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Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Truly the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it…This is no other but than the house of God, this is the gate of heaven. The Bible (Genesis)

“…the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you…What you look for has come, but you do not know it…the father’s kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it” Jesus (Gospel of Thomas)

Earth’s crammed with heaven  And every common bush alive with God. Only he who sees takes off his shoes;   The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.  Barrett-Browning, Elizabeth (poet)

The Promise

The world’s voluminous spiritual literature bursts with mystics, scholars and everyday folks asserting not only that Heaven exists but that it can be found right here. Is this contention, and its experiential basis, a wishful fantasy or the long-promised coming of Heaven on Earth?

Let’s begin by defining our terms. What is Heaven on Earth? As implied by the above quotations, Heaven on Earth may be defined as the ordinary world transfigured in the experience of Divinity’s Presence, where it found to be an immanently holy, infinitely precious, and extraordinarily beautiful place – right where you are.

In the Torah, Heaven on Earth takes the form of Eden, which in Hebrew means “place of delight.” In the Garden of Eden, believed to be an actual paradise on Earth, the first human beings dwelled in God’s Presence without self-consciousness, worry or suffering. God expelled them from the Garden, however, for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In this creation story, therefore, we first lived in Heaven on Earth but then lost it. We’ll see why in a moment.

Heaven on Earth becomes a present reality once again in the words of Jesus and later Christian mystics. The New Testament refers to Heaven on Earth as the Kingdom of God, and many Christians believe it will arrive only after Armageddon, a time during which the evil world created by humankind is destroyed and replaced by the perfection of the Heavenly Jerusalem. However, some translations of the “Gospel of Luke” suggest that the Kingdom already exists among us, and in the “Gospel of Thomas,” Jesus says that Heaven is spread all over Earth but men do not see it.

Joseph Campbell, the famous scholar of world mythology and religion, explains that these statements mean the experience of Heaven, here and now, requires only a transformation of consciousness, not the literal end of the world. He asserts, “This is Eden. When you see the kingdom spread upon the earth, the old way of living the world is annihilated. The end of the world is not an event to come, it is an event of psychological transformation, of visionary transformation.”

The Experience

This visionary transformation has in fact been repeatedly described by Christian mystics. Over 200 years ago, the English poet and mystic William Blake promised that if the “doors of perception” were cleansed, we would see the infinite standing directly before us. Jacob Boehm, a German shoemaker transformed by a profound mystical experience in 1600, confirmed, “Heaven is throughout the whole World…It filleth all…without division,” but added, “Men seek and find not, because they seek it not in the naked Ground where it lieth; but in something or other where it never will be, nor can be.” Similarly, Thomas Traherne, a seventeenth century Christian mystic, recalled vivid memories of Heaven on Earth from childhood, concluding, “Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world, than I when I was a child.”

Everyday folks, too, caught up in unexpected mystical experiences, report the same visionary experience of Heaven on Earth. The popular Jungian writer Robert Johnson recalled, “Suddenly I was in a glorious world. It was pure light, gold, radiant, luminous, ecstatically happy, perfectly beautiful, purely tranquil, joy beyond bound…It was all that any mystic ever promised of heaven, and I knew then that I was in possession of the greatest treasure known to humankind.” Remembering her spontaneous encounter with Heaven on Earth, Katharine Trevelyan described, “The wonder was beyond anything I have ever read or imagined or heard men speak about. I was Adam walking alone in the first Paradise…Every flower spoke to me, every spider wove a miracle of intricacy for my eyes, every bird understood that here was Heaven come to earth…Every prayer was fulfilled, every possible desire for the whole world consummated; for His Kingdom had come and I had beheld it with my very eyes.”

Abraham Maslow, the humanistic psychologist who studied mystical experiences for years, characterized them as akin to “…a visit to a personally defined heaven…and the conception of heaven that emerges is one which exists all the time all around us, always available to step into for a little while at least.” It is, he said, like “standing in Eden.” Hidden in the mystical experience, therefore, lies the promise of Heaven on Earth,

The Problem

If  Heaven on Earth exists all around us as these testimonies suggest, why don’t we see it? The answer is associated with the problem of thought. We have become so enamored by our concepts about the world that we mistake them for the world itself. In other words, we see our thoughts, not what is. For example, the word or idea “cat” is only a concept; it is not the same as “Tabby,” this wondrous moving being standing before me. But if we look and say “cat” and turn away, we will think we understand what we have seen, failing to realize that we have instead retreated into an inner world of concepts – a lens through which we name and interpret everything, which in turn brings us back to our exile from Eden.

