There is a beautiful song by the great singer/songwriter Eric Clapton. It concerns the tragic and sudden loss of his four-year old son, Conor. In the song Mr. Clapton asks whether Conor would remember him in Heaven. It made me think as my heart wept for both. My thoughts inevitably turned to what a god of infinite love would provide for in the heavens for a parent experiencing such a terrible loss. For what more loving purpose would the heavens serve, if not the reunion of such souls as this, separated under the most terrible of circumstances?
If love is truly The Greatest Love’s defining characteristic, Their infinite virtue, then it must extend to the heavens as well and so I believe these souls would be afforded a heartfelt reunion there. And then building upon this belief where would The Greatest Love draw the line? I feel no line could be drawn. If They allow one such reunion, They would allow all such souls who cared for one another while alive on Earth to be reunited in the heavens.
In a previous post I described the heavens as “… 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 of our disease, illness, and infirmity washed away, and then to reflect upon a life lived with honesty and humility.“. I believe this continues to hold true. But reuniting with loved ones must also be a focus.
The heavens become much more than a momentary point of reflection before rebirth. It becomes an extended parallel existence with heavenly souls waiting for earthly others to pass before being reunited with them anew. But eventually we need to be reborn. After all those who we loved have passed and have been reunited with us, our time to be reborn back to Earth will have come.
The Greatest Love will tell us when it is time to leave the heavens. And although it will be a bittersweet moment there will be impulses that draw us back to our earthly realm.
The first comes from within ourselves. We are a curious species that can quickly tire of any eternal existence. Even when that existence surrounds us with those we loved from our previous life.
Secondly although there is no “disease, illness, (or) infirmity” in the heavens it is not without pain and suffering. The pain and suffering that comes from within us. As discussed in an earlier post our thoughts, memories, and feelings from our previous life must follow us to the heavens less we lose a sense of who we were. But there can be pain associated with these aspects of our being. Abhorrent thoughts, traumatic memories, or hateful feelings. They were a part of us before, and they remain a part of us in the heavens, until such time as we are reborn back to Earth.
Are there cases where some of those previous thoughts, memories, and feelings from past lives overlap into our next? People have claimed such brushes with a previous incarnation of themselves from previous lifetimes. Sometimes these encounters can be painful, traumatic, even troubling, and I am certainly not here to question or to minimize any of them. I do not discount the claims, instead I look to put them in the context of a Divine Plan. I believe who we were in past lives has an impact in our current life as our character develops. But The Greatest Love, regardless of the pain our soul has accumulated over previous lifetimes, will provide opportunites to progress our love and thereby strengthen our character in our current and future lives. Regardless of what we did or encountered in a previous life, I believe we can always improve our eternal soul in our current one. The Greatest Love tries to elevate all our souls by developing our characters, and bringing us closer to Themselves. This is The Divine Plan.
The final epitaph of your current life is not set in stone at birth based on your previous lives. Those lives, through the character they formed, should only be viewed as a starting point. Previous lifetimes must not define your present or future self. Through reincarnation The Greatest Love provides us an opportunity to chart a new course. And it is how we act going forward that defines our eventual character at the end of this lifetime. I believe every new life provides opportunities to strengthen our character by progressing our love.
Our previous thoughts, memories, and feelings, from one lifetime can impact future lifetimes when those aspects have a lasting impact on our character. It is our character that is the summation of all our previous experiences, and decisions from past lives. It is our character that travels between lifetimes. And it is our character that is the essence of our soul. Our thoughts, memories, and feelings impact our character but upon rebirth the former fade away, and only the latter, our character, remains. And it is this character that The Greatest Love is trying to progress.
And so The Greatest Love will not simply remove parts of our character that are negative. Our character belongs to us alone, both in the heavens and on Earth. The Greatest Love can no more dictate our character than They can disregard our free will. Doing so would change who we are and make us a different person in the heavens than we were on Earth. They will not take away our memories, or remove hurtful thoughts in the heavens. Instead of Them reducing our soul by eliminating the unfavorable, They provide us tools to purify our soul in the heavens. This purification process starts with us excising the one aspect of our character that can be the source of so much of our suffering: the hatred we may harbor towards others. And the tool They provide to help us is truth. The truth of how our hatred came to be as revealed through Their Divine knowledge and understanding.
