Beyond Heaven and Earth

by Steven H. Propp

  My questions began to flow in a great stream: This place does not seem to correspond to the earthly notions of Heaven; is this place similar to the Catholic notions of Purgatory?

  His thoughts replied, “Some persons mistakenly believe that, upon arriving at the ‘Pearly Gates’ of Heaven, God will somehow just ‘Zap!’ them, and immediately remove all of their sinful temptations and weaknesses, and make them instantaneously ready for sainthood—but it isn’t that easy. For one thing, that would override one’s free will and unique personality, which is what makes them into distinctive individual souls, and turn them into kind of mindless puppet. Still, the theological doctrine known as ‘Purgatory’ is not entirely without resemblance to some of the processes that we undergo here. For example, even the greatest supposed earthly ‘saints,’ upon first arriving here, are not immediately ready for union with God; it takes a period of intensive work, for a considerable period of time, in order to become the sort of being that is capable of knowing and experiencing God.”

  Can people with true hatred in their hearts really change, upon arriving here? For example, can people with strong racial prejudice really change?

  “Not automatically; however, as with so many other earthly traits, so much of the supposed rationale that racists and other haters have is removed once they arrive here. It is apparent to even the most hardened racist that all peoples have eternal souls, and are of equal value to God. There is no distinction between so-called ‘races’ here—’race’ being nothing more than just superficial physical variations among local human populations, after all. As you have seen, we don’t even necessarily ‘appear’ in a physical manner, much less as a member of a particular ‘race.’ You could as easily adopt the physical appearance of a male or a female; a Zulu warrior, or a Roman legionnaire; a blond-haired, blue-eyed Scandanavian child, or an elderly Polynesian. Race, ethnicity, nationality—these mean nothing here. While a person’s personality and attitudes—which are certainly influenced by cultural factors including ‘race’ during earthly life—are to some extent carried forward with them to here, it’s not as simplistic as asking, ‘Does a black person ‘stay black’ in the afterlife?’ Here, people are simply what they are essentially; and superficial physical characteristics are nonessential. There is no point of arguing about a person, ‘Is he Chinese, or Japanese, or Korean?’ because in your truest nature, you are none of these; those were nothing more than accidents of birth.”

  Do beings such as ‘angels’ exist?

  “Why would they? There is no need for a sort of ‘intermediate’ step between humans—intelligent beings who have free will—and God. Angels have always been depicted in a curious sort of way, in that they supposedly were capable of rebellion against God—witness Lucifer’s supposed revolt, along with one-third of the angels of heaven—and yet they are depicted as mindlessly singing the praises of God, or eternally keeping Adam and Eve away from the Garden of Eden. God has established the basic conditions of life, and generally created our bodies and the world with all of the potentialities that we need, so there is no reason to have this ‘third force’—neither divine, nor human—to continually engage in the sort of intervention or ‘fine tuning’ of the results of creation, such as ‘guardian angels’ are supposed to represent. When people attribute favorable events to their ‘guardian angels,’ they are simply not fully appreciating the spiritual wonder and potential that is already built into the world.”

  Do extraterrestrials exist? That is, are there intelligent creatures with wills that live on other planets?

  “Certainly; the cosmos is infinitely too vast to be the home only of a paltry few billion human beings on one small planet in a medium-sized galaxy. ‘Why haven’t I encountered them?’ you might ask. For the same reason that you haven’t yet encountered anyone from Renaissance Italy, or Medieval Byzantium, or the German Enlightenment. Beings naturally tend to gravitate towards others from their own planet, time, and social contexts; they only begin to merge with others to the extent that they begin progressing towards God. Since we exist here in awareness, rather than in physical space, there is a limitless amount of ‘space’ available to us, and we will never find ourselves ‘crowded.’ There are no limits to our realm. Our universe is not ‘parallel’ or co-extensive with the physical universe you knew in earthly life, it is not even in a different physical dimension, that is somehow ‘invisible’ to those in the physical universe. In the physical world, it requires time in order to travel physically from place to place; but here, everything happens with the speed of perception—that is to say, instantaneously. We need not even wait for electricity to travel physically from one portion of the brain to another.”

  Was there a premortal existence? That is, did we exist before our births?

  “No; the successful union of a sperm and an egg initiates the eternal life of the being thus created, because this is the moment at which awareness is first possible. There is no need to imagine a fictitious bureaucracy responsible for determining which premortal essence goes into what particular body—or for adjudicating if there happens to be a surplus of people that want to be born into rich American families, rather than poor families in India? The notion of a premortal existence is as silly as that of supposed ‘demonic possession’—if we have free wills, how could another being actually take control of one’s eternal soul?”

  What about reincarnation? Or transmigration?

