A great and wise queen of Arabia who heard of the wonders of Solomon's court journeyed to Jerusalem to visit him. She was accompanied by five hundred fair youths dressed as girls and five hundred girls dressed as youths, says a quaint legend. This statement is significant in view of the fact that Sheba stands for equilibrium. The first of her caravans carried a great pearl and the second a large moonstone (both of these jewels are of feminine potency), for she came in rich splendor, with many camels and asses laden with precious stones, sweet spices and gold. These gifts symbolize the preparation for the Mystic Marriage. The queen of Sheba represents the exalted feminine, or Christ consciousness, with which the ego must be united.
The coming of this beautiful Queen of Wisdom marks the crowning triumph of the life of Solomon. That wisdom of which he sings as being above the price of rubies at last becomes his own possession. Before its full acquirement, he never could have penned that matchless Song of Songs, that Song of the Mystic Marriage — "a love-song set to lilies," which proclaimed the final blending of the lower with the higher, the transmutation of matter into spirit and the final completion of that divine alchemy which must take place within the consciousness and body of the disciple and which lifts him into communion with those celestial realms wherein the glory of the Song becomes his own personal experience.
The word Sheba means "seven", and bears a sevenfold interpretation: Sheba is "the Beautiful, the Old, the One, the Giver, the Dangerous, the First and the Last." She was the queen of all Arabian flowers and her beauty knew no parallel. She was a lily queen who reigned white and iridescent and full of pale and luminous beauty. So sing the ancient, mystic legends.
Solomon spent three years in preparation for her coming. He built two mighty walls that began at the frontiers of Israel and ended at the gates of Jerusalem. One was of silver and the other of gold and between them was a crystal lake in which the entire world was mirrored. It was there he awaited the coming of Sheba, where arrayed in a gossamer robe of gold, as light as air and sevenfold in color, she came to meet Solomon who was standing on this crystal space as though he were in water. This is descriptive of the Hall of Learning in which the walls mirror the Akashic Records. Her gifts to Solomon were priceless pearls, and his were the eight green rose trees from mystic Damascus, all starry with roses, and jars that contained waters of eternal life from the well of Siloam, the latter being an old Egyptian Mystery Temple phrase.
She gave to him also, twenty talents of gold and precious stones and the root of the balsam tree (the Tree of Life). He, in turn, continued to give her also many gifts, for there was nothing whatever she chose of her own inclination that he denied her. (Whatsoever one may earn of his own self, no one can withhold. All that is mine will come to me, is an ancient occult maxim.)
Mystic legends tell of the wonderful love which King Solomon bore for the fair queen of Sheba. This feminine or intuitive principle has its seat within the pituitary body, the spiritual organ of the head, and within the heart. When its great power is awakened within, then the Mystic Marriage, the supreme gift of wisdom, becomes the priceless heritage of one so developed.
Many and strange were the questions and problems propounded by the Queen of Sheba to try the wisdom of King Solomon. Esoterically, these are the subtle tests which must be passed successfully before the Mystic Marriage can take place. One of the questions put to him was, "How is it possible to pass a silk thread through a bead the perforation of which is not straight but winding like the body of a serpent?" The solution was the use of a mysterious kind of creature resembling a worm which threaded the bead successfully; it is understood that the creature was a genie, for these creatures were subject to Solomon. The "bead", or more properly, jewel, represents the human aura with its vortices of light, and the "worm" which followed the serpentine channel of the bead is the flame of the creative fire which rises through the serpentine channel of the spine. These mysteries were known in the East for many centuries before Christ, and contrary to orthodox opinion, many Hebrews were aware of them, particularly those of the educated classes.
The guests assembled in the great tent of the king for the reception of the gifts were surrounded by invisible hosts of the angelic choirs. Solomon saluted the fair queen with the words: "You are holy as the Ark of God; your body is His house." At the words of the salutation, many of the guests wavered and departed, but Balkis (benediction), queen of Sheba, stayed and stood upright and alone in the middle of the royal tent.
"Many are called, but few are chosen." (Few as yet have advanced so far upon the spiritual path.) In this day others also waver and turn away, unable to walk longer in the Master's way-the straight and narrow path of Initiation which leads to the portals of the Mystic Temple where certain gifts are bestowed upon the successful aspirant, as he, too, is wedded with wisdom.
King Solomon was an adept not only in sacred science, but in all branches of knowledge. He was a master in philosophy, botany, agriculture, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, and all the arts, especially rhetoric and poetry. All peoples listened to his word. He was considered to be beyond all men in understanding and the wisest of all scholars. Legends say that he composed many odes and songs, and a parable for every tree that grows; also one for every living animal upon earth, in the sea and air, and, moreover, that he discoursed upon their natures, and in all things displayed an extraordinary knowledge. God enabled him, the legends add, to possess skill to exorcise demons and to compose incantations by which all diseases were alleviated. All through the ages following, wise men exorcised demons and obsessions by using the name of Solomon.
