I believe heaven is both a state of mind and a place in the afterlife, what do you think?

If heaven is also a place on earth and therefore a state of mind, then we have to feed the good thoughts in our mind.

I like the balance this creates - heaven as a mindset we nurture daily, and as a mystery that awaits beyond. 

That duality makes it more powerful, because it motivates us to live well now while holding onto hope for later.

When we nurture joy for example then we create a mental "heaven" that shapes how we experience life.
Joy acts almost like a doorway into that "heaven on earth" state of mind because when we consciously nurture joy, even in small ways, it reshapes how we perceive challenges, and daily routines.

It's less about escaping reality and more about transforming it from within.

In this sense, joy isn't just an emotion, it's a lens that colors the world, turning ordinary experiences into extraordinary ones. We need to feed joy, but don't become blind to the pain of others, so it's a balance because joy without awareness of suffering can become shallow, even escapist, but focusing only on pain without cultivating joy can leave us drained.
 
Balance is what makes life feel whole.

I guess life is a dance.

(11-23-2025, 04:35 AM)LightAngel Wrote: I believe heaven is both a state of mind and a place in the afterlife, what do you think?

Catholicism says it's a state of being ... 

Both St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis have called Heaven a 'state of being'.
"A personal living relationship with God".

Pope John Paul II - Heaven "is neither an abstraction not a physical place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity. It is our meeting with the Father which takes place in the risen Christ through the communion of the Holy Spirit,"   July 21, 1999 General Audience.

Catholic Catechism - "this perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed is called "heaven'. Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfilment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness" (1024).

"Incorporeal things are not in place after a manner known and familiar to us, in which way we say that bodies are properly in place; but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us." [St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Q69, a1, reply 1]

There is so much more to our existance that we dont know and while I dont want to live in the sand, but thats kinda a possibility.

Heaven, to me, is the place where we return home after our souls have experienced physical life, love, pain and suffering. We return home and find our loved ones, entities that we have been bonded with for ages and we reconnect and share our experiences together from our time in the school of hard knocks. Both here on earth and other worlds.

I believe that we return home and continue to grow and learn in order to advance our souls closer to the source, the creator.

My beliefs are unencumbered by organized religions and proselytizing, but are the result of many years of research and inward thought.

My 2 pesos…

Tecate

(11-23-2025, 09:08 AM)Tecate Wrote: Heaven, to me, is the place where we return home after our souls have experienced physical life, love, pain and suffering. We return home and find our loved ones, entities that we have been bonded with for ages and we reconnect and share our experiences together from our time in the school of hard knocks. Both here on earth and other worlds.

I believe that we return home and continue to grow and learn in order to advance our souls closer to the source, the creator.

My beliefs are unencumbered by organized religions and proselytizing, but are the result of many years of research and inward thought.

My 2 pesos…

Tecate

 
I agree, and I think you expressed this very good.

(11-23-2025, 04:35 AM)LightAngel Wrote: I believe heaven is both a state of mind and a place in the afterlife, what do you think?

If heaven is also a place on earth and therefore a state of mind, then we have to feed the good thoughts in our mind.

I like the balance this creates - heaven as a mindset we nurture daily, and as a mystery that awaits beyond. 

That duality makes it more powerful, because it motivates us to live well now while holding onto hope for later.

When we nurture joy for example then we create a mental "heaven" that shapes how we experience life.
Joy acts almost like a doorway into that "heaven on earth" state of mind because when we consciously nurture joy, even in small ways, it reshapes how we perceive challenges, and daily routines.

It's less about escaping reality and more about transforming it from within.

In this sense, joy isn't just an emotion, it's a lens that colors the world, turning ordinary experiences into extraordinary ones. We need to feed joy, but don't become blind to the pain of others, so it's a balance because joy without awareness of suffering can become shallow, even escapist, but focusing only on pain without cultivating joy can leave us drained.
 
Balance is what makes life feel whole.

I guess life is a dance.

As a Christian, the bible describes heaven as an individual relationship with God, assuming this Godly relationship will bleed out into the relationship we have with others. 
Apart from that, not a lot of details
But, to be in a relationship with someone who loves me, sounds good

(11-23-2025, 09:08 AM)Tecate Wrote: Heaven, to me, is the place where we return home after our souls have experienced physical life, love, pain and suffering. We return home and find our loved ones, entities that we have been bonded with for ages and we reconnect and share our experiences together from our time in the school of hard knocks. Both here on earth and other worlds.

I believe that we return home and continue to grow and learn in order to advance our souls closer to the source, the creator.

My beliefs are unencumbered by organized religions and proselytizing, but are the result of many years of research and inward thought.

My 2 pesos…

Tecate

You should be very grateful here on earth, with your loved ones
my loved ones have always been my biggest difficulties.

(11-23-2025, 04:35 AM)LightAngel Wrote: I believe heaven is both a state of mind and a place in the afterlife, what do you think?

I kinda have the view of a reform jew hijacked by a Therevada Buddhist. Lots of nonduality. 

I dont believe in a bodily resurrection, and I dont believe in an everlasting soul, form, or otherwise. I think getting to heaven is more a guideline for how to make your temporary life closer to heaven.

I also hijacked "samsara" (rebirth) from buddhism..

The long and the short being, your afterlife is set by what you do while here and the impact you have through your actions. (Karma and Dharma)

Like St. Theresa vs Ted Bundy. 

St. Theresa's impact is awesome. She fed the starving and lovingly touched many lives. Nothing but awesome work with extremely positive energy all around. While some can see her afterlife as in heaven, I can see her afterlife as the legacy and immortality of her living impact.

Ted Bundy caused pain, grief, trauma, and death. He beget hatred and nothing but negativity. He subtracted instead off added to the zero sum impact total.  So now, all his sins will be remember'd with the rapist serial killer shitbag that had their death cheered. A photo of insanity, and a legacy that will burn in the hell of pure archetypal evil.

For many things supernatural I see echos of legacy before sentience. The dramatic reverberates forever in the unconscious collective.   

And maybe in space/time itself, or some kind of resonance, but that's a different topic altogether.

Heaven!!!

I found a NASA photograph:

From: Wikipedia: Atmosphere

Quote:View of the crescent moon through the top of the Earth's atmosphere. Photographed above 21.5°N, 113.3°E by International Space Station crew Expedition 13 over the South China Sea, just south of Macau (NASA image ID: ISS013-E-54329).

When I looked up Heaven in Wikipedia I noticed that the earliest etymologies relate to "covering" and "stone". It's like at the dawn of language, humans were thinking that the heaven or sky was a solid stone dome over the Earth.

Now days most people have a different worldview than did the ancients. It's like heaven is the atmosphere; densest in the troposphere; closest to the Earth; close enough to walk around in and breathe even.

So one may say:

If you are living on Earth then you are living in Heaven.

I believe Heaven is a place in the afterlife.  As others have said, this is where we would go to meet God, return the the light...or whatever you believe.  

I do not believe Heaven is something we can experience here on this earth.  Yes, you can achieve a state of euphoria or blissful happiness but I don't think it compares to the feeling of Heaven.  Of course, these could be human feelings and then all bets are off.

If you want to go biblical, there cannot be Heaven here as the devil holds dominion over the earth.  Not until the second coming and the thousand year peace would that be possible.