Balance of Realities - Everlasting and transitory survival
Everlasting and transitory survival
Tags: sunnat, Divine law, universal soul, `alam-i amr, `Illiyyin, mi`raj, Hazrat Ibrahim
It is a universally accepted fact that the essence and attributes of God, the High, are eternal. Therefore, no change is found in His sunnat. As He says: “Thus you shall never find any changing (tabdil) in God’s sunnat and you shall never find any altering (tahwil) in God's sunnat” (35:43). By God's sunnat is meant His habit or law, a name of the collective position of the acts of His attributes. Tabdil means to choose one thing instead of another, and tahwil means to bring change in the state of the same existing thing. Thus God says: “O Muhammad, although you are on the highest plane of God’s recognition you will never find a law other than this excellent law of God, which you may prefer over it by any means, or that you may completely substitute the latter for the former”. Nor is it possible to find such attributes that may cause alteration in the Divine sunnat by including them in it gradually. Rather, God's sunnat, due to its consummation and perfection in truth and justice, is unchangeable and unalterable.
It has already been said that the collective position of the acts of the Divine attributes is called sunnat, the Divine law or Divine habit, which is an eternal, namely, unalterable and unchangeable habit. Now the question arises: If the Divine law is unchangeable, then under the influence of time and space, why and whence does such a great change take place in the universe and the existents? The answer is that the universe and the existents are parts of the Universal Soul and the Universal Body and due to their incompletion, alternate and move within the expanse of their whole. However, the Universal Soul and the Universal Body, due to their completion, are unchangeable and immovable in their expanse. Just as it is not possible for the Universal Body, i.e. the universe to be wider or narrower, or leave its place and go somewhere else, it is not possible for the Universal Soul to be changed from its present position. Thus, by this argument there is no change at all in the universal of universals, and that is God’s habit and law, which is unchangeable.
Another aspect of the non-changeability of the Divine law is that the particular change and universal permanence of everything has always been and will always remain. For instance, there is no change universally in the four elements, but there is change in the things generated from them. Similarly, there is no change in the source of light of the sun, but there is change in the encountering of the planets.
The same is true of human survival: In the particular case it is mutable and changeable, but universally it is eternal and unchangeable. The changeable survival of man is his transitory physical life (29:64) and the unchangeable survival is the ever-lasting, pure, spiritual life (16:97). If this eternal life of man is compared to wakefulness and the changeable transitory life to dream, there should not be any surprise if the former in contrast to the latter is called the real life and the latter, metaphorical or unreal death.
Anyhow the transference of man from the particular survival into the universal survival is certain. The allegorical concepts of this reality in the corporeal world are: When a drop of water is separated from the ocean it cannot bring with it its eternal and universal survival (which is in the ocean), rather, it has only a particular survival according to its capacity. Now with respect to their unity and duality, two concepts can be established. Firstly, the drop and the ocean are the same water, whose nature is the same and both, as part and whole, are one. Thus the permanent survival of the drop is in the ocean. Secondly, the drop and the ocean with respect to space are two and there is a world of difference in their strength. That is, the ocean has surrounded three-quarters of the earth; it causes rain and irrigates the entire habitation of the world. On the other hand, it is not only difficult but also impossible for the drop to meet the ocean without the association of air or strong water. In this case, there is duality of the drop and the ocean. However, the weakness and remoteness of the drop are not due to its characteristic and essence, rather they are forced and transitory and caused by the heat of the sun. However, a thing that is in a state of force or transition has to pass from that state.
When this drop merges with the ocean, its particular survival is transferred into the universal survival. Now the unity of the drop and the ocean is such that there is neither the name nor the sign of the drop in it. Also the particular history of the drop has become the history of the ocean, and the universal history of the ocean that of the drop, and their duality has vanished from their survival.
Another example is that the sun is an unchangeable thing. Its light spreads equally throughout the expanse of the universe, by which things on its surface are illumined. Among these things there are certain transparent things through which the light appears in some quantity. Now this light cannot be separated from its source. Suppose that the transitory light of such things is the transitory survival of man and the essential light of the sun, his permanent survival. Further, the turning away of the face of one of these things from the direction of the sun is like the physical death of man. It is obvious from the above that man’s permanent survival is attainable after this kind of physical death.
At this point if someone asks if man has a permanent survival, how has he forgotten his past pleasant life? Further, what will be his feelings and perceptions about the past, the present and the future when he will be resurrected into this eternal and everlasting survival, etc.? The answers to these questions are that man has come to this world in search of knowledge, which he can attain in the form of the recognition of his soul, through obedience to God, and good deeds. During this time, due to his connection with the body, he has passed through a state of oblivion, due to which he has forgotten his spiritual history, but when he will merge in the permanent survival of the higher world he will realise that he was there permanently. In this state, he will transcend the past, the present and the future, because the world of command (`alam-i amr) is above time and space. That is, there will be his favourite living pictures in front of the Holy Spirit, irrespective of time, according to the verse: “For them there is in (paradise) what they desire, and there is more with Us” (50:35).
As a proof of the possibility of man reaching the higher survival, this command of the Universal Soul is enough: “O the son of Adam! Obey me, I will make you like Myself: alive that you will never die, mighty that you will never be humiliated and self-sufficient that you will never be needy”. This is the place of the Universal Soul, but God Himself, may He be purified, transcends any similitude and like.
This highest position of the permanent survival will be lasting bliss (9:21) for the righteous and their survival will be merged with the survival of the Universal Soul without any difference. They will realise that, for a while, they were in the sleep of negligence of the particular life from which they have now woken up. They are sure that no time has elapsed from them, because they are now at a place that transcends time, a non-temporal and non-spatial world in which time and space are not required in order to comprehend and observe a thing. Everything there follows the will. As God says: “Nay, verily the record of the righteous is in the higher world (`Illiyyin), and what made you understand what the higher world is? A written record, at which the nearest (to God) are present” (83:18-21). This verse means that the records of deeds of the righteous are collectively in the higher world, namely the Universal Soul, which transcends time and space.
In “And what made you understand” are alluded those states of the holy Prophet, which were before the ascent (mi`raj). By the “written record” is meant that book which is written, not with an opposite colour, but with an innate difference as is found in the essence of some [water marked] papers. That is, the Universal Soul itself is such a book in whose essence Divine writing is found, where there is no room at all for anything contrary. “The nearest are present at it” means that with their own eyes they observe the events of the deeds written in it.
Regarding the unity of the righteous and their reaching this exalted position, the holy Prophet has said: “Indeed, the mu'mins (of all communities) are brothers and the Prophets are like one soul.” If the Prophets are like one soul, their law too, is one. As Hazrat Ibrahim, may peace be on him, said: “Then whoever follows me belongs to me” (14:36). Thus the follower of every Prophet is not separate from him, and the soul of the Prophets and the righteous is the same one soul. As God says: “And your creation and your upraising are but as a single soul” (31:28). Thus, the spiritual unity of the righteous is evident from the fact that all of them have the same book, whose writing is in its essence, which is the Universal Soul itself, namely, the Universal Soul is their soul. Since the [Universal] Soul is created from great actions, they appear in the writing of the book written in its essence. That is, they can see the spiritual reality of their own and others’ deeds as living pictures.
| Chapter Index | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter |