Discourse 2

Discourse Two. The acceptance of patience incites the giver: concerning the greater gifts from the first ones. That which stands upon the lesser things: and also in the greater things, it is a liar and a tyrant. The sick person who despairs of his illness: his cure is prolonged. And that which confesses its pain: is near to health. A hard heart: its pains increase. And the sick person who rebels against the physician: his error is increased. There is no sin that has no forgiveness: except that which has no repentance. And there is no gift that has no enduring increase: except that which is lacking in gratitude. The fool: small from his place in his eyes. I was reminded simply of those who are superior to you in excellence: that you may see yourself as lesser than their honor at all times. And I was seeking at all times the difficult sufferings of those whose trials are hard and evil: that acceptance may be given to the lesser things that are found with you, and you may find the ability to bear them with joy.

in the time that you are in purity and humility and patience, and you are bound and set free for your opponent in sicknesses, and in the weariness of the labor of sins, you have upon your mind the first times of excellence, and how even up to the small things you showed a taking of a sign, and you were moved in zeal against the disturbances of your discipline, and you spread out smiles upon the faces of the little ones who were being comforted by you as in a festival, and you, all of you, wove a crown in the victory over them. And then from now on, by these and by such as these remembrances, your soul is awakened as from the depths, and puts on the flame of zeal. And as from the dead, it rises from its nature, and it stands up, and it comes to its first order, in the warm heat against Satan and sin. Remember the fall of the mighty, that you may be humbled in your advantages. And recall the difficulty of the sins of those who fell and repented, and the exaltation and honor they received after their repentance, that you may be encouraged in your repentance. Be a persecutor of your own self, and be persecuted by your promise in your opponent. Drink with yourself, and with you heaven and earth will drink. Hasten to enter the treasury within you, and you will see that which is in heaven.

One and the same is this, and that: and in a single entry you shall see both of them. The key to that kingdom is hidden within you, and within your soul. For you are baptized from sin, and there you are able to ascend the steps by which you ascend. For what are the wills of the future world? The scriptures do not explain. But how then does one receive the sensation of their delight from weariness? Apart from natural change and local movement, teach yourself simply. And even the beloved names of the glorious wills of the living and the venerable have placed them before us for our pride, in that they said: "The eye did not see, and the ear did not hear," and so forth. But the stability of the likeness, without the possibility of their being defiled, to one of the things that are, makes known to us those future things. Spiritual delight, then, is not the need of the substantial wills, which apart from the coming of the patient ones are found in the hope of that future one for us. And if not that the kingdom of heaven is within you, and that your kingdom is to come, then how is the fullness of the sensibly perceived wills present within us, for the breadth of the delight in them? For it is narrow, that the likeness of them should have the stability of silence and breadth, and also here in measure; but in the completion, all of it is beyond.

the same as in a vision: and it is not a matter of standing. From all sides: the quality of silence is made known. But if, as the true testimonies of the interpreters of the scriptures, it is the effective operations of the Holy Spirit that are known, and this is a sign from that cessation, then apart from the spiritual operations that are known through the sensibility of perception, there is between it and him. And nothing perceptible belongs to the middle delight of the saints from the senses and the sensibles there. Apart from the hidden things that contain everything finitely. For if the outpouring of light is said: it is not known by reason. The lover of excellence is he who, not the one who does good things carelessly, but the one who receives with joy the evil things that befall him. Not a great one who, for the sake of excellence, suffers in afflictions and violence, as in the case of the loosening of the seals, the mind is not separated from the choice of his good will. For every submission that comes after the exaltation of freedom is not one that seeks joy from it, nor is it considered a reward for its former state. He is merciful to the sinner, while you lack nothing in him. But he encourages him to life: that your compassion may be the mercy of the Lord.

place your hand upon the weak and the aged in spirit, with the word as far as it reaches in your hands, so that your support may be a firm foundation for all. Be a companion with the elders of the heart in the passion of prayer and the celebration of the heart, and before you the spring of tears will open. Exert yourself in supplication at all times before God, with a heart that is lost to the pure thought that fills passion, and guard your mind from empty thoughts, so that the way of God may not be disturbed in you. Then your vision will be in the deep contemplation of the reading of discernment, lest by reason of idleness the inner vision be closed to your gaze. Do not direct your mind as if to a receptacle in the hollow of vain thoughts that lead astray, when you suppose that you are the one who is not purified. Even the wise have erred in this place and have gone astray. Do not spare the flame in your heart, as it is said: without the severe afflictions of the body, it is difficult for the one who does not put away youth to be subdued under the yoke of holiness. At the beginning of the depth of the air, when a sign appears in the soul itself, it is this: in the first service that begins with ministry and prayer. For it is only at the end that the path to the summit is sought in the soul itself; it is not possible unless first from there it falls.

as when you are deprived of God’s help—that one whose discipline is from there is with him—and it falls secretly into the hands of the masters of the generation. And another: when you are again without need of these things of excellence, from all sides, you will be drawn toward those that are opposite. The beginning of the discourse from whichever side is the beginning toward the opposite side. Practice the work of excellence upon yourself, and observe it, and the rest. Show before God your weakness at all times. Do not hide your strengths, when you are ashamed of your helper. Chaste is the work of the cross. And this: according to the chastity of the pure one, which is divided into two parts: to the endurance of the sufferings of the body, which is accomplished by the activities of the passion of the soul and is strengthened by practices; and to the sharp work of the mind, by divine petitions and the steadfastness of prayer and the rest, which is performed by that spiritual vision and is called *theoria*. And one: to the painful vision purified by the power of the sign. And another: by the activities of the love of the soul, which is natural yearning, to the contemplative vision that prays.

