What are Heaven and Hell? Is there life after death? What awaits us? So is there really hell?

Four paths of karma Natalia Evgenievna Kovaleva

Does hell exist?

"I was in hell"

Heaven and hell. Two cardinal concepts of almost all religions of the world. How many people, brought up in a religious spirit, were frightened by the prospect of ending up in hell after death! This fear of unknown retribution was skillfully exploited by many crafty ministers of all churches and religions... But does it really exist, this retribution?..

In addition to religion, philosophy and literature, the problem of hell suddenly surfaced in thanatology, becoming part of the clinical experience of resuscitation. Everyone knows that people who experienced clinical death during their “disembodied” sensations experienced unearthly bliss and saw truly heavenly scenes. The impression of the unearthly beauty they saw was such that many of them did not want to return to earth, despite the efforts of resuscitators. But in addition to the “heavenly visions” experienced by the majority of people who have been in a comatose state, resuscitators also know cases of “hellish” impressions.

German actor Kurt Jurgens, who experienced clinical death during a complex operation, recalled his feelings: “I looked at the large glass dome of the operating room. He began to change. Suddenly turned into a burning red. I saw spinning and grimacing faces looking at me... I honestly tried to fight and protect myself... Then it began to seem that the glass dome had turned into a transparent vault, which began to slowly descend on me. A fiery rain broke out, but although the drops were huge, not a single one touched me. They fell around, and menacing tongues of flame rose from them. I could not be mistaken any longer and not see the terrible truth: without a doubt, the faces of the rulers of this fiery world were the faces of the damned. I was in despair, feeling incredibly lonely and abandoned. The horror I experienced was so great that I almost suffocated. Clearly, I was in absolute hell."

Another case of “hellish” visions occurred with a housewife from Rhode Island while she was still under anesthesia after gall bladder surgery. The doctor who treated her said that when the patient came to her senses after anesthesia, her first words were: “I thought I was dead, that I had gone to hell.” She repeated this several times with her eyes wide open in horror. After the doctor calmed her down, she told him about her time in hell - how the devil wanted to take her away. This woman's story was interspersed with a list of her sins and what people thought of her. Her fear intensified and the nurses could barely keep her in a lying position. She became almost insane, and the doctor called her mother to the hospital to try to calm her down. The patient believed that God was punishing her for her sins, especially since she had a long-standing feeling of guilt due to her extramarital affairs. An interesting fact is that if the majority of patients who “returned from the other world” experienced heavenly visions, then cases of “hellish” impressions are literally isolated. Doesn't this mean that it is easier to survive after clinical death for those who sinned little and therefore received “support from above” at a critical moment in their lives, while “candidates for hell” were deprived of this divine help?

Of course, “hellish visions” that appear before patients in an altered state of consciousness as a result of anesthesia do not at all mean that the people who experienced them will necessarily go to hell after their death. Each of us has committed one or another unseemly acts in life, but not all of them lead a person to the most terrible layers of the astral world, called hell in religions. It’s just that sometimes spontaneous and uncontrolled exits of a person’s subtle body into the astral plane can transfer his consciousness to the lower spheres of another plane. What are these spheres and where did the formidable and terrible world of retribution, called hell, appear in the other world, created by shining, luminous, subtle matter?

Inferno in the lower astral plane

The astral world, in general, is a world of light: it is created from luminous rarefied matter. But the lower layers of the astral plane are deprived of light, since their inhabitants - the souls of criminals, traitors and evil people - do not have light in their matter. The reader remembers the words from Agni Yoga that each person himself creates his own energy bodies: good, pure thoughts and actions attract light energies into the human aura, which make our subtle bodies clean and bright. And vice versa, thoughts of anger, greed, and envy create vortices of negative, prickly currents in space that fill our subtle bodies with heavy, low-vibration energy. After death, a person’s subtle-material complex occupies a place in the astral plane of the planet corresponding to its energy: the astral body, burdened with the negative karma of bad thoughts and actions, descends into the lower, twilight, heavy layers of the astral plane, and light, pure souls soar up into the higher layers or spheres , Subtle world. We have already said that each layer, or plane, of space has seven subplanes, the conditions of which differ from each other in the purity and spirituality of the energies that fill these layers. In the lower layers of energy it is more primitive, rougher, and in the higher layers it is purer and more sublime. Accordingly, the souls of spiritually undeveloped people live in the lower layers of the Subtle World. The higher spheres are accessible to souls who have developed spirituality and creative abilities that carry bright, high energies.

The higher worlds of the Cosmos – mental and Fiery – are filled with harmonious, high-vibration energies. In these worlds there are no imperfections at all, there are only various stages of even greater spiritual ascent. But this cannot be said about the astral world. The astral world is closest to the physical; it represents the most imperfect plane of the subtle world. And if the highest layers of the astral are similar to the higher worlds in their perfection, purity and spirituality, then the lower layers of the astral represent hell in the full sense of the word - the same hell that is spoken of in religious teachings.

Where did the layer called hell come from in the astral world? One should not think that hell was created by some natural forces, especially God, as revenge on humanity. Even the most dense and energetically lowest layers of the astral were not hellish in their original nature. These spheres were made this way by their inhabitants - the souls of people coming to another world after death on earth. It was the souls burdened with vices and their containers - the astral bodies of people - that poisoned the lower spheres of the astral plane with their negative energy, turning them into a veritable hell. After all, after their physical death, people bring all their spiritual qualities, including passions and vices, with them to the other world.

The “hellish” layers are considered lower not by their location in space, but by the quality of the energy that fills them. Existence in these layers is truly terrible, and, moreover, the energy of the lower astral is much heavier than the darkest, most damned places on earth. In earthly life, villains and sinners live in the midst of ordinary people, which inevitably “dilutes” the energetic impact of their auras. In the Subtle World, there is no such mixture - all its inhabitants live in strictly delimited layers of space. It is easy to imagine what kind of energy a layer of space filled with the souls of murderers, thieves, haters and other people burdened with karma has.

