Chapter 205

On the Same (205)

Placing a wet towel on the chest… — someone among present-day ascetics does this. And wrote to me about it. This does not pertain to the work of prayer itself, but to those cases when the blood of the heart becomes heated through artificial practice of prayer, in order to diminish the heat of blood. This heat is not a spiritual manifestation, but a physical one, and arises from immoderate use of artificial techniques in the Jesus Prayer. Hidden in this as well is the fact that they regard the artificial practice of the Jesus Prayer as the principal work and the physical warmth of the heart accompanying it as the true spiritual prayer of Jesus. Whoever thinks thus is in spiritual delusion.

(Letter 921. Vol. 5, p. 204)