Fear in your mind produces fear in your life. This is the meaning of hell.
A shift in how we think about life produces a shift in how we experience it. To say, “God, deliver me from hell,” means “God, Deliver me from my fearful thinking.” The altar to God is the human mind. To “desecrate the altar” is to fill it with non-loving thoughts.
Adam and Eve were happy until she “ate of the knowledge of good and evil.” What that means is that everything was perfect until they learned to close their hearts, to say, “I love you if you do this, but not if you do that,” or, “I accept this part of you, but not that part.” Closing our hearts destroys our peace because it’s alien to our nature. It warps us and turns us into people we’re not meant to be.”

“Freud defined neurosis as separation from self, and so it is. Our real self is the love within us. It’s the “child of God.” The fearful self is an impostor. The return to love is the great cosmic drama, the personal journey from pretense to self, from pain to inner peace.

From:  “Return to Love”. By Maianne Williamson