Shukshin and Vysotsky are friends. Vasily Shukshin and Vladimir Vysotsky: parallels of artistic worlds

The reader is offered the author-approved translation of Metropolitan Anthony’s book “Learn to Pray!..” (School for Prauer). The translation was first published in the "Parish List" of the Assumption Cathedral in London in 1995-1996. The Russian reader could have encountered this text in a “samizdat” translation, unfortunately far from perfect, called “School of Prayer.” The text was first published in English in 1970, has been reprinted several times in the UK and translated into dozens of languages. With the exception of some author's insertions, the chapters of the book correspond to the conversations that Bishop Anthony conducted during the week in Oxford from the steps of one of the university buildings. Here is what the Bishop himself tells about how the conversations that later formed the book arose:

...I was asked to preach on the streets of Oxford and was placed on the steps of the library, a small circle of people gathered, which then began to grow and grow. The time was - the end of January, the cold was, let's say elegantly, dog-like, the wind was blowing. And the people, being English, since they had not been introduced to each other, stood about a meter apart from each other, so that the wind blew around each one, and they froze one by one. I looked at them and decided to wait for the time to come; At first they were pink, then they began to turn blue. And when they had already turned quite blue, I told them: “You know, here you are standing at such a distance from each other; if you stood close together, you could exchange animal warmth. Although you don’t know each other, it would still be warm.” acted." They stood united; Some time passed, the front ones had already turned pink and looked cozy, and those in the back, on which the wind was blowing, began to completely freeze. I say: “Now you have learned, in a short time, to exchange animal warmth; what if you learned to exchange Christian warmth? Those in front, learn to go back and warm the backs of those who are freezing; stand close behind them, so that your warmth passed over to them, and breathe your warmth into their backs.” And for one week, every morning, this is what happened: people came, stood close together, then the front rows moved back and warmed the others... These sermons of ours happened like this: I spoke for about an hour, then answered questions for an hour and a half, so everyone could freeze, and I, in particular, was freezing, because I stood apart - but in a short time, in a week, people learned to exchange both animal and human warmth...

When starting conversations for beginners on the path of prayer, I want to make it very clear that I do not set out to academically explain or justify why we need to learn prayer; in these conversations I want to point out that I should know and what can do one who wants to pray. Since I am a beginner myself, I will assume that you are also beginners and we will try to start together. I am not addressing those who strive for mystical prayer or the highest levels of perfection - “prayer itself will pave the way” to them (St. Theophan the Recluse).

When God breaks through to us or we break through to God under some exceptional circumstances, when everyday life suddenly opens up before us with a depth that we have never noticed before, when in ourselves we discover the depth where prayer lives and from where it can fill the key - then there are no problems. When we experience God, we stand face to face with Him, we worship Him, we talk to Him. Therefore, one of the very important initial problems is the situation of a person when it seems to him that God is absent, and this is where I want to dwell now. This is not about some objective absence of God - God is never really absent - but about feeling the absence that we have; we stand before God and shout at empty sky, where there is no answer; we turn in all directions - and God No. What to do with this?

First of all, it is very important to remember that prayer is a meeting, it is a relationship, and a deep relationship into which neither we nor God can be forced. And the fact that God can make His presence obvious to us or leave us with a sense of His absence is already part of this living, real relationship. If it were possible to call God to a meeting mechanically, so to speak, to force Him to a meeting only because we have appointed this very moment for a meeting with Him, then there would be neither a meeting nor a relationship. So you can encounter fiction, a far-fetched image, various idols that you can put in front of you instead of God; but this cannot be done in relation to or in a relationship with the Living God, just as it is impossible in a relationship with a living person. Relationships should begin and develop in mutual freedom. If we are fair and look at these relationships as mutual, then it is clear that God has much more reason to be sad with us than we have reason to complain about Him. We complain that He does not make His presence evident in the few minutes we give Him throughout the day; but what can we say about the remaining twenty-three and a half hours, when God can knock on our door as much as He wants, and we answer: “Sorry, I’m busy,” or we don’t answer at all, because we don’t even hear Him knocking on our door? heart, our mind, our consciousness or conscience, our life. So: we have no right to complain about the absence of God, because we ourselves are absent much more.

The second important circumstance is that meeting face to face with God is always a judgment for us. Having met God, whether in prayer, in contemplation or in contemplation, we can only be either justified or condemned in this meeting. I do not want to say that at this moment a sentence of final condemnation or eternal salvation is pronounced over us, but a meeting with God is always a critical moment, a crisis. “Crisis” is a Greek word and it means “judgment.” Meeting God face to face in prayer is a critical moment, and thank God that He does not always reveal Himself to us when we irresponsibly, carelessly seek a meeting with Him, because such a meeting may be beyond our strength. Remember how many times the Holy Scripture says that it is dangerous to come face to face with God, because God is power, God is truth, God is purity. And so, when we do not feel or experience God’s presence tangibly, our first movement should be gratitude. God is merciful; He does not come before the time; He gives us the opportunity to look back at ourselves, understand, and not seek His presence when it would be our judgment and condemnation.

I'll give you an example. Many years ago a man came to me and began to ask: “Show me God!” I said that I could not do this, and added that even if I could, he would not have seen God. Because I thought then and now I think: in order to meet, to see God, we need to have something in common with Him, something that will give us eyes to see, and receptivity to catch, to sense. This man then asked me why I thought so about him, and I invited him to think and say what place in the Gospel especially touches him, so that I could try to grasp what its conformity with God is. He said, “Yes, there is such a place: in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John there is a story about a woman taken in adultery.” I replied: “Okay, this is one of the most beautiful and touching stories; now sit down and think: Who are you in this scene? Are you on the Lord's side and full of mercy, understanding and faith in this woman who is able to repent and become a new person? Or are you a woman who has been convicted of adultery? Or one of the elders who all walked out one by one because they knew their sins? Or one of the young ones who hesitate and hesitate?” He thought and said: “No, I am the only one of the Jews who did not go out and begin to stone this woman.” Then I said: “ Give thanks God, that He does not allow you to meet face to face with Him now!”

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

In my first conversation today, I want to pose two questions: why does a believer pray? And is prayer accessible to a person who is not yet a believer?

But perhaps first of all we should say what prayer is.

Prayer is a cry from the soul, prayer is a word that comes out of the heart. To pose the question of why a person prays is as incomprehensible for a believer as to say: why does a loving person tell his beloved about his love? Why does a child cry to his mother in need? Because he knows that his call will be answered, that his words of love will be answered with joy, reciprocal love.

Sometimes a believer prays because he is overcome by a living, deep feeling of God’s closeness, His presence. This can happen in a temple, it can happen at home, or in a field, or in a forest: suddenly a person feels that God is close, his heart is full of tenderness, awe fills him. And so a person turns to God with a prayer of gratitude, or joy, or simply awe. King David in one of his psalms exclaims: Lord! You are my joy! - this is prayer, the real one. Sometimes a person who has experienced such an experience is left with the feeling: Oh, if only it were always like this! If only it lasted! - and longing for God comes over him. It seems to him as if God has now moved away or that he himself has left God. This is, of course, not true; God is infinitely and constantly close to us... And man begins to seek God; just as sometimes in the dark we feel around us in search of some object, a person does not look for God somewhere in the heavens, he looks for God deep within himself, he tries to prayerfully, reverently plunge into his own depths in order to again stand before the face of God.

This experience is akin to the experience of a person who does not yet believe, but is seeking. The founder of the Student Christian Movement in Russia, Baron Nikolai (Pavel Nikolaevich Nikolai, † 1919), having heard a lot about God from his peers and comrades, felt that he wanted to find out whether God exists or not? And this thirst for confidence prompted him one day while walking in the forest to exclaim: Lord! If You exist, tell me!.. And some deep feeling descended on him, and he became a believer.

Proceeding now to the second conversation, I would like to pose the question: how can an unbeliever become eager to seek something of which, as an unbeliever, he has no idea?

It is not enough that there are believers around him, whom he perhaps respects, whose intelligence he values, whose beliefs seem worthy of attention to him: in order to pray, he must personally experience something himself.

And it happens that a person, reflecting on himself, recognizes two contradictory things at once.
On the one hand, looking at himself in this infinitely large, huge, sometimes scary, dangerous world, he cannot help but feel like a tiny grain of sand that can be destroyed by the force, the power of this world.
And on the other hand, turning to himself, thinking about himself, a person suddenly discovers that in some respect he Furthermore huge world, where he is such a small, insignificant, fragile grain of sand. The whole world around him is in captivity of two dimensions: time and space, and a person feels within himself, as it were, a third dimension: there is a depth in him that is not found anywhere, in anything. If we think about the globe and mentally penetrate it from one side, we go deeper into it, go into its very depths, at some point we will reach its center, and this is the limit of its depth. If we move on we're out of this globe Let's go out and find ourselves on its surface again. Everything material has a kind of thickness, but it does not have the depth that exists in a person, because this depth is immaterial.

And so in a person there is a hunger for knowledge, a longing for love, amazement at beauty, and no matter how much he learns, his eyes only open wider and wider. cognitive abilities; no matter how much love enters his life, his heart becomes deeper and wider; no matter how much beauty he experiences through music, through nature, through works of art, he still has the ability to accept infinitely more, because everything he has experienced fits into him, goes into some kind of abyss and leaves him just as open, the same empty. Archbishop Ramsay of Canterbury said that in every person there is a depth, there is a spaciousness that is as great as God Himself, and that only God can fill this depth. And it seems to me that this is true.

And when a person thinks of himself as an infinitely small being in the infinitely huge expanse of the world and suddenly discovers that this whole world is too small to fill it to the brim, he begins to think: how is this so?.. And he can begin to question poses a question: what can fill me, if neither knowledge, nor love, nor beauty can fully satisfy me, cannot close this depth, this abyss?..

And then, whether under the influence of his own reflections, reading, meetings, or under the influence of someone else’s prayer, a person can look for the unknown, look for what can fill his soul, what others tell him about: it is there - look! Seek to go deeper into yourself, because in your very depths lies the secret of knowledge, but something else: the knowledge of God.

And on the path of this search, a person can begin to pray, pray with a deep cry from the soul: Where are you, Lord? Open up to me, I cannot live without meaning and without purpose! I now understand that I am not a self-sufficient being, that the whole world is small to fill me - but who will fill this deep emptiness?.. And so a person begins to faith and prayer, which I want to talk about in the next conversation.

In the third conversation about prayer, I want to raise the question of faith as an absolute condition for fruitful and honest prayer. Modern man is often afraid to declare himself a believer, because it seems to him that being a believer is something specific, specially religious, that this is an area in which he will be alone, that other cultured people cannot have the concept of a fan, that this is an exercise of the mind and hearts are alien to them.

And I would like to emphasize now that this is a pure misunderstanding, resulting from lack of thought. Faith is not only a religious concept. Faith has its place in all human relationships, and it also has its place in scientific research. The Holy Scriptures define faith as the belief that things unseen exist. Isn't this a definition that covers our entire life? So I met a man, I was struck by his face, I want to get to know him - why? If only the visible exists, then what I saw should satisfy me. But I know that his face is interesting, significant, because behind the visible there is the invisible: there is a mind, there is a heart, there is a whole human destiny. The same applies to scientific research. The scientist does not describe the objects that are around him; he is not satisfied with calling stones by different names, designating flowers or animals. The scientist is now going much deeper. His attention rests on the external, but his interest is drawn to what is invisible. Seeing an object, he goes deep into the nature of matter, seeing movement - into the nature of energy, seeing a living being - into the nature of life. And all this is invisible. He can only engage in such research because he is absolutely sure: behind the visible lies a rich, significant invisible, the knowledge of which he needs, because the external does not satisfy him - this is not knowledge.
Thus, faith is the state of every person throughout his entire life, all the time, in all his communication with another person. Faith is the scientist's approach to the world around him. Faith determines everything; and I remember as one Soviet representative He once told me: “A person cannot live without faith!” By this he wanted to say that one cannot live without a deep and strong conviction that would determine his actions. When a person says that he is a believer and that the object of his faith is God Himself, he does not prove his lack of culture; he only proves that the circle of his search, the object of his knowledge is not only man, not only the living world around him, not only the material world, but that he, for one reason or another, experienced the existence of another world: perhaps a world of beauty, peace of the depths of his own soul, or maybe he already felt the breath of God’s spirit.

Faith has another meaning - the meaning of trust. When I say: “I believe you,” it means: “I trust you.” The believer says the same thing about God, thinking about Him or turning to Him. But trust also means following advice and instructions. And therefore, in order to grow in spiritual life, to know the depth of that experience in the knowledge of God, which we usually call faith, we must learn to live as God advises, to live the life to which God Himself calls us: this is the path of the commandments about which said the ancient ascetics, an attempt to merge in thought, heart, and spirit with God Himself, not only in feeling, but also in one’s actions.

If the essence of prayer lies in the communication of a person with God, in the same communication that occurs between man and man, then, of course, there must be a real and deep understanding and affinity between God and man. Christ says in the Gospel: Not everyone who says to Me: “Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father...

This means that it is not enough to pray, but we must, in addition to prayer, in addition to the words of prayer, also live a life that would be an expression of our prayer, which would justify this prayer. One of the ancient writers says: do not conclude your prayer in just words, make your whole life a service to God and people... And then, if we pray against the backdrop of such a life, our prayer will ring true; otherwise it will be a complete lie, otherwise it will be an expression of feelings and thoughts that do not exist in us, which we took from someone, because it seems to us that this is how we should speak to God. But God needs truth: the truth of our mind, the truth of our heart, and certainly the truth of our life.

What's the point, really, if the appeal is not completely truthful? And truthfulness begins at the moment when we, standing before God, ask ourselves the question: who am I in the face of the One with whom I am now entering into a conversation? Do I really want to meet Him face to face, does my heart draw me to Him? Is my mind open? What is common between me and the One to whom I am addressing?.. And if we find that there is nothing or too little in common between us, then the prayer will certainly be either untruthful, or weak, powerless, not expressing a person. I insist on this for a long time, because this is a very important feature of prayer: we must be truthful to the end. Then the question arises of what words to pray. Why, for example, in church does everyone pray in other people’s words, that is, in the words of saints, words that have developed over centuries from generation to generation? Is it possible to pray truthfully with such words? - Yes, you can! Only in order for this to be a truthful prayer, it is necessary with people who prayed centuries before us with all their souls, with all their minds, with all their strength, with all the cry of their souls, to share that experience of knowing God and the experience human life, from which these prayers were born. The saints did not invent prayers; their prayers came out of necessity: either joy, or grief, or repentance, or the melancholy of abandonment, or simply - because they are real, genuine people– the danger they were facing evoked these prayers and tore them out of their souls. And if we want to pray with these words, we must join in with their feelings and experience.

