WHY THE MIND IS ENSLAVED TO PHYSICAL PLEASURES BY ST. NIKODEMOS THE HAGIORITE

Dear People,

            I discovered this study by Saint Nikodemus of Mount Athos on an Orthodox Christian web site this past August and I found it very intriguing since it deals with our human passions.  St. Nikodemus was born on the island of Naxos, Greece in 1749.  Greece was then groaning under the brutal rule of the Ottoman Empire.   He was an ascetic monk, mystic, theologian, and philosopher.  His life’s work was a revival of traditional Orthodox Christian practices and patristic literature.   He wrote ascetic prayer literature and influenced the rediscovery of Hesychasm, method of contemplative prayer from the Byzantine period. He is most famous for his work with St. Macarius of Corinth on the anthology of monastic spiritual writing known as The Philokalia. He was canonized a Saint of the Orthodox Christian Church by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1955. According to his biographer he was possessed of great acuteness of mind, accurate perception, intellectual brightness and a vast memory.  He studied initially under Archimandrite Chrysanthos, who was the brother of St. Kosmas Aitolos.  He then went to the cosmopolitan city of Smyrna in Asia Minor where he attended the famous theological school there.  He studied theology, ancient Greek, Latin, French, and Italian.  You must remember that Smyrna, in spite of the Ottoman Empire, was known at that time as the Paris of the Middle East a vibrate commercial and intellectual center of the Christian East.

As you read this wonderful study on overcoming our human passions and acquiring sanctification for our bodies and souls, I believe you will get a greater understanding of the original sin of Adam and how it has impacted the human condition.  I believe that St. Nikodemus has unlocked the mystery of sin and how humanity lost Paradise through our human passions.  He also clearly spells out the great spiritual struggle that each of us must go through in order to acquire salvation by controlling our passions and developing a Christ-centered life that will save our bodies and souls.  In every case, you will notice that all the Saints without exception deal directly first with the passions of their bodies and once they are successful in doing only then do they acquire Divine Grace and salvation.  I have taken the liberty to edit the text for I believe the translation was done electronically and it did not flow freely.  I pray that you will be spiritually edified by this great Saint of our Church.

Edited by:

+Fr. Constantine (Charles) J. Simones, February 5, 2014, Waterford, CT, USA, cjsimones300@gmail.com,

WHY THE MIND IS ENSLAVED TO PHYSICAL PLEASURES

by St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

            There are two reasons why the mind was enslaved to physical pleasures.  The first and main reason is the fact that after the disobedience of Adam, his body received the whole of its existence and constitution from physical pleasure that is passionate and irrational.  Henceforth, man is sown with physical pleasure; he is conceived with physical pleasure and he grows and matures in the womb until the time of birth with physical pleasure.  This is what the Prophet David was referring to when he wrote: “For behold, I was conceived in iniquities and in sins did my mother bear me.” (Ps. 50:5). The second reason which follows the first is the fact that even after birth man is nurtured with physical pleasure.  Throughout the early years of childhood (and to a greater extent even during the nine months of pregnancy), the power of reason is not developed and the mind is unable to utilize the senses of the body in order to activate its own energy and be preoccupied with its own rationality and spiritual delight.  Consequently, only the body utilizes the senses, and not merely for its necessary nourishment, but also for its passionate fleshly pleasure. And to make things worse, the body even draws in the mind itself, being still imperfect and indiscreet, to the same physical pleasure, thereby enslaving the mind to the physical pleasures of the body.  The saintly Theodore of Jerusalem spoke to this point in his philosophical treatise:

            “Because the mind is prepossessed by sense perception, we have the duality of desire and anger.  These are irrational tendencies and under the influence of nature and not of reason, becoming a habit in the soul that penetrates all parts of our being and is difficult to uproot.  Thus the order is reversed. In other words, the physical senses are complete and strong while the mind (the intellect) is not yet active.  In fact the mind is observed to be imperfect although it is actually powerful.  Consequently, the mind can be enticed to consider these physical things as good, in the very same way that they are considered by the bodily senses.  Thus our sense of reason, which is intended to rule, is made subservient to the senses and we have the better part of our existence enslaved by the worse.  This why evil is older than virtue.”

