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Molinos, observes exactly what we see today - the external way often evidences an absence of spiritual growth:
This is the way of beginners! Experience has shown that many believers, even after 50 years of this external exercise, are void of God. They are also full of themselves, having nothing of the true spiritual man except the name.
Molinos may well have been over-stating his case. The external way as he describes is not representative of many following this path. Yet, far too often we find little evidence of depth of spiritual Life among persons of the external mode. Why?
Molinos proceeds to give the contrast to the external spirituality - the internal spirituality:
But there is another spiritual man, the one who has passed beyond the beginning and walks toward the inner way. Such believers withdraw into the inward parts of their spirits and there relinquish everything about themselves into the hands of God. They have forgotten and despoiled themselves of everything. And not only things, but themselves!
The Eastern Orthodox scholar Vladimir Lossky speaks of this "frontier of prayer." He writes: "Here, wordless, contemplative prayer begins; the prayer in which the heart lays itself open in silence before God." He continues: "There is an end of petition when the soul entrusts itself wholly to the will of God. This state is called 'pure prayer'...." And: "The synergy, the harmony of two co-operating wills, continues throughout all the stages of ascent towards God; but at a certain level when one leaves the psychic realm, in which the spirit is active, all movement is at an end, and even prayer itself ceases. This is the perfecting of prayer, and is called spiritual prayer or contemplation."
*The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church.
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What we see in true Prayer is avoidance of extremes. And Quietism likely was termed heretical partly for it went potentially to the extreme of an over-emphasis on the internal spirituality, with a lack of apt appreciation for the efficacy of the external spirituality.
I use Molinos, however, for two reasons. First, movement of true Prayer is outward to inward. The inner Prayer is a more mature expression of true Prayer. Of course, we do not forsake external expressions of true Prayer. In time, the person who shifts toward inner Prayer, returns to integrate the outer and inner in a higher synthesis.
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