We talk with Father Tikhon Shevkunov:

— Father Tikhon, where does faith go, where does the need for worship, prayer and joy disappear?

— Once I talked with Archimandrite Seraphim (Rosenberg). This was shortly before his death. One of the German barons, after graduating from university, he went to the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, where he spent sixty years. He said that the biggest problem with modern monasticism is the lack of determination. This can probably be said not only about monks, but also about many of our Christian contemporaries.

Determination, courage and the spiritual nobility associated with them are noticeably depleted. But if people throughout their lives understand that the most important thing is to go to God, despite any obstacles and temptations, to be faithful to Him - then they do not waver in faith so much as to lose it.

The crisis of faith that you are talking about is especially clear in our teenagers. At 8-9 years old, children go to church, sing in the choir, amaze and touch everyone around them, and at 14-16 years old, many, if not most, stop going to church.

- Why is this happening?

— The children were not introduced to God. No, of course, they were introduced to rituals, the Church Slavonic language, the order in the temple, the lives of saints, sacred stories translated for children. But we were not introduced to God himself. The meeting did not happen. And it turned out that parents, and Sunday school and, sadly, the priests built the house of children’s faith “on the sand” (Matthew 7:26), and not on the rock - Christ.

How does it happen that children do not notice God despite all the most sincere attempts of adults to instill faith in them? How is it that a child never finds the strength to discern Christ the Savior in his childhood life, in the Gospel? By answering this question, we raise another adult problem, which is reflected in children as in a mirror. This is when both parents and priests teach one thing, but live differently. This is the most terrible blow to the tender powers of children's faith, an unbearable drama for their sensitive consciousness.

But there are other examples. It would be possible to cite another, but I especially remember this one: in 1990, during my first trip to Germany, to my great surprise, I received good lesson from one priest. Catholic. I was struck by his flock - very pure young people of 16-20 years old, sincerely trying to live a Christian life. I asked this priest how he manages to protect these teenagers from the aggressive pressure of temptations and pleasures so familiar to their peers in the West? He then looked at me in complete bewilderment. And he said words that, with their simplicity and clarity, simply crushed me then (I really regret that I didn’t hear this from an Orthodox priest): “They simply love Christ more than all these pleasures!”

- Is our situation different?

- Of course not! We also have many bright examples, thank God. In our Sretensky Seminary I see amazingly pure and sincere guys, although of course there are all sorts of temptations, life is life.

- But these are teenagers, and what about people who came to the temple as adults?

- What's the difference? Something similar happens to adults. We also tempt each other (in this case, “these little ones” about whom the Savior speaks - not necessarily children in age) with our lukewarmness, deliberate violations of the Gospel commandments, and unclean lives. Gradually, people develop the idea that a Christian can generally live as he pleases. And, if this happens, people who have come to faith already in mature age, gradually lose interest in spiritual life, they become bored with everything. There is no real communication with God, which means there is no life of the spirit. For the first three years, faith, Orthodoxy is interesting, new life It’s exciting and brings a lot of new impressions, and then everyday life comes.

It's probably like family life. Then you need to work, endure, endure, first of all, yourself. It's really hard. And for people who came to faith, say, at the age of 25, there are still fifty years of such work ahead. This has always been the case, no need to be surprised. Such dryness is, as a rule, an inevitable stage of spiritual life. For example, St. Theophan the Recluse writes a lot and interestingly about this. This section of the path is a desert that must be overcome. Unfortunately, not all of our brothers and sisters overcome this path. And some even dig themselves in these barren sands forever and with great pleasure, and it can be very difficult to dig them out of there.

- What causes this dryness? A person does everything required - goes to confession, lists the things that, as he knows, are called sins, reads the rule, begins to take the cup, and the further, the more it seems like formalism, the more mechanical actions there are to “read”, “defend” ", "say in confession." What to do? Which is correct?

- The Holy Scriptures very clearly say how to revive the soul, how to make the soul become young and alive again. “Seek God and your soul will live.” Seek God no matter what! Stubborn and persistent. And then the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ is fulfilled: “Seek and you will find.”

