In judo, you are trained to take advantage of your opponents' momentum to throw them off balance, and to the ground. You don't have to be bigger or stronger to win a combat.

There's a spiritual judo arena for each of us. When we start to try to shun evils, learn truths, and do good, we're entering the arena. We're going to engage in contests, combats.

We can expect that our opponent (our old, selfish mind/self, which believes false things and loves evil things) will try to use our new momentum to throw us off balance, and down. If we shun an evil successfully, once or twice, it will pull us into the evil of self-congratulation. If we learn some exciting new truths, it will yank us further into a pride in our own intelligence. If we fail a few times, it will throw us into despair or lead us to abandon the whole project.

If we know to expect these judo tactics, can we do better at keeping our balance? Yes, for sure. We can recognize that we're in the spiritual arena, in spiritual combats, or temptations. We can try to keep our balance, keeping the Word as our touchstone, and getting advice and support from people we love and trust. We can move without over-reaching, learning truths to match with new-found loves for doing good things. We can practice, over and over again, and not lose heart.

Judo is not mentioned in the Bible, but when you look, you can see the techniques at work:

Three times in the Old Testament, there are stories of good high priests - Aaron, Eli, and Samuel - who have evil sons that they don't rein in. Initially strong, good efforts get pulled off balance, either by inattention or pride or neglected practice. (See Leviticus 10:1-2, 1 Samuel 2:12-34, and 1 Samuel 8:1-3)

The three most prominent kings of Israel, Saul, David, and Solomon, all start well, but get seduced by their power, pride, or wealth, which seem to corrupt them.

In another case, during the Exodus, Moses has led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, and towards the land of Canaan. He's doing well, obeying the Lord's commands. But at Meribah, he gets impatient, and loses trust in the Lord, and tries to take matters into his own hands. As a result, he's not permitted to enter the Promised Land. (See Numbers 20:6-13)

In Swedenborg's work, "The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine", there's a chapter about temptation that begins in section 196. In section 197 we find this statement:

"Temptation is a combat between the internal or spiritual man, and the external or natural man. (See Arcana Coelestia 2183, 4256)"

When you set out to make spiritual progress, you're entering the judo arena. Your new-forming spiritual self will combat your habitual "natural" self. You'll be fighting to keep your balance, and -- if you stay aware that you're in a spiritual battle -- you'll even be able to see ways to throw evil and falsity off-balance, to the ground.

197. The origin and characteristics of crises of the spirit. Spiritual crises arise from the evil spirits who are with us; these spirits put barriers between us and the goodness we love and the truths we believe, and also stir up evil things that we have done and false things that we have thought: 741, 751, 761, 3927, 4307, 4572, 5036, 6657, 8960. At such times evil spirits use extreme cunning and malice: 6666. When we are undergoing a spiritual crisis we are close to hell: 8131. There are two forces at work in spiritual crises, a force from the Lord from within and a force from hell from without, and we are in between: 8168.

[2] In spiritual crises, what is under assault is the thing we love the most: 847, 4274. Evil spirits exclusively attack the things we believe and love and therefore our spiritual life itself, so that our eternal life is at stake: 1820. A comparison between the state we are in during a spiritual crisis and the state we are in when being attacked by thieves: 5246. When we are in spiritual crises, angels from the Lord hold us to a path of truth and goodness, while evil spirits hold us to a path of falsity and evil, which causes a conflict and a battle: 4249.

[3] A crisis of the spirit is a battle between the inner or spiritual self and the outer or earthly self: 2183, 4256. So it is a battle between the pleasures of the inner and the outer selves, which at this point are opposite to each other: 3928, 8351. This happens because the two kinds of pleasure clash with one another: 3928. So what is at stake is the control of one self over the other: 3928, 8961.

[4] No one can undergo a spiritual crisis who does not acknowledge the existence of truth and goodness and desire them, since if these are lacking no battle occurs. That is, there is nothing spiritual to counteract what is earthly and therefore there is no battle for control: 3928, 4299. Only those who have gained some spiritual life undergo spiritual crises: 8963. Crises of the spirit affect people who have a conscience-people, then, who have gained a spiritual kind of love. Such crises are more severe, though, for people who have perception-people who have gained a heavenly kind of love: 1668, 8963. Dead people-that is, people who have no faith in or love for God and no love for their neighbor-are not allowed to undergo spiritual crises, because they would give up the fight: 270, 4274, 4299, 8964, 8968. So nowadays not many people undergo spiritual crises: 8965. People do, however, have anxieties caused by various worldly situations-whether those situations have happened, or are happening, or are going to happen-situations that generally include mental affliction or physical illness. These are not, though, the same as the anxieties caused by spiritual crises: 762, 8164. Spiritual crises may or may not happen during times of physical suffering: 8164. The state we come into during a crisis of the spirit is impure and filthy, because we are inundated with evils and falsities and also doubts about what is good and true (5246) and because in these crises there are resentments, mental anguish, and many feelings that are not good (1917, 6829). There is also an element of darkness and doubt about the outcome (1820, 6829) and also about divine providence and whether we are being heard, because in crises of the spirit, prayers are not heard the way they are outside of such crises (8179), and because when we are in spiritual crises we experience ourselves as being in a state of damnation (6097). This is because we have a clear sense of what is happening in our outer self and therefore of the things that the evil spirits are injecting and evoking (and these shape the way we are thinking about our state). On the other hand, we do not sense what is happening in our inner self, which means we do not sense what is flowing in through angels from the Lord. The result is that we are incapable of judging our own state: 10236, 10240.