What prevents the prisoners of hell from breaking out of it into the higher and purer layers of the Subtle World? Still the same single law of the Cosmos: the law of energy correspondence. If the dark, saturated with negative energy subtle body of a murderer or an evil person wanted to voluntarily rise into the lighter layers of space, it would immediately be scorched by the pure energy of the higher spheres of space; filled with dense, low-vibration energies, the astral shells of the prisoners of hell cannot stand the touch of pure, luminous energies of the higher layers of the astral plane.

Witchcraft Karma

What vices and sins can lead a person’s soul to the dungeons of hell?

The lower astral is the natural habitat of a special kind of dark spirits that never incarnate on earth, as well as disembodied souls of black magicians and sorcerers of all stripes and types. The influence of black magic is such that the astral shells of sorcerers, “pumped up” with unnaturally charged energies, sometimes cannot be thrown off for entire millennia. Sorcerers and magicians for a significant period of time may lose the ability to transform on earth and exist only in the lower astral plane of the planet. There they continue to do their favorite thing, luring inexperienced inhabitants of the Earth into the network of black magic, who do not know about the insidiousness of darkness and turn to the other world in attempts to master the techniques of black magic. Lovers of spiritualism and contacts with “extraterrestrial civilizations”, and in reality, with the lower layers of the earth’s astral plane, often become victims of their activities. And woe to those who really begin to hear the calling voices of the Subtle World after such attempts! In the vast majority of cases, these voices are like mythical sirens, luring unwary travelers to disastrous places.

Followers of spiritual teachings (especially true Yoga) also use the subtle energies of the Cosmos, but in a completely different way. The basis of yoga is love for everything that exists, natural, open, pure. Such love itself attracts subtle energies from the Cosmos and uses them for the benefit of everything around us. Magic, instead of naturally attracting natural energies, pumps them up artificially, by force. By forcing some subtle energies and forces to serve their selfish, dark, harmful plans, black magicians disrupt the natural balance. Naturally, those subtle energies that they attract from space turn out to be of lower quality. Thus, magic multiplies spatial chaos, and sorcerers are enemies of the entire creative and bright natural environment of the Cosmos.

"Thou shalt not kill!"

In addition to magicians and sorcerers, a huge part of the prisoners of hell are murderers, traitors and everyone who, during their earthly life, was responsible for the death of people. After death, murderers will relive the nightmare of the crimes they committed again and again. Moreover, in the post-mortem state of consciousness, they may find themselves in the position of not only murderers, but also victims: in the subjective sensations that arise in their consciousness like painful hallucinations, they themselves will turn into those killed or tortured, experiencing all the suffering of their victims. As follower E.P. wrote. Blavatsky A. Besant in the book “Ancient Wisdom”, in these layers you can sometimes find the soul of a person, “tirelessly pursued by his victim, unable to get rid of it, despite all efforts to escape from the terrible persecution, with stubborn persistence reaching him everywhere. At the same time, the consciousness of the murdered person, unless he belonged to people of the lowest level of development, is in a state of unconsciousness, and it is precisely this unconsciousness that gives special horror to his purely mechanical following of the killer.” As for the so-called serial killers-maniacs or professional killers, the horror of their position in the other world defies any description. But their posthumous suffering still will not fully atone for their heavy karma: having incarnated on the physical plane, these people will one day take the place of their former victims, being killed or betrayed by others, similar to themselves, by villains.

The ethical law of the Cosmos, expressed in the formula: “Thou shalt not kill!” - comes into play not only when the life of an innocent person is taken from him, but also when the person himself takes his own life. As already mentioned, a person does not have the right to deprive himself of what is given to him by his own karma - life.

Some of the patients who went through a state of clinical death, describing their sensations in another “dimension,” mentioned that on the way to light spheres with unearthly colors and sounds, they “flew” through some dark, twilight layers of another world, in which they saw dejected, desperate people, looking for something and unable to find it, as if lost in another reality. At the same time, those being reanimated vaguely had the idea that in front of them were those who had taken their own lives on Earth—suicides. The reasons for the difficult state of consciousness of these people are already known to us. When a person takes his own life at his own request, and not due to karmic circumstances, the energies given to him in earthly life remain unexpired and unused. They, like a magnet, chain a person to the earth, not giving him the opportunity to rise to the higher, luminous spheres. A person turns out to be a prisoner of the circumstances that he created for himself. Therefore, Agni Yoga says that no matter how bad a person is on earth, it will be even worse for him if he takes his own life. Of course, if during life the suicide was a good person and broke down under the weight of unbearable circumstances, the Light Forces are actively trying to help him in his posthumous state. But no one can bypass the energetic effect of the law of karma; one can only alleviate it to one degree or another. The heavy karma of suicide is transferred to the next incarnation of a person. In his next life on Earth, the suicide will no longer have to die of his own free will. And at the same time he will be deprived of life during the happiest period of his existence, when he least wants to die. Will he have a chance to escape the consequences of the heavy karma of crime against his higher self? There is only one way to extinguish the karma of the past: to overtake it by accelerated spiritual self-improvement...

"World of Hungry Ghosts"

Not only terrible crimes against other people and suicide can lead to hell. Strange as it may seem, people can create hell for themselves with their immoderate “carnal” attachments and passions. All types of excess and moral laxity come at a cost to their bearers after the loss of the physical body. Excessive physical needs such as gluttony, addiction to alcohol, etc. are characteristic not so much even of the physical body as of the astral principle - the bearer of the emotional-sensual principle of a person. People who own their passions and control their needs do not experience any particular difficulties in the post-mortem state, quickly getting used to the new conditions of disembodied existence. But those who during their lives followed the lead of their astral plane, after death find themselves in painful circumstances: after all, their astral body remains the same, with the same habits and addictions.

