Swami Gober's Bhagavad Gita Commentary: Introductory Essay - 31

Foul Hell

Bewildered by many a fancy, entangled in the snare of delusion, addicted to the gratification of lust, they fall into a foul hell.

Bhagavad Gita, chap 16, ver 16

In the chapter 16 of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna discusses divine nature and demonical nature. He says people who are after money and wealth are people of demoniac nature! Wait, that's not it, the real thing is coming. Krishna says these demoniac souls don't recognize the God who is in themselves and others, they even hate or envy that God. So Krishna at least gives them that much, that they too are God, they too have God within themselves. What follows is the most bizarre statement in the history of holy scriptures, a non sequitur non pareil. He says he throws all such people into hell again and again, and not only that but he makes sure that every time they sink into lower and lower hells until they get down into the lowest and forever rot there. All this because they were after some pleasure and wealth! What were the Pandavas after anyway? Why were they bent upon destroying the known world if not for a little pleasure, raja-bhoga, the pleasures of the kingdom? But even this is not the point. Man, Krishna, you are supposed to be the God of the Universe, you should talk more logically. Even if people with demoniac nature have the same God within them as the greatest of saints, shouldn't they be given an opportunity to express the God within themselves? But no, Krishna says he will personally see to it that they only sink ever lower, forever and ever, Amen!

We have to read the original passages to get the real feel of them. First the verses which describe people with demoniac nature:

Giving themselves over to immeasurable cares ending only with death, regarding gratification of lust as their highest aim, and feeling sure that that is all; bound by a hundred ties of hope, given over to lust and anger, they strive to obtain by unlawful means hoards of wealth for sensual enjoyment. “This has been gained by me today; this desire I shall obtain; this is mine and this wealth too shall be mine in future.” “This has been gained by me today; this desire I shall obtain; this is mine and this wealth too shall be mine in future.” “I am rich and born in a noble family. Who else is equal to me? I will sacrifice. I will give charity. I will rejoice,”—thus, deluded by ignorance, bewildered by many a fancy, entangled in the snare of delusion, addicted to the gratification of lust, they fall into a foul hell.

chap 16, ver 11-16

So basically that covers all the ambitious and successful people of the world! Much of the foregoing description would fit 80 percent of humanity, hopes, desires and all that. And I have only provided a partial quote, many other characteristics are mentioned before and after this passage. So almost everyone alive would be possessing some or other of these qualities. Also, giving charity has now joined the club of most abominable sins! This is flash news!

In a very well-known and oft-quoted passage in one of the earlier chapters, Arjuna asks Krishna about what would be the lot of those yogis who have practiced a lot but couldn't achieve perfection before their death. Krishna says not to worry, all those striving souls are born into rich families where they would get better opportunity to work out their yoga and reach perfection. Now here he says, all the people born into rich families are demons! But even this is okay, the clincher comes now.

...the worst among men in the world,

— meaning, 99.9999% of the present-day population, everyone except the very devout ISKCON members

I hurl all these evil-doers for ever into the wombs of demons only. Entering into demoniacal wombs and deluded birth after birth, not attaining Me, they thus fall, O Arjuna, into a condition still lower than that!

Ver 19,20

So you are born into a rich family and feel happy and proud of yourself, that's it, you are a gone case, gone for eternity! The God of the Universe will do everything in his power to ensure that you go into hell and a deeper hell after that. There have been so many idiotic Gods around, from Marduk and Yahweh onwards, but this Krishna beats them all by far! This is the worst imaginable God there is, and if we have a God like this who needs a Satan? This one passage, two verses, should have been enough to utterly debunk Krishna, to make people throw the Bhagavad Gita into the garbage. That would have definitely been the case if people had anything like brains. If one single crime (not that there aren't others) like permanently incapacitating Ekalavya is enough to repudiate all Arjuna's greatness, imagined or real, as we have argued in an earlier essay, this one sentence of Krishna is enough for us to discredit all of his self-proclaimed divinity and confiscate the God label from him. Really, all of us sinners with perfectly human qualities like lust, greed, anger, pride should unite and throw Krishna into a demoniac womb. That should teach him a lesson! Whether there is a foul hell or not, the earth has been fouled up because of people like this!