Evil thoughts and bad habits — how to break free
Summary
TLDRThe video script offers spiritual guidance on overcoming intrusive evil thoughts and behaviors. It emphasizes the futility of confronting evil directly and instead advises to ignore such thoughts, avoiding their influence. The speaker encourages turning towards Christ for strength and nurturing a close relationship with Him. They suggest using Psalms as a means to redirect focus during spiritual attacks and highlight the importance of cutting ties with anything that leads to sin. The message is one of hope, emphasizing Christ's victory over evil and the individual's role in choosing to side with God.
Takeaways
- 🛡️ The speaker emphasizes the struggle with evil thoughts and behaviors that can waste our lives, suggesting that confronting them directly often leads to defeat.
- 🧘♂️ It is advised to ignore intrusive evil thoughts rather than engaging with them, aiming to prevent them from taking root in the mind.
- 🤲 The speaker promotes the idea of turning towards Christ and building a stronger relationship with Him as a means to combat evil thoughts and behaviors.
- 🔗 There is a connection drawn between the presence of certain people, places, or objects and the likelihood of falling into sin, suggesting the need to distance oneself from these influences.
- ⛪️ The importance of prayer, especially Psalms, is highlighted as a tool to turn towards Christ without acknowledging the evil thoughts directly.
- 🏃♂️ The concept of 'running away' is redefined as a courageous act of cutting away from oneself thoughts, people, or behaviors that lead to sin.
- 🙏 Prayer should be pure and focused on Christ, avoiding the acknowledgment of the presence or significance of evil thoughts, to maintain spiritual purity.
- 🌟 The speaker reminds us that we were created to be one with God and to embody light, not to spend our lives confronting darkness.
- 💔 The feeling of shame or failure in spiritual battles is addressed, asserting that it's not shameful to admit the need for Christ's help in overcoming evil.
- 🌱 The idea that we must continually choose the side of God and actively turn towards Christ to achieve freedom from evil is presented.
- 🌼 The speaker concludes by encouraging the audience to support their work in prayer and monastic life, reinforcing the communal aspect of spiritual growth.
Q & A
What is the main issue the speaker addresses in the video?
-The speaker addresses the struggle with intrusive evil thoughts and behaviors that can waste away our lives and the common mistake of trying to confront them directly, which often leads to failure.
What is the speaker's view on the approach to dealing with evil thoughts and behaviors?
-The speaker suggests that instead of confronting evil thoughts and behaviors head-on, one should ignore them and turn towards Christ, focusing on building a stronger relationship with Him.
What does the speaker describe as the 'greatest mistake' in dealing with evil thoughts and behaviors?
-The 'greatest mistake' is the desire and ambition to confront evil directly, which the speaker observes leads to losing the battle against such thoughts and behaviors.
How does the speaker recommend responding to intrusive evil thoughts?
-The speaker recommends acknowledging the presence of the thought without giving it significance or creating correlations with past experiences, and then letting it go without interacting with it.
What is the speaker's advice for prayer when under attack by evil thoughts?
-The speaker advises to ignore the thought itself and to turn to Christ in prayer, using Psalms or prayers unrelated to the evil thought to maintain a pure connection with Christ.
Why does the speaker suggest carrying the book of Psalms or memorizing some Psalms?
-Carrying the book of Psalms or memorizing Psalms allows one to turn to them during an attack of evil thoughts, providing a way to focus on Christ without acknowledging the presence of the evil thought.
What does the speaker mean by 'running away' from evil thoughts and behaviors?
-'Running away' in this context means actively cutting away from one's life the thoughts, people, places, or objects that lead to sin, and turning towards Christ instead.
What is the speaker's perspective on the role of Christ in overcoming evil thoughts and behaviors?
-The speaker believes that Christ is the key to overcoming evil, as He has already won the battle against the devil, and by turning towards Him, one can achieve victory over evil thoughts and behaviors.
What is the speaker's view on the concept of shame in the context of spiritual battles?
-The speaker asserts that there is no shame in running away from evil to Christ, and that acknowledging one's inability to win the battle alone is not a sign of failure but a recognition of Christ as the true Savior.
How does the speaker relate the spiritual battle to the teachings of Christ?
-The speaker relates the spiritual battle to Christ's teachings by emphasizing the commandment to cut away anything that leads to sin, like plucking out an offending eye or cutting off an offending hand, as a proactive and courageous spiritual act.
What is the speaker's final advice for those struggling with evil thoughts and behaviors?
-The speaker's final advice is to continually turn towards Christ, to create time for Him to step in, and to actively cut away from one's life anything that leads to sin, recognizing this as an act of courage and faith.