There is a special place in the structure of the infernal layers, called in Tibetan religious sources the “world of hungry ghosts.” What drives people’s souls into these layers? There is only one circumstance: the impossibility of satisfying previous sensory needs in the posthumous state. After death, a person’s feelings and desires remain the same as before, but they no longer have a physical body - an instrument for satisfying these desires. People who are immoderate in their physical needs, accustomed to gluttony, sexual excesses, drunkenness, etc., suffer greatly due to the inability to experience the pleasant sensations that food or a portion of alcohol gave them. In “The Facets of Agni Yoga” it is said about the preservation of astral feelings and desires after the transition to another world: “Gluttony, lust, drunkenness, smoking and other purely bodily negative qualities of the spirit and lust associated with them cannot be satisfied after liberation from the body, but they can be taken with them to the Subtle World, if they are not eliminated on Earth. If on Earth desires burn a person, where there is an opportunity to temporarily satisfy them, then what can we say about the Supermundane, where their burning cannot be quenched even for a moment?

Experiencing a constant need for primitive, animal pleasures, disembodied slaves of their desires “get stuck” for a long time in the lower spheres of the astral plane, close to the Earth, since this gives them the opportunity to “pick up” energetic bursts of emotions experienced by the inhabitants of the earthly plane, whose level of development and, Accordingly, the needs are similar to the souls of these people. Moreover, the souls of drunkards, debauchees, and gluttons hover around entertainment establishments frequented by embodied lovers of booze and other similar pleasures. The emotions and feelings of vicious people living on the physical plane attract disembodied prisoners of their own passions, and they literally “stick” to their “friends in misfortune”, trying to merge with their consciousness and astral body in order to again experience the rough, animal sensations they love, inaccessible to them now due to the absence of a physical body.

Often spiritually undeveloped people who have committed suicide take the path of vampirism in the lower astral plane. Unrealized karmic energies inevitably attract them to the lower layers of the astral plane, and they cannot resist temptation and succumb to the coarse animal passions reigning in these layers.

The desire to satisfy lower needs in the Subtle World can cause further personality degradation. In search of any path to former pleasures, the soul can descend into lower and lower layers of the astral plane, which are, in the full sense of the word, garbage. The inability to fight one’s animal inclinations, the inability to replace them with something high, calling for spiritual progress, dooms the astral bodies to further degradation, the consequences of which, of course, affect the subsequent incarnation. Slaves of their passions can even physically lose their human appearance, approaching an animal state. Agni Yoga says: “Even among modern forms one can find beast-like people. Such horrors are usually attributed to fright or shock of the mother. But among many reasons, the main one is often overlooked. One can imagine that in the Subtle World some individuals are subject to fits of lust. At the same time, Agni becomes so depressed that animal principles take possession of the fallen. Of course, over time they can rise again, but the animal touch is so powerful that it can be transformed into an animal form during incarnation (...) It is very instructive how the lowering of Agni allows access to animal states.”

The bestial faces of some people are the result of close contact of their astral shells with those lower layers of the subtle world where animal elementals, that is, animal spirits, live. Attracted by its unlived passions into the world of animal forms consonant with them in energy, the human astral body receives, as it were, the energetic mark of an animal form, which is reflected in its structure and visible appearance. The visible appearance of the astral body is transferred to the physical body, and thus the latter receives a corresponding animal-like form.

Alcoholism, drug addiction and the astral plane

Special mention should be made of the post-mortem state of victims of alcoholism and drug addiction. Usually people who have given up the fight against their destructive habits count on one thing: sooner or later, death will put an end to everything, including the addictions that destroyed them. However, not all so simple. Death as the destruction of rational being does not exist, with the exception of quite rare cases of the death of the highest personal principle of a person - the soul. But even in this case, final non-existence does not occur instantly, and in the posthumous state a person will have to experience all those karmic consequences, the causes of which he himself laid down in his earthly existence.

The post-mortem condition of victims of alcoholism is very difficult. It is aggravated not only by the fact that in the Subtle World they are tormented by habitual urges to drink alcohol, which cannot be satisfied, but also by the fact that the alcohol they take throughout their lives causes spatial fire on their astral bodies in quantities that the victims of their addictions cannot process. can not.

The same thing, only to an even greater extent, applies to drug addiction.

Not many people know that alcohol and drugs attract and concentrate spatial fiery energies in the human body. The pleasant sensations experienced by drunkards and drug addicts are caused precisely by the partial separation of the astral plane from the physical body and the attraction of the fiery energy of space. But since such attraction of energies is not carried out naturally through spiritual development, but artificially, the results are destructive for both the physical and astral bodies, not to mention the spiritual level of a person. “Alcoholism and opium are ugly attempts to approach the Fiery World. If samadhi is a natural manifestation of the Higher Fire, then the flame of alcohol will be the destroyer of Fire.”

“Nothing represents such misfortune in the Subtle World as these unnatural attempts to evoke Fire without appropriate purification. One can imagine that a drunkard in the Subtle World not only suffers from the urge to drink alcohol, but he suffers even more from an unnaturally manifested Fire, which, instead of strengthening, devours tissues out of time,” says one of the books of Agni Yoga.

We will return to the problems of alcoholism and drug addiction from the point of view of the psychospiritual and energetic aspects of these phenomena.

Can a soul die?

The depths of the moral decline of some people, their inability and unwillingness to change anything in their posthumous existence inevitably raise the question of whether the human soul and, with it, the self-conscious principle of man can be destroyed. At first glance, this question would seem to contain a contradiction in itself. For most people, the very concept of soul is associated with the immortal principle of man. But in reality, it is not the soul that is immortal, but the spirit.

The soul, as we remember, is closely connected not only with the eternal, individual beginning of a person, but also with his personal, mortal nature. If, however, formed by four principles (physical, etheric, astral and mental) and possessing self-consciousness lower, personal beginning person chose the path of depravity and lack of spirituality - it may come into conflict with highest spiritual principle human being - Monad, or grain of spirit(represented by the combination of the sixth, Buddhi, and seventh, Atma, principles). This is what happens if the free will of a rational being chooses to wallow in the snares of evil.

