Home
Needless to say, there is no simple solution to the problem you describe. The Path is a “path” because it must be traversed, jagged rocks and all, and this entails a combination of resolution and patience: resolution, lest we be tempted to give up; and patience, lest we become anxious or spiritually greedy.
“Trying to see” (your words) is the key. Though it’s very difficult not to wish for, and to attempt to achieve, an immediate solution to acedia—it’s a painful state, after all, as you suggest with the metaphor of “boiling”—it’s important not to push too hard to get out, for this can in turn create an unhealthy and egoistic tension in the soul. Better to take objective note of our lethargy, leaving it to God to change our state in His own good time.
What we are seeking is to place ourselves at a standpoint outside and above all our “states” (ahwâl), be they pleasant or unpleasant, happy or sad. We wish to be, or at least align ourselves with, the Witness, all the while calmly accepting the fact that soul is in flux and cannot but pass through various ups and downs as the events of time flow past it and through it.