Is the way to heaven through hell?

[3bob]

Such seems to be common ground to so many of the great masters, saints, sages, etc.. and their personal stories and lives of struggle.   I just thought I'd mention that while some of us are passing around interesting mind candy about enlightenment and fantastic powers.

[Marblehead]

Well, there is the saying that in order to know heaven you must have experienced hell.  (Dualities.)

[taoteching99]

.

Edited March 18, 2017 by taoteching99

[Marblehead]

.

 

I wish you would say something when you talk.

[taoteching99]

Is the way to heaven through hell ?

 

Such seems to be common ground to so many of the great masters, saints, sages, etc.. and their personal stories and lives of struggle.  

 

..........

 

That's very true , for ...

Edited March 18, 2017 by taoteching99

[taoteching99]

One has to be prepared to struggle and face hardship on the path . I'm guilty of this in that there isn't enough seriousness in me yet.

Edited March 18, 2017 by taoteching99

[cold]

If your going through hell,

Keep on going,don't slow down...

[taoteching99]

If your going through hell,

Keep on going,don't slow down...

Struggle , push through and don't give up?

[RiverSnake]

"Hell" in the christian sense....is a fiery abyss below the earth's crust.....IME this is a reflection of Christianities deeply corrupted relationship with sexuality. 

 

But in more practical terms....the path is difficult....you do need to pass through a kind of hell in which you must endure, conquer and cleanse all of the impurities that exist within you. This is the "hell" of the path. 

Edited March 18, 2017 by OldAngel

[3bob]

What Taoteching99?  I thought "Hawkeye" was serious but in a clever and fun way, so I suggest one consider and include that type of serious with other forms.

[3bob]

hmm, sounds like an Old Freudian Angel?

[Deltrus]

I went through hell already, and I'd say hell is just heaven that hasn't healed yet. If you are experiencing hell, you have to wait and help will come. You WILL get better eventually.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Deltrus

[thelerner]

Always thought this poem had clues on the nature of heaven.  Which in turn are insights on the nature of man.

 

Please Call Me by My True Names Thich Nhat Hanh

• Don't say that I will depart tomorrow—
• even today I am still arriving.

• Look deeply: every second I am arriving
• to be a bud on a Spring branch,
• to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
• learning to sing in my new nest,
• to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
• to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

• I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
• to fear and to hope.
• The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
• of all that is alive.

• I am a mayfly metamorphosing
• on the surface of the river.
• And I am the bird
• that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

• I am a frog swimming happily
• in the clear water of a pond.
• And I am the grass-snake
• that silently feeds itself on the frog.

• I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
• my legs as thin a bamboo sticks.
• And I am the arms merchant,
• selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

• I am the twelve-year-old girl,
• refugee on a small boat,
• who throws herself into the ocean
• after being raped by a sea pirate.
• And I am the pirate,
• my heart not yet capable
• of seeing and loving.

• I am a member of the politburo,
• with plenty of power in my hands.
• And I am the man who has to pay
• his "debt of blood" to, my people,
• dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

• My joy is like Spring, so warm
• it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
• My pain is like a river of tears,
• so vast it fills the four oceans.

• Please call me by my true names,
• so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
• so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
• Please call me by my true names,
• so I can wake up
• and the door of my heart
• could be left open,
• the door of compassion.

[Brian]

 

FWIW, Dante climbed up through the deepest depths of hells to come out on top. (Gravity worked backwards in the Inferno.)

 

The earlier "Christian" understanding was that those who choose to not enter the Light would simply reside in darkness -- fire & brimstone were added later for effect.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Brian

[Perceiver]

Suffering is in some ways overrated. There are people who achieve enormous growth by opening their hearts and minds through meditation, philosophy, human relationships, life's wisdom or spontaneous insight. 

 

But a person who has not known pain is in some ways incomplete as a human being. He or she will never know the lower rungs of existence; the personal hells that so many poor (and often rather innocent) souls live in.

 

I sometimes tell myself that most wisdom masters must have known some measure of pain themselves, whether that be a broken heart, broken dreams or the human loneliness and pointlessness that sometimes consume us. The most interesting people I know have known pain and loss themselves. For most of us on the planet, it seems to be an inescapable condition of life.

 

And yes, some - many, probably - who experience such pain eventually grow from it. But it's a f*****g brutal way to grow if you ask me.

