Hi,

I would need some enlightenment to understand what happens in me during focus of prayer. I can pray without using inner words or concepts, but in three different ways.

1. In the first way, my attention descends completely into the heart. My head feels empty and silent, as if all thoughts had withdrawn. I sense something like an attraction, as though the nous were drawn inward into the heart and settled there. The awareness becomes a single but rather broad point — almost spherical — located above my left nipple, as if my mind itself were gathered there. It feels both concentrated and vast at once, filling the inner space of the heart. In this state, prayer without words or concepts comes very naturally. I simply offer my heart to God, trusting that He reads it, heals it, and acts within it. But this state is voluntary, when I don’t focus I only feel slightly my heart, I have to bring the mind there but sometimes it’s happens by itself.

2. The second way is also wordless, yet very different. My head does not feel empty, and I sense that my whole person participates in prayer — mind, feeling, and will together. To be exact, I first focus on bringing my whole being into a state of prayerful feeling — a kind of total inner readiness before God, I draw myself into repentance, into the sense of His presence, into the weeping of the soul. Then a sharp, delicate pain appears in the heart, as if a fine needle were piercing it. My attention is naturally drawn to that single point, and as I begin to focus both on the inner feeling and on that point together, the prayer deepens and becomes more intense. The more the inner emotion grows — love, repentance, or longing — the deeper that “needle” seems to penetrate. This focus, however, is completely different from the descent of the nous described in the first way: it is not a fullness coming into the heart like a sphere, but a concentrated point of sharpness and intensity. But the head is not emptied as in the first way, I find myself more easily prone to distraction or wandering thoughts.

3. The third way is a combination of both — when the stillness and emptiness of the first unite with the intensity and inward piercing of the second, along with a spiritual feeling that fills the heart. It feels as if both movements — the peaceful descent and the sharp focus — coexist and feed one another. But keeping this balance is difficult; I often find myself shifting toward one side or the other instead of remaining in both simultaneously.

All of these ways are difficult to maintain. Sometimes prayer flows easily, almost by itself, and at other times it becomes very hard to keep any of these states. The third way especially is the most demanding, because it requires both interior stillness and active attention at once.

Could it be that the first way corresponds to the active prayer of the heart, and that the third way may be a foretaste of what happens when prayer becomes self-active, when the nous and the heart are united?