HEAVEN

What image does this word conjure up for you? Is it some place so beautiful that to capture it even in your imagination seems impossible? Is it how you describe a feeling of great, almost overwhelming happiness? Is it the place to which you believe we go to after our death, provided we have lived a good life? Is it a place of idleness, a reward for a good life, where people sit around playing on golden harps and watching the angels and archangels? Is it how you have been brought up to describe the spiritual world where we all pass to on our deaths? Perhaps you are one of those who believe that no such place exists.

Whether any of these descriptions or none describes your idea of heaven, it is a word that is almost as commonly used in the English language as the word love. Popular music abounds with both words and many people describe their feelings of joy or happiness as ‘heavenly’. Why should this be I wonder? Here we have a word with obvious mystic connotations that many use and which means different things to different people. Its use reminds me very much of the way we associate certain colours with certain emotions; red for anger, green for envy, yellow for cowardice, pink for love and good health, etc. All these associations, like those linked to ‘heaven’ go back to the infancy of humanity; a time when we were a great deal more innocent and spiritually aware than we appear to be today. The word itself may have changed with different societies and different religions but for instance, the emotional associations of Nirvana and of Heaven are indistinguishable to those who accept one or the other.

I believe these early associations of words with mystical states are not accidental and should be taken seriously for they are important and it would be misguided of us to assume that because a word’s associations are ancient they are therefore invalid. In the infancy of humanity we needed to use our finer senses much more than we do today, just to ensure survival. Without that ‘sixth sense’ that warned us of impending danger, how would early man have survived living among so many carnivorous animals? More importantly in many ways, are the methods our ancestors used to determine the healing properties of plants and herbs. They did not rely upon a system of ‘trial and error’ but were much more precise than that. They anticipated Dr Bach of the famous ‘Bach Flower Remedies’ by many millennia. If you recall, Dr Bach urged his students to go out in the very early morning and “feel” the energy of the plants and herbs; thus would they be able to determine not only which ones were healing plants but also which illnesses they would be most effective in treating.

There is no accident that among ancient tribes, those skilled in the healing arts became known in our language as ‘witch doctors’. Although the word ‘witch’ has been given dark, even evil meanings by amongst others, Shakespeare, King James 1 of England and the Christian church, it is not one which is wholly deserved. A witch is merely one who possesses psychic abilities beyond the normal and is therefore able to detect those subtle energies used in communications between the spiritual world and those of us here on Earth; and who understand the vital role of the mind in spiritual matters. Unfortunately some practised the darker side of their arts and consequently fear in the minds of ordinary people and some not so ordinary like King James, branded all psychically gifted souls with this stigma, even though many abhor the darker side. Add ‘psychically gifted’ to ‘healer’ and you produce witch doctor! No more; no less.

So it is with ‘heaven’. The early seers and psychics were made aware from the spiritual world of the existence of the world of spirits which welcomed all earthly people when they died and were told what a beautiful, idyllic and loving place it was. They coined the word heaven to describe it and because it seemed way above the mundane world of humanity, they became convinced this place called heaven was high above the Earth. Consequently, the skies became the heavens also. What they were unable to understand from their communications was that heaven was also a world of the mind. We now know the spiritual world, or heaven to some, is exactly that; a mental world, where the mind is king. Therefore when mystics speak of creating heaven on earth they are not suggesting that the earth will one day become a purely spiritual world. What they are saying is that heaven, (and hell if it comes to that) is a state of mind, rather than an actual physical location. The mind is so powerful that such states appear to the individual as physical locations, even though they are not. Therefore if we wish to create heaven on earth, we need to create the right mental and spiritual conditions here, either personally or much more preferably, amongst the entire human community.

This helps to explain why when we are ‘on top of the world,’ feeling totally free, joyful and happy, we describe the feeling as heavenly. That is exactly what heaven is, no matter where you may be located when you experience it. It may be a passage in a wonderful piece of music, finding your true vocation, the achievement of a hard-worked-for ambition or aim, falling in love, the birth of your first baby, a verse in a poem, a wonderful sunset, a rainbow, or other mighty work of nature. Any of these things and others, can give you that feeling of ‘heaven’. Such feelings “often”, to paraphrase Wordsworth, “lie too deep for words,” but what is certain is that once experienced, it is something we never forget. Hold onto that feeling once you have experienced it, for it is very special, though but a pale imitation of the spiritual heavens.

The ‘heavenly spheres,’ for there are many parts of the spiritual world that can be described as heaven, are places of ineffable love and beauty where no evil exists to mar our joy. Be sure they exist and also be sure that creating a heaven here on Earth is up to each one of us.