On how much we care about our bodies and how much we care about our souls.

The Bible tells us: "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" (Mark 8:36) That is how precious the human soul is. It is more precious than the whole earth with all its treasures and blessings. However, it’s frightening to think how little we understand our soul’s worth. From morning to night, we direct all our thoughts to the body, the housing for worms, this fallen coffin, and on God’s most precious and beloved creation, on His image of glory and majesty, we hardly spare one thought in a week. We spend the most flourishing years of our life in serving our body, and only the last minutes of our decrepit old age, toward eternal salvation. Daily, the body indulges itself with full cups and sumptuous dishes, as though at a rich man’s feast, while the soul barely gathers crumbs of God’s words on His doorstep. The insignificant body is washed, dressed, cleaned, adorned with all types of treasures from nature and the sciences, while the priceless soul, the bride of Jesus Christ, inheritor of Heaven, wanders with exhausted steps, donned in clothing of a poor wanderer that is without charity.

The body doesn’t tolerate one blemish on its face, any dirt on its hands, not one patch on its clothing, while the soul, from head to toe, covered with filth, that goes from one sinful quagmire to another, and its yearly confessional which is often hypocritical, only increases its patches rather than rejuvenating it. The body demands various forms of diversions and gratifications; it frequently ravages whole families, for its sake people sometimes are willing to exert all types of efforts while the soul - has barely one hour on Sundays to partake in the Divine Liturgy, scarcely minutes for morning and evening prayers, reluctantly collects a handful of copper coins for charity and when thinking about death, expresses its satisfaction with a cold sigh. For the sake of health and welfare of the body, the atmosphere and habitat is substituted, foremost and distant physicians are summoned, there is abstinence from food and drink, the most bitter medicines are consumed, the body is allowed to be burned and dissected, yet for the health of the soul, for the avoidance of temptations, for distancing away from sinful infection, they take not one step but remain in the same atmosphere, in the same iniquitous society, in the same corrupt house, not seeking any spiritual physician, or else selecting one that is unfamiliar and inexperienced, hiding from him that which is already known to Heaven and hell, and about which they themselves boast among their circles. When the body is dying, you hear lamentations and despair, but often no thought is given when the soul is dying from mortal sin.

Like Adam and Eve, we don’t know the value of our soul and give it away for a seemingly rich yield.

At least why don’t we cry like Adam and Eve? Unfortunately, in the main, our concerns are for acquiring earthly benefits and not Heavenly ones. We forget that earthly gains soon pass and cannot be retained, while Heavenly gains are eternal, endless and cannot be taken away. Most gracious Lord! Help us to despise everything transient and concern ourselves only with the needs to save our souls.

Elder Ambrose 

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Do not wish for many things

Do not wish for many things, whether they are within or out of reach. Instead, take care to sanctify the little you have.

Mother Gabriel

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A child in a huge library

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books—-a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.

Einstein

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Say yes to goodness

For each human being there is a date, unknown to all and to himself above all, but entirely determined, after which the soul can no longer keep its virginity. If before this precise instant, eternally marked, it has not consented to being taken by goodness, it will immediately be taken by evil.

A man can give himself over to evil at any moment in his life, for one gives oneself unconsciously and without knowing that one is introducing an external authority inside oneself; the soul drinks a narcotic before it gives its virginity. It is not necessary to say yes to evil to be seized by it.

But goodness only takes the soul when it has said yes. And the fear of the nuptial union is such that no soul has the power to say yes to goodness until it is pushed urgently by the almost immediate approach of the limiting instant where its fate will be fixed for eternity. For some the limiting instant can take place at the age of five, for others at sixty. In fact, it is impossible to situate it either before or after having passed through it, for the instantaneous and eternal choice only appears refracted by the passage of time. For those who have let themselves be taken by evil long before approaching the limiting instant, this instant no longer has any reality. The most a human being can do is to keep intact within him the faculty of saying yes to goodness until he is very near to it.

