Difference between revisions of "Heaven"
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“In many religious teachings, Heaven is kind of a reward for doing well in life, for believing in God, for following God’s edicts and the edicts of religion—a kind of future reward, a better life awaiting you, but a life that can only be achieved by meeting certain expectations and requirements. And Hell has been created as a kind of place of punishment. For those who fail to meet these requirements and expectations, they go to a much worse place, a place even worse that their physical existence, a Hell which in some traditions has been described in some detail. So Heaven is the reward and Hell is a punishment. So how can there be this notion of Hell if God is all merciful and all loving? This, of course, has led to a rejection of religion and for some, a rejection of God altogether. And yet they cannot deny that they have a spiritual reality within themselves, something that does not seem to be the product of their culture or even their physical existence.” | “In many religious teachings, Heaven is kind of a reward for doing well in life, for believing in God, for following God’s edicts and the edicts of religion—a kind of future reward, a better life awaiting you, but a life that can only be achieved by meeting certain expectations and requirements. And Hell has been created as a kind of place of punishment. For those who fail to meet these requirements and expectations, they go to a much worse place, a place even worse that their physical existence, a Hell which in some traditions has been described in some detail. So Heaven is the reward and Hell is a punishment. So how can there be this notion of Hell if God is all merciful and all loving? This, of course, has led to a rejection of religion and for some, a rejection of God altogether. And yet they cannot deny that they have a spiritual reality within themselves, something that does not seem to be the product of their culture or even their physical existence.” | ||
− | “You imagine Heaven to meet your current needs and expectations and you fear Hell and you imagine Hell as a kind of further fall from grace, a worse condition. And of course, these imagined Heavens and imagined Hells are used by institutions and traditions to try to corral people into good behavior, to try to even inspire good work, good citizenship or adherence to the religious principles or to the religious organization itself.” | + | “You imagine Heaven to meet your current needs and expectations and you fear Hell and you imagine Hell as a kind of further fall from grace, a worse condition. And of course, these imagined Heavens and imagined Hells are used by institutions and traditions to try to corral people into good behavior, to try to even inspire good work, good [[citizenship]] or adherence to the religious principles or to the religious organization itself.” |
“The memory of your Ancient Home, though seemingly blotted out by your current experience, is there nonetheless. It shines like the sun beyond the clouds. And though you live in a very cloudy world where this sun seems to barely shine through, it is there nonetheless…There is a lifeline to your Ancient Home. It is kept alive by Knowledge within you. You can deny religion. You can deny God. You can claim that you are an animal only. You can create a very firm belief regarding these things. But Knowledge is still within you.” | “The memory of your Ancient Home, though seemingly blotted out by your current experience, is there nonetheless. It shines like the sun beyond the clouds. And though you live in a very cloudy world where this sun seems to barely shine through, it is there nonetheless…There is a lifeline to your Ancient Home. It is kept alive by Knowledge within you. You can deny religion. You can deny God. You can claim that you are an animal only. You can create a very firm belief regarding these things. But Knowledge is still within you.” |
Revision as of 15:05, 27 August 2013
"A mind that is serious in its outward direction and lighthearted in its internal delight will be a mind that is fully integrated. This will be a mind where Heaven and Earth touch." [1]
"The answer is in the heavens, in the Greater Community. Look to the heavens for inspiration. Look to the Greater Community. Heaven itself is beyond the Greater Community, but the Greater Community is where you will instinctively look for the answer." [2]
"You must always be watchful. That is part of being aware; that is part of being alive. This world is not your heavenly state." [3]
"The world that you see is really the product of these three things: the reality of Knowledge, the denial of Knowledge and the ignorance of Knowledge. In your heavenly state, there is only Knowledge, but you are not living in your heavenly state." [4]
"The return to God is not an intellectual enterprise. You do not come to God on your terms. Reality and Creation are not based on your understanding or evaluation. Heaven does not value your ideas, only your participation." [5]
"You cannot run home to Heaven or think that if you are a good boy or a good girl, you get to go to Heaven—whatever that looks like in your imagination." [6]
"This is the gift of Heaven—that your life can be redeemed, but you must allow the pathway to be presented to you. You must respond to the Revelation." [7]
Blessings
"From the position and perspective of Heaven, you are the blessed amongst the few, a person who has been given the greatest opportunity....Finally, your life has a possibility of being redeemed." [7]