But if there is no search for God, if the hunger for God, the desire to comprehend Him disappears, this is a reason for very serious anxiety. We must work hard by all possible means to restore this desire in our soul. Without this, nothing good will happen. Or, at best, you will have to wait, like saving rain on a parched land, for soul-shattering trials, illnesses, serious wounds and temptations.

- But is this possible for a layman?

- To the laity? Yes, this is exactly what is possible for them! As Father John (Krestyankin) said, in our time strong Christians are saved in the world, and weak ones in the monastery. When you stand at confession, communicate with parishioners, you see what amazing ascetics there are among the laity, just as we, who call ourselves monks, need to learn from them.

I remember once in the mid-80s I was walking with Father John (Krestyankin) through the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery. Suddenly, a certain excited young man, “pale with a burning gaze,” ran up to the priest and began to complain loudly: “Father, Moscow is such a disgusting city, a new Babylon! Godless and terrible people! “And suddenly Father John blocked his mouth with his hand and said sternly: “What are you saying? In Moscow, 40 Divine Liturgies are celebrated every day in forty churches! Such amazing ascetics, unknown to the world, live there, somewhere on the 8th floor of a 12-story block building! True saints you can't even imagine." I was surprised then, because I thought that all the ascetics lived only in remote monasteries, somewhere on Solovki or in Egypt. And now - and it’s true - I myself see amazing ascetics - simple lay people who teach and save me by humbling me, showing how in our time it is possible to live truly ascetic, in a Christian way.

—What does this Christian life consist of?

— In fulfillment of Christ’s commandment of love for God and neighbor.

These are ordinary people - women, boys, girls, mature men. I’m not talking about grandmothers who follow such prayer rules, learning about which, I’ll tell you honestly, the monks feel uneasy. Moreover, they have been following these rules regularly for decades. And with full confidence that they are not doing anything special! She recites this many kathismas for her eldest son, this many for her middle son, and this many for her youngest daughter. Moreover, he reads one and a half thousand Jesus prayers in order to feel at least a little bit of his sinfulness. Moreover, there are prayers by agreement and an akathist - how could we do without it?! I'm telling you what's real prayer rule our real parishioner. And there are countless such ascetics and ascetics! Plus, just in case, they work, go shopping, iron, do laundry, and raise children and grandchildren. And they are not proud, they are not vain, they regard themselves as nothing, they are ready to serve their neighbor at any moment. Just communicating with such people is an amazing help to us, who have become impoverished in faith, hope and determination.

“But true Christianity isn’t in reading prayers, is it?”

- Of course, not in reading prayers. And in prayer as in living communication with God! You just need to understand that the form of prayer can be very different. The Holy Fathers believe that spiritual life is determined precisely by the quality and purity of prayer. But, it goes without saying that if a person thinks that he is praying, but at the same time he is angry and does not like people, then one can only feel sorry for him. But you know, maybe I’m lucky, but I haven’t met such people for a long time.

— There are many examples when young people serve in the temple, and their families do not see any help from them...

- Well, it happens that a person, as they say, is “locked in by Kronstadt.” He begins to delve deeper into spiritual life and moves towards a bright goal, stepping over his unfortunate loved ones. There is a confessor for this. There is time. There are misfortunes. Finally, there are downfalls. But I would not imagine such sad cases as the norm of today. Rather, I think it’s a childhood disease. Many have had chickenpox, but not all are pockmarked.

“But it’s precisely such negative cases that are on many people’s lips today...

- Now, in a certain sense, it has become good form in Orthodox circles to say that a person has prayed: he reads the rules, canons, kathismas, and is too pious. It's pronounced like diagnosis. But we take on the role of judges for the most part not from an excess of the gift of spiritual reasoning. And more often from our own lack of faith, laziness and selfishness. It is precisely for the purpose of self-defense of our lazy peace that an image is deliberately drawn - a kind of Ferapont from The Brothers Karamazov, remember, there was such a cruel and unwise ascetic in Dostoevsky.

You know, there is a great danger in the fact that we willingly stick out and inflate such painful moments and with these examples we begin to unconsciously defend our negligence and lukewarmness. And in general, in the church environment, such evil and generally incorrect stereotypes began to circulate more and more: if women are churchgoers, then they are evil witches; if young people, then they are notorious; if adults, then they are losers; monks, then money-grubbers and wicked people.

