|
In this article, I would like give answers to some questions about
the issue that I tried to clarify in my previous articles with the
topics of “Self-Inquiry” and “Afterworld”.
As
known, in the Koran the event of “death” is referred to as a
transition that every soul (nafs), in other words every “conscious
human mind” will “taste”.
At
this point, firstly, let us focus on “why” and “in which sense” the
word “taste” has been used.
The verb “to taste” denotes having the flavor of something,
which is usually used on nice, lovely and pleasant occasions.
Likewise the word “zaika” (the one who tastes) in Arabic is
used in the same meaning. This means that, “death” is an event
which, the conscious mind of a person would taste and have the
pleasure of, by the way of entering into a life through gaining
independency from the known physical-biological body corpse!
Every human being will change his dimensional level of life by “tasting”
this event someday on some occasion! Such a change of level of life
for a human being is termed as “tasting death” by the
statement in the Koran.
This is an event which gives extreme pleasure and happiness to a
human being, because he will, in this way, be released from the
limitations of the physical body and become independent in a
conscious state within a spiritual body. During that process, the
conscious database of the person which was built on every data that
he has acquired through his entire lifetime starts to perceive
that new dimension he entered into and tries to figure out what this
new environment is all about.
The dimension of environment that a person enters into is perceived
as extremely illuminated, bright, almost like a sparkling ambiance.
During this process of transition, the person might encounter with
some strange beings for the first time ever that he has never been
able to observe before. Within the conditions of that new
environment he finds himself, those beings try to impose him that
there is no creator, and everything exists all by themselves as
individual entities.
In
this period, the person’s “belief” standards he held in his
life are of great importance! If the deceased had not believed in
the Rasul of Allah and what he communicated as properly as required
before that transition, it will be a threat for him to deny all of
the values that are to be believed in, because of the
urges given by those strange beings that he encounters within the
conditions of his new dimensional environment entered into.
In this case, he would be left with no spiritual value or support to
depend or rely on, and he would fail to activate any of the
potential powers from within himself that he needed in the
conditions of that environment. And as a result, he would be most
miserable amongst the creatures of his new dimensional environment.
Contrary to this, if the person had his belief in the Rasul of
Allah beforehand, he will know that he could be able to come
over those troubles by the grace (inayah) of Allah based on
the fact that all the laws of creation that are effective in the
world are still valid therein too, and that his “values of faith”
are still effective in other circumstances; and so, he will be able
to save himself from these deflecting effects within the
circumstances he encountered during his transition.
Such encounters, however, as we mentioned, happens only after the
completion of death event! People who experience the first stages of
death and return to life based on some reasons will not experience
those encounters, since it is during the term when the soul is left
alone with his person following his spiritual ascension (uruj)
upon departing the physical body that those encounters may be
experienced.
Those who see during that transition period that they are welcomed
there by their relatives and the religious masters that they had
believed in the world are in fact faced with the images coming from
their personal databases, just like it happens during the stages of
dreaming!
When the conscious spiritual body of a person is totally
disconnected from the physical body, regardless of whoever he is, he
begins to ascend towards his own essential truth at the outset as
far as his level of consciousness and refinement allow.
Such a spiritual rise is executed towards the person’s essence, his
own true self in terms of his level of consciousness without being
physical or locational, and in proportion with the level of
correctness, exactness and plainness of his database stored in his
soul.
Then, by the unavoidable outcome of the database in the soul, the
spiritual body returns back to his physical body again
–because of person’s conditioned acceptance of a physical body
as himself all through his lifetime and living only for the needs of
that body, and the person finds himself attached to his body again
unless it is missing. Unfortunately, his body is out of order then
and is unable to do anything any more. This situation is told as the
person’s finding himself in his grave. For those whose physical
bodies were smashed, burned or disappeared in some ways upon death,
this situation leads them to face with a self-questioning mechanism
in the conditions of their new environment without being attached to
any physical bodies.
Thus, at the end, the questioning mechanism activates automatically
for that person, and according to his belief and database of
information, the power of questioning in himself enters into the
realm of his imagination in form of two angels known by the names of
Munkar and Nakir, the recording angels in the grave.
Now let us think about this…
Your entire life passed away in line with the material conditions
that your physical body lived in… But instead, suddenly you found
yourself in a completely new and different dimension, environment
and state of affairs, and possibly among other creatures that you
have never met before until that moment!
Try to think and feel the shock of a person who is confronted with
an event like this.
Some people have passed away with some knowledge they acquired about
this event while alive, but many others have gone through those
circumstances without any preparation!
It
is that environment and state of affairs that compulsorily activate
the self questioning for a person –a conscious spirit– from within.
Where am I? What will I be? Who has the controlling authority in
this whole entity? Is there a God? Does Allah exist? If exists what
is He like? What is He not like? Countless questions appear in
peoples’ minds such as these all of a sudden! All these questions
that they are to confront will appear as questions asked by our
inner power of questioning enfolded in form of two recording angels
of the grave as an outcome of our own databases.
We
have tried to explain the rest of this subject in the article titled
“Self-Inquiry”.
By
the way, here is another question asked often.
How will the ones who have experienced the spiritual state which is
defined as “dying before death”, live this event?
There are three levels of the state defined as “dying before
death”.
a-
The certainty by knowledge/wisdom (ilmul yaqeen)
b-
The certainty by quintessence (ayn-ul yaqeen)
c-
The certainty of reality (haqq-ul yaqeen)
The first one –ilm– (knowledge/wisdom), is to become certain
about the matter by observing it at a degree of certainty. This
depends on the conditions that we have explained above. However, he
passes over those events with many different reactions.
The second one –ayn– (quintessence), sees, perceives, and
feels the event with the power within him just like he lived it and
is ready to meet those conditions… Yet, he still lives it by passing
through the same stages just like the first one.
The third one –haqq– (truth, reality), the number of these
persons are very few. It is realized by the friends of Allah (awliyaullah)
who are at the spiritual stage of the “consent-given self” (nafs
al mardiyyah), or by some exceptional faithless people in form
of what is known as “istidraj”. This is called “spiritual
coquest” (fath) in Sufism. For the “fath” which comes
up with the way of istidraj, only two out of seven spiritual
states are accessible.
They have gained the peculiarity of living as if completely
independent from the physical body at the same time as they live on
their bodies on earth. They have also passed the mentioned
questioning stage someway when the “fath” opened up to them
that, and therefore, there would be no further questioning in the
grave for them.
Likewise, this reality has been mentioned by saying “Allah shall
not make you taste another death” while Hazrat RasulAllah
(peace be upon him) had the experience of such a dimensional change.
It meant that, as he passed through those stages by means of “fath”
while alive, he would not have to go through what all people had to
go through during the event of tasting death. In the beginning of
the Chapter of “Fath” in the Koran this event has been
mentioned. Yet, on the other hand, people who are not able to
comprehend the profound meaning of that event have estimated the
subject to relate to the conquest of Makkah. Those who are unaware
of that fact have connected the second death to another death event
to be experienced sometime in the future.
We
have tried to explain this subject in our other books under the
title of “What is Fath”. You may examine the subject of “fath”
therein.
We
are grateful if we have been able to shed some light on this subject
by the grace of Allah.
AHMED HULUSI
Jan. 14, 2003 |
