Marriage: Inner and Outer

II

The first step is to follow outer righteousness: have chaste lives, truthfulness, Love for all, and service and sacrifice for the sake of others. The first step is taken when you have this kind of life and you sit at the feet of Somebody Who knows the Way – Who knows God, Who is united with God and Whose soul is married to God, you might say.

I think you remember that in your biblical scriptures, some of the Saints said,

Christ has given me a ring.

That is the elementary step: the soul’s marriage to God. They became conscious of it, and they thought that their soul was married to God. When you have taken that step, consider that it is the first step: you are married to God; your soul is married.

The second step is what He gives you. He gives you a contact with the God-Power within, which is called Word. The outer expression of Word has two aspects: Light and Sound. He gives you a contact with Them. The result is that, day by day, you get more and more bliss and enchantment within yourself. Naturally, you become more attached inside and less outside. The result is that Sound begins to reverberate, and you hear. That is already reverberating, but we are not in contact with It.

When you are given a contact with that Sound and Light Principle, you begin to bear that Sound all twenty-four hours of the day and night, without closing your ears. The result of contacting that Eternal Sound or Music of the Spheres is that you are become more attached to that higher bliss than to the outside; then you are in the world and yet out of it. This is the first result.

Passions do not assail you, because you have more bliss inside: your attention is always drawn by that Higher Power within you. You will feel that you are in the world and yet out of it. Just as, if you sit by fire, all cold is gone, and when you sit by ice, all heat is gone, similarly, the more you come in contact with the Light and Sound Principle within, the more you will become unattached to the world, and all passions will begin to leave you. When you have that realisation in your life – that you are in the world and yet out of it – you take the second step towards the union of the soul with God.

What happens further?

You begin to see Him within this temple of God, the man-body. You see that the Light is within you, and you also hear the Music of the Spheres. Then, when that expands, you see that the whole of creation is the temple of God. Wherever you look, He is there, and there is no place where He is not. That Inner Vision opens. When you see God within and all around you, you sometimes feel as if you forget yourself. When that realisation comes, you have taken the third step towards the union of your soul with God.

And what comes last? You become One with God. You lose all individual consciousness, like a drop of water, which, when it unites with the river or ocean, becomes one with the ocean.

Guru Ram Das said,

If there is such a man, Who has become One with God, how would you define Him?

He said,

Tell Him that He is the same, that’s all.

This is the ultimate consummation of the soul with God: you become One with God; you see He is in you and you are in Him:

I and my Father are One.

This is the ultimate feeling. Feeling? No, seeing. It is not even seeing – seeing remains in the third stage. The ultimate is that you become One with Him. It is becoming.

This fourth stage is the Ultimate Goal.

But still, those who attain that goal experience some duality.

Shankara said,

Oh God, I know there is no difference between You and me, but I am Thine, Thou art not mine; because a wave can be of the ocean, but the ocean cannot be of the wave.

First, those who become one lose all ‘I-hood’ and become the Conscious Co-Worker of the Divine Plan; then, they become; they rise into Him. This is the ultimate consummation of soul with God: Union with God.

This is the higher form of religion within each one of us; and for it, we have joined various schools of thought or religions. They have been a helping factor to those who have attained that stage. In the Sikh scriptures, the four stages are given, step by step. Generally a teacher gives the first step, and in all religions they give a little reference to it.

What do they say?

God has united you; let God disunite you.

If you are together for the same goal, you will even live together after leaving the body, too. You are going the same way.

These are the steps, step-by-step, that we have to take to reach that Ultimate Union with God, called the True Marriage of soul with God. In the Sikh scriptures, both aspects are given: first, the outer ideal; and then, with that – because it is not the end-all – the further ideal of the union of soul with God.

The Grace of God working in some Human Pole – it is His Grace alone – helps step-by-step to reach Him. If you meet such a Master in Whom God is manifest, that manifested God will help you to take up the way, step-by-step. First, you become a normal, righteous man. You sit at the feet of the Master; you obey His orders; you love Him. If you love anyone, you love his commandments. From Him you get the Bread of Life and the Water of Life: you become spiritually strong. This is the first step you have to take.

The second step is when you become intoxicated with the Light and Sound Principle of God. You are in the world, yet out of it. Nothing can contaminate you. The next step is, that whatever you see within you, you begin to see all around: the whole world, the universe, is the temple of God.

In the last step of all, first you become a Conscious Co-Worker. You see that 

I and my Father are One.

But still, sometimes you take a dip in the ocean and you become one, and then again you feel,

I and my Father are One.

Something has been given out by Masters as the Ultimate Goal, and that is to unite our souls with God: that is the true, higher form of marriage. If those two souls are put together, and their souls are married to God, they are one; they cannot be separated.

This is something given out by almost all Masters.

Love is not love that changeth from place to place. What is that love that changeth and is here today, there tomorrow?

Christ said,

If you cannot love your brother whom you see, how can you love God whom you have not yet seen?

This is a form of outer marriage, which is a symbol of the higher marriage that you have to attain in due course. Blessed is the man Who has had the man-body and His soul has united with God forever: He is One with God.

This is what is meant by the goal. God has united you. Continue, and go on through weal or woe to help each other, with the Ultimate Goal being to know God. Maintain whatever children you have, and set your lives as an example, so that the children may copy you.