The Kingdom of Heaven

Would you care to elaborate on the state­ment, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you"?

First let me say that it is science that has greatly contributed to the general feeling that Heaven is a place outside of ourselves. Science has exercised its power on the conscious and sub­conscious planes of human thinking. The twen­tieth-century idea of Heaven, in the West at any rate, is leading mankind in the wrong direction in its conception of Heaven.

The Kingdom of Heaven is something that we can feel, and not something that we can demon­strate. Science can demonstrate many things. But the Kingdom of Heaven is a matter of our own inner achievement. If we have realised the Kingdom of Heaven within ourselves, others will look at us and feel that we have something quite unusual, unearthly and supernal. Because we have seen and felt and possessed the Kingdom of Heaven within ourselves, they will regard us as a totally transformed extraordinary being.

Needless to say, it is our aspiration, our mounting inner cry, that leads us to this King­dom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is a plane full of Peace and Delight. We feel it when we reside deep within ourselves and when we transcend our egocentric individual conscious­ness. The higher we go beyond our limited con­sciousness, the quicker we enter into our deep­est, infinite consciousness, the more intimately we shall see, feel and possess the Kingdom of Heaven within ourselves. ~ Sri Chinmoy

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