How to BE PRESENT. How to let go of the Past & how to live in the Present
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- Fr Seraphim Aldea from Mull Monastery - Orthodox Monastery of All Celtic Saints on the Isle of Mull - talks about the dangers of trading the reality of our present for the fantasy world of a past which no longer exists. We must learn how to let go of the past and how to live in the present.
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We often mistake the reality of the person in front of us for a shadow from our past. We often fail to hear the real words they say and we react to painful echoes from a lost past which has nothing to do with the flesh and bones people in front of us. We often compromise our present out of fear of a past which has long ceased to exist.
There is a saying in the Desert Fathers: if you can neither pray, nor fast, nor keep vigil, then keep yourself in your cell and your cell will teach you everything. Only when we learn to keep ourselves in the reality of our cells (our marriage, our monastic life, our single life), only when we learn how to keep our minds and our hearts in the reality of 'here and now', only then we shall break free from the shadows and the echoes of our (endlessly rewritten) past.
Only then shall we see who we are, who Christ is and how to approach the Cross of salvation.
![Lord of Spirits - A Land of Giants [Ep. 7]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zjqchu-XUXE/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm 14 and i love your videos. I have only become a Christian less than a year ago and you are a big helper. I am surrounded by athiests at home and school and you teach so much truth. You are such an inspiration and you have been helping me and others like me and for that i am grateful. God bless.
Stay on the righteous path..god see's your resolve and purity..amen
You have been given a wonderful gift.
You are a wise young one. If possible, and you feel the calling, seek the monastic life.
There are no words of gratitude for your presentations. You have helped me marry my spiritual and psychological world. You are my blessing
Dear Father Seraphim, your message was extremely timely for me. I ask for your prayers. 🙏🏻♥️☦️
My new favourite teacher. So close to home too! Which is unusual for these internet times 😅😅
Praying for you dearest Father. May Our Lady Queen of Peace -Medjugorje, cure you from migraines. She did it to me.🙏🕊💒🕊🙏
So blessed thank you Father!☦️❤️🙏🏻
I spent my life alone in a very long and horrible marriage. Unfortunately, my childhood trauma and lack of guidance landed me in a marriage to someone that believes he's god, ironically enough. If it hadn't been for my recent divorce, I don't believe I would of had an awakening. I realized I didn't need people in order to feel lonely. In fact, this person's disrespect had spiritually broke me. I have learned a lot from the experience and I hope to forget about him, at best... I have no desire to carry a torche for the past, any longer.This was suggested to me, and I feel it was no accident. I started my journey aquiring orthodox art (no idea what faith it was, at the time), then found beautiful hymns etc. from cathedrals...I only very recently found out that my real name is of a martyred orthodox saint. It has all been very surreal, as if calling me. I found out that where I am relocating has a lot of orthodox churches and the nature I feel so far removed from.
Hearing this is kinda life changing
I like the fact that your hands gesture to make a cross when you talk of the here and now.
Thank you for helping me to work out my own salvation.
Amen! And may His love be present with you, our dear brother Father Seraphim! In HIs Glory we shall move from "glory to glory" with your prayer, that of our Celtic brothers and sisters, and those of the Holy Theotokos our Mother and His! Glory to God in His saints! Grant us to be a part of those on the Right Hand of the Lord at His appearing in Glory! Amen!
Thank you, Fr. Aldea. May God keep and protect you.
Am studiat în tinerete multe materiale new age (vreme de 10 ani)..despre cum să trăiești în prezent ... am aruncat toate cartile new age cand l-am auzit pe Pr Arsenie Papacioc vorbind despre starea de prezență. Acest material pe care l-am vizionat este al doilea cel mai zguduitor din viața mea care sper să arunce din mine toate reminiscenţele si legăturile cu fanteziile despre a fi în prezent și să pot să trăiesc în singurul prezent adevărat, cel întru Hristos. Ce bine e că am și eu chilia mea (căsnicia mea). Bogdaprosti Părinte Serafim.
