put an end to vices that exist on earth. For when our soul delights in the contemplation of true good, it no longer returns to any of the passions that are aroused by the sweet delights of sin; on the contrary, by turning away from all bodily pleasures, it receives the manifestation of God with a pure and honest mind. Therefore, we need great self-preservation, much bodily labor and purification of the soul, entrusting ourselves to God so that we may perform His divine commandments without sin, and may have Him teach us to observe His laws by radiating His acts on us through the grace of the Spirit. By works and temptations, we are to purify the image in which we were originally created as rational beings capable of understanding and sharing in God’s glory, clothed in feelings pure from all defilement through the refining them in the furnace of temptations, and being fashioned into royal dignity. God and humanity created Him as co-heir to all good that can be thought through the contemplation of the angels’ joy, dominion, strength, beginning, power, inaccessible light, and glorious glory. But when you improve your virtue, do not let your arrogance take away from your brother; you have improved it, and he has become envious. When you are battling a temptation, let not your mind despair or weaken when it is ungently resisting; but upon standing up, place your self before God, and sincerely say with the prophet, ‘O Lord, judge those who persecute me’; for I am not strong against them. When you are traveling with someone, do not engage in petty conversation, but give the spiritual mind a spiritual action that it should have to instill in him this good habit and forget the worldly sweets, so that he may not leave the harbor of detachment.”13) After a while, he came again and began to speak, asking: What should I do, father? During my night vigil, sleep overtakes me and prevents me from praying with my mind clear and from meditating on God; and I want to take up the work of farming while I am singing. To this, the old monk said: When you can pray with a clear mind, do not touch the farm; but if you are overcome with drowsiness, lean a little towards the thought and silence it, then touch the farm. He questioned again: Do you yourself, father, not become sleepy during your ministry? The old monk said: Not so easily; but when drowsiness arises, I lean a little and begin reading from the beginning of the Gospel of John, turning the eye of my reason toward God. And it disappears immediately. In the same way, I face thoughts as a fire with tears, and they disappear. But you, too, cannot still yourself against them; however, keep heartfelt instruction and try to perform the daily prayers prescribed by the holy elders, such as the third, sixth, ninth and vigil services. And with all your strength, try not to do anything for human vanity and be careful not to have quarrel with anyone in the brotherhood so as to move away from God. Also, try to keep your thoughts neither scattered, but attentive to inner thoughts. When you are in church and intend to receive the holy sacraments of Christ, do not leave it until you receive the perfect world. Standing in one place, do not depart from it until the end of the service. In your mind, think that you are on heaven, and you are awaiting the eternal presence of God with holy angels, prepared to receive Him into your heart; prepare yourself for this with fear and reverence, so that you may be a worthy recipient of the holy powers.14) A brother of his, who was living with him, told the following: Once, while he was sitting by his side, I asked him: Have you been tempted by demonic suggestions, while living in the desert? And he said: Forgive me, brother, if God allows the devil to tempt you with temptations similar to what I experienced, then I do not think that you will be able to bear their bitterness. I am seventy years old, or with an addition, I have endured many temptations while living in various deserts in complete silence; what I experienced and endured from these demons, it is not worthwhile to tell those who have not yet been tempted by silence. In such temptations, I always did this: I placed all my trust in God, to whom I gave the vows of abstinence, and He soon saved me from every need. Why, brother, do I no longer make any effort on my own; but knowing that He cares for me, I easily endure the temptations that befall me. And all I bring to Him is to constantly pray. Much helps with this is the hope that the more severe the suffering and misfortunes, the more they prepare crowns for the patient: for in the righteous Judge, both these and those balance each other out. Knowing this, brother, do not yield to cowardice. You have entered the middle of a struggle to fight, and fight, bearing in mind and encouraging yourself with the fact that there are very many who are fighting against the enemy of our race, more than the enemy’s hordes. And how could we have had the courage to resist such a terrible adversary of our race, if God the Word’s almighty power had not held us, guarded us, and covered us? How would the human race have withstood the poisonous traps of the enemy? For as Job says, Who will open the door of his clothing? Or who will come to his destruction? From his breath there are flashes of fire, and the sparks of the fire are scattered. From the nostrils of his breath there is smoke of a coal-fire that is burning. His soul is like a coal, and from his mouth there are flames. On his neck is the strength, and in front of him is ruin. His heart is like a stone; it stands motionless like an anvil. He kindles the abyss like a copper furnace, and the sea is calmed as a peaceful harbor, and the chasm is like a trench. All that is lofty he sees himself as a king over all beings in the waters.

15) His brother related one other virtue of Abba Filimon which was this: he could not stand to hear a barren word, and if anyone, not remembering, spoke something that did not pertain to the welfare of the soul, he gave no response to it at all. Likewise, when I was going on any matter, he did not ask, ‘Why are you going?’ And when I returned, he did not say, ‘Where have you been?’ or ‘What and how did you do?’ One day I set out for Alexandria for a necessary matter, and from there, on account of a church matter, I made my way to Constantinople, not informing the old man of my journey; after spending there sufficient time, visiting the pious brothers there, I at last returned to him in the monastery. Seeing me, the old man grieved, and with his customary greeting, having made a prayer, he sat down; but he did not ask me anything at all, but was engaged with his usual wise activity.18) Then he added the story of a hermit, saying that he had already attained impartiality and received bread from an angel, but had lost such honor through distraction. For when the soul relaxes its unbroken and concentrated attention of the mind, then it is penetrated by that night; where there is no God, all is spread out, as in darkness; and then the soul cannot see to the one God and tremble at his words. The Lord says: God is near to me, not God from afar. Or does a man hide himself in secret places; and will I not see him? Do I fill the heaven and the earth? And he mentioned many others, similar to the afflicted, who had experienced the same. He also brought up the downfall of Solomon, who, he said, acquired such wisdom and was so praised by everyone, because as the morning star that ascends in the morning, he illuminated everyone with the light of wisdom; but for a small favor he lost such glory. Therefore, it is terrible to indulge in laziness; but it is necessary to pray incessantly, so that some other plan may not distract us from God, and instead of Him not bring our minds to something else. Only a pure heart, having become the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, can see God in its entirety as in a mirror.

19) Hearing this, a man named Filimonus, with the magician Avva, said to me, and, looking at his good works, I perceived that all bodily passions had ceased in him entirely, and that he was a diligent seeker of every perfection, so that he was always seen undergoing transfiguration by the divine Spirit and from glory to glory. Anyone who understands and weighs himself (or who keeps himself on the scales) and endeavors in every way to prevent anything from disturbing the purity of his mind and some insidious disturbance from reaching him. Seeing this, I felt incited to a passion for this way of life, and I eagerly appealed to him for help, saying: How can I acquire the purity of my mind like yours? He said: Go – work, because labor is necessary for that and a sickness of the heart. Spiritual goods worthy of diligent searching and labor cannot be obtained by us if we lay on our couches and sleep. Earthly goods are not obtained easily for anyone. Therefore, anyone who wishes to prosper must first renounce their desires and acquire nonstop crying and misfortune, not bother with the sins of others, and their own only, and cry day and night over them, and have no frivolous friendship with anyone of the people: for a soul afflicted with the memory of former sins is dead to the world, just as the world is dead to it, that is, the body’s passions cease to work, and man becomes uncontrollable by those passions. Moreover, the one who has renounced the world and united with Christ, and in silence, the one who loves God, preserves His image and becomes rich in His likeness; for from above, he receives the favor from God, and becomes the home of God, not demons, and performs righteous deeds to God.

& nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; In whom at the beginning of the contemplation there is no dwelling in the heart of grief, neither spiritual tears, nor remembrance of endless suffering, nor true silence, nor incessant prayer, nor psalm singing and instruction in the divine Scriptures, in whom it does not become a habit, so that through continuity, due to constant distraction from the mind, and the fear of God does not reign in his soul: he still rests on the fellowship with the world and cannot have a pure mind in prayer; for only piety and the fear of God cleanse the soul of passions and, by making the mind free, lead it into the natural contemplation of its nature, and give it the opportunity to touch on theology, which he sees in the image of bliss (blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God) – this is for those who please, a still unwavering state.

20. This and more about this brother, who lived with Avva, also astonished one in another aspect, as a demonstration of his great humility. Having been ordained to the diaconate many years before, and having thus touched the heaven with his life and mind, he avoided holy sacraments as a burden, so that he very rarely consented to go to the holy table for the sacrament (for the priesthood). But he did not receive the divine sacraments, despite such a life constantly in danger, even if he was forced to enter into communication with people, although no earthly matters were discussed with him. And when he had the intention to receive the divine sacraments, he often pestered God with his prayers, hymns, and confessions. He dreaded the priest’s voice, who spoke about the sanctity of the saints. For at this time, he said, the whole church is filled with holy angels. And the King of Power Himself, mysteriously sacrifiying, transforms the bread and wine into His own body and blood, so that, through the holy Eucharist, they are poured out in our hearts. Why, he reasoned, should we not boldly and cleanly receive the holy sacrament of the divine Mysteries, so that we may partake of the enlightenment that came from them. Many of the holy Fathers beheld holy angels, who warned them (against all that was not of God), so they preserved a profound silence, speaking not with anyone.21) Here is one of the things the brother said when he had to sell his work himself, so that there would be no deception or any other kind of sin, whether it was a lie, an indulgence, or a superfluous word, or any other kind of sin, to talk and bargain, he would pretend to be a hermit; and anyone who wanted to buy his work would take it from him and pay for what he wanted. He worked small baskets, and he accepted them gratefully, without saying a word.2) Before you begin, bow your head and do not let your thoughts wander away from you.

Well, you know, Batcheka, remember that last year I left here with a deaf old man, having a letter from an Irkutsk merchant’s son to Odessa, so that I could be sent to Jerusalem. So we safely reached Odessa in no time. My companion immediately hired a place on a ship to Constantinople and left, while I, having stayed behind, went in search of the letter of the merchant’s son from Irkutsk. Soon, having found his apartment, to my great surprise and regret, I found this benefactor of mine not alive: three weeks had passed since his short illness, and he had been buried. This upset me greatly, but I put myself in God’s hands. All the household were in poverty, and the deceased’s widow, left with three small children, was so miserable that she wept constantly, fell several times a day, and suffered; it seemed that she would not live long under such deep sorrow. However, she welcomed me warmly; since it was beyond their means, according to their circumstances, to send me to Jerusalem, she left me to stay with her for a couple of weeks, until the deceased’s father arrived here in Odessa to manage, settle the accounts, and arrange the trading affairs of the orphaned family. So I stayed behind.Finally, after going 70 leagues from Odessa, I met a wonderful event: a large wagon train with goods—about thirty of them—was passing along the road, and I caught up with them. One of the foremen, like a leader, was walking on his horse, and the others, having gathered together, were walking behind. I had to pass by a running pond, where the broken spring ice was spinning and melting into water in a circle, with a terrible noise. Suddenly, the front young wagon driver stopped his horse, and the whole wagon train stopped. All the wagon drivers came up to him and saw that he was getting undressed. They asked him why he was taking off his clothes. And they received the answer that he wanted to take a bath in the pond. The astonished drivers began to laugh at him, some scolding him, calling him a madman, and the older, close brother of the driver who was undressing, began to stop him and push him to continue driving. He defended himself and did not want to obey. A few of the young drivers began to fill buckets with water from the pond and splash at the one who wanted to take a bath—some at his head, some at his collar, saying, “Look, we are buying him.” As soon as his body was touched by the water, he cried out: “Oh, how good!” and sat down on the ground, and they continued to splash him; then, after a while, he lay down and quietly died. Everyone was frightened, not understanding why this had happened. The elders were concerned and talked about the need to report this to the court, while others concluded that he fate had already written him such a death.

