Глава 2. Откуда эта Божественная умная молитва имеет начало, и какие свидетельства Богоносные отцы приводят о ней из Священного Писания

Before indicating where this Divine prayer has its very first beginning, it is necessary to offer the following for your information: let it be known that according to the writings of our holy and God-bearing fathers, there are two mental prayers: one of beginners, belonging to action, and the other perfect, belonging to vision; that one is the beginning, and that one is the end, because action is the ascent of vision. You should know that according to Saint Gregory of Sinai, there are eight first visions, which, when counting, he says: “We say that there are eight first visions. The first is the vision of God, formless, beginningless and uncreated, the cause of everything, the one Trinity and the all-essential Divinity. The second is the rank and structure of the intelligent forces. The third is the dispensation of sensual creatures. The fourth is the watchful condescension of the Word. Fifth - general resurrection. The sixth is the second and terrible coming of Christ. The seventh is eternal torment. Eighth – the Kingdom of Heaven, which has no end.” Having proposed this, I inform you, according to the thinness of my weak mind, in what strength the action and vision should be understood. Let it be known (I speak to simple ones like me) that the entire monastic feat, which, with the help of God, would force someone to love one’s neighbor and God, to meekness, humility and patience, and to all the other God’s and patristic commandments, to complete obedience by soul and body according to God, to fasting, vigil, tears, prostrations and other fatigues of the body, to diligently perform church and cell rule, to the smart secret exercise of prayer, to crying and thinking about death: all such feat, while the mind is still controlled by human autocracy and will, is reliably called an act: but not a vision. If such a mental feat of prayer were called vision somewhere in the writings of the holy fathers, then this is in common parlance, because the mind, like the spiritual eye, is called vision. When someone, with God's help and the above-mentioned feat, and most of all with the deepest humility, cleanses his soul and heart from all filthiness of mental and physical passions: then the grace of God, the common mother of all, taking the mind, purified by it, like a little child by the hand, leads him, as if by steps, to the above-mentioned spiritual visions, revealing to him, as he is purified, ineffable and incomprehensible to the mind Divine secrets. And this is truly called true spiritual vision, which is visual, or, according to St. Isaac, pure prayer, from which comes horror and vision. But no one can enter into these visions by his own arbitrary deed, unless God visits someone and leads him into them by His grace. If anyone, without the light of grace, dares to ascend to such visions: according to Saint Gregory of Sinai, let him know that he is imagining dreams, not visions, dreaming and dreaming with a dreamy spirit (Grig. Sin. ch. 130). This is the reasoning about active and visual prayer. But it is time to show where Divine mental prayer has its beginning. Let it be known that, according to the unfalse testimony of our God-wise, reverend and God-bearing Father Nile, a faster of Sinai, even in paradise, God Himself gave to the first-created man intelligent Divine prayer, befitting the perfect. Saint Nile, teaching those who prayed diligently to courageously preserve the fruit of prayer so that their work is not in vain, says this: “Having prayed as you should, expect what you should not, and become courageous, preserving your fruit. After all, this is what you were assigned to do from the beginning: to do and preserve. Therefore, having done, do not leave the work unrestricted: otherwise you will not receive any benefit from prayer” (chapter 49). Explaining these words, the Russian luminary, the Venerable Nile the Hermit of Sorsky, who shone like the sun in Great Russia with the intelligent practice of prayer, as is clear from his God-Wise Book, says this: “This saint brought this from ancient times: to do and preserve, because the Scripture says that God, having created Adam, placed him in paradise to make and preserve paradise. And here St. Nile of Sinai called prayer a heavenly deed, and protection from evil thoughts through prayer.” Also, the Monk Dorotheos says that the primordial man, placed by God in paradise, remained in prayer, as he writes in his first teaching. From these testimonies it is clear that God, having created man in His image and likeness, introduced him into the paradise of sweetness, to make immortal gardens, that is, Divine thoughts, purest, highest and perfect, according to St. Gregory the Theologian. And this is nothing more than that he, as pure in soul and heart, should remain in visual, sacred, grace-filled prayer, that is, in the sweetest vision of God, and courageously, like the apple of his eye, preserve it, as a heavenly thing, so that it never diminishes in his soul and heart. Great, therefore, is the glory of sacred and Divine mental prayer, the edge and top of which, that is, the beginning and perfection, were given by God to man in paradise: from there it has