We Live In Hell, And Hell Is A Myth

Hell: a place regarded in various religions as a spiritual realm of evil and suffering, often traditionally depicted as a place of perpetual fire beneath the earth where the wicked are punished after death.

Myth: a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

Religions instil and control our view of hell: an allegory has been transformed into a false reality which creates fear. It’s a conjured-up distortion which has coloured our minds over centuries. Hell, from a Buddhist point of view, is a collective, psychological state of likes and dislikes which obscures our true nature. Hell is anything that distracts us. It is the controlling factor of confused ignorance.

Most forms of media are only concerned with likes and dislikes, causing the mind to chase one way and then the other. To them, it doesn’t matter which way you lean, left or right; as long as the mind keeps rolling, it’s easier to control. Who is the final paymaster of this confusion and disinformation? It doesn’t really matter, as long as we continue to buy into it. There’s never ever talk of reality, our pure awareness. There is no devil; it’s our collective ignorance that is the devil. Hell is merely a mistaken view of reality that makes a lot of money. However, there are also those who just like the control of deceiving others. This is cruel and evil – enjoying wilfully causing pain or suffering, and feeling no concern about it.

While religion keeps the idea of hell as something ‘down there’ or something ‘after death’, this leaves us to flounder, conforming to an artificial standard while pretending (and hoping) that we are ‘the good’. All the while, we feel guilty, and try hard to please – in a prison state.

Do you think this is far fetched?

In the ancient text of Manjushri’s prayer, there are lines such as…

“…all of us afflicted by suffering, being enveloped
in dark ignorance in the dungeon of existence.”

…“Awaken us from the slumber of the kleshas
(stricken down by afflicted emotions)
freeing us from the chains of karma.”

…“Fully dispel the dark ignorance of my mind”…

In the Prayer to Vajra Kilaya it says:

… “Purifying my being by practising the general and preliminary practices…”
(‘Purifying my being’ relates to the afflictive emotions that cover our true being, while the being itself is already pure by nature)

… “In order to tame the mara who create obstacles”…
(Mara are the afflictive emotions of like and dislike: our confused minds are the only devil).

Our time in the dungeon,
is up to us.