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.

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.