The Essence of the Jesus Prayer is in Meditation on God
You ask about the Jesus Prayer? Read the books. Everything is written there. My thought about it is this.
The prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me” is a verbal prayer, like any other. In itself it has nothing special, but takes all its power from the disposition with which one performs it.
All the practices spoken of (sitting, bowing…) or the artistic performance of this prayer are not suitable for all and without a living teacher are dangerous. It is better not to take them up at all. One practice is universally obligatory: to stand with attention in the heart. Everything else is extraneous addition that does not lead to the work.
Concerning the fruits of this prayer they say that there is nothing greater than this in all the world. Unlawfully. They have found a talisman! None of the fruits belong to the verbal composition and recitation of the prayer itself. All fruits can be obtained even without this prayer, and even without any verbal prayer—through the mind and heart being turned toward God alone.
The heart of the matter is to establish yourself in the remembrance of God, or to walk in the presence of God. You can tell anyone: “Do as you wish, but achieve this one thing. Whether you pray the Jesus Prayer, or bow down, or go to church – do whatever you want, just achieve the state of always being in the remembrance of God.” I remember meeting a man in Kyiv who said: “I used no methods, and I did not know the Jesus Prayer, yet everything that is written here, was and is. But how – I do not know myself. God gave it!”
That gift from God – or which will be given – you must keep as your goal, so as not to confuse self-made effort with the gift of grace.
The skillful practice of the Jesus Prayer, reciting it simply with attention in the heart, or walking in the remembrance of God, are our labor and in themselves bear their own natural, non-grace fruit. This fruit is: the gathering of thoughts, reverence and fear of God, remembrance of death, calming of thoughts, and a certain warmth of the heart. All this is the natural fruit of inner prayer. You must remember this well, so as not to boast to yourself and not to show off to others.
While we have only natural fruits, we are not worth a cent in the essence of the matter and in God’s judgment. We have value when grace comes. For when it comes, it means God has looked upon us with a merciful eye. But as long as it does not come, whatever we do, however great the labors we bear, it means we are worthless persons upon whom God does not even deign to look.
I cannot tell you exactly how grace manifests its action; but it is certain that it cannot come before all the fruits of inner prayer that are indicated above appear.
The word inner prayer came to me by chance. But it expresses the matter very well. And it should be placed where people have been saying: the Jesus Prayer. They say: “Acquire the Jesus Prayer,” that is, inner prayer. The Jesus Prayer is a good means toward inner prayer, but in itself it is not inner prayer, but outer prayer. Those who acquire it do well. But if they stop at it alone and do not go further, they stop halfway.
I read in the rules of St. Antony and in many others: “Learn the psalms and, whether you go somewhere or sit at work, read them.” This means they then recited the psalms, reflected, and developed inner prayer within themselves. Now people say: “Whatever you do, pray the Jesus Prayer – and you will attain the same.” But meditation on God is still necessary during the Jesus Prayer; otherwise it is dry food. It is good to have the name of Jesus fixed on your tongue. But one can at the same time forget the Lord entirely, and even harbor thoughts opposed to Him. Therefore, everything depends on a conscious and free turning toward God and on the labor of maintaining yourself in this with discernment.[1]
(Letter 12, vol. 1, pp. 17–19)