Letter # 69: "Where's Heaven?"

My mother has no schooling. She has never read any sacred texts but at 83 years of age she has a deep well of innate wisdom. I tapped into it yesterday, when I asked her, “Where is hell and where is heaven?” Replying in Punjabi, and without much thought to the matter, she said, “Hell [narak(a)] and heaven [swarg(a)] are here. Hell is where there’s anger, strife and conflict; and heaven is where there’s peace and harmony.”
The Chinese philosopher, Lao-tzu, (604 BC - 531 BC), said “The Way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete. (The Way of Lao-tzu).
Indeed, true knowledge and compassion survive forever for in the Darwinian sense they’re the ‘fittest’ of ideas.
But we look for heaven 'out there'. Perhaps it's the linguistic origin of the word that misleads us: heaven comes from O.E. heofon, and the proto-Germanic khemina – 'home of God', and 'sky'. Thus we wrongly seek heaven somewhere out there, in a different dimension of space and time.
Heaven is right here. It exists in love. Jesus taught, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17.20-21).
Maharaj Nisargadatta said, “… With the realized man the experience: ‘I am the world, the world is mine’ is supremely valid – he thinks, feels and acts integrally and in unity with all that lives. He may not even know the theory and practice of self-realization, and be born and bred free of religious and metaphysical notions. But there will not be the least flaw in his understanding and compassion.” (“I Am That” P 77).

God Bless; Allah Hu Akbar; May The Forces Of The Universe Bring You Harmony; Hare Krishna; Radha-Swami; and Nanak Naam Chardi Kala Tere Bhane Sarbat Dha Bhalla.
I wish to express my gratitude for your comments, which inspire me to carry on writing. Please forgive my fallibilities in presenting this material. Also, feel free to send this message on to someone that you might think would like to receive it. If you do send it on, my only request of you is that you send it as it is, in its entirety, and to not alter or modify any of the text, references or authorship information. Thus you will help to give credit or liability to where they are properly due.
Jas Bhopal
Copyright© 2008
References: "The Holy Bible" Online version; "The Koran" as translated by SV Mir Ahmed Ali 2005 ISBN 0-9761870-0-0); "The Bhagavad Gita As it Is" as translated by Srila Prabhupada ISBN 0-89213-268-X; The Srimad Bhagavatum as translated by Srila Prabhupada ISBN0-89213-259-0; "I Am That. Talks With Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj” ISBN 0-89386-022-0; The Dhammapada ISBN-10:1-84483-344-5; The Sacred Sukhmani ISBN 81-7205-098-4; Wikipedia.