I told him: If I understand correctly, this is certainly achieved through asceticism, vigilance, and prayer to Jesus. But allow me to ask a question, because I believe in it, and because I constantly hear objections to this “prayer that brings grace” from people of various backgrounds in our time. They say that the prayer and the way it is performed are nothing but Christian “yoga,” linked to similar models in Eastern religions. What do you say to this?
He replied: It seems that those who make such claims are completely ignorant of the grace-based (charistic) state in our Church. We receive divine grace through prayer, and they have not experienced this state, therefore they do not know. But they should not accuse those with experience. They are blaspheming the Holy Fathers, for many of these Fathers struggled for this prayer, spoke of it and its value with fervor and strength. Did they fall into error? Did St. Gregory Palamas go astray? They are also ignorant of Scripture. The phrase “Son of David, have mercy on us,” which means “Jesus, have mercy on us,” was uttered by blind men who found light, and by lepers who were cleansed of their leprosy, and so on.
The prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” consists of two essential elements: the first is doctrinal—the acknowledgment of Christ’s divinity—and the second is supplicatory—a plea for our salvation. In other words, prayer is a confession of faith in God-Man, linked to our inability to attain salvation on our own. This is what prayer says, and upon these two elements rests the entire Christian struggle: faith in God-Man and an awareness of our fallen state of sin. Prayer expresses, in concise words, the entire endeavor of the believer and summarizes the whole doctrine of our Orthodox Church.
Through prayer, we attain twofold knowledge. Saint Maximus the Confessor says: “The passion of pride is based on two ignorances: ignorance of divine power and ignorance of human weakness. This twofold ignorance creates a confused mind. The proud person, therefore, is a person of ignorance, while the humble person is a person of twofold knowledge, knowing not only their own weakness but also the power of Christ. By praying to Christ, we acknowledge and confess His power: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,” and we also acknowledge and confess our own weakness when we say: ‘Have mercy on me.’ In this way, we attain the blessed state of humility. For where there is humility, there is also the grace of Christ. And this grace is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Do you see, then, the value of prayer and how, through its power, we can attain the Kingdom of God?
“I know, Father, that a necessary condition of Orthodox morality is that we never separate Christ from the two Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. This is why, in the Divine Liturgy, we constantly invoke the Holy Trinity and glorify Him in all our petitions, concluding each with the reason for the request: ”For to You belong all glory, honor, and worship, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever…“ ”The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all,“ etc. Does a prayer addressed only to the second Person of the Holy Trinity deviate from orthodox teaching?”
It is not at all deviant, and I will elaborate on this. The prayer is called the “Jesus Prayer,” but it is based on a Trinitarian concept. Undoubtedly, Christ is “one of the Holy Trinity,” for He cannot exist without the Father and the Holy Spirit, since He and the other two Persons are “a Trinity existing in the same essence and inseparable.” Christology (the study of Christ) is closely linked to the Triads.
Let us return to the subject of prayer. The Father commanded Joseph, through the angel, to name the Messiah Jesus, and so he named him Jesus (Matthew 1:21). Joseph obeyed God's command and named the Virgin's Son "Jesus." The Holy Spirit also enlightened the Apostle Paul, who wrote, "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3). By repeating the prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me," we come to know the Father anew and show Him obedience. Furthermore, we experience the actions of the Holy Spirit and His communion. The Holy Fathers, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, told us, "The Father does all things through the Son in the Holy Spirit." The entire Holy Trinity created the world and made humankind. The Holy Trinity recreated humankind and the world. (The Father was pleased, and the Word became flesh.) (He became flesh through the Holy Spirit.) That is, the Incarnation of Christ was accomplished “by the will of the Father and with the participation of the Holy Spirit in the work.” Therefore, we also say that the salvation of humankind and the attainment of divine graces are a joint work of the Holy Trinity. I will mention two distinctive teachings of the Fathers:
St. Symeon the New Theologian wrote that the Son of God and His Word is the door of salvation, according to His declaration, “I am the door; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will go in and out and find pasture” (John 1:9). If Christ is the door, then the Father is the house, “In my Father’s house are many rooms” (John 14:2). We enter into the presence of the Father through Christ. For the door to be opened, we need the key. The key is the Holy Spirit, for it is through the Holy Spirit that we come to know the truth. And the truth is Christ. The Father sent His Son into the world, and the Son of God and His Word reveals the Father to us. The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and sent through the Son, forms Christ “in our hearts.” Thus, we come to know the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
Saint Maximus the Confessor speaks extensively in his writings about the Word in His mystical incarnations. He wrote in one of his works that “just as the words of the Law and the Prophets preceded the Word’s presence in the flesh, so it happened when the Son of God and His Word became incarnate; through His incarnation, He preceded His spiritual presence…disciplining souls with words appropriate to receiving His glorious divine presence.”.
