Heaven-vision and earth-reality²

Heaven-Vision and earth-reality. Heaven-Vision is great; it is appreciated, admired and adored by earth-reality. Earth-reality is good; it is liked, loved and embraced by Heaven-Vision. Heaven-Vision is God’s Duty: eternal expansion. Earth-reality is God’s Beauty: infinite manifestation. Heaven-Vision tells the seeker that there is only one thing that the seeker needs and that is illumination — liberation from the meshes of ignorance. Earth-reality tells the seeker that he needs only one thing and that is transformation — total transformation of his human nature.

When the cry of the finite grows and glows into the smile of the Infinite, we call it liberation. When the darkness of the body is transformed into the light of the soul, we call it transformation. Liberation is of the entire being. Transformation is mainly of the physical nature, the earth-bound nature. Illumination is the connecting link between liberation and transformation.

When one is liberated, one feels and knows that there is another world to take rest in; and when one is transformed, one feels that it is here, here on earth, that he has to manifest the Absolute Supreme. When one is liberated, one feels that he has worked very hard and now it is high time for him to take rest in some other plane of consciousness. When one is transformed, when one’s outer being is transformed by light, one feels that he has been granted the golden opportunity to be a perfect instrument of God here on earth.

The light descends from the soul into the heart. Liberation usually starts with the heart. Then the flame of liberation enters into the vital, which may be aggressive, emotional or animal. And, finally, the flame of liberation enters into the gross physical. The light descends from the soul into the heart, from the heart into the mind, from the mind into the vital and from the vital into the physical. This is how liberation takes place. But transformation starts right in the physical and for the physical, when the light descends from Above.

In the unaspiring human being, Heaven-Vision cannot abide even for a fleeting second. Earth-reality also finds it almost impossible to reside inside the unaspiring human being. But just because human beings remain on earth, with boundless compassion and boundless patience earth-reality does abide inside unaspiring human beings. But it is inside aspiring human beings that Heaven-Vision discovers the only way to reveal God. And inside aspiring human beings earth-reality finds its goal, its only goal: the manifestation of God here on earth.

At the beginning of his spiritual journey, the seeker says to Heaven-Vision, “All that I am is from You. All that I have is from You: it is Your Light, Your Delight, Your Silence, Your Sound.” At the end of the journey’s close, the seeker says to earth-reality, “All that I am and all that I have is for you: infinite patience, infinite compassion, infinite forgiveness.”

Heaven-Vision tells the seeker that if he knows how to believe, then it can make him a perfect instrument of the Absolute Supreme. Earth-reality tells the seeker that if he can listen to the dictates of his Inner Pilot, then earth-reality can make him a perfect instrument of the Absolute Supreme. The sincere seeker knows how to believe and he will believe. He knows how to listen and he will listen to the dictates of his inmost being, the soul, the direct representative of the Supreme.

Heaven-Vision is a flower that grows petal by petal inside each seeker. Earth-reality is a fruit that comes into existence at the end of climbing aspiration in the inner world and soulful dedication and loving self-giving in the outer world. Each seeker deep inside him has Heaven-Vision and earth-reality. The Heaven-Vision in the seeker starts the journey. If the seeker starts with earth-reality, he will be making a Himalayan blunder. Heaven-Vision is the Consciousness-tree. The seeker has to climb up the tree and only then can he share the reality-fruit with the world at large.

When we close the door of the doubting, questioning, suspicious mind and open the door of the loving, sympathising oneness-heart, Heaven-Vision enters into us. When we use our indomitable will to see the face of Truth and to grow into the very name of Truth, earth-reality claims us as its very own. When we cry in the purest recesses of our heart, Heaven-Vision answers. When we smile at the ignorance-sea that is inundating the human world, earth-reality embraces us.

Heaven is vision, earth is reality. Again, earth is vision, Heaven is reality. Heaven is the seed, earth is the fruit. When we look at Heaven-Vision in seed- form, we see that Heaven-Vision is the pioneer. Again, when we look at the fruit which will offer its seeds, we know that earth-reality is the pioneer. Today the seed is the vision and the fruit is the reality. Tomorrow the same fruit will be the unveiling of vision and the seed will be the illumined and fulfilled reality.