– I don’t know what to say to you about this, my dear brother, except that there are many wonderful and inexplicable things in nature. This, I think, is how God has arranged it to make our reason more clearly aware of the order and purpose of nature in the unnatural and immediate changes of its laws under certain circumstances… I myself once witnessed a similar incident: not far from our village there is a very deep and steep gorge, though not very large; even it is frightfully difficult to look at its dark bottom. For pedestrians there is a makeshift bridge over it. A peasant from my parish, a family man and of good conduct, suddenly felt an irresistible desire to throw himself off the bridge into that deep stream. He fought with this thought and urge for a whole week; at last he could no longer withstand this strong impulse, he got up in the morning, hurried out, and jumped into the stream. Soon, hearing his moans, he was pulled out of the river with his legs broken. When asked about the reason for his fall, he replied that although he now felt a great pain, he was calm in his soul, having fulfilled his irresistible desire, which had been upsetting him all week, and that he was ready to give his life to carry out his wish. He was treated in a city hospital for more than a year; I visited him frequently, and, seeing doctors near him, I would also like, like you, to hear from them about the reason for this incident. The doctors answered me unanimously that it was a “rage”… When I asked them to explain the nature of this strange condition to me, in the name of science, I heard nothing more from them than that this was a mystery of nature, as yet unexplained by science… And I myself noticed that if a person were to turn to people for help with this mysterious “rage”, he would not achieve his goal. Indeed, in our lives there are many events that cannot be explained clearly…

While we were talking like this, it became dark, and I stayed there overnight. In the morning, the stationery sent a permit for the body to be buried on the cemetery and that the doctor had found no signs of insanity during the autopsy and that the man’s death was due to a sudden stroke.

– Here you see, the priest said to me, even medical science was unable to determine the cause of his irresistible urge to water.

So, saying goodbye to the priest, I went on.

Traveling for several days and feeling quite tired, I came to a large town called “White Church.” As it was already late in the afternoon, I began looking for a place to stay. A man, also resembling a wanderer, approached me and asked about the house of a local resident named Jevreinov. When he saw me, he said: “It seems you are a traveler too. Let’s go together and find some local tradesman named Jevreinov; he is a good Christian, runs a rich inn and loves to welcome travelers. Here is a note I have about him.” I agreed, and we soon found him. Although we did not meet the owner of the house, his wife, a kind old woman, welcomed us kindly and took us up to one of the rooms on the attic for rest. We settled in, took a little rest, and then the master came in and invited us to have dinner with him. At the dinner we talked, and somehow the conversation came to the reason he is called Jevreinov. “I will tell you a wonderful story about this,” he replied, and began his story. “Look, you see, my father was a Jew, born in the town of Shklova, and he was an enemy of Christians. From a very young age, he prepared to be a rabbi and diligently studied all the Jewish intrigues to refute Christianity. One time he happened to walk through a Christian cemetery; as he wandered there, he saw a foot, pulled out of a recently dug-up grave.

         After dinner, having thanked God and the host, we went to our room to rest. Sleeping was not yet desired, and we talked with a companion. He told me that he was a Mogilev merchant, had lived in Bessarabia for two years as a servant in one of the local monasteries, but only under a temporary passport, and was now going to his homeland to obtain permanent exemption from the merchant’s society to the monastic order. He praised the monasteries there, their statutes and regulations, and the strict life of many pious elders who lived there, and assured us that the Bessarabian monasteries were opposed to Russians as heaven is to earth. He took me there. At this time, as we were having these conversations, they brought another lodger to us, it was an officer who had been discharged from the army for a while and was going on home leave. We saw that he was very tired from the journey. After praying together to God, we went to sleep. When we got up early in the morning, we began to prepare to leave. And just as we wanted to thank the host, we suddenly heard the morning service. We and the merchant began to think: how will we go, hearing the service and not having visited the church of God? It is better to stay for morning service, pray in the holy temple, and then it will be more pleasant for us to go. We decided to do so, and we took the officer with us. And he said to us: “Whatever excuse there is in the road, and what profit for God, that we visited the church? Once we come home, we will pray there! Go when you want, and I will not go. While you are spending the morning service, I will go a few miles ahead, and take whatever you want to the house: ’ pray in advance, as God will bring!&#82”

           o. And then, what’s this! As I bade you farewell and set off, I felt like going into the inn to exchange some of my money for small change and drink a few jiggerfuls just to make it easier for me to walk. So I went in, changed my money and flew like a bird along the road. After walking three paces I wanted to count my money to see if the innkeeper had counted everything right. I sat down by the side, took out my wallet, checked everything again, and then suddenly I saw my passport, which was lying right there, and yet, as if by magic, it was gone; there were just some notes and some money. So I was scared as if I’d lost my head. And I suddenly realized that I must have brought it with me when I was paying in the inn. I should have gone back. I hurried off and then there was trouble again: there was no passport there! I’m in real trouble! When I ran back I asked the innkeeper, and he said, “I didn’t see anything.” Again I felt very sad. I would have had to search, search all over the places where I had been standing, and tread on everything. And what happened? Luckily I found my passport, folded up, lying there on the floor among the straw and the rubbish, all crumpled up in the mud. Thank God! I cheered up. It was as if a heavy mountain had fallen from my shoulders! Although for scruffiness and for being dirty by the steps they will beat you up thoroughly, but it’s nothing. At least I’ll be home and on my way back with my eyes open. And I’ve come to tell you about this, and, frightened, I rubbed my leg against the mud so much that I can’t walk now, and I’m asking for tar to bind up the wound,

            – Втім, так є, брат! Це тобі за те, що не послухався і не пішов з нами помолитися, – почав говорити купець. – Ось ти хотів далеко вперед нас піти, але навпроти до нас повернувся, та ще й окульгав. Я тобі казав, що не загадуй уперед, як і вийшло! А мало того, що не пішов до церкви, а ще говорив такі слова: «Що за користь Богові, що ми молімося». Це, брат, недобре… Звичайно, Бог не потребує нашої грішної молитви, але, за любов’ю до нас в Своєму, любить, коли ми молімося. І не тільки священна молитва, яку Сам Безсмертний Дух сприяє приносити і збуджує в нас, тобі приємна, бо Він цього від нас вимагає, заповідаючи: «Будьте в Мені й Аз в вас», але цінує навіть кожну, мабуть, невелику справу, яку заради Його ви робите, ще кожен намір до спасіння, спонукання до Того, хто є безмежний Творець і господар всього на землі. За все це безмежне милосердя Боже нагородить щедро. Любов Божа дає благодійницькими добривами в тисячу разів більше, ніж цю гідну людьми доброту; якщо ти зробиш для Бога на незначний внесок, то Він дасть тобі златицею. Якщо ти тільки виходиш з серця сказати: «Прийми мене! помилуй мене!», Тоді Він вже обіймає шею твою і піднімає тебе. Ось яка любов Небесного Батька до нас негідна! І з цієї однієї любові Він радіє і про кожен і найменший наш спасительський рух. Тобі видається: яка слава звідси Господа і користь для тебе в тому, якщо ти трохи помолишся, а потім знову розважишся, або хоч і побудеш якусь незначну добру справу. Наприклад, прочитаєш якусь молитву, поклонишся п’ять чи десять разів; зітхнеш від серця та покличеш ім’ Я Ісуса Христа, або помітиш якусь добро спонукання думати, або розташуєшся прочитати щось спасенне, або утримаєшся від їжі, або перенесеш малу образу в мовчанні… Все це вважаєш недостатнім для досконалого твого спасіння і якби безплідне. Ні! кожне з цих малих діянь не пропаде в туні, всі буде вираховано Всевидячим Оком Божим і отримає сторичну нагороду не тільки у вічності, а й в цьому житті. Це стверджує і св. Іоанн Золотоустий. «Ніяке добро, – каже він, — хоч би як невелике, не буде зневажене Судом правдивим. Якщо гріхи досліджуються з такою подробицею, що ми даємо відповідь за слова, за бажання і за помисли, то якомога добріші справи, хоч би якими вони були малими, вираховуються з особливою подробицею і вічністю».

I will give you an example, which I saw personally during the past year. In the Besarabsky Monastery where I lived, there was an elder of good life. Once he was tempted, and he really wanted dried fish. And since it was not possible to get it in the monastery at that time, he intended to go to the market and buy it… He struggled with this thought for a long time and thought that a monk should be content with the communal brotherhood meal and should try to avoid lustfulness as much as possible, and also to walk around on the market in a crowd of people. Finally, the insidious reproach gained the upper hand over his reasoning, and he, indulging in self-will, decided to go for the fish. Leaving the cloister and walking down the city street, he noticed that he did not have a stick in his hand, and he began to reason: “How shall I go, as a soldier without a sword? It is improper, and the worldly people, meeting people, will condemn me and be tempted to see a monk without a stick. “He wanted to turn back to get them, but, looking in his pockets, he found them there. He took them out, crossed himself, put his hand on them and walked quietly. Approaching the market, he saw a horse standing near the stalls, with a huge wagon of huge boxes. Suddenly, the horse, frightened of something, rushed away with all its might and hit the hooves; it fell on him and, hooking his shoulder, threw him to the ground, though not very harshly. Immediately after that, two steps from him, the wagon overturned and the sack was completely torn apart. Immediately standing up, he was both frightened and surprised that God had saved his life, because if the sack had fallen just a little earlier, he too would have been shattered to pieces, like the wagon. Without thinking about this any further, he bought the fish, returned, ate it, and, after praying, went to sleep… In a dream, a stranger noble old man appeared before him and said: “Listen, I am the patron of this monastery and I want to advise you so that you understand and remember the lesson, how the struggle with sensual enjoyment and laziness in self-awareness and self-sacrifice gave the enemy leverage to attack you and he had prepared for you this fatal accident that exploded before your eyes. If you had heeded this warning and expressed it honestly, then it was precisely this that saved you from death. Having said this, the old man who appeared suddenly left the cell, and the monk bowed to him at the knees and with this awakened, finding himself no longer on a bed, but humbly stretched out at the entrance to the door. This vision he immediately told for the benefit of many, including me.Indeed, God’s love towards us, sinners, is truly unfathomable! How strange is it that for the slightest thing, for taking a handful of coins from your pocket and putting it on your hand and calling out the name of God, a person is given life! And on the scales of human life, a brief moment of Jesus Christ’s call has outweighed many hours spent in idleness… Indeed, here, for a small contribution, namely a gold coin, is given an incredibly powerful prayer, and the powerful name of Jesus Christ, which we invoke! St. John of Karpathos, in the book titled “Almsgiving,” says that when we call out the name of Jesus in prayer and say, “Have mercy on me, sinner,” a secret voice of God answers, “Child, your sins are forgiven for this hour.” In prayer, therefore, we do not differ from the saints, the righteous, and the martyrs, for, as St. John Chrysostom says, “a prayer, even though it is uttered by us, sinners, is immediately purified” (Homilies, 2). God’s great mercy towards us, and we, sinners and carefree, do not want to give even a small hour to Him in thanksgiving and exchange the time of prayer, which is the most important thing, for life’s worries and concerns, forgetting God and our duty! Therefore, we often fall into misfortune and trouble, but this, to our understanding and to our turning to God, determines God’s benevolent providence.He took out a book from his pocket and began to read a wonderful story about a pious Agaphonikos who, from childhood, was taught by his devout parents to read before the icon of the Mother of God the prayer ‘Hail Mary’ and other prayers. He did this every day. Then, in full adulthood, he began to live on his own, taking care of all his earthly affairs, and soon he was barely reading these prayers at all, and finally he abandoned them completely. One evening he took in a stranger who told him that he was a hermit from Fyveidi, and that he had seen a vision that he should go to Agaphonikos and reprove him for abandoning the prayer to the Mother of God. Agaphonikos believed that he abandoned the prayer because he had been praying it for many years and saw no benefit from it. Then the hermit told him: “Remember, you blind and ungrateful one, how many times this prayer has helped you and delivered you from adversity. For example, your friend fell off the cart. He broke his leg, but you didn’t suffer any injury. And when he reminded Agaphonikos of many more such incidents, he finally said to him: ‘Know, then, that all such events have been turned away from you by the intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos for the short prayer with which you daily awakened your soul to union with God … Look, continue on and do not abandon it. You have been abandoned by Her.’

