The Sunday Mail
Flora Teckie
A Bahai Perspective
PEOPLE often contemplate if there is life after death. Some believe life ends with death, while others believe death is a punishment.
Yet others believe there is life after death.
According to the Bahá’í Writings, “When the body dies the soul lives on,” and, “As at the time of death, the real and eternal self of man, his soul, abandons its physical garment to soar in the realms of God, we may compare the body to a vehicle which has been used for the journey through earthly life and no longer needed once the destination has been reached.”
Our earthly life is a small part of a life that is eternal, a life for which we should prepare ourselves purposefully and perseveringly.
The soul and the body which together form a human being come from different origins and their relationship lasts only for the span of our mortal life.
When this relationship ceases the body goes to the world of dust where it had originally came from.
The soul goes to its origin, which is the spiritual worlds of God.
Human soul is eternal
Although human beings exist on earth in physical bodies, the essential identity of each person is defined by an invisible, rational and everlasting soul (<http://info.bahai.org/article-1-4-5-1.html>).
“. . .We have three aspects of our humanness, so to speak, a body, a mind and an immortal identity – soul or spirit”, according to the Bahá’í Writings.
Which also explain that the “Endowments which distinguish the human race from all other forms of life are summed up in what is known as the human spirit; the mind is its essential quality”.
Importantly, “. . . the mind forms a link between the soul and the body”.
The human being has his beginning when the soul associates itself with the embryo at the time of conception.
There is a special relationship between the soul and the body forming a human being.
The association of the soul and body is like the association of light with the mirror which reflects it.
The light which appears in the mirror is not inside it, it comes from an external source.
Similarly the soul is not inside the body.
The same way that the light continues existing whether the mirror is there to reflect it or not, the soul continues living independent of the body.
According to the Bahá’í Scriptures: “To consider that after the death of the body the spirit perishes is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed if the cage is broken, though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage.
“Our body is like the cage and the spirit is like the bird.
“We see that without the cage this bird flies in the world of sleep; therefore, if the cage becomes broken, the bird will continue and exist. Its feelings will be even more powerful, its perceptions greater, and its happiness increased.”
Dreams are one of the proofs that the life of the soul does not depend on the life of the body.
For example in the state of sleep we see without eyes, hear without using our ears, speak without a tongue, run without using our feet.
When we are awake the eye sees only for a short distance, but in dreams we may be in Harare and meet our friends in Bulawayo or in another part of the globe.
Since the life beyond is a spiritual one, during our life on earth we have to prepare ourselves spiritually.
The soul grows and develops through the individual’s relationship with God, as mediated by His Messengers.
The relationship is fostered through prayer, knowledge of the scriptures revealed by these Divine teachers, love for God, moral self-discipline, and service to humanity.
Bahá’u’lláh says: “Know thou of a truth that the soul, after its separation from the body, will continue to progress until it attaineth the presence of God. . . It will endure as long as the Kingdom of God, His sovereignty, His dominion and power will endure. It will manifest the signs of God and His attributes, and will reveal His loving-kindness and bounty. … if the soul of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will, assuredly, return and be gathered to the glory of the Beloved. By the righteousness of God! It shall attain a station such as no pen can depict, or tongue describe.”
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