The New Earth

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On a macrocosmic level the enlightened humankind will live in the Reality of the New Heaven and the New Earth.  According to the prophecies in many of the Holy Scriptures of the world religions this reality comes after the resurrection from the dead and the Day of Judgment.  For instance, in his Revelation St. John testifies:

Then I saw a great white throne and the one who sits on it.  Earth and heaven fled from his presence and were seen no more.  And I saw the dead, great and small alike, standing before the throne.  Books were opened, and then another book was opened, the book of the living.  The dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books.  Then the sea gave up its dead.  Death and the world of the dead also gave up the dead they held.  And all were judged according to what they had done.  Then death and the world of the dead were thrown into the lake of fire.  (This lake of fire is the second death.)  Whoever did not have his name written in the book of the living was thrown into the lake of fire.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.  The first heaven and the first earth disappeared, and the sea vanished.  And I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared and ready, like a bride dressed to meet her husband.  (Revelation 20: 11-15, 21: 1-2)

It is difficult to find in spiritual literature a text more mystical and apocalyptic than the quoted one.  When we understand it on an archetypal level however it reveals its deep meaning and actuality.  The activation of the Testament of Truth will transform these visions into spiritual action, as a result of which the Reality of the New Heaven and the New Earth will appear. 

In essence the end of the Hindu-European cycle and the beginning of the new evolutionary cycle of humankind in the cosmic-spiritual summer is the time of spiritual Resurrection and Judgment for humankind.

The whole of Creation is an ocean of Light, Love and Divine Thought-forms and unfolds itself within the Divine Spirit. The Divine Spirit keeps a record of everything which has happened, is happening, and is planned for the future.  Everything is recorded in the Divine 'memory', referred to as the Akashic Chronicles.  When the Truth of God as Creator and the spiritual essence of the Universe are revealed in the cosmic-spiritual Summer, all the Akashic Chronicles from the past will be activated.  This is what St. John witnessed as books were opened.

The content of the ‘opened books' is the history of the human race on Earth. In a similar way as an illuminated human being can see all his or her past incarnations, humankind, in the epoch of the cosmic-spiritual Summer when the Divine Sun sheds light on the whole evolutionary path, will be able to read the Akashic Chronicles as 'opened books'.  Moreover, God will make visible the spiritual essence of the deeds of all generations from the passing metahistorical cycle in order to gather the good seeds, to preserve and include them in the new metahistorical cycle, and to discard all the undeveloped ones.

In the cosmic-spiritual Summer, however, when the Divine Light and Presence shines with full power, everyone has to face the Truth.  Facing the Truth is not a matter of personal desire or individual illumination; it is the result of the objective cosmic-spiritual 'weather' in the Universe which encompasses everything and raises the vibrations of all beings.  When St. John saw the dead, great and small alike, standing before the throne, he witnessed all human beings that were still living in ignorance, forced to face the Divine Truth.  Let us remember Christ saying Let the dead bury their dead.  By 'dead' He meant all those living in the world of illusion, maya, ignorant of the Truth. In the Christian spiritual tradition the sea symbolizes the life of humankind in the "cosmic illusion" – maya.  This is why in the transitional period from the Hindu-European historical cycle to the new one the sea will give up its dead for Judgment.

On the other hand, through the opening of the Akashic Chronicles, the physically dead, the past generations, will be resurrected in their spiritual bodies and will also stand before the Throne of God for judgment.  (Here, we should bear in mind that actually there is no death for the spiritual essence of human beings; a subtle aspect of the mystery of resurrection is that all physically dead actually live in other spiritual realms in the Universe).  The Light of the Divine Truth, shining in the cosmic-spiritual Summer, will dissolve the veil between the visible and invisible worlds.  The difference between them is a result only of our limited perception of the Universe.  This Light will make all planes and levels of existence apparent and as a result all creatures in them will be exposed to the Truth.  When St. John speaks about the sea which gave up its dead, and about the death and the world of the dead which also gave up the dead (i.e. the past generations) – this refers to the different planes and modes of existence which will be exposed to the Divine Truth.

The dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. The supreme essence of the Universe is Love, Light, Wisdom, Truth and Freedom.  Because every being has the right of absolute freedom, they can live in accordance with the Divine essence of Creation or they can misuse and abuse it.  In the first instance, their deeds are written in the book of the living; in the second, their deeds are also recorded but are the subject of judgment and rejection.

In essence, no one judges us but when we face the Divine Truth we see the whole story of our lives and we understand what we have done and the consequences of our deeds.  We could compare this self-judgment with the phenomenon in the hours before death when a human being sees all his life as on a video film and understands, from a new spiritual perspective, the essence of all his deeds and their interconnection.  The impressions from this 'video film' are the judgment; they are the psychic material which the person will deal with in the psychological dimensions of his 'life after death'.  According to the law of karma, if his life was based on love, goodwill and friendship – on all positive human virtues – he will continue his ascent into higher metaphysical planes of the Universe. If however, the life of the human being was based on negative emotions, violence and offences against others, karmic law obliges him to rectify his deeds. For this purpose, he will be incarnated again on Earth and he will face all the problems which he caused. 

