What is Heaven?

Do you believe we go somewhere else or when we die, we are just dead.

Have you changed your mind over the years?

Did your upbringing influence your ideas about Heaven or have you always had your own ideas?

Have you or anyone you know seen Heaven, maybe through an OBE or temporary death experience?

Is Heaven just an imaginary place that the church used to use to encourage people to be good?

What do you think?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/1238.gif)

This post has been edited by Radiant Star: Nov 9 2006, 03:55 AM

When I was a child, I believed in the concept of Heaven, yet over the years I grew to believe there was nothing after death. Yet, my philosophy has changed quite a bit since then, and I don't believe things just "end". For instance, scientists are discovering what makes up atoms, when we used to believe those were the building blocks, well once they discover that, whats next, and so on. Also, time and space are neverending, so who's to say, we are neverending? I believe that there is something after this, just not this "holy" grasp on it being Heaven. Maybe another dimension, or once your spirit ascends.......who knows.

As a child I used to believe that 'God' was sitting up high on a cloud, but he was a young boy, not an old man. And he used us mortals as pawns in his games, being cruel as and when he thought he would (like many little boys), and then giving out good things if he wanted to. As you can see I had a vivid imagination as a child!

However, now as a Spiritualist I don't know if I have a perception of Heaven per se. I KNOW that although our physical body expires sooner or later (as with all machinery), our soul and mind continues. I work as a Medium, and many members of my family are mediums it is something that is just accepted between us. I give many, many messages to bereaved people, giving evidence of their friends, relatives, etc. Of course one could argue about telepathically reading etc., but this is my belief.

Although mediumship is within the family generally many of my extended family are agnostic. There are a handful of Christians, mostly non-practising and the rest I'm not sure of. My mother is an altheist and my father was a Catholic. We were always aloud to have our own views on things and never suppressed in any way religiously.

As a Spiritualist, 'Heaven' is mostly known to us as the Summerland or something along those lines. I believe heaven is each individual persons perception of it. Then when you die you are taken to that which you felt (or not, as the case may be), was heaven whilst you were alive.

I just hope heaven is not as RObert bruce describes it as in his treatise to astral projection. That is it is like in the astral and you are able to get anything you wish for as the mind itself is very strong and can create anything it needs in the astral. like if you want a car and having kate winslet laid on the back seat as she laid nude in titanic, this is what you get.



after sometime after havign satisfied all the previous live's desires, one get bored and moves to higher astral realms..





so i only hope its not that boring as robert brice describes..



If heaven were something like earth but with no evil SOB trying to piss you offf.. Even if they did exist, then we would have powers to kick their asses.. One such world governed by the Gods..



regards

mystick

I think heaven is a very real place. Is it paved with gold streets and holds a mansion for each and everyone of us? Most likely not. I think heaven is the generic name referring to where we go after death. Almost every last religion has some sort of "after death sanctuary." And in every last one of these concepts, heaven has some sort of reward, or benefit for being there. Some say you will get virgins, other say you can fight and never die, while some are so bold to say that you can be your own god.

As I said in the other thread, what heaven is like depends on that person and how they see it now. The way I see it is like this. For those who refuse to admit there is life after death, will most likely not have a life after death and just rot in a grave. (Hence not being "saved" and going to hell." As shown in many diffrent religions. ) And for those who expect it to be a wonderful place to live out enternity, perhaps they will have that option, and do such a thing. I personally wouldn't be suprised to see an option for being re-born into another life.

The reason I think heaven is what we make of it is simply because it gives everyone that hope of a perfect life, and to truely feel as if death has no sting, and the grave has no victory.