This is a new perspective. Embrace the reality. We, unfortunately, seek fantasy to ease the pain. Pray that we can be true to ourselves.
Amen THANK YOU
Wonderful teaching. Gives each of us much to absorb and integrate into our worldview. Thank you, father.
Dear Father Seraphim, try “peppermint oil” for migraines. Place a little bit on your forehead & temples. It helps. God bless. ✝️🙏🏻
I am currently in this state big leaving the world behind and have been working on this for the past 4 years since I needed to end a relationship. My only desire was to have my relationship with God. I believe that the evil one sent someone into my life to try to knock me off this path. I am at peace with maintaining a single life focused on trusting in and making the Lord my God my beloved focusing only on Him and serving him, for what ever time I have left on this earth. I believe that this is God's will for my life and may have always been. I just wasn't really listening, to that small voice and rather wanted to live by my will. Thank you brother for this teaching. I am trying to only live in the present, going to my inner cell and spending more time there to devote my time in prayer and meditation on God and listening more closely. Before I try to make ba decision on anything on any direction to go and wait on God for that direction. I have made too many mistakes by making decisions without it.
This is an important message!
May God bless YOU and your dear ones be saved by all saints and Theotokos ..Amen
Just Remarkable! Wow!
Beautiful Thank you
For temporary releif for migraines, during one think of the particular migraines shape, location, and colour.. i thought it was crazy too but it worked for me.. for longer term releif make sure u are not over working ur trap and rear neck muscles by looking down too much when reading etc.. and use your cervical flexors more (by keeping ur chin back and tighening ur throat slightly as if someone is about to chop you in the neck)..
What a blessing. Thank you.
God bless you Fr. May Gods mercy be upon you.
It's so important to me to find a man who I can trust to call Father with my heart. I trust your face. It has been a nightmare forever unfolding in the Catholic church with the atrocities exposed decades ago.
How can evil like the abuse of children hide so successfully within the church? Anyways thankyou so much.
Thank you so much for these teachings. I have only found you a few days ago, and in these few days you have helped me understand a lot of things that I have gone through and are still going through. You have a wonderful gift of explaining things. You will be in my prayers and hope your migraines stop coming back to you. They are very painful. Again, thank you so much for videos. They are helping me so much. God Bless.
Thank you Father Seraphim! I find it interesting that your insights and teaching are entirely consonant with modern research and practice in psychiatry and psychotherapy. Perhaps the Church has always known what modern science has just discovered.
Watching From India.. God bless you Fr.
Thank you for your sharing. This is beautiful. 🙏
Once again it feels like those words were meant for me. Your ministry js such a blessing. Thank_you so much. Feeling ever more drawn to Orthodoxy
THANK YOU FATHER...VERY PRECIOUS ADVICES...GREECE
Thank you Father Seraphim
Med treatment for migraines is complex.. often it involves diet, vitamin deficiencies. Fr seraphim.... I hope you are not depriving yourself with current medical advances on migraines ... I do understand a reluctance to use meds to alleviate pain as it often interferes with prayer and meditation.
Dear Richard, thank you for these words. You are right, I have gone through all possible stages in my response to these migraines - I've had them for so long, I cannot imagine myself without them. For a while, I used to try not to take any medication and just suffer through them; other times, I was in such pain I would have done anything and taken any medication for a migraine-free day. I went through the extremes and I have learnt so much about myself and spiritual life from this. I am now asking Christ to do His will in me: I keep trying to find a cure, but I ask Him to only allow me to find it when / if it is for my salvation. I keep trying to cure this because I accept in humility that I want a life without the pain; but I also accept that I've survived over two decades with this and Christ has not abandoned me, and He has continued to bless me and to use me as His servant. This is a good balance for me: God, this is what I wish for, but may You will be done. Thank you for caring, dear one. May we all be blessed.
Thanks a lot Fr Seraphim!
