On Guarding the Mind From Useless Accumulation of Knowledge and Idle Curiosity

Just as it is necessary, as we have said, to guard the mind from ignorance, so equally necessary is it to guard it from the opposite of ignorance—from the accumulation of much knowledge and from curiosity. For as soon as we fill it with a multitude of items of knowledge, impressions, and thoughts—including vain, worthless, and harmful ones—we render it powerless, and it will no longer be able to discern rightly what is beneficial for our true self-correction and perfection. Therefore you must hold yourself in relation to knowledge about earthly things—even those that are at times permissible but not necessary—as though you were already dead; and always gathering your mind within yourself as recollectedly as possible, leave it idle from thoughts about all worldly things.

Let the tales of what has happened and the latest accounts of current events pass you by, and let all the upheavals in the world and in kingdoms be for you as though they did not exist at all; and when someone brings them to you, turn away from them and drive them far from your heart and imagination. Hear what holy Basil says: “Let the hearing of worldly news be a bitter taste to you, and the accounts of devout men like combs of honey” (Pt. 5, p. 52); and attend also to what the prophet David declares: ”Wicked men told me their fancies, but they are not like your law, O Lord” (Ps. 118:85). Love to attend only to spiritual and heavenly things and to study them, and desire to know nothing in the world except the Lord ”Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), his life and his death, and what he requires of you. Acting thus, you will act in a way pleasing to God, who holds as his chosen and beloved those who love him and strive to do his will.

Every other kind of inquiry and investigation is the offspring and nourishment of self-love and pride; it is the fetters and snares of the devil, who, seeing that the will of those who attend to the spiritual life is strong and firm, attempts to overcome their mind by such curiosities, so that he may thereby seize hold of both the mind and the will. To this end he customarily instills in them thoughts that are lofty, subtle, and astonishing—especially in those who are clever and quick to philosophize. And they, carried away by the pleasure of entertaining and pondering such exalted ideas, forget to guard the purity of their hearts and to attend to humble self-estimation and true self-mortification; and thus, being entangled in the fetters of pride and self-conceit, they make an idol of their own mind, and consequently, little by little, without perceiving it themselves, fall into the notion that they no longer need the counsel and guidance of others, since they have grown accustomed in every need to have recourse to the idol of their own understanding and judgment.

This is an extremely dangerous condition and one difficult to heal; pride of mind is far more ruinous than pride of will. For pride of will, being apparent to the mind, can sometimes be readily cured by the mind through bending it under the yoke of what is right. But the mind, when it has presumptuously settled into the conviction that its own judgments are better than all others—by whom, in the end, can it be healed? Can it listen to anyone, when it is certain that the judgments of all others are not as good as its own? And when this eye of the soul—the mind—by means of which a person might have recognized and corrected the pride of the will, is itself blinded by pride and remains unhealed, who will heal the will? All within becomes disordered, and in such a way that there is nowhere and no one to apply a remedy. This is why you must oppose this ruinous pride of mind as swiftly as possible, before it penetrates to the marrow of your bones. Oppose it: bridle the swiftness of your mind and humbly submit your own opinion to the opinions of others; be a fool for the love of God, if you wish to be wiser than Solomon. ”If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise” (1 Cor. 3:18).