Hell in Hinduism

The tiger outside is beoing killed for greed. It is not dharma. In that case, how can progression occur? The tiger [quality] outside is entering the man inside. Such a person gets more animalistic and gets a lower birth, but not necessarily animal.

All deeds which are dharma mean progression. All deeds which are a-dharma mean regression. The tiger will get a better birth, [not necessarily human] in his natural course... he has done no wrong. The so called human will become more gross and will regress.... but not straightaway to animal..

Excellent logic. But NO. IMHO, the supply of jeevas is limitless so physical populations are not exchangable

Your logic is plausible, but not mad enuff You gotta be truly off your rocks to think in this groove

You are getting there....

Could be.... but not ALL of us. This is not a very linear progression, you might have skipped being a dinosaur then.... but you are definitely exhibiting symptoms now....

You have got it approximately...

The bhagavad geetaa has stated that whatsoever is the last thought at the moment of death, such a next-birth will be obtained. The key is the dying thought. The net result of all your thoughts in your entire life [quality, intensity and quantity wise] will arise as the last thought. You will get the net result of you entire lifetimes' thoughts. Which is why Hindus say chant the name of God all the time, coz you dont really know which moment will be your last.

It will be full of fear in its next birth as all hunted animals are... but a direct human birth is not guaranteed. That would be a great leap. What will the next birth be, nobody can really say...

ALL our [humans'] so called six inner enemies are qualities we had when we were in various animal bodies. We must sacrifice them. This is the real yajna. [in the recent past 2000 years poor animals were sacrificed instead of the animal within].[six inner enemies are desire, anger, greed, attachment, arrogance, jealousy]

Doing sacrifice thus we realize our true nature, divinity itself. This is the true meaning and import behind vedic sacrifices.

AvidTrekker,

Nice write up.

To add to what you wrote...Vedic texts and Itihaasa (Ramayana , Mahabharata) notes "patala", but they do not mention of "naraka".

This concept of hell / "naraka" is a later addition i.e. it is definitely a part of classic Hinduism, but not found on Vedic (and late Vedic) accounts. Furthermore, the concept of "naraka" is not similar to similar concept of Christian/Islamic hell, because of cyclic timeline in Hindu theology.

KK, I was reading the link you provided in the Buddha Boy thread. There is a man in Florida who sings to nine ton rocks and made them MOVE. This proves that they are alive

Thanks for proving my point.

NOW, you ARE.... certified !!!

WELCOME to the gang !!!

So the pictures of sinners being tormented in hell--that are there in Hare Krishna edition of Geeta are not to be relied upon.

Avid,it is an honour to be certified by your good self.If you say i am mad it must be true!
Now i may be mad but i'm not crazy enough to disagree/argue with you. Therefore i would be interested to hear your view/opinion/understanding of the following:
I don't want to hurt the feelings of your rocks,but would you say they were also emotional? is emotion neccessary to experience feelings? To have emotions would they not also need to have a sense of individual self?
And last but not least would you say they also have a subtle basic form of intelligence?........You know like Cyberhippie!!
But seriously, i said aren't animals subject to group Karma as opposed to individual karma? the reason i said this is because i have read in various works that animals are subject to group souls rather than individual souls, in other words there is 1 group horse soul 1 group tiger soul etc etc this is because they have no sense of individuality, no seperate self, no duality of self & not self. In other words they can know but they don't know they know! They can know pain but they don't know they know pain because they have no facility to reflect on the self, they just know pain but don't identify it with a seperate self.
So if this is true that they have a group soul surely that group soul would be subject to group karma, there would be no individual karma???????
You pointed out yourself that tigers were becoming extinct, because of human cruelty (& greed to possess more land) as is the case with whales & elephants, & these species are rapidly facing extinction whereas animals which are mostly well treat by humans such as horses, dogs etc are in abundance.
Take a look at some of these links on the subject.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/AniSou_index.html
http://www.circleofcompassion.org/articleanimasouls.htm
http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/tho...groupsouls.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/the/tot/chap04.htm
http://www.kahealani.com/articles/animal_souls.txt
http://www.well.com/~bubbles/FractalGod.html

Would love to hear your thoughts Avid can you expand on this??
Shanti KK

Avid Trekker,Karma as a theory holds good ,But what can one reply to the Parents when thier only Child is Killed in a road accident or women who go through unimaginable horror in thier lives in this male dominated society of ours.It is frequently reported by our Media that even 3 year old Girls are Raped By men.What sort of justice is that .

When i asked the same question to a Swamiji(Hare Krishna),he replied that we can only see the victim from the stand point view of this life and we dont know thier past life actions .What he is saying is true but is that the correct point of view?Is Karma so subtle that even if i dont perform a wrong action ,but i still think abt it then i will have to suffer its Karmic repurcussions.

