Navigating Heaven and Hell

It’s so beautiful to come to some discovery of one’s deeper nature - something beyond the ego   - which is still and undisturbed by all storms. But it’s a great leap to navigate desire from that place. It can feel like two totally different frequencies that can’t possibly co-exist: the serene, transcendent quality of one’s true nature; and then the earthy, sometimes grasping quality of desire. It’s no wonder Christianity has often split these two frequencies into opposing realms: Heaven and Hell; Satan and Jesus. For anyone, the most tempting instinct is to try to control the situation: to suppress desire and abide in the bright radiance of Heaven. But that approach doesn’t work for long. The challenge becomes to learn how to embody the radiant, still dimension of things in the realm of desire.

There’s an alchemical dimension to this. One is invited to let go all ideas of Heaven and Hell, even letting go the remembered felt sense of them - to discover what it feels like when these two dimensions aren’t separated by belief, conditioning, judgement. To let oneself be surprised by what Heaven/Hell feels like when the mind isn’t trying to seal them in two separate containers. Then too - the whole orientation of “experiencing” ends up falling. The game becomes one of embodiment: what does it look like to embody heaven-hell in the realm of any given desire? It won’t look like abandoned indulgence. But neither will it look like some transcendent stillness which is untouched by all the passion and aliveness of the world. It will look like - feel like - something new. In some kind of open unknowing uncertainty, the shape of that newness takes form.