3) The third is that good awakenings from the sleep of sin not only come reluctantly again, having been left unfulfilled, but also when they come, they no longer produce the effect on the will that they had the first time; the will does not so quickly incline to flow in their wake, and as a result, the determination to do so, if it appears, is weak, not energetic. But if a man has been able to postpone a stronger impulse until tomorrow and then completely lose it, then the more conveniently he will act with the second, and the more conveniently with the third. And so on: the more often the fulfillment of good motives is postponed, the weaker is their effect; then it comes to the point that they become completely inactive, come and go without a trace, and finally they will cease to come. Man gives himself over to the hands of his fall; his heart hardens and begins to have an aversion to good motives. In this way, postponement becomes a direct path to final destruction.

I will also note to you that there is a delay not only when there is an inner compulsion to change a bad life for a good one, but also when someone leads a good life, namely, when someone has an opportunity to do good and he postpones it either until tomorrow, or indefinitely until another time. And to this delay applies all that has been said about the first kind of delay, and the consequences of this may be similar to those of that. Know that whoever misses an opportunity to do good is not only deprived of the fruit of the good that he would have done, but also offends God. God sends a needy person to him, and he says: "Depart after." Though he says this to a man, it is the same as he says to God, Who sent him. God will find another benefactor for him, but the one who refuses him is not unanswerable.

On the Enemy's Intrigues Against Those Who Have Entered the Good PathBut even if one has passed the first two obstacles, desires to be freed from the bonds of sin, and proceeds to do so immediately, the enemy does not abandon him here either, and changes only his tactics, and not his evil desire and hope to stumble him against the stone of some temptation and destroy him. And the Holy Fathers depict such a person being fired at from all sides: from above and below, from the right and from the left, from front and from behind – arrows are flying at him from everywhere. Arrows from above – suggestions of excesses beyond the strength of spiritual labors; arrows from below – suggestions to belittle or completely abandon such labors due to self-pity, negligence and carelessness; arrows on the right, when enemies, on account of some good undertakings and deeds, plunge into the temptation of the danger of falling; arrows on the left, when obvious enemies present temptations and lead to sin; arrows in front, when enemies tempt and confuse with thoughts of what is to come; arrows from behind, when they tempt and disturb with memories of past deeds and events. And all such tempting thoughts are attached to the soul either by an internal path or by an external one: internal, through images and representations of fantasy, imprinted in the mind mentally or through direct suggestions of evil in the heart, accompanied by the usual passionate movements; externally, through the impressions of the external senses, which are constantly flowing, as has already been said above. Our enemies have their former sinful habits and our nature, damaged in the fall, as their accomplices. Having so many ways to harm us, the enemy is not in the least embarrassed by the first failures and constantly uses one thing or another to stumble or lead astray the servant of Christ who is slipping away from his power.

The first thing for the enemy, after someone has decided to abandon evil paths and really leaves them, is to clear for himself the place of action against him, so that no one interferes with him. He succeeds in this when he inspires those who have entered the good path to act on their own, without seeking advice and guidance from the leaders inherent in the Church, for a God-pleasing life. Whoever follows this guidance and all his actions, both internal and external, trusts to the reasoning of his leaders, in parishes – lay priests, and in monasteries – experienced elders – there is no access to him to the enemy. Whatever he suggests, an experienced eye will immediately see where he is aiming, and will warn his pet. Thus all his intrigues are ruined. And whoever recoils from his leaders, he will immediately circle and lead him astray. There are many possibilities that do not seem bad. And he inspires them. An inexperienced beginner follows them and falls into an ambush, where he is exposed to great dangers or completely dies.

The second thing that the enemy arranges is to leave the newcomer not only without guidance, but also without help. He who has decided to do without advice and guidance in his life soon passes by himself to the realization of the uselessness of outside help in the performance of his affairs and the maintenance of God-pleasing orders. But the enemy hastens this transition by hiding himself and not attacking the newcomer, who, feeling such freedom and privilege, begins to dream that this good state is the fruit of his own efforts, and as a result rests on them and in his prayers for help from above speaks as if only through clenched teeth, only because it is written so in prayers. Help is not sought and does not come, and thus the newcomer is left alone, with only his own strength. And it is already easy for an enemy to cope with such an enemy.

The consequence of such self-deception is for some that they rush into excessive feats that are not in their strength and not in time. The strong excitement of energy by presumptuousness gives them for the first time the strength to prolong such feats for some time; then their strength is exhausted and they no longer find them in themselves enough to maintain the most moderate feats, and often they refuse even these. Others, inflaming their self-active energy more and more, reach such self-confidence that they consider everything possible for themselves. In this excited state, they take pernicious steps: they throw themselves into dry wells or from the cliffs where they live in a cave, refuse food altogether, and so on. All this is arranged by the enemy unnoticed by those who are deceived.

For others, the consequence of self-seduction, attributing their successes to themselves, is that they give themselves the right to various indulgences and benefits. There is such a charm that when something new is introduced into a person's life, as, for example, in the case of a repentant, then the days seem to be months, and the weeks seem to be years. Because of this, the enemy easily hammers dreams into the head of one who has worked a little in the order of a new life: how much I have worked, how long I have fasted, how many times I have not slept at night, and so on. You can relax a little. "Rest," the enemy explains, "give rest to the flesh; you can have a little fun." As soon as an inexperienced newcomer agrees to this, he will receive privileges after privileges, until at last all the orders of a God-pleasing life are upset, and he descends into the same life that he left behind, and begins to live again in negligence and carelessness, through the sleeves, as they say.

With such temptations, however, as to shun the advice and guidance of others, to ascribe successes to oneself, to contemplate excesses and indulgences, the enemy not only approaches at the beginning of a good life, but also makes attempts at such suggestions throughout it. Therefore you can see for yourself how necessary it is for you to do everything you do with advice, never to attribute any success, no matter how small, to yourself, to your own strength and your diligence, to avoid all excesses and indulgences, and to lead a steady but energetic and lively life, always in the order once established and established according to the examples of the saints who lived before, and with the reasoning of experienced people of your time.CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.

How the enemy deviates from good deeds and spoils themThe intrigues of the enemy mentioned above upset the whole good life. Against the one who, having stood against them, flows unswervingly along the good path, the enemy builds other intrigues and other stumbling blocks. Here he does not arm himself for life, but acts in fits and starts, against every private work that a good Christian begins and does according to God.

From the time we open our eyes in the morning after sleep until we close them again at night, we are surrounded by affairs, which constantly alternate and, following one another, do not leave an empty moment, if we pay attention to ourselves and do not suffer from laziness and negligence. At the same time, not only the matter of prayerful aspiration of the heart to God, not only the proper deeds in relations with others in truth and love, not only the deeds of regulating in oneself the balance between body and soul, in the feats of self-mortification, but also everyday affairs with civil affairs must all be directed to the work of salvation with strict attention, cheerfulness and zeal. To those who are zealot for this, God helps them to know everything with dignity, cooperating them with His grace with the protection of them by the Angels and the prayers of the saints. But the enemy does not slumber either. For every matter he incites and tries to see if it is possible to somehow disturb the course of our affairs and instead of the necessary ones to lead or disrupt them to undue deeds: then he rushes to hinder their very beginning; then, when they are begun, an attempt is made to stop their flow; then, if he does not succeed in this, he takes care to make their fulfillment and performance worthless; but when he is put to shame in this, he maliciously contrives to deprive them of all value before God, arousing vanity and self-conceit.

St. St. John of the Ladder says about this: "In all our deeds, by which we try to please God, the demons dig three holes for us: first, they fight to hinder our good work; secondly, when they are defeated in this first attempt, they try not to let what they do according to God; and if they do not succeed in this intention, then, having silently approached our souls, they bless us, as those who live in all things pleasing to God. The first temptation is resisted by ardent zeal and the memory of death, the second by obedience and humiliation, and the third by the constant reproach of oneself. This labor is before us, until the fire of God falls into our sanctuary (Psalm 72:16). Then there will be no more violence of evil habits in us, for our God is fire, devouring (Heb. 12:29) every kindling and movement of lust, every evil habit, hardening and darkening, internal and external, visible and thought" (Verse 26:8).

No pen can describe everything that happens in this case. Pay attention to yourself, keeping one yardstick in mind – to please God alone to please all, both great and small, and life itself will teach you to clearly see and understand the enemy's intrigues. However, I will offer you two or three examples of what troubles the enemy raises in our souls in order to spoil our affairs, when they should last for a certain time.

When, for example, a sick person is disposed to endure his illness complacently and endures it, the enemy, knowing that in this way he will be strengthened in the virtue of patience, approaches to disrupt his benevolence. For this purpose, he begins to bring to his mind many good deeds that he could have done if he had been in a different position, and tries to convince him that if he had been healthy, how well he would have worked for God and how much benefit he would have brought to himself and others: he would have gone to church, would have talked, would read and write for the edification of his neighbors, and the like. Noticing that such thoughts are accepted, the enemy brings them to mind more often, multiplies and colors them, brings them to feeling, evokes desires and impulses to do things, imagining how well this or that business would go with him, and arousing pity that he is bound hand and foot by illness. Little by little, with the frequent repetition of such thoughts and movements in the soul, pity turns into discontent and vexation. In this way, the former good-natured patience is upset, and illness is no longer presented as a cure from God and a field for the virtue of patience, but as something hostile to the cause of salvation, and the desire to free oneself from it becomes irresistible, still in the form of obtaining through it space for good deeds and pleasing God in every way. Having brought this to this, the enemy steals from his mind and heart this good goal of the desire for recovery and, abandoning only the desire for health, forces him to look with annoyance at the illness, not as an obstacle to good, but as something hostile in itself. From this, impatience, which is not cured by good thoughts, takes strength and turns into murmuring, and deprives the sick person of his former peace from good-natured patience. And the enemy is happy that he managed to upset him. In exactly the same way the enemy upsets the poor who patiently endures his lot, by depicting to him what good deeds he would adorn himself with if he had a fortune.

In the same way, the enemy often upsets those who are in the field of obedience in a monastery or with an elder, succeeding in convincing them that by remaining in this order of life, they will not soon reach the desired perfection, and kindling in them the desire for seclusion or wilderness life. And it often happens that such suggestions of his are followed. But having achieved this, they give themselves over to negligence in private and lose what they previously acquired with difficulty in novitiate.