What is the real value of humility? Get rid of expectations. Take everything as it is
assertiveness is the ability to defend personal boundaries, protect one's own goals and interests, while maintaining respect for other people.
Let's take the words of Patriarch Kirill as a starting point:“In humility, a person, as it were, gives way to his central place - to God; in humility man discovers his best qualities; in humility, a person establishes a special relationship with other people, so that these relationships in no way destroy the other person, do not harm her.
Human humility is a huge force when a person achieves his goals without offending other people, without causing damage and damage to them. Building such relationships gives the heart joy and peace, peace and quiet. My conscience is clear: I didn’t offend anyone, didn’t step on anyone, didn’t deceive anyone.
And how sweet is such a victory of man, how wonderful the achievements seem when they are carried out without any harm to others. Indeed, you need to have great strength to live life like that.
The wonderful words of our patriarch about humility, but are we really able to distinguish in Everyday life genuine humility from human-pleasing, hypocritical ingratiation, career toadying, groveling, servility and ostentatious obedience? To be honest with myself, not always! Many saints, according to the words of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, seemed to their contemporaries imperturbable proud people, but on the contrary, servile souls were true humble ones. “Christianity demands downtroddenness, humility, obedience to exploiters, refusal to fight for a better future in anticipation of an illusory reward after death” - have you heard this? But even today, humility is the most misunderstood of the virtues, and this is not surprising.
Archpriest Alexei Uminsky will help us find the necessary landmarks.
Archpriest Alexey Uminsky
Of course, we love to humble! One of the most easily learned "sciences" is the science of humbling others. When we are in the position of a leader, it seems to us that we are almost saving the souls of people when we yell at them, trample on them, look at them with anger, and so on.
This is how the rulers love to act towards their subordinates, husbands towards their wives, parents towards their children. For some reason, people believe that this is the science that helps another to come to terms. Not breaking a person, not offending him, not depriving him of love and hope, not taking away the strength to go further and listen to his superiors with confidence.
We have a lot of masters and almost no fathers. And God is the Father. And He does not teach anyone to humble.
The Lord teaches each of us to be humble. And asks to learn from Him. Both in the gospel narrative and in the acts of the holy apostles, which were written by His disciples and tell us about the first decades of the Christian Church, we will not see a single example when any of the disciples or of people invested with church authority tried to teach through humiliation, suppression, domineering voice. Therefore, if we want to truly learn something from Christ, we must hear these words all the time: “Learn from me - for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
With us, unfortunately, it often happens exactly the opposite. “Pray and repent” is a universal answer to any problem. Of course, we must both pray and repent. But you need to understand what is behind the phrase "Pray and repent."
Repentance does not mean regularly going to confession with a huge number of sins written down on a piece of paper.. The words “repent, and you will come to the Kingdom of Heaven” are addressed to humanity, to people as a kind of impulse, as a kind of beginning of the path. A person must turn, repent, change his inner world, and then follow Christ. But he must not carry behind him, like fetters, the burden of these things. He must carry in his heart one spirit of black contrition.
The spirit of contrition is not the weight of sins. The spirit of contrition is the spirit of self-knowledge, the spirit of understanding the greatness of Divine love, the joy of the fact that God accepts you as you are, and not as you want to look in the eyes of others.
If a person is not afraid to constantly live in the reality of himself, realizing who he is, knowing his shortcomings, weaknesses, his distortions in the light of Christ's love, he will always experience the spirit of contrition, and this will be the spirit of joyful contrition. And it will be the spirit of understanding the presence of God that will move a person to joyful prayer.
Christian humility, after all, is not cowardice or inner weakness. The cowardly one would be glad to take revenge, but inner timidity will not allow it, and he thinks that there are not enough bodily and spiritual forces - that is, there is no humility in this, but there is a statement of his impotence.
On the contrary, humility is a true strength of mind when you can answer blow for blow, but courageously conquer anger and resentment in yourself, show nobility and love to the offender. Of course, if there is the will of God for the manifestation of strength, then this must be followed, because the true strength of the spirit is a firm hope in God, combined with personal courage. But in the end, true courage is not to crush the enemy as a source of danger, but to make a friend out of the enemy.
So why is it necessary to be humble?
Saint Nicholas of Serbia offers us the following wise admonition: “Crime is always weakness. The criminal is a coward, not a hero. Therefore, always consider that the one who does evil to you is weaker than you; and just as you do not take revenge on a small child, so do not take revenge on the one who did evil to you. For he is a villain, not because of strength, but because of weakness. In this way you will gain strength in yourself and become like the sea, which never overflows its banks to drown all the people who throw stones at it.
Therefore, if you see that passions boil around you, that they look at you with anger, and they speak irritably against you or raise all sorts of slander, then do not succumb to impulses of your own irritation. If your offenders want to burn in the flame of their own indignation, then at least you yourself do not enter into this fire. With peaceful prayer in your soul, with sympathy for the indignant, stay away from these passions. Who knows, maybe your prayer, as if plentiful, pure water, will cool the fire, after which regret and repentance will remain in the soul of the enemies.