Im not too sure about this but, ive seen lots of places in my life so far and one of them was heaven, but not heaven to me because the color was the same as here with small houses, if you see what i mean... It's almost as if there are different versions of heaven for what you believe in. So if you believe it's houses upon clouds then it might be that way. Golden streets are nice to think of, glowing beauty in gardens etc. a place more colorfull than the rest.
Don't really want to say this but it might also depend on sins... Ive been trying to work out why there is this theory about heaven, why there is a hell or lower astral even for what we have sinned. Doesn't seem to make sense about how people get stuck being lucid either.
All I can say is go with what you believe. All you have to do is think it and it shall happen! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The only other thing on this is, how many people would be in the same world as yourself if it did depend on the imagination.

This post has been edited by Coffee: Dec 24 2006, 07:22 AM

Hi all,

I guess I believe the soul exists, and that it must go somewhere after we die. Throughout my life I have always been hobbled by confusing the soul with what I'd call my sense of identity. So much of who I think I am is based on the material world, uses people, places, and things, to distinguish the web of relationships I call my 'self'. But dreams have always made me wonder about that. In a dream your whole 'reality' can be very different from the waking world. Who then is acting and reacting to that dream world? Might it not be that eternal part of us, at those moments mostly unfettered by the chains of the physical realm? I think that we are close to our souls when we dream sometimes. My waking identity can be screwed up by physical trauma, illness, and emotion. I believe that when we die and the brain stops functioning, my 'self' will perish, along with my perceptions and memories of the physical realm, but not my soul.

I do believe that the soul can retain some knowledge of previous incarnations, that is, if accumulated Wisdom and strength of will and spirit carries us to existence in new worlds, or even 'Heaven', then we must retain what we learn from our mistakes. I don't know, I just kind of think that sounds right, I can't make an arguement for it at this time.

Love and luck be with you all,
Oliver

I believe heaven is what we, individuals make of it for our personal selves.

My personal spiritual beliefs suggest, that, we come closer to our higher selves and our "true" selves as we grow (spiritually), thus transcending beyond the different realms which await us.

I believe we come closer to heaven with every single step of spiritual growth.

remember...

"Heaven for you may be a place with sex and beer, whilst heaven for me may be a lonely medieval castle with a spiritual comrad"

My point is, heaven is most probably our psyche, for we are all different, and what to us is soothing and comforting is also different; if heaven were one place for all, then not all would be happy.

-DS

Very poetic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
As i said above, i've seens many places already and one of them was heaven, although not quite what i'd expected it to be like, kinda dull like here (although here isnt dull at all), but you've depended it greatly on what you call the psyche, what is this to you?

Well I believe that we are the only ones who can bring our own happiness; be it out of love for others, out of self love, or whatever. I believe that we are who we choose to become, and when we progress and learn of ourselves, we learn how to please ourselves accordingly, thus "heaven" to us is a very personal route.

I do not believe in nirvana at all. Infact I believe it to be impossible and against the laws of existance. What would life mean if there has to be an ending? Nirvana, primarily as stated in the Christian Bible and in the Islam Quran to me is more like a hell, for to me, happiness is to achieve that which I strive for, and to progress, and to gain knowledge of myself and my surroundings, endlessly.

Nirvana (heaven in the biblical sense) to me would be hell, as all the reasons why I would want to enjoy life would be lost; it would quickly become trite to me.

I want to face challenges, I want to pursue goals and try my best to achieve them, I want to fail so that I can try again...

infact If I had a choice to be perfect I'd fervently deny it!

Not knowing causes us to want to know, and that is what makes us human, that desirous to know is what makes us conscious, being conscious to me is unique, to me that's "divine", and to have to submit to a filthy nirvana-type heaven would be depriving me of my own godliness I so cherish.

Peace.

This post has been edited by DeathStalker: Dec 28 2006, 03:33 AM

I loved the ancient idea of Elysium or the Summer Lands. Just the thought of being in nature, and so much beauty. I´d take that over sitting on a cloud any day of the week.

the real religeion what is it?

the ones who go to heaven wher your dreams come true are actually bad
the oiuja always tells me that good people are in hell and they say it like real and sound real and dont sound like a lie.
so it is actually thr oposite good is bad bad is good so bad people go to heaven

This post has been edited by gafurjg: Dec 28 2006, 04:12 PM

I dunno about that mate. Who is actually telling you this through the ouija board? Just because someone is dead, doesn´t mean that they´re right, or telling the truth. And if what you say is true, and all the bad people go to heaven, then surely if they are all bad they would turn it into a hell? And vice versa, I presume.

