True Human Happiness is Life According to the Spirit. The Finest Envelope of the Soul, Which Mediates Between it and the Body and Serves as the Means of Communion Between Souls and With the World of the Saints and Angels. The Bright and Darkened States of This Envelope

I intended to answer the question placed at the end of your last letter, but the day of your name-day has come, and it occurred to me to share my good wishes to you on this occasion.

I wish you above all health, because it is the condition both for acquiring all the blessings that a person counts as good and for enjoying and tasting them. After all, what pleasures can there be for the sick and the infirm, when all the senses are in an abnormal state? An exception must be made only for spiritual consolations. These are not subject to such dependence on the state of health and can be present despite bodily sufferings. The martyrs truly rejoiced during their very torments—truly, and not merely in word.

And after that, what else is to be wished? It is customary to wish happiness. I wish you happiness too. But what exactly is wished by that?! After all, no one has yet determined what happiness is, or who is truly happy. I understand it this way: happy is the person who feels himself to be happy. And so that is what I wish you when I wish you happiness—I wish that you may always feel happy. By what means and how? On this, people hold so many different opinions and tastes that one cannot make head or tail of it. I will say quietly to you that so long as you are not living in the spirit, do not expect happiness. The soulish and bodily life, when it goes favorably, yields something that resembles happiness—but it is a fleeting phantom of happiness, disappearing quickly. Moreover, in that life there is always that turbulent element formed between soul and body and stirred up by passionate thoughts, desires, and feelings; and in the presence of this element, because of the poison of the passions, there is possible only an intoxication that forgets suffering—as with opium—but not an absence of suffering and heartache. Heartache is the inseparable companion of that life. But the spirit soars beyond all turmoil and carries with it whoever lives in it, and by granting him to taste its ever-abiding blessings, makes him truly and firmly happy.

What then—shall I end my good wishes there? No, I think that is not enough. If our life ended with this present life, then of course it would suffice to say: be healthy and happy. But since it does not end in this way and continues beyond the grave, and it is there that it reveals itself as the decisive life, then for the fullness of good wishes I cannot refrain from wishing you that you may be counted worthy to be blessed there as well. May it be granted to you to be blessed there too. I wish this for you with all my soul and above all else, and I pray earnestly to the Lord that He would lead you safely through the path of this present life and after it would settle you in His most blessed Kingdom.

At this point, no doubt, your mind presents you with very stern conditions. There are, of course, decisive conditions, but are they stern? To this I will say for now in general terms: both yes and no, depending on how a person has been formed from childhood; and judging by this I declare that for you they are not stern. You are already fulfilling them. Only be careful and do not turn back.

I also have the thought of sending you, on the occasion of your feast, a sort of sweet—only I am not sure I will manage to compose it. Let me try.

If you have not forgotten, at one time I began speaking to you about a certain extremely fine substance—finer than light. It is called ether. Let it be so: the name does not matter, but rather the recognition that it exists. I affirm that such a most subtle substance exists, penetrates all things and passes everywhere, serving as the final boundary of material being. I hold moreover that in this substance all the blessed spirits—Angels and God’s saints—sojourn, themselves clothed in a certain garment made of this same substance. The sheath of our soul is likewise made of this substance (bear in mind alongside the word “soul” also the spirit, which is the soul of our human soul). The soul itself is a spirit, immaterial, but its sheath is made of this fine, immaterial substance. Our body is coarse, but that sheath of the soul is most fine and serves as the intermediary between soul and body. Through it the soul acts upon the body and the body acts upon the soul. But I mention this only in passing. Retain in mind only that the soul has a most fine sheath, and that this sheath of our soul is the same as the sheath of all the spirits. From this it is not difficult for you to draw the conclusion that the universal, most fine substance—of which these sheaths are made and in which all spirits sojourn—is also the intermediary for the mutual communion of our souls with those spirits.

Now detach yourself from that representation and turn your attention to ordinary affairs among us. You are living now in Moscow, sitting within the walls of your apartment, surrounded on all sides by buildings, and wherever you turn your eyes you encounter obstacles: many objects block the sharp and far-reaching sight of your eyes. But if you were to rise above Moscow in some kind of balloon, you would see not only all of it without obstruction, but also its surroundings. Were you to rise even higher, you would see what lies farther all around. Sharpen your sight and lift yourself higher and higher still—and you could see St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and so on. All this because your vision has become keener and there is nothing to hinder it from seeing.

Now pass back again to God’s holy ones. That substance of which we speak passes through everything and encounters no obstacle anywhere. A ray of sunlight passes through glass, but that substance passes through glass, and through walls, and through the earth, and through everything. And just as it passes through everything, so also those who sojourn in it can pass through everything when necessary (as the Savior passed into the upper room where the apostles were, ”the doors being shut”) (Jn. 20:26). They dwell in a definite place, but when they are commanded or permitted, they are instantly conveyed wherever is needed through that substance and encounter not merely no obstacles—they do not even perceive them. When there is need, they are conveyed; when there is no such need, remaining in their own place, they see in every direction what is where and what is happening where. And when they turn their eyes toward the earth—that is, toward us sinners—they see us clearly; but not this coarse body of ours, which is of no concern to them. They see the very soul itself as it is—not directly, but through the soul’s sheath, which is kindred with their own sheath and with that substance in which they live, for the state of the soul is faithfully reflected in its sheath.

Now please imagine: two people are sitting and conversing, and each one’s soul is disposed in its own manner. Each of them does not see what is in the other’s soul, because of the coarse curtain of the body behind which the soul hides; but the Angels and the saints, if they should turn their gaze upon them, will see their soul as it is and what is in it—for what it is and what is in it is reflected in its sheath. If in it there are holy thoughts and feelings, the sheath is luminous, and at each holy feeling luminous in its own particular way. But if its thoughts and feelings are not entirely pure, then its sheath is not luminous and is darkened in its own way by each impure feeling—appearing now like a mist, now like the darkness of night. If you were to ascend to heaven and receive angelic sight—having shed this body, of course—and were to look down upon the earth, you would see in place of the varied mass of humanity certain shadows: luminous, half-luminous, misty, gloomy. And it would be no wonder if those finely dressed appeared to you as gloomy, if their soul is bad, while those clad in rags appeared luminous, if their soul is pure. And it is thus that the dwellers of heaven see us; and judging by what they see, they rejoice over us or grieve.

Allow me to ask you: what does the saint whose name you bear see in you—and especially today, when she is looking upon you more attentively because you too are turning to her with greater fervor? What does your Guardian Angel, always present with you, see in you? And what does the Lord Himself see—He who sits with a body at the right hand of the Father (Ps. 109:1; Mk. 16:19) and yet has promised to be with us ”all the days” (Mt. 28:20)? Whatever they see in you—that is what you are in reality. I hasten to say that in asking such a question I do not intend to trouble you or thereby cloud your feast; on the contrary, I hope to bring you spiritual consolation and joy. For I cannot expect that from heaven you are seen as gloomy or misty. You have not yet had time to become clouded, and therefore you are seen as luminous. At the very least, my sincere good wish to you on your name-day is this: may you be and remain always such that the dwellers of heaven may always see you as luminous. Then from this life you will pass directly to them there. That is what I wish you with all my soul.