Opening Remarks
Suffering and pain are found wherever there is ignorance. Generally there is an instinctive urge to come out of this state. But in that hell suffering was the law and way of life, cherished as the rule of living. It was so because in the Inconscient there is an extreme separation from Truth and Light and Bliss leading to extreme forms of suffering.
Long punishment
There thought and life were a long punishment,
The breath a burden and all hope a scourge,
The body a field of torment, a massed unease;
Repose was a waiting between pang and pang.
Life was a burden and thought a punishment in that dull and dark domain. Breath itself was experienced as a heavy load one had to bear and hope was a curse since it was futile. The body itself experienced agonising pain in under the influence of this realm, a torment as if filled with unease. Periods of rest came due to dullness between spasms of pain.
Law of things
This was the law of things none dreamed to change:
A hard sombre heart, a harsh unsmiling mind
Rejected happiness like a cloying sweet;
Tranquillity was a tedium and ennui:
Only by suffering life grew colourful;
It needed the spice of pain, the salt of tears.
The law of things that none dared to change in that realm were centred around a perverse need for suffering. The heart was hardened with cruelty and harsh thoughts surrounded life. Happiness was rejected as something unnatural and excessively sweet. Peace was regarded as boredom and dullness. The beings there felt alive only with suffering. A state of extreme tamas needed violent sensations of pain and tears of suffering to feel alive.
Dull aching hours
If one could cease to be, all would be well;
Else only fierce sensations gave some zest:
A fury of jealousy burning the gnawed heart,
The sting of murderous spite and hate and lust,
The whisper that lures to the pit and treachery’s stroke
Threw vivid spots on the dull aching hours.
Only an escape from this world would end the constant suffering. Life was a constant dull ache punctuated with fierce sensations that hurt the heart. Jealousy, murderous hate, treachery, lust interrupted the dull ache with intense suffering and pain.
Drama of infelicity
To watch the drama of infelicity,
The writhing of creatures under the harrow of doom
And sorrow’s tragic gaze into the night
And horror and the hammering heart of fear
Were the ingredients in Time’s heavy cup
That pleased and helped to enjoy its bitter taste.
The gaze of Time had to bear this joyless drama of perpetual misfortune and the suffering of creatures under the harrow of doom. The eyes of sorrow looked into tragedies enacted in the night. Horror and fear hammered the heart but were means of pleasure and the bitter taste of this drama was enjoyed and savoured there.
Life’s long hell
Of such fierce stuff was made up life’s long hell:
These were the threads of the dark spider’s-web
In which the soul was caught, quivering and rapt;
This was religion, this was Nature’s rule.
This was the fierce stuff of which this hell was made where time seemed to stretch endlessly. It was like a dark spider’s web in which the souls were caught. This was the dark religion followed and the law of nature there.
Closing Remarks
It was perhaps some kind of contact with these domains, some experience of this that led to the coining of terms such as eternal Hell. But in fact no darkness can be eternal even though it may seem endless.
