Psychologists characterize the concept of pride as an exaggerated sense of one’s importance. From the point of view of religion, such a quality of human character is a terrible sin. People with such a defect are found in society quite often. They tend to blame everyone around them for excessive arrogance and at the same time not notice the negativity in themselves.

Arrogance prevents a person from adequately perceiving life; this vice is accompanied by a constant anxious state of mind and, as a result, does not allow a person to simply enjoy current events. Since it is almost impossible to get rid of pride on your own, such people may need qualified help from a psychologist to combat it.

How does arrogance begin?

Vanity and arrogance are derivative concepts of excessive arrogance. Such character traits most often appear during a period when everything is good in a person’s life. Success, prosperity, celebrity contribute to the growth of inner pride. Moreover, during this period of life, this vice is difficult to remove, since the illusion of one’s own greatness does not allow the individual to correctly assess the situation. The consequence of such behavior, as a rule, is distancing from society and inevitable disappointment.

Over time, vanity leads to the formation of internal egoism. An arrogant attitude towards the entire society leads to the fact that colleagues and even close people stop communicating with a person. They try not to trust such individuals with responsible matters. Due to the fact that an inadequate reaction may follow from a proud person, people do not have confidential conversations with him and do not share their achievements. Communication with a vain person often ends in misunderstanding and envy.

Declaring to the whole world about his exclusivity, a person is not at all bothered by the question of how to overcome pride. On the contrary, he strives to rise in his conviction to the very heights and from there rule the world.

Signs of pride

It is quite simple to identify a proud person in society. Arrogance and conceit gradually build a certain hierarchical system in a person’s consciousness, according to which everything around him is assessed. Self-love manifests itself in each person quite individually, but still this phenomenon has common characteristic features:

• blaming everyone around you for your problems and troubles;
• unreasonable irritability and disrespectful attitude towards people;
• intolerance of criticism, inadequate reaction to indicated shortcomings;
• 100% certainty that you are right;
• the need for constant competition;
• self-satisfaction gradually decreases, and a loss of internal values ​​also occurs;
• a selfish person constantly gives advice to everyone, trying to prove his exceptionality

Proud people do not know how to sincerely thank, the service provided is taken for granted. They consider such a necessity humiliating to their own pride. To increase their dignity, arrogant people try to look for weaknesses in others.

Selfishness: how to deal with it

When deciding how to deal with selfishness or how to defeat pride, the first thing that is necessary is the active participation of a person suffering from such a vice. Recognizing a negative character trait in yourself significantly speeds up the healing process.

Getting rid of pride must begin with realizing responsibility for your life. As soon as a person pacifies his arrogance, he will stop blaming everyone around him for his troubles. Pride can be considered a mental illness, therefore the cure for such an illness directly depends on inner aspiration and desire.

To speed up the process of getting rid of an egoistic character trait, you need to learn to benefit even from negative events. You should have a philosophical approach to everything.

In order to overcome the psychological barrier characterized by vanity and selfishness, it is necessary to learn to perceive people as they are. A person must realize his purpose in society and carefully analyze his behavior.

A person who has become deeply dependent on his own egoism definitely needs professional help, since it is quite difficult to fight pride alone. To form adequate self-esteem, you need to look at yourself from the outside and try to remove the detected negativity. When correcting the disorder, it is very important to maintain the golden mean and not lose self-respect.

Manifestation of pride in family relationships

An excessive sense of one’s importance is often found in family relationships, and such a vice is observed not only in the husband or wife, but also in children. According to statistics, half of all divorces occur due to the fact that the spouses were unable to set priorities in the family in a timely manner, resulting in a social imbalance of authority.

If initially a woman performs most of the male responsibilities in a family, then the loss of male authority will be inevitable. In order for a married couple not to have to decide over time the question of how to get rid of selfishness in a relationship, it is necessary from the very beginning of their life together to have a clear distribution of responsibilities. In addition, without mutual respect, it will be almost impossible to cope with the problem of family selfishness.

Quite often, a man’s arrogance and vanity grows due to the fact that a woman has the status of a housewife. By providing material support, the husband gradually takes a privileged place in the family, and the wife, in turn, becomes a kind of victim.

In order to stop the program of destruction of family relationships, one of the partners needs to overcome their pride and adjust their behavior. A woman should carefully study her responsibilities and try to raise her husband's authority. In turn, a man, as respect grows, will automatically take up his family responsibilities and reconsider his attitude towards his wife. In the fight against egoism, mutual desire is very important.

Mistakes in raising children

Childish selfishness is not the best character trait of a small person. The main problem with this behavior is that the child’s selfishness is quite difficult to cope with. From the very first days of life, the baby tries to put his interests above all else. If such exactingness is not promptly corrected by upbringing, then it will be more difficult to cope with pride and arrogance at an older age. The selfishness of a daughter or son is not innate; in psychology, this phenomenon is characterized as acquired, and often the cause of children's arrogance is the excessive care of loving parents.

When deciding how to deal with children's selfishness, the use of various tactics will be required. First of all, parents must understand how to behave with a child who exhibits negative character traits. From early childhood, it is necessary to teach the baby to show care. In addition, all close relatives must follow certain rules of conduct:

• By their own example, adults should instill in the child that all family members are individuals who deserve a certain amount of respect. This tactic leads to the fact that the child begins to understand that everyone in the family is equal and stops striving for a privileged position.
• Family relationships should be built on the principles of mutual respect and care. Parents should be as natural as possible when communicating with their baby.
• Gradually, you need to help your child develop independence. The baby's inner confidence will help him cope with excessive pride in the future.
• An adult person must constantly feel supported and protected by their parents. Self-confidence can overcome any difficulties.
• You can fight possible selfishness by forming the correct values ​​in the child’s subconscious. To do this, parents must teach their child to read the right books and watch good films.
• A healthy emotional atmosphere must be maintained in the family. You should not sort things out in the presence of children. It is also undesirable to publicly condemn and criticize strangers.

You need to fight pride at any age, since this vice can cause irreparable harm to the human psyche. It is easiest to overcome such a defect at the very beginning of development, so this problem requires timely diagnosis.

1. Pride is the rejection of God, the contempt of people, the mother of condemnation, the fiend of praise, the driving away of God's help, the culprit of falls, the source of anger, the bitter tormentor of other people's affairs, the inhuman judge, the opponent of God, the root of blasphemy.

2. The beginning of pride is the rooting of vanity; the middle is humiliation of one’s neighbor, shameless preaching about one’s labors, self-praise in the heart, hatred of reproof; and finally - rejection of God's help, arrogant reliance on one's own diligence, demonic disposition.

3. I saw people thanking God with their lips and praising themselves in their thoughts. The Pharisee provides clear evidence of this when he said: God, I thank Thee (Luke 18:11).

4. Where the Fall took place, pride was established there first, for pride is the harbinger of the fall.

5. A highly wise monk will argue strongly; but the humble man not only does not contradict, but also does not dare to raise his eyes.

6. The cypress does not bend and does not spread along the ground; Likewise, an arrogant monk cannot have humble obedience.

7. If God opposes the proud (James 4:6), then who can have mercy on them? - And if everyone who is high-hearted is unclean before God (Prov. 16:5), then who can cleanse him?

8. He who rejects reproof reveals the passion of pride; and whoever accepts it has been freed from the bonds of pride.

9. One wise old man admonished his proud brother; but this one, blind in soul, said: “Forgive me, father, I am not at all proud.” Then the wise old man objected: “How can you, my son, more clearly prove that you are proud, if not by the assurance that there is no pride in you.”

10. For people of a proud disposition, it is most useful to be obedient, to lead a life that is rude and despicable, and to read stories about the harmful consequences of pride and supernatural cures for it.

11. It is a shame to be proud of other people’s jewelry, and it is extreme madness to be proud of God’s gifts. Exalt yourself only in those virtues that you accomplished before you were born; and those that you performed after birth, you bestowed

God to you, as well as birth itself. - If you corrected any virtues without the help of the mind, then let them only be yours, because the mind itself was given to you by God. - And if you showed any feats without a body, then they were only from your diligence; for the body is not yours, it is God’s creation.

12. Do not rely on your virtues until you hear the last saying about you from the Judge; for in the Gospel we see that the one who was already reclining at the wedding supper was bound hand and foot, and cast out into utter darkness (Matthew 22:13).

13. Let us not stop testing ourselves and comparing our life with the life of the former Holy Fathers and luminaries before us; and we will find that we have not yet taken a step to follow in the footsteps of the lives of these great men - we have not even fulfilled our vow as we should, but we are still in a worldly dispensation.

14. A monk is an abyss of humility into which he has cast down and in which he has drowned every evil spirit.

15. From pride comes forgetfulness of sins; and the memory of them is an intercessor for humility.

16. Pride is the poverty of the soul, which dreams of itself that it is rich, and, being in darkness, thinks that it has light.

17. The proud are like an apple, rotten on the inside but shining with beauty on the outside.

18. The proud person has no need for the tempting demon; he himself became a demon and adversary for himself.

19. Blasphemous words are born in proud hearts, and heavenly visions are born in humble souls.

20. I don’t know how it happens that very many of the proud, not knowing themselves, think that they have achieved dispassion, and already upon leaving this world they perceive their wretchedness.

21. He who is captivated by pride must need

God's extraordinary help for deliverance; for human means to save him are unsuccessful.

22. Blasphemous thoughts are born from pride, but pride does not allow them to be revealed to the spiritual father. Why does it often happen that this misfortune plunges others into despair, destroying all their hope, like a worm eating away a tree.

23. There are no thoughts that (due to pride) are as difficult to confess as a blasphemous thought; therefore, it often remains in many until old age. But meanwhile, nothing strengthens demons and evil thoughts against us so much as the fact that we do not confess them, but conceal them in our hearts, which feeds them.

24. No one should think that he is guilty of blasphemous thoughts; for the Lord is a knower of the heart and knows that such words and thoughts are not ours, but those of our enemies.

25. Let us learn to despise the spirit of blasphemy, and, not at all paying attention to the thoughts it puts in, say to it: follow me, Satan; I worship the Lord my God, and He alone will I serve; but your sickness and your words will turn upon your head, and let your blasphemy come upon your head, in this present age and in the age to come (Ps. 7:17).

26. He who despises this enemy is freed from his torment; and whoever intends to fight him in a different way will prevail. He who wants to defeat spirits with words is like someone who tries to block the winds.

27. When holy humility begins to flourish in us, then we will begin to despise all human praise and glory. When it matures, then we will not only consider our good deeds as nothing, but also consider them an abomination, thinking that we are daily adding to the burden of our sins by a waste of virtues unknown to us.

28. Diligent repentance and crying purified from all filth, erecting a temple of humility in the heart, destroy the shack of pride fenced in on the sand.

29. Signs of the disappearance of pride and the establishment of humility are the joyful acceptance of reproaches and humiliations, the quenching of rage, and disbelief in one’s virtues.

30. The end of all passions is vanity and pride, for everyone who does not pay attention to himself. Their destroyer, humility, keeps his partner unharmed from all deadly poison (passions).

31. A humble monk is not curious about incomprehensible objects; but the proud one wants to explore the depth of the Lord’s destinies.

32. Demons approached one of the most sensible brothers and pleased him. But this humble man said to them: “If you would stop praising me in my soul, then from your departure I would conclude that I am great; but if you do not stop praising me, then from your praise I see my uncleanness; for everyone who is high-hearted is unclean before the Lord ( Proverbs 16:5) So, either step away, so that I may consider myself a great man, or praise me, and through you I will acquire great humility.” They were so struck by this double-edged sword of reasoning that they immediately disappeared.

33. It is another thing to be arrogant, another thing not to be arrogant, and another thing to be humble. One judges all day long; the other does not judge anything, but does not condemn himself either; and the third, being innocent, always condemns himself.

34. A horse, when he runs alone, it seems to him that he is running quickly; but when he is running with others, then he becomes aware of his slowness. (Compare yourself with the best and avoid self-importance).

35. Unclean demons secretly placed praise in the heart of one attentive ascetic. But he, being instructed by Divine inspiration, knew how to defeat the wickedness of the spirits with such pious cunning: he wrote on the wall of his cell the names of the highest virtues, i.e. perfect love, Angelic humility, pure prayer, incorruptible purity, and others like that. When then thoughts

They began to praise him, he told them: “Let’s go to reproof,” and, going up to the wall, he read the written names, and added: “When you acquire all these virtues, know that you are still far from God.”

36. If you want to acquire an unyielding love for prayer, first train your heart not to look upon the sins of others, but the forerunner of this should be hatred of vanity.

37. If we want to comprehend ourselves, let us not stop testing and torturing ourselves; and if we hold in the true feeling of our souls that each of our neighbors is superior to us, then God’s mercy is not far from us.

38. Many call themselves sinners, and perhaps they really think so about themselves; but the heart is tempted by humiliation (from others).

39. Whoever says that he smells the fragrance of humility, even while praising, although his heart moves little, should not be deceived, for he is deceived.

40. Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory, said someone in the feeling of the soul (Ps. 113:9); for he knew that human nature, being so weak, cannot accept praise harmlessly. From You is my praise in the great Church(Ps. 21:26) - in the next century; and before that I can’t take it safely.

41. The natural property of the lemon tree is such that, being sterile, it receives branches upward; and when they bend, they are more likely to bear fruit. - He who has acquired knowledge understands this.

42. If pride turned some of the Angels into demons, then, without a doubt, humility can turn demons into Angels. So, let the fallen be bold, trusting in God.

43. Nothing humbles the soul more than living in poverty and living on alms.

44. Whoever in a conversation stubbornly wants to defend his opinion, even if it is fair, let him know that he is possessed by a devilish illness (pride); and if he does

acts in conversation with equals, then perhaps the reproof of elders will heal him; if he treats his greatest and wisest people this way, then people cannot heal this disease.

45. I once asked one of the most skillful elders, how does obedience have humility? He answered: a prudent novice, if he raises the dead and receives the gift of tears; and achieves deliverance from battles, he always thinks that this is accomplished by the prayer of his spiritual father, and remains alien and far from vain exaltation; and can he be proud of what, as he himself realizes, he did with the help of another, and not with his own efforts?

46. ​​While in the community, pay attention to yourself, and do not at all try to show yourself in any way to be more righteous than other brothers; otherwise you will do two evils: you will offend the brethren with your false and feigned jealousy, and you will give yourself a reason for arrogance.

47. Be zealous, but in your soul, without at all expressing this in outward appeal, either by appearance, or by any word, or by a fortune-telling sign; Be like your brothers in everything to avoid arrogance.

48. Exaltation is born from false tenderness, and consolation is born from true tenderness.

49. He who is inwardly proud of his tears and condemns in his mind those who do not cry, is like one who asked the king for a weapon against his enemy and killed himself with it.

50. If anyone notices that he is easily overcome by arrogance and irascibility, deceit and hypocrisy, and wants to draw against these enemies the double-edged sword of meekness and gentleness, let him hasten to enter, as if into the whitewash of salvation, into the council of brethren, and, moreover, the most severe, when he wants to completely get rid of his vicious habits; so that there, shaken by the annoyances, humiliations and worries of the brethren, and struck by them

Mentally, and sometimes sensually, depressed, trampled and struck by his heels, he could cleanse the robe of his soul - from the filth that existed in it.

51. I saw that pride can be the cause of humility. For the fruit of arrogance is a fall into sin; For those who want to be saved, the fall into sin is often a reason for humility.

52. A proud soul is a slave to fear; trusting in herself, she is afraid of the faint sound of creatures and the very shadows.

53. People can correct the prodigal, Angels can correct the wicked, and God Himself heals the proud.

54. Visible pride is healed by sorrowful circumstances; and the invisible one - the formerly Invisible Age.

55. Keep a vigilant eye on pride; for among seductions there is nothing more destructive than this passion.

56. If the type of destruction, i.e. pride is when someone is elevated by small and insignificant deeds; then the saving sign of humility is to have a humble way of thinking even during great undertakings and corrections.

57. I once caught this crazy charmer in my heart, carried into it on the shoulders of her mother - vanity, tying both with bonds of obedience, and beating them with the scourge of humility, I forced them to tell me how they entered my soul? Finally, under blows, they said: “We have neither beginning nor birth, for we ourselves are the bosses and parents of all passions. One of our enemies is not a little hostile to us - contrition of the heart, born of obedience. But to be subordinate to someone - This we cannot tolerate; that is why we, who were leaders in heaven, retreated from there. To put it briefly: we are the parents of everything that is contrary to humility; and what promotes it, resists us. However, if we appeared in heaven in such power, then where will you run away from our presence? We very often follow the patience of reproaches, the correction of obedience and lack of anger, and forgetfulness of malice and

serving others. Our offspring are the downfalls of spiritual men: anger, slander, vexation, irritability, outcry, blasphemy, hypocrisy, hatred, envy, bickering, self-will, disobedience. There is one thing that we do not have the strength to resist - being strongly beaten by you, we will tell you this: - if you sincerely reproach yourself before the Lord, you will despise us like a spider’s web. You see, said pride, that the horse on which I ride is vanity; The venerable humility and self-reproach will laugh at the horse and its rider, and with sweetness they will sing this victorious song: Let us drink to the Lord, for gloriously we have been glorified: the horse and rider were thrown into the sea(Ex. 15, 1), i.e. into the abyss of humility."

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Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov This vice includes a whole complex of actions, thoughts and experiences, from contempt for one’s neighbor to heresy.

Perhaps, pride can be briefly described by paraphrasing the words of an ancient philosopher: “I am the measure of all things.” The danger of pride is not even that I consider myself the best. The fact is that I see events, other people, even God Himself only with my own eyes - and I believe that my vision is one hundred percent.

And my vision is at least no better than everyone else's. And, by the way, the worst thing I can see is myself. Your own head seems to be the center of the universe - but this is only my universe, limited and small...

The best advice for dealing with sin can be given by God Himself. as a “healing against pride,” he suggests more often re-reading “the passages of Scripture directed against it”:

“When you have done all that was commanded you, say: We are worthless servants, because we have done what we had to do” (Luke 17:10).

“Whoever thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, deceives himself” (Gal. 6:3).

“Whatever is high among men is an abomination to God” (Luke 16:15).

“Learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29).

“He remembered us in our humiliation, for His mercy endures forever; and delivered us from our enemies, for His mercy endures forever” (Ps. 135:23-24).

“The Lord is gracious and just, and our God is merciful” (Ps. 115:5).

“Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 16:5).

To the verses recommended by St. Ephraim the Syrian, one can add the well-known: “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6), “in the mouth of a fool is the scourge of pride; but the lips of the wise guard them” (Prov. 14:3), “everything that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is of this world” (1 John 2:16) and others quotes.

2. “It’s not me.”

Strictly speaking, we have nothing to be proud of. once again reminds us of the parable of the servant fulfilling his duties:

“As soon as possible, consign your merits and works to oblivion. Shame on you if a bee and an ant surpass you in this. The fruit of pride in one’s merits is anger, quarrels and enmity between people, and behind them is an inevitable feeling of uselessness and despair. Have you ever seen a bee and an ant in despair? Indeed, it is a shame if they fulfill the commandment of Christ better than people: When you have done everything commanded you, say: we are worthless servants, because we did what we had to do (Luke 17:10).”

Venerable John Cassian the Roman also recommends attributing the success of your work to God and explains:

“I do not say this so that, by disparaging human efforts, I would like to discourage anyone from caring and intense work. On the contrary, I resolutely affirm that perfection cannot in any way be achieved without them, and by them alone, without the grace of God, it cannot be brought to the proper degree by anyone. … The grace of God is communicated only to those who work by the sweat of their brow.”

3. Mathematical method of dealing with pride

“But I do a lot of good, right and kind things!” - the proud man will defend himself. And he will be wrong. “A lot” – how much? What if we compare it with the number of sins?

This is what he advises to do:

“When a reckless thought comes into your head - to count any of your good deeds, immediately correct yourself for this mistake and quickly count your sins, your continuous, countless insults to the all-good and righteous Master, and you will find that you have them like the sand of the sea, and Compared to them, there are no virtues.”

4. Humiliation or humility?

An even more common debate than the debate about the nature of pride is where is the line between humility and humiliation? Is it true that a Christian should only have a “feeling of his own unworthiness”?

No it is not true. And the line is very simple: a person is humiliated against his will, but he himself is humbled. Humility is an active state. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh says about him:

“When we seek humility, we can ask ourselves the question: how do we feel about the fact that the Lord sends us to this or that situation? With inner peace or with protest, with legibility? “I don’t want this, I want something else - why did you send me here? I want good, You should have sent me to an environment where everyone around me is kind and will inspire me, help me, carry me in their arms; Why are You sending me to an environment where everything is darkness, where everything is bad, where everything is disharmony?”

This is our usual reaction, and it is one of the indicators that our reaction is not humble. And when I say “humble,” I’m not talking about feeling or recognizing oneself as if defeated: “What will I do against the will of God - I will humble myself.” No, it is not defeat, but active humility, active reconciliation, active inner peace that makes us messengers, apostles, people who are sent into a dark, bitter, difficult world, and who know that there is their natural place or a blessed place.”

“It is most useful for people of a proud disposition to be obedient, to lead a life that is the most rude and despicable... Nothing humbles the soul more than being in poverty and subsisting on alms.”

It is clear that treating pride on your own with poverty or obedience - and living in a poor family or in humiliating slavery - are two different things. In the second case, humility can also be useful (or harmful, depending on how you look at it), but this has nothing to do with the eradication of pride.

5. Punishment for sin

Who can hardly be accused of exaltation and drunkenness, gives completely radical advice - to punish yourself for pride, including physically. Actually, initially this is advice against anger:

“Find a rope - a thick one - and go to your sister. Having bowed to her, say: good sister, do me a service, with this rope give me a good blow. You can prescribe a measure - five, ten blows, as long as it is sensitive. Do this after every angry outburst. This technique is also good against pride.”

After all, we do not live in a monastery in the 19th century, but in the world a century and a half later. If we invite our neighbor to flog us for displays of pride, at best this will cause him bewilderment. But it doesn’t hurt to punish yourself independently and without self-harm.

I fulfilled the boss’s instructions and turned my nose up - refuse the football match. She looked down at her sloppily dressed colleague: “It’s my impeccable taste!” - no dessert...

6. Don't be shy to cry

The Fathers of the Church often talk about the benefits of tears, and this causes misunderstanding among modern people. What is the use of sentimental sobs - even repentant ones?

Saints are not sentimental. They know how to harshly denounce sin, and their sermons are often menacing. Tears are not needed for touching experiences or for lamenting one’s hard life and injustice. Tears are an admission of one's imperfection.

He likened pride to a plant growing on parched ground. A contrite heart lifts up the damp (moistened with tears) layers of the earth so that the soul can bear new fruit. Crying compassion and repentance is the key to healing dry and callous pride.

“To create a heavenly pyramid, tears of furious anger and tears of regret for lost or not received earthly wealth are not needed,” explains the saint. – Gospel tears are those that flow from a contrite and repentant heart. Gospel tears are those tears that grieve for the lost Paradise. Gospel tears are those tears that mix with the tears of children and sufferers. Gospel tears are those tears that wash away the harm that we have caused to heavenly Love.”

7. The Only Healer

Let's go back to the beginning. Our vision is weak, we incorrectly evaluate ourselves and others, therefore, completely trusting ourselves is pride, a grave sin.

Our contemporary Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) compares the proud man to the man born blind from the Gospel - having received healing from the Savior, he was healed spiritually and believed in Him. On the contrary, people who did not want to accept the grace of Christ, the Pharisees, accused Him of performing miracles by demonic power. This is a manifestation of not simple, but satanic pride.

“He who is blind in soul through pride and stubbornness is the most unfortunate person, the prey of hell, the fiend of Satan, imbued with the pride and malice of his father the devil. This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, when a person, out of pride and stubbornness, does not want to believe the obvious truth, proven by obvious miracles. There is no forgiveness for such a person, neither in this nor in the next century,” emphasizes Father Kirill.

Indeed, the conscious rejection of Christ - God - is the result of pride, its actual goal. So the most reliable remedy in the fight against this illness is to look to the One who can heal it. “In everything we need to strive to imitate how the Lord acted, as the Gospel teaches us.”

Modern man is constantly being told that he must be the first, the best, that it is shameful to be a loser who has achieved nothing in life. Pride in life attracts people to walk over the corpses of their neighbors, push everyone aside with their elbows, and strive for a superior position. This passion is especially cultivated in the world today. It is she who, spurring on the achievement of pleasures, will lead to an increase in lawlessness, because of which love will become scarce among people living on earth.

Pride - pThe first sign is to measure another by your standards.

Why do we show dissatisfaction with others? Why are we annoyed with them, angry? There are several reasons for this. Firstly, we measure another person by our standards. When we are healthy, when our heart beats evenly, our blood pressure is normal, when both eyes see and both knees bend, we cannot understand another person who feels bad. We have an even character, but that person is choleric, or vice versa - he is calmer and more pragmatic than us.

The “I” that reigns in our heart forces us to look at other people through the prism of our own physical, mental and spiritual properties, and we unwittingly consider ourselves a stencil, a model for others. This starts a storm in my soul: I do it, but he doesn’t do it; I don’t get tired, but he complains that he is tired; I sleep five hours, but, you know, eight hours is not enough for him; I work tirelessly, and he shirks and goes to bed early. This is precisely what is characteristic of a proud person; it is the proud one who says: “Why do I do this and he doesn’t? Why do I comply with this, but he does not comply? Why can I do it, but he can’t?”

But the Lord created all people different. Each of us has our own life, our own path in life, our own life situations. A well-fed person does not understand a hungry person, a healthy person will never understand a sick person. A person who has not gone through troubles and temptations will not understand the grieving person. A happy father will not understand an orphan who has lost his child. A newlywed will not understand a divorced person. A person whose parents are alive will not understand someone who has just buried his mother. You can theorize, but there is the practice of life. We often do not have life experience, and when we begin to gain it, we remember those whom we condemned, with whom we were strict, and we begin to understand that at that moment we were like dummies. We didn't understand what this man was feeling. They tried to edify him, but he had no time for comments. His hands gave up from grief, his soul grieved, he did not need moral teachings and pompous words. All he needed at that moment was sympathy, compassion and consolation, but we did not understand this. And when the Lord takes us through the same thing, we begin to feel what the other person felt.

This is one of the signs of pride - we measure other people by our standards. When we do this, it shows that we are not generous. And all you need is to try not to judge the other person, not to get irritated, but to accept him as he is and try to let him into your heart. But it is difficult.

Pride is inthe second sign is “self-”

To combat pride, I can give you a wonderful prayer that helps you lower your own “I” to the bottom of your heart, drown it in sympathy for another. Here is this prayer: “Lord, teach me not to understand me, but so that I understand others.”
You complain: “My wife doesn’t understand me, my children don’t understand me, they don’t appreciate me at work, no one hears me.” Do you hear? Here it is, our “I”, “me”, “me” - here it comes out of the soul.
This prefix “self-” is the second sign of pride: self-indulgence, self-pity, self-love, self-will.

The action of pride in a person begins with this prefix. I am proud and value myself: “Others rarely go to church and pray weakly, not like me, a respectable Christian. I am full of self-pity, and therefore I do not get up to pray - I am tired. I don’t want to help my neighbor, because I myself am poor, unhappy, I feel so sorry for myself. Everything hurts, I recently got sick, why should I go to church? I need to lie down and recover, even if others, fools, trudge through the cold to the temple and bow there, since they do not understand what serious illnesses they will subsequently suffer, and do not feel sorry for themselves.” Here it is, the second hypostasis of human pride.

