The guide

Whoever is guided only by himself easily goes astray, and all the while thinks he is making progress. That is the heart of the longest teaching in the Ladder. John says there is only one great delusion on this path, and he calls it self-will.

So he asks for a guide: a spiritual father, an older friend, someone more experienced than you, to whom you can say everything. But not just anyone. John warns that a guide must be chosen with care, so as not to fall into the hands of a sailor instead of a helmsman, a patient instead of a physician. And he gives a rule: choose him according to your weakness. Whoever is proud should take a strict guide, not an indulgent one.

Once you have chosen, open yourself completely. A wound that is shown heals more easily, and whoever hides even one thing is still wandering. Speak in the first person: this is my fault, not tiredness, circumstances or someone else.

Whoever is guided only by himself easily goes astray, and thinks he is making progress.

The same school exists without a guide: in work, where order is respected, and in marriage, where obedience runs both ways. Once a day doing as your wife says, though you would do otherwise, when it is not a matter of conscience, is harder than obeying an elder, because no one forces you to it.

The question remains: once you have opened everything before someone, what will you do with what you have seen?

N. Ž.