''The first monks and nuns went into the deserts of the Middle East to discover themselves and God. Once there, the first interior realities that they noticed were their thoughts and in particular those thoughts that unsettled them and tried to persuade them to give up their interior journey.''
It has generally been accepted that our emotions govern or direct our thoughts ... if we feel happy, then we will have happy thoughts, and then, happy lives. Modern thought proposes the reverse, that the fibre of our thoughts generates the quality of our emotions.
So, which comes first, thought or emotion? We can always test ourselves in this, by monitoring our own thoughts and feelings, and then guage which governs which.
The desert mothers and fathers ''noticed that these [negative] thoughts came in a pattern that was common to all of them. They observed that they are eight in number: the first three are thoughts about the body: gluttony, lust and greed; the next three are thoughts in the heart and mind, namely, anger, sadness and acedia, finally, two in the soul, vanity and pride. These are the Eight Thoughts ...''
''... the opposite virtues ... in the body: moderation, chaste love and generosity. ... in the heart and mind: gentleness, gladness and spiritual awareness. ... in the soul: magnanimity and humility.''
John Cassian, born in E. Europe cc 360AD,... ''is notable as the first person who set about systematically writing down the teachings of the desert fathers and mothers'', and it is due to him, that the above ''Eight Thoughts'' in the more commonly known form of ''The Seven Deadly Sins'' have made their way to us now.
Abbot Christopher Jamison devotes the second part of his book, ''Finding Happiness, Monastic Steps for a Fulfilling Life'', to reflections upon the ''Eight Thoughts'', in the context of our world today. He writes on page 57, that ''The disappearance of acedia from ordinary people's vocabulary deprived Western culture of the ability to name an important feature of the spiritual life, namely, loss of enthusiasm for the spiritual life itself.''
Acedia is the lack of awareness of how we are inside, how we interact with the world, and how these two are inevitably one. How we are inside, becomes how we think of others and the nature or quality of our interactions with the world or others inevitably mirrors our inner life.
If there is discordance, then, development of spiritual awareness, the opposite of acedia, would be deemed necessary.
On page 70 of his book, Abbot Jamison writes,''If acedia is spiritual carelessness, then overcoming it is achieved by taking seriously the other seven thoughts and looking honestly at their workings in my life. ...''
I am surprised that fear has not been included in the list above.
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