By Jurgen Ziewe

Maybe now is the time to put the pieces in place and consider the conditions of these incredible states and Heaven worlds we are actually dealing with. Why do we hear so little of Heaven and only in relation to religion via the ancient stories? If it is at the heart of all religions, why are there so few testimonies? We have already learned that most people reporting from Heaven were mostly describing Heavens in relation to their material existence – the Astral Heavens. Why are these exalted states so shrouded in mysteries?

The simple answer lies in the fact that our attention is mostly tuned into our everyday external world, which we consider to be separate from us and which we are set apart from. Our whole self-concept and conditioning is built around the perception of separation. This sense of alienation is what our state of mind is rooted in. The most important thing to bear in mind is the fact that such separation between the ‘me’ and a ‘perceived outside’ world no longer exists in the Heaven state, which creates the intimate experience that we are no longer anywhere else other than home. The ‘homecoming’ aspect is frequently reported by near death experiencers and we notice the feeling of homecoming becomes stronger the more closely our awareness moves towards its inner Source. It is for this reason that I feel more comfortable in referring to this state of consciousness as Home Consciousness, because this is where we belong and where our roots are.

We no longer regard our surroundings as an outside world, although we may experience it as such. The actual feeling is that there is no longer a separation between the perceiver and what is perceived. We are simply everywhere. We are truly at home wherever our attention is focused. People who have realized this state of oneness after years of meditation will also bring this experience into their physical life, where it is closely integrated with their day-to-day living.

The second most important thing that we will have to accept is that everything experienced in this Heaven state is done in a heightened and vastly expanded state of Consciousness. It is a rare state mainly because it will only be experienced once we have met the criteria already described in the beginning; the dissolution of the ego and personal identification that has always separated us from the world and our fellow human beings. Even when people experience this rare condition, it is this altered and expanded state of Consciousness that makes its reporting such a challenge. It is far easier to keep it locked inside the silent heart than mining for words in order to give it credence and do it justice. Using words as a media for reporting appears almost brutal, because the experience takes place in realms where words are never needed.

Language has evolved as a means of physical communication and its terminology revolves around the material world, its management and the abstract, logical manipulation of ideas and constructs. Beyond that we have evolved poetry, often employing metaphors to paint sentiments and feelings. Sadly it is only words we have to communicate with on our level, and perhaps only poets should wield them with humility and have them delivered by the voices of the best sopranos.

We also need to liberate ourselves from the idea that this is a state of Consciousness reserved for some spiritual elite. Quite the opposite: it is humility and surrender that will grant the humblest of people residency here if their heart is pure, committed to authenticity and surrendered to its Source. My report is from my viewpoint. I have seen what I have seen and I am sure anybody else’s reporting will be quite different, because each focal point of Consciousness is unique, radiating from a different part of the universal web. There are infinitely different anchor points of experience and it is just possible that some individuals may experience this state more as a kind of lucid dream in which they have surrounded themselves with a complete fantasy world of their own making, drawing everything towards them that they consider their ultimate in joy and happiness. Not all experience this level of Consciousness in any objective or consensual reality. C.W. Leadbeater in his reports of the “Devachanic Plane’ (1896) pointed out that people assemble their families here in an ideal life they had never found on earth. They build an ideal existence, although the border lines are frequently blurred as the people we draw to us in our personal Heaven are drawn from and manifested via their own soul energy and are the real individuals we have known on earth. It is our love that draws them towards us and manifests their core energy. This just shows how truly diverse the Heaven states can be.

I am unsure whether everybody experiences the cognitive aspect or even the visual ones that I am describing here and I can only be sure of what I saw and experienced myself. I find it difficult to subscribe to the concept of dividing these states into levels stacked in some hierarchy, because to me the levels of experience are simply infinite and also very dynamic. It could be that these celestial realities are perceived differently by each person and past experiencers might have thought of ways of conveying it via a graphic understanding, which has then turned into a dogma of sorts where we can count the levels in numbers, stack them on top of each other and divide them into clear categories. Anybody who has actually visited these states will know that this is a lost cause and will no longer accept such arbitrary constructs. Each person will experience these realities completely differently depending on their temperament, their individual makeup, their interests and their stage of personal evolution. As best as I can, I would like to describe aspects I consider to be objective, forming the fundamental structure of these sublime dimensions.

For me it was like a powerful awakening that catapulted me into a state of clarity which simply rendered my heavy and clumsy physical brain activity dull by comparison. It became immediately apparent how unquestioningly we hold our limited materialistic knowledge in such high esteem, by insisting that it is the brain alone that is the master of all our humanness and knowledge and the machine that generates the very Consciousness with which these observations were conducted. I can see how one day we may squirm with utter embarrassment once we appreciate the real power and supremacy of our greater Consciousness compared to which our brain is no more than a mere attachment, like an antenna, in the same way as we now squirm that mankind ever considered the Earth to be flat!

