Pre-death and Post-death Periods of Life
Just over two years ago – March 11, 2006 to be precise – while I was on an evening flight back to Delhi from Hyderabad, several members of my CPS (Centre for Peace and Spirituality) team, who were accompanying me, distributed some dawah pamphlets and then engaged in dawah work with the passengers. One of the passengers was Ms. Neha Batwara. I had no personal contact with her at that time and after the plane landed in Delhi, she went off to Alwar, her home town. However, just over two weeks later, we received the following letter by e-mail on March 28, from Hyderabad:
Respected Maulana Wahiduddin Khan,
I am Neha, working in an MNC. There can be nothing better than getting a job in a top MNC just after graduation. But believe me, I am in search of a more purposeful life. That’s why I am writing to you.
I met Khalid Ansari and Sadia Khan (CPS members) on a flight to Delhi and could clearly see the difference your guidance had made to their lives.
Maulana, I know we have been created by God, and we all have a purpose here to fulfill on earth, which, if carried out, will be more satisfying than getting heaven after death. But the point on which I am ignorant is knowing the purpose for which I have been sent here. I shall be grateful to you for the whole of my life if you can help me in any way. I am currently in Hyderabad.
Regards,
Neha Batwara, Software Engg, MIEL, Hyderabad
This letter is not simply a letter from one single individual. It is rather the voice of every soul. It expresses the feelings of every man and woman. Everyone is searching for a purposeful life. It is the call of every person’s nature. But people want to find this purposeful life in the fullest sense before their death in this present stage of life itself. Neither have they any consciousness of the next life after death, nor are they ready to wait for it.
The basic question is: Where does man want to achieve this purposeful life? – in the world made by himself, or in the world made by God? Obviously, this purpose has to be achieved in the world made by God, because the world made by himself just doesn’t exist.
In such a situation, it is very natural that man should first of all learn what the laws are that govern this world made by God and what Creation Plan its Creator had in mind while creating the world. This is because, without reconciling himself to it, he can never achieve his goal.
If you have a car and you want to drive it on the street, first of all you will have to learn what traffic rules are followed in the country in which you find yourself, e.g. whether the traffic keeps to the left or the right. This is a must, for if you start driving on the left in a country in which the law prescribes keeping to the right, you will certainly have a disastrous journey.
The same is true of the much vaster journey of man’s life. Man’s life’s journey is not made in space or in a world made by himself. He undertakes this journey in the world made by God. Therefore, it is essential for all men and women to understand God’s creation plan and to build their lives accordingly. In the absence of such planning they cannot save themselves from failure.
Man’s own experience is sufficient for him to grasp the point that, if nature makes provision for him to survive and to make satisfactory progress through life, it is all part of God’s plan. For example, when a man wants to quench his thirst, water is available everywhere, and it is the water provided by nature which best satisfies his needs. Similarly, when man feels hungry, he appeases his hunger by eating the food provided by nature. Likewise, everyone needs to breathe in oxygen. Without oxygen no one could survive for even a few seconds. Again, nature is the great provider. It provides both the oxygen and the breathing apparatus with which human beings have been endowed. But if nature provides man with these and all other human requirements, it is because God planned things that way.
Now when it comes to understanding the purpose of life, man must likewise learn about the creation plan of God. He has no alternative but to do so.
The Quran – which is the book of nature – answers our question. In Chapter no. 103, it is stated that history is a witness that ‘man is in loss,’ except those who follow the course of life set by the Creator.
Man’s life’s journey is not made in space or in a world made by himself. He undertakes this journey in the world made by God.
Looking at it from this angle, we find that human life is divided into two stages – the stage before death and the stage after death. The stage before death is one of action and the stage after death is one of reaping rewards. What we have to receive after death, we cannot receive before death. What we have to do before death, we shall have no opportunity to do after death.
The study of man shows that every human being is born with unlimited desires. These desires are dear to everyone. But it is also a fact that, in all of human history, no one has entirely succeeded in fulfilling these desires. Many people have spent their whole lives in seeking to fulfill their desires, but it has all been of no avail.