- But this really happens sometimes...

- Who can argue? This is not to say that there is no such thing at all, that it is not true. But why with persistence worthy best use, to convince ourselves and others that this state of affairs is a feature of our Church.

I once traveled through Orthodox forums, and I simply felt uneasy with the cynical anger with which Orthodox people, who consider themselves very church-educated, treat not only the clergy, whom they do not value at all, but also the most pious laity .

— They say: “Orthodox” and “Orthodoxy of the brain”...

— These terms, I’m afraid, did not come from anywhere, but from the Orthodox environment. Because only “our own people” can inject in such a sophisticated way. However, be that as it may, they were picked up in our midst with enthusiasm. But this is a truly alarming phenomenon in our Christian community. In addition, we gradually begin to look at ourselves and those around us precisely through the prism of such derogatory ideas.

- Acting in accordance with traditional piety has become... uncomme il faut?

— Remember how Tolstoy in “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth” wonderfully talked about comme il faut, how comme il faut mercilessly influenced his life. Now (fortunately only in parachurch circles, because it is simply impossible to call such people churchgoers), an Orthodox comme il faut is being developed, and if a person does not fit into it, he is an outcast, a completely despicable person.

This is how we come to cynicism, and in fact to the origins of that very disease of lukewarmness that has infected Christians since the time of the Laodicean church. The enemy force, which is beginning to be pumped up by spiritually cooled Christians from within the Church, is infinitely more dangerous than any external force than persecution.

We teach our students not to become “Orthodox comme il faut” under any circumstances, because they themselves will not notice how they will lose their faith, how they will become careerists, how all the values ​​in their lives will completely change.

When people of the older generation gather, they often say: “How great it was in the 60s and 70s, what faith there was!” We say this not only because we are starting to grow old and grumble, but because it really is so. Then there was external opposition to the Church from the state, but we were together and valued everyone. “Orthodox” - it would probably be something from the enemy’s camp. Only Emelyan Yaroslavsky could speak about the Orthodoxy of the brain. An Orthodox person would never use or repeat such words, such expressions. And now this is heard in the church environment, they flaunt it, they are proud!

- Why does this attitude arise?

- What's happening? People came to the Church, but only partially loved it. And gradually, over the years, in the secret of their souls, they realized a terrible truth: they treat Orthodoxy with the deepest contempt. With them begins a terrible disease of treacherous cynicism, akin to the act of Ham. And people around are infected with this one way or another. But we really are a single organism - the Church, so this disease must somehow be resisted.

When the Orthodox encountered this kind of thing in Soviet years, then they understood that this was “from our enemies,” “from adversaries.” Nowadays, lessons of contempt and arrogance are increasingly taught by church people. And we know the sad fruits of these lessons.

- A sad forecast...

It remains only to remember the words of Saint Ignatius, who said that “The retreat was allowed by God: do not try to stop it with your weak hand.” But then he writes: “Stay away, protect yourself from him.” Don't be cynical.

- Why? After all, cynical judgments are sometimes accurate...

- Sobriety and witty barbs, when a fool or an impudent person is put in his place, when someone wants to be protected from excessive enthusiasm - this is quite acceptable. But cynicism and Christianity are incompatible. At the heart of cynicism, no matter how it justifies itself, there is only one thing - disbelief.

Once I had the opportunity to ask the same question to two ascetics - Father John (Krestyankin) and Father Nikolai Guryanov: “What is the main disease of today’s church life?” Father John answered immediately - “Unbelief!” "How so? - I was amazed. - What about the priests? And he answered again: “And the priests have unbelief!” And then I came to Father Nikolai Guryanov - and he told me completely independently of Fr. John said the same thing - unbelief.

- And disbelief becomes cynicism?

People stop noticing that they have lost faith. Cynics have entered the Church, live in it, are used to it, and don’t really want to leave it, because everything is already familiar. And how will they look at it from the outside? Very often, cynicism is a disease of professional Orthodoxy.