The path of degradation cannot continue forever, from incarnation to incarnation. What happens to a person who has reached the extreme point of his moral decline? His spiritual principle - the Monad - finally leaves the personal principle, which has lost the ability to evolve. After death, the astral shell of such people “gets stuck” in the lower layers of the astral plane, consonant with their animal passions and inclinations. After some time, it completely disintegrates, and along with its disintegration, the last grains of personal consciousness, still glowing in the half-decomposed astral form devoid of spirit, are destroyed.

The astral body must sooner or later be discarded by all disembodied human souls during their transition from the astral world to the mental one. At the same time, throwing off the outdated astral shell, the spiritual principle of man is preserved and continues its rational existence both in other, higher planes of the subtle world, and on earth, in a new incarnation. However, if there is a separation of the spiritual principle from the lower principles of a person that form his personality, the situation is different. As we remember, the human being consists of two fundamentals: the immortal individuality - the Monad - and the mortal personality, represented by the four lower principles and their corresponding bodies. The uniqueness of human nature lies in the fact that he carries in his own being an element of the highest spiritual principle of the Cosmos - the Monad, superconscious and superpersonal. On the nature of the Monad E.P. Blavatsky wrote in The Secret Doctrine: “... it does not belong to this world... and can only be compared with the indestructible star of divine light and fire, cast down on our Earth as a saving board, for the personalities in which it resides(emphasis mine. – N.K.). It is these latter who must cling to it and thus, through participation or communion with its divine nature, achieve immortality.”

If a person’s personality has chosen the path of degradation and depravity, it will not be able to join its immortal spiritual principle due to the elementary discrepancy between the high-vibration nature of the Monad and the “personal complex” oversaturated with negative energy information. As a result, the physical death of a person in his last incarnation can become the death of his individuality in general. The Monad living in the depths of his subtle-material complex will disconnect from his personal consciousness and begin the path of its cosmic evolution anew, successively passing through new circles of incarnations in the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms of nature, before it accumulates a new individual consciousness and becomes the core of a new human soul. And the astral shell of its former vicious owner, abandoned by the monad, will soon decompose completely, thereby forever extinguishing the spark of his individual consciousness, not to mention the personal beginning. This terrible phenomenon represents the complete and final destruction of the consciousness of a particular individual, a transition into non-existence, while the death of an ordinary person is only a transition of his consciousness to another plane of existence.

If the Monad of a vicious person leaves his astral shell, the latter can still lead a painful, semi-conscious existence in the lower layers of the astral for some time. Since the lower, mortal essence of man consists of various elements, such vicious souls, devoid of a spiritual principle and consisting of only lower elements, are called in esoteric doctrines elementaries. Elementaries are half-decomposed astral shells that exist solely through vampirism.

Sensual addictions of the lower plane and moral vices can drag a person’s soul into an abyss from which it will be impossible to get out. As they say in esoteric sources, the souls of people who suffered from severe forms of alcohol and drug addiction, after physical death, can lose their spiritual beginning and exist for some time in the lower astral plane as elementaries, and then be completely destroyed. The same can happen to people who are essentially unspiritual and who have indulged in debauchery during their earthly life. After their death, their astral shells become “incubi” and “succubi” (vampiric creatures of male and female nature).

The activity of elementaries may consist not only in vampirism and the ability to negatively influence living people, “inciting” them to various vices. Sometimes elementaries prefer to feed on the energy of low-spiritual people not through the astral plane, but directly, inhabiting their astral body for some time - until their destruction. Such phenomena are called possession.

Ethics of life

It is not only immoderate physical needs and desires that become the source of suffering for disembodied souls in the Subtle World. The lower layers of the astral plane become the lot of those who, during their earthly life, have poisoned their consciousness with negative feelings and thoughts: anger, hatred, envy. But any feeling and thought, as we already know, are energies of a certain quality, affecting primarily their source - the person emitting them. And therefore, people who are accustomed to living in anger and irritation, “in frayed nerves,” in constant dissatisfaction, anger, irritability, who do not consider it necessary to control and restrain their negative emotions - such people already during their lifetime become real “generators” of negative energy. What happens to them after death? Naturally, they take all their “energy baggage” to another world. After crossing the line of earthly existence, the consciousness and astral body of each individual undergoes spatial purification. Negative karma burdening the astral body of the deceased must be cleansed and processed. And therefore, as soon as the astral body, deprived of a physical shell, passes into the Subtle World, spatial energies surround the subtle-material complex “polluted” with dark energy in order to cleanse it, thus preparing it for the next incarnation. If a person’s astral body is not heavily burdened with negative energy, then the cleansing process is painless and quick for him. But angry and irritable people, as well as everyone who has often experienced negative emotions and thoughts during their physical life, in the full sense of the word, burn in the spatial energies approaching them, like in hellish fire. The most difficult feeling, causing special suffering in the other world, is the feeling of anger and hatred. The fate of evil people is unenviable, to be sure. The transition to the subtle world for them will mean hellish torment in the full sense of the word, and this fire, on which their anger is destined to burn, was caused not by anyone, but by themselves.

It is no coincidence that the spiritual teachings of antiquity paid so much attention to the ethical standards of human behavior and thinking. The ethics of a person’s life position completely determines his subsequent existence in another phase of existence, his spiritual level and the circumstances of his future incarnation.

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Does hell exist?

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Does God exist? I really liked the answer to this question of Hermes Trismegistus - the father of all esotericism, who is recognized in the ancient scriptures as a master of all sciences and arts, an expert in all crafts, the ruler of the three worlds, the scribe of the Gods and the keeper of the books of life, thrice great and

Questions about how to get to heaven, what sins lead to hell, whether it is possible to ask God for the mercy of heaven and whether we will meet our relatives there worry almost every person. Since ancient times, people have tried to take with them to the next world the necessary household items, clothing, jewelry, and even their wives.

