Home CHAPTER 6 Contents
Are You Ready
to
Trade In
Hell
for
Heaven?
“ Oh, were all men wise
And in goodness did excel,
This world would be a paradise
But now it is a hell.”
Father Caats
Invite God back into the world
How did the world come to be? Sai Baba says, “I created the world at my pleasure.” ACIM says, “The world was made as a natural grand division of God; in its original connotation it included both the proper creation of man by God and the proper creation by man in his right mind.” The Bible starts with, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” All three sources give support for the world having been created by God. When God created the world it was heaven for it was created perfectly. Upon completion God surveyed His creation and pronounced, “It is good.”
Is the world we live in today the world God created? If God only creates what is real, His world must be a real world, a world where nothing gets old, sick or dies. It must be a world where there are no wars, violence or conflict, but rather where brother lives with brother in joy, peace, love and harmony. It must be a world of goodness, abundance, breathtaking beauty, justice and fairness. In God's world there is no separation because we each recognize the oneness of all life. We all treat everyone as we would our very self, with the deepest love, respect and gratitude for we know the sacredness and holiness of everyone and everything.
In God's world we are truly free, we know everything, we are limitless, all-powerful and walk as equals with God and each other. There are no borders separating country from country. There are no cars, planes or space shuttles, for we know how to travel anywhere at will. There are no telephones or internet service, for we communicate with God and each other perfectly through our minds, as we know that minds are joined. No one needs to work for we are sustained by God's love. Food, clothing and shelter are available but not vital to our survival. Animals do not kill each other in order to survive for they too are sustained by God's love. It is a cruelty free world. We all know who we are. We are all enlightened, in love with God and every one.
That is the world I envision to be the real world. Can this ideal world exist? Can it exist without God? I believe it will again be our experience when we invite God back into the unreal world. God loved the world so much that He gave it to us His children for our enjoyment. The world was ours to do with as we wished. We, in our right minds used it to create with God, having God uppermost in our minds at all times. We have been given dominion over the animals. That means that their minds are not as powerful as ours, and our thoughts influence their thoughts and actions. They were created to be loved and cared for, not eaten by us or each other. That God created the world and us to create in it with Him is a beautiful idea. It was His gift of love to us. We were created to create, to know and to love . God created the world, just as He created us, creating both as ideas in His mind. Ideas do not leave their source, therefore you and I are still ideas in God's mind and so is the world. God did not change His mind about the world or about us, thus we and all the world are still as God created us, whole and perfect forever.
The world was remade to hide from God
The world is also a projection of our minds. Your mind is all the power in the world and everything is within it, including the world. Most people believe they are bodies living in a world separate from them. They believe the world to be a place they live in, rather than that the world resides in them and reflects back to them what is in their minds, and is therefore not separate from them at all. After we made ego, we turned the world into a place in which to hide from God by convincing ourselves that the world was separate from us and God. Why would we want to hide from God?
Adam and Eve are in the garden, the world God created and they eat the forbidden fruit. God comes and they feel ashamed so they hide from Him. The forbidden fruit is the making of separation. In making separation they feel separate from God, unworthy to be in His holy presence because they feel guilty. So they feel the need to hide from God. They also fear God's wrath, and so remake the world into a place in which to escape from God.
We separated ourselves from the world and viewed it as outside of our minds, a place in which to reside as a body, which we convinced ourselves to be who we are. We can do anything we want in our minds. We can convince ourselves that we are having a real experience, but a reality check would indicate that things are not as they seem.
Did we make a completely different world from the one God created? I think we took the world God created perfectly and added time and space, sickness, suffering, death, fear, war, ignorance, bondage, darkness, powerlessness, victims and victimizers to it. We superimposed an unreal world onto the real world. That is what we did with the beautiful world God created for us. Should we feel guilty for the state of the world? No, we should not think we are bad, but we should feel responsible. All we added was not real therefore essentially, we did nothing. We did not affect the real world. If we had succeeded in altering God's creation, it would mean we are more powerful than God. Fortunately that is not true, thus the real world did not disappear. It is still here and we can see it when that is all we wish to see.