Outlines
🧘♂️ Overcoming Intrusive Thoughts with Spiritual Discipline
The speaker addresses the struggle with negative thoughts and habits that can consume our lives. They emphasize the common mistake of trying to confront these issues head-on, which often leads to failure. Instead, they propose a method of spiritual warfare that involves ignoring intrusive thoughts, not giving them space in one's mind, and turning towards Christ for strength. The importance of building a close relationship with Christ is highlighted as the key to overcoming these battles, rather than fighting them alone.
🙏 The Art of Spiritual Combat Through Prayer
This paragraph delves deeper into the spiritual battle against negative thoughts, suggesting that prayer is a powerful tool. The speaker advises against confronting the negative thoughts directly in prayer, as this gives them power. Instead, they recommend using Psalms or other prayers unrelated to the intrusive thoughts to maintain a pure connection with Christ. The act of 'running away' from these thoughts towards Christ is portrayed as a courageous and active spiritual practice.
🏃♂️ Spiritual Growth Through Active Avoidance of Temptation
The speaker discusses the importance of actively avoiding people, places, and things that have led to sin in the past. They argue that recognizing these sources of temptation and removing them from one's life is a courageous act of spiritual discipline. The speaker also refutes the idea that it is shameful to rely on Christ for help in these battles, stating that it is a sign of faith and an acknowledgment of Christ as our Savior.
🕊 Embracing Christ's Victory Over Temptation
The paragraph focuses on the concept that Christ has already won the spiritual battle against evil, and it is up to us to choose to side with Him. The speaker encourages the listener to turn towards Christ repeatedly, creating space for His presence in their lives. They discuss the importance of recognizing and cutting away sources of death in one's life as an act of courage and faith, and the need to create opportunities for Christ to intervene in our battles.
🙌 The Importance of Community and Support in Spiritual Warfare
In the final paragraph, the speaker expresses hope that the shared insights resonate with the listener and commits to revisiting these topics. They highlight the importance of community and support in the spiritual journey, asking for prayers for their monastic community and expressing gratitude for any support received. The speaker concludes with a blessing and an acknowledgment of the ongoing nature of the spiritual battle.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Evil thoughts
💡Orthodoxy
💡Confrontation
💡Ignorance (in the context of not acknowledging)
💡Intimacy with Christ
💡Spiritual energy
💡Psalms
💡Running away
💡Cutting away
💡Sin
💡Christ as Savior
Highlights
The video is for those struggling with bad thoughts and habits that waste life.
The greatest mistake is the desire to confront evil directly, which always leads to losing the battle.
A better way to fight evil is to prevent intrusive thoughts from taking root in the mind by ignoring them.
Acknowledging the presence of bad thoughts and trying to confront them only gives them more power.
People converted to Orthodoxy from Protestantism often feel the need to fight evil directly, but this approach is flawed.
The key is to run away from evil thoughts and turn towards Christ instead.
Investing time and energy in building a closer relationship with Christ is more effective than fighting evil directly.
The devil knows that if we strengthen our bond with Christ, he would have no chance against us.
We were created to be one with God, not to spend our lives confronting evil.
Praying about the evil thought itself is the worst thing to do; instead, pray with Psalms or unrelated prayers.
Praying with Psalms helps turn towards Christ in a pure way without feeding the evil thought.
Running away from evil is not shameful; it's an active, courageous spiritual act.
Cutting away thoughts, people, places, or objects that lead to sin is a courageous and spiritually active choice.
The devil inspired pride in Adam and Eve, telling them they could achieve godliness without God.
Recognizing our inability to win the spiritual battle alone and turning to Christ is not shameful but courageous.
Christ has already won the battle against evil; choosing God's side is our only purpose.
Creating time for Christ to step in and cut away from sources of death is a sign of a healthy soul.
The speaker will continue to share these thoughts and tools to help confront one's own thoughts and behaviors.