- But sometimes cynicism is a defensive reaction of a very vulnerable, insecure person who has been offended or deeply hurt...

— How, for example, does the exhibition of “forbidden art” differ from Perov’s painting “Tea Party in Mytishchi”? There is disgusting cynicism in forbidden art, and in Perov there is denunciation. Pain and conviction for which we should only be grateful.

And the ascetics could say things very harshly, for example, the Venerable Schieromonk Leo of Optina. And even today we have a wonderful archpriest in Moscow who can make such a witty joke that it won’t seem too much. But it would never occur to anyone to say that he is a cynic, because there is no malice in his jokes.

— Reading the memoirs of M. Nesterov, I always caught myself thinking that he would certainly be ridiculed today. For example: “Mother was at Iverskaya’s. They stole a bag with money, but I kissed it” - everyone will immediately say, look, he’s Orthodox...

- Twenty years ago we would have said about such a person: “Lord, what faith, how good!” And today, the prosperity of the Orthodox faith has turned out to be a considerable test for Christians. Remember, in the Apocalypse: “For you say: “I am rich, I have become rich, and I have need of nothing”; but you do not know that you are miserable, and pitiful, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17). We have become impoverished in faith, and therefore many people, looking at us, are tired of being Orthodox. They still follow by inertia, by first love, they still remember how much they received in the Church and hope to still receive grace.

— How to correctly orient your spiritual life?

The most joyful thing in spiritual life is discovering new things. Remember with what joy you woke up on Sunday morning for the Liturgy, how you avidly read the holy fathers and constantly discovered new things for yourself. If the Gospel does not reveal anything to us, it only means that we have closed ourselves to discovering something new. Remember the words of Christ to the Church of Ephesus: “Remember your first love.”

There are some things you can do right now.

“I don’t even know, it seems to me that I don’t believe anymore... And I can’t imagine what to do with it...” I hear these words every day from all over the world, from representatives of any Christian movement, from every rung of the social ladder .

They were all once very pious, but now, for various reasons, the ground of faith is disappearing from under their feet - and they are in a panic.

Their fear is understandable. It's really quite scary. It is one thing to question the foundations of the church or point out the gaps in religious systems that people themselves have invented, or even to criticize the Bible and the ways it is interpreted. You can live with all this. We can go through these crises and still continue to firmly believe that God exists and that He is good. There are days when this is the only thing we believe in, but usually it is enough.

Losing faith is more than weakness of will.

But what to do if, despite insomnia, intense prayers, endless questions and exertion of willpower, you realize that you no longer believe in anything? What do you do when the very reality of God (or the fact that God is good) becomes an unaffordable luxury for you? How to survive in the epicenter of a spiritual catastrophe?

Do not give up. God is strong enough to handle your doubts.

Most often, the point is not to become even more stubborn or “religious.” In most cases, people begin to doubt, despite constant Bible reading, prayer, regular church attendance, participation in church services and a desire to believe with all their hearts. They never shied away from all these right things. They are truly God-fearing and active Christians, but all these activities no longer provide the clarity, confidence and comfort that they usually did.

Almost everyone who comes to me in this state of spiritual emptiness and dryness says that they feel guilty. They lament, realizing that no one can help them regain what they have lost, and they scold themselves for not being able to bring themselves to believe as before, when it was easy and simple.

If you are currently in the midst of such a spiritual storm, I will not tell you that there is a quick and easy way to regain your faith. I can’t even say that you will ever return it, at least in its previous form. Perhaps something awaits you that is completely different from what you have experienced before.

Return

And still something needs to be done. Question - what?

Maybe you need to pray more, or start a Bible study group, or go to church more often. Or maybe it’s not necessary. After all, God is not only found in “spiritual things.”

Maybe today you just need to look around, look at familiar shapes, listen, touch, breathe and taste. Maybe the best thing you can do is simply revisit the things and activities you know so well and re-accept them with gratitude.

When you accept these beautiful, pure, visible gifts and appreciate them, you cannot help but recognize the Giver. This may be all the faith you can muster right now, but that's okay. Just live and be grateful for life - already spiritual quest; this is a sacred attitude.

