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The Space Between – Heaven on Earth is a companion podcast to Awakening – Heaven on Earth.
Through intimate, heart-centered conversations, this series explores the lived experience of awakening — the questions, integrations, paradoxes, and sacred pauses where transformation truly occurs.
This is the space between knowing and becoming…
where Heaven meets Earth through honest dialogue.
Welcome to the space between heaven on earth.
Jeffrey Aylor:This is a companion podcast to awakening heaven on earth created as a space for reflection, conversation, and lived experience.
Jeffrey Aylor:Here, we enter the pause between knowing and becoming, between insight and embodiment, between heaven and earth. These conversations are not about answers or conclusions. They are about presence, about listening, about reasoning together, about meeting one another honestly in the unfolding journey of awakening.
Jeffrey Aylor:I'm your host, Jeffrey Aylor.
Jeffrey Aylor:Again, welcome and thank you for entering The Space Between with us.
Jeffrey Aylor:Welcome to this edition of the Space Between. We call this episode today Living as the Bridge Heaven in our Hands. And this feels pretty meaningful as we move into the holiday season here this weekend, many holidays currently going on across different faith traditions, and it's a time that's long represented death and resurrection, letting go, becoming various births. But for those of us that are part of the Christian tradition, this is a time that most Christian churches are focused on the death and resurrection of Jesus. But what if that resurrection is not just something that happened?
Jeffrey Aylor:What if it's something that we're all being invited to live? Not just someday, not somewhere else, but here and now. In previous episodes, one specifically focused on the turning point. I shared my personal turning point. This was a moment that really broke something open inside of me.
Jeffrey Aylor:A moment that led me to ask much deeper questions about life, about death, about meaning, about what is actually true. And once something opens, it really doesn't fully close again. You start to see things very differently. You begin to feel differently. You begin to question things that you once accepted without question.
Jeffrey Aylor:But here's what I've come to realize. Awakening is not the end of the journey. It's the beginning of a new one. Because eventually we all ask a deeper question. Now that you see differently, how will you live?
Jeffrey Aylor:How will you live? Today, I'm gonna be doing this episode alone. Because of the holiday weekend, I didn't want to interrupt people's plans and activities, so it's just going to be me today, and we're going to dive into a number of different elements related to this focal point of living as the bridge. What it means to be the bridge. You know, this is really where the idea of living as the bridge between heaven and earth begins.
Jeffrey Aylor:Living as a bridge means being present in a world that still feels quite divided without becoming divided within yourself. It means holding love in moments where fear is present, and choosing love over fear. Choosing to be understanding when judgment would be easier, and remaining grounded when everything around you is pulling toward reaction versus a conscious response. You know, we're not here to escape the world. You're here to transform how the world is experienced through you.
Jeffrey Aylor:I've come to believe very much that each one of us are individual expressions of the same source or the same God or the same essence, and that is God experiencing life through us, through our individual expressions. And coming to understand this, this is an important shift because it moves us away from trying to fix everything, trying to fix everybody, or to convince everyone, or to change the world all at once. And instead it brings us back to something that is much closer, something that's much quieter, and to me something that's much more powerful. You know, a bridge doesn't choose sides. A bridge connects sides.
Jeffrey Aylor:It is the connection point between two sides that makes the two sides one. And when you begin to live this way from this perspective, I believe we become a presence, not perfect, not always certain, but present. Focused on the now, which is the only thing that really exists. You know, there's another way for us to understand this. There's something that has been described in many different traditions as the difference between duality and non duality.
Jeffrey Aylor:Now I know you may be hearing those terms, and those words may sound a bit abstract, but the experience actually is quite familiar, I believe. Duality is how we often see the world. What we see as being either right and wrong, good and bad, us and them, success and failure. It's really seeing the world from the perspective of separation, this or that. And it's not wrong.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's a critical part of our human experience. But there's also moments, moments of quietness, moments of stillness, moments of love, moments of deep presence where that feeling and sense of separation begins to soften, somewhat dissipates, where there really is no us and them, just a sense of connection, of oneness, of unity. That is what many would call non duality. And living as the bridge is not about rejecting the world or the perceptions of duality, but it's really about moving through it while remaining connected to something that is much much deeper. It really is holding both living in the world, but not being of the world, not being fully defined by the world.
