HEAVEN is what every one wants and is seeking, even if he does not call it heaven. All this human strife and struggle is the effort to obtain a fuller and better sense of life, and the best of everything that it affords. This reaching out for the best is an instinctive impulse to gain the perfect, which means heaven. Mortal man, no matter how limited and unsatisfying his present condition, has always had this instinctive hope for betterment. His quest has been so continuously defeated, however, because of his material belief, that he has been forced to regard the attainment of the complete and perfect sense of life, which is called heaven, as an impossibility in this world. Death has been regarded by mankind in general as the only door to heaven, and it has been held that no matter how good the man, he must die in order to enter heaven; but the thought of death is so repellent that no one ever really desired the heaven supposedly gained by that gloomy passageway.
In Science and Health (p.560) Mrs. Eddy has said, "The grand necessity of existence is to gain the true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of heaven in man;" and on pages 587 and 590 she has given some statements which are effectual aids in gaining this true idea. There is so much in the present sense of life besides the activities of divine Mind that it is surely not "the kingdom of heaven." No matter how humanly fortunate and satisfying it may seem at the moment, it involves so much possibility of change and disaster that no one would think of calling it heaven. Only the absolutely harmonious and unchanging sense of life can be heaven,and the going from the imperfect and changing sense of life to the perfect and unchanging, must be "going to heaven." As we advance from an imperfect sense of life toward the perfect, one of the first discoveries made is that all sense of matter will have to be eliminated. One cannot conceive of even the ultimate possibility of perfection in any material person, place, or thing. The human sense of perfection has been, and always will be, a relative and constantly changing concept. Mortal thought has had to concede the utter futility of any hope for perfection in matter, and has had perforce to relegate the experience of a perfect and unchanging sense of life called heaven to "a future world." Spirituality has always been the only basis and hope for immortality and heaven, and the teaching of Christian Science brings us a new basis and hope for the attaining of this spirituality.
A misunderstanding of what constitutes spirituality has given rise to the uncertainty and remoteness of heaven. In Christian Science the word spiritual is used to mean the perfect and eternal, because it signifies the opposite of what is called matter, wherein is no hope for either perfection or eternality. The word spiritual does not in any sense refer to the remote or intangible, or to a future world. It has to do with the present, with something very practical and available. There need be no uncertainty as to what is spiritual and what is not spiritual. The absolute, the perfect and eternal, is spiritual, and nothing else is. There is no possible compromise.
Jesus said, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." The idea of infinite Mind is perfect, and is spiritual; a perfect thought is a spiritual thought. The proportion of perfect thoughts in consciousness determines the spirituality of any individual. A human concept may be better, may be worse, may be improved, but it is never good or spiritual in the absolute and scientific sense of the words. As the apostle John tells us, "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."
It would seem that some people have arrogated to themselves the authority to say what activities of the present sense of life are spiritual and what are worldly. A dissenting and ofttimes resenting opinion has engendered much discussion and bitterness, and has been responsible for keeping some people out of the kingdom of heaven by making spirituality seem so undesirable. Sometimes the going to heaven, or rather the preparation for the going, was believed to begin with a differentiation of present activities and pleasures. The abstaining from certain activities denominated "worldly" was believed to induce and to indicate spirituality. Then in some way there came a belief that suffering and misfortune would tend to make one spiritual, while joy and pleasure were sure to make him worldly. The result was that some of us in our wanton ignorance believed the last thing we wanted was to be spiritual.
Christian Science teaches that it is worldly to be unhappy, to suffer, to be sick, to sin, to die, for these are all the outcome of error,—the sin of believing in two creations, one material, the other spiritual. What a sad mistake it has been that so little has been said about the joy of Spirit, the "joy of the Lord"! The psalms ring full of the joy of the righteous, the spiritually-minded, for we read "In thy presence is fulness of joy;at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore;"and again, "Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them."
There is nothing more relative and subject to change than one's concept of what constitutes joy and pleasure, but as the true, the spiritual sense of life begins to dawn in human consciousness, the former feeble, finite sense of life and things is found to be no more life than darkness is light. This dawning spiritual sense of self and things dispels, and thus is said to regenerate the old sense, so that a foretaste of real joy is experienced, and the old concepts of heaven begin to change.
Heaven can be experienced only by the appearing of the true or spiritual idea in consciousness, with a corresponding disappearance of the false or material; it can never be attained by an exchange of human beliefs. Only as one goes from a false material sense of things to the true and spiritual sense, can he here or hereafter go to heaven. When the spiritual idea comes to our consciousness, then commences "the new birth under the law and gospel of Christ, Truth" (Miscellaneous Writings, p.18). Thus Christ "comes to the flesh" (Science and Health, p.583) and the journey heavenward is begun. This journey is a most scientific and certain mental process, and much more positive and absolute than anything we can think of humanly. Indeed, only the spiritual, the absolute and eternal, has any right to the name of Science.
It is no use to pity ourselves because we have so little of heaven in our lives;we can have just as much of heaven today as we have of spiritual thinking, and we might as well make up our minds that we shall never have heaven in any other way. A willingness to let go of material belief is a great step toward the attainment of spiritual thinking. Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you . . . that where I am, there ye may be also;" it is always our privilege to enter into this "place" of spiritual consciousness, but the Master said also, "I am the way."
It is well for all to get a clear understanding of what heaven is, how it is reached, and to know that there is but one door which opens into it. Jesus said that those who tried to enter by any other way were "thieves and robbers." Let us recognize the fact that the experience we call death is not going to transform character. Like any other human experience, its only possible help depends upon what we learn from it. The belief changes, but the truth and the way never change. Let us know too that we not only want heaven, but must find it. Mrs. Eddy says, "Truth will at length compel us all to exchange the pleasures and pains of sonse for the joys of Soul" (Science and Health, p.390), not permit or request, but "compel us." If the material sense of life and self could continue forever, it would be entitled to the name of entity.
Let us therefore be about our "Father's business," which is to let His child, the divine idea which forever expresses Him, appear. So doing, we shall bring heaven into our consciousness, or rather bring our consciousness into heaven, and let us remember Mrs. Eddy's wonderful statement that this spiritual consciousness is "a present possibility" (Science and Health, p.574). Finally, let us give diligent heed to the command: "Awake, awake;put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust."
