Variety in vigil is very helpful. When one is alone, he may first do full prostrations, then small ones, and then say the Jesus Prayer sitting down or kneeling, and repeat this sequence depending on the time he has to offer. This method is every helpful for it creates spiritual liveliness and drives away the weariness of inaction through interspersed spiritual movements, prostrations. Moreover, it drives away sleepiness and brings spiritual lucidity during prayer.
--The Orthodox Word [2003], no. 229, p. 83
Prayer, combined with a curtailment of sleep, nourishes the soul--in addition to granting it spiritual alertness--and safeguards it, like a child in its mother's embrace. . . .
Vigil with prayer conveys health and life toward spiritual development, for it cleanses and sensitizes the mind, humbles the unruly flesh, and warms up the heart with love for god; and the soul receives Divine Grace.
Prayer during the night is much more beneficial than prayer during the day, just as nighttime rain is more favorable to plants than rain during the day.
Those who struggle during vigil prayerfully, yet are a little drowsy, greatly move God. This is not the case with those who are well rested and feel no drowsiness. Those who fall asleep in their stasidi [church seat] are a thousand times better off tan those who sleep in their bed. Nevertheless, we should not waste all our strength on futile things, which will become dust one day and then offer God our tiredness together with our yawning, like the sacrifice that Cain offered. When tiredness is justified and we are sleepy, it is better for sleep to steal one or two minutes from us during the vigil and for our drowsiness to recede naturally, rather than to drive it away earlier with coffee. Oftentimes coffee agitates our nerves, especially if we are not calm by nature. It is preferable for someone to keep vigil fewer hours with pure prayer, rather than to hasten for the night to pass without any spiritual benefit and afterward spend the whole day prostrate like a corpse.
--The Orthodox Word [2003], no. 229, pp. 79, 80-81
Those who do not co-suffer with those in pain, suffer from a fatal spiritual illness: mercilessness. Those who are annoyed by the moaning of sick people and react angrily because they cannot concentrate, suffer from many spiritual illnesses.
--The Orthodox Word [2003], no. 229, p. 76
"Sinful thoughts continually disturb a man. But if he does not cooperate with them, then he is not guilty of them."
"One ascetic woman was besieged for a long time with unclean thoughts. When the Lord came and cast them away from her, she called to Him: 'Where were you before now, O my sweet Jesus?' The Lord answered: 'I was in your heart.' She said then: 'How could that be? For my heart was full of unclean thoughts.' The Lord said to her: 'Know that I was in your heart, for you were not disposed to the unclean thoughts, but strove rather to be free of them; and when you were not able to be free, you struggled and grieved. By this you prepared a place for Me in your heart.'"
--Elder Ambrose of Optina, p. 255
About the power of repentance, the Elder said: "One man sinned but repented, and this continued all his life. Finally he repented and died. An evil spirit came for his soul and said: 'He's mine.' The Lord said, 'No, no, he has repented.' 'But he repented and then sinned again,' said the devil. The Lord said to him: 'If you, being evil, take him back after he repented to Me, then how can I not accept him if after sinning he has turned to Me in repentance? You forget that you are evil, and I am good.'"
--Elder Ambrose of Optina, pp. 253-254
About laziness and depression the Elder said: "Boredom is the grandson of depression, and laziness is the daughter. To send her away, labor actively--do not be lazy in prayer, then boredom will pass and zeal will come. And if you add to this patience and humility, then you will escape much evil."
--Elder Ambrose of Optina, p. 252
Theology is the word of God, which is apprehended by pure, humble and spiritually regenerated souls, and not the beautiful words of the mind, which are crafted with literary art and expressed by the legal or worldly spirit. . . .
Theology that is taught like a science usually examines things historically and, consequently, things are understood externally. Since patristic ascesis and inner experience are absent, this kind of theology is full of uncertainty and questions. For with the mind one cannot grasp the Divine Energies if he does not first practice ascesis and live the Divine Energies, that the Grace of God might be energized within him.
Whoever thinks that he can come to know the mysteries of God through external scientific theory, resembles the fool who wants to see Paradise through a telescope.
Those who struggle patristically become empirical theologians through the visitation of the Grace of the Holy Spirit. All those who have an external education, in addition to the internal enlightenment of the soul, may describe the divine mysteries and interpret them correctly, as did many Holy Fathers.
If, however, one does not become spiritually related to the Holy Fathers and wants to take up translating or writing, he will wrong both the Holy Fathers and himself, as well as the people, with his spiritual cloudiness.
