1) Everyone should look around what condition he is in, and whether he is possessed by any passion and sinful custom; whether his heart was not captivated by the love of money and covetousness, or by fornication, or by the love of vain glory and honor; whether anger and rancor, or drunkenness, possess it; whether he is not accustomed to condemning, slandering, blasphemy, scolding, backbiting his neighbor, and so on. For passion and custom blind the eye of the soul, so that a man does not see his calamity and destruction. Therefore, it is necessary to diligently read or listen to the Holy Scriptures and other Christian books, for from them sin is known; treatment of good and pious people, from whose good life a person can know his depraved morals. In addition, we must call upon and pray to Jesus Christ, the enlightener of the blind, that He Himself enlighten the eyes of the soul. Without Him, there is no enlightenment or knowledge of the calamitous state of sin; until He touches our blind eyes, we will always be blind, and we will wander like blind men.

This trial and knowledge is absolutely necessary for everyone who desires eternal salvation; for from him is the beginning of salvation. How will you seek healing without knowing the disease? It is necessary to know the disease first. The sick require a doctor, as the Lord says: "The healthy have no need of a physician, but the sick" (Matt. 9:12). Who are the sick? Certainly those who recognize and recognize their disease. Just as we experience bodily illness in order to be healed, so we must experience spiritual illness in order to seek healing after knowing it. Just as the beginning of bodily health is to know illness, so the beginning of salvation is to know the miserable state of one's soul. For such knowledge will move a person to seek the means by which he could get rid of his misfortune. Examine yourself and know, Christian, in what condition you are. Whether you have riches or not, health or bodily sickness, glory or disgrace: what have you to do? All this will remain in the world. Test only this, what illness the soul has, and whether you have the hope of salvation, which alone is needed.

2) A person who has come to know the miserable state of his soul should not delay, but rather abandon the evil custom, for the more you delay in a passionate custom, the more it will intensify, and the more difficult it will be to abandon it; just as the longer the bodily illness continues, the more difficult it is to cure it. And although the passion will strongly struggle and attract to its former state, stand firmly against it, as a domestic enemy, not succumb to its lust, and call upon the almighty help of the Son of God. For passion is like a dog. As a dog runs after us and chases us when we flee from him, and when we stand against him and drive him away, he flees from us, so passion drives away the one who yields to it and hears it; but yields to him who opposes it.

Will, diligence and work with God's help can do everything; and although the ascetic will endure much torment from it, he will finally yield to him, strengthened by the power of God, which helps those who labor and pray. Many such examples are presented to us by Church history, in which we read that many robbers, fornicators, prostitutes and other sinners who turned from their sins to God, although they suffered much from an evil custom, nevertheless, with the help of God, finally defeated it, and crucified the flesh with passions and lusts, and thus those who were slaves of sin became Christ's servants (Gal. 5:24). Such examples are written so that lost sinners do not despair of turning and fight against evil custom, for with God's help all things are possible for man. The same Jesus Christ yesterday and today, the same forever Helper and Savior of those who convert, labor, fight, and call upon Him (Hebrews 13:8).

3) This podvig is aided and strengthened in him by frequent meditation on death, which delights everyone in every way and in every way and encloses it in eternity; meditation on the righteous judgment of Christ, on the Kingdom of Heaven and endless torment.

4) He who has abandoned an evil custom should not return to it, like a dog to his vomit and a washed pig to the mud (2 Peter 2:22); but to stand firmly against it, to conquer by the grace of God, forgetting what is behind and stretching forward (Phil. 3:13), and, according to the Lord's admonition, to remember Lot's wife (Luke 17:32), who, turning back, that is, to Sodom, from which she came, became a pillar of salt (Gen. 19:26). The world with its lusts is lawless Sodom, from which those who flee should not turn to it, lest, having become entangled in its snares again, they be condemned with it, and should remember the Apostle's words: "Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world: whoever loves the world has not the love of the Father in him" (1 John 2:15), and again: "Whoever wants to be a friend of the world, he becomes an enemy of God (James 4:4).

Chapter 3.

On Human Blindness

We feel like a blind man touching a wall, and as if without eyes, we grope for it; We stumble at noon, as if at dusk.

(Isaiah 59:10)

§ 51. As the light of the senses is to our eyes, so is God's goodness to our souls. When the light shines, a person sees everything well: he sees the way, the ditch, the harmful, and he guards against it, distinguishes white from black and one thing from another. Thus, when God's grace enlightens the soul, the soul knows and sees everything well; he sees God's wondrous works, His Providence and destinies, discerns good from evil, virtue from vice, and sees the benefit of the soul and seeks it, sees harm and avoids it.

§ 52. As darkness is to the eyes of the body, so is sin to the human soul.

All this evil darkness and material blindness do to man. In the same way, sin is spiritual darkness, the eye of the soul darkens and blinds so that the sinner endures similar or even worse spiritual evil and walks like a blind man: he does not know where the path leads him; he does not see before him the pit of eternal perdition, into which he can fall; vice from virtue, evil from good, truth from falsehood, true well-being from true misfortune, and so, seeing, he does not see and touches like a blind man.