Go to Hell! Sure, but where?

As a kid in Norway we used the expression “Go where the pepper grows”, meaning to the place where pepper grow (Norwegian; “Dra dit pepper’n gror!”)! This was a junior version of “Go to hell”, and one of the worst things we could throw at each other. For years I’ve been wondering why this was such a cruel thing to say? Even more so, where does pepper grow?!Firstly, nobody had any clue where this was; just that it was a very bad place! Norwegians had probably just acquired pepper and salt for cooking, and this was as adventurous as one could be in the kitchen back then. Pepper probably arrived on the same ship as the coffee beans . All we knew was that pepper was not grown in any of the nearby countries (Denmark and Sweden). That was as far as our imagination or horizon could reach. No doubt, pepper was from a place very far away!

Far away, for the purpose of sending somebody away could be good enough! If you could send this annoying person there, you should expect not to see him/her again for quite some time. Naturally though, since these orders were usually given during a fight, the bastard was not overly obedient or compelled to do so! My mindpower was under-developed at the time, so I never succeeded. It was safe to say that the moron had no clue where to head either. Pepper was not marked on any map! In fact, both parties where blissfully ignorant and unaware of the pepper’s origin or its geographical location. Why send somebody to a place you don’t know, and haven’t even confirmed as being a bad place either? It could be paradise, and far from serving your intention… There had to be some other explanation! Pepper is hot, and must come from a hot place! Hot is for some reason perceived as bad. Hell is hot (like Hell) – alas “Burn in Hell"! Hell is bad, so hot must also be bad! Any accounts of purgatory, before you even get to Hell, will tell you that it’s hot. Anything hotter than the beach in Spain (favorite holiday/roasting destination for Scandinavians) is pain and a bad place to be, no doubt! But how could we know that pepper came from a hot place? Tales from the seamen could of course have been told, retold and finally reached our ears, but not very likely. One look at the whole pepper corns can tell that they’ve been in a hot place. Roasted like straight out of Hell!

Surely we had tasted pepper, but spared of any bad burn. What the hell did we know about ring-sting?! This was of course long before chillies and jalapenos could reach us! Jalapenos and chillies are grown in hot places too, Mexico and many places around the world as far as I know. Although much hotter than pepper, we were totally oblivious of any of these chilli and jalapeno growing places. Pepper was as hot as it could knowingly get! The pepper growing area out there somewhere was the worst place imaginable. Up until recently I had no clue where to send my enemies though! A family member that lives in India came to visit short time ago. For some unknown reason she mentioned that they grow pepper there. A lifelong mystery for me was cleared up quite unexpectedly! Kerala in India to be exact! It’s probably not the only place in India or elsewhere, but at least now I have some clue where pepper is grown.

For a couple of years, we’ve been talking about going to India. Even with a long holiday, you can’t do the whole of India, but Kerala was one of our marked destinations. Without knowing it I had planned my future holiday at a place where I’ve previously wished only my worst childhood enemies! True, India had Thugs, but they don’t cause Hell anymore. How ironic?! All the Hell’s on earth that I know about and that I’ve come across are actually not bad at all! They are actually nice places and definitely not cursing material!!

However! "What happens in Hell, stays in Hell". What goes to Hell or grow there also for that matter, am I right?! As far as I know, the ticket to Hell is one way only! …and since pepper grows in India, there must be Hell on earth. Either that, or earth is in Hell. So whether I tell people to go to Hell or to the place where pepper grows, they will not be any worse off than myself! I might as well send them to Bermuda! Damn – swearing people kinda lost its sting now! Bloody useless!!

In my garden you will find chillies thriving alongside lizards and scorpions! The summers here (Pretoria, South Africa) can be hot like hell. With the recent xenophobia incidents, this is probably closer to Hell than any named Hell you will find on earth. I live here!! Somebody else’s mind power must be quite strong!

I quite like it here
Lucifer

PS! "In Rome - do like the Romans do"! When in Hell...???

Judgment Day

I’ve been accused of having a negative focus, and I will partly blame that on the Law of Jante. What more natural then than to think about Judgment Day? Well, it was accidental that I came over this book with a couple of quotes that caught my attention. With my negative focus it was simply the law of attraction and the universe’ answer to my inner calling (Ref The Secret), so I had it coming sooner or later!

Jesus said (according to Matt 25, 31); “Judgment Day will come and all people will have their sentence”. A question then arises in my mind. Is this; (1) one specific day, that no doubt will go down in history unless it wipes out all and everything, or (2) is it one day for each and every one of us like for instance the day we die?

