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exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Soulmate, Myself:
The Wedding Song

Verse Two, Part I

Drawing Life and Giving it Back Again

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©1971 Public Domain Foundation

I am now to be among you at the calling of your hearts
Rest assured this troubadour is acting on My part.
The union of your spirits, here, has caused Me to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in My name
There am I, there is Love.

A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home
And they shall travel on to where the two shall be as one.
As it was in the beginning is now and til the end
Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.
And there is Love, there is Love.

Well then what’s to be the reason for becoming man and wife?
Is it love that brings you here or love that brings you life?
And if loving is the answer, then who’s the giving for?
Do you believe in something that you’ve never seen before?
Oh there is Love, there is Love.

Oh the marriage of your spirits here has caused Me to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in My name
There am I, there is Love. 

The first thing we need to understand about verse two is that, almost
entirely, it’s a reference to the Genesis creation story. This fact contains
a vital key to interpretation.

There is so much here. Like the tip of an iceberg hiding its far-more massive frame below, so too these Genesis allusions tease us with subtle
clues of intended meaning. The artful Troubadours really went to town
on this one.

This association with Genesis – as with the referencing of Matthew - by
no means indicates that the Troubadours believe in an infallible ancient
document with a literal, historical Adam and Eve (see my articles on the Word Gems site concerning the myth of Bible inerrancy). The Troubadours as artists, maintaining good form, are not concerned about information-source, only that antecedents might help bring the Guides' message to light.

In verse one we found True Love speaking of the basis for authentic romance, the “union of spirits.” Now, in verse two, we’re given more detail
concerning the practical effects of this spiritual nexus.

Let us begin to chip away at these “icebergs.”

Editor’s note: On the Word Gems site, under the “God” icon, you
will find scores or hundreds of pages of research devoted to Genesis
and Twin-Soul love. So much of it I found to be vitally interesting and
important, and my temptation is to bring it all to this forum; however, sheer volume precludes that. Instead, I will encourage you to secure that information as background material to the present discussion. My purpose at-hand will be to introduce only those elements of the earlier material specifically referring to the text of The Wedding Song.

A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home – cut,
freeze-frame, stop the action

We find the The Wedding Song referring to this Bible verse:

Genesis 2:24: Therefore a man shall leave his father and
mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one
flesh. (NKJV)

Prior to Genesis 2:24, we’re offered a certain “what’s next?” narrative
flow: we see Adam and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, his
naming of the animals, the death-trance, and the coming of Eve; and,
before these items, we’re offered front-row seats to the creation of the universe and the world.

However, with verse 24 the sequential story-line is abruptly halted. How do we know this? According to the story, Adam had no “father and mother,” no parents for him to “leave” that he might be with Eve; therefore, with verse 24, we find a universal statement made to all humankind; more specifically, a message to all future Twin Souls.

The psychic-shaman author, with Genesis 2:24, virtually shouts, “cut,
freeze-frame,” and now, so to speak, walks out on center stage. Under
a spotlight, he will address the audience directly. In effect, the message
is this:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your kind attention. I
must apologize for interrupting the Adam and Eve story, but
I thought you would want to know this. Everything that has
happened to this point, from Genesis 1:1 to 2:23, was meant
to prepare us for this moment, for something supremely important.
I’d like you to think of it this way: the creation of the
universe, the Earth, the animals, and especially the coming of
Man and Woman, all focus upon a single purpose in the mind
of God. All was designed that these Cosmic Two might travel
on and adventure together, enter a process of becoming the
super-intimate One Person, of becoming more and more like
God, as they evolve toward their unlimited destiny and potential
of having been ‘made in the image’.”

Kairissi. Ellus, do you think that lovers need to have
the same religion or agree on things about God?

Elenchus. Actually, I think this is a non-issue,
especially for Twins with “eyes open.”

K. Tell me what you see.

E. It’s hard to know where to begin. For one
thing, there’s a big difference between being religious
and being spiritual. Sometimes people are both, but,
when this happens, they’re spiritual in spite of being
religious, not because of it.

K. I shouldn’t muddy the waters with another side issue,
but it comes to mind that many people switch religions
in order to marry someone.

E. Why don’t we hold that item in abeyance until we
define some other things.

K. Like the difference between religion and spirituality.

E. That’s probably the heart of it. Spirituality is about,
well, just that, matters of the spirit. It’s about one’s
“true self,” the real person inside, in touch with God
way down on the soul-level. But religion is about
externals, about rituals and formularies, special days,
prayers, and services. And you know what’s funny?

K. What’s funny?

E. I could actually like being religious. I could be as
religious as the best of them. What I’d want, though,
would be rituals that represent deep underlying truth.
That would be wonderful. And as long as everyone
understood that the ritual, as Kant said, is not “the
thing in itself,” then religion, as a shadow of ultimate
reality, would serve a useful purpose.

K. I’m liking this. It’s similar to what the author said
about vows. Vows as an “enlightened ritual” could
be a very beautiful thing if everyone understood that
there’s no magic in saying “I do.”

E. The real “unbreakable vows” are the hidden soul
pledges, “the union of spirits,” which cannot be “sundered.”
Now we’re cooking with gasoline.

K. And if people understood this truth, an “enlightened
ritual” of lovers saying the vows would be a
meaningful symbolism. It would make the abstract
come to life, more accessible, in a tangible way. Religious
ritual could be a great teaching aid.

E. And that would be very helpful; especially to those
“new in the faith” who might need more guidance.
But generally this isn’t the way it is with religion and
churches. Their rituals promote distorted views of
reality, fairy tales; but, even worse, the fairy tales, in
order to control people and to bring in the money, are
carefully selected to foster a sense of fear-and-guilt,
that “you’re no good,” and that “God could never
love you but for our mediatorial services.” And let’s keep in mind, too, that most of these rituals, on a deeper psychological level, hit people at the center of their fears, which is death and judgment, and this
is why people become so childishly servile to religion.
They’re afraid of crossing over. Religion and Church,
for the great majority of people, is a way of “making
a deal” to placate a humorless God: “I’ll be good and
keep your little church rules if you can talk to that angry God
for me so I can skate into heaven unnoticed.”

K. We sense this to be the case as we can often perceive
the fear in religious people; but Ellus, our discussion
here is helpful because it points out that religion is
not intrinsically ill-advised, but it becomes so when
pressed into service by the dysfunctional ego.

E. Most religions of this world exist as collective-ego
institutions, merchandizing the people. As Dr. Campbell
opined, these do not have a right to survive; nor
shall they. Religion and “playing church” is something
that people will need to grow out of and overcome
before they can truly advance themselves in Summerland
– the most salient feature of which prosperity
will be the meeting of one’s Twin Soul.

K. I asked you, do lovers need to have
the same religion or agree on things about
God? I suppose this question might be more germane
for John and Mary, because Twins, “with eyes in their
heads,” are not hard-core religious. But, what about the case
of Twins when one of them sees more but the other
might still be stuck in the cultish ways of religion? Do
they have to agree on everything before they can be
together?

E. Let’s recall that there’s no judge-and-
jury or policeman keeping them apart. Well, their
Spirit Guides may, in fact, “bar the door” for a time to
each other, but, even when they do, such proscriptive
action merely reflects the “barring” already extant in
the mind of at least one of the Twins, who’s not yet
ready for mature love.

K. Ok, well, let’s say one of them is caught in the
rubrics of religion, but the other has come to see that
spirituality alone is required, not the “training wheels”
of religion. Can the more mature Twin “compromise”
and agree to be with the less informed Twin in her
religion? Would he be untrue to his core principles in
so doing? What do you think?

E. This question is analogous to your earlier one
about people “switching religions” in order to marry.
I don’t think there’s a hard-and-fast answer to this. I
think we need to allow our “soul energies” to lead us
into the right approach. In some cases we might agree
to support a church, but at other times, not. While
many churches are very toxic with cultism, one might
discover, within the larger establishment, certain
individual congregations, parishes, or church areas
which might be led by a relatively enlightened pastor,
and, in such case, it could very well be an option for
the more clear-sighted Twin to agree to be with his
mate, in terms of acquiescing on the issue of religion,
and to do this for a while, until she grows up a bit. The
bottom-line is, he will do what’s best for her.

K. Ok, but what if she’s part of a congregation that’s
led by a dark spirit.

E. That’s more problematic. He’ll have to assess the
situation to determine if she’d be helped more by his
active participation or by waiting for her on the sidelines.
I don’t think there’s a right answer. The first item
of business always is that he loves her – that won’t
change - and he will attempt to do what’s best for her
evolvement. For himself, he’s free “to do” or “not do”
regarding religion as he pleases, and is under neither
constraint nor compulsion. His sacred judgment rules
all, and such consecrated decision, on her behalf and
for her benefit, is supported by highest Heaven, and
will always be so, a million years hence, and beyond.

K. But, Elenchus, this could take some time… he’ll have to
wait for her to catch up, for her to see that his freedom
applies to her, as well.

E. He’ll wait. He has no place to go until she gets her
own eyes. So, he’ll wait.

K. So, what about my main question: do lovers
need to have the same religion or agree on things
about God?

E. It’s a difficult question. On the Earth-plane, with
many tens of thousands of different religions, not to
mention the many thousands of sects and denominations
within major religions, John and Mary prefer to
find someone who agrees with his or her own “one
true doctrines” and “one true religion.” But as we
mature and become more educated…

K. … and less fearful, because as we’ve intimated
that’s probably the real issue here, not lack of information.

E. Yes, of course. We can’t argue people out of their
fears; that just makes them worse, as the “inner child”
will tend to identify all the more with the “powerful
father-mother figures” of religion and church.

K. They’ll just dig in even deeper– the fear of death,
which is the real motivator for the unenlightened
religious, is a stern taskmaster.

E. But to answer your question, “do couples need to
agree about God,” I think we’ll find that, once eyes
have opened, it won’t be a problem. We
know so very little about God that it’s almost nothing.
We can sense God deep within. We sense God’s love
for us. We can perceive God’s presence and guidance
in our lives. But to say more is wholly unwarranted.
It’s far easier to say what God is not, but almost impossible
to say anything about what God is.

K. A better policy for lovers might be that of coming to
agree on a collective ignorance about God.

E. I think it’s much more like that. I like Eugene Peterson’s
translation of the apostle Paul’s statement in I
Corinthians 13:

“We know only a portion of the truth, and what
we say about God is always incomplete… We
don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a
fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long
before the weather clears and the sun shines
bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly
as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he
knows us!”

