The Hell You Don't Know

Tōkatsu Hell is the shallowest part of Hell, where one goes due to the sin of 'killing living beings' (the sin of taking life). It is a Hell where people kill each other, tearing their bodies apart or smashing them to pieces.
Those who fall into Tōkatsu Hell are chased by jailers like red demons or blue demons, and are crushed with iron staffs or swords, 'dying' in Hell, but when a cool breeze blows from somewhere, all the dead come back to life.

'Tōkatsu' literally means 'to live equally.' Everyone comes back to life equally, and the killing begins again.

Tōkatsu Hell is a terrifying Hell where such things are eternally repeated. This is done to teach how grave a sin it is to kill others.

Reference: 'Considering Faith in Others' open_in_new 'The Path to Enlightenment' open_in_new

The hell that suicide victims go to is very similar to the hell of the living. Among suicide victims, there are many who do not even realize that they have died.

For someone who committed suicide by jumping from a building, even after death, they repeatedly go back to the rooftop and jump again and again. They think, "I died in a mess," but after a while, they come back to life and jump from the rooftop again.

For someone who committed suicide by hanging, even after death, they repeatedly hang themselves over and over again. Yet they cannot die, so they possess living people on the ground and make others hang themselves. In the hell that suicide victims go to, they repeatedly experience the moment of death over and over again.

Reference: 'Thinking About Other-Power Faith' open_in_new

Among suicide victims, there are many who are caught up in the people and things of this world, unable to fall into hell.

In cases where one commits suicide as an escape from this world or dies without knowing about the spiritual world, it is very difficult to return to heaven. Furthermore, such people may not accept even if angels come to persuade them.

Those who did not accept persuasion from others in this world will also find it difficult to accept in the afterlife.

Reference: ' The Law of Great Enlightenment open_in_new'

The hell of rogues is a shallow hell, a dim world like after sunset. As the name suggests, it is inhabited by wayward individuals. Alcoholics and those living a chaotic or broken life, neglecting their families.

This hell is dominated by the fear of not knowing when one's life will be taken.
Those who have the fear that 'everyone wants to harm me' or 'I might die, I might be persecuted' will repeatedly experience the fear of being killed by someone filled with anger in this world.

The characteristic of the hell of rogues is that 'even if killed, one cannot die.' This is true in other hells as well, as there is no actual physical body, so one cannot die.

However, they still think they have a body. When they are cut up, they feel some pain or the sensation of being killed, and think, 'Did I die?' but after a while, they return to their original state.

The hell of rogues is a hell where the fear from before death to the moment of death is repeatedly experienced. This 'fear' is also one element of hell.

Reference: 'The Complete Works of Ryuho Okawa' Volume 26 (not for sale)

One of the hells that modern people can easily fall into is 'the hell of hungry ghosts.' It is a place where many people appear like skeletons with thin arms, legs, and faces, with only their bellies protruding.

The people in this hell are filled with an insatiable desire.
They crave food as an expression of their desire for something to be given to them, but they are never satisfied. Those who had a strong desire to 'receive from others' or 'snatch away what belongs to others' become like this after death.

They crawl up rocky mountains, starving, and just when they find delicious-looking food and try to put it in their mouths, it turns into gas and bursts into flames, or they crawl around the desert, enduring thirst, and when they finally reach an oasis to drink water, that water evaporates and disappears.

Furthermore, as their temperament becomes more aggressive, some may eat other spirits who have fallen into the same hell of hungry ghosts. However, in the afterlife, there is no actual body, so the one they thought they 'ate' reappears. Even if they think they have escaped and try to eat again, their stomach never becomes full.

Whether there is a feeling of wanting to 'bite into a sweet deal and make it my own.' Whether one's heart is always occupied with an unsatisfied feeling. If you have such thoughts, you will end up in the hell of hungry ghosts after death.

Additionally, in the recent hell of hungry ghosts, there are forms where children have sandwiches, hamburgers, or toys and playthings, which are taken away by large adults.

Food and such are a symbol, representing 'the desire to obtain' and 'the fact that it cannot be obtained.'

