Paisios Mendonsa

“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

“Modern man wants everything to fit within his own perspective and resents being awakened from his blissful stupor. This is why he mocks, slanders, distorts, attacks, rejects, and hates whatever lies beyond his own worldview. He does not want to think, because television has taught him to hate thinking. He does not want to ask himself questions, because it is too tiring to do so. He doesn’t want to struggle to go beneath life’s superficiality, because modern culture has made him comfortable as he lives the pampered life of a hungry consumer in a cage of materialism.”
― Dionysios Farasiotis, The Gurus, the Young Man, and Elder Paisios

“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

“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