Heaven and Hell
Every now and then, I go into blogger and check the statistics of page views of the various posts of this blog. It gives me an idea of what people are interested in. A few days ago, it was a surprise to learn that visitors were reading an older post called ‘Heaven Scientifically Speaking’. The attempt in that post was to reconcile the ancient religious concept of heaven and hell with modern scientific understanding. According to ancient religious concepts, a human is rewarded by a life in heaven as a result of his or her good deeds while Hell is the punishment for bad behavior. Many modern humans put it all down as an attempt by some ruling powers to keep human behavior in check and essentially crap. Certainly the modern view is a convenient one especially if one has a pile of bad behavior in one’s past and is determined to continue with some more :)
In reality we do not have to go very far to other places and
planets or future lives to have a glimpse of heaven and hell. We have sufficient
examples of it right here and now in different parts of the world or even in
different parts of a country or city. Right now as I write this post forest
fires are raging in Tasmania
and people are being forced to abandon their homes and flee. From time to time
mother earth wrecks havoc on human settlements through devices such as
earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods and droughts etc. rendering peaceful
heavenly lives into hellish ones. Then there are other parts of the world such
as Syria, Mali, Congo,
Sudan and Somalia where humans have ventured
forth to lend a helping hand in trying to
create hell for each other. Certainly, a change in human behavior would help in
restoring order in these latter parts- a reward for good behavior as one might
describe it. The other parts of the world where life is periodically hell due
to the periodic intervention of Mother Earth may be escaped through effort and
planning. Brilliant planning in Australia has avoided deaths and Brilliant planning in Japan prevented the Tokyo high rises from crashing subsequent to a harsh earthquake.
One wonders why humans tend to persist living in areas prone
to natural disasters or cities that are full of pollution, crime, poverty and
filth because just as there are hellish places on earth there are beautiful
idyllic ones too on our planet. Just a few weeks ago a brilliant, happy and
beautiful young student got brutally raped by a pack of wolves in a moving
Delhi Bus by the wolves and iron rods etc. to the extent that her guts were
pulled out from her body. You will find descriptions of it all over the
internet. Just search further and look up some photos and descriptions of
lovely towns in countries like Denmark,
Austria, Himalayan foothills and a lot of other places besides and one would find examples of a peaceful heavenly
life.
There is also a kind of Heaven or Hell that can exist right within one's body due to a sad and adverse health condition or in one's surroundings due to a hostile human one may be compelled to live with.
There is also a kind of Heaven or Hell that can exist right within one's body due to a sad and adverse health condition or in one's surroundings due to a hostile human one may be compelled to live with.
These contrasting examples are enough to make it clear to
humans that both heavenly and hellish life is possible right here on earth and
it is within human reach to end up in either. Certainly changing ones place of
living where one has landed by birth or occupation requires effort. The effort
has to begin when one is relatively young, in one’s thirties or at the most
forties in order to be successful in the vast majority of cases, and the effort
to change one’s behavior as being conducive to a heavenly life has to begin
even earlier. It does seem that Nature eventually takes a human to places that
are in accord with ones habits and behaviors right in this life and if one
believes in reincarnation definitely in the next one. One cannot do much to
change the behavior of others but one at least has control on one’s own.
The older post referred to is here
http://someitemshave.blogspot.in/2010/08/heaven-scientifically-speaking.html
Do check it out for a discussion with present day scientific understanding.
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