Have you ever heard the expression “Don't be vain”? In what situations was it applied? Have you ever thought about what vanity is, and what is its effect on a person? Let's find the answers to these questions.
So vanity. Translated from Greek it means aspiration, the desire to look good in the eyes of other people. Often expressed in the need to hear flattery in their address for self-affirmation. The word "vanity" has two roots: "in vain" - "free" and "glory". In other words, empty, vain glory emanating from people.
A person infected with vanity is often unaware of it. He expects praise from the people around him for every action, which is fraught with the appearance of mania, illness, and feelings of inadequacy. As a result, groundless grievances, irritation, and then quarrels and conflicts arise.
Answering the question, "What is vanity?" - you can add that this is a fear of what they will think of you. Unwillingness to be rejected pushes a person to a willingness to gain approval in any way. This can lead to "pleasing people". When a person requires complete respect and submission to himself.
Vanity can arise in those cases when a person is in search of himself, his capabilities, looking for the meaning of life, and not finding it, becomes unhappy with everything, constantly complains about everyone, is offended by everyone. It is very difficult to coexist with such a person, so people try to avoid him. Sometimes it happens that vain man gets satisfaction from the fact that he is hated, most often they are afraid or laugh at him. The main thing is that they pay attention.
He tries to surround himself with people with suitable weaknesses. For example, he considers himself the best at singing, then there will be more fans around him who admire his talent, who at the same time cannot sing themselves. Such a thing as "star fever" is synonymous with the word "vanity."
Summing up short summary the story of what vanity is, you can distinguish several of its signs:
1. Increased, heightened attention to praise. Striving always and in everything to be the first, best, important.
2. A person evaluates his actions from the point of view of other people, cares about the opinion of people about himself.
3. Hardly tolerates reproaches, does not tolerate criticism.
4. The desire to stand out from the crowd with clothes, appearance, talents, feats.
5. Striving to receive awards, certificates, distinctions.
There are germs of vanity in every person. It is important to prevent their germination in time and not to fall into the trap of this defect.
As you pass, you will definitely overcome the periods of the vanity exam. The only thing that matters is how you stand the test of fate. Will you "work for the public" so as not to fall face down in the dirt, or will you stand up to criticism or reproach with dignity without expecting praise?
Sometimes human vanity can destroy even strong relationships between loved ones or friends. An insatiable desire for honor and glory leads to abnormal rivalry, intrigue and enmity, envy and hatred. Crossing all reasonable boundaries, vanity can become an evil vice that poisons everything around.
Have you ever wondered what vanity is? The definition lies in the word itself: it is a thirst for vain, or, in other words, vain glory. Earthly reverence, widespread fame, passion for universal worship - that is what empty vain glory is.
In pursuit of her, a person does not gain anything for his soul, but often gives it his last strength and comes to the end of his life tired, devastated, but never satisfied his ambitious desires.
For what purpose is a person looking for a high position, thirsts for fame, dreams that his name will not leave the pages of newspapers? Thus, he asserts himself among the people around him.
Recognition, popularity, reputation, passion for recognition - that is what, in his opinion, a worthy goal. But Christianity sees the true meaning of life in something else - in union with God.
Generations of people change quickly, their thoughts are changeable, memory is short. That is why both the recognition and the honors given in human society have the same properties. They are just as changeable and perishable. Striving all his life for material success, a person spends precious time in his short life in vain.
His childhood, adolescence passes, the period of growing up begins. The Lord endowed man with His immortal Image, gave him time, commanded him to acquire eternal life. And we spend our days in eternally fruitless pursuits, gaining vain glory, fostering our passion for vanity, and therefore, eclipsing the image of God in ourselves.
As a result, towards the end of our life we come without spiritual baggage, we have nothing to appear before the Lord with. That is why the search for earthly regalia and honors alienates us from God, and therefore is contrary to His will.
Important! The Holy Fathers say that the sin of vanity is one of the eight mortal (leading to spiritual death) sins, in which it is imperative to repent in confession. Here they are: gluttony, love of money, anger, sadness, despondency, pride, fornication.
Explicit and hidden vanity
Vanity has another definition: passion. What it is? Passion is a habitual evil.
Wikipedia describes the passion of vanity as the desire to always look good in the eyes of others, the desire to be confident in one's superiority, confirmed by flattery from others.
Orthodoxy calls her the queen or mother of all sins, since from her many other, no less dangerous sinful passions are born:
- love of money,
- condemnation,
- gluttony,
- man-pleasing.
What does sheer vanity mean? This passion is on the surface, it contains the meaning of life for a person. His striking example is the desire for wealth, the passion for fame. A vain person puts his life on the line in order to achieve professional or sports success, high post, achieve popularity.
