""When you pray", it has been wisely said by an Orthodox writer in Finland, "you yourself must be silent... You yourself must be silent; let the prayer speak". To achieve silence: this is of all things the hardest and the most decisive in the art of prayer. Silence is not merely negative - a pause between words, a temporary cessation of speech - but, properly understood, it is highly positive: an attitude of attentive alertness, of vigilance, and above all of listening. The hesychast, the person who has attained hesychia, inner stillness or silence, is par excellence the one who listens. He listens to the voice of prayer in his own heart, and he understands that this voice is not his own but that of Another speaking within him."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ware, Kallistos. The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality. SLG Press, Convent of the Incarnation: Fairacres, Oxford. (excerpt)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hesychasm
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Hesychasm
6 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Hesychasm →
Related Quotes
"Watchfulness is a continual fixing and halting of thought at the entrance to the heart."
"A brother asked an elder, “What is hēsychia and what good does it do?”"
"Given all the ways – both explicit and subtle – in which hesychasm is profoundly embroidered into the fabric of conte…"
"Through hesychasm ... different parts of the Byzantine Empire were linked with each other and to its centre. In a way…"
"Hesychasm, which is too often looked upon as a philosophico-mystical “curiosity” of purely historical interest, has i…"
"Hadji-Georgis had had profuse, guileless love for everyone. He had always been peaceful, long-suffering, and forgivin…"
"Now it came to pass when the king was dwelling in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies all…"
"(To king David) You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered …"
"And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did loo…"
"Yet even among theologians we note here and there a skeptical spirit in natural science. Early in the same seventeent…"