Recently, someone wrote the following on YouTube:
"When you talk about heaven, it’s like you’re talking about something completely unaccessible (by choice?) to the average Joe. How does one see heaven? Does it happen in deep meditation/prayer?"
My reply was:
"Heaven is a place, but its quality is not because of where it is so much as how the people there are. If you want to see it, there are no tricks or alternative paths except becoming more like the people there. The whole purpose of the gospel is to provide us with the means and motivation to become more like Jesus."
Whether it applies to this particularly person's case or not, it always amazes me how regularly people are surprised by what are the most basic ideas in the gospel. It is apparent that a person can spend a lifetime talking about and living what they think the gospel is before actually coming to an understanding of the most preliminary ideas.[1]
A common recurring theme among the particulars is the idea that you can't have uncommon experiences with God--including salvation, which is much more rare than Christians believe--while still being a common person.
Should this be surprising? Do you even read the scriptures, bro?
Jesus said "give not that which is holy unto the dogs." (Matthew 7:6) "...the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance." (Alma 45:16)
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:14)
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19)
...because of the fall our natures have become evil continually.... (Ether 3:2)
23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
24 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. (Luke 9)
It's as if Jesus was saying that the path to him is completely contrary to how we begin and that only through complete trust in him can we muster the motivation to leave behind everything common and prefer everything better, achieving the complete submission to him that he plainly and repeatedly said was the only way to become more like he is, which in turn is the only way to receive more of what he has.
Imagine that.
Well did the wise man write:
There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. (Proverbs 30:12)
Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. (James 1:21)
And moreover, I say unto you, that there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent. (Mosiah 3:17)
[1] "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 3:7) Read verses 1-11 to see what causes this condition and how to cure it.