Fewer turns - faster to the intended goal

You will see how the feeling of gratitude will lead you on a straight path to the lost sense of faith. It will clear the path to God from all sadness, disappointment, doubt and even religiosity.

Hello! My name is Sasha. I'm tired of living in this coliseum.
About Me:
Since childhood, I had an unpleasant incident, after which I had problems with the muscles on one side of my face. Some relatives considered me a freak, although they only apologized recently. WITH kindergarten I ran away because someone would do a mischief, but everyone pointed at me and I was punished for nothing. After escaping, they didn’t take me to kindergarten anymore. I didn’t have any friends at school, I think I scared them off with my appearance. I sat at home reading books and studying, because there was nothing else. I just developed my inner world. From high school, friends began to appear, but they all betrayed. More often they simply used kindness and listened to slander. One left and all the others left with him. I do not have friends. No matter how much I tried to get acquainted, nothing good came of it: either I scared away those with whom I wanted to be closer in spirit, or they began to take advantage of me (dig their garden, do chores for them, just as if they had to and with the same intonation), I'm being neglected. I didn’t see real friendship, they needed me for some thing, but as soon as this thing appeared in them, they simply left me. It happened that one person would leave, and the rest would follow him, saying that since he doesn’t communicate, then we won’t either.
Nothing good in my personal life either. In high school I liked someone, she showed interest and I confessed to her. It turned out that she was just “kidding” and there was nothing and nothing would happen. I wasn't particularly upset then. Later I met a girl who doubted my love, that I acted like that and simply accepted the first one who agreed, although I proved to her that this was not so. She quit. Then there was another one. I think to her I was just exotic. Her parents were against it, her friends were too, and in the end we also broke up.
Then I met another one, she was pleased with me, and said that I was pleased, but I don’t love you and don’t want you. It’s hard to call it “broken up”, because we didn’t even meet... And then, I met a girl who hooked me to the depths. I am ready to devote everything to her, I do it, but she loves someone else. This other one sometimes behaves strangely, frivolously, and she suffers from this, and it is not easy for me from this. It hurts me to see her suffering, it hurts me that things aren't going well between them because she loves him and is faithful to him, and I'm sad that she can't be with me. I’ve been trying to forget her for more than a year, but every day the feelings are getting stronger, in fact, like the pain, it would seem that this is the limit, but the soul has no limit... I can’t live without her. I am drawn to her like opposite sides of a magnet. I give warmth to everyone and don’t ask for anything in return, I want to bring joy to everyone, but something in me is running out, there’s no return, there’s nothing to cheer me up, someone just takes it for granted (I just have to) , and someone is simply silent, as if in emptiness, and only occasionally can you hear “thank you.” I really want to receive support from her, warmth, which I miss so much, I want a family. She became everything to me.
With parents since high school it didn't work out. Schizophrenia and alcoholism. I haven't seen holidays since childhood. I tried to somehow calm down, influence my parents, but all this is useless, I’m tired, I want my warm family, which just doesn’t work out. And I see the last girl as the last hope, I am filled only with her, but I know that nothing will work out, she will endure everything, but will not be with me, will not give warmth. Dead hopes, dead dreams. I do not know what to do.
I asked God for happiness, but there is still no happiness, there is no one and nothing. I'm like an ugly animal that no one will shelter, but that knows how to love. I lost hope, I lost faith, faith in God, faith in everything, I lost everything. My world became gray without her. I want to leave this world. Words like “weakling” and so on don’t catch on, let me be like that, I just have nothing to fight for, and I don’t need life, I don’t need it without the colors that it can bring. No friends, no love, no support, no nothing... What should I do? How can you live with such hell inside, when you realize that in this world no one needs and no one cares, that someone is ready to talk on the Internet because they don’t see the real thing, but are no longer willing to have a relationship... When the only one, who became light and salvation will never be with me... I don’t know what to do and would like help.
Support the site:

Sasha, age: 29 / 01/11/2016

Responses:

Sasha, thank you for your letter. Deep and heartfelt.... thank you for being you! Ready to give warmth and help just like that, without demanding anything in return. Believe me, everything will be with you, and friendly loving family and peaceful happiness. Everything happens on time for those who know how to wait. But there is no need to lose faith... hell will not end with suicide, but will continue into infinity... this is really scary. You know, appearance is actually not important for true love, the time has not yet come for you to meet your soul mate. It seems to me that the Lord is giving you a chance to reveal the entire precious potential of your soul, to learn to love without pretensions... if you have read the Gospel, remember that the Lord was crucified on the cross for all the goodness and love that he gave to people... spiritual torment - the lot of bright, spiritual people. And the reward for this is great - real feelings, a true friend and real love, one for life, because the real thing is a one-piece copy. I beg you, wait for your time and God help you!!!"

