The Seventh Heaven

Beyond the Clouds

I fight my way through life — and it fights back. It’s the same way today that it will be tomorrow. From the boons of fortune, all I’ve gained has been the making of a family and the begetting of children. Then, as I’ve grown too weak to make them happy, I can no longer make myself happy either. If my own agony was not so uniquely like that of my country, then I would think only of myself, and not of my country. Instead, I have found that my family reflects totally the situation in the country, and that the country exactly mirrors the condition of my family. Both of them suffer from overpopulation, a shortage of resources, an imbalance between income and expenses, ever-increasing debt, and a bleak future. Yet I’ve never sought to hide the reality of our situation, nor promised to do anything beyond my power to perform. Due to my inability to improve my own condition, along with my impotence to help the nation generally, frustration has turned my hair white before its time. I have found nothing to help me escape into the solace of solitude except for one thing — dreaming.

Yes, dreaming is what hews a new path for me; it brings me all I could possibly crave. With the fullness of health, strength, and human intimacy, dreaming lifts me up to a new world entirely — one of exalted truth and perfect justice. Through dreaming I climb dazzlingly into the world of the Unseen. But sometime during the heat of battle between fact and imagination, the night of misery lengthened as I huddled beneath the bedcovers, all of my limbs trembling uncontrollably. My wife became worried, urging me to take more than one prescription of medicine. Still I longed for sleep, with all its powers to save me from distress and torment. Yet I could neither sleep nor ease the growing agitation that shook me so profoundly. Then, a surprise — and what a surprise! I rose like a bird, flying with calmness and dignity through the air of the room. I could not help thinking of all that I had heard about delirium and fever. I looked and saw my body prone on the bed; all were watching it with streaming tears. This had to be a fever, no doubt about that. All the motion and sounds that surged through the room had no meaning at all to me. I urged them to take hold of themselves, to calm down and keep quiet — but they did not hear. I observed them with complete placidity. Then my interest in them and what they were doing began to decline, and slowly, slowly to disappear. Their image began to sink into the depths, fading away until it had vanished completely. A long corridor stretched before me, whose floor and walls were covered in mist, and from whose distant end loomed the purest light. I walked through it with heavy, stumbling steps, staggering at times, longing for some sense of security. Finally, at the source of the light, my father and mother appeared to me. They stared at me with affection as I rushed toward them, my fears diminishing. Then I remembered the hurdle of death that stood between us. I halted in caution, whispering to them as though in excuse, “Maybe I’m dreaming!”

I heard their two voices as though they were one, “But now you are waking.”

They came toward me, arm in arm, wearing clothes made of clouds.

“Wake up! You have become one of us, with nothing standing between us.”

Dreams don’t have this kind of clarity, I said to myself. Then I whispered, “Yes, I’m completely awake.”

“That is good,” they replied.

“Yet I feel that a dreadful nightmare is going on inside me.”

“That will disperse once you have purged yourself of your sins.”

“You will help me …,” I said wishfully.

They answered as one, “Our mission here has ended. Rely upon yourself.”

In a flashing instant, they were gone. No sooner had they disappeared, than I found myself in my new world.

A new world indeed, which I have not the words to describe. A place, and yet not a place. Light, but yet not really light. Colors, yet not like any that I had known. Trees, but not actual trees. Houses that were not houses at all. Ground and sky shrouded in clouds, spreading outward without any bounds. Even the houses were made of clouds, ranged in even rows with vast spaces between them. The trees towered very high, resplendent in wholly unfamiliar shades of a deeply stirring kind. A steady, soothing light — neither dusk nor twilight — pervaded all. For a moment I imagined that I was alone in an existence that had no clear end. Yet the feeling of loneliness did not weigh heavily upon me, nor did it last long. For this existence that surrounded me was itself pulsing with hidden life. It was also alive and intelligent, regarding me with interest, as though wondering what I was going to do next. And within the homes were living beings absorbed in their own affairs. Their cries of “Glory to God” somehow reached my inner sense of hearing. Should I knock on one of those doors to ask for guidance from those inside? Yet, if even my own parents had abandoned me, then what could I expect from strangers? But where could I start, and where would I go?

Then I was met by a majestic personage whose garment trailed away as a cloud. He gazed at me with his luminous face, a miracle of radiance and beauty. With the look in his eyes, he commanded me to follow him until he stopped before a house.

“This is your dwelling,” he said.

I looked at the place as though to inspect it.

“Wait,” he warned, “you will not go inside until you have bathed.”

I pointed to my heart. “A nightmare is churning above my chest,” I told him.

“That is why you must bathe first,” he replied.

A disturbing idea flared within me. “It seems that an unceasing labor lies before me,” I fretted.

“The road is long, with many stations along the way,” he warned. “And its final end is unlike anything else.”

“Will you show me how to proceed, at least for the first step?”

“Rely on yourself, both first and last,” he bid me.

He took me by the hand and led me through a lush forest to a lake of light, and told me to immerse myself within its waves of rays. I complied with the order — floating for a few seconds, before beginning to sink, slowly and without pause, until I settled in the innermost depths of the lake. The waves penetrated deep inside my being, cleansing me thoroughly. A chain of sins and errors that I had committed during my life stretched out before my sight. Each time a sin or error would vanish, an accompanying pain would vanish with it. My weight lessened accordingly, so that I rose from my submersion little by little. This bathing went on for hours, or days, or years, until eventually I was floating once more upon the lake’s surface. Finally, I alighted on the land with nimbleness and glee — then entered my house.

