Can We Trust Our Own Judgment?

How do you know you are on the right path for you salvation?   How do you know what effort you need to make to grow in your relationship with God?  Can you judge this by yourself?

"Where there is no guidance, they fall like leaves; salvation exists in much counsel," it says in Proverbs 11:14.

One of the truths about our Orthodox way of life is that we will wither and fall like leaves if we do not seek counsel and instead believe we can guide ourselves. How often do we see the new convert who is enthusiastic about fasting, attends all the services, carries a prayer rope and repeats the Jesus prayer, and all the other things one is taught about the faith. But what frequently happens after a period of time? If they rely only on their own guidance they will have found that they took on more than they were capable of and cannot maintain such a way of life. They lose their zeal and without anyone to guide them other than their own direction they fade in their efforts. This often ends with disillusion and even a falling away from the faith.

Our own will becomes our enemy. It leads us where we are incapable of seeking help from those who have greater wisdom. Saint Dorotheos writes,

It is for this reason that Abba Poeman used to say, "the Will is like a brass wall between man and God". Do you see strength in that saying? In addition, he added, "It is like a stumbling stone by which we go against and oppose the Will of God".  If a person relinquishes his will he can truly say, "By my God, I leapt over a wall. As for my God, His way is perfect." (Ps 18:29-30). How wonderfully spoken! For when a person abandons his own will he sees that the way of God is without blemish but when he identifies himself with his own will then he cannot see that the way of God is blameless. If he happens to be cautioned by someone, he immediately blames him, treats him with contempt, dislikes him and opposes him. How can he tolerate anybody or receive any advice whatsoever when he keeps his own will?

Why is it we are so self-willed? Why do we find it hard to trust in the way of life taught by the Church?  Why do we not seek out help from the elders of the Church for our personal guidance? Why is "My way" so important to us?

Saint Dorotheos also  tells us our condition is even worsened when we couple our self-will with self-justification.  That is, when we take the additional step of justifying why our own will is superior to the teachings of the saints, the wise people of the Church. The saint says, "Who can persuade him to believe that another person knows what is good for him better than he does? He is left to himself, left to follow his own thoughts, and the devil can make a corpse of him."

The way we should behave is to freely seek counsel on everything. As Proverbs says, "Salvation exists in much counsel." Of course we must be careful in whom we choose to take council from. It must be somebody we have full confidence in and who is respected for their wisdom regarding things of the spirit.  Saint Dorotheos says, 

"When the soul is protected by telling everything and advised by somebody who is spiritually wise, saying, "Do that," "Do not do that," or "This is good," "This is not good," "This is self-justification," "This is self-will," "It is not the time to do this," or "This is the time to do this," then the devil does not find an excuse to harm the soul or to cast it down."

It is critical to have the desire to do God's will and not our own will. This is humility. Saint Dorotheos says, "There is no other route to salvation than this." To overcome the trap of seeking our own will requires guidance. Otherwise who is guiding? Our own will. Do you see the error?  Even if we read about the good path from a saint, how are we going to know if we are doing it the way it should be done?

"May God shelter us from the danger of guiding ourselves, and make us worthy to follow the way of our fathers."

Reference: Abba Dorotheos: Practical Teaching on the Christian Life, pp 123-129

Spiritual Deception - Prelest

Saint Theophan the Recluse
The more advanced a man is in holiness, the deeper is his awareness of his own sinfulness. Conversely, the less refined a man is, the weaker is his awareness of his own sinfulness. In the majority of people Such an awareness is altogether absent. This is why they do not understand the ascetic labor of repentance and do not feel any need for it. Because they do not understand this labor and feel no need to repent, one may say that all such people are in prelest. And inasmuch as we have but a limited awareness of our sinfulness, one may say that we are all in prelest !

