The Old Man hardly lives, even after he developed entirely his possibilities as a human being.
A human being lives; the Old Man hardly lives. Can you consider it an integral life if he lives disconnected from the Divine Source?
Please recall this, the exercise of Affective Meditation leads ordinary feelings to transmute internally into goods of the soul by making them fit for a gradual higher identification with the Image created during the practice of Discursive Meditation.
Faith is the intimate recognition by the human being of the identity of his essence with the Divine Mother. Faith may influence a man more or less advantageously, but this is dependent upon the thickness of veils surrounding him.
In the frame of active meditations you find the mode called stimulating meditation.
According to this classification, through the exercise and practice of this mode of meditation, the Son aims at his own stimulation by following the example and by thoroughly grasping an imaginative and emotionally powerful picture.
Through the teachings of this Course, the Sons have gradually known different modes of the affective meditation exercise.
All of them are a true arsenal where the Son can take a weapon fit for his battle against the Black Lady, according to his own mood.
We should remind that the purpose of the affective stimulating meditation exercise is to produce a true shock in the soul, like that of a drowsy man who shakes the head to clear it at once.
One should clearly bear in mind the difference between pleasure and spiritual bliss.
Pleasure is a thing of the flesh; therefore, it is fleeting and perishable like the flesh. Many men believe that pleasure is a prize of God, and that sorrow is His punishment, but they do not realize that the two are consequences of the satisfaction or deprivation of sensual appetite in his human nature.
Subject: Resurrection of Hes. Effects: Rapture.
An evening, a daybreak, the sight of a tranquil valley from the peak of a mountain, moonbeams over countless sea waves, the pure smile of a child, in short, the whole beauty of the world penetrating and permeating limited boundaries of the individual being, and liberating his soul who, although fleetingly, gets a wonderful glimpse of his identity with the whole Creation.
A man that seeks God can become, by his own freewill, a machine automatically moved by the apparent purpose of achieving this end. It is sufficient for him to replace his first love with routine –love that someday will make him realize the sacrament of his first Vow.
In the way of life of present men, all things are prepared for living externalized and wasting energies. Most men do not have or follow any rule of life; on the contrary, they act and exist in an improvised way, compulsively pressed by their need for meeting their anguishing desires.