Overview
Hell focuses on what you have. Heaven reminds you of who you are. And once you clearly remember who you are, you don’t even need heaven; then what you have is Liberation. Do not starve yourselves of happiness. If you are giving up on lower happiness, make sure that you provide yourself with higher happiness. That is your privilege. More than privilege—that is your dharma, that is your responsibility.
Niralamba Upanishad
कः स्वर्गः । को नरकः । स्वर्ग इति च सत्संसर्गः स्वर्गः । नरक इति च असत्संसारिवषयजनसंसर्ग एव नरकः ।
What is heaven? What is hell? Heaven is the association with the truth. Hell is the association with the false and worldliness.
~ Niralamba Upanishad, Verse 17
The fine line between heaven and hell
Acharya Prashant: ‘Heaven is association with the holy.’ The best thing would have been a non-dual state in which no association holds any meaning—there exists nobody else to associate with, there is nobody else at all. And that state is blissful beyond all imaginations of the best of heavens.
Even heaven is confined by the depiction and definition of what ‘heaven’ means. Therefore, Liberation is a place higher and better than heaven. Heaven has a depiction and definition, and, therefore, heaven has its boundaries. And where there are boundaries, there is sorrow. Liberation has neither depiction nor definition, and Liberation is freedom from all boundaries and, therefore, all sorrow.