its beginning. But she gained incomparably greater glory when, more than all the saints, the most holy, most honorable of the Cherubim, and most glorious without comparison of the Seraphim, the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos, dwelling in the Holy of Holies, by mental prayer ascended to the extreme heights of the vision of God, and was honored to be a spacious village inconceivable to all creation, the Word of God hypostatically contained in Her and from Her, human for the sake of salvation, born without seed, as evidenced by the invincible pillar of Orthodoxy, like our holy father Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonites in his homily on the Entry into the Church of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. He says that the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God, being in the Holy of Holies and having understood completely from the Holy Scriptures, read every Saturday, about the destruction through disobedience of the human race, and being filled with extreme regret for it, received from God a mental prayer for a speedy pardon and salvation of the human race. I offer here the very words of this Saint Gregory, worthy of the angelic mind, a few of many: “This Virgin Mary, hearing and seeing, accepted regret of a general kind, and considered how to find healing and healing equivalent to such suffering. Soon She was found - to turn with all her mind to God, and accepted this prayer for us in order to compel the Uncompelled One and quickly attract Him to us, so that He Himself would destroy the oath from among us, stop the fire that was corrupting the pasture of the soul, and bind the creature to Himself, healing the weak. Thus, the Blessed Virgin, seeing that which is most suitable and characteristic of all nature, considered mental prayer as wonderful and glorious and better than any word. Seeking the most artistic and natural way to converse with God, she came to Him, Self-Ordained, or better yet, God-chosen prayer book.” And below: “Not seeing anything that exists that is better than it for a person, he stretches out with diligence and strength to prayer, creates new things that are greater and more perfect, and invents, and acts, and teaches the action to those who follow this, as the highest ascent to vision: vision is so much greater than what was said above, as truth is higher than dreaming. But, having gathered everything into yourself and cleared your mind, hear the greatness of the sacrament: I want to say a word that, although the entire Christ-named assembly, is most relevant to those who have renounced the world. He who has already tasted for the sake of renunciation something of those future blessings, who becomes with the Angels and acquires residence in heaven: let him desire to imitate in his strength the first and only one who renounced the world from infancy, the Ever-Virgin Bride.” And below: “searching for what prayer books need most for the interview, than prayer comes, the Virgin finds sacred silence - the silence of the mind, the remoteness of the world, the oblivion of the earthly and the secret places of higher understandings, a proposal for the best: this act, as truly an ascent to the vision of the truly Existent, or better, to say more fairly, to the vision of God, is, as it were, a brief indication for the soul of the one who has truly acquired it (the act). Every other virtue is like healing, in relation to mental ailments and evil passions rooted through despondency: The vision of God is the fruit of a healthy soul, as some final perfection and image of God’s deeds, and therefore a person is not idolized by words or judicious moderation regarding the visible - all this is earthly, low, human; but by remaining in silence, because by this we renounce and move away from the world, and ascend to God. Enduring day and night with prayers and supplications in the upper room of silent living, we somehow approach and approach this Inaccessible and Blessed Nature. Those who endure in this way, having purified their hearts with sacred silence and dissolved inexpressibly with Him who is Holy above feeling and mind, see God in themselves, as in a mirror. So silence is a quick and shortened guide, as the most successful and uniting with God, especially for those who adhere to it completely in everything. And the Virgin, who from the soft, so to speak, nails dwelt in him, what - She? She, as one who was supernaturally silent from such a very childhood age, therefore, alone of all, gave birth to the unartifically God-man Word.” And below: “Therefore, the Most Pure One, renouncing the very, so to speak, everyday existence and rumor, moved away from people, and, having escaped a guilty life, chose a life invisible to anyone and uncommunicative, dwelling in the inaccessible. Here, having resolved every material union, and shaken off all communication and love for everything and surpassing the very condescension to the body, She gathered the whole mind into one relationship with Him and abiding and attention and into unceasing Divine prayer. And with it, being in itself and having settled above the diverse rebellion and thoughts, and simply - every kind and thing, She made a new and ineffable path to heaven, which is, I will say so, mental silence. And