We did manage to make ourselves pretty miserable. We can admit that we were wrong. Once we are willing to be wrong about our purpose for the world as a place in which to escape from God, our purpose can change. That little willingness is all that is necessary for the unreal to be transformed back into the real. We can now own that our self-serving purpose for the world, which God so lovingly gave us, no longer serves us. When we let go of our illegitimate purpose, the world can be transformed back into the world God created. When enough of us want the world to be restored to wholeness and believe it possible, that will be the world we see.
If the world we see is unreal, it means we are thinking unreal thoughts. When we reenter the experience of the real world, it will be because our minds are again whole. We cannot leave the unreal world at will because it merely reflects back to us our unhealed minds. Only a healed mind can be reabsorbed into the mind of God. We cannot merge our minds with God's without healing the world first, for in healing the world we heal our minds and only a healed mind is a God mind. What is alike is one by definition. When you mix oil with water they separate. When you add water to water it does not separate. When you think like God you are one with God. When you do not, you are choosing separation from God and the world. When you know your oneness with the world you are thinking like God. Though we are always one, as long as we are convinced it is otherwise we will experience separation rather than oneness.
When you shift your consciousness from victim-victimizer consciousness to God consciousness the entire world will reflect that shift. Until that happens, the world is not healed and your mind is not healed. I pray constantly for the salvation of the world. The healing of the world is always uppermost in my consciousness. When enough people hold that focus, the world will be saved. Baba says He only needs a handful of good people to save the world. When you join the great crusade to end hell for all humanity it brings salvation that much closer for every one.
Lord Indra content to be a pig
In order to be convinced that the world needs to be saved, we have to see that the world as we find it today is not the world God created for us and is not the world we really want. Some people are content with the world just the way it is. Sai Baba tells the story of Indra the pig. Indra is really a great God in heaven who decides to come to earth to experience what it would be like to be a pig living in a pig family. He finds himself completely caught up in his pig life and is contentedly wallowing in the mud, having totally forgotten that he is a great God in heaven. One day sage Narada, passing by on his rounds, recognizes Indra and is horrified at Indra's plight. “Don't worry,” he assures Indra, “I'll wield my discus and set you free.” Indra responds, “Don't disturb me; I'm very happy here with my pig family.”
We too have become comfortable and complacent with the little joys we find here. We are happy with our families, beautiful homes, monetary successes, prestigious jobs, swimming pools, shopping malls, computers and fancy cars. We think we're managing just fine without God. What we have settled for is making the world as we know it heaven. We call that contentment. We have merely succeeded in fooling ourselves into believing the unreal real. The world of sickness, suffering and death is not real, and to be content with its paltry offerings is to be sorely deluded.
We are sustained by God's love. The world can offer us nothing. It has nothing to give. It cannot offer us joy. Our joy is in doing our Father's bidding. It cannot offer us beauty. Our delight is in our Father's creation and that far surpasses anything these eyes can behold. It cannot offer us wealth, for our Father has given us everything. In this world death takes our family members and loved ones. Sometimes families are loving, but we may experience sibling rivalry and disfunctionality. Our heavenly Father has given us all His children as eternally loving family. The world can offer us fame, glamour, popularity and specialness, but none of those lures hold a candle to a moment away from the world in sweet communion with our heavenly Father.
We don't need anything in order to commune with God. We don't need anything in order to love God and our fellowman. The world offers worry, fear, lack, anxiety, headaches, sickness… I don't want what the world has to offer. Do you? I do not want pleasure and pain. I want what God offers - eternal communion with Him in peace, harmony and love with all my brothers and sisters, and that is why we are here. We have a purpose in the world. It is to free the world and restore it to its original state of beauty, goodness and peace.
Divine discontent
When Baba speaks of contentment as a spiritual quality, He is referring to being content with what we have in the world rather than continuing to amass more wealth or to compete with others in a worldly way. When you lead a life of impeccable character you will feel contentment and peace. But to be content to have the world of injustice remain exactly as it is, where people and animals experience sickness, suffering and terror is not contentment, but complacency. We are one with all of humanity and to be unmoved by the pain of others is to be dead. Such complacency can only come from having cut oneself off from one's humanity.