Christ showed humility in His life. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) revealed this truth figuratively. Human society is like a pyramid, at the top of which is a leader - a king, a president, any kind of ruler. Further, on the layers close to the top, there are people who have power close to royal, and at the base of the pyramid there are people who are subject. Usually in the world the strongest subjugate the weakest, the kingdoms of fallen people are based on exploitation and violence. However, Christ turned this pyramid upside down. He Himself, heading the renewed humanity, is the base of the pyramid, and in relation to the subordinates He Himself became a servant. Therefore, in the Kingdom of Christ, the greater serves the lesser, the stronger humbles himself before the weak.
Humility implies a desire to learn. When a person has humility, he does not say: “I know everything!”. He asks questions - his spouse, wife or even his child. At one time, this made an impression on Saint John of the Ladder, when in one monastery he saw gray-haired elders asking questions to the priest who confessed them (and the priest was forty years old). They were elders, monks, hardened in prayer and spiritual warfare, and they humbly asked questions to a younger person.
There is something profoundly otherworldly in the virtue of humility, pointing directly to heaven. That is why it is so difficult for us, fallen people living in a fallen world, to understand it - and so easy to distort it. Many Christian virtues - mercy or honesty, for example - are also understandable to worldly people. Humility is something new, something uniquely Christian. The world often not only does not understand him, but also rejects and ridicules him.
Secular and false attitude to humility, the great German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche expressed it very talentedly.
According to Nietzsche, humility was declared a virtue by envious slaves, who would be glad to indulge in the joys of their masters - pride, hatred, revenge, lust - but do not dare.
They are forced - under the fear of beatings and death - to be meek, patient, to endure insults without malice, for which they would willingly avenge, but, weaklings, they cannot. Therefore, they “make virtue out of need” and declare their forced slavish behavior to be something laudable, and strength, courage, pride, readiness for violence, which distinguish their masters, are vices for which they, then someday, will go to hell.
Humility, however, in itself becomes a manifestation of the will to power. According to Nietzsche, all life in general is the will to power - but at the human level, this will can manifest itself and not only in brutal violence.
A mighty, strong, unrestrained warrior, joyfully ringing his armor, meets with a quiet, meek, downcast monk. Of course, in battle, the monk has no chance - but he has a more sophisticated weapon.
With an unctuous smile, he tells the warrior about the judgment of God, about heaven and hell, sins and virtues, about the fact that the sword should be used only to protect the orphans and the poor, cry about their sins and humble themselves in every possible way.
The warrior falls under the spell of the monk's preaching and begins to perceive his strength, the will to dominate, the desire for pleasure as something sinful. And although he indulges in all this, but already with a sense of guilt and fear, which he is trying to suppress, unfastening money to the monk for the construction of Gothic temples. This is how a monk achieves power without ever holding a sword in his hands.
There is something true in Nietzsche's analysis - there really is a will to power and a struggle for power in the world. Everyone strives to take a place higher, pushing their neighbors lower, as in a pack of gorillas, everyone strives to become an alpha male.
Nietzsche is wrong in another - he thought it was the norm; and this is a pathology. Humans are not made to oppress one another; they are created to serve each other lovingly. The fact that in the life of mankind there is much more oppression than service is a manifestation of the fact that both we ourselves and the world in which we live are deeply damaged by sin.
And humility is, in fact, the reflection of the world: what it should be and what it will become when God is all in all. A humble person is a messenger from there- that's why it's incomprehensible here.
The world often sees two options - either you suppress, or you are suppressed, but “serve each other with love” - it doesn’t see it, and therefore perceives any call for humility as an attempt to subdue it by cunning, drive it down a step in the food chain. This is a highly unpopular virtue; but it is rooted in the very center of our faith - in the truth of the Incarnation.
The words and deeds of Jesus Christ are the words and deeds of God Himself. The Apostle Paul cites Christ as an example of humility:
“He, being the image of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God; but he humbled himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men, and becoming in appearance like a man; He humbled Himself, being obedient even unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven, on earth, and in the underworld, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:6-11).
It may not be very clear to us this “being an image” - but the Greek text clearly implies the divine nature of the Son, His eternal equality with the Father, for which he does not hold on, but voluntarily humiliates himself, becoming a man and accepting death. The eternal Son of God gives up everything to serve the Father in the Redemption of the human race - and the Father exalts Him.
So, humility is not the downtroddenness of a person who has nothing better to do; it is a voluntary preference for the will of God, a willingness to serve, sacrifice and give- instead of demanding service, exalting yourself and taking away.
A humble person is not one who mutters "I am the worst of all, I am the worst of all, I am the worst of all, I am the worst of all." He does not rush with this "I" at all. He has more important things to do - to serve God and others.
And when about assertiveness?
Read more about it in our next post...
Humility - how to learn to accept
Humility is, first of all, to live with peace in the Soul! In harmony with oneself, in harmony with the surrounding world and God. Humility is internal acceptance situations that happen to us. Any situation, no matter what areas of life it does not concern.
For example, Ayurveda - Vedic medicine, believes that a sick person has no chance of being healed if he does not accept his illness. Almost any disease can be cured, but only when a person internally accepted it, humbled himself, understood why the disease came into his life, worked through the tasks that the disease sets before him. Likewise, all life difficult situations Until you accept, you won't change.
How do I know if I accept the situation or not. If I accept, there is calmness inside me, nothing clings to me, does not strain me according to the situation. I think about her and talk calmly. Inside, complete calm and relaxation. If I don’t accept, then there is tension inside, internal dialogue, claims, resentment, irritation, etc. Pain. The more pain, the more rejection. As soon as we take it, the pain goes away.
Many understand the word acceptance or humility as weakness, humiliation. They say I reconciled, so I sit back and come what may, let everyone wipe their feet on me. In fact, true humility gives a person dignity. Humility and acceptance on the inside are internal qualities, but on external level I take some action.
Let's look at a few examples:
1. We often encounter difficulties in personal relationships. In our head, there is a different picture of relationships with a loved one than the one that we get in reality. In our head, both the image and the behavior of a loved one are different than what we get in fact. It is the discrepancy between the desired and the actual that gives us suffering and pain. Often we see the root of our troubles not in ourselves, but in others. Here he will change and I will stop suffering. Remember, the cause of troubles is not in another person or his behavior, the cause is in us and in our attitude towards a loved one.
First of all, we must accept reality as it is. Our reality is created by our subconscious programs and God. We don't really get what we want, but what we deserve. This is how the law of karma works - you reap what you sow. The current reality is sown by us, by some of our actions in the past - in this or past life. To protest and suffer is stupid and not constructive! It is much more constructive to internally accept reality as it is. To accept a loved one as he is, with all his shortcomings and virtues, with all his attitude towards us. Take responsibility for everything that happens in our life - for events, for people, for their attitude towards us - on ourselves! I alone am responsible for what happens in my life.
This is what we “pulled” to ourselves. These are some of my actions and energies that force the second one to act towards me in such a way that it may not be entirely pleasant for me. Our own karma comes to us through those close to us. And then, roll up your sleeves, you need to start inner work. Everything that happens to us here is a lesson. Our loved ones are our most important Teachers. Every difficult situation is not sent to us to fight it, but to teach us. Thanks to this situation, we can understand life more deeply, change something in ourselves in better side, develop unconditional love, climb new level development, to get some life experience necessary for our Soul, to repay our karmic debt.
Only after accepting the situation, you can finally start thinking about what is being taught. Why is this situation sent to us? With what behavior and thoughts have we brought this situation to life?! Maybe we are not coping with our role as a man or a woman, developing in ourselves qualities that are alien to our nature? So we must go and learn how to properly fulfill our role. How a man should act in this world and how a woman should act, so that it would be in harmony with the laws of the Universe. I always say that in order to be a man or a woman, it is not enough to be born in a male or female body. You have to become a man or a woman - this is a big life task. And our destiny in the world begins with the realization of this task.
But this is not the only cause of problems in relationships, although it is of course the most global and it is from it that all other problems in gender relations are born. Again, each case is of course very individual. Maybe this situation teaches us self-respect and we should say no to relationships. Or maybe we need to learn to stand up for ourselves, not to let another person insult us, humiliate us and, God forbid, beat us. Those. Having internally accepted the situation, I already defend myself not on the emotions of resentment and irritation, but on the emotions of love for myself and for another, on the emotions of acceptance. Those. internally we have complete calm - and outwardly we may say rather harsh words, take some measures, do not allow ourselves to be offended, put the second person in place harshly. Those. we act on the external level without being involved in emotion, not from the position of Ego and resentment - we act from the position of the Soul.
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In the first year, upon receiving the Holy Spirit, I thought: the Lord has forgiven my sins: grace bears witness to this; what more do I need?
But that's not how you should think. Although sins are forgiven, one must remember and grieve about them all one's life in order to preserve contrition. I did not do this, and I ceased to grieve, and I suffered a lot from demons. And I wondered what was happening to me: my soul knows the Lord and His love; How do I get bad thoughts? But the Lord took pity on me, and Himself taught me how to humble myself: “Keep your mind in hell and do not despair.” And by this the enemies are defeated; and when I go out of the fire with my mind, my thoughts gain strength again.
Who, like me, has lost grace, let him courageously fight demons. Know that you yourself are to blame: you have fallen into pride and vanity, and the Lord graciously gives you to know what it means to be in the Holy Spirit, and what it means to be in the struggle with demons. Thus, by experience, the soul learns the harm of pride, and then vanity, and human praise, and thoughts run away. Then the soul will begin to recover and learn to keep grace. How to understand whether the soul is healthy or sick? A sick soul is proud; but a healthy soul loves humility, as the Holy Spirit has taught it, and if it does not know this, then it considers itself the worst of all.
A humble soul, even if the Lord takes her to heaven every day and shows all the heavenly glory in which He dwells, and the love of the Seraphim and Cherubim, and all the saints, even then, taught by experience, will say: “You, Lord, show me Your glory, because You love Your creation, but give me weeping and strength to thank You. Glory befits you in heaven and on earth, but it befits me to weep over my sins.” Otherwise, you will not save the grace of the Holy Spirit, which the Lord gives to the tuna, by His grace.
The Lord took pity on me a lot, and gave me to understand that all my life I have to cry. This is the way of the Lord. And now I am writing, pitying those people who, like me, are proud and therefore suffer. I am writing to learn humility and find peace in God.
