If there’s no life after death, why’s there confusion about heaven and hell in almost all the religions in the world and more specifically, across many cultures?
The early philosophers who formulated the religions had to face the problem of regulating human conduct. Some form of control was, is and will be needed to influence human behaviour, wherever man went. So, systems were developed to explain the conduct of human beings.
These systems had their bases on the topography where the people lived in. The ideas of these systems were to control human actions through ideas of ‘God’ and preaching. The ideas of hell and heaven were used to regulate people’s lives and to ensure an orderly society. These ideas got codified in religions, and through time, they got perfectly misinterpreted by the people. The original meaning of heaven and hell refer to the life every being lives through. The rough times we go through refer to hell, and the joy we experience in the course of our lives refer to heaven.
The concept of yin-yang perfectly explains the cycle of life, wherein every sentient being undergoes a cycle of hell and heaven simultaneously in the course of his or her life. Our thoughts and actions regulate the cycle of hell and heaven emphasising our point of total consciousness to karma. As the soul dissipates after death, the energy which held the organism gets back to the source from where it came from – to the ‘pure’ energy state, the state described by many spiritual philosophers as the state of God.
The Next Lives
Arguments about previous and next births (of the soul) take as much precedence as the question of life after death. Siddhas and Yogis address this question in a curious way. There is the occurrence of the birth of a person (not the same soul) after the death of a soul. This happens in a manner of generations of offsprings a person and his genetics give rise to.
The character, physical characteristics and mental abilities of a person are born again in his or her offsprings, ensuring continuity of life. Through Sanchitta and Aahmya karma, the offsprings inherit a part of karma from the previous generations just as they inherit the characteristics of their forefathers. This process is repeated with each successive generation.
The genes carrying the characteristics also indirectly carry the previous life of the soul to a different point in time! The process continues until the genetic make-up of the offsprings is completely overwritten by newer genes during reproduction in successive generations. Usually, it takes about 7 generations for the karma of a soul to finally neutralise or get balanced. This rebirth is what is explained in Sanchitta karma. It is this very rebirth that is explained as previous and afterlives.
Karma acts as a balancing force for the soul. Just as every structure in the universe tries to attain equilibrium, our souls attain balance through corresponding actions resulting in karma through generations of offsprings. What happens to karma if a soul dies before neutralising it and if it doesn’t have any offsprings, is quite a contentious issue among the many spiritual philosophers. Some say the time taken by the soul to get neutralised gets increased and a restless soul tries to achieve neutrality by latching on to the living souls and sharing their karma.
This does sound confusing and quite scary too, but our definition of the soul doesn’t allow this possibility. This conundrum about the karma and souls is the single greatest flaw (?) in the ideas of spirituality.
The Order of ‘God’?
It is clear by now that the energy’s causative property transformed itself into causality in living organisms and gained the name karma through our sixth sense.
It is at this point that we can clearly understand the subtle difference between the soul and the astral body we had seen in the chapter afore. The soul is the base energy construct that is generated once a living being is born, when the soul gets tainted with senses, thoughts, emotions and karma, it is referred to as the astral body!
What has God, got to do with all of this? From ‘senses’ to ‘consciousness’ and ‘consciousness’ to ‘karma’, all the little details about life and its working are commonly misunderstood by the people throughout time as the working of God in his/her mysterious ways.
We are too busy with our lives chasing after money, sex and power, that we forget to understand the complex yet wonderful working of energy around us. The balancing act of energy as matter and life is a beautiful sight to be observed, with only a few of us fortunate enough to appreciate the full glory of it. And, it is still not the time to attribute the working of energy to any ‘divine consciousness.’
Moving on, karma being the balancing force for consciousness, describing the order amidst the chaos, it is about time we understood the medium in which karma enforces itself, TIME.
