1 Kings 11:2 · World English Bible
of the nations concerning which Yahweh said to the children of Israel, “You shall not go among them, neither shall they come among you; for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon joined to these in love.
The foreign wives are the outward pulls of the senses, and clinging to them in love is the awakened mind giving itself to what lies outside instead of the source within. The heart turns after their gods because attachment to the external always drags attention away from the inner light, scattering one center into many.
From the Esoteric reading below.
The same verse, read by 2 traditions.
ESOTERIC
The foreign wives are the outward pulls of the senses, and clinging to them in love is the awakened mind giving itself to what lies outside instead of the source within. The heart turns after their gods because attachment to the external always drags attention away from the inner light, scattering one center into many. Wisdom itself, embodied in the king, is not immune: when love fastens on the world of things, the ruling self divides against itself and the temple within loses its single flame.
Nations: the outer world of the senses, the many pulls that lie beyond the self Wives: the desires that bind a person to what is external Gods of the nations: the false centers the mind serves when it turns away from its own source
SUFISM
The wisest of kings is undone by the quietest of appetites, letting affection lead his heart where it should not go. The warning was never about the people but about a heart that drifts, and his fall shows how loose love turns into worship of the wrong things. The cure is a watched heart, honest about where its longing really points.
God is present as the caution he overrode. A cup takes the color of whatever fills it, and Solomon let in what stained him, so the danger sat close all along, in the loves he refused to examine.
Esoteric lens
If your attention shows what you love, what did it say about you yesterday?
Too many colors blind the eye, too many sounds deafen the ear, too much chasing leaves the heart restless. The wise person stays close to the center instead of the display.
The reed flute cries because it was cut from the reed bed. Every note it plays is the ache of something separated from the ground it came from.
Envy, appetite and the hunger for status drive a person right out of his own world. What he chases ends up owning the place he lives in.
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Esoteric
Sufism