Re: Do all schools of Hinduism believe in temporary hell?
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namasté
I wish to offer just a few ideas that I think are of value to the overall string.
This heaven and hell (svargam loka and narakam loka) is talked about within our upaniṣads1 , within the śrīmad bhāgavad gītā2, and within the purāṇa’s3. All well and good, and one can read them as they see fit.
My point here is to add just a bit more on what Indialover has mentioned above.
In Hinduism all is a cycle, nothing is for ever
Yes, I support this view of cycles – they are clearly laid out early on in the mahābhārata, and most know of these yuga-s ( ages); Yet when it comes to nothing is for ever, we need to look at this a bit closer.
If one says no-thing is forever, yes this quite precise. No thing = no object (solid, liquid, gas, thought, feeling, idea, person, place, fauna or flora, etc.) is forever. Any thing that has a birth will have a death. Even thoughts/feelings have births. They come into awareness then leave/die. Yet on a bigger scale, whole galaxies and everything in them come into existence ( birth) then they too die with time.
Yet all ‘this’ , all these occurrences happen within the field of Being. This Being never had a birth (ajāta) hence is deathless. It never had a beginning and therefore never has an end; hence it is eternal, forever.
This is one thing to keep in mind. But how does it apply to the reader of this post? Let’s look to someone with authority to speak the words.
Kṛṣṇa-ji informs us in the chapter 2, 12th śloka of the bhāgavad gītā:
na tvevāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ |
na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ sarve vayam ataḥ param || 2.12
this says,
there never was a time when I was not, nor you (arjuna), nor these rulers
of men. Nor will there ever be a time when all of us shall cease to be. || 2.12
So, this causes one some pause. Every day millions of cells are dying in me, I am young, then middle age then old and then I die. Well, that sure causes some consternation in one’s thinking of this verse (2.12).
So, there must be something more to what kṛṣṇa-ji has offered arjuna. He tells this to arjuna early-on in the bhāgavad gītā the wisdom of the ages; it is through the rest of the bhāgavad gītā that kṛṣṇa-ji supplies the knowledge and insight to bring arjuna to this understanding.
I will leave it to the reader to pursue this grand dialog between kṛṣṇa-ji & arjuna and then bring their questions to this forum as they see fit.
इतिशिवं
iti śivaṁ
- kaṭha upaniṣad
- śrīmad bhāgavad gītā - chapter 16
- śrīmad bhāgavata mahāpurāṇa
Last edited by yajvan; 26 January 2018 at 10:21 AM.
यतस्त्वं शिवसमोऽसि
yatastvaṁ śivasamo'si
because you are identical with śiva
_
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