Abba Poemen the Great:
"I prefer a man who sins and repents to one who does not sin and does not repent. The first has good thoughts, for he admits that he is sinful. But the second has false, soul-destroying thoughts, for he imagines himself to be righteous"

St. Isaac the Syrian wrote about this kind of prelest:
"The effect of the cross is twofold; the duality of its nature divides it into two parts, One consists in enduring sorrows of the flesh which are brought about by the action of the excitable part of the soul, and this part is called activity. The other part lies in the finer workings of the mind and in divine meditation, as well as in attending to prayer, etc.; it is accomplished by means of the desiring part of the soul and is called contemplation. The part of the soul by dint of its zeal, while the second part is the activity of soulful love, in other words, natural desire, which enlightens the rational part of the soul. Every man who, before perfectly mastering the first part, switches to the second, attracted out of weakness--to say nothing of laziness, is overtaken by God's wrath because he did not first mortify his members which are upon the earth (Col. 3:5). In other words, he did not cure his thoughts of infirmities by patiently bearing the cross, but rather dared in his mind to envision the glory of the cross"

Why “New Age” Practices are Dangerous

New Age and self-help ideas and practices stem in part from the arrival of leaders of various Hindu sects beginning in the early 1900s (50 years later came Buddhism).  The Hindu methods that were taught to Americans all have an underlying assumption of a spirituality that is foreign to Traditional Christian beliefs and can be misleading to Christians and misapplied. Their view does not recognize the fundamental belief in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, of God becoming man, His subsequent Crucifixion and Resurrection where He showed victory over death and thereby liberated all mankind, and our immortal irreducible personhood though our own resurrection and union with God in Paradise.

Why is this important? A USA Today/Gallup Poll in 2002-JAN indicated that 33% of Americans consider themselves “spiritual but not religious.” This means they are creating their own personal spirituality. When you define for yourself what is spiritual, you lose true humility and are engaging in a process of defining your own god. This weakens belief and reduces God to something that is relative to your own perspective.  It becomes easy to change your beliefs based on the last seminar you attended or the last book you read, leading to a very weak or even no firm belief system to support your spiritual growth or to provide needed comfort in times of suffering.  Hieromonk Damascene says this leads to the following for such a person:

He has religious interests in several area, but he basically believes that all is relative: i.e., “My ideas work for me, your ideas work for you.” He believes in everything at once, but in nothing very deeply, and in nothing that will demand a sacrifice from him. He has nothing worth dying for…. His spiritual interest is intimately connected to his quest for ego gratification, and thus stands poised to receive anything from anywhere that will provide this gratification. He is as clay in the hands of the spirit of antichrist, which , as the Apostle teaches, is already in the world (1John 4:3). He is a candidate––or rather a target–– for the “religion of the future” about which Fr. Seraphim Rose wrote.

The resulting New Age thinking that counts among it leaders Deepak Chopra, Bernie Seagal, Marianne Williamson, Barbara DeAngelis, LaVar Burton, Richard Carlson, Betty Eadie, Eckhart Tolle and most other self-help self-proclaimed gurus of the wholistic health and feel good programs now proclimed weekly on TV and in our bookstores and online web sites, is now a large social and money making  phenomenon. Remember the fate of the followers of Reverend Jim Jones and the recent deaths in the sweat lodge in Arizona? Your adventures may not be this extreme, but beware, many of these approaches rely on well known occult methods and practices that can lead to quick relief and a temporary sense of well being, but do not lead you to a true relationship with God, the only permanent solution to your angst. In this sense these "new" methods can be deceptive and therefore dangerous. Even though they may not identify the underlying religious beliefs and assumptions, they can replace legitimate spiritual disciplines and practices with false psychological based methods. They may lead you to think you have found God and His healing power when you have not. Your suffering and stress may be intended to bring you closer to god, but by finding a temporary relief you miss this opportunity. Further, they can build up your ego-self and make you feel less dependent on any higher power than yourself, leading to vain glory and pride which separate you from God. They tend to lead a Christian away from the humility that is needed for salvation and a true relationship with God.

In short, these new self help methods lead many Christians to adopt a "new Christianity," one that is watered down, quite different from what was taught by Jesus and the Apostles, one that no longer has the saving power of the early Church and in fact includes ideas that are counter to Christian beliefs and traditions. The effect is your practice of Christianity may become powerless as you learn to place your trust in psychic and occult methods that differ from traditional Christian ascetic practices. Many have given up proven traditional Christian practices and with it their striving for a true relationship with God.

