25. Marriage
Marriages are made in heaven! This saying is often shouted with rage and bitterness by married people. But it is also used hypocritically by those who are farthest from heaven. The natural consequence is that, following this saying, one only shrugs one's shoulders, smiles, scoffs and even sneers.
This is understandable when one considers all the marriages that a person comes to know over the course of the years in his immediate and wider environment. The scoffers are right. Only it would be better not to sneer at the saying, but at the marriages themselves! 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, make mockery of the truth of the saying and make no one believe in it. They are, with unfortunately only very rare exceptions, a decidedly immoral state of affairs, which cannot be brought to an end to quickly enough, in order to save thousands from this disgrace into which they are running blindly according to the custom of the present time. They believe that it cannot be any other way because it is the custom. What's more, in the present age in particular, everything is tailored to the point of shamelessness, to cloud and stifle every pure intuition. No one thinks of making the personality what it should be, can be and must be, by showing reverence for the physical body.
The body, like the soul, has something precious about it, therefore inviolable, which one does not put on display to attract attention. Something high, sacred! And that is why the body cannot be separated from the soul in this respect on earth. Both are to be respected and preserved at the same time as sanctuaries, if they are to have any value. Otherwise, it becomes rubbish, on which one soils oneself, which then only deserves to be thrown into the corner in order to be cheaply owned by the first, best peddler who passes-by. If an army of such junk dealers and buyers pours over the earth today, they will find unimaginable quantities of this junk. Every step brings them to new accumulations that are already waiting for them. And such buyers and junk dealers are indeed already wandering about in large droves. They are the emissaries and instruments of darkness, greedily snatching up the cheap booty in order to lead them triumphantly further and further down into their dark realm, until everything over them collapses in the darkest black and they can never find their way back to the Light. It is no wonder that everyone laughs as soon as someone else seriously talks about marriages being made in heaven!
Civil marriage is nothing more than a sober business act. Those who are so united do not enter into it in order to embark together seriously on a joint endeavour that raises the inner and outer value of the persons involved, thus allowing them to strive together towards high goals and thus brings blessings to themselves, to humanity, and to the whole of Creation, but as a simple contract by which they secure themselves economically, so that the mutual surrender of the body can take place without reservations. Where is the sanctity of the body, which is to be brought into a marriage by both parties and also preserved in it? This is not taken into consideration at all.
In this, the woman takes such a degrading position that one would have to turn away from her. In eighty out of a hundred cases she simply hires out or sells herself into the service of the man, who does not see in her an equal companion, but, besides a showpiece, a cheap and willing housekeeper to make his home comfortable, with whom, under the guise of a false respectability, he can indulge his desires undisturbed.
For the most trivial of reasons, young girls often leave the parental home to enter into marriage. Sometimes they are tired of the parental home, longing for a sphere of activity in which they can make decisions for themselves. Others find it appealing to play the role of a young wife, or they hope for more excitement in their lives. They may also believe that they will find themselves in better economic circumstances. There are also cases in which young girls enter into a marriage out of spite, in order to annoy someone else. Purely physical urges also give rise to marriage. They have been awakened and artificially brought up by wrong reading material, wrong entertainment and playfulness.
It is seldom that real spiritual love prompts them to take this most serious of all steps in earthly life. The girls, with the loyal support of many parents, are supposedly “too clever” to let themselves be guided only by pure intuition alone, but in so doing they run straight into misfortune all the more. Some of these already have their reward for this superficiality in marriage itself. But only in part! The bitter experience of the reciprocal effect as a result of such false marriages comes much later; for the main evil of this lies in the neglect that is carelessly brought about in the possible progress by that means. Thus many an earthly life is completely lost for the actual purpose of personal existence. It even brings about a serious decline, which must be made up for with great difficulty.
How different when a marriage is based on the right foundation and develops harmoniously! Joyfully, one in the voluntary service of the other, they grow together towards spiritual ennoblement, smiling shoulder to shoulder in the face of earthly hardships. Marriage then becomes a gain for the whole being, out of happiness. And in happiness rests an upswing not only for the individual, but for all of humanity! Woe, therefore, to parents who, for reasons of expediency, drive their children into false marriages by persuasion, cunning or coercion. The weight of the responsibility for this, which reaches further than just for their child, sooner or later falls so heavily on them in such a lasting way that they wish they had never had such “brilliant thoughts”.
Now the church marriage ceremony is regarded by many as only one such part of a purely earthly celebration. The churches themselves or their representatives apply the saying: “What God has joined together, let not man put asunder!” Religious cults have the basic idea that the two spouses contracting this marriage are joined together by God. “Advanced” cults instead take the sense that the two parties are thereby joined together before God. The latter interpretation is still more justified than the first.
