What I find surprising is that, you know, let us say on an individual basis, in terms of spirituality, one hopefully develops further and further higher spiritually. But why is it that when it comes to the whole creation, it seems to go the other way, that, you know, the prophet comes, he raises a people to such a high level, but in their case, you know, it eventually goes to decay, while on the other hand, you know, the individual seems to rise spiritually higher as he ages. You know, the phenomena is to be understood in its totality. It’s not the case of an individual, it’s the case of a group of individuals which always emerge as belonging to the higher order from a lower order. And from then on, they go on ascending as a group until some of them also begin to decay.
And when they enlarge, they are enlarged in numbers, they are the same people, then they face another trial, and a majority among them fails, and a few among them rise to a further height, and another barrier is broken, and they win a new state of loftiness. So this is the general phenomena. After the coming of each prophet, in fact a new civilization is born, a new sensitivity is added to human nature. The whole of human nature as such is elevated.
So when you see them falling back, in fact the raised platform does not fall back as such to a lower position than earlier. But once the platform is raised, it appears to be falling back in comparison to the height that was gained. But in two comparisons, it does not reach a state, a stage, which is lower than the stage where a prophet found those people. For instance, look at what happened at the time of Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa s.a.w. Because these generalities will not be understood by you unless I give a demonstration, illustrate the point. Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. found the Arabs in a certain state, immoral state, call it, or whatever it was, in certain ways their Arab qualities were shining, in poetry, in some fine arts and so on. But in most cases the society was decadent, and morally they were the worst on earth, or at least among the worst on earth. Huzoor-e-Akram s.a.w. took them from there in his hands and started raising their status in every direction.
After his demise, to the historian who looks back at this phenomena, it appears that they begin to lose the heights which they had gained with such difficulty. And this is so, of course. And they seem to be following the same course of decadence, everywhere there is decay and there is deterioration and there is corruption and so on, as if the doors to calamity are open from all sides and everything is being destroyed. This is what we observe in comparison to the heights which were gained at the time of Hazrat Rasul-e-Akram s.a.w. But worse that happened was still far better than the earlier stage of the Arabs in which Hazrat Rasul-e-Akram s.a.w. found them.
The most decadent society which appeared after Hazrat Rasul-e-Akram s.a.w.’s demise was far better in enlightenment, in refinement, in gain of knowledge, in outlook to the world problems, in their attitude to humanity and so on and so forth, in their concept of God, than the previous state in which the Arabs found at the time of coming of Hazrat Rasul-e-Akram s.a.w. So what appears to you, individual gain, is not exactly the true picture of the thing.
The society as such has reached a platform which is higher than the earlier platform before the time of coming of a prophet. So every advent of a prophet leaves the society at a higher stage of development. There is no denying that. Some of the individuals return to the earlier state. Apparently they don’t return to the earlier state exactly. But having gained wisdom, having gained light, when they turn their back to it, spiritually they are condemned to a degree as if they were worse than the earlier people.
This only in relative terms. But society as such is always developing, always moving forward. And the phenomena of prophethood has played the most vital role in enlightening the mankind as such and raising their status after every appearance of a prophet. Now you follow the difference and why this fallacy faced you, you know, why the state of a fallacious thinking before.