Kevin Allen, an Orthodox Christian who previously was a Hindu practicioner, says the following:

Clement of Alexandria, two thousand years ago wrote that pre-Christian philosophers were often inspired by God, but he cautioned one to be careful what one took from them!

So we acknowledge the eastern seeker through his ascesis or contemplative methodologies may experience deep levels of created beauty, or created being (through self-contemplation), para-normal dimensions, or even the "quantum field" that modern physics has revealed! However, it is only in the Eastern Orthodox Church and through its deifying mysteries that the seeker will be introduced to the province of Uncreated Divine Life. It is only in the Orthodox Church that the eastern seeker will hear there is more to "salvation" than simply forgiveness of sins and justification before God. He will be led to participate in the Uncreated Energies of God, so that they "may be partakers of the divine nature" (II Peter 1:4). As a member of the Body of Christ he will join in the deifying process, and be increasingly transformed after the Likeness! Thankfully, deification is available to all who enter the Holy Orthodox Church, are baptized (which begins the deifying process) and partake of the holy mysteries. Deification is not just for monks, ascetics and the spiritual athletes on Mount Athos!

The reliance on self-help techniques is ever increasing along with the application of unauthorized and prescription drugs.  We need to ask, “Have we Orthodox become secular and prone to self-help techniques for our spiritual ailments? Do we give secondary importance to the teachings of our Orthodox Christian faith?”

One can have confidence in the 2000 year old Tradition of the Couch based on God's revelation to mankind.  It is not the easy way, but is the way necessary to gain our salvation.  Let's not let these new self-centered techniques distract us and water down our Orthodox world view.

Spiritual Deception - How the Demons Mislead Us Through Our “Passions”

What is it that prevents us from living in total conformity with Christ’s teaching? For myself, I find this a most difficult task. What is it that keeps us from enabling the part of the Lord’s Prayer that reads, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven”?  What holds us back and allows us to fall off the path we regularly pray for help to follow? 

The Church Fathers give us the answer: It is the work of the demons who are busily taking our natural impulses and turning them into “passions.”  

What do we mean by “passions”? Fr. Dn. Steenberg says that “‘passions’ are those impulses of the soul, of the heart (and thus, also of the body), which it suffers ‘passively’.  God gave us natural impulses.  When the soul is no longer in control of them they become “Passions.”  Notice the emphasis on “passive.” We find ourselves in a condition where we do not seem to be in control of all our actions and can easily fly off into a fit of anger or show our hatred of another person.  This is the result of a God given gift turned into an evil action.  Our soul has relinquished it power to another power.

We know that what God has created is “good.” (Gen 1) Therefore, our impulses that lead to behavior such as anger must, in some form, also be good.  For example, anger directed at the demons is appropriate and necessary for our spiritual growth.  But anger that lashes out at friends and neighbors is not.  One is where the soul is in control and the other is where the soul remains passive.   When the demons are active within us, our soul is no longer in control.  It becomes like a prisoner, captured by a demonic force.  The soul becomes passive, constrained in its actions.  Under this condition our natural instincts turn into “passions,” taking control of our life without proper restraint by our soul.  Rather than being used to help us attain God’s Kingdom, they cause us to lead a sinful life and distance us from God.  Often, I have a feeling of helplessness when confronting my own sinfulness.  Why do I do these things, I frequently ask myself.  I know better, it’s not what I want to do, but yet, I am unable to act appropriately. I know it is because my soul has become passive.  But why?  How does one put it back in control?

To live the Orthodox Christian life we need to understand this issue.  We need clarity about how our best intentions and highest desires get transmuted into lesser and undesired actions that tend to separate us from God and His Kingdom.  Can you see how our desire for self-satisfaction, to seek what feels “good’ is part of this issue?  Anger comes about when we are denied what we desire.  Hatred comes about when someone does not act the way we want them to act.  Our focus on self-satisfaction is the work of demons.  Our higher values are reduced to earthly self-centered terms of feeling good, being satisfied or happy.  Steenberg says, “in the Christian vision of man, those things that the world calls “good” in his emotional state are in fact known to be deceptions, traps, and pitfalls in the spiritual struggle.”

