Meaning in Life, Languor – Father Theologos

One of the big problems today – especially for young people – is the acute lack of meaning and spiritual languor.

Watch this video to see an analysis of this very thorny topic in which we present the causes and some advice to get out of this death of the soul.

Enjoy!

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us! Amen.

At one point, long ago, a group of physicians, university professors, scientists from Italy or from England came to the Holy Mountain – I don’t quite remember where from. They gave us a questionnaire because they were impressed – the scientific world is impressed – by the fact that on the Holy Mountain we have a very balanced life, few illnesses, and we live a long time, we, the fathers, are long-lived on the Holy Mountain, generally speaking. They wanted to find out what the secret of our longevity is. They asked us what we eat, how we eat, how we behave, our sleep schedule, and so on. And at the end of the questionnaire when he was asking us – he would take each of us individually – he asked us: “Do you still believe you have purpose in your life? Do you still believe your life has meaning?” Well, at that moment it was as if a brick hit me in the head and I said: “Of course, how could it not! That is obvious.”

The man somehow realized he had made a blunder and tried to explain to me that, you know, in the world, many have lost their sense of purpose, they no longer have meaning in life, they think their life no longer has meaning and so on. Yes, why? Because Orthodoxy provides the meaning of life. God gives meaning. Do you understand? Orthodoxy is a medical science and what Orthodoxy heals is death. This is the most serious illness, brethren, death, rupture, isolation – and Orthodoxy heals us of this. Because people today have strayed away from God, that is why meaning disappears. The meaning of man cannot be anything other than eternal self-perfection – every man desires this.

The need for victory in man cannot be fulfilled by anything – neither by money, nor by social positions, nor by fame, nor by gold medals, by nothing other than the Resurrection of Christ, by overcoming death. You see, the Holy Scripture doesn’t tell us about dinosaurs and geological eras in the way a science book does, if of course, it tells us anything at all. The purpose of Scripture is salvific – namely, of fulfilling our purpose in life, which is, as I said, perfection, the fulfillment of the person in eternity and in communion, in love.

Suddenly it becomes clear that everything makes sense, that value appears. Without meaning, without purpose, without God there is no value, and that is because value is not the amount of money we give. The value of an entity, brethren, of a thing, of an idea is given by the percentage in which the respective entity aids us in fulfilling our purpose. If purpose does not exist, then value does not exist either. And the goal, as I said, is an absolute, spiritual one, and not wasting time scrolling on social networks or dissipating ourselves in the centers of attention that have multiplied so much today.

We say that we no longer have time, that we haven’t done anything. This is true, and it happens because we no longer have meaning, we no longer use time for spiritual perfection. The mind is scattered in all directions massively parallel, broken into pieces by these centers of attention. We do things faster and faster: we respond on WhatsApp, we see on TikTok, on Facebook, the news, Insta, YouTube, etc. We have machines, robots and means of communication incomparably better than in the past, and yet we have no time. Why? Because we do not use it for our own spiritual perfection, brethren! I will tell you something.

In my grandparents’ village it was an event for a car to enter the village. They would say:  “The car from the city has come!” There was no telephone, rather there was the cooperative’s phone that worked and didn’t really work, people didn’t have cars either, there was only one tractor, the cooperative’s, which worked and didn’t work, if you wanted television, it was at the neighbor further away… and yet they had plenty of time. Why? Because they knew what the priorities are. What the value system is. What the meaning of life is. Without meaning, brethren, there is no value system. There is nothing. Everything is turned upside down. Everything is chaos: it’s either Christ or chaos.

Time is given to us for repentance, brethren – time did not exist and will not exist again. Time is the possibility of change, of repentance. Here lies the capital importance of death: the fact that after death time disappears, that after death we can no longer repent. So if we have no meaning, we no longer have time and then we waste our time meaninglessly, doing pointless things. It is as if we no longer had time and this is felt.

From a physical perspective time is something else, which is defined based on the half-life of a cesium radioactive isotope, but we are talking about the spiritual time that man feels. And this time disappears and that is spiritual sloth. The meaning is theosis, brethren, and NOT the worship of the cellular. If this purpose disappears, if this meaning disappears, then everything disappears and we have different ephemeral definitions of value and we have objects or ideas with chaotic, volatile, ephemeral value just to fulfill our passions. That is, self-love, primarily.

Passions have an ambiguous, absurd character. A very interesting phenomenon – man is fierce about passions and yet, he has great inner turmoil. Why? Because there is no fulfillment of the purpose. This false, ambiguous character also appears in the theme of freedom: you see that the man with passions is a slave to his passions. Today he wants one thing, tomorrow he wants another… Even if, paradoxically, he says that he “sees nothing else” but the fulfillment of his passions – for example, he does everything for money, glory or power – he jumps from one to another even if, in general, his goal is said to be money.

