Afterlife

"Buffy: I was happy. Wherever I was... I was happy... at peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time... didn't mean anything. Nothing had form. But I was still me, you know? And I was warm. And I was loved. And I was finished. Complete. I - I don't understand theology or dimensions, any of it really... but I think I was in heaven. And now I'm not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out, by my friends. Everything here is hard and bright and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch. This is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that. Knowing what I've lost. They can never know. Never."

"Grace respects the gifts of nature, adds to their power and value by purifying, elevating and bringing them to completion. The world of spirits and glorified bodies will be no less glowingly varied, contrasted, individual in its members than this earth and its inhabitants. There you will see every man as God created him, with his own special qualities fixed in their perfection: to the great surprise, no doubt, of those simple, harmless folk who smile superiorly and fear that heaven would bore them."

"Heaven is the day of which grace is the dawn; the rich, ripe fruit of which grace is the lovely flower; the inner shrine of that most glorious temple to which grace forms the approach and outer court."

"Well, now, like I told that other fellow, I ain't going to set foot in heaven without rip."

"Nothing is further than Earth from Heaven: nothing is nearer than Heaven to Earth."

"He who seldom thinks of heaven is not likely to get thither; as the only way to hit the mark is to keep the eye fixed upon it."

"Phil When I die I'll go to heaven, cause I've spent my time in hell. Grenada, '83 ."

"Going back to more ancient times, the four pillars were broken; the nine provinces were in tatters. Heaven did not completely cover [the earth]; Earth did not hold up [Heaven] all the way around [its circumference]. Fires blazed out of control and could not be extinguished; water flooded in great expanses and would not recede. Ferocious animals ate blameless people; predatory birds snatched the elderly and the weak. Thereupon, Nüwa smelted together five-colored stones in order to patch up the azure sky, cut off the legs of the great turtle to set them up as the four pillars, killed the black dragon to provide relief for Ji Province, and piled up reeds and cinders to stop the surging waters. The azure sky was patched; the four pillars were set up; the surging waters were drained; the province of Ji was tranquil; crafty vermin died off; blameless people [preserved their] lives."

"For look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth;"

"The redeemed shall walk there."

"Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there."

"Anas said, Allah be well-pleased with him: The Messenger of Allah said, upon him blessings and peace: “The servant in Paradise shall be married with seventy wives.” Someone said, “Messenger of Allah, can he bear it?” He said: “He will be given strength for a hundred.” From Zayd ibn Arqam, Allah be well-pleased with him, when an incredulous Jew or Christian asked the Prophet, upon him blessings and peace, “Are you claiming that a man will eat and drink in Paradise??” He replied: “Yes, by the One in Whose hand is my soul, and each of them will be given the strength of a hundred men in his eating, drinking, coitus, and pleasure.”"

"I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance."

"Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in one place after another food shortages and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and from heaven great signs."

"No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life."

"And war broke out in heaven: Mi′cha·el and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled 8 but it did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any longer in heaven. 9 So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven say:"

"From the acorn, quickly sprouting, Mighty Tursas, tall and hardy, Grows the oak-tree, tall and stately, Pressed compactly all the grasses, From the ground enriched by ashes, That the maidens had been raking, Newly raked by water-maidens; When a fire within them kindles, Spread the oak-tree's many branches, And the flames shot up to heaven, Rounds itself a broad corona, Till the windrows burned to ashes, Raises it above the storm-clouds; Only ashes now remaining Far it stretches out its branches, Of the grasses raked together. Stops the white-clouds in their courses, In the ashes of the windrows, With its branches hides the sunlight, Tender leaves the giant places, With its many leaves, the moonbeams, In the leaves he plants an acorn, And the starlight dies in heaven."

"Blessed is the pilgrim, who in every place, and at all times of this his banishment in the body, calling upon the holy name of Jesus, calleth to mind his native heavenly land, where his blessed Master, the King of saints and angels, waiteth to receive him. Blessed is the pilgrim who seeketh not an abiding place unto himself in this world; but longeth to be dissolved, and be with Christ in heaven."

