Hereafter Ye Shall See Heaven Open - Part 5

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" Hereafter Ye Shall See Heaven Open " - Part 5

 

(p.202) Genesis in the Bible tells us of the universal becomings. In brief: " 'In

the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without

form, and void' (pure consciousness, the creative thoughts of God that are the

ideational causes of all beginnings)...'And God said, 'Let there be light': and

there was light' (the basic building block of manifested forms--the structural

essence of God's triune creation: the vibratory light of thoughtrons, lifetrons,

atoms)....'And God said, 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters'

(creative elements), 'and let it divide the waters from the waters' (the subtle

causal and astral elements from the gross physical elements). 'And God made the

firmament' (fine vibratory etheric space providing a background for gross

manifestation and serving as a curtain to divide the physical universe from the

overlying astral realm), 'and divided the waters which were under the firmament

from the waters which were above the firmament....And God called the firmament

Heaven' (the astral world secreted behind etheric space)....'And God said, 'Let

the waters' (gross elements) 'under the heaven be gathered together into one

place, and let the dry land appear' (materialization of the gross elements into

a physical universe)' " (Genesis 1:1-9).

 

What and where is heaven?

 

(p.203) Heaven may be said to consist, overall, of three regions: where the

Heavenly Father lives in vibrationless Infinity; where Christ Intelligence

reigns--omnipresent in but transcendentally untouched by vibratory creation--and

in which the angels and highest evolved saints reside; and the vibratory spheres

of the ideational causal world and lifetronic astral world. These heavenly

realms, vibratory and transcendent, are only figuratively " above " the gross

vibrations of earth " below " : They are in fact superimposed one on the other,

with the finer screened from the denser manifestation through the medium and

intervention of the " firmament, " vibratory etheric space, hiding the astral from

the physical manifestation, the causal from the astral, and the transcendent

Christ and Cosmic Consciousness from the causal. Without this

integration--producing a physical instrumentality empowered by astral life,

guided by individualized intelligence, all arising from consciousness--there

could be no meaningful manifestation.

 

So this earth and its beings seemingly floating in limitless space as the result

of blind forces is not happenstance at all; it is highly organized.

 

The physical cosmos is diminutive in relation to the enormously larger and

grander astral cosmos, as is the astral universe in relation to the causal--both

the astral and causal heavens are permeated with the Christ Consciousness; and

interlacing all is the Cosmic Consciousness of God, extending into the boundless

infinity of blissful Spirit.

 

No one can measure Eternity. Man has yet to plumb the immensity of even this

limited physical cosmos; there are untold billions of stars in the heavens that

still have not been seen. The Lord has Infinitude as His space in which he

dangles the intricately designed baubles of these physical, astral, and causal

worlds, intriguingly reflecting as well as mysteriously hiding facets of His

Immutable Being.

 

Different cultures and sects conceive of heaven according to their racial,

social, and environmental habits of thought: a happy hunting ground; a glorious

realm of endless pleasures; a kingdom with streets of gold and winged angels

making celestial music on harps; 'a nirvana' in which consciousness is

extinguished in an everlasting peace.

 

(p.203) Jesus said: " In my Father's house are many mansions " (John 14:2). These

" many mansions " include comprehensively the Infinitude of Spirit, the Christ

Consciousness sphere, and the diverse higher and lower planes of the causal and

astral realms. In general, however, the designation of heaven is relegated to

the astral world, the immediate heaven relevant to beings on the physical plane.

 

At death of the physical body, a soul garbed in its astral form ascends to the

astral heavenly level merited by the balance of that person's good and evil

actions on earth. It is not by virtue of death that one becomes an exalted angel

in heaven. Only those persons who become angelic in spiritual behavior and

God-communion on earth are able to ascend to the higher regions. While persons

of wicked deeds are attracted to astral nether regions and may experience

something akin to periodic dreadful nightmares, the majority of souls awaken in

a luminous land of incredible beauty, joy, and freedom, in an atmosphere of love

and well-being. [1]

 

The Second Coming of Christ (The Resurrection of the Christ Within

You) Volume 1, Discourse 10, pg. 202-204

Paramahansa Yogananda

Printed in the United States of America 1434-J881

ISBN-13:978-0-87612-557-1

ISBN-10:0-87612-557-7

 

Note:

 

[1] A gloriously comprehensive description of the astral and causal worlds is

given in 'Autobiography of a Yogi', Chapter 43. ('Publisher's Note')