Discourse 16

On how much silence helps within the solitary life, which is empty of works for the self; and it reduces the coming and going of the first thought. He who begins anew looks at his standing, and vigilantly performs bodily works for the solitary. The lack of God’s works, which he did, compels him. O, at the beginning of much prayer, that it might be easy and tranquil, he cannot. For the deep causes that adhere to the intentions of what is to be done in it cause him to be moved from his place, and they plunder his ease and his haste. Apart from the additions, however, of the thought that enters upon the self, there is no place for it. It is fitting for the solitary that before the face of God he should stand his ground firmly, and be directed by his nod. If truly his thought is set to guard with vigilance, and he desires to catch sharply the small hints that fall from him, and to discern by the tranquility of contemplation the things that enter and depart. Many nakednesses in the solitary: a sign of his spiritual childhood from the sweetness of his service to Christ. And the signs of the lack of divine things in him are examined. Apart from silence, do not seek vigilance from yourself. Nor ease and haste, in the outpouring of feelings. Nor the depression of feelings, with the nakednesses of actions.

Do not multiply disturbances for yourself, and you will not be able to find tranquility in your thought. Apart from constant prayer, you cannot approach God. And with the labor of prayer, to cast down another thought, the heart is a furnace. The warm movements that have pressed upon you at times through the taste of God, with the sharp kindling of these for the sake of which, and again when you have performed the work, you have found the work while it is bearing fruit in its taste and is cool within yourself, the weakness of the human person has come upon you from where, or you have honored bodily labor more than that, and because of this you have called the tranquility of your thoughts cold. Tears, then, and the prostrations of the head in prayer and warm groans, they again awaken the warmth of their sweetness within the heart. And with a praising joy, the heart flies after God while it yearns: it thirsts for you, my living God, that when will you come and I see your face? He who has drunk from this wine and again has been circumcised, then he alone knows in what manner he was left, and what was taken from him because of his slackness. Or how evil is the sight and weakness of a man for one who is guided in silence, and even more than one who has settled and left off.

Truly, I say: just as a strong rock that falls from a height crushes the shoots of trees and burns their small branches that have sprouted from the boughs, so too does the prayer of the righteous; and it brings forth a little good, and it is thought to be for good, but it withers the roots of the virtues that have newly put forth their heads from the mixture of the air of stillness, which are gently clinging to the tree of the soul that was planted on the banks of repentance. And just as the strength of a flood that reaches new shoots of roots and bends their heads and drives them into the earth, so too does the prayer of the righteous to the root of thought, which begins to sprout in the plants of the virtues, bending their heads and returning them to their place, and it cuts off their trembling. And if the prayer of those who are of little account, who are lightly holding themselves, only by reason of the disturbances from the customary practice, this entire thing humbles the soul, how much more so does the speech and vision of the foolish and the laity, not to mention the worldly? That one is like a stone to the abyss.

And just as a heavy and honored man, who goes astray in the great drinking of wine, and his humility is shaken and his honor is cast down, and from the thoughts and memories that arise in his mind from the power of wine, his sobriety is shaken; so too is the humility of the soul shaken by prayer and by the sight of the righteous. And the mind of her vigilance goes astray, and she is weaned from her entire mind of the desire of her will, and passes from all her roots, the foundation of excellent behaviors: prayer, expansion, and the need for salvation. Even that man becomes silent, and only his standing is opposed at the time of those who are like this, when he sees and hears, it suffices for him that he raises only the eyelids of his eyes and his hearing to the boast of his contemplation from the divine and the great light. This, then: that vision alone of man and the sufficient hearing of his speech; and if he fills the time only with this, all the possible sufferings are wrought by the solitary of the pure. What shall I say about the opponents of humility, or about excessive delay? The ascent from the womb rises to the knowledge of the divine, like vapors from the moisture of the earth rise to the face of the sun. Height: do not trust that it walks in darkness, and do not know burden and wisdom.

he is lifted up above all his thoughts, and above every lowliness and humility. And the ways of God—he is unable to know them. And the Lord conceals his will from him, because the path of the humble—he has not desired to walk in it.