when a person dies, does the SOUL (If not pure devotee of GOD) is transferred immediately to a new living entity or it hovers in the air?

if one commits a suicide then one will reside in subtle body for many, many years till his karma is fulfilled. If person dies of natural death then the soul as soon as possible is put into another body.

It is also said that one will get a body about which one laments at the time of death. As like Bharata Maharaja took birth as a deer.

Usually change of body is done fast if body is burnt properly as Harshieksh Prabhu wrote. Or else soul will suffer moving around his body till it vanishes fully. So better is to burn it to ashes and let the soul go to take a new body.

If the soul is decided to be transferred into a new HUMAN BODY, then immediately it is not possible. Because in this world a new child is not born in every second.. So how much time it has to wait ?

Immediately might not be possible because there is a process of getting a human body. Which is that first soul enters to a semen of a man then if consciousness of parents supports his consciousness then only he will be able to get new human body or else again try to enter to a new semen...

But as we see these days this process is artificially stopped as a result many souls suffer not being able to get a new human body on time.

Your servant,

When a Vaishnava dies, he goes back to Godhead as he has no attachment for his body or relatives. Sometimes he flies to Goloka by an aeroplane, sometimes by Garuda etc. In the Goloka, he gets a spiritual body which resembles Krishna.

When a materialistic person dies, his soul lingers around his body. This is because he has an attachment towards his body and bodily relatives. This is why Hindus cremate a departed person's body in a fire. This destroys the cause of attachment. But the death ritual does not end here.

When a person dies, his sons will first bathe the dead body and then clothe it in a single piece of cloth. The body is rubbed with sandalwood paste. The sons then perform a rite known as ekoddishta. This gives the right to cremeate the dead body. The rite can be performed at the place of death, the door of the house , the courtyard, the place where the dead body is resting, the cremation ground or on the funeral pyre itself.

The sons will carry sesamum, sacrifical grass (kusha), clarified butter and wood with them to the cremation ground. And on the way to the cremation ground, hymns to Yama will be sung.

At the shmashana (cremation ground), another religious rite is observed. A funeral pyre is made. The clothing that the dead person is wearing is torn into two. The body is draped with half and the remaining half is left in the shmashana for the ghost (preta). Oblations (pinda) are offered to the dead man and clarified butter is sprinkled on the corpse. The dead body is then placed on the funeral pyre with the head facing the south.

The fire is lit with the words, Great Lord Agni, take this person to heaven.

When the body is half-burnt, mantras are chanted and sesamum and clairified butter sprinkled on the funeral pyre. This is the time to start weeping for the dead. The ghost feels good if it hears these sounds of mourning.

After the body is completely burnt, the sons offer oblations to the dead and circle the funeral pyre. They then go to have a bath. And while they have their bath, they must continue to say good things about the dead person. Water is then taken in cupped palms and offered to the dead man. This is known as tarpana (gratification) and tarpana is performed once, thrice or ten times. The wet clothes are changed after the tarpana is over.

One must not sorrow over the dead person after the tarpana and after the dead body has been burnt. Such mourning merely makes the ghost (preta) get attached to its earlier life, and serves no purpose. If necessary, learned men can be called to discourse on the transience of the physical body and the inevitability of death. This gives comfort. On returning home from the cremation ground, sacred objects must be touched first of all.

A child under two years of age is not cremated. The dead body is buried.

A wife can immolate herself on her husband’s funeraly pyre. This brings great punya. She spends as many years in heaven as there are hairs on her body. She even rescues her husband from hell, no matter what sins her husband may have committed. The husband joins the wife in heaven. This sort of immolation is always recommended except when the woman happens to be pregnant. So says the Garuda Purana.

There are some cases where cremation ceremonies are not to be performed, nor are the dead offered pinda or tarpana. Such people have to suffer in hell. These are instances of deaths rising from wild animals, fire, cholera, posion, snake-bites, lightning, or outright suicides. Funeral ceremonies performed in such cases do more harm than good. A special religious rite has to be arranged for such deaths. This is known as narayanavali. It is only if this is done that the dead person does not have to go to hell. In the case of snake-bite leading to death, the golden image of a snake has to be given to a brahman along with a cow. Then the dead body is covered with palasha leaves and other sacred objects. Then it burnt. This rite is known as sarpavali.

