{"id":6159,"date":"2018-07-31T07:43:26","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T14:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=6159"},"modified":"2018-07-31T07:43:26","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T14:43:26","slug":"emily-dickinson-who-has-not-found-the-heaven-below","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/31\/emily-dickinson-who-has-not-found-the-heaven-below\/","title":{"rendered":"Emily Dickinson – Who has not found the Heaven–below"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who has not found the Heaven\u2013below
\nby Emily Dickinson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Who has not found the Heaven\u2013below\u2013
\nWill fail it above\u2013
\nFor Angels rent the House next ours,
\nWherever we remove\u2013<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a>, Edited by Ivan M. Granger<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by Alice Popkorn<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

These four lines by that reclusive American mystic, Emily Dickinson, proclaim a deep truth:<\/p>\n

Who has not found the Heaven\u2013below\u2013
\nWill fail it above\u2013<\/i><\/p>\n

This statement has been getting mystics into trouble with orthodox religious authorities in every century. It is the assertion that heaven is not found somewhere \u2018out there\u2019\u2013not in the future, not after death, not in some celestial otherworld. Heaven is here, now. It is within us and surrounds us, always! And\u2013the most dangerous part of this insight\u2014if we don\u2019t discover it here \u201cbelow,\u201d it won\u2019t be found elsewhere \u201cabove.\u201d<\/p>\n

A statement like this shatters the religious waiting game, waiting for death, waiting for the Second Coming (or for the Maitreya Buddha, or for a better rebirth, or whatever\u2026) If the presence of Christ \/ Buddha-mind \/ fana \/ liberation is not recognized right here where we are, the passive expectation of it coming upon us some other day, at some other place, is sure to \u201cfail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another way of saying this is that, as we discover the heaven below, we find ourselves already dwelling in the heaven above. But, on the other hand, if we continue to deny the heaven below, we\u2019ll fail to discover the gateway to heaven above.<\/p>\n

Dickinson says, \u201cFor Angels rent the House next ours, \/ Wherever we remove\u2013\u201c No matter where we go, the Divine Presence is right there with us. We just have to knock on the neighboring reality and introduce ourselves\u2026<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Emily Dickinson<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nWomen in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nSaved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"Emily<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nEmily Dickinson<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

US (1830 \u2013 1886) Timeline<\/a>
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a><\/a>
\nChristian<\/a> : Protestant<\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 to a prominent family in Amherst, Massachusetts. Few of her poems were published during her lifetime, the bulk of her poetry having been discovered after her death in the 1880s. Despite this anonymity during her lifetime, Dickinson has come to be regarded as one of the greatest of American poets. Her unusual use of rhyme, meter, and grammar anticipates modernist trends in 20th century poetry.<\/p>\n

She attended Amherst Academy and a year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary.<\/p>\n

While at the seminary, Dickinson famously refused to participate in the show of evangelical conversion sweeping through her community at the time. Much of her poetry, however, meditates on heaven and the inner life, often contrasting the private moment against public religious convention. She was clearly a critic of the common practice of religion, leading many to casually label her as an atheist, yet there is no denying that she experienced a rich inner life that she understood in religious terms. While unconventional by the religious standards of her day, the argument can be made that she was a deep mystic. If one reads her poetry side-by-side with the poet-saints of India, for example, the parallels in metaphoric language and insight become obvious.<\/p>\n

Following her return from Mount Holyoke, Emily Dickinson almost never left Amherst again, rarely even leaving the grounds of her family home. Later in life she took to dressing entirely in white.<\/p>\n

Much is made of Dickinson\u2019s reclusive life, the fact that she never married, and the focus on death in much of her poetry, leading to descriptions of her as a morbid, sexually repressed recluse. One can see her in this way; or, recognizing the depth of her mysticism, we can suggest that she cultivated a self-defined monastic life of contemplation and poetry.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Emily Dickinson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who has not found the Heaven\u2013below by Emily Dickinson Who has not found the Heaven\u2013below\u2013 Will fail it above\u2013 For Angels rent the House next ours, Wherever we remove\u2013 \u2014 from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger \/ Image by Alice Popkorn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[887,196,1176,1799,1445],"class_list":["post-6159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-angels","tag-emily-dickinson","tag-heaven","tag-here-and-now","tag-presence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6160,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159\/revisions\/6160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}