This excerpt is from How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying),
Section 3: Purpose.
Section 3: Purpose.
Caught
up in day-to-day life, it’s easy to overlook the miraculous nature of everything
(especially in the morning before our first miraculous cup of coffee), but
all we have to do is be present for one moment and there it is again, pouring
out in every direction we look. Unconsciousness clings onto its defenses, but
when you’re really honest with yourself and recognize the undeniable
interconnectedness of all Life, it’s hard not to appreciate the concept called
pantheism, the idea that absolutely everything is a manifestation of
the Divine.
If
you’ve been practicing the spiritually perspective-enhancing principles from
the first chapters (kindness, humility, honesty, forgiveness, compassion, and
service), you have probably noticed something happening as a result of your
changing view of Life—the undeniable connection that changes you forever.
This
is the realization that it deeply hurts you to cause pain. Causing
injury to another sentient creature creates bad karma for you, and effectively
causes an injury to yourself. You begin to notice that when you say something
that isn’t particularly thoughtful or considerate, it just sounds wrong to
you. Like spilled coffee on a clean white shirt, you can’t wear it well—your
ego may want you to conceal it, but your true self knows you need to quickly
blot it out. Soon, small things that never mattered before come alive in your
conscience. When you see a person being wasteful or exploitative, being a bully
or a braggart, you sense the energy of injustice, of insecurity, of pain; and
you increasingly feel like intervening somehow to possibly correct the impropriety.
Pretty soon you’re capturing bugs in a jar and releasing them out the back door
saying Go be free, my little bug friend.
You
may start feeling a little out of place from the growing sensitivity to your
surroundings, but this perceptual and behavioral change is really a very good
thing. When you notice the harm you can do to Life when you’re not conscious of
your actions, it means you’re beginning to develop the sensibilities of an
angel.
You’re beginning to see and feel what Heaven looks and feels like.
Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!