If (1) a specific day in history: Jesus promised this day almost 2000 years ago (or thereabout) but still nothing?! You may go through Nostradamus’ (That’s one guy with a more negative focus than me by the way!) predictions one more time, with a different set of goggles to see if there is anything you should seriously worry about in your own life time. Jesus further said that evil/bad people will get their eternal punishment or eternal life (Matt 25, 46! I take it that this is supposed to be the heavenly counter offer to eternal punishment!). People who heard this live back in the days, and didn’t have to wait until Matt published and broadcasted it worldwide, have now waited 2000 years for Judgment Day… going on something eternal at least (Waiting). What is this waiting room like I wonder? Laws and legal systems are often founded on good religious values, so I presume that GOD will grant us the same benefit of the doubt. So if you’re innocent until proved otherwise, it should be like the eternal heaven for the mean time, right?

Besides, you can’t possibly bite nails daily for 2000 years! I’m sure those guys are quite chilled and relaxed about it, purgatory or whatever you call it. Imagine you are forced into a situation where your decision will no doubt lead you to eternal punishment (Hell I presume). When Judgment Day arrives that is! How long will your waiting period be, in heaven mind you? Another 2000, 6 or maybe even 10.000 years? Not bad at all I’d say, especially if you like to live NOW and not overly concerned about planning for old age and eternity! I never sold one life insurance or investment annuity of any kind that could match this prospect! Judgment Day is suddenly not so frightening any more, or negative!

(2) however, means that your time will come no matter what, and as soon as you’re dead, your trial starts. This is the propaganda that I grew up with, and to be damn honest – it’s a fair deal! There is really only an UP side to it if (1) should be the true destiny.

Paulus however has a very interesting interpretation that I want to believe in more than anything else out of sheer convenience! He concluded that the death of Jesus (+ some minor technicalities) means that GOD is able and prepared to in his/her Supreme Court to drop all charges against us! Paulus said that; “This, you accept when you believe and have faith, and mercy will come to you in this spirit”! GOD should really be careful and put this in very small print in his contracts. I was very excited to read this and see NO reason whatsoever to sign a contract with GOD after this. I believe in what I see (only!), that’s just the kind of guy I am. Since GOD never showed up in my presence, court or anywhere I’ve heard of, belief and faith is zip zero nada from me!

When my day comes, and I have to settle my life time deficits however, I will reconsider! When GOD presents himself/herself before me, I will have no reason to doubt his/her existence any more. I’m that easy to convince (Well, maybe I’ll pinch GOD’s arm just to check)! You can run a polygraph and a faith test on me after that and I’ll be 100% rock solid (steady) in my belief! With my newly acquired faith GOD will then have to grant me mercy in his Supreme Court. FANTASTIC!! I can multitask deadly sins and risk nothing basically!! I feel like a kid inside Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory! It’s like Pick’n’NOT Pay from the top shelf. The Vatican has added some modern vices to the traditional deadly sins… I must really update myself on optional vices. What was all that nonsense about negative focus??

Hell (& Heaven) – a different perspective!

I received this thing on the e-mail and thought it deserved some space on my blog as it offers an interesting and different perspective on Heaven and Hell than my own article; http://stensbys.blogspot.com/2007/05/heaven-and-hell.html!

The following is “supposedly” an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Bonus Question:

Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

I have only one objection to this… or two:

1. Being a Norwegian I already know where Hell is. It is in Norway (of course), just north of Trondheim – just look it up on the map!! Hell is generally a cold place and freezes over for about 6 months of the year. I don’t think this is due to a seasonal drop in souls entering… which brings me to my second objection.

2. Hell is a small place. If you take into account all history since beginning of time and the constant exponential flow of souls, you would expect Hell to be a much bigger place. It does not seem to grow much either… it’s becoming one of those ghost towns, LOL! According to Boyles theories this would mean a build up of pressure and a high temperature… We could make use of a hell of a lot more souls to heat things up - up there in Hell!!

I don’t think Boyle's theories apply in Hell!!

Update on the RDA project!

"It is safer to believe in God, even if there is no definitive proof that God exists!"; Pascal's Wager!

Choice of religion must not be taken lightly… The spiritual market is vast and hard to get an overview of. Imagine if you go through your whole life praying, chanting and going to services… then as you exit this life you realize that your religion and your god is not there for you the way you expected… It was actually another god… or another religion that could have helped you out much better! How sad… Or, imagine if there is only one god… and you sent all your prayers to the wrong address through all your life… to a fake god that can do f**k all! You see my point? Life… and especially religion is a gamble, so you should make damn sure you have all the pros and cons presented to you… and that’s where my one pager summary comes in.

