"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days
shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of
the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy
daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy
stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and
earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore
the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."
On the literal side, this Commandment leaves little to the imagination; it
is explicit and clear. But the Sabbath is more than a Saturday, as with the
Jews, or a Sunday, as with the Christians. The Sabbath is that day and hour
within us when the dawn of Spirit illumines the darkness of our life; it is
the hour of prayer. It is the hour when the effulgent light of the heavenly
Cancer pierces the dark waters of Cancer. It is the sun of life rising within
the soul of man; it is the hour of revelation of holy truths. This is the hour
we must keep holy — the hour of our meditation. This is our Sabbath.
In the days of the ancient Israelites, God commanded that one day be set
aside that man might enter into the stillness and listen to the voice of
silence. God knew that man would never find Him in the turmoil of daily life,
so in His understanding he gave a day of rest. It is the day He blessed as the
day and hour of meditation, our Sabbath. Let us keep it holy. It is the Lord's
day.
This Commandment esoterically is related to the emerald and the virtue of
truth. Cancer is the fourth house sign; the number four, as the square of two,
becomes the number of evolution on Earth. Evolution is the measure of truth.
Cancer reveals the truth, earthly and celestial, as far as our Earth is
concerned. Earthly evolution begins and progresses at home; therefore, we
learn much of truth in the house of Cancer.
Going home, to most of us, is as entering the Sabbath. Here we find our
haven of rest. Home is a haven in proportion to the holiness that pervades its
atmosphere and is lived by its inhabitants. An unkind word in the home is
written with fire on our sensitive hearts. Loving words in the home raise our
hearts up to the heavenly light of Cancer. The home is the testing ground of
our virtues and morals.
Today's humanity as a whole has broken away from holiness — away from
morality, holiness, and sanctity of the home. Even more deplorable is that
many people believe they have a right to break the standards of morality and
holiness within the confines of the home. That is not so. On the contrary,
there is no place on Earth more heavenly than a home in which shines the
brilliant light of moral holiness.
Even as our meditation is marked by the nearness of God and gives us the
feeling of Sabbath, so, too, is the home our "sabbatical country" where the
sun of holiness should shine always. Behind the closed doors and secret places
of home, the all-seeing eye of God penetrates.
The fourth Commandment in modern words reads: Keep shine hour of meditation
holy, it is thy Sabbath; in it there is no need for labor for thee, thy
family, thy friend or stranger, for in it thou art to find the source of
harmony, thou art to identify thyself with it and within thyself increase it,
so that thy whole life shall become sabbatical.
— Rays from the Rose Cross Magazine, September, 1976, page 408
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