Pride - the third sign - self-will

In addition to “self-” there is also “own-”: self-will, self-indulgence. A proud person manifests himself by not obeying his superiors, not fulfilling the blessing of his spiritual father, and by being arbitrary and self-willed. This is especially true for new Christians. “I will do as I see fit, the way I want. As I see, and not as I am taught, not as the instructions at work prescribe, not as the boss says. Maybe he is a fool and doesn’t understand anything. And I'm smart, I understand. I’ve been working here for a long time, and he was sent from another city...”

The proud one does not want to learn from the Church, from the confessor, from elders, from experienced and experienced people: “I will break through the wall with my head and reinvent the wheel, but I will not go to someone who has been married for twenty years, who has been working for this production, who has been singing in the choir for a long time. I will do it myself, according to my own mind, according to books!” This is the sign of a proud person. He does not consult, he does not ask for help, he does not try to understand what, why and where is happening.

Our self-will is the source of our troubles

When I receive people in church who come with their troubles and sorrows, I ask everyone: “What is your question?” And they often answer me: “I want... I want this... I want this... I think like this... Why does everyone do this if I want something else?..”.

“I want” sounds from the lips of many who come to the temple with their broken lives; it can be heard at every step. This is precisely the problem, the reason that led to sad consequences. A person does not ask the question: “Lord, what do you want from me? Where should I direct my path? How can I build my life according to Your will? Instead, he says, “I want to have a good job. I want to have a good family. I want to have obedient children. I want to find a direction in life that is profitable for me. I want…"

I say in response to this “I want”: “Until you break yourself, until you drive out the evil “yashka” from your soul, who puts your own “I” above all else, there will be no place for God in your soul, your life will not get better, you won't succeed. You will not see any light in the darkness in which you remain with your sorrows and worries, because your problems in life are generated by your own “yashka”, your self-will, pride, your not seeking the will of God, but doing your own will.”

A consumer attitude towards God, the Church and people is the fourth sign of pride
People come to church and ask indignantly: “Why don’t they like me here?” You often hear this from beginners. They are still infected with all the passions, they do not yet understand anything about church life, they have just crossed the church threshold. The first question they ask is: “We visited the Protestants and saw love there. But here, in the Orthodox Church, they don’t like us. Why is that?" They demand: “Give us love, give us joy, give us that lightness and liveliness like the Protestants!” Everything is very simple there: “Raise your hands!” Picked it up - and that’s it, you’re saved. Here's some lentil soup, here's two kilograms of pasta. Hallelujah! You are saved, go, see you tomorrow, brother, see you tomorrow, sister, the Kingdom of Heaven awaits you, God loves you!

But with us everything is completely different. You need to pray in an Orthodox church. Fasting, standing for long services, concentrating on prayer, forcing and limiting oneself, there are no wide smiles, slapping on the shoulders and deliberate hugs. With us everything is strict, decorous and restrained. And people demand: “Where is the love? I came to church for love, but where is it here? She's not here! Give me love!

This is another sign of pride - a consumer attitude towards God, the church and the people around us. "Let me! Why don't you give it to me? Where is Love?" - when we hear these words, it means that a person is infected with pride and has not yet been reborn.
And the ancient prayer says: “Lord, teach me not to love me, but to love others. Not to be consoled, but I consoled. Not so that they would understand me, but I learned to understand others.” Do you see the difference? Don’t give it to “me”, but so that I can learn to give! To the extent that a person succeeds in this, to the extent that he confirms his steps on this path, we can speak of his spiritual rebirth.But we “yak” all the time, and everyone: “Give it to me, give it to me!” Here I am, here I am!”

Resentment is the fifth sign of pride

Resentment refers simultaneously to irritable-wrathful passion and to the passion of pride itself. What is resentment? This is sadness and bitterness because it hurts my heart.
Resentment can be causal or causeless. Causeless resentment refers to the passion of despondency. Causal resentment is when another person hurts me, and the question arises: “Why are they doing this to me? Why are they doing this to me?” As soon as this “why” addressed to God and the “why” addressed to people emerge from the soul, it is immediately clear that the person is infected with pride.

What will a spiritual person say if he is offended? “Lord, I accept you for my sins. Remember me, Lord, in Your kingdom. Thank You, Lord, for not scolding me and not offending me even more. Perhaps, Lord, I once offended someone and this offense came back to me. Or maybe the nest of anger and resentment is not empty in me, which means that I can potentially offend someone, and You inoculate me, you let people hurt me so that I myself don’t hurt another person.” For such a Christian, the word “why” does not arise; he understands: since it hurt, it means it’s necessary. St. Isaac the Syrian tells us: “If you, a Christian, have not learned to overcome insults, have not learned to see the healing hand of the Lord behind every insult, then you have not understood that the Lord heals your soul.” And if you do not accept the healing hand of the Lord, you are offended and do not overcome your grievances, then the path of spiritual growth is closed for you. You do not grow as a Christian, you remain the same sinner you were, with a stricken, purulent, unhealed soul. Because behind any offense is the hand of the Lord, which heals the ulcers of our soul and shows where we were wrong.In the grievances caused to us, we can comprehend the Providence of God and draw appropriate conclusions.

The sixth sign of pride is truth-seeking

Here, at the lectern, during confession I often hear complaints and insults. The question always arises: why? Why did they treat me this way? Don't I go to church? Didn’t I feed my children, didn’t I water them, didn’t I raise them alone, without my husband? Why do they treat me like this, insult me? I worked in production for twenty years. Why am I being kicked out, fired, while those who have connections and acquaintances remain with their job and salary? Why are they treating me so unfairly? Here it is, a manifestation of pride - truth-seeking. This is another sign of a proud person.

Such people think that they are doing a good deed and are looking for the truth. But they are looking for the wrong truth. They want earthly, human truth, but do not seek God’s truth. But there is no truth on earth, my dears! How long can I repeat this to you? The truth is only with God. “I have counsel and truth; I am the understanding, I have the power” (Prov. 8:14), says the Lord. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. But as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Is. 55: 8-9).The Lord tells us that this world lies in evil, that this world is a kingdom of lies and evil. So is it really not clear who rules this world?

God creates His truth, by acting according to which Christians can be saved. And by engaging in false truth-seeking - I emphasize: false truth-seeking - and the search for false human justice, they become Pharisees, Sadducees. They go to church, pray, outwardly fulfill God’s commandments, but their inner man is so deeply affected, so removed from God and so unChristian, that it becomes scary. The replacement of a Christian by a callous man of earthly truth and justice is a terrible phenomenon for the Church; it is an ulcer, a rust that eats away at it.
What would a believer say? “Lord, let Your holy will be done for everything. Thank You for everything. For I firmly believe that everything in this life works for good to those who love You and believe in You, and trust You, and put their trust in You. You say that you care about my life, and I entrust my whole life and soul into Your hands.” This is the mood of a believer. So he goes to God and overcomes the proud movements of the soul.

The seventh sign of pride is self-justification

What is self-justification? This is one of the types of manifestation of pride: a person wants to defend his own rightness; or wants to be thought better than he is; or at least thought exactly what he really was. When a person is offended or told something he doesn’t like, his pride is hurt. And at this very moment self-justification quietly comes into force. It affects everyone, from children to people of the highest rank.

Let's take a closer look at the essence of self-justification. Here a husband turns to his wife and makes a fair remark to her that her children are not fed or her apartment is not cleaned. What does he hear in response? “Look at yourself! What are you like, do you bring home a lot of money? And anyway, where do you put your shoes when you come home, and what do you turn your socks or pants into?” This is where the husband's denunciation ends. And then he will say something, and again he will receive a similar response from his wife. Or the mother tries to persuade the child: “Why did you behave so badly at school, offend the children, quarrel with them? And look at your diary, it’s full of comments.” - “No, I behaved no worse than usual, and yesterday you yourself swore and quarreled. Why should I listen to you? A boss says to a subordinate: “Why did you do such and such in bad faith?” - “And you yourself forgot to tell me about this yesterday.” What arises in the boss’s soul? Anger or hostility towards a subordinate. He tries to prove something to him, but instead receives a thousand words in response.

Wherever we look, self-justification brings great evil. One person tries to either blame or reason with another, but what does he hear in response? A thousand words, and all in defiance of the speaker: “Why are you bothering me? Look at yourself, what you are.” What does this generate? Hatred, anger, hostility. Self-justification is a bridge that leads further to the development of anger, and even further - to quarrels, battles and hatred between people. Self-justification feeds on pride and leads to hell.

The eighth sign of pride is murmuring

Let us now talk about what turns the face of God away from man, erects an insurmountable barrier between God and man, causes the anger and irritation of God - about grumbling. Murmuring is a form of blasphemy against God, ingratitude to Him for all His great benefits. This is spiritual and mental blindness, aversion from the Providence of God, a descent from the divine path, the road to the underworld. This is the grief that darkens the soul; it is impenetrable darkness that makes a person’s path deadly for both the temporary life and the future life.
Murmuring is a manifestation of human pride, the proud resistance of a creature to its Creator. All the days of our lives we should remember that no matter how much we want otherwise, no matter how hard we try, we will always remain creatures of God. The Holy Scripture says: “Woe to him who disputes with his Creator, O shard of earth’s shards! Will the clay say to the potter, “What are you doing?” and your work [shall say of you], ‘He has no hands?’” (Isa. 45:9). The pot did not sculpt itself, but was sculpted by a master. And it is not the pot, but the potter who determines which vessel has great, which small, and which has insignificant use. He himself breaks his creation and restores it again. What can we oppose to our Creator? Nothing. He determined for each his own path in life and his own cross in life. He gave each one a special blessing that we must carry throughout our lives, and perhaps be saved, or perhaps perish.

From the Holy Scriptures we see what terrible consequences grumbling has always led to. Through the lips of prophets and righteous people - from the Old Testament and our time - the Lord exposes our wrongfulness and our ingratitude to Him. For what? Then, so that we do not anger Him, so that we turn to Him and become truly holy Israel, the holy people of God. But this often doesn't happen. Because everything is not enough for us; or we perceive everything that is sent as evil; or we want something else, we think in our own way, forgetting that the Creator exists above us.

You should remember, my dears, that for every murmuring word, for every ingratitude to the Lord, for every blasphemy against Him you will give an answer. And it will be with you as it was with the people of Israel. Today the Lord blesses you and puts into your hands the opportunity to live differently and inherit life, but tomorrow He will take it away for your grumbling. And then all the days of your life you will find neither peace nor joy, only sorrows and illnesses will haunt you. Today you were close to finding peace of mind, peace in your family and with those around you, but tomorrow, for murmuring, the Lord will harden those around you, and you will begin to experience terrible disasters. And perhaps, as was the case with the people of Israel, only children, seeing your sorrowful example, will understand how afraid they should be of murmuring against their Creator.

How to deal with pride

To fight pride, you need to tackle all the passions it generates at once.
Why is it so important to simultaneously fight both the diseases of dominant passion and the disease of pride? I'll give you a simple everyday example. Which of you has been involved in gardening knows: when a beet or turnip grows and you want to make borscht, then you pull it by the young tops, and they break off, remain in your hand, and the turnip or beets are in the ground. To pull it out, wise gardeners take hold of all the leaves of the tops at once, closer to the root, and pull - only then does the root crop sitting in the ground fully stretch out. So, in order to draw out the passion of pride, one must immediately take on all the passions it manifests: irritation, pride, despondency, fighting them and at the same time asking the Lord to give him humility and meekness. That's when pride is uprooted.

The fight against pride begins with small, external

A proud person is also recognizable outwardly - he loves to laugh, talks a lot, fusses and shows himself, all the time trying to reveal himself. Therefore, throughout the year, I bless you to work on this internal problem: look for the last place, do not show yourself off, do not stick out, do not justify yourself, do not boast, do not get ahead, do not exalt yourself.

This is the fight with pride. You need to start small. If a person wants to start fighting his pride, then he must find the worst place for himself and sit there; when everyone is talking, be silent; when everyone is bragging, keep your mouth shut and speak only when asked.
To overcome pride, you need to learn obedience to the Church and obedience to your confessor, cutting off your will.

I tried to convey to you how terrible pride is, how our own “ego” uses us, how we want to live for our own benefit. But in order to become a disciple of Christ and acquire the mind, heart and soul of Christ, you need to forget yourself and see your neighbor. How difficult it is! All the strings of the soul protest. Why should I think about someone, console someone, help someone? I don't have to. I have my own life, my own problems. Why do I need someone else, why do I need all these strangers?

But these people are not strangers. These are the ones whom the Lord has placed around you today. So that you can save your soul, remake yourself, remove your “I” so far that it does not stick out, and another person comes first for you. Without this it is impossible to become a disciple of Christ, for the Lord says: “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23 ). “He who saves his life will lose it; but he who loses his life for My sake will save it” (Matthew 10:39; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24). These are the words we hear in the Gospel. What do they mean? That a person is called upon, for the sake of love for God and neighbor, to lack sleep, to be malnourished, to waste time, nerves, and strength. But modern man does not want to do this, because he sees only himself and stews in his own juice.

Do you want to be disciples of Christ? Deny yourself and learn to see God in the neighbor who is near you. Turn over everything that lives in your soul and put it in proper order, as the Lord blesses it. And the passion of pride will begin to heal in your souls.