            St. Gregory of Nyssa seems to be in agreement with Theodore of Jerusalem on this subject:  “The faculty of bodily sense comes into active being at the time of our birth, while the mind must wait until the appropriate age for it to become active. Because of this the senses rule over the mind even when it is somewhat developed.  This is why it is so difficult for us to acquire the understanding of what is truly good for us, for we first receive the experience based on the passions of the physical senses and thus perceive good on the basis of what is easy and pleasing for our bodies. “ (My note: today we would call this situational ethics).

            How bitter, tiresome, and painful this early use of the senses becomes later for the unfortunate mind.  During the childhood period of about fifteen years, when the mind is in a sort of stupor and led by the passions, the irrational and instinctive passions receive their fill of physical pleasure, as they are indulged without the restraints of reason.  During this early stage the mind is unable to activate its own powers through the bodily organs that are not yet appropriately developed to receive it.  Moreover, the passions have already become accustomed to the habit of physical pleasures by the time that our reasoning powers have matured.  If the passions are deprived of reasonable controls which in turn direct the senses toward sin, who then will be able tell me, to restrain them?  For example, once the eyes become accustomed to looking passionately upon the mature beauty of living bodies; once the eardrums are accustomed to the pleasing sounds of certain songs; once the sense of smell is delighted by the fragrances of myrrh and aromatic things; once the tongue and the mouth taste or rather become accustomed to rich and tasty foods; and finally, once the sense of touch is accustomed to fine and soft clothing—who will be able after to convince people that what they have up to now enjoyed is not true and rational pleasure, but rather  irrational and temporal pleasure? (My note: Earthly & Worldly pleasures).

            Who will put a muzzle on the passions that silently contradict, disagree, and assert themselves as the only pleasure that is to be recognized for it is the only them they have experienced and not the immaterial and spiritual? Will the mind do that? Unfortunately, while the mind knows that such pleasures are appropriate for irrational animals it cannot yet bring about this change.  Remember that the mind too, together with the senses enjoyed during those early years of passionate pleasures, and because of its immaturity was attracted by these pleasures and considered them to be good. Thus the mind appears to be at this stage of life in a state of narcosis or rather bound by the five senses as by five steel cables.  In this condition the mind suffers and is troubled because it sees that while it is really the ruler of the body, it has become a slave.  And yet, whether it wants to or not, the mind tends to join in with the passions in enjoying physical pleasures.  Who then will be able to convince these physical passions to change this situation? Can our imagination and inner understanding do this?  But even this faculty of ours has been tainted with passionate images and idols which have over the years been indelibly impressed upon it.  Thus at this stage of the game it rather serves our purpose to excite through the memory both the mind and the passions to enjoy the same pleasures.  Who then can help?  Can the heart help?  Unfortunately, even the heart is filled with fleshly desires that have accumulated there over many years.  This causes the heart to force the mind, the imagination, the senses and the entire body to enjoy the same passionate physical pleasures.  Not only this, but the devil himself, who rules over our carnal pleasures, excites the mind, the heart and the senses even more.  The Holy Fathers of the Church have said that the devil, though bodiless, finds pleasure in enjoying the bodily pleasures of men and women.  And metaphorically speaking, these pleasures are but the dirt and dust that mankind was condemned to eat through the serpent: “And dust you shall eat all the days of your life.” (Gen. 3:14). St. Gregory of Sinai wrote about this saying: “Humanly speaking, because the demons lost their angelic joy and were deprived of divine pleasure, they have acquired a sort of materialistic nature through their physical passions and desire to eat, as we do, the dust of the earth.”

