Do you have to act out your desires or karma in hell too get rid of it?

[AstralProjectee]

Do you have to act out your desires and/or karma in hell too get rid of it? Thanks.

[realdemigod]

I didn't understand your question clearly. All I know is hell and heaven are in this life. You won't get an opportunity to wait to go to hell (I don't know where it is) and get punished for all the bad deeds you did in this life. If you harm anyone it will come back to you in this life or next. If you do good it will come back to you.

[Mana]

Namaste AP,

Thank you, by pure grace, your question has answered a question for me; lets call it perfect timing.

Thank you.

In response to your question, no. It is by realising that our thought process is in fact circular and that it is the thought process which retain us in our current state. Suffering is only temporary. Alleviation can be accelerated by knowing or at least estimating the cause of the suffering.

I am left with the feeling that you may be experiencing a lot of suffering AP; I hope that I am mistaken.
praNAma

mana

[Jainarayan]

Do you have to act out your desires and/or karma in hell too get rid of it? Thanks.

Your karma (which is intricate beyond understanding) determines your subsequent births. A butcher may come back as an animal to be slaughtered; Helen Keller may not have completed her work in a past life and needed to be born the way she was to complete it.

The closest concept of "hell" Hinduism has is Naraka. Its counterpart is Svarga, a temporary heaven. Both places are temporary, like waiting rooms.

[realdemigod]

A butcher may come back as an animal to be slaughtered;

TouchedbytheLord,
I'm not really sure about this statement. In Bhagavad-Gita, Krsna says in a verse which purports to saying that a butcher doesn't encounter bad karma because it's his dharma to do for living. Hope experts in HDF can clarify this

[Jainarayan]

TouchedbytheLord,
I'm not really sure about this statement. In Bhagavad-Gita, Krsna says in a verse which purports to saying that a butcher doesn't encounter bad karma because it's his dharma to do for living. Hope experts in HDF can clarify this

Yes, that's a good point. The intricacies of it is why I emphasized may. Who really knows? Yes, Sri Krishna did say that one must do one's duty. We must do it diligently.

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam: In my opinion, 'duty' does not include adharma. How long is it before the adulterer, the alcoholic, the thief, the wife-beater, the sneaky proselytyser are all claiming it is their duty?

Oh, yeah I forgot, the last category already is making than claim.

Aum Namasivaya

[devotee]

Namaste,

I'm not really sure about this statement. In Bhagavad-Gita, Krsna says in a verse which purports to saying that a butcher doesn't encounter bad karma because it's his dharma to do for living.

I don't think there is any such reference in Bhagwad Gita. However, "killing" per se or any Karma done as duty doesn't cause bad karma e.g. killing of enemies by a soldier in a battlefield. Killing of animals for selling meat by a butcher by profession (if it comes naturally to him) too falls in the same category. This is what VyAdha Gita says. In VyAdh Gita, there is an enlightened VyAdha (butcher) whose profession is to sell meat in the market after killing animals. However, as he maintains his equanimity while performing his work his work doesn't make him anyway tainted.

OM

[Jainarayan]

Sri Krishna also says:

9.30 "Even a confirmed sinner, if he worships Me with unwavering faith and devotion, must verily be considered as righteous; for he has indeed taken the right resolve." (Swami Tapasyananda translation).

"Even if one commits the most abominable action, if he is engaged in devotional service he is to be considered saintly because he is properly situated in his determination." (Srila Prabhupada translation).

If the butcher knows he is doing his work as a livelihood and not out of any malice, and is a devotee of the Lord, perhaps he is not committing any offense. Imo, one would not be an avowed sinner or deliberately commit heinous acts of any kind if he is a devotee of the Lord. And perhaps the butcher analogy was not one of the better ones.

[realdemigod]

Namaste devotee,
I remember in Shree Krsna serial which I watched during my childhood in the series of episodes where Krnsa teaches Gita to Arjuna, there is a scene which shows a butcher killing animals and Krsna says he doesn't encounter any bad karma as it's his duty for livelihood