So I’m getting my Church Lady on today talking about Heaven and hell – although I’m pretty sure she would run screaming into the confessional if she heard A Course in Miracle’s definition of either.
Even though the Course uses Christian terminology in its language, it is decidedly not a teaching aligned with the religion of Judgmentalism that has often been misrepresented as Jesus’s message for the past 2,000 years, and many of its words mean quite the opposite of their traditional definitions.
Take Heaven and hell, for instance – (and if you just got triggered because you’re carrying baggage about thinking you’re in the fast lane on the highway to hell, please throw that tired-ass suitcase out the window, bang the next u-turn, and read on.)
We’ve been taught that Heaven is someplace outside ourselves, a place of eternal perfection and bliss, where we might have the good fortune to wind up after we die – where we will be welcomed by angels and be in everlasting joy with everyone we have ever loved (or those who who got in anyway.) But this can only happen if we’ve been good people and lived virtuous lives and not broken a bunch of commandments, and ultimately if God gives us the thumbs-up on Judgement Day.
By contrast, we’ve been terrorized that hell is a place of eternal damnation, torture, pain, and suffering – apparently mostly by fire – where God sends us to burn forever as punishment for being guilty sinners (evidently right from birth), not being good enough, and having lived naughty selfish lives of debauchery and wretchedness.
And the thing is, we just won’t know til we get there which place our invisible ticket is stamped for so we’re supposed to just live our lives doing the best we can hoping for Heaven but fearing hell.
And seeing God as being the One Who’s gonna decide our fate for all infinity.
So that’s the story the world has made up about Heaven and hell.
Jeez, I wonder why there’s an epidemic of anxiety in the world and people don’t feel a connection to Spirit.
But Jesus is quoted in the Nag Hammadi codices Gospel of Thomas as saying,
“The kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.”
What He meant by that is that we – our Oneness – is the Kingdom of Heaven. Us.
It is not something to hope or strive for, or anything that could ever be denied to us. Heaven is the Truth of us – it is just out of our awareness.
Incidentally, one of the reasons Jesus spoke in those crazy-vague parables and metaphors back in the day was because He could have been put to death for blasphemy if He had straight-up said out loud the Truths He was teaching at the time – and that would have been premature. Jesus had Major Stuff to say before his death, the purpose for which was that whole final I’m-not- a-body resurrection demonstration.
So the awesome news is that Jesus is still teaching those same concepts and ideas through A Course in Miracles, except that now things can be said with much more clarity and succinctness.
As in,
“The Kingdom of Heaven is you.”
T-4.III.1:4
And,
“Heaven is not a place or a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within.”
T-18.VI.1:5
Of hell, he states:
“There is no hell. Hell is only what the ego has made of the present.”
Tell it, Brother. Can I get an amen? And btw, what has the ego made of the present? Judgment, condemnation, conflict, comparison, criticism (so many c-words!) self-doubt, mistrust, scarcity, victimhood – all versions of attack of self and others.
Between Heaven and hell, only one of which is actually real, lies our free will to choose what we will experience as our reality. As the Course says in Workbook lesson 138 “Heaven is a decision I must make”. W-pI.138.
If we decide on Heaven, we choose the awareness complete perfection of Oneness – the beingness of unending love, peace, joy, unimaginable bliss, like an eternal orgasm to the bazillionth power – with all of our bros. That’s the whole point of Oneness – being One.
Which means we can’t hold anyone in guilt, judgment, condemnation, or any other projection of our attack thoughts. If we do, we won’t be able to reach Oneness and will instead remain trapped in the belief in our separateness – from God and our bros – where we experience being alone, guilty, in pain, lack, conflict, limitation, depression, anxiety, scarcity, lovelessness and everything else that sucks.
In other words, in hell.
The thought-system of A Course in Miracles has provided us with a perfect instrument we can use to heal our split minds of the misperception that we are or ever could be separate from God or one another. It is the practice of training our minds to be in the awareness of and remember the Truth of who we are through True Forgiveness – which recognizes that whatever we are holding a brother in guilt for never happened because we are experiencing the world in a vast, very real-seeming dream.
To learn more about this transformative process and get some free tools to help you, click here to download my Homestuck Survival Toolkit. It includes a 5-step guide, a meditation, and a podcast to assist you in allowing it to shift your perception from fear to love.
If you’re ready to upgrade your experience of life to the miraculous, consider 1:1 coaching with me. As a Transformational Life Coach, I help people to rock their joy and create awesome, fun, fulfilling lives using the spiritual psychology of A Course in Miracles. Book a free Discovery call with me here.
I love you,
Kelly
Kelly Russell, The Rock Your Joy Coach
Is it plugged in and turned on?