A famous Zen story says a very similar thing:

There was once a general who asked the Zen master Hakuin:"Are there really such things as Heaven and Hell?"

"What do you do for a living?" Hakuin asked him.

"I'm a general."

"Ha, ha, ha! What idiot asked you to be his general? You look more like a butcher to me", the Zen master teased the general.

"I'll cut you to pieces!" the general angrily pulled his sword.

"Here lie the gates of Hell!" said the master.

"Excuse me...Please forgive my insolence.”

And Hakuin said:"Here lie the gates of Heaven."

Heaven and Hell aren't places that suddenly appear after death. They exist here and now. Good and evil involve just a single instant of thought, and the gates of Heaven and Hell are ready to open for you at any time. (From Zen Stories: The Staff and Shout of the Venerable Ones)

    Pride ruined the angels,
    Their shame them restores;
    Lurks the joy that is sweetest
    In stings of remorse.

-- from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Sphinx"

I heard a podcast this weekend which explains the distinction between hell and the condition of being dead ("in Hades"). "The Descent of Jesus into Hades" by Eastern Orthodox Christian Fr. Thomas Hopko (32:25, transcript available)

https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_descent_of_j...

Here's a quote:

> So we determine whether we are in hell or not by our own belief or unbelief, by our love of love, and our love of light, and our love of truth, and our love of glory, or by our hatred of it. That has nothing to do with Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, who died for us. When He descended into Sheol and Hades, it means simply that He died, and through death, trampled down death and raised the dead, all the dead, there is no one left in the tomb, as it says. In St. John Chrysostom’s sermon on Paschal night, he said, “No one is left in the tomb. Christ is risen and life reigns.” But if you hate that life, it is hell. If you love it, it is Paradise.

Nice.

Posted something similar from early christian theology in the same thread.

C. S. Lewis writes along similar lines in The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters, two very different books, but both of which of I'd credit as changing my life. The common theme in both is that to be damned is not to sin greatly, but to become comfortable with the abandonment of good.

Seconded, I think I've learned something new about life. I knew a similar idea which I'd call instant karma that is basically this but I wouldn't be able to word it so eloquently.