Manji2012
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What happens after we die? What is the final Goal in Christianity and what is it like. Please describe it. Is it heaven? If so, what is it like?
Heaven
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China Cat Sunflower
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I think that the descriptions of Heaven in Revelation consist of sort of proto-kabbalistic primal archetypes. It must be like walking through a deck of tarot cards.
Chris
Chris
Manji2012
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Is that something you really want?
LeoSalinas22
merely a shadow...
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hello manji,
what do you think about outer space?
what do you think about outer space?
Pico
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Why don't you read the book by someone who actually went there? I read it a long time ago, and I still remember how insane it sounded. One thing he seems to stress a lot is how inadequate his words are to describe it. Everything in our earthly language and experiences falls ridiculously short of what it's like.
In fact, the 2nd time I read it I felt this tugging at my chest and felt a deep longing to go there, something hard to describe.
taijasi
Gnōthi seauton
My own belief is that rest, stillness and peace refer only to the aspect(s) of Heaven which contrast with the wearisome, anxious and disturbed conditions (disturbed in every sense of the word) which often prevail upon earth ... though this need not be the case, and certainly will not be forever.
But it would be good to consider that Heaven may also hold the promise of greater activity than anything we have ever imagined upon planet Earth, and that truly, Heaven is where the Divine Adventure really begins!
It would also be worthwhile to think of Heaven not as a `place,' definitely separate or geographically distinct from the here & now, but in fact, as living in the here and now to the fullest of the human potential. Was it not precisely THIS, which allowed Christ to say that "the Kingdom of God is within you." And was it not this to which Christ referred specifically in Matthew 13:1-17?
How can Heaven be in the here and now, yet millions of people miss it every day? I dunno, how can there be God's wonder and beauty in all of nature, and the living spark of the Divine within every human being, yet we miss this too, every day?
But it would be good to consider that Heaven may also hold the promise of greater activity than anything we have ever imagined upon planet Earth, and that truly, Heaven is where the Divine Adventure really begins!
It would also be worthwhile to think of Heaven not as a `place,' definitely separate or geographically distinct from the here & now, but in fact, as living in the here and now to the fullest of the human potential. Was it not precisely THIS, which allowed Christ to say that "the Kingdom of God is within you." And was it not this to which Christ referred specifically in Matthew 13:1-17?
How can Heaven be in the here and now, yet millions of people miss it every day? I dunno, how can there be God's wonder and beauty in all of nature, and the living spark of the Divine within every human being, yet we miss this too, every day?
My view was based on philosophical definitions ... all activity, all movement tends towards an end, and when that end is reached, there is no further need of movement, activity etc ... there all distinction ceases ... somewhat Eckhartian, perhaps ... but that's me.
Thomas
Thomas
taijasi
Gnōthi seauton
Yes, in the Eastern Tradition, and in the perennial wisdom which teaches a perennially recurring Cycle (redundancy intentional), the Greatest Stillness, or `Rest' (refrain from Cosmic Activity, or the manifestation of Deity/Deity's Creation) is called pralaya, or Maha-Pralaya.
Thomas, others, what would be the equivalent teaching in Christianity? I ask, because I know there must be one ...
In the teachings I'm familiar with, every evolving life has it's phases of activity, then rest, then further activity. Humanity, then, has its own `Heaven,' but this is eventually followed (in some distant cycle) by a period of additional - and even Greater - Activity.
This literally means, if we try to picture it, our continuance throughout Eternity, along a Spiral Path. I believe in the popular vernacular we say things like "on a higher turn of the spiral." And the Spiral is the key point. To try to say that Heaven is pure stasis will not make sense to me, but that's just because of how I've become accustomed to thinking.
Where Heaven would be, as I understand it according to the (2D) image of an Ourobouros - relative to the above (and what is an Ourobouros, except the view of this spiral, on its side, flattened so as to lose its 3rd dimension) - is ultimately at the point of closure, marking both a (new) ending, as well as the insurance, guarantee or Promise (Covenant) of a new future beginning, of the ever-recurring (Cosmic) Cycle(s).
This can only be further understood, for those who are curious, by referring to the following 3D image (the middle image, in comparison with the 2D image here given), and by considering the statement found at the beginning of the following website (I discovered this by pure `serendipity,' btw, just now - though I have pondered it for several weeks or months).
And in particular, as per these images of the Ourobouros, the `Heaven of rest' (PRALAYA) is the point at which the Ourobouros swallows its own tail ... this, the seed (found within the Fruit of the Harvest) of a New Beginning!
As for the Divine Spiral, found from the carefully-sequenced structures of DNA to the "naturally-occurring" pattern of sunflowers, and from the design of the human body to the layout of entire Galaxies ... who would dare suggest that the Spiral is not the signature of the Divine, literally found within every atom of Deity's Creation!
