It is not right to judge anyone, even if you have seen someone sinning and wallowing in the violations of God’s laws with your own eyes, as is said in the word of God: "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Mt. 7:1). "Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand" (Rom. 14:4). It is much better always to bring to memory the words of the apostle: "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor. 10:12).
One must not harbor anger or hatred towards a person that is hostile toward us. On the contrary, one must love him and do as much good as possible towards him, following the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ: "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you" (Mt. 5:44). If then we will try to fulfill all this to the extent of our power, we can hope that God’s light will begin to shine in our hearts, lighting our path to the heavenly Jerusalem.
Why do we judge our neighbors? Because we are not trying to get to know ourselves. Someone busy trying to understand himself has no time to notice the shortcomings of others. Judge yourself — and you will stop judging others. Judge a poor deed, but do not judge the doer. It is necessary to consider yourself the most sinful of all, and to forgive your neighbor every poor deed. One must hate only the devil, who tempted him. It can happen that someone might appear to be doing something bad to us, but in reality, because of the doer's good intentions, it is a good deed. Besides, the door of penitence is always open, and it is not known who will enter it sooner — you, "the judge," or the one judged by you.
St. Seraphim of Sarov
The priest had just finished a board meeting with the church committee. Night had fallen and it was very dark.. The rain made the streets shine in the moonlight. The priest got into his car and headed home.. He was very tired, physically and spiritually. All day he had heard the problems of the world, trying to guide, trying not to be weary himself with what he heard while offerring forgiveness and hope.
As he had almost reached home, he suddenly braked in front of a store that sells sandwiches. He descended from his car and with two to three quick steps he walked into the store. The rain was falling harder . His glasses were wet and he then took them off and wiped them down..
The store was empty of clients .There were two girls standing behind the cash and one other man preparing the deilveries for the homes. "I would please like two gyro sandwiches and two souvlaki sandwiches ..." said the priest. The two girls looked at each other in the eyes, in the mood to make a joke.
The priest went to the fridge to get two soft drinks and he then placed them next to the cash register. What the priest requested was ready. "What do I owe please ..." he asked the girl who was punching in the items at the cash. Instead of hearing price of the order ,the priest was asked a question ... "Father, do you know what day it is today? Did you forget? " The priest was surprised ... "What day is it ..."? "It's Friday father, is it not a fasting day ? You supposedly have to lead by example and not to eat meat such a day .... " The priest lowered his head. He pulled from his wallet the amount that was indicated on the cash register. "Keep the change , he said ..... I would like for you to pray for me,I am a wretched man and full of passions ..." he said and went out of the shop. She noticed that the priest, leaving from the shop did not head towards his car, not fully satisfied for what the priest had said, she exited the store...
"Where is he going ..."? she said looking at the other girl who was baffled with the whole scene.. The priest went to the passenger side of the car, facing the path to his house. With quick footseps the priest found himself within in a few seconds where he wanted.to be, in front of a rubbish bin. The rain began to fall harder. "Brother, can I trouble you a bit ..." were the words of the priest to the tan man who was looking in the trash. The man left the bags that he had in his hands and headed towards the priest. He stood exactly in front of the priest . Their eyes communed the same rain, the same air, the same cold ... The priest did not say anything else, he spread out his hands with the bags of sandwiches and refreshments. The swarthy man did not spread out his hands , probably not believing what is happening. A small child, probably his son, who was standing beside him, spread out his small and weak hands and took the bags and began to pry them open.. The priest turned around and left..
Reaching his car, which he had left in front of the sandwich store, a surprise awaited him. The girl that had made the remark had come out to see where the priest had gone ... she had seen everything that had happened. "Father .... sorry ...". she didn't have time to finish, the priest grabbed her hands and interrupting told her: "Do not worry ... pray for me, and wished her a good night."
The girl's eyes became watery ... two or three tears were rolling down her cheeks as she saw the priest's car disappearing into the rainy night. Across the street passed the swarthy man and the small child, laughing and eating what the priest had offerred to them. The girl walked into the shop. "Are you okay?" her colleague asked. "It is very bad to judge quickly and especially the things we only see..." she said with a trembling voice.
