Understanding
Heaven and Hell
It
is said that heaven is a transcendent supernatural place filled with beings
such as gods, angels, spirits or revered ancestors and hell is an
afterlife location in which evil souls are subjected to suffering and torture
as a kind of eternal punishment after death. If you ask me, these are religious
definitions which have been expounded in various religion’s holy books – the idea
being to keep the believers together. The entire concept is built on fear,
tenets established to the effect that if you follow the tenets you go to heaven
and if you don’t you end up in hell and so on.
I
personally believe that each individual carries his own heaven and hell within
him/her. It is the state of your mind which defines whether you are living in
heaven or hell. If your mind is disturbed and worried and your body is wracked
with ill health and pain then you are literally in a living hell. In the alternative
if your mind is calm, peaceful in a healthy body with no illnesses and you are
living a happy and productive life spreading happiness around you then it could
be said that you are living in heaven.
Always
remember what Osho had said – “if you suffer it is because of you, if you feel
blissful it is because of you. Nobody else is responsible – only you and you
alone. You are your hell and heaven too”. Our heaven/hell exists between our ears
– in what we call our ‘mind’.
The
moment you tame your mind, make it quiet then the hell which you are supposed
to have been experiencing turns into heaven. The whole trick of living a calm,
peaceful, serene, productive and beneficial life is to control your mind – and this
is possible through meditation. Meditation under the guidance of a realised Master
turns your entire attention turns inwards and when your attention is not
focused on what is happening in the outside world, your mind automatically
starts becoming quiet. When you start experiencing the silence of the mind you
realise that heaven lies inside you. The calmness, the peace and the resonance
of the universal vibrations lead you straight into soul consciousness.
As
you start living in soul consciousness you become a witness to what is happening
around you, you are not affected by the material world – storms come and go and
you continue to remain at peace with yourself. That is when you are in heaven!
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