To yearn for a healed world of peace, love, joy and abundance for all comes from a divine discontent. It is a spiritual virtue to want the best for everyone and to recognize that what this world offers is not what you want for your brothers and sisters. God created everyone to be and have everything. We should want that for all His children and until that is everyone's lot, we should not be content.
Is it the mark of a spiritually advanced person to forget about the world and be perpetually absorbed in God consciousness? I confess I think a lot about the world. I do not think about what I can get from it. I think about how the world God created was intended to be a gift for us, His beloved children. I think about the disparity between that world and the world I am all too familiar with. I hear about drive by shootings, children killing other children in school yards, Muslim women not permitted to be educated or to expose any parts of their bodies without risking death, airplanes flying into the twin towers, Chinese students being brutally tortured to death for doing outlawed exercises, North Koreans being brainwashed by a heartless dictatorial regime, endless wars, rapes and murders since time began.
Yes, there is beauty and I do not overlook it. I love spectacular sunsets, cherry blossoms in spring, a huge pink fragrant rose, tiny yellow finches, the colors of the rainbow in a waterfall and the bald-headed eagle soaring across the deep blue sky. The only problem with all of the beauty is that everything I see has the mark of death upon it, including the resplendent dawning sun. Everything I see is going to die some day. That is the world we live in. Let's just look at it square on for a moment, because only when we are really in touch with this world's very sad plight will we yearn for something better. Our yearning is where destiny is altered. We are all-powerful. We will get what we want. If we are content with the world as it is, we will not will it changed. If we want a real world, then we must yearn for that, willing to do whatever we are divinely directed to bring that about. We cannot transform the world until we become aware that the world we live in is unreal by our choice.
We superimposed sickness, suffering and death onto a world that was created deathless forever. We live in the world as though we can manage without God. God created us to enjoy our company. We gave the world a false purpose when we made it into a place to hide from God. Is it possible to be happy with a false purpose? Some claim it is and that is how we find ourselves where we are. The status quo can content we only as long as we have not had a glimpse of our true happiness, our true state as God created us. We were created to be masters with our heads held high, our spirits soaring, carefree forever, bubbling over with laughter and delight, skipping over the moon, expressing tender loving kindness toward everyone and wanting the very best for all beings everywhere. At least that is my idea of what God had in mind when He created us and the world for us.
We have made the world a prison where we punish ourselves and toil to make ends meet and then die. We can change our minds. It can become a place where we can be set free. The world we see is what we gave it; nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. It is important. It is the witness to our state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As you think, so will you perceive. You cannot change the world, but you can change your mind about the world. When you change your purpose for the world, the world will naturally reflect your changed purpose. We made the world to be a hiding place from God. Now let us invite God back into the world. Let us make it a place where we are again friends with God, a place where perfect communication is reestablished between our ever loving Father and His eternally loving children.
Put together the individual and the world is back together
Sai Baba tells the story of a father and his young son whom he cherishes. The father has a study in which some very valuable papers are kept. The study is off limits to the lad. One day the father leaves the door ajar when he goes out for the day. The boy wanders in and as he does a gust of wind wafts one of his father's precious papers off the desk onto the floor. Not knowing its value, the son plays with the paper, making a hat out of it and then a ship. As he continues to enjoy himself the valuable paper starts to get worn and tears into little pieces.
When his father returns home he immediately recognizes the torn paper as his priceless map of the world. Though he loves his son, he is not at all happy about this state of affairs. He says, “Son, you have torn the world into pieces. You are responsible for putting it back together.” The son loves his father and wants to please him, but doesn't have a clue how to put the world back together. Just then a wind comes up again and one of the pieces blows onto its back side. The boy recognizes it to be a human hand. Then another piece flips over and the boy sees the nose and eye of a face. He realizes that there is a human being on the other side and everyone knows how to put the individual back together. Now he knows how to proceed. As soon as he finishes putting the human being back together, he turns the paper over and to his delight discovers that the world is again back together.
We tore the world apart, thus we are responsible for putting it back together. But we don't know how to proceed. We can only heal ourselves. We can heal our minds by transforming our lives into lives of goodness and purity, thereby living the wholeness and perfection God created us to be. When we do that, we put ourselves back together and simultaneously the world is healed.
If everyone decided to be good, could there be evil in the world? Isn't all the suffering in the world due to injustices, selfishly and heartlessly perpetrated? Goodness overcomes evil within ourselves and others. If there were no leaders wanting to be powerful at others' expense, wouldn't we have a safe world? If everyone wanted to share their wealth instead of hoard it, wouldn't there be enough food for all the starving children in the world? Wouldn't goodness restore wholeness? It all starts when we heal ourselves, for the world is a projection of our minds. With enough goodness, evil will not be able to be sustained.
As heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from our sight. The end of the world is not its destruction but its translation into heaven. We transform the world we live in into the real world by changing our minds and hearts into thinking and acting with love, goodness and piety. We are free to leave the real world at will. All we can do in the unreal world is heal it and thereby transform it into the real world. We have to put our mess in order. We do have a responsibility for the world. It is an overwhelming task, but with God all things are possible. The transformation of our hearts transforms the world.
Peace depends on wanting everyone's freedom
When Al Drucker first came to Baba he had been active in the nuclear missiles race, and so anxiously asked Baba about the world. Baba said to him, “The world is not your business, sir. Realize who you are and the world is saved.” He was directing Al away from his fear. If you are fearful about the state of the world, you cannot help to save it. Baba also instructs us to forget the world. I trust He means to forget about it as a place to find happiness. This idea does not conflict with wanting peace in the world. Unless you want peace in the world, you do not want it for yourself, for the world is an extension of yourself.
I love the world. I do not love it for what it can give me, for I know it can give me nothing. I love it for what I can give to it, for I can give it everything simply by wanting it to be a place where everyone is safe, happy and loved. In that wish, I heal my mind. I know who I am when I wish for the happiness of all beings, because all are myself and until all are restored to wholeness, I am not free. Your mind is all-powerful. To want the salvation of the world is the way the world is saved. When that is your passionate desire you will be shown the role God has assigned you. You will be shown what to do and where to go. It all starts with your desire to know who you are, for in knowing yourself, you know your function.
In my late 20's, I had a very lucid dream in which a number of people were on the deck of a huge boat while I was flying overhead. I was soaring, free, unfettered, so very happy. But then they noticed me up there while they were stuck below. They let me know they didn't think it was fair that I was flying while they were grounded. I tried to communicate to them to leave me be, that I didn't want to be distracted. They couldn't receive my communication so I came closer and as I did they started grabbing at me and I felt body conscious and a heaviness.
Not liking the feeling, I pulled away and was again flying overhead, but now I was aware of their bondage and could not content myself to be free while they were not. My peace was disturbed. So I understood that I had no choice but to be available to my brothers and sisters who wanted to learn to fly. In that moment the scene changed to a bed of lotuses. I gently settled on top of them and a feeling of deep peace pervaded my whole being. The lotus symbolizes being in the world without being affected by the world. It is a stunning flower that grows up out of the mud, yet remains untouched by it. Gently landing on the surface of the lotus pond signified to be in the world but not of it.
Should I have stayed up there flying while my brothers and sisters were unable to join me as they did not know how? My heart is not made of stone. How is it possible to see suffering and do nothing about it? It is one thing to see people in a pit and to jump in with them and thereby get stuck. That is sympathy. It is another to see them caught in a pit and to throw a rope down and pull them out. That is compassion. If you were passing by a pit and people were stuck down there and were asking, “Please help us out,” could you just walk by?
Trying to escape the world makes it real
You cannot have the experience of heaven by escaping the world. One afternoon a friend who I met at the ashram told me her story. She and her husband have two beautiful children. The problem was that her husband drank heavily and there was never enough food on the table or money to pay the rent. She was finding it harder and harder to tolerate his addiction. Her children were totally supportive and understanding thus she had managed to cope with the situation up to this point but was really at her wits end.
