A haughty person is not aware of his faults, or a humble person of his good qualities. An evil ignorance blinds the first, an ignorance pleasing to God blinds the second.
It is as necessary for a man to say the Jesus Prayer as it is for a ship in danger to send out steadily the S.O.S. signal: Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.
A haughty person is not aware of his faults, or a humble person of his good qualities. An evil ignorance blinds the first, an ignorance pleasing to God blinds the second.
When you shed floods of tears during prayer, do not exalt yourself for this, as though you were above many others. It is that your prayer has received help from above, so that, having zealously confessed your sins, you may incline the almighty to mercy by your tears.
Put aside bodily considerations when you stand in prayer, lest the bite of a flea, a gnat or a fly deprive you of the greatest gain afforded by prayer.
We should not miss any chance to us to say the Jesus Prayer. We must not let our mind wander in vain things. In saying the Jesus Prayer one's mind finds rest and joy. It is like small children who for the whole day run around, shouting and playing and hitting each other. But the one thing that gives them rest and great joy is when at night they find themselves in their mother's arms. This way also one's mind instead of being scattered about, out to be devoted to mental prayer.
A mind from which the thought of God has been carried away and which has thus become far removed from remembering Him, is also indifferent to sin with the outer senses. For such a mind can guide neither the hearing nor the tongue, since zest to work on itself has gone out of it.
