Hope in Hell

by Nuria

I have been watching a disturbing series on Netflix called The Sandman, which has profoundly affected me, especially the episode known as Hope in Hell. This is my personal feeling and reaction to the tale.

In it, Lucifer Morningstar (ruler of Hell) is pitted against Morpheus (the Sandman), ruler of the dream realm. Morpheus voluntarily visited Hell to retrieve his helm (one of his tools) from a demon. Lucifer is seen as tall, blond, beautiful, and powerful – a fallen angel dressed in black armour with black wings. He is visiting Hell and can leave anytime but must retrieve his helm (a black magical helmet or mask). He cannot leave until he achieves this. As a result, Lucifer and Morpheus have a powerful battle of wits. It is magnificent.

Lucifer manifests all the most terrifying aspects of death, the anti-life, the dark at the end of everything, which Morpheus counters with the universe and everything that is life-embracing. Lucifer brings everything life-destroying against him – even a nova – the end of a star.

Morpheus is almost defeated by despair, but his raven hops up and tells him that the only thing that can survive this is the dreaming of Morpheus himself. Morpheus is not yet fully realised and does not react. He remains unmoved and seems defeated.

The raven tells Morpheus that he (Morpheus) could never leave him (the raven) in Hell like that – the raven had willingly accompanied Morpheus into that horrendous place. The raven does not belong in Hell and has accompanied Morpheus out of love and loyalty. After a while, Morpheus stirs himself and responds to Lucifer with one word - hope.

Hell is a place where hope does not exist - hope has no place in Hell, so Morpheus wins. The faith and optimism of the raven allowed Morpheus to realise hope. As soon as Lucifer is defeated, Lucifer tells the demon to return to Morpheus his helm.

What is Hell? It is not a place, although many religions describe both Heaven and Hell and all that they say and is written is taken literally by the faithful. Heaven abounds in milk and honey for those who live in the desert.

In the Christian religion, one is condemned to Hell for serious unrepented ‘sins’ (mortal sins). Being condemned to Hell is forever with no hope of ever being released. But the Sufis perceive Heaven and Hell differently.

The Hūris believed by Muslims to exist in the heavenly realm are the heavenly expressions of beauty that they saw on earth appearing before the eye, which was open while on earth, admiring the divine immanence. ‘God is beautiful, and He loves beauty,’ as it is said in the Hadith. The whole creation was made so that the beauty within the Creator might manifest in His creation and be witnessed. Honey is the essence of all flowers. The essence of the whole being is wisdom. Wisdom is the honey which is found in Heaven. Milk is the pure and essential substance prepared in the breast of the Mother. The essential sustenance of our being is the Spirit which is pure like milk; symbolically, we drink that milk by which our soul is nourished.

‘There is a different Heaven and Hell for each person in accordance with his grade of evolution. What is Heaven to one person may be Hell to another. A poor person might think it Heaven to live in a comfortable house and drive a car, while a king might find it Hell to live in a rich merchant's house.’1

‘Every person creates their own Heaven and Hell. A disciple once asked his Murshid, 'Pray, Murshid, let me see Heaven in a vision.' The Murshid said, 'Go into the next room, child, and sit and close your eyes and you will see Heaven.' The mureed went into the next room and sat in meditation. He saw in his vision a large area but nothing else. There were no rivers of honey and seas of milk, nor bricks of ruby, nor roofs of diamonds. He went to his Murshid and said, 'Thank you, Murshid. Now I have seen Heaven, I should like to see Hell.'

The Murshid said, 'Very well; do the same again.'

The disciple went into the next room and sat in his meditation, and again he saw a large area, but nothing in it, no snakes, no fire, no devils, nor cruel animals, nothing. He went to the Murshid and said, 'I saw an area, but again there was nothing in it.' The Murshid said, 'Child, did you expect that the rivers of honey and the seas of milk would be there, or the snakes or the fire in Hell? No. There is nothing there. You will have to take everything from here. This is the place to gather everything, either the delights of Heaven or the fires of Hell.' 2

'Heaven is the vision of fulfilled desire, and hell the shadow of a soul on fire,' says Omar Khayyam.

