The Soul Must Remain in Solitude Within Itself, So That God May Overshadow It With His Peace

Since God of gods and Lord of lords was pleased to create your soul for this purpose—that it might be a dwelling and a temple specifically for himself—you must hold it in great honor and not allow it to be degraded by inclining toward anything lower than itself. Let all your desire and expectation always be turned toward this invisible visitation of God. But know that God will not visit your soul if he does not find it in solitude within itself. God desires that it be in solitude within itself—that is, that it be, as far as possible, without all thoughts, without all desires, and above all without its own will. In this last respect you must not on your own, without counsel, undertake any strict labors and voluntary deprivations, nor seek occasions to suffer in some way out of love for God, following only the prompting of your own will. For this you must have the counsel of your spiritual father, who guides you as God’s representative. In all things listen to him, and God through him will truly direct your will toward what he himself desires and finds beneficial for you. Never do anything according to your own will alone, but let God himself do in you only what he desires of you. Let your desire stand always free from yourself—that is, do not desire anything of yourself; and if you do desire something, let your desire be such that, whether what you wish comes about or not—or even if the opposite occurs—you are in no way grieved by it, but are at peace in spirit, as though you had not desired anything at all.

Such a disposition is true freedom of heart and interior solitude—that is, when the heart is bound neither by the mind nor by the will with respect to anything. If you thus present your soul to God so emptied, free, and gathered into itself, you will see what wondrous works He will be pleased to accomplish in it; above all, He will overshadow you with divine peace, which is a gift destined to become in you the receptacle of all other gifts, as the great Gregory of Thessalonica says (in the “Discourse to the Nun Xenia,” Greek Philokalia, p. 944). O wondrous unity, hidden treasury of the Most High, in which alone He is pleased to hear the conversations you address to Him and Himself to speak to the heart of your soul! O desert and place of solitude, in which Paradise was built! For in it alone does God grant access to behold Him and to converse with Him. ”I will turn aside and see this great sight” (the burning bush)—says Moses in the sensory, yet intellectually contemplation-rich desert of Sinai (Exod. 3:3). But if you too desire to be counted worthy of the same, enter this place with unshod feet, for this ground is holy. First strip off your footwear—that is, the disposition of your soul—and let it be bare and free from every earthly thing. Take neither bag nor staff on this journey, as the Lord commanded His disciples (Luke 10:4). You must no longer desire anything from this world, and greet no one on this path—as Elisha commanded his servant, and the Lord commanded His disciples—turning all your thought, all your disposition, and all your love to God alone and to no creature. ”Let the dead bury their own dead” (Matt. 8:22); but you, run alone through the land of the living, and let death have no part in you.