How to do this? Can we travel back centuries? No we can not; but there is somewhere in us one basic human experience that connects us with them: we are people, as they were, we are looking for God, the same one whom they were looking for, whom they found; the struggle that takes place in us is the same as the struggle that tore their souls apart.

And so we can learn prayer from them, just as in a completely different area we expand our knowledge, deepen it, become familiar with experience that would otherwise be unattainable for us when we listen attentively to musical works great masters when we look at the paintings of great masters. They lived the same life as us; only they perceived it with a sophistication and depth that is not always available to us; and through their works we are introduced to an understanding that we would not otherwise have had.

That is why we need to combine life and prayer, merge them into one, so that life gives us food for prayer and, on the other hand, so that our life is an expression of the truthfulness of our prayer.

IN last conversation I said that in the absence of deep personal religious experience, we can pray prayers that escaped from the souls of saints. But the question immediately arises of how to connect not with words - this is not difficult, but with the experience contained in these prayers.

I have already given the example that we can do this in the same way as when we listen to the great works of musical composers. In every way they are superior to our experience. Not only in pure musically, Certainly; but their perception of the world, the depth of their sensitivity, the ability to express this perception of the world with sound, harmony, to introduce such disharmony that does not break the meaning and structure, but, on the contrary, emphasizes it and makes the picture of life and experience real - these are the properties we can perceive from them . We don't have them, we don't often perceive life the way they do. And in the same way we can join in the prayer of the saints.

I can perhaps also explain this with another example. It happens that a child is forgotten somewhere in the corner of the living room while adults are talking. He is listening; At first he listens to the speech of adults, and it seems incomprehensible and absurd to him: what are they all talking about about things that are completely inaccessible to him! Then suddenly someone spoke, and everything became clear to him: this person is telling something, and through this story the child gets an understanding of this person’s life, he can catch something, he listens and responds with all his soul: yes, absolutely right , this is so, this is so!.. And then the speech is again made “adult”, and he ceases to understand. And for minutes, adults say things that he cannot perceive in any way, which not only exceed his experience, but also run counter to his experience.

This happens to us when we read and listen to the prayers of the saints. They are like adults, we are like children. Their experience is sometimes infinitely superior to ours. But if we just begin to listen carefully, with interest - not trying to adapt, but trying to understand everything that is available to us, and respond to what is inaccessible to us, then our prayer will become deeper, more subtle and more truthful. For minutes, answering, responding to the prayer of the saint, we will say: AMEN! - which means: “Yes, yes, it’s true! I agree with this with all my heart!” At moments his prayer will become incomprehensible to us, and then we can say: Lord, I don’t understand! How is this possible?.. For minutes, such an expression as “I am the biggest sinner on earth,” coming from the mouth of a person whom we know is a saint, seems completely absurd to us, and we say: Lord, this cannot be, and I can’t say this about myself, I don’t feel like a sinner!..

Then our prayer will be truthful, then we will be able to begin the prayers of the saints, without trying to join them artificially, to pretend that all these words are my own, but to use them in such a way as to tell the truth about ourselves and learn more truth from the saint, than we knew until now. Then our consciousness will expand, we will begin to understand more than we understood, we will at least understand that there are people whose experience is deeper and more than ours, as we understand it when we listen attentively to wonderful music or peering at a painting by a great master. In the next conversation I will say a little more about this, but for now think about the prayers that you know and try to get to know the people who wrote them, from their words, from their experience.

In the last conversation, I talked about how we can merge into the experience of the saints, reading and listening to the prayers that they composed from the depth of this experience: the experience of knowing God, living with Him and their deep human experience. I compared this involvement in their experience with the way a child can listen to an adult conversation, join part of this conversation, and be perplexed about many things. But when this happens to a child, he not only listens; at some point he may turn to one of the speakers and ask him to clarify, to explain something.

We should do the same in relation to the saints whose prayers we use. If indeed, as we believe, there is no God God of the dead, but the God of the living (Matthew 22:32), if everyone is alive for Him, if in eternity those saints who composed these prayers on earth continue to live, then they can still be close to us. And so, when starting some kind of prayer, signed with the name of one of the saints, as happens in prayer books: the prayer of St. John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Mark the Ascetic - before starting this prayer, why not turn to the saint and say: St. John, Saint Basil, Saint Mark - I will now pray with your words, I will try with all my soul to join the edge of your experience - help me!..

How can he help? Firstly, he can pray for us: Lord, bless him, enlighten him, enlighten him, let him understand what was incomprehensible to him until now... And secondly, in some mysterious way - and this is known by experience, very experienced by many - he can reveal to us the secret of his own soul and make us understand what would otherwise be incomprehensible. And finally, he can, as if in his hands, bring our weak prayer before the face of God and say: he prays - like a child babbles, but look: with what sincerity, how honestly, with what desire to understand, with what desire to commune with You he does this . God bless him!..

And if we do this, if we ponder the words not at the moment of prayer, but when we have free time to think and think through what we read; if, as Theophan the Recluse said, we feel into this prayer, that is, we try to grasp, as it were, its deep musical sound, the mood of this prayer, to understand what is behind the words, what feelings (and, therefore, what life experience) - if we do this in our free time, then when we appear before God with this prayer, we will be a little richer every time , and our enrichment, our closeness with this saint will increase, he will become dear to us, he will be familiar to us, he will be close to us. And then his words will become living words and begin to transform, rebuild our soul, and, consequently, our life.

In previous conversations I have talked about how we can pray with the words of the saints. But sometimes you want to pray in your own, albeit sinful, words. Like a person sometimes wants to sing with his own voice, wants to speak in his own words with his friend, wants to express himself.
And this is very important. We must learn to speak with God in the living language of a living person. However, we stand towards God in righteousness; our whole attitude towards Him must be true and truthful. And when we begin to pray, we must clearly understand what we stand before Him with, and openly and honestly tell Him this. Or: Lord, I have longed for You! A whole day has passed, during which life shook me, and now I have found peace, I can be with You... Or it may happen that we will stand and say: Lord, what a shameful day it was! How I behaved unworthy of my human title! I was afraid of responsibility and transferred it from a sore head to a healthy one, I lied, I was dishonest, I disgraced myself, and with this I disgraced you. Lord, forgive me!.. Sometimes we will begin to pray, knowing that in some depths of our souls we want a meeting with God, but either we are simply overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings that do not fit into this meeting with God, or we are physically tired and We have no feelings at all. If we were asked: how do you feel now? - we would say: Nothing but pain in the body from a tiring day, except emptiness in the soul... And sometimes it happens that the thought creeps in: Oh, I wish I could pray sooner! Because I really want to finish reading the book I started, or finish the conversation, or continue my thoughts...