Donning my robe of trailing clouds, I decided not to waste my time in idleness. For a long while I pondered what to do, until finally I resolved to begin with science to meet the needs of the traveler, in mastering navigation and the drawing of maps.

I threw myself into my work with a determination that knew neither weakness nor hesitation. I was aided by the unvarying climate, which was always mild, both by day and by night, not altering even with the seasons. There were no problems to sap one’s will, nor any hardships or despair. And from somewhere deep inside me, without any outside help, I had a vision of the great road ahead in all its daunting length and the many stops along its course. My heart was satisfied by the choice of mapmaking as my first field of toil, my elation rising to the enormous heights that I had conjured in my earthly dreams themselves.

But then someone knocked at my door — interrupting my work. Amazed, I told the visitor to enter. Then she—she— drew toward me with all her former magic and beauty, swathed in her new, celestial garb. Opening my arms wide, I clutched her to my breast in longing and desire.

“I thought that we would never meet again!” I blurted.

With her sweet voice, she replied, “And I don’t believe that, after this moment, we shall ever part again.”

“Together, together — until the Abode of Adoration,” I said with breathless passion.

Catching sight of my work, she asked, “With what did you begin?”

“With cartography!”

“I started with poetry,” she said, with obvious unease.

We exchanged expectant looks, then I muttered, “We cannot stay together.”

“Shall we separate by our own choice now,” she said, “after we’ve tasted the bitterness of our ancient parting?”

“We shall not meet again before we arrive at the Mansion of Love.”

“That is a long way away.”

“Yet we shall get there someday.”

“Can’t we do anything to help make it come true?”

“I can only do the work which is fitting for me, and perhaps it’s the same for you.”

“Yes,” she replied.

“My desire is the same as yours, or even stronger — yet we have no choice.”

She sank into silence. In grief and regret, I told her, “In any case, our reunion is coming — there is no doubt about that. And time has no meaning to us.”

She smiled painfully as she receded slowly, until finally she had vanished completely. This time I did not surrender to mourning, as I had in my former existence.

Wary that anxiety might distract me, I redoubled my efforts at work and my enthusiasm for it. Neither the length of the road nor any problems bothered me. Nor did I fear the betrayals of time, or the creep of old age, or the threat of death. Then came yet more knocking at my door. My heart beating hard, I expected to see her beloved face — but this time it was a man, someone new, not the guide who had brought me to my home.

“I am the medium between this world and the one you have left,” he said, presenting himself to me.

The old world that I had forgotten utterly. I stared at him questioningly, and he continued matter-of-factly, “I have disrupted your labor, but I am faithful to my duty.”

Then he added, still neutrally, “There is someone calling to you from the people of the earth.”

What do they want? What have I to do with them? How could they not perceive the importance of the work for which our past lives had prepared us?

“Who is calling for me?” I inquired.

“Your son, Ahmad.”

“Ah … who was still in his mother’s womb when I left their world,” I recalled.

My heart pounded despite myself, and I asked, “Would you counsel me to answer his call?”

With polite indifference, he replied, “That is not my affair. You must decide on your own.”

A conflict erupted within me, yet I quickly surrendered to this catastrophe, the possibility of which had not previously occurred to me. Under the weight of wicked feelings, I mumbled quietly, “I see that I’d best respond to this plea.”

Immediately I found myself peering into a closed courtroom immersed in a kind of darkness. Before me were seats arranged in a semi-circle, on which a group of men were sitting. Among them was Ahmad — whom I knew by my inner sight — who had taken his seat on the right. At the same time, I saw my intermediary reposed on a cushion, a transparent curtain separating him from the rest of those present.

“Ahmad,” I called to my son softly.

“Father!” he said, leaping up from his seat.

“Yes, I am your father.”

With burning curiosity, he asked me, “How are you, father?”

“God be praised,” I answered.

“What is life like where you are?”

“We do not have a language in common for me to convey it to you. But everything here is fine.”

Sighing, he rejoined, “Life here seems cruel. Nothing good is left to us.”

“You yourselves must change that until all of it is good.”

“But how, father?”

“The question is yours, and so is the answer,” I said. “All live according to their own ambition.”

“Yet all are wondering, what is hidden from us tomorrow?”

“God knows tomorrow, but the human being creates it.”

“There’s no possibility we can count on your aid?”

“I have already rendered it,” I replied.

In a plaintive voice, he exclaimed, “They accuse me of loving only myself!”

“You do not know how to love yourself,” I told him, feeling the urge to leave.

Faster than lightning, I was back in my house. There, sharp pangs of repentance and remorse assailed me. How could it not upset me that I should be taken from my noble endeavors to be engrossed in the affairs of the world that is gone? Yet what did I know but the somber guide should then regard me again with his shining visage. The agonies of guilt growing stronger, I appealed to him, “I know that I have faltered, but I will make amends for my fault by working even harder!”

He showed no interest in what I said; his untroubled expression remained unchanged. Then he departed just as he had come, without uttering a word. Yet he left behind him a flower, the likes of which I had never before seen: huge in size, with luxuriant leaves and an enchanting color, emitting a fragrance of unprecedented beauty and power. It dawned on me that he could not have left it without a cause — but certainly had meant it as a gift for me.

A serene happiness overwhelmed me, and I mused to myself, No doubt, my journey — contrary to what had worried me — has won me such favor.