If you fail to choose heaven, you are headed for hell

"Those who do not put themselves in service of the light necessarily serve the darkness. This is an implacable law. Willingly or not, consciously or not, if you fail to choose heaven, you are headed for hell. If you do not make the decision to climb, you will come tumbling down. You may think: ‘The light? Heaven? What on earth is that? I want to be free!’ Well, you will not be able to prevent the forces of darkness from coming to dwell in you. Those who seek this kind of freedom will discover slavery. They fail to realize that they are placing themselves under the influence of dark entities which are only interested in exploiting them. They get mixed up in things, imagining it is they themselves who desire and decide, when in fact they are carrying out someone else’s business. Most people are like children when it comes to understanding freedom: they believe they are free when they engage in all sorts of unreasonable and dangerous things, which will eventually limit or even destroy them. They open the cages of wild beasts which will tear them apart and devour them. Only the wise know that to be free they must first limit themselves, by placing themselves in service of the divine world."

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

 

i am not sure what religious perspective you are assuming this from, as may have different accounts of what is heaven. but are you saying that everybody in the world who doesn't accept your 'religions' heaven have evil spirits? i have known many beautiful people (by beautiful i mean by nature) who are from all beliefs, yes even atheism. they didn't seem to host evil spirits. and also i have met quite a few people who believe in heaven and believe they are going yet do not act so 'heavenly' and still act as others do, and also worse, because of their arragance of their faith, they believe therefore they do not need to look at themselfs
peacex

 

This idea assumes some things. First that there is a heaven, second, that there is a hell. Third, that "the dark" has it's own essence, rather than actually just being an absence of light.

Also, if the light penetrates to all, then how is anything in the dark? Perhaps one's face is in the dark, but their backside must necessarily be in the light.

Of course, I am not a dualist, so I think that "the light" is the only thing that exists, and all that must be done is to realize that.

 

sorry, double post

 

Taking 'heaven' and 'hell' in a broad or allegorical sense, it makes sense.

If you take 'hell' to be the instinctual nature, and 'heaven' to be a higher or divine side of our being.

 

I don't know what your definition of freedom is but placing myself in "service" meaning I'm a slave doesn't seem all that free to me. Freedom to me doesn't mean choose the light or suffer hell. What kind of "free" choice is that? It's do it or else. And if I have that kind of so called "choice" I'll glady hop right into hell before ever going to a place like heaven where your admitance is based on how afraid you are of torture.

 

religious exclusivism bites. Using the fear of consequences in an attempt to control people is abusive behavior. To do that using religion is spiritual abuse. I'm not afraid of the darkness, I welcome it. In the beginning there was only the darkness, the darkness of Mother's Womb. And Father penetrated that darkness with his Light, bringing forth existence. It takes two to create. Christianity villified the darkness and murdered anyone found worshipping the Mother. And we (society in general) still think of anything feminine as bad or evil, because of that. How sad. How wrong.

 

What about those who are controlled only by instinct or modified forms of instinct - like Hitler for instance with his 'territorial demands in Europe' - that seems like darkness to me, and it is rooted in the lower, un-evolved animal side of human nature. In this case the fact that primates are territorial creatures. Same with things like sexual abuse - they all come from the depths of the psyche - reffered to as 'hell' in primitive systems of psychology. This idea that hell is a place you go after death if you are bad is mainly a fantasy designed to control societies before TV etc were invented.

 

I don't disagree, but that isn't what the OP is saying. The OP is saying you either choose his God or you burn in Hell forever. That is religious exclusivism at its finest, when someone says that their religion is the one true religion and everyone else is going to be punished for eternity. That is using fear of the consequences (the ultimite consequence) to force people into following a certain ideology. And that is spiritual abuse, in its most socially acceptable form, which makes it that much more dangerous.

 

Those who believe they're serving the light are always the darkest of hearts.

Those who make no such distinctions are always the lightest of hearts.

Heaven and Hell are symbolic archetypes of wholeness and alienation.

PS,
SOMEBODY has adorable dreds!

 

This person only sees in black and white. There is much more to the world than that.

Mamaboogie, your posts were great and I agree completely.

 

well , this person sees Up and Down and Black and White . what of In and Out can be said ? i just went out and took a little street survey ...

the question : finish this sentence ... " there are two kinds of people in this world .... ?

and the responses .

1. givers and takers
2. good and bad
3. sheep and goats
4. can't answer that question

Girl of #4 was wearing a t-shirt that said "love one another" .

yes , i think it would be absurd to say , "there are two kinds of people in this world ... those i love and those i don't . "

 

I don't believe the original poster was trying to push any specific religion or species of religious thought.

I think what Mr. Aivanhov is talking about is a principle that's represented in (perhaps) all religions, philosophys, and even pyschotherapy;

Choosing truth (not any specific religious truth, just truth in the sense of what ever you see when you look at the world with your eyes open) over denial, or ignorance.

