Choosing Heaven

Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we shall come to him and make a home in him¹

A few years ago, I asked one of my friends about the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. I was very anxious to avoid it. I was aware that some kind of recompense has to be paid in purgatory for the sins committed on earth for the purification of souls. I feared it. I inquired about the means to avoid purgatory which were ranging from prayers to good works which all came down to love. I also learned why the purification is necessary and whether I can be assured that purgatory is a transition to heaven and not hell. I realized years later, much with sadness, what C.S Lewis writes about too, in the Problem of Pain.

A good fellow starts a club for people he loves who also love him. This club has members who love the founder of the club and indeed their very membership is hinged on their amount of love. Their membership is revoked if their love for the founder is any less than what love is demanded. The peculiar thing about this club is that the founder is unheard of and just an ordinary man in the world.

No one would happen to know the founder until one seeks him. In direct contrast, everybody, including children, know all about the club. It is as old as Santa Claus or perhaps predates it too. The club they say, 'is the place to be in' in equal queerness. Surprisingly, they neither know a person in the club nor what it involves. All they know is that people in the club are happy and if they can't be in the club, they rather not be anywhere else.

People leave no stone unturned to enter the club but keep deceiving themselves. For, true membership is for those who try to love its founder. They can only begin to love the founder if they have any knowledge of the founder. People are neither interested in the founder nor the criteria he has charted. Everybody, everywhere and everyday claims to have seen the founder and reveal to others, the revelations the founder has made.

But it is plain from the founder’s charter that he expects lots of changes from potential members to be worthy of the soil of his club. But potential members are not looking or willing to change themselves but rather only wish to avail the benefits of the club. Those, that people have since time immemorial attributed to the club as eternal happiness, peace and life among others.

Man often treats God just like this founder. He chooses God not out of pure intention but because he fears hell. He wishes to be in heaven, the 'club to be in' because it is popularly considered to be a happy place. What exactly he expects to find in heaven as his happiness, he does not know. All he knows is a parallel, an analogy here and there or a notion suited to his way of life. Man enjoys women and wine and dine and fast cars and bull fights and excursions and poker and glory. Perhaps he thinks heaven is the continuation of this.

May be he did not have any woman and was advised by the doctor to not have wine. May be he was poor and couldn't afford the luxury of a car. So he thinks he's suffered enough in the world and when he finds out that hell is a place of eternal suffering too, he tries all his might to avoid it or thinks that because he suffered here, in heaven, he would have all that he was deprived.

From all of these perceptions of Heaven, of receiving what one was deprived, continuation of the worldly pleasures, there is a crucial thing missing: Love of God. Love of God and realizing that man’s truest happiness is to be found only in God and he may run behind women, fame, money, materials and other pursuits that are momentary and pass away like the wind but his heart will never be at rest until it finds its rest in God².

The day when man’s heart has taken its refuge in God, every other material thing he possesses will not suddenly be renounced or destroyed for making way for God. These possessions will neither become less sinful nor more virtuous but find its proper order and place in creation and in the mind of a human soul, the highest of Creation, who finds himself in love with God.

While for the man who chooses heaven in essentially choosing God on earth, God chooses heaven for him as a continuation of man's choice so he may rest in Him and His vision. You don't have to love any president, King or founder in order to enter the country, Kingdom or club respectively. This applies to any Kingdom but Heaven. Heaven is the only place where you have to love the master for entering it. And below is perhaps, one of the best arguments I can place for those who claim to be good, nice, kind, loving, living without harming others, minding their business, never interfering with others, peaceful and never really thinking of Heaven or Salvation or God while doing all these and yet think they are entitled to Heaven too.

Nobody chooses heaven and really gains it. It is the same as I can’t enter a house if I don’t know the owner. I can’t appreciate poetry if I don’t know what the Poet is trying to say. I can make of poetry what I wish but that still won’t be an objective truth. It will only stand as my perception. Nobody chooses heaven and really gains it. Unless God wished me to be in heaven against my will which is against God nature to destroy man’s freedom for that God is not a God of mercy and love but a tyrannical God.

We can’t really choose Heaven until we don’t choose what Heaven is all about and choose the source of its entire splendor. When a movie is a roaring success, the directors and actors are probed on how they shot one scene or the other. We all wish to understand how the graceful scenes actually got their nature of grace. How the actors converted their mere skill into a graceful scene . Understanding their reasons helps us better appreciate the movie.

Or think of the Band like The Beatles. There would not be many who devour their music without knowing who the band members are, how they came together, what difficulties they faced, what the songs mean, who their inspirations were and how their music evolved.

Love follows knowledge and knowledge is fostered by love³. When you enjoy the Band, you wish to ‘know’ more about the creators. And this makes you cultivate more knowledge in order that you can love it more perfectly. Knowledge leads Love and Love drives Knowledge. You can’t really choose Heaven until you choose the splendor of Truth of its own creator through Whom Heaven receives its splendor

A man who has never been in love chooses marriage as he has some idea it is a good thing. Two people in love don't choose marriage. Marriage chooses them for marriage is the continuation of their love. Another way it could be understood that a home owner hangs a painting according to how well it lights up the room. A painter chooses a room according to how well it lights up the painting. The home owner chooses the painting for he has some idea it is good but not like the painter choosing the painting because it is the continuation of his love for the paintings whether in the exhibition hall or at home. We should believe in love and in marriage and not only ‘take’ it up because it is believed to be good things.

There are consequences then of destroying the dignity of good things. Heaven too, should be chosen not simply because it is a good place or a good dream of fantasy to entertain. It should be chosen primarily because in Heaven lies the real purpose of life, the consummation and fulfillment of all the answers and the triumphant entry into the final purpose and vision of facing up to the Creator for the eternal life.

These same good things in Heaven can be lost if we destroy the dignity of good things here on earth in all that God allows us to choose in choosing Heaven. That is why for a lot of bitter things we undergo; we can await our answers in Heaven. For a lot of talent but not success, for a lot of success but not talent, for a life which had its own story and melodrama, the real purpose of how God uses us in accordance with our will, awaits its consummation in Heaven.

Heaven after all is the continuation of love you have for the love you show here on earth. God will make for you a house in Heaven if you make a little house in your heart for him on Earth. This is the promise of Jesus Christ when he taught the Jews. The Jews are the center of the act of Salvation and Jesus came to save ‘His’ People but yet implied to them that to every man who loves him and keeps his word, the Father and He will come and make a house in the man and dwell in him. Heaven then becomes the continuation of love we have for God here in our dwelling but achieves its fuller expression in the house that God builds for us in His dwelling, Heaven.

1. John 14:23

2. Writings of St. Augustine

3. Writings of St. Augustine