Going to Sleep in Hell, Waking Up in Paradise

After enduring cold, rainy, nasty weather on our stopover in the UK while transiting from London's Heathrow airport and sitting for five hours with cold feet in London's Gatwick airport where the heat was not working, we are now a few hours away from sunny, tropical Mauritius. One could say, "Going to sleep in hell and waking up in paradise." Of course Mauritius is not really paradise, because people on Mauritius also have to endure the traumas of birth, death, old age, and disease. So why have I titled today's Thought for the Day in this way? The real version of going to sleep in hell and waking up in paradise is Krishna consciousness. As long as we remain in bodily consciousness, we are sleeping in hell. And as soon as we revive our dormant Krishna consciousness by chanting the Lord's holy names, we immediately awaken in paradise.

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version

Question: How to Convert to Hinduism?

Hello. How does one convert to Hinduism?

Kayden

Answer: There's No Such Thing as Hinduism

The first thing to understand that Hinduism is not the correct term. It was a term introduced by the Muslims to describe those people who lived east of the Sindhu river. The correct term is Vedic religion, the religion based on the Vedic scriptures.

Kindly note that there is no such as converting to a particular religion because there is only one religion, to fully absorb oneself in loving service to the Supreme Person, who is the source of all existence. It does not matter whether one is designated as a Hindu, Christian, Jew, or Muslim. If he has awakened the dormant love of God within his heart, he is a first class follower of religion. Since religion is one, there is no question of converting from one religion to another. The only real conversion that can take place is to convert from irreligion to religion. So one should chant the holy name of God according to his own religion and give up the sinful activities of meat eating, intoxication, illicit sex, and gambling. This will make him a first class religious man. If he has no names to chant that inspire him with love of God, he can chant the Hare Krishna mantra and quickly achieve the supreme goal:

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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