Inhabit Heaven NOW

By Andrea Mathews

Many of us around the world have been taught that heaven is a place. Not only is it a place, but one to which we may retire upon death. That is, it cannot be had prior to death, except in those rare instances when we might say that we get a little taste of it through some euphoric event.

Further, we can find reference to this particular description of heaven in the Christian Bible or the Jewish Tanakh. What if we were to learn that this version of reality may be based in what can be called a duality trance state?

It turns out that, through research into the root language of the sources referred to above, these texts actually say something quite different about heaven. The reason for such interpretation is because the writers—as all of the rest of us—were living in, and therefore writing from, the duality trance state.

We can begin there. The duality trance state was incorporated into the body/mind of humanity at the metaphorical tree of knowledge of good and evil. As a part of the creative endeavor to unite form with formlessness, we became hypnotically entranced to the idea that we were separate from the divine. We did not “sin” when we did that, for the way had been prepared for that doing by the divine (‘elohiym’), when the idea of ourselves as divine, was placed into the past tense.

Further, the so-called “curses” given to humanity, as a result of the incorporation of duality, were actually informing us of what it was going to be like as we lived in form, as if we were not also formless and divine. We would be cut off from the internal and live only from the external. We would believe that we had to struggle for our suppers, and we would dedicate ourselves to that struggle as if it were the only truth.

And so we have, haven’t we? Why did we have to do that? Well, when we created ourselves anew as form, we then had to answer all the questions inherent to form. Is form a separate entity? And if so, what do we do with this longing to reconnect to that divine essence?

We rationalized that the reason we were separate was because “God” was good and humanity was evil. So, regardless of what the “history” of the Bible tells us about the horrendous deeds done by this God, “he” was good, even holy. Regardless of what that same history tells us about what humanity was capable of, “he” was still considered to be evil.

We have built entire cultures on that framework. Everything, literally everything, from our behavior and thoughts, to the food we eat and the lovers we have had, fits neatly into one of these two categories, good or bad. And we live our lives split off from any identification with divinity, instead living an “as if” existence, as if we are not divine at all.

The truth that we find, when we look into the root language of the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian Old and New Testaments, is that we actually are divine, and the process of our awakening through the very journey of duality, is what we are here to do. Incarnation after incarnation, we are gaining in each lifetime more and more information about who we are as divine beings, increasingly putting to rest the notion of duality.

In fact, heaven is that very process of coming from the divine and walking through duality to become aware of ourselves as divine. But instead of being divine in formlessness, we will come to know ourselves as divine in form. In other words, the body will be invited into its natural divinity. We came here to unite form with formlessness—not to win a battle between good and evil. We came here to complete the process of uniting form with formlessness by answering every single question relevant to living as divine beings in form.

We can only realize answers by walking through the questions with all of the uncertainty and blindness that comes with any question. We must experience both the question and its answer one lifetime at a time. This is definitely an experiential journey. It is this very experience that is putting into the body a physical awareness of its divine nature.

If we think about it, we are only now on the furthest fringes of beginning to respect that body for its wisdom and its generosity to us. We have a way to go, and that path is the path of heaven. Heaven is an incessant, transformative process–on-going, never-ceasing, eternal, and all about our being fully absorbed in the all-consuming love that is the divine. And we are there. Now.

We can experience that heaven now, however, much more openly when we come to know that we are always there. Yes, we can have all of its joy, power, potential, freedom and love–right now. We can experience it even more deeply when we realize that that thing we call “pain” is a deep and potent energy of love. Pain, like anger, fear, and other energies that we typically call “negative,” is another energy of the all-consuming love of the divine. Not only are these energies powerfully transformative, but the energy itself puts us in touch with the divine we are.

It turns out that the Bible, like the Indian Vedas, the Buddhist and Sufi sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, and other sacred texts from various world religions are saying the same thing. They are all telling us that we are not separate from the divine. Rather, we can live in the Christ nature, the Buddha nature, the divine Self—that is, heaven.

About the Author

Andrea Mathews, a psychotherapist with over 30 years experience, offers Transpersonal Therapy to clients and serves as a manager and supervisor in the substance abuse and mental health field. She is the author of three books, multiple articles in national and international magazines, and several poems in literary presses. Andrea hosts the “Authentic Living” show on VoiceAmerica.com, interviewing some of the world’s most profound spiritual teachers and authors. She is an inspirational, corporate speaker on the theme of authenticity, and is also an artist and musician. Learn more about her at www.andreamathewslpc.com and at www.innerwings.com.