Story 167 - Hell turned into Heaven

There was a priest, a Christian priest in England. He read about the death of some great men, great scientists, Darwin and Huxley. He began to think in his mind whether they had gone to hell or heaven. He was thinking and thinking and thinking. He said to himself: "These people did not commit any crimes, and yet they did not believe in the Bible, in Christ, they were no Christians in the proper sense of the word. They must have gone to hell." But he could not make up his own mind to think that way. He thought: "They were good men, they had done some good work in the world, they did not deserve hell. Where did they go." He fell and dreamt a most wonderful dream. He saw that he himself had died and was taken to the highest Heaven. He found there all the people whom he had expected to find; he found all his Christian brothers who used to come to his Church. He found them all there. Then he asked about these scientists, Huxley and Darwin. The door keeper of Heaven or some other steward told him that these people were in the lowest hell.

Now, this priest asked if he could be allowed to go to the lowest hell on a flying visit simply to see them, and there to go and preach to them the Holy Bible and show them that they had perpetrated a most heinous crime in not believing in the letter of Bible. After some fuss and trouble the steward yielded, and consented to get for him a ticket to the lowest hell. You will be astonished that even in hell and heaven, you come and go in your railway-cars, but so it was. The man had been bred in the midst of surroundings overflowing with railway traffic and telegraphs. So in his thoughts, in his dreams, it is no wonder if the railway got mixed up with hell and heaven.

Well, this priest got a first-class. The railway train went on and on and on. There were some intermediate stations because he came from the highest Heaven to the lowest hell. He stopped at the intermediate stations, and found that there was a change for the worse as he went on down and down. When he came to the lowest hell but one, he could not keep himself in senses. Such a stench was coming out that he had to put all his napkins and handkerchiefs before his nose and yet he could not but be senseless, he had to fall into a swoon. There were so many crying voices, weeping and crying and gnashing of teeth down there; he could not bear it. He could not keep his eyes open because of those sights. He repented of his persistence to come to see the lowest hell.

In a few minutes the people on the railway platform were crying, "The lowest hell, the lowest hell", for the convenience of the passengers. There was engraved on the station, "The lowest hell." But the priest was astonished. He asked everybody, "This cannot be the lowest hell? It must be about the highest Heaven. No, no, it cannot be. This is not the lowest hell; this is not the lowest hell; it must be heaven." The railway guard or conductor told him that this was the place and there came a man who said, "Just get down, sir; this is your destination."

He got down, poor fellow, but was surprised. He expected the lowest hell to be worse than the lowest hell but one. But this well nigh rivaled his highest Heaven. He got out of the railway station and found there magnificent gardens, sweet scented flowers, and fragrant breezes blowing into his face. He met one tall gentleman. He asked his name, and he thought he saw in him something or somebody whom he had been before. The man was walking before him, and he followed after him, and when the man called out, the priest was delighted, they shook hands, and the priest recognized him. Who was he? That was Huxley. He asked, "What is it, is it the lowest hell?" Huxley said, "Yes, no doubt it is." And he said, "I came to preach to you, but first of oil answer how it is that 1 find such a strange phenomenon before me?" Huxley said, "you were not wrong in your expectations for the worst. Indeed, when I came here, it was the worst possible hell in the universe. It was the most undesirable that could be conceived." And here he pointed out certain places: "There were dirty ditches." and he pointed out another spot: "There was burning iron." And he pointed out another spot; "There was hot sand"; and "There was steaming dung."

He said, “We were first of all placed in the most dirty ditches, but while there, with our hands we were throwing water to the next adjoining hot burning iron; and we went on with that work, throwing that dirty water out of the ditches on the hot burning iron that was on the banks. Then the stewards of the lowest hell had to take us to those places where there was a burning liquid iron, but by the time they took us to that place, most of the iron had become wholly cooled, most of the iron could be handled, and still a great deal of iron was in its liquid burning condition, fiery condition. Then, with the aid of the iron which had cooled down and holding it before the fire, we succeeded in making some machines and some other instruments."

"After that we were to be taken to the third place where was the dung. We were taken to that place, and with the help of our instruments, iron spades and machines, we began the digging work. After that we were taken to the other kind of soil, and there by means of machines and other instruments that we had got then ready, we threw some of these things into the soil to which we were taken; that served as manure, and thus we succeeded, by and by, in turning this [ hell into a veritable heaven."

Now the thing is that in that lowest hell, there were present all the materials which, being simply placed in their right positions might make the highest Heaven. So it is, Vedanta says, in you is present the Divine God, and in you is present the worthless body; but you have misplaced the things. You have done things upside down; in a topsy-turvy way you have put them. You have put the cart before the horse; and that is how you make this world a hell for you. You have simply not to destroy anything, not to dig up anything. This ambitious spirit of yours, or this selfishness of yours or this angry nature of yours or any other sin of yours, which is just like a hell or heaven, you cannot destroy, but you can re-arrange. No energy can be destroyed, but you can re-arrange this hell and convert it into the highest Heaven.

MORAL:—Even Hell can be turned into Heaven by the right application of energy and proper arrangement of materials.

Vol. 1 (92-95)