(14) We have seen above that one kind of spiritual hell is the forcible separation from worldly things to which the heart cleaves too fondly. Many carry about within them the germs of such a hell without being aware of it; hereafter they will feel like some king who, after living in luxury, has been dethroned and made a laughing stock. The second kind of spiritual hell is that of shame, when a man wakes up to see the nature of the actions he committed in their naked reality. Thus he who slandered will see himself in the guise of a cannibal eating his dead brother's flesh, and he who envied as one who cast stones against a wall, which stones, rebounding, put out the eyes of his own children.

(1) By these evil deeds of the destroyers of families, which result in the mixing of castes, the eternal dharmas of caste and family are uprooted. We have heard it said, O Janārdana, that inevitably the men whose family dharmas are destroyed dwell in hell.

(310) There is bad reputation, and the evil way (to hell), there is the short pleasure of the frightened in the arms of the frightened, and the king imposes heavy punishment; therefore let no man think of his neighbour's wife.

(22) On account of his senselessness, then, he is worse than a pagan, for the pagans know the way to go to their stone temple, which will perish, and they worship their idol, while their hearts are set on it because it is their hope. But to this senseless man the word has been preached, teaching him, "Seek and inquire about the ways you should go, since there is nothing else that is as good as this thing." The result is that the substance of hardness of heart strikes a blow upon his mind, along with the force of ignorance and the demon of error. They do not allow his mind to rise up, because he was wearying himself in seeking that he might learn about his hope.

(34) For those, who, on account of the favour they entertain for sins, are prone to pardon, suppose truth to be harshness, and severity to be savageness, and him who does not sin with them, and is not dragged with them, to be pitiless.

(10) Considering sacrifice and good works as the best, these fools know no higher good, and having enjoyed (their reward) on the height of heaven, gained by good works, they enter again this world or a lower one.

(15) This species of hell (i.e., of shame) may be symbolised by the following short parable: Suppose a certain king has been celebrating his son's marriage. In the evening the young man goes off with some companions and presently returns to the palace (as he thinks) intoxicated. He enters a chamber where a light is burning and lies down, as he supposes, by his bride. In the morning, when soberness returns, he is aghast to find himself in a mortuary of fire worshippers, his couch a bier, and the form which he mistook for that of his bride the corpse of an old woman beginning to decay. On emerging from the mortuary with his garments all soiled, what is his shame to see his father, the king, approaching with a retinue of soldiers! Such is a feeble picture of the shame those will feel in the next world who in this have greedily abandoned themselves to what they thought were delights.

(1) The pious are not numerous, however; nay, they are very few, so that they may be counted even in the world. Whence it doth come about, that in the many bad inheres, through defect of the Gnosis and Discernment of the things that are. For that it is from the intelligence of Godlike Reason, by which all things are ordered, there come to birth contempt and remedy of vice throughout the world. But when unknowingness and ignorance persist, all vicious things wax strong, and plague the soul with wounds incurable; so that, infected with them, and invitiated, it swells up, as though it were with poisons,—except for those who know the Discipline of souls and highest Cure of intellect.

(76) In this quality stands hell and eternal perdition, as also the eternal enmity and murderous den, and such a creature the devil is come to be.

(17) Those vain and conceited men who, impelled by the force of their lust and attachment, subject themselves to severe austerities not ordained by the scriptures, And, fools that they are, torture all their bodily organs, and Me, too, who dwell within the body— know that they are fiendish in their resolves.

(17) The evil-doer suffers in this world, and he suffers in the next; he suffers in both. He suffers when he thinks of the evil he has done; he suffers more when going on the evil path.

(2) Always therefore the good actions, as better, attach to the better and ruling spirit; and voluptuous and sinful actions are attributed to the worse, the sinful one.

(16) O Arjuna! Pretension, pride, self-conceit, anger, harshness, and ignorance belong to those who are born with demonical nature.

(1) Thus I descended out of the first circle Down to the second, that less space begirds, And so much greater dole, that goads to wailing. There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls; Examines the transgressions at the entrance; Judges, and sends according as he girds him. I say, that when the spirit evil-born Cometh before him, wholly it confesses; And this discriminator of transgressions Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it; Girds himself with his tail as many times As grades he wishes it should be thrust down. Always before him many of them stand; They go by turns each one unto the judgment; They speak, and hear, and then are downward hurled. "O thou, that to this dolorous hostelry Comest," said Minos to me, when he saw me, Leaving the practice of so great an office, "Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest; Let not the portal's amplitude deceive thee." And unto him my Guide: "Why criest thou too? Do not impede his journey fate-ordained; It is so willed there where is power to do That which is willed; and ask no further question."

(68) Into this great Misery Man is fallen; and he is fallen quite shome to the Kingdom of the Stars and Elements, as to his Body; what these do with him, that he is, and that stands in the Substance; they make one great, another small; one straight, another stooping and crooked; they send one Fortune and Riches, and another Poverty; of one they make a crafty subtle Man according to the Council and Kingdom of this World, and of another they make an Idiot; they make one a King, and they break and pull down another; one they kill, another they bring into the World; and they continually drive the Mind of Man, yet into nothing else but into vain Troubles, Discontent, and Vexation.

(7) 'Those whose conduct has been good, will quickly attain some good birth, the birth of a Brâhmana, or a Kshatriya, or a Vaisya. But those whose conduct has been evil, will quickly attain an evil birth, the birth of a dog, or a hog, or a Kandâla.

(4) Verily, this person, by being born and obtaining a body, is joined with evils. When he departs, on dying, he leaves evils behind.

(125) If a man offend a harmless, pure, and innocent person, the evil falls back upon that fool, like light dust thrown up against the wind.

(18) O Arjuna! bound by your own Karma, born of your own nature, that which in a deluded state you do not wish to do, even that you will do helplessly.

(28) Yet it could not be (how vigorously soever it was sought after) that Man (in his own Power) could enter into Paradise. And therefore poor captive Man must sit in this World in the Devil's murdering Den; where now the Devil has built his Chapel close by the Christian Church, and has quite destroyed the Love of Paradise, and has in the Stead of it set up mere covetous, proud, self-willed, [or self-conceited,] faithless, sturdy, malicious Blasphemers, Thieves and Murderers, which lift themselves up against Heaven and Paradise, and have built themselves a Kingdom according to the Dominion of the fierce sour [Stars or] Constellations, wherein they domineer (with Silver and Gold) and consume the Sweat one of another; whosoever is but able, oppresses the other to the Ground. And though he flies before him, yet then he only puts forth his Dragon's Tongue, and spits Fire upon him; he terrifies him with his harsh Voice, and plagues him Day and Night.