Perfect Surrendering

Monasticism is truly a strange life, and when the monk acquires the gift of unceasing prayer, he understands the paradoxical character of monastic life. His breath is different; his thoughts, his gestures and the movements of his heart are different. Even while living on earth, such a man becomes like the wind whose sound you can hear, but you cannot see from where it comes and where it goes. When man is in this state, there is hardly any veil separating this world from the other world; there is a certain transparency and direct contact with heaven; there is a charismatic attraction from heaven which continually pulls man’s heart to the other world; then, there is only a deep, sweet pain in the centre of his being, in his heart.