Why the hell, Heaven has a secret?

I closed all the tabs in my browser and rested my head at the back of my chair. I was tasked with writing a detailed article on the Israel-Palestine conflict and spent several days conducting an extensive investigation and fact-checking.

I had passed straight 7 hours then on my laptop reading a lot of online information available. What I had consumed from all that internet stuff had blurred my thinking. I felt my heart sink, and the concept of humanity I had built for years started flying like ashes.

Resting my head at the back of my chair, I thought, why are there so many conflicts in our world? Would there be any disputes like ours on other planets too? What if the aliens could not bleed, and for disputes, they only used to stop talking to each other like women on our Earth?

It was crazy. I should not have been thinking like that when I consumed such depressing things from the internet about Palestine. Again I thought if the aliens could not bleed, would they have felt pain either? Had they possessed anything like tears? How would they choose to tell their fears? If the people on other planets were more civilized, would they have any disputes? What if there weren't any disputes in our world? What would it look like then? Would there still exist so much misery then? 

I shut down my system and got out of my room. I wanted to imagine a parallel world with zero disputes. After that, I headed towards the canal near Campus Gate 15. There was a bench where I used to sit. I sat there for perhaps 45 minutes when Ryma[Ma1]  appeared. She sat her hand over my shoulder and asked what had happened. I could not speak.

Ryma sat with me and mumbled, "Why the hell do you always worry about things you cannot control?" I felt helpless as I stared her in the eyes. Her voice was mesmerizing as she began O'log[Ma2] . A man requested God to show him Heaven and Hell once. God approved his request and ordered an angel to take the man for a visit to both places.

Therefore, the angel took the man to Hell first, and he was astonished to see that Hell was nothing but a vast, never-ending dining hall. The most beautiful curtains in the universe were hanging from the walls, a carpet softer than the fur of Russian cats, and priceless architecture which had no match. The outdoor view from the glass walls was just out of the universe. The clouds outside were of no game; they were cozy white and so bright that no one had ever seen a day like that.

The man was lost in the view of Hell when he heard a scream. A sinner has dropped his soup over his chest and burnt himself. It was the first time the man noticed that in that Hell dining room, there was a large table whose other end wasn't visible and everyone sitting on that table had big bowls before them containing hot and fresh soup. The angel told the man that this soup was from Man-o-Salwa, the divine heavenly food offered to the Israelite nation. It was the healthiest food ever, containing all the nutrients a human body needs. It also had something sacred that could keep a human body from any disease.

But the people in Hell, the sinners, had their bodies burnt with that hot soup. They had faces of mal-nutrients, eyes like cracked rotten eggs, their faces wrinkled, arms lean, and the edges of their bones were visible from their skin. They, indeed, look like decaying carcasses. They were crying about the pain they get from skin burns. The misery in Hell was beyond calculation. There were many; everyone was continuously burning themselves with their food and crying helplessly.

The angel told the man that the sinners did not have elbows in their arms. They could not turn their arms for any purpose. So every time they felt hungry and tried to eat their soup, they dropped it over their chests and burnt themselves. They were blind to the exquisite architecture surrounding them, the breathtaking views of the outside world that Hell had to offer, and the overall beauty of the setting. All they could do was fill their spoons with their soup and drop it over themselves.

The man got terrified by the scenes. He felt like he would vomit out his entire internal anatomy, leaving his intestine lying on the ground like a dead spider. He requested the angel to take him to Heaven.

The angel moved, and the man followed. When they reached Heaven, the man was again astonished to see that the place had no difference from Hell. The vast dining hall, beautiful architecture, carpets, glass walls, and outside view were the same. What's the difference between Heaven and Hell, he tried to calculate. Then he felt a sweet fragrance and instantly realized this was the difference.

He came out of his thoughts when the angel spoke a little loudly; "the people of Heaven, the believers, also did not have elbows in their arms. They, too, were unable to fold their arms, and they, too, could not eat their soup themselves". The man was astonished this time even more and saw the believers in disbelief. The angel was right. The believers, too, did not have elbows in their arms. But unlike the sinners, they were young, beautiful, healthy, and so charming that a look on their faces could change someone's saddest mood. They were chatting with each other, laughing and singing very soulful songs. The atmosphere had a unique feeling of love, joy, life, and divine peace. The man murmured to himself, “This place feels like Heaven. I am feeling so peaceful here”. But what is the secret of this place?

As I told you, the angel said that the believers could not fold their arms and eat food. They thought of an attractive solution for that. One believer filled his spoon with the divine soup and fed the next person sitting to him, and the next one repeated the same. So everyone had their food, which was miraculous, and had everything in it that no food in the universe could match. But the real magic is their helping hands. They can’t use their hands to feed themselves, so they started using them for others. Their spirit of helping each other get fed is the secret of Heaven. If they had not provided the next person to them, they were the same as the sinners.

The angel added that the sinners had not realized this simple thing for centuries, so they were doomed to repeat their fate of hurting themselves by being selfish.

Ryma continued the man returned to the world and told the people that the Heaven we search for millions of miles away awaits us on our dining tables our whole lives. We only had to fill our spoons and feed the next person sitting with us.

Ryma stopped. We drank some long draughts of silence. Then Ryma asked if she should outline how I could relate this to my situation. I nodded.

She said Heaven and Hell were not only about soup feeding. It was helping others in every way of life. Whether it is food, shelter, money, employment, poverty, economic growth, profits, losses, relationships, or every single issue you can think of. Helping hands is Heaven's secret. If only one person begins to use their hands to feed the next one, this world will eventually turn into Heaven.

Ryma said to me; you can start with yourself. Start feeding the next person sitting with you, and it would eventually reach Israel and Palestine too.

I did not speak a single word. Ryma got up, took some steps, kicked a pebble into the canal, and turned. Angel told the man that the sinners were doomed to repeat their fate of hurting themselves by being selfish. She added they only burn themselves when hungry and try to eat the soup. They did not burn themselves when the next person sitting to them was hungry, and they wanted to feed him.

A believer does not feed the next person when he feels hungry. He feeds the next person when the next person feels hungry. Ryma added, "The believers do not offer soup only. They provide the next person to them with love, care, compassion, integrity, and, most importantly, respect. They understand they will be sitting at that dining table for eternal life, so they have them as companions. They fulfill their needs with or without others asking for them.

If Ukraine needed help, the rest of the world would have been aware of it. If Palestine needs to be funded for whatever reasons, at least neighboring countries would have known that. It is that simple, Sadaf. Who knows if someday a student from Israel refuses the scholarship he gets for Harvard and offers it to a student in Palestine? It only takes being a believer in having helping hands.

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