Fr Lazarus = spiritual badass. God bless him. Look at the piercing kindness of his eyes. He wants the truth from you, but he isn't there to judge you for it, but to help you with it. Spiritual powerhouse.
Long live the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church is the true and original Church and it shall remain that way for years. From the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt and Ethiopia, to the Byzantine Orthodox Churches in Greece and East Europe, to the Syriac Orthodox Church in the Middle East, we must keep our traditions and keep Orthodoxy the ascetic form of Christianity. After watching this video, I'm very proud to call myself an Orthodox Christian.
For 3 years I have been living in retreat in the mountains of Portugal, an accidental hermitess, often during the trials & challenges of my time up here I have remembered Peter Owen Jones & his encounter with himself, the desert & Father Lazarus, today I saw this video after some years & can truly identify with what I thought to be the most powerful of Peters extreme pilgrimages. Thanks for posting, love & blessings for the on going inspiration of St. Anthony, & his sons, Fr. Lazarus & Fr. Peter
He talks about the battle with demons as being a personal and internal battle and thinks it can be done successfully in the real world full of noise and temptations. Disconnect is real with this one as it is with all in the beginning. If we master ourselves in the silence of the desert we can master anything surrounded by noise.
He says a lot of kind of 'New Agey' or "Progressive" Christianity' type of things that made me wonder why, as a priest, would he think or say things like that...Like @32:11 when he says, "What I can't work out is whether or not we generate the demons from our own belief system." and when he said "My search for enlightenment has ended" and "if there is a devil" and other things. Since the full documentary was about other ascetics from other religions, I'm thinking that he's probably one of those so called "Christians" who believes that there's many ways to God and doesn't really believe that Jesus is the only way to the father like He says in John 14:16, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." If I was a Christian Priest and a true believer that Christ is the only way to the Father, then I wouldn't even be in a documentary researching and promoting other religion's asceticism ( like Hindu Mysticism, wich in Christianity is considered demonic and Buddhists ). He also said at the beginning, "I'm on an extreme spiritual journey to find oneness with God in the eyes of three world religions." ....As a Christian Priest I would think that his search should be over with Christ and that he already has oneness with God through Christ alone. I do think he learned something at the end, although not sure what it is. Just my opinion while watching the film and observing what's going on. Good documentary.
I liked all the Extreme Pilgrim episodes and I too feel this one was the most powerful of Peter Owen Jones ascetic experiences, and the most touching. On my journey I hope towards God, I have experienced the incredible highs and lows within an Ayahuasca church from Brazil, where my secret faults have been laid out before me, I've had a prolonged pilgrimage to Mt Athos, the great monastic centre of orthodox Christianity in N. Greece where I felt like I was having a controlled nervous breakdown. As Fr Lazarus says you have to be able to survive the pressure in such environments. My feeling is God wants us to turn to Him more and more fully, and that is the value in being stripped of nearly all creature comfits, your worldly identity and possessions. God rewards those who keep daring.
Beautiful, thank you Brother Peter Jones. It is a new year and I am watching the journey. Such a beautiful experience with Apostle Lazarus. A reminder that we are here to pray and worship God, and in that worship we find peace, the type that surpasses all understanding, comes only from God. Amen. 🙏🏽
The dog travelling with them in the desert till the end!As per spirituality is concerned, we can learn a lesson or two from faithful animals ! faith again remember!
"18:35 it's how we actually distinguish what's a healthy desire and not so unhealthy desire" Karl Marx would agree to this distinction. As he said: _"Every man speculates upon creating a new need in another, in order to force him to new sacrifice, to place him in a new dependence, and to entice him to a new kind of pleasure. Everyone tries to establish over others an alien power in order to find there the satisfaction of his own egoistic need. With the mass of objects, therefore, there also increases the realm of alien entities to which man is subjected. Every new product is a new potentiality of mutual deceit and robbery. Man becomes increasingly 'poor' as man . . . This shows subjectively, partly in the fact that the expansion of production and of needs becomes an ingenious and always calculating subservience to depraved, unnatural and imaginary appetites_
The literal translation is "Lord, have mercy (on me)" - It is used throughout the Coptic Orthodox Christian (Fr. Lazarus' Religion) prayers. Certain prayers consist of this word repeated several times to a tune in order to seek mercy, but also to enter into a contemplative and meditative state with Christ. I hope this helps!