Sometimes seeing is believing, and the spiritual Vision of the Illumined Seer can perceive what the greatest microscopes of material science yet cannot.
Why does all this make sense to me, and why does Heaven fit so well with the doctrine of Rebirth, as I believe every great Teacher and World Savior has taught it?
Because: God is Eternal, and this means without beginning or end. Only the World(s) can be created, this by an action(s) of God. And only by God's Agency can Life come into the world(s), once preparation has been made. By whose agency, then, does life exit the world(s), and return to God's Bosom?
Thus, at what point does Creation cease to proceed according to the Guiding Power(s) of the Almighty?
In truth we must answer, NEVER, if we indeed believe that God - and Good - prevails over all evil.
How did evil get into it? That's for you to solve.
And me, and each & every one of us! But in my understanding of Heaven, earth, and in the doctrine of recurring cycles of Divine Evolution (as per God's Handiwork), these questions have answers, and all problems that arise have attainable, obtainable solutions. The opportunities offered, and how we respond, is all that really matters in the long run.
Thus, Response-ability.
~+~+~
To a God Who has created the Heavens and the Earth, yet also Who has dominion over the far-off worlds, there will be many cycles of Stellar evolution observed, perhaps assisted (would or would God not assist the evolutions of non-earth-based intelligent civilizations, sending them too a Savior?).
Heaven must surely include many Orders, or Divine Groupings, of Spiritual (or Spiritualized) Beings, all serving One God, and all cooperating harmoniously in Service to God's Plan and Purpose. The lowest orders cannot be expected to understand the Imperatives or Mission of the Highest, yet they are held accountable for precisely what they understand. So too, Earth's evolution in relation to those of other planets, and in relation to the Greater Evolution (you know, the rest of God's Creation).
The Greater orders of Beings, then, while existing in what for us must seem utter bliss, perfect Peace and Divine Restfulness (even here upon Earth) ... are actually Working, with amazing efficiency and `POWER,' according to an altogether higher definition of Activity than we are capable of even pondering!
And this is something yet different than the Peace, or `pralaya' (as it is called in the East ... again, what is it called according to Christian doctrine?), which prevails between Universes, or between the Greatest manifestations of Galaxies, and even Cosmos itself.
Peace,
~Andrew
There is ... it's called the Beatific Vision, among other things.
In Christianity, this is not the case.
OK, I can see that.
In Christian terms, God is the 'Motionless Mover' of the Philosophers — being Absolute, Infinite, All-Possible and so forth, there is and can be no movement in God ... thus in God alone is the idea and ontology of 'rest' ... once there, there is nowehere else to go ... the Eternal is above all contingent modification signified by 'change', 'movement' and so forth ... therein dwells God ... and therein dwells His creature, in Union with Him ... so deep and so profound that, to quote Eckhart again "all distinction vanishes" ... there is no "I" and "thou" ...
Christianity is a doctrine above cosmology — that I think is one of the continuing confusions when TS seeks to interpret the Sacra Doctrina of the Abrahamic Traditions.
In Christian Hermeticism, which is subsequent to Doctrine, and it's attendant cosmological commentary, Ourobouros is a closed system, confined within itself (tail in mouth), the idea of a spiral is a cyclic movement in three dimensions, whereas the image of Ourobouros is a cyclic movement in two — hence tail in mouth — eternal repetition.
The Author of Meditations on the Tarot offers some interesting views on that particular symbol.
St Maximus, Eckhart and many of the Fathers spoke of the three movements within the soul – vertical, cyclical, and spiral — the Christian 'Way' offers a transitus subject to no contingent/cosmological modification ... Hence the Epistle to the Hebrews' commentary on Psalm 8 'what is man, that thou art mindful of him?' (2:6).
Thomas
M
mee
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for the little flock that will go to heaven the final thing will be that they will be kings and priests wth Jesus , and they will be ruling over the earth .
"Have no fear, little flock, because your Father has approved of giving you the kingdom."—LUKE 12:32.
"And I saw, and, look! the Lamb standing upon the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand having his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads." (Revelation 14:1)
(Revelation 7:2-4)
. (Revelation 2:10)
Revelation 14:12, 13.
and you made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they are to rule as kings over the earth."revelation 5;10
Who, then, make up this little flock having such a wonderful prospect? The followers of Jesus Christ who receive an anointing with holy spirit. (Acts 2:1-4)
The 144,000-strong little flock is "the Israel of God," which has replaced natural Israel in God’s purposes. (Galatians 6:16) but even though it is only a little flock of 144,000 that will be going to heaven , there is a wonderful hope for a GREAT CROWD of other ones that will go on to inherit the earth , and here they are in REVELATION 7;9-10
After these things I saw, and, look! a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes; and there were palm branches in their hands. And they keep on crying with a loud voice, saying: "Salvation [we owe] to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.".................... NICE