WORLD OF TODAY,
WORLD OF TOMORROW
Human life consists of two stages—the temporary pre-death and the eternal post-death periods. This division is so that whatever one could not obtain in ‘today,’ the present world, they may be able to achieve in ‘tomorrow,’ the world of the Hereafter.
In the known universe, human beings are the only creatures who possess intelligence. As far as we know, no other creature shares this quality with them. Animals, too, are living creatures, but their actions are entirely determined by instincts. In ordinary language, we can refer to instincts as the unconscious mind. The conscious mind is a quality unique to humans and is not found in any other species.
According to modern research, the human brain contains approximately 100 billion neurons! In terms of their capacities, humans are born with vast potential, but experience tells us that almost every person dies with the regret that they could not achieve all they had wanted to in this world. Fulfilment is a deep desire in humans. However, nearly everyone dies without attaining this sense of fulfilment, making this tragedy the fate of most people in this world.
There are various sorts of animals on earth. They are born and die like humans, but the sense mentioned above of lack of fulfilment is not a problem for them.
There is a reason for this fundamental difference between humans and animals. Among all creatures, humans are unique in possessing the concept of ‘tomorrow’ or the future. It is as if an indelible part of human nature is to want to extend their ‘today’ into ‘tomorrow.’ Humans seek to obtain in their ‘tomorrow’ what they failed to achieve in their ‘today.’
The case of animals is different. Animals have no concept of ‘tomorrow.’ They live only in the present moment. They exist solely in ‘today’ and die in this same ‘today.’ So, even though some actions of certain animals may appear to be based on a concept of ‘tomorrow’—for example, ants collecting food for the next season—this behaviour is driven by instinctual demands, not by a consciousness of ‘tomorrow’ or the future.
Human life consists of two stages—the pre-death and post-death periods. The former is temporary, and the latter is eternal. This division exists so that whatever a person could not obtain in ‘today,’ the present world, they may be able to achieve in ‘tomorrow,’ the world of the Hereafter.
As mentioned earlier, the human brain contains approximately 100 billion neurons. In other words, the human brain has enormous potential. This potential is so great that a person’s natural lifespan on Earth is insufficient to utilize it fully. Even if human life were much longer, the conditions of this world are so limited that in a finite world, people would still not be able to harness all the potential of their minds fully.
Humans need a very long life and a much larger world for complete fulfilment. However, under present conditions, the potential of the human mind remains grossly underutilized. Keeping this fact in mind, a person’s life on Earth seems like the tiny tip of a giant iceberg. A small portion of this ‘iceberg’ is visible during the pre-death period of life, while the remaining, much larger part is hidden in the eternal post-death phase of life. Without acknowledging this fact, human life cannot be adequately explained. Human life can only be understood when this reality is taken into consideration. Furthermore, when something becomes the only possible explanation for a phenomenon, it serves as intellectual evidence that this explanation is correct.
If you keep this reality in mind and analyze life, you will realize that the present world is only a temporary place for humans. It is not their permanent or eternal destination.
Every person must inevitably face death. Death is like a bridge between the two phases of life. It is the transition from temporary life to eternal life. The present world is where humans undergo training. The pre-death period is a training phase. Here, individuals prepare themselves for the Hereafter during their temporary stay. Then, after death, they are transferred to the next, eternal world. If they are eligible for Paradise, they will have the opportunity to utilize all the potentials of their minds and experience the joy of complete fulfilment. In this second period, only those who have properly trained themselves during the first phase of life will find a place in Paradise. Those who enter the Hereafter untrained will be unable to take advantage of the opportunities available there. They will be wholly deprived of fulfilment, and no harsher recompense could be conceived than this.
If a person lives only in their ‘today’—indulging in the pleasures of this world—and dies in this ‘today’ as well, they lead an animal-like life and die an animal-like death. On the other hand, a truly successful person leads the life of ‘today’—the temporary world of testing—in such a way that their ‘tomorrow’—the eternal phase of life after death in Paradise—is filled with joy. Only such a person can be called truly successful, as they are on the path to Paradise.