We must uncover the causes of our “passions.”  We must understand more clearly how the  instincts God has given us for the purposes of His Kingdom are being used by demonic forces to keep us from Him.  It is imperative that we learn how to control and overcome these negative forces that are at work within each of us.  This is the Christian struggle that demands our top priority.  This is also a struggle we cannot complete on our own. It is a struggle where we need God’s help and the shelter, guidance and support of the Church, its ministers, sacraments and supportive members.  When we take our spiritual life seriously, we necessarily work very hard to reorient our entire life toward God’s Kingdom.

St. Didochus writes,

So long as the soul is worldly-minded, it remains unmoved and untroubled––however much it sees people trampling justice underfoot.  Preoccupied with its own desires, it pays no attention to the justice of God.  When, however, because of its disdain for this world and its love for God, it begins to rise above passions it cannot bear, even in its dreams, to see justice set at naught.

Once we accept that we are under attack, and understand that our soul is being held captive, then we can constructively fight back.  As we engage in this struggle to liberate our soul, we are drawn closer and closer to a vision of God’s Kingdom.  We experience more and more the unconditional love of God.  Our misuse of our instincts abates.  We begin to find that we can control unwanted actions with God’s help.  As this focus on the Kingdom grows, we find our passions also become focused more and more on the Kingdom.  Our natural impulses become constrained.  It is like someone has taken hold of the reins of a runaway horse cart.  The wild horses being like our uncontrolled passions.  The holder of the reins being our soul. 

Steenberg suggests that this world opposes a life in Christ.  He says,

“It does not acknowledge the Kingdom of God; it rejects even more potentially the reality of demonic foes; and it has lost all sense of a proper distinction between natural impulse and the dominating passionate impulse…”

If we want to live Christ’s vision, we need to accept the Scripture and the Church's vision of the realities of the invisible realm, and learn how it works against us.  This will lead us to an appreciation of the ascetical and sacramental life taught by the church. It will give us motivation to engage in such practices.  The authentic Christian life one that involves a struggle.  It is not about some self determined idea about our satisfaction.

What are we to do?

Abba Matoes says,

Satan does not know by what passion the soul can be overcome.  He sows, but without knowing if he will reap, sometimes thoughts of fornication, sometimes thoughts of lander, and similarity for the other passions.  He supplies nourishment to the passion which he sees the soul is slipping towards.

The devil hits us everywhere until he finds our weakness and then concentrates on that area. We need to acknowledge our weaknesses. What is your weakness that the demons are attacking and having success?  

Spiritual Deception - Do Demons exist?

There are many Christians who think demons are just old fashioned myths.  For a long time, I was one of them. To many, demons are just vehicles to explain things like suffering, illness and evil––not considered to be real beings that have their own wills and who are intent on keeping us separated from God.  This is a spiritual deception of a grand scale.  When we deny the existence of these invisible beings, we also deny all invisible beings, and this would include God the Creator of all that is both visible and invisible.  Frequently, we only allow ourselves to acknowledge as real what we can sense with our senses or measure scientifically.  We in effect block out of consideration the entire invisible or spiritual realm, including both angels and demons.

The consequences of this deception are important.  When we deny their existence we deny the spiritual struggle we must engage in, or the spiritual war that Saint Paul says Christians are engaged it.  If there is no war, no struggle, then all that is necessary to be Christian is to mentally embrace Christ by saying, “I believe,”  attend church on Sunday, be nice to others, and support social activities of the church and community. There is no need for ascetic practices to overcome forces that lead us astray. No need for prayer and fasting.

This view that denies the existence of demons is one that is promoted by the Devil himself.  It is his greatest deception, making us believe that he does not exist.  It makes us passive in our spiritual life.  Here is what St. Irenaeus of Lyons of the second century says of the work of the devil, “He had indeed been already accustomed to lie against God, for the purpose of leading men astray.” (Against Heresies, 5.23.1) “To lead men astray,” he says! This is the danger.

