Hundred Questions - Resurrection and the Hereafter
Resurrection and the Hereafter
Q41 What is the day of Resurrection? If there is life after death what kind of life will it be?
A41 We have sufficiently dealt with this subject in answers to questions 9, 19 and 21 and here we will also try to elaborate it further. In this world man lives two kinds of life, one is the mental and the other is external. Mental life consists of three branches or three worlds: the world of thinking and imagination, the world of dream and the world of spirituality. On the other hand, in comparison to these three worlds is the external life, which is apparent.
The example of how a human being experiences life in the world of thinking and imagination is that you should stop using the external senses and concentrate on the internal world (batin) and absorb yourself in some good thoughts. That is, you should not use the external faculties of seeing, hearing, smelling, speaking (tasting) and touching, rather you should activate the faculties of the heart and mind and confine yourself to the world of thinking and imagination. Then after duly reflecting, tell us: is this state not life, which is different and separate from the external life? If you accept that this state is a kind of mental life then this is the proof of the fact that a human being can survive in some way even after leaving this body.
Similarly, take the example of a dream, which is also a kind of life but different and separate from the external life and is a vivid proof of spiritual life after physical death. Thus, an intelligent person should ponder well that when a human being goes into the world of dream, in what kind of existence does he find himself, the external existence or the internal (mental)? With which eye does he see the physical or the spiritual? The physical eye is asleep. With which ear does he hear? It is obvious that his physical ears do not work in the dream state. With what means does he speak in the dream, while this (physical) tongue is silent. Likewise wherever he walks in the dream, he does not walk with his physical feet, rather he walks spiritually. From all these [examples] it is evident that people have a spiritual world also, which is known as the Hereafter, in which they live not only after leaving the physical body, but they can also partially observe and experiment with in this very life.
Now, as far as the question of the Resurrection (qiyamat) is concerned, it is in the form of a revolution and spiritual war of the true religion for spiritual progress, the details of which are referred to at the beginning of this answer.
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