  “The process of birth is a creative process; it is not simply the transplanting of one existing being—complete with thousands or even millions of years of accumulated ‘karma’—into an existing physical vessel. As with possession, there is no sort of ‘mechanism’ that could govern the sending of individual souls back into different bodies, for some special purpose. Transmigration—that is, the rebirth of humans into animal forms—could only take place between comparative ‘equals,’ and humans and even primates are irreducibly dissimilar in their capacities. Dolphins, chimpanzees, and gorillas will never dream of building a cathedral to the glory of their Creator; it simply is not within their native capacity to do so. The difference between humans, as well as certain forms of extraterrestrial life— and animals, is the difference that exists between beings that have, or don’t have, immortal essences. Sensitive humans who ask, ‘Will my pet dog or cat go to Heaven?’ are misled: all forms of animal life have been blessed with the gift of life, and this life need not be eternal in order to be of value. What would be the purpose of eternal life to a lower animal? The level of consciousness of an animal could not be increased by its being here, as such is not in its nature. Would eternal life even be appreciated by an animal? Even many humans do not fully grasp and appreciate it, to their shame.”

  Are there beings who—even after dying and ending up here—show no interest in progressing toward knowledge of God? That is, people are perfectly happy remaining for all of eternity in their present condition?

  “Certainly, that is a considerable temptation for some ‘new arrivals.’ Suppose that a busload of college fraternity brothers are all killed in a crash; since they are close friends, their initial presumption would have been to try and stick together, just as they did prior to death. Initially, they would probably perceive of ‘Heaven’ as being able to drink beer and watch football games for all of eternity. But remember that here, we are concerned with eternity, not temporality. Here, there are no social forces such as ‘peer pressure’ to keep such groups together. Most discover that—while the company of their fraternity brothers might be of interest for a few years while they are in college—continuing such relationships here would be pointless. In fact, most persons discover that even on earth such relationships get boring, which is why they have to be centered around activities such as drinking alcohol.

  “People who developed into domineering personalities on Earth have no one here to dominate; so, since they cannot ‘force’ anyone to stay in submission to them, they tend to s
tay off by themselves. Persons with such personalities eventually learn that the only way to come out of the loneliness they experience is to try and change themselves. Ideally, people then turn this into a desire to pursue the knowledge of God; but that takes some people longer than others, as they are more tied up to their old ways of thinking and of doing things.”

  So there are some people that will never move towards the further knowledge of God?

  I could sense his friendliness and humor, as he thought, “Remember, eternity is a long, long time. Even if a given individual has spent a long time—as it would have been reckoned on Earth—occupied with their former earthly concerns, and are unconcerned with God and progression, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he or she will never pursue the right path.”

  And just like that, my Uncle Rick vanished from my presence.

  But someone else was in his place.

  It was the young man, who attempted to rob the New Millennium Bookstore; the one who killed me.

  My murderer.

  * * *

  He looked exactly the same as he had when I saw him last: Same clothes, same slicked-back hair, everything. He appeared to be sitting on a rock or something similarly indistinct.

  Uncle Rick’s presence was no longer here, so that the murderer and I were alone.

  As I had learned to do, I made myself appear as he would have remembered me, and I slowly approached him. He didn’t even look up, so I finally materialized my thoughts into an “audible” voice, and said, “Hello?”

  This made him suddenly look up from his seated position, where he stared at me with blank eyes.

  Realizing that he might not remember me, I said tentatively, “Look, you probably don’t recognize me, but…”

  He exclaimed, in an agitated voice, “I know exactly who you are! You’re the one that killed me, and sent me here, to this terrible place!”

  I was taken aback by the vehemence of his reaction. I said to him in a calm voice, “You killed me too, remember—and you were trying to kill other people in the bookstore.”

  His eyes were glancing around wildly, and he shouted, “It’s not my fault! You interfered! I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I was just trying to rob them! How else was I supposed to get money?”

  “Well, you had a gun with you, and you held it at their heads, so you were obviously ready to shoot someone, even before you realized that I was there.”

  “It’s the only way I could get them to take me seriously! No one ever took me seriously, and that’s why I had to kill people!”

  “Kill people?” I said, with genuine surprise. “You mean you killed other people, besides me?”

  Suddenly, a change in expression came over the young man’s face; a haughty sneer distended his lips, and he said with a considerable amount of pride, “That’s right! I killed two people! I even kept a journal of all my activities, and it’s probably on the bestseller lists already!” He stood up from the perch he was sitting on, his chest swelling with conceit. Abruptly, he looked at me again, and a deep expression of worry crossed his features. “What…what are you here for? To punish me, for having killed you, and others?”

  “Who were the others you killed?” I asked, ignoring his question for the time being.

  “One was you, of course. The first was a stupid old bitch; an alky.” He gave me a grin that looked more like an insecure leer, and said, “Killed her with my bare hands, too; I didn’t even have a gun, then.” The worried expression returned to his face, and he asked, a guilty cloud darkening his eyes, “So are you taking me to my eternal punishment? What is it, eternal torment in a lake of fire? Where the worm never goes out, and the fire never dies? Just like they used to preach at me in Sunday School?” He made a proud gesture of dismissal.