They do this by asking us to walk alomg a pathway with Them in the heavens. A pathway of discovery where They help us look to our past through the filter of Their Divine knowledge. That knowledge illuminates where the seeds of our hatred were planted within us, how we allowed those seeds to grow, and where they eventually bore their bitter fruit.
The ultimate goal of walking this path is to dispel our hate through a greater understanding of its origins. An understanding that is only possible in the heavens where access to Their Divine knowledge is provided. But it is never forced upon any of us. We alone must choose, of our own free will, to walk this path ourselves. To see for ourselves all the historical, and cascading causes and effects of how others came to hurt us. As well as our own role in any hatred that was formed. Our own emotions, limitations, and frailties that may have played a role.
Still this is information only. The delicate job of cleansing our soul given this information falls to us. It has to be this way. The Greatest Love cannot help us further, via some Soul-Cleansing Hand of The Divine. Doing so would circumvent our free will. Change us, our character, our love, in ways that we would have no control over.
We must choose to walk the path. To understand why we hate, and doing so can be frightening. We may need to look at ourselves just as much as at others. And even once we understand the origins of our hatred, dispelling it is far from certain. Because even after we know all the reasons why we were harmed, releasing the hate can still be very difficult.
And what if hate cannot be extinguished from a soul in the heavens? Either because we chose not to walk the path or even after we did, were still unable to release the hate? Then the delicate job of removing it falls to humankind in that soul’s next lifetime on our World. Shower that child with love. Teach them compassion and kindness. Do not let them fall prey to easy biases and bigotries. Always question them and force them to think with empathy in their hearts. And in this way, I believe, the seeds of hate formed from a previous lifetime, will fail to sprout in their new one. Those seeds will wither and die, while the seeds borne of love will flourish.
It is the desire to remove any remaining hate along with any other painful aspects of our character, originating from our previous lifetimes, that becomes the third impetus for us wanting to be reborn. Progressing our love, building our character, improving the essence of our soul: these are activities that can only happen in earnest in this Universe where new experiences, loving experiences, can recondition our character and lead us to a higher love.
Fourthly and finally, I do not believe that the heavens will be some sort of utopia with all manner of pleasure, and paradise. The role of experiencing love in all its beautiful forms falls to this Universe. The heavens instead provides a continuation of the love that first originated in our Universe, along with an opportunity to purify our soul before rebirth. In this manner I believe it is a limited existence. There are no engrossing books, exotic getaways, or delicious ice cream. And although the reunifications will be wonderful and joyous it will not compare to the majesty of our World1.
And this is the way I believe it has to be.
The Greatest Love provides the heavens so that we may say any final good-byes that escaped us on our World. So that we may be held in our loved one’s embrace one last time. So that we may quietly share our thoughts and memories about our lifetime together on Earth. And so that we may be provided the answers that can help dispel our hate, and instill hope. All of these strengthen our love. Grow our love in ways that may not be available to us on our World.
Both the heavens and our Universe progress our love but in ways that are unique to each. Both are important. Both must be cherished. But of the two, I believe our Universe is Their greatest creation. Not the heavens. The full breadth of loving experiences available in our Universe I believe dwarfs those found in the heavens. We must cherish our World and each other. There is no heavenly eternal paradise awaiting us in the hereafter. This World is not some sort of insufferable stepping stone to some grander existence. This World is the destination and we must all work together to ensure that it continues to progress while remaining a World worthy of being reborn into.
This is what I believe.
1 There is a memorable scene in the movie Arrival where Jodie Foster’s character meets her “father” in an other-worldly experience. In the movie the man turns out not to be her father but instead a member of an advanced space-faring civilization with only compassionate intentions. It too made me think about what a loving god would allow for: moments of renewed life and reconnection in the heavens between souls separated by death on Earth.
A Love Story 