The Hell Within, The Paradise Within Poem by Mystic Qalandar

Fear not the Creator
as though He were distant—
a Sovereign veiled
beyond heaven and time.

You cannot flee from Him.
You cannot walk toward Him.
There is nowhere to go
where He is not already.

He is nearer than nearness,
closer than the thought
that rises before you know it.
He is the silence between your breaths,
the witness within your seeing,
the secret intelligence
by which you know you are.

Before your first breath, He is.
After your last breath, He is.
And in every breath between,
His Presence silently sustains.

So seek Him not
as one who searches for the absent.
Turn inward.
Let the seeker fall silent.
For the distance between you and Him
is not measured in miles,
but in veils.

And the thickest veil
may be the one you call 'I.'

Fear not some remote hell
burning beyond the stars.
The deepest hell
is the heart imprisoned
in the illusion of separation—
the self feeding upon itself,
the ego gathering its own firewood,
day after day,
for the flame of its imagined independence.

Every attachment becomes a log.
Every arrogance, another.
Every hatred, another.
Every 'I am separate, '
another offering to the fire.

Hell is not merely a place
where punishment awaits the soul;
it is the state in which the soul
forgets the Light from which it came.

And yet even there,
Divine Mercy is nearer
than the flame.

For the fire does not belong to God alone—
much of its fuel is gathered
by the hands of the self.

The lover's deepest fear
is therefore not the fire of punishment,
but the veiling of the Beloved;
not pain,
but the illusion of separation;
not the loss of comfort,
but the loss of Presence.

What punishment could be greater
for one who has tasted the wine of nearness
than to become intoxicated
with the illusion of distance?

Paradise too is not merely
a garden waiting beyond death.
It begins where the heart
ceases to exile itself from the Beloved.

Its rivers are already flowing
beneath the deserts of the soul—
rivers of living water,
wine without intoxication,
milk of purity,
honey of gnosis.

Plant your garden there.
Plant remembrance
where forgetfulness once grew.
Plant gratitude
where complaint took root.
Plant humility
where the ego raised its throne.
Plant compassion
where judgment hardened the heart.

Then let the flowers of Presence bloom,
and let the trees of wisdom
spread their shade
over the weary traveler within you.

Paradise is not merely
where you shall arrive.
It is what the heart becomes
when it awakens to the One
who was never absent.

For the lover,
paradise is Presence.

To behold without possessing.
To love without claiming.
To surrender without fear.
To dissolve without being lost.

The heart softens there.
The soul bows there.
The 'I' becomes transparent there.
Every step becomes a return,
and every breath becomes
a remembrance of the First Breath.

Then something more mysterious dawns:

The One you feared
is the One whose Mercy
has been carrying you
all along.

The One before whom you trembled
is the One who knows
every fracture of your being.

The One you thought
would condemn you
is the One who continually
opens the door of return.

He heals without humiliating.
He forgives without limit.
He veils your shame
and reveals your essence.

So flee not from Him
in panic and dread.
Flee to Him.

Flee from yourself to Him.
Flee from illusion to Truth.
Flee from multiplicity to the One.
Flee from the tyranny of the ego
to the freedom of surrender.

This is the secret of the journey:

You do not travel toward the One
as though He were distant.
You travel by removing
what prevents you from seeing
that He has never been absent.

The journey is a journey
of unveiling,
not arrival.
The path is not across space,
but through the veils of consciousness.

And when the last veil becomes thin,
the seeker discovers
what the mystics have whispered
through the ages:

The Beloved was never lost.
The seeker was never abandoned.
The door was never closed.
Only the heart
had forgotten how to see.

Then fear becomes awe,
awe becomes love,
love becomes surrender,
and surrender becomes peace.

And in that peace
the restless soul finally remembers:

There is no refuge
outside the One.
There is no paradise
apart from His Presence.
There is no hell
more terrible than forgetting Him.

And there is no mercy
more intimate than discovering
that even in your forgetting,

He never forgot you.

—MyKoul