A most profitable discourse on Sobriety and the Guarding of the Heart

By Nicephorus the solitary

This text by Nicephorus the solitary is perhaps my favorite found in a collection of some of the greatest things ever written about prayer and the Spiritual Life; “Writings from the Philokalia on the Prayer of the Heart”

I will post a link to the entire book for your perusal and edification:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OWTSeIfKIuWaC6cBeEpj2BeY8Iiw267N/view?usp=drivesdk

From the introduction:

“Generally speaking, these writings are a spiritual forcing house, into which the faithful enter with their consciousness and their heart.

By reading instructions concerning the phenomena of spiritual life, we are then subject to the palpable influences of the contemplations thus invoked.”

As I have mentioned elsewhere:

The language of religion and spirituality in general and of Orthodox Christianity in particular has become a 'foreign language' for most people and, as such, has become incomprehensible to most of us.

Besides that, it has been misinterpreted, misunderstood and misrepresented for so long that most of us simply disregard it altogether and end up 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'.

These articles are my attempt to 'translate' this foreign language into something more comprehensible.

I would be interested to see what you think about them.

substack.com/profile/100124894-steven-b…

Thank you!

As I was saying, the language describing the Spiritual Life has, sadly, become a 'foreign language' to most of us in the modern world.

Therefore, I, unworthy as I am, will transcribe herein a few of my favorite quotes from this stunning text with perhaps, a few words of explanation, to the best of my poor and feeble ability.

First of all, and indicative of all the rest, a note on the word, ‘Sobriety’ as it is understood and defined by the Fathers of the Church: Sobriety is to love God, the Creator, more than any created thing.

Drunkenness then, it follows, is to love any created thing more than the Creator. By this definition, most of us, myself included, spend most of our lives stumbling around in a drunken stupor.

The ‘guarding of the heart’ spoken of refers to the scriptural quote, “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” (Mark 14:38)

Let us begin to ‘sober up’ and see things more clearly!

And now, from the text itself:

“You, who desire to capture the wondrous Divine illumination of our Saviour Jesus Christ-who seek to feel the Divine fire in your heart-who strive to sense the experience and feeling of reconciliation with God-who, in order to unearth the treasure buried in the field of your hearts and to gain possession of it, have renounced everything worldly- who desire the candles of your soul to burn brightly even now, and who, for this purpose, have renounced all this world -who wish by conscious experience to know and to receive the kingdom of heaven existing within you-come and I will impart to you the science of eternal heavenly life or, rather, the method leading him who practises it, without labour or sweat, into the harbour of passionlessness, freeing him from the fear of prelest or of defeat by the wiles of the devil.

Such fear is proper only when through our transgression, the circle of our life revolves far outside the life of which I intend to teach you. For then it happens to us as to Adam; associating with the serpent, he disregarded God's commandment; trusting the serpent's counsel, he tasted of the forbidden fruit and was utterly filled with prelest. Thus to our sorrow he plunged himself and all after him into the depths of death, darkness and corruption.”

Gee, I love that kind of talk!

In the original text, there are two footnotes of interest which we ought to examine more closely:

The first, referencing the word, “world”, in this portion of this sentence, “and who, for this purpose, have renounced all this world…”, states:

“here translated 'the world', means literally 'actual'; in this context it means the apparent reality of the world of the senses, the passions and the discursive reason.”

In other words, the ‘world' here signifies not only the three dimensional world that appears to us via our five senses, but a way of thinking about the world we perceive; of seeing it and the brief span of our lives between birth and death as the ‘Be-All and End-All' of our life, within which all of our desires must be confined.

Furthermore, in the language of the Church, we Human Beings are consistently confronted with three common enemies whose purpose is to discover in which direction our free will tends, the world, the flesh and the devil.

All three of these were originally created to be good, for a good purpose, but changed in their relationship to us after the fall of both, Angels and Men.

