Quest Magazine

A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir

Samuel Bercholz
Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala, 2016;  147 + xi pp., hardcover, $24.95.

There has always been a place in my library—and in my heart—for books that are surpassingly strange. They have often proved rewarding: I have bought more than one book as a curiosity and had it change my life.

Reading Samuel Bercholz’s Guided Tour of Hell did not change my life, though its surpassing strangeness cannot be denied. On the one hand, it is yet another of the growing pile of books devoted to near-death experiences (NDEs). On the other hand, unlike many of them, it recounts not a journey into the light but a Dantesque vision of hell, Buddhist-style.

Bercholz, founder of Shambhala Publications, is a longtime practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, and its influence shows on every page of this weird and disturbing book. The journey begins when, at age sixty, Bercholz has a heart attack and is scheduled for immediate sextuple coronary bypass surgery. Wheeled into the operating room, he is given general anesthesia, loses consciousness, and in effect dies.

“Here,” he writes, “was an alternative world, thoroughly different from the earthly world I had left behind. My senses were overwhelmed by the unbearable odor of burning flesh and extremes of heat and cold beyond imagination . . . A wordless message was somehow conveyed to me: This is the domain of hell. You have been brought here as a guest, to witness and understand the suffering of beings of all kinds—particularly the suffering of human beings” (emphasis Bercholz’s).

And witness it he does. Accompanied by his guide, whom he calls “the Buddha of Hell,” he experiences “the landscape of hell . . . a vast expanse with countless inhabitants, veritable oceans of suffering beings. The sufferings of each and every one of these beings are due to their own mental conceptions. In fact, their suffering in hell is an unbroken continuation of their own states of mind during life, which persisted even after the death of the physical body . . . It would soon become clear that an inescapable characteristic of hell is the sheer redundancy of self-created sufferings, which pound consciousness in seemingly perpetual cycles.”

In this journey he encounters beings like Momo Drollo, a grotesque giant. In her life she had lived a nomadic life in Tibet, married to two brothers, whose deaths, combined with other misfortunes, suffused her with bitterness. “She lived from her bile, always read to blurt hateful words. She perceived everyone as her enemy, including her children, who could do nothing right.” Although she wanted to be reborn into the family of a wealthy merchant, she ended up in hell.

An even starker case is Afanas Popov, a Russian intellectual who came up with a doomsday machine, “not something that would damage one place or injure one group of people, but a machine that, if Russia were threatened, would destroy the entire world, turning it to dust.” At one point a crisis ensues, and Popov was just about to press the switch when he was shot by his own soldiers. In the hell realm, “his body was like a hologram filled with all the bodies of hell, all the individuals of hell. There was absolutely no separation between himself and these individuals, yet he had contempt and disgust for every part of the body that was made up of other hell-beings. Even though they were no different from his own hell-being, he was claustrophobized by his own fingers, his own feet, his own organs.”

Eventually, of course, the vision ends, and Bercholz regains consciousness to face a long and difficult recovery.

The book has a graphic format, and is luridly illustrated by artist Pema Namdol Thaye, who has been trained in Tibetan traditional art methods. Unfortunately his mastery of American graphics style is little better than adequate, and many of his illustrations, like most mediocre treatments of horrific themes, are less terrifying than they are unpleasant. Indeed the illustrations are the weakest part of Bercholz’s graphic memoir.

This tour through hell raises many questions, of course. The most obvious one is this: Many of those who have reported on their NDEs, including Eben Alexander (see Quest, Quest, Winter 2015) and Natalie Sudman (see Quest, Quest, Summer 2017), describe experiences that are unique or at any rate difficult to categorize through theology. But Bercholz’s is quite different: it is practically a textbook description of the hell realms as portrayed in Buddhist literature. To what extent has his spiritual practice conditioned him to see the afterlife in this way? This has long been an issue in the philosophical enquiry into mystical experience: is the visionary seeing only what his religion has conditioned him to see? For Alexander and Sudman, this does not seem to be the case, but it certainly is for Bercholz. Then of course we must ask, does this tend to validate his experience or throw doubt upon it?

