Spirituality

Spiritual man is he who has the energy of the Holy Spirit within.

There are three spiritual levels according to Orthodoxy:
1. Cleansing
2. Illumination or Enlightenment
3. Perfection or Deification or Theosis or Union with God

Cleansing
Cleansing is achieved through repentance. When someone is in repentance from some time he attains cleansing. A person who is cleansed has few sinful, lustful thoughts.
Cleansing is accomplished by:
1. Repentance
2. Prayer
3. Vigilance (wakefulness, sleeplessness)
4. Fasting (be a vegetarian not always)
5. Reading the Holy Bible
6. Charity (helping the poor)
7. Confession (confess your sins to a priest)
8. Obedience (obedience to your Confessor)
9. Receive worthily Holy Communion (body and blood of Christ)
10. Attending the services of the Church (Mass and so on)
11. Exercise (kneebends: it only means: kneel and move your head down to the floor and at the same time say: Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, have mercy on me your sinner and unworthy servant. Then you stand up and repeat. Count how many times you do the preceding action. The more the better. Do it at least 4 hours after meal.)
12. Humiliation
13. Attention (attention to what we see and hear. Avoid seeing tempting pictures)
14. Work (keep yourself busy)
15. Temperance (self-restraint in one's behavior for example in eating and drinking)
Suppose you insist on repentance and you are resolved to do anything to stop sinning especially sins of lust. You can stop eating. The second day your organism shuts down some of it's functions like the need to multiply (sex) and you reach repentance. I have tried it . You eat absolutely nothing.
Below there is an outline of how we commit a sin:
Firstly, a sinful thought comes into our mind.
Secondly, there is a consent from us of the sinful thought, we do not fight it with prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, bless me, but we let our mind think of the thought. The earlier you drop the thought the easier is to get rid of it. As time passes and you let the thought in your mind the thought gains momentum and it is harder to get rid of it.
Thirdly, there is a dialogue between the sinful thought and us we even might have the same sinful thought time and again and we start to feel the need to commit the sinful act.
Fourthly, we give up and commit the sin.
As it has already been mentioned the sooner you cast away the thought the easier is not to commit the sin. Suppose a sinful thought strikes you say: Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, bless me, ten times loudly if it strikes you again you say it another ten times until the thought retreats. Also, you might find something else to do like reading a passage from the Bible or talking to a friend. The Lord Jesus prayer is powerful and can displace thoughts if you practice it a lot. At the same time you say this prayer make the cross with your right hand on your body.
Fortunately, there is another way to all the aforementioned: You kneel and you pray with all your strength to Lord Jesus to keep you in repentance, after you have prayed for some time. A miracle happens you feel clean and without sinful thoughts.

Illumination or enlightenment
Illumination is reached if we satisfy the first level: cleansing and we pray for a considerable amount of time. It requires few sleep and a lot of prayer. The source of our thoughts are:
1. God
2. Self
3. Satan
By attaining the illumination level we have more thoughts of God. Our mind is illumined. Adam and Eve were at the illumination level before the fall(original sin).

Perfection
Perfection is reached if we satisfy the two previous levels and prayed for a considerable time especially the prayer of the heart. Prayer of the heart: Your heart says the prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, bless me. You insert this prayer in your heart. How is it done? You pray for half an hour a day repeating the phrase: Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, bless me. Gradually you increase the time. You say the prayer loudly and you feel with every word that you hit your heart. If you feel pain in your heart you stop and continue the next day. You try to open your heart and insert the prayer. You will reach a state when your heart says the prayer not you. I do not master the heart's prayer therefore I will write more and give the correct suggestions as soon as I acquire the heart's prayer. You can beg Jesus Christ to give you the gift of the heart's prayer. In perfection Jesus guides you.

Satisfying the three levels you feel peace, you feel clean. When you pray you are concentrated and you feel love. You finally, really, are a free person: freed from lustful thoughts, freed from passions, freed from sins. Until you feel pride and you lose everything and you start again from the beginning.

One may ask: how do you do it? How can I make miracles? How can I become a Saint? The answer is simple. It is one and only: prayer. You can love the whole world and the world loves you back, you can give all your possessions to the poor, you can fast, repent, but nothing can match prayer. Only prayer, pray for hours every day, the more you pray the more everything comes and finds you. By a lot of prayer repentance is made easy, you do not have sinful thoughts and you do not sin. By prayer you can make people see you and cry because you prayed for them. You feel love to God when you pray and surely God loves you back because you devote your time communicating with Him. You feel clean inside your head and inside your heart, you receive the Holy Spirit and it guides you. As it is mentioned you receive the Holy Spirit with repentance, prayer and humility. Yet, repentance and humility come when you pray a lot. It is important that you mention your progress to your confessor who can guide you. Prayer without humility is dangerous you can fall into deceit thinking you can change the world, ask for manna and quail to fall from the sky to feed the Africans like I did. Until today I am not sure what happened the only thing I know is that I prayed for dead to rise! Therefore, do not feel pride because you pray. I do not mean only quantity in prayer I mean quality as well: you pray with all your strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). To summarize, the key to success and to the Holy Spirit is: lots of prayer with humility.

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