Do we not find it quite possible, to say the least, and even desirable, to live in such a family, particularly if we had previously acquired a knowledge of that which is evil and that which is good—­merely terms used to describe limited, or enlarged consciousness.

If we admit the desirability of living in such a family, why not in such a world?  “Logically stated,” says the Hindu swami, “this means that man’s goal is this world (earth planet); carried to a state higher and with the elimination of its evils, this world is the state (place) they call heaven.”

Again we must question.  Why not?

This planet we call earth, is a great and marvelous work, whether it be the work of an abstract God, or whether it be the work of the god in Man.

And whether this earth be the gift of an abstract God, or whether it be the generating bed of the life now upon it, the fact remains that we have no business to despise the gift, or the work of self-generation.  Our business is to enhance its beauties and eliminate its ugliness.  Why have we prayed that the will of God which is Love, “be done on earth as it is in the heavens,” if we despise the planet and hope to leave it?

Although the general impression given in all religious systems is that the perfected soul leaves this earth, yet there is nothing in any of them to prove that it does so, or if it has hitherto, that it shall continue so to do.  We have no right to assume that the outer life—­the external, manifested life which we perceive with our physical senses, is all there is to this earth and that when we leave this outer life, we go to some other place.  The invisible life on this planet is unquestionably far greater than the visible but both visible and invisible doubtless belong to the planet earth.

The Absolute, presumably occupies all space, and therefore it may as reasonably be postulated that this state of Nirvana or Samadhi, may be entered within the area of this planet’s vibrations, as in that of the other planets.  The finite mind cannot conceive of a state of being apart from motion, space or time, even though these concepts are crude in their relation to the state of consciousness to which the sum of all consciousness is tending, whether the individual would, or not.

We speak of “the heavens” when we refer to the immeasurable, and little known region of the solar system, and we use the same term when we refer to a state of being in which the perfected soul of man will finally enter.  And this term implies that when we are thus in heaven, we are with God, if not absorbed into God.

Jesus, the master, taught the coming of the kingdom of God on earth and urged mankind to pray for its coming, asking that the will of God (or gods) be done on earth as it is in the heavens, from which it is not illogical to infer that the earth itself, as a planet, is not outside the pale of that blissful state which we ascribe to God, and which, at the same time, we expect to enter without being swallowed up in the sense that we lose that consciousness which cognizes itself as an eternal verity.