Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 8:30 pm
The concept of heaven and hell is probably as elusive as the idea of love. Those who have experienced a glimpse of it will swear to its authenticity, and those that have not, can barely fathom its reality. But how can you know the nature of something reserved solely for the dearly departed? In fact, what is anyone's experience of heaven and hell outside of ancient texts?
Heaven, in the Heavens “above”, is a celestial location that Catholics claim is “up” and Hell, located in the center of the Earth, is obviously “down”, but anyone beyond the very lowest of grades knows that this isn't the case. If it's not up in the heavens or down under the Earth's surface, where is it? When pressed, they might elude to a mysterious realm unseen to our lowly eyes, but Heaven and Hell still cannot be up or down compared to Earth because the former are not physical dimensions. With that being said, where is Heaven and Hell?
The planes where the soul goes after death are not up or down, but exist all around us much like other things that exist in close proximity that you can't see like x- rays and radio waves. Heaven and Hell are alternate dimensions separated by vibrational frequencies that our ordinary senses cannot detect. When Christ became invisible to the naked eye in front of a mongering crowd, he simply resonated beyond the vision of the less developed beings around him. He did not walk away but shifted his energy right where he was. When you die, you shift your consciousness in the physical shin the physical shell to another more subtle one which is no different than what happens to you every night when you dream.
Now that you've read this text, ponder it yourself. Where is Heaven and Hell? If you still think it up and down-- where up and down? Past Jupiter? Beyond the Milky Way? That would be strange considering it was the very people saying Heaven and Hell were up and down also said that Earth was the center of the universe. If you've resigned yourself, as I have, that Heaven and Hell are not up or down but dimensions surrounding us, let's discuss what one does in these places and supposedly for all eternity.
We all know that you either suffer or bask, depending on which locale you've made it to. We are told that if you are bad you burn in Hell (and if you were indeed alive in the center of the earth you would be burning and suffering), and if you were good you went to Heaven where you basked in the glory of God's presence forever and ever. With either, you stop all spiritual growth and stagnate in totality—what a waste in either case. Is this the best God can do? Would God really fill our lives with challenges that would suddenly and permanently cease once we die? Just think: decades of challenges followed by an eternity of none. Why be born at all? Can the eternal placement of the soul into Heaven or Hell really be determined by a life of a few decades? You, in your learned life of conditional love (and hate) might say yes to one or both of these, but is it really true? Can you not feel the suspicion growing within you that this is a man-made concept, not God's reality? This is not only man's design but a poor one. Another contradiction is for man to claim on one hand that God is a most merciful, loving Being and on the other hand a wrathful Entity vengeful enough to send his children to Hell forever for the very sins that are part of his or her being of which He created!
And what of the 99% of the population not developed enough to handle Heaven, let alone Hell? That's like giving them the equivalent of a spiritual lottery jackpot, and we see enough times here in the physical what happens to lottery winners! They atrophy, grow mentally off-balanced and often take spiritual steps backwards, not forward. This is not the design of God, but a defective tool to control the masses through fear of one thing and bait of another.
We are corralled into the concepts of Heaven and Hell because there is great fear about what the world would be like if we didn't have those awesome factors to rein in our behavior. This of course makes sense to us because this is the very technique we use with our own children, “Do my will or else.” It's the easy answer and the preferred path for a much more complex issue about humans dealing with humans. In fact, our whole society is governed by this threat/reward tactic so it's no wonder we've incorporated this into our religious beliefs. We claim that God created us in the likeness of Him; but in actuality we created God in the likeness of us at the low-point of our spirituality.
If Heaven and Hell are not up or down and it's a blurry line as to which actions place us where and for how long, how much do we really know about Heaven and Hell? In actuality, we know very little because these myths are so far from reality.
As with many myths, there is a blending of truth and fiction and this “half-truth” is what is propagate into our belief systems. When an illogical belief is tightly wrapped around a threat from perceived authority then the worrisome task of standing on your own begins. Add millions of people behind this distorted belief and it can cripple the logic of an average human being. To question is to defy, to defy is to sin, to sin is to go to Hell. Isn't that tidy? So we blindly obey and little is done to really understand the path we've agreed to walk down, even at the cost of our own spiritual development. It's easy, it's accepted and most of us do it.
The thread of truth that does exist pertaining to Heaven and Hell is that spiritual masters have seen visions of higher and lower planes ('higher' and 'lower' meaning similar to frequencies on a dial, but these are still convenient man-made descriptors for places that aren't really high or low, per se). There are in fact planes of existence that resonate at such a level that only enlightened souls will vibrate at a high enough frequency to experience them while still inhabiting a physical shell. It is accurate to some degree that you do have to be “good” or more accurately, “developed” to enter the higher planes. And those hampered with deep negativity and addictions will resonate with the lower, vibrationally coarse planes that seem hellish in comparison to the higher ones. The good news is that no one goes anywhere forever. All souls have doors that periodically open in order for them to continue their growth and move on.
Since all things eventually change in a perceptual sense, we may see our loved ones but they too will move on to grow or experience something else. But often we return to each other because of the cumulative connection of love and experiences. This is mid plane activity but when you reach the higher planes, you know that 'they' are in fact 'ALL' and there was never a leaving or a returning, just a state of being.
And what of those that reach the higher planes? They often return to lower planes and teach, give unseen guidance and sometimes even start all over again to experience the miracle of the soul's evolution. Isn't that why God created us in the first place; to watch the process because it is so incredible?
Heaven and hell are just resting points for the evolving soul. Earth is as much heaven as it is hell, just the physical version. It is experienced every moment of your life, on every plane. You determine by your path where you go when you die, what you experience and for how long.
