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Vaikuntha

Vaikuntha

वैकुण्ठ, vaikuṇṭha

"this place without anxiety"

"Higher abode" or Paramapadam, is the house of Vishnu. This is the eternal abode of Vishnu, his wife Lakshmi and the thousand-headed serpent Ananta-Shesha, on which they rest. Rigveda (1.22.20) says:

All suras (devas) look toward the higher abode of Lord Vishnu.

referring to Vaikuntha, the Abode of God.

Vaikuntha is considered by Vishnuites as the ultimate destination of souls that have attained moksha, or are freed from the cycle of birth and death. In Vaikuntha liberated souls live forever, enjoying pure bliss and happiness in the company of Lord Vishnu.

Vaikuntha is beyond the periphery of the material world, free from birth and destruction and therefore can`t be perceived or measured by material science or logic.

The nature of Vaikuntha is not influenced by time and therefore it can`t be destroyed even during the destruction of the manifested cosmos. The transcendental planets of Vaikuntha have a fundamentally different nature, which makes them impervious to the laws of creation, preservation and destruction of material world. There is no guna of passion, because nothing is being created, and no tamas guna, because nothing is being destroyed there. There everything exists forever and everything is full of bliss, knowledge and eternity. Vaikuntha is described in Puranas, in particular in “Bhagavata-purana”. It says that above the material universes is the spiritual sky, in which millions and billions of Vaikuntha spiritual planets are floating. On the Vaikuntha planets there is nothing lacking, there is everything that exists in the material world, but all this has much greater value, because it is spiritual, and therefore eternal and full of bliss.

On the Vaikuntha planets everything – people, animals, plants, stones – has a spiritual and personal nature.

“Bhagavata-purana” states that people who, instead of discussing the descriptions of Vaikuntha, speak to secular themes, are in profound ignorance. The human form of life is very valuable. It must be used to comprehend the meaning of religion in perfection and to acquire perfect spiritual knowledge. If a living being who has received a human body in the samsara cycle has not been able to understand the nature of God and His abode, it means that this human is heavily influenced by maya (illusion).


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