A Question on Karma Theory

[atanu]

Friends

I found the following explanation of Hell from mahabhArata that is somewhat beyond the traditional and it expounds the vedantic position that every state other than the Supreme state of Vishnu - which is identity with Self, is Hell.

Description of Hell
From The Mahabharata
Santi Parva Section CXCVIII
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli

King Yudhishthira said: Tell me what description of hell is obtained by a Reciter (of sacred mantras)? I feel a curiosity to know this. It behoveth thee to discourse on this subject.

Bhishma said: Thou hast sprung from a portion of the god of righteousness. Thou art by nature observant of righteousness. Listen, O sinless one, with undivided attention, to these words resting on righteousness as their basis. Those regions that are owned by the high-souled gods, that are of diverse aspects and colours, of diverse descriptions and productive of diverse fruits, and that are of great excellence, those cars again that move at the will of the riders, those beautiful mansions and hells, those various pleasure-gardens embellished with golden lotuses, those regions that belong to the four Regents and other denizens of heaven, are O sire, spoken of as hells, when compared with the region of the Supreme Soul.

The region last spoken of (region of the Supreme Soul) is without any fear (of change for the worse), uncreate (and therefore, in its true nature), without pain of any kind (such as ignorance and delusion), without any agreeable or disagreeable element, beyond the reach of the three attributes (of Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas), freed from the eight incidents, (viz., the five primal elements, the senses, the mind, and the intellect), without the three (distinctions between the knower, the known, and act of knowing); freed also from the four attributes (seeing, hearing, thinking, and knowing), without the fourfold causes (of knowledge), without joy and delight and sorrow and disease.

Time (in his forms of past, present and future) arises there for use. Time is not the ruler there. That supreme region is the ruler of Time as also of Heaven. That Reciter who becomes identified with his Soul (by withdrawing everything into it) goes there. He has, after this, never to feel any sorrow. This region is called Supreme. The other regions (of which I have first spoken) are hell. I have not told thee of all those regions that are called hell. Indeed, in comparison with that foremost of regions all the others are called hell.


More on the subject of karma and its fruits is available at:

http://www.hinduism.co.za/heavenhell.htm

Om Namah Shivaya

[Vaishnava]

Hinduism indeed gives us descriptions of hellish and heavenly planets as known from the scriptures pointed out by our other friends here. This frog has understood there is more to the world than my well. But eternal damnation is not a concept of Hinduism.

Whether in earth or in hell or in heaven, pleasure and pain is a product of Karma only. But it is temporary as indicated by upanishads and Gita. This much said, in hell suffering is more while in heaven pleasure i more, but in both there is an end after that portion of Karma is exhausted.

Gita Chapter IX - 21:

"Having enjoyed the spacious world of heaven, they return to the world of mortals when their merit is exhausted. Thus, those who follow the Vedic rituals and are drawn by desires, come and go."

Distasteful incidents, perverted intellect and thoughts are products of bad karma. Here and now we have a choice of taking up to please and surrender to God and get rid of both good and bad karma, like one gets rid of rusted and golden chains.