Orthodox Christian Monasticism - Hesychasm

world,' need emphasised constantly be the Apophthegms of the desert Fathers. But herself alone is not sough. The exterior hesychia must be accompanied by amerimnia or the lack of worries, nepsis, attention or the guarding of the mind, unceasing prayer to gain the true union of peace with God. Hesychia creates rather a state in which are practiced the virtues, among which the most important are the purity of heart (apatheia), repentance (metanoia), and especially sobriety, awakening or the watchfulness of the heart (nepsis).

Of the lack of worries for the earthly things speak often the Holy Gospel as well as the Fathers of the monastic tradition. The great teacher of the 'amerimnia' is Saint John of the Ladder, that in short formulations, synthesize it in a memorable way:

"The good precursor of tranquillity is the lack of all worries necessary or unnecessary. Because he who opens the doors to the first will fall immediately in the second."

"A hair bother the eye; a small worry chasten the tranquillity. Because the tranquillity is the detachment of all the thoughts and the renunciation to all worries, even justified."

Evagrius the Pontic in his De Oratione, identifies even the effort of elimination of thoughts with prayer:

"You will not be able to pray purely as far as you are entangled with the material things and disturbed with unceasing worries."

But the teaching of Evagrius is in reality a synthesis of older elements that of the ascetical teaching of the desert Fathers and of the philosophic and mystical wisdom of the alexandrinians especially Origen, what determines a whole tradition in this direction.

The way through which is done the invisible fight against thoughts bears to the hesychast the classical name of nepsis (from where the expression of neptic Fathers) that is translated with attention, vigilance, sobriety, the guarding of the mind or the heart. The teaching about nepsis, profound evangelical, is also a central idea of monastic spirituality, as being the essential condition of the pure prayer. She comes again as a motif in all the ascetical writings, beginning with the desert Fathers. For them, the guarding of the mind is necessary to any man if he wants not to work in vain. Origen talks about a real 'battle of thoughts' to which we have to stand, and the only way not to fall under the attacks of demons is the guarding of heart or mind. The analysis of the psychologic mechanism of the temptation with its stages: suggestion, the inner dialogue with the evil thought and the guilty consent that leads to

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