Through discrimination, then, a man begins to take more careful note of what is happening within him, and so he learns to guard the heart, shutting the door against the temptations or provocations of the enemy. “Guard your heart with all diligence” (Prov. 4:23). When the heart is mentioned in Orthodox spiritual texts, it is to be understood in the full Biblical sense. The heart signifies not simply the physical organ in the chest, not simply the emotions and affections, but the spiritual center of man's being, the human person as made in God's image—the deepest and truest self, the inner
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