Some say that it used to be once, but now it is all out of date; but with the Lord nothing is ever diminished, but only we change, become bad, and thus lose grace; and whoever asks, the Lord gives everything to him, not because we are worth it, but because the Lord is merciful and loves us. I write about this because my soul knows the Lord.
To learn Christ's humility is a great blessing; it is easy and joyful to live with him, and everything is sweet to the heart. The Lord reveals Himself only to the humble through the Holy Spirit, and if we do not humble ourselves, then we will not see God. Humility is the light in which we can see the light of God, as it is sung: "In Your light we will see the light."
The Lord taught me to keep my mind in hell and not despair, and so my soul humbles itself, but this is not yet real humility, which is indescribable. When the soul goes to the Lord, it is in fear, but when it sees the Lord, it rejoices indescribably from the beauty of His glory, and completely forgets the earth from the love of God and from the sweetness of the Holy Spirit. This is the paradise of the Lord. Everyone will be in love, and from the humility of Christ everyone will be glad to see others above themselves. The humility of Christ dwells in the lesser; they are glad they are smaller. So the Lord made me understand.
Oh, pray for me, all saints, that my soul may learn the humility of Christ; my soul longs for it, but I cannot acquire it, and I tearfully seek it, as a lost child seeks its mother.
“Where are you, my Lord? Hid from my soul, and tearfully looking for You.
Lord, grant me the strength to humble myself before Your majesty.
Lord, glory befits You in heaven and on earth, but to me, Your little creature, grant Your humble Spirit.
I pray Your goodness, Lord, look down on me from the height of Your glory and grant me the strength to praise You day and night, for my soul has loved You with the Holy Spirit, and I miss You, and tearfully seek You.
Lord, grant us the Holy Spirit; With them we will glorify You day and night, for our flesh is weak, and Your Spirit is alert, and gives strength to the soul to work easily for You, and strengthens the mind in Your love, and reposes in You with perfect peace, and he no longer wants to think of anything but love. yours.
Lord, Merciful, my weak spirit cannot come to You, and therefore I call You, as King Abgar: come and heal me from the wounds of my sinful thoughts, and I will praise You day and night, and preach You to people so that they may know You, all nations, that You, the Lord, as before, work miracles, forgive sins, and sanctify, and live.
Elder Silouan of Athos. Part II. The writings of Elder Silouan
Acceptance is, in my opinion, one of the main human virtues that contributes to the achievement of happiness. Acceptance frees your attention from everything superfluous and allows you to direct it to what is really important.
What is acceptance? Acceptance is the opposite of denial, rejection. Acceptance allows accept reality, such as it is, and not feel frustrated that it does not meet your expectations.
Much human suffering is born out of differences between people's expectations about the nature of reality and how that reality presents itself to us.
Our expectations may relate to how people should behave, how we ourselves should be ... We can expect all people to treat us well. We can expect our government to be humane and just. We can expect from ourselves that we will always be healthy, attractive and perfect.
But, our expectations are often not quite adequate to the state of reality. Reality dictates its requirements. Reality acts according to its own laws, not according to our expectations.
Not all people show sincere admiration for us, no matter how good we are. Government workers have the same vices that we are subject to, and do not always act fairly. And we are not perfect, our health and beauty are not eternal.
These are the facts of life from which there is no escape. We can either come to terms with these facts, accept them, since we do not always have the opportunity to influence them. Or we will experience eternal rejection that some things in this life are not the way we would like them to be, although we still cannot influence these things.
Of course, we can affect our health, play sports, quit bad habits. But we will not be able to change the fact that it deteriorates with age, no matter how healthy a person is initially.
Banal truths
We can either accept these facts of life or not accept them, creating meaningless suffering. Naturally, the best of these options is the first option.
Someone will think that I am saying terribly banal things. But, as I have noted many times before, many of the most valuable truths are very obvious! Originality is often a property of delusion and confusion. And the truth is simple.
Despite its simplicity, it is not accepted by most people. Remember how many times you felt angry because of those things that you cannot change? For example, because of rudeness on the road, in public transport, or because of the arbitrariness of your company's management.
Yes, people are evil, unfair and act in their own interests, neglecting the interests of others. Didn't you know that? Isn't this an obvious statement? Of course everyone knows about it! But you forget about it every time you yell at someone, get upset because you were rude or treated unfairly.
At such moments, your emotions are a reflection of your reaction of rejection. You seem to be shouting: “I refuse to accept this order of things, I don’t want to, I won’t put up with it, even if I can’t do anything!” In this impulse, you become like a child who was offended by the bedside table when he hurt his leg on it.
Acceptance is a very simple concept within its formulation. "Take the world as it is!" What could be easier? But reality proves that acceptance is not easy to achieve.
The greater our expectations, the more they are divorced from reality, the deeper the suffering and rejection.
We potentially have more power over our inner world than over our outer reality. Therefore, when we are unable to change the world around us, we can always correct our perception of this world, our expectations...
Acceptance is not the same as passive resignation!
Here I want to make an important clarification. Acceptance is not a way of passive resignation to any circumstances, it is not a way to give up and adapt to all conditions.
