The 29th Step on John’s Ladder, is DISPASSION. The highest level of virtue is the state of dispassion. Dispassion does not mean an inability to experience the passions, but a complete mastery over them. The word dispassionate is sometimes misconstrued as passionless. Looking at the Greek word for dispassion, which is apatheia, does not help dispel this misconception. Dispassion is a state of being in which all the passions have been transformed into virtues. The problem is that no one can achieve it until he has acquired all the virtues, purified the senses, subjected the instincts to the will of the Spirit and mastered the art of ceaseless prayer.

To be dispassionate is to sanctify the mind and to detach it from material things, and it does so in such a way that, after entering this heavenly harbor, a person, for most of his earthly life, is enraptured, like someone already in heaven, and he is lifted up to the contemplation of God.

For most of us, our passions, sins, and desires distort the virtues. Our good intentions are mingled with ulterior motives and our perception of God’s will is clouded by our desires. This is why we often confuse our own will with the will of God. Only the dispassionate are able really to know god’s will, because for one who has achieved dispassion, the will of the Lord becomes a sort of inner voice through illumination.

St. John wrote: “When a man’s senses are perfectly united to God, then what God has said is somehow mysteriously clarified. But where there is no union of this kind, then it is extremely difficult to speak about God. The man who does not know God speaks about Him only in probabilities.

Dispassion could be considered synonymous with another important word in Eastern spirituality and that is deification or Theosis, which means to attain the likeness of God in the Person of Jesus.