“The life of self-centeredness and self-satisfaction lived by most of todays Christians is so all-pervading that it effectively seals them off from any understanding at all of spiritual life; and when such people do undertake spiritual life, it is only as another form of self-satisfaction. This can be seen quite clearly in the totally false religious ideal both of the charismatic movement and the various forms of Christian meditation: all of them promise (and give very quickly) an experience of contentment and peace. But this is not the Christian ideal at all, which, if anything, may be summed up as a fierce battle and struggle.”
(Fr. Seraphim Rose in ‘Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future’)

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