I could be wrong though. I have an amazing record at being very wrong.

This post has been edited by nyechna: Dec 28 2006, 05:10 PM

Heaven is a state of being that is as close to God as a soul can get. What this must feel like, how we'd percieve it, we can only guess. Many mystics and theologians have chose to claim that heaven is eternal bliss and pleasure. I simply believe it is a state of existance that is in the highest presence of God. What God is, to me, is the entire universe. Everything that we percieve as real and unreal and all that we don't know or fully understand. Even fiction exists in this universe, within God. Don't believe me? Read some fiction. It exists in some form. Existance is what determines one's closeness to God. I believe that in various degrees of existance we have a measure of awareness. Thus the more aware one is of their universe, the closer to God they are. Awareness does not indictate pleasure or bliss, these are perceptions, not states of being.

Hell is just the opposite. Hell is distance from God and that means the less one is aware of their universe, the further away they are to God. This too does not mean that one feels better or worse, as these are merely perceptions to one's existance. It is possible to be as distant from God as possible (if there is such a thing) and feel pleasure and just the opposite as well.

I believe people in their desire to be immortal have learned to ignore certain biological realities. Especially when it comes to death. I believe once the synapes in your brain stop firing the person you are ceases to exist. However, I also believe that the soul, once the body is dead, is released into the universe. The soul can retain memory of a former being/life, but that is all. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the soul may linger. Lingering souls I believe exist in a state of limbo. They are dead biologically, but the energy (perhaps due to consistancy) remains Earth bound and does not migrate into what some may call the "white light", or the cosmic churning pool for energy. This white light I believe is where souls are fully released from the mundane existance and spat back into the universe to manifest anew. This means, by my reasoning, that reincarnation is possible. Yet only the soul retains any memory of a past life, consciousness is mundane and dies with the body.

Many times and probably more in the future.

At first but my independant studies of the occult and mysticism helped me to formulate my own ideas aside from my Catholic upbringing.

I believe the only way to experience closeness (possibly even wholeness) with God is to die from this mortal body.

I believe what Christianity and Islam teach about heaven is just a psychological mechanism to keep the "sheep" inline. If people thought of access to heaven as an expression rather than fullfillment of a moral obligation, people wouldn't start wars over religion. We wouldn't have martyrs either.

I can understand exactly what your saying about polarity and God, feeling good etc.
I was wondering however if you had ever had any outerbody experiences or been to other planes of existance?¿
because this would certainly open your mind to what people normally call heaven in a different way. Imortality here is an impossability (almost). It seems strange to myself that there would be countless souls also on this planet that dont get to go anywhere else.

-Heaven- is just a subjective term for the afterlife for which each individual's relative tastes show that they enjoy. For instance:

One of darker tastes may wish for the heaven of darkness. To those of light, it is hell, to the dark, presence in light is hell (speaking in absolutist sense, just for the abstract idea).

An amazon may view the metropolitan skyscape as a hell, an urban bounty hunter may find a jungle to be unbearable.

A gentryman may think that being in an afterlife of playful, harmless promiscuity amongst faeries to be unneccessary, and perhaps downright uncalled for, whereas a raver may think a victorian townscape is "totally square."

Heaven is home for the soul. Home is where the heart is. Home is where you make it. Heaven is happiness.


...at least that's what I believe!

That is heaven to me as well.

What exactly will the afterlife be like? I don't know exactly but I would like to choose where I go to. Sometimes I wish I could just fly around through space and watch the birth of stars and other civilizations. But by then I may have other wishes.

In the mean time, I try to make peace with the people I know and myself so when my body gives out I won't be earthbound as a wondering depressed soul.

