Journeys to the Under World (Part 1)

Generally, in most religions, we are taught to do good deeds to people or else we will be punish for all our sins done during our lives on Earth. I'm not exactly a very religious person so I'm not here to preach or teach anyone about anything relating to religions. For myself, I'm a Buddhist and Buddhism believes that there's heaven and hell and even the 'underworld' where sinners will be published. For those who frequent temples will know that temples provide a lot of books about Buddhism but most of it are in Chinese which prevent people like me who are non Chinese educated to read and understand Buddhism further．

Yesterday when I was in a temple, I saw at a corner there's a lot of books about Buddhism but all of them are in Chinese except for one. The title of the book look appealing to me and since it's the only English book there I borrowed the book. The title of the book is 'Journeys to the Under-World'.

The book was originally in Chinese and was the result of the deity 'Jigong' bringing the soul of Mr. Yang Sheng, a leading planchette handler of Sheng Xian Tang, Taiwan, to visit Hades on instructions of the Jade Emperor with intention of helping and saving human beings. The visits were completed in 62 journeys and were generally made in the night time.

According to the book, there's a total of 10 Tribunals in Hades and each tribunal have several sub division. I just complete reading Journey No. 16 which is to the Third Tribunal 'The Prison of Scooped Eyes'. I'm not going into details about this book but I just wanna highlight a few things mention in this book. And for those of you who wanna read up this book can borrowed it from any Buddhist temple.

The First Tribunal is where the soul goes to when they dies and this is also the place where the soul is registered and being investigate of his good and bad deeds during his life. If the soul is found to have done more bad deeds than good, he is then sent to the Second Tribunal to be trial.

On Mr. Yang Sheng Journey No. 6, he visited the 'Magic Mirror Pavillion'. After the soul had reported in the First Tribunal, he will be brought to this Magic Mirror Pavillion. The mirror will reflect what each and every evil deed the soul had done during his life on Earth. Later on, Mr. Yang Sheng tour 'Wang Si Cheng' (city of those who died unnatural deaths). This is the place where souls of those who have met with accidental death are sent to. In the first room in this place, Mr. Yang Sheng saw a lot of small crying babies covered in blood and upon asking the General of the place, he's told that these are the babies of those who had been aborted. The body of these babies are formed and thus they have souls. According to the book, when a baby is aborted, the baby's soul will of course have resentment and will wait until the parents die so the baby can confront them to account for the abortion. Please be a responsible parents and don't abort as the baby will be waiting for you in the other world.

Next is the Second Tribunal, which in fact is the real Tribunal for punishing souls. In every Tribunal there is a special pulpit for preaching and discourse to the souls to rehabilitate them. In this Second Tribunal, Mr. Yang Sheng visited the Odour Pool in Hades. Inside the pool he saw male and female, young and old, mixing up with strips of dung and urine.These were the souls of human beings when on Earth they are prostitutes, pimps who cheated girls, smugglers, those who used placenta of new born babies, swindlers and cheats, womanizers, gangsters, deliberate bankrupts, bribery officials and unscrupulous building contractors. These people when alive had evil hearts and therefore when they are sent to Hades, they have to smell and wobble in the excrete in this pool. It kinda give me a nausea feeling even imagining human beings in such pool of excrete not to mention to be in it. This serve a very strong reminder for everyone to not have any evil hearts or thoughts.

Next is the Hades of the Hungry Ghosts. This is the place where people when alive they are rich, spent lavishly, ate well and had no pity on the poor, needy and deserving. So when they die, they will be in here in a beautiful suit/dress and will only have one meal of vegetable broth a week. Sad isn't it? Thus it teaches us not to waste food and even though we are filthy rich, never forget the poor and needy. I will always remember not to waste my food from now and will be very thankful for the food that I managed to have.

In Journey No. 13, Mr. Yang Sheng tour 'Naihe Qiao' and Hades of Dancing. In 'Naihe Qiao' he saw a continually swaying and rocking bridge from which souls are falling to the bottom below and crying non stop. Below this bridge there are thousands of various snakes which will bite the souls once they fall. This is where people who alive have evil hearts and cheated people's money, cheated women, were instigators, cause people to quarrel and fights, took delight cheating others etc will ended up in... being bitten by poisonous snakes. When he goes to Hades of Dancing, he saw males and females all dancing in a pale hall. These are the souls of dance hostesses and dance patrons when they are alive. The floor of the hall is made of red hot iron plate and so when stepped on, the souls will burn their feet and cry aloud. These are the souls who dance for enjoyment and bodily pleasure and even to earn money or took up prostitution. Those who dance for the sake of health and exercise will not be sent here. After reading this chapter, I'm beginning to think twice of going to clubs or pubs.

Hades of Coldness, it's a place where souls are left in coldness with a very minimal clothing. Those who will be sent here are those who cheat people who entrust their property to them for safe keeping, procurers and pimps who demand large sum of money for the release of prostitutions etc from their bondage, people who are too showy, who spend recklessly and lavishly, those who prefer to spend on more expensive dresses just to show that they have a lot of money rather than to help the poor and needy and those females who take pleasure to go about scantily dressed thus exposing their bodies. Yet another reminder for me to do more good deeds.

Third Tribunal, The Prison of Scooped Eyes. In here souls will have both their eyes scooped out and left with blood oozing from the eye sockets and crying loudly. Soldiers of Hades will use a iron fork to scoop the eyes until the eye balls fell off. Then the eye balls are retrieved and fitted back into the eye sockets and wash with magic water; which will have the effect of reviving the soul from fainting.The scooping process will be carried out 3 times daily on each soul. People who always look down/despise others especially the poor and less educated, guys who love to peep, watch and read obscene books or movies, etc, people who cheated in examinations will eventually be punished here. Come to think of it, human these days be it guys or girls have most probably done most of the above mentioned sins. Sigh.

I've only read till here and am still reading the book. Will update once I have finish the book.