Avoid the three gateways to hell

PIC: gitadaily.com

The world is no doubt a beautiful place to live and enjoy every aspect of life. It also offer immense opportunities to everyone to excel in his/her own chosen field and spread love, happiness and joy. It offers immense opportunities to share the enormous natural wealth and care for every citizen of this planet Earth. We along with the millions of creatures share the beautiful lakes, mountains, gardens, plants and everything offered by the nature to enjoy the life. We are all the co-habitants of the planet and together we can make the place a heaven here itself. However, we are still undergoing lots of pains and witnessing troubles and crimes everywhere and making this place a hell. These are the consequences of our own mindset and insensitive actions as we ourselves chose to enter the hell through its three gateways. The three gateways of the hell are the lust, anger and greed. These three gateways are beautifully explained by Lord Krishna through verse 21, of chapter 16 of the Shrimadbhagwad Gita, which says;

त्रिविधं नरकस्येदं द्वारं नाशनमात्मन: |
काम: क्रोधस्तथा लोभस्तस्मादेतत्त्रयं त्यजेत् || 21||

tri-vidhaṁ narakasyedaṁ dvāraṁ nāśhanam ātmanaḥ
kāmaḥ krodhas tathā lobhas tasmād etat trayaṁ tyajet

Meaning: There are three gateways to the hell (naraka) for the destruction of the self, namely lust, anger and greed Therefore, one should forsake these three.

Lord Krishna and Arjuna in Mahabharata PIC: zeenews.india.co

The word, ‘naraka’ (the hell) is used here for a place which is full of miseries and never ending pain sufficient enough for the self destruction. This is not a place somewhere above the skies or a separate world but is here itself and points towards the particular hellish mental condition.  The pain and pleasure are the mental conditions of a person, the pleasure indicates the heavenly mental status and the pain signifies the hellish status. The three gateways to the hell are the lust, anger and greed which one has to avoid to attain eternal peace and pleasure.

The world offers enough opportunities to fall into the traps of the gateways of the hell or heaven. The lust is the first gateway to the hell. The lust (kama) beyond a certain limit is dangerous for the self and the society. The lust is the energy, necessary for procreation and if directed in positive direction it produces positive outcome. However, if it is misused and abused, it can create havoc in the society leading to self destruction. We find many examples in the human history that the excessive and uncontrolled lust has resulted in great tragedies for the persons harboring it and also for to the society. The heinous cases like ‘Nirbhaya gang rapes (committed few years back in New Delhi) are the results of the unbridled lust of few mad men. The perpetrators overstepped the limit and committed grave crime to kill an innocent girl and brought intolerable tragedy to the family and the society. Many physical and mental ailments are the results the excessive and uncontrolled lust.  Shri Ramakrishna Paramhansa said, “kama (lust) is bhoga, sensory satisfaction; if you carry it too far, you are sure to come to roga or disease-physical or mental.” This is the first gateway to the hell which one must avoid to attain happiness and joy in life.

The next gateway to the hell is krodha, the anger. The anger is one of the biggest enemies of mankind. Anger is also an energy and if applied towards constructive objective, it create wonders for the society. Certain amount of disciplined anger is necessary and should be displayed to regulate the conduct and obtain optimum result for the overall good of the self and the society.  There is no harm but it is a duty of everyone to display a disciplined anger to fight against injustice and evil tendencies.  However, if it is excessive, it can make a person mad and under the influence of this madness, he/she can commit any evil. Under the influence of the anger, the person gets blinded and is unable to use his intelligent to take a rational decision. Many people are seen committing even murders on the slightest pretext under the wild outburst of anger. The power of discrimination is totally lost under the influence of uncontrolled anger. The uncontrolled anger can lead to self destruction as well as harm the entire society and therefore one must avoid thee excessive anger, the second gateway to the hell.  

The third gateway to the hell is lobha, the greed. Lobha is excessive greed. Earning money through right conduct and spending on the self is not lobha. Lobha is also energy and one has to spend it to earn money or wealth for self sustenance. It is quite natural and normal as well as a duty of a person to earn his/her livelihood to sustain the life and lead a purposeful life. But the irresistible urge to earn more and more money and wealth through immoral and corrupt practices is a greatest evil. Every day we observe through media reports that a politician, a government official or anybody enjoying certain degree of  powers in society has been caught in bribing or accumulated wealth beyond their known source of income through wrongful and corrupt practices. We also find many thieves are engaging themselves in loot and plunder. All these people fall in the same sinful corrupt category and are the real enemies of the society and the nation. One day, they are bound to caught and certainly enter the gateway of the hell. While engaging in the unethical practices to earn more and more money, they also lose their peace and are constantly lead the life worrying for their wealth and fears of getting caught. Therefore one must avoid the lobha, the third gateway to the hell.

If we keenly observe the people across the globe, we will find that there are two types of the people, irrespective of the nationality, race or religion. He two types of the people are; the uttam or moral type of people (Uttam –good) and adham or demonic type of people (adham- fallen). In any society or the nation, if moral people or more, they lead to further refinement of the society and the more and more people will become moral. However, if the demonic people are more, they would lead to creation of more and more bad people. Virtues flourish under the influence of more and more good people and it declines with the growth of demonic people.  That is why it is necessary that we appreciate good people and virtues and help in development of a good society. It helps in developing a heaven on this Earth. However, if we appreciate evil, we march on the road to make evil predominant in the society making it a hell for the self and everybody.

The three gateways as explained by Lord Krishna are as relevant today as they were in the period of Mahabharata. We, the people therefore, need to inculcate and promote the heavenly mindset to make the earth a heaven and not the hell by falling into the attractive but painful trap of the three gateways of the hell.