We were moving again. First he had shown me a hellish realm, filled with beings trapped in some form of self-attention. Now behind, beyond, through all this I began to perceive a whole new realm. Enormous buildings stood in a beautiful sunny park that reminded me somewhat of a well-planned university. As we entered one of the buildings and doorways, the air was so hushed that I was actually startled to see people in the passageway.
I could not tell if they were men or women, old or young, for all were covered from head to foot in loose-flowing hooded cloaks which made me think vaguely of monks. But the atmosphere of the place was not at all as I imagined a monastery. It was more like some tremendous study center, humming with the excitement of great discovery. Everyone we passed in the wide halls and on the curving staircases seemed caught up in some all-engrossing activity; not many words were exchanged among them. And yet I sensed no unfriendliness between these beings, rather an aloofness of total concentration.
Whatever else these people might be, they appeared utterly and supremely self-forgetful - absorbed in some vast purpose beyond themselves. Through open doors I glimpsed at enormous rooms filled with complex equipment. In several of the rooms hooded figures bent over intricate charts and diagrams, or sat at the controls of elaborate consoles flickering with lights. Somehow I felt that some vast experiment was being pursued, perhaps dozens and dozens of such experiments.
And something more ... In spite of his obvious delight in the beings around us, I sensed that even this was not the ultimate, that he had far greater things to show me if only I could see.
And so I followed him into other buildings of this domain of thought. We entered a studio where music of a complexity I couldn't begin to follow was being composed and performed. There were complicated rhythms, tones not on a scale I knew.
"Why," I found myself thinking. "Bach is only the beginning!"
Next we walked through a library the size of the whole University of Richmond. I gazed into rooms lined floor to ceiling with documents on parchment, clay, leather, metal, paper.
"Here," the thought occurred to me, "are assembled the important books of the universe."
Immediately I knew this was impossible. How could books be written somewhere beyond the earth! But the thought persisted, although my mind rejected it.
The key works of the universe, the phrase kept recurring as we roamed the domed reading rooms crowded with silent scholars.
Then abruptly, at the door to one of the smaller rooms, almost an annex:
"Here is the central thought of this earth."
"Is this heaven, Lord Jesus?" I ventured.
The calm, the brightness, they were surely heaven-like! So was the absence of self, of clamoring ego.
"When these people were on earth did they grow beyond selfish desires?"
"They grew, and they have kept on growing."
The answer shone like sunlight in that intent and eager atmosphere. But if growth could continue, then this was not all. Then ... there must be something even these serene beings lacked. And suddenly I wondered if it was the same thing missing in the lower realm. Were these selfless seeking creatures also failing in some degree to see Jesus? Or perhaps, to see him for himself? Bits and hints of him they surely had; obviously it was the truth they were so single-mindedly pursuing. But what if even a thirst for truth could distract from the truth himself, standing here in their midst while they searched for him in books and test tubes ...
I didn't know. And next to his unutterable love, my own bewilderment, all the questions I wanted to ask, seemed incidental. Perhaps, I concluded at last, he cannot tell me more than I can see. Perhaps there is nothing in me yet that could understand an explanation.
It is this realm which removes forever the concept that we stop learning or progressing in knowledge when we die. I could call this realm the realm of research, or the mental realm or the realm of intellectual, scientific and religious knowledge. All would be correct.
This is the realm where I believe the souls go who have developed the greatest interest in a particular field of life's endeavor, the ones who want to keep on researching and learning more in their particular fields. This gives hope to all people who want to keep learning and have established enough wisdom to realize we have just begun to scratch the surface in any field when we are on the earth's level of development.
I became aware that the Christ was watching some souls in their study of the universe's religions and saw he did not judge any of them. They too were not judging the religions which they were studying but were interested in the many different ways the beings of the universe had attempted to come to understand their Creator. I suddenly realized how wrong it was for any of us on earth to judge another's approach to God or to feel we have the only answers. The moment that realization came into my mind it was followed by his thought placed in my mind:
"You are right, for if I, LOVE, be lifted up, I shall draw all humanity unto me. If you come to know the Father, you will come to know me. If you come to know me you will come to know that LOVE includes all beings regardless of their race, creeds or color."
