That inspired and excellent little book, Brother Lawrence's The Practice of the Presence of God, is an example of Short Path teaching. The contemporary biographer of Lawrence writes: "He could never regulate his devotion by certain methods as some do. . . . At first, he had meditated for some time, but afterwards that went off." "All bodily mortifications and other exercises are useless," he thought, "but as they serve to arrive at the union with God by love." Now it is all very well for Brother Lawrence to decry techniques and to tell aspirants that his prayer or method was simply a sense of the presence of God. He himself needed nothing more than to attend to what was already present to, and existing in, him. But how many average aspirants are so fortunate, how many possess such a ready-made sense or feeling? Is it not the general experience that this is a result of long previous toil and sacrifice, an effect and not itself a cause?
-- Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 2 : Pitfalls and Limitations > # 68
