Usually heaven is thought of as someplace you experience “later”—if it is thought about at all. It is the hereafter, as it’s sometimes referred to. Or someplace totally removed from the human space in which we live.

Whatever heaven may be as a reality in some other time or place, heaven is a word for conscious sacred space. It is a name for an experience here and now.

For so many individuals, there is no awareness of a conscious sacred space. And then, with any two people or a collective people, no awareness of the dome of sacredness that can surround spiritually conscious people, filled with thought and feeling that is wholesome and right and loving.

In the world in which we live, we can be so preoccupied with physical space and everything that is happening in that physical space—and of course there is a right attention to physical things. We can also become obsessed with personality space. This kind of preoccupation and obsession gets in the way of knowing sacred space. It can be an obstacle to the knowledge of the heaven that is potentially shared between us.

So often in human experience, there is an unconsciousness about what is happening in the realms of subtle energy that we are sharing with each other all the time. We can be all about the personality space, all about the physical space, without realizing what is happening in the sacred space, or the space that is potentially sacred—in the heaven of Being that we have the opportunity to share together. And, of course, we know what happens in the space of Being that ought to be heavenly, if we are unconscious and preoccupied in other ways: it becomes more hellish than heavenly.

With this kind of unconsciousness, the energetics of what is happening between people—and the thoughts and feelings associated with that energy—go to division and separation. And instead of mutual understanding, there is mutual judgment and criticism, and an absence of blessing. Humankind attempts to soldier on in that state and make the best of it. We are discovering another opportunity.

Singer-songwriter India Arie’s song “I Am Light” contains these words:

I am not the things my family did
I am not the voices in my head
I am not the pieces of the brokenness inside
I Am Light…

Her song is a rejection of the things in physical space and in personality space as a defining reality.

Yes, I embody who I am in the world in which I live. I have all these outer experiences. But I live consciously in a sacred space that is larger than the physical forms and the personality space in which I live.

I wonder if you, who are reading this Pulse of Spirit, might enter into a conscious experiment as you read. For these moments, try rejecting your personality world as a defining reality. Let go of any turbulent dynamics you might have going on with the people around you. And reject your outer, physical reality as the defining reality. Explore another space, a place of subtle energy that we inhabit with other spiritually conscious people.

This is a space of communion. It is a space of knowing others who are in that same space.

In the personality-defined world, there is not much communion going on and not much real knowing of one another; no understanding or blessing. There are so many human endeavors where personality and culture and physical reality dominate. Something is attempting to be created, and people can’t understand why it doesn’t come together. It could be a project, a family, a relationship, an organization. It could be a nation or the world. But somehow it doesn’t seem to come together.

In a personality-defined world, the place where things do come together is not being known. And if the man or the woman isn’t together, how can the world of that man or woman come together? If we are not together in the sacred space that we potentially share, how can we expect the world we share to come together? How can we expect that the projects we undertake will gain gravity and traction in the world? They won’t. They don’t.

We have an opportunity to become conscious of the heaven we are sharing. Creativity in that heaven is effortless—it doesn’t take work to be in that space. In that space, there is a natural enfoldment of Creation.

When we think of Creation, often we think of the outer manifestations of creativity. When we use the word Creation, we think of the forms of the natural world. In our own creations, there are the physical manifestations. But there is also an unfolding creation in the heaven we have the opportunity to share. There is heavenly form in that space before there is ever a physical form. And that heavenly form is created so easily and effortlessly. There is an unfolding reality of the innate design of Being that is seen when people are consciously present and open to an awareness of it.

Bryan Adams’ song from the movie Don Juan DeMarco speaks of seeing your unborn children in her eyes. It’s such a beautiful, loving thought. It speaks to the form of Creation in consciousness—in mind and heart—and in the invisible dimensions of the heaven that we share together. The form of Creation is held in essence there.

I tell people in the community where I live, I see the future of Sunrise Ranch in your eyes. In essence, I say to people, I see a new world in your eyes. I feel a new world with you. I see a new reality of humanity in you. That is an unfolding reality in every person, and it is unfolding in the heaven that we share together.

There is this great human tendency to live in self-activity—an obsession with the physical, cultural and personality world. The mind thinks that it is in charge, not aware of the implicit order of things or of the unfolding nature of reality that has its own design. And so people impose various forms of Roundup on all kinds of things, and not just on pastures. They seek to eradicate what they don’t want in their life or in the world.

There is an already-existing design to life. There is a design within our Being and within all Being. When we see that we are not the personality dimensions of self and we are not the physical dimensions of self, and that we are at home in the heaven of Being, then we begin to have eyes for this implicit, unfolding design. We see it in another person. We see it in the natural world around us. We share it together.

We are acting creatively with another human being when we are a witness to the unfolding reality of the Being who they are. This has great implications for what happens to their personality experience. It affects thought and feeling. It changes what manifests in the world.

Your life changes when someone truly sees who you are—when someone sees the unfolding reality of your Being and sees past the things your family did and the voices in your head and the mistakes that you’ve made, the things that cause you pain, the pieces of the dream that you left behind, the color of your eyes and the skin on the outside, your age, and your race. The eyes of love see something else. That is so powerful. It is not an imposition of something. It is a seeing of something.

The act of seeing the truth of another human being is a creative act. Something happens to what is being seen that would not happen otherwise. The unfolding order that is there, the design of Being that is there, somehow blossoms in the light of being witnessed.

In sacred space, we inherit the power of the Great Mother of all Creation. It is the capacity to surround in love. That power is given to us, to be activated in the heaven we share. We have the ability to surround the unfolding reality in one another—to cherish it, to embrace it, to see it with loving eyes.

The story of Creation in Genesis speaks of these things so beautifully. It speaks of fruit whose seed was in itself. The seed—the very DNA of Creation—is within us too. Not just in our genes but in the very nature of our Being. When we are seeing that in one another, we are calling forth its emergence and its unfoldment. The whole world is unfolding right here and now among us. There are green shoots of a new culture that are being born in the space we share. When we share in the sacred space of heaven, the subtle energy that we are bringing into all the facets of our life shifts.

The heaven is so often spoiled by misunderstanding, by judgment and blame, and by blindness to the processes of Creation. It is spoiled when a person is enmeshed in the personality self. And if you want to be blind, do that. Judge, blame and ignore the pattern of Creation. Live in the world of the personality self. You cannot see if you are enmeshed in the things your family did and in the voices in your head and the pieces of brokenness on the inside. If you are enmeshed in that personality world, you cannot know, you do not understand, and you are not living in the real world.

May we set ourselves free to be born into the real world and be part of creating the forms of heaven that allow the forms of earth and the forms of personality to be what they ought to be. The forms of personality can never make up for the forms of heaven. But the forms of personality can express what is in the heaven and embody it in the wonder of human expression.

We are constantly being born into our personality, not defined by it.

I am light. I am blessing. I am understanding. You are, too.