Hell is the here and now. So is heaven. Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven, as they are both present inside this very moment. Every time we fall in love, we ascend to heaven. Every time we hate, envy, or fight someone, we tumble straight into the fires of hell.
Is there a worse hell than the torment a man suffers when he knows deep down in his conscience that he has done something wrong, awfully wrong? Ask that man. He will tell you what hell is. Is there a better paradise than the bliss that desends upon a man at those rare moments in life when the bolts of the universe fly upon and he feels in possession of all the secrets of eternity and fully united with God? Ask that man. He will tell you what heaven is.
Why worry so much about aftermath, an imaginary future, when this very moment is the only time we can truly and fully experience both the presence and the absence of God in our lives? Motivated by neither the fear of punishment in hell nor the desire to be rewarded in heaven, Sufis love God simply because the love Him, pure and easy, untainted and nonnegotiable.
Love is the reason. Love is the goal.
And when you love God so much, when you love each and every one of His creations because of Him and thanks to Him, extraneous categories melt into thin air. From that point on, there can be no "I" anymore. All you amount to is a zero so big it covers your whole being.
-Shams of Tabriz, from the book "The Forty Rules of Love"
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