Heaven vs. Paradise

As a vivid reader, I often come across thoughts or insights that ignite my mind or at times I feel euphoric when I am able to make a deeper sense of learning from a book or being able to connect the dots between varied learnings. I love to discuss and debate my learnings with my pool of friends who are great readers themselves. Lately, this shared learning keeps me going in otherwise mundane life.

In this blog post, I am quite excited to pen down a thought that has resided in me since I have read a book by Devdutt Pattanaik called ‘Sita’. For people who haven’t read this book, this book is his version of famous Hindu mythology ‘Ramayana’. Please find below an episode from Ramayana, which has changed my outlook towards life.

Once when Ram, Laxman, and Sita were wandering deep in the forest during their exile, Laxman happens to talk about how lucky Indra, the king of gods was to live in heaven. He seeks Ram’s opinion on the same to which Ram replied that he didn’t agree that the place where Indra lived could be called as Heaven. He said it could at the best be called ‘Paradise’ and gave his reason for stating the same. Indra is surrounded by wealth, beauty and fame, but he is always insecure, fearful that another king or sage or demon may topple him anytime. On the other hand, there is Kailash of Shiva, where there is no threat; there is peace forever. Here everyone lives harmoniously without depending on each other. Ganesha’s mouse isn’t scared that it will fall prey to Lord Shiva’s snake, neither is the snake worried of being eaten up by Kartikeya’s peacock. There is no predator-prey relationship between the inhabitants as they have successfully overcome their basic needs.

In short, here time stills, there is no ebb and flow of things, no hunger hence no quest for satisfaction, no thirst hence no satiety. In the case of paradise, there is prosperity but no peace, while in Heaven there is peace but complete indifference to prosperity.

Have you ever noticed people who are quite below us in the socio-economic order, yet seem to be quite happy in their lives compared to us? As per me, Heaven or Paradise is a state of mind. A slum dweller can live happily in his own Heaven, while a millionaire remains unhappy in his Paradise. We often keep longing for things we don’t have rather than being satisfied with the things that we have. It entirely depends on us whether we chose to live in ‘Heaven’ or ‘Paradise’.

By

Tina Kataria,

Mulund, India