"Who goes to Deva Chan? The personal Ego of course, but beatified, purified, holy. Every Ego [soul] —the combination of the sixth and seventh principles—which, after the period of unconscious gestation is reborn into the Deva-Chan, is of necessity as innocent and pure as a new-born babe. The fact of his being reborn at all, shows the preponderance of good over evil in his old personality. And while the Karma (of evil) steps aside for the time being to follow him in his future earth-reincarnation, he brings along with him but the Karma of his good deeds, words, and thoughts into this Deva-Chan. Bad is a relative term for us... and the Law of Retribution is the only law that never errs. Hence all those who have not slipped down into the mire of unredeemable sin and bestiality—go to the Deva Chan. They will have to pay for their sins, voluntary and involuntary, later on. Meanwhile, they are rewarded; receive the effects of the causes produced by them. Of course it is a state, one, so to say, of intense selfishness, during which an Ego reaps the reward of his unselfishness on earth. He is completely engrossed in the bliss of all his personal earthly affections, preferences and thoughts, and gathers in the fruit of his meritorious actions. No pain, no grief nor even the shadow of a sorrow comes to darken the bright horizon of his unalloyed happiness: for, it is a state of perpetual "Maya.""

"Most emphatically the Deva-Chan is not solely the heritage of adepts, and most decidedly there is a heaven—if you must use this astro-geographical Christian term—for an immense number of those who have gone before."... For years, decades, centuries and milleniums, often times multiplied by something more. It all depends upon the duration of Karma. Fill with oil Den's little cup and a city Reservoir of water, and lighting both see which bums the longer, the Ego is the wick and Karma the oil: the difference in the quantity of the latter (in the cup and the reservoir) suggesting to you the great difference in the duration of various Karmas. Every effect must be proportionate to the cause. And, as man's terms of incarnate existence bear but a small proportion to his periods of inter-natal existence in the manvantaric cycle, so the good thoughts, words, and deeds of any one of these lives on a globe are causative of effects, the working out of which requires far more time than the evolution of the causes occupied."

"If heaven ain't a lot like Detroit, I don't want to go. If heaven ain't a lot like Detroit, I'd just a soon stay home. If they ain't got no 8 Mile like they do in "The D", just send me to hell or Salt Lake City. It would be about the same to me."

"Only by looking up, can we see heaven."

"The generous who is always just, and the just who is always generous, may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven."

"Instead of consigning some men to heaven and some to hell, as moderm theology does, it would be more true to say that every man must pass through both the states which are typified by those names. Every man must pass through the astral plane on his way to the heaven world. Every man at the end of his astral life will attain that heaven world, unless he be a person so entirely elementary, so entirely degraded as never yet to have had any unselfish thought or feeling. If that be so, there can indeed be no heaven world for him, because all these selfish desires and feelings belong exclusively to the astral plane, and they will find their result on that plane."

"Our religious friends argue much about heaven and hell and are terribly afraid of the latter indeed it would sometimes almost seem as though they were afraid of the former as well, from the manner in which they exert themselves to avoid going there. In the future no questions or disputes about these conditions will be possible, because man will see for himself that there is no hell, though he will also see very clearly that those who live an evil life are by that fact storing up for themselves very undesirable results and a very unpleasant time in the astral life. The glories of the heaven world will also be open to his sight, and he will realize that man needs only a development of faculty in order to place him at once, here and now, in the midst of all the bliss that that wondrous life can give."

"Aim at heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in': aim at earth and you will get neither."

"Sinead was pretty sure heaven was part of the whole God-lie."

"If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. So they are spared the guilt and anxiety that so torment human beings and they are full of the sheer joy of living, taking delight not so much in persons or things as in life itself. As long as your happiness is caused or sustained by something or someone outside of you, you are still in the land of the dead. The day you are happy for no reason whatsoever, the day you find yourself taking delight in everything and in nothing, you will know that you have found the land of unending joy called the kingdom."

"It were a journey like the path to heaven, To help you find them."