One night as she was sitting in front of her altar she was given a vision. She saw a band of four renunciates who had left the world in search of truth. They had gone to the Himalayas. There was one among them who was not leaving from a pure place but rather harbored a disdain for the world. The other three saw that was not the way to freedom and out of their love agreed to come back into the world to teach the confused one how to leave the world in love.
So they reincarnated and were back in the form of this family. The drinking husband was actually the wisest of the four and the other two were pure in their relationship to the world. It was she who was not yet free. When she recognized the tremendous love the other three had for her to be willing to give their lives and return for her sake, her heart welled up with gratitude and love. Needless to say, this love transformed her husband into a responsible father to her children. He stopped drinking the moment she got the message. The world must not be escaped, but rather transformed through the transformation of our hearts and minds. She transformed her situation through love. Love transforms the world back into heaven.
I spent some time in the Himalayas in the summer of 2002, to be with those great souls who have chosen to renounce the world. I met very few true holy men and women on my pilgrimage. Some were just taking on identities as renunciates. Many had left the world because they couldn't function and some were smoking constantly to blow out their lungs so they could ‘reach God more quickly.' I don't think so. We won't want to escape the unreal world when we truly know its unreality. Then we will also know that it is up to us to transform it back into the real world and we will be willing to do whatever it takes to restore heaven to earth.
The kingdom of heaven is within
Heaven is not a place or condition. It is a state of mind. It is an awareness of perfect oneness. Many great teachers urge us to look within for the kingdom of heaven. Baba says everything is within. There is nothing out there in the market place of the world. God is within. When we think of God, when we repeat God's Holy Name, we are within. When we do not look for happiness in the world, we are within and that opens the door to a heavenly world. When we trust God for everything we are within. The joy of heaven has no limit and is increased with each light that returns to take its rightful place within it. Heaven is the world as God created it. It is our home. It is who we are.
Here is a small example from the Jewish tradition which illustrates that the kingdom is within: Jacob, a poor family man, was living in a small hamlet in Russia. He was pestered every night by a recurring dream in which he kept being told that there was a treasure buried under a bridge in occupied enemy territory. To go there would be very dangerous and if he were caught he would most certainly be thrown in jail. He feared venturing forth and yet was haunted constantly by the prospect of abundance. Finally, overwhelmed by the possibility, he decided to take the risk and late one night when all his family was fast asleep he slipped out and started the long journey. He managed to cross the border unnoticed and walked till he recognized the exact bridge in his dream. He was thrilled and started digging. Just as his shovel hit something hard, a patrol above noticed him and he was arrested. Under interrogation, he told all.
The interrogating officer started to laugh as Jacob finished his woeful tale. “You foolish man. I too have a recurring dream which tells me that my treasure is buried hundreds of kilometers from here under some bricks, behind a stove in the home of a very poor man named Jacob. Do you think that I am so stupid as to follow that dream? If you go straight home and stop your crazy nonsense I will release you, but don't let me ever see you here again.” Relieved, Jacob ran back home. When he reached his simple dwelling he looked under the bricks behind his wood stove and to his wonder struck eyes beheld an incomparable treasure. The treasure was right in his own home. The kingdom is right in your own heart. You need not go anywhere to find it.
Sai Baba tells an anecdote with a similar message: ‘A woman who was doing some needlework at dusk lost her needle. As there wasn't enough light in her house, she went out to the street lamp to look for it.' How could she find her needle outside when she had lost it in her home? All she need do is wait for the light of day and she will find the needle where she lost it. We go to various teachers and spiritual retreats in search of what we think we do not possess, but when we finally find it, we realize that it was always with us. We realize the truth when we purify our lives enough to see clearly. Then we discover that we have enough light to find what we are looking for right where we are.
Spiritual offerings which point you inward are true offerings. Be wary of any offerings that promise to do it for you or to give you something that you don't already have. Everyone can be your savior by showing you the way. If you depend on others to do it for you, you reduce your worth in your own mind. Once a friend was selected for an interview with Sai Baba. Inside she protested that He never looked at her. He replied tenderly, “That is because I want you to look within.”
