Story: Destination - Heaven or Hell

Is there such a thing as a literal heaven or a literal hell? I don't know. But I can share a couple of stories with you that will assist you in drawing your own conclusions. The first one will be about heaven, and my visit there. The second story will be about hell, and a very interesting story I heard about, which to me goes to the heart of what hell probably is.

One night I was dreaming that I was in a sword fight, and my brother Roberto and I were dueling against three strangers. I killed one (yes, I said kill; on rare occasions, I still kill people in my dreams). The second one ran away and my brother was fighting the third one. As the second one ran away, I went to assist my brother. As I swung at my brother's attacker, he ducked, and I slit my brother's throat. It was definitely a deadly blow and I was devastated that I had just ended my brother's life. As our third enemy ran away, I fell to my knees in sorrow, and my brother, lying in a pool of blood, could only look up at me. On my knees, I could tell that he wanted to communicate something to me, but his wound and lack of strength did not allow him to speak. Finally, gathering the last of his strength, he somehow found the energy to speak. He looked up at me and said, "I forgive you." I cried in terrible anguish as my brother lay dying from his wound.

Suddenly, I became lucid enough to remember one of my favorite lessons from "A Course in Miracles," "There is No Order of Difficulties in Miracles." As I remembered the lesson and my training in Reiki (energy healing), I put my hands over the wound. I told myself, and believed with all my heart, that there was no order of difficulty in miracles. So I asked God for the power to heal the wound. Right after my request, I felt a surge of energy that felt as if two bowling balls of light passed through my arms and out of my hands onto my brother’s neck. After an instant, I looked down and my brother was completely healed.

I became so grateful that God allowed my brother to live that I started to praise and thank Him. I was so ecstatic to have my brother back that I simply could not stop praising God. I praised God like I've never praised him before. As the praising continued, I heard a voice in the distance. As I continued to thank God, the voice became more pronounced. It was saying, "Hallelujah." But it was not just saying "Hallelujah," it was singing "Hallelujah," and in the most beautiful voice imaginable. Try to recall the most beautiful individual performance you have ever heard and multiply it a thousand times. I continued to thank God for my brother's life, and as I did, the voice singing "Hallelujah" became more pronounced and more beautiful. Yet by now, it was not one angel singing but ten, and that chorus was better than any church choir I had ever heard. My thanking God merged with the chorus of angels praising God but now it sounded not like a ten-angel chorus, but one hundred angels singing Hallelujah, in praise to God. They kept singing that one simple word over and over, in praise to God. I began to join with them in my praise to God and I began to sing with them. I then realized that it was not hundreds or thousands of angels singing "Hallelujah," but millions of angels singing "Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!" And I knew that these angels sang in eternity, and I had joined them, for a moment in time. The joy in praising God was so great that I felt extreme gratitude for just being able to be thankful. After a while, there came a point when my ego began to wonder if I would ever come back. As a result of that fear, in a moment's time, that thought brought me back to Earth and back into my body. As I look back, I wish I had stayed longer praising God, but I understand that I had work to do regarding fear-based thoughts. Nevertheless, I was and am very grateful for the experience.

I later read that some believe that God is surrounded by a group of angels who praise Him constantly. That belief sounded a little foreign to me until that night. I mean, how could an angel praise God for eternity and not get tired or bored?  Today, I truly believe that there is such a place, and that for a moment in time I had the honor and pleasure of being part of that place. Now, is this the place they call Heaven? I don't know, but I do know that I was somewhere very special, somewhere very close to the source.

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of the great spiritual / self development book You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.