Repentance is pharisaical and false

It seems that you go to church, and you have reason to think that everything is in order, that you have finally begun to live like a Christian. But with such an attitude, the heart begins to become covered with a film of spiritual fat, becomes impenetrable, lazy, and soft. But this is not pleasing to the Lord, and the Lord will disturb your soul all the time. We seem to calm down - and we don’t fully see our sins. Constantly looking for sins in yourself and bringing them to confession is the path to delusion. It’s a different matter when the Lord, by His grace, opens our eyes to our sinfulness. I want you to understand the difference between what the Lord says in relation to the Pharisees: “blind guides, straining out a mosquito and swallowing a camel” (Matthew 23:24), and the situation when we pray to God, repent to Him, try to cleanse our soul - and our eyes open to all the torment of our inner man, we see how imperfect and weak we are; and this prompts us to deep repentance and leads us to confession. When a person seeks out sins in himself, this often happens according to Pharisaism; It’s awkward for him to go to confession and not say anything to the priest. He thinks: “What should I say about myself? It seems like he’s not exactly a saint, but I can’t find any sins.” But it’s another thing when a person’s heart is bursting with understanding of what is happening in him. These are two qualitatively different states. The first is Pharisaic hypocrisy; in the second we remain unfalsely.

Let us remember the parable of the publican and the Pharisee. The Pharisee stood humbly in the temple, but at the same time said: “God! I thank You that I am not like other people, robbers, offenders, adulterers, or like this publican” (Luke 18:11). This is the path of elevating oneself through the humiliation of others. The publican repeated: “God! Be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13). This is the path of self-abasement.

We ask you to open the doors of our heart of stone

The second path leads to opening the doors of the heart, and the first slams them. The difference between these two paths is often visible in confession. Some begin to repent and at the same time look for those to blame for their sins; whoever provokes them: the husband, the front door neighbors, the wardrobe maids, the authorities, the President, the head of the district, the priest - all together. When everyone around is pushing you to commit a sin, the person himself seems to have nothing to do with it: yes, he sinned - but he could not help but sin because he was hurt. He thinks: “How could I not sin here? I’ll share the guilt with everyone, and they are sinners, and I am a sinner.” This is a direct path to delusion - the path of covering up one’s sins, running away from them, unwillingness to see one’s weakness and honestly say: “Lord, I’m lazy, I’m selfish, I love myself, I’m hard-hearted. It’s not anyone’s fault that I don’t get up for prayer, that I want to break my fast or do something else, it’s not others who are to blame, I myself am to blame for this.”

During Great Lent, you and I stand on our knees at the all-night vigil and hear: “Open the doors of repentance to us.” Where do these doors lead, where are they? We are talking about the doors of your own heart. We ask God to give us the opportunity to enter into the depths of our hearts and truly know ourselves. We ask: “Open the doors of repentance, O Life-Giver Christ,” so that the key to our heart of stone may finally be found, so that we can see what is inside, feel it, repent, and be cleansed. These are the doors we are talking about and what we ask the Lord for.

Forgive me, bless me, pray for me

The Holy Fathers left us many great pieces of advice, and one of them concerns how to stop irritation, which, perhaps rightly, or perhaps unjustly, flares up in relation to another person. According to patristic advice, in such a situation a person should remember three words worthy of a Christian. These three words: “Forgive, bless and pray for me.” They spiritually influence the one who proves something to you.

Of course, you most likely won’t say these words at work. Most of our work is secular, and many of our employees are non-believers. If you say in front of them what the holy fathers advise, they will simply consider you crazy. But in a believing family, or in church obedience, or in relation to an Orthodox Christian - a friend or sister - these three words are enough to stop the mouth of any anger, to immediately, in the beginning, extinguish all hostility and all irritation.

Think about these three simple words. “Forgive, bless and pray for me.” “Sorry” means a person asks for forgiveness. This is the first indicator of humility. He doesn’t declare: I’m right or I’m wrong, he doesn’t talk a lot about himself, he doesn’t start reasoning and he doesn’t promise - now we’ll figure out which of us is right. He says: "I'm sorry." The subtext of this “sorry” is that I don’t know whether I’m right or wrong, but I’m still sorry if I upset you as a fellow man. Then the person says: “Bless.” This means that he calls on the grace of God for help. The one who will really manage, who will pacify a brother or sister, who will pacify the situation, who will extinguish all the machinations of the devil in order for man to quarrel with man. And when he adds: “Pray for me,” this is the third sign of humility. A person asks for prayers for himself, so that the grace of God will help him to actually do works of righteousness.

In this way, a person truly grows rich in God, and not in himself. He does not feed his granary of pride, does not fill the granary of his vanity with the obscene grain of pride, but grows rich in God, exhausts himself, bows before his neighbor, humbles himself before his neighbor, asks for his holy prayers and calls on the grace of God for help.

Suggest to your neighbor no more than twice

How, however, should a person who is trying to reason with another convey the truth to him? It would be good if he came across a believer who truly humbled himself and acted on the advice. A person who behaves this way brings peace into communication between people, between Christians. But if this is not the case, if in response to admonition there are thousands of excuses?

You and I, Orthodox Christians, are like spiritual lumberjacks. We have such a spiritual saw, and we saw with it our neighbor until the juice flows out of him. This is typical for our environment. How can we stop in time so that our neighbor does not squeal, cry or groan because of our good admonitions, and at the same time our pride does not develop? There is also corresponding patristic advice for this. It says the following: inspire your neighbor no more than twice. The Holy Fathers verified this. If a person repeats something more than twice, then hostility will appear in his soul, then irritation, then anger.

How to be? What to do in this situation - your neighbor does not listen? It is necessary to convey to a person’s consciousness a very important life circumstance - to explain something to a child, a family member, a co-worker - but it doesn’t work. The Holy Fathers say: say it twice and stop. Otherwise, irritation will come into your soul, anger will come into your soul, and you will no longer admonish your neighbor in a Christian way, but with passion, with hostility. And instead of admonition, a quarrel may result.

Who benefits from a quarrel? To the murderous devil. God doesn't need a quarrel. Better a bad peace than a good quarrel. A family that survives is better than a family that is broken. Friends who maintain relationships are better than friends who look askance at each other. A community of people where there is peace, albeit a bad peace, a weak one, but peace, is better than enmity, quarrel and hostility towards each other. This needs to be understood. And take care of what the Lord gives us.

Therefore, here are two pieces of patristic advice for you, very instructive for both sides - for the admonisher and for the admonished. Let's repeat them again.

First tip: do not admonish more than twice, do not try to force the will of another with your will. Say it twice, and then leave everything to the will of God. Wait for the Lord to enlighten a person, when He opens his heart and soul so that your words fall on good soil. If you continue to rape a person, you will get anger, irritation, a quarrel, and, moreover, you will cultivate pride in your own soul.

And the second advice– for those who are admonished: under no circumstances try to justify yourself. Who needs your excuses? Nobody needs them. With them you will only push your neighbor away from you, you will cause despondency in him, quarrel with him, move away from him, and you will lose a friend. Therefore, there is no need, no need to make excuses. Whether you are right or wrong is of no concern to anyone. God sees everything. God sees your heart, your soul. Say three simple words of humility: “Forgive, bless and pray for me.”

Act according to God's truth, not man's

Human justice is very much related to human flesh. She forgets about mercy towards others and is in no way connected with the Gospel of God. This justice is a law that a person writes himself for his own convenience, or for the convenience of his life, or for the convenience of self-justification, or for his other conveniences.

Elder Paisios gives a simple example. You have ten plums, and you decided to divide them between you and your brother. You say that there are two of you, and you divide them into five, exactly equally. This is human justice. There is nothing shameful in it, this is an ordinary act of an ordinary person. Everyone remained to their own, neither you nor your brother were offended. What will be the injustice? If you gave less to your neighbor and took more for yourself. And somehow he justified himself: “I’m older and more experienced,” or “this morning I said three prayers, and you two, and I was entitled to six plums, and you four - you were too lazy.” But in fact, gluttony was secretly thriving in the heart. I just wanted to eat six plums, even if I deprived my neighbor. Such is human injustice. But there is also the justice of God, when a person saw that his neighbor was hungry, that he was in need, that he wanted plums - and for the sake of his neighbor he gave in. He says: “Friend, eat eight plums, I don’t like them, and in general they make my stomach swell; I don’t need these plums, I’ve eaten enough, eat these eight for Christ’s sake.” This is divine justice.

Do you see how the three justices differ from each other? So it is in the life of God: God’s justice is always associated with some kind of limitation, self-abasement and sacrifice for the sake of one’s neighbor, when a person sacrifices either time, or something dear to him, or what is sent to him.

We see this in the Gospel parable. The father has two sons. And the father first acts according to human justice. How does he divide his estate between his eldest son and his youngest? In half. The youngest son wanted half an estate - please get half an estate. The father does not ask his son: “What will you do with him, what will you turn him into?”, and in human justice he gives him half his estate. We do not know the true motives of the youngest son - whether it was greed or foresight - but we see a truly human act: he took away half of his father’s estate for his own benefit.

We saw something similar in the pages of the Old Testament, when Lot and Abraham almost quarreled with each other over pastures for their animals. And what did the holy righteous Abraham do? “We, relatives, will not quarrel over who got the best and who got the worst,” and the elder gives way to the younger. He invites Lot to choose pastures that he likes. And what does Lot choose? Sodom and Gomorrah. We know what the green pastures of Sodom and Gomorrah turned out to be for him. He barely made it out of there, lost his wife there, all his belongings, all the animals and slaves. Abraham acts in righteousness, in love, but Lot acts in a human way. In one lives the desire for human justice, and in the other – for God’s justice. And Lot then disentangles this human justice and remains poor, in rags, mocked and ridiculed. And Abraham flourished and continues to flourish.

We see the same thing on the pages of the Gospel narrative. The younger son, having coveted what did not belong to him, and having acted un-Godly, having taken away half the estate from his father and older brother, went to another country. He lived prodigally, squandered everything he had, and as a result, his lot turned out to be to eat with his owner’s pigs. And then his conscience woke up in him, he turns to God, he goes back to his father. The father sees the resurrected son, the converted son, returned to the bosom of the Father, and acts according to the truth of God, he accepts the son and does not spare anything for him. With a generous hand he slaughters a well-fed calf, with a generous hand he prepares all kinds of dishes, gathers guests for a feast and rejoices with his son at his return.

What does the eldest son, who has remained with his father all these years, do? According to human truth. With bitterness, he tells his father the same thing that we often reproach relatives and friends - that they treat us differently than others. “Why do you treat me differently than you treat my older sister, my brother? Why did you give your brother the opportunity to live with his family in a separate apartment, while I have to hang around and experience all sorts of difficulties?” Such reproaches towards parents and other loved ones also arise in Christian circles. We ask “why?”, we torment the souls of our loved ones. But the answer is simple: because such is the truth of God. You think like a human being, but your parents, relatives and friends, often admonished by God, think like God. They see who needs it more at this moment, who suffers more. You don't have a family, but your older brother does. You have one person in your family, and your sister has three. You complain, you want and seek justice, and you will receive it. But then you will bitterly repent, as Lot repented. You will then shed bitter tears for your earthly human justice. Having finally found her, you won’t get anything good from her.

But when you give place to the grace of God, humble yourself and act in God’s way, give eight plums to your neighbor, then the grace of God will completely cover you, fill in everything that you lack, and the Lord Himself will help you on all your paths.

If we seek fairhuman righteousness, and not the truth and justice of God; if we do not humble ourselves before God and our neighbor; Let us not act as the holy fathers advise us - to oppress ourselves for the sake of Christ, to limit ourselves for the sake of our neighbor, to do what is best for our neighbor and not for us - then there will be no Christianity, no spiritual growth in us.

Of course, it is very difficult for a person to live according to the truth of God. You need to break yourself to the roots every time. We love ourselves very much, we warm ourselves very much. It is not for nothing that the Lord, knowing this human essence, said: “As you want them to do to you, do so to others.” Our own shirt is closer to the body, and it is difficult for us to tear off a piece of it and bandage the wounds of our neighbor with it. To accomplish this, you need to overcome yourself with God’s help and prayer. It is very difficult and very painful, but necessary. If this does not happen, then there will be no finding of the prodigal son, there will be no change of soul. We will be honest, good, decent, respected, diligent, correct people, but people of this age - and not sons and daughters of God.

The Lord Himself delivers us from pride. Boomerang Law

We all wonder why misfortune befalls us and our children. When we analyze our life, it becomes obvious that not everything is smooth and even. If it arrives somewhere, then it will definitely leave somewhere else; if something happens “with a plus,” then something “minus” will definitely give something. It seems that everything is fine in the family, there is prosperity, but there is no happiness: the husband does not love his wife, or the family sees their father very rarely, or the wife is not in good health, and the family suffers, visiting their mother in hospitals. And others, on the contrary, are healthy, but have no money - so they are constantly thinking about what to buy to eat and what to wear. And so it is with everyone: it doesn’t happen that everything is there at once - one thing is there, but the other is not.

Why does this happen, what is God’s Providence here, what is the meaning of our, sometimes temporary, misadventures? The boomerang law applies here. We allow some kind of weakness, indulge ourselves, our passions, follow the love of money, allow some adventurous notes to sound in our souls - and “suddenly”, after a year or a year and a half, the boomerang we launched returns to us, the fact that we created, begins to haunt us. What is the meaning of this boomerang? I would say that the Lord gives us spiritual vaccinations. For what? If a person is not vaccinated against pride, then it can destroy him. If a person is not vaccinated today against the temptation that may arise for him tomorrow, this temptation will completely cover him and the person will perish.

What does it mean to act humbly?

A true Christian will not make trouble or make noise. What will he do? In God’s way, that is, he will humble himself, cross himself: “Lord, Thy will be done.” And he will repeat the words of the Lord: “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; however, not as I want, but as You want” (Matthew 26:39). Here it is, Christian submission to the will of God, here it is, humility before God, humility before God’s providence and one’s fate in the eyes of God.

And when a person humbles himself in this way and surrenders everything to God, seeks everything from God, prays: “In the Lord who weighs destinies, direct my path,” then it is really not he himself, not his human pride, not his understanding that begins to help him in this life , but the Lord Himself.

