We strive to fill our minds and consciousness with high ideals to live by, but unfortunately, we are confused and do not know what ideals we are striving for.
Every path in life requires action and determination to add to our lives permanently. Whether our motivation is spiritual or material, all our desires remain at the forefront of our actions.
On New Year’s Day, we often make resolutions to improve our lives over the following twelve months. However, most resolutions are forgotten by the end of January.
Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe and Russia seek to add to their lives the desire to align their highest spiritual values with their love for Jesus and struggle to labor against ignorance, passion and lust. Such desire is called a podvig.
At its highest level, the reality of a podvig lies in everyone's light and truth, where we realize that we are all one in self-consciousness or God.
Podvig is an old Russian word that has no English translation. This statement cannot be broken down into a translated English word. It embodies an undefined mystical precept of the Orthodox Slavonic Church, particularly the Russian Orthodox Church.
The cornerstone of Russian spirituality is the podvig, which means rejecting all illusions in the saints' lives.
Podvig is engrained in Russian ethical and cultural affairs, but nowadays, it is secularized and distorted.
Its most significant meaning is love and kindness, as well as an all-or-nothing attitude and the ability to honestly free oneself from all ignorance, live in the grace of God, and fall in love with the Christ principle.
The all-or-nothing attitude is referred to in the Gospel of John, 21-15-7. Jesus asks Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
“Yes, Lord, you know I love You.”
Again, Jesus asks Peter the same question, and Peter answers the same way.
For a third time, Jesus asks Peter the same question and receives the same answer.
Before Jesus was taken before Pilate, Jesus asked Peter:
“Will you lay down your life for me”?
“Yes Lord”.
“The cock will not crow until you have denied me three times”, Jesus answers.
Peter’s podvig was in those two instances.
The first time when Jesus asked Peter if he loved him, Peter’s answer using the word love was a mistranslation of the Greek, which was, ‘I am fond of you’. Two more times, Peter gave the same answer.
Then Jesus said: “When you are young, girt yourself and walk where you wished; when you are old, you will stretch out your hands; and another man will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go; follow me.’
Turning around, Peter saw they were followed by the disciple Jesus loved and said, “And what about that man, Lord”?
I wish he should stay till I come; what is that to you”?
Our podvig is that we should engross ourselves in being selfless, honor ourselves, and pursue the oneness of the eternal Self.
Although podvig is a religious encounter, it suggests that as seekers, we should strive to raise our consciousness through a podvig that leads us to complete our lives in the world, where we become one image in Light and Awareness of the Eternal Self, which is our real nature.
That is an active process that requires effort to destroy ignorance and limitation and become aware of the Good within.