Accepting reality as it is does not mean resigning yourself to the fact that your husband offends you. This does not mean putting up with a job that you do not like, giving up and silently enduring. This does not mean accepting your shortcomings and doing nothing about their eradication.
Acceptance does not exclude struggle, work on oneself, constant improvement of one's life, improvement of the conditions of one's existence. Acceptance only means that you don't get emotionally involved in things that you can't control. And even if you can influence something, then you do it with a mind free from resentment.
Suppose a colleague is systematically rude to you at work. For example, his rudeness is due to the fact that your salary is higher than his earnings. He envies you and considers it his duty to somehow pry you on the sly. Can you influence the fact that a stranger to you is experiencing envy? No you can not. At least not to your own detriment. You will not give up your salary so that your colleagues do not envy you? People are envious and envy makes them cost intrigues and behave ignoblely. This is a fact of life.
Can you somehow influence the fact that you are rude every day? I think yes. You can just calmly talk to this person, find out what the problem is. One face to face conversation is enough. Even if this dialogue does not contain any threats and is peaceful.
People love to weave secret intrigues, to act on the sly, to play the game in front of the public, but they do not like to act directly, “on the forehead”. And when they are directly asked about their motives, called to account, they experience the shame of exposure, the bitter feeling that you are talking to them about what they avoided to talk about directly. This contributes to the fact that these people lose their desire for unwanted behavior towards you.
If talking doesn't help, then you can take other measures...
In general, you can't influence the fact that people feel jealous in any way.
But you can exclude rudeness in your address in a particular case. It's up to you. Therefore, you calmly achieve this. At the same time, you don’t think, “what a bad person, what a boor, so I’ll show him, he must answer for this!”.
You don't spend the whole evening thinking about this person, longing for revenge. You are the master of your state. You do not allow anyone to manipulate you and influence your mood. You accept the fact that people are unfair, rude towards you as one of the facts of life.
But at the same time, instead of silently enduring this rudeness, you correct the situation in your favor. And do it calmly, without irritation, anger and constant thoughts of injustice. If you can't do that, then it's not so bad. You are not strongly attached to the idea of restoring justice, if it is not possible to restore it.
You accept that justice is not always an inherent property of reality. This is acceptance!
This is where it differs from passive humility, and I have gone into this example at length to emphasize this difference. Acceptance is not the opposite of action!
Acceptance and self-development
Acceptance is a very important property in the process of self-development. Why? Because self-improvement means that your best qualities will develop, and your shortcomings will disappear. But one of side effects» personality development, is a strong rejection, the stage of denial.
Denial is a chimera of self-development. And this must be fought. You need to constantly pay attention to this.
Why does this denial arise?
Next, I will talk a little about myself, about my experience with rejection. You may not have that experience, but you may experience something similar. This part of the article will warn you against some things. I have already briefly touched on this issue in the article,. Here I will talk about it in more detail.
When I began to analyze myself, to direct my attention to my own development, I suddenly realized that what I had always considered an integral and uncontrollable part of my personality, in fact, was controllable.
I used to think that emotions, fears cannot be controlled by willpower, and personality cannot be changed. But then I realized that I can become the master of myself! And the main thing is that I was convinced of this on own example. But here a danger arose, which partly stemmed from excessive arrogance.
I believed that I can always control everything. It became my installation, my indestructible credo! And so I refused to accept that sometimes, after my success in self-control, my emotions again took over me.
I felt frustrated that, despite my belief in all-powerful self-control, I was still lazy, nervous in certain situations, losing control of myself. Of course, this has already happened much less frequently than before. Since then I have made considerable progress in controlling myself. But I could not fully rejoice at this progress, as I was disappointed because of my failures.
The very fact that I can't control everything has always bothered me a lot. Because of this, I was angry with myself. I also got angry at other people...
The result of this rejection was that I began to project it onto the people around me. I didn't accept things in myself and, as a result, I didn't accept them in other people. I experienced
frustration that people act on emotions, are prejudiced and do not understand things that have become obvious to me.
My rejection turned into such a form of denial that I began to deny all my former habits, all my former life, all my previous experience. I thought “here is the old me - bad”, and “the new me is good”. Yes, I did have a lot of bad habits. But I didn’t think much about what was bad and what was good in my old and new life, and I simply denied everything.
But only later I realized that even in this past life there was a lot of useful and valuable experience that needs to be transferred to a new life, and not to deny it. And after all, there is no past and new life, there is only one of my lives. She may have changed a lot, but it was always me, who did not stand still and changed.
I have changed, I have realized many things, but I am very far from perfect, I can still have weaknesses, I can still experience emotions, which I write about overcoming on my website. It's normal, there's nothing you can do about it. I am working on myself, but not everything is in my power!
Yes, I will fight, I will act, but there are things that I cannot influence.
The same goes for other people. They have the same weaknesses that I have. And they have rights to these weaknesses! People are what they are! Someone wants to change, someone can use my help. And someone will criticize my ideas and deny my experience.
And I can't always influence it!
Such is the nature of things! This is another fact of life that should be accepted! Why should I make something that I can't influence, my own problem and source of frustration?
This understanding had (and continues to have) a very beneficial and sobering effect on me. It even turned out to be fatal and marked a whole new stage in my development.
I consider this very important and therefore I try to provide this article with detailed examples.