God bless you father
Thanks for God to gives us you and thanks alot for your effort may God make you a saint pray for us father and thank you a second time for the wonderful video that speeks to the heart... 🙏🙏🙏
Wow! This is very insightful. I did not realize how many idols I have created by projecting my past experiences on my relationships. I will strive to live in the present. Thank you for sharing your wisdom brother.
Fr. Seraphim, thank you so much for this wonderful video. As someone who experiences migraines on top of other health issues, I really needed to hear this. It truly is difficult to be in the present and not fall into self pity or ruminate on the past while lying in bed while you're ill. As a matter of fact, that's the exact reason God led me to this video; I needed spiritual uplifting so as to avoid thinking too much of worldly things as I am in pain. I am happy to announce that I am a new subscriber, after watching this and a couple other videos you've recorded. May God continue to bless you in your work. God willing, I look forward to many more. 🙏💕☦️🕊
Lara n Elizabeth
I love yr comments
identify with them.
I found Fr. Seraphim just a few days ago n just love his reflections.... truly so spirit filled.
the last two reflections are just what I wanted to hear...n it was the voice of God.
May in Dubai UAE
Thank you🙏
Amen. Thank you.
Thank God for all good things, dear Barbara.
God bless you sir
for migraines I use Vicks VapoRub under my nose and close one nostril and try to breathe in the vapors and alternate, after a while my sinuses crackle and open up, this equalization of breathing takes pressure off the inner ear nerve which is where the pain of a migraine originates hope this helps
Thanks you so much for sharing this, it is a message of great wisdom that I needed to hear!
Thank God for that, dear Patrick. And thank you for writing these words - it helps so much to hear that there is indeed some good, even just a drop, which Christ works in the world through the ministry of the Monastery. May we all be blessed, dear one.
Thank you so much For. Seraphim! It is indeed a helpful. My wife and four little children began our journey into the orthodox church just recently, a few weeks ago and your videos have helped us come closer to God during this amazing process
Wow.
I tried marriage and could not take the physical mental psychological Financial abuse which I am still scarred with. I needed reconstructive surgery for a cigarette burn on my chest this wasn't just hitting me. God will have to say this is mr. Right when and if mr. Right crosses my path.
God is using you mightily, Father! Surely the Potter molding you through your trials. Thank you today for helping me with this message. All of the sickness & turmoil has driven me to what my spiritual Father calls The Little Skete, my cell. God bless & protect you.
Dear Patricia, as long as we keep following Christ, we are constantly being shaped into the Human Beings we were created to become - at times, that happens through the fire of our passions; other times, through the fire brought upon us by our neighbour; and - some very blessed times - by the Fire of the Holy Spirit, as we see in the lives of the Saints. Thank you for your support and for your kindness, it matters very much for me.
How can someone that is so young be so wise? Please, God, give the migraine to me!
Maybe try some Kratom? Idk if that's supported.
They are all good people but it does not mean i want to fall into their pit. I am still struggling with my own pit. Politicians are not saviors. True freedom is only found in Christ.
Amen Amen Amen. Truly this is the way +++
Please keep me and the Monastery in your prayers, dear James. Be blessed, dear one.
Dont let em pull you away from God, their pit is the long way home.
When this man speaks, I feel the Holy Spirit. Many on earth are starving for Truth; never stop teaching, Brother!
I had migraines for 15 yrs and it would come and go. I was going to different doctors for my head but no cured until my tooth was extracted from my dentist. My dentist told me that the root of my tooth was bad and infected and finally it cracked and she couldn’t save it but to pulled it out. After the extraction my severed headaches was gone too.
@@yennguyen-uj3ri You've replied to Buffenmeyer's comment. You should put your comment in the main comments section, otherwise it's hard to notice.
I feel so,too..that he is blessed with the Holly Spirit..
Dear Father,
Please pray for me and my family.we would like to be a personal relation ship with our
Lord jesus christ, and mother mary..
Iam very much interested in your talks and sharings recently I found in the u tube vedieos .Iam from cochin, kerala ,southern India. Please pray for our country to know the only oneGOD andOUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. AMEN.
