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Where do people of other religions go when they die?

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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^The person on top its for u^^^^^^^^

A) Well, I am HINDU.

 

B) And you said that innumerable hells & heaven's, well even if we consider there are innumerable hells & heaven's, the bottom line is there are two places where a soul goes, either 1) Heaven 2)Hell.

Now may be they have categories or reservations for special people.

 

C) Heaven & Hell are the places where a soul gets justice for their actions.

 

D) And beyond that is the same circle of life. Our soul is immortal, just it needs to change the old medium action (body). Its a new start.

 

Just don't confuse yourself, all you need to do is have a simple approach towards the subject of Karma, its that simple.

 

*You should be careful when you post a quote, think & post.*:smash:

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According to the Gita there are generally five places the soul will go:

 

1) sattva - to one of the temporary heavens, or a spiritually advanced human birth

2) rajas - same earthly level

3) tamas - lower species

4) sinful - temporary hellish planets

5) mukta - Vaikuntha or spirutual realm

 

There are other variations also.

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Hare Krishna,

 

Actually, I beg to make a plea of how all religions can actually all be right at the same time. Our intellect is so limited, so incapable. Even Lord Brahma can't understand God or His ways, so what to speak of us? Still I would like to make a humble attempt at establishing my case.

 

It is safe to say that God Has a specific reason for introducing all these different religions. We cannot possibly begin to fathom the intricate web the Lord has conceived through His maha-maya potency to accommodate our desires stemming from the abuse of our limited free will in this material world since time immemorial.

Now remember that in the Gita the Lord says that wherever irreligion is rampant He will appear to re-establish religion. So, it is my understanding that for the living being there is one eternal religious function, or Sanatana Dharma, which is Vaishnavism (I will state my reasons for thinking so later). Then, there are temporary religions that are introduced according to time and circumstance such as Christianity and Islam.

Among people there are different levels of consciousness, so according to time and circumstance an appropriate religion will be established by God to elevate the people to a more pure state of living. Like steps on a ladder, so the Lord is compassionate enough to provide a means for people of lower consciousness(mlecchas,meateaters) to gradually elevate themselves by providing them with religious principles according to their consciousness. Examples are "Christianity", Bhuddism and Islam. At the time of their respective revelations, those people were mostly impressionable and Godfearing (in the west). By the introduction of these religions, the unfaithful and the ignorant became relatively faithful to those beliefs (when compared to our present time), and through these temporary religions they were given a foothold out of their miserable conditions. Faith introduced morality, piety and God as the Supreme controller overseeing their every move so as to move humanity towards decent human behaviour rather than barbaric animalistic behaviour.

 

So in my limited understanding, God chooses the most effective postures and manifests different temporary religions according to the relative consciousness of the respective people of those times and places, to keep their sinful actions in check and hand them stepping stones to God-consciousness. But how can you speak about those ancient times, when you weren't even there yourself or have no memory of it?

This can be measured back even to one lifetime ago. One piece of mind of one's grandparents will reveal that even in as little as a span of fifty years, a huge decrease in morality and piety can easily be observed, so what to speak of the mentality of people in medieval times and before? Today, the number of people truly following their respective faiths, truly living it, has waned to an almost non-existent portion. However, those who fully embrace their respective doctrines,even though temporary(as in non-eternal), are able to attain some form of God realization. So as with the different standards of the various religions, so in God realization there are also different levels, and by establishing the highest standard we can ascertain which is rightfully sanatana dharma.

 

Anyway, to add to the confusion, since biblical times, people have been abusing and rewriting religion and it's rules and regulations so how to tell who is telling the truth, how to establish this? Why would all those other religions be temporary and why is Vaishnavism not the temporary one, is this not another case of "my religion is better than yours"?

No.

Why not?

Because no other religion has such a vast depth of knowledge of God and your relation with Him, of the material world, of the life in and outside of the material world, of past, present and future and of the mechanics of this universe. More importantly, no scriptures are as strikingly accurate as the Vedic science, which is still holding true even in light of modern day science which cannot be said of any other religious scripture.

