Heaven was never revealed to me either in the visions or the messages I received. Nor would I expect it to be. When one is feeling their existing World slipping away from them the last thing I would expect a loving god to reveal is what is available in the hereafter. More grounded messages were needed to help ensure my feet remained firmly planted in this World.
Despite this, the visions and messages that were presented revealed to me a merciful god of infinite love. So much so that I have come to believe that love does not exist in support of the heavens and the Earth. It is the other way around: the heavens and the Earth exist in support of love. Love is the ultimate truth and whatever is required to ensure it’s continued growth is what The Greatest Love will help deliver. This progression must never end and The Greatest Love has put in place our two planes of existence to ensure that it never does. The heavens and the Earth must be understood within that context. And in that context, Heaven as a final destination makes little sense to me. For to reach such an end point means that one’s love can progress no further. It would imply the existence of perfect souls. An impossibility both on Earth and in the heavens.
To elaborate on this conclusion I must first distinguish between the heavens and Heaven. The former is the transcendent existence that is separate from our physical Universe and forms a cornerstone of my beliefs. It is a temporary yet remarkable existence that allows us to touch the face of The Greatest Love. To be held in Their comforting embrace, to have all our suffering and pain washed away, and then to reflect upon a life lived with honesty and humility. In so doing we enter a sacred communion with The Greatest Love. This communion is what defines the heavens and it is available to all.
In contrast Heaven, along with its contrary Hell, are traditionally defined as the final and eternal resting places within the heavens for the virtuous and wicked respectively. A binary segregation that exists to reward or punish. It is this conception of Heaven and Hell from the Abrahamic religions that I do not believe in. Instead I believe the heavens and Earth were created by The Greatest Love in tandem to provide us a path, a stairway, to elevate our love higher. Each progression upwards, or downwards, representing a single life lived. A cycle of rebirths that allows us to ascend along that stairway of love in stages. And so I must incorporate the belief of reincarnation into my love. I am deeply thankful to two of the World’s great religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, for opening my heart to it’s possibility. It is after much prayer, and reflection, that such a cycle makes the most sense to me. It is what I believe to be true.
In addition to the impossibility of perfect souls I also disagree with the idea that a soul can be delivered a final and eternal judgement based on a single finite life lived. A judgement that is meant to punish the wicked and reward the righteous? Such black and white reasoning lacks proportion and compassion in a World of infinite colors and complexity. For what purpose would punishing the wicked for all eternity serve? Even if punishment was an effective deterrence to others, which it is not, it does nothing to change the love in one’s heart. It abandons such souls as lost causes in the faint hope of deterring others. Such abandonment would represent a limit to the love and mercy of The Greatest Love. And yet Their love is limitless. The Greatest Love will never abandon any soul, but nor will They offer eternal paradise to any whose love can continue to grow. The offer of such a perfect eternity runs contrary to our finitely imperfect souls. It runs contrary to everything I learned, experienced, and felt during the messages and visions I received from The Greatest Love.
There is no separate reality in the heavens for the righteous and the wicked. There is no separation of Heaven from Hell in the heavens. Heaven is not some supernatural fortress within which lies all nature of pleasure and paradise. If Heaven was meant to be populated by only the virtuous what would be the catalyst that spurs those virtuous souls residing within its walls to elevate their love even higher? Neither is Heaven a reward for a life well-lived, nor a final destination that can be reached.
Instead Heaven is an ideal which we must strive for right here on Earth. A guiding star that The Greatest Love illuminates for all of us. Their judgements in the heavens serving as a beacon to draw us nearer to it. Heaven at an individual level would represent a mortal life that strives to reduce the pain and the suffering in the World wherever it is found. It is a life that never allows one’s own interests to blind it to other peoples. It is a life filled with only unbounded love of many different origins. And whenever and wherever such a life comes into being Heaven will emerge for it.
But it will never be. Such a life would be perfect and we were never created to be perfect. Neither as individuals nor as a species. Neither in the heavens nor on Earth. If I am to believe these assertions, which I do, Heaven is a contradiction that I cannot reconcile. It is, by traditional definition, a place that cannot be improved upon. A place of perfection. Yet a place that contains imperfect souls? Imperfect souls can continue to grow their love deeper. They can continue to improve. But would that not mean Heaven can be improved upon as well? How do you improve upon perfection?
No, Heaven was never meant to exist either on Earth or in the heavens. Instead it is the journey, the struggle, and the progress in our ascension towards its ideal that I believe The Greatest Love is most interested in. The fact there is no Heaven in the heavens should embolden us to try to bring our civilization closer to one here on Earth.
The goal of the heavens, like Earth, is the progression of love through the betterment of all souls. In support of this goal the heavens provide a temporary shelter from the chaos of our Universe. A time not just to reflect upon one life lived but to assess our other past lives as well, all of which will come into focus.
Moreover, despite a judgement that must be rendered by a merciful and loving god, I believe the feeling The Greatest Love wants instilled in all of us contemplating the heavens here on Earth is not dread, but hope.
To these ends The Greatest Love will reveal The Divine Plan, in detail, to all in the heavens. Each of the milestones They are directing us towards along the journey. Regardless of the judgement to come every soul is provided this gift. A gift of knowledge: the answers to not just “What is The Plan?” and “Why this Plan?” but also “How can this Plan be fulfilled?”. I believe these mysteries of the Universe will be revealed with certainty in the heavens for all of us to contemplate before our next rebirth. And any answers I may provide to these questions in this blog are merely conjecture on my part.