After this, I walked for five days, enjoying the recollection of the stories I had heard from the pious merchant from Bila Tserkva. Then I was approaching Kiev when, suddenly out of nowhere, I felt a heaviness, a sense of relaxation, and vague thoughts came upon me. Prayer was difficult, and I felt a surge of distraction. So, to rest, having seen a wood and a dense bush alongside the road, I went there to take a seat in a secluded hut and read The Loving Kindness to strengthen my weary soul and calm my cowardice. Finding a silent village, I began to read St Cassian the Roman in the 4th part of The Loving Kindness, about eight temptations. After reading for half an hour with delight, I suddenly saw a man 50 yards behind me, deep in the woods, standing motionlessly on his knees. I felt such an emotion, thinking that he must be praying to God, so I continued reading. After reading for an hour or more, I looked at this man again, and he was still standing motionless. I found this very touching and thought, “Look, what devout servants of God are like!” As I was thinking about this, the man suddenly fell to the ground and lay there quietly. This surprised me and, since I could not see his face because he was standing face to face to me, I became curious and went to see who this man was. Approaching, I found him in a deep sleep. This was a 25-year-old village boy, beautiful in the face and of noble stature, but pale in appearance, wearing a peasant jacket, belted with a string, and with nothing else beside him – neither a bag nor even a cane. Upon hearing my step, he woke up and got up. I asked him who he was. He told me that he was a state peasant from Smolensk province, coming from Kiev.

            — Here you are, I said, unfortunately, I was poor since my childhood. I used to go with the shepherds in our village and for ten years everything went well. Finally, one day, while driving the flock home, I didn’t notice that the best of my sheep was missing. And our village elder was an angry and brutal fellow. When he came home in the evening and saw that his sheep were gone, he came to me, started scolding me and threatening to beat me to death and break my hands and legs. Knowing that he was so angry, I went in search of the missing sheep in places where the herd had been pastured during the day. I searched, searched, searched further into the night, but nowhere could I hear anything. The night was so dark, because the time was autumn. When I entered the depths of the forest, and the forests in our province were impassable, suddenly a storm rose. It was as if the trees were shaking! In the distance, wolves howled, and I was overcome with such fear that my hair stood on end; the further I went, the worse it became, and I almost collapsed from fear and terror. Here I fell to my knees, crossed myself, and with all my might said: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” As soon as I said this, suddenly it became easy for me, as if there had been no trouble, and all my fear passed, and I felt so well on my heart, as if I had flown to heaven… I rejoiced at this, but I prayed continuously. And I do not even remember how long the storm lasted, and how the night passed, and I looked – it was already dawn, and I was standing on one spot on my knees. I rose calmly, saw that I could not find the sheep, and went home, and my heart was all right, and I wanted to say the prayer. As soon as I came to the village, the village elder, seeing that I had not brought the sheep, beat me to death; that’s when he dislocated my leg. So I lay for six weeks after these beatings almost immobile, only knowing that I was saying my prayer, and it comforted me. Then I recovered a little, and began to walk across the world; but as it seemed to me that it was boring to push myself among people all the time, and that there was a lot of sin, I went wandering around holy places and through the forests. So I am now travelling a year.”

While listening to this, I rejoiced in my soul at the thought that the Lord had given me the chance to see such a person of grace, and I asked him: “And now do you often engage in that prayer?”

— It is impossible not to do so, he replied, whenever I remember how well I felt in the forest, as if someone pushed me to fall to my knees, and I will pray… I don’t know how acceptable my sinful prayer is, because, while praying, I sometimes feel a great joy, and I don’t know why, a lightness, a relief, distress; but at the same time I always want to pray until death.

· Do not be disturbed, dear brother: everything is for the sake of God and everything is good, whether it is during prayer, say the Holy Fathers, whether it is lightness or heaviness – everything is good; no prayer, neither good nor bad, goes unnoticed before God. Lightness, warmth and comfort show that God rewards and comforts us for this effort, and severity, gloominess, dryness mean that God purifies and strengthens the soul and saves it with this useful endurance, preparing it with humility for the future gracious joy. Take this as proof.  I found this article here and read it to him. He listened carefully and with pleasure and thanked me very much for it. So we said goodbye. He went completely into the forest, and I, having left the road, continued my way, thanks to God, who graced me, the sinful one, to receive such instruction.  The next day, with God’s help, I came to Kiev. My first and main desire was to talk, confess, and receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ in this blessed place, so I stayed closer to the Bishops Saints, so that it would be more convenient to walk to the house of God. I was welcomed into a good old Cossack’s house, and since he lived alone, it was quiet and silent for me. For the week I was preparing for confession, it occurred to me to confess as thoroughly as possible. I began to recall and list all my sins from my youth in great detail, so that I would not forget anything; I began to write everything I remembered down to the smallest detail and wrote a large sheet. I felt that 7 verst from Kiev, in Kytaevska Pushtelia, there is a spiritual person of ascetic life and very wise and prudent, one who does not visit him with his mind, comes to understand compassion and returns with an urgent admonition and lightness in his soul. This greatly comforted me and I immediately went to him. After consulting and talking, I gave him my sheet for consideration. After reading this, he said to me:  “Dear friend, you have written a lot of useless things. Listen: 1) you must not utter those sins at confession that you have previously repented of and have been forgiven, and that you have not repeated, or else it will be a lack of trust in the power of the sacrament of confession; 3) the Holy Fathers forbid confessing sins in all their details, but to confess them in general, so as not to excite temptations in yourself and in the confessorby private examination of them; you have read everything, but most importantly you have omitted.  You have not announced the most serious of sins, nor have you recognized and written them down, that “you do not love God, you hate your neighbor, you do not believe in the Word of God, and you are full of pride and vanity”  – all the abysses of evil are contained in all sins, and all the branches of our sins. The greater the sins, the more they convey every detail of our sins, the more they convey everything.  Hearing this, I was surprised, and began to say: “Pardon me, blessed Father, how can I not love God, the Creator and our Defender! I have nothing good.  “

            It is a pity, dear friend, that you have understood so little of what I have explained to you. In order to teach you more quickly, here is a checklist by which I myself always confess. Read it, and you will clearly see the exact proofs of what I have been saying to you.

            The priest gave me the checklist, and I began to read it.

Confession of the inner man, leading to humility

            “Attentively turning my eyes within and observing the course of my inner state, I have experientially convinced myself that I do not love God, do not have love for the neighbor, do not believe in anything religious, and am full of pride and vanity. All this I find in myself by means of a detailed examination of my feelings and acts.

1) I do not love God. For if I loved Him, I would constantly think about Him with heartfelt satisfaction; every thought of God would bring me contentment. On the contrary, I think about worldly things far more often and more eagerly than I do about God. If I loved Him, praying to Him would enrich me, give me joy, and draw me into constant communion with Him; but, on the contrary, I not only do not enjoy prayer, but even find it a laborious and dull exercise. When engaged in it, I feel as though time were passing without my noticing, while in God’s presence every hour seems to me like a year. Whoever loves anybody else, no matter how long the day, thinks of nothing but that person; his thoughts on that subject never leave him; but I hardly devote one hour a day to profound reflection on God and spiritually to set myself on fire with divine love, and for twenty-three hours in twenty-four I willingly offer passionate sacrifices to my idols. I am dry, sad, and lazy. And even if, half by accident, my fancy is taken up by something else, my thought immediately returns to God, but I leap at the opportunity to talk about my lusts. I never stop exercising curiosity about sundry news, political decisions, and the events of the day. I eagerly seek satisfaction for my inquisitiveness in the worldly sciences, arts, and acquisitions. The teachings of the law of the Lord, the knowledge of God, and of religion do not make any impression on me, do not nourish my soul, and I look upon it not merely as an insignificant occupation of a Christian, but as a mere passing time. In short, if the love for God is proved by the observance of His commandments: >>if ye love me, keep my commandments, says the Lord Jesus Christ, and I neither keep His commandments nor do I even attempt to do so, it follows plainly and clearly that I do not love God .. >> This is my declaration that a person who has no love for God and for Christ is one who does not keep His commandments  (Prudentius).3) I do not believe in anything religious. Neither in immortality, nor in the Gospel. If I were firmly convinced and absolutely believed that there is eternal life with reparation for earthly deeds, I would constantly be thinking about it; the very idea of immortality would terrify me, and I would approach this life as a stranger who is preparing to enter his homeland. On the contrary, I do not even think about eternity, and I consider the end of real life as the boundary of my existence. A secret thought lodges in me: who knows what will happen after death? If I say that I believe in immortality, then I speak only with reason, and my heart is far from having firm faith in it, which is clearly revealed by my actions and my constant concern for the well-being of the sensual life. If the holy Gospel, as the word of God, were accepted into my heart with faith, I would constantly study it, enjoy it, and look at it with deep reverence. Wisdom, goodness, and love, hidden in it, would cause me to be fascinated; I would happily study the Law of God day and night, feed on it as a daily ration, and be deeply drawn to following its rules. Nothing of earthly nature would so much sway me from this. On the contrary, if I occasionally read or hear the word of God, I do so either out of necessity or curiosity, and without paying close attention, I feel dryness, insensitivity, and, like ordinary reading, I leave it without any result and willingly replace it with reading on worldly subjects.After reading this revelation given to me by a confessor, I was horrified and thought to myself: “My God, what terrible sins are hidden in me, and I have not noticed them yet!” So the desire to purify them made me ask for instructions from this great spiritual father, by whatever means, having discovered the causes of all evils, to find a way to remedy them. Thus he began to explain to me.

I listened to all this with respect, and I humbly asked this holy father to baptize me and grant me the sacred mysteries of Christ. So, in the morning, having received communion, I wanted to return to Kiev with this gracious precept, but this good father of mine, intending to go to the Lavra in a few days, left me in his desert cell for the time being, so that I could freely engage in prayer in this silence. And indeed, during all these days I was as if in heaven: with the prayers of my elder, I, the unworthy, enjoyed a perfect peace. Prayer flowed so easily and peacefully into my heart that at this time, it seemed, I had forgotten everything and myself, and I thought only of Jesus Christ alone!

Eventually, the spiritual director returned, and I asked him for instruction and advice on where to continue my itinerant path. He blessed me thus: “Go to Pochaev, kneel before the Glorious Foot of the Mother of God, and she will direct your steps on the way of peace.” So, with faith, I accepted his advice, and in three days I went to Pochaev.

I did not walk without fatigue, for the road led through taverns and Jewish hamlets, and there were few Christian dwellings. In one village, I saw a Russian Christian inn, and, delighted, I went there to spend the night and ask for bread on the road, because my dry bread was almost gone. Here I saw the owner – an old man, probably wealthy, and heard that he was also from the Orlov region. When I entered the dining room, his first question was: “What religion are you?”

I replied that I was Orthodox Christian.

