Contemplation can be Shadowy or Illuminative. In fact, these divisions are arbitrary because these two states cannot be accurately determined. The soul becomes rather contemplative and remains absorbed by this holy exercise for a longer and longer time.
The soul wishing for the transformation by God and also the perfect life of the Divine Master must dive in the blood of the sorrowful passion, and suffer intensely so that the human nature is redeemed, and the personality destroyed and dead, with a super-individuality shining in the soul.
You can compare spiritual life with a long journey to the Holy City of God. So, the disciple must go forward and learn how to travel through it patiently and constantly, without return or deviation, always on a fixed route.
You cannot start the Path of Perfection if you are not born to a new life.
The past of the disciple and everything that is left behind are an obstacle. He must forget both his good and bad actions.
As the disciple glimpses the hidden power living in him and treads on his path of inner realization, he claims, moans and invokes the Mystical Presence:
“Master of mine: You are here, You are, and I am not.
Certainly, just the beginning of the purgative task of the soul, first step in the spiritual life of the meditator, is also the beginning of honoring the divine promise, the beginning of the Divine Union.
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.
Souls whose minds get tired by successive images and ideas need graphic and simple images and ideas for their exercises of meditation; for instance, as follows:
The “BLACK LADY”. Effect: “ABHORRENCE”.
Meditation: The “TWO WAYS”. Effect: DETACHMENT.
Invocation:
Oh Jesus in the Cross at sight of all, please show me Your Way, the only true Way marked by blood pouring out from Your wounds.