Chapter 125

On Prostrations and the Quantity of Prayers

If your head prevents you from doing prostrations, pray without them: prostrations are an aid to prayer, not prayer itself. Prayer is what your mind and heart offer to God. Do prostrations rarely. As you pray, sometimes stand, sometimes kneel. If you practice the Jesus Prayer, begin not with 3,000 but with 1,000 or even 500, and then add more. Do not go beyond 3,000—unless need requires. But it is better to fulfill the set number all at once, including at night. During the day, do it intermittently, not counting, to practice that same prayer repeatedly.

(Letter 1337. Vol. 8, p. 92–93)