Neither is it right for someone to theologize using someone else's theology, because he will resemble an impotent man who adopts others' children, presents them as his own and pretends to be the father of a large family. The Holy Fathers took the divine word or personal experiences from their hearts: the result of spiritual battles against evil and the fire of temptations, which they confessed humbly, or, out of love, wrote down in order to help us. . . .
Those who are grateful towards God for everything and constantly attend to themselves humbly and look after God's creatures and creation with kindness, theologize and thus become the most faithful theologians, even if illiterate. They are like the illiterate shepherds who observe the weather in the countryside, day and night, and become good meteorologists.
--The Orthodox Word [2003], no. 229, pp. 86-88
On almsgiving the Elder said: "St. Dimitry of Rostov wrote: 'Even if a man comes to you on a horse and asks you for alms, give it to him. You will not have to answer for how he uses it.'"
Also: "St. John Chyrsostom says, 'Begin by giving away what you do not need, what is lying around unsued, to those who are in need. Then you will begin to give what you can according to your means, and finally you will be ready to give away all that you have.'"
--Elder Ambrose of Optina, p. 251
[A]lthough we must not despair of the possibility for our conversion and salvation no matter how weak [because previously ignored] is the call for conversion to a virtuous life, we must always think timidly and fearfully of our weak condition. Might we have sunk so far that we have reached the final opportunity to receive a grace-filled awakening? Could we have barred all inroads that divine grace, ever desiring our salvation, might take to act upon us? Is this the last time that grace may be drawing nigh unto us with the aim of bringing us to our senses and putting a stop to our disgraceful condition? Thus, as weak as such a call may be, we must ever more speedily rush to make use of it with all firmness of intention, though this may require more discernment, and intensify it to the fullest extent of human freedom. Obviously, such intensification is nothing other than the opening up of ourselves to this seeking and sought-for grace. We must open up, for through our falls we have become more and more hardened and closed to grace, in first one and then another respect.
--The Path to Salvation, p. 125
Thus the thought has come to correct your life and morality. Having cast off procrastination, humble and lighten your flesh with physical ascetical struggle. Remove yourself from cares and distractions by ceasing your usual business and by solitude, and then, concentrating your attention on various salvific thoughts, force yourself to cast out all blindness, insensitivity and indolence by reasoning with yourself, or discussing with yourself, alternating this with prayer and placing yourself under the influence of such occasions as divine grace has chosen to act upon the souls of sinners.
Labor, force yourself, search--and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. Do not relax and do not despair. But all the while remember that these labors only comprise the experience of our struggle to attract grace; they are not the grace itself, which we do not yet have. We have not yet acquired the main thing: grace-filled awakening. . . . Therefore do not content yourself with your efforts alone, as though they were what you were supposed to seek. This is a dangerous mistake! It is equally dangerous to think that there is a reward due for these labors, and grace should be automatically sent down to you. Absolutely not! This only prepares you to receive it, but the gift itself is entirely dependent upon the Giver. Thus, making assiduous use of all the prescribed methods, the seeker should go on, awaiting God's visitation, which, by the way, does not come with discernment, but when it comes no one will know from whence it came.
When this grace-filled awakening arrives, only then will real inner changes of life and morals begin. Without this you cannot expect any progress, only unsuccessful attempts. . . . Labor in expectancy and the hope of faith. Grace will come and arrange everything.
--The Path to Salvation, pp. 145-146, 147
At the very onset of even a slight sense of your sinfulness and the danger of remaining in it, delve ever deeper into yourself, and with even greater force of thought conquer yourself with threats and sobering ideas; using them, shake up and soften your insensitive heart, as a heavy hammer softens a rough stone.
Remember your fate. Say to yourself: "Alas, soon will come death." . . . Do not estrange yourself from this hour of death. . . . Then imagine clearly what will happen to you at the time of death and afterwards. . . . Your secret sins will be reproached before all the angels and saints. There, before everyone's face, you will stand alone with your deeds. . . . Feel all this vividly and force yourself to remain in it until you are filled with fear and trembling.
Then turn to God and place yourself, defiled and weighed down by many sins, before the face of Him, the omnipotent, omniscient, all-gracious and long-suffering! . . . [H]asten to awaken and strengthen within yourself godly pity and sorrow.
Remember that you are a Christian redeemed by the blood of Christ, cleansed with the water of Baptism. You have received the gift of the Holy Spirit; you have sat at the table of the Lord and are nourished by His Body and Blood. And you have flouted all this for the sake of sin that destroys you! Ascend in thought upon Golgotha, and understand what your sins have cost. Will you really still wound the head of the Lord with the thorns of your sins? Will you still nail Him to the Cross, pierce His side and mock His long-suffering? Or perhaps you do not see that by sinning you participate in tormenting the Saviour, and thereby share a part in the tormentors' lot. But if you abandon sin and repent you will partake of the power of His death. Choose one or the other: either crucify Him, then perish eternally--or crucify yourself, and inherit eternal life with Him.
Consider further what that sin you cling to is. It is an evil more disastrous than all evils. It separates you from God, wreaks havoc on your soul and body, torments your conscience, brings upon you God's punishment in life and at death; and after death it sends you to hell, closing Paradise to you forever. What a monster it is to people! Bring to your sense all the evil of sin, and force yourself to abhor it and reject it.
Finally, look at sin from the point of view of the devil, who was its first creator and propagator, and see for whom you work by sinning. God has done and will do everything for you, but you do not want to please Him. The devil has done nothing for you, only tryannizes you with sin, but you willingly and indefatigably work for him. You befriend him through sin, and he does evil to you through it. He entices you to sin by promising its sweetness, but those who fall into sin he torments and tortures. . . . Realize all this and arouse yourself to hatred for this man-hater and all his works.
--The Path to Salvation, pp. 137-139
[A] characteristic trait of sinful life is, in its disregard for salvation, the care and trouble about many things (cf. Lk 10:41).
The nuances and distinctions of this care and trouble about many things depends on the kinds of emptiness that have formed in the soul. There is the emptiness of the mind that has forgotten the One Who is everything; this gives rise to care and trouble about learnedness, inquisitiveness, questioning and curiosity. There is the emptiness of the will that has been deprived of possession by the One Who is everything; this creates desire for many things, the longing to possess many things, so that everything is in our control, in our hands; this is self-interest. There is the emptiness of the heart that has been deprived of the enjoyment of the One Who is everything; this forms a thirst for the satisfaction of many and various things, or a search for an infinite number of objects in which we hope to find pleasure for our sense, both internal and external. Thus, the sinner is continually troubled about learnedness, the possession of many things and the desire for many pleasures. He amuses himself, he possesses, he questions. He goes around in circles his entire life. Curiosity beckons, the heart hopes to taste sweet things, and he is enticed by the will. Anyone can convince himself of this if he observes the movements of his soul over the course of only a single day.
If left alone, the sinner will continue going in circles, because this is our nature when it is enslaved to sin.
--The Path to Salvation, pp. 96-97
The true Christian life is one of grace. The self-made life, no matter how beautiful it is in appearance or how close it is to the form of Christian life, will never be Christian.
The origin of the Christian life is in arousal [from the slumber of sin] by grace.
--The Path to Salvation, p. 105
[Repentance] is a decisive change for the better, a breaking away from sin and a turning to God, or a kindling of the fire of zeal for exclusively God-pleasing things, with renunciation of the self and everything else. It is above all characterized by an extreme breaking of the will. If a person has acquired evil habits, he must now rend himself. If he has offended God, he must now grieve in the fire of just judgment. . . . With the repentant person there is first fear, then the lightness of hope; sorrow, then comfort; terror to the point of despair, then the breath of the consolation of mercy. . . .
It is something painful, but it saves. It is therefore inevitable that whoever has not experienced such a painful break has not yet begun to live through repentance. It is impossible for a person to begin cleansing himself in everything without having gone through this crucible. Decisive and active resistance to sin comes only from hatred of it. Hatred of sin comes only from a sense of evil from it; the sense of evil from it is experienced in all its force in this painful break within repentance. . . . Without this painful experience, even if he begins cleansing himself in some other way, he will be able to cleanse himself only slightly, more outwardly than inwardly, more in actions than in disposition. . . .
Such change is brought about in the human heart by divine grace. This alone can inspire a man to raise his hand to himself and bring himself to God in sacrifice.
--The Path to Salvation, pp. 92, 93
"If you do not feel like praying, you have to force yourself," the Elder said. "The Holy Fathers say that prayer with force is higher than prayer unforced. You do not want to, but force yourself. The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force (cf. Matt. 11:12)."
--Elder Ambrose of Optina, p. 250
Christian life is zeal and the strength to remain in communion with God by means of an active fulfillment of His holy will, according to our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the help of the grace of God, to the glory of His most holy name.
The essence of Christian life consists in communion with God, in Christ Jesus our Lord--in a communion with God which in the beginning is usually hidden not only from others, but also from oneself. The testimony of this life that is visible or can be felt within us is the ardor of active zeal to praise God alone in a Christian manner, with total self-sacrifice and hatred of everything which is opposed to this. And so, when this ardor of zeal begins, Christian life has its beginning. The person in whom this ardor is constantly active is one who is living in a Christian way. . . .
Just as salt, penetrating decomposable matter, preserves it from decomposition, so also the spirit of zeal, penetrating our whole being, banishes the sin which corrupts our nature both in soul and body; it banishes it even from the least of the places where it has settled in us, and thus it saves us from moral vice and corruption. . . .
[I]n Christian life the result of the fervor of zeal is a certain quickness and liveliness of spirit, with which people undertake God-pleasing works, trampling upon oneself and willingly offering as a sacrifice to God every kind of labor, without sparing oneself.
Having a firm basis in such an understanding, one may easily conclude that a cold fulfillment of the rules of the Church, just like routine in business, which is established by our calculating mind, or like correct and dignified behavior and honesty in conduct, is not a decisive indicator that the true Christian life is present in us. . . .
Only true zeal both wishes to do good in all fulness and purity, and persecutes sin in its smallest forms.
--The Path to Salvation, pp. 27-28, 29
We who are trying to acquire basic Christian knowledge and understanding must do so by means of trials; we must be tested and thereby become sober and discerning. At the same time, in the midst of this, seeing all kinds of tragedies around us, we must be joyful, knowing that the end of the contest is the end of this whole corruptibel world. If we prepare ourselves with the knowledge born of spiritual struggle, we will be able to recognize Christ when He comes. But if we do not recognize the sings of the times and the Antichrist, and if we do not have Christ dwelling in our hearts, then when Christ comes we will be with those nations which will be lamenting because they are with Antichrist. They will see Christ coming, and all their Christianity will have been proved false.
--Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, p. 1054
It is necessary for us to live as God created us, and when someone does not live this way, I may confidently state that he does not live at all.
--The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It, p. 39
In a Christian [growth] is a battle with oneself involving much labor, intense and sorrowful, and he must dispose his faculties for something for which they have no inclination. Like a soldier, he must take every step of land, even his own, from his enemies by means of warfare, with the double-edged sword of forcing himself and opposing himself. Finally, after long labors and exertions, the Christian principles appear victorious, reigning without opposition; they penetrate the whole composition of human nature, dislodging from it demands and inclinations hostile to themselves, and place in it a state of passionlessness and purity, making it worthy of the blessedness of the pure in heart--to see God in themselves in sincerest communion with Him.
Such is the place in us of the Christian life. This life has three stages which may be called: 1) Turning to God; 2) Purification or self-amendment; 3) Sanctification.
--The Path to Salvation, p. 23
Why do there seem to be so few miracles in our days? It is because, believed Fr. Seraphim, there is so little pain of heart.
In a little handwritten note, hidden away and discovered man years after his death, Fr. Seraphim crystallized into a few words the essence of a great truth for our times:
"Pain of heart is the condition for spiritual growth and the manifestation of God's power. Healings, etc., occur to those in desperation, hearts pained but still trusting and hoping in God's help. This is when God acts. The absence of miracles today (almost) indicates lack of this pain of heart in man and even most Orthodox Christians--bound up with the 'growing cold' of hearts in the last times."
A proof of this statement can be seen in Fr. Seraphim's own experience, out of which it of course came. . . . All the miracles that Fr. Seraphim had witnessed in his own life, including those of the greatest miracle-worker Archbishop John, had resulted from the prayers of hearts which did not shrink from the pain of Golgotha.
--Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, p. 795
As for the intellectual and physical parts [of a man], they are, as we have already noted, in and of themselves, sinless, and natural to us; but the man who has been shaped by the intellectual or even worse, by the carnal [i. e., the physical], is not sinless. He is guilty of granting supremacy within himself to something that was not meant for supremacy, and that is supposed to be in a subordinate position. It turns out that although the intellectual is natural for a man to be intellectual is unnatural; in the same way carnality is natural, but for a man to be carnal is unnatural. . . .
From this you see that according to natural purpose, man must live in the spirit, subordinate everything to the spirit, be penetrated by the spirit in all that is of the soul, and even more so in all that is physical--and beyond these, in the outward things, too, that is, family and social life. This is the norm!
The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It, pp. 74, 75
"The Patristic teaching on pain of heart," Fr. Seraphim wrote, "is one of the most important teaching for our days when 'head-knowledge' is so over-emphasized at the expense of the proper development of emotional and spiritual life. . . . The lack of this essential experience is what above all is responsible for the dilettantism, the triviality, the want of seriousness in the ordinary study of the Holy Fathers today; without it , one cannot apply the teachings of the Holy Fathers to one's own life. One may attain to the very highest level of understanding with the mind of the teaching of the Holy Fathers, may have 'at one's fingertips' quotes from the Holy Fathers on every conceivable subject, may have 'spiritual experiences' which seem to be those described in the Patristic books, may even know perfectly all the pitfalls into which it is possible to fall in spiritual life--and still, without pain of heart, one can be a barren fig tree, a boring 'know-it-all' who is always 'correct,' or an adept in all the present-day 'charismatic' experiences, who does not know and cannot convey the true spirit of the Holy Fathers."
--Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, p. 472
Why do men learn through pain and suffering, and not through pleasure and happiness? Very simply, because pleasure and happiness accustom one to satisfaction with the things given in this world, whereas pain and suffering drive one to seek a more profound happiness beyond the limitations of this world. I am at this moment in some pain, and I call on the Name of Jesus--not necessarily to relieve the pain, but that Jesus, in Whom alone we may transcend this world, may be with me during it, and His will be done in me. But in pleasure I do not call on Him; I am content then with what I have, and I think I need no more. And why is a philosophy of pleasure untenable?--because pleasure is impermanent and unreliable, and pain is inevitable. In pain and suffering Christ speaks to us, and thus God is kind to give them to us, yes, and evil too--for in all of these we glimpse something of what must lie beyond, if there really exists what our hearts most deeply desire.
--Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, p. 163
Besides its general meaning, "pain of heart" has a literal meaning in the writings of the Fathers, for when the heart is concentrated in fervent prayer to Christ, it may actually be pained. As Fr. Seraphim noted, in Patristic terminology, the "heart" does not mean mere "feeling," but "something much deeper--the organ that knows God." The heart is both spiritual and physical: spiritually, it is the center of man's being, identified with his nous (spirit); physically, it is the organ where the nous finds its secret dwelling place. Concentrated within the physical heart, the nous cries out to the Saviour, and such a heart-cry--born in pain and desperation, yet hoping in God--calls down Divine grace. This is seen especially in the Orthodox practice of the Jesus Prayer. When we approach the Jesus Prayer simply, says Elder Paisios of Mount Athos (†1994), "we will be able to repeat it many times, and our heart will feel a sweet pain and then Christ Himself will shed His sweet consolation inside our heart."
--Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, pp. 471-472
Dogmas are not human postulates, clearly formulated, but the divine truth about God--a truth which people themselves could not possibly arrive at had it not been revealed to them by God. Truth can be investigated, truth can be known, truth can be proven, but truth cannot be contrived. . . .
Heresy is a departure from the divine truth and not from the opinion of the majority.
--Elder Ambrose of Optina, pp. 174, 175
In the patristic writings, "pain of heart" generally refers to an elemental inward suffering, the bearing of an interior cross while following Jesus Christ, and a spirit broken in contrition. "Suffering," Fr. Seraphim stated, "is the reality of the human condition and the beginning of the true spiritual life." From Archbishop John, who had utterly crucified himself in this life, Fr. Seraphim had learned how to endure this suffering in thankfulness to God, and from him he had learned its fruits. If used in the right way, suffering can purify the heart, and the pure in heart . . . shall see God (Matt. 5:8). "The right approach," wrote Fr. Seraphim, "is found in the heart which tries to humble itself and simply knows that it is suffering, and that there somehow exists a higher truth which can not only help this suffering, but can bring it into a totally different dimension." According to St. Mark the ascetic (fifth century), "Remembrance of God is pain of heart enduring in the spirit of devotion. But he who forgets God becomes self-indulgent and insensitive." And in the words of St. Barsanuphius the Great of Egypt, whose counsels Fr. Seraphim translated into English, "Every gift is received through pain of heart."
--Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, p. 471
[Note: Time stamp changed to move it up the blog.]
From "An Answer to Ivan" (one of the Karamazov brothers in Dostoyevsky's novel):
Once one has risen to the level of doubting, two paths open up to him: the path of questioning, of doubting of trying to understand until one ends in doubting everything, destroyed by doubt, or else giving oneself over to some false science that "explains"--i. e., explains away the irreconcilable paradoxes of our existence; or the path of acceptance and prayer, accepting even the doubt (without contriving more than one's immediate experience gives one legitimately to doubt), praying to be given yet more to try and test us, crying for more life, more to accept and weep over, accepting and praying in the midst of doubt, knowing that the way of doubt has as many pitfalls as the way of easy acceptance.
--Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, p. 99