Archimandrite Pavos Papadopoulos
Translation of original in Greek
http://artoklasia.blogspot.ca/2014/11/blog-post_25.html
Elder Paisios tells us that, if we are to grow in love toward our fellow man, we are to cut off those thoughts and feelings which are an offense against love: that is, judgments and resentments. He counseled that "We should never, even under the worst circumstances, allow a negative thought to penetrate our soul. The person, who, under all circumstances, is inclined to have positive thoughts, will always be a winner; his life will be a constant festivity, since it is constantly based on positive thinking" (Priestmonk Christodoulos Aggeloglou, Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain Mount Athos, Greece, 1998, p. 31).
One of Elder Paisios’ spiritual sons recalls, "Elder Paisios always urged us to think positively. Our positive thinking, however, should not be our ultimate aim; eventually our soul must be cleansed from our positive thoughts as well, and be left bare, having as its sole vestment Divine Grace granted to us through Holy Baptism. ‘This is our aim,’ he used to say, ‘to totally submit our mind to the Grace of God. The only thing Christ is asking from us is our humility. The rest is taken care of by His Grace.
"‘In the beginning, we should willingly try to develop positive thoughts, which will gradually lead us to the perfect good, God, to Whom belongs all glory, honor and worship. On the contrary, to us belongs only the humility of our conceited attitude’ " (Ibid., p. 29).
Elder Paisios’ teachings on thoughts and inner watchfulness, drawn from his own profound experience in the spiritual life, are particularly crucial for us who have been formed by modern Western culture. Because he spent so much time listening to people (both monastic and lay) and helping them with their problems, Elder Paisios became acutely aware of the various spiritual diseases afflicting modern Western man. Above all, he recognized — and sought to treat — the most prevalent disease: rationalism. Although the modern rationalist worldview was born in Western Europe during the Enlightenment era, it has progressively been inundating the entire world, including Orthodox lands such as Greece. Therefore, when Elder Paisios speaks to the spiritual malady of rationalism in contemporary Greece, he is also speaking to our spiritual malady in America and the West.
Ultimately, the malady of modern rationalism comes down to one essential ingredient: trusting the conclusions of one’s logical mind. We of the modern West have been raised with an underlying assumption, summed up in the well-known phrase of Rene Descartes at the beginning of the Enlightenment era: "I think, therefore I am." The worldview of modern rationalism, having lost an awareness of the immortal soul in man, leads us to believe that our thoughts are v/ho we are, and, conversely, that we are the sum total of our thoughts. Therefore, we automatically feel that we have to trust our thoughts, to take a stand for them, to defend them as we would our own flesh and blood.
This is the essential fallacy of the modern worldview. It is precisely by placing absolute trust in the formulations of the fallen human mind — rather than in divine revelation — that modern Western man has come to water down or abandon his once-cherished Christian Faith. We Orthodox Christians living in the West must act against this influence by refusing to accord outright trust to our thoughts.
Elder Paisios teaches: "The devil does not hunt after those who are lost; he hunts after those who are aware, those who are close to God. He takes from them trust in God and begins to afflict them with self-assurance, logic, thinking, criticism. Therefore we should not trust our logical minds. Never believe your thoughts.
"Live simply and without thinking too much, like a child with his father. Faith without too much thinking works wonders. The logical mind hinders the Grace of God and miracles. Practice patience without judging with the logical mind."
Elsewhere Elder Paisios counseled: "We ought always to be careful and be in constant hesitation about whether things are really as we think. For when someone is constantly occupied with his thoughts and trusts in them, the devil will manage things in such a way that he will make the man evil, even if by nature he was good.
"The ancient fathers did not trust their thoughts at all, but even in the smallest things, when they had to give an answer, they addressed the matter in their prayer, joining to it fasting, in order in some way to ‘force’ Divine Grace to inform them what was the right answer according to God. And when they received the ‘information,’ they gave the answer.
"Today I observe that even with great matters, when someone asks, before he has even had the time to complete his question, we interrupt him and answer him. This shows that not only do we not seek enlightenment from the Grace of God, but we do not even judge with the reason God gave us. On the contrary, whatever our thoughts suggest to us, immediately, without hesitation, we trust it and consent to it, often with disastrous results.
"Almost all of us view thoughts as being something simple and natural, and that is why we naively trust them. However, we should neither trust them nor accept them.
"Thoughts are like airplanes flying in the air. If you ignore them, there is no problem. If you pay attention to them, you create an airport inside your head and permit them to land!" (Ibid., pp. 29-30, 48).
Elder Paisios
