The introductary chapter of my book • 6 min read
Dissolve your egos and help others dissolve theirs, this was the first piece of advice I got on how I would find my soulmate. By doing so I would supposedly tap a cosmic energy that was powerful enough and intelligent enough to bring me the right partner. But there was so much more to this mystery that I wasn’t being told. Years later, after finding and losing my soulmate several times, I got so frustrated that I decided to throw open a book written by one of the most admired men of all time, Plato. What I was about to discover startled me, and it was just the beginning.
When I first read Plato, the only line that got my attention was: “If we befriend the God of Love and side with him, we will find our other halves, which rarely happens in this world at present.” At that time I was sharing my favorite quotes with friends of mine, and in this particular case, immediately after discovering this quote and sending it out, I laid down to meditate, and was surprised at the pleasant feeling beginning to pervade my entire body: it was a feeling of lucidity, and I felt no negativity while in such a state. This experience not only gave me a clue but it also taught me what love actually is — consciousness.
A student went to one of the great teachers of India to ask him what love is and how he could find it. The teacher remained silent, giving him no answer. On the second day, the student asked the same question again, but the teacher continued to remain silent. For six consecutive days, the student visited his teacher, seeking an answer to his question, but was met with the same silence. On the seventh day, the teacher took the student with him to the Ganges River. He grabbed the student's hands and submerged him in the water. The student kicked and struggled until finally, the teacher pulled him to the shore and asked, "What did you feel in the water?" The student replied, "A great suffocation. I needed air. A little longer and I would have burst from the lack of air." The teacher responded, "You will understand love and seek love when you feel such a need for it, just as you felt for the air."
One of the great Teachers of antiquity gave a task to one of his disciples so that he will understand how he should live in order to acquire love. He told him: 'You will go into the world, among people, and you will meet three souls on your way: a soldier, a Brahmin, and an adept. You will slap each of them once. Once you complete your task, you will return to me and tell me what you've learned.' The disciple ventured into the world and the first person he met was a soldier. He slapped him, but the soldier immediately retaliated with two slaps, knocking the disciple to the ground. Rising up, the disciple thought: 'This soldier is a strong man!' He continued on his journey and arrived at a temple where he saw a Brahmin praying to God. He approached him and slapped him. At first, the Brahmin raised his hand, intending to strike back, but quickly lowered it and continued his prayer. 'This Brahmin seems weak,' thought the disciple. Finally, he met the adept, deeply engrossed in his thoughts. The disciple quietly approached, slapped him, and quickly stepped back. The adept remained in the same position as before the slap, not flinching. 'This one is completely weak,' concluded the disciple in his mind. Having completed his task, the disciple returned to his teacher and relayed everything he had observed and learned. The teacher replied: 'To succeed, be like the adept. The soldier represents a man who serves force. If you act like the soldier, you'll spend more energy than necessary. The Brahmin serves law. Being like the Brahmin means thinking in a new way but living in the old. The new should become your very essence. The adept is a servant of love. Within all of us lie three categories of states - force, law, and love, and the individual himself is the disciple learning from them. Regardless of how others treat you, be like the adept, keep your thoughts elevated, staying far away from life's trivialities and disputes. Until he gives precedence to the adept within, he will never achieve his desires."
As regards the philosophy of love, here's what Beinsa had to say: “What is love? Love is the sweetest thing—in the mind, heart, soul, everywhere. All beauty is love, all harmony is love, all strength is love. Whether you are ugly or beautiful, strong or weak, good or evil, it is clear why.”
In 1935, Beinsa Douno, the master mind who Albert Einstein looked up to and who Rudolf Steiner considered to be the second coming of Christ, was asked when exactly does a person find his soulmate, to which he replied, “When he awakens his mind, learns how to listen to the voice of the divine and stops postponing things.” In 1944, nine years after Beinsa gave his formula, the eminent Gurdjieff explained the mechanism behind the magic as follows: if you are working inwardly, Nature will call upon conscious spirits to bring you everything you need for your work, even a complementary spouse.
Almost a decade later, I resolved to revisit Plato, because reading a good book only once is like glimpsing the ocean and ignoring its depths. In this reading however I found what appeared to be a formula for singles: ‘The gods refused him his wife because they thought he was soft, a mere lyre player, who didn’t dare to give his life for love but instead tried to enter this world of devils disguising himself.’
In 1768, Emanuel Swedenborg, the scientist revered by Emerson, Beinsa Douno and even Balzac, wrote: “The more your wisdom grows, the more your form is perfected. This form does not receive the love of the opposite sex in general, but the love of one in particular. With this one, you can forge a link of union reaching the very core where heaven and its joys reside; this union is that of marital love.” In other words, the price of love is wisdom.
As of 1928, thanks to a manuscript reportedly found in the Vatican archives, we’ve had access to the soulmate formula of the great initiate Jesus: ‘Love your spirit, love your body, and love your true brothers and sisters, and then your Heavenly Father will give you his holy spirit, and your Earthly Mother her holy body.’ One of the things that Jesus was addressing in this formula was something I had failed to take seriously: exercise. Even so, this shortcoming of mine was evidence of a much deeper problem: I lacked wisdom. After all, most of my friends were exercising. Why wasn’t I?
The Zohar, the ancient Hebraic book which is the foundation of the Kabbalah, put it like this: “Regarding soulmates, only the Holy One understands their affinity and knows how to unite them properly. Worthy they who perform good deeds and who walk in the ways of righteousness. For in doing so, their soul is connected with the other soul, as it was originally.”
At this point, I'm sure you're wondering what such a wisdom would look like in practice. The renowned seer, Edgar Cayce, articulated it like this: “As you study to show yourself approved by God, a worker not ashamed, rightly dividing the words of truth, and keeping oneself unspotted from the world, a soulmate will come into your experience, and you shall know it.” A very similar formula was given in 1931 by an anonymous mystic: “Devotion to carry through that which man undertakes, simplicity and austerity of life, and devotion to God, in order that nature may reveal herself to the human consciousness.” He related this formula to marriage, marriage meaning “the perfect union of two opposites with the creation of an equally polarized result.”
Eliphas Levi, the celebrated hierophant and secret mentor to princes said, “As in the fable of Orpheus, the pure man must create a companion for himself; he must bring her up to his level by devoting himself to her and not desiring her.” But still he hesitates, he doubts, he lusts. Power is taken, not given.
Now I’m going to put forward my formula: If your giving outweighs your taking, your soulmate will make an appearance in your daily life. If you keep your eyes open, you will notice someone who evokes your curiosity. If you are brave and decisive, you will initiate or provoke conversation.
In simpler words, the Father spoke to inventor Walter Russell like so:
“Desire ye what ye will and it shall be thine. All My
universe will give it thee in the strength of thy desiring and in the strength of thy action in reaching out for thy desire.”
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