The Means of Ascension to Heaven

Not-being is the creed and religion of the lovers (of God)

Hundreds of thousands of years I was flying (to and from) involuntarily, like the motes in the air.
If I have forgotten that time and state, (yet) the migration in sleep (to the spiritual world) recalls it to my memory. (Every night) I escape from this four-branched cross and spring away from this (confined) halting-place into the (spacious) pasture of the spirit.
From the nurse, Sleep, I suck the milk of those bygone days of mine, O Lord. All the (people in the) world are fleeing from their free-will and (self-)existence to their drunken (unconscious) side.
In order that for awhile they may be delivered from sobriety (consciousness), they lay upon themselves the opprobrium of wine and minstrelsy. All know that this existence is a snare, that volitional thought and memory are a hell. They are fleeing from selfhood into selflessness either by means of intoxication or by means of (some engrossing) occupation, O well-conducted man. Thou (O God) drawest the soul back from that state of not-being because it entered into unconsciousness without Thy command. Neither for the Jinn (genies) nor for mankind is it (possible) to pierce through the prison of the regions of the temporal world. There is no piercing through the cavities of the highest heavens save by the power of Guidance. There is no guidance save by a power that preserves the spirit of the devout from the keepers of the shooting stars. There is no way (admittance) for any one, till he become naughted, into the audience-chamber of (Divine) Majesty. What is the means of ascension to Heaven? This not-being. Not-being is the creed and religion of the lovers (of God). The Masnawi, Volume 6, 220-230