How is lust, passion born? When the mind often and systematically imposes evil, unnatural (destructive for nature) will on nature, a habit of enacting this will develops in nature, and this habit becomes like a second natural will at the level of reflexes. Initially, doing evil, the unnatural, is difficult, it requires violating nature, but when I program nature with my insane mind to do the unnatural – then evil becomes easy and desirable, and promises happiness and bliss. This evil will, imposed on nature, becoming a second natural will (that is, one will – evil mixed with good), is encoded at the genetic level and passed on to descendants (we talked about the ancestral sin – an innate, “natural” propensity for one or another sin that the ancestors cultivated – see above).
Adam was forbidden to interfere with nature, and we can no longer not reason how many breaths a person should take, or what the normal body temperature is because we are all born sick with sinful tendencies and in us (those who struggle with passions, recognize their inability to overcome them because they have become our nature, humble themselves and come to Jesus Christ, in Whom our nature is renewed in the Sacrament of the Church) there is a struggle, described by one spirit-bearer: “I do not understand what I do: for what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. But if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good, and therefore it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that lives in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my body; for although the desire to do good is in me, I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, I keep on doing… For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members… The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.” This “schizophrenia” in the mouth of the apostle – is the language of hypostasis, the image of God (the inner man) and hypostatic, choosing will and about human nature (“my members”) and its sin-distorted willful (desire, wanting), and the mind (consciousness) – the core of the hypostatic beginning in man. Therefore, we need to know the norm, the ideal, who is a healthy person to which we should orient ourselves, know the natural (not distorted by sin – desire) laws of existence and how health is achieved, resemblance to God and the true Man Jesus Christ (Who is the norm of humanity; and already the Holy Theotokos, who deified first among men, achieved the fullness of godlikeness). Therefore, first we heal the mind, teach it to think correctly and then with the help of the mind fight against the passions, against the erroneous habits of nature. That is, again we interfere in natural processes (or better say, we allow Christ to interfere in them), but not with our insane mind, but with the mind of Christ, to correct bad inclinations, to separate “po” and “desire” – this means achieving dispassion, silence (this is not hesychasm, as contemplation, but just the foundation for it), that is, the passions return to their normal, natural state – nature becomes healthy (no longer stands in opposition to hypostasis), and healthy members we do not feel. We do not think about the head or other organs if they do not hurt – we go about our business, and even do not know that we have a liver, spleen, kidneys.., if they do not hurt (unless we read about them in anatomy, or others tell us – but all knowledge about them is given only through pain, death) – we do not feel them – hesychasm (silence) of nature, and I am free for communication with others.
(You ask [do not be surprised that I express it this way – before we compiled all the quotes and chapters into one part, many had already read separate chapters, so questions, wishes… were born] to tell more about the struggle with lusts, passions, separation of “po” from “desire”. We will talk more about this in the second part, but now, due to lack of space [do not be surprised that we express it this way, these issues came after the modest budget of this booklet and the approximate number of permissible pages was compiled], we will only give the principle of fighting the passions. After the mixing of consciousness with the unconscious, a “chemical-biological” reaction occurred, which can be written as an equation: po+desire=passion, lust. A synthetic substance was formed that pollutes the surrounding world. A reverse “chemical” reaction needs to be carried out, and lust needs to be decomposed into the original components “po” and “desire” in pure form. To conduct this reverse reaction, it is necessary to use and add to the compound “lust” a third component (reagent) – the will of the Other. In the process of this reverse reaction, two actions occur simultaneously. First: you need to renounce all your desires, “good” and “evil”, because all my desires (desire) are a priori evil (that is – lust) – I am a sinner by definition in fact. In one of the morning prayers, inscribed with the name of St. Macarius the Great, we read: “God, cleanse me a sinner, for I have done no good before You”. Our good is a spoonful of honey in a barrel of tar. Is there honey in the barrel? Yes, but… Therefore, the contents of the barrel need to be poured out, separate the honey from the tar, pass it through the crucible of sorrows, and pour clean honey again. First, you need to not want, not to realize your natural will (not to fulfill, not to satisfy your desires) – lust, to oppose yourself, go against your natural will – this is to free the barrel from dubious contents. Second: always fulfill the will of the Other, realize not your desires – but the Other’s – the will of God, which is the only sinless and people whose will does not contradict