The believer recognizes the presence and work of the Holy Spirit by the peace, love, and mercy that he himself feels toward all people.

In the spiritual life, man is beset by various and frightening deceptions. One of them is to believe that he thinks, speaks, and acts inspired by the Holy Spirit, when this is not true. In the Patericon and in the Lives of the Saints, many monks are mentioned who were deceived in this way, who, believing that they had the Holy Spirit within them, had in fact fallen prey to the devil's cunning. The question, therefore, arises of knowing how a man can distinguish the true presence and work of the Holy Spirit within him from a foreign presence and work which he attributes to the Holy Spirit under the effect of a deception.

The fulfillment of all the conditions presented above – repentance, turning from sins, purity, obedience, humility, love of neighbor, prayer – constitutes a precious criterion, which, as we have seen, Saint Silouan often mentions. On the contrary, if a man is without repentance, if he has not renounced his sins, if he has not cleansed himself of passions, if he does not guard his mind from evil thoughts and does not stop his heart from slipping, if he is not obedient and humble, if he does not love his neighbor or if he does not have unceasing prayer, it is impossible for the Holy Spirit to live in him, because the Holy Spirit does not find in him a place worthy of His coming.

To all this, Saint Silouan adds other criteria. “The soul recognizes the Holy Spirit by His peace and sweetness”; “the soul feels Your coming […] You give peace to the mind and sweetness to the heart”. Any presence and any work in the soul that gives rise to disturbance or anger and wrath cannot, therefore, be attributed to the Holy Spirit and must even be considered a sure sign of His absence.

By correlation, the believer recognizes the presence and work of the Holy Spirit by the peace, love, and mercy that he himself feels toward all people (“if there is a little grace in the soul, then you know peace and feel love toward all”), and even for his enemies. The lack of love for enemies and prayer for them is again a sure sign of the absence of the Spirit: “he who has not received the Holy Spirit does not want to pray for his enemies”; therefore, he says, “if you do not have mercy on the sinner who will be tormented in fire, it is a sign that it is not the grace of God that is in you, but an evil spirit.”

On a higher level of spiritual life, says Saint Silouan, “there is a light and great joy in the soul.”

And on an even higher level, the abbot shows, “even the body feels the grace of the Holy Spirit”: “The Holy Spirit fills the whole man: soul, mind and body”; “The Holy Spirit fills the whole man with His grace: soul, mind and body”; “The Holy Spirit penetrates the soul, mind and body”. The abbot thus confesses that “the Lord has given me the grace of the Holy Spirit with such an abundance of overflow, that He has filled my whole soul and body with grace”; “He who carries grace in his body and soul, that one has attained perfect love”. Saint Silouan refers here to that trust and fullness of the heart in which the Holy Spirit dwells, of which some Fathers spoke before him, such as Saint Macarius, Saint Diadochos of Photikeia, or Saint Symeon the New Theologian, and which they called plerophoria.

Saint Silouan shows that the conviction that you have received the Holy Spirit within you is related to an experience of the heart, which is made wonderfully and indescribably, because it is supernatural, as one that is given by the Holy Spirit himself, and entirely personal. Therefore, Saint Silouan refers to his own experience: “I know from experience what it means to be in the Holy Spirit and what it means to be without Him.” The surest sign of the reality and efficacy of the coming of the Holy Spirit is this very experience of Him in a wonderful way. The man who has had such an experience, says Saint Silouan, knows or in other words immediately recognizes the grace of the Holy Spirit: “The soul knows when it is enriched with grace […], but at that moment you will not be able to utter a single word, for your soul is changed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit”; “the soul knows that a beloved Guest has come […] and says: Your passing has left a fragrance in my soul”. This knowledge has, as can be seen, nothing abstract; it does not belong to concepts, but rather to a spiritual feeling: “He who has once tasted the Holy Spirit recognizes afterwards the taste of grace,” says Saint Silouan; and again: “The soul that has tasted the Holy Spirit distinguishes Him by His taste, for it is written: ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’ (Ps. 33:9).” “Grace,” writes Saint Silouan, “does not come without the soul knowing it”; he who has the grace of the Holy Spirit within him has it “in a sensible way.” “We feel His presence within us”; “the soul must feel that the Holy Spirit lives in him,” he repeats. He who has once experienced the presence of the Spirit also knows when He leaves, and then he endures – through the feeling of abandonment – ​​a great suffering, which the ordinary man, who does not feel this absence, has no way of knowing.

Such an experience of the presence (and absence) of the Holy Spirit, however, is only experienced by the perfect; the assurance of its truth is given to them by the Holy Spirit himself. Other people can be deceived in this regard, even falling prey to the cunning of demons and Satan, who often “transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14).

To escape such deception and such traps, says Saint Silouan, those who have not reached perfection must find an experienced spiritual father who will help them to distinguish between spirits: “The beginner needs a spiritual guide, because until the grace of the Holy Spirit comes, the soul is fighting a great battle with its enemies and cannot realize when the enemy is the one who brings sweetness to its prayer. Only he who has tasted the grace of the Holy Spirit himself can distinguish it.”

Jean-Claude Larchet