Too often we do not act as the Lord commanded us. We fume, swear, insist on our rights. For example, parents come home and say: “You are not our daughter (or you are not our son), get out of here, from this square, from this apartment, it’s cramped for us to live with you!” So, get married or get married - and away from your father’s house. Or something else: “You have a good job, we are not obligated to help you and your children, don’t contact us, and don’t let us hear your calls anymore.” And so say relatives, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles! Is there anything surprising here? No. For it is said in the Holy Scripture: “Every man is a lie” (Ps. 116:2).

We must trust in the Lord, and in Him alone see joy, consolation and support for our long-suffering life. We must ask Him to help us at every time and at every hour, not to rely “on princes, on the sons of men, in them there is salvation” (Ps. 146:3).

It is important, dear brothers and sisters, that we subordinate our will to the will of God. Very often, in the crucible of life's trials, our pride and vanity are highlighted. We see this situation that is developing, we see the offensive injustice, and then our own “I” comes forward: “I think so! I want it to be like this!” But we do not say preemptive words: “Let God’s will be done for everything; not as I want, but as the Lord wants it.” And it is necessary to say them, because with His unexplored and inscrutable paths He leads us through life, leads us through injustices and insults, and then it turns out that this was for our great benefit, that it was for us to save our souls, and that there is no other way could have turned out, but only the way the Lord arranged it. To drink without complaint the cup that the Lord drank and that He gives us is great Christian humility, a Christian feat that we need to learn.

Murmur blocks God's mercy

Murmuring pushes the Kingdom of God away from us, brings upon us the wrath of God and His rebuke. Let's look at the pages of Holy Scripture, at the pages of history, at today. What happens to those who go against God and do not accept what He sends? Where are they? They are no more, and their ashes were scattered by the wind, and their very race was uprooted.

Let us remember the suffering of the people of Israel. The Lord sent many plagues before the people of Israel could leave Egypt. During the first procession through the desert, it was extremely difficult for the people, and people grumbled, remembering the old time when they had plenty of meat and lived calmly, although they were slaves. And when the Lord had already led them to the promised land, when it was visible - just a stone's throw away - another murmur blocked God's mercy, and the people were forced to wander in the desert for another forty years. The Lord, angry, did not allow almost anyone to enter the promised land. The entire generation of those who grumbled died out. They were buried in the desert. Only their children inherited the opportunity to enter there, into the land where, as the Lord said, milk and honey flow. Only children who grew up in obedience and loyalty to their Creator and Creator inherited the promise of the Lord.

Human life is a procession through the desert. The tabernacle that the Israelites carried with them is a type of the altar of the Lord; the ministers who bear this tabernacle are the priests; and you, naturally, are Israel, which must go through a difficult path of testing.

The Lord did not spare His chosen people and, because of their grumbling, sent them to wander in the desert for another forty years. So the Lord can delay for each of you to see the Kingdom of Heaven, to find peace of mind, peace in the soul, the Kingdom of God within yourself - to delay for thirty years, forty, for seventy - for how long. Remember that every murmuring word, every blasphemy of the day of our life, of what happens to us, angers the Creator and leads to Him changing the line of our life. He makes it so that we come to our senses, come to our senses and come to the right conclusions.

Slaves of sin, we came out of the land of Egypt. Will we be healed?

You need to firmly understand that, perhaps, many of you standing here in the temple will not see the Kingdom of God and will not find what you are now looking for: healing from illnesses, easing your sorrows, all this can continue until death. There is no need to despair - God was so favorable. Perhaps your children or grandchildren will inherit what you are striving for now. Why? Because you and I came “out of Egypt,” we were slaves—slaves of sin—and with this we came to the Church. And many of us, as we were, remain, in our inner essence, slaves. And they serve the Lord not as sons or daughters, but out of fear of punishment, of future torment in Gehenna.

Is this good or bad? On the one hand, it's good. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. There will be no restraining fear and we will all perish. On the other hand, this is bad. For God needs love not from under the stick, not the obedience of a slave. He needs the love of his son or daughter. And in order to reach the state of a son or daughter, obedient to the Father in everything and always, all the days of his life, one has to go through a considerable life path.

Therefore, there is no need to be mistaken and there is no need to grumble. The children will inherit - thank God, the grandchildren will inherit - thank God. The Lord is trying to lead us out of our spiritual slavery and give us a different life. To give the opportunity to fulfill God’s commandments not in a ritual sense; feel the breath of the Holy Spirit in the temple; with a free heart, pray to Him as the Living God, serve Him and see Him, the Living One, always, in every place: here, in church, and at home, and at work, and feel Him in your heart.

In order to be faithful to the Living God, to serve the Holy Trinity, to worship God in spirit and truth and to truly be a daughter or son of God, we must thank God for everything that He sends to us all the days of our lives. To glorify His name, no matter how hard it may be, to endure everything that is sent. Did the Lord deprive the Israelites of water as they walked through the desert? Cheated. Have you been deprived of food? Cheated. Wasn't it hot and difficult for them to walk? Was. So it is in our lives. Yes, it’s hard, it hurts – but there is no other way. Who said that with easy efforts you can enter the Kingdom of Heaven? On the contrary, the Lord says: “The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by need, and neediness takes it away.” Those in need - that is, those who are forced, endure, and in great patience, in great humility and submission to God go where God's blessing extends them.

Therefore, let us submit to what is, and accept with joy and gratitude the blessing of God that descends on us. Even the unpleasant, sick, suffering, it is a blessing of God, given specifically to us, and there is no other way for a person to find peace and tranquility, and for the Holy Spirit to change his heart and soul for the better.

Vaccination against pride

When we begin to shift our sins onto someone else, the Lord sends us misadventures—spiritual inoculations. Just when we think we have everything in order, the Lord vaccinates us. Suddenly we quarreled with someone, quarreled. Or suddenly something we did turns out to be shameful, evil, and we cannot understand how we could have done such a thing. We only raised our heads, but the Lord immediately lowered them down to the ground: “You thought that you had completed your salvation here. Behold, I am showing you what you are. Don’t lift your head high, lower it down, and just go. Walk humbly, don’t look around you, don’t look around, don’t look at the sins of others.”

We very often need this vaccination against pride. I have seen many prosperous families in which parents and children gradually fell into a state of neglect of God and the Church. “What do you ask God for? We have everything. The children are healthy, they themselves are healthy, there is well-being and prosperity in the family. There is enough money for the children to study; the younger ones go to high school, the older ones receive higher education. What more do we need? Why should we go to church? - they reason. These people, who are in a state of consumerism towards the Church, have not yet entered the ranks of those serving God; they can fall off at any moment. The Lord sees this, the Lord is merciful, the Lord is pained by these people and inoculates them against pride, sends a shock or a misfortune.

He shakes us up - and there is so much money that it’s barely enough to pay the rent, but we also need to feed ourselves and our children. And we understand that we cannot do without the help of the Lord. And we go and ask the Lord for help: “Lord, help us, we can’t do anything.” Some new law has been issued - and we understand that tomorrow we may be evicted from our apartment, and it is unknown where we will be - in a communal apartment, with a roof, without a roof, on the street, and whether we will even have a piece of bread. That’s when we go to the Lord: “Lord, help me, without You I cannot do anything.”

The Lord gives us such vaccinations so that you and I have resistance against the proud state, which to one degree or another is inherent in every person. The Lord hides from us the extent of our infection with pride. It's different for everyone. Some have severe severity. And some have very mild symptoms. Maybe it doesn’t manifest itself at all, nestling somewhere deep in the heart. But the Lord sees that even this little pride can destroy us forever, forever close the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven for us. And the Lord vaccinates us - gives us misadventures.

We hit our foreheads and bowed our heads: “Lord, how did I not notice this, how could I do this, what did I think of myself, what did I think?” For such thoughts to be born, you need to hit your forehead against a wall or have it slammed on your head from above. And before that they don’t exist.

My dears, we have a lot of events in our lives. Sometimes we skid, we lose our sense of proportion, our brakes don’t work. In other cases, a person is carried away, and he cannot stop - he wants to, but cannot. Then the Lord stops him. Especially if he is a believer. The Lord is not pleased with this state of man; he sees that he can continue to grow in evil. And today He sends him a little admonition, so that tomorrow, in a year, having found himself in exactly the same situation, a person will not do greater evil, will not break wood, will not commit such sins because of which he would be ashamed to even come to confession, threshold church cross. The Lord is giving you a little vaccination today so that tomorrow a big, huge, serious misfortune does not happen to you, so that you understand God’s providence, understand that the Lord has mercy on us, that He loves us and that all the evil that happens to us is actually great good for us. The Lord stops us like foolish children. It gives us the opportunity to reflect on whether we are doing the right thing.

If the Lord had not done this to us, I assure you, we would all have perished. For no one is safe from satanic pride, which is inherent in the people of this age. Therefore, my dears, please accept with gratitude everything that the Lord sends to you, try to learn lessons from the Lord’s inoculations. Draw the right conclusions from everything that happens. Then you will be delivered from many troubles and misadventures and with a grateful heart you will pass unharmed through all the devil’s snares. Amen.

Fighting the passion of pride based on patristic teaching

What is pride

“The eighth and final battle comes before us with a spirit of pride. This passion, although in the order of depicting the struggle with passions is supposed to be the last, but in its beginning and time it is the first. This is the most ferocious and most indomitable beast, attacking especially the perfect and devouring them with fierce gnawing when they reach almost the very pinnacle of virtues.”

“Pride is a tumor of the soul, filled with tainted blood; if it ripens, it will break through and cause great trouble...

Pride inflates thoughts to the point of pompousness, teaches one to disdain every person and look with contempt at those who are natural to oneself as something insignificant, drives pompous thoughts to the point of madness, inspires one to dream of equality with God, does not recognize the Providence and trusteeship of the All-Good God, believes that he receives his due for deeds. all the graces that he uses, he does not want to see God’s assistance in what he does and what he succeeds in, he considers himself sufficient for every good deed, out of conceit he thinks that he has the strength to do everything, although he is completely powerless. She is a bubble of water, inflated with a vain opinion about herself, which, if only blown, turns into nothing.”

“Pride is the rejection of God, the contempt of men, the mother of condemnation, the offspring of praise, the driving away of God’s help, the culprit of falls, the source of anger; a bitter tormentor of other people's affairs, an inhuman judge, an opponent of God, the root of blasphemy...

Pride is the poverty of the soul, which dreams of itself that it is rich, and, being in darkness, thinks that it has light.

The proud are like an apple, rotten on the inside but shining with beauty on the outside.

The proud person has no need for the tempting demon; he himself became a demon and adversary for himself.”

What gives rise to the passion of pride

The Holy Fathers talk about two types of pride: carnal, material and spiritual - the pride of the perfect.“There are two kinds of pride: the first is that which, as we said, affects men of high spiritual life; and the other captures the beginners and the carnal. And although both of these types of pride raise a destructive exaltation both before God and before people, however, the first directly relates to God, and the second actually concerns people...

This is the reason for the first fall and the beginning of the main passion, which then, through the one who was first wounded by it, crept into the primordial, and gave rise to the whole multitude of passions. And he - the primordial one - having believed that by the mere power of his free will and his own efforts he could achieve the glory of the deity, he also lost that which he received through the goodness of the Creator.

Thus, examples and testimonies of Holy Scripture most clearly prove that the passion of pride, despite the fact that in the order of spiritual warfare is the very last, at the beginning, however, is the very first and is the source of all sins and crimes. Not like other passions, it destroys not only the opposite virtue, that is, humility, but it is the destroyer of all virtues together and tempts not just some mediocre and insignificant ones, but especially those who stand at the height of power. For this is how the prophet mentions this spirit: his chosen food (Hab. 1:16). Therefore, blessed David, although he guarded the secrets of his heart with such attention, that to Him from whom the secrets of his conscience were not hidden, he boldly proclaimed: Lord, my heart is not exalted, lower are my eyes exalted, lower do we walk in the great; lower in wonder than me (Ps. 130:1); and again: do not live in the midst of my house and create pride (Ps. 100:7); however, knowing how difficult it is, even for the perfect, to protect himself from any movement of this passion, he did not rely on his own efforts alone, but in prayer asked for help from the Lord, may he allow him to avoid being wounded by the arrow of this enemy, saying: let him not the foot of pride will come to me (Ps. 35:12), (i.e., do not forbid me, Lord, to take any step towards instilling pride) - fearing and dreading, lest I be subjected to what is said about the proud: God resists the proud (James 4:6), and also: everyone who is high-hearted is not pure before God (Prov. 16:5)

This is what humility before God actually consists of, this is what the faith of the most ancient saints consists of. fathers, which remains even hitherto untainted among their successors. This faith of theirs is unquestionably evidenced by the apostolic powers they demonstrated not only among us, but also among the infidels and those of little faith.

Joash, king of Judah, at first had a commendable life; but then, having become proud, he was given over to dishonorable and unclean passions, or, according to the Apostle: the mind is not skilled in doing inappropriate things (Rom. 1:26,28). This is the law of God’s truth, that whoever is unrepentantly puffed up with the proud exaltation of his heart, gives himself over to the most vile carnal shame, so that, being humiliated in this way, he will feel that if he now turns out to be so defiled, it is because before he did not want to recognize the deepest and the most important impurity from proud exaltation, and so that, realizing this, he becomes jealous to cleanse himself of both passions [abbr. paraphrase].

So, it is obvious that no one can achieve the final limit of perfection and purity except through true humility, which he, visibly testifying before his brethren, also expresses before God in the secrets of his heart, believing that without His protection and help, at every moment visiting him, he cannot in any way achieve the perfection that he desires and towards which he flows with effort.”

Carnal pride

We also call carnal pride worldly pride or worldly pride.
“Carnal... pride if... without the proper zeal of the beginning<воцерковления христианина, не позволяет>for him to descend from his former worldly arrogance to the true humility of Christ, at first makes him rebellious and stubborn<прихожанином>; then it does not allow him to be meek and courteous, as well as to behave on a par with all the brothers<и сестрами>and live like everyone else, without standing out; especially does not concede, so that, according to the commandment of God and our Savior, he is stripped of all earthly acquisitions<и земных временных, часто порочных пристрастий>; and meanwhile, so...<удаление>from the world there is nothing else but a demonstration of the death of everything and the cross, and cannot in its true form be begun and built on other foundations than to recognize oneself not only as spiritually dead to all the affairs of this world, but to believe that one has to die bodily every day ".

Carnal pride as worldly pride prompts a Christian to seek vain earthly glory and comfort, convenience, various blessings and temporary pleasures of this world.

Spiritual Pride

This type of pride is tempted by perfect people who have succeeded in deeds and virtues.

“This kind of pride is not known to many and is experienced by many, because not many try to acquire perfect purity of heart in order to reach such warfare. It usually fights only those who, having conquered all other passions, are already almost at the very top of virtues. Our most cunning enemy, since he could not overcome them, attracting them to a carnal fall, is now trying to stop them and cast them into a spiritual fall, plotting through him to deprive them of all their former fruits, acquired with great difficulty.<нас, опутанных>carnal passions...<враг>stumbling with rude and, so to speak, carnal arrogance. And therefore, about this, into which we are in danger of falling, especially we or people of our measure, and especially the souls of young or beginners<христиан>» .

Monastic pride

“A monk who has not begun his renunciation of the world so well can never embrace the true, simple humility of Christ. He will not cease either to boast of the nobility of his family, or to be arrogant about his former worldly rank, which he left only in his body and not in his heart, or to be proud of the money he kept to himself for his own destruction, because because of it he can no longer calmly bear the yoke of monastic order. , nor obey the instructions of any elder."

Stages of Pride

The conditions for the development of pride can be divided into three stages.“The flash of lightning foretells a thunderclap, and pride foretells the appearance of vanity.”

“The beginning of pride is the rooting of vanity; the middle is humiliation of one’s neighbor, shameless preaching about one’s labors, self-praise in the heart, hatred of reproof; and the end is rejection of God’s help, arrogant reliance on one’s own diligence, demonic disposition.”
By carefully observing ourselves, we can understand what phase of the disease we are in.

“It is another thing to be arrogant, another thing to not be arrogant, and another thing to be humble. One judges all day long; the other does not judge anything, but does not condemn himself either; and the third, being innocent, always condemns himself.”

How passion manifests itself

“Do you want to know more precisely the measure of the power of this cruel tyrant, let us remember how such an angel, who was called Lucifer for the excessiveness of his brilliance and beauty, was cast out of heaven for nothing other than this passion, and how he, wounded by the arrow of pride , from such a high rank of blessed angels fell into the underworld. So, if such an incorporeal force, adorned with such significant advantages, one elevation of the heart could cast down from heaven to earth, then with what vigilance we, clothed with mortal flesh, must beware of this, this shows the greatness of that destructive fall. And how we can avoid the most destructive infection of this passion, we can learn this by tracing the beginning and causes of the said fall. For it is impossible to cure any illness or determine medicines against any diseases, if their origins and causes are not first explored through careful research. This (archangel), clothed in divine light, shining more than other higher powers due to the generosity of the Creator, imagined that he possessed this brilliance of wisdom and this beauty of virtue, which he was adorned by the grace of the Creator, with his natural powers, and not due to the generosity of God. And having ascended for this reason, he considered himself equal to God, as if he had no need for anything, like God, as if he had no need for divine help to remain in such purity. So he relied entirely on the power of his free will, believing that it alone would provide him in abundance with everything he needed for complete perfection in virtues and for the continuity of supreme bliss. This one thought became the first cause of his disastrous fall. For her sake, having been abandoned by God, of whom he considered himself to have no need, and immediately becoming unstable and clingy, he felt the weakness of his own nature, and lost the bliss that he had enjoyed as a gift from God. Thus, because he loved the verbs of the flood, in which, magnifying himself, he said: I will ascend into heaven (Is. 14:13); and a flattering tongue, with which, deceiving himself, he said: and I will be like the Most High; how he later deceived Adam and Eve, inspiring them: you will be like gods; then here is his sentence: for this reason God will completely destroy you, delight you, and drive you away from your village. They will see the righteous, and they will fear, and they will laugh at him, and they will say: “Behold, man, who has not made God a helper for himself, but trusts in the abundance of his wealth, and what he can achieve through his vanity” (Ps. 51:6-9). The last words (behold man) can very rightly be addressed to those who hope to achieve the highest good without God’s protection and help.”

What happens to those who are overcome by pride?

“Whoever is overcome by pride considers it humiliating for himself to observe any rules of subordination or obedience, he even reluctantly listens to the general teaching about the perfection of spiritual life, and sometimes he has a complete aversion to it, especially when, convicted by his conscience, he accepts the suspicion that it deliberately directed against him. In the latter case, his heart becomes even more hardened and flares up with anger. After which he has a loud voice, rude speech, an obstinate and bitter answer, a proud and agile gait, and uncontrollable talkativeness. Thus, it happens that a spiritual conversation not only does not bring him any benefit, but, on the contrary, turns out to be harmful, becoming for him a reason for greater sin [abbr.].”

How carnal pride manifests itself, signs of pride

“Carnal pride is manifested in these actions: in speaking there is loudness, in silence - annoyance, in gaiety - loud, spreading laughter, in sadness - meaningless gloominess, in response - causticity, in speech - lightness, words that come out at random without any participation of the heart. She does not know patience, is alien to love, is bold in inflicting insults, is cowardly in enduring them, is difficult to obey if her own desire and will does not precede it, is not susceptible to admonitions, is incapable of renouncing her own wills, and is extremely incapable of submitting to others. stubborn, always strives to stand by her decision, but never agrees to give in to another; and thus, it happens that, having become unable to accept saving advice, she trusts her own opinion more than the reasoning of the elders.”

“Pride lifts the proud to great heights and from there casts him into the abyss.
Pride sickens those who fall away from God and attribute good deeds to their own strength.”

“The humble one... is not curious about incomprehensible things; the proud one wants to explore the depth of the Lord’s destinies...

Whoever in a conversation stubbornly wants to defend his opinion, even if it is fair, let him know that he is possessed by a devilish illness (pride); and if he does this in conversation with equals, then perhaps the reproof of his elders will heal him; if he treats his greatest and wisest people this way, then people cannot heal this disease.

I once asked one of the most skillful elders, how does obedience have humility? He answered: a prudent novice, even if he raises the dead, and receives the gift of tears, and achieves deliverance from battles, always thinks that this is accomplished by the prayer of his spiritual father, and remains alien and far from vain exaltation; and can he be proud of what, as he himself realizes, he did with the help of another, and not with his own efforts?

A saving sign of humility is to have a humble way of thinking even during great deeds and achievements, but a sign of destruction, that is, pride, is when someone is exalted even in small, insignificant deeds.

“If a form of destruction, that is, pride, is when someone is exalted in small and insignificant deeds; then the saving sign of humility is to have a humble way of thinking even during great undertakings and corrections.

I once caught this crazy charmer in my heart, carried into it on the shoulders of her mother - vanity, tying both with bonds of obedience and beating them with the scourge of humility, I forced them to tell me how they entered my soul? Finally, under blows, they said: “We have no beginning; nor birth, for we ourselves are the directors and mothers of all passions. One of our enemies antagonizes us a lot - contrition of heart, born of obedience. But to be subordinate to someone - we cannot stand this; That is why we, who were leaders in heaven, retreated from there. To put it briefly: we are the parents of everything that is contrary to humility; – and what promotes it resists us. However, if we appeared in heaven in such power, then where will you run away from our face? We very often follow the patience of reproaches; for the correction of obedience, and lack of anger, and forgetfulness of malice, and service to others. Our offspring are the downfalls of spiritual men: anger, slander, vexation, irritability, outcry, blasphemy, hypocrisy, hatred, envy, bickering, self-will, disobedience. There is one thing - why we do not have the strength to resist - being strongly beaten by you, we will tell you this too - if you sincerely reproach yourself before the Lord, you will despise us like a spider’s web. You see,” said pride, “humility and self-reproach will laugh at the horse and its rider, and with sweetness they will sing this victorious song: I will sing to the Lord, gloriously 6o glorified: the horse and the rider were cast into the sea (Ex. 15:1), i.e. into the abyss of humility."

“A proud person does not tolerate superiority over himself - and when he encounters it, he either envies or competes. Rivalry and envy stick together, and whoever has one of these passions has both of them...

If you see a person who is disobedient, proud and wise about himself, then his root is already half dead; because it does not accept the fatness imparted by the fear of God. And if you see a silent and humble person, then know that his root is strong; because he is drunk with the fatness of the fear of God...

Who has...<гордость>, he is tormented by the success of others; but whoever is not, he does not grieve. This one, when honor is shown to another, is not embarrassed; when another is elevated, he does not worry, because he gives preference to everyone, prefers everyone to himself.”

How passion works

“The unclean spirit of arrogance is resourceful and diverse and uses all its efforts to prevail over everyone: it captures the wise with wisdom, the strong with strength, the rich with wealth, the handsome with beauty, the artist with art.

And he does not allow those who lead a spiritual life to be tempted in the same way and sets his nets: for those who renounce the world - in renunciation, for the abstinent - in abstinence, for the silent - in silence, for the non-covetous - in non-covetousness, for the man of prayer - in prayer. He tries to sow his tares in everyone.”

“There is no other passion that so destroys all virtues and so exposes and deprives a person of all righteousness and holiness, like this evil pride: it, like some kind of all-encompassing infection, is not content with relaxing one member or one part, but damages the whole body with fatal disorder and the virtues already standing at the heights are attempted to be overthrown by a severe, extreme fall and ruined. Every other passion is content with its limits and its goal, and although it disturbs other virtues, it is mainly directed against one, it is primarily pressed and attacked. Thus, gluttony, that is, the passion for gluttony or sweet eating, spoils strict abstinence, lust defiles purity, anger drives away patience. So sometimes a person devoted to one passion is not completely alien to other virtues, but after the destruction of that one virtue, which falls from the jealously armed passion opposite it, he can at least partially hold back the others; and as soon as this one takes possession of the poor soul, then, like some fierce tyrant, after taking the highest fortress of virtues (humility), their entire city completely destroys and ravages the once high walls of holiness, leveling and mixing them with the soil of vices, no later he does not allow the sign of freedom in the soul, subjugated to him, to remain. The richer the soul he captivates, the more severe the yoke of slavery he subjects it to, stripping it of all the property of its virtues with the cruelest robbery.”

“Just as someone who stands on a web falls through and is carried down, so he who relies on his own strength also falls...

Rotten fruit is of no use to the farmer, and the virtue of the proud is indecent to God...

Just as the weight of the fruit breaks a branch, so pride overthrows a virtuous soul.

Do not betray your soul to pride - and you will not see terrible dreams; because the soul of the proud is abandoned by God and becomes the delight of demons...

The prayer of the humble bows down God, but the petition of the proud insults Him...

When you rise to the heights of virtues, then you have a great need for protection; for if someone standing on the floor falls, he will quickly get up, but someone who falls from a height is in danger of dying.”

“Where the Fall took place, pride was established there first; for pride is the harbinger of fall...

Those who are captivated by pride need God’s extreme help for deliverance; for human means to save him are unsuccessful...

Whoever says that he feels the fragrance of humility even during praise, although his heart moves little; Let him not be deceived, for he is deceived...

He who is inwardly proud of his tears and condemns in his mind those who do not cry, is like one who asked the king for a weapon against his enemy and killed himself with it.”

“If you are healthy in body, then do not be arrogant and be afraid.”

How to treat the passion of pride

“How great an evil is pride when there are few angels and other forces opposing it to oppose it, but for this purpose God Himself is raised up. It should be noted that the apostle did not say about those who are entangled in other passions that they have God opposing them, that is, he did not say: God opposes gluttons, fornicators, the wrathful, or lovers of money, but only the proud. For those passions either turn only on each of those who sin with them, or, apparently, are unleashed on their accomplices, that is, other people; and this one is actually directed against God and therefore especially deserves to have Him as an opponent.”

“When you fall, sigh and when you succeed, do not be arrogant. Do not magnify yourself because you are blameless, lest instead of beauty you be clothed with shame.”

“He who rejects reproof reveals the passion of pride; and whoever accepts it has been freed from the bonds of pride.”

One wise old man admonished his proud brother; but this one, blind in soul, said: “Forgive me, father, I am not at all proud.” Then the wise old man objected: “How can you, my son, more clearly prove that you are proud, if not by the assurance that there is no pride in you.
It is most useful for people of a proud disposition to be obedient, to lead a life that is rude and despicable, and to read stories about the harmful consequences of pride and supernatural cures for it...

Let us not stop testing ourselves and comparing our lives with the lives of the saints who came before us. fathers and luminaries; and we will find that we have not yet taken a step to follow in the footsteps of the lives of these great men - we have not even fulfilled our vow as we should, but we are still in a worldly dispensation...

Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory, - said someone in the feeling of the soul (Ps. 113:9); for he knew that human nature, being so weak, cannot accept praise harmlessly. From this is my great praise in the Church (Ps. 21:26), in the next century; and before that I can’t take it safely...

If pride turned some of the angels into demons; then, without a doubt, humility can make angels out of demons. So, let the fallen be bold, trusting in God.

People can correct the prodigal, angels can correct the wicked, and God Himself heals the proud...

Visible pride is healed by sorrowful circumstances; and the invisible - before the Invisible Age."