– What’s your Orthodox life! – he said with a smile, “You have only an Orthodox life in your language, but in your actions you have a Mamluk life. I know your faith, brother! I was seduced by a learned priest and brought into temptation, and I entered your church, and, having spent half a year there, I returned again. Come here: the church service chants everything haphazardly and with a lack of understanding; and the singing in the villages is no better than in taverns; for the service of God? This is nothing but sin! Come here, do not be stupid, wherever you come: to the temple or to the marketplace!

Listening to this, I realized that this old-rite man was an Old Believer; but as he spoke truthfully, I could not argue with him and convince him, but I said to myself that it is not possible to convert Old Believers to the true Church until our church services are improved and set a good example by the clergy. An Old Believer knows nothing spiritual, he relies on externalities, and in our churches they do not pay any attention to them.

So, I wanted to leave and I was already in the shadows when I suddenly saw a man in the open door in a special alcove reading a book. He invited me over and asked who I was. I told him. And he began to say: “Listen, my dear, will you agree to serve me, a sick man, at least for a week, until I get well with God’s help? Refuse, My God!”

If you want, he said, I will tell you more about [the intonation of the Lord’s Prayer],

Now look at this: the prayer is one and the same; Orthodox Christians have the same religion; it is generally known that this most important and highest of all prayers contains two objects – the Lord Jesus and His mercy; everyone knows this. Why then do all not express it in the same way in their intonation, that is, in their pronunciation? Why is one place more particularly moving to the soul, and another more exalted and tense? Many people say that this is due to habit or example taken from others, or to a concept that corresponds to each person’s different view, or, finally, to whoever finds it easier and more convenient to say, according to his capacity for the word… And I think of this quite differently. I would like to seek something more profound here, which is unknown not only to those who listen, but even to the one who prays, whether there is here a mysterious movement of the Holy Spirit, which “groans in unuttered sighs” in those who do not know: how and what to pray? And if everyone prays in the name of Jesus Christ, in the Spirit, according to the confession of the Apostle, then the secret-acting Descended Spirit, “pray for him who prays,” at the same time, against his will, could give each person a gracious gift: some, an awe-inspiring fear of God; others, love and another firmness. Therefore, the one who has received a gift, worships and glorifies the Almighty, and in his prayer he expresses with a special feeling and emotion the word “Lord”, in which he has in mind the greatness and power of the Creator of the world. The one who has received a mysterious influx of love into his heart is especially excited and enthralled by the exclamation “Jesus Christ”, so that even an old-fashioned man without a special feeling of love and pleasure could not hear the name “Jesus” in an ordinary conversation. The one who firmly believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ, Consubstantial with the Father God, is inspired and still more convinced in the faith by the words “Son of God”. The one who unremittingly believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ is more firmly convinced by the words “Son of God”. The one who possesses the gift of humility and deeply realizes his own powerlessness before the words “have mercy on me” is humbled and subdued and pours forth with the greatest intensity in these last words of the Prayer of Jesus, nourishing the hope of God’s mercy and shaming his own failures. These are, I think, the reasons for the difference in intonation when saying the prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ!.. And from this observation, it is possible (to the glory of God and to one’s own direction) to understand (by feeling) which person is especially taken over by the feelings and which person has a spiritual gift. Some people said to me, “Why are all these signs of hidden spiritual gifts not manifested together, in their totality? Then not one, but each word of the prayer would be moved by the same exciting intonation of the one who prays.” I answered this as follows: “However, the grace of God divides the gifts of the Holy Scripture, so who can experience this and enter into the disposition of grace with his limited mind?”“I spent five days with this old man, and he gradually gained back his strength. This time was instructive for me, and I did not notice how it was passing, for in this little room, as if in a silent prison, we did nothing but pray secretly, invoking the name of Jesus Christ, or talk about only one thing, namely the spiritual life, the saints and divine love.Here I was beginning to get closer to Pochaev. Not reaching one hundred steps, someone passed me. I asked him where he was going; he told me that he was going home to the Kam’yanets-Podilskyi Governorate. In silence, we walked together for ten steps, and I noticed that he was sighing heavily, as if he was sad about something, and he was very gloomy. I asked him: “Why are you so sad?” And he started to cling to me and said: “Good man! If you have already noticed my sadness, beat me firmly and swear that you will not tell anyone, and I will tell you everything about myself, because death is coming for me, but there is no one to advise me about this.”

    You know,’ he said, ‘I was conscripted into the army with the peasants. After serving for five years, I became more and more miserable because they often beat me for disobedience and for drinking. I decided to run away. Now, it has been more than ten years since I have been on the run. Six years ago, I was hiding here and there; I broke into stables and took horses, and used to sell them to various crooks. I met a soldier who was walking home to a distant province with a good discharge. My soldier died and I took his clothes. I went to a distant province near Astrakhan, where I became sober and found some sort of work. We both drank, and my wife and I lived on what was left of my old life. One time I could not get any work, so I took an old horse, sold it for a half-tin to a cattle merchant, and went into the forest to wait until it was dark. When I lay down there, I fell asleep. My head and hands were exposed. Then this wicked cloud came down to earth, and from it emerged my grandfather, who had died twenty years before. He had a bag full of things I had stolen at various times. I was even more frightened. Squeeze him!” And suddenly the earth began to squeeze me from all sides so hard that I could not bear the pain, the pressure and the exhaustion. I cried out:’Have mercy!” And squeeze him harder!” And I felt such a tremendous pain and pressure around me that no suffering on earth can compare with it. At last, this grandfather of mine came closer and told me the little horse I had stolen the day before, and shouted:“What is that? Squeeze him as hard as you can!” And the earth squeezed me so hard on all sides that I could not even tell you how painful, terrible and wearying it was. It was as if my insides were being pulled out and suffocating me with unbearable pain, so that I could not stand the pain and would have fallen unconscious, if this suffering had been reduced by the least bit. It was like a blow to my cheek, which I spread. At that moment, when I was hit, I woke up in a terrible terror and, convulsed, as if I were in shock, I got up and headed home. My face was so sick for a long time after that, look, and there is still a scar there where none had been before. I have often been afraid of people since then and ashamed, as if they all knew of my past thievery. So, in desperation, I wanted to hang myself. But a thought came into my mind that I did not have much longer to live and would soon die anyway, for all my strength had disappeared, so I decided to go to say goodbye to my homeland and die there. What do I have to do, Lord? After all, I have no patience!”

         – Oh, brother, this was a dream! Oh, if only there were more of them! There was an English knight fighting against the Turks; he was being killed by a heavy cross, but he used his shield, hit the Turk with it, and the Turk suddenly fell dead. I thought to myself, ah, father, if at this moment I were indulging in sin, I’d immediately have to confess and commune. Now I understood that God is infinite in his mercy and that he forsakes the guilty. I knew the Lord’s Prayer, that is, ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner,’ and I say it all the time. – But how could I not know this prayer! When I used to steal, I often recite it so that I would feel more courageous. – So, see for yourself: God did not punish you when you were sinning and praying. And will he condemn you when you confess your sins? Now you see that your thoughts are evil!… Believe me, dear brother, if you recite this prayer, regardless of what may come to your mind, you will soon experience consolation, fear and distress will dissipate, and you will finally be completely at peace. I assure you of this, because I have seen it with my own eyes. At that point, I told him several instances of how the Lord’s Prayer had a miraculous power over sinners. Finally, I started urging him to go with me, rather than with his parents, to the shrine of Our Lady of Pochaev, the haven of sinners, to confess and partake. All this my soldier had been listening to carefully and, as was evident, with delight. Therefore, he agreed. So we went to Pochaev together, on the condition that we would not talk to one another, but continue to recite the Lord’s Prayer constantly. It was with such silence that we walked for an entire day. The second day he said to me that he had been feeling lighter, and probably he was also more at ease than usual. On the third day we arrived in Pochaev, and I affirmed him once again that he should not stop reciting the prayer day and night, until he fell asleep, and assured him that the Greater Name of Jesus is unendurable to His enemies and that It will strongly save him. At the same time, I recited to him from ‘The Reputation of Love’ the prayer, with particular diligence in observing it while preparing for the Holy Sacraments. He did so, and soon confessed and communed. Although thoughts often still beset him, but they were immediately banished through the Lord’s Prayer. On Sunday morning, to make it easier to get up, he went to bed earlier, and recited the Lord’s Prayer incessantly, while I sat in a corner and was reading my ‘Dialogue on the Reputation of Love’. After about a half hour he fell asleep, and I began to pray. Suddenly, in about twenty minutes he started to stir and wake up, and ran to me with tears, joyfully exclaiming, ‘Oh, brother! How light and glorious I feel now! I’m convinced that God does not torture, but blesses sinners. Glory to You, Lord, glory to You!’”

            I was surprised and pleased by this, and I asked him to tell me in detail what had happened to him.

             – Here is what happened: as soon as I fell asleep, I found myself on the same meadow where I had been tortured. I was at first frightened, but I saw that instead of a cloud, the sun was rising, wonderful light shone over the entire meadow, and I saw red flowers and grass on it. Suddenly, my grandfather approached me, so beautiful that you wouldn’t believe it, and he said to me in a gentle and friendly tone: “Go to Zhytomyr to the Church of St. George the Victorious; there they will take you into the church guard; live here until the end of your life and pray constantly; God will have mercy on you!” After saying this, he blessed me and disappeared in that very moment. I felt such joy that it is impossible to describe, as if something fell from me and I flew to heaven… With this, I suddenly woke up, feeling that I was light and my heart did not know what to do with joy. What should I do now? I will immediately go to Zhytomyr, as my grandfather instructed me. I will go easily, praying now!

             – Forgive me, dear brother, where will you go at midnight? Listen to a morning service, pray and come together with God. So we did not sleep, but after this conversation, we went to church. He prayed diligently with tears and said that he felt very easy and joyful, and the Jesus Prayer was performed with delight. Then, at lunch, he communed and, having eaten, I took him to the Zhytomyr road, where we said goodbye with tears and joy.

            After that, I began to reflect on myself and thought, where should I go now? Finally, I decided to return to Kiev. This was prompted by the wise instructions of my spiritual father there, and the fact that, after living with him, he might not find any Christian benefactors to send me to Jerusalem or at least to Mount Athos. Therefore, after staying for another week in Pochaiv, spending time in remembrance of those instructive meetings that I saw on my way, and writing down some instructive subjects, I set out on my journey, put on my bag, and went to church to pray to the Mother of God and to pray for lunch.

