IOTA TALK: Thinking, Reading, Praying as a Path to God | Anna Briskina-Muller

What could be more natural for the Orthodoxy than its complex liturgical tradition with its liturgical Typicon, as well as with its prayer rules for monks and for laity. On closer examination, however, the ascetic patristic literature shows traces of a very ambiguous attitude toward every sort of prayer "rules". Some of ascetic authors flee any association of prayer with "rules" and consider “prayer” as a term for very different intellectual activities dedicated to God. The effects of reading about God, thinking God and mental praying to God are described here in the categories of the mystical theology as “Divine joy“ and foretaste of resurrection, and every sort of an “external prayer” is considered here as a kind of compromise.
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