But look: when we spend a scattered life, swallowed up in the vanity of this world. Our thoughts are spread over the face of the earth and rush over the things and objects of this world, and the inner region of our spiritual being, in which God is present, unguarded by the mind and unguarded by the sobriety of the heart, is a fenced-off garden, which is freely and unhindered by mental herds of animals and beasts. That is why the place of our union with God is very far from us, and our spirit is suppressed by the earthly. And this, without a doubt, is the very thing that is said in the parable of the Prodigal Son, and which each of us indisputably feels when we do not have concern for our salvation: we have gone to a far country (Luke 15:13).

Now the question naturally follows: how is the very act of the inner spiritual life carried out?

To this Bishop Theophan answers quite satisfactorily.

We quote his words from the book: "The Path to Salvation".

INSIDE – STAY.

When a hen, having found grain, lets her cubs know about it, then they all, wherever they are, fly to her in the summer and gather with their beaks to the point where her beak is. In the same way, when Divine grace acts upon a person in his heart, then his spirit penetrates there with its consciousness, and after it all the powers of the soul and body. Hence, the law for inward indwelling is actually the confinement of consciousness in the heart; the intense gathering of the forces of soul and body there is an essential means, or work, podvig. However, they mutually give birth to each other and assume that one cannot exist without the other. Whoever is imprisoned in the heart is gathered, and whoever is gathered is in the heart.