Prayer is strength of the soul, the Teaching says. So, we men have our own prayer –characteristic and individual– belonging to us. Personally, to discover, develop and enrich this prayer is my spiritual growth and the purpose of my passing through life.
The spiritual work in the soul is mainly made by educating the sensibility.
The main concern is not so much to acquire knowledge or to increase mental powers during the first stages of the spiritual process, but an inner transformation.
In affective meditation there are five steps, namely, Invocation, imaginative picture, sensitive picture, purposes and consequences.
Seemingly it is a contradiction that one must invoke superior forces for an exercise like meditation, where personal effort of the person that prays is mainly important; but this first step is indispensable and must be taken for a true meditation.
This step consists in exposing a picture that the soul has to observe and consider: it may be the development of an event already lived, scenes usually observed in the abyss, or images that express the divine.
In this work we have emphasized the need of joining personal factors of the meditator to the exercise of affective meditation, that is, imaginative pictures should be personal experiences of the practitioner, on the light of the mental scene, sensations should be direct consequence of the picture, et cetera; and seemingly this limits the method, in an exclusive way, to critical possibilities, whether analytical or intellectual, of the practitioner.
Meditation is an affective act of the soul; this is why it has certain mechanic mode, because each being realizes God according to his inner idiosyncrasy. But the exercise of meditation, if contributes quite partially by itself, makes the mind acquire certain habit that facilitates one’s meditation and prepares for it.
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.
Meditation: The “TWO WAYS”. Effect: “DETACHMENT”.
Invocation:
I ask Him who right now I worship after the name of Maitreya to be my Guide and my Path.
My request is not to expect His Coming, but to tread on the path to Him.
Meditation: The “GOLDEN TEMPLE”. Effect: “CONSOLATION”.
Invocation:
I ask Maitreya to enlighten my soul with a light of hope and grant consolation and announce constantly His Coming.
Imaginative Picture:
I see a Sun; a sparkling Sun, full of glory and majesty.
Meditation: “RESURRECTION OF HES”. Effect: “RAPTURE”.
Invocation:
I ask Maitreya: may He live alone in my soul. May He live alone; may all die, except Him alone. Imaginative Picture:
I see His Face.