Liberation from the Flesh – Father Theologos

The liberation from the flesh is a very necessary thing, and not because matter is evil in itself, but because it exerts an attractive force that can draw us away from God, which is especially true for young people.
How we overcome this force, why it is important to overcome it, and what the effects are, you will learn in this material.

Enjoy!

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen! Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us! Amen! In the previous episode, we talked a little about the struggle against the passions of the flesh and focused on the destructions that a person suffers when they fall into sins of the flesh. It’s bad, brethren, very bad! It’s not good.

Well, and if we don’t fall, what do we gain? We gain freedom, we gain peace, we gain love. Yes, brethren, because the true opposite of sin is not virtue – so to speak – because that can also be seen as a form of pride, that “I have virtues.” The true opposite of sin is peace and love. The freedom of love – that is the opposite of sin. Do you understand? Loving freedom. Let us love those who wish harm on us, brethren!

As the Lord said – let us love our enemies. This is only possible by the grace of God, brethren, but the Lord is merciful. If we strive, the Lord will provide it. In general, in everyday life, the harm done against us is defamation, brethren —the spreading of rumors and accusations against us. Yes, I have some [against me] too and I know them, but, well, the Mother of God helps me and I don’t give much importance to them. If we have the support of grace and of those around us, then it is much easier to bear. It’s all about not being egotistical. Yes, I know it’s difficult, as I was saying, it requires confession, help, but if we overcome the flesh, then we also overcome vain glory. That is, the need for glory… of the flesh.

If we overcome the flesh, then we free ourselves from fear, if we do not overcome the flesh, then we are afraid: “Oh, what will they say about me? Oh, what will happen?” Then either we warn others, “Watch out, so-and-so is coming to slander us (or our idol),” and we slander the one we fear even before he appears, just to make sure… well, usually this happens with ladies, please forgive me. Now, to be completely honest, yes, it happens especially with ladies, but gentlemen, if we’re not careful, we behave in such a way that we provoke this kind of reaction from ladies, and in fact, it is our desire as men to be absolute masters everywhere and over everyone, to impose ourselves—well, something like that. If a man seeks this directly and doesn’t leave it in God’s hands, then he knows he is limited and—ironically!—he is very afraid, even if he doesn’t say it, even if he can pose as a spiritual person.

For example, I know someone who is very afraid of me —I won’t give names—and this person fears that I might ruin his image or that of those around him, without me having an aggressive behavior online or in real life, or launching campaigns against him or something similar. At least not yet—may God protect me as much as possible so that no damage occurs, even though he is spreading various slanderous things about me. Now I’ve found out that he’s been doing this for a year and, without my knowledge, thanks be to the Mother of God, I have disproved what could be verified about me, what is said about me. Yes, okay, I know how it feels to have a guilty conscience; yes, it is difficult. Yes, okay, I am not great and mighty, but the Mother of God has protected me. I know several others in the same situation, but let’s not digress. So why did I tell you all this? To tell you why I don’t respond to clarify the issue. Especially since we have evidence – I can show you proof, that is, I [can] say, look “there” and “there,” I can tell you to talk to so-and-so. Why not? So that unity is not broken, brethren. So that the global Adam I talk about so much in my videos is not torn apart.  Plenty do it, and they do it enough.

When I say not to break unity, I am not referring here to the unity of our skete, because I am at Lacu Skete, a unity that – thank God! – is very good, from a human perspective. Besides, I am not referring to someone from our skete. I am referring to… it doesn’t matter, the unity of the Church, in general. As the Lord says, those who break the unity, “who take the sword will perish by the sword.” You see, the Lord is referring here to a sin of the flesh nevertheless. The sword is a physical weapon, even if the Lord uses it in a spiritual sense, the action is still physical. Of course, if a stumbling block is caused then the unity will be broken by others and then we have to speak in order to maintain it, but for now I don’t see that being the case. And I hope it won’t be.

Let me give you a good example, a truly strong man, a man who overcame his flesh: there was once an old and quite wealthy businessman who was married to a young and beautiful woman. At some point, the old man brought home a very close friend of his, a magistrate who was young and very handsome. Over time, it became a habit for the magistrate to eat at the table with the two of them and to become a very close friend of the family.