"Lion Stage"
In connection with the last example from my life, I am reminded of the stages in the formation of a personality that the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche outlined in his book “As Zarathustra Spoke”.
I experienced the great influence of this philosopher in my youth, having read all of his major books. But now my views are almost the opposite of the main ideas of Nietzscheism, for which I am unspeakably glad. Nietzsche's philosophy contains the most dangerous delusions for the individual. My ideas have nothing in common with the sophisticated aesthetic hedonism and egocentrism preached by the German philosopher.
I won't go into detail on this. Let this be the topic of a separate article. This was a necessary remark. Since I am citing an example from Nietzsche's book, I must also briefly indicate my attitude towards his views.
So, the philosopher designates three stages of personality development.
The first stage is a camel. Man, like this animal, hangs tons of weight on himself. Of course, the load is a metaphor. This refers to the ideological load: moral norms, social stereotypes, behavior patterns, ideals. The camel does not ask what exactly lies in those bags that were placed on it. Also, a person does not ask about the meaning of those values that have been "hung" on him.
The second stage is the lion. This stage corresponds to a reassessment of values. The lion is a formidable and aggressive predator. A personality, like a lion, after a reassessment of values, will aggressively attack its past ideals, which society “hung” on it at the camel stage.
He will not ask what is bad and what is good, but will simply mindlessly destroy all this cargo.
This stage corresponds to the stage of denial, which I wrote about above.
The third stage is the baby. The baby looks at the world with a clear eye. His perception is pure and free from stereotypes. The lion destroyed the old ideals, and now the baby can re-learn nature, create new system values.
I gave this classification because I partly agree with it. Only I do not agree with the conclusions to which the philosopher comes. His infant forms a new, bloodthirsty, opportunistic, hedonistically oriented scale of values. My baby is partly returning to the traditional values of kindness, love and compassion and happiness (namely, permanent happiness, not transitory pleasure), only he already perceives these values consciously, and does not thoughtlessly “throw” on himself, like a camel.
These values cease to serve him as abstract ideas, but become real, applied experience.
So, I gave an example of Nietzsche's reasoning in order to clarify this article. I want you to pay attention to the lion stage. This is the opposite of acceptance - denial, nihilism. Only in my example, the lion's fury is directed not only at values and ideals, but at the world in general (and yourself in particular) along with all its properties.
You have taken some steps in self-development and have seen what you had not paid attention to before: your many problems and the problems of other people. And suddenly realizing these problems can lead to denial!
You must understand that denial, the “lion stage,” is not the last stage of personality development. I do not want you to think that when you began to notice the weaknesses of other people more than before, when you began to pay attention to your shortcomings, when you began to attack your former ideals with the fury of a predator, then you have already reached the limit of development.
The lion stage is inevitable for many people involved in self-development, so there is nothing wrong with it, as long as you do not linger in it or, even worse, do not stay in it forever.
There is a tempting temptation to constantly feed on an illusory sense of one’s own superiority over other people, to blame their values and ideals, to criticize their behavior, although you yourself have moved away from them by a millimeter step and yesterday you were the same as them ...
As awareness develops, reality reveals many new properties to you. And along with these properties, all the injustice and grief with which reality is saturated begins to appear.
There is a danger of being carried away by the denial of this reality, in connection with your new, enriched understanding of it.
Do not go in cycles in this denial! Know that something even better is ahead of you! Defeat the lion in you!
How to defeat a lion?
How to defeat this aggressive predator inside you? How to learn to calmly accept reality as it is?
Get rid of expectations
As I wrote above, the stronger your expectations, the less they correspond to the facts of life, the stronger your rejection of reality becomes.
Expectations or mental attitudes that prevent you from accepting reality as it is, may be the following:
“I have to be better than others in everything”
The fulfillment of this desire is impossible, because there are no ideal people and it is impossible to be better than others in everything. There will always be someone who is better than you at something. And there is nothing wrong with that, it is normal. This is even good, which is why people learn from each other, share experiences, adopt the strengths of other people.
Both the development of society and personal development are based on the mutual exchange of knowledge and skills.
If you rely only on yourself, believe that you should be the best, then you will suffer, because you will never be able to fulfill this desire. And instead of learning from other people, you will grieve that they are superior to you in some way.
I dwelled on this aspect in more detail in the article why communication is needed.
"Everyone should treat me well"
It is impossible, just as it is impossible to be better than others in everything. No matter how good you are, you are unlikely to win the love and respect of every single person. There will always be people who won't like you. And people who treat you badly are not necessarily bad.
And if someone does not like you, it also does not always mean that you are bad yourself. Each person is a whole individuality. And often the attitude of people towards other people depends on personal attitudes, upbringing, principles, available information, state of mind and many others. internal factors which you can't influence in any way.
The problem of attitude towards you is not always your personal problem! And it depends not only on you, but on the subject who perceives you.
Therefore, it is impossible to please everyone and everyone (more on this in the article). So what's the point in worrying about it?
But bad attitude to you is not always only the problem of another person. Sometimes it can show you your weaknesses. And if so, then bad, but fair opinion about you only benefits you, because you can change thanks to him! This is good, therefore, there is no point in worrying about this, again!