Every people of any religion has their own thoughts on this matter. Most likely, the next generations will also get to the bottom of the truth. It is impossible to look into the future, and, therefore, there are as many assumptions about the afterlife as there are people on our planet.

What the Bible Says

She glorifies heaven and the paradise in it. All this is in some incomprehensible dimension and is not amenable to scientific research. It is difficult to understand what is beyond human reach. Everyone who returned to this earth after clinical death talks in their own way about the images that flashed through his unconscious state.

For some, God lifts the curtain of the unknown world, but for moments. People call something camouflaged and eternal heavenly paradise. A picture is created of the city, which in the Bible is called the “new Jerusalem”. Most likely, it is implied that it will arise when our Earth no longer exists. According to this teaching, people will hear a heavenly voice calling their people, and God will be with them. There will be no tears, anger, illnesses, everything will be different. There will be no place for lies, deception and abomination. According to the Bible, people will rise from the dead and stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

But the interesting thing is that the same Bible does not promise those who have passed into the next world a meeting with relatives who have previously died.

Fear of the Lord

Everyone who visits the temple of God goes there for different reasons. Some go with faith in their souls and glorify God, others - out of fear for their affairs and with the hope of help for their own personal gain. It turns out that there is deception, but people hope to atone for this sin and ask for forgiveness from higher powers.

Want to know everything

According to one legend, a samurai asked a Zen master if there was heaven and hell. To which he replied with a slight grin: “What can you understand about this, simple stupid soldier! You're wasting my time with the stupidest questions."

The warrior froze at this answer; he had never allowed anyone to talk to him like that. Fury forced him to grab his sword, but he immediately heard the master’s answer: “This is the gate to hell.”

The samurai was taken aback because his rage led him to hell, and at the same time those he attacked. When he hid the sword and bowed to the sage, the master said: “And this is the gate to heaven.”

Where Death Leads

What awaits a person after death? Second Life? Different directions in philosophical teachings give different answers. Kabbalists believe that after death a person’s body “falls away” and he receives the opportunity for spiritual development for subsequent life.

Does a person immediately go to heaven or hell after death, or does God’s Judgment await him first? Or maybe our life on earth is hell? After all, it’s not without reason that you hear sayings: “Hell of a job,” “Hell of a life.”

When wars happen in life, people say that the dead are lucky, they don’t feel it. Thus, they are consoled by the thought that their loved ones are in heaven, where they are not in danger of trouble.

Why does a person live?

According to the Bible and Christian teachings, God created people for joy, and not for hellish torment. But joy cannot be imposed, everyone chooses what they need. God gives joy to those who can reject it and live according to other canons.

I would like to quote: “In Paradise there are those who said to God: Thy will be done. In hell are those to whom God said, “thy will be done!”

Some do not respond to God’s calls and ignore their capabilities, and the Almighty only gives them this right.

A heavenly place is being in joyful union with God. One must be happy in the goodness, beauty of the environment, the wisdom given and the greatness of God. This is a happy community where there is no selfishness or envy. A sincere desire for good, there is no need to suppress desires and interests, only prudence and mercy are required.

Philosophical thoughts, fortunately, rarely visit us. But sometimes people think about what awaits them after death. This question is especially acute for those who are guilty of sin and understand it. Clergymen of all faiths promise them hellish torment. You can, of course, shrug it off and sin for your own pleasure. But not everyone succeeds. The terrible unknown is scary. What is hell? What are we supposed to be afraid of? Let's figure it out.

Common folk interpretations

Let's try to understand what hell is from the stories of ignorant people. After all, they often talk about him in vain. It is believed that this is a very scary place. In it the soul of a sinner is eternally tormented. Grandmothers enthusiastically tell their grandchildren about large frying pans and cauldrons standing on fire, in which those who do not keep the commandments of the Lord are fried. It is, of course, quite difficult to imagine this. After all, we all face death. A person loses his body. It remains in this world and rests in the earth. How will they cook it in a cauldron? This is the first question that arises for grandchildren trying to understand what hell is. In fact, we are not talking about bodies, but about souls. That part of a person that cannot be seen or touched is probably immortal. She is destined for terrible torment if her comrade sinned during his lifetime. And who and how will plunge the soul into suffering? It's hard to imagine. After all, man has not yet decided on the concept of soul. She is something ephemeral, without a physical image. How can I torture her? So it turns out that, apart from frying pans on fires and devils, nothing gets into the heads of believers. They try to explain what hell and death are based on earthly experience. And this is not true. After all, the soul passes into another world, which most likely obeys different laws.

Where did all these pans come from?

It should be noted that people have always tried to imagine and understand what hell is. Moreover, the clergy constantly told them about him. Yes, and in literature there is a mention of fiery Gehenna. The phrase itself excited the imagination of ordinary people. They just didn’t know its origin, so they came up with all sorts of tall tales. Gehenna was the name given in ancient times to a garbage dump near Jerusalem. By the way, the place is also unpleasant. It was constantly swarming with worms and rats, stank, and burned. Since the local population was well familiar with this unpleasant image, they decided to use it as an example of the eternal habitation of sinners. Believe me, no one wanted to end up in a landfill emitting infection for a long time. It was impossible to live there and very scary. This is a kind of “anti-advertising” for the ancient resident of Jerusalem. Since the phrase was included in the sacred texts, it was preserved, having lost connection with the prototype. Now fiery Gehenna is a terrible place in which the soul of a dead sinner suffers.

What is hell according to the Bible?

It should be noted that in the holy book of believers, not much attention is paid to death. From some texts it can be understood that the soul will await the Last Judgment. The Lord will call and pronounce judgment on everyone who has ever lived on earth. This statement suggests that the soul has immortality. Which, by the way, is what the texts say. After all, after the Last Judgment, people are destined for eternal life. And its purpose is also described. Everyone will study the infinite diversity of the Lord embodied in the world. But not much is said about where the soul will wait to be called to judgment. Hell is a place where sinners will suffer. It is filled with “crying and gnashing of teeth...”. That's what the scripture says. And this is not a hint of physical suffering, which causes screams and moans, but of torment of conscience. After all, it is precisely this reaction that is caused in a person by thoughts about a wrong, unfair act, an offense inflicted on someone, or another sin.

