The four kinds of Paradise

The four kinds of Paradise: Quote from Maulana Rumi’s Masnavi

There are 4 kinds of Paradise:

1: The Paradise of the nafs [ego], which is full of pleasure, is promised by the Shariah as a reward to those who do good
2: The Paradise which is inherited by following the Path of the Prophet Muḥammad SAW and of the Saints
3: The spiritual Paradise, which is the heart where the Divine manifests Itself.
4: The Paradise of the Highest Spiritual Delight, which is the Paradise where the soul beholds the beauty of God.

 

 

Whether one attains Paradise depends on how great one’s love of God is.

God said that the wall of Paradise is not lifeless and ugly like other walls

Like the door and wall of the body, it is endowed with intelligence: the house (Paradise) is living since it belongs to the King of kings.

Tree, fruit and clear water take part in conversation and discourse with the inhabitant of Paradise.

Because Paradise has not been built with the builder’s materials; no, but it has been built with good deeds and intentions.

This edifice resembles its foundation which is full of defect, and that edifice resembles its foundation, which is knowledge and action.

Throne, palace, crown and robes engage in conversation with the inhabitant of Paradise.

The life of the everlasting Abode (Paradise) exists in the heart: it does not come on my tongue, so why should I try to describe it

 

The metaphorical picture of the palaces of Paradise

If the spirit shall not live without this body, then for whom shall Heaven be the palace of everlasting Abode?

If your spirit shall not live without the body, for whom is the blessing promised in the words in Heaven is your provision?

If you are delivered from this provision of coarse scraps, you will fall to eating dainty and noble food.

Even if you are eating a hundred pounds’ weight of His food, you will depart pure and light as a parī.

For they will not make you a prisoner of (incapacitated by) wind and dysentery and crucify you with belly cramps.

Ride like a ship on such a spiritual ocean by eating the Food of God and the easily digested (delicious) nutriment.

Perhaps, by the effect of the river of honey, this poison of hatred may be turned into honey in my body;

Or by the reflection of the river of that pure milk, my captive intelligence may be nourished for a moment;

Or perhaps, by the reflection of those rivers of wine, I may be intoxicated and catch a scent of the delight of obedience to the Divine command;

Or perhaps, by the favour of those rivers of water, my barren devastated body may be refreshed

Some verdure may appear on my barren soil, my thorn thicket may become the Garden of everlasting Abode;

Perhaps, by the reflection of Paradise and the four rivers, with God’s help, my spirit may become a seeker of the Friend