“Just let me check your credentials and I’ll let you right in. You do have your credentials, right?”

While it’s true that Heaven’s eligibility requirements have remained unaltered since God first sneezed the Cosmos into existence 15 billion years ago (6,000 years ago for my orthodox Christian friends), a growing chorus of HOA members have begun to proclaim the right to print their own Golden Ticket to Heaven. HOA President-for-life and creator of the gated community, our Almighty Lord, was at a loss to explain the misunderstanding – especially since he thought he’d been preaching to the chorus the whole time. Through his chosen emissary and longtime Pearly Gate bouncer St. Peter, the Lord reminded us that, “The laws of the Cosmos are unbending and universally applicative. There isn’t some ‘Yeah, well Heaven’s requirements might apply to faceless masses toiling in the fields, but surely not to sophisticated, self-aware souls like me who were into the whole craft beer thing before it became mainstream’.” 

St. Peter went on to explain: “There is no work around for entitled souls that will catapult their privileged asses into the vault of Heaven. Your karmic résumé must reflect balance, otherwise you’ll be catapulted back into another birth till you wake up and smell the karma. Sometimes it stinks to high heaven and other times it’s your best friend to break you out of the illusion of separateness. It will even out. It must. It does. These are not my laws inasmuch as they are the laws. Don’t blame the messenger. I’m just passing it on. This link may be of aid: Paths to God (not preachy)

“So to eliminate any confusion about so-called litmus tests for heaven, our HOA president (Our Dear Lord and Master) is reissuing his first and only edition of Heaven’s Conditions, Covenants and Restrictions (CC&Rs). And he’s doing so in a spiffy new End of Days boxed set. The End of Days package was my idea to encourage spiritual stragglers to get their act together before it’s too late. As a reminder, for those too busy, or disinclined to plow through 982 pages of CC&R boilerplate, there’s always the handy Cliff Notes tablet version popularly known as the 10 Commandments. There’s your work around. It’s pretty much everything you need to know to get your Golden Ticket in 10 easy to remember directives. The 10 Commandments may be mocked, antiquated and primitive, but as a rough guideline for human behavior it will never fail you. However even with these 10 handy bullet points, souls continue to shoot themselves in the foot.”

With confusion abounding on the part of the HOA laity as to what constituted compliance with the CC&Rs, St. Peter reiterated that, “First of all, in order to get in to heaven, you’ve got to pay your dues. Ringo said as much in his 1971 smash single It Don’t Come Easy: ♫Got to pay your dues if you want to play the blues, and you know it don’t come easy ♫. Usually I quote the more spiritually inclined Saints John or Paul, but in this case Ringo summed it up quite nicely. Now you may think you’re paying your dues, but if you’re indulging in righteous indignation, unexamined egoism or even ‘look at all the good things I do for others,’ you’re not paying your dues. Obviously these admonitions don’t apply to everyone, but if you feel yourself being roused or angered by them, then they probably do.

This St Peter Guy is Kind of a Drag, But He Speaks the Truth

“Remember, when you’re on earth we’re just naked little animals whose powers you perceive to be your own are actually drawn from universal energy. You have no ownership right to it as such and are merely borrowing it to have this experience you believe to be real. I know you’re feeling fairly certain about who you think you are and what it all means, but believe me, it’s not what you think with your mind. It absolutely transcends your rational mind and the sooner you realize that through meditation, through loosening attachments to your beliefs and through cooling it with the righteous indignation, the sooner these CC&Rs will work for you. You’ll become consonant with their unbending verities. And the answers lie in the quietude inside yourself as opposed to the clamoring outside.

“And as an added mind blower (aka something you’ll have to take on faith), let me remind you that you don’t ‘get into heaven.’ You’re already there. You just forgot your divinity and years of barnacled cultural affiliations have camouflaged your true nature. It don’t come easy. Not that you did anything wrong, it’s difficult to navigate in this shrill world without losing sight of your simpler essence behind all the filters needed to operate effectively on earth. With all the demagogues creating false paradigms for the weaker-willed or less critically-thinking souls to fall into, it’s no wonder we chose to believe so deeply in things presented to us. What else are we to do? Because in the absence of buying into the collective hunch (reality) we’d face a dispiriting and meaningless landscape of disorder. All this stuff is wearying on an ego looking for relief and surety in a temporary, dualistic world. I bid you peace in the knowledge you will eventually wake up to your deeper self.”

Signed: St Peter (HOA Gatekeeper & Chief Bouncer)

From CC&Rs. The Book of Unbelievable Truth §1 p.580:

Your eternal soul already resides in the empyrean splendor of Heaven. I’ve expressed this innumerable times and yet many prefer to seek truth or succor outside themselves like it’s a goal or an achievement thing. It’s the opposite of pursuit. It’s quieting. It’s not taking yourself so seriously. It’s recognizing you’re just a temporary visitor. It’s not taking advice. Just remember your source. Spend time tuning in. The deep down-in thing that comes from the one. Don’t be fooled by duality. I mean deal with it, but don’t lend it any more credence that you would any other illusion.

From CC&Rs. The Book of Tomes §4 p.321:

Generally speaking, upon passing,  you’ll surface into the kind of heaven you expect to. That’s just simple cause and effect. But if you want to transcend the button down boundaries of a confined heavenly parameter and prepare for the greatest Afterhours Party ever created, I advise you read and practice the guidelines in these CC&Rs until you can toss the book aside.

Addenda to CC&Rs: Some Heavenly Bookkeeping Items for the Modern Age     

1. Robes-Я-Us will continue to operate Heaven’s clothing concession until we run out of terrycloth.
2. Fire Marshalls have temporarily closed the ultra-plush Cloud 9 Party Room until sprinklers are installed.
3. Souls are reminded that most of heaven is based on your expectation. So if you find yourself foxhunting with George Washington, it’s really just your impression of George Washington with whom you’re foxhunting. He’s moved on. Same is true with loved ones. This is not a sad thing. It’s just a thing.
4. You are not your thoughts (this is really all you ever need to understand in order to move on).
5. You cannot bring your service dog with you until the dog dies of natural causes – no more dog euthanizing just so you can have a heavenly companion. Meanwhile you’ll be provided with a little terra cotta facsimile dog until Fido eventually does expires. However you’ll soon discover that whatever misapprehension you were laboring under on earth that precipitated the need for the dog in the first place has now been removed; and you’re both free to roam about the Cosmos unleashed (providing you don’t all congregate near the forward lavatory).
6. To some this may seem trifling, but we now have White Cheddar Popcorn, thanks to the power of the White Cheddar Popcorn lobbying group.
7. You may find this hard to believe, but the rational mind is of little utility in the afterlife. In fact it causes a lot of heartache in this one too, but how else are you going to distinguish between sh*t and Shinola.
8. It is absolutely true. Elvis has left the building.

From CC&Rs. The Book of Beyond Great Expectations, §3 p.476:

Be happy words fail you. It’s that big.

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