Eight Great Textbooks | Daily Inspiration

He Preached to the Spirits in Prison

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 579

Yet the way of the Unification Church
is different. For what purpose do we eat?
For the sake of the world and to abolish
this evil world. We see in order to clean
up this evil world – not to become a part
of the evil side but to defeat it. How we
hear, think, walk and act is different
from the secular world. (36-71, 1970.11.15)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1099

From a principled viewpoint, the
day of celebration and hope that human
beings long for the most is not the day
when they were born or the day they get
married, or the day you, as a citizen who
lost your nation, recovered your nation,
or even the day of your nation’s indepen-
dence. You should know that the great-
est day of hope, the day that humanity
truly longs for, is God’s Day and Parents’
Day. The establishment of such a day on
the earth has become our deepest wish.
Once God’s Day and True Parents’ Day
are established, then this naturally leads
to Children’s Day and the Day of All
Things. (92-252, 1977.4.18)

Hell

3. Rescuing Souls from Hell

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righ-
teous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us
to God, being put to death but made alive in the
spirit; in which went and preached to the spirits
in prison.
1 Peter 3.18-19
As for those who will be wretched, they will be
in the Fire, sighing and wailing will be their por-
tion; they will abide there as long as the heavens
and the earth endure, save for that which your
Lord wills. Lo! Your Lord is the Doer of what
He will.
And as for those who will be glad, they will
be in the Garden; they will abide there as long as
the heavens and the earth endure, save for that
which your Lord wills—a gift unfailing. 23
Qur’an 11.106-08
When Allah has finished His Judgments among
the people, He will take whomever He will out
of Hell through His Mercy… They will come
out of the Fire, completely burnt and then the
water of life will be poured over them and they
will grow under it as does a seed that comes in
the mud of the torrent…
Those people will come out like pearls, and
they will have (golden) necklaces, and then
they will enter Paradise whereupon the people
of Paradise will say, “These are the people
emancipated by the Beneficent. He has admitted
them into Paradise without them having done
any good deeds and without sending forth any
good (for themselves).”
Hadith of Bukhari 9.93.532 (Islam)

“Ho! servant of Yama! Say, what sin have I com-
mitted, for which I have incurred this deepest
hell, frightful for its torments? Known as King
Vipascit, I protected the earth with upright-
ness; I let no fighting rage; no guest departed
with averted countenance; nor did I offend the
spirits of the ancestors, the gods, ascetics, or my
servants; nor did I covet other men’s wives, or
wealth, or aught else belonging to them. How,
then, have I incurred this very terrible hell?”
Yama’s officer: “Come then, we go elsewhere.
You have now seen everything, for you have seen
hell. Come then, let us go elsewhere.”
Thereupon the king prepared to follow
him; but a cry went up from all the men that
abode in torment: “Be gracious, O king! Stay
but a moment, for the air that clings to thy
body gladdens our mind and entirely dispels the
burning and the sufferings and pains from our
bodies, O tiger-like man! Be gracious, O king!”
Vipascit: “Neither in heaven nor in Brahma’s
world do men experience such joy as arises from
conferring bliss on suffering creatures. If, while
I am present, torment does not hurt these men,
here then will I remain, firm as a mountain.”
Yama’s officer: “Come, O king; we proceed.
Enjoy the delights won by your own merit; leave
here the evildoers to their torments.”
Vipascit, “As long as these beings are in sore
suffering, I will not go. From my presence the
denizens of hell grow happy. Fie on the sickly
protection-begging life of that man who shows
no favor to one distressed, even though he be a
resolute foe! Sacrifices, gifts, austerities do not
work for the welfare of him who has no thought
for the succor of the distressed… To grant
deliverance to these men excels, I consider, the
joy of heaven. If many sufferers shall obtain
happiness while only I undergo pain, shall I not
in truth embrace it?”
Dharma [the Law]: “These evil-doers
have come to hell in consequence of their own
deeds; you also, O king, must go to heaven in
consequence of your meritorious deeds. I lead
you to heaven; mount this heavenly chariot and
linger not; let us go.”
Vipascit: “Men in thousands, O Dharma,
suffer pain here in hell; and being in affliction
they cry to me to save them; hence I will not
depart.”
Dharma: “O king! Your merit is truly beyond
reckoning. In evincing now this compassion
here in the hells, your merit has amounted even
higher. Come, enjoy the abode of the immortals;
let these unfortunates consume away in hell the
sin arising from their own actions!”
Vipascit: “Whatever good deeds I possess,
O Lord of the Thirty Gods, by means thereof
let the sinners who are undergoing torment be
delivered from hell!”
Indra: “So be it, O king! You have gained an
even more exalted station: see too these sinners
delivered from hell!”
Markandeya Purana 13-15 (Hinduism)

This Means You Are Not Certain Whether or Not Hell Truly Exists

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Exodus 23

²⁵Worship only me, the Lord your God! I will bless you with plenty of food and water and keep you strong. ²⁶Your women will give birth to healthy children, and everyone will live a long life.

Obadiah

¹²Why did you celebrate
when such a dreadful disaster
    struck your relatives?
Why were you so pleased
when everyone in Judah
    was suffering?
¹³They are my people,
    and you were cruel to them.
You went through their towns,
sneering
and stealing
    whatever was left.
¹⁴In their time of torment,
    you ambushed refugees
and handed them over
    to their attackers.

¹⁵The day is coming
when I, the Lord,
will judge the nations.
And, Edom, you will pay in full
for what you have done.

Hell

2. Warnings About Hell

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

People can never escape from hell; they are trapped there forever. Yet, do you realize that your own mother, father and relatives will likely end up going to hell? You vaguely think that things will somehow work out. However, the reality is that your beloved parents and relatives are headed for hell. In this life, if they should go to prison, wouldn’t you cry out desperately and do whatever it takes to free them?

Yet truly, your own children, parents, siblings and kinfolk are bound for an eternal prison from which there is no escape. If you really knew that, wouldn’t you feel desperate to save them? This means you are not certain whether or not hell truly exists. You might think that it probably exists, but you really do not know what it is like. Now you may be uncertain, but once you die you will know for sure. Then it will be too late. (34:267, September 13, 1970)

What would happen if God were to bring all believers to heaven, even though they were ignorant of heaven’s laws and [had not prepared themselves to fit with] the structure of the ideal realm? They would face difficulties living there. (390:260, August 13, 2002)

God’s mind has room to accommodate everyone; He wants to welcome every human being to live within His mind. But should He open the door to wicked people and permit them to enter His domain? Or should He close the door and keep them out? This is God’s problem.

God abides at the highest place, where everyone wants to enter. However, the mind of God has many levels, with walls or mountains separating them. This is the reality of the spirit world: there are many different levels, each walled off from the next. On one side of the wall is hell; on the other side is heaven. Should the spirit world have walls? Or shouldn’t they exist? What do you think?

In the spirit world, groups of people with the same mindset live together; this creates a wall. It is very difficult to go up to the next higher level, and nearly as hard to go down. Most people cannot even dream of leaving their limited domain. Only the most highly developed spirits can freely travel down to the hells and back. They have the mind of God, who wants to embrace all people.

Yet God’s situation is difficult. The people on His right are good, while the people on His left are bad. Although He wants to embrace good and bad alike, He has no other choice but to separate them. God declares, “Anyone who is greedy and selfish will be placed upside-down.” Don’t you think this will happen to you if you are self-centered and insist on your own way? Self-centered people think nothing of trampling and beating up others as they scramble to reach the top. They would push away the good people and leave them in misery. Therefore, God sets up walls between the different regions of the spirit world, to keep the evil spirits from breaking through. These walls are absolutely necessary. Were evil spirits given freedom and equality with good spirits, they would cause such havoc in heaven that even God would have to escape.

