[This is an excerpt from Swami Padmanabha´s next book, to be published in 2026, which will mainly revolve around the theme of unconditional love]
While some traditions speak of eternal damnation, Vaishnavism does not subscribe to such a view. Yet it does include vivid descriptions of the so-called “hellish” planets[1]—passages that require careful interpretation to preserve the coherence of God’s unconditional love.[2]
For centuries, humanity has lived under the shadow of hell. No political tyrant, no despotic regime, has devised punishments as cruel as those attributed to God in many religions: eternal flames, mutilations without end, torments unimaginable—threats repeated from pulpits and scriptures until they seep into the collective unconscious.
As a human community we have long agreed to prohibit torture. Yet through religious suggestion, the endless repetition of doctrines, and a timid refusal to confront doubt—lest one lose the inner path—believers often fail to question whom they are being asked to worship, even to love: the supposed architect of the greatest, indeed everlasting, holocaust. Such imagery produces emotional paralysis. The collective unconscious shields the faithful from recognizing the monstrous horror of such a “God.”
Even today, nearly 80% of the world’s population believes in some form of hell. Buddhists are warned of terrifying lokas for sinners, Hindus of naraka, Muslims of the hellfire of jahannam, Jews of the purgatorial gehinom, Christians of eternal damnation. Children are raised under the threat of postmortem concentration camps, taught to fear the One they are simultaneously expected to trust. This is not pedagogy but a delicate form of black pedagogy—manipulation through fear.
It´s in this context that Nietzsche famously proclaimed the “death of God.” But he wasn´t rejecting the God of love—he was rejecting a grotesque caricature: a hypersensitive tyrant, narcissistic and easily offended, a “snorter of wrath” whose wounded pride mattered more than mercy. Such a deity more Diabolos than Divine, more terror than tenderness.
Because the doctrine of a terrifying hell has been etched into humanity’s psyche for millennia, it takes extraordinary effort to uproot it. What sustains it is not just fear, but also a subtle emotional dependency—the comfort of imagining a God who rewards some and punishes others, offering a simple moral framework in which small-mindedness feels safe. But beneath that false security, the damage is immense.
Those raised under these images often grow sick, not free. They are made guilty instead of joyful, inferior instead of humble, distrustful instead of trusting. They become dependent instead of resilient, programmed instead of open, rigid instead of spontaneous. They learn to see others as threats instead of siblings and find themselves trapped in doctrines instead of awakened to wonder.
Psychology calls this phenomenon ecclesiogenic neurosis—an anxiety disorder caused or exacerbated by religious dogma. A sickness not born from God, but from toxic images of him. As some put it, F.E.A.R. often means: False Evidence Appearing Real. In other words, imagined threats masquerading as eternal truths.
Vaishnavism, in its ideal conception, offers a way out of this phobocracy—a spiritual path not ruled by fear, but by love. Yet even the Srimad Bhagavatam, revered as the “ripened fruit of the Vedas,”[3] contains passages that describe gruesome hellish realms. One who eats without sharing, we are told, will be devoured by worms for 100,000 years.[4] One who robs others without dire necessity has their skin torn apart by red-hot iron balls and tongs.[5] Those who engage in extramarital sex are flogged and forced to embrace a molten iron partner.[6] A householder who greets guests with cruelty is punished in a realm where vultures pluck out his eyes.[7]
Taken literally, these descriptions are grotesquely disproportionate. No earthly oppressor has ever matched such absurd jurisprudence. If these were real, God would appear more cruel than any dictator. What kind of Divine imposes barbaric penalties for trivial offenses? Even the Srimad Bhagavatam itself contains a warning against such excess. When Shamika Rishi learns that his son has cursed King Parikshit to die for a minor fault, he laments: “What a grave mistake—one must never impose heavy punishments for insignificant faults.”[8]
The truth is, no tyrant has devised punishments more horrifying than those imagined by certain theologians: eternal damnation, postmortem torment, and never-ending hell. If taken at face value, it implies that God’s wounded ego matters more to him than his love. Why would anyone trust—let alone love—a being like that? Read literally, such texts sound less like revelation and more like moralistic propaganda.
