“The more I try to explain the poustinia and the Russian idea of it, the more I find myself floundering. I find it an exceedingly difficult task because what I speak about is so very foreign to the Western mind of today, especially to those on the North American continent. Yet I know that the poustinia is one answer, at least, for this Western culture which depends so much on cerebration and intellectualism, and has a need to sift everything through the mind and examine everything with almost scientific precision.

If there is anything that can help to rectify the defects of such a mentality it is precisely the poustinia experience of the Eastern spirituality. For it is neither Eastern nor Western but simply Christian. It is the eternal hunger of men for God whom they seek, whether they know it or not, as pilgrims of the Absolute.

Every man is a pilgrim on the road of life. Some, and there are more than we know of, are like the poustiniki, truly seeking the Absolute: God!”