NEW YEARS REVOLUTION: DEATH TO THE WORLD!

The World, as defined by the Fathers of the Church, is very similar to the definition of the Matrix as given by Morphius to Neo in the movie of the same name:

Morpheus: Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something.

What you know you can’t explain. But you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Neo: The Matrix?

Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is? The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind…. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes…

The ‘World’ is a prison for our mind, a prison that we have been born into and, for the most part, goes unrecognized throughout our lives.

In fact, we spend most of our lives trying to rearrange the furniture in our cell in order to hopefully become as comfortable as possible, rather than using our precious time to get out of our cells and escape from prison altogether.

Instead, we erroneously take the cell we find ourselves in as the sum and substance of our ‘reality’.

Again, from The Matrix:

Morpheus: This is the construct. It’s our loading program. We can load anything from clothing, to equipment, weapons, training simulations, anything we need.

Neo: Right now we’re inside a computer program?

Morpheus: Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are different. The plugs in your arms and head are gone. Your hair has changed. Your appearance now is what we call residual self image. It is the mental projection of your digital self.

Neo: This…this isn’t real?

Morpheus: What is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. This is the world that you know. The world as it was at the end of the twentieth century. It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call the Matrix. You’ve been living in a dream world, Neo…

The world that we are familiar with is nothing more than a convenient fiction, a description that we have learned from birth and inherited from our ancestors. It was never meant to be the ‘Be-All and End-All' of life, but rather something to grow beyond, a ‘Stepping off place' into another kind of reality altogether where whatever we Intend comes into being instantaneously; another world where Time/Space and the Laws of Physics are the loosest of frameworks, if at all applicable.

This knowledge has been all but lost and forgotten in our modern world but nevertheless, is the essence of what the Spiritual Life is all about.

The ‘End of the World’ in our popular culture has been made out to be a fearful thing, an apocalyptic end to civilization as we know it and the beginning of a world of barbarism where only the strongest, ruthless and most cunning can survive.

When in fact, the word ‘Apocalypse' means to uncover or to reveal that which is hidden inside of us. That may indeed be something fearful or, if we only knew it, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within us…” and that can be revealed and uncovered.

And, since there is a direct correlation between Mind and Matter, that would mean the Transformation and Transfiguration of the ‘outer world' around us.

The Apostle Peter, in his second general Epistle, goes into great detail about all of this. Unfortunately, as with much of the scriptures, what he has to say has been misinterpreted and misunderstood more often than not.

He begins by saying:

“This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:

That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”

Then he continues by saying:

“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”

Which brings to mind the lyrics of an old Gospel song: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time!”

This fire is not a material fire, but rather, the fire of God's Presence that once nourished us completely and provided for our every need when we walked and talked with God, face to face, in the Garden of Eden, when we were first created.

We have become estranged from the Presence of God and have subsequently looked towards created things to nourish ourselves and to fulfill our needs, something that, by the definition of ‘created things’ which, by their very nature are temporary and extremely limited, can never be possible or fully satisfying.

At the End of the World the fire of God's Presence will dissolve everything that separates us and keeps us from being fully immersed in His Presence. Our fate will be determined by whether we cling to anything that separates us from God or if we are willing to let go of those things, or have let go of them already.

The Apostle continues thusly:

“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

And finally, he finishes by asking this question:

“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?”

He tells us that we ought to be, not only looking for, but also, ‘hastening unto the coming of the day of God’.

In other words, as Orthodox Christians we are not just passively waiting for the ‘End of the World’ but are actively RUNNING TOWARDS IT!

It is in this ‘running towards’ the End of the World that we are to understand this idea of ‘Death to the World’; we are trying to put the world and it's dictatorship over us to death within ourselves. We are trying to free our mind from the constraints of the Matrix:

Neo: I know what you’re trying to do.

Morpheus: I’m trying to free your mind, Neo, but I can only show you the door, you’re the one that has to walk through it…. You have to let it all go, Neo, fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.

Peter picks up the thread again here, suggesting what that freedom will result in:

“Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”

“Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;

As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.”

He brings in the Apostle Paul and his writings, warning that they can be hard to understand, especially for the unlearned.

This for example:

“Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)

He then gives to us this final admonition:

“Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.

But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.”

Many Christians have gone astray by studying the ‘Signs of the Times’ and predicting just exactly when ‘The End of the World’ will come about, as surely, someday it will. It could be soon now, or the world could drag on for another fifty, hundred or thousand years. We don't know.

What we do know though, as the Apostle Peter recommends, is that we ought not simply look for and wait for the end, but be found ‘running towards it’, knowing that the world can come to an end at any time in our own lives, if we so desire and are willing to act accordingly.

And so my friends, I hope you will join me in my New Years Revolution and will make every effort in the coming year to avoid the ‘Apocalyptic’ future that ‘The World' has in mind for us by putting the world inside of ourselves to death, being delivered from the bondage of corruption, entering into the True Freedom of Being and beginning to live in a foretaste of the Life of the world to come. Amen.

DEATH TO THE WORLD!

☠️