Heaven Vs Original Spiritual World?

Usually the concept in religious books of different religions is that heaven is a place where there is a lot of enjoyment. Quran talks about the various types of sense gratification you can enjoy. The Mormons consider heaven to be a place to get back together with your family and then live there forever after. Family members are happy and there is no suffering and everyone is basically God conscious.

But this concept of heaven fits in with the upper planetary systems in the (material) universe, where people are pious entities who follow the laws of God, and they have good material sense gratification.

But according to the Vedas, one doesn't stay there eternally. One comes down from there, from those planets and is forced to maybe take birth in the human form of life or as an animal, according to their Karmas. One can be on the heavenly planets for thousands or millions of years of our calculation, so one thinks one is there for a very long time but in terms of eternal time it's a drop in the bucket, so to speak. It's just a small period of time, which quickly passes by.

So, the real goal of life is to go back to Godhead, back to the original Spiritual Kingdom of God. But in the Spiritual Kingdom of God, there is no material sense gratification. Everything is in relationship to the service of the Lord.

That means, as long as one is thinking about their personal sense gratification, as long as that is their goal of life, namely how to make their own bodies happy, they are forced to come again in the material world.

Taking Shelter of Krishna

Posted by:
Gandharvika dd. ISV
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