This post has been edited by Masery: Jan 1 2007, 01:49 PM

You can have outer body experiences in your life before you leave the earth plane, so you can fly above the hills or houses. Not too sure how to get this to come to you I suppose just use your timeline and expect this to happen sooner rather than later. There are professionals who of course know how to do it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Yes, I have gone to space through OBE's but the time isn't long enough. An hour is so short compared to a lifetime or lifetimes.

Actually its something I specialize in. My very experience with alternate planes of existance is why I believe what I currently do. What we percieve as "good" or "bad" or heavenly or hellish are only matters of human perception, I believe. And once we die we loose that human quality, at least in the sense of what we know of from day to day life. Thus the experience of heaven is probably something that requires a level of awareness that most people don't achieve. Thats not to say they are damned, just that heaven and hell are not what we typically think of them to be.

Just some deeply philosophical thoughts I have:

Some of my beliefs actually come from Buddhism, which teaches that attachments are the root of all evil - matterialism, greed, desire, addiction, fear, love or other emotions, sex/lust, life itself and even one's religion. All these are examples of things the human soul can become attached to in this life. All of them are things that can keep one from trancending (or moving above Earthly attachments) life to attain Nirvanna. What is Nirvanna? Becomming Buddha, or a state of existance of, at least nearly, permanent enlightenment (my definition only). Enlightenment, imo = greater awareness. Once one is dead, provided they have trancended life's attachments, they will reach clossness to God.

Heaven and Hell are ideas and with them come the associations of enternal pleasure vs eternal suffering. By my train of thought, those are ideas people can become attached to and not unlike a crack head gets attached to an addiction - either they get their fix and are "happy" or they don't and suffer withdrawls. Thus the three big monotheistic religions are really like drug cartels for achieving Heaven or suffering Hell. Believers get their fix by participating and feeling "good" or sinning and feeling guilty and afraid of damnation. People form a sort of collective concsiousness or generalized understood perception that forecasts what to expect from either angle. If they play along and do what their dogmas tells them and live righteous lives, they get to go to Heaven.

If Buddhism is even partially right about attachments, then anybody who subscribes to any such dogma is being lead by their noses. They are not really encouraged to trancend anything, just obstain from "sin" and repent when necessary. Then they will never trancend fear of Hell and desire for Heaven and many who claim to renounce their beliefs will repent on their death beds out of fear of death and the ulitmate great beyond. These emotions play on people and are why I think Christianity and Islam, in particular, have been so successful. Nobody wants eternal damnation and everybody wants eternal pleasure. Thus a facade of what Heaven and Hell are is created. That being Heaven = pleasure, Hell = suffering. Yet these are both completely human interpritations. In reallity we cannot and should not attempt to measure either realm as a place for the Good vs Bad. We'd never really know which is which for sure anyways because what is good to me is bad to somebody else.

So to really break down the barriers of the collective consciousness that dictates to the majority of people what Heaven and Hell both mean; I think one needs to approach them from a detached point of view. One that examines the reality of life as well as the possibilities of the after life, or lack there of. The reality of life is that it dies and what happens after that point we can only speculate. Because of so many near death enounters (my own included) people have experienced, I believe something spectacular happens when we die. I think it is wholey stupid to ignore the possibility that there is some kind of after life, yet equally stupid to say there must be one also. Perhaps death only results in the wild firing of the synapses in the brain creating a sense of an after life that ends as soon as it begins. Perhaps it is the beginning of the final acention or decention of one's "soul". In order to understand what "Heaven or Hell" are I think we should also examine the possible ways people aspire to either.

A soul, to me, is an independent entity compossed of some kind of energy, or essence, that acts as the life force of one's body. Weather or not it has consciousness or is only a glob of energy is unknowable at this time. However if we can describe a soul accurately as having the qualities of energy, then it would behave similarly as well. This means that more dense a soul is the heavier it is and more likely it is to decend. The opposite being the lighter a soul is, more likely it is to acend.

