There was once a preacher who owned a parrot he named “Pierre.”
The old man loved Pierre so much that he taught the bird to recite the Apostle’s Creed so the bird could go to heaven with him when it died.
Eventually, the bird died. The preacher followed him in death a few years later. Arriving in heaven, the preacher did not see Pierre anywhere. The preacher was terribly disappointed to see Jesus and Buddha playing badminton. The preacher’s worst enemy, a man he knew to be a hardcore Atheist, was keeping score.
Seeing the preacher’s disillusionment, Jesus and Buddha smiled at each other for a moment. Then Jesus said, “All of this is happening in your mind. Eternity doesn’t have a shape. Heaven is actually our experience of the essential unity of all being.”
Buddha nodded, “You could have been here all along.”
Jesus continued, “I’m afraid to say you’ve always misunderstood what I was trying to teach you. I did not want ANYONE to sing the parrot’s song of conventional religion. I wanted everyone to sing the song of their own heart, and to sing it in harmony with everyone else’s heart song.”
The preacher lamented, “But I spent all that time teaching my parrot to recite the Apostle’s Creed so he could be with me forever.”
Jesus replied, “Pierre is here, but he could never be in heaven as a captive within your cage. And you could never be with him in heaven so long as you think of him as your possession. Pierre is flying free just above you. He didn’t go to YOUR heaven, he went to HIS.”