You Have to Pay It!
People who die, who do not have enough merit to be born as humans again immediately or to be born in heaven, will be in so-called hell for a while. They will be punished or something terrible done to them to clean their karma, burn out all the bad things, cut off all the immoral ulcers from their souls, so they can be born again. The king of hell will give them an audience and ask them what is it that they want now -- what kind of position they want, and what kind of life they want to lead -- as now they will have the privilege to be born as humans again. One by one, they answered.
Some of them said: "Oh! I am so happy to be free of hell now. I am sure that I am going to be a human being, very honored, very happy and going to be a very good person. For example, I want to serve and I want to do this." Then they will give you a good position like being a nurse, doctor or whatever to give you a good chance to serve people.
Another person said: "Oh! Since I have been in hell very long -- very terrible, miserable -- now I want to enjoy life. I want to have beautiful surroundings, beautiful clothes and a lovely voice so that I can sing and charm all the females. I should have a beautiful abode next to a river and should have plenty of food so that I don't have to earn money to get it." The king of hell said, "All right." So he told his subordinates, the devils, to bring him exactly what he needed. So what did they bring him? A beautiful, feathered bird, such shiny feathers. That's what he wanted. He wanted beautiful clothes, no need to earn them. So he had them fixed permanently. No need to wash even, no trouble. He didn't want a troubled life; he wanted just to sit there, eat, drink, and sing. So they gave him a big, beautiful, feathered body and a nice voice, so he could sing all day long. Then placed him next to a tree in the forest -- a lot of berries, wild fruit and beautiful surroundings. He had drinking, eating, beautiful feathers, and nothing to worry about. That was what they gave him. Exactly according to what he wanted. So do not blame God for our position. It is what we wanted.
Another guy also came up from hell and wanted a similar thing. "Wow! I have always been burned in hell and my flesh looks like it's all gone. I'm skinny and burned out. I want to get fat and even fatter. Looks like a lot of blessings to be fat." Most people think to be fat and big is a kind of meritorious life. "I have had such a hard life in hell, I want to make up for it now. I want to just eat, drink, sleep, and get fat. I have been very skinny up till now because all the fire in hell drew out my blood, burned all my fat and flesh. I want people to serve me, bring food up to my door, up to my mouth even. I don't want to go anywhere, don't want to earn money for it. Give me that kind of life! Then I don't have to worry about food, clothing and everyone serves me." The king told the subordinates to bring his "outfit" for this life. Do you know what it was? A pig's skin. They put it down for him and he immediately became a pig. After that he drank a kind of liquid and forgot everything about his past life; he just enjoyed being a pig. Every day people brought food to his mouth, washed him, brought drinks for him, and made him fat. He didn't have to do anything at all. That was the kind of life that he wanted, so he got it.
Otherwise, how can you have a human life; doing nothing, no responsibility. You get food and drink brought to your mouth, without doing anything. Do you think there is a human life like that? No. So they had to give him a pig's life to satisfy his desires. That was very justified because it was according to what he wanted.