THE CONCEPT OF TOMORROW
Exclusive To Man
IN the universe known to us, man is the only creature who possesses superior intelligence. No other creature, so far as we know, is so abundantly endowed with this faculty. Animals, apparently very much like ourselves in certain ways, exist nevertheless on a lower plane, because all their actions are governed by instinct. Instinct, in a broad sense, may be defined as unconscious intelligence. Conscious intelligence—the wellspring of moral choice—is the hallmark of homo sapiens: no other species can lay claim to it.
Modern research has shown that the human brain has infinite potential: it contains approximately 100 billion nerve cells or neurons, each having about 10,000 connections with its neighbours. This means that man is born with unlimited capacities. It has been found that the average person utilizes less than 10% of their brain's capability. Experience shows that everyone departs from this world with an acute sense of having failed to achieve what he/she most desired.
Fulfilment is the deepest aspiration of a human being. But seldom does anyone attain this objective before death. This is a tragedy which falls to the lot of the majority of men and women in this life.
In this world, there are innumerable creatures other than man. They are born and they die like human beings. But unlike man, they are never faced with the problem of discontentment. The word ‘tragedy’ exists only in the human lexicon. Nowhere does it figure in that of animals.
We can find the answer to this contradiction if we compare man with animals. A comparative study of man and animals shows that the concept of tomorrow—an exceptional one—is entertained exclusively by man. If it is man’s nature to want to extend his today into tomorrow, it is because he hopes that what he failed to find today, he will find tomorrow.
The case of animals is quite different. The study of animals shows that they have no concept of tomorrow. They live only in 'their today' and also die in 'their today'. A number of animal activities which seem to be based on a certain consciousness of tomorrow—for instance, the gathering of food by ants for the future—are governed by an innately perceived threat of extinction, rather than by any consciousness of tomorrow or the future.
When we ponder upon the unique quality of foresight in man, we find that his urge to find fulfilment is relative to tomorrow: that is, he sees his fulfilment as achievable in the future. The biological span of today is very brief. That is why nature has provided for human fulfilment in the life-span of tomorrow.
There are two stages of human life, one pre-death and the other postdeath. The pre-death stage is temporary, while the post-death stage is eternal. This division has been purposefully made. Its objective is to enable man to find in the next stage of life—tomorrow—whatever he has not been able to find today.
As mentioned above, the human brain has such an immense potential that man’s physical age—about 100 years—is totally inadequate for its realization. Even if our age were to be greatly extended, the conditions on earth are so full of constraints that man’s unlimited mind would never be able to utilize its full potential.
When we look at this reality we are compelled to believe that man requires a far superior world and far greater longevity for his total fulfilment. In the present situation, the potential of the human mind must always fall short of being used to its fullest extent.
To explain life in terms of this reality, let us draw a parallel between human life and an iceberg. We are aware of only the very tiny part of the iceberg which appears above the surface of the ocean, while the larger part lies hidden beneath the waters. In exactly the same way we are also aware of only that tiny part of life which occurs in the first stage before death, while the remainder—the infinitely extended part —lies hidden from us, in the ultimate stage of life after death. Without the element of belief, it is difficult to explain human life, and when an analogy is the only possible means of elucidating an observation, it must necessarily be equated with academic proof: of that particular concept being the true one. That is, it is the correct scientific stand.
Keeping these realities in view, when we explain human life, we have to portray the present world as a temporary abode, rather than as man’s eternal destination.
The life span before death is like a training period, and the present world is, as it were, man’s training ground. Here, ideally, he should receive very thorough moral conditioning during what is only a temporary stay, and then move on to the next eternal world. Every man is necessarily faced with death. What is death? Death is, in fact, a bridge. It acts as a mode of transference from temporal life to eternal life. And it is in the Hereafter that he shall find an opportunity to utilize the full potential of his mind and achieve the happiness induced by total fulfilment.
However, in the second stage of life, the true achievers will only be those who had been receptive to the necessary training in the first stage. Those who arrive there without such training will be deprived of any further opportunity to exploit their own potential. Their case, in the world of the Hereafter, will be identical to that of one who remained deprived of fulfilment in the world he left behind, because of his own unwillingness to subject himself to moral conditioning. This deprivation will be, without doubt, a punishment. A harsher punishment is difficult to imagine.
If man lives only in his 'today' and dies in his 'today', it is as if he has lived and died the life of an animal. The real man is one who reaches his ‘tomorrow’ by living out his ‘today’ in a state of moral rectitude. He is one who, after having reached the limit of this worldly life span, dies after having made full preparation for his tomorrow. Indeed, it is only one such as he, who is worthy of being called a successful person.
