Understanding the true meaning of a text is not always as easy as it seems; There are passages that are quite easy, but there are also passages where formulations are used that appeal simultaneously to the simplest human experience and at the same time to the deepest and diverse religious experience. For example, the expression Bride of the Lamb can only be understood if we know what the Holy Scriptures mean by the word "Lamb," otherwise it becomes completely meaningless and will be misunderstood.

The bride is the experience of the earth, the experience of man in the most sacred, in the deepest, subtlest that is in him. The bride is the one who has been able to love the bridegroom so much that she forgets everything else and leaves him, to cling to him, to follow him wherever he goes. Turning to the word "bride" first in the Old Testament and then in the book of Revelation, we see that this is the spirit of the Church in relation to the Bridegroom, Christ; but this Bridegroom Christ is designated by a tragic word: the Lamb of God. We encounter this expression against the background of all the Old Testament sacrifices, all the images of the prophetic Lamb slain for the salvation of the world, the Man of sorrows from the Isaiah prophecy. And so, combining these two concepts, we get their full meaning and significance. If we proceed only from our human experience, then the mystery of the path along which the Bride will go will remain undeciphered. Yes, she will go wherever the Bridegroom goes; but where does the Bridegroom go? What will be the appearance of this Bride? And we, precisely because the word "lamb" rests on the entire tradition of Israel, know that this is the Lamb of the slaughter, the slain Lamb, and that the path of the Bride through the whole world, through all fate, through the entire history of the earth, resembles through the humiliation of Bethlehem, through the life of the absolute, boundless solidarity of God with His creation, and goes on, through Gethsemane and Golgotha, to the Resurrection...

There are other kinds of words that we can understand correctly only if we do not take into account the special or technical meaning they have acquired. One of these words is "spirit". For a Christian, "spirit" is a kind of technical term; it is either the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, or one of the constituent parts of the human being – the body and the soul. But such an understanding does not always express with all simplicity and breadth what the compilers of the Gospel wanted to convey; The word has become so special that it has lost its connection with its root. Sometimes the definition of the word indicated in the dictionary helps to understand the text and its meaning. You can look up the word "spirit" or any other word in the dictionary and it will immediately seem simple and concrete, although it may have acquired a deeper meaning in the course of time, as a result of the work of theologians. But we should never start with a deeper meaning before we have found a simple, concrete meaning that was clear to everyone at the time when Christ spoke to the people around Him.

There are things that we can understand only in the light of the teaching of the Church: Holy Scripture must be understood with the mind of the Church, with the mind of Christ, because the Church does not change; in her inner experience she continues to live the same life as she did in the first century; and the words spoken in the Church by Paul, Peter, Basil, or others always retain their meaning. Thus, after a preliminary perception in our own, modern language, we must turn to what the Church understands by this word; Only then can we be sure of the meaning of this text and have the right to start thinking and drawing conclusions. As soon as we find the meaning of the text, we must see whether it does not already give us in its utmost simplicity concrete advice or even a direct command. Since the goal of contemplation of God, of understanding the Holy Scriptures, is to fulfill the will of God, we must draw practical conclusions and act in accordance with them. When the meaning is revealed to us, when God has told us something in this phrase, we must go into the essence and see what we can do, just as we do when a good idea comes to our mind; When we realize that this or that is right, we immediately begin to think about how to incorporate it into our lives, how to do it, under what circumstances, and in what way. It is not enough to understand what can be done and enthusiastically start telling your friends about it; We need to start doing this. The Egyptian saint Paul the Simple once heard Anthony the Great reading the first verse of the first psalm: "Blessed is the man who does not go to the counsel of the wicked," and immediately Paul went into the wilderness. Only about thirty years later, when Anthony met him again, did St. Paul say to him with deep humility: "I have spent all this time trying to become a man who never goes to the council of the wicked." In order to attain perfection, it is not necessary to understand much; What is needed is to spend thirty years trying to understand what this new man is and to become one.

Often we look at one or two points and jump on; This is wrong, because, as we have just seen, it takes a long time to learn to be collected, to become what the Fathers call an attentive person, someone who is able to delve into a thought so long and deeply that nothing is missed from it. All spiritual writers of the past and today will tell you: take the text, meditate on it, hour by hour, day by day, until you have exhausted all your possibilities, both mental and emotional, and until, by carefully reading and rereading this text, you come to a new attitude to life. Very often, contemplation of God consists only in delving into the text, repeating over and over again these words of God addressed to us, in order to become so close to them, to absorb them into ourselves so much that gradually we will become one with these words. And in this process, even if it seems to us that we have not enriched ourselves mentally, we change.