"The hasty multitude Admiring enter'd, and the work some praise, And some the architect: his hand was known In heaven by many a tower'd structure high, Where scepter'd angels held their residence, And sat as princes."

"A heaven on earth."

"The starry cope Of heaven."

"Though in heav'n the trees Of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines Yield nectar."

"Heaven open'd wide Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound On golden hinges moving."

"Had Jesus completed his mission as the Messiah on earth, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth would have been established in his day. The Kingdom of Heaven in heaven would also have been realized at that time, once people of perfect character living in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth had passed into the spirit world as divine spirits. However, because Jesus died on the cross, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth was not realized. The earth never saw the appearance of people who had reached the level of a divine spirit. No one has ever become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven in the spirit world, which was created as the home of divine spirits. Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven in heaven remains empty and incomplete."

"Through death Christian's soul goes to—1st. Perfect purity 2dly. Fullness of joy. 3dly. Everlasting freedom. 4thly. Perfect rest. 5thly. Health and fruition. 6thly. Complete security. 7thly. Substantial and eternal good."

"且吾所以知天之愛民之厚者有矣，曰以磨為日月星辰，以昭道之；制為四時春秋冬夏，以紀綱之；雷降雪霜雨露，以長遂五穀麻絲，使民得而財利之；列為山川谿谷，播賦百事，以臨司民之善否；為王公侯伯，使之賞賢而罰暴；賊金木鳥獸，從事乎五穀麻絲，以為民衣食之財。自古及今，未嘗不有此也。"

"The number of levels in Heaven is the number of verses in the Qur'an. Thus, when a reciter of the Qur'an enters into Heaven, it will be said to him: 'Go up one level for every verse that you can recite.' Thus, no one will be in a higher level than the one who has memorized the entire Qur'an."

"The people of the Qur’an (those who recite and those who memorize the Qur’an) will be in the highest level (in Heaven) from amongst all of the people with the exception of the Prophets and Messengers. Thus, do not seek to degrade the people of the Qur’an, nor take away their rights, for surely they have been given a high rank by Allah."

"The Prophet said, "Nobody who dies and finds good from Allah (in the hereafter) would wish to come back to this world even if he were given the whole world and whatever is in it, except the martyr who, on seeing the superiority of martyrdom, would like to come back to the world and get killed again (in Allah's cause). The Prophet said, "A single endeavor (of fighting) in Allah's cause in the afternoon or in the forenoon is better than all the world and whatever is in it. A place in Paradise as small as the bow or lash of one of you is better than all the world and whatever is in it. And if a houri from Paradise appeared to the people of the earth, she would fill the space between Heaven and the Earth with light and pleasant scent and her head cover is better than the world and whatever is in it.""

"It is a nice place, actually, one of those infinitely rare situations where one is rewarded commensurately to one’s efforts. Surely that is Heaven by any man’s definition?"

"Have you been wondering just where we are? After all, theologians have debated for centuries over the exact location of Heaven. Some have said that Heaven can be found beyond the stars. Some say it exists in the heart of Man, and others claim that it does not exist at all, that God is dead, or at least unemployed."

"Stan: What purpose does school have? The Bible says the only goal in this life is to praise God and get into heaven."

"The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firmament showeth his handywork."

"Each time we sleep with a Houri we find her virgin. Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you would faint. Each chosen one [i.e. Muslim] will marry seventy [sic] houris, besides the women he married on earth, and all will have appetizing vaginas."

"And in the earth are signs for those who are sure, And in yourselves do you not see? And in the heavens is your sustenance and that which you are promised. So by the Lord of the heavens and the earth! it is surely the truth, just as you speak."

"Who would want to be trapped in a house with an indomitable telepathic despot and have to guard your thoughts –or be voluntarily mindless- and endure that existence forever and ever?"

"Judas: All your followers are blind Too much Heaven on their minds It was beautiful but now it's sour Yes, it's all, all gone sour."

"To everything (turn, turn, turn) There is a season (turn, turn, turn) And a time for every purpose under heaven."

"Heaven's face doth glow."