The only way to avoid being blocked by walls in the spirit world is to train yourself during your earthly life. Once you get to the spirit world, it will take tens of thousands of years to climb up each step. (November 4, 1990)

The perfection of man and woman is for the two to abide in love with God as the third—the unity of a man, a woman and God. Yet ever since the Human Fall, not one human being could reach that exalted state of love. Having fallen into a world of darkness, don’t people nevertheless aspire to regain the heights? The goal of true love is extremely high, but in reality the standard of human life is extremely low. Knowing the ideal but recognizing that they live very far from it, people feel heartbreak, emptiness and misery. That is truly hell. (92:197, April 10, 1977)

Neither Will They be Convinced if Someone Should Rise From the Dead

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Cheong Seong Gyeong 2450

What do we mean when we refer to
the ideal family of the original creation?
The ideal family of the original creation
is made up of the Heavenly Father-King,
the king of the spiritual kingdom and
the king of the earthly kingdom; in oth-
er words the king of heaven and the king
of the earth. That is why you are princes.
What is the ideal family? The past rep-
resents God, the earth represents the
present, and the children are the princ-
es of the future. So the Cheon Bu Wang,
the Heavenly Father-King stands in the
place of God; the Earthly Father-King
and Mother-Queen stand in the place
of the father and the mother; and the
children stand in the place of the princ-
es, that is, the place of sons and daugh-
ters. So looking at the three generations
as one family, the grandparents repre-
sent God, the earthly father-king and
the earthly mother-queen represent the
parents; and their sons and daughters
become princes and princesses. Thus,
each of these three generations is repre-
sentatives of kingship. If we talk about
the grandparents we are talking about
the past, if we talk about the parents,
we are talking about the present, and if
we talk about the children, we are talk-
ing about the future. When these are all
linked together, the past, the present and
the future are all connected in them. (219-
244, 1991.9.8)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1083

Health is the most important thing.
Even if you are sick with a cold, you
should have healthy feelings. It is impor-
tant to practice having a facial expres-
sion that betrays nothing to other peo-
ple. Even if you have a cold, you should
not look sick or appear worried when
you are facing some difficulties. When a
man looks worried, you should ask what
is wrong and comfort him, always with
a happy expression. (131-283, 1984.5.3)

Hell

2. Warnings about Hell

Rivalry in worldly increase distracts you
Until you visit the graves.
Nay, but you will come to know!
Again, you will come to know!
Would that you knew now with certainty of
mind!
For you will behold hell-fire;
Indeed, you will behold it with sure vision.
Then, on that day, you will be asked
concerning pleasure.
Qur’an 102

There was a rich man, who was clothed in pur-
ple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously
every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named
Lazarus, full of sores, who desired to be fed with
what fell from the rich man’s table; moreover
the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor
man died and was carried by the angels to
Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and
was buried; and in Hades, being in torment,
he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off
and Lazarus in his bosom. And he called out,
“Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and
send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water
and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this
flame.” But Abraham said, “Son, remember that
you in your lifetime received your good things,
and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now
he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.
And besides all this, between us and you a great
chasm has been fixed, in order that those who
would pass from here to you may not be able,
and none may cross from there to us.”
And he said, “Then I beg you, father, to send
him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers,
so that he may warn them, lest they also come
into this place of torment.” But Abraham said,
“They have Moses and the prophets; let them
hear them.” And he said, “No, father Abraham;
but if some one goes to them from the dead,
they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do
not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will
they be convinced if someone should rise from
the dead.”
Luke 16.19-31

