Prayer of the Heart in Christian & Sufi Mysticism

Vaughan-Lee (Love Is a Fire) complements intensity with brevity, which allows him to ignite passion, but keep it bounded. The author, a Sufi teacher, parallels the prayer practices of Sufi and Christian mysticism with ease, for both faiths encourage praying without ceasing. These prayers of the heart come “through grace and not through effort.” Vaughan-Lee begins with the spiritual need for listening in quietude to shush the loud duality of mind and ego so as to achieve oneness with God. He bases his thinking on his experience as a teacher of Islamic mysticism and matches his life’s vocation with that of St. Theresa of Avila, whose stages of prayer he reviews in one chapter. In the next, he compares the Jesus Prayer with the practice of Sufi dhikr, repetitive prayer, especially of God’s name. He quotes Rumi, Sa’id al-Kharraz, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and St. Paul, among others, as easily as if they are family. He defines the circle of love—from God, to God—and dedicates a chapter to prayer for the earth as a sacred being. Vaughan-Lee’s prayerful prose is poetic, inclusive, and intelligent. (May 1)