24
WHERE IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN?
BY D. T. MARCHES
(Reprinted by
request from our first issue of April 1952)
How near is Heaven? Jesus said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within
you" and again he said "The Kingdom of God is at hand." Did the Master mean that
these words spoken to the simple hearers of his day should be taken literally?
Most certainly he did, for he was and is a Master of Truth and would not mislead
the "seeking" people who followed and trusted in him. He said another time "If
it were not so, I would have told you."
The Apostle John says in his Gospel - "In him (God) was life and the
life was the light of men and the light shineth in darkness and the darkness
comprehendeth it not."
How do we find this Kingdom and where and what is this Light that
John refers to? In the heart of every man there is a secret, airless chamber
within which dwells the Spark, of Divinity. This tiny Spark is the Gift of Life,
by which man lives, breathes and thinks. It is the motivating power of all his
earthly activities, physical, mental and spiritual. It is a part of, and
contains every potential quality of the Godhead. It is the Essence of Being and
its emanation is Light. It is threefold in nature and is, in fact, the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit in embryo. Where God's Presence is, his Kingdom is. The body
of man is, therefore, the Temple of God and houses the Ark of the Covenant.
This is the "Secret Place of the Most High" mentioned in the Psalms
and is what Jesus meant when he said "When you pray, enter your closet and shut
the door and pray to your Father in secret." When one turns the attention toward
this hidden Sanctuary and kneels in spirit before its Holy Altar, the feelings
invoked by this inner desire release a spiritual force which fans the Spark of
Life into a Flame. Its threefold nature representing the Love of the Father, the
Will of the Son and the Power or Action of the Holy Spirit flow outward into the
personality and world of the devotee, illumining the intellect and revealing
God's Divine Plan for the individual and the planet.
Heaven then, is not a "place afar off." We carry God and his Kingdom
around with us in our hearts. There is no peace, no happiness, no security
outside of this Kingdom and it only awaits our recognition to make itself
manifest. There is only One Father and One Only Begotten Son and that is the
Christ Nature of every human. God is not the Father of the outer personality,
that is a consciousness evolved and born out of fear and ignorance when the soul
or ego separated itself in consciousness from the Father and started a creation
of its own. The outer personality has neither love nor wisdom nor power which
are the attributes of Godhead and it has not even the authority to control the
imperfect world it creates.