Obviously if a religion stands out as SO much better than all the rest, then there is reason for suspicion, right?! As my RDA-tool develops I will of course come up with a way to filter out the fraudulent religions and cheaters. I’m thinking about a kind of lie detector test… The problem is that these instruments work well on people… It is highly possible also those members of a religion are so completely brainwashed that they truly believe… and thus cannot be taken for a liar and a cheat. The real crooks are of course the founders. Religions are ancient stuff though, and none of the founders are still alive I believe… Left are only the practitioners that are more or less fanatic… and none of them are testing material. There are only believers left – some believe in the right thing and the rest of the lot waste their time and efforts.

Isn’t that the ultimate betrayal? As you are floating between life and death you realize (a bit late) that your door to Heaven or Nirvana or whatever is not there! Your whole life has been in vain… actually worse than in vain if Hinduism should happen to be the right one. As you have worshipped the wrong god(s) your whole life, your karma can not be very great after your last lap of heresy. The top lawyer is reborn as a pig because he gambled on the wrong religion for instance… Ok, bad example maybe, since there could be a number of other reasons for a lawyer’s bad karma and downgrade.

My RDA project is a way for people to feel more secure, but the long time goal is of course to get the religion lie detector to work. That will be the Nirvana of the whole RDA project. Then we have eventually ruled out all the others and can all concentrate on the one and only religion. This is a futuristic project of course, and needs to measure more than just heartbeat, pulse and sweat… For this I have contacted NASA, Ghost Busters and a UFO-organization in the US. With our combined efforts I am sure we will get there in very short time!

"The world of poetry, mythology, and religion represents the world as a man would like to have it, while science represents the world as he gradually comes to discover it." (Joseph Wood Krutch)

I consider myself part of the science part here… and will hopefully exclude the religions that man conveniently made up. I have started an important piece scientific work!!

Heaven and Hell

I am an agnostic or atheist, although a member of the Norwegian state church - a Christian! A hypocrite in other words. It's the Christianity that has been closest (and put the most pressure to convert me), and where my natural mind frame lies... In Christianity we/they've got heaven and hell... used to pressure you to join... and the two somewhat different end stations are there waiting for you! Recently I've been so enthralled with Kavady festival in the Hindu community here in South Africa... and now I've been wondering about the Hindu concepts of heaven and hell.

It's really hard to choose religion when they are so very different. Even though I'm an agnostic/atheist (never remember which is which, but it's a pretty approximate description still), I've sensed the spirituality creeping in on me. So I thought in case I should want to pick a religion in the future some time, I might as well do some exploratory research. To make the choice easier of course. Obviously the choice of heaven and hell you'll be faced with are crucial factors when deciding on a religion and cannot be taken easily! Considering my track record so far... I'm most concerned about hell, so that's a natural starting point in my research. In any event I'll have to do some time there... long story!

I overheard this guy talking... and he had been to an astrologer specializing in reincarnation. The astrologer told him that he had been in hell in a past life, and this was why he was afraid of fire. From what I know, the reincarnation is totally a Hindu thing. They get reborn, hopefully in a higher level... social class or cast than in the last attempt. This guy had been in hell!! But hey... he got out of it, and now he's starting again with clean sheets! Only a short stop in hell... drive-through hell... or hell in transit sort of?! What kind of hell is that? Barely purgatory if you ask me... where you get blow torched a bit for past sins... and then you're off again. It would suit me fine! It's like the catholics. They confess their sins to the priest inside the little cottage... and then everything is well again... your crime register is wiped out. In countries where the catholic church is also the state church, they obviously synchronize the church crime register with that of the police. Thus you are properly off the hook and uncorrupted like a virgin angel again. I'd say the catholic way is very appealing... Much more so than the Hindu and the Christian protestant way. I mean, why not get over and done with it in your present life... off your shoulders so that you don't risk any health hazards... manic depressive caused by your own bad conscience or something ironic like that! Ok, that was a little Catholic detour, but enough about that.