[5] Crises of the spirit continue until we reach despair, at which point the process comes to an end: 1787, 2694, 5279, 5280, 6144, 7147, 7155, 7166, 8165, 8567. Why this is so: 2694. Throughout the course of a spiritual crisis there are certain feelings of despair, but at the end they become all-encompassing: 8567. In despair we say some bitter things, but the Lord pays no attention to them: 8165. Once a spiritual crisis is over we at first fluctuate between truth and falsity (848, 857), but then the truth shines forth we feel peaceful lighthearted (3696, 4572, 6829, 8367, 8370).

[6] When we are being regenerated we experience crises of the spirit not just once but many times, because we have many evils and falsities that need to be put aside: 8403. If people gain some spiritual life in this world but do not undergo spiritual crises here, they go through them in the other life: 7122. How and where spiritual crises happen in the other life: 537, 538, 539, 699, 1106-1113, 2694, 4728, 4940-4951, 6119, 6928, 7090, 7122, 7186, 7317, 7474, 7502, 7541, 7542, 7545, 7768, 7990, 9331, 9763. The state of enlightenment of people who are emerging from crises of the spirit and being raised into heaven, and what happens to them there: 2699, 2701, 2704.

3928. 'And she called his name Naphtali' means the essential nature of it, that is to say, of the temptation in which one overcomes and also of the resistance offered by the natural man. This is clear from the meaning of 'name' and of 'calling the name' as the essential nature, dealt with in 144, 145, 1754, 1896, 2009, 2724, 3421. The particular nature is that which is meant by 'Naphtali', for the name Naphtali is derived from the word 'wrestlings'. And for the same reason 'Naphtali' represents this second general truth of the Church. Temptation is the means by which the internal man is joined to the external, for they are at variance with each other but are made to agree and to correspond by means of temptations. The external man is indeed such that of itself it does not desire anything except bodily and worldly things; these are the delights of the natural man's life. But the internal man - when opened towards heaven and desiring the things of heaven, as is the case with those who are able to be regenerated - takes delight in heavenly things. And when a person undergoes temptations these two types of delight conflict with each other. The person is not directly aware of the conflict, because he is not aware of what heavenly delight is and of what hellish delight is, let alone that they are so utterly contrary to each other. But celestial angels cannot be present at all with a person in his bodily and worldly delight until this has been made subservient, that is to say, until bodily and worldly delight is no longer regarded as an end in itself but something which is meant to be subservient to heavenly delight, as shown above in 3913. Once this has been achieved the angels are able to reside with that person in both; but in this case his delight becomes blessedness, and at length happiness in the next life.

[2] Anyone who believes that the delight of the natural man prior to regeneration is not hell-like, and that devilish spirits are not in possession there, is much mistaken. He is unaware of what the situation is with man - that prior to regeneration genii and spirits from hell have possession of his natural man, no matter how much he seems to himself to be like any other person, and also that he is able to participate with everybody else in what is holy and to reason about the truths and goods of faith, indeed is able to believe that he has become strong in these. If this person does not feel within himself some measure of affection for what is right and fair in his daily work, and for what is good and true in society and in life, let him recognize that his kind of delight in things is the kind that exists with those in hell, for his delight entails no other love than self-love and love of the world. And when these constitute his delight no charity or any faith is present within it. The only means that will weaken and dispel this delight once it has become predominant is the affirmation and acknowledgement of the holiness of faith and of the good of life, which is the first means meant, as shown above, by Dan, and after this by temptation, which is the second means and is meant by Naphtali; for this second means follows the other. Indeed people who do not affirm and acknowledge the goodness and the truth which constitute faith and charity are unable to enter any conflict brought about by temptation as there is nothing within to oppose the evil and falsity towards which natural delight gravitates.

[3] In other places in the Word where Naphtali is mentioned he means a person's state following temptations, as in the prophecy of Jacob, who by then was Israel,

Naphtali is a hind let loose, giving beautiful words. Genesis 49:21.

'A hind let loose' stands for the affection for natural truth in a state that is free, which arises following temptation. This state is also what is at stake within temptations, which are meant by 'Naphtali', for the battle fought in temptations is a struggle for freedom. Likewise in Moses' prophecy,

To Naphtali he said, Naphtali, satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of Jehovah, will possess the west and the south. Deuteronomy 33:23.

For the representations of Jacob's sons, and of the tribes, depend on the order in which they are mentioned, 3862. And in the prophecy of Deborah and Barak,

Zebulun is a people that consigned its soul to die, as did Naphtali, on the heights of the field. Judges 5:18.

This too refers in the internal sense to the conflicts brought about by temptations, and to a person's presence among those who do not fear anything evil because they are rooted in forms of truth and good, meant by 'being on the heights of the field'.