The authority to rule over the Cosmos is exclusive to God. God is free from desires of all varieties. Man’s duty is but to offer Him Love and worship Him through Love. This raises man to the highest status among beings. When people who give up their bodies, that is to say, when such people die, their words will merge in their minds, their minds will merge in their Prana and the Prana, thereafter will merge in the Jiva, and the Jivatma will travel to the Region of the Moon Principle (the Chandraloka), that is to say, the Loka of the presiding Deity of the mind suggesting that they have to enter again the realm of the mind with all its agitations and turmoils of wants and wishes. In the Chandraloka, such Jivas will experience some satisfaction and delight, as long as the consequences of the good acts last, that is why it is said in the Scriptures, (Bhagavad Gita, 9:21) :

te tam bhuktva svarga-lokam visalam

ksine punye martya-lokam visanti

evam trayi-dharmam anuprapanna

gatagatam kama-kama labhante

‘Kshine Punye, martya lokam visanti’ (When the acquired merit is spent, they enter again the world of mortal men).

The residence of the soul in the Chandraloka is what the Hindus refer to as the time spent as a Deva in Heaven or an angel according to Christian and Islamic religions. The name Devendra given to the Lord of these Devas is an indication of a position of authority.

According to the Vedas, when the highest good is observed, that person is elevated to the position of Devendra-hood. The soul raised previously to that position will descend to the earth and resume its career in human form. Just as on earth, monarchs change in heaven too, rulers cannot escape rise and fall. The residents of heaven too are subject to the law of ups and downs. It is only the Brahmaloka that is free from birth and death, rise and fall, ups and downs. When the Jivatma is as a Deva in the Chandraloka, it cannot manifest any Karma.

Only man can express himself through Karma, which binds him by its consequence.

Karma means, activity undertaken with desire, with an eye on the result. When the soul is in Chandraloka as a Deva, it is content and satisfied and so, it will not crave activity for earning pleasure or achieving some success. The residence in the Loka is the reward it has secured for the good deeds done by it in the past, or it may be the prize won for goodness. Attaining the highest good and engaging himself in acts of highest potency for merit, he can cleanse his heart and reach Brahmaloka from whence there is no coming back.

The word Naraka can nowhere be found in the Vedas. The concept of Hell is foreign to the spiritual thought of the Bharatiyas. The idea of Hell and the various descriptions of Hell are all later additions in the Shastras and Puranas. There can be no death in Hell. The purpose for which Hell was created was only to incite fear among the people in order to make them desist from sin. But Advaita does not posit Heaven or Hell. It is concerned only with bondage and liberation, ignorance and illumination. It is known as Vedanta. There is no faith higher than what Vedanta stands for. (BPV, p. 49-52)

The animal lives with the awareness that it is an animal; the bird has the consciousness that it is a bird. A woman engages herself in the activities of the world, conscious that she is a woman; so also does man. The consciousness one has, until sleep overwhelms, continues without change after waking from sleep. The living being continues his activities as before sleep. Man continues his activity where it was broken off by sleep; so too, man continues in this life, the activities broken off by death, from where they were ended.

yam yam vapi smaran bhavam

tyajaty ante kalevaram

tam tam evaiti kaunteya

sada tad-bhava-bhavitah

(Bhagavad Gita, 8:6)

yam yam vapi smaran bhavam tyajaty ante kalevaram - he gives up his body at the end, remembering the feelings that moved him ever so strongly. And in the Gita, ‘tam tam evaiti kaunteya sada tad-bhava-bhavitah’ - He attains that status itself to which his feelings were all the while directed’. The nature of the next life is in accordance with the feelings, which occupy the mind when man casts off his corpse, for those feelings will only be in accordance with the feelings that motivated his living days. On deeper thought, it will be evident that the basic truth is just this: everything depends on the progress attained in the sublimation of intelligence. (S.V. - p. 113)

Secular learning cannot confer on us abiding and absolute peace. Self-knowledge alone can help us cross the sea of sorrow. So all should strive to attain this Self-knowledge, which can be acquired through purity of mind. Purity of mind can be attained through pious deeds, sacred acts, charity, compassion and devotion. Disinterested action consecrated to God purifies the heart. The Sun of Wisdom dawns in a pure heart. The dawn of such wisdom exalts man to the status of God. (SSVahini, p. 169)

Whenever a religious rite is performed, or the Gods or Goddesses are propitiated by some ritual, the wife must sit by the side of the husband or else the rite or ritual is ineffectual. This is the high status given to the wedded woman in the Indian religious scriptures. No charitable gift can be valid until the wife has indicated her agreement by sanctifying the gift at the time it is made. Of course, she has no authority to perform these rites by herself, and so she is called abala (one without power).

The power implied here is ‘spiritual power over rites’. Unfortunately, the use of this word has become so widespread that women themselves have come to believe that they are fundamentally weak and powerless in all fields. This is a big mistake; women are not weak only authorisation to perform rituals is denied. When Rama decided on performing the Ashvamedha sacrifice, the objection was raised that Sita was away in exile in the forest, and so without his spouse he was not entitled to perform the Ashvamedha. Some sages thought that a golden idol of the absent wife could be placed by the side of the principal officiator and so a golden idol of Sita was made and placed in a position by the side of Rama before the yajna began. Abala does not mean lack of physical or mental strength. The wife can veritably make the home of her husband a temple, a school, a council chamber or a hermitage. (SSS Vol.10, p. 176)