0:03 Hello friends of the interwebs.
0:05 I have presented to you this
0:08 state-of-the-art graph to break down the
0:10 problems with psychology and the answers
0:13 in holy orthodoxy. We are going to
0:16 answer these four questions in order to
0:19 understand what is fatally broken about
0:21 psychology and why if you follow it on a
0:24 long enough timeline, a person generally
0:27 speaking can actually become much worse
0:29 than they previously were. So let's talk
0:33 about the basics of how we understand
0:36 the human person in psychology versus
0:39 holy orthodoxy. Your center, what is the
0:41 core of yourself that is broken, that is
0:44 damaged, that needs to be repaired, that
0:47 needs to come together? In psychology,
0:52 the center of your person is your mind,
0:54 particularly the realm of thoughts and
0:56 how you've processed your past and
0:59 memories. This is why, and I've seen
1:01 this so many times, somebody will go to
1:02 psychology for something that's
1:03 traumatizing that happened in their
1:05 youth, and they'll begin to replay it to
1:08 the psychologist over and over and begin
1:09 to talk about it. In fact, I've had
1:12 people tell me, "I actually came out of
1:15 it more damage because I continued to
1:18 relive my past traumas through having to
1:20 continually speak about it." What are
1:22 the problems with the mind? Well, the
1:26 mind is gifted at solving problems. It's
1:30 gifted at math and driving and making
1:33 decisions based on analysis, right? It's
1:36 strategic. It has a purpose and a place,
1:38 but it's not the core. It's not the
1:40 center of our being. What are the
1:43 downsides and some of the fatal flaws of
1:46 the mind? Well, the mind can hold on to
1:48 memories much, much longer than is
1:51 healthy or normal for you to process
1:53 them. What else is the mind? Well, as
1:54 we've spoken in numerous videos, the
1:56 mind is susceptible to demonic
1:59 influence. You can have logus mi, which
2:01 are intrusive thoughts that come to you
2:03 from the demons. And sometimes those
2:05 logus mi have been been coming for so
2:08 many years. It's actually trained the
2:10 way that you think and you begin to
2:12 accept these thoughts as your own. Is
2:15 the mind bad? No, the mind is not bad.
2:18 It's in some sense not really per se
2:21 good although it has a good purpose but
2:24 it is not healthy and helpful to see the
2:26 center of your being in the mind. That
2:31 is not where we truly reside. This is a
2:34 more recent and abstract understanding.
2:36 This is not how people historically even
2:40 thought of themselves. Why? Because
2:44 every person has a heart.
2:46 Now we use this language
2:52 that the holy fathers use noose
2:55 noose. The noose is the eye of the soul
2:58 but it's the center of man's being and
3:01 it's and it's in his heart. There's some
3:04 strong correlation between the actual
3:06 physical heart and the knowetic heart.
3:09 This is why uh ancient practitioners of
3:12 prayer would focus their attention in
3:14 the area of the heart. Man is
3:17 psychosomatic. He is soul and body knit
3:20 together. And so it is that when we talk
3:22 about our center of our being,
3:26 everything is within our souls because
3:28 this is where we communicate and
3:31 encounter God. Man is not a kind of
3:34 two-dimensional worldly being. Man is
3:37 kind of like a sixthdimensional being
3:42 that can encounter the divine God. He
3:44 can actually have God dwelling within
3:47 him. God can dwell within the soul of a
3:48 human being.
3:51 So what does Christ say in the gospels?
3:54 He says, "Blessed are the pure in heart,
3:57 for they shall see God."
4:00 Many times when someone's heart, their
4:02 noose becomes darkened and blackened
4:04 with sin, the holy fathers of the church
4:07 tell us this this darkened noose
4:09 actually prevents them from seeing God.
4:12 It gives them a distorted view of God.
4:15 They're unable to communicate with God
4:17 because everything about God looks
4:20 distorted through the heart that has
4:23 been distorted and corrupted with sin.
4:25 And so it's not just the heart is good
4:28 or in this way. It's simply the fact
4:31 that the way that we were created was
4:33 for this interaction between the human
4:36 and the divine that we were meant to
4:39 make contact like you know kind of like
4:41 a satellite. You know we were supposed
4:43 to catch the the beams that were coming
4:45 from God. We were supposed to be able to
4:48 transmit back to him. The soul is in
4:51 this way this fantastic or has this
4:54 fantastic component that is able to
4:56 communicate in a way that is kind of
4:58 otherworldly. Hello friends, thank you
5:00 for checking out my channel. Please like
5:02 and subscribe and if you like to
5:05 participate in a weekly Q&A with me and
5:07 enjoy a course on marriage and an
5:09 upcoming course on dating, we have
5:11 interviews and weekly Q&As at
5:14 school.com/father Moses. God bless.
5:17 But so what is your purpose? Well, in
5:20 psychology, the purpose is to kind of
5:24 reconcile the mind.
