If then, the “heavens” as applied to the planets revolving above the earth in the solar system, and “Heaven” as a term used to describe a state of happiness, bliss, samadhi, nirvana, or “life with God,” be synonymous it may reasonably be inferred that in the solar system are planets upon which live sentient beings, in a state to which we on earth, are seeking to attain; a state wherein so-called evil has been eliminated and the good retained.

In fact, we may see with none too prophetic eyes the elimination of evil right here in the visible.  All who have attained a glimpse of Illumination have reported the loss of the “sense of sin and death,” and have retained this feeling of security and “all-is-well-ness” as long as they have lived thereafter.

From the old conception of “evil” as a positive, opposing and independent force, modern thought, in all its branches, namely science; religion; social evolution, and philosophy, has arrived at the conclusion that evil is not a power or force in and of itself, but that it is evidence of a limited degree of consciousness which sees only one side of a subject—­only a limited area of an infinitely wide and varied manifestation of the one supreme consciousness.  Therefore, it is, that evil per se, does not exist as power, but that it is the effect of a misapplication of power.

The cure then, for this state of Relativity, is found logically enough, in an extension of individual consciousness.

That this idea is logical may be deduced from the fact that as the mind expands, through the various channels of learning; observation; contact with each other, and by the many roads of Experience, altruism becomes more general.  Almost every one readily admits that the world is “growing better,” as they express it.

This means that the individual consciousness is becoming broadened, deepened, enlarged; and this enlargement makes it possible to show that the happiness of each one, means the happiness of all, and that no one human life can reach the goal of freedom and eternal life (mukti, which can mean nothing less than godhood) unless he does so by some one of the many paths of selflessness.

Up through the perilous paths and the devious ways of brute consciousness toward a more or less perfect perception of that blissful state which the Illumined have sought to describe, each individual has come to his present state; and it is only by virtue of the ability to look back over the path, and to look onward a little into relative futurity, that each may record the fact of his gain in consciousness, and what this gain means to the future of this earth.

But who is there who cannot see that each step in attainment of consciousness brings with it a corresponding freedom from suffering?

The planet itself does not make us suffer.  The latest discoveries of astronomers indicate that as the standard of morality (using the term “morality” in its true sense), becomes higher, the position of the earth itself becomes changed, in its relation to the solar system.