We will all experience hell and we will all experience heaven thereby making the two non exclusive. It is not up, it is not down, but all around you, including within.
Heaven, in the Heavens “above”, is a celestial location that Catholics claim is “up” and Hell, located in the center of the Earth, is obviously “down”, but anyone beyond the very lowest of grades knows that this isn't the case. If it's not up in the heavens or down under the Earth's surface, where is it? When pressed, they might elude to a mysterious realm unseen to our lowly eyes, but Heaven and Hell still cannot be up or down compared to Earth because the former are not physical dimensions. With that being said, where is Heaven and Hell?
The planes where the soul goes after death are not up or down, but exist all around us much like other things that exist in close proximity that you can't see like x- rays and radio waves. Heaven and Hell are alternate dimensions separated by vibrational frequencies that our ordinary senses cannot detect. When Christ became invisible to the naked eye in front of a mongering crowd, he simply resonated beyond the vision of the less developed beings around him. He did not walk away but shifted his energy right where he was. When you die, you shift your consciousness in the physical shin the physical shell to another more subtle one which is no different than what happens to you every night when you dream.
Now that you've read this text, ponder it yourself. Where is Heaven and Hell? If you still think it up and down-- where up and down? Past Jupiter? Beyond the Milky Way? That would be strange considering it was the very people saying Heaven and Hell were up and down also said that Earth was the center of the universe. If you've resigned yourself, as I have, that Heaven and Hell are not up or down but dimensions surrounding us, let's discuss what one does in these places and supposedly for all eternity.
We all know that you either suffer or bask, depending on which locale you've made it to. We are told that if you are bad you burn in Hell (and if you were indeed alive in the center of the earth you would be burning and suffering), and if you were good you went to Heaven where you basked in the glory of God's presence forever and ever. With either, you stop all spiritual growth and stagnate in totality—what a waste in either case. Is this the best God can do? Would God really fill our lives with challenges that would suddenly and permanently cease once we die? Just think: decades of challenges followed by an eternity of none. Why be born at all? Can the eternal placement of the soul into Heaven or Hell really be determined by a life of a few decades? You, in your learned life of conditional love (and hate) might say yes to one or both of these, but is it really true? Can you not feel the suspicion growing within you that this is a man-made concept, not God's reality? This is not only man's design but a poor one. Another contradiction is for man to claim on one hand that God is a most merciful, loving Being and on the other hand a wrathful Entity vengeful enough to send his children to Hell forever for the very sins that are part of his or her being of which He created!
And what of the 99% of the population not developed enough to handle Heaven, let alone Hell? That's like giving them the equivalent of a spiritual lottery jackpot, and we see enough times here in the physical what happens to lottery winners! They atrophy, grow mentally off-balanced and often take spiritual steps backwards, not forward. This is not the design of God, but a defective tool to control the masses through fear of one thing and bait of another.
We are corralled into the concepts of Heaven and Hell because there is great fear about what the world would be like if we didn't have those awesome factors to rein in our behavior. This of course makes sense to us because this is the very technique we use with our own children, “Do my will or else.” It's the easy answer and the preferred path for a much more complex issue about humans dealing with humans. In fact, our whole society is governed by this threat/reward tactic so it's no wonder we've incorporated this into our religious beliefs. We claim that God created us in the likeness of Him; but in actuality we created God in the likeness of us at the low-point of our spirituality.
If Heaven and Hell are not up or down and it's a blurry line as to which actions place us where and for how long, how much do we really know about Heaven and Hell? In actuality, we know very little because these myths are so far from reality.
As with many myths, there is a blending of truth and fiction and this “half-truth” is what is propagate into our belief systems. When an illogical belief is tightly wrapped around a threat from perceived authority then the worrisome task of standing on your own begins. Add millions of people behind this distorted belief and it can cripple the logic of an average human being. To question is to defy, to defy is to sin, to sin is to go to Hell. Isn't that tidy? So we blindly obey and little is done to really understand the path we've agreed to walk down, even at the cost of our own spiritual development. It's easy, it's accepted and most of us do it.
The thread of truth that does exist pertaining to Heaven and Hell is that spiritual masters have seen visions of higher and lower planes ('higher' and 'lower' meaning similar to frequencies on a dial, but these are still convenient man-made descriptors for places that aren't really high or low, per se). There are in fact planes of existence that resonate at such a level that only enlightened souls will vibrate at a high enough frequency to experience them while still inhabiting a physical shell. It is accurate to some degree that you do have to be “good” or more accurately, “developed” to enter the higher planes. And those hampered with deep negativity and addictions will resonate with the lower, vibrationally coarse planes that seem hellish in comparison to the higher ones. The good news is that no one goes anywhere forever. All souls have doors that periodically open in order for them to continue their growth and move on.
Since all things eventually change in a perceptual sense, we may see our loved ones but they too will move on to grow or experience something else. But often we return to each other because of the cumulative connection of love and experiences. This is mid plane activity but when you reach the higher planes, you know that 'they' are in fact 'ALL' and there was never a leaving or a returning, just a state of being.
And what of those that reach the higher planes? They often return to lower planes and teach, give unseen guidance and sometimes even start all over again to experience the miracle of the soul's evolution. Isn't that why God created us in the first place; to watch the process because it is so incredible?
Heaven and hell are just resting points for the evolving soul. Earth is as much heaven as it is hell, just the physical version. It is experienced every moment of your life, on every plane. You determine by your path where you go when you die, what you experience and for how long.
We will all experience hell and we will all experience heaven thereby making the two non exclusive. It is not up, it is not down, but all around you, including within.