“Solitude and Avoidance of Mixing”
The Life of Stillness by Mar Isaac, Bishop of Nineveh
“Solitude and Avoidance of Mixing”¹
“Stillness is the work of the monk; if he loses stillness, his life as a monk becomes disturbed.” — Mar Isaac
In the previous issue we published Mar Isaac’s explanation of how to preserve stillness, beginning with the necessity of solitude and avoiding mixing with others. We will now continue his explanation on this subject.
Mar Isaac’s letter to his brother about the dangers of visiting the monastery:
Mar Isaac was living as a solitary in a cave, and his brother according to the flesh was the head of the monastery. His brother asked him to come down a little from his cave to visit the monastery, so the monks might benefit from his spirituality by seeing him. He responded to his brother with an apologetic yet severe letter, in which he affirmed the spiritual danger that would befall him if he visited the monastery. He said:
“We are not strong, O father, as you think. Do you not know my weakness and incapacity?! Does my destruction seem easy to you?! Cast away from your mind the movement of nature, for it has been stirred in you as usual. Do you suppose that the thing I am concerned with is not worthy of concern? — meaning the preservation of stillness through solitude. Do not seek what belongs to the body and its mending — meaning his brother’s desire to see him bodily. Rather, care for the salvation of my soul, my brother, for in a little while we shall depart from this world.”
“How many faces will I encounter when I come to you? And how many kinds of people and places will I meet until I return to my place? And how many causes of thoughts will my soul accept in these encounters? And the pains from which it has recently rested will be stirred… See how many changes the mind, which has been long with itself, receives when it sees and hears something outside what it is accustomed to!”
“If the monk’s meeting with those of his own habit — I mean monks — harms him while he is still standing in the struggle and has warfare with his adversary, if they are not in agreement with his purpose nor walking in his path, into what pit will he fall, and how will he escape the mockery of the enemies if he descends into mixing with others?! Therefore we must not do this unless necessity compels us.”
“And we must not let our hearts be deceived by those who claim that they are not harmed by hearing or seeing anything, and that they are the same in the desert and in the inhabited places, in the cell and outside it!! And that their thoughts do not change in disturbance or in quiet, and that they do not feel any pressure of pains from meeting faces and events! Those who say this do not know where and when they are struck and wounded.”
“But as for us, we have not yet reached this soundness of soul. We have difficult, foul wounds, and if for one day they are left without bandages and ointments, they exude worms!”
The Benefits of Avoiding Mixing
1. Avoiding mixing in order to gather the mind:
“… For if we are with many, the thoughts of many arise in us. But if we separate ourselves from all, we acquire an isolated conscience.”
“The solitary mind is born from bodily solitude, and according to the mixing of the body, so the thought is mixed.”
“If all encounters of sight and hearing end in producing thoughts within, then what benefit is there for those who hasten eagerly into encounters while striving to silence their thoughts?!”
“The mind does not rest without the rest of the body.”
“For the inner thoughts that contemplate God are scattered by harmful meetings and by beneficial ones also.”
“As long as the conscience and thoughts are daily stained by various thoughts through useful and harmful encounters — with one he tolerates it out of kindness, with another to fulfill his will, with a third to satisfy his desire, with a fourth to calm his anger — how then will the mind stand firm in what concerns it and rest, without being divided among many things, so that it may become one from one and produce spiritual fruits for the comfort of the will of God?!”
2. Avoiding mixing in order to devote oneself to prayer:
“A person cannot be in conversation with God and conversation with people at the same time.”
“Unless the monk dies and is cut off from everyone, withdrawing in stillness into himself like a dead man in the grave, he cannot acquire within himself the prayer that is without distraction.”
“If you have offered yourself to prayer that purifies the mind and to keeping vigil through the nights to acquire an enlightened thought, then remove yourself from the sight of the world and cut off the negotiations of conversations.”
“Cut off your speech with the dead so that you may learn to speak with the living. And gather your vision from every gaze so that you may examine your Creator and His greatness.”
“He who loves conversation with Christ loves to be alone. But he who loves to remain with many is a lover of this world.”
“He who has a secret inner consolation from the meditation of thought and senses the spiritual stirring of heaven or earth has no need of consolation from external senses.”
3. Avoiding mixing for the sake of repentance and purity:
“He who for a long time withdraws from the negotiation of speech and the sight of faces, the old memories are uprooted from him, and the former habits and first schemes and imaginations — which are the bonds of the soul — are abolished.”
“Repentance is the mother of life; she opens her door to us by fleeing from all.”
“For the moment a person withdraws from people and gathers himself inwardly, from that moment the movements of repentance are engraved in his mind, and the seed of life is received from grace. And like a fetus, the sorrow of discernment is stirred in him, and within his heart is moved the remembrance of the life of the new world, and the expectation of the resurrection and the anxiety of judgment.”
“When a person withdraws from the negotiation of people, he returns to himself and to correcting the ordering of his conduct well before God.”
“If you love chastity, do not love distraction. For the encounters that arise through distraction do not allow you to hold chastity carefully within yourself.”
“Lack of watchfulness, and nearness to people and affairs, have produced in elderly chaste workers the thoughts of youth and placed them in the battles of youthful desire.”
4. Avoiding mixing in order to receive the fruits of stillness:
“He who has everyone’s hand upon him, and his hand upon everyone, does not become free to rest in stillness. For he cannot be with the One while being with many.”
“Unless he restrains the senses of the body — especially his sight, hearing, and tongue — he will not find stillness for his soul.”
“The solitary is not made worthy of the light of conscience so long as he runs after matters that satisfy his hunger. Not until he is full of all, and withdraws himself from all, and becomes one, not many…”
“The solitary does not acquire the freedom of soul and the expansion of heart without solitude.”
¹ Article by His Grace Bishop Shenouda, Bishop of Education — Al-Keraza Magazine, Year Three, Issue Seven — September 1967.
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