Garuda Purana describes the journey of the departed soul. The Garuda Purana is often recited at funeral (shraddha) ceremonies. If the rites as mentioned in this Purana are performed according to the incantations, the ancestors are freed from all sins. On the occasion of the ceremony, pindas (oblations) are offered to the dead ancestors. And the rite has to be repeated exactly one year after the date of death.

After the dead body has been burnt, there is a ten-day period of mourning and impurity for the sons and near blood relatives.

Every day, a pinda must be offered to the dead person. Water must also be offered. Thus the tenth pinda is offered on the tenth day.

Each day’s pinda offerings are divided into four parts.

The first part is appropriated by Yama’s messengers. The second part is used by the preta to survive. The remaining two parts are used by the preta to reconstruct a body by means of which he can travel to Yama’s abode.

Within three days and nights, the soul assumes a new body. On the tenth day the embodied soul longs for food. On the eleventh and twelfth day, the soul of dead eats to his fill. On the thirteenth day, the soul of the dead is taken to the Yama loka.

Now he assumes a body of the pind (size of an arm) and feels hungry by day and night. During his long journey, the preta lives on whatever offerings are made to it in the form of pindas. (The pinda daan in death rituals vary from region to region of India.)

On the thirteen day, Yama’s messengers come for the preta. The preta now has a body, thanks to the pindas offered on the first ten days. Yama’s messengers grab this body and begin to drag it towards Yama’s abode. But the way is long and it takes three hundred and forty-eight days for the journey to be completed. The journey starts on the thirteenth day after death. Therefore, it is almost a year after death when the preta finally reaches Yama’s abode. During his long journey, the preta gets no food or water. It lives on whatever offerings are made to it in the form of pindas.

After one year has passed, the preta reaches Yama’s abode. As directed by Chitragupta, he suffers in hell.

There are sixteen cities that have to be passed on the way to Yama’s abode. Their names are Yamya, Souri, Nagendra, Gandharva, Shailagama, Krouncha, Krura, Vichitra, Vahvapada, Duhkada, Nankranda, Sutapta, Roudra, Payovarshana, Shitadhya, Vahubhiti. In between the cities named Vichitra nd Vahvapada, the river Vaitarani has to be crossed. This a terrible river and its currents are made of blood. There are boats for crossing the river. But only those who have donated cows on earth are allowed to cross by means of the boats. The others are dragged through the current and their flesh torn to shreds by fierce birds.

The most important naraka is rourava, reserved for those who lie or bear false witness. The hell has a long expanse and is full of huge pits. These pits are full of burning coal. The sinner is let loose at one end of the hell and is made to walk to the other end. Naturally, he keeps falling into the pits and gets severly burnt. When he reaches the other end of the hell, he is released from rourava. He then goes to other hells if there are other sins to be accounted for.

Another hell is named maharourava. It is covered with burning sands. The fires that burn there are so bright that they hurt the sinner’s eyes. The sinner’s hands and feet are tied and he is thrown into the hell. There he burns. To compound his miseries, the hell is populated by fierce crows, vultures, wolves, mosquitoes and scorpions. These bite him and sting him and eat his flesh as he burns. After several years spent in maharourava, sinners are released.

Unlike rourava and maharourava, the hell named atishita is extemely cold. There is no light there and everything is in total darkness. The only heat that sinners can generate is by clinging on to each other’s bodies. There are hailstorms which make the skin smart. And there is no food to eat. To satisfy their hunger, the sinners end up eating each other’s flesh and blood and bones.

The hell named nikrintana is quite different. There sinners are tied to stakes and their bodies are sliced with sharp chakras. The slicing begins with the feet and then moved up the body to the head and then again starts with the feet. The tragic part of this is that the sinners do not die in the process. For as soon as a part of their body is join up again. Thus a sinner does not die, but continues to endure the misery. And so it continues for a thousand years before there is release.

A hell named apratishtha is a place where sinners are whirled round and round until they begin to vomit blood and their intestines come out of their mouths.

