RSS

Thoughts start and dart. They loop around and act upon us if we fail to observe and redirect our impulses toward God. This teaching shows where to put our right effort.


Thoughts have an anatomy from beginning to end: teachings from Tools Matter both from Evagarius and from John Cassian on the logismois (Tools Matter p. 52).

When a seeker would go to a Desert Elder they attended to the movements of the heart (of the mind), suggestions, inner prompting. When such an impulse or inner prompting develops into an outward deed, into consent that eventually becomes habitual, it would be too late to show all this to the director.

One must then go to a confessor, and resolve not to wait till next time. Elders differentiated between moments of temptation. There is the prosbole (suggestion in thought), which is free from blame (anaitios). Next follows the syndiasmos (coupling), an inner dialogue with the suggestion (temptation), then palë or struggle against it, which may end with victory or with consent (synkatathesis), actual sin. When repeated, such acts produce a pathos (passion) properly speaking, and in the end, a terrible aichmalosia, a “captivity of the soul”, which is no longer able to shake the yoke of the Evil One.

The proper object of “Exagoreusis tön logismön” (revelation of thoughts) is the first stage of this process, the prosbolë. One must crush the serpent’s head as soon as it appears. … All this is done through an entire strategy: nepsis (vigilance), watchfulness, the guarding of the heart (custodia cordis) and of the mind, prayer, especially the invocation of the name of Jesus, and so forth.

The theory is that our thoughts loop around and hook us. We can watch our thoughts (nepis) and see the points of contact, invitation and consent of the will. Some thoughts are slicker and more insidious and catch us before we catch them. We need help. It’s good to speak our thoughts to a wise elder who can receive our thoughts/urges
a) give us the opportunity for honesty and truth bearing, and
b) help us notice when we get hooked and take action that is against our best self.
c) help us do notice the content of the thought (e.g. food, sex, things…etc.) and also the stage of the thought, the consent, the patterns of pathos.