  “I’m not here to punish you,” I said, in a reassuring tone. “In fact, so far I haven’t even seen anything here that is like ‘punishment,’ unless you count self-inflicted remorse over your previous actions.” I sat down on his perch, and motioned for him to do the same. “I think I was just led here so that I would notice you; maybe they figured that we had some unfinished business to attend to.”

  He sat next to me, but didn’t seem to have paid attention to what I had just said; he continued speaking almost as if he were on stage, rendering a monologue. “Everyone blames me for everything, but it’s not my fault. If the world had just recognized my talent, or if my parents hadn’t been such pieces of shit—Hell, even if I’d won that stupid-ass writing contest, or if that bitch at the hair salon hadn’t ignored me, then I would never have hurt anyone! It’s their fault, not mine, so if anyone is punished for what I did, it should be them!”

  In a tone of conciliation, I said, “Well, there’s no point in continuing to regret what’s already done. The purpose of this place is to move on, and develop ourselves.”

  “All I want is to be left alone! I don’t want to see any of you people. Why can’t all of you just leave me in peace! You’re always bothering me!”

  I held up my hands, as if to deflect his harsh words from me, and said, “Sorry—I just thought maybe I could tell you that I had no hard feelings over what transpired between us on Earth, and maybe it would make you feel better about things. After all, you didn’t really do me any harm, since I’m not only alive, but I’m really in the best state that I’ve ever been in. In fact, since I’m finally in the place where I can be reunited with my beloved wife once I’m ready—and I got here without having to take my own life—in a sense, you could almost say that you did me a favor.” He showed no reaction, so I continued, “I thought it might have eased your conscience, or something, to know that.” He remained impassive, as if hopelessly lost in himself. I stood up, and said, “I’ll leave you alone, now.” And suddenly, I was no longer in the presence of the bitter young man, but was once again aware of the presence of my Uncle Rick.

  I asked in my thoughts, Why did you bring him before me?

  I sensed the gentle humor in his reply, “Has it occurred to you that perhaps we brought you before him? He is the one who is in the earliest stages of working through a great deal of material related to his earthly life.”

  That’s true. As we used to say on Earth, he seems to have “issues.” After reflecting for a further moment, I wondered, Do even people like him live forever?

  “Absolutely; once the process was designed to create an eternal essence each time that a human egg is fertilized, there is no way of interfering with the process. After all, there is no such thing as ‘foreknowledge,’ in the sense of absolute knowledge of what will take place—not even for God. But since even the worst criminal is capable of having a genuine change of heart upon arriving here, even a person’s deeds while on earth are not a sufficient predictor of their ultimate fate.”

  So there is never the thought of, say, annihilation of those who seem to be…well, beyond redemption?

  Jobran sensed his uncle’s sharp negation of the idea, and his reply, “Once you have accepted the principle of human immortality, where do you draw the line? Almost everyone has committed some ‘unpardonable sins’ in their lives. In fact, there is a complete continuum of human behavior: from monsters such as Hitler and Stalin, to the most venerated saint. In fact, the persons who were actually the most evil in all of history aren’t Hitlers, or Stalins, Bluebeards, or Pol Pots—they’re persons you’ve never even heard of. They’re far worse people who simply didn’t have the political influence for evil that the Hitlers or Stalins had—but if they had, they would have committed crimes far worse than even these monsters did.”

  I take it, then, that even evil people like Hitler and Stalin live forever? Are they here, in this area?

  “Remember that none of us are really ‘here,’ in the sense that we are occupying specific physical locations; we are just individual awarenesses, persisting in the Divine Mind. But in case you’r
e concerned that, say, Hitler is living right next door to a group of Holocaust victims, don’t worry. Persons such as Hitler have so isolated and alienated themselves from others, that—like the young man who killed you—they must first focus solitarily on trying to redeem their personalities from the depths to which their aberrations have taken them. The earthly theories about ‘karma’ have some degree of truth to them, in the sense that what a person does indeed follows them, until they are able to work through it.

  “Don’t fret about the possibility of encountering disturbing spirits here. That is just another one of the blessings about relinquishing physicality—it’s not like being on Earth, where stalkers can follow you around, or where you might live next door to obnoxious or immoral neighbors. Here, if there is no mutual reason for a person to encounter another individual, then they do not meet; it’s as simple as that. Remember also that even for the most vicious, hardened criminal from earth, there is no ‘harm’ that he or she could do to anyone else here. Suppose that someone was a thief on Earth, or was guilty of viciously assaulting people or even murdering them—as in the case of the young man you just visited? Here, such actions are not possible. How would someone physically assault me, for example, if they were inclined to do so? I have no physical form to be struck, and I have no possessions to be stolen. If you wished to verbally assault me and I didn’t wish to be here and endure it, I would simply no longer be present; again, it’s as simple as that.”

  So what happens to people like the young man who killed me? Will he just go on in his current condition forever? He didn’t seem to be exactly interested in the process of self-transformation. Won’t there be some point at which it is recognized that he is still completely bound up with his earthly life? That almost seems like it would be a good reason to have reincarnation, or a ‘second chance’ at life.