Question: When you say that earth can easily be transformed into Heaven, do you mean physically as well?

Sri Chinmoy: You have to know what we mean by Heaven. Heaven does not mean a place with big houses, big palaces or estates. No! Heaven is in our mind. When we enjoy divine thoughts, we are in Heaven. When we cherish jealousy, lower vital thoughts or other undivine thoughts, we are in hell. Heaven and hell are states of consciousness.

What does each human being have? Consciousness. It is through consciousness that we see reality. When we pray, when we aspire, our finite consciousness becomes infinite; our so-called unaspiring consciousness becomes aspiring. This is Heaven. If we say that we all will become divine, this is certainly true. We will have a divine life, but that does not necessarily mean a physically immortal life. When we think of Heaven, we feel that it is immortal. The consciousness of Heaven is immortal. But very often we feel that the physical will remain immortal as Heaven is something immortal. But this physical body will live for sixty, eighty, one hundred, perhaps even two hundred years and then go.

The very conception of Heaven is something bright, luminous, delightful and, at the same time, immortal. But we have to know what is immortal in us. It is consciousness, the aspiring consciousness in us. When we say that earth will be transformed into Heaven, that means that anything that is within us or in the world which is now imperfect, obscure or unaspiring will be transformed eventually into perfection.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Beyond Within — A collection of writings 1964-1974, Agni Press, 1975
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/bw