They were ostensibly highly successful in life, but every one of them breathed his last with utter regret and grief that he had failed to fulfill his desires. In the world of today he had failed to find what he wanted.
The study of the world shows that, here, the principle of the pair is well established. Here everything has its pair. Everything becomes complete by uniting with its pair. This principle is enforced at a universal level. Right from earth to space – everywhere indeed – this system is enforced. For instance, a negative particle has a positive particle as its pair. Human beings are made up of men and women. In the animal world, there are males and females. In the vegetable world also there are the male and female sexes. This system of pairs is found at the universal level in all creatures. In this vast and complete system there is only one exception and that is of human desires. Every person is born with a deep sense of desire, but all die without the fulfillment of their desires. There is desire in the world but its pair, the fulfillment of desire, does not exist here.
Every man and woman born in this world is faced with this question. Everyone wants to find the answer to this question but, before finding a satisfactory answer, he leaves the world in despair without his desires being fulfilled.
American missionary Billy Graham writes that once he received an urgent message from an aged American billionaire. Billy Graham cancelled all his programmes and immediately left to meet him. When he reached his house, he was ushered into the room where he had to meet him. The billionaire said to Billy Graham without any introduction. “You see I am an old man. Life has lost all meaning. I am going to take a fateful leap into the unknown. Young man, can you give me a ray of hope?” Billy Graham had no satisfactory answer to his question. The American billionaire left the world with this feeling of deprivation. Billy Graham himself, according to recent information, met with a severe accident, is confined to bed and is now waiting to go to his final destination.
The same is the case with every man and woman in this world. Everyone wants to know the purpose of his life. Everyone is in search of a life full of happiness. Everyone wants to find a life of total fulfillment, but his life ends in failure. Events tell us that all men and women come to regard material things as having real existence. And everyone has tried to find a life of fulfillment by accumulating such material things. But no one, without exception, has been able to achieve this desired fulfillment.
In such a situation the actual problem is that we keep repeating this same unsuccessful experience. But now, we have to make a reassessment of this matter. The first thing we have to do is to concede in all seriousness that the material things of the world do not provide fulfillment. This being so, where is this source of fulfillment to be found? When human desire continues to exist, then we shall have to believe that it is something real, and when it is something real, then certainly its source of fulfillment should also be available in the universe.
When human desire continues to exist, then we shall have to believe that it is something real and when it is something real, then certainly its source of fulfillment should also be available in the universe.
This issue can be understood by the example of a journey. When anyone travels by train or by air, there are two stages to his journey. One is when he is in the course of his journey and the other is the reaching of his destination. For a journey to be successful, the traveler must understand the difference between the two situations. The traveler who fails to do so will unnecessarily fall a prey to mental tension and will finally lose his balance.
The wise traveler is one who takes the journey as a journey and does not regard it as his destination. It is natural that during the journey all the facilities are not available which can be expected at his destination. But every traveler tolerates this, because he is certain that the state of the journey is a temporary one. Finally his journey will come to an end, and he will reach his desired destination; and after reaching his destination, he will find all that he wanted, which he had not found during the journey.
Our present life covers a very short span of our existence. Its being short itself is a proof that it is a state of journey. It is a period before arriving at the destination. That is why it is not possible to find all the things which we want to find in our present brief lifespan. Undoubtedly, we will find all these things, but we are not going to find them during the interim stage of our journey.
As we know, our life is divided into two stages, the pre-death stage and the post-death stage. The pre-death stage is that of the journey and the post-death stage is that of arriving at the destination of the journey. It is the reality which should be brought to everyone’s knowledge. It is the fact which makes man’s life more meaningful, which introduces every man and woman to the purpose which can render his or her life meaningful in the full sense, and be a source of fulfillment.
This explanation of life is linked with the question of man being reborn after death. That is, is there life after death just as we are experiencing life before death? The answer to this question is in the affirmative. It is important to understand that we can find the answer to such questions by using exactly the same scientific method as we do when learning of other facts.