In the garden of the city of Sieu-Shui-Siuen,
there once lived a man by the name of Fan Ki,
who led a wicked life. He induced men to stir up
quarrels and lawsuits with each other, to seize
by violence what did not belong to them, and
to dishonor other men’s wives and daughters.
When he could not succeed easily in carrying
out his evil purposes, he made use of the most
odious stratagems.
One day he died suddenly, but came back to
life twenty-four hours afterward and bade his wife
gather together their relatives and neighbors.
When all were assembled he told them that he
had seen the king of the dark realm who said
to him, “Here the dead receive punishment for
their deeds of evil. The living know not the lot
that is reserved for them. They must be thrown
into a bed of coals whose heat is in proportion to
the extent of their crimes and to the harm they
have done their fellows.”
The assembled company listened to this
report as to the words of a feverish patient; they
were incredulous and refused to believe the story.
But Fan Ki had filled the measure of crime, and
Yama, the king of hell, had decided to make an
example of him so as to frighten men from their
evil ways. At Yama’s command Fan Ki took a
knife and mutilated himself, saying, “This is my
punishment for inciting men to dissolute lives.”
He put out both his eyes, saying, “This is my
punishment for having looked with anger at my
parents, and at the wives and daughters of other
men with lust in my heart.” He cut off his right
hand, saying, “This is my punishment for having
killed a great number of animals.” He cut open
his body and plucked out his heart, saying, “This
is my punishment for causing others to die under
tortures.” And last of all he cut out his tongue to
punish himself for lying and slandering.
The rumor of these occurrences spread afar,
and people came from every direction to see the
mangled body of the unhappy man. His wife and
children were overcome with grief and shame,
and closed the door to keep out the curious
crowd. But Fan Ki, still living by the ordeal of
Yama, said in inarticulate sounds, “I have but
executed the commands of the king of hell, who
wants my punishment to serve as a warning to
others. What right have you to prevent them
from seeing me?”
For six days the wicked man rolled upon the
ground in the most horrible agonies, and at the
end of that time he died.
Treatise on Response and Retribution (Taoism)

Hell Is a Place Where Everyone Is Totally Self-Centered

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1 Peter 4

²Dear friends, don’t be surprised or shocked that you are going through testing that is like walking through fire. ¹³Be glad for the chance to suffer as Christ suffered. It will prepare you for even greater happiness when he makes his glorious return.

Ezekiel 22

¹⁷The Lord said:

¹⁸Ezekiel, son of man, I consider the people of Israel as worthless as the leftover metal in a furnace after silver has been purified. ¹⁹So I am going to bring them together in Jerusalem. ^20-21I will be like a metalworker who collects that metal from the furnace and melts it down. I will collect the Israelites and blow on them with my fiery anger. They will melt inside the city of Jerusalem ²²like silver in a furnace. Then they will know that I, the Lord, have punished them in my anger.

Hell

Torments of Hell

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Hell is a place where everyone is totally self-centered, each insisting that he or she is the best and highest. With that attitude, they argue and fight continually. (360:185, November 16, 2001)

Hell is the realm of Satan’s love. Satan adores only hatred, jealousy, division and destruction. That is why only these things fill Satan’s realm. These characteristics of Satan manifest as wars. (214:282, February 3, 1991)

Hell is full of people who are proud of their power, their money and themselves. A person’s original mind desires to love and be loved, and to pursue goodness. The people living in hell do just the opposite, and face continual conflict. Yet being in hell does not remove the human desire to be loved. Actually, the yearning for love is felt even more strongly. (102:160, December 17, 1978)

What, then, will you do in the afterlife? Will you eat? Yes, you will eat. But it should be centered on love. Those who do not have love cannot open their mouths, no matter how much they try. That is the law. If you love only yourself and not the whole, you may try to eat, but your mouth will not open. If you try to eat with chopsticks, the chopsticks will swerve sharply to the right or the left. It is a miserable existence. In the spirit world, anything is possible with love, but only with love. Otherwise, nothing is possible. (207:94-95, November 1, 1990)