5:27 It is to make peace with your thoughts
5:31 or make peace with yourself. It is a way
5:35 of trying to get your mind
5:37 better acclimated to the world. This is
5:39 why we have a lot of talk therapy these
5:41 days where people can talk through their
5:44 problems and thinking that they can do
5:45 this in order to make peace with things
5:48 or this is even the reason why we such a
5:50 we see such a huge explosion of people
5:52 uh investing so much time and energy
5:55 into psychedelics. This idea that they
5:57 can open up or expand portions of their
6:00 mind and then in that way they can come
6:02 to peace with something or come to terms
6:04 with a problem. But everything is very
6:07 much up here. this is kind of broken and
6:09 we've kind of got to try to fix it in
6:12 some way and it's very distorted. It's
6:16 very distorted because the goals are to
6:18 become peaceful with what is the
6:20 problem. And and the thing is is that
6:24 isn't really man's goal at all. So the
6:27 purpose in orthodoxy
6:33 your heart.
6:35 What do we mean by that? Well, out of
6:38 the heart flows every temptation.
6:41 So, our desire to do something that we
6:44 should not be doing, it may start in our
6:47 head and in our mind, but as we begin to
6:49 accept the thought, it begins to travel
6:51 down into our heart. We begin to desire
6:54 it or crave it or long for it. It
6:56 becomes something that becomes a part of
6:59 us. Our desires are what the fathers
7:02 call passions or sins or the
7:04 inclinations towards things that are not
7:07 what God wants us to do and more
7:12 importantly not who God wants us to be.
7:13 Everything within our life as an
7:17 orthodox Christian is becoming into the
7:20 image of God. We were created in his
7:22 image but then we grow into his
7:24 likeness. And let me give you an
7:27 example. If you see one of my children
7:29 and you look at their face, you know who
7:30 their father is. They're made in my
7:32 image. But they're children. They have
7:34 to grow up. The question becomes, will
7:37 they become into my likeness? Will they
7:40 adopt my values, my character, my
7:42 lifestyle, the service, all of these
7:44 different things? Because if they're
7:46 just made in my image, but they don't
7:49 grow into my likeness, we become
7:52 distorted and separated.
7:54 See, we have to purify our heart. And
7:56 that's why when people say, "Well, I
7:58 just listen to my heart or my heart
8:00 guides me." Most of that is nonsense.
8:03 It's just emotions or fleeting thoughts
8:05 or other things. It's not that they have
8:09 really tapped in to the depths of their
8:12 soul and thereby encountered God. In the
8:15 true sense of Christian spirituality,
8:17 Orthodox spirituality, we see that the
8:20 heart first has to become purified by sin.
8:22 sin.
8:23 Somebody asked one of the church
8:27 fathers, "How do I see God's unccreated
8:30 glory?" And he said, "It's two steps,
8:33 very simple." He said, "The first step
8:35 is keep the commandments."
8:37 He said, "That will teach you about the
8:40 second step." See, we have to be
8:43 striving to acquire this purity within
8:47 ourselves that transcends merely not
8:49 just activities but in the depths of our
8:53 core actually hating the evil and loving
8:56 the good and the good being God himself.
8:59 So what is your goal within psychology? Well,
9:00 Well,
9:04 in a short way, the goal is just to kind
9:06 of create this happy life based on
9:09 however you define happiness. There is
9:11 nothing objective in psychology. There
9:13 is no objective morality or even
9:16 lifestyle. There is nothing that is a
9:19 greater purpose than you yourself which
9:22 creates a narcissism where a person is
9:24 obsessed only with themselves and their
9:27 own happiness and how to get there. They
9:29 don't understand sacrifice
9:33 or uh service. They don't understand the
9:35 under the idea that we find ourselves
9:37 truly in serving other people because
9:39 the whole notion is about becoming at
9:41 peace with your own life and in a sense
9:44 only serving yourself and not God. What
9:47 is the goal in the holy orthodox church?
9:50 Well, famously
9:52 St. Saraphim of Sarov he said the
9:56 acquisition of the Holy Spirit.
9:59 What does this mean? It means to create
10:02 such an environment within ourselves
10:05 that God dwells with us and inside of
10:08 us. This is who man was created to be.
10:11 See in psychology man is a standalone figure
10:12 figure
10:15 a a kind of void in the universe a small
10:18 void in the greater void. But not in
10:22 holy orthodoxy. Oh, God created us so
10:25 that we would enter into union with him.
10:28 That we would enter into deep levels of
10:30 intimacy with him and that we would be
10:32 able to communicate with him and he
10:36 communicate with us. This experience of
10:39 what the saints call deification.
10:42 St. Peter in his epistle he says we are
10:44 by grace
10:47 what he is by nature. Well, what is God
10:50 by nature? by God by nature is he's God.
10:53 So what are we by his grace? We become
10:56 lowercase G gods. We have the Holy
10:59 Spirit dwelling within us. Christ is
11:03 fully man and fully God knit together
11:07 100% of both. Whereas we are fully man
11:09 but God is always distinct but he's
11:12 dwelling within us. This is deification.