K. This is off the subject, but, you know
what I think I like best about being in love with you?

E. I’m afraid to ask.

K. No, really. It came to mind this moment with our
discussion – which I love doing with you, and I know
that I’ll want to explore all mysteries with you. It’s not
just God that we know so little about, but almost everything.
What did one of the great scientists say? “If
all the knowledge in the universe were represented by
all the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world, I
presently possess only one grain!”

E. That's a great way to look at the mystery of the cosmos.

K. And so… what I like best about being in love
with you is that I’m just so excited about exploring
and adventuring and studying all things with you! I
just want to experience everything with you!
And in this great quest for knowledge and wisdom,
I want to find out who and what God is, along with
other mysteries – but I want to do it all with you, Ellus.

A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home… Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again – two sources of life

Is it not strange? Father and mother, childhood home and hearth, are
normally associated with one’s springs of life. But these images of parental life-source are now compromised with the injection of another
life-source: “Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.”

Obviously, the Genesis author means for us to perceive two different
aspects of life here. What are the Troubadour artists getting at?

Kairissi. I’ve often noticed that many love songs, and
especially love letters, read like suicide notes.

Elenchus. Do mean like the “ram’s suicide song”? – “there’ll
never be another ewe”? But your point is well taken. It is the great despair and despondency of lost love, the lost lover. I’m thinking of John
Lennon’s, “I Call Your Name,” with its, “I can’t go on, I’m not
gonna make it, I just can’t take it.”

K. Or “Since I Don’t Have You” - I like Don McLean’s version
best: “I don’t have plans and schemes, I don’t have hopes and
dreams, I don’t have fond desires, I don’t have happy hours,
I don’t have anything, since I don’t have you.”

E. He’s in a bad way, I can tell; and then there’s, “I Still Miss
Someone,” by Stevie Nicks.

K. (softly singing) “Well, I never got over those blue eyes, I see
them everywhere, and I miss those arms that held me, Baby,
when all the love was there.”

E. I like it when you sing to me.

K. (smiling) Or Dido’s “White Flag” – I really like that song! “I
know you think that I shouldn’t still love you, or tell you that
… but I will go down with this ship, and I won’t put up my
hands in surrender, there’ll be no white flag above my door,
I’m in love and always will be…” (sighing)

E. What is this sense of life-and-death about true love?
John and Mary think they can “play the field” with impunity,
that “there’s more than one fish in the sea”; that a mate
is some kind of fungible product, to be exchanged at one’s
whim, because “they’re all pretty much alike,” as they tell
themselves. But then, one day, John and Mary meet someone
they can’t get over, or “eyes open” to someone special
they’d passed up. When that happens, they can’t walk away
anymore, as Dido sang. They can’t just do an “even exchange”
at the customer service desk. Now they’re stuck, and good.

K. (softly) Dr. Campbell was right. True love, the real love, is between one
particular woman and one particular man; and if you think otherwise it just means that you haven’t yet met that particular one who will shut it all down for you.

E. Clearly, true love is serious business. It is life and death.
It’s not a “roof against the rain,” as Millay wrote, but, as true
lovers learn, usually too late, there are other ways to die. Just
ask the bereaved lover who “still misses someone.”

K. Andrew Jackson Davis writes of John and Mary’s gloom of
isolation before they find their true mates. The female, he
says, exists as “unspeakably lonely,” while the male becomes
“mere iceberg”:

“Love, or the female, with her immortal and impetuous
springs of life, beauty, and animation, is, if unguided and
unassociated with Wisdom, unspeakably lonely, and very
liable to misdirection; on the other hand, Wisdom, or
the male, with his immortal attribute of harmony and
government, is, if unassociated with, and deprived of,
the life-giving elements of Love, a mere iceberg, a mere
isolated oak, cold and unbeautiful.”

E. We’ve asked, what is this sense of life-and-death
about true love? Why do love letters read like suicide
notes? - or, if they don't, it wasn't a real love-letter. Other things we can take or leave, they’re purely optional, don’t matter, but if we try to live without love, I mean, especially after we've glimpsed the real thing, we end up perverting and destroying ourselves. What does this mean?

K. Aristotle said that in order to understand something we
need to know its purpose and why it was created. And I think
his principle can help us here. It might sound too trite to say,
but… we were made for love.

E. (silence)

K. In our hearts we know that love is a staple requirement of
life, like our next meal or a “roof against the rain.” But, Ellus,
we’re headed for Summerland where we’ll have indestructible
bodies, we’ll no longer need food and shelter to survive, and even in outer space or under the ocean nothing will hurt us. But… (softly) though we might come into our “super powers”… there's one thing that will still hurt us…

Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again. And there is Love, there is Love -- love and life are linked

In verse one of The Wedding Song the phrase “there is Love” is preceded
by a personal introduction: “There am I, there is Love.”

It would appear, however, in verse two, with introductions having
been made, another purpose now offers itself. Woman and Man, drawing life from each other, also give rise to the presence of Love. I think we are
meant to find necessary connection in these two statements; that is, as
Woman and Man come alive, enter into “life,” they will also meet with
perceptions of ultimate Love.

Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again -- a second
Genesis story, a new creation, a new coming of life

What is this “life” which Woman draws from and sends back to Man?
Love Personified has given directive for Woman and Man to leave mother
and father, that cradle of biological being, which, to state the obvious,
bequeathed to us organic life.

And therefore we are alive. So we say. Life was given to us a long time
ago by our parents. So we say. But The Wedding Song appears to demur on this point.

life – it’s not what it used to be

In the old days, it was easy to define “life.” Aristotle got the discussion
going with his zoological classifications according to various creaturely
differences, such as modes of mobility, plant or animal, water-dweller
or land-lubber, that kind of thing. We thought we knew what life was; well, not really, but textbook definitions seemed adequate enough.

But The Wedding Song, with its zen-like ways of teaching, wants us to
see something else. We should have been prepared for a shake-up even
in verse one when Love Personified annoyingly insisted that authentic
romance has little to do with species perpetuation, a union of bodies. And so this further minimization of biological life in verse two should come as no surprise.

Love Personified remains unmoved by Aristotle’s taxonomy. What’s she
thinking?

life – it’s more than chemical interplay and biological existence

For thousands of years, sensitives and seers have attempted to communicate the nature of love and life’s sublime essence. If we purposefully go looking for these references we will find thousands, and many tens of thousands, represented in song, poetry, and prose literature. One notable example comes to mind:

In what might be my favorite few lines of poetry in all the world, Kahlil
Gibran’s “First Sight,” a paragraph-heading from his book, “The Beloved,”
speaks of initial moments of a lover’s coming-to-consciousness, a jarring
and transformative awareness, of his eternal companion. She had
been hidden, possibly, in open daylight, but now suddenly he perceives
her secret identity. In a masterful display of simile, with astonishing and
breath-taking description, Gibran compares her advent to that of God’s
grand pronouncement at the creation of the world:

“The first sight of the beloved is like the spirit that moved on
the face of the waters, from which flowed forth heavens and
the earth. The first sight of life’s companion echoes God’s
words, Let there be... It is the beginning of magical tremblings
that separate the lovers from the world of space and dimensions
and carry them to the world of revelation and dreams.”

This is more than we expect from a mere pretty face; an increase of the
heart rate, maybe, but not a jettisoning into another dimension. “It is
the beginning of magical tremblings … of revelation and dreams.” Finding
your Twin Soul will be a “new Genesis,” a “second creation story.” In
one hot nanosecond, you will learn, in embryonic form, all that
you will ever know about the meaning of Love. You will perceive things
that others, still stuck in John-and-Mary modes of thought, cannot grasp.
Truly, the Sacred Beloved’s arrival marks “the beginning of magical tremblings … of revelation and dreams.” Ready or not, formerly an inveterate existential hitch-hiker, you will be cast upon the shores of a previously unknown and inaccessible place, your true home. It was always your home, and it will feel like “coming home.” She is your home, her warm embrace is your home, your sacred relationship and oneness with her is your home, and in that super-nova moment of clarity, you will realize this; you will realize little else.

Editor’s note: Kairissi and Elenchus sought to understand why romantic love is a life-and-death proposition. They concluded that we
are made for love and, failing to come into our own, we begin to
die. This is true, but allow me to add a clarifying thought. In the
paragraph above, I used the phrase “existential hitch-hiker,” and did
so with purpose. To say that we were made for love
is to assert that it is our purpose and destiny to love and be loved.

On the Word Gems site I feature Dr. Victor Frankl’s discussion on
existentialism, which speaks to life’s meaning and purpose. Frankl
developed an entire school of psychiatry, “logotherapy,” built around
the concept of purpose. People who find no meaning in their lives
fall into psychological malady.

We are creatures who love. It's who we are. And if it's the very reason for being, then let us not be surprised to learn that we begin to destroy ourselves in its absence.

Our ultimate mission and purpose is to find and to experience love
with a Sacred Beloved. When she delays her coming, when the hope
of future reunion seems remote and unreal, one’s entire world can
seem very dark, with life not worth living. We've lost our "reason to stay alive for." As we will discuss below, every man named “Adam” well understands the proverb, “she is my life”; it is not mere coincidence that Eve’s name means “life.”

Out of the darkness, that dreary “unlife” without one’s destined mate,
God separates the cosmic void and splits the eternal night with authoritative command, “Let there be Light” - and then, emerging from the chaos of loveless existence, out of the primordial mists, is one, a particular one, whom, somehow, we are certain we’ve known for countless ages.

life – it’s not your life’s circumstances

People often speak of their “lives” in terms of common detail, where they work and reside, whether they’re married or single, their plans, hopes, and goals for coming better days, and, of course, the daily problems and
nettlesome situations. These issues, the “cares of this world,” constitute
one's life-circumstances, but not “life,” as such.

None of the mundane concern which keeps us awake at night is our
“life.” No matter if we’re rich or poor, sick or healthy, pretty or plain, our
essential “life” cannot be harmed in any way. We could lose everything
we have in the next moment, a comet could strike the Earth and destroy
the planet, but one’s “life” would remain inviolate, untouched, and forever
safe. We can lose what we “have” but not what we imperishably “are.”