Thank you so much ,May our good lord bless all your endevours.
Amen
I am a priest and i am struggling but
Your talks fill me peace and encouragement
Thank you and please pray for me if possible.
We are in need so much Fr. Please come and teach me and my friends. We need even a bad priest to help us!!!
This man out here putting therapists out of a job.
Much love ❤
When I see the picture of Mother Mary on the walls of your abby, it gives me a lot of happiness
One of Father Thomas Hopko's 55 Maxims To A Christian Life is be Present. Don't carry the regrets of yesterday and don't worry about the future. Be in the present.
This is none but God speaking to me through my brother in Christ. I know this because I really wanted to hear this in my current reality. May God bless you all dear elders!
After watching this video I realised one true thing.
I was so stupid through out my life creating a fantasy idol of this world.
YES I am the greatest stupid.
Thank you so much for this video.
Now my heart feels at rest.
Just how I feel,too..
I need to be in the present and not carry regrets of the past. I come from a very dysfunctional family. My mother had schizophrenia and was violent. My sister at the age of 16 was diagnosed with a chemical imbalance and was violent. I had my own set of problems ( none of them had to do with mental illness ). I have an undiagnosed learning disability ( possibly autism spectrum ) and very dysfunctional myself. I am taking Prozac for mild depression and processing problems. I am also selfish, lazy, absent-minded, thoughtless, careless, a liar, and a thief. My home was destroyed in a fire back in December and I am currently staying with a friend. I am 38 years old and single. I am not being called to married life and I doubt joining a monastery is in the near future right now, although I am very drawn to living a monastic type lifestyle. As you can see I have my cross to bear.
Marie Sieloff God be with you ♥️ Sending prayers your way
@@dimitrap5615 thank you
Be strong, dear Marie. Be strong and take things as they come. It helps me a great deal not to try to 'fix' all things at once, but to focus on the urgent thing at hand. If I were to contemplate the entire mountain before me, I would dig myself a hole and hide in it for the rest of my life. But I try to look only at the road I need to cover today or the following week - if God helps me through this week, I shall then see what I do about the next one. And make perfect peace with yourself - your 'faults' are the aspects of yourself that make you able to pray in a way which is only yours; only you can offer this sacrifice to Christ for your sins and for the sins of the whole world. Only you, through your 'weaknesses' and imperfections, can utter your prayer. You see the world from inside its own weakness, from inside its own imperfections, and that makes your prayer unique and immensely valuable in the eyes of the One Who willingly put Himself on a Cross for us. Be blessed, dear one. Be strong and pray for us all.
@@mullmonastery I will keep on trying. I won't give up. My Bishop in his homily for the transfiguration says God wants us to be transferred and he is like a parent who encourages their child to walk for the first time. My Priest and some members of my Parish are aware of my faults and I have gone to them for advice. I am looking into seeing a counselor to work with me. I can't do this alone.
Bless you. We can't live in the past, but there is definitely a time to work through the past so that there can be some healing. For various reasons, through someone I dearly love, I understand a little of what you're going through. Know that there are people praying for you, that God may reach out and comfort you. I hope you have a spiritual father with whom you can talk about some of these issues; there's a big difference in being humble and admitting we're sinful, versus letting our weaknesses (sometimes based in physical problems) overload us with guilt and feelings of worthlessness. No one is worthless before God.
This holy brother has become the bright part of my prayer life, very positive teaching
I listen to your talks more than once. It's like my brain can only absorb one point at a time, but all that you say is very timely and Christ knows what I need to hear. Thank you.
Dear Father, please please keep giving us practical spiritual instruction. Most of do not have a spiritual director. The sermons we hear every week are usually broad commentaries on scripture that I can't even remember after I return home or I have already heard in one form or another. We desperately need a teacher to guide us with practical ways to become holy. Thank you Father.
Dear Father Seraphim, you are speaking the truth. Please pray for Sayge, Anthony, Ghassan, Maria, Stamatoula for good health.