 

how in the world can you think that?

okay, let's look at the OP, shall we?

this implies a belief in heaven and hell, good and evil, which are necessarily religious beliefs, deep-rooted in Christianity in particular, and very pervasive in our society even to those people who do not consider themselves to be Christian. Yes, it is a very religious idea that there is some sort of objective Truth. It is not a principle inherent in all philosophies, or psychology, except those colored by the Christian belief in heaven and hell, good and evil, or that there exists any sort of Absolute. The concept of a duality between good and bad are simply matters of perspective. The OP is most certainly coming from a religious, I daresay Christian, point of view.
and then he concludes with,

if there is any doubt about the entire thing being religious in nature, this sums it up. "the divine world" is the "light" and "heaven" and any who turn against it go to "hell" and are serving "the forces of darkness." Just because most, if not all, organized religions hold somewhat similar exclusive beliefs, doesn't make religious exclusivism any more acceptable or any less dangerous to the people who believe it.

I don't see him returning to defend or explain his post.

 

I already explained this.

I think you're getting hung up on terms. It sounds more like you're objecting to the posters intentions, and we have no way of actually knowing what they were, than what he said, all of which could be taken metophorically.

Everyone has they're own idea of what heaven and hell is.

He may well be speaking of a literal heaven or hell, but I get the feeling he's not. at least not in the typical christian sense, ie, as a place you go for punishment or reward after you die.

The light could just as easily be interpreted to mean truth. And again, I'm not talking about any absolute, objective truth, I mean truth in the sense of whatever you see when you look at the world with your eyes open, as opposed to living in "darkness" (denial, prejudice, opinion, repression, ignorance).

Except that it doesn't tell us what they are.

I didn't see him making any qualitative judgements anywhere in his post. Sounds more like he was talking about cause and effect.

I know this sounds like a stupid question but what do you mean by "christianity" exactly?

Reason I ask is because I've been studying it pretty intensely for like 9 months now and I still don't know what it is.

One thing I am pretty sure of though is that alot, maybe most, of what the people who call themselves christians say is in the bible actually isn't;

I've been trying to find some reference to the christian version of hell in the old testemant and so far I haven't been able to.

There are alot of places where the word "sheol" is translated as "hell" but if you read it in context you see that the author is talking about a state of being or a state of mind--not a place of eternal punishment that you go to after you die. that version of "hell" isn't in there anywhere (that I've been able to find).

Even the places in the gospels ( New Testament) where hell is mentioned, if you read them in context, you'll see how the typical christian interpretation of the word doesn't really make sense. It seems more like Jesus was talking, again, about a state of being than as a place of eternal damnation;

"...the outer darkness, where there will be much wailing and grinding of teeth" could be interpreted to mean a state of ignorance.

The things the gospels say about heaven could be more reasonably interpreted the same way, ie, as a state of being rather than a place you go to after you die;

"the Kingdom of God is here and now"
"The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed (ie, something that grows within you).

Yeah, we've all been brainwashed to some extent by what's usually called "christianity" in our society.

One of the hangovers from that is they've made "God" a dirty word and kept alot of people who might be intellegent and openminded enough to get some value out of the bible from even considerring looking at it.

Ironic since, like I said, most of what they believe isn't even in there.

Like I say, we're not talking about an objective truth here, we're talking about truth as a principle, a way of looking at the world.

Percieving things honestly, to whatever extent our perception permits.

Discovering and facing "the light" (the truth) is what philosophy, psychology, and for that matter any science is all about;

All philosophy is is a quest for the truth about reality.

All pyshcology is is a quest for truth about the human mind. It's a fundemental pyschological principle that most mental illness is a denial of reality in one way shape or form.

 

Labelling something "religious" or "non religious" is itself an act of dualistic thinking, as is labelling something "dualistic', as is labeling anything at all.

Maybe he thinks the world is divine.

The fact that he doesn't seem to feel like he needs to defend his post makes me think even more that he's not talking about religion..

 

^or he's just stirring up controversey, which it seems he did pretty well. Still, it'd be nice if he came back to explain himself.

And for some reason, he sounded more Islamic to me; I'm not sure why.

 

He's not Islamic - I did a web search.
http://www.frankperry.co.uk/aivanhov.htm

It looks more like a type of esoteric christianity.

 

He claims to represent 'the great white brotherhood' - a common cliche in occultist type literature.

I don't like the 'white' very much - it smacks a bit of racism. And 'brotherhood' may exclude sisters perhaps.........

 

See trippin, here's the irony; almost everyone in this thread seems to feel like they have to make some kind of determination about who and what the OP is, what religion he's representing, and what his motives are before they can even consider trying to understand what he's saying.

This is exactly what religious people do; focusing on the messanger (his nature, his intentions, his affiliations) rather than trying to understand the message.

If the message his any inherant value, then who cares where it comes from.

If it doesn't, why waste time sizing up the messanger?