The Wedding Song is not concerned with evanescent views of “life” but
leads us to higher ground. It is focused upon the beckoning unending
tomorrow, the “real world,” far removed from this place of sorrow and
calamity; moreover, even surpassing the importance of future celestial
setting, the song now introduces us to the sacred “life” within, our link to
God. The Wedding Song asks us to view things from a lofty perspective,
a vision well superseding that of present circumstance and biological
existence.

life – it’s God’s essence in all things

Pick up a stone. To the cursory review it appears inert, utterly inanimate.
And yet, if we had eyes to see, beneath this lumpish impassivity, we
would find a hot-house of activity, an atomic and sub-atomic zoo, but of
symphonic order, all dancing-in-time to the music of an invisible director.
The vivified elements of the stone “know” exactly what to do in order
to maintain what it is.

Didn’t you know? The stone, in its own way, is “alive.” It reflects a tiny
portion of God’s energy and essence. All things in the universe do this.

Let us imagine all things in the cosmos placed on a continuum, from
“least animate” to “most alive” – this progression will include atomic
particles, elements, molecules, stones, planets, stars, galaxies; but then,
we will also include the higher expressions of “life”: single-celled entities, plants, animals, not to exclude human beings. All these represent the “life” of God.

life – a perception of “life,” of God’s essence in all things, and our relationship to each aspect, is what we call “love”

All these things in the universe, each one in its own way, reflect a portion
of God’s energy and essence. As we mature spiritually and grow in consciousness, we begin to perceive the “life,” the “one life,” the underlying essence of God, in everything; as we do, we experience a cosmic sense of affinity and oneness with all things. This perception of connectedness, an awareness of the underlying “one life,” is what we call “love.”

In a larger sense, there is no discrete and separate “life” of a stone, or
of a plant or animal, or even of human beings. It’s all one “life.” All life is
from God. It’s all a manifestation of the one underlying essence of God,
the giver of life.

So, too, fundamentally, there are not different kinds of “love.” There is no discrete and separate brotherly or sisterly love, as opposed to agape-spiritual love, or romantic love. It’s all of a piece, all one “love.” All “love” is perception of affinity regarding the underlying “one life” of God. All “love” is therefore of God.

As we grow in perception of the universal “one life” in all things, we find
ourselves drawn to it in all aspects of creation. Pick up that stone again.
Can you sense its “one life” as simplest expression of God’s essence?

The Gospel Of Thomas: “Jesus said: Split a piece of wood – I
am there. Lift a stone, and you will find me there.” Editor's note: He is speaking of the "Christ Consciousness," God's essence in all of us, not the bodily Jesus.

Can you perceive the “one life” in a small child? In a frightened little bird
or a sleeping cat? In an old person or the people at work? And when
you’re at the grocery-store and there’s an impatient customer arguing with a clerk, can you sense the “one life,” his true self linked to God, beneath the egoic rubble of his petulance?

As our eyes open more and more to the reality of the underlying “one
life” in all persons and all things, as we perceive a commonality with all
elements of creation, we will find ourselves “falling in love with life” all
around us. A sense of marvel and wonder begins to invade and overtake.

But let us regain our focus upon The Wedding Song’s romantic love. Is
the “love” of John and Mary an example of the underlying “one life” and
“one love”? John and Mary represent an egoic nexus. As we’ve discussed, they are driven by domestic-business, instinctual, and societal concerns.

All these are manifestations of the fearful immature ego, not of God.
Well, let’s take that back as all things are of God, and nothing exists
outside the purview of God’s will. Things of the ego represent temporary
“staging and scaffolding,” a “stepping stone” of human development, just
ad hoc means to a higher purpose, and therefore signify the provisional
and concessionary, not the ultimate, will of God.

The romantic desire of John and Mary is fueled by chemicals in the brain
designed by Mother Nature to perpetuate the species – it’s an important
function in the world, but biology alone, “flesh and blood,” as Jesus used
the phrase, “cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” Biological vitality is part
of God’s gift of life but, as we learn from The Wedding Song, biology,
without more, will not take us to where we want to go. Mother Nature
does her duty in perpetuating the species, but she will not, and cannot,
satisfy the inner disquietude, the incessant “calling of the heart.”

Kairissi. I like what the author said about God commanding,
“Let there be Light” - and now suddenly she
stands before you with Mona-Lisa smile. (beginning
to softly laugh) In our case, though, I’d be tapping my
foot and complaining, “What kept you, buddy?”

Elenchus. (laughing)

K. I think there’re going to be a lot of “what
kept you” questions when Twins come together, as
they compare notes on what delayed their coming.

E. I’d like to comment on the author’s
concept of “life.”

K. Alright, I concede my time to the gentleman known
for his bad jokes.

E. Thank you. I’m thinking of the first time I met you; I
mean, with spiritual vision, when I realized, or began
to realize, who you are to me. I don’t think I can do
justice to what happened to me in those moments…
it was so jolting… as Silver Birch has used the phrase,
“so magnetic, so overwhelming.” And though I can’t
really express what I felt, I’d like the readers to know
something about this. You were there, and I know you
felt it, too.

K. Pretend I wasn’t there and explain it to me.

E. The word “life” really fits here. An image is coming
to mind, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, with the hand of
God reaching out to touch Adam, a kind of transference
of energy, making Adam come alive… I feel that’s
a good way of explaining what happened to me.

K. Were you out hunting for Eve?

E. I wasn’t hunting for Eve at the time. Quite the opposite, actually. I
didn’t like you so much then, and I think you know
why. We weren’t so lovey-dovey in earlier times. I was
angry with you, and my purpose in talking with you
was to finally be rid of you from my life. But… it didn’t
turn out that way, despite well-laid plans.

K. Famous last words of Elenchus.

E. Very funny. But it sounds too strange to be true. See, no
one will believe my story; the readers won’t really believe me, and I hardly believe myself, but, that’s what happened. In the midst of plans to be rid of you, as I heard your voice, “the hand of God touched Adam” and I came alive. It happened against my will.

K. Not against the will of your “true self,” but only against the plans of your ego, which was still angry with me.

E. I shouldn’t say more right now. There’s so
much I could say, about how you affected me in those
moments – how it felt to “come alive” to you, how
you sounded to me, and what I perceived from you.
These were things I’d “never seen before.” I’d been
like Landon Carter saying, “I know everything about
you.” But, that didn’t mean a thing. Jamie was right:
“You don’t know anything about me.”

K. (silence)

E. I will say a word more. In the afterlife reports we
learn of how male-female sexuality plays out over
there. As we know, for a time, as long as people want
to, physical sex is available, a union of bodies. But, it is
said, eventually we’ll trade that for “upgraded software.” The really good stuff, we’re told, has to do with an advanced level of eros that’s not of the body but of the soul.

K. This makes no sense to us here on Earth.

E. But, in that “first sight” of you, in those first moments, in a mystical experience, I was given to know something of this marvel. Eros was the farthest thing from my mind – I was still angry with you. But that
mattered for nothing. When “God touched the hand
of Adam,” when I came alive, even against my will, all
of my little ego-plans were cast aside and, it seems,
my higher self took over. In those moments, not the
eros of the body, but the eros of the soul, swept over
me, creating the most erotic moments of my life. This
utterly shocked me. It still does.

K. I think what this shows – and
this can be an encouragement to all who yearn to find
their sacred beloved – is that, much of the process is
not up to us. We don’t control it. We can’t do these
things for ourselves. We can’t make ourselves come
alive. And we can’t go out and try to hunt for or manufacture “the most
erotic moments of our lives.” God and the Guides
eventually arrange these things for us, bring Twins
together at the right time, and then it’s all like a seed
germinating in a natural way, and the soul bursts forth automatically
into life and blossom. Our part is to ready ourselves.

E. I believe what you say is true, but… in what sense might we
say that I’d “readied” myself for you? I was not a good
boy scout in those moments. I didn’t like you because
my ego was miffed. I was angry. I was hardly spiritually-minded.

K. Yes, you were not fully mature, but even this is
encouragement for all. We don’t have to be perfect
to be blessed with true love. Even though you were
angry, in the main, your life was a good life, as you
were trying to do the right thing overall, and so the
preponderance of energy in your person was positive,
and God blessed you for a good “batting average.”

E. (sighing)

K. I’d like to add something, and
then we’ll leave this subject for now. John and Mary
have no idea what they’re giving up by pursuing a
materialistic concept of marriage. I’m referring to The
Wedding Song’s “never seen before.” Truly, the real
love is out of this world and arranged in Heaven. Further,
you said that, in the midst of the confusion, you heard
my voice; presumably, given your outsized reaction,
my voice might have sounded as the most wonderful
voice of your life, even though you’d heard it many
times - but without recognition. Be that as it may,
when you heard my voice, now with the soul’s hearing,
my voice became an answer to your own heart’s
calling. Love Personified has spoken of the “calling
of our hearts.” Your heart, your truest self, not your
ego, was calling to me; and the truest part of me, not
my ego, responded to your call. That’s the voice you
heard, heard it for the first time – you couldn’t hear it
before - and that’s why it helped to wake you up.

life – all things on the continuum of “life,” when accessed and apprehended, might provide a perception of affinity.

We should be in love with all of life, and someday we will. But there’s someone from whom, and with whom, the sense of oneness and connectedness goes off the chart and will reach Mars before we do. 

Love Personified in verse one told us that the true marriage is forged by
a “union of spirits.” Think of “spirit” or soul here as rarified high-grade
plutonium expression of “life.” It represents God’s life in a most potent,
pure form.

We’ve said that all things on “life’s continuum,” all things in God’s creation,
are constitutionally infused with God’s “life,” to one degree or
another. And one’s sacred beloved, one’s Twin Soul, is also on that continuum.

And while each element on the continuum will offer perceptions
of the “one life” of God, there is one particular person, as Eckhart Tolle
expresses it, who will reflect back to you more of your own self, more
of your own inner soul-essence and “life,” more of God’s life within,
than anyone else in the entire universe.

This mutual, and startling, reflection of self, this cauldron of hot-plasma
sense of oneness, will be perceived as intense romantic love. While not
rooted in brain chemicals - though, for no extra charge, at times, this
will incite to riot, as well - the love enjoyed by Twins represents a shift,
a ratcheting-up, in consciousness; as such, it is a permanent feeling, a
permanent realization, of who and what they are to each other, because
all advancement in consciousness is permanent -- permanent, in that, any
time they so desire, their sense of romantic love might be accessed,
kindled into intense flame, and entered into for joint-immolation.

Welcome to the private universe of Twin Souls, the secret erotic garden
of “Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.”

Editor’s note: To say that authentic romance is a state of consciousness expresses more than we might presently understand. All great virtues represent the unchanging mind of God as Singular Pervasive Reality.

