Beatific Vision -- Why Wait? Develop Inner Vision

Beatific Vision -- Why Wait? Develop Inner Vision

 

Rumi says: "So long as a spirit does not rise above tile body consciousness,

It remains a stranger to the spiritual realms beyond"..

Was just looking up "Beatific Vision" at Wikipedia:

"In Roman Catholic theology, the beatific vision is the eternal and direct perception of God enjoyed by those who are in Heaven, imparting supreme happiness or blessedness. While humans' understanding of God while alive is indirect (mediated), the beatific vision is direct (immediate). Thomas Aquinas defined the beatific vision as the ultimate end of human existence after physical death. Aquinas's formulation of beholding God in Heaven parallels Plato's description of one beholding the Good in the world of knowledge"..

With a living school of mysticism from India known as Sant Mat however, visions of God or heavenly regions do not begin "after physical death". Living ones can also see, right now in the living present. This more Present Tense mystical approach can also be found in the Gnostic tradition and Sufism..

As Kabir once said (Robert Bly version):

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death..

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?..

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten --
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire..

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!..

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity..

Also, it says in the Gospel of Thomas, Saying 59:

Contemplate the Living One while you are alive, lest you die and then seek to behold that One --- and you will not be able to see..

The mystic-perspective found in the Sant Mat tradition and other mystical orders of the past is that the passage of time does not bestow enlightenment. Calendars won't help us make spiritual progress. As Kabir also said, "What is true now is true then." Seeing Divine Light is not about after death or future-tense events in the sky or in another life, but a very real, present tense shift in consciousness from the world of the fives senses to the Third Eye Center and beyond during contemplative meditation practice during THIS LIFE. This is about discovering a new way of seeing, developing spiritual vision. "If your eye becomes Single, your whole body shall be full of Light." The spiritual dimensions are accessed from within. God and all the planes, universes or dimensions of creation are to be found within you..

Kirpal Singh passages from SPIRITUALITY -- What it is -- A PEEP INSIDE:

"We spend most of our time in admiring the outer surface of worldly things, and care not to see the very soul of the matter that lies hidden underneath and bespeaks the Great Creator, the creative life-principle, without which even the surface beauty cannot exist for a fraction of a second..

"Once a spirit transcends the physical realm, it inherits as its birthright the spiritual kingdom -- for the Kingdom of God lies within..

"If you would not leave the caravanserai of the body,
How can you reach the true Home of your Beloved?" - Hafiz Shirazi

"This transcendence of the spirit from the senses is technically known in Sant Mat as death in life (self-annulling), and in the Vedantic terminology as self-analysis. Christ calls it second birth or birth anew, and Muslims term it as "dying before death." This immersion in God is true resurrection, or coming into new life. It is possible only through accepting the Path of any Master-soul -- which is none other than that of the Sound-current..

"The physical eyes can see only physical things, and both of these are subject to decay and death. But if our inner eye could be opened, we would be able to see immortal and imperishable planes. "An animal with his head downwards may well think of eating and drinking all the time, but fie on man, with his head erect, if he were not to look upward." (Shamas Tabriz). So long as a person does not rise above the sensual world, he remains ignorant of the high Heavens meant for his blessedness..

"As the spirit transcends the physical plane, it has to pass through various realms characterized by stars, the sun and the moon. There it is greeted by the luminous form of the Master, who takes charge of the spirit, with whom he proceeds by the Sound-current to reach the True Home of our Father..

"The spirit, as it withdraws from the body, proceeds by degrees from one plane to another, until it reaches Sat Naam or Haq. From what has been said, it should be clear that so far the spirit is an entity quite apart from Sat Naam. The Over-Lord of all is called Khasum (Lord of all), Swami, Hari Raj, Maha-Dayal, or Nirala, unique in Himself and indescribable. The spirit gets merged in Him just as a drop of water loses itself in the ocean, or a ray of light in the sun.."

"As water mingles with the water,
So doth light merge in the light.." -- Gauri M 5

"As a ray of light gets absorbed in the sun and a drop in the ocean,
So doth the light of spirit, in the Great Light.." -- Bilawal M 5