"The Revelation only comes every few centuries, or perhaps once in a millennium, and you happen to be here at that time. From Heaven’s perspective, that is a great blessing, a great opportunity." [7]
Processes
"You will have moments where you will feel the power and the presence of Heaven, for just moments, for that is enough." [8]
"The gifts of Heaven are for everyone, even living in a difficult and calamitous world, but who can receive them? ... Awaking from one’s own fearful separation is a tremendous event. It calls the powers of Heaven to you, who are beginning to awake." [9]
"You cannot return to Heaven unwillingly. You cannot return to your Ancient Home ambivalent or with grievances or aggravation or resentment. These things must all be worked out in time.... Some people believe that God, through grace, will just sort of evaporate this ambivalence, this conflict of purpose and intention, and you just enter Heaven as if nothing ever happened. But this is just an attempt to accommodate human expectation." [10]
"The road to Heaven is through relationships. It is a road of relationships. You may try your hardest to feel whole and joined with life, and you will have experiences of this now and then, but until you can be joined to another, give yourself and dedicate your resources in conjunction with another’s dedication, you are only flirting with reality." [11]
The Myth of Heaven and Hell
"It is not a human universe you are facing, and that is why your notions of Heaven and Hell are so incorrect, so limited and really pathetic." [12]
"It must be understood that your role and position in the world is not simply to garner a future reward. If you are a good person, you go to heaven; if you are a bad person, you go to hell. That is not the truth at all. That is what people think because they want to be rewarded for good behavior, and they want to punish others for their bad behavior." [13]
"Religion [is] not simply ... a requirement for admission into Heaven or some other exalted future state." [14]
"People imagine heaven to be kind of a perfect version of their physical reality without realizing that should such a reality ever be created, it would be hell itself. To be in a beautiful place where you could never be happy would be a kind of ongoing hell." [10]
"People’s beliefs and assumptions and their metaphysical ideas and their religious values and their speculations all suffer from a kind of level confusion. They try to imagine a permanent blessed state called Heaven, but they cannot see it as it really is. They cannot resonate with it yet as it really is, for they are not ready for that. They have not been yet prepared for Heaven, to return. They are not complete in their service here in the physical reality. They have not completed their mission here." [10]
"The whole notion of Heaven and Hell is built around [inherited] belief and ... assumptions about ... God.... You will have to let go of your notions of Heaven and Hell and your belief in a final judgment day and all of these things, for they will not fit with the greater reality that you are entering." [15]
Heaven and Manifestation
"You can never duplicate what God has created. In this temporary changing reality, it cannot be achieved. There will be no Heaven on Earth but there will be contribution to the Earth and to all worlds like this, of which there are countless." [10]
"To have God simply appear, that would strike terror in the hearts of just about everyone here. You are not ready for that. You are not ready for Heaven. That is why you must come now to serve. That is why God has given you a greater purpose for being here in this life." [10]
"You can’t return to your Ancient Home if your mind is set in Separation. You do not simply die and go to Heaven. You have to prepare for your Ancient Home, and that provides you a greater purpose for being in this physical reality, with all of its difficulties and challenges." [16]
"You cannot imagine the heavenly state. It is so very different from your life in the physical manifestation. You just cannot imagine it." [17]
"You are sent into the world to do something that you are not doing now and have no hope of doing unless something greater is given to you, unless you are called out of the crowd, unless your journey is altered by the power of Heaven." [7]
"In stillness all things can be known, for the mind is able to respond to Knowledge. Then, Knowledge will find expression in your specific thoughts and activities. Your mind was meant to serve Knowledge, as your body was meant to serve your mind. In this, the contribution from your True Home is able to express itself in the world of exile. Here Heaven and Earth touch, and when they touch, true communication begins to exist, and the transference of Knowledge is made into the world." [18]
"To re-engage your surface mind—your social mind, your worldly mind—with the deeper mind of Knowledge [is to] become really integrated. This is where you establish and experience your integrity. This is what gives you the strength and power of Heaven as you take your journey here on Earth." [19]
"This [temporary, physical existence] is not a punishment from God, but it does represent what life means if you are living apart from God, if you are living in Separation. Life will be changing. Life will be difficult. It will be a life unlike your Ancient Home, unlike your heavenly state, and you will have to face many adversities." [20]