On a lighter note, Did God really retire after he came up with the law of Karma? Hope you dont mind me asking these questions.

Thx and I look forward for your replies,

So true, yesterday whilst conversing with some rocks I found myself intellectually challenged!

I agree. I don't beleive that there is hell in hinduism... at least not in the christian sense. The Garuda Purana (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/gpu/index.htm)- discourse between lord Vishnu and the king of the birds - describes intermediate states between birth and death which are similar to the christian concept of heaven and hell. There are some gruesomely graphic descriptions of punishments in'hell' such as being plunged in boiling oil, trampled by elephants, eaten by worms... yikes!
However these texts are written in a period when they may have been influenced by christainity.

What is interesting is that even in this text, hell is not the final destination of the soul but an intermediate between births. And emanicipation from this cycle of rebirth can only be gained by knowledge of the Truth and self-realisation.

AT, this comment really confused me Karmically then, the animal progresses spiritually from the resourses of the human consumer. If that's the case, what benefits the consumer by his consumption of the animals' flesh?

There is bits and piences of description of hell in Upanishads. The one that comes to my mind now is Ishavasya.

asurya nama te loka andhena tamasa'vrtah |
tamste pretyabhigacchanti ye ke catmahano janah ||

Translation:
The worlds of eternal misery, covered with unremitting darkness, indeed, do they fall into without recourse, they who, having failed to realize the truth about the Lord (in spite of opportunity), persist in false knowledge.

Source:Ishavasya

The world of darkness thats referred to here, some people feel, might be the same as the time a soul spends in mothers womb. Its dark there and its supposed to be very painful time for the soul.

Avid - The "feeling rocks" thing is a bit of a surprise to me though
What i was told is that when the sruti refers to inanimate objects as having life, it actually refers to the deity who is controlling it. Say when rivers are referred to, its the deity incharge of the river thats being addressed.

What about Devachan, isn't this sort of the Hindu Heaven & Kamaloka the Hindu Hell???
http://www.blavatsky.net/theosophy/j...s/devachan.htm
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/devachan.htm
Reading between the lines i think we might experience Heaven & Hell in all our various states of physical mental & astral/subtle existences.....it's our own ideas of heaven & hell that we create for ourselves due to previous thoughts, actions etc which we must work out karmically for ourselves. We are our own judge jury & executioner?????? KK

Thats my opinion too. THIS (our life on earth) is our heaven or hell. The concept of free will, IMHO, is not given enough importance in hindu scriptures. Or, it has been diluted over time. A lot of people believe there are shortcuts-- like bathing in ganga, getting "double promoted" by realized gurus , performing pujas etc. I think these are fallacies made up for convenience of certain individuals. I think the essence of how karma works as explained by hinduism is buried among the myriad scriptures, many of whichconflict with each other.

One of the better books about how reincarnation and karma might work is Many Mansions based on the readings of Edgar Cayce who was a devout christian, while under hypnosis first provided accurate health readings and remedies for thousands of people who were ill; and later, when asked, started providing life readings which included past life information on entities. Most of the information agrees with hindu philosophy, but is more focused in answering key questions. An excerpt can be found here

Yes.
To my mind emotions = feelings. Am talking of things as basic as joy and sadness.

But of course. Generally their individuality is not as acute as in animals or humans coz they lack a nervous system. They are 85% composed of tamas hence unmoving. For example, a pebble in a mountain will feel "i am part of the mountain" more than "i am a pebble" This is where your "collective karma" statement shows dominance over individual karma. If you lift up that pebble and take it home, it may resent it unless you have asked it in advance. Here its individuality will assert itself, even though it wants to remain part of the mountain.

Pain is felt by all those with a nervous system, including invertebrates. Plants do not feel pain as animals and others do. Thus, all those with a nervous sysyem have more dominant individual karma than collective karma.

Group karma is the sum total of individual karmas, but its outward expression is restricted to whatever coincides in time at the same time.[e.g. calamities like tsunami, plane crash where most die, 9/11, earthquakes etc]

What is the drift of your statement? I cannot make out.

Have already opened my mouth more than what I should have. If I go on further, sooner or later, someone is going to hit me with the very rocks which I am quoting

Why dont u ask Hare krishnas??
hey can the best explain u the edition of that Bhag> Gita!
this is indeed very deep philosophical question that u might better ask somewhere else, but yes the hell is suppose to "happen" between two lifes!!

PS. A real Krishna devotee dont believe in hell!!

No Avid please go on fascinating stuff, Helps me feel sane!!