Pachomius and company had discovered the difference between isolation and solitude. No person who is obsessed with, enclosed within, the false self can be a solitary. The rhythm of solitude and community became indispensable in spiritual formation. In short, it was a life of ego transcending service. Spiritual Vision Seeing without elaboration or exaggeration ensures physical survival in the desert and psychological survival in the inner desert of solitude.
Contemplative vision requires disinterested but loving eyes.
Disinterested because you refuse to make egocentric judgements. Loving vision because whatever is there, no matter how discomforting, can be embraced as an occasion of awe. Nowhere is disinterested love more necessary than between people. Spiritual growth, in community and as individuals, demands seeing what is there. Contemplative vision refuses to waste the energy that goes into spiritual hallucinations.