Paradise or the Path of Atmajnana?

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Paradise or the Path of Atmajnana? from Hindu Dharma

 

Our worldly existence is a mixture of joys and sorrows. Some

experience more joy than sorrow and some more sorrow. Then there may

be a rare individual here or there who can control his mind and keep

smiling even in the midst of sorrow. On the other hand, we do see a

quite a number of people who have much to be happy about but who keep

a long face. If a man lacks for something it means he is unhappy.

 

All creatures long for everlasting happiness. There are two abodes of

eternal happiness. One is devaloga, the world of celestials or

paradise, the other is Atmajnana, the state of awareness of the Self.

The Atman, the Self is bliss; it is the Brahman. To realise this truth

is to attain everlasting blessedness. But this state, this joy

supreme, is not experienced by the mind or the senses. It is the

highest, the most exalted state and it transcends the senses and the

mind; it is a state in which a man becomes aware that "the body is not

I, the intelligence is not I, the consciousness is not I".

 

Paradise is the place where happiness is always experienced by the

mind and the senses. Music and dance - music of the gandharvas, dance

by Rambha and Menaka - Kalpaka, the tree that grants all wishes,

Kamadhenu, the cow that grants all wishes, the garden known as

Nandana: devaloka means all these. It is indeed a playground and there

it is always joy. But a difference exists between the joy known in

paradise and the bliss experienced by the knower of the Self. It is

true that there is eternal happiness in paradise but not so far the

man who goes there because he will not be a permanent resident of it.

If he has earned a good ideal of merit he will be able to reside there

until he is reborn. When he has enjoyed the fruits of his meritorious

actions, the Lord will send him back to earth. It is true that there

are accounts in the Puranas of mortals who earn a great ideal of merit

and become gods themselves to reside in the celestial world. But the

same Puranas also tell us that the gods themselves are not permanent

denizens of paradise. There are stories in these texts of the

celestials being hounded out of paradise by demons like Surapadma and

Mahisasura and of Indra, their king, himself being pushed down to

earth to undergo suffering there.

 

On a hypothetical basis, eternal happiness may be ours in svarga or

paradise. But there is no instance of anyone having actually lived

there permanently nor does it seem possible for anyone to do so.

 

Happiness gained through the senses is derived from external objects.

These cannot be ours for all time. There were occasions when Indra had

to suffer all by himself when he lost everything, including Kamadhenu,

the Kalpaka tree, Airavata and even Indrani. So the happiness

associated with paradise, which is dependent on external objects, can

never be enduring. "Sadananda" or eternal bliss is for him who has

neither anything external nor internal and who dwells in his Self as a

sthita-prajna ( a man of steady wisdom) as explained by the Lord in

the Gita, one who remains nailed to his Self. The joy experienced by

Indra is but a droplet of the vast ocean of Atmic bliss, so says the

Acarya in his Manisa Pancakam: "Yad Saukhyambudilesalesata ime

Sakradayo nirvrtah".

 

According to Upanisads you will have external bliss if the senses and

the mind are removed in the same way as you draw off the rib from a

stalk of corn and remain just the Atman. It needs great courage to

pluck out the body and the senses realising that " I am not the body.

Its joys and sorrows are not mine". Such courage is not earned without

inner purity. Conduct of religious rituals is meant for this, for

cittasuddhi ( purity of the consciousness ). There are forty samskaras

to refine a man with Vedic mantras and to involve him in the rites

associated with those mantras. These are the first steps towards the

indissoluble union of the individual self with the Absolute - it is

Advaitic mukti, non - dualistic release.

 

We must strive to become inwardly pure by the performance of works.

Then, with the inner organs ( antah - karana ) also cleansed, we must

mediate on the Self and become one with It. This is the concept of

Sankara. If a man has such a goal before him and keeps performing

rituals throughout ( even without becoming a sannyasin ) he goes to

Brahmaloka on death. During the great deluge when Brahma is absorbed

in the Brahman he too attains non - dualistic liberation, so says

Sankara. But if a man performs rituals for the sake of rituals without

keeping before him the goal of oneness with the Brahman he will be

rewarded with paradise, but not the paradise that is eternal. Though

the stay be brief he will enjoy greater happiness there than on earth.

It is samskaras that earn a man heaven.

http://www.kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part16/chap2.htm