What is the purpose of prayer? To make a link between prayer and mind, between mind and heart, between the power that thinks and the power that loves. So the mind that descends its awareness into the heart is not an activity of the human being, it is a work of God. What we are doing is that we pray to God for the unity of our own being, the whole being.
When we pray, we are making a house for him (God) in our heart, and when God enters he brings sublime peace with him. Once united to God, we are never alone, and we need never fear anything again. God becomes our protector, the foundation for our whole life.
In the Gospel we say that God is our Father. This is a God who loves us, a God who is himself love. When God himself settles into our being, he makes a house for himself in our heart. He’s hugging us.
Archimandrite Teofil of Brancoveanu Monastery (Romanian Orthodox Church)
Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer by Norris J. Chumley
2011 Harper Collins Publishers
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