In the spirit world, most people dwell in various levels of hell. How did they end up living there? Some failed to practice filial piety as befits good sons and daughters. Some had the mission of patriots yet did not fulfill their mission and live for the sake of their country. Some were chosen to become saints and live for the sake of the world, but they did not attune themselves to that rhythm and hence failed to reach that level. (147:183-84, September 21, 1986)

The accusations we could face in the spirit world are far more fearful than the severest persecution on earth. Because I know that earthly persecution, no matter how heavy, is easier to endure than the accusations in the spirit world, I am clear about the path I should go. (189:247, April 9, 1989)

Heaven is a world of light, and hell is a world of darkness. You may have enjoyed your earthly life, but once you arrive in hell the darkness will quickly overcome you. It is like drinking: for awhile you are in high spirits, but later you feel regret as your conscience tells you it was the wrong thing to do. It will also ask, “Where are you going?” People who suffer continually from pangs of conscience belong to the world of darkness. If only their conscience were pleased with them; then they would display the original nature within themselves to relate to the world of light. (400:104, December 28, 2002)

This world is in chaos. How about the spirit world? The same confused people live there; therefore, the spirit world must likewise be in chaos. It is logical. A thief with a criminal record cannot just drop his bad habits when he crosses over to the spirit world. There too he would be a thief, wanting to own things without making effort to earn them. People like him are unable to fit in with heaven, so they went off and formed the realms of hell. God did not create hell. Human beings formed hell. Do people design their new house to be a garbage dump? No! They build a nice house, but after living in it for a while it becomes like a garbage dump. Hell is like that. (148:28, October 4, 1986)

Many people on earth think that there are only two different places: heaven and hell. But in reality there are many different levels, from very evil places to very good places. Heaven is a place of com-fort, but life in any of the levels below heaven is difficult and uncomfortable because the people fight each other continually, everyone insisting on their own opinion. Each region is filled with people who are of the same type, so after awhile living there becomes tedious.

For example, people who on earth were accustomed to stealing things dwell in a region of the spirit world where people are always suspicious, thinking that everyone around them is looking to steal from them. Their lives are forever filled with distrust and anxiety. Likewise, people who on earth were accustomed to fighting live in a region where fighting goes on continually…

If you descend further into the lower regions, you come to regions of hell that are suffocating, dark and scary. They smell horribly, worse than the smell of rotten meat or fish. Deformed figures appear in front of you, biting each other, yelling at each other with hate-filled voices. There is a region filled with burning holes, and in each one a wrathful person is held fast. The worst regions are reserved for those who were sexually corrupt or who committed suicide. They seem to be filled with snakes, but on close examination each snake is an ugly deformed human being slithering about. People living on the earth do not realize how frightening the regions of hell really are. They would not be able to stand it even for a minute…

From the Kingdom of Heaven to hell, the various regions of the spirit world have colors of differing hues. The Kingdom of Heaven is a bright realm, transparent and white. It is without any stain, clean like flawless white jade. But as we descend the colors become darker and darker and dirtier—first beige, then darker shades of purple. Descending to still lower regions the color becomes brown, then gray, dark gray, black, and pitch black. The more sins committed, the darker the color. Also, spirits who committed many sins with a certain part of their body show dirtier and darker colors on that part. (Heung Jin Moon, Message from the Spirit World, January 1, 2002)

People who denied God on earth are more pitiful than people who starve to death. Those who died of hunger may, depending on their merit, be granted a certain standing in the other world. But atheists have no standing because they deny the spirit world exists. They become wandering spirits, wandering about the spirit world like clouds. Just as clouds gather and produce rain, they gather and create evil influence. They dwell in hell and inflict pains there. (205:355, October 2, 1990

