The meaning of the wedding banquet parable: a wedding has to do with conjunctions, and not having a wedding garment means not having any emotional desire to unite with the Wisdom Teachings inwardly.
“If you work wisely and well, you develop something which the tradition calls Second Body, or sometimes has the wonderful word applied to it, the wedding garment. From that wonderful apocalyptic gospel where everybody is invited into the banquet, but some get thrown out because they don’t have the wedding garment, and nobody in kind of normal way can understand what this means. If you try and interpret this as a liberation theology parable, well, it’s not fair that he invited them all in, but some don’t have wedding garments, so he throws them out. When you understand this tale as a fable of esoteric tradition, as an allegory, you can’t give another person a wedding garment because it’s the one thing that you have to spin in your life. Your life is your wedding garment, how you live it, how you grow it, how you enrich it in the exchange. And when, at whatever is the moment of death, when the wave form of your life lived in time becomes the particle of your consummated identity, then what you’re wearing at that moment is your wedding garment. So the wedding garment is spun from your conscious work. It’s spun from kenosis, spun from conscious presence, spun from your courage to do your shadow work, and spun from your willing participation in the exchange, even though it hurts like hell. That’s your wedding garment. And what the esoteric traditions have always said, and it’s a little bit dicey because comparison-contrast quickly enters in, but what a wedding garment gives you is you become essentially bulletproof in two realms.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Mary Magdalene and the Path of Conscious Love, 00:00 disc 7 track 5.
From the Parable of the Marriage-Feast:
“Then said [the King] to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they that were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore unto the partings of the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage−feast. And those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good, and the wedding was filled with guests. When the king came in to behold the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding-garment: and he saith unto him, Friend, how earnest thou in hither not having a wedding-garment. And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few chosen.” (Matthew xxii. 11-14)
“Who were the guests? Notice that those guests were found at the parting of the highways. One of them is without a wedding−garment. A man reaches a certain understanding. Up to a certain point he understands. Is he going to follow what he understands? He comes to the parting of the ways. He has taken in intellectually what he has been taught, because to reach the ‘parting of the ways’ he must have received some teaching. He may have preached, swayed thousands by his rhetoric. Did he believe internally what he taught externally? This man without a wedding−garment has no intention of believing in what he has said. No doubt he appears good, kind, long−suffering, charitable. He uses the right words. He deceives everyone. He can ape any of the virtues. But interiorly he believes nothing. It is all outer show. Coming into the strong light of those far more conscious than himself, he ceases to deceive. His inner lack of belief is seen. Internally he is naked. A wedding−garment signifies desire for union. To be wed is to unite with what is beyond you—not yourself. This can only come from the inner man in you. This man is all self and show and reputation. All he does is self. He loves no one but himself and so has no inner side. The highest in himself is himself. But he acts well. He is an actor—a hypocrite. Outwardly, he seems to believe what he says. Inwardly he believes nothing. So, inwardly, he has no wedding−garment. He does not wish his being to wed with what he teaches. Coming to those whose vision can penetrate outer pretense, he clearly has no wedding−garment. He has no desire to unite with what he teaches. Why? Because he has nothing of goodness in him. Even if what he teaches is Truth, he will not marry it.” Maurice Nicoll, The New Man, p234.
“One can see that this man had not at least the soft raiment that Christ spoke of. Sheer unmerciful truth is not a wedding garment – a relaxing and releasing thought to many brought up under an interpretation of Christ’s teaching based solely on literal truth with no inner mercy and no goodwill, and no trace of psychological understanding. Is it not extraordinary how the literal word for word meaning is still upheld without the slightest idea that this is not enough and is not real understanding, and that in such an interpretation of Christ, such a man, causing endless perplexity and pain to others, has no wedding-garment and is destined to be turned out of the Kingdom.” Maurice Nicoll, The Mark, p174.
“Is it not extraordinary that people, long in the Work, still possess the same ingrained attitudes, buffers, and so on? Why? Because they have not a wedding-garment—that is, they do not have any real desire for union with the truth of the Work. They merely talk about it—and often at enormous length—and then all go back to their own houses, as the Gospels say—that is, to the old mental houses of themselves.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p1156
“What do you suppose this lack of a wedding-garment means ? In the ancient language of parables, which still appears in dreams, a garment is used in the sense of what clothes the mind. The meaning of a garment is psychological when it is used in parables. Do you not think that a person may have wrong attitude to this Work and yet appear to belong to it? A person might wish to have no real, inner conjunction with the Work, but only wish to make use of it for his own purposes. A wedding has to do with conjunctions, and not having a wedding-garment would mean not having any emotional desire to unite with the Work inwardly.” Commentaries, p1640.
“All that kind of me, me, me, me, me talk that we do so assiduously in this life in the name of spiritual progress. It’s energy wasted from the point of view of subtle bodybuilding. That something else could be released from it and hold its shape and become the vessel through which angelic and Christic energy comes to the nurturance of this planet. And through which our own transformed efforts, every time we transform, every time we offer up through our own conscious work the fruits of our alchemy, our alchemy of kenosis, our alchemy of self-denial, every time we offer that up, it’s a chemical explosion in the whole of the world. And that’s food for the angels. Rafe used to tell me no conscious work is ever wasted, even if you do it in a vacuum. So it’s a, as you see this, as you actually see there’s a possibility to move in that direction of creating your vessel, your wedding garment for cosmic servanthood in the next realm beyond pure physicality.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystery of Death 2021, 25:00 02 Tuesday Afternoon Session Mystery of Death.
Logion 64
Yeshua says...
A man was throwing a dinner party and when everything was prepared, he sent his servant out to call the guests.
The servant went to the first and said, "My master invites you." But he replied, "I have set aside some funds for merchants who are coming this evening, and I will be placing orders. I beg to be excused from dinner."
So he went to the second and said, "My master has invited you." But he said, "I have bought a house which requires a day of my time. I am too busy to come."
He went to another and said to him, "My master invites you now." He replied to the servant, "My friend is getting married and I am to prepare the wedding banquet. I simply cannot come. I beg to be excused."
He went to another and said, "My master calls you." In reply he said to the servant, "I have just bought a farm and am about to pay taxes. I cannot come. Please excuse me. I must be off."
The servant returned to his master and said, "The ones you invited to the dinner have all excused themselves." And so the master said to the servant, "Then go to outsiders and strangers on the roads. Find folk there and bring them here to eat."
Those busy buying and selling cannot get into my Father's realm.
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s The New Man refer to Martino Fine Books, Eastford CT, 2019
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s The Mark refer to Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York, 1954
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky refer to (Eureka Editions:2020)
Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
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