The world was good, but only meant to be a temporary framework, a place to grow beyond into a less limited framework, a ‘stepping off place’ into another kind of reality altogether.

It is only after the fall of Man that the world begins to be seen as the Be-All and End-All of all of our hopes and dreams. Only then does it become an ‘enemy’ and an obstacle to the realization of the fullness of our being.

Likewise, the flesh was originally intended to be good and it's appetites leading quite naturally to our health and well being. It is only after the fall that the appetites of the flesh become disordered and tend toward a passionate, self destructive over-indulgence and hence, an enemy.

Even the ‘Devil’ was originally created to be good, an Archangel, Lucifer, the bringer of light, who, only after his own fall from grace, along with a third of the lesser angels under his authority, who became the fallen angels; then changed their relationship to us.

Their entire reason for being now seems to be to tempt us to turn aside from the good that God intends for us.

The second footnote is closely related to the first. The word, “Prelest”, in the portion of the sentence which reads:

“…the method leading him who practises it, without labour or sweat, into the harbour of passionlessness, freeing him from the fear of prelest…”

There is no precise word in the English language to define the word Prelest, (probably because most of Western Civilization is caught up in Prelest…) The nearest English equivalent seems to be 'beguilement', as in, 'The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat'. [Genesis 3:13)

But the meaning of prelest is both wider and more technical.

The word in Greek literally means 'wandering' or 'going astray '. Prelest is the resulting state in the soul which wanders away from Truth.

If we may paraphrase Bishop Ignatius Brianchininov (d. 1867), we could define prelest as, ‘the corruption of human nature through the acceptance by man of mirages mistaken for truth’. We are all in prelest to one extent or another and there is nothing more dangerous for ourselves than to mistake a mirage for the real thing and to act on it accordingly.

“So let us return to ourselves, brothers, and be filled with disgust and hatred for the counsel of the serpent and of all that crawls on the ground; for it is impossible for us to become reconciled and united with God, if we do not first return to ourselves, as far as it lies in our power, or if we do not enter within ourselves, tearing ourselves-what a wonder it is!-from the whirl of the world with its multitudinous vain cares and striving constantly to keep attention on the kingdom of heaven which is within.”

The author continues by giving some examples from the lives of the Saints and the writings of those who practiced the kind of prayer that he is describing. Before copying out a few of those, let's pause for a moment for a short biographical sketch of the author himself.

First of all, the name, “Nicephorus” in Greek means, “Bringer of Victory”, which is highly significant in itself considering the topic of which he is writing about. And then, ‘the solitary’, which is simply another term for the word, ‘monk’ which literally means, ‘to be alone with God’ and ‘to be dependent upon God for everything ‘.

We, on the other hand and for the most part, are dependent upon each other and upon various created things for everything, our safety, security, our sustenance, our health, happiness, well being, peace of mind, etc.

A true monastic strives to get all of this and more, directly from the Creator. This is ultimately what this text is really all about, to demonstrate for us the way in which we can accomplish this.

His biography continues thusly:

“Our holy father Nicephorus lived a life of spiritual endeavour on the holy Mount Athos and died a little before the year A.D. 1340.

He was teacher and guide to Gregory Palamas in the study of the way of training in the higher love of wisdom, as his pupil himself testifies.

In silence, undisturbed by worldly cares, he kept attention within himself alone and, reaching indescribable inner union with God Eternal, he received in his heart the blessed illumination of Divine grace.

Himself enriched by this Divine gift, he is like a father guiding us by his writings towards the same goal. He collected from the books and lives of the holy fathers passages on sobriety, attention and prayer, and finally added advice derived from his own experience. Therein he invites all to ascend to the most perfect communion with the Lord through prayer of the mind in the heart.”

Mt Athos is located on a peninsula in northeastern Greece. Tradition has it that, after the Lord, during his Crucifixion, entrusted his mother to the care of his disciple John, (John 19:26-27), the two of them while sailing from Joppa to Cyprus to visit Lazarus -the three days dead, who had traveled to there, where he was evangelizing, were blown off course and ended up on the peninsula where Athos is located.

