Conversation 2. On the struggle against despondency

Despondency is a serious, terrible passion. John Climacus calls it an all-astonishing death. If a person succumbs to the passion of despondency, then he completely loses the ability for any activity. St. Gregory of Sinai very aptly calls this passion laziness: he does not say "despondency", but says "laziness". Enumerating the eight main passions, giving a classical, if I may say so, classification of them, adopted by the Holy Fathers, instead of the usual expression "passion of despondency" he says: "the passion of laziness, sorrow." It seems to me that the name he proposed is very accurate and explains much better the essence of the action of this passion, such a state of a person when he is attacked by laziness in relation to the spiritual life, to what the Holy Fathers call "mental activity," while despondency is a more abstract concept.

In modern Russian, the expression "mental work" can be translated as "mental work". That is, it is emphasized that spiritual activities are, on the one hand, work, work, work, and on the other hand, that this activity is special, namely the occupation of the mind, the work of the mind. Now by the work of the mind we often understand other things - say, scientific work, literary work, and so on. But in this context of patristic teaching, mental activity is prayer, struggle with passions, attention to oneself, and so on, that is, it is the work of the human spirit. And it is precisely in relation to this work, as Gregory the Sinaite explains, that despondency is laziness. Just as there is laziness in relation to physical labor - for example, someone does not want to work in the garden or engage in construction work - so there is laziness in relation to the spiritual life, to mental work. Therefore, this name is very precise, clear and easy to understand.

St. Gregory of Sinaite speaks of eight main passions. He considers gluttony, love of money, and vanity to be the first among them and the most important, then he enumerates the next five, among which, instead of the usual despondency, he names laziness, and then speaks of the five opposite virtues. And here is what is interesting: he opposes courage to the passion of laziness, and joy to the passion of sorrow. These passions are in some ways close, kindred, and therefore a joyful spirit and courage in the face of temptations, in general, firmness in all matters are necessary qualities for a monk.

In our monastery there are such weak people who are discouraged by everything, almost by the fact that a fly has landed on their noses. I'm just surprised. They always have endless reasons for despondency, although in fact nothing happens that could be paid attention to at all. Why does this happen to these weak people? Because passion is strong in them. For example, a person who has a passion for drinking is always thinking about where to drink. Everywhere he imagines a bottle, different people remind him with whom and when he drank - wherever he looks, everything is connected with drinking. From the outside, it sometimes seems very funny. But when it comes to despondency, everyone stops laughing, because they don't see themselves, and if they looked at themselves from the outside, they would also laugh a lot. When I first started as a spiritual father, I was very worried about my inexperience: "Well, a woman is crying - what have I done?! And then I looked: women were crying all the time, almost into tears. I began to think that this might be natural, normal. And now I don't react at all: although a person in front of my eyes will come out with tears up to dehydration - it doesn't bother me, because I know that all this is worth nothing. I am saying this because from the outside all our despondency looks very ridiculous, there is actually nothing to be discouraged from. Rarely does anyone have any special abuse. For the most part, in a monastery, a person is almost delivered from sorrows by obedience, labor, and the revelation of thoughts. He has no real sorrows, everything is taken upon himself by the leaders of the brotherhood or sisterhood, that is, the spiritual father, the abbess - all the burden falls on them. They take care of everyone, both spiritually and physically, so that others may be given the opportunity to live without sorrow. This is the most important advantage of a coenobitic monastery - a sorrowless life. That is, although a person does not have that solitude, that silence, and that time that seem necessary to him for spiritual feats, he does not have any worries either. And this sorrowlessness, if it is used wisely, gives a person the opportunity to acquire what he cannot acquire even in solitude due to inexperience, that is, attentive prayer, makes it possible, with all his seeming busyness, to watch over his soul, because he knows that others will take care of everything, including even his soul. His job is only to selflessly follow this path and not to turn away from it.

