Normally three levels or degrees are distinguished in the saying of the Jesus Prayer. It starts as “prayer of the lips”, oral prayer. Then it grows more inward, becoming “prayer of the intellect”, mental prayer. Finally the intellect “descends” into the heart and is united with it, and so the prayer becomes “prayer of the heart” or, more exactly, “prayer of the intellect in the heart”. At this level it becomes prayer of the whole person—no longer something that we think or say, but something that we are: for the ultimate purpose of the spiritual Way is not just a person who says prayers from
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