[goatguy-too]

The earlier "Christian" understanding was that those who choose to not enter the Light would simply reside in darkness -- fire & brimstone were added later for effect.

 

Consider:

To get to purgatory you must die.  Paul said we were already dead in sin. Ro 8:10

Purgatory is the place where the flesh (old man) is burned up. Paul says this life is the place for that. Col 3:9

When you leave purgatory, you enter his rest. Paul says that this rest is a place still reserved for us. Heb 4:1

 

Since it is not God's will that any man should perish Mt 18:14 Has he not said it, and shall he not do it Num 23:19.  ...

And since we are both goat and sheep (flesh and spirit)...

 

It might be that this life is purgatory. The old man is burned up in the fires of tribulation (even Jesus learned obedience in the things he suffered), and we continue in the spirit.

 

The doctrine of Universal reconciliation has been around a long time. It is called a heresy by the church that missed the central teaching of the Bible (Love - yes, even our enemies) and chose to kill those who opposed it.  Paul also said that if you don't have love, your doctrine is meaningless.

 

1Co 13:1 ¶ Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become [as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

 

Some plausible IFs , that suggest that the tribulations of this world help us grow in the desire to put off the flesh, and prepare us for reconciliation.

Edited March 19, 2017 by goatguy-too

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Some 'dark night of the soul' idea seems to come up in various paths. It makes sense, in any attempt to change things there must be some inertia, and when one's sense of identity comes into question it can be uncomfortable. I've had times of a few hours or days when negative emotion is bubbling up seemingly without reason, or during vipassana the insubstantial-ness of 'selfhood' feels a bit scary or creepy.

 

Dan Ingram:

 

 

 

There are two basic things that happen during the Dark Night, one emotional, the other perceptual. Our dark stuff tends to come bubbling up to the surface with a volume and intensity that we may never have known before. Remembering what is good in our life can be difficult in the face of this, and our reactivity in the face of our dark stuff can cause us staggering amounts of needless suffering. On top of this, we also begin to experience directly the fundamental suffering of duality, a suffering that has always been with us but which we have never known with this level of intensity or ever clearly understood. We face a profound and fundamental crisis of identity as our insight into the Three Characteristics begins to demolish part of the basic illusion of there being a separate or permanent us. This suffering is a kind of suffering that has nothing to do with what happens in our life and everything to do with a basic misunderstanding of all of it.

[...]

I have come to the conclusion that, with very rare and fleeting exceptions, 95% of the sensations that make up our experience are really no problem at all, even in the hard stages, but seeing this clearly is not always easy. We tend to fixate on strong sensations when they arise, those that are very painful or very pleasant, and in these times we can miss the fact that most of our reality is likely made of sensations that are no big deal, thus missing many great opportunities for easy insights. Further, the Dark Night can bring up all sorts of unfamiliar feelings that we rarely if ever have experienced with such clarity or intensity. Until we get used to these feelings, they can frighten us and make us reactive because of our unfamiliarity with them even if they are not actually that strongly unpleasant. 

[Shad282]

The way to heaven is realizing that you are already in it, the now, you always were in it. If not, it is the mind.

 

As long as you think you are in hell and trying to reach heaven, you will never reach it, because it is not far or you need to go through a process to reach it. It is there, It is you.

 

In other words, you realize the presence moment, the now, the heaven and you will notice how thoughts and emotions arises, you allow them to be and then they integrate.

Edited March 19, 2017 by Shad282

[taoteching99]

The way to heaven is realizing that you are already in it, the now, you always were in it. If not, it is the mind.

 

As long as you think you are in hell and trying to reach heaven, you will never reach it, because it is not far or you need to go through a process to reach it. It is there, It is you.

 

In other words, you realize the presence moment, the now, the heaven and you will notice how thoughts and emotions arises, you allow them to be and then they integrate.

Could be the integration that is hellish ☺

[Aetherous]

It doesn't matter what your circumstances are, heaven or hell or earth. The way to heaven is in becoming fully virtuous and good (and some other things that probably occur as a byproduct of that).

[Shad282]

Could be the integration that is hellish ☺

that is why u don't worry about integration but u allow your emotions to be and not dwell and react to them. then your emotions will integrate by themselves, you don't have to worry about the process in terms of how, when...etc.