‘Our self, in reality, is Heaven if blessed by divine mercy, and it is our self which is Hell if cursed by the divine wrath. The seven gates spoken of in the Quran are the seven openings of our senses, through which gates we experience our Heaven or Hell, and the seven pinnacles mean the seven planes of man's existence, which have each its peculiar Heaven and its peculiar Hell.

God does not reward or punish us, nor is there a place or enclosure called Heaven where the virtuous are allowed to be, and another called Hell in which the sinners are penned. In reality, we experience Heaven and Hell in our everyday life all the time. But here, we experience both dream states and outer physical life. There is always the possibility of change. If we experience Hell now, tomorrow it may be Heaven.

Each person makes their own Heaven and Hell. When a person does an action with which his conscience is not pleased, the impression remains with him, torturing him continually and keeping the agonies that he experiences before his eyes. This life is the place to gather everything that we bring to the next life. Either the delights of Heaven or the fires of Hell.’

So why would Morpheus be willing to enter Hell to get his helm? When I think of the times I have been in Hell, I realise with hindsight, that I learned a lot from these experiences, and what I learned could be used as a tool in later life, even in understanding and realising evil. 2 Ibid p58

Morpheus had gone into Hell to retrieve his magical helm, which a demon had stolen. When he finally found hope, the demon was forced to return the helm and was thrown into the fiery pit to his doom. Morpheus could now leave Hell with his raven. He now had the tool the demon had stolen from him – he had recovered what he came for.

Suffering would have no sting if humans did not dream of escaping it. Desire (attachment) is the root of all suffering. It was the original cause of the imprisonment of Morpheus, when the world slept and did not dream.

The scene showing the battle of wits between Lucifer and Morpheus has imprinted itself on my mind, and I have been grappling with the feelings it has brought out in me ever since. There is so much truth in that particular scene. The essence of life is hope, and when we hope for the better, we shall be better; it cannot be otherwise. Hopelessness is worse than death. It is better to die than to lose hope. 3

What is hope? Hope is a manifestation of what is already in us: we hope or long for ‘something’ – because we unconsciously know what we seek (for we cannot hope for what is totally unknown to us). What we seek is in our very nature, from which we can never be separate. Therefore there is a time of ripening when hope's 'green' longing ripens into the sweetness of certainty. 4

There are two aspects of hope:- a quality that can be dependent on the object of the hope, our beliefs, culture and reasoning, or a quality that is completely independent of what is hoped for. These aspects cause two different natures, the optimistic and the pessimistic.

When the dependent nature is developed, it makes one pessimistic, and when hope stands alone independently, this develops optimism. The optimistic person may seem blind, and he is sometimes blind. But blind people develop a facility to do things without sight, which people with seeing eyes cannot do, so the optimist can accomplish things without knowing how or why. Murshid was once asked if he was an optimist – his answer was, 'Yes, I am an optimist but with eyes open.'

Hope cannot be called sureness or certainty, but it is a feeling that, almost by its own force, may bring sureness and certainty.

3 Hazrat Inayat Khan. Vol XI Philosophy, Psychology and Mysticism. Psychology P 83

4 From an email from Pir Nawab.

Hope dependent upon reason is weak, and the more dependent it is, the weaker it is. Hope, together with reason, is strong, perhaps stronger than hope alone, but in proportion, as reason supports hope, so hope depends on reason, and as so often happens, reason cannot reach the object of hope, then hope sinks. Hope is not dependent on reason.

Hope is strengthened by reason, but it stands on the foundation of patience, for it is possible that despite all reasons, a person may completely give up hope. 5

What is it that we hope for? We are on a journey, both inner and outer, so at an inner level, we may hope that our purpose in life will be fulfilled and that we will find unity, love, harmony, and beauty.

On the outer level, I hoped that my last two books would be published and successful – they are my life's work and a manifestation of my inner life. In the ancient teaching tales, the hero must bring the object of his quest back into the outer world so that his 'father', the emperor, may be healed and all the land with him. Through my writing, I am attempting to bring back the object of my quest – the Light of the Truth that I have found.

