Hesychastic prayer, which leads to that rest where the soul can swell with God, is prayer of the heart…We find the best formulation of the prayer of the heart in the words of teh Russian mystic Theophan the Recluse, “To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever-present, all-seeing, withing you.”
Prayer is standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart; that is, at that point of our being where there are no divisions or distinctions and where we are totally one. There God’s Spirit dwells and ther ethe great encounter takes place. There heart speaks to heart, because there we stand before the face of the Lord, all-seeing, within us.
Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, 73-74