I deny the levels of the heavens and do not believe in angels. How should I believe in one’s journeying through the heavens and meeting with angels?

 

It is really difficult to convince those like you whose minds are dependent on their eyes. But since the truth is so brilliant as even the blind can see, we say: As scientists generally agree (and have been trying to establish for almost two centuries), space is full of some matter called ‘ether’. Subtle and refined matters like light, electricity and heat point to the existence of some more subtle and refined matter which fills space. For just as fruits demonstrate the existence of trees that bear them, flowers their flower-bed, shoots their field, and fishes the sea, the stars, also, present to the mind’s eye the existence of their origin, field, sea, and flower-bed. Since there are different formations in the celestial realm above us and different rules are in force under different conditions, then the heavens which require the existence of those rules must also be different. Since, just as in man there are immaterial ‘worlds’ apart from his material body, like the mind, heart, spirit, imagination, and memory, certainly, in the universe, which is the macro-human and the tree of which man is the fruit, there are other worlds apart from the corporeal one. Also, each world has a heaven, from the world of the earth to the world of Paradise.

As far as the angels are concerned, we say this: On the earth, medium-sized among the planets and insignificant and dense among stars, animate and conscious beings, the most valuable and enlightened among creatures, are to be found in countless numbers. So, of a certainty, the stars, which are like adorned castles and perfectly-built palaces compared to the earth, which is like a dark house, and the heavens, which are like the seas of the stars, will be the dwelling-places of angels and spirit beings, who are conscious, animate, extremely numerous, and of different sorts. Referring the reader to The Twenty-ninth Word concerning angels, we cut short the discussion here.

In short: The heavens are formed of ‘ether’ and they are the source of subtle and refined matters or energies or forces like light, heat, electricity, and gravity. As pointed to in the hadith, The heaven is a wave stretched and restrained, they were made favorable for the motion of stars and planets. Wisdom and reason require that, from the Milky Way to other further systems and the closest planet, the heavens should consist of seven levels in different states and formations, each being a heaven to a world, from the world of the earth to the intermediate world of the grave and world of symbols or ideal forms and to the world of the Hereafter.

 

This article has been adapted from Risale- i Nur Collection.