Asipatravana naraka is a huge expanse. The edges of the hell are extemely hot and there is a grove of trees in the centre. The centre is also cooler. The sinners are let loose at the edges and they suffer so much from the heat that they dash towards the centre. Asi means sword and patra is the blade of a sword. Vana is a forest. The hell is so named because the trees in the grove have leaves that are as sharp as the blades of swords. When sinners dash into the grove, their flesh is sliced with the leaves of the trees. And the grove is also full of fierce dogs which immediately eat up the torn flesh.

Next is the hell named taptakumbha. This has hot (tapa) pots (kumbha). The pots are full of boiling oil. The sinners are hung upside down inside these pots and roasted. And while they are being boiled in oil, vultures tear apart whatever portions of their bodies continue to be exposed.

There are many hells. But the seven major ones are the ones that have just been describedrourava, maharourava, atishita, nikrintana, apratishtha, asipatravana and taptakumbha.

All the hells are located under the earth. The hells are so terrible that a single day there seems like a hundred years on earth. Imprisonment in any naraka is for a fixed term. When all these tenures in different hells are over, it is time for the sinner to be born again. And what he is born as is determines by the karma of his earlier life. The greater the sins he committed in his earlier life, the more inferior the form he is born as . And so the cycle of birth, atonement and rebirth continues.

Rewards for punya are received in heaven. But these rewards are not forever. Once the term is over, the person has to be reborn.

After having paid for some of his sins in naraka (hell), a sinner is born again to pay for whatever has still not been accounted for.

The killer of a brahmana is first born as a dog, then progressively as a camel, a donkey, a frog and an owl. A stealer of gold is born as a worm or as an insect. The killer of a brahmana may also have tuberculosis, while the stealer of gold may have misshapen teeth. A person who steals food starves in his next life. A liar becomes dumb in his next life. A stealer of oil is born as a cockroach and a stealer of green vegetables as a peacock.

If you steal fragrant substances, you will be born as a mole and if you steal foodgrains, you will born as a rat.

A stealer of fruits is born as monkey, a stealer of animal as a goat, a stealer of milk as a crow, a stealer of meat as a vulture and a stealer of salt gets only torn clothes to wear in his next life. Each receives in accordance with what each deserves.

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Volunteer

Mohini Madhavi July 17, 2013 at 2:54pm

if one commits a suicide then one will reside in subtle body for many, many years till his karma is fulfilled. If person dies of natural death then the soul as soon as possible is put into another body.

It is also said that one will get a body about which one laments at the time of death. As like Bharata Maharaja took birth as a deer.

Usually change of body is done fast if body is burnt properly as Harshieksh Prabhu wrote. Or else soul will suffer moving around his body till it vanishes fully. So better is to burn it to ashes and let the soul go to take a new body.

If the soul is decided to be transferred into a new HUMAN BODY, then immediately it is not possible. Because in this world a new child is not born in every second.. So how much time it has to wait ?

Immediately might not be possible because there is a process of getting a human body. Which is that first soul enters to a semen of a man then if consciousness of parents supports his consciousness then only he will be able to get new human body or else again try to enter to a new semen...

But as we see these days this process is artificially stopped as a result many souls suffer not being able to get a new human body on time.

Your servant,
- Radhe Goswami > Mohini Madhavi July 17, 2013 at 3:10pm
  
  Hare Krishna!
  
  Dear Bhaktin Mataji, Namaskar
  
  Is Lord Krishna is the supreme judge for the soul? does HE decide whether it has to acquire a new body, or it has to go to the Patal/Narak or it has to go to the Golok and stay with HIM?
  
  If Krishna is the judge, then how does HE throw these souls (these souls are seemed to be HIS children (Krishna is the Supersoul)) to Narak even after knowing that Narak is very dangerous? our Krishna cant be so cruel.. isnt it, HE is always merciful.?
  
  Please forgive me if I am rude..
  
  Pranam!
  - Harshikesh Bhattacharya > Radhe Goswami July 17, 2013 at 3:35pm
    
    Radhe Prabhuji, I really appreciate your innocent inquiries : ) When I was a child, I used to ask questions in the same manner : )
    
    Yes, Lord Krishna is the Supreme judge of the soul. Sitting inside us, He watches our every activity. For, good deeds, he rewards us and for evil deeds, he punishes us. Only he decides which body shall we get in our next life.
    
