Speak to us about Heaven and hell.

On the highest spiritual level, we have to know that hell, as well as Heaven, is a plane of consciousness. Both Heaven and hell begin in the mind. Heaven and hell are both states of consciousness deep inside us.

What about the teachings found in some Western religions that one can see God only after death, if one has been good and goes to Heaven?

Heaven and God are not high above us, somewhere far away; they are deep within us, inside our hearts. Heaven is not a distant country where there are trees and houses and other objects; it is a plane of consciousness within us. Seekers of the eternal Truth will realize their eternal Heaven within their aspiring hearts. At every moment we are creating Heaven or hell within us. When we cherish a divine thought, an expanding thought, a fulfilling thought, we create Heaven in us. When we cherish undivine, ugly, obscure, impure thoughts, we are just entering into our own inner hell.

The very conception of Heaven is of something bright, luminous, delightful and, at the same time, immortal. But we have to know what is immortal in us. It is consciousness, the aspiring consciousness in us.