Tag: heaven

Purgatory

moe Leave a comment

Another revisited topic:

Anything we imagine, including any maps we have about the world and anything described in religions, and especially the ones that feel juicy and capture our imagination, reflect something in ourselves.

And so also with purgatory, heaven, and hell.

For me, purgatory is what happens when I befriend the parts of me I have seen as an enemy, alien, a problem, or something to avoid, fix, or get rid of in some other way. I meet the unmet, feel the unfelt, examine the unexamined, find love for the unloved.

And that can be very painful. It’s a pain that leads to heaven.

Heaven can be seen as a pleasant and comfortable state. And a more real heaven is when we befriend our current experience.

Hell is what the mind creates when it believes hellish thoughts. It’s what we create for ourselves when we believe painful stories, and when our most cherished identifications are threatened by life and situations.

Of course, we can say a lot more about each of these. For instance, we can say that heaven is when we find ourselves as that which we already are, that which this experience happens within and as. Or it may be when we recognize all our experience, including the ones our personality doesn’t like, as consciousness, or the divine, or happening within and as the One. Or that it’s all of that when our human self is more healed and thus less in pain. Although right now, I like the befriending way of talking about it.

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tagged: heaven, hell, projections, purgatory   

Are hell, heaven and purgatory real?

moe Leave a comment

Another revisited topic:

Are hell, heaven, and purgatory real?

Yes, we can definitely say they are…. if we see them as reflecting states and process of the mind.

Hell reflects a hellish state of mind. The mind experiences something and tells itself it’s hell. It may be caught in beliefs about a situation, state, or emotion. And it gets caught in blind reactivity to it which is experienced as hellish and may look like getting caught in anger, despair, grief, vengefulness, justification, self-pity, and much more.

Heaven can reflect two different things. One is similar to hell. The mind experiences a pleasant state and tells itself it’s good, it’s so good it’s heaven. It’s heavenly. Another is when the mind is able to notice and allow what’s here, whatever it is. It’s a certain equanimity or contentment, independent of the particular content of experience.

Purgatory is any time an unloved or unquestioned part of ourselves is met in a way that allows for healing. It can happen through noticing and allowing it as is. Or, for instance, inquiring into it. It may be uncomfortable. It can feel like torment. It can feel overwhelming. And yet, because of how it’s met – with some noticing, allowing, respect, and patience – it’s ultimately healing. It’s purifying and can bring us to heaven.

So if someone asks me if I believe in heaven, hell, or purgatory, I’ll say yes. But it’s a heaven, hell, and purgatory that’s right here and we can explore for ourselves right now. We don’t need to wait until we die.

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tagged: healing, heaven, hell, projections, psychology, purgatory   

Hell, heaven, purgatory

moe Leave a comment

If in heaven you believed everything you believed here on earth, where would you be?

– Byron Katie

Hell, heaven, even purgatory are states of mind, and we experience them here and now.

Hell. In a way, it’s true that people who hurt others go to hell, because hurting others comes from a hellish mind state. It comes from believing painful thoughts. It often comes from unhealed trauma.

People who Christians traditionally thought would go to hell often already are in hell. Their actions comes from a hellish mind state.

And when I say “people” I mean (just about) all of us, including myself. I sometimes experience and act from a hellish mind state. It may not always be as extreme as it sometimes is for us humans, but it’s still a hellish mind state, and it can lead to actions that sometimes hurts others (in an ordinary, everyday sense).

Heaven. Similarly, we all sometimes experience heaven. We find ourselves in heavenly mind states. These come about in three ways.

(a) When things go our way. When life conforms to our shoulds.

(b) When we find peace with what is, as it is.

(c) When we meet our experiences and our world with heaven, with love, kindness, noticing, feeling, allowing (the content of our current experience).

The first of these is somewhat outside of our control. We are dependent on life circumstances for this form of heaven to happen. The third comes from intention, practice, and creating new ways of relating to our experiences and our world. We create our own heaven, by relating to our world in a heavenly way. (It’s much simpler and more ordinary than that may sound.) It doesn’t just happen, we make it happen in an active and engaged way. And the second comes from the third.

Purgatory. This is what happens on the way from hell to heaven, on the way from a hellish mind state to a heavenly mind state. It may happen in inquiry, when we look at and feel hell as part of the exploration, eventually leading to finding more peace with it. It may happen in TRE, when trembling releases old and previously unresolved emotions and memories. It may happen just as part of life, when old unresolved things surface with an invitation to see it, feel it, find love for it as it is (to meet it with heaven).

I usually don’t use these words, since they belong to a different worldview than the ones I am more comfortable with. But it’s sometimes helpful to use terminology from our mainstream culture to bridge and explore. (It also bridges something in me.)

And yes, I know that the ideas of heaven and hell come from Christianity and not Jesus. They are not found in the New Testament in the way they later came to be understood. They are created by the Christian tradition. And even within that tradition, there are many ways to understand these words.

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tagged: byron katie, christianity, heaven, hell   

Repeating the incarnation trauma

moe Leave a comment

I have images of an incarnation trauma, and the feelings to go with it. I am in a heavenly realm. A group of beings convey to me that I am about to incarnate, for the benefit of Earth and myself. I agree. I don’t speak for the part of me that deeply loves the heavenly realm, and doesn’t want to incarnate. And it’s quite traumatic. There is a loss of what’s most important for me, and a deep pain from this loss.

It seems that I have repeated this incarnation trauma several times in my life, especially around intimate relationships and also in other situations. I lose what’s most important to me (a relationship, a person, a place, an opportunity) right at the threshold of it happening, or shortly before or after it happens. The feeling, images and experience of it is very similar to the incarnation trauma. There is a deep sense of love, connection being home, rightness. And it’s lost.

A part of me also experience that a woman (relationship) will either save me or destroy me. And this too mirrors the incarnation trauma. God/the divine saved me, destroyed me (by sending me here), and may save me again. A woman will save me (if it is a deep soul connection, deep soul love, aliveness), or destroy me (if she has blind hangups, anger, and I feel trapped in it). Both the incarnation and some relationships (the ones with a deep soul connection) become a big thing, a life and death situation, in my mind.

Of course, I see that what was there before incarnation isn’t really lost. It’s here now. And it’s all God / the divine, whether it’s a heavenly realm or this life with all the usual human experiences.  And still, the pain is here, and it’s worth meeting with love and curiosity. It’s worth allowing the pain to come home.

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tagged: autobiography, heaven, incarnation, trauma   

Hell, purgatory, heaven

moe Leave a comment

Any map mirrors what’s here, and so also the map of hell, purgatory and heaven.

Hell

Hell is when I believe a story.

When I tell myself something is, was or may be and shouldn’t be.

Or something isn’t, wasn’t or may not be, and should be.

Hell is also what I explore through question no. 3 in The Work:

What happens, how do you react, when you believe that thought?

Purgatory

Purgatory is The Work, being with fear, shaking and so on.

It’s taking the backwards step.

It’s seeing, feeling and finding love for any experience, meeting it as a friend.

It’s meeting and investigating any stressful thought, finding what’s more true for me.

It’s the dark night of the senses or soul.

Heaven

Heaven is a temporary well being, an alignment of should and is.

Heaven is clarity, loving what is.

And eventually noticing all as already innocence and love.

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tagged: heaven, hell, purgatory, the work of byron katie