From the point of view of ordinary people, at first glance, such persistence even looks like a dignity. She seems to be the incentive that allows people to achieve great success, to become an example for others.
Attention! Sometimes a person is ready to give for the sake of his temporary goals everything that is eternal values: to sacrifice motherhood, health, family. And all this in order to bask in the rays of the longed-for glory.
Hidden vanity, what is it? This is an everyday, everyday exaltation. This passion can be traced in life's little things, everyday actions. It often happens that the person himself is invisible, but others can clearly see it.
Examples of household vanity can be seen in ordinary life... A person possessed by this passion serves it even in matters that seem to be completely incompatible. This can be manifested, for example, by striving to lead a godly life.
Insincere humility is called humility. Humbled for show, a proud person, as it were, sees himself from the outside, admiring his own virtue. Vanity thoughts do not leave him.
Examples of false humility can be found in Luke. The parable of the publican and the Pharisee tells of the vain Pharisee (lawyer). He stood at a prayer that sounded like this: “God! I thank You that I am not like other people, robbers, offenders, adulterers, or like this tax collector: I fast twice a week, give a tenth of everything that I get. "
At the same time, the publican (sinner, tax collector), who was standing at a distance, was praying in a completely different way: “God! Be merciful to me, a sinner! " Both of their prayers were answered by the Lord. But as a result, the sinful publican was more justified by Him than the righteous Pharisee in his own eyes.
Another form of manifestation of hidden passion is condemnation of one's neighbor. By judging another, we excuse our sins and weaknesses. Trying to try on the role of a righteous judge, we are not doing our own thing, because the true Judgment can only be done by God.
While cultivating spiritual qualities in ourselves, we must gradually change the feeling of righteous anger into compassion, sympathy for a person in whom sin obscures the image of God.
Vain man
A good criterion for determining whether the degree of hidden vanity is great is a person's reaction to criticism. At the moment when sick pride is touched, superficial piety will immediately disappear, and the true face of the proud man will be revealed. He immediately retorts indignantly, saying "he is like that!" A man overwhelmed by passion, it is hard to experience the lack of praise that feed his insatiable pride.
We can say that each of us, to one degree or another, is sick with vanity. His traces are visible in every good deed. It is not for nothing that Saint John Climacus said: “... I am proud when I fast; but when I permit fasting in order to hide my abstinence from people, I again take pride in myself, considering myself wise. Conquered by vanity, dressing in nice clothes; but even dressing in thin, I am also conceited. I will speak, I am conquered by vanity; I will shut up, and again he won. No matter how you throw this tri-ram, all one horn will go up. "
Vanity, writes Wikipedia, has another name: "star fever." The life of a person suffering from this ailment pursues one passion: to be in sight. But even if all the intended goals are achieved, he will not calm down. Passion requires constant replenishment, otherwise the meaning of his life is lost. The result of this condition is severe depression.
Important! The passion of vanity always leads by the hand its "friend" - envy. Where one is, there is another. Arrogance breeds competition, which, in turn, is a source of impure thoughts, regrets that someone else is doing better. There is a desire to catch up and overtake a competitor in any way.
Many people know that a conceited person is very difficult to communicate. He is all turned inward, selfish, his favorite pronouns are "I", "me", "mine." The Apostle Paul said: "Do nothing out of ambition or vanity, but out of humility, considering each other to be greater than yourself." The fact is that at the Last Judgment, the Lord will judge us not by our deeds, but by our heart's intentions.
If a person works not to serve the Lord, to do a good deed, to provide help, but only in order to gain praise, recognition, and praise for himself, then such a deed is not acceptable to Him.
The expectation of vain glory destroys the good fruits of labor, and there is a danger at the end of life to remain "at the bottom of the trough."
The Holy Fathers say that the absence of gratitude for one's work and reproach are very useful for gaining true humility.
It is difficult for an ordinary person to accept this, but it is true. Saint Isaac the Syrian said: "Drink reproach like the water of life." And these are the words of King David, which he uttered in response to the praise: "Not to us, Lord, not to us, but give glory to Your name."
Fighting vanity
Consider how to deal with vanity. Passion can only be defeated by opposing it to the opposite virtue.
Vanity can be removed by adopting a humble mindset. There is no more beautiful feeling, more pleasing to the Lord.
Humility opens the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven. One holy father said that reward is not a virtue, not labor spent on it, but humility born of it. This - main result work.
The main ways of acquiring the virtue of humility and victory over the passion of vanity are as follows:
- Cut off your sinful thoughts. It is necessary to take care of yourself and, when performing any business, prayerfully reject arrogant thoughts about your merits.
