A Bud that Will Bloom in Heaven
The Quran says: ‘He will admit them into the Garden He has already made known to them.’ (47:6)
Elsewhere, it says about the people of Paradise: “Whenever they are given fruit to eat they will say, ‘This is what we were provided with before,’ because they were given similar things.” (2:25)
A hadith relates that Heaven and Hell are actually the result of the actions of people that are returned to them.
From the above we learn that entry into Heaven begins in this very world itself. A heavenly person obtains his Heaven in this world itself. It is as if a replica of Heaven exists in this world and that only he will enter Heaven in the Hereafter who had attained this replica of Heaven while in this world. This worldly replica of Heaven is, as it were, a cash award that is granted to someone before the real reward, as a preliminary indication or symbol of the heavenly reward after death.
Who are these heavenly people? They are those who in this world experience the psychological states that make them eligible for Heaven in the Hereafter. Their hearts have been shattered into bits in the awareness of being in God’s proximity and in the awareness that God is inspecting all their deeds. Expelling all feelings of envy, malice and revenge from their hearts, they have experienced divine forgiveness. In their tears of repentance, they have seen the mercy of a beneficent Master who forgives His servants who acknowledge their mistakes. They release people who are under their control so that their Lord can also set them free on that day when they will be in an infinitely more helpless condition themselves. They willingly surrender themselves before the Truth in the same way as others will fall flat on seeing God on the Day of Judgment.
A true believer is a flower of the garden of Heaven. In this world, he is, as it were, a bud that will burst into bloom in Heaven, in the world to come. He faces various trials and tribulations in this world, just as others will experience the same in the Hereafter. Within the different types of conditions that one faces in life is hidden everyone’s Heaven and Hell. In the face of such conditions, if you react in a devilish manner, you prove yourself eligible for Hell. If you respond in an angelic manner, you prove yourself eligible for Heaven.