"I must always be right"
Every person can make mistakes. And you are no exception. You are not always right, even when you are sure of it. And if you think that the truth is only yours, then such an attitude will prevent you from being flexible, changing your views if they were wrong before, or simply supplementing them.
Each person's experience is limited and therefore opinions based on that experience are often erroneous or incomplete. The exchange of opinions between people should enrich each individual (more details in the article). But this will not happen if you think that your opinion is the only correct one. And you will suffer, because reality will sometimes show you how much you are mistaken. This is normal and should be accepted as a fact and not be frustrated about it.
“I have to prove that I am right to those who disagree with me”
No, they shouldn't. You will never convince some people that you are right, even if you are really close to the truth and are infallible in logic. Therefore, attempts to convince someone of something are often doomed to failure and cause only mutual indignation on both sides of such a dialogue.
Many people will never accept your views and beliefs, no matter how correct they may seem to you. This is a fact of life. So what if the person disagrees with you? What's the difference? Even if you suddenly manage to convince him, what will you benefit from this? Often nothing!
“I have to respond to every insult addressed to me”
No, they shouldn't. If your neighbor's dog barks at you, you don't have to bark back at him. The fact that you have been insulted should not create a problem for you. It remains the personal problem of the one who offended you, not yours.
There is an excellent Buddhist parable. Once the Buddha and his disciples passed by a village. People from the village began to insult the Buddha, but he did not react to this. The disciples of the Buddha began to ask the teacher why he did not respond to such vile insults.
The Buddha said, “These people are doing their job. They are angry. They think that I am an enemy of their religion, their moral values. These people insult me, this is natural (My note: If you adapt the last statement to the context of this article, then it can be paraphrased as follows: people are angry at those who trample on their values and ideals. This is natural. This is a fact of life, I accept this fact).
I am a free man and my actions stem from my internal state. Nothing can manipulate me, including other people's insults. I am the master of my own fortune."
In turn, the Buddha asked the disciples, “When we passed by another village, people brought us food, but we were not hungry and gave them their food back, what did they do with it?”
“They must have taken it back from us and distributed it to their children and animals.”
“That is so,” replied the Buddha. “I do not accept your insults, just as I did not once accept food from the inhabitants of another village. I return your resentment back to you. Do with it what you will."
Here, the Buddha's words "do not accept" do not mean "rejection" in the terminology of this article - do not confuse. On the contrary, the Buddha accepts the fact that people can be rude to him. Not accepting insults, he simply does not let them into himself.
"I can always control everything"
No, not all. Life situations can get out of your control, as well as your emotions. Accept it.
“In life, everything should turn out the way I want”
Life exists according to its own laws. And these laws do not always meet your expectations.
"I must always remain joyful"
There are moments of joy and moments of sorrow in life. Man is susceptible different states and one state is replaced by another. It is difficult to always remain cheerful and joyful.
Accept unpleasant emotions when they arise.
This advice may seem strange to those who have been reading my blog for a long time. After all, I always said that you need to get rid of negative emotions, and now I advise you to accept them.
One does not contradict the other and, on the contrary, complements. A person can be at times angry, irritable, prejudiced, envious, no matter how well he knows how to control himself.
Accept this as a fact and don't berate yourself for the fact that at some moments you show weakness, that on some days you are not as collected and focused as on other days.
Everything is constantly changing within a person. One day you can stay focused, be confident, be in a sense of happiness and harmony. The next day, everything will fall out of your hands, you will be frustrated and nervous and, sometimes, you yourself will not know what it is connected with.
Such is the nature of things: nothing is eternal, everything is constantly changing, and we cannot always trace the reasons for these changes. It remains only to accept it as a fact. Today our condition does not meet our expectations: we are tired and irritated. But this is only a temporary mood, like any other. It will be replaced by another state. Therefore, one should not dwell on it, experience rejection. As soon as this feeling appeared, so it will pass.
This is what it means to accept.
"Health and beauty will never run out"
Health is a transient thing, as well as beauty. Accept the fact that these things won't be with you forever. Now you are young, healthy, successful with women, but it will not always be so.
No need to be sad about this, just accept this fact so as not to be disappointed later. People who are too strongly attached to sexual pleasure, the sensual impressions of youth, external brilliance, have great difficulty parting with these things when their time comes.
If these things once formed the basis of their existence, then, having lost these things, these people seem to be deprived of everything. Therefore, I believe that one should not get hung up on these things, but it is also necessary to take care of moral, intellectual, spiritual development.
"There must always be justice in life"
Unfortunately, life is neither fair nor unfair. The concept of justice exists only in the human mind. Justice is not an objective property of nature.
Your young neighbor can live much richer than you just because he has rich and influential parents, although he himself did not lift a finger in order to achieve this position. Everything that you have been striving for all your life through hard work, but have not achieved, your neighbor already has now.
Reality constantly demonstrates to us its inconsistency with human concepts of injustice.
How your life will develop depends very much on you. Much stronger than many of you are used to thinking. But, nevertheless, much depends on chance, on blind arbitrariness, beyond your control.
And instead of thinking about how unlucky you are, with the fact that your life has not turned out the way you wanted, lamenting that you were born in the wrong family, in the wrong country, think about how lucky you are!