Literalism, many teachers suggest, represents the lowest and least level of meaning. To stop at the surface is to miss the essence. To mistake poetry for fact is, in this case, to mistake fear for truth.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura addressed this very issue directly in one of his most renowned speeches:
In the Hindu scriptures intended for the general public—where rajo- and tamo-guna [passion and ignorance] are presented as the paths of religion—there are also descriptions of a heaven and a hell localized in space and time. In hell alone there are said to be 84 subdivisions, some even more ghastly than those Milton described in Paradise Lost. These are surely poetic creations, contrived by rulers to restrain the uneducated—who cannot understand philosophical argument and inference—and to keep their inclination to evil deeds in check.
The religion of the Srimad Bhagavatam is free from such human inventions. Yes, in some chapters we encounter these curious tales—but elsewhere the Srimad Bhagavatam warns us not to take them literally. Rather, they are imaginative devices meant to intimidate those of bad character and guide the ignorant.
Of course, the Srimad Bhagavatam teaches that we experience the consequences of our actions. But the poetic imagery surrounding that is borrowed from earlier traditions—and the Srimad Bhagavatam, which surpasses them, renders them superfluous and unnecessary. We therefore have full freedom to reject any false idea that cannot be reconciled with the peace of conscience.[9]
Some scholars have raised similar questions on textual grounds, suggesting that chapter 26 of the Fifth Canto—with its elaborate catalogue of hells—may not belong to the original composition. Indologist Klaus Klostermaier even showed a friend of mine old manuscripts in which this chapter was entirely absent.
If this were indeed the case, the most likely explanation would be that brahmanas, who long served as ritual authorities, may have inserted these passages to consolidate caste-based control—using fear to enforce moral conformity and secure social privilege. The same chapter even claims that “whoever shows disrespect toward someone of higher caste goes to a terrible hell.”[10] Such statements reflect not divine revelation, but clerical self-interest—attempts to legitimize hierarchy under theological cover, even though the Srimad Bhagavatam’s true emphasis lies in the very opposite direction: not on the accidents of caste, but on the disposition of the heart as the real measure of spiritual worth.
Even for those who reject the possibility of interpolation, the Srimad Bhagavatam itself offers another clue: it classifies these passages as artha-vada—secondary, persuasive speech, not ultimate truth. Their purpose is pedagogical: to motivate beginners through cautionary tales.
In fact, by the end of the Srimad Bhagavatam, its real intention becomes clear: to impart transcendental wisdom and detachment. The grand stories and dramatic descriptions serve mainly as scaffolding—not as the essence.[11] In this connection, the Srimad Bhagavatam also declares:
The statements and promises in scripture which describe attractive benefits or severe punishments do not concern the ultimate good for the soul. Such enticements are used so a person begins spiritual life—even if from false motivation. It is like persuading a child to take a bitter pill by coating it with sugar.[12]
But this approach is risky. It can lead to reward-obsession or dread instead of love. The Chaitanya-bhagavata sharpens this point with haunting imagery:
Those who engage with scripture without unconvering its deeper meaning die while carrying enormous burdens. Without reflection, sacred texts becomes heavy—and one ends up bearing scripture like a donkey. Superficial study brings only deathand destruction, robbing the soul of the eternal festival of experiencing the Sweet Absolute.[13]
In other words: hell is not the point—the essence is. The outer layers of promise and threat are mere sugar-coating over bitter medicine. And even then, the danger remains: one may cling to the coating and never taste the cure. The basic religious motivation of fear is archaic and carries no true transformative value.
History confirms this danger beyond the boundaries of the Vaishnava tradition. The early church father Origen opposed the Christian doctrine of eternal damnation with the teaching of apokatastasis—the final restoration of all beings. Drawing on Plato, he interpreted hell not as a literal location but as a symbolic expression of conscience: the soul´s own inner burning when faced with its misdeeds. Even the devil, he thought, would eventually be reconciled.
Such a vision dismantled the simplistic reward-and-punishment model and invited believers into maturity—but institutional religion could not tolerate such grace. In the sixth century, Emperor Justinian issued an edict condemning Origen, and the doctrine of universal reconciliation was officially anathematized. In a tragic irony, those who denied eternal damnation were themselves damned. Later, Dante’s Divine Comedy would seal this trajectory, embedding hell as a permanent fixture in the Western imagination.