Scripture very clearly teaches that demons are real (In the Gospels alone, the word “demon” is used thirty-two times, “devil” and “Satan” both appear fourteen times, and the phrase “the evil one” appears five times.).*   Also, in the sacrament of Baptism, from the early days of the Church, we have the prayers of exorcism which are read to this day. After these prayers are read the Priest asks the Catechumen, “Do you renounce Satan, and all his works, and all his worship, and all his angels, and all his pomp?”  Also in the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for God to protect us, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” The Apostle Peter calls to each Christian: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8).

If the Gospel writers did not believe that demons exist, why would they use the term "demon" so often! There are excellent Greek words for disease and madness (which appear in the New Testament). Without any doubt we find a clear reference to demons throughout the Scripture.  It was not written there by mistake or to allude to some kind of physical illness. The facts of the gospel records clearly show that Jesus believed in personal demons. He addressed them and they addressed Him. Today, we can find people who can recount similar personal encounters with demons. Even though they are invisible beings, they are no less real than any other person to whom our Lord Jesus Christ spoke.

To avoid spiritual deception we need to develop a keen awareness of these demonic forces, because they are our enemy on our spiritual path.  If we are to follow Christ, we, like Him, have to recognize the power of the evil forces we face.  We of necessity need to properly prepare ourselves to fight against them, knowing they are actively attacking us.  Without such a recognition, our efforts will be weak and ineffective.  This is the nature of the authentic Christian struggle.

There was a time not so long ago that I used to worry about what would others say of me if I begin to talk about the demons who attack me?  I feared the possibility ridicule and being rejected as some kind of religious kook, a Neanderthal thinker.  I worried that they would  say I am naive, old fashioned, ignorant of modern scientific views, one babbling superstitious and archaic views.  This is the challenge we face in todays world.  Generally, a minority (34% for Orthodox and 40% for all Americans according to PEW Survey of Religious Landscape) of the population believes in demons with certainty. In our spiritual struggle we must go against the prevailing thought patterns that do not reflect the spiritual truth of the created world.  We must be prepared to be mocked and ridiculed for our views.  We cannot be deceived and ignore these forces that are woking against us.  We cannot be luke warm on this belief.  It is not enough to think there is the possibility of such beings.  We must in fact see them with certainty, as the enemy worthy of combating in intense spiritual warfare. This is the key to our eventual union with God.  These forces are trying to prevent us from joining with Christ and growing in a way where we become part of Him and part of His Kingdom.

The way we recognize these evil forces is through what the Church Fathers call “Passions.” I will continue this discussion on the passions in the next posting.

* New Testament references to demons: The freeing of people from the devil was the first work that our Lord Jesus Christ took on (Matt. 4:24, 8:16, 9:32-34; Mark 1:32-34; Luke 4:41, 8:2, 11:4) Specifically, we have the following accounts: the healing of the possessed youth (Matt. 17:14-21), the daughter of the Canaanite woman (Mark 7:24-29), and the two possessed Gadarenes (Matt. 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-19). In the last incident it is worth noting that not one but a whole legion of demons (i.e., a great number of them) became established in a man.  Jesus prepared his disciples to drive out demons. He sent them in pairs into the cities and villages with the power to drive out the unclean spirits (Matt. 10:1, Mark 6:7, Luke 9:1). When they returned they reported. "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Thy name" (Luke 10:17). The Lord foretold before His Ascension into Heaven that the breaking of diabolic power would be a clear sign of the Church: "And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils …" (Mark 16:17). In the book of Acts we find many examples of the holy Apostles dealing with demons, including the healing of the possessed by the Apostle Peter (Acts 5:16), by the Apostle Philip when "unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed with them" (Acts 8:7), and later by the Apostle Paul, who expelled a spirit of divination from a young woman (Acts 16:16-18). Moreover, the blessing of God acted so abundantly in those times that when, for example, personal things that belong to the Apostle Paul were laid on the possessed, the demons went out of them (Acts 19:12).

Photo: Lucifer,  a Gustave Doré's illustration forParadise Lost by John Milton.