I stood behind the church. And a person came out, though not very clothed, but apparently as noble, and asked me where candles were sold. I pointed out. Orchid went away, and I stayed to pray at the tombs of the Mother of God. I prayed and set off on my way. After walking a little on the streets, I saw an open window in one house, under which a gentleman was reading a book. I had to pass this window, and I saw the man who had asked me about the candles in the church. I took off my hat as I passed, and he beckoned me to himself and asked: “Are you a wanderer?” and, calling me over, he asked who I was and where I was going; then he brought me some tea and said: “Listen, little man! I am traveling the same way and am going on foot, following a promise. It is profitable for me.””We both like it very much,” I said. Gabriel looked at me so pleased, and said: “I love this of his reasoning and aspiration to prayer, and yet asked him: ‘From what particular evangelical instruction do you draw your teaching on prayer?’ He replied: ‘From all four evangelists, in words from the whole New Testament, reading it in order. After long reading this and careful study, it has been revealed to me how progressive and in correct sequence is the teaching on prayer throughout the Gospel, beginning with the first evangelist and going on in correct order (in system). For example, from the very beginning the attack or introduction into the teaching on prayer is presented, then the form or outward expression in words, and then the condition needed for prayer, the means of learning it, and examples. Lastly, the secret teaching on the interior, spiritual, unceasing prayer in the name of Jesus Christ is presented as superior and more beneficial than formal prayer; then its necessity, the good fruits, and so on. In short, a full knowledge of the practice of prayer is expounded in systematic order from the beginning to the end of the Gospel.”He readily agreed and said to me: ‘Read your gospel, look into it and bear in mind that I will be speaking what I say’ (he gave me a pencil). Please read my notes. Here – see, he began to speak, first, in the gospel of Matthew, Chapter 6, and read from verse 5 to verse 9 (Mt. VI, 5-9). Do you see here a preparation for prayer or a prelude which teaches us not to begin praying for showy reasons or with noise, but in a secluded place and in silence, to pray only for the forgiveness of sins and for union with God, rather than to invent many and unnecessary requests for the various necessities of life. Then read on again in the same section from verse 9 to verse 14 (Mt. VI, 9-14). Here is presented the form of prayer, that is, in what words it is to be prayed. It skillfully combines all that is necessary and desirable for our life. Then, continuing the reading, from verse 14 to verse 15 of the same section, you will find the condition which must be observed in order for prayer to be effective, because without forgiveness which we offer to those who offend us, the Lord will not forgive our sins. Going on to the 7th chapter, you will find from verse 7 to verse 12 the means for success in prayer and approval in hope: ‘Ask, seek, knock’; this reinforced expression pictures the frequency of prayer and the prevailing habit in it, so that prayer should not only accompany all activities, but even exceed them in time. This is the most important attribute of prayer … This is illustrated in Chapter 14 of the Gospel of Mark, from verses 32 to 40, where Jesus Christ himself repeats the same prayer-phrase many times. A similar example of the frequency of prayer is found in the parable told by the Evangelist Luke (11:5-14) of the persistent prayer of a friend, as well as in the repeating, persistent request of the widow before the judge (18:1-15), depicting the commandments of Jesus Christ that, in every case, one should always keep on praying.After this fundamental instruction, the Gospel of John reveals a more substantial teaching on the mysterious inner prayer of the heart, and first of all, it offers the wise dialogue between Jesus Christ and the Samaritan woman, which reveals the inner worship of God in spirit and truth, which God desires, and which is continual and which is unceasing (John 4:5-25). Next, in chapter 15, verses 4 and 8 illustrate the power, might and necessity of inner prayer, that is, of the divine presence, to be constantly in Christ. Finally, read chapter 16 of the same Gospel, verses 23-25. See what a mystery is revealed here! Do you see that prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, or the so-called Jesus Prayer, that is, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” repeated often and many times, has great power and opens the heart more easily and purifies it? This can be seen by example. The apostles, though they were not a few years Jesus’ disciples and had already been taught by Him the Lord’s prayer, that is, “Our Father,” which is familiar to us from them, but when He ended His earthly life, Jesus Christ revealed to them the mystery of what more was missing in their prayer to make it decisive. He said to them, “Ask anything in My name, and it will be given to you.” This is exactly what happened to them. After this, when the apostles learned to offer prayer in Jesus’ name, they did many wonderful miracles and became enlightened. Now do you see the connection and fullness of the teaching on prayer, so wisely presented in the Holy Gospels? If, after this, you start reading the Apostolic Writings, you will find a consistent teaching on prayer there also. To continue the previous remarks, I would point out to you a few places that reveal the belonging to prayer. Thus, the Acts of the Apostles describe the practice, that is, the diligent and regular exercise in prayer, of the first Christians enlightened by the faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:31); it describes the fruits or results of this constant presence in prayer, that is, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and His gifts on those who pray. Similarly, in verse 25 and 26 of chapter 16, you will see that. Then follow the order of the Apostolic Writings and you will see: 1) how prayer is necessary in all circumstances of life (James 5:13-16); 2) how the Holy Spirit helps to pray (Judges 1:20-21) and (Romans 5:16); 3) how it is always necessary to pray in spirit (Ephesians 5:18); 4) how much peace or inner calm is required in prayer (Philippians 4:6-7); 5) how it is necessary to pray unceasingly (Philippians 5:17); and 6) finally, we should not only pray for ourselves, but also for others (1 Timothy 2:1-5).

            Thus, by reading the Word of God carefully and for a long time, one can discover many more hidden secrets that are hidden in it, and that escape from a cursory or hasty reading of it. By this, do you now notice how wisely and how consistently, that is, according to a secret systematic arrangement, the New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ develops its teaching on this subject, which we have now traced? In what amazing order of sequence is it arranged in all four Evangelists? For example: in St. Matthew we find an attack on prayer, or the formula, the conditions, etc.; and going on, in St. Mark we find examples; in St. Luke we find parables, and in St. John a mystical exercise in interior prayer, although in all the Evangelists (shorter or longer) all this is found. In Acts we see the practice and consequences of prayer; in the Apostolic Epistles, as well as in the Apocalypse itself, many accessories are inextricably linked with the matter of prayer! That is why I have been satisfied with only one Gospel in the study of all paths of salvation.

            Throughout this time that he was pointing out and explaining to me, I noted all the signal places in my Gospel, which was with my Bible. All this seemed very wonderful and instructive, and I thanked him much for it.

            Then we walked eight days in silence. My companion was very ill with his legs, probably from being unaccustomed to long walking, and so he hired a boat for two and took me with him. So we reached your borders and stayed here for three days to rest and immediately proceed to Anzer, where he was very anxious to go.

            – What a wonderful companion you have! He must be very pious, he must be very learned. I would like to meet him.

            – We live in the same apartment. I think I will bring him to you tomorrow. But it is now late … Sorry!

Seventh Meeting

Brother to brother we help each other,
for the city is firm and strong; strengthened
as a kingdom founded.

(Prud. XVIII, 19).

Yesterday, by word and promise, I brought
with me before you this esteemed guest,
whom you wished to see, and who
eased with spiritual healing the journeying way.

It is very pleasant for me, and I hope
for my trusted visitors also, to see both
of you and to hear your useful and meritorious
word. You are a saintly recluse,
and this is a graceful priest. Well then,
since all three are gathered in the name of < br>
Jesus Christ, He Himself is the gift promised, and
since we are now all three in the name of Jesus Christ,
then, naturally, His grace is all the more outspread
over us!    Yesterday, your companion
wonderfully spoke, my dear brother,
of the fiery eagerness of your love for the Holy Gospel.
It is interesting to hear how such
great piety and mystery revealed themselves
to you!  

           The gracious Lord, who wishes to save all by the knowledge of the truth, revealed to me in a wonderful manner, without any human mediation, this knowledge. For eighteen years I was a professor at the Lyceum, walking the stormy paths of vanity, engaging in the senseless philosophy of the world’s paths, and not in Christ. Perhaps I should have perished if I had not been supported by something in the fact that I lived with my devout mother and my sister, where I was a guard of the street, a bulwark. On that street I met and became acquainted with a charming young man who declared himself to be a French, a certified student who had recently arrived from Paris and was looking for a place as a tutor. I was very fond of his education, and I invited him to my house as an outsider, and we became friends. For two months he frequently visited me and we sometimes went together for a walk, for a conversation, and together we went out into society, of course, the most moral. Finally, he came to me with an invitation to one of the above-mentioned companies and, in order to persuade me, began praising the special fun and pleasantness of the place where he invited me. After saying a few words about this, he suddenly asked me to go out with him from my study room, where we were sitting, and sit in the living room. This seemed strange to me, and I, having already noticed that he was reluctant to be in my study room, asked him: what is the reason? And I kept him there all that time, because the living room was next to the room of my mother and sister, and therefore it would have been improper to talk about it in their presence. He justified his desire with various tricks, and finally told me straightforwardly: “Here you have on this shelf among the books a Gospel; I respect this book so much that it is difficult for me in the presence of this conversation to speak of our scattered matters. Please take it out of here, and then we will.” I, in my sincerity, smiled at these words of his, took the Gospel from the shelf, and said: “You should have told me this long ago!” And giving it to him, I said: “Put it in that room right there!” Just as I touched him with the Gospel, he was instantly overcome and disappeared. This shocked me so much that I fainted on the floor. When the servants heard the knocking, they ran into the room and could not bring me to myself for half an hour. Finally, after feeling a strong fear, trembling, restless agitation, and complete numbness of my hands and feet, so that I could not move them, a doctor was called, who diagnosed the disease as a paralysis, resulting from some strong fright or panic. For a whole year after this occasion, under careful treatment by many doctors, I lay motionless and received no relief from the disease, which later suggested the need to retire from academic service. My old mother died at this time, and my sister settled to dedicate herself to monastic life. Therefore, all this only further burdened my illness. I had only one consolation in this painful time: in reading the Gospel, which from the beginning of my illness did not leave my hands, as a guarantee of a miraculous event with me.

Once, unexpectedly, an unknown hermit came to visit me, journeying to a monastery for donations. He persuasively told me not to rely solely on medicine, which, without the help of God, is of no real help, but rather to ask God and to pray earnestly, because prayer is the most powerful means for healing all diseases, both physical and spiritual. “How can I pray in my present state, when I am unable to raise my hands in prayer or to make the sign of the cross?” I objected to him, out of my own negligence. He answered me, “Pray anyway!” And he was unable to explain to me substantially how to pray.  After this visitor left, I thought unconsciously about prayer and about its power and its effect, recalling the theological lectures I had heard in the institution when I was a student. This was very comforting, recalling the bright religious knowledge I had learned, warming my soul, and I immediately began to feel some relief from my painful attacks. Since the Gospel was constantly with me, I considered it my duty to devote myself to it in faith, due to the miracle of my cure, as well as remembering that the whole structure of the treatise on prayer I had heard at lectures based on Gospel texts, and considered it best to learn Christian prayer and goodness. After studying this, I found in it, like a rich spring, a full system of life-saving practices and true inner prayer. With reverence, I noted all the places and texts on this subject, and from that moment, without ceasing, I tried to learn these divine precepts and to put them into practice as best I could, although it was difficult. In my pursuit of this goal, my illness gradually eased and, as you can see, I fully recovered. Left alone, I, out of gratitude to God for His paternal mercies and healing and enlightenment, decided, following the example of my sister and the impulse of my soul, to devote myself to the monastic life, in order to be able easily to accept and assimilate the sweet words of life eternal, shown to me in the Word.  Now I am making my way to a secluded skete at the Solovetsky monastery on the White Sea, called Anzer, which I heard reliably regarded as a convenient place for contemplative life. And I will tell you this: it is true that the Holy Gospel, which I carry with me in this journey, enlightens my immature mind abundantly, warming my cold heart; but, acknowledging my own helplessness, I will express myself frankly, and say that the conditions for performing the spiritual virtues and for acquiring salvation, which require perfect purity, which demand complete humility, which the Gospel commands, fill me with terror for their loftiness and because of the weakness and injury of my heart. Therefore, standing now between despair and hope, I do not know what will happen to me next! 

      EXPLANATOR.  – For this obligatory condition of special and mysterious grace of God and with your scientific education, it is unforgivable not only to be sad, but even to allow shadows of doubt in your soul about God’s intercession and His help! Do you know what the Illuminated Chrysostom says about this? “No one should mourn (he reproaches) and think that the apostles’ precepts are impossible or inconvenient! God, by the necessity of man’s salvation, has certainly not ordered these precepts to make him a criminal with their inconvenience. No! the eternity of eternity.”

             Of course, the regular and unrelenting observance of God’s precepts seems extremely difficult for our nature, and therefore salvation is inconvenient: but the same word of God, which instituted the commandments, contains not only the means to carry them out in a convenient way, but also a consolation in their fulfillment. If this at first glance is covered with the veil of mystery, then, of course, it is to draw the practitioner to humility and to bring them closer to union with God through the indication of a direct refuge in prayer and the request for His parental help. This is the mystery of salvation, and not hoping for one’s own efforts.

