Franny and Zooey

"Well, as I said, the pilgrim-this simple peasant-started the whole pilgrimage to find out what it means in the Bible when it says you're supposed to pray without ceasing. And then he meets this starets-this very advanced religious person I mentioned, the one who'd been studying the 'Philokalia' for years and years and years." Franny stopped suddenly to reflect, to organize. "Well, the starets tells him about the Jesus Prayer first of all. 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.' I mean that's what it is. And he explains to him that those are he best words to use when you pray. Especially, the word 'mercy,' because it's such a really enormous word and can mean so many things. I mean it doesn't just have to mean mercy." Franny paused to reflect again. She was no longer looking at Lane's plate but over his shoulder. "Anyway," she went on, "the starets tells the pilgrim that if you keep saying that prayer over and over again-you only have to do it with your lips at first-then what eventually happens, the prayer becomes self-active. Something happens after awhile. I don't know what, but something happens, and the words get synchronized with the person's heartbeats, and then you're actually praying without ceasing. Which has a really tremendous, mystical effect on your whole outlook. I mean that's the whole point of it, more or less. I mean you do it to purify your whole outlook and get an absolutely new conception of what everything's about."

~ J.D. Salinger