“His cheeks [are] like a bed of spices, towers of perfumes. His
lips [are] like roses dripping flowing myrrh. His arms are rods of gold, set
with diamonds. His body shinning ivory covered by sapphires. His legs [are]
pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold. His appearance [is] like
Lebanon, choicest among cedars.” (Song of Songs 5:12-15)
Israel continues evoking God and her bonding with His love now in
the inner chamber of the Temple, allegorically described as a human body. This
allegory suggests empathy and admiration for God's ways and attributes as if
they were countenance, lips, arms, legs and presence. All these joined with
their scents, fragrances as expressions (arms, body, legs and appearance) of
His goodness as the finest gold and precious stones, and radiantly beautiful.
As we empathize with the expressions of God's ways and attributes,
we also experience oneness with the place and circumstances we are in. Thus the
place, the time and the elements involved become as one and the same. God is in
the Temple, and is also the Temple and what is in it, as these verses suggest.
This principle also extends to all His creation, if we are able to assimilate
it.
Israel knows this in her soul and in her heart, for she has lived
with, by and in God's love. Such is her answer to the traits and qualities of
goodness set in the higher level of our consciousness, as the daughters of
Jerusalem.
“His palate is sweetness, and all of Him is delightful. This is my
Beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!” (5:16)
Now these sublime traits and qualities ask Israel as the
conscious self where her Beloved has gone.
“Where has your Beloved gone, O beautiful among women? Where has
your Beloved turned, that we may seek Him with you? My Beloved has descended to
His garden, to the beds of fragrances, to delight in the gardens and to pick up
roses.” (6:1-2)
The questions are directed not only to our awareness of free will,
but to our essence and true identity that make us separate from the lower
levels of consciousness (the nations as “women”) and be chosen to belong to the
higher levels. This essence is what distinguishes Israel as “beautiful among
women”.
Israel, as conscious self-endowed with free will, must have the
initiative and willingness to firmly take the steps to return to God's ways.
The daughters of Jerusalem as our highest values and principles as well as the
positive and uplifting traits and trends, follow through and stand by us in our
firm determination to return to the permanent awareness of our connection with
God.
We certainly know “where” our Creator, partner, beloved and
husband is. He is not hidden or concealed from us, for it is us who separate
and hide from Him and His promised final redemption. Once we have the
willingness and determination to abandon ego's fantasies and negative trends,
and embrace love's ways and attributes, we will be back in the garden where our
Beloved delights bestowing His loving kindness and truth to His creation.
Israel knows that God has already descended to the place of our
bonding with Him, waiting for us to do our part and return to Him. In the
second verse the garden is an allegory of the Temple of Jerusalem, and in this
instance represents the highest level of consciousness where we must ascend by
enthroning love's ways and attributes to rule and lead every aspect and facet
of life. It also refers to the idyllic garden of Eden where only goodness
directs life, as promised by God to also be in Messianic times.
“Return to Me, and I will return to you.” (Malachi 3:7)
Our ascending love embraces God's descending love to graze together in the
gardens and to pick roses. Here we see the gardens as a reference to the new
dimensions in consciousness inherent to the Messianic era, where new
expressions of the goodness of God's love will be gathered as the roses He will
descend to pick.
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