Additional Pathwork Guide Material No. 12

1996 Edition

December 31, 1975

A WEDDING CEREMONY

Divine blessings, my beloved friends. This is a most joyful occasion, an occasion of holiness; and before giving you the special blessings and the special force to cement your mutuality, I would like to say a few words about the meaning of the sacrament of marriage in the New Age in comparison with former times.

In the past, marriage had deteriorated mostly into a social and economic function, and became therefore a prison and a commandment that eliminated personal freedom and personal growth. It could not endure in that fashion. Consequently the cosmic pendulum then had to swing into the opposite direction, at least for a while. The old structure of marriage had to crumble. In the recent phase of spiritual history the outer layers of the personality rejected the shackles, and certain emotional channels were opened, so that individuals could experience their love, their attraction for the opposite sex, on a more energetic and feelingful level. However, the feelings could not be sustained by using the emotional channels exclusively. Marriage became a much more threatening proposition when its existence became exclusively based on the interchange of feelings, on relating and mutual flow. The outer shackles were removed -- the must was removed -- and what was on the one hand a relief and a liberation became on the other hand -- for those who entered into marriage as an end without the awareness of what was involved -- very threatening. Quite a number of human beings today may find it temporarily necessary, even from the point of view of their own development, not to enter into a deep marriage commitment until they are truly mature and ready for this undertaking.

In the New Age, in a community such as this, where you focus on the inner personality, where the deepest work of self-facing and growth proceeds, it becomes increasingly possible to enter into the mutuality of marriage without fear, without threat, and in a manner that makes the sustenance of feelings, of love, of sexual flow, of mutual relating, absolutely possible. To maintain such a relationship also becomes more possible. Now you, my dearest friends who are on this path, have been given indeed every possible means to make this happen. What you need to know is that it requires work -- work within yourself and work together, constant honesty and self-exposure, constant acceptance of each other's problems and impurities. Work in courage and faith, in patience and love. Use all the intelligence and wisdom you can tap from your inner resources, from your divine self.

When you commit yourself to this endeavor, marriage becomes the most beautiful, the most exciting, the most growth-producing undertaking imaginable.

And I now turn to both of you specifically, my dearest souls, and I tell you that your union is indeed blessed. Go into it with joy, look forward to a beautiful life together. But also go into it with the mature realism that knows that whenever your feelings are stuck, you need to go with a double effort into your inner realms, to interpret the meaning of the stagnation. Work together with one another and all your helping friends, so that again and again the knots will be disentangled.

In the New Age, marriage will be approached not ever as a happy end, but as a happy beginning -- a beginning that requires work, but a work that must be undertaken anyway if a soul is to advance and to fulfill its task for which it has come onto this earth plane. And in your mutual joy and ecstasy that will increase as you go on, you will experience the highest form of development, of growing, and of happiness.

I will now hear your commitments, and will then give you the special blessing and the force with your rings.

Groom: I want to share with you the man I am. I want to share with you my pains and needs. I want to share the deepest core of love in me, and I want to find unity with you through trust. I want to give you the best that is in me by giving the best to myself. Only in that way can I give all to this relationship. I want to open every curtain inside to reach my soul and to reach your soul.

Bride: I'm already so grateful for the love between us, and how much that gives to me, to give and to receive. My commitment is to share all of myself with you, the groping, the uncertainty, and the joy, and the love, and the flow; and to give to you and to life and to us the very best that I can be, and to become an instrument of God's love.

And I love you.

GUIDE: Will you place the ring that the bridegroom puts on the bride's finger into my right hand, the hand of the instrument, that will be suffused with my own energy.

This symbolic, but also real, gesture of exchanging rings expresses the feminine principle of receptivity flowing toward the masculine principle of active moving out. Both these principles, as you know, are always united and fused in eternal harmony in the inner being, and when the outer being learns to listen to the tune of this interchange within the soul, this unification can also be expressed outside the soul. Now will you please take this ring, and in this spirit give it to your bride.

Groom: This ring will always tell about my love for you.

GUIDE: When this is done, will the bride take the ring for the bridegroom and put it into the left hand that is suffused with my own energies, and that will be blessed.

May the counterparts of the active principle and the receptive principle in the soul of the man be comprehended and perceived in their divine meaningfulness. May that be intuitively followed with the highest awareness in the course of this development that all of you have chosen.

Will the bride put this ring on the bridegroom's finger.

You have brought here the symbols of purity, sweetness, and light. May the purity of motives permeate your attitude toward one another. This purity in motives needs to manifest in trust, in goodwill, in the deepest honesty of all your being, and in the prayer that needs to be made again and again, for the grace of God within to give you love, to give you the flow of your feelings, to open the blocked heart and the blocked body. In this purity of prayer, you will be answered, as all your prayers are always answered. May the sweetness suffuse your beings. May you view each other and yourselves with the tenderness that exists and lives and dwells in all of the universe, that is creation, and that resonates in all of being. Reach for this sweetness in your heart of hearts, and you will find it for yourselves and each other, when the intent and the movement toward this sweetness is extended by you. May the light of wisdom and truth show your way in this beautiful union; and when at times you are confused and are in darkness, do not ever despair, for the light shines always, even if you do not see it. Know this, and the light will come.

All of you can reach for such a union if you truly wish. And you who are on this threshold, my beloved children of God, know that a union such as this, blessed by the Christ, has a much deeper meaning than your personal happiness. In your happiness, you fulfill a task that will evolve and that will grow. That task already shows itself in some ways, but it is only a beginning; and when human beings united in love work both on their task, individually as well as together, a glory lights up on the spiritual side of reality that you cannot see but that you may feel -- increasingly feel. Those who are alone must not despair. They can be just as happy in another way, even while they are working to perhaps prepare their being for such a union.

My beloved ones, there are spiritual forms of your love, of your commitment, of your thoughts, of your feelings, of your decision, and in this spiritual form, consisting of radiant matter, you are now walking through a beautiful, lit threshold into a land of divinity. Divinity is even in your struggle to find your feelings, your inner freedom, to find the way out of confusion, and to honestly reveal yourselves to each other. Great courage and beauty will renew the blessings given you now. A special force permeates you and will be carried with you.

As I said, your union is blessed in Christ; and the Christ consciousness swells and flows in your inner universe, with all of you. Be in joy and be blessed, my beloved ones. Hear your God within.