Before our next rebirth a merciful judgement from The Greatest Love must be rendered. It is never a binary judgement of Heaven or Hell in which to place our soul. It is instead a infinitely complex decision of into which unborn loving being on Earth to place our soul. How such a decision as this is made is beyond our finite minds to calculate but I believe The Greatest Love always makes it possible to grow our love further during our next lifetime. It is this elevation of our love which The Greatest Love is trying to foster. Over each lifetime They are providing our love an opportunity to grow, but it is upon each of us to seize upon that opportunity.
Those who progress their love furthest in a given lifetime are not necessarily reborn to a life of power and privilege just as those who withdraw into a lifetime of hatred may not be reborn to a life of weakness and hardship. Such simplistic judgements are based on reward and punishment and can work to further divide all souls. Such division, over many lifetimes, can lead to a binary segregation right here on Earth. A segregation that, as I have already stated, I believe to be unjust. Love is not nearly as simple as this. Instead The Greatest Love is attempting to raise love’s tide by lifting all our boats. How They are doing this I cannot know but I do have some thoughts.
Sometimes the most frail and afflicted among us will have attained, over a single lifetime, a deep and powerful love for their family, community and World that surrounds them. The flourishing of a love such as this, following from such desperate beginnings, can elevate one’s love furthest. Whereas others who were born with great wealth and entitlements may be unable to grow their love at all. In fact they can regress to live an existence devoid of any meaningful love, without ever understanding life’s true meaning.
And what of loving beings outside the human race? I believe all loving beings have a place in the heavens and participate in the cycle of rebirths. Moreover the souls of such beings may be reincarnated into the human race just as human souls may find their way in the next life within a being of a lesser love. Again The Greatest Love’s bases such judgements on how to, in aggregate, best progress the love within all souls. It is never done as a punishment or reward for any of our previous lives lived.
But what about those that have experienced unbearable pain and suffering? A life filled with hopelessness and despair. A life that questions whether a higher power can even exist at all given their current torment? Firstly, as I will discuss in a later post, given our free will The Greatest Love’s ability to see what the future holds for a given person is diminished, and so the unfolding of a given life even The Greatest Love cannot predict with certainty. It is Their love that is infinite, not their knowledge or power.
Secondly I believe it is possible for those that are closest to Heaven to be burdened with the greatest of hardships. To grow a love that is already deep and powerful requires a tremendous weight to be placed on one’s shoulders. That only by pushing our way past such pain and suffering can we attain a deeper, and broader love than that which we had in our previous lifetimes. To find the smallest glimmer of hope in a life full of hopelessness. To not succumb to anger and hate. To continue to search for joy and love and cherish it wherever it may be found, even when it can sometimes only be felt within ourselves. And when that life ends, I believe it will find comfort and answers in the heavens. In the arms of The Greatest Love.
Finally a life of hopelessness must be seen as a call to action for the society that surrounds it. It is in the combined efforts to return hope to such a life that elevates the members of that society to a higher love. In this way one life of despair can cascade outwards, mobilizing love in a myriad of directions in response.
I believe in the cycle of rebirths because I believe it is the more loving existence. It makes clear that our World is the ultimate destination, and so we must work to make it a better place. Despite our respites in the heavens, our World is the ultimate sanctuary. There is no infinitely better Heaven that awaits us in the hereafter for all eternity that we can escape to while others are left to repair any damage left behind. Instead you are given a new life here on Earth after death. But what kind of life will it be if the World fails to work together for a better tomorrow?
We must stop looking forward to Heaven as a means to cast away all the pain and suffering of this World. Yes, unfortunately there are terrible circumstance whereby one may welcome death as a means to alleviate their own personal afflictions in a given lifetime, but we cannot leave behind our World’s ailments to live an eternity in a heavenly Paradise. Any such message would weaken our resolve to act today and thereby threaten ourselves and our loved ones to a future of misery. Reincarnation, I believe, is the most compassionate message for all the World. Escaping to a segregated Paradise is not a message of love. It is a message of division and represents an evasion of responsibility. It cannot come from a loving god because it is, I believe, an injustice.
But there is also a personal reason I believe in reincarnation. It is because I have experienced a love so deep and powerful that I could not ask for more either in the heavens or on Earth: my love for my wife and children. I do not desire or need a love greater than this. My family defines my paradise right here on Earth and I embrace it along with its imperfections. This despite knowing that death will interrupt our lifetimes together. I do not need an eternal Heaven to look forward to so long as whatever awaits me after death includes them. To believe in a god of love is to believe that when a love such as this is found, death will not separate it. It will come together again in the heavens and then be drawn together again in our World. A love that can span the chasm between lifetimes. Renewed and reborn for as long as that love continues to flourish. Heaven is not required for such a love to be realized. Our World is enough.
This does not mean that I stand today near the mountaintop. I am a flawed human being and although I have the love of my family that provides me with a slice of Heaven there are so many other passions to cultivate. So much more love to give and receive. The love for my family is very deep. But it must broaden to consider many others. And so I pray that my understanding of Heaven is true. That I can never reach it and that my journey towards it may continue forward but never end. Throughout all my lifetimes.
