The Jesus Prayer: how to turn life into "live broadcast" with God
The second Sunday of Great Lent is dedicated to Saint Gregory Palamas – a man who defended our right to a real encounter with the Creator.
Today we will talk about the practice of the Jesus Prayer, one of the most suitable topics for a Great Lent conversation. But first let us turn to the theology of Saint Gregory Palamas, who provided the theoretical foundation for this practice. The second Sunday of Great Lent is dedicated to the memory of this saint.
The significance of the spiritual legacy of Saint Gregory Palamas lies in the fact that he was able to defend the very possibility of a real encounter with God and our right to seek such a meeting. Without an understanding of the teaching of Saint Gregory, Christianity inevitably turns either into a dry intellectual philosophy or into an agnostic moralism.
Saint Gregory's dispute with Barlaam of Calabria was not in the realm of scholarly debates, but in the question: can we truly know God?
Barlaam taught that God is absolutely transcendent. We can learn about Him only through studying the created world and Sacred Scripture. Any mystical experience is a product of the psyche, a hallucination.
Gregory Palamas says: no, if God does not communicate Himself to us personally, then Christianity is meaningless. Of course, we cannot understand the essence of God, but we can and must partake of His energies. This is precisely what constitutes the main meaning of a Christian's life.
Let us draw an analogy with the sun. We cannot touch the solar disk – for us this means inevitable death. But we warm ourselves in the sun’s rays, we see everything in its light, and we live by the power that comes from the sun. The sun’s rays are not “something else”; they are the sun itself reaching us.
Saint Gregory teaches us that salvation is achieved not through books (although they can be useful), but through purification of the heart and deification, that is, participation in the Divine uncreated energies. One can know much about the chemistry of water but still die of thirst. The Jesus Prayer is the very source from which we draw Living Water.
Man as a whole
For Barlaam of Calabria, the human body is a prison of the soul, and the mind is a float that swims on the surface of the world, studying its structure. Saint Gregory says: no, the body also participates in our salvation, and man is not a soul in a body, but a holistic unity. God's grace permeates not only the soul, but also the flesh.
But when the mind clings to its thoughts, it wanders, living in a world of fantasies, and inevitably falls into the claws of demons. The hesychasts direct the mind into the heart precisely because that is where its original dwelling is.
The texts of Saint Gregory Palamas are medicine against "religious consumption."
He says that spiritual life is not the purchase of "psychological comfort" but hard work of "reforging" oneself into a divine being. Saint Gregory answers the main fear of modern man – the fear of an "empty sky" and loneliness. He says that God did not "retire" after creating the world. God is present in the world through His energies, and not only sustains the being of creation, but also opens before us the possibility of becoming gods by grace.
Art of arts
What does Palamism teach regarding practice? Here we are talking primarily about the practice of hesychasm in general and the Jesus Prayer in particular. And this is not "Orthodox meditation," as some believe. Meditation is often aimed at dissolving personality or purifying consciousness from objects, while mental prayer is the ultimate concentration of a person for an encounter with God.
For Saint Gregory Palamas, the Jesus Prayer was the "art of arts," where the main instrument is man himself – his attention and heart.
The saint insisted: the body is not an enemy of the soul, but its co-worker.
The hesychasts developed specific techniques that help the mind not to "wander" through the world, but to return "home." They involve the whole person: our very body, our breathing, attention and heart rhythm.
During prayer, a hesychast typically sits on a low bench. The head is slightly tilted toward the chest, and the inner gaze of the mind is directed to the “place of the heart” (the center of the chest). This is not a magical point but a way to localize consciousness so that it does not scatter in thoughts. Breathing is synchronized with the rhythm of the heart. This helps to calm the emotional sphere and bring it under the guidance of the spirit. Saint Gregory Palamas taught that the fire of grace is kindled from the small sparks of everyday labor.
Practical steps: a hesychasterion in an apartment
The first step is creating a "zone of alienation." Find a corner where you can be alone – this is your home hesychasterion. Decide how much time and when exactly you can allocate. Having secluded yourself, for a start simply realize: "God exists, and I exist." You are here together and alone. Return from mental dispersion to the point of "here and now."
Sit straight, but without tension. Breathe calmly and evenly. You don't need to look for any special techniques. Let your breathing be measured, like ocean waves. Gather your attention and direct it inside your chest, to the tip of the physical heart.
The mind is your gaze that looks not outward, but inward into yourself.
