The fifth question

Question 5

WHY AM I SO MUCH AFRAID OF HELL?

Dhara,

THERE IS NO NEED TO BE AFRAID OF HELL, because there are many hells -- and there is an Indian hell too. And everybody is asked at the gate, "Which hell do you want to choose?" Choose the Indian, and you will be happy ever afterwards.

Fellow dies and is met by Saint Peter at the Gate. "Before you can get in you must spend six months in hell. You have a choice: either the regular hell or the Indian hell."

"What is the difference?" asked the fellow.

"In the regular hell," explained Saint Peter, "they tie you to a stake, pour gasoline over you, strike the match, and you burn for twelve hours and then you rest for twelve hours."

"And the Indian hell?"

"They tie you to a stake, pour gasoline over you, set you on fire and you burn for twelve hours and then rest for twelve hours."

"But I don't see the difference," said the man.

"If I were you," advised Saint Peter, "I would take the Indian hell -- somebody usually forgets the matches or the gasoline..."

So you need not be so much afraid -- wise people always choose the Indian hell. But, Dhara, I can understand why you are afraid. Fear is a natural instinct in man, and it has been exploited by the priests down the ages. Fear and greed are two sides of the same coin, and they have exploited both.

It is out of fear that they have created hell, just to exploit your fear instinct. If you can be made really afraid then you will be in the hands of the priests. Or if you can be made really very greedy for heaven, then too you will be in the hands of the priests. The priests have been telling you that "We will protect you from hell and we will help you to enter into heaven. All that you need is just to remain obedient to us.

And because of fear and greed, man has remained obedient to the priests. Parents have used... that's how everybody is brought up, in fear and greed. If you do one thing, you are punished; if you do something else, you are rewarded. It is the SAME story -- in the school, college, university, the same story repeated, again and again: punished for something, rewarded for something else. It is greed and fear which are being enforced again and again.

By the time you come from the university, you have been conditioned, totally conditioned. Your whole life is going to remain the same if you don't become alert, if you don't become aware of the whole situation, if you don't gather courage to get out of the prison that has been made by the society for you. That prison consists of greed and fear.

There is no hell! regular or Indian. And there is no heaven either. Hell and heaven are psychological states, not geographical situations. Forget all about that childish nonsense. You can be in hell right now, or in heaven right now. And the only way to be in heaven is to be without mind, and the only way to be in hell is to be only the mind and nothing else.

The constant traffic of thoughts is your misery. If this traffic disappears and you are left silent, alone, with no thought surrounding you, in that moment of peace and silence and stillness YOU ARE in heaven -- you are heaven! That's what meditation is all about.

Dhara, you need not be worried, need not be afraid of any heaven or hell. You just meditate, become more and more silent, become more and more detached from the mind, become more and more disidentified from your thought process. Just be a witness! Go on witnessing whatsoever passes in the mind, and the very process of witnessing has the whole secret in it. Slowly slowly, you will see less and less thoughts are coming to you, because you are no more welcoming them, and because you don't care, and because you don't cling, and because you don't choose this against that, and because you are no more judgemental. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, all are alike. Great thoughts, small thoughts, all are alike. You remain aloof, distant, a watcher on the hill.

Slowly slowly, less and less traffic... and one day suddenly intervals start happening. An interval for a few seconds, and you will have a taste of the unknown. And once you have tasted something of no-mind, your real life begins. Then all is joy, then all is benediction.

But to be meditative, great intelligence is needed. You can't go on being the way you are, you can't go on being stupid. You have to be very alert!

Towards the end of World War II, when the Italians were fighting the Germans, the Nazi soldiers came up with a scheme to kill many of Mussolini's men. They simply yelled, "Hey, Luigi!" When an Italian infantryman stuck his head up and answered, "Si?" boom! He was dead.

That's all the Krauts did: "Luigi?" "Si?" Boom!

After thousands of Italians had been wiped out, they decided to retaliate. They figured that every German's name was Hans. So an Italian captain shouted, "Hey, Hans!"

Silence.

"Hey, Hans!" he repeated. "Is that you, Luigi?"

"Si!"