Even a pious person is not immune to spiritual sickness if he does not have a wise guide -- either a living person or a spiritual writer. This sickness is called prelest, or spiritual delusion, imagining oneself to be near to God and to the realm of the divine and supernatural. Even zealous ascetics in monasteries are sometimes subject to this delusion, but of course, laymen who are zealous in external struggles (podvigi) undergo it much more frequently. Surpassing their acquaintances in struggles of prayer and fasting, they imagine that they are seers of divine visions, or at least of dreams inspired by grace. In every event of their lives, they see special intentional directions from God or their guardian angel. And then they start imagining that they are God's elect, and often try to foretell the future. The Holy Fathers armed themselves against nothing so fiercely as against this sickness -- prelest.
If thou, being offended by anything, dost sense that grief and wrath have seized thee, preserve silence, and say naught until unceasing prayer pacifies thine heart.
Put aside bodily considerations when you stand in prayer, lest the bite of a flea, a gnat or a fly deprive you of the greatest gain afforded by prayer.
Pray before your body takes rest on your bed... If you are tempted, make the Sign (of the Cross) on your forehead reverently… for this is a known and tested weapon against the Devil.
Pray firstly to be purified of passions, secondly to be freed from ignorance and forgetfulness, and thirdly to be delivered from all temptation and forsaking.
Having filled himself with pride, the Antichrist will begin to set himself up and glorify himself as God, belching forth slander against Christ. He will do this so openly that he will command that all those who do not want to serve him as God be killed.
A monk is he who wants to sleep and does not sleep, who wants to eat and does not eat, who wants to drink and does not drink. A monk is distinguished by ‘continual forcing of nature.’
Prayer demands that the mind should be pure of all thought and should admit nothing not belonging to prayer, even if it were good in itself. As if inspired by God the mind should withdraw from all things and hold its converse with Him alone.
