Are You Living In Heaven or Hell?

Life never changes, it is our perception of it which changes the way that we interact with it.

There exists the odd notion in the world of self development and spirituality that somehow, by working on ourselves, any phenomena which bring with them ‘negative’ experiences will suddenly disappear from around us. This type of practice is generally referred to as ‘manifestation’, and has the individual becoming focused on trying to use some sort of energetic process of focus and intention to bring about change to their external circumstances. This, in some regards, is why many individuals may become so intensely focused on progressing with the process itself. They hope that by achieving this, any unpleasant experiences in their life that they may be subject to will simply vanish into thin air. Hopefully by looking at this idea through the use of an analogy, we can begin to understand why such an approach is flawed.

This subject ties in nicely with the concepts of heaven and hell, and so we will use these concepts as our basis for looking at this principle throughout to gain further insights. The concepts of heaven and hell exist in a number of different religions and traditions around the world, with minor differences between them depending on the context they are found in. The important point though is that, regardless of what tradition we find them in, some basic principles remain true in all cases. We find that heaven is typically seen as our reward for a life lived in accordance with certain divine rules and laws, successfully achieving this granting us admittance to this ‘perfect’ place after our death. Hell then becomes the opposite of this, a place where those individuals who have not managed to keep to these rules and laws end up, living in some perpetual state of misery; punishment for the debts which have to be paid as a result of their transgressions.