Letters of St. Ambrose of Optina. Letter 294. Unauthorized teaching of others and arrogance lead to temptations.
In the letter, which was sent to me with
the procuratrix, and in another letter, you write something about high
things, the inner teaching, noetic prayer, that the prayer acts by
itself in you, and on time! It does not look like any true prayer, and
portends more danger than spiritual success. Our spiritual measure is
very small; you rush to high things and write to me about high things,
but you pass common issues over in silence, speaking only as if
incidentally, as there were some troubles with you, but you don’t
explain what exactly. To make it clear: sometimes you want to teach
other sisters who live with you, and then sometimes you endure vexations
and reproaches, which you name troubles, in your own way, without
further explanations, but you say nothing about your unauthorized
teaching, for what you get not only reproaches and vexations from the
outside, but sometimes you are allowed a strong fight with sensual
thoughts. Therefore, first of all it is necessary to become wiser and to
teach yourself about what you should do, without doubt and blindness,
because you ran away from M.P., as if avoiding praise ascribed to you,
and then you began to strive for the same by unasked teaching of
roommates, even though you have not noticed it until now. The passion of
self-exaltation and love of fame is subtle and varied, intangible and
hardly noticeable. Saint Mark the Ascetic writes that some people
visibly humble themselves to get the praise. You call your leaving from
the cell of M.P. skillful, but in fact this is greatly non-skillful. You
are an insignificant person, there is no need for anyone to understand
your aims, and every major and minor understands and talks about you
differently now. While O. fairly speaks about your spiritual father,
that he is a great sinner, but you should not listen to this in silence.
Theodore of Edessa writes: "Make silent anyone blaspheming your
spiritual father" that is, do not let any such person speak; let him
talk this when he wants, and with whom he wants, but you should not
allow him to talk this in front of you, saying, "You may talk about it
wherever you want, but it is indecent to say it before me, and you
yourself will not avoid mental harm and liability". If they do not
listen, then ask the mother hegumeness for another cell for yourself.
You want to build a cell for yourself. If you have money, build and ask
the mother hegumeness directly about the place, when the procuratrix
does not assist you. You do not want to have a place for the cell far
from the church, while you want to be among ascetics, forgetting that
all the ancient ascetics chose some inconvenience themselves for the
training of their self-restraint. You are to build a cell where you will
be given a place, if you have money.
You ask me a lot of questions, but
forget what I have told you personally. I remember that I would not
advise you to practice noetic prayer, but to pray verbally in the
measure of your ability, according to St. Paul (Heb. 13: 15): By him
therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that
is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name; you should call for
the help of the Lord with the nous only if you are attacked by the bad
thoughts and if it is inconvenient to pray verbally because of the close
presence of others or when a church service is going on.
You have become so carried away with
your own reasoning and self-will that, disdaining advice and acting in
your own way, you reached, as it were, a self-moving prayer of the
heart, while you are asleep. This happens to a few rare holy men who
have achieved extreme purification from passions. But men who are still
passionate, as one man informed us, being half-asleep and listening to a
similar internal movement as you described, heard – and what?.. - They
heard a cat's meow cunningly pronounced in a way similar to the words of
the prayer. Sister! We must humble ourselves. Our measure is still very
small. You can fall into the enemy's networks, especially in the subtle
delusion, because people liable to the enemy's delusion are difficult
to cure. It is easier to turn every sinner to repentance than to bring a
deluded person to reason. And you already write, that you do not
understand, what repentance is. Read the book of Mark the Ascetic, in
Russian translation, at first the fifth message: "Advice of the nous to
the own soul," then the third message, "On repentance, appropriate in
equal measure to beginners and intermediate, as well as to advanced ",
and then there's a passage which says that repentance is not
accomplished (not ended) until the death, and it has three features, or
parts: purification of thoughts, enduring of sorrows, and prayer, that
is, the call for God's help against evil thoughts. These three things do
not occur one without the other. If one part is interrupted, then the
other two parts are unstable too.
