THE SPIRITUAL TRAVELER HAS TO PASS THROUGH TWELVE SUCH WORLDS

The spiritual traveller has to pass through twelve such worlds before he succeeds in passing the stages of greater emigration and greater jihad and enters the field of sincerity. 

Then he will be called successful and victorious and will enter the world of sincerity and the compound of We belong to Allah and We will surely return to Him (Surah al-Baqarah, 2:l56).For him the greater self-resurrection will already have taken place. He will enter the stage of total passing away from self after crossing the curtains of bodies, souls and every thing fixed and appointed. 

He will have one foot in the world of divinity, and he will have passed the stage of Everybody has to taste death (Surah Ali Imran, 3:185). Such a person being at the stage of passing away from self though consciously alive, yet in one sense will be dead. That is why concerning Imam Ali the Holy Prophet said: 

"Whoever wants to see a dead man walking, let him see Ali ibn Abi Talib."