These developments show how fear, once institutionalized, becomes architectural—shaping entire worlds of belief.
But still the question returns: if hell is not a literal realm, how are we to understand naraka—the Sanskrit term so frequently cited yet rarely unpacked? Once again, the Srimad Bhagavatam offers guidance. There, the Sweet Absolute explains plainly:
Hell is the expansion of tamas [inertia, darkness]. Heaven is the expansion of sattva [clarity, harmony, self-rootedness].[14]
Likewise, the Bhagavad-gita affirms that lust, anger, and greed are “the three gates leading to hell.”[15] These are not necessarily coordinates on a cosmic map, but psychological states—patterns of alienation that pull us away from wholeness. These same forces are earlier described in the Bhagavad-gita as “bindings of the world,”[16] showing that naraka is not necessarily a postmortem prison, but the lived experience of inner degradation.
A well-known Buddhist parable captures this beautifully. A fierce warrior once approached a monk and demanded to be taught the difference between heaven and hell. The monk glanced at him with contempt:
“Teach you? You are filthy. You smell. Your sword is dull and disgraceful. I can´t bear to be in your presence. Leave now.”
Enraged, the warrior drew his sword, trembling with fury. The monk calmly said:
“That is hell.”
The warrior froze. Something in the monk´s composure disarmed him. He lowered his sword, overcome first with remorse, and then with gratitude and a sudden peace.
“And that,” said the monk, “is heaven.”
Thus, heaven and hell can be understood not only as locations, but as conditions of the heart.
The Srimad Bhagavatam echoes this repeatedly, urging the seeker not to mistake scaffolding for structure. The text acknowledges that within its body, non-essential elements are sometimes present—vestiges from older frameworks—but they are never the core.[17]
Kapila confirms this when describing how the deluded soul clings to its current body, social status, and attachments—even finding “delight in hellish enjoyment.”[18] Such “enjoyment” would be impossible if naraka were truly a place of eternal torment. What Kapila clarifies in the following verse is that this satisfaction arises from a deep-seated attachment to the body, to family, possessions, and social ties—through which the conditioned soul convinces itself of being complete.[19]
Elsewhere, a condemned soul is described as walking a burning road flanked by forest fires, unable to rest, parched with thirst, devoured by vultures, forced to eat its own flesh, yet somehow traveling over a million kilometers in mere moments.[20] The surrealism is not accidental—it exposes the allegorical function of the narrative. These are not journalistic reports from another dimension. They are symbolic accounts of inner collapse, conveying the soul’s profound regret when looking back on a wasted life.
Sanskrit often uses the term adah, meaning “downward” or “degraded,” which translators often render as “hell.”[21] The Chaitanya-charitamrita captures the real intent:
Everything done in bahirmukha—turned away from the Divine—is naraka-duhkha, hellish suffering.[22]
Hell, then, is not about red-hot iron. It is the slow estrangement of the soul from its own source.
Philosophically, this interpretation makes sense. In Vaishnava thought, the soul that accrues an excess of good karma may temporarily ascend to celestial realms; the soul that accrues an excess of bad karma—a disharmony with the basic laws of this world—enters into plant or animal forms. But in such forms, no negative karma is generated. A lion may kill, but not sin. A tree may cling to life but not exploit. Correction happens not through torture, but through limitation. The soul is invited to relearn harmony by being bound to simpler patterns, until it is again entrusted with the freedom of a human birth.
From this perspective, the need for a literal torture hell disappears. Karma itself serves as the refining fire, while rebirth—or, for some, as we´ll see, temporary realms of recalibration—becomes the teacher.
Still, not all Vaishnavas reject hellish realms as pure fiction. Some accept them as actual—albeit temporary—destinations. In this framework, such places function not as punishment centers, but as arenas of consequence and rehabilitation. Just as materially pious souls may ascend to temporary heavens, others may descend into environments where they face the weight of their actions. These are not eternal flames but intensive centers of moral learning.
Rather than “hellish planets,” we might better call them realms of karmic healing—liminal spaces of recalibration. The soul is not damned but invited to reorient. The purpose is not vengeance but renewal. Suffering, in this light, is not about being scolded into goodness, but about being brought back to wholeness.