    Vaishnavas are very dear to Krishna. He never consigns them to naraka. I advise you to read carefully the story of Ajamila. From this story, you will learn that the servants of Yama fear the Vaishnavas. They never come near Vaishnavas.
    
    Punishment in the naraka is meant only for those who have never chanted Krishna's name. Krishna is not merciless. Infact, he is extremely merciful. Even His punishment is for the betterment of a jiva. By punishing the sinful jivas, he is trying to reform them. Thus, even in His apparent 'cruelty' resides causeless mercy. Your mother/father must have scolded or beaten you sometimes. But the reason of punishment was to reform you. They are not your enemies but your well-wishers. Same is the case with Krishna. He is like our mother/father. He is all merciful and a well-wisher and not cruel : )
    
    Your servant,
    
    Harshikesh Bhattacharya
    - Chandrakant D Anchan > Harshikesh Bhattacharya July 21, 2013 at 10:29am
      
      Haribol Harshikesh Prabhu,
      
      You have good knowledge about things after death.Its really good to read these difficulties to make us realise better Cling on to Krishnsa rahter going through the cycle of Birth and Death.
      
      Im indebted To all my Shiksha gurus(Male/Female) and ISkcon and especially Prabhupada.
      
      All gories to Guru and GAuranga.
      - Harshikesh Bhattacharya > Chandrakant D Anchan July 21, 2013 at 12:23pm
        
        Thank you Chandrakant Prabhuji. All glories to Srila Prabhupada
Harshikesh Bhattacharya July 17, 2013 at 1:03am

When a Vaishnava dies, he goes back to Godhead as he has no attachment for his body or relatives. Sometimes he flies to Goloka by an aeroplane, sometimes by Garuda etc. In the Goloka, he gets a spiritual body which resembles Krishna.

When a materialistic person dies, his soul lingers around his body. This is because he has an attachment towards his body and bodily relatives. This is why Hindus cremate a departed person's body in a fire. This destroys the cause of attachment. But the death ritual does not end here.

When a person dies, his sons will first bathe the dead body and then clothe it in a single piece of cloth. The body is rubbed with sandalwood paste. The sons then perform a rite known as ekoddishta. This gives the right to cremeate the dead body. The rite can be performed at the place of death, the door of the house , the courtyard, the place where the dead body is resting, the cremation ground or on the funeral pyre itself.

The sons will carry sesamum, sacrifical grass (kusha), clarified butter and wood with them to the cremation ground. And on the way to the cremation ground, hymns to Yama will be sung.

At the shmashana (cremation ground), another religious rite is observed. A funeral pyre is made. The clothing that the dead person is wearing is torn into two. The body is draped with half and the remaining half is left in the shmashana for the ghost (preta). Oblations (pinda) are offered to the dead man and clarified butter is sprinkled on the corpse. The dead body is then placed on the funeral pyre with the head facing the south.

The fire is lit with the words, Great Lord Agni, take this person to heaven.

When the body is half-burnt, mantras are chanted and sesamum and clairified butter sprinkled on the funeral pyre. This is the time to start weeping for the dead. The ghost feels good if it hears these sounds of mourning.

After the body is completely burnt, the sons offer oblations to the dead and circle the funeral pyre. They then go to have a bath. And while they have their bath, they must continue to say good things about the dead person. Water is then taken in cupped palms and offered to the dead man. This is known as tarpana (gratification) and tarpana is performed once, thrice or ten times. The wet clothes are changed after the tarpana is over.

One must not sorrow over the dead person after the tarpana and after the dead body has been burnt. Such mourning merely makes the ghost (preta) get attached to its earlier life, and serves no purpose. If necessary, learned men can be called to discourse on the transience of the physical body and the inevitability of death. This gives comfort. On returning home from the cremation ground, sacred objects must be touched first of all.

A child under two years of age is not cremated. The dead body is buried.

A wife can immolate herself on her husband’s funeraly pyre. This brings great punya. She spends as many years in heaven as there are hairs on her body. She even rescues her husband from hell, no matter what sins her husband may have committed. The husband joins the wife in heaven. This sort of immolation is always recommended except when the woman happens to be pregnant. So says the Garuda Purana.