For example, forgiveness, properly viewed, is not a single-event decision nor a burst of willpower but a steady-state of consciousness (see the Word Gems article on “Forgiveness”). Love is often seen as an emotion, but emotions are part of the egoic world of dualism. Love as emotion has its dark side and can quickly turn to hate. This hurtful on-and-off chaos is considered normal in John-and-Mary relationships. But the love of God has no opposite because it is not primarily an emotion, but a state of consciousness.

Elsewhere on the Word Gems site we have discussed the work of Dr. Gerald Schroeder, MIT physicist and Hebrew scholar. In his excellent book, “The Hidden Face of God,” Dr. Schroeder explains that “the Shema” speaks to the fact that God exists as Singular Pervasive Reality. “Hear O Israel, the Eternal our God, the Eternal is One!” – a scripture from Deuteronomy - is no banal pronouncement that there is but one deity. Dr. Schroeder explains that a more complete meaning of “the Eternal is One,” supported by the Hebrew text, indicates that God’s essence pervades and underlies all of existence; which is to say, there is nothing else in the entire universe, nothing other than the Mind of God, the Universal Consciousness and Intelligence, and expressions of it.

Editor’s note: Because authentic romance represents the "life" of a higher state of consciousness, I would like to reprint a section from the "God" page which features Dr. Schroeder's work:

************************************

Preview and Summary: We learned from Dr. Amit Goswami, quantum physicist, that consciousness, not matter, is the ground of all being; that, all is contained within Universal Consciousness - God. Herein we find the same principle expressed by an ancient biblical verse: "The Eternal is One."

Everything that has a beginning is also subject to an ending.

But there exists a domain beyond the reach of time’s degradation. There, things simply exist, eternally, have always been, have no opposite, no duality, and do not suffer loss.

We have discussed how the opposite of death is not life but birth. Life is of God, and all attributes of God have no opposite: love has no opposite, joy has no opposite.

a Singular Pervasive Reality

The things of God are all-pervasive, fill the universe, never abate, cannot be overthrown - and seeming threats to such are merely apparent, not real; just the mad delusions of the Small Ego.

For example, the concept of "Satan," a mythic abstraction, cannot be the opposite of God. Universal Goodness has no opposite because everything that exists expresses a sweet singular cosmic essence of having been conceived in love.

All things represent the Goodness of God; even that which, in distorted myopic views, we deem to be Evil. But this is misperception, like a child calling the dentist a bad man. All things fit into a pattern of leading us into a mature consciousness, without which we could not enjoy our coming eternal life in Summerland.

The Eternal our God is One - that is, God is Singular Pervasive Reality 

Dr. Gerald Schroeder, MIT physicist and Hebrew scholar, is one of the great teachers. The following is an excerpt from one of his excellent books, "The Hidden Face of God." Therein, he explains that "the Shema" - an epicentral prayer of Judaism, to which Jesus himself drew special attention - speaks to the fact that God exists as Singular Pervasive Reality!

"Hear O Israel, the Eternal our God, the Eternal is One!" is no banal pronouncement that there is but one deity. This is not the point of the Hebrew text. Dr. Schroeder enlightens us:

Those who preach a Satan-figure outside of, and in opposition to, the will of God do not understand how such gross, errant notion violates not only a central precept of their own purported Infallible Book - a concept affirmed by Jesus himself in the New Testament: "The Eternal is One!" - but also rails against the very substructure, the architectonic reality, of the entire cosmos: There is nothing else - nothing other than this Singular Divine Totality, One Universal Consciousness, The Great "I Am," in whom "we live and move and have our being."

All things - including that which people deem to be evil - directly or indirectly, come from the hand of God. As the "Course In Miracles" wisely asserts, "All things are lessons God would have me learn."

 ******************************************

The important item for us here is that Authentic Sacred Romantic Love is a permanent gift to Twin lovers. It represents a higher level of consciousness. The Wedding Song calls it "life." It has no dualistic opposite, it cannot flip from love to hate, because it constitutes not changing emotion but something far more potent and stable -- the mind of God as singular pervasive reality.

When Love Personified in verse one of The Wedding Song proclaims
that she will “remain” due to the bride and groom’s “union of spirits,”
Love means to say that this sacred couple has accessed the transcendental world of God’s unchanging, all-pervasive mind, the realm which knows no opposites.

draws her life … gives it back again

That which is our “life,” a smallest embryo-seed of God’s own life, is
indestructible, imperishable, and eternal. We cannot lose it. More than
something we “have,” it is what we are. Life, at the core of “true self,”
is what we are; at that center of essential being, we are linked to God,
the Source of all Life.

Life is what we are, but we’ve also said that we were made for love. Life and love are linked and are but different sides of the same coin. The Sacred Beloved is both his love and his life.

“Life,” properly understood, has no opposite. “Death” is not the opposite
of “Life.” “Birth” is the opposite of “Death,” and both of these illusions
exist only on the Earth-plane, where most things are not what they seem
to be.

As the great Spirit Guides teach, we come to this world to “wake up,”
to grow in consciousness, to become aware of reality. In our immature
state, we don’t know who or what we are or what’s going on. In this
confusion, we think we’re but mere biological shell. We don’t perceive
the inner imperishable “life” hidden beneath a mortality of temporary
physical frame; to begin to perceive is enlightenment. We came to this Earth not primarily to become “good persons”; that will happen in due course after we first become "persons.” This is the “waking up,” an individualization, that needs to occur before we can do anything else.

And while there are many ways to begin to discover the marvel and
wonder of our divine heritage, the “life” within, the Troubadour Guides
are of the opinion, and have learned, that the best way to effect a high order of sentience will be that of authentic, spiritual romance. There is
one destined mate for each of us who is so like us, so able to mirror and
reflect core essence, such that, she will be able to move to action, to
pierce defenses, to circumvent “the games people play,” to reach and
to teach her lover, to draw out the inner “life,” as no other pedagogue
in the universe.

He does the same for her: “Man gives [life] back again.” But, generally
speaking, the process begins with Woman. We’ll discuss why this is so.

life – the testimony of 100,000 love songs

Many thousands of love songs speak to the transformative power of
romantic love and how it becomes very “life” to us. Here is but one example, a song I like, “I’m Alive,” made famous by The Hollies (written by
Clint Ballard, Jr., a 1965 #1 hit).

Did you ever see a man with no heart, Baby, that was me, Just
a lonely, lonely man with no heart, until you set me free, Now
I can breathe, I can see, I can touch, I can feel, I can taste all
the sugar sweetness in your kiss, You give me all the things
I’ve ever missed, I’ve never felt like this, I’m alive, I’m alive,
I’m alive, I used to think I was living, Baby, I was wrong, No I
never knew a thing about living, until you came along, Now
I can breathe, I can see, I can touch, I can feel, I can taste all
the sugar sweetness in your kiss, You give me all the things
I’ve ever missed, I’ve never felt like this, I’m alive, I’m alive,
I’m alive…

There is something about romantic love, so constitutive of human
purpose, meaning, and destiny, that it reaches us, way down on the deep
inside, as can nothing else. True Love makes us come alive, that is, a realization of the life within; not just come alive, but it makes us want to live. There’s a difference. True Love stirs to flame the smoldering coals of essential-person beneath the ashes of our despair and aloneness.

We begin to understand why the Troubadour Guides have stated that
we cannot be perfected and attain to our highest level of development
without the power of love in our lives to teach and to lead us: Now I can
breathe, I can see, I can touch, I can feel, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive!
This sounds like Adam’s gushing at his first sight of Eve.

Kairissi. Elenchus, I feel we should say a word more
on “Adam touched by the hand of God.” Let’s not confuse ourselves:
according to the Genesis account, Adam was just totally lifeless before God’s intervention. In our case, we house the “one life” deep within. We already have it. Our problem is recognition, not acquiring life, as such.

Elenchus. Ok.

K. That’s one thing. But I think I gave the wrong impression
about “coming alive.” I said, essentially, that
you had lived a good life, which is true, and that this
somehow facilitated enlightenment for you. On that
last point, I think I went too far. We understand that
enlightenment might come to the “sinner” before
the “saint” – or not. We just don’t know.

E. There’s a quotation by Marcus Aurelius which says
that the soul has a mind of its own and will do what
it wants to do; actually, the soul is the true mind, not
the “chattering ego in the head.”

K. And, I think that’s much closer to the point
we need to make. It’s the soul that controls this whole
process. Our coming to recognition is analogous to
“God touching the hand of Adam,” but in a different way. This is the soul
deciding that it’s time to assert itself.

E. It does what it wants to do.

K. We’re talking about coming alive in terms of awareness.
And something without life cannot make
itself alive. We can’t “come alive” by good works or
by being a decent person. I’m not saying those things
are detriments, but coming alive is more than earning
merit badges for good conduct. In fact, one reason
why the “sinner” might come alive sooner is because
his suffering is much keener, which means he might be
ready to change his life.

E. Just now I’m remembering something Jesus said to
that effect: “The righteous enter the kingdom after
the publican and the harlot.”

K. I think that’s what we’re talking about here. And
yet, to contradict ourselves, this principle didn’t apply
in your case, as you did lead a good life. And so, we
have to label this whole area of “how to come alive”
with a big question mark. We don’t know, and the soul
will do whatever it pleases, on its own timetable.

E. We’ve often referenced a thought from Kant and
we need to do it again right now. Coming alive sometimes
“arises from” good works but “is not grounded
in” good works.

K. That’s closer to what we want to say.

E. There is good news here, in the sense that some
people can appear pretty “dead” and seemingly
without hope of coming alive for donkey’s ages to
come. But it’s not that way. A wayward person might
be suffering so much that he or she is about to crack
and beg God for rescue. And then the lights go on.
Actually… to be honest, this might’ve been my case,
too, as, at least subliminally, I was in “Adam’s death-trance”
(see discussion below) for some time before
I came alive when I “met” you. Below the surface of
consciousness, I was suffering terribly, missing you so, even though I had not "met" you.

K. That is an important point and we mustn’t
rush to judgment. I’ll have to take it back – maybe,
in your case, your “good life” didn’t have much to
do with the opening of your eyes. If I had to guess,
maybe it was your suffering, growing to the breaking
point, that opened your mind and your heart to me.
And it didn’t matter what the ego said about getting rid of me, the soul just
finally overruled it.

