Essays on the Main/To Be a Lord — or a Servant?

To Be a Lord — or a Servant?

I knew a young woman-doctor who dreamed of moving from Russia to a country where a footman would bring coffee to her bed in the morning…

… But God teaches us to feel ourselves not as lords, but as servants — regardless of our social status, ranks, and held positions.

If we accustom ourselves to the role of those who sincerely give our love to other people and to all other kind beings — by our thoughts, emotions, words, and deeds — we, having learned this, can easily establish the same relationships with God. This will give an opportunity to get closer to the Creator by the state of the soul.

For this, we must take the true knowledge of God and our meaning of life, and also practically master this state of being by the developed spiritual heart.

Such work on the spiritual transformation of oneself leads to the development of humility — the humble feeling of myself.

One, who is not humble, lives by one’s own “rules” and “concepts”, but not by the principles of life that God has proposed to us.

And only the humble-minded get the opportunity to flow into the Creator. A personal “exaggerated” “I” will not allow this to happen: it — interferes.

* * *

But the principle of humility does not mean stupid behavior, for example; obedience to criminal orders from people of vice…

… Once on the train an inspector — a loud and aggressive woman of about thirty — discovered that our tickets were not printed to the station where we were going. Although the cost was the same to both stations. Simply the cashier was mistaken, and we did not notice her mistake. I repeat that the journey was paid for by us in full.

The controller long yelled at us, demanding to pay once again the same amount. Of course, we did not agree. Then she set a guard on us, who grabbed our backpacks and threatened to throw them out of the car at the nearest station. We had to pay.

When the conflict was thus “settled”, I called the guard and asked him why he behaved this way, complicit in the commission of a crime?

He replied that he was a soldier and was only following orders from his commander…

… In defense, in fact, usually officers, who are retired, seek employment.

It turned out that this former officer, after hearing about the subject of humility, seriously decided to play “a soldier”…

I replied that, according to the rulings taken at the Nuremberg trial, the execution of a criminal order is a crime.

He thought about it and did not answer. This had concluded our conversation.

… But when we drove a few days later in the same train, he saw us and twice came to us with quite sincere tears from his eyes: he begged to forgive for his behavior at that time.

And he was now working in tandem with another supervisor.

Since then, we have not seen him again. Apparently, having managed to apologize, he immediately resigned.

Here it is — sincere repentance, washing away vices! Good luck to you, “soldier”! Both God, and we — have forgiven you!

… And a month or two later, we met with that criminal inspector. Now she was working on another branch of the railroad.

She did not apologize, but charged us with a deduction of the amount she then committed as a robbery.

Thus, both former criminals have become better, though in varying degrees.

Easy joy arises from the realization that we were involved in this!

But if in that conflict, we did not reconcile and would have gone along with the aggravation of the conflict — we could not help these people. And we ourselves would have gotten extra problems…

In this story, you can trace several specific topics. Good luck to you, our readers!