Bring heaven to earth
In the Bible Jesus says that heaven and earth shall pass away. In ACIM he explains that to mean that heaven and earth will become one. In a little booklet, entitled ‘Open Secrets' by Lami Shapiro, a wise old Jewish Rabbi points out to his young student that heaven and earth must be reestablished as one. He does this by comparing the tower of Babel story with the Jacob's ladder story in the Bible. In the tower of Babel story, the people of earth unite to build a tower with its top in the sky in order to make a name for themselves. God does not look favorably upon the project and causes the people to speak in different tongues. With communication severed, the project comes to a halt. The people were attempting to reach heaven so as to escape earth. They were not looking within for the kingdom of heaven. They were trying to escape the unreal and were thereby making it real. You cannot attain heaven by trying to go somewhere else.
By contrast, in the Jacob's ladder story, Jacob has a dream in which a ladder is set on the ground with its top in the sky and the angels of God are going up and down on it. The ladder is symbolically linking earth with heaven. God looks lovingly upon Jacob's ladder. Heaven and earth are being united. The angels are moving in both directions. We have to bring heaven to earth rather than try to reach heaven by escaping earth. Instead of making the unreal real, Jacob's ladder is symbolic of the process of transforming the unreal back into the real.
In the case of the tower of Babel the unreal world was given reality because it was being excluded. You would only reject what you thought was real. In the story of Jacob's ladder, reality was restored to the unreal world through inclusion. If you think you can only attain heaven after you die, you are attempting to escape the world. Christians and Muslims embrace and fiercely defend this belief. It is a lie. The kingdom of heaven is within. We have to make the world heaven and we do that by standing still in the nightmare and asking to be shown the way, rather than by trying to escape either now or in the future.
This world is not real. There is a real world and the two worlds will never meet. Nothing and everything are mutually exclusive. However, watch a tendency to justify deviations from purity on the premise that what you do in an unreal world does not affect the real world, which is always available. What is overlooked in this misapplication of the teaching is that the real world can only be accessed through a mind that has real thoughts. Real thoughts lead to real actions. You have to be real in an unreal world to reach the real world. That is the portal back to reality. The world is a projection of our minds and we do not have two minds. There is only the real world. It is our mind that has superimposed a world of unreality onto the real world by thinking unreal thoughts. When you change your mind, the world must change accordingly.
At the close of each chapter there is a prayer which ends with “May all beings in all the worlds be happy and blest.” This reference to multiple worlds includes the physical world, the mental world and the world of Spirit. Besides the physical world, there are astral worlds and heavenly worlds, but these various realms are merely reflecting different states of consciousness and are not completely different worlds as such.
You cannot escape the world because that would be to leave an idea that is in your mind. That is impossible as ideas do not leave their source . We have to heal the world by healing our minds. Then heaven and earth become one, and even the real world will vanish. The end of the world is not its destruction, but its translation into heaven. Heaven is beyond the real world. You are a holy child of God and heaven is within you. You and heaven are one. Remember this and the whole world is free.
My experience of the real world is that it is a heavenly place. I have had glimpses of it and would describe my visions as of a formful formlessness. There is only light, but it has shape, which is eternally vibrant and breathtakingly beautiful. There is life without opposite with ever increasing brilliance, vitality, glory, holiness and sacredness. Heaven is both the real world and a state of mind wherein there is perfect peace, oneness, joy, harmony, knowledge and perfect communion with God and all our brothers and sisters. When our minds are healed, the world will be heaven and a healed mind can again merge in God. That is a state beyond even the heavenly world, but we can only get there through the healing of our minds, reflected in a healed world.
Never underestimate even the smallest act of kindness
Baba says that His devotees in temples and caves are doing more for the world than all our worthy causes combined. He also encourages service to mankind. Service purifies our hearts. When you are kind to another you send a message to your subconscious, ‘See I'm not such a bad guy.' You heal your idea about yourself as guilty and change your mind to see your innocence. At the same time the person you serve feels, ‘That was really kind. I must not be such a bad guy.' So you both benefit by being relieved of guilt. In truth you cannot give anyone what he does not already possess for we were all created to be and have everything. Freedom from guilt however is should not be minimized. That release heals and nothing else can heal. When you think you have something that another does not have, you are not serving, but rather making inequality real. Let your service lead to joining or oneness. Then you are serving in the true spirit of giving.
