VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 7, SECTION 2
Heaven and Hell, Two Faces of One Planet
The last section made plain that Earth is paradise, giving us all things free. Then a question rises. If Earth is paradise, why does so much of this world look like a pit, full of harm, of cruelty, of suffering? This section answers. Heaven and hell are not two places, one above the clouds, one below the ground. They are two faces of this one planet. The same Earth, the same air and water and soil and sun, can be paradise or can be a pit. Which face it shows turns not on the Earth but on the human heart, on whether the five are alive in the people who live here.
Say it straight: heaven and hell are the same planet, seen through two hearts. Picture two villages on the same Earth, under the same sky, on the same soil. In the one, the five are alive. People are kind, help one another, respect one another. The strong shield the weak, the old are tended, the young are raised, a household in trouble has ten hands reaching to it, and a person walks the lanes at ease, knowing he is among his own. That village, on this ordinary Earth, is heaven. In the other, the five have gone out. People reckon and cheat, prey on one another, the strong crush the weak, the fallen are trodden, and a person walks in fear, guarding against every face he meets. That village, on the same Earth, under the same sky, is hell. The ground is one. The sky is one. The gifts are one. What differs is only the heart of the people, whether the five are alive or gone. Heaven and hell were never two places. They are two states of the human heart, laid over one and the same Earth.
This is the deepest turn of the matter. People seek heaven by seeking a place, thinking that if only they could reach some better spot, some richer land, some further world, they would be in paradise. They do not see that no place is heaven of itself, and no place hell of itself. The richest land, with the five gone out, is hell, gold above and cruelty below. The plainest land, with the five alive, is heaven, little in hand and warm in heart. So heaven is not reached by moving the body to a better place. It is made by keeping the five alive in the heart, wherever the body stands. Move to the finest place with a heart of the five gone out, and you carry your hell with you. Stay in the plainest place with the five alive, and you make your heaven where you stand. The making of heaven or hell is in the heart, not the ground.
See it and the whole matter of guarding paradise turns inward. To guard Earth as paradise is not only to guard the air, the water, the soil from being fouled, though that must be done. It is, deeper, to guard the five from going out in the people who live here. For the same Earth, unfouled, with the five gone out in its people, is already hell, whatever the state of its air and water. And the same Earth, with the five alive, is heaven, even as its people labor to heal what was harmed. The outer guarding, of air and water and soil, and the inner guarding, of the five, are one work. Foul the Earth, and paradise is wounded in its body. Let the five go out, and paradise is lost in its soul. To keep Earth a paradise, both must be guarded, the body of it and the soul of it. And of the two, the soul is the deeper, for it is the heart with the five gone out that fouls the body of the Earth in the first place. Guard the five, and the hands that would foul the air and water are stayed at the root.
This throws light back on all the book has laid down. Every institution, every unlocking, every guarding of the five, was, seen from here, the labor of keeping Earth a paradise and not a pit, by keeping the five alive in its people. Grow the heart, and the village turns toward heaven. Lay the floor of living, so none must go against himself and harm for a mouthful, and one great source of the pit is stopped. Turn the instrument to service, and the people are not crushed. Light the intent of the law, and mutual harm is reined. All of it, at the far end, is the making of heaven on this Earth, by the keeping of the five. So the book's whole labor and this chapter's paradise are one thing: heaven is not somewhere to go, it is here to be made, and it is made by the five, kept alive, in one heart after another, upon this one and only Earth. The next section carries it to the sharpest point: this age has grown a power great enough to wound this paradise, even to ruin it. Where does the guilt of that lie? Not in the power, but in the human heart that wields it.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.