As the world’s culture becomes more materialistic, people probably do not give much thought to heaven, the supposed destination for those who obey religious teaching, nor reflect a great deal upon hell, the tortuous place of punishment promised for those who go astray. Still, we see the evidence of both if we only look around us. Some people live in constant clouds of suffering that very much resemble the images of the damned, and others appear bathed in perpetual heavenly sunshine.  We may ascribe it to the random dealing of fate, but in truth this is a demonstration of the saying in Gayan Boulas : Heaven and hell are the material manifestation of agreeable and disagreeable thoughts.

In various teachings Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan endeavoured to make clear the nature of the mind world.  He said in one of his Aphorisms: The mind is a world, a world that man makes; and in it he will live in the hereafter, as a spider lives in the web it has woven.  We find the same expressed in this saying in Vadan Suras : Verily, man is his own mind.

But although we make it ourselves, for many of us our mind remains a puzzling mystery.  Humans are accustomed to the physical world. Denote the size, shape and colour of an object, and we feel we know where we are; we have a way of understanding it.  When it comes to a thought, though, and perhaps a thought about something abstract, such as ‘grace’ or ‘love’ or ‘modesty,’ then there is nothing to physically weigh or grasp; we are at a loss, wandering in a fog.

Hazrat Inayat Khan described the mind world as a hall of mirrors, and we can recognize this quality in our own reflective thoughts – seeing for example, that the colour of a teacup reminds us of someone we once knew who wore that colour, and that the memory of that person takes us into thoughts of someone else, and that memory takes us still further, and so on.   But the mind world is not fixed like an array of glass mirrors, producing the same visual journey for every visitor – each person’s palace of mirrors is their own, constructed from their own lifetime of impressions.  Your experience of my teacup will be purely your own.  

So, each person’s mind is their own palace, and what is more, a self-sustaining construction, since it draws to itself that with which it is acquainted.  If a thief goes to Paris, Pir-o-Murshid said, in no time he will discover another thief, for their minds share similar experiences and they will recognize each other.  The same could be said of artists or musicians or gamblers or drinkers or any others with a common interest.  The mind of each person is filled with impressions of their experiences, which form, in a sense, the character of the mind.  By that character we not only interpret the world we perceive, but we also attract that which reaffirms our construction.  There is an old saying that everywhere the saint goes, he sees saints, while the pickpocket sees only pockets.  Or as it is said in the biblical Book of Proverbs, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” The ultimate fulfilment of this is expressed in the Sufi wisdom: “Say Allah, and Allah thou shalt become.”

In the light of this, we might want to ask ourselves about the character of our own mind – are we designing a heaven for ourselves?  Or someplace more sulphurous and fiery?  We are the architects of our palace, and by the divine gift of will we can alter the design whenever we choose – but it takes scrupulous honesty to see ourselves as we really are.  In Vadan Boulas, there is this saying : Man sees the right side of his own mind and the wrong side of another’s. 

A good way to test the character of our mind is to examine our limits and exclusions. Setting aside the dramatic, medieval imagery of fire and smoke, the essence of suffering is limitation, and the essence of paradise is freedom. If our mind erects walls and draws barriers, rejecting and excluding others, then we ourselves are limited and we have work to do to alter the construction of our mind world. (He who says, “I cannot tolerate,” shows his smallness, in the words of Gayan Talas.) If, on the other hand, our horizon is expanding, and we are endeavouring to rise above distinctions and differences and understand others, if our first impulse is not to close our heart but to open it, we are travelling is the direction of freedom. Then we can take thought of this saying from Gayan Boulas : He who makes room in his heart for others, will himself find accommodation everywhere.