Jeffrey Aylor:It allows you to see differences without losing sight of the fact that unity is still true. Unity is the underlying reality, and this is where the practice becomes very real because life is going to continue to present duality. But at this point, the question is, we we going to be limited by it any longer? You see, as we come into this world, as a soul enters into this world, we go through what many call the veil of forgetting. And unfortunately, many people fortunately, unfortunately, maybe that's probably not the right term.
Jeffrey Aylor:As we go through this life, many people stay under the veil. They they don't come to the point of seeing and understanding that that unity is real, that we are all from a single source, that our souls are eternal. Our true essence is that eternal essence. It's not this human presence. This is temporary.
Jeffrey Aylor:This is has purpose, but it's it's and we're gonna talk about this as we go through this podcast a little bit later later. We are not our body. So now if we're honest, this concept, this is not always easy because we have a strong tendency to forget. Even when you come to an awakening and you come to start to see and understand some of these fundamental things, we still can find ourselves in a position where we forget. We forget.
Jeffrey Aylor:And we forget in moments of stress. We forget when we are in points and periods of conflict. Had this happened this week, actually, a work related situation where I you get exposed to a stimulus, you get exposed to a situation, and it is so easy to want to just react immediately to what you're being stimulated by. And I'm thankful I was able to catch myself before responding To the situation now I I have to say I think the response was still. Maybe strong, which isn't necessarily bad given the circumstance.
Jeffrey Aylor:But I could definitely feel myself being pulled to react, react quickly without fully thinking through what it was that I was experiencing. We forget when we feel misunderstood, or when we feel judged. And that's when old patterns we talked about these old patterns last episode when we talked about resistance that a lot of times we get pulled into these old stories and old patterns that like gravity pull us back. They surface over and over, and they pull us back, and we tend at those points to forget. Forget oneness, unity, love, joy, peace, the things that keep us grounded.
Jeffrey Aylor:And sometimes when we catch ourselves reacting in ways that just don't feel aligned with what we've come to understand, and you'll feel that you'll feel that cognitive dissonance between what you're thinking about doing or what you do unconsciously in reaction, and what you probably should have done had you stopped and consciously thought through and then responded consciously to the situation. But I think this is important. You know, the goal is not perfection. The invitation here is really to awareness. Becoming more aware, more conscious of our circumstances and our situational positions that we find ourselves in, And then through that consciousness, through that pause that we'll talk about here in a minute, being able to return and not get pulled back into unconscious reaction to certain circumstances and getting pulled back into that belief and that veil of duality that isn't real.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's not true. And in many cases, this will allow us to return more quickly each time we find ourselves kind of straying from the position that we want to be in, returning without judgment, judgment for ourselves, judgment against whoever might be involved in that particular situation. And and we also need to be able at that point to return with compassion. Again, compassion for ourselves and compassion for the others that are involved in whatever circumstance it is that we're dealing with, recognizing that we're not separate from them. We are all one, and we all come from that one source.
Jeffrey Aylor:So this is not about becoming someone new. It's really about remembering and returning to who we really are. We've all always been this. We've always had this at the core of our being. But having come through that veil of forgetting, having our eyes deceived by the duality that we're perceiving in the world, we forget.
Jeffrey Aylor:We have a tendency to forget. And because of that, we can't function as a bridge connecting and being that joining point between heaven and earth within ourselves. So let's talk real quick about how do we live this in a practical way? What does living as the bridge look like in everyday life? How do we actually live this way?
Jeffrey Aylor:And the first step is what we'll call the pause. It's interesting because as I went through my facilitator training, my train the trainer training to become an organizational development consultant. This was one of the most profound things they taught us was to be comfortable with silence. We called it the pregnant pause. You ask a question, and then you just stand there quietly and allow the people that you've asked the question to, to think.
