Meditation and the Moral Compass

Begin analyzing the structure of Biblical Law and you will find that the nature of all of the Commandments is predicated on morality. When you boil down the essence of Biblical Law, you are dealing with a universal, divine imperative. God speaks to us with the direct intention of imparting to us, specifically what He wants from us. From the biblical standpoint the very law of the universe that governs humanity is based squarely on the importance of moral behavior.

The covenant at Mount Sinai sets down in terms of our relationship with the divine. Not only is that relationship worked out directly with God, but also involves to an even more explicit extent how we interact with each other. In short, our relationship to God and our relationship to mankind are two sides of the same coin. Therefore, the Commandments are meant to be an intricate fabric of moral instruction.

On the practical level, all of the Commandments found in the Bible are meant to be a training process for the soul. The objective is twofold. First, by following the Commandments one is trained spiritually on how to approach God.  Drawing close to God involves reverence and devotion. By being able to sense the holy, we are imbued with an abiding sense of reverence. With a deepening of reverence comes the growing desire to serve with devotion. These are the keys to an expanding experience of the divine.

Second, the Commandments are designed to instruct us as to how to interact with one’s fellow man. Communication and interchange with other human beings requires moral consciousness. From the biblical vantage point, the entire universe is governed by the laws that God has set down.  In regard to the cosmos as a whole, the law of God is understood as natural law. The counterpart of natural law as it applies to humanity is moral law. It is a specific application of universal law.

Because humanity is endowed with both high intelligence and free will, there is a great capacity within human experience to move away from the divine toward self-aggrandizement and self-interest. Therefore, God articulated the Commandments as a system of moral instruction. The objective of this instruction is to move the soul consciously and deliberately toward holiness and a deeper connection with the divine.

In communicating with us at Mount Sinai, God was setting down a behavioral pattern that is to regulate human interchange along moral lines, which parallel universal law. Hence, the injunctions regarding the approach we need to take with the divine are designed to bring the soul into more direct experience of the holy and the Holy One.

Moreover, the divine imperatives that underlie the Commandments are also designed for the spiritual development of the soul. This is accomplished by setting specific, moral guidelines for ones interaction with others that train the soul in the behavioral imperatives that are essential for peace, harmony and alignment with the divine will.

One way of understanding this concept simply is to understand that service to God comes primarily through action. How we relate to the world is also how we relate to God. Morality has to be understood as an absolute. It is universal law as applies specifically to human beings. In other words, morality is righteousness.

It is through the process of moral behavior that we walk in the path of righteousness. Righteous conduct honors God as creator. Righteousness produces, as well, continual benefit and great blessing specifically for others. In Jewish tradition it says that throughout his whole life Noah strove to help and enlighten all those around him. That is why the Bible states clearly that Noah was a righteous man that walked with God.

Righteousness is the realization that every soul, as a created being, is interconnected as part of the divine fabric that constitutes humanity. By following a righteous path, a soul is affirming its connection to God through acting in accord of the divine will as laid out through the moral instruction revealed at Mount Sinai.

The reality of our sojourn on earth is that we are continually navigating life and the  lessons that the experience imparts. Righteousness is the compass that allows the soul to navigate one’s lifetime successfully. On the path of life, one has to have faith both in God and in one’s own divine spark in order to fulfill the mission of one’s life purpose. Righteousness and the moral law that underlies it is what guides our steps and makes them steadfast.

The road of life is always one of trial and error. If we are walking in the world  consciously, we’ll learn from both our successes and our mistakes. With an operative moral compass, we are much more likely to be aware of our mistakes and confident of our successes. We become eager and willing to learn from them both. It is also likely that we will be much more appreciative of the wisdom we’ve gained from our overall experience and willing to model it behaviorally and spiritually.

Walking the path of righteousness leads to a practical crescendo. By strengthening our moral compass, we deepen our connection to spiritual life and to the higher worlds. When we do this, we gain access to increasing light within the soul. The more light the soul has the more we are in line with righteousness, which in turn allows us to continue to evolve more efficiently. As we evolve, we succeed in improving the accuracy and the calibration of the compass itself.

The moral compass is internal and reflects a direct connection to higher consciousness. If we err and transgress the boundaries set by God, our compass can be repaired through repentance. If we acknowledge and regret what we have done, we are acting consciously and therefore in a position to know what needs to be done by way of rectification both with others and with the divine. Once that is done, our inner compass is more directly aligned to the higher and higher realms as well as our own  reservoir of inner wisdom.

Calibration of the moral compass of righteousness is most effectively accomplished through meditation. Since meditation allows us to move inwardly, to initiate the introspective process and elevate consciousness, it is a superb tool not only for self-enrichment, but also for aligning the soul with the divine will.

In Kabbalist meditation, there is always a conscious focus. There is an aim and goal to any specific meditation. However, the objectives are generally always the same. They include subordinating the ego, so as to move into deeper levels of self, to open doors of perception, to explore the structure and reality of creation and one’s relation to it as a creative being and to allow for the ascension of consciousness in order to encounter and experience the Divine.

All of these facets of meditative experience have the effect of strengthening the soul by expanding consciousness. The result is a direct increase in the light of the soul and a subsequent refinement of the moral compass. Increased experience of higher consciousness through meditation leads to a deeper connection to moral law, which results in a strengthening of not only ones moral fiber, but of one’s moral sense as well.

To sum up; If we move into ourselves and thereby expand to higher consciousness we not only come to understand ourselves more deeply, but also what God is instructing us to do. Aligning to the divine will and evolving as souls is predicated both on understanding the deeper nature of moral imperatives through meditation and study on one hand and the righteous action taken at the behest of ones moral compass on the other.

When we internalize the principles God is imparting either through the Commandments or through our Higher Self we become more aligned with divine wisdom, which is the basis for both natural and moral law. This alignment between our Self and the divine imperative, in turn, places us more firmly on the path of righteousness. Whereby, we are led to increased wisdom and connection with the divine will as a result.