What are your ideas of heaven like?

[Dondi]

I'm looking for two things, actually.

1) What do you believe heaven will be like? This would probably fall along the lines of your belief system.

2) What would you LIKE heaven to be like? If you were in charge of heaven, how would it be?

This is open to anyone.

 

[wil]

Heaven to me is I and the father are one.

The understanding that I am connected to, am an integral part of all that G!d is.

It is getting a ticket for speeding just before running into a traffic jam and then having to run across a black asphalt parking lot in 95% humidity on a blistering hot August day late for a meeting that has no indication of being good, already prespiring from the heat, humidity and tension....and suddenly bursting into laughter. Suddenly realizing that it is all an illusion, that it is my ego based perspective shutting the currents on the wonder that creation is, and that nothing can affect my divine self, and my eternal connection to all that source, love and all that is good. Saying a prayer of thanx for the cooling affect of sweat, walking into the meeting grinning, and watching all obstacles fade away...

Realizing and entering heaven is watching your child's first step, the smile on your friends face, crying you are so happy to be alive in this world to experience all that is.

Knowing I am in heaven is when I realize the lesson amidst turmoil, when I choose not to pick a past addiction (drugs, alcohol, jealousy, hate, rage, envy) but to pick life and understanding of the underlying thread...that G!d is right here right now involved in this situation that is currently causing much strife in the fabric of this earthly plane....but that it can be changed in an instant to heaven....by my perception, by reastablishing my connection...these things are heaven to me.

Hell is when I forget all the above, start blaming others, ranting about the world turmoil, or take solace in a bottle or....

 

[Dondi]

So then, wil, heaven is not a place, but a state of mind? I was actually trying to get an idea of the heaven after one dies. But you do bring up a good point. A taste of heaven can be realized in the here and now if we truly seek God out.

 

[wil]

Namaste Dondi, you are correct I believe heaven to be in a state of consciousness, and don't believe death is the only window to this state of consciousness. and you are right, it does follow with my belief system, paraphrased, look neither high nor low, hear nor there, heaven is in our midst right here right now...

Of course reading back I see I only answered number one, and number two...wouldn't it be lovely if we all perceived this and transformed it all right here and right now?

Nice questions the hard part will be just sitting back and watching the answers come in, without commentary or dissent, not imposing our viewpoints on others view of heaven and destroying the purity of the responses.

 

[Dondi]

Really, I just want this thread to be informative. I have no intention of arguing anyone's viewpoint and I hope others posters will grant the same repsect.

 

[Ciel]

True Wil,

Heaven is a state of consciousness where there is balance. It's watching the players continue playing but the game no longer exists, it's being outside the game, and there is no matter and it doesn't matter, you can lift it, or drop it.

It's being in ones own being and truth. It's being in love, where there is nothing else but love, essence connective to God and the moment.

 

[Bandit]

i believe

heaven is a place as well as a condition. you can have consciousness, but we will also join our friends & loved ones & crown Christ forever.

i enjoy pondering eternal life where there will be no corruption, & i think it is fine to think on these things.

 

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, Dondi!

I don't know that we've met before, welcome to CR!

To answer your questions, I think oneness in peace and love, wherein we are unique yet the same. We will know others, yet we will all be of one accord. No pain, no stress, no suffering, no fear, no hate, no hunger, no shame, no regrets.

 

[iBrian]

Heaven as a state of existence beyond the boundaries of space and time, a state of bliss where all conscious experience becomes One.

 

[Dondi]

What I think heaven will be like:

1) That we will know fully God and His overpowering Love and Mercy. We will no more pain, suffering, or sorrow. He will wipe all our tears away. We will feel more alive than any time we ever spent on earth. We will reunited with family and friends.

I think that any relationships we have down here will pale in comparasion with the relationships we have in heaven. Think about your spouse or significant other. Whatever relationship you have with him/her will seem dim compared to the relationships with everyone who gathers before God. No one will be a stranger. We will spend eternity getting to know the billions of people who are part of God's kingdom. I'd like to think that there would be sex up there, but I think that our spiritual bodies will experience things that make sex down here boring. That our spiritual bodies will be so much greater enhanced that it will just blow our minds. I think we will experience something akin to orgasms, but in a greater way. Don't ask me how that can be. But my view is that whatever pleasures we experience down here are but a shadow of things to come. All things come from God.