Spiritual Deception - ”Taking Stock of our Struggle”

The issue of spiritual deception is a most important one for those who seek union with God.  We are engaged in a spiritual struggle in a world that is oriented to deceive us, convincing us that there is not really a struggle.  

Without a doubt, the overriding spiritual challenge we all face today is one of misplaced goals based on a limited vision embedded in the norms of our secular society.  What we seem to be seeking is self-satisfaction.  We attend seminars, watch TV shows, surf internet sites, and read books to examine ourselves, but for what purpose?  To discover how to be happy and content with ourselves.  Is this not true?  We are constantly encouraged to examine ourselves, to become our “true” self.  We live in a world where the primary focus is on ourselves and our self-evaluation of our well being. This focus is based in large part on the “simplistic belief that one can be whatever one wishes to be, however one wishes to be it, so long as one does not harm others.”

The  “goal of all our self-examination seems to be the discovery of the “me” with whom to be happy and satisfied.” This orientation is also embedded in the New Age and self-help movement.  “These programs still orbit around the central point of self-satisfaction and contentment with the true self…. often times they do involve calls to change and transformation…”  They “espouse a certain nuance: that between false self-love and true self-love, with one being bound by flaws and problems, and the other being authentic and exalted…” We experience a “direct call for self-assessment and change so that the false self being lived at present… can be shed in favor of the true self, which is the ready object of love….” The “true self one aims to  discover and love through shedding such false selves is still one defined by one’s will and desires….” The “root of both is the same: satisfaction gained through contentment in self, as defined by the self.”

This ongoing quest of self-satisfaction is the result of a secular world view where “one sees the world, and the human life within it, primarily or wholly, in terms of “the ‘things of this age’––of worldly visions separated from the theological vision of the Church” that that aims at God’s Kingdom. The current world  “ ...sees sin more and more as an outdated conviction of moral behavior; demons as old-fashioned…” We “describe that the world one knows to be simply psychological factors; heaven and hell as outmoded myths aimed at enforcing moral codes….” We deny the demonic forces that are at play.

We fail to generally recognize that the “world is the work of a Creator, that it is the venue of growth for a creature who has an opponent in that growth, that it is moving toward judgment, redemption and renewal.  Without these things, the impetus for a call to genuine change into the sanctifying life of the Creator is easily lost…. This mentality is a deception and a trap to the Christian.”

Saint Basil the Great warns us as follows:

Be attentive to yourself (Deut. 15:9). That is, observe yourself carefully from every side.  Let the eye of your soul be sleepless to guard you.  You walk in the midst of snares (cf. Sirach 9:13). Hidden traps have been set by the enemy in many places.  therefore observe everything, that you may be saved like a gazelle from traps and like a bird from snares (Prov. 6:5)

In today's world, “The overarching goal is the now.  The human person is to instigate whatever helps, whatever modifications to his life and lifestyle may bring about a deeper satisfaction with whom and what he is.  He is charged not to become something else (except inasmuch as he may be prompted to shed certain attributes which keep him from being who he really is at his core), but to become happy with the self that currently lies hidden.”

Wait a minute.  What is the focus of the life of a Christian supposed to be.  Is it this preoccupation with the self?  Is life about self-satisfaction? No!

“How far this is from Christian calling!… Christianity is a life rooted in Christ’s own.  Its charge is not to live for self but to live for Christ; and its goal is not satisfaction but transformation.  The Christian is called to become, to enter into a newness of life that is another’s––that is Christ’s.  He is to discover the “self” of his current existence, precisely so that he can work to change it into a life not defined by his will, but defined and made real by another––by God Himself.  The life in Christ is a life of transformation into a New Person.  It is a life that works toward resurrection, when the body of this death shall pass away (cf. Rom 7:24) and the glorified man will know the Lord of glory.”

