THE LOVE between husband and wife does not need to be consummated in the sex act. There is a higher cooperation in thought and sympathy, with a blending of affection, that transcends the sexual act. All those who are seeking to have good health and to build good bodies are learning these laws and they do not waste themselves in appetite and passion. The old way of teaching, that it was necessary for men to indulge themselves, has been superseded by the understanding that the man who wastes his vital substance in sexual dissipation cannot keep his perfect health and strength.
Conceding that the sexual organs are given for the purpose of generation, there can be no excuse for using them merely as playthings to produce sensation. Such use is sensuality, and the effect of it in the world shows the seriousness of the error. Men and women will never be healthy with true spiritual health while they continue in the abuse of these delicate organs. If you had a good watch, you would not give it to a little child to play with; you would value it too highly; you would take great care that nothing interfered with the working of its wonderful delicate springs and wheels. Of much greater importance is it that the body be rightly used.
Those who desire to come into the closest unity with the Spirit of truth and to construct here on earth the true temple of God—a regenerated body—must stop wasting their life force in the sexual way. This does not mean that true marriage between man and woman will be done away with. Such marriage is of the soul and not of the flesh; in fact, the flesh has no part in it. If all who are now living inharmoniously as husband and wife on the animal plane, would cease to indulge in carnality and would by the power of their loving word invoke the sweet spirit of purity, their homes would soon be turned into havens of harmony. Poverty, discord, and disease would drop away, and the energy and full life of youth would return to them.
My wife holds that it is not wrong to use material means to prevent conception. I maintain that it is a criminal practice. I cannot help but think that when we deliberately trifle with God’s laws to satisfy pleasure and refuse to pay the price, we are doing wrong, and greater harm both physical and spiritual must ultimately come as a result.
The organs of the body that are used in the bringing forth of children should never be made mere playthings for the satisfaction of the sense consciousness. If one has no desire for children there is no excuse for sexual indulgence. When one disregards the law of purity he is taking still another error step when he attempts to prevent the working out of the law that he has set into action.
Another point which can properly be introduced here is this:
When life has been conceived in one and an attempt is made to do away with that life, the act is virtual murder. Such an act leaves a scar upon the soul, a scar which must be erased somewhere, at some time, in great tribulation. One is blessed if he observes the law, “Thou shalt not kill,” and so does not try to do away with life in any phase of its existence.
My wife and I have everything that our hearts desire, except a little baby to brighten our home, and this does not seem to manifest. We have sought of the Lord. Why are we disappointed?
The cause of your disappointment is probably that you are placing a personal desire before the desire for spiritual understanding. Deny the personal self, and affirm or confess your true Christ self. Place all of your desires in the universal; or in other words, do as Jesus taught: Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then all things will be added. Getting into the kingdom is of prime importance. If one rejects it as his chief aim and object, he may succeed in gaining the desires of his heart, but fulfillment obtained in this way never brings any real and lasting satisfaction.
There is much to be learned, in the kingdom of God and His righteousness, about the true relations of men and women. The suffering in connection with the marriage relation shows that there is a serious misunderstanding of the spiritual laws lying back of it and of the consequent violation of those laws. If your intense desire for a child leads you to study the law of your being and to demonstrate it, you will be giving to the world something that it needs far more than it needs another child. When you come into this spiritual understanding, you will find your desire fulfilled in your new understanding, so that you will no longer wish parenthood but will be happy demonstrating along another line. This is a suggestion the value of which will become more apparent to you as you study the question. “There are eunuchs, that made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” “Thus saith Jehovah of the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and hold fast my covenant: Unto them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than of sons and of daughters.”
What do you say of divorce and of the marriage of divorced persons?
In the 10th chapter of Mark, Jesus said to the Pharisees who asked Him if it was lawful for a man to put away his wife: “From the beginning of the creation, Male and female made he them.” “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” In the 11th verse of this same chapter, we read that He said also to them, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her: and if she herself shall put away her husband, and marry another, she committeth adultery.”
While it is not our custom to give personal advice upon any subject, yet we suggest, in the case of those who are already married, that it is not the course of wisdom for them to resort to divorce as a means of solving their problems. All such persons should understand that their past thoughts and actions have brought them into their present conditions. To resort to the divorce court is a false way of trying to free themselves, for even though they become divorced, they have not overcome the causes which brought about their inharmonies. These inharmonies will continue to manifest in their lives until the cause has been discovered and eliminated. Unless there is some unusual reason why married persons should separate, it is the course of true wisdom for them to remain together and to work out their problems through a new and a higher understanding of the laws of life.
In heaven, the state of perfect happiness, there is no marriage. (See Matthew 22:30.) Marriage, as mortal man knows it, is but a symbol of the union of divine love and wisdom in the individual soul. Each soul has within itself all the elements of completeness. One person may lack some soul quality or qualities which are apparent in another; marriage implies an attempt to bring about a balance in these qualities. Marriage therefore is a union between two persons who have not come into the consciousness of individual completeness; it may be said to be the fulfillment, on the outer plane, of the attractive power that draws together two souls that complement each other. The race instinct discerns the necessity of the union of divine love and divine wisdom; but the race misunderstands the true nature of marriage and thinks that it means the union of two persons for the purpose of generation. A marriage bond is then thrown around it, and it is sanctioned by the law of man and by the church.
False ideas and standards of the world cause people to enter hastily into marriage. Fear of being left unmarried, a desire to cover some transgression of the law, a desire to have a home and some one to provide a living, or a desire to satisfy lust and still appear respectable—all of these and other worldly considerations lead men and women to become indiscriminately joined in wedlock. This is adultery.
In the true marriage relation, the standard is purity. Both the man and the woman know their bodies to be temples of the living God, and neither is willing to defile the temple with lust. Indulgence in carnality is the cause of much of the present marital unrest. The race is on a steady upward move. The quickening Spirit of God is at work in the minds of men, awakening them to a higher standard. They feel the power but do not always clearly see its trend, and they resist it. If they would give the matter the time and the attention that it deserves, a new standard would be developed; then husbands and wives would enter into the joy and the lasting satisfaction of spiritual union.
People who are not realizing as much harmony as they would like should not jump to the conclusion that they are mismated and rush to the divorce courts. On account of the various characteristics which the personal self has taken on, even unions of real mental attraction may not be perfect manifestations of harmony in the outer life. There is always more or less adjusting to be done in personal consciousness; but if both man and woman are willing to enter into this work of adjustment, very little inharmony will ever disturb them; they will quickly discern the cause of differences and they will let go of the self which is insisting on having its way.
If either one is unwilling to do his part in becoming adjusted, the other may do much toward it, and his attitude will help to reform the obstinate one.
You cannot expect God to do anything for you if you do not go to God. God works in the silence of being, but we must still the outer man and seek God in the holy place. Unless we have periods of conscious communion with God in the silence, we cannot expect to liberate the word of God in us. So it is essential that we have periods of silence if we are to bring about our healing. There must be proper atmosphere and proper soil before the Word functions. By laying claim to them and taking them, we can have many things that we have thought to be unavailable to us. We push many rightful things from us by thinking: “I cannot have them.” The truth of the matter is that we can have anything that we conceive of, but God does not give it to us until we claim our inheritance. Man is that which links God to the manifest. He is the mediator between God (the substance of all things in idea) and the manifestation of God’s idea. The God-idea man is the I AM, conscious of its divine nature and its rights as a divine inheritor.
UNITY SCHOOL OF CHRISTIANITY
917 Tracy, Kansas City, Mo.
PRINTED IN U. S. A. (S21-14M-9-28)