Tatyana, age: 30 / 01/11/2016

Sasha! How wonderful it is that there are people like you in the world! You write that you tried to influence parents, this is not an easy mission. You are not indifferent to others. To family, to strangers... Sasha, you live in the world for a reason. You have the right to happiness. Wait for him. You have the jewel of God in you - you know how to love. Asks God to teach you humility and wisdom. Yes, it sounds like reading, but never doubt what God knows about you. Patience to you. And the Lord bless you! I wish you great happiness!

Clara, age: 34 / 01/11/2016

Hello, Sasha! This means this girl is not your other half, well, we can’t force another person to fall in love! You won't be nice by force! Slowly forget her, it’s best to block all thoughts about her, don’t get your hopes up, don’t feel sorry for yourself! In general, I think that it is wonderful when a person is able to LOVE! After all, many are not given the opportunity to experience this feeling! Distract yourself with your favorite activities, don’t be discouraged!

Irina, age: 28 / 01/11/2016

Thank you for support! Even if these words don’t help, then the attention itself is already valuable to me.

Sasha, age: 29 / 02/03/2016

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“Believe in yourself and the rest will fall into place. Believe in your own abilities, work hard - and nothing will be impossible for you,”– Brad Henry

It is a well known fact that if anyone wants to succeed in life, he must believe in himself. People easily lose faith when faced with obstacles, failures and fears. When you lack confidence, others see it and don't take you seriously. Not many people live the life they always wanted to live; they give up on their goals as soon as they encounter the first failure. One of the main reasons for this is that they do not believe in themselves. You must believe because your inner faith creates outer results.

The modern world we live in is extremely competitive and challenging, and people begin to doubt themselves and their abilities when they fail. But a few failures are not the end!

We offer 10 simple tips on how to regain faith in yourself.

1. Accept your current situation

The first thing you need to do if you want to start believing in yourself again is to accept your current life situation. You have to come to terms with what your life looks like this moment, and with the things that led to this situation. If you suffer because of this, you will achieve nothing. Only when you realize that nothing can be taken back will you have enough energy to change our lives.

“First, embrace failure. Realize that without losing, the winnings are not so great."– Alyssa Milano

2. Think about your past successes

If you feel like you've hit rock bottom, use your past to give you enough motivation to get back up. You were once amazing. Take yourself back to that past and think about the amazing things you did. Now realize that you can do it again. It's easy to think about the times when someone hurt you, but it's just as easy to think about the times in your life when you were successful. Use the past not to revel in your failures, but to motivate yourself to achieve new goals.

"Every day is new opportunity. You can reminisce about yesterday's success or leave your failures behind and start again. Life is like that, every day a new game», – Bob Feller.

3. Trust yourself

This is one of the most important things that will help you regain confidence in yourself. All the energy, strength, courage and confidence is within you. Spend time with yourself to discover this, whether through meditation or activism.

“Everything in the Universe is within you. Ask everything from yourself."– Rumi

4. Talk to yourself

We ourselves determine who we want to become. What we tell ourselves and how we motivate ourselves plays a huge role. Ultimately, you don't need the approval of others, because in fact, you need your own self-affirmation. Therefore, support yourself with conversation and praise when you have no one else to get approval and good motivation from.

“The brain believes almost everything you say. And what you tell him about yourself, he will recreate. He has no choice."

“If you tell yourself you can’t do something, what will be the outcome?” – Shad Helmstetter.

5. Don't let fear stop you

Fear hides behind false evidence of what appears to be real. This is the main thing that holds you back from believing in yourself much more than anything else. Face your fears and don't let them stop you from achieving your goals.