Maybe this is the property of the female sex, or rather, young girls - to cry and be sad. They have not yet encountered any difficulties in life, they are not accustomed to struggle with them, they have not yet had real sorrows, and so, encountering the simplest difficulties of monastic life, they succumb to the weakening of their strength and even abandon their podvig, lose their zeal - in other words, they fall out of the blue. True, it happens that people who already have experience of life, from the sorrowless state that the order of a coenobitic monastery bestows, become extremely sensitive to all sorts of even the most insignificant difficulties, and this passion sometimes develops in a person to such an extent that even he himself is sometimes surprised at how quickly he loses his spiritual balance from completely insignificant things. And all because he desires the impossible: having received a life without sorrow in regard to bodily cares, he wants to become completely unsorrowful in regard to the inner life, that is, not to wage any struggle. If, like people living in the world, he were distracted by earning his own food and overcoming all kinds of difficulties of worldly life, from which he himself must somehow find a way out, by illnesses (especially when there is no one to take care of him), by family sorrows, then perhaps he would not then have the opportunity to pay attention to all sorts of petty spiritual experiences, which he now notices and from which he comes to spiritual weakness. Instead of struggling with all thoughts in this carefree way of life and lashing out with fury at the mental enemy, we, having received such inner freedom, begin to watch our sorrows: having no true, serious misfortunes, we begin to see small and almost fantastic ones. Imagine a person who does not leave the house. He is afraid to go out for fear that he will suddenly be attacked by hooligans, or that it will rain, and he will get wet and catch a cold, or some other trouble will happen to him. And the longer he sits at home, the more fears and apprehensions he has. He begins to listen to everything: a mouse rustled somewhere, and it seems to him that it is already attacking enemies, a neighbor coughs, and it seems to him that the apartment is about to be blown up, and so on and so forth. You know, there is such a state, probably many have experienced, when hearing, vision are sharpened, imagination develops - and imaginary enemies are drawn in the imagination of a person. The same thing happens in our country. We live in a monastery as if in a closed world and, like this person, whose senses and imagination are sharpened, we begin to exaggerate the events that happen to us.

A normal person, if he were in solitude, would use this time, for example, to read and relax, but the one who has fear inside, who has a morbidly developed imagination, cannot do anything, since he constantly watches what seems to him to be happening behind the wall and what he does not see in the dark. And therefore he can neither rest nor do anything, and all his attention is directed to these imaginary dangers. However, all these dangers and sorrows exaggerated by fantasy, our very fantasy do more harm to a person than real, real sorrow, we create an enemy for ourselves. Of course, all this is not happening without satanic participation, but why should we succumb to it? We blame everything on the devil, blame everything on demons who tempt us, make us despondent, and we ourselves seem to be not to blame. Some sisters ask for advice, and you don't even know what to say to them, because, in fact, there is nothing to console a person and nothing to prompt him. For here the point is not that they have sorrows, from which they become despondent, but the point is that they have despondency, which seeks sorrows, they themselves, so to speak, only wait for an occasion to satisfy their passion - this happens in the overwhelming majority of cases. After all, all the difficulties that one has to endure in the monastery are not new, and there is nothing particularly terrible in them. This happens to everyone and always, and many of you already know how to cope with it from the words of the eldress or from the books of the Holy Fathers you have read, so that you could tell others. However, all instructions are forgotten, because passion seeks a reason for its satisfaction. This also applies to other passions, such as anger, gluttony, and condemnation. A person who is inclined, for example, to condemnation, will condemn everyone in a row and for everything, both having a reason and not having it. An irritable person will be irritated by everything, no matter what he encounters, whatever he sees, although in fact there was no reason, no one tried to make him lose his temper; he himself suspects enemies everywhere and even to such an extent that he thinks that people deliberately want to do something to make him angry and lose his peace of mind.