Psychologists have long suggested that creation myths symbolize the evolution of human consciousness. Interpreted symbolically, it might be said that as human beings began conceptualizing themselves and their lives – particularly in dualistic terms such as good-evil and right-wrong – they replaced the consciousness of Creation with this highly conceptual inner world of thought. Thus, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes the development of a dualistic consciousness that results in two very distinct worlds: the original divine world which never left and the world of thought superimposed upon it.

Learning to See Again

How do we learn to see the divine world of Heaven on Earth again? It begins with wonder. Abraham Heschel, the Jewish theologian and philosopher, explains, “As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines…Awareness of the divine begins with wonder…(and)…the greatest hindrance to such awareness is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental clichés. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is therefore a prerequisite for authentic awareness of that which is.” What happens when we awaken from the thought-world to the wonder of “that which is?”  Discussing the medieval Christian mystics, Anne Bancroft answers, “By becoming awakened to the isness of creation, we find ourselves in Heaven – fulfilled to running over, and wonderfully in accord with all beings, human, animal or mere substance.” Thus, temporarily freed from the veil of thought, we once again witness the omnipresent imminent divine as the world itself in its incredible beauty and perfection.

Actually we have all experienced Heaven on Earth countless times but, attached to our conceptual worldview, simply dismissed it. Perhaps it happened when you fell in love for the first time and all was perfect, or astonished by a scene of magnificent natural beauty, your mind stopped and you saw its shining splendor. Perhaps it happened in a holy place or during a retreat. In these kinds of experiences, the perception of Heaven on Earth opens naturally into consciousness. In fact, the experience of Heaven on Earth actually represents a shift in consciousness that changes how you experience the world. This shift has the following characteristics:

The mind becomes quiet. The inner world of racing thought and fantasy, with its focus on “me” “my” problems, and all those “to do” lists, grows silent and peaceful. This stillness soon surrounds and fills everything.

• Attention moves to the immediate present, no longer focused on past or future worries and fantasies. Shifting from conception to perception then has the interesting effect of heightening awareness.
• As sensory perception increases in the present, you start to see what’s actually around you and, if you persist, you will rediscover the world’s spell-binding beauty and perfection just as it is. Now you are looking directly into Heaven on Earth.
• In this consciousness, a quality of holiness naturally emerges. The world seems filled with a Presence that is aware, awake, patient and loving, and noticing this Presence awakens further wonder and amazement. Learning to experience God’s Presence further changes perception, revealing holiness to all of Creation.
• A deep and wonderful joy arises in this experience of Presence and you realize that happiness is most deeply related to closeness with God rather than apparent circumstances or events.
• With the mind at peace and joy in the heart, activities now flow effortlessly and you are one with the tide of being. This is the beginning of living in Heaven on Earth.

The Invitation

The experience of Heaven on Earth here and now has been described in every time and religion  – indeed the accumulated mystical testimony about this omnipresent reality is truly amazing (though equally amazing is how few people know about it!).  But I experience Heaven on Earth everyday: an incredibly beautiful, peaceful and holy place all around me where problems dissolve into joy, people appear resplendent, and the everyday world is transfigured into a timeless and enchanted wonderland. I know I’m not crazy because I’m a clinical psychologist. And, as an ordained interfaith minister with a doctorate in ministry, I know what the mystics from every tradition have been telling us for centuries: Heaven on Earth is already here and anyone can find it in the awakened experience of God’s Presence. This is the great invitation the world has been waiting for, and all are welcome here.

John Robinson holds doctorates in clinical psychology and ministry and is an ordained interfaith minister, author, and mystic. He has taught extensively at men’s gatherings, professional conferences, churches, hospitals, and retreat centers and is the author of three previous books on the interface of psychology and spirituality. His new book, Finding Heaven Here (O-Books, Jan, 2009), documents an interfaith chorus of mystics from across eras and traditions who tell us that Heaven on Earth is already here when you learn how to see. Dr. Robinson lives on an island in the Puget Sound of Washington State.

John Robinson, Ph.D., D.Min.