Father Dimitry on how to Get Rid of Vanity

Russian Hour with Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov (October 3, 2005). Radio Radonezh.

Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov (1951 - 21.10.2020)

Listener's question:

How to get rid of vanity?

Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov in the studio:

Nothing could be simpler. For this, there is a technique developed by the ancient Fathers: first, you must get rid of talkativeness. Never initiate a conversation and answer only when asked a direct question and not beyond what is asked. That is, answer as briefly as the question itself was asked. That's the first thing.

Once you've mastered this, you need to move on to another exercise. This is something more serious: you must get to love reproach. That is, the average person is usually a rather proud creature: you can't say anything to them, you can't make a remark to them, you can't correct them—they'll immediately get offended, pout, and sometimes even quarrels break out. The usual response is, "Look who's talking!," and so on. If someone wants to get rid of vanity so seriously—like you, I feel — they need to learn to love being criticized. That is, every time someone points out our shortcomings, or judges us in some way, we need to drink these moments in our lives like nectar. Like cool water—well, not cold, icy, so as not to catch a cold, but cool on a hot day. So, with pleasure. And when you learn this, vanity will completely leave you.

Because vanity is a derivative of pride. And pride takes all such attacks, especially undeserved ones (usually deserved, but sometimes undeserved), very hard. A person is always in a state of self-justification. And when a person is humbled, humiliated, constantly shown their place, it's extremely beneficial. But still, it's precisely in this order that you need to move from one exercise to the next. If you begin with the second, then, of course, nothing will work. First, you need to teach yourself not to push forward, not to assert your "I," not to say "I'm a professor" at every turn, so to speak, but rather to be as modest as possible. The fight against vanity begins with cultivating humility. First, externally, and then it will become internal.

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