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rainycity
09 November 2009, 06:45 AM
I've noticed that in lots of scriptures, hell is often described as a consequence for petty actions. Will people who eat meat for example really go to hell? or is hell a threat to stop laymen from committing sins?

Eastern Mind
09 November 2009, 07:08 AM
Rainy: It sounds like this hell you speak of is the western version. Unfortunately, as with other western concepts, this has slowly crept into Hinduism.

There is no similar concept that I know of in traditional Sanatana Dharma. There are hellish states of mind, tough experiences, karmic lessons to be learned, etc. But there is no hell of the eternal damnation variety. Simple black/white philosophy might get by on that, but we don't.

Aum Namasivaya

Onkara
09 November 2009, 07:16 AM
I've noticed that in lots of scriptures, hell is often described as a consequence for petty actions. Will people who eat meat for example really go to hell? or is hell a threat to stop laymen from committing sins?
Hi Rainycity
I personally believe that the idea of Hell is best treated as a conceptual idea to ensure our actions are done consciously and mindful of God throughout our whole life.

I do not persoanlly see that is it wrong to behave in this life as best we can. One will not go against the scriptures which state that hell exists by accepting this much.

As soon as we begin to go beyond the examples Eastern Mind correctly offers above and start to atempt to describe Hell as a place then we begin to move into imagination, which creates problems.

If scriptures go as far as to describe Hell then again I think it is better to understand this as analogy of the experience rather than a place IMHO.

saidevo
09 November 2009, 07:37 AM
namaste Rainycity.

From the little I have read in Hindu scriptures and Theosophy, the following account of hell makes sense IMO:

• Hell is essentially a state of mind that creates its own subtle world for the jIva after it drops its physical body. Since many jIvas have similar states of mind, hell also exists as a place of living for deceased souls.

• Hell is a subtle world (plane if you prefer) where we live in our sUkShma sharIra--astral body. Heaven is the world where we live in our kAraNa sharIra--mental and causal body.

• The astral world lies in between heaven and earth. It is the place populated with jIvas awaiting reincarnation and jIvas that have dropped their physical bodies and are as yet not ready to reach the heavens. This astral world has sub-planes (seven according to Theosophy). One of these sub-planes represent the hell; at least one plane is a replica of the physical world; the other planes represent probably what is described as pitRu loka in Hinduism.

• Our astral body is the body of emotions. The emotions are represented as colored astral matter (as it appears to clairvoyant investigations). Astral matter relating to noble emotions such as altruistic love and compassion have subtle matter with high frequecies and gravitate towards the top while the gross emotions such as worldly desires, passion, lust, addictions towards drink, meat, etc. have gross matter with low frequencies and gravitate towards the bottom of the astral body.

• Upon death of the physical body, the astral body is transformed into a kind of shell with the gross matter forming the outer surface and the subtler mater locked up in the inner surfaces. The jIva, after it drops the physical body, wakes up in the subplane corresponding to the outermost surface of its astral body, because of the consonance of their frequencies. The jIva is trapped in that sub-plane until the outermost surface wears away and then gravitates to the upper sub-planes that match the inner surfaces one by one. Upon 'death' of the astral body, the jIva gravitates to the heavens, if it has accumulated any good karma in its physical life.

• Thus, after death of the physical body, the jIva has to spend its time in the astral world because of the components of its bad karma. So, jIvas that had an addiction towards something, say drinks, in their physical life still have that craze but can't satisfy it for lack of a physical body. This jIva, then suffers, in the surroundings of its own creation: for example, the jIva that was a drunkard might hover over the places of liquor shops and bars, trying to satisfy its thirst by the astral matter corresponding to the fumes of liquor, and in the process the craze only increases and the jIva suffers in the hell of its own making.

• What is the way out then? The solution to the emotional problems of jIvas in the astral world is built into their own astral and mental bodies: the noble emotions and spiritual knowledge (if any) the jIva acquired in its physical life. Eventually, these goodies influence the jIva's astral body and wear out the crazy outer layers and help it gravitate to higher sub-planes of the astral world.

• There could be extreme cases of jIvas more permanently locked up in the 'hells' of their making, specially where there was no component of knowledge or capability of noble emotions. Such jIvas reincarnate in shorter intervals and return to the earth with another physical body to improve their lives. In some cases, God's grace via a noble soul such as a sage who takes compassion of the suffering jIva might fall on the locked up jIva and liberate it to higher planes.

• JIvas with normal capabilities of knowledge, thoughts and emotions temporarily spend their time in the astral sub-planes that are nearer to the earth's physical plane. JIvas that had excessive worldly ties of affection such as a deceased mother's extreme love for her child, tend to hover round places of their earlier habitation and try to communicate and protect their beloved ones. This is the reason behind the saying that we should not 'mourn' our deceased relatives for long periods, since the mourning only drags them down instead of letting them gravitate to their higher worlds.

Such worldly ties could be anything: a love for the home of earlier occupation, an unsettled debt or anything else. This is possibly the reason behind the Lincon's ghost seen in the White House and the ghost of the Architect of the house roaming its corridors with an unsettled bill book in hand--a case that Dan Brown describes in his book 'The Lost Symbol'.

**********

Scriptures of Hinduism and other religions might have differing descriptions of the astral world and hell, but I think, they are essentially based on the rationale and model given above.

sunyata07
09 November 2009, 06:22 PM
Namaste Rainycity,

I've always viewed these descriptions of hell as being nothing but a metaphor, even as a Christian. To me, hell was more a state of the soul's sense of separation from God (which can only be pure bliss and the fullest contentment, and so therefore hell's polar concept, paradise) but hell was not an actual place where the soul would be put to torture. The very idea of hell being perfectly segregated into orderly circles of specific torture (one corner for adulterers and another for thieves) is, to me, the opposite of what I would have imagined hell to be, if such a place existed. Descriptions you read in the scriptures are for conceptualisation, as Snip pointed out. I can see its purpose in aiding the minds of many to grasping what can be quite an abstract concept.

I would be more of the same mind as EM, where hell is just the soul's individual state of mind (bhava?), and the trials it has to undergo again and again in each rebirth until it is finally able to awaken to the understanding that all pleasures that men strive for in their lives do not encompass even one-billionth the joy that is to be found in complete union with God. But hell as an actual place where souls are sent for punishment is just simplifying matters, in my opinion.

sanjaya
10 November 2009, 05:56 PM
I've noticed that in lots of scriptures, hell is often described as a consequence for petty actions. Will people who eat meat for example really go to hell? or is hell a threat to stop laymen from committing sins?

May I ask what Scriptures we're talking about, just so that I can read the references in context? I've seen the word "hell" in one of my translations of the Bhagavad Gita. However, I've always assumed that it's an artifact of the translation into English. Since Sri Krishna goes on to describe in some detail how reincarnation and karma work, I'm guessing that we're not talking about hell in a Western sense.