Jeffrey Aylor:To think about it and to process it and to to be comfortable with that pause. Well, that pause is is a space. This podcast is called the space between the space between the teaching, the information that we share as part of our Awakening Heaven on Earth podcast. Each week, we share content, and the space between podcasts. This podcast is designed for us to ponder and consider and to reason and to stop and think critically about that content that we shared in that Awakening Heaven on Earth podcast.
Jeffrey Aylor:This is how the two are designed to work together. And it's in that pause between. What happens to us when we get stimulated, and then how we respond awakening to that. And that space between. Stimulus and response is where the bridge exists.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's it is that which connects the two. So. Before reacting. And reaction is different than responding, reacting is. Just taking an action without consciously thinking before you take the action.
Jeffrey Aylor:Before reacting, pause. Just stop. Before speaking, pause. Stop. Think.
Jeffrey Aylor:Process. And before assuming something. Pause. Think through it. Process it.
Jeffrey Aylor:Again, it's really timely that this circumstance, in my work occurred this week because it is a perfect example of just exactly what I'm talking about here. It was a it was a difficult situation as many people I'm sure listening to this podcast get confronted, whether it's at work or home or in whatever environment you're in sometimes with something that you know when you're stimulated by it that there's something wrong, there's something not right about this that I need to process it and understand it. So that I do my best not to make it worse by just reacting, especially with emotion, and to try to understand what is the reason. Why is this happening? What am I supposed to be learning from whatever this is that's happening?
Jeffrey Aylor:And to, as we like to say, do some root cause analysis, peel back the different layers of an onion and get to the core of that onion and see whether it's good in the middle or is it rotten in the middle. But that pause is what allows us to individually, personally, in so many cases de escalate emotion. It allows us then to come up with a more effective way of responding than what we probably would have without that pause. It's in that space, that space between that we present ourselves with different choices. And in many cases, depending on what you choose to do, you're going to create a reality for yourself based on those choices.
Jeffrey Aylor:So taking the time to just stop, to objectively think and consider and discern what am I experiencing, what just happened, trying to understand it from a fact based position. What is the truth about what just happened? And and and I believe what we'll find is that that will create a much, much more stable Effective response. To the things that are happening in the world around us. Step two is to then be able to live as a bridge.
Jeffrey Aylor:You need to be able to see beyond behavior. This also is a good example of something that applies to those situations I was dealing with at work this week where what I really was experiencing is a behavior from an individual that I I I'm confident is because that individual has some fairly deep wounds that that they maybe have not dealt with, and they built up walls, and they have created projective behavior because of that that is not consistent with their true essence. Now that doesn't mean that you just accept what people do or what they say that it that you you condone or you consider everything that anyone does to be okay. It's not. But recognize that in many cases, we experience outwardly is the surface experience.
Jeffrey Aylor:If you dig deeper, there's much more to it than what you see or hear or feel at the moment that you're experiencing something. And when we react only to the behavior, we have a tendency then to reinforce separation. Again, good, bad, right, wrong. But when we learn to see beyond that behavior, we then start to reconnect with something that's much deeper. That's where we start building a bridge.
Jeffrey Aylor:Again, this doesn't mean that we allow everything. It doesn't mean that we condone a bad behavior, but it does ask us to see it more clearly. And then the third part of this is to choose. Right? Again, this is and it's not always a one time decision.
Jeffrey Aylor:In some cases, we we have to practice this every day, multiple times a day, where we have to make choices. We have to make a decision, and to make the best possible decisions, I think, requires us to take more time, take more time, and truly become and build a bridge. You know, there is a concept we teach within our continuous improvement world that we work in called alpha and beta decision making error. So an alpha decision error would be, I believe something to be true, and it is not. If it's true, or if I believe it's true, and it's not, then I'm going to be making a decision based on bad information.
Jeffrey Aylor:A beta decision making errors if I believe something is not true, but it is again, little different situation, but the same result. I'm going to be making decisions and potentially taking actions that are based on. Not based on truth. And this happens to us throughout the day. It happened to us regularly and sometimes moment by moment.
