I grew up seeing Heaven on Earth all around me. It was a bright, radiant world of shimmering beauty, color, wonder, magic and Divinity. One summer day, barely 5, I recall wandering away from the noisy-busy family inside our brown shingled house in New Jersey and out into the green moving yard, bare feet on fragrant dew-wet grass, bugs jumping ahead of my meandering path, sunlight dancing through gently whispering willow branches moved by a delicious breeze that kissed my forehead and lead me ever deeper into the yard’s mystery and magic. All I saw thrilled me with its indescribable beauty and pulsing power that was, all at the same time, alive, loving and intimate. I was part of a timelessness, an intrepid explorer surrounded and beheld by a Presence that loved me – and everything – unconditionally. And this was just the way it was - no words or explanations were needed it to prove or justify it. I roamed carefree and delighted in this enchanted wonderland, returning often; it was simply my home in the palm of God’s hand. But it was not to last.
My parents had rejected religion (because of the pain it had caused them growing up), choosing science and psychoanalysis instead: they viewed religion as superstition or neurosis. Their implicit message was: You have to have an important self-concept and be successful in the World of Man.
I had to surrender my natural mysticism and my childhood experience of Heaven on Earth – and accept instead our culture’s model of reality – in the process I lost the capacity to see Heaven on Earth –– actually I didn’t lose it, I just lost belief in it – but I’ve been following the thread back ever since: indeed my whole life has been about finding my way home.
Ironically, my father was a powerful influence for this journey home. He asked dinner table questions like: what is the meaning of life? What is the role of a father? – While such questions were really about my father’s depression and unfinished wounds, they spoke to something deep inside my psyche - Why are we here? What is life all about? and the great search began:– I was launched – my journey took me through a Ph.D. in psychology, a D.Min. in religion, four books on the integration of psychology & spirituality, founding and teaching in a spirituality center, and ordination from an interfaith seminary. One day not long ago, I found myself sitting alone in a small bar in Chenai, India imagining a conversation with my father: “Dad, look how far I have come trying to answer your questions! Half a century and halfway around the world I have searched.” Today I share with you the astonishing things I learned on this journey.
So I grew up, became a psychologist, raised a family, but like a homing pigeon, I kept being called back – reading spiritual books, pondering religious questions. Then I made two incredible discoveries: First, searching for an empirical basis for my spiritual memories and intuitions, I began reading first hand mystical experiences – soon I collected hundreds of them – and included many in my first book Death of a Hero, Birth of the Soul – What these people were seeing, I realized, was what I saw in childhood: Heaven on Earth. No one has ever said this!
The second discovery was this: reading the mystics from across religions, I discovered that they’d been saying for centuries that Heaven is already here when you’re awake enough to see it! And I went to collect >100 quotes about Heaven on Earth. Now I was excited. “How come nobody knows about this?!” I wondered.
Then one more really crazy thing had to happen. I was 54, it was the end of a long clinical day, and my heart began to beat erratically. I went to the ER, got defib’ed, and the defib shock triggered body memories of being awake in open heart surgery performed 40 years to the month earlier at age 14 – I had awakened in surgery – it’s called Anesthesia Awareness – I relived this surgery in my body for almost three years and finally, unable to concentrate on my patients’ stories, I closed my practice and walked away. But I learned two really important things from this Dark Night of the Soul: the power of story and the power of waking up from story.
Regarding the power of story, I realized that my trauma had largely been a result of the story I told myself in the surgery – it was an awful story of abandonment, evisceration and death. No wonder it was so traumatic. Had I been given a positive and supportive story before, during and after my surgery, none of this would have happened.
Regarding the power of waking up from story, I realized that my whole life was nothing but a story. Then, in the seven years between closing my practice and signing a book contract for Finding Heaven Here, I basically woke up from my story and I was free and Heaven on Earth lay all around me.
In sum, this had been a huge death-and-rebirth experience. Reliving open-heart surgery as a virtual autopsy experience and then having everything stripped away – identity, profession, and income – I had essentially died and been reborn. But now the veil of story was transparent and I could see the Divine World again.
And that brings me to the present. I realize now that my life’s purpose (like every other mystic) is to help people just like you wake up and find Heaven on Earth too. I believe our survival on Earth literally depends on it. That’s why I’m here.
I often google “heaven on earth” and find virtually no real hits. Am I the only one to see it? Actually, my book coming out in January called “Finding Heaven Here” (o-books.net) presents the testimony of over a hundred mystics - famous and ordinary - who see it, too. So I’m determined to bring this discovery into the world’s collective consciousness. What do you think?