11:15 This is the true path of salvation.
11:18 So when it comes to your mission of
11:21 happiness, what is your mission? Well,
11:23 it's whatever.
11:26 It's whatever you want it to be. There
11:28 are no rules. There is no guidance.
11:30 There is whatever. It's just however you
11:32 think that you're going to get there.
11:35 And primarily, unfortunately, and sadly,
11:38 that becomes a process of seeking after
11:41 what you want to seek after for your own
11:44 happiness and enjoyment. This is why so
11:46 many marriages are ruined by this train
11:48 of thought because one person in the
11:50 marriage says, "Well, I'm not happy or I
11:52 don't like this or whatever else." And
11:53 then they just say, "Well, I'll just
11:56 divorce." That is what's going to bring
11:58 me happiness. It's a travesty. It's a lie.
12:00 lie.
12:03 What is your mission? Well, Christ says
12:06 it most succinctly.
12:11 Take up your cross and follow me.
12:14 The mission for the Christian is to die
12:18 to himself to becoming a living martyr.
12:20 St. John Chasm the church father he says
12:23 it that the Christian trades this life
12:27 for the next life. The life of martyrdom
12:30 is completely foreign to our society.
12:33 Our society has become absolutely
12:36 consumed with me me and my happiness and
12:38 what is best for me and how I want to do
12:40 things and I don't want to do anything
12:43 that inhibits me or causes me any
12:45 discomfort or pain or any of these other
12:48 things. And yet the reality is when
12:49 you're living the life of the cross it
12:51 is incredibly difficult and painful. The
12:54 true life of a Christian is like what
12:56 St. Paul says when he says, "Listen, I'm
12:58 alive and it's better for everybody
13:00 else, but it'd be better for me if I
13:03 died." The life of the Christian is
13:06 sacrificial service to love God and then
13:09 to take that love and to show love to
13:11 other people. To love them back to
13:14 health, to take care of them, to provide
13:16 for them, to provide for one's family,
13:18 to lay down your life. Christ says
13:20 there's no greater love than this, that
13:22 he give his life for another. We often
13:24 think of that in terms of like if
13:26 somebody is, you know, has a bunch of
13:27 hostages and you say, "I'm going to
13:30 volunteer myself to die." Well, in one
13:32 sense that's true. That is an ultimate
13:35 sacrifice of love. But the living
13:38 martyrdom of a Christian is even much
13:40 greater than that. That is a one-time
13:42 event and it's over with. the living
13:45 martyrdom of being a mother, of being a
13:47 father, of being a husband, being a
13:50 wife. All of these roles within life or
13:52 somebody takes on the monastic life. All
13:56 of these are martyr lives. People often
13:59 see an orthodox wedding service and we
14:02 put crowns on the husband and wife, the
14:04 bride and the groom, and people act as
14:06 though this is like a royal wedding.
14:08 That is not what is happening at all.
14:11 Those are the crowns of martyrdom. You
14:12 are saying at the moment of your
14:14 marriage that you will die for the other
14:17 person, not as a one-time event, but a
14:21 continual daily martyr offering for the
14:23 well-being of the other person. And if
14:25 you're equally yolked, they have the
14:28 same vision. And so, the two of you are
14:30 constantly dying for each other. You're
14:33 laying down your life. In fact, Paul
14:36 says very clearly, "Husbands, love your
14:39 wives like Christ loved the church and
14:42 gave himself up for her." That life is
14:44 sacrificial. That means anything that I
14:46 make, anything that I do, anything that
14:48 I can add, everything goes to my wife
14:50 and to my children, to my family, to strangers,
14:52 strangers,
14:55 to the community, to the church. I don't
14:57 live for myself. People think by
15:00 acquiring all kinds of means and goods,
15:01 they're somehow going to be finding
15:04 happiness. And that most unhappy people
15:07 in the world are people who have loads
15:09 of possessions and no love in their
15:11 hearts. They're empty and hollow and
15:14 vapid and shallow. Then you can go to a
15:16 house and find a family with next to
15:18 nothing and happy children and a wife
15:20 that loves them and a husband that loves
15:22 his wife and loves his children. And
15:25 that is the wealthiest family on earth.
15:26 We brothers and sisters are trying to
15:30 create this life to locate our heart to
15:34 purify it to invite God to dwell within
15:36 us through the reception of the Holy
15:38 Spirit when we are crisismated into the
15:41 church at at the moment of our baptism
15:43 to acquire more and more of that
15:44 presence of the Holy Spirit by
15:48 continually showing him I need you. and
15:51 then living that out as Christ was the
15:54 awesome example in his words, I came to
15:57 serve, not to be served. If we acquire
15:59 this, we become neurotic and
16:02 self-obsessed and narcissistic. We end
16:05 up becoming strange and weird people. If
16:09 we acquire this, we become saints. God bless.
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