The Virgin walked ashore and, overwhelmed by the wonderful and wild natural beauty of the mountain, she blessed it and asked her Son for it to be her garden. A voice was heard saying, "Let this place be your inheritance and your garden, a paradise and a haven of salvation for those seeking to be saved". Subsequently, there have been hermits and monastics living there in monasteries since the third century.

It is in the libraries of these monasteries where the various writings on prayer and the spiritual life were kept, that the ‘Philokalia’ was compiled from and where the text we are examining together is to be found.

The St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) mentioned in this biography as one whom St Nicephorus taught and guided, is one of the preeminent practitioners, proponents and defendants of the Prayer of the Heart for the Eastern Orthodox Church.

In his book, ‘The Triads’, he elucidates not only the philosophy, but the practice of this type of prayer itself.

The beginning of prayer, he states, is to ‘round up our scattered attention, collect it within ourselves and lead it down into the place of the heart ‘. We will come back to this later.

By mentioning him, his biographer highlights the benefit of having an experienced guide while learning how to pray.

It is not enough to simply read the texts on some idiots substack. Each of us is an entirely unique individual whom an experienced elder can guide through the intricacies of our unique personality, helping us to avoid our own personal pitfalls, into a genuine life of prayer.

Let us continue with a few of the examples St Nicephorus gives from the lives and writings of the Saints who practiced this specific type of prayer.

From the life of our holy father Antony:

Once two brothers were on their way to St. Antony, and when all their water was gone, one died and the other was near to dying. Having no strength to go on, he lay on the ground and awaited death.

Meanwhile St. Antony, seated on a mountain, called the monks who happened to be with him and told them: ‘Take a jar of water and run along the road towards Egypt. There, there are two men who were coming here; one of them is already dead, and the other too will die unless you hurry.

This I saw when I was at prayer.'

Coming to the spot, the monks indeed found one man dead and they buried him ; the other they revived with the water and brought him to the staretz. The distance was a day's walk.

If anyone were to ask why St. Antony did not send them earlier, before the first one died, it would be an ill judged question. Allowing the first brother to die was the business not of Antony but of God, Who gave this decision for the first and sent a revelation to Antony about the second.

To St. Antony belongs only the miraculous deed that, seated on a mountain, he was sufficiently sober in heart to be found worthy for the Lord to reveal to him that which was a great distance from him.

You see that, through sobriety of the heart, St. Antony was given divine vision and clairvoyance.

For, according to the words of St John of the Ladder, “God appears to the mind in the heart, at first as a flame purifying its lover, and then as a light which illumines the mind and renders it God-like.”

More from St. John of the Ladder:

“A hesychast is he who being without body strives to retain his soul within the bounds of its bodily home. A rare and wonderful feat. A hesychast is he who says: "I sleep but my heart waketh" (Song of Songs v. 2).

“Close the door of your cell to the body, the door of your lips to conversation, and the inner door of the soul to evil spirits”

“Sitting on high, observe, if only you know the art, and you will see how and when and whence, how many and what kind of robbers are trying to enter to steal the grapes.”

“Just as thieves, when they see the king's weapons lying ready somewhere, do not attack that place carelessly, so he who has joined prayer to the heart is not easily despoiled by mental robbers.”

The Lord Himself says two things which are relevant here. Firstly:

“…when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” (Matthew 6:6)

And secondly:

“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation…” (Matthew 26:41)

St John of the Ladder is speaking specifically of this kind of watchfulness when he says, “Sitting on high, observe, if only you know the art, and you will see how and when and whence, how many and what kind of robbers are trying to enter to steal the grapes.”

The goal of the Prayer of the Heart is to fulfill the Apostle Paul’s admonition to, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), these are the ‘grapes’ that St John speaks of.

