In Western culture people in general have a great aversion to the idea of hell, perhaps due to Christianity having been abusing this idea for centuries. Even people who are religious usually prefer to believe that people just go to heaven, or that we immediately reincarnate, without passing through any form of judgment. Even one and a half century ago, when Srila Bhaktivinoda was preaching in India he encountered resistance to the idea of hell, which led him to minimize the idea and instead focus on more important issues.
However, the Puranas describe in detail the activities of Yamaraja and his servants, as well as the hellish words they use to punish the sinful. According to the Puranas, with the exception of devotees, who are escorted to their next body by the Vishnudutas (as described in the Brhad Bhagavatamrta), everyone has to pass through the judgment of Yamaraja before receiving his next body.
The best way to avoid that is of course by becoming a sincere devotee of Krsna and chanting His Holy Names. As Srila Haridasa Thakura explains, even chanting on the stage of Namabhasa is capable of destroying one’s sins and bringing a person to the liberated platform, where there is no question of meeting the Yamadutas. The history of Ajamila, narrated in the 6th canto of Srimad Bhagavatam is a graphical illustration of how one can be saved from hell even by chanting at the last moment.
Because Ajamila was so sinful, the Vishnudutas were prepared to bring him to hell, but at the moment they started snatching the soul from the body using their subtle ropes, the Vishnudutas appeared carrying weapons and ordered them to release Ajamila, or else. It happened that Ajamila destroyed all his karma by desperately chanting the name of Narayana at the last moment. Even though he chanted to call his son, not directly addressing Lord Narayana, because he chanted in full concentration it was sufficient to free him from all his past sinful activities. By the time the Yamadutas started taking the soul out of the body, he was indeed an innocent man, and thus the Vishnudutas immediately appeared to protect him.
What about the souls who are not so fortunate? How the severity of the punishment one will receive in hell is determined?
The Srimad Bhagavatam explains that it is determined according to one’s individual consciousness. The ones who commit sins due to madness receive the least punishment. The ones who know the difference between right and wrong, but still commit sins due to weakness receive moderate punishment, but those who are stubborn atheists, consciously willing to commit sins and deluding themselves with the idea that there is no God, receive the most severe punishment.
This is explained in SB 5.26.3: “Just as by executing various pious activities one achieves different positions in heavenly life, by acting impiously one achieves different positions in hellish life. Those who are activated by the material mode of ignorance engage in impious activities, and according to the extent of their ignorance, they are placed in different grades of hellish life. If one acts in the mode of ignorance because of madness, his resulting misery is the least severe. One who acts impiously but knows the distinction between pious and impious activities is placed in a hell of intermediate severity. And for one who acts impiously and ignorantly because of atheism, the resultant hellish life is the worst.”
Just as a person is reintegrated into society after serving time in prison, a soul has the opportunity to receive a new body and continue his activities after going through hell. Chances are that all of us passed through hell at some point in the past, and thus deep inside we have the understanding that we shouldn’t do sinful things. However, due to the influence of material nature, we tend to forget and repeat the same mistakes.
Of course, in our case there is hope because we are at least trying to serve Krsna, but people who are not so fortunate risk being again being captured by their material desires and gliding down back to hell. As mentioned in the same verse, “Because of ignorance, every living entity has been carried by various desires into thousands of different hellish planets since time immemorial.”
What kind of body does someone who is coming back from hell receives? This again depends on his mentality and activities, and especially their level of spiritual evolution. Some may receive human bodies, or bodies of evolved animals, such as cows or lions, from which they can quickly come back to the human platform. However, the ones who degraded their consciousness due to excessive sins and addictions and become thus completely devoid of pious merits risk going all the way down, receiving the forms of plants or insects and having to go through an extremely long evolutionary process until they can again receive another chance of getting a human body.
Souls who are coming from the animal species normally lack piety, and as a result they receive human bodies in Kali-Yuga, where they have to prove themselves in order to advance to higher realms. The problem is that, of course, there is little opportunity for spiritual advancement in Kali-Yuga, and therefore chances are that these souls end-up being captured into a practically eternal cycle of sinning, going to hell, going through the animals species and eventually receiving another human body in Kali-Yuga just to sin again and go back to hell.
The only realistic chance for such souls to be saved is to somehow or other meet devotees and starting their practice of Krsna Consciousness. That’s the reason Chaitanya Mahaprabhu comes in Kali-Yuga, offering a chance for these souls who otherwise could just remain perpetually under such conditions.
Keeping this in mind, we should not underestimate our good fortune in coming in contact with the movement of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Not only should we strive for making good use of the opportunity, but we should try to also reach others, so they also have the same chance of changing their destiny.