Be grateful for any opportunity to be helpful. Make your life a joy to others by sprinkling loving touches of kindness and tender acts of beauty along the road you travel. Every kindness, every loving gesture and helpful deed serves everyone. When you help one you help all, because we are all one. Don't get discouraged and think that your small gesture doesn't make a difference. It does. And don't think that you are not worthy or that they are not worthy. Everyone is worthy because of who they are. We were all created by God exactly like Him. Baba says, “If you want God, you deserve Him.” We deserve God because of who we are. We know who we are because we were created to know everything forever. You will remember who you are once you trust God to be your Source. And when you know who you are, you will know your function. When you know your function, your life has purpose and that will increase your joy immensely. Your role is vital to the salvation of the world.
“Each of you has a unique and valuable part to play in this lifetime. This planet has a purpose in the great galaxy in which it is held. That purpose is now unfolding before your eyes. The time is approaching when all humanity will live in harmony. That time will be here sooner than one expects. Before it arrives be prepared for whatever is needed to reveal to every living thing the true purpose of existence. It is not what anyone alive can imagine. It is not something that one can try to aspire to. It is beyond all comprehension. Its beauty is magnificent beyond all dreams.” Sai Baba
Thank you Heavenly Father for creating the world real, perfect and good. Thank You that Your world has not gone somewhere, but can be our experience whenever we so choose. Thank You that the world we made to hide from You is not real. We invite You back into the world with all our hearts. Please come and restore our barren home to Your opulence, that we may live as You ordained. Let the heavens be reflected on the earth now that the earth may return unto heaven.
May all beings in all the worlds be happy and blest, Amen.
Can
hell be transformed into heaven?
(Questions for those taking the on-line course - all
are welcome)
Share your answers with us at www.groups.yahoo.com/group/joiningintruth
- Who created the world? How do you know? If God created the world, what did it look like upon completion?
- Why did God create the world? Did God change His mind about the world He created? What are the implications?
- Is the world we live in today the world God created? What happened?
- If God created the world perfect, how did it become imperfect? What caused us to want to change the world God created perfect?
- Is the world today real or unreal? How is it that we find ourselves in an unreal world? If unreal, does that mean there is no world? Can we change the world? How? What must we do to experience the real world?
- What does it mean that the world is a projection of your mind? How do we apply this teaching?
- How do we perpetuate the unreality of the world? Can we escape the unreal world? Can you escape your mind? What are examples of ways to try to escape the world? Are ashrams and spiritual communities escape hatches? What happens when we attempt to escape?
- What is real about the world we live in? What is unreal? Is it possible to experience reality in an unreal world? How?
- How do we apply the teaching that the world is not real? How can that teaching be misapplied?
- If the suffering in the world is unreal, why care? What is the difference between sympathy and compassion? Can you be content while there is suffering in the world?
- How have worldly acquisitions and pleasures been used to distract us from our true reality? What can the world offer you? What can you offer it?
- Is it ok to love the world? Is it ok to hate the world? What is meant by ‘forget the world'?
- Should you be content with the world as it is? Is the world perfect just the way it is?
- How would you like to see the world differently if you had a choice? Do you have a choice? What can you do to change the world?
- What in this world is of value? Can anything real be found here? Why have people killed to possess the things of the world since the beginning of time?
- If the world is a mess, how is that the same as nothing happened? Should we forgive ourselves for the state of the world? What does forgiveness mean?
- Who is responsible for the state of the world? Can the world be fixed? Why is it our responsibility to clean up the mess if nothing happened?
- What is right relationship with the world? What contribution can you make toward the salvation of the world?
- Is it ok with you that God has a plan for the salvation of the world? Do you have a role in that plan? How can you know and fulfill your function?
- What is hell? What is heaven? Where can they be found? If heaven is within why do we look for it without?
- Was the world ever heaven? Can that world be our experience? How and When?
- Why do some religions teach heaven is attained only after death?
- What caused the world to become hell?
- What are the teachings about hell and heaven?
- What are the life applications?
- What are the pitfalls to guard against?