Simone weil

Simone Weil on Prayer taught by Christ

Pater aymohn ho en toyss ooranoyss,	Our father who art in heaven,
agiasthaytoh to onomasoo,	hallow be thy name,
elthetoh hay basileya soo,	thy kingdom come,
genaythaytoh to thelayma soo,	thy will be done,
hohss en ooranoh kai epi gayss	on earth as it is in heaven,
ton arton haymohn ton epioosion dos haymin saymeron	give us this day our daily bread
kai aphess haymin ta opheilaymata haymohn	and forgive us our trespasses
hohss kai haymeiss aphyemen toyss opheyletaiss haymohn	as we forgive those who trespass against us
kai may eisenenkayss haymass eyss peirasmon	and lead us not into temptation
alla rusai haymass apo too ponayroo	but deliver us from evil

Up until last september, I had not prayed even once in my life, at least in the litteral sense of the word. I had never addressed words to God aloud or mentally

The virtue of this practice is extraordinary and surprises me every time I do it, for, even though I live it every day, it goes beyond my expectation every time. Sometimes the first words already tear my thought outside my body and transport it to a place outside space from which there is neither perspective or point of view. Space opens up. The infinity of ordinary space is replaced by an infinity to second or third power. At the same time this infinity of infinities fills itself to the brim with silence, a silence that is not an absence of sound, and that is the object of a positive sensation, more positive than that of a sound. Noises, if there are any, only reach me after going through this silence.

Sometimes also, during this recitation or at other moments, Christ is present in person, but with a presence that is infinitely more real, more poignant, more clear and more full of love than the first time he took me.

I never would have taken it upon me to tell you all this if I wasn't leaving. And as I leave with more or less the thought of a probable death, it seems to me that I do not have the right to not speak of these things. For after all, in all of this, it's not about me. It's about God. I have nothing to do with it.

The words of the Pater are perfectly pure.  If you recite the Pater with no other intention than to pay the fullness of one's attention on the words themselves, you are completely sure to be delivered by this means from a part, as small as it may be, of the evil you hold inside you. In the same way if you look at the Holy Sacrement with no other thought than that Christ is there, and so on.

The only pure things down here are sacred objects and texts, the beauty of nature if you look at it for itself and not as a place for your reveries, and, to a lesser extent, human beings in whom God lives and works of art issued from divine inspiration.

That which is perfectly pure can not be anything else but God present down here. If it was something else than God, it would not be pure. If God was not present, we would never be saved. In the soul where there has been a contact with purity, all its horror of the evil that it carries inside it changes into love for divine purity. This is how Mary-Magdalene and the good thief were privileged by love

Simone Weil (from a letter in May1942)

A tale told by Socrates

Listen, then, as story-tellers say, to a very pretty tale, which I dare say that you may be disposed to regard as a fable only, but which, as I believe, is a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth. Homer tells us , how Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided the empire which they inherited from their father. Now in the days of Cronos there existed a law respecting the destiny of man, which has always been, and still continues to be in Heaven,—that he who has lived all his life in justice and holiness shall go, when he is dead, to the Islands of the Blessed, and dwell there in perfect happiness out of the reach of evil; but that he who has lived unjustly and impiously shall go to the house of vengeance and punishment, which is called Tartarus. And in the time of Cronos, and even quite lately in the reign of Zeus, the judgment was given on the very day on which the men were to die; the judges were alive, and the men were alive; and the consequence was that the judgments were not well given. Then Pluto and the authorities from the Islands of the Blessed came to Zeus, and said that the souls found their way to the wrong places. Zeus said: 'I shall put a stop to this; the judgments are not well given, because the persons who are judged have their clothes on, for they are alive; and there are many who, having evil souls, are apparelled in fair bodies, or encased in wealth or rank, and, when the day of judgment arrives, numerous witnesses come forward and testify on their behalf that they have lived righteously. The judges are awed by them, and they themselves too have their clothes on when judging; their eyes and ears and their whole bodies are interposed as a veil before their own souls. All this is a hindrance to them; there are the clothes of the judges and the clothes of the judged.—What is to be done? I will tell you:—In the first place, I will deprive men of the foreknowledge of death, which they possess at present: this power which they have Prometheus has already received my orders to take from them: in the second place, they shall be entirely stripped before they are judged, for they shall be judged when they are dead; and the judge too shall be naked, that is to say, dead—he with his naked soul shall pierce into the other naked souls; and they shall die suddenly and be deprived of all their kindred, and leave their brave attire strewn upon the earth—conducted in this manner, the judgment will be just. I knew all about the matter before any of you, and therefore I have made my sons judges; two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe, Aeacus. And these, when they are dead, shall give judgment in the meadow at the parting of the ways, whence the two roads lead, one to the Islands of the Blessed, and the other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus shall judge those who come from Asia, and Aeacus those who come from Europe. And to Minos I shall give the primacy, and he shall hold a court of appeal, in case either of the two others are in any doubt:—then the judgment respecting the last journey of men will be as just as possible.'

