TPL (Text) -- 8.1

On the Signs of Dispassion

63 When the soul begins to make the prayers without distraction, then the whole war is constituted night and day round the irascible part.

64 A sure sign of dispassion is a mind that has begun to see its own light and which remains still in regard to the apparitions which occur during sleep and which remains in an undisturbed state when it sees objects.

65 The mind has its full strength when during the time of prayer it imagines nothing of the things which pertain to this world.

66 The mind which has accomplished the practical life and which has drawn near to gnosis has little or no perception of the irrational part of the soul, gnosis having ravished it high above this world and having separated it from the things which are sensible.

67 The soul has dispassion, not the one that does not suffer in relation to objects, but the one that also remains undisturbed in regard to their memory.

68 The perfect [monk] does not keep continence and the dispassionate [monk] does not endure patiently, if, indeed, patient endurance pertains to him who suffers and continence pertains to him who is disturbed.

69 It is a great thing to pray without distraction. It is a greater thing, however, to chant psalms without distraction.

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