Therefore, when the first stage of the contest is passed over, because of its ease and suitability, and it is not said with bitterness: anger is prepared to receive its opposite. For when the members of the earth are not yet wearied, then the physician of the sickness of his thoughts heals by the endurance of his labor and his vigil of the cross. We have said to discourse in his time of the glory of the cross. And this is what is said by the first saints: that before the senses are wearied from weakness, if the time desires to ascend to the cross, the anger of God comes upon him. The ascent of the cross produces anger, not that first stage of endurance of afflictions which is called the cross of the body, but the ascent of theoria, which is the stage of the second, which occurs after the healing of the soul. For which one, when he restrains his mind with burning pains, runs to discourse in his heart the sparks of thoughts of future things, placing them in the head, he becomes silent. For when his mind is not yet wearied by the afflictions of the conquest of the desires of the flesh, he flees from hearing knowledge and justice before his face, to walk on a path full of darkness, while his eyes are blind.

those who are gentle, seeing them, and full of light, and suitable, the small gate of grace: in the contest they are, that they have no depth. When the fathers are filled with tears, and with prayer and weeping they join night to day, because of the end of discipline, and the hard rocks they encounter, and the canons of truth that are found simply in the way with the likenesses. These are not from God, but from themselves they come, when you do not perceive, you. If the place of the heart is pure and not disturbed. If you do not purify the small gate of your self, do not cast to hunt with the ray of the sun, lest you be burned and also from the vision of the habit, which is simple faith and humility and thanksgiving of the heart, and the small service according to your strength, and you will be cast into one of the known places, which is darkness outside of God, to enter like that which we said in the hours of the evening for drinking. From labor and vigilance, and vigilance, the splendor of thoughts is required. And from the splendor of thoughts, the light of the mind. And from there, from grace the air is made ready, towards that thing which does not rule over the senses, neither to teach nor to learn. It will be considered for you as the superiority which is the body. Theoria, however, the soul.

both of them, then: a perfect human being of spirit, uniting from sensible and knowable perceptions. And how is it possible that it is not possible for the soul to come to be and to give birth apart from the completeness of the perfection of the body's constitution? Thus it is not possible for theory, which is the spirit of revelations, to be conceived in the womb of the intellect, the receiver of the fullness of spiritual seed, apart from the thickness of the practice of excellence in the house of knowledge, the receiver of revelations. Theory is the perception of divine mysteries hidden in the utterances of the Scriptures. When, then, you hear "remoteness from the world," or "renunciation of the world," or "purity from the world," first strive to learn and to know, not in a common manner but with known movements, what the name "world" signifies, and from how many distinctions this name is constituted; and then you will be able to know yourself: how much remoteness from or mixture with the world is yours. But if you do not first know what the world is, you will not even grasp from how many members you are remote, nor will you reflect within it. Many were those who, after two or three intentions, wearied themselves away from the world, and boasted about themselves that they were superior to it in their conduct.

in that they did not become complete, and they saw wisely: that with one and two members they bring forth into the world. The rest of their members, however, are alive within the body of the world, and by their motion: not even in their sensations were they able to perceive. And in that they did not perceive: they were not even concerned about their healing. "World" is said from the passion of theory: it establishes an inner name, which falls upon particular passions. When, however, they wish to call the passions inwardly, they call them "world." But when specifically, they call them "passions," by the distinction of their names. Passions: they are the motions of the flow of the world's current. And where the passions cease, there the world remains from its current. They are: love of wealth, disturbance of desires, satiety of the body from which comes the incitement of the passion of union, love of honors, which is the desire for praise, the administration of wickedness, pride and arrogance of power, folly, human praise, which is the cause of self-importance, fear of the body. Where, however, these cease from their course, there by means of a cause like the separation that distinguishes them, the world ceases from its existence and remains, as with one of the saints who, while they live, bring forth; they live, but not with the body, yet not in a fleshly manner do they live.

See that from these you live, and then you will know with how many members you are alive to the world, and with how many dead. When you have learned the measure of the world, from then on you will learn these distinctions, and also your practice in it, or your emptiness from it. The sum of the world is bodily conduct and the thought of the flesh, because even the height of it is known through these two: from the confusion of behaviors and from the distinction of movements. From the seeds of your thought upon the wills over which it shines in its movements, you will perceive the measure of your behaviors: which ones the nature without toil passes over, and which ones become seeds of humility, and which ones become of a disturbed occurrence. And if the whole sensation of non-material movements has taken up the thought, it either abandons it entirely in a material manner. And that materiality of it is sensible, or else there become natures of the materiality of action, by which the thought is disturbed without its will in those things through which the inheritances work.

And do not take lightly the matter of the stirring up of thoughts, for it is a good and solid thing to know how to employ the mind, because without its discipline, there is no discernment. And do not be disturbed by the veiling of the encounters of the natures of thoughts, for the mind is wearied because its flame is excessive in its desire for God, which is accustomed to cutting off vain memories. These small signs at the beginning are sufficient for a person for his instruction, if he submits and distinguishes, instead of many books. The fear of the body is a virtue in a person. And as such, many from among the glorious and honorable remain because of it. But as for that which is true concerning this fear of the soul, one is guilty before it as one who is near to the power of the flame. End of the Second Discourse.