Transcripts
hello my dear ones I record this video
for those amongst us who are struggling
with thoughts or behaviors that waste
away our lives bad thoughts evil
thoughts that are intrusive and that try
to take away take over our minds and all
bad evil habits that lead us to waste
months if not years or Decades of our
lives and the greatest mistake I have
seen in both myself and in those I know
from confession or from meeting face to
face the greatest mistake I've seen is
this desire this ambition it's a much
better word to confront this evil be it
in our minds or in our bodies if you're
talking about a behavior to confront
this evil will face to face there is a
desire and a need particularly in those
amongst us who are converted to
Orthodoxy from some type of
protestantism there's a need in us to
fight evil face to face and that will
always without
exception always lead to us losing the
battle there is a much better way to
fight evil and it is about this much
better way that I want to talk to you
about
today every time an intrusive evil
thought comes to your
mind the one thing you should aim for is
simply to prevent it from finding a
landing place in your mind the one thing
you should strive for is to Simply
ignore it do not IGN acknowledge its
presence do not acknowledge its
significance do not create correlations
between that thought and your past
experiences simply be aware of its
presence and then Let It Come and Let It
Go simply register its presence nothing
more it checked in and it checked out do
not interfere with it in any way do not
interact with it in any way try to be
dead to these
thoughts and try to be alive to
Christ when you perceive when you become
aware of of the closeness of the attack
of these
thoughts the way to do battle with these
thoughts and we'll talk a bit afterwards
about the way to do battle with
behaviors as well because they are very
clearly
connected the one way to succeed against
them is to run away from them to run
away from them towards Christ we waste
most of our time most of our spiritual
energy in fighting evil instead of
investing the same time the same energy
in creating a stronger closer more
intimate loving relationship between us
and
Christ and the devil knows that this is
the way to lead us to lose the
battles because the devil knows that if
we invested the same time the same
desperation the same level of spiritual
energy in creating our relationship our
our link to Christ the devil knows that
then because of this relationship with
Christ he would stand no no chance
against
us as long as we are separated from our
Shepherd as long as we lead this battle
by ourselves we are doomed to fail we
are doomed to lose this battle again and
again in our teen years 20s 30s and so
on until the day we die the only sure
way to to do this battle in a successful
way is to turn ourselves towards Christ
and to invest the time and to invest the
energy into loving him into welcoming
him into our lives remember my dear ones
remember that we were not created in
order to do battle with evil we were
created to be one with God remember that
our purpose here the reason for whom for
which Christ created us is not that we
should spend this life this God even
life to confront evil to face evil to
face Darkness but to face light and to
embody light in
ourselves so how do you pray when an
evil thought kind of tries to find a
lending place in your mind how do you
pray then well the worst thing you could
do is to stop in your mind and to turn
your attention to the to the thought and
to confront it to curse it to to tell it
to get away from you that is
absolute absolutely the worst way the
worst thing to do the second worst thing
to do is to turn in prayer towards
Christ praying for him to take away that
particular thought in in the sense of
you acknowledging the thought
acknowledging its presence acknowledging
the type of thought and the significance
that it has for you personally because
the devil knows you and the devil will
send you the thoughts that are relevant
to
you the way to turn to Christ in this
battle is By
ignoring the the thought
itself the one advice that was very
helpful to me was to always carry with
me the book of Suter just to have the
Psalms St David St David's Psalms with
me all the time or if possible to learn
a few of them by heart and every time
I'm under attack open the Psalms and
read or say the Psalms you know by heart
in your mind and what makes this better
and different from Simply turning to
Christ and saying I am attacked by lust
or I am attacked by anger I am attacked
by gluttony help me out of this because
you know that in the past lust or anger
or gluttony have taken me down and so on
and so forth the reason why praying with
the
Psalms or with
any prayer that is not related to that
evil thought is because you turn towards
Christ in a pure way that doesn't at the
same time
feed that thought in your mind you turn
towards Christ in a way that doesn't at
the same time give weight to that
thought in your mind you do not
reopen a way a little gate for that
thought for that behavior to reenter
your mind and afterwards Your Love life
your physical life to re-enter your body
we need to find ways to turn towards
Christ in prayer every time we are under
attack but in such a way that we do not
acknowledge the significance the weight
the very presence of these thoughts
because otherwise that is an impure
prayer which is with half our mind
turned towards Christ and the other half
look back at the evil Beast trying to to
distract us it's a distracted prayer it
is a prayer which is contaminated by the
very thought from which we want to run
away there's no shame in running away my
beloved one
instead running away is perhaps the
safest and most courageous ious thing we
can
do what we call running away think about
it is in fact cutting away from
ourselves certain thoughts or cutting
away from the reality of Our Lives
certain people who always lead us to sin
or cutting away certain behaviors
certain places certain objects that will
lead us into sin and although we call
that running away which is a passive
concept having the strength Having the
courage to cut away these things these
people these
places that have in the past given us
pleasure is one of the most courageous
and active spiritually active things you
can do Run Away by removing from your
mind even the memory of those thoughts
do not allow them to land anywhere Run
Away by removing from your life the
people who in the past have led you to