And all this must be said before God so that the relationship is truthful, so as not to pretend, so as not to pretend that “yes, Lord, I only want one thing: a meeting with You!” - when in fact the soul is busy with something else.

And if we had the courage, truthfulness, and honesty to stand before God in this way, then our prayer would continue to be truthful. We could express to God our joy that finally, finally, there is some kind of enlightenment, I can be with You - as it happens with a friend, with a wife... Sometimes out of shame we would say: Lord, I know You, You are my God, and I don’t want to be with you - what a shame! what a shame! They don’t even do this to an earthly friend... And sometimes we would stand before God and say: Lord! It was a shameful, humiliating day - I turned out to be unworthy of the title of a man, not to mention the title of a Christian - forgive me! Let me repent. Shake my soul to the depths so that I can become clean, come to my senses, so that I can never repeat this...

If we began to pray like this, then our prayer could become living, because it would begin on the living stream of our soul. Let's get to it! Let us try to pray to God in truth, and then we will be given the gift of praying in spirit.

When we talk with a friend, with a husband, with a wife, with people close to us, we try to speak to them truthfully and with dignity. And this is how you need to learn to talk to God. Only when speaking with God, for example, asking Him for something, begging Him for something (although, of course, this does not exhaust our entire prayer life), we must remember that we stand before the greatness of God, before the shrine of God.

But not only this: we must remember that man is not a reptile, that we stand in all the dignity of our humanity. We mean a lot to God. When He created us, He desired us. He created us, not just by His power bringing us into life so that we would suffer and one day appear before judgment; He created us out of love. His call that brought us to life is the call to become His friends forever; He calls us to become relatives to Him, His children, sons, daughters, to become as close and dear to Him as His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, to become a place of indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to partake of the Divinity Himself.

And if you ask the question of how God values ​​a person who has fallen away from Him, the answer is so simple and so terrible: the price of a person in the eyes of God is all life, all suffering, all death of Jesus Christ, His Son, who became man. This is what we mean to God. And therefore we do not dare stand before God as if we were slaves, as if we were mercenaries, begging, praying, groveling; we must learn to stand before Him with the consciousness of our dignity, and speak to God, as a son or daughter speaks to the father whom he respects, but also whom the father respects, whose dignity means a lot to the father.

And therefore, when we turn to God with a prayer for this or that to happen, or for this or that horror to pass, we must think about whether this corresponds to our human dignity and the dignity of God. It is very important. In prayer you can tell God everything, ask Him for the smallest, as if insignificant, because for love there is no great and small; but there is something worthy or unworthy of a person. We cannot pray to God to help us do anything that would humiliate our human dignity, but we can ask Him for help in the smallest, the smallest, because the smallest, the most seemingly insignificant , can be of enormous importance. After all, a grain of sand can blind a person, a small detail of life can open up opportunities for him or close him off the opportunity to live, to grow to the extent of his humanity. Therefore, each of us must think about who he is for God, who he is before himself - and pray worthy of his greatness, his great calling, and the love of God, and the greatness of God.

In conclusion, I want to talk to you about a special prayer, which in Orthodox church practice is called the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer is so named because the heart of this prayer is the name and person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It reads like this: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me (me), a sinner. As the ancient writers said and as is clear from the prayer itself, it contains, on the one hand, complete confession of faith, and on the other hand, everything that a person can say about himself: Have mercy on me, I am a sinner!

I want to focus on these two concepts: the first half, in which we profess our faith, and the second, where we talk about ourselves.

We call Jesus Christ our Lord not only because He is the Creator, not only because He is God, but because we, of our own free will, without coercion, chose Him as Lord, Master of our life. And this means that a bond of mutual fidelity, mutual devotion is established between Him and us, and that when we call Him Lord, every word of His, every desire of His, every commandment of His becomes dear to us, and that we are ready to be obedient to Him: not like slaves, not out of fear, but because He is our Teacher, Mentor and ideal of man. We call Him Lord, and we must live in such a way that He reigns in our lives and, through us, in the lives of others; but His dominion lies in love, and not in power, and therefore, calling Him Lord, we devote ourselves to the work of service, the service of love.

We call Him Jesus, reminding ourselves, confessing, preaching that God has a human historical name, that God became man, that He became incarnate, and that He Whom we call Jesus, Whom we call our Lord, is our God, but that He is a man, one of us, and we are His relatives, our own. In the Gospel he calls us brothers, and in another place in the Gospel he says: I do not call you servants, but friends, because a servant does not know the will of his master, but I have told you everything (John 15:15). Jesus is the historical name of God incarnate.

We call Him Christ (this is a Greek word that means “anointed one”) to indicate that He is the One about whom the entire Old Testament says that a Messenger from God will come, on whom the Holy Spirit will rest, who will be the consummation of all things. human history and the focus of it, the completion of the entire past and the beginning of eternity now, before time comes to an end.

And finally, we call Him the Son of God, because from our faith and even from our experience we know that the man who was born in Bethlehem, who was called Jesus, is in fact not only the son of the Virgin Mary, but the Son of God Himself, that He is God incarnate and became man.

This is the entire Orthodox faith: the reign of love, the recognition of Jesus as the Son of God, our recognition that He is the completion of the entire past of history, its focus and the beginning of the future: both the future of humanity on earth and all eternity. With Christ a new era of human history begins; Christ introduced into it concepts that did not exist before Him. One of the most important concepts is the infinite, absolute value of every human person. And only for this reason can each individual person acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord; not only to confess Him as such, but to live according to His will, without losing our human dignity and without losing sight of our human greatness.

In this conversation, I tried to outline the most basic concepts of the first part of the Jesus Prayer. In the next conversation I will try to explain what it means to be a sinner, and why, when turning to God, we use the word have mercy, instead of using an endless number of rich words, full meaning, which we have in human language.

In the last conversation I talked about the Jesus Prayer, the prayer that is expressed in the words:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

And I tried to explain why, since ancient times, the first words of this prayer have been considered as an abbreviated Gospel, as a confession of the entire Christian faith in a few decisive words.

And today I want to dwell on the second half of this prayer, namely, on the words: have mercy on me, a sinner. How can any person call himself a sinner? Can anyone honestly do this? Wouldn't that be hypocritical, would it be true?

This would not always be true if the concept of sin related only to the moral categories of truthfulness, honesty, and moral goodness. But there is a deeper, more basic meaning of the word “sin”: sin is, first of all, a person’s loss of contact with his own depth. A person is deep - and so often he lives superficially, only with superficial feelings, concepts, and instead of living from the depths, acting from the core of his being, he lives a reflected life; a person reacts to life - a simple reflection of those rays that fall on him.

This is the first and main sin: superficiality, loss of depth, loss of contact with this depth. And as a result, a person loses contact with the content of this depth, that is, with God. In one of my first conversations, I mentioned the words of Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsay that every person has a bottomless depth that only God Himself can fill. And so, living on the surface own life, a person loses contact with God Himself. And having lost contact with God, a person becomes a stranger to his neighbor, to his environment, to people and to all of life. He becomes a person who lives only in himself, for himself, a person for whom the center of life is himself, and life becomes as poor as his small maintenance. Bishop Theophan the Recluse says that such a person is like wood shavings, which curled up around its inner emptiness. This is the sinful state; and every person can admit this state in himself, if only he is honest: who can say that he lives with all the depths of his soul, his heart, his mind, with all the scope of his will, with all his courage, with all his nobility, with all his greatness?

