--usand years, I have forgotten what it means to have a 'body.'

The mind is the Self attempting to individuate. Useful to do on Earth, during that beautiful, horrible eyeblink called "life." The mind inhabits the body, takes ownership of it, spreads out like an inflating balloon to fill every cell, every pore. The mind drives and directs, and it feels what the body does. It is impossible for most people to imagine themselves as anything other than their body, and the mind that suffuses it.

Ten thousand years of fire and suffering are the only cure for those who cannot extricate their Self from their body, their consciousness from their experiences. Hell, I have learned, is not for 'sinners.' It is merely the remedial class for enlightenment and ascension, the last divine attempt to save us from identifying with something as temporary, fallible, and ultimately boring as corporeal life.

I do not have a 'body' here. That which roasts on the demons' cooking spit is not screaming flesh as the humans imagine. The fires of hell are not the fires that burn down homes or melt flesh from the bones of the unlucky. No, these fires sear the soul, burning away the imperfections, the false hopes, the expectations both hopeful and despairing. I no longer dream of the ending to this torture. I dream of a day when I forget what it was like to be blissful, for torture is only awful to those who have something to compare it to.

I dream of no longer dreaming. I pray that I will one day cease to pray. I wish for nothing more than that I did not wish this was over, but I do. I still fervently do.

...and so I begin the next ten thousand years.