33 replies to this topic

[DynamicReviews]

No, i don't think we're living in heaven.

All those africans who die of starvation, North Korean boys and girls being brainwashed to death, war, terrorism. I don't think so.
I think we are quite closer to hell rather than Heaven. Heaven is where we all wish to stay and live. Some people don't like to stay on earth; they just suicide.

[web_designer]

this is the other truth of life unfortunately. but i still say there are another beautiful part in life in fact i see life has two parts, heaven and hell. sometimes when sorrow controls our life and we can't find a way out we see it as hell and some times when we have our own happiness we see it as heaven.

the important thing in life is the ability to make our life and the life of people's around us more fun and happier, because all that will help us and others to pass the hard times. and i do believe if we didn't do that then we are like created our own hell by our own hands.

[Illustrious]

It feels a lot like heaven when I dream about good things (especially when I start lucid dreaming). Dreaming comes with an amazing pleasure. I often wake up and wish I could just live in my dream forever. In my dreams, I can make anything happen my way and it feels as if I was actually there.

In reality, I'm not living in a heaven. There is too much to worry about when I am awake.

[Percival]

Whether you live in Heaven, Hell or Purgatory depends on the condition of your soul. Are you internally in hell or paradise? Didn't Jesus say "the kingdom of heaven is within you"?

[iAssistant]

No, I don't think this is heaven because in heaven there is no problem. This world is full of people. It might pass as hell than heaven lol. I'm not a negative thinker, heaven is when you are inlove and being love

[Margus]

This world is what we make of it. What it is i cant say but it feels for me more and more - right place to be, in right time.
It might be harder to 'make it' depending your geographical location and condition that one is born in to, or not. Why it's so - one can bring many cons & pros but what we do with the answers, matters.

For me sometimes seems as my self, do not work with the answers & solutions, so, i can not keep looking the mistakes in others.

Edited by Margus, 20 August 2011 - 01:36 PM.

[guilleBrito]

This is definitely not heaven, that's why it is called earth. Of course it all depends on how you look at it. If you wan't to give it a figured meaning then that will pretty much depend on anybody's individual experiences, some people would think that it doesn't get any better than this, other think that this couldn't be worse, so heaven, hell, it all depends.

[SeaOfThought]

There are at least two perspectives on heaven, one has to do with the pleasure and pain of one or more individuals may feel in a certain context. Adam and Eve for instance were in heaven because they felt no pain, everything felt good to them. In this sense we were obviously "expelled" from paradise as soon as our parents stopped treating us like gods.

I don't find this perspective very interesting because even if one could achieve going back to that kind of heaven (all pleasure no pain) that wouldn't mean (to me) a more interesting life. It's like drugs, they may make you feel good, but nothing else gets better. When the effect passes you're just the same and everything else remains the same. Or a very rich guy, he may have lots of pleasure (girls, trips, adrenaline, etc) but although he may satisfy most of his immediate desires, he won't really grow up, at most he will grow old! In a sense, all this pleasure is a sore replacement for the development of vision and consciousness we could otherwise have (a much more interesting life).

There is another sense of paradise which has to do with the degree of beauty. A person, for instance, may sometimes be so amazingly beautiful that you may think: she belongs in (or comes from) Paradise! Now there are many kinds of beautiful things but, at least to me, the ones that articulate several kinds of beauty are even more beautiful. Complexity, harmony, diversity, are some of the things that add up to the beauty of the whole. So a world where there would be only music by the Black Eyed Peas would be quite beautiful (in my view at least), but a world where there would be music by the Black Eyed Peas and Mozart would be even more beautiful. You can see where this leads: millions of musicians, writers, hairdressers, lovers, ambitious people of all sorts, etc... then the whole gets even more beautiful.

So if you're seeing the world (the entire universe, in all possible dimensions) from the outside, and if you could see both the smallest detail and in the widest scope, then I think it would be very difficult not to see it as the most beautiful thing in existence. For one it contains all that is beautiful. Secondly all that is beautiful is articulated, it's part of a whole, it has a story, a sequence, ramifications, antecedents and consequents, a story to be told that connects all the dots. Thirdly there is all this diversity, from the very small to the very large, to every point in space and time, to all kinds of creatures, feelings, thoughts, etc. Just imagine, all the books would be there, all the tv shows and everything that lead to them, all the lies, all the sacrifices, all the attempts at truth, all the galaxies and planets, every drop of water. How could you say, seen in this perspective, that this wasn't the most beautiful object, by far, in Existence (in fact the All of Existence). I think even "Paradise" seems a shallow word in this context.

So I would have to say that, from an "outsider" perspective, we are living in a world far more beautiful than any Paradise we can imagine (that encompasses all of our imaginations and hopes). Of course, knowing that is of little practical use to us insiders. It won't reduce our pain, disease, disillusionment or other kinds of suffering or of those surrounding us. It may, however, get us in Love with Reality. It may make us want to know her better, be it in the form of another person, a star, an economy, a sea, a painting, a music, whatever. And, in fact, what better way is there to pass what moments we may have left, than by searching beauty, truth and love wherever we may find them?

[ritu]

According to me, both Heaven and hell are reflections of mental stages. It has got to do about how we feel about our lives.Being satisfied with your life hardly makes you crave for Heaven,whereas if you are totally fed up facing turmoils you often kind relate your experience to that of being in hell.
As none of us have in reality encountered the concepts of Heaven and hell,it has sprung from the human mind and the belief has been passed through generations.So, if you feel that your earthly life is good enough to cherish,then yes you are in Heaven.