25. Marriage

 

Marriages are made in Heaven! This phrase is often exclaimed with wrath and bitterness by married people. But it is also hypocritically used by those who are farthest from Heaven. The natural result is that people just shrug their shoulders, smile, mock and even sneer at this saying.
 
Considering all the marriages that a person encounters in their immediate and wider environment over the years, this is understandable. The mockers are right. Only that it would be better to mock the marriages themselves than the saying! In the majority of cases, it is these that deserve not only ridicule and scorn, but even contempt.
 
Marriages, as they are today and as they were hundreds of years ago, discredit the truth of the saying and prevent people from believing it. Sadly, with only very rare exceptions, they are an overtly immoral state of affairs, which cannot be brought to an end quickly enough to save thousands from the disgrace into which they rush blindly, in keeping with current customs. They imagine that it cannot be otherwise, because it is so customary. Moreover, in the present age in particular, everything is arranged to the point of shamelessness to cloud and stifle any purer intuitions. No one thinks of developing their personality through reverence for the physical, to what it should, can and must be.
 
Like the soul, the body has something precious about it, something that is therefore sacred and should not be put on display to attract attention. Something lofty, sacred! For this reason, the body cannot be separated from the soul on earth in this respect either, even on earth. They must both be respected and preserved as sanctuaries if they are to have any value. Otherwise, they become rubbish that soils whoever touches it and that deserves only to be thrown into the corner and acquired cheaply by first junk dealer who comes along.

If today an army of such junk dealers and buyers swarm over the earth, they would find unimaginable quantities of this trash. Every step brings them new accumulations that are already waiting for them. Such buyers and junk dealers actually roam about in dense droves. They are the envoys and tools of darkness, greedily snatching up the cheap spoils in order to drag them further and further triumphantly down into their dark domain, until everything collapses into darkness and they can never find their way back to the Light. It is no wonder that people laugh when someone still seriously talks about marriages being made in heaven!
 
Civil marriage is nothing more than a sober business transaction. Those who enter into it do so, not in order to seriously undertake together a joint endeavour that raises the inner and outer worth of those involved, letting them strive together towards high goals and thereby become a blessing to themselves, to humanity, and to all Creation, but as a simple contract by which they secure themselves economically, allowing mutual physical surrender to take place without calculative consideration. Where is the sanctity of the body that both parties bring into a marriage and preserve within it? This is not taken into consideration at all.
 
Women are in such a degrading position that one would want to turn away from them. In eighty out of a hundred cases, she simply consigns or sells herself into the service of the man, who does not seek in her an equal companion in her, but, besides a show-piece, a cheap and compliant housekeeper to make his home comfortable and with whom, under the guise of a false respectability, he can indulge his desires undisturbed.
 
Young girls often leave their parents’ home to marry for the most trivial of reasons. Sometimes they are tired of the parental home, longing for a sphere of activity in which they can decide for themselves. Others find it fascinating to play the young wife or hope for more manoeuvring in life. They may also believe that they will find themselves in better economic circumstances. Then there are cases in which young girls marry out of defiance, just to annoy someone else. Purely physical urges can also lead to a marriage. These urges are awakened and artificially nurtured through inappropriate reading material, inappropriate entertainment and frivolous amusements.
 
Seldom is it genuine spiritual love that prompts them to take this most serious of all steps in earthly life. With the loyal support of many parents, the girls are supposedly “too clever” to be guided only by their purer intuitions, and thereby run all the more certain into misfortune. Some of them reap the reward for this superficiality in the marriage itself. Only part of it, however! The bitter experience of the reciprocity following such false marriages comes much later; for the main harm lies in the frivolous omission of their potential development.

Many an earthly life is thus lost entirely to the real purpose of personal existence. It even brings with it a serious retrogression that must be laboriously caught up later.
 
How different it is when a marriage is found on the right foundation and develops harmoniously! Joyfully, each in the voluntary service to the other; they grow together towards spiritual ennoblement, smiling shoulder to shoulder as they face earthly trails. The marriage then becomes a gain for their entire lives, arising from happiness. And in this happiness lies a swinging upwards not only for the individuals, but for the whole of humanity!

Woe, therefore, to the parents who, through persuasion, cunning or coercion, drive their children into false marriages for any reason. Sooner or later the weight of responsibility, which extends further than just for their child, will fall back upon so heavily that they will wish they had never had such ‘brilliant ideas’.
 
Church weddings are now regarded by many as no more than part of a purely worldly celebration. Churches themselves, or their representatives, apply the words: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder!” The fundamental idea behind religious cults is that, through this act of marriage, the two individuals are joined together by God. More ‘advanced’ cults interpret this to mean that the two individuals getting married are united by the act before God. This latter interpretation has even more justification than the former.
 