sin if those people or those places or
those objects have led you to sin once
or twice or 10 times or 100 times then
my beloved one it is a given it is an
axiomatic truth
that they will once again lead you into
the same scene if you've seen the
evolution if you've seen that by
interacting with those people or by
being in those places or
by welcoming these objects in your life
from food to maybe your telephone or
your your laptops if you've seen a
correlation between the presence of
these things in your life and then you
falling into sin then Run Away by
cutting any relationship with these
people or places or objects in your
life you are not doing anything shameful
you are fulfilling Christ's commandment
if your eye leads you to sin pluck it
out if your right hand leads you to sin
cut it out this is a very active way of
living your spiritual life if you notice
a certain thought or a certain Behavior
a person or a place or an object that
again and again they lead you to sin the
same thing will happen my beloved one
again if it happened a 100 times before
it will happen 101 more times
afterwards run away because every time
you run away from Evil you run away to
Christ and there's nothing shameful in
turning your back to the devil so that
you may face the source of Life the
source of light Christ our
creator there's nothing shameful in not
allowing the Devil to Define you there's
nothing shameful and this is a good
thought glory be to God that He gave it
to me there's nothing shameful in you in
you
acknowledging your
inability to win this battle
single-handedly there's nothing shameful
or wrong in
you telling yourself telling Christ I
cannot do this alone I need
you it's only a devil inspired sort of
Pride that makes us think that we should
be able to do this by ourselves we
should be able to do battle
alone we should be able to to be
successful in the spiritual battles
alone this is what the devil did to Adam
and Eve the devil told
them that if you eat out of that tree if
you disobey God you will be like God
without God we know now that God's plan
for Adam and Eve was all the time that
they should be like God because we are
created in God's image and the purpose
of our life is to become one with him in
eternity we know that this was God's
purpose but we can achieve that purpose
only in opening us to Christ's presence
in our life we cannot do this alone and
this is what the devil told Adam and Eve
that You by eating that Apple that fruit
which was forbidden by God you will be
able to achieve this by
yourself so that every time you think I
have failed miserably because I should
be able to do this alone I should be
able to defeat these thoughts alone or I
should be able to find my way out of
this destructive Behavior alone every
time you feel that way every time you
think that way remember you are not the
first human being to whom the devil have
inspired those
thoughts long before you and I my
beloved brother and sister he did the
same thing to Adam and Eve and we know
very well where that
led the way to do battle is to run away
run away from Evil thoughts run away
from evil people behaviors and places
turn yourself to Christ in prayer again
and again in a way that does not carry
in a prayer that does not carry in
itself the memory of that bad behavior
the memory of that bad thought and
acknowledge before him that he is the
savior there's a reason why we call him
Christ Our Savior and there's a reason
why we don't look in the mirror and say
look at you you are my
savior he is our savior he is our
Shepherd he is our protector he will win
this battle for us indeed he has already
won it this battle is already won Christ
has won and the devil has lost and now
it's simply up to us to choose a
side this is our only purpose to choose
the side of God to choose the sight of
the one who has already won the battle
we were not created to waste away our
life in shame and in in Gloom and in
darkness facing the devil fighting the
devil every single hour of our Lives we
were created to be completely free from
him and we achieve that Freedom by
turning ourselves in l a billion times
an infinite number of times turning
ourselves towards light towards God
towards
Christ run away run away with courage my
beloved one gain time when you are under
attack from an evil thought or an evil
desire gain yourself some time say some
prayers go out for a walk reach out to a
friend
um do something else for as long as
possible create time for Christ to step
in create time for you to be once again
able to open yourself to Christ's
presence because once Christ steps in in
our being into the reality of Our Lives
the devil can do
nothing the devil is nothing the the
devil is truly nothingness because the
devil is creation and creation like you
and I like any tree or any flow or
anything else that is created is brought
out into being from
nothingness run away to Christ there is
no shame there's nothing passive in
actively again and again choosing life
in actively again and again cutting away
from you those those parts of your
reality of your life that lead you to
death that is the sign of healthy
behavior that is the sign of a healthy
Soul you recognize death or a source of
death and you cut it away like a rotten
part in a flower or in a tree or like a
cancer cut it away and
remain into life there's nothing
shameful about that it is the very Act
of Courage and the Very act that proves
our faith in Christ and the fact that we
recognize him to be our savior not
ourselves I have no idea if any of these
got to you my beloved one but I'll get
back to them again again and again
because these are the thoughts that
leave in my mind as well these are the
tools the the things I meditate upon the
things I bring back upon you you know in
front of my mind of my heart again and
again in order to do my own battles in
order to confront my own thoughts my own
behaviors so I'm I'm certain we'll talk
about this
again in the meantime I pray for you pre
please pray for me and for all
monasteries on the a of mul and the ale
of aona and if you can and if God gives
you a good heart remember to support
us every single support every single
donation everything you do helps us to
continue the work we do here our work in
prayer Our monastic lives here and even
something silly like like these videos
that we've been recording for I think
close to 3 years
now God bless you my beloved brother and
sister
amen
amen
amen
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