I was optimistic that my book would be published. There were many reasons why a publisher would reject it: it did not fit into any category, it would not be a bestseller, it most likely would not have a wide readership, and it was on subjects that people might find strange; mystical and spiritual themes. Despite these reasons, I knew the book was important and needed to be out there. I also felt guided in my writing which felt like my destiny. I had no doubts at all despite almost no encouragement.

Hope is based on faith – the raven had utter faith that Morpheus would not, and could not, leave him in Hell. Faith is 'self-confidence' and 'certainty in expectation.' Faith in no way signifies certainty without expectation nor confidence with evidence.

Faith is the power of the mind; without faith, the mind is powerless. When faith leads and reason follows, success is sure, but success is doubtful when reason leads and faith follows. 6

Behind faith is our belief system or structure. As children, we believe what we are told by our family, our culture and our religion.

‘Belief is a natural tendency to accept knowledge without doubt. Every soul is born with this tendency to accept every knowledge that is given to it, in whatever way or form. Therefore no soul in the world is born an unbeliever. There is a saying of the Prophet, 'Every soul is born a believer, and it is others that make the soul an unbeliever.' This unbelief comes by the conflict of one's knowledge and belief. Belief has two tendencies. One is the tendency of water that runs, and the other is that of water that becomes frozen. Some people who have a belief like to keep it unchanged as a rock and identify their ego with it People of this temperament are steady in their belief, but often lack progress. If they happen to have a right belief, there is no danger of their giving it up. But if it is not right, they are perplexed. Those whose belief is like running water perhaps go from one belief to another, and they may not seem steady in their belief, yet their life is progressive.

The progressive soul can never hold one belief and must change and go on changing until it arrives at the ultimate truth. For a simple person, steadiness of belief is more advantageous than change, for change may lead him astray. But for an intelligent person, it is natural and necessary to go from belief to belief until he arrives at his final convictions.

Belief is of four kinds. The first kind is a belief accepted because all believe it. The second is accepted belief because it is believed by someone the believer trusts. The third belief is the belief that reason helps one to believe. The fourth belief is the conviction of which one is as sure as if one were an eyewitness.

Thomas Kuhn argued that science does not evolve gradually towards truth. Science has a paradigm which remains constant before going through a paradigm shift when current theories can't explain some phenomenon, and someone proposes a new theory.

Kuhn's version of how science develops differed dramatically from the Whig version. Where the standard account saw steady, cumulative "progress", he saw discontinuities – a set of alternating "normal" and "revolutionary" phases in which communities of specialists in particular fields are plunged into periods of turmoil, uncertainty, and angst. These revolutionary phases – for example, the transition from Newtonian mechanics to quantum physics – correspond to great conceptual breakthroughs and lay the basis for a succeeding phase of business as usual. The fact that his version seems unremarkable now is, in a way, the greatest measure of his success. But in 1962 almost everything about it was controversial because of the challenge it posed to powerful, entrenched philosophical assumptions about how science did – and should – work.

Karl Popper believed that scientific knowledge is provisional – the best we can do at the moment. Popper is known for his attempt to refute the classical positivist account of the scientific method, by replacing induction with the falsification principle. The Falsification Principle, proposed by Karl Popper, is a way of demarcating science from non-science. It suggests that for a theory to be considered scientific it must be able to be tested and conceivably proven false.

For example, the hypothesis that "all swans are white," can be falsified by observing a black swan.

For Popper, science should attempt to disprove a theory, rather than attempt to continually support theoretical hypotheses.

Jung’s Christian beliefs made it difficult for him to explore mysticism. He made assumptions based on the church’s dogma, which were in my opinion, suspect. His belief compromised his understanding.

‘The four kinds of belief are held by souls of different grades of evolution in life and different temperaments. There is the knowledge that one can perceive with the senses. There is a knowledge that one can perceive with the mind alone and a knowledge that the soul can realise. And it is for this reason that when a person wishes to touch a thing which can only be perceived, and when a person wishes to feel a thing which can only be realised spiritually, he naturally becomes an unbeliever.’ 7

My own experience as a child was that I could not make any sense of the religion I was taught. I lived in a Catholic area – this was my 'street' where my friends and playmates lived. But being brought up as a Protestant, I had to go to a Protestant school quite far away by bus. I had no friends in school and did not fit in. It was a segregated and gerrymandered society – a form of apartheid. People stared when I went out with my Catholic friend – both of us in different school uniforms. Both sects were supposed to be Christian, but there was nothing Christian about the situation. I could not believe in Christianity. When I was fourteen, I went to the library to read up on religions I could believe in. I decided on Buddhism, but there was no possibility of learning this in Derry. My parents being refugees from the Holocaust had lost their faith. My mother, although spiritual, distrusted priests of any kind but had me baptised as a Protestant because she thought that was the best side to be on. So, at the age of fourteen, my search began. I was lucky – I was open to everything – my belief was fluid. In South Africa, I came across the Spiritualist Church and learned much from them. I discovered Jung and Siddha Yoga in Australia and tried Buddhism and Judaism until finally, I discovered Sufism. I found a teacher I could trust and a path I could follow. I could find my truth.

We make our road in life by our expectations, but destiny plays a great part in this. I have always believed that it was my destiny to write and to teach and later came to believe that Murshid wished me to do this. My way was smoothed over, and so many synchronicities happened like miracles.

‘A deep study of anything shows the pilgrim that there is a purpose beneath it all. Yet, if one could look beyond every purpose, there would seem to be no purpose. This boundary is called the Wall of Smiles, which means that all purposes of life, which seem at the moment to be so important, fade away as soon as one looks at them from that height called the Wall of Smiles. But as deeply as the purpose of life can be traced, there seems to be one ultimate purpose working through all planes of life and showing itself through all planes of existence. That is as if the Knower, with His knowing faculty, had been in darkness, desiring to know something. And in order to know something, He created all things. Again, it is the desire of the Creator that has been the power which created; and it is the materialised substance of the Spirit, a part of Himself, that has been turned into a creation, yet leaving the Creator behind as the absolute Spirit, constantly knowing and experiencing life through all different channels, some developed, some undeveloped for the purpose.’

This Knower, through His final creation, man, realises and knows more than through any other channel of knowledge, such as bird, beast, worm, germ, plant, or rock. This one Spirit, experiencing through various channels, deludes Himself with the delusion of various beings; this delusion is the individual ego. He experiences, therefore, two things in His delusion: pain and pleasure; pleasure by the experience of a little perfection, and pain by the lack of it. As long as the cover of this delusion keeps His eyes veiled, He knows yet does not know; it is an illusion. He experiences all things, and yet everything is confusion. But as time goes, when this veil becomes thinner, and He begins to see through it, the first thing that comes to Him is bewilderment. But the next is knowledge, culminating in vanity, which is the purpose of life. Vanity here means a natural pride and self-respect which is positive

Note:

The Knower or God in the English language is masculine, which creates difficulty because the Divine One is without gender. In ancient languages such as Aramaic, the name of God is Allah, which has no gender. I have heard scholars refer to God as It to get around this difficulty.

‘Life, which is omnipresent and all-pervading, divides itself as it proceeds towards manifestation in the same way that light divides itself when it projects its rays.

The outcome of the whole of manifestation seems to be its knowledge. Therefore, knowledge alone can be called the purpose of the whole creation. It is not the knowledge of why and where that can be the purpose of life. It is the knowledge that gives complete satisfaction. There remains no part of one's being that is hungry. There is a feeling of everlasting satisfaction in knowing something that the knower can never put into words.

It is this knowledge that mystics call self-realisation, and that is recognised by some religious-minded people as God consciousness and by philosophical minds as cosmic consciousness. It is a knowledge which is self-sufficient, and in the moments that a soul holds this knowledge before its view, no pain, suffering, weakness, sorrow, or death can touch it. The whole world was created for this knowledge, and with this knowledge, the soul's purpose on earth is fulfilled.’ 8 Our destiny is the path to self-realisation.