Many cultures have both saints and sinners who visit the hell worlds. Such
visits may not be beautiful but they can be informative. The Buddhist
hells are endless caverns full of stalactites and stalagmites, and rivers
of fire. Each river, lake, pit or mire extends infinitely in all
dimensions to make room for the souls bound by black karma. There are
worlds of incarnation like the stars in the galaxies, like grains of sand
along an infinite beach.
Hells are made of extremes: cold and hot, isolation and crowding, violence
and frustrated desire. There are cold hells, hot hells, hells where
purification is exaggerated into torture, and hells where people drown in
filth. By whatever extreme a sentient being has justified causing the pain of
another, that extreme will be revealed.
There are rivers of suffering and destruction. The secret sins must be
ripped out from their hiding places, and made public. There are rivers of
shame and guilt and lakes of blame and self-defense. Whole caverns echo
into infinity, "It was not my fault."
The lords of hell are personifications of destruction, sin, and torture.
They can see through blame. Justifying the harming of innocents is the
first step to the hell worlds.
Deities can save souls from hell. It is a great selling point. If you
become a slave to a god, the god can swallow your bad karma, or put it
aside until you become unworthy, and liberate you from hell. Deities may sell permanent heavens, but
that is only for souls not subject to temptation. When those in heaven turn
away from their gods, black karma is returned to them, as weighted chains
which may pull these souls into the hells.
The greatest temptation is malice. Anger, lust, greed, pride - all are
problems. But malice has no justification as the others do. It is simply
joy in another's pain. Each religion has its chosen unforgivable sin -
this is the sin I would claim is worst. It can be combined and bolstered by
other sins, but it is powerful on its own.
Hell is dark, full of blackness and ignorance. It is not a single place but
a galaxy of worlds where the life-histories of sentient beings are
balanced. Sometimes beings are trapped there unjustly, due to accident
rather than malice. There are fail-safes but most trapped souls do not know
about them. Then they can be caught there for eons amidst the waterfalls
of hot lava and the dust storms of blindness and sin.
How does the trapped soul get out of the hell worlds? The easiest way is to
call upon a powerful deity and ask for help. However if the soul is
familiar with meditation, he or she can use an empowered mantra as a ladder
out. Torture by the administrators and guardians of the hell worlds may
be distracting, but if the soul can step beyond its own problems and come
to know the environment, he or she can find the secret ladders out of hell
that look like mist and smoke to the distracted mind. They are there. The
imprisoned soul must learn to look for and use them.
The path of liberation requires the person to know all worlds, not only the
pleasing ones. One must know the prison to help the prisoners.
The Vajra Yogini says,
You need to educate yourself on the hell worlds. As we visit, I can show
you the protected path out. Then you can look at these worlds from a safe
distance, and return.