The young woman fell in love with the magistrate, and because she had very strong feelings she came to be quite ill with heartache as they say. You know, a type of depression, daydreaming, anorexia, struggle with thoughts – things like that. Her husband saw this, took her to some doctors, but did not pressure her. At some point, however, he asked her more directly, kindly, “What’s wrong?” And then the woman told him, “You know, I fell in love with the magistrate and I don’t want this. I don’t want to destroy my family, to hurt you, and to sin.” The old man greatly appreciated his wife’s gesture, confessed that he loved her too, and said he would take care of it himself. Then the old man went to the magistrate and told him nobly, “Brother, you know I care about you, but now we have a problem! It’s about my wife who has fallen in love with you. What do we do?” Then the magistrate told him that he greatly appreciated the fact that he told him and trusted him and told him not to worry, because he would solve the problem.

After that, brethren, he went and shaved his head and eyebrows completely, because before he looked very good, and he came like that, bare-headed, to their table. Then all the woman’s struggle with thoughts was gone, and the magistrate told them, “From now on, you will no longer see my face,” and he left and became a monk. Do you understand? Each, in their own way, could have taken their sword as I said, they could have satisfied their desires of the flesh, but they all overcame their body, each struggling at their own level, as they could. This is strong, brethren! And this doesn’t happen overnight. As I said, this comes from chastity, because chastity, as one that spares us from thoughts, stabilizes the mind, brings us peace, and grants us the potentiation of our inner life, the experience of the fire of God’s grace within us.

Chastity is not only physical; there is also spiritual chastity. Understand? That’s when, indeed, a person feels heaven within themselves and feels divinity. The divinity which is his, so to speak, but is not actually his because it is received as a gift from God. It is a total gift from God, which, however, cannot be held onto if the Lord does not will it. Yes, brethren, it’s a great gift, but for this, we need insensibility toward any flesh, color, perfume, fashion, beauty in general. We must be inattentive just as we are inattentive – so to speak – when we walk from our room to the kitchen. Of course we have to pay attention with our peripheral attention, with our logic, our instincts, our sense organs, because otherwise we stumble, we run head first into a wall, but not with the mind – not with the ultimate attention, the finest attention – which we have to God.

Our attention should be on God, on eternity, to say the prayer wherever we are. From the room to the kitchen, there’s nothing to catch our attention. Well, it should be like that with all earthly things in this life. Do you understand? That’s the purity of the mind. I mean, I’m not interested in what’s around me now. This is the purity of the mind.

Therefore, pure is not he who keeps his clay undefiled, but he who has perfectly subjected his members to serve his soul. He [who] sacrificed his members to his soul, subjected the members of his body to the soul. That is, he does not touch, he does not hear, does not look where he should not because he is with his mind on the heavenly beauty; he is enslaved by the divine things.

Let me tell you a case. There was a hieromonk – that is, a monk who was also a priest – in a monastery in the world. At a certain point, due to his old age, the hieromonk fell ill and had to be treated, and since there was no other way – the monastery didn’t have the means – he was hosted in the house of an acquaintance of the monastery. There he was taken care of for several months by the host’s wife. When the monk finally recovered, he went to hear confessions, as he was a well-known spiritual father. The woman who cared for him also came to confess, and when it was her turn, the spiritual father asked her, “Who are you?” – the woman laughed, and he recognized her by her laughter. Do you understand? As long as they were together in the house, the hieromonk did not raise his eyes to see who the woman caring for him was. This is how purity of mind is acquired and maintained, brethren. Of course, to reach this point, humility is needed above all. That is, to recognize our own weakness. Certainly, fasting helps because we are talking about the body, but all the Holy Fathers say that humility is greater than fasting – fasting is necessary – but in the struggle against the passions of the flesh, humility is greater.