diligent to this and listening with the mind, all creatures and creatures fly, and much better than Moses, beholds the glory of God, and beholds Divine grace, which is not at all subject to the power of feeling, this joyful and sacred vision of undefiled souls and minds, having partaken of which, according to the Divine hymns, She becomes a bright cloud of living, truly water, and the dawn of the mental day and the fiery Chariot of the Word. (St. Gregory. Palamas). From these words of the Divine Gregory Palamas, anyone with a mind can understand more clearly than the sun that the Most Pure Virgin Mother of God, residing in the Holy of Holies, through mental prayer ascended to the extreme heights of the vision of God, and by renunciation for the world from the world, by sacred silence of the mind, mental silence, by gathering the mind in unceasing Divine prayer and attention, and by ascending through action to the vision of God - gave herself The Divine monastic order is a model of attentive living according to the inner man, so that the monks who have renounced the world, looking at Her, diligently strive, as much as they can, through Her prayers, to be Her imitators in the above-mentioned monastic labors and sweats, and who can worthily praise the Divine mental prayer, the work of which, as an example of the benefit and success of the monks, is instructed by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as it is said, was the Mother of God Herself? But in confirmation and undoubted confirmation of those who doubt about it, as if about an untestified and unreliable thing, the time has come to show what evidence the God-bearing fathers, who wrote from the enlightenment of Divine grace, bring about it from the Holy Scriptures. Divine mental prayer has an unshakable foundation in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: but whenever you pray, go into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret: and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you in reality (Matthew 6:6). These words, as already said in the first chapter, the world luminary, Saint John Chrysostom, with God-given wisdom explains the relatively silent, secret, from the depths of the heart of the prayer sent up, citing as evidence from the Holy Scriptures - Moses the Seer of God and Saint Anna, the mother of Samuel the Prophet, and the righteous Abel and his blood crying out from the earth - that they in their prayer, without letting go of a single voices were heard by God. This great teacher of the universe, the mouth of Christ, Saint John Chrysostom, especially expounded in three words the teaching about this Divine prayer, as the unfalse witness, His Beatitude Simeon, Archbishop of Thessalonites, writes about this in the 294th chapter of his book 2, which the entire holy catholic Eastern Church has in great veneration as a pillar and affirmation of the truth. The fiery pillar, and the fiery mouth of the Holy Spirit, the church eye of Basil, I say, the Great, explaining the saying of the Divine Scripture: I will bless the Lord at all times, I will bring His praise into my mouth (Ps. 33:2), teaches perfectly about intelligent lips and intelligent action, citing evidence from the Holy Scripture, whose very words, filled with Divine wisdom, I present as follows: “I will take out His praise is in my mouth. It seems that the Prophet is saying the impossible: how can the praise of God always be in the mouths of men? When a person talks about ordinary everyday things, then he does not have the praise of God in his mouth: when he sleeps, he is silent, of course; and when he eats and drinks, how can his lips offer praise? To this we answer that there are certain mental lips of the inner man, with which he feeds, partaking of the Word of the animal, which is the bread that came down from heaven (John 6:33). The prophet said about these lips: my mouth was opened and the Spirit was drawn (Ps. 119:131). The Lord encourages us to do this, so that we have these lips wide, so that we can sufficiently receive true food, saying: widen your mouth, and I will fill it (Ps. 80:11). Therefore, once inscribed and established in the mind of the soul, the thought of God can be called the praise of God, which is always present in the soul. And according to the Apostolic word, someone who is careful can do everything for the glory of God, so that every deed, and every word, and every mental action has the meaning of praise. Whether he eats righteously, or drinks, or does anything else, he does everything for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). In such a person, even in a sleeping person, the heart is vigilant. So says Saint Basil. From his words it is clear that in addition to the bodily lips there are mental lips, and there is mental action and praise, which always occurs mentally in the inner man. Named blessed, the Egyptian, or better to say, the universal sun, shone with the ineffable gifts of the Holy Spirit, the heavenly man, the Great, I say, Macarius, in his heavenly words about this holy prayer says this: “A Christian should always have the memory of God, because it is written: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart (Matthew 22:37). Not only then should he love the Lord when he enters the prayer church: but while