No one can say that Bercholz did not have these visions. Do we then have to say that his Tibetan Buddhist practice conditioned his mind so deeply that he saw through its lens even in a coma? Or are we to conclude that he happened to visit the Buddhist hell, which of course would imply Christian and Jewish and Muslim hells? Perhaps a Buddhist would argue that these others are all inferior versions of his own—but then every religion tends to say that sort of thing. In the end, I will have to put this Buddhist Inferno on the shelf of my library dedicated to works of strangeness, and leave it at that.

Richard Smoley

The Bhagavad Gita: A Guide to Navigating the Battle of Life; A New Translation and Commentary

Ravi Ravindra
Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala, 2017. 302 pp., paper, $19.95

When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon, I turn to Bhagavad Gita and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of external tragedies and if they have not left any visible or invisible effect on me, I owe it to the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita.

—Mahatma Gandhi

 It is rare that an Indian child grows up without the influence of the sacred text known as the Bhagavad Gita. As a young child, I was trained to chant the Gita fluently and entered into chanting competitions. Did we understand the true meaning of what the Gita taught? I am afraid to answer.

At the beginning of this new translation, Ravi Ravindra tells a touching story about how his father used to read Gita in Sanskrit to him. He said to his son at the age of eleven, “I can tell you what these words say, but I don’t know what it really means and I wish for you that you will find a teacher or a teaching that will assist you to understand its real meaning.” I could relate, as it brought back memories of my conversations with my own father on the same journey.

Yes, we understood the story. The Gita is set as a dialogue between the Pandava prince Arjuna and his guide and charioteer, Lord Krishna. We knew that Arjuna did not want to fight in the war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, as he saw ones who were dear to him across the battlefield. We heard the teachings Krishna gave (we chanted them so often!), and we heard the terms yoga and swadharma (“doing what is right”—which may vary from individual to individual).

We may not have understood much then, but the seed was planted. So I was not surprised to read about Ravi Ravindra’s drive to understand the deeper meaning of these teachings. Study of the Gita is a lifelong process. Every time one reads it, a new understanding is revealed, another layer of spiritual maturation is discovered. Ravindra’s new commentary and translation of the Gita is the result of this lifelong journey (and probably not a finished one either!).

The list of commentaries on the Gita is endless. Great minds such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, S. Radhakrishnan, Shankaracharya, Mahatma Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Nikhilananda, Chinmayananda, Vinoba Bhave, and Dnyaneshwar have written profound commentaries, both scholarly ones and ones that give us practical advice for our daily life struggles.

The identity of the battlefield depicted in the Gita has produced different views. The one I find most enlightening is the one that says that the dilemma faced by Arjuna and the dilemmas we face in our daily life are not different. Our life too is a battlefield.

Ravindra looks at the Gita as a yoga that is multidimensional. Each chapter in his translation of the Gita is titled “The Yoga of . . . ” It conveys a global view of the Gita as a scripture. The basic guidance from Lord Krishna is “Be firm in yoga and arise.” Arise here also means awakening with knowledge and translating that knowledge into action with wisdom.

Ravindra has spent his life exploring the mystical traditions of the world including Zen, Christianity, yoga, and the teachings of J. Krishnamurthi and G.I. Gurdjieff. This book reflects the depth of Ravindra’s understanding. In an enlightening introduction he first gives us the background of Arjuna’s conflict and says: “The Bhagavad Gita is not about stopping war nor about promoting it. Also it is not about avoiding conflict or renouncing the use of force . . . It is rather about a radical transformation of the warrior in order to be able to engage in the battle consciously and not compulsively or in reaction, to use force without violence, and to fight impartially—without vanity in victory and without regret in defeat.” Isn’t this exactly how we are to face our real-life dilemmas and struggles?

Ravindra quotes the Epistle to the Ephesians: “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ravindra’s commentary on the Gita blends in similar teachings from other world traditions throughout. The notes section at the end of the book is a great resource for this, and also provides a brief introduction to the Mahabharata war and some of its characters. I particularly like the way this version has grouped together verses with common threads, which conveys the teachings in a unique and clear way.

