Unseen Warfare: Part III

-On the many desires and tendencies existing
in man and on their struggle with one another-

Know, that in this unseen warfare, two wills existing in us fight against one another: one belongs to intelligent part of our soul and is therefore called the intelligent will, which is higher; the other belongs to the sensory part and is therefore called the sensory will, which is the lower. The latter is more frequently called the dumb, carnal, passionate will. The higher will is always desiring nothing but good, the lower-nothing but evil. Each equally happens by itself; so that neither is a good desire in itself reckoned as good, nor an evil desire as evil. The reckoning depends upon the inclination of our own free will. Therefore, when our will inclines towards a good desire, it is reckoned in our favor; but when we incline towards an evil desire, it is reckoned against us. These desires follow one another: when a good desire comes, and evil desire immediately opposes it; and when an evil desire comes, a good desire at once rises against it. Our will is free to follow the one and the other, and whatever desire our will inclines towards, it becomes victorious on this particular occasion. It is in this that all our unseen spiritual warfare consists. Its aim should be never to let our free will incline towards the desire of the lower, carnal and passionate will, but always to follow only the intelligent, higher will. And this cannot be accomplished without struggling with the flesh.

A particularly great effort and laborious toil must be experienced to start with by those who, before deciding to change their worldly and carnal life to a righteous one and to give themselves up to the practices of love, had enmeshed themselves in evil habits through frequent satisfaction of the desires of their carnal and passionate will. Although the demands of the intelligent will, which they wish to follow, stand on one side of their free will, on the other side there stand the desires of the carnal and passionate will, towards which they still feel a certain sympathy.

For example, there are men who refrain from appropriating other people’s possessions, but are excessively attached to their own, and who, on the one hand, lay too much trust in what they have, and on the other, are slow to bestow alms. Others do not seek honors by evil means, yet do not count them as nothing, and often even welcome them, if those honors can be made to appear to come against their will. Others keep long fasts according to the statutes yet do not refrain from satisfying their desire to eat their fill, and to eat well, which deprives the fast of all value.

I shall add to this the fact that some people disregard the natural defects of their character, which, although, not dependent on self-will, nevertheless make a man guilty if, seeing how much they interfere with spiritual life, he does not trouble not only to destroy them completely, but even to try and keep them within harmless bounds, although this could be achieved with due attention to oneself and zeal. Such defects are, for example: aloofness, hot temper, and excessive sensibility, with the consequent thoughtless hastiness in words, movements and actions, harshness and querulous-ness, obstinacy and argumentativeness, and so on. All these natural imperfections and faults should be corrected, in some by reducing excess, in others by adding what is lacking, and by translating both one and another into corresponding good qualities. For no natural feature, no matter how savage and stubborn it is, can stand up against the will if it resists it with all attention and diligence.

Owing to all this, my beloved brother, I beseech you to love the hard toil and heavy burdens, which inevitably accompany our unseen warfare, if you do not wish always to be overcome. The wise Sirach counsels the same: ‘Hate not laborious work’. For this is the very foundation of the whole of inner warfare. The more you love the hard toil, or this pitiless driving of yourself, the more quick and complete will be your victory over yourself and over that in yourself, which resists the higher good. And through this you will be filled with every virtue and good disposition, and peace will come to dwell in you.

-On how to fight against the dumb sensory will, and on the
training necessary for the will to acquire experience in virtues-

Every time your free will is acted upon and pulled on the one hand by the dumb sensory will and on the other by the intelligent world, voiced through conscience, each of them seeking to conquer it, you must, if you are sincerely to strive for good, use suitable methods on your part to assist in gaining victory. For this purpose, then:

(a) As soon as you feel impulses of the lower, sensory and passionate will, you must immediately use every effort to resist them and not allow your own will to incline towards them, however slightly. Crush them, cut them off, driver them away from yourself by an intense effort of will.

(b) To achieve this more successfully and with a better result, hast to kindle in yourself a wholehearted aversion to such impulses, as to your enemies, who seek to steal and destroy your soul-be angered with them.