There are some cases where cremation ceremonies are not to be performed, nor are the dead offered pinda or tarpana. Such people have to suffer in hell. These are instances of deaths rising from wild animals, fire, cholera, posion, snake-bites, lightning, or outright suicides. Funeral ceremonies performed in such cases do more harm than good. A special religious rite has to be arranged for such deaths. This is known as narayanavali. It is only if this is done that the dead person does not have to go to hell. In the case of snake-bite leading to death, the golden image of a snake has to be given to a brahman along with a cow. Then the dead body is covered with palasha leaves and other sacred objects. Then it burnt. This rite is known as sarpavali.

Garuda Purana describes the journey of the departed soul. The Garuda Purana is often recited at funeral (shraddha) ceremonies. If the rites as mentioned in this Purana are performed according to the incantations, the ancestors are freed from all sins. On the occasion of the ceremony, pindas (oblations) are offered to the dead ancestors. And the rite has to be repeated exactly one year after the date of death.

After the dead body has been burnt, there is a ten-day period of mourning and impurity for the sons and near blood relatives.

Every day, a pinda must be offered to the dead person. Water must also be offered. Thus the tenth pinda is offered on the tenth day.

Each day’s pinda offerings are divided into four parts.

The first part is appropriated by Yama’s messengers. The second part is used by the preta to survive. The remaining two parts are used by the preta to reconstruct a body by means of which he can travel to Yama’s abode.

Within three days and nights, the soul assumes a new body. On the tenth day the embodied soul longs for food. On the eleventh and twelfth day, the soul of dead eats to his fill. On the thirteenth day, the soul of the dead is taken to the Yama loka.

Now he assumes a body of the pind (size of an arm) and feels hungry by day and night. During his long journey, the preta lives on whatever offerings are made to it in the form of pindas. (The pinda daan in death rituals vary from region to region of India.)

On the thirteen day, Yama’s messengers come for the preta. The preta now has a body, thanks to the pindas offered on the first ten days. Yama’s messengers grab this body and begin to drag it towards Yama’s abode. But the way is long and it takes three hundred and forty-eight days for the journey to be completed. The journey starts on the thirteenth day after death. Therefore, it is almost a year after death when the preta finally reaches Yama’s abode. During his long journey, the preta gets no food or water. It lives on whatever offerings are made to it in the form of pindas.

After one year has passed, the preta reaches Yama’s abode. As directed by Chitragupta, he suffers in hell.

There are sixteen cities that have to be passed on the way to Yama’s abode. Their names are Yamya, Souri, Nagendra, Gandharva, Shailagama, Krouncha, Krura, Vichitra, Vahvapada, Duhkada, Nankranda, Sutapta, Roudra, Payovarshana, Shitadhya, Vahubhiti. In between the cities named Vichitra nd Vahvapada, the river Vaitarani has to be crossed. This a terrible river and its currents are made of blood. There are boats for crossing the river. But only those who have donated cows on earth are allowed to cross by means of the boats. The others are dragged through the current and their flesh torn to shreds by fierce birds.

The most important naraka is rourava, reserved for those who lie or bear false witness. The hell has a long expanse and is full of huge pits. These pits are full of burning coal. The sinner is let loose at one end of the hell and is made to walk to the other end. Naturally, he keeps falling into the pits and gets severly burnt. When he reaches the other end of the hell, he is released from rourava. He then goes to other hells if there are other sins to be accounted for.

Another hell is named maharourava. It is covered with burning sands. The fires that burn there are so bright that they hurt the sinner’s eyes. The sinner’s hands and feet are tied and he is thrown into the hell. There he burns. To compound his miseries, the hell is populated by fierce crows, vultures, wolves, mosquitoes and scorpions. These bite him and sting him and eat his flesh as he burns. After several years spent in maharourava, sinners are released.

Unlike rourava and maharourava, the hell named atishita is extemely cold. There is no light there and everything is in total darkness. The only heat that sinners can generate is by clinging on to each other’s bodies. There are hailstorms which make the skin smart. And there is no food to eat. To satisfy their hunger, the sinners end up eating each other’s flesh and blood and bones.