The ‘robbers’ are the multiform distractions and various temptations that try to take us away from our prayer.

The watchfulness and guarding of the heart is rightly called the ‘struggle with thoughts’ because, especially at first, when we attempt to pray, we are besieged by a multitude of distracting thoughts. These come from various sources which, with experience, we learn to recognize.

First of all, there are those which arise from the avenue of our five senses, (which is why, especially at first, we are advised to ‘go into our closet' in order to pray in secret - stillness, quiet and an atmosphere of seclusion is most beneficial when beginning to learn the Art of Prayer.)

Then, in conjunction with the impressions coming to us from our senses, although often independently, come distractions from our memory and our imagination. These, if we entertain or enter into ‘conversation’ with them, often lead to temptations that we then seek ways to carry out.

These thoughts usually come very subtly so as not to be noticed right away. Sometimes however, they come quite suddenly and violently, trying to compel us to adopt and act on them before we have an opportunity to examine them more closely.

Thoughts of this nature, in particular, are often suggested to us by the fallen angels whose only desire is to take us away from our prayer, to ‘steal the grapes’ from us and, if at all possible, to destroy our spiritual life altogether.

“The main concern of patristic asceticism is not with external manifestations of sin, nor individual instances of sin, but rather with their cause, i.e., the vices and passions rooted in the soul, or diseases of the soul and hidden inner states of sin.

A thought is the initial moment in the emergence of a passion.

The essence of asceticism amounts to the struggle with thoughts.”

Our thoughts determine our lives.

“The Holy Fathers discern a specific number of moments in the development and growth of passions:

This and the following quotations from, “The Acquisition of the Holy Spirit” by professor I. M. Konsevitch, describes further this sequence:

1. PROVOCATION (SUGGESTION)

The first impetus to the emergence of the psychological phenomenon which may end as passion is known as a "provocation" or "suggestion".

It is a conception of an object or an action corresponding to one of the stained inclinations within a person.

Under the influence of external impressions, or in connection with the psychological working of the memory or imagination according to the laws of association, this provocation enters the sphere of man's consciousness.

This first moment takes place independently of man's free will, against his wish, without his participation, in accordance with the laws of psychological inevitability—"spontaneity"—and is, therefore, considered "innocent" or dispassionate.

It does not incriminate man in sin if it is not caused by his "wandering" thoughts, if it is not invited consciously and voluntarily, and if a person is not negligent about it.

This is the touchstone for testing our will, to see whether it will be inclined towards virtue or vice. It is in this choice that the free will of man manifests itself.

2. CONJUNCTION

Provocation evokes the response of the feeling, which reacts to the impression or image intruding upon the consciousness by either "love" or "hate" (sympathy or antipathy).

This is the most important moment, for it decides the fate of the provoking thought: will it stay, or will it flee?

It is only the emergence of this thought in the consciousness that occurs regardless of the will of man.

If it is not immediately rejected and lingers on, this means that in the nature of a given person it finds compatible ground, which is expressed in his sympathetic reaction to the provocation.

Sympathetic inclination attracts attention, allowing the suggested thought to grow and turn into an image of fantasy pervading the entire sphere of consciousness and ousting all other impressions and thoughts.

Attention lingers at the thought because man delights in it. This second moment is called conversation or conjunction.

St. Ephraim the Syrian defines it as a "free acceptance of the thought, its entertainment, as it were, and a conversation with it accompanied by delight."

In the contemporary language of psychology this means that the second moment in the development of the thought lies in the following man's attention is directed exclusively to the newly arisen impression or notion, which serves as an impetus or cause for the development of a whole series of associated notions.

These notions give man the feeling of pleasure while anticipating the enjoyment of the object of the impression or notion obtained.

In order to cut off the sequence of notions, to remove it from his consciousness, and to terminate the feeling of delight, man needs to distract his attention. He must actively and firmly resolve to rebut the images of sin assailing him and not return to them again.