After all, things could have turned out much worse. I constantly think about how well my fate turned out, that I was not born in the USSR during the repressions, I don’t starve and I don’t work for 14 hours at a factory somewhere in North Korea I don’t go deaf from shell explosions, sitting in the trenches at the front, I don’t suffer from some deadly disease.
When I hear about such horrors, I immediately begin to think that I myself could easily find myself in such a situation and I am immeasurably lucky that I have food, water, a roof over my head, health and a bunch of other advantages of civilization. I do not put myself in mortal danger every day, which I am very glad about.
I do not want to bring my reasoning to the fact that you need to put up with everything, not to try to make this world a better place. No, I want you to accept this world as it is, with all its injustice and bitterness, and stop denying the things it shows you.
Strive to make this world a better place and people happier! But accept what you can't control!
People are rude, angry and fixated on themselves. It's a fact of life, accept it. Those on whom you depend do not always follow justice and considerations of caring for others. It's a fact of life, accept it.
Life doesn't always meet your expectations. It's a fact of life, accept it.
Acceptance is not identical to some kind of dull humility, when you understand that everything is bad and dejectedly lower your head, constantly being aware of the imperfection of this world.
No, acceptance means the absence of suffering for an empty reason, the absence of denial, which depletes your moral strength, causes anger and intolerance. Acceptance implies peace and freedom.
The freedom of your state from the negative manifestations of the outside world and from the will of other people!
Voltaire said: "We live in the best possible world!"
All we have is the world we live in. And this world is what it is, and no other world is given to us.
This is the acceptance of the situation with the world. The most difficult practice in life, not without reason in Orthodoxy it is called virtue. With humility, three motives operate in a person - understanding, acceptance, forgiveness.
These three motives are subject only to a truly intelligent, or rather, intelligent person.
Fool they are too tough. The resigned person understands that there is no point in being angry with, say, Ivanov. Maybe his head was pinched in infancy, maybe he fell in early childhood and was badly hurt, now he doesn’t think like that. Perhaps, out of ignorance, his parents "hung" him with a bunch of terrible stereotypes through which he, poor, still looks at life. Certainly, something from all this is present, it is necessary to understand, accept and forgive. This is what happens when accepting... When a person accepts a situation, he does not tense up (as with patience), does not increase the amount of adrenaline in the blood to insanity, moreover, he ... relaxes, relaxes because he was able to accept the problem and it is more does not disturb him. Such a person does not get sick because of resentment and hatred. Of course, humility is good only when the question does not concern the most important, fundamental. Otherwise, we change humility to rejection ... and humbly do not accept ...
Humility is an experimental-mystical property taken from the practice of the spiritual life of our ancestors. Here is what one woman said, who came periodically to the K*** monastery to help restore it:
“I was given a task in the monastery ... to plant seedlings with roots up. I am an experienced gardener, I was surprised who plants like that. And she began to plant as it should, with the roots down, and the monks planted as they were ordered. As a result, everyone’s seedlings sprouted, but I don’t ... "
Humility is so important in the spiritual life that we must also say about its antipode - pride.
The opposite of humility is pride. This is a vice that God does not accept under any circumstances, even if it gives one's own life. Why? Because pride is the foundation of evil (it enslaves and destroys), and the proud is the bearer of evil. Humility lies at the foundation of the most significant truths, therefore the humble is the bearer of truth.
This is how it is arranged by God: if you want to become significant, be a slave first, if you want to know a lot, first learn that you don’t know anything, and everything that you learn is given as a gift by God. All people are sick with pride, only some more, others less. How do you recognize pride in yourself? Let us turn by tradition to our spiritual shepherds...
How to recognize pride in yourself? (Teaching of Jacob, Archbishop of Nizhny Novgorod)
“In order to understand, to feel it, notice how you will feel when others ... do something not your way ... If it is born in you ... not the thought of meekly correcting a mistake made by others, but displeasure and anger, then know that you are proud, and deeply proud. If the slightest failure in your affairs saddens you... so that the thought of the Providence of God participating in our affairs does not amuse you, then know that you are proud, and deeply proud. If you are hot to your own needs and cold to the needs of others, then know that you are proud, and deeply proud. If at the sight of the troubles of others, even your enemies, you are happy, and at the sight of the unexpected happiness of your neighbors, you are sad, then know that you are proud, and deeply proud. If modest remarks about your shortcomings are offensive to you, and praises about your unprecedented virtues are pleasant for you ... then know that you are proud, and deeply proud ... If fear attacks a person, then this is also a sign of pride. St. John of the Ladder writes about it this way: “A proud soul is a slave of fear; relying on herself, she is afraid of the faint sound of creatures and the shadows themselves. The fearful often lose their minds... For... the Lord leaves the proud..."
Such simple words Archbishop Jacob, and how much meaning and grace they have in such simple words...
A proud person cannot learn such things, therefore, in his inner world always restless: “Pride sets the nerves in motion ... excites reverie. Humility calms the nerves... destroys reverie" (I. Brianchaninov).
Whoever cannot digest the idea of humility can follow the path, succinctly expressed by the words: “He who walks quietly, kneads thickly” or: “A truly dexterous person is one who hides his dexterity.”