Differences in interpretation between Catholics and Orthodox

It should be noted that people of different faiths had their own idea of what hell and heaven were. In general, they read the same sacred texts, but interpreted them in accordance with their experience and worldview. Catholics call hell purgatory. They are sure that souls are not just tormented. In this way they work off their sins and cleanse themselves. There is something “capitalist” about this approach. Do you agree? Pay with negative emotions for the right to someday go to heaven! There is a pragmatic approach to this. The Orthodox are a different matter. They talk about ordeals. The soul is in darkness, far from the Lord, and that is why it suffers. This resembles the fate of an outcast, a person cut off from his homeland and family. He feels bad not from physical or mental pain, but because the most valuable thing has been taken away - intimacy with the Lord. Agree, a slightly different approach. However, it is unlikely that the real fate of the soul after death depends on the interpretations of individual faiths.

Opinion of esotericists

Not only religious ministers try to explain what hell is and where it is located. There are many schools dedicated to the spiritual growth of individuals. Their luminaries and creators also touch on the issue described. They represent the soul in the form of a clot of energy. It is clear that frying it in a frying pan will not work. Therefore, we chose a different coordinate system. The universe, they say, consists of many worlds. In earthly life we know only a small part of it. But after death, we are destined to exist in another part of the larger universe. It can be imagined as a string of built-in worlds from dark to light. Some even describe their levels. Depending on the sinfulness of a person’s life, his soul moves to the place he deserves. If he was a terrible villain, he will be at the lowest level. There he will be in darkness, without communication and creativity. The lack of opportunity to study and receive information is what hell means in their interpretation. Probably, such a theory has a right to exist. Imagine what will happen if you are put in a remote cell, deprived of communication with the outside world? How long will you hold out?

Where is hell?

This question also interests many. People in past centuries even tried to find it. It is clear that all experiments were unsuccessful. After all, according to beliefs, you can get to this terrible place only after death. And there will be no one to tell about this experience. After all, no one has yet been able to return from the other world except Jesus. And he, of course, did not end up in purgatory. So inquisitive people have to use their imagination to try to understand what hell is. They gave him a definition. This is where the soul suffers. But, of course, no one knows anything specifically. But the level of development of science does not yet allow conducting experiments. One thing is clear: fiery Gehenna, unlike its prototype, is not located on our planet. By the way, a couple of centuries ago they tried to place it on Mars. But with the development of astronomy, such an idea was abandoned. Now science has confirmed the multivariate nature of the universe. Nobody argues anymore that our world is not the only one. Therefore, it is customary to place hell in a parallel universe or other space, closed from people by an impenetrable barrier.

More about different worlds

Eternal attempts to understand the human psyche have led to the appearance of various gurus in society, trying to expand our understanding of the universe. They do this, unlike scientists, from an energy point of view. They came to the idea that there are a lot of habitable planets. Souls alternately incarnate on them. But they didn't stop there. Talking about the conditions of existence in various worlds, some interpreters came to an original idea. They claim that real hell is not located somewhere in a parallel universe, but here on Earth. That is, we are all invited to believe that our planet contains sinful souls experiencing certain difficulties due to past crimes. Everyone has their own, of course. Therefore, on earth people live in different conditions. Just wondering why the world's population is growing so quickly? Will they really not learn to fight sin in the higher worlds?

Why are we given death?

When talking about hell or heaven, it is impossible not to touch on this issue. After all, it is death that brings us closer to the knowledge of another world (or dimension). It itself is a very important phenomenon for humanity. Despite its unconditional naturalness, which we constantly encounter, people are afraid of this transition. Fear is inherent in us from the very beginning. No one is afraid of death from childhood. People themselves are afraid of her, instinctively. Although the Holy Scripture states that man is destined for eternal life. Therefore, death is given to us as a lesson. Since ancient times, people have been fighting it. Some are trying to find ways to prolong their physical existence, others are trying to leave their mark on this world. There are many examples: from cave paintings to the most beautiful works of art. All paths lead to creativity. Man wishes to continue ad infinitum in this world. That is, death is a stimulus for creativity, including the birth of a new life.

Conclusion

In fact, it is not difficult to understand what hell is. This idea is inherent in each of us, so to speak, genetically. It is embodied every time a person’s conscience speaks. After all, it is at this moment that the soul begins to experience torment. Strengthen them many times in your imagination and you will understand that there is fiery Gehenna.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “hell”? Do you imagine a literal place of eternal torment, where fire and brimstone burns? Or is hell a symbolic description of a certain state?

In Ekami, the clergy of the Christian world said that sinners would burn in hell, suffering terrible torment. This belief is still widespread among many faiths. According to the magazine "U. S. News and World Report,” “Although the word “hell” came into use thanks to Christianity, Christianity did not retain a monopoly on the doctrine of hell. The threat of painful retribution after death is spoken of in all, both large and small, religions of the world.” Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jains and Taoists believe in the existence of hell in one form or another.

In our time, however, ideas about “hell” have changed somewhat. “Although the traditional doctrine of hell still has its adherents,” the aforementioned magazine notes, “a new, modern understanding of eternal torment has emerged as painful solitary confinement, while hell is not so hot.”

The Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica noted: “It is wrong... to think that God, through demons, brings terrible torment upon the doomed, such as torment in fire.” It also says: “Hell exists, but it is not a place, but the state of a person tormented by separation from God.” Pope John Paul II said in 1999: “Hell is not a place, but a state of those who deliberately and irrevocably separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy.” Regarding the depictions of hell as a place of torment by fire, he said: “They reflect the utter despair and emptiness of life without God.” According to church historian Martin Marty, if, when speaking about hell, the pope mentioned “hell, the devil in a red coat and with a pitchfork, no one would take it seriously.”