3. JOINING

Otherwise, with the absence of willful rejection of the intruding images, the third moment is induced, when the will itself becomes increasingly attracted to the thought, and as a result man becomes inclined to act upon what the thought tells him and to get the satisfaction of partaking of it.

At this time the equilibrium of his spiritual life is totally destroyed, the soul wholly surrenders itself to the thought and strives to realize it with the purpose of experiencing an even more intense delight.

Thus, the third moment is characterized by the inclination of will towards the object of the thought, by its agreement and resolve to realize pleasurable fantasies.

Consequently, in the third moment the whole will surrenders to the thought and now acts according to its directives in order to realize its fantastic plans.

This moment, called joining, is the cooperation of the will, which is a declaration of agreement with the passion whispered by the thought, or consent of the soul to what has been presented to it by the thought, accompanied by delight.

This state is already "approaching the act of sin and is akin to it" (St. Ephraim the Syrian).

There comes the willful resolve to attain the realization of the object of the passionate thought by all means available to man. In principle, the decision has already been made to satisfy the passion.

Sin has already been committed in intention. It now remains to satisfy the sinful desire, turning it into a concrete act.

4. STRUGGLE

Sometimes, however, before man's final decision to proceed to this last moment, or even after such a decision, he experiences a struggle between the sinful desire and the opposite inclination of his nature.

5. HABIT

However, the last psychological moment of an unstable vacillation of the will between opposing inclinations takes place only when the habit has not yet been formed within the soul, namely, the "bad habit" of responding to the evil thought.

It takes place when a sinful inclination has not yet deeply penetrated man's nature and become a constant feature of his character, a familiar element of his disposition, when his mind is constantly preoccupied with the object of the passionate urge, when the passion itself has not yet been completely formed.

6. CAPTIVITY

When in the power of passion, man gladly and violently rushes to satisfy this passion, either without any struggle at all, or almost without a struggle.

He is losing the dominant, guiding and controlling power of his volitional faculty over individual inclinations and demands of volitional nature.

It is no longer the will that rules over sinful inclinations, but the latter rule over the will, forcibly and wholly enticing the soul, compelling its entire rational and active energy to concentrate on the object of passion.

This state is called captivity.

This is the moment of the complete development of a passion, of the fully established state of the soul, which now manifests all of its energy to the utmost to carry out the thought that has been suggested to it.”

"The best and the most successful struggle takes place when the thought is cut off by means of an unceasing prayer at the very start. For, as the Fathers have said, whoever opposes the initial thought, i.e., the provocation, will stop its subsequent disposition at once.

At the time of prayer, above all else, one's intellect should be rendered deaf and mute (St. Nilus of Sinai), and one's heart emptied of any thoughts, even a seemingly good thought (St. Hesychius of Jerusalem). Experience has shown that the admission of a dispassionate thought, i.e., a distraction, is followed by an impassioned one, and that the entry of the first opens the door to the latter."

As far as the struggle with thoughts, distractions and temptations during prayer is concerned, the most successful way to deal with them is to cut them off immediately, as soon as we notice them and to return to our prayer at once.

There are numerous Scriptural passages which refer to this practice of ‘cutting off the initial thought’ before it leads to actual sin, but perhaps this particular analogy describes it best:

“It is written, Smack the camel's nose as soon as it appears in the flap of one's tent before you have the whole camel in the tent with you.”

From St. lsaac of Syria:

“Try to enter your inner treasure-house and you will see the treasure-house of heaven. For both the one and the other are the same, and one and the same entrance reveals them both.

The ladder leading to the kingdom is concealed within you, that is, in your soul. Wash yourself from sin and you will see the rungs of the ladder by which you can ascend thither.”

These are just a few of the quotes cited by St Nicephorus in the original text. I highly recommend reading all of them, all of which are most salutary.

Finally, St Nicephorus concludes with precise instructions from his own experience on how to pray:

“ In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ who has said: 'Without me ye can do nothing' (John 15:5).