If suffering were merely punitive, wounds would remain unhealed and the soul would remain trapped in cycles of shame and fear. But true justice contains the seed of restoration. And that seed, always, is love.
At this point, the reader is invited to take their own stance. Some will conclude that hell does not exist at all in any external form—that scripture speaks symbolically of inner states or rebirths into restricted forms. Others may accept temporary realms of consequence, but reject the gruesome imagery as symbolic exaggeration. Either way, the shared ground is unmistakable: whatever “hell” means, it is not eternal torture but either metaphor or rehabilitation—always within the embrace of a loving cosmos.
The problem, then, is not karma. The problem is the kind of God we imagine behind it. Too often, the Divine is cast in our own image: brittle, offended, silent, volatile. A projection of our worst fears, rather than a revelation of the Sweet Absolute. We end up worshiping our own shadow rather than the light itself.
This raises decisive questions:
Does God demand blind obedience, or awaken responsible freedom?
Does he instill fear, or inspire what theologians call “primal trust”—the deep knowing that, despite life´s suffering, the universe remains reliable and love-infused?
The Bhagavad-gita offers a striking answer. When Arjuna asks Krishna what becomes of one who turns away, drawn by worldly life, Krishna doesn´t threaten eternal damnation. He assures Arjuna that “not even the smallest step on this path is ever lost.” Even if a practitioner wanders, the Sweet Absolute does not condemn but rewards—granting heavenly joys in higher spheres as a token of gratitude for even the slightest gesture once made toward him.[23] Into such a vision, the image of a punitive overseer hurling souls into endless torment for temporal failings simply does not fit.
What emerges instead is a stark contrast between two ethics. On the one hand, the meager arithmetic of retribution—“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” As Gandhi wryly observed, if this were consistently applied, the whole world would end up blind and toothless. On the other hand, the expansive ethic of divine love, where even a faltering step is honored and every detour is folded into a wider embrace. This vision requires that we move beyond the paradigm of religion as a reward-punishment system. Counting, measuring, and weighing only cease when one encounters the Infinite—where love alone becomes the measure, and mercy exceeds all calculus.
It is precisely this latter ethic that the Srimad Bhagavatam embodies. The God it reveals is not a celestial tyrant tallying offenses, but the giver of ultimate fearlessness. When the Sweet Absolute appeared as Nara-Narayana and was approached by Cupid and his companions—sent by Indra to disturb his meditation—he responded not with wrath but with welcome. He offered them gifts and thanked them for visiting his ashram. “Do not fear,” he said: not as a warning, but as a blessing. Again and again, the Srimad Bhagavatam calls the Divine abhaya-da: the giver of fearlessness.[24] He is not the architect of an eternal holocaust, but the author of a ceaseless invitation.
This brings us back to King Parikshit. After hearing terrifying descriptions of hellish worlds, he was overcome with compassion and asked his guru how people might be spared such suffering. In response, Sukadeva told the story of Ajamila—a man who had squandered his life, yet attained liberation by calling out the name of his son, unaware at the time that it was also a name of God.[25] The message is unmistakable: divine grace is always immediate and near, but our freedom remains. When we ignore or resist that mercy, we fashion our own hellish conditions; when we turn toward it, even slightly, the way back opens. Grace never withdraws, but we may close ourselves to it—and that closing is itself the essence of hell. If damnation were final, however, it would mean that human failure is stronger than divine love.
The so-called hells, then, are not terrifying torture destinations. They are best understood either as metaphors of alienation or as temporary arenas of consequence and refinement. Whichever way one leans, the scriptural depictions serve to highlight the drama of our freedom: we may turn away and experience alienation, or turn toward grace and find release. In any case, their narrative function is not to describe eternal suffering, but to draw attention to the contrast between human frailty and divine mercy. Their purpose is not to scare us into submission, but to highlight how easily liberation can be attained.
This is the central burden of the Srimad Bhagavatam: not to dwell on how many fall into hellish conditions, but to reveal how near grace remains—even there. Its emphasis is not on the inevitability of damnation, but on the eagerness of the Sweet Absolute to find any excuse to save us.
