Answers of the Great Masters of the Spiritual Life to the Questions of Their Disciples.

Disciple: What is the beginning of the spiritual life?

Master: You must apply your mind in meditating on God's Words day and night and practice patience.  

Disciple: What is the role of patience?

Master: Patience makes one desire more the Word of God. So, patience and the Word of God build up the spiritual edifice.

Disciple: And, to do this effectively, we have to leave the world behind?

Master: Without leaving the world, no one is able to draw near to God.

Disciple: What do you mean by leaving the world?

Master: It simply means setting aside the affairs and business that pertain to the body.

Disciple: But what is wrong with the affairs and business that pertain to the body?

Master: If you don't leave them behind, they will occupy your senses and the mind and heart cannot stop imagining them, thus preventing the entrance of holy thoughts about heaven.

Disciple: And...?

Master: It is the desert and solitude that quiets the senses and the mind of all worldliness.

St. Isaac of Nineveh, 660 A.D.

(09-28-02)