HOW THE MIND IS FREED FROM PHYSICAL PLEASURE

            After the period of our childhood and the full development of reason, our mind may learn on its own or may learn through reading Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers that its natural and appropriate pleasure is found in something completely different than the passions.  What happens then? The mind, being by nature rational, prudent, loving, and good cannot endure the passions of its body to be enslaved by material objects. The mind cannot continue to be a prisoner of the passions: the king cannot become a slave; the ruler cannot be ruled; he who by nature is the ruler and the authority cannot become the subject. The mind, finally, cannot bear to endure the harm of the passions that will gradually bring it to annihilation and to hell. 

            It is to this end that the mind undertakes its entire struggle.  At first it seeks to show that it was created by God to be the ruler and the king of the body.  That is to say, it seeks through the assistance of divine grace, courage, will power, and all of its knowledge to uproot the passions of the body.  It attempts to uproot those long standing and entrenched habits of the passions which have been acquired in dealing with the physical world.  And it does this in order to become free of those habits which are like a bitter tyranny caused by the death-bearing pleasures of the passions. The mind also seeks to subdue the passions.  This struggle is truly a mighty one because the mind comes to the knowledge of truth late in life.  For if the soul had not been overcome by anyone, our task would have been simple to keep it pure, but because it has now forged itself into a strong link with the passions it is now very difficult to break this bond and to liberate the soul from the worship of matter and to have it acquire the habit of virtue.  And how is this done?  How indeed are the senses liberated from the physical passions and in turn placed under the obedience of the mind?

            When a certain king plans to subdue an enemy city that is fortified by strong walls, he cuts off the food supplies to those people in the city and thus causes them such hardship that they in time decide to surrender themselves.  The mind uses the same strategy in subduing the physical senses, the passions.  Little by little the mind deprives every sensory faculty of its customary bodily and pleasurable passions.  It no longer permits them to indulge themselves and thus brings them under its control. (My note: Fasting and Prayer).  All the time that this method is being utilized to control the passions, the mind does not stand by idly. Having now control of the passions man soul, acquires a certain sense ease and freedom from bodily concerns. The mind now turns to its own natural and spiritual nourishment.  This is done by the reading the Sacred Scriptures, acquiring a virtuous lifestyle, honoring the Ten Commandments of God, praying more and understanding the purpose of God’s creation of the physical and spiritual world.  It then turns to the divine and spiritual writings and deeds that are found in the Fathers of the Church such as the anthologies of the Philokalia, in Evergetinos, St. John of the Ladder and St. Symeon the New Theologian.

AS THE SENSES ORIGINALLY ATTRACTED THE MIND TO PHYSICAL PLEASURES, THE MIND NOW ATTEMPTS TO BRING THE SENSES BACK TO THE SPIRITUAL PLEASURES.

            In addition to its own efforts to nourish itself spiritually, the mind also attempts as much as possible to bring  under control the passions so that they too may enjoy with it spiritual pleasures and thus become accustomed gradually to prefer them. This is how it happened before with the mind when it became accustomed through the passions to prefer physical pleasures. At first, generally speaking, the body attempted through the senses and the physical pleasures to make the mind and the spirit of man fleshly, earthly.  On the contrary now, the mind seeks purposely through the enjoyment of the immaterial and spiritual realities to uplift the body also from its physical heaviness and in a sense to make it spiritual, as St. Maximos has witnessed in many of his writings. Here is one example:  “When desire is added to the sense of perception, it becomes a passion of pleasure procuring for itself a specific image.  When the sense is moved by desire it again makes the perception it receives into a passion of pleasure.  When the soul is attracted against its very nature toward matter through the body, it imposes upon itself the earthly form.  Knowing this, the saints seek to move toward God through the natural tendency of the soul while at the same time they try appropriately to familiarize the body with God through the practice of Christian virtues, hoping thus to beautify the body with divine outward appearances. (My Note: The sanctification of our bodies).

