Kingdom Come

This won't take long . . .

. . . but it needs to be said.

We've got it all wrong. People of passionate faith believe in a place, either real or quasi-real, that the devout resort to after death. It is viewed as a place of splendor, a heaven, a paradise. Some see rewards dispensed for their faithfulness: wings, halos, crowns, or virgins. It matters not the religion, the view is that the faithful and the good will leave this wicked world for a better place, while all the enemies of the faith will go to a place far worse.

Those who do not believe also have an opinion about the afterlife. They see a pipe dream with all the silly flutter of cardboard wings, they see the wishful thinking of the male libido, egotism, fantasy, and thought structures not thoroughly rooted in science.

What if I told you all of us are wrong? What if I told you there no Heaven, no Paradise, Nirvana, or Valhalla. I do not mean this in the sense that the unbelievers have already postulated in countless tirades. I mean there is no place outside the human experience, and again, this is not intended as the same argument as that of the unbelieving.

There is a place, but it is a place in the spirit – by which, I mean the mind. There is a kingdom, there is a paradise, but so far, all of us have wholly misinterpreted the subject. Our normal misinterpretation involves a movement from one outside to another outside, all being separate from and external to the conscious identity.

The Pharisees, masters of the law of God, also got it wrong. Their concept of a kingdom was a place of victory for the nation of Israel, a place where the tyrannical rule of Rome was crushed beneath the heel of Abraham. In Luke 17:20-21, the Pharisees demanded Jesus to tell them when the Kingdom of their God would come.

Jesus answered, 'When? 'You can look for it til you turn blue in the face and you'll never see it coming. You can observe the stars, the prophecies of old, or anything you like – there are no signs. Neither may anyone say the kingdom is in the east or in the west, in this nation or that.'

As plainly as anyone could ever say anything, Jesus told them in Luke 17:21, “the kingdom of God is within you.”

Let me put that in perspective. If the kingdom is within the conscious identity of the individual, the king is also there. As Jesus said in John 4:24, “God is a spirit.” Here, we must understand that 'spirit' is not something outside the human condition – it is the human condition. It is what makes us who we are. Aside from so many pounds of flesh, there is only the spirit to define who and what we are. The body, despite the science, is merely a vehicle for the spirit.

Each of us has a spirit – by which I mean, a conscious identity.

Each of us has a spirit – by which I mean, God is a spirit. Each of us is a part, or extension, of the same conscious identity that is God, the same spirit, the same mind. Each of us, as a spiritual seed, has been planted in mortal clay. Some seeds will grow and be harvested, increasing the one who planted the seed. Some seeds will not grow at all. Some seeds will grow wild and be slated for a fiery end, as when the stubble and refuse of a field are burned.

Each of us is a part of God. What we make of that is in our hands. The kingdom is inside of us; the king is inside of us. And yet, the flesh will always perish. We seem to be tied to the eternal wheel of life and death. Where and when does the kingdom come if it is inside of us?

We look for something better. We look for it outside of ourselves, outside of our daily practices and rituals, outside of our thoughts and intent – anywhere other than where we actually are. We are here, each of us with our own little part of God and his kingdom inside of us. Sadly, we do not do the things that might bring God's kingdom to bear. Here, within the societies on earth, in each of us, in our own time, we might produce God's kingdom on earth – with the right efforts.

Connect the dots: there is one king, there is one kingdom, and all of that lies within the human condition. Each of us has a spirit. God is a spirit. Are you looking for the kingdom of the spirit? It is within.