The Conference of the Soul with the Mind

Soul. "I grieve unbearably, I find no joy anywhere. I find no consolation or consolation either outside or within me. I cannot look at a world full of continuous deception, deception, and murder. Careless contemplation of the world, a few careless glances at its temptations, ignorance of the poisonousness of its impressions, childish, inexperienced credulity in it, attracted its arrows to me, filled me with mortal wounds. Why should I look at the world? Why be curious about it, study it in detail, or become attached to it when I am only a short-lived wanderer in the world? I will certainly leave him, and I do not know when I will leave him. Every day, every hour, I must be ready for the call to eternity. No matter how long my wandering in the desert of the world may be, it is insignificant before the immeasurable eternity, before which hours, days, years, and centuries are equal. The world itself, with all its great pandemonium, is passing by: the earth and all the works in it will be burned up [252]. These deeds will be burned up – the fruits of the fall and rejection of men. The wounds inflicted on me by the world have made the world disgusting to me, but they have not protected me from new wounds. I don't want to be in the middle of the world! I don't want to obey him! I don't want to take any part in serving him! I don't even want to see him! But he pursues me everywhere: he forcibly invades, in charming beauty he presents himself to the eyes, relaxes, wounds, amazes, destroys me. I myself, constantly bearing and containing within myself the principle of self-deception and deception thrown into me by sin, continue to deceive myself with the world: hating it, I am involuntarily attracted to it and greedily drink its poison, pierce deeply into myself the arrows that it shoots at me. "I turn my longing and inquisitive gaze from the world to myself. I don't find anything comforting in myself. Countless sinful passions are boiling in me! I am constantly defiled by various sins: now I am tormented by anger and rancor; then I feel that I am burning with the flame of fornication. My blood is agitated, my imagination is inflamed by some action, alien and hostile to me, and I see seductive images before me, drawing me to the dreaming of sin, to the pleasure of a destructive temptation. I have no strength to flee from seductive images: involuntarily, forcibly, my painful eyes are riveted to them. And there is nowhere to run! I fled into the wilderness: into the wilderness came with me pictures of sin, or preceded me in it, I do not know; in the wilderness they appeared to me with a special, murderous vivacity. These images do not exist: both images and their existence, and beauty are deception and seduction; but together they are alive, and nothing, neither time itself, nor decrepit old age, can kill them. They are washed away from my imagination by a tear of repentance: I have no tears of repentance. They are smoothed out from the imagination by a humble prayer combined with the weeping of the heart: I do not have such a prayer. My heart is devoid of tenderness, deprived of salvific weeping: it is motionless in me, like a fragment of an insensible stone. In spite of my terrible sinfulness, I seldom see my sinfulness. In spite of the fact that in me good is mingled with evil, and has become evil, as fine food is made by poison mixed with poison, I forget the plight of the good given to me at creation, damaged and distorted by the fall. I begin to see in myself my goodness whole, immaculate, and to admire it: my vanity carries me away from the fruitful and fat pasture of repentance to a distant land! to a stony and barren land, to a land of thorns and tares, to a land of lies, self-deception, and destruction. I abandon the fulfillment of Christ's commandments and begin to fulfill the promptings of my heart, to follow its feelings, its will; I boldly call the sensations of fallen nature good, its deeds virtue — this good and this virtue are worthy of earthly and heavenly rewards, human and God's. When I tried to fulfill the commandments of Christ, not heeding the will of the heart and forcing it, I recognized myself as a debt before God and man, an unfaithful and useless slave! Following self-deception, sorrow, despondency, and a kind of terrible darkness appear in me. Sorrow deprives me of moral activity, despondency from {p. 105} removes the strength to fight sin, and darkness is the consequence of sorrow and despondency, thick darkness hides from me God, His impartial and formidable judgment, the promised rewards for Christian virtue, the promised punishments for the rejection of Christianity and its all-holy statutes. I begin to sin fearlessly, with the silence of my conscience, as if it were dead or asleep for that time. Rarely, very rarely, there is a moment of tenderness, light and hope. Then I feel different. But a bright minute is short. My sky is not clear often. Like black clouds, passions again come upon me and again plunge me into darkness, confusion, bewilderment, and destruction. "My mind! You are the leader of the soul. Instruct me! Bring blissful calm into me! Teach me how to close the entrance to the impressions of the world, how to curb and suppress the passions that arise in myself. The world and passions tormented me, tormented me.