I also happen to think that whatever we learn down here, whatever stage of our spiritual progress we accomplish, whatever lessons we learn, whatever we have done to serve others, and how we have learned to love others, we will take that with us, take our love with us into the hereafter and continue to grow and love and serve God. Some of us will be in stages more advanced than others, but we will help each other along.

2) What I would like to see (and I almost convinced this will be) is that whatever religion a person have become accustomed to (within reason - If a religion is self-centered, it lacks love), how the person loves and serves God and his fellow man and woman, that God will look at the intents of a person's heart to determine his/her status in heaven. It's all about how we have loved people here, and loved people unselfishly and God loves us.

Yes, God has moral absolutes, but He will forgive us and cleanse us in the final analysis, if we are seeking His Spirit of Love in our lives which gives us the power to love others. Our hope is to reach out to God, or reach out to Love, or reach out to the Absolute, or to reach about to that Highest ideal. No matter what religion (or even non-religion, if he can learn to unselfishly love).

From a Christian perspective, that is pretty radical. But I believe there are what's known as "anonymous Christians", in other words people of other religions who have grasped that concept of love toward others and are expressing the ideal that Christ taught. From a Christian standpoint, I believe that these people are covered by the Blood of Christ, though they are of a different faith. (On the other hand, I might just be an "anonymous Buddhist, Muslim, or Jew", for all I know). My point is that I believe that God's Love knows no boundaries. At least that is what I hope heaven will be like.

Footnote:

I'm not talking about universalism here, where everybody gets "saved", for there are those who business is to conduct evil in their hearts and covet selfishly and have little or no love in their hearts. And not recognizing their condition will keep them apart from God. Any sin that has obsessed us will eat us alive, and our spiritual condition in the next life will reflect this. Indeed, our lust, our anger, our pride, our greed, our envy, if we allow these to control our lives will keep us from God, and our hell ends up being consumed with those passions that have a hold on us, untill we become unrecognizable and wretched. This is why it is so impotant to find God's universal love now. Our choice is now, thought I have reason to believe that immediately after death, God will help us and try to save us from our condition is we seek His mercy and forgiveness and love. I don't think it's God that will ultimately send us to Hell, I think we will make our hell by not chosing God and His Love, for we would be substituting that Love for our base passion for eternity. But God is a God of second chances.

Anyway, that's what I think heaven (and hell) will be like, IMO.

 

[Silverbackman]

I don't believe in a heaven per say. Not the Abrahmaic view. However if you mean heaven as in perhaps moksha or nirvana, maybe. But there is no proof for such an existence. Perhaps we all return to Nature and Its universal conscious by default when we die but I have a feeling our conscious awareness just rebirths into another body that can hold awareness from another part of the galaxy or even on Earth. Or perhaps our soul (conscious awareness) goes to other universes or even multiverses. I think the chances that we will rebirth on our planet Earth our extremely low due to the infinite omniverse .

Or perhaps if karma exists and heaven maybe a very good place in our next life. However like prayer, there is no proof for karma or no logical explanation for it .

 

[Awaiting_the_fifth]

Heaven to me is a real, physical place, every bit as real as this world (which is of course, not real at all).

I imagine it as a place where I can sit on the short grass surrounded by flowers underneath the warm sun, comfortable, relaxed, no worries. There are other people in this world, but perhaps it looks slightly different to them. No two men's heaven would be the same.

I do not need to work, I have everything I need at my fingertips all the time, I spend my time conversing with friends, enjoying fine food and drink. I don't imagine that I would have a family (don't know why), but lots of friends whom I love and I know that they love me.

No fear, no anger, no hate, we don't have a word for happiness because there is no sadness, but we are happy all the same.

I think my perception of time would be very different, I would be less constrained by it but still faintly aware of it. I would have more command of space and my environment, and be able to interact with it in ways I cannot concieve of now, in my human mind.

I would be a God, but I would not know I was a God because I would have no memory of being anything else.

