Heaven, the Kingdom of God and Nirvana

A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2007 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

Heaven, the Kingdom of God and Nirvana
What is Heaven?
What is the Kingdom of God?
What is Nirvana?
Obtaining Heaven, the Kingdom of God or Nirvana
The issue is the free unfoldment of our creative spirit

Through out spiritual, mystical and religious teachings, there are usually one of three "goals" any one religious, mystical or spiritual tradition seeks. They are Heaven, the Kingdom of God, and Nirvana.

Heaven is usually seen as a place in which God dwells and is pain free and joyous. Most concepts of Heaven give us the freedom to do what we desire within the boundaries and rules of Heaven. When we step outside those boundaries and rules, we enter Hell.

Heaven is a concept with a variety of meaning. Most see it as some realm of Creation where one lives in bliss and joy, free from the cares, worries and pain of Physical Creation. Many see it as a reward for living a good life as opposed to Hell, a reward for living a bad life. Of course, there is the question what really constitutes a good life such than one can get into heaven and what is really a bad life such that one ends up in Hell. Most religious traditions have their views as to what is good and what is bad and what one needs to do to access and be assured of Heaven.

The typical dictionary definition of Heaven is in theology it is the residence of God and his angles, where virtuous souls receive eternal rewards after death, especially in the Christian and Islamic religions. It is a celestial paradise. In various religious systems, any supernatural region inhabited by a deity or deities, slain heroes, etc as Valhalla or Elysium. It can be seen as the regions above and around the earth or the firmament or sky. It is seen as any condition of great happiness and/or any place resembling heaven in beauty or happiness.

Quite simply, the Kingdom of God is seen as a place where God rules. How God rules depended n the God in which you believe. It is slightly different than Heaven. In Heaven, one is free. In the Kingdom of God, all do what God wants. That is, God rules the Kingdom of God as a king rules in any earthly kingdom. To think God gives us permission and the freedom to do what we want in the Kingdom of God is not technically the same as having the freedom to do what we want. Rather, we have freedom only until God chooses otherwise. Whether God do or doesn’t choose otherwise is not the issue. The issue is the freedom is only as long a God desires us to have it.

What is Nirvana? (Top)

The dictionary definition of Nirvana is a Eastern mystical concept of a place of being accessible through enlightenment such that one never is required to reincarnate. One is free from the physical plane and transcends the physical.

Nirvana in Buddhism is the place of absolute felicity - complete happiness reflected in the ability to express oneself appropriately. It is characterized by freedom from passion, desire, suffering, etc and obtained through the annihilation of the self or through the liberation of the individual from all passion and desires. Loosely a similar state in Hinduism achieved through the merging of the self into Brahma. It is freedom from care and pain, bliss.

Brahma in the Hindu religion is the absolute primordial essence; the supreme soul of the universe, self-existence and eternal, from which all things emanate and to which all things return. God, in the Hindu religion comprises the Hindu trinity Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva; especially the personification the first of the trinity as the supreme creator.

In Hinduism the universal forces of creation, preservation, and dissolution are personified in definite forms. They are called Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer. These powers are seen created as projections of the unmanifested Consciousness behind Creation manifesting Its desires while He, as God remains beyond creation and hidden behind the consciousness of these "lesser" forms. In time, there is seen to be a cosmic dissolution where all creation and all of its activating forces dissolve back into the unmanifested. There they remain, at rest, until called upon again by the Consciousness behind Creation to enact their roles in a new Creation. Within this tradition, Brahma is seen to be grow through cycles of Day (the Day of Brahma) and Night (the Night of Brahma) each day and each night composed of a thousand of cycles. At the dawn of Day, all creation is seen to be reborn an emerge from that state of non manifested. At dusk, all creation is seen to enter a state of sleep of non-manifestation. The unmanifested can also be seen and interpreted as the silence behind creation and that place of "No-thing-ness."

Nirvana is more of a state of being than a place. Nirvana is pain free and what is called our spirit is free. Exactly what this means depends on the tradition discussed as seen above. The issue is that to be free to experience what one desires, one needs to bring themselves into the experience any given Creation. That then would not be Nirvana. But to have the freedom to create what we desire is Nirvana. So, many seen Nirvana as a place of "No-thing-ness" out of which all creation/Creation arises and free form the binding of the spirit to have the experience of Creation. In this sense Nirvana is seen beyond Creation or transcendent of Creation. However, if one is able to be like the wind and experience any creation like the wind, coming with no attachments and leaving with no attachments, one can be in Nirvana when they are in any creation/Creation and there is no need to transcend any time or place.

