5 gates of hell

By Michael Bernard Beckwith

Relationships are at the core of everything we experience in life. From our relationships with intimate partners, family, friends, colleagues, employers and employees, to Nature and the environment, and most importantly, our relationship with our Self and Spirit, how we relate influences and shapes our lives more than we imagine. In a series of eight articles on relationship, master teacher, creator of the Life Visioning™ process, and founder and Spiritual Director of the Agape International Spiritual Center Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith provides clarity and insight into the true nature of relationships, and how to create and experience them from a place of unconditional love, wholeness, and well-being.

There’s an old statement that says our chronic problems or issues are usually a message from Life that we’re attempting to find satisfaction in a world that is too small. To say this differently, we are trying to experience and get our contentment from a specific area, person, or thing as opposed to the vast field from which our contentment flows in abundance.

We are looking to one area to receive something that is not meant for that area to give us. We see this play out in relationships and we hear it in conversations when our loved ones express their unhappiness and disdain.

- Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith

From time to time I've spoken of what is known as the “Five Gates of Hell,” which are personalism, intellectualism, materialism, sensualism, and emotionalism. Each of these gates represent worlds in which people often live, and as such, attempt to find their happiness in. When something changes in that world, such as a specific situation or another person’s behavior, unhappiness ensues. Let’s take a closer look at each one.

Personalism is about how we relate to other people. Have you ever heard the expression, “Don’t take it personal?” Well it’s often meant that whomever the statement is directed towards has unnecessarily taken on or personalized a situation. As a result, they are affected, usually negatively, because they’ve taken ownership of something that wasn’t intended for them to personalize.

There’s an old statement that says our chronic problems or issues are usually a message from Life that we’re attempting to find satisfaction in a world that is too small. To say this differently, we are trying to experience and get our contentment from a specific area, person, or thing as opposed to the vast field from which our contentment flows in abundance.

We are looking to one area to receive something that is not meant for that area to give us. We see this play out in relationships and we hear it in conversations when our loved ones express their unhappiness and disdain.

- Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith

From time to time I've spoken of what is known as the “Five Gates of Hell,” which are personalism, intellectualism, materialism, sensualism, and emotionalism. Each of these gates represent worlds in which people often live, and as such, attempt to find their happiness in. When something changes in that world, such as a specific situation or another person’s behavior, unhappiness ensues. Let’s take a closer look at each one.

Personalism is about how we relate to other people. Have you ever heard the expression, “Don’t take it personal?” Well it’s often meant that whomever the statement is directed towards has unnecessarily taken on or personalized a situation. As a result, they are affected, usually negatively, because they’ve taken ownership of something that wasn’t intended for them to personalize.