- Do not arrogate to yourself any merit. Always remember that both strength and understanding for any good deed are given to us by the Lord. Don't expect praise from people.
- Learn to be humble and generous. A good deed will be truly good if it is done in secret. An example of selfless deed is St. Nicholas the Pleasant. From his life, an episode is known when the saint secretly threw three bundles of gold to the father of a poor family so that he would give his daughters in marriage with this money.
- Learn to truly love yourself. Yes, yes, oddly enough, the lack of self-love prevents a person from freeing himself from the passion of vanity, disinterestedly performing deeds of love and mercy. It is not in vain that the Lord calls to love your neighbor as yourself. True love to yourself means accepting yourself as you are, with flaws, without merit and praise. You must always remember that the Image of God is in you, as in every person.
- Criticism, reproaches addressed to oneself must be treated with patience. It is difficult, but one should learn not to respond to rudeness with evil, irritation.
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Let's summarize
Whoever accepts all these rules will conquer empty passion in himself, get rid of pride and vanity. It is not easy to put this knowledge into practice, but the main thing is to get started. The Lord will give His help, and gradually the results will appear. The road will be mastered by the walking one.
Vanity is a sin. What ecclesiastical definition is put into this concept? What kind of vain person is he? Let's turn to Bible stories for answers!
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Today we have entered the second preparatory week for. In the first week, in the image of the blind, beggar Bartimaeus, healed by Christ, we were reminded that we are all spiritually blind, that we are all blinded by the visible and unable to see the invisible, which is the only eternal reality of life: God.
Today's Gospel tells us about Zacchaeus the tax collector; about a person who managed to overcome the most, perhaps, the most difficult and most constant temptation of our life, namely vanity. And through this, having cast himself into the judgment of God and despising the opinion and judgment of man, he became capable of being a child of the Kingdom of God. Pride is a statement that we are self-sufficient, that we do not need a Creator, or a Provider, or a Judge, or God, or a person. This is the statement that we ourselves are the law, the beginning and the end. But in vanity, he says, we become arrogant before God and cowardly before people; because a vain person is a person who seeks approval from people, who surrenders himself to human judgment, forgetting that over him is the judgment of God, the judgment of eternal righteousness.
What is a conceited person?
A conceited person is a person who is afraid of what people will think and say about him; this is a person who is ready to buy their approval at any cost: to become unworthy of himself, to become unworthy of God, if only he would not be rejected, if only he would not be condemned, not ridiculed, if only he would be praised. And the vain man seeks this praise not in the greatest that is in himself, but in anything, the basest, the most insignificant, with which he can buy human approval or deflect human judgment from himself. And even worse, this judgment is kind, this approval, this support he seeks from people whom he himself despises in the secret of his soul, from people who often in his own eyes have no right to pronounce over him or over anyone else. there was, over anything, judgment, because their standards are too base, too insignificant. And through vanity a person becomes shallow, humiliated, becomes unworthy of his own respect; and at the same time he removes God's judgment: because God's judgment demands greatness from him, demands from him that he never sell himself to human judgment. This temptation of vanity is for each of us, at every moment, a danger; he clings to good and evil. And through what is good in us, and through what is despicable in us, we seek human approval, we seek to buy the good attitude of people, and therefore not only evil, but also good is poisoned by this vanity.
In the life of St. Macarius the Great tells how, after his death, one of his disciples saw his soul ascending to heaven; and on his way the demons tried to stop him, reproaching him for the sins that he had committed or not committed; and he passed them. And when he reached the very doors of heaven, the demons, wanting to catch him at least at the last moment of his ascent to God, exclaimed: Macarius! You have defeated us! .. And in his spiritual wisdom Saint Macarius turned to them and already at the doors of heaven said: Not yet! - and entered the Kingdom of God. Only by contempt for vanity, only by the willingness to be judged by God alone and by no one else, except our conscience, which is the voice of God in us, can we enter the path of reality, the path of life, break away from ghosts and from lies. And therefore, at the beginning of Great Lent, reminding us of our spiritual blindness, the Church first of all tells us that it was only by breaking away from vanity that Zacchaeus became able to take under his roof, into his house, into his soul, into the life of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; became able to repent - i.e. to turn away from everything that is not God's righteousness, God's ways - and therefore the Lord said about him that salvation had come to his house.
Let us ponder over our own condition, stand before God's all-merciful, but at the same time inexorable in our truth and purity, judgment. And at least let us approach the Kingdom of God, into which the tax collector Zacchaeus entered in one step. Amen.