      BUILDER. – How I would like to know this secret, the weak and powerless, in order somehow to correct my lazy life in the glory of God and my salvation!

      EXPLANATOR. – This secret is known to you, my dear brother, from your book Dobrotolyubov .

       It consists in uninterrupted prayer, which you have so firmly mastered and so zealously practiced and enjoyed.

       BUILDER.  – I will prostrate myself before you, Reverend Father! God’s grace, grant me to hear from your lips a useful word about this saving secret and about holy prayer, which I greatly desire to hear and love to read in order to strengthen and comfort my sinful soul.

       EXPLANATOR. – Although I am unable to satisfy your desire with my own reasoning on this high occupation, because I am still inexperienced in this matter, but I have a very clear notebook by one spiritual writer specifically on this subject. If our interlocutors wish, then I will bring it now and, if you wish, I can read it to you. Thank you!

       ALL. – Do us the grace, Reverend Father! Do not deprive us of this salutary knowledge.

            How to save oneself? This is a pious Christian question that naturally arises in everyone, due to a sense of the injured and weakened nature of man and the residual desire for truth and righteousness. Everyone, even if they have some faith in immortality and the reward of eternal life, is inevitably faced with the thought of how to save oneself when they turn their gaze to heaven… While struggling to solve this task, he asks the wise and informed, then reads the instructions given by the authoritative books of spiritual writers on this subject, drawing out the clear truths and rules. In all these instructions, he encounters conditions that seem to be necessary for salvation: a pious life, striving and striving over oneself for a determined self-sacrifice, which leads to the creation of good deeds, to the constant fulfillment of all God’s commandments, which testifies to the steadfastness and firmness of faith. When performed with deep humility and in its entirety, as all the virtues depend upon one another, they must support one another, improve one another, and inspire one another, like the rays of the sun that only reveal their power and make heat when focused through glass into one point. Otherwise, the wicked are in manyThe person thus led to salvation with all his joy begins to follow the instructions and addenda of his studies of everything he hears and reads. But, alas, even at the first step toward his desire, he finds no opportunity to achieve his goal, foreseeing and even feeling that his damaged and weakened nature will gain the upper hand over the persuasions of reason; that his free will is bound, his disposition damaged, and the power of his spirit exhausted. Consequently, and because of this self-conscious awareness of his powerlessness, he naturally turns to the preachers of salvation with the question: how can I be saved? Is there no means to fulfill what the law of God commands, what Christian piety demands, and what those who have been granted salvation and holiness have fulfilled? As a result, in order to reconcile the demand of reason and conscience with the inability of executive powers, he turns to the preachers with the question: how can I be saved? How can I justify the conditions of salvation that are inaccessible to me? And can the preacher himself unconditionally fulfill everything he preaches? “Ask God, pray to God, so that He may help you!” But would it not be more fruitful to have learned prayer earlier, to always learn how to pray as the cause of fulfilling everything that Christian piety requires and how salvation is obtained? the inquirer concludes, and, along with this, he begins to study prayer, reads, reflects, understands the teachings of those who have written on this subject. Indeed, he finds many bright ideas, deep knowledge and expressions in them. One perfectly reflects on the necessity of prayer; another – on its power, beneficence, on the obligation to pray, on the fact that diligence, attention, warmth of spirit, purity of thought, reconciliation with enemies, humility, sorrow, etc. are required for prayer…This is a general concept of prayer for those who are not familiar with the writings on interior prayer and the contemplative works of the Holy Fathers. Lastly, one meets a seeker with the book called “The Acts of Prayer,” in which twenty-nine Holy Fathers clearly presented the science of true and essential interior prayer. Here the mystery of salvation and prayer begins to lift its veil for him, and he sees that to truly pray means to direct the mind and the memory to an unremitting remembrance of God, to walk in His divine presence, to give oneself up to His love through contemplation, and to unite the Name of God with the breath and the movement of the heart, under the guidance of Jesus Christ or the creation of the Jesus Prayer in any time and place and at every occupation continually.

    Although these shining truths, having illuminated the seeker’s knowledge and opened before him the way to study and accomplish prayer, convince him to begin immediately to carry out these wise instructions, he will nevertheless encounter difficulties in his experiments, acting in periodic sessions, until a seasoned teacher fully reveals the mystery that only frequency (however prayer is articulated at first) is the only powerful means for the perfection of interior prayer and the salvation of the soul.

    Part of prayer is the foundation upon which all the circle of salvific activities rests, as St. Simeon the New Theologian affirms: “He who constantly prays has acquired all good things in this one thing alone””.

    Therefore, to present this revelation in all its fullness, the instructor develops it in the following image:

    For the salvation of the soul, first, true faith is needed. The Holy Scripture says: Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. XI, 6). 

    But from the same Holy Scripture it is evident that a person cannot of his own accord regenerate faith, even to the grain of mustard seed; that faith is not of us, for God is a gift; that faith, as a spiritual gift, is given by the Holy Spirit.

    What then is to be done? How are the needs of man for faith to be reconciled with the impossibility of being regenerated in oneself from the human side? The same Holy Scripture opens a means for this and gives examples: ” <Ask and it will be given to you>. The Apostles were unable to regenerate themselves in themselves to the perfection of faith, but they prayed to Jesus Christ: <Lord, give us faith>. Here is an example of acquiring faith. From this it can be seen that faith is acquired through prayer.

For the salvation of the soul, true faith requires good deeds – virtues, because “faith without works is dead,” because “by deeds a person is proved, not by faith alone,” and “if you want to put something in your heart, observe the commandments: do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not love your mother and father, but love your neighbor, for yourself.” All these commandments must be observed together. “If one law is broken, the whole person is guilty.” This is what St. James the Apostle teaches.

            True prayer requires its conditions: it must be offered with purity of thought and heart, with ardent effort, with firm attention, with trembling reverence, and with deep humility. But who in sincere conscience will not agree that he is far from these conditions for true prayer, that he offers his prayer more out of necessity, more under constraint than by inclination, by the joy of prayer, by the love of prayer? Scripture testifies to this, that man is unable to keep his mind completely free from improper thoughts: “Is it right for man to be in evil thoughts since childhood?” God gives us a new heart and a new spirit. “What is the mind able to do or the children of God,” he says. And the Apostle Paul himself said: “My spirit (that is, my voice) prays, but my mind is without fruit.” And “I do not know whether it is in spirit or in flesh that we pray,” he affirms. It follows that we cannot show the essential properties of prayer in our prayers!

            What kind of weakness has then remained possible on the part of a person’s free will and strength for the salvation of his soul? He cannot believe without prayer, nor can he do good deeds; finally, he cannot truly pray. What is left to his own free will and strength to avoid perishing and to be saved?

            Just as everything has a quality, God has prescribed it by His will and gift. And in order to make it clearer how dependent man is on God’s will and how deeply he is to be immersed in the wisdom of humility, God has left a certain amount of prayer to human will and strength, commanding people to pray constantly at any time and in any place. And in this way a secret way is revealed to reach true prayer, along with faith, obedience to commandments, and salvation. Thus, a certain amount of prayer has been assigned to human will.

The holy fathers advise us above all to begin our ascetic struggles and virtues by often, continuously praying in the Name of Jesus Christ, for often and impure prayer leads to purity. Saint Dionysius says that if a person often calls on God’s Name (prays), then he will not fall into sins. What profound, wise, and close to the heart are these practical instructions of the Fathers! They shed light in discerning simplicity on the ways and means of perfecting the soul. What a high contrast they present with the moral precepts of theoretical reason! Reason convinces: do this and that well, arm yourself with fortitude, use the power of the will, persuade yourself of the good consequences of virtue, for example,–clear your mind and heart of vain dreams, fill the space of those with instructive reflections, do good, and you will be honored and at peace, live as reason requires, and all this, however strenuous an effort, does not achieve its goal without frequent prayer, without enlisting the help of God. Let us now further unfold the instructions of the Fathers and see what they say, for example, about the purification of the soul. St. Theophan the Recluse writes: “In the darkness of the soul caused by unclean thoughts, overcome the adversaries with the Name of Jesus, repeating it often. There is no weapon stronger and more successful than this, neither in heaven, nor on earth.” St. Gregory of Sinai instructs: “Know that no one can keep his reason under control himself, and therefore, in the uncleanness of thought, call the Name of Jesus Christ more often and more frequently, and thoughts will recede by themselves.” What a simple and convenient, yet experienced method, and the opposite of the advice of theoretical reason, which seeks to achieve purity by its own self-action! Having understood these experienced instructions of the holy fathers, we come to the true conclusion that the chief, the only, and the most convenient way to attain salvation and spiritual perfection is part of, and continuous in, prayer, however imperfect it may be.

Christian soul! If you do not find the strength within yourself to worship God in spirit and in truth; if your heart does not yet feel the warmth and sweetness in intellectual and inner prayer, then offer in your prayer sacrifice what you can, what depends on your will, what is proportionate to your strength. May the lower parts of your lips constantly call upon the mighty name of Jesus Christ. This is not a great effort and everyone can do it. This is what the hallowed commandment of the Apostle demands: “Let us offer sacrifice continually to God, or the fruits of the lips which confess His name.”” The part of prayer will certainly become a habit and turn into a nature, drawing the mind and heart to the proper disposition over time. Imagine, if a person had unacceptably fulfilled this one commandment of God to pray constantly, he would have fulfilled all the commandments, for if he had constantly prayed at all times in all his activities, secretly invoking the divine name of Jesus Christ, at first perhaps with no soul at all, then he would have had no time left for sinful pleasures. Every sinful thought would have encountered an obstacle to its expansion, every sinful act would have been less carefully considered, many unnecessary words would have been eliminated, and every guilt would have been cleansed immediately by the gracious power of God’s name. The frequent practice of prayer would have often distracted the soul from sinful activities and drawn it toward its essential knowledge – toward union with God! Now you see how important and essential quantity is in prayer! Part in prayer is the only way to acquire pure and true prayer, the best and most effective preparation for prayer, and the most trustworthy path to achieving the goal of prayer and salvation!

            One of the spiritual writers comments on this beautifully. “I know,” he says, “that for many pseudo-spiritual, false-sounding philosophers, who are always looking for false greatness and so-called noble acts before the eyes of reason and pride, the simple, verbal, and personal, but frequent exercise in prayer, seems to them a minor, or insignificant, occupation, or a lowly occupation. They forget the instructions of Jesus Christ: if you do not become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” They make up some science for prayer, on the cunning premises of natural reason.  Do not such frequent prayers praise our Divine Master Himself? In half the world, there is no need! All you have to do is continue it, not stop, and do not worry: it will clear itself on its own. 

            Therefore, after all these persuasions that the frequency of prayer, despite its weakness, is so powerful, it is certainly accessible to man and is entirely in his own hands – dare to try, even for one day for the first time, to observe yourself for the frequency of your prayer, so that the prayer call to the name of Jesus Christ would be multiplied many times; and this advantage of prayer over life’s affairs – will inevitably show you that this day was not lost, but gained for salvation; that on the scales of God’s judgment, frequent prayer balances your weaknesses and deeds, and erases the sins of that day in the unmistakable book of conscience, sets you on a scale of righteousness, and gives you hope to receive sanctification in eternal life.  (From the author’s manuscript, obtained by Father Ambrose Dobrý from the monastery of Dobrý). 

