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.

196. From Secrets of Heaven

Before presenting an overview of what is written about spiritual crises in Secrets of Heaven, I need to offer something about them by way of a preface so that readers may have a clearer understanding of where these crises come from.

We call a crisis "spiritual" when the truths that belong to religious faith are under attack within us, truths that we believe at heart and love to live by. This is especially so when the attack threatens the good things we do from love, the goodness in which we find our spiritual life.

These attacks are waged by various means-by the inflow [of evil spirits], into our thoughts and also into our will, that blocks what is true and good, and by [their] constantly bringing up and calling to mind evil things we have done and false thoughts we have harbored, so that we are flooded by such things. At the same time, too, in the deeper levels of our mind there is an apparent break so that our communication with heaven is cut off. This stops us from thinking on the basis of our faith or forming intentions that relate to what we love. All this is done by the evil spirits who are with us; and as it is being done, it seems to us that we are suffering inner anxieties and pangs of conscience, because what is being done shakes and tortures our spiritual life. All the while, we believe that this is coming not from evil spirits but from ourselves, deep within. The reason we do not believe that this comes from evil spirits is that we do not realize that there are spirits with us-evil ones in our evil tendencies and good ones in our good tendencies-and that they are in our thoughts and feelings.

These crises are most severe when they are accompanied by pains experienced in our bodies, and are even worse if the pains persist and become more severe and we beg for divine mercy but there is still no deliverance. This leads to despair, which is the end of the process.

Here I need first to cite some statements from Secrets of Heaven about the spirits who are with us, since they are the cause of these crises.

There are spirits and angels with each of us: 697, 5846-5866. They are in our thoughts and feelings: 2888, 5846, 5848. If the spirits and angels were taken away, we could not remain alive: 2887, 5849, 5854, 5993, 6321. The reason for this is that it is through spirits and angels that we have communication and connection with the spiritual world, and without that we would have no life: 697, 2796, 2886, 2887, 4047, 4048, 5846-5866, 5976-5993. The spirits with us change depending on the feelings we are having, which stem from what we love: 5851. Spirits from hell are in the loves that are intrinsic to us: 5852, 5979-5993. Spirits have access to everything in our memory: 5853, 5857, 5859, 5860, 6192, 6193, 6198, 6199. Angels are in the goals from which and for which we think, intend, and act in one way and not in another: 1317, 1645, 5854. We are not visible to spirits, just as spirits are not visible to us: 5862. So spirits cannot see, through us, anything that is in our subsolar world: 1880. Even though spirits and angels are with us in our thoughts and feelings we are still free to think, intend, and act as we wish: 5982, 6477, 8209, 8307, 10777. In addition, there is material in Heaven and Hell in the chapter "The Union of Heaven with the Human Race" (§§291-302).

270. 'Eating from the ground in great pain' means a wretched state of life. This is evident from what comes before and after this, as well as from the fact that 'eating' in the internal sense means living. It is evident also from the fact that this kind of life is the outcome of evil spirits starting to fight, and of angels present with the man who labour and do so increasingly as evil spirits begin to get the upper hand. The evil spirits in this case govern his external man, the angels his internal, of which so little is left that the angels can find scarcely anything therewith which to defend him. This is what gives rise to wretchedness and anguish. The reason 'dead' men rarely experience such wretchedness and anguish is that they are no longer human, though they imagine that they are more human than anybody else. For they no more know than an animal does what the spiritual or the celestial is, or what eternal life is. Like animals they look down towards earthly objects or out towards worldly ones. They favour only their proprium, and give in to their own inclinations and senses, with complete acquiescence of the rational. And being 'dead' men they would not endure any conflict or temptation. Were temptation to come their way, it would be too severe for their lives to bear, and so they would bring an even greater curse upon themselves and would hurl themselves into a state of condemnation even more profoundly hellish. Consequently they are spared this until they have passed into the next life when they are no longer able to 'die' as a result of any temptation and wretchedness. At that time they suffer very grievously, which is likewise meant by the statement about 'the ground being cursed and man's eating of it in great pain'.