E. There’s one loose end here that doesn’t make
sense, though. On the Word Gems site there’s an
article, “Why Only The Virtuous Will Find The Truth.”
The author quotes Dr. William Barclay as he discusses
the Greek word eusebeia. It’s often translated “godliness”
in the New Testament, but in classical Greek it
was considered to be “the greatest of all virtues”; so
much so, that “everything else stands second to this.”
This quality “rises, in spite of trial and danger, superior
to the enticements of individual passion and selfish ease.”

K. It seems to describe the perfect person.

E. Barclay said that eusebeia directs us to a “freedom
from superstitions, imperfections, and improprieties.”

K. This is very problematic. John and Mary, led by the
ego and the “fire,” are not always interested in freeing
themselves from religious superstition and improprieties.
And so, how do we get from here to there? How
can a person who’s led by the “fire” find it within him
or herself to desire the truth enough to change one’s life?

E. Well, one thing, God knows that we don’t begin
with perfect attitudes. And so there must be a bridging-
of-the-gap somehow to take us from “here to there.”

K. I don’t think we should make this too complicated.
Barclay is right – only the virtuous will find the truth because only they want to find it. But I think it all comes down to how we define “virtuous.”

E. Ok, that’s important, and I think I’m seeing it now.
God and the Guides will not force anyone to accept
the truth. There has to be willingness.

K. There’s an old tongue-in-cheek saying about being
“dragged kicking and screaming into the kingdom of
God.” But you’re right, it doesn’t work that way, as no
one is forced. Willingness is essential - and yet, willingness does not need to be perfect. So how does this work?

E. We’ve talked about disillusionment as the doorway
to wisdom. When a person finally gets fed up
enough with all the misery of John-and-Mary modes
of thought and living, they will then become willing to
find the truth; even if they're not "saints."

K. That willingness is the first “toe over the line” into
virtue. Willingness is the first dawning ray of virtue.
And now, suddenly, this willingness makes us virtuous
enough to find the truth, or at least begin the process.

E. Because we cannot be forced; on some level, "ya gotta wanna."

K. And when we truly "wanna," does this trigger the soul into "waking up"?

in the beginning … and til the end -- a proclamation to all

We have seen that The Wedding Song is a kind of open letter to all peoples, of all eras, and into the distant future. In line with this, “in the beginning … and til the end” adds to the sense of universality. But I believe this phrase means to say more. Beyond universal message, The Wedding Song speaks to universal source of happiness and joy; so much so that its “gospel” intends to deliver, as another poet has it, “what we stay alive for,” a universal salvation of the heart. Without receipt of such, we, all of us, no matter how advanced or exalted we are or might become in the next planes of existence, will not be able to endure the terror of living forever.

in the beginning … and til the end – we are offered a “salvation” story

“In the beginning” is a very famous phrase, the first words of the Bible in
Genesis. But what is this “end”? What meaning could there be in a term
of limitation and finality coming from Troubadours who live endlessly
and suffer no diminishment? So very often in the afterlife-reports we are
told of eternal happiness and eternal love. It’s all “eternal” over there;
nothing good ever comes to an end. Therefore, what is this anomalous
“til the end”?

But I think I might understand. “In the beginning” leads us to Genesis;
in fact, these are the very first words of the Bible. “Til the end,” by extension and implication, it appears to me, refers to the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible. That final book speaks of the end of the world, the end of sin and evil, the end of the old Earth and the start of a “new Heaven and a new Earth.”

It is probably more than coincidental that, in the very last chapter, the
very last page of the Bible, Revelation 22, we find words, purportedly
from Jesus, asserting,

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Revelation's phrase "the beginning and the end” takes us very close to the words of The Wedding Song.

Editor's note: We need not trouble ourselves with fears that the real Jesus is speaking to us in Revelation 22. That is not possible. There are other things stated in Revelation 22 that the real Jesus would never say. This assessment is just a replay of our judgment on the errant Matthew 18 quotation, with its blank-check totalitarian authority to anyone claiming to be a church official. Let us also remind ourselves that the Bible is not an infallible book. You will find abundant evidence for this assertion on my Word Gems site. The important point for our discussion is not that “Jesus” is quoted, just as this was not relevant to the Matthew quotations, but that the artful Troubadours went looking for a phrase, a way of saying “from the first page of the Bible to the last.” That’s the sense to be extracted here for interpreting The Wedding Song.

To restate: The Wedding Song's phrases “In the beginning … and til the end" are also found, almost verbatim, on the last page of the Bible, Revelation's “the beginning and the end.” I see the artful Troubadours at work here. As echoing element, it’s also interesting that alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Is this meant to be a subtle clue for us? I think it’s just one more “coincidental” item directing us toward notions of “beginning" and "end.”

Let us speak to meaning now. The Bible gives us a “salvation theory” –
much of it represents Nicene Council “fake news” and must be discarded
out of hand. (See the Word Gems discussion.) Therefore, the “salvation
theory” of the Bible is not one that the Troubadours particularly subscribe to, but, as we’ve seen, such detail will not preclude them from lifting
whatever allusion they might find useful to their poetic purposes. I think
“in the beginning … and til the end” is a shorthand way of the Troubadours
saying:

"From beginning to end, an alpha and omega, from the
opening words to the closing words, from the first page to the
last page, from Genesis to Revelation, the whole Bible offers
its 'salvation theory,' a method to perfect humankind. But
we Troubadours have learned there’s a better way to effect
human evolvement. We have our own 'salvation theory,' and
we have our own 'Bible,' too, so to speak, our own authoritative
'infallible' and authoritative word from Heaven -- The Wedding Song, the testimony of Love Personified. Is your authority better than
ours? We beg to differ. Is your 'salvation' more efficacious
for good? We think not.

"We have learned that the best road forward for homo sapiens
is to lead them – not into fears of eternal hellfire, as Big
Religion would have it, but -- into the eternal joy of God’s
mind, God’s own happiness. And nothing works better to that
purpose than the experience of sacred romantic love, the joy
of deep oneness shared by a Sacred Two. We believe that
'made in the image, male and female,' invites a particular
man and woman, created exclusively for each other, to mirror
God’s mind. This assessment is supported by the findings
of our best philosophers who assert that God comes to us,
in some sense, with plurality in the Divine Essence; even
Genesis speaks of this plurality with its 'Let us make man in
our image.' For this reason, our advanced teachers speak of
'Mother-Father God.' All of which suggests that the male and
female 'made in the image' are to live their lives emulating
the Divine Parent(s)."

The word “salvation,” as employed by the worldly churches, has been
degraded. Dark forces in this world would attempt to convince you that
there’s something wrong with you, and that you, defective person that
you are, need “salvation.” But our primordial biblical ancestors did not
“fall.” We were not created laden with insufficiency, or with such slipshod
workmanship requiring immediate repair and recovery work. What a pathetic vision of God this makes! This is nonsense taught by the dark-spirited churches, an effort to make you feel “no good” in order that they might bring you under their cultish control.

Nevertheless, “salvation” can be a perfectly good word, properly handled.
We are like tiny seeds needing to germinate and expand; we are like
babies needing to grow up. Our souls were made perfect and contain all
that we shall ever have or need in our eternal lives.

But, how to attain maturity, how to grow up, how to unpack the riches of the soul? That is the question.

“Salvation,” in this sense, is worthy of our consideration, and the Troubadour Spirit-Guides are convinced that an encounter with Authentic
Eternal Romantic Love is the best way to advance us, to help us grow
into our destiny of becoming more and more like Mother-Father God. It
is true love, true romantic love, more than anything else, that makes us
come alive, to want to live and develop ourselves.

Having life within is all well and good, but unless people have a reason to live, to develop themselves, none of that life will ever germinate and see the light of day. Enter the true romantic love. As we learn from 100,000 love songs, "Now I have a purpose; before you came I was dead, with no reason to draw breath, but now I'm alive and want to live, and do everything - with you."

This is the "salvation" offered by The Wedding Song.

in the beginning … and til the end -- the timelessness of true love 

The above explanation of “in the beginning … and til the end” is, I feel, logically sound and, in its own way, correct; however, I’m wondering if there’s a simpler meaning. Simple explanations have a better chance of being correct. Let’s look at the phrase under review within the context of verse two:

A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home
And they shall travel on to where the two shall be as one.
As it was in the beginning is now and til the end
Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.
And there is Love, there is Love.

We find that “in the beginning … and til the end” is nestled between images of leaving parental home and hearth for the purpose of travelling on toward greater levels of intimacy, followed by a picture of the couple giving life to each other, the result of which is transcendent love. We feel the temperature in the room rising now.

In the midst of this surfeit of good feeling, the Song offers a temporal context; effectively, it poses a question, “When does all of this love happen?” Well, the answer is “now,” it happens right now, in the eternal cosmic present moment, which has no beginning and no end. And notice that the Song itself expressly includes the "now." It's all quite seamless, one grand continuum, nothing's left out. And isn’t it interesting that this is exactly the way lovers talk?

The 1960s popular song, “Love Is All Around,” well captures the sentiment: You know I love you, I always will, My mind's made up by the way that I feel, There's no beginning, There'll be no end…

Elsewhere in our discussion of The Wedding Song, the point is made that the love of authentic romantics is part of the timeless and all-pervasive love of God. God’s love is the great singularity, it has no opposites, it fills the universe and eternity, and beside it there is nothing else. Twin Souls access this non-temporal sense of God’s love. For them, their love has no beginning and no end.

This is the way they view it. When they fall in love, they’re overwhelmed by the anomalous feeling of “I have always loved you, even before I met you.” It is the love that has no beginning and no end.

Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again – the coming
of Eve

Let us remind ourselves that much of verse two offers allusion to the
Genesis account. Here is a major item of the biblical text, so obviously
relevant: Hebrew etymological roots of “Eve,” a name Adam gave to the
mythical first Woman, include “to breathe,” “to live,” or “to give life” –
essentially, Eve’s name means “life.” We find it difficult to doubt that
such confluence with the text of The Wedding Song could be anything but purposeful. The fingerprints of the Troubadours, we easily presume,
are all over this reference.

As side issue, but worth mentioning, there are certain playful
statements made by men about the women they love. It is common to
hear, “she is my life” and, often, in the same breath, he goes further with,
“she is my better half.” While I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on this,
is it not strange that she rarely feels compelled to offer reciprocal comment?

I can recall many instances of men making little jokes with these
phrases, but, in my experience, women do not do this. And I think there’s
a reason why Woman is mentioned first in the process of drawing “life.”
In truth, they are very “life” to each other, and in the real love each of
them senses that, without the other, that missing half, everything becomes
too hard and not worth it. The Spirit Guides themselves say it’s
this way even in Summerland, that without one’s true love even eternal
life would not be worth living. Defy “the goddess” at your own risk.