(c) If these three inner actions are sincerely practiced in your soul, they will never fail to give you victory over evil impulses. But this would mean only driving the enemies away. If you wish to strike at the very heart, then, if it is feasible, at once do something opposed to the suggestion of passionate impulse and, if possible, resolve to do so always. This latter practice will finally free you completely from the renewal of the attacks you experience

I shall illustrate this by an example. Supposing someone has offended you in something whether great or small, and has aroused in you a movement of displeasure and irritation, accompanied by a suggestion of retaliation. Pay attention to yourself and hasten to realize that these movements are bent on enticing you towards evil. Therefore take up the attitude of a warrior on the defensive: (a) stop these movements, do not let them penetrate any deeper and on no account allow your will to take their part as though they were right. This will mean resisting them. (b) They still remain in sight, however, ready for a renewed attack. So rouse aversion against them, as against your enemies, and be angry with them for self-protection, until you are able to say sincerely: ‘I hate and abhor lying’, or ‘I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. This will be a great blow for them, and they will retreat, but not vanish. (c) Having thus regained peace, do to your offender something which would show your kind and conciliatory disposition towards him, such as a friendly word, some timely flavor, and so on. Such actions lead straight to acquiring the habit of virtue opposed to the passionate movements which had troubled you; and this habit strikes them to the heart and kills them. Try to forestall, or accompany, or conclude these actions with an inner resolve, which would make such passionate impulses forever impossible in the future. For instance, in the forgoing example, consider yourself worthy of every insult and bring yourself to welcome every kind of insult and calumny; welcome them and be ready to receive and accept them with joy as the most salutary remedies. In other cases, try to incite and establish in yourself other corresponding feelings and dispositions. This would mean driving the passion out of your heart and replacing it by the virtue opposed to it, which is the aim of the unseen warfare.

I will give you a general indication, suitable for all occasions. Our soul has three parts or powers-the thinking, the desiring, and the excitable. Owing to their corruptions, these three powers give birth to three corresponding kinds of wrong thoughts and movements. The thinking power gives birth to thoughts of ingratitude and complaints, forgetfulness, ignorance, ill-judgment and all kinds of blasphemous thoughts. The desiring power gives birth to pleasure-loving thoughts, thoughts of vain-glory, love of money and all their numerous ramifications, belonging to the domain of self-indulgence. The excitable power gives birth to thoughts of anger, hatred, envy, revenge, gloating, ill will, and generally to all evil thoughts. You should overcome all such thoughts and impulses by the methods indicated above, trying on every occasion to arouse and establish in your heart good feelings and dispositions opposed to them.

If you do this, then, I assure you, the light of your mind will never be dimmed and wrong thoughts will never find a place in you. If you are active in setting up such good thoughts and dispositions in yourself morning, evening, and at all other hours of the day, invisible foes will never come near you. For then you will be like a general, who constantly reviews his troops and disposes them in battle order; and enemies know that to attack such a general is impracticable.

Pay most attention to the last point, namely, to actions opposed to those dictated by passionate thoughts and to setting up feelings and dispositions contrary to passions. Only by this means can you uproot passions in yourself and achieve a safer position. For so long as the roots of passions remain in you, they will always bring forth their offspring and thus cloud over the face of virtues, and at times completely cover and banish them. In such cased we are in danger of falling once more into our former sins and destroying all the fruits of our labors.

I shall add another thing: stand wakeful and, collecting your attention within yourself, fight with courage. And fight not only the great and strong, but also the small and weak stirrings of your passions. For the small open the way to the great, especially when they have become a habit. Experience has many times confirmed the fact that when a man pays little attention and care to repulsing small passionate desires from the heart, after he has overcome the great, he is subjected to sudden and unexpected attacks of the enemy, so impetuous that he is unable to hold his ground in battle and his downfall is more grievous than those of old.

Moreover I remind you of the fact that you should cut off and kill very passionate attachment to things which, although permissible, are not dispensable, as soon as you notice that they weaken the intensity of your will for good, distract attention away from yourself and disorganize the good order you have established in your life. Some actions you may take to start this process are, for instance, taking walks, even parties, conversations, new acquaintances, meals, sleep and other such things. You will gain much profit from this, but thus training yourself to self-mastery in all other things as well; you will become stronger and more expert in struggling against temptations and will avoid a great many snares, which know how to spread their nets on these inoffensive paths, and I assure you, your actions will win favor.