Having called Him to help and assist me, I shall try as far as is in my power to show you what attention is and how, God willing, one can succeed in acquiring it.

Some of the saints have called attention the safe-keeping of the mind, others-the guarding of the heart, yet others-sobriety, yet others-mental silence, and others again by other names.

Attention is a sign of sincere repentance. Attention is the appeal of the soul to itself, hatred of the world and ascent towards God.

Attention is renunciation of sin and acquisition of virtue.

Attention is an undoubting certainty of the remission of sins. Attention is the beginning of contemplation, or rather its necessary condition: for, through attention, God comes close and reveals Himself to the mind.

Attention is serenity of the mind, or rather its standing firmly planted and not wandering, through the gift of God's mercy. Attention means cutting off thoughts, it is the abode of remembrance of God and the treasure-house of the power to endure all that may come.

Therefore attention is the origin of faith, hope and love; since he who has no faith cannot bear all the afflictions coming from without, and he who does not suffer them willingly cannot say: 'He is my refuge and my fortress' (Psalm 91:2); and he who has not the Almighty as his refuge cannot be truly sincere in his love for Him.

This greatest of all great doings can be gained by many, or even by all, mostly by being taught.

A few men receive this gift from God without being taught, working from inner compulsion and the warmth of their faith. But what is rare is not the law.

Therefore it is necessary to seek a teacher who is not himself in error, to follow his instructions, and so learn to distinguish, in the matter of attention, defects and excesses of right and of the left, encountered through diabolical suggestion.

From his own sufferings from temptation he will explain to us what is needful and will show us correctly that mental path which we can then follow with less hindrance.

If there is no such teacher in view, one must search for one, sparing no efforts.

But if, even after such a search, they are not to be found, then, with a contrite spirit, calling to God with tears and praying to Him assiduously and with humility, do what I shall tell you.

You know that our breathing is the inhaling and exhaling of air. The organ which serves for this is the lungs which lie round the heart, so that the air passing through them thereby envelops the heart. Thus breathing is a natural way to the heart.

And so, having collected your mind within you, lead it into the channel of breathing through which air reaches the heart and, together with this inhaled air, force your mind to descend into the heart and to remain there.

Accustom it, brother, not to come out of the heart too soon, for at first it feels very lonely in that inner seclusion and imprisonment.

But when it gets accustomed to it, it begins on the contrary to dislike its aimless circling outside, for it is no longer unpleasant and wearisome for it to be within.

Just as a man who has been away from home, when he returns is beside himself with joy at seeing again his children and wife, embraces them and cannot talk to them enough, so the mind, when it unites with the heart, is filled with unspeakable joy and delight.

Then a man sees that the kingdom of heaven is truly within us; and seeing it now in himself, he strives with pure prayer to keep it and strengthen it there, and regards everything external as not worthy of attention and wholly unattractive.

When you thus enter into the place of the heart, as I have shown you, give thanks to God and, praising His mercy, keep always to this doing, and it will teach you things which in no other way will you ever learn.

Moreover you should know that when your mind becomes firmly established in the heart, it must not remain there silent and idle, but it should constantly repeat the prayer: 'Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ and never cease.”

The word, ‘Sin’ here means, ‘to miss the mark', as in archery. In archery, the mark is the bullseye in the center of the target. For an Orthodox Christian, the mark is to be restored entirely to our Original Blessed State, to regain our lost likeness to God and to be rendered God-like, as we were originally intended to be.

“For this practice, (saying the Jesus Prayer from the depths of our heart), keeping the mind from dreams, renders it elusive and impenetrable to enemy suggestions and every day leads it more and more to love and longing for God.”

St Nicephorus and the other hesychasts, with experience in the doing of the Prayer of the Heart, have learned that, even if it is great accomplishment to tear ourselves away from our usual distracted state and to attain to some degree of concentration and attention, of stillness and a quiet mind, that we need to add prayer to our quiet state of watchfulness:

“Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation” (Mark 14:38)

If nature abhors a vacuum, the demons love one and are quick to fill it with their suggestions.