While acknowledging all this, I submit to you that each Man, truly in
love, stands before Woman inwardly compelled to proclaim to highest
Heaven, and to her, “You are my life! And, without you, I die daily and
merely exist – not live – in perpetual death.” Essentially, this is what Adam said to Eve at first sight.

Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again – Eve draws
her life from Adam

It was Dr. Elaine Pagels of Harvard, I believe, who commented that early
Gnostic teachers offered dozens of interpretations of the Genesis creation-story. They would scorn the “literalists” who insisted on a single
“infallible, one, true meaning” of the biblical document. This latter view
is untenable, attacked by a great multitude of contextual items incommensurate with the literalistic view. The interesting point for us is that the Troubadour Spirit-Guides, in Gnostic fashion, have offered us one more interpretation of the Genesis creation-story. However, some will object to this multiplicity of meaning with, “How can you have 50 interpretations?”

But here’s how it works.

The great Gnostic teachers, some of whom produced the wisdom-laden
“Gospel Of Thomas,” saw or were given important principles of life,
and they searched for a forum in which to present their message. And
this is exactly what we find happening with Troubadour Guides commandeering and taking over Genesis to promote their particular teachings.

Genesis, it seems clear to me, was compiled by writers
possessing mediumistic abilities. In contact with the astral realms, these
channelers of next-world wisdom delivered to the rest of us important
information, but in metaphoric form.

Editor’s note: Genesis is made up of several “clay tablets,” with some of these, I suspect, representing human views alone without Spirit-Guide assistance. See Word Gems on Dr. R.K. Harrison's archeological evidence for the “tablets.”

Somehow, I suspect, it is most relevant to our investigation that Eve drew
her life from Adam, that is, was made from a part of Adam, all of which
corresponds so perfectly, albeit metaphorically, with The Wedding Song’s
“Woman draws her life from man.”

What does this mean for us in our searchings here? We’ll have to find
out, but let’s look at a larger picture of how primordial Woman and Man
came together.

Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again – Adam also
drew his life from Eve

We have discussed how finding one’s true mate is not so much about
“going out and hunting for her” but, much more, that of recognizing her
when she comes into view.

Let’s notice how this principle played out for Adam. His death-trance
and the “surgical removal” of Eve – metaphorically representing Twin
Souls sharing a common creation – are preceded by Adam’s naming of
the animals. There is great meaning in the uniting of these two events,
the coming of Eve and the naming of the animals.

The Genesis account informs us:

2:18: And God said, It is not good that the man should be
alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

Let us take note that it is God’s evaluation, not Adam’s, that the man should not be alone.

2:19, 20: And out of the ground the LORD God formed every
beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them
unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever
Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air,
and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not
found an help meet for him.

When we read of Adam naming the animals we might envision an activity
of arbitrarily choosing one name as opposed to another; as John and
Mary might as easily have been labeled Jim and Martha.

In the Lakota culture, we find surnames rich in suggestive meaning: Taken
Alive, His Horse Is Thunder, Kills Pretty Enemy, Two Bears, Iron Eyes, Many Horses, White Bull, Defender, Black Moon. The Hebrew mind worked similarly employing picturesque evaluation. For them, a name represented one’s essential character, outstanding trait, or life-purpose. In all of Adam’s denominating, the Hebrew author means to say that Adam offered his sense regarding the meaning, significance, and purpose of each entity.

The Jewish Haggadah: Adam “called all in turn by name, suiting
the name to the peculiarity of the animal.”

The Jewish Book of Jubilees: “And Adam named them... Adam
saw that each species had a male and female - but he was
alone.”

Adam was no biologist, attempting his own version of zoological classification. We know this because, at the end of his naming activity, the
final evaluation became this: "for Adam there was not found a helper
suitable for him."

We are specifically informed that it didn’t work out well for Adam. All of the naming, in reality, was Adam’s personal quest, at the prompting of God, to find meaning for his life via something or someone else. He, in effect, was asking the question, “What does each creature, and the universe, mean to me, and for me, in a personal way?”

However, he found no satisfying answer.

Editor’s note: The term “help meet” has been used to subjugate
women by male-dominated Ecclesia, a license to lord it over Woman. But the Hebrew, along with the story’s context, allows
for no such Neanderthal interpretation. You will want to see my
Word Gems writings on this for a more complete treatment of the
subject, but, in brief, consider this: Notice that after the naming of
the animals, after reviewing all of their variety, Adam, despondent
and alone, notes to himself that “there was no help meet for him.”
“Meet” is an Old English word that means “suitable.” The context
of the Genesis story tells us much about this “help meet.” Adam
was not feeling dejected because of a failure to find an inferior over
whom to reign, as the worldly churches seem to suggest. The animal
world, closely encountered during the naming process, offered any
number of opportunities to exercise regal subjugation, if that were
his aim. Such draconian interpretation of “I’m better than the little
woman,” taught by male-led churches, is impossible here.

Here is the important point in all this: God prepared Adam for marriage
by helping him toward a receptive frame of mind, a better level of
consciousness, which allowed him to recognize the sacred status of his
Twin – the wonder and marvel associated with her - when finally she
was presented to him.

In our John-and-Mary world, when people want to be married, they
embark on a hunting expedition, as if human effort and “choice” were the operative factors in play. But the true love and the true marriage are not about choice and hunting but preparing oneself to recognize the Sacred Beloved when she enters, or is brought to, one’s radar screen.

Adam’s “preparation for marriage” became a long period of disillusionment
during which he tested and evaluated many aspects of his world.
He began to see that nothing could satisfy him, that there was no place
for him, and no one quite like himself, in all of creation. God orchestrated this existential crisis for Adam, and the Troubadour Guides have their hand
in doing the same for us. Disillusionment is the doorway to wisdom, and
at the end of Adam’s ordeal, when his mind and heart were prepared,
Eve was simply presented to him. Adam was made ready via disillusionment.

And, suddenly, she was right there, out of the blue, standing in front of him; and now, with heart having been made ready, gushing effusively, he cannot contain himself but to exclaim,

“You are not like all the creatures I named. You are just like me, you are exactly like me, you are part of my very person, part of my own flesh and blood; in fact, a sense of familiarity so overwhelms me that I perceive you to be my own self in another form. I feel so strongly about what's happening to me that, to commemorate this overwhelming experience, I will create a new term, a new name for you - Woman" [meaning, in the Hebrew, "one with whom I enter relationship," as opposed to all the other creatures Adam named that were not like him].

This is virtually Kahlil Gibran’s “first sight” of the Sacred Beloved: it is “the
beginning of magical tremblings […] of revelation and dreams.” And I will venture to say that, in some form or fashion, Adam's words of astonishment are the words of EveryMan when he's finally allowed to lay eyes on his eternal mate. Meeting her is a completely devastating and mystical experience, one of “utter familiarity,” of "soulmate, myself," a sense of “coming home,” of finding oneself in the eyes of another – who, in fact, is no other, but part of one’s own soul essence.

The metaphoric picture of Adam meeting Eve well represents how the
actual process works. At the right time, the Troubadour Guides will bring
destined lovers together. Suddenly, out of the blue, in a natural way, she will be right there, no hunting expedition required. It will be a defining moment in their eternal lives; but, especially disconcerting for him, the once-confident and independent philistine who thought he was strong enough to live without her.

It does no good for the Guides to arrange this meeting until both parties
have been prepared for recognition. You wouldn’t even like it until sufficient consciousness makes one receptive. Your Twin Soul might be around you right now, or she might have been near you at an earlier time, but, without eyes to see, mere physical presence availed nothing.

While we’re not issued an operator’s manual to answer all questions, I suspect that, in many cases, destined Twins do meet each other in earlier times but without recognition. Later, sometimes much later, when understanding begins to form, like a worm vaguely becoming aware of the light, an ensuing sense of loss and grief and missed opportunity of not having been with her can so overwhelm as to virtually jettison one, ready or not, into a higher state of consciousness. This great sorrow is Adam’s disillusionment as doorway to wisdom, a preparation for full recognition and reunion. It will be a custom-crafted existential crisis, just for you, courtesy of superintending Troubadour Guides. Class is in session. And soon you’ll be ready to gush and exclaim, too, a charter member of the club now.

Elenchus. I was thinking about something from
Silver Birch. He said that in this world Twins might be
kept apart by not seeing eye-to-eye on things, but he
also said they’re often ”at the same stage of growth and
evolution.”

Kairissi. How would you reconcile this?

E. Well, he could have meant that when the “playing
field is leveled” and all of those “obstacles” of which
he spoke are removed, the straggler-Twin will catch
up fairly fast. But, while this is true, I don’t think that’s
what he meant.

K. Let me guess. As we have a “true self” and a “false self,”
and, despite “surface” discrepancies, Twins are probably at
an equal stage of development at the level of core-person.

E. That sort of rings true to me.

K. Why?

E. There’s something called “quantum entanglement” which
seems to be a proven fact. Physicists tell us that if “united”
particles are separated, they continue to affect each other
even if light-years apart. And this happens instantaneously –
faster than the speed of light.

K. It’s almost as if they’re not truly separated. And there’re
stories of biological twins, which, despite growing up separately,
display astounding similarities in their adult lives.

E. Maybe it's “quantum entanglement” in action, and it might apply to Twin Souls, as well; in fact, more so, I'm betting.

K. Ellus, Silver Birch used the phrase, those “who have earned
the right to meet the other half of its being.” This would seem
to address the temporary, out-of-phase level of awareness
that bedevils Twins.

E. One Twin might temporarily know more, or be less fearful
than the other, which could account for this “earned right.”
My sense, though, is that the growth and development of
Twins stays pretty much on an even keel. Despite apparent
differences at the surface of life, in many cases, I think
all they’d need to “even the score” is to sit on a loveseat
together for five minutes, study each other's eyes, and they’d realize some things.

K. The great inner joy of what they mean to each other, like a volcano from the depths, might surge to the surface of life, and they’d be overcome by the mystical happiness; and suddenly any differences would fade away.

E. It could even be true that the Guides purposely deny them
opportunity to sit on that loveseat together. I think sometimes
Twins are kept apart because the Guides want us to
get our “money’s worth” on this trip, as there’s so much
educative lesson to be learned in the sorrow of temporary
separation.

K. Elenchus, I’d like to say a word more about this joy that Twins experience. It seems to me just now, somewhat forcibly, that joy and love are not really the same.