The Gemara is the source of the following legend which is filled with deep mysticism:
All the kingdoms of the earth congratulated Solomon except the kingdom of Sheba whose capital is Kitore. Solomon sent to the Queen of Sheba the following letter: "From King Solomon — peace to thee and to thy government. God has made me ruler over the whole world, the kingdoms of north, east, south and west; they have all come with blessings, save thee alone. Come also, I pray thee and submit to my authority and much honor shall be done thee; but if thou refusest, behold I shall by force compel thy acknowledgment."
The Queen's counselors spoke lightly of King Solomon, nor did they take his ultimatum seriously. This is even so in the world today; the intuition, being but slightly developed, fails to perceive spiritual reality.
The Queen, however, gave no ear to the belittling comments of her counselors. She sent the king a gift of gold, silver and precious stones. This gift was two years in reaching Jerusalem. The captain bore a letter from Sheba to Solomon which read: "After thou hast received the message, then I myself will come to thee.'
In another two years Sheba arrived in Jerusalem. Solomon received his visitor in an apartment lined with glass so that the Queen at first thought he was immersed in water. As previously mentioned, the Hall of Learning located in the etheric realms is here described. The walls of this Hall are of gleaming, sparkling light and contain the indelible impress of the Akashic Records. Here Past, Present and Future events may be deciphered.
The Queen of Sheba declared Solomon to be the greatest of all kings. The whole world concurred in her judgment, for when the Divine Feminine is exalted in man, he is wise in all matters pertaining to all the worlds, visible and invisible, exterior and interior.
It is said that every day Solomon ruled in white garments, and rode in a golden chariot to Ethan, six miles from Jerusalem, where was located a healing spring amid beautiful gardens. He was surrounded by his riders of state mounted an the swiftest and most beautiful horses that the world has ever seen. The riders were handsome youths in the flower of manhood, clothed in robes of royal Tyrian purple. Each day dust of gold was sprinkled on their hair, so that their heads sparkled with the reflection of the Sun's rays. (The practice of powdering the hair with gold dust was common among the Roman aristocracy even in the early Christian centuries.)
These legends conceal many esoteric truths beneath the events described. As previously stated, Solomon was the highest Initiate of his time. His gorgeous pageantries represent occurrences on the inner planes that have to do with the ceremony of Initiation. The beautiful Song of Solomon strikes the highest note of the entire Old Testament and is the story of this same Mystic Marriage that the esoteric legends describe in the love of Solomon for the queen of Sheba. The account of his fall is merely a cloak to conceal the real truth from the profane who are not yet ready to receive it.
The number of wives and concubines, when added esoterically, gives ten, the highest number of the Old Testament. (Twelve is the principal number of the New.) In the life of the Initiate the number ten indicates a balance established between the creative powers within the deathless body of the spirit. It then becomes the beautiful House of Lebanon which Solomon built and which so delighted the Queen of Sheba. That House was built of the cedars of Lebanon which the mystic legends say cannot be burned. The Initiate learns that in his new spiritual body he is able to pass unharmed through fire, air, earth and water as he goes about performing deeds of love and mercy for the benefit of his fellow men. The only legitimate end for which to aspire in Initiation is to become a more proficient helper of others. "He that is greatest among you, let him be the servant of all."
With the completion of the new body temple, the aspirant earns the wages of the Master Builder and gains the ability to "travel in foreign countries." This is the supreme attainment for the Mystic Mason of the present, and it constitutes the essential theme of that most beautiful of all spiritual love chants, the Song of Solomon. The powers described therein enable the Master Mason to descend with Enoch through the nine Earth "layers" and there at the "center" to stand face to face with the Great Light of the Ineffable Word — the Christ.
The time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was the kabbalistic period of forty years. To the time of his transition, his eyes were filled with the vision of the future, not excluding the destruction of the earthly tabernacle. As another great Christian Initiate declared when attaining unto this height of vision: "Things seen are temporal; things unseen, eternal."
Four hundred and thirty-three years elapsed between Solomon's reign and the destruction of the Temple. The digits, 4+3+3 adds to 10, signifying the completion of the cycle of time allotted man in which to cooperate with or reject the new spiritual or Christed impulse inaugurated in the Solomonic regime.
Solomon, the King of Peace, raising aloft the Sacred Ring which bore the Ineffable Name, uttered, and still utters this admonition: "Build ye the Temple Invisible and Eternal!"
— Corinne Heline
