,,Father, how is it that two people see the same thing differently?"
,,– Father, how is it that two people see the same thing differently?
– Do all eyes see equally clearly? For someone to see clearly, the eyes of their soul must be very healthy, because only then do they have inner purity.
– Father, why is it that sometimes one person considers the same circumstance a blessing, while another considers it a misfortune?
– Everyone explains it according to their own thought. You can see any thing either from its good side or from its bad side. (...) From the quality of a person's thoughts, their spiritual state is seen. People judge things according to the content they have within them. If they do not have spiritual content, they draw wrong conclusions and do an injustice to their neighbor. [..]
Do you remember how the two thieves who were crucified together with Christ behaved towards Him? Both saw Christ up on the Cross, they saw how the earth shook, etc. But what kind of thought one put in his mind and what kind the other! One, the one on the left, blasphemed and said: "If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us" (Luke 23, 39). And the other, the one on the right, said: "We receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong" (Luke 23, 41). One was saved, and the other was condemned."
-Saint Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Counsels. Volume III.