What is the scientific method for learning about scientific realities? It is not as if what we want to know comes to the knowledge of the scientist in its total form. If this condition were applied, all the realities would continue to elude scientists. The progress of knowledge would come to a halt. Man would continue to grope in the dark on the subject of reality. For no reality comes to our knowledge like a mountain which is visible from a distance.
Instead, what happens is that during research, the scientist discovers a clue. On giving thought to this, he arrives at a reality of which he had no prior knowledge. In this world every discovery is made by means of a clue. Clues are, in fact, the key to all discoveries in this world. For instance, it has been accepted in science that the ‘big bang’ occurred thirteen billion years ego. Similarly, it has been accepted in science that biological evolution has taken place on the earth. It has also been accepted in science that our universe is an expanding universe, and so on.
Such facts as have become established realities today had not been observed by man. Instead, what happened was that certain indicators came to man’s attention. Then by studying these, man expanded his knowledge and went
Man would continue to grope in the dark on the subject of reality. For no reality comes to our knowledge like a mountain which is visible from a distance.
on to greater discoveries. This reality was not visible, but it did exist. Its existence was accepted as a fact, in spite of the fact that nothing but a clue had been observed.
The same is true of life after death, or the next stage of life. There are clear clues regarding the next stage of life. If the clues are given serious thought, they can bring us to the conviction that there is life after death. That there is another stage of life after death is a fact which shall necessarily have to be faced by everyone.
What is this clue? For instance, the human body is made of innumerable cells, which keep degenerating. On the other hand, our digestive system keeps converting the food we eat into the form of cells. Our digestive system may be compared to a factory of cell formation. By means of this system, after about every ten years our entire body is changed. With new cells our body is replaced by a new body.
It is as if our body repeatedly experiences death. Yet we find that man’s consciousness remains intact. It does not die. It is a known fact that man’s real existence is his mental existence. This mental existence remains inviolate and survives despite repeated physical deaths. It is a clue which tells us that man, according to his origin, is an eternal creature. A part of this eternal existence is placed in the stage of life before death, while the major part of it is placed in the stage of life after death.
Similarly, another clue in this matter is that man possesses – exceptionally – the concept of justice. Man by his nature wants justice to prevail in the world. That is, the doers of good should be rewarded for their good deeds and the evil-doers should be made to suffer the consequences of their bad deeds. Keeping this clue before us, the human mind comes to discover that the ideal world, which could not be achieved in the pre-death stage of life due to all kinds of limitations, will be attainable in the post-death period in its perfect form, as desired by man.
Similarly, another clue in this matter is that man is the creature who exclusively has the concept of tomorrow. No animal or non-animal has this concept of the future. When we give deeper thought to this clue, we discover the reality that the desired world which man fails to find in the present limited world, will be found in the post-death period, which is the unlimited stage of life. This will be a world where man will experience fulfillment in the full sense. The coming into existence of an ideal world after death is as established a fact as other established facts are. However, in the ideal world of the future, one will not automatically find a place. Only those men and women will find a place in that ideal world who have proved their worthiness in the world before death.
It is the law of nature that all rewards are given to those who deserve them, while those who are not held deserving can never have any kind of reward. The question is: What is the formula for being held deserving of this ideal world? The formula is only one, and that is purification of the soul.
One who wants to find a place in this ideal world of the future has to prove in this world that he saw the unseen world with his insight while living in the seen world; that he discovered the truth in the jungle of confusion; that he adhered to a positive attitude in the midst of negative experiences; that he raised himself above the animal level and elevated himself to the highest level of humanity; that he distanced himself from such base qualities as ingratitude, dishonesty, selfishness and egoism; that he was a seeker of paradise with all his heart and soul. In short, he was one who wholeheartedly chose the God-oriented life.
Men and women with such qualities are the gems of humanity. These are the people who will inhabit the ideal world of the future. Those who do not come up to
It is the law of nature that all rewards are given to those who deserve them, while those who are not held deserving can never have any kind of reward.
this standard will be rejected and cast into the universal dustbin, where they will be condemned to live a life of eternal regret. They will never be delivered from this life of humiliation and penance.