And so, standing before God, Who is greatness, Who created us for greatness, we cannot help but admit our sinfulness, namely, that we have fallen from our original dignity. Therefore, of course, we can turn to God with a cry from our souls: Lord, forgive me! What a shame: You created me great, but I crushed, so shamefully crushed...

But the word have mercy doesn’t just mean “sorry”; in Greek, Kurie, elehson – Lord, have mercy, means a lot. It means: “forgive me, stop Your anger, give me time to come to my senses, give me the opportunity to grow into the measure of greatness that You have destined for me.” This means: “crown me with this greatness.” And therefore the words Lord, have mercy! we use in all cases of life: “show me your original love! Show me the love that You showed us in Jesus Christ: cross, sacrificial, generous love; caress me, comfort me, heal me, make me again a person worthy of this title, that is, ultimately, worthy of being Your friend forever and ever.”

With this I end my series of conversations about prayer. Use this prayer; it is simple, but learn to use it with all truthfulness and sincerity, remembering that by calling Jesus Christ the Son of God and Lord, you undertake to live worthy of His greatness and your greatness.

Let us note first of all that attention, as a spiritual experience, is not limited to bringing together only the mental content of a person; it is the gathering of his entire being into one focus, thanks to which an “interior stay” is achieved, freeing him from the continuous flow of rational, discursive thinking and laying within him the beginning of being before the Face of the Eternal, in a state of inner silence, repentance and love for Him.

The path to this state is the joint discipline of mind and body.

Mental discipline partially coincides with the feat of sobriety and vigilance. To do this, it is necessary, firstly: to find and experience a state of perfect dispassion, equal to complete liberation from outside influences and automatic dependence on them, from, so to speak, “mechanisms” instilled in a person. This is the state of internal activity. Secondly: say prayer or indulge in the thought of God, driving away all annoying thoughts and images, as well as all ideas associated with the sensory world, which are a barrier between God and man, hinder contemplation and plunge it again into the world of deceptive and incommensurable similarities and comparisons , unable to raise us above the category to which they themselves belong, namely, the world of the senses, the world of continuity, rationality and variability, that is, the fallen. This is not a super-spiritual path of asceticism, but thanks to it a person gains the ability to spiritually rise above the level of the visible world and join the experience of supersensible knowledge that he has lost; in other words, man, having overcome the empirical “soulfulness” of the fallen world, again enters the realm of dispassionate, ontological soulfulness.
The physical side of the feat of attention, excellently developed by the Orthodox “hesychast” mentors, little known in the West, will require a more extensive explanation.

Silence (the Greek term - hsucia, meaning “peace”, “peace”), as a teaching, or rather, as a spiritual tradition, reached its highest development in the monasteries and hermitages of Mount Athos, in the period between the 11th and 14th centuries. According to this teaching, inner peace, “silence,” peace are the first necessity and at the same time the limit of achieving spiritual life: the peace of mind and body accessible to our observation and experience opens the way to an ineffable world, illuminated by the contemplation of God 3.
In the West, silence, hesychasm, was often understood as a type of inactive indifference characteristic of the East, “Oriental quietism.” This, of course, is a mistake, because peace is not the absence of struggle, but the absence of doubt, anxiety, hesitation and confusion, as evidenced by the “smart” and spiritual feat Hesychasts - the most difficult of all types of asceticism, which, under the name of the feat of “vigilance and sobriety,” constitutes the precious treasure of our Church.
The physical side of this asceticism follows from the establishment of simple fact that every event inner life reflected in somatic terms, i.e. in body. The body, in a noticeable or inconspicuous way, participates in every movement of the soul, be it a feeling, an abstract thought, a desire, or even a supersensible experience. This community of the body has a twofold meaning: 1) it takes part in a person’s efforts to gain and maintain attention; 2) it adapts to the object of attention - kinesthetic sensations, activity of the glands, tension of motor muscles.
This dual process does not occur by chance: various parts of the body take part, corresponding to the properties of one or another object of attention; in addition, the same object activates different centers of concentration of attention, depending on a number of conditions, namely: whether it is perceived this item feeling or thought; whether it stimulates action or remains inactive, and also whether it represents a greater or lesser degree of righteousness and purity. You could say that the subject is “making its way.” The only exceptions are wandering thoughts that are not associated with a specific state of mind. They buzz non-stop in the head, “like a chaotic flock of midges,” as Theophan the Recluse defined it.
But as soon as a truly dominant thought or overwhelming feeling takes possession of a person, all his mental activity is united by them, acquiring greater coherence and integrity; the field of consciousness narrows, but also becomes illuminated; At the same time, a bodily-spiritual “place”, the focus of the center of attention, and the mental-physical phenomena characteristic of each of them are revealed. Let's do it short review these "centers".

1) The head center is located in the lower part of the forehead, between the eyebrows, and corresponds to abstract thinking pure reason. This thinking can be very intense and clear, but it is too complex and diverse; subject to the law of associations, it is fickle and perverse: its attempts to merge with the object of attention require enormous volitional efforts aimed at avoiding the interference of disordered associations. These efforts cause fatigue, tension subsides, and thoughts dissipate.
2) Laryngeal place. Without leaving the same center located between the eyebrows, a thought can connect with the word that expresses it; then the word is perceived and experienced with power, delights and becomes effective. This phenomenon makes thought less abstract, saturates it with a living feeling, which is why the motor power of thought increases significantly. Weak side The above method is the same as in the previous one, namely instability. However, it is precisely this center that serves as the basis for the use of repeated short prayer, which we will discuss below.
3) The chest center is located in the upper middle of the chest. In the case when the person praying is still close to the previous experience, his thoughts and feelings reverently sound in his chest while he pronounces the words of the prayer and feels them with his vocal organs, whether out loud, in a whisper or silently. If he has embarked on the path to successfully achieving inner unity and complete concentration, his prayer becomes “silent,” according to the word of St. Isaac the Syrian (Nineveh): “Silence is the sacrament of the age to come” (Homily 42).
A thought sufficiently saturated with feeling acquires much greater stability than what was characteristic of it previously: attention does not disappear on its own; it weakens only over time, but not because the concentration of conscious effort has diminished, but due to the fact that the intensity of feeling has not yet merged with thought, and the heart has not yet united with the mind.
4) The heart place is “located in the upper part of the heart, a little below the left nipple,” according to the Greek Fathers, or a little higher, according to Bishop. Theophan the Recluse, Ignatius Brianchaninov, etc. Attention is established above the heart, as if on a watchtower, from where the spirit vigilantly observes thoughts and feelings striving to penetrate the sacred fortress, the holy of holies of prayer (Theophan the Recluse). This - physical location perfect attention, embracing both mind and feeling at the same time.