Ravindra says at the end of the eighteenth chapter, “In a human being, a part belongs to the domain of time and materiality and engages in action, reincarnating again and again, subject to the law of karma. There is another part, the Eternal Witness, not affected by force of time. Arjuna participates in the battle . . . Krishna remains above the battle, watchful and aware . . . Life is struggle; and none of us has a choice about participating in this battle. The real question is how to be a good warrior engaged in the battle and at the same time to discover and connect with the Krishna deep within ourselves.” This is certainly one of the central messages of this great text.

Dhananjay Joshi

The reviewer, a professor of statistics, has studied Hindu, Zen, and vipassana meditation for the past forty-five years. He is a regular contributor to the Indian periodical Lokmat and volunteers in the archives department of the TSA.

Out of Darkness: From Chaos to Clarity via Meditation

Cecil Messer
Asheville, N.C.: TwoCrows , 2016; vi + 194 pp., paper, $9. 

Out of Darkness is a warm, engaging approach to the practice of meditation. The author draws from a lifetime of meditative exploration, presenting the reader with a rich panorama of contemplative practices from Eastern and Western traditions. As you read the pages of the book, you get the feeling that the author is speaking directly to you as a fellow traveler on a sacred journey, and without any trace of pedantry or dogma. Since meditation involves art as much as science, the author’s personal touch adds to the overall effectiveness of his presentation.

Cecil Messer, a longtime member of the TS, explains the book’s title as referring to “a movement away from our present status as alienated beings residing in a confused world of our own making.” In the modern world, millions of people live lives that are devoid of real happiness, which leads them to pursue one temporary pleasure after another. Who can argue with the author’s observation that “few people sustain real happiness or experience enduring contentment throughout their lifetime”? For those who chase one micropleasure after another, life is a “perpetual carousel” that leaves them feeling unsettled, confused, and dissatisfied. Hence the book’s subtitle, From Chaos to Clarity via Meditation.

Out of Darkness consists of four sections: an introduction, the Western approach, the Eastern approach, and the integration of both. Each of the fifteen chapters ends with a short meditative practice called a “sitting session.” These fifteen exercises are varied and simple, and progress in nuanced stages. Before attempting any of them, however, the reader is advised to review the “sitting fundamentals,” consisting of ten basic points regarding body position, posture, and so forth. Experienced meditators will be familiar with these preliminaries, but their inclusion is helpful for the novice.

The section on the Western approach includes passing references to Rumi, Thomas Merton, The Secret Doctrine, HPB’s diagram of meditation, The Voice of the Silence, and the Old and New Testaments. In taking such an eclectic approach, it is not the author’s intent to linger or dwell on any one particular point, but to highlight “those religious practices that emphasize and follow the wisdom of the teachings of their religion and lead to a profound renewal of mind and heart.” When this renewal is experienced, the phrase “born again” truly applies, regardless of whether one identifies with the Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or any other religious tradition.

Turning to the East, Messer puts the spotlight on the wisdom found in Buddhism, with its emphasis on the Paramitas, and the Yoga Sutras, with Patanjali’s “eight-limbed” system of yoga. He does a skillful job of distilling key points from different philosophical systems, weaving them into one flowing argument that advocates the daily practice of meditation. Since the author describes himself as a practitioner of nonsectarian Buddhism, it is not surprising that he emphasizes Buddhist doctrines. And while technical explanations of terms and systems appear throughout the book, these are interspersed with short stories and anecdotes, all of which serve to keep the reader interested and moving to the next page.

In the opinion of this reviewer, Out of Darkness is an outstanding manual on meditation, but one that will be most beneficial for those just beginning their meditative journey. Throughout the book, the inquisitive reader will find many ideas for further study and inquiry. To maximize the utility of this book, the practitioner is advised to become intimately familiar with each of the fifteen sessions, doing them one at a time, patiently, and without rushing on to the next one. In the words of the author, they are “designed to encourage the practitioner to effortlessly relax into a profoundly subtle and interiorly oriented state.” This is a fine book, and one that I can recommend. My only criticism would be a relatively minor point, namely that the book would benefit from having an index. Perhaps this could be added if a second edition were to be published someday.

David Bruce

Your Inner Islands: The Keys to Intuitive Living

Will Tuttle, Ph.D
Healdsburg, Calif.: Karuna Music & Art; 144 pp., paper, $15.

