AllatRa by Anastasia Novykh 2 www.allatra.org

AllatRa by Anastasia Novykh
(confession). The essence of it is not that you come, tell the priest about all the sins of
your Animal nature, receive “absolution” from the priest and continue to sin, live the
same life. Its essence lies in the real work on yourself, changing your thoughts and
desires, the set of life values, rejecting egoism, envy, jealousy, anger, your pride, and
laziness. Generally, in the “rejection of sinful thoughts and deeds”. It is not so much
regretting about the past, as a new look at yourself, the analysis of your actions to
understand and discover your mistakes and affirm the direction of your movement along
the spiritual way. The need for understanding the resentment you caused to someone and
forgiving everyone who caused resentment to you. It is self-cleaning your Conscience
and further life according to its rules. This means forming the habit of positive thinking
for yourself. It is internal reliance on God, the rigid control of your thoughts and wishes
coming from the Animal nature or, as they say in Christianity, the “intention not sin in
the future”.
By the way, as for controlling thoughts from the Animal nature. The Russian Orthodox
ascetic literature, which describes the concentration of the believer on his inner world
and his personal experience of the feelings of unity with God, in fact, says the same
thing as in many other religions and what is natural for any person walking along the
spiritual path. Only here it is called the teaching about the primary source of sin and
“passions as a source of sin in the human soul”. Monks share the practical experience of
tracking of the conception of sin in the human consciousness in the form of thoughts, to
be more precise, thoughts and desires from the Animal nature, their development and
manifestation as negative actions.
The initial stage, the primary moment of conception of “sin” is called as a demonic
provocation by them (demonic suggestion; in the meaning of a trick, catching, gain,
attack). This is seen as an action from the outside on the human Soul, because such a
thought arises because of the temptations surrounding a person, if he pays attention to
them, or it may be caused by memories from the past about his own or someone else’s
sins, or it may be influenced by evil forces and such. Moreover, it is emphasized that
these thoughts are random, external and arise spontaneously in the mind, without the
person’s participation, against his wish. The emergence of such provocative thoughts
and rejection of them is regarded as a spiritual exercise and certain help to know
yourself. And this manifests man’s true freedom of choice. In order to suppress such a
thought from the Animal nature, one must not pay any attention to it at the very
4
www.allatra.org