A thought gathered in the heart becomes extremely constrained; enlivened by feeling and united with it, it achieves such energy and strength that nothing outside can either qualitatively change it or penetrate it. No effort is required on the part of the mind to ensure that attention does not wander: all mental activity is given a centripetal movement, drawing it irresistibly to this very point of the body, where it settles, submitting to the irresistible power of that which is “more akin to the soul than the soul itself.” ”(Nikolai Kavasila) - power that gives life to the heart and unity of thought. Such “blessed captivity” frees thought from the need for intense effort to concentrate on the subject of attention: it continuously and tirelessly devotes itself to prayer and contemplation of God.
Leaving behind the internal struggle, hesitation and “rumour”, thought acquires clarity, insight, strength and radiance, hitherto unknown to it. This state can only be disrupted by the withdrawal of the life-giving grace of the Holy Spirit.
Along with the above phenomena in the area of ​​the mind, focusing attention in the heart center is also reflected in the nature of feelings: the feeling becomes alive, hot and pure; free from passionate disturbances, it reaches a state of complete peace, incomprehensible and inexpressible. Such a feeling represents power and light; it not only does not obscure thoughts, as is characteristic of emotions, but gives it a special illumination. Thought, having become alive and free, invariably remains in a state of complete wakefulness, for a soul that has ceased to be self-enclosed and has surrendered itself to God cannot be inactive. However, the nature of “smart” doing is revealed in different ways: sometimes the thought retains its intentionality and either plunges into silence or performs a prayer; in another case, when even the words of prayer are born on their own in the heart of the one praying, he recognizes himself as having no power to change them or disrupt their order; It also happens that ineffable peace and silence settle in a person who has already “lost himself,” that is, having overcome the bonds of the sensory world - and he contemplates, in the unclouded silence of all his spiritual powers, the uncreated Divine radiance, revealing to him the secret of both the universe and his own soul and body (St. Isaac the Syrian - excerpts given in the book of St. Nile of Sorsky “Charter on the residence of the monastery”, section 1).

Such experience in the perception of mystery can be realized either in a state of ecstasy (frenzy), or without it: in the latter case, it should be understood as the fruit of an exalted spiritual life. But frenzy is not only not the limit of its achievement, but on the contrary, it clearly testifies to man’s inability to establish himself in the fullness of Divine life without losing his individual belonging to sensory world. “Frenzy belongs to the novices, not to the perfect,” says St. Simeon the New Theologian. The ideal is life in truly perfect unity, which should be constant, unchanging and including the whole person - spirit, soul and body - without stumbling and imbalance, according to the example of our Lord Jesus Christ and some saints.
Any true prayer, that is, one that is done in complete humility, in renunciation of self-absorption, in complete surrender of oneself to God, sooner or later receives the life-giving grace of the Holy Spirit: then it acquires the properties of harmony of thought and feeling mentioned above, it becomes the leaven and measure of every action, represents EVERYTHING in life, ceases to be “action” and turns into BEING itself; and only then is it firmly established in a certain “place of the heart,” opening the way for the prayer to worship God from the depths of the heart and to unite with Him. It should be noted as a matter of paramount importance that the use of various physical techniques leading to artificially detecting and defining this point of the body does not aim to evoke with them an outpouring of prayer and, even less, complex bodily and mental emotions that would be regarded as the most the desired mystical experience. They only enable the beginner, for whom they are intended, to know where this place of perfect attention is, so that when the time comes, he can recognize that it is there that his prayer originates and be established in it. But if it is certainly true that true prayer acts precisely there, it is necessary to know that attention can be collected there even without any prayer, for prayer is God’s gift, and it cannot be created by any artificial methods, just as it cannot be acquired either by force or deception from God: it exists - unity, co-existence, i.e. a free and mutual gift of love. The body, therefore, does not give birth to or carry out prayer; it plays the role of an objective criterion; his purpose is official; it is a “device” that is more useful for an elder to distinguish and reason about certain states than for a student to acquire them.
The physical criterion is more accurate than all spiritual and mental criteria, because it is simple and completely objective; cannot be falsified or interpreted, and allows one to avoid erroneous assessments of mental states, the inconsistency of which is always discovered, but often too late.
The science of the Fathers in this area is not strictly a teaching about prayer or about inner life, but asceticism and, mainly, a criterion of attention. Hence the need for an elder, who simultaneously guides the spiritual life and physical exercises of the novice, who compares them one with the other and does not allow the novice to be deceived by mistaking the natural actions of achievement as grace-filled (warmth, liveliness, partial freedom from ordinary needs, “metapsychic gifts,” etc.). P.).
Indeed, any error in execution or reasoning can have the most dire consequences, as the experience of the Athonite monks of the 14th century showed.
Directly below the “area of ​​the heart,” the place of perfect attention in a healthy and deep prayer life, is the “area of ​​the womb,” where all the dark and cloudy movements that defile the mind and heart originate and develop. In their utmost development they are revealed to be bodily and mental states, which can rarely deceive anyone: in short, they can be collectively defined as unbridled lusts of the body and soul. But in their rudimentary form, these states are close to those that some mystics describe with material-spiritual analogies, and can mislead the beginner. The region that gives rise to them and from which they, like a corruptive spirit, rise to consciousness and feeling, is wide: it includes the entire part of the body that is below the nipple. Uneducated and unenlightened monks, who touched the sacred work without guidance and experience, and without prudence, themselves learned through bitter experience the consequences of focusing attention on this area. It was their errors that provided examples and arguments for the anti-hesychast criticism of Varlaam, Gregory Akindinus and Nicephorus Gregor, from whom the West inherited its erroneous views and complete misunderstanding of hesychism and palamism. They reproached the Athonite monks for the fact that by concentrating on the navel and practicing self-strangulation, they tried to artificially induce a state of “frenzy,” which they revered as the goal of their mystical experience.
Leaving aside the features that are inherent various parts this area, then we can say that focusing attention below the heart causes a gradual dimming and darkness of thought and consciousness, reaching the point of complete immersion in darkness; an increase in carnal lust, as a result of which passionate states, bodily and mental, are revealed. The feeling, free and clear, pure to the point of prayer, is replaced by passionate, mental and physical excitement: peace and autocratic order mental strength- confusion and greedy fervor of unbridled aspirations; the silence of the flesh is passion; autocracy - a complete confusion of mental forces that no longer have power over the nerves and body. And all this - more often than expected - leads to mental illness and disorder of bodily strength.
It follows from this that the use of bodily techniques requires an experienced and vigilant mentor, and on the part of the student - extreme simplicity, conscious and volitional, and trusting openness. The path of bodily work is all the more difficult and dangerous the more complex the novice is - not in the richness and depth with which perfect simplicity and integrity (“chastity”) are compatible, but in the “complexity” inherent in non-healing.
It should be noted that in the era of their brightest flourishing, artificial techniques, the description of which we will now proceed to, did not exhaust “mental prayerful work”: they were always and necessarily combined with strict moral asceticism of sobriety and vigilant march along the path of Christ’s commandments.

