LIFE AFTER DEATH
A Perspective
ON December 6, 2013 the radio announced the news of the death of Nelson Mandela. Then, after a moment, the radio station broadcast the speech that Mandela had delivered as President in the South African Parliament on May 10, 1994. The speaker was physically no more, but his voice could still be heard by all without the slightest alteration.
On November 12, 1947, Gandhiji went to the studios of All-India Radio to deliver a live address to over two lakh refugees from Pakistan who had gathered at a camp in Haryana. This speech is still aired every year on November 12 on All-India Radio.
Death is like a door through which we go from the present world into the next world.
Experiences of this kind are very common. They remind us of the fact that when a person dies, he is still living through his voice. A person's voice is a part of his personality. And so, if a part of our personality is alive after our physical death, why cannot our whole personality be alive after our death?
According to the dictionary, death is the permanent end of life. However, the Quran maintains that the human being is an eternal being, and that death is only a phase in our eternal journey. Apart from other reasoning it offers for life after death, the Quran also expresses the above argument in these words:
And by the Lord of the heavens and the earth, it (life after death)
is certainly the truth. It is as true as your ability to speak.
(THE QURAN 51: 23)
Speech is part of a person, and modern technology has proved that the speech of a person is repeatable. So, if someone’s speech, uttered in the distant past, can be repeated, why not the rest of his personality? In previous centuries this seemed to be just a claim, but now it is a verified fact.
There is also a biological phenomenon that supports this concept. The human body consists of about ten trillion tiny cells that can be seen only through a microscope. Every single cell in our body is replaced every seven to ten years. That is, after an average ten years our entire body is fully replaced. In other words, if a person is ninety years old, it means his physical body has been replaced nine times! But, his personality remains the same, without the slightest change.
We are eternal beings. Death is only a phase in our eternal journey.
If in spite of nine 'deaths', the personality has remained intact, then why must it die when the physical body dies the tenth and final time? A philosopher has aptly stated this reality in these words:
Personality is changelessness in change.
(The Urantia Book)
Death is like a door through which we go from the present world into the next. Death is a reminder of the reality that there is a world in the Hereafter. We must prepare ourselves to be able to find a proper place in the next world.
If one prays in the true spirit of prayer,
then one’s prayer will surely fend off
indecency and evil.
But if one’s prayer is devoid of spirit,
it will be no more than a
perfunctory action which has
no connection with
one’s real life.