Today we include two of Gurudeva's answers to questions from e-devotees. The first explores the view of demons, heaven and hell according to Hindu tradition. The second comes from young Aditya Balachander who asks Gurudeva how to handle his being taunted in school. Gurudeva recommends bringing it to the attention of his family, and he suggests a specific course of action to put an end to the taunting, which, Gurudeva says, is an insult to Hindus everywhere.

Unedited Transcript:

A question from Earthlink.net, a cyberspace cadet who is 13 years old, wondering are there really demons and is there a heaven and is there a hell?

Well that's a very good question and we'll answer it right now, yes, there is a heaven and yes. there is a hell. But many people are living in hell right now, look around you in the city that you're in right now and you'll see people who are behaving like demons. These are younger souls who don't know how to behave themselves and look around you there are many people who are living in heaven in physical bodies, they're behaving themselves and they're bringing joy and happiness to others. Because they know, in order to be happy themselves, they receive their happiness by making other people happy. When the antagonistic people die, those who cannot get along with other people and receive their satisfaction by making people miserable, they will go to the Narakaloka, which is the Hindu word for hell. They won't be there permanently but they'll be there for a while because that is where they are most comfortable living. And when the people who receive their happiness by making others happy and uplifting them, they'll go into the Antarloka and the Sivaloka and that is the Hindu word for heaven. And in these two worlds, the negative world and the positive world they'll continue their activities in their inner plane astral bodies, uninhibited and they can be invoked by the Priests who conducts any kind of a puja. That's why the Priests or anyone who rings a bell, lights a light should be a very pure person and have 31 days go by without being angry before he attempts to invoke the Devas. Otherwise he will invoke the asura or the demons.

A question from a 12 year old cyberspace cadet, Aditya in Texas, wondering what he should do when he's taunted in school by the Christians saying, "you don't worship the one true God and you're going to go to hell.

Well Hindus are diplomatic, but not exactly passive. What I would do is to carefully get the names of the all those people who are threatening you and disturbing the Hindu youth. Get their names, their address and their telephone number and have your parents go to the principal of the school and make a formal complaint. They're insulting the entire Hindu world and in the United States they have no right to do that. If there's no response from the school authorities, hire an attorney to write a legal letter making a formal complaint to the Ministry of Education as well as to the School Board and I assure you, we've done this before and you will have some action. The Constitution of the United States of America gives the great privilege of freedom of religion, that we all may practice our religion in this country, uninhibited. It does not give the freedom of insult. In large well run Corporations in the United States, it's against their policy for employees to talk about politics or religion. They could loose their position very quickly if they did. The purpose of going to school is to come out the other end of it with great knowledge and this cannot be accomplished if you're insulted along the way or taunted by students and your parents have to see that this stops, it's as simple as that.