Eastern religions give us this idea of the perfect afterlife as being a loss of self - a re-immersion into a greater whole. But is that really your idea of heaven? To cease to exist - to be absorbed - to completely lose yourself? How does that differ from a drugged or drunken stupour?
Wouldn't you prefer to be re-united with those you have loved and who have gone before, not in the sense of meeting the same terrible fate of simply being re-absorbed into some unfeeling power source, but to actually meet them - you as you and they as they. Wouldn't it be better to continue being you, but in an infinite sense - and a purer sense. Not to be less than you are now, but more? That is much closer to my idea of heaven. It isn't an ego thing - to be fair, the Eastern idea of re-immersion into godhead is hardly less so. I wouldn't want any special powers or to be the boss or anything. I'd be quite happy to be a subject of the Benevolent Creator.
I consider a complete loss of self to be quite a chilling prospect - the opposite of heaven in fact. And we know what the opposite of heaven is.
About Me
- Joanna
- I believe in G_d and in the importance of being good. I am opposed to relativism and the "culture of death". I am lactovegetarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacto_vegetarianism), pro-life, anti-euthanasia, anti-eugenics, anti-abortion, anti-vivisection, anti organ transplantation, anti-cloning, anti-stem cell research..., anti-sceptic... I was vegan for over 20 years but due to very serious auto-immunity problems found I needed some cows-milk foods to live. I am from Sámi and Ashkenazi genetic heritage and have had a very varied spiritual life, with some earlier life explorations into shamanism, where I experienced being initiated into a reindeer herd.
2 comments:
Regarding this vignette from your post on the "TDA Training" blog:
"The world, according to the Gnostics, was created as... an entrapment for an immortal soul. Ideas of heaven and hell replaced the Judaic belief in sheol - the land of the dead. Being consigned to the scrap heap outside Jerusalem (gehenna) for not being part of the establishment of God's Kingdom on Earth, became replaced with notions of an immortal soul spending eternity in hell (or heaven).
I've always thought about heaven and hell in the non-sheol sense, but have also always suspected that wasn't quite right. In CS Lewis's "Great Divorce", he looks at hell as a place where people choose to be, because they hate God's way of doing things, and though they suffer immeasurably, they don't really know it until they 'grasp' what 'heaven' has to offer (and many never do even though they are permitted to walk through it regularly). Of course this is fiction, but there is something of a primeval truth felt in it - I just don't want to go believing something based on mystical feelings. Can you recommend any good, authoritative Biblical reading on the subject?
Yes, I'm aware of the Gnostic beliefs - I actually went to some meetings and visited a Gnostic centre to do meditation - many years ago (almost 20).
I read about the Gehenna stuff in a book called "Jesus Before Christianity" by Albert Nolan.
Recommended reading? I'm really such a novice at this - I'm watching a lot of EWTN, reading bits of GK Chesterton (Orthodoxy at the moment), and the Jewish Study Bible by the Jewish Publication Society. What you have said about how we commit ourselves to hell seems to be very in keeping with a lot of the Catholic teaching I've come across so far - hell is the other place you go to when you reject God and you go there by your own choice. This was an Evangelical friend's take on it too, as I remember. I used to ask him why anyone would do that, but he seemed to think there'd be some people who were just too proud to be subjects of God.
Sorry it has taken me a while to get back to you on this.
Post a Comment