For freedom to be freedom, it must have meaning – freedom is not an amorphous puddle where anything is allowed. This leads us to the hideousness of atheism and, from there, ultimately to spiritual unfulfillment, to spiritual languor. Well, then why don’t people want meaning, freedom? Ok, they want these – we all desire them, but we don’t want to renounce our passions. Isn’t that what the Lord says? “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Yes, that’s right: we don’t want to avoid the truth, the light and meaning but we avoid it, actually, because our deeds are wicked are evil. Thus, sloth, acedia comes from passions, from the fact that we want to stay embraced with our passions like a great fussy walrus – primarily with self-love.

We are all like this, more or less. Usually, the passion of acedia, sloth, comes from talking a lot and forgetting God and, of course, from the love of pleasures. Whoever is scorched by this passion, has a languor of the mind in struggle, a night of the mind, an existential stagnation; blesses the worldly, secular spirit, has disgust towards spirituality, towards high things and generally a defamation of God as merciless and unloving of people, has a boredom of reading psalms and spiritual books.

Acedia is helpless in prayer, but is as strong as iron in serving material matters – fashion and so on, technology, news. It is tireless in the work of the hands when it wants to do something, and skilled in the so-called obedience that is just to get away from prayer and the spiritual life. Yes, good, obedience is obedience, but let’s be careful to do everything in its own time. Do you know what happens? Because it is harder to pray than to work, the one who doesn’t like prayer comforts his self-love through the work of the hands, saying “I have work to do and cannot pray now.”

Brethren, we must cut off our will – we must self-deny. Self-denial is the binding of the will. Let us trample our will underfoot, through obedience pleasing to God. For this reason, the obedient man does not know sloth and is hardworking (the word for “hardworking” in Romanian is “harnic” which comes from the word “har” meaning “grace”). It comes from the word “grace” because being hard working brings grace. Thus, in communities where there is obedience, in cenobitic communities for example, languor doesn’t exist, whereas if one is alone, then languor is like an inseparable consort, brethren.

In the worst case, we crawl like a fussy walrus, as I was saying – namely, we do nothing, and this especially if it’s warm, that is, at noon or if we have a full stomach. You know, at noon, man experiences a biological breakdown. That’s why David says in the Psalter: “Deliver me, O Lord, from the arrow that flies by day and the pestilence that lays waste at noonday.” For this reason, the elders and at least in the monasteries of the Holy Mountain we start very early and we sleep at noon. Well, in the world, what can I say, it’s quite difficult in certain environments. Why is that? That’s because otherwise, the devil of spiritual idleness brings about a tremor around noon for about three hours, along with headaches, dizziness and all that. By three in the afternoon, these subside somewhat, and when the table is set, we jump like an arch, you know, hop and we’re up. Of course, when the time for prayer comes, again, the body grows heavy, again it gets drowsy. And if we stay for prayer, then it submerges us back into sleep and disperses the verse from our mouths with wholly inappropriate yawns. Terrible, brethren. You see the man at services, and especially at vigils, overcome by sleep and after the vigil, he is fresh, standing outside, talking. Isn’t that demonic energy, brethren? Do you understand?

Also, when I speak to someone: if I talk about something spiritual and useful to people that have problems in this area, you see they are not interested, they don’t care, even if they ask. And especially if they are addicted to TikTok or other apps like that, after 5 seconds, not even one minute, they are immediately elsewhere. But if I talk to them about something worldly, they immediately revive. I say “war” or “pandemic” or something, they immediately light up. Brethren, the spiritual ones save us. Especially since I am not the one to inform you about the war or the pandemic and so on.

Now, you should know that we all want to have love, joy, peace, long-suffering, and all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit, and we desire this with the push of a button — in a magical way. It cannot be, brethren! We must renounce our passions, we must struggle – only then will we acquire meaning and joy. However, people do not wish to struggle, to do something, but only to find out things. Good people, do something, because if you don’t, it is the languor of the soul – the great passion called acedia of which we are talking about. Of course it is good that, still, you want to find out, but you also have to do something and you need to get started NOW. From this instant on. Do you understand?

We must have a schedule and gradually occupy ourselves to perfect ourselves. Let us not say that there is still a long way to go – I know that – but for God to help us, we must also take a step. Yes, okay, you listen to spiritual talks. It is good, but not enough. We must do something. Do you understand?

