Cogitation is a conscious process of thinking, a conscious guiding of thought in a certain direction. You put an idea into your consciousness (a definite object or a sublime idea from the Spiritual world) and strive to trace back all moments since it has been formed and developed, the consequences of its realization – everything in general that could be thought about this idea.
In the process of that cogitation, the disciple should not distract the mind in external thoughts, which have no relation to the given idea.
All thoughts, which arise in the process of cogitation, should be logically connected, a thought should be a result of another thought, and they should have a link and relation to the idea that has been put at first. For example, a person could cogitate on everything from the objective world – from the table or the chair, which he/she uses, to a plant or an animal, the important thing is to follow consecutively all processes and phases, which the object has gone through. It is advisable to cogitate upon some plant or animal. One should study how the plant has been planted from a seed, how it grows up, how the leaves look like, the blossoms, what is the fragrance, what is its benefit and so on.

When the disciple is cogitating upon some sublime idea – God, the Sublime creatures, the spiritual world in general, laws in Nature, one should also put this idea into the mind and to reason again logically; the mind should not wander from some idea to another one, but all ideas and thoughts should be logically connected with the idea that has been put at first. In this way, the mind is organized and besides that certain spiritual organs are developed.

The disciple could take for cogitation some verses, ideas or images from the holy books and especially from St. John’s Gospel or from the talks of the Master.
You could cogitate, for example, on your body – its structure and functions, to form a correct idea what your body is, with all its organs and functions. Then you could continue with the powers that are building it, which come from the Ethereal body, i.e. on the role and activity of the Ethereal body – cogitate how within the Ethereal body is the archetype of the physical body, according to which the latter is being built. After that, you could cogitate on what the person experiences in the body through the heart, which is connected with the Astral body. Likewise, the person could cogitate on the thoughts that go through the mind, their origin, essence and so on, as at the same time one should strive to experience them and in this way the cogitation turns into meditation.