Some of the Sinful Are Cut With Saws

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 578

We are headed for a certain destina-
tion whether we know it or not, even as
we move and even as we rest. Not just
you, but this nation, this world and even
heaven and earth are headed there as
well. This is an undeniable fact.
Where will you go after this life?
This is an important issue that people
must resolve. Religions and philosophies
arose historically to do this. You, there-
fore, cannot deny that you, too, are all
caught up and driven by this destiny.
That being always the case, where
are our bodies and minds trying to go?
Further, where are our lives inclined
towards and where are our hearts try-
ing to go? Our wishes, hopes, and ide-
als…Where are they trying to go? Even
if we cannot resolve these issues, we are
destined to go in any case.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1915

The era of the Pacific civilization is
coming, because Western Civilization
and oriental civilization must recover
the lost body of the father. Jesus came as
the father, but the body of that father was
killed. We must recover this body and
make it one with the legacy of spiritual
salvation within the sphere of Christi-
anity. That is why the Lord comes to the
East. Centering on the coming Lord, the
Korean peninsula is like Italy. Until now,
Italy has never been destroyed. For over
two thousand years, it has survived as
a powerful nation. That is because Italy
is a counterpart nation for the coming
Lord. Based on that standard, the Lord
returns to the Pacific era, centering on
this Korean peninsula; but it is the Pacif-
ic Ocean era rather than the Mediterra-
nean Sea era. He returns to the vast envi-
ronment of Asia through the connection
of the Korean peninsula. If the Korean
peninsula is the male sexual organ, then
Japan is the female sexual organ. They
are bound to become one. The age of a
unified world comes when they are unit-
ed. That is why Korea is called the Adam
nation, and Japan the Eve nation. (251-147,
1993.10.17)

Hell

No one likes to thing that they or their loved ones are destined for hell. yet it is a painful truth that most people live out their lives far away from the original standard of God’s love. the human condition is too often this: we allow our thoughts and desires to be captive to the will of the flesh; our mentality is continually self-seeking; we habitually ignore the promptings of conscience. We betray those we love and then run away from facing the consequences, as well as the truth about ourselves. having lived this way for seventy-plus years, is there any hope of fitting in to the crystal-clear society of heaven?

What is hell? some traditions describe it as a place deep underground, with rivers of fire and sulfur. some say that hell is but a state of mind, yet as anyone knows who has experienced the pangs of intense loneliness, remorse, shame, guilt, or loss, such states of mind can be excruciatingly vivid. Furthermore, it is said that in the spirit world it will not be possible to avoid such feelings, as is usually done while in the body, through such devices as forgetting, rationalization, or losing oneself in sense-pleasures or drink. there is no respite from unpleasant feelings, which remain to torture the unfortunate soul continually. to describe such pain beyond comprehension, scriptures use concrete images: burning fire, boiling water, bitter cold, being crushed, hacked and dismembered, trampled, burned, and eaten alive.

We conclude with several passages that hold out the possibility of rescue from hell. the eastern religions regard all states of hell as purgatories, designed to mete out punishments for a period of time, that evil karma might be burned up and the soul have a future opportunity to find the path. Father Moon teaches that God did not create hell; indeed its very existence is an affront to God’s goodness and a nail driven into his loving heart. if we have sufficient love, we will do whatever it takes to turn others away from hell. We will even, like Jesus who “harrowed hell” during his three days in the tomb or the Hindu hero Vipascit, rescue the people imprisoned in its dungeons.

1. Torments of Hell

Hell, where their worm does not die, and the
fire is not quenched.
Mark 9.47-48

As for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted,
as for murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idola-
ters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake
that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the sec-
ond death.
Revelation 21.8

There is a stream of fire from which emerge
poisonous flames.
There is none else there except the self.
The waves of the ocean of fire are aflame
And the sinners are burning in them.
Adi Granth, Maru Solahe, M.1, p. 1026 (Sikhism)

Hell is before him, and he is made to drink fes-
tering water, which he sips but can hardly swal-
low. Death comes to him from every side, yet he
cannot die—before him is a harsh doom.
Qur’an 14.15-16

