On the holy Mount Athos in Eastern Greece, where the enormous spiritual power of Orthodoxy is concentrated, there is a special cult of burial. The body of the deceased is not placed in a coffin, but wrapped in a mantle and buried. Three years later, the grave is opened, and if during this time the body has not turned to dust, then it is believed that the deceased did not lead an entirely righteous earthly life. After this examination, the deceased is again buried in the grave, and the monks pray even more passionately for the other brother who has departed into the world, since they believe that his posthumous life, judging by the remains, is rather difficult.
If the flesh of the deceased has decayed completely, without a trace, and his bones are amber, this means that the deceased had a pure soul and good thoughts and went to heaven. After removal from the ground, the bones are dipped in water with wine dissolved in it, washed thoroughly, then wiped dry with a linen cloth and only after that they are taken to the crypt.
It turns out that in this rite there is, if not a direct, then an indirect indication that for the righteous people in the next world a special place is prepared - paradise …
The great religions - Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Judaism - differ in many ways from one another, but in the definition of paradise they have much in common. Paradise is, in short, a state of bliss or a blissful vision of God. Or a place where the righteous enjoy the light of the Most High.
Paradise, according to the Church Fathers, is material, but this matter is as subtle and ephemeral as human souls. The same was the body of Adam before he acquired human flesh, the same will be the bodies of resurrected people who led a righteous life.
And the desire to be in this place has dominated the minds of people for centuries and millennia. We can say that paradise is the dream of humanity as a whole and of each person separately.
The concept of paradise arose among people long before the emergence of Christianity, most likely at the time when thoughts began to visit a person about the afterlife, about what will become of him after he leaves the earthly world.
Paradise was represented in different ways by different peoples. For the ancient Greeks, this was Elysium - a place where the souls of heroes and virtuous citizens went. There is eternal spring, and there those enjoy life who have earned the special mercy of the gods with their earthly deeds.
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For the ancient Egyptians, paradise is a field of eternal bliss, or Paul Ialu, which means “fields of reeds”. Here the soul, in order to be cleansed from the sins of earthly life, is first washed by the waters of the Lotus Lake, and then her life proceeds in heavenly places, where she is reunited with her relatives. In the Egyptian paradise, the soul works in the field and fishes in the heavenly Nile.
In both ancient beliefs and modern religions, paradise has many of the same characteristics. These are paradise gardens, and flowing streams of pure water, and the tree of life …
All this may indicate that paradise may have once really existed as the ancestral home of the entire human race. And now it is present in an archaic memory encoded in genetic or other structures or in an information field that affects the minds of people, forcing them to evaluate their deeds in accordance with the commandments of the Lord. We can say that this is a fabulous dream of the mind.
The fact that paradise may indeed once existed, in the “History of mankind from Adam to Abraham,” says the following: “And God appointed man a great purpose - to be the king of every creature and live in paradise, where God established a new world order, having conquered every creature to man. And in this kingdom of grace - in paradise - a new world was established, where blood no longer shed before the face of the immortal Adam, violent death among the animal kingdom disappeared. For God gave everyone in paradise every greenery and fruit for food, and all animals and birds and fish were subdued to man, and God gave such great intelligence to Adam that he could call every creature by name."
But since paradise was once present on Earth, it means that it was in a certain specific place. Most religious scholars believe that it should be sought somewhere in the eastern regions of the Earth, most likely in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. It was there, according to numerous archaeological data, that the first civilizations were born.
However, for a long time people were sure, and some believe in it even now, that heaven on earth continues to exist and is in some places inaccessible to mere mortals. And so he was constantly looked for. There is even a version that Christopher Columbus was also involved in this. And when I discovered Haiti, I thought I had found paradise.
And, for example, Academician A. T. Fomenko, based on his chronological constructions, believes that paradise was located on the Central Russian Upland. He even names a specific point of the heavenly place - the city of Yaroslavl.
They were looking for paradise in Tibet. N. Roerich, as well as E. R. Muldashev. It is believed that the mythical land of Shambhala is located there, which, in fact, is an earthly paradise. It is invisible to the eyes of ordinary mortals and only people with a pure heart and good thoughts can find the way to it, Buddhists say.
And in order to be pure in heart, it is necessary in earthly life to do the minimum of evil and the maximum of good. It is the need to constantly make a choice between good and evil at all crossroads of life and is the main indicator of the path to heaven. In fact, the immaculate earthly life brings a person closer to heavenly life.
When a person fulfills all the commandments of God, he already becomes an inhabitant of paradise.
“In the afterlife there are two roads before the soul - to the light or from it, and the soul after the death of the body can no longer choose the path,” writes Archbishop Anthony. “The road is predetermined by human life on earth.”
In order for a person to save his soul, and this is the same thing, so that he finds the way to heaven, religion gives clear instructions on the definition of good and evil. God passed them on to humanity through the prophets: Jesus Christ, Buddha, Muhammad.
According to religious teachings, before determining where the soul should go - to heaven or hell - a judgment is performed on it, at which the whole life of a person is examined, every second of it.
Modern science is also inclined towards the possibility of the existence of heaven and hell. For example, quantum physics, based on complex mathematical calculations, came to the conclusion that there are parallel worlds in world space with a variety of conditions and inhabitants. Among them there may be those that fit the description of the biblical paradise.
If we assume that paradise is indeed located in one of the parallel worlds, then it must meet several specific characteristics: for example, time and aging are absent in this world. But scientists say that it is in the quantum world that there is no present, future and past, that is, there is no time flow there. This means that the existence of paradise is possible.
The fact that light, that is, subtle matter, is one of the main signs of paradise, which is considered the kingdom of light, also speaks of a certain connection between heaven and subtle matters. The patients of the American researcher of the phenomena of clinical death, Richard Moody, described what they saw as follows: "The sun was absent, but everywhere there was light that did not create shadows."
In addition, all the appearances of the Mother of God, as well as the righteous and saints, are accompanied by a bright light. And light also comes from the inhabitants of paradise.
So, the views of religion and science on the existence of paradise find more and more points of contact. This is a very important moment in the development of human civilization, because over time it can change people's understanding of their destiny and allow them to understand more deeply that they come to this world in order to start moving towards the light, that is, to heaven.
Bernatsky Anatoly