“If you do this with strong desire and attention, full of sweetness, a whole host of virtues will come to you: love, joy, peace and others, through which, later, every petition of yours will be answered in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, to Whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, is glory, and power, honour and worship, now and always, and for ever and ever. Amen.”

St Theophan the Recluse, (1815–1894) a well-known monk and saint in the Orthodox Church, said,

“The principal thing is to stand before God with the mind in the heart and to go on standing before him unceasingly day and night until the end of life.”

The ‘Jesus Prayer' is the practical means of accomplishing what the Apostle Paul admonishes us to do in 1st Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 17, when he tells us to, ‘Pray without ceasing’.

It is not so much, the words of the Jesus Prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’, (although, these particular words, with their roots in the Holy Scriptures, are perhaps the clearest expression of whom we are addressing, the one thing needful that we are asking for, along with why exactly we are asking, and does possess a certain efficacy when repeated with concentration, attention and understanding), but it is the awareness of ourselves as being in the presence of the God to whom we are addressing our prayer, which is the primary prerequisite for prayer of any kind.

The words are simply a means of keeping ourselves centered in the marriage of the mind in the heart, of our awareness that God sees the heart, that He is mindful of us, that He is present with us, that we are in His presence where we are being nourished and where all of our needs are being met…

Whichever words we may use or may be paying attention to during the Divine services, their purpose is to keep us focused on God and to bring our minds back into the place of the heart and the presence of God found there, when our mind wanders, which it is in the habit of doing.

If we were able to simply and wordlessly rest there in the presence of God, that is where real communion with God takes place, where the deepest form of prayer takes place, where the true ceaseless prayer happens, where the Holy Spirit can, ‘teach us all things and bring all things to our remembrance’. (John 14:26)

We are in the habit of looking outward towards created things for nourishment and to have our needs met. Ceaseless prayer is the reorientation of our priorities from without to within, from created things back to the Creator and as such is the truest expression of repentance.

St Nicephorus suggests using our breathing as a pathway to the heart and many of the Fathers recommend synchronizing the prayer with our breath - while inhaling, slowly: “Lord Jesus, son of God” - hold the breath slightly and then, on the exhale: “have mercy on me, a sinner!” - repeat with each breath. Eventually, by the grace of God, the prayer becomes self-active and takes no effort on our part to continue.

I have found a perhaps unusual manner of finding the place of the heart and that is to imagine that I am stabbing myself in the heart with a knife and the point at which the tip of the knife would pierce my skin is where I lead my mind down to and there, I focus my attention, while imagining a microphone that I am speaking into that goes directly to God.

Then, while repeating the words of the prayer, I keep in mind the meaning of the words of the prayer and the meaning of how the words are combined - Lord. Jesus Christ. Son of God. Have mercy on me. A sinner.

Sin here, referencing whatever particular sins I may have committed that my conscience has convicted me of, and my general state of having ‘missed the Mark' of regaining entirely my lost ‘likeness' to God that I am suffering from and its consequences.

While saying the word, ‘me’, I keep in mind, not only my own sins, but whomever else I am praying for and whichever situations that I have in mind. And besides these particular people and situations, this ‘me’ includes everyone who has ever been or will be and every ‘situation’ that ever was or will be.

In this way The Prayer becomes entirely comprehensive.

Once we have rounded up our scattered attention, concentrated it into one point and led our mind down into the place of the heart, then St Nicephorus gives what is perhaps the most significant and difficult instruction to follow, especially at the beginning:

“Don't come out of the place of the heart too soon.”

It may take years to find ‘the place of the heart’ and to be able to remain there without being ‘kicked out’ almost immediately by our presentiments and preoccupations.

