Heaven is an inward experience and our home

The notion of heaven keeps things human, and that’s one reason it has survived so long. The image of returning home after we die, resting from our labors, and receiving our just reward offers powerful reassurance. (It’s difficult not to come to tears listening to the old gospel hymn with its gentle, rocking refrain: “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, Come home…Come home.”) 

In an age of doubt, however, the shakiest assumptions about heaven are the two it can’t do without:

1. We go somewhere when we die.

2. The place we go to is the same heaven or hell for everyone.

In Christ’s conception heaven is present: It’s an inward experience that can be felt by the righteous. Heaven is also future: It’s returning home to be with God that the righteous await on Judgment Day. Heaven is personal: It is to be found “within you.” At the same time, heaven is universal: It is an eternal abode beyond birth and death, a place outside Creation.

This teaching was revolutionary because Jesus built a bridge to the soul, exhorting every person to find his (or her) way across.

What you choose today will ripple throughout a thousand tomorrows.

 

Chopra, Deepak. Life After Death (p. 55, 57, 61). Harmony/Rodale. Kindle Edition.