St Peter of Damaskos | If you turn from all other activity and give yourself entirely to the cultivation...

If you turn from all other activity and give yourself entirely to the cultivation of the virtues of soul and body, which is what the fathers mean by religious devotion; and if you disregard any dream or private thought not confirmed by Scripture, and avoid all pointless company, not hearing or reading anything fruitless, and especially anything that involves heresy, then the tears of joy and understanding will well up copiously within you and you will drink from their plenitude.

In this way you will attain another form of prayer, the form of pure prayer that is proper to the contemplative. For just as previously you had one form of reading, one form of tears and prayer, so now you have another.

Since your intellect has moved into the sphere of spiritual contemplation, you should now read all pits of the Scriptures, no longer fearing the more difficult and obscure passages, as is the case with those still at the stage of ascetic practice, who are weak in their ignorance.

St Peter of Damaskos