But such an interpretation is not the intended meaning of these words! They are meant to say something quite different. They are based on the fact that marriages are really made in heaven.
If all false concepts and interpretations are removed from this sentence, then all cause for laughter, mockery or scorn immediately ceases, and the meaning lies before us in all its seriousness and its unalterable truth. The natural consequence, however, is then also the realization that marriages are meant and intended quite differently from those of today, that is, that a marriage may only be entered into under quite different conditions, with quite different views and convictions, and with quite pure intentions.
“Marriages are made in heaven”, shows first of all that already on entering earthly life, every human being brings certain qualities with them, the harmonious development of which can only be brought about by individuals with the matching qualities suited to them. However, matching qualities are not the same, but rather those which complement each other and, through this complementation, make them complete. In their completeness,, all strings sound in a harmonic chord. If one part is made complete by the other, then this other part, which is added to it, is also made complete by the second, and in the union of the two, that is, in the living and working together, this harmonic chord will sound. Such is the marriage that is made in heaven.
This does not mean, however, that only one particular person on earth is capable of forming a harmonious marriage with a person, but rather that there are usually several who carry the complement of the other part within themselves. So there is no need for one to wander the earth for decades to find this second, truly suitable and complementary part. All that is needed is to use the necessary seriousness to keep one’s eyes, ears and heart open and, above all, refrain from the demands that have been made up to now as a precondition for marriage. The very things that are valid today should not be. Joint work and high goals are as essential for a healthy marriage as a healthy body is for exercise and fresh air. Whoever counts on comfort and the greatest possible freedom from care, and try to build up their life together on this basis, will ultimately only reap unhealthiness with all its side effects. Therefore, finally seek to enter into marriages that are made in heaven. Then happiness will find you!
To be married in heaven means to be destined for each other before or on entering life on earth. But, being destined, lies only in the qualities brought along with them, with which two fully complement each other. Such two people are thereby destined for each other.
But being destined can also be expressed as “made for each other", in other words, they really complementing each other. Therein lies the destiny.
“What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” The misunderstanding of these words of Christ has already wreaked many a havoc. Many until now have thought: "What God hath joined together" to mean the sealing of a marriage. This has had practically nothing to do with the meaning of the words. What God has joined together is a covenant in which the conditions that full harmony requires are already fulfilled, that is, concluded in heaven. Whether or not state and church permission has been granted for this does not change the matter.
Of course, it is also necessary to fit in with the state order. If a marriage ceremony is then carried out in accordance with the respective religious cult in appropriate devotion, it is quite natural that this union receives an even higher consecration through the inner attitude of the parties involved, which brings real and strong spiritual blessing upon the couple. Such a marriage is then truly joined together by and before God and made in heaven.
Now follows the warning: “Let not man put asunder!” How small has the high meaning of these words has been brought down. 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 is formed, no third person should try to bring about a separation. Whether it be to bring discord into it, to make a union impossible, or to bring about a separation, such an undertaking would be a sin. A wrong which, in its reciprocal effect, must attach itself heavily to the originator, since two people are affected by it at the same time, and with them also the blessing which would have spread through their happiness into the Gross Material and Ethereal Worlds. There is a simple truth in these words that makes itself known on all sides. The warning is only for the protection of such unions as have been made in heaven by the aforementioned preconditions, for which they have their activity through the mutually complementary qualities of the soul.
No third party, not even the parents, should come between them! It will never occur to the two parties themselves to wish for a separation. The divine harmony underlying them through their shared spiritual qualities does not allow such a thought to arise. Their happiness and the permanence of their marriage are thus guaranteed from the outset. If a petition for divorce is filed by one of the spouses, he or she gives the best proof that the necessary harmony is not at the basis, and that the marriage could not have been contracted in heaven. In such a case, a marriage should be dissolved without fail, to raise the moral integrity of both spouses living on such an unhealthy level. Such false marriages now form the great majority. This evil is mainly due to the moral regression of mankind and the prevailing worship of the intellect.
The separation of what God has joined together, however, does not only concern marriage, but also the previous coming together of two souls who, through their complementary qualities, can only develop harmony and are therefore destined for each other. Once such a covenant has been made and a third person tries to force his way into it by slander or similar known means, this intention is already consummate adultery!
The meaning of the words: "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder" is so simple and clear that it is difficult to understand how an erroneous conception could have arisen. This was only possible through an incorrect separation of the Spiritual Realm from the Material World, through which a limited, could come into play.
These words were given from the Spiritual Realm, and only from the spiritual can they find their true explanation!