Do not take credit for the works and glory of God

“We can avoid the snares of this most obscene spirit if we speak with the apostle about each of the virtues in which we feel ourselves succeeding: not I, but the grace of God is with me; - and: by the grace of God I am (1 Cor. 15:10); - and: God is the One who works in us, both to will and to do good (Phil. 2:13); - as the Accomplisher of his salvation Himself says: He who is in Me, and I in him, will do the same. The fruit is abundant: for without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5); - and the psalmist sings: unless the Lord builds a house, those who build it labor in vain; unless the Lord preserves the city, it will be built in vain (Ps. 126:1). And none of the willing and current will is sufficient to ensure that one clothed with flesh warring against the spirit can, without the special protection of divine mercy, achieve perfect purity and immaculateness and for this be worthy of receiving what he so strongly desires and for which he so flows. For every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights (James 1:17). Why imashi, did you accept him? Even if you accepted that you boasted, it was not accepted (1 Cor. 4:7).”

Attributing to oneself the works of God is the greatest madness. He will escape it who will do everything for the glory of God.

“I do not say this so that, by disparaging human efforts, I would like to discourage anyone from caring and intense work. On the contrary, I resolutely affirm - not my opinion, but the elders - that perfection cannot be achieved in any way without them, and by them alone, without the grace of God, it cannot be brought to the proper degree by anyone. For just as we say that human efforts by themselves cannot achieve it without the help of God, we also affirm that the grace of God is communicated only to those who work in the sweat of their brow or, in the words of the Apostle, is given only to those who want and are willing, judging by the fact that in Psalm 88 is sung on behalf of God: He placed help on the strong, He lifted up the chosen one from among men (v. 20). Although, according to the word of the Lord, we say that it is given to those who ask, it is opened to those who ask, and it is found to those who seek; but asking, searching and pushing in themselves are not sufficient if God’s mercy does not give what we ask, does not open what we are pushing into, and does not allow us to find what we are looking for. It is ready to give us all this as soon as we give it the opportunity by bringing our good will: for much more than we desire and expect our perfection and salvation. And blzh. David was so deeply aware of the impossibility of achieving success in his business and labor through his own efforts alone, that with a redoubled petition he asked to be worthy, so that the Lord Himself would correct his deeds, saying: “And correct the work of our hands on us, and correct the work of our hands” (Ps. 89:17 ); - and again: God strengthen this which you have done in us (Ps. 67:29).

So, we must strive for perfection in such a way, diligent in fasting, vigils, prayers, contrition of heart and body, so that, inflated with pride, we do not make all this in vain. We must believe that not only cannot we achieve perfection through our own efforts and labors, but also the very thing that we practice in order to achieve it, that is, ascetics and various spiritual works, we cannot accomplish as it should without the help of God’s grace.”

“Look at your nature, that you are earth and ashes and will soon be resolved into dust; Now you’re great, but after a while you’ll be a worm. Why are you raising a neck that will soon rot?
A man is something great when God helps him; and as soon as he is abandoned by God, he recognizes the weakness of his nature.

You have nothing good that you would not receive from God. Why do you boast of a stranger as if you were your own? Why do you boast about the given grace of God as if it were your own acquisition?

Recognize the Giver and do not boast too much; You are a creature of God, do not separate yourself from the Creator.

God helps you, do not deny the Benefactor; You have ascended to the heights of life, but God has guided you; excelled in virtue, but God acted in you; Confess the Exalted One, so that you may remain unshakably on high.”

“It is a shame to be proud of other people’s jewelry, and it is extreme madness to be proud of God’s gifts. Exalt yourself only in those virtues that you accomplished before you were born; and those that you performed after birth were given to you by God, as well as birth itself. If you have corrected any virtues without the help of your mind, then let them only be yours, because the mind itself has been given to you by God. And if you showed any feats without a body, then they were only due to your diligence; for the body is not yours - it is God’s creation.

Do not rely on your virtues until you hear the last saying about you from the Judge; for in the Gospel we see that the one who was already reclining at the wedding supper was bound hand and foot and cast out into utter darkness (Matthew 22:13).”

Humility and fear of God

Humility is a virtue, healing pride, fear of God is an inoculation against pride.
Successful in spiritual life is considered to be successful in humility, repentance, meekness and love. He who does not strive in humility walks in danger of spiritual destruction at any moment.

“So, if we want our building to rise to the very top and be pleasing to God, then we will try to lay the foundation for it not according to our self-indulgent will, but according to the exact teaching of the Gospel, according to which such a foundation can be nothing other than the fear of God and humility , generated by meekness and simplicity of heart. Humility cannot be acquired without stripping oneself of everything, without which it is impossible to establish oneself either in good obedience, or in firm patience, or in unperturbed meekness, or in perfect love; and without these our hearts cannot at all be the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, as the Lord proclaims about this through the prophet: to whom will I look but to him who is meek and silent and trembles at My words (Isa. 66:2).”

“A pole supports a branch laden with fruit, and the fear of God supports a virtuous soul.

Humility is the crown of the home and keeps the one who enters safe.

A golden setting befits a precious stone, and the humility of a husband shines with many virtues.

Do not forget your fall, even though you repent; but remember your sin by crying to your humility, so that, having humbled yourself, if necessary, cut off your pride.”
“When holy humility begins to flourish in us, then we will begin to despise all human praise and glory. When it matures, then we will not only consider our good deeds as nothing, but also consider them an abomination, thinking that we daily strive to the burden of our sins with a waste of virtues unknown to us.

Diligent repentance and crying, cleansed of all filth, erecting a temple of humility in the heart, destroy the shack of pride fenced in on the sand [peripheral].

The end of all passions is vanity and pride, for anyone who does not pay attention to himself. Their destroyer - humility - keeps his partner unharmed from all deadly poison (passions).

Pride and attitude towards neighbors

Pride inevitably leaves its mark on our relationships with neighbors, relatives, employees, colleagues and just people around us. At the same time, the nature of these relationships shows to what extent a person is infected with the passion of pride.
“Recognize your fellow natural being that he is of the same essence as you, and do not deny your kinship with him out of arrogance.

He is humbled, and you are exalted; but one Creator created both.

Do not despise the humble; he stands stronger than you - he walks on the ground - and will not fall soon; but the tall one, if he falls, will be crushed.

Do not look at the fallen with an arrogant thought that puffs you up as if you were a judge, but listen to yourself with a sober thought - a tester and appraiser of your deeds.”

“When a horse runs alone, it seems to him that he is running quickly; but when he is running with others, then he becomes aware of his slowness. (Compare yourself with the best and avoid self-importance).

If you want to acquire an unyielding love for prayer, first train your heart not to look upon the sins of others, but the forerunner of this must be hatred of vanity.

If we want to comprehend ourselves, let us not stop testing and torturing ourselves; and if we hold in the true feeling of our souls that each of our neighbors is superior to us, then God’s mercy is not far from us.

While in the hostel, pay attention to yourself and do not at all try to appear more righteous than other brothers in any way; otherwise you will do two evils: you will offend the brethren with your false and feigned jealousy and you will give yourself a reason for arrogance.

Be zealous, but in your soul, without at all showing this in external behavior, neither in appearance nor in any word; nor a fortune-telling sign; Be like your brothers in everything to avoid arrogance.

If anyone notices that he is easily overcome by arrogance and irascibility, deceit and hypocrisy, and wants to draw against these enemies the double-edged sword of meekness and gentleness: let him hasten to enter, as it were, into the whitewash of salvation, into the council of brethren - and, moreover, the most severe ones, when he wants completely get rid of your vicious habits; so that there, shaken by the annoyances, humiliations and worries of the brethren and struck by them mentally, and sometimes sensually depressed, trampled and struck by the heels, he could cleanse the robe of his soul from the filth that exists in it.”

“Do not condemn your brother for his inconstancy, lest you yourself fall into the same weakness...

Let<христианин>has himself from the last to be the last - and will gain confidence for himself.

For he who humbles himself will be exalted, and he who is exalted will humble himself (Luke 18:14).

Do you want to be great? – Be the least of all (Mark 9:35).

If you see that your brother is sinning, and you see him the next morning, then do not despise him, recognizing him as a sinner in your thoughts: for you do not know that, perhaps, when you left him, after his fall he did something good and appeased Gentlemen with sighs and bitter tears.

We must refrain from judging others; each of us must humble himself, speaking about himself with the words of the psalm: my iniquities have surpassed my head, like a heavy burden weighs heavily on me (Ps. 37:5).”

Fighting proud thoughts

The grace of God leaves a person as soon as he accepts a proud thought. This is how these thoughts differ from all others.

“Demons approached one of the most sensible brothers and pleased him. But this humble man said to them: “If you would stop praising me in my soul, then from your departure I would conclude that I am great; If you do not stop praising me, then from your praise I see my uncleanness; For everyone who is high-hearted is dishonorable before the Lord (Prov. 16:5). So, either step away, so that I consider myself a great man; or praise - and through you I will gain great humility.” They were so struck by this double-edged sword of reasoning that they immediately disappeared.

Unclean demons secretly placed praise in the heart of one attentive ascetic. But he, being instructed by divine inspiration, knew how to defeat the wickedness of the spirits with such pious cunning: he wrote on the wall of his cell the names of the highest virtues, i.e. perfect love, angelic humility, pure prayer, incorruptible purity and others like that. When later his thoughts began to praise him, he told them: “Let’s go to reproof,” and, going up to the wall, he read the written titles and added: “When you acquire all these virtues, know that you are still far from God”...

Keep a vigilant eye on pride, for among seductions there is nothing more destructive than this passion.”

“Humble the thought of pride before pride humbles you. Bring down the thought of arrogance before it brings you down. Crush lust before lust crushes you...

If the spirit of pride, or covetousness, or wealth disturbs you, then do not get carried away by it, but, on the contrary, stand courageously against the armies of the evil and flattering spirit. Imagine in your mind ancient buildings, dilapidated images, pillars eaten away by rust - and think with yourself, and see where the owners and builders of all this are; and try to please the Lord, so that you may be considered worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven: for all flesh is like grass, and all the glory of man is like the flower of grass (1 Pet. 1:24). What is higher and more glorious than royal dignity and glory? But kings also pass away, and so does their glory. But those worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven do not experience anything like this, being in peace and joy in heaven with the angels, without illness, sadness and sighing, in joy and joy, praising, glorifying and magnifying the King of Heaven and the Lord of all the earth.

If you come to the service of God first of all and stand until the end, do not let this thought puff you up; for arrogance is like a hole in which a serpent nests and kills the one who comes near.”

Signs of disappearing pride

“The signs of the disappearance of pride and the establishment of humility are the joyful acceptance of reproaches and humiliations, the quenching of rage and disbelief in one’s virtues.”

Blasphemous thoughts

Blasphemous thoughts are among those that come from pride and indicate infection with it.

“Blasphemous thoughts are born from pride, but pride does not allow them to be revealed to the spiritual father. Why does it often happen that this misfortune plunges others into despair, destroying all their hope, like a worm eating away a tree.

There are no thoughts that (due to pride) are as difficult to confess as a blasphemous thought; therefore, it often remains in many until old age. But, meanwhile, nothing strengthens demons and evil thoughts against us so much as the fact that we do not confess them, but conceal them in our hearts, which feeds them.

No one should think that he is guilty of blasphemous thoughts; for the Lord is a knower of the heart and knows that such words and thoughts are not ours, but those of our enemies.
Let us learn to despise the spirit of blasphemy and, without paying any attention to the thoughts it puts in, say to it: follow me, Satan; I worship the Lord my God and serve Him alone; Let your illness and your words be turned on your head, and let your blasphemy come down on your top, in this present age and in the future (Ps. 7:17).

He who despises this enemy is freed from his torment; and whoever intends to fight him in a different way will prevail. He who wants to conquer spirits with words is like someone who tries to block the winds.”

Humility and thanksgiving to God. Humility

“We must always give thanks to God not only for the fact that He created us rational, endowed us with the ability of free will, bestowed the grace of baptism, gave knowledge of the law to help us, but also for what He gives us with His daily providence for us, namely: frees us from the slander of the enemy, helps us overcome carnal passions, covers us without our knowledge from dangers, protects us from falling into sin, helps and enlightens us in the knowledge and understanding of the requirements of His law, secretly breathes contrition for our negligence and sins, saves us, deigning a special visit, sometimes even against our will draws us to salvation. Finally, our freest will, more prone to passions, directs us to better, soul-beneficial action and turns us onto the path of virtue by visiting Its influence on it...

Why should the warrior of Christ, who, legitimately struggling in spiritual deeds, desires to be crowned by the Lord, try in every possible way to destroy this fiercest beast as the devourer of all virtues, being confident that as long as he is in his heart, not only will he not be able to free himself from all passions, but what if he acquires some virtue, and she dies from his poison. For the building of virtues cannot be erected in our soul in any way unless the foundations of true humility are first laid in our hearts, which, being most firmly built, alone can strongly hold back the erected building of perfection and love. For this, we must, firstly, express true humility before our brethren with sincere disposition, not allowing ourselves to sadden or offend them in any way, which we cannot do in any way unless, out of love for Christ, true renunciation of everything is deeply rooted in us , consisting in completely stripping oneself of all acquisition; secondly, we must accept the yoke of obedience and submission in simplicity of heart and without any pretense, so that, besides the Abba’s commandment, no other will lives in us; which cannot be observed by anyone except one who not only considers himself dead to this world, but also considers himself unreasonable and stupid and, without any reflection, does everything that the elders command, out of faith that everything is sacred and is proclaimed from God Himself ...

