Many religions describe some form of heaven and hell as places that exist in the afterlife. Places where you go after you die. If you were a \u201cgood person,\u201d you got to go to heaven, an Edenic peaceful place with angels and beautiful music and good food and love and everything you ever wanted.<\/p>\n
If you were a \u201cbad person,\u201d you were condemned to burn in hell for the rest of your life. A place of pain and sorrow with no redemption.<\/p>\n
I see things differently. I believed that heaven and hell are states of mind that exist in the here and now. I see self-love and compassion as heaven on earth. I see self-hatred and judgments as hell on
earth.<\/p>\n
The following story expresses my beliefs:<\/p>\n
A big burly samurai approaches a wise man (a Roshi) and says, \u201cTell me the nature of heaven and hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy should I talk to a scruffy, disgusting, miserable slob like you?\u201d the Roshi says. \u201cA miserable worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything?\u201d<\/p>\n
The samurai gets purple in the face, his hair stands up, and consumed by rage, he draws his sword, when the Roshi says, \u201cThat\u2019s hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
The samurai instantly understands that he has created his own hell, black and hot, filled with so much hatred, self-protection, anger, and resentment, he is about to kill a good man. Tears flood his eyes and
he puts his palms together in a sign of peace. \u201cThat\u2019s heaven,\u201d the Roshi tells him.<\/p>\n
We are always facing the above dilemma. Do we choose heaven or do we choose hell? Both of these states of mind are always available but unfortunately, hell is more familiar to us. It seems more
accessible and it has a bigger magnetic draw. We forget that we have a choice as we spiral downward with no forethought. It\u2019s like tripping and falling into a deep rut in the ground and not being able to get back up.<\/p>\n
Finding heaven and hanging onto it requires mentaldiscipline, but if we make a commitment to learn to think with kindness and compassion, we can rise up and experience joy and peacefulness in our lives,
right here, right now. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The late Maya Angelou wrote:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lies,<\/p>\n
You may trod on me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I\u2019ll rise.\u201d<\/p>\n
One night, I was dropping off to sleep when I became aware that my mind was dark and jumbled. It was jumping from one thought to the next like an orangutan flitting from tree branch to tree branch, never finding a safe place to land. I began to judge the writing I had done that day. It was a load of scribbles with no meaning. Who was I kidding? I couldn\u2019t write. That was when I heard the sound of a judge\u2019s gavel banging on a desk. He was calling a meeting with my Invisible Obsession Committee to order. They were passing judgments on me and my work.<\/p>\n
With each thought, the judge banged his gavel and
said, \u201cThat\u2019s bad. That\u2019s terrible. You blew it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was drowning in a river of sorrow and self-judgments and I had to make it stop. I\u2019d done enough spiritual work to know that trying to throw the judge away was futile. It was like tossing out a
boomerang that always returned to sender. I faced him and said, \u201cThanks for your hard work but I\u2019m good right now. Why don’t you go into your chambers and have a brandy? I\u2019ll call you if I need you.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked hesitant but he left. I breathed deeply. I was free from judgment. I felt safe and calm . . . until the door opened and the judge came rushing back into the courtroom. He took his place behind the bench and picked up the gavel. \u201cHow about now?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cGo back to your chambers.\u201d<\/p>\n
He came and went a few more times. He never went away completely or permanently, but I managed to find more peace than I had before. When you face the decision between heaven and hell, remember that heaven is waiting for you here on earth. So is hell. You just have to open the windows
and let the light in your mind overwhelm the darkness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many religions describe some form of heaven and hell as places that exist in the afterlife. Places where you go after you die. If you were a \u201cgood person,\u201d you got to go to heaven, an Edenic peaceful place with angels and beautiful music and good food and love and everything you ever wanted. If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2889,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888\/revisions\/2889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}