Heaven

In this painting - 'Heaven' - Victor Bregeda uses the glorious white roses to symbolize heaven.

Heaven (or Nirvana, enlightenment, mukti or moksha) is generally considered in all world religions to be the ultimate goal of spiritual striving and evolution for mankind.

In the rose petals we see three faces: that of God looking down, the face of man looking upwards toward the light, and a third face to the right representing those wise souls who have already reached heaven. Below are white figures and a white horse calmly standing in a beautiful landscape.

The implication is that heaven is not some place far away to be arrived at only after death; rather it is a state of mind which enables one to realize that the Kingdom of God is all around us, for those who have eyes to see. Jesus always spoke of the kingdom as being within, and also outside of us (see the Gospel according to Thomas in the Essene Gospels). The true goal of spiritual endeavor is to free the mind of the ego-based limitations and dualities that blind one from seeing that heaven is all around us right now - to open the eyes and the heart to beauty and love... love of each other, love of other creatures (horse), and love of the earth (notice the white figure on the left caring for the plants on the hillside).

We are still stewards of this Garden of Eden and it was only our ignorance that threw us out of the garden in the first place, and it is only our own individual striving that will regain us entry to the garden. This is the task of the journey which Victor always portrays in his paintings with the ladder and the upwardly-winding paths. Heaven is one of the few Bregeda paintings that do not contain a ladder -- because the goal has already been attained.