Κεφ. ΝΘ'
The Escalation of Spiritual Conflict
As the soul progresses in its spiritual journey, it encounters increasingly formidable challenges that test the stability of its attained dispassion.
The further a soul advances, the more powerful the adversaries that fight against it. I am not convinced that the same demons always remain with it, for those who face temptations most keenly know this best: they see the dispassion they have attained being pried loose by the demons who follow.1
Read the original Latin
Ὅσῳ προκόπτει ψυχή, τοσούτῳ μείζονες αὐτὴν ἀνταγωνισταὶ διαδέχονται· τοὺς γὰρ αὐτοὺς ἀεὶ δαίμονας αὐτῇ παραμένειν οὐ πείθομαι· καὶ τοῦτο ἴσασι μάλιστα οἱ ὀξύτερον τοῖς πειρασμοῖς ἐπιβάλλοντες, καὶ τὴν προσοῦσαν αὐτοῖς ἀπάθειαν ἐκμοχλευομένην ὑπὸ τῶν διαδεξαμένων ὁρῶντες.
Notes
- 1 ↩Greek apatheia means freedom from domination by disordered passions, not emotional numbness.
The Praktikos companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent