The Role of Prayer in the Struggle Against Impassioned Thoughts. Examples

Last time I described for you the whole course of how one proceeds from a simple thought all the way to a passionate desire and from that to the deed. In practice the progression is not always as drawn-out as it appears on paper. Often, if not for the most part, all the stages are passed through very quickly, so that the thought has scarcely appeared before the deed follows—and especially the word. There is no need to examine and distinguish all these contingencies; it would give no help at all in the struggle with the passions. Hold to one thing: as soon as anything passionate is noticed, arm yourself against it immediately with anger and hostile indignation. This indignation has the same significance in mental warfare as giving a strong shove in the chest when attacked by a wicked person. But just as in such an attack a blow to the chest does not always put the wicked person to flight, so in mental warfare, indignation against a passionate thought, feeling, or desire does not always drive them from the soul and end the struggle with them. In the natural order it ought to be so—and sometimes is—but not always. This is because demons frequently take part in the arousal of thoughts, and they are shameless. No matter how angry you become at them, they stand their ground with their thought. It is clear that after indignation one must have recourse to another means as well. What is that means?

What does a person do when attacked by a wicked man? Having shoved him in the chest, he cries out: “Help!” The guard comes running at his call and delivers him from the danger. The same must be done in the mental warfare with the passions. Having become indignant at the passionate, one must cry out for help: “Lord, help me! Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, save me! ”O God, make haste to help me; O Lord, make haste to help me!” (Ps. 69:1).” Having turned to the Lord thus, do not take your attention away from Him toward what is happening within you, but stand before the Lord, imploring Him for help. The enemy, as though scorched by fire, will flee without delay. One of the saints said: “With the name of the Lord Jesus beat your adversaries.” Nothing can stand against the Lord, and He is near: ”The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth; He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him, He will hear their cry and will save them” (Ps. 144:18–19). He Himself gave this promise to those who cry to Him in hope in the hour of need: ”Because he has set his hope on Me, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he has known My name. He will call upon Me and I will hear him; I am with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him” (Ps. 90:14–15). Do not forget to do this—and you will always successfully defeat and drive away everything passionate that arises in you.

Some have done—and perhaps still do—the following: noticing what is passionate and feeling indignant at it, they begin to expose its wretchedness. For example, a thought of pride comes—and they begin to recite: “Pride is hateful to God; you, earth and ashes, how are you not ashamed to be lifted up in thought—remember your sins”—and the like. They gather all their arguments against pride, thinking that by this they will drive away the proud thought. Sometimes it works, but in general this method is unreliable. In exposing the passionate thought one still holds it in the mind, and meanwhile it stirs feeling and awakens desire—that is, it continues to defile the soul. And the mere presence of it in the mind is already defilement. But when, without entering into this verbal argument with the passionate, we turn directly to the Lord with fear, reverence, hope, and surrender to His all-working power, by that very act the passionate is already removed from the gaze of the mind, which is looking upon the Lord. Being cut off from the soul by such attention, it departs of itself if it arose naturally; and if the enemy is also mixed in it, he is struck by the ray of mental light proceeding from the contemplation of the Lord. And it happens that the soul immediately finds peace from the assaults of the passionate, as soon as it turns to the Lord and calls out to Him.

To make this clearer for you, I will tell you a certain tradition. There was an elder who lived in a remote desert. Demons attacked him visibly and began dragging him out of his cell, wishing to drive him out of the desert altogether. The elder began to resist them on his own, but they overpowered him and had already dragged him to the very door. One more moment and they would have thrown him out. Seeing his extreme danger, the elder cried out: “Lord Jesus Christ! Why hast Thou forsaken me! Help me, Lord!” The moment he cried out, the Lord appeared at once and drove away the demons, and said to the elder: “I did not forsake you; but since you did not call upon Me and thought to manage with the enemies on your own, I did not step in to help you. You are yourself to blame, having relied on yourself. Call upon Me, and you will always find ready help.” Having said this, the Lord became invisible. Having instructed the elder, this event also gives a lesson to all of us: not to wrestle with passionate thoughts through our own mental argument with them, but immediately to turn to the Lord in prayer against them.

All who wisely conduct mental warfare with the passions act in precisely this way. Saint John the Short said of himself: “I act like a man sitting under a tree, carefully looking around in all directions. This man, as soon as he sees wild beasts approaching to devour him, immediately climbs the tree, and the beasts, having come, go round and round it and then go away. And I—as soon as I notice the mental beasts approaching me in passionate thoughts—immediately ascend in my mind to the Lord, and these mental beasts have not even time to draw near to me before they are compelled to scatter in all directions.”

Recall what I wrote to you before: that one must become established in the attention of the mind within the heart, and there ceaselessly gaze upon the Lord and cry out to Him. This is the same as what is now being said: that when passionate thoughts, feelings, or desires arise, one must turn to the Lord in prayer. One must turn to the Lord by descending with the attention of the mind into the heart and crying out to Him there. If we were to fulfill without fail this small rule—to stand established in mind within the heart before the Lord with fear, reverence, and surrender—then not only passionate desires and feelings, but even bare thoughts, would never arise in us. But our misfortune is that the mind departs from the heart and from the Lord and wanders in thoughts far afield. At that time the passionate thoughts break in, and if one does not catch oneself quickly, before long passionate feelings are already under way and similar desires are stirring. And then one must fight. But who is to blame? Do not let thoughts wander, and there would be no warfare. But since we have blundered by going out from the heart away from the Lord and have thereby brought trouble upon ourselves, let us at least now, when the trouble has been noticed, hasten again to take refuge in the same place—within the heart before the Lord—in order to cry out to Him for help.

On this subject the same Saint John the Short told the following parable. In a certain place there lived a beautiful woman of disreputable conduct. The ruler of that land took pity on her, that such beauty should come to ruin, and finding the right moment, said to her: “Give up your wayward life; I will take you into my house, and you will be my wife and mistress over many treasures. Only see to it that you are faithful—for otherwise such disaster will befall you as you cannot even imagine.” She agreed and was taken into the ruler’s house. Her former companions, seeing that she had disappeared somewhere, began to search and investigate, and learned that she was with the ruler. Although the ruler was to be feared, they did not despair of luring the beautiful woman back, knowing her weakness. “We only need to come around to the back of the house and whistle—she will understand and immediately run out to us.” And so they did. They went around to the back of the house and whistled. The beautiful woman, hearing the whistle, was startled. Something of her old life stirred within her. But she had taken herself in hand, and instead of running out of the house, she rushed into the innermost chambers before the face of the ruler himself, and there immediately found peace; the new whistling could no longer be heard there. Her companions whistled and whistled, and then went away with nothing. The meaning of this parable is clear. This beautiful woman represents the fallen soul that has turned to the Lord in repentance and been united with Him so as to belong to Him alone and to serve Him alone. The former companions are the passions. Their whistling is the movement of passionate thoughts, feelings, and desires. The flight into the inner chambers is the taking refuge in the depths of the heart in order to stand there before the Lord. When this takes place within, whatever it was that troubled the soul—the passionate thing, whatever it may be—departs of itself, and the soul finds peace.

Please commit this account to memory and act according to its meaning at all times. You will see how quickly inner peace is restored in you when it is disturbed by the appearance of something passionate.

May God’s mercy be with you! Save yourself!