Sensul în viață, lâncezeala - părintele Teologos

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.

An Athonite Cell –
Joys from the Holy Mountain

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit, and now and ever

and unto the ages and 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 are long-lived on the Holy Mountain,
generally speaking, the fathers.

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
the moment he asked,

he was taking each of us individually
asking us, he asked us:

"Do you still believe
your life has meaning?

Do you still believe
your life makes sense?"

Well, at that moment it was as if
a brick hit me in the head and I said:

"Of course, how could it not!

This thing is obvious."

The man somehow realized
he had made a blunder

and tried to explain to me that,
you know, that in the world,

many have lost their sense of purpose,
they no longer have meaning in life,

they think their life
no longer makes sense and so on.

Yes, why? Because Orthodoxy
provides the meaning of life.

God gives purpose.
Do you understand?

Orthodoxy is 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 the 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,
of course, if it tells us 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!

Let me tell you something.

In my grandparents' village it was an
event for the 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 one
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 are the priorities.

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:
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.

But 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 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 lustily man
is a slave to his passions.

Today he wants one thing,
tomorrow he wants another...

Even if, paradoxically,
we say 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 a meaning

– freedom is not an amorphous puddle
where anything is allowed.

This leads us to the
hideousness of atheism

and, therefore, 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 how Lord says?

"And this is the judgment,
that the Light has come into the world,

and people have loved the darkness
rather than the Light.

Because their deeds were evil."

Yes, that's right:
we don't want to avoid 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 by our passions

like a great picky 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 dominated by this passion,
has a drowsiness of the mind in struggle,

a night of the mind,
an existential backwater;

blesses the worldly, secular spirit,
has disgust towards spirituality,

towards high things

and generally a disdain for 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,

just to get rid of prayer
and 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 hand,

saying that "I have work
and cannot pray now."

Brethren, we must cut off our will

- we must "un-will"

Unwilling is denial 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 grace-full (industrious).

It comes from the word "grace"

because industriousness
is the bringer of 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 picky 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 dullness brings about a tremor around noon for about three hours, along with headaches, dizziness and all that.