Meditate | Expansion of the Center

 “In every subsequent church, the inmost part, closest to the Lord, has also been the Sabbath. The same holds true for all regenerate people when they develop a heavenly nature…

‘If you turn your foot back from the Sabbath by not doing your own desire on my holy day; if you refer to those things that belong to the Sabbath as pleasures honoring the holiness of Jehovah, and you honor [the Sabbath] by not going your own ways and not gaining your own desire or speaking a word [of your own]; then you will be a pleasure to Jehovah, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth and will feed you the inheritance of Jacob’ (Isaiah 58: 13, 14).

Heavenly people act not on their own desire but on the Lord’s pleasure, which is his desire. So they are blessed with inner peace and happiness (their being ‘lifted up on the heights of the earth’) and at the same time with outer calm and enjoyment (their being ‘fed with Jacob’s inheritance’)” (Secrets of Heaven 85).

The first part of this passage is reason for meditation—to connect to that inmost part and experience the Sabbath there.

The Lord is the source of the heavenly character, and the Lord, the Sabbath, is present in that inmost part in us. We can connect into the Lord’s presence there and come into an awareness of his pleasure and desire, in hopes that we live it and become truly heavenly people ourselves. It brings to mind a sutra from the Tantric yoga and Kashmir Shaivite scripture Pratyabhijna-hrdayam*: madya vikasat chidananda labhah. This can be translated as, “the bliss of consciousness is attained through expansion of the center.” The Sabbath in us is the center. In meditation when we connect to the center it is restful. By making the choice to give expression in our lives to the heavenly character that is available in our center—acting not on our own desires but on the Lord’s pleasure—that center expands. Living out the heavenly character that we connect to in our inmost part is expansion of the center—madya vikasat. We experience inner peace and happiness and outer calm and enjoyment—blissful consciousness, chidananda.

This passage inspired this prayer in me:

I pray I may live today with the intention to stay centered on the Lord; in my actions may I first be aware of what my desire is and what the Lord’s pleasure would be, and choose to act on the Lord’s pleasure and give life to his desire.

*In lieu of a direct citation, let me acknowledge that this sutra and its translation is my memory from having read Swami Shantananda's translation and commentary of the Pratyabhijna-hrdayam, The Splendor of Recognition.