As an energy healer and spiritual life coach, I have served as a channel/medium for my clients’ deceased loved ones many times. A few times, I have found myself “on the other side” with the deceased person with whom I was speaking, usually in a sort of three-way conversation with the client as well. Some of the “places” I have been to in the astral world have been places in which most of us would not want to spend any time.
Although I have not seen anything like the ‘hell’ of fire and brimstone, I have been in a dark space that reminded me of what Jesus may have referred to as ‘the outer darkness.’ I have also been in a sort of gray space. One client’s loved one also got stuck in a small apartment-like setting that they were not allowed to leave until they decided that they wanted to learn and grow. Fortunately, he and the client and I were able to help him find some healing that enabled him to move on to a classroom setting where he would learn what he needed to know.
So, in some sense, I believe a temporary ‘hell’ is in a way ‘real.’ But is hell only something that happens after we die?
As important as it is to know that there may be reasons that we might find ourselves in some sort of limbo, or other perhaps undesirable ‘place’ in the astral world in-between lifetimes on Earth, it is as important to know that most of us sometimes experience hellish situations here in this lifetime on planet Earth. Suffering varies widely, but right now, there is a ton of misery and suffering in the world. All of us experience some kind of suffering, however briefly, because it is part of life.
Sometimes, though, we might truly feel as though we have gotten stuck in a hellish situation, or hellish levels of pain, or that our ‘worst nightmare’ came true. Why does this happen? Please see my previous blog post for more insight into why ‘bad’ things happen and understanding our karma.
When it comes to the idea of hell, an old saying teaches us: “Religion is for people who are afraid of hell, and spirituality is for people who have already been there.”
This saying expresses an important insight. To that wisely insightful statement, I will add that religious people generally expect an external savior to rescue them from going to hell, while spiritual people seek to find out what they can do to avoid getting into hell in the first place.
Indeed, personal responsibility and the willingness to change are not only the keys to forward progress on any spiritual path, but they are also the two necessities for staying out of or getting out of ‘hell.’ It does not matter whether the ‘hell’ is here in this lifetime/Earth plane, or in an astral plane of existence. Taking responsibility for ourselves and transforming ourselves is the only way to experience a better reality.
This spiritual work is not to be confused with some narcissistic, self-serving project; rather, it is the beauty of our intentions to bring love and peace and harmony and a release of suffering for others that characterizes our utmost spiritual transformation and advancement.
So far, I have described “hell” in this world as some sort of suffering. That is a phenomenal description, meaning that understanding hell as an experience of suffering focuses on the experiences we are having that we would label “hell.” I would like to approach our understanding of hell not just based on our external and internal experiences, but more importantly, on our psycho-spiritual phenomena that are usually overlooked.
Specifically, I would like to help us understand what hell is in psycho-spiritual terms so that we can avoid hell, transmute hellish experiences, and find release from the external expressions of our psycho-spiritual interior realities. But first, to understand hell, we need to understand a spiritual, rather than religious, way of understanding “heaven.”
Heaven is that state of being in which All Is Well. I capitalize this phrase, because the Divine, or God, by whatever name you give Ultimate Being, IS that state of Being in which All Is Well.
Jesus Christ called this state of being “the kingdom of God” or “the kingdom of heaven,” depending on the English translation of the original Aramaic which Jesus spoke, and also depending on the Greek text in which his words were generally first recorded, as far as we know.
Here, in the two ways of translating the original Greek, we can see ‘heaven’ equated with ‘God.’ If we remove any anthropomorphization of the Divine, meaning, if we move beyond seeing God as some sort of person, God, or the Divine, essentially becomes Being itself. In other words, the Divine is the fundamental form of reality that gives rise to all other reality.
That reality, the fundamental nature of Being Itself, is the state of Being in which All Is Well. And that is God.
Putting this in Buddhist terms, the fundamental dharma is being and living in that state of being in which “All Is Well” and sharing that dharma with all living beings. We can see that Nirvana can be described this way as well. So, whether we call it Nirvana or heaven or Divine Being, All Is Well reflects the state of Being that we experience as the ultimate Reality.
By contrast, we generally experience suffering, or hell, as that state of being in which, from our perspective, all seems to be not well at all, but rather all seems to be far from being well and far from feeling well.
In order to move past our external and internal experience of suffering, or of hell, we will benefit from understanding what hell is in psycho-spiritual terms. There are three aspects of psycho-spiritual reality from which we will describe hell: the mental aspect, the practical aspect, and the intentional aspect.
In mental psycho-spiritual terms, hell is three things:
- Not seeking the Source of the state of being in which All Is Well.
- Not trusting that All Is Well is the fundamental state of all being.
- Not intending the extension of All Is Well through oneself for others.
In practical psycho-spiritual terms, hell is three things:
- Not accepting responsibility for ourselves, our word, and our actions that did not contribute to creating that state of being in which all is well for ourselves AND for others.
- Not accepting who and what is showing up in our lives and how they are showing up now.
- Not accepting responsibility for our part in what is showing up in our lives now, in the sense that we need to transform ourselves in alignment with that state of being in which all is well, and thereby transform the world into that state of being in which all is well.
Our intentions can be felt by whether we have “good vibes” or “bad vibes” – that is, our spiritual, energetic self-expression. In energetic psycho-spiritual terms, hell is three things:
- Not vibrating with the Presence and intention of Love.
- Not vibrating with the Presence and intention of peace.
- Not vibrating with the intention of bringing the harmony of All Is Well for others.
What life, as our spiritual teacher, has taught me, is that, both on this side, and on the other side of death, taking responsibility for ourselves and intending and trusting Source as All Is Well are the keys to getting out of a hellish state and getting to live in a more heavenly state.
The nutshell version of these teachings is that the fundamental dharma is that All Is Well, and we can live in that state of being in which All Is Well by trusting that it is so, and by intending that it is so for others.
Love and Light,
Carol (Anandi)
selfrealizationtherapy 