"Always do what you are afraid to do"– Ralph Waldo Emerson

6. Be compassionate with yourself

You must forgive yourself for any failures or mistakes you have made in the past and move on. You must look to the future and stop living in past failures. Be more compassionate with yourself.

7. Positive attitude

Have positive attitude to everything - this is the most quick way restore faith and self-confidence. Be grateful for who you are and what you have. Find only good things in the world around you, then positive people and positive events will fill your life.

8. Accept help from strangers

People around you see your life from the outside and are sometimes more objective advisors than you yourself. Your family and friends can help you recognize your abilities and skills, focus on your goals, and remember your past successes. When you are full of doubts, the people who love you will help you believe in yourself again.

9. Keep moving forward and never look back

“If you can't fly, run, if you can't run, walk, if you can't walk, crawl, but whatever you do, you must keep moving forward.”– Martin Luther King.

There will be countless times in life when you will feel like you have hit rock bottom. The voice in your head will tell you to stop and you will start doubting yourself, but never listen to that voice. Be strong and keep moving forward. If you keep walking, eventually you will reach your destination. And when you do, you will realize how much stronger you have become.

10. Let life guide you

Let your life take its natural course. When you learn to follow the flow of life, you will realize that it is a wonderful and wise advisor. If you allow life to guide you, it will shower you with its gifts and riches. To do this, you will have to come to terms with the life that is given to you and learn to relax. Let her guide you on the right path, and then you are guaranteed success.

“We all have different things that we go through in our daily lives. And it's really important to know, just at the end of the day, that we have overcome and overcome all of this. You must believe in yourself. You must believe in God and know that he will help you through difficulties."– Kelly Rowland.

Always believe in yourself and your uniqueness!

I have in my hands an old Old Believer magazine, 1991 issue. An article by a certain Bishop Michael. The author comments on the story of the pre-revolutionary writer, Mark Krinitsky. This story contains a story: one of the high school students, Kedrolivansky, a lively and thinking young man, in conversations with classmates, is engaged in what we would call “anti-religious propaganda.” And very successfully. His caustic arguments are relentlessly logical and mercilessly expose the absurdity of Christian myths. For example, this is what he tells his listeners:

“If God created the sun only on the fourth day, then it means that day and night depend not on the sun, but on something else. And since they cannot depend on anything else, it is clear from here that Mr. Moses was not familiar with mathematical geography. Logically correct!

“Could the sun have stopped on the orders of some Naveen?” – he asks further. - “Reason... Firstly, the sun does not move, but stands still, and therefore, there was no need to order it to stand - this time. But suppose that Navin would say: “Stop, earth!” Then, according to the law of inertia, all things from it would have to fly into space, and it itself, based on another physical law, would instantly heat up and burn.”

High school students were still taught physics, chemistry and logic - and at the same time they were taught the Law of God, which denies all science and turns all logic inside out. Until now, both of them somehow fit into their minds. But Kedrolivansky showed them that Christian myths are incompatible with science, that from a scientific point of view, religion is absurd. The only support on which religious myths rested—uncritical, habitual and thoughtless faith—has been knocked out. Consciousness has begun to work. The already shattered religiosity of many high school students collapses completely when Kedrolivansky makes the following argument:

“There is absolutely no God. These are inventions of the priests in order to keep them in obedience and more successfully rob the people. Thus, the world in which you and I have been living for quite some time is governed without God, by virtue of its own inherent laws... And a very simple proof. The world, let’s say, was created by God, but who is God? If the world could not have been created by itself and therefore it is assumed that God was first, then how could God himself be created?

For us Marxists, Kedrolivansky’s work is a blessing. It frees the minds of young people from shackles and awakens thought. However, for Bishop Mikhail, who comments on the story, the high school student Kedrolivansky is a demonic character. For him, Kedrolivansky is a corrupter who destroyed the souls of young men and caused them terrible evil.

And the fact that high school students stopped believing in religious myths, the bishop believes, is a terrible catastrophe and misfortune for them.