Although God is Omniscient, is everywhere present and fills all things, knowing everything, intimately from within, He pays particular notice to what goes on in our heart.

If our body is the temple of God, then our heart is the Altar upon which we place whatever it is that we worship.

God sees the heart and, if He finds us looking back at Himself, being aware that we are in His presence and asking for things needful for Salvation, He answers our petitions.

If on the other hand, he sees our heart preoccupied with worldly things, or worse, He allows the natural consequences of what he sees in our hearts to come to pass in order, hopefully, to wake us up and sober us up from our drunkenness.

In the words of St Macarius the great:

"The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet there also are dragons and there are lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. And there are rough and uneven roads; there are precipices. But there is also God, also the angels, the life and the kingdom, the light and the Apostles, the treasures of grace - there are all things there.”

The Orthodox Christian Way of Life is an ongoing process of Purification Illumination and Deification which re-orients and reintegrates our entirely unique individual sense of self into a greater whole which is meant to be the ground of our being. Prayer is one of the elements of this Way of Life.

The only way to proceed and to make any progress in the Art of Prayer is to make use of the technique mentioned earlier, to watch our thoughts attentively, to cut off any other thoughts as soon as we become aware of them and to return to the prayer, as often and as many times as is necessary.

It is only through consistent practice and by the grace of God that the prayer and the prayerful state it engenders can be firmly established in us.

Enclose one's mind in the words of the prayer, concentrate on their meaning and on really meaning them for oneself.

Do not allow any other thoughts to intrude on your prayer while you are praying, even if they are ‘good' thoughts. ‘Bad’ thoughts and evil suggestions invariably hide behind and follow in after ‘good' thoughts, and even if they don't, we are no longer praying, but ‘thinking about things’ as usual instead.

We have to continually bring our mind back and enclose it in the words of the prayer and eventually, by the grace of God, our mind will become stabilized in the prayer and in prayer itself. Then the prayer has the potential to become ‘self active’ and firmly established in a the heart and begin to bear fruit.

And what is this fruit of prayer that we are seeking? It is exactly what the Lord Himself has told us comes to us if we have faith:

“…for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and NOTHING shall be impossible unto you.” (Matthew 17:20)

The fruit of prayer is an indescribable union with God without confusion, where God shares freely with us everything he is and everything he has: Light, Life, Love, Knowledge, Wisdom, Power and abilities far beyond our present comprehension, while at the same time allowing and enabling us to retain our own entirely unique and individual sense of self.

This is the end product that God desires for us above all else, and with it a new kind of reality altogether where whatever we Intend comes into being instantaneously, in complete balance and harmony with All-That-Is, so that where he is, we may be also.

“And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one…” (John 17:22-23)

Of the many names for this kind of prayer, the one that is perhaps the most interesting and significant is, ‘Doing’.

Very often you will hear hesychast fathers described as being very proficient in ‘Doing'.

At first I couldn't understand where this particular name for the Prayer of the Heart came from and then one day it dawned on me - One can spend a lot of time reading about prayer, or thinking about prayer, or talking about prayer or writing about prayer but until we actually DO it, actually begin to pray, it can't have much of a beneficial effect on us!

A final caveat: To be truly successful in this type of prayer, to make real progress in it, as mentioned above, not only is it necessary to have an experienced guide, but these writings and their instructions, when they were originally given, it was understood at that time, that they would be practiced within the context of the entire Orthodox Christian Way of Life, including in particular the reception of the Divine Sacraments, which work together synergistically with the prayer to produce the desired results.

To attempt to take up this practice outside the ‘Saving Enclosure' of the Orthodox Church is not only ineffective in general, but can be dangerous and harmful as well.

Having finished with my project here of making this text available and, I hope somewhat more understandable, after answering any further questions that my many readers may have, I will say Adios to this ‘Substack’, take my own advice and go into seclusion.

Thank you in advance for all of your kindness towards me and may God Bless and Save you. Amen.