When we maintain ourselves in such a mood, then, without any doubt, this will be followed by such an imperturbable and unchanging state of humility that, considering ourselves the lowest of all, we will most patiently endure everything inflicted on us, no matter how futile it may be, offensive or even harmful, as if it were imposed on us by our superior fathers (as obedience or testing). And not only will all this be easily bearable for us, but it will also be considered small and insignificant if, moreover, we constantly keep in our memory and feeling the suffering of our Lord and all the saints, because then the lies we experience will seem to us as much easier as we are far away we are from their great deeds and prolific life. The inspiration for patience that comes from here will be even stronger if we think at the same time that we too will soon move from this world and at the speedy end of our life we ​​will immediately become participants in their bliss and glory. Such thinking is destructive not only for pride, but also for all passions. After this, we should firmly hold such humility before God; what will be fulfilled by us if we harbor the conviction that we ourselves, without His help and grace, cannot do anything that relates to the perfection of virtue, and we sincerely believe that the very thing that we have managed to understand is His gift ".

“Without humility, all asceticism, all abstinence, all obedience, all non-covetousness, all learning are in vain...

He who exalts himself prepares for his own dishonor; and whoever serves his neighbor in humility will be glorified...

A beginner who does not have humility does not have a weapon against the enemy; and he will suffer a great defeat...

Great is the success and great is the glory of humility, and there is no fall in it. A sign of humility is to meet your brother’s needs with both hands, just as you would accept an allowance yourself.

The proud and rebellious man will see bitter days; But the humble and patient will always rejoice in the Lord...

If you study all the Divine Scriptures, be careful not to let the thought puff you up; because all inspired Scripture teaches us humility. And whoever thinks or does the opposite of what he has learned, thereby shows that he is a criminal...

In every place and in every matter, let humility be with you. For just as the body has a need for clothing, whether it is warm or cold outside; so the soul has an ever-present need to clothe itself with humility. It is better to walk naked and barefoot than to be naked in humility; because the Lord covers those who love it.
Have a humble way of thinking, so that, having exalted yourself to the heights, you will not be broken in a terrible fall.

The beginning of humility is submission. Let humility be both the basis and the clothing of your response; Let your speech be simple and friendly in the love of God. High-mindedness does not obey, is disobedient, disobedient, driven by its own thoughts. But humility is obedient, submissive, modest, giving honor to both small and large...

There is no humility in this for a sinner to consider himself a sinner: but humility consists in recognizing that there is much and greatness in oneself, and not imagining anything great about oneself. A humble person who is like Paul, but says about himself: I am nothing in myself (1 Cor. 4:4), or: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, from whom I am the first (1 Tim. 1:15). So, to be high according to your merits and to humble yourself in your mind is humility.”

Portrait of a humble man
Humble

To know how to gain humility, you need to know what guidelines exist for acquiring this virtue, what to strive for, and what a humble person looks like.

“The humble man is not vain or proud, serving the Lord out of fear of Him. The humble person does not establish his own will, contradicting the truth, but obeys the truth. The humble person does not envy his neighbor’s success and does not rejoice at his contrition (fall), but, on the contrary, rejoices with those who rejoice and weeps with those who weep. The humble one is not humbled in deprivation and poverty, and does not appear arrogant in prosperity and glory, but constantly remains in the same virtue. A humble person does not become irritable, does not insult anyone, does not quarrel with anyone. The humble man is not stubborn and is not lazy, even if he is called to work at midnight; because he placed himself in obedience to the commandments of the Lord. The humble person knows neither vexation nor guile, but serves the Lord in simplicity, living peacefully with everyone. A humble person, if he hears a reprimand, does not complain, and if he is bitten, will not lose patience; because he is a disciple of Him who endured the cross for us. The humble person hates pride, which is why he does not strive for primacy, but considers himself in this world to be like a temporary swimmer on a ship.”

Characteristics and Characteristics of a Person with True Humility

“The distinctive features and signs of a person who has true humility are the following: to consider himself a sinner more than all sinners, who has done nothing good before God, to reproach himself at every time, in every place and for every deed, not to blaspheme anyone and not to be found on earth a person who would be more sinful and negligent than himself, but always praise and glorify everyone, never condemn anyone, never humiliate or slander anyone, remain silent at all times and say nothing unless ordered or absolutely necessary; when they ask and there is an intention or extreme need forces one to speak and answer, then speak quietly, calmly, rarely, as if under duress and with shame; do not expose yourself to the standard in anything, do not argue with anyone about faith or anything else; but if someone speaks well, say to him: yes; and if it’s bad, answer: as you know; to be submissive and abhor your own will as something harmful; always have your eyes cast down on the ground; have your death before your eyes, never idle talk, don’t talk idle, don’t lie, don’t contradict the highest; bear insults, humiliation and losses with joy, hate peace and love work, do not upset anyone, do not hurt anyone’s conscience. These are the signs of true humility; and blessed is he who has them; because here it still begins to be the house and temple of God, and God dwells in him - and he becomes the heir of the Kingdom.”

Strive for this, and you will become a beloved child and friend of God.

Basic patristic rules for curing the passion of pride

Accept other people's reproofs with patience and gratitude.

Try to be obedient to someone.

Do not attribute to yourself the works and glory of God: “Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory”; “It is not I who create and do, but the grace of God that is with me.”

Have humility and fear of God. Despise human praise and glory. Cut off proud thoughts.

Prayerfully lift up against pride:

Ps. 135:23).

Humble yourself and save me (Ps. 114:5).

Anyone who has a high heart is unclean before the Lord (Prov. 16:5).

Prayer from pride

The Holy Fathers left us examples of prayerful appeals and offerings that help us sober up from pride.

“As a remedy against pride, read often the following and other similar passages of Scripture directed against it:

When you have done all that is commanded you, say: For we are unbreakable servants (Luke 17:10).

If anyone imagines that he is worthless, he flatters himself with his mind (Gal. 6:3).” . Ibid. pp. 110–111. . Ibid. pp. 112–113. . Ibid S. 521. . Ibid. pp. 114–115. . Ibid. pp. 675–679. . Ibid. pp. 526–527.
St. Ephraim the Syrian. Ibid. pp. 530–531.
St. Ephraim the Syrian. Ibid. pp. 521–522.

prot. Sergiy Filimonov

Before we begin discussing how to get rid of pride, let’s first understand this concept itself. This word usually means excessive pride, arrogance, selfishness, arrogance, etc. Everyone roughly knows what pride is, but rarely does anyone recognize it in themselves, and if they notice it, they do not see any danger in it and, moreover, are not going to fight it. But sooner or later it will make itself felt and bear its terrible fruits.

How to get rid of pride: Orthodoxy, Catholicism

Pride in Orthodoxy is one of the eight sinful passions, along with gluttony, fornication, greed, anger, sadness, despondency and vanity.

In Catholicism, pride is one of the seven main sinful passions, along with gluttony, fornication, greed, anger, despondency and envy.

Before answering the question of how to get rid of the sin of pride, it should be noted that they are not at all the same thing. Pride is, in general, the most common characteristic of any sinner. We all fall into the same from time to time - this is that great degree when this sinful passion turns into a dominant characteristic of the personality and fills it. These people usually don’t listen to anyone, they say about such people: “There is a lot of pride, but little intelligence.”

Islam is about pride

Pride is when a person boasts about his achievements before the Creator, forgetting that it was from Him that he received them. This disgusting quality makes a person too arrogant; he begins to believe that he himself can achieve everything without God’s help, and therefore he never thanks God for everything he has.

How to get rid of pride? Islam, by the way, also holds the opinion that pride is a great sin, which becomes the cause of a number of other sins.

According to the Koran, a genie named Iblis refused to carry out Allah's order and prostrate to Adam. The genie said that he was better than man because he was made of fire, not clay. After this, he was cast out of heaven and vowed to lead believers astray.

How to recognize the sin of pride? How to get rid of it?

Pride grows in the soil of prosperity, and not when everything is bad. In euphoria it is almost impossible to notice. But once it grows, it will be very difficult to stop it. She plunges a person into the illusion of her greatness and then suddenly throws him into the abyss. Therefore, it is better to notice it earlier, recognize it and, accordingly, begin an uncompromising fight against it. Let's pay attention to the signs of its manifestation.

An indication of pride

• Frequent touchiness and intolerance towards other people, or rather towards their imperfections.
• Constantly blaming others for your life problems.
• Uncontrolled irritability and disrespect for other people.
• Constant thoughts about your own greatness and uniqueness, and therefore superiority over others.
• The need for someone to constantly admire and praise you.
• Absolute intolerance to criticism and unwillingness to correct one’s shortcomings.
• Inability to ask for forgiveness.
• Complete confidence in one's own infallibility; the desire to argue and prove one’s merits.
• Lack of humility and stubbornness, which lies in the fact that a person cannot accept the lessons of fate with dignity and calm.

When pathos grows, the joy in the heart fades and is replaced by dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction. Only some people, noticing all these negative signs of pride in themselves, begin to resist, while others become its victims.

You can deal with pride before it grows to gigantic proportions, figuratively speaking, before it takes power over your soul and mind. And we need to urgently get down to business, but how to deal with pride?

Fighting methods

1. No matter how high your achievements are, you should try to be interested in people who have achieved more, whom you should respect and learn from.
2. Learn humility, realize the greatness and infinite potential of every human soul. Accept your insignificance before God - the creator of all life on earth and in heaven.
3. Don't take credit for all the credit and achievements. Always thank the Lord for everything good and bad that happens to you, for various trials and lessons. The feeling of gratitude is always more pleasant to experience than the feeling of contempt for others.
4. Find an adequate, honest and good person so that he can constructively express his opinion about you; all noticed shortcomings must be worked out and eradicated. And this is the best cure for pride.
5. You need to pass on your best experience to people, try to help them selflessly with love. Showing true love will definitely cleanse your heart of pride. Anyone who does not start sharing their positive experiences with others in time will only increase the growth of pride and pseudo-greatness.
6. Try to be sincere and first of all to yourself. Look for kindness in yourself, so that you have the opportunity not to accumulate grievances, but to find the strength and courage to ask for forgiveness from those we have offended and learn to admit our mistakes.

Self-deprecation

Many are interested in another interesting question - how to get rid of pride and two extreme points, one concept implies high self-esteem, the other - low self-esteem. Let's talk about it a little.

If we already know about pride, then let’s dwell a little on such a property as self-abasement, which is based on incorrect self-esteem and negative self-analysis. A person begins to belittle himself and his merits in comparison with other people. He may not like his appearance and qualities, he constantly criticizes himself, saying, “I’m not handsome,” “I’m fat,” “I’m a slob,” “I’m a complete fool,” etc.

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Self-deprecation, like pride, can be used as a tool to influence how others evaluate and perceive you, so as not to take a painful blow to your self-esteem.

In a situation of belittling oneself, a person is the first to begin to criticize, scold and reproach himself, thereby preempting possible negative reactions to him from others. Such people truly believe that they are worse than those around them. Shyness also shows a developed inferiority complex in a person.

Causes of self-deprecation

Where does it come from? Usually this may be some negative experience from early childhood associated with the inability to evaluate oneself and others.

Self-deprecation becomes an inadequate way to protect against potential emotional threats. It can be used as a mask that a person puts on in adulthood in order to hide behind it.

Self-deprecation, as a rule, really appears from early childhood, often due to the child’s inability to meet all the high standards and expectations of the parents, especially if the parents are some outstanding people. They expect that their child must certainly meet their ideals, have talents and ambitious aspirations.

Mask of Powerlessness

But the child does not reach the standard set by his parents, then he blames himself, considers himself mediocre, and incorrect self-esteem comes to his mind, because his parents are unhappy with him.

When a child grows up, that’s when the fear appears that he will never be able to be as good as many people around him, that they cannot like him, and therefore success, happiness and love will never come to him. He begins to openly declare that he is a loser. A deep internal conflict is brewing and a chain of complexes is formed that hide under a mask that means “don’t pay any attention to me” and “don’t expect anything special from me.” He is not used to praise and does not accept it because he does not believe in himself.

Vanity

At the same time, another question arises - how to get rid of pride and vanity. And these are all links of one chain. Where there is pride, vanity appears. The meaning of this concept is that a person constantly wants to look better than he actually is, he feels a constant need to confirm his superiority, which means he surrounds himself with flattering friends.

Related concepts of vanity also include pride, pride, arrogance, arrogance and “star fever”. A vain person is only interested in his person.

Vanity is like a drug, without which those who become addicted to it will no longer be able to live. And envy immediately settles in next to each other, and they go hand in hand. Since a vain person does not tolerate any competition, if someone is ahead of him, black envy begins to gnaw at him.

Perishable glory

As mentioned above, vanity, along with pride, is one of the eight sinful passions in Orthodoxy.

I would also like to add to everything that vanity is when a person constantly strives for vain, that is, vain and empty glory. The word “vain,” in turn, means “quickly passing and perishable.”

Position, high position, fame - things on earth are short-lived and unreliable. Any earthly glory is ashes and dust, simply nothing compared to the glory that the Lord has prepared for His loving children.

Arrogance

Now we need to talk about how to get rid of pride and arrogance. You need to find out right away, then it will be easier to understand and cope with this passion. Arrogance is exaltation of oneself, arrogance and contemptuous attitude towards another person.

Summarizing the discussion of how to get rid of pride, arrogance and the like, it should be noted that the fight against them is possible only after a person takes strict control of his behavior and words, begins to do good deeds, and takes care of as much as possible people around you and don’t expect gratitude or payment for it.

We must try to get rid of the thought of our own importance, specialness and greatness. Look at yourself from the outside, listen to what you say, what you think, how you behave, put yourself in the shoes of others.

Pride, arrogance and vanity will prevent an individual from living an independent and fulfilling life. And before they destroy you, start fighting them. Only then will you be able to rejoice and live in peace with yourself and with the world around you. And you will no longer want to blame anyone for your sins, and you will have a desire to thank the Lord for everything.

The world will shine with different colors, only then can a person comprehend the main thing: the meaning of life is LOVE. And only for her should he strive.