Now, there are two forms of humility, just as there are two kinds of pride. The first kind of pride is when one disdains his brother, when he demeans him as being nothing, and considers himself to be above him. If such a one does not speedily come to his senses and diligently work to correct himself, bit by bit, he will arrive at the second kind of pride and degenerate to the point of showing arrogance before God Himself, ascribing whatever he achieves to himself and not to God.

The Second Way is this: when someone concentrates his mind in himself, detaching it from all that is earthly, guarding his senses, and gathering his thoughts so that they are not scattered to the vain things of the world. Sometimes he examines his thoughts and sometimes he pays attention to the words of the prayer he recites. Sometimes he returns to his thoughts that were trapped by the Devil and were drawn to that which is evil and vain, and sometimes with much effort and struggle he comes back to himself, after being defeated and possessed by some weakness.

There are three ways of attention and prayer, by which the soul can be filled and become spiritually exhausted, or crumble and perish. If these three ways are used appropriately and at the right time, the soul will be filled, whilst if they are used unreasonably and at the wrong time, the soul will perish. Attention therefore should be tied and inseparable to prayer, in the way that the body is tied and inseparable to the soul. Attention should have the lead and mind for enemies as a guard, and fight sin, and resist evil thoughts of the soul. It should be then succeeded by prayer, which will destroy all those evil thoughts which attention fought against earlier since attention alone is not able to do this.