"You have to work your way back into Heaven, you see. You have to serve the separated world, the separated universe. You have to work your way back, through contribution and through self-development. You cannot return to your Ancient Home as a miserable, conflicted, contentious, grievous person. Heaven would seem like Hell to you, if that were the case." [7]
The Heavenly Host
"Stand in judgment of the New Message and you will not see. You will not hear. And you will not know. You will be deaf and blind and arrogant all at once. And the Heavenly Host will shake their heads." [21]
"All the powers that are true in Heaven and Earth are here to encourage you and to support you so that you can fulfill what you came here to do, to become a man or woman of Knowledge, or Spirit, to engage in the Greater Community of your life, and to learn to gain your freedom and to encourage others to do the same." [22]
"It is not by accident that you happened to come across or even hear about the New Revelation. All the forces of Heaven that support you have been trying to get you to this point of recognition and to keep you from destroying your life in the process, to limit the damage you have already done and the waste you have already created so that you would be available and be able to respond." [7]
The Will of Heaven
"These are not ancient times. You are not asked to be like sheep. You are asked to rise to the occasion, to take the Steps to Knowledge and to allow Knowledge to reshape your life and reveal to you your greater destiny. This is the Will of Heaven, and this now must become the intention of humanity." [23]
"What people want and the Will of Heaven are so very different. But if in truth you could discern your deeper requirements for life beyond survival and acquiring the simple things that are necessary for stability and safety in the world, you would see that what you want and the Will of Heaven are really the same." "People... do not have the humility to recognize that they cannot establish the terms of engagement regarding their primary relationship with the Creator and with the Will of Heaven." [7]
"The Will of Heaven is for humanity to unite and to prepare so that it may survive the Great Waves of change and prepare for its engagement with life in the universe in such a way that human freedom and sovereignty in this world may be protected. It is the Will of Heaven that this awareness and preparation be shared with others and that you become a vehicle for sharing it, very simply, by pointing to the New Revelation. It is the Will of Heaven that humanity will grow up, emerge out of its reckless and contentious adolescence to become the wise stewards of this world, to preserve the life-giving resources of this world and to become a free race in a universe where freedom is rare and is rarely valued. It is the Will of Heaven that you end your ceaseless conflicts, for you cannot afford to destroy your peoples and your cities now. You will need all the resources of the world, all the resources that you have, to contend with the Great Waves of change that are coming." [24]
"The Will of Heaven and the intentions of humanity are still very far apart. But the times grow dark. The hour is late, and there is no more time for foolishness and denial." [24]
“The sinful are not punished but are attended to. The wicked are not sent to Hell but are prepared for Heaven. This is the true nature of God’s purpose in the world.” [25]
“The escape from Hell to Heaven is the escape from personal fantasy into meaningful relationship with life. What is Hell but obsession with oneself? What is Heaven but the full involvement with life as an integral part of its overall expression. Heaven and Hell are something you will experience day to day and even moment to moment, depending upon where you stand.” [26]
“Knowledge will not condemn you, but it will not compromise either. Knowledge will not send you to Hell because Knowledge can only prepare you for Heaven. Do not try to make a deal with Knowledge because it will not bargain.” [27]
“Heaven is full of foreigners! Would that still be Heaven for you? If it were filled with other beings who did not look even like you, would that make you feel uncomfortable, arousing suspicion and judgment and prejudice within you? It is not like every race gets to have its own unique Heaven, as if there is a Heaven for human beings, and then there is a Heaven for all these other races, millions and millions of Heavens.” [28]
“Heaven and Hell is kind of a use, or a manipulation, of this deeper awareness, the awareness of one’s suffering and the awareness that one is connected to a greater life, somewhere, somehow.”
“In many religious teachings, Heaven is kind of a reward for doing well in life, for believing in God, for following God’s edicts and the edicts of religion—a kind of future reward, a better life awaiting you, but a life that can only be achieved by meeting certain expectations and requirements. And Hell has been created as a kind of place of punishment. For those who fail to meet these requirements and expectations, they go to a much worse place, a place even worse that their physical existence, a Hell which in some traditions has been described in some detail. So Heaven is the reward and Hell is a punishment. So how can there be this notion of Hell if God is all merciful and all loving? This, of course, has led to a rejection of religion and for some, a rejection of God altogether. And yet they cannot deny that they have a spiritual reality within themselves, something that does not seem to be the product of their culture or even their physical existence.”