The crucial point here is that after the end of the present metahistorical cycle, the new incarnations cannot take place on Earth anymore. If the Earth and humankind on it move to a new stage of evolution (and this will be the case in the cosmic-spiritual Summer when the whole Earth will be transformed and illuminated), the karmic forces will prevent some human beings from returning to the Earth. They will be pushed into other planes of existence or will experience psychic solitude, facing the results of their mistakes again and again, without an opportunity to correct or neutralise them. If someone's name is not written in the Book of the Living when the Earth moves into a new stage of evolution, they will be expelled from the community of God's people on Earth and will start their evolution over again at a much lower level, in a completely new metaphysical realm. The great karmic Judgment, which will be at the end of the present metahistorical cycle, determines the positive or negative outcome in the development of individual human destinies.

Naturally, the drama of the End of Time, the Judgment and the Second Coming requires a transitional period when each important decision will influence the evolutionary direction – upward or downward. And, of course, we will be given enough time to make our choice consciously and to take full responsibility.

When humankind chooses the positive, creative, life-supporting Divine path of evolution, it will be able to hatch from the restricted earthly consciousness and begin its return to the Kingdom of God.  In a similar way to the grain of wheat which sprouts within the earth and pushes up into a new world above the soil, the enlightened consciousness of human beings will transcend its perceptions of the physical universe and will penetrate into the higher spiritual worlds. Human beings will change their understanding of Creation and will comprehend it as an enormously vast, multi-dimensional spiritual Universe – a tremendously rich world of spiritual realities within new dynamic spatio-temporal co-ordinates where the physical dimensions of our world are only a special case.  Then the whole of Creation will appear like an ocean of Divine Consciousness, Light, Love, Music, Sacred Words and archetypal Thought-forms, inhabited by the myriads of light beings of the celestial hierarchy.

Of course, the physical Earth will remain as it is, but for the consciousness enlightened by the Divine Truth of Creation it will melt into a cosmic sea of spiritual energies.  This is why St. John saw a great white throne and the one who sits on it that is, God Himself shining from the zenith of the Universe), and a new metaphysics of Creation in which earth and heaven fled from his presence and were seen no more.

We can find a poetic expression of this transfiguration of our consciousness in Yogananda's book Metaphysical Meditations:

When you find that your soul, your heart, every wisp of inspiration, every speck of the vast blue sky and its shining star-blossoms, the mountains, the earth, the whippoorwill, and the bluebells are all tied together with one cord of rhythm, one cord of joy, one cord of unity, one cord of Spirit, then you shall know that all are but waves in His cosmic sea. (Paramahansa Yogananda, Metaphysical Meditations, Self-Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles, California, 1976, p. 36.)

In the legendary Shurangama Sutra we find another inspiring poetic vision of illuminated consciousness contemplating the process of the transfiguration of the Earth. At first, 'the waters and waves of brooks and streams were singing the music of the Dharma'. This is the stage of awareness when the Earth is comprehended on the astral level – the second, celestial level of the three-fold structure of the Universe. Then, all the differentiations of mountains and waters and rocks and plants, and all that makes up our common world, blended into one another and faded away, leaving only the indescribable experience of primordial unity. This higher state of consciousness corresponds to the perception of the Earth on the causal level – the third level in the three-fold structure of the Universe. And finally, even this indescribable experience fades away into silence – that is the enlightened consciousness reaches the state of nirvana and dissolves the whole of Creation into the Great Void. (See Lama Anagarika Govinda, The Way of the White Clouds, Rider & Co. Ltd., London, 1984, p. 10.)

Therefore, our comprehension and understanding of the Earth depends on our state of consciousness. When we open our eyes to the celestial world, we can contemplate the Earth as a beautiful 'astral planet'.  Then, for us, the Earth will appear as a living celestial Being with its own planetary Soul (a part of the Universal Soul) and with a planetary Spirit – the planetary Divine Logos – who leads the evolution of the Earth. The Earth, as a celestial Being, has spiritual centres (chakras) and a very rich and well-developed structure of lay-lines of circulating energy which corresponds to the nervous system in the human body.

When we ascend to the Highest Divine World, we will understand the Earth as the projection of the Heavenly Jerusalem. The Earth will be appreciated as a majestic Divine Temple in the centre of which a gigantic cosmic-spiritual Cross of life is present. This is the Cross of immortal life which the Living God activates in the Reality of the New Heaven and the New Earth. The vertical axis of this Cross is a huge column of Light, filling the whole space and representing the vertical structure of the Universe. The horizontal axis of the Cross (actually a horizontal circular plane filling the entire cosmic-spiritual space) is the celestial reality of the Kingdom of God with its many mansions, including all the different spiritual worlds revealed by the world religions.  Above the horizontal axis is the Throne of God with the "One sitting upon it". The walls of this gigantic, etheric Temple are living Light which shines with all the colours of the Rainbow, exposing the presence of myriads of light beings, angels, archangels and many others. All the kingdoms of life on Earth – the mineral, plant, animal and human – are present within the Temple. This Temple of Life, in which Divine Light, Love, Unity, Harmony, Wisdom and Truth are manifested, is the New Earth in the highest Divine world.

Therefore, the new Earth for us will be enlivened by radiantly bright spiritual colours and will become first a Garden of Paradise, a wonderful "astral" planet, and after this it will appear as a Divine Temple in the Kingdom of God where there are many mansions.  On the new Earth we will live as cosmic-spiritual beings and we will be mediators between Heaven and Earth for the spiritual elevation of the whole planet with all kingdoms of life on it. Thus, we will fulfil our predestined function on Earth as Divine Mediators (Divine Messengers). For this purpose we will be in direct contact with the Divine Masters as the living Light – they will be both within our souls and before our spiritual gaze. This is the reality of the New Earth and in this reality we will become new beings – Sons and Daughters of the Divine Father-Mother. Thus we will live as God's people on sacred Earth.