Similar changes are observed in other religions. The report of the Church of England Doctrinal Commission stated: “Hell is not a place of eternal torment, but a final and irrevocable choice of a path completely opposed to God, so that the only thing that this path leads to is complete non-existence.”

The Catechism of the Episcopal Church of the United States defines hell as "eternal death resulting from our denial of God." According to Yu. S. News and World Report,” a growing number of people adhere to the idea that “the fate of the wicked is not eternal suffering, but destruction. […] [They] argue that those who ultimately reject God will simply sink into the “all-consuming flames” of hell.”

Although modern theories try to move away from the idea of a hell that burns with fire and brimstone, many still believe that hell is a literal place of torment. “Scripture is clear that hell is a real place of suffering,” notes Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. And in the report “The Essence of Hell”, prepared
According to the Evangelical Union commission, “Hell is the painful sensation of separation from God” (“The Nature of Hell”). It also says: “There are degrees of punishment and suffering in hell, depending on the severity of earthly sins.”
The question arises again: what is hell? A place where sinners are tormented in eternal flames or a state of non-existence? Or is it simply a state of separation from God? What is hell really?

A brief excursion into history

When did the Christian world accept the doctrine of hell? Much later than the time when Jesus Christ and his apostles lived. One French encyclopedia stated that “The Apocalypse of Peter (2nd century AD) is the first [apocryphal] Christian work describing the punishment and torment of sinners in hell” (“Encyclopaedia Universalis”). There was no unity in the understanding of hell among the early church fathers. Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Cyprian considered hell a place where sinners were tormented by fire. Origen and the theologian Gregory of Nyssa envisioned hell as a place where sinners are separated from God and suffer spiritually. Augustine, on the contrary, argued that in hell people suffer both physically and spiritually. This view has become generally accepted. According to Professor J. N. D. Kelly, “By the 5th century, a strict dogma had formed and become widespread that after death sinners would have no chance of salvation and would be consumed by an unquenchable fire.”
In the 16th century, Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin believed that torment in hell was a symbol of eternal separation from God. However, over the next two centuries, the idea of hell as a place of torment regained its strength. Protestant preacher Jonathan Edwards' vivid description of hell made the hearts of American colonists of the 18th century tremble with fear.
However, soon the hellfire began to flicker less and less. And according to “Yu. S. News and World Report,” in the 20th century, it can be said to have completely “died away.”

What is hell?

Whatever your idea of hell, the word "hell" is usually associated with a place of punishment for sin. The Bible says about sin and its consequences: “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all people, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). Scripture also says, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Since the penalty for sin is death, we need to answer the main question that helps us understand the true essence of hell: what happens to a person when he dies?
Does any form of life remain in a person after death? What is hell and what kind of people go there? Is there hope for those in hell? The Bible gives truthful and convincing answers to these questions.

Life after death?

Is it possible that some substance within us, the soul or spirit, lives on after the death of the body? Let's look at how the first man, Adam, received life. The Bible says, “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). Although breathing kept him alive, the “breath of life” given to Adam was much more than just the air in his lungs. This meant that God breathed into the lifeless body of Adam the spark, or spirit of life, the life force that operates in all living organisms on earth (Genesis 6:17; 7:22). The Bible calls this life-giving force the spirit (James 2:26). Spirit can be compared to an electric current that powers a device or equipment, allowing it to be used. Just as current never takes on the characteristics of the equipment it powers, so life force never takes on the characteristics of the creatures it gives life to. This force is not a person and has no intelligence.

What happens to the spirit when a person dies? Psalm 146:4 says, “His spirit departs, and he returns to his land: in that day all his thoughts perish.” When a person dies, his impersonal life force, or spirit, does not continue to exist in another world as a spiritual being. “The Spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). This means that any hope for a future life for that person depends entirely on God.

The ancient Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato believed that the human soul does not die with the death of the body and lives forever. What does the Bible say about the soul? Genesis 2:7 says that Adam “became... a living soul.” He did not receive a soul, but was a soul, that is, a man. The Bible says that the soul can do some work, desire to eat, be satisfied, faint, and so on (Leviticus 23:30; Deuteronomy 12:20; Proverbs 27:7; Jonah 2:8). Therefore, the soul is the person himself. When he dies, the soul dies (Ezekiel 18:4).

What condition then are the dead in? In pronouncing judgment on Adam, Jehovah said, “Thou art dust, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:19). Where was Adam before God formed him from the dust of the ground and gave him life? Nowhere, he simply did not exist! When Adam died, he returned to this state of complete nothingness. The condition of the dead is clearly stated in Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10: “The dead know nothing... ...In the grave where you go there is no work, no reflection, no knowledge, no wisdom.” According to Scripture, death is a state of non-existence. The dead are not conscious, they have neither feelings nor thoughts.

Eternal torment or universal grave?

Since the dead are not conscious, hell cannot be a place where sinners suffer after death. Then what is hell? It will be easier for us to answer this question if we remember what happened to Jesus after his death. The Evangelist Luke says: “He [Jesus] was not left in Hades [hell], neither did his flesh see corruption”* (Acts 2:31). Where is the hell that even Jesus went to? The Apostle Paul wrote, “I conveyed to you... that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was buried, and that on the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4). Thus, Jesus was in hell, or in the grave, but was not left there because he was resurrected.

Remember the story of the righteous man Job, who suffered a lot. Wanting to get rid of torment, he prayed to God: “If You would hide me in Sheol and cover me until Your wrath passes away” (Job 14:13). It would be illogical to think that Job wanted to get into the “inferno” in order to be saved from suffering! By “hell,” Job simply meant the grave where all his torment would end. Thus, the hell that the Bible speaks of is the universal grave of mankind, where both good and bad people end up.

All-consuming fire?