However, this is not the meaning intended by these words! They are meant to express something quite different. It is based on the idea that marriages are truly made in heaven.
 
Once all false concepts and interpretations have been removed from this statement, any cause for laughter, mockery or derision immediately ceases, and its meaning stands before us in all its seriousness and unalterable truth. The natural consequence is then also the realization that marriages are meant and intended to be quite different from those of today. In other words, marriage should only be entered into under entirely different conditions, with quite entirely different views and convictions and with pure intentions.
 
“Marriages are made in heaven” shows first and foremost that, upon entering earthly life, every person already brings with them certain qualities, the harmonious development of which can only be brought about by individuals possessing matching qualities. However, matching qualities are not identical, but rather those that complement and, through this complementarity, make them complete.

In this completeness, all strings resonate in a harmonious chord. If now one partner is made whole by the other, then this other partner likewise becomes whole through the second, and it is through their union, that is, their living and working together, that this harmonious chord will resonate. Such is the marriage which has been made in Heaven.
 
This does not mean that for a person to have a harmonious marriage, only a very specific other person on earth is capable of this, but rather that there are usually several individuals who carry the complement to the other partner within themselves.

Therefore, it is not necessary to wander the earth for decades to find this second, truly suitable and complementary partner. It simply requires putting in the necessary seriousness to keep one’s eyes, ears and heart open and, above all, to refrain from making the demands that were previously a prerequisite for marriage. Precisely what is considered valid today should not be. Joint work and high goals are just as essential for a healthy marriage as exercise and fresh air are to a healthy body. Anyone who counts on comfort and the greatest possible carefree living and tries to build a life together on this basis will ultimately only reap unhealthiness with all its side effects. Therefore, strive at last to enter into marriages that are made in Heaven. Then happiness will find you!
 
Being made in Heaven means being destined for each other before or upon entering earthly life. This being destined, however, lies solely in the inherent qualities that two people bring with them and which mutually complement each other. Such individuals are thus destined for each other.
 
Destined for each other can just as well be expressed as being “fitting for one another” – truly complementing each other. In this lies the destiny.
 
“What God has joined together, let no put asunder.” The misunderstanding of these words of Christ has already caused much harm. Many have assumed until now that ‘what God has joined together’ refers to the marriage itself. However, this has practically nothing to do with the meaning of the words. What God has joined together is a union in which the conditions required for complete harmony are fulfilled; it is therefore made in Heaven. Whether or not civil and ecclesiastical permission has been granted does not change this.
 
Of course, it is also necessary to comply with the civil order. If a wedding ceremony is performed with appropriate reverence in accordance with the respective religious rites, it is only natural that, through the inner attitude of those involved, this bond receives an even higher consecration, bringing real and strong spiritual blessings upon the couple. Such a marriage is then truly joined together by and before God, and is concluded in Heaven.
 
Now comes the warning: ‘Let not man put asunder!’ How greatly the high meaning of these words has been minimized. Yet the truth is so clear!

Wherever there is a union made in Heaven, that is, where two complement each other in such a way that a full harmonious chord arises, no third party should try to bring about a separation. Whether it is to cause discord, make a union impossible, or to bring about a separation in any way, such an undertaking would be a sin. An injustice which, in its reciprocal action, will weigh heavily to the perpetuator, since it affects two people at the same time, as well as the blessing that would have spread through their happiness into the Coarse Material and Ethereal World.

In these words lies a plain truth that reveals itself in every direction. The warning is for the protection of only those bonds that are formed in Heaven through the aforementioned prerequisites and which find their activity through the complementary spiritual qualities they bring with them.
 
No third party should intrude between them, not even the parents! It will never occur to the partners themselves to wish for a separation. The divine harmony established for them through their shared spiritual qualities does not allow such a thought to arise. Their happiness and the stability of their marriage are therefore guaranteed from the outset. If one of the spouses files for divorce, this is the best proof that the necessary harmony does not exist and that the marriage cannot have been made in Heaven. In such a case, the marriage should definitely be dissolved in order to raise the moral self-awareness of both spouses living at such an unhealthy level. Such false marriages now form the great majority. This evil is mainly due to the moral decline of humanity and to the prevailing worship of the intellect.
 
The separation of what God has joined together concerns not only marriage, but also the preceding coming together of two souls, who through their complementary qualities, can only develop harmony and are therefore destined for each other. Once such a union has been formed and a third party attempts to force their way in through slander or similar well-known means, this intention constitutes completed adultery!
 
The meaning of the words: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder’, is so simple and clear that it is difficult to understand how a false conception of it could have arisen. This was only possible through the mistaken separation of the Spiritual World from the Material World, which allowed a limited intellectual understanding to prevail that has never produced any real value.
 
These words were given from the Spiritual World, therefore only from the Spiritual World can they also find their true explanation!