The hell named nikrintana is quite different. There sinners are tied to stakes and their bodies are sliced with sharp chakras. The slicing begins with the feet and then moved up the body to the head and then again starts with the feet. The tragic part of this is that the sinners do not die in the process. For as soon as a part of their body is join up again. Thus a sinner does not die, but continues to endure the misery. And so it continues for a thousand years before there is release.

A hell named apratishtha is a place where sinners are whirled round and round until they begin to vomit blood and their intestines come out of their mouths.

Asipatravana naraka is a huge expanse. The edges of the hell are extemely hot and there is a grove of trees in the centre. The centre is also cooler. The sinners are let loose at the edges and they suffer so much from the heat that they dash towards the centre. Asi means sword and patra is the blade of a sword. Vana is a forest. The hell is so named because the trees in the grove have leaves that are as sharp as the blades of swords. When sinners dash into the grove, their flesh is sliced with the leaves of the trees. And the grove is also full of fierce dogs which immediately eat up the torn flesh.

Next is the hell named taptakumbha. This has hot (tapa) pots (kumbha). The pots are full of boiling oil. The sinners are hung upside down inside these pots and roasted. And while they are being boiled in oil, vultures tear apart whatever portions of their bodies continue to be exposed.

There are many hells. But the seven major ones are the ones that have just been describedrourava, maharourava, atishita, nikrintana, apratishtha, asipatravana and taptakumbha.

All the hells are located under the earth. The hells are so terrible that a single day there seems like a hundred years on earth. Imprisonment in any naraka is for a fixed term. When all these tenures in different hells are over, it is time for the sinner to be born again. And what he is born as is determines by the karma of his earlier life. The greater the sins he committed in his earlier life, the more inferior the form he is born as . And so the cycle of birth, atonement and rebirth continues.

Rewards for punya are received in heaven. But these rewards are not forever. Once the term is over, the person has to be reborn.

After having paid for some of his sins in naraka (hell), a sinner is born again to pay for whatever has still not been accounted for.

The killer of a brahmana is first born as a dog, then progressively as a camel, a donkey, a frog and an owl. A stealer of gold is born as a worm or as an insect. The killer of a brahmana may also have tuberculosis, while the stealer of gold may have misshapen teeth. A person who steals food starves in his next life. A liar becomes dumb in his next life. A stealer of oil is born as a cockroach and a stealer of green vegetables as a peacock.

If you steal fragrant substances, you will be born as a mole and if you steal foodgrains, you will born as a rat.

A stealer of fruits is born as monkey, a stealer of animal as a goat, a stealer of milk as a crow, a stealer of meat as a vulture and a stealer of salt gets only torn clothes to wear in his next life. Each receives in accordance with what each deserves.
- Jaya Gopal dasa > Harshikesh Bhattacharya July 24, 2013 at 5:35pm
  
  Dear prabhu,
  
  Interesting description you have give above.
  
  Bhaktivinode Thakur also revealed other information.
  
  At the time of death the jiva has a summarized overview of his life. Things he did and actions that have caused pain to others. Being momentarily freed from the bodily concept of life the jiva will actually feel the pain he/she has caused to others. That can be a hellish experience.
  
  Your descripotion sounds very much like heaven and hell, like the christians do. The jiva will never return to krsna out of fear for hellish conditions after this life. Only by experiecing a higher taste will the attachment to krsna be established. Best is to promote the chanting of Krnsa's name versus causing fear.
  
  Jaya Gopal das
- Volunteer
  
  Mohini Madhavi > Harshikesh Bhattacharya July 17, 2013 at 2:42pm
  
  Harshikesh Prabhu, please You gave nice information here, could You please write it as a blog!
  
  Thank You!
  
  Your servant,
  - Harshikesh Bhattacharya > Mohini Madhavi July 17, 2013 at 3:22pm
    
    Thank you Mataji for appreciating this information. I will surely post this as a blog.
    
    Hare Krishna !
    
    Your servant in serving Krishna.
Shubham July 16, 2013 at 11:56pm

http://www.iskcondesiretree.net/forum/topics/the-extent-of-reincarn...

It may help you.

JAI ACHARYAS

HARI BOL

This reply was deleted.