Heaven and Hell mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita?

Why is it that Heaven and Hell are mentioned by Arjuna and Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita? Do they have different meanings of the words than the christian sense?

 

Heaven and Hell are often just representations of the parallels between good and evil, light and dark, black and white, etc etc...

 

"This disorder carries down to hell the family and the destroyers of the family"

So in this case hell is simply used to describe a state of suffering?

 

The Bhagavatam describes to detail some hells.

 

How does Hell fit into Hinduism? I've always thought that the general idea was that you go through the cycle of rebirths until one is able to attain moksha, but I've never heard of a reference to a Hell. However, I may simply be misunderstanding the context of the word since I have really only heard it used in the Christian sense of it being a "bad place you go when you die" and other such, what I believe to be, nonsense

 

I can hardly begin.

 

Fair Enough

 

You can get a very good idea of heaven and hell by going through Paramahamsa Yogananda's 'Autobiography of a yogi ' ,where Yogananda's guru, describes heaven and hell in a very logical and scientific manner, which is brilliant and breathtaking.

Man, I must have read that particular chapter dozens of times. It is really too much, man.

 

You see, depending on one's karma in this life, he takes birth in a certain body , place and time in the next life. There are many planes of existence in hinduism that are much better than earth. if you do good karma, you can go to them. They are termed heavens and there are multiple levels of comfort, the higher you go, the more comfortable the life will be. It is also said to be easier to get moksha from a heavenly world.
The hells are just the opposite, if you have bad karma then you will take birth in a hellish planet/ plane of existence, this is where the demonic creatures live. In these worlds, ignorance clouds the living entity and makes him blind to the divine self within. It is tough to get moksha from a hellish world.

 

There is a whole canto in the Bhagavatam (4th?) that describes 28 hellish planets and what kind of tortures people suffer there.
After that the story of Ajamila is told. He was a brahmana that lost everything to a prostitute and was qualified to go to hell but he was transfered to Vishnuloka just by calling upon his younger son.

 

Yes, whatever one hears or thinks about at the end of his life , he gets it automatically. The duty of a good son is to whisper "Narayana, Narayana" in his father's ear at his time of death... then his father will instantly be transferred to vishnuloka. Those of us who have no sons, do not have this previlege, we may pray to shiva to help us out.

 

Or you can name one of your sons Narayana

 

haha that is so true.

 

What stupidity. So if the father was a so-called upper caste man who discriminated,raped and slaughtered people of the lower castes, will his sins be washed out merely because his son chants "Narayana, Narayana" in his father's ear at his time of death. And if you say yes to that , I must say that you are an idiot of the highest order.

 

hehe, you see everything plays out according to the will of the lord, if some one raped, murdered and discriminated and slaughtered people and in the last minute of his life wished he had done things differently and thought of Narayana for forgiveness and refuge, then yes, he attains Vishnuloka.

However, it would be ridiculous for one to think "Oh I will rape, pillage and murder everyone and then say Narayana" , because then Narayana himself will make sure that the person will never say narayana at the end of his life.

You have to understand my friend, that Sriman Narayana controls everything and everyone. Also, judgements you make will have no effect on those who don't care for nothing except the truth.

 

The thing you have to remember about heavens and hells in both Hinduism and Buddhism as opposed to Christianity is that they are not eternal. That's where reincarnation comes in...in both religions nothing is perminant as long as it exists in samsara (the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth), this includes heavens and hells. In Hinduism, the only perminance that exists is the Atman (the soul), no matter what plane of existance you may be in, you will always be the soul, but each plane helps you to realize or not realize the existence of the soul. Once you realize the Atman, you can finally leave this ever moving cycle, this is moksha (liberation), as Jedi said... this is the goal.

I hope this helped and I haven't said anything amiss. Also understand all the part with the Atman is exclusive to Hinduism...it changes with Buddhism.

 

::nods:: I imagine unless you are truly sorry for your wrong doings that you wouldn't be given the oppourtunity to hear Narayana's name at the end of your life...or you'd be so ignorant that it wouldn't penitrate anyway. Its a similar idea in Christianity, that if do bad things thinking..."that's ok, I'll just get forgiven later anyway" that its quite possible that the forgiveness won't mean much unless you are truly remorseful and looking to find your inner purity again. ::shrug:;

 

Yep everything works out.

 

Anyway, still on topic who is familiar with the story of Ajamila?

 

This is the same reasoning of the christians as well. If a man who slaughter, raped and murdered, upon the time of his death, gets terrified of hell, and then resigns completely to christ in order to escape hell, he too would escape hell.

If Hitler prayed to Christ before he died , he would have also gone to heaven, while the jews he tortured and slaughtered will go to hell, because they as jews had rejected christ, even if they were noble people. He himself said that it was his conviction that he was doing Gods will.


When Aurangzeb, Babar, Allaudin Khilji, and the others were slaughtering innocent unbelievers and forcibly converting others , they too were completely devoted to God, and believed they were doing his will, which they refer to many times.

So much for your stupidity and the stupidity of the likes of you, which is the reason why the world is in a mess at the moment.