grace

How can we reach peace?

Thoughts about the power of faith when we feel that the light has run out…

 

1. Our age: the age of unrest. It is not the uncontrolled temper but the extravagance of the soul that represents unrest in today’s ‘developed’ countries. We are unable to calm down. We are unable to appreciate what we have. We are unable to get satisfied. We are unable to get on well together. The spaciousness of a love community’s inner space is endless. Let’s make an attempt to let our isolation and unrest free in these immeasurably spacious inner dimensions! (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

2. Why is uncertainty good and how can it be tolerated? There is worse than isolation in the weeks of corona virus epidemic.” Many would say. “And this is uncertainty.” Let me remind ourselves that we haven’t known anything until now either but we convinced ourselves to forget about this in the ecstasy of rush. Tolerating uncertainty is a key virtue. Only tolerating uncertainty leads us to real, creative and new solutions. All changes of existing situations generate uncertainty. Uncertainty is a necessary corollary of the reorganization of complexity by a creative change. We imprison ourselves if we do not tolerate uncertainty. If we can establish uncertainty-tolerance in ourselves now, we can prepare for future changes successfully. For we can tolerate uncertainty, we have to believe in something. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

3. How can we reach peace? The power of faith – when we feel that the light has run out… For we can find peace after unrest, we have to believe in something. For me the essence of faith is the certainty of belonging: to not less than Totality. The certainty that Totality, God accepts and embraces me, not because of my own virtues but due to the sacrifice of Jesus. Years ago I was sure that light and love show the way on the path of faith. Recently, I understood that nothing has been lost even if we cannot see the light and cannot feel the love-avalanche covering us either. Because faith, the certainty of belonging, does remain. Faith gives birth to hope again. Hope creates love. And love creates light. Not from us, not for us, but as the gift of God, of mercy. There is stability in the middle of uncertainty. This stability does not hide from us but offers a helping hand to us. Let us accept it! (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

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What can we learn from our current miseries?

Lenten thoughts about the benefits of slowing down and longsuffering

 

1. Why do not we want to (why cannot we) tolerate longsuffering in this century? Not so long ago, there was a large rush all around the world... We have forgotten even that how to prepare for something. The problem with this was that we never arrived where we were. Because we never know where we are. Because we never let ourselves have enough time to realize where we will be... The moment became unimportant. There will be a new, another moment instead. Only the lack of tolerating unchanging things was bigger than the hunger for changes. "It is unbearable if we have to bear anything!"– we thought. Mankind lived in the illusion of omnipotence. This was a blindfolded road to the abyss. Then the crisis came. Corona virus appeared... I think that mankind learns now a very painful, very awful, but for our long-term survival very important lesson today. We should learn from this. We need to find the path to inner growth in these weeks of coerced silence. Please do not return back to rush even when these weeks will be over. This is the way how we can save the Earth, our home. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

2. Longsuffering as a part of wisdom. Inner peace and wisdom can only be reached with the ability of distancing ourselves from our desires. For that we have to become trained at longsuffering. Now we are gaining the very important skill of longsuffering... Lent of the church calendar became a coerced-Lent... Please do observe that we may only prevent individual tragedies with a community longsuffering. Those local communities which were not ready to follow the new rules of life, had many more infections than those which were able to slow themselves down. This slow-down will be (hopefully) over in a few months. Let us build up during this time ourselves in a different, in a better way! (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

3. Longsuffering: God’s exceptional mercy. The driving force of longsuffering is love that "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (1Corinthians 13:7). Let me repeat my previous sentence here: we may only prevent individual tragedies with a community longsuffering. We do see now why love is the driving force of longsuffering, do not we? We may only save those who are the fragile members of our community with the longsuffering of the whole community. We did not receive corona virus as a punishment. However, it is our education which proceeds right now. Let us observe that despite the sad tragedies this education comes with much love. Let’s feel the love flowing on us even amidst our current misery and we will be given the grace of inner peace with it, too. With this love and inner peace let us start re-building our communities. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

 


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Difference between a duty and serving others

Lenten thoughts about the benefits of self-sacrifice

 

1. Why isn’t it enough if we carry out our duties well? Man is a social being. One of the primary benefits of a community is the division of labor. Sharing work results in duties. Why isn’t it enough though if we carry out all duties well? A task-oriented life is operated by an “external control”. A task-centered man never reaches the wonderful level of self-motivation that invents new solutions again and again Task-centered man is always anxious. He cannot decide whether he completed the task well enough or not. A task-centered life is a trap. It is a trap because it closes us into our own egos and it is a trap because it closes us into the often limited community defined by ourselves. (If you would like to read more about this, please, read my essay here.)

