How to Fight The Passions 

Now that we have covered sin, the passions, and how this develops in the soul we are ready to discuss how to fight the passions. Here’s where all the theoretical stuff we’ve covered thus far is applied in a practical method or approach. For practitioners, this is not a casual intellectual pastime but rather, a way of living. The battle we are waging is constant and this is because our enemies never sleep until the moment we are dead. In this battle we are constantly seeing and admitting, and facing off with our sins and sinful inclinations that attack us in our thoughts and words and actions. We are persistently waging war with our bad habits to establish good and holy habits.

In ancient Biblical terms this process is called repentance. In Biblical Hebrew, the idea of repentance is represented by two verbs: שוב shuv (to return) and נחם nacham (to feel sorrow). In the New Testament, the word translated as 'repentance' is the Greek word μετάνοια (metanoia), which in simple terms translates as: “to think differently” or "change of mind and heart", or, "change of consciousness". The starting point is honest self examination to determine our weaknesses and what passions or bad habits have us by the neck. For some of us this can be a bit overwhelming as we might discover that we are captivated by many different passions and dispositions and thoughts. We might be weak in the flesh and lustfull, and at the same time be constantly angry and people or events throughout the day, all the while, we might have hatred for someone and feel justified in this. Know that it is not recommended to try and wage war with all at once as this will surely lead to failure, which will lead to discouragement which will end in giving up. According to the spiritual classic, Unseen Warfare: 

“...enter with attention into the heart and examine carefully with what thoughts, dispositions and passionate attachments it is specially occupied, and which passion is most predominant and tyranically rules there. Then against this passion first of all take up arms and struggle to overcome it. On this one concentrate all your attention and care, except only at the times when some other passion happens to arise in you. In that case you should deal with this one without delay and drive it away, after which you must once more turn your weapons against your chief passion, which constantly manifests its presence and power. For as in every kind of warfare, so in our unseen battle, we must fight first what is actually attacking us at the present moment.”

Once our most dominant demon is identified, we then openly and courageously engage that demon in battle. This requires resolve and watchfulness.