A form of acedia, of languor, of existential and spiritual stagnation is when someone wants to find out news, what this or that one has done or what else is happening or simply loaf around like walrus, as I said. Even if the news is still the same, they watch it again and again and maybe tomorrow something will appear, certainly not to perfect themselves spiritually, but to kill time. Of course, they hunt for news, meaning they go to one and another out of curiosity. Do you understand? So not only online, but also through neighbors. And they ask to find out all sorts of things, leaving the struggle and spiritual rule last. As St. Paul the Apostle says, he “walks disorderly.” They do not work, but walk disorderly. It even rhymes in Greek. Brethren, curiosity as it is now, is a parasite of Adam’s fall. Man must be upright and withdraw his mind from the senses, as Abba Isaac and Abba Dorotheus say. We must withdraw our mind from the senses, Namely, [if] the thought tells me:

“Let me taste a little of this…”

“No, I won’t taste!” – I will say.

“Let me see what’s there…”

“No, I won’t see!”

“Let me hear what it says there…”

“No, I won’t listen!”

“What does that perfume smell like?”  

“I won’t [smell]!”

“I want to put my hand there…”

 “I won’t put my hand!”

“Let me find out what is happening over there…”

“I won’t find out!”

Do you understand? We must have a mind of steel, in order to maintain our integrity, to not let it fragment into senses. The moment the mind gathers and prays, it then turns towards itself and through itself towards God, as St. Basil the Great says. Although it is of steel against sin, it has to be fluffy like a teddy bear towards people and loves everyone and everything with God’s love. Do you understand?

The flight from prayer, from spirituality, also take on even more subtle forms: excessively going to visit those in need, to help them, to comfort them, to stay with them, to fix something around the house, to improve, but, of course, today the addiction to cell phones, to the Internet is at the forefront. Brethren, we must have time, we must have a schedule for prayer, first of all, and then the rest! In spiritual environments it is classic for someone to work during prayer without necessarily needing to, to hide their languor – or, the other extreme, when someone urgently needs something, to not help him, to not sacrifice to him, because – presumably – we are praying. Brethren, extremes are from the devil. Of course, prayer is essential and it is at the forefront and we avoid everything that brings us down from prayer when we pray, but we must have discernment, brethren, to have love.

This is where obedience is essential: obedience to the spiritual ruler and to the schedule, so that we maintain our balance and not to forget our purpose. On our own, it is very, very difficult to succeed. This is one of the main reasons why languor fights the lonely – because they lack obedience to the ruler and for them it is the schedule that remains. In fact, this happens not only in the case of a hermit, whether he is a monk or a layman, but also in the case of communities. If leaders do not exist, people languish. Leaders are needed to push people forward. Very few are those who have enough zeal to advance. And this is true in many fields, especially in the spiritual realm where the enemy fights so fiercely.

At this point, brethren, I would like to tell you that, yes, of course a good spiritual ruler is needed. Choose the best one you can – even if he’s not perfect – and stick with him, because a spiritual ruler with a grade of 6-7 [out of 10] is immensely better than the absence of any spiritual ruler. Of course, we all want a spiritual ruler with a grade of 10 [out of 10], but let’s not forget that only One had a grade of 10 along with His Most Pure Mother, and we crucified Him.

That is why we have, in fact, the lives of the saints and, above all, the deeds and life of our Lord Jesus Christ as they appear in the Bible. You see, in the Bible and in the Lives of the Saints, it doesn’t say so much to have courage as we are given the reasons to have courage, we are given the meaning. We are told, “Look what can be done! Take this path!” That’s why examples are so significant: so that we know that there is meaning and how to get to fulfill this meaning and, therefore, to get rid of languor.

A huge problem here is the fact that if we are not careful and our meaning does not coincide with the true meaning of life, then we can despair, may good God forbid! Because, as I said, we try to search for Heaven, for meaning where there is none. Usually, we believe that true meaning is success in this world and reward from people. It isn’t like that. Heaven is yonder, and here, as St. Isaac the Syrian says, we should know that if we do something and do not have temptation afterward, it means we didn’t do it properly. Do you understand? We need to withdraw more or less from the world, but to do so loving people and not with the feeling of a “beaten dog,” but with the great love for God and avoiding sin – the distortion that is so present in society.

Yes, it is true, that many times we are hurt by the lack of understanding, by the different behaviors of those next to us and sometimes we feel alone like the long-distance runner and we feel like stopping because of the harshness of the people around us who we feel are pressing us. However, we must be careful to choose the right race and not to stop because we lose our meaning. As I said, the meaning can be none other than theosis, namely, the stabilization, the separation of the soul from the body with a loving heart. That is our meaning, to die with a loving heart. Replete with love. Thus we pass from death to life, trampling down death by death and we will fulfill our purpose. We must always think about our passing, about our death, how will we pass beyond because if we forget our purpose, if we forget love, we will perform senseless deeds and say meaningless words.

Languor locks us inside ourselves, and we will be like a wandering asteroid without purpose, through a meaningless cosmos. Unfortunately, this is the nihilism that prevails today and torments people so much. Let me give you a case. On a forum, Hacker News it’s called, famous among top programmers, at one point, a very big problem was discussed, it was solved and after that, all sorts of life questions are raised. And a very prominent programmer who was actually one of the directors at Google in terms of search engine improvement, after which for years he was the director of the advisory office at the White House in the US Government. I won’t mention his name because he is still alive, and this top programmer was asked by someone there, on the forum, if he had children. And he said: “No, I don’t have children.” The other one asked: “Why?” And he said: “Because I do not wish to sentence my children to death.” Do you understand? This is terrible. I mean, the man had no purpose, he was seeing this world as a great river that inexorably flows towards death, a great cemetery overflowing into nothingness. Do you understand? The man was very sad, even though I said he is a super-achiever. As I said, he was the head of the advisory office at the White House for years.

On the other hand, I remember Fr. Joseph of Vatopedi, who constantly spoke to us with expressions like, “επι του σκοπού του προκειμένου” – “let’s focus on the purpose of our subject” or “το κέντρο του στόχου” – “the center of the target” which from the perspective of a very literary language may not sound good, especially since he repeated them very often – but from a spiritual perspective they sound very, very good – we must be focused like a laser on our target which is death, the righteous death – that is, death with a loving heart. When Fr. Ephraim, as the abbot, wanted to share something from the daily life of the monastery, Fr. Joseph did not wish, he did not like it. He would say: “No, I don’t want that.” Because he was focused on his meaning, on his purpose. You could see he was very lively because he had meaning. He kept saying that he “is waiting for the train and it’s not arriving,” referring to his death. This is very important, do you understand? Because he was concerned only with those things that helped him achieve perfection.

Brethren, until, however, death comes, we must have zeal and patience. Zeal comes through obedience and prayer – namely, through any form of asceticism that attracts grace, because only in this way is the warmth of zeal maintained from within and we escape the hell of inner relativity. If we do not gain the assurance that Christ is born in us – yes, since we are in the Christmas fast period – we cannot resist we cannot resist temptations and we fall, we regress, we become corrupted – we reach the years of decadence – “The years of decay” as someone said. Of course, sometimes, when God wants to try someone, He lets these years of decadence come upon us regardless of our struggle — regardless of whether we want it or not. In fact, it is a common law that after a few years of zeal, 3 or 4 – rarely 5 – for this period of decadence to appear, in which grace withdraws. There are exceptions where the period appears sooner or later, it is more or less intense. We all must bear this cross. In these years of decadence, we must practice patience, maintain prayer, stick to our schedule and not lose our faith and hope. Let’s maintain our place and not leave the fight.

St. Athanasius the Athonite endured years of extreme patience with this spirit of boredom, of languor, at the foot of Athon, where the monastery of Great Lavra is now built, not very far from here. This spirit fought him greatly, brethren, to the limit of his endurance. When the man could no longer endure, he said he would stay one more day and if God did not grant him His grace then he would leave because it was not God’s will for him to struggle there. Well, and then on that last day God granted him His grace as an expression of His love and as a burst of light, and thus he built the Lavra, brethren.

From here we learn that we must fight the spirit of boredom through prayer, obedience, struggle, that is, self-denial – the cutting off of one’s will by obeying him whom God validates in front of us and, ultimately, obeying the schedule. And all these embalmed in patience, brethren. Patience. Beyond that, chanting also helps. Singing – but it should be spiritual, uplifting, encouraging, brethren, and not all the anti-music that we are witnessing today.

Know that the struggle of St. Athanasius – the patriarch of Athonite monasticism – was gigantic: to stay alone for years without the comfort of grace without losing his hope, he is phenomenal. I don’t know of a similar case, except, of course, St. Isaac the Syrian. Abba Isaac. Abba Isaac stayed 32 years, as his life says, without the comfort of grace and after that he reached a state of rapture of the mind that he began to pray in the evening with the sun behind him, was raptured in bliss and woke up in the morning with the sun in front of him.

Brethren, let us not despair, let us not languish, let us work a little, strive in a more spiritual way, not so material and not so far from God, and let us not expect reward from people nor wish to press a button to have everything happen, but rather let us obey with love, keeping death in mind and with patience towards those whom God validates, as I was saying.

Let us have courage, pray and not be walruses, as I was saying! Thank you for having the patience to stay with me thus far. I hope we emerge from languor, from the years of decadence. May the good God help us! Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us! Amen.

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