Meditate | Shifting Perspective

“Genesis 3:1. And the snake was crafty above every wild animal of the field that Jehovah God had made; and it said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree of the garden”?’

The snake is used here to mean our senses, which we trust. The wild animal of the field, here as before, means every emotion in our outer self. The woman means selfhood” (Secrets of Heaven 194).

“In Amos:

‘…as if you come into the house and lean your hand on the wall and a snake bites you. Isn’t the day of Jehovah shadow and not light? And isn’t there darkness and not radiance on that day? (5: 19, 20)’

The hand on the wall stands for our independent powers and for confidence in the evidence of our senses. These cause blindness, as described” (Secrets of Heaven 195).

Some emotions of the outer self: worry, anxiety about the future, despair about the way things are. Recognize in moments when these emotions are flaring that there is an alternate perspective to choose: the Lord’s perspective which sees beyond the senses and is not dependent on them. Let go of the confidence we have in our senses. The Lord is always offering a brighter, more true and loving opinion about how things are going, and how it could change.

Meditate | Me, My-self, and My-Self

“Human self-hood is nothing but evil; presented in visual form it is extremely ugly. But when infused by the Lord with charitable love and innocence, it appears virtuous and lovely.

Love for our fellow humans and innocence are what excuse self-centeredness, or a person’s evil and falsity. Not only do they excuse it, they almost eliminate it, as anyone can see in young children. When toddlers show love to each other and to their parents while glowing with childish innocence, what is actually evil and false in them does not seem so and even gives pleasure. This shows that no one can be let into heaven without some innocence” (Secrets of Heaven 164).

So, we are nothing but self-interest. Self-centeredness is what our ‘self’ or outer being consists of, whereas the Lord possesses the will, our true will, in our inner being (see Secrets of Heaven 105). This sense of self really makes for such a dangerous dynamic in our lives. Our self-hood is at once our damnation and the very vehicle through which we come into heavenly marriage with the Lord. This to me is a very powerful example of the amazing feats the Lord’s divine love and wisdom are capable of. 

Meditate | Trusting the Word

“And Jehovah God commanded the human concerning it, saying, ‘From every tree of the garden you are definitely to eat’” (Genesis 2:16).

“To eat from every tree is to depend on perception in order to know and recognize what is good and true; a tree is perception” (Secrets of Heaven 125).

“If we do not rely on the world for our wisdom, on the other hand, but on the Lord, we tell ourselves at heart to believe in the Lord, that is, in all that the Lord has said in the Word, because those are reliable truths. This is the principle in which we base our thinking. We use rational argument, factual knowledge, sensory evidence, and physical phenomena in confirmation, but whatever fails to confirm the Word we put aside” (Secrets of Heaven 128).

Definitely eat of every tree in the garden; depend on perception from the Lord to know and recognize what is good and true. For me I read, “TRUST;” trust the perception I get from the Word.

In Secrets of Heaven 128 it teaches that we should use worldly knowledge to confirm perception and not the other way around; and if something doesn’t confirm our perception, to put it aside. So often when I read the Word, the loving, true ideas in it directly oppose false ideas I’ve been holding onto (…go figure). It’s almost laughable how hard it is to cast these false ideas aside and let myself believe something more loving and promising of my eternal happiness: like the simple message that I don’t need to worry! The Lord’s thoughts are not my thoughts. I want to trust the Lord’s thoughts, which are available in the Word. So I’ll work on trusting for now and maybe eventually my trust will turn into a continual reliance on what I hear the Lord telling me through the Word. 

Meditate | My Dear Self-Interest

“The tree of lives is love and the faith it leads to; in the middle of the garden means in the will that belongs to the inner self.

The main thing the Lord possesses in a person or angel is the will, which the Word refers to as the heart. Since none of us can do good on our own, our will or heart is not ours, even though it is described as ours. What is truly our own is self-interest, which we call our will.

Because the will is in the middle of the garden, in which stands the tree of lives, and we have no will aside from self-interest, this tree is the Lord’s mercy, the source of all love and faith and so of all life” (Secrets of Heaven 105).

I remember vividly a number of years ago waking up in the morning from sleep with the phrase, “there is love in your heart,” reverberating through my mind. It felt like a huge awakening. Acknowledging this phrase as true meant trusting the Lord to supply love to me in or through my heart. Reading this passage takes me to the next level—the Lord IS my heart! It’s not my heart at all; the only thing that is my own is self-interest! Contemplating this in meditation, my heart feels like it is a glowing red, vibrant center giving light, warmth, and life to the rest of my body. It is by living from my heart that I truly can live from the Lord.

So next in my meditation, I think about my day. My will is self-interest, and the Lord’s is my heart. Yes, after examination, I realize everything I want to do today—“my plan”—is self-interest: I have a haircut appointment; I need to do laundry; I have an interview scheduled…all self-interest. Then I ask, “What is the Lord’s will?” What would it look like? What would I do today if I lived from my heart and humbled my self-interest to that…?

I have no answer at all. Then I realize, of course I don’t know—I’m all self-interest! So then it comes to me—“live from love according to faith.” This simple phrase just keeps repeating itself in my mind. This means sacrificing knowing the future and any attachment I have to what I’ll really end up doing today, because to live from the Lord, from the heart, means to live in the present; to live without self-interest is to live in the present because self-interest immediately wants to know the future and “what’s in it for me?” So I’ve got to go do that now—live from love according to faith. That changes my perspective on my day!    

Meditate | Being

“In Jehovah there is only what is” (Secrets of Heaven 630).

Note 353 (in Secrets of Heaven 630): “The Latin for this last clause reads apud Jehovam non sit nisi quam Esse, literally, ‘with Jehovah, there is nothing but being’…[Swedenborg] distinguishes between esse, ‘being’ in its pure sense, and existere, ‘being’ as it is manifested. See True Christianity 21: ‘The underlying divine reality is intrinsic reality [esse], and is also an intrinsic capacity to become manifest [existere]’ (translation by Jonathan S. Rose). In Divine Love and Wisdom 14, he writes, ‘Wherever there is reality [esse], there is manifestation [existere]: the one does not occur without the other’ (translation by George F. Dole).”

There is nothing but being; there is only what is. The Lord is intrinsic reality and the intrinsic capacity to become manifest. This is all you need. This is living in the present moment and not adding to it or taking anything away from it. The Lord has it all. This passage brings me peace and takes away worry and anxiety. It gives me trust that the Lord is taking care of everything, even what I create in my life. I can just be present to what is and take it for what it is—nothing more, nothing less. 

Meditate | Eventide

“When spiritual people (who are now the ‘sixth day’) begin to turn heavenly (a process first alluded to here), they have reached the eve of the Sabbath. In the Jewish religion, this was represented by the commencement of the Sabbath observance in the evening” (Secrets of Heaven 86).

I am glad to be reminded that evening happens even when we reach the sixth day. We have to go through the evening. It is so easy for me to get caught up in the idea that, “if I’m becoming more heavenly, then shouldn’t things be getting easier?” But no, cycles are essential and there is an evening before the morning of even the sixth day. This is the divine order.

Your thoughts?