  St. Gregory the Theologian also spoke about this important issue saying that this is the reason why the soul was joined to the body; to be for the body what God is for the soul, that is, to instruct and guide the body and to bring it home to God.      “The soul was joined to the body perhaps for other reasons which only God who joined them knows and anyone else who has through God understood these mysteries. As far as I am able to know together with those who are with me on this issue, there are two reasons why the soul was joined to the body.  One reason is that by struggling against the lower things, the soul may inherit heavenly glory.  The other reason is so that by drawing the lesser into itself and to a degree elevating it from its material heaviness, the soul may draw the body upward toward God.  Thus, that which God is to the soul, the soul becomes to the body, instructing and guiding through itself its fellow servant, the material body, to become familiar with God.”(God-like?)

There is an interaction and mutual influence of the soul with the body and vice versa the body toward the soul, according to metaphysics.  The attributes of each communicates with each other because of the ineffable and natural bond which unites soul and body, even though the exact reason for this union remains essentially unknown to all philosophers and theologians.

THE FALL OF ADAM—THE REASON FOR THE LORD’S COMING. THE ASCETICS

            This then is the nature of that most renowned fall of our forefather Adam.  He rejected the spiritual nourishment and pleasure and lowered himself to the pleasures of the bodily senses, according to virtually the entire tradition of the Holy Fathers.  From this original fall of Adam, we too have inherited that primordial drive toward the material, toward the fleshly.  This is why Theodore of Jerusalem wrote: “Adam, by using the senses wrongly, marveled at the physical beauty of the world and considered the fruit to be beautiful to the sight and good for eating.  By tasting of this fruit, he gave up the enjoyment of spiritual things.”  “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.  She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”  (Gen. 3:6).  According to St. Maximos, that tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the passionate perception of the visible creation.  “The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the visible creation for participation in it produces naturally both pleasure and suffering.  The tree of knowledge of good and evil is also the sense of the body, in which the activity of irrationality clearly abides and which man has experienced.  Although man received a divine commandment, he was in practice unable to keep it.”  This is also confirmed by Niketas Stethatos and others.  St. John of Damascus writes about this:

            “The tree of knowledge of good and evil can be understood as the visible and pleasurable food which appears to be sweet but which in reality brings him who partakes of it union with evil. For God said, ‘You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’ Naturally, physical food requires continual replenishment for it is subject to decay.  He then who partakes of physical food finds it problematic to attain incorruptibility.”  For as soon as the senses know and experience the good that is perceived in passionate pleasure, they also experience evil, for the sister of pleasure is suffering. This is why in general all the passionate pleasures are called painful pleasures.

            In connection with this subject St. John Chrysostom wrote: “What is easier than eating? And yet I hear many saying that even eating is a wearisome toil.”  In agreement with the above St. Gregory of Nyssa also wrote: “In the fruit of the forbidden tree there are two opposite elements comingled. God said that those who partake of it will die, just as one does who suffers the evil effects of poison that has been mixed with honey. By the same token, as far as pleasing the senses is concerned it seems good, but as far as the destruction of the partaker is concerned, it is the ultimate evil.”  For this same reason, we have read in the history of the Romans that they worshiped two deities—joy and sorrow—at one and the same time.  Even though they had dedicated to each a separate temple, they used to offer sacrifice simultaneously to both.  This way they indicated enigmatically how very close joy and sorrow are connected, just as pleasure and suffering are.  When one deity gives joy, the other creates fear, and when one harms and grieves you, the other gives you hope.

            From this point of view the reason for the coming of the New Adam, Jesus Christ, can be said to be our liberation from seeking and loving only the visible things, and at the same time our exaltation to love and enjoy spiritual realities, thus indicating our true transference to what is indeed better.  Those who wanted to achieve this very goal  easily, that is, cutting off worldly pleasures and the enjoyment of the spiritual ones, were the true philosophers and ascetics who abandoned the inhabited world where there are always so many causes for sinful attacks and went to live in deserts and caves. Not finding there the usual causes of worldly pleasures, they were more readily able to subdue the senses and in a relatively short time were also able to rise up to the sweetest enjoyment of the spiritual and divine realties.

