When you live a contemplative spiritual life, when your spirit is in a state of continual contemplation, your mind is never disturbed by distractions. But when you are living in the midst of the world, you struggle to find a few minutes to contemplate God, and afterwards, you quickly fall back into the patterns and routines of everyday life. The same thing can happen to a monk in a monastery: he too can become caught up in mundane activities and daily routines, just like people living in the world. Such a life is not necessarily sinful; it is simply the way life in the world is.

This is why I have to have a succession of spiritual contemplations in my life. We all h ave a great need for inner spiriutal experiences of God, of revelations given to us directly from God, in such a way that these revelations become something uniquely my own; something that I understand, and which I recognize, and which I wholly possess and “love”. This is what it means for something to be “mine” And in this case, what I live, and possess and understand and feel, is obviously God Himself. In this way, my life becomes bound up with the life of God.

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra Monastery