Not long ago, I spoke about 1 truth: once human, we do not have later lives as insects, beasts,… This is a path of evolution. Its direction is upward, or remaining in place until we can move upward. We have learned the necessary lessons as plants and animals, and now we can only remain stuck in our current human lesson, not be “demoted” to beasts, hungry ghosts, animals,… as commonly understood. (You can read an earlier related article at here). Some of you are still “caught up” in Buddhism's doctrine of the Six Realms of Samsara. Here, I would like to clarify it as follows.
The doctrine of rebirth in the six realms holds that after death, depending on the karma we create, we may be reborn in 1 of 6 realms: Gods, Humans, Asuras, Animals, Hungry Ghosts, or Hell.
Like the Christian doctrine of Heaven and Hell, this is an argument religions often use with their followers. I will not discuss its purpose within this article. It should be added that some good religions lead us toward truth. But many religions are not themselves the truth. We need to distinguish this. Religion is not necessarily truth.
The 6 realms of the Six Realms of Samsara are not 6 specific places. In fact, all 6 are merely conceptual perception, created by the human Mind's Imagination. The Mind Creates This Entire World. Through these mental images, humans create corresponding magnetic fields that form and “co-create” that realm. At death, depending on the frequency of one's magnetic field, one is reborn into a realm with a corresponding field.
However, those 6 realms are not absolute truth. More deeply understood, those 6 realms are simply 6 corresponding states of the human mind. That means when reborn, you remain human; your mind merely falls into one of those 6 realms. Specifically:
- The Heavenly Realm: enjoying many blessings from good causes planted in past lives, you are born in this life into comfort, a happy family, material sufficiency and wealth, mental joy and health, ease and leisure, with a peaceful mind and pleasure “like the immortals.” Yet if you merely consume all your blessings or do wrong, you will inevitably “fall” into other realms. This heavenly realm is absolutely not 1 place like what you see in… Journey to the West!
- The Asura Realm: you do not have to die to be reborn through the Six Realms of Samsara; you arise and cease continually in every moment. The instant your mind enters irritability, anger, violence, hatred… you are immediately “reborn” into this realm and become an Asura at that moment.
- The Animal Realm: when the mind lacks love, compares, envies, is petty and mean, creates verbal karma, and cannot let go, it is constantly sorrowful and suffering. That sorrowful, suffering state causes you to fall into the Animal Realm.
- The Hungry Ghost Realm: when your mind is always hungry and thirsty, with too many unmet needs, chasing desires, eating indiscriminately and unhealthily, craving and ravenous. You are a hungry ghost. 🙂
- The Hell Realm: when the body becomes ill and diseased, with such pain that the mind only wishes to die, that is the realm of hell.
From this, we need to realize a truth: these 6 realms are not as we usually understand them, or as others tell us.
The following kinds of people cannot tell us the truth; instead, they offer interpretations of Karmic Consequences, Rebirth, the Six Realms of Samsara, and Heaven–Hell that move away from truth:
- Someone makes everything seem mysterious, exploiting religion for profit and producing all kinds of charms and magic, while actually having made little progress in practice and lacking sufficient spiritual maturity.
- Religious people also perform practices when invited, but because they have not realized the truth, this is like reciting a composition by rote, lacking sufficient awakened wisdom. Still, it may bring some calm to the families who invited them, although this too is only an illusion.
- Someone speaks based on scripture and belief. Belief is precious and powerful. Yet that person has not remembered the truth. Scripture was also written by humans, so it is not necessarily ultimate truth. In fact, speaking of scripture, here, right within the Mūlapariyāya Sutta, the Discourse on the Root of All Things, the Buddha himself taught: All the realms of Heaven, Humans, Asuras, Animals, Hungry Ghosts and Hell are merely conceptual perception, not direct and complete understanding of reality or truth.
As for scriptures that do not accord with the Right Dharma, you will always find these characteristics:
They intimidate and spread fear to make us do something.
When you remember the truth, just hearing or reading 1 thing that is not in accord with the True Dharma, you will know immediately. You hear the truth and know the person is speaking the truth. Immediately 🙂
How is this demonstrated?
In Buddhism, anyone who has attained the Three Knowledges can search throughout the realms to see whether these 6 realms exist, then present convincing evidence. Those who have attained the Three Knowledges do not prove these realms, because they do not exist in the way we understand them.
The same is true of those with Miraculous Powers, or what are generally called Supernormal Abilities. No one can prove it either. Those who have not attained realization, or whose powers exist only in their imagination, are often the ones who use fear, threats and pressure to make others believe absolutely.
However, each person has their own evolution program. We respect each person's program, whether they are doing right or wrong. When the conditions are ready, they too will awaken and choose what is right 
Actually, you already knew this, but you have forgotten it. The truth lies within you. And at some moment, you too will personally realize all this truth!
TMT.