 THE NATURAL AND UNNATURAL PLEASURE OF THE MIND

            I beseech you to do this very same thing.  You have come to know precisely on your own, being prudent, and through Holy Scripture, being a lover of learning, that the natural pleasure of the mind is to always be preoccupied with and nourished by the beauty of spiritual realties.  St. Maximos wrote: “Intelligible things are food for the mind.”  You have also come to know that the tendency of the mind toward the pleasures of sensible things is contrary to the nature of the mind; it is a tendency that is forced, passionate, corruptive, and entirely foreign to the mind.  St. Isaac wrote that “when the mind is attracted by physical things, it partakes of the nourishment of the beasts and becomes, so to speak, beastly.”  According to St. Kallistos, only spiritual pleasure can be properly called pleasure and be primarily pleasure because during the course of enjoying it and after  it still brings us joy.  On the contrary the passionate pleasures according to the flesh cannot be properly called nor in fact be  pleasure.  Physical pleasure uses the name of pleasure falsely, for in the enjoyment of it and afterwards it brings sorrow to the heart.  Again, St. Kallistos wrote:

            “This is what should properly be called pleasure, namely that which by nature and reason cannot be condemned and which lasts and is ever more active, bringing joy and gladness to the heart even after it is fulfilled. Anyone therefore who would desire, let him seek that pure pleasure that is not mixed with sorrow, the intelligible and spiritual pleasure.  For this is indeed the true and sure pleasure of the heart.  Carnal pleasure that is not of the mind and the spirit is even wrongly called pleasure; for it is induced and as soon as it is done it creates bitter regret.  It is clearly a lie to call it pleasure for it is a spurious and counterfeit pleasure.”

            St. John Chrysostom wrote: “The passions are harsh executioners of the body, in fact they are worse than that, for they strain and force the body with bonds not made by hand.” (My Note: Demons?)  It seems to me too that pleasure is like a rough file smeared with oil, which when the cat licks it, it also licks with it the blood of its own tongue. Or it is like a fly in honey that tastes sweet but is at the same time entrapped in the honey and dies.  Pleasure is also like a bait that is superficially sweet, but when swallowed brings about a painful death.  This is why the wise Solomon wrote: “For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall.” (Proverbs 5:3).

            For a long period of time now your senses have become accustomed to pursue after physical pleasure.  They have been drawing your mind with them, not permitting it to be nourished by thoughts that are natural, proper, and related to it.  You have not been able to enjoy the appropriate spiritual growth in life and pleasure.  What must you do?  I have reminded you by what I have so far written that it is necessary to seek as much as possible to govern with great prudence your five senses.  To those which are essential, that is those which sustain the body, give them what they need.  Those which are not essential but only create pleasure must be cut off.  In this way you will prove yourself to be lord of your passions: when you will be able through your courage to liberate your senses from the corruptive, painful, and false pleasures of the world. You can also train your mind from the distracting attempts of the devil, leaving it thus free to return to the more desirable things which are truly good.

            According to St. Basil the Great, it is truly inappropriate for man to allow the senses to be filled with passionate things and in doing this block the mind from its own proper activity for spiritual things. He wrote: “I consider it inappropriate to allow the senses unhindered to be filled with their own matter, while the mind alone is shut out of its own proper activity.  For as the passions are to physical things so is the mind to intelligible things.”  Our senses then have in a way become hooked to the physical pleasures, not only during the early years of our youthful life, as we have indicated thus far, but also during the later years. Our own mind and that of the entire human race has also been hooked upon the bait of the same physical pleasures.  Consequently, we have been shamefully deprived and have all lost that blessed and true pleasure of ours.  By the same token, if these passions of ours are not freed from the physical pleasures, the mind itself will not be able to be freed from them and to return to its natural pleasure.  It is impossible for this to happen in any other way.