The Kingdom of Heaven

Golden Thread

Our true home is available in every moment we choose to surrender what we want or don’t want to that which life has brought us.

The Elusive Kingdom

   Do you remember the first time you went to summer camp or spent some time away from your parents when you were a child?  Regardless of how you felt about your family, you eventually became homesick.  Try to remember that feeling.

   All of us are born with an attachment to home—wherever that might be.  In scale this attachment is a reflection of a greater longing for our eternal home, which is often referred to as the “kingdom of Heaven.”  Even if you don’t believe in Heaven as the physical home of God to which humans return when they pass from the earth, you can relate to the concept of an earthly and spiritual home and their relationship to one another.

Developing Awareness

   So, if it’s true that we’re all born with this longing, how do we go about fulfilling it?  The first step is to determine where it is.  Where is this eternal home we call the Kingdom of Heaven?  Does anybody have a roadmap? 

   The New Testament gives us a clue in Luke 17: 20-21.  Jesus is approached by the Pharisees, a group of middle-class Jews who represent people who are attached to obtaining exterior riches (powers and possessions).  They ask him when the Kingdom of Heaven is coming, and Jesus replies, “The Kingdom of Heaven is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is! or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”  Alternate translations use different prepositions like “within,” “amidst,” or “inside.” 

   The point Jesus is making is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t reside somewhere “out there,” and it can’t be obtained through the usual worldly means of toil and labor. There are no road signs announcing its exact location.  If we want to arrive, we must perceive this elusive destination through interior work of an entirely different order.  This Work belongs to another world, and what is required is awareness.

   Awareness is the product of directed or focused attention.  Its development, which is largely lost in human beings today, is a result of a concerted effort to gather and reclaim our attention, which if left to its own devices will be drawn out and away from us at every turn.

   On the Inner Path, we are asked to awaken and return to ourselves, when we become aware that we’ve wandered off into thought, emotion, or physical sensation.  Instead of allowing ourselves to be drawn out, we attempt to hold the majority of our attention inwardly, while reserving a smaller amount for practical, exterior use.  We are asked to return and remain in this state as often as we must to maintain a sense of ourselves existing in the Presence/present moment. 

   This is another way of describing, what St. Paul was trying to convey to the Romans when he said, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be confirmed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God— what is is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12: 1-2

Discovering the Kingdom

   What does this awareness have to do with finding the Kingdom of Heaven?  The answer is everything.  If you don’t have attention or spiritual awareness, you will have no sense of yourself in the moment, and the moment is where life happens.  It is where you come home to the kingdom of heaven.  Here’s a picture to illustrate:  Imagine a freshly paved two-lane road on a long stretch of flat terrain.  On the right side of the road is a lush landscape comprised of every imaginable form of vegetation:  flowers, grasses, trees and shrubbery.  There’s a seemingly unending water supply in every direction including marshlands, ponds, waterfalls, and even the sea in the far background.  The sun is shining, and the weather is cool.  Can you see it?  It’s just perfect. On the left side of this highway is barren ground.  In fact, it’s a desert of sand and stone with no visible vegetation, water, or wildlife.  The atmosphere is arid and scorching hot.  The land appears uninhabitable.

   Now, where would you like to live if you had a choice?  We’d all choose the oasis over the desert any day.  But, consider what would happen if we took our car and drove to our right.  It wouldn’t take long before we’d get stuck, would it?  We’d drive into a marshy area, and one of our tires would get trapped in the mud.  Or maybe we’d try to make it over one of the gentle hills through the grass, and some of the vegetation would wind its way around our tires until we couldn’t move.  Again, we’d be ensnared—unable to proceed.

   And, what would happen if we took a left and headed into the desert?  We wouldn’t last long there either, because eventually we’d need some water or something to eat.  Our car might get overheated, if it didn’t have enough coolant.  We could become disoriented without a few trees or hills as landmarks, and we’d be unable to find our way back to the highway.