If we can speculate that there is indeed some form of after life that would mean some kind of essence of the human body would need to continue on after death. Thus inorder to understand what happens to this essence I think we should throw out subjective ideas because their meanings are open to interpritation - ie, good, bad or pleasure, pain - and instead look at rational ideas - What elements can affect the transition of a soul from death to an after life?

I think attachments are an acceptable idea. Attachments create binds of sorts. In actual life, they heavily influence, if not totally control, how people live. Addicts of all sorts seek to satsfy their cravings. All life seeks to live and in the complex human life that means - work, socialize, love, consume food and water as well as other resources, and seek a spiritual relationship of some sort. Life itself is an attachment. Few truely want to die and if they do there is a good reason. So when we die attachments act as "chains" weighing the soul down. The more chains, or the bigger one's chains, the heavier their soul and so they decend. And if the opposite, they acend. Some reach a sort of balance with the weight of this reality and their soul - both weigh the same and so the soul neither rises or lowers. I think this is limbo and the soul will remain in such a state until its environment forces it out or it is some how able to change density.

Thus the question becomes how does one break these chains? I think that is done by attaining a level of awareness that empowers one to let go or their attachments. Awareness is knowledge of one's inner being as well as outer environment. The more one knows about either, the more one can influence or control them. The more attachments one can break, the closer to God they get. But again this has nothing to do with eternal bliss or suffering, we cannot know how this will feel once the human body is dead and only the essence of an individual remains without actually dying.

Sadly awareness is not the cure all do all. It is entirely possible that one knows what they need to do to let go of the attachments and then not do it. Just like one may know they have an addiction and refuse to do anything about it. Thus the other element in determining where the soul may end up after death is the will power to actually follow through on one's awareness.

A third factor I can postulate is environmental. Suppose that if a soul is composed of something like quantum particles that act in accordance to the laws of physics; the more dense it is, the more compact its quantum body is as well (like atoms in a solid vs liquid or gas). Like wise, the less dense, the more expanded the soul's particles are. It is possible that a soul can only acend or decend so far, regardless of will or awareness, due to its quantum consistancy. And this is why I believe in the possibility of reincarnation. This acts as a means for the soul to re-enter a mortal existance to develope new attachments and trancend them (or be trapped by them).

Although, through all this speculation, in the sheer irony of this infanitly complex universe, I might have this acention (rising/going up), decention (lowering/going down) stuff backwards. If heaven is closeness to God and Hell is distance from it, and the soul is indeed formulated by some kind of particles, then it is possible closeness to God is having a more dense body, and distance from God is having a less dense body. What happens in our reality is when particles get far flung they are no longer affected by their own gravity and we end up with the vacuum of space. If the particles get dense enough, and there are enough particles it creates a black hole - perhaps the singularity of a black hole more accurately describes clossness to God. And the vaccuum of space is a better way to describe Hell - total stagnation lost in outter space.

Yet regardless if one percieves Heaven as up, Hell as Down or visa verse, Awareness, will power and one's environment are all still factors that I believe will determine where souls end up or reincarnate as. Ultimately awareness, at least that we can achieve in our mortal existance, is what I think is the biggest factor. With it, we remain ignorant and unable to change. There would be few ways to alter the course of one's soul (maybe divine intervention of something).

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/06.gif)
If I could make a heaven, i think i would choose this, but I have a different idea. I think heaven was a creation by primitive man to ease the scare of death. Maybe im wrong and something ill experience will prove me wrong (i hope; no afterlife is depressing (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) ) But right now that makes the most sense to me.

Sounds like a spirit just wants to watch you squirm... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/bones.gif)

Having been to the "other side" several times,
to include two NDEs, it threw out ALL [i]my preconceived
thoughts on "heaven". There are so many
places, and each time I went over, it was
different! I mean diametrically different!

It was never scary, hellish, fear-ridden, "wrong",
bad, and the like.