Reference: 'Developmental Thinking' open_in_new

The 'Hell of Lust' near the Asura Hell is where those who have lived in a significantly wrong way in relationships between men and women go.

This is also the famous 'Hell of Blood Ponds,' where men and women engage in sexual entanglements 'eternally,' but their appearance is very unsightly, resembling many earthworms playing in a muddy rice field. Many people live thinking this is 'the best world.'

When one creates complicated relationships such as infidelity, love triangles, or physical relationships with unspecified others, their hearts become hellish due to jealousy.

This is also one of the hells that modern people can easily fall into, a world where those who have a strong tendency to stray in relationships between men and women go.

Reference: 'Developmental Thinking open_in_new'

Asura Hell is where those who blame and torment others or constantly speak ill of others go.

Due to their own dissatisfaction, they have the feeling that 'anyway, speaking ill of others or hurting others makes me feel better,' and they continue to speak ill for the sake of speaking ill. People who list the evils of society, government, and others, justifying themselves by blaming their misfortunes on others, as well as those in the media or journalism who hurt others with their words also go to this Asura Hell.

This hell is also populated by many former soldiers and those who killed each other in past wars. However, in modern times, as wars have decreased, they engage in mutual blame.

Eventually, they learn to use bows and arrows in the afterlife and start killing each other, but here too, even if they kill, the other does not die, so they repeat the act of hurting the other 'eternally.' They continue this until they are thoroughly fed up.

Furthermore, as a modern transformation of this hell, hospitals may appear.

In the past, demons would often appear, boiling people in hell's cauldron, crushing them with iron rods, or driving nails into them, but in modern times, hell has changed a bit, and there are places like hospitals within the Asura realm. When brought there, they go to a place like an intensive care unit, where doctors and nurses appear.
The doctors wear masks, but their mouths are slit from ear to ear. The patients scream, 'Stop it!' and struggle, but they are tied to the bed, dissected, and killed.

In Asura Hell, one repeatedly experiences cruel ways of being killed. This is because only fear experiences unfold in the person's mental imagery. They attract what they fear and only see that imagery.

Reference: 'Developmental Thinking' open_in_new 'The Law of Resurrection' open_in_new

There are people who fall not only into Asura Hell but also into a place called "Hell of Flames," where they are burned by flames every day, living a life of anguish and screams.

This is the hell where those who have burned others with the flames of desire, anger, or jealousy go.

Short-tempered people who get angry easily—when they hear something, they immediately get angry, lose their temper, and become uncontrollable. Then, when they come to their senses later, they do not even know what they were doing or why they were angry—there are many such people.

They may explain it by saying, "I am short-tempered," but that will inevitably have a backlash. The flames of anger hurt others and also damage their own essence as children of Buddha.

Reference: "The Era of Religious Choice" open_in_new

Among those who speak ill of others, there are extremely influential people who go to what is called "Hell of No Intermission," a very deep hell. They are isolated in a place where they are completely alone and do not meet anyone else.

People like public figures, thinkers, teachers, and founders who have great power and influence over others, and who have misled and driven people mad either ideologically or religiously, do not stop at Asura Hell but go even deeper. They descend not to the first basement but to the second and third basements, going to even deeper places.

The spiritual world considers the sin of "driving people's hearts mad" to be the greatest sin, even more so than physical mistakes like murder or material-related mistakes. This is because such people are far too dangerous.

Once they start to incite others, the negative impact on those around them is significant, so such people fall straight into deeper hells. This can also be said to indicate the heavy weight of their souls.

Furthermore, there is a realm called the demon world that primarily arises from the Hell of No Intermission. This is the world where the demon kings and satans of hell reside. They are the leaders among the spirits of hell, akin to the bosses of yakuza in the earthly realm.

Reference: "Development Thinking" open_in_new "What is Happy Science?" open_in_new

As the name suggests, in this hell, people’s bodies (or what is perceived as such) are burned by extreme heat.

From a volcanic crater, hot winds of sulfur blow up, and it is unbearably hot, a hell where people are scorched to death. There is also a more intense "Great Hell of Scorching Heat." Men and women, looking like mere bones wrapped in a single piece of cloth around their waists, wander the desert seeking water.

