The Kingdom of Heaven

Question: Would you care to elaborate on the statement, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you"?

Sri Chinmoy: First let me say that it is science that has greatly contributed to the general feeling that Heaven is a place outside of ourselves. Science has exercised its power on the conscious and subconscious planes of human thinking. The twentieth-century idea of Heaven, in the West at any rate, is leading mankind in the wrong direction in its conception of Heaven.

The Kingdom of Heaven is something that we can feel, and not something that we can demonstrate. Science can demonstrate many things. But the Kingdom of Heaven is a matter of our own inner achievement. If we have realised the Kingdom of Heaven within ourselves, others will look at us and feel that we have something quite unusual, unearthly and supernal. Because we have seen and felt and possessed the Kingdom of Heaven within ourselves, they will regard us as a totally transformed extraordinary being.

Needless to say, it is our aspiration, our mounting inner cry, that leads us to this Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is a plane full of Peace and Delight. We feel it when we reside deep within ourselves and when we transcend our egocentric individual consciousness. The higher we go beyond our limited consciousness, the quicker we enter into our deepest, infinite consciousness, the more intimately we shall see, feel and possess the Kingdom of Heaven within ourselves.

To be sure, the Kingdom of Heaven is more than just a mere plane, like other planes. It is a plane of divine Consciousness. It is a state of Realisation. It embodies Sat-Chit-Ananda. Sat is divine Existence, Chit is divine Consciousness, Ananda is divine Bliss. When we go deep within we feel these three together, and when we acquire the inner vision to perceive them all at once, we live verily in the Kingdom of Heaven. Otherwise, Existence is at one place, Consciousness is somewhere else and Bliss is nowhere near the other two. When we see and feel Existence-Consciousness-Bliss on the selfsame plane, each complementing and fulfilling the others, we can say that we live in the Kingdom of Heaven. Yes, the Kingdom of Heaven is within us. Not only can we feel it, but without the least possible doubt, we can become it.

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