Intuition involves living from the deeper self rather than just from surface experiences. Will Tuttle, who is a dharma master in the Zen tradition, has been leading workshops to help people develop intuition since 1990, and offers us a seemingly simple method for bringing forth our natural intuition so that it helps us evolve into our higher selves—our true nature.

Tuttle defines intuition as “tuition from within”—tuition being teaching or instruction—that differs from “conventional rational forms of knowing . . . and a basic separation between the knower and what is known” or, in the Hindu tradition, between purusha and prakriti respectively. While we all have this ability, most of us live on the surface of the material world, which results in the usual problems of separation, delusions, anger, and ignorance of the wholeness.

Our “inner islands”—of which there are six—are the source of this evolution, according to Tuttle, which he describes as crossing a vast ocean, making stops along the way and learning the lessons until we reach the other shore—“our fully awakened potential.” Crossing a body of water is a Buddhist metaphor for going beyond the world of separateness, ignorance, and attachment, where we stand now, to the world of pure nondual awareness—emptiness. The boat and the oars symbolize the methods of getting us across this divide.

After many days of travel we come upon the first, the Island of Understanding. There we encounter a sign containing words from a Zen koan, “The ox, trying to go through the gate, is stuck; only his tail won’t go through.” This gate leads us into the “realm of intuition,” which is our “own true nature.” It is our inner voice; the ox is the true self; and the ox’s tail is the ego, which is an obstacle to spiritual growth. It is “the belief that you are a separate thing,”but it is also all the delusions that we have about our stories and our attachments, which we are called to release so that we can take responsibility for our awakening.

We come next to the Island of Energy, where the spiritual energy is so strong that, “like music, we just let it move us and follow its promptings.” On this island we learn to raise our level of spiritual energy to a higher vibration “through cultivating inner receptivity through prayer and meditation.” Through this higher level of vibration, we learn to follow our inner guidance, and more importantly to trust it—perhaps the most challenging thing.

On the Island of Meditation we learn the practice of “looking more deeply” to begin to see the oneness of all things. Words and concepts, the Island of Understanding tells us, “can limit our awareness” and “can become distortions that distance us and distract us from awareness of the deeper process unfolding around and within us.”We thencan move beyond the “conditioned consciousness” of samsara’s illusions.

“The most beneficial teachings tend to come from within, when the mind is clarified and abides in witnessing awareness,” the island tells us. It is here we learn to “expand beyond thinking and beyond being anyone or anything.”

The Island of Imagination is where we learn that the outer world is a manifestation of our inner world. “The world appears as a dream of mind to remind you that as you imagine the world, so it is, and as you imagine yourself, so you are as well.”

The fifth island is the Island of Relationship. Because we have learned the lessons of the previous four islands, we can now allow our relationships to “heighten” our intuitive abilities, and our “intuition to deepen our relationships.” In this chapter Tuttle explores the ideal utopian society. While there have been many experiments in utopian societies, especially during the Second Great Awakening in the United States (c.1795–1840), none seemed to have been successful over the long term. But it has long been an ideal to which humans have sought in their efforts to create the perfect society—or at least one to their own liking.

Surprisingly, the last island—the Island of Compassion—turns out to be the place from which our journey began. Samsara and nirvana are not separate places but are one and the same—states of mind that depend upon how our mind perceives the here and now.“Everything contains everything else and perhaps nothing is ever separate from anything,” andall of our life’s experiences contain the seeds for awakening to wisdom and compassion, Tuttle tells us.

Tuttle, an accomplished pianist, created a CD of beautiful music to accompany each island  for an auditory experience on our journey. His wife, Madeleine, an artist, has painted six panels, each depicting the islands, to provide beautiful visuals for the reader to help in this exploration.

Ultimately, truth is a pathless land, as Jiddu Krishnamurti once said, and the journey to the other shore—beyond thought, beyond attachments and beyond the perceived self—is one that each of us must take on the path to enlightenment. In an age when we live more and more from Internet searches and Facebook commentary, Your Inner Islands is a thoughtful guide to connecting us with our inner self, that place where our intuition—and ultimately our truth—resides.

Clare Goldsberry

Clare Goldsberry is a freelance writer and author of The Teacher Within: Finding and Living Your Personal Truth, available on Amazon.