It would be peacefull, there would be time to sit happily and meditate; If I could find a spiritual guide who could teach me how. Without guidance, I would feel no need to seek for anything higher, because I would be happy.

In the end, after a lifetime so long it defies human understanding, I would die. The virtue that held me in that heaven, allowed me to live in it would be finally exhausted, and on to my next life. Heaven? Hell? Earth? Who knows. My Karma will decide.

That's the heaven I see, but I would rather stay here, in the human realm, where my chances of liberation are much higher.

Liberation is my real goal.

When I shed all my delusions and imperfections and I reach perfect enlightenment I will be something so much greater that what I am now that this human mind cannot imagine it.

On the other hand, I will only be myself.

 

[Dondi]

Heaven to me is a real, physical place, every bit as real as this world (which is of course, not real at all).

I would be a God, but I would not know I was a God because I would have no memory of being anything else.

In the end, after a lifetime so long it defies human understanding, I would die. The virtue that held me in that heaven, allowed me to live in it would be finally exhausted, and on to my next life. Heaven? Hell? Earth? Who knows. My Karma will decide.

That's the heaven I see, but I would rather stay here, in the human realm, where my chances of liberation are much higher.

Liberation is my real goal.

I have some questions, ATF, since you piqued my curiousity. By what measure would you say that you would be a God? Would there be other people in your heaven for which you would be God, to rule over? Or would you create your own world? I guess I'm a bit hazy on this Karma concept. If Karma does dictate where you end up, how does Karma decide, or how does the determining factor work? Is there some Karmadic rule book that judges you.

Finally, what are you trying to liberate yourself from?

I'm not trying to be judgemental or flippant, just curious.

 

[Awaiting_the_fifth]

I have some questions, ATF,

Fire away

By what measure would you say that you would be a God?

The way I see it, I am in this human world right now because this is how my human mind interprets this world. If I were an animal of some sort I am certain that I would see the world very differently. The world in which I exist is dependent upon my cognition of it.

So to exist in some heaven realm, I would have to be a god.

Shaky logic perhaps, but it makes sense to me.

Would there be other people in your heaven for which you would be God, to rule over?

According to the official Buddhist Cosmology, I have no idea.
I don't think that there would be people for me to rule over, but as I said before, I think there would be other people there on an equal footing with me.

would you create your own world?

I don't think so. As I said, the world is in the mind only and we each create it every day.

I guess I'm a bit hazy on this Karma concept.

It's simple enough, be nice and you'll be alright.

If Karma does dictate where you end up, how does Karma decide, or how does the determining factor work?

Karma is just a natural law. This is like asking, "If you leap off a building, how does gravity decide which way you fall"
There is no judgement, that is just the way the universe is.

Finally, what are you trying to liberate yourself from?

Samsara. This world of delusions and dreams. While I am in Samsara I am caught in a constant cycle of death and rebirth into one life of suffering after another. In Samsara there is pain and hunger. The gods, demingods, humans, animals, hungry spirits and hell beings all exist in Samsara, moving from one life to the next. Now I'm a human, maybe I used to be a Hungry spirit, maybe next time I'll be a demigod and then I'll be a beetle. Who knows. The only certainty is that each life starts and ends in pain.

Buddha Shakyamuni found the solution to the suffering in liberation from Samsara. Great enlightenment.

I'm not trying to be judgemental or flippant, just curious.

I never assumed anything else, always happy to answer questions.

Peace
ATF

 

[MagnetMan]

I am out there playing golf (my heaven here on Earth) thinking of nothing but my swing - when a heavy load comes in on a freighter from deep space. One moment I am no wiser than a child, next I think that I am connected to all the knowledge in the Universe. I am made to realize that I am as old as the Big Bang. Next I realize that I rubbed shoulders with every other atom that was compressed into the singularity in the instant before I began my Cosmic outreach. I am imprinted with all the knowledge that there ever was or ever will be. Now all I have to do is search through the desert of my present ignorance and find the magic lamp, rub it, and release the genie that is trapped within me so that I can reunite with my Cosmic Brotherhood. Hopefully, when I find the lamp I can get the genie within to improve my handicap.