Description of techniques for bringing the mind into the heart

1. Direct method, basic.

St. Gregory of Sinai says: “Sit on a seat of one span, bring your mind down from your head to your heart and hold it there; then, bowing painfully and with pain in your forearms, shoulders and neck (from muscle tension), cry out with your mind and heart: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!” Hold your breath at the same time, do not breathe impudently, because this can scatter your thoughts. If you see thoughts arising, do not listen to them, even if they are simple and good, and not just vain and unclean. By holding your breath as much as you can, keeping your mind in your heart and calling on the Lord Jesus Christ often and patiently, you will soon crush them and destroy them, striking them invisibly with the Divine name. St. John Climacus says: “In the name of Jesus, slay the warriors; There is no other stronger weapon than this, either in heaven or on earth.”
When the mind becomes exhausted in such work, the body and heart become sick from the intense uplifting of the frequent invocation of the Lord Jesus, so that this work ceases to warm and cheer, which supports the effort and patience of the ascetics in this work: then rise and sing, alone or with your disciple, or practice meditating on some passage of Scripture, or in the memory of death, or take up reading, or handicrafts, or anything else to exercise your body” 4.
St. Simeon the New Theologian says: “You need to preserve three things above all else: first, care for every thing, blessed and unblessed; second, a clear conscience in everything, so that it does not convict you of anything; and third, perfect impartiality, so that your thoughts do not deviate into attachment to anything worldly. Having confirmed all this in your heart m, sit in some silent place alone in the corner, close the door, gather your mind, turning it away from every temporary and vain thing, press your beard to your chest, hold back your breath a little, bring your mind down into your heart, turning your sensual feelings there eyes, and, listening to him, keep your mind there and try with your mind to find the place where your heart is, so that your mind will be perfect there. At first you will find darkness and cruelty there; but then, if you continue this matter of attention day and night, you will find unceasing joy there. The mind, struggling in this, will find a place in the heart, and then it will soon see there what it has never seen or known, it will see itself bright, full of prudence and reasoning. And from then on, no matter where any thought arises or appears, before it enters the heart and is depicted in it, it will drive it away from there and consume it in the name of Jesus, saying: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!” And from now on, the human mind begins to have a memory of malice and hatred of demons, and an incessant struggle, and raises natural anger against them, and persecutes them, scourges them and destroys them. The rest of what usually happens in this case, you will learn later, with God’s help, through your own experience, through the attention of your mind, holding Jesus in your heart, that is, the indicated prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!” 5.

2. Means, auxiliary.

St. Nicephorus the Solitary says: “First of all, let your life be silent, carefree and peaceful with everyone. Then, having entered your cage, shut yourself and, sitting in some corner, do what I tell you. So, having gathered your mind, lead it along the path that the air goes to the heart, and force it to descend into the heart along with the inhaled air. Therefore, brother, train your mind not to quickly leave there: for at first it becomes very depressed from the inner seclusion and cramped conditions. When he gets used to it, he no longer wants to remain in external wanderings” 6.

3. A method combining both techniques

consists in adapting to the rhythm of the heartbeat the introduction or removal of air into the lungs, and in connecting with each heartbeat one of the words of the Jesus Prayer.

4. St. Nikephoros the Solitary

to those who have labored unsuccessfully in the above-mentioned works, he gives the following advice: “You know that the language (speaking) of every person is in his toes. For inside the Persians, when our lips are silent, we speak and consult with ourselves and make prayers, and perform psalmody, and some other things. So to this word, having driven out every thought from it (for you can, if you want), give this prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me! - and force him, instead of any other thought, to always cry out there inside.
If you hold on to this kind of work unfailingly with all your attention, then over time the heart’s entrance will open to you, about which I have already written to you, without any doubt, as we ourselves have learned through experience” 7.
This last technique differs significantly from the others and at first glance may seem to be a purely mechanical action. Many are confused by this: how can one agree to a prayer exercise that is purely quantitative, at least at first, inattentive? How can we admit that this inattentive prayer can be or become a pious exercise? How to believe that it can lead to the collection of thoughts?
However, no matter how poor our experience, we know that the analytical attention of the mind, which breaks down an object into its component parts, often scatters attention, breaking its deep unity and dissipating its power. On the contrary, the monotonous, rhythmic, leisurely repetition of a single formula, short but strong, calms the mind, makes the thought subside, unites attention deeper than the diversity of the theme revealed in the essence and, despite the initial distraction and beyond, concentrates the mind, connecting it with "heart". In addition, a new internal rhythm, dedicated to God and full of Divine content, displaces the usual, obsessive rhythms of the external world and makes a person independent of it, which is one of the main tasks of all inner life.
These and some other considerations serve as the basis for “verbal prayer.”

5. Finally, Saint Theophan the Recluse

Finally, St. Theophan the Recluse, in the advice that he gives to everyone who wants to begin the inner life, shows us that one of the conditions for success is to never allow bodily softening: “straighten up,” he says.
It is especially interesting to note his judgment on the classical techniques of hesychasm; he claims that they come from genuine spiritual experience and correspond to it; they enriched us with deep knowledge of the facts and the ways of grace-filled transformation, and, in particular, they clearly revealed the importance and dignity of the body in the matter of salvation. However, how general rule, we can say that they have become unnecessary in their classical form and even pose a danger to beginners without guidance, since they can replace spiritual work in them and seduce the inexperienced, who attribute to grace essentially natural states, which, however, have become unusual for sin-loving people .
But still, classic techniques, in his opinion, can serve those whose hearts have dried up and closed from the rules and regulations that are lifeless in themselves; those who know nothing except these external forms of religion. Gathering attention in the heart, causing bodily and mental shocks, can lead them back into the realm of natural experiences and, under the experienced and watchful supervision of a mentor, finally lead to dispassionate feelings of spiritual life.

