Heaven and Hell are in Here

In general, I would say that arguments are not worth having.  However, in this piece I confess I am putting forward something very like an argument, and a definition of terms.

In this blook, the terms Heartland and Egoland (or the egosphere) are my words for what have often been referred to in our culture as heaven and hell.

In these Rough Guides I want to describe as accurately as I can:

- the ‘hellish’, or untrustworthy states of mind I get into at times;

- how I'm learning not to get stuck there, or let familiar half-truths deceive me - not just intellectually, but by practising; - ways I've found to get back to ‘heaven’ – in other words, to reality, or harmony – when ‘hell’ in my mind trips me up, or diverts me from my true path, and separates me from my true self.

It seems to me that heavily loaded theological terms like heaven and hell are only useful as descriptions of actual experience in the here and now.

By “Heaven”, or the Heartland, I mean feelings of comfort and ease, the sense of being inwardly free to respond naturally and spontaneously to things and people, and become more and more fully ourselves.

By “Hell”, or Egoland, I mean the opposite of this free-flowing energy, for example feelings of anxiety and restlessness, conflict and/or self-conflict, and of mistrust. In these states I am cut off from the comfort of my heart's ease, as well as from the loving energy coming from others, and from nature.

(It has taken time for me to recognise my own feelings of constraint.  I have noticed that as I have continued along my inner Path, I have often become more aware of previously unnoticed levels of discomfort and anxiety - hence the section entitled 'On the Way'.)

In other words, in terms of these Guides, Heaven and Hell are both in here, within my own heart and mind.  And I move between these two states of being.

When we stop to think about it, where else could heaven and hell exist, except within the human psyche? How else could these words mean anything – mean what they mean – but by pointing to those peculiarly polarised, psychological states of human joy and suffering?

Aztec warrior

Heaven and Hell Deniers: De-skilling the Heart

You may reply that we don't need these words at all - that all they do is scare people needlessly, and introduce a world of unreality which we have thankfully outgrown in our modern, post-religious culture.

To this, I would say that it is not very helpful to stand up and say, 'Heaven and Hell don’t exist’, and sit down again, thinking we’ve dealt with the matter in a ‘rational’ way.

The trouble with ‘rational’ commentary is that it doesn't always honour the felt reality of human experience.

While it is surely helpful to free ourselves from long-held religiously-instilled fears that have blighted lives in the West for centuries, our liberation from theology can leave us 'moderns' adrift, in a kind of alienated, or dissociated psychological space - mistrusting our inherited values, our inbuilt taboos, and ultimately, our own feelings.

After thinking about these issues for several years, and exploring how to describe the inner 'texture' or feel of life here in these Guides, I have come to the conclusion, for myself, that abolishing the terms 'heaven' and 'hell', and all they stand for, deprives me of one way of thinking about the central, decisive aspect of my life, which is: whether or not I am being true to myself, whether I feel blessed, or oppressed, by life.

Whereas, if I accept that heaven and hell are states of mind and heart, these tried and tested words can help me describe and evoke - and take seriously - the vast contrast between the misery of various forms of human negativity on the one hand (jealousy, vindictiveness, victimhood, anxious self-seeking and so on) and the ease, vitality and harmony of open-hearted living – of what I would call living in reality.

To free myself from inner constraint, and all kinds of unhappy states of mind, I don't have to know what is going on in anyone else's mind, only my own.

            image by Adrienne Kalisch

I need to practise attending to my own fear, and my fear-inspired reactions, thoughts, attitudes, and impulses.

Wait without fear here (No Ado)

These Rough Guides are all about tuning in - to how I am feeling and to how life is, in reality, on the inside – to what is actually happening, moment to moment.

They are also about freeing myself from falsehoods, and from reliance on fantasy, on compensatory scripts and rationales – letting myself off all hooks, and coming back to myself as I actually am and have been, all along.

updated 5/1/12