Finding Paradise

Dante used the term “Paradiso” to describe heaven, a place where souls continued to evolve through love and mysticism. Intellect no longer guides. We can know Hell, interminable misery, and Purgatory, correcting the causes of Hell, but what is Paradise? I can only try to explain it based on my experience.

I have a couple of references to Paradise in my inner experiences, the first I noted from an inner dialogue in July 2021. It was a time long into retirement when I was still looking for something to do in the world.

I go in and wait.

“I am here Tony – I am with you – we are as one.”

I am unsure what to do, I say.

“Why not create your paradise, Tony?” The conversation went on in a different direction after this, but I was surprised by the answer.

Paradise for me, I thought, would be a place of truth, beauty, culture, music and dance, growth, nature, with creative self-expression and all in harmony in my world. A place without the negative states of suffering. In creating my paradise, I come to live in a world of my greatest loves.

For a long time, when I asked what I should do, I had been told to continue as I was, and then later to do what I wanted. I had eventually lost a sense of what I wanted when working, as my wantings were dutifully aligned with those of others: family, patients, staff and the process of emergency healthcare. The search for what I wanted became difficult, and I kept drawing a blank. I was also told that going with what I wanted was the way for me to grow. So, creating my paradise out of my loves might be a self-revealing way of growing. Follow your loves and you will find yourself. We spend so long dealing with the negatives, what of the positives and possible attachments there? Having the angels on board as well as the demons.

In a vision, a dream-like state in 2022, I was shown a view of paradise by a spirit who said he wanted to show me something. We had been flying through darkness as if in outer space when we came to a bright planet and flew down. We came to a town that made me think about how Italy might have been several hundred years ago. It was temperate and peaceful. Food arrived every week on a cart; people did not have to work, there was no disease, there was no suffering or conflict, and they were free to do what they wanted in a creative sense, or maybe just nothing at all.

This all looked very nice, but I soon became uneasy. There was not enough life going on. There were no challenges or difficulties to wrestle with; it was almost as though I could not find myself in this environment. It was bland, empty and in a way circular and static. I thought of the changes and difficulties of regular life, and though they can be difficult, I was kind of grateful for them to give me a more invigorated life. It’s true, and I can’t believe I am writing this, Paradise begins to look a little more like the life I live, where there is pushback, challenges to wrestle with and a sense of evolution.

For many, when I was growing up, paradise was considered to be sipping cocktails on a beach in the Bahamas with loads of money, taking us away from the wet and grey English winters and as was the case then, summers. Now, having had a little of something similar, I prefer to be at home in my regular life.

Here, in 2025, there is a lot of inner peace, more as a sense of inner being. This has taken years of work. Thoughts and intellect are at peace, awaiting their summoning and emotions and feelings arise to gently offer deeper meanings. Those tormenting echoes from the past have quietened. What is left is open space, unoccupied consciousness, more of a blank canvas for what wants to come without being triggered or troubled. What comes from that unknown, obscure place inside, and sometimes from outside (or the two in synchronicity), is the inspiration for the next creative move to carry this moment optimally forward. Someone turns up unexpectedly, an idea, a defusing humorous comment, a new pathway, meaningful improbable coincidences, etc. Meanwhile, there is a sense of quiet fullness; is that what people mean by abundance, maybe endless unforeseeable possibilities in the right now? How does it feel? Mostly like heaven, better than imagined, a golden time. I still have more to do.

Further out there, there is a lot of misery, which those involved are having to work through and learn from. This ordinary man cannot know, judge or solve all the problems of the world. My first responsibility is to seek to sort myself out, and then maybe what is around me will find its way, albeit on a small scale.

The mystical journey is to wholeness. Paradise / paradiso / heaven is a phase of the journey on the way, so it seems to me. This brings us peace and receptivity with less distortion, and the capacity to engage with optimal creativity in the ever-shifting, challenging moment.

This is my working through paradise; it may not be your way. If not, I would love to hear yours.