Bhaktisandesam / Highway to Heaven

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Hari-Om

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Do you believe in the concept of Heaven & Hell ?

 

Our desire to live in this world drives our life. And we all seek

heaven on earth. But what happens after we die? Where do we go? Many

of us today don't believe in the concept of heaven and hell. So did

the early Hindus! To them heaven was not a preferred destination

after death.

 

Back to Nature

The early Hindus never believed in heaven, and never prayed to attain

a permanent place there. The earliest concept of afterlife, say Vedic

scholars, was that the dead reunite with Mother Nature and live in

some other form on this earth — just as Wordsworth wrote, " with rocks

and stones and trees. " Going back to the early Vedic hymns, we find

an eloquent invocation to the fire god, where the prayer is to

assimilate the dead with the natural world:

 

" Burn him not, scorch him not, O Agni,

Consume him not entirely; afflict him not…

May your eye go to the Sun,

To the wind your soul…

Or go to the waters if it suits thee there,

Or abide with thy members in the plants... "

~ The Rig Veda

 

The concept of heaven and hell evolved at a later stage when we find

such amendments in the Veda as " Go thou to the heaven or to the

earth, according to thy merit… "

 

Idea of Immortality

Vedic folks were satisfied with living their life to the fullest;

they never aspired to attain immortality. It was a common belief that

human beings are allocated a span of hundred years for earthly

existence, and people just prayed for a healthy life: " …Interpose

not, O gods, in the midst of our passing existence, by inflicting

infirmity in our bodies. " (Rig Veda) However, as time passed by, the

idea of eternity for mortals evolved. Thus later in the same Veda we

come to read: " …Grant us food, and may I obtain immortality through

my posterity. "

 

 

 

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Jai Shree Krishna !