E. Should love and joy be put in separate categories?

K. Maybe I misspoke. I think they are the same, but it seems to me that joy is love on steroids, joy is love dancing.

E. Say more on this.

K. Think back to the author’s discussion of God’s life embedded even in the lowly stone; that, all of creation might be viewed on a continuum, from the humble stone all the way up to the awesome spiral galaxy.

E. (silence)

K. And if you quiet your mind, and go within, you can begin to sense an affinity, a oneness, with all of God’s creation, from low to high.

E. And this perception of connectedness with the “life within” is what we commonly refer to as love.

K. That’s right. And as we know, there are different degrees of love, but, strictly speaking, it’s all of a piece. But what I wanted to point out is that there’s a certain banality concerning love. It’s almost impossible not to experience it.

E. Once we remove the egoic blockages to linkage to all things.

K. And what this means is that, as the old song lyric has it, “It’s so easy to fall in love.”

E. You might say it’s our natural state. Once we feel God’s life within all elements of creation, it’s almost unnatural not to experience the love.

K. And yet, think about this. We all agree with Buddy Holly that “it’s so easy to fall in love” - but it’s not so easy to “fall into joy,” if you see what I mean.

E. So, you’re saying that, while joy is an advanced state of love, almost no one gets to have the high-grade stuff.

K. And here’s the deal. When you find that “one particular” person, as Dr. Campbell puts it, who plunges you into “the joy,” then, my friend, you have found your eternal romantic Twin Soul.

E. (silence)

K. It’s not our purpose to minimize love, as we need more of it; and yet, from another perspective, it’s like the baseball trading card that they made too many of and all the kids have it in their collections.

E. But no one has “the joy” card.

K. That’ll run you a few dollars more. John and Mary are so thrilled to have found someone to love, but – we hate to break the news to them – this is all common fare and "so easy” to fall into.

E. I’m seeing just now that – strange to say it, but – maybe the defining characteristic of Mother-Father God’s mind is not love! yes, of course, their very beings are composed of it, but what really sets them apart is “the joy.” It’s love dancing, as you say.

K. And this is why the great Spirit Guides have gone on record to assert that the sum-and-substance of what it means to be “made in the image” is to emulate Divinity’s joy.

E. This is so mysterious, and so astounding! The most rarified levels of joy are obtainable only from one’s sacred beloved.

K. Don’t say I never you gave you nuthin’.

K. Elenchus, I’ve been giving some thought to what we said about joy as a higher-order expression of love. But I’m having trouble seeing the logical flow.

E. What’s giving you pause, Kriss?

K. Well, we said that love is feeling a connectedness, an affinity, between aspects of God’s creation. It could be a sense of oneness between myself and a small child, or with a little bird, or even with an inanimate object like a stone. In each of these cases, there’s a sense of connectedness between myself and some external other. But joy seems to be different; or, at least, sometimes it’s different.

E. How is it different?

K. It’s hard to explain. We say that the sacred beloved becomes an agent for the manifesting of joy. That could make sense because there are two individuals, a Twin Soul couple, who, together, experience a higher degree of the oneness than with anyone else or by any other means. This highest-grade love we've called joy. All this makes sense to me, until I begin to realize that there are, what I believe to be, other expressions of joy. These versions of joy might not be as intense as what Twins experience, but, I think, need be classified as joy.

E. Can you give me an example?

K. Saints, mystics, and seers report that, when they “go within” and experience God, they very frequently speak of such encounter in terms of joy. And I think “joy” is the correct term for meeting God within the inner person, the soul. But, here’s where I get into difficulty. If joy is an expanded version of love, don’t we need two parties to the process in order to feel the connectedness? Now some would say, “The two parties to the process are you and God.” I suppose that might offer some logic here, but, as we could make God a party to everything we do and experience, I’m not sure that’s it. I say this because there are other encounters with joy that seem to be one-dimensional. For example, sometimes we experience examples of beauty in the natural world – a sunset, a rose blossom, a shimmering placid lake, a starry night -- which are so overwhelmingly beautiful that our response is more than love; it’s a fervent and dedicated joy.

E. Krissi, I believe you are thinking clearly and we need to go deeper here. Whenever we meet an idea that seems to contradict what we know as “the truth,” then either our earlier views are in error or the new data is mischaracterized.

K. In other words, the new data might very well fit together with what we know to be true if we could see the new idea for what it really is.

E. I think so.

K. So, what am I missing here? In order to have feelings of love and, by extension, joy, don’t we need two elements to be reconciled?

E. In a sense, yes, but sometimes the two elements to be reconciled are not external elements in the world but two elements within our own persons.

K. mmm… That’s an interesting idea. What do you mean, Ellus?

E. As you know, we’ve discussed at length the universal problem of the dysfunctional ego. The “Course In Miracles” sometimes uses the phrase “split brain” in reference to this issue.

K. Ok, I think I’m seeing where this is going.

E. “Split brain” speaks to the raging inner conflict which all human beings must deal with: the antipathy between the “false self” and the “true self.”

K. I should have seen that. When the “false self” runs our lives, we’re blind in so many ways. The ego blocks a great deal of higher-level perception.

E. And so, another way of looking at discovering “the joy” is that of gaining a unity of Self, an inner integration.

K. And this “unity,” this “integration,” provides a veritable coming together of what had been disparate elements within the Self.

E. Is it engendering joy for you?

K. I would say so. And I’m getting something new. I always like looking at familiar concepts but suddenly seeing them in a brand new light.

E. Very good.

K. I think Twins experience “the joy” as a kind of double-whammy; they get it from two directions. First, their joy is simply the result of intense love; that’s pretty easy to understand. But then, they also achieve the high-level joy as a result of entering the status of the sacred One Person.

E. The “unity of Self” and the “inner integration” take on new dimensions with their mystical One Person intimacy. This is a great idea of yours.

K. Thank you – but wait! Even just now as we speak I’m seeing it more clearly. These things are so hard to verbalize.

E. Just relax, and let it flow.

K. Twins experience “the joy” in two different ways: as we said, (1) their joy is simply an expression of their intense love for each other, their exquisite sense of oneness.

E. And that’s the easy part to understand.

K. But they also experience “the joy” as (2) a function of the “unity of Self” and the “inner integration.” And this is a little harder to understand, but I think I’m getting it now. The most basic level of joy is that of delighting in one’s own existence.

E. The joy of simply being alive.

K. This is the most fundamental level of joy, but not necessarily the most intense. The prize of “most intense” is still derived from the romantic Twins and (1) their sense of affinity and oneness.

E. As Big Water might have said, they do rather cheat at this.

K. They always have the advantage of knowing the most intensified form of love. But, as it turns out, they also have the “home court” advantage of the second aspect of joy, as well.

E. Explain that to me.

K. Allow me to restate: The most basic form of “the joy” is that of reveling in one’s own existence; as you said, the joy of simply being alive. This form of joy is experienced by mystics and seers. They experience this form of joy because, as they go within, they discover the “true self” and begin to put away the “false self.” And when they do, the natural result is a joy centered upon one’s own existence.

E. (silence)

K. I believe that Twins also experience this secondary form of joy. They do so because they too have begun to put away the “false self.”

E. In fact, they would not even be able to find each other without discovering the “true self.”

K. And so Twins have also known the joy of being alive. But here’s where it gets really interesting. Having known the joy of being alive, as a function of discovering the “true self,” they now enter the magical world of the sacred One Person, which metaphor speaks to the great spiritual intimacy, their melding of spirits, hearts, and souls. And when their very beings come together in this way, the joy of living seems to undergo a ratcheting up of vitality.

E. This is an excellent insight, Kriss. I’m excited to see this, too. What this seems to mean is, when they enter the One Person status, everything’s compounded, their individual perceptions of the joy of living become united. And we’ve talked about this! – now, everything for them takes on a caste of the marvelous.

K. All of life seems to sparkle for them. The formerly mundane activities now shimmer and glisten with the joy of living. And why? – because they can do everything together, all things in life can now be shared. And this is what they want most of all, even more than the pleasures of the body; they want to enjoy and experience all of life – together, as Darling Companions.

life – Adam’s death-trance, a stark picture of the ego’s foray into “good
and evil”

Genesis 2:16, 17 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,
“Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (NKJV)

Notice the sequence of events, offered to us within narrow confine. In
verses 16 and 17 Adam is instructed by God with dire warnings of death
about a certain tree. The very next verse, 18, God asserts that it’s not
good for Adam to be alone and that God would provide a suitable companion. To that end, apparently, Adam is then, verse 19, given
the task of naming the animals, which, to Adam’s viewpoint, becomes
fruitless, sending him into dark despair, verse 20: “No suitable companion
was found for him.” But, by verse 21, the very next verse, Adam is dead! – a virtual death, a “deep sleep,” also caused by God. And then, to complete the teaching lesson, Adam, having just encountered death, is presented with a companion whose name means "life." Is this not altogether poetic? From a tree laced with death we are led to one who is his very life!

Above, I commented that the ancient Gnostics offered 50 different interpretations of the creation story. Genesis speaks of foundational concepts, the great ideas of life, love, human evolvement, destiny, and many more; as such, we find here rich fallow ground for substantive discussion on several fronts. Little wonder the Gnostics produced 50 interpretations; 50 more could easily be tendered with weighty subjects as these.

I’d like to offer another interpretation, one supported by the text itself.
Let's have a look at this: In verse 17 God warns of death – and, a few verses later, by verse 21, Adam is dead! – a simulated death. As I consider the entire story flow, I feel that this juxtapositioning of verses is purposefully presented to us by the author. It’s far too coincidental for expressions of “death” to be inserted into the story (verse 21) immediately after warnings against it (verse 17). These have to be connected.

So, what’s going on here? I suggest that a sweeping assessment of these
verses, from Adam’s instruction by the tree (verse 16), all the way to Eve’s coming, with Adam’s gushing statements about her (verse 23), demands that we view Adam’s death-trance as part of this whole. The panoramic message of these 8 verses becomes this:

How did Adam “die”? He “died” after naming the animals, overcome by
a sense of futility, thereby directing him to a state of great despair of
ever finding a suitable mate, one like himself. The death-trance is a living
parable, a pictogram, of Adam’s deep gloom, his existential crisis, of
having to live life – a “living death” for him - without the love he needed
to make life worth living.

