My Starets is Best for Me

Yes, I think it is useful—in fact essential—to consider the matter of personal affinity with a guide. One must be careful, however, that a supposed “affinity” is not in fact a disguise for the ego just wanting to have its own way! It is obvious...

Worshiping the Father in Spirit and Truth

In professing belief in the Trinity, what Christians are saying—and of course you already know this very well—is that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all, and equally, divine: each is to be regarded, therefore, as uncreated, eternal, omnipotent,...

Striving for Balance

I certainly did not mean to imply—in my post on the subject of “Vanity”—that we should take no interest in our physical or external appearance. The young woman who had written me, and to whom I was responding, had confessed to being “rather...

Hagioritic Holiday

Thank you for your kind inquiry concerning my recent pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain, and of course for your prayers. The trip was very fruitful indeed, for which of course Deo gratias. My son went with me, and we had a spiritually nourishing, if physically...

Invocatory Concentration

You continue to express a keen interest in “levels” and “landmarks” in the spiritual Path, and you write to ask me (not for the first time) about specific “exercises” analogous to the yogic and Sufic “techniques” you...