Pride Excerpt
The phrase 'keep thy mind in hell and despair not' may sound strange or discouraging. Archimandrite Sophrony explains how it instead is an important part of the normal spiritual progression in which pride must be overcome. We also see that knowledge of God, our salvation, is not a purely rational or intellectual process but is instead one of true relationship (from St. Silouan the Athonite, pages 143-144).
Whatever the means he employs, the proud man will never attain to genuine union with God. Just by wishing it, man cannot unite the mind with the deep heart, and even if the mind does somehow penetrate into the heart, it will see only itself, its own created beauty - splendid, undoubtedly, having been created in the Divine image - but God Himself will not be found.
This is why the Blessed Staretz in his striving after humility seized on the fiery weapon given him by God: 'Keep thy mind in hell, and despair not.' Here was no subtle intellectual talking, but a 'simple', and 'ignorant' man who many a time was found worthy of pure contemplation of God, and had, indeed, grounds for saying, 'If you pray purely, you are a theologian.' Or, 'There are many on earth who believe but very few who know God.' By 'knowing God' he meant, not gnostic theories, not theological speculations, but the experience of lively communion, of real union with the Divine Light. Knowledge is co-existence - that is, a sharing of being.