Nature of our inner disturbances

I was thinking the other day about how great an ice cream cone would taste––especially a dark chocolate one from the gelato place downtown.  The more I thought about this the more is wanted to go get one.  Finally, the urge was so great I made a special trip downtown to indulge myself. For about five minutes the pleasure was great!! Then, it was finished! In fact, since I had chosen a double dip cone, I was feeling a little heavy in the stomach and wishing I had only ordered a single dip.


This is how we are distracted in life.  We have one desire after another which when satisfied only leeds to a let down and then to another desire.  This is what causes such turmoil and busyness in our lives––these unending desires.


God has given us the ability to control these desires. If we can lift our minds above the level of desires we will find that we can observe them coming and going.  Then, we can be mindful and use our free will to make wise choices. When we have a life in God, our mind is uplifted to this higher level through the Sprit. We seek out the pleasure of God instead of pleasures in short lived earthly things.


Saint Theophan tells us,

When God abides in us, he gives our spirit the power to control the soul and body, and also everything that is outside of us. This was the original condition of man. God appeared to our forefathers and confirmed all of this by His Divine word, after ordering them to know Him alone, to serve Him alone, to walk in His will alone. So they would not get confused when considering how to carry out all of this, He gave them a small commandment: do not taste of the fruit of one of the trees which he called the tree of knowledge and of good and evil that is how our forefathers began to live and to rejoice in paradise.

Adam and Eve were deceived and led to believe that by the forbidden fruit, they would taste something that was so good they could not resist the temptation. They even thought they would become  like Gods. they then defied God and try to avoid him the result is they were separated from  Him.  It was for this simple reason that they were removed from paradise and faced a life of suffering and death.  So we can see that when man takes on upon himself to seek self-centered pleasures he finds himself at a distance from God.


 St. Theophan says, 

God is everywhere and maintains everything, but He enters into free creatures only when they surrender themselves to Him. When they are self–absorbed, He does not violate their self-rule; He continues to keep and maintain them, but he does not enter inside them.

It is important to remember that our attention is so easily distracted from what is most important.  We can easily forget God and fall away from actions that lead us closer to Him.


Reference: The Spiritual Life, pp101-104

With Dispassion Love Blossoms

With dispassion comes the quiet of the soul. It can be viewed as a state of spiritual rest because our mind has been freed from the domination of the passions. Consequently, the soul is able to take charge.  Our mind becomes free to direct our will to do works of virtue and is able to direct its attention to higher meanings inherent on the natural world.

Saint Mark the Hermit says

When by the grace of God the mind does the works of virtue and comes near to knowledge, it feels little from the evil and non-understanding of the soul.  Its knowledge catches him up to the heights and frees him from all the things of the world; and by the purity in them (saints) and the fineness and the lightness and sharpness of their minds, and again by their asceticism, their mind is cleansed and becomes transparent, by the withering of their flesh in the school of quietness and by staying a long time in it.  This because the contemplation in them easily and speedily grasps everything and to their amazement leads them.

Dispassion is a prerequisite for contemplation of God which leads to Illumination.


Fr. Dimitru Staniloae says,
For this, a distinct revelation of God is necessary.  But this revelation can't take place as long as man's spiritual eyes are troubled and his time is preoccupied by the attraction of the passions.  The absence of passions, however gives him the capacity to see and to remember things in the simple meaning, without associating them with a passionate interest.


In this spiritual state one is still not able to continually contemplate God.  Neither is it a state without interest in things of this world.  Instead, love blossoms.


Maximus the Confessor defines two aspects of this state.

First is the sate of  the soul which permits it to receive and conceive things in their "simple" meaning, in other words not interwoven with passion.  Secondly, it is a state which doesn't exclude but implies love. 

Fr. Dimitru comments,

The absence of passion when either seeing or thinking of things is the absence of egoism.  The dispassionate person no longer sees and thinks of things through the prism of passion which wants to be satisfied with them; in reference to himself, things no longer seem to be gravitating around him, but they appear as having their own purpose independent of his egotism. Other people appear to him as human beings who are purposes in themselves, who need help from him.... The dispassionate person knows that he influences his neighbors more by his quietness, as a sign of his deep cleansing from passions.  He works for salvation of others, with the unwavering confidence in the plan which God has for every soul... . Dispassion leads us into the inner most part of the mind, to the heart, where God is found and the winds of passion aren't whistling and blowing, but where the peaceful and conquering breezes of love are stirring.

Reference: Orthodox Spirituality, pp 187 -191 

Dispassion the Aim of All Asceticism

We have now reached the end of the discourse on Purification. Our personal efforts discussed in this phase of Orthodox Spirituality lead us to what is termed dispassion.


Saint Maximus the Confessor says,

"Dispassion is a peaceful condition of the soul."

 Saint Isaac the Syrian says,

"Dispassion doesn't mean to no longer feel the passions, but to no longer accept them."

Diadochos of Photiki says,

"Dispassion doesn't mean to be no longer be attacked by demons..., but being attacked by them, to remain unconquered."

Saint John Climacus says dispassion is,

 "the heaven in the heart of the mind, which considers the cunning of the demons as just toys." 

Fr.Dimitru Staniloae summarizes,

So dispassion would be that state of the soul in which it defeats every temptation.

This state is attained after much ascetic work and is a most positive strength capable of defeating every passion.  It can also be seen as the possession of all the virtues.


Reference: Orthodox Spirituality, pp 185 - 187