 

2. The power of serving others. In what way does serving others differ from a duty? Serving others is not controlled externally but it is arisen from Christ living in us and it returns there, too. The essence of serving others is to open our most important inner self, the love of Christ living in us, to others. Serving others is unselfish, gives vision and makes us unbelievably creative. Serving others is a huge power because it empowers our lives by the largest power of the Universe, the love of God, and passes this immense love to everyone and everything around us. (If you would like to read more about this, please, read my essay here.)

 

3. Self-sacrifice as the Door of Totality. What do we need to be able to serve others? Our own power is not enough for that. It is enough only for carrying out our duties. For the service we have to find Jesus living in us. It is not an easy task. We have to break the hardened shell of our own egos to see what is behind it. It is worth doing that. To break our egos is the most important event of our lives because behind it the Door opens which is not anything else but Jesus Himself who leads us to the love of God (John 10:9). (If you would like to read more about this, please, read my essay here.)

 

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Can the Devil be domesticated?

How can we overcome our faults?

 

   

 

1. Our attempts to domesticate the Devil. We like the little, comfortable compromises in our lives: I have had a little virtue then I will have now a little (oops, sorry, sometimes I go too far, and then: a big...) sin. That is not working. The Devil cannot be domesticated! Mercy can only be complete if I have opposed the sin, if I have realized its depth, if I have named the Devil, if I have refused it, and if I want to live a different life after all these. From this point of view there is no a tiny little sin and a bigger one. What is important is the approach to sin (Devil) and God. I stand either on one side or the other. It is impossible to dance around between the two. (For further details, please, read my essay here.)

 

   

 

2. The fight against sin. If we have realized that it is impossible to make a compromise with the Devil then for the everyday thinking only one thing remains: the fight against the Devil – till death. But our own fight against the Devil is a hopeless and useless one. A sin-centric life is a dead end. There is no self-mercy. It is not our own fight that defeats the sin in us. Our own efforts are too small for this, are zero, nothing. It is only Christ born within us who is able to overcome the sin in us. There is no other way. Thus the fear of God is not a servile fear of God’s punishment, which presumes our separation from God, but an admiration of God’s true greatness revealed for us and a determined protection of the love-communion connecting us with God. All this does not mean that I would think: we do not need any kind of fight against our sins and faults because "God will take care of them". No! Mercy is not for free. Just to get close to God makes us feel Christ’s and the Father’s immense pain when they see our sins, makes us hate these sins and helps avoid them. (For further details, please, read my essay here.)

 

   

 

3. How can we overcome our faults? Neither with "making good on them". Nor only with fighting against them. We can overcome our faults only with accepting Jesus and with protecting the love-communion we have with the Father by all means, relying on Their power. Thus the source of repelling sin is the attraction to Jesus and the Father. That is how we ourselves become able to be peace- and love-sources in our environments. (For further details, please, read my essay here.)

 

 

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The power of prayer

Thoughts about the forms of our connection with God

 

 

 

1. Lives in which prayer does not “fit in”. Here I describe the monologue of two people. One of them is extremely poor, the other is extremely rich. The end of the two monologues are the same: I have my own problems. Leave me alone with worlds I do not even know anything about. This world has already overwhelmed me. (If you would like to read more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

 

2. Prayers to ourselves. A prayer for a lot of people is a... a.) monologue; b.) relief; c.) complaint; d.) solution; e.) obligation, role; f.) salvation. „Even a badly told prayer is much better than a prayer not told.” (Saint Teresa of Ávila) (If you would like to read more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

3. The thousand faces of the genuine prayer: The blissful paths leading us to God. A real prayer searches for the Giver, not the gift. The genuine prayer is Silence listening to the totality of God living within us. A real prayer is not about us. It asks for and awaits the love, truth and will of God to the center of our hearts. In a real prayer we make ourselves silent in order to let God fill us. A real prayer does not decrease but increases our freedom explosively. Only in full knowledge of our pitifulness and indignity we can accept the mercy that delivers us from our pitifulness and indignity. A real prayer has a thousand faces. A real prayer – is our lives themselves as a whole. A real prayer does not live in time. A real prayer opens the gate of Paradise again and places the re-creating hands of God into our lives. (If you would like to read more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

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