But when a person will live with the opposite attitude, so each time he davens he decides that at least something he’s going to take away from this opportunity; and so each time he practices thinking that He’s actually standing before the Shechina. When he says אַתָּה – ‘You’, he tries to picture what ‘You’ means - ‘You’ means You; you're talking to Someone.
And as the days and the months go by, he gains more and more that great achievement of daas Hashem. That’s what the Tanna meant when he exhorted us, לֵה עוֹמֵד לְהִתְפַּלֵּל: ‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t waste that glorious opportunity of standing up to daven.’ דַע לִפְנֵי מִי אַתָּה עוֹמֵד – ‘Do something with that tefillah; gain a little more daas about Who you’re standing in front of.’
Every tefillah you know more and more that you’re standing in front of Him. Shachris you’re here, Mincha a little higher, Maariv, a little more. The next day, you start from where you left off. It’s like polishing up your neshama. First you polish up the dirt that's encrusted on the mirror of the neshama; and little by little your neshama begins to become bright and transparent (Chovos Halvovos, Cheshbon Hanefesh 4). And finally the daas starts coming; it’s shining through.
