I see in myself the proof that I am the son of Adam: I retain his inclination to evil; I agree with the proposals of the seducer, although I know for certain [without a doubt – Ed.] that a deception is being offered to me, a murder is being prepared.

It would be in vain for me to accuse my forefathers for the sin they have communicated to me: I have been freed from the captivity of sin by the Redeemer, and I no longer fall into sin from violence, but arbitrarily.

The forefathers once committed a transgression of one of God's commandments in paradise, and I, being in the bosom of the Church of Christ, unceasingly violate all the Divine commandments of Christ, my God and Savior.

Then my soul is troubled with anger and bitterness! In my imagination the dagger flashes over the head of the enemy, and my heart revels in the satisfied vengeance wrought by the dream. I imagine scattered heaps of gold! after them are depicted magnificent chambers, gardens, all the objects of luxury, voluptuousness, pride, which are provided by gold and for which the sin-loving man worships this idol — the means of fulfilling all perishable desires. Then I am seduced by honors and power! I am carried away, I am occupied with dreams of governing people and countries, of providing them with perishable acquisitions, and myself with perishable glory. Then, as if with my own eyes, tables with steaming and fragrant viands stand before me! ridiculously and at the same time pitifully I delight in the seductions that present themselves before me. Then suddenly I see myself righteous, or, rather, my heart is hypocritical, strives to appropriate righteousness to itself, flatters itself, cares about human praise, how to attract it to itself!

{p. 115}

Passions dispute me one from another, constantly transmit one to another, disturb and disturb me. And I don't see my sorrowful state! on my mind is an impenetrable veil of darkness; A heavy stone of insensibility lies on the heart.

Will my mind come to its senses, will it want to go to good? my heart, accustomed to sinful pleasures, opposes him, my body, which has acquired bestial desires, opposes him. Even in me I have lost the concept that my body, as created for eternity, is capable of Divine desires and movements, that bestial strivings are its ailment, brought into it by the fall.

The heterogeneous parts that make up my being—mind, heart, and body—are dissected, separated, act in discord, oppose one another; then they only act in a momentary agreement that is contrary to God, when they work for sin.

Such is my condition! It is the death of the soul during the life of the body. But I'm happy with my condition! I am pleased not because of humility, but because of my blindness, because of my hardness. The soul does not feel its mortification, just as the body, separated from the soul by death, does not feel it.

If I had felt my mortification, I would have remained in unceasing repentance! If I had felt my mortification, I would have cared about the resurrection!

I am all occupied with the cares of the world, little concerned with my spiritual distress! I severely condemn the slightest sins of my neighbors; he himself is filled with sin, blinded by it, turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife, incapable of any spiritual movement.

I have not inherited repentance, because I do not yet see my sin. I do not see my sin, because I am still working for sin. He who enjoys sin, who allows himself to taste it even with thoughts and sympathy of the heart, cannot see his sin.

Only he can see his sin who has resolutely renounced all friendship with sin, who has stood on vigilant guard at the gates of his house with a drawn sword, the word of God, who repels and cuts sin with this sword, in whatever form it may approach it.

Whoever accomplishes a great deed, establishes enmity with sin, forcibly tearing away from it the mind, heart and body, God will grant him a great gift: the sight of his sin. {p. 116} Blessed is the soul that sees sin nestling within itself! blessed is the soul that beholds in itself the fall of the forefathers, the decrepitude of the old Adam! Such a vision of one's sin is a spiritual vision, a vision of the mind healed of blindness by Divine grace. With fasting and kneeling, the Holy Eastern Church teaches us to ask God for the sight of our sin.