Hell will lurk in ambush
to receive home the arrogant,
who will linger there for ages.
They will taste nothing cool in it nor any drink
except hot bathwater and slops,
a fitting compensation
since they have never expected any reckoning
and have wittingly rejected Our signs.
Everything We have calculated in writing.
“So taste! Yet We shall only increase torment
for you!”
Qur’an 78.21-30

Some of the sinful are cut with saws, like fire-
wood, and others, thrown flat on the ground,
are chopped into pieces with axes. Some, their
bodies half buried in a pit, are pierced in the
head with arrows. Others, fixed in the middle
of a press, are squeezed like sugarcane. Some
are surrounded close with blazing charcoal,
enwrapped with torches, and smelted like a lump
of ore. Some are plunged into heated butter, and
others into heated oil, and like a cake thrown
into the frying pan they are turned about. Some
are thrown in the path of huge maddened ele-
phants, and some with hands and feet bound
are placed head downwards. Some are thrown
into wells; some are hurled from heights; others,
plunged into pits full of worms, are eaten away
by them…
Having experienced in due order the
torments below, he comes here again,
purified. 21
Garuda Purana 3.49-71 (Hinduism)

Then the man of unwholesome deeds boils
in water infested with worms. He cannot stay
still—the boiling pots, round and smooth like
bowls, have no surfaces which he can get hold
of. Then he is in the jungle of sword blades,
limbs mangled and hacked, the tongue hauled
by hooks, the body beaten and slashed. Then
he is in Vetarani, a watery state difficult to
get through, with its two streams that cut like
razors. The poor beings fall into it, living out
their unwholesome deeds of the past. Gnawed
by hungry jackals, ravens and black dogs, and
speckled vultures and crows, the sufferers
groan. Such a state is experienced by the man
of unwholesome deeds. It is a state of absolute
suffering. So a sensible person in this world is as
energetic and mindful as he can be.
Sutta Nipata 672-76 (Buddhism)

There men were dismembering one another,
cutting off each of their limbs, saying, “This
to you, this to me!” When asked about it, they
replied, “In this way they have treated us in the
other world, and in the same way we now treat
them in return.”
Satapatha Brahmana 11.6.3 (Hinduism)

There are divers regions in the hollows on the
face of the globe everywhere, some of them
deeper and also wider than that which we
inhabit, others deeper and with a narrower
opening than ours, and some are shallower and
wider; all have numerous perforations, and pas-
sages broad and narrow in the interior of the
earth, connecting them with one another; and
there flows into and out of them, as into basins,
a vast tide of water, and huge subterranean
streams of perennial rivers, and springs hot and
cold, and a great fire, and great rivers of fire, and
streams of liquid mud, thin or thick… pour into
a vast region of fire, and form a lake larger than
the Mediterranean Sea, boiling with water and
mud; and proceeding muddy and turbid, and…
after making many coils about the earth plunge
into Tartarus…
And when the dead arrive at the place to
which the genius of each severally conveys them,
first of all they have sentence passed upon them,
as they have lived well and piously or not… Those
who appear to be incurable by reason of the
greatness of their crimes—who have committed
many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders
foul and violent, or the like—they are hurled
into Tartarus, which is their suitable destiny,
and they never come out. Those again who have
committed crimes, which, although great, are
not unpardonable—who in a moment of anger,
for example, have done violence to a father or
mother, and have repented for the remainder of
their lives, or who have taken the life of another
under like extenuating circumstances—these
are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which
they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at
the end of the year the wave casts them forth…
and they are borne to the Acherusian Lake, and
there they lift up their voices and call upon the
victims whom they have slain or wronged, to
have pity on them, and to receive them, and to
let them come out of the river into the lake. And
if they prevail, then they come forth and cease
from their troubles; but if not, they are carried
back again into Tartarus and from thence into
the rivers unceasingly, until they obtain mercy
from those whom they have wronged: for that
is the sentence inflicted upon them by their
judges.
Plato, Phaedo (Hellenism)