Thank you.
Please pray for me and my family...
Cartar family needs PLENTY prayer and immediate divine intervention
Praying for your migraines - not pleasant at all and so many reasons for migraines - from allergies, to air pressure and heavy low clouds, renovations, sinus, vision, pillow etc. I do hope you find a good remedy! Thankyou for the presentation; it was very deep and moving - just the way I like it! God bless from Canada....
Pillow yet is highly unlikely to be a cause for headache
Praying for God's healing from your migraines 🙏🙏❤
I used to run from the pain of the present moment. Now I run into the present moment with my pain. I think you can only actual pray if you've located the present.
Thankyou so much for these words!
So do I! Same experience. I feel like my past continues to ruin my present and ive projected the past onto new friends and hurt them.
I found this channel last night around midnight, after watching just 2 videos i can honestly say: This man streams practical wisdom that I can feed on & am truly thankful for, & i know nothing of the Orthodoxy or how it works.
Thank you for your posts.
This is so helpful. I will have to listen to this a few times a month.
Very very helpful..it is..so true..or, even so useful for people who need to heal past traumas..
Father -- check in with your doctor about your migraines. There are medicines you can take to prevent them (often taken at night, oddly enough). Also, please make sure you have had a brain MRI if you have not already done this. I am sure you have heard this before but I deal with this for a living so I just wanted to be sure you knew. I know this is not a spiritual point but I felt I should say it. Thank you for your love and guidance.
Thank you Fr. Seraphim
Your insight into how each of us relates to our brothers and sisters in the here and now without delving into bibliography of the past but only in humility and patience with persiverance brings me closer to real peace. Also on praying with bows and prostrations at night for not more than ten or fifteen minutes gives me a new reality of prayer. Patience watering the seed living in hope.
Yesterday is past, tomorrow is our hope, today is a gift. That's why they call it the present. 🙏
I have watched this video three times now and it has been so powerful in me understanding the living in the resent moment. Defining the past projected on my present as a fantasy has been particularly helpful.
You articulate your thoughts so well. Your heart and mind speak with such clarity it is a real gift to listen. Thank you.
I have always loved the Desert Father story of "staying in your cell". What a beautiful and powerful application of that wisdom to the struggle to live "in the sacraments of the moment." Our memories often betray us and have us think better of ourseves. How hard it is to live in The Present, the only moment we share live in. The place where eternity meets time. The only moment we have. Oh that I could, "Bring every thought captive, to the obedience of Christ."
"will teach you how to fast for them" never thought about it that way. thank you.
I have had true migraines since Age 4 and I understand what you go through. Also the next day is no good for me because I feel so washed out empty and weak from the headache. May our Lord bless you and heal your migraines. In the name of the father Son and Holy Spirit
I keep growing in my faith, but my husband will not follow. Please pray for us.
I am binging your videos. You are a testimony to Christ. You help me focus on Christ as I drown in the world of sin around me. Thank you, brother.
Perfect Message. Btw.. I have watched many awaken ones and they say the same.
Does anyone know which Desert Father it was that was part of the story about how your cell will teach you everything?
I have now listened to this teaching 3 times. It will probably become a monthly meditation for me. At 26:14 Father has this large, pressure-relieving sigh. It is exactly how I react to this teaching. I have been reading the Desert Fathers and trying to emulate them for over 30 years. I am so grateful for the encouragement to "not give them up".
I am just curious about meeting someone who prays, meditate, or fast,or read the Bible more often than myself. Someone, relatively rare nowadays, lucky you might say, spending his time doing religious things. Growing up in an atheist, less Godly,more worldly home, more concerned with the chores and annoyances of every day existence, one is obviously struck in awe of someone whose outlook is more "spiritual". It is almost like what he eats for breakfast and uses to wash his car, is worth, sampling. Is it really so much better than the car wash fluid i use to lather my Porche, which supposedly has the latest tech to cut out the friction with the wind. Anyway, so much for my imagination...The idea that he must be, holier than thou, in various things, at least, worth perhaps emulating. One day or time in heaven such a monk will be living in a mansion, rooms laden with fine arts and gold jewelry, something other normal folks had no time to accumulate whilst on earth..