The Hindu hell (and heaven) is a bit like tracking down Lord Murugan for my Kavady research... it exist... and then it doesn't after all according to another source. There are no concepts of hell (Narka) in the Vedas and Upanishads... but in the Puranas you do find it. In the Bhagvad Purana a number of descriptions of various activities, and the hells you will go to when they take place, are given. Note the plural of hell!! Furthermore is a long story about what kind of karmas will lead to what kind of births... This must be the reincarnation that are based on your track record. Wouldn't it be nice to combine some catholicism here to clean your record in advance to ensure a top reincarnation?! Although several hells are mentioned in Bhagvad Purana, it's a common belief that hell is a concept that crept into Hinduism from other cultures... Cultures with beliefs that were more inn (fashionable) at the time. I derive from this that the Puranas may have been fiddled with at some stage... or maybe some oral channels corrupted it before it was put down on paper. I will therefore take the Puranas with a good pinch of salt. In any event, who the hell would choose Hinduism with SEVERAL HELLS?! Hinduism is already low on my ranking. Hindus must be bloody masochists!!

Unlike in the Christian tradition where the words are taken quite literally... you can not do that in Hinduism. There are so many facets in between the lines that a tradition of teaching is needed to avoid misunderstanding. What you find in the one book/script is rejected in another. By the time you understand, you are in a serious state of schizophrenia. I'm just accumulating some keywords here... You know, pros and cons, to make the decision easier in the end. So far I've got; multiple hells, masochists and schizophrenia. I'm sure it will pick up!

If you where missing any blog posts recently, then it was because the following stuff was a bit hard to grasp for me. A lot of research... and consideration, doubts and reconsiderations of findings was going through my processor. To understand properly, you have to accept the various levels of conception of the individual. There is the gross physical level, the subtle mental level, and the pure level of awareness. The physical body is not going anywhere. Except maybe 6 feet under and you rot, or you burn on a raft... and that's the end of it. None of the hells are situated on earth either, so the physical part is irrelevant. Pure awareness, or Atman, is beyond the cycle of rebirth and death (as explained consistently in all of the scriptures). Shame - you overdid it in other words, stuck in a dead end and cannot travel anywhere, for there is nowhere for your Atman to go. I really hope that it's possible to make a u-turn and find your way back to the "subtle body" offramp though. Otherwise Atman must be just another hell altogether. Because it's the "subtle body" the scriptures are talking about travelling to heavens and hells after death, and then returning to earth to be reborn after discharging its collected karma. This reminds me of some computer games I've played where you need to collect a certain number of points or treasures or whatever to get to the next level. Maybe computer games could be a good way of marketing Hinduism actually... the real geeks would have no problem to fathom this. Reality series also maybe, but it would probably be hard to follow the "subtle body" to hell and back.

The subtle body is not going anywhere either though. What a bloody disappointment! It is just a collection of your mental instruments. These instruments include the mind (manas, not mañana), the faculty of discrimination (buddhi), and the ego (ahankara). Heaven and hell are states of mind, not places you may go to for pleasure or pain. It is a state of mind upon death... and before rebirth... but also during life. Heaven and Hell are according to the puranas only temporary states to existence to exhaust karma, not at all a final and permanent locked up condition. So when someone tells you they are going through hell... that is Hinduistically speaking quite possible! Since Heaven and Hell are only temporary pitstops though, you might wonder what comes next. Beyond Heaven and Hell is the unconditional bliss of Nirvana - a sort of Super-Heaven. Nirvana (Moksha) is the true purpose in life for a Hindu. So there is a final stage in Hindu as well, they just make it a bit more complicated. You go to Heaven and Hell to get your rewards and punishments according to your life-record and the severness of the incidents. Only then, when you have served your accumulated time in both Heaven and Hell, you can approach Nirvana.

Summing up:
You can get out of Hell, only a temporary thing: 10 points!
Would like to stick around in Heaven for awhile longer though: -2 points
H&H pitstops through multiple lives -10 points!
Multiple hells, masochistic, schizophrenia -10 points!
Complex religion & philosophy - 2 points
Computer Game-like philosophy 10 points!
Nirvana Super-Heaven 10 points!
Total points: 6 points

Ok, the following definitions are not my own. "Somebody" made me go through all 7 hindu hells because of these definitions. I found them somewhere, I don't know where anymore, and thought it was a bit fun... so don't give me a hard time about these ones.

Definition of Hell:
If you're having an American wife, Indian salary, Chinese car and German food.

Definition of Heaven:
If you're having an Indian wife, American salary, Chinese food and German car.

Christian preacher/Hindu conversation:
Preacher: "You will go to hell (being a Hindu)"!
Hindu: "Dear Sir, why I should go to a Christian hell, when we Hindus have seven hells to go to."
The poor preacher is gaping in awe!