[London Lectures of 1907 by Annie Besant]@TWC D-Link book
London Lectures of 1907

PART I
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No one _goes_ there; they only open their eyes and see it on every side around them.

For heaven is a state of the psychic life which is realised in the higher bodies, the bodies of the mental plane, and it does not need to go hither and thither, North, South, East, or West, to find it; for, as the great Teacher said: "Behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is within you"-- not far away, beyond the sun or moon or stars.
And the ascension of Jesus to heaven, as the Church of England puts it--in words that sound very strange in modern ears, because they have lost their mystic meaning and are only taken in what S.Paul used to call the "carnal" interpretation--in the fourth article of the Church of England, was that He ascended into heaven, taking with Him His "flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature." Now when you take that in the literal and crude signification, naturally the thoughtful man revolts against it.

What is this about a physical body and physical bones going up through the air into the sky?
And where has it gone to?
The modern man cannot believe it in that sense, and so he loses the spiritual verity enshrined in words of symbolism and of allegory.

For the fact that Jesus the Master went away, but still dwells on earth in the flesh, that is the truth which the article tries to indicate; and not that He is gone far away into a far-off heaven to sit at the right hand of God, whence He shall come again to judge.

He lives in the body, and also lives in the midst of the Church, which is His true mystical body; and so long as that Church exists, so long as that Church is found on earth, so long its Master shall live within it, and shall dwell in a human body.


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