Theosophy teaches that the main
hell is lived on the physical plane, because it is during the incarnation that
humans have to deal with the negative karma that they have generated, and that
is why you see so much suffering on Earth.
And about this subject, William
Judge mentioned the following:
« The Oriental doctrine
of reward and punishment of the human Ego is very different from the
theological scheme accepted throughout Christendom, since the Brahmans and Buddhists
fix the place of punishment and compensation upon this earth of ours, while the
Christian removes the “bar of God” to the hereafter.
We may not profitably stop to
argue upon logic with the latter; it will be sufficient to quote to them the
words of Jesus, St. Matthew, and the Psalmist. “With what measure ye mete, it
shall be measured unto you again,” said Jesus [Matt 7:2]; and Matthew declares
that for every word, act, and thought we shall have to answer, while David, the
royal poet, sang that those who serve the Lord should never eat beggar’s bread.
We all know well that the first
two declarations do away with the vicarious atonement; and as for the Jewish
singer’s notion, it is negatived every day in any city of either hemisphere.
Among the Ceylonese Buddhists the
name of the doctrine is Kamma; with the Hindus it is Karma. Viewed in its
religious light, it “is the good and bad deeds of sentient beings, by the
infallible influence or efficacy of which those beings are met with due rewards
or punishment, according as they deserve, in any state of being.”
When a being dies, he emits, as
it were, a mass of force or energy, which goes to make up the new personality
when he shall be reincarnated. In this energy is found the summation of the
life just given up, and by means of it the Ego is forced to assume that sort of
body among those appropriate circumstances which together are the means for
carrying out the decrees of Karma.
Hence hell is not a mythical
place or condition after death in some unknown region specially set apart by
the Almighty for the punishment of his children, but is in very truth our own
globe, for it is on the earth, in earth-lives experienced in human bodies, that
we are punished for bad deeds previously done, and meet with happiness and
pleasure as rewards for old merit.
When one sees, as is so common, a
good man suffering much in his life, the question naturally arises, “Has Karma
anything to do with it, and is it just that such a person should be so
afflicted?”
For those who believe in Karma it
is quite just, because this man in a previous life must have done such acts as
deserve punishment now.
(Note: It is usually due to
that, but also the suffering may be due to the fact that the person is a victim
of the circumstances, and then in her next life, she will be compensated.)
And, similarly, the wicked man
who is free from suffering, happy and prosperous, is so because in a previous
existence he had been badly treated by his fellows or had experienced much
suffering. And the perfect justice of Karma is well illustrated in his case
because, although now favored by fortune, he, being wicked, is generating
causes which, when he shall be reborn, will operate then to punish him for his
evil-doing now.
Some may suppose that the Ego
should be punished after death, but such a conclusion is not logical. For evil
deeds committed here on the objective plane could not with any scientific or
moral propriety be punished on a plane which is purely subjective. And such is
the reason why so many minds, both of the young and old have rejected and
rebelled against the doctrine of a hell-fire in which they would be eternally
punished for commission of sin on earth.
Even when unable to formulate the
reason in metaphysical terms, they instinctively knew that it would be
impossible to remove the scene of compensation from the very place where the
sin and confusion had been done and created. When the disciples of Jesus asked
him if the man who was born blind was thus brought into the world for some sin
he had committed, they had in mind this doctrine of Karma, just as all the
Hindus and Buddhists have when they see some of their fellows crippled or
deformed or deprived of sight.
The theory above hinted at of the
person at death throwing out from himself the new personality, so to speak,
ready to await the time when the Ego should return to earth seeking a new body,
is a general law that operates in a great many other instances besides the
birth or death of a being. It is that which is used by the Theosophists to
explain the relations between the moon and the earth. »
(Echoes of the Orient III, p.33)
We see that the physical plane is
the place for action, while heaven is the place for rest (even for people who
were bad).
The exception to this rule are
those individuals who were so extremely bad, that they will not have a period
of rest and happiness after death, but they will experience a terrible period
of suffering and torment.
And this is the hell that
religions talk about, and it is located in the lowest area of purgatory. But
Theosophy explains that it is not eternal, but temporary (like the stay in
heaven), and then the humans reincarnate again.
And that is why, when people
asked William Judge:
Does Theosophy teach that this earth is the hell of this planetary
system? And, if so, does each solar
system have its own hell?
William Judge replied:
« Very many writers
affirm it to be their opinion that the real hell is this earth, but it is not
clear that such is the view “of Theosophy,” meaning thereby the exact truth. It
was taught, apparently, by Buddha that there is a hell after death of the body,
and some of the conditions of Kama-Loka are a hell most surely; it is also
taught in Hinduism that there is a hell apart from earth-life.
Some Kabbalists seem to lean to
the view that earth is hell, and when we consider the troubles of the soul
therein it would appear to be so. For what could be more dreadful than to be
living on the earth with a full knowl edge that your acts will lead to a worse
state after death and may finally blot out the soul?
But in my opinion the question of
hell, like that of heaven, is to be decided on a consideration of a man as a
thinker who thinks always and who is because he is a thinker. Hence his life at
any time or place must be the result of his thoughts, must be founded on his
thoughts, and have its color and effect from his thoughts.
So if after the death of the body
his thoughts before that naturally lead to the weaving of a beautiful, heavenly
web, he will reside in those thoughts until they are exhausted, and then coming
back to earth again his only hell will be this life.
But if, enjoying himself or not
here, he indulges in those thoughts that inevitably lead to the bitterness of a
black life in Kāma-Loka, then his hell must be a stage or condition of that
state of the very worst description, to which earth-life is heaven in
comparison; in his case the return to life here would be heaven and the other
life hell.
(Note: Master Kuthumi explained
that very few humans get this suffering experience after death, because the
person really had to be extremely malevolent in order not to have even a short
period of rest and happiness during his post-mortem stay before returning to
reincarnate.)
This leads me to the conclusion
that the very lowest and worst hell must be a condition of the mind, and that
it must have place out of a body and hence be a stage or degree of Kāma-Loka.
This would explain the various
statements as to hells, because the awful condition that some souls must be in
after the limitations of the body are shaken off, would be of just the sort
described, and their particular locus should be in the vicinity of the earth,
as that is the representative of the grossest form of matter.
If the law of analogy is to rule,
then other worlds must have their own hells of this sort; but the solar system
seems to be quite a large enough subject for us to be content with for the
present.
But it seems to me that all the
theories of hell, no matter of what awful variety, are founded on the life of
the mind and the soul, and to be drawn from descriptions of that life according
to natural results.
A dream of oppressive character
will give some idea of what a hell may be, for there the mind devoid of body is
suffering that which the body afterwards knows to be wholly of thought. »
(Echoes of the Orient II,
p.363-4)
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