A friend told me some years ago of an interesting and useful method of using these Declarations which had been taught her by a celebrated holy man and mystic in her country, when he gave her the "Prayer of Jesus." This is a Declaration which was widely used several hundred years ago in the old Byzantine monasteries and even now is used to a lesser extent in Balkan and Slavonic monastic circles in exactly the same way as in India. The method is to reduce the number of words used until it is brought down to a single one. This reduction is achieved, of course, quite slowly and during a period covering several months. In this particular instance, there are seven words in the Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." They are all used for the first few weeks, then the word "Christ" is omitted for the next few weeks. The phrase is again shortened by detaching from it, after a further period has elapsed, the word "Lord." Then "have" is taken out and so on until only one word is left. The Declaration as finally and permanently used is "Jesus-Jesus-Jesus-Jesus." This method can be applied to almost any Declaration. The selected last word should be a name, if addressed to God or to a Spiritual Leader, or, if that is not part of it, a desired quality.
-- Notebooks Category 4: Elementary Meditation > Chapter 6 : Mantrams, Affirmations > # 114
-- Perspectives > Chapter 4: Elementary Meditation > # 81
