{If you’re just now joining the story, Part I is here.  Part II is right here.

God looked around ~ well, in a manner of speaking to humans, that’s what we’d say.  God was, of course, not actually like anything we can imagine.  Neither black nor white, not male or female.  Not like anything we can imagine.

But we’ll say that ~ “God looked around.”   From the God chair, everything was revealed.  The little pockets of humans conferring about where they wanted to go to spend eternity, worrying about making the wrong choice.

God smiled.

Poor humans.  They were so sure there was a right choice and a wrong choice.  It was almost cruel to trick them that way.   Of course both the “entrances” led to the same place.

The “friends” they saw at the “bottom of the stairs” were their own projections, well, with maybe a little bit of help from God.   Kind of like holograms.

Of course, the humans couldn’t remember what it was like up here.  When you’ve wrenched yourself away from the celestial souls to become human, you forget where you’ve been. All the wisdom of the ages fades away so you can be born fresh and innocent.  And if the humans had some vague memory, some sense of oneness with the universe, the world soon taught them not to trust that.

The Buddhists were as close to having it right as anyone.   We are all one with the universe, and the sum of us all is ~ well, God, you could maybe call it that.  It is a joyful presence.  Not like the humans.

Divisions.  That’s what people were all about. Classifying and dividing.  And judging.  Judging themselves and other people, and doing it all in the name of God.

God shook his head, or her head ~ well, figuratively speaking.   Part of the process of coming home was giving up one’s ego.  You could either do it voluntarily, chosing to let go of something you had thought was important, or it would be stripped away as you went down the stairs.

But once they got through the entrance, all of that would disappear.  The outer trappings of personality would fade away, and only the essence of each soul would be left.   Each soul, uniquely wonderful, taking its place in the vast union of souls, becoming one with the universe, at home again.  Feeling the joy of finding that bliss once again.

God smiled.  Yes, they were still down there, trying to figure out what they should do, weighing the pros and cons in human terms.  Poor things.  Fussing about fetuses and protesters and who knew what else. Things that just weren’t important any more.

Once they had rejoined with the other souls, the lessons they learned on earth would be absorbed by them all, taken in and processed.

The returning souls would stay in the oneness of celestial being for as long as they chose to.  Someday, they might decide to return to the earth, or one of the other planets.  Just like “God”  had separated out to play the role of “greeter” to the returning souls.

God watched them struggling with themselves at the “Gates of Heaven”.  What petty, self-righteous creatures they could be.  So hard for them to let go of their own beliefs and come home.  But this was their last chance to learn anything from this trip to heaven.  No point in rushing them, they could take all the time they needed.

And God waited.

THE END