A certain brother went to Abba Moses in Scete and asked him to speak a word and the old man said: Go back and sit in your cell and your cell will teach you all things.
There is no doubt that this simple imperative has vast implications. That rather than casting about for advice from others all that is needed is to face one's own genuine state and that that is accomplished only in solitude. It is there that our desires of defining ourselves as static, absolute, and inviolable becomes transformed and a new awareness takes over, namely that who we are is not a firmly established ego. And so our solitude becomes a fiery furnace. The breakthrough comes when we discover that this is no cause for despair.