The Tibetan Book of the Dead · Reading 139 of 170
The Choosing of the Womb-Door
The Premonitory Visions of the Place of Rebirth
Reading 3 of 3
If to be born amongst pretas, desolate treeless plains and shallow caverns, jungle glades and forest wastes will be seen. If one goeth there, taking birth as a preta, one will suffer various pangs of hunger and thirst. Recollect the revulsion; and do not go there by any means. Exert great energy [not to enter therein].
If to be born in Hell, songs [like wailings], due to evil karma, will be heard. [One will be] compelled to enter therein unresistingly. Lands of gloom, black houses, and white houses, and black holes in the earth, and black roads along which one hath to go, will appear. If one goeth there, one will enter into Hell; and, suffering unbearable pains of heat and cold, one will be very long in getting out of it. Go not there into the midst of that. It hath been said, 'Exert thine energy to the utmost': this is needed now.