Ome, lead us from the unreal to the real, lead us from darkness unto light, lead us from death to immortality.

Ome, peace, peace, peace.

Good morning and Merry Christmas, everybody.

It's wonderful to see you.

So many familiar faces or masks and some new masks also.

Yeah, you're a brave lot.

I didn't expect so many people to turn up in this cold.

And I was just in the Bahamas a couple of days ago,

where if it went below 70, they would apologize for the cold.

I was giving talks, not on a cruise.

So, the Christmas talk, I know the subject was teachings of Jesus Christ, but that's generally

the sort of a placeholder that we put up every time. In some sense, I am switching the subject.

I thought I'll do something a little different this time

instead of directly, you know, reading from the Sermon on the Mount.

What I thought I'll do today is a book which is not so well known. And I've never talked about it earlier. This book

is called the Chapters on Prayer, the Practicos and Chapters on Prayer by Evagrius Ponticus.

If that sounds like a character from Asterix and Obelix, you wouldn't be wrong.

He was an ancient Roman.

More about him later.

This book, I was introduced to this book by Professor Stephanie Paul Selle, who was my professor

at Harvard three years ago.

And I really liked this book.

...