walking, and talking, and eating, and drinking, let him have memory of God, and love, and desire; because He says: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:21)” and so on. The venerable and God-bearing ancient holy father, Isaiah the hermit, about the hidden teaching, that is, the Jesus Prayer, performed with a thought in the heart, cites as evidence the words of Divine Scripture: my heart warms within me, and in my teaching a fire will burn (Ps. 38:4). The Monk Simeon, testified in the above-mentioned book of the most blessed Simeon of Thessalonites, who among the reigning city, like the sun, shone with mental prayer in the ineffable gifts of the Holy Spirit and is therefore called the New Theologian by the entire Church - this one, in his word on the three types of prayer, writes about mental prayer and attention like this: “Our holy fathers, hearing the Lord saying that From the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy, and that is what defiles a person (Matthew 15:19-20): and again hearing that He teaches us to cleanse the inside of the glass, so that the outside may also be clean (Matthew 23:26), they left every other work and labored only in this guarding of the heart, knowing for certain that along with this practice they will conveniently acquire every other virtue. Without this same doing, it is impossible to acquire and maintain a single virtue. – These words of the saint clearly show that the Divine Fathers set the above words of the Lord as evidence and the basis for guarding the heart, that is, the mental invocation of Jesus. This monk also cites other sayings of Holy Scripture as evidence of Divine mental prayer. Speaking about this, Ecclesiastes also says: rejoice, young man, in your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart blameless, and put away wrath from your heart (Ec. 11:9-10), and: if the possessive spirit comes upon you, do not leave your place (Ec. 10:4): but he calls the heart a place, just as the Lord said: from the heart come evil thoughts (Matt. 15:19). And again: do not be exalted (Luke 12:29), that is, do not waste your mind here and there. And again: bring the narrow gate and the sorrowful path into the stomach (Matthew 7:14); also: blessed are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3), that is, not having in themselves a single thought of this age” 3. And the Apostle Peter says: Be sober, be vigilant, for the devil is your adversary, like a lion that goes roaring, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet. 5:8). And the Apostle Paul clearly writes to the Ephesians about guarding the heart, saying: our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12). The Venerable Hesychius, presbyter, theologian and teacher of the Jerusalem Church, friend and interlocutor of our venerable and God-bearing father Euthymius the Great, who wrote God-wise from the enlightenment of Divine grace, about this sacred mental invocation in the heart of Jesus, that is, a book of two hundred chapters about mental prayer, cites the following evidence of the Holy Scripture about this: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matt. 5:8); also: take heed to yourself, lest the word of iniquity be hidden in your heart (Deut. 15:9); also: I will appear in the morning, and you will see me (Ps. 5:4); also: blessed is he who has and will dash your babies against the stone (Ps. 137:9); also: in the morning I have slain all the sinners of the earth, who have consumed all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord (Ps. 100:8): also: prepare, O Israel, to call on the name of the Lord thy God (Am. 4:12). And the Apostle: pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17); and the Lord Himself says: without Me you can do nothing. He who is in Me, and I in him, will produce much fruit. If anyone does not abide in Me, he will be cast out like a rod (Jn. 15:5–6); also: from the heart come evil thoughts: murder, adultery, these are the things that defile a person (Matthew 15:19): also: I have desired to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is in the midst of my womb (Ps. 39:9), and so on, which I have forsaken in abundance. Our Divine and God-bearing father John Climacus cites about this sacred prayer and true silence of the mind, the testimony of Divine Scripture, saying: “The great worker of great and perfect prayer said: I want to speak five words with my mind (1 Cor. 14:19), and so on; and again: my heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready (Ps. 57:8); also: I sleep, but my heart watches (Song. 5:2); also: I cried with all my heart (Ps. 119:145), that is, body and soul, etc. Our Divine Father Philotheus, abbot of the monastery of the Bush of the Most Holy Theotokos, who at Sinai, who compiled a small book of chapters on the mental guarding of the heart - priceless margaritas of Divine wisdom, filled with the ineffable heavenly sweetness of the Holy Spirit, places the sayings of the Holy Scripture as the unshakable foundation of his words: in the morning we slaughtered all the sinners of the earth (Ps. 100:8 ), and others; also: the kingdom of God is within us (Luke 17:21); and: Be like the Kingdom of Heaven to pea grain, and beads, and kvass; and again: without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5); also: guard your heart with all care (Prov. 4:23); and: cleanse the inside of the glass, so that its outside will also be clean (Matthew 23:26); and: our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and authorities and rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12); Also: be sober, be vigilant: the devil is your adversary, like a roaring lion he walks about, seeking whom he may devour, whom the firmament resisteth by faith (1 Pet. 5:8–9); also: I delight in the law of God according to the inner man: I see another law warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive (Rom. 7:22-23); and so on. Our Divine Father Diadochos, Bishop of Photikie, testified in the book of the above-mentioned Saint of Christ Simeon of Thessalonites, believes in his word, filled with spiritual wisdom, of which there are one hundred chapters in his Divine book, about the mental Jesus prayer, in the heart of sacred prayer, the following basis from the Divine Scripture: no one can speak of the Lord Jesus, except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3); and from the Gospel parable about a merchant looking for good beads, he quotes in the following words: these are valuable beads that can be acquired by those who sell their property and will have unspeakable joy in finding them, etc. Our venerable father Nicephorus the Faster, testified in the same book by the above-mentioned Saint Simeon, in his word about guarding the heart, filled with spiritual benefit, likens this Divine mental prayer in the heart to a treasure hidden in the village, and calls it a burning lamp, citing the sayings of the Holy Scripture: the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21), and: our struggle is not to the blood and flesh (Eph. 6:12); also: to do and keep (Gen. 2:15), and so on. Our blessed and God-bearing father Gregory of Sinai, who by doing this Divine prayer ascended into the utmost vision of God, and like the sun shone with the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the holy Mount Athos and in other places, compiling the “Trinity”, sung every week after the Trinity canon in the holy Catholic Eastern Church throughout the universe, also the canon of the Life-giving Cross, embracing the writings of all spirit-bearing Fathers, compiled a book full of all spiritual benefits, in which, more than all other saints, he teaches in subtlety about this Divine, sacred prayer performed with the mind in the heart, and cites the following from the Holy Scriptures to confirm his words: Remember the Lord your God (Deut. 8:18); also: in this morning let not your seed leave your seed, and in the evening let not your hand leave (Ec. 11:6), and so on; also: if I pray with my tongue, that is, with my lips, my spirit will pray, that is, my voice (know that the lips and tongue, and spirit and voice are one and the same); but my mind is without fruit; I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the mind, and I want to speak five words with my mind (1 Cor. 14:14, 19), and so on, bringing as a witness the Climacus, who relates these words to prayer. Also: the Kingdom of Heaven is in need, and those in need delight it; also: no one can speak of the Lord Jesus except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 13:3), and so on. Following the apostolic footsteps, the invincible pillar of the Orthodox faith, who destroyed the Doukhobor heresies of the Latins with the fiery sword of the Spirit and the truth of Orthodox dogmas at the Florence Council, Marco, I say, the most holy, wise and verbal, Metropolitan of Ephesus, at the beginning of the interpretation of church succession, writes about the Divine Jesus prayer, performed secretly with the mind in the heart, using the testimony of Divine Scripture, of which I offer the following most God-wise words: “One should, according to the commandment, pray unceasingly, and offer up worship to God in spirit and truth; but diligence about worldly thoughts and the bonds of care for the body lead many away and remove them from the kingdom of God, which is within us, as the word of God proclaims, and prevent us from remaining at the mental altar and offering spiritual and verbal sacrifices to God, according to the Divine Apostle, who says that we are the church of God living in us, and His Divine Spirit lives in us. And there is nothing surprising if this usually happens to many who live in the flesh; when we see that some of the monks who have renounced worldly things, but due to mental warfare from the enterprise of passions, and the resulting great rebellion that darkens the verbal part of the soul, cannot yet achieve pure prayer, although they strongly desire it. Delightful is the pure and unceasing memory of Jesus in the heart, and the ineffable enlightenment that comes from it.” Our venerable father of Russia, St. Nil of Sora, who compiled his book on the mental guarding of the heart from the teachings of the God-bearing fathers, and especially from Gregory of Sinaite, uses the following evidence from the Holy Scriptures: evil thoughts come from the heart, and they defile a person (Matthew 15:19); and: cleanse the inside of the glass (Matthew 23:26); also: it is fitting to bow down to the Father in spirit and in truth; also: if I pray with my tongue, etc.; and: I want