HELL

(Unless it is said otherwise, these ideas have been mostly gathered from Pekka Ervast!)

The least that can be said of hell by Kallistos Ware, English-born Orthodox Bishop: Hell exists as a possibility because free will exists. But because we trust in attraction of God's inexhaustible love, we dare to hope, no more than that, that in the end we'll discover there is nobody in hell. - "Love can't stand it. We must pray for all."

However, we understand that free choise between God's mercy and eternal damnation is logically impossible. It's not a question of freedom if there was no freedom from the very beginning. Man was not born voluntarily, he did not create the world and himself, nor this faith and this choice. So speaking of mercy from this point of view is mockery. If there was eternal damnation, every considering human being sees that everything is pointless. Because then such a horrible Satan would rule this humanity, that it would be shameful to adapt to demands of such an evil spirit in any way. Human dignity would say: "I'm rather in eternal damnation with those millions than in eternal bliss with those few people who can in their hearts and reason accept God who has made eternal damnation."
Man should let his conscience, reason and heart say: "Living God cannot be worse than man. Then it woudn't deserve God's name and it would be worthless to believe in."

God has always felt more pity and been more gentle than we ever have thought and been ourselves. All are equal after death; there is no difference between various religions and sects. In all old religions we find living faith, firstly, that man's life won't end in death. Secondly, this life after death is in many cases even great suffering and pain because of men's selfishness and evil. In early Christian times there was conception of seven heavens, seven different states of consciousness, that all belong to heavens; Three lowest ones were "unholy", also called hells. Origen was the most famous questioner of doctrine of hell. It was impossible for him to think that hell would be eternal, because then the will of Allmighty God to save all people would not come true. Besides, if anyone should go to eternal hell, Devil would partly win! He ended up thinking hell as a process to cure man to fit for heaven.

It is said there is eternal fire, but that's wrong translation. Greek word aionios doesn't mean never ending, but something lasting for some time, for an aeon, as long as our earth or our solar system will last.
When we say fire, we don't mean visible flame but some kind of so called chemical process which transforms objects and life forces. We know there are all kinds of chemical processes constantly going on. We must eat to survive, as if we put woods to fire. Our body is burning all the time. When we die, this chemical process is still going on and since it's not fed anymore, small particles will be transformed. Particles of the physical body vanish and we are united with the forces of nature. Therefore our body is already in aionic fire.

If I go to hell, the burning fire is in my soul. Fire in the spiritual world is a cleansing force. Only the pure gold is left - That which was good in man, no matter how small it might have been - and it becomes a cornerstone. A small seed will grow to huge tree.
After while souls move on, but fire stays: It burns for an aeon. Hell is first of all a state of soul. Hell, you see, is not eternal damnation, but rather the same as purgatory for Catholics. All people go to hell - either already here on earth or after death. Everyone has selfishness and evil, so how could a man go right up to heaven? Heaven would lose much of its attraction if all the faithfull forced their way up there with all their weaknesses and limitations. If John and Mary suddenly became angels, how much is there left of themselves?

Annie Besant points out how St. Gregory of Nyssa explained the parable of weeds (Mt.13:24-30) so that field is human heart in which good and bad are all mixed up during life, but in death a separation takes place: Bad is burnt and good is gathered in store, but both sides we must experience in life in order to grow internally.
Finnish Theosophist Väinö Valvanne wrote: "Everyone will be salted with fire" (Mk.9:49 NIV). Either he must purify himself by remorse or meditation, or the nature will do it against his will. Real love is fire which will burn out all worthless, but to him who denyes love and continues selfish life, it is a fire of devastation. Fire concerns all material, external; it won't effect on man's eternal essence, because it is as if a fire in itself. Fires of desires burn in the world, and as their counterbalance the fire of holiness - without them there would be no life.
"If salt loses its saltiness" (Mk.9:50 NIV), if soul has been like lifeless, when it lacks all independent activity - when it's neither hot nor cold - there is nothing in it that could resist death.

Hell is a disharmony of our spiritual essence with God. When we relate to all beautiful and good, spiritually healthy and pure, light and life, with disharmony, it will weigh us down to spiritual pain and misfortune. If man is committed to reality of senses so that he won't think of anything else, he may get stuck on physicality and be spiritually in hell. If there is love in your mind it will bring love to you life as well. That's the meaning of heaven. If there is fear in your mind it will bring fear to your life as well. That's the meaning of hell.

It may take rather long before the deceased will move away from that spiritual sphere which is connected to physical world. There comes a moment when they feel everything is indescribably dull and they'd like to work and be useful and good in some way. Then they will discover ahead something attractive and imperious. For some it may seem and feel like a fire and they know there is better life waiting behind that fire curtain. Purgatory attracts the deceased and heaven is behind it. Just because we don't really want to go to school, and we wish to enjoy our vices, just because of that it is hard after life, therefore there are so called hells or purgatories, whatever we wish to call them.