It was ALWAYS filled with unconditional love,
bliss, healing, nooooo worries about time, space,
where, when, why, who, etc. It was ALWAYS
a beautiful experience, which I got kinda mad
that I had to return here, after experiencing such
bliss if only momentarily.

I used to subscribe to a silly but maybe not so silly idea. That The bible was written backwards so to say. That it was wrote from satans point of view to get back at god for comdeming him to hell. Thus anyone that followed it would mean more company for himself. Just one of those weird thoughts. I have allot of those.

Earlier in the week afew of us were discussing the Idea of the Bandar / watcher / higherself and what it is. During this conversation i would have to say one of two things i have concluded. Either This is heaven in that we exist, or Heaven is a state of none existence. Non existence being as close as you could ever be to god. Just more thought and babble from myself (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blablabla.gif)

my thoughs on heaven/hell are pretty close to the anchient celts , the the way that i DO belive in heaven/hell but its not the final thing. heaven is like a reward, you go there for say 100years (which in earth time may only be a day/week/month/year etc) and then after our time we move on to our next plane of existance (or back to his one). and the opposite for hell, its a punishment for the soul before it can move on, sort of like an afterlife karma catch up.

When I was a kid brought up Roman Catholic, I never really believed in Heaven, but It was better then the alternative of the Loving God..... wait hell makes no sense either if God is all loving. Later I came to believe we will get what we think and believe we will see when we die. After working with Shamanism I've been to what looks much like the description of Val Hala or Heaven.

We call it the upper world. Later I went to darker places but I have never been to what I would call hell. I have seen the place of lost souls, the cities of the dead as I call them. Nothing much like the christian fairy tales.

Can you visit these places yes most definently. It is far easier them one would imagine. No drugs, no props, no magickal formulas.

I must say that there is a permanency to the Upper world that one does not feel here. The lower world also but to a lesser degree than the upper.

When doing soul retrievals at times one must venture to the less savory places, but with common sense and following spirits you trust it is no problem. The worst I have run into is spirits trying to entice me to stay, they can be very convincing. Ok, once a stinking bag of negativity we would call a daemon but nothing that could not be handled.

So yes it exists and yes you can go, I go from time to time, however I do prefer the upper regions of the lower world.

Here is the coolest part I think. If I go to one of these worlds I will see certian land marks. If some one else goes they may see different land marks (they will see different land marks). The think is if they reference the one of the land marks that you have seen, a map could be drawn of the part I have been and they could draw one of where they have been and we could use each others map and it would be accurate. There is actually a project going one right now to map as much of the worlds as possible. Phnonimal I think anyway.

Shamans are directors of souls (or what ever you call it) so thoese in that work tend to visit these places a lot, as this is where we work most of the time.

Krell

[font=Century Gothic]Hey Krell

Very interested in your comments even though I do not concur; I do however agree that whatever the individual’s version of heaven/hell is works for them post-life. But with your concepts of upper world, etc., I cannot agree. Shamanism and the journeying therein are completely different to the place where fragmented ‘lost souls’ that have been fractured/fragmented due to various reasons reside.

The concept of the lost soul exists within the existential imagination of the individual – the shaman is privileged to be able to attend that place and (hopefully) coax out that lost soul and reunite it to make it a whole. The souls that I feel you are describing are not the genuine lost souls of living beings – rather the shadow energies that inhabit that space/place in time that it is somehow possible to arrive at.

I have never (in over 30 years of study) heard of Shamans being called Directors of Souls. What is your premise please for that comment?

Our reality is energy at a particular frequency. Parralell univerves are enegies at particular wavelengths.
For me heaven is a universe where matter cannot be destroyedfor it is enegies at vibrating at a particular wavelength which is indestructible
The ones that reach brahaman or find union with god will reach this indestructble universe where beauty lives for eternity.

Life is a genetic disease that always leads to death.

A place to go to after death does not make sense.

Where were we before we were born?