Compared to everyday brain activity, thinking here no longer exists as a linear process, but is replaced by instant knowledge or parallel processing, following several lines at once, which is expressed in ‘Knowing’. Thoughts are no longer abstracted verbal sequences but three-dimensional multimedia entities that display all the information at once via their shape and self-expression in animation, sound and color, attached to which is an instant revelation of all its content. These thought forms are dynamically molded via our interaction and respond to our individual makeup to grant us the best possible and most efficient access to their essence. In that sense they become dynamic entities with a life of their own, sustained and powered by an intrinsic intelligence. The mystery is whether we are the creators or the receivers of thoughts. The answer is both, because on these levels the observer and the observed merge into one. We become our thoughts and the thoughts become us; that is the only way to understand the instant revelation of its content.

A World Unlike Anything Known to Man

The first idea we will have to rid ourselves of is the widely held belief that Heaven has anything at all to do with clouds, which is the way Heaven is often depicted and hence imagined by many people. Clouds simply have nothing to do with higher states of Consciousness or the topography of it. Home Consciousness is neither in the sky nor in space, and bringing clouds into it may just be an attempt to fill in blanks or simply a demonstration of ignorance. The closest resemblance to clouds I found are unmanifested swaths of finer matter, which can swirl around like nebulas or mists in multicolored bands, but everything else in these regions is as solid as anything here on Earth or the Astral levels. This does not mean there are no environments that are less solid, in the same way as we on Earth find environments where morning mists obscure the solid features of the land around us or the nebulas which fill our outer space, but here on the higher levels there is the extra aspect of being able to merge with such features and experience their intrinsic nature first-hand.

Whatever picture or representation of Heaven we may have seen depicted, we can be certain that any such representations are poorly imagined, because any artist, including myself, is going to under-represent the incredible impact these sceneries have on the soul on multiple levels.

The most striking aspect is how grand everything appears compared to our own earthly structures, how truly awe-inspiring some of the architecture or features of the landscape are. If there was not a pervading atmosphere of bliss and sublime joy, by their pure external appearance some of these grand designs might be seen as overwhelming in their extravagance and the incredible complexities of their inner and outer structures at play. Using words such a majestic, wondrous, enigmatic, mysterious, simply will never convey the actual experience of it. Sometimes it is just the sheer scale of some of the buildings and features, the intricacies of the textures at play, the light they cast into the environment and the interaction with it, which creates experiences that are simply unknown until we set foot into these lands. On Earth the most talented artists and designers may be able to conjure up the most astounding images or film-set designs, but they will not be able to impart the bliss or the prevailing intimacy with the environment these people will feel at every step of the way.

Talking about the vast expanses of the gardens and parks, which in themselves will put you in a state of awe, is completely meaningless unless it is experienced not only in a state of total bliss but on a very intimate level as well. This dispels the feeling that you are in any way separate from the experience every step of the way in these incredible sceneries.

This is so hard to grasp, even where their designs of our environments follow some relatively basic and traditional formats, like an ancient or classical city perhaps; but without becoming intimately connected with the essential textures in a constantly evolving state of rapture, we will only have an external image or movie scene, not an experience. For example, when seeing evolving epic designs or thought forms, made out of three-dimensional changing pattern that can billow up high into the sky and at once herald the arrival or appearance of some cosmic event or influence from another higher dimension, we would be hard pressed to find any equivalent of this in our known world.

Wherever we are we may be at the birthplace where nature invents the next generation of physical manifestation, either for our Earth or perhaps for a distant alien planet millions of light years away from us, perhaps in a different galaxy or another part of our universe … or they could simply be the spontaneous, playful expression of the omnipresent creative forces surrounding us. How are we ever going to know or find out what the mysterious powers are that create such abundance and unfathomable splendor? How can we possibly deal with the immensity of potential manifestation? How can we begin to imagine the true vastness of creation when just a tiny section we find is already close to infinity in its wonder and complexity?

Perhaps nature is protecting us by throwing a veil of darkness over our minds so that we don’t drown in the exuberance of our senses, which have exploded into realms of incomprehension. Maybe our darkness is a sign of its mercy.

We are not forced to ‘endure’ the beauties of such Heavens, we can seek the serenity of calm, the silence of the lake, with equal ease and contemplate our inner peace and stillness without moving an atom in our surroundings. It is easy to imagine that once a soul has left Earth and ventured into the glorious lands, it may forever get captivated by the infinity of possibilities of these unending regions of creation, never to be seen again, never to emerge in any of the physical or Astral worlds. In reality it is only the few, the cosmic travelers, who are willing to risk journeying into the infinite lands of fascination and turbulent attractions, traveling from system to system, embracing and relishing the creations of the great Singularity, knowing that they too are the creators of all these worlds. They are the ones, the most bold, most adventurous spirits who will break all barriers of the great Maya and venture into the infinite vistas of the higher consciousness.

Excerpt from Vistas of Infinity