Matthew 25:1 Meaning Then the Kingdom of Heaven Will Be

The kingdom is not a place awaited but a readiness within, and every mind carries a lamp, the small light of awareness it can either tend or let go dark. To go out to meet the bridegroom is the mind turning toward love, willing to receive what it cannot manufacture, waiting with an openness that is itself the invitation. The wedding is the joining of the mind with the truth it forgot.

What matters is not the waiting but what the waiting is made of, whether the light is kept alive or merely displayed. A lamp held out for show is not the same as a lamp that burns, and only the burning meets the coming of love.

Lamps: the mind's awareness, the small light it must keep tended to recognize love when it comes. Bridegroom: the presence of love drawing near, the truth the mind was made to be joined with. Virgins: the parts of the mind that go out to meet love, some prepared to receive it and some only appearing to wait.

The kingdom of heaven is not a place you travel to after death. It is the awakened state of consciousness available to you in this very moment, the inner realm where you are fully present and fully alive.

To carry a lamp and go out to meet the bridegroom is to keep the light of awareness burning, so that when the moment of grace arrives you are awake to receive it. Most people sleep through their lives, lost in thought, and the moment passes unnoticed. Being ready simply means being present now, so that when life offers its deepest gift, you are here to meet it.

The kingdom of heaven is not a place you go to but your own imagination, the inner world where every outer thing begins. The ten virgins are your thoughts, all of them undecided and waiting, each carrying a lamp, which is the mind's power of attention that can be lit or left dark. They go out to meet the bridegroom, and the bridegroom is the desire that has come of age in you and now asks to be joined and made one with your feeling.

Your whole attention is turning toward a single wish that is ready to be married to your awareness. Some of those waiting thoughts are prepared, held steady in the feeling of the thing already granted; others are empty, drifting on present facts. Only the attention kept burning with the sense of fulfillment is awake when the desire arrives to be wedded. A wish becomes fact by being felt as already yours until the two are one.

The whole set of a person's inner faculties goes out to meet the higher self, each carrying its own light. The number 10 stands for the completeness of those faculties, the full range of powers a person has to bring; the lamps are the separate awarenesses, and the oil is the stored spiritual understanding that keeps a light burning.

To meet the bridegroom is the readiness of the inner powers to join the Christ self within. Whether that meeting happens depends on whether the faculties have gathered enough real understanding to stay lit when the higher self draws near.

10: the completeness of the inner faculties, the full range of powers a person carries Lamps: the separate awarenesses each faculty holds up, ready to be lit or to go dark Oil: the stored spiritual understanding that keeps an inner light burning Bridegroom: the higher Christ self the faculties go out to meet and join

Going out to meet the bridegroom is the whole religious act. The divine does not arrive at a house where nobody is waiting, and waiting means alertness, standing at the door of oneself, ready for a meeting whose hour cannot be arranged in advance.

The lamp is consciousness, and everybody carries one, since a lamp is easy to hold and easy to display. Whether it burns is another matter, and burning takes fuel gathered privately, in hours nobody sees. A man asleep with an unlit lamp in his hand still calls himself a seeker, and he will sleep through the very thing he claims to be waiting for.