HEAVEN AND HELL AS REWARD AND PUNISHMENT
Heaven, reproduced from http://www.forgottenword.org/heaven.html
Question 9
Most religions state about Heaven and Hell, as rewards/punishments for human beings' life after death.
Does spiritual cultivation also agree with this concept?
Sifu Joko Riyanto
Answer
Yes, spiritual cultivation also agrees with the concept of heaven and hell, as rewards and punichments for human beings’ life after death.
There are three main stages of spiritual cultivation:
- To have a peaceful and happy life in this world.
- To go to heaven after physical death.
- To merge with Cosmic Reality, called variously by people of different cultures as returning to God, attaining Enlighteniment or merging with the Great Void.
Reversely, if a person commits evil, he will have the three corresponding results:
- To have an agitated and miserable life.
- To suffer in hell after physical death.
- To be contempt to eternal suffering unless he (or she) has a change of heart.
Heaven and hell, like our world we now life in, are phenomenal. They are a function of mind. That does not mean that heaven and hell are not real. They are as real as the world we now live in.
Those who do good will go to heaven, and those who do evil will go to hell, is a cosmic truth. All great teachers of all world’s known religions teach this truth, and great teachers do not tell lies.
This truth can be explained scientifically. Whenever a person does good, the mental impulses of his (or her) good deeds are imprinted in his mind, or consciousness. When he leaves his physical body at physical death, these impulses are still in his consciousness.
When the time is right for reincarnation, these impulses will create the conditions and situations for him to be reborn. Hence he will be reborn in heaven or at a better station in his next life in this physiccl world.
Similarly if he has done evil, evil impulses will be imprinted in his consciousness, and will create the conditions and situations for his rebirth. Hence he may be reborn in hell, or as an insect or animal.
As a rough analogy, it is like taking photos with a camera. If the scenes are beautiful, the imprints on negatives are of beautiful scenes and the phots when develop will turn out to be beautiful. If the scenes are sordid, the imprints are ugly and the resulting photos will be ugly.
This also explains why a devoted Muslim will go to a Muslim heaven, whereas a devoted Christian or of another religion will go to a Christian heaven or a heaven of his religion. This is because a person’s religion decides the types of imprints on his consciousness.
It is worthy to know that whether a person will go to heaven or hell is a result of the type of imprints he has in his consciousness, and not a result of judgment by God or Divine Being as rewards or punishments, though to make things simple for those who may not understand such profundity, the idea of God or Divine Being judging to reward or punish human beings for their deeds may be used. God is all merciful. He will want all human beings to go to heaven. But, as the Buddha has taught, even a Buddha cannot change bad karma to good one.
Karma, or what our futue will turn out to be, is determined by thought, speech and action in that order of importance. It is therefore very important for our own sake to always have good thoughts.
The questions and answers are reproduced from the thread 10 Questions on the Essence of Spiritual Cultivation in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum.
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