Seraphim Rose quotes
Everything in this life passes away - only God remains, only He is worth struggling towards. We have a choice: to follow the way of this world, of the society that surrounds us, and thereby find ourselves outside of God; or to choose the way of life, to choose God Who calls us and for Whom our heart is searching.
Seraphim Rose
If Christ were to walk in this world today, do you know what would happen to Him? He would be placed in a mental institution and given psycho-therapy, just as would His Saints. The world would crucify Him today just as it did 2000 years ago, for the world has not learned a thing, except more devious forms of hypocrisy. And what would happen if, in one of my classes at the university, I would one day tell my students that all the learning of this world is of no importance beside the duty of worshipping God, accepting the God-man who died for our sins, and preparing for the life of the world to come? They would probably laugh at me, and the university officials, if they found out, would fire me-for it is against the law to preach the Truth in our universities. We say that we live in a Christian society, but we do not: we live in a society.
Seraphim Rose
No matter how "right” you may be on various points, you must be diplomatic also. The first and important thing is not "rightness” at all, but Christian love and harmony. Most "crazy converts” have been "right” in the criticisms that led to their downfall; but they were lacking in Christian love and charity and so went off the deep end, needlessly alienating people around them and finally finding themselves all alone in their rightness and self-righteousness. Don't you follow them!...
Seraphim Rose
Modern men have faith in machines, in material well-being, in the substantiality of all that seems obvious to common sense; this is a petty faith, the faith of petty men. The Christian has faith in God and the world to come, in the insubstantiality of all that is obvious, in the passing of this world and the coming of the new, transfigured world; if there is a faith worthy of men, it is surely this.
Seraphim Rose
For years in my studies I was satisfied with being ‘above all traditions' but somehow faithful to them... When I visited an Orthodox church, it was only in order to view another ‘tradition.' However, when I entered an Orthodox church for the first time (a Russian church in San Francisco) something happened to me that I had not experienced in any Buddhist or other Eastern temple; something in my heart said that this was ‘home,' that all my search was over. I didn't really know what this meant, because the service was quite strange to me, and in a foreign language. I began to attend Orthodox services more frequently, gradually learning its language and customs.... With my exposure to Orthodoxy and to Orthodox people, a new idea began to enter my awareness: that Truth was not just an abstract idea, sought and known by the mind, but was something personal - even a Person - sought and loved by the heart. And that is how I met Christ.
Seraphim Rose
The demons start the warfare in the imagination; they cultivate it with thoughts; they defile the nous, they take it down into the heart; and they make both the soul and the body filthy. What decides a person's entire progress or failure is whether he gives in to or resists the attacks of the imagination. If he makes the mistake of beginning a dialogue with the sinful assault and accepting the devil's garbage by his own consent, what will follow are falls of the sould, mind, heart, and body. As a result, the passion will take him captive.
Seraphim Rose
Don't worry too much about how spiritually poor you are - God sees that, but for you it is expected to trust in God and pray to Him as best you can, never to fall into despair and to struggle according to your strength.
If you ever begin to think you are spiritually "well off" - then you can know for sure that you aren't!
True spiritual life, even on the most elementary level, is always accompanied by suffering and difficulties. Therefore you should rejoice in all your difficulties and sorrows.
Seraphim Rose