The Christian task is not to simply engage in self-examination for the purpose of self-satisfaction, but to struggle against the forces of evil, engaging in spiritual warfare as the Apostle Paul frequently says.  But, by today’s view, this struggle is not real. It is seen as delusional. How often do we discuss our struggle with evil forces? How often, outside of a sermon on Sunday, do we think about the self-sacrifice demanded of us for our salvation, or our true aim to be united with Christ in eternal life? Instead, in many ways, we are told over and over to forget the archaic ideas the Church teaches, but to think for ourselves and get rid of these outdated foolish notions the church says are truths.  After all, we are told, they are only ideas imposed on us by organizations that want to control us. By Christians standards, this way of thinking says the devil has already won the battle. The effect is we are no longer willing to engage in the spiritual battle. We forsake our ascetical disciplines of old and instead follow the doctrine of self-satisfaction.

We must wake up! The spiritual struggle is real. It is central to our Christian teachings. We need to refocus our vision from the pleasures of this world to God’s Kingdom and economy.  After all the Lord told us clearly, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things be added unto you (Matt 6:33).

Saint John Chrysostom writes,

[The Lord] came to do away with the old things, and to call us to a greater country.  therefore he does all, to deliver us from things unnecessary, and from our affection of the earth.  For this cause He mentioned the heathens also saying that the Gentiles seek after these things (Matt 6:32)––they whose whole labor is for the present life, who have no regard for the things to come, or any thought of heaven.  But to you the chief things are not these which are present, but other than these.  For we were not born for this end, that we should eat and drink and be clothed, but that we might please God, and attain unto the good things to come.  Therefore as things here are secondary in our labor, so also in our prayer let them be secondary.  Therefore He also said, Seek the Kingdom of Heaven and all these thing shall be added unto you.”

“If we are to struggle authentically toward our sanctification and redemption, this orientation toward and into the Kingdom must become paramount in us.  Every act must be considered from the perspective of that future life and its attainment.  When we do not act in such a way, we reduce our choices and our behaviors to the limited perspective of this brief sojourn. Rather than see the context of our behaviors, actions, and decision as the eternal life of God’s abiding Kingdom, we see it as the short span of this life, and adjust or whole vision and wold view accordingly.”

Saint Innocent of Alaska says

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to this earth in order to return to us our lost capacity to spend eternity in the blissful presence of God.  He revealed to people that all their evil lies in sin and that no one through their own efforts can overcome the evil within themselves and attain communion with God.  Sin, ingrained in our nature since the fall, stands between us and God like a high wall.  If the Son of God had not descended to us through His mercy for us, had not taken on our human nature, and had not by His death conquered sin, all mankind wold have  perished for ever!  Now, thanks to Him, those who wish to cleanse themselves from evil can do so and return to God and obtain eternal bliss in the Kingdom of Heave.

Now what is this sinfulness we face?  It is this self-centered outlook we have where we seek only self-satisfaction and determine our moral standards based on our own internal views.  We have made ourselves into little gods where we set our own moral standards to fit with our own self-determined ideas.  We ignore God, his teachings as revealed to us and as taught by the Church.  We have forgotten that we are called to surrender to God, to give up our self-centeredness, to do as the Lords’ s prayer says, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”  This involves a struggle against evil forces.  These forces are real. To combat them we need the help from God. We need the help and assistance which can only be found in the Church.  

If we can recognize our sinfulness “our life can be offered more wholly to the Lord, Who will make our lives His own.  Self-will can be gradually overcome, so that we begin more fully to live that reality o identity in Christ which His own prayer proclaims: that we cry, “Our Father,” as, by nature, only His Son can do.  This is what it means for man to live in Christ.  He is born up in Christ’s life, through union with Him made a child of the Father.       … Chris leads us our of separation from God, away from a “self” defined by our will and passions, into a new life that is the  work of His hands, the fruit of His will, the created glory of His eternally, unending and glorious life.”

The unidentified quotes are from  "Taking Stock of our Struggle", by Fr.Dn. Dr. Steenberg. His article describes in depth the nature of the struggle we must undertake.  Look it up and read it.

The article can be found in no. 263 of The Orthodox Word, published by the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood (www.sainthermanpress.com).  This is the source of the unidentified quotes above.


An Additional Thought

Orthodox Christians, surrounded by and already swimming in a sea of humanist-worldly philosophy and practice, must do everything possible to create their own islands, in that sea, of other-worldly, God-oriented thought and practice (praxis).

