What may the abyss symbolize as subject of meditation?
First, we must emphasize the analogy between the graphic picture suggested by this word and the environment in which mankind in general lives, struggles, enjoys and suffers to die.
Generally, in observing the spiritual process of the souls, at a moment the enthusiasm for purification decreases and the meditator stops by repeating inconsistent imaginative pictures that, because of their repetition, neither arouse enthusiasm, nor make the soul progress in the purgative aspect or in the spiritual process in general.
Is there any relationship between the seven classical subjects of meditation so far analyzed? Does this order respond to the process that naturally must develop in the soul of the meditator?
Next, some examples of Affective Meditation, easy for beginners and simple by their expressive mode.
Meditation: The “BLACK LADY”. Effect: “ABHORRENCE”.
Invocation:
I ask Maitreya.
Come, I beseech you; hasten, please, we are adrift.
Subjects started by this Teaching have, as a whole, an inspiring figure: Maitreya. Maitreya is the human and divine archetype. To request of Maitreya, to think of Maitreya, to wish Maitreya right now, is to create in us that image of perfection; it is to be more and more like Maitreya.
The “BLACK LADY”. This exercise of the Black Lady not only simplifies mental activities but even expresses quite properly the fundamental idea symbolized by the Black Lady. She is not an enemy to fight while she is pure nature but only later, when that natural energy has entered the being and has denaturalized it.
The “BLACK LADY”. Blood is the link that unites man with God, matter with spirit. Blood is always a token of sacrifice. Blood not only vivifies our being, but also is the strongest link with customs, family and past.
A man that disregards the supernatural aspect and reflects about those things that he perceives in human relations, will conclude that everything is lost for him.
For example, he will realize how words, especially those referred to moral or ethical attitudes, and said by men of today, are mere conventional sounds that express partial, superficial and most time false aspects of those attitudes.