Let’s steer clear, brethren, with discernment! See how our elders behaved in this matter: they avoided speaking, discussing, they had modesty, they had a whole mind, shame – things we discussed in more detail in the previous post. The humility we need here comes through obedience and prayer. Praying in such situations is like fighting a beast. We must have a mind of steel and rebuke ourselves the moment we slip. “Hold on! Where’s your mind going?!” Do you understand? We must reproach ourselves: “You call yourself Christian?!” Understand? Don’t let it happen! Brethren, it is good to fight the beast away from the precipice, that is, when the sins are small, for if we fight when they are small, then it is much easier. Because we are a long way off the cliff and if we are pushed a little bit, we won’t suffer much. But if we reach the edge of the abyss, that is, close to the causes of sin, then with a single move the enemy throws us into the pit, into the abyss. Do you understand?

You see, me too – there’s a cliff on this side – if I were to record on the edge of the cliff, I would fall, and that’s why I went a little further to have a margin of safety. The same goes for sins, especially sins of the flesh. Do you understand? Now, here, we need to be a bit careful: we must indeed be strict and control ourselves, but we must be careful not to become obsessed – that is, to end up on the other extreme. Brethren, extremes are from the devil. If we see that the mind drifts away from Christ for one reason or another, we bring it back. Brethren, we must always pay attention to our mind regarding this, and for this reason, we must protect it from strong centers of attention – to guard our mind and control ourselves, and thus we will have a permanent feeling of resurrection. We will have the permanent feeling of resurrection only if we have the necessary watchfulness. Do you understand?

While we’re on the subject, a person feels that he transcends death when he transcends the flesh. This is a mystery, brethren; he feels united with everyone, and death no longer frightens him but he actually awaits it for the fulfillment of unity with God and the saints. He prays for everyone in his heart, distant from the world yet united with all. He is spiritually awake—watchful, as it is called—he is resurrected, by God’s grace, all the time, even while sleeping. Yes, you should know—the sign of purity of mind is that a person remains unmoved by any apparition or vision, even while sleeping. Contrary to this, brethren, the sign of total enslavement to the passions is when a person experiences discharge, please forgive me, while awake, due to memories, due to thoughts they chew over and indulge in.

A spiritually awake person, brethren, prays easily and can reach, and should reach, unceasing prayer even while sleeping. If it’s unceasing, brethren, it’s also unceasing during sleep, although in the beginning it will be unceasing for certain periods, in pieces, so to speak. Yes, brothers, you must know that this is the natural state of the mind: unceasing prayer with God, the mind’s speaking with God – because that is prayer. And this is realized when the mind departs from passions. Passions are like stains on the clean screen of the mind, on the conceptual screen of the imagination, that darken the mind. When this screen is clean, then the mind is in peace, prayerful – this is the natural state of the mind. At the beginning, as I said, there is the battle against passions through struggle, fasting, through constraint and straining not to receive the thoughts, these stains, and especially, not to perform the deeds.

After this first stage, humility gradually comes, which is a direct gift from God, but it slowly comes when we see our own weakness and when we obey. If we do not obey, humility cannot come because we trust our own mind, our own thoughts, and then the enemy will surely exacerbate this physical feeling of self-confidence, of self-importance, that everyone else is second-rate, except ourselves, that everyone has something against us, that they do not understand us, that we are misunderstood geniuses. These type of people have as a direct consequence the belief that they know everything and the tendency to boss others around in everything, tormenting both themselves and others.

Humility saves us from these things and brings us peace, which is the natural state of the human soul, and this helps even more than fasting and struggles in the purity of the mind. Why? Because the mind no longer moves chaotically, continuously weaving plans and crafting strategies for domination and conquest. Yes, brethren, even the battle of the flesh, the sexual battle, is greatly fueled by pride, by the desire for dominion. However, more than struggle and humility, divine revelation helps to cleanse the mind. This is like the sun at midday, brethren. Just as the dawn and the sunrise precede the day, so should we understand the divine revelation after struggles and humility.

When a person gets there, in revelation, being caught up, they forget everything, attracted by the beauty of the revelation, which is why it is also called being caught up. It is also called revelation because the person does nothing. God takes them up and reveals to them. Of course, a person must first struggle spiritually to show in a practical way that they desire purity of mind, but they cannot get there through their struggles alone. It is a direct gift from God. Be very careful here, brethren, because some desire revelations and visions and not the cleansing of the mind, they do not desire cleansing of sin and want to get to the beloved Bridegroom with their thoughts. No! We must desire to be together with the beloved Bridegroom and not desire what they consider a reward for their struggle – that is pride, brethren. This is already a semi-deception, because based on our pride, the devil leads us into very dangerous labyrinths from which it is very hard to get out, if we can get out at all – with false visions, deceit, and all that.

