Heaven

In passing conversation about the recent death of a loved one, someone casually says to me they believe they will go to heaven after they die—for which I gently reply:

“Which part of you—your body or just your mind?” 

"I don’t know. I guess some semblance of my previous self. ‘Me' in another form?” he says with a bit of agitation for being challenged about what is considered to be a widely accepted belief. 

"Okay,” I ask, “What will you do when you get there and for how long do you think heaven will remain interesting for you?”

"How would I know...Jeez!” he answers with exasperation. 

I don’t press on, but I continue to wonder to myself about the idea of a heaven. Everyone pictures themselves in an afterlife as a younger, better version of their old self surrounded by the people they love. I’m not mocking it, I’m just asking how this would be any different than how things are now? Because if it’s the same as this worldly life, I’m afraid there isn’t much to look forward to. Let me explain.

If heaven were to actually exist, it would mean that it would still have to be a world of opposites where for every up there’s a down and where for every gain, there’s some pain. Perhaps in heaven God programs beings differently so no one suffers due to ignorance, and everyone actually enjoys their ephemeral existence in harmony with His laws. Or maybe heaven is simply having a perfect understanding of our experience so that we can enjoy it without any false expectations.

Anyway, heaven isn’t what people really want. What they really want is peace, that is, a life free of burden. They want a refuge away from all their agitating desires, fears and neurotic thoughts. They want some respite from the ignorance that drives them mad on a daily basis. 

Heaven is just a concept, one that seems probable only because of our dualistic perspective. But in the end, heaven would be just more samsara. Furthermore, just like in this world, in heaven, we would eventually begin to question our experience and develop a desire to be free from its limitations—heavenly limitations, but nevertheless, limitations. 

What kind of limitations, you ask? 

For example, what if I don’t want to be in heaven anymore, get bored of heaven, get tired of it all, and miss the grittiness of worldly life? If being unbounded is our ultimate objective, then even heaven would be unsatisfactory. 

Perhaps this is why being alive in this human form is so sacred. Because only in this human form can we ever really work through our stuff, and gain the actual freedom we ultimately seek. 

From "The Broken Tusk - Seeing Through the Lens of Vedanta"