Now, first of all, the word death is to be defined before we proceed to answer this question. When you say the soul survives and continues, what you call after-death, that shows there is nothing like death. Death is non-existent, it is only a transformation, it’s a change of appearance and phase. Because death means something should disappear, while it is only a transformation which those people believe, who believe in what they call after-death.
This is why some parapsychologists tend to change this phraseology and now they are talking of life after life, not life after death, but life after life, because it is the continuation of life which matters. And what happens to the body is just insignificant because that is just chemistry and physics, that’s all. What is real is the reality of consciousness, that me in you and I, that realization and this independent thinking power and the concept of ego, everything is referred to one’s own self. That is what is neither chemistry nor physics, that is soul, and that soul continues to live. So if death is a transformation, you must expect a new transformation after life after life, because nothing is permanent except God.
And when God wants to keep someone, make someone eternal with him out of his grace, still that something goes on changing phases and transformation, so there is no eternity as far as any being other than God is concerned. So that is what would happen to souls, they will continue to evolve in a limitless direction. We believe that after there is some change in our form and we are left without body, perhaps that is the end of development, but that is not so.
To travel towards God is the objective, and that objective can never be fulfilled, in the sense that that limit has reached and beyond that there is no travel. So evolution knows no end, and what has happened to previous people or souls, we can’t imagine, we cannot conceive because we are not given vision enough, and capability to even guess certain things which are beyond our conception. Even life after death, or life after life, according to the Holy Quran is inconceivable. Despite the fact that the Holy Quran speaks of some hell, some heaven, some pleasures, some tortures, yet it again itself says that what hell or heaven are, you don’t know.
Despite the fact we are telling you, making an attempt, so as to say, to make you realise, but you are incapable of visualising truly what the nature of life after life would be. So you are asking questions farther beyond, while you don’t, and I don’t understand what will happen immediately after, and you want me to explain that, which will follow that, I mean, it’s beyond me, impossible. Q. Sir, I don’t like that, it’s difficult for me, you ask, and I don’t know. A. No, it’s more difficult to answer, in fact, but I have put you on the right path of thinking.
You can continue imagining whatever you may, but I tell you, every answer will be wrong, because the Holy Quran says you can’t truly visualise, you can understand the phenomena, that is all. So what would actually take place and how it would happen, that is something beyond us. Like you try to make any blind man understand what white is, you know, you know the story that goes along to explain this situation? Have you heard of that story of Stork? No? I see. Perhaps it’s an another story, this is why you have not heard of it, but it’s quite interesting.
A blind man asked someone to explain what white is, he tried his best, but he wouldn’t understand actually, because he was not given that faculty by Allah. So he said, well, all right, you like kheer, that is rice pudding, so he said, yes, I like it very much. He said, white is just like this. So he said, all right, but that is taste, you say it is different. He said, well, the colour, but then what is the colour of this, I can’t understand. He said, all right, you know what stork is? He said, yes. So he said, well, white is like stork. So once he caught that stork and started feeling it, all the curves and, you know, variations in the contour, and after he examined it he said, yes, now I understand white, but it is a very crooked white.
So whatever you will reach would be a very crooked concept, you know, concept, after you try to understand what would happen life after life after life. Another saying, not applicable to you, with due pardon, of course, but it reminds me of another saying, a verse in Urdu, which says, us zulf pe thapti shab-e-daijoor ki sooji, andhe ko andhere mein bahut door ki sooji.
A blind man in his darkness thought of something very, very far off, you see, so we stand in total darkness as compared to the light which awaits us, and before we reach that light it is like that verse applying itself to our position, situation. In that total darkness of ignorance we try to jump across that void and reach the truth of life, that is not possible.
