A life of prayer that awakens to the essence of the spiritual life---happiness, inner peace, and the most meaningful kind of exterior action in daily life---awakens to the presence of the Beloved within. St. Teresa of Avila heard Christ speak these words: "Teresa, buscate en mi, buscame en ti" ("Seek for yourself in me, seek for me in yourself").
Where do you seek God? Here in the midst of your daily life, in this moment.
And how? By awakening to what's within you--the shadows and the radiance.
Prayer, then, is not a pious exercise divorced from daily life. Nor are you to wander here and there in search for God. Prayer is life, and life is prayer. God is near as the beating of your heart, close as your next breath.
Here's God's whisper to Teresa . . . and to you:
Soul, you must seek yourself in Me And Me you must seek in yourself. . . . . You were created for love Beautiful, gracious, and thus In my heart painted, Should you love yourself, O my beloved, Soul, you must seek yourself in Me. . . . . But if perhaps you should not know Where you may find Me Do not go hither and thither, But, if you should wish to find Me, Me you must seek in yourself.
Translated by Raimon Panikkar in Christophany: The Fullness of Man, 2004: 27-28