The root of prayer is interior silence. We may think of prayer as thoughts or feelings expressed in words, but this is only one expression. Deep prayer is the laying aside of thoughts. It is the opening of mind and heart, body and feelings -- our whole being -- to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond words, thought, and emotions. We do not resist them or suppress them. We accept them as they are and go beyond them, not by effort, but by letting them all go by. We open our awareness to the Ultimate Mystery whom we know by faith is within us, closer than choosing, closer than thinking, closer than choosing -- closer than consciousness itself. the Ultimate Mystery is the ground in which our being is rooted, the source from whom our life emerges at every moment.
All of the sense organs are both organs and capacity. The synthesizing acting of the heart continuously creates a unity of the inner world and outer world. Moments in which we perceive this unity are moments of the experience of beauty. Beauty is thus a consciousness of the heart. The heart has always been connected with love due to this relation between bringing what seems to be separated into conjoining as profound beauty.