Jeffrey Aylor:And periodically, we're going to forget. We are going to react. We're going to fall back into this old pattern. We're going to allow this old story that we've held on to for a long, long time to pull us back. Then and then hopefully as you continue through this awakening process, you'll get to know yourself better.
Jeffrey Aylor:You'll notice. When you're doing that and you'll stop and pause. And you're going to choose again. This is the path. This is the mystical path, the journey to oneness that is the core foundation and essence of this podcast season, this first season of unity.
Jeffrey Aylor:So when we talk about heaven in our hands, we often ask, well, when will heaven come? Or where is heaven? But what if the question really is, when will we begin to live it? You see, because we can live it not as an idea, but as a way of being. Heaven is not, in my opinion and in my understanding at this point, a place.
Jeffrey Aylor:Heaven is not a place. It's not somewhere out there. It's within us. It is a way of being. It is the place of unity.
Jeffrey Aylor:Unity is heaven. Separation is death. Hell is the result. The suffering that we experience as a result of believing that we are separate creates death. Death is separation.
Jeffrey Aylor:The suffering that comes from believing in separation is hell. It is the torment. It is the struggle we feel within ourselves when we allow separation to be a driving belief and force. Heaven is when we believe in connectedness, when we believe in unity, when we recognize and understand we are all one. Now this should change our way of being.
Jeffrey Aylor:Heaven is not a place we go. It's the way we see. It's the way that we respond. It's the way that we a way that we love. It it's present.
Jeffrey Aylor:It it's in the way that we treat each other, in the way that we move through difficulty, in the way we choose peace when conflict would be easier. Isn't that applicable in our world today? Choosing peace? Conflict isn't strength. Conflict is not a sign of of strength.
Jeffrey Aylor:It is evidence of weakness. It's easy. It's doing what's easy, not necessarily what is right. And I think it's important for all of us to understand heaven is not withheld from us. It's waiting to be expressed through us.
Jeffrey Aylor:It starts with each one of us, within each one of us. The collective is not going to be impacted until enough individuals, enough people individually recognize it all starts within us as a person, and then it will express itself outwardly, and as others embrace and do the work inwardly, we will create the outer world that is consistent with our inner world. So now as I reflect on this idea of living as a bridge, heaven in our hands, that heaven is not something that we wait for, but something that we have available to us now that we begin to live now. There was a song that emerged from that place and that understanding. That's part of our unity album.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's called heaven in our hands. And it speaks to this truth that what we are seeking may already be within us waiting, waiting, just waiting to be expressed in how we see how we choose and how we love. So now I just want to take a minute invite you not to listen, but to feel as we share this song called Heaven in our hands.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:We were born from holy silence, breathed alive by unseen hands. Every heartbeat holds a whisper. We are one with all that stands. Not just dreamers of the future, not just watchers from the shore. We are builders, we are bringers.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:Heaven's knocking on our door. Heaven in our hands now, every word seed we sow. Love is not just longing, it's the path we choose to go. Where the mirrors of the mystery dust and breath in sacred lands Carrying heaven in our hands Every thought becomes a canvas every choice a brush of life. We're not waiting for the morning.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:We were made to birth the night co creating with the spirit, with the field of what can be. Heaven isn't far above us, it's alive in you and me. Heaven in our hands now, every step of prayer we make. Love is not just waiting, it's the move we dare to take. Where the word made into matter, shape and stars With every stand Holding heaven in our hands Heaven in our hands now.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:Every breath can shape the skies. Truth is not just spoken. It's the way we live our lives. We are dancing with the mystery, walking in the one who stands, carrying heaven in our hand. This world is clay and light and song, Heaven in our hands now, every word seed we sow.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:Love is not just longing, it's the path we choose to go. Where the mirrors of the mystery dust and breath and sacred plants carry in heaven in our hands.
