Existential prayer is one form of mystical contemplation. It is the prayer of just being. It has few words; and perhaps it has no images at all. In this prayer I just AM -- like the flower of the field or the birds of the air; and by just being I give glory to God.
People today in a competitive corporate secular world are not encouraged to take up listening AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE. It requires tremendous life forces TO LISTEN, to become inwardly still, to suspend self-talk and arrogant critical and judgmental tendencies and to be present to another person or reality. ...The rudiments of spiritual (or other) knowledge may be received through the ear, but when these ideas penetrate the heart and are apprehended by the heart's eye, then HEARING BECOMES VISION.