The proper Old Greek Orthodox prayer used to be " Jesus Christ Son of God have Mercy on us ( me ) " and you can add " and heal me ( us )" it sadly was MUCH later changed to " on me a sinner" which is not good for us...as we are supposed to emphasize positivity, not negativity according to the Bible that verse i forget but : " whatever is good, whatever is true ...think on these things.." so sinner is not a good thing to use as it kind of berates ourselves.
Peace be with you Joseph. We have one Father in Heaven, indeed. God is our Father. However, spiritual fatherhood is consistently referenced throughout the New Testament by St. Paul and St. John. I'll even quote from the King James Version here: 1 Corinthians 4:14-16 I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me. 1 Thessalonians 2:11 As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, 1 Timothy 5:1 Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; 1 John 2:13 I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. 1 John 2:14 I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. The Bible doesn't contradict itself. It's the proper interpretation which is tricky. We need guides. Acts 8:30-31 And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. Read the "Church Fathers" to learn what early the Christians believed.
Why is it all about YahShua? It's not all about Him, it's all about us! Why would Holy God need to descend from on high if it wasn't about us, AND about our finding the Way back to our home? Granted Vicar, we realise your question was perhaps rhetorical, for our benefit. Having once lived as an ascetic in an ashram in Pennsylvania, it wasn't until the leader-Swami Sri Kripalvananda came to spend time with us that he told me to leave and follow Jesus. I don't believe anyone else knew, but I believe he also sent others away with the same instructions. As you know, the goal of an Hindu ascetic is to reach Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the total liberation of the soul from all karma and passionate attachment and absorption into eternity. It was at this Pennsylvania ashram where Bapuji attained this state after practicing Sādhanā twelve hours a day in a small bungalow. During this time, he read and studied Gospels.
Muslims did not adapt the prostration from the Orthodox Christians as mentioned here by the host aka the traveller Mr Owens. Jesus was a Muslim prophet and one of Allah's messengers. Every one of Allah's prophets prostrate before Him and taught their followers thats how it is to submit to The Creator. It wasn't what being said that Jesus was separate from all other messengers of Allah.
You must not be familiar with the bible my friend, lol. Many people prostrated themselves in submission to YHWH and also worldly leaders as a show of submission. Jesus was no Muslim, he was a Nazarene. And to say he would be so is crazy! Jesus's message was to love thy neighbor, forgiveness, even though he did show anger and sadness. I don't think the koran falls in line with what Jesus taught, unless I overlooked the part where he was directing people to slay the infidel and to treat women like slaves.
"I'm seeking the spiritual enlightenment that we in Britain once had but have since lost." - yeah because you fetishize Indians and Asians rather than even investigating your OWN ethnic group. I guarantee you he hasn't read the Anglo-Saxon chronicles. I bet my left nut he hasn't read the Havamal or the sagas of his--the Germanic peoples--own ethnic group. Germanic people are the only peoples on earth who are, from a very early age, encouraged to ignore their own identity. They're even told "You're just 'white' - you don't have a culture." And so they don't look. It's shameful.
this is the PROPER ancient prayer : " Jesus Christ Son of God have Mercy on me " and you can add " and Heal me " ...the new prayer is have mercy on me a sinner - which i would avoid.
@@rigavitch because it's negative to put yourself down as unworthy of God, God loves us and to keep reminding yourself you are a sinner over and over is not helpful for your self worth... You will feel better to say " Jesus Christ son of God, have mercy on me and Heal me " - such words are soothing and not self- incriminating. I hope that helped x