Despite karma, despite our ignorance and wandering, we remain constantly touched by God´s insistence. As theologian John Caputo once remarked, “I do not believe in the existence of God, but in God’s insistence”[26]—not a brute imposing itself upon the world, but a soft but relentless summons. In this light, it is God’s insistence that confirms God’s existence.
In a cosmos founded on relationship, love persuades rather than coerces. It allows suffering not out of indifference, but to preserve the possibility of voluntary response. For love to remain love, it must always be an invitation—not an imposition. And so, the Sweet Absolute does all that it would be good for a supreme being to do—sustaining, calling, accompanying—but not all that it would be good for us to do for ourselves. To eliminate all suffering would be to strip us of the dignity of our own becoming.
If someone gives us a heavy sack of mere stones, we resent the burden. But if that same weight is full of gold and gems, the burden remains, but the heart rejoices. In the same way, divine love does not remove life’s challenges—it reveals their worth. The trials don´t disappear, but they cease to be meaningless. They become the very path by which love expands and transforms us into who we were meant to become.
At this point, the Vaishnava tradition offers a piercing paradox—we suffer because God loves us.
This can be understood in stages:
- Because God loves us, he gives us freedom—for love must be voluntary.
- If we are free to love, we must also be free not to love.
- That alternative must be real—not a weaker version of love, but something essentially different.
- If love is bliss and unity, then its alternative must entail separation and suffering.
- That second alternative is illusion—maya—“that which is not.” Illusion is not real in the same way love is, yet it appears real, and so it is chosen.
- Choosing illusion leads to suffering—not as a punishment, but as a natural consequence.
- We are free to make that choice only because God loves us enough to grant us real freedom.
- And so, paradoxically, we suffer because we are loved—because God wants our love to be free, and real.
From God’s standpoint, the soul is not a pawn in a system of compulsive rules. Only when the Sweet Absolute grants the soul full freedom—even the freedom to turn away without the menace of postmortem threats—does love become truly possible.
This is the paradox of unconditional love. It does not seek control, but communion. It does not eliminate the possibility of suffering, but dignifies us with choice. In love, as in life, there are no commanders—only those who mutually surrender.
[1] For a few of these descriptions, see Srimad Bhagavatam 3.30 and 5.26.
[2] This section is deeply based on two unpublished articles by Krishna Chandra Das, “Nonexistent Hell” and “Questionable Teaching Methodology in Sacred Scriptures,” originally written in German. I am grateful to him for his generosity in allowing me to draw from his insights and build upon them here.
[3] Srimad Bhagavatam 1.1.3.
[4] Srimad Bhagavatam 5.26.18.
[5] Srimad Bhagavatam 5.26.19.
[6] Srimad Bhagavatam 5.26.20.
[7] Srimad Bhagavatam 5.26.35.
[8] Srimad Bhagavatam 1.8.41.
[9] Adapted from Bhaktivinoda Thakura, The Bhagavata: Its Philosophy, Its Ethics, and Its Theology.
[10] Srimad Bhagavatam 5.26.14, 5.26.16, and 5.26.30.
[11] Srimad Bhagavatam 12.3.14.
[12] Srimad Bhagavatam 11.21.23. See also Srimad Bhagavatam 11.21.26 and 11.3.46.
[13] Vrindavana dasa Thakura, Chaitanya-bhagavata 2.1.158–159.
[14] Srimad Bhagavatam 11.19.42–43. For a similar statement, see 3.30.29.
[15] Bhagavad-gita 16.21.
[16] Bhagavad-gita 2.62, 14.7, and 14.12.
[17] Srimad Bhagavatam 11.8.10.
[18] Srimad Bhagavatam 3.30.5.
[19] Srimad Bhagavatam 3.30.6.
[20] Srimad Bhagavatam 3.30.21–25.
[21] For examples of this, see Srimad Bhagavatam 3.30.10 and 8.21.33.
[22] Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami, Chaitanya-charitamrita 2.22.12.
[23] Bhagavad-gita 6.40–44.
[24] Srimad Bhagavatam 11.4.8–9.
[25] For another example of this type of liberation, see Srimad Bhagavatam 3.33.6.
[26] Rebecca Ann Parker in Jeff Wells, et al. (ed.), Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God, p. 154. Emphasis mine.