Intellect. "My answer will be disappointing. And I, together with you, soul, am stricken with sin. I know quite well what you have been talking about. How can I help you when I myself have been dealt murderous blows, when I am deprived of the power to act autocratically? In my continuous activity, which has been given to me by the Creator and constitutes my attribute, I am constantly subject to outside influence. This influence is the influence of sin, with which I am damaged and upset. This influence constantly distracts me from God, from eternity, draws me into the deception of the vain and transitory world, into the deception of myself, into the deception of thee, O soul, into the deception of sin, into the deception of the fallen angels. My essential fault lies in the incessantly violent amusement. Overwhelmed by amusement, I soar, wander about the universe without need or use, like other outcast spirits. I would like to stop, but I cannot: entertainment plunders me, carries me away. Plundered by amusement, I cannot look as I should, either at you, soul, or at myself. From amusement I cannot heed the Word of God as I should: outwardly I appear to be attentive, but while I am trying to listen, I involuntarily deviate in all directions, I am carried away very far, to completely extraneous objects, the consideration of which is not only unnecessary for me, but also extremely harmful. From murderous distraction I cannot offer God a strong, real prayer and be sealed with the fear of God, by which my absent-mindedness would be destroyed and my thoughts would become obedient to me, to which my soul would communicate to you, soul, heartfelt contrition and tenderness. From my amusement you are in a state of bitterness; with your bitterness and insensibility, I amuse myself even more. Entertainment is the reason for my weakness in the struggle against sinful thoughts. From amusement I feel darkness and heaviness: when a sinful thought appears, I do not suddenly and not soon recognize it, if it is covered by justification. If he is manifest, then I, arming myself against him, do not show a resolute and irreconcilable hatred for him, enter into conversation with my murderer, delight in the deadly poison that he slyly puts into me. I am seldom victorious, often defeated. Because of my amusement, forgetfulness overwhelms me: I forget God, I forget eternity, I forget the vicissitudes and deceptiveness of the world, I am drawn to it, I carry you with me, my soul. I forget my sins. I forget my fall, I forget my miserable situation: in my darkness and self-deception I begin to find dignity in myself and in you. I begin to seek, to demand recognition of these virtues from the deceitful world, ready to agree for a moment, in order to laugh more viciously afterwards. There are no virtues in us: the dignity of man is completely defiled by the fall, and he will think justly of himself if, as some great ascetic advises, he considers himself an abomination.

107} Is the mind the receptacle and unceasing parent of vile and evil thoughts, thoughts that are constantly hostile to God? Is it not an abomination to the soul, in which violent and monstrous passions are constantly revolving, like poisonous snakes, basilisks, and scorpions in a deep pit? If not an abomination is the body, conceived in iniquity, born in sins, the instrument of sin during the short earthly life, the source of the deadly stench at the end of earthly life? "We, the soul, are one spiritual being: I think, you feel. But we are not only damaged by sin, we are divided by it, as it were, into two separate beings, acting almost always in opposition to each other. We are separated, opposed to each other, we are separated from God! we are opposed to the All-Holy and All-Perfect God Himself!

Soul. "Your answer is regrettable, but it is fair. This serves as a kind of consolation that our miserable condition is in mutual correlation, and we can share our sorrow, we can help each other. Give us advice on how to get out of our common disorder? I have noticed that my feelings always correspond to your thoughts. The heart cannot struggle with thought for long: it always submits to it, and when it resists, it resists only for a short time. My mind! Be a guide to our common salvation.

Intellect. "I agree that the heart does not resist thought for long. But it, having shown submission for a moment, again rebels against the most correct, against the most God-pleasing thought, rises up with such force and bitterness that it almost always destroys and carries me away. Having deposed me, it begins to breed in me the most absurd thoughts, which serve as an expression and revelation of the innermost passions. What can I say about my thoughts? Because of the disorder and damage to my sin, my thoughts are extremely inconstant. In the morning, for example, certain thoughts were born in me about our spiritual life, about the invisible laborious podvig, about our earthly situation, relationships, circumstances, about our fate in eternity; These thoughts seemed sound. Suddenly, by noon, or earlier, they disappear of their own accord from some unexpected meeting, and are replaced by others, which, in turn, are recognized as worthy of attention. In the evening, new thoughts with new justifications appear. At night I am troubled by other thoughts, which during the day have been hiding somewhere, as if in ambush, so that they suddenly appear to me during the silence of the night, to disturb me with the charming and murderous picture of sin.

In vain is this knowledge! In vain is this sure sign, which decisively separates good from evil in the world of spirits! Because of the incomprehensible illness that lives in me, comprehended only by experience, I cannot tear myself away from the murderous thoughts engendered in me by sin. I can neither suppress them nor expel them when they begin to boil in me like worms; I can neither drive them away nor push them away from me when they attack me from without, like robbers, like fierce, bloodthirsty beasts. They hold me captive, in hard work, torment, torment, hourly ready to tear me to pieces, to strike me with eternal death. I involuntarily communicate the torment they inflict on you, O soul, I communicate it to our very body, which is sickly and weak because it is wounded by innumerable ulcers, pierced by arrows and swords of sin. Poisoned by the poison of eternal death, you, the soul, grieve unbearably — you seek consolation, you find it nowhere else. In vain do you think to find this consolation in me: I am killed with you; together with you I am buried in the narrow and gloomy tomb of not seeing and not knowing God. Our attitude towards the living God, as if to the non-existent and dead, is a sure testimony to our own mortification.

Soul. "My leader!" My eye! My supreme spiritual power! My mind! You are driving me into hopelessness. If thou, being my light, acknowledge thyself to be darkness, then what shall I expect from my other powers, which are common to me with dumb animals? What can I expect from my will or power of desire, from jealousy or natural anger, which can only then act differently than they do in cattle, beasts, and demons, when they are under your guidance? You have told me that, with all your weakness, with all your darkness, with all your deadness, the Word of God is still working on you, and has given you at least a sign of distinguishing good from evil, which is the greatest difficulty. And I became a partaker of this knowledge! I, too, when I begin to feel embarrassment and frustration, at the same time feel the wrongness of my condition, I feel distrust and hatred towards this state, I try to throw off a state that is unnatural and hostile to me. On the contrary, when you stop, even for a short time, as if in your own embrace, in thoughts drawn from the Word of God, what consolation I feel! What a praise to God begins from the depths of my heart, from the most heartfelt treasures! What reverence I have for the majesty of God, Who then reveals Himself to me! What an insignificant speck of dust I seem to myself in the midst of a vast and varied universe! What a grace-filled silence, as if brought by the breath of the heavenly wind, begins to blow in me and cool me, exhausted by the heat and lack of rain! What a sweet and healing tear, born in the heart, ascends to the head and flows out of the humble and meek eye that looks at everyone and everything so peacefully, so lovingly! Then I feel the healing of my nature! Then the inner struggle is destroyed! Then my powers, dissected and fragmented by sin, are united into one. Having become one with you and with my other powers, having attracted the body itself to this unity, I feel the mercy of the Creator to His fallen creation, I come to know actively the significance and power of the Redeemer, Who heals me by His all-powerful and life-giving commandment. I confess Him! I see the action of the worshipped All-Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and sent by the Son! I see the action of God the Spirit, introduced by God the Word, manifesting His Divinity by His creative power, by means of which the broken vessel appears as if it had never been broken, in primeval wholeness and beauty. My mind! turn to the Word of God, from which we have already borrowed innumerable blessings, but have lost through our negligence, our coldness to the gifts of God. We exchanged priceless spiritual gifts for the deceptive phantom of gifts, under the guise of which sin and the world offered us their poison. My mind! turn to the Word of God! Seek there consolation for me: at the present moment my sorrow is unbearable, and I fear lest I fall into final destruction, into despair.

{p. 110}

Intellect. The Word of God, the soul, solves our perplexity with the most satisfactory definition. But many of the people, having heard the Word of the Spirit and interpreted it to themselves with their carnal understanding, said of the life-giving Word of God: "This Word is cruel, and who can hear it!" [255] Hear, O soul, what the Lord has said: He who has found his life will destroy it: and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it [256]. He who loves his soul will destroy it, and he who hates his soul in this world will preserve it into eternal life [257].

Soul. "I am ready to die if God commands. But how can I, an immortal, die? I don't know the weapon that could take my life.

Intellect. "Do not think, soul, that the commandment of Christ commands you to die alone, that I am excluded from the sentence. No! I must share the cup of death with you and be the first to drink it, as the main culprit of our common fall, rejection, calamity, temporal and eternal death. Death and destruction, which God demands of us, do not consist in the destruction of our existence: they consist in the destruction of self-love, which has become, as it were, our life. Self-love is the distorted love of fallen man for himself. Self-love idolizes its fallen, falsely named mind, tries in everything and constantly to satisfy its fallen, falsely directed will. Self-love is expressed in relation to one's neighbors either through hatred, or through man-pleasing, that is, by pleasing human passions, and towards the objects of the world, which it always abuses, through partiality. Just as holy Love is the bond of perfection and is composed of the fullness of all the virtues, so self-love is that sinful passion which is composed of the fullness of all the other various sinful passions. In order to destroy self-love in us, I must reject all my understandings, even though I be very rich in the understandings provided by the teaching of the world and according to the elements of the world. I must sink into poverty of spirit, and, stripped naked by this poverty, washed by weeping, stained, softened by meekness, purity, and mercy, receive the mind which the right hand of my Redeemer deigns to inscribe upon me. That right hand is the Gospel. And you, the soul, must renounce your will, no matter how painful it may be for the heart, even though the feelings and inclinations of your heart seem to you the most righteous and the most elegant. Instead of your own will, you must fulfill the will of Christ our God and Savior, no matter how disgusting and cruel it may be for a self-loving heart. This is the death that God requires of us, so that by voluntary death we may destroy the death that lives in us violently, and receive as a gift the resurrection and life that flow from the Lord Jesus.

Soul. "I make up my mind to deny myself: from the very words you uttered about self-denial, I have already begun to feel joy and hope. Let us abandon life, which gives birth to hopelessness, and let us accept death as the pledge of salvation. Lead me, my mind, following the commandments of God, and yourself abide unswervingly in that Word Which has proclaimed Himself: Whosoever shall be in Me, and I in him, the same shall bring forth much fruit, for without Me ye can do nothing." Amen.

Seeing Your Sin