A shrewd observer, a master psychologist, an accomplished raconteur, Dorotheos is also a learned man with a prodigious capacity for assimiliating in an organized harmony the wisdom of his precedessors in the life of the Spirit. Yet he is far more interested in humbly serving his brethren than in discoursing about the recondite aspects of the hescyhast experience. His genial candor makes him the ideal spiritual master to introduce modern readers to the rich spiritual universe of the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria.