WHAT THE HELL?!

When I was a child, at school, at home, in church, I was told that heaven and hell exist. I heard much more about the latter, as if scaring us with something terrible was more important than telling us about something good, something positive. I also saw hell in movies, read about it in books. In Christianity and other religions, there is a deeply rooted belief that hell is a place one reaches after death, reserved for the worst sinners. Hell is described as a place of eternal punishment and suffering, a foul, decaying, dark valley engulfed in infernal fire. Sometimes, it is presented more mildly, as a place of purification, where souls go for a time to redeem sins.

So, if one goes to hell only after death and only for wrongdoing, why talk about it now, while we are still alive?

What if I told you that we are living in hell, here and now?

ILLUSION

We live in our beautifully organized human illusion. At first glance, it seems like hell is beneath us, deep underground, while we walk firmly on the surface, sometimes even soaring above it in balloons or airplanes. In other words, hell doesn’t concern us because we are alive. Some have it easier, others harder, but we live. Some of us are masters of life, and someone like the devil could never challenge them. In fact, no one can challenge them.

If I asked you to imagine being sent to the most rigorous, brutal prison—something like Alcatraz—where you would stay until the end of your days? Cut off from your loved ones, isolated from everything you enjoy, treated like an animal, confined to a small, dark cell, allowed out only once a day for fifteen minutes to get some air in a concrete yard, shackled at the hands and feet? You would never again board a plane, never take that dream vacation, never dip your feet in the sea. You would never see a forest or hear the singing of birds. Never again would you do what you truly desire, what you want in any given moment, as you would be completely subjected to prison discipline. Wouldn’t you call that hell on earth?

— Phew, good thing that will never happen to me, you might think.

But it is happening, now, in your life or in the lives of others, right before your eyes. You don’t have to die to end up in hell. More than that, you can live in seemingly „heavenly” conditions while actually burning in infernal flames—slowly, imperceptibly.

Nonsense!—you might object.

Let’s redefine what you know about hell…

PORCELAIN HEAVEN

Many of us have created our own kind of porcelain heaven—beautifully painted, shining. But beneath this fragile porcelain layer, hell often lurks. The hell of our porcelain illusion, our own personal Alcatraz.

In this hell, it is not the devil who sits on the throne, but our ego. Though it does not frighten us with its appearance, often masking itself as innocence, care, or false love, it is extremely cunning. Like a prison guard at Alcatraz, it ensures that we obey the rules.

The tools this Guard uses to keep us restrained in our narrow cell are: money, prestige, power, and achievements.

Going further, this hell is even worse than Alcatraz—because prisoners in Alcatraz know they are imprisoned. Whereas we often live in hell without even realizing it. You think you’re climbing the highest peaks, reaching for a better version of yourself, when in reality, you are moving further away from your true self, tightening the shackles on your soul even more. You walk the valley of forgetfulness, forgetting who you truly are.

Loans bind our hands, fame blinds us, power makes us cruel. Our eyes are trapped in the screens, occasionally looking up at the sky. Our bodies, carried around in metal cages, forget the beauty and boundlessness of movement, which enlivens our muscles and bones, accelerates our blood, and nourishes us. Money chains our legs, often preventing us from walking the path we truly desire, from doing what we truly love. We meet Mother Nature rarely—our small prison yard in between concrete.

THE HELL OF CONSTANT DISSATISFACTION

How many of us can say we feel truly happy? How many have never experienced real love or are stuck in total despair, depression? How many of us condition our happiness on „I’ll be happy if…”, „This hell will end when…”?

And just like that, our ego keeps us in chains, using one of the most effective torture tools: the feeling of constant dissatisfaction, the endless sense of lack, the never-ending chase for a better version of ourselves. Years spent fighting for a promotion, decades trying to build a supportive and harmonious relationship, a lifetime spent satisfying the ego’s desires.

And then, death—most often met with regret, bitterness, and the realization that we were never truly ourselves. That we were just a soul trapped in a human body, ruled by the ego, imprisoned in Alcatraz.

Yes, most of us live in hell without even realizing it. New promotions, a new car, a dream house, a perfect body, new jewelry, luxury vacations, another peak, another record—yet still, the relentless sense of emptiness, burning us like infernal fire.

Do you still doubt how many of us live in hell while still alive?

A rare few awaken—usually through experiencing hell in the form of severe illness, war, poverty, hunger, or a brush with death. For them, it is a chance for their soul to awaken from the illusion, to evolve, and to reclaim power over the ego.

Unfortunately, most of us live in hell without realizing it—numb, drugged by illusion. The ego of humanity has robbed us of our most precious gift: time for family, time for ourselves, time for our souls. Instead of being a free spirit filled with love, we are merely a body, in which the soul is tortured by the Guard of Alcatraz.

And though our physical body appears free and surrounded by luxury, our soul dies in a cramped cell.

Is this what we were striving for as human beings, as Divine beings?

The painting courtesy of the talented artist – Krzysztof Powałka
https://www.instagram.com/k.powalka_oilpaintings/