In other words, Christ must be incarnate within us, and without this we cannot see His glory in heaven. However, the incarnation of Christ within us occurs with the Father's pleasure and the participation of the Holy Spirit in the process.
Have you seen how the common action of the Holy Trinity is expressed and how we come to understand and confess the great mystery, the mystery that the Lord revealed through his incarnation?
Therefore, whoever refuses to pray to Jesus and does not acknowledge Him commits a grave error. He denies the Holy Trinity, disobeys the Father, and does not receive the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. He is therefore not in true communion with Christ and should doubt whether he is an Orthodox Christian.
- I hope, Sheikh, that you will provide me with more explanation and elaborate on what I asked you about previously, namely, what is the difference between prayer and the method of yoga, and that you will show me the virtue of prayer and its superiority over other Eastern religions, since you have, in particular, more experience in this subject.
This topic, my son, is very broad. Much can be said about it. From what I have said, some points become clear.
Firstly: Prayer powerfully expresses faith in God, who created, rules, and loves the world. He is the compassionate Father who cares for the salvation of His creation. Salvation is found "in God." This is why we plead in prayer, saying, "Have mercy on me.".
Self-salvation and self-deification are far removed from the struggle of intellectual prayer, for they were the sins into which Adam fell. He desired to become a god outside the framework God had set for him. Salvation is not achieved "by and from the self," as human systems claim, but rather in God.
secondly: We do not strive in prayer to encounter an impersonal God, for we do not seek to ascend to absolute nothingness. Our prayer is focused on a personal God, Jesus Christ, the God-Man, and therefore we address Him in prayer as “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God.” In Christ, the divine and human natures are united—that is, God the Word and the whole human being (in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily). Therefore, the Orthodox monastic teaching on humanity and salvation is inextricably linked to the teaching on Christ. We love Christ and keep His commandments, and we give this great importance, insisting on fulfilling them. He Himself said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Through our love for Christ and our keeping of His commandments, we are united with the whole Trinity.
Third: Through constant mental prayer, we avoid falling into pride. The systems you mentioned earlier are dominated by pride, but through prayer we attain the blessed state of humility. When we say, “Have mercy on me,” we consider ourselves the worst of all people, and we do not despise any of our brothers and sisters. The one who strives through prayer is free from all forms of pride. But whoever is proud is a fool.
Fourthly: Salvation is not an abstract concept, as we have said, but rather a union with God, the Triune God, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. However, this union does not negate the human element. We are not consumed in God as long as we remain human beings.
خامساً: As we proceed in prayer, we gain the ability to discern deception; we see and recognize the movements of Satan. But at the same time, we also discern the actions of Christ; that is, we clearly recognize the spirit of deception, which often takes the form of an angel of light. Thus, we distinguish between good and evil, between the uncreated and the created.
سادساً: The struggle for prayer is linked to purifying the soul and body from the destructive influence of passions. We do not seek to achieve the apathy of Stoic philosophy, but rather a dynamic apathy. That is to say, we do not aim to kill passion (pathos), but to manifest it (reshape it) or refine it. For without apathetic passion, no one can love God or be saved. But since this love has become corrupted and distorted, we strive for manifestation, we struggle to liberate our image from the distorting and aberrant states that Satan has instigated.
Without this personal struggle, which is accomplished through the grace of Christ, we cannot be saved. As St. Maximus the Confessor says, “Knowledge unaccompanied by action is the theology of demons.”.
سابعاً: Through prayer, we do not seek to lead the mind to the ultimate enemy, but rather to guide it to the heart and to transfer God's grace into the soul, extending it to the body as well. "The kingdom of God is within you," and according to the Church's teaching, the body is not evil, but carnal thinking is. The body is not "the garment of the soul," as some philosophical systems call it; therefore, we must liberate it, not destroy it. Salvation means the salvation of the whole person, body and soul. Therefore, we do not seek to destroy the body, but we resist the worship of the flesh. We do not want to destroy life, nor do we seek to reach a state of apathy towards life where suffering ceases. We practice prayer because we thirst for life and desire to live with God forever.
ثامناً: We are not indifferent to the world around us. The various systems you mentioned avoid thinking about people's problems so that their adherents can preserve their own peace and detachment from emotion. We, however, do the opposite because we pray for everyone; we implore God for the whole world.
And salvation, in a more specific sense, is union with Christ. Therefore, we are in social contact with other people; we cannot be saved alone, and our joy is not true joy if it is confined to ourselves and is not joy for the world as well.
تاسعاً: We do not place great importance on psychological methods, nor do we concern ourselves with the body's various states. We believe that some of these methods can help us focus the mind on the heart, that is, on some aspect of its essence. After using them for this purpose, we immediately abandon them. I reiterate, we do not seek emotional detachment, but rather the attainment of divine grace.
I said: I offer you, Sheikh, my deepest gratitude for these insightful and illuminating ideas, which are of great importance because they come from you, who live by them firsthand. But allow me to ask: Are the other prayers unsuitable? Do they not also help?
Every prayer is great. It is a cry of the soul. Divine help comes in proportion to the faith and fervor of the supplication, whether it be a communal or individual prayer, etc. The "Jesus Prayer" is of great value because, as St. Isaac the Syrian said, it is the small key by which we can access the mysteries "that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived." It gathers the mind and increases its discipline, compelling it to pray with an unimaginable force. I mean that it makes it "devoid of color, quality, and form." It quickly brings abundant grace and brings far more grace than chanting, because it is closely connected to humility and to our certain knowledge of our sins. This is what the Holy Fathers say. St. Gregory of Sinai spoke on the same subject, saying: "Chanting is practically for practitioners and beginners. Prayer is for those who have tasted divine grace, by which I mean the Hesychasts.".
“…But you should not chant too often…for that is distracting…for much chanting is only for the practical ones due to lack of knowledge and fatigue, and not for the hesitant ones who are content “in God” in order to entreat Him in the heart and distance themselves from thoughts…And whoever has tasted grace should chant moderately—according to the teaching of the Fathers—and he should spend most of his time in prayer. But if he is at rest and relaxation, let him chant or study the practical writings that the holy Fathers have written.”.
He added, “Father, chanting often leads to chaos, and even selfishness and pride creep in because of the melodiousness and beauty of the voice, and the impressions it evokes in the listeners. But if the monk recites the prayer in his cell, saying, ”Have mercy on me,“ he is protected from the external factors that give rise to pride. This is why the Hesychasts frequently practice this type of prayer, which our fathers taught us, praying the morning and evening prayers, using the knotted rope and reciting the prayer.”.
But this prayer is very short and very concise. Should the mind be focused during it?
The mind is more attached to short sentences than to anything else. However, prayer has a profound depth that cannot be perceived from the outside. One of the mind's characteristics is that wherever it opens, it penetrates to the depths, and from there it guides desire and love. This is what Saint Maximus the Confessor meant when he said: “The mind is accustomed to expanding upon things it settles upon for a time, and among these things are desire and love. It expands upon them and directs them either towards divine, necessary, and rational matters, or towards matters of the flesh and passions.”.
This is also true of knowledge, but in a more specific way. A single, seemingly simple thing can be the subject of study and research for years. How much more so if that thing is the all-sweet name of Jesus! Undoubtedly, one could study it throughout one's life.
Since this name possesses such power, allow me, Sheikh, to ask you: how is this achieved? And how can one attain its blessings? I know I am bothering you with my questions because you are aware that you are dealing with someone who is ignorant of these matters and has no experience in them. However, I thought to myself that you would be of great help to me.
Prayer, my son, is the greatest knowledge, and no one can explain it precisely or define it completely. For it may be misunderstood, and its meaning will not be grasped by those without the slightest experience. Prayer is also a true struggle and victory. I can say that it is the ultimate form through which we obtain theology (the study of God), or rather, through which we gain a vision of God.
Theology is born of pure and sincere prayer, its blessed harvest and delightful fruit. The serene and utterly sweet nature of the wilderness is the climate in which it grows and is lived through experience, in all its active potential. It is also born of purification from passions.
“Father, I have already read the work of grace, the work of mental stillness, by which I mean the invocation of Jesus’ name. However, now that you have explained its value to me, I wish to learn about it from your personal experience. I do not desire this knowledge merely out of curiosity, but rather I wish to live this blessed state as much as I am able. I hope you will not refuse this request.”.