Going Somewhere?

How many of you are going to hell?  Hands up.  C’mon, you know you think you are.  Ok, easier question, how many have been told to go to hell?  Even more hands.  Well, allow me to present a proposition to you.  You’re not going anywhere.  

The notion of heaven and hell is as old as the world itself, used primarily as a reward/punishment means of controlling the masses.  Behave as we’ve outlined, and you go to heaven when you die.  Disobey, and it’s eternal damnation in hell for you.  Pretty scary stuff, right?  But it absolutely doesn’t jibe with the notion of a realm of absolute. 

As humans, all we know is something relative to something else.  That person is tall, because that person is short.  That person is nice because this other person was mean.  But that’s exactly why we’re here, right?  To experience the realm of the relative.  But for our souls, many believe the realm outside of this physical plain is the realm of absolute – be it energy, vibrations, or the universe in total connectedness.  Regardless, we are all one.  There is no “other”.  There, there is no beginning and no end, no division between the energies, vibrations, what have you, and God, the universe, etc.  So how is it, after you die, you could possibly “go” to someplace different, and stay there for all eternity?

Now some may argue that when you die, if you die in a state of negative energy, then that’s all you’ll know after you die, hence an eternal “hell”.  Vice versa if you die in a state of positive energy.  But even then, the notion of “positive” and “negative” don’t exist in the realm of the absolute.  There is just “energy”. 

This all fits in quite well with most major religions and their notion of “God is everything”, “God is the alpha and omega, the end all, be all”, and that finally when we die we become “one with God”.  Makes perfect sense, and totally contradicts the notion of sins, forgiveness, and restitution.

So where do those items come into play?  Here, in the realm of the relative.  Here, I believe the notion of “going to heaven” should be replaced with the notion of “achieving heaven”.  Similarly, work hard enough at it and you could literally “achieve hell”, right here on Earth.  Stress, depression, anger, hatred, all can lead to achieving hell, while joy, love, happiness can all be considered a state of achieving heaven.  And this isn’t usable as a form of punishment or reward – the thought there is that someone else can provide you with happiness or love or that those feelings are dependent on something or someone else.

The real beauty of achieving heaven or hell is that it’s entirely up to you.  When you become aware that these aren’t places to go but rather states of being, in the here and now, you can recognize that which prevents you from achieving one state or another.  And once you recognize that, you can chose something else that brings you closer to your goal.

So don’t let the Heaven and Hell places scare you or entice you.  If you believe in the realm of the absolute, rejoice in the knowledge that when you die, your soul becomes one with all that is, and that there’s no other way.  However, while you are here in the present world, in the physical realm of the relative, you can achieve either and strive towards heaven.  Just make sure you don’t tell someone to “achieve hell”.  It’s not nice.