What characterizes this hell is the word "thirst." It is a world where people who have forgotten to give to others, driven by a mountain of desires, think only of what they want to obtain, living their lives consumed by desire.
The hearts of those who have lived with strong material desires, constantly feeling lack and dissatisfaction, create a mental landscape of "a scorching desert with hot winds blowing."

To be saved from the Hell of Scorching Heat, two things must be practiced.

One is to "perform acts of love towards others." The other is to "live each day with a heart that knows contentment, without being swayed by desires."

Reference: 'The Complete Works of Ryuho Okawa' Volume 26 (not for sale)

The people here no longer have human forms. Their faces may be human, but their bodies are various animals such as horses, cows, birds, snakes, or pigs.

Each takes on the form of an animal that matches their own nature. Some may even take on the form of bats flying in the sky, hanging upside down in caves. Those with strong suspicion take on the form of snakes, those who cannot suppress their desires take on the form of dogs, and those who have continued to deceive others take on the form of foxes, creating the Beast Hell.

Those here are people who lived thinking, "It doesn't matter what thoughts I have since the heart cannot be seen from the outside." If their hearts had been transparent when they had bodies, and everything was seen through, they would have been too embarrassed to show themselves in public. When they return to the world beyond, they realize that their hearts are all visible and that they will take on the form of their true hearts, and they are astonished.

Moreover, most of them, after spending hundreds of years in this hell, come to believe that they are that very animal. This is, in fact, the truth of what is called "possession by animal spirits."

Hell spirits who believe themselves to be snakes or foxes possess living humans, causing them suffering. When a spiritualist performs a "phenomenon," spirits that twist like snakes or mimic foxes speak in human language, which is mostly because they are human spirits who have fallen into Beast Hell.

Reference: "The Eternal Law open_in_new" "The Complete Works of Ryuho Okawa, Volume 26" (not for sale)

There is a hell deep down called "Hell of Black Ropes."

Hell of Black Ropes is a hell for those who have committed not only "killing" but also "theft." This means taking what has not been given.

Here, one is laid on a surface like a burning iron plate, marked with black ropes that are as hot as iron, engraved on all sides, and then their body is cut while burning.

Recently, it has become more modern, resembling an operating table in a surgeon's hospital. Even if the form is slightly different, it is still a hell where one is cut or severed by blades.

Moreover, from the ceiling, hot iron ropes hang down, and every time hot winds blow, they burn various parts of the body, creating such a hell.

Reference: "The Path to Enlightenment"

There is an even deeper hell called "Hell of Wailing and Screaming." Wailing and screaming, in other words, it is a very painful hell. There are degrees to this wailing and screaming, with places called "Hell of Wailing and Screaming" and "Great Hell of Wailing and Screaming."

A typical person who falls into the Great Hell of Wailing and Screaming is one who has committed the "Five Great Sins." The "Five Great Sins" are the following five.

1. Killing one's father.
2. Killing one's mother.
3. Killing a monk who has the qualifications of an Arhat or higher, such as a sister or priest in Christianity, who is training to reach a place close to the Buddha or gods.
4. Harming the Buddha.
5. Causing confusion in the community established by the Buddha.(If one commits any of these, it is called the "sin of destroying the harmonious monkhood").

Anyone who commits any of these five sins will fall into the Great Avici Hell.

In addition to this, those who, while being practitioners, steal, commit robbery or rape, or deceive people by claiming to be enlightened when they are not, also fall into this category.

Those who commit such extremely deep sins enter the Great Avici Hell. Once in, they cannot escape for over a thousand years.
There, all kinds of hellish sufferings exist. Those who enter there are skinned alive, then laid on burning ground, and have molten substances like burning copper or iron poured over their bodies.

After that, their mouths are opened with something like golden scissors, and melted copper-like substances are poured inside, which then come out from the anus, experiencing such terrifying suffering.

Those who have persecuted and devastated religions in the past are placed among such sins. Such hells exist in deep places.

Reference: "The Path to Enlightenment" open_in_new