   So where’s the safest place to be as we drive through this strange terrain?  That’s right…on the highway.  To proceed effectively we must stay awake and keep it in the road! With our eyes wide open, driving down the road, we develop an awareness of the whole landscape in this strange land.  We can appreciate the relative beauty and danger of both sides of the road with an appreciation for what we have already passed and what might be coming up just ahead.  The road is the place of access, equilibrium, and progression.  There’s unimpeded movement here.  It is the middle ground between two worlds, if you will.  And it is exactly where we are meant to live.

   Let’s go a little deeper into this picture to gain more insight.  On the right-side, everything appears sweetness and light.  It’s the land of desire—what we think we want in life.  This side represents Xanadu, where poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge degreed his “stately pleasure dome.” But, as we said, if we drive off blindly into this territory, eventually we’ll get stuck; and we all know there’s no freedom or growth in being stuck—no matter where you are.  You can’t move forward, when you’re stuck. 

   Think about getting something you think you really want like a longed-for dream job, relationship, or piece of jewelry.  At first everything’s new and wonderful…until you get stuck.  Then, you reach a dead-end with the new job, or a new person enters the scene who threatens to take it away from you, and you get scared.  The beautiful, sexy woman you thought would answer your every need turns out to be an avaricious shrew when you place the ring on her finger.  The new diamond bracelet is fabulous until it breaks or gets lost or Chubb tells you how much it’s going to cost you to insure it every year.  We’ve all been there in one way or another.  In the South we call it “gettin’ bit by your own dog.”

   The left side of the road can look like freedom and has a certain appeal from time to time; even in the suffering we know we’ll eventually meet there.  This is why people sometimes consciously or subconsciously “drop out” of mainstream life, letting go of all responsibility and even wind up homeless.  We say we don’t like the desert, but some of us have spent years there.  Maybe our religious or cultural tradition instilled in us a belief that told us we don’t deserve riches or comfort.  We think we’ll become spoiled with too much indulgence, so we starve and deny ourselves pleasures in order to maintain a certain solidity in whom and what we think we are. Or, perhaps, we are in the desert because we’re living a self-fulfilling prophecy that says, “I’ll never amount to anything or be able to keep more than a dime in my pocket.  After all, I’m just a victim in life.”  Beliefs are very powerful.

   So here we are between verdant and arid, light and dark, good and bad…crossing over the highway time and time again…never finding our way “home.” Is this any way to live?  Of course, not!  So, why do we do it?  It’s all a matter of agreement.  What does this mean:  it’s all a matter of agreement?  What is an agreement?  Webster’s dictionary calls an agreement:  “The act of being in accord.”  From this definition we can deduce a couple of important points.  First, an agreement is an act of being.  Agreement does not involve doing, but being. Further, it involves being in accord, which implies relationship.  The next question, then, is “…being in accord with what or whom?” and there, my friends, is the rub.

   To be clear, let’s review what we’ve discovered thus far: 1) We have an internal longing to go “home” or—to use religious words—to return to the Kingdom of Heaven; 2) This “kingdom” resides within or among us; 3) A special kind of “awareness” is required to find the kingdom; 4) This awareness is born of keeping our attention “on the road”  between the oasis of what we desire and the desert of what we resist.  The kingdom is the place between opposing forces; 5) Keeping our attention on the road in the Presence moment requires a special kind of agreement—a state of “being in accord.”

   And here we are with the final question:  being in accord with what or whom?  The answer is simple, yet elusive:  that which is within and among.  Let’s have a brief story to determine the nature of that which is within and among.

Beauty and the Beast

   We all know the basic plot of the old French fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast.  We’ll use a brief retelling here to see if we can glean some truth from this relationship that will give us a one-way ticket “home” to the “kingdom.”

   A wealthy merchant with three daughters falls on ill-fortune, when all of his ships are destroyed in a storm.  The motherless family is forced to move out of their mansion and work for a living as farmers in a small house in the French countryside. Two of the daughters are selfish, bitter, and mean and, Belle (the father’s favorite), is pure, kind, and selfless.