 

This does not however mean that the other religions are manmade by definition because of their inaccuracy on those accounts. Rather we should bear in mind the case of Lord Shiva as Shankaracarya, who was ordered by the Supreme Lord to defeat the very teachings He Himself brought into the world, so as to re-establish the existence of a God albeit not a personal one. Shankaracarya wrote many incoherent and confusing texts by clever word jugglery, which baffled many of the saints of His time, creating a huge following. Through these "false" teachings, the truth was eventually enabled to resurface once again as Shankaracarya's teachings were later succesfully rebuked by the Vaisnavas. (Mayavadism of course is still widespread today even in subtle forms, as it accomodates those persons of that particular level of consciousness.) So again, the pure atheists who were at first fooled by Bhagavan Sri Krishna in His form as Lord Buddha to take to some form of passive religious practices, were later taken a step up by Sri Shankaracarya's Mayavadism, and from there it was another step up to their actual function as a servitor or the Lord. So even though alot of the scripture of Shankaracarya didn't make any sense, there still was a larger godly purpose behind it, so we should not deny a scripture's divinity based on their apparent inaccuracies, for as the saying goes, God works in mysterious ways.

 

So back to why Vaishnavism is the one true sanatana dharma and not those others?

For even after taking into account it's vast assets of depth of knowledge of God and one's relation with Him, the universe, past present and future etc. etc., still, this does not provide a conclusive case to establish for a fact that Vaisnavism is the one true eternal function of the living being.

So we have to dig further.

And again, the sublime doctrine of Vaishnavism, the sanatana dharma of each and every jiva, provides us with the answer:

 

Unless there is a parampara or pure line of disciples who parrot and live the very same pure message their predecessors have lived and preached, there is simply no way to verify the validity of any given religion.

Thus we can verify for a fact, from the writings and actions of all those great saintly persons, combined with our own experience of trying to follow in such great devotee saints' footsteps, what is the truth. And that truth is Vaishnavism. You will not find any parampara in Islam or Christianity or any other religion related to Jesus Christ. The various "Hinduistic" religions do have their parampara's so we would have to ascertain which is the ultimate truth by comparing those religions with one another.

 

The absence of a parampara gives room for speculation and deviation, which as also stated in other people's posts has been going on since biblical times. In this sense for example, nowadays the general mass of people may call themselves Christians but they may be unware that they are not following the actual word of Christ. It has been tampered with, molded in the past to fit some corrupted persons' wants and desires. They are not following His words, so how can they expect to be saved? Each of Jesus' disciples has given a different interpretation of their guru's words and instructions and the unofficial parampara died a quick death so how can they decipher who is telling the truth there? How can they expect to get any kind of God realization?

 

But they still can, even though they are looking into troubled water. How? Simply through their respective bhakti of glorifying the Lord, reading about Him, singing His glories and praying to Him they can attain some form of realization. But just as the Bhuddist's realization doesn't go beyond the Lord's brilliant Brahmajyoti effulgence, similarly their realization is equally stunted and incomplete. Different levels of realization of, combined with different levels of relation with the Supreme Lord, are a sure indication of which religious practice can definitively be labelled the gist of all practices. So one's respective level of God realization leads one to a corresponding situation either here in the material world or in the spiritual world. That said, all the knowledge in the Vedas alone doesn't help to attain the Lotus Feet of the Lord if you are excluding your sincere devotion to Him. Only if used in conjunction with devotion does such knowledge enable you to obtain the highest form of relationship you can have with Bhagavan Sri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is the real use of that knowledge, not using it for mundane benefits, or false egoistic means such as yogic powers,fame,followers etc.

 

By observing this practice, alot of branches of the hindu pantheon are dropped out as they do not meet these qualifications. A true Vaishnava however, is unmotivated by such mundane desires. All he desires is to do service to the Lord.

So to develop some sort of relationship with the Supreme Lord is the goal of all religions. From there we can establish what kind of relationship is possible: We have Santa Rasa, neutrality, Dasya rasa, awe and reverence, Sakya Rasa, friendship, Vatsalya Rasa, Parental and Madhurya Rasa, conjugal.

The most intimate and thus highest form of relationship with the Lord is obviously Madhurya Rasa, the Rasa which is only attainable through worship of Sri Sri Radha Krishna. This has to be admitted even from a neutral point of view.Therefore it has to logically be concluded that Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which is the only religion that contains the means to acquire this eligibility, is the acme of all religions.

 

But what if that Gaudiya Vaishnava parampara is corrupted? Well, you can verify this for yourself. We can easily check if the teachers in the Gaudiya Vaisnava parampara have corrupted the essence of the teachings, or they themselves are not living what they are preaching for the writings and the lives of those saints are all concurrent. Comparing writings and teaching dating back to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu with the writings and teachings of our time we can simply establish for a fact that there has been no deviation or corruption in the teachings. If that isn't enough, by simply practicizing those teachings oneself one can easily prove to himself the validity of this parampara and it's teachings. The sincere practitioner will undoubtedly ascertain this. From within the heart it will be confirmed. So in this way there are higher and lower forms of religion, all of which can exist simultaneously in their respective truths. It's just my attempt at clarifying this interesting subject matter, and I beg forgiveness on any misconceptions I may have brought forward in this writing.

 

Haribol!

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Just to let everyone know my stepdad's friend had a near death experience on the surgery table and said he saw Shiva, and he's not even Hindu. Explaine that one for me? The doctors brought him back and he told them about it. Strange stuff. :eek4:

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Just to let everyone know my stepdad's friend had a near death experience on the surgery table and said he saw Shiva, and he's not even Hindu. Explaine that one for me? The doctors brought him back and he told them about it. Strange stuff. :eek4:

 

That is very interesting.

 

What was his background before this? any exposure to Hinduism? Maybe he was a Saivite in his past life. :)

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yeah, I've always wondered if you weren't a very religious person in this life could your past life religion effect you when you die in this life? As far as I know he had little exposure to Hinduism, he probably knew who Shiva was because he had seen a picture and the name beside it or something. But I would think he would need a lot more exposure for it to effect him that greatly.

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yeah, I've always wondered if you weren't a very religious person in this life could your past life religion effect you when you die in this life? As far as I know he had little exposure to Hinduism, he probably knew who Shiva was because he had seen a picture and the name beside it or something. But I would think he would need a lot more exposure for it to effect him that greatly.

 

Yeah, I'd consider that a big thing for a non-Hindu with little exposure to Hinduism, to see Shiva in his near-death experience. It must mean something.

 

I assume that when we die we are confronted with more than just what we've known in this lifetime. It sounds like he might have some past connection to Lord Shiva.

 

Has he looked more into Hinduism since his experience?

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Yeah, I would say he looked more into it. I don't know him personally but my stepdad told me about it. It was a very neat story. But yeah, I think our past lives affect us greatly on religion. For instance, Í'm Caucasian and converted to Hinduism, i've had past life dreams of India, so it's possible my Indian past life affected my religious choice. I found Christianity to be miserable for me, I did not feel close to God, with Hinduism i do.

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I think our past lives affect us greatly on religion. For instance, Í'm Caucasian and converted to Hinduism, i've had past life dreams of India, so it's possible my Indian past life affected my religious choice. I found Christianity to be miserable for me, I did not feel close to God, with Hinduism i do.

 

Same here. I am a Caucasian who converted to Hinduism from a Christian background. :)

 

It would not surprise me to learn I have lived in India in a past life. Regardless, I know it is within Hinduism where all my spiritual questions are being answered.

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Same here. I am a Caucasian who converted to Hinduism from a Christian background. :)

 

It would not surprise me to learn I have lived in India in a past life. Regardless, I know it is within Hinduism where all my spiritual questions are being answered.

 

In one of my dreams I got hit in the head by a nagini, now I know those are mythological but that was a little weird lol.

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In one of my dreams I got hit in the head by a nagini, now I know those are mythological but that was a little weird lol.

 

are those the snake-like beings? I wonder if they don't exist in another dimension. Or at one time interacted with our world. The reason I have wondered this is because so many different cultures have legends and stories about a serpent race. These legends must have come from somewhere.

 

 

.

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Yeah, a naga is half man half snake and a nagini is half woman half snake. I think at one time they did interact with the world. Dragons and fey especially have stories that say they left because the human race has become to corrupt. People who astrally travel claim to see these beings.

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