• If you wish to see the blessings which "God has prepared for those who love Him" (I COR 2:9), then take up your abode in the desert of the renunciation of your own will, and flee the world. What world? The world of the lust of the eyes, of your fallen self (I JN 2:16), the presumptuousness of your own thoughts, the deceit of things you can see.

    Niketas Stethatos: If you wish to see the blessings which "God has prepared for those who love Him" (I COR 2:9), then take up your abode in the desert of the renunciation of your own will, and flee the world. What world? The world of the lust of the eyes, of your fallen self (I JN 2:16), the presumptuousness of your own thoughts, the deceit of things you can see.