Once human beings led a delegation to God with a complaint: “Oh God, we are told by our spiritual seers that we should do good and not bad, because if we do good we will go to heaven, and if we do bad we will end up in hell. But how do we know that this is not just a ruse with no substance to it? What exactly are heaven and hell like? Nobody who has died has come back, so what is the proof of all this?”
God answered, “Okay, select one amongst you all, and I will send him first to hell, then back to you, and then to heaven, and once again back to you, so that you can have first-hand information about what these places look like.”
So, the delegation elected a representative, who first visited hell and came back. All the others immediately surrounded him and eagerly asked, “What was it like? Full of evil demons?”
“No,” replied the representative, “No demons out there. All humans just like us, the only difference being that they do not have elbow joints in their hands.”
“Oh,” said the others, “that means it is hell because there is no food available there.”
“On the contrary,” replied the representative, “plenty of the choicest food - all the 56 bhogs [these refer to the most delicious items in the Rajasthani Jain tradition] - are cooked and ready and lying all over the place, available free of cost to each and every person.”
“Oh,” said the others, “that means everyone in hell must be incredibly happy people.”
“No,” corrected the representative, “remember I told you their elbow joints don’t work. So, they spend all their time and energy picking up their favourite foods, trying to put them in their mouths, but fail to do so as they cannot bend their hands, so the food falls to the other side, leaving them frustrated and hungry. They spend all their time and energy in this fruitless effort to eat all those delicacies. So, they are a very hungry, unhappy, angry lot.”
He then went to heaven, and when he returned, everyone again crowded round him and asked, “Are there angels up there?”
“No”, he replied, “they are just like those in hell, humans with no elbow joints.”
“So,” the others asked, “there is no difference between hell and heaven?”
“Yes, there is,” replied the representative, “in heaven, each one picks up the 56 bhogs and feeds it to the other.”
