Schema-archimandrite Abraham (Reidman). "The good part." Obstructions in the spiritual life and the desire for grace.
Here are two examples: one from my
personal experience, the other - from the experience of my friend. When I
first read the conversation of St. Seraphim of Sarov, it shook me and
made me significantly change my life. It was a very long time ago, I had
not yet prayed the Jesus prayer and I did not communicate with father
Andrew (Mashkov). After reading this work, I realized that the true
Christian life is not just to go to church, pray, make the sign of the
Cross, and not to commit serious sins. The Christian life must be
grace-filled. But at that time, I realized it in a primitive way. Later,
reading other holy fathers, I began to treat everything more
reasonably. And then I began to pray that the grace descends upon me. I
did not know how we should pray correctly, I did not hear about the
Jesus prayer, so I endlessly repeated "Our Father" and some other
prayers.
Soon, extraordinary things began to
occur to me. When I went to bed and fell asleep a little, then I started
to hear some buzzing, like buzzer, and something descended over me. I
felt pleasant sensations, and saw some dreams in reality, in a subtle
dream, as they say. You know how it happens: like you're already asleep,
but still did not lose consciousness. I dreamed of one thing after
another, it seemed that the Savior icon in the corner of the room
sparkles ... And I thought that the grace had descended upon me. And I
wept in the church, just like a girl: eyes rained tears. I was weeping
and thinking: "Everyone is looking at me and friends are looking and
thinking how pious I am". But what was that weeping, if I had no idea
about the Jesus Prayer? Some moment of service amazes me, say, the
intonement: "Let us lift up our hearts" - and I start weeping. I weep,
and can not hear the service any more, because I keep in mind the words
that have caused the tears. And my soul feels good. Roughly speaking, I
was happy with everything. Even the passions did not particularly
torment me. Of course, what passions could be, when a person is content
with himself? I was disabused of this state by some sane notions of
orthodoxy that I had. For example, I knew how canonical icons,
iconostasis look like, and that non-canonical icons should not be in the
church. Then one day, I had a vision, as if I am at the gates of
paradise with the mind. And they are like the royal doors, but made in
the Baroque style: carved, cross-cutting, gilt. I look at them and
think: "But they are not canonical!" Just as I thought, these heavenly
or royal doors turned into some kind of a long fence. The demon
immediately transformed them, say, you do not want them - please, get
the others. But I have realized that there is something wrong. But no
one could explain it to me. I spoke to one good, zealous priest, but he
had no idea of these things, and he could not understand whether it is
grace or not. Once I had these suspicions, immediately all sorts of
temptations began. In the end, I had to pray to get rid of the buzzer.
That's how I fell into the delusion because I wanted grace. There was a
similar case with my friend (now an abbot or hieromonk, do not know
exactly, I have not seen him for a long time). We read the same books,
and he also read the conversation of Seraphim of Sarov with Motovilov.
That was already when I came to myself and realized that I was in
delusion. But everyone believes himself more than others. My friend also
prayed for the grace to descend upon him. I do not know what he felt,
but in the end it was so bad that he had to call an ambulance. The good
thing is that there were no serious consequences.
So, we should not seek to obtain grace,
understood in a primitive way: the shining face and sweetness in the
heart, just like Motovilov had it. It is one thing that Motovilov
obtained something through the prayers of such great ascetic as St.
Seraphim of Sarov, and it is a different matter what we are capable of.
God can give us only what is good for us, what we can encompass. As the
Gospel says, no one puts new wine into old wineskins, because that will
break the wineskin, and the wine will spill. As you know, wineskin is a
vessel made of sheep skin. When it was old, the new, still fermenting
wine tore it. For this reason, the Lord does not give us grace like this
new, bubbling vine: we lose it, and we harm our own soul. And we think
that if there is no grace, such as we imagine it, then all is lost,
everything is useless, the spiritual life is over, we will perish, and
so on. Once again I say: grace for a beginner, if we talk only about the
subjective feelings, is attention in prayer. If you lose attention, all
your "grace-filled" feelings are, at least, suspicious. The action of
grace is expressed in the behavior of a man, in the inner state: in
humility, humbling ourselves before others, love of neighbor, and so on.
As the Apostle Paul says, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (Gal.
5: 22-23).
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