Opening remarks
Hell has its own atmosphere, its own way of life and of being which is very different from higher states.
An excitement of sensations
Too sweet and too harmonious to excite
In this regime that soiled the being’s core,
Beauty was banned, the heart’s feeling dulled to sleep
And cherished in their place sensation’s thrills;
The world was probed for jets of sense-appeal.
All our tastes and tendencies were spoilt in the atmosphere of falsehood. True beauty was banned and replaced by what can excite the nerves. Love was replaced by passionate attraction and momentary passing thrills. Thus was our being tied to the surfaces of life through a constant bombardment of sensations that would excite and appeal.
The need for excitement
Here cold material intellect was the judge
And needed sensual prick and jog and lash
That its hard dryness and dead nerves might feel
Some passion and power and acrid point of life.
In this realm the heart was dulled and the cold material intellect was the leader of nature. Under its influence the senses were dulled and covered with tamas. It is only when the stimulus was strong and the passion too intense that one could feel. It is how the asuric natures work, intellectual but with a coldness and numbness of feelings, prone to be driven by passions and gravitate towards intense stimulus to feel alive.
Primeval brute
A new philosophy theorised evil’s rights,
Gloried in the shimmering rot of decadence,
Or gave to a python Force persuasive speech
And armed with knowledge the primaeval brute.
The brute is not someone who is illiterate or even ill-mannered but one who is crude in his thoughts and vulgar in speech and actions. He carries with him the force of persuasion, the power to compel others to obey him. He builds a philosophy justifying evil and his gaze is turned only towards the petrifying rot rather than the bright avenues of life.
Subconscient’s flares
Over life and Matter only brooding bowed,
Mind changed to the image of a rampant beast;
It scrambled into the pit to dig for truth
And lighted its search with the subconscient’s flares.
Instead of climbing beyond the mind in its search for truth, the mind probed only within the forces of matter and life. As a beast digs into the mud it dug in the subconscient parts of nature and called its finds and discoveries as high profound truths.
Filth and festering Abyss
Thence bubbling rose sullying the upper air,
The filth and festering secrets of the Abyss:
This it called positive fact and real life.
Its gaze was directed only towards the subconscient nature which is filled with beastly instincts. This it projected upwards and judged and explained all things by this alone. The animal within man was for this philosophy the sole truth. Its eyes were sealed to the god within.
Fetid atmosphere
This now composed the fetid atmosphere.
This subconscient forces and energies had filled the atmosphere of this realm.
The mystery of Hell
A wild-beast passion crept from secret Night
To watch its prey with fascinating eyes:
Around him like a fire with sputtering tongues
There lolled and laughed a bestial ecstasy;
The air was packed with longings brute and fierce;
Crowding and stinging in a monstrous swarm
Pressed with a noxious hum into his mind
Thoughts that could poison Nature’s heavenliest breath,
Forcing reluctant lids assailed the sight
Acts that revealed the mystery of Hell.
Lust and hate and blind passion; anger and fear and a joy that excites the nerves, a free play of brute and beastly instincts are the very stuff of Hell. Its atmosphere can enter the bodily life and mind and push us towards the Abyss with its sordid imaginations and dark suggestions. It poisons our consciousness and fills the world with horror and carnage. This is now revealed to Aswapati in his tremendous journey.
The pattern of Hell
All that was there was on this pattern made.
While here we find the influence of darkness and falsehood inciting human beings towards Evil, in this subconscient realm all breathes this atmosphere and felt comfortable with that life. It was where these beings seemed to belong to.
Closing Remarks
Thus we are shown step by step how to identify all that is inspired and moved by darkness and evil.
