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).

4046. A number of spirits once appeared overhead in a midway place, who were acting collectively like the beating of the heart. But it was so to speak a wave-like motion, alternatively falling and rising, with a kind of cold breath which struck my forehead. From this I was able to deduce that they were of the intermediate sort, that is to say, that they belonged both to the province of the heart and to that of the lungs, and also that they were not interior spirits. Afterwards the same spirits produced a flaming light, of poor quality but nevertheless luminous, which was first of all visible under the left side of the chin, then under the left eye, and after that above the eye. But it was a dim light; though flowing it was not bright. From all this I was enabled to know the nature of those spirits - lights being indicative of affections and also of levels of intelligence. When after this I laid my hand over the left side of my skull or head I felt a beating underneath my palm, which had a similar falling and rising wave-like motion. From this indication I knew that they belonged to the cerebrum. When I asked who they were they were unwilling to speak. Others said of them that it was their own choice not to speak. Compelled at length to do so they said that in that way they disclosed what kind of spirits they were. I perceived that among them there were those who constituted the province of the dura mater, which is the general covering of the cerebrum and of the cerebellum.

[2] Then it was disclosed what sort of spirits they were, for this I was allowed to know by talking to them. Just the same as when they had lived as people in the world, they were spirits who gave no thought to spiritual or celestial matters and who did not talk about those things because they were the kind of people who did not believe in the existence of anything other than that which was natural. They had not believed in anything more because they could not think beyond that which was natural; yet they had not declared their unbelief. Rather, they had worshipped the Divine as others had done, had said their prayers, and had been good citizens.

[3] After this there were others who also entered into the beating of the heart, though not with a motion falling and rising but in a crosswise manner. There were others again who did not act in an alternating way but in a more continuous one. And there were others yet again by whose action the beating leapt from one place to another. They said that they had correlated with the outer layer of the dura mater, and that among them were some who thought about spiritual and celestial matters solely on the basis of such things as are the objects of the external senses. They did not comprehend interior things in any other way. To me they sounded like members of the female sex. People who reason on the basis of the experiences of the external senses, and so on the basis of worldly and earthly things, about the things of heaven, that is, about the spiritual things of faith and love - insofar as they make them all the same and confuse them together - move away to what is more and more outward until they reach, on the outside of the head, the skin which they represent. They are still inside the Grand Man even though in its outermost parts, if they have led a good life. For everyone is saved who leads a good life from a desire inspired by charity.