      BUILDER. – With all my heart I thank you, holy father! you have greatly enjoyed this reading of my sinful soul. For the sake of God, bless me to copy this list for myself – I will write it down for a couple of hours. Everything read here is so wonderful and pleasant, and my stupid mind understands it exactly, just as the holy fathers in ‘The Zadok of Goodness” discuss this. Bot, for example, Ivan of Karpathos, in part 4 of ‘The Zadok of Goodness” also says that if you do not have the strength for moderation and active deeds, know that God wants to save you through prayer. And in your notebook, everything is so beautifully and clearly spread out as well. I thank God first, and then you, who have been given to hear this! 

PROFESSOR. – I have listened with great respect and pleasure to your lecture, Honored Father! All the arguments are true, for me, wondrous; but at the same time it seems to me that the possibility of continuous prayer is mainly conditioned by favorable circumstances and by complete solitude. For it is true that frequent or continuous prayer is a powerful and the only way of obtaining the grace of help in all the deeds of virtue and of sanctification of the soul, and it is accessible to the powers of man, but this method can be used only when man has the opportunity of solitude and of peace: deprived of business, worries and occupation; then it is only a struggle against laziness or the tedium of thoughts; but if a person is obliged to a position, obliged to continuous business, and needs to be in the noisy society of people, and to pray often, he would not be able to do this because of inevitable dispersion. Thus the only way of frequent prayer under the conditions of suitable circumstances can not be used by everyone and belongs to not everyone.Scheme. – It is a mistake to reason in this way! Not to mention how the heart, which has become accustomed to inner prayer, can freely pray and invoke the divine name at all times, in the midst of all kinds of activities (both physical and mental), and in any kind of noise, even if one is a lay person and needs to learn this gradually, it may be confidently said that there are no side passages. For the secret thought of man is not subject to any external constraint, and is completely free within himself; it can be perceived and turned into prayer at any time, and even the language can secretly express prayer without external sound, in the presence of many people and during external activities; and in this case, our own activities and conversations are not so important that we cannot find a suitable time to frequently invoke the name of Jesus Christ, even if the mind is not yet accustomed to continuous prayer. Of course, the solitude of people and distracting objects is the primary condition for attentive and continuous prayer; however, in the case of impossibility to take advantage of this, one should not excuse oneself from the poverty of prayer: for the opportunity available to each person, both healthy and sick, is determined by their will. The examples to prove this are those who were burdened by obligations, entertaining positions, worries, chores and work, not only always called upon the divine name of Jesus Christ, but also through this learned and attained continuous interior prayer of the heart. Thus, Patriarch Photios, who was elevated to the rank of patriarch from among the senators, while ruling over the great Constantinople flock, was always in the call of the name of God, and even achieved through this spontaneous, heartfelt prayer. Thus, Callistus on Mount Athos, who underwent a busy kitchen job, learned continuous prayer. Thus, the simple-hearted Lazarus, who was burdened by incessant work for the brethren, constantly, amidst all the noisy activities, uttered the Lord’s prayer and became tranquilized. And many others who similarly practiced incessant invocation of the divine name. If it is impossible to pray in distracting activities or in the midst of people, then obviously it is not required to do the impossible. St. John Chrysostom, in his sermon on prayer, says the following: “No one should imagine that it is impossible to constantly pray in the midst of life’s concerns or that one cannot be in the temple. Everywhere where you are, you can set up an altar to God in your mind through prayer.” It is possible to pray anywhere. And indeed, if a person pays careful attention to himself, he will find convenience for prayer everywhere, as long as he makes sure that prayer should be the main activity before all his duties, and that the opportunity and will of man are available, and that it is possible and convenient to pray at all times, in every situation and place, and to move from frequent oral prayer to reasonable prayer, and from this to the prayer of the heart, which opens the kingdom of God within us.”Professor. – Agree that during all mechanical activities it is possible, and even convenient, to perform frequent, or even continuous, prayer, because mechanical needlework does not require intense concentration and a lot of reasoning, and therefore my mind can, while engaging in it, immerse itself in incessant prayer and my lips can follow along. But when I have to engage in something purely intellectual, something like: careful reading, or deliberation on a deep subject, or composition, how can I at the same time pray with my mind and lips? And since prayer is primarily a matter for the mind, how can I give different occupations to the same mind?Fr. Hierotheos: Allow me to express my thoughts too. In the article you read, it is expressed beautifully that the only way to salvation and perfection is part of prayer – whatever it may be. This is incomprehensible to me, and it seems to me that if I kept on praying ceaselessly and calling out only in the language of “I’m God’s,” but not in that language, it would be pure, idle speech! The result would be that the language would become mere babble, and the mind, which hinders this in its reflections, would also suffer damage to its active capacity. God does not demand words, but an attentive mind and a purified heart. Is it not better to perform even a brief prayer, albeit with attention, diligence, warmth of heart, and with fitting thought, and only occasionally, or at the agreed-upon time? Otherwise, if you repeat a prayer day and night, but do not have purity of heart and works of virtue, then even if you do so, you will end up without any benefit; but if you remain stuck to mere external babble and then get tired and bored, you will come to the conclusion that your faith in prayer has completely cooled and that you will give up this fruitless practice altogether. Moreover, the futility of one verbal prayer can be seen in the Scripture’s denunciations, such as: “These men worship me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matthew 15:8). “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 7:21). “My heart is set on speaking wisdom, more than on praising ignorance with my tongue.” (Job 28:28).

      Concerning Scripture. – The conclusion drawn by you might have some foundation, were it not related to the counsel of vocal prayer, – steadiness or continuity; were the prayer in the name of Jesus Christ not of self-active power, and were not attention and diligence bestowed upon it by gradualness in the practice of prayers… But as here it is a question of frequency, duration, and unceasingness of prayer ( though at first it may be attended with inattention or dryness), let us examine this further. One spiritual writer, in convincing them of the greatest benefit and fruitfulness of frequent prayer, expressed in uniform words, concludes by saying: “Although many unwise people consider as futile and even trifling this oral and frequent production of the same prayer, calling it monotonous and senseless; the mystery which is revealed by this mechanical exercise is not unknown to those who, having at first Muslim

          BUILDER.  Indeed, a faithful priest! I have seen many people who, without any educational guidance and without knowing what is the grace, spontaneously and continuously express the prayer of Jesus, and through this they have become so nourished and enlightened, so weak and wicked. 

          SCHEMMIK.  Yes, prayer seems to transform man. Its power is so mighty that no force of passion can withstand it. If necessary, I will read to you, my brothers, a short but interesting article that I brought with me. 

          ALL.  We will listen with reverential pleasure. 

          SCHEMMIK. 

Confession of the power and action of prayer

                Prayer is so powerful and mighty that you can pray and do whatever you want, and prayer will guide you to the right and righteous action. 

                For godly good works, nothing more is needed than to love, to love and do whatever you want, says blessed Augustine: for he who truly loves cannot even want to do anything that is contrary to his beloved…… So, because prayer is the outflow and action of love, it can be said the same: do whatever you want, and you will achieve the purpose of prayer and will gain sanctification! 

                In order to develop this concept more thoroughly, let us explain by examples: 

1) Pray, and do whatever you want, and your mind will be purified by prayer. Prayer will give you enlightenment of mind, silence and disperse all inappropriate thoughts. – This is what St. Gregory the Sinaite says: “If you want to drive away thoughts and purify your mind, drive them away by prayer, for nothing can keep your thoughts away from prayer.” St. John the Ladder also says: “With the Name of Jesus, you can defeat imaginary enemies, and there is no other weapon to do so.” 

               2) Pray, and do whatever you want, and your deeds will be pleasing to God and beneficial and salvific for you. 

If your prayer in all things, however humble, remains without fruit (Saint Mark the Ascetic),this is because the prayer itself has the grace of God.

   3) Pray, and do not work too much with your own strength to overcome your passions. Prayer destroys them within you: “Whatever is weighing you down here on earth is no problem at all,” says Sacred Scripture. And St. John of the Stocks teaches that if you do not have the gift of chastity, do not be angry; but know that God requires that you make effort for prayer, and prayer will save you.

   The account in The Life of a Patriarch of an old man who “conquered the temptations” – that is, who encountered a sin and did not mourn – but turned to prayer and conquered it with discernment, is a convincing example of this.

   4) Pray too, and have no fear of anything; do not be afraid of poverty, do not be afraid of trouble, prayer will protect you, it will turn them away. Remember the drowned unbelieving Peter; Paul, who prayed in prison; the monk who was freed from temptation by prayer, the girl who was saved from a lewd soldier through prayer, and similar cases; this confirms the power, potency, and all-encompassingness of prayer in the name of Jesus Christ.

5) Pray anyway, always, and be not afraid of anything; be spiritually joyful and calm: prayer will arrange everything and teach you. Remember that the saints, St. John the Theologian and St. Mark the Ascetic, speak about the power of prayer: the former says that “prayer, even offered from us, who are full of sin, immediately cleanses”… And the latter says this: “It is, through our own weakness, partly possible to pray, but to pray purely is the gift of grace.” So, if it is within your power, offer everything to God; although the quantity (possible for you) you can offer at first as a sacrifice to Him, and God’s power spills forth over your powerless power. The prayer that comes out sparse and divided but frequently – constantly, having found a habit, and having turned into nature – becomes a pure, bright, fiery, and worthy prayer.

   6) In short, if the time without sleep is accompanied by prayer, naturally, there will be no time for either sinful deeds or even thoughts about them.

            Now you see how many profound thoughts are concentrated in this wise saying: “Love and do what you want. Pray and do what you want!”

            How joyful and pleasing is everything said for a sinner burdened with weaknesses, one who is weighed down by combative passions!

            Prayer – that is, everything, dear one, as a comprehensive means of salvation and perfection of the soul… Yes! But with the name of prayer, here is a condition attached to it: “Pray unceasingly,” the word of the Beheading tells us. Therefore, prayer then displays all-powerful strength and fruitfulness when it is practiced frequently, unceasingly, because prayer frequently belongs to our volition: as with purity, diligence, and perfection of prayer, it is the grace of the Holy Spirit.

            Therefore, we are to pray as often as possible, dedicated to our prayer as our whole life, though initially lukewarm! The frequent practice of prayer teaches attention, and quantity always leads to quality.

            In order to learn to do something good, one must practice it as often as possible, said an experienced spiritual author.

      PROFESSOR. In fact, the prayer is a great work! And eagerness to keep it constantly is the key to the beneficial riches of prayer. But how often do I find in myself a struggle between zeal and laziness! How much does one wish to find a way and help to prevail, and be convinced and motivated to be constantly present to prayer!

      NOSTALGIC. Many spiritual writers present varying means based on a healthy understanding – for awakening diligence in prayer: such as:

            1) They recommend deepening the reflections on the necessity, advantage, and fruitfulness of prayer for the salvation of the soul.

            2) They firmly convince oneself that God, without a doubt, requires prayer from us, and His Word everywhere preaches this.

            3) They constantly remind themselves that through laziness and negligence, one cannot keep up in the works of piety and obtain peace and salvation; and therefore, it is unavoidable to suffer this as punishment both on earth and torment in the afterlife.

            4) They inspire determination with the examples of God’s Saints, who all by way of unceasing prayer attained sanctification and salvation, etc.

Although all these means have their own merit and are based on a true understanding, a sickly indulgent soul, accepting and making use of them, rarely sees their fruitfulness, for two reasons: firstly, because these medicines are bitter to the taste of its indulged palate; and secondly, because they are weak for its deeply harmed nature. For some Christians do not know that they must pray often and diligently, that this is what God requires; that for laziness to pray we shall bear the punishment; that all the saints prayed diligently and without ceasing; but, nevertheless, this knowledge rarely has its desirable result! Each observer sees, in himself, that he either does not fulfill or does not fulfill to any extent the mentality and conscience of these impulses with deeds, and often when he thinks about this, he lives just as badly and indolently…Clear example of this method as a powerful means is seen in many places in the detailed descriptions of the joys of prayer; their manner is most often to be read as a struggle with the frustration of dryness or lack of meditation, considering oneself unworthy of these joys and self-castigating oneself for negligence in prayer.

