The "next world"--"the beyond"--therefore, must not be thought of in terms of space and time, of here and there, of now and then, as a place to which we shall journey at the momentous moment of death: "the soul {187} needeth no going forth."[45] As soon as the external veil of flesh dissolves, each person is in his own country and has all the time been in it. There is nothing nearer to you than heaven and hell. To whichever of them you _incline_ and toward whichever of them you tend--that is most near you, and every man has in himself the key.[46] Heaven and hell are everywhere throughout the whole world. You need not seek them far off. It is always the nature of "Anti-Christ" and "Babel" and "opinion-peddlers" to seek God and heaven and hell above the stars or under the deep. There is only one "place" to look for God and that is in one's own soul, there is only one "region" in which to find heaven or hell, and that is in the nature and character of the person's own desire and will: "Even though the devil should go many millions of miles, desiring to see heaven and enter into it, yet he would still be in hell and could not see heaven at all."[47] The soul, Boehme says in substance, hath heaven or hell in itself. Heaven is the turning of the will into God's love; hell is the turning of the will into hate. Now when the body falls away the heavenly soul is thoroughly penetrated with the Love and Light of God, even as fire penetrates and enlightens white-hot iron, whereby it loses its darkness--this is heaven and this is the right hand of God. The soul that dwells in falsehood, lust, pride, envy, and anger carries hell in itself and cannot reach the Light and Love of God. Though it should go a thousand miles or a thousand times ten thousand miles--even climb beyond the spaces of the stars and the bounds of the universe--it would still remain in the same property and source of darkness as before.[48] The "next world"--"the world beyond"--is {188} just _this_ world, as it is in each one of us, with its essential spirit and nature and character clearly revealed and fulfilled. God creates and maintains no hell of ever-lasting torture; He builds and supports no heaven of endless glory. They are both formed out of the soul's own substance as it turns toward light or darkness, toward love or hate--in short, as "it keeps house," to use one of his vivid words, with the eternal nature of things.