Jeffrey Aylor:Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that. Now let's just let's take a moment and notice what you feel. Because sometimes music helps us hear what words cannot. And if something in you resonated, that may be the truth Already alive within you.
Jeffrey Aylor:Already living and waiting for you to express in your life today. So as we close our episode today, I wanna leave you with this. Where in your life are you being invited to become a bridge, to become the bridge, to be a point of connection, to be a point of joining and not dividing. Not perfectly, but willingly. Not someday, but today.
Jeffrey Aylor:Not waiting for someone else to do this when you can you you can do it. And you can take that responsibility and become a bridge. Heaven, I don't believe, is somewhere else. I think it is significantly closer than you can ever imagine, and perhaps it has always been in your hands. And with that, the space between continues.
Jeffrey Aylor:As we come to a close,
Jeffrey Aylor:remember that this journey continues in many expressions. This podcast is part of a family of partner podcasts. Awakening heaven on earth. The space between heaven and earth and Living Heaven on Earth are three companion podcasts exploring spiritual awakening from complementary perspectives. Awakening heaven on earth offers the core teachings and mystical reflections on unity, love, and conscious living.
Jeffrey Aylor:The space between creates room for dialogue, reflection, and lived conversation around those teachings. Living Heaven on Earth focuses on basic spiritual practices that help embody these insights in daily life. Together, they form a unified journey of understanding, experience, and integration. Inviting listeners to remember their connection with the divine, with one another, and with the living world. You can find all of them available on the same podcast streaming platforms wherever you listen.
Jeffrey Aylor:And if music helps carry these teachings deeper into the heart,
Jeffrey Aylor:The Unity.
Jeffrey Aylor:Awakening Heaven on Earth album is available on all major music streaming services as a musical companion to this journey. Wherever you engage,
Jeffrey Aylor:through listening,
Jeffrey Aylor:reflection, conversation, or music. May it gently remind you,
Jeffrey Aylor:you are not separate.
Jeffrey Aylor:You belong to the one life and heaven is already unfolding within you. Until next time. Walk gently, love deeply, and embody heaven on earth.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:I used to think heaven was somewhere far away, beyond the stars and clouds. At the end of my days. But I was walking wounded blind to what was true. Hell was in the distance and fear was what I knew. I felt alone and broken like I lost the map looking for salvation but never looking back till I heard a whisper deep inside my chest.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:You were never separate. Come on home and rest. This is heaven when we break the chains inside. When the life separation is seen and cast aside. When we love without condition no matter what they do.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:When forgiveness flows like mercy and makes all things new. It ain't some perfect place beyond this earthly ground. It's the joy of unity that we have finally found. This is heaven. Yeah.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:This is heaven now. Heaven ain't a mansion paved with golden rose. It's a child laughing loud at a story being told. It's the hands that feed the hungry, the eyes that see the pain. It's the ones who show compassion even when they feel the strain.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:It's a prayer whispered
Jeffrey Aylor:softly when no one else can hear. It's finding out your enemy was really just your fear. It's waking up and choosing love again and again. It's remembering the
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:strain. Truth. We were never not one. This is heaven when we break the chains inside. When the life separation and makes all things new.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:It ain't some perfect place beyond this earthly ground. It's the joy of unity that we have finally found. This is heaven. Yeah. This is heaven now.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:This is heaven where we live from sacred grace. When every stranger's It ain't a far off dream behind a pearly gate. It's the union we remember. But when we drop the hay, it's the joy of unity that we have finally found. This is heaven.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:Yeah. This is heaven now. This is heaven when we break the chains inside. When the life separation is seen and cast aside. When we love without condition no matter what they do.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:When forgiveness flows like mercy and makes all things new. It ain't some perfect place beyond this earthly ground. Is of unity that we have finally found. This is heaven. Yeah.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:This is heaven now.
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:Hell is the lie that we're ever apart, but heaven is love waking up in the heart. And heaven is here, not just someday. It's right where we are
Awakening - Heaven on Earth:when we live this way. Yeah. This is heaven. Heaven is now. Heaven is here where love is how.