About the Jesus Prayer

All these techniques, as stated above, do not constitute contemplative prayer. They are nothing more than a liberating feat of a rather negative nature, only preparing a form for prayer. Then truly spiritual work begins, when attention has become united, collected in a place of perfect concentration and ready to receive from grace and offer prayer.
But prayer itself must be the support of internal unity, and for this it must be such that not only by its complexity or one-sidedness it does not disturb the long-fluctuating internal balance, but also in itself to evoke and strengthen composure and unity, opening the way for the union of man with God - in spirit, soul and body.
The vocation of man is to, being by nature one with the created world, to become one with God by grace, in order to unite the Creator and the creature. The task is not only for the person redeemed by Jesus Christ to be healed, to become “whole,” not only for him to stand before God, redeemed and healed, but for him to “synergistically,” that is, “co-operate.” “(by the interaction) of God and man, all human nature was transformed and became, according to the word of the holy Apostle Peter, a partaker of the Divine nature - through the deification of the real, and not the metaphorical.
Man’s goal, his calling surpasses himself: not only in himself, but also beyond the boundaries of his humanity, he is called upon to make God, transcendent, incommensurate with any creature, omnipresent and at the same time incomprehensible, immanent to himself and through himself to the world, inseparably, although incomprehensibly united the created world; so that the unchanging, personal, indestructible God would truly become all in all, so that for living creatures He would be more real and close than life itself.
This is what the Jesus Prayer is aimed at and achieves, the content that orthodox prayer pours into the perfect form of silence. Brief in form, uniform in content, it leads the soul to concentration and brings it face to face with God. Due to its content, it brings together all the forces (spiritual, mental and physical) of a person in worship and love. And with this she makes existence lasting.
At the same time, it detaches the soul from all subjectivity, from all its seeking and self-lust, and establishes it in the complete objectivity of the Divine. She is both the path and the pinnacle of selflessness. Theophan the Recluse says somewhere that “a person who separates himself is like wood shavings curled around his inner emptiness.” He is alien to both the universe and its Creator.
Only in God does man die as an individual, an individual, and rise as a person, a person. The opposition of these two terms, unusual for the West, requires clarification: the individual is an individual, the only subject of our empirical knowledge of man and the only basis of pagan anthropology. In the biblical worldview, he is the last, indivisible (individuum, atomon) term of division and isolation, an individual testifying to the disintegration of humanity in the fall of Adam and Eve (here Adam became like one of Us... - Gen. 3:22). An individual is recognized by contrast, determined by the opposition of properties or combinations of properties that are common to everyone in terms of nature, but which individuals share, appropriate or think to appropriate to themselves by excluding others or preferentially over others.
The personality-person is inexpressible. It cannot be opposed; she is beyond comparison; it is incomparable, unique, elusive and, however, just as unconditionally real. Its existence is a mystery, and its abiding meaning is hinted at in the book of Revelation: And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows except he who receives it (Rev. 2:17).
Personality does not exist through opposition, isolation, exclusion, but through refusal to appropriate to itself the common nature of man, through complete self-sacrifice. It exists for and in the direction of the Other, in the image of God the Word: And the Word came to God (John 1:1).
The concept of personality in man is also inextricably linked with the concept of nature, just as in the Holy Trinity the concept of essence is inseparable from the concept of Persons-Hypostases; their existence is correlative. The nature of man in its primordial state, such as it was in Adam before the fall or in Christ, is unknown and incomprehensible to us in our present state, but we can sense it and discern it through the feat of our life in Christ, and we can also know something and about the spiritual body through and beyond the body of death.
Just as God is One in the Holy Trinity, One in nature and Trinity in Persons, so man is One in nature and multiple in hypostases.
Asceticism and grace, through their combined efforts, shatter a person’s individual, isolated existence in order to restore him from his sinful fall. pristine nature and the integral personality-person.
Finally, the theological and spiritual richness of the Jesus Prayer is limitless: it is not only “an abbreviation of the whole Gospel,” but also the key of faith in Christ Jesus. Not only does it tell us about God, but in this incessant calling, in this cry of the creature to the All-Merciful Creator, Christ is present. He comes to His creature, and He, at her prayer, performs the only miracle desired for her: He dwells in her, unites with her in such a way that we no longer live, but Christ lives in us.

Anthony, Metropolitan of Sourozh

Bishop Anthony of Sourozh did not write prayers on purpose - but sometimes, when in numerous conversations and sermons he addressed his flock, the words of prayers escaped from him - as if the curtain of his incessant and intimate conversation with God was being lifted. collected fragments of a living appeal to God by a famous Orthodox pastor and preacher.

Lord, I know that You are here - and I am here, by Your mercy You allow me to stand before You, even if I do not feel Your presence, but I know that You are here, and this is for me the utmost happiness, and blessing, and joy. And I will talk to You, I will tell You everything, pour out my whole soul, all my thoughts, all my feelings, I will seek Your will in everything, and I will not leave, I will not leave, Lord, even if You do not let Yourself be known for years.

***

Lady! What a miracle this is! I am not worthy to approach You, but You allow me to be in Your presence! Are you here! Lord, You are here! I can remain silent in Your presence, because without words, deep communication takes place between us and without words, Your grace permeates my heart, penetrates my mind, transforms me, makes me different.

***

Lord, Lord! You commanded us to come, You sent Your angels to call us, You sent prophets, You gave us the Gospel, You Yourself called us and called us, and we responded to this call - but look in what form we came! We have squandered all our pristine beauty, we have squandered everything, rags cover our dirty, defiled body, our soul has languished - there is nothing left of us - how can we enter, O God, into Your Kingdom? How to cross this threshold of purity? Even as a publican, I cannot say: “Have mercy on me,” because it is too late, I can no longer change... How can I enter the holy region, the region of God?

Lord, even though my heart is made of stone, even though my darkened thoughts waver, even though my will is directed towards evil, even though my flesh is now burning - I want Your victory at all costs, at any cost; defeat me, conquer me, break me - but save me!

***

God! Unite us with Yourself as closely, as completely, as a branch grafted into a life-giving tree unites with it. Grant us to be one with You, Lord, so that Your life flows into us, Your Divinity permeates us, Your holiness fills us, Your purity becomes our purity.

***

Lord, bless me to enter a new day, which has never existed before, which, like a snow-white plain, lies before me. Let me enter this plain and make a trail that is not crooked and unworthy of me and You. Bless me; at night I slept as if I were dead, and now it is as if I have been resurrected and entering a new life.

***

Lord, come! The way is yours presence will bring peace, give us the peace that the world cannot give, bless those who hate each other, give them the peace that conquers all hatred.

Those who listened to the speeches of Metropolitan Anthony rightfully consider him their spiritual mentor. Many did not even dare to dream about meeting with Vladyka: in Russia the “ iron curtain“, and Father Anthony lived in London, and his visits to his homeland at that time were rare. First of all, what is amazing is what he was able to do: attract thousands and thousands of native Englishmen to Orthodoxy and create an entire diocese Orthodox Church in England. But the main merit of the Vladyka is that he was able to influence the lives of many people in his homeland, in Russia.

“Vladyka never wrote or prepared his conversations and speeches in advance. Everything said was originally born as a word addressed directly to the listener - not to a faceless crowd, but to everyone individual, that “modern man” who experiences (often without realizing it) spiritual hunger and the need for prayerful communication with God.”

Metropolitan Anthony spoke about how important open prayer to God is for us, and how difficult it is to learn it, so as not to be distracted by extraneous thoughts and everyday problems. In his works he gives detailed practical advice for beginners, reveals the essence of prayer, answers the questions that people most often ask: “How to combine prayer life and activity in the world?”, “Can an unbeliever pray?”, “Why is the psalter read over the dead?”

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh about prayer:

“Prayer is, first of all, a Meeting with God. This is a journey that brings not exciting experiences, but new responsibility. Whenever we approach God, we are faced with either life or death.”

“If you want your prayer to be pure, correct and joyful, choose some short prayer, consisting of few but strong words, and repeat it often, over a long time. Then you will find consolation in prayer.”

“Many people are embarrassed by the thought of praying for the dead; they wonder what the purpose of this prayer is, what we hope to achieve with it. Can the fate of the dead change because they are prayed for? Can prayer convince God to be unjust and give them what they deserve?
If you believe that praying for the living helps them, why don’t you think it is possible to pray for the dead? Death is not the end, but a certain stage in human destiny, and this fate does not freeze like stone at the moment of death. The love that our prayers express cannot be in vain.”

“A distinctive feature of Christian prayer is unceasing prayer to God that God’s will be done. However, instead of praying for God's will to be done, we often try to convince God to arrange everything the way we want. No matter how well we pray, we must be aware every minute that we may be mistaken in our best feelings and thoughts. And therefore, when we told God everything we were going to, we must add, like Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Nevertheless, not as I want, but as You want (Matthew 26:39).”