After this, begin to recite the Jesus Prayer. Slowly, thoughtfully, as you pronounce the name of the most beloved person whom you haven't seen for a long time.
- "Lord Jesus Christ" is pronounced on the inhale. You as if inhale Divine energy together with this name.
- "Have mercy on me" is pronounced on the exhale. You exhale your sinfulness.
This is how this prayer is read on inhale-exhale. Attention is concentrated on breathing and the words of prayer. You don't need to seek, wait, imagine or represent anything. Only repentance, humility and love for God are important.
Prayer throughout the day
The Jesus Prayer, in addition to a separate morning and evening rule, can be prayed throughout the day. As you walk down the street, read one word with each step. The rule of daily prayer practice is very simple: as soon as the mind awakens from the hypnosis of thoughts in which it constantly dwells and remembers God, begin reading the Jesus Prayer. The more often the mind remembers this and turns to prayer, the better.
- Oral prayer is pronounced aloud or in a whisper. The mind will run away, but it needs to be gently returned to the words of prayer. Here what's important is not the "depth of feelings," but faithfulness to rhythm.
- Mental prayer is pronounced in the mind to oneself. Here the main enemy is "information garbage" in the head. Sudden thoughts or images should simply be ignored, not engaged in dialogue with them or examined.
- Mental-heart prayer – this is already what needs to be practiced under the guidance of an experienced spiritual father.
Oral and and mental prayer practices can be undertaken even without a spiritual guide; there is nothing difficult about them. These are the recommendations of experienced spiritual fathers. All the disciples of Venerable Joseph the Hesychast, and not only they, blessed this practice for pious laypeople. All the “scary stories” about the Jesus Prayer were invented by the devil to prevent people from engaging in this saving practice.
On "delusion" and safety
Delusion, that is, spiritual self-deception, arises not from the Jesus Prayer, but from passions and sins. To fear practicing the Jesus Prayer in order not to fall into delusion is like fearing to breathe air in order not to catch the flu.
One can fall into delusion even without the Jesus Prayer. When a person takes their emotional ecstasy, the play of imagination, or their own opinions for Divine revelation, the fault lies not with the prayer, but with the person themselves.
The criterion of truth is not in visions of angels or in revelations from above, but in the increase of love, inner silence, and a deep awareness of one’s own sinfulness.
By and large, we are all already in a state of spiritual delusion, because we all have what the holy fathers called "opinion," or "selfhood" – fixation on one's ego. Our main enemy is our pride.
The golden rule of constancy
One must also remember that constancy in the practice of the Jesus Prayer is more important than intensity. Better 10 minutes every day than two hours a couple of times a month. If the mind runs away (and it will run away thousands of times), gently return it inside yourself. And don't get angry.
Prayer is performed gently, without violence to the mind, without psychic and emotional tension. If internal tension and fatigue arise, prayer should be stopped.
Remember that hesychasm is not an escape from reality, this is bringing the spiritual world into the heart.
After prayer, preserve within yourself this “taste of silence” and carry it into the world when interacting with others.
The best guide to the practice of the Jesus Prayer, in my opinion, is the book by Hieromonk Simon (Bezkrovny) "On the Happiness of Righteous Life." I am familiar with many works written on this topic, but from a practical point of view I have not encountered anything better.
Awake, O sleeper
Let us finally wake up from spiritual slumber and look truth in the face. Don't we notice that we have turned our life into endless "knowledge about..."? We know everything about space, molecules, politics and the sins of others. But we catastrophically, mortally do not know the One Who holds our life in His hand right now.
For most people, God has become either a dry paragraph in a textbook, or a distant "Dispatcher of the Universe," to Whom they turn only in moments of collapse. And our scribes and Pharisees have turned living Orthodoxy into a museum of rituals, ceremonies and external forms, in which we constantly celebrate something and "remember" something, having long forgotten that each of us is a nuclear reactor designed to shine with uncreated light. We constantly tell in sermons about events that once happened, about saints who once lived, but we can advise nothing to those people who live now.
God is not a concept. God is Light, Who wants to permeate us with Himself.
And the Tabor light is not an ancient fairy tale but a fundamental reality of being. of existence. The name of Jesus is not a magical incantation; it is Ariadne’s thread that leads us out of the labyrinths of egoism. In the next publication, we will discuss what has resulted from our continued neglect of Saint Gregory Palamas’ teaching in practice.
