Finding the Way Leading to Christ

Elder Paisios was asked, "What should I do to find the way leading to Christ?"


He answered:

Christ wants us to eliminate our will to zero.  If you obtain a single one of these virtues [Purification, divine justice, love, obedience, voluntary poverty] bear in mind, that the rest are find in the one you just acquired; the same thing applies to our passions; one passion includes all the others.  PUrification requires the soul to be pure and clean from our own will; divine justice is the abandonment of our own will to the will of God; humility is to humble our will and elevate god's will; obedience means not to have a will and thus obey other people; prayer means to take our mind off our wishes and desires and concentrate on God.  so, you wee whichever virtue you apply, you are led to the same result, that is, to the elimination and purification of your own will.  Man will spiritually progress and be benefited only when he manages to eliminate his will to zero.

This is the cross we must bear––our own will and its desires and wishes.  It leads us to pride and the sense of self-sufficiency. When it is not brought to zero we become our own God.  What the elder is describing is the essence of humility.  This is our challenge as Christians, to bring our self-will to zero.  This is the example that Christ showed us.  He was fully human as well as divine but was able to align His human will with His divine will.  It is in this way that we can follow His commandments and learn to love God with our whole heart and soul and to love others as ourselves.


Source: Elder Paisios and the Holy Mountain, p 54