“You imagine Heaven to meet your current needs and expectations and you fear Hell and you imagine Hell as a kind of further fall from grace, a worse condition. And of course, these imagined Heavens and imagined Hells are used by institutions and traditions to try to corral people into good behavior, to try to even inspire good work, good citizenship or adherence to the religious principles or to the religious organization itself.”
“The memory of your Ancient Home, though seemingly blotted out by your current experience, is there nonetheless. It shines like the sun beyond the clouds. And though you live in a very cloudy world where this sun seems to barely shine through, it is there nonetheless…There is a lifeline to your Ancient Home. It is kept alive by Knowledge within you. You can deny religion. You can deny God. You can claim that you are an animal only. You can create a very firm belief regarding these things. But Knowledge is still within you.”
“Your return to God may be beyond human comprehension, but the Plan of God makes it inevitable. And God has placed Knowledge within you and everyone else to make the return inevitable. So the focus of your life now, then, is not to continue to reinforce beliefs in heavens and hells. It is not to project upon God the role of the great punisher, the judge who sends those to prison and exonerates others. That is what you do but that is not what God does.”
“God has sent you into a difficult situation and has placed Knowledge within you to enable you to serve that situation and to give you a way back. It is like entering a deep cave where the light of day is completely left behind, and you are in this labyrinth somewhere, and you are sent down there to help others who are lost in the labyrinth, and you yourself seem to be lost in the labyrinth except that God has placed a little rope attached to you, an endless kind of rope that, well, no matter how many turns you take, no matter how deep you get into that labyrinth, no matter how much you forget the light of day, there is still a lifeline to you. You may be lost, but you are not lost to God.”
"The degree to which you are disassociated from Knowledge is the degree to which you are living in a kind of Hell. You could become more disassociated and live in a deeper kind of Hell. Your suffering could intensify. Your isolation could become deeper. Your sense of shame and guilt could become more overwhelming. But it is the same problem. You could go to the deepest part of the labyrinth and deny all possibility of redemption for yourself, but Knowledge is still within you. The fire of Knowledge, though it may only be a little light, is still a burning ember within you."
"Think of Heaven as where you have come from and think of Hell as where you have been sent to serve—to help reclaim the separated, to support their re-association with Knowledge within themselves and to create a world where Knowledge is more evident than it is today, where inspiration is more evident than it is today, where harmony and cooperation is more evident than it is today. It is like you have come from Heaven, carrying a brick. And the brick is part of the foundation for a greater and more complete and more genuine reality here.” [29]
References
- ↑ Steps to Knowledge Step 225
- ↑ Greater Community Spirituality, chap. 18, p. 229
- ↑ Signs from the World (November 7, 2008)
- ↑ Taking the Steps to Knowledge (April 21, 2000)
- ↑ Destiny (April 12, 2011)
- ↑ The Reconciliation (May 2, 2011)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 The Initiation (June 28, 2011)
- ↑ The Reconciliation (May 2, 2011)
- ↑ The Shock of the Future (April 30, 2011)
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 What is Creation? (February 4, 2007)
- ↑ Living The Way of Knowledge, Chapter 8
- ↑ The Story of the Messenger (May 23, 2011)
- ↑ The New Message on Fulfillment (August 24, 2007)
- ↑ The New Message on Religion (July 20, 2009)
- ↑ The New God (Feb. 12, 2009)
- ↑ Nature and Natural Disasters (September 8, 2008)
- ↑ The Redeemer (January 18, 2010)
- ↑ Steps to Knowledge, Step 285
- ↑ Destiny (April 12, 2011)
- ↑ Nature and Natural Disasters (September 8, 2008)
- ↑ God’s Power & Presence in the World (April 23, 2011)
- ↑ Taking the Steps to Knowledge (April 21, 2000)
- ↑ Destiny, April 12, 2011
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 The Will of Heaven, May 17, 2011
- ↑ Steps to Knowledge, Step 241
- ↑ Steps to Knowledge Level IV
- ↑ Living The Way of Knowledge, Chapter 5
- ↑ The Presence of the Teachers, August 26, 2008
- ↑ Heaven & Hell, January 29, 2008