Saints

"Prayer, however, is lower in rank than being stirred in spirit: on this there is no dispute, for prayer is inferior to this mystery."

"What then shall we say?"

"For every event, natural being and utterance in this creation there is a Sanctuary and a Holy of Holies."

"And when, again, he departs from these things,"

"Again, there is the person who has reached perfection on the level of the soul,"

"Just as there is nothing which resembles God,"

"On the sequence of ways by which the mind is steered towards the glorious things pertaining to God."

"There are times when a person sits in a stillness that is guarded and wakeful,"

"The mode of conduct of this (present) life provides (an opening) for the functioning of the senses,"

"When in these matters you receive the power which stems from grace to be bound firmly to their continual stirrings,"

"What is conversation with God?"

"It can also happen that from time to time a certain stillness, without any insights, can fall upon a person,"

"Luminous meditation on God is the goal of prayer;"

"There are times when a person is transported from prayer to a wondrous meditation on God."

"There is a spiritual perception which is born out of meditation;"

"Just as the sight of someone standing beside smoke cannot become clear"

"When the solitary has passed on to another"

"Blessed is God who uses corporeal objects continually"

"Once a person has, through divine assistance, become recollected from external concerns,"

"That the intellect should standing during the office or in prayer continually, again and again,"

"My brothers, the time of our lives is short,"

"In the case of a person who has attained to this converse of contemplation in his ascetic way of life,"

"None of those things by which God is now made known through nature"

"To the extent to which a person is distanced from the settled world,"

"When someone reaches insights into creation on the path of his ascetic life,"

"Do not reckon the entire mode of life"

"When the intellect has received an awareness of the beauty of its nature,"

"The first delight of the spiritual revelation of the mind is the contemplation of the care of God,"

"Wherever you are, be a solitary in your way of thinking—alone and a stranger in heart, not involved ."

"A desolate place, because of the great barrenness that reigns there, causes us to acquire a deadness of heart ,"

"The state in the soul for truth is the stillness of the intellect,"

"There was when that there was no name for God, and there is going to be when he will not have one."

"Every reflection that exists is set in motion by the object of the reflection:"

"The aim of contemplation of the world to come is to be seen in the coming into being of the holy angels—"

"How feeble is the power of ink and the traces of the letters to indicate in writing the precise nature of action,"

"Solitude lets us share in the divine Mind, and brings us close to limpidity of mind in a short time, without any hindrance."

"The aim of psalmody should be serene conversation with God"

"Some rational beings are without any appellations, and some have many names;"

"What watering is to plants, exactly the same is continual silence for the growth of knowledge."

"The “noetic cloud” is the intellect that is smitten with wonder"

"At the time of the sinking of the light and the atmosphere is suffocating,"

"Accordingly, as I have said above, when—"

"The non-intellectual light is the light that belongs to the elements."

"The light of contemplation proceeds along"

"Prayer does not consist only of the repeating ,"

"Just as presumption dissipates the soul through imaginings that distract her,"

"A humble man is never pleased to see gatherings, confused crowds, tumult, shouts and cries, opulence, adornment, and luxury, the cause of insobriety;"

"Let the following prayer not cease from your heart night or day:"

"A humble man is never rash, hasty, or perturbed,"

"Hence He continually separated Himself for prayer, and not indiscriminately, but He chose the night for this, and as a place, the desert. Hereby [He taught] us to withdraw from all clamor and tumult, so that we could pray in stillness, as is proper."