The Mountain of Silence Quotes

“There are spiritual laws at work that most people know nothing about. So when others hurt us, our tendency is to strike back because we assume that we must defend ourselves, defend our name, our honor, our career, and so on. In reality we strike back at ourselves. ... What we consider as justifiable defense of our rights may in reality plunge us into a vicious cycle that can undermine our very spiritual foundation. By reacting to aggression with aggression we lose the opportunity to spiritually benefit from the experience. this law also explains why saints, when hit, often would literally turn the other cheek. (Fr. Maximos)”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“The saints repeated this truth time and again over the centuries; that the natural state of a human being is the continuous contemplation and memory of God. I do not mean by that a cerebral memory of God but a memory that works from within the heart.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“God never cooperates with evil. He simply offers us the opportunity to transform the painful experiences in our lives into advantages and blessings. (Fr. Maximos)”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“The spirit of deception, you see,” Father Maximos explained, “has egotism and pride as its primary attribute.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“We lost the knowledge of God,” he went on to say, “at the moment when we transformed the Ecclesia from experience into theology, from a living reality into moralistic principles, good values, and high ideals. When that happened,” Father Maximos said humorously, “we became like tin cans with nothing inside.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“I told Father Maximos that what he just said reminded me of Plato’s parable of the cave. Most human beings, Plato wrote, live in a dark cave. They are tied to a pole facing the wall. The light that comes from the opening of the cave creates shadows on the wall. These shadows are taken for reality by the people tied to the poles. A few brave souls manage to untie themselves and with great difficulty and effort crawl out and experience the sunlight. They become ecstatic with their discovery. These liberated few set as their life’s mission to return to the cave and tell their friends of the good news, that there is life and light outside the cave, that they don’t have to spend their lives in the dark. Yet, when they announce their discovery hardly anybody believes them. The overwhelming majority prefer to stay tied to their poles, taking the reflection of their shadows as the only real world. “Plato’s light outside the cave,” Father Maximos pointed out, “is in reality Christ, and those who see the light are the saints who have been witnesses to the light through the aeons. The cave dwellers who do not respond to the message are those whose hearts are shut and who therefore are nonreceptive to the good news. That is why the holy elders advise that before you speak to someone about God, you must pray for that person so that Grace may proceed ahead of you and prepare the ground. But even so, people whose heart is shut cannot experience the light, no matter what.” Father”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“Remember,” Father Maximos said as he escorted them to their car, “whatever good or bad things happen to us, they have only one single purpose, to awaken us to the reality of God and help us on the path toward union with Him. There is no other reason for being born on this planet, believe me. It is up to us whether or not we take advantage of these wake-up calls.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“I have one last question,” I said while entering the monastery as evening vespers were about to begin. “Can we say that the heart is what is commonly understood as the subconscious where people store their unfulfilled desires? Is the heart the depository where what Freud called ’repression’ takes place?” Father Maximos shrugged. “The holy elders were not using such terms. So I cannot really say much about it. But as I understand it, the subconscious is a storage space into which human beings pile up, so to speak, those memories and experiences they don’t want to be aware of. You may call it whatever name you wish, but one thing is clear to me. From the point of view of the true spiritual life we must eradicate the subconscious.” “Eradicate the subconscious?” I exclaimed as a group of curious monks surrounded us, listening with great interest to our exchange. “What you called ’repression’ is totally unacceptable in real spiritual medicine,” Father Maximos replied. “In the spiritual arena of the logismoi, we aim at the transmutation or metamorphosis of our passions, not the actual storing of them into the so-called subconscious.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“Texts like the Bible and the works of the holy elders were written under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The person who studies them partakes of this Divine Grace in a mystical way. The soul is nourished with Grace even if the person who reads such literature does not understand the meaning of what is being read. “Just by reading this material,” he claimed, “the individual becomes spiritually empowered by the Grace embedded in the words themselves.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“So the holy elders,” I added, “claim that the best strategy to cope with troublesome logismoi is simply to ignore them.” “Precisely. Our first defense against destructive logismoi is complete indifference. This is the healthiest and most productive method to head them off right at their inception. Ignore them completely. Never open up a dialogue with these intruders. Do not interact with them either out of curiosity or out of overconfidence.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“when I say sorrow, it does not mean that we celebrate suffering as if it is something to cherish and pursue. Rather, to the extent that suffering is unavoidable, accept it as a gift from Heaven. Then it will have a therapeutic impact on your heart. Redefine it in your mind as an opportunity for spiritual growth. Because that’s what it is in reality. Whether people realize it or not, we live in a world of ongoing askesis.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“Well, as long as we do not know God experientially then we should at least realize that we are simply ideological believers,” Father Maximos replied dryly. “The ideal and ultimate form of true faith means having direct experience of God as a living reality.” I”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“If you wish to undertake a task to help others and be effective, he advised, spend some time beforehand in prayer and fasting. When you do that you actually invoke the Holy Spirit to march ahead of you towards your goal and pave the way, making your task easier and raising the probability for success.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“Father,’ he said, ’I would like to see you privately for a few minutes.’ Old Paisios waved at him and said, ’Go on my son. Go with the others. It is late and I am very tired.’ ’But Father, please!’ the man implored him. ’I have something very serious to tell you.’ ’Go my son, go. There is nothing to worry about.’ The man insisted and old Paisios seemed impatient. ’For God’s sake, go before the monastery closes its doors.’ ’But Father, my wife is very ill. She is dying from cancer.’ Father Paisios paused, placed his arm around the man, and gently reassured him, ’Go, my dear and have no fears. Your wife is fine.’ “That fellow looked very despondent,” Father Maximos went on to say while we walked towards old Paisios’s hermitage. “With a heavy heart he walked back to the monastery with the others, feeling that he had accomplished nothing. That his journey, coming all the way from Athens to remote Mount Athos, hundreds of miles away, was a waste of time. He had heard that elder Paisios was a holy man whose prayers and intercessions often cured people from serious illnesses. Now his last hope had evaporated. “You can imagine his amazement and great delight when upon entering his home he found his wife walking about and looking surprisingly well,” Father Maximos continued as we approached the hermitage. “His wife claimed that while she was bedridden, a cold sweat took over her body and, after perspiring profusely, she felt completely healed. Her doctor later confirmed that her cancer had mysteriously and literally gotten washed away. Her husband asked about the time the perspiration and the changes in her condition began to happen and she replied that it was on Friday at about four in the afternoon. When her husband heard that he felt a chill. That was the time when elder Paisios had reassured him that his wife was fine.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“When we contemplate icons, good and wholesome holy meanings are created within us. A human being, you see, is not just soul and spirit but also mind, imagination, feelings, senses. An individual is a unified whole, a unified entity. The aim of the Ecclesia is to divinize the person in his or her totality. It is the whole person that strives to reach God. This is the reason why we offer exercises in the Ecclesia that relate to the body, such as fasting, prostrations, staying up during all-night vigils, all the rituals that the saints have been doing throughout the ages.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality

“extraordinary life of eldress Gabrielia.”3”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality