One teaching of John Main is that meditation is a journey, a process. It’s not a technique that we master, although he of course, emphasised the importance of the discipline of the mantra at the heart of his teaching. He also said there are no methods of prayer. People often argue about different methods of prayer, but we don’t have to argue about which is right or which is wrong. This is why he says there are no methods of prayer, if one method is going to achieve a more sudden and rapid enlightenment than others. There are no methods of prayer, he would say, because there is only prayer, the one prayer, the prayer of the Spirit that is flowing in our hearts continuously.