One thing which needs to be understood is that there are other realms that coexist and overlap with Physical Creation. Heaven and Hell are such places. Many look to Heaven, the Kingdom of God, Nirvana as places to obtain or go which lie outside of the human body and/or Physical Creation. However, many teachers talk about obtaining Heaven, the Kingdom of God and Nirvana here and now.

What needs to be realized is that within the wave particle understanding our energy may be localized into the form of a human body but a part of it also permeates all of Creation. So too any other part or aspect of Creation. A part of every creation permeates every other creation. Although Heaven, the Kingdom of God, Nirvana, Hell and the like may be another realm of existence, a part of them exists here and now, right where we are, wherever we are. All we need to do is properly focus our attention and awareness and we can find ourselves in Heaven, Hell or any other place.

However, to sustain ourselves in any other realm we need to follow the rules of that realm. If we can overlap the rules of Physical Creation and the rules of the other realm such a Heaven, the Kingdom of God, Nirvana or any other realm, we can create such a place here and now. The question is, can we focus our attention and awareness to sustain us ourselves in such a way to meet both the rule of Physical Creation and the other realm we seek, that is, the realm of Heaven, the Kingdom of God or Nirvana. That answer is yes. .

For those that have experienced the Ultimate Accident and are aware of what was experienced, the experience of freedom and the freedom to freely creatively play are the characteristics of the Source of Creation. This is why Creation is said to consciousness at play with itself. This is why it is said Creation arise out of a place of "no-thing-ness" for there are no forms to which we are attached that restricts our freedom. It needs to be understood, there are no judgments on what we create. But there are consequences to what we create for the time and place of their creation. One of the consequences is the attachments we make to whatever we create and/or experience. It is our attachments and judgments of our mind which restrict our freedom.

What needs to be understood and is often difficult to first comprehend is that Nirvana and Heaven are a feeling. That is we feel freedom. Nirvana and heaven are not a conscious place contrary to what people believe. This is why we need to become enlightened to access Nirvana and to be able to transcend the physical. We can feel when we are in Heaven and we can feel when we are in Hell. We can feel when we are free and when we are constricted.

The Heaven, as Nirvana, individuals so desire can be obtained in one life and here and now in the moment, in the "twinkling of an eye." There is no need to wait till after death and/or to transcend the physical in any way. We simply needed to know how to live in the free expression of our creative spirit. In doing so, we will access both Nirvana and Heaven. To live the free expression of our creative spirit is Heaven on earth here and how. To know how to remain in the free expression of our creative spirit and not become encumbered by Physical Creation is to transcend the physical and the issue of be bound in any way. It is to learn true freedom and learning to become like the wind with each experience we have - coming with nothing (no expectations) and leaving with nothing (no attachment and/or judgments, positive or negative, good or bad). It is to enter the Nirvana so desired by many.

The key to Heaven and Nirvana is the free expression of our creative spirit. What humanity has sought for centuries actually lies within each heart, here and now in this moment. Much of humanity’s thinking has been focused on escaping pain. Consequently, humanity has never really looked at the whole picture. It understanding pain it is clear the issue is not about transcending the physical conditions and/or escaping to Heaven.

Given the perspective about Creation most have been given it is very difficult to understand how and why we can find and access Heaven here and now with the existence of pain in our life. Most associate heaven as "pain free," or, at least desire heaven to be "pain free." But pain is not understood for the gift that pain is and what it really means in our life and for Creation. It is not understood it was the desire and the longing of the Creator for a playmate with whom to share Its experiences that caused this Creation to come into existence. Whenever we touch the depth of our being we will find a deep desire to share life with that playmate or playmates. It is what fueled and fuels Creation. That pain will never go away. 

Most fail to realize how we create with our thoughts. What many of us do with the concepts of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, and Nirvana is that we imagine a place that satisfies our deepest longing that cannot be filled in Physical Creation as we currently experience it in some way and then seek that place which will full it. Whether or not the place currently exists as reality doesn’t matter. What matters is that we can experience it in our creative imagination . Because we can experience it in our creative imagination there exist a flow of energy which can give rise to what we desire. The question is, "Do we recreate Physical Creation to create what we desire here and now or do we leave Physical Creation and create what we seek in another realm of Creation?" Relative to what Heaven, the Kingdom of God and Nirvana represent, most chose to leave Physical Creation rather than contemplating how to change Physical Creation and/or the way they live to experience it here and now.

We need to understand there is no place better or worse than what we are experiencing in the moment. Anything that you think is better or worse, more pleasurable or less pleasurable is simply our comparison to some standard that we hold and is really an illusion. There is no place "to go" internally or externally. All is present here and now.

We think there is a place in the past, such as a time before man sinned, where there is no pain and suffering. However, there was, or rather there is, such a state. But to be in it, we need to be totally asleep and unaware, without feeling, without sensation. It is only the result of our awakening and the conscious awareness of "I am" that we distinguishes between pain and pleasure and have the choice of one over the other.

Similarly there is no place such as some Heaven or afterlife to see the wholeness of being and the oneness of the infinite spectrum of the consciousness within or behind Creation. That realization is fully possible here and now and if we don’t find it now, we will not find it in the expectation of a future unless we consciously create it. Heaven, as any other state of being, is a creation like any other creation. In reality the issue of Heaven and Nirvana is about running away from pain

The issue if for us to creatively grow up and become adult creators. That, in turn allows us to outgrown Physical Creation. In doing so, the attachments to the physical plane that keep us bound simply no longer fit who and what we are. It is much the way we outgrow our clothes as we grow up into adults. It is not about transcending our childhood toys and clothes. We out grown them. It is about each us creatively growing up, claim our birthright and become adult creators.

In coming to see how we create our experiences and creating the reality of those experiences, and how we need to adjust our thinking, we cause ourselves to out grown the world in which we find ourselves When we are free to live what is symbolized in our heart we no longer have the interest in much of what the world seeks. Quite simply we no longer have the ego and interest for much of what the world has to offer. We transcend the physical world yet can remain fully in it.

What has been learned in the exploration of our creative power and creative ability is that an immature creator will run way from pain. They refuse to take responsibility for what they experience and create. In doing so, they do not see the complete picture. An adult creator will take responsibility for what they experience and understand how to use the gift that lies in pain. In doing so, we see Heaven and Nirvana for what they really are.

What is important is that our concept of God and where the creative power/Creative Power of creation/Creation lies, pain and sex tend to be the three biggest obstacles that stand in the way to find Nirvana and Heaven in the here and now. The root issue is creative power/Creative Power lies in feeling. The issue of God is to understand creative power/Creative Power lies in feelings and how what we feel and are willing to act upon give rise to our experiences and the reality we experience. The issue of pain is what do we allow ourselves to feel and not feel. The issue of sex is control.

If we are capable of exploring pain we can see the gift that it is. If we are willing to give up control and ownership we can explore the feeling in sex and see how sex proverbially stands at the temple gate to accessing the awareness that lies in the deep feeling beyond sex. Exploring our concept of God and where creative power/Creative Power really lies we can come to find how it is possible that the infinity of Creation lies within each of us.

We all come equipped never to leave Nirvana, never to leave Heaven. We come with the ability to creatively play as that very young child. There is no need to transcend the physical or die to find Heaven. We lose the ability to remain in these states only because we lose our ability to be in spontaneous and innocent childlike play. All that keeps us from living in them is trying to remain in the world the way the world wants us to be. Rather, we need to learn to live the truth of our being We only need to become adult in our creative activity. We then simply outgrow the physical and the attachments which hold us here. That in turn is a form of enlightenment. Enlightenment is not what people think it is for enlightenment is beyond the enculturated mind and what the enculturated mind can conceive. We can have an enlightenment as to how to create a gentle phoenix for any transformation we need to take for any creation we desire to experience.

Unfortunately, the truth of what is said here cannot be seen unless we open ourselves to what we feel and become aware of how much feeling we have learned to suppress and/or otherwise avoid. Then, in the awareness of feeling, we see what life really has to offer. We can come to see that Nirvana, Heaven, the Kingdom of God, and the like are fully present here and now. There is no need to transcend physical life or transcend the body. There is no need to die to experiences such states of being. We simply need to become aware of who and what we really are - creators of our experiences and the reality we experience - and create a life that serve us and is a life worth living.

Related topics
The issue of desire
A view of hell
Creative enlightenment is about understanding and using feeling
How long does it take to access Nirvana and Heaven here and now
Seeing in the moment - the "Now"

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