Is the Kingdom of Heaven like Nervana?

Benedicamus Domino!

I realize that in my last entry, I may have posited an idea of the Kingdom of Heaven which was akin to Nervana in Buddhist thought. Nervana is what is attained when enlightenment is reached and the awakening of a Buddhist has been fully realized. It is a state of bliss, with no desire and no need for attachment, and where the wheel of suffering no longer holds sway over the soul. I'm really oversimplifying and generalizing this, by the way. Is this bliss then the 'joy' of which I am speaking in this blog?

Well, monastics, especially perhaps the eastern monastics of the desert, talk about reaching a state of dispassion. They talk about living as angels on earth if we can beat down our inordinate and egoistic desires to make room for God's will and God's grace in our lives. Is this then the Kingdom of Heaven? I actually believe that to reach a state of dispassion is to prepare the way for the Kingdom of Heaven in each individual. There are many stories about monks who reached a high degree of dispassion but who became hard-hearted toward their fellow-men and fell from that height because of it. (I use height here metaphorically.)

But do we have to reach total dispassion in our lives before the Kingdom of Heaven can dwell in us, before we can find a state of true joy? If this were the case, then no one would ever get there, or very few. Christ is our dispassion. Christ is our doorway. His path and His presence are what can help us along the way, and every day, we may find "Kingdom moments" sprinkled throughout. We often talk about working and labouring for the Kingdom, but this can take many forms, perhaps the greatest of which is contemplation. I don't mean a fixed set of contemplations necessarily, but something which allows us to be still a while and to focus all our attention on being grateful to God, or on asking Him for His mercy for ourselves or for others. In short, we can realize the Kingdom of Heaven in ourselves a little bit every day, so long as we are open to receiving what God has to teach us. No amount of wishing for it will bring it nearer, because it is already as near as it can get. No amount of bargaining for it will help either. It is a matter of letting go of "I" and learning to co-suffer with all of humanity, and then there is the grace of God. He will leaven our three measures of meal (which I will call faith, hope and charity) if we are patient and allow them to rise.

So, is the Kingdom of Heaven like Nervana? I don't think it is. I think that Nervana is achieved byutation and by the emptying of the mind, while the Kingdom is a fullness. Dispassion is near the Kingdom, but if faith, hope and charity have not been kindled to replace the passions, then only coldness will remain, and the last state will be worse than the first. I firmly believe that the Kingdom is nearer to many people than it is to me, and I fully expect that others whom I might consider to be far away from it will find it before I will. God is God, and He knows all of us better than we know ourselves.

It is important to note that the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God is not a club. It is not some exclusive restaurant. I don't believe that every single person will find it, but I don't believe that it is only the province of people who identify themselves as Christians. In the parable of the wedding garment, Christ talks about a man who comes to a wedding but does not have on a wedding garment, and the host gives orders for the man to be bound and to be cast into outer darkness. Some people gloss this garment as the purity of Baptism, but others have glossed it as love. In the end, we really don't know what Christ means by His use of the wedding garment, but I must say that the idea of love or charity appeals to me more than simply that of baptism. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not downplaying the importance of baptism in the Christian faith, but it is really a beginning of things. It symbolizes dying to the self, but the process of that dying goes on all our lives.

As I stated before, I believe that if anyone is shut out of the Kingdom, he or she does it to him or herself, and only God knows our hearts, so I could never say what would truly keep a person from finding this joyful state of being called the Kingdom of Heaven. I only know that in every parable about the Kingdom, it is the ego that stands in the way, and it is humility and a eucharistic offering of thanks which opens the door.

Deo Gratias!