“…to keep curious people away, I painted a skull and cross bones on the rocks with some green all based paint. What time a German tourist want to come up to the sale. He thought it was a minefield because of the sign, but it looked like she knew about them so he went up to the top watching where he stepped. I was watching him from above. Then I went to the cave of a saint and pulled a thorny bush across the entrance behind me. He looked hard, but he couldn’t find me a went back down the hill.”
Elder Paisios
~Elder Paisios of Mount Athos

Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
Psalms 46:10

“Mono-logistical or single word prayer, is the “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” The fewer words we impose upon the nous [soul or spiritual center] the easier it is for then nous to learn and hold onto them. The methods of prayer, however are many. The method depends upon the disposition and the needs of each person. Supplication, Thanksgiving, praise – are all address to the God who is able to save in order to find the consolation and assistance being sought. There are petition, intercession, entreaty, praise, thanksgiving, and at times even a praise worthy brashness by which God’s infinite goodness and boundless love for man been low for one who calls on him with persistence and deep humility.”
Elder Ephraim of Katounakia
~Obedience is Life

“I asked your love to pray hard for me. For I have many souls that seek my help. And believe me for every single soul that receives my help, I experienced the warfare that it has.”
Elder Joseph
~My Elder Joseph the Hesychast

“Judaism, Christianity, Islam.  These three religions lay claim, in fact, to a common origin: as worshipers of the God of Abraham. Thus it is a very widespread opinion that since we all lay claim to the posterity of Abraham the Jews and Moslems according to the flesh and the Christian spiritually, we all have God as the God of Abraham and all three of us worship ‘each in his own way’  the same God. And this same God constitutes in some fashion are part of unity and of mutual understanding and this invites us to a fraternal relation. 

IMPEDIMENTS TO PRAYER…
At the same time, the elder believed that in this life, too, the just God grants spiritual and even material gifts to people who consciously endear injustices, according to the situation.He counseled one monk who was bickering with his fellow disciple as follows,
 “Tell him he’s right. Do you know how many people have gone to hell for being ‘right’? Fairness is wrong for a monk.” 
That is to say a monk is injured spiritually when he seeks to justify himself.

Elder Paisios
~Elder Paisios of Mt. Athos
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“When you’re eager in your obedience during the day and at the same time your lips continuously whisper a prayer, then you feel rested and joy inside you. So much so that you don’t even consider the toil of the day. With all this warming up during the day, the vigil is easy at night: it does not tire you but rather you feel it is a feast.    However, if during the day we have been disobedient, are involved in idle chatter, back talking, part we have had thoughts of pride, jealousy, condemnation and so on, unceasing prayer stops and also the vigil at night passes with toil and pain. But sometimes, this can happen without us having given the right for it to happen.”

Elder Arsenios

~Elder Arsenios the Cave-Dweller

“The opposite of a loving heart that receives revelation from God is cold calculation, getting up you can out of people; in religious life, this produces fakery and charlatanism of all descriptions. If you look at the religious world today, you’ll see that great deal of what is going on: so much fakery, posing, calculation, so much taking advantage of the wins of fashion which bring first one religion or religious attitude into fashion, then another. To find the truth, you have to look deeper.”
Fr. Seraphim Rose
~God’s Revelation to the Human Heart

Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men , but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
Matthew 23:28

“Are you afraid of death?” The woodworker answered, “How can I fear that which fears me and which will have to serve me as a bridge to the eternal kingdom.”
The king then asked, “Do you wish to be the king?” The woodworker answered, “How can I wish for that what I already am? My creator has adopted me through Christ, and my creator is the King of Kings. So, I’m already a king.”
Finally the king asked, “How many children do you have?” The young man said, “I have 300. These are the ones who I baptized and gave birth in the spirit. These are my spiritual children who call me their spiritual father.”
St. Nikolai Velimirovich
~ Missionary Letters #3