From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the following inferences:—Death, if I am right, is in the first place the separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else. And after they are separated they retain their several natures, as in life; the body keeps the same habit, and the results of treatment or accident are distinctly visible in it: for example, he who by nature or training or both, was a tall man while he was alive, will remain as he was, after he is dead; and the fat man will remain fat; and so on; and the dead man, who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And if he was marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might see the same in the dead body; and if his limbs were broken or misshapen when he was alive, the same appearance would be visible in the dead. And in a word, whatever was the habit of the body during life would be distinguishable after death, either perfectly, or in a great measure and for a certain time. And I should imagine that this is equally true of the soul, Callicles; when a man is stripped of the body, all the natural or acquired affections of the soul are laid open to view.—And when they come to the judge, as those from Asia come to Rhadamanthus, he places them near him and inspects them quite impartially, not knowing whose the soul is: perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of the great king, or of some other king or potentate, who has no soundness in him, but his soul is marked with the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of perjuries and crimes with which each action has stained him, and he is all crooked with falsehood and imposture, and has no straightness, because he has lived without truth. Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of all deformity and disproportion, which is caused by licence and luxury and insolence and incontinence, and despatches him ignominiously to his prison, and there he undergoes the punishment which he deserves.

Now the proper office of punishment is twofold: he who is rightly punished ought either to become better and profit by it, or he ought to be made an example to his fellows, that they may see what he suffers, and fear and become better. Those who are improved when they are punished by gods and men, are those whose sins are curable; and they are improved, as in this world so also in another, by pain and suffering; for there is no other way in which they can be delivered from their evil. But they who have been guilty of the worst crimes, and are incurable by reason of their crimes, are made examples; for, as they are incurable, the time has passed at which they can receive any benefit. They get no good themselves, but others get good when they behold them enduring for ever the most terrible and painful and fearful sufferings as the penalty of their sins—there they are, hanging up as examples, in the prison-house of the world below, a spectacle and a warning to all unrighteous men who come thither. And among them, as I confidently affirm, will be found Archelaus, if Polus truly reports of him, and any other tyrant who is like him. Of these fearful examples, most, as I believe, are taken from the class of tyrants and kings and potentates and public men, for they are the authors of the greatest and most impious crimes, because they have the power. And Homer witnesses to the truth of this; for they are always kings and potentates whom he has described as suffering everlasting punishment in the world below: such were Tantalus and Sisyphus and Tityus. But no one ever described Thersites, or any private person who was a villain, as suffering everlasting punishment, or as incurable. For to commit the worst crimes, as I am inclined to think, was not in his power, and he was happier than those who had the power. No, Callicles, the very bad men come from the class of those who have power (compare Republic). And yet in that very class there may arise good men, and worthy of all admiration they are, for where there is great power to do wrong, to live and to die justly is a hard thing, and greatly to be praised, and few there are who attain to this. Such good and true men, however, there have been, and will be again, at Athens and in other states, who have fulfilled their trust righteously; and there is one who is quite famous all over Hellas, Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. But, in general, great men are also bad, my friend.

As I was saying, Rhadamanthus, when he gets a soul of the bad kind, knows nothing about him, neither who he is, nor who his parents are; he knows only that he has got hold of a villain; and seeing this, he stamps him as curable or incurable, and sends him away to Tartarus, whither he goes and receives his proper recompense. Or, again, he looks with admiration on the soul of some just one who has lived in holiness and truth; he may have been a private man or not; and I should say, Callicles, that he is most likely to have been a philosopher who has done his own work, and not troubled himself with the doings of other men in his lifetime; him Rhadamanthus sends to the Islands of the Blessed. Aeacus does the same; and they both have sceptres, and judge; but Minos alone has a golden sceptre and is seated looking on, as Odysseus in Homer declares that he saw him:

'Holding a sceptre of gold, and giving laws to the dead.'

Now I, Callicles, am persuaded of the truth of these things, and I consider how I shall present my soul whole and undefiled before the judge in that day. Renouncing the honours at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same. And, in return for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict. And I retort your reproach of me, and say, that you will not be able to help yourself when the day of trial and judgment, of which I was speaking, comes upon you; you will go before the judge, the son of Aegina, and, when he has got you in his grip and is carrying you off, you will gape and your head will swim round, just as mine would in the courts of this world, and very likely some one will shamefully box you on the ears, and put upon you any sort of insult.

Perhaps this may appear to you to be only an old wife's tale, which you will contemn. And there might be reason in your contemning such tales, if by searching we could find out anything better or truer: but now you see that you and Polus and Gorgias, who are the three wisest of the Greeks of our day, are not able to show that we ought to live any life which does not profit in another world as well as in this. And of all that has been said, nothing remains unshaken but the saying, that to do injustice is more to be avoided than to suffer injustice, and that the reality and not the appearance of virtue is to be followed above all things, as well in public as in private life; and that when any one has been wrong in anything, he is to be chastised, and that the next best thing to a man being just is that he should become just, and be chastised and punished; also that he should avoid all flattery of himself as well as of others, of the few or of the many: and rhetoric and any other art should be used by him, and all his actions should be done always, with a view to justice.

Follow me then, and I will lead you where you will be happy in life and after death, as the argument shows. And never mind if some one despises you as a fool, and insults you, if he has a mind; let him strike you, by Zeus, and do you be of good cheer, and do not mind the insulting blow, for you will never come to any harm in the practice of virtue, if you are a really good and true man. When we have practised virtue together, we will apply ourselves to politics, if that seems desirable, or we will advise about whatever else may seem good to us, for we shall be better able to judge then. In our present condition we ought not to give ourselves airs, for even on the most important subjects we are always changing our minds; so utterly stupid are we! Let us, then, take the argument as our guide, which has revealed to us that the best way of life is to practise justice and every virtue in life and death. This way let us go; and in this exhort all men to follow, not in the way to which you trust and in which you exhort me to follow you; for that way, Callicles, is nothing worth.

From Gorgias (Plato)

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Letter of the pious man

Now my son, may G-d place you among those that will hear and listen, and that listen and think, and that think and know and do, and not among the people who drown in error, who are drunk with the wine of foolishness, which the evil inclination has enslaved them, and ruled this world over them, and which the lusts have overpowered them, and swayed them towards the pleasures, and enticed them to the desires, and drawn them to coveting. And they, in their darkness are smitten, and swiftly move dazzled in their error, they hear but don't lend ear, they say but don't do . They sought the pleasures but fell in the frustrations, endeavored to reach the pleasing, but reached instead the hard suffering, their soul is tired, and their body is weary. Their minds are empty, and their understanding is shattered. They hoard gold to be lost and fleeting silver, which becomes an inheritance to their enemies or to their traitorous wives. They erect mansions and lie down in graves. They build and don't dwell, they amass and don't spend, each man among them buries his father and his son (i.e. someone older and someone younger than himself but does not put to heart the day of his own death ), yet still does not do religious deeds which endure forever. He forgets his end, but remembers his desires, what will you say of a middle piece, which lost both end pieces, and of a child whose parents abandoned him?

