"A Parenthesis in Eternity" by Joel S. Goldsmith

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Chapter 22 - The Mystical Marriage

Every mystic eventually achieves such a oneness with the Spirit within that forever afterward there is a union with the divine Consciousness. That which is human and that which is divine meet: the human element is dissolved, and all that is left is the divine. The two become one. This coming together in oneness is called the mystical marriage, the spiritual marriage. This Marriage is symbolically described in some mystical literature, such as the Song of Solomon, as the union of the male and female, brought together by a love that transcends love in any human sense. It has no sensuality in it because there is no corporeality about it, and yet this relationship that develops between the spiritually endowed individual and God can be described only in terms of love.

In the consummation of the mystical marriage, the Father and Son become one: "I and my Father." There is a close, intimate relationship between the two. "He that seeth me seeth him that sent me." There are no longer two: there is only one. It is no longer Jesus, son of Joseph: it is now Jesus, the son of God, the Christ, or Jesus, the Christed one.

In many spiritual teachings the names of the disciples are changed at a certain point in their unfoldment. Their former names identified them with a physical body and a human ancestry. Thus it was that Simon was called Simon Bar-Jonah, meaning Simon, the son of Jonah, but when he awakened to his divine sonship, his name was changed to Peter. He was no longer identified with his human ancestry: he now took on the name of his spiritual ancestry, the Rock.

Today in some spiritual teachings when a certain point in the student's development is reached, the teacher gives the disciple a new name, symbolic of the "death" of his humanhood, and signifying that he has "died" to his past history, he has "died" to his mother and father, sister and brother, and has been reborn of the Spirit. To everyone who attains the mystical experience comes this changing of name and of character, even though it may not be outwardly known. Those to whom it happens do not tell the world about it, but when it happens, they know it.

The bestowing of the Robe is also a mystical experience, and everyone who comes into the mystical consciousness has felt that Robe descend upon him. He would never refer to it: it is an inner spiritual experience—not an outer robe, but something to be worn spiritually as a garment which one places around himself to separate him from whatever is left of human sense in his consciousness.

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. . . . I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Here is the mystical marriage: Paul and his Christ. They are wedded, they are one. Paul does nothing without his Christ. The Christ thinks through him; the Christ works through him; and this is the fruitage of the Marriage.

Every mystic not only experiences this dual relationship of "I" and the indwelling Christ, but each one, at certain times, transcends this relationship and becomes that higher One. He loses sight of his human identity. The Master revealed that he had attained this high state of complete union when he said: "I and my Father are one... . Before Abraham was, I am." This is the Master speaking from his Godhood, from those moments when he had transcended the duality of the Marriage and had become the He that is greater than any human identity.

Mystical literature gives accounts of those who, at some time or other, transcended the sense of a Presence always within them, and became the Presence Itself. There must inevitably come a time in our spiritual journey when we realize our I-ness, and then we are that One, and the other one has disappeared from view. So far there is no record of anyone's attaining that level and remaining on it permanently, although this does not mean that it has never happened. It means only that when that state is attained, the person's work is finished here, and he leaves this plane of consciousness.

The ultimate of the mystical experience is conscious union with God. It is a state of inner communion so intense and so lofty that the person disappears and exists then only as the infinite I, while at the same time maintaining his individuality as a person. There is no absorption into God at any time, even in the moment of conscious union.

In the period just before the full and complete union, there is sufficient oneness so that the mystic perceives his oneness with all life:

I am the life of the grass; I am the life of the tree; I am the life of the ocean. I can look up from under the sea and see the sky, but at the same time I can look down from the sky and see the sea. I can look out from a tree and see the birds, and at the same time be the bird that is sitting on the branch of the tree. I am the life of all being.

I am consciously sitting on a star, or inside of a star, looking out at this world, while at the same time looking up from the ground at the star. I am the life of the stone, and at the same time I am looking up from the ground at the stone.

I am here, and I am there, and I am everywhere: I permeate all creation. I can see in every direction at once, and always as if my Selfhood were centered in fust one tiny spot, and yet in every spot at the same moment. I am the life of every person around me. I am the mind, I am the law, and I am the power of Grace unto them, I am the way, and I am the truth, and I am the life.

Always in the end the spiritual aspirant discovers that the kingdom of God is within him, and realizing that, pondering it, almost understanding it, step by step he is taken along both the mental and the spiritual path until one day the parenthesis is erased, his initiation is complete, illumination comes, everything drops away, the Light is there, and he realizes:

I am That. That which I am seeking, I am.

Then comes a complete inner release from personal selfhood, from human sense, and I stands revealed within as his identity.

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