Finding the True Spiritual Marriage
What we are longing for could be closer than we might think
There is a spiritual marriage. It takes place on inner planes of consciousness.
It happens when the divine spark within, the aspect of God’s light that we all carry, rises up to the soul plane, and the light above and the light within begin to conjoin.
Your enthralment to the reflected light of the world has to happen first. Gold has to lose its lustre as does fame, money, success, all the false gods we have mistakenly worshipped.
Although of course in one sense there is no mistake. We have to descend, get lost in matter, believe in the material — including concepts and beliefs: products of the mind — before we say enough!
Christ used the analogy of bride and groom, others have too. The prince wakes up the sleeping princess with a kiss. There it is, hidden in plain sight.
The Sufis tell us only God can kiss us on the inside of the heart. That is the kiss we are all longing for, the one kiss that can bring us home.
Spiritual practises and teachers help us work on inner levels of consciousness clearing the karma we have accrued in the physical, emotional, mental, causal and unconscious realms.
We have things to clear up there, a long history of mistakes in our struggle to discover who we are, to find that light within.
This is not about faith or belief, structures or form; there are spiritual sciences, hidden from most of us, that address the issues of the heart.
They can provide a direct experience of the divine and liberate the soul even when we are alive and living in a body.
Most of us are frantically looking for a spiritual marriage on earth with another human being.
We are close, very close. We have the right idea yet at another level are a million light years from what our soul really wants.
What it wants of course is union, a return to our pre-birth state, what is known as the Absolute, the Para Brahman or, in the west, Heaven.
‘This moment in which the soul is smitten, this is a moment in which life, for me, is worth the universe.’ Attar
We want to experience again formlessness, weightlessness, unconditional love and bliss. For that is our real being, the one we have forgotten.
In this life, we are tasked with solving the ultimate riddle, how two become one. How do two people whose souls belong together reunite?
That can never happen if one still has a focus down into the world, still wants what the world offers, while the other has a focus heavenward.
Two people living fundamentally different actions are going to have a problem. It can take the more worldly soul eons to come round, to see that all that glitters is not gold.
Aurobindo, the south Indian sage said: ‘The highest state of human love is the unity of one soul in two bodies.’
The souls can be one, but if they resist that simple truth, really a gift from above, fearful of losing themselves, there is the tragedy of missed opportunity.
Yet, it doesn’t matter as all comes round again in a continual wheel that ultimately we learn to step off.
‘In the whole of the universe there are only two, the lover and the Beloved.’ Bhai Sahib
As all mystics know, whether Christians in the west or those from other faiths, in the highest spiritual reaches, all notions of church, doctrine or belief disappear.
For the ultimate state is void, formless and without characteristic. Sometimes we get a taste of the void too early, while we are still very much an individual, and it is terrifying.
On my third birthday, in hospital nearly dying of pneumonia after my parents separated, I left my body and shot out into the void after being abused by an older boy.
The only way I can describe the experience is of floating in the void attached to nothing, like an astronaut cut off from the mother ship.
They say a mystic swims in the same waters in which the psychotic drowns. I have been trying to shift states ever since! It’s been a long journey and continues.
In the ultimate state, there is no person left to experience, it seems not even the light we carry and we return to a primordial darkness but one that it is said loves us beyond comprehension.
We have to do our part. The divine throws down a rope, but we have to pull ourselves up.
There are teachers who have walked this way before who can help us. It is worth asking for one inwardly.
There has been lots of bad publicity about manipulative and unscrupulous gurus. They are still wanting something in the world, perhaps fame, money or adulation.
The false light is very subtle and can claim and turn the mind of those who start off with genuine intent. The true teacher directs the disciple to the inner guru and is there as short-term scaffold only while you find your way.
There can be a high price to pay for choosing this way, although in truth there is no choice but an inevitability. Listen to the gospel of Matthew chapter 10.
Do not assume that I have come to bringpeace to the earth; I have not come to bringpeace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘A man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.…
As T S Eliot wrote, mankind cannot bear too much reality. We humans are very frail, few interested or thirsty for Truth. We often live for the false light bound to a self image that bears no reality. You may have to separate from those people.
For many are called, but few are chosen.
Matthew 22:14
That’s right, it seems this road is for a minority, for those who really long to return, to whom the world will never be enough. If that’s you, perhaps you could consider that you are a mystic and need to drink from a different cup than your peers. One that offers a purer wine.
It is not just about you choosing though, as this female Sufi saint says:
If I turn in penitence towards God, will He turn towards me ?
No, first HE must look upon you then you can turn towards HIM.
Rabia Al Basri (Sufi)
There is one thing in the world you must never forget said Rumi. The problem is we have already forgotten.
If it is your time to wake up, as it is mine, the spiritual marriage awaits.
© simon heathcote