Could it be that hellfire is just a symbol of all-consuming, complete destruction? Separating the concepts of “fire” and “Hades,” that is, “hell,” the Bible says: “Death and hell were thrown into the lake of fire.” The lake mentioned here is a symbol, since death and hell (hades) that are thrown there cannot literally burn. Therefore, “the lake of fire signifies the second death”—a death from which there is no hope of escape (Revelation 20:14).
The lake of fire means much the same as the “gehenna of fire” that Jesus spoke of (Matthew 5:22; Mark 9:47, 48). The word "gehenna" appears 12 times in the Christian Greek Scriptures and refers to the Valley of Hinnom, located outside the walls of Jerusalem. As one encyclopedia notes, when Jesus lived on earth, there was a garbage dump in this valley, into which “city sewage, human bones, the corpses of executed criminals and dead animals” were thrown (Bible Encyclopedia, 1891). In order to burn the garbage, the fire was constantly maintained using sulfur. Jesus used this valley as an example as a symbol of eternal destruction.
Just like Gehenna, the lake of fire symbolizes eternal destruction. Death and hell will be “thrown” into it, that is, they will be done away with, and humanity will be freed from sin and the curse of death. Those who willfully sin and do not repent will also be thrown into this lake (Revelation 21:8). They too will be destroyed forever. Those whom God remembers and who are in hell - or in the universal grave of mankind - have a wonderful future ahead of them.

Hell will be devastated

Revelation 20:13 says, “The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead.” The hell that the Bible speaks of will be devastated. Jesus promised, “The hour is coming in which all who are in the memorial tombs will hear his [Jesus’] voice and come out” (John 5:28, 29). Although the millions of dead do not now exist in any form, they are in the memory of Jehovah God and will be resurrected in paradise on earth. (Luke 23:43; Acts 24:15).

In God's new world, resurrected people who obey righteous laws will never have to die again (Isaiah 25:8). Jehovah will wipe away “every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, no more mourning, no crying, no more pain. The former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). What blessings await those who are in “hell” or “in the tombs of memory”! These blessings should motivate us to learn more about Jehovah God and his Son, Jesus Christ.—John 17:3.

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Everyone has heard about Hell and Heaven at least once... at least in childhood. And I all know what it is - two “compartments” of the afterlife. Paradise - with beautiful gardens and angels playing golden harps, sitting on clouds - for the righteous. Hell - with boiling tar and horned devils, frying people who get there in frying pans - is for sinners. Everything is so simple and clear. Some people also like to quote F. Voltaire’s well-known saying that the climate is better in Paradise, but the society in Hell is more interesting (of course, it’s not easy to imagine a person who would like the company of Hitler and Chikatilo - but in the end, everyone has different tastes).

And now - attention: this idea of Paradise And Ade exists exclusively among atheists! It is based on medieval “pictures”, and when looking at them, one must remember that they never claimed to be “photorealistic”. Even in “socialist realism” the cow in the painting “symbolizes the successes of Soviet animal husbandry” - medieval art was symbolic to the extreme, never reflecting reality (even earthly) literally. Even Dante (who, as we know, was not only the “first poet”, but also the “last poet of the Middle Ages”), with his extremely naturalistic depiction of the torments of hell, did not think that beyond the boundaries of earthly Existence there was a Stygian swamp or rivers of boiling blood, a stinking swamp, where the angry are immersed, even there continuing to show aggression, or the hot blood burning the murderers - this is a symbol, an allegorical image of the state of mind of these people.

And in this, the “divine Florentine” (as his contemporaries called him) is absolutely right: both Heaven and Hell are a state of the soul... which?

Yes, the kind in which a person was during life - and in which death found him. The question is how it will exist in this form without a material body.

Just imagine: a drunkard died, for whom a bottle replaced everything - family, friends, and there’s no need to even talk about God - the whole meaning of life is to get drunk, he no longer knows any other joys... but in an incorporeal form of existence you can’t get drunk - a person is unable to satisfy his only need! Hell? Without a doubt! Or - the dictator died, there is no longer a country that he could dispose of at will, there are no “boot-licking” confidants who can be sent to prison at any time if you are tired of it... Or - a libertine who spent his whole life “making love” as a sport - and there you can’t “make love”, there you can only be in love- and this is something he doesn’t know how to do... The examples can be continued ad infinitum - but the essence is the same: having become accustomed to sin, to an “animal” existence, after death a person will suffer from the inability to satisfy his habits. If the “habit” was love and desire for God, then now, when all the barriers have fallen, when he finds himself in the very crucible of Divine Love, with the Creator, to whom he has strived all his life, he will be happy.

And what will happen to someone who has avoided God all his life, preferred not to think about Him, or even actively denied His existence? Will he not be burned by such boundless Love, which he is not ready to meet? A person who avoided God during life continues to do so after death - and although it is quite difficult to avoid the Omnipresent God, the state of God-forsakenness still exists - this is Hell...

What does it all look like? We don’t know... for the simple reason that no one returned from there (people who survived clinical death do not count: medicine cannot revive the truly dead, these people still had a living nervous system - so no one can claim that the department soul and body took place). There were, however, a few who were resurrected by the Savior - but for some reason they preferred not to talk about it (or maybe no one listened to them). So it’s hardly worth saying that Hell and Heaven are invented by man - usually everyone knows everything about what is invented...

But even those who doubt the existence of Hell and Heaven are often concerned with the question of how to avoid the first and get to the second (in any case, many ask the question: can an atheist get to Heaven). Yes, it’s very simple: you need to live in earthly life as in Paradise! Imagine Paradise - a state of universal perfect happiness... is it possible to imagine that someone there would insult someone, hit someone, deceive someone, so that someone would be left alone there - abandoned by everyone and needed by no one, etc. and so on.? Certainly, on the ground It’s not easy to live like this - living by the “hellish standard” is much easier... so don’t say that the “cruel” God “tortures” people in Hell: We choose Hell ourselves!