We very often have time to use for reflection; There are so many occasions in our daily life when we have nothing to do but wait, and if we are disciplined – and this is also part of our spiritual education – we will be able to quickly concentrate and immediately fix our attention on the object of our contemplation, our contemplation of God. We must learn this by forcing our thoughts to come together in one focus, disconnecting from everything else. At first, extraneous thoughts will intrude, but if we invariably drive them away each time, they will eventually leave us alone. And only when, through training, exercise, or skill, we are able to focus deeply and quickly, will we be able to continue living in a state of composure, no matter what we do. However, to notice the presence of extraneous thoughts means to already achieve a certain degree of concentration. We can be in a crowd, be among people, and at the same time be completely alone, so that we are not affected by what is around us; It is up to us to allow or not to allow what is happening outside of us to become an event in our inner life. If we allow this, our attention will be scattered; but if we do not allow it, then we can dwell in complete solitude and concentration in the presence of God, no matter what happens around us. Al Absihi has a story about concentration of this kind: the household of one Muslim had to keep a respectful silence when a guest came, but everyone knew that they could make as much noise as they wanted while the head of the family prayed, because at that time he did not hear anything; Once it even happened that he was not disturbed by a fire that broke out in his house.

It happens that we are in a society of people who are absorbed in a heated and hopeless argument. We can't leave without causing more confusion, but what we can do is switch off in our minds, turn to Christ and say, "I know You're here – help!" and just stay with Christ. If this did not sound so absurd, one could say: make Christ present in the midst of the dispute. Objectively, He is always present, but there is a difference between an objective presence and an act of faith that brings Him into a certain situation. There's nothing you can do but sit on the sidelines and just be with Christ, letting others do the talking. His presence will do more than anything we could say. And so, as we remain calmly and silently with Christ, we will suddenly find that we can say from time to time something essential that would not have been possible in the heat of an argument.

In parallel with mental discipline, we must learn to have a peaceful body. The body responds to all our mental activity, and, on the other hand, our bodily state to a certain extent determines the type and nature of our mental activity. In his advice to those wishing to enter the spiritual life, Theophan the Recluse says that one of the indispensable conditions for success is never to allow bodily softening; be like a violin string tuned to a certain note, without relaxation or overexertion; Keep your body straight, shoulders pulled back, let the head sit freely, keep all muscles tense to the heart.

Much has been written and said about how the body can be used to develop the faculty of attention; but on a public level, Theophanes' advice seems simple, precise, and practical. One must learn to be collected without tension. We must control our body in such a way that it does not interfere with our concentration, but contributes to it.

Thinking about God is the activity of thought, while prayer is the rejection of all thought. According to the teaching of the Eastern Fathers, even pious thoughts and the deepest and most sublime theological reflections, if they arise during prayer, should be treated as temptations and driven away; for, say the Fathers, it is foolish to think of God and forget that you are in His presence. All the spiritual mentors of Orthodoxy warn us against substituting reflections on Him for this encounter with God. Prayer in its essence is standing before God face to face, with a conscious desire to be collected and completely calm and attentive in His presence; it means standing with an undivided mind, an undivided heart, and an undivided will in the presence of the Lord; And it's not easy. Whatever our training gives us, there is always a certain vulnerability: non-separation can only be achieved by those for whom the love of God is all those who have broken all bonds, who have given themselves entirely to God; then there is no more personal effort, but only the action of the radiant grace of God.

When we are emotionally affected, extraneous thoughts do not arise because we are completely absorbed in what we are praying for; and only when we move on to praying for another person or another need, our attention is suddenly scattered; this means that it was not the thought of God, not the feeling of His presence, that was the reason for such concentration, but our human sympathy. This does not mean that human concern is unimportant, but it does mean that the thought of a friend can do more than the thought of God. And this is very serious.

One of the reasons we find it so difficult to be attentive is that our act of faith in affirming "God is here" means too little to us. We are mentally aware that God is here, but we do not respond to it physically in such a way that all our forces, thoughts, feelings, and will are concentrated and gathered in one focus, so that we turn our attention entirely to it. If we prepare for prayer through the process of imagination – "Christ is here, this is what He is, this is what I know about Him, this is what He means to me..." – then the richer the image, the less real the presence. We can get help from this for some emotional focus, but it is not God's presence, not the real, objective presence of God.

The early Fathers and the entire Orthodox tradition teach us that we must concentrate our willpower on the words of prayer that are being spoken. We must say them carefully, in essence, without trying to evoke any emotional state, and letting God awaken in us the response of which we are capable.

St. John of the Ladder offers an easy way to learn focus. He says: choose a prayer, the Lord's Prayer or any other, stand before God, be imbued with the consciousness of where you are and what you are doing, and carefully pronounce the words of the prayer. After a while you will notice that your thoughts are wandering, then begin to pray again with the words that you last pronounced attentively. You may have to do it ten, twenty, or fifty times; perhaps in the time allotted for prayer you will be able to pronounce only three petitions and will not move further; but in this struggle you will be able to concentrate on the words, so that you will offer to God seriously, soberly, reverently the words of prayer, in which the consciousness participates, and not the offering, which is not yours, because your consciousness did not participate in it.