Unseen Warfare: Part IV

-What to do when the higher, intelligent will seems to be
entirely overcome by the lower will and by the enemies-

If you sometimes feel such a strong uprising of sin that resistance to it will seem impossible and the very zeal to oppose it will appear exhausted, take care, brother, not to give up the struggle, but rouse yourself and stand firm. It is a subterfuge of the enemy, who, with the thought that resistance is hopeless, strives to undermine your firm stand and by making you lay down all your arms to force you to surrender to him. Make your mind see this subterfuge of the enemy more clearly and do not give ground. For so long as your will does not incline towards this passionate urge you are still among the victors, the fighters and slayers of the enemy, even if your sympathy is already ranged on the side of passion. Nothing and nobody can force your will or steal victory from your hands and overthrow you against your will, no matter how bitter the war waged in you by the enemies of your salvation. Our free will is endowed with such power, that even if all a man’s faculties, the whole world and all the demons rose up in arms against him and attacked him, they could not compel it. It is always left free to desire what they offer or demand, if it so wishes, or not to desire it, if it does not wish. On the other hand, for this very reason his will bears the responsibility for everything and is subject to judgment. Remember this well: no matter how weak and exhausted you may feel, you cannot find excuses for inkling towards passionate suggestions. Your conscience will tell you the same. So the stronger the attacks the stronger the resistance you must prepare, and never abandon this resolve.

Thus inspired, do what a warrior in physical warfare foes when he is hard pressed by the enemy; he steps back a little, to find a better point of vantage and see more clearly how best to speed his arrow at the heart of the foe. So you too, collect your thoughts within, and, re-establishing the consciousness and feeling of your nothingness and of your impotence to achieve by yourself what this moment demands. Then, examine carefully your preceding deeds, feelings and thoughts, and you will find that it is they that gave birth to the inner storm, which put you in this dangerous position. The enemy covered up your own shortcomings. You must shed the load of inattention and self-indulgence, repent, can confess your inner sin. After this, when the inner storm has dies down, the struggle should proceed in accordance with the general rules of unseen warfare, which have been mentioned in part already.

-War should be waged ceaselessly and courageously-

If you want to gain a speedy and easy victory over your enemies, brother, you must wage ceaseless and courageous war against all passions, especially and pre-eminently against self-love, or a foolish attachment to yourself, manifested in self-indulgence and self-pity. For it is the basis and source of all passions and cannot be tamed except by constant voluntary self-inflicted suffering and by welcoming afflictions, privations, calumnies, persecutions by the world and by men of the world. Failure to see the need of this pitiless attitude to yourself has always been, is, and will be the cause of our failure to achieve spiritual victories, and of their difficulty, rarity, imperfection and insecurity.

So this spiritual warfare of ours must be constant and never ceasing, and should be conducted with alertness and courage in the soul; this can easily be attained, if you seek these gifts. So advance into battle without hesitation. You must never be afraid, if you are troubled by a flood of thoughts, that the enemy is too strong against you, that his attacks are never ending, that the war will last for your lifetime, and that you cannot avoid incessant downfalls of all kinds. Even if you are wounded in battle, do not lay down your arms and turn to flight. Keep only one thing in your mind and intention-to fight with courage and ardor, since it is unavoidable. No man can escape this warfare, either in life or death. And he who does not fight to overcome his passions and his enemies will inevitably be taken prisoner, either here or yonder, and delivered to death.

-In what order should you fight your passions?-

It would be very useful for you, my brother, to know well the order in which you should fight your passions, so as to do this work as it should be done, instead of simply haphazardly, as some people do, without great success, and at times even with harm to themselves. The order, in which it is necessary to fight your enemies and struggle with your bad desires and passions, is the following: enter with attention into the heart and examine carefully with what thoughts, dispositions, and passionate attachments it is specially occupied, and which passion is most predominant and tyrannically rules there. Then against this passion first of all take up arms and struggle to overcome it. On this one concentrate all your attention and care, except only at the times when some other passions happens to rise in you. In that case you should deal with this one without delay and drive it away, after which you must once more turn your weapons against your chief passion, which constantly manifests its presence and power. For as in every kind of warfare, so in our unseen battle, we must fight first what is actually attacking us at the present moment.

-How to fight sudden impulses of passions-

If, my beloved, you are not yet accustomed to overcome sudden impulses and the excitement of passions, roused, for example by insults or by other clashes, I advise you to do this: make it a rule every morning, while you still sit at home, to review in your mind all the occasions you may meet with in the course of the day, both favorable and unfavorable, and visualize the passionate impulses, lusts and irritations they may provoke; then prepare in yourself beforehand how to stifle them at the very inception, without allowing them to develop. If you do this, you will never be taken unawares by any movements of passions, but will always be ready to resist them, without being troubled with anger or enticed by lust. This review of what may happen should be practiced especially when you have to go out and visit places where you are bound to meet people who can either attract or irritate you. Being prepared, you will easily avoid the one and the other. If a wave of passion arises, it will roll over your head and will break against you as against a rock, instead of carrying you with it like a flimsy boat.

But this preparation is not yet everything. Passion can still be excited, and excited suddenly. In such a case act as follows: as soon as you feel a passionate impulse, whether of lust or irritation, hasten to curb it by an effort of will, descend into your heart with the attention of your mind, and try in every possible way not to let the passion enter the heart. Watch to prevent the heart being irritated by what irritates, or attracted by what attracts. If, however, either the one or the other happens suddenly to be born in your heart, to begin with try to prevent it from coming out; do not express it ether by word, look, or gesture.

The best and most efficient protection against a sudden uprising of passions is getting rid of the causes, which are always giving birth to such movements. These causes are twofold: like and dislike. If you, my beloved, are caught and made captive by a liking for some person, or by attachment to some thing, whether great or small, it is natural that if you meet them and see them insulted or harmed, or someone wished to entice them away or steal them from you, you immediately become indignant, grieve, become agitated and rise up in arms against those who do it. Therefore if you wish to be free of such sudden disturbances, take care to overcome and uproot from your heart this wrong attraction or wrong attachment. And the further it has gone, the more care you should use to have an equable mind and acquire a sensible attitude to things and people.

In the same way, if you feel dislike towards some person or aversion from some thing, it is equally natural for indignation or disgust to rise up suddenly if you meet them, and especially if you hear someone praise them. Therefore if you wish to preserve the peace in your heart in such cases, urge yourself to stifle these bad feelings on this occasion, and later to annihilate them altogether.