   After several years, the father hears that one of his ships may have been saved, and goes on a journey to reclaim some of its cargo.  Two daughters ask their father to bring them jewelry and beautiful dresses, and Belle asks only for a rose, which doesn’t grow where they currently live.  The father leaves and is disappointed to find that his ship has been sold to pay his debts and embarks on the return journey empty-handed. 

   By and by he comes to a beautiful castle where he seeks refuge from a storm.  No one appears to be at home, but he enters the castle and enjoys its master’s hospitality and picks a single rose from the garden to take to his daughter Belle.  When he does so, a Beast appears and condemns the father for his rudeness and tells him he must remain or send his daughter Belle in his place.

   When the father returns he doesn’t want to tell his daughter what happened.  He gives her the rose and, eventually, she extracts the story from him and feels obligated to return to the castle.  When she arrives, the Beast is very kind and tells her she is to be the mistress of the castle, and he her servant.  They quickly become friends, and each night he asks her to marry him, but Belle always refuses.  Finally, seeing that Belle is homesick and wants her family, the Beast gives Belle his permission to leave and gifts her with a mirror and a rose.  The mirror will allow her to see him and return to the castle, if she wishes; and the rose is a remembrance of the Beast’s love for Belle.

   One day Belle notices that the Beast’s rose is beginning to wilt and die.  She looks in the mirror and sees him lying near-death at the castle.  Overcome with love and compassion, she goes to him.  When she arrives, Belle thinks the Beast dead, and sheds a tear, professing her undying love and devotion.  It is in this moment—this expression of love and fidelity--that Belle finally realizes who and what she is.  She knows she is no longer an innocent girl, but a woman who loves the Beast, in spite of his appearance, and should have been there with him all along. In the moment of this realization, the beast is miraculously animated and transformed into a handsome prince.  He rises and asks her to marry him one last time.  She accepts, and they live happily ever after.

The Relationship

   This ancient truth tale has many layers of meaning, but for our purposes, we need only look at the relationship between Belle and the Beast to glimpse the knowledge required to identify and remain within the kingdom of heaven.  As in all tales of this type, each of us can be found in each of the characters in the story—the father (protection), absent mother (wisdom), dark sisters (negative states), Belle (innocence/purity), and Beast (hidden knowledge/dangerous truth). 

   They key, however, is found in the relationship between the Beauty and the Beast, which represents opposing forces within and among us all.  They are the “opposite sides of the road” to return to the previous analogy.  In order for them to be “in accord” with one another, a prerequisite for the “marriage” (reconciliation of opposites), what has been active (Belle) must surrender her will (resistance to the beast’s ugliness/desire for her family) and accept the Beast by becoming passive to Love—which is all-knowing, objective, and holds a middle ground. 

   In this act of surrender, transformation and revelation occur.  The Beast who appeared ugly (unwanted) is now perceived as handsome (desirable), and the two are made one.  The “kingdom” is restored through the union of these two opposites, which can only occur “outside” of their existing tension.

The Lesson

   We must become like Belle if we are to reclaim our “kingdom,” surrendering to what we think we want and don’t want (the oasis and the desert), by: staying awake and keeping it in the road. This act of being is a form of agreement to remain in relationship with that which is higher, lighter, and true both within and among us.  Eventually, we come to see that that which is within us is also among us.  It is all one grand movement.  There is no differentiation. 

   We see this concept illustrated in the Book of Matthew, when Jesus is talking to his disciples.  He says, “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”  Matthew 5: 44-45 The mind of God sees no difference.  We are meant to see no difference.  All of it—what we call the good and the bad—is present in every moment for our own unfolding.  All we are called to do is stay awake, keep it in the road, and take our rightful place in the kingdom of heaven.          

Exercise:  Keep It In The Road

Over the next week, notice when you have been drawn out of present moment awareness into the land of desire (what you want) or the land of resistance (what you don’t want).  Remember your intention to be in accord with all of live and simply return home be yielding your attention back to the here and now.  Keep it in the road!