Don’t think of heaven and hell as the afterlife; both are here, right now. As the Niralamba Upanishad says: Right company is heaven; wrong company is hell. If you are someone who loves to be with people who will take you towards truth, joy, and simplicity, you are already in heaven. And if you surround yourself with people who pull down your consciousness, then verily, you are—right now—in hell.
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Questioner: For the uninitiated, the common people, many people ask because of the various concepts and regions around the world — Heaven, Hell, ‘You will get that’, hell fire. So many concepts are there. Are they fanciful imaginations or were they merely symbolic or are they metaphoric?
Acharya Prashant: They are neither imaginary nor symbolic. They are very, very real. In fact, they're more real than the life we lead, the breath we take. Vedanta, it's Niralamba Upanishad, I suppose, that puts it very succinctly: Right company is heaven. Wrong company is hell. You don't have to think of heaven and hell as afterlife. You don't have to think of other dimensions or other worlds, other lokas(worlds). Both heaven and hell are here right now.
And this is not a recent, modern or liberal point of view. This is coming from our most ancient scriptures. They are saying, “You don't have to look towards the future, you don't have to look towards anywhere else. Heaven and hell are both exactly where you are standing right now in this moment. If you are someone who loves to be with people who will take him towards truth, towards joy, towards simplicity, you are in heaven already. And if you surround yourself with people who pull down your consciousness, who muddle up your mind, then verily, you are—right now—in hell.