By the way, the story describes that some young men, understanding with their minds the truth of Kedrolivansky’s arguments, are afraid of this truth and listen to it with anxiety and confusion. This is how the feelings of one of the high school students are described: “Trunin felt that the universe had become without a bottom. He felt scared and in pain.”

“The universe has become without a bottom”... That is, a young man who was previously religious, losing his religiosity, feels it as a catastrophe, loses ground under his feet.

We see the same thing in life: a believer frantically clings to familiar myths, even if he already sees their absurdity. He prefers to isolate himself from reason, he begins to hate reason itself - out of fear for his faith, which he will lose if he allows his reason to work.

Why are believers so afraid to part with their delusions and perceive this as a catastrophe?

A believer creates a false and distorted picture of the world in his mind. But for him, this picture has completeness and meaning. Firstly, in his view, the world was created by God - a certain supreme being who is the embodiment of wisdom and goodness and who created this world for an unknown, but undoubtedly good and reasonable purpose. That is, the world is meaningful. In addition, in the mind of a believer, everything is controlled by God, everything in the world is subject to his single will. This means that the world is one and complete.

Thus, the world in the mind of a believer is reflected distortedly and fantastically, but for him this picture has meaning, unity and harmony. When faith collapses, the picture of a harmonious and meaningful world falls apart. The imaginary bonds that previously in his mind connected the world into a single whole are torn apart. The real connections are still unknown to him. In this case, the person really hangs above the void; for him, the universe really “becomes without a bottom.” It is not surprising that people perceive this as a catastrophe, as “the death of the soul.” It is not surprising that they are so afraid of this, that they cling so frantically to their delusions.

A person clings to faith in God - because he does not know the real laws that govern the world, and without faith in an imaginary god he cannot explain this world to himself, see meaning and completeness in it. This means that in order for a person to no longer need God, he needs to understand the real laws that govern the world - the laws of dialectics.

For us, materialists, the world is holistic and meaningful, alive and beautiful, although we know that it was not created and is not governed by the will of God. We know that everything is connected to everything, and man is related to everything that exists. Why is that? Because we know the real bonds that bind it into one whole, make it reasonable and meaningful, eternally alive and beautiful, and make man a part of it, a brother of everything that exists.

These bonds are the laws of the development of matter. We know that matter is one, that it lives and develops according to the same laws. A star and an ear of wheat, a tree and a bird, the ocean and human society - live and develop according to the same laws. And in the body of a woodpecker, and in the trunk of a birch, and in the atmosphere of our planet, there are conflicting principles, opposite and at the same time inextricably linked. Their struggle and unity ensure eternal renewal, eternal movement and development of the world. Only struggle moves the world forward, renews and saves from death.

Life, eternally renewing itself, eternally destroys and revives itself. Having barely been born, it is already coming to its end - and is already preparing a new birth and a new blossoming of a new life. For, as Heraclitus of Ephesus said, “the world is a living fire, eternally extinguished and eternally ignited.”

Human society lives according to the same laws as the universe. The struggle of opposing forces moves him forward. The struggle between the new and the old, between the forces of development, revolutionary forces - and the forces of regression, counter-revolutionary forces.

For those who have learned to see this struggle, to recognize these forces, - social processes cease to be a chaotic and inexplicable bustle. He understands the meaning of this struggle and his place in it. He faces the storms of social upheaval without fear and does not hide in the arms of a non-existent god, does not seek solace in a fictional world.

The science that teaches this, reveals the laws of nature and social development, and shows the forces struggling in society is called dialectical materialism.

Anyone who has mastered this science knows that the world is good, and man’s place in it is high and beautiful. Man is not a pitiful and weak creature, a plaything of blind and cruel forces, whose only salvation is to bow at the feet of his own invented god.

Man is a collaborator with the universe in its eternal work, the work of renewal and development, its brother and comrade. But a person does this work consciously. If nature simply lives according to the laws in force in the world, a person is able to cognize them and, relying on them, consciously engage in improving the world.

That’s why we don’t need God to justify the world and give it meaning, because for materialists the world is good and meaningful as it is. Therefore, we will never throw a person at the feet of imaginary gods - because we place his purpose in the world too highly.

Oksana Snegir

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