Here is the English translation of the text you provided:
Since I was a monk, I believed I must be lost if I felt any carnal desire, such as lust, anger, hatred, envy, and the like, toward a brother. I tried many things, confessing every day, but it did not help; for such desires kept returning.
Thus, I could not find peace, but tormented myself constantly with these thoughts: "Look, you have committed this or that sin... Therefore, it does not help that you have taken holy orders, all your good works are lost." The greatest temptation of the devil is when he says: "God is the enemy of sinners; you are a sinner, therefore God is your enemy." If we do not make the distinction that God is only the enemy of the unrepentant... the conscience is overthrown and falls into despair.
As soon as the conscience hears: "The law must be fulfilled, and it must be kept," it immediately responds: "You must keep it or you are damned; you have not kept it, nor can you keep it." Then arises an eternal fear and torment in the conscience... The words "righteous" and "God's righteousness" struck my conscience like a thunderclap.
In those days, we cried out in the Papacy for eternal salvation and the Kingdom of God; we sought and knocked day and night. And I myself, had I not been delivered by the comfort of the Gospel of Christ, could nowith all his masses and multitude of works, either becomes prideful or falls into despair.t have lived for two years. So greatly did I torment myself, fleeing from God's wrath, and lacking neither tears nor sighs. Yet we accomplished nothing by it.
A monk, with all his masses and multitude of works, either becomes prideful/haughty or falls into despair.
Here, we read about Luther's desperate inner struggle to reach God through the practice of asceticism. It is important to note that asceticism is merely the external practice of the mystics.
However, where the inner path of opening the heart to God is lacking, it leads either to despair or pride. Later, a fellow monk leads Luther to the forgiving nature of God. This opens him to the awareness of God's grace, which becomes one of his most important tenets.
For today's mystical practice, we can learn that all external efforts—whether ascetic practices or activities—without the inner path of heart-opening, will lead us either to pride or despair. Despair arises because, through human effort alone, we cannot find God and thus fail in the most important goal of religion.
T. Schuh