I call your name but you’re not there, was I to blame for being
unfair, don’t you know I can’t sleep at night since you’ve been
gone, I never weep at night; I can’t go on, don’t you know I
can’t take it, I don’t know who can, I’m not gonna make it, I’m
not that kind of man… I call your name, I call your name… (“I
Call Your Name,” 1964, Lennon/McCartney)

Editor’s note: “Don’t you know I can’t take it, I’m not gonna make
it” – sounds like death to me; as we’ve mentioned, so many love
songs and love letters read like suicide notes.

Keep in mind, once again, that the whole purpose of these 8 verses culminates in the coming of Eve, Adam’s Twin-Soul mate. With this firmly
in view, let’s revisit God’s lecture to Adam about that dangerous tree
associated with death. It’s enough to put you off gardening.

But allow me to interrupt myself again to point out that, whatever
failings Adam might have had in the garden – popularized by worldly
churches as “sin” – we must note that Adam did not actually die. According to the story, Adam lived to a super-advanced age of almost 1000. Apparently, Adam paid dearly for his alleged infraction with a sentence of perfect health and long life of 1000 years.

Obviously, whatever God had in mind about warnings of “death” (verse 17) had nothing to do with common definitions of bodily demise and mortality.

Editor’s note: A warning to churches with their sins of eisegesis. Do not inject private interpretations into the text. We must
allow the context of the story itself to tell us what “death” means
here. Do not engage in empty god-talk such as, “Adam’s death was
disobeying God, which now requires a blood sacrifice in Jesus.” This
is contextual rubbish, no support for it in the text, and simply another way to make people “feel no good” about themselves. Adam, as presented in the story, is like a baby with no life-experience, and might be led this way or that with the slightest bauble-allurement. Any pronouncement of so-called “sin” for Adam, in his naïve state, would tell us much more about the harshness and unreasonableness of God – as the worldly churches errantly present God – than any purported failing on the part of the infantile Adam. But, I digress. (See my Word Gems article on Jesus Christ, how the worldly churches have ruined both his message and the meaning of his life.)

And so, what is this warning of “death” in verse 17? We are required
to allow the story itself, “what happened next,” to tell us what “death”
means. The meaning of “death” here must include what happened to
Adam in the death-trance and the subsequent coming of Eve – whose
name, to further complicate the riddle before us, and by way of stark
contrast, means “life”! Coincidental? I think not. It seems that the Genesis author is setting us up for a teaching moment.

For us to proceed here, we must rid our minds of anti-humanistic
precepts of churchmen who preach Nicene-Council “original sin” and many such philistine concepts devolving to cultish and totalitarian control. We must put all of that dark preaching out of our heads, allowing ourselves to see afresh what is implied by the close-positioning of these 8 verses.

Bear in mind, also, the above discussion of the work of Dr. Gerald Schroeder. Recall the profound truth embedded in Deuteronomy’s scripture, “Hear O Israel, the Eternal our God, the Eternal is One!” which means, God is all and in all, and beside God there is nothing else. We cannot properly interpret our 8 verses without maintaining this view of God
as Transcendental Ubiquity. In all the universe there is nothing but God
and expressions of God. Everything in creation reflects a cosmic unity,
God as Singular Pervasive Reality; even the things, in our myopia, we count as “evil.”

Consider the ramifications. They are shocking, but only because we have
been led astray by corrupted teachings of the churchmen. The reality of
the matter is, there is no tree of the knowledge of "good and evil” – not
from God’s viewpoint; it exists only for the immature Adam. In truth,
there is only God as Singular Pervasive Reality.

Editor’s note: The following represents a distillation of much information, vital to understand, offered in hundreds of pages on the
Word Gems site. You’ll want to review this plenary discussion there.

Let us deeply imbibe of the implications: Good and Evil do not exist
in God’s perspective. Good and Evil are elements of the domain of
the dysfunctional ego. Evil has no substantive essence but is only the
shadow of the Good. In God’s mind, only Good exists; all things work
toward God’s purpose. Good and Evil are part of the dualistic world of
opposites, of gain and loss, happiness and suffering, winning and losing.
But none of this untoward counterbalancing of opposites -- of "contraries" as William Blake uses the term -- exists on the level of God as Singular Pervasive Reality; within God's domain, which is everything, there is only Good.

Here is the essential problem, of which God began to warn Adam, resulting in “death.”

To see the world characterized in terms of Good and Evil automatically eliminates a perception of God as Singular Pervasive Reality. We cannot have it both ways. The moment a symbolical Adam ate of the symbolical fruit, God would disappear, for Adam, as omnipresent and omnipotent. In that moment, Adam would enter the dualistic world of gain and loss, winning and losing, good and evil. Perceptions of loss engender fear, because the essence of fear is the apprehension of loss. Once fear takes hold of the mind – a cancerous influence of “I don’t have enough because I am not enough” – Adam would see scarcity and lack everywhere.

For him, the glass would now perpetually be half empty. In these fears of "not enough," Adam would be tempted and led to defend himself against others competing for “scarce” resources. This is the beginning of strife,
conflict, and wars. The result of which is “death” – a death of a sense of
brotherhood and sisterhood; death of community spirit; death of service-mindedness; death of altruism; death of oneness and connectedness - replaced by dog-eat-dog survival tactics fostered in a perceived world of scarcity, lack, and "I don't have enough."

Perceptions of a reality of Good and Evil, of making Evil something substantive in the world, will directly impact one’s search
for a romantic mate. In Adam's world of psychological defense mechanisms and “the games people play,” a diminished state of consciousness wherein all others are viewed as threats and competitors for scarce resources, Adam would experience love as dualistic emotion, the so-called love which can flip to hate in a heartbeat. No lasting romantic relationship can be built on this emotional shifting sand.

We stated that eating of the tree of Good and Evil will result in the death of oneness and connectedness. This sense of separation will be felt toward all of life and all people, but, most tragically, it will also be felt toward one’s Twin Soul. And this is why people do not recognize the Sacred Beloved, even if she’s close by.

God was offering a grand lecture on the meaning of life, couched in metaphoric and philosophical terms. Adam was warned about seeking for life’s pleasure and purpose via egoic ways; because, “in the day that you live according to the ego’s dualism of Good and Evil, you shall surely die.”

And in this warning from God, we find the entire sordid history of Adam’s children in the world, a dreary chronicle of self-seeking, misery, me-against-them, suffering, conflict, wars, and death.

Again, the story is high-grade metaphor, of course. There was no literal Adam in the garden who named the animals. But the important meaning of these 8 verses begins to form before us. Adam, in his immaturity, did not trust God. He went on a “hunting expedition” to look for a mate, just as all men named John do -- this is what Adam was really doing in his animal-naming exercise. Adam was all set to pick and choose, decide and evaluate, sort out the “best resumes,” make his way in that dualistic world of Good and Evil, and thereby find for himself a “pleasure source” that would provide meaning and comfort to his life. But his efforts came to nothing, because Adam's middle name was John. You cannot find the true happiness by hunting for it; happiness is mere by-product of something else.

Editor’s note: To say that “there is only Good and no Evil” is not to
deny that there are things which cause suffering in the world. But
this near-universal unpleasantness is not “Evil,” as such – not in the
way that it’s popularly spoken of. “Evil,” to the egoic mind, stands in
opposition to and competition with God; it is a force, they say, that
must be eradicated from the world. This is error and miscasting.
“Evil” is not the opposite of “Good,” in the sense of counter-weight
substantive entity. This is illusion of the ego. There are no “Evil”
people but only ego-insane and deluded people. There is no “me
versus them,” as the ego loves to frame the issue, as if the solution
were to simply get rid of the “Evil” people and then life would
be fine for the “Good guys.” Ego-insanity is part of the dark side of every human being, and every human being is capable of any atrocity under sufficient provocation and blindness. And to see the world as “good guys versus bad guys,” in some sort of ultimate sense, is just lying to ourselves and refusing to admit that we’ve all been “eating of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.”

Adam’s despair and gloom is a sure-fire indication that he was plugged
into the wrong way of looking at life and the universe. Despair and gloom
are just forms and variations of fear; primarily, the dispiriting fear of “not
having enough" because "I am not enough.”

You cannot find your eternal mate this way, entertaining this kind of
egoic insanity. I’d like to direct you to the “Choice” icon on the Word
Gems site, the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Utterly profound are the
insights of this Indian mystic. Here’s what this means for us: we’re not
supposed to “go looking” for a mate; we’re not supposed to “choose.”
Freud, too, finally came to see this. If we do so, we’ll get it wrong every time, and we’ll never find our Sacred Beloved. Instead, we must view God as Singular Pervasive Reality and allow our actions to flow from this great
underlying truth.

We must go within, access the true self, find God’s life deep inside, and
then we’ll begin to see clearly. And when the Troubadours deem us fit
to be in the presence of the Sacred Beloved, we will recognize her, not as a “choice” within the ego’s domain of “Good and Evil,” but as a “knowing”
and a “recognition” of the soul’s hidden pledges; that soul which is our
link to Universal Intelligence and Consciousness. To do otherwise is to
enter a world of blindness, leading us straight to suffering, chaos, and
death.

Adam didn’t do so well in all of his “hunting.” It ended in despair and
emptiness. And even if there’d been females for Adam to choose, it
would have still ended in despair and emptiness for him - because he would have chosen wrongly. This is the story of all men named “John.”

The death-trance signifies what Adam did to himself by employing egoic
thinking; the coming of Eve was God’s part of the process, God’s gift
to him, no thanks to the efforts of Adam. The death-trance represents
Adam’s existential malaise of not being able to find joy, meaning, and
purpose via egoic methods. No wonder, at his first sight of Eve, his Twin-Soul perception of who and what she meant to him, he gushed effusively in great existential cathartic relief; and no wonder he named her “Life,” as she, to him, was Life itself; a keen appreciation of her prompted by his foray into death. He’d come to know, too well, the terrible meaning of merely existing – not living - without his Life.

In Adam we find bedrock origin of all those little jokes men make about “she is my life”; and, with Eve, we see a representative of all women, standing back, smiling a knowing smile, silently bemused at how much her lover wants and needs her. In any case, both parties to the process find their "reason to stay alive for."

the highest spiritual experience

draws her life … gives it back again

In the “Prologue,” Dr. Campbell instructed us concerning the primary message of the twelfth-century Troubadours. They considered authentic romantic love to be “the highest spiritual experience.” Moreover, they equated life, the very essence of one’s life, with love, true love.

We need to keep this in mind regarding the TWS’s cryptic verse of “drawing life and giving it back again.” We need not doubt that, with few words, the TWS is communicating to us an epicentral precept of what it means to be human.

go to Part II