Let’s continue the story from where we had left off, if you have missed the part-1, I would recommend you to first check that out and then come back here to read the part 2:

Teacher: Good morning students!

Students: Good morning teacher!

Teacher: I hope everyone remembers that we had started a debate in the last lecture, as far as I recall, Rohan had asked a question in the end which wasn’t answered because the bell rang. Can you ask the question again Rohan?

Rohan: Yes, I had understood your point on why people pray to God, but I wanted to know why does so much illogical stuff exists, like the whole “paap”(sin) and “punya”(virtue) concept.

Teacher: Okay, yeah! I remember it now. That is a really good question!
It definitely seems illogical at first, no offense to anyone who thinks it is logical, but I’ll give an analogy so that you understand my point in a better way. Let’s say there is a kid, a very young kid, may be 5-6 years old. One day, the kid throws a tantrum that he won’t go to the school. No matter how much his parents try to convince him, he won’t budge. Now, the mother of this kid gets an idea. She tells the kid that if he goes to the school, and behaves well, he will be awarded a chocolate. The kid started thinking, he had two options now, get bored in the school but get the chocolate in the end, or, don’t go to the school and play the whole day, but miss out on the chocolate. The kid’s mother started to notice the difference in the expression on the kid’s face. She added another condition. She said, “I am okay if you don’t go to school, but you will have to study for 2 hours instead! No playing till that is done!”, now the kid started to think that he does not have any option, he thought that if he goes to the school, he gets a chocolate and if he doesn’t go, he neither gets to play, nor gets the chocolate. And then he agreed to go to school.
You see where I am going with this, don’t you Rohan?

Rohan: Yeah, I see your point. You are trying to imply that the chocolate is “punya”; the punishment of “not being allowed to play if not going to school” is because the child, that’s us, committed a sin, a paap, by not going to the school. It is something like the heaven and hell concept in religion as well, where if we perform good actions, i.e., punya, we go to heaven, i.e., we get a chocolate; and if we fail to perform it, we get a punishment, i.e., we go to hell.

Teacher: Exactly! Now tell me, why do laws exist?

Rohan: Laws exist so that people have fear while committing crimes.

Teacher: We humans are like that kid. We tend to do a lot of wrong things if we don’t have the fear of anyone punishing us. I am not talking about big crimes either. I’ll give you an example. A lot of us, jump the signal while driving if the officer is not looking. That’s a very small example, but we always need to be bound by something, we always need to have a fear of punishment to keep ourselves from doing the wrong things.

Rohan: I understand your point. But that does not mean that we make up stuff that doesn’t even exist and mislead people. There’s no proof to this paap, punya, heaven, hell stuff. Apart from that, we are not kids that don’t understand what we are being told. Isn’t it a bit unreasonable to consider all human beings to be like that kid who does not understand what is good and what is bad. I feel that all adult humans have their own preferences, thoughts and opinions and is capable of recognizing what is good and what is bad for him or her.

Teacher: Sure, sure! That is one way of looking at it. And I must tell you, you have given a lot of thought to this, I applaud your reasoning skills!
Now the answer to your question. It is human nature to be curious, to want an answer to everything. That is a really good quality to have. But that also has a downside. We simply cannot accept the fact that somethings could be beyond our understanding. By no means I am saying that God exists and we simply can’t understand that he exists. I am simply stating that just because this paap, punya, heaven, hell concept does not seem logical to us right now, does not mean that it is false. Remember, almost every big breakthrough in science felt illogical at some stage of human evolution journey. Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree with your point. All this could be complete nonsense. But I also don’t deny the possibility of it being true, however illogical it may seem right now.
Rather I think of it this way, if this whole paap, punya, heaven, hell concept makes you do the right things and helps you avoid doing the wrong things, what is wrong with it? I just accept the fact that I can’t figure out whether it is true or not. So rather than breaking your heads on thinking about it, just go with the flow!

(A student named Jimit raises his hand)

Teacher: And I am already sensing the next question that is coming my way. Please continue.

Jimit: I agree that many of the times, punya means good thing and paap means bad thing, but still, there is a lot of negativity that the so called fake babas and gurus spread in the name of the same paap, punya, heaven and hell. Do you think that is true? I heard yesterday that a person gave away a diamond ring to a baba just because he told, “punya milega”, if you do this. Do you think that is good?

(Bell rings)

Teacher: Oh man! What timing again! It was starting to heat up. Okay Jimit, I will surely answer this question too in the next lecture! Thankyou everyone!

So that was part 2 of this series, hope you enjoyed it, do check out part-3 as well!