       COMPOSITION.  – The clearest word is for this subject one of the great theologians, namely Saint Macarius of Egypt, who says: “Just as in the planting of a vineyard, diligence and labor are requisite for the gathering of its fruits, and if these are lacking, the whole undertaking is in vain; likewise in prayer, if we perform works of a spiritual nature, that is, love, peace, joy, and other such things, or the fruit of hope, that is the enjoyment of sweetness in our hearts, we must perform.” (p. 3, chapter 5). Do you see how clearly this holy Father set forth the question of the necessity of enjoying in prayer? <…> But I was recently reminded of an important consideration that came to mind after I read the main reason for the desire to drink. And therefore, an examination of this natural principle may also serve as a powerful means of stimulating diligence in prayer, the means of which the professor so desires to seek by examining that there can be no action without a cause, and in the ladder of perceptible things descending from the lowest to the highest, it finally reaches the principal cause of God. Therefore, no nation, no tribe of savages has ever been, nor is there, without some conception of God. That which urges it to ascend, something torments it for an unknown object…

                      Oh, if man did not ruin this talent and keep it superior to his spiritual nature! Then he would have a strong encouragement and a means on the way to moral perfection. But, alas! How often this noble talent becomes a foolish passion of self-love, when it is turned into a tool of the animal nature!

                      I thank you wholeheartedly, my dear visitors! Your spiritual, saving conversation has pleased me very much and has given me a great deal of teaching. May the Lord give His grace for your teach­ing love.

                      Everyone has said goodbye.

Seventh meeting: Spiritual conversations

&8220;Pray for one another, and heal.&8221; (Jak. V, 16).

                            BUILDER. – We, with a pious companion, a professor, could not deny the common desire to set off on the road and not go to you finally to say goodbye and ask for your prayers for us. . .

                            PROFESSOR. – Yes, your sincerity and these saving conversations that we enjoyed with you among your friends are preserved in our souls as a guarantee of communion and Christian love even in the distant country to which we are striving.

                                    – Thank you for your memory and love, and meanwhile, what a good time your coming is! I have two travelers stopped: a Moldavian monk and a hermit who lived for twenty years in silence in the forest. They want to see you, I will summon them now …

                            Here they are!

                                    BUILDER. – Ah, what a blessed life in the desert! And convenient for unhindered bringing the soul to unity with God! The silent forest, as the Edenic Paradise, in which the tree of life grows in the prayerful heart of the hermit. If I had any means of food, I would not part with the hermit’s life. . .

                            PROFESSOR. – Everything seems especially good to us from a distance, and from experience everyone is convinced that every place, having its conveniences, has its drawbacks. Of course, for one who has a melancholic temperament and a desire for silence, a life alone is consoling, but how many dangers there are on this path! The ascetic story presents many examples in which it is seen how many hermits and hermits completely deprived themselves of communication with people, fell into self-deception and deep beauty.

    The Hermit. – I am amazed how often, in Russia, not only in monastic monasteries, but even among some God-fearing laymen, one hears that many who desire a life of solitude or of interior prayer, are deterred from following this impulse by the fear of falling into temptation. Insisting on this, they offer examples to support their assertions; both as they shun interior life themselves, so do they put others off from it. I believe this stems from two causes either from a lack of understanding of the matter and a lack of spiritual education, or from their own sloth to engage in contemplative practice and from envy, in order not to be outdone by others who stand at a lower level as compared with them. The Holy Fathers reflect on this subject, and they teach expressly and firmly that one must not be afraid or doubt, by appealing to God. If some have fallen into delusion or madness, it has happened to them through pride, through lack of a mentor, and through accepting appearances and dreams as the truth. If such an illusion should come to pass (they continue), it will end in enlightenment and unity, for God’s quick help intervenes in this temptation. Dare! I am with you, do not be afraid! says Jesus Christ (Greek, syn. l. p.). From this it follows that it is in vain to fear and be frightened from interior life, on the pretext that one is suffering from temptation: for a humble awareness of one’s sins, frankness of soul to the mentor, and “forgetfulness” in prayer, are a firm and secure barrier against temptation, which many fear greatly and therefore are so afraid, and many fear so greatly, and many are so afraid of it, and so are in danger of falling into it, as the celebrated words of St. Philotheos of Sinai say: “Many monks do not understand the temptation of their minds, which is felt by demons; that is, they train themselves only in one activity (in external virtues), but do not care for the mind, that is, for interior contemplation, do not care, do not care, do not care.” If they even hear of others who have been inwardly influenced by the grace of God, they consider this to be the result of envy, as St. Photius explains.

                          Solo-in-माँ activation. — Although the guidance of an experienced and knowledgeable spiritual instructor, or elder, to whom one could have open heartedly and with benefit the soul, thoughts, and encounters on the path of inner training, and who constitutes the primary condition for the practice of heart prayer, which is engaged in silence, fathers who prescribe this are exceptions. The Monk Niceta of Chernigov clearly teaches this: “In the practice of inner inner action, a true and knowledgeable instructor is necessary. If there is none, it is necessary to seek diligently: if you do not find it, then with sadness of heart, let God help you gain instruction and guidance in the teaching of the Holy Scriptures.” At the same time, it is also necessary to take into consideration that a true diligent seeker can hear a useful and instructive word from the simple, because the Holy Fathers also assure that if you ask a Saracen with faith and upright intention, even he can give you a word of guidance; if you ask a prophet without faith and proper intention, he will not satisfy you… A good example of this is found in the Great Egyptian Makarios, to whom a simple peasant once gave enlightenment and thus terminated his vice. As for “nihilism,” that is, not imagining or receiving any visions during contemplation, neither light, nor angels, nor Christ, nor any saint, and avoiding any fantasy; this is prescribed by the experienced Holy Fathers, of course, because of the fact that the image-making faculty is conveniently able to materialize or, as it were, give life to images; and an inexperienced person easily falls into these fantasies, worships them as divine manifestations, and falls into self-delusion, and, at the same time, as the Holy Scriptures depict it, that “the devil is transformed into an angel of light.” And that the mind naturally and conveniently can be in “nihilism” and maintain it while keeping in mind the presence of God, this is apparent from the fact that the power of image-making can tangibly imagine something in “nihilism” and keep the image in mind in the presence of objects that are not subject to sense perception, objects that have no external form. For example: the imagination and the self-consciousness of our soul — air, heat, cold; being in the cold, we can quickly imagine warmth in the mind, although it has no form, is not subject to sight, and is not measured by touch of that which lies on the cold! Similarly, the presence of the divine and inscrutable being of God can be imagined in the mind, realized in the heart in nihilism.

Architect. – It happened to me also in my travels to hear from pious people and those who seek salvation that they were afraid, even under the pretext of temptation, to touch the inner work. Some of them I have benefited from the teaching of St. Gregory the Sinaite in the Book of Charity, who says: “The work of the heart cannot be magical (not like that of the mind), for if the adversary wills to transform its fervour into his chaotic burning; or to replace the joy of the heart with a filthy pleasure: but time, experience and feelings themselves will distort these machinations of his, even for those who are not very virtuous…” I also met others who, much to their regret and after having discovered the path of silence and interior prayer, in the face of any obstacle or sinful weakness, become discouraged and abandon the inner work of the heart they had perceived!Asleep. – This is what I think: that the spirit of sadness and doubtful thoughts is best aroused by the dispersion of the mind, and by not keeping silent and concentrating on oneself. The old wise fathers won over despair, received inward illumination and strengthening in hope of God, in calm silence and solitude; and they even gave us in this case a useful and wise advice: “Sit in your cell silently, and it will teach you everything.”

            2. The beneficial and useful influence of the silent man on his neighbors is revealed not only in the teaching of his instructive observations on inner life, but also his own example of his detached life benefits the attentive layman, bringing him to self-awareness and turning him to a sense of reverence, a stimulation to a godly life, reminding him of what a person can be on earth and how accessible it is to return a person to his original contemplative state from which he came out of the hands of the Creator. The silent hermit teaches by his silence, benefits by his life, praises and convinces to the search for God.

            3. The demonstrated benefit comes from the silence of the true, enlightened, and grace-flooded man. But even if the hermit did not have these gracious gifts to be a lamp to the world, if he entered the way of silence only with the aim of hiding himself from a community of his kind, through his indolence and negligence and a bad and seductive example, then he would still have done great good, and had a beneficent influence on society, and would have had the beneficial effect of dry and barren branches, and would have cast away harmful plants for the unobstructed growth of the best and most useful. And this is already much, and this is already a community benefit, that the hermit by his solitude takes away a temptation that would inevitably have come from his seductive life among people, and would have damaged the morality of his neighbors.

            Saint Isaac Sirin reflects on the importance of silence as follows: “When we place all the affairs of this life on one side and silence on the other, then we find that it outweighs on the scales (p. 41). The signs, miracles, and powers of the world are not comparable to the silence of the silent man, as if the worthlessness of silence and the silence of solitude itself is more. The peace and conversion of many nations to God.

            Even the most spontaneous wise men realized the benefit of silence: the Neoplatonist school of philosophy, which had many famous followers under the leadership of the philosopher Plotinus, deeply developed a contemplative, inner life that is especially achieved in silence… One spiritual writer said that if a state were developed to the last degree of enlightenment, it would need people for other, contemplative purposes, besides public civic activity, to maintain the spirit of truth, to receive it from the ages past, to preserve it for the ages to come, and to pass it on to posterity. Such people, in the Church, are hermits, solitary hermits, and hermits.

BUILDER. It seems that no one has given such a clear assessment of the benefits of silence as St. John of the Ladder: “Silence, he says, is the mother of prayer, the return from the realm of sin, an insensible success in virtues, and the inexorable ascent to heaven.” And Jesus Christ himself, to show us the utility and necessity of silent solitude, often left public preaching to go to silent places for prayer and tranquility.

& nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; Therefore, they began to study together, passing on to each other what they understood; the subject of learning was the same. And what happened after a few days? The careless became diligent, he loved the teaching, neglect of it turned into diligence and diligence, which had a beneficial effect on his character and morality. And his diligent companion became even more capable and hardworking. They benefited from each other’s actions… This is natural; because man is born into the society of people, he develops intelligent concepts through people; habits, feelings, desires, in short, everything he accepts as a model of a person like himself. And therefore, since people’s lives are in the closest relationship and powerful influence on each other, who among whom he lives, to lead to habits, actions and customs. Therefore, a cold one can be warmed, a dull one can be sharpened, a lazy one can be discouraged, and a person similarly to himself can take part in a lively action. The spirit of the spirit can transmit itself, can act beneficially on each other: invite it to prayer, to attention, encourage in despair, deflect from sin and stimulate to holy activity, and therefore can help each other, can become more pious, more active and more godly. one to the other, ask for prayer for brotherhood!

The wit and accurate analysis and proof of your words are wonderful, but it would be interesting to hear from you the specific method and form of prayer for others, because I think that if the effectiveness and motivation of prayer depend on the active participation of others and, above all, on the constant influence of the spirit praying on the spirit in need of intercession, it would be inappropriate to present one’s self in a hopeless presence before God and lay one’s soul before Him in one’s own need. If, even once or twice a day, one brings one’s neighbor to mind and asks the neighbor for God’s help, is that enough to motivate and reinforce the person for whom one is praying? In short, one would like to know how to pray for others.

            Usually these words are repeated over time as the soul moves or while we handle the beads with this prayer. I have learned from experience how beneficial such a prayer is for the one about whom it is spoken.