does not lose battles by having his heart in many people. Those people who have their hearts in the world drag them around in the world and the devil through affections. When the devil cannot approach a heart himself, he approaches it through a friend and destroys it. That is why it is necessary to be tucked up in such affections so that the mind does not err and is not deceived.
We can also understand about some walks of life and positions in which the heart sorely takes leave of itself. A woman clings tenaciously to a man with love–and a man to a woman–and later both to the children and to the household so that the heart is not easily with itself when it is always taking care of something and expending itself, wanting everything to be done properly. There is much unrest and anger when things do not go as planned. The devil easily approaches that heart through those things and conquers it. It also happens to those who are officials. They must be busy for others, too, somewhere else, outside of themselves and not at all at home with their hearts. And this all is like long clothing, dragging on the ground far behind a person. Whoever would want to kill such a person captures him by that immodest gown, since it drags on the ground and gets the better of him. An unrestrained mind is also not effective in God’s battle, having let its desires loose in many things and being undressed in this way.
We should tuck the loins of our minds up in yet another way: that is, having diligent vigilance within us, keeping in mind and judging everything according to truth, discerning and looking all around us with our internal eyes to see what is happening around us. The devil has many entrances to our hearts through our faculties and senses. Those entrances are the beginnings of evil thinking, the desires and drives in our hearts; they are unrest and divided hearts. Therefore, whoever tucks his mind up so that it does not wander everywhere weighs everything that enters it with understanding and immediately takes up the battle against evil things, and will easily overcome them. A person has temptations conceived in the heart through some pride or delusion entering the mind, commences the battle against them, and immediately overcomes them when they are conceived. But that can only take place in those who stand attentively, watching over what enters their hearts. Above all, clear understanding awakens in the person who has the fear of God within him. Such a person sees this entire world full of all evil like an instrument of sin and delusion.
The parts of our bodies that are the clothing of sin are not evil by themselves, for it is not evil to see or hear or speak. It is the heart and the vain world, which are there in the midst of those parts, that corrupt them. The devil is the craftsman of all wickedness and leads and governs the whole world so that it heads his way in all things. Everyone follows after him such that they exist and live their lives to make others fall. When many evil people consort together so awfully, the person who needs salvation sees and hears all that and has friendship with it, dwelling in the midst of that evil. That person has an evil heart within himself. It lays hold of everything it sees, hears, or touches, occupying itself with everything and engaging itself in that strange deviant depravity. It will be destroyed with that depravity and wrapped up in the wickedness around it through its senses. That is why the person who fears God must watch over it, watching himself and considering everything through the true light of understanding. That person recognizes where some harm could come to him from afar and does not engage his heart in that evil which is around him. The exceedingly evil and crooked heart stands in the midst of the senses and, because of all that the eyes see that please or tickle the heart, or because of what the hands touch, grievous thinking gets into the evil heart and it falls. Women take a hard fall for men in their affections by sight most of all, and men again too, because by touching women’s bodies they will immediately be bombarded
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