So, if a person, let's say, inexperienced or negligent has come from the passion of despondency to even greater negligence and laziness, then what should he do, how can he get out of such a state, how can he overcome this passion? First of all, we must keep in mind that if we do not force ourselves, then no advice, no miraculous power or supernatural assistance will help us. We need to understand that we are free beings and that much depends on our own compulsion. The Lord is always ready to help us, we can say that He has already rushed to help us, but we do not notice this help, we neglect it, we do not see it because we have plunged into the darkness of despondency to such an extent that we do not want to respond even a little to this Divine action, which strengthens us in the struggle. It happens that a person does not even do anything, but simply endures despondency and does not abandon his usual obedience or prayer rule - and immediately the grace of God begins to console his heart, he feels that the Lord is with him. One should not think that the struggle for one's salvation is such an easy and simple thing that there are no obstacles or difficulties in it.

That is why John Climacus rightly says that despondency is overcome by the memory of death. He also says - and his reasoning is undoubtedly taken exclusively from experience, there is nothing abstract or purely theoretical in it - that the most powerful remedy against despondency is prayer, which makes a person cheer up, makes him take up his work. But it is precisely this that we forget about, and we leave it. If we pray, we do not make any effort to pray attentively, but we do so to such a formal degree that our mind practically does not participate in prayer at all, and in reality it is no longer prayer. We are afraid to think about death in principle, we do not have a serious attitude to it. We forget that we are the same people as everyone else, and that we, like other countless human beings, like all generations of people, will have to cross this line of life and death. Thus we fall into such a gloomy state on the one hand, and carefree on the other. And this carelessness proves to us that it is passion that is at work in us, that we succumb to it, and that is why we experience pleasure.

For example, it seems to me that many outstanding European composers were subject to various passions to an extraordinary degree, and this is felt when listening to their musical works. I believe that Chopin was very "dull", not in the sense that he was boring to listen to, but in the sense that he had such a passion. He is a "sad" composer. But what is sadness? "Sadness, melancholy eats me," wrote A.S. Pushkin. What is this, if not despondency? It is obvious that when listening to outstanding musical works, pleasure brings us the satisfaction of this or that passion, in particular despondency, as I understand it. And this proves that any passion is pleasant, even some vile and disgusting one, which completely devastates the soul and brings it into a gloomy state, but it also gives pleasure. There is a certain contradiction here. Passion is never satisfied, it demands more and more food again and again, but at the same time, in the process of giving in to it, it brings us pleasure. About music it can be said that it all comes from despondency. If a person had fun or if he had something to do, then why would he compose music? And so, out of boredom, he begins to think about how to entertain himself and others. There is an opinion that art in general arose in order to drown out despondency. By the way, according to the biblical narrative, the first musical instruments were invented by the descendants of Cain, that is, an outcast man who resisted God. In this way, people wanted to replace the lost bliss of Paradise, that is, they tried to invent something earthly that would replace Paradise for them, make them forget about it and, consequently, remove them from repentance. Therefore, it must be said that music, like all art in general and a significant part of human culture, really comes from despondency and melancholy.