- Hieromonk Serafim of Platina

Spiritual Deception

Having recently discovered that throughout much of my Christian life I was involved with "spiritual deception," I find it necessary now to seek ways to fully understand and totally reject this error.
My deception began with a well meaning pastor at the United Methodist Church where I grew up. I asked him, "Why are there so many different religions? How can we say that the Christian way the the best way?" His answer was, "There are many paths to God. Ours is the most direct and easiest path." He did not know how to answer this question from a true Christian perspective and advise me of the struggle that I would necessarily face. I now know that what he taught me was a serious deception. It is very clear now that the other paths will not lead to a God-oriented spiritual life and union with God. They only lead one to a life of self-satisfaction and greater pride. Jesus Christ came after these early attempts to reach God which were inadequate and showed all mankind how to gain union with God. He showed us the need for extreme humility in our relationship with God. He showed us a path that involves purifying ourselves and continually struggling against many things, yet relying on God's will. I discovered that the path He opened for us is not an easy path. It is a difficult one along which we are easily deceived by seeking pleasures though various forms of meditation, yoga and others activities, taught by well meaning teachers from other eastern religions who have not discovered for themselves the way of Jesus Christ.
I now know this from experience, having experimented with Vedanta, a Hindu religion, Buddhism, and Eastern forms of meditation. Regrettably, I even led an effort to find the "universal principles" of all religions and then set up a organization (formally organized as a church under IRS rules, no less) to teach this to others. Oh, how easily we are deceived by psychic level religious experiences which only serve to boost our pride and our sense of self-sufficiency.
Through this experience, I learned that it is essential to recognize that we are engaged in spiritual warfare as Saint Paul so clearly tells us. In my youth I was never prepared for this battle by being properly instructed in the spiritual disciplines. I didn't appreciate the power of the Sacraments that Christ initiated for us to help us in this battle. Growing up Methodist, communion was symbolic. It was grape juice and a wafer symbolizing the blood and body of Jesus Christ. Powerless when compared to the actual Blood an Body of Jesus Christ that is offered in the Orthodox Church for remission of sins and eternal life in union with Him. I faced many such deceptions along the path. Fortunately, I have a very strong guardian angel that kept me on a path seeking God and who taught me the Jesus Prayer in the midst of these deceptions. It was this prayer that protected me and led me back to Orthodoxy.
Seraphim Rose saw this attitude I experienced as one that permeates much of Christianity today. He wrote on this sad condition of "Christians" in his book, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future. Here is an excerpt.

The life of self-centeredness and self-satisfaction lived by most of today's "Christians" is so all-pervading that it effectively seals them off from any understanding at all of spiritual life; and when such people do undertake "spiritual life," it is only as another form of self-satisfaction. This can be seen quite clearly in the totally false religious ideal both of the "charismatic" movement and the various forms of "Christian meditation": all of them promise (and give very quickly) an experience of "contentment" and "peace." But this is not the Christian ideal at all, which if anything may be summed up as a fierce battle and struggle. The "contentment" and "peace" described in these contemporary "spiritual" movements are quite manifestly the product of spiritual deception, of spiritual self-satisfaction––which is the absolute death of the God-oriented spiritual life. All these forms of "Christian meditation" operate solely on the psychic level and have nothing whatever in common with Christian spirituality. Christian spirituality is formed in the arduous struggle to acquire the eternal Kingdom of Heaven, which fully begins only with the dissolution of this temporal world, and the true Christian struggler never finds repose even in the foretastes of eternal blessedness which might be vouchsafed to him in this life; but the Eastern religions, to which the Kingdom of Heaven has not been revealed, strive only to acquire psychic states which begin and end in this life.

From Orthodoxy and the Future by Seraphim Rose, pp 187-188

Some of my friends will think this is a bit harsh and it is not my intent to condemn those who sincerely seek union with Jesus Christ no matter what their form of Christianity is. But I can say without a doubt, that we can be deceived as I know I was. For me, I found the fulness of the Truth in the Orthodox Church where the sacramental life is emphasized and practiced with regularity. It was in the context of the Orthodox Church that I found I could surrender and then seek, not my own way, but instead follow the way the Church sets out for all of us.