eiling shadows, which now curtain thy sight, thou wouldst
see, even where thou now art, the Face of God and the heavenly gate.
God is so near that at any moment a holy Birth [a Birth into the Life
of God] may be accomplished in thy heart,"[43] and, again, in the same
book he writes: "If man's eyes were opened he would see God everywhere,
for heaven is everywhere for those who are in the innermost Birth.
When Stephen saw heaven opened and Jesus at the right hand of God, his
spirit did not swing itself aloft into some heaven in the sky, but it
rather penetrated into the innermost Birth where heaven always is.
Thou must not think that God is a Being who is off in an upper heaven,
or that when the soul departs it goes many hundred thousands of miles
aloft. It does not need to do that, for as soon as it has entered the
innermost Birth it is in heaven already with God--_near and far in God
is one thing_."[44]

The "next world"--"the beyond"--therefore, must not be thought of in
terms of space and time, of here and there, of now and then, as a place
to which we shall journey at the momentous moment of death: "the soul
{187} needeth no going forth."[45] As soon as the external veil of
flesh dissolves, each person is in his own country and has all the time
been in it. There is nothing nearer to you than heaven and hell. To
whichever of them you _incline_ and toward whichever of them you
tend--that is most near you, and every man has in himself the key.[46]
Heaven and hell are everywhere throughout the whole world. You need
not seek them far off.

It is always the nature of "Anti-Christ" and "Babel" and
"opinion-peddlers" to seek God and heaven and hell above the stars or
under the deep. There is only one "place" to look for God and that is
in one's own soul, there is only one "region" in which to find heaven
or hell, and that is in the nature and character of the person's own
desire and will: "Even though the devil should go many millions of
miles, desiring to see heaven and enter into it, yet he would still be
in hell and could not see heaven at all."[47] The soul, Boehme says in
substance, hath heaven or hell in itself. Heaven is the turning of the
will into God's love; hell is the turning of the will into hate. Now
when the body falls away the heavenly soul is thoroughly penetrated
with the Love and Light of God, even as fire penetrates and enlightens
white-hot iron, whereby it loses its darkness--this is heaven and