That is, any passion, including despondency, brings pleasure to a person, which is why we, in fact, succumb to it: we want to enjoy, to revel in our passion. And the drunkenness that I mentioned, of course, also comes from despondency, only it is a grosser way of finding some kind of tranquility, and a more refined way is when we begin to enjoy works of art, some abstract activity, and thus drown out the inner anguish. If we take a sober look at ourselves and see that we are discouraged not because there is a serious reason, but because we are pleased with it, then we will draw a different conclusion, we will behave differently. We will understand that the cause is not outside of us, but in ourselves. If there were no passion, there would be no reason, we would not see a reason for despondency. A blind person cannot see anything, a deaf person cannot hear anything. If there is no passion of despondency in us, it means that we cannot be discouraged, if there is no anger in us, we cannot be angry. And our words about the reason for succumbing to this or that passion are only self-justification, even if our reasons were really serious, and not as small and insignificant as usual. We always do what is easy for us, what is interesting to us, and we can almost not force ourselves to do what is difficult and in which we need to overcome ourselves. And this quality of ours, which is manifested in some ordinary human affairs or occupations, is also manifested in spiritual life. If something is not given to us, we immediately give up. It is not possible to pray at once like Elijah the prophet, through whose prayer it began to rain - we think: "Well, then I will not at all." We also think: "Here I have been asceticizing for three whole days, and I still do not have unceasing prayer - what is it?" or "Here I am for three years in the monastery, and I still do not have impassibility - how can this be?" We fall into dissipation, give up, and don't want to do it at all. We come to the monastery with zeal, with a kind of fervor: some want to repent, some want to change, renew their lives, who, perhaps, are inspired by the books of the Holy Fathers we have read, and then, after a while, all this ardor passes, cools down, because we see that we need to work here, but we do not want to work. In ordinary worldly life, as a rule, the more valuable, the higher the reward, the more you need to work for it. Sometimes a person makes efforts for many years to achieve some goal. Everyone knows such typical cases when a person works hard and saves money for several years to buy a car or an apartment. The more valuable a thing is, the more we have to work for it - and this is clear to everyone, and when it comes to heavenly and spiritual treasures, we lose common sense here. We have a preconceived opinion that everything spiritual is so intangible, inexplicable, amorphous, vague that there can be no strict definitions in relation to it, everything should be simple, easy and accessible. And when it suddenly turns out that in fact we need to work even harder, even more diligence is required, we fall into dissipation from the very first difficulties. But even in worldly life, a person has failures. For example, a person wanted to enter a university, but did not prepare, could not pass, for example, chemistry. What does such a person begin to do if he still wants to study at this institute? He hires tutors, prepares carefully, and teaches chemistry. The next year, he managed to pass chemistry for a satisfactory grade, and he entered the institute. And no one is surprised by anything like this. I am fine. When a person wants to acquire some virtue in the spiritual life and suddenly fails, he must also ask himself the question: why did this happen to him? In this he needs to improve. Let's say I'm doing everything right, but I have pride. So I need to pay attention to the struggle with pride. Or: I do everything right, but I do not have sufficient zeal for prayer, I pray absent-mindedly. So you need to force yourself to pray. And we do not want to draw such a simple, elementary conclusion that the world would have made even without any extraneous prompting. And again we begin to lose heart instead of starting to work. If it didn't work out the first time, it will work out the second, the third, in general, it will definitely work. Even this struggle itself, the very compulsion of oneself to correct oneself in one way or another, already brings consolation and grace to the soul of man, in contrast to what happens in the world. And no matter what we do, wherever we struggle, everywhere we receive benefit, consolation, support, and in the end we achieve what we have planned and striven for.