I used to be very happy. I was in an amazing relationship and ended up ruining everything with a stupid mistake. I was honest and then tried my best to go back to how things were. But it wasn’t enough and he ended up moving on with someone else. I keep finding myself thinking “if I hadn’t done this, then that wouldn’t have happened, he wouldn’t have left etc” I keep living in regret and it’s very hard for me to forgive myself. It’s hard for me to believe that I’ll find someone as good as him. How do I forgive myself?
1 John 3:20
May the two Angel's that visit us be blessed.
This is liberating...hopefully more people will see and hear this.
Thank you Father Seraphim for "bringing" us back to the heart of our life, to the heart of our "unavoidable" efforts to breathe real life, even if several "expirations" are necessary for the dreams, fantasies, constructions of the past to be abandoned. ... I believe in the truth of what you are saying and I get strength from it ... I particularly appreciate the response you gave Michael Binkley four days ago saying : ''We get so captured by our experience of joy, that we 'forget' ourselves, we forget Christ's image in us. Worldly joy is more dangerous that pain, in some ways - at least, pain forces us to turn to Christ and ask for His help and protection.''
It is quite rare to read that the “joy of the world” makes us forget both ourselves and Christ. It is very important to say this and that joy is more dangerous and pernicious and deceptive .... Thank you very much for that .... How good it is to be on the path of truth in Christ! You participate greatly! May you and your monastery be blessed !
Blessed be God forever! Father you are God sent . My heart burns with love when I listen.
I thank god for you.
My heart feel peace now, to leave the past behind. And it makes me like a new person. God bless you. I am happy in Jesus
i had migraines in my 20s, very serious pain, debilitating...during a session of Reichian Therapy (breathwork), during a purge of frustration through a primal scream, I was totally cured of migraines. I am now 66 and have not had one in over 40 years. the therapist said it was the most frustrated scream he had ever heard. I will pray for your healing. Viva Cristo Rey!
So beautiful and powerful
Thank you for your teachings Father Seraphim. May God in turn bless you for helping us understand ourselves in our faith. God bless you. Amen
Quick question : contemplated reading Ladder of Divine Ascent, but I heard it's tough for a layman to follow ?
What is your opinion on that , Father ?
Good to see you smiling Father, it suits you.
If you are lead to read it, read it. A must read by all Christians. God Bless
Yes father, Yes . Christ is about Relations if the church has to be the living body of His. We are a cross. We are Him and Us in the here. Otherwise we are a sterile catechism
I needed to hear this. Thank you, Father.
Me too Amen
Fr. Seraphim, I'm very sorry for your migraines, but thank God for His will being done through them. Your videos, podasts and social media posts have been of tremendous value to me. I cannot thank you enough, thank God!
Father please take magnesium supplements 400 mg twice a day, within 15 days your migraine will disappear.
I have never been capable of becoming a monk, but I stay alone for the past few years. First, I thought it’s a temporary situation before I meet someone. But since I stopped believing in temporariness of my solitude, I felt it started ruining my faith. I disagree with such a choice God made for me. I would prefer to be more spiritual in order to become a monk. But God didn’t call me for that. And He also deprived me from any perspectives of marriage. I am confused and tired of this illogical state of things.
May God hear the desires of your heart May He be your comfort and hope. May your life be obsessed with praise to Almighty God. Fasting and prayer breaks strongholds 🙏
The most profound words I've ever heard!!!
Dear Brother, I know this video is three (3) years old, however I pray you no longer suffer from Migraines. I understand Botox helps people who suffer from these debilitating headaches.
You are God's wonderful messenger still delivering the Holy Truth while you suffer.
God Bless You & keep you healthy & safe. Thank you!