Vanity is another flaw, a vice that spoils life for many people. A very insidious flaw, most often, a person who is sick with vanity does not realize this and until the last cannot understand why his life is crumbling, and that the cause of all troubles is this most unfortunate vanity.
Very often it is people who are creative, gifted with many talents, public and loved by people who suffer from vanity. Our task in this article is to consider - what is Vanity, its precise definition and the reasons for the occurrence, and how it differs from the well-deserved Glory, as well as what vanity must be replaced with (what dignity and quality).
What is Vanity - the meaning of the word and the esoteric meaning
- vain, that is, empty glory. A person suffering from vanity thirsts for undeserved glory, here and now he needs the recognition of others, their attention, energy, love, he wants to be praised and glorified, admired, and in a perverted version - idolized. In fact, vanity is one of the forms of manifestation of Pride, the mortal sin of many religions, vanity itself, if it is not eliminated, it grows pride to the scale of the Himalayas.
Vain man- boasts, revels in himself, he is dependent on the opinions of other people, he loves to be flattered, and he will do everything to add good opinion about himself, even if he needs to deceive, etc. Vain people attract flatterers and egoists who are looking for benefits (how to use others), etc.
A conceited person is defined in an elementary way: 1. He accepts and encourages flattery (does not suppress flatterers) 2. He reacts aggressively to criticism, generally cannot perceive it, even if every word is Truth, and the person who criticizes does it very correctly, wishing for the good 3. He talks a lot, hangs out, twirls everything around his person, but does little and often his deeds and results are at odds with his words and promises.
What is Vanity being replaced with?
- is replaced by striving to achieve the Goals, on active movement towards them. In other words - "Stop chatting and reveling in yourself, better direct your energy, strength and time to achieve the Goal!"
A worthy person does not judge himself and does not reward himself for his achievements, does not hang medals on his chest, and does not demand the glorification of “His Great Deeds” from other people, this is what the sick with Vanity do.
A worthy and noble man- accepts that God judges, authority, people's opinion is also taken into account, but as an expert opinion (the most adequate) - only the opinion of Teachers, Mentors, Authorities in this area is accepted. Such a person does not need empty glory, he is truthful enough to himself not to be satisfied with the sweet deceit and poisonous molasses of flatterers. Worthy - he drives flatterers in the neck as soon as he felt insincerity, because he only needs the Truth. He easily and with gratitude accepts constructive criticism, wants to know about his shortcomings and even asks to be criticized (of course, he turns to experts and authorities for this).
Accordingly, a worthy person receives joy and satisfaction from another (vain - from vain glory) - from the process of achieving goals, from solving problems on the way to them, from the result and victories, from the fact that his works benefit society and people, and many we are grateful to him for that. His motives are as worthy as himself and his goals.
How to protect yourself from Vanity and deal with it?
1. Remember and keep before your eyes - the consequences of Vanity. Lingering vanity and pride always lead to falls and disappointment, because a person loses touch with reality, relaxes, ceases to perceive his weaknesses, adequate people move away from him (he is carried - it is unpleasant for them), only lies grow around him, he loses adequacy and no longer accepts correct decisions... In addition, vanity is followed by laziness, idleness, irresponsibility, and then failure and disappointment.
2. Remember, vanity most often comes with some kind of success, so you need to keep your head in your hands so that success does not turn it around. Better prevention from pride and vanity - this is regular constructive criticism from those whose opinion you respect (authorities and teachers). Criticism - best vaccination from pride and vanity. In other words, you should always know what you need to work on and what to improve, your weaknesses and shortcomings.
3. As already said, vanity and empty concussion - replace with active concrete deeds, and that lead you to your goals. "Enough tryndet and regale on your laurels - get busy." Direct all your attention and energy to work and achieving results, and vanity will recede.
4. Consciously identify your motives and may they be as worthy and noble as possible. For this in writing (in soy workbook) answer the following questions: 1. Do you need empty glory and lies from flatterers?(if not, justify in at least 10 points) 2. Also, in 10 points, describe why you want to receive everything. Honestly, that is, Honored, Fair (clear Conscience, self-respect, respect from the Worthy, etc.) 3. For what you do the Work, do, etc.- at least 10 worthy answers (which will bring you true satisfaction).
5. Determine for yourself - what kind of Glory you need(if you have a desire for it). Describe your future glory: 1. What it should be- deserved, etc., from whom you want to get this recognition (so that these are really worthy authoritative people) 2. What achievements do you want to gain Glory for? so that these are truly Deeds and Fruits, corresponding to the glory for which you strive.
I wish you success and attentiveness on your way to success!
