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Thoughts About Vainglory
An affliction of the soul

‘Doing all the right things for the wrong reason’

1) Vainglory is taking credit for good actions. Glory means God’s presence and you take it to ‘self’ rather than God.

2) Vainglory is an affliction of motivation toward the self. Vainglory refers to what others think, how I am perceived. I actually perceive myself through what I think others think of me.

3) Many spiritual directors and the one afflicted cannot detect this affliction. Self-deception concludes the afflicted one is holy and spiritually advanced.

4) Vainglory tends to prompt one to become a leader, a spiritual professional and a public person.

5) Vainglory is opposite of dejection: putting oneself up rather than down—both are forms of pride, not receiving the reality as is.

6) Vainglory is presumption when one acts out of over-confidence.

7) Vainglory replaces God with the self as one’s object of worship.

8) Glory is the experienced presence of God.

9) Shame is inverse of glory, a terrible knowledge of our destiny, the awful nakedness we feel without the garment of light.

10) Adoration and reverence are proper to a sense of God in one’s interior life. If I take to myself what belongs to God, I am vain.

11) Affliction attacks spiritual seekers. It’s a wound of the spiritually proficient. This is the same one who mastered the earlier afflictions of food, sex, things, anger, etc.

12) I twist the truth in order to move toward self instead of toward God.

13) If a stilled heart is full of self then spiritual powers of keen insight and single-minded concentration can look good but be brutally devastating. I appropriate to myself what belongs to God.

14) I look good: dress, voice, vigils, fasts, prayers, reading, practices, of even obedience, silence and outward humility.

15) Even if bad—no one is as bad as I am. To be the worst sinner is to glory in one’s wicked ways, to be more than anyone else in need of God’s mercy. Either excess good or bad when attributed to the self is vainglory and puffs up the ego.

16) Vainglory is subtle: even my moderation is better than anyone else’s moderation. Self-effacing is vainglory.

17) Vainglory causes delusion: I’ll not pray in front of others since they will think me holy…. Then I don’t pray. It’s better not to do the practices because I’ll do them poorly and they will become vices and so I’ll not do them (e.g., fasting, vigils, manifestation of thoughts). Vainglory is an affliction that makes vices out of virtues. It winds through all the virtues.

18) Vainglory can penetrate all the gains of previous renunciations.

19) Vainglory disqualifies the person from ministry.

20) Recommended actions for one who has vainglory:
Discuss confusion with a seasoned elder. Share practices, and the elder should probe motivations.
Be vigilant in overcoming vainglory because one feels confident and proud of that fact and it’s worse than the first affliction.
Refrain from any thought that one has evolved past the spiritual practices…doesn’t need fasting, prayers, guard of heart, watchfulness of thoughts, etc. If one is beyond them then it must be confirmed by an outside authority and from the inside one would never know. Also, there should be a call to the rigors of the third renunciation (strict meditation practices and training of the mind to do prolonged silence and protracted solitude).
Refrain from any public role of ministry since that would enhance the ‘external viewing of oneself from point of view of others’ and one gets feedback that the afflicted one takes to self and not to God.
Refrain from imagination, daydreams, excessive remembering of situations where one is the center of attention.
Discover the root cause: manifest thoughts to elder.
Practice watchfulness of thoughts: stay in the present moment. Notice subtle signs: boasting, being competitive, telling remarkable tales about yourself, seeking and taking credit, playing the role of the hero.
Edit, redirect, and change thoughts about myself that are either high (praise) or low (dejection).
The practice of humility is to think about myself exactly as I am.
Anticipating situations or inklings that engender either grandiose thoughts or low-self esteem.
Guard the Heart:
By anticipating those thoughts and thinking ‘prayer’ rather than that thought. Prayer is a barrier to unwelcome thoughts. Return to ceaseless prayer. When prayer is automatically going on, vainglory cannot co-exist: The words of the Jesus Prayer are particularly powerful to offset vainglory and pride:
‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

21) The afflicted one indulges in day-dreams about grandeur and public acclaim, or of having been rejected. Both are forms of vainglory. Vainglory intoxicates the mind.

22) Any thought of envy is vainglory. You take to yourself what glory properly belongs to another.

23) Benefits of the affliction of vainglory:
Helps to discern motivation for apostolic service
Overcome embarrassment since the response is neither high nor low: interior poise emerges.
One can work in either ministry or the monastery because the inner work is the same.
Watching thoughts is a discipline whether alone or with others so cloister and cell aren’t as critical as training tools. No need for a desert if one has overcome vainglory.
So while a solitary life is helpful to know my thoughts, the practice of watchfulness can be a mental substitute for the desert culture of a monk or a hermit.
Confidence in myself is placed securely in confidence in God.
No practice of ‘self-assigned’ virtues. I lay aside thoughts and give God glory (ceaseless prayer) and God raises up the virtue necessary for one’s particular situation.
The practice of compunction is to give God glory and ask for mercy for oneself.
Interior dialogue is away from self-chatter and toward God. Christ consciousness emerges.
The I-thought continues to ‘watch and pray.’