Look my son, at whose heart the Creator has broadened, and who G-d has helped him to rule over his thoughts, opened his eyes for what is good for him, showed him the straight path, and drew him close to it. People are assured of him, and he is assured of them, he is at peace with them, and saved from them. People serve their evil inclination, but he serves the G-d of heaven and earth, who grants life, who brings death, the Creator, who is gracious, and there is no god besides him.

Look at the difference between them (the men who serve their evil inclination ) and the men with pure interiors (who serve G-d) - their eyes are at rest (unlike the desirers whose eyes are always scanning to spot desirous things they enjoy and to afterwards strive to attain them ), their hearts are secure (they are not worried or pained by anything ), and in their solitude, they delight in remembering G-d, thank Him for His goodness in all their situations, who quickly grasp all forms of deep wisdom, who ripped off the veil from their eyes (the [inner] eyes of the intellect ) which prevents seeing the interior ways, and reached the true tranquility through their toil(to conquer their lusts ), their tranquility led them to delight, their desire does not distract them, nor does their long life make them procrastinate. They are zealous to prepare for the day of death, and from what is after it, they prepare, call to G-d, seek Him, hope to Him, and serve Him, They speak truth, converse righteousness, without fear of the Sultan, and without being ruled by the Satan. They are more precious (to G-d) than any man, and more guarded than any nation, their splendor and grandeur is greater than all of them, honored in the houses of G-d, and great in the eyes of men, nothing distracts them away from remembering G-d, and nothing prevents them from thanking Him, their tongue is habituated in praises and thanksgivings, and their hearts are full of purity and unity.

This world disguised itself but they recognized it, and they tread it and told of it, its deception was not hidden from their eyes, neither was its fraud concealed. This world adorned itself to them with beautiful garments (enticed them to pursue the enchantments of this world), but they considered it naked and empty, it deprived them (of livelihood to), but it was forced (to provide for them their basic need in its proper time since they trusted in G-d ), it tried to befriend them (with wealth), but they scolded it, it tried to sway them, but they distanced from it, they gazed at its evil deeds, and understood its disgraceful acts, and it has no dominion over them, and nothing with which to approach them. They are the choicest of G-d, the pure ones, and the treasured of the pious, possessors of discerning eyes, noble desires, favored deeds, who dug after G-d and became rich, did business with Him, and profited, purified their hearts and became pure, who equipped themselves with fear of G-d in the path of evil and were saved, they rode the wagon of piety and arrived, met with the eternal joy, and the delight which never erodes, were spared from the assembly of judgment, and were saved from the punishments .

And you, my son, choose the good for your soul, before the regret which will not avail, and the worry which will never end.
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Ibn Pakudah

We ought to realise as if before our eyes that moment of time when the end comes to each one for deliverance from living. Because all who are about to die are seized with repentance, remembering, as they do, their unjust deeds, and being filled with the wish that they had always acted justly.

Joannes Stobeaus

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sunflower

Everyone is familiar with the sunflower. It always turns its yellow head towards the sun; it’s drawn towards it, and from this it has received its name. 

But it happens that a sunflower ceases to turn towards the sun. Then people who are experienced in this matter say that it’s begun to spoil; a worm has appeared in it and it needs to be cut down quickly.

A soul that hungers for the statutes and the mercies of God is similar to a sunflower and strives for and reaches out for God.

 If it ceases to seek Him, it perishes.

Elder Barsanuphius of Optina

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war and the world

--> Just as people do not enter a war in order to enjoy war, but in order to be saved from war, so we do not enter this world in order to enjoy this world, but in order to be saved from it. People go to war for the sake of something greater than war. So we also enter this temporal life for the sake of something greater: for eternal life. And as soldiers think with joy about returning home, so also Christians constantly remember the end of their lives and their return to their heavenly fatherland.


St. Nicholas of Serbia