It is equally dangerous when someone has such a high state and does not know how to manage it and trusts themselves, again. Sometimes, you should know that the devils retreat like how a fox sleeps when it wants to catch a hen. The person thinks everything is absolutely fine, he goes and meets up with whom he shouldn’t indulges in thoughts he shouldn’t, and then a fierce battle ensues.

Many have experienced this, meeting beautiful people of the opposite sex or watching things online they shouldn’t and thinking everything is okay until the hammer of thoughts hits them on the head, and after that, they escape the addiction with difficulty. Brethren, let’s avoid this because it is not good. We should never trust the body, even if we think we have overcome certain things and even if we consider ourselves clever in matters of spirituality. Brethren, all the more so then, because I said that a person falls more easily because of pride than because they’re not fasting. Fasting and asceticism are necessary, but let us not forget that the devil ate nothing, fasted completely, and when he fell from heaven, he fell because of his pride.

However, brethren, if a man remains humble, and does not meddle in worldly matters, like, “What is the other doing?” and has no fleshly desires for dominion, for satisfying his own pleasures on all levels and of all kinds, then his mind rises, becomes crystalline, becomes peaceful, and floats in an ocean of love. For this, however, he must cut off contact with people and not receive thoughts, so as not to constantly stir his wounds. If he withdraws a little into God, with God, then he becomes peaceful and comes to love his enemies. That’s where true Christianity is, brethren, that’s where the complete joy lies. But we must have faith in God. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.

I recall a case; at one point there was a brother who was badly hurt by those around him. His spiritual father told him, “You received a very hard blow, and I don’t know if I would have withstood it. However, if you will know how to manage this, you will be sanctified” Well, even though the spiritual father told him that, it was very difficult for that brother to bear the temptation and trouble, from what he told me, because at one point he said to God, “Lord, if they have sinned – may they repent! If they have not sinned, let them suffer the same!” And then he heard Christ, very fatherly and very close, yet uncompromisingly saying to that brother, “Don’t say that because it’s a curse! Leave it to Me, I’ll take care of it!” And this reassured that brother. That brother told me that at that moment all his troubles passed. Well, believe me, brothers, because I know the case quite well, indeed the Lord God Almighty took very good care of that brother’s problem. Vengeance belongs to the Lord, brethren, He will repay, as Scripture says. Brethren, let us pray and act only if the good God wills it and not because our thoughts tell us so!

We need faith, brethren, because the Lord and Bridegroom is fighting for us so that we can be at peace, for if we do not have this faith, then we will continuously fight for our “ego,” for our selfishness, and we will fall into the fleshly. We will take the sword against others and fight harshly against them, forgetting that the one who takes the sword will die by the sword. Yes, brethren, someone’s fall is to be mourned, but the one who causes someone else to fall is even more to be mourned. It is like the chain reaction of an atomic explosion that unleashes the energy of death, hatred, and destruction. Brethren, let us not fight so much with logical arguments and threats and physical means, but let us put our weakness before the Lord, and then we will slowly come to purity, to peace, to unity with others in an ocean of love, and then we will truly know others, along with their thoughts and feelings, but we will not hate them, we will not attack them, instead we will pray for them so that all of us may be one in Christ.

Let us always be thankful and grateful, for such is the man with a joyful heart! If we are resentful and touchy, the heart hardens and is unhappy. If we think in a fleshly manner, we believe that we force grace to come through prostrations, fasting, prayers, and the others. Brethren, grace does not come like that – grace comes when He wills it. We must understand that man cannot force grace, but neither does grace want to force man. Grace only needs good will, the spiritual will of man, the alignment of man’s will with the will of God. The will above the flesh – that is what grace needs in order to come.

May the Benevolent God help us! Thank you for standing united with me until now! Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us! Amen!

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