Some fall into despondency and discouragement, they give up because they seem to have begun the spiritual life too late, in middle age or even at an advanced age. But we know from church history that some people began their spiritual life precisely in such old years, but nevertheless they prospered highly. Our revered saint, who asceticized in the Siberian land, Basilisk of Siberia, began to engage in mental work at the age of forty. Of course, he was prepared by his previous life: he was greatly humbled by the ordinary sorrows of life, and he asceticized in the wilderness. But it so happened in his life that there was no one to teach him mental work, because at that time in Russia, and throughout the world in general, intellectual work was in oblivion. And so his own disciple Zosima Verkhovsky, perhaps simply because he was more well-read in the works of the Holy Fathers, began to speak to the elder about mental work, and he, having listened to him, began to asceticize and attained the highest spiritual success. I repeat, he began at the age of forty. And we are discouraged at twenty-five: everything is lost, nothing will work. The ancient ascetic of piety, Paul the Simple, left his wife and children, came to Anthony the Great at the age of sixty and succeeded thanks to his obedience and zeal. People have different virtues. One is obedient, the other is diligently engaged in the Jesus Prayer, but all must have one common quality - zeal. And so, jealousy forced Paul the Simple to give himself up to complete obedience to Anthony the Great, and at the age of sixty he achieved such great success that he cast out demons and performed amazing miracles. Imagine: a sixty-year-old grandfather who had worked all his life somewhere in the world would come to our monastery, retired and now ask to come here. How would we react to it? They would probably say: "Well, okay, try it, let's see how you do." And this grandfather would become a miracle worker. There are cases when people acquired the grace of God very quickly and in the most unusual conditions. For example, St. Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who was elected to the patriarchate from the senatorial rank. Intellectually, he was an amazingly capable person - a scientist who read a huge number of works and compiled his own book - "The Library", where he described all the Christian, theological, pagan, and fiction works he read (if I am not mistaken, about 2000 titles), and gave a more or less extensive assessment of each. So, this learned man made a great career at the imperial court. Unfortunately, I do not know at what age he was elected patriarch, but I think he was not young, because the very study of all kinds of sciences, the career itself had to take many years, and it was necessary to make considerable efforts. Perhaps he did not deliberately try to make a career, but simply wanted to conscientiously fulfill his duties, but nevertheless, by the time of his election, some significant period must have passed, that is, this man was most likely middle-aged.

And the administration of all these churches and the clergy of the reigning city gave Photius many troubles. At the same time, he did not forget his scientific studies: he was a great lover of books and reading books was the greatest pleasure for him, he was the first of the Orthodox hierarchs-theologians who wrote theological works himself. However, it was during his patriarchate that he acquired the gift of unceasing prayer, as Paisius Velichkovsky says. Nothing prevented him: neither his age, nor his studies (I mean the management of the patriarchal cathedra), nor his scientific hobbies, to which he devoted a lot of time. But he had many sorrows, since at that time the Church was torn apart by internal disorder and the opponents of St. Photius was confronted; moreover, there was a struggle against papism, and he was the first to condemn the heresy of the Filioque. And with such busyness, with such worries and sorrows, man found time for prayer. The main thing that is necessary for prayer is a serene state of mind, and it is as if he did not have it, but nevertheless acquired unceasing prayer. And age also did not become an obstacle.

Therefore, there is no need to be discouraged by the fact that we have some external obstacles: age, established character, habits, passions or any other circumstances, this is not a matter for despondency. Nothing external to the inner life, which is what I have said, can prevent us from progressing spiritually. Our own negligence hinders us. The cause, the fault of all your troubles must be sought in yourself. And this path of self-reproach, the most real, sincere self-reproach, and not some kind of self-insult without faith in what you call yourself, makes a person truly spiritually fruitful. And if we succumb to the passion of despondency and fall into dissipation because something is not as we would like, then we will remain barren and ultimately lose it, and not someone else. So, in my opinion, the most important reason that we succumb to this passion is our unwillingness to work. That is why I really like the name proposed by Gregory the Sinaite instead of the name of despondency - "laziness". The opposite of laziness, as you know, is diligence. So you need to acquire spiritual diligence. Work is, as they say, difficult. We may not want to, but we know that it is necessary, and, overcoming fatigue and sometimes pain, we do what we need to do. Work is caused by necessity, we do not everything only with pleasure. For the most part, work brings comfort only when we have already completed the work and seen its result. And even when we start doing something with pleasure, we still involuntarily face difficulties and there is a desire to quit it. Just imagine: a surgeon performs an operation, but it has dragged on for something, it goes on for three whole hours, I am already bored. He throws a scalpel: "Let someone else sew it up, but I'm tired, you're standing here, already sweating all over." What will happen then? You will understand that laziness in obedience (in the sense of work) is bad for the human soul, but much more terrible is laziness in relation to the spiritual. If the Lord may still condescend to the lazy in work and have mercy, then for the lazy in prayer, in the struggle with thoughts, in the struggle with passions, there is no way out. And therefore we need to acquire such diligence.