to speak five words with my mind rather than ten thousand words with my tongue (1 Cor. 14:14, 19), and so on. The Russian luminary again, Saint Demetrius of Christ, Metropolitan of Rostov, who with the spiritual sword of words destroyed, like cobwebs, the errors of schismatics and their ungodly, corrupt, and contrary minds to the Holy Scriptures, who wrote many teachings for the benefit of the Holy Church, filled with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, and composed a word on the internal mental practice of prayer, filled with spiritual benefit, uses the following evidence from Holy Scripture: when you pray, go into your cell, and so on; also: my heart says to you: I will seek the Lord: I will seek your face; I will seek your face, O Lord; also: The Kingdom of God is within us, also: praying with all prayer and supplication at all times in the spirit, and: if I pray with my tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful: I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the mind also, I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the mind, and so on. He, in agreement with Saint John of the Climacus, Gregory of Sinaite and Nilus of Sora, means these words about mental prayer. And the very church charter, printed in the reigning great city of Moscow, offering church legislation on bowing and prayer, also cites the following sayings of Holy Scripture about this Divine prayer: God is spirit: in spirit and in truth he seeks those who bow to Him (John 4:24). Also: if I pray with my tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What then is, I will pray in the spirit, I will pray with the mind also, I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind too? (1 Cor. 14:14–15). And again: I want, he says, in church to speak five words with my mind, rather than ten thousand words with my tongue (1 Cor. 14:19). And he brings the holy fathers into testimony: St. John Climacus, St. Gregory of Sinai and Saint Antiochus, and partly their Divine teachings about this mental prayer, and finally says: “And with this here we finish the word about sacred and ever-memorable mental prayer.” And then he speaks about the holy, common prayer of all, performed according to church rites. Here, by the grace of God, it is shown that the God-bearing Fathers, wise by the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, lay the foundation of their teaching about the mental sacred act of prayer, secretly performed in the inner man, on the immovable stone of the Divine Scripture of the New and Old Testaments, borrowing from there, as from an inexhaustible source, so much evidence. Which of the faithful Christians, seeing this, could have even the slightest doubt about this Divine thing? Perhaps only those who obey the spirit of insensibility, who hear and see, but do not want to understand and know. But those who have the fear of God and a sound mind, seeing such evidence from so many witnesses, unanimously recognize that this Divine work, above all monastic deeds, is more characteristic and more fitting of the Angelic monastic order. About this work, the above-mentioned and many other Divine Fathers in their writings offer many well-heard words, sweeter than honey and honeycomb, filled with spiritual wisdom, teaching the inner, mental feat against mental enemies: how this spiritual sword should be turned on them, and the flaming invincible weapon of the name of Jesus, guarding the heart gates, that is: how this Divine Jesus prayer should be perform sacred acts with the mind in the heart. About this sacred action of this sacred prayer, especially about its very beginnings, and about how beginners should learn it through experience, I am the last, according to the strength of my weak mind, with the help of God, to write at least something a little from the teachings of the holy fathers. And, firstly, it is necessary to express that this Divine prayer is a spiritual art; then - what kind of preparation is required to engage in it, according to the teachings of the holy fathers. When Elder Paisius wrote this, he himself, perhaps, had not yet seen these words of the saint. John Chrysostom on mental prayer; because this Scroll was written in the Dragmir monastery, that is, soon after the elder moved from Athos to Moldavia. But subsequently the blessed elder translated these words into the Slavic language, and they were published, among other articles on this subject, in a separate book entitled: “Enraptured Classes.” Also, other paternal books mentioned here were translated by him and published in a collection called “Philokalia”. It is in this sense that St. Basil the Great explains the poverty of the spirit, saying: “Contrition of the heart is the destruction of human thoughts: whoever has despised the present, dedicated himself to the Word of God, and established his mind in thoughts Divine and superior to man, he actually has a contrite heart, having made it a sacrifice, despised by the Lord, because God will not despise a contrite and humble heart. (Ps. 50:19)... He who does not have any arrogance, is not proud of any human thing, is contrite in heart and humble in spirit... The Lord pleases such people, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Conversation on Psalm 33). You might be interested in: