Chapter 82

The Mind Must Be Kept in the Heart

That your mind wanders away—that is not right. You must hold it and bring it into accord with your heart, or enclose it in the heart. Take your attention into the heart and, not going out from there, pray to the Lord as you wish—even without words, with only a turning to God that is contrite and humble. Stay there without leaving. When there is this movement in the heart and you are alone—leave everything and pray, whether sitting or standing, but pray intently there in your heart. So continue until the feeling evaporates. This is written somewhere, it seems, in the Ladder. If this happens when others are present, you must still pray—but you should not make outward displays of your prayer.

Know that attention must never leave the heart. But the work in the heart is sometimes only noetic—accomplished by the mind—and sometimes spiritual, that is, both begun and continued with warm feeling. This is a law not only for hermits, but for all who must present themselves to God with a pure heart and labor before His face—that is, for all Christians. The mind grows tired of speaking the prayer word. Pray then without words—casting yourself before the Lord mentally in your heart and surrendering yourself to Him. This will be prayer itself; words are only its expression, and they are always weaker than prayer itself before God.

(Letter 256. Vol. 2, p. 92)