
When I was much younger, if someone had said to me that Heaven is Now, here, today, I would have laughed at them, for I could see that this world is not heavenly or perfect. I would have agreed with most people that this world is HELL and that, at best, the most we can do is to work toward a better world.
That was before I began to examine myself and the assumptions that life and society had conditioned in me.
After two and a half years of seeking to understand myself and examining my deeply held beliefs, and after a profound and momentary experience without any beliefs or thoughts, I saw that all my ways of thinking were based on lies. Without those old ways of thinking and just based on the Present Moment reality, absent of memories or imagination, I could see that life is indeed perfect and that Heaven is now, here, today, when my mind is open to it.
Later, I looked at why we are not open to seeing just how perfect and heavenly this world is now. I could see that it was not in the best interest of certain classes of people, the ruling classes, for us, the masses, to see the world as perfect and to experience how heavenly and perfect this world is right now. For if we felt that this world was perfect and heavenly, we would not be motivated to be productive and make the ruling classes rich and powerful.
I would see why people did not pay attention to people like Jesus of Nazareth, who would go around and say to people that if they just radically change their ways of thinking that they would experience the Kingdom of Heaven this AT HAND, here, now, today.
Few people care enough even about themselves to make the effort to radically change their ways of thinking to experience something that seems so impossible as heaven that is now, here, today.
And I could see that it made perfect sense why the ruling classes would encourage us to seek temporary salvation from our living hell in products and services that they would offer us, if we just worked for them.
Naturally, we would take on these ideas and ways of thinking ourselves, and believe that if we just work hard, we can have temporary salvation from our suffering and misery if we distract ourselves with material things and entertainment.
But smart people will question their assumptions and look at their ways of thinking that have been conditioned into them to see if those ways of thinking are based on reality or just some faulty ideas that they have been led to believe.
It is really hard to let go of our ways of thinking, our beliefs, and to just be in the present moment, without thoughts of the past or future, without memories of past pains and sufferings, without hope for better times in the future.
The only reason we are suffering now is because we are suffering from the sickness called hope, which distracts us with thoughts of the future and takes us away from the opportunity to appreciate, enjoy, and love what we are experiencing in the Present Moment.
I find it easy to get caught up in the news of the day, to read, listen to, or watch the news or stories of all the suffering of others from around the world, and to feel the pain of their suffering. And when I do this, I don’t feel any sense that Heaven is Now, that life is Perfect and beautiful. On the contrary I feel that life sucks and that this world is broken or that humanity is deeply flawed and even outright evil.
It is only when I force myself away from news of the past (all news is of the past) and I look around at this present moment and remember